Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat

Daughter of Jacques Barat, a cooper who worked with the vineyards. Naturally bright, she was educated by her older brother Louis, a monk. At the age of ten, France underwent its Revolution with its suppression of Christian schools. The education of the young, particularly young girls, was in a troubled state.

As Madeline grew older, her brother feared she would be exposed to too much of the world, and so brought her to Paris with him. She wanted to be a Carmelite lay sister, but with Father Joseph Varin and three other postulants, she founded the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1801, who are devoted to the Sacred Heart, and dedicated to teaching girls. She became Superior General of the Society at age 23, and held the position for 63 years. Receiving papal approval of the Society in 1826, she founded 105 houses in many countries; Saint Rose Phillippine Duschene and four companions brought the Society to the United States.

Mother Barat died in Paris. She was canonized on May 24, 1925 by Pope Pius XI. Her feast day is May 29th.

"We await all from the mercy of Jesus."

"An abyss of blessings must draw forth an abyss of gratitude, fidelity and love."

"Shouldn't we gratefully accept both good and bad as coming from the hand of God, for both are inclined to our advantage if we know how to profit from them."

"We cannot change our character, it is true, as easily as we change our clothes. It is the work of a lifetime. It is achieved with the grace of God and constant effort."

"How could one have peace which is the fruit of love of Jesus in the soul, as long as one is filled with self and has so little love for God, crucified and annihilated!"

"Is it not our blindness that deceives us without cease in all that pertains to ourselves? Thus let us often say to Jesus: Lord, that I may see!"

"Let us hand over all our cares to Jesus, praying that he will act for us. Then everything will take care of itself."

"Pride scourges Jesus Christ; humility scourges the devil."

"Whenever assailed by humility, the devil loses his power. humility is like a plank in a flood. We cannot cling too tightly to this virtue."

"Let us be kind without weakness, humble without groveling."

"Jesus will supply for all that we lack if our confidence in his help is without limit."

From the Translator's Preface.

"A few words will be sufficient as a Preface to the English translation of the Abbe Baunard's Life of the Reverend Mother Barat. The name of this great servant of God will of itself endear these records to many readers who have personal reasons for venerating her memory, and for thanking God that by her means an Order was founded which in childhood or in after-life led them to the knowledge and the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus."

Towards the close of the year 1779, in the little town of Joigny in Burgundy, Sophie Madeleine Barat first saw the light. The house in the Rue du Puits-Chardon, which was for twenty years inhabited by this great servant of God, is still in existence. It is a simple dwelling, suitable for a laborer or artisan, having on the ground floor a workshop and a general room, where in a household of this kind the mother of the family spends the day in the performance of her domestic duties. At the back of this dwelling is a small yard, and in the center of it a square plot planted with shrubs and flowers. The second story of the house contains the room occupied by the parents, and an adjoining small one for the children. There is also an attic in the roof; and this was Sophie's chamber, well adapted for the cell of a religious, for it is removed from all noise, and has a small window from which nothing can be seen but the sky. In front of this dwelling-place the street ascends towards Bourg-le-Vicomte, to the right is the old parochial church of St. Thibault, and on the left rise the high hills which in close the valley of the Yonne and surround Joigny with a verdant belt. Such was the birthplace of one of the noblest and most eminent souls of the period in which she lived.

Her parents, Jacques Barat and Madeleine Foufe his wife, who inhabited this house at the close of the last century, were both of them good Christians, and earned an honest livelihood by the trade of coopering and the cultivation of a small patrimony, consisting of a vineyard, situated on the heights of Sauvilliers and Larry. Jacques Barat enjoyed the reputation of a worthy, hard-working artisan, who acted in all the relations of life with truthfulness and integrity, and strictly performed his religious duties. Madeleine Foufe was distinguished by higher merits; she was a remarkable woman for her station in life. Her understanding was good and had been fairly cultivated, and she was, moreover, solidly pious. If, as it has been said, her religion was originally tainted with Jansenism, she entirely abjured the rigorism of those tenets. The characteristics which distinguish her in this history are those of maternal affection bordering upon weakness, exquisite delicacy, and overflowing sensibility. Children were not wanting to complete the peaceful happiness of this home. Louis Barat was elevenof age, and a girl o ften shared with him the affection of their parents, when the approaching birth of another child gave promise of additional domestic joy. On the night of the 12th to the 13th of December, 1779, an alarming fire broke out in a house of the Rue Neuve, in the immediate vicinity of Jacques Barat's dwelling. Though the flames did not extend to his house, so great was the terror of his wife that it endangered her life by hastening on her confinement by two months. Thus, on a night sadly illuminated by the glare of a dreadful conflagration, Sophie Barat entered the world.

So frail appeared her tenure of existence that it was thought necessary to baptize her at once, and on the morning of her birth she was taken to the church for that purpose, and the first young girl who happened to be present was made to act as godmother; but it was a happy circumstance, not perhaps without a holy signification, that her brother Louis stood as her godfather. He had begun at that time his first course of studies at the College of Joigny, and God was already preparing him to be the future guide and spiritual father of his infant sister.

Madame Barat survived the accident which had endangered her life, and attached herself with passionate fondness to the feeble creature, whose existence seemed to hang upon a thread. Thanks to her devoted care the child gradually gained strength and lived. Sophie Madeleine began early to evince an extraordinary amount of precocious intelligence.

Half a century later she wrote: "When I was only seventeen months of age I was conscious of my existence." Having been told at a very early period of her life of the awful circumstance which had marked the night of her firth, she never forgot it, and as soon as she could speak, if anyone asked her, "What brought you into the world?" she always answered with great gravity, "It was the fire." The origin she ascribed to her existence tallied with the extraordinary ardour and vivacity of her movements and her impulses. Everything about her indicated a wonderful amount of exuberant life, she intensely enjoyed and excelled in all childish sports and always took the lead amongst her companions, to whom she used to relate prophetic dreams in which she herself played the part of a great queen.

But soon, amidst the attractions of a mind sparkling with brilliancy and wit, that clear depth of judgment was manifested which was to make her one day the instrument of God for a great work. She was, form her earliest years, remarkable for good sense, that quality which Bossuet calls the "master of human life," and formed a just and rapid estimate of whatever subject came before her. The procurator-fiscal of Joigny, who was a friend of her family, often amused himself in putting questions to the clever little girl, and was astonished at her replies, even on most important subjects. Madame Barat took her one day with her to the house of a notary, with whom she had important business to transact. Sophie was then only ten years of age, but the way in which she rectified and completed her mother's explanations filled the lawyer with surprise.

As she advanced in age her character gave tokens of noble qualities and natural gifts, which the influence of grace and the training of the Gospel were hereafter to perfect and exalt. She had from infancy an inveterate horror of falsehood, and would have suffered anything rather than utter an untruth.. Where so many excellent and brilliant qualities existed, there was some danger of self-complacency, and her cleverness led her to observe and comment on the defects of others with a certain amount of severity.

The goodness of heart was so strong a characteristic of her nature that it redeemed and corrected those slight failings; that predominating quality was to be the moving spring of her existence, the source of her influence and also of her trials, for those who possess it seldom escape peculiar sufferings. Her brother was uneasy at the vehement attachments she conceived, even as a little child. He feared the sorrows, anxieties, and even dangers and entanglements, which that impetuous sensibility might entail on her later in life if God did not at once take full possession of that pure and ardent heart.

Her mother rather encouraged than repressed the manifestations of her excessive tenderness. She found in Sophie's affection a consolation for secret sorrows of so delicate a nature that she could not confide them to anyone. Married to a man good, religious, and upright, but greatly her inferior in education and in cleverness, Madam Barat suffered intensely from this disparity. In her unbounded love for her children, she sought relief from the aching void in her heart. She used sometimes to clasp teem to her bosom and exclaim, "O my dear children, you will never know what you have cost me!" Sophie would then redouble her caresses in hopes of assuaging a grief she could not understand, and her mother often told her that she would be the consolation of her old age. These tender scenes once over, the child resumed all the gaiety which belonged to her youth and her disposition; but the knowledge, thus early acquired, of the secret trials of domestic life, imparted to the character an earnestness and a thoughtfulness beyond her years.

There was one inmate of Sophie's home who furnished a living example of a true Christian. This was her maternal grandfather, who had long edified his family and his native place by virtues worthy of the primitive days of the Church. From this venerable relative, and still more from her pious mother, Sophie received her first instructions in Christian doctrine.

As soon as her age allowed of it she attended the catechism classes of the parish. A trifling circumstance which occurred at that time enabled her spiritual guide to form some idea of the sincerity and generosity of soul of which she gave so many subsequent proofs. One day, shortly before Easter, the cure of St. Thibault, having collected together children of his parish, was exhorting them to make an act of contrition and to ask God to forgive them their sins, adding that if their sorrow for these sins was perfect they would all be forgiven. Immediately a little girl stood up, and of her own accord began to make in a loud voice a confession of her faults. This child was Sophie Barat. Everyone laughed, and the priest stopped her; but in this spontaneous act of humility, and the simple piety which prompted it, he discerned the graces likely to descent on his young penitent.

Simple-hearted as she was, it was nevertheless this little girl who gave the best answers in the catechism class; but she was so short, and her voice so weak, that in order to be seen and heard she had to stand on a bench. When, at ten years of age, she was presented for admission to make her first communion, the vicaire at once concluded that she was too young, and postponed her admission; but the cure judged more correctly. He examined little Sophie, and was so struck by her knowledge and her innocence that the decision was reconsidered, and she was permitted to receive the Bread of Angels.

This was the memorable year 1789. It seemed as if our Blessed Lord, about to be crucified anew, drew to His Heart the child who was hereafter to be Its faithful servant, and made her rest in It thus early.

Her first communion infused into the soul of Sophie wonderful grace and light; she was struck at that time with those words of our Lord which have so often suggested the first thought of a religious vocation: "If any one loves his father or his mother more than Me, hi is not worthy of Me;" and those others: "Whosoever has left his house, or brother, or sister, father or mother, for My sake, shall receive a hundredfold and possess eternal life." They sounded to her like a warning, they dazzled and they terrified her; God is wont in this was to enlighten, to astonish, and to alarm a soul on the threshold of life, when He has great designs upon it.

Endowed as she was with so many natural and spiritual graces, Sophie required a director; she found on in her own family.

Young Louis Barat, after hard study in the College of Joigny, which he left at the age of seventeen, having borne away all the prizes of his class, felt himself called to the priesthood. The times were becoming more and more perilous. It was evident that the Church, already held up to scorn by the revolutionary party, would soon be the object of its violent attacks, and that persecution or even martyrdom, would be the fate of its ministers. Louis Barat was not daunted by these threatening prospects. His faith was firm, and he was endowed with no ordinary amount of strength of character. He courageously entered the great Seminary of Sens, where, at the age of twenty-two, he was ordained subdeacon, having previously completed his ecclesiastical studies. He was then sent to the College of Joigny as professor of mathematics, and awaited there the age for ordination. It was then that he discovered with astonishment the rare qualities of his young sister, and felt that a great duty devolved on him, that of training her soul for God. He therefore undertook her education, and devoted himself to it with the generous, though rather austere, zeal which belonged to his character.

Up to that time Sophie had shared all her mother's occupations, sometimes accompanying her to the vineyard, sometimes employed in the work of the house, and acquiring under her guidance those habits of order, industry, and economy which endeared to her in after days the holy mysteries of the home of Nazareth. But now a change took place in her daily avocations; her brother made her devote herself to study, and he gave her a rule of life. Each day, early in the morning, at the hour when her father entered his workshop or proceeded to the fields, Sophie rose, and after having devoutly heard the first Mass in the neighbouring church, she returned to her garret, and there occupied herself with studies, only interrupted by necessary intercourse with her family and very rare holidays.

Her favorite recreation was to walk in her father's vineyard, on the heights of Larry. From thence, the serpentine course of the Yonne, as it wound through the fields, the amphitheatre of hills which in the distance divided the plateau of Mount Tholon from Mount St. Jacques; and in the further distance, the deep forest of Othe presented to her view a magnificent image of the greatness of God, shown forth in His works. Her holidays only lasted during the vintage, or during the Abbe Louis' short absences, and even these brief intervals of repose were sometimes abridged by the unexpected return of her teacher, who forthwith set his saddened scholar to work again. She speaks in after-life of these disappointments: "I had to leave my basket and return to my books, saying to myself, 'It is indeed true that there is no pleasure without bitterness.'"

However, the same somewhat exacting master who insisted on these sacrifices, used to soften their severity by the charm his piety imparted to them. There were, if one may so speak, two different men in the Abbe Barat. He was at the same time a mathematician and a poet; to a remarkable inflexibility of character he united a great elevation of heart and a grace of imagination, which enabled him, in conversing with his young sister on the love of God, to illustrate his teaching by the most pleasing comparisons. He found her one day with her pet lamb at her feet; this creature was so much attached to its little mistress that it would leave even its food to follow her, and seemed to find perfect happiness in resting by her side. "See what that lamb is doing!" the Abbe Barat said to Sophie, "it lies still and it loves." This sort of love, this quiet abandonment at the feet of the Good Shepherd, became, as we shall see, one of the peculiar characteristics of Madame Barat's piety.

Under this stern yet sweet training, Sophie's mind developed itself so rapidly that she soon mastered the elements of scholastic knowledge. Then, her brother, persuaded that it would be for the glory of God, and guided, no doubt, by a providential inspiration, determined to cultivate to the utmost the seeds that promised so rich a harvest, and to enlarge his plans for her education. Step by step, he was led to extend the sphere of his sister's studies, far beyond the usual amount of feminine knowledge. He taught her Latin, and soon she was able to read the classics in the original texts. This opened a world of delight to the eager young girl; Virgil's poems especially fascinated her. His elevated, deep, and religious mind, and his exquisite descriptions of the beauties of nature, filled her with admiration. "I was a Virgilian, more than a Christian, at that time," she said, in alluding to this youthful enthusiasm. She learned Greek also, and translated Homer. The study of these ancient authors was more than an intellectual enjoyment to the future Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Many of the sentiments and thoughts which she found in them seemed to answer to her own thoughts and feelings, and satisfied her innate cravings for ideal beauty and moral grandeur. In allusion to this, she writes in later years: "I like heroism; it gives, at any rate, breathing space to the soul and life to the heart." But the first and the highest benefit of these studies was to awaken in Sophie's soul lofty and boundless aspirations, which are God's own invitations to those whose yearnings He alone can satisfy. She was conscious of this herself; one day we shall find her saluting from the shores of the Adriatic that fair Grecian land, the home of beauty and art, but in the midst of her enthusiasm, thanking the Giver of a higher Revelation, and animating herself to train souls in the knowledge and the love of a holier beauty.

Nothing seemed to satisfy the engrossing activity of Sophie's mind. The natural sciences, botany, and elementary astronomy were taught her by her brother, who excelled in all these branches of knowledge. He allowed her, as a recreation and a reward, to learn modern languages. She studied Spanish, and mastered Italian, which enabled her in after-life to instruct and to edify her spiritual daughters, when she visited them in Italy.

Sophie's mother found it very difficult to understand the object of subjecting her child to so much mental labour; what was the use, she thought, of so much learning for the daughter of a vine-dresser? She never anticipated another destiny for this beloved child than to marry and settle at Joigny. Her father, on the contrary, was elated by her success, and predicted for her a brilliant future. What that future was to be neither of them could foresee, but God, to whom it was visible, was secretly pre-ordaining means to His end.

It was necessary for the Foundress of a teaching Institute, in which knowledge was to be a special requirement, to be distinguished by an uncommon degree of mental culture. Seen in that light, science was an approximation to God. "If I had the intellect of an angel," a Saint once said, "I should love God as the angels love Him." Sophie's passion for books might have led to a taste for dangerous reading, but she was preserved from this snare by a delicacy founded on the fear of God. She read wonderfully well, throwing her whole soul into her intonations and accent. Madame Barat once requested her to read to some of her friends one of Marmontel's tales. She could not resist the wish to show off here daughter's talents, but Sophie, when she tried to comply with her mother's desire, showed so plainly that it distressed her, that one of the visitors interposed, and begged that she might be spared the trial. Once Sophie yielded to the temptation of reading a book, which was then greatly in vogue both in France and England, Clarissa Harlowe, but she felt remorse for it as long as she lived.

When circumstances required it, she knew how to repel familiarity in the most prompt and decisive manner. One day when she was visiting some friends of her family, a young man ventured to approach Mdlle. Barat, and endeavoured to fasten a bouquet to her dress. She threw the flowers on the ground and trod upon them, expressing at the same time her displeasure by a few indignant words. Graceful and pretty she naturally was, her countenance full of life and animation, but she never took pains to increase her good looks by artificial means, and was remarkable for the extreme simplicity of her dress, a simplicity which her companions laughed at as exaggerated. She took, in consequence, a little more care of her personal appearance, and even consented to power here hair, a piece of vanity she soon discontinued and looked back to with regret.

The idea of consecrating herself to God in religion arose in her mind at an early period. She could not point to the moment when she had first felt this desire, but she know that it had existed from the time of her childhood. It was the spontaneous fruit of grace, and the consequence and reward of her love of Jesus and His holy Mother. It is remarkable that up to the day of her own consecration she had never been acquainted with any nuns. It seemed as if our Lord had chosen to accomplish in a direct manner His own purposes in this extraordinary vocation.

It was in the year 1792 that she made up her m ind on the subject. Her sister, Marie Louise, had just been married to M. Dusaussoy, a merchant at Joigny. Sophie seized on this opportunity to declare that, for her part, she had made choice of the only Bridegroom who can be unboundedly loved, and even adored, without remorse. This resolution was an heroic act at the time when she made it, for at the very moment when she determined to enter a convent, the religious houses were on every side attacked, devastated, and despoiled. The reign of terror was fully established, the prisons full of nuns and priests, scaffolds were everywhere being erected, and the assaults directed against the Church had, even then, attained and saddened the peaceful home of the Rue du Puits-Chardon.

Louis Barat had already been ordained deacon when, in 1790, all the ministers of religion were called upon to swear fidelity to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Constitution was an act of schism, which withdrew the Church of France from the authority of the Holy See, and placed it under the control of the sovereign people. The parents of the young deacon could not estimate the bearings of this act, and alarmed at the consequences which a refusal of the oath of allegiance would entail on their son, they entreated him with tears to obey th decree. Deceived by the example of his Archbishop, the too-famous Lomenie de Brienne, and of a certain number of his priests, Louis suffered himself to be persuaded to take the required oath. But no sooner had he done so, than he perceived into what an abyss he had fallen, and listening only to the remonstrances of his conscience, he openly retracted the step he had taken, buy a letter addressed to the Municipal Council, which is still preserved in the archives of the town. After this courageous act, Louis Barat had continued to live for two years at Joigny, teaching in the College, and directing the education of his sister at his father's house; but at the end of that time, pursued by reiterated summons which offered no alternative but "the oath or death," he left that town and proceeded to Paris, bidding a possibly eternal farewell to his family and his dear pupil. In Paris he hoped more easily to conceal himself, and earn his subsistence by giving lessons. But his tranquility was not of long duration.

In the month of May of that fatal year, 1793, Louis Barat, having been denounced by a former college companion, was consigned to one of those prisons from whence the victims emerged only to mount the scaffold. This sad intelligence soon reached his parents, and from that moment life was for them but one long anguish. Madame Barat, in particular, gave way to despair, in a way which made her friends afraid that she would go out of her mind. She maintained a mournful silence, refused to take food, and perceptibly wasted away. In vain Sophie prepared and pressed upon her whatever she thought most likely to tempt her appetite. She rose from every meal in gloomy silence, after handing over to her daughter the dishes she would not touch. But one day Sophie said in a determined tone of voice: "Neither will I eat anything." "Are you ill, my child?" "No, mother, but I have resolved to eat nothing as long as you refuse food; we shall then, at any rate, die together. Madam Barat burst into tears, embraced her daughter, and consented to take some nourishment; by degrees she regained sufficient strength to await with resignation whatever it would please God to ordain for her son.

He, meanwhile, was being dragged from prison to prison. At first he was lodged in the Conciergerie, where, amongst a great number of priests, he found the Abbe Emery, Superior General of Saint Sulpice, one of the most saintly as well as learned and eminent men of the day. From the Conciergerie he was successively transferred to Sainte Pelagie, to Becetre, to Saint Lazare, and, finally to the luxembourg. These removals were occasions of severe suffering to the prisoners. Chained together in pairs and drawn slowly along in carts, they were subjected to the rudest insults of the populace. In leaving the Conciergerie, Louis Barat lost the benefit of M. Emery's edifying example, but on he other hand, he found at Saint Lazare, M. l'Abbe Duclaux, a priest of the same Society , who was also an Admirable example of ecclesiastical virtue. This holy priest took a fatherly interest in the young deacon, and in their long and familiar conversations, and by the pious exercises they practiced together during their captivity, the Abbe became his master in theology, and in the still higher science of the interior life: indeed, the prospect if immediate death continually before them was in itself a sermon. Already eighty-five of the prisoners of Saint Lazare had been beheaded, and Louis Barat was in constant expectation of his death-warrant, when the 9th Thermidor ushered in the fall of Robespierre. He was not, however, released until the month of February, 1795, after an imprisonment of one year and eight months. He had at that time attained the age of twenty-seven.

On regaining his liberty this confessor of the faith was secretly ordained by Mgr. de Barral, the former Bishop of Troyes, who had returned from exile. The new priest burned with desire to do great things for the glory of God. Sometimes, in his deep regret at not having been found worthy of martyrdom, he felt inclined to seek it in the foreign missions; at other moments, he felt powerfully attracted towards the Society of Jesus, then suppressed throughout nearly the whole of Europe, and thought of joining the Jesuits in Russia, where they still possessed some establishments. But there was a work, apparently of less importance, but in reality of greater consequence, which Providence had assigned to him as his principal mission; this was the guidance and direction of his sister. She had now reached the age of sixteen; a graceful modesty was her special characteristic. One of her nephews, a venerable priest, who died at Lille at the age of nearly eighty, thus describes her: "Her image is indelibly impressed upon my mind as the very type of that modesty and good sense for which she was so remarkable." The school of adversity had matured this good sense, strengthened her in virtue, and confirmed her resolution of giving herself to God. But these very merits were liable to become a snare. Her mother, who heard on every side the most enthusiastic praises of this beloved child, made her the object of a worship capable of injuring the most admirable qualities. "Sought after, admired, her every wish anticipated," writes one of her first companions in religion, "she was more petted and cherished than the daughter of a prince." Sophie's vocation might have been endangered by the enervating atmosphere of praise in which she lived, if a firm hand had not then hastened to withdraw her from it.

The Abbé Barat proposed and urged that she should accompany him to Paris, where he intended to settle. He thought it would be easier to train her there than at home, to become an instrument fitted for the accomplishment of the Divine will. This proposal, as might have been expected, raised a great storm; Madame Barat began by declaring that nothing on earth should separate her from her child, Sophie wept, protested, and placed herself under her mother's protection, imploring her not to consent to her being torn away from her. To this opposition the priest was, for the time, obliged to yield. He went to Paris alone, but, from thence, at once commenced a correspondence with this sister, the loss of which is to be deeply regretted.

To her brother's representations of what faith and wisdom required of her, Sophie always opposed the same objection, which appeared to her unanswerable, that of her love for her mother. "I undertook to prove to him," she relates, "that what he urged was contrary to the order of nature, and that the law of charity could never prescribe the separation of a child from her mother. I had taken in hand the defense of a bad cause, and have always reproached myself for it; of course my pleading did not succeed."

Accordingly, a second visit of the Abbé Barat to Joigny had the effect of determining his sister to this painful but necessary separation. Her father was the first to resign himself to her departure. He had remarked that his daughter was beginning to waste her time, and being certain that at Paris she would be perfectly safe with here brother, he thought they would take mutual care of each other, that she could complete her studies, and that when her merits were known, she would perhaps secure for herself a better position than that of her parents. In the end her mother was brought to the acquiesce in these views and consented to Sophie's departure, but only on condition that each year, during the vintage, she should return and spend some time with her parents.

The young girl took a sad farewell of her family and left Joigny, accompanied by her brother and one of her friends, who was also going to Paris. They traveled by the diligence: it was then a journey of many days. Sophie endeavoured to beguile the length of the road and to relieve the sadness of her first separation from her much loved home, by keeping up an animated conversation with her companion, but her brother reproved her for it. He said that a Christian maiden, when about to enter a town red with the blood of martyrs, and where religion was proscribed, ought to practice greater recollection. Sophie could foresee, from that moment how severe was to be the training she was about to go through.

It was indeed a sorrowful time for the Church of France. But whilst destruction had done its work, God had sowed seeds amongst the ruins which were about to produce fresh blossoms. His mercy remembered the city of St. Denis and St. Genevieve, of so many confessors of the faith, and of so many devoted virgins. He was already summoning to this great centre of action recruits from amongst His saints for purposes not yet known to the world or to themselves. A venerable Christian, Madame Duval, received Louis Barat and his sister in her house, in the Rue de Touraine. This hospitable dwelling became soon a perfect cenacle. In one of the rooms, transformed into an oratory, the Abbé Barat secretly celebrated Mass. The chief ornaments of this poor little chapel were two pictures, one of which had a great and almost prophetic signification; it represented St. Ignatius and his first companions consecrating themselves to Jesus Christ in the Church of Montmartre. The other was a picture of the Mother of God, holding her Son in her arms, which is not preserved with veneration in the mother-house at Paris.

Some Christian women of the neighbourhood attended Mass in this little sanctuary; the Abbé Barat gave them familiar instructions, and many of them placed themselves under his direction. Besides Madame Buval and her servant Margaret, Mdlle. Loquet came from time to time; she was a well educated woman, who had organized a workroom for young girls which proved highly useful. In her youth she had been a regular attendant at the celebrated catechetical instructions at the Churches of Saint Sulpice and St. Thomas d'Aquin, which grounded so many persons in a solid knowledge of religion. Her remarkable intelligence had been noticed at the time.

But the one esteemed above all his other disciples by the Abbé Barat was Mdlle. Octavie Bailly, a soul inflamed with the love of Jesus Christ crucified. Though more than ten years older than Sophie, she, nevertheless, became her dearest friend. The director of these pious young women soon discovered that they had all a vocation to the religious life; but at what time, in what place, or in what congregation it would be given them to follow it, was not yet apparent. The Abbé Barat left it to God to provide. Persuaded as the was that, amidst the destruction of faith, which was the prevailing evil of the day, work for souls must largely enter into all vocations, he prepared his spiritual children for an active apostleship by strengthening their minds with all kinds of knowledge. under the protection of Madame Duval's hospitable roof, he made them go through a course of scientific and classical studies. Sophie was so superior in ability to her companions, that her brother used to check her progress in order to conceal her capabilities.

It was, however, no longer to human sciences that the young girl gave the preference. She read and translated the works of sacred and ecclesiastical authors, the most beautiful passages from the Fathers, the Doctors of the Church, and the Masters of spiritual life. The Word of God especially was her delight, and nothing gave so much pleasure to the Abbé Barat as to assist her in that study.

This solid form of education very much resembled that which St. Jerome imparted to the Roman ladies of his time.

Under this discipline and amidst these influences, Sophie acquired a taste and desire for the interior life, which laid the foundation of her future sanctity. The life she led with her brother at Paris was poor, austere, and bidden in God. Rest was short in the house of the Rue de Touraine, prayer frequent, and work continual. The Abbé Barat helped in the maintenance of the inmates by giving out-door lessons, his sister worked with her hands for him and the others, whilst at the same time she educated a young girl named Laura, of whom she always preserved an affectionate remembrance.

We also learn that Sophie and her companions instructed some of the children in the neighbourhood, whom the civil times deprived of the opportunity of attending catechism. Thus the germ of the Society of the Sacred Heart may be said to have existed in this humble association of prayer, study, and charity.

Sophie had for her first director in Paris a friend of her brother's, the Abbé Philibert de Bruillard, one of those devoted priests who had given proofs of apostolic heroism during the Reign of Terror. He was afterwards Curé of St. Etienne du Mont, then Bishop of Grenoble, and ended his life in one of the houses of that Order of the Sacred Heart, the origin of which was connected with his oldest recollections.

After the lapse of half a century, he was wont to speak of the admiration he had felt for Mother Barat at that time, but he did not long continue to direct her; by his advice, the Abbé Barat resumed the care of his sister's soul, and under his zealous and stern guidance she entered on and advanced in the rough ways of the Cross.

There were many points of resemblance between the brother and sister; they were alike in their spirit of faith, their ardent devotion and indefatigable energy, and yet it would be difficult to find two natures more strongly contrasted than theirs. She was remarkable for a timid delicacy and a simple humble submissiveness, whereas he had been matured, even in some degree hardened, in the school of adversity, and was inflexible in the pursuit of what he aimed at. Sophie's sanctification was no doubt his object, for there was only one way in which such a man as Louis Barat could testify his affection for his sister, and that was by making her a saint. As a sculptor by dint of chiseling perfects the image he frames out of the white marble, so he set about producing in that pure soul a likeness of Jesus Christ. His energy was equal to his zeal, and he consequently commenced by striking hard blows.

Convinced, in the first place, that attachment to its own will is the greatest obstacle to the Divine operation in a soul, he stopped at nothing by which he could subdue self-will in his sister. If she was taking great interest in reading a book, he made her give it up. If she was working something with which she intended to please or surprise him, he threw it into the fire.

Vanity, above all was pursued into its last stronghold. The young girl had nothing in which to appear but the little Burgundian costume which she had brought from Joigny. Once, when she had made herself a somewhat smarter dress, he burnt it at once. One of Sophie's earliest and most saintly friends tells us that she could scarcely restrain her tears on this occasion, but this severity tended to purify her heart and attach it to God.

"During this period," says the same witness, "she suffered much from her brother's rigorous treatment; she felt as if she was the only person to whom he showed harshness, towards others he was most indulgent. But nothing could shake her confidence in one who took so true an interest in her soul, and who was himself a pattern of perfect mortification. He subjected his sister to these trials in order to train her to sanctity, and in imposing on her penances, hard and repugnant to self-love, he used every effort to make her love them."

And with that view he always told her to perform them in union with our Lord's sufferings. "The poor child used to shed many tears in secret," writes her friend, "but she united them to those of Jesus Christ, whom she already dearly loved." Love not only softens but also transforms all it touches, and what at first had been only accepted with resignation soon because a positive pleasure. She learnt at last to smile at what once had made her suffer.

This increasing love of Christ produced in her humility, which was always one of Mother Barat's principal virtues. The height of her ambition at that time was to be received by the Carmelites as a lay-sister. Everything she heard and read confirmed her in this desire, by showing her how pleasing obscurity is to the Heart of Jesus Christ, and if sometimes she felt discouraged by the examples of eminent sanctity contained in the lives of the saints, she tells us how she consoled herself. "Those huge sanctities frighten me, but no matter, there is at least one way by which I can approach these models, and that is humility, and that shall be the way in which I will show my God that I love Him."

This was indeed her director's object in his guidance of her conscience, but, impelled by a zeal as yet wanting in experience, he went further than was necessary, and ran into dangerous excesses. Eager for the purification of this submissive soul, her brother made her scrutinize minutely its innermost folds, and insisted on interminable general confessions which agitated and troubled her. Full of fears before Holy Communion, she was driven to seek pretexts for abstaining from receiving our Lord in the Sacrament of His love. It sometimes happened that even at the foot of the alter, when her director was saying Mass, he saw her tremble and hesitate. He would then make her a sign to approach and she out of obedience, received the Divine Spouse of virgins.

At that time also consumed with love for Jesus Christ and indignant at bearing so little resemblance to Him, Sophie thought that the only way of punishing herself and pleasing Him was to crucify her innocent flesh. She fasted, watched, slept on the bare ground, and disciplined her delicate frame. She also wore an iron girdle, which, later on, the Abbé Barat sent as a trophy to the first religious of the Sacred Heart with these lines.

Le corps est dana les fers, l'ame est en liberté
Le fer du temps devient l'or de l'éternité

Sophie's constitution, naturally delicate, was still further enfeebled by austerities which surpassed her strength. In sanctioning these her director made a mistake, which he understood when experience had improved his knowledge of the guidance of souls. In after years he asked pardon of God and of his sister for this involuntary error.

Sophie's sojourn in Paris did not make her forget her family in Burgundy. A correspondence, as frequent as the times permitted, constantly kept up in all its strength, an affection of which religion never requires the sacrifice or weakens the tenderness, but to this tenderness were not united that love for God and zeal for souls which purify and sanctify human attachments. The first of Sophie's letters which we possess evinces this feeling; it is addressed to her sister, Madame Dusaussoy, who was ill at the time. Sophie pities her sufferings, encourages her in her duties, and promises to assist her in the education of her young family. She says: "I am much grieved, my dear sister, at the troubles which afflict you, for I know how weak you are and how keen are your feelings. I hope your illness will not increase, but try not to lose the benefit of these afflictions, and take advantage of your present state to draw nearer to God. If you have a little confidence in Him, He will assist you, and you will soon feel that by a few efforts everything can be achieved." She then promises in the fullness of her heart what she subsequently so abundantly performed. "My good sister, open your heart to me; ah! if you but knew how I feel your sorrows! How I should wish, if it were possible, to relieve you of half your heavy burden. That time will come. You are not abandoned in your needs as a mother, for God, who knows your helplessness, sends you friends who will assist you."

In some of her other letters we see the high ideas which this young girl of twenty had conceived of the sacred duties of a mother. "By delaying this assistance, God shows that He wishes you for a short time to bear your burden alone; but in order not to frustrate His merciful intentions, do not neglect any means of inculcating religion in the young souls He has confided to you. Do not deceive yourself, they are not your own, they are a deposit for which you will have one day to render an account. Adieu, my dear sister; tenderly embrace all your little family for me, and be assured I am always, with the same affection and the same tenderness, your sister and your friend."

According to agreement, Sophie returned each year to spend the vintage-time with her family. She was a perfect model of what a young girl ought to be in her home, and gained over her young companions and friends an influence which she owed even more to her prudence and goodness than to her talents and information. She spoke to them of God, took them with her to church, inspired them with her own devotion to the Queen of Virgins, and induced them to go often to Confession and Communion. But the chief attraction and greatest object of her solicitude were the souls of children. Her eldest nephew, of whom we have already spoken, thus dwells on his recollections of his holy relative. "My aunt's modesty, her sweetness, her soft melodious voice quite fascinated me, even at the age of four or five. During the holidays, she often kindly took me by the hand, and walked with me on the heights which rise above the smiling valley of the Yonne. It was there that she used to instruct me, and to tell me of God and of His love; relating to me stories suitable to my age, singing to me sweet hymns, and reciting pieces of sacred poetry. I particularly remember one beautiful day in autumn, when, having seated ourselves under the shade of a great oak tree, within view of the windings of the river, my aunt recited for me the speech of the young Eliacin from the tragedy of "Athalie." Her countenance seemed to glow with the fire which burnt in her heart, and her accents seemed inspired. I listened to her, spell-bound by a sense of the beautiful which I was for the first time conscious of, and now, in my extreme old age, I still retain the remembrance of those hours." The same nephew relates that his aunt sometimes said to him, "You are very happy to be a man; it is a privilege I envy you, for men can do great things for God.

What was it she desired to do? In what direction was the hand pointing which was invisibly leading her on? She did not know it then: she had made her first apprenticeship of life in that humble manner which prepares the soul for future apostleship. By the simplicity of her character and its genuine humility, she had remained faithful to her obscure origin, but her education and her superiority of mind raised her far above her station. She was now twenty, and during the four years she had spent in Paris she had acquired a solidity of virtue capable of bearing the weight of a great responsibility. She felt that she was called to the religious life, but she did not see in France any religious institute that fully satisfied her aspirations. Two different attractions seemed to be struggling in her heart. Sometimes, when reading the life of St. Francis Xavier and the great missionaries, she was filled with a vehement ardour for the conquest of souls, and longed to become an apostle and an an evangelist of the love of Jesus Christ even to the furthest extremities of the earth; or, at least, of cooperating in the apostolic work about to recommence in her native land. At other times, the example of St. Theresa inflamed her soul with love for Jesus Christ crucified, and directed her thoughts towards those retreats where, close to His Sacred Heart, the spouses of Jesus consume themselves in lives of solitude, prayer and sacrifice.

The active and contemplative life, great as is the difference between them, appeared equally holy and useful to the future foundress of the Sacred Heart, bu t she could not discern as yet which of these lives her Lord Ws calling her to embrace. She did not know that Providence intended her to combine both in a new Institute, the idea of which God had revealed to one of His servants. The hour was at hand when the scattered elements of this great work were about to coalesce under the mighty hand of God.

About the month of July, in the year 1800, the Abbé Barat spoke of his sister to a holy priest with whom he was intimate: a light was given to this servant of God which decided her vocation.

Sophie was, at that time, spending her holidays with her family at Joigny. Her brother, who was only waiting for the moment of her entrance into some religious order, had recently taken an important step. Obeying the impulse which, for a long time past, had attracted him to the Society of Jesus, he joined some fervent priests, who, adopting the name of Fathers of the Faith, lived in community under the rule of St. Ignatius, and aimed at re-establishing his order. It was Father Varin, or, as he was often called, Father Joseph, who, on M. Bruillard's recommendation, admitted the Abbé Barat into this association. This great servant of God was ordained to be the instrument of Providence, not only with regard to the direction of Mother Barat's soul, but in all that related to the Society of the Sacred Heart, which looks upon him as its founder, and venerates him as its lawgiver and its model.

Joseph Varin d'Ainvelle, born at Besançon, of a family of legal eminence, was then about thirty years of age. His life, which had been a singularly varied and restless one, was marked by special graces; and his brilliant qualities fitted him him for great achievements; but for a long time he did not appear to be conscious of it. At the age of sixteen, he cared for nothing but horses, hunting, races, adventures or travels. However, at nineteen, he entered the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, at Paris, and there, under the guidance of M. Emery, he subjected to study, to piety, and to self-discipline, a soul which had, as yet, lost nothing of its fiery impetuosity. But sedentary occupations were unsuited to his nature, and soon affected his health so much that he was forced to give up his studies. He left Paris at the age of twenty-two, on the day rendered famous by the fall of the Bastille. Soon afterwards we find him serving as a dragoon in the army of Cond%acute;, and displaying chivalrous bravery during the campaigns of 1792 and 1793. In the midst of the perils of war, his health, which seemed absolutely to require activity and excitement, was completely restored, and his faith and purity did not suffer.

When he was twenty-five years of age, in despair at having missed a bloody engagement, which had taken place while he was staying on leave of absence with his family, he went to Belgium, and enrolled himself in the regiment of the hussars of Choiseul. When passing through Vanloo, he visited four of his seminary friends, who urged him to consecrate himself at once with them to the service of God. the gallant soldier at first only laughed and said: "Make anything you like of me except a monk." "Do not be afraid," replied the head of the little band, "you will still be a warrior. We shall fight for the Lord with hand and heart." Varin agreed to lay the matter before God in prayer. He went to Confession and Communion. God spoke to his heart. When he rose from his knees he was weeping, and seizing the hand of the priest who had given him Holy Communion, he said: "If God were to send an angel to declare to me His will, I could not know it with more absolute certainty. I hesitate no longer, I belong to you."

This took place on the 18th of July, the evening of the very day on which his mother, the heroic Madame Varin, mounted the scaffold, "to ascent," as she said herself, "from thence to heaven." Her son was then ignorant that his mother's last prayer had been that he might regain his lost vocation.

The four friends who had thus reclaimed for the Church this soul whose mother had, as it were, purchased with her blood, were the Abbé Charles de Broglie, Pierre Charles Leblanc, Xaxier de Tournély, and his eldest brother, Léonor de Tournély, a priest of angelic piety, who had been elected by his friends Superior of the little Society of the Sacred Heart, the title adopted by the band of young men who had resolved to revive the Society of Jesus.

On the very day on which they had secured this valuable associate, the little wandering congregation started on its travels, and after a journey of five weeks arrived at Augsburg. It was there that, after courageously going through his two years probation, Joseph Varin was ordained priest. It is thus he hails this blessed captivity; "Here I am bound, attached for my whole life, as a victim to the alter. I have no wish, thank God, to be freed from these bonds. I would rather die than break these chains of which the angles acknowledge themselves unworthy. I prize them, I hug them; they are my whole happiness. But why have I not a new heart, a heart burning with love for so good a Master, for such a Friend, for so tender a Father, whom I shall see under my eyes, and carry in my hands every day of my life?

Driven by the progress of the French invasion from Augsburg to Passau, from Passau to Vienna, from Vienna to Hagenbrunn, the little colony, poor and persecuted, increased every day in numbers and in fervour. It was then that God began to open a new work to their faith.

It was not enough for their priestly zeal to labour at reviving religion amongst men; women also, the mothers of families, Christian wives, virtuous young girls, were to bear a very considerable share, greater than ever, in the renovation of society. With this intention Father de Tournély was inspired to found, in the same manner, and almost on the same plan, as his society of men, a society of women, consecrated to the instruction of the children, not only of the poor, but of the upper and influential classes. To be devoted tot he Heart of Jesus, to revive His love in the souls and the light of His doctrine in the minds of Christians, to borrow, as it were, the sentiments and interior inclinations of the Divine Heart, and to impart them to others by means of education, such was to be the object and the spirit of the order of women which Father de Tournély had in view, and it was to bear, as well as the society of men he had founded, the name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Our Divine Lord Himself had revealed it to His servant. In order to understand what intimate communications may have existed between our Lord and the holy Superior of the Community of Hagenbrunn, we must dwell on the details which have been transmitted to us, concerning the special sanctity and heavenly beauty of Father de Tournély soul. He was, in fact, the original founder of the religious family of the Sacred Heart; it derived from him the spirit which has animated it, and this circumstance throws a light on its whole history.

Seldom has God been more loved upon earth than by this priest, of whose well-known sanctity M. Emery thus writes; "I have been intimately acquainted with men eminent for virtue; I have read the lives of a great number of saints; and I declare that I have never met a soul more inflamed with the love of God than that of my dear de Tournély."

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