Madame de Miramion
MADAME DE MIRAMION.
CHARITY is of no age, race, or country. Travelers among the most savage tribes find kind and compassionate hearts, and some of the most excellent institutions of benevolence have been founded in times of the grossest corruption of manners and morals. In the worst periods there are always some who preserve their integrity, and assert by their conduct the dignity of human nature.
Madame de Miramion, a French lady of rank and fortune, born in 1629, passed the whole of her life near the showy and licentious court of Louis XIV, and in the society of Paris, when that society was most devoted to pleasure. But from her childhood she was drawn irresistibly to a nobler life, and she spent the greater part of her existence in alleviating human anguish, and founding institutions which have continued the same beneficent office ever since. A beauty and an heiress, she turned away from the pleasures of her circle at the age when they are usually most alluring. At nine years of age the death of her mother, a woman devoted to piety and good works, saddened her life and made her for a while morbid in her feelings. In the midst of a gay and brilliant circle of relations and friends, the child was moody, sorrowful, and averse to society.
" I think constantly of death," she said one day to her governess, "and ask myself, should I like to die ? should 1 like to die at this moment ?"
The governess encouraged these feelings, and dissuaded
the child from indulging in the sports proper to her years, telling her of eminent saints who denied themselves all pleasures, and even inflicted pain upon themselves by wearing hair shirts and girdles of iron. She saved her money, bought secretly a thick iron chain, and wore it around her waist next her skin, whenever she thought she might be in danger of becoming too much interested in pleasure. This was, indeed, a common practice in France two hundred years ago. Like Florence Nightingale, she had, even in her childhood, a remarkable love of nursing and amusing the sick. In a largo household, such as the one of which she was a part, there are always some invalids, and it was her delight, during her play hours, to steal away to their bedrooms to entertain them by reading, and assist in taking care of them. She would even glide from the ball-room on festive occasions to visit a sick servant, happier to mitigate suffering than to enjoy pleasure.
When she was fourteen her father died, leaving her, an orphan and an heiress, to the care of an ambitious aunt, whose only thought concerning her was to secure her a brilliant match and see her distinguished in society. The young lady had no such thoughts. Grief-stricken at the loss of her father, and weaned from fashionable pleasure still more by that event, she would have entered a con-vent, if she had not felt that she must be a mother to her younger brothers. For their sakes she continued in the world. Her aunt, to dispel what she deemed the gloomy thoughts of an unformed girl, endeavored to distract her mind by causing her to be presented at court, by taking her often to the theatre, and making parties for her entertainment. She succeeded for a time, and the young lady gave herself up to the enjoyments provided for her.
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She had grown, meanwhile, into a beauty. Her figure was tall, finely formed, and exceedingly graceful ; and
her face, of a noble loveliness, with a complexion of dazzling purity and eyes of heavenly blue, was set off by a great abundance of nut-brown ringlets, which fell down about her shoulders and neck. But the great charm of her countenance was an expression of mingled love and benevolence, such as usually, though not always, marks the features of those who naturally delight in doing good. Among the young ladies of her time there was none more beautiful than she, and to her charms of face and form was added the attraction of broad estates and fair chateaux, all her own.
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As she again showed symptoms of discontent with a life of pleasure, even recurring occasionally to the iron chain, her aunt urged her to signify a preference for one of the numerous eligible lovers who had been flitting round her ever since her entrance into society. One of them, it seems, had attracted her regard. It was M. de
Miramion, who, as she had observed at church and else-where, was particularly attentive to his mother, which led her to believe he was a worthy young man, who would sympathize with her desire to hold aloof from the frivolous life of her class. He was rich, and of noble rank, well looking, and in love with the beautiful Mademoiselle de
Rubelle. They were married —he twenty-seven, sated with the pleasures of the world ; she sixteen, superior to them. All went happily for a few months.
"I gave up playing cards," she wrote, " and going to balls and theaters, which caused great surprise. I began a regular life ; I won over my husband, and persuaded him to live like a good Christian. We were very much united, and much beloved by our family, with whom we never had any disagreement, except from their efforts to make me amuse myself."
This harmonious married life was rudely terminated, at the end of six months, by the death of the husband, after an illness of a week. At seventeen Madame de
Miramion was a widow, and about to be a mother. The blow was so sudden and severe that nothing, perhaps, would have availed to recall her to an interest in mundane affairs but the birth of her daughter. When she reappeared in the great world, she was lovelier than ever in her face and person, and her fortune had been increased by her portion of her husband's estate. She was a very rich and beautiful widow of eighteen, with only the incumbrance of an infant in arms. Lovers again surrounded her, but she encouraged none of them; and, indeed, she was firmly resolved to dedicate her life to the education of her daughter. Among her suitors was a roue of high rank and wasted fortune—a widower with three daughters, who felt how advantageous it would be to add the lady's estate to his own. Rejected by her, he was given to understand by a friend of the family that she really liked hint, and was only prevented from marrying limn by the fear of offending her relations. This was false, but he believed it, and he determined to carry her off in the style of an old-fashioned romance.
On a certain day, as the young widow and her mother-in-law were going in a carriage to a church near Paris, the vehicle was suddenly surrounded by a band of horse-men wearing masks. They stopped the carriage and opened the door. The young lady screamed with terror, which the horsemen attributed to her desire to keep up appearances before her mother-in-law, and therefore proceeded to execute their purpose. The old lady and one servant were left in the road to make their way home as best they could, while the carriage containing the prize was driven rapidly away, surrounded by the gentlemen on horseback, led by the lover. All day the party galloped on until, at the close of the afternoon, they reached an ancient castle, with wall, moat, and draw-bridges, as we find them in the novels of the period. Here a party of two hundred of the abductor's friends were in
waiting, all armed, and all possessed with the idea that the abduction was undertaken with the full and free consent of the lady. She soon undeceived them. She utterly refused to enter the castle or leave the carriage. At length one of the gentlemen, a knight of a. religious order, gave her his word of honor that if she would alight and remain in the castle for the night, she should be set free at daybreak, and conveyed in safety to her friends. She then consented to accept the shelter proffered her. She passed the night in solitude, and in the morning was replaced in her carriage and set free.
Such was the state of the law at that time in France, and such the power of the nobility, that the perpetrators of this outrage escaped punishment, and people generally seem to have thought it a gallant and high-spirited adventure, and one that ought to have been rewarded with success.
From this time to the end of her life, Madame de Miramion thought no more of lovers. After recovering from the serious illness caused by that day and night of terror, she entered upon the way of life which has caused her name to be remembered with honor and affection for two centuries. She became austerely religions. Site economized her large income, so as to have the largest possible sum to expend in works and institutions of charity—discarding all the gay costumes and decorations of her sex, and wearing always a plain, peculiar dress, like that of a religious order. She personally superintended her affairs, and showed a particular talent for business, making the most of all her sources of income. The education of her daughter was her own work, and so successful was she with her, that when site was married at fifteen, she was regarded and treated as a mature woman, and proved worthy of the confidence reposed in her.
Madame de Miramion was the first lady in Europe who ever tried systematically to reclaim the fallen of her own sex. She hired a spacious house in Paris, into which she received those who wished to reform, and there she maintained and taught them, and for such as persisted in leading an honest life, she procured places or husbands. Other ladies of rank joined her the King assisted, and the establishment continues its benevolent work to the present day. She also founded a dispensary, which not only supplied the poor with medicines, but instructed a number of women in the art of preparing them, and in the making of salves and plasters. An excellent institution founded by her was an industrial school for young girls, where they were taught sewing, household arts, reading, writing, and the catechism, all the pupils being furnished every day with a good plain dinner. In all these establishments, Madame de Miramion labored with her own hands and head, setting an example of devotion and skill to all who assisted her. Her singular aptitude for managing business, and her knowledge of finance, stood her in good stead. During one of those times of famine which used to desolate France, she hit upon the expedient of selling a piece of bread and a certain quantity of soup at cost, or a little below cost, by which many thousands were carried over the period of scarcity who would not have been reached by charity.
She spent her life in labors like these, devoting herself and all she possessed to the mitigation of human woe, reserving literally nothing for her own enjoyment. It was she who gave that impulse to works of charity which has rendered Paris the city of Europe most abounding in organizations for the alleviation of poverty and pain. She died in 1694. Recently her memoirs have been published in Paris by a member of her family, and the work, 1 hope, will find its way, through a translation, to readers in America.
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