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Updated: June 19, 2025
Let us recall Augustin's state of mind when he came to Milan. He was a sceptic, the kind of sceptic who regards as useless all speculation upon the origin of things, and for whom cognition is but an approximation of the true. Vaguely deist, he saw in Jesus Christ only a wise man among the wise.
A deep peace settles upon farmland and meadow country, only broken by a watch-dog's bark now and then.... But it matters not which spot is chosen in the surroundings of Hippo to place Augustin's monastery, the view will be equally beautiful. From all parts of the plain, mounded by heaps of ruins, the sea can be seen a wide bay circled in soft bland curves, like at Naples.
Not only did they tamper with Augustin's people, but the country dwellers of the Catholic Church were continually interfered with on their lands, pillaged, ravaged, and burned out by mobs of fanatical brigands who organized a rule of terror from one end of Numidia to the other. Supported in secret by the Donatists, they called themselves "the Athletes of Christ."
If the plantation is sparse, the beautiful shape of the land may be observed all the better. Nothing breaks or lessens the grand effects of the light.... And let no one say that Augustin's eyes cared not for all that, he who wrote after his conversion, and in all the austerity of his repentance: "If sentient things had not a soul, we should not love them so much."
He arrived at the monastery, and his grief may easily be imagined, when he was informed of the death of his beloved sister, and of the flight of Julia. He quitted St Augustin's immediately, without even knowing that Madame de Menon was there, and set out for a town at some leagues distance, where he designed to pass the night.
San Augustin's Day August, the 28th. Oh! but I have been angered this day! What? when my betrothed lies in prison, ill, perhaps, or fretting his brave heart away, am I to be dragged forth to make part of a pageant for the entertainment of his jailers?
At the request of the Donatists themselves, he had an argument with one of their priests, a certain Fortunatus, in the baths of Sossius at Hippo. He reduced this man to silence and to flight. Not in the least discouraged were the Manichees: they sent another priest. If the enemies of the Church shewed themselves stubborn, Augustin's own congregation were singularly turbulent, hard to manage.
Augustin's Back, where she made herself at once as ridiculous and as unhappy as she deserved to be. As for our heroine, under the friendly and judicious care of Lady Frances Somerset, she acquired that which is more useful to the possessor than genius good sense.
But Augustin's heart was heavy, heavier than the air weighted by the heat and sea-damp heavy from the lie and the cruelty he had just committed. He saw already the awakening and sorrow of his mother. His conscience was troubled, overcome by remorse and forebodings.... Meanwhile, his friends tried to cheer him, and urged him to have courage and hope.
At that time, the Christian moderation was unknown to him, as well as the measure which the good taste of the ancients prompted. He has often been compared to the most touching geniuses, to Virgil, to Racine, who had also the gift of tears. But Augustin's tenderness is more abandoned, and, so to speak, more romantic. It even works up, sometimes, into an unhealthy excitement.
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