The Philosophy of Voltaire - Collected Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato's Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable…. Вольтер
Читать онлайн книгу.an attack of fever. She saw a hen running after one of her chickens, which a dog held in his mouth. The Princess Palatine snatched the chick from the dog, on which a voice cried out: "Give him back his chicken; if you deprive him of his food he will not watch as he ought." But the princess exclaimed, "No, I will never give it back."
The chicken was the soul of Anne of Gonzaga, Princess Palatine; the hen was the Church, and the dog was the devil. Anne of Gonzaga, who was never to give back the chicken to the dog, was efficacious grace.
Bossuet preached this funeral oration to the Carmelite nuns of the Faubourg St. Jacques, at Paris, before the whole house of Condé; he used these remarkable words: "Hearken, and be especially careful not to hear with contempt the order of the Divine warnings, and the conduct of Divine grace."
The reader, then, must peruse this story with the same reverence with which its hearers listened to it. These extraordinary workings of Providence are like the miracles of canonized saints, which must be attested by irreproachable witnesses. And what more lawful deponent can we have to the apparitions and visions of the Princess Palatine than the man who employed his life in distinguishing truth from appearance? who combated vigorously against the nuns of Port Royal on the formulary; against Paul Ferri on the catechism; against the minister Claude on the variations of the Church; against Doctor Dupin on China; against Father Simon on the understanding of the sacred text; against Cardinal Sfondrati on predestination; against the pope on the rights of the Gallican Church; against the archbishop of Cambray on pure and disinterested love. He was not to be seduced by the names, nor the titles, nor the reputation, nor the dialectics of his adversaries. He related this fact; therefore he believed it. Let us join him in his belief, in spite of the raillery which it has occasioned. Let us adore the secrets of Providence, but let us distrust the wanderings of the imagination, which Malebranche called la folle du logis. For these two visions accorded to the Princess Palatine are not vouchsafed to every one.
Jesus Christ appeared to St. Catharine of Sienna; he espoused her and gave her a ring. This mystical apparition is to be venerated, for it is attested by Raymond of Capua, general of the Dominicans, who confessed her, as also by Pope Urban VI. But it is rejected by the learned Fleury, author of the "Ecclesiastical History." And a young woman who should now boast of having contracted such a marriage might receive as a nuptial present a place in a lunatic asylum.
The appearance of Mother Angelica, abbess of Port Royal, to Sister Dorothy is related by a man of very great weight among the Jansenists, the Sieur Dufossé, author of the "Mémoirs de Pontis". Mother Angelica, long after her death, came and seated herself in the church of Port Royal, in her old place, with her crosier in her hand. She commanded that Sister Dorothy should be sent for and to her she told terrible secrets. But the testimony of this Dufossé is of less weight than that of Raymond of Capua, and Pope Urban VI., which, however, have not been formally received.
The writer of the above paragraphs has since read the Abbé Langlet's four volumes on "Apparitions," and thinks he ought not to take anything from them. He is convinced of all the apparitions verified by the Church, but he has some doubts about the others, until they are authentically recognized. The Cordeliers and the Jacobins, the Jansenists and the Molinists have all had their apparitions and their miracles. "Iliacos inter muros peccatur et extra."
VOLUME II
APPEARANCE—CALENDS