COMPAGNIA DEL S.mo SACRAMENTO. - Religious organization founded in Paris in 1630 as a secret society by Henri de Lévis, duke of Ventadour, with the cooperation of the Capuchin Philippe d'Angoumois and two priests, aiming to unify the forces of the best Catholics "to accomplish all the good possible and avoid all the evil possible." Its members belonged to the highest classes (clergy, nobility, magistracy); among the most famous: St. Vincent de Paul, the ven. Olier, Bossuet, Abelly, Coligny (son of the murdered admiral), the prince of Gondi, the marquis de Salignac-Fénélon, the count de Noailles, the baron de Renty, Le Fèvre d'Ormesson. The C. had foundations in the principal cities (49): all received their directives from Paris. The central organization was composed of 9 members, among whom were chosen the president, the spiritual director, and the secretary. On Thursdays, dedicated to the Most Blessed Sacrament, the C. held its meetings, in which, after discussing the most suitable means to achieve its ends and giving a report of the correspondence arriving from the provinces, prayers were said and a chapter was read from the Bible, from the Imitation of Christ, or from the Spiritual Combat.
The strictest secrecy was considered the absolute condition of success, because it placed the members beyond the reach of the schemes of adversaries and gave them the possibility of imitating the hiddenness of Jesus in the Eucharist. Louis XIII, informed of the existence and aims of the C., showed himself favorable, requesting its approval, by private letter, from the archbishop of Paris, who refused it flatly. The Holy See, repeatedly urged by the royal ambassadors and members of the C., always replied evasively, limiting itself to granting indulgences as if it were a confraternity of no particular importance. Although not approved, the C. spread rapidly until it covered all of France with a dense network of cells, strongly influencing the religious and political life of the nation; in fact, almost inspired by the motto: facere et pati fortia catholicum est, in 30 years it carried out the most arduous undertakings: the "Hôpital Général" for all the beggars of Paris, the seminary of the Foreign Missions, charitable works for prisoners, galley slaves, fallen women, the shamefaced poor, and parish storehouses dependent on the general one (a kind of Catholic assistance for all the starving). The vast charitable work of St. Vincent is explained in part by the help that the C. provided him, while it had meanwhile waged a merciless war against blasphemy, immorality, gambling, and dueling. It worked effectively so that the Edict of Nantes would be interpreted in a restrictive sense, preserving for France its homogeneity as a Catholic nation. In 1659 it held its general congress in Paris with great success: militant Catholicism reviewed its forces. But the following year the secret was revealed, at Caen, and a royal decree, willed by Mazarin, prohibited all secret societies.
The C. disappeared, but its great works remained as a perennial testimony to its inner supernatural vitality. The "great century" of France cannot be studied and understood without taking into account this extraordinary though ephemeral institution. The documents rediscovered at the end of the 19th century aroused great scandalous uproar because of the presence of a "Catholic freemasonry in the full Counter-Reformation." That a society is secret does not mean that it is for this reason immoral, all the more so since other similar ones arose at that time in France and abroad; while, as with the Compagnie del Divino Amore (v.) in Italy in the preceding century, secrecy was a safeguard for doing good in Christian fraternity without exposing oneself to the criticism of the general public. Therefore, while admitting some excess of zeal in men who lived in the still troubled climate of the religious wars, it is a historical injustice to continue to label the C. as the cabale des dévots. It was not a company of "Tartuffes" — that which numbered among its members St. Vincent, Olier, and Bossuet, and which was inspired by the hiddenness of Jesus in the Eucharist in order to accomplish great works of social charity with that "modest silence" that every follower of the Gospel must praise.
Bibliography6 works
From the Protestant side: F. Rabbe, Une société secrète catholique au XVIIe siècle, in Revue historique, 71 (1890), pp. 213-302; R. Allier, La Cabale des Dévots, Paris 1902; A. Rabelliau, Un épisode de l'histoire religieuse du XVIIe siècle, in Revue des deux mondes, 17 (1903), p. 621.
Antonio Piolanti