for him a little
treatise on the manner of preaching. He by no means neglects the
father-in-law, the rough old Baron de Chantal, an ancient relic of the
wars of the League, the object of the daughter-in-law's particular
adoration. But he succeeds especially in captivating the young
children; he shows his tenderness in a thousand ways, by a thousand
pious caresses, such as the heart of a woman, and that woman a mother,
had scarcely been able to suggest. He prays for them, and desires
these infants to remember him in their prayers.

Only one person in this household was difficult to be tamed, and this
was Madame de Chantal's confessor. It is here, in this struggle
between the Director and the Confessor, that we learn what address,
what skilful manoeuvres and stratagems, are to be found in the
resources of an ardent will. This confessor was a devout personage,
but of confined and shallow intellect, and small means. The Saint
desires to become his friend,--he submits to his superior wisdom the
advice he is about to give. He skilfully comforts Madame de Chantal,
who entertained some misgiving about her spiritual infidelity, and who,
finding herself moving on an agreeable sloping path, was fearful she
had left the rough road to salvation. He carefully entertains this
scruple in order the better to do away with it; to her inquiry whether
she ought to impart it to her confessor, he adroitly gives her to
understand that it may be dispensed with.

He declares then as a conqueror, who has nothing to fear, that far from
being, like the other, uneasy, jealous, and peevish, who required
implicit obedience, he on the contrary imposes no obligations, but
leaves her entirely free--no obligation, save that of Christian
friendship, whose tie is called by St. Paul "the bond of perfectness:"
all other ties are temporal, even that of obedience; but that of
charity increases with time: it is free from the scythe of
death,--"Love is strong as death," saith the Song of Solomon. He says
to her, on another occasion, with much ingenuousness and dignity: "I do
not add one grain to the truth; I speak before God, who knows my heart
and yours; every affection has a character that distinguishes it from
the others; that which I feel for you has a peculiar character, that
gives me infinite consolation, and to tell you all, is extremely
profitable to me. I did not wish to say so much, but one word produces
another, and then I know you will be