Blessed Margaret of Savoy

She wished to keep her virginity perpetually, knowing well that there is no spouse comparable to Jesus Christ, who is the sovereign Spouse of virgins; but she was obliged to sacrifice this desire to the interests of the public good, and to marry Th eodore, Marquis of Montferrat, Théodore, marquis de Montferrat Husband of Marguerite and Marquess of Montferrat. to quell a cruel and often repeated war between this marquis and the princes of Piedmont. In this marriage, she perfectly fulfilled all the duties of a Christian toward God and His ministers, of a wife toward her husband, of a mother of a family toward her servants, and of a sovereign toward her subjects. She was extremely exact in keeping and ensuring the keeping of the commandments of God and the Church, assiduous in prayer, and rigorous in the observance of abstinence and fasting. She approached the sacraments often, and all her delights were to be at the feet of the altars, to hear the sermon, and to attend all the religious ceremonies that took place in the city. Her respect and submission for the marquis, her husband, could not have been greater; she had but one spirit and one will with him, she cherished him tenderly, and this love was only to engage him gently in the practices of the most solid piety. She had no less care and affection for his children from his first marriage than if they had been her own; she regarded herself as having been substituted in the place of Jeanne de Bar, their mother, in order to raise them in the fear of God and to inspire in them the sentiments that Christian princes must have, and she never ceased to turn them away from evil, to lead them to good, and to give them all the instructions necessary to live according to the maxims of the Gospel.

Her house was regulated like a monastery. She did not suffer swearing, blasphemy, debauchery, or the vice of incontinence there; and, when she noticed that a servant was prone to these disorders, she dismissed him immediately, for fear that his company and example might become contagious. She had prayer held there and took care that everyone frequented the churches and fulfilled their duty as a Christian during the principal solemnities of the year. Finally, as God gave her no children, she took the poor as her children. She had a faithful report made to her of all those who were in need, and she did not fail to provide for them immediately through the extent and industry of her mercy. How many widows she preserved from the direst misery through her charities and her protection! How many girls she prevented from prostituting their modesty, by procuring for them, through her alms, a legitimate marriage! How many orphans she supported until they were in a state to earn their living! How many elderly people she assisted until death, so that they would not succumb to the miseries of their age! Finally, how many charitable assemblies she caused to be held to unite many people and the greatest ladies of her State in this pious duty of assisting the miserable!

One cannot praise her moderation enough, when the Marquis, her husband, having been made governor of the city and republic of Gen oa, s Gênes Place of the saint's death and burial. he was obliged to make a solemn entry there with truly royal pomp and magnificence. All the pageantry of this great celebration had nothing comparable to the humility and modesty that appeared on her face, and it seemed that God had only permitted such great honor to be bestowed upon her so that she might have the merit of despising its ostentation and being humble in the midst of splendor and glory. But divine Providence brought her to Genoa again for another purpose; it was to hear Saint Vincent Ferrer a second time, who came there to stir the people and urgently ask God for the cessation of the schism that was then afflicting the whole Church.

She attended, among the people, all the prayers and processions he led, and she was so touched by his fiery sermons and exhortations, especially on these words of Saint Paul to the Romans: 'I beseech you, therefore, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God,' that, as if she had done nothing until then, she resolved to begin a life of penance and humiliation, and to die entirely to the world and all its delicacies. Indeed, she donned a hairshirt beneath her clothes of gold and silk, she devoted herself with new fervor to fasting, abstinence, and other bodily mortifications, which she accompanied with tears, sobs, and sighs, and grace operated in her soul such a great death to all that is fleeting and perishable, that her rank as a princess and sovereign becoming distasteful to her, she desired only to be reduced to the condition of the poor, or to be enclosed in the obscurity of a cloister, to converse there alone with her heavenly Master who possessed all her affections.

Shortly thereafter, divine Providence, which wished to fulfill in her the holy desires it inspired, permitted the Marquis, her husband, to die at an age still robust and at the highest point of his glory. She felt in her soul the full rigor of this loss, which was all the greater because, in the fifteen years they had lived together, they had never had a moment of disagreement. But she bore it with admirable strength and without ever giving any sign of impatience. As she had only married against her inclinations, no sooner was she freed from this bond than she made a vow of continence and to remain a widow forever, and at the same time she applied herself seriously to all the duties that the apostle Saint Paul requires of women who wish to remain in this state, that is to say, to govern their families well, to raise their children in the fear of God, to hope only in Him, to be assiduous in meditation and prayer, to live without reproach, and to devote themselves to all kinds of good works, especially hospitality and mercy.

Her palace was like a sanctuary, where vice and disorder dared not appear. Having initially the regency of the State, until her stepson was of age to govern it, she composed her council only of the wisest and most virtuous elders of the marquisate. She took particular care to make peace, justice, and religion flourish everywhere. She had churches repaired, altars adorned, hospitals and places of charity increased and multiplied, and divine service augmented. She worked with a courage above her sex for the policing of the cities, the relief of the people, the security of commerce, and the strengthening of public tranquility. Nothing could be added to her application to raise the Marquis, her stepson, well and to make him a great prince, in order to hand over the conduct of affairs into his hands as soon as possible. Not only did she give him a governor and tutors of singular prudence and probity, who, along with the exercise of letters and arms, made him practice piety; but she had him attend all the councils, to form his judgment there on the wise deliberations of his counselors, and she took the trouble herself to instruct him in all his duties and to form him according to the holy maxims of the Gospel. God was her only support, and she placed her trust neither in her credit, nor in her riches, nor in her great alliances, nor in the strength of mind she had received from heaven; but only in the protection of that sovereign Lord who calls Himself the Father of orphans and the Judge who sustains the cause of widows. Thus, she had continuous recourse to Him through prayer, and, besides Mass and other public devotions, she spent two hours every day in orison in her oratory, often bathed in tears in the consideration of the sorrows of her crucified Savior.

Her life, far from being subject to any reproach, was a model of all virtues. Nothing was more chaste than her gaze, more gentle and prudent than her words, more moderate than her meals, and more regulated than her entire conduct. She knew what the Apostle says, that a widow who lives in delights is already dead; thus, for the love of her God, she made use of the most innocent pleasures that her condition presented to her, and she already afflicted herself with very harsh penances, of which a princess, raised delicately as she was, hardly seemed capable. She bloodied herself with disciplines, she observed very rigorous fasts, and, although she had spent the day dispatching very thorny affairs, she took only very little rest at night. One of her principal cares was to help the poor and to provide for the needs of the sick. She kept almost no measure in this, and her charity grew all the more as her alms seemed to exhaust it. The monasteries also had a large share in her mercy, and she let them lack for nothing, in order to participate more in their tears, their prayers, and their penances.

It was to be wished that such a holy regent would long retain the government; but her heart, sighing incessantly for release from the affairs of the world and the tranquility of a solitary life, as soon as she saw the marquis in a state to take upon himself the burden of government—which she had greatly advanced by her assiduity in instructing him well—she unburdened her shoulders of it. Without regard for his entreaties or those of the great men of the State, who wanted her to remain always by his side to assist him with her counsel, she left the court, trampled her crowns underfoot, renounced all the grandeurs of the earth, and retired to the city of Alba to live there in silence and in the sole exercise of works of piety. It was then that Prince Filippo Maria, Duke of Milan, who was informed, as was all of Italy, of the incomparable qualities of this illustrious marchioness, sought her insistently in marriage and had the proposal made to her by his ambassadors. As she replied that, having made a vow of chastity, she was no longer in a state to be married, he wrote to Rome and obtained from Pope Eugene IV a dispensation from her vow, so that nothing would prevent her from consenting to his alliance; but this generous widow refused it with invincible constancy, saying that she had not made this vow out of precipitation or lightness, but with a will entirely determined to have no more commerce with the flesh and the world. She therefore excused herself to His Holiness for not making use of his brief, and the Pope, who had only granted it out of condescension to the prayers of the Duke of Milan, found her resistance and firmness very agreeable, and even wrote to her to express his satisfaction.

However, this resolution drew upon her many calumnies from those who took the interests of the Duke to heart, and they did what they could with their slanderous tongues to blacken her reputation and pass her off as stubborn, or as a witless devotee, or as a woman who loved her freedom and who, moreover, had criminal engagements. Margaret suffered this persecution generously, without defending herself or allowing others to defend her; then, wanting no other justification than her good works, she embraced, by the order of Saint Vincent Ferrer, who appeared to her, the Third Or saint Vincent Ferrier Dominican preacher who was the spiritual guide of Margaret. der of Saint Dominic. She attracted at the same time Tiers Ordre de Saint-Dominique Religious order to which the saint belongs. a great number of ladies from the most noble families of Italy, and she received them into her palace to live in community with her. This palace soon proving too small for all the pious persons who wished to enter, she obtained from Pope Eugene IV the union of the provostship of the Humiliati, called Saint Mary Magdalene of Le Bourget , to practice the same exer Sainte-Madeleine du Bourget Former provostship of the Humiliati united to the community of Marguerite. cises there. The church of this provostship became her church, and the buildings served to house these holy tertiaries, who wished to walk in the footsteps of the great Saint Catherine of Siena.

Her charity then led her to also request for herself and her sisters the hospital of Saint Mary of the Angels, and one cannot worthily enough represent the acts of humility, patience, and mortification that she displayed there in the assistance of the sick. The lowest tasks were those that pleased her most. She always tended to the most hideous wounds and the most corrupt ulcers.

At that time, our Blessed one suffered extreme affliction through the apparition of a sister of her congregation; this unfortunate woman declared to her that she was damned for having performed all her actions in a spirit of vanity and pure hypocrisy; then, taking some dust, she scattered it into the air, to show that the life of vain and proud souls is but a little dust that a wind carries away and reduces to nothingness. The Saint was so frightened by this vision that, fearing herself to be among the reprobate, she spent several days in continuous fasting, mortifications, and tears to draw upon herself the mercy of God and to stay the arm of His wrath, which she believed was ready to fall upon her.

Then Our Lord visited her, accompanied by a great number of blessed spirits, and presented her with three lances, one of which was called Calumny, the second Infirmity, and the third Persecution, as sure paths to salvation. He allowed her to choose the one that suited her best. The angels warned her to choose nothing, but to abandon herself to the providence of her divine Master, who knew much better than she what was useful to her. She abandoned herself to it entirely, and even offered herself to be pierced by these three lances, however sharp and painful they might be, if it were His good pleasure. Such heroic resignation immediately had its effect: Margaret was exposed to the slander and calumnies of libertines, who, unable to endure the incomparable brilliance of her virtues, tried to obscure them with unjust accusations and impostures full of malice.

Margaret was tormented unto death by the pains of gout and several other illnesses, which were so searing that she needed superhuman courage to endure them with patience. Moreover, as they increased day by day and brought nature almost to its end, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her and inspired in her a strength and vigor that were entirely heavenly. Finally, Margaret was persecuted in her own person by various insults directed at her, and she was persecuted primarily in the person of her director, a religious of the Order of Saint Dominic, who was twice imprisoned on false accusations for having upheld the interests of religion and justice against the machinations of worldly politics. Jesus Christ, her dear Master, took singular pleasure in seeing her suffer because of the resignation and joy she displayed in the midst of her crosses, and He nevertheless consoled her in the times when she was most overwhelmed, to make her feel that He was not abandoning her and that He was always with her. It was then that, at her mere word, a hogshead of special wine, which had been brought for her to relieve the violence of her gout, having been distributed to other sick people according to the inclinations of her charity, was found to be completely full, just as if nothing had ever been drawn from it.

What was most admirable in Margaret is that she always believed she had done nothing yet for the service of God, and she lived in continual fear and apprehension. This disposition meant that, not content with the practices of penance and devotion of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, which she had embraced for more than thirty years, she persuaded her companions to become nuns of the same institute, by taking the veil and changing their house into a monastery. She obtained the Pope's approval for this and all the necessary permissions from the General of the Order. She had a regular convent built, which she endowed with the assets that her great alms and her profusion toward the poor had left her, and to which she had the Abbey of Notre-Dame des Grâces, founded in 1406 by Aliprand, Duke of Milan, united by a bull of His Holiness. She entered it with all the sisters of her congregation, and having received the religious habit there, she made her profession, committing herself by a solemn vow to the Rule of Saint Augustine and the constitutions of Saint Dominic.

In this new state, she renewed, so to speak, all her virtues. She had renounced four or five crowns, namely: those of Achaea, Morea, and Piedmont, which were her father's inheritance; that of Geneva, which she could claim from her mother's side; and that of Montferrat, which she wore as dowager of the Marquis Theodore, her husband. She had also stripped herself of all her income in favor of the establishment of her monastery; but, what is more astonishing, is that, great princess that she was, she made herself the poorest in her house. The most worn-out clothes, the coarsest food, and the least comfortable bedroom furniture were always what pleased her most. She took such great care of the purity of her body and soul that she did things that were quite extraordinary to preserve it. Her acute and almost unbearable illnesses did not prevent her from tormenting herself with voluntary penances. The hair shirt was her chemise, fasting her best meal, and prayer almost all the rest she took after her greatest fatigues. She did not suffer the slightest imperfection on her conscience without immediately going to lay it at the feet of her confessor. Perfect as she was, she was still tested like a novice with very difficult commands. She was forced to renounce innocent satisfactions that served to recreate her a little in the great sufferings with which she was overwhelmed; she was deprived of what she held most dear in the world and which seemed to attach her heart by a thread to the creature; but never was a moment of resistance found in her. The will of her directors was her own, and her obedience was so complete that she did not even believe it was permitted for her to reason about what she was commanded.

She was often made prioress of her convent, and, however much she may have been averse to this honor, we do not read, however, that she ever resisted her election, because she was so dead to her own judgment that she let herself be led blindly wherever Divine Providence and her superiors wished to lead her. We have no words to express either her exactitude in the observance of all her rules, or the extent and depth of her humility. Even in the office of prioress, she made herself the least of the sisters. If it was necessary to sweep the dormitories, wash the dishes, clean the dirtiest places in the house, or render the most disgusting assistance to the sick, she was the first to put her hand to it, and she did so not only to animate the community by her example, but also out of a humble sentiment of her lowliness and unworthiness. We will add nothing to what we have said of her great patience; as gout tormented her cruelly until her death, she performed an infinity of heroic acts of this virtue until that moment; and since the apparition of the Blessed Virgin, she bore this ailment with such joy that she did not let its violence be guessed.

Our Lord, in reward for so many virtues, conferred upon her the gift of prophecy and the grace of miracles and supernatural healings. By her prayers, she calmed a horrible storm of wind, rain, fire, lightning, and thunder, which had begun to uproot trees and overturn houses, and which threatened the city of Alba with general ruin; and one heard then, in the midst of the air, the demons crying: "Cursed Marguerite, who has prevented us from finishing what we had begun!" She raised the wheat, which a furious hail had flattened and shredded, and caused to grow in the very field that had been so maltreated, a harvest once more abundant than that which one had hoped for. She recalled to health, by her prayers, her niece Amédée of Savoy, who, having fallen ill in her monastery, had been abandoned by the doctors.

Finally, it pleased God to crown her labors with a holy death, which placed her in the enjoyment of eternal goods. Nine different signs showed the greatness of her merit and the eminence of the glory that she was going to possess in heaven: a comet appeared over her room several nights before she died; the day before, Our Lord honored her with his visit, and she made great efforts on her bed to go and place herself in his arms; around the same time, a great light filled the whole place where she was, as if to show that she had always been a daughter of light; the nuns heard in the same place like troops of passersby, who were undoubtedly blessed spirits who came to invite her to the wedding of the Lamb; on the day of Saint Cecilia, her whole room resounded with admirable music, which was composed only of celestial voices; when they gave her the Extreme Unction, the confessor, the doctor, and the whole company saw beside them an unknown nun of extraordinary grace and majesty, dressed in the habit of Saint Dominic, who assisted at the whole ceremony, and who disappeared afterwards, without anyone daring to ask her who she was; at the hour of her death, the sisters who were present heard around her bed two choirs of virgins who sang with a marvelous sweetness the praises of the Almighty; at the same hour, which was midnight, all the streets of Alba were filled with this melody which came from a procession of daughters of heaven walking with candles in their hands toward the monastery of this Blessed one. Several townspeople were witnesses of it by sight and hearing, and even followed it to the door of her monastery where it disappeared.

She died on November 23, 1464, aged more than eighty years, of which she had spent the fourth part in Savoy, with the princes her relatives, fifteen with the Marquis of Montferrat, her husband, thirty-one in the profession of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, and the rest in the religious enclosure. Her body was buried in the common crypt, at the feet of the other sisters, as she had requested out of humility; but the tomb not having been closed, because they wanted to put a stone there, it was found eighteen days later without any corruption, flexible as if she had still been alive and exhaling a very pleasant odor. Since then, various translations of it have been made, in which very great miracles have occurred, to bear witness to her glory. Pope Clement X placed her among the Blessed.

She is represented: 1st receiving from Jesus Christ, three lances each bearing an inscription, namel y: one Calumny pape Clément X Pope who extended the cult of Saint Gonsalo to the entire Dominican Order. , the other Infirmity, the third Persecution; 2nd walking with the help of a staff, given the infirmity with which she was afflicted, and which the Blessed Virgin encouraged her to bear patiently, to which she resigned herself. The Blessed Virgin seems to show the Saint the place she is to occupy in heaven.

This account is by Father Giry. — Cf. Année dominicaine, vol. 1; and Vie de la bienheureuse Marguerite de Savoie, by the Rev. Fr. Regnault.