The contents of the book, Jeanne-Marguerite de Montmorency by Joseph Sigward, in the original French, are offered on this Web site. Jeanne-Marguerite de Montmorency (1646-1700), niece of the Prince of Condé, was destined for the life of King Louis XIV’s court, but she ran away, still a girl, giving up her family, her means of sustenance, her possessions, all to follow an eremitical life. Eventually she settled in a hermitage, where the passion of Jesus became the focus of her mysticism. The author drew on the subject’s correspondence with her spiritual director. The Web site is: http://www.chez.com/jeannemarguerite/. Brought to our attention by a U.S. friend of Hermitary.
Wisconsin hermits
The National Park Service (U.S.) has a couple of pages on historical hermits who lived on the remote Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, near Lake Superior. One was historically identified as William Wilson (http://www.nps.gov/apis/hermit.htm); the other was a Norwegian immigrant, John Nelson (http://www.nps.gov/apis/nelson.htm).
Chinese eremitism in art
By way of Australian National University comes an assembly by a faculty member of Northwestern University of several interesting images of eremitism from the the 14th-century Yuan period at http://vandyck.anu.edu.au/work/teach/context/faculty-web.at.nwu.edu/art-history/fraser/b40/Eremitism_in_Yuan_Painting.html.
Web “Groups”
Discussion groups have long been on the Internet, but Yahoo! Groups are friendlier for users and anyone can create or join them. Groups are the equivalent of e-mail sent to all members of the group. Of potential interest are groups found using the keyword “hermit” such as: Powys, Catholic Hermits, and Hermits Parlor. At the same time, groups can be erratic, lie dormant (without messages) for a long time, and may end up being time consuming. Another drawback is that a “public” group will leave messages open to anyone on the Web.
Music of Silence
An article about Alain de Brunhoff, a talented Parisian pianist and teacher who abruptly left society, first as a Benedictine, then as a hermit. Brunhoff told the writer: “The point of passing time in solitude is to strip yourself bare, to discover what is essential and true. When you’re strippped down to this point, you see how little you amount to. But that little is all that God is interested in. He doesn’t give a damn about the rest.” In Atlantic Monthly, October 1997; URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97oct/silence.htm.