In the school of St. Martin, M. Dupont had learned to combat the enemy of mankind by the arms of faith and prayer. A peculiar and strong hatred for Satan, manifested in every manner and on all occasions, was a special feature in the character of the servant of God. Like the holy bishop of Tours, he considered Satan as the great adversary of all good, the perpetual and bitter enemy of God and man, whom we should pursue and thwart, without ever wearying, or relaxing in our efforts. His eminently supernatural and Christian instinct, and his assiduous study of the Scriptures, discovered to him the more or less direct action of the demon in numerous circumstances where it was concealed from others.

A diabolical influence was particularly evident to his discernment in the progress of the revolution. The Voltarian and revolutionary spirit, as understood by him, was Satan rendered visible and active. At a certain period, when the revolution seemed to triumph, he said: “We should pray fervently that Satan may not become master of the situation.” He was not, consequently, surprised at the satanic fury exercised in our day: “The necessity of devoting ourselves to the cause of our Lord,” he said, “becomes daily more imperative, because the efforts of Satan are visibly more energetic. The wretch comprehends that the Church will rise victorious over the sea of iniquities composed of modern heresies, and his cupidity knows no bounds; he would wish to swallow at one gulp the present generation, so well instructed how to advance under his infernal inspiration.” In his conversations, he strongly recommended, particularly the young, to distrust the devil; “because,” he said, “he thrusts himself everywhere: in a game of cards, in a guitar, in a ringlet, in a spoonful of soup, &c…”

In the least obstacle to devotion to St. Martin, he discerned a trick, a snare of the evil spirit. He entered the chapel one day just as the sacristan, the sexton, and a priest were standing, in low conversation near the poor-box, which they wished to open. Each had tried, in vain, to turn the key. Mr. Dupont approached, and they mentioned their difficulty to him. “It is a trick of Satan,” he said, shrugging his shoulders; taking the key he plunged it into the holy water-font, and handing it to them, said, “Unlock it now.” The key turned with perfect ease, and the box was opened. He had applied the means indicated by St. Theresa, who declares from her own experience, that how powerful soever the demon may be, a little holy water used with faith and humility suffices to baffle his snares and put him to flight.

He beheld with sorrow this fatal influence in the corrupt press. “Of a certainty,” he said, “the cause of all the scourges which desolate the world, may be traced to the pen, which Satan has enlisted in his cause.” He, therefore, encouraged Catholic writers to become the champions of the Church. “When St. Michael,” he says, “took his sword in hand to combat Satan, he, undoubtedly, obeyed the command of the Sovereign Master. The struggle still continues, and, from age to age, the good God raises up defenders of His glory. Honor to those who are called to do battle in His cause in the nineteenth century, when hell, perceiving that the number of the damned is nearly filled up, redoubles its fury against the elect!”

Then addressing particularly one of these valiant writers, he says: “Honor be to you, my dear brother, and victory likewise! Armed with faith, you can have no fear of the battalions, the legions, in array against you… Be courageous, since the head of the beast reappears notwithstanding his wounds. Oh! how long eternity will be to him, when the hour of his ‘repose’ in the abyss will have come! For, at the present moment, he enjoys himself, in his own way, in such men as Garibaldi and Renan.” (This was in 1864.) “May the Lord strengthen your arm, and uphold it, as He upheld the arm of Moses, to enable you to strike well-directed blows against the wicked beast which rules, with sovereign sway, over our century sunk in sensuality and luxury.”

He thinks, moreover, that it is useful that Satan should be represented to men such as he really is. “Our good God,” he writes to the same friend, “has raised you up in an opportune time to unmask the devil to His children. It is a great grace granted at this time, when men deny the existence of the evil spirit and thus advance his interests. St. Paul says the Jews would not have crucified Jesus Christ, if they had known him: have we not reason to believe that Satan would have fewer followers, if he were better known? Use your speech as David used his sling against Goliath.”

The rage of Satan thus let loose in the world, far from exciting Mr. Dupont’s anxiety for the future, only increased his confidence. He beheld in it, simply, a proof of the fury of hell aroused by certain unexpected manifestations of Catholic faith. “The rage of the demon,” he says, “is evinced by the malignity of his dupes; it is a sign that our Lord is granting us graces capable of regenerating the world. The evil is so great that God alone can give the victory to His Church, and give it in so striking a manner as openly to confound his enemies.”… “It is evident that our contest is not against flesh and blood, that is, not against Mr. such-a-one, but against the infernal spirit, that it is against ‘the beast,’ the wicked beast, who lost only his sanctity by his fall: his power is still very great.” He adds: “His chain is long just now, but I hope he will soon receive the order to return to his kennel.”

In order to overcome the demon, he advised, above all else, faith and prayer. “The halter of ‘the beast,’” he says, “is extremely loose, and the ‘knave’ takes advantage of it. It is time to raise the hue and cry against him, and say to him: Avaunt!… If he shows no sign of obeying, as obedience costs him much, then bearing in mind the words fulminated by our Lord, cry out: Vade retro! If we were always animated by a lively faith, we should often inflict great torture upon him, when he places obstacles in our way.”

But in order to overcome or drive away the demon, he had a method peculiar to himself, which characterized him in an amusing manner. His idea was to “humiliate” this proud spirit, and with this intention, to treat him with the contempt he deserved. He considered no epithet more contemptuous and humiliating than the one given him in the Scriptures: Antiquus serpens, “the old serpent,” because it recalled his first crime and the period of his fall. Applying this word then according to his idea, he called Satan “the old serpent,” “the doting old man.” “We are thus certain,” he would say, “of putting him to flight, covered with shame and filled with rage. That word rouses his fury. In proof of the truth of this, make the experiment. If you are tempted, call him by that name. Say: ‘Oh! oh! old man, I know you; away with you!’ The old man is proud; he does not like that sobriquet; it is a kind of insult which torments and drives him away.” He ridiculed “his horns, his nose, his tail.” After reading a small book in which the devil was combated in a bright and witty manner, he said: “The old man will, hereafter, have his nose as long as his tail.”

Comparing Satan to “a furious dog,” he amused himself by describing him, seated on the ruins of St. Martin, as a large, plump animal enjoying for a long time a peaceful sovereignty; then he depicted the rage to which he would be aroused, when he would be driven in shame from a spot where he thought he should always remain the master. The very idea would make Mr. Dupont laugh heartily.

This comparison of “mad dog,” or “chained dog” applied to the devil, pleased him, and he repeated it frequently. He had taken it from the Psalms: “Deliver, O God, my soul from the hands of the dog.” “May our Lord be pleased,” he writes to an author, “to impose silence on him whom you name so properly ‘the knave,’ and whom you abuse so charmingly. But he cannot bite beyond the length of his leash.” “God grant you increased strength,” he writes to the same friend, “that you may be able to force Satan to disgorge his prey! Prayer alone can make him loose his hold. The old enemy is powerful when the Master does not present Himself: witness the swine at the lake of Gennesaret.”

Satan was often the subject of the playful conversations in which Mr. Dupont indulged with intimate friends. On those occasions, he would jeer him, apostrophizing him in a contemptuous and ironical manner, using in his regard burlesque expressions and figures of speech. He would call him “the old liar,” “the beast,” the “amphibious animal,” “the hog.” Sometimes he represented him as biting his tail from rage and spite, and again as smoking it for a cigar: “This beast, this hog, sucks his tail. Why does he like to do so?”

The reader is, naturally, astonished to find such expressions in the mouth of a man so refined in his tastes, and so polished in his manners. He himself gives an answer. “Let us not hesitate,” he said, “to think evil and to speak evil of the devil: he is the father of all evils, and we can only be on our guard against him through divine inspirations. Besides, in order not to think or speak evil of him, we must necessarily deny his existence, and this is what is done seriously by his dupes.”

As for himself, he has no intention of sparing him in any manner. “We must,” he says, “combat to the death the ‘amphibious monster,’ if we may thus name a creature which lives in hell, and can live on earth at the same time. As we cannot descend into hell to chain him there, let us go to the Heart of Jesus, and seek for arms with which to combat him on earth.”

Seeing Satan thus abused by Mr. Dupont, we might be surprised that this wicked spirit did not seek to revenge himself by endeavoring to injure him, as he did St. Martin and other saints. A few lines jocosely written by the servant of God, brought to our knowledge the following circumstances. Hearing that an accident had happened to one of his friends on the 29th of April, he wrote to him: “I would wager that Satan had the idea of injuring both of us: during the day of the 28th, on hearing of the triumph of grace in a remarkable conversion, I laughed at the ‘evil one,’ saying that he was then, no doubt, like the hogs which are being sent from the slaughter-house to the butcher, on his back, with his paws in the air! However it may be, on the following night, I had a horrible nightmare. What terrified me was an ox, having on his forehead above his eyes a blasphemous label. The animal was rushing upon me, and I plunged into a deep hole to avoid the abominable label. But the hole proved to be the brick floor of my room, and I found myself lying on my right side, a singular circumstance for which I could not account; for, it would seem an impossibility that I should not have fallen on my left side. Now, what convinces me that Satan had a hand in this fall, is that on being suddenly awakened, and finding myself on the ground, I kissed the floor and said: “My God, I thank Thee.” My right side was skinned; but I suffered no other inconvenience.”

The other incident was mentioned to us by a reliable and intelligent layman. “Mr. Dupont spoke to me,” he says, “several times of the struggles he had with Satan during the nights of the Adoration. On one occasion, particularly, he said he was lifted from his bed by his infernal enemy, and whirled in the air, and then dropped across the bed.”

The Nocturnal Adoration being a work of faith, sacrifice, and love, it appeared to Mr. Dupont to be one of the most efficacious means of overcoming this adversary. “I am not surprised,” he wrote to a friend, “at the efforts of Satan to prevent our correspondence, since it is particularly devoted to bringing him to shame, and to mitigating the effects of his rage. He must have changed in a wonderful manner his habit of sitting with ‘his paws crossed,’ when he saw you taking time from your sleep to send petitions to the Nocturnal Adoration. It is, moreover, during the night that he concentrates his forces, because, on the one hand, his children then abandon themselves to every disorder, and on the other, Christians, after having made the sign of the cross, repose under the guard of their good angels. The poet described our enemy when he wrote: Nox apta criminibus: ‘The night favorable to crime.’” He wrote on another occasion these beautiful words: “Let us advance in the love of God, and Satan will be forced to fly: he can live at his ease only in the fire of hell, since he replaced charity, by hate, in his heart.”

He recommends, as a help to overcome the temptation to slander, the practice of touching the fingers to the tongue whilst they are still moist with the holy water, with which we have made the sign of the cross upon leaving the church. “The evil spirit will allow, at least, a short time to pass without attempting to rest upon it.”

However, the weapon he employed the most frequently against the demon, was the medal of St. Benedict.

After having secured the most authentic design, he had a number struck off, and he became the zealous propagator of the devotion, and a generous distributor of the medals. He purchased them by thousands, of different materials and various sizes. He had them always in his house and about his person, in order to give them to visitors or to those whom he might meet.

When Dom Pitra went from Solesmes to Rome at the request of Pius IX, from whom he soon received the purple, Mr. Dupont, being well acquainted with this worthy disciple of Dom Guéranger, thought he had a favorable opportunity of forwarding to the Holy Father one of his precious medals: it was of gold, and accompanied by a little book on the origin and effects of the medal of St. Benedict. Cardinal Pitra personally presented the medal to Pius IX, to the great satisfaction of Mr. Dupont. A few days afterwards a violent water-spout broke over the Vatican; all the lamps and panes of glass in the palace were broken, with the exception of those in the room where Pius IX was at the time. So great was the damage, that the king of Bavaria, who was at Rome, considered his offering a large one, when he repaired the injury done the building at his own expense. “Ah!” wrote Mr. Dupont, “the coincidence between the medal and the water-spout is not without its significance, and we, who know the value of the medal, can rejoice in its efficacy on this occasion.”

This fervent Christian never went on a journey without taking with him a quantity of these medals, to use either for himself or others. He was one day in a stage-coach, crowded with passengers, when it was nearly upset in a street, from which a portion of the paving had been removed. All were astonished at having escaped a danger which appeared inevitable; as for Mr. Dupont, he exhibited triumphantly to his travelling companions a medal of St. Benedict, to which he attributed their preservation.

In 1839, a celebrated magnetizer, who had been very successful in several cities of France, stopped in Tours to give an exhibition. He was accompanied by a young girl, a somnambulist, who was very profitable to him. The exhibition was to take place in a very large and ancient church which had been sold during the revolution. Mr. Dupont, having heard these details, went to the Carmelite Convent, and asked to see the prioress, Mother Mary of the Incarnation. “Will you help me, Reverend Mother,” he said, “to play a trick on the devil?” “Very willingly,” she replied. Mr. Dupont informed her of the proposed meeting not far from the monastery, and gave her a medal of St. Benedict. It was agreed between them that, in the evening at the hour appointed for the exhibition of the magnetizer, the prioress of the Carmelites should suspend the medal outside the window of her cell, which faced the place where the meeting was to be held. The plan thus formed was carried into execution, and Mr. Dupont and the prioress continued in prayer. What was the result? A large crowd, attracted by curiosity, had collected to witness the performances of the magnetizer, but they were entirely disappointed in their expectations. The clairvoyant could see nothing; the action of the magnetizer had no effect over her. The magnetizer was astonished; as they had in their possession money belonging to the public, they announced an exhibition for the following evening, ascribing their failure to the indisposition of the somnambulist. Mr. Dupont and the prioress of the Carmelites continued their anti-satanic plan and the prayers to St. Benedict. Again, the failure was complete. The following day, the magnetizer left Tours, to the great joy of Mr. Dupont, who, rubbing his hands with delight, rejoiced at the victory won by St. Benedict over a tool of his old enemy.

The servant of God was accustomed to throw medals in the foundations, or around the walls of certain edifices, from which he wished to expel Satan. How many he threw in the cellars and houses near the ruins of St. Martin! In order to secure possession of the property judged requisite for the reconstruction of the Basilica, it was necessary to act with great prudence, lest the proprietors should discover the importance which was attached to the purchase; other difficulties of various kinds arose. Mr. Dupont was careful to drop medals in the cellars, or to conceal them in the walls. The effect of the power of St. Benedict was soon visible; the agreement was made, and the purchase concluded, generally to the advantage of the commissioners.

A house was being built in the suburbs of Tours upon which the laborers worked on Sundays, to the great scandal of the neighborhood. Mr. Dupont, passing by one Sunday, witnessed the profanation. He threw a medal of St. Benedict into the mason-work. The following morning, the laborers were stupefied upon finding that the whole house had fallen.

The municipal council of Saumur decided in 1840, by the suggestion of the city engineer and under pretext of widening the street, to cut off a large portion of the ancient sanctuary dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, under the title of Notre-Dame des Ardilliers. In pursuance of this plan, they commenced the construction of a partition-wall to run the whole length of the church. The chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the object of so many pilgrimages, was thus sacrificed to a highway. The wall was already raised to the height of twenty feet, and the church, encumbered with materials, was ready for the workmen. Mr. Dupont, passing through the city as a traveller, was, at first, shocked and indignant at such a profanation. Soon, however, becoming calm and confident, he said: “No, no, this shall not be!” He proposed to his companions to attach a medal of St. Benedict to the statue of our Lady, which had been temporarily placed on the opposite side. He did this with the serenity of faith which was characteristic of him. A few days afterwards, the engineer, who had suggested the wicked thought of mutilating the house of God, died suddenly. His successor, on examining the wall upon which they were engaged, directed the laborers to suspend work immediately; he was struck by the inutility of a mutilation so odious in itself. The following day, he presented a report, adducing conclusive reasons to the municipal council, who, being better informed, empowered him to order the demolition of the wall, and the restoration of the church to its original state. The ancient image, consequently, was replaced in its former position where it still remains. The circumstance was much talked of throughout the country, as the sudden death of the city engineer appeared as a chastisement from Heaven: this caused some to say that the good Mr. Dupont had terrible moments, and that sometimes “he killed people.”

The man of God employed the medal, most willingly to obtain the conversion of sinners. In 1854, a wicked and blasphemous woman was admitted into a charitable institution. Every one thought she was possessed by the devil; she never left her bed, in which it was supposed she kept concealed certain charmed articles influential in maintaining her evil dispositions. There was question of making some repairs in the dormitory, and one day they took advantage of it to lift the paralytic suddenly from her bed, and, notwithstanding her cries, to remove her to an adjoining apartment. The Sisters, upon examination, found under the mattress a bag filled with suspicious articles. They substituted for the bag a medal of St. Benedict given by Mr. Dupont. The woman, without being informed of what had been done, was taken back to the dormitory. But she had, no doubt, learned it from the evil spirit; for, no sooner did she approach the bed, than she became furious in her rage, reproaching the Sisters for having removed the bag. But she was no sooner laid upon the bed, than her cries ceased suddenly, and she was unusually calm. For the first time since her entrance into the house, her features, which had been always horridly contracted, assumed a peaceful expression. The unfortunate creature asked for a priest. A few days later, the Infirmary, arranged as a chapel, brilliant with lights and adorned with flowers, received our Lord, Who came to visit a poor soul, now freed from captivity, and rejoicing as a bird, which has escaped the snare of the fowler. From that time, she continued until death to be an object of edification.

The following conversion is no less striking. We give it in Mr. Dupont’s words. “Yesterday afternoon, March 14, 1859, I met a priest who expressed great anxiety concerning a young man of seventeen years of age who had returned ill from Paris, and who, in the opinion of his physicians, could not survive many days. The priest had three times called to see the young man, but had been refused by the family. I spoke to him of the medal of St. Benedict, gave him one, and advised him to make another effort. In less than an hour, we had gained the victory. The priest was refused admittance; he shows the medal, saying that it is for the patient. ‘Ah! that makes a difference; come in, Sir.’  At the sight of the priest, the young man covers his face, but uncovers it as soon as he hears him say: ‘Accept this medal, my dear friend,’ and he immediately commences his confession with every evidence of sincere contrition.” “On the same day,” continues Mr. Dupont, “at eleven o’clock in the evening, a poor old woman, who had never, during her long life, performed a religious duty, lay in her death-agony. She was urged to make her confession, but refused. A medal of St. Benedict was given her, and she at once asked for a priest. Those who were attending, hastened to procure her the consolation she desired; she was eager for the arrival of the priest. ‘Will he give me my God in Holy Communion? How long he stays!’ She confessed, but her condition did not permit her to receive the Viaticum. Extreme Unction was administered, for which she expressed her gratitude. Two hours afterwards, she expired, repeating over and over again with remarkable faith: ‘I wish I could have received the good God.’”

The most violent passions, the most inveterate vices, yielded to the powerful influence of a medal given by Mr. Dupont. “A woman,” he relates, “came to me one day, weeping bitterly, and said: ‘My son-in-law, imagining that his wife has been guilty of a serious fault, has treated her very cruelly for the past three months. He has ceased to work, walks about all day doing nothing, and threatens continually to kill her, even if he should, in consequence, die on the gallows.’ As the woman seemed animated by sentiments of religion, I gave her several medals of St. Benedict, advising her, as well as her daughter, to keep one about her, and, without the knowledge of her son-in-law, to immerse one in his drink. I also suggested to her to make a novena, and approach the Sacraments in honor of St. Benedict. She went away full of confidence in St. Benedict, and returned after a few days, to communicate to me the good news of the happy change operated in her son-in-law. She had followed my instructions, and she was not long in obtaining the object of her petitions. The poor man had become tranquil, and had resumed his daily duties.”

The following fact is well known in Tours. In 1852, a woman in great distress, confided her sorrows to the servant of God. Her husband, although in other respects a good man, had contracted a miserable habit of drinking to excess. All the earnings of both husband and wife, were invariably expended by him as soon as received, and the family were reduced to a deplorable state of misery. Mr. Dupont gave the woman a medal, recommending her to touch with it the wine which her husband would use, whilst she herself was to drink only water. Hardly had the man tasted the wine, when he exclaimed: “What have you done to this wine? it is execrable.” As the woman protested it was the wine usually served, he said angrily: “I will indemnify myself for this.” He left the table and went to the tavern, from which he had not formerly returned until very late at night, and always under the influence of liquor. In a quarter of an hour the man entered and said to his wife: “This is a plot you have laid against me; the wine at the tavern is even worse than yours; I would rather drink water.” He passed a quiet night. From this day, water became, of necessity, the drink of the former drunkard. The wife, who was a good Christian, did not confine her efforts solely to the correction of her husband’s habit of drinking, and she succeeded in persuading him to resume the practice of his religious duties.

Such was Mr. Dupont’s estimation of the supernatural power of this medal, that he did not hesitate to use it even upon animals, when he suspected a more or less direct action of Satan over them. We will give the following instance. A score of hens, comfortably housed, well fed, and properly cared for in every way, had not laid a single egg for several months. The Sisters of the Community where this occurred became impatient, and killed several of the hens, but found no eggs in any of them. By Mr. Dupont’s advice, they placed a medal of St. Benedict in the hen-house; four days passed, and they found one egg; the next day, two. “Since then,” they write to Mr. Dupont, “the hens have done their duty every day.” The singularity of the incident caused him much amusement. He refers to it, at different times, in letters to his friend, Mr. d’Avrainville. “I hasten,” he writes, “to send you news of the hens. Since Satan has taken his departure, they give eight eggs regularly every day; there are sixteen of them. It is very comical. The Sisters have promised to send me some eggs. And I intend, if a good opportunity offers when I receive them, to share them with you.”

Mr. Dupont had correspondents and agents in every direction, for the distribution of the medals. From time to time, he would forward packages of them, and he inspired his friends with the faith and zeal which animated him. Thus, an individual wrote to him, we do not know from what place: “I always wear, as you advised, a medal of St. Benedict, and I distribute a large number. I directed some to be thrown into the flames during a great fire, and it was immediately extinguished. My mother, a lady, and myself, knelt and said the Litany of the Blessed Virgin and three invocations to St. Benedict; the fire originated in a manufactory, and it was raging with great violence; when we arose from our knees, the flames had subsided. We knelt and repeated the same prayers in thanksgiving. We did not know the persons whose building was on fire; the gentleman, who cast them into the flames, told me on his return: ‘I threw your medals, and the fire was immediately extinguished.’  We saw in this, the effect of St. Benedict’s intercession.”

The confidence of the servant of God in St. Benedict’s medal was unbounded. At the time of the great inundation of 1856, which proved so disastrous to the city of Tours, when there was danger of the bursting of the levee, and the inhabitants were in terrible anxiety, the engineers sank, at the weak point, boats loaded with sand and stones. Mr. Dupont was present: shrugging his shoulders in his habitual manner, he said: “That will not arrest the force of the water.” Returning alone a little while afterwards, he threw a handful of medals in the same place, and retired perfectly satisfied as to the safety of the city, which, in reality, escaped the flood, owing to the resistance of that portion of the dike. In conversation with an intimate friend, he once said that if he had a medal of St. Benedict in his hand, he could stop a locomotive if it were dashing upon him at its highest speed.

Mr. Dupont had committed to writing a number of facts similar to those we have related above. His manuscript terminates with these words: “Is it not time that we should acknowledge and proclaim, at this period when Heaven is pouring out graces so abundantly, the value of the medal which seems given by Providence, to clear the earth of the demon, the only obstacle to grace?”

He considered the virtue of the medal to reside principally in the words spoken by Jesus Christ in the desert: Vade retro, Satanas. In support of this opinion he quotes what our Lord said to St. Gertrude: “The most precious relic I have left upon earth, is the words pronounced by me.” With Dorn Guéranger, he attributed a great influence also to the cross on the medal and the impression of St. Benedict. “To this great patriarch, was reserved the privilege of teaching us how exalted must be our faith, how entire our confidence, to enable us to say with effective force: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’”