The five months spent at Saint-Laurent had given him only too clear a picture of the family estate; buildings falling apart, the tower in ruins, the suites plundered and stripped of all furniture, and the lands poorly cultivated. Moreover, he had a good opportunity to learn, first-hand, how the tenant farmers, the laborers, and the peasants acted and thought, and hence, why it was impossible to restore the property to its former state. Eugene made a valiant effort to secure restitution from those working in the granary, and to prohibit free pasturage and piping of water “from our leaky reservoirs.” In fact, he even tried to collect certain feudal taxes which, in days gone by, the Legislative Assembly had submitted to bids; but the unyielding severity of his character and youth scarcely earned him any respect for his most legitimate rights. Far from impressing the peasants, his aristocratic airs only antagonized them:
“I make a brief inspection of the harvest each day, and trust that my presence will discourage any thievery. All day long, I amble about with a long cane in one hand and an umbrella in the other, and, just between the two of us, acting like the Lord of the Manor,”
he wrote to his father, with a smugness that revealed what little grasp he had of the new order.31 He couldn’t have given a worse portrayal of the ancien regime, a regime held in horror by the peasants who had gained so much from the Revolution.
LEFLON I,245
It is hard to believe that this young man would change so radically and become the friend and minister to the most abandoned in future years. God’s grace works miracles…
“Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.” Jane Porter
Yet another invitation to look at my own past and see how God’s grace has worked and works miracles in my own life. Occasions to sit in wonder and awe that is the love of God.
I suppose I could sit and thank God that I have never been like young Eugene was – but that would simply be sad – I never played ‘lady of the manner’ but I was quite insufferable and mean to so many, full of anger and fear, striking out first trying to protect myself from getting hurt when the hurt was already there filling my being.
There was young Eugene looking at those poor peasants and seeing only how they could not or would not manage things to his way and liking. He wasn’t seeing them for who they were but rather for who they were not. If we look only at what is not, then we are quite unable to see what is. It would not be too long before he would look at those and see only their beauty and gifts, he would somehow recognize himself in them. He would see them through the eyes of our crucified Saviour.
Seeing through the eyes of our crucified Saviour – that has taken on a new depth somehow. When Jesus stops and looks at me, what does he see? If I stop and look at myself through His eyes, what do I see? If I then look up and out again through his eyes – then I fall in love with all that is.
Amazing! God does for us what we can’t do for ourselves! Luckily, Eugene was moved by grace to encounter the Crucified Saviour…and the rest is history!