CATHERINE'S LETTER TO THE KING OF FRANCE.

The letter selected as a specimen of the vast mass of the Saint's correspondence is perhaps the most specially celebrated of the whole collection. It was to Charles V. of France, on the 6th of May, 1379, on the subject of the favour shown by him to the party of the Anti-pope Clement VII., and runs as follows:—

"Dearest father in sweet Christ Jesus, I Catherine the slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in his precious blood, with the desire to see in you[29] a true and entirely perfect light, in order that you may know the truth of that which is necessary to you for your salvation. Without this light, we shall go into darkness; darkness which will not permit us to discern that which is hurtful to the soul and to the body, from that which is useful to us; and thus destroys the perceptions of the soul, so that good things are made to seem bad, and bad things good, that is to say, vice. And those things, which lead us to sin, appear to us good and delightful; and virtue, and that which leads us to virtue, appears to us bitter and of great difficulty. But he, who has light, knows well the truth; and accordingly loves virtue, and God, who is the cause of all virtue; and hates vice, and his own sensuality, which is the cause of all vice. What is it, that takes from us this true and sweet light? The self-love which a man has for his own self, which is a cloud that obscures the eye of the intellect, and hides from the pupil the light of the most holy faith. And thus a man goes as one blind and ignorant, following his own frailty, wholly given up to passion, without the light of reason, even as an animal, which, because it has no reasoning powers, allows itself to be guided by its own sensations. Great pity is it that man, whom God has created in his own image and likeness, should voluntarily by his own fault make himself worse than the brute animal, that like an ungrateful and ignorant creature, neither knows nor acknowledges the benefits of God, but attributes them to himself. From self-love proceeds every evil. Whence come injustice, and all the other faults? From self-love. It commits injustice against God, against itself, against its neighbour, and against Holy Church. Against God it commits injustice, in that it does not render glory and praise to his name, as it ought to do. To itself it does not render hatred and dislike of vice, and love of virtue; nor to its neighbour benevolence; and if it is found in a ruler, it does not do justice to its neighbour, because it does so[30] only according to the pleasure of human creatures, or for its own natural pleasure.[31] Nor to the Church does it render obedience, or assistance, but continually persecutes it. All is caused by self-love, which does not permit a man to know the truth, because he is deprived of light. This is very manifest to us, and we see it, and have proofs in ourselves every day that it is so.

"I would not, dearest father, that this cloud should take the light from you; but I wish that there should be in you that light, which is able to make you know and discern the Truth. It appears to me, from what I hear, that you begin to allow yourself to be guided by the counsel of evil men; and you know, that if one blind one leads another, both fall into the ditch. So will it happen to you, if you do not find some better remedy than what I hear of. It is a matter of great wonder to me, that a Catholic man, who is willing to fear God, and to be manlike, should let himself be guided like a child, and should not see how he leads himself and others into so great ruin, as is the contaminating the light of the most Holy Faith according to the word and counsel of those whom we see to be members of the devil, corrupt trees, whose faults are manifest to us by the poison of heresy they have recently disseminated, saying that Pope Urban VI. is not truly Pope. Open the eye of your mind,[32] and see that they lie in their throats,[33] may be put to confusion by their own showing, and be seen to be worthy of heavy punishment, from whatever side we turn ourselves. If we turn to those, who, as they say, elected Urban Pope from fear of the fury of the people, they say what is not the truth, since they, in the first instance, had elected him by an election so canonical and orderly, that never was any other supreme pontiff so elected. They in truth gave out, that they proceeded to elect for fear the people should rise, but not that from this fear they elected Bartholomew, Archbishop of Bari, who is now Urban VI. And this much I confess is the truth, and do not deny it. He whom they elected by fear was the Cardinal of St. Peter,[34] as is evident to every one; but the election of Pope Urban was made in a legitimate manner, as has been said. This election they announced to you, and to us, and to the other rulers of the world, manifesting by their deeds, that which they told us in words, doing reverence to him, that is to say, adoring him as Christ on earth, and crowning him with all solemnity, and by remaking anew the election with great unanimity. From him, as from the supreme Pontiff, they besought favours, and used them. And if it were not true that Urban is Pope, but that he has been elected under the constraint of fear, would not they be worthy eternally of confusion? That the pillars of Holy Church, set up for the spreading of the faith, should for fear of bodily death, be willing to consign themselves and us to eternal death, by showing us as our father one who was not so. And would they not be thieves, taking and using[35] that which they had no right to use? Indeed, if that were true, which they now say, as true it is not, still Urban VI. is truly Pope. But fools and blinded madmen as they are, they have shown and given to us this truth, and hold a lie for themselves. This truth they confessed so long as his Holiness delayed to correct their vices. But as soon as he began to attack them, and to show that their wicked mode of life was displeasing to him, and that he was minded to put an end to it, they immediately raised their heads. And against whom have they raised them? Against the holy faith. They have acted worse than renegade Christians.

"Oh! miserable men! They and those who follow them know not their own ruin; for if they knew it, they would seek the Divine aid; they would acknowledge their fault, and not be obstinate as the devils, as devils they in truth appear, and have taken on them the office of such. The office of the devils is to pervert souls from Christ crucified, to withdraw them from the way of the truth, to lead them into lies, and to gather them through pain and through punishment to himself, who is the father of lies, giving them that fate which he has for himself. In like manner these men go subverting the truth which they themselves have given us; and returning to lies, have introduced division into the whole world. And that evil which they have in themselves, that they propose to us. Have we the will to know thoroughly this truth? Let us look now and consider their life and conduct, and what following they have of themselves, who are followers of the vestiges of iniquity; since one devil is not contrary to another, but on the contrary they agree together. And pardon me, dearest father (for such I will consider you, as long as I see you to be a lover of truth, and confounder of lies), for I speak thus, because grief for the damnation of them and of others, and the desire I have for their salvation, causes me to do so. I say this not in disparagement of them, as God's creatures, but in disparagement of vice and of the heresy which they have sown throughout the world, and of the cruelty of which they are guilty towards themselves, and towards the humble souls that perish by their means, for which they must give an account to the Supreme Judge. For if they had been men having the fear of God, or if not the fear of God, respect for the opinion of the world, they would patiently have borne the worst that Pope Urban could have done to them, or even greater contumely, and would have preferred a thousand deaths to doing what they have done; for to greater shame they cannot come, than to appear to the eyes of mankind schismatics, and heretical despisers of the holy faith. If I look to spiritual and corporeal loss, I see them by heresy deprived of God as regards his mercies, and in the body reasonably deprived of their dignities; and they themselves have done it. If I look to the Divine judgment I see it close upon them, if they do not lift themselves out of this darkness; for every fault is punished, and every good deed is rewarded. It will be hard for them to kick against God, if they possessed the greatest possible human power. God is the supreme strength, which fortifies the weak who confide and trust in Him. And it is the truth; and the truth is that which makes us free. We see that only the truth of the servants of God follows,[36] and holds this truth of Pope Urban VI., confessing him to be truly Pope, as he is. You will not find a servant of God, who is a servant of God, that holds the contrary.[37] I do not speak of such as wear outside the garment of lambs, but inside are ravenous wolves. And do you suppose that, if this were not the truth, God would endure that His servants should walk in such darkness? He would not endure it. If He endures it in the wicked men of the world, He would not endure it in them; and therefore He has given them the light of His truth, for He is no despiser of holy desires but is the accepter of them, like a kind and merciful Father as He is. I would that you would call to you such men as these, and cause them to declare this truth to you; and that you would not choose to walk so ignorantly. Let not your private interest move you; for that would be worse in you than in any other. Have pity on the many souls which you cast into the hands of the devils. If you will not do good, at least do not evil; for evil frequently turns more to the hurt of him who does it, than of him whom the doer of it wishes to injure. So much evil comes of it, that by it we lose the grace of God, temporal wealth is consumed, and the death of men follows from it. Alas me! And it does not seem that we[38] see the light; for the cloud of self-love has taken from us the light, and does not let us see. For this reason we are apt to receive any evil information, that may be given to us against the truth by lovers of themselves. But if we have the light it will not be so; but with great prudence and holy fear of God, you would be willing to know and investigate this truth by means of men of conscience and knowledge. If you choose, ignorance need not fall upon you, since you have where you are the fountain of knowledge,[39] which I fear you may lose if you continue in your present course; and you know well how your kingdom will fare, if they shall be men of good consciences, who will not follow a human will with servile fear, but will maintain the truth. They will declare it to you, and will put your mind and soul at rest. Now act not so any more, most dear Father! consult your own conscience; think that you must die, and that you know not when; put before the eye of your intellect, God and his truth, and not interest, or love of country; for as regards God, we ought not to make any difference between one country and another, since we all proceed from His holy mind, are created in His image and likeness, and redeemed by the precious blood of His only-begotten Son. I am certain that if you have light you will do this, and will not wait for time, for time does not wait for you; and will invite them[40] to return to their holy and true obedience, but otherwise not. And for this reason I said that I desired to see in you a true and perfect light, in order that with the light you may recognise and love and fear the truth. My soul will then be made happy by your safety, at seeing you come out from so great an error. I say to you nothing further. Remain in the holy and sweet love of God. Pardon me if I have been too heavy on you with my words. My desire for your safety urges me to say them to you by my mouth in your[41] presence, rather than by writing. May God fill you with His most sweet grace. Jesus is sweet; Jesus is love."[42]

Such is the composition pronounced to be unsurpassed for weight of reasoning and eloquence, and to be equal to the writings of Petrarch! Can it be supposed that, putting out of the question any influence exercised by the character of the writer, any human mind was ever persuaded to do or to think anything by such an address? As argument it is surely worse than in any other point of view. With the exception of the passage pointing out the insincerity of the cardinals who raised objections to the election of Urban, there were perhaps never strung together so many absurdly glaring instances of begging the question. And as for rhetorical power, surely in this waste of pleonastic phrases, redundant tautology, and trite common-place hack-preacher's topics, there is no faintest trace even of that untaught eloquence which strong feeling and earnest conviction are apt to command.

And yet looking at the matter in hand from the fourteenth century point of view, what a subject it was to call forth an awful and heart-stirring appeal! If a true Pope be anything, how tremendous and infinitely horrible a phenomenon must an Anti-pope be. Think of the adulteration of the infallible with the fallible, of the doubts engendered, where certainty is imperatively needed, of the sacraments nullified, and the one half of sacred Christendom cheated into eternal perdition, as the necessary result of void ordinations, void baptisms, and void absolutions, and think for a moment how Petrarch, or still better how Dante, would have written on such a subject!

But Catherine must have sincerely believed that her utterances were the utterances of inspiration, and must necessarily have effect as such. For that she bestowed on this long and important letter none of the ordinary care and labour which such a composition would naturally claim from a merely human author, is curiously shown by the record which has preserved the fact, that the Saint dictated three other long letters on the same 6th of May on which she composed this! It is recorded also that she occasionally dictated as many as three letters to three secretaries at the same time. Her biographer and commentators consider the excessive outpouring of words one of the most remarkable proofs of her supernatural claims and powers. And more sceptical minds may admit it as at least a proof of wonderful energy, and indomitable strength of volition.