Guerin, Eugenie De

Guerin, Eugenie de a French lady eminent for her piety and devotion, was born at the ancient chateau of Le Cayla, Languedoc, January 25, 1805. She lived in stirring times; even into the solitude of her country home came the agitation of political changes and religious disturbance, distressing to her as a legitimist and Catholic. Her life was an uneventful one, passed in the home of her father, busy in unselfish home ministrations. She died May 1, 1848. Her famous Journal is the record of her brother Maurice's life. She felt no call to write her own personal thoughts and feelings. It follows him through every mental and spiritual change, his griefs and joys, his relapse from the Roman faith and reconversion, his marriage and death, and then it closes. It tells of him at the seminary, then at La Chinaie, under the eminent Lamennais, who had left the Catholic Church, and was then in Paris. After her death, the French Academy caused the publication of this simple record, written in the quiet chamber for Maurice's eyes alone. Her Journal and Letters make two volumes of 400 pages each, and have gone through twenty editions in France. They have been translated into English, and republished in London and New York, edited by G.S. Trebutien, and have had an extensive sale among both Protestants and Romanists. See (N.Y.) Cath. Almanac, 1872, page 42.