Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/30

18, which thrives upon vanities, riches, and preferments. The sublime dignity of a Christian was the only nobility cherished and honored by the holy foundress, although her father and mother were descendants from old and highly distinguished families. The vicissitudes concurrent with dynastic alternations in the old regime, and the political and social disasters attendant upon the various governmental policies, brought reverses to many of the best families of France. In numerous instances, the name perished with lineal pretensions, or, if title still remained, it was often hazardous to claim it, so fierce were political animosities. From this state of affairs there sprang up a class, poor as to estates and moneyed capital, but retaining that impression of respectability and culture that belonged to the upper classes. They were isolated by circumstances, their intellectual superiority keeping them above the masses, and family traditions preventing them from mingling in circles with which there was no social kinship. Among this class were the families to which Laurent Guérin and Isabelle Lefèvre belonged. But their integrity and deep piety placed them in the first rank and compelled the respect that is always virtue's reward; so if it be said of their daughter that she glorified her nobility by being conversant with God, similar praise is merited by Monsieur and Madame Guerin who, by word and example planted the seeds of virtue in the heart of that child destined to reflect great honor on her family and on the Church by the singular holiness of her life.

The Lefèvre family were devoted royalists, while the Guérins were avowed Napoleonites. Laurent Guérin,