He was deeply impressed by any manifestation of the siddhis, as the Indians call them, the psychic powers which may be aroused by meditation to which the wiser mystics pay as little attention as possible. In this respect Father Joseph was not so far advanced as some of his younger contemporaries, such as Oilier, whose opinion of visions and prophetic revelations has already been cited. Even in the early and happiest days of his mystical life, Father Joseph had remained intensely orthodox; and orthodox Christianity has always tended to overvalue supernormal occurrences, to identify the unusual with the divine, to confound the merely psychic with the spiritual.
This worship of the odd is a phenomenon observable on two levels, the primitive and the highly intellectual on the level of simple credulous people like Louis XIII and the average peasant, and on the level of scientists impressed by the evidence of things that cannot be explained in terms of the current hypotheses, of a Pascal, for example, arguing from miracles to the truth of Christian theology, of a Descartes dallying in his youth with Rosicrucianism, of an Oliver Lodge building a religion on the foundation of evidence suggesting the survival after death of a certain psychic factor, of a Carrel impressed by supernormal healing and the power of prayer.
Trained as they are to concentrate upon the events of the world of space and time, men of science are peculiarly liable, when they turn religious, to revert to that primitive kind of religion in which ‘miracles’ play an important part. They are concerned less with the ‘kingdom of heaven within’ than with external ‘signs,’ less with the knowledge of eternity than with power in space-time. Their religion, in a word, is not mystical, but a kind of occultism. Occultism and mysticism are present in all historical religions -a great deal of the first, a very little of the second. As a matter of biographical fact, many men and women of great spiritual insight have begun their religious career as occultists, much interested in ‘signs,’ and have ended as pure mystics, mainly or exclusively interested in the kingdom of heaven, the beatific vision, the knowledge of eternal reality.
Many more have started out upon the mystical road, but have never completely rid themselves of the occultism in which they were brought up. Of these Father Joseph was one. He undertook passive and active annihilation, that his soul might be fit to be united with the imageless, eternal godhead; but he also attached great importance to siddhis and, indeed, to any unusual psychic phenomena which might turn up in the course of his meditations. What he practised himself, he taught his nuns. The Calvarians were minutely instructed in the art of mental prayer, but were also encouraged to cultivate their siddhis and pay close attention to the workings of their subconscious.
As we have already seen, Father Joseph used the convents under his charge, not only as praying machines for the materialization of divine favours, but also as prophesying machines for sharpening political and military foresight. Nor was this all. In response to the letters he wrote regarding the generally very unsatisfactory situation at court, his nuns would receive from on high admonishments addressed to the exalted personage who happened at the moment to be giving most trouble.
Reports of these revelations were written out and forwarded to Father Joseph, who passed them on, with suitable comments from Ezedriely, to the party concerned. Here, for example, is a message for Louis XIII, transmitted by Christ, picked up by one of the Calvarians and, by Father Joseph, read aloud to his royal master. ‘At this time’ (these are the very words of the Second Person of the Trinity) ‘it is essential that the King should apply his whole mind to the war, taking care to let his servants know that he will reward and punish them according to their achievements.’ And so on, with much useful advice on the conduct of monarchs in war-time. The revelation concludes with the admonition that Louis must work harder and cease to indulge in his black moods of depression and self-pity. To communications such as this and to the commentaries, with which the friar accompanied them, Louis listened humbly and with the awed sense of being very near the source of all goodness, power and knowledge. Resolving to amend his ways, he would record his good intentions in a formal document, signed, sealed and witnessed.
It was a contract entered into with his better self, an IOU made out to heaven. Fully determined to meet his obligations, he would address himself with all his might to obeying the divine commands. But, alas, in a few days his poor neurotic temperament had proved too much for his resolutions. The old indecision paralysed his efforts at hard work; the old pathological boredom prevented him from taking an interest even in the war; the old sense of guilt and personal inferiority darkened his world again and made it horrible and utterly wearisome. Ezechiely would have to come to the rescue with another revelation, another burst of prophetic eloquence.
As early as 1632 it had been unofficially decided that, if Richelieu died, Father Joseph should succeed him as President of the Council of State. That he might speak with the necessary authority, it was necessary for him to be made a Prince of the Church. Through his ambassador at Rome, Louis requested that, at the next promotion of cardinals, a hat might be reserved for his Capuchin. In the course of the next six years the request was repeated several times and with growing insistence. But, in spite of his admiration for the Turciad and a personal liking for its author, Urban VIII was not inclined to do what the King desired. There were several reasons why he did not want to make Father Joseph a cardinal. To begin with, there was already one Capuchin cardinal and this gentleman was strongly opposed to any move that would give him a rival and competitor within the Sacred College. Then there was the Emperor Ferdinand, who remembered his encounter with Father Joseph at Ratisbon and had no wish to see so powerful an enemy promoted to a position in which he could be even more dangerous to Austrian interests. Similar objections were raised in Madrid.
And finally, there was the fact, which no Counter-Reformation Pope could safely ignore, that Father Joseph enjoyed the worst possible reputation among the rank and file of the Catholic laity and clergy. Notorious even before the Diet of Ratisbon, he had climbed since 1630 to even higher eminences of ill-fame. All things considered, it was not at all surprising that the Pope should have so long refused to grant His Most Christian Majesty’s petition. The surprising thing is that, in the end, he finally gave way. In 1638 the hat was definitely promised-too late; for the friar died before he could receive it.
The man whom Father Joseph was to have succeeded survived him by four years, a sick man, it is true, but to the very end in fullest possession of the intelligence and that inflexible will which had brought him to power and for eighteen years had kept him in the saddle. In Richelieu’s life, as in that of all chronic invalids, there were periodical ups and downs, alternations of better and worse. In 1632, the year in which the first request for Father Joseph’s hat was made, Richelieu suffered severely from the aggravation of a disorder which had first begun to afflict him ten years before. Piles-for it was from piles that the Cardinal suffered-can be a very painful, exhausting and mentally depressing complaint. Combined with his other ailments, they brought the Cardinal to a very low ebb.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries no event in the life of an eminent personage was entirely private. Even the act of excretion was often performed in public, and for those whose rank entitled them to this privilege, Kings and Princesses were at home and made conversation while seated on the chaise percée. Diseases and the most intimate forms of medical treatment were no less public. Louis XIV’s enemas were discussed by the whole court, and his fistula, or fissure of the fundament, was a matter of national concern. A generation earlier, it had been the same with the Cardinal’s piles. There was not a corner of the kingdom to which the news of them had not penetrated. Sympathizers expressed their condolences and many reputedly infallible remedies were sent in -among others a powder invented by a Capuchin monk and guaranteed to cure, not only the Cardinal’s hemorrhoids, but also the King’s childlessness.
When all of these had failed, a deputation of clergy proceeded to the Cathedral of Meaux and returned with the relics of that seventh-century Irish hermit, who is the patron saint of Brie and has left his name to the hackney cab, St. Fiacre. The relics were applied; but, in spite of his high reputation as a healer, St. Fiacre was no more successful than anyone else. One regrets the fact, not only for the sake of poor Richelieu, but also because St. Fiacre’s failure has lost us some curious literature and perhaps some splendid works of art. One can imagine, if the miracle had occurred, the volume of odes, by several hands, in honour of the event. These would have been more odd than good. Not so the enormous composition by Rubens, that would have been
