Group of Orléans, medium Mr. de Monvel
“From all virtues that Jesus gave us the adorable example there isn’t one more indignantly forgotten by humanity than that of chastity. I do not speak of the bodily chastity only that we certainly would not find many examples, but the chastity of the soul that had never conceived a single thought, a single word capable of harming the purity of the virgin or the listening child.
Evil is so widely spread and consists of so many dangerous occasionsthat parents, even the most truly chaste in their actions and words, cannot avoid the painful certainty that regardless their children cannot escape the dismal contact. Irrespective of the rejection to the idea they must resign to open the eyes of those innocent creatures at least to preserve them from the physical danger for it is absolutely impossible to preserve them from the moral danger. Frequently even after having thought that a danger was avoided there comes some obstacle that was unnoticed that shatters the innocent child that their love could not preserve from the dirt of vices.
How many imprudent words even in the most respectful society; how many images and descriptions, even in the most serious books don’t come without their parents’ knowledge to excite, awake and even completely satisfy that keen and feared curiosity of the child that is unaware of the danger! If bad is difficult to avoid even in the most enlightened layers of society what to think of the lower layers? Supposing that a child was fortunate to escape all that in the protection of the home, how to keep her from the inevitable contact with the daily elbowing vices?
There you have a dangerous and profound cancer that every righteous person must feel the imperious need to eliminate from society. Evil is entrenched in our hearts and a long time is still needed to have us pure enough just to suspect their seriousness. Someone who believed that a simple word with double meaning is a serious fault before a child will have pleasure in obscene or trivial jokes when surround by mature people believing that there is no harm in that. That person misses the fact that obscenity is such an immoral evil that it stains everything, even the air with vibrations will carry the blemish further downwind. They say that the walls have ears and if that image was true at least once it is true particularly in this situation.
Pure and sacred chastity will only and definitely establish its kingdom on Earth when every person that thinks and speaks understands that in no circumstance one should write or speak a single word that would blush the purest virgin. You will say that you have no kids at home and for that reason there is no need for the constraint, as you see it. Nonetheless, if you were pure yourselves there would be no need for the constraint. Don’t you have friends listening to you, excited by your example and that before the children that you don’t know may lose the last reservation of scruples that were maintained so far? Furthermore, it is almost always during meals that your mind is dragged by jokes that animate the gues. But can’t you see the servants around you, can’t you see that the neighbors have children? You don’t know the neighbor or the children so you cannot assess the damage that you have done. But evil regardless of its origin will always be punished, rest assured. It is not only the walls that have ears: there are things in the air that you breathe that are unknown to you or that you do not wish to know.
Nobody has the right to demand a virtue from their subordinates that is a virtue that one does not have or does not practice. A simple impure word is enough to break the purity of a child. A single impure child is enough to spread the gangrene around a whole generation of children when introduced in a public school, children that will become adults later on. Is there a single sensible person that can doubt the positive and painful truth in this?
Nobody doubts, nobody ignores the extension of the harm that can be carried by a single word, however, nobody feels obliged to this chastity of the soul that rejects every obscene thought however disguised it might be and even in certain circumstances nobody sees as their strict duty to abstain from jests that could make them blush if they were not proud of not blushing. Said and shameful pride!
It is not only chastity that we should respect in children but also that delicate candor that brings the blood to their faces by the simple idea of falsehood and that virtue is also very rare. We must not be very surprised when observing how elevated the immense majority of our children are. To the majority of the parents the children are not but little dolls, particularly at an early age, with whom they have fun like with a toy. It is their naïve belief that makes them so funny all day long after the little jokes that are considered innocents because they are told without malice and just to have fun as they say. Now in the true meaning of the word, innocent means that it causes no harm. But is there anything more harmful, on the contrary, to the candor of a child than those little and unstoppable abuses of trust before which the child is momentarily innocent but then laugh and have fun to imitate as soon as possible?
It results that the most sincere child learns to deceive as quickly as she learns to speak and that after a short while she is capable of teaching her own masters.
It goes almost unsuspected and particularly in that age when sometimes an insignificant cause may later on give rise to deplorable results. The organs of intelligence, particularly in children at a very early age, are like soft wax, capable of absorbing the form of the weakest touching object. The deformation does occur even in an instant and when the wax that was so fluid earlier on becomes harder the impression will remain unreasonable. One may think that it is covered by others but that is mistake because only the primitive impressions will stay indelible whereas the posterior ones will leave a fading mark only under which the initial one will always show.
That is what just a few young parents are capable of feeling strongly enough to transform it into a rule of conduct with their children and what is necessary to repeat to them continuously.”
Cécile Monvel
