Sister Rosalie

She was barely seven years old when days of bloody memory rose over France. Despite the law that punished with death anyone who facilitated the exercise of the condemned cult, or who would harbor a refractory priest, her mother had opened her house to venerable ecclesiastics who said Mass in an underground room to which the name Paradise has been preserved in the region. It was there that, under the direction of an outlawed priest, M. Colliex, parish priest of Lancrans, Jeanne-Marie made her first communion, without pomp and hidden in this underground chamber like the first Christians in the catacombs of Rome. These grave circumstances imprinted a premature maturity on her character and judgment, without causing her to lose the gaiety, liveliness, and playfulness that charmed all those she approached. When peace was restored to the Church, Jeanne-Marie was placed with the Ursulines of Gex, where she displayed the activity that was natural to her by assisting her companions. She showed herself so pious, so recollected, so ardent in prayer, so detached from everything, that the nuns hoped she would soon make her profession; but the contemplative life of the cloister seemed too restricted for this ardent charity that needed to spread and multiply itself. Jeanne was entirely for God and the poor: she always turned her gaze toward the hospital of Gex, where she obtained her mother's permission to go and spend some time with the sick. There, she became acquainted with the sufferings for which she had such a great attraction and such great compassion, and began her apprenticeship of devotion. One of her friends, Mlle Jacquinot, much older than her, having announced her imminent departure for the community of the Daughters of Saint Vincent de Paul, Jeanne-Marie immediately opened her heart to her, and both resolved to go to Paris to dedi cate Paris Place of birth, ministry, and death of the saint. themselves to the service of the poor. It was on May 25, 1802, that they presented themselves at the novitiate house, located on Rue du Vieux-Colombier.

Jeanne-Marie spent the first months of her stay in Paris in this house. Despite her courage and her vocation, the trial was harsh. Her delicate health, her nervous temperament, and her extreme sensitivity caused her much suffering. She had to overcome unheard-of repugnances: she had to get used to burying the dead and to subduing, day by day, hour by hour, a physical nature constantly in revolt against the duties imposed upon her by her profession. She overcame it, and the works alone that she accomplished can give the measure of her moral energy. At the end of her novitiate, Jeanne made her profession and received the name of Si ster Rosalie sœur Rosalie Daughter of Charity famous for her social work in Paris in the 19th century. . The Faubourg Saint-Marceau was the theater where she displayed her zeal and her genius. At first a simple sister, and a few years later superior of the house on the Rue de l'Épée-de-Bois, but always the soul of her companions, she undertook for more than fifty years an energetic war against the misery and vices of her neighborhood. In such a difficult task, she had no other resources than her trust in God, her inexhaustible love of neighbor, and the example of the founder of her Order. Nothing could weaken her courage or her perseverance; vices, ingratitude, all the wounds of the human heart, which she saw in their entire nakedness better than anyone else, seemed to give her new strength. Far from turning away with disgust from this sad spectacle, she said with Saint Vincent de Paul : "Often it is the ha saint Vincent de Paul Saint contemporary to Olier, founder of the Congregation of the Mission. rdness and forgetfulness of the proud rich that cause the perversity and straying of the poor." She knew how to find words to convince and to soften those souls invaded by bad passions. Her eloquence, as simple as her acts, was the eloquence of an ardent and devoted heart, always full of mercy. She deplored the intemperance of the poor, while fighting it, and sought an excuse for it. "My God!" she would exclaim in a burst of humility, "if I were not sustained by grace, I would be worse than them."

Sister Rosalie was gifted to the highest degree with the sagacity that allows one to judge people and things quickly, and with that spontaneity in decision-making that lets nothing languish and seizes the opportune moment in everything. Everyone came to ask her for advice; but, despite the certainty of her mind, she rarely consented to answer immediately. "My heart is not yet sufficiently enlightened before God in this matter," she would say, and she would put it off until the next day. The next day, her mind and heart had suggested to her the means to relieve those who placed their trust in her. Despite the success that crowned all her efforts and the enthusiasm inspired by her virtues, she never had to temper in her soul that involuntary fermentation of self-love, that instinctive and personal satisfaction that we call pride. "Let us have the heart of an angel for God, of a mother for our neighbor, and of a judge for ourselves," she often repeated. The people, fanatical about her virtues, lavished the most pompous names upon her. She was distressed by this and wanted no other title than that of servant of the poor.

Since her entry into the Congregation of Saint Vincent de Paul, Sister Rosalie has been the soul of all the good works instituted for the relief of the poor classes and the moral and religious instruction of children. She managed to centralize all charitable services in the house on Rue de l'Épée-de-Bois. Not only did she look after hospices for the sick and the elderly, but she created nurseries and thus knew how to give hardworking mothers the possibility of nursing their children while continuing the work necessary for maternal life. She surrounded all these cradles with maternal solicitude. "Love them well, these dear little children," she said to the sisters who shared her work; "let us never treat them harshly and let us think that in their poverty they are the image of Jesus Christ." But soon the nurseries were no longer enough for Sister Rosalie's charity. She had to leave these poor little ones who knew so well how to reach out their arms to her when she arrived near them. Her heart could not resolve itself to this: she instituted day-care centers, which were followed shortly after by classes and workshops. She occupied herself tirelessly, with a passionate ardor, with the moral regeneration of these young souls whom she took charge of at their entry into life and from whom she separated as late as possible. In the hearts of these children, she poured out the treasures of the love of God and Christian charity, and her reward was to have formed pious and honest girls and good mothers of families.

However, Sister Rosalie's work was not finished; there still remained a gap to fill. After their first communion, when children are placed in apprenticeships, they are no longer supervised; handed over, most of the time, to unknown masters, they lose the qualities they had acquired. They had to be preserved from the dangers of adolescence: the work of the Patronage provided for this. Sister Rosalie helped with all her power; she made mothers and workshop mistresses understand its importance. Every Sunday, she brought the young girls in apprenticeship back to the house on Rue de l'Épée-de-Bois, made them fulfill their religious duties together, and chatted with them; the sweet and salutary influence that had protected their early childhood still protected them at the hour of the first danger. If some escaped her, she shed tears over their straying; but with what kindness, with what meekness she opened her arms to them when misery, sorrow, or illness brought them back ashamed and repentant to their dear benefactress! As the young girls who had become workers, and sometimes mistresses, escaped the patronage due to their age and position, Sister Rosalie founded in her house an association placed under the protection of Our Lady of Good Counsel, with the goal of reuniting those who had been the model and example for their companions; they were asked to become guides for the younger ones, auxiliaries to the patronesses, and to replace the Sunday meetings with the visiting of the poor and the practice of charity.

In the midst of her many tasks, she thought of opening a refuge for the poor elderly. When the asylum for little orphans was transferred to Ménilmontant, she gathered them in the modest house on Rue Pascal. She loved her poor above all others; she had wanted to dedicate her time, her strength, and her life to them; but the expansion of her charity could not be contained within these limits; it had to overflow outside, and the Sister of Charity of Rue de l'Épée-de-Bois had to become the Sister of Charity for everyone. Individuals, works, religious Orders, the Church, the State, society—everyone turned to her, and everyone was welcomed; she was on earth the representation of Providence, and realized, as much as it was in the power of a human creature, the promise of the Gospel; for she opened to whoever knocked at her door, she gave to all those who asked her, and her charity answered every voice that called her. Whatever work was offered to her charity, she never refused anything. "Let us accept," she said to her sisters, "everything that presents itself. God will send us enough money and enough means, provided that we make good use of them." Youth had a particular right to her predilection, especially when it presented itself to her poor and courageous. To maintain them in the good, she had a method even surer than services and recommendations: she taught her protégés to exercise mercy toward their brothers; she illuminated their first steps in the career of good with her experience; she recommended patience to them, which never believes time spent listening to the poor is lost, since the latter already finds consolation in the goodwill one shows in hearing the account of their troubles. She wanted the expansion of charity, always ready to give itself, to be associated with prudence, which tempers its ardor and regulates its exercise. She demanded above all extreme circumspection, a great delicacy in the religious action that one was to exercise over the poor, for fear that the too-vivid desire to bring them back to the good might provoke hypocrisy, and that the aid might become the bait or the salary of a lying conversion.

Sister Rosalie contributed powerfully, in 1826, to the creation and development of the Society of Saint Francis Regis, and gave it hospitality in her house: no work seemed to her to respond better to the miseries and wanderings of the present time. In 1840, the founders of the Work of the Sick Poor came to bring her the first thought of this resurrection of one of the creations of Saint Vincent de Paul; she welcome saint Vincent de Paul Saint contemporary to Olier, founder of the Congregation of the Mission. d this paternal heritage with joy, and rediscovered in her heart the traditions of her patron saint. When the Society of Sain t Vincent de Paul gathered for t société de Saint-Vincent de Paul Lay charitable organization advised by Sister Rosalie in its early stages. he first time, its members came to find Sister Rosalie to ask for her advice: she lent her room for the first conferences of a work which, in a few years, has extended its branches over the entire continent of Europe. The society was not rich at its beginning; Sister Rosalie procured for it the first vouchers for bread and meat to distribute to the 'shame-faced' poor. Like Saint Vincent de Paul, she was the friend and auxiliary of all Congregations, and thought only of their prosperity and their glory. Whenever a Congregation came to establish itself in Paris, the sisters addressed themselves to her for advice and assistance. Her house was open to them; in their embarrassments and their inexperience, they always found her enlightenment and her support. She thus welcomed the Augustinian ladies, who came to Paris in 1827, and sent them their first dinner. She later rendered a similar service to the Ladies of the Cross. If any division arose in a community, the intervention of Sister Rosalie was requested; her word, so calm, so persuasive, brought back agreement and conciliation, and made everything return to order.

Everywhere there was good to be done, one was sure to meet her, and her name was the banner that rallied all generous hearts. She helped to found the Catholic schools of Narbonne, for which she obtained forty thousand francs from the Duchess of Narbonne. The day the Little Sisters of the Poor came to bring to Paris their sublime misery to the aid of the elderly, Sister Rosalie received them as her daughters, sent them the mattresses from her house, the first utensils for their kitchen; she sought friends and protectors for them everywhere. Her powerful hand did not stop at Paris; she contributed abroad to the foundation of a great number of religious houses, charitable institutions, and to the construction and repair of a multitude of churches and schools.

The moral supremacy of Sister Rosalie extended to all classes of society. She gave alms to the rich by teaching them charity, by sympathizing with their sorrows, which were often more cruel than poverty. She calmed discord in families and brought inner peace back to households. One might have called her a conciliatory angel who placed herself between the angry father and the prodigal son. Her tireless charity reached out to all wounds and all sufferings; she had become the confidante of persons of the highest birth, talent, and position, as well as of the most abandoned poor in the various districts of Paris. Everyone rubbed shoulders in Sister Rosalie's parlor, and in this humble cell, one saw in turn the various sovereigns who governed France come to testify their respect and admiration to the daughter of Saint Vincent de Paul and to entrust their alms to her. Her relationships with all ranks of society, the rendezvous given in her house by charity to all the greatness as well as to all the miseries of this world, soon acquired for her an incomparable power. But never did this undisputed power, this universal ascendancy, this incomparable science of doing good, which revealed itself at every moment and against all miseries, manifest itself with more brilliance than against the two enemies that came successively to add exceptional misfortunes to ordinary calamities, and to increase the already heavy weight of the people's sufferings: cholera and riots. During the cholera of 1832, no weakness, no trouble, no fear reached her soul; always the first to wake, to fatigue, at the head of choléra de 1832 Major epidemic during which Sister Rosalie organized relief efforts. all the devotions she inspired, she animated her auxiliaries with her spirit of faith and charity, lent the most active and intelligent support to the measures of authority and to individual efforts, organized ambulances, utilized good will, and imprinted order, speed, and continuity to the relief efforts everywhere. In 1849, during the second invasion, she was what she had been in 1832; and, when the storm had passed, she accepted the legacy of all the poor people who had died; a tireless worker, she labored for the repair of disasters, the adoption of orphans, the relief of widows, and the placement of the elderly left standing on the ruins of their families.

Sister Rosalie also had to fight another danger, which several times compromised the already precarious well-being of her children: she fought with energy against the riots and revolutions in 1830 and 1848. She exercised her influence for the benefit of peace and knew how to spare the victors the abuse of their victory. When the insurgents recognized no authority other than their own, t hey 1848 Period of civil unrest during which she intervened for peace. still recognized the voice of Sister Rosalie; on days when the public force itself no longer had entry into those narrow streets that seemed made for civil strife, the sister entered at all hours, exercised police, restored order, stopped the barricades under construction, and had the already lifted paving stones put back in their place. She snatched more than one proscribed person from popular fury; but her protection did not stop at those whom the riots and the triumphant revolution pursued, she also had compassion for the men who had to account for their defeat to the victorious government. Faithful to her mission of representing charity on earth, she had only one goal and one thought: to divert the blow from the head that was about to be struck, to hide the fugitive, the proscribed, from pursuit. She protected society and those it had defeated in turn, and stayed the arm of all vengeance, whatever its cause or pretext. In 1852, the President of the Republic, wishing to bear striking witness to all the virtues of Sister Rosalie, sent her the cross of the Legion of Honor.

Sister Rosalie's charity was drawn from the highest and purest source: this admirable sister loved the poor in God, as the suffering members of the Savior; she loved them also as a mother loves her child, with her heart and her blood, with her emotions and her tears; she possessed the saint's self-abnegation, the supernatural devotion. Long familiar with all sorrows, she remained until the end of her life as sensitive to the spectacle of suffering as on the first day. The poor were the thought of every moment: night and day, she had their needs and their distress before her eyes; like the Lord, she bore the burden of their faults, and would have liked to expiate them through her own sufferings. As a true daughter of Saint Vincent de Paul, she did not hesitate, despite her deep piety, to subordinate everything to the service of her sick: she often asked her sisters not to go to the chapel to accompany her on her charitable visits. "Let us know," she told them, "as our holy patron teaches us, to leave God for God, and prayer for the poor." To her incomparable charity, she joined in the highest degree the virtue that gives merit to all others: she had the humility of Saint Vincent de Paul. She suffered as much from praise and respect as others did from contempt and blame; she could not bear for the poor to call her their benefactress. "Call me your servant, your friend, your sister, if you wish. That is all I am." In her thirst for humiliations and her taste for insults, she was always inclined to show herself generous to those who mistreated her. She believed herself incapable of any virtue, and regarded herself as the last and most unworthy of workers, and as guilty of all the evil that was done around her. However, the conviction of her misery never went as far as discouragement; she drew, from the feeling of her weakness and her imperfections, motives to hope in divine mercy. To the self-contempt with which she was so well imbued, she wanted one to add that abandonment to the divine will which prevents despair.

VIES DES SAINTS. — TOME XV 10

Her piety was grave and serious. Holy Communion was her nourishment: she found in the possession of her God the spirit of charity that then animated every instant of her day; she carried Our Lord within her when she went in his name to visit, console, and evangelize the poor; it was He who spoke through her voice, who gave through her hand, and spread over all her movements and all her acts the grace that made her work so fruitful and her mission so successful. Her very multiplied occupations often prevented her from giving much time to meditation and prayer; but, as soon as she remained alone for an instant, her sisters would find her on her knees, in deep recollection. In the midst of the crowd, in her errands, in her visits, her heart prayed; while she fulfilled her charitable duties, everything around her became a subject of meditation and pious reflection. The Imitation of Jesus Christ and the works of Saint Francis de Sales were her favorite readings; but she was especially imbued with the life and thoughts of Saint Vincent de Paul. She had a particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to Saint Joseph. Her life was in conformity with the doctrine of Saint Francis de Sales: its form was gentle and amiable, its foundation severe; her serenity and the evenness of her temper hid a complete detachment from things and the practice of the most austere mortification.

Born with a lively, impetuous nature, she owed the excellence of her virtues to the incessant work of her will. In her early youth, any opposition to her feelings put her into an extreme state of irritation. She could not overcome her repugnance to accepting the slightest annoyance; she did not know how to obey, not even how to wait: a word and a movement that displeased her were enough to provoke a storm in the depths of her heart. By dint of struggles and prayers, she managed to change her nature, to transform her character; she retained from her impetuosity only her ardor for doing good: she had become so much the mistress of herself that, in the midst of the importunities and contradictions of every day, she remained calm, showing no appearance of irritation. Her activity knew neither rest nor respite. During her illnesses, she accepted everything with resignation and even gratitude, except for the necessity of doing nothing. In the last period of her life, she became blind: she suffered cruelly from being thus deprived of the sight of her poor, her children, and her friends; but her sadness had nothing dejected or discouraged about it; it did not alter in any way the calm and evenness of her temper; her soul resigned itself without murmuring to the sufferings she felt keenly, and, detaching itself more and more from the earth, took refuge in the bosom of God. In the month of October 1855, she underwent a cataract operation; a few rays of light struck her eye; but these faint glimmers disappeared, and night fell again around her.

Sister Rosalie's task was drawing to a close: on the night of February 4, 1856, she felt seized by a great chill, and on the morning of the 5th, she was prey to fever and a sharp pain in her side. On February 6, the most serious symptoms had disappeared, and it was believed the illness was under control, when suddenly her tongue and head became heavy. These warnings announced the approach of death. After receiving Extreme Unction, Sister Rosalie rendered her soul to her Creator on February 7, 1856, without agitation, without agony, as if she had passed from a light sleep into a deeper rest.

The news of her death soon spread throughout Paris. Shops and factories were closed, and a saddened crowd pressed into the Rue de l'Épée-de-Bois. Everyone wanted to contemplate Sister Rosalie's face one last time and thank her with a prayer. People kissed her hands, her feet; they brought books, rosaries, and handkerchiefs to her body; they vied for pieces of her clothing and scraps of her linen as if they were relics: everyone wished to carry home, as a blessing and a safeguard, something that had served her or had been touched by what still remained of her on earth. From all quarters of Paris, people rushed to her funeral, and the procession that followed the modest hearse was the most touching eulogy that could be rendered to her memory. Each of the countless people who accompanied Sister Rosalie's mortal remains to the Montparnasse cemetery carried in their heart the memory of a kindness. Ah! Sister Rosalie had well understood and well practiced Christian piety, the source of all affection and all devotion, the true treasure of the soul. Her perseverance in performing good works had become the fortune of her poor, and, poor herself, she showed what consolation the heart can bring to the afflicted. In accomplishing her long task, bristling with difficulties and hardships of every kind, she tasted true Christian joys, for she spread peace and happiness around her. Her charity was that of the heart, that which Jesus Christ taught and which Saint Paul calls the most excellent of virtues, that which produces works, which gives with humility, which knows no other homeland than the whole world, no other limit than the need of the poor. She taught us how rich one can be without a fortune when one gives one's heart to the poor. "Love," she said to the sisters who surrounded her, "if you want to be loved; and if you have nothing to give, give yourselves!" This is what she practiced herself for more than fifty years.

Cf. Vie de la sœur Rosalie, by M. le vicomte de Melun M. le vicomte de Melun Biographer of Sister Rosalie. . (Paris, chez Pousselgue, 1870, in-18.)