William Bush - TO QUELL THE TERROR

Before mounting the scaffold, the Carmelite martyrs
renewed their vows and kissed this tiny terracotta statuette
of the Madonna and Child held by the prioress
(Teresa of St. Augustine).

Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., 1999, 2013

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Cover design by Nancy Gurganus of Grey Coat Graphics

Cover photo: Winnie Klotz/Metropolitan Opera from the New York Metropolitan Opera production of Dialogues of the Carmelites

Produced and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bush, William, 1929

To quell the terror: the mystery of the vocation of the sixteen Carmelites of

Compigne guillotined July 17, 1794 / William Bush.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN (paper): 978-0-935216-67-7
ISBN (epub): 978-1-939272-16-4

1. Discalced Carmelite NunsFranceCompigneHistory

18th century. 2. Compigne (France)Church History18th century.
I. Title.

BV4323.F8B87 1999

For Sylviane Bernanos

16 November 1998

Mater Dolorosa, pastel by Mother Teresa of
St. Augustine or Mother Henriette of Jesus. Photo: Hutin

Opening scene from the New York Metropolitan Opera production of
Poulencs Dialogues of the Carmelites. Photo: Winnie Klotz! Metropolitan Opera

I FIRST HEARD OF THE CARMELITES OF COMPIGNE through Georges Bernanoss incomparable last testament, Dialogues of the Carmelites, in 1952. I was a graduate student, twenty-three years of age, completely caught up by Bernanos, foremost Catholic novelist of his time. How could I not be moved by the fact that he, in the last months before his death in 1948 at age sixty, had written those dialogues for a film scenario about sixteen nuns who, like him, were consciously preparing to appear before God?

The masters thesis I was preparing in 1952 led me to Paris four years later as a Fulbright scholar, pursuing a doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne. I had had the unbelievable good fortune of gaining the support of Bernanoss literary executor, the great Swiss critic, Albert Bguin , my mentor even before meeting him. Indeed, Bguins preoccupations with Bernanos were precisely my own: to analyze his texts and manuscripts so as to understand all that that visionary Christian prophet was trying to say.

I was thus in the audience in Paris in 1957 both when Francis Poulencs newly created Dialogues des Carmlites was given at the Opra de Paris and when a theatrical version of Bernanoss text was produced at the Thtre Hbertot. I was far from imagining, however, the rendezvous awaiting me a quarter century later with Bernanoss Carmelites.

When, in 1981, they burst upon my staid life as a university professor, I, several books beyond my Sorbonne thesis, was still working on Bernanos manuscripts. Madame Sylviane Bernanos , widow of Bernanoss second son, Michel, through whom I had first met Bguin, had approached me concerning a new Parisian production of Dialogues of the Carmelites, directed by Raymond Gerome . Sponsored by the office of the Mayor of Paris, Monsieur Jacques Chirac , a fervent admirer of Bernanos, it would aim at total fidelity to Bernanoss text, not allow for any of the usual cuts, and prove the great theatrical event marking the end of the century, Madame Bernanos assured me.

As promised, I delivered to Raymond Gerome by the end of 1982 the authentic text left by Bernanos in his copy books when he took to his deathbed in 1948. As for the alterations Bguin had effected in his edition published in 1949, I dismissed them, knowing he was trying desperately to generate income for Bernanoss destitute widow and six children. The following year, 1983, I learned that our great theatrical event marking the end of the century had foundered because of Bernanos family politics and mounting production costs.

I found this news singularly unmoving, however. I was already caught up by the actual history of the sixteen martyrs of Compigne, just as I had been, more than thirty years before, by Bernanos himself.

I discovered the historical martyrs through my work on Bernanoss manuscripts. The names assigned many of the nuns by Bernanos had in fact been altered by Bguin in preparing his published volume of Dialogues of the Carmelites. Wishing to check the names of the historical martyrs, I dusted off my twenty-five-year-year-old copy of Father Bruno de Jsus Maries authoritative compendium, Le Sang du Carmel, fruit of twenty years of research on the Compigne martyrs by Frances foremost twentieth-century Carmelite scholar.

History, I found, had nothing to do with the differences in names I had discovered, and true historical parallels existed for four characters only: the two prioresses (Madame de Croissy and Madame Lidoine); the young novice, Sister Constance ; and Sister Marie de lIncarnation. The actions and dialogues of these four characters, however, were largely fictional.

Dialogues of the Carmelites is centered on an imaginary heroine, Blanche de la Force, created by Gertrud von Le Fort as protagonist for her novella Die Letzte am Schafott [The Last One at the Scaffold], translated into English as Song at the Scaffold. On that novella was based the film scenario for which Bernanos had supplied his dialogues. The actual historical martyrdom was therefore a mere backdrop for Blanches fictional story. I thus found it imperative to fix my mind firmly on the facts of the actual martyrdom if I were to avoid schizophrenia and deprivation in being denied von Le Forts too-beautiful heroine.

Thinking of Poulencs many admirers in English-speaking countries, I suddenly wanted very much to correct, through a modest little volume in English, all the misinformation sown by all the derivatives of Gertrud von Le Forts novella. For the French material I thought Father Brunos compendium should suffice, though I did resolve to go consult the English sources at Stanbrook Abbey in England, known to Father Bruno only through copies. Seventeen sisters from that contemplative Benedictine community had been imprisoned in Compigne with the martyrs in 1794 and a written account of the Carmelites imprisonment and departure for execution in Paris had been piously preserved. In many ways Stanbrook might even be called a major guardian of their cult, for it had served as headquarters for their beatification by Rome in 1906.