her interests. When she entrusts to that
man her highest interest, that of eternal salvation, how can she help
confiding to him her little temporal concerns, the marriage of her
children, and the WILL she intends to make? &c., &c.

The confessor is bound to secrecy, he is silent (or ought to be). The
director, however, is not so tied down. He may reveal what he knows,
especially to a priest, or to another director. Let us suppose about
twenty priests assembled in a house (or not quite so many, out of
respect for the law against meetings), who may be, some of them the
confessors, and others directors of the same persons: as directors they
may mutually exchange their information, put upon a table a thousand or
two thousand consciences in common, combine their relations, like so
many chessmen, regulate beforehand all the movements and interests, and
allot to one another the different parts they have to play to bring the
whole to their purpose.

The Jesuits alone formerly worked thus in concert; but it is not the
fault of the leaders of the clergy, in these days, if the whole of this
body, with trembling obedience, do not play at this villanous game. By
their all communicating together, their secret revelations might
produce a vast mysterious science, which would arm ecclesiastical
policy with a power a hundred times stronger than that of the state can
possibly be.

Whatever might be wanting in the confession of the master, would easily
be supplied by that of his servants and valets. The association of the
Blandines of Lyons, imitated in Brittany, Paris, and elsewhere, would
alone be sufficient to throw a light upon the whole household of every
family. It is in vain they are known, they are nevertheless employed;
for they are gentle and docile, serve their masters very well, and know
how to see and listen.

Happy the father of a family who has so virtuous a wife, and such
gentle, humble, honest, pious servants. What the ancient sighed for,
namely, to live in a glass dwelling, where he might be seen by every
one, this happy man enjoys without even the expression of a wish. Not
a syllable of his is lost. He may speak lower and lower, but a fine
ear has caught every word. If he writes down his secret thoughts, not
wishing to utter them, they are read:--by whom? No one knows. What he
dreams upon his pillow, the next morning, to his great astonishment, he
hears in the street.

[1] St. Francois de Sales, th