She has now passed over the body of her son and that of her father; she arrives at Annecy. What would have happened if the Saint had not found fuel for this powerful flame that he had raised too high--higher than he desired himself?
The day after the Pentecost, he calls her to him after mass: "Well, my daughter," says he, "I have determined what I shall do with you." "And I am resolved to obey," cried she, falling on her knees before him. "You must enter St. Clair's." "I am quite ready," replied she. "No, you are not strong enough; you must be a sister in the Hospital of Beaune." "Whatever you please." "This is not quite what I want--become a Carmelite." He tried her thus in several ways, and found her ever obedient. "Well," said he, "nothing of the sort--God calls you to the Visitation."
The Visitation had nothing of the austerity of the ancient orders. The founder himself said it was "almost no religion at all." No troublesome customs, no watchings, no fastings, but little duty, short prayers, no seclusions (in the beginning); the sisters, while they waited for the coming of the divine Bridegroom, went to visit Him in the person of His poor and His sick, who are His living members. Nothing was better calculated to calm the stormy passions within, than this variety of active charity. Madame de Chantal, who had formerly been a good mother, a prudent housekeeper, was happy in finding even in mystic life employment for her economical and positive faculties in devoting herself to the laborious detail of the establishment of a great order, in travelling, according to the orders of her beloved director, from one establishment to another. It was a twofold proof of wisdom in the Saint: he made her useful, and kept her away.
With all this prudence, we must say that the happiness of working together for the same end, of founding, and creating together, strengthened still more the tie that was already so strong. It is curious to see how they tighten the band in wishing to untie it. This contradiction is affecting. At the very time he is prescribing to her to detach herself from him who had been her nurse, he protests that this nurse shall never fail her. The very day he lost his mother he writes in these strong terms: "To you I speak, to you, I say, to whom I have allotted my mother's place in my memorial of the mass, without depriving you of the one you had, for I have not been able to do it, so fast do you retain what you have in my heart; and so it is, _you possess it first and last_."