Chapter 1: Julie
Billiart and Francoise Blin de Bourdon
The circumstances under which it was founded and the
distinctive dispositions of its Foundresses gave the Sisters of Notre Dame
congregation – the SND – its unique animating force, its spiritual identity,
its charism. From the beginning, the
spirituality of the SND – what Francoise and Julie called their “primitive
spirit” – expressed itself in characteristic ways, among them respect for all
individuals regardless of age, gender, disability or social class; a strong
preference for providing education to those who were most vulnerable due to
poverty or neglect; and a commitment to active engagement with a world in need.
A cloistered life of contemplative prayer – the most common option available to
women religious at the time – was not for them. These characteristics of the
SND were well grounded in the French revolutionary era during which they were
formed. Other formative characteristics included a desire for respectful self
government within the established hierarchy of the Catholic church; patient
fortitude in response to adversity; spiritual fellowship with others; and a
courageous openness to the deep bonds of friendship that can bring temporal
joy.
By the social standards of pre-revolutionary France, the two
Foundresses could not have been more different. Julie Billiart was an invalid
of humble parentage, bedridden by what scholars now believe was multiple
sclerosis and unable to even speak clearly at the time the two woment first
met. Francoise was a refined aristocrat, eloquent and active, who loved the
outdoors and was originally repulsed by Julie’s infirmity. Those superficial
differences faded over time, however, as the two women developed deep bonds of
mutual support and friendship based on their internal qualities, which were
quite complementary. This loving mutuality of spiritual friendship continues to
evolve today in response to the realities of the 21st century,
acting as an energizing force in the lives and work of SNDs throughout the world.
Francoise’s early
life & education (1756-1781)
Francoise Blin de Bourdon was raised from infancy by her
maternal grandparents amid the placid natural surroundings of their Gezaincourt
estate. Her parents and older siblings lived nearby on the paternal estate of
Bourdon. Both sides of her family were respected landowners with impeccable
aristocratic lineage (Recker 9-10). In accordance with the best intentions of
traditional noblesse oblige, they
took seriously their responsibilities to the villagers who lived on their
lands. By doing so, Francoise’s family earned the loyalty of those same
villagers during the turbulent years of the French Revolution, when
aristocratic lineage became distinctly unfashionable (ibid 21-23).
In 1756, the year Francoise was born, there were already
intimations of the revolutionary upheaval to come. Critique was growing within
enlightened circles during this period, even among the aristocracy, but
privilege was well-entrenched and resistance to change was strong when it required
actual sacrifices of one’s wealth or status. Several unsuccessful attempts had
been made to reform the French taxation system, for example, a system which had
long been held hostage by the privileged few who benefitted from it and placed
an increasingly unfair burden on the people with the least to give.
Controller-General Etienne de Silhouette perceived the need for a more
equitable distribution of the tax burden when he attempted in 1759 to introduce
a tax on items used primarily by the wealthy, such as jewelry and carriages.
For this effort, Silhouette soon found himself unemployed (Schama 66). A later
proposal by A.R.J. Turgot, Controller-General in the early 1770s, would have
replaced the traditional corvee, an annual labor requirement commoners owed to
the government, with a general property tax payable by all owners of property.
Like Silhouette before him, Turgot soon found himself out of a job as a result
of this and other efforts at practical reform (ibid 85-7).
During this period, it was still possible for aristocratic
families to imagine life as they knew it continuing with only minor and
voluntary adjustments made to keep up with the thinking of the times.
Francoise’s own father was one such “enlightened” nobleman. He had a passion
for Voltaire, the quintessential Enlightenment advocate of human rights. Like
many aristocrats during this Age of Reason, he considered himself an atheist
and a man of thought (Recker 17-18). There is no evidence, however, that he
advocated for the kind of fundamental changes in the structure of French
society that would have introduced true equality at the expense of his own
pocketbook. He was good to his peasants but he was still attached to the notion
that they were “his” peasants, not his full equals in status and dignity. That
leap of intellect was for the next generation to make.
By the time she was 25, Francoise had thoroughly explored
the major facets of life her aristocratic station had to offer and found them
lacking. She went to an elite boarding school during the summer months starting
at the age of six, when her grandparents decided that keeping her at home
during their social season was not good for her development. The school was run
by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey Saint Michel in the small town of
Doullens, less than four kilometers from Gezaincourt. Catering to daughters of
the aristocracy, the school was based on a model which prioritized “formation
of good wives and mothers” (Recker 166). During her six summers at Abbey Saint
Michel, Francoise learned practical skills helpful in running a household. At
the same time, the nuns seemed to recognize that the practical skills and
mental fortitude needed by aristocratic young ladies might soon change. “One
would have said,” Francoise later recounted, “that our mistresses foresaw the
terrible revolution and their consequent duty to form strong and virile women,
capable of great things” (Reine 29). She appreciated the quiet routines of
monastic life to which she was exposed at Abbey Saint Michel, which suited her
own serious nature. “We knew very little about the joys of life,” she said much
later in describing her life there, “and this regular, serious life induced
reflection and favored piety” (ibid).
In childhood rounds with her grandmother, when not away at
school, Francoise visited the villagers of Gezaincourt in their homes.
Together, she and her grandmother checked on the practical well-being of the
people who worked on the family’s land. She watched as her grandmother brought
them simple remedies for illness and ensured that they had enough to eat.
During these visits, the young Francoise saw first-hand the way most French
people lived and “learned to taste the pleasure of giving, and to realise the
value of personal service” (SND, after Tomme 10). Many years later, when giving
guidance to the Superiors managing SND convent schools, Francoise still
emphasized the basic lessons she’d learned as a child about the need for good
nutrition as a foundation for other human activity. She did not mince words in
a letter to Sister Therese Briet, Superior of the convent at Andenne, for
example, when a complaint arose in March, 1818 about the quality of the food
served there. “[T]he cooking at your house is abominable,” she writes to poor
Sister Therese. “It’s good for dogs and chickens, but not for Sisters of Notre
Dame, who are tired and need to be well nourished” (McCarthy 99). Apparently,
this chastisement had limited effect. Francoise brings the topic up again in
December 1821. “If you want me to have a high regard for you,” she writes to
Sister Therese, “nourish your sisters well, first of all spiritually, and then
corporally. In the one area, don’t spare your words; in the other, your meat.
From what you’ve told me, it seems that the spiritual is going well” (ibid 127).
When she was twelve, Francoise moved to the Ursuline convent
in Amiens, about thirty kilometers from Gezaincourt, to complete her education.
Angela de Merici, the 16th Century Foundress of the Ursuline order,
was inspired by Saint Ursula, who had courageously defended her virginity in a
world dominated by male decision makers. The original women who joined de
Merici did not take vows or live in convents. “Instead, they stayed in their
families, continued in their workplaces and were actively involved in works
that raised the dignity of women, children and the marginalized of society”
(Ursulines). This same prioritization, especially of the young and the
marginalized, later came to be one of the most important emphases of the
Sisters of Notre Dame.
De Merici’s original guidelines for the Company of St.
Ursula – the so-called Trivulzian Codex – set forth a “revolutionary form of
dedicated life” (Ursulines). This set of guidelines was the first “written by a
woman for women and reflected the spirituality the Company embraced” (ibid). That spirituality was grounded in
the notion that opportunities for women should not be limited to the two
options traditional at the time: sexually active marriage with the family and
social responsibilities marriage implies, or virginal monastic life detatched
from the world and generally hidden behind cloister walls. Women should be
free, de Merici believed, to choose virginity without disengaging from the
world. Odd as it may sound to 21st Century readers, this idea really
was revolutionary at the time. Women’s sexuality, in European and most other
cultures of the 16th Century, was closely controlled by men. It was
simply unacceptable for a sexually mature woman to choose to remain inactive in
the bedroom and still be active in the world, moving freely under the gaze of
the very men who were not permitted to have her. A woman who did not want to
marry, whether due to preferences of gender, lifestyle, general independence or
any other reason, was supposed to hide herself away behind the high walls of a
cloistered monastery, where men would not have to be tempted by her. De
Merici’s revolutionary vision challenged this status quo by emphasizing
both virginity as an active choice and worldly service to others as guiding
principles for the women called to join her.
After de Merici’s death, the Ursuline order changed. It came
to be controlled more closely by the Catholic hierarchy. It became monastic
(cloistered) and evolved an emphasis on education, becoming the first women’s
teaching order approved by the Catholic church. By the time Francoise attended
the Ursuline school in Amiens in 1768, its teachers were traditionally
cloistered nuns who acted on the assumption that service to others would come
in relatively traditional forms. These teachers helped students discern their
own unique gifts and prepared them to lead lives of service as vowed nuns or as
worldly wives and mothers (Recker 16). They did not actively prepare young
women to lead lives of service as worldly virgins. By the echoes of their
earliest traditions, however, if not their own cloistered lives, the Ursuline
sisters exposed Francoise to the possibility of women doing good work in a
world governed by men. As her period of formal schooling came to a close,
Francoise, inspired by Ursuline traditions, summarized her guiding purpose in
life as wanting “To find my happiness in procuring the happiness of others”
(SND after Tomme 11).
The extent to which the world Francoise lived in was
governed by male decision makers was made evident to her during this period by
the painful experience of one of her schoomates, Jeanne. At the age of 21 and
deeply drawn to religious life, Jeanne was instead compelled to marry a man
more than twenty years her senior. Francoise’s parents could also have forced
her to marry; she was fortunate that they did not exercise their right to do
so. Years later, this school friend, as the widowed Jeanne de Franssu was still
just as strongly drawn to the idea of religious vocation as she had been at 21
(SND after Tomme 11). Madame de Franssu would ultimately become one of the
first and most devoted financial supporters of the early congregation of
Sisters of Notre Dame and a resident of the convent in Amiens.
Like her friend Jeanne, Francoise was intrigued by the idea
of religious vocation and even as a teenager she considered becoming a nun. But
it was not yet the time. There were other aspects of life she had still to
explore. When her education with the Ursulines was complete, Francoise left
Amiens to return to her family. Not to her lifelong home of Gezaincourt,
however, but to her parental estate at Bourdon, where 16 year old Francoise
prepared to make her debut in French society. As was expected of her, Francoise
was introduced at court and for several years graciously attended aristocratic
festivities of the highest social order of the day. This included parties held
at the King’s “country palace” of Versailles and other venues where she had
ample opportunity to eat abundant quantities of the best food French chefs had
to offer, all the while remembering the humbler meals of her Gezaincourt
peasants. As an example of the decadence of this era, one famously recorded
meal served by the Duke de Richelieu to aristocratic prisoners of war in the
1760s included no less than six different styles of beef for the entrée course
alone, which itself was only one course of a six-course meal. Guests at this
meal could eat their fill of:
Oxtail with chestnut puree – Civet of
tongue à la bourguignonne – Paupiettes of beef à l’ estouffade with pickled nasturium buds – Fillet of beef
fraised with celery – Beef rissoles with hazelnut puree – Beef marrow on toast
(Larouse 586).
Similarly, a dinner party given for Marie Antoinette on July
24, 1788 included four soups, two main courses, sixteen entrees, four hors
d’oeuvres, six roasts and sixteen small entremets. The menu continued, but the
rest of it has been lost (Lynne O). These were the kinds of meals Francoise was
exposed to during her social outings in the 1770s. But the luxury of choosing
between roasts of chicken, capon, leveret, turkey, partridge and rabbit did not
have the desired effect on her. She was instead deeply affected by the contrast
between these gluttonous feasts and the eating habits of the peasants she was
exposed to on her childhood rounds with her grandmother. The difference could
not have been more stark. A typical peasant meal of the same period featured a
chunk of bread and a bowl of soup or a gruel made from barley, beans or chestnuts.
The caloric intake of such a meal was barely adequate to the needs of a
laborer, as she had seen first-hand, while the more common food-related
ailments of an aristocrat of the time would have been heartburn, high cholesterol,
gas, diarrhea or obesity.
During this time, conforming to expectations, Francoise
dressed in the impeccably aristocratic haute
couture of the day, right up to the Marie Antoinette style bouffant hair.
She came to be known for her lively wit and pleasant company (Recker 16). These
qualities stayed with her, and even many years later she was described as
having “a charming quickness of mind; her conversation was interesting and her
repartee clever, yet kind” (Reine 68). Outwardly, the young Francoise’s
privileged life was the epitome of everything the most radical revolutionaries
of 1789 would rail against. Her real sentiments were belied, however, by her
preference at these parties for the quiet company of the King’s pious sister,
Madame Elisabeth, and for serious conversations with her brother about living a
good and simple life, and achieving something meaningful with it (Recker 17).
Frivolity beckoned from many corners during these years, but Francoise was not
drawn to heed its call.
It soon became obvious to her family that Francoise did not
embrace the life of sophistication and worldly comfort she was to inherit.
Neither did she show interest in following the examples of her siblings, both
of whom married in 1781. Like the original members of de Merici’s Company of
Women, Francoise, 25 years old when her newly-married siblings both moved to
Amiens and left her alone with her parents for the first time, chose virginity.
She remained undecided, however, about adopting the cloistered life of a nun.
Her life experiences to that point had provided opportunity, precedent and
theological underpinnings all validating acts of engagement with, rather than
withdrawal from, a world in need. As she recounted many years later, the
cloistered life of a Carmelite “had a very great attraction for me ….. but the
good [god] said no” (Reine 68-9). Although she did not yet know where her
vocation would lie, she listened to her intuition and, for the moment, chose to
continue serving in the world by remaining at home and tending to the needs of
her aging parents.
Julie’s early life
& education (1751-1773)
Julie Billiart’s upbringing could not have been more
different. There was none of the high-minded preparation of young ladies for
aristocratic domestic life that characterized Francoise’s early years. No grand
soirees at grandma’s house or mingling with royalty over rare foods. No reason
to powder her hair.
Julie was raised in a
small, thatched-roof cottage in the village of Cuvilly. In the trichotomy of
pre-revolutionary France, her family belonged neither to the First Estate (the
Catholic clergy) nor to the Second (the aristocracy) but to the great mass of
laborers, artisans and shopkeepers that did the work of French society and paid
most of its taxes. This group was known collectively as the Third Estate, or
just “the rest.” Although its members included the growing bourgeoisie – middle
class capitalist entrepreneurs slowly attempting to buy their way into
positions of privilege – overall the Third Estate owned little in the way of
land and had little influence on French politics. What it did have was mass…
scholars estimate that about 98% of the people who lived in pre-revolutionary
France belonged to the disenfranchised Third Estate. When frustration with the
vast disparities of wealth and privilege that characterized the Ancien Regime
finally boiled over in 1789, it was the strength of its numbers, as well as the
rightness of its cause, that led the Third Estate to revolutionary victory.
Virtually anyone associated with the First or Second Estates, whether through
the hierarchy of the Catholic church or through aristocratic lineage, was de
facto an enemy of the revolution.
Julie’s father owned
a draper’s shop in the village of Cuvilly, selling lace and cloth for clothing.
He also owned some land. These assets gave him more means than the average
member of the Third Estate and he was probably considered to be a member of the
petit bourgeoise. A peasant laboring in field work, a weaver, or a seamstress
would all have had fewer financial resources to rely on. As a shop owner, he
had the means and the need to afford his daughter Julie a basic education. The
child of a field laborer had no such need and no such means. The traditional
social order was perpetuated by the assumption that those who needed education
for their children could afford it, and those who could not afford it, didn’t
need it.
If secular education
was seen as unnecessary, however, religious education was seen as critical for
the mass of young poor in pre-revolutionary France. Religious and secular
education were tied closely together and the Church was the primary provider of
both. What education was available to children of the poor therefore focused
almost entirely on the catechism – the basic learnings and principles of Catholic
religious faith. Children from wealthy families would also learn the catechism,
but their education was more likely to include optional secular subject areas
as well.
Universal secular
education was one of the aims of the French philosophes and a topic for philosophical
debate by enlightened thinkers. “We shall show” writes Condorcet, “how favorable to our
hopes would be a more universal system of education by giving a greater number
of people the elementary knowledge which could awaken their interest in a particular
branch of study, and by providing conditions favorable to their progress in it;
and how these hopes would be further raised, if more men possessed the means to
devote themselves to these studies, for at present even in the most enlightened
countries scarcely one in fifty of the people who have natural talents,
receives the necessary education to develop them; and how, if this were done
there would be a proportionate increase in the number of men destined by their
discoveries to extend the boundaries of science.” Education, for enlightend thinkers of the time, was seen as the key
to expanding an individual’s opportunities and creating a more just and equal
society.
Julie, though neither
an aristocrat nor an Enlightenment philosopher, nevertheless perceived the
discrepancies of opportunity around her even within her own village, and with
the insight of personal experience and observation, came to feel that the
status quo was unfair. In her own way, she set about remedying it by bringing
her own lessons back to the children of her village who were unable to attend
school themselves. By the time she was nine years old, she already had a
reputation for gathering the poorer children of the village at the door of her
own home to pass along to them the lessons she’d learned, with particular
emphasis on the lessons of the catechism, which were considered to be the most
important part of a poor child’s education. This passion for educating poor
children would become a common theme and one of the most consistent guiding
principles for the duration of Julie’s life.
When she was sixteen,
the age at which Francoise was getting ready for her official “coming out” in
French society, financial disaster struck Julie’s family. Her father’s shop was
robbed of its most valuable merchandise, leaving the family in ruin. That a
longstanding and successful village business was just one theft away from
bankruptcy was symptomatic of the precariousness of life at the time. To help
make ends meet for the family after this financial disaster, Julie took a job
with a nearby farmer. The work was strenuous but she kept her spirits up by
singing with the other farmhands during their breaks and sharing with them some
of the things she’d learned in school and at church. During this time, Julie
experienced the reality that it is not only children who need to know things.
Julie continued her
lessons for the village children even when she was no longer attending school
herself and even after she began working in the fields to help support her
family. But hard physical labor and concern for her family took their toll on
Julie, as they still do for many young people today. US educational statistics
indicate that 45% of full-time traditional age college students worked while
enrolled in college in 2007, with two-thirds of them working 20 or more hours
per week. Among part-time traditional age college students the numbers who
worked were nearly 80% (Perna). Concern for family members and the need to
participate in the care of siblings or grandparents are also realities for many
college students and can contribute to unhealthy levels of stress, just as they
did for Julie.
When Julie was in her
early twenties, the age when Francoise found herself alone with her parents in
Bourdon for the first time, further tragedy struck that was to have a
debilitating effect on Julie. An attempt was made on her father’s life by an
anonymous gunman. Her father survived, but the emotional stress of this event,
on top of the physical strain she’d already been putting on her body through
hard physical work, brought the onset of an acutely symptomatic muscular
disorder. Julie had what today would probably be diagnosed as multiple
sclerosis, a disorder affecting the myelin lining of muscle tissue and
characterized by fatigue, muscle weakness and in some cases, paralysis. Like
with many diseases, multiple sclerosis can be exacerbated by stress. It is
believed that the traumatic ordeal of the attempt on her father’s life was what
put Julie over the edge and rendered her almost completely bedridden at the age
of 22.
Six years later, a
doctor attempting to treat her for another ailment performed an aggressive
series of bloodlettings on Julie. Although medicine was quite advanced in other
parts of the world at this time – in the Islamic world and in China, for
example – European doctors had not kept up with those advances. Leeches were
still commonly prescribed as a way of ridding the body of what was perceived as
sick blood. A person suffering from chronic migraine headaches might literally
have a hole drilled in her head as a way of relieving cranial pressure. A
damaged limb might be removed rather than repaired. The benefits of keeping a
wound clean were not fully understood. It’s no wonder, then, that a French
doctor at the time would prescribe such aggressive removal of Julie’s “sick
blood” that she nearly died from this course of treatment. Instead of being
cured, her already-strained body responded by entering a state of paralysis.
From this time and for more than two decades, she suffered paralysis, seizures
and other debilitating symptoms doctors would now attribute to the development
and exacerbation of her multiple sclerosis.
Without having
experienced disability, it is difficult to imagine spending most of one’s twenties
and all of one’s thirties dependent on the care of others. Julie, the active and
social girl who helped haul in the harvest when times were tough for her
family, spent those important years confined to her room, unable to work, play,
participate in church activities or spend time in nature. Her world was an
indoor world; she could share in the outdoor world only to the extent that
others brought her to it, or brought it to her. She had to learn how to accept
and even ask for help from others – no easy task for one accustomed to
independence.
Francoise’s 20s
& early 30s (1781-1794)
Julie found herself
disabled, but she was not isolated… the children she’d been accustomed to
teaching in front of her family home brought the most important part of her world
to her. The room in which she was confined was soon enlivened by poor and
neglected children eager for their lessons. Meanwhile, Francoise was getting
used to being the only child left with her parents in their large home at
Bourdon. Her world was spacious and her freedom of movement within it was
complete, but few intimate relationships filled those abundant empty spaces
around her.
When both her mother and maternal grandfather died within a
short period of time, Francoise returned to her earlier home at Gezaincourt.
There, in addition to caring for her elderly grandmother and applying the
household management skills she learned in school, she also found opportunities
to nurture her desires relating to “procuring the happiness of others.” Now in
charge of running the estate herself, Francoise eagerly carried on her
grandmother’s tradition of personally attending to the needs of its villagers.
She paid special attention to their medical health and nutritional needs. It
was during this period, for example, that she developed her talent for
gardening “to please the eye and sooth the soul” (Recker 19) and began to take
seriously the study of medicinal plants.
It was also during this period that she had her first
ongoing opportunities to be exposed, as an adult, to the realities of peasant
life and to compare those realities to her own. Measured in meat, for example,
the diet of French aristocrats was vastly more luxurious than that of French
peasants. Visiting the homes of the people who lived and labored on her
family’s lands caused Francoise to reflect with discomfort on the luxury
afforded to those of her own predetermined social circle. Her father’s embrace
of Enlightenment philosophy might have helped her develop the intellectual
assumptions necessary for social critique, but it was surely the framework of
thought provided by the Ursuline traditions she learned at her school in Amiens
that guided Francoise’s reaction to her observations and filled her with a
desire to act to ease the suffering she saw around her. This period afforded
her the opportunity to develop her unique form of relationality with others,
her profound sense and deep respect for the dignity of each individual person.
This way of relating to the humble villagers of Gezaincourt did not go
unnoticed – they grew to love and respect her in return, eventually calling her
the Angel of the Chateau.
Through all of these experiences, Francoise maintained an
assumption, not fully examined, that when her responsibilities to her family
had been fully satisfied, she would take vows with the Carmelite nuns in Amiens
and devote her life to cloistered contemplative prayer. In practice, once she
returned to Gezaincourt she lived a life very much engaged with the world. Very
much, in fact, in the tradition of the original and worldly Ursuline virgins.
Francoise’s life
continued quietly in this fashion even through the tumultuous events of 1789.
Her family’s goodness to the people who lived on their lands was so appreciated
that, when many aristocratic estates were being burned or confiscated,
aristocrats hanged or guillotined by angry mobs of peasants tired of their
downtrodden status, the peasants and villagers on the Gezaincourt and Bourdon
estates did the opposite. The Blin de Bourdon peasants took action to defend their
“lords” and “ladies” when the family’s security seemed threatened. Still, the
fundamental relationship between the two classes of people – the noble
landlords and the disenfranchised and dependent “rest” was incompatible with
the new revolutionary ideas about freedom and equality. Based as it was on a
relationship of dependence and subserviance, it was also incompatible with the
existence of true human dignity. No matter how good Francoise’s individual
family members may have been, nothing short of a complete renunciation of their
privileged social status would have rendered them truly the equals of their
tenants in dignity and respect. They were guilty of perpetuating what the
Catholic teachings would later call “social sin” – in this case a relationship
built upon unfairness that the individuals involved did not create but from
which they nevertheless benefitted.
Life at the
Gezaincourt estate continue more or less normally through the turbulent first
years of the revolution. Eventually, however, a mob from outside the village
confiscated the estate at Bourdon and arrested Francoise’s father. Her brother,
sister-in-law and nephew soon followed, and in 1793 Francoise herself was
arrested and imprisoned. All of the arrested members of the Blin de Bourdon
family were incarcerated at a prison in Amiens.
Julie’s 20s &
30s (1773 - 1794)
Julie’s instruction
during this period, all conducted from the confines of her bed, focused on the
teachings of the Church and preparing children for their first communion, an
important rite of passage of the Catholic faith. She continued with this
emphasis even during the early years of the revolution when religion was out of
fashion and the practice of religion had to take place in hiding. Because of
her role in providing religious education, Julie became known as the Saint of
Cuvilly. Eventually, the visitors gathered around her bed included adults; even
some aristocratic women from Paris vacationing near the village would come to
the humble Billiart cottage to speak with Julie. But she also came to be
considered an enemy of the revolution for the same reason. Although Julie was
born to the Third Estate, by the time the revolution was bubbling over in 1789,
she had some connections with both the First and the Second. These associations
caused her trouble with the new authorities, but they would also be some of the
most courageous in helping to keep her safe. Julie, who had to be carried in a
special chair due to her paralysis, was moved to safety several times starting
in 1790, and it was one of the Parisian ladies who eventually found long-term
lodging for her in the Blin home on rue des Augustines in the town of Amiens.
In order to
understand why Julie was forced into hiding at this time, it is necessary to
know a little about the July 12, 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, a
decree of the new revolutionary government that sought to wrest control of
Catholic lands and hierarchy away from the Popes in Rome and keep it squarely
within the purview of the new French government. The Catholic church hierarchy
was rather corrupt at the dawn of the revolution. It owned vast amounts of land
on which it paid little or no tax; it collected tithes from French citizens and
sent that money to Rome; it appointed members of the nobility to high-ranking
(and highly-paid) church offices without regard for their piety or spiritual
calling (or lack thereof), often resulting in church officials who had no
interest in fulfilling the functions they were paid to fulfill and were often
away from their offices for extended periods of time. Catholic and
political elites were often seen as two sides of the same corrupt coin, each
reinforcing the other’s ability to perpetuate an inequitable system wherein the
wealthiest 2% controlled power and resources while the vast majority of the
population labored to survive in a precarious world of harvests and taxes and
the newly emerging entrepreneurial class, though capable of producing wealth,
was forever barred from participating in prestige. These problems applied primarily to high-ranking church officials,
however. The local parish priests who received salaries barely sufficient to
live on – the so-called secular clergy – were generally dedicated men who were
loved and respected by their parishioners. Many members of the secular clergy
sided with the Third Estate during the early stages of the revolution, but all
came under attack later if they failed to take the Constitutional oath.
The July 12, 1790
Civil Constitution of the Clergy directed that church offices would be filled
through election by French citizens rather than through appointment by Roman
hierarchy. “There shall be but one mode of choosing bishops and parish
priests,” it decreed, “namely that of election” (Title II, Article I). It also
required priests to “take a solemn oath […] to be loyal to the nation, the law,
and the king, and to support with all his power the constitution decreed by the
National Assembly and accepted by the king” (Title II, Article XXI). Priests
who wished to remain loyal to the superiors of their church and who therefore
refused to take the Oath were referred to as “non-juring” priests and were
hunted down as enemies of the state. Julie, even while confined to her bed, was
an active supporter of several non-juring priests who could not in good
conscience take the required Oath of loyalty to the state. It was this
affiliation in particular that forced Julie into hiding.
Julie &
Francoise Meet in Amiens (1794)
Francoise, you will
recall, spent some of this period in prison. She and the other imprisoned
members of the Blin family only narrowly escaped the guillotine. Along with
many others, they breathed a collective sigh of relief when Robespierre fell in
August of 1794 and his reign of Terror fell with him. But it was a reticent
sigh… after six years of uncertainty, those who had been the victims of
revolutionary fervor were understandably reluctant to venture out too publicly.
Revolutions have a way of making people uneasy. The town of Amiens became a
sort of haven for people making their first uncertain steps back into the open.
One was less of a target, perhaps, in town than back at the estate, where
memories of bloodthirsty mobs were still too fresh.
After her release
from prison, Francoise took up residence with her brother in his Amiens town
home on the rue des Augustines. Shortly afterwards, in October 1794, Madame
Baudoin, one of Julie’s aristocratic followers, also took up residence at the
Blin town home. Madame Baudoin’s father had been Secretary of State to Louis
XVI , for which association he’d been taken to the guillotine. Her husband also
was executed. Madame Baudoin sought a safe and quiet place of relative
obscurity outside of Paris and rented a suite of rooms at the Blin home for
herself and her three daughters. She took Julie under her patronage and rented
rooms for the Saint of Cuvilly as well. There was some reciprocity in this
arrangement, as Julie was responsible for the spiritual well-being of Madame
Baudoin and her daughters, in exchange for lodging for herself and her niece,
Felicite. But Felicite continued to earn money making lace and this served to
pay for additional living expenses and some of the pair’s food. Although life
was slowly turning back to normal, however, and politically Julie was free to
venture outside now that the Terror had eased, physically she was still trapped
indoors due to her disability.
We know little about
the friendship between Francoise and Julie as it developed during the Winter of
1794-95 while both were residents at the Blin home in Amiens. Their visits
together began at the suggestion of Madame Baudoin, who felt that each woman
would benefit by the other’s company. Francoise was initially repulsed by the
physical aspects of Julie’s disability – her labored speech, her lack of muscle
control. But their visits continued at the desire of both women for the
mutually fulfilling friendship which quickly grew between them. As had happened
throughout her life, a small community of followers soon formed around Julie’s
bedside in Amiens. In addition to Francoise, this group included Julie’s niece
and caretaker Felicite, Madame Baudoin’s daughter Lise, and four of Lise’s
friends. Soon the group was joined by Father Antoine Thomas, a non-juring
priest also taking refuge in the town of Amiens, who quietly began saying mass
at the Blin home and eventually took up lodging there as well.
During the first eight
months that their lives intersected, Francoise began once again the internal
explorations that had led her to contemplate monastic life when she was a
school girl. But this was an old dream. She had by now spent most of her life
ministering to the well-being of others, and at some point, this had become a
form of prayerful reflection for her. Spiritual engagement with the world had
become a more compelling path than sequestration. Through many conversations
and with the encourage-ment of Father Thomas, Julie helped Francoise focus in
on discerning her path. Perhaps Julie reflected on discernment of her own
during this time as well. For both women, the Winter of 1794-95 marked the
beginning of a lifelong friendship. The thoughts they shared that winter had a
profound and permanent impact on their sense of partnership, and seeded a unique
sense of mission about the kind of worldly spiritual engagement that was called
for by the socially turbulent times in which they lived. Over the course of the
next ten years, this unique sense of mission gradually crystallized into the
founding principles of a new order of nuns, the Sisters of Notre Dame,
established by Julie and Francoise together on February 2, 1804.
