Venerable Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

Having reached his nineteenth year and finished his philosophy course, Grignon found himself under the obligation of thinking seriously about choosing a state of life. He was not long undecided; his virtue was too pure for him to desire to attach himself to the world, in the midst of which piety runs so many dangers. He was already in some way ripe for the priesthood, through the charity and zeal he exercised toward his neighbor. He therefore resolved to enter the ecclesiastical state, began his theology at the college of Rennes, and immediately requested permission from his parents to go to Paris to continue his studies there. He left his family, made the journey on foot, even begging for alms at times, and, full of confidence in Providence, he arrived in the capital. A young lady of Montigny, a virtuous person who had known him at his father's house and who had spoken to him with praise of the S aint-Sulpice Saint-Sulpice Institution founded for the formation of priests. seminaries, procured for him, by means of a modest pension that one had committed to pay for him, entry into the small community established by one of M. Olier's successors, M. de La Barmondière, pastor of Saint-Sulpice. Grignon enjoyed in this house the peace and consolation that the service of God provides; but he soon had a trial to endure. The pension ceased to be paid after a few months, and there was talk of dismissing him, when M. de La Barmondière, who was his director, touched by his calm and resignation in this unfortunate circumstance, decided to keep him, on the condition that he would go to watch over the dead of the parish of Saint-Sulpice; the young seminarian having accepted this proposal, he soon began to exercise this function. The Lord provided him in this tiring exercise with two examples that struck him vividly and served to make him feel more and more the vanity of creatures. He had to spend the night successively beside the corpse of a man killed while leaving a place of debauchery and that of a lady who, by her beauty, had been the idol of the court. The body of this man exhaled such a bad odor that the pallbearers themselves who put him in the ground could not bear it, and the face of the lady was so disfigured that it was nothing more than an object of horror to those who had known her; a mind as reflective as Grignon's could not fail to profit from these lessons that death gave him. They led him to attach himself even more strongly to the solid goods that death cannot snatch away.

God, to prepare his servant for this life of the cross which was constantly his share here below, permitted that he would soon have a new subject of affliction, through the loss he suffered shortly after of his protector, M. de La Barmondière. This respectable ecclesiastic died in 1694, and the small community he had formed was dissolved immediately. Grignon, who had lived there for a year, found another asylum in that of M. Boucher; but this house being very poor, the food there was bad, and each student had the obligation to do the cooking in turn: all these causes combined with the mortifications he practiced soon made him ill. He was taken to the Hôtel-Dieu, and, out of consideration, placed in the ward intended for priests. Far from being saddened by seeing himself in a hospital, he said to those of his friends who came to visit him: "What an honor to be in the house of God!" The hospital sisters who cared for him were edified by his sentiments, and it can be said that his illness, which was long and dangerous, became a sort of continuous preaching through his speeches full of piety and the examples of virtues he gave.

However, Providence, in which Grignon trusted entirely, did not abandon him upon leaving the Hôtel-Dieu. The gentlemen of Saint-Sulpice believed they should choose the best subjects from M. La Barmondière's community to have them enter their minor seminary; he was of this number, and by means of a small benefice from the diocese of Nantes which was conferred upon him, aided moreover by the liberality of a pious person, he was henceforth able to pay his pension. Less burdened than he had been until then, he gave himself with new ardor to piety in a house where it has always been so particularly cultivated. M. Bouin, who was his director, only needed to regulate the fervor of the new seminarian. This respectable ecclesiastic, who had a well-deserved reputation for holiness and who already knew Grignon, let him follow his attraction for prayer, and the latter, taking advantage of the freedom he enjoyed, gave it all the time he could spare. This conduct was not approved by everyone. It was supposed, no doubt, that he was stealing moments from work that he should have devoted to it, and that he would not be capable of sustaining rigorous studies. His fellow students resolved to push him vigorously on the occasion of a thesis he was to defend; it had as its subject one of the most difficult parts of theology; it dealt with grace. Several seminarians, who wanted to know if his piety did not harm his science, argued against him as vigorously as they could. Soon they experienced great surprise to see that Grignon not only answered them with precision, but that he treated the subject with a facility that proved it was familiar to him.

If this trial rehabilitated him in the minds of his fellow students regarding science, he was no more sheltered from their mockery regarding piety. They could not forgive his continual recollection and his attention to perpetually bringing back to subjects of religion all the conversations in which he took part; they complained that there was affectation in his manners and conduct. But what proved the perfection of his virtue was his entire detachment from the things of the earth, his penitent life, his profound humility, which seemed to make him insensitive to the mortifications he was made to experience and which led him to receive with such submission the advice given to him; it was his admirable ardor to procure the glory of God and the sanctification of his neighbor, without listening to any human consideration.

The desire to make him useful and to draw him a little out of this profound recollection in which he was habitually led his superiors to charge him with the catechisms in the parish. He was assigned the most dissipated little boys from one of the neighborhoods of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Several of his fellow students, not believing that he could fulfill this function in a satisfactory manner, went out of curiosity to see how he performed it. They did not need to listen to him for long to be convinced, by the firm and pathetic tone with which the catechist spoke of the great truths of religion, that he had the gift of touching hearts and producing the most salutary impressions in them.

For five years he had edified the Saint-Sulpice seminary; it was judged appropriate to call him to holy orders, and finally to the priesthood. The approach of the priesthood inspired in him the terrors that several Saints have experienced at the sight of this sublime ministry and the terrible burden it imposes. He considered himself unworthy of it; but nevertheless, full of docility, he presented himself for ordination and was promoted to the priesthood on the Saturday of the Ember Days of Pentecost in the year 1700, by Mgr de Flamanville, Bishop of Perpignan, who in this circumstance was replacing Cardinal de Noailles, then Archbishop of Paris.

Until then, the Venerable Grignon de Montfort had worked only for his own sanctification. He had not yet made himself useful to his neighbor except through his good examples, his friendly exhortations to his confreres at Saint-Sulpice, and his instructions in the catechisms. It was time for this light to be placed on the candlestick to enlighten the Church; but he did not know to what kind of ministry to devote himself, when Providence seemed to manifest its will to him by bringing him a holy priest from the diocese of Nantes, whom he accompanied and with whom he engaged in apostolic labors; but this first attempt was not of long duration. Not all of the holy priest's collaborators were pure in their faith; Jansenism had partisans among them. Father de Montfort soon noticed this; his piety was alarmed, and he felt he had to distance himself from men whose doctrine was suspect.

Upon leaving Nantes, he went to Paris to place one of his sisters in a community, then he passed through Fontevrault, a famous abbey in the diocese of Angers, where he had another sister who was a nun. From Fontevrault, he went to Poitiers, a city that would so often become the theater of his zeal and in which he would suffer so many contradictions. The hospital church was the one he chose to celebrate Mass. He performed this holy function with such devotion that the poor who had attended, and who were then without a chaplain, begged him to remain among them to instruct and edify them. Father de Montfort's attraction drew him particularly toward the unfortunate; he was careful not to refuse this proposal, which he regarded as a disposition of Providence toward him; but the consent of the Bishop of Poitiers, Mgr Girard, a holy prelate who was then on a visitation, was required. The grand vicars lodged the servant of God at the minor seminary in the meantime. It was during this space of time that he exercised the zeal with which he was consumed for the salvation of his neighbor. Master of his own time, he went every day to the balls of the city, and there, gathering the children as well as the poor, he addressed the most pathetic exhortations to them and taught them the catechism. They were not the only objects of his charity. The students, who were quite numerous in Poitiers, where there was then a University, also felt its effects. Generally, they were unruly; but he applied himself so much to winning over several of them, and succeeded in such a consoling manner, that he managed to form among them a group of solidly pious young men, who helped him greatly to bring the others back to their duty. He advised them all to frequent the sacraments and to join the congregation of the Blessed Virgin, established at the Jesuit college. He prescribed meditation and the reading of good books for them, taught them how to spend their recreations wisely, and thus won over to virtue a great number of children whose conduct had until then made good people groan.

While he was exercising his zeal in Poitiers, and making fervent Christians of the poor at the hospital, he was obliged to make a second trip to Paris to place his sister again. His ardor for good did not remain sterile in the capital; he first exercised the holy ministry in the vast establishment named the Salpêtrière, one of the most beautiful monuments of the charity of Saint Vincent de Paul. Then, in 1701, he went to Mont Valérien, by virtue of a commission from the Archbishop of Paris, to re-establish, among the hermits of that holy mountain, the union that some divisions had altered.

His affairs being finished in Paris, he set out again to return to Poitiers, with the intention of re-entering the hospital; he did indeed return there, and resumed the functions he had already fulfilled. To the wise regulations he had previously drawn up during his first stay in that house, he added new ones, which he took care to have observed with exactitude. His activity sustained the improvements he had introduced; he seemed to multiply himself in the exercise of the holy ministry, and spared no means to sanctify the souls entrusted to him. Full of love for the poor, he performed the most menial services for them, and his moments of leisure were employed in caring for them, making their beds, in a word, relieving them as the most charitable nurse would have done. It was especially toward a poor invalid that he showed himself full of compassion. This man, afflicted with a contagious disease, was so covered with sores that he had been refused admission to the hospital. Father de Montfort, by dint of supplications, finally obtained his admission. Delighted with this success, he took special care of the poor man, and triumphing through a heroic act over the repugnance he felt, he showed that charity knows how to overcome all the difficulties that nature opposes to it.

A man so devoted to the service of the poor should not, it seems, have found detractors. However, the secular persons who governed the hospital could not long subject themselves to the regulations he had drawn up for the good order of the house; they complained about him and opposed the most salutary measures he took. Father de Montfort, without being disconcerted by the contradictions he experienced from the governors, went to seek elsewhere the means to continue the good he had undertaken. From his first stay in Poitiers, he had become the director of a young lady of this city, named Marie-Louise Trichet, belonging to a family very commendable for its rank, and especially for its piety. She was one of those elite souls that the Holy Spirit delights to adorn with His most precious gifts. The servant of God nurtured her wi Marie-Louise Trichet First disciple of Montfort and co-founder of the Daughters of Wisdom. th extreme care in the generous sentiments she had had since her childhood, and which had inspired in her the desire to be a nun. Having gathered into a society, and within the interior of the hospital, twelve of the poor girls of that house, whom he chose from among the most virtuous, and to whom he gave the beautiful name of Daughters of Wisdom, he drew up a rule for them, and soon placed Mademoiselle Trichet at their head.

It seemed that God had mainly led His servant to the hospital of Poitiers to give birth to this Institute. When this work, whi Filles de la Sagesse Female religious congregation dedicated to hospital work and teaching, founded by Montfort. ch developed only slowly, had been begun, Father de Montfort, always subject to contradictions, felt he should withdraw from a house where the good he wanted to do encountered so many obstacles. Father Latour, a Jesuit, his confessor, advised him to do so, and Sister Trichet was also of this opinion, however much pain she had in separating from her virtuous director. It was not to remain in idleness that the holy priest left the position of chaplain; the salvation of souls interested him too deeply for him to be able to seek rest. He therefore went to offer himself to the Bishop of Poitiers, to devote himself, under his direction, to the important work of missions in the diocese. The prelate having accepted his services, Father de Montfort began his apostolic labors in this region in the suburb of Montbernage; it was a district of the episcopal city, inhabited by poor and coarse people. He appeared to their eyes like another John the Baptist coming out of the desert to preach penance. Everything about him announced this virtue. Poor, detached from everything, habitually and profoundly recollected, making one guess, by his emaciated exterior, the great austerities he practiced, given to prayer, appearing touched only by the interests of God, such he appeared to the people he was going to evangelize. Thus his presence made upon these poor people the impression of respect that the presence of Saints produces on men who have not lost the faith. His first successes were striking. The vices that reigned in this suburb were banished; piety became flourishing there. A chapel that he built there in honor of the Blessed Virgin and which he had adorned with care, by reminding the inhabitants of Montbernage of the benefit of the mission, contributed much to making them preserve its fruits.

It was at this time that he associated himself with a companion who, since then, followed him in all his apostolic journeys, and who was known by the name of Brother Mathurin. After having evangelized the suburb of Montbernage, Father de Montfort gave a new mission in the church of the nuns of Calvary, in Poitiers. There were great successes, and he had obtained that they bring him a large quant Frère Mathurin Faithful lay companion of Montfort during his apostolic journeys. ity of bad books that were to be burned at the end of the exercises, when the imprudent zeal of some people drew upon him the severity of the ecclesiastical authority, and earned him a public humiliation that he had not deserved. He bore it with that patience of which he later gave so many proofs.

The mission of the Calvary church was succeeded, in 1706, by that of Saint-Saturnin, a parish in the suburb of Poitiers; it was especially remarkable for the reparation that the zealous missionary made to the divine majesty for all the disorders committed in an infamous place in this district, known by the name of the Gorreterie. After having spent several nights there in prayer and in practices of mortification, he led the general procession of the closing. It was then that he predicted that one day this place would be a house of prayer, and that it would be served by nuns. The event later justified this prediction. Poor invalids, whom he had gathered and placed in this place, provided the occasion to build, subsequently, the hospital for the Incurables, which was entrusted, in 1758, to the Daughters of Wisdom.

Difficulties, following the mission of the Calvary, came to stop the servant of God in the midst of his apostolic labors; he believed he should yield for a time to the storm, and took advantage of the leisure he enjoyed to undertake the journey to Rome.

Clement XI occupied the chair of Saint Peter when Father de Montfort arrived in the capital of the Christian world. Presented to the Sovereign Pontiff, he offered himself to work for the salvation of souls in any part of the world where he might be sent. France was then agitated by the troubles that the Jansenists were causing there; it therefore needed good missionaries who would preserve the people from the venom of the doctrine of the innovators. Clement XI felt this better than anyone else, he who had dealt a mortal blow to the error with the bull Unigenitus. Thus, he wanted the missionary to work in his homeland under the dependence of the bishops, and to apply himself above all to teaching the Christian doctrine well to children and the people, and to make the spirit of Christianity flourish through the renewal of baptismal promises. After having thus made his intentions known to him, the Sovereign Pontiff granted him the faculty to attach indulgences to various objects of piety that he would bless.

Happy henceforth to have known the will of God through the organ of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Father de Montfort returned to Poitiers; but the bishop being prejudiced against him, he could not remain in that diocese; he then made a pilgrimage to the famous chapel of Notre-Dame des Ardilliers, in Saumur, then to Mont Saint-Michel, and then went to Rennes, to his family. Leaving Rennes, the holy priest directed his steps toward Montfort-la-Cane, the place of his birth. He presented himself there as a poor stranger, and could not at first find lodging. His stay in Montfort was not long. The ardor that the servant of God had for the salvation of souls pressed him to work in the mission field, which he rightly regarded as one of the means most suited to bring about the conversion of the people. It was this motive that led him to Dinan (diocese of Saint-Brieuc), a fairly considerable town in the former diocese of Saint-Malo, and where a group of missionaries was then located. He joined them and took charge of the catechism, a function for which he had a particular attraction, because of the recommendation the Holy Father had made to him on this subject. His compassion for the poor

was not in vain in this city. He engaged virtuous persons to take care of them, and thus gave a beginning to the charity house of Dinan, which, supported and strengthened by the liberality of M. de La Garoye, has since been entrusted to the Daughters of Wisdom.

After Dinan, Saint-Suliac, a large village on the Rance river, was the theater of his zeal. He appeared there, as everywhere else, animated by the apostolic spirit in the mission he gave there, and in the one he subsequently undertook in Becherel. It was at this time that M. Leuduger, a famous scholastic of the cathedral of Saint-Brieuc, who himself, at the head of a group of missionaries, was evangelizing this diocese and the surrounding areas, invited Father de Montfort to come and share his labors. Together they announced the word of God in the parishes of Baulon, Le Verger, La Chèze, Médréac, and Plumieux, as well as in the towns of Saint-Brieuc and Moncontour. The mission of La Chèze offered such edifying particularities that it is good to report them here.

This place, which was one of the main ones of the former Duchy of Rohan, and which had a fairly strong castle, is located in the diocese of Saint-Brieuc. Father de Montfort gave the mission there towards the beginning of the year 1707. The zeal with which he was devoured for the house of God did not allow him to see without deep pain the deplorable state in which an old chapel was found at the entrance of the village, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, under the title of Notre-Dame de Pitié. This chapel, which Saint Vincent Ferrer had seen himself in this state when he was preaching in Brittany, no longer had a roof, and was all bristling with brambles and thorns. The holy priest undertook to restore it and he succeeded. Through his care, it was suitably repaired. He had an altar built behind the tabernacle of which he raised a large cross, and at the foot of which he placed a beautiful image of the Blessed Virgin, holding the inanimate body of her divine Son on her knees. He surrounded the altar with a balustrade on which he placed the statues of the Saints who witnessed the Passion of Jesus Christ. It was at the end of the mission of Plumieux, a neighboring parish, that having led the people in procession to a fairly distant place, he brought back this image of the Blessed Virgin, which was the constant object of the veneration of the faithful of the region.

The Sisters of the Cross of Saint-Brieuc desired that Father de Montfort come and preach one of the retreats they gave in their house to secular women at fixed times each year. He yielded to their wishes, and left La Chèze for Saint-Brieuc with Brother Mathurin. When he arrived in this city, he sent his companion to ask at the door of the community for a piece of bread for himself and for a poor priest. The portress refused Brother Mathurin, telling him that she could give him nothing, because they were poor. The servant of God went there in his turn, begging the portress to give him something to eat for the love of Jesus Christ; he insisted in vain, the sister was inexorable. During this debate, the priest who had invited him having arrived, told this sister to open to Father de Montfort. One can easily judge the astonishment of the latter, who could not believe that it was him she was refusing. Having entered the community, which was not cloistered, he found a copious collation; far from seeking to satisfy his need first, he spoke to the sisters with force about the refusal that one of them had made to give a piece of bread for the love of Jesus Christ, and the care they took to prepare a meal for a miserable sinner. This reprimand, received with humility by the sisters, who perhaps were themselves unaware of the portress's action, softened Father de Montfort, and the examples of virtue of which he was a witness in this house soon made him conceive for these good girls the esteem they rightly deserved.

The city of Saint-Brieuc had, for three months, the precious advantage of possessing the holy missionary. He showed himself there as he had appeared everywhere, breathing only the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and the relief of the poor. Often more indigent himself than those to whom he gave alms, he nevertheless fed two hundred of them a day, by means of collections he made in their favor. This solicitude in no way prevented him from attending to all the functions of the holy ministry. His sermons were so touching that every time he mounted the pulpit he drew tears from his listeners, and brought about marvelous changes. Two young ladies of the city, who manifested a great aversion to the religious state, were so struck by his discourses that they both renounced the world and consecrated themselves to God in the Ursuline monastery of Saint-Brieuc.

While Father de Montfort was thus building up the episcopal city, a mission was assigned to him in Moncontour, a small town in the same diocese. This mission became for him the occasion of a public humiliation. It was directed by M. Leuduger, whom we have already mentioned. Displeased with a collection that the servant of God had made for the deceased, he no longer wished to work with him and urged him to withdraw. The latter complied with this invitation and left for Montfort-la-Cane. His piety and his aversion to Jansenism made him enemies of men who had not preserved themselves from the errors of the time, and who denounced him to the Bishop of Saint-Malo, a prelate of rather suspicious doctrine. This bishop placed so many obstacles in the way of his zeal that Father de Montfort, seeing himself henceforth unable to do almost any good in his native land, believed he should leave it and seek souls to save elsewhere. He therefore left the diocese of Saint-Malo towards the end of the year 1707, after having announced the misfortunes that were to befall the city he was leaving, and went to Nantes, where he joined Father Joubert, a Jesuit, who was giving a mission in one of the city's parishes, that of Saint-Similien. The force with which he thundered against vice irritated a group of young libertines. They threw themselves upon him one evening and intended to beat him to death; but the people, having noticed the ill-treatment they were about to inflict upon the holy priest, ran to defend him, and were prepared to punish the young men severely, had he not cried out: "My dear children, let them go; they are more to be pitied than you and I."

Several missions followed that of Saint-Similien, and everywhere the apostolic man obtained the happiest success. Striking conversions were the fruit of his preaching. The parishes of La Chevrollière, Vertou, Saint-Fiacre, Cambon, and Cossac had the precious advantage of being evangelized by him. He sometimes gave himself to these labors, even though he was overwhelmed with pain. It seemed that his zeal made him forget them. Without being discouraged by the obstacles that presented themselves, he began the mission of Pontchâteau Pontchâteau Site of the erection of a famous monumental Calvary. , which was to be followed for him by such great humiliations; he obtained complete success there, and the inhabitants appeared to him so well disposed that he resolved to erect a Calvary near this town on a plan he had previously conceived for Montfort-la-Cane. Having one day led the people during the exercises to a nearby heath, he himself marked the place that this Calvary, of which he had already spoken to his listeners, was to occupy. The space was no less than four hundred feet in circumference, and the work, whether to move the earth or to raise the mountain to the summit of which the cross was to be planted, was immense; but the ardor of the population to contribute to the success of this pious enterprise was no less great; everyone worked on it; and the ladies themselves put their hands to the work. The work lasted for more than a year, during which the holy priest gave the mission in several parishes, among others at Saint-Donatien, a parish in a suburb of Nantes, and at Bouguenais. In the intervals he had free, he would come to the site to visit the work and encourage the people who were busy with it. Three large crosses with the figures of Our Lord, the good thief, and the bad thief were erected. The statues of the Blessed Virgin, Saint John, and Saint Mary Magdalene were at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ; various chapels, intended for the stations of the Passion, had been built, as well as a Holy Sepulcher. Father de Montfort enjoyed the consolation of seeing his project accomplished. He had obtained from the Bishop of Nantes the necessary permission to bless the Calvary, and he had set this ceremony for September 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, when on the eve of the indicated day, at the very moment when the faithful were already flocking from all sides, an ecclesiastic arrived from Nantes and forbade, on behalf of the bishop, the performance of this blessing. One can easily conceive what the consternation of the multitude assembled there was upon learning this news. The servant of God alone remained tranquil, so much was he master of the movements of his heart. He left immediately for Nantes in order to obtain the revocation of the prohibition that had been made to him; but it was in vain, and he saw himself obliged to return to Pontchâteau without having obtained anything. Furthermore, having begun a mission at Saint-Molf a few days later, he received an interdict from the Bishop of Nantes, in whose diocese he was working. Envoys, jealous of the efforts and successes of the holy priest, had slandered him to the chief pastor of the diocese of Nantes. They did not limit themselves to this kind of persecution regarding him: the Calvary offended certain people who had made every effort to stop this pious enterprise. A letter full of falsehoods was written on this subject to the Marshal of Château-Renault, then commander in Brittany, in which the missionary was represented as an ambitious man who dragged thousands of people in his wake and who wanted to make this Calvary a fortress, which enemies could later seize, and where they would have the means to entrench themselves. Deceived by these lying assertions, the marshal obtained an order from the king to have the Calvary destroyed, and Louis XIV was not a monarch who would suffer one to neglect the execution of his wishes.

As much as Father de Montfort suffered in this circumstance, his patience was equally admirable. At the first news he had of this order, which brought him a public humiliation, he was content to say: "God be blessed; I have not sought my own glory, but solely that of God; I hope to receive the same reward as if I had succeeded." Heaven did not permit the efforts of its servant to honor the cross to remain forever useless. The statues and other figures were carefully preserved by the holy priest, who had them transported to Nantes and deposited in a chapel. Half a century later, M. de La Muzanchère, bishop of that city, returned them, with the permission of the government, to their original destination; the Calvary was restored, and it is still today a very frequented place of devotion.

Interdicted and covered with opprobrium, Father de Montfort believed he could do nothing better than to go into retreat with the Jesuits of Nantes. The Fathers, who were unaware of the event at Pontchâteau, could not have guessed it from their relations with the servant of God, so tranquil did they find him. It was only after several days that one of them, having been informed and having spoken to him about it, learned from his own mouth the details of this affair, but without the latter mixing the slightest complaint into his account.

Father de Montfort was able to satisfy at his ease, in Nantes, the ardor he had for humiliations. This city then had in its clergy several members infected with Jansenism; as the holy priest had, not without reason, refused to work with them, they had stirred up the persecutions of which he was the victim. The people, always quick to judge badly, and inconstant jansénisme A theological movement to which the canons of Saint-Ruf remained opposed. in their affections, passed from the esteem they had had for the missionary to indifference and contempt, seeing him obliged to suspend his apostolic labors. Thus all agreed to make the faithful disciple of the cross feel the bitterness of his position more keenly, and no one dared to open his mouth to defend him. However, he did not remain entirely idle in the forced rest to which he was condemned. A pious lady of Nantes had given him a small hospice where he usually resided; he had a chapel built there, and having found the means to buy a house not far from the one he inhabited, he received incurable poor people there.

During his stay in this city, he entered the Third Order of Saint Dominic. His devotion to the Rosary and the zeal he put into propagating it inspired in him the desire to join an Order that honored the Blessed Virgin in a special way under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary. It was in 1710 that he committed himself to this pious society. Soon after, he resumed the course of his missions; but before leaving Nantes, he gave the inhabitants of that city a proof of the most generous devotion, by helping at the peril of his life the inhabitants of the suburb of Biesse, surprised by a flood of the Loire. This is how the Saints avenge themselves for the injustice of men!

The mission he gave at La Garnache, in the diocese of Luçon, was accompanied by the most abundant blessings: but these happy successes did not make the parish priest of another parish more favorable to him, who, after having called him, refused to receive him and thus forced him to have recourse to the charity of a poor woman to be able to find lodging. Rebuffed in this place, he took advantage of the moments of leisure he had to make a retreat with the Jesuit Fathers of Luçon. After having occupied himself in this retreat with the care of his o wn salvatio La Rochelle Port city where Montfort carried out an intense apostolate against Calvinism. n, he went to La Rochelle. He was soon tasked with conducting missions, a type of ministry in which he always succeeded. Indeed, the general hospital of Saint-Louis, L'Houmeau, a village near La Rochelle, and the Church of the Jacobins in that city successively became the theater of his labors and his successes. It was especially in this latter church that he settled and brought about striking conversions. Among the troops then in garrison at La Rochelle were many children of those Calvinists who had been so rebellious to Louis XIII. These had sucked in the errors of their parents with their mother's milk. Father de Montfort was urged to preach some controversial sermons to enlighten these poor blind people, but he did not yield to this advice. His great confidence in the Rosary made him hope that, like Saint Dominic, he would succeed, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, in winning over these heretics. Thus, he often spoke of the Rosary and the merit of this prayer during his mission. His hope was not disappointed; he touched his listeners so deeply several times that he made them melt into tears. The return to the Church of a large number of Calvinists, and to God of a large number of sinners who came to throw themselves at his feet when he descended from the pulpit, was the convincing proof of the fruits he produced. Among the former, Madame de Mailly deserves to be cited. She was a woman of wit, and her attachment to error made her dear to the Huguenot party. Having recently arrived from England, she was to go and settle in Paris; but some business still kept her in La Rochelle when the servant of God arrived there. She soon heard him spoken of as an extraordinary man, and conceived the desire to speak with him. The matter had to be done secretly; a Catholic young lady who was one of her friends provided the means, by procuring for her an interview with Father de Montfort in the countryside. Madame de Mailly proposed all her doubts to the holy missionary, who shook her strongly from the first interview, soon ended by convincing her and deciding her to abjure her errors; she did so with courage and in public, under the eyes of the Protestants, several of whom followed her example. Firm in the faith, she persevered in the exercises of Christian piety until her death.

The conversion of heretics was not the only object of Father de Montfort's zeal in La Rochelle; he also applied himself to withdrawing from vice the unfortunate creatures who lose so many men while losing themselves. This is perhaps the most extraordinary trait of the holy priest's life, and the good work for which he most needed the particular assistance of God. When he was informed that there was a house of prostitution in some quarter of the city, he would go there with another priest. Having entered this infamous place, rosary and crucifix in hand, he would kneel down, recite an Ave Maria, and lower his head. It is easy to understand the trouble that such an unexpected and, for them, inopportune visit caused the libertines and courtesans who were gathered there. Some of them would flee immediately; others, touched at the sight of him, would promise to convert; but the men, putting on a bolder front, would threaten the holy missionary. One day, one of them, flying into a rage, seized him by the hair with his left hand, and holding his sword in his right, told him, while uttering horrible oaths, that he was going to pierce him with it if he did not withdraw immediately. "Most willingly," Father de Montfort replied to him without being intimidated; "I consent that you take my life, provided that you promise me to convert, for I love the salvation of your soul a thousand times more than ten thousand lives like mine." These words and this intrepid firmness stopped the fury of the lecher. He was so struck by it that, trembling in his whole body and barely able to stand, he could only with difficulty put his sword back into its scabbard, and even more so find the door to leave. During this scene, only one girl had remained in the house and had thrown herself on her knees. The holy priest and his companion took her with them, entrusted her to a pious person, and she reconciled herself so well with God that she later became a model of penance.

This bold action turned against the servant of God people who, finding it more convenient to censure him than to imitate his works of zeal, wanted to have him interdicted; but their efforts were useless with M. de Champflour, a pious prelate who did not let himself be surprised. Calvinists sought to poison the holy missionary, just as others of the same sect had attempted to assassinate him; he delivered himself from the poison he had swallowed; but he was nonetheless seriously inconvenienced by it and always felt the effects thereafter. It is even believed that the effects of this poison, by altering his health, contributed to hastening his death.

After having evangelized La Rochelle and especially the garrison, during part of the year 1712, the holy priest, despite all the obstacles raised against him by the Calvinists, who almost had him captured at sea by an English privateer, went to the Île-Dieu, where his arrival was a great subject of joy for the inhabitants, and his stay among them a source of abundant blessings. It is not that he did not find contradictions there as everywhere else; there they came to him from the governor of the Island, who at first hindered the missionaries, and who was only cured of his prejudices against them by seeing their patience. Fortunately, this passionate man had no imitators. All the inhabitants, numbering two thousand, benefited from the blessing of the mission which lasted two months. The devotion of the Rosary was solidly established there, a cross was planted in the most prominent place on the Island, and before the Revolution, one could still see there a large stone that the holy priest moved on this occasion in a way that seemed quite supernatural.

A chapel that Father de Montfort was having restored at La Garnache was not yet blessed; he returned to that parish, performed the ceremony there, and took advantage of the circumstance of this blessing to support these people in the sentiments of piety that he had inspired in them during the mission and of which he was finding the fruits. From La Garnache, he went to Sallertaine; but far from having to deal with people as docile as those he had just left, he found them in a state of opposition capable of discouraging a man less accustomed than he to placing all his trust in God. They went so far as to close the doors of their church, despite their parish priest, and to take away the keys. The holy priest, upon arriving in the village, went straight to the house of one of the principal inhabitants, whom he knew to be very opposed to the mission; upon entering, he placed a crucifix and an image of the Blessed Virgin on a mantelpiece, prostrated himself before them, said his prayer, and, rising, he said in such a persuasive manner to the inhabitant that he had come in the name of Jesus and Mary to work in this place, that this man, suddenly touched, immediately accepted the invitation he made to him to go to the church with his family. This example made the inhabitants change their resolution; they went to listen to the preacher, and from the first sermon they heard, they were so moved that they withdrew melting into tears. Soon their eagerness to listen to the servant of God was as great as their opposition had been pronounced, and Father de Montfort had never produced as many fruits as in this mission of Sallertaine. It is true that everything about him contributed to ensuring its success; besides this persuasive eloquence that touched hearts, the example of his life gave even more weight to his discourses. It was soon known how penitent and mortified he was: he lodged in a poor and uncomfortable room, took only three hours of sleep, tore his body each night with a bloody discipline, then spent the day in the pulpit, in the confessional, or in the exercise of other good works of this kind. Despite so many occupations and so many fatigues, he looked as recollected as if he had been occupied with prayer in a solitude. As persuasive in the tribunal as in the pulpit, the holy priest made numerous conquests for grace through the ministry of confession. He spoke there in such a compelling manner that it was enough to have addressed him to become an enemy of the world and to renounce its maxims. Without discoursing much with his penitents, he inspired in them such elevated sentiments that he soon made them fervent Christians. Then, taking advantage of their holy dispositions, he engaged them to enroll in pious confraternities that his zeal had led him to establish in various places, under the name of Brothers and Sisters of the Cross. He intended, by this pious industry, to make them overcome human respect and walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. His efforts were crowned with success.

Until then, the servant of God had worked in isolation, but he undoubtedly felt the need to have collaborators who could extend and perpetuate the good he was accomplishing. It is to be believed that it was the desire to obtain them that determined him to leave for Paris as soon as the mission of La Séguirière, which followed that of La Garnache, was finished. For a long time, during the short moments of leisure he had in his solitude at Saint-Eloi, he had been busy drawing up the plan for a society of missionaries under the title of the Company of Mary. He had drafted its rule after having consulted the Bishop of La Rochelle on the matter. This prelate had fully approved the project of forming a society of ecclesiastics to perpetuate the work of the missions that he had submitted to him. It was therefore only a matter of finding evangelical workers who would be willing to devote themselves to this type of work. Father de Montfort, upon arriving in the capital, renewed his acquaintance with one of his former fellow students, Abbé Poullart Desplaces, a priest of the diocese of Rennes and founder of the Seminary of the Holy Spirit, located on the Rue des Postes. The sentiments of these two good men were too similar for them not to understand each other promptly. Their attraction, it is true, was different, for M. Desplaces did not feel called to work in the missions; but he promised Father de Montfort to give him the subjects who had the desire to dedicate themselves to it. He kept his word, and he granted him four young ecclesiastics from his seminary, to whom the Holy Spirit gave this vocation. Father de Montfort, having finished the important business that had drawn him to Paris, went to Poitiers, where he wanted to develop and consolidate the Institute of the Daughters of Wisdom. But no sooner had he arrived in this city than he received an order from the ecclesiastical authority to leave within twenty-four hours. It was the third time that he had been shamefully driven out of a city where he had done so much good and to which his daughters would later render such great services. Accustomed to obeying even the most rigorous orders, the servant of God left immediately; he had, however, the consolation, before his departure, of seeing his former disciples and finding them in the sentiments of fervor that he had inspired in them. Sister Trichet seemed to him especially so strengthened in her vocation that he felt he should give her a companion and have them go to La Rochelle, where he was heading, so that they might open a school there for poor girls. Having submitted this project to the bishop of the latter city, it was approved by the prelate, who charged him with carrying it out. It was not without great difficulties that Sister Trichet was able to tear herself away from the hospital, where she was making herself very useful, and to move away from her mother, who opposed her departure with all her might. The pain that this holy girl felt in her relocation must have been all the more sensitive to her as, upon arriving in La Rochelle, she found almost nothing prepared of what she needed to begin her work. She did not, however, lose heart; aided by the advice and activity of Father de Montfort, who occupied himself with this affair with his ordinary zeal, she was able, after eight to ten days, to open the classes and thus begin a good work that his daughters still continue with blessing.

The pious founder did not limit himself to establishing the girls he had just called to La Rochelle in a suitable manner. Seeing that the nascent community was growing, he designated Sister Trichet, who was already called Mari e-Louise of Jesus, as Marie-Louise de Jésus First disciple of Montfort and co-founder of the Daughters of Wisdom. superior, and drew up for the new society a Rule full of wisdom, which he himself placed in the hands of the superior. It is this Rule that the pious Congregation, which recognizes Father de Montfort as its Father, still follows, and which, faithful to observing this holy Rule, carries the good odor of Jesus Christ into all the places where it possesses establishments. Back in the diocese of La Rochelle, Father de Montfort continued to evangelize, during the year 1713, several parishes of the country, in which he made his courage for the destruction of evil and the perfection of his virtue, especially his humility, admired. Towards the beginning of 1714, he went to Nantes, visited the Hospital of the Incurables, the establishment of which he had procured, and lavished his care on the infirm of that house. His goal was also to strengthen in piety the society of the Friends of the Cross that he had previously formed in the parish of Saint-Similien, and so he occupied himself with it in a particular way. From Nantes, he left for Rennes. Arrived in this city, he could not exercise his ministry there publicly, which caused him very sensitive pain. A retreat that he made there, while occupying himself in a useful way, served to console him. He then frequented some people of high rank, and the Spirit of God with which he was filled made him spread the good odor of Jesus Christ in all the houses that had the advantage of receiving him.

After some time of staying in Rennes, the holy priest wanted to go to Avranches. There, new humiliations awaited him again, as if this faithful disciple of Jesus crucified could not live a moment without a cross. The bishop of this city refused him any permission to preach and even to celebrate, without anyone being able to know the cause. He had to go in all haste to Villedieu, in the diocese of Coutances, to be able to satisfy his piety by saying Mass there on the day of the Assumption. This was not the only mortification he had to suffer on this trip. Arriving in a village and needing rest, he presented himself at an inn to lodge there. But his poor appearance not giving the people who kept it the hope that he could spend money, they refused to receive him, and the servant of God was obliged to spend the night outside, as well as his traveling companion. It was on this occasion that, expressing his tender affection for the cross, he composed a canticle in which he celebrates its virtue and the strength it gives to those who embrace it.

The village where he was so poorly received was on the road to Saint-Lô; he was going to this city, where he began a mission: but soon men jealous of the astonishing successes he was obtaining by his preaching disparaged him to his superiors and succeeded in having him interdicted. He immediately decided to go to Coutances, whose see was then occupied by Mgr de Brienac. An explanation that he had with the prelate was enough for his powers to be immediately restored to him. This setback, far from harming the mission, only gave more consideration to the preacher; thus it produced great fruits in this city, not only by his speeches, but also by his mortifications.

The mission of Saint-Lô ended with the planting of a cross, which was for a long time for this city the object of a particular devotion. Father de Montfort, having accomplished the work that had drawn him to this country, left it to go and visit in Rouen one of his former fellow students, M. Blain, then a canon of this metropolis. The latter, taking advantage of the familiarity that existed between them, made various observations to him on his conduct and on certain singularities that were noticed in his person. The servant of God justified himself on all points with as much success as modesty. Regarding the singularities, he said that if he had singular and extraordinary manners, it was quite against his intention; that holding them from nature, he did not notice them, and that being proper to humiliate him, they were not useless to him.

The holy priest thought, after this visit, of returning to La Rochelle, which was the center of his missions. His route was a continual preaching by the care he took constantly to prevent sin, and to lead all those who approached him to praise and serve God. In Rennes, where he went for the last time, he put an end to dances and disorders that were taking place in a square of this city, and established there the public recitation of the Rosary: arrived in La Rochelle, he soon began a mission there at Fouras, a poor parish of this diocese, then at the Île d'Aix, in the winter of 1714 to 1715. Having then returned to the episcopal city, he devoted himself to preaching there. The audience that attended his sermon on the day of the Purification was witness to a wonder that struck all those who saw it very much. His emaciated face became all luminous and radiant, and his best friends could not recognize him at that moment except by his voice. It was an index of the heavenly glory that was soon to reward his virtues and his labors.

God had already begun to manifest the holiness of His servant. Thus, he was eagerly desired in various places to give missions. He devoted himself to this arduous work throughout the year 1715. After the island of Aix, Taugon-la-Ronde, where he established a society of White Penitents and another of Virgins, and Saint-Amand were the parishes he first evangelized with the priests he had associated with himself. Several other parishes of the same diocese and the city of Fontenay-le-Comte subsequently received the same favor. He began the year 1715 with the mission of Saint-Pompain; one of the first fruits he produced there was to bring to reconciliation the farmer of the local lord, who harbored a scandalous hatred against his own pastor and another person in the area. The servant of God inspired in the pastor sentiments of piety that this ecclesiastic had hardly known until then. From Saint-Pompain he went to Villiers, a nearby village, where, at the planting of the cross, he received insults in the middle of his sermon which he bore with heroic patience. After making a pilgrimage to the famous chapel of Les Ardilliers in Saumur, he went to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre to open a mission, wh ich he began on the fir Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre Place of the saint's death and seat of his congregations. st Sunday of April. This was the place where the Lord awaited him to call him to Himself. While he was devoting himself, with his usual zeal, to the instruction and sanctification of the people, it was learned that the Bishop of La Rochelle was coming without delay to make a pastoral visit to this parish. The holy priest, who was imbued with a profound respect for prelates, wished to give his bishop an honorable reception, and exerted himself greatly to achieve this goal. This extra work, added to his other occupations, finished ruining a health already dilapidated by fatigue, hardships, and austerities. On the very day of the visit, after having preached in the most touching manner on the sweetness of Jesus Christ, he was forced to lie down on his pallet which, until then, had been composed only of a little straw in a dark corner. A false pleurisy soon put his life in danger. He saw the approach of death like a man entirely detached from the world; and feeling that it was approaching, he made his will as his extreme poverty allowed him, that is to say, he gave his confreres his vestments and his books, and various objects of piety to parishes he had evangelized. He then designated as his successor an excellent priest, named Mulot, to whom he had recently become attached. Throughout his illness, he did not cease to edify by his patience and his words those who had the good fortune to approach him. Finally, being at his last moments, he was heard to say these words: "It is in vain that you attack me, I am between Jesus and Mary. Deo gratias et Mariæ. It is finished, I shall sin no more." Soon after, he expired, around eight o'clock in the evening, on Tuesday, April 28, 1716. He was forty-three years and a few months old.

His body was buried in the church of Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre. Eighteen months after his death, it was desired to give the remains of the holy priest a more honora église de Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre Place of the saint's death and seat of his congregations. ble burial, and it was seen with astonishment that his body was whole, without any appearance of corruption, and emitting a sweet odor. This church was burned twice during the wars of the Vendée; but the tomb was not damaged, and it is still the object of the veneration of the faithful.

The sovereign pontiff Gregory XVI declared him venerable in 1838. The cause having been resumed, Pope Pius IX had inserted, in the acts of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the decree by which it is established that the venerable servant of God practiced the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity toward God and neighbor, and the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, and the moral virtues related to them, in a heroic degree, and that one may proceed to the discussion of the four miracles.

We have from the venerable Father de Montfort the following works: 1° Canticles. They are recommended more by the pious sentiments they express than by the merit of the poetry. They have been often reprinted, and have become popular in a part of Brittany; 2° The Christian Day; and 3° Sanctified Youth.

Father de Montfort left, as we have already said, two Congregations, which continue his works and have deserved to be approved by the Holy See:

1° The Missionary Priests of the Company of Mary or of the Holy Spirit, established at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, canton of Mortagne. This society counts 43 professed members spread across 4 residences in France, besides the mother house and the mission of Haiti (Greater Antilles); 6 novices. These pious and zealous priests direct the Daughters of Wisdom, conduct missions, and are assisted by coadjutor brothers.

2° The Daughters of Wisdom (teachers and hospital sisters), established at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, where the mother house has remained, and authoriz ed by letters patent of Les Filles de la Sagesse Female religious congregation dedicated to hospital work and teaching, founded by Montfort. 1773 and by decree of February 11, 1811. This Congregation counts 3,042 religious, forming 260 houses in 31 dioceses of France and Belgium. Each of these houses includes several works often quite distinct, but directed however by the same local superior. Here is the table of these different works: 240 fee-paying and free primary schools, boarding schools, 2 normal schools, 7 schools for the deaf-mute and blind, 120 children's asylums, 45 workrooms, 3 crèches, 6 houses of spiritual retreats, 94 maritime, military, and civil hospitals, 9 public asylums for the insane, 2 central houses, 9 detention centers, and 3 penal colonies, 30 charitable offices. Attached to 80 other houses are sisters charged with helping the poor at home. The diocese of Luçon possesses 28 houses of this Congregation.

We have extracted this biography from the Lives of the Saints of Brittany, by Dom Lobineau, and we have completed it by means of local Notes, and the Annals of Holiness in the 19th Century. — Cf. Dominican Year, and the Life of Father de Montfort, written by one of his successors (Nantes, 1 vol. in-4°).