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At first Durtal thought Madame Bavoil slightly crazy, and while she poured out a passage by Jeanne de Matel on Saint Joseph, he looked at the priest who gave no sign. "Then Madame Bavoil is a saint?" he asked one morning when they were alone. "My dear Madame Bavoil is a pillar of prayer," replied the Abbé gravely. And one afternoon, when Gévresin was away in his turn, Durtal questioned the woman.
"If God grants me life, no doubt I shall one day do this; but the plan is not yet ripe. Put that aside, then, and since on the other hand Jeanne de Matel does not captivate me, perhaps I had better think of another abbess even less known, and whose career was one of more tranquil endurance, less wandering and more concentrated, and at any rate more attractive.
The chief delight of this rather silent woman consisted in talking of the Virgin to whom she had vowed worship; on the other hand she could quote by memory long passages from a mystic and somewhat eccentric writer of the end of the sixteenth century: Jeanne Chézard de Matel, the foundress of the Order of the Incarnate Word, an Institution of which the Sisters display a conspicuous costume a white dress held round the waist by a belt of scarlet leather, a red cloak and a blood-coloured scapulary on which the name of Jesus is embroidered in blue silk, with a crown of thorns, a heart pierced with three nails, and the words Amor Meus.
"I beg your pardon, our friend!" cried Madame Bavoil, "there was the Venerable Jeanne de Matel, who was born at Roanne." "Yes, but she was the daughter of an Italian father who was born at Florence," said the Abbé Gévresin, who, hearing the bell ring for Nones, now folded up his table napkin.
"But, our friend, the Lord foresaw your case, when, with reference to such distractions which flutter about the soul like this, He replied to the Venerable Jeanne de Matel, who complained of such annoyances, that she should imitate the hunter, who, when he misses the big game he is seeking, seizes the smaller prey he may find." "Ay, but even then he must find it!"
"Yes, I know when I confessed in her presence that I did not yet know of which Saint I might write the history, Madame Bavoil dear Madame Bavoil, as the Abbé Gévresin calls her exclaimed: 'The life of Jeanne de Matel! Why not?
"The dove!" cried Madame Bavoil, who was changing the plates; "she plays a beautiful part in the story of Noah's Ark. Ah! our friend, you should hear what Mother Jeanne de Matel says of her." "What does she say, Madame Bavoil?"
"And all this time," said the housekeeper, "you do not think of making use in your building of the iris, which my good Jeanne de Matel regards as an emblem of peace." "Oh, we will find a place for it, Madame Bavoil, never fear.
Repeat after the Venerable Jeanne de Matel: "'Holy Virgin, this abyss of iniquity and vileness invokes the abyss of strength and splendour to praise Thy preeminent Glory. Well, is that pretty well expressed, our friend? Try; recite that to Our Lady and She will unbind you; then prayer will come of itself.
"We merely know that the odour of sanctity is antithetical to that of the Devil; that many of the Elect have diffused, during their lifetime and after their death, an exquisite fragrance which cannot be analyzed; such were Madalene of Pazzi, Saint Etienne de Muret, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Paternianus, Saint Omer, the Venerable Francis Olympus, Jeanne de Matel and many more.
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