Full text of "The Catholic world"

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THE \ 




CATHOLIC WORLD. 





MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

. 



F 



GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, 



VOL. XVI. 
OCTOBER, 1872, TO MARCH, 1873. 



NEW YORK: 

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE, 

9 Warren Street. 

18/3. 



g 



CONTENTS. 



A coma, 703 

Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage, 6 4 S, 837 
American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers, 
756 

Heating the Air, 3^3 

Benefits of Italian Unity, The, 792 

Bismarck and the Jesuits, i 

Bismarck and the Three Emperors, 474 

Bolanden's The Progressionists, 40, 192, 358, 541, 

674 
Brussels, 766 

Centres of Thought in the Past: The Monaste- 
ries, 79 ; The Same: The Universities, 145 

Christian Art of the Catacombs, 372 

Christmas Memory, A, 502 

Christmas Recognition, A. 448 

Church the Champion of Marriage, The, 585 

Climacus, S. John, Sayings of, 318, 775 

Cologne, 615 

Craven's Fleurange, 18, 158, 303, 459, 600, 737 

Cross through Love, and Love through the 
Cross, 412, 523 

Crusaders, A Son of the, 433 

Cyprian, S., Martyrs and Confessors in Christ. 
8 44 

Dark Chapter in English History, A, 176 
Daughter of S. Dominic, A, 658, 813 
Deschamp's Bismarck and the Emperors, 474 
Distaff, The, 133 
Dona Ramona, 122 

English History, A Dark Chapter in, 176 
Episode of the Commune, An, 61, 227 
Europe's Angels, 533 

Father Isaac Jogues, S.J., 10, 
Father James Marquette, S.J., 688 
Fleurange, 18, 158, 303, 459, 600, 737 

Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter, 55 
God's Acre, 264 

Hermann, Pere, 808 

Homeless Poor of New York City, The, 206 

House that Jack Built, The, 212, 336, 507 

International Congress of Prehistoric Anthro- 
pology and Archaeology, 639, 829 
Italian Unity, The Benefits of, 792 

Jogues, Father Isaac, S.J., 105 

John, 622 

Juarez, Personal Recollections of, 280 

Legends of Saint Ottilia, 557 



Marquette, Father James, S.J., 683 

Marriage in the XlXth Century, 776 

Marriage, the Church the Champion of, 585 

Martyr's Journey, A, 137 

Martyrs and Confessors in Christ, 844 

Monasteries, The, 79 

Mission of the Barbarians, The, 845 

Nativity of Christe, The, 540 
New York City, The Homeless Poor of, 206 
Novel, Use and Abuse of the, 240 
Number Thirteen, 61, 227 

Odd Stories, 138, 420 

Ottilia, Saint, A Legend of, 557 

Partisan Newspapers, American Catholics and, 

756 

Pearl Ashore, 788 
Pere Hermann, 808 

Personal Recollections of Pres. Juarez, 280 
Peter the Powerful, 138 
Prince von Bismarck and the Three Emperors, 

474 
Progressionists, The, 40, 192, 358, 541, 674 

Protestantism, The Spirit of, 289 

Relation of the Rights of Conscience to the 
Authority of the State under the Laws of 
our Republic, 721 

Retrospect, A, 395, 516 

Review of Vaughan's Life of S. Thomas, 31, 
254 

Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barba- 
rians, 845 

Russian Clergy, The, 403 

S. Peter's Roman Pontificate, 345 
Sanskrit and the Vedas, 322 
Sayings, 357, 473 

Sayings of S.John Climacus, 318, 775 
See of S. Peter, Gavazzi -versus the, 55 
Signs of the Times, 422 
Son of the Crusaders, A, 433 
Spirit of Protestantism, The, 289 

Universities, The, 145 

Use and Abuse of the Novel, The, 240 

Vaughan's Life of S. Thomas, Review of, 31, 251 
Versailles, 92 

Where are You Going ? 221 
White Shah, The, 420 
Who Made our Laws? 578 

Year of Our Lord 1872, The, 558 



PO ETR Y 



Anselm's Tl _ Poor Ploughman, 175 
At the Shrine, 447 

Chaucer's Prayer ot Custance, 70? 
Choice in no Choice, 17 

Dante's Purgatorio, 319, 581 

' >n a Picture of S. Mary bearing Doves to Sacri- 
fice, .77 

Poor Ploughman, The, 175 
Purgatorio, Dante's, 319, 581 



Prayer of Custance, 702 

S. Mary Bearing Doves to Sacrifice, 77 
See of Peter, The, 647 
Sonnet from Zappi, 807 

To S. Mary Magdalen, 265 

'YTTVOf , 556. 

Virgin, The, 205 

Widow of Nain, The, 735 

Zappi, Sonnet from, 807 



11 



Contents. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Adams' Young: America Abroad, 859 
Agnew's Geraldine, 573 
All Hallow Eve, etc., 428 
Ambition's Contest, 144 
Arundell's Tradition, 430 
Athenaeum, The, 859 

Beloved Disciple, The, 143 
Bibliographia Catholica Americana, 713 
Bolanden s New God, 573 
Book of the Holy Rosary, The, 140 
Brownson's Life of Galhtzin, 712 
Burke's Ireland's Case Stated, 857 

Caswall's Hymns and Poems, 858 

Catholic Class Book, 288 

Catholic Family Almanac, 429 

Catholic Worship, 571 

College Journal, 576 

Commentary of the Fathers on S. Peter, 286 

Conversion of the Teutonic Race, 567 

The Same, Sequel, 567 
CoppeVs Elements of Logic, 285 
Craven's Fleurange, 570 
Cusack's Life of 1* . Mathew, 572 

Daily Steps to Heaven, 572 

De Mille's Treasury of the Seas, 859 

De Vere's Legends of S. Patrick, 570 

Ellis' Two Ysondes, 719 
England and Rome, 286 
English in Ireland, The, 716 

Finotti's Bibliographia Catholica Americana, 713 
Fleurange, 570 

Formby's The Book of the Holy Rosary, 140 
Froude's English in Ireland, 716 

Gardening by Myself, 144 

God and Man, 430 

Gratry's Henry Perreyve, 141 

Great Problem, The, 575 

Guillemin's Wonders of the Moon, 574 

Hart's Manual of American Literature, 431, 860 

Heart of Myrrha Lake, The, 569 

Henry Perreyve, 141 

History of the Sacred Passion, 427 

History of the Blessed Virgin Mary, The w 

Holland's Marble Prophecy, 431 

TT11 1 T- J i TO _wr**A)c 

Holley's Niagara, 432 

Holmes' The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, 8s8 

Hope's Teutonic Race, 567 

The Same, Sequel, 567 
Hiibner's Life of Sixtus V., 567 
Hymnary, with Tunes, 431 
Hymns and Poems, 858 

Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, 420 

Index Circular, 860 

Ireland's Case Stated, 857 

Issues of American Politics, The, 431 

Jenna's Elevations Poetiques et Religieuses, 717 

Keel and Saddle, 857 

Kroeger's The Minnesinger of Germany, 575 



Lacordaire's God and Man, 430 
Lasar's Hymnary, 431 

Lectures on the Connection of Science and Reli- 
gion, 573 

Legends of S. Patrick, 570 
Leiichild's The Great Problem, 575 
Liberalisme, Le, 714 
Life and Times of Sixtus V., 567 
Life of Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin, 712 
Life of S. Augustine, 714 
Liza, 573 




Macdonald's Hidden Life, 432 

Macdonald's The Vicar's Daughter, 143 

Manual of American Literature, 431, 860 

Memoirs of Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, 715 

Minnesinger of Germany, The, 575 

Moriarty's Life of S. Augustine, 714 

Morris' Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 

287 
My Clerical Friends, 567 

New God, The, 573 

Oakeley's Catholic Worship, 571 

Orsini's History of the B. Virgin Mary, 573 

Paquet's Le Liberalisme, 714 
Palma's History of the Passion, 427 
Parsons' Biographical Dictionary, 572 
Parsons' Shadow of the Obelisk, 572 
Peters' Catholic Class Book, 288 
Polytechnic, The, 859 
Photographic Views, 714 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table, The, 858 
Pocket Prayer Book, 286 
Potter's The Spoken Word, 142 

Rawes' The Beloved Disciple, 143 
Revere's Keel and Saddle, 857 
Roundabout Rambles, 432 

Sainte-Beuve's Memoirs of Mme. Desbordes- 
Valmore, 715 

Shadow of the Obelisk, The, 572 
Skinner's Issues of American Politics, 431 
Spoken Word, The, 142 
Stockton's Roundabout Rambles, 432 

Tradition, 430 

Treasure of the Seas, The, 859 

Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 287 

Truth, The, 571 

Turgeneiffs Liza, 573 

Two Ysondes, and otiier Verses, 719 

Unawares, 143 

Vicar's Daughter, The, 143 

Warner's Gardening by Myself, 144 
Waterworth's Commentary of the Fathers on S. 

Peter, 286 

Waterworth's England and Rome, 286 
Weninger's Photographic Views, 714 
Wiseman's Lectures on Science and Religion, 

573 
Wiseman's Works, 714 

Young America Abroad, 859 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD 



VOL. XVI., No. 91. OCTOBER, 1872. 



BISMARCK AND THE JESUITS. 

" i. THE Order of the Company of was proposed to the Reichstag by Dr. 
Jesus, orders akin to it, and con- Friedberg. The original motion was 
gregations of a similar character, identical in aim and almost in sub- 
are excluded from the German tern- stance. The amendment is more 
tory. The establishment of resi- exact and well-defined, leaving not 
dences for these orders is prohibited, the slightest loophole for possible 
The establishments actually in exist- evasion or escape. It was framed 
ence must be suppressed within a pe- and pressed on by the kindly spirit 
riod to be determined by the Federal and generous hand of Prince Clovis 
Council, but which shall not exceed of Hohenlohe, the brother of the 
six months. cardinal whose rejection by the 
" 2. The members of the Company Pope as ambassador from Germany 
of Jesus, of orders akin to it, and to his caurt gave such high umbrage 
of congregations of a similar cha- to the exquisitely sensitive Prince 
racter, may be expelled the Fede- Bismarck. 

ral territory if they are foreigners. If Such is the law : plain, clear, and 

natives, residence within fixed limits well-defined. There is no mistaking 

maybe forbidden them, or imposed it: it is " goodly writ." Paraphrased, 

upon them. it runs thus : 

" The measures necessary for the There is a body of men and wo- 
execution of this law, and for the cer- men even ; for though we attach our- 
tainty of this execution, shall be selves to the chief point at issue, the 
adopted by the Federal Council." phrase, "Those congregations of a sim- 
ilar character," may cover a very ex- 
Such is the amendment on the tensive ground, and seems ingenious- 
original motion for the recent legisla- ly framed for abuse in Germany, pos- 
tion with regard to the Jesuits which sessed of certain property, colleges, 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev. I. T. HECKKR, in the Office of 

the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



2 Bismarck and the Jesuits. 

churches, seminaries, schools; pos- answer for. This may account in 
sessed of certain rights as free citizens part for the extra seventy of the sen- 
of a free land : liberty of action and tence. Only make the penalty big 
of thought. Most of them are na- enough, and the popular mind needs 
tives of the soil ; many of them mem- to hear nothing of the crime. Prince 
bers of the highest families in the em- Bismarck knows the value of the old 
pire. They have been doing their adage, " Give a dog a bad name, 
work all these years without let or and hang him." 
hindrance, or rumor of such. The When the Communists seized upon 
state found no fault with them, or at Paris, we all knew what to expect : 
least never expressed it. Conse- scant justice and speedy sentence; 
quently, they went on without chang- none of your careful balancing of 
ing one iota of their principles or right and wrong. They took what 
mode of action, teaching in the uni- they could and gave no reason, 
versifies, colleges, and schools : This model German government, this 
preaching in the churches ; gathering new power which we all tremble at, 
together communities ; giving them- though it promises to regenerate us, 
selves free voice in a free press, that follows la Commune pretty closely in 
all might hear and tell openly what this its first, essay of power, 
they were doing, and what they pur- In the even balance of the law, it 
posed doing. Without a moment's is useless to talk of conspiracies, par- 
warning, without a trial or even a ties, plots, and this, that, and the 
mockery of a trial, the state swoops other. Show us those conspiracies ; 
down on them, seizes their property, point them out in black and white ; 
breaks up their communities, turns let the law lay its inexorable finger 
them out of their homes adrift upon the upon them, and say, such and such 
world, proclaims them outlaws, ban- actions have been committed by such 
ishes them the empire, save such as and such persons ; here are the proofs 
were born in it one of whom happens of guilt and we are satisfied, 
to be a cousin to the emperor himself; Though the condemned may have 
and these latter they proscribe to been our dearest friends, we have 
fixed limits under the surveillance of only to acknowledge the justice of 
the police. the sentence, to deplore that we 

And such is law ! The law of the have been deceived in them, and to 

new German Empire : the first great range ourselves as honest men and 

step in its reconstruction ! true citizens on the side of the law. 

Short of death, the state could not But in the present case, we have not 

do more utterly to destroy a body of had one single fact produced nor at- 

men.- Condensed into a word, these tempted to be produced; not a 

measures are demolition. As death crime in the varied category of crimes 

alone can make their penalty su- has been laid at the door of the ac- 

preme, the crimes of these outlaws cused. We have had instead from 

ought to be proportionately great, such men as Bismarck and his tools 

What, then, are these crimes that in a vague generalities of " conspiracy," 

moment produced such a sentence ? " enemies at home as well as 

Here we must confess to as great abroad," intermingled with fears for 
an inability to answer the question the safety of the new empire " the 
as Prince Bismarck or his followers new creation" padded in with bins- 
found themselves ; for the very sim- ter and empty bombast, " full of 
pie fact that there are no crimes to sound and fury, signifying nothing." 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 3 

And in the face of this advanced ful German government, in the first 
nineteenth century, this era of facts, flush of an unprecedented success, 
figures, and freedom, on the strength headed by the " terrible Chancellor," 
of evidence that would not suffice to pitted might and main against 708 
condemn the veriest scoundrel that individuals, staking its very life on 
ever stood face to face with justice the contest. What evenly matched 
in the dock, a body of intellectual foes ! For the Jesuits are the sole 
gentlemen, beloved in the country object of this attack, mind. Listen 
from which they are banished, are to Minister Delbriick in his speech 
proclaimed outlaws, enemies of their on the third reading of the bill; " It 
own nation, faithless to their conn- is my duty, in the name of the con- 
try and their emperor, unfit to live in federate government, to repudiate 
the land that is proud of them, and anew that view of the question which 
driven without scrip or staff into the identifies the Society of Jesus with the 
world. Catholic Church. ... In such an 

Let us bear it in mind, before quit- allegation they can discover nothing 
ting this point, that the feeling of more than an arbitrary perversion of 
their countrymen as well as of the notorious facts : a falsification which 
whole Catholic world is with them, is the more to be deplored, as it 
We all know how a government, and might serve to deprive the measure 
particularly a strong government, can in circles outside of this assembly of 
influence the public voice and mani- its true character, and impress on it 
pulate votes. Well, petitions rolled another which it does not possess." 
in for the suppression of the Jesuits; This minister was the mouthpiece 
but, strange to say, roll in as they of Bismarck " the hands indeed are 
might, a still vaster number came to Esau's, but the voiceis that of Jacob." 
retain them ; and on the strength of Was there ever such a picture of 
the former, the measure was put be- injured innocence and righteous in- 
fore parliament and passed. This dignation ? 

fact of the popular voice proclaiming Seven hundred and eight men who 

itself boldly in favor of the Order is spend their lives, as all the world may 

very significant when we take into see, in teaching, preaching, studying, 

account the forces arrayed against visiting the sick, performing their dai- 

each other, though, in truth, the bat- ly household duties, are such terrible 

tie was all on the side of the gov- plotters, dangerous political leaders, 

ernment. On the one hand we have that they cause the great Chancellor 

the Prince-Chancellor working the actually to tremble in his shoes. It 

engine of the state his own creation is a strange fact that he did not find 

-with every nerve that is in him, this conspiracy out sooner. Bismarck 

joining himself in the debates with and the Jesuits are old neighbors, 

speeches of the bitterest and most not to say friends. They have lived 

inflammatory character; on the very happily together up to yester- 

other, we have a body of 708 men ! day. They accompanied him to his 

Such was their number in Germany wars, and took the place that is al- 

according to the statistics of last ways theirs in the battle front, among 

year; the total number throughout the wounded and the dying, when no 

the world being 8,809. succor was nigh, in the endeavor to 

To this, then, the contest reduces give rest and peace to the last mo- 
itself apparently. These are the ments of those whom Bismarck sum- 
ostensible foes. The new and power- moned from their quiet homesteads 



4 Bismarck and the Jesuits. 

to die for him under the empty name gence of our readers by going into a 
of glory and patriotism. Some of needless defence, for the millionth 
them were rewarded by the Emperor time, of the Jesuit Order. Their de- 
with the Iron Cross the proudest de- fence is written on the world with the 
coration which he can bestow on a blood of their martyred children, 
man ; as some others of them on the Their defence rests on the fact of 
other side brought their science to their very existence under such per- 
bear on the dismal walls of the be- sistent and terrible persecutions as 
leaguered city, spreading out light far their mother, the church, only has 
and near to discover the crouching surpassed. It rests in the record of 
foe, and they were rewarded with every land upon which the sun has 
death. Why, then, after living in shone. And as for the time-worn 
harmony so long together, does the themes, ever welcome and ever new. 
Chancellor turn round in a moment of secresy, unscrupulous agents, 
and make such a sweeping attack up- blood, poison, daggers, and all the 
on them, only them ? The body, nu- mysterious paraphernalia which the 
merically, is absolutely too insigni- Jesuit of the popular imagination 
ficant for all this uproar. Why, we still bears about with him under that 
could pack them all into some of our famous black gown, which the intel- 
hotels, and they would scarcely make lect of the age, in the persons of the 
an appreciable difference in the num- London Times' correspondents and 
ber of visitors. Had there exist- those of the Saturday Review, are 
ed a conspiracy on their part against never weary of harping on, we leave 
the empire, as is alleged, is it pos- them to the enlightened vision of 
sible that with Bismarck's unlimited these gentlemen, and their rivals in 
power and resources, aided by those this respect the concocters of the 
wonderful spies of his, who so infested villains of fifth-rate novels. But they 
France that his generals knew the object : Well, we are ready to admire 
country better than the French them- your Jesuits. They live among us 
selves did is it possible that he who and we know them, and really, on 
esteems so highly the value of the the whole, they are not half such bad 
opinion of " circles outside the em- fellows ; in fact, we may go so far as to 
pire," could not produce one sorry say they are very peaceable, intelli- 
fact to bring forward against them ? gent, respectable gentlemen. When 
Their most determined opponents we wish to hear a good sermon we al- 
must confess that he has utterly failed ways go to listen to them. They are 
to do so ; and failing to do so, he has very fine writers, and very clever men. 
exercised, and the majority of the They have done much, or tried to do 
German Parliament has sanctioned, a much, for America, Africa, Japan, 
barefaced abuse of power, such as and every out-of-the-way place ; they 
we thought had died out with the have done something in Europe, even, 
good old days of Henry VIII. and But after all you must acknowledge 
Queen Bess, or lived only with the that they are very dangerous fellows. 
Sultan of Turkey or the barbarous Why, your own Pope, Sixtus V., could 
monarchs of the East. May it not scarcely be prevailed upon to permit 
recoil on their own heads ! the foundation of the Order at the 
The quarrel is scarcely confined to beginning; and another of your 
these limits, then, terrible as the Popes, Clement XIV., actually con- 
power of the Jesuits may be. We demned them. Come, now ; what 
do not intend to insult the intelli- do you say to that ? 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 5 

Must we soberly sit down to an- exactly the same way that King John 

svver this absurdity once more ? Our signed the Magna Charta ; Charles 

readers will pardon us for merely I. the death-warrant of Strafford ; or 

glancing at it, and passing on to the George IV. the act for Catholic eman- 

more immediate subject of our article, cipation. We believe none of our 

First of all, granting, which we by readers would blame King Charles 
no means intend to do, that all that for the death of StrafTord, or thank 
they allege is true, that it was with King John for Magna Charta, or 
the greatest difficulty they even crept George IV. for Catholic emancipa- 
into existence, and that a Pope found tion ; as little do we, can we, or any 
it necessary to suppress them ; there one who has read the history of the 
stands out in the face of such opposi- time, blame Clement XIV. for the 
tion the telling fact of their existence brief which suppressed the Jesuits, 
in the broad light of these open The timid old monk he was con- 
days, when no sham can pass muster, secrated Pope at what the Bourbons 
when the keen, eminently honest eye considered the very safe age of sixty- 
of these folk pick out the false in a . four was strong enough to resist 
twinkling, expose it, hoot it down, this wicked demand of their sup- 
away with it, and there is an end. pression to the utmost. We must 
Such a fact opposed to such never- bear in mind that the demand was 
failing opposition is a very stubborn made by no body in the church ; 
thing, and bears with it some- but only by the ambassadors of 
thing very like reality and truth. France, Spain, and Naples. " I 
As for the difficulty of their begin- know what you want," he said, " you 
ning, that is the history of all want to create a heresy and destroy 
orders in the church, so careful the church." Another time he 
is she of new-fangled notions. In writes, " I can neither censure nor 
fact, if our recollection serves us, abolish an institute which has been 
that, we believe, is the history of the commended by nineteen of my pre- 
church herself. So much for the decessors." In the meantime, we 
alleged opposition of Sixtus V. And have a disinterested witness, happily 
now for the quelcher : the suppres- enough from Prussia, a man whom 
sion by Clement XIV. we have no doubt even Prince Bis- 

Here we give in: our opponents marck has some respect for. It is 

are right. Clement XIV. actually no less a person than Frederick the 

did issue a brief suppressing the Great, who writes to Voltaire: 
Jesuits. Of course it is perfectly un- 
necessary to inform these theological "That good Franciscan of the Vatican 

and mediaeval scholars that a brief is leaves me my dear Jesuits, who are 

a verv different thing from a bull : Persecuted everywhere else. / idll pre- 

,. r .. . i i serve the precious seed, so as to be able one 

that a brief is in no wise binding on , , .., - f . , . 

o day to apply it to such as may desire again 

the successor of the Pontiff who issues to cultivate this rare plant." 
it ; that a brief has no more to do 

with infallibility than these gentle- At last, notwithstanding his en- 
men themselves have. And now we treaties and prayers, they wrung the 
would beg them to listen a moment brief from the heart of the tottering 
to the very few Jesuitical words in old man. They gained their point 
which we explain this whole thing while he lost his peace of mind, and 
away. was ever after murmuring, Compulsus 
Clement XIV. issued this brief in fed, compithus fed. We should be 



Bismarck and tJie Jesuits. 



more correct in saying that they only 
half-gained it; for they were wild 
with rage at its being only a brief, 
What they wanted was a bull : 
destruction, not suspension. And 
such is the history of the famous 
suppression of the Jesuits. 

To make the story complete, we 
may as well add that, as soon as the 
brief became known, Switzerland, 
knowing that it was the production 
of the Bourbon faction and not of the 
Pope, refused to submit to it and 
deprive the Jesuits of their colleges, 
Catherine of Russia interceded in 
their favor, and gave the poor Pope 
a crumb of comfort in the few days 
that were left him. Well did he 
say, " This suppression will be the 
death of me." While Frederick the 
Great but he shall speak for him- 
self, and we commend his utterance 
to Prince Bismarck. He writes to 
his agent at Rome : 

"AbbeColumbini, you will inform all 
who desire to know the fact, but without 
ostentation and affectation, and you will 
moreover seek an opportunity of signify. 
ing soon to the Pope and his chief minis- 
ter, that, with regard to the Jesuits, I am 
determined to retain them in my states. In 
tne treaty of Breslau, I guaranteed the 
status gL of the Catholic religion, and 
I have never found better priests in every 
respect. You will further add that, as I 
belong to the class of heretics, the Pope 
cannot relieve me from the obligation of 
keeping my word, nor from the duty of 
a king and an honest man." 

These words would be weakened 
by comment. We pass with relief 
from this worn-out subject, and wish 
our adversaries joy of their mare's 
nest. Men who have won the praise 
of their bitterest foes need small 
defence from their friends. We 
leave them in the hands of such men 
as Voltaire, Lord Macaulay, Sir 
James Stephens, Bancroft, Prescott, 
Parkman, and a host of other emi- 
.nent men of all nations and all 



creeds save our own. When those 
who carp at the Jesuits have studied 
and refuted these writers to their 
own satisfaction, they may be in a 
fair way to meet us. 

Now we are met with the furthei 
objection: if the Jesuits are such 
an excellent body as we make them; 
as Protestant historians and infidel 
writers make them ; as Catherine of 
Russia, as Frederick the Great, the 
founder of the Prussian empire, and 
in this respect the proto-Bismarck, 
make them why should Prince 
Bismarck pick such a deadly quarrel 
with them ? 

Have we possibly been mistaken 
in him all this time ? Have we had 
another Luther lurking beneath the 
person of the burly Chancellor ? 
Has his aim been all along not mere- 
ly to create a German empire, but a 
German religion and a German 
popedom ? Has his zeal been in- 
spired by religion ? In his speech 

tne other day he protested against 

th pretensions of the p ope as a 

~ / *.* 

: and an evangelical Aris- 

tian." We congratulate the evan- 
gelical Christians, whoever they may 
be , O n their new apostle. For our- 



and thinking that the. height of 
solemn farce liad at length been 
reached. The words reminded us of 

one Oliver Cromwell, who, in corn- 

.> n i i r 

m n Wlth a ^ell-known kinsman of 

his, had a knack of " citing Scripture 
for ftis purpose." 

No ; we confess it, notwithstanding 
this solemn affirmation from his own 
mouth, and before the German par- 
liament too (we think the printer 
must have omitted the " laughter" at 
the end) we cannot bring ourselves 
to look upon the Chancellor as a 
" vessel of election," though he may 
be a " vessel of wrath." We con- 
sider that his worst enemy could 
scarcely say a harder thing of him 



Bismarck and the Jesuits 



than that he was a religious man. 
His is " Ercles' vein : a tyrant's vein." 
The Emperor " is more condoling." 
Now he presents the picture of a re- 
ligious man par excellence. Why, his 
nostrils discerned a sanctified odor 
rising up from those reeking fields of 
France ; and he could pray how 
well ! after he had won the victory. 
But his Chancellor is a man of 
another complexion. He found a 
rich humor in it all. We have not 
forgotten that grim joke of his yet 
about the starving and doomed city. 
Is he not the prince of jesters ? No, 
however bad may be our opinion of 
him, we will not accuse him of reli- 
giousness. 

Where, then, lies the difficulty be- 
tween them ? The answer to this 
necessitates a review of the whole 
present question of Bismarck with 
the Papacy; and we must beg our 
readers' indulgence in carrying them 
over such beaten ground in order to 
get at the root of it all, fix it in our 
minds, and keep it there, so that 
no specious reasoning may blind us 
to the reality of it, to the true point 
at issue. 

We recollect the position of the Pa- 
pacy prior to the Franco-German war. 
The Pope was supported in his do- 
minions by the arm of France we 
say France advisedly ; not by Napo- 
leon. The war came and smote this 
right arm. Victor Emanuel stepped 
in ; took possession : coolly told the 
Pope he would allow him to live 
in the Vatican. The world shrieked 
with delight at seeing a powerless old 
man reft of the little that was left 
him. The world was astonished at 
the generosity of Victor Emanuel in 
allowing the Pope a fraction of what 
happened to be his own property. 
The world looked for the regenera- 
tion of Italy, and it has had it. The 
New York Herald furnished us with 
the increase of crime since Victor 



Emanuel's possession : if we recol' 
lect rightly, it is about fourfold. Sc 
the Pope rested, as he still rests, a vir- 
tual, in plain truth an actual, prisoner 
in the Vatican, without a helping 
hand stretched forth to him. Came 
his jubilee, and with it kindly and 
solemn gratulations from a quarter 
least expected the new emperor. 
Our eyes began to turn wistfully to 
the new power, and people whis- 
pered, Who knows ? perhaps our 
Holy Father has at last found a de- 
fender. Here was Bismarck's op- 
portunity of winning the hearts of 
the Catholic world, of binding us to 
him with the strongest chain that can 
link man to man. Time wore on, and 
the gloss wore off. Home questions 
arose, the Chancellor began to feel 
his way, to insinuate little measures- 
such as the secularization of schools, 
which the Catholics, strange to say, 
found reason to object to. Prince 
Bismarck grew a little impatient ; he 
was anxious to conciliate the Catho- 
lics as far as he possibly could ; but 
really " his patience was nearly ex- 
hausted." Our golden hopes began 
to grow dim. We have heard this 
sort of thing before; we hear it 
every day, from some whose opinions 
we respect ; and we know what it 
means. It is the old cry, " We have 
piped to you and you will not dance ; 
we have played to you, and you do 
not sing." You are irreconcilable; 
there is no meeting you on debat- 
able ground. And that is just the 
point. Our religion has no debat- 
able ground, for it is founded on faith, 
and not on what goes by the name 
of free investigation. So that whether 
it be Bismarck or nearer friends 
of ours who would force or woo us in 
turn from our position, we must meet 
them in matters that touch our faith 
with the inevitable " Non possumus.' 
Prince Bismarck began to grow 
weary of us ; and he soon showed 



8 Bismarck and the Jesuits. 

signs of his peculiar form of weariness, tag he declared that such a thing was 

He scarcely agrees with " what can't without a parallel in the history of 

be cured must be endured "; his diplomacy. What martinets these 

motto is rather, " What can't be cured Germans are for punctilio ! We 

must be killed." The secularization remember Mr. Disraeli actually re- 

>of schools was carried in the face of fusing to accept as sufficient reason 

the protest of the Prussian Catholic for the late war the " breach of eti- 

bishops, assembled at Fulda. The quette at a German watering-place." 

solemnization of the sacrament of Now, with all due respect, Prince Bis- 

marriage is handed over to the civil marck knew, as those he addressed 

jurisdiction, the same as any other knew, as all the world knows, that 

contract. Still not a whisper against this statement was anything but cor- 

the Jesuits, though, as we have alrea- rect. Ambassadors have been re- 

dy quoted, his quarrel is purely and en- jected before now, and probably will 

tirely with them. We pass on to the be again. In fact, had certain indi- 

>crowning act in his list of grievances : viduals of this class to and from our- 

the embassy to the Court of the selves been rejected at the outset, 

Vatican. it would have saved national diffi- 

What a noble thing it looked in culties, or at least wounded feelings 
the all-powerful Chancellor to de- and displays of school-boy recrim- 
spatch an ambassador from the high inations scarcely creditable to such 
and mighty German empire, the high and mighty folk as gentle- 
mightiest in the world, to the old men of the diplomatic body. But 
man pent up in the Vatican ! What there is more in the question than 
a condescension to acknowledge that this. The Cardinal-Prince Hohen- 
such a person existed ! lohe is a prince of the church. He 

Of course the Pope would receive is in addition attached to the Pope's 

such marks of favor with tears of grati- household. He gave himself freely 

tude and open arms. What ! is it and voluntarily to the service of 

possible ? He actually rejects the the church. He is not a mere 

ambassador, and sends him back on ordinary member of the Catholic 

Bismarck's hands. Well, well ! won- body. He stands in relation to 

ders will never cease. the Pope as Von Moltke, the Dane, 

Now there never was such a tern- stands in relation to the Em- 
pest in a tea-pot as the explosion peror William ; as those who were 
this carefully laid train created. The once fellow-citizens of ours stand in 
very fact of sending an ambassador relation to the Khedive, whose ser- 
at all to a monarch acknowledges vice they have entered ; as Carl 
-the perfect right of that monarch to Schurz and millions of our fellow- 
receive or reject him as he pleases; citizens stand in relation to the 
and to common sense there is an government of the United States, 
-end of the question. The Pope did When the Italians entered Rome, 
not choose to receive this ambassa- Cardinal Hohenlohe left it ; and the 
dor ; he had every right to exercise next the Pope heard of him was 
his freedom of action ; he exercised that his own servant had been ap- 
his right, but Prince Bismarck's sensi- pointed ambassador to his court 
bilities were hurt. It was not so from Berlin! Just as though to- 
much the fact of rejection as the morrow we received intimation that 
Pope's want of politeness that afflicted a new ambassador had been appoint- 
him. In his speech before the Reichs- ed to us from England, and that 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 

ambassador was no less a person and always has been, to egg 

than Minister Schenck. We can adversary on ; to goad him into* 

imagine the New York Herald's com- striking first, taking care all the while * 

ments on such a proceeding. And that he himself is well prepared, 

yet Prince Bismarck is sore aggrieved They strike, and he crushes them 

at a breach of political etiquette. all in self-defence. He is exonerated 

We think we need trouble our in the eyes of the world. He can tell 
readers with no further reasons the others they provoked him to the 
for Cardinal Hohenlohe's rejection, contest ; he can say to them, " Your 
What share the cardinal had in the blood be on your own heads." 
whole proceeding we do not know. And so this carefully prepared 
Probably Prince Bismarck would train exploded. It looked such a 
eventually have found himself sadly noble, generous, friendly action to 
disappointed m his ambassador had send an ambassador to the Pontiffs 
he been accepted. S. Thomas of court in the present position of the 
Canterbury made an excellent chan- Pontiff, that, when the ambassador 
cellor till the king, against his was calmly rejected, the world could 
wishes, compelled him to enter new not believe its ears; and Prince 
service. But it is very clear that if Bismarck entertains a very high 
Bismarck, as we do not believe, ever respect for those ears notwithstanding 
contemplated the possibility of the* their length. What could we say 
cardinal's acceptance at Rome, what but that it was too much ? There 
he wanted was a tool, one who, to was no conciliating these Romanists 
use his own very remarkable words, and Ultramontanes, do what you 
" would have had rare opportunities would. It was clear that the Pope 
of convey ing our own ve rsion of eve nfs was altogether out of place in these 
and things to his [the Pope's] ear. days ; and his obstinacy only served 
This was our sole object in the no- to keep very respectable bodies of 
mination rejected, I am sorry to say, men from agreeing and living neigh- 
by Pio Nono." body together, and so on ad 

We have no doubt of it : it was nauseam. Thus Bismarck could 
his sole object; and the acceptance afford to froth and fume about in- 
or rejection of his ambassador was suit, unprecedented actions, etiquette, 
one to him; for Prince Bismarck and so on; urge upon the German 
is generally provided with two strings nation that they had been insulted in 
to his bow. Had the cardinal been the person of their august emperor, 
accepted, he believed he had a who seems as touchy on points of 
churchman devoted -to his interests, etiquette as a French dancing-master; 
another Richelieu ; his rejection suit- and ring the changes up and down 
ed him still better; for he could now till he closed with the loud-sounding 
declare open war, and throw the twang, " Neither the emperor nor 
onus of it on his adversaries, myself are going to Canossa !" 
Through the whole proceeding we Could anything be more theatri- 
detect the fine hand of the man who cally effective ? Could anything be 
forced on the Danish, Austrian, and more transparently shallow ? 
French wars. Prince Bismarck Well, in the face of this awful out- 
must not be surprised if, in the face rage and unprecedented provocation, 
of such speaking examples, we come what does the wrathful Chancellor 
at last to have a faint conception of do ? March on Rome; declare war 
his strategy. His policy always is, against the Catholics; utterly ex- 



10 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 



terminate them ; smite them hip and highest thing in the eye of God or 

thigh ? Nothing of the kind. He of his church ; but our present point 

not only lets the Pope alone from deals with their intellectual power, 

whom he received the outrage, but The Pall Mall Gazette said the other 

he actually looks about for another day, writing on this question : 

ambassador, " in the event of unlooked- 

j- j 7-j- TT~ ^fn,'r.c fViA " One of the most remarkable traits 

for eventualities. He entertains tne . 

J , , of the Society of Jesus has always been 

greatest possible respect for Catno ks literary productiveness. Wherever 

lies. Indeed, he seems to be aware its me mbers went, no sooner had they 

that the small fraction of 14,000,000 founded a home, a college, a mission, 

of them go to swell his empire; the than they began to write books. [We 

most Catholic of whom, by the way, beg to call the attention of 

r ' J . . , would fain make the church the mother 
bore the brunt of the m of ignorance) to testimony of this kind 
France. He accepts his rebuff more f rom suc h a SOU rce.] The result has 
in sorrow than in wrath. He lets been a vast literature, not theological 
the whole question slip ; he has no alone, though chiefly that, but embracing 
quarrel with the 14,000,000; but almost every branch of knowledge/- 
there are 708 of them whom he The j esu}ts in GermanV) as m all 
pounces upon as the policeman on the countries where they have freedom, 
small boy ; and nobody can quarrel possessed the best schools and col- 
with him for letting the steam of his lege< Th made themse i ve s heard 
wrath off on this small body, which and feu in the press< In Italy? 
is at the bottom of every mischief GermanVj Holland, and Belgium," 
that turns up. savs t ] ie j ourna i above quoted, " the 
Is not this excellent fooling? most trustwort h y cr itics are of opin- 
says to the Catholics: I will not ion that there are no better wr i tten 
touch you ; you and I are very excel- newspa p er s than those under Jesuit 
lent friends ; I will not touch your control . It says further, and no- 
mother the church ; I will content body will accuse the PaU Matt Ga , 

myself with murdering her eldest *,//, o f being a Jesuit organ : 
son, who is the cause of all the 

trouble between us. Why indeed is their Order so danger- 
Now, we may fairly ask the ous, if it be not on account of the ardent, 
question : Is the quarrel confined to disinterested conviction of its members, 
these limits ? Why does Bismarck ^ e ! r indomitable courage and energy, 
.... . J , , r . their spirit of self sacrifice, to say nothing 
turn aside from the church, from the of their inte iiigence and their learning? 
Pope who so angered him, from the The effect of all this can but be height- 
bishops who protested against his ened by persecution. On the other side 
laws and refused to submit to them, [Austria, if we recollect rightly], the daa- 

from the Centre in the Reichstag who e er which the "istence of the 

, , n . ,? the country really offers is much less than 

so boldly, calmly, and logically op- k is Sup p 0sed to be In Germany, it 

pose him ? why does he turn from does not really exist." 
all these legitimate foes, and fall on 

the small body of 708 men who These extracts from various num- 

compose the Jesuit Order in Prussia ? bers of one of the leading rationalistic 

The answer is not difficult. The organs in England, which it were 

Jesuits as a body represent the intel- easy to supplement by many others 

lect of the church. They represent of the same import, notably from the 

indeed more, much more, than this ; Saturday Review and the Spectator, 

for intellect, great as it is, is not the we merely present here to such of 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. II 

our non-Catholic readers as might This marvellous German empire, 

receive our own testimony of what- this more than a nine days' wonder, 

ever value with a certain suspicion, has been convulsed into life; and 

They embody very sound reasons for sudden convulsions are liable to as 

Bismarck's unprovoked and unlawful sudden relapses. Bismarck's heart is 

attack. We purpose going a little in it ; he is the corner-stone ; it is 

deeper into the question. built upon him; and he of all men 

The Jesuits now, as always, small knows on what a rocking foundation 

as their, number is, were the leading it is built. Listen to his mouthpiece 

Catholic teachers in Germany among once more, Minister Delbruck, in his 

high and low. Their access to the speech on the third reading of the 

chairs of the universities made them bill against the Jesuits : 
to a great extent the moulders of 

thought, the teachers of the teachers, ' We live und ,f r a ver >' new s > rstem f 

government, called into existence by 

the great intellectual bulwark against * j ghty political convulsions : and I hold 

the spread of rationalism and every that we should commit a great error in 

form of false doctrine which strives to abandoning ourselves to the delusion that 

creep ill to the hearth of the com- everything is accomplished and perfected 

momvealth and endanger its exist- because the Imperial German constitu- 

tion has been published in the official or- 

ence. As they were the strenuous gan of the empire> For a long time to 

upholders of Bismarck in all that was come we shall have to keep carefully in 

right; as their influence against the mind that the constitution the new crea- 

maxims of the International, though tion has enemies not only abroad but 

not so immediate and showy as his, at home ; and if the representatives of the 

. ,. . . empire arrive at the conviction that 

was infinitely deeper and more last- among these internal en emies an organ is 

ing, so when he would intrench upon to be reckoned which, while furnished 

rights that are inalienable to every with great intellectual and material 

man of whatever complexion and means, and endowed with a rare organi- 

creed, they turned and boldly faced zation ' s ' eadi1 }' P u / sues a fixed inimica i 

... aim, it has a perfect right to meet and 

Jiancellor himself. Were the frustrate the anticipated attack- 
character which their opponents 

would fix upon them true, they had We have shown how nobly they 
their opportunity of showing it of met and frustrated the anticipated 
going with him at least at the outset, attack a rather summary mode, we 
He would not have disdained the as- submit, of dealing with those who 
sistance of such able lieutenants, may be enemies, for it has grown 
But instead, the wily Jesuits, the men into only an "anticipated attack" now. 
of the world, the plotters, the schem- Worse and worse for the wielders of 
ers, the Order that is untrue to eve- law. It may be as well to note 
rything and everybody save itself, also that the Chancellor lets nothing 
throws itself with undiminished ar- slip. He allows the " great intel- 
dor, with a devotion worthy of the lectual means " to go ; but the 
fatalist, with all their heart and soul, " great material means " is a far more 
into a losing cause ; into a cause important thing. He sticks to that, 
which they have ever supported; There must be something of. the 
which has been losing these eighteen Israelite nature in him. He out- 
hundred and seventy-two years, but Shylocks Shylock. As in France, so 
which has never lost. here; he is not content with the 
These considerations bring us to " pound of flesh," he will have in ad- 
the root of the question. dition the "monies." After all, what 



12 Bismarck and the Jesuits. 

is there to surprise us in this ? The simply the evil effect of evil spirits 
great Chancellor, who coldly wrung working upon dissatisfied and ill- 
such griping terms from bleeding governed bodies of men. While 
France, could scarcely be expected to over all, in the dim treacherous back- 
leave to the church the great material ground, looms the vast giant power 
possessions, that is to say, the schools, of Russia, that seems to slumber, but 
seminaries, and churches, which be- is only biding the event, and shows 
longed to her children. itself in dangerous signs from time to 
But to resume : The first sentence time. Europe yearns for something 
of this quotation strikes the key-not fixed, permanent, and strong. Na- 
of the whole movement. And, we poleon held it failed ; and the reins 
avow it, Prince Bismarck is right, fell into the hands of Bismarck. He 
This empire has enemies at home as commences his reign by declaring 
well as abroad, and the Jesuits are war against the only element that 
in the van. All Catholics are its can humanize these conflicting 
enemies ; and we make bold to say masses, and cause this wild chaos of 
that all free men, and particularly all passion to adhere, coalesce, and be- 
Americans, are its enemies. For it come one again as its Creator made 
is not a German but a Bismarck it : religion. Religion alone can 
empire; a Bismarck creation, that make them bow to law; for re- 
started into life men scarce knew ligion alone can teach them that 
how; a momentary thing for mutual there is a law that is above, and gives 
defence, but never to be made, as he a reason for that law which they 
has made it, as powerful an instru- themselves make for themselves, 
ment of tyranny as ever was forged And what has Bismarck done with 
to bind and grind a free-born people this power that was given him ? 
in fetters of iron for ever down. To begin with, he has banished re- 
Never, in the vexed history of na- ligion from the schools, where it has 
tions, has power, and such awful flourished to the mutual satisfaction 
power, fallen into the hands of any of Catholics and Protestants ever 
one man at such an opportune mo- since its establishment. He has pro- 
ment for good; and never, at the faned the sacrament of marriage and 
very outset, has it been so basely handed it over to the civil courts, 
and so openly abused. The state of We will omit the expulsion of the 
Europe, at this moment, is deplor- Jesuits now. His empire is the most 
able ; revolution in Spain, revolution autocratic and aristocratic in Europe. 
in Italy, revolution in France. The Almost as a consequence, it is the 
government, the supreme control of most military. To make assurance 
the whole continent, shifting from doubly sure, he is making it more 
hand to hand ; yesterday it was Na- military still ; not a nation of peace- 
poleon, to-day 'tis Bismarck : Europe ful men, but, a nation of warriors. In- 
cannot stand these successive shocks, stead of allowing the weary nation a 
from empire to anarchy, from anarchy rest after a strife where centuries 
to empire, without warning and with- were condensed into a few months, 
out ceasing. Under alt smoulders and fabulous armies shattered in 
the burning lava, breaking out from days, the military laws are made 
time to time in fitful eruptions here more stringent than ever. The 
the Carbonari, there la Commune, in Prussian system of service is to pre- 
other places as trades-unions which vail throughout the empire, notwith- 
threatens to overwhelm and engulf standing Bavaria's remonstrance, 
the whole in one red ruin. It is Von Moltke's declarations in his late 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 13 



speech are very clear and concise, of our readers by entering into such 
Summed up, they mean discipline, a question. If a government acknow- 
discipline, discipline ; and this is Bis- ledges a church at all, .it must allow 
marck's word also. To produce this that church to work in its own way 
perfection of discipline, the power of so long as it does not intrench upon 
the state must be supreme in every the civic rights of the subject. The 
point. Nothing must escape it ; men in question, who were condemn- 
nothing must evade it. The state ed, received their orders and powers 
must be religion, the state must be of teaching, preaching, and saying 
God, and Herr von Bismarck is the Mass from the church, to which they 
state. This sounds like exagger- made the most solemn oaths of entire 
ated language; but Bismarck shall obedience in matters of doctrine. If 
speak for himself: afterwards they grew discontented, 

they possessed the civil right to leave 

'-I may the preceding speaker ^ But as honest men, how could 

M err Windhorst] that, as far as Prus- ... 

sia is concerned, the Prussian cabinet the > r remam m ll > receiving emolu- 
are determined to take measures which ment from it, using its property, and 
shall henceforth render it impossible for all the while persisting in preaching 
Prussians who are piiests of the Roman doctrines contrary to it, and endeavor- 
Catholic Church to assert with impunity j tQ dest k ? Those who defend 
that they will be guided by canon law ., c , . . J f . ~ 
rather than Prussian law." ' the Decision of the German govern- 
ment must allow that when, as not 

This referred immediately to the unfrequently happens, a Protestant 

case of the Bishop of Ermeland and clergyman becomes a convert to our 

others, for excommunicating disobe- faith, he may still abide in the Pro- 

dient priests. testant church, preaching the Catho- 

The Bishop of Ermeland was lie faith to his congregation, 
ordered to withdraw his excommuni- Our battle, then, and in this we 

cation, because it might affect those are all Jesuits, is with the Bismarck 

who came under it in their civil empire, with the supreme power of 

capacity, under pain of suspension the state. These ideas of Prince 

by the government. The answer of Bismarck are not new ; they are as 

the Bishop, Monsignor Krementz, old as old Rome. The Roman was 

was admirable in every way, and we taught from his infancy that he be- 

regret that our limited space com- longed body and soul to the state; 

pels us to exclude it. It is enough and no doubt Rome owed much of 

to say that the oishop shows, beyond her vast power and boundless ac- 

the possibility of doubt, that he is quisitions to the steady inculcation 

actually within the law, by a special of this materialistic doctrine from 

provision of the Prussian Constitution, childhood upwards. "The divinity 

which declares in Article XII. " that of the emperor "' is not far removed 

the enjoyment of civil and political from the divinity of the Chancellor, 

rights is independent of religious pro- It is a very simple doctrine, and no 

fessions," while he declares at the doubt very convenient for those 

same time that in such matters he is whom it benefits. But unfortunately 

not bound by the civil law. Those for it and its defenders, One came into 

opposed to him in faith must support this world to tell us that we were " to 

him in this. Recent decisions in the render unto Caesar the things that 

English courts on behalf of the are Caesar's, and to God the things 

Established Church support him. that are God's." This is the Catho- 

And we need hardly waste the time lie golden rule of politics, as we believe 



14 Bismarck and the Jesuits. 

it to be of all orthodox Protestants, wars speak the three great Catholic 

Prince Bismarck will excuse our powers, France, Spain, and Germany, 

obeying Jesus Christ in preference to had a veto on the election of the Sov- 

l lml> ereign Pontiff, which they duly exer- 

And here is the reason for the cised in the persons of their respective 
expulsion of the Jesuits : They are representatives. These representatives 
the ablest exponents of these doc- were heard and felt in the councils of 
trines, not necessarily the most the church, and the measures they 
earnest all Catholics are alike in brought forward taken into due con- 
that ; but their education has made sideration. But we were under the 
them as a body the ablest, and there- impression that the relations between 
fore they are driven out from the church and state had been altered to 
schools, colleges, universities, and some purpose in our days. Lot has 
churches ; from the land utterly, parted from Abrarn. The state said 
And by whom are they replaced ? to the church: Our compact is at 

By the tools of Bismarck, by men an end; you have nothing more to 
who are ready to preach his doc- do with us ; you may fulminate your 
trines "for a consideration." We thunderbolts as you please, and let 
had a sample of them the other day them flash abroad through the world, 
at the opening of one of the universi- We laugh. Their day is passed. Papis- 
ties in Alsace. The correspondent tical pyrotechnics may frighten wo- 
of the London Daily News^ among men and children, but we are too old 
others, described them to us : how for that. We know the secret of it 
they fought like wild beasts to get all ; that at bottom the thunderbolt 
something to eat, and attacked it is only a squib, and must fall flat, 
with their fingers ; how, at the end of The church accepted the situation, 
the day, they, the German professors, The state had proclaimed the separa- 
reclined in the gutters, or reeled tion final and eternal. It could 
drunk through the public streets. scarcely be surprised at the church 

And now, to complete our glance taking it at its word. It could 
at this very large subject, a word on scarcely be surprised to find the 
the ambassador to Rome that is to doors of the Vatican Council closed 
be. While Bismarck is still deter- against it. It can scarcely be sur-. 
mined to send one there, he leaves prised to know that the veto no 
us no room to doubt of his intentions longer has force no longer exists in 
in the significant words " unlocked- fact ; least of all could it be expected 
for eventualities." That is to say, he to have force in the t&nds of a Pro- 
looks to the speedy prospect of the testant and heretical power, even 
present Pontiff's death, and intends when held in the safe keeping of the 
to affect the election of his successor, pious Emperor William and the 
While refraining from remarking on " Christian and Evangelical" Prince 
the outspoken indelicacy of this, we Bismarck. 

do not at all doubt his intention, as One effect, and we think a very 

little as we doubt concerning the important one, has grown out of all 

prospect of its success. It is perfect- this which we surmise Prince Bis- 

ly true that when the church had marck scarcely counted upon. We 

some influence over the state and believe the mass of thinking men, 

how that influence was exercised, let whatever their sympathies might 

the spread of education, the abolition have been prior to and during the 

of serfdom, the persistent defense of late war in France, once they beheld 

liberty, and prevention of so many the great German empire' an accom- 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 



plished fact, wished it a hearty God- 
speed ; for it held in its hands the in- 
tellectual, the moral, and that very 
important thing in these days, the 
physical force sufficient to regenerate 
Europe. We looked to it with anx- 
iety to see whither it would tend ; we 
looked to it with hope. Our anxie- 
ties have been realized, our hopes 
dashed to the ground. 

Prince Bismarck has alienated all 
Catholics and all lovers of freedom. 
And our eyes turn once more, all 
the chivalry in our natures turns, to 
the rising form of. his late prostrate 
foe. We are amazed at the intense 
vitality of the French nation. Bis- 
marck but " scotched the snake, not 
killed it ; 'twill close and be itself." 
All our hearts run out to it in the 
noble, the marvellous efforts it is 
making for self-regeneration. And if 
France, as we now believe, will, and 
at no very distant date, regain the 
throne from which she has been 
hurled, the hand that hurled her 
thence will, by a strange fatality, 
have the greatest share in reinstating 
her. " The moral columns of the 
new German empire have begun to 
tremble as though shaken by an 
earthquake," says the Lutheran 
Ecclesiastical Gazette, after deploring, 
as we have done, all the recent 
measures that have passed. 

As for the manner in which the 
Catholic Church will come out of 
this trial, we will let the Protestant 
press itself speak. We have al- 
ready heard it in a half-hearted 
way in England and among our- 
selves. The Kreuz-zeitung, the orimn 

O ' O 

of the orthodox Protestants, speaks 
more plainly : 

' An eminent Catholic, a member of 
parliament, said lately that the outlook 
of the Roman Church in Germany was 
never more favorable than it is to-day. 
It seems that this judgment is not 
without foundation. The defections pro- 
duced by the old Catholics are without 
signification : we have to state a fact of 



altogether another importance. For- 
merly, the greater part of the German 
bishops, the greater part of the lower 
clergy, and almost all the laics, were ad- 
versaries of the new dogma [we give 
those words of the Kreuz-zeitung, with 
our own reservations as to faith in them], 
but now that the council has spoken, we 
only find thirty-two apostate priests ; that 
is an immeasurable victory won by the 
Roman Church. . . . Though the 
Roman Church thus appears day by day 
more and mere in the ascendant, the 
Evangelical Church sees itself with de- 
liberate purpose pushed down the inclined 
plane, or, what is still worse, the govern- 
ment does not seem to be aware of its ex- 
istence. We have been able to remark 
this recently in the discussion on the para- 
graph relating'to the clergy in the Reichs- 
tag ; and lately again on the occasion of 
the law on the inspection of schools. In 
the debates, at least those which concern 
the manifestations of the government, 
the question has been altogether with 
reference to the Roman Church. There 
has been no mention made, or scarcely 
any, of the Evangelical Church. The 
impression produced on every impartial 
observer must be this : the Roman 
Church is a power, a factor which must 
be taken into account ; the Evangelical 
Church is not. This disdain is, for the 
latter, the most telling blow which can 
be inflicted upon it, and which must aid 
in strengthening the cause of Rome in a 
manner that must become of the deepest 
significance for the future. After all 
that, it is not strange to see the ad- 
herents of the Roman cause conceive 
the loftiest hopes." 

The Volksblatt von Halle states 
that " the Catholic Church has be- 
come neither more timid nor weaker, 
but more prudent, bolder, of greater 
consideration, and in every respect 
more powerful than ever." We 
might go on multiplying such ex- 
tracts, but our space forbids us. 

The result then to us, to Catholics, 
is not doubtful, as the result of per- 
secution never is. It is strange that 
such a keen-sighted, eminently prac- 
tical man as Prince Bismarck should 
become so suddenly blind to all the 
teachings of history. The meanest 
religion that exists among men 



i6 



Bismarck and the Jesuits. 



thrives on persecution even when it 
has nothing better to support it. As 
for us, as for the Jesuits particularly, 
" suff 'ranee is the badge of all our 
tribe." Their great Founder left it to 
them as his last legacy. And indeed, 
the measure he meted out to them 
has been filled to overflowing. 
While we are thus strong in faith, 
while we know that Prince Bismarck 
is only beating the air in his vain and 
impious efforts to extinguish that fire 
which God kindled and bade to 
burn, while we are calmly confident 
that he will shatter his mightiest 
forces against the Rock of Ages, and 
come back from the conflict battered 
and bruised finding out too late that 
he made the one grand mistake of 
his life, which greater than he have 
made before him still we cannot shut 
our eyes to the fact of the great in- 
juries he is inflicting upon us, and the 
many fresh trials imposed upon the 
church and our Holy Father in his 
declining years. 

What, then, are we to do ? 

We have power, and we must use 
it. We have voices, and we must 
make them heard. We have the 
silent, if not the outspoken sympathy 
of powerful bodies opposed to us in 
creed. We have the heart, when we 
show ourselves, of every free man 
and hater of oppression in any form. 
We have the genius of our own con- 
stitution on our side. We must 
speak out plainly and boldly as 
Catholic Americans. We must do 
what has already been done in Lon- 
don at the meeting in S. James' Hall, 
presided over by the Duke of Norfolk ; 
where peer and ploughman, gentle 
and simple, priest and layman, were 
one in protesting against this slavish 
policy of Prince Bismarck. Let us 
do the like. Let our eminent men, 
and they are not few, call us together 
here in New York, in every city 
throughout the nation in behalf not 
only of our suffering brethren, but of 



those rights which are inalienable to 
every man that is born into this 
world in protestation against a 
principle and a policy which, if they 
found favor here, would sap the life 
of our nation, and throw us back 
into the old slavery that we drowned 
in our best blood. Our standpoint 
is this : as there are rights which the 
state does not and cannot give us, 
those rights are inviolable, and the 
state cannot touch them. To God 
alone we owe them ; to God alone 
we give them back, and are answera- 
ble for them. The state is not 
supreme in all things, and never shall 
be. These are the principles we de- 
fend, and are happy in being their 
persecuted champions. 

It is not merely a question of 
creed ; Bismarck does not attack a 
creed. It is a broad question of 
right and wrong, of justice and in- 
justice, of absolutism and freedom. 
Power was never given into the hands 
of the German Chancellor to be 
abused at the very outset, to oppress 
his subjects, Catholic and Protestant. 
It is not and it must not be supreme ; 
and we very much mistake the genius 
of the great German people if they 
long allow it to continue so. It is 
not for him to deprive 14,000,000 of 
his people of their natural rights; the 
right to educate their children as 
they think proper, and as the law 
allowed them ; the right to consider 
marriage a sacrament sanctified by 
God, and not a civil contract, to be 
loosed or unloosed at will by a 
magistrate ; the right of listening to 
their most eminent teachers ; the 
right of holding the seminaries and 
churches, built by their own money, 
for the use of their own priests ; the 
right, above all, of believing that 
there is a God beyond all govern- 
ments, from whom all government, 
which people make for themselves, 
springs; that God has set a law in 
the conscience which they must 



Choice in No Choice. 

obey, even though princes and kings When Prince Bismarck succeeds in 

rage against it, and that it is not in eradicating these inborn notions from 

the nature of things for this first and the minds of the German people, he 

final law of conscience to clash with will then have attained his supre- 

any other unless that other be wrong, macy ; but that then is never. 



CHOICE IN NO CHOICE. 

I KNOW not which to love the more : 
The morning, with its liquid light ; 

Or evening, with its tender lore 
Of silver lake and purple height. 

To morn I say, " The fairer thou : 
For when thy beauties melt away, 

'Tis but to breathe on heart and brow 
The gladness of the perfect day." 

And o'er the water falls a hue 
That cannot sate a poet's eye : 

As though Our Lady's mantle threw 
Its shadow there and not the sky." 

But when has glared the torrid- noon, 
And afternoon is gasping low, 

The sunset brings a sweeter boon 
Than ever graced the orient's glow. 

And I : "As old wine unto new, 
Art thou to morn, beloved eve ! 

And what if dies thy every hue 

In blankest night ? We may not grieve 

" Thy fading lulls us as we dote. 

Nor always blank the genial night : 
For when the moon is well afloat, 

Thou mellowest into amber light." 

Is each, then, fairer in its turn ? 

'Tis hence the music. Not for me 
To wish a dayless morn, or yearn 

For nightless eve if these could be. 

But give me both the new, the old : 
And let my spirit sip the wine 

From silver now, and now from gold : 
'Tis wine alike .alike divine ! 

LAKK GEORGE, July, 1872. 
VOL. XVI. 2 



Fleurange. 




FLEURANGE. 

BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF " A SISTER'S STORY." 
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION. 

PART THIRD. 

THE BANKS OF THE NECKAR. 
u Brama assai poco spera nulla chiede." TASSO. 
XXXIV. 

" Return, Gabriel le ! if possible, the future in any other light, and the 

return at once ; at all events, come courage with which she left her na- 

soon." These simple words from tive city was the same she would 

Clement to his cousin give no idea have shown had her husband been 

of the agitation with which they were condemned to suffer exile ; she 

written. Fleurange herself would would have shared it with him, en- 

never have suspected it, and less deavoring to soften it as much as 

than ever at the arrival of a letter at possible, but without anticipating the 

once so affecting and so opportune, least possibility of joy in their chang- 

She even paid very little attention to ed lives. 

her cousin's assurances as to the inu- Joy, however, returned. It not 
tility of any further sacrifices for the unfrequently happens that reverses 
sake of his family. Clement, how- endured without murmuring receive 
ever, had written her the exact truth, unexpected compensations. 
The situation of Professor Dornthal's In the first place, their new home, 
family was of course very different though simple, and even rustic com- 
from what it once was, but the pared with their old one, was neither 
change was far from being as great gloomy nor inconvenient. Two spa- 
as they had all anticipated and pre- cious rooms on the ground floor al- 
pared for a year before, when ruin lowed the whole family to assemble 
overwhelmed and scattered them. not only for their meals, but the eve- 

To leave the house in which they ning reunions their greatest pleasure 
had lived twenty-five years ; to see when all the absent ones return- 
all the objects that adorned it offered ed. A small garden surrounded the 
for sale ; to give up the place where house, and a grass-plot extended 
the happiet .moments of their lives down to the river with a covered 
had been spent ; all this at first ex- alley on each side. This place, call- 
eluded the possibility of anticipating ed Rosenheim, merited its name by 
anything but privation and sadness the abundance of flowers, and espe- 
without alleviation. Madame Dorn- cially of roses, which on every side 
thai herself did not look forward to cheered the eye and embalmed the 



Fleurange. 19 

air. Their very first impressions, rare and exquisite gifts of his mind 

therefore, were quite different from and heart, was entirely destitute. A 

what they had apprehended. Be- profound dejection mingled with his 

sides, Clement had reserved two or apparent resignation to misfortune, 

three of his father's favorite paint- which sprang from the humiliating 

ings, several engravings, as well as a conviction felt too late of having 

number of other familiar and pre- brought it on himself by a want of 

cious objects, which preceded them, foresight, and thus being responsible 

and were there, like old friends, to for the ruin of his family, 

welcome them. He needed something to divert 

In the next place, the professor's him from this rooted idea, and 
rare collections, and the works of art therefore the necessity of exert- 
he had selected with so correct a ing himself to fulfil the duties of the 
taste and such profound knowledge, position he had accepted, and of 
proved far more valuable than they pursuing his favorite studies, was too 
had anticipated, so that, if no longer beneficial to make it desirable he 
rich, an independence more than should renounce it. His new life, no 
sufficient was assured them. More- longer burdened by any material 
over, Clement's prospects were ex- anxiety, gradually became both ac- 
ceedingly promising. His extraor- tive and serene, and when the fami- 
dinary ability was soon recognized ly assembled together, everything 
to a degree that justified Wilhelm would have had nearly the same as- 
Muller's foresight. To tell the truth, pect as before, had it not been for the 
fortune is not so blind and capricious vacancies around the hearth. But 
as she is often represented, and if after the arrival of Hilda and her 
she sometimes bestows her favors on husband, and subsequently of Dr. 
those who are unworthy of them, Leblanc, the evenings at. Rosenheim 
there are some she reserves exclu- became once more cheerful and al- 
sively for persevering industry, per- most lively. Ludwig and Hansfelt 
feet integrity, shrewd calculation, resumed their favorite topics of con- 
strict economy, and undeviating ex- versation ; Hilda's beauty and hap- 
actness. These virtues and not piness delighted her father ; the mer- 
chance lay the foundations of du- ry voices of the children resounded 
rable and honorably acquired for- anew ; and Clement often favored 
tunes, and where they are lacking them as of yore with a lively air on 
the greatest skill does not prevent his violin, but more frequently, at his 
them from being frequently lost in a father's request, with some graver 
day. melody, which he would play with 

It was one of these legitimate for- such skill and so pathetic an expres- 

tunes Clement was worthy of and sion as to surprise Hilda, who asked 

capable of acquiring. His success him one day how he had found time 

was already sufficient to dispense his in his busy life to develop his tal- 

father from the share of labor he had ent to such a degree. Clement did 

taken upon himself, but he could not not at first hear, he was so absorbed 

turn him from his purpose, and soon in some strain of Beethoven's, which 

perceived he ought not to attempt it. gave forth a heart-rending accent 

He derived the poetry of his nature under his bow. She repeated her 

from his father, and was indebted to question. 

his mother for his force and energy. " I often play in the evening at 

Of these the professor, with all the Frankfort," he then replied. " Mill- 



2O Fleurange. 

ler and his wife accompany me. Mu- In consequence of all these cir- 
sic refreshes me after the tedious la- cumstances, when the family assem- 
bors of the day, and this prevents bled in the evening in the large salon 
me from losing what you are so kind on the ground floor, every brow was 
as to call my talent." clouded, all the young smiling faces 
Such was the state of things Fleu- were grave and anxious, and the 
range would have found at her new same cause for sadness weighed on 
home had she arrived a month soon- every heart. Perhaps this was best 
er. In that case, her involuntary for Fleurange, who, ever ready to for- 
sadness might have excited more at- get herself, seemed to feel, and in- 
tention. But the serenity of the deed only felt the sorrows of the rest, 
household, so recently regained, had Ah ! how her sadness, which 
been violently disturbed again. It seemed only sympathy, touched one 
was not surprising therefore that tears person that night as he gazed at her 
should mingle with her joy at seeing in silent admiration. She was sitting 
once more those she loved, especial- between his sisters, the lamp suspend- 
ly as among them she found Dr. Le- ed from the ceiling threw a halo 
blanc's sister in mourning for him, around her charming face, and the 
and she had to be informed of voice, so dear and so long unheard, 
another misfortune, scarcely hinted at resounded for the first time in this 
in Clement's letter. place where everything seemed trans- 
Professor Dornthal's life was in- formed by her presence ! 
deed no longer in danger, but his The evening, so sad for all the 
memory was greatly impaired, and rest, was not so for Clement. Even 
his noble mind, if not extinct, only his anxiety for his father was sus- 
gave out a feeble and vacillating pended : he felt a renewed hope for 
light. This was hoped to be merely him as well as for everything else 
a transient state, which time and ab- yes, every thing. He no longer took 
solute cessation from labor would a dark view of things : he was, as it 
soon remedy. But it was a severe were, intoxicated with hope. With 
affliction to them all, and Clement what a sweet confiding look she had 
for the first time saw his mother's pressed his hand ! In what a tone she 
courage waver. It was with truly cried : " Dear Clement, how happy 
a sad smile Madame Dornthal saw I am to see you again" ! Could the 
her husband recognize and embrace future, then, be as doubtful as he had 
Fleurange without manifesting the so recently feared ? As to the smiles 
slightest surprise at her presence, or of fortune, he no longer doubted: he 
. realizing the time and distance that was sure of winning them henceforth. 
had separated them. It was the He once thought himself inefficient, 
same with Clara; but when she but he was mistaken. Might he not 
placed her infant in his arms, there also be mistaken in thinking himself 
was a momentary reawakening of incapable of ever pleasing ? To this 
the invalid's torpid memory. Tears question he heard no other reply but 
came into his eyes ; he embraced the the quickened pulsations of his heart, 
child, murmured " God bless him !" and the rippling of the water flowing 
and then gave him back to his mo- past the seat to which he had betaken 
ther, looking at him with an expres- himself on the banks of the river, 
sion that filled them for a moment with Meanwhile, Fleurange and her 
hope. Then the gleam vanished, and cousins went up-stairs. Clement 
he fell back into his former state. soon saw them all talking together in 



Fleurange. 



21 



low tones on the large wooden gal- light that shone for the first time that 

lery that extended around the house, night was a long time visible, and 

and on which all the windows Clement did not quit his post till he 

opened. Then they retired ; but the saw it was extinguished. 



xxxv. 



Fleurange gradually resumed the 
habits of domestic life once the real- 
ization of all her dreams and then, 
only then, she realized the extent 
and depth of the change she had un- 
dergone while separated from her 
friends. 

She was no longer the same. No 
effort of her will could conceal this 
fact. Her heart, her thoughts, her 
regrets, her desires, and her hopes, 
were all elsewhere. Italy in all its 
brilliancy did not differ more from 
the peaceful landscape before her, 
charming as it was, with the little gar- 
den of roses and the river winding 
around it, the ruins beyond, and the 
dark forest in the background, than 
the vanished scenes still , so vividly 
remembered of which that land was 
the enchanting theatre, differed from 
those now occurring beneath the 
more misty sky of Germany. At 
Florence, her struggles and efforts, 
and the necessity of action, stimula- 
ted her courage. The peace she 
found at Santa Maria revived her 
strength. But there, as we have 
said, the past and the future seemed 
suspended, as it were. Now the 
struggle was over as well as the 
pause that succeeded it, and she 
must again set forth on the way 
act, live in the present, and cour- 
ageously take up life again as she 
found it, with its actual duties and 
new combats. Fleurange had never 
felt more difficulty and repugnance 
in overcoming herself. 

After the long restraint she had 
been obliged to make, it would have 
been some relief to be dispensed 
from all effort, especially at conceal- 



ment, and freely give herself up to a 
profound melancholy, to pass away 
the hours in dreamy inaction, to 
weep when her heart was swelling 
with tears, and, if not to speak to 
every one of her sadness, at least 
take no trouble to conceal it. 

This would have been her natural 
inclination, and it was only by an ef- 
fort she refrained from yielding to it. 
But this would have shown the 
strength gained in her retreat to have 
been only factitious, and her inter- 
course with Madre Maddalena to 
have left, this time, no permanent in- 
fluence. We have, however, no such 
act of cowardice to record respecting 
our heroine. 

On the contrary, whoever saw her 
up at the first gleam of light in the 
east to relieve her aunt from all the 
cares of the menage ; whoever fol- 
lowed her first to the store-rooms to 
dispense the provisions for the day, 
accompanied by little Frida, whom 
she initiated into the mysteries of 
housekeeping, and then to the 
kitchen to give directions and some- 
times even lend assistance to the old 
and not over-skilful cook ; whoever 
saw her even going sometimes to 
market with a firm step, basket in 
hand, and returning with her cloak 
covered with dew, would not have 
imagined from the freshness she 
brought back from these matutinal 
walks, and the brilliancy which youth 
and health imparted to her complex- 
ion, that, more than once, the night 
had passed without sleep, and while 
hearing her early Mass, never ne- 
glected, she had shed so many scald- 
ing tears. 



22 Fleurange. 

Other cares, more congenial and of Providence. The doctor left con- 
better calculated to absorb her mind, siderable property, which now be- 
occupied the remainder of the day. longed entirely to his sister. All 
Her special talent for waiting on the their relatives were wealthier than 
sick, and the beneficent influence she they, and lived in the provinces, 
exercised over them, were again There was nothing therefore to in- 
brought into requisition around her duce Mademoiselle Josephine to re- 
uncle 5 , and Madame Dornthal bless- turn to Paris, and she resolved to set- 
ed the day of her return as she wit- tie near her new friends, that she might 
nessed the evident progress of so be near her whom long before she 
prolonged and painful a convales- had adopted in her heart. It was a 
cence a progress that gave them rea- formidable undertaking for a person 
son to hope in the complete restora- who for forty years had led a uni- 
tion of the professor's faculties, if not " form life, always in the same place, 
in the possibility of his ever resuming and who was no less ignorant of the 
constant or arduous labor. The world at sixty than she was at twenty 
young girl found these cares delight- years of age. But it seemed no 
ful, and her new duties towards her longer difficult as soon as she again 
dear old friend Mademoiselle Jose- had some one to live for. As to 
phine no less so. Fleurange, she found it pleasant and 

Josephine Leblanc's affections had beneficial to devote herself to her 
all been centred in her brother, old friend in return, and, in acquit- 
She lived exclusively for him, and ting herself of this new debt of grati- 
had never once thought of the possi- tude, her heart gained strength for 
bility of surviving him. A person the interior struggle which had be- 
left alone in a house standing in a come the constant effort of her life, 
district devastated by war or fire, Notwithstanding the marriage of 
would not have felt more suddenly her two cousins, everything now re- 
and strangely left alone than our sumed the aspect of the past. Clara 
poor old mademoiselle after the fatal and Julian, established in the neighbor- 
blow that deprived her of her brother, hood where the pursuits of the latter 
so dear, so admired, and so venerat- would retain him a year, did not 
ed the brother younger than herself, suffer a day to pass without visiting 
and in whose arms she had felt so Rosenheim. Hansfelt no longer 
sure of dying ! thought of leaving his old friend, and 

She remained calm, however, and Hilda's calm and radiant happiness 
self-possessed. But the mute despair seemed to lack nothing between her 
imprinted on her face as she went to husband and her father, whose case 
and fro in the house, troubling no now appeared so hopeful, 
one with her grief, affected every be- Clement alone was not, as former- 
holder. She only begged to remain ly, a part of the regular family circle, 
there that she might not have to re- He only came once a week on Sat- 
turn alone to the place where she urday evening and returned to 
had lived with him. From the first, Frankfort on Monday morning as 
Madame Dornthal had invited her soon as it was light, 
to take up her residence near them, Business for which one feels a 
and Fleurange's return brought her old special aptitude is not generally re- 
friend to a final decision, which prov- pugnant. But Clement had such a 
ed so consoling thai she firmly be- variety of talents, and among all the 
lieved it to have been in the designs things he was capable of, the duties 



Fleurange. 23 

of the office where he passed his days took advantage of, and which was of 
were certainly not what he had the more comfort to him than he real- 
greatest taste or inclination for. ized. In short, this was the bright 
Nothing would have retained him spot in his weary life. He would 
there but the conviction of thereby need it more than ever when, after a 
serving the best interests of those leave of absence on account of his 
dear to him. He must accept the father's terrible accident, which had 
most remunerative employment, and, been prolonged from day to day, he 
this once resolved upon, nothing would have to return to his bondage, 
could exhaust the courageous endur- and this time with an effort that add- 
ance so peculiar to him. His cour- ed another degree of heroism to the 
age was not in the least increased task he had imposed on himself, 
by the desire of surprising others or It was now the eve of his depar- 
exciting their admiration, and noth- ture. Fleurange and Hilda were sit- 
ing under any circumstances could ting at twilight on a little bench by 
daunt or turn him from his purpose, the river-side conversing together, 
And he knew how to brave ennui as and Clement, leaning against a tree 
well as disaster. But this ennui, opposite, was looking at the current 
which he generally overcame by se- of the water, listening silently, but 
vere application, became from time attentively, to the conversation that 
to time overwhelming, and he would was going on before him. They 
have had violent fits of discourage- were discussing all that had occurred 
ment had it not been for the cheer- during their separation, and Hilda 
ing evenings he passed in the modest began to question Fleurange about 
household of which he was a member, her journey about Italy, and the 

Wilhelm Miiller perceived that life she led at Florence away from 

Clement's varied acquirements were them all. . Fleurange replied, but 

useful to him, and his devotedness briefly and with the kind of appre- 

to him was mingled with an admira- hension we feel when a conversation 

tion bordering on enthusiasm. On is leading to a point we would like to 

his side, he procured Clement the avoid. She foresaw the impossibility 

opportunity and pleasure of talking of succeeding in this, and was en- 

of something besides their commer- deavoring, but without success, to 

cial affairs, and with the aid of music overcome her embarrassment, when 

their evenings passed agreeably away. Count George's name at last was in- 

But the kind and simple Bertha, troduced. After some questions, to 

with the instinct that often enables a which Fleurange only replied by 

woman to put her ringer on the monosyllables, Hilda continued : 

wound the most penetrating of men " Count George ! A friend of 

would never have discovered, had Karl's, who met him, was pretending 

found a sure means of diverting him. the other day in my hearing that no 

The children had never forgotten the one could see him without loving 

great event of their lives the journey him. As you know him, Fleurange, 

and the beautiful young lady they met what is your opinion ?" 

on the way. Clement never seemed The question was a decided one, 

weary of listening to this account, to and Fleurange, as we are aware, had 

which Bertha would add many a no turn for evasion. She blushed and 

comment; and this had been the remained silent so long silent that 

commencement of a kind of confi- Clement abruptly turned around and 

dential intimacy, which she discreetly looked at her. Did she turn pale at 



Fleurange. 



this ? or was it the light of the moon 
through the foliage that blanched her 
face, and its silver rays that gave her 
an expression he had never seen till 
now ? He remained looking at her 
with attention mingled with anguish, 
when at length, in a troubled tone 
and with a fruitless effort at a smile, 
she replied : 



" I think, Hilda, Karl's friend was 
right." 

These words were very simple 
after all, but the darkest hour of 
Clement's life never effaced from his 
memory the spot or the moment in 
which they were uttered, the silence 
that preceded, or the tone and look 
that accompanied them. 




xxxvi. 



The blindness of love is proverbial, tainly effaced in a day every trace of 

His clairvoyance would be equally ' his youthful timidity, and a kind of 

so, were it not for the illusion that barrier had all at once melted away 

unceasingly aids the heart in avoid- before him. Hitherto his worth had 

ing the discoveries it dreads. The not been recognized beyond the nar- 

very instinct that gives keenness to row circle of his family, and even 

the eye is as prompt to close it, and there he was loved without being 

when the truth threatens one's happi- fully appreciated. Necessity threw 

ness or pride, there are but few who him in contact with the world; all his 

are bold enough to face it regardless faculties were brought into action 

of consequences. and developed by exercise. His fea- 

To this number, however, Clement tures, his attitude, his manners, and 

belonged. There was in his nature his general appearance all partici- 

no liability to illusions which had the pated in this transformation. The 

power of obscuring his penetration, silent awkwardness that once left him 

Therefore the truth was suddenly re- unnoticed was overcome by the ne- 

vealed to him without mercy, and his cessity of asserting himself, and also 

newly budding hopes were at once by that increased confidence in him- 

blasted for ever. That moment of self produced by a widening influ- 

silence was as tragical as if all his ence over others. This influence, at 

heart's blood had been shed on the which he himself was astonished, was 

spot, and left him lifeless at the feet not solely the consequence of the su- 

of her who had unwittingly given perior ability he manifested in the 

him so deadly a blow ! dull and prosaic life he had em- 

Within a year since the day he braced. But in this career, as every- 

thought himself separated from her where else, he brought his highest 

for ever, not only by his own inferi- faculties into exercise ; and while ob- 

ority, but by the sad necessity of serving and seizing all these details 

his new position two unexpected of his material life, he understood 

changes had occurred : First, in his how to impart a soul to them by his 

exterior life then he was apparently dignity, trustworthiness, unselfishness, 

ruined : now, he felt capable of re- and generous ardor which are the 

pairing his fortunes. Secondly, in sweet flowers of labor and the noble 



the opinion he had of himself. 

Not that a sudden fatuity had 



result of a well-regulated nature. 
He also reserved a prominent part 



seized the modest and unpretending of his evenings for the favorite stu- 
Clement. By no means; but the dies in which he had not ceased to 
great reverses of his family had cer- interest himself, as well as a thousand 



Fleurange. 25 

subjects foreign to his daily occupa- poet was wholly wrong in promising 
tion, but exceedingly useful in the that he who loved should win some- 
development of his mind. Thence thing in return. 

sprang a simple and persuasive elo- Such thoughts and dreams, if al- 

quence, which gave him an ascenden- lowed entrance in the heart, are apt 

cy over every one, and caused him to end by taking entire possession 

to be especially sought after on a of it; and, as we have said, Clement 

thousand occasions that had no im- was intoxicated with hope when 

mediate connection with his actual Fleurange reappeared in their 

position. Once or twice he had midst. But his dreams, fancies, and 

even been invited to speak at some hopes were now all crushed by one 

public assembly which had for its word from her one word, the fatal 

object either a question of public in- meaning of which was clearly re- 

terest, or one relating to literature vealed by the expression of her eyes, 

and the arts, and he acquitted him- which Clement caught a glimpse of 

self so well as to attract the notice by the pale light of the moon ! 

not only of those to whom the name The grief that pierced his soul en- 

of Dornthal was already familiar, but abled him to realize the full extent 

of a great number of strangers. Nu- of his illusions, and he was aston- 

merous advances to acquaintance ished he had ever before considered 

were made him on all sides, and himself unhappy. For some time 

Clement might easily have passed his after his return to Frankfort, he was 

evenings elsewhere than in the un- overpowered by a dejection such as he 

pretending home of the Mullers. had never experienced. He felt as 

But he had no such inclination, incapable of any further effort as he 

Their company satisfied his present was indifferent to all success. His 

tastes. Music, which he would not daily task became insupportable, and 

willingly have been deprived of, was study in the evening impossible. In- 

the delight of his hosts; and as is stead of returning to the M\iller's at 

frequently the case in Germany, they the usual hour, he would leave the 

were able to join him in duets or city afoot or on horseback, and roam 

trios which many a professional singer around the country for hours, as if to 

would not have disdained to listen to. wear out his grief by exhausting his 

Over his whole life, with its varied strength. 

and absorbing interests, reigned one Now he clearly saw he had only 
dear and ever-present form. It lived, planned, and exerted himself 
seemed at first like some celestial for her the two years past; he had 
vision, far-off and inaccessible, but given her not only his heart, but his 
for some time, under the influence entire life, and that life had had but 
of all we have referred to, it appear- one aim the hope of some day win- 
ed to have drawn nearer to him. ning in return the heart which would 

On this account, he began to ap- never belong to him now because 

predate the increased consideration it was given to another ! And while 

with which he was regarded, but repeating Count George's name with 

which he valued so little on his own. rage, he sharpened his anguish by 

He ventured at last to ask himself recalling him, as he had once seen him, 

if the good- will that seemed to beam clothed with irresistible attractions, 

on him on all sides did not author- His noble features, his look of intelli- 

ize him to hope sooner or later for gence, his taste for the arts, the charm 

something more, and if his favorite of his manners, his voice, and his 



26 Fleurange. 

language, all came back unpityingly furious jealousy, took possession of 

to the memory of his humble rival, him, and excited a tempest in his 

He remembered him in the gallery heart which neither duty, nor his 

of the Old Mansion, through which sense of honor, nor the energy of 

he accompanied him at a time when his will, could succeed in calming, 

he was a mere student, and absolute- There are times when passion rises 

ly wanting in everything that was, superior to every other impulse, and 

not only attractive, but capable of they who have not learned to seek 

exciting the least attention. His im- their strength from a divine source 

agination mercilessly dwelt on the are always vanquished. But Cle- 

contrast between them. Was it sur- ment had been accustomed to the 

prising (and he blushed at so ridicu- powerful restraints of religion ; his 

lous a comparison) such a man strength consisted in never throwing 

should be more successful than he ? them off. Therefore, he was not to 

And should he, inferior as he was, be fail in this severe struggle : he would 

astonished that this man, living so soon turn his eyes heavenward for 

near Fleurange, under the same roof the aid he needed in again becoming 

At this thought a bitter anguish, a master of himself. 

XXXVII. 

Disinterestedness, energy, and the to him and yet closed against him 

power of self-control were, as may for ever ! 

have been perceived, qualities com- With all Clement's self-control, he 

mon both to Clement and Fleurange. would have been utterly unable to 

There was, in fact, a great resem- conceal the state of his mind from his 

blance in their natures, which, on his cousin had he remained at Frankfort, 

part, was the secret of the attraction But, after the days of overpowering 

so suddenly ripened into a more anguish we have already referred to, 

lively sentiment ; and, on hers, of an after yielding without restraint to a 

unchanging confidence, in spite of the despair bordering on madness, Cle- 

transformation of another kind she ment at length succeeded in regaining 

likewise experienced. And now they his clearness of judgment, 
were both engaged in a like strug- One morning he rose before day, 

gle : they were united by similarity and left the city on foot. His walk 

of suffering, which separated them, was prolonged to such an extent 

nevertheless, as by an abyss. that it might be called a pilgrimage, 

Ah ! if Clement could have hoped, and the more correctly as its goal 

as he once did, that a more tender was a church, but so unpretending a 

sentiment would spring out of this church that it only differed from the 

sympathy and confidence, with what neighboring houses by a stone cross 

joy, what sweet pride, he would have to be seen when passing the door 

regarded this conformity so constantly which it surmounted. The door was 

manifest between them ! But the as- opened by the very person Clement 

pect of everything was now changed : came to see a pious and simple 

there was no longer any possibility young priest who was formerly his 

of happiness for him, he could now schoolmate. He was inferior to 

only suffer ; and by the light of what Clement intellectually, but his guide 

was passing in his own heart he was and master in those regions the soul 

enabled to read hers at once ODen alone attains. What Clement now 



Flcurange. 27 

sought was not merely to pour out from my society." But to Bertha, 

his heart by way of confidence not who also questioned him, in a less 

even the consolation of discreet and vague way, however, he acknowl- 

Christian sympathy but to recover edged more frankly, but no less 

his firmness by a courageous avowal briefly, that he had met with a great 

of all his weakness, and afterwards affliction,, but requested her never to 

make an unchangeable resolution in mention the subject to him. Then 

the presence of God and his repre- he took his violin and began to play 

sentative at the holy tribunal. He a strain from Bach, 

had made a similar one while yet a Bertha seated herself at the piano, 

youth, but now in his manhood he and played an accompaniment to 

wished to renew it in a more solemn this and several other pieces. Her 

manner. It would of course require husband, who was beating time be- 

greater effort after the gleam of hope side her, remarked that their young 

he had just lost, and the devotedness friend's bad humor had a singularly 

he pledged himself to would be favorable effect on his talent, 

more difficult after the revelation that " I assure you, Dornthal, you 

she whom he loved, and must ever never played so well as you have 

love, had given her affections to this evening." 

another. His voice faltered as he " Perhaps so," replied Clement 

declared that no word, look, or act with a thoughtful air. " Yes, I think 

of his should ever trouble her, or re- you are right." 

veal the sentiments she had inspired It was really the truth. Music 
in the heart of one who would live was the veiled, but eloquent, Ian- 
near her, without her, and yet for guage of his soul. The very feelings 
her! he so successfully repressed, the 

It was, in fact, his old devise : words that no temptation or impulse 

" Garder I'amour et briser 1'espoir ! " could induce his lips to betray, made 

which he now solemnly assumed with the chords vibrate beneath his bow, 

the grave and pious feeling that ac- and gave their tones an inexpressible 

companies all self-sacrifice. accent it was impossible to hear with- 

Such piety may be regarded by out emotion and surprise, 

some as rather exaltee. They are When, at the end of a fortnight, 

right, but it is the kind of exaltation Clement reappeared at Rosenheim, 

which accords with the real significa- all exterior traces of the excessive agi- 

tion of the word, which elevates the tation he had given himself up to had 

soul it inflames, and which, though disappeared. He resumed his usual 

powerless in itself, can effect much manner towards Fleurange. No 

when the divine assistance is invoked one would have dreamed and she 

to co-operate in aiding, increasing, less than any one else that between 

in a word, exalting human strength ! the past and present he found the 

That evening Clement quietly re- difference of life and death. She lit- 

sumed his old seat at the Miillers' tie imagined that the new and 

fireside. In reply to Wilhelm's ques- strange sympathy that existed be- 

tions, he said that during his long tween them revealed to him the se- 

visit at Rosenheim he had neglected cret of all her thoughts and struggles, 

affairs that required his attention. She also, apparently, had become the 

And then I confess," continued he, same as before. Her time was ac- 

; that I have been in a bad humor, tively employed, the care she had of 

and thought it wiser to relieve you little Frida and that she lavished on 



28 Fleurange. 

her uncle, the menage, sewing, exer- spects his memory was good. Hans- 

cise, and study filled up the days so felt found him as correct and clear as 

completely that it was very seldom ever on all points of history or lit- 

she could have been found inactive erary and religious subjects. It 

or pensive. seemed as if the higher faculties of 

Hilda, her favorite cousin, though his nature recovered their tone first, 

likewise struck for a moment by the and were invigorated by contact with 

hesitation with which she replied to the noble mind of his friend. Thus 

her questions about Count George, the evenings passed away without 

almost ceased attaching any impor- ennui, even for the youngest, while 

tance to this slight incident when she listening to their conversation, 
observed the apparent calmness with These evenings frequently ended 

which Fleurange fulfilled the duties with music, which the professor 

of her active life. Only one clearly craved and indeed required as a part 

read her heart and understood the of his treatment. Clement would 

passing expression of weariness and take his violin, and not at all unwill- 

sorrow that now and then overshad- ingly, for he saw his cousin always 

owed her brow for an instant, and listened to it attentively. In this 

saddened her eye. Only one no- way he dared address her in a 

ticed her absence when the family mysterious language, which he alone 

assembled in the evening, and fol- understood, but which sometimes 

lowed her in thought to the little gave her a thrill as if she were lis- 

bench on the bank of the river, tening to the echo of her own cry of 

where he imagined she had gone to pain. 

weep awhile, alone and unrestrained. One evening, when he had ex- 
All she suffered he had to endure celled, she said : " You call that a 
himself, and he lived thus united to song without words, Clement, but 
her, and yet every day still more the music was certainly composed for 
widely separated from her. a song, which perhaps you know, do 

The weeks flew rapidly away, you not ?" 

however, and the tranquillity and " No," replied he, " but like you I 

happiness of the family were continu- imagine I can hear the words, and 

ally increasing. The professor's men- feel they m'ust exist somewhere." 
tal and physical strength gradually Hansfelt had also been listening 

returned. Work alone was forbid- attentively to the music, 
den him, but reading and conversa- " Yes," said he smiling, " they ex- 

tion were allowable and salutary di- ist in the hearts of all who love es- 

versions. His conversations with pecially in the hearts of all who love 

Hansfelt were sometimes as interest- without hope. Here I will express 

ing as of old, and he might have been in common language, but not in 

supposed to have regained the com- rhyme, the meaning of what Clement 

plete use of his faculties had not a has just played." 
partial decay of memory sometimes He took a pencil and hastily wrote 

warned his friends he had not en- four lines nearly synonymous with 

tirely recovered from his illness, those of a French poet : 
For example, he often imagined him- 

ir ' ii r\'\j TV/T i i -i u Du mal qu'une amour ignorde 

sell in the Old Mansion, and this il- NOUS fait sou ffrir 

lusion became stronger after all his J e P rte rame <techWe 

,11 i >' /-. i n Jusqu'a mourir !" * 

children, including Gabnelle, gath- 
ered around him. But ill Other re- * Alfred de Musset. 



Fleurange. 



The pang of unrequited love 

I feel ; 
'Tis death the bleeding heart I bear 

Must heal ! 

Clement made no reply, but 
abruptly changed the subject. The 
children rose and clapped their hands 
as he struck up their favorite taran- 
tella, and became noisy as well as 

gay- 

Fleurange left the room, unper- 
ceived as she supposed, but Hilda, 
who had been carefully observing her 
all the evening, followed her, deter- 
mined to obtain a complete avowal 
of all that was passing in her heart. 
She softly entered her cousin's cham- 
ber. Fleurange was not expecting 
her. She had thrown herself on a 
chair, with her face buried in her 
hands, in an attitude expressive at 
once of dejection and grief. 

Hilda approached and threw her 
arms around her. Fleurange sprang 
up, her eyes full of tears. 

" Do you remember," said Hilda 
in a soft, caressing tone " do you 
remember, Gabrielle, the day when I 
also wept in the library at our dear 
Old Mansion ? You asked me the 
reason of my tears, and I answered 
by opening my heart to you. You 
have not forgotten it, have you ? 
Will you not answer me in a like way 
now ?" 

Fleurange shook her head without 
uttering a word. 

" It has always seemed to me," 
continued Hilda, " that the happi- 
ness which has crowned my life dates 
from my confidence in you that day. 
Why will you not trust me in a like 
manner, and hope as I did ?" 

' Happiness was within your 
reach," replied Fleurange; "an im- 



aginary obstacle alone prevented 
you from grasping it." 

" But how many obstacles that 
seem insurmountable vanish with 
time or even beneath a firm will !" 
She continued slowly and in a lower 
tone : " Why should not the Count 
George, then ' : 

"Stop, Hilda, I conjure you," 
cried Fleurange in an agitated man- 
ner. 

Her cousin stopped confounded. 

" Listen to me," resumed Fleur- 
ange, at length, in a calmer tone. 
"As it is your wish, let us speak of 
him. I consent. Let us speak of 
him this time, but never again. Tell 
me," she continued with a sad smile, 
" can you make me his equal in 
wealth and rank ? Or deprive him 
of his nobility and make him as 
poor as I ? In either case, espe- 
cially in the latter," she cried, with 
a tenderness in her tone, and a 
look she could not repress " ah ! 
nothing, certainly nothing but his 
will, could separate me from him ! 
But it is reasonable to suppose the 
sun will rise upon us to-morrow and 
find us the same as to-day : we no 
longer live in the time of fairies, when 
extraordinary metamorphoses took 
place to smooth away difficulties and 
second the wishes of poor mortals. 
Help me then, Hilda, I beseech you, 
to forget him, to live, and even re- 
cover from the wound, by never 
speaking to me either of him, or my- 
self ! " 

Hilda silently pressed her in her 
arms for a long time, and then said : 
" I will obey you, Gabrielle, and 
never mention his name till you speak 
of him first." 



XXXVIII. 



The summer and autumn both sor's slow recovery, and an occa- 
passed away without anything new, sional gleam of happiness for Cle- 
cxcept some variations in the profes- ment the revival of a spark of his 



3O Fleurange. 

buried hopes but such moments niversary of Fleurange's arrival in 

were rare, and succeeded by a sad re- their midst the whole family were 

action; nevertheless, they were sweet reunited, and felt as if they were liv- 

and lived long in his memory. ing over again the delightful past. 

One day in particular was thus The Christmas tree was as brilliant 
graven on his heart a fine day in as of yore; Mademoiselle Josephine, 
October, when he had the pleasure as ready to participate in the joy of 
of rowing Hilda and his cousin to a her friends as she. was to avoid sad- 
shady point further up on the river, dening them with her sorrows, aided 
which gracefully winds nearly around in adorning it, and every one found 
it. There they spent several hours, on its branches some offering from 
conversing together with the delight- her generous hand. Then, as in by- 
ful familiarity of intimacy, and now gone days, they wove garlands of 
and then reading some favorite pas- holly, which Fleurange, as well as 
sage in the books they brought with her cousins, wore at dinner, and this 
them. As he sat listening to the sil- time without any entreaty. At a 
very tones of Fleurange's voice, and later hour they had music and danc- 
met her expressive, sympathetic ing, which, ever ready as she was to 
glance when he took the book in his catch the joy of others, gave her a 
turn and read nearly as well as her- feeling of unusual gaiety, to which 
self; as he sat thus near her in that she unresistingly abandoned herself 
lovely, solitary spot, with no other the gaiety of youth, which at times 
witness but her whose affection for triumphs over everything, and sorne- 
both seemed only an additional tie, times breaks out with an excess in 
hope once more entered his heart, as proportion to its previous restraint, 
one breaks into a dwelling fastened Fleurange's laughter rang like music, 
against him, but, alas ! to be promptly and her joyous voice mingled with 
thrust out, leaving him as desolate as the children's, to the great joy of him 
before. who was looking on with ecstasy and 

While he was rowing them back in surprise. Her radiant eyes, her glow- 

the evening, with his eyes fastened on ing complexion, the brilliancy happi- 

Fleurange, he saw her delightful but ness adds to beauty, and had so long 

evanescent emotions of the day been wanting to hers, gave him, who 

fading away with the light, and could not behold it revive without 

another remembrance arise, sadder transport, a feeling of intoxication 

and more tender than ever, which which once more made him forget 

gave to her eyes, sometimes fastened all and hope everything ! But he 

on the dark and rapid current, some- was speedily and sadly recalled to 

times fixed on the shore, the expres- himself. 

sion he had learned to read so well Madame Dornthal was seated be- 
an expression that made his heart side her husband's arm-chair, which 
ache with pity and sympathy, but at she seldorii left. A pleasant smile 
the same time quiver and shrink with reappeared on her lips as she looked 
anguish, as if a lancet or caustic at her children moving around her. 
had been applied to his wound and From time to time she leaned to- 
caused it to bleed ! wards the professor, and was glad to 

Two months later the festival of see him entering into all that was go- 
Christmas again brought him one of ing on with his usual pleasure and 
these fleeting moments of happiness, with perfect comprehension of mind. 
On the eve the never-forgotten an- All at once she thought he turned 



Review of Vaugharis Life of S. Thomas. 



pale. She looked at Clement, and 
made a gesture which he understood. 
The noise disturbed his father. In 
an instant profound silence was re- 
stored, and they all gathered around 
the professor's chair. He appeared 
suddenly fatigued : his eyes closed, 
and he leaned his head on his wife's 
shoulder. They all anxiously awaited 
his first words after this sudden fit of 
somnolency. Presently he opened his 
eyes and gave a vague, uneasy glance 
around. Then, turning to Madame 
Dornthal, he said in a sad tone, pass- 
ing his hand over his forehead : 

" Tell me why Felix is not here : I 
knew, but cannot remember." 

This new failure of his memory, 
the name associated with so many 
painful recollections and uttered in 



so distressing a manner, put an end 
to all the gaiety of the evening. 
The effect of so much agitation and 
fatigue on the professor was not re- 
garded as very serious, but it left a 
painful impression, especially on 
Fleurange, who had fresh reasons for 
feeling his words. 

Clement, who had been informed 
by Steinberg of what had occurred at 
Florence, silently entered into her 
feelings, and once more the flash of 
joy that lit up his heart vanished in 
a night darker than ever. 

But he could not foresee that a pub- 
lic event of serious import was at 
that very hour transpiring far away, 
in a different sphere from his, which 
would have an important and painful 
influence on his humble destiny. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



REVIEW OF VAUGHAN'S LIFE OF S. THOMAS.* 



IT is but too seldom that the re- 
viewer has to welcome a work like 
that which we have already had the 
pleasure of producing to our readers, 
and to which we now desire to ren- 
der more fitting honors. An original 
life of a saint, and of an epoch-mak- 
ing saint like Thomas of Aquin, 
treated on a scale adequate to its im- 
portance, in the English tongue, by 
an English Benedictine monk, is a 
refreshing novelty to those who, like 
ourselves, have so much to say to 
what is slight, or frivolous, or com- 
mon, or hostile. The contemplative 
reviewer, looking at the two thick 
volumes of the English edition, feels 

The Life and Labors of S. Thomas of Aquin. 

By the Very Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, O.S.B., 

Cathedral-Prior of S. Michael's, Hereford. 2 

London: Longmans; Hereford: James 

Hull. 1871-2. 



inclined, like a man who guesses be- 
fore he opens a letter, to conjure up 
fancies as to what he will find in this 
new life of S. Thomas of Aquin. 
Two volumes, each consisting of 
more than 800 pages, are a great 
deal, in these days, for one saint. 
They are a great deal to write, and 
what is perhaps of more importance, 
they are a great deal to read. But 
no one can suppose that they are too 
much for such a saint as Thomas of 
Aquin. Considering that his own 
works, as printed in the splendid 
Parma edition lately completed, 
would make up some forty volumes 
of the size of these two goodly ones, 
it is not much. Considering that 
Thomas of Aquin has been more 
written about by commentators for 
four or five centuries than any other 



32 Revieiv of Vaughmis Life of S. Thomas. 

man, except perhaps Aristotle, who upon. But this is a point on which 
ever lived considering that every the work itself will enlighten us. 
student of theology is always coming Meanwhile, on opening the first vol- 
across his authority, and that he has ume we catch sight of a portrait of 
been the great builder-up of the vast the Saint. It is a reproduction, by 
building of Catholic philosophical photography, of a painting by the 
and theological terminology, it is not Roman artist Szoldatics, which was 
much that he should have two vol- painted expressly for the present work, 
umes. Indeed, when we look into It represents the well-known scene 
the book, we expect to find Prior in which the crucified Master, for 
Vaughan not seldom complaining of whom the great doctor has written 
being obliged, through want of space, and taught his life long, asks him 
to leave out a great deal that he would what reward he would desire. Por*- 
have wished to say. And this leads us traits of S. Thomas of Aquin are 
to notice the author's name. Father not uncommon. We are all familiar 
Bede Vaughan, though fairly known with the large and portly figure and 
by reputation in England, is perhaps the full and mild countenance, the 
a stranger to the greater number of sun upon his breast, the black and 
American Catholics. It is sufficient to the white, and the shaven crown of 
say at present that he is a brother of the Order of St. Dominic, the open 
the Very Rev. Dr. Herbert Vaughan, book and the immortal pen. Some 
whose presence in this country late- of the representations of the saint ex- 
ly, in connection with the mission aggerate his traditional portliness in- 
to the negroes, will have made his to a corpulence that almost obliterates 
name familiar to many even of those the light of genius in his face. On 
who had not the pleasure of person- the other hand, there exist many 
ally meeting him. Father Bede which give at once the large open 
Vaughan is Prior of the Benedictine features and the look of inspiration 
Cathedral Chapter of Newport and and of refinement. Those who 
Menevia. A cathedral-prior is a have turned to the title-pages of 
novelty, not only in literature, but the best Roman or Flemish editions 
absolutely. There were a great of his life or works will remember 
many cathedral-priors in England these. The new portrait, photograph- 
once upon a time men of power ed in the first volume, is very suc- 
and substance wearing their mitres cessful. Thomas of Aquin had Nor- 
(some of them) and sitting in the man blood in his veins, and the fair- 
House of Lords. Whatever be the ness of his skin and the contour of 
lands and the revenues of the only his head are not those of the typical 
cathedral-priory in English-speaking Italian. The artist has managed to 
hierarchies of the present day, it is convey very well that massive head, 
pleasant to meet with the old name, in which every lobe of the brain 
and to meet it on the cover of a book, seems to have been perfectly devel- 
That a Benedictine should have writ- oped and roomily lodged, thus fur- 
ten a sterling book will not surprise nishing the intelligence with an im- 
the world of letters. It is perhaps a aginative instrument whose power 
little new to find the great Dominican, was only equalled by its delicacy, 
the Angel of the Schools, taken up In the corresponding place in the 
by a member of an order which S. second volume there is a photograph 
Thomas is popularly supposed to of a meritorious engraving, from a 
have in set purpose turned his back picture or engraving unknown to us, 



Review of Vaughans Life of S. TJwinas. 33 

in which, however, the head of the principle and the influence of saintly ge- 

Saint is not so noble or refined. nius without embracing a considerably 

i ,1 wider field of thought than has been 

Passing, however, to consider the ., 

' . . . deemed necessary by those who have 

substance of the work itself, it is not aimed more at com p OS ing a book of 

too much to say that, as a life of S. edifying reading, than at displaying 

Thomas of Aquin, it is perfectly ori- the genesis and development of truth 

filial. We do not mean, of course, and the impress of a master-mind upon 

that the writer has found out new the age in which he lived. It has always 

. . appeared to him that one of the most 

facts, or made any considerable al- telling influen ces exerted by the doctor- 

teration in the aspect of old ones, saints of God, has been that of rare in- 
But his plan of working is new. He tellectual power in confronting and con- 
has had the idea of giving, not mere- trolling the passions and mental aberra- 

ly S. Thomas, but his surroundings. tio f of e ? ochs ' as wel1 as> of blinded 

and swerving men. . . . 

Some saints, even of those who have The object which the author of these 

spent themselves in external labors pages has proposed to himself is this: to 

for their fellow-men, require but little unfold before the reader's mind the far- 

in the way of background to make reaching and many-sided influence of 

their portraits significant. Yen. Bede's heroic sanctity, when manifested by a 

, man of massive mind, of sovereign ge- 

biography would not gam much nius> and of sagacious judg ment, and 

light from discussions upon Moham- then to remind him that, as the fruit hangs 

medanism, or upon the state of Eng- from the branches, so genius of command 

land or of Europe during his life. To and steadiness of view and unswerving- 

understand and love S. Francis of "ess of purpose, are naturally condition- 

. . ed by a certain moral habit of heart and 

Sales, it is not necessary to study tne head . that purity> reve rence, adoration, 

growth of Calvinism, to follow the i ove> are the four solid corner-stones on 

steps of the De Auxiliis controversy, which that Pharos reposes which, when 

or to become minutely acquainted a11 about it, and far beyond it, is dark- 

with the Character Of Henri IV. But ness and confusion, stands up in the 

. . ,.. ., p r~. midst as the representative of order, and 

very different with S. Thomas as the minister of light , and as the token 

of Aquin. Opening his mouth, like a O f salvation. 

true doctor of the church, " in medio " Now, the Angel of the Schools was 

ecclesiae," he had words to speak emphatically a great and shining light.. 

which all Christendom listened to, To te his life ] s u not so mu( : h / deal 

with the subiect of his personal history, 

and acted upon, too, in one way 'or as to display J the stretc h of his power and 

ie was a power at Paris, t h e character of his influence. Indeed, 
at Cologne, at Naples. Every great few of the great cardinal thinkers of the 
influence of the thirteenth century world have left much private history to- 
felt the impulse of his thought: S. record - Self was hidden in the splendor 

. _ . of the light which bursts out from it lust 

Louis the Crusader, Urban IV., Gre- , .. .^ fl 

as the more brilliant the name, so much 

jreek schismatics, the the more unse en is the lamp in which it 

Arabian philosophers, the opponents burns. It stands to reason that the more 

of monasticism, the mighty power of widespread the influence which such 

the universities. Prior Vaughan thus men as these exert ' s m " ch the wider 

i c \t t- must be the range taken by the writer 

speaks in the preface to the first ^"r the field of hlstoty and Aeology and 

philosophy if he wishes adequately to 
delineate the action of their lives. The 

1 The author has found it difficult to private history of S. Thomas of Aquin 

comprehend how the life of S. Thomas could be conveniently written in fifty 

of Aquin could be written so as to con- pages, whilst his full biography would 

tent the mind of an educated man of certainly occupy many thousand pages." 

one who seeks to measure the reach of (Pp. iii., iv.) 
VOL. XVI. 3 



34 Review of Vang/tans Life of S. Thomas. 

The view which is thus sketched thers ; with the author of the Summa, 

out is a large one. We have said it is indispensable, 
that the author presents not merely 

his hero, but his hero's surroundings. ' The Columnal Fathers and the An. 

-P. . , ,. . j j i gehcal were in completest harmony; 

But, m studying his mind and his they were knit togethe P r by the monsis fc 

-work, heroes not content himself principle. The intellectual hinges of the 

with making a vivid background of Universal Church (speaking humanly) 

the thirteenth century. One century have been monastic-men that is to say, 

is the child of another, and mind is men wh ' throu s h an int ense cross-wor- 

j ji j rr^i ship and a keen perception of the beau- 

educated by mind. The past is ^ threw up ^ ^ Ch and 

the seed of the future, and no time through 
'Can be understood without under- 

. 'The ingrained instinct of old reverence, 

Standing the times that gave It birth. The holy habit of obedience,' 

This is especially true of the times loved> labored> suffere d for him, and 
-when history accumulates most rapid- died into his arms, 
ly, and of minds to whom it is given " For the one thread which pierces 
to fashion history as it is made, through all, and maintains a real corn- 
Prior Vaughan finds the Story of S. mun j cation between the Angelical and 
rp,, i-ii i i the heroes of the classic age which 
Thomas intellectual work commenc- creates a brotherh ood between S. 

ing far back in the work of those men Thomas of the thirteenth century and 

whom he calls the " columnal fathers " the great athletes in the second and the 

of the church. He therefore takes third which makes the ' Sun of the 

his reader back to primitive ages S^V m " minate . the ' Pillar of the 

, ,, World, and so reciprocally that is to 

to the desert, the laura, the early say> which renders s Thomas and & 

conflicts of God's servants with Anthony one in spirit and in principle- 
paganism, with heresy, and with was this, that the.ir beings were trans- 
worldliness. He sets before him S. formed into a supernatural activity, 

Anthony, in the majesty of his single- ^ rou ^ f intense and P ers - onal love of 

their ivedecmer 
hearted union with Christ ; S. Atha- This was ' the one special lesson 

nasms, worthy disciple of such a which the Angelical drew from the wil- 

master, unsurpassed in the great op- derness and the fathers, which came to 

portunities of his life and the strength him through S. Benedict, indeed, but 

with which he rose to meet them: rather as * pri " ci P le f ^ than ' 

-p. .. , , . r i exertion. In the desert athletes, and 

.S. Basil, the monk that fought the those who followed them, he found that 

world, and overcame it; S. Gregory principle operative, and almost military 

Theologus, the vates sacersi the fourth in its chivalrous readiness to combat and 

century, who sang in verse and in s P m blood in defence of truth. It lent 

rhythmical prose the song of the con- ! hi , wl ; at . il ex 1 hibits in them fl 50 ' 

, * r ~ , . breadth of view, largeness, moral free- 

.substantial Son of God. He introduces dom> stubborn courage, generosity of 

US to S. Augustine, to S.Ambrose, heart, expansion of mind, and an electric 

to S. Gregory the Great, and points light of intellect, which bear about them 

out how essential a feature, in the a touch of the Eastern world. How 

greatness of S. Thomas, is the way could the Angelical read Anthony's 

.... or follow Athanasius in his exiles, or see 

m which he has reproduced all that Basil so heroically rigid in his defence 

-was eternal and "catholic" in the of right, or hear, in imagination, Gregory 

/thoughts of the men whom God has Theologus pouring out a stream of po- 

set up to be the pillars of the doctrine lished eloquence, without being im- 

r i i i 117-.M ^i pressed by truth's grace and music ; 

of his church. With other saints, it ^ ow coul / he watch \ Chrvsostom , aU 

would, perhaps, be superfluous to on nre with his love of God and with his 

trace their connection with the fa- discriminating sympathy for men, or 



Review of Vaughans Life of S. T/wmas. 35 

think of the ascetic Jerome, battling place of the scholastic form and dis- 

single-handed in the wilderness, or pe- cipline. The great preacher was 

rasing his Scripture in the cave ; how familiar with the sp i r i tua l wants of 

could he dwell in spirit with b. Am- . , . , . ., , 

brose or S. Gregory the Great, or follow the world m their Widest aspect, and 

the career of the passionate, emotional, he no sooner ^came to know 

splendid S. Augustine, without expand- Thomas of Aquin than he saw that 

ing in heart and mind towards all that h e was f ace to face with the mind 

is best and greatest-all that is most thafc ha said more truth about God 

noble and most fair in the majestic cha- , , . , . , ., 

racterof God's tenderly-cherished saints? and man > and said !t better than any 

" Had he not known them so intimately, one man who has ever lived ; and he 

great as he was, his mind would have has said it SO well, because he has 

been comparatively cramped, his cha- no t sa i d ft ou t o f n i s O wn conscious- 

racter most probably would have been n but firgt saturated himself with 

less imperial in its mould, and there '. . . r ,, , 

would have been less of that oriental the llvm g truth f th / l^^ortal 

mightiness about his intellectual crea- fathers, and then reproduced m his 

tions, which now reminds one of those own way what God had thus himself 

vast monuments of other days, which imparted to the world, 

still are the marvel of travellers in the The influence wh i ch S. Thomas 

East, and the despair of modern engi- , , ,. . c 

.' /TT nn COT c \ owed to the study and meditation of 

iiL-eis>. ^11., pp. So 5-/ . r . , 

the great fathers "was surpassed or 

A great portion of the second vol- rather, we ought to say, most power- 

ume is taken up with the exposition fully shown by the impressions made 

in detail of these thoughts and ideas, upon his heart, even more than his 

We do not think that any one who mind, by his early bringing up. 

has thoroughly seized the author's Every one knows that the Angel of the 

point of view will be sorry that so Schools, who was of the noblest blood 

much space is given to the lives and of Italy, spent his early years in the 

characters of men who are not the great arch-monastery of Monte Ca- 

immediate subject of the book. The sino. Prior Vaughan has no hesita- 

truth is, that the full significance of S. tion in making the assertion that 

Thomas of Aquin has been very much Thomas of Aquin never lost what 

overlooked in modern times. The he acquired from the monks of S. 

non-Catholic theory has always been Benedict during those seven childish 

that he was a voluminous " scho- years that he spent with them in the 

lastic," more acute than most of his cloisters of the great abbey. He was 

sort, perhaps, but mediaeval, hair- never a professed Benedictine, al- 

. splitting, and unprofitable. The Ca- though he would, in the natural 

tholic theory has done him greater course, have become one without 

justice; but even the Catholic schools making any explicit profession, had 

have too much forgotten S. Thomas, not the troubles of the times forced 

There is an interesting passage in one the monks to flee from the abbey. 

of Lacordaire's letters, in which he But the Benedictine or monastic spir- 

tells the Abbe Drioux, who has done it, the principle of quies, as our 

so much for S. Thomas in France, author calls it, with the vivid appre- 

how he read the Angelical every day, ciation of the kingship of Christ, 

and yet how long it had been before Thomas took away with him when 

he had come to know him ! And he went forth and carried with him 

then he speaks with some deprecia- to the work he had to do. The new 

tion of that " Positive " theology mendicant orders that had recently 

which has pretended to take the been founded were schools of activ- 



36 Review of VaugJians Life of S. Thomas. 

ity, aggressive, moving hither and lecticians was a man of the purest 
thither, pitching their tents in great and deepest " monasticism." But he 
towns, and .lifting their voices in was not destined to be as an Anselm, 
universities. Their saints were to be a Bernard, or a Hugh of S. Victor, 
fitted for the regeneration of a new The Saint was sent to Naples for 
phase of the world. But in the the prosecution of his studies, and 
saints themselves it was only an out- whilst there he asked for and re- 
ward change. The essential spirit ceived the habit of S. Dominic. The 
remained the same. That spirit had author gives a brilliant sketch of Na- 
been the heirloom of the old monas- pies as it was under the sway of Fred- 
tic orders, and it could never be out erick II. He then devotes a whole 
of date. In the men who were to chapter to a " study " of the new 
do the greatest things in the new life orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic, 
of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- for the purpose of bringing out vividly 
turies, the old spirit of the cloister before the reader the new world that 
must be found strong and deep. In was springing up and the new race 
the man who above all was to o f men that the church was calling 
stand forth as the sum and crown forth to deal with it. We have no 
of the middle age, that contempla- space to quote from this chapter, 
tive, immovable, far-seeing realiza- but, even taken apart from its con- 
tion of " the person of Christ " nection with S. Thomas, it is full 
must exist as heroically as in An- o f interest and life, 
thony of the Desert or Benedict Thus was Thomas of Aquin pre- 
of the Mountain. And it was S. parec } ap( j equipped; prepared by 
Thomas' Benedictine training that t he great fathers and by S. Benedict, 
contributed much to make him such equipped in the armor of the Order 
a man. of intellectual chivalry. And what 

was the work before him ? Who 

'The monks thought much, but talked were hfe enem { es his friends, his 
little; thus the monastic system encour- 

aged meditation, rather than intellectual neighbors, his assistants ? In answer 
tournaments ; reserve rather than dis- to these questions we have the chap- 
play, deep humility rather than dialecti- ters on " Abelard, or Rationalism and 
cal skill. The Benedictines did not aim so Irreverence"; on " S. Bernard, or 
much at unrestrained companionship of Authority and Reverence " ; on the 
free discussion as at self-control ; not so 

much at secular-minded fantasy as at 'Schools of Victor"; Oil tne 
much prayer and sharp penance, till self " Arabian and the Jewish Influence 
was conquered, and the grace of God in Europe"; oil "William of S. 
reigned, and giants walked the earth. Amour " ; on " Paris and its Univer- 
Self-mastery, springing from the basis of ^ and Qn Alben thg Great 
a supernatural life, moulded the heart to . . 
sanctity, and imparted to the intellect an Some of these chapters relate, as wil 
accuracy of vision which is an act of be seen, to men who were not con- 
nature directed and purified by grace, temporaries of S. Thomas. But if 
Theodore, Aldhelm, Bede, Boniface, Abelard, and S. Bernard, and Wil- 
Alcuin Dunstan, Wilfrid, Stephen, Ber- Ham Qf Champeaux had passed away 
nard, Anselm, these names are sugges- . . . \ . . n , / 
tive of this influence of the monastic sys- m the flesh, their influence or their 
tern'." (I., p. 26.) views still lived on when Thomas 

wrote. And we see the full signifi- 

It is one of the aims of the book cance of these chapters on the great 

to bring out the view that the prince schools of thought, orthodox and 

of scholastics and the king of dia- heterodox, when we arrive at the sec- 



Review of Vaughans Life of S. Thomas. 37 

ond volume, and find the author took its beginning in William of S. 
showing in detail how the Angel of Amour's book called Perils of the 
the Schools, in some p.art or other of Last Times. It seems really impos- 
his voluminous writings, met and re- sible to say how much the religious 
futed every form of prevalent error, state, humanly speaking, owes to the 
and, whilst majestically laying down man who wrote the book Against 
principles for all ages, never forgot Those who attack the Service of God 
to clear up the difficulties of his own and Religion, and that On the Per- 
time. The rationalism of Abelard, fection of the Spiritual Life. 
the emanation doctrines that Arabian Passing now from the more remote 
subtlety had elaborated out of the surroundings of the hero of the story 
reminiscences of the old Gnosticism, to the immediate scene of the great- 
the errors of the Greek schismatics, est portion of his labors, we venture 
the perversity of the Jews, are all en- to believe that one of the most pop- 
countered by his never-resting pen, ular parts of this work of Prior 
either in some one of his numerous Vaughan's will be his animated de- 
Opusculci) varying in length from an scrip tion of the university system of 
essay to an octavo volume, or else in the thirteenth century, and of the 
one or other of his two great Sums, University of Paris in particular, 
or perhaps in more places than one, He has spared no pains in getting at 
the refutation being the more com- correct details and putting them ar- 
plete as the writing becomes more tistically together. M. Franklin's 
mature. As for the two greatest and splendid and comparatively unknown 
most prominent of his enterprises labors on mediaeval Paris have sup- 
the Christianizing of Aristotle and the plied him with matter that will be 
formation of a complete Sum of the- found nowhere else. Paris is the 
ology it was to be expected that natural type of the great mediaeval 
Prior Vaughan should fully enlarge university. More central and ac- 
upon them. The chapters on " S. cessible than Oxford, safer than Bo- 
Thomas and Aristotle," and " S. logna, freer than Naples, and found- 
Thomas and Reason," in the second ed on a wide and grand basis, the 
volume, form a good introduction to University of Paris soon grew into a 
the study of the Angelic Doctor, and formidable assemblage of men who, 
at the same time give the enquiring whilst ostensibly votaries of science, 
mind some notion of how S. Thomas were not unprovided with excitable 
has performed one of the greatest spirits and rough hands. Students 
feats that genius ever accomplished gathered, rich and poor, great doc- 
the successful and consistent " con- tors taught, munificent founders, like 
version " of the greatest, the most Robert of Sorbon, bestowed their, 
original, and the most precise of money or their influence, the monks 
heathen philosophers .into a hewer of of all orders gathered round silent- 
wood and carrier of water for the ly, and to some extent distrustfully, 
faith. from Citeaux, from Cluny, even from 
\Ve would gladly dwell on the the Grande Chartreuse, with the 
three chapters at the end of Vol. I., Benedictines of S. Germain, the 
in which the writer, in reviewing the Premonstratensians their church 
writings of the Saint in defence and was where now stands the Cafe de la 
exaltation of monasticism, gives a Rotonde and the Augustinians. As 
useful and spirited history of the for the Dominicans and Franciscans, 
whole of that exciting contest which they, as may be supposed, were 



38 Review of Vaiighaiis Life of S. Thomas. 

early on the spot, to teach quite as Notre Dame. But soon their repu- 

much as to learn. The following is ration for poverty and learning at- 

a sketch of the men who flocked to tracted the notice of influential bene- 

the great university at least of one factors, and they had a house of their 

considerable class : own. It was dedicated to S. James 

the Apostle, and quickly became not 

"There were starving, friendless lads, on j v a g reat monastery but a famous 

with their unkempt heads and their schooL The Dominican Order 
tattered suits, who walked the streets, 

hungering for bread, and famishing for divinely founded for a want of the 

knowledge, and hankering after a sight time, soon began to show in front of 

of some of those great doctors, of whom the progress of the age, and to lead 

they had heard so much when far away i ns tead of following. It was here, 

in the woods of Germany or the fields in g> Ja ^ ^^ ^ Q ^^ 

of France. Some were so poor that they * 

could not afford to follow a course of and Vincent of Beauvois wrote his- 

theology. We read of one poor fellow tories and commentaries; it was here 

on his death-bed, having nothing else, that Albert the Great and Thomas 

giving his shoes and stockings to a com- Aquinas lectured and wrote ; and 
panion to procure a Mass for his soul. h crowd f } 
Some were only too glad to carry holy 

water to private houses, scion la coutnme mentioned on its rolls about this 

Gallicane, with the hope of receiving time, less distinguished but still dis- 

some small remuneration. Some were tinguished, would take long to enu- 

destitute of necessary clothing. One merate< It was for S> j ames that 

tunic sometimes served for three, who c ^ , . ir . , - . 

took it in turns-two went to bed, whilst & Dominic himself had framed a 

the third dressed himself and hurried off body of rules. hese rules are most 

to school. Some spent all their scanty striking, as given in the pages of 

means in buying parchments, and wasted p r i or Vaughan. They show how a 

their strength, through half the night, gaint and monastic legislator feels the 
porinar over crabbed manuscript, or in r 

puzzlfng out that jargon which contained f a d P^^ of the times, 
the wisdom of the wisest of the Greeks, and how he provides for a new fea- 
Whole nights some would remain awake ture in monasticism. To read these 
on their hard pallets, in those unhealthy rules, one feels tempted to say that 
cells, trying to work out some problem the Dominicans sacrificed every- 
proposed by the professor in the schools. - . ... _ 
But there were rich as well as poor at tnm to g lve thelr men a first-rate 
Paris. There was Langton, like others, course of Studies. But we must re- 
famous for his opulence, who taught, and member the midnight vigil and the 
then became Canon of Notre Dame; perpetual absence and the long si- 
and Thomas a Becket who as a youth, knce< Stm thfi doisters of s> 
came here to seek the charm of gay , .. . 
society." (I., p. 354.) J ames were dlfferent enough from 

those of Monte Casino. There 

Amid all the noise, turmoil, and was a great hall at S. James', where 
disputes of the huge colony of stu- professors taught and whither stu- 
dents, numbering more thousands dents thronged to hear how differ- 
than Oxford or Cambridge at this ent from the remote cloister of Jar- 
day can show hundreds, the great row, where Venerable Bede taught 
Dominican convent of S. James was his younger brethren for so many 
a grand and famous centre of light years on the quiet flats between the 
and work. S. Dominic was not Wear and the Tyne ! The cells 
long before he settled in Paris. At knew the light of the midnight lamp, 
first the friars lived in a mean hired the cloisters resounded with disputa- 
lodging, apparently on the Island of tion, the young students of the Order 



Revieiv of Vaughan s Life of S. Thomas. 



39 



were men of few books a Bible, a 
copy of the Historia of Petrus Comes- 
tor and of the Sentences of Peter Lom- 
bard, was all their private library. 
But half the day was spent face to 
face with a professor and with each 
other, and the want of books was 
not much felt. And what an educa- 
tion it must have been to listen to 
and take down the Summa contra 
Gentiles of the Angel of the Schools ! 
As we have said, the whole of these 
two chapters is instinct with the 
liveliest description, and we cannot 
do better than recommend readers 
to go to it and judge for themselves. 

We must reserve what we have not 
yet touched upon, viz., the personal 
life of the Saint himself, for another 
notice. It must not be supposed 
that Prior Vaughan passes over the 
person of S. Thomas in his anxiety 
to show us what sort of a world he 
lived in. It will soon be seen, on 
making some slight acquaintance 
with the book, that the strictly bio- 
graphical portion is in reality most 
successful ; the story is well told, and, 
like all stories of sanctity and super- 
natural heroism, goes straight to the 
heart. 

Without saying that Prior 
Vaughan's two volumes partake of 
the nature of the perfect, we frankly 
say we do not intend to find faults in 
it. We welcome it, and it deserves 
to be welcomed by every Catholic 
that can read it. There are, of 
course, defects and a few errors here 
and there ; but the book lays down 
no false principles, takes no dangerous 
views, and patronizes no pernicious 
mistakes. On the other hand, it 
deals with a wide theme in a large 
way. In language which, if at 



times too copious, is nevertheless 
frequently eloquent and always easy 
and fluent, the writer raises the life of 
a saint into a picture of a world- 
epoch. He has labored very hard at 
his authorities and sources, and when 
the book gets into use many stu- 
dents, we are sure, will thank him 
for his copious references and notes. 
His imagination is of a high order, 
and his picture-loving power is seen 
in the way in which he sketches with 
an epithet, puts together the elements 
that he finds up and down the old 
authors, and shakes the dust and the 
mildew from valuable bits of ancient 
chronicle, so that they look bright 
again. The Hon. John L. Motley is 
in the front rank of modern histo- 
rians, and to compare any writer 
with him is to give praise that one 
must think much before giving ; but 
if we wished to indicate the genre of 
Prior Vaughan's style its pictorial 
power, its realism, and its tone of 
earnest conviction we should men- 
tion the name of the historian of the 
Netherlands. The two writers are 
very unlike in their convictions ; and 
Mr. Motley has, no doubt, a perfec- 
tion and finish of art which few wri- 
ters can approach. But still Prior 
Vaughan is quite fit to be named in 
the same sentence. And a book 
which has cost so many hours of 
thought and labor, which aims so 
high, which is so really the work of 
a man with views and with a power 
to express himself, and which deals 
with a subject that can never lose its 
interest, but one which, if we do not 
mistake, is as yet only at the begin- 
ning of a grand revival, is a book to 
be welcomed, to be read, and to be 
thankful for. 



The Progressionists. 



THE PROGRESSIONISTS. 



FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN. 



CHAPTER V. 



GERLACH whispered something to 
the banker. Holt pressed his pocket- 
handkerchief to the wound. 

" Please yourself!" said the banker 
loudly in a business tone. Seraphin 
again approached the beaten man. 

" Will you please, my good man, 
to accompany us ?" 

" What for, sir ?" 

" Because I would like to do 
something towards healing up your 
wound; I mean the wound in there." 

Holt stood motionless before the 
stranger and looked at him. 

"I thank you, sir; there is no 
remedy for me ; I am doomed !" 

" Still, I will assist you. Follow 



me." 

" Who are you, sir, if I may ask 
the question ?" 

" I am a man whom Providence 
seems to have chosen to rescue the 
prey from the jaws of a usurer. 
Come along with us, and fear no- 
thing." 

" Very well, I will go in the name 
of God ! I do not precisely know 
your object, and you are a stranger to 
me. But your countenance looks in- 
nocent and kind, therefore I will go 
with you." 

They passed through alleys and 
streets. 

" Do you often visit that tavern ?" 
inquired Seraphin. 

. " Not six times in a year," an- 
swered Holt. " Sometimes of a 
Sunday I drink half a glass of wine, 
that's all. I am poor, and have to be 
saving. I would not have gone to 
the tavern to-day but that I wanted 
to get rid of my feelings of misery." 



" I overheard your story," rejoined 
Seraphin. " Shund's treatment of 
you was inhuman. He behaved to- 
wards you like a trickish devil." 

" That he did ! And I am ruined 
together with my family," replied the 
poor man dejectedly. 

" Take my advice, and never abuse 
Shund. You know how respectable 
he has suddenly got to be, how 
many influential friends he has. You 
can easily perceive that one cannot 
say anything unfavorable of such a 
man without great risk, no matter 
were it true ten times over." 

" I am not given to disputing," re- 
plied Holt. " But it stirred the bile 
within me to hear him extolled, and 



it broke out. Oh ! I have learned to 
suffer in silence. I haven't time to 
think of other matters. After God, 
my business and my family were 
my only care. I attended to my oc- 
cupation faithfully and quietly as 
long as 1 had any to attend to, but 
now I haven't any to take care of. 
O God ! it is hard. It will bring 
me to the grave." 

" You are a land cultivator ?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Shund intends to have you sold 
out?" 

" Yes ; immediately after the elec- 
tion he intends to complete my 
ruin." 

" How much money would you 
need in order with industry to get 
along ?" 

" A great deal of money, a great 
deal at least a thousand florins. I 
haye given him a mortgage for a 
thousand florins on my house and 



The Progressionists. 



what was left to me. A thousand 
florins would suffice to help me out 
of trouble. I might save my little 
cottage, my two cows, and a field. I 
might then plough and sow for other 
people. I could get along and subsist 
honestly. But as I told you, nothing 
less than a thousand florins would 
do j and where am I to get so much 
money ? You see there is no hope for 
me, no help for me. I am doomed !" 

" The mortgaged property is con- 
siderable," said Gerlach. " A house, 
even thbugh a small one, moreover, 
a field, a barn, a garden, all these 
together are surely worth a much 
higher price. Could you not borrow 
a thousand florins on it and pay off 
the usurer ?" 

" No, sir. Nobody would be will- 
ing to lend me that amount of money 
upon property mortgaged to a man 
like Shund. Besides, my little prop- 
erty is out of town, and who wants 
to go there ? I, for my part, of 
course, like no spot as much, for it is 
the house my father built, and I was 
born and brought up there." 

The man lapsed into silence, and 
walked at Seraphin's side like one 
weighed down by a heavy load. 
The delicate sympathy of the young 
man enabled him to guess what was 
passing in the breast of the man 
under ti.e load. He knew that Holt 
was recalling his childhood passed 
under the paternal roof; that little 
spot of home was hallowed for him 
by events connected with his mother, 
his father, his brothers and sisters, or 
with other objects more trifling, 
which, however, remained fresh and 
bright in memory, like balmy days of 
spring. 

From this consecrated spot he was 
to be exiled, driven out with wife 
and children, through the inhumanity 
and despicable cunning of an usurer. 
The man heaved a deep sigh, and 
Gerlach, watching him sidewise, no- 



ticed his lips were compressed, and 
that large tears rolled down his 
weather-browned cheeks. The ten- 
der heart of the young man was 
deeply affected at this sight, and the 
millionaire for once rejoiced in the 
consciousness of possessing the might 
of money. 

They halted before the Palais 
Greifmann. Holt noticed with sur- 
prise how the man in blouse drew 
from his waistcoat pocket a small in- 
strument resembling a toothpick, and 
with it opened a door near the car- 
riage gate. Had not every shadow 
of suspicion been driven from Holt's 
mind by Seraphin's appearance, he 
would surely have believed that he 
had fallen into the company of bur- 
glars, who entrapped him to aid in 
breaking into this palace. 

Reluctantly, after repeated encour- 
agement from Gerlach, he crossed 
the threshold of the stately mansion. 
He had not quite passed the door 
when he took off his cap, stared at 
the costly furniture of the hall 
through which they were passing, 
and was reminded of St. Peter's 
thought as the angel was rescuing 
him from the clutches of Herod. 
Holt imagined he saw a vision. 
The man who had unlocked the 
door disappeared. Seraphin entered 
an apartment followed by Shund's 
victim. 

" Do you know where you are ?" 
inquired the millionaire. 

" Yes, sir, in the house of Mr. 
Greifmann the banker." 

" And you are somewhat surprised, 
are you not?" 

" I am so much astonished, sir, 
that I have several times pinched my 
arms and legs, for it all seems to 
me like a dream." 

Seraphin smiled and laid aside his 
cap. Holt scanned the noble fea- 
tures of the young man more mi-, 
nutely, his handsome face, his stately 



The Progressionists. 



bearing, and concluded the man in 
the blouse must be some distin- 
guished gentleman. 

"Take courage," said the noble - 
looking young man in a kindly tone. 
" You shall be assisted. I am con- 
vinced that you are an honest, indus- 
trious man, brought to the verge of 
ruin through no fault of your own. 
Nor do I blame you for inadvertent- 
ly falling into the nets of the usurer, 
for I believe your honest nature never 
suspected that there could exist so 
fiendish a monster as the one that 
lives in the soul of an usurer." 

" You may rely upon it, sir. If I 
had had the slightest suspicion of such 
a thing, Shund never would have got 
me into his clutches." 

" I am convinced of it. You are 
partially the victim of your own good 
nature, and partially the prey of the 
wild beast Shund. Now listen to 
me : Suppose somebody were to 
give you a thousand florins, and to 
say: * Holt, take this money, 'tis yours. 
Be industrious, get along, be a pru- 
dent housekeeper, serve God to the 
end of your days, and in future 
beware of usurers ' suppose some- 
body were to address you in this 
way, what would you do ?" 

" Supposing the case, sir, although 
it is not possible, but supposing the 
case, what would I do ? I would do 
precisely what that person would have 
told me, and a great deal more. I 
would work day and night. Every 
day, at evening prayer, I would get 
on my knees with my wife and chil- 
dren, and invoke God's protection 
on that person. I would do that, 
sir ; but, as I said, the case is impossi- 
ble." 

" Nevertheless, suppose it did hap- 
pen," explained Seraphin in a pre- 
liminary way. " Give me your hand 
that you will fulfil the promise you 
have just given." 

For a moment Seraphin's hand lay 



in a callous, iron palm, which pressed 
his soft fingers in an uncomfortable 
but well-meant grasp. 

" Well, now follow me," said Ger- 
lach. 

He led the way; Holt followed 
with an unsteady step like a drunk- 
en man. They presented them- 
selves before the banker's counter. 
The latter was standirig behind the 
trellis of his desk, and on a table lay 
ten rolls of money. 

" You have just now by word and 
hand confirmed a promise," said Ger- 
lach, turning to the countryman, 
" which cannot be appreciated in 
money, for that promise comprises 
almost all the duties of the father of 
a family. But to make the fulfil- 
ment of the promise possible, a 
thousand florins are needed. Here 
lies the money. Accept it from me 
as a gift, and be happy." 

Holt did not stir. He looked 
from the money at Gerlach, was 
motionless and rigid, until, at last, 
the paralyzing surprise began to 
resolve itself into a spasmodic qui- 
vering of the lips, and then into a 
mighty flood of tears. Seizing Sera- 
phin's hands, he kissed them with an 
emotion that convulsed his whole 
being. 

" That will do now," said the mil- 
lionaire, " take the money, and go 
home." 

" My God ! I cannot find utter- 
ance," said Holt, stammering forth 
the words with difficulty. " Good 
heaven ! is it possible ? Is it true ? 
I am still thinking 'tis only a dream." 

" Downright reality, my man !" 
said the banker. " Stop crying ; save 
your tears for a more fitting occasion. 
Put the rolls in your pocket, and go 
home." 

Greifmann's coldness was effective 
in sobering down the man intoxica- 
ted with joy. 

" May I ask, sir, what your name 



The Progressionists. 



43 



is, that I may at least know to whom 
I owe my rescue ?" 

" Seraphin is my name." 

" Your name sounds like an an- 
gel's, and you are an angel to me. I 
am not acquainted with you, but God 
knows you, and he will requite you 
according to your deeds." 

Gerlach nodded gravely. The 
banker was impatient and murmured 
discontentedly. Holt carefully pock- 
eted the rolls of money, made an 
inclination of gratitude to Gerlach, 
and went out. He passed slowly 
through the hall. The porter open- 
ed the door. Holt stood still before 
him. 

" I ask your pardon, but do you 
know Mr. Seraphin ?" asked he. 

" Why shouldn't I know a gentle- 
man that has been our guest for the 
last two weeks?" 

" You must pardon my presump- 
tion, Mr. Porter. Will Mr. Seraphin 
remain here much longer ?" 

" He will remain another week for 
certain." 

" I am very much obliged to 
you," said Holt, passing into the 
street and hurrying away. 

" Your intended has a queer way 
of applying his money," said the 
banker to his sister the next morning. 
And he reported to her the story of 
Seraphin's munificence. " I do not 
exactly like this sort of kindness, for 
it oversteps all bounds, and undoubt- 
edly results from religious enthusi- 
asm." 

" That, too, can be cured," replied 
Louise confidently. " I will make 
him understand that eternity restores 
nothing, that consequently it is 
safer and more prudent to exact in- 
terest from the present." 

" Tis true, the situation of that 
fellow Holt was a pitiable one, and 
Hans Shund's treatment of him was 
a masterpiece of speculation, He 
had stripped the fellow completely. 



The stupid Holt had for years been 
laboring for the cunning Shund, who 
continued drawing his meshes more 
and more tightly about him. Like a 
huge spider, he leisurely sucked out 
the life of the fly he had entrapped." 

" Your hostler says there was light 
in Seraphin's room long after mid- 
night. I wonder what hindered him 
from sleeping ?" 

" That is not hard to divine. In 
all probability he was composing a 
sentimental ditty to his much ador- 
ed," answered Carl teasingly. " Mid- 
night is said to be a propitious time 
for occupations of that sort." 

" Do be quiet, you tease ! But I 
too was thinking that he must have 
been engaged in writing. May be 
he was making a memorandum of 
yesterday's experience in his jour- 
nal." 

" May be he was. At all events, 
the impressions made on him were 
very strong." 

" But I do not like your venture ; 
it may turn out disastrous." 

" How can it, my most learned sis- 
ter ?" 

" You know Seraphin's position," 
explained she. " He has been rear- 
ed in the rigor of sectarian credulity. 
The spirit of modern civilization be- 
ing thus abruptly placed before his 
one-sided judgment without previous 
preparation may alarm, nay, may 
even disgust him. And when once 
he will have perceived that the 
brother is a partisan of the horrible 
monster, is it probable that he will 
feel favorably disposed towards the 
sister whose views harmonize with 
those of her brother ?" 

" I have done nothing to justify 
him in setting me down for a par- 
tisan. I maintain strict neutrality. 
My purpose is to accustom the 
weakling to the atmosphere of en- 
lightenment which is fatal to all reli- 
gious phantasms. Have no fear of 



44 



The Progressionists. 



his growing cold towards you," pro- 
ceeded he in his customary tone of 
irony. "Your ever victorious power 
holds him spell-bound in the magic 
circle of your enchantment. Besides, 
Louise," continued he frowning, " I 
do not think I could tolerate a 
brother-in-law steeped over head 
and ears in prejudices. You your- 
self might find it highly uncomforta- 
ble to live with a husband of this 
kind." 



" Uncomfortable ! No, I would 
not. I would find it exciting, for it 
would become my task to train and 
cultivate an abnormal specimen of 
the male gender." 

" Very praiseworthy, sister ! And 
if I now endeavor by means of living 
illustrations to familiarize your in- 
tended with the nature of modern 
intellectual enlightenment, I am 
merely preparing the way for your 
future labors." 



CHAPTER VI. 



MASTERS AND SLAVES. 



Under the much despised dis- 
cipline of religious requirements, the 
child Seraphin had grown up to boy- 
hood spotless in morals, and then 
had developed himself into a young 
man of great firmness of character, 
whose faith was as unshaken as the 
correctness of his behavior was con- 
stant. 

The bloom of his cheeks, the inno- 
cent brightness of his eye, the suavity 
of his disposition, were the natural 
results of the training which his heart 
had received. No foul passion had 
ever disturbed the serenity of his soul. 
When under the smiling sky of a 
spring morning he took his ride over 
the extensive possessions of his father, 
his interior accorded perfectly with 
the peace and loveliness of the sights 
and sounds of blooming nature 
around him. On earth, however, no 
spring, be it ever so beautiful, is 
entirely safe from storms. Evil 
spirits lie in waiting in the air, dark 
powers threaten destruction to all 
blossoms and all incipient life. And 
the more inevitable is the dread 
might of those lurking spirits, that 
in every blossom of living plant lies 
concealed a germ of ruin, sleeps a 
treacherous passion - - even in the 
heart of the innocent Seraphin. 



The strategic arts of the beautiful 
young lady received no small degree 
of additional power from the genuine 
effort made by her to please the 
stately double millionaire. In a 
short time she was to such an extent 
successful that one day Carl rallied 
her in the following humorous strain : 
" Your intended is sitting in the arbor 
singing a most dismal song ! You 
will have to allow him a little more 
line, Louise, else you run the risk of 
unsettling his brain. Moreover, I 
cannot be expected to instruct a man 
in the mysteries of progress, if he 
sees, feels, and thinks nothing but 
Louise." 

The banker had not uttered an 
exaggeration. It sometimes hap- 
pens that a first love bursts forth 
with an impetuosity so uncontrollable, 
that, for a time, every other domain 
of the intellectual and moral nature 
of a young man is, as it were, sub- 
merged under a mighty flood. This 
temporary inundation of passion can- 
not, of course, maintain its high tide 
in presence of calm experience, and 
the sunshine of more ripened know- 
ledge soon dries up its waters. But 
Seraphin possessed only the scanty 
experience of a young man, and his 
knowledge of the world was also 



The Progressionists. 45 

very limited. Hence, in his case, high degree of culture ; she was a 
the stream rose alarmingly high, but perfect mistress of the tactics employ- 
it did not reach an overflow, for the ed on the field of coquetry; her tact 
hand of a pious mother hud thrown was exquisite ; and she understood 
up in the heart of the child a living thoroughly how to take advantage 
dike strong enough to resist the of a kindly disposition and of the 
greatest violence of the swell. The tenderness inspired by passion, 
height and solidity of the dike in- How was the eye of Seraphin, 
creased with the growth of the child ; strengthened neither by knowledge 
it was a bulwark of defence for the nor by experience, to detect the true 
man. who stood secure against hu- worth of what lay hidden beneath 
miliating defeats behind the ada- this fascinating delusion ? 
mantine wall of religious principles Here again his religious training 
yet only so long as he sought pro- came to the rescue of the inexperienc- 
tection behind this bulwark. Faith ed youth, by furnishing him with 
uttered a serious warning against an standards safe and unfalsified, by 
unconditional surrender of himself to which to weigh and come to a con- 
the object of his attachment. For he elusion. 

could not put to rest some misgiv- Louise's indifference to practices 

ings raised in his mind by the of piety annoyed him. She never at- 

strange and, to him, inexplicable atti- tended divine service, not even on 

tude which Louise assumed upon Sundays. He never saw her with a 

the highest questions of human ex- prayer-book, nor was a single picture 

istence. The uninitiated youth had illustrative of a moral subject to be 

no suspicion of the existence of that found hung up in her apartment, 

most disgusting product of modern Her conversation, at all times, ran 

enlightenment, the emancipated fe- upon commonplaces of everyday 

male. Had he discovered in Louise concern, such as the toilet, theatre, 

the emancipated woman in all the society. He noticed that whenever 

ugliness of her real nature, he would he ventured to launch matter of a 

have conceived unutterable loathing more serious import upon the current 

for such a monstrosity. And yet he of conversation, it immediately be- 

could not but feel that between him- came constrained and soon ceased to 

self a,nd Louise there yawned an flow. Louise appeared to his heart 

abyss, there existed an essential re- at the same time so fascinating and 

pulsion, which, at times, gave rise yet so peculiar, so seductive and yet 

within him to considerable uneasi- so repulsive, that the contradictions 

ness. of her being caused him to feel quite 

To obtain a solution of the enigma unhappy. 

of this antipathy, the young gentle- He was again sitting in hie room 
man concluded to trust entirely to thinking about her. In the interview 
the results of his observations, which, he had just had with her, the young 
however, were far from being defini- lady had exerted such admirable 
tive ; for his reason was imposed powers of womanly charms that the 
upon by his feelings, and, from day poor young man had had a great 
to day, the charms of the beautiful deal of trouble to maintain his self- 
woman were steadily progressing in possession. Her ringing, mischievous 
throwing a seductive spell over his laugh was still sounding in his ears, 
judgment. and the brightness of her sparkling 

The banker's daughter possessed a eyes was still lighting up his me- 



46 The Progressionists. 

mory. And the unsuspecting youth Carl himself he had for a while 
had no Solomon at his side to repeat regarded as an enigma. Now, how- 
to him : " My son, can a man hide ever, he believed that he had reached 
fire in his bosom, and his garments a correct conclusion concerning the 
not burn ? Or can he walk upon brother. It appeared to him that 
hot coals, and his feet not be burnt ? the principal characteristic of Carl's 
. . . She entangleth him with many disposition was to treat every subject, 
words, and she draweth him away except what strictly pertained to 
with the flattery of her lips. Imme- business, in a spirit of levity. To 
diately he followeth her as an ox led the faults of others Carl was always 
to be a victim, and as a lamb play- ready to accord a praiseworthy de- 
ing the wanton, and not knowing gree of indulgence, he never uttered 
that he is drawn like a fool to bonds, harsh words in a tone of bitterness, 
till the arrow pierce his liver. As if and when he pronounced rensure, 
a bird should make haste to the his reproof was invariably clothed in 
'snare, and knoweth not that his life some form of pleasantry. In general, 
is in danger. Now, therefore, my he behaved like a man not having 
son, hear me, and attend to the time to occupy himself seriously with 
words of my mouth. Let not thy any subject that did not lie within the 
mind be drawn away in her ways : particular sphere of his occupation, 
neither be thou deceived with her Even their wager he managed like 
paths. For she hath cast down a matter of business, although the 
many wounded, and the strongest landowner could not but take um- 
have been slain by her. Her house brage at the banker's ready and ria- 
ls the way to hell, reaching even to tural way of dealing with men whose 
the inner chambers of death."* want of principle he himself abomi- 

For Seraphin, however, no Solo- nated. Greifmann seemed good-na- 

mon was at hand who might give tured, minute, and cautious in busi- 

him counsel. Sustained by his virtue ness, and in all other things exceed- 

and by his faith alone, he struggled ingly liberal and full of levity. Such 

against the temptress, not precisely was the judgment arrived at by 

of the kind referred to by Solomon, Seraphin, inexperienced and little 

but still a dangerous one from the inclined to fault-finding as he was, 

ranks of progress. respecting a gentleman who stood at 

Greifmann had notified him that the summit of modern culture, who 

the general assembly election was to had skill in elegantly cloaking great 

be held that day, that Mayor Hans faults and foibles, and whose sole 

Shund would certainly be returned religion consisted in the accumula- 

as a delegate, and that he intended tion of papers and coins of arbitrary 

to call for Gerlach, and go out to value, 

watch the progress of the election. Gerlach's servant entered, and dis- 

Seraphin felt rather indifferent re- turbed his meditation, 

specting the election ; but he would " There is a man here with a 

have considered himself under weighty family who begs hard to be allowed 

obligation to the brother for an ex- to speak with you." 

planation of the peculiar behavior of " A man with a family !" repeated 

the sister at which he was so greatly the millionaire, astonished. " I know 

perplexed. nobody round here, and have no de- 
sire to form acquaintances." 

* Proverbs vi., vii. " The man will not be denied. He 



The Progressionists. 



47 



says his name is Holt, and that he 
has something to say to you." 

" Ah, yes !" exclaimed Seraphin, 
with a smile that revealed a pleasant 
surprise. " Send the man and those 
who are with him in to me." 

Closing a diary, in which he was 
recording circumstantially the expe- 
riences of his present visit, he awaited 
the visitors. A loud knock from a 
weighty fist reminded him of a pair 
of callous hands, then Holt, followed 
by his wife and children, presented 
himself before his benefactor. They 
all made a small courtesy, even the 
flaxen-headed little children, and the 
bright, healthy babe in the arms of the 
mother met his gaze with the smile 
of an angel. The dark spirits that 
were hovering around him, torturing 
and tempting, instantly vanished, and 
he became serene and unconstrained 
whilst conversing with these simple 
people. 

" You must excuse us, Mr. Sera- 
phin," began Holt. " This is my 
wife, and these are seven of my chil- 
dren. There is one more; her name 
is Mechtild. She had to stay at 
home and mind the house. She will 
pay you an extra visit, and present 
her thanks. We have called that 
you might become acquainted with 
the family whom you have rescued, 
and that we might thank you with 
all our hearts." 

After this speech, the father gave 
a signal, whereupon the little ones 
gathered around the amiable young 
man, made their courtesies, and kissed 
his hands. 

" May God bless you, Mr. Sera- 
phin !" first spoke a half-grown girl. 

" We greet you, dear Seraphin !" 
said another, five years old. 

" We pray for you every day, Mr. 

Seraphin," said the next in succession. 

' We are thankful to you from our 

hearts, Mr. Seraphin," spoke a small 

lad, in a tone of deep earnestness. 



And thus did every child deliver 
its little address. It was touching to 
witness the noble dignity of the chil- 
dren, which may, at times, be found 
beautifully investing their innocence. 
Gerlach was moved. He looked 
down- upon the little ones around 
him with an expression of affectionate 
thankfulness. Holt's lips also qui- 
vered, and bright tears of happiness 
streamed from the eyes of the mo- 
ther. 

" I am obliged to you, my little 
friends, for your greetings and for 
your prayers," spoke the millionaire. 
" You are well brought up. Con- 
tinue always to be good children, 
such as you now are ; have the fear 
of God, and honor your parents." 

" Mr. Seraphin," said Holt, draw- 
ing a paper from his pocket, " here 
is the note that I have redeemed 
with the money you gave me. I* 
wanted to show it to you, so that you 
might know for certain that the 
money had been applied to the pro- 
per purpose." 

Gerlach affected to take an interest 
in the paper, and read over the re- 
ceipt. 

" But there is one thing, Mr. Sera- 
phin," continued Hol| ? " that grieves 
me. And that is, that there is not 
anything better than mere words 
with which I can testify my gratitude 
to you. I would like ever so much 
to do something for you to do 
something for you worth speaking of. 
Do you know, Mr. Seraphin, I would 
be willing to shed the last drop of 
my blood for you ?" 

" Never mind that, Holt ! It is 
ample recompense for me to know 
that I have helped a worthy man out 
of trouble. You can now, Mrs. 
Holt, set to work with renewed cour- 
age. But," added he archly, " you 
will have to watch your husband that 
he may not again fall into the 
clutches of beasts of prey like Shund." 



48 The Progressionists. 

" He has had to pay dearly for his must bring splendid crops of wheat 
experience, Mr. Seraphin. I used I, too, am a farmer, and understar '. 
often to say to him : * Michael, don't something about such matters. Pit 
trust Shund. Shund talks too much, it appeared to me as though the oil 
he is too sweet altogether, he has were of a cold nature. You should 
some wicked design upon us don't use lime upon it pretty freely." 
trust him.' But, you see, Mr. Sera- In this manner he spent some time 
phin, my husband thinks that all conversing with these good and sim- 
people are as upright as he is him- pie people. Before dismissing them, 
self, and he believed that Shund he made a present to every one of 
really meant to deal fairly as he pre- the children of a shining dollar, hav- 
tended. But Michael's wits are ing previously overcome Holt's pro- 
sharpened now, and he will not in test against this new instance of gen- 
future be so ready to believe every erosity. 

man upon his word. Nor will he, Old and young then courtesied 

hereafter, borrow one single penny, once more, and Gerlach was left to 

and he will never again undertake himself in a mood differing greatly 

to buy anything unless he has the from that in which the visitors had 

money in hand to pay for it." found him. 

" In what street do you live ?" in- He had been conversing with 

quired Gerlach. good and happy people, and his soul 

" Near the turnpike road, Mr. revelled in the consciousness of hav- 

Seraphin. Do you see that knoll ?" ing been the originator of their hap- 

He pointed through the window in a piness. 

direction unobstructed by the trees Suddenly Greifmann's appearance 

of the garden. " Do you see that in the room put to flight the bright 

dense shade-tree, and yon white- spirits that hovered about him, and 

washed wall behind the tree ? That the sunshine that had been lighting 

is our walnut-tree my grandfather up the apartment was obscured by 

planted it. And the white wall is dark shadows as of a heavy mass of 

the wall of our house." clouds. 

" I have passed there twice the " What sort of a horde was that ?" 

road leads to the beech grove," said asked he. 

the millionaire. "I remarked the little " They were Holt and his family, 

cottage, and was much pleased with The gratitude of these simple people 

its air of neatness. It struck me, too, was touching. The innocent little 

that the barn is larger than the ones gave me an ovation of which a 

dwelling, which is a creditable sign prince might be envious, for the 

for a fanner. Near the front en- courts of princes are never graced by 

trance there is a carefully cultivated a naturalness at once so sincere and 

'flower garden, in which I particularly so beautiful. It is an intense happi- 

admired the roses, and further off ness for me to have assured the live- 

from the road lies an apple orchard." lihood of ten human beings with so 

" All that belongs to us. That is paltry a gift." 

what you have rescued and made a "A mere matter of taste, my most 

present of to us," replied the land sympathetic friend!" rejoined the 

cultivator joyfully. " Everybody stops banker with indifference. ''You are 

to view the roses ; they belong to not made of the proper stuff to be a 

our daughter Mechtild." business man. Your feelings would 

" The soil is good and deep, and easily tempt you into very unbusiness- 



The Progressionists. 49 

like transactions. Bqt you must come ing Schwefel came in to get a check 

with me ! The hubbub of the elec- cashed. With surprise I observed ' 

tion is astir through all the streets that the manufacturer's soul was not 

and thoroughfares. I am going out in business ? ' How are things going ?' 

to discharge my duties as a citizen, asked I when we had got through, 

and I want you to accompany me." " ' I feel like a man,' exclaimed he, 

" I have no inclination to see any 'that has just seen a horrible mon- 

more of this disgusting turmoil," re- ster ! Would you believe it, those 

plied Gerlach. accursed ultramontanes have been 

" Inclination or disinclination is secretly meddling in the election, 

out of the question when interest They have mustered a number of 

demands it," insisted the banker, votes, and have even gone so far as 

" You must profit by the opportunity to have a yellow ticket printed, 

which you now have of enriching Their yellow placards were to be 

your knowledge of men and things, seen this morning stuck up at every 

or rather of correcting it ; for hereto- street corner of course they were im- 

fore your manner of viewing things mediately torn down.' 

has been mere ideal enthusiasm. " ' And are you provoked at that, 

Come with me, my good fellow !" Mr. Schwefel ! You certainly are 

Seraphin followed with interior re- not going to deny the poor ultramon- 

luctance. Greifmann went on to im- tanes the liberty of existing, or, at 

part to him the following informa- least, the liberty of voting for whom 

tion : they please ?' 

" During the past night, there have " * Yes, I am, I am ! That must not 

sprung up, as if out of the earth, a be tolerated,' cried he wildly. ' The 

most formidable host, ready to do black brood are hatching dark 

battle against the uniformly victorious schemes, they are conspiring against 

army of progress men thoroughly civilization, and would fain wrest from 

armed and accoutred, real crusa- us the trophies won by progress. It 

ders. A bloody struggle is immi- is high time to apply the axe to the 

nent. Try and make of your heart root of the upas-tree. Our duty is to 

a sort of monitor covered with plates disinfect thoroughly, to banish the 

of iron, so that you may not be over- absurdities of religious dogma from 

powered by the horrifying spectacle our schools. The black spawn will 

of the election affray. I am not have to be rendered harmless : we 

joking at all ! True as gospel, what must kill them politically.' 

I tell you ! If you do not want to be " ' Very well,' said I. * Just make 

stifled by indignation at sight of the negroes of them. Now that in 

fiercest kind of terrorism, of the most America the slaves are emancipated, 

revolting tyranny, you will have to Europe would perhaps do well to 

lay aside, at least for to-day, every take her turn at the slave-trade.' But 

feeling of humanity." the fellow would not take my joke. 

Gerlach perceived a degree of se- He made threatening gesticulations, 

riousness in the bubbling current of his eyes gleamed like hot coals, and 

Greifmann's levity. he muttered words of a belligerent 

" Who is the enemy that presumes import. 

to stand in the way of progress ?" en- " * The ultramontane rabble are to 

quired he. hold a meeting at the " Key of Hea- 

" The ultramontanes ! Listen to ven," ' reported he. ' There the stu- 

what I have to tell you. This morn- pid victims of credulity are to be 
VOL. xvi. 4 



The Progressionists. 



harangued by several of their best 
talkers. The black tide is afterwards 
to diffuse itself through the various 
wards where the voting is to take 
place. But let the priest-ridden slaves 
come, they will have other memoran- 
da to carry home with them beside 
their yellow rags of tickets.' 

" You perceive, friend Seraphin, 
that the progress men mean mischief. 
We may expect to witness scenes of 
violence." 

"That "is unjustifiable brutality on 
the part of the progressionists," de- 
clared Gerlach indignantly. " Are 
not the ultramontanes entitled to vote 
and to receive votes ? Are they not 
free citizens ? Do they not enjoy the 
same privileges as others? It is a 
disgrace and an outrage thus to ty- 
rannize over men who are their bro- 
thers, sons of Germania, their com- 

^ 

mon mother." 

" Granted ! Violence is disgrace- 
ful. The intention of progress, how- 
ever, is not quite as bad as you think 
it. Being convinced of its own infal- 
libility, it cannot help feeling indig- 
nant at the unbelief of ultramontan- 
ism, which continues deaf to the sav- 
ing truths of the progressionist gos- 
pel. Hence a holy zeal for making 
converts urges progress so irresistibly 
that it would fain force wanderers 
into .the path of salvation by violence. 
This is simply human, and should 
not be regarded as unpardonable. In 
the self-same spirit did my namesake 
Charles the Great butcher the Saxons 
because the besotted heathens pre- 
sumed to entertain convictions differ- 
ing from his own. And those who 
were not butchered had to see their 
sacred groves cut down, their altars 
demolished, their time-honored laws 
changed, and had to resign them- 
selves to following the ways which 
he thought fit to have opened through 
the land of the Saxons. You cannot 
fail to perceive that Charles the Great 



was a member of the school of pro- 
gress." 

" But your comparison is defec- 
tive," opposed the millionaire. 
" Charles subdued a wild and blood- 
thirsty horde who made it a practice 
to set upon and butcher peaceful 
neighbors. Charles was the pro tec- 
tor of the realm, and the Saxons were 
forced to bend under the weight of 
his powerful arm. If Charles, how- 
ever, did violence to the consciences 
of his vanquished enemies, and con- 
verted them to Christianity with the 
sword and mace, then Charles him- 
self is not to be excused, for moral 
freedom is expressly proclaimed by 
the spirit of Christianity." 

" There is no doubt but that the 
Saxons were blundering fools for 
rousing the lion by making inroads 
into Charles' domain. The ultra- 
montanes, are, however, in a similar 
situation. They have attacked the 
giant Progress, and have themselves 
to blame for the consequences." 

" The ultramontanes have attack- 
ed nobody," maintained Gerlach. 
" They are merely asserting their 
own rights, and are not putting re- 
strictions on the rights of other peo- 
ple. But progress will concede 
neither rights nor freedom to others. 
It is a disgusting egotist, an unscru- 
pulous tyrant, that tries to build up 
his own brutal authority on the ruins 
of the rights of others." 

" Still, it would have been far more 
prudent on the part of the ultra- 
montanes to keep quiet, seeing that 
their inferiority of numbers cannot 
alter the situation. The indisputable 
rights of the ascendency are in our 
days with the sceptre and crown of 
progress." 

" A brave man never counts the 
foe," cried Gerlach. " He stands to 
his convictions, and behaves man- 
fully in the struggle." 

"Well said!" applauded the 



The Progressionists. 51 

banker. " And since progress also is is insignificant, and, compared with 

forced by the opposition of principles the masses of our opponents our 

to man itself for the contest, it will numerical strength is still less encour- 

naturally beat up all its forces in de- aging," said the speaker. " If in 

fence of its conviction. Here we are connection with this disheartening 

at the ' Key of Heaven,' where the fact you take into consideration the 

ultramontanes are holding their pressure which progress has it in its 

meeting. Let us go in, for the pro- power to exert on the various rela- 

verb says, Audiatur et altera pars tions of life through numerous aux- 

the other side should also get a hear- iliary means, if you remember that 

ing." our opponents can dismiss from em- 

They drew near to a lengthy old ployment all such as dare uphold 

building. Over the doorway was a views differing from their own, it be- 

pair of crossed keys hewn out of comes clear that no ordinary amount 

stone, and gilt, informing the stranger of courage is required to entertain 

that it was the hostelry of the " Key and proclaim convictions hostile to 

of Heaven," where, since the days of progress." 

hoar antiquity, hospitality was dis- Seraphin thought of Spitzkopfs 

pensed to pilgrims and travellers, mode of electioneering, and of the 

The principal hall of the house con- terrible threats made to the " wild 

tained a gathering of about three men," and concluded the incredible 

hundred men. They were attentively statement was lamentably correct, 

listening to the words of a speaker " Viewing things in this light,"' 

who was warmly advocating the proceeded the orator, " I congratu- 

principles of his party. The speaker late the present assembly upon its 

stood behind a desk which was placed unusual degree of pluck, for courage 

upon a platform at the far end of the is required to go into battle with a 

hall. clear knowledge of the overwhelming 

Seraphin cast a glance over the strength of the enemy. We have 
assembly. He received the painful rallied round the banner of our con- 
impression of a hopeless minority, victions notwithstanding that the 
Barely forty votes would the ultra- numbers of the enemy make victory 
montanes be able to send to each of hopeless. We are determined to 
the wards. To compensate for num- cast our votes in support of religion 
bers, intelligence and faith were and morality in defiance of the scorn, 
represented in the meeting. Elegant blasphemy, and violence which the 
gentlemen with intellectual counte- well-known terrorism of progress will 
nances sat or stood in the company not fail to employ in order to frighten 
of respectable tradesmen, and the us from the exercise of our privilege 
long black coats of the clergy were as citizens. We must be prepared, 
not few in number. On a table lay gentlemen, to hear a multitude of 
two packages of yellow tickets to be sarcastic remarks and coarse witti- 
clistributed among the members of f cisms, both in the streets and at the 
the assembly. At the same table sat polls. I adjure you to maintain the 
the chairman, a commissary of police deportment alone worthy of our 
named Parteiling, whose business it cause. A gentleman never replies, 
was to watch the proceedings, and to the aggressions of rudeness, and 
several other gentlemen. should you wish to take the conduct 
' Compared with the colossal pre- of our opponents in gay good-humor, 
ponderance of progress, our influence just try, gentlemen, to fancy that 



52 The Progressionists. 

you are being treated to some elegant for it means nothing less than the 

exhibition of the refinement and defection from Christianity of the 

liberal culture of the times." masses of the coming generation. 

Loud bursts of hilarity now and " Gentlemen, there is a reproach be- 
then relieved the seriousness of the ing uttered just now by the progres- 
nneeting. Even Greifmann would sionist press, which, far from repelling, 
clap applause and cry, " Bravo !" I would feel proud to deserve. A 

" Let us stand united to a man, priest should have said, so goes the 
prepared against all the wiles of inti- report, that it is a mortal sin to elect 
midation and corruption, undismay- a progressionist to the chamber of de- 
*ed by the onset of the enemy. The puties. Some of the writers of our 
struggle is grave beyond expression, press have met this reproach by 
For you are acquainted with the simply denying that a priest ever ex- 
-aims and purposes of the liberals, pressed himself in those terms. But, 
Progress would like to sweep away gentlemen, let us take for granted 
all the religious heritages that our that a priest did actually say that 
fathers held sacred. Education is to it is a mortal sin to elect a pro- 
be violently wrested from under the gressionist to the chamber of deputies, 
influence of the church ; the church is there anything opposed to morality 
herself is to be enslaved and strangled in such a declaration ? 
in the thrall of the liberal state. I " By no means, if you remember 
am aware that our opponents pretend that it is to be presumed the progres- 
to respect religion but the religion sionist will use his vote in the assem- 
of would-be progress is infidelity, bly to oppose religion. Mortal sin, 
Divine revelation, of which the gentlemen, is any wilful transgression 
church is the faithful guardian, is of God's law in grave matters. Now 
rejected with scorn by liberalism. I put it to you : Does lYe gravely 
Look at the tone of the press and transgress the law of God who con- 
the style of the literature of the day. tro verts what God has revealed, who 
You have only to notice the derision would exclude God and all holy sub- 
and fierceness with which the press jects from the schools, who would 
daily assails the mysteries and clog- rob the church of her independence, 
mas of religion, the Sovereign Pontiff, and make of her a mere state machine 
the clergy, religious orders, the unfit for the fulfilment of her high 
ultramontanes, and you cannot long mission ? There is not one of you 
remain in the dark concerning the but is ready to declare : ' Yes, such an 
aim and object of progress. Christ one transgresses grievously the law 
or Antichrist is the watchword of the of God.' This answer at the same 
day, gentlemen ! Hence the im- time solves the other question, 
perative duty for us to be active at whether it is a mortal sin to put arms 
the elections ; for the legislature has in the hands of an enemy of religion 
the presumption to wish to dictate in that he may use them against faith 
matters belonging exclusively to the and morality. Would that all men 
jurisdiction of the church. We are of Christian sentiment seriously ad- 
threatened with school laws the pur- verted to this connection of things 
pose of which is to unchristianize our and acted accordingly, the baneful 
children, to estrange them from the sway of the pernicious spirit that 
spirit of religion. No man having governs the age would soon be at an 
the sentiment of religion can remain end ; for I have confidence in the 
indifferent in presence of this danger, sound sense and moral rectitude of the 



The Progressionists. 53 

German people. Heathenism is re- ennobled and enriched German ge- 

pugnant to the deeply religious na- nius through the spirit of religion, 

ture of our nation ; the German peo- The church had formed out of the 

pie do not wish to dethrone God, chaos of barbarism the Holy Roman 

nor are they ready to bow the knee Empire of the German nation that 

before the empty idol of a soulless gigantic and wonderful organization 

enlightenment." the like of which the world will never 

^ 

Here the speaker was interrupted see again. But the church has long 

by a tumult. A band of factorymen, since been deprived of the leadership 

yelling and laughing, rushed into the in German affairs, and what in conse- 

hall to disturb the meeting. All eyes quence is now the condition of our 

were immediately turned upon the fatherland ? It is divided into dis- 

rioters. In every countenance in- cordant factions, it is an ailing trunk, 

dignation could be seen kindling at with many members, but without a 

this outrage of the liberals. The head. 

commissary of police alone sat mo- " It is rather amusing that the 
tionless as a statue. The progres- ultramontanes should be charged 
sionist rioters elbowed their way into with receiving orders from Rome, 
the crowd, and, when the excitement for the voice of the Father of Chris- 
caused by this strategic movement tianity has not been heard for many 
haol subsided, the speaker resumed years back in the council of state." 
his discourse. " Hurrah for the Syllabus !" cried 

" For a number of years back our Spitzkopf, who was at the head of 
conduct has been misrepresented and the rioters. " Hurrah for the Sylla- 
calumniated. They call us men of bus !" echoed his gang, yelling and 
no nationality, and pretend that we stamping wildly, 
get our orders from Rome. This re- The ultramontanes were aroused, 
proach does honor neither to the in- eyes glared fiercely, and fists were 
telligence nor to the judgment of our clenched ready to make a summary 
opponents. Whence dates the divi- clearing of the hall. But no scuffle 
sion of Germany into discordant fac- ensued; the ultramontanes main- 
tions? When began the present tained a dignified bearing. The 
faint and languishing condition of speaker calmly remained in his place, 
our fatherland ? From the moment and when the tumult had ceased he 
when it separated from Rome. So again went on with his discourse, 
long as Germany continued united in " Such only," said he, " take 
the bond of the same holy faith, and offence at the Syllabus as know no- 
the voice of the head of the church thing about it. There is not a word 
was hearkened to by every member in the Syllabus opposed to political 
of her population, her sovereigns liberty or the most untrammelled 
held the golden apple, the symbol of self-government of the German peo- 
universal empire. Our nation was pie. But it is opposed to the fiend- 
then the mightiest, the proudest, the ish terrorism of infidelity. The Syl- 
most glorious upon earth. The labus condemns the diabolical princi- 
church who speaks through the Sov- pies by which the foundations of 
ereign Pontiff had civilized the fierce the Christian state are sapped and a 
sons of Germany, had conjured the most disastrous tyranny over con- 
hatred and feuds of hostile tribes, had science is proclaimed." 
united the interests and energies of " Hallo ! listen to that," cried one 
our people in one holy faith, and had of the liberals, and the yelling was 



54 The Progressionists. 

renewed, louder, longer, and more propriety like the one he had just wit- 
furious than before. nessed was a far more heinous trans- 

The chairman rang his bell. The gression than the grossest violations 

revellers relapsed into silence. in the sphere of morals. He judged 

" Ours is not a public meeting, of Gerlach's impressions by this 

but a mere private gathering," ex- standard of appreciation, and feared 

plained the chairman. " None but the behavior of the progressionist 

men of Christian principles have mob would produce an effect in the 

been invited. If others have intrud- young man's mind far from favorable 

ed violently, I request them to leave to the cause which they represented, 

the room, or, at least, to refrain from He execrated the disturbance of the 

conduct unbecoming men of good- liberals, and took Seraphin's arm to 

breeding." lead him away. 

Spitzkopf laughed aloud, his com- " Come away, I beg of you ! I 

rades yelled and stamped. cannot imagine what interest the 

" Let us go !" said Greifmann to rudeness of that uncultivated horde 

Gerlach in an angry tone. can have for you." 

" Let us stay !" rejoined the latter " Do not scorn them, for they are 

with excitement. " The affair is be- honestly earning their pay," rejoined 

coming interesting. I want to see Gerlach. 

how this will end." " What do you mean ?" 

The banker noticed Gerlach's sup- " Those fellows are whistling, bawl- 
pressed indignation ; he observed it ing, stamping, and yelling in the 
in the fire of his eyes and the expres- employ of progress. You are trying 
sion of unutterable contempt that to give me an insight into the nature 
had spread over his features, and he of modern civilization : could there 
began to consider the situation as be a better opportunity than this ?" 
alarming. He had not expected " There you make a mistake, my 
this exhibition of brutal impertinence, dear fellow ! Enlightened progress 
In his estimation an infringement of is never rude." 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter. 55 



GAVAZZI VERSUS THE SEE OF S. PETER. 

BY A PROTESTANT DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. his pen in defence of Anglican 

Church principles with great reputa- 

THE topic of this article has al- tion to himself among Episcopalians, 
ready been fully and satisfactorily particularly the High Church school 
treated in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It of religious thought. At the period 
is well, however, to adopt, in ban- to which we refer, he gave it as his 
dling the truth, Voltaire's maxim in opinion that it was extremely doubt- 
regard to falsehood, and to keep con- ful that S. Peter ever visited Rome, 
tinually repeating those truths which and that he was the first bishop of its 
are frequently denied. Not only the See was beyond the province of his- 
mountebank Gavazzi, but others torical proof. Previous to this date 
more respectable than he is, keep on in our studies, we would as lief have 
reasserting the denial of S. Peter's questioned the fact of the existence 
Roman Episcopate, notwithstanding of Rome itself as that of S. Peter's 
the evidence which has been over residence there, and his occupancy 
and over again presented in proof of that metropolitan see. We had 
of it by Protestant as well as Catho- reached this conclusion by no investi- 
lic writers. We, therefore, willingly gation : it was, rather, one of those 
give admission to the present article, traditional questions which fix them- 
which, we may as well state, has selves in the mind without much 
been printed from the author's MS. thought in either direction. The 
copy, without any alteration. ED. fact, as we. supposed, had never been 
C. W. doubted. To hear for the first time 

a denial of its truth, and that, tooj 

AT our examination in the diocese from our ecclesiastical superior, made 

of the Protestant Episcopal Church an impression upon our mind which 

in which we took holy orders, the led us to investigate the subject as 

question of S. Peter's being at Rome soon as time and opportunity were 

was debated with some warmth by afforded us. From that day to this, 

the clerical examiners and the bishop, we have heard the same theory ad- 

We had at that time just passed our vanced by Protestant clergymen of 

majority, and, while our reading had every shade of denominational opin- 

been pretty full, we had not touched ion, and in the minds of many it 

the subject of this article, for it was has lodged itself as one of those 

indeed comparatively ne\v to us. mooted questions which baffle bistori- 

We remember well the remark of our cal proof. % 

bishop, whose opinion on theologi- About twenty years ago, an Italian 

cal questions we held in veneration, known as " Father Gavazzi " visited 

He was prominent on the bench of the United States. His crusade 

bishops as one of the most learned against the Church of Rome during 

of our prelates, and he had wielded that visit is familiar to all. Of its 



56 Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter. 



merits or the motives which prompt- Modern investigation at best has 
ed it we do not propose to speak, as done little to clear up the difficulties 
it is foreign to the subject to which connected with the geographical his- 
the interest of the reader is invited, tory of the Apostle Peter. That he 
Again the same Alessanclro Gavazzi, was at Rome, and suffered martyr- 
as " Commissioner " of what he de- dom in that city, is the general belief 
nominates the " Free Christian of the fathers. And it was not until 
Church of Italy," is lecturing to au- the dawn of the Reformation that 
diences in our principal cities, for the the apostle's journey to that city, and 
purpose of securing subscriptions for his martyrdom there, became even a 
" evangelization" and for the " Bibli- subject of doubt. So great was the 
cal College in Rome." What these anxiety of some to disprove the 
terms may mean we do not know, Primacy of the Roman See that 
and of them we have no disposition scholarly men lent themselves to the 
to speak. In the month of June last, repetition of myths and traditions 
" Father Gavazzi " was advertised to which had no foundation in fact, and 
lecture under the auspices of the later writers, biassed by early educa- 
Young Men's Christian Association tion and ecclesiastical connection, 
in the city in which we reside, have even introduced into historical 
Among others, who had no interest literature mythical stories, the germs 
perhaps in the especial work in of which run through the popular 
which he is engaged, we attended his mythology of ancient and modern 
lecture. From a report of the lee- times. If, they argue, it can. be 
ture in the issue of a daily paper of proved that S. Peter was never at 
the following morning we make the Rome, then we at once overturn the 
quotation which forms the text, upon pretensions of the Papacy ; or, again, 
which we propose to place before the if we can demonstrate that there is 
reader some historical proofs for the a break in the chain of succession 
belief that S. Peter was at Rome. of its bishops from S. Peter, the be- 
" Father Gavazzi " said : " A dis- lief in the doctrine of an apostolic 
cussion was proposed in Rome as to succession is clearly disproved, and 
whether S. Peter was ever there or the idea of a line of bishops reaching 
not. The Pope favored, insisted back through the long period of the 
upon it, and in two days his chosen Mores Catholiri, or Ages of Faith, 
champions retired defeated from the only a senseless forgery which origin- 
contest. That is something. The ated with some monk the abbot of 
Bible is entirely silent on this subject, whose monastery was perhaps the 
But the priests say that is merely first to give it form after he had 
negative proof. The silence of S. ascended the chair of Peter. Mo- 
Luke is, however, positive proof that sheim, a respectable writer in the 
S. Peter was never there. The dis- Protestant world, blinded by a singu- 
cussion of this subject, once prohibit- lar prejudice which led him at times 
ed in Rome, is now talked of freely to forget the critical duties of the his- 
in all public places. It was his de- torian, is one among the few German 
light to fight the Pope. . Pius IX. scholars who has tarnished the pages 
was no more the successor of S. of his Ecclesiastical History by giving 
Peter than he was the successor of credence to the fabulous story of 
the emperor of China. S. Peter was Pope Joan. "Between Leo IV., 
never in Rome to be succeeded by any- who died 855, and Benedict III.," 
body" says he, " a woman who concealed 



Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter. 57 

her sex and assumed the name of duce again this Papess Joan to their 

John, it is said, opened her way to unlearned readers. 

the pontifical throne by her learning Turning, then, to the proofs of the 

and genius, and governed the church subject of our paper, we take as the 

for a time. She is commonly called motto for our investigation of this 

the Papess Joan. During five sub- and all kindred ecclesiastical ques- 

sequent centuries the witnesses to tions the golden words of Tertullian : 

this extraordinary event are without " Idesse verum,quodcunqueprimum ; 

number ; nor did any one prior to the id esse adulterum quodcunque pos- 

Refortnaiion by Luther regard the terius."* Or that petition of a great 

thing as either incredible or disgraceful Anglican divine : " Grant, O Lord ! 

to the church" The earliest writer that, in reading thy Holy Word, I 

from whom any information relating may never prefer my private senti- 

to the fable of Pope Joan is derived ments before those of the church in 

is Marianus Scotus, a monk of S. the purely ancient times of Chris- 

Martin of Cologne, who died A.D. tianity."f 

1086. He left a chronicle which The earliest testimony is borne by 

has received many additions by later S. Ignatius. He was closely con- 

writers, and among those interpola- nected with the apostles, both as a 

tions the students of mythical lore hearer of their teachings and sharer 

regard the passage which refers to of the extraordinary mysteries of 

this story. Platina, who wrote the their faith.| S. John was his Chris- 

Lives of the Popes anterior to the tian Gamaliel, at whose feet he was 

time of Martin Luther, relates the taught the doctrines of Christianity, 

legend, and, with more of the critical which prepared him not only to wear 

acumen than Mosheim,adds : " These the mitre of Antioch, the most culti- 

things which I relate are popular re- vated metropolis of the East, but also 

ports, but derived from uncertain and to receive the brighter crown of a 

obscure authors, which I have there- martyr's agonizing death. Full of 

fore inserted briefly and baldly, lest years, the follower of the beloved 

I should seem to omit obstinately disciple was hurried to Rome, to seal 

and pertinaciously what most people with his blood the truth of the re- 

assert." The legend of Pope Joan ligion of Christ. On his journey to 

has been so thoroughly exposed that the pagan capital, he was permitted 

no controversialist of discrimination to tarry for a season at Smyrna, to 

thinks of reviving it as an argument visit, for the last time, S. Polycarp, 

against the succession of the Bishops the aged bishop of that city. Here, 

of Rome. Now and then it may be in view of the dreadful death that 

related to an ignorant crowd by an awaited him in the Roman amphi- 

anti-popery mountebank of our cities theatre, and in communion with the 

during times of religious excitement, revered fellow-laborer of his life, he 

but it is never heard from the lips wrote his four epistles. From the 

of an educated Protestant. We are one to the Romans we quote the fol- 

inclined to think, however, that the lowing evidence : " I do not corn- 

class of minds that seeks to throw mand you as S. Peter and S. Paul 

doubt upon S. Peter's residence at did; they were apostles of Jesus 

Rome in order to subvert the Primacy Christ, and I am a mere nothing " 
of the Apostolic See would not hesi- 



tate. in view of the evidence from * d ?' Pr x r c ' 2 ^ 

.... . t Bishop VV ilson, Sacra Pnvata. 

Jy ecclesiastical writers, to intro- % Homii., in s. ignat., vii. P . 593 . 



58 Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter. 

(the least).* "What can be more ness with which he interwove Scrip- 
clear," says the Anglican expositor of ture and scriptural phraseology into 
the Creed, Bishop Pearson, " from his style, not altogether unpolished, is 
these words than that this most holy perhaps unequalled in patristic the- 
martyr was of opinion that Peter, no ology. Residing in a city whose 
less than Paul, preached and suffered language and intellectual character- 
at Rome ? " istics differed from those of his native 

Eusebius relates, upon the author- country, his writings are essentially 

ity of Papias and S. Clement of Alex- foreign, and, with few exceptions, 

andria, that " S. Mark wrote his were lost at an early period. In the 

gospel at the request of S. Peter's fragments which remain we find an 

hearers in Rome," and he further unequivocal testimony in behalf ot 

adds that " S. Peter mentions S. the subject under discussion. His 

Mark in his first epistle, written from language is : " S. Peter and S. Paul 

Rome, which he figuratively calls preached the Gospel in Rome, and 

Babylon."f laid the foundation of the church."* 

S. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, Caius, a learned Roman presbyter, 

in his epistle addressed to the Ro- and, as some suppose, bishop, argu- 

mans, affirms that S. Peter and S. ing against Proclus, the chief cham- 

Paul preached the Gospel in Corinth pion of Montanism at Rome, says 

and in Rome, and suffered martyrdom that he can " show the trophies of the 

about the same time in the latter apostles." " For if you will go," he 

city."! continues, " to the Vatican, or to the 

S. Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons, who Ostian Road, you will find the tro- 
was born at Smyrna, though of Greek phies of those who have laid the 
extraction, had been the disciple of foundation of this church. "f 
S. Polycarp, Pothinus, and Papias, Origen, a man of encyclopaedic 
from whose lips he had heard many learning, who had been carefully 
anedotes of the apostles and their im- nurtured by Christian parents, and 
mediate followers. He was alike who was imbued with the hardy, 
eminent both as a scholar in the stern culture of the Greek litera- 
learning of the times and as a con- ture, at the early age of eighteen be- 
troversialist of no mean repute. The came the leader of the Alexandrine 
part he bore against the Gnostic and school of Christian philosophy, 
other heresies rendered his name il- He proved no unworthy successor 
lustrious, not only within the limits of f the logical Clement. Certainly 
his episcopal jurisdiction, but wher- no name stands higher in the cate- 
ever the claims of Christianity had chetical school than that of the iron- 
been presented. The wonderful apt- souled Origen (udapdvTivoc). The elo- 
quent teachings of this youthful mas- 

* Oi* if nerpof *rf naiflof dtardeaoiiat tei> nerVed ma "y a Christian SOul to 

'Vow Xpiarov, iyti endure with fortitude the fiery trials 

of martyrdom, and even comfort xl 

TCJV TTTonwuffwjv 7mpa- the bleeding heart of Leonides his 

T&lTCLl T7]V IGTOpiaV ' CVVmfia?)TVpU ($ GVTCJ 
Kttt 6 /Cp7rO>.T7?f tTTiCT/COTTOf OVOflClTi Ilf/TUGf. 

ToO <fe Mcip/ccw pyfwevetv T ov Ilerpov iv Ty * To{5 Herpou K ac TO~ Tlaifav ev PUM evay- 

Kportpa iirumtij, r,v K al avvru^at jaalv iv' y^fo^vov xal ^/.^ov,'n.n> T//V CK^rmav 

P<j/Z7?r OTjfMiveiv re rovro airbv rf t v -Eusebius, 1. s , c. 8 ; also, S. Irenseus Adv. 

rponeKurepor i> flvfava TrpoaeiTrovro, Hareses^ \. 3, c. 3. 

i TOVTUV AOTTCt&Tai i'Liaf, K.T.Z.? f ' 2 7 W & TCt TpOTTttia TCJV 'Axo 

t Eusebius' Eccl. Hist., 1. ^ c. 25. delfr, K. r. *.JS US etius, 1. 2 , c. 25. 



Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter. 



59 



father, who became a victim of the 
unrelenting persecutions of Severus. 
From Origen we learn " that S. 
Peter, after having preached through 
Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappa- 
docia, and Asia, to the Jews that 
were scattered abroad, went at last 
to Rome, where he was crucified." 
" These things," says Eusebius, " are 
related by Origen in the third book 
of his Twv dq rrjv Teveoiv t^fyijTUMJV*" 

Tertullian by birth was a heathen 
and Carthaginian. He was the son 
of a centurion, and had been edu- 
cated in all the varied learning of 
Greece and Rome. Skilled as a 
rhetorician and advocate in Rome, 
he brought, on his conversion to 
Christianity, the accomplishments of 
a highly cultivated intellect, but a 
sombre and irritable temper. The 
natural lawlessness of a mind guided 
by a passionate and stubborn dis- 
position led him gradually to re- 
nounce the truths which the light of 
a higher intelligence had revealed, 
until at last he was anathematized 
for his Montanistic teachings. His 
writings are an invaluable addition 
to the Punic-Latin theology, and a 
repository from which we receive 
great information concerning the 
polemic questions which at that 
period harassed the Christian church. 
Upon the subject of our article he 
writes as follows : " Let them, then, 
give us the origin of their churches ; 
let them unfold the series of their 
bishops, coming down in succession 
from the beginning, so that the first 
bishop was appointed and preceded by 
any of the apostles, or apostolic men, 
who, nevertheless, preserved in com- 
munion with the apostles, had an or- 
dainer and predecessor. For in this 
way the apostolic churches exhibit 
their origin; thus the Church of 
Smyrna relates that Polycarp was 

* EusebiuS) 1. 3, c. i. 



placed there by John, as the Church 
of Rome also relates that Clement 
was ordained by Peter."* 

Again : " If thou be adjacent to 
Italy, there thou hast Rome, whose 
authority is near at hand to us. 
How happy is this church, to which 
the apostles poured forth their whole 
doctrine with their blood ! where 
Peter is assimilated to our Lord; 
where Paul is crowned with a death 
like that of John." f 

And again : " Let us see with 
what milk the Corinthians were fed 
by Paul; according to what rule the 
Galatians were reformed ; what laws 
were to the Philippians, Thessaloni- 
ans, Ephesians ; what also the Ro-. 
mans sound in our ears, to whom 
Peter and Paul left the Gospel sealed 
with their blood." t 

To this list of witnesses we might 
add the testimony of the fathers and 
ecclesiastical writers who have flour- 
ished in different ages of the church, 
but we now propose to briefly survey 
the opinions of some of the most 
noted Protestant commentators. 

The First Epistle of S. Peter is 
said by the apostle to have been 
written from Babylon, but whether it 
be Babylon in Chaldea, Babylon in 

* u Edant ergo origines ecclesiarum suarum ; 
evolvant ordinem eptscoporum suorum, ita per 
successiones ab initio decurrentem, ut primus 
ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis, vel apos- 
tolicis viris, qui tamen cum apostolis perseve- 
raverit, habuerit auctorem et antecessorem. 
Hoc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicze census 
suos deferunt: sicut Smyrnseorum Ecclesia 
Polycarpum ab Joanne collocatum refert; sicut 
Romanorum, Clemenium a Petro ordinatum 
itidem." Tertulliani, De Preescriptione Hatreti- 
corum^ c. 32. 

t " Si autem Italice adjaces, habes Romam, 
unde nobis quoque auctoritas praesto est. Ista 
quam felix ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam apos- 
toli cum sanguine quo profuderunt I ubi Pe- 
trus passioni Dominicze adsequatur ; ubi Paulus 
Joannis exitu coronatur." Tertulliani^ De Pra- 
scriptione Hcereticorum, c. 36. 

f'Videamus quod lac a Paulo Corinthii hau- 
serint; ad quam regularo Galatze sint recor- 
recti; quid legant Philippenses, Thessaloni- 
censes, Ephesii ; quid etiam Romani de proximo 
sonent, quibus evangelium et Petrus et Paulus 
sanguine quoque suo signatum reliquerunt." 
iani^ Adv. Marcionem, 1. 4, c. 5. 



6o 



Gavazzi versus the See of S. Peter. 



Egypt, Jerusalem, or Rome, has 
given rise to much speculation.* 
Our Lord foretold the manner of St. 
Peter's death, t and an event of such 
importance would naturally have 
awakened more than ordinary inter- 
est. Seven cities claimed the honor 
of Homer's birth, | but no other 
place than Rome ever assumed to it- 
self the glory of the apostle's martyr- 
dom. Controversies arose concern- 
ing the time of celebrating Easter, the 
baptism of heretics, and questions of 
a like nature, yet none disputed the 
place in which S. Peter was mar- 
tyred. It is highly improbable that 
S. Peter ever visited either Babylon 
in Egypt or Babylon in Chaldea. 
Certainly no fact of history nor even 
possibility of conjecture furnishes 
the least warrantable presumption of 
either opinion. The great burden of 
proof points toward Rome. Like 
Babylon, pagan Rome was idola- 
trous. Like Babylon, it persecuted 
the church of God. Like Babylon, 
the glory of its pagan temple and 
fane had departed. In many manu- 
scripts this epistle is dated from 
Rome. 

Calvin, who little regarded the au- 
thority of the fathers, when, in the 
presumption of his self-opinionated 
orthodoxy, he said : " All the an- 
cients were driven into error," yet 
from evidence the most patent he be- 
lieved that S. Peter suffered martyr- 
dom at Rome. His language is : 



* i S. Peter v. 13 : " The church that is at 
Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth 
you ; and so doth Marcus, my son/' 

IS. John xxi. 18: 4> Verily, verily I say unto 
thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thy- 
self, and walkedst whither thou wouldst : but 
when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth 
thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry 
thee whither thou wouldst not." Also, 2 S. 
Peter \. 14: "Knowing that shortly I must put 
off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus 
Christ hath showed me." 

\ " Seven Roman cities strove for Homer dead 
Through which the living Homer begged his 
bread." 

S" Veteres omnes in errorem abrepti sunt." 



" Propter scriptorum consensum non 
pugno quin illic mortuus fuerit." * 

11 On the meaning of the word 
Babylon," says Grotius, one of the 
most celebrated of the Calvinistic 
school, " ancient and modern inter- 
preters disagree. The ancients un- 
derstand it of Rome, and that Peter 
was there no true Christian ever 
doubted ; the moderns understand it 
of Babylon in Chaldea. I adhere to 
the ancients." f 

Rosenmtiller, of whom an able 
American critic has said, " He is 
almost everywhere a local investiga- 
tor,"! has left his testimony in the 
same language as Grotius : " Ve- 
teres Romam interpretantur." 

Dr. Campbell very reluctantly 
yielded, by the force of evidence, to 
the same opinion when he wrote: 
" I am inclined to think that S. 
Peter's martyrdom must have been 
at Rome, both because it is agreeable 
to the unanimous voice of antiquity, 
and because the sufferings of so great 
an apostle could not fail to be of 
such notoriety in the church as to 
preclude the possibility of an imposi- 
tion in regard to the place." 

" From a careful examination of 
the evidence adduced," says the 
learned Home, " for the literal mean- 
ing of the word Babylon, and of the 
evidence for its figurative or mystical 
application to Rome, we think that 
the latter was intended." || 

We commend to " Father Gavaz- 
zi," and to the Rev. Doctors Sun- 
derland and Newman of Washington, 
who are ever ready to throw down 



* Instil., 1. 4, c. 6, n. 15. 

t"De Babylone dissident veteres et novi inter- 
pretes. Veteres Romam interpretantur, ubi Pe- 
trum fuisse nemo verus Christianus dubitavit: 
novi, Babylonem in Chaldea. Ego veteribus 
assentior." 

\ Prof. Stuart, Andover Biblical Repository 
Jan., 1833, vol. iii. p. 153. 

Lectures on Ecclesiastical History. 

\Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, vol. ii. p. 361. 



Number Thirteen. 61 

the gauntlet when an argument is truth of events ascertained by early 

made to prove that S. Peter was at and well-attested tradition. If any 

Rome, the language of the logical make an ill use of such facts, we are 

and laborious Macknight, who clearly not accountable for it. We are not, 

expresses our own view, and whose from a dread of such abuses, to over- 

diligence, learning, and moderation throw the credit of all history, the con- 

were so fully appreciated, by Bishop sequences of which would be fatal."* 
Tomline : " It is not for our honor 



nor for our interest, either as Chris- * A New Literal Translation, from the 

. . nal Greek, of all the Apostolic Epistles; with, a 

Or ProteStantS, tO deny the Commentary and Notes. 



NUMBER THIRTEEN. 

AN EPISODE OF THE COMMUNE. 

MLLE. DE LEMAQUE and her sister was there any reason, that we can 
Mme. de Chanoir lived at No. 13 see, why he should not have died a 
Rue Royale. They were the daugh- marshal of France, except that he 
ters of a military man whose fortune died too soon. The young soldier 
when he married consisted in his was in a fair way of climbing to the 
sword, nothing else; and of a noble topmost rung of the military ladder; 
Demoiselle de Cambatte, whose but just as he had got his foot on the 
wedding portion, according to the third rung, Death stepped down and 
good old French fashion, was precisely met him, and he climbed no further, 
the same as her husband's, minus the His wife followed him into the grave 
sword. But over and above this three years later. They left two 
joint capital the young people had daughters, Felicite and Aline, the 
a good stock of hope and courage, only fruits of their short and happy 
and an inexhaustible fund of love ; union. The orphans were educated 
they had therefore as good a chance at the Legion of Honor, and then 
of getting on as other young folk sent adrift on the wide, wide world, 
who start in life under the same to battle with its winds and waves, 
pecuniary disadvantages. M. de to sink or swim as best they could. 
Lemaque, moreover, had friends in They swam. Perhaps I ought rather 
high place who looked kindly on say they floated. The eldest, Feli- 
him, and promised him countenance cite, was married from S. Denis to 
and protection, and there was no an old general, who, after a reason- 
reason, as far as he and his wife ably short time, had the delicacy to 
could see, why he should not in due betake himself to a better world, 
time clutch that legendary baton leaving his gay wife a widow at the 
which Napoleon declared every head of an income of ^40 a year. 
French soldier carries in his knap- Aline might have married under 
sack. Nor, indeed, looking at things similar circumstances, but, after turn- 
from a retrospective point of view, ing it over in her mind, she came to 



62 Number Thirteen. 

the conclusion that, all things con- Mme. de Chanoir was small and 
sidered, since it was a choice of evils, fair, and very distinguished-looking, 
and that she must earn her bread in She had never known a day's illness in 
some way, she preferred earning it her life, but she was a hypochondriac, 
and eating it independently as a sin- She believed herself afflicted with a 
gle woman. This gave rise to the spine disease, which necessitated 
only quarrel the sisters had had in reclining all day long on the sofa in 
their lives. Felicite resented the dis- a Louis Quinze dressing-gown and 
grace that Aline was going to put on a Dubarry cap. 
the family name by degenerating Aline was tall and dark, not exact- 

into a giver of private lessons, when ly pretty, but indescribably piquant, 

she might have secured forty pounds Without being delicate, her health 

a year forever by a few years' dutiful was far less robust than her sister's; 

attendance on a brave man who had but she was blessed with indomitable 

fought his country's battles. spirits and a fund of'energy that car- 

" Well, if you can find me a war- ried her through a variety of aches 

rior of ninety," said the younger and pains, and often bore her sue- 

sister, a month before she left S. cessfully through her round of daily 

Denis, " I'm not sure that he might work when another would have 

not persuade me ; but I never will given in. 

capitulate under ninety ; I couldn't The domestic establishment of the 

trust a man under that; they live for sisters consisted in a charwoman, who 

ever when they marry between sixty rejoiced in the name of Mme. Clery. 

and eighty, and there are no tyrants She was a type of a class almost 

like them; now, I would do my duty as extinct in Paris now; a dainty little 

a kind wife for a year or so, but I've cook, clean as a sixpence, honest as 

no notion of taking a situation as the sun, orderly as a clock, a capital 

nurse for fifteen or twenty years, and servant in every way. She caj^atwice 

that's what one gets by marrying a a day to No. 13, two hours m the 

young man of seventy or there- morning and three hours in the 

abouts." afternoon, and the sisters paid her 

Felicite urged her own case as a twenty francs a month. She might 

proof to the contrary. General de have struck for more wages, and 

Chanoir was only sixty-eight when rather than let her go they would 

she married him, and he retired at have managed to raise them; but 

seventy. Aline maintained, however, Mme. Clery was born before strikes 

that this was the one exception neces- came into fashion, it was quite ifn- 

sary to prove the rule to the present possible to say how long before ; her 

generation, and as no eligible parti age was incalculable ; her youth be- 

of fourscore and ten presented it- longed to that class of facts spoken of 

self before she left school, she held as beyond the memory of the oldest 

to her resolve, and started at once as man in the district. Aline used to 

a teacher. look at her sometimes, and wonder if 

The sisters took an apartment to- she really could have been born, and 

gether, if two rooms, a cabinet de if she meant to die like other people ; 

toilette, and a cooking-range in a the crisp, wiry old woman looked the 

dark passage, dignified by the name sort of person never to have either a 

of kitchen, can be called an apart- beginning or an end; they had 'had 

ment, and for six years they lived her now for eight years at least 

very happily. Mme. de Chanoir had and there 



Number Thirteen. 63 

was not the shadow of a change in into the court, she happened to be 

her. Her gowns were like herself, an eye-witness to the two incidents, 

they never wore out, neither did her and heard every word that was said. 

ca p S high Normandy caps, with This accidental disclosure of Mme. 

flaps extended like a wind-mill in re- Clery's regard for the family dignity 

pose, stiff, white, and uncompromis- before outsiders covered a multitude 

ing. Everything about her was of sins in the eyes of both the sisters, 

antiquated. She had a religious re- Indeed, Mme. de Chanoir came at 

gard for antiquity in every shape, last, by force of habit, almost to en- 

and a proportionate contempt for mo- joy being bullied by the old soul, 

dernism ; but, of all earthly things, " Cela nous pose, ma there" she would 

what her soul loved most was an old remark complacently, when the wind 

name, and what it most despised from the kitchen blew due north, and 

a new one. She used to say that Aline threatened to mutiny, 

if she chose to cook the rvtis of a Aline never could have endured it 

parvenu she might make double the if she had been as constantly tried as 

money, and it was true; but she her easy-going sister was ; but, lucky 

could not bend her spirit to it; she for all parties, she went out immedi- 

liked her dry bread and herbs better ately after breakfast, and seldom 

from a good family than a stalled came in till late in the afternoon, 

ox from upstarts. She was as faith- when the old beldame was busy get- 

ful as a dog to her two mistresses, ting ready the dinner, 

and consequently lorded over them It was a momentous life they led, 

like a step-mother, perpetually bully- the two young women, but, on the 

ing and scolding, and bewailing her whole, it was a happy one. Mme. 

own infatuation in staying with them de Chanoir, seeing how bravely her 

while she might be turning a fatter sister carried the burden she had 

pullet ,oj| her own spit at home than taken up, grew reconciled to it in 

the miserable coqmlle at No. 13 ever time. They had a pleasant little 

held a fire to^ Why had she not society, too ; friends who had known 

the sense to take the situation that them from their childhood, some rich 

M. X- -, the agent de change, and in good positions, others strug- 

across the street, had offered her gling like themselves in a narrow 

again and again ? The femme de cage and under difficult circum- 

mc'nage was, in fact, as odious and stances; but one and all: liked the 

exasperating as the most devoted old sisters, and brought a little contin- 

servant who ever nursed a family gent of sunshine to their lives. As 

from the cradle to the grave. But to Aline, she had sunshine enough in 

let any one else dare so much as herself to light up the whole Rue 

cast a disrespectful glance at either Royale. Every lesson she gave, 

of her victims ! She shook her fist every incident of the day, no matter 

at the concierge's wife one day for how trivial, fell across her path like 

venturing to call Mme. de Chanoir a sunbeam ; she had a knack of 

Mme. de Chanoir tout court, instead looking at things from a sunny focus 

of Mme. la Generate de Chanoir, to that shot out rays on every object 

a flunky who came with a note, and that came within its radius, and 

she boxed the concierge's ears for of extracting amusement or interest 

speaking of Aline as " 1'Institutrice." from the most commonplace things 

As Mme. la Generale's sofa was and people ; even her own vexations 

drawn across the window that looked she had turned into ridicule. Her 



6 4 



Nu m ber Th irteen . 



position of governess was a fountain 
of fun to her. When another would 
have drawn gall from a snub, and 
smarted and been miserable under a 
slight, Aline de Lemaque saw a 
comic side to the circumstance, and 
would dress it up in a fashion that 
diverted herself and her friends for a 
week. Moreover, the young lady 
was something of a philosopher. 

" You never find out human nature 
till you come to earn your own 
bread I mean, women don't," she 
used to say to Mme. de Chanoir. 
" If I were the mother of a family 
of daughters, and wanted to teach 
them life, I'd make every one of 
them, no matter how big their dots 
were, begin by running after the 
cachet. Nobody who hasn't tried it 
would believe what a castle of truth 
it is to one a mirror that shows up 
character to the life, a sort of moral 
photography. It is often as good as 
a play to me to watch the change that 
comes over people when, after talking 
to them, and making myself pass for 
a very agreeable person, I suddenly 
announce the fact that I give lessons. 
Their whole countenance changes, 
not that they look on me straightway 
with contempt. Oh ! dear no. Many 
good Christians, people of the ' help 
yourself and God will help you ' 
sect, conceive, on the contrary, a 
great respect for me ; but I become 
metamorphosed on the spot. I am not 
what they took me for, they took me 
for a lady, and all the time I was a 
governess ! They did not think the 
less of me, but they can't help feeling 
that they have been taken in ; that, 
in fact, I'm an altogether different 
variety from themselves, and it is 
very odd they did not recognize it at 
first sight. But these are the least 
exciting experiences. The great fun 
is when I get hold of an out-and-out 
worldly individual, man or woman, 
but a woman is best, and let them go 



on till they have thoroughly com- 
mitted themselves, made themselves 
gushingly agreeable to me, perhaps 
gone the length of asking, in a signi- 
ficant manner, if I live in their neigh- 
borhood; then comes the crisis. I 
smile my gladdest, and say, 'Monsieur, 
or Madame, I give lessons ! Change- 
ment de decoration a vue d'ceil, ma 
che're. It's just as if I lanced an obits 
into the middle of the company, only 
it rebounds on me and hits nobody 
else; the eyebrows of the company 
go up, the corners of its mouth go 
down, and it bows to me as I sit on 
the ruins of my respectability, shat- 
tered to pieces by my own obus" 

" I can't understand how you can 
laugh at it. If I were in your place, 
I should have died of vexation and 
wounded pride long ago," said Mme. 
de Chanoir, one day, as Aline related 
in high glee an obus episode that she 
had had that morning ; " but I really 
believe you have no feeling." 

" Well, whatever I have, I keep 
out of the reach of vulgar imperti- 
nence. I should be very sorry to 
make my feelings a target for inso- 
lence and bad breeding," replied 
Aline pertly. This was the simple 
truth. Her feelings were out of the 
reach of such petty shafts ; they were 
cased in cheerfulness and common 
sense, and a nobler sort of pride than 
that in which Mme. de Chanoir con- 
sidered her sister wanting. If, how- 
ever, the obus was frequently fatal to 
Mile, de Lemaque's social standing, 
on the other hand it occasionally did 
her good service ; but of this later. 
Its present character was that of an 
explosive bomb which she carried in 
her pocket, and lanced with infinite 
gusto on every available opportunity. 

On Saturday evening the sisters 
were " at home." These little soirees 
were the great event of their quiet 
lives. All the episodes and anecdotes 
of the week were treasured up for 



Number Thirteen. 






that evening, when the intimes came 
to see them and converse and sip a 
glass of cold eau sucre'e in summer, 
and a cup of hot ditto in winter (but 
then it was called tea) by the light 
of a small lamp with a green shade. 
There was no attempt at entertain- 
ment or finery of any kind, except 
that Mme. Clery, instead of going 
home as soon as the dinner things 
were washed-up, stayed to open the 
door. It was a remnant of the sort 
of society that used to exist in French 
families some thirty years ago, when 
conversation was cultivated as the 
primary accomplishment of men and 
women, and when they met regular- 
ly to exercise themselves in the diffi- 
cult and delightful art. It was not 
reserved to the well-born exclusively 
to talk well and brilliantly in those 
days, when the most coveted enco- 
mium that could be passed on any 
one was, " He talks well." All 
classes vied for it ; every circle had 
its centre of conversation. The 
fauteuil de Vaieitk and the salon of 
\htfemme & esprit, each had its audi- 
ence, attended as assiduously, and 
perhaps enjoyed quite as much, as 
the vaudevilles and ambigus that 
have since drawn away the bourgeois 
from the one and the man of fashion 
from the other. Besides its usual 
habitues for conversation, every circle 
had one habitue who was looked 
upon as the friend of the family, and 
tacitly took precedence of all the 
others. The friend of the family at 
No. 13 was a certain professor of the 
Sorbonne named M. Dalibouze. He 
was somewhere on the sunny side of 
fifty, a bald, pompous little man who 
wore spectacles, took snuff, and laid 
down the law ; very prosy and very 
estimable, a model professor. He 
had never married, but it was the 
dream of his life to marry. He had 
meditated on marriage for the last 
thirty years, and of course knew 
VOL. xvi. 5 



more about it than any man who 
had been married double that time. 
He was never so eloquent or so em- 
phatic as when dilating on the joys 
and duties of domestic life; no mat- 
ter how tired he was with study and 
scientific researches, how disappoint- 
ed in the result of some cherished 
literary scheme, he brightened up the 
moment marriage came on the tapis. 
This hobby of the professor's was a 
great amusement to Mme. de Cha- 
noir, who delighted to see him jump 
into the saddle and ride off at a can- 
ter while she lay languidly working 
at her tapestry, patting him on the 
back every now and then, by a 
word of encouragement, or signifying 
her assent merely by a smile or a 
nod. Sometimes she would take him 
to task seriously about putting his 
theories into practice and getting 
himself a wife, assuring him that it 
was quite wicked of him not to marry 
when he was so richly endowed wkh 
all the qualities necessary to make a 
model husband. 

" Ah ! madame, if I thought I 
were capable of making a young 
woman happy ! " M. Dalibouze 
would exclaim with a sigh ; " but at 
my age ! No, I have let my chance 
go by." 

" How, sir, at your age !" the 
generate would protest. " Why, it is 
the very flower of manhood, the mo- 
ment of all others for a man to 
marry. You have outlived the delu- 
sions of youth and none of its vi- 
gor; you have crossed the Rubicon 
that separates folly from wisdom, and 
you have left nothing on the other 
side of the bridge but the silly chi- 
mera of boyhood. Believe me, the 
woman whom you would select would 
never wish to see you a day young- 
er." 

And M. Dalibouze would caress 
his chin, and observe thoughtfully : 
" Do you think so, madame ? " Upon 



66 



Number Thirteen. 



which Mme. de Chanoir would pour 
another vial of oil and honey on the 
learned head of the professor, till the 
wonder was that it did not turn on 
his shoulders. 

Aline had no sympathy with his 
rhapsodies or his jeremiads ; they 
bored her to extinction, and some- 
times it was all she could do not to 
tell him so; but she disapproved 
of his being made a joke of, and tes- 
tified against it very decidedly when 
Felicite, in a spirit of mischief, led 
him up to a more than usually ridi- 
culous culmination. It was not fair, 
she said, to make a greater fool of 
the good little man than he made of 
himself, and instead of encouraging 
him to talk such nonsense one ought 
to laugh him out of it, and try and 
cure him of his silly conceit. 

" I don't see it at all in that light," 
Mme. de Chanoir would answer. 
" In the first place, if I laughed at 
him, or rather if I let him see that I 
did, he would never forgive me, and, 
as I have a great regard for him, I 
should be sorry to lose his friendship ; 
and in the next place, it's a great 
amusement to me to see him swal- 
low my little doses of flattery so com- 
placently, and I have no scruple in 
dosing him, because nothing that I 
or any one else could say could pos- 
sibly add one grain to his self-con- 
ceit, so one may as well turn it to 
account for a little entertainment." 

It was partly this system of flattery, 
which Aline resented on principle, that 
induced her occasionally to snub the 
professor, and partly the fact that 
she had reason to suspect his dreams 
of married bliss centred upon herself. 
In fact, she knew it. He had never 
told her so outright, for the simple 
reason that, whenever he drew near 
that crisis, Aline cut him short in such 
a peremptory manner that it cowed 
him for weeks, but nevertheless she 
knew in her heart of hearts that she 



reigned supreme over M. Dalibouze's. 
She would not have married him, no, 
not if he could have crowned her queen 
of the Sorbonne and the College de 
France, but the fact of his being her 
slave and aspiring to be her master 
constituted a claim on her regard 
which a true-hearted woman seldom 
disowns. 

Felicite would have favored his 
suit if there had been the ghost of a 
chance for him, but she knew there 
was not. 

Mme. Clery looked coldly on it. 
Needless to say, neither M. Dalibouze 
nor his cruel-hearted lady-love had 
ever made a confidante of t\\efemme 
de manage ; but she often remarked 
to her mistresses when they ventured 
an opinion on anything connected 
with her special department, " Je ne 
suis pas nee d'hier," an assertion 
which, strange to say, even the rebel- 
lious Aline had never attempted to 
gainsay. Mme. Clery was not, indeed, 
born yesterday, moreover she was a 
Frenchwoman, and a particularly 
wide-awake one, and from the first 
evening that she saw Aline sugaring 
M. Dalibouze's tea, dropping in 
lump after lump in that reckless way, 
while the little man held his cup and 
beamed at her through his spectacles 
as if he meant to stand there for ever 
simpering, " Merci encore !" it oc- 
curred to Mme. Clery when she saw 
this that there was more in it than 
tea-making. Of course it was natu- 
ral and proper that a young woman, 
especially an orphan, should think of 
getting married, but it was right and 
proper that her friends should think 
of it too, and see that she married 
the proper person. Now, on the face 
of it, M. Dalibouze could not be the 
proper person. Nevertheless, Mme. 
Clery waited till the suspicion that 
M. Dalibouze had settled it in his 
own mind that he was that man 
took the shape of a conviction be- 



Number Thirteen. 67 

fore she considered it her duty to in- fictile ?" she demanded, cutting Pipe- 

terfere. let short in the middle of his pane- 

By interfering Mme. C16ry meant gyric. 

going aux renseignements. Nobody " The particule ?" repeated Pipelet. 

ever got true renseignements, especial- " What's that ?" 

ly when there was a marriage in " The particule nobiliaire" ex- 
question, except people like her; la- plained Mme. Clery, with a touch of 
dies and gentlemen never get be- contempt. " There is some question 
hind the scenes with each other, or, if of a marriage between him and one 
they do, they never tell what they see of my ladies ; but, if M. Dalibouze 
there. They are very sweet and hasn't got the particule, it's no use 
smiling when they meet in the salon, thinking of it." 

and nobody guesses that madame has " Madame," said Pipelet, assuming 

rated her femme de chambre for not put- a meditative air-^-he was completely 

ting the flowers in her hair exactly to at sea as to what this essential piece 

her fancy, or that monsieur has flung a of property might be, but did not like 

boot at his valet for giving him his to own his ignorance " I'm not a 

shaving-water too hot 'or too cold, man to set up for knowing more 

If you want the truth, you must get it of my tenant's business than I do, and 

by the back-stairs. This was Mme. M. Dalibouze has never opened him- 

Clery's belief, and, acting upon it, she self to me about how or where his 

went to M. Dalibouze's concierge in money was placed ; but I could give 

the Rue Jean Beauvais to consult him you the name of his agent, if I 

confidentially about his locataire. thought it would not compromise 

The first thing to be ascertained me." ' 

before entering on such secondary " I'm not a woman to compromise 

details as character, conduct, etc., any one that showed me confidence," 

was whether or not the professor was said Mme. Clery, tightening her lips, 

of a good enough family to be enter- and bobbing her flaps at Pipelet ; 

tained at all as a husband for Mile, "but you need not give me the name 

de Lemaque. On this sine qua non of his agent. What sort of a figure 

question the concierge could unfor- should I make at his agent's ! Give 

tunately throw no light. The pro- me his own name. How does he 

fessor had a multitude of friends, all spell it ?" 

respectable people, many of them " Spell it !" echoed Pipelet. 

decor es, who drove to the door in "A big D or a little d?" said 

spruce coupe's, but of his family Pipe- Mme. Clery. 

let knew nothing ; of his personal re- " Why, a big D, of course ! Who 

spectability there was no doubt what- ever spelt their name with a little 

ever ; he was the kindest of men, a one ?" retorted Pipelet. 

very pearl of tenants, always in be- "Ah ! ... " Mme. Clery smiled a 

fore midnight, and gave forty francs smile of serene pity on the benighted 

to Pipelet on New Year's day, not to ignoramus, and then observed coolly : 

count sundry other little bonuses on " I suspected it ! I'm not easy to 

minor fetes during the year. But so deceive in that sort of things. I 

long as her mind was in darkness on was not born yesterday. Good- 

the main point, all this was no better morning, M. le Concierge." She 

than sounding brass in the ears of moved towards the door. 

Mme. Clery. " Stop !" cried Pipelet, seizing his 

" Has he, or has he not, the par- berette as if a ray of light had shot 



68 Number Thirteen. 

through his skull " stop ! Now that of this sudden castigation of the 

I think of it, it's a little d. I have chimney-piece at four o'clock in the 

not a doubt but it's a little d. I afternoon. She read her note, and 

noticed it only yesterday on a letter then, tossing it into the basket beside 

that came for monsieur, and I said her, resumed her tapestry as if no- 

to myself: 'Let us see!' I said, thing had occurred to divert her 

* What a queer fancy for a man of thoughts from roses and Berlin wool, 

distinction like M. le Professeur to " Mme. la Generale, pardon and 

spell his name with a little ///' La ! excuse," said Mme. Clery, deliber- 

if I didn't say those words to myself ately hanging the feather-broom on 

no later than yesterday !" its nail, and going up to the foot of 

Mine. Clery was dubious. Un- the generale's sofa. " I have it on 

luckily there was no letter in M. my mind to ask something of ma- 

Dalibouze's box at that moment, dame." 

which would have settled the point " Ask it, my good Mme. Clery." 

at issue, so she had nothing for it but " Does Mme. la Generale think of 

to go home, and turn it in her mind marrying Mile. Aline ?" 

what was to be done next. After Mme. de" Chanoir opened her 

all, it was a great responsibility on eyes, and stared for a moment in 

her. The old soul considered her- mild surprise at her charwoman, then 

self in the light of a protector to the a smile broke over her face, and she 

two young women, one a cripple on said : 

the broad of her back, and the other " You are thinking that you would 

a light-hearted creature who believed not like to come to me if I were 

everything and everybody. It was alone ?" 

her place to look after them as far as " I was not thinking of that, ma- 
she could. That afternoon, when dame," replied Mme. Clery, in a tone 
Mme. Clery went to No. 13, after her of ceremony that was not habitual, 
fruitless expedition to the Rue Jean and which would have boded no 
Beauvais, she took a letter in to Mme. good (Mme. Clery was never so re- 
de Chanoir. She had never seen, spectful as when she was going to be 
or, at any rate, never noticed, the particularly disagreeable), except that 
writing before, but as she handed the she looked very meek, and, Felicite 
envelope to her mistress it flashed thought, rather affectionately at her 
upon her that it was from M. Dali- as their eyes met. 
bouze, and that it bore on the sub- " Well," said Mme. de Chanoir, 
ject of her morning's peregrination. " I suppose we must marry her some 

She seized a feather-broom that day ; I ought, perhaps, to occupy my- 

hung by the fireplace, and began self about it more actively than I do ; 

vigorously threatening the clock and but there's time enough to think about 

the candlesticks, as an excuse for it yet ; mademoiselle is in no hurry." 

staying in the room, and watching " Dame !" said Mme. Clery testily, 

Mme. de Chanoir in the looking- " when a demoiselle has become an 

glass while she read the letter. The old maid, there is not so much time 

old woman was an irascible enemy to lose ! Pardon and excuse, Mme. 

to dust ; they were used to see her la Generale, but I thought, I don't 

at the most inopportune times pounce know why, that that letter had some- . 

on the feather-broom and begin whip- thing to do with it ?" 

ping about her to the right and left, "This letter! What could have 

so Mme. de Chanoir took no notice put that into your head ?" 



Number Thirteen. 69 

Mme. de Chanoir took up the appearances; such things as learning, 

note to see if the envelope had any- good principles, and esprit would 

thing about it which warranted this blind her to serious shortcomings; 

romantic suspicion, but it was an it is the duty of Mme. la Generale to 

ordinary envelope, with no trace of prevent such a mistake in time." 

anything more peculiar than the "What sort of shortcomings are 

post-mark. you afraid of in M. Dalibouze, Mme. 

" As I have told Mme. la Gene- Clery ?" inquired Mme. de Chanoir, 

rale before," said Mme. Clery, shak- dropping her tapestry, and looking 

ing her head significantly, " I was with awakened curiosity at the old 

not born yesterday " she emphasiz- woman. 

ed the not as if Mme. de Chanoir " Let us begin with a first pririci- 

had denied that fact and challenged pie, Mme. la Generale," observed 

her to swear to it on the Bible " and Mme. Clery, demurely slapping the 

I don't carry my eyes in my pocket ; palm of her left hand. " Mile. Aline 

and when a demoiselle heaps lumps is ne'e ; the father and mother of 

of sugar into a gentleman's cup till mamzelle were both of an excellent 

it's as thick as honey for a spoon to family ; it is consequently of the first 

stand in, and a shame to see the necessity that her husband should be 

substance of the family wasted in so, too ; the first thing, therefore, to 

such a way, and she never grudging be considered in a suitor is his name, 

it a bit, but looking as if it would be Now, has M. Dalibouze \ht particuU, 

fun to her to turn the sugar-bowl or has he not ?" 

upside down over it I say, when I It was a very great effort for Mme. 

see that sort of thing, I'm not femme de Chanoir to keep her countenance 

Clery if there isn't something in it." under this charge and deliver with 

Feiicite felt inclined to laugh, but which the old woman solemnly closed 

she restrained herself, and observed her speech, and then stood awaiting 

interrogatively: the effect on her listener; still, such 

" Well, Mme. Clery, suppose there is the weakness of human nature, the 

is ?" generale in her inmost heart was 

This extravagance of sugar on M. flattered by it; it was pleasant to be 

Dalibouze was an old grievance of looked up to as belonging to a race 

Mme. Clery's. In fact, it had been above the common herd, to be re- 

her only one against the professor, cognized in spite of her poverty, even 

till she grew to look upon him as the by a femme de me'nage, as superior 

possible husband of Mile. Aline, and to the wealthy parvenus whose fath- 

then the question of his having or ers and mothers were not of a good 

not having the particule assumed family. 

such alarming importance in her " My good Mme. Clery," she said 

mind that it magnified all minor after a moment's reflection, " you, 

defects, and she believed him capa- like ourselves, were brought up with 

ble of every misdemeanor under the very different ideas from those that 

sun. people hold nowadays. Nobody 

Mme. la Generale," she replied, cares a straw to-day who a man's 

:< one does not marry every day ; one father was, or whether he had the 

ought to think seriously about it; particule or not; all that they care 

Mile. Aline has not experience; she about is that he should be well eclu- 

is vive and light-hearted ; she is a cated, and well conducted, and well 

person to be taken in by outward off; and, my dear, one must go with 



70 Number Thirteen. 

the times, one must give in to the " Oh ! 'tis nothing. I'm an idiot 
force of public opinion around one. to mind it or let such impertinence 
Customs change with the times. I vex me," she said, when the first out- 
would, of course, much rather have a burst had passed off and relieved 
brother-in-law of our own rank than her. 

one cleverer and richer who was not ; " Mon Dieu ! but what vexes 

but what would you have ? One mamzelle ?" inquired Mme. Clery 

cannot have everything. It is not anxiously. 

pleasant for me to see Mile, de Le- " A horrid man that followed me the 

maque earning her own bread, running length of the street, and made some 

about the streets like a milliner's ap- impudent speech, and asked me where 

prentice at all hours of the day. I I lived," sobbed Aline, 

would overlook something to see her " Is it possible !" exclaimed the old 

married to a kind, honorable man woman, aghast, and clasping her 

who would keep her in comfort and hands. " Well, mamzelle does as- 

independence." tonish me ! I thought young men 

" Bonte divine /" exclaimed Mme. knew better nowadays than to go 

Clery, with a look ' of deep distress on with that sort of tricks ; fifty years 

and consternation, " madame would ago they used to. I remember how 

then actually marry mamzelle to a I was followed and spoken to every 

bourgeois sans particule ? For ma- time I went to church or to market ; 

dame admits that M. Dalibouze has it was a persecution; but now I come 

not the particule, that he spells his and go and nobody minds me. To 

name with a big D ?" think of their daring to speak to mam- 

" Alas ! he does," confessed the zelle !" 

generale ; " but he comes, neverthe- " That's what one must expect 
less, of a good old Normandy stock, when one walks about alone at your 
Mme. Clery ; his great-grandfather age, ma pauvre Aline," said the gen- 
was procureur du roi under " erale, rather sharply, with a significant 

" Tut ! tut !" interrupted Mme. look at Mme. Clery which that good 

Clery ; " his great-grandfather may lady understood, and resented by 

have been what he liked ; if he wasn't compressing her lips and bobbing her 

a gentleman, he has no business marry- flaps, as much as to say, " One has a 

ing his great grandson to a de Le- principle or one has not " principle 

maque. No, madame; I am a poor being in this instance synonymous 

woman, but I know better than that, \\i\\\particule. 

Mamzelle's father would turn in his Things remained in statu quo after 

grave if he saw her married to a man this for some years. Mme. de Cha- 

who spelt his name with a big D." noir did not enlighten her sister on the 

The conversation was interrupted subject of the conference with Mme. 

by a ring at the door. It was Aline. Clery, but she worked as far as she 

She came back earlier than usual, could in favor of the luckless suitor 

because one of her pupils was ill and who spelt his name with a capital D. 

had not been able to take her lesson. It was of no use, however. Aline 

The young girl was flushed and ex- continued to snub him so pertina- 

cited, and flung herself into an arm- ciously and persistently that Mme. de 

chair the moment she entered, and Chanoir at last gave up his cause as 

burst into tears. Mine, de Chanoir hopeless, and the professor himself, 

sat up in alarm, fearing she was ill, when he saw this, his solitary strong- 

and suggested a cup of tisane. hold, surrender, thought it best to 



Number Thirteen. 71 

raise the siege with a good grace, and as a cat does a mouse. It was an 
make a friendly truce with the victor, instinct with her. There was no put- 
He frankly withdrew from the field of ting her off the scent. She never said 
suitors, and took up his position as a a word to Mme. de Chanoir, but she 
friend of the family. This once done, had a most aggravating way of making 
he accepted its responsibilities and her understand tacitly that she knew 
prerogatives, and held himself on the all about it that, in fact, she was not 
qui "uive to render any service in his born yesterday. This was her sys- 
power to Mme. de Chanoir ; he kept tern, whenever M. Dalibouze brought 
her concierge in order, and brought a parti to tea in the evening. Mme. 
bonbons and flowers to No. 13 on Clery was seized next day with a 
every possible occasion. He knew furious dusting fit. and when the gen- 
Aline was passionately fond of the erale testified against the feathers that 
latter, and he was careful to keep the kept flying out of the broom, Mme. 
flower stand that stood in the pier of Clery would observe, in a significant 
the little salon freshly supplied with way : 

her favorite plants, and the vases filled " Mme. la Generate, that makes an 
with 'her favorite flowers. He never impression when one sees a salon 
dared to offer her a, present, but well dusted ; that proves that the ser- 
under cover of offering them to the vant is capable that she attends to 
generate he kept her informed about her work. Madame does not think of 
every new book which was likely to those things, but strangers do." 
interest her. Finally, Frenchman- It became at length a sort of 
like, having abandoned the hope of cabalistic ceremony with the old wo- 
marrying her himself, he set to work man ; intelligible only to Mme. de 
to find some more fortunate suitor. Chanoir. If Aline came in when the 
This was par excellence the duty of a fit was on her, and ventured to ex- 
friend of the family, and M. Dalibouze postulate, and ask what she was do- 
was fully alive to its importance. The ing with the duster at that time of 
disinterested zeal he displayed in the day, Mme. Clery would remark 
discharge of it would have been com- stiffly : " Mamzelle Aline, I am dust- 
ical if the spirit of genuine self-sacri- ing." Aline came at last to believe 
fice which animated him had not that it was a modified phase %of S. 
touched it with pathos. One by one Vitus' dance, and that for want of any- 
every eligible /#;// in the range of his thing better the old beldame vented 
acquaintance was led up for inspec- her nerves on imaginary dust which 
tion to No. 13. Mme.de Chanoir she pursued in holes and corners with 
entered complacently into the pre- her feathery weapon, 
sentations ; they amused her, and she This went on till Mile, de Lemaque 
tried to persuade herself that, sooner was six-and-twenty. She was still a 
or later, something would come of bright, brave creature, working hard, 
them ; but she knew Aline too well accepting the privations and toil of 
ever to let her into the secret of the her life in a spirit of sunshiny 
professor's matrimonial manoeuvres, courage. But the sun was no longe'r 
The result would have been to fur- always shining. There were days 
nish Mile, de Lemaque with an obus no\v when he drew behind a cloud 
opportunity and nothing more. when toil pressed like a burden, and 
But do what she would, the gene- she beat her wings against it, and 
rale could never cheat Mme. Clery. hated the cage that cooped her in; 
The old woman detected ^.pre'tendant and she longed not so much for rest 



7 2 Number Thirteen. 

or happiness as for freedom for "a thought of marriage as a guest that 
larger scope and higher aims, and was not for her. As to the marriages 
wider fuller sympathies. When these that she saw every day around her, she 
cloudy days came around, Aline felt would no more have bound herself in 
the void of her life with an intensity one of them than she would have sold 
that amounted at times to anguish; herself to an Eastern pasha. Marriage 
she felt it all the more keenly because was a very different thing in her eyes 
she could not speak of it. Mme. de from what it was in Mme. de Cha- 
Chanoir would not have understood noir's. There was no point on which 
it. The sisters were sincerely attached the sisters were more asunder than on 
to each other, but there was little this, and Aline understood it so well 
sympathy of character between them, that she avoided touching on it ex- 
and on many points they were as lit- cept in jest. Whenever the subject 
tie acquainted with each other as the was introduced, she drew a mask of 
neighbors on the next street. They frivolity over her real feelings to 
knew this, and agreed sensibly to avoid bringing down the generale's 
keep clear of certain subjects on ridicule on what she would stigmatize 
. which they could never meet except as preposterous sentimentality, 
to disagree. The younger sister, M. Dalibouze alone guessed some- 
therefore, when the sky was overcast, thing of this under-current of deep 
and when her spirits flagged, never feeling in the young girl's character, 
tried to lean upon the older, but With the subtle instinct of affection he 
worked against the enemy in silence, penetrated the disguise in which she 
denying herself the luxury of com- wrapped herself, but, with a delicacy 
plaint. If her looks betrayed her, as that she scarcely gave him credit for, 
was sometimes the case, and prompt- he never let her see that he did. 
ed Mme. de Chanoir to inquire if Sometimes, indeed, when one of those 
there was anything the matter beyond fits of tristesse was upon her, and 
the never-ending annoyance of life she was striving to dissemble it by in- 
in general, Aline's assurance that there creased cheerfulness towards every - 
was not was invariably followed by the body, and sauciness towards him, 
remark : " Ma soeur, I wish you the professor would adapt the con- 
were* married." To which Aline as versation to the tone of her thoughts 
invariably replied : " I am happier with a skill and apropos that sur- 
as I am, Felicite." It was true, or at prised her. Once in particular Aline 
any rate Mile, de Lemaque thought was startled by the way in which he 
it was. Under all her surface indiffer- betrayed either a singularly close ob- 
ence she carried a true woman's servation of her character, or a 
heart. She had dreamt her dreams still more singular sympathy with its 
of happiness, of tender fireside joys, moods and sufferings. It was on a 
and the dream was so fair and beauti- Saturday evening, the little circle was 
ful that for years it filled her life like gathered round the fire, and the con- 
a reality, and when she discovered, versation fell upon poetry and the 
or fancied she did, that it was all too mission of poets amongst common 
beautiful to be anything but a dream, men. Aline- declared that it was the 
that the hero of her young imagina- grandest of all missions ; that, after 
tion would never cross her path in the the prophet and priest, the poet did 
form of a mortal. husband, Aline ac- more for the moral well-being, the 
cepted the discovery with a sigh, but spiritual redemption of his fellows 
without repining, and laid aside all than any other missionary, whether 



Number TJiirteen. 73 

philosopher, artist, or patriot ; he of them so shabby that I defy Ho- 
combined them all, in fact, if he mer himself to manufacture an epic 
wished it. If he was a patriot, he or an idyl out of them." 
could serve his country better than a " You are mistaken. There is no 
soldier, by singing her wrongs and life too shabby to be a poem," said 
her glories, and firing the souls of M. Dalibouze ; " it is true, we can't 
her sons, and making all mankind fashion our lives as you say, but we can 
vibrate to the touch of pain, or joy, color them, we can harmonize them ; 
or passionate revenge, while he sat but we must begin by believing this, 
quietly by his own hearth; she and by getting our elements under 
quoted Moore and Krazinski, and command ; we must sort them and ar- 
other patriot bards who living had range them, just as Mme. la Generate 
ruled their people, and sent down their is doing with the shreds and silks for 
name a legacy of glory to unborn the tapestry, and then go on patient- 
generations, till warmed by her sub- ly working out the pattern leaf by 
ject she grew almost eloquent, and leaf; by-and-by when the web gets 
broke off in an impulsive cry of ad- tangled as it is sure to do with the 
miration and envy : " Oh ! what a best workers, instead of pulling an- 
glorious privilege to be a poet, to be grily at it, or cutting it with the 
even a man with the power of doing sharp scissors of revolt, we must call 
something, of living a noble life, in- up a soft breeze from the land of 
stead of being a weak, good-for-no- souls where the spirit of the true 
thing woman !" poet dwells, and bid it blow over it, 

The little ring of listeners heard and then let us listen, and we shall 

her with pleasure, and thought she hear the spirit-wind draw tones of 

must have a very keen appreciation music out of our tangled web, like 

of the beauties of the poets to speak the breeze sweeping the strings of aa 

of them so well and so fervently, ^olian harp. It is our own fault, or 

But M. Dalibouze saw more in it perhaps oftener our own misfortune, 

than this. He saw an under-tone of if our lives look shabby to us ; we 

impatience, of disappointment, of consider them piecemeal instead of 

longing to go and do likewise, to looking at them as a whole." 

spread her wings and fly, to wield " But how can we look at them as a 

a wand that had power to make whole ?" said Aline. " We don't even 

others spread their wings ; there was a know that they ever will develop into 

spirit's war-cry in it, a rebel's impo- a whole. How many of us remain on 

tent cry against the narrow, inexor- the easel a sort of washed-in sketch 

able bondage of her life. to the end ? It seems to me we are 

" Yes," said the professor, " it is a pretty much like apples in an or- 

grand mission, I grant you, but it is chard ; some drop off in the flower, 

not such a rare one as you make it .some when they are grown to little 

out, Mile. Aline. There are more green balls, hard and sour and good 

poets in the world than those who for nothing; it is only a little of the 

write poetry ; few of us have the gift of tree that comes to maturity." 

being poets in language, but we may " And is there not abundance of 

all be poets in action if we will; we poetry in every phase of the apple's 

may live out our lives in poems." life, no matter when it falls ? " said 

: If we had the fashioning of our M. Dalibouze. " How many poems 

lives, no doubt we might," asserted has the blight of the starry blossom 

Aline ironically; " but they are most given birth to ? And the little green 






Number Thirteen. 

ball, who will count the odes that the winter fruit, require the cold twilight 

school-boy has sung to it, not in days to mellow them. But it matters 

good hexameters perhaps, but in little what the process is, it is sure to 

sound, heart poetry, full of zest and be the right one if we wait for it and 

the gusto of youth, when all bitters accept it." 

are sweet ? O mon Dieu ! when I "I wonder what stage of it I am 

think of the days when a bright-green in at the present moment," said 

apple was like honey in my mouth, Aline. " I can't say the sun has had 

I could be a poet myself! No patg much to do with it; the winds and 

de foie gras ever tasted half so sweet the rain have been the busiest 

as that forbidden fruit of my school- agents in my garden so far." 

days ! " " Patience, mademoiselle !" said M. 

" Good for the forbidden fruit ! " Dalibouze. " The sun will come in 

said Aline, amused at the professor's his own good time." 

sentiment over the reminiscence ; " You answer for that ? ' 

" but that is only one view of the " I do." 

question : if the apples could speak, Aline looked him straight in the 

they would give us another." face as she put the question like a 

" Would they?" said M. Dalibouze. challenge, and M. Dalibouze met the 

" I'm not sure of that. If the apples saucy bright eyes with a grave glance 

discuss the point at all, believe me, that had more of tenderness in it than 

they are agreed that whatever befalls she had ever seen there before. It 

them is the very best thing that flashed upon her for a moment that 

could. We have no evidence of any the sun might come to her through a 

created thing, vegetable, mineral, or less worthy medium than this kind, 

animal, grumbling at its lot; that is faithful, honorable man, and that she 

reserved to man, discontent is man's had been mayhap a fool to her own 

prerogative, he quarrels with himself, happiness in shutting the gate on 

with his destiny, his neighbors, every- him so contemptuously, 

thing by turns. If we could but do Perhaps the professor read the 

like the apples, blossom, and grow, thought on her face, for he said in a 

and fall, early or late, just as the penetrated tone, and fixing his eyes 

wind and the gardener wished, we upon her : 

should be happy. Fancy an apple "The true sun of life is marriage." 

quarrelling with the sun in spring for It was an unfortunate remark, 

not warming him as he does in Aug- Aline tossed back her head, and 

ust ! It would be no more preposter- burst out laughing. The spell that 

ous than it is for men to quarrel with had held her for an instant was 

their circumstances. The fruit of broken. 

our lives have their seasons like the " A day will come when some 

fruit of our gardens ; the winter and one will tell you so, and you will not 

snows and the sharp winds are just laugh, Mile. Aline," said M. Dali- 

as necessary to both as the fire of the bouze humbly, and hiding his dis- 

summer heat ; all growth is gradual, comfiture under a smile, 

and we must accept the process This was the only time within the 

through which we are brought to last two years that he had betrayed 

maturity, just as the apples do. It is himself into any expression of latent 

the same for all of us ; some are hope with regard to Mile, de Lemaque, 

ripened under the warm vibrating and it had no sooner escaped him 

sun, others resist it, and, like cartr'ti than he regretted it. The following 



Number Thirteen. 

Saturday, by way of atonement, he envy, and roused her to defiance, 

brought up a most desirable parti for Infatuated Prussia! she would mourn 

inspection, and next day Mme. Clery over her folly once and for ever. She 

was seized with the inevitable dusting would find that Paris was not alone 

fit. Nothing, however, came of it. the Greece of civilization and the 

Things went on without any no- arts and sciences, but that she was 

ticeable change at No. 13 till Septem- the most impregnable fortress that 

ber, 1870, when Paris was declared ever defied the batteries of a foe. 

in a state of siege. The sisters were Europe had deserted Paris, after 

not among those lucky ones who betraying France to her enemies ; 

wavered for a time between going now the day of reckoning was at 

and staying, between the desire to hand ; Europe would reap the fruits 

put themselves in safe-keeping, and of her base jealousy, and witness the 

the temptation of living through the triumph of the capital of the world !" 

blocus and boasting of it for the rest This was M. Dalibouze's firm 

of their days. There was no choice opinion, and he gave it in public and 

for them but to stay. Aline, as private to any one who cared to 

usual, made the best of it ; she must hear it. When Mme. de Chanoir 

stay, so she settled it in her mind asked if he meant to remain in 

that she liked to stay ; that it would Paris through the siege, the profes- 

be a wonderful experience to live sor was so shocked by the implied 

through the most exciting episode affront to his patriotism that he had 

that could have broken up the stag- to control himself before he could 

nant monotony of their lives, and trust himself to answer her. 

that, in fact, it was rather an enjoy- " Comment, Mme. la Generale ! 

able prospect than the reverse. You think so meanly of me as to sup- 

Mme. Clery was commissioned to pose I would abandon my country 

lay in as ample a store of provisions at such a crisis ! Is it a time to fly 

as their purse would allow. The when the enemy is at our gates, and 

good woman did the best she could when the nation expects every man 

with her means, and the little group to stand forth and defend her, and 

encouraged each other to face the scatter those miserable eaters of 

coming events like patriotic citizens, sauerkraut to the winds !" 

cheerfully and bravely. Of the mag- And straightway acting up to this 

nitude of those events, or their own noble patriotic credo, M. Dalibouze 

probable share in their national cala- had himself measured for a National 

mities, they had a very vague no- Guard uniform. No sooner had he 

tion. endorsed it than he rushed off to 

" The situation," M. Dalibouze as- Nadar's and had himself photograph- 

sured them, " was critical, but by ed. He counted the hours till the 

no means desperate. On the con- proofs came home, and then, burst- 

trary, France, instead of being at the ing with satisfaction, he set out to 

mercy of her enemies, was now on No. 13. 

the eve of crushing them, of obtain- " It is unbecoming," he said, 

ing one of those astonishing victories shrugging his shoulders as he pre- 

which make ordinary history pale, sented his carte de visite to the 

It was the incommensurable superi- generale, " mais que voukz-vous ? A 

ority of the French arms that had man must sacrifice everything to his 

brought her to this pass; that had country; what is personal appear- 

driven Prussia mad with rage and ance that it could weigh in the bal- 



7 6 



Number Thirteen. 



ance against duty ! Bah ! I could 
get myself up as a punchinello, and 
perch all day on the top of Mont 
Valerien, if it could, scare away one 
of those despicable brigands from 
the walls of the capital ! " 

" You are wrong in saying it is 
unbecoming, M. Dalibouze," pro- 
tested the generale, attentively scan- 
ning the portrait, where the military 
costume was set off by a semi-heroic 
military pose, " I think the dress suits 
you admirably." 

" You are too indulgent, madame," 
said the professor. " You see your 
friends through the eyes of friendship ; 
but, in truth, it was purely from an 
historical point of view that I made 
the little sacrifice of personal feel- 
ing; the portrait will be interesting 
as a .souvenir some day when we, the 
actors ' in 'this great drama, have 
passed a-way." 

But time went on, and the pro- 
phetic" triumphs of M. Dalibouze 
were not realized ; the eaters of sauer- 
kraut held their ground, and pro- 
visions began to grow scarce at No. 
13. The purse of the sisters, never 
a large one, was now seriously di- 
minished, Aline's contribution to the 
common fund having ceased alto- 
gether with the beginning of the 
siege. Her old pupils had left, and 
there was no chance of finding any 
new ones at such a time as this. No 
one had money to spend on lessons, 
or leisure to learn ; the study that 
absorbed everybody was how to re- 
alize food or fuel out of impossible 
elements. Every one was suffering, 
in a more or less degree, from the 
miseries imposed by the state of 
blocus ; but one would have fancied 
the presence of death in so many 
shapes, by fire without, by cold and 
famine within, would have detached 
them generally from life, and made 
them forgetful of the wants of the 
body and absorbed them in sublimer 



cares. But it was not so. After the 
first shock of hearing the cannon at 
the gates close to them, they got used 
to it. Later, when the bombardment 
came, there was another momentary 
panic, but it calmed down, and they 
got used to that too. Shells could 
apparently fall all round without kill- 
ing them. So they turned all their 
thoughts to the cherishing and 
comfort of their poor afflicted bodies. 
It must have been sad, and some- 
times grimly comical, to watch the 
singular phases of human nature de- 
veloped by the blocus. One of the 
oddest and most frequent was the 
change it wrought in people with re- 
gard to their food. People who had 
been ascetically indifferent to it be- 
fore, and never thought of their 
meals till they sat down to table, 
grew monomaniac on the point, and 
could think and speak of nothing 
else. Meals were talked of, in fact, 
from what we can gather, more than 
politics, the Prussians, or the prob- 
able issue of the siege, or any of the 
gigantic problems that were being 
worked out both inside and outside 
the besieged city. Intelligent men and 
women discussed by the hour, with 
gravity and gusto, the best way of pre- 
paring cats and dogs, rats and mice, 
and all the abominations that neces- 
sity had substitued for food. Poor hu- 
man nature was fermenting under the 
process like wine in the vat, and all 
its dregs came uppermost : selfishness, 
callousness to the sufferings of others, 
ingratitude, all the pitiable meanness 
of a man, boiled up to the surface 
and showed him a sorry figure to be- 
hold. But other nobler things came 
to the surface too. There were in- 
numerable silent dramas, soul-poems 
going on in unlikely places, making 
no noise beyond their quiet sphere, 
but travelling high and sounding 
loud behind the curtain of gray sky 
that shrouded the winter sun of 



Un a Picture of S. Mary bearing Doves to Sacrifice. 77 

Paris. The cannon shook her ram- sacrifice in its loveliest, divinest form, 
parts, and the shells flashed like How many of them toiled and sweat- 
lurid furies through the midnight ed, aye, and begged, subduing all 
darkness ; but far above the din and pride to love for the little ones, who 
the darkness and the death-cries ate their fill and knew nothing of the 
rose the low sweet music of many a cruel tooth that was gnawing the 
brave heart's sacrifice ; the stronger bread-winner's vitals ! 
giving up his share to the weaker, We who heard the thunder of the 
the son hoarding his scanty rations artillery and the blasting shout of 
against the day of still scantier sup- the mitrailleuse, we did not hear 
plies, when there would be scarcely these things, but other ears did, and 
food enough to support the weaken- not a note of the sweet music was 
ed frame of an aged father or mother, lost, angels were hearkening for them, 
talking big about the impossibility of and as they rose above the dark dis- 
surrender, and lightly about the price cord, like crystal bells tolling in the 
of resistance. There were mothers storm wind, the white- winged mes- 
in Paris, too, and wherever mothers sengers caught them on golden lyres 
are there is sure to be found self- and wafted them on to paradise. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 




; 



ON A PICTURE OF S. MARY BEARING DOVES TO 

SACRIFICE. 



MY eyes climb slowly up, as by a stair, 
To seek a picture on my chamber wall 

A picture of the Mother of our Lord, 

Hung where the latest twilight shadows fall. 



My lifted eyes behold a childlike face, 
Under a veil of woman's holiest thought, 

O'ershadowed by the mystery of grace, 

And mystery of mercy God hath wrought. 

Down through the dim old temple, moving slow, 
Her drooping lids scarce lifted from the ground, 

As if she faintly heard the distant flow 

Of far-off seas of grief she could not sound. 




78 On a Picture of S. Mary bearing Doves to Sacrifice. 

. I- think archangels would not count it sin 
" i Tf, underneath the veil that hides her eyes, 
*:.;,' "& They, seeing all things, saw the soul within 
: } ;..; ,, Held more of mother-love than sacrifice. 



She walks erect, the virgin undefiled, 

Back from her throat the loose robe falls apart, 
And e'en as she would clasp her royal Child, 

She holds the dovelets to her tender heart. 



No white wing trembles 'neath her pitying palm, 
No feather flutters in this last warm nest, 

And thus she bears them on while solemn psalm 
Wakes dim, prophetic stirrings in her breast. 



Sweet Hebrew mother ! many a woman shares, 
Thy crucifixion of her hopes and loves, 

And in her arms to death unshrinking bears 
Her precious things even her turtle-doves. 

But often, ere the temple's marble floor 
Has ceased the echo of her parting feet, 

Her gifts prove worthless thine is ever more 
The gift of gifts transcendent and complete. 



We mothers, too, have treasures all our own, 
And, one by one, oft see them sacrificed : 

Thou, Blessed among women thou alone 

Hast held within thine arms the dear Child-Christ. 



Therefore, mine eyes mount up, as by a stair, 
To seek the picture on my chamber wall ; 

Therefore my soul climbs oft the steeps of prayer, 
To rest where shadows of thy Son's cross fall. 



Centres of Thought in the 




CENTRES OF THOUGHT IN THE PAST. 

FIRST ARTICLE. 
THE MONASTERIES. 

IT seems very ambitious to try Monks in their cells . . . were 

and present to the reader a sketch planting the mustard-seed of future 

of anything so vast as the field of European intellectual growth." Fur- 

research pointed out by the above ther on he says : " Plato represents 

title, and, indeed, far from aiming at rest ; Aristotle, inquisitiveness. The 

this, we will set forth by saying, once former is synthetical ; the latter, ana- 

for all, that our attempts will be no- lytical. Qtiies is monastic, inquisi- 

thing more than passing views, iso- tiveness is dialectical." Thus, Plato 

lated specimens of that immense is the representative master of the 

whole which, under the names of earlier era ; S. Benedict and his in- 

education, progress, development, comparable rule, its representative 

scholasticism, and renaissance, forms religious outgrowth; the study of 

the intellectual " stock in trade " of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the 

every modern system of knowledge. liberal arts, its representative system 

The " past " is divided into two of education. We do not hear of 

distinct eras the monastic and the many "commentaries" in those days. 

scholastic. In the earlier era, the nor of curious schedules of questions, 

centres of thought were the Benedic- such as, " Did the little hands of the 

tine and the Columbanian monaste- Boy Jesus create the stars ?" * On 

ries ; in the second era, intellectual the other hand, elegant Latinity was 

life gathered its strength in the uni- taught, and the Scriptures were mul- 

versities, under the guidance of the tiplied by thousands of costly and 

church, typified by the Mendicant laborious transcriptions. The first 

Orders. The first era may be said to era was eminently conservative. Its 

have lasted from the fifth century to very schools were physically re- 

the eleventh, and to have reached presentative ; "the solitary abbey, 

its apogee in the seventh and eighth, hidden away amongst the hills, with 

The second reached from the eleventh its psalmody, and manual work, and 

century to the sixteenth, and attained unexciting study." t In the scho- 

its highest glory in the prolific and lastic era, things were reversed. " La- 

gifted thirteenth century. Each had tinity grew barbarous, and many far 

its representative centre par excel- graver disorders arose out of the 

fence, its representative men, philo- daring and undue exercise of reason. 

sophy, and religious development. Yet intellectual progress was being 

Prior Vaughan, in his recent mas- made in spite of the decay of letters. 

terpiece, the Life of S. Thomas of . . . In the extraordinary intellec- 

Aquin, expresses this idea in many tual revolution which marked the 
ways. " From the sixth to the thir- 
teenth century," he says, " the edu- 

c -,-, ... * Prior Vaughan, S. Thomas o/Aautn, i 464. 

cation of Europe was Benedictine. t S. Thomas of Aquin, introduction. 



So Centres of Thought in the Past. 

opening of the thirteenth century, could no longer be representative, 
the study of thoughts was substituted it became apostolic. Savonarola and 
for the study of words" * Here the S. Francis Xavier are names that 
representative exponent was Aristo- stand out in the moral darkness of 
tie; the religious developments, the that era, and the latter suggests the 
Crusades and the Mendicant Orders ; only new creation in the church from 
and the personal outgrowth of the that day to our own. Christian edu- 
clashes of the two systems that of the cation had been Benedictine, then 
old immovable dogmatic church, and Dominican ; it now became Jesuit, 
that of irreverence and rationalism The world knew its old enemy in the 
S. Bernard, S. Dominic, S. Thomas of new dress, and ever since has warred 
Aquin, on the one hand, and Peter against it with diabolical foresight 
Abelard and William de Saint Am- and unwearied venom. Of this last 
our, on the other. Here, again, we phase of the past, which is so like 
find the locale analogous to the spirit the present that we have classed it 
of the age. Cities were now the cen- apart, we do not purpose to speak, 
tres of knowledge ; noisy streets, with but will confine ourselves to those 
ominous names, such as the " Rue older and grander, though hardly 
Coupegueule," f in Paris, so named less troublous times known as the 
from the frequent murders committed middle ages, 
there during university brawls, take 
the place of the silent cloister and L 
long stone corridors of the abbey; The first two centres of Chris- 
physical disorder typifies the moral tianity and patristic learning outside 
confusion of the day; and aris the Rome were Alexandria and Con- 
chaotic stands in the room of Monte stantinople. The latter soon fell away 
Casino, S. Gall, or English Jarrow. into schism, and thence into that bar- 
Then followed the " Renaissance," barism which the vigorous Western 
that "revival of practical pagan- races were at that very same time 
ism." J " The saints and fathers of casting off through the influence of 
the church gradually disappeared the church that Byzantium had re- 
from the schools, and society, in- jected. From Alexandria we may 
stead of being permeated, as in former date the beginnings of our own sys- 
times, with an atmosphere of faith, terns of learning. The end of the 
was now redolent of heathenism." second century already found the 
Petrarch and Boccaccio were the re- Christian schools of that city famous, 
presentatives of this refined (if we and the converted Stoic Pantaenus 
must use the word in its ordinary spoken of as one of " transcendent 
sensual meaning) infidelity; Plato powers." Clement of Alexandria, 
was the god of the new Olympus, Origen, Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, 
but unrecognizable from the Plato were teachers in those schools, and 
embodied in the Fathers and Bene- the Acts of the Martyrs tell us that 
dictine litterateurs, for, practically Catharine, the learned virgin-martyr, 
speaking, polite life had now become was an Alexandrian. Hippolytus was 
Epicurean; while as for the religious a famous astronomer and arithme- 
development of the times, since it tician. Clement used poetry, phil- 
osophy, 'science, eloquence, and even 

* Christian Schools and Scholars, ii. 20, 21. Satire, hi the interests of religion. 

{2;r^rsj^,ii.3 25 . Origen becarae the master of a 

Ibid > Gregory Thaumaturgus and his bro- 




Centres of Thought in the Past. 8 1 

ther Athenodorus. "It was now recog- on an island of the Mediterranean 
nized that Christians were men who near the coast of France, it became 
could think and reason with other " another Thebaid, a celebrated 
men, ... . and of whom a uni- school of theology and Christian phi- 
versity city need not be ashamed, losophy, a citadel inaccessible to the 
Christians were expected to. teach arfd works of barbarism, and an asylum 
study the liberal arts, profane litera- for literature and science which had 
ture, philosophy, and the Biblical Ian- fled from Italy on the invasion of the 
guages, . . . and all the time the Goths." * All France sought its bish- 
business of the school went o^ perse- ops from this holy and learned isle. 
cutiou raged with small intermission" * Among its great scholars was Vin- 
Prior Vaughansays that "Faith took cent of Lerins, the first controversi- 
her seat with her Greek profile and alist of his time, and the originator 
simple majesty in Alexandria, and of the celebrated formula : Quod 
withstood, as one gifted with a divine semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus 
power, two subtle and dangerous en- creditum est. We may be pardoned 
emies heathen philosophy and here- for extending our notice of him, since 
tical theology and,by.means of Clem- the words he uses on the progress of 
ent and of Origen, proved to passion the church are so singularly appro- 
and misbelief that a new and strange priate to our own times and problems. 
intellectual influence had been brought Having established the unchangeable- 
into the world, "t Antioch and Con- ness of Catholic doctrine, he goes on 
stantinople claimed the world's atten- to say : " Shall there, then, be no pro- 
tion later on, and the Thebaid teemed gress in the church of Christ ? There 
with equal treasures of learning and shall be progress, and even great pro- 
of holiness. S. John Chrysostom ex- gress, . . . but it will be progress 
horts Christian parents, in 376, "to en- and not change. With the growth of 
trust the education of their sons to the ages there must necessarily be a 
solitaries, to those men of the moun- growth of intelligence, of wisdom, and 
tain whose lessons he himself had of knowledge, for each man as for all 
received." J the church. But the religion of souls 

When the glories of the patristic must imitate the progress of the 

age were waning, and the East seemed human form, which, in developing and 

to fail the church, through whose in- growing in years, never ceases to be 

fluence alone she had become famous, the same in the maturity of age as in 

there arose in the West, among the the flower of youth." t Had the monk 

half-barbarous races of Goths, Franks, of Lerins foreknown the aberrations 

Celts, and Teutons, other champions of the doctor of Munich, he could not 

of monasticism and pioneers of learn- have better refuted the latest heresy 

ing. The raw material of Christian of our own day. S. Lupus of Troyes, 

Europe was being moulded into the who arrested Attila at the gates of 

heroic form it bore during mediaeval his episcopal city, and successfully 

times by poet, philosopher, and legis- combated the Pelagian heresy in 

lator-monks. England; S. Cesarius of Aries, who 

Of these monastic centres, Lerins is was successively persecuted and fin- 

perhaps the oldest. Founded in 410, ally reinstated by two barbarian 

. kings, and who gave his sister Cesa- 

* Christian ScJiools and Scholars^. 9-11. Ha a rule for her 11U11S which Was 

t i". Thomas of Aquin^ \. 134. 

% Montalembert, Monks of t/te West, i. Edin. 

* Monks of the West. t Ibid. 

VOL. XVI. 5 



82 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

adopted by Queen Radegundes for Bishop Nicholson, " the Irish semina- 

her immense monastery of Poictiers; ries had so increased that most parts 

Salvian, whose eloquence was likened of Europe sent their children to be 

to that of S. Augustine, were all educated there, and drew thence their 

monks of Lerins. S. Cesarius has bishops and teachers."* " By the 

well epitomized the training of this ninth century, Armagh could boast 

great and holy school when he says : of 7,000 students."f " Clonard," 

" It is she who nourishes those illus- says Usher, " issued forth a stream of 

trious monks who are sent into all saints and doctors like the Greek 

provinces of Gaul as bishops. When warriors from the wooden horse."f 

they arrive, they are children ; when The Irish communities, Montalem- 

they go out, they are fathers. She re- bert tells us in his brilliant language, 

ceives them as recruits, she sends " entered into rivalry with the great 

them forth kings." * As late as 1537, monastic schools of Gaul. They ex- 

we find on the list of the commission plained Ovid there ; they copied Vir- 

appointed by Pope Paul III. to draw gil ; they devoted themselves espe- 

up the preliminaries of the Council of cially to Greek literature ; they drew 

Trent, and especially to point out back from no inquiry, from no dis- 

and correct the abuses of secular cussion ; they gloried in placing bold- , 

training and paganized art, the name ness on a level with faith." The 

of Gregory Cortese, Abbot of Lerins.f young Luan answered the Abbot of 

But we must hasten on to other found- Bangor, who warned him against the 

ations of a reputation and influence dangers of too engrossing a .study of 

as world-wide as that of the Mediter- the liberal arts : " If I have the 

.ranean Abbey. knowledge of God, I shall never of- 

In 580, there was a famous school fend God, for they who disobey him 
at Seville, where all the arts and are they who know him not." 
sciences were taught by learned mas- The Irish were as adventurous as 
ters, presided over by S. Leander, the they were learned, and Montaltrm- 
bishop of the diocese. Then S. II- bert bears witness to the national 
defonso, of Toledo, a scholar of Se- propensity in the following graceful 
ville, founded a great school at Toledo language : " This monastic nation be- 
itself (where the famous councils took came the missionary nation far ex- 
place later on), which, together with celle7ice. The Irish missionaries cov- 
Seville, made " Spain the intellectual ered the land and seas of the West. 
light of the Christian world in the Unwearied navigators, they landed 
seventh century." J on the most desert islands ; they 

From the South let us turn to -the overflowed the continent with their 
fruitful land where monks supplied successive immigrations. They saw 
the place of martyrs, and where the m incessant visions a world known 
faith, planted by Patrick, grew so an d unknown to be conquered for 
marvellously into absolute power Christ." And the author of Chris- 
within the short space of a century. ^ an Schools and Scholars reminds us 
Armagh, Bangor, Clonard, are names f the beautiful legend of S. Brendan, 
that at once recall the palmy days of the founder of the great school of 
sacred learning. " Within a century Clonfert in Connaught, the school- 
after the death of S. Patrick," says fellow of Columba, and the pupil of 

Finian at Clonard, who is declared 

* Monks of the West. 

t Christian Schools and Scholars, it. 426. * Christian Schools and Scholars, \. 

\ Monks of the West^ ii. f ibid. % Ibid. 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 83 

to have set sail in search of the Land eyes ; they listened to lectures on the 
of Promise, and during his seven Greek and Latin fathers, hung en- 
years' journey to have " discovered a tranced over Homer and Virgil, and 
vast tract of land, lying far to the were skilled in calculating eclipses 
west of Ireland, where he beheld and other natural phenomena. They 
wonderful birds and trees of unknown astonished the world with their arith- 
foliage, which gave forth perfumes of metical knowledge and linguistic 
extraordinary sweetness." Whatever erudition, and their keen logic and 
fiction is mingled with this marvel- love of syllogism are spoken of by S. 
Ions narrative, it is difficult not to Benedict of Anian in the ninth cen- 
admit that it must have had some tury.* Art was equally cultivated, 
foundation of truth, and the poetic but this, strictly speaking, is outside 
legend which was perfectly familiar to our present subject. As an example 
Columbus is said to have furnished of Columba's liberal spirit and devo- 
him with one motive for believing in tion to the best interests of literature, 
the existence of a western continent." we may remark his defence of the 
Later on we shall find Albertus Mag- bards 'at the Assembly of Drumceitt. 
nus foreshadowing the same belief in Poets, historians, law-givers, and ge- 
his writings. Two t>f the Irish mis- nealogists, the bards represented all 
sionaries deserve especial notice the learning of a past age and sys- 
Columba, the Apostle of Caledonia, tern ; and if their arrogance now and 
and Columbanus, the founder of then overstepped the bounds of cour- 
Luxeuil in Burgundy. The former, tesy, and even sometimes the re- 
with his stronghold of lona, which straints of law, in the main their in- 
" came to be looked upon as the stitute was heroic and praiseworthy, 
chief seat of learning, not only in Columba argued against their oppo- 
Britain, but in the whole Western nent, a prince of the Nialls of the 
world," ; ' is familiar to all readers of South, Aedh, that "care must be 
Montalembert's great monastic poem, taken not to pull up the good corn 
and to that other public who have with the tares, and that the general 
had access to the Duke of Argyll's exile of the poets would be the death 
recent work on the rock-bound me- of a venerable antiquity, and that of 
tropolis of Christian Britain. We are a poetry which was dear to the coun- 
told that the most scrupulous exacti- try and useful to those who knew 
tude was required in the Scriptorium how to employ it." His .eloquence 
of lona, and that Columba himself, saved the bardic institute, and the 
a skilful penman, wrote out the fa- poets in their gratitude composed a 
mous Book of Kelts with his own famous song in his praise, which be- 
hand. It is now preserved in the li- came celebrated in Irish literature 
brary of Trinity College, Dublin, under the name of Ambhra, or Praise 
The monks of lona studied and of S. Columbkill\ 
taught the classics, the mechanical Columbanus, a monk of Bangor, 
arts, law, history, and physic. They was destined to found an Irish colony 
transferred to their new home all the of even greater fame and longer du- 
learning of Armagh and Clonard. ration than lona, Luxeuil, founded 
Painful journeys in search of books in 590, at the foot of the Vosges in 
or of the oral teaching of some re- Burgundy, soon counted among its 
nowned master were nothing in their sons many hundred votaries of learn- 

* Christian Schools and Scholars, i. 

* Christian Schools and Scholars. f Montalembert's Afo/fo oftheWest, Hi. 195,197. 



84 Centres of Thought in the Past. 



ing. Montalembert says of it that our own day, a scholar of Eton 

" no monastery of the West had yet or Harrow. So that, when one after 

shone with so much lustre or attract- another we read of Gaulish, Celtic, 

ed so many disciples. It became an- and Teutonic abbeys that were intel- 

other Lerins, a nursery of bishops for lectual capitals and centres of far- 

the Prankish and Burgundian cities, reaching and all-embracing know- 

a notable seat of secular knowledge, ledge, we must always remember 

and, above all, a school of saints, that these words, grown trite at 

Indeed, among the meagre, skeleton- last from frequent use, have as 

like details that come down to us of varied a meaning as the collective 

these giant abodes of a supernatural name of Milky Way, which stands 

race of men, we find ourselves per- for countless worlds of unknown 

force repeating over and over the stars. 

same formula of commendation. As Christianity spread in the early 
What more could one say but that part of the middle ages, these monas- 
each of these monastic centres tic centres were multiplied like the 
was a school of saints ? And yet posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and 
how much variety in that sameness ! Jacob. Lindisfarne, the lona of the 
How much that even we can see, and eastern coast of England, soon rival- 
distinguish, and mentally dissect ! led her Scottish predecessor, and re- 
We see some soaring spirit, whose tained much the same impress of 
burning love is never content with re- Celtic learning, while Melrose 
nunciation, but ever seeks, with holy served as a supplementary school 
restlessness, some deeper solitude and novitiate. The Teutonic ele- 
in which to pray and meditate, like ment now began to make itself 
the Bavarian monk Sturm, the pupil felt. Caedmon, the Saxon cow- 
and companion of S. Boniface, and herd, transformed into a poet and 
the founder of the world-renowned a monk by a direct call from God, 
Abbey of Fulda; or, again, some great sang the creation in strains " which/' 
thinker like Alcuin of York, whose says Montalembert, " may still be 
touching love for his own land and admired even beside the immortal 
city makes us feel with pardonable poem of the author of Paradise Lost" 
pride how near akin is our own weak Wilfrid, the S. Thomas a Becket of 
human nature to that of even the the seventh century, vigorously plant- 
giant men of old; or spirits like the ed Roman traditions and customs in 
gentle Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, the the Saxon monastery of Ripon, and 
traditions of whose unwearied mo- perpetuated the name of S.Peter in his 
deration and "inestimable gift of other magnificent foundation of Peter- 
kindness and light-heartedness," as borough, the poetic "Home among 
well as his " intense and active sym- the Meadows," or Medehamstede.* 
pathy for those human sorrows which Theodore, the Greek metropolitan 
in all ages are the same," are all the of England, in 673 introduced into 
more precious to us that they are the Anglo-Saxon schools " an intel- 
also mingled with tales of his won- lectual and literary development as 
drous horsemanship, athletic frame, worthy of the admiration as of the 
and simple enjoyment of legitimate gratitude of posterity; the study of 
sports. The same author we have the two classic tongues (Greek and 
just quoted, Montalembert, says that Latin) chiefly flourished under his 
the description of his childhood reads 
like that of a little Anglo-Saxon of * Monks of the West. 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 8$ 

care. . . . Monasteries, thus trans- His is a figure which, even in the 
formed into homes of scientific study, foreign annals of the church, stands 
could not but spread a taste and pre-eminent among ecclesiastical 
respect for intellectual life, not only writers, and one in whom the Anglo- 
among the clergy, but also among Saxon character is thoroughly and 
their lay-protectors, the friends and beautifully revealed. Calm and 
neighbors of each community."* steadfast self-possession, that beauti- 
Benedict Biscop, the contemporary ful attribute of the followers of the 
of the chivalrous Wilfrid of York, is " Prince of Peace," is the key-note 
eminently a representative of Anglo- to the writings of the historian-monk 
Saxon cultivation. Montalembert of Jarrow. The first glimpse we 
puts his name in the " monastic con- have of him is as the solitary com- 
stellation of the seventh century ' : panion of the new-made abbot, 
for intelligence, art, and science. Ceolfrid, chanting the divine office at 
He it was who undertook a journey the age of seven ; his voice choked 
to Rome (which place he had visited with sobs as he thought of the elder 
many times before on other errands) brethren, all of whom a grievous 
solely to procure books ; and it must pestilence had carried off. But 
be borne in mind that this journey though the choir had gone to join in 
was then twice as long and a hundred the hymns of the New Jerusalem, 
times more dangerous than a journey the canonical hours were nevertheless 
from London to Australia is now. kept up by the sorrowing abbot and 
After having founded the Abbey of the child-chorister until new brethren 
Wearmouth, at the mouth of the Wear, came to take the place of the old 
Benedict set forth again, bringing ma- ones. Bede was never idle ; he says 
sons and glass-makers from Gaul to himself that " he was always his own 
teach the Anglo-Saxons some notions secretary, and dictated, composed, 
of solid and ornamental architecture, and copied all himself." His great 
He was a passionate book-collector, history was the means of bringing 
and wished each of his monasteries him into contact with the best men 
to have a great library, which he con- erf his day. " The details he gives 
sidered indispensable to the disci- on this subject show that a constant 
pline, instruction, and good organi- communication was kept up between 
zation of the community. Origin- the principal centres of religious life, 
ally a monk at Lerins, whither he and that an amount of intellectual 
had gone after giving up a knightly activity as surprising as it is admir- 
and seignorial career in his own able when the difficulty of corn- 
country, he naturally drank in that munication and the internal wars 
thirst for learning which, in the earlier which ravaged England are taken 
middle ages, seems to have been into account existed among their 
almost inseparable from holiness, inhabitants."* Bede's political fore- 
J arrow, the sister monastery to sight seems to have been of no 
Wearmouth, situated near it by the mean order, and the grave advice he 
mouth of the Tyne, was even yet more administers to bishops on ecclesi- 
famous as a school of hallowed astical abuses shows at once his 
knowledge, and has become endear- practical common sense and fearless- 
ed to the hearts of all Englishmen as ness of character. He also con- 
the home of the Venerable Bede. demns the too sweeping grants of 

* Monks of the West. * Monks of the West. 



86 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

land, exemptions from taxes, and when the wearied ma^istcr at last 

privileges offered to monastic houses, wrested from Charlemagne the per- 

und gives the wisest reasons for his mission to retire into some mov 

strictures. " The nations of Catho- tery, since he had failed in obtaining 

lie Europe envied England, the pos- leave to return and die at York, it 

session of so great a doctor, the first was only to found another school 

among the offspring of barbarous that he occupied his leisure. S. 

races who had won a place among Martin's at Tours now became as fa- 

the doctors of the church, . . . and mous as the Palatine at Aix-la-C 

his illustrious successor Alcuin, speak- pelie. "He applied himself ;o his 

ing to the community of Jarrow new duties with unabated oner 

which 1'ede had made famous, bears and by his own teaching raised the 

witness to his celebrity in these school of Tours to a renown which 

words : ' Stir up, then, the minds of was shared by none of its contempo- 

your sleepers by his example ; study raries. In the hall of studies, a dis- 

his works, and you will be able to tinct place was set apart for the 

draw from them the secret of eternal copyists, who were exhorted by cer- 

beauty.' "* tain verses of their master, set up in 

Malmesbury was another Anglo- a conspicuous place, to mind their 

S \oncentre of thought, and the mem- stops and not to box* out fetters"* 

ory of S. Aldhelm long gave it that Here, then, is another of those plea- 

" powerful and popular existence sant little details which creates a fel- 

which lasted far into the middle low-feeling between the human na- 

ages." t The cathedral school of ture of to-day and that of past ages. 

York, " which rose into celebrity just The description of his life from which 

as Bede was withdrawn from the we have drawn this sketch closes 

scene of his useful labors,"! pro- thus: "In short, his active mind, 

duced one of the greatest of English thoroughly Anglo-Saxon in its tern- 

scholars, and one instrumental in car- per, worked on to the end ; laboring 

rying knowledge acquired among at a sublime end by homely pract 

monks to the warrior court of a for- details. One sees he is of the same 

eign prince. Charlemagne and his race with Bede, who wrote and die- 

Palatine schools of Aix-la-Chapelle tated to the last hour of his life, and, 

would have been shorn of half their when his work was finished, calmly 

glory had it not been for the English- closed his book and died." t 
man Alcuin, But it was not without We have already named Fulda, 

a pang that the home-loving master the glorious monastic centre where 

left the school he had almost formed, the monk Sturm established the Bene- 

and which he cherished as the pro- dictine rule in 744, and where, be- 

duct of his first efforts, and under- fore his death, 400 monks sang daily 

took to foster the same institutions in the praises of God, and good schol- 

a strange land. These schools, in ars were trained to intellectual \\ 

which enthusiastic French writers tare in the name of faith. In 802, 

e to trace the germ of the mighty " mindful of its great origin, it - 

University of Paris, seem to have pos- one of the first to enter heartily into 

sessed a system of equality very the revival of letters instituted by 

creditable both to their master and Charlemagne," and sent the monks 

their imperial patron. Later on, Hatto and Rabanus to study under 



HVrf . 

$ Ckristiam ScAetlt **d Sckrttrs. * CArtstia* Stttets **d ScM*rt. t JUJ. 



Centres of Thought in the l\isf. 87 

Alcuin. We find a most graphic de- ranking them with the saints. Else- 
scription of the daily routine of this where disputations are being carried 
great school in Christian Schools and on over the Categories of Aristotle, 
St-/t<>/ir/-s. It so well illustrates the and an attintivc car will discover 
common life of the middle ages that that the controversy which made 
wo do not hesitate to give it at some such a noise in the twelfth century, 
length: " The German nobles gladly and divided the philosophers of Eu- 
ent rusted their sons to Rabanus* rope into the rival sects of Nominal- 
rare, and he taught them with won- ists and Realists, is perfectly well un- 
derfill gentleness and patience. At dcrstood at Kulda, though it does not 
his lectures every one was trained to seem to have disturbed the peace of 
write equally well in prose or verse the school. To your delight, if you 
on any subject placed before him, be not altogether wedded to the 
and was afterwards taken through a study of the dead languages, you 
course of rhetoric, logic, and natural may find some engaged on the un- 
philosophy. . . . The school of Ful- couth language of their fatherland, 
da had inherited the fullest share of and, looking over their shoulders, you 
the Anglo-Saxon spirit, and exhibited may smile to see the barbarous 
the same spectacle of intellectual ac- words which they are cataloguing in 
tivity which we have already seen their glossaries, words, nevertheless, 
working in the foundations of S. destined to reappear centuries hence in 
Benedict Biscop. I 1 ', very variety of the most philosophic literature of u- 
useful occupation was embraced by rope. ... It may be added that 
the monks. . . . Within doors the the school of Fulda would have 
visitor might have beheld a huge been found ordered with admirable 
range of workshops, in which cun- discipline. Twelve of the best pro- 
ning hands were kept constantly fessors were chosen, and formed a 
busy on every description of useful council of elders or doctors, presid- 
and ornamental work in wood, stone, ed over by one who bore the title of 
and metal. . . . Passing on to the principal, and who assigned to each 
interior of the building, the stranger one the lectures he was to deliver to 
would have been introduced to the the pupils. In the midst of this 
scriptorium, over the door of which world of intellectual life and labor, 
was an inscription warning the copy- Rabanus continued for some years to 
ists to abstain from idle words, to be train the first minds of Germany, and 
diligent in copying good books, and reckoned among his pupils the most 
to hike care not to alter the text by celebrated men of the age. . . . For 
careless mistakes. Not far from the the rest, he was an enemy to any- 
scriptorium was the interior school . . . thing like narrowness of intellectual 
where our visitor, were he from the training. His own works in prose 
more civili/ed South, might well have and verse embraced a large variety 
stood in mute surprise in the midst of subjects, . . . and he is com- 
of these fancied barbarians, whom he monly reputed the author of the. 
would have found engaged in pur- Veni Creator." * 
suits not unworthy of the schools of One of his pupils, the monk Ot- 
Uoine. The monk Probus is per- fried of Weissembourg, entered with 
haps lor.turing on Virgil or Cicero, singular ardor into the study of the 
and that with such hearty enthusi- Tudesque or native dialect. Inspired 
asm that his brother-professors ac- 
cuse him in good-natured jesting Of * Christian Schools and Scholars. 



88 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

by Rabanus, who himself devoted Originally it was founded by Gall, 
much attention to this subject, and the disciple of Cplurabanus, and in 
encouraged by a " certain noble lady the reign of King Pepin -changed 
named Judith," Otfried ifhdertook to the Columbanian for the Benedictine 
translate into his native tongue the rule. Already, in its early begin 
most remarkable Gospel passages re- nings, it was a home of art, and Tu- 
lating to Our Lord's life. His verses tilo's works in gold, copper, and 
speedily became familiar to the peo- brass were famous throughout the 
pie, and by degrees took the place Germanic world. The mills, the 
of those pagan songs of their forefa- forge, the workshops of all sorts, the 
thers, by which much of the leaven cloisters for the monks, the buildings 
of heathenism yet remained in the for the students, the immense tracts 
minds of the peasantry, associated as of arable land, the reclaimed forests, 
it was with all the touching prestige the fleet of busy little boats on the 
of nationalism and the honest pride great Lake of Constance, all told of 
they felt in their ancestors' prowess. a stirring centre of human life. And 
Rabanus, while master of the Fulda while art, science, philosophy, agri- 
school, had much to suffer from the culture, and mechanical industry 
eccentricities of his abbot, Ratgar, were all at work in the townlike ab- 
who, afflicted with the building mania, bey, " you will hear these fine classi- 
actually forced his monks to interrupt cal scholars preaching plain truths, in 
their studies, and even shorten their barbarous idioms, to the rude race of 
prayers, to take up the trowel and the the mountains, who, before the monks 
hod and hasten on his new erections, came among them, sacrificed to the 
Here we have the other side of the evil one, and worshipped stocks and 
daily life of the middle ages, and a stones."* " S. Gall was almost as 
more ludicrous scene can hardly be much a place of resort as Rome or 
imagined than the enforced labor of Athens, at least to the learned world 
the scholar-monks, their rueful coun- of the ninth century. Her schools 
tenances showing their despair at the were a kind of university, frequented 
unpleasant task, yet their unflinch- by men of all nations, who came 
ing principle of obedience towering hither to fit themselves for all pro- 
above their disgust, and compelling fessions. S. Gall was larger and 
them to work in silence till relieved freer, and made more of the arts 
by the Emperor Louis himself. The and sciences ; indeed, so far as re- 
new abbot, installed in Ratgar's gards its studies, it had a better claim 
place by a commission empowered to the title of university than any 
to look into the latter's unheard-of single institution which can be nam- 
abuse of his authority, was a saint as e d as existing before the time of 
well as a scholar, and " healed the Philip Augustus.f You would have 
wounds which a long course of ill- found here not monks alone, but 
treatment had opened in the commu- courtiers, soldiers, and the sons of 
nity." Rabanus himself succeeded kings. All diligently applied them- 
him, and resigned the mastership of selves to the cultivation of the 
the school to his favorite assistant, Tudesque dialect, and to its gram- 
Candidus. matical formation, so as to render it 
Passing over many abbeys whose capable of producing a literature of 
merits it were too long a story to its own." { The monks were in cor- 
enumerate, we come to S. Gall, the , christiMSehoohandScholars . 
great Helvetian centre of thought. t ibid. t 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 89 

respondence with all the learned and obtained from Pope Martin II. 
monastic houses of France and Italy, a brief constituting them what may 
and the transfer of a codex, a Livy, be fairly called a university. This 
or a Virgil from one to the other was at a time when learning was at a 
occasioned as much diplomacy, in- low ebb, and the invasions of the 
terest, and excitement as a com- Danes were endangering the cause 
mercial treaty or the discovery of of letters a cause so intimately 
new gold fields would in our day. wrapped up in that of the great 
?. Gall had its Greek scholars, too, monasteries. Glastonbury, the ruin- 
and seems to have fostered among ed home of so much wisdom, science, 
its copyists a love for " fine editions," and philosophy, was destined under 
such as would do honor to an Eng- S. Dunstan to retake her place 
lish or Russian bibliomaniac of to- among the schools. A great revival 
day. They made their own parch- was initiated by him, a reform among 
ment from the hides of the wild the clergy vigorously enforced, epis- 
animals of their mountains, and em- copal seminaries reopened, and mo- 
ployed many hands on each precious nastic schools once more brought to 
manuscript. The costly binding was their ancient place in the vanguard 
likewise all home-made, and many of civilization. Ethel wold, Dunstan's 
a jewelled missal must have come disciple, was zealous for the study of 
from the hand of the artist-monk sacred learning, and "loved teach - 
Tutilo. Music was a specialty of ing for its own sake. A new race of 
S. Gall, if one may say so in an age scholars sprang up in the restored 
when music was so much a part of cloisters, some of whom were not 
education that alone of all the arts it unworthy to be ranked with the dis- 
was included in the qvadritium, or ciples of Bede and Alcuin." * At 
higher instruction of the mediaeval Glastonbury, like as at Fulda, the 
schools. Romanus of S. Gall it was native tongue was cultivated, harmo- 
who first named the musical notes nized, and rendered capable of being 
by the letters of the alphabet, a sys- ranked no longer as a dialect, but as 
tern which is universal in Germany, the characteristic language of an 
and very commonly followed in Eng- eminently masterful people. Croy- 
land to this day. land, also, a ruined centre of intellec- 
We should multiply names ad tual life, rose again from its ashes ; 
infinitum were we to allow ourselves new monks and scholars reared its 
to roam further over that field of his- walls and filled its schools, and the 
tory so falsely called the dark ages. Danish horrors were soon forgotten 
Einsiedeln, Paderborn, Magdeburg, in the thoughtful kindness of the 
Utrecht, are but a few of the many new abbot, Turketul, the nephew of 
equally deserving of notice, the lat- Alfred, who, as we read, from a war- 
ter being, we are told, " a fashionable rior and a courtier, a minister of 
place of education for the sons of state, and a royal prince, became a 
German princes " in the tenth cen- gentle monk and the revvarder of his 
tury. Before we go on to the second little pupils. " Turketul took the 
stage of the learning of the past- greatest interest in the success of 
the era of the universities we can- the school, visiting it daily, inspect- 
not help looking back to the little ing the tasks of each child, and 
Saxon island where, in 882, Alfred taking with him a servant who car- 
devoted one-fourth of his revenue to 

the restoration Of the Oxford Schools * Christian Schools and Scholars. 



90 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

ried raisins, figs, and nuts, or more And now that we are forced, reluc- 
often apples and pears, and such tantly enough, to let fall the veil 
like little gifts, that the boys might over that teeming life of the medi- 
be encouraged to be diligent, not seval cloister, the fruitful nursery of 
with words only or blows, but rather every later intellectual development, 
by the hope of reward." Such is shall we tell the reader what has 
the s,weet, homely picture given us most struck us throughout the short 
by the historian Ingulph of one of sketch we have been able to give of 
the greatest of schools in its early these centres of thought ? Does not 
monastic beginnings. We have left their history sound like some " monk- 
ourselves so little space that even the ish chronicle " ? How is it that all 
metropolis- of the Benedictines, the the most " celebrated men of their 
glorious and world-renowned Monte time " (the phrase so often repeated 
Casino, can find but a scant notice in these annals) are monks, and so 
in these pages. If Subiaco was many not only monks, but saints? 
the spiritual birthplace of the order How is it that we come upon so 
par excellence, Monte Casino was its many instances of these great scho- 
intellectual cradle. There the lars taking their turn at the mill, the 
rule was written which, by some forge, and the bake-house, and that 
mysterious fate, was destined these details sound neither sordid 
to absorb and supersede that nor vulgar, as they might of modern 
of the widespread Colurnbanians ; and secular litterateurs ? It was the 
there were the missionary principles monastic principle, the Christ-prin- 
first established which led to the ciple, as Prior Vaughan calls it in 
conversion of the Anglo-Saxon his Life of S. Thomas of Aquin the 
race ; there the school of quies principle of faith, obedience, purity, 
and reverence first planted which adoration, and reverence. " The 
made this wonderful monastery monks had a world of their own. . . . 
" the most powerful and cele- Whilst the barbarians were laying all 
brated in the Catholic universe." * things in ruins, they, heedless alike of 
It was likened to Sinai by Pope fame or profit, were patiently laying 
Victor III., the successor of Hilde- the foundations of European civiliza- 
brand, in bold and simple verses, tion. They were forming the Ian- 
full of divine exultation and Christian guages of Schiller, of Bacon, and of 
pride : it has been defended and pro- Bossuet ; they were creating arts 
tected by an English and Protestant which modern skill in vain endeavors 
scholar, f the minister of a nation to imitate ; they were preserving the 
whose civilization once flowed from codices of ancient learning, and em- 
its bosom, and whose learning was balming the world " lying in wicked- 
fostered in its early " scriptoria." It ness " with the sweet odor of their 
has outlasted many of its own off- manifold virtues." * Not only were 
spring, and still stands undecayed in they men who " wrote and spoke 
its moral sublimity, fruitful yet in much, and, by their masculine genius 
saints and scholars, the mother-house and young and fresh inspiration, pre- 
of an order whose origin stretches vented the new Christian world from 
beyond Benedict far into the desert falling back from its first advances, 
of Paul and Anthony, Jerome and either by literature or politics, under 
Hilarion. the yoke of exhausted paganism " ; f 

* Christian Schools and Scholars. 

* Monks of the West. \ Gladstone. t Monks of the West. 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 

not only were they men of progress ual progress of the people they in- 
even while essentially conservative, structed. A modern author observes 
men of the future even while their that " Bede's words are evidence that 
studies were all of the past, but, " in the establishment of the Teutonic 
opposing poverty, chastity, and obe- nations on the ruins of the Roman 
dience, the three great bases of mon- Empire did not barbarize knowledge, 
astic life, to the orgies of wealth, de- He collected and taught more natu- 
bauchery, and pride, they created at ral truths than any Roman Writer 
once a contrast and a remedy."* Prior had yet accomplished, and his works 
Vaughan, in his brilliant lifelike display an advance, not a retrogres- 
picture of medievalism, S. Thomas sion, in science." Indeed, natural 
of Aquin, perpetually refers to the science seems to have been from the 
ruling principle of monasticism : " To first a peculiarly monastic pursuit, 
omit mention of the Benedictine The great names of Bede, Gerbert, 
principle would be to manifest great Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon 
ignorance of the action of the highest are as a mighty chain from century 
form of truth upon mankind. The to century, leading up to the dis- 
mastership of authority and rever- coveries of Galileo, Newton, Arago, 
ence, springing out of the school of and Humboldt; while in S. Brendan 
quies, did not cease to exert a con- we have a bold precursor of Columbus, 
siderable influence even after the The monasteries were so entirely 
dominant power of the monastic the sole centres of civilization that 
body had nearly disappeared." f numberless towns owe their origin to 
Elsewhere we read : " There was them. Scholars came for instruction, 
nothing of the sophist or logician in and remained for edification ; grate- 
those sweet and venerable counte- ful patients settled near the heaven- 
nances, the unruffled beauty of which taught physicians who had cured 
is so often dwelt upon by their bio- them ; peasants clustered round the 
graphers. . . . One of the marks of abbeys for protection, and thus 
the age is the absence of the dispu- grew towns and villages without 
tatious spirit, which, if it diminishes number in Germany, Switzerland, 
their rank (that of the monastic France, England, and Italy. Even 
thinkers) in the world of letters, America bears to-day, in the name 
forms the charm of their characters of one of her oldest English settle- 
as men. The real spirit of the age ments, and a hereditary representative 
was one of reverence for tradi- of intellect Boston a memento of 
tion." f the old intellectual supremacy of mon- 
The foresight of the monk-teachers asticism. S. Botolph, an Anglo-Saxon 
of the earlier middle ages is no hermit, left his monastery, and settled 
less remarkable than their holiness, in a hut on one of the plains of Lin- 
Everywhere they fostered the native colnshire. Scholars gathered around 
idio*n, and labored to reduce it to an him, and, despite his remonstrances, 
. intelligible grammar. The national set up other huts around his, and the 
and patriotic feeling thus awakened Benedictine monastery ^ of Icanhoe 
in the centres of learning must needs was founded. As time went on, a 
have endeared them to, and more village sprang up and became a 
closely linked them with, the intellect- town, and was called Botolphstown. 

The name was afterwards corrupted 

' &n2h and cut down into Boston, and from 

i Christian Schools and Scholars. Boston it was that the founders of 



9 2 



Versailles. 



New England set sail on their jour- 
ney to Holland, their first stage on 
their way to the New World. 

In old times, then, monasteries 
created towns ; now, alas, it is towns 
that necessitate monasteries. We 
have now to plant the monastic school 
in the-midst of the teeming emporiums 
of trade and vice, where thousands 
toil harder for a bare crust and a 
hard board than the monks of old 
toiled for the kingdom of heaven. 
It is not to listen to a learned or 
holy man that settlements are made 
nowadays, but to dig oil-wells or 
work coal and iron mines. Modern 
towns are made by traders, eager to 



be beforehand with their competitors, 
and the journalist and the liquor-sell- 
er are the first citizens of the new town. 
Quies is relegated to the region of 
romance; it is unpractical, it "does 
not pay " ; learning itself, if it suc- 
ceeds in getting a footing in the 
centres of commerce, partakes of th-e 
commercial spirit, and is rather to be 
called " cramming " than knowledge, 
and, as to the moral result of the 
contrast between the Benedictine 
principle of the early ages and the 
principle of hurry, of contention, of 
money- worship current in our days, 
let the annals of modern crime be 
called upon to witness. 



VERSAILLES. 



WHAT an apotheosis of royalty the 
name evokes ! Versailles and Louis 
Quatorze. As if by the stroke of the 
enchanter's wand, there starts up be- 
fore us a long procession of heroes 
and poets and statesmen and wits and 
fair women, a galaxy of glory and 
beauty revolving around one central 
figure as satellites round their sun. 
We lose sight of all the dark spots upon 
the disc in contemplating the blaze 
of brightness that emanates from it. 
We forget the iniquitous follies of the 
Grand Monarque, and remember no- 
thing but the splendors of his reign, 
its unparalleled monarchical triumph ; 
we see him through a mist of proud 
achievements in war and peace, ex- 
cellence in every branch of science 
and industry, fine arts and letters, all 
that dazzled his contemporaries still 
dazzles us, and even at this distance 
his faults and follies are, if not quite 
eclipsed, softened and modified in 



the daze of a fictitious light. The 
group of illustrious men who sur- 
round his throne magnify rather 
than diminish the individuality of the 
man, lending a false halo to him, as 
if their genius were a thing of his 
creation, an effect rather than a 
cause of his ascendency. How far, 
in truth, Louis may have tended to 
create by his personal influence, his 
kindly patronage and keen discrimi- 
nation, that wonderful assemblage of 
talent in every grade which will remain 
for ever associated with his name, 
it would be difficult to determine, 
but, judging from the extraordinary 
influx of genius which signalized his 
reign, and. the corresponding dearth 
of it in the succeeding ones, we are 
tempted to believe that he at least 
possessed in an almost supernatural' 
degree the gift, so precious to a king, 
of divining genius wherever it did 
exist, and of calling it forth from its 



Versailles. 93 

hiding-places, however dismal or re- Louis usually slept in a windmill or 

mote, to the light of success and in a dingy inn, whose only customers 

fame. But for the discriminating ad- were the wagoners who journeyed 

miration of Louis, which fanned the across that out-of-the-way place. Of 

poetic fire of the timid and sensitive the two lodgings he inclines to think 

Racine and stimulated the wit of the windmill was the most comfort- 

the obscure and humble Moliere,, we able. Louis probably found neither 

should assuredly have missed some quarters very luxurious, for in 1627 he 

of the noblest efforts of both those purchased a piece of ground which 

poets. Louis was prodigal of his had been in the Soisy family since the 

smiles to rising talent, for he knew fourteenth century, and built himself a 

that to it the sunshine of encourage- hunting-lodge on the ruins of an old 

ment is as beneficent as the sun's manor-house there, to the great dis- 

warmth to the earth in spring-time. comfiture of a large colony of owls 

But we are beginning at the end. who had made themselves at home 
Versailles is identified to us chiefly if in the moss-grown ruin. Bassom- 
not solely with Louis Quatorze and pierre deplores the vandalism which 
his age; but it was not so from the swept away the venerable shelter of 
beginning. Once upon a time it the owls, and declares that after all 
was a marshy swamp, unhealthy and the lodge was but a sorry improve- 
uncultivated ; and, if we deny Louis ment on the windmill, being " too 
the faculty of creating men of genius, shabby a dwelling for even a plain gen- 
we cannot refuse him that of having tilhomme to take conceit in." Such as 
evolved an Eden from a wilderness, it was, it satisfied the king, and re- 
There is little indeed in the history mained untouched till it was swal- 
of this early period to compensate lowed up in the great palace which 
the reader for keeping him waiting was to embody all the glories of the 
while we review it, still it is better to ensuing reign. When Louis Quatorze 
cast our glance back a little, not very conceived the design of building Ver- 
far, a century or so, to see what were sailles, he confided the execution of 
the antecedents of the site of one of his vast idea to Mansard, laying down, 
the grandest historic monuments of however, as a primary condition that 
France. the shabby little hunting-lodge of the 

In the year 1561, Martial de Lo- late king should be preserved, and 
menie was seigneur of Versailles, and comprised in the new structure. Man- 
was frequently honored by the visits sard declared that this was impossible, 
of Henri de Navarre, who went out to which Louis, with true kingly logic, 
to hunt the stag in his subject's replied coolly : Raison de plus.*' No 
swampy wilderness. De Lomenie argument of artistic beauty or corn- 
sold it to Albert de Gondy, Mare- mon sense could move him from his 
chal de Retz, who in his turn was resolution, or induce him to sanction 
honored by the presence of his sov- the demolition of the quaint .little 
ereign, Louis XIII., there. Louiswas building that his father had raised, 
in the habit of indulging his favorite Rather than be guilty of such an un- 
pastime at Versailles, but, beyond filial act, he said he would give up 
placing his land and his game at the the notion of his new palace alto- 
disposal of the king, the marechal gather. Mansard had nothing for it 
seems to have shown scant hospitali- but to give way, and pledge him- 
ty to the royal hunter. Saint- Simon 
tells us that during these excursions *" An the more reason." 



94 



Versailles. 



self that the ugly red-brick lodge 
should stand somehow and some- 
where in the magnificent pile that 
was already reared in his imagination. 
The only concession he obtained was 
that it should be concealed, if this 
were possible. Mansard swore he 
would make it possible, and he kept 
his word. The lodge of Louis XIII. 
was swallowed up in the elaborate 
stone-work of that part of the palace 
facing the Avenue de Paris, and re- 
mains to this day an enduring if not 
a very sensible proof of the filial re- 
spect of Louis XIV. This was the 
one solitary impediment that Louis 
threw in the architect's way ; in every- 
thing else he gave him carte blanche, 
power unlimited, and all but unlimited 
wealth to work out his fantastic and 
superb conception. Simultaneously 
with this mighty fabric another work 
of almost equal magnitude had to be 
undertaken ; this was the planting of 
the park and the gardens. The 
country for miles around the site of the 
palace was a swamp abounding with 
reptiles, and reeking with vapors of so 
deadly a character that the men em- 
ployed in draining it died like flies 
of a malaria that raged like a pesti- 
lence for months together. They re- 
fused after a time to continue the 
work, though enormous wages were 
offered, and it was found necessary 
at last, under pain of abandoning it, to 
press men into the service as for the 
army in time of war. No accurate sta- 
tistics are extant as to the number of 
victims who perished in the execution 
of this royal freak ; but the most au- 
thentic opinions of the time put it at 
the astounding figure of twenty thou- 
sand. So much for the good old 
times of the widen regime, that we are 
apt to invest with a sort of pathetic 
prestige. What were the lives of so 
many vilains* and the tears and 

* Term for the peasants and workingmen. 



hunger of innumerable vilaines, widows 
and orphans of the dead men, in 
comparison to the supreme pleasure 
of the king and the accomplishment 
of his omnipotent will ? The death- 
sweat of these human cattle rained 
upon the swamp, and in due time it 
was' made wholesome, purified as so 
many foul spots upon the earth are 
by the sweat of toil and sorrow, and 
fitted to grow flowers and green trees 
that would diffuse their fragrance and 
spread pleasant shade where corrup- 
tion and barrenness had dwelt. 

Le Notre, that prince of garden- 
ers, may be truly said to have created 
the pleasure-grounds of Versailles ; 
nature had thrown many obstacles 
in his way, she thwarted him at every 
step, but her obstinate resistance 
only stimulated his genius to loftier 
flights and his indomitable energy to 
stronger efforts. He conquered in 
the end. Never was conquest more 
fully appreciated than Le Notre's by 
his royal master. Louis not only re- 
warded him with more than princely 
liberality, but admitted him to his 
personal intimacy, treating the ple- 
beian artist with an affectionate fa- 
miliarity that he never extended to 
the high and mighty courtiers who 
looked on in envy and admiration. 
Le Notre was too little of a courtier 
himself to value adequately the 
honor of the king's condescension, 
but he loved the man, and took no 
pains to conceal it; there was an 
expansive bonhomie, a native simpli- 
city in his character, that, contrasting 
as it did with the artificial atmo- 
sphere of the court, charmed Louis, 
and he would listen with delight to 
the honest fellow's garrulity while he 
related, with naive satisfaction, the 
tale of his early struggles and the 
difficult and hardy triumphs of his 
talent and perseverance. Versailles 
was, of course, to be the crowning 
achievement of his life, and nothing 



Versailles. 95 

could exceed the diligence and ardor ing in majestic groups, or peeping 

that he brought to bear on it. He singly through an opening in the foli- 

besought the king not to inspect the age as if they were playing hide-and- 

works while they were in the pro- seek; water-nymphs, dashing the soft 

gressive stage, but to wait, once spray round their naked limbs, started 

he had seen the disposition of the unexpectedly from nooks and cor- 

ground, till they were advanced to a ners, cooling the air that was heavy 

certain point. Louis humored him with the scent of flowers ; the rush of 

by consenting, though greatly against the cascade answered the laughing 

his inclination. He kept his word ripple of the fountain ; from bower to 

faithfully in spite of all temptations bower there came a concert of water- 

of curiosity and impatience; con- music, such as no mortal ear had 

tenting himself with questioning Le ever heard before ; it was, indeed, a 

Notre, at stated times, as to how sight to set before a king, and the 

things were getting on," but never gardener might well rejoice who had 

once, in his frequent and regular worked these wonders in the desert, 
visits of inspection to the palace, did Le Notre had been ail this time 

he set foot within the forbidden pre- trotting briskly by the king's rolling- 

cincts. The day came at last when chair. When they had gone over 

his forbearance was to be rewarded, the enchanted region, Louis said : 

Le Notre invited him to enter the " You are tired, my friend ; get up 

closed doors. Louis came, and here beside me, and let us go over it 

found that the reality far outstripped all once more." 

his most sanguine expectations ; he And Le Notre, without more ado, 
was in raptures with all he beheld, jumped up beside the king, and they 
and declared himself abundantly re- began it all over again, as the chil- 
warded for his patience. Le Notre, dren say of their favorite stories, 
no less enchanted than the king, He explained to Louis how he nearly 
walked on beside his chair, doing the despaired of ever getting that birch- 
honors of the gardens and the park, grove right, owing to a bed of rock 
and listening with a swelling heart that would not be dislodged to make 
to the exclamations of delight that room for it ; now and then he would 
greeted every fresh view that opened catch the king by the sleeve, and bid 
in the landscape. It seemed, indeed, him shut his eyes and not open them 
as if a whole army of fairies had been till they came to a certain point, 
at work to bring such a paradise out when he would cry Voila ! de- 
of chaos; long rows of stately full- meaning himself altogether like a 
grown trees, brought from a distance true child of nature, and enjoying 
and transplanted into the arid soil, thoroughly the sympathy of the corn- 
had taken root and were flourishing panion who, for the time being, a 
as in their native earth ; winding common delight made kindred with 
paths intersected majestic avenues, him. Suddenly, however, it seems 
and led the visitor, unexpectedly, to to have dawned upon him that he 
richly planted groves, where marble was riding side by side with the king 
fauns hid coyly, as if frightened to of France. He rubbed his hands, 
be caught by the sunlight in their and exclaimed with childlike glee : 
unveiled beauty ; all the elves in fairy- " What a proud day this is in my 
land, all the gods in Olympia, were life !" And then, as the tears came 
here congregated, now astray in the unchecked into his honest eyes, he 
green tangle of the wood, now stand- added : " And if my good old father 






g6 Versailles. 

could but see me, what a happy one surrounded by three hundred ladies, 

it would be !" of the rank and beauty of France, 

Louis, entering into the son's emo- assisted at the entrance of the tourna- 

tion, made him talk on about his old ment, while a vast concourse of 

father, and listened with profound enthusiastic spectators added by 

interest to the story of their humble their presence to the enlivenment of 

life in common. He wanted to give the scene. At night " four thousand 

Le Notre letters-patent of nobility, huge torches" illuminated the gar- 

and so raise all his family to the dens ; the supper was spread by 

rank of gentilshommes, but the offer nymphs and fauns, while Pan and 

was gratefully declined ; it would Diana, " advancing on a moving 

have been a temptation to most men, mountain," came down to preside 

but it was not to Le Notre ; he had over the festive board. Not the 

no ambitions of a worldly cast ; his least noteworthy episode of the 

sole aspirations were those of a man entertainment, which lasted seven 

of genius, and he preferred retaining days, was the representation of Mo- 

the name of his father and ennobling here's Princesse d 'Elide and the first 

it by a higher title than it was in the three acts of Tartuffe, played now for 

power of kings to bestow. the first time. The earlier fetes at 

As soon as the palace and the Versailles were marked by the pre- 

grounds were finished, Louis came sence of the greatest and fairest names 

and took up his abode at Versailles, that illustrated the reign of Louis 

Then began that series of fetes and Quatorze, so fertile throughout in cele- 

pageants that makes the annals of brities. 

that time read like the description of Foremost in the gay and brilliant 
a long carnival. One of the most throng stands the figure of the one 
gorgeous of these ftes was a sort of woman whom Louis ever really 
carrousel^ given in 1664, when no loved, the pale and pensive Louise 
less than five hundred guests were de la Valliere, she who was in reality 
conveyed to Versailles in the king's the goddess of this gorgeous temple, 
suite and at his expense no small but who, in the words of Mme. de 
matter in the days when railways Sevigne, " hid herself in the grass 
were unknown, and carriages drawn like a violet," and whose modesty 
by six or eight horses were the only and humility in the midst of her 
mode of travelling for persons of erring triumphs drew from all hearts 
rank. The king played the part of the pardon she never wrung from 
" Roger " in the carrousel, and came her own uncompromising conscience, 
riding on a white charger, magni- All the glories of France flocked 
ficently caparisoned, all the court to Versailles as to a shrine where 
diamonds being given up to the they did homage and were glorified 
adornment of rider and steed; he in turn. At every step we meet the ma- 
advanced at the head of a cavalcade jestic figure of the Grand Monarque. 
of two hundred knights, after which See him at the top of the great stair, 
came a golden chariot, called the calling out to the Grand Conde, who 
" Chariot of the Sun," and filled with toils painfully up the marble steps, 
shepherds and many mythological bending under the weight of years 
personages; the three queens, namely, and the fatigues of war: "Take 
the queen- dowager Anne d'Autriche, your time, cousin; you are too heavily 
the reigning queen, and the Queen laden with laurels to walk fast ; we 
of England, widow of Charles I., can wait for you." Not a room, or 



Versailles. 97 

a terrace, or a gallery but has a wit- It was in the cabinet du roi that 
ness to bring forth of the king's cour- Louis took leave of the Due d'Anjou, 
tesy or the king's magnificence, on the eve of his departure for Spain, 
There is the cabinet du roi, where with those memorable words : " Par- 
he used to work at the affairs of tez, mon fils, il n'y a plus de Pyre- 
state with his ministers, not one of nees !" * 

whom worked as hard as the king But it is in the Salle du Trone that 

himself. His ministers were not his the Grand Monarque appears to us in 

tools nevertheless ; despotic as he his most congenial attitude ; here we 

was, Louis let them hold their own see him in his true element, playing 

against him, and when they had jus- .the king as the world never saw it 

tice on their side he could yield played before, and assuredly never 

gracefully to the opposition and re- will again ; here all the potentates of 

spect the courage that prompted it. the earth came and greeted him 

Witness the scene between him and spontaneously as le roi, as if he were 

his Chancellor Voisin, which took the only real king, and they his vas- 

place in this same cabinet du roi. One sals, or, at least, his humble imita- 

of the most disreputable men of that tors. One day we see the ambassa- 

not very reputable court, by dint of dor of the Dey of Algiers presenting 

intrigue, obtained from Louis a pro- in his name " a little present of twelve 

mise of kttres de grace. Next day, Arab steeds, and humbly praying 

when the chancellor came in to his that the mighty majesty of France 

usual work, the king desired him to would deign to accept them, seeing 

affix the great seals to the document, that King Solomon himself had ac- 

which was ready prepared. Voisin cepted the leg of the grasshopper 

looked over it first conscientiously as tendered to him by the ant." 

was his custom, and then flatly re- On another occasion, we see the 

fused to obey the king's command, stately Doge of Genoa advancing to 

denouncing the grant of the lettres de pay his court ; Louis questions him 

grace to such a man as an abuse of concerning the behavior of the cour- 

the royal privilege. Louis replied tiers to him, and the doge replies : 

that his word was pledged, and it " Truly, if the King of France steals 

was too late now to discuss the un- away the liberty' of our hearts, his 

worthiness of the subject; he put for- courtiers take care to restore it." 

ward his hand, and, seeing that Voi- The king suspects the reply to be 

sin did not move, he took the seals provoked by some discourtesy on 

himself and affixed them to the the part of his entourage, and, hav- 

deed. The chancellor looked on in si- ing. investigated the matter and 

lence, but, when Louis handed him found that Louvois and De Croissy 

back the badge of office, he drew had demeaned themselves with un- 

away his hand, and said haughtily : seemly hauteur to the sensitive stran- 

They are polluted ; I will never ger, he severely rebuked them in the 

take them back." presence of the whole court. 

" What a man !" exclaimed Louis, It was here, no doubt, seated on 

with a glance of frank admiration at his golden throne, that Louis receiv- 

his sturdy minister, and he flung the ed the chief of Chateaubriand's tale, 

deed into the fire. and astonished him by the splendor 

Voisin quietly took up the seals, of his state, and sent the noble sav- 
and went on with his work as if no- 
thing had occurred to interrupt it. * " Go, my son, there are now no Pyrenees." 
VOL. XVI. 7 



98 Versailles. 

age back to his home in the far West armed, however, and determined to 

to relate to the awe-stricken children risk the barbarous hospitality of the 

of the forest the wonders of the great thieves rather than pass the night 

French chief " whose superb wig- amidst the snakes and other uncom- 

wam he had beheld." fortable inmates of the woods. They 

The SalleduSacre is less exclusive knocked at the door, first meekly, 
in its associations, the presence of then more peremptorily, and at last 
the grand roi being thrown into the furiously ; getting no answer, they re- 
shade by the subsequent military solved to break open the house, and 
glory of the grande armee. David began hammering away vigorously 
has covered the walls with - the chief with the but-end of their guns at the 
events of Napoleon's career, begin- shaky old door. At this crisis a win- 
ning with the first consulship, and dow opened somewhere, and a voice, 
continuing through the triumphal that quavered with fright, besought 
march of the Empire. When the the burglars to go away, as they 
first series of these immense pictures would find nothing in so poor a 
was shown to Napoleon, he, startled lodging to repay their trouble. Sum- 
by their magnitude, of which he was moned to say whom it belonged to, 
probably a better judge than of their the voice replied that it was that of 
talent, turned to the painter, and ex- the curt of the neighboring hamlet, 
claimed : " Now I must build a pal- whereupon the huntsmen begged 
ace to lodge them ! " him to come down and spare them 

The Salk des Amimux, which, as further trouble by opening the door 

its name indicates, is consecrated to himself. After much expostulation 

the memory of the naval heroes of the host obeyed, and then his guests 

France, was formerly the room of the desired him to serve the best he had 

Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. So for their supper; there was no use 

little is known of this prince beyond protesting with visitors who had 

the fact that he was the direct such formidable arguments on their 

antithesis of his father in habits and shoulders and glistening in their 

character, that the following anecdote belts, so the cure obeyed with the 

may be found interesting as connect- best grace he could. There was 

ed with him : nothing substantial in the larder, he 

The dauphin, like most princes of declared, but a leg of mutton, which 
his time, was passionately fond of the the gentlemen were welcome to if 
chase. On one occasion he set out they would undertake to cook it and 
on a hunting expedition accompanied let him go back to his bed. This 
by a large party, and towards night- they agreed to, with great good- 
fall he and one of his equerries got humor and many courteous thanks, 
separated from the rest, and found and the old priest, after showing 
themselves astray in a dense wood, them where to find food and shelter 
where they wandered for some hours for their horses, wished them a good* 
without meeting any signs of human appetite and betook himself to his 
habitation. They came at last upon couch, marvelling much at the sud- 
a small cottage, which, from its iso- den gentleness and courtesy of these 
lated position and shabby appear- singular burglars who had made their 
ance, he set down as most likely a entry in so boisterous and uncivil a 
rendezvous of robbers, that part of manner. The burglars, meantime, 
the country being much frequented did full justice to his hospitality and 
by these worthies. They were well their own cooking, and, having sup- 



Versailles. 

ped heartily, flung themselves at full some solemn ceremonial on his chair 
length on the floor, and were soon of state. He bent a stern gaze on the 
sound asleep sounder, no doubt, cure, and in accents that made the 
than their host, whose slumbers, if he culprit's soul shake within him, de- 
slept at all, were most likely disturbed manded how it came to pass that a 
by visions of highwaymen arresting man of his holy calling made his 
and murdering the king's subjects house a rendezvous for midnight rob- 
or throttling honest folk in their beds, bers who prowled about the country, 
and such like unrefreshing dreams, disturbing honest subjects and break- 
The good man was up betimes, ing the king's laws. The cure fell 
and while the hunters were still fast upon his knees, and humbly confess- 
asleep he slipt out to seek some break- ing cowardly concealment of a fact 
fast for them. Meantime the hunt, that he was in conscience bound to 
which had been in pursuit of the have denounced at once to the nearest 
prince all night, perceived the little magistrate, pleaded, nevertheless, that 
wreath of smoke that curled up from the bearing of those malefactors was 
the cure's chimney on the clear morn- so noble and their manners so court- 
ing air, and at once made for the eous that he had doubts as to whether 
point whence it proceeded, sounding they were indeed such and not rather 
the horn as it approached. The prince two knights of his majesty's court; 
and his companions started to their whereupon Louis bade the malefactors 
feet at the first note of the wel- come forward, and, introducing them 
come signal, rushed to their horses, by name to the bewildered cure, en- 
and were in the saddle and far joined him to be less cautious another 
out of sight before their host returned time in opening his doors to benight- 
from his foraging expedition. Great ed gentlemen. 

was his surprise to find the birds had " And in payment of the leg of mut- 
flown, but he was glad to be rid of ton which my son was so unmannerly 
them, and on such easy terms, for as to confiscate on you," continued 
they had carried off nothing the the king, " I name you Grand Prieur, 
house was just as he had left it. It with the revenues and privileges . at- 
was not a thing to boast of, having tached to the office." This was as- 
harbored a couple of highwaymen for suredly the highest price that ever a 
a night, though they had behaved so leg of mutton fetched. . 
considerately to him the cure, there- The chanibre d coucher de la reine * 
fore, kept the adventure to himself, plays a distinct part of its own in the 
But he had not heard the last of it. annals of Versailles. We forget its first 
The next day a messenger came in occupant, the gentle, long-suffering 
hot haste from Versailles with a sum- Marie Therese, of whom, on hearing 
mons for him to appear without of her death, Louis Quatorze exclaim- 
further delay before the king. Ter- ed : " This is the first sorrow she ever 
rified out of his five wits, and know- caused me !" we forget the longer- 
ing full well what had brought this suffering wife of Louis Quinze, the 
judgment upon him, the worthy old charitable Marie Leczinska, surnamed 
priest took up his stick and asked no by the people " the good queen"; we 
questions, but forthwith made his way lose sight of all the august figures 
to the palace. He was conducted at who pass before us in the retrospect 
once to the Salle du Trone, where of this royal chamber, and see only 
Louis, surrounded by the rank and 
blood of France, was seated as for * The queen's bed-chamber. 



i6o 



Versailles. 



Marie Antoinette, the haughty sove- 
reign, the heroic mother and devoted 
wife, who has made it all her own. 
We see her, woke out of her sleep, and 
the cries of the mob menacing the 
palace in the dead of the night, and 
flying hardly dressed from the 
chambre de la reine to take refuge in 
the dauphin's apartment, while the 
faithful guards dispute with their lives 
the entrance of her own to the mad 
multitude that have now broken in 
like a destroying torrent and are 
close upon the threshold. The walls 
seem still to echo the cry of those two 
brave guards as they fell : " Save the 
queen ! Save the queen !" The great 
tragedy that was to change the whole 
destinies of France may be said to 
have begun on this terrible night of 
the 6th of October. 

The chambre a coucher du roi * is, 
on the other hand, filled with Louis 
Quatorze to the exclusion of all 
other memories. Here was per- 
formed that solemn comedy in which 
the warriors and statesmen of the day 
took their part so gravely : the lever 
and coucher de roi. When we read 
the minute details given in the 
chronicles of the time of the cere- 
monial gone through by his courtiers 
every time the king got in and out 
of bed, it is a severe tax on our 
credulity to believe that the dramatis 
persona who played the farce so 
seriously were not. fools or grin- 
ning idiots, but sane and sober men 
whose lineage was second only in 
blue-blooded antiquity to that of 
Caesar himself, men of talent, men 
of genius, heroes who fought their 
country's battles and deemed it no 
derogation to come from the field 
of glory and fight for the honor of 
handing the king his stockings or his 
pantaloons. This proud noblesse 
whom Richelieu could not conquer 

* The king's bed-chamber. 



by the sword or subdue by tortures 
and imprisonment, lay down at the 
feet of Louis, and, it is hardly a 
figure of speech to say, licked them. 
They appear to have looked upon 
him, not as a mortal like themselves, 
however elevated above them in 
rank and power, but as a god, a 
being altogether apart from them in 
species. One is tempted to believe 
that both they and he must occa- 
sionally have been possessed with 
some vague notion that it was so ; 
there is no other way of accounting 
for the servile worship which they 
tendered as a duty, and which he ac- 
cepted as a due. Truly that famous 
"Eetat c'estmoir * sounds more of a 
god than a man ; and that other ut- 
terance of Louis, Messieurs, faifailli 
attendre ! \ addressed to the proudest 
nobility in Europe, who were barely 
in their places when the flourish of 
trumpets announced the king's en- 
trance, is scarcely less grotesque in 
its superhuman pride. 

This great and little coucher which 
was surrounded by so much prestige 
in the court of France was some- 
what ridiculed by contemporary sov- 
ereigns, for the honor of humanity 
be it said ; their admiration for 
Louis did not go the length of view- 
ing the august ceremonial otherwise 
than in the light of a bore or a joke. 
When Frederick the Great heard 
from his ambassador an account of 
the first grand lever at which he as- 
sisted at Versailles, he burst into an 
uncontrollable fit of laughter, and ex- 
claimed : " Well, if I were king of 
France, I would certainly hire some 
small king to go through all that for 
me !" 

Considering how eagerly his cour- 
tiers contended for the honor of 
dressing the king's person, one 

* " I am the state !" 

t " An instant more, and I should have had to 
wait !" 



Versailles. 101 

would have fancied the privilege of Quatorze died. From under the 
making his bed would have been crimson and gold canopy which had 
proportionately coveted, and held witnessed the eternal levers and 
second only to the honor of holding couchers, Louis rebuked the violent 
his majesty's boots; but, such is the grief of two young pages who stood 
inconsistency of human beings, this within the balustrade, that sanctum 
was not the case. The courtiers pro- sanctorum which none under a prince 
bably felt that a line should be of the blood or a high chancellor 
drawn somewhere, so they drew it dare pass at any other time; they 
here ; they would not perform this were weeping bitterly. " What !" ex- 
menial office for the Grand Monarque, claimed the king, " did ye, then, 
and the distinction of turning his think I was immortal ?" There was 
mattresses and spreading his quilt a time when he himself seemed to 
devolved on valets of a lower grade, have thought so ; but viewed by 
Among this inferior herd was one that vivid light that breaks through 
named Moliere, a youth whom his the mists of death, things wore a 
comrades laughed at and treated as a different aspect in his eyes; and the 
sort of crazy creature who was al- adulation which would fain have 
ways in the moon. One day when treated him as immortal, and which 
it happened to be his turn to spread was during life as the breath of his 
the royal sheets, the poet Belloc nostrils to Louis, showed now as the 
overheard them chaffing him and re- empty bubble that it was. 
fusing to help him in his work. He No one ever again slept in the 
went up to Moliere, and said : " Mon- bed which had been honored by the 
sieur de Moliere, will you do me the last sigh of the Grand Monarque ; the 
honor of allowing me to help you to room remained henceforth unoccu- 
make the king's bed ?" and Moliere pied, and, with the exception of the 
granted the request. The incident pictures which have been removed, 
came to the king's ear and led to his is still just as he left it. Louis car- 
noticing the eccentric valet. A little ried his favorite pictures about with 
later, and we see him standing be- him wherever he went. "David," 
hind the valet's chair in this same by Domenichino, his best beloved 
room, where his majesty's dinner of them all, is now to be seen at the 
was sometimes served, and waiting Louvre; otherwise little has been 
upon him, while the courtiers who altered in the chambredu roi ; the bed 
had refused to sit at table with Mo- and the ruelle are in their old place, 
Here stood round, looking on in also the table, on which a cold col- 
" mute consternation at the strange lation was laid every night in case of 
spectacle," Saint-Simon tells us, who the king's awaking and feeling hun- 
owns naively to sharing their con- gry ; this precautionary little meal 
sternation. was called the en cas ; and the name 

" Since none of my courtiers will with the habit, which had given rise 
admit Monsieur de Moliere to their to it, is still perpetuated in many old- 
table," said Louis, " I must needs set fashioned French families. Louis 
him down at mine, and show them Quinze, from some superstitious feel- 
that I count it an honor for the ing; could never bring himself to 
King of France to wait upon so great sleep in the death-chamber of his 
a man. ' illustrious great-grandfather ; he took 

Here, in this bed that Belloc and possession of what was then the salle 

Moliere had made together, Louis de billiard, a noble room opening 



IO2 Versailles. 

into the &il-de-b<xuf (bull's eye), so this appalling task devolved upon 
called from its having an (Ril-dt-b&uf Andouille, the late king's surgeon. 
over the large window at the north The Due de Villequier went up to 
end. In an alcove in this billiard him and reminded him of it; he 
hall, Louis XV. died. The adjoin- knew that the operation must insure 
ing (Kil-de-bceuf was filled with the certain death to the operator, but 
courtiers, who dare not venture with- that was not his concern, 
in the polluted atmosphere of the " It is your duty, monsieur," said 
royal chamber, but stood outside the duke; and he was coolly turning 
it, consulting together in "guilty away when Andouille stopped him. 
whispers " as to what they ought to " Yes," he replied, " it is my duty, and 
do ; dreading on one hand the reward it is yours to 'hold the head." De 
of their cowardice if the king should Villequier had forgotten this ; he 
recover, and fearing on the other to made no answer, but left the room, 
fly too soon with their servile con- and nothing more was said about the 
gratulations to his successor. In the embalmment. The body was hustled 
great court below another crowd into a coffin, and smuggled rather 
was assembled, watching in breath- than conveyed in the dead of the 
less silence for the signal which was night to S. Denis, a few menials ac- 
to proclaim the king's death. What companying the King of France to his 
a spectacle it was ! what a lesson for last resting-place. The spirit of French 
a king ! The flatterers who yester- loyalty may be said to have been 
day had been his slaves, pandering buried with Louis Quinze ; " the 
to his vices, and helping to make him divinity that doth hedge a king " was 
the abject creature that he was, that night laid low in France, wrap- 
abandoned him now that he was ped in the shroud that covered the un- 
struggling with grim Death, and, utterable mass of corruption consigned 
all absorbed in selfish cares for their like a dog to the ready-made grave 
own interest, in speculations of the in S. Denis. Le roi could never 
favor of the new king, they had no again be to the nation what he had 
pity in their hearts for the master been heretofore. Le roi est mort, vive 
who could pay them no more. It kroi!* ceased to be the watchword 
came at last, the signal; the small o f its fealty; le roi, that being in- 
flame of a candle was seen flickering vested not merely with supreme 
through the darkness, and then held authority, but with a sort of vague per- 
up at the window of the (zil-de-ba>uf. sonal sacredness that has no parallel 
" Suddenly there was a noise," says m modern loyalty, died with Louis 
the historian of that ghastly scene, Quinze, never to be resuscitated. The 
"like a roll of thunder, it was the miserable death of the libertine prince, 
courtiers rushing from the ante- fit ending to an ignoble life, came 
chamber of the dead king to greet U p O n his people in the light of a 
his successor." Only his daughters divine judgment, swift and awful, 
had been brave enough to stand by and dealt the last blow at that pres- 
the bedside of the dying man, and, tige which had for generations 
now that he was gone, there was not been the bulwark of king-worship 
one' in all that multitude who c6uld and shaded with its mysterious rev- 
be induced to perform the last office erence the iniquities of the throne. No 
of mercy towards his poor remains, man suffers alone for his sins, but 
It was imperative, nevertheless, that 

the body Should be embalmed, and * "The king is dead, long live the king." 



Versailles. 103 

how much more truly may this be adapted wife of timid, hesitating, mag- 
said of kings ! Who could measure nanimous Louis Seize, the Bourbon 
the depth of the gulf that Louis XV. of whom it was written with truth : 

had dug through his long reign for " Louis ne sut qu'aimer et pardonner, 

those who Were tO COine after him, and S'il avait su punir, il aurait su regner." 

realize the consequences of his evil He loved and forgave to the end, 
deeds to future generations of French- but he never learned to punish, 
men? There is no greater fallacy Warnings were not wanting, but he 
than to attribute to an age the re- would not heed them. See him stand- 
sponsibility of its own destinies ; none ing in the embrasure of the window 
probably ever saw the beginning and of that cabinet du roi whence Louis 
end of its own history, for good or Quatorze ruled the kings and peoples 
evil, but less than any other can the of Europe ; a new power has arisen ; 
period of the Revolution be said to it is the people's turn to rule the king, 
have witnessed this unity. We must his brow is clouded, his lip trembles, 
look much further back to trace the not with fear that base emotion 
rising of the red flood that inundated never stirred the soul of Louis Seize 
France in '93. It was the insane ex- but with anguish, perplexity, doubts 
travagance of Louis XIV.'s reign in himself that amounted to despair, 
and the official depravity of the He listens to the murmurs of the 
succeeding one that sowed the har- crowd down below ; and to De 
vest that was to be reaped in fire by Breze, who repeats, in tremulous 
the innocent victims of a corruption accents, Mirabeau's message of tre- 
which for a whole century had been, mendous import : " Go telF the king 
seething as in the caldron of the that the will of the people has 
Prophet's vision, till it boiled over in brought us here, and nothing but the 
the mad frenzy of the Revolution, and force of bayonets shall drive us 
swallowed up not only the monarch, hence ! " That force he knew full 
but the soul and reason of France, in W ell would never be appealed to ; it 
a deluge of exasperated hate and was not the people who should be 
suicidal revenge. Louis Seize, the driven hence, it was they who would 
martyred king who was to expiate drive the king. Presently we see the 
the follies and crimes of his predeces- ponderous state coach jolting slowly 
sors, next passes before us along the down the Avenue de Paris, the first 
galleries of Versailles. There is an stage of the royal martyrs towards 
interval of peace, a short halcyon time the guillotine; the mob, in a frenzy 
of pastorals and idyls, we see Marie of drunken triumph, jostled it from 
Antoinette playing at shepherdess in side to side, pressing rudely through 
Arcadia, we hear Trianon ringing with the windows to stare at their victims, 
the music of her light-hearted laugh- and insulting them by thrusting the 
ter, we see her choosing a friend,* and red cap into their faces, and shouting 
braving the jealous anger that makes as they go : " The baker and the 
a crime of her friendship though it be bakeress ! now we have caught them, 
wise, and rebukes her mirth though it and the people shall have bread ! " 
be innocent ; but the queen turns a This journey dates a new era in the 
deaf ear to all warning sounds and annals of Versailles, it is the death- 
shuts her eyes to the gathering clouds, knell of the pleasant days of royalty ; 
Imprudent Marie Antoinette ! 111- 

* Louis only knew how to love and to forgive ; 
had he known how to punish, he would have 

*The Duchesse de Polignac. known how to reign. 



IO4 Versailles. 

there are to be no 'more fetes pasto- glories of their country commemo- 
rales at Trianon, no more merry chil- rated. Many of the victories of the 
dren of France careering over the grande armee were painted to his 
flowery terraces, making the sombre order to complete the series already 
alleys bright and the gay flowers decorating the walls. Versailles has 
brighter with the sweet melody of retained ever since this national 
child laughter ; all this is gone, and character. Under the Second Em- 
passed like a dream. " The old order pire it was used occasionally for fetes 
of things has vanished, making place given to foreign princes ; the most 
for the new." Soon we shall see the magnificent of these was the one pre- 
palace of Louis Quatorze stripped of pared for the Queen of England 
its costly furniture, invaded by the when she visited Napoleon III. after 
rabble, and pillaged from garret to his marriage. 

cellar. The Convention will deem France has undergone many 
it right to utilize the " foregoing strange vicissitudes, and her palaces 
abode of the tyrants " by turning it have harbored many unlikely guests ; 
into a hospital ; they will transport but among the strangest on record 
the invalids to Versailles, but the none can assuredly compete with the 
rheumatic old heroes will find the recent experiences of Versailles. If 
apartments of the Grand Monarque the spirit of Louis XIV. be permit- 
too grand to be comfortable, they will ted sometimes to haunt the scene of 
complain of their pains and aches his earthly pride, what must his feel- 
being aggravated by the draughts, ings have been during the last two 
and beg to be taken back to their years ! What did he feel on behold- 
homely quarters, and the Conven- ing the halls which had echoed to 
tion, in its benevolence, will accede his conquering step held by the vie- 
to the request. torious soldiers of Germany, and 

Louis XVIII. was anxious to fix vacated by them to make way for 
his residence at Versailles, and went the President of the French Repub- 
the length of spending six millions, lie ? But this crowning enormity 
of francs on repairing the faade, stopped short at the threat. The 
which had been sadly battered by chambre du roi was indeed placed at 
the Revolution, but he found that the the disposal of the President, but 
expense of refurnishing the palace whether it was that he shrank from 
would have been too much for the the profanation, or feared the vast 
exhausted finances of France ; so he proportions of the great king's pal- 
gave up the idea. ace, as likely to prove too large a 

Louis Philippe restored it to its frame for the representative of a re- 
ancient splendor, but not for his own public, he declined taking up his 
use ; he made it over to the nation abode there. Versailles continues still 
as a museum, where they might go to be the resort of the people and of 
and enjoy themselves, and see all the travellers from all parts of the world. 



Father Isaac Jogues^ S.J. 105 



FATHER ISAAC JOGUES, SJ. 

FATHER ISAAC JOGUES, the first Of " O lovely tree whose branches wore 

., ... . , The royal purple of his gore ! 

the missionaries tO bear the CrOSS Oh ! may aloft thy branches shoot, 

into the interior of our country, and And fill ail nations with thy fruit !" 
the first to shed his blood on its soil Impelled by this devotion, he re- 
for the faith of Christ, was a native tired into himself in order to discover 
of Orleans, France. He was born his vocation, and heard within his 
on the loth of January, 1607, of a soul the voice of Heaven calling him 
family distinguished alike for their to the Society of Jesus. Having ap- 
virtues and their worth. In the bo- plied for admission into the Society, 
som of this pious family the young and being received with alacrity by 
Isaac was reared up, surrounded the superior, he entered upon his 
by all the profound and pleasing novitiate in October, 1624. To 
practices of Catholic devotion. Les- complete his studies he next went to 
sons of religion and letters were im- the celebrated college of La Fleche, 
parted together, and the scholar where he passed his examination in 
from his earliest youth proved him- philosophy at the end of three years 
self remarkably apt at both. As with great distinction. Then, in 
soon as he was old enough, he was obedience to the discipline of his 
sent, to his own great joy, to the col- order, the young Jesuit went to 
lege at Orleans, then recently estab- teach in the college at Rouen, and 
lished by the Jesuit Fathers, under for four years instructed the youth 
whose instruction he made rapid of that city, in the elements of the 
progress in his studies. The virtues Latin language, in the principles of 
of his character so ingratiated him religion and the practice of piety, 
with his companions at college, that So fruitful were his labors in this re- 
no thought of jealousy ever entered gard that his scholars were ever dis- 
their hearts at the eminence he en- tinguished for the solidity and con- 
joyed as a student. stancy of their virtues, and many of 
As the close of his collegiate them became companions of their 
course drew near, he began, more saintly preceptor in the Society of 
seriously than ever, to meditate on the Jesus. 

greatest act of one's life the selection We now find him winning laurels 

of a vocation. It was his extraordinary in the flowery path of literature. It 

devotion to the Passion of Our Lord was, at the period of which we speak, 

that settled this question for him. the custom at the Jesuit colleges to 

The cathedral church of his native test the qualifications of the teachers, 

city was dedicated to the Holy Cross, by requiring them, at the opening of 

and there from his tenderest years he the year, to deliver an oration or 

gazed daily upon that sacred sym- poem, or read a lecture of their own 

bol of the Passion and Redemption production, in public. Simply in 

glittering from the spires of the tern- obedience to this rule, and without 

pie, and it became the object of his any desire of his own to gain dis- 

warmest affection. tinction, the gifted Jogues parti- 



IO6 Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 

cipated in these exercises, and on tearing himself away from his mother 
one occasion produced a poem of and sisters, never to see them again, 
rare excellence. But his heart was he went to Rouen, and entered upon 
too thoroughly pre-engaged to covet what is called the second novitiate 
the laurels of literary fame. He was in the Society of Jesus. But a fleet 
intent on winning another crown was soon ready to sail from Dieppe 
the glorious crown of martyrdom, for Canada, and the young mission- 
Yet so obedient was the young scho- ary'must hasten to his chosen field of 
lastic to the will of his superior and labor and love. 

to the spirit of his institute, that he, He was accompanied on the voy- 
who only desired for himself the wig- age by the Jesuit Fathers Gamier 
warn and council fires of the roving and Chatelain, and by M. de Chan- 
tribes of the Western wilds, went out flour, afterwards governor at Three 
with as much labor and zeal to acquire Rivers. The vessel in which they 
all the accomplishments of learning as sailed being leaky, the pumps were 
though a professor's chair in Europe kept in constant motion, and the 
was to be the field of his ambition, labor thus imposed upon the crew 
He was next sent to Paris, where he gave rise to a mutiny, which Father 
began his course of divinity at the Jogues alone was able to quell. M. 
college of Clermont. de Chanflour ever afterwards, in 

He applied himself to these studies speaking of the voyage, attributed 

with the greatest zeal, since they con- his safety to the influence of Father 

stituted the last probation and delay Jogues' prayers with God, and of 

preceding his elevation to the sacred his persuasion with the men. 
ministry, and the realization of his After words of pious affection and 

fondest hope a foreign mission, encouragement which this exemplary 

He seems not to have discovered his son knew well how to address to 

future plans to his family, to whom that excellent mother, he proceeds in 

he was, however, most tenderly at- one of his letters addressed to her: 
tached. Writing to them in April, " I write this more than three 

1635, on receiving their complaint at thousand miles away from you, and 

his not having joined them in one of I may perhaps this year be sent to 

their family festivals, he says : " The a nation called the Huron, distant 

prayers which I offer up, as well afar nearly a thousand miles more from 

off as near you, are the most affec- here. It shows great dispositions 

tionate marks I can give of my in- for embracing the faith. It matters 

terest in you all." not where we are, provided we are 

When the time for the reception ever in the arms of Providence and 

of holy orders drew near, he pre- in his holy grace. This I beg fc-r 

pared himself by a spiritual retreat, you and all our family daily at the 

and was ordained in February, 1636. altar." 

His family, who were extremely de- By his short stay at Miscou he 
voted to him, were not present at his missed the Indian flotilla, and Fathers 
ordination ; but his fond mother ob- Gamier and Chatelain erpbarked 
tained from his superior a promise without him .; but, some canoes hav- 
that he might say his first Mass in his ing come in later, the Indians, when 
native city. He accordingly went about to return, asked, as if reproach- 
to Orleans, and offered up the holy, fully, why there was no black-gown 
sacrifice for the first time in the to be carried by them. Father 
church of the Holy Cross. Then, Jogues, being then at Three Rivers, 



Father Isaac Jogues t S.J. 107 

was summoned to embark, and at quently in great requisition, and one 

once joyfully entered the canoes. of them, a little deformed creature, 

We would gladly reproduce, did offered his services to one of the fa- 

our space allow, a letter addressed to thers in his sickness, 

his mother, under date June 5, 1637, There was another medicine-man, 

giving an account of this voyage. Tehoronhaegnon, who filled the land 

Suffice it to say that in nineteen days with dances and orgies of the most 

he accomplished what usually took wicked and revolting character, 

twenty-five or thirty ; joining Fathers The missionaries labored to banish 

Gamier and Chatelain, who had pre- these abominations from the coun- 

ceded him but a month, and three try, and to introduce in their place 

other missionaries who had been five the pure and holy rites of the Chris- 

or six years in the country. tian religion. Unacquainted with 

Supported by his zeal, he accom- their language, Father J ogues labor- 

plished his arduous and laborious pas- ed under the greatest disadvantages, 

sage, but no sooner arrived at Ihon- but by zealous and persevering ap- 

itiria than his exhausted nature sank plication he was soon able to make 

under a dreadful malady, which for himself well understood ; and in a 

more than a month threatened to few years he was master of the Huron, 

terminate his existence. With four the key-tongue to so many others, 

others he lay during all this time in a Remaining at Ossossane as his 

cabin, without medicines or food, ex- place of residence, he was incessant 

cept such food as was an aggravation to in his visits and ministrations in the 

the disease. By the middle of Octo- cabins of the people, preaching the 

ber Father Jogues was so far recovered faith to all, and at the same time 

as to be able to take the ordinary food rapidly acquiring their language, 

of the country, the sagamity. Late in 1637 he returned to labor 

In November he set out from in .the same way at Ihonitiria. On 

Ihonitiria to join Father Brebeuf at the ruin of this town and its mission, 

the great town of Ossossane, where he went again to join his superior, 

for a time they were companions on Father Brebeuf, at Teananstayae. 

earth who were destined to be com- In 1639, Father Jogues accom- 

panions in heaven, in the enjoyment panied Father Gamier in his expedi- 

of the glorious crown of martyr- tion to plant the cross among the 

dom. Sickness was raging over the mountains of the Petuns, or Tobacco 

land, and the missionaries hastened Indians. They twice visited the 

from town to town, and from cabin Petun village of Ehwae, which they 

to cabin, baptizing the dying infants, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, 

and such of the adults as were willing But their noble efforts were in vain ; 

to receive the words of eternal life, every door was closed against them, 

They even extended their visits to and menaces assailed them on every 

the neighboring Nipissings, who had side ; even the women reproached 

been terribly afflicted with the pre- their husbands for not killing them, 

vailing maladies. The poor Indians, and the children pursued them 

in most cases, would not listen to the through the streets. The sachems 

voice of the fathers, because they gave a feast to the young warriors 

could not promise, as their own in order to induce them to destroy 

sorcerers pretended, to cure their the missionaries ; but the providence 

lily afflictions. The horrid orgies of God saved his servants from the 

of the medicine-men were conse- impending blow. 



io8 Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 

In the next year, Father Jogues quin family were brought in contact 

was stationed with Father Francis with the Jesuit missionaries and the 

Duperon at the new residence at Christian Hurons, and the latter 

S. Mary's. Four towns partook of spread far and near in this vast as- 

their care, and these they piously sembly the fame of the black-gown 

dedicated to S. Ann, S. John, S. chiefs. In the general interchange 

Denis, and S. Louis. Obliged to of presents, the missionaries presented 

select the worst season of the year to the strangers " the wampum of 

for their labor, because then only the faith." The Panoitigoueieuhak, 

were the neophytes drawn together, or Sauteux, as the French called 

their time was incessantly occupied them, a tribe inhabiting the small 

in conveying to the untaught natives strip near the Falls of St. Mary, were 

the faith and its consolations. Next particularly friendly and earnest, and 

year Father Jogues was stationed invited the black-gowns to come and 

permanently at St. Mary's. Here the bring the faith to their cabins as 

fathers established a hospice, where they had done for the Hurons. Fa- 

the wayfarer was ever sure to find re- ther Raymbault and Father Jogues 

freshment and relief for the body as were named by the superior to vi- 

well as the soul. To this sacred spot sit this new and distant vineyard, 

in the wilderness came Indians from Launching their canoes in the latter 

distant villages to receive instruction part of September at St. Mary's, they 

in the faith, some to be baptized, glided over the little river Wye, and 

some to prepare for the reception of were soon on the broad, clear bosom 

Holy Communion, some to be train- of the great " Fresh-Water Sea." 

ed in the duties of catechists, and For seventeen days their frail canoes 

others, like Joseph Chihatenhwa, to glided through the multitude of little 

make a spiritual retreat. islands that stud the water from the 

But now a new enterprise for the Huron promontory. They reached 
Gospel drew Father Jogues away without accident the strait where 
from St. Mary's. This was to plant Superior empties its waters into the 
the cross in the region now com- lower lakes, and then they encounter- 
prising the state of Michigan. The ed Indians assembled to the number 
missionaries knew that beyond the of two thousand. From these they 
Huron Lake another vast expanse learned of innumerable wild and 
of water lay which never yet had warlike tribes stretching far to the 
been visited by them. The strait west and south. Here, too, their 
which connected the two lakes had eager ears were feasted with tidings 
formerly been known by the name of a mighty river rolling towards 
of Gaston, and was supposed to have the south till it met the sea, whose 
been once visited by Nicholet, but shores were lined with numberless 
no intercourse ever subsisted between tribes and nations. Planting the 
the French and the tribes of those cross at Sault St. Mary's, the two 
regions. In the summer of 1641, fathers turned it hopefully and pro- 
numerous delegations from all the phetically towards this great mys- 
nations and tribes, scattered over a terious river, whose vast and teem- 
great expanse of country, were at- ing valley they thus took possession 
tracted to the " Feast of the Dead." of in the name of the Prince of 
now to be given by the Algonquins. Peace. Having opened the way 

Thus, on the present occasion, the to this immense mission-field by their 

r. t: nie rous branches of the vast Algon- visit, the two missionaries encourag- 



Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 109 

ed the Sauteux with the prospect of Father Buteux says of him that he 
a future permanent mission, and, was " a soul glued to the Blessed 
amidst the regrets of their new Sacrament." His prayers, medita- 
friends, again launched their canoes tions, office, examens of conscience 
and returned to their mission-house in fine, all his devotions were 
at St. Mary's. " Thus," says Bancroft, performed in the little chapel before 
" did the religious zeal of the French the Ho.ly Eucharist. Neither heat, 
bear the cross to the banks of the St. nor cold, nor the swarms of mosqui- 
Mary and the confines of Lake toes, with which the chapel was in- 
Superior, and look wistfully towards fested, could induce him to forego 
the homes of the Sioux in the Valley the society of his Saviour. No won- 
of the Mississippi, five years before der he was attracted thither ; for it 
the New England Eliot had address- was in the little chapel that he was 
ed the tribes of Indians that dwelt not unfrequently favored with hea- 
within six miles of Boston Harbor." venly visitations. It was there, too, 

At St. Mary's, Father Jogues re- that he breathed that heroic prayer, 

mained constantly employed at the whose only petition was that he might 

hospice with Father Duperon in be allowed to bear a portion of his 

instructing and preparing the Indi- Saviour's cross. His prayer was 

ans for the reception of the faith, heard a warning voice fortified his 

One hundred and twenty were bap- soul for the approaching conflict, 

tized during the winter, and among The necessities of the Huron mis- 

these was the famous warrior, Aha- sionaries had now arrived at the 

sistari, a chief of the town of St. point of extreme distress. They 

Joseph's. were reduced to procure the wine 

This brave and chivalrous chief for the altar from the wild grape; 

had been for some time receiving at last, flour to make the sacred host 

instruction in the faith, and he now was wanting for the holy sacrifice, 

came forward to ask for baptism, and the missionaries themselves were 

The fathers at first put him off, in in want of clothes and other neces- 

order that he might become still saries of life. The perilous passage 

better instructed ; but his entreaties through various intervening hostile 

were so earnest, and his appreciation tribes to procure relief from Quebec 

of the Christian truths so intelligent, for the pressing demands of the mis- 

that it was deemed no longer neces- sion must now be undertaken by 

sary or proper to postpone the boon, some one, and Father Jerome Lale- 

He accordingly received the sacra- mant, the superior, selected Father 

ment on Holy Saturday, 1642. Jogues for the task, which, however, 

It has been seen how, at Orleans, at the same time, he permitted him 

the ardent novice of the Society of to accept or decline. His immediate 

Jesus was passionately devoted to preparation to depart showed that he 

the cross, the memento of our Sav- did not hesitate about accepting. To 

iour's Passion. Like S. Peter, his his great joy, the faithful and noble 

heart was still for ever enamored with chief, Eustace Ahasistari, came for- 

the sacred humanity of his divine ward, and offered to become his 

Master. Thus his devotion to the escort and guide. A flotilla of four 

blessed Sacrament was intense, and canoes, bearing the missionary, the 

the Real Presence, the greatest of Christian chief, four Frenchmen, and 

Blessings, made the wilderness of eighteen Hurons, started from St. 

America a paradise to Father Jogues. Mary's on the i3th of June. The voy- 



no Father Isaac J agues ^ S.J. 

agers had to endure the usual por- captive ?" Advancing to the guard 
tages at the rapids, and other hard- of the prisoners, he asked to be made 
ships of such trips; but, by the exer- a captive with them, and their com- 
cise of great care and vigilance, they panion in danger and in death. Well 
reached Quebec without harm from might the Mohawk guard, at the 
the savages. The faithful messenger, sight of such heroism, have been 
[besides procuring books, vestments, scarcely able to believe his senses! 
and sacred vessels, had all things in Well might the historian exclaim, 
readiness by the last day in July, the " When did a Jesuit missionary seek 
feast of S. Ignatius. He stopped to to save his own life, at what he be- 
celebrate the feast of the great foun- lieved to be the risk of a soul?'.'* 
der of his order, in which his com- Father Jogues at once began his 
panions united by approaching the offices of mercy among his fellow- 
sacraments in solemn preparation for captives. He encouraged and con- 
their perilous return. The flotilla, fessed his faithful companion, the 
now increased to twelve canoes, good Rene Goupil; he instructed 
started from Three Rivers on the ist and baptised the Hurons, and as, 
day of August, and at first made slow one after another, they were brought 
progress against the impetuous cur- in prisoners, the priest of God rushed 
rent of the St. Lawrence. They spent to meet and embrace them, and to 
the night on a small island in Lake unite them to the fold of Christ. 
St. Peter, twelve leagues from Three In the meantime, Ahasistari, hav- 
Rivers, and on the second morning ing got beyond the reach of his pur- 
they had not proceeded far when suers, looked round for Ondessonk. 
they discovered suspicious footprints Finding that the black-gown was not 
on the adjacent shore. Nerved by there, the noble chief relinquished 
the dauntless courage of Ahasis- his freedom that he might share in 
tari, they pushed on, and had not the captivity of the father, whom 
advanced a league when suddenly a he had promised never to abandon, 
volley from a Mohawk ambush rid- While Father Jogues was engaged 
died their bark canoes. Panic-struck, in ministering to the prisoners, the 
the Hurons, whose canoes were near voice of Ahasistari struck upon his 
the shore, fled in all directions. Only astonished ears. " I made a vow to 
fourteen rallied round the gallant thee that I would share thy fortunes, 
Ahasistari, who had now to oppose whether death or life. Brother, here 
a force of twice his numbers. The I am to keep my vow." Also a 
Mohawks, armed with fire-arms, and young Frenchman, one of those 
reinforced from the other shore, over- donnes who accompanied and aided 
powered the Hurons, who broke and the missionaries, returned to join the 
fled. Father Jogues, ever mindful prisoners with the same exalted mo- 
of his sacred calling, in the heat of tive ; and, as Father Jogues tencler- 
the attack calmly stopped to take up ly embraced him, all bleeding and 
water for the baptism of his pilot, mangled as he was, the savages 
who was the only unbaptized Indian could not restrain their fury. Rush- 
in his canoe. Seeing himself almost ing upon the father, they beat him 
alone, he made to the shore ; but he with their fists and clubs till he fell 
did not attempt to escape, which he senseless to the ground. Then, seiz- 
might easily have done. " Could I," ing his hands, they tore out most of 
he says, " a minister of Christ, for- 
sake the dying, the wounded, the * Bancroft. 



Father Isaac Jogues ^ S.J. 



ill 



his nails with their teeth, and inflicted 
upon him the exquisite torture of 
crunching his fingers, especially the 
two forefingers. But these tortures 
were only the first outbursts of sav- 
age rage and cruelty, the forerunners 
of more cruel ones in reserve. 

The time consumed in collecting 
the prisoners, dividing the booty, 
and preparing for retreat enabled 
Father Jogues to complete the in- 
struction and baptism of the remain- 
ing prisoners. 

On Lake Champlain, another Mo- 
hawk war-fleet met the flotilla, and, 
drawing up on an island, the new- 
comers prepared to receive their 
countrymen and the prisoners. They 
erected a scaffold on the highest 
point of land for the prisoners ; then 
offering thanks to the sun as the 
genius of war, they lined the shore, 
and welcomed the conquering fleet 
with a salute of firearms. The num- 
ber of savages on the new flotilla 
was about two hundred, and, as their 
native superstition taught them that 
their success in war would be pro- 
portioned to their cruelty * to the 
prisoners, sad indeed was the fate of 
the latter. Father Jogues closed the 
line of prisoners as they marched up 
to the scaffold, and so terrific was 
the shower of blows that assailed 
him that he fell exhausted to the 
ground : " God alone," he exclaims 
" God alone, for whose love and 
glory it is sweet to suffer, can tell 
what cruelties they wreaked upon 
me then." Unable to proceed, he 
was dragged to the scaffold, when, 
on reviving, he suffered the ordeal 
of fire and steel. His closing wounds 
were reopened, his remaining nails 
were torn from their sockets, and the 
bones forced through the crushed 
fingers. Twice one of his tormen- 
tors rushed to cut off his nose a 
certain prelude of death to follow 
and was twice restrained by some 



invisible, some providential power. 
Falling repeatedly to the ground, the 
blazing brands and burning calumets 
forced him to rise. Thus tortured 
and fainting, the paternal eyes of 
Jogues still possessed tears of tender- 
est sympathy to shed for the suffer- 
ings of his fellow-captive, Aha- 
sistari, who, amidst his own suffer- 
ings, cried aloud in praise of the 
father's courage and love of his chil- 
dren. The night was spent without 
food, and in the morning the voyage 
was resumed. While passing over 
the lake, again they met a Mohawk 
fleet, and again the victorious Mo- 
hawks must honor their countrymen 
by fresh tortures of the prisoners. 
On the next day, the ninth of the 
captivity, the flotilla reached the ex- 
tremity of the lake, where the entire 
party landed. The prisoners, weaken- 
ed and suffering with wounds and 
hunger, were now loaded with all the 
luggage, and, in this plight, forced to 
commence a four days' journey by 
land. Some berries, gathered- on the 
wayside, constituted their only food, 
and the exhausted father narrowly 
escaped being drowned in crossing 
the first river. On the eve of the 
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, 
they reached the river near the Mo- 
hawk village. Here again the cap- 
tives became the objects of cruel 
tortures for the amusement of the 
crowds swarming from the settle- 
ment to see them. " And as he ran 
the gauntlet, Jogues comforted him- 
self with a vision of the glory of the 
Queen of Heaven,"* for it was the 
eve of her glorious Assumption into 
Heaven. Some Hurons, who met 
them at the river, exclaimed in com- 
passion, " Frenchmen, you are dead !" 
Before going up to the- village, Fa- 
ther Jogues was again cruelly beaten 
with clubs and sticks, especially on 

* Bancroft. 



112 



Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 



the head, which by its baldness ex- 
cited the derision of the savages. 
Two remaining finger-nails, which 
had escaped their impatient cruelty 
before, were now torn out with the 
roots. " Conscious that, if we with- 
drew ourselves from the number of 
the scourged, we withdrew from that 
of the children of God, we cheerfully 
presented ourselves," were the words 
of the martyr himself, relating how 
he advanced to receive new tortures. 

The line of march was formed for 
the village, Father Jogues" closing as 
before the procession. Again the 
scaffold was erected, again the heroic 
band ran the gauntlet in marching 
to the scaffold hill, and the signal 
for the tortures to begin was given 
by a chief, who struck each captive 
three times on the back with a club. 
An old man approached Father 
Jogues, and compelled an aged cap- 
tive woman to sever his left thumb 
from his hand with a dull knife. 
Long and various were the tortures 
which Father Joques and his com- 
panions now endured, and though 
exhausted from the loss of blood, he 
consoled them in their sufferings. 
As night approached, the prisoners 
were tied to stakes driven in the 
ground, and thus exposed to the 
maltreatment of the children, who 
threw burning coals upon them, 
" which hissed and burned in the 
writhing flesh, till they were extin- 
guished there." * 

On the following day the prisoners 
were led forth half naked through 
the broiling sun, to be exhibited and 
tortured in all the Mohawk towns. 
At the second village the same tor- 
tures were endured as at the first. 
On entering the last town the heart 
of Father Jogues was melted at the 
sight of a fresh band of Huron pri- 
soners just brought in. Forgetting 

*Shea 



his own captivity and sufferings, he 
approached the captives with every 
expression of sympathy and kind- 
ness : he could not release their 
bodies from bondage, but he offered 
to their immortal souls the freedom 
of the Gospel. There was no water 
at hand with which to baptize these 
devoted captives ; when, lo ! the dews 
of heaven were supplied. An In- 
dian at that anxious moment passed 
by with Indian corn, and threw a 
stalk at the father's feet. As the 
freshly cut plant passed through the 
sunlight, dew-drops upon the blades 
were revealed to the eager eyes of 
the missionary, who, gathering the 
precious drops into his hands, bap- 
tized two Hurons on the spot. A 
little brook they afterwards crossed 
supplied the saving water for the 
others. 

In this town, also, the tortures were 
repeated with many horrid addi- 
tions. Father Jogues, ever tender 
and sympathetic for the sufferings of 
his converts, was compelled to look 
on, and see the fingers of one of his 
Hurons nearly sawed off with a 
rough shell, and then violently torn 
off with the sinews uncut. Father 
Jogues and his companion Rene 
Goupil were led to a cabin and or- 
dered to sing. Availing themselves 
of the command, they devoutly 
chanted the Psalms of David. They 
were burned in several parts of their 
bodies. Then two poles were erect- 
ed in the air, in the form of a cross, 
and Father Joques was tied to it by 
cords of twisted bark, thus throwing 
the whole weight of his body upon 
his wounded and lacerated arms. 
He asked to be released in mercy, in 
order that he might prepare for 
death, which he thought would re- 
sult from his tortures, but this was 
refused him. Begging pardon of 
God for having made such a request, 
he had already resigned himself to 



FatJier Isaac Jogucs, S.J. 113 

the mercies of heaven, when sudden- hawks. The master of the cabin on 
ly an Indian in the crowd, touched seeing this ordered a young brave to 
with compassion, rushed forward and put Rene to death; that order was 
cut the cords that bound him to the afterwards obeyed, 
cross. During the night he was After the death of Rene, Father 
again tied to a stake driven in the Jogues remained among the Mo- 
ground, and his sufferings were pro- hawks, the sole object of their bar- 
longed without relief till morning, barous cruelty and superstitious ha- 
On the following day the prisoners tred. Amidst the countless suffer- 
were carried back to the second town ings he endured, his consolation con- 
they had entered. Here the coun- sisted in prayer and visits of religion 
cil decided to spare the lives of the to the Huron prisoners. In his pov- 
French for the present, and to put erty he was rich in the possession of 
the Hurons to death. a volume containing one of the Epis- 

Father Jogues and Rene Goupil ties of S. Paul, and an indulgenced 

lingered in suffering, and almost at picture of S. Bruno. These, his only 

the point of death, for three weeks, possessions, he carried always about 

at Gandawague, now Caughnawaga, his person. 

in New York. The Mohawks had In the fall, he was obliged to ac- 
concluded to send them back when company the tribe as a slave on a 
convenient to Three Rivers. In the grand hunt, and then for two months 
meantime, the Dutch settlers in New inconceivable hardships and labors 
Netherland, who were allies of the were his constant lot. When the 
Mohawks, heard that their Iroquois chase was unproductive, he was ac- 
neighbors and friends had taken cused as the demon of their ill sue- 
some European prisoners. These cess. When sacrifice was offered to 
generous Dutch, headed by their the god Aireskoi, he refused to eat 
minister, the worthy Dominie Me- any of the food of the idolatrous sac- 
gapolensis, took the matter in hand, rifice, and was thereupon repulsed and 
and raised six hundred guilders for avoided as polluted and polluting ; 
the. ransom of the French prisoners, and every door was closed against 
Accordingly Arendt Curler set out him, food was denied him, and a shel- 
with this sum, accompanied by two ter refused. After performing the 
burghers from Rensselaerswyck, menial and oppressive labors which 
now Albany, for the Mohawk cas- they imposed upon him, he retired at 
ties. The treaty between the Dutch night to his little oratory, with its 
and the Mohawks was renewed, but roof of bark and floor of snow, to 
neither money nor diplomacy could commune with his Heavenly Father, 
move the chiefs to deliver up the his only friend ; even to that sacred 
prisoners, whose importance they be- spot, the arrows, clubs, and once 
gan now to perceive from the effort the tomahawk, of his persecutors fol- 
made for their release. All that the lowed him. He was finally sent 
Dutcli could obtain was a promise to back to the village, loaded with veni- 
send them back to Three Rivers. son, over a frozen country, thirty 

Afterwards, divisions arose among leagues in extent, and almost per- 

the savages as to what disposition ished of cold on the way. But even 

should be made of Father Jogues and such a journey possessed its consola- 

Rene. In the meantime their lives tions; for on the way, by an act of 

were suspended upon the capricious heroism, he saved an Indian woman 

humors and passions of the cruel Mo- and her infant from drowning, 
VOL. xvi. S 



114 FatJier Isaac Jogucs, S.J. 

as the infant was on the point of ex- hands of an invisible Protector. A 

piring from its exposure and injuries, generous Indian matron adopted 

he poured the waters of regeneration him as her son, in the place of her 

on its head, and saved another soul own son she had just lost; and now, 

for heaven. when he mingled with the Mohawks 

On arriving at the village, he was as their brother, he spoke to them 
ordered to return over the same road of God, heaven, eternity, and hell. 
to the hunting-ground, but his re- Though he convinced them that his 
peated falls on the ice compelled words were true, they were too much 
him to abandon the journey and re- wedded to their idols to yield to the 
turn to the village, to endure equal grace of conversion. On one occa- 
torments there. Obliged to become sion he was led out to be sacrificed 
the nurse of one of the most in- to the manes of the braves who had 
veterate of his enemies, who was gone on a war party, and, not having 
lying devoured by a loathsome dis- returned, were supposed to be lost ; 
ease, the good Samaritan entered up- but before the ceremony proceeded 
on his task as a work of love, and for too far, the warriors returned just in 
an entire month bestowed the most time to save his life. They brought 
tender care and sympathetic attention with them some Abnaki prisoners 
upon his patient. In the spring of whom they destined for the stake. 
1643, he was compelled to accom- Father Jogues secured the services 
pany a fishing party to a lake four of an interpreter, instructed them in 
days' journey off, when he suffered the faith, and succeeded in convert- 
over again the cruelties of the recent ing several of them, whom he bap- 
hunt. On the lake shore, as on the tized at Easter. 

hunting-grounds, his cross and little It was shortly after this that 
oratory of fir branches were his only Father Jogues was compelled to 
consolations. His mode of life in witness the horrid spectacle of hu- 
these wildernesses is thus described man sacrifice offered to the denion 
by Bancroft : " On a hill apart he Aireskoi. How wonderful are the 
carved a long cross on a tree, and ways of divine Providence ! for it 
there, in the solitude, meditated the was in the midst of this act, the low- 
imitation of Christ, and soothed his est point in the scale of human de- 
grief by reflecting that he alone, in gradation and of insult to God, that 
that vast region, adored the true a human soul is regenerated by one 
God of earth and heaven. Roaming of the Christian sacraments, and that 
through the stately forests of the soul is the victim itself of the super- 
Mohawk Valley, he wrote the name stitious rite. A woman was chosen 
of Jesus on the bark of trees, graved for the victim, and was tied to the 
the cross, and entered into possession stake. The savages formed a line, 
of these countries in the name of God and as they approached the stake 
often lifting up his voice in a soli- each one did his share in burning, 
tary chant." cutting, or otherwise torturing the 

Repeatedly during this period was unhappy victim. Father Jogues 

the murderous tomahawk suspended had previously instructed the wo- 

over his head; and twice was he man. He took no part, of course, 

selected to be sacrificed to the manes in this awful and wicked sacrifice, 

of some Indian warrior who had but he availed himself of an oppor- 

gone on the hunt and had not re- tunity to press forward in the crowd, 

turned. But his life was in the and as the victim bowed to receive 



y at her Isaac Jognes, S.J. 115 

the sacrament from his hands, the benefactor with a burst of gratitude 
missionary poured the baptismal and sympathy. Unable to reward him 
waters on her head, in the midst of with worldly goods or temporal relief, 
the raging flames of the heathen the father instructed him in the truths 
sacrifice. of eternal life, bestowed upon the 
An effort was now made by his willing convert the treasure of the 
friends in Canada to secure the re- faith, and shortly before his death 
lease of Father Jogues. Some sealed all with the sacrament of bap- 
braves of the Sokoki tribe, living on tism. 

the Connecticut, had been captured After his return to the village he 
by the Algonquins, and were now was rushed upon one day by an in- 
led forth for torture. The French furiated savage, whose club laid him 
governor procured their liberation, almost lifeless on the ground. Every 
committed them to the care of the day he was thus exposed to some 
hospital nuns, and, after their wounds imminent peril. His life was sus- 
were healed, sent them back to their pended upon the merest chance or 
own country, with a request that savage caprice or passion. The 
they would induce their tribe to send good old woman who had adopted 
an embassy to their allies the him, and whom he called his aunt, t 
Mohawks to intercede for the relief was his only friend in that vast re- 
of Father Jogues. The embassy gion. She advised him to make his 
was accordingly sent, the Mohawks escape, but he believed it to be the 
lit their council fires, the Sokoki pre- will of God that he should remain 
sents were accepted, but the main there. 

question was parried, and finally the In August, 1643, he had to ac- 
old promise to send him back to company a portion of the tribe on a 
Three Rivers was the only result, hunting and fishing party, during 
Perceiving now more than ever the which he visited for the second time 
dignity and importance of their pri- the Dutch at Rensselaerswyck, the 
soner, the Mohawks led him forth present city of Albany. The inhabit- 
in triumph to show their allies that ants again made a generous effort to 
even the powerful French nation was secure the liberation of Father Jogues, 
tributary to the Iroquois. This but their appeal to the savage Mo- 
cruel journey, two hundred and hawk was in vain. It was here, too, 
fifty miles long, was over a rug- amid the dangers and distractions 
ged and barren country, and many that encompassed him at Rensselaers- 
were the sufferings our mission- wyck, that he produced that beau- 
ary had to endure. Yet this jour- tiful monument of taste and learn- 
ney was not without its peculiar ing, as well as of apostolic zeal and 
consolations to Father Jogues. On love, the relation of his captivity and 
one occasion he baptized five dying sufferings to his superior, which has 
infants ; and as he passed through been so greatly admired for its pure 
the cabins in search of souls, he heard and classic Latin. In this letter, he 
the voice of a former benefactor, the says : " I have baptized seventy 
Indian who had so generously cut since my captivity, children, and 
loose the cords that bound him to youth, and old men of five different 
the cross of logs hoisted in the air in tongues and nations, that men of 
the village of Tinniontiogen, crying every tribe, and tongue, and nation, 
to him from his bed of misery and might stand in the presence of the 
death. Father Jogues embraced his Lamb." 



Father Isaac jfogucs, S.J. 



While engaged in helping the Iro- 
quois to stretch their nets for fish, he 
heard of more Huron prisoners 
brought to the village, two of whom 
had already expired at the stake im- 
baptized. Obtaining the permission 
of his good aunt who had adopted 
him, he at once dropped the fish- 
nets, and returned to the village in 
order that he might set his net for 
human souls. On his way to the 
village he passed through Rensselaers- 
wyck. Van Curler insisted on his 
making his escape by flight, since 
certain death awaited him at the vil- 
lage, and offered a shelter and a 
passage on board of a ship destined 
first for Virginia and then for Bor- 
deaux or Rochelle. It has already 
"been related that Father Jogues had 
resolved to regard the Mohawk as 
his mission, he therefore hesitated 
to accept the generous offer of the 
Dutch, though inevitable death 
would soon remove him from that 
chosen field. But Van Curler and 
the minister of the settlement, John 
Megapolensis, pressed their appeal 
with such powerful arguments that 
the missionary promised to consider 
it, and asked one night for prayer 
and consultation with his soul and 
with God. After fervent supplica- 
tion for the aid of heaven in deciding 
the matter with impartiality, and 
after much reflection, Father Jogues, 
knowing that if he returned to the 
village death would soon remove him 
from it, and convinced that his re- 
turn to France or Canada would 
prove the only means of founding a 
regular mission in the Mohawk, re- 
solved, to attempt his escape, and 
went in the morning to announce 
his resolution to Van Curler and 
Megapolensis. They then arranged 
together the plan of escape. Re- 
turning to the custody of his guards, 
he accompanied them to their quarters. 
When they all retired at night to 



their barn to rest, the Iroquois slept 
around the father, in order to se- 
cure him closely within, while with- 
out the premises were guarded by 
ferocious watch-dogs. In his first 
attempt early in the night, the dogs 
rushed upon him and tore his leg 
dreadfully with their teeth, and he 
was obliged to return into the barn. 
Towards daybreak a second attempt 
was more successful ; the dogs were 
silen.ced ; the prisoner quietly escap- 
ed over the fence, and ran limping 
and suffering with his lacerated 
limb fully a mile to the river where 
the ship lay. But here he found the 
bark sent by Van Curler for his 
escape lying high and dry and im- 
movable on the beach, and the ves- 
sel was not within hailing distance. 
In these straitened circumstances, 
he had recourse to prayer. In 
making another effort to move the 
bark he seemed to be gifted with 
renewed strength, and soon the boat 
was afloat, and thus he succeeded 
alone in reaching the vessel. He 
was immediately concealed in the 
bottom o/ the hold, and a heavy box 
was placed over the hatch. In the 
filth of this narrow and unventilated 
place he remained two days and 
nights, suffering extremely from his 
wound, from hunger and the noisome 
air. 

Father Jogues was then car- 
ried into the settlement to remain 
until all was quiet and it was time 
to embark. He was confided to the 
care of a man who permitted him to 
be thrust into a miserable loft, where 
he remained six weeks crouched be- 
hind a hogshead as his only shelter, 
with scarcely food sufficient to keep 
him alive, enduring every discomfort, 
and exposed to detection and recap- 
ture by the Iroquois or Mohawks, 
who incessantly haunted the house. . 

After six weeks thus spent, Father 
Jogues, accompanied by the minis- 



Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 117 

ter, Dominie Megapolensis, took the sence to go to his confession. It was 

first boat for New Amsterdam, as the from the latter that he learned that 

city of New York was then called, the English Jesuits had been driven 

The voyage lasted six weeks, during from Maryland by the Puritan rulers 

which Father Jogues became a great of that colony, and had taken refuge 

favorite with all on board. As they in Virginia. 

passed a little island in their route, He remained there three months 
the crew named it in honor of Fa- altogether in the old Dutch colony, 
ther Jogues amid the discharge of Receiving commendatory letters 
cannon, and the Calvinist minister from William Kieft, the governor of 
honored the Jesuit by contributing a New Netherland, he sailed from the 
bottle of wine to the festivities of the majestic harbor of New Amsterdam 
occasion. After an agreeable voy- on the 5th of November, 1643. The 
age, they arrived at New Amster- little vessel possessed no comforts or 
dam. The germ of the present mon- accommodations. The father's only 
ster city consisted then of a little bed was a coil of rope on deck, 
fort garrisoned with sixty men, a where he received severe drenchings 
governor's house, a church, and the from the waves breaking over him. 
houses of four or five hundred men A furious storm drove the vessel in 
scattered over and around the entire on the English coast, near Fal- 
Island of Manhattan. There were mouth, which was then in posses- 
many different sects and nations sion of the king's party : two parlia- 
represented there. The director- mentary cruisers pursued the Dutch 
general told Father Jogues that vessel, but she escaped and anchored 
there were eighteen different Ian- at the wharf. The storm-beaten 
guages spoken on the island. The crew went ashore to enjdjjp^them- 
Jesuit was enthusiastically received selves, leaving only Father Jogues 
at New Amsterdam, for the people and another person on board, when 
turned out in crowds to greet him. the vessel was boarded by robbers, 
One of them, a Polish Lutheran, who pointed a pistol at the mission- 
when he saw the mangled hands of ary's throat and robbed him of his 
Father Jogues, ran and threw him- hat and coat. He appealed to a 
self at his feet to kiss his wounded Frenchman, the master of a collier at 
hands, exclaiming, " O martyr of the wharf, for relief, who took him 
Christ ! O martyr !" So practical, on board his boat, gave him a sail- 
however, were the notions of the old or's hat and coat, all his own pov- 
Dutch inhabitants of the city about erty could spare, and a passage to 
such matters, that they asked the France. In this plight, this cele- 
missionary how much the company brated missionary, whose fame filled 
of New France would pay him for all France, landed on his native 
all he had suffered ! Father Jogues shore on Christmas morning, at a 
made a vigilant search in New Am- point between Brest and St. Pol de 
sterdam for Catholics. He found Leon. 

two : one, a Portuguese woman, with He borrowed a more decent hat 

whom he could not converse, showed and cloak from a peasant near the 

that she still clung to her faith by shore, and hastened to the nearest 

the pious pictures which were hang- chapel, to make his thanksgiving 

ing round her room; the other, an and unite in the glorious solemnity 

Irishman, trading from Virginia, who of Christmas. As it was early he 

availed himself of the father's pre- had the consolation of approaching 



iiS Father Isaac Jogucs, S.J. 

the tribunal of penance, and of re- from which he had just escaped, 
ceiving the Holy Eucharist, for the The superior consented ; but an ob- 
first time in sixteen months. The stacle here presented itself. So great 
touching story of his captivity and were the injuries inflicted upon his 
sufferings among the savages sub- hands by the Mohawks that he was 
dued their hearts and drew floods of canonically disqualified from offering 
sympathizing tears from the peas- up the holy sacrifice of the Mass, 
ants whose hospitality he shared. Application for the proper dispensa- 
They offered him all they had to for- tion was made to the Sovereign Pon- 
ward him on his journey. A good tiff, upon a statement of the facts, 
merchant of Rennes, then passing on Innocent XI. was moved by the re- 
his way, heard the thrilling incidents cital, and, with an inspired energy, 
he related, and saw his mangled exclaimed, " Indignum esse Christi 
hands : touched with compassion, he martyrem, Christi non bibcre san- 
took the missionary under his care, guinem " " It were unjust that a 
and paid his expenses to Rennes, martyr of Christ should not drink the 
where he arrived on the eve of the blood of Christ !" Pronounced by 
Epiphany. He went to the college the Vicar of Christ on earth to be a 
of his order in that city, and as soon martyr, though living, he now goes 
as it was known that he was from to seek a double martyrdom in death. 
Canada, all the members of the In the spring he started for Rochelle, 
community gathered round him to and F. Ducreux, the historian of 
ask him if he knew Father Jogues, Canada, sought the honor of accom- 
and whether he was yet alive and in panying him thither, 
captivity. He then disclosed his He embarked from Rochelle for 
name, and showed the marks of his Canada, where he arrived on the 
sufferings; all then pressed forward i6th May, 1644. He found the 
to embrace their saintly brother, and Iroquois war still raging with tin- 
kiss his glorious wounds. abated fury, and the colony of New 
He reposed for a few days at the France reduced to the verge of ruin, 
college at Rennes, and then pushed When his brethren in Canada heard 
on towards Paris, to place himself and saw how cruelly Father Jogues 
again at the disposal of his superior, had been treated in the Mohawk, 
humbly and modestly intimating a and that his timely flight alone had 
desire, however, to be sent back to saved his life, they felt the saddest 
his mission in America. His fame apprehensions about the fate of Fa- 
had long preceded him, and, when ther Bressani, who had also fallen 
he arrived at the capital, the faithful into the hands of the Iroquois. Find- 
pressed forward in crowds to vene- ing it impossible to return to Lake 
rate him and kiss his wounds. The Huron, Father Jogues joined Father 
pious queen-mother coveted the same Buteux in the duties of the holy 
happiness, and he, whom we saw so ministry at the new town of Mont- 
recently the captive and slave of real, to which its founders gave the 
brutal savages, is now honored at name of the City of Mary, in conse- 
the court of the first capital of Chris- crating it to the Mother of God. It 
tendom. But the humility of Father was during their sojourn together 
Jogues took alarm at the honors paid that the superior endeavored to draw 
to him. Throwing himself at his from Father Jogues, by entreaty, and 
superior's feet, he entreated that he even by command, the circumstances 
might be sent back to the wilderness of his sufferings in captivity ; but his 



Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 119 

\ 

humility and modesty were so great enemies or swallowed up in the 
that it was with the greatest difficulty waves. The Mohawk never intended 
that anything concerning himself to put them to death." 
could be drawn from him. In this The French had little faith in the 
spirit he avoided all the honors that sincerity of the Mohawk, yet they 
were pressed upon him. After his wanted peace. The past was for- 
return to Canada, he was so desirous given, the missionaries buried the re- 
of being unknown and unhonored membrance of their wrongs with the 
that he ceased signing his name, and hatchet of the Mohawk, and peace 
even his letters which he addressed was concluded. The deputies re- 
to his superior after his return to turned to their castles to get the 
Canada are without signatures. sachems to ratify the peace, and 
Some Mohawk prisoners, kindly Father Jogues to Montreal to pre- 
treated by the Governor of Canada pare himself for the terrible ordeal 
and released, returned to their coun- which he foresaw a Mohawk mis- 
try, and disposed the Mohawks to sion would open to him. His pre- 
make "peace. A solemn deputation paration consisted in prayer, medi- 
of their chiefs came to Three Rivers, tations, and other spiritual exercises, 
and were received on the i2th of The peace was ratified ; the Indians 
July, 1645, with great ceremony and asked for missionaries; the French 
pomp. Father Jogues was present, resolved to open a mission among 
though unseen by the deputies; so them, and Father Jogues was selected 
was Father Bressani, who, having for the perilous enterprise. When 
passed the ordeal of a most cruel he received the letter of his superior 
captivity among the Mohawks, had informing him of his selection, Father 
been ransomed by the Dutch of New Jogues joyfully accepted -the appoint- 
York, sent to France, and had now, ment, and prepared at once to de- 
like Father Jogues, returned to New part. His letter in reply to the supe- 
France to suffer again. When all rior contains these heroic words: 
was silent, the orator of the deputies " Yes, father, I will all that God wills, 
arose, and opened the session with and I will it at the peril of a thousand 
the usual march and chants. He lives. Oh ! how I should regret the 
explained, as he proceeded to deliver loss of so glorious an occasion, when 
the presents, the meaning of each, it depends but upon me that some 
Belt after belt of wampum was souls may be saved. I hope that 
thrown at the governor's feet, until . his goodness, which did not forsake 
at last he held forth one in his hand, me in the hour of need, will aid me 
beautifully decorated with the shell- yet. He and I are able yet to over- 
work of the Mohawk Valley. "This," come all the difficulties which can 
he exclaimed, " is for the two black- oppose our project." 
gowns. We wished to bring them On arriving at Three Rivers, he 
both back ; but we have not been ascertained that he and the Sieur 
able to accomplish our design. One Bourdon were to go to the Mohawk 
escaped from our hands in spite of castle, in the first instance, merely as 
us, and the other absolutely desired ambassadors, to make sure of the 
to be given up to the Dutch. We peace. They departed on this dan- 
yielded to his desire. We regret not gerous embassy on the i6th of May, 
their being free, but our ignorance of* 1646, and during their absence pub- 
their fate. Perhaps even now that I lie prayers, offered for their return, 
name them they are victims of cruel testified the fears felt for their safety. 



I2O Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 

As they were about to start, an which his fathers had so unfortunately 

Algonquin thus addressed Father left. 

Jogues : " There is nothing more After a short repose at Albany, 
repulsive at first than this doctrine, they proceeded to the Mohawk, and 
that seems to annihilate all that man arrived at the nearest town on the 
holds dearest, and as your long gown 7*h f June. A general assembly of 
preaches it as much as your lips, you the chiefs was called to ratify the 
would do better to go at first in a peace, and crowds came from all 
short one." Thereupon the prudent sides; some through curiosity to see, 
ambassador parted for the time with and others with a desire to honor, 
the habit of his order, and substi- the untiring and self-sacrificing On- 
tuted a more diplomatic costume. dessonk. Father Jogues made a 
They were accompanied by four speech appropriate to the occasion 
Mohawks and two Algonquins. After and the purposes of his visits, which 
ascending the Sorel, and gliding the assembled chiefs heard with great 
through the beautiful islands of Lake enthusiasm; presents were exchanged, 
Champlain, they arrived at the port- and peace was finally and absolutely 
age leading to the Lake Andiataroct6 ratified. The Wolf family in partic- 
on the 2Qth of May, which was the ular, being that in which Father 
eve of Corpus Christi. Here Father Jogues had been adopted, exclaimed, 
Jogues paused, and named the lake " The French shall always find among 
Saint Sacrament; but by a less Chris- us friendly hearts and an open cabin, 
tian taste that beautiful name, given and thou, Ondessonk, shalt always 
in honor of the King of kings, has have a mat to lie on and fire to keep 
since yielded to one given in honor thee warm." Father Jogues endeav- 
of one of the kings of earth.* They ored to impress favorably the repre- 
suffered greatly for food on the way, sentatives of other tribes who were 
but obtained a supply of provisions there by presents and friendly words, 
at Ossarane, a fishing station on the Then remembering his sacred char- 
Hudson, supposed to be Saratoga, acter as a minister of God, he visited 
Then, gliding down the Hudson, they and consoled the Huron captives, 
came- to Fort Orange, where Father especially the sick and dying; he 
Jogues again, in the most earnest heard the confessions of some, and 
and sincere terms, expressed his deep baptized several expiring infants, 
gratitude to his liberators, the Dutch, Before departing Father Jogues de- 
whose outlay in his behalf he had sired to leave behind his box con- 
already reimbursed to them from taining articles most necessary for 
Europe. Not satisfied with express- the mission, which he was soon to 
ing his thanks, Father Jogues endea- return and commence among them ; 
vored to bestow upon his -friend, the Mohawks, however, dreading 
Dominie Megapolensis, the greatest some evil from the box, objected at 
of possible returns the true faith, first, but the father opened it, and 
He wrote from this place a letter to showed them all it contained, and 
the minister, in which he used every finally, as he supposed, overcame 
argument that his well-stored mind their superstitious fears, and the box 
or the unbounded charity of his was left behind among them, 
heart could suggest to reclaim him The ambassadors and their suite 
to the bosom of that ancient church 'set out on their return, on the i6th 

of June, bearing their baggage on 

* Lake George. their backs. They also constructed 



! 



Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 12 1 

their own canoes at Lake Superior, ahawk, and the Christian martyr fell 

and, having crossed the lake in lifeless to the ground. The gener- 

safety, arrived at Three Rivers, after ous Kiotsaeton, who had just arrived 

a passage of thirteen days, on the as a deputy of a council called to 

feast of SS. Peter and Paul, to the decide on his case, rushed to save 

infinite joy and relief of all their him, but the blade had done its work, 

friends. and now spent its remaining force by 

On the 28th day of September, inflicting a deep wound in the arm 

Father Joques was on his way to the of that noble chief. The head of 

Mohawk, accompanied by Lalande, Father Jogues was severed from his 

a young Frenchman from Dieppe, body, and raised upon the palisade, 

an Iroquois of Huron birth, and The next day the faithful Lalande, 

some* other Hurons. As they ad- and a no less faithful Huron, shared 

vanced, tidings of war on the part of the same fate. 

the Mohawks became more frequent, Father Jogues was in his fortieth 
and the Indian escorts began to de- year when he received the fatal 
sert. They passed Lake Champlain stroke. When the tidings of his 
in safety, and had advanced within death arrived, every tongue in Cana- 
two days' journey of the Mohawk da and in France was zealous in the 
when a war-party, marching on Fort recital of his many virtues, and in 
Richelieu, came upon them. The praise of his glorious death. His 
savages rushed upon them, stripped zeal for the faith, his courage in dan- 
Father Jogues and Lalande of their ger, his humility, his love of prayer 
effects, bound them as prisoners, and and suffering, his devotion to the 
turning back led them to the village cross, were conspicuous among the 
of Gandawague,* the scene of Father many exalted virtues that adorned 
Jogues' first captivity and sufferings, his life and death. While his breth- 
Here they were received with a ren lamented the loss the missions 
shower of blows, amid loud cries for had sustained, they envied him the 
their heads, that they might be set up crown he had won. " We could 
on the palisades. not," says Father Ragueneau, " bring 

Towards evening, on the i8th of ourselves to offer for Father Jogues 

October, some of the savages of the the prayers for the dead. We offered 

Bear family came and invited Father up the adorable sacrifice, indeed, but 

Jogues to sup in their cabin. Scarce- it was in thanksgiving for the favors 

ly had the shadow of the black-gown which he had received from God. 

darkened the entrance of their lodge, The. laity and the religious houses 

when a concealed arm struck a well- here partook our sentiments as to 

aimed blow with the murderous torn- this happy death, and more are 

found to invoke his memory than 

* Caughnawaga. there are to pray for his repose.' 1 ' 



122 



Dona Ramona. 



DONA RAMONA. 



FROM THE SPANISH. 



IN an empire whose name history 
has failed to record, there lived in a 
miserable stable a poor laborer and 
his wife. Juan and Ramona were 
their names, though Juan was bet- 
ter known by the nickname " Under 
present circumstances," which they 
gave him because in season or out 
of season that phrase was continual- 
ly dropping from his lips. Juan and 
Ramona were so wretchedly poor 
that they would have had no roof to 
cover them unless a laborer of the 
province of Micomican had taken 
pity upon them, and given them a 
hut to live in, which in other days 
had served as a stable, and was now 
his property. 

" We are badly enough off in a 
stable," said Juan : " but we ought to 
conform ourselves with our lot, since 
under present circumstances God, 
though he was God, lived in a stable 
when he made himself man." 

" You are right," replied Ramona. 

So both worked away, if not hap- 
py, at least resigned Juan in going 
out day after day to gain his daily 
reward of a couple of small pieces 
of money, and Ramona in taking 
care of the house, if house be a pro- 
per term to apply to a stable. 

The emperor was very fond of 
living in the country, and had many 
palaces of different kinds in the 
province of Micomican. One day 
Juan was working in a kitchen gar- 
den near the road, when far away he 
saw the carriage of the emperor 
coming at a rate almost equal to that 
of a soul that the devil was trying to 
carry off. 



" I'll bet you," said Juan, " that 
the horses have escaped from his 
majesty, and some misfortune is go- 
ing to happen ! It would be a great 
pity, for under present circumstances 
an emperor is worth an empire." 

Juan was not mistaken. The em- 
peror's horses had escaped, and the 
emperor was yelling : 

" God take pity on me ! I'm go- 
ing to break my neck over one of 
those precipices ! Isn't there a son 
of a gun to save me ? To whoever 
throws himself at the head of these 
confounded horses, I'll give what- 
ever he asks, though it be the very 
shirt on my back." 

But no one dared throw him- 
self at the horses' heads ; for they 
tore along at such a furious rate 
that to rush at them was to rush into 
eternity. 

Juan, enraged at the cowardice of 
the other workmen, and moved by 
his love for the emperor as well as 
his natural propensity to do good 
without looking at the person to 
whom he did it, threw himself at the 
horses' heads, and succeeded in stop- 
ping the coach, to the admiration of 
the emperor himself, who at that 
moment would not have given a 
brass farthing for his life. 

" Ask whatever you like," said the 
emperor to him, " for everything 
appears to me small as a recompense 
to the man who has rendered me so 
signal a service." 

" Sire !" said Juan to him, " I, un- 
der present circumstances, am a poor 
day laborer, and the day that I don't 
gain a couple of pesetas my wife 



Dona Ram on a. 123 

and I have to fast. So, if your "Look here; go and see the em- 
majesty will only assure me my day's peror, and ask him." 
labor whether it rains or whether it " Yes ; now is the time to go on 
is fine weather, my wife and I will such an errand ! " 
sing our lives away in happiness, for " Go you shall, and quickly, too !" 
we are people content with very lit- " But, woman, don't get angry, 
tie." My goodness ! what a temper you 

" That's pretty clear. Well, go have ! Well, well ; I will go, and 

along, it's granted. The day that God grant his majesty does not send 

you have nothing to do anywhere me off with a flea in my ear, 

else, go to one of my palaces, which- although, under present circum- 

ever you like, and occupy yourself stances, he is a very open-hearted, 

there in whatever way you please." outspoken gentleman." 

" Thank you, sire !" Well, Juan set out for the palace 

"What! No ; no reason for thanks, of the emperor; and the emperor 

man. That is a mere nothing." granted him an audience immedi- 

The emperor went on his road ately on his arrival, 

happy enough, and Juan went on "Hallo, Juan!" said his majesty, 

his, thinking of the great joy he was " What brings you this way, man ?" 

about to give his wife when he re- " Sire !" replied Juan, twirling and 

turned home at night, and told her twirling the hat which he held in his 

that he had his day's work secured hand, " my wife, under present cir- 

for the rest of his life whether it cumstances, is as good as gold ; but, 

rained or was fine weather. you see, the stable that we live in 

In fact, his wife was greatly re- is gone to rack and ruin, and we 

joiced when he carried her the good wish to get it out of our sight. So 

news. They supped, and went to she said to me this morning : ' If 

bed in peace and in the grace of God, your majesty, who is so kind, would 

and Juan slept like one of the bless- only give us a little house, something 

ed ; but Ramona passed the whole better than the one we have, who 

night turning about in the bed like dare sneeze at us then ? ' 

one who has some trouble or desire " Does your wife want nothing 

that will not let him sleep. more than that? Well, it's granted. 

" Do you know what I have been This very moment I will give orders 

thinking the whole night long, Ju- that they place the little white house 

an ?" said Ramona, the following at her disposal. Go into the dining- 

morning. room, and take a mouthful and a 

''What?" drop of something; and, instead of 

" That yesterday you were a fool going afterwards to the stable, go to 

to ask so little from the emperor." the little white house, and there you 

" Indeed ! What more had I to will find your wife already installed." 

ask?" Juan returned thanks to the em- 

"That he would give us a little peror for his latest kindness, and, 

house to live in, something more passing on to the dining-room, filled 

suitable and decent than this wretch- himself with ham and wine, 

ed stable." Our friend commenced his journey 

"You are right, woman; but now home, and, when he arrived at the 

there is no help for it." white house, his wife rushed out to 

" Perhaps there may be." receive him with tears of joy. 

" How ?" And indeed it was very natural 



124 Dona Ramona. 

for poor Ramona to find herself so " What hinders it ? Your stupid- 
merry, for the little white house was ity in asking the emperor so little 
a perfect jewel. It occupied the hinders it." 

summit of a gentle acclivity, whence " In the name of the Father, and 

the whole beauty of the plain was of the Son ! . . . And you still 

spread out before it. A large Mus- think it little that I have ask/d, and 

catel vine covered the whole of the he granted us ?" 

porch, and beneath it there were "Yes, indeed I do. This little 

seats and little plots of pinks and house is so small Jliat one can 

roses. The apartments of the house scarcely turn in it ; and if to-morrow 

were a little drawing-room, very or some other day we have children, 

white, and clean, and pretty, with its what shall we do with them in a hut 

chairs, its cupboard, and its looking- like this ?" 

glass ; an alcove with its bed, so soft " Say what you like about it, there 

and clean and beautiful that the is no help for it now." 

emperor himself might have slept in " Perhaps there may be." 

it; a little kitchen with all its re- "And how, I should like to 

quirements, among which were in- know ?" 

eluded the utensils, which shone like " Going back and seeing his ma- 
gold ; and a little bewitching dining- jesty, and telling him to give us a 
room, with four chairs, a table, and larger house, of course." 
a sideboard. To the dining-room " Go to Jericho, woman. You 
there was a fairy entrance, adorned don't catch me going on an errand 
without by an arc of flowers, and of that kind .!" 

through this entrance you passed " Well, go you shall, then ; or 

into a garden, where there were we'll see who is master here." 

fruits, and flowers, and vegetables, " But, wife, don't you see that 

and a small army of chickens cluck- my very face would drop from ine 

ed ; and every egg they laid was as with shame ?" 

big as Juan's fist. " Now, that's enough of talk on 

When night came on, Juan and the matter. All you have to do is, 

Ramona. took their supper like a run along to the palace as fast as 

couple of princes in their little dining- you can, if you care to have a quiet 

room, and soon after laid them down time of it." 

in their beautiful bed. They both "Well, well; since you wish it, I'll 

slept well, particularly Juan, who go." 

stirred neither hand nor foot the Juan, who did not possess an 

whole night through. ounce of will of his own a thing 

Ramona began to find fault the which is the greatest misfortune that 

very next day, and Juan noticed that can befall a husband who is not 

every night her sleep was more dts- blessed with such a wife as God 

turbed. ordained for him set out once more 

" Woman, what the devil is the mat- on his road towards the palace of 

ter with you, that all night long you are the emperor. 

twisting like a reel ?" asked Juan, one " Indeed," said he to himself, with 

morning. "Why, there are no fleas more fear than shame, " it is very pos- 

here as there were in the stable." sible he will send me down-stairs head 

" Fleas hinder my sleep very little." foremost, because it is only natural 

" Well, then, what hinders it, wo- that this abuse of his good-nature 

?" will prove too much, even for him. 



Dona Ramona. 



125 



And it will serve me right for my 
unfortunate weakness of character." 

Juan's fears were not realized. 
So soon as he sought an audience 
with his majesty it was granted, and 
the emperor asked him, with a smil- 
ing face : 

" How goes it at the little white 
house ?" 

" Not badly, sire !" 
"And your wife, how does she 
find herself there?" 

" Not badly, sire, but your majesty 
knows what the women are. Give 
'em an inch, they'll take an ell. My 
wife, under present circumstances, 
hasn't a flaw in her ; but she says that, 
if to-morrow or the day after we 
have youngsters, we shall all be 
crowded there like bees in a bottle." 
" You are right. So she wants, of 
course, a house a little larger ?" 
" You've just hit it, sire !" 
" Well, turn into the dining-room 
till they give you a snack of some- 
thing; and, instead of returning to 
the white house, go to the Azure 
Palace, where you will find your 
wife installed with the attendance 
befitting those who live in a palace." 
Juan returned the emperor thanks 
for his great goodness, and, after 
stuffing himself till he looked like a 
ball in the dining-room, off he set, as 
happy as could be, to the Azure 
Palace, which was one of those 
that the emperor had in that dis- 
trict. 

The Azure Palace was neither very 
large nor furnished with great 
wealth; but it was very beautiful 
and adorned with becoming ele- 
gance. A servant in livery received 
Juan at the door and conducted him 
to the apartment of the lady. The 
lady was Ramona, whom her maid 
had just finished dressing in one of 
the beautiful robes which she found 
in her new dwelling. Juan could 

* j 

do nothing but open his mouth and 



stare in amazement at seeing his wife 
in such majestic attire. 

Juan and Ramona feared they 
would go mad when they found 
themselves lords of a palace, well 
fitted, elegant, and waited on by 
four servants : namely, a coachman, 
a footman, a maid, and a cook. 

" Take off that clown's dress," said 
Ramona to Juan. "Aren't you 
ashamed to show yourself in such a 
trim before our own servants ?" 

" This is a new start," said Juan, 
astonished at the sally of his wife. 
" So 1, who, under present circum- 
stances, have passed all my life in 
digging the earth, and things even 
worse than that, must feel ashamed 
of the clothes I have worn all my 
life long !" 

" But, you stupid head," replied 
Ramona, " if you have costume cor- 
responding to your rank, why didn't 
you put it on ? " 

" My rank ! . . . Come, this 
woman's head is turned." 

" Juan, go to your apartment and 
change your things, and don't 'try 
my patience so much, for you know 
already that my temper will not 
stand too great a trial." 

"Well, there's no need to put 
yourself out, woman. Here I'm go- 
ing now, said Juan, turning to the 
room from which he saw Ramona 
come out. 

" Blockhead !" said she, catching 
hold of him and showing him 
another room, " this apartment is 
mine, and that is yours." 

" Hallo ! this is another sur- 
prise. So my wife's room is not 
mine also ?" 

"No; that is only among com- 
mon folk ; but in people of our rank, 



no. 



T> 



Juan gave up the dispute, and, 
entering the room which she had 
pointed out as his, found therein a 
wardrobe with a quantity of fine 



126 



Dona Ramona. 



changes befitting a gentleman, and 
came out again transformed into a 
milord. 

There passed fifteen days since 
Juan and Romana came to live in 
the Azure Palace, and Ramona grew 
clay by day more captious, and slept 
less and less every night. 

11 What the deuce ails you ? One 
would think the ants were at you," 
said Juan to her, one morning. 

" What ails me is that I have the 
biggest fool for a husband that ever 
ate bread." 

" Hey for the sweet tempers ! So 
you are not yet content with the 
sweet little fig that your husband 
gathered for you ?" 

" No, sir, I am not. One must be 
a dolt like you to content herself 
with what we have, when we might 
have much more only for the ask- 
ing." 

" But, woman alive, have you lost 
your senses ? Can the emperor 
grant us more than he has granted 
us, or do we need more to make us 
happy ?" 

" Yes, he can give us more, and 
we need it." 

" Explain yourself, and the devil 
take the explanation, for you're go- 
ing to drive me mad with your am- 
bition." 

" Explain myself! I'll explain 
myself, and very clearly, too ; for, 
thank God, there are no hairs on my 
tongue to prevent me speaking to 
anybody, even to the emperor him- 
self. To make you happy, all that is 
wanting is what common folk want 
a good table where you may stuff 
yourself with turkey all the day long ; 
but for us who have higher aims, we 
want something more than chunks 
of meat and wine that would make 
an ox dance a hornpipe. You can 
swell yourself out and look big when 
you walk out here, and hear them 
calling you Don Juan ; but as for 



me, I could eat myself with rage 
when they call me Dona Ramona." 

" Well, and isn't it better for them 
to call us that than Juan and Ramo- 
na, as they used to call us before ? 
What more do you want, woman ?" 

" I want them to call me lady 
marchioness." 

" Have you lost your ears, Ramo- 
na ? Now I tell you, and tell you 
again, that that wicked ambition of 
yours has deprived you of your 
senses." 

" Look here, Juan, you and I are 
not going into disputes and obstina- 
cy. You know me well enough al- 
ready, or if you don't you ought to, 
to be certain that it doesn't take long 
for my nose to itch. I want to be no 
less than the Marchioness of Ra- 
dishe and the Countess of Cabbidge, 
who at every turn fill their mouths 
with their grand titles, and, when 
they meet one, don't seem to have 
time to say with their drawling affec- 
tation, ' Adios, Dona Ramona.' Now, 
since the emperor has told you, 
when you saved his life, that you 
might ask him even for the shirt that 
he had on his back, go and see him, 
and ask him to make us Marquises." 
" Go and ask him if he has a head 
on his shoulders, why don't you say ? 
But there's enough about it. Even 
in fun I don't like to hear such non- 
sense." 

"Juan, don't provoke me; take 
care that I don't send you with a 
flea in your ear." 

" But, woman alive, however much 
of your husband's breeches you may 
wear, could you even imagine that I 
was going to agree to this new start 
of yours ?" 

" I bet you, you will agree." 
" I tell you I am not going again 
to see the emperor." 

" Go you shall, though you have 
to go on your head." 

" But, wife, don't be a fool" 



Dana Ramona. 



127 






"Come, come; less talk, and run 
along." 

" Well, I'm going, then, since you 
are so anxious about it. The saints 
protect me, if I don't deserve to be 
shot for this chicken-hearted weak- 
ness of character !" 

Juan took the road to the court, 
and solicited a new audience with 
the emperor. Though he took it 
for certain that his majesty would 
send him to Old Nick if he did not 
throw him to him over the balcony, 
he found that his majesty was very, 
ready to grant him an audience. 

" Sire, your majesty will pardon 
so many impertinences " he stam- 
mered out, full of shame, when he 
drew near the emperor. 

" Why, man, don't be ashamed and 
a fool," interrupted his majesty kind- 
ly. " Well, how goes it in the Azure 
Palace ?" 

" Beautifully, sire." 

" And how is that little rib of 
yours, eh ?" 

" Who she ? Oh ! very well, un- 
der present circumstances." 

" And content with her lot ? Is 
it not so ?" 

"Well, as for that, sire! Well, 
your majesty knows what the women 
are. Their mouths are like a certain 
place I wouldn't mention before your 
majesty, always open, and there's no 
getting at the bottom of it." 

" Well, and what does the good 
Dona Ramona ask now ?" 

" What, sire ? But there one is 
ashamed to say it." 

" Go on, man ; out with it, and 
don't be bashful. To the man that 
saved my life I'd give anything, even 
the crown I wear." 

" Well, then, sire! She wants to be 
a marchioness." 

" A marchioness ! Is that all ? 
Then from this instant she is the 
Marchioness of Marville." 

" Thank yon, sire." 



"Keep the thanks for your wife; 
and look into the dining-room to see 
if there is anything to lay hands on. 
And when you go back you will find 
your wife already installed in the 
palace belonging to her title, for the 
Azure Palace is not good enough for 
marquises." 

Juan passed into the dining-room, 
and, after running the danger of burst- 
ing, he made his way for the palace 
of Marville. The palace of Mar- 
ville was not such a very great won- 
der as its name might lead one to 
believe ; but, for all that, one might 
very well pass his life in it ! 

A crowd of footmen and porters 
received Juan at the gates of the 
palace, addressing him as my lord 
marquis ; and Juan, for all his mod- 
esty, could not but feel a little inflat- 
ed with such a reception and such a 
title. 

But there was nothing to hold the 
pride of his wife (though one might 
be as big as the bell of Toledo, un- 
der which one day there sat down 
seven tailors an'd a shoemaker) at 
hearing herself called by her maids 
lady marchioness here, and lady 
marchioness there. 

" Well, so you are at last content, 
wife ? " said Juan to her. 

" Yes, of course, I am. And in- 
deed it was very provoking to hear 
one's self called Dona Ramona, 
short like, as though one were only 
the wife of the apothecary or the 
surgeon. You see the truth of what 
I have said ; if one has only to open 
her mouth in order to be a marchion- 
ess, why shouldn't she ? Now you 
see that his majesty did not eat you 
for asking such a reasonable thing." 

"Well, do you know, now, that it 
cost me something to ask it of 
him ?" 

" Ah ! get out of that ; men are 
good for nothing." 

11 But it gave me more courage 



128 Dona Ramona. 

when his majesty said to me : ' Don't " S. Swithin ! what a sleeper!" ex- 
be bashful, man ; for to the man that claimed the marchioness ; and, no 
saved my life I'd give even the longer able to restrain her impa- 
crown I wear.' tience, she gave her husband a tre- 
" Whew ! so he said that to you ? " mendous pinch, and said, " Wake 
" As sure as I'm here." up, brute." 

"Then why didn't you ask him " Oh ! ten thousand d !" yelled 

more ?" the marquis. 

" There we are again ! What " Are you not ashamed to sleep 

more had I to ask ? " so much ?" 

" You are right ; for, as somebody " Ashamed ! of something so nat- 
said, ' there are more days than long ural ? More ashamed should the 
sausages,' and one be who does not sleep, for sleep- 
1 A horse and a friend lessiiess bespeaks an unquiet con- 
NO work can spend.' ' science. What the devil is the mat- 
On the following day the Marquis ter with you that you have not ceas- 
and Machioness of Marville took a ed the whole night from turning and 
turn in their grandest coach, and it twisting about ?" 
was a sight to see how they rolled " Yes, indeed, if one only had a 
along, at every hour in the day, all soul as broad-shouldered as you." 
around those parts, the very wheels " I don't understand you, woman." 
seeming to say envy ! envy ! to the " Well, then, you shall understand 
Marchioness of Radishe and the me, blockhead though you are. 
Countess of Cabbidge. Some little Now, tell me, Juan, an emperor is 
trouble took place on account of the greater than a king ?" 
actions and complaints of the country " Why shouldn't he be ?" 
folk, who prevented them from pass- " That is to say, that emperors can 
ing in their coach over this and that make kings ?" 

road, or by this and that property. " I think so. For instance, sup- 
But the marchioness quite forgot all pose his majesty the emperor wished 
these annoyances when, for ex- to say to us, * Ha, my good friends 
ample, at meeting the wife of the the Marquis and Marchioness of 
apothecary or surgeon, she said to Marville, I convert the province of 
them from her coach wherein she re- Micomican, which belongs to me, 
clined in all her glory, " Adios, Dona into a kingdom, and I make you the 
Fulana," and the other answered her, monarchs of my new kingdom, I 
trotting along on foot, " Good-by, believe nobody could hinder it." 
my lady marchioness." " Very well, then ; I wish his ma- 
After some time the marquis jesty to say and do this at your pe- 
thought he noticed that his wife was tition." 

not perfectly happy, because he The very house seemed to fall 

found her everyday more capricious, atop of Juan at hearing this from his 

and she never slept quietly. wife ; but this latest caprice of Ra- 

One morning, when the day was mona was so absurd that he had 

already advanced, the marquis slept courage to hope in its all being a joke, 

away like a dormouse, and the mar- " Don't you think his majesty 

chioness, who had passed a more would give the person a nice slap in 

restless and sleepless night than ever, the face who was so impudent and 

lay awake at his side impatiently' barefaced as to go to him with such 

waiting for him to awake. a petition as this ?" he said. 



Dona Ramona. 129 

" If you go, he will not ; since he emperor hastened to grant him an 

has said that he cannot deny even audience, and received him with the 

his crown to the man who saved his accustomed smile, 

life. So go along, ducky, hurry and " Well, marquis, what is it ?" he 

see his majesty." asked. 

" But you mean this ?" " What ought it to be, sire ? A 

" Why shouldn't I mean it ? I fresh impertinence." 

have a nice temper for jokes ! I " Come, out with it man, and don't 

want to be queen, in order to let be bashful. Something concerning 

those little folks know their proper the marchioness, eh ?" 

places, who pass their lives in dig- " You've hit it again, sire. These 

ging the earth and eating potatoes, foolish women are never content." 

and have the impudence to dare " Well, what does yours want ?" 

face gentlefolk who condescend to " Nothing, sire. She says, would 

pass wherever they please." it please your majesty to make her 

" Well, well, now it's clear that you queen ?" 

have lost your wits altogether !" " Queen ! nothing more than that ? 

"What you are going to lose, Well, she is queen already, then, 

since you have no wits, is your teeth, Now, go into the dining-room, and 

with a slap in the face, if you don't see if there is anything there you can 

make haste and hurry off to the destroy ; and, instead of returning to 

court." the palace of Marville, go to the 

" I'd lose my head before I'd com-* palace of the Crown, where you will 

init such an absurdity. There. I've find your wife installed as becomes 

given way enough already." the Queen of Micomican." 

" Indeed ! Then from this day for- Juan outdid himself in thanks and 

ward know that you have no longer courtesies, and, after treating himself 

a wife. This is my room, and you in the dining-rooms right royally, 

shall never set foot in it again, nor made his way home. On his arrival 

I in yours." at the palace of the Crown, a salvo 

" But, woman !" of artillery announced his coming. 

" No, no; remember we are strang- The troops were drawn up around 

ers to each other." the palace, where he entered to the 

" Come, don't be obstinate, my sound of the Royal March, and 

own Ramonita." amid the vivas of the people, who 

" Don't I tell you, sir, that all is became mad in the presence of the 

over between us ?" husband of their new sovereign. 

" Now, look here, pigeon." Her Majesty, the Queen Dona 

"Stop your prate !" Ramona the First, was holding a 

"The dev- Well,, come, you levee at the moment when her au- 

shall be satisfied; I will go and see gust spouse arrived at the palace, 

his majesty, and tell him that you and he, seating himself by her side, 

want to be queen, though I know he gave also his royal hand to kiss ; 

will shoot me on the spot." but it was so dirty that as many as 

Ramona bestowed a caress on her kissed it hurried out of the chamber 

husband in reward for his consent, spitting. To be king, it is necessary 

and our good Juari made his way to to keep the hands very clean, 

the court cursing his own foolish The King and Queen of Micomican 

weakness of character. amused themselves mightily during 

Contrary to his expectations, the the first weeks of their reign : so that 
VOL. xvi. 9 



130 



Dona Ramona. 



all was feasting and rejoicing in cele- 
bration of their happy coming to the 
throne. But so soon as the festival 
passed, the Queen Dona Ramona 
began to grow sad and weary. 

The king summoned the chief 
physician of the court, and held a 
deep consultation with him. 

" Man alive," said he to him, " I 
have summoned you in order to see 
what the devil you have to say to me 
touching the sorrow and evil state in 
which I have noticed my august 
spouse to be for some time past. 
She is always turning and twisting 
about in her bed, so that she neither 
sleeps herself nor lets me sleep, and 
the worst part of it is, that every day 
she is sadder, and everything irritates 
and exasperates her." 

" Well, sire, in the first place, we 
must please her in everything and by 
everything." 

" I agree with you there, man ; 
but there are things beyond human 
power. If it rains, she is put out be- 
cause it rains ; if it blows, she is put 
out because it blows; if we are in 
the winter, she is put out because the 
spring has not come, and her mind 
is so turned that she cries out : * I 
command it not to rain,' ' I command 
it not to blow,' ' I command the 
spring to come at once.' Now, you 
see that it is only by being God one 
can secure obedience of orders like 
these. Well, then, to what the deuce 
do you attribute these whims of my 
august spouse ?" 

" Sire, it is very possible that they 
may presage a happy event." 

" Ah, ah ! I take you. Well, to 
-be sure, and I never thought of such 
a thing. And wouldn't it be a joy to 
me and to my august spouse to find 
ourselves with a direct successor ? For, 
if not, there is no use in deluding 
ourselves : the day that we close our 
eyes, in comes civil war, and the 
kingdom is gone to Old Nick." 



So the Queen Dona Ramona re- 
mained watching to see what would 
happen. But months and months 
passed, and the queen grew every 
day sadder and more capricious. 

One day the king decided on in- 
terrogating very seriously the queen 
herself, to see if he might draw from 
her the secret of her sadness and ca- 
priciousness. 

" Well, let us know, now, what the 
deuce is the matter with you," he 
said, " that you neither sleep nor let 
me sleep, and remain for ever like 
the thorn of S. Lucy." 

"I am very unhappy," answered 
the queen, beginning to weep like a 
Magdalen. 

"You unhappy? you who lived 
in a stable as empty and bare as that 
which Our Lord lived in when he 
became man, and under present cir- 
cumstances you find yourself the 
somebody of somebodies, a queen 
clean and complete ? What the 
deuce do you want ?" 

" It is true, I am a queen. But I 
die of sadness when from the throne 
I look back and see nothing of what 
other queens see." 

" Well, and what do other queens 
see ?" 

" For instance, the Queen of Spain 
sees a series of great and glorious 
kings, named Recaredo, Pelayo, San 
Fernando, Alonso the Wise, Isabel 
the Catholic, Ferdinand the Catho- 
lic, Charles V., Philip II., Charles 
III. and those kings had blood of 
hers, and seated themselves on the 
throne, and loved and made great 
the people that she loves and makes 
great." 

" You are right, wife. But yon 
wish to do what is impossible, and 
that God alone can do." 

" Well, then, those impossibilities 
are the very things that tease and 
exasperate me. What is the use of 
being a queen, if even in the most 



Dona Raniona. 131 

just desires one sees herself con- don't say such awful things. God 

strained, and unable to realize them ? can do everything." 

It is a fine afternoon, for instance, Juan thought it would be more 

and I begin to get ready to go prudent to abstain from contradicting 

out for a walk in the palace gardens, his wife any further. So he retired 

but a wretched little cloud appears in and summoned the chief physician 

the sky, as though to say to one, of the court, in order to lay before 

* Don't get ready !' And when one him the new and extraordinary 

wishes to go out, that insolent cloud phase which the ' moral malady of 

begins to pour down water, and one the queen displayed. The physician 

is obliged to remain at home, dis- said that in his long professional 

gusted and fretting. What I want career he had met with cases of men 

is to have power enough to prevent tal aberration even more extraordi- 

a miserable little cloud from laugh- nary than that of the queen; and in- 

ing at me." sisted that, far from contradicting the 

" But, woman, don't I tell you that august invalid, they should comply 

this power God alone can have ? " with her every wish as far as it was 

" Then I want to be God." humanly possible. 

Juan made the sign of the cross The king returned soon after to 

on himself, filled with shame and the chamber of his august spouse, 

horror at hearing his wife give utter- who the moment she saw him be- 

ance to such a thing, whose head came a perfect wasp, 

was undoubtedly turned by the de- " How, sire ?" she exclaimed. " So 

mon of ambition. But he did not you are the first to disobey my or- 

wish 19 exasperate the poor crazed ders?" 

being with lessons which, had she " How disobey ?" 

been in her right senses, she would " Yes, sire ! Did I not tell you 

have deserved. that I want you to go and see the 

" But don't you know, child," he emperor, and implore him to place 

said to her with sweetness, " that the himself in communication with the 

fulfilment of that desire is as impos- Pope in order to see whether be- 

sible as it is foolish ? The emperor tween them they could so manage 

has granted us whatever we have that I might be God ?" 

asked, but what you want now he " Yes, you told me so, but 

cannot grant." " There are no buts for me. How 

" Still, I want you to go and see him, is it that you are not already on the 

and say so to him ; for perhaps be- road to comply with my orders ? 

tween him and the Pope they will be Now, none of your nice little jokes 

able to manage it." with me, if you please you, who are 

" But if there is and never can be no more than the husband of the 

more than one God, how can you be queen and, if you ruffle my feathers, 

made God ?" I'll send you off to be hanged as 

" I have always heard say that soon as look at you." 

God can do everything. If the em- " Come, child, don't be angry, 

peror consults with the Pope, and you shall be obeyed instantly." 

the Pope has recourse to God, then " Remember, none of your pranks, 

you'll see if God, who can do every- now ! And listen : go and tell that 

thing, will disappoint them both." health-killer whom you seem to have 

' But if God cannot ?" made one of your council, that if 

c Hold your tongue, Jew, and you don't go to see the emperor, and 



132 Dona Ramona. 

perform in every point the commis- " She says but pshaw ! One is 

sion which I charge you with, he ashamed to say it. She says to see 

shall serve you as partner in your if your majesty could consult with the 

dance in the air." Pope, and between you manage to 

The king withdrew ; and when he make her God." 

reported to the chief physician what " Eh ! That is a greater request, 

his wife had Just said to him, the Make her God, eh !' 

physician insisted more than ever on " Your majesty sees already that it 

the necessity of pleasing the august is a piece of madness ; for a woman 

invalid in everything. can't complain of the small advance 

So the king set out on his journey in her career who to-day is a queen, 

to the imperial court. The extrava- and not a year ago lived in a stable, 

gant and impious nature of his mis- A stable is a disgrace to nobody, sure 

sion disturbed him greatly ; but the enough ; for, after all, Our Lord, 

consideration gave him comfort that though he was God, lived in one 

he was no longer a Juan nobody, as when he made himself man." 

on other occasions when he had " So the good Dona Ramona 

made the same journey, tfut a mon- wishes to be God, eh !" 

arch about to consult with another " You've hit it, your majesty." 

monarch. The only thing that " Well, we will please her as far as 

weighed at all on his mind was the we are able. Let your majesty step 

question of etiquette. into the dining-room and drive the 

" I don't know," said he, " for the wolf from the door, and on return- 
life of me what shoes to tread in ing you will find your wife, if not 
when I address the emperor. I changed into God, changed into 
have heard it said that all we sover- something which is like to him." 
eigns call each other cousins, though The royal consort turned into the 
not a bit of cousinship exists be- dining-room, but, do what he would, 
tween us : but how do I know, if I he could scarcely swallow a mouth- 
call the emperor cousin, that he may ful. Everything seemed to disagree 
not give me a blow that would send with him, and the cause of it lay in 
all the teeth down my throat?" Occu- his feeling within him a restlessness 
pied with such thoughts, he arrived at which seemed to forebode some mis- 
the imperial court, and the emperor fortune. He made his way home- 
hastened to receive him when he had wards, and on arriving at the palace 
scarcely set foot in the palace. of the crown he saw, with as great 

" How is her majesty, Queen sorrow as dismay, that the palace 

Dona Ramona ?" asked the emperor was closed and deserted, 

kindly. " What has happened here ?" he 

" Bad enough, under present cir- inquired of a passer-by, 

cumstances." " The emperor has put an end to 

" Man, that is the worst news yet! the kingdom of Micomican, re-estab- 

And what ails her ?" lishing the ancient province, and re- 

" What the devil do I know ? incorporating it with the empire." 

The evil one alone understands these Juan had neither courage nor 

women. If your majesty could only strength to ask more. He wandered 

guess the commission she has given about for hours and hours like one 

me " demented without knowing whither, 

" Hallo, hallo ! Well, let us hear when suddenly he found himself at 

it." the door of the stable where he had 



The Distaff. 



133 



N 

lived with his wife, and on pushing entertained the criminal ambition of 

open the door, which revolved on its becoming like to him, consisted in 

hinges, he found his wife installed the similarity of her dwelling to the 

there once more. The only thing stable which God occupied when he 

Godlike which the woman who had became man. 



THE DISTAFF. 



In der guten alten Zeit wo die KSnigen Bertha spann.' 



" IN the good old times when 
Queen Bertha span " is a thrifty 
proverb still current in France and 
some parts of Germany where the 
distaff is yet seen beneath the arm 
of the shepherdess, looking, as she 
tends her flock, precisely like S. Gene- 
vie ve just stept out from her canvas, 
or that more modern saint of the 
hidden life, Germaine of Pibrac, 
who is always represented with her 
spindle and distaff. In the very 
same fields where S. Germaine 
watched her flocks and twirled her 
spindle in the old scriptural way, 
keeping her innocent heart all the 
while united to God, have we seen 
the young shepherdess clad in the 
picturesque scarlet or white capu- 
chon of the country, which covers 
their heads and half veils their forms 
guarding their sheep and spinning 
at the same time. 

And the same womanly implement 
is sometimes found in the hands of 
those of gentle birth in those old 
lands where so many still cling to 
the traditions of the past. We read 
of the now world-famous Eugenie 
de Guerin that the same hand that 
wrote such charmingly naive letters 
and journals did not disdain the spin- 
dle and the distaff. She writes thus 
in her journal : " I have begun my 
day by fitting myself up a distaff, 



very round, very firm, and very 
smart with its bow of ribbon. There, 
I am going to spin with a small 
spindle. One must vary work and 
amusements : tired of a stocking, I 
take up my needle and then my dis- 
taff. So time passes, and carries us 
away on its wings." And again a 
day or two after : " I took my distaff 
by way of diversion, but all the 
while I was spinning, my mind spun 
and wound and turned its spindle at 
a fine rate. I was not at my distaff. 
The soul just sets that kind of me- 
chanical work going and then leaves 
it." 

This reminds us of Uhland's verse : 

" Long, long didactic poems 
I spin with busy wheel, 
The lengthened yarns of epic 
Keep running off my reel: 

"My wheel itself has a lyrical whirr, 

My cat has a tragic mew, 
While my spindle plays the comic parts 
And does the dancing too." 

Eugenie's charming Arcadian life, 
passed in the primitive occupations 
of spinning, sewing, superintending 
the kitchen even going, like Ho- 
mer's Nausicaa, to the margin of the 
stream to wash the linen in the run- 
ning waters, and afterwards taking 
pleasure in spreading it all white on 
the green grass, or seeing it wave on 
the lines : all this, we say, without 
detracting from the poetry and 



134 



The Distaff. 



grace of her nature, is enough to 
make us recall with a sigh the good 
old days when Queen Bertha span. 

And this queen was Berthe au 
grand pied, the mother of Charle- 
magne, who had one foot larger 
than the other, and hence her name : 

u You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, 

queen of Helvetia, 
She whose story I read at a stall in the streets 

of Southampton, 
Who, as she rode on her palfrey o'er valley 

and meadow and mountain, 
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff 

fixed to her saddle. 
She was so thrifty and good, that her name 

passed into a proverb." 

Whether this Queen of Helvetia is 
our Bertha with the great foot we 
know not. The name is found in 
many curious old legends like the 
German one of Frau Bertha, a kind 
of tutelar genius of spinners, with an 
immense foot and a long iron nose, 
which doubtless served as a spindle. 
And an old manuscript, long hidden 
in some obscure corner of a German 
monastery, tells how King Pepin, 
wishing to wed the fair Bertha of 
Brittany, sent his chief officers to 
bring her to his court. The steward," 
who had charge of the escort, was 
not without ambitious views respect- 
ing his own daughter. He ordered 
his servants to put Bertha to death 
on the way. But they, instead of 
killing her, left her in a forest. Not 
long after O happy chance ! King 
Pepin, overtaken by night while 
hunting, awaited the dawn in a 
house where he was served by the 
most beautiful maid his eyes had ever 
beheld. Of course it was Bertha 
with her great foot, which, we may 
be sure, she gracefully concealed be- 
neath her flowing garments. And 
so they were married. Old poems 
sing of her industry, and tell us she 
knew how to spin like the princesses 
of scriptural and Homeric days. She 
is represented, too, on old coins seat- 
ed on a throne with a distaff in her 



hands. All writers speak of her as 
Berthe au grand ^ied, but as other- 
wise beautiful and skilful in wielding 
the earliest implement of feminine 
industry. We may safely imagine 
her as tapping the mighty Charle- 
magne, leader of peerless knights, 
while yet a boy, with her convenient 
distaff; for her ascendency over him 
was such that he always regarded 
her with great reverence, even after 
his elevation to power ! 

And Bertha was not the only prin- 
cess that laid her hand hold of the 
spindle. When the tomb of Jeanne 
de Bourbon, wife of Charles V. of 
France, was opened at St. Denis, 
among other things was found a dis- 
taff of gilded wood, but greatly de- 
cayed. And there is another in the 
Hotel de Cluny, once used by some 
queen of France, we forget whom, 
on which is carven all the notable 
women of the Old Testament. 

So too the daughters of Edward 
the Elder of England, though care- 
fully educated, were so celebrated 
for their achievements in spinning 
and weaving that the term spinster is 
said to be derived from them. 

And S. Walburga, the daughter of 
S. Richard, King of the Saxons, used 
to spin and weave among the royal 
and saintly maidens of Wimburn 
Minster. It was a common custom 
in those days. The distaff and the 
spindle were considered " the arms 
of every virtuous woman." 

The ancients held the use of them 
as such an accomplishment that 
Minerva is said to have come down 
to earth to teach the Greek women 
how to spin. Venus herself did not 
disdain to take upon herself the sem- 
blance of a spinner of fair wool when 
she appeared to Helen. 

And spinning was as universal an 
acquirement among the Jewish as 
the Grecian women. They used to 
spin by moonlight on the housetops 



The Distaff. 



135 



and, true to the instinct of their sex, 
kept so faithful an eye on their 
neighbors in the meanwhile that the 
ancient spinsters' tongues were po- 
tent in the world of gossip. There 
is a tradition that S. Ann spun the 
virginal robes of her immaculate 
child in the pure beams of the chaste 
Dian. 

Of the valiant woman in the Book 
of Proverbs it is said : " Her fingers 
have taken hold of the spindle." 
And in Exodus we read that " the 
skilful women gave such things as 
they spun, violet, purple, and scarlet, 
and fine linen and goats' hair, all of 
their own accord," for the taber- 
nacle. 

We are told that the Jewish mai- 
dens who devoted themselves to the 
service of the temple were employed, 
among other things, in spinning the 
fine linen on their spindles of cedar, 
or ithel, a species of the oriental aca- 
cia, black as ebony and probably the 
same as the setim, or shittim wood, 
of the Holy Scriptures. According 
to tradition, the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, who passed her early days in 
the temple, participated and excelled 
in all the pursuits then carried on. 
The Protevangdion of S. James the 
Less relates that, when a new veil was 
to be made for the temple of our 
Lord, the priests confided the work 
to seven virgins of the tribe of Da- 
vid. They cast lots to see " who 
should spin the gold thread, who the 
blue, who the scarlet, and who the 
true scarlet." It fell to Mary's lot 
to spin the purple. Leaving her 
work, one day, to draw water in her 
jar, the angel drew near with his 
Ave Maria. 

A distaff lies at Mary's feet in Ra- 
phael's " Annunciation," and in many 
other celebrated paintings she is rep- 
resented with one. In a " Riposa " by 
Albert Diirer she is depicted spin- 
ning from her distaff beside the Di- 



vine Babe who is sleeping in its cra- 
dle : 

u Inter fila cantans orat 
Blanda, veni somnuli." 

S. Bonaventura tells us that sev- 
eral of the early sacred writers speak 
of our Blessed Lady's industry in spin- 
ning and sewing for the support of 
her Son and S. Joseph in the land of 
Egypt. So reduced to poverty were 
they that, according to him, she 
went from house to house to obtain 
work, probably flax to spin as she 
sat watching the Holy Infant in the 
grove of sycamores of traditional re- 
nown. Her unrivalled skill in spin- 
ning the fine flax of Pelusium be- 
came a matter of tradition, and the 
name of Virgin's Thread has been 
given to that network of dazzling 
whiteness and almost vaporous tex- 
ture that floats over the deep val- 
leys in the damp mornings of au- 
tumn, says the Abbe Orsini. 

It is said the Church at Jerusalem 
preserved some of Mary's spindles 
among its treasures, which were after- 
wards sent to the Empress Pulcheria, 
who placed them in one of the 
churches of Constantinople. 

Other nations, too, had their fa- 
mous spinsters. Dante's ancestor in 
Paradise, looking back to earth, tells 
him of a Florentine dame of an opu- 
lent family who, 

u With her maidens drawing off 
The tresses from the distaff, lectured them 
Old tales of Troy, and Fiesole, and Rome." 

And a Spanish writer of past times 
says, speaking of the model woman : 
" Behold this wife who purchases flax 
that she may spin with her maids. 
See her thus seated in the midst of her 
women." Thus did Andromache spin 
among her attendants. 

So have we seen old nuns spin- 
ning in the cloisters of the remote 
provinces of France : the white wool 
on their distaffs diminishing slowly 
and calmly as their own even lives. 



136 



The Distaff. 



They looked as if spinning out their 
own serene destinies. Such a happy 
destiny is not reserved for all whose 
thread is drawn out by Lachesis. 

u Twist ye, twine ye ! even so 

Mingle shades of joy and woe, 
Hope and fear, and peace and strife, 
In the thread of human life." 

At Rome there are two white 
lambs blessed on S. Agnes' day (" Sk 
Agnes and her lambs unshorn," says 
Keats) in her church on the Nomen- 
tan road, and then they are placed 
in a convent till they are shorn, 
when their wool is spun by the sa- 
cred hands of the nuns. Of this the 
pallium is made the distinctive 
mark of a metropolitan. 

I have called the distaif the earli- 
est implement of feminine industry. 
Such is the old tradition. There is a 
pathetic miniature of the twelfth cen- 
tury depicting an angel giving Adam 
a spade and Eve a distaff previous to 
their expulsion from Paradise : and 
on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus 
of the fourth century, Adam is repre- 
sented with a sheaf of grain, for he 
was to till the earth, and Eve with a 
lamb whose fleece she was to spin. 
And we have our old English rhyme : 

" When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Where was then the gentleman ?" 

And so faithfully was the tradition 
handed down that the distaff has al- 
ways been regarded as a symbol of 
womanhood, which woman scorned 
to see even in the hands of a Her- 
cules. 

In these days, when even our rus- 



tic belles are overloaded with ac- 
complishments, the piano takes the 
place of " Hygeia's harp " on which 
the fair maidens of the olden time 
loved to discourse fair music, like 
the gentle Evangeline of Acadie, 
seated at her father's side, 

" Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the 
corner behind her," 

who, I fear, would be regarded in these 
days of improvement, at least in our 
country, with nearly as much horror 
as those other indefatigable spinners 
are by the good housewife : 

14 Weaving spiders, come not here ; 
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence !" 

What charming pictures some of 
us retain in our memories of our 
gray-haired grandmothers of New 
England country life delicately nur- 
tured, too sitting down in the after- 
noon by the huge fire-place to spin 
flax on a little carved wheel ! How 
many of us carefully preserve such a 
wheel in memory of those by-gone 
days, when we loved to linger and 
watch the mysterious process, and 
look at the face that always was so 
kindly, and listen to the whirr 
whose music is now hushed for ever ! 

But though spinning by hand will 
soon become one of the lost arts, 
there is one who will spin on till 
time shall be no more one from 
whose distaff is drawn out the web of 
our lives the star-crowned Clotho : 

" Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever! 
Life is short and beset by sin, 
"Tis only God endures for ever !" 



A Martyr's Journey. 137 



A MARTYR'S JOURNEY 



FROM THE FRENCH. 



IN the Beaujolais, the country par the blessed one must be represented 
excellence of beautiful women and by his own venerable ashes, a relic of 
beautiful vines, a little village lies the past, a protection for the future, 
hidden among luxuriant arbors. The village of Coigny, therefore, 
Each house is clothed in green spared neither pains nor expense to 
leaves, and the wine, though rare, is be satisfied in this regard, and the 
not so wonderful as the immense Holy Father was applied to to select 
tuns that hold it. Yet Coigny, with the patron. The dear old man re- 
its nectar, its beautiful sky, its co- plied favorably to the little town he 
quettish habitations its robust sons could scarcely find on the map, and 
and attractive daughters, had not a which was more noted for bearing 
habitable church. Still it dreamed the cross than ringing the bell ; and 
of one, and four worthy priests a curious and grave ceremony took 
worked hard and hopefully for the place. 

realization of the dream. One of They opened the Roman Cata- 
them climbed well his ladder of or- combs, and they descended into the 
ders, and has since become Bishop of vaults of the cemetery of S. Cyriac, 
Coutances : and if, as it is said, the and there they chose the mortal re- 
zeal, piety, and legitimate influence mains of a Christian martyr buried 
of four ecclesiastics will finish the for many centuries. 
Cathedral of Cologne, notwithstand- The stone that closed the cell bore 
ing the devil's theft of the plan, what a palm branch and the inscription, 
might not be hoped for Coigny ? HILARY AT REST, 

So nothing more need be told than and indicated he had died for the 
that, from amidst the lovely, smil- faith in the early ages of Christianity, 
ing verdure of the little town, there His bones and the size of his head 
sprang an exquisite white marble denoted only the adolescent, scarce- 
church, a temptation to pray in as ly more than a child; while the 
well as to see, and the admiration of whole expressed the courage of the 
the entire province. man united to the grace of the angel. 

Madame la Marquise de The account from which this is 

gave all her inimitable guipures to taken adds, this young soldier of 

ornament the high altar, and Mon- Christ was found sleeping peacefully 

sieur le Comte de , a great at his post, extended on his granite 

amateur in pictures, placed a true bier, with his forehead cleft asunder, 

Mignard a Madonna with a lovely his neck cut open, of which the little 

smile upon the walls, even before bottle by his side held the precious 

they dried. blood. .The figure of the young 

So each and all offered homage in martyr had been covered with vir- 

the new house of God. gin wax, carefully enclosing the sacred 

Still the beautiful little church bones, and, attired in silk and embroid- 

lacked a patron, a saint under whose ery, he is holding the palm branch in 

invocation it might be placed, and his hand. The wounded head inclines 



138 



Odd Stories. 



as if bending to his murderers, his 
throat lies open in its deep sword- 
wound, his hands and feet have bled, 
and the purple tide gushes from his 
wounds and trickles over his limbs ; 
but his lips are shut with love, and 
his eyes are fixed, regarding with S. 
Stephen the heavens opening to re- 
ceive him. 

So this child of eighteen hundred 
years ago, this soldier of the faith, 
taken from the Roman Catacombs, 
was sent by the Pope to Coigny. 

Can we not imagine his reception ? 
Did not the village ring out its festal 
bells, and scatter flowers on his path, 
and with thousands of candles in the 
nave, and incense mounting far 
above the high altar, did not the 



little church welcome this con tempo 
rary of Nero, who had travelled sur- 
rounded by glorious palms in his own 
carriage over the line from Italy ? 

He has come, and twenty priests 
bear him on their shoulders, and 
his final resting-place is under the 
high altar. 

Coigny, the coquette, crowned by 
its green vine branches, bacchante- 
like, the pious Coigny, has its mar- 
tyr in the vaults of its own dear 
church, no more nor less than if it 
were a basilica. 

True, he was an almost forgotten 
saint, and anonymously canonized, 
but the Scriptures told us long ago, 
<c God knows how to recompense 
his own." 



ODD STORIES 



in. 



PETER THE POWERFUL. 



LONG and loud was the flourish 
of trumpets that greeted the day on 
which Philip the Mighty was born to 
his father's dukedom ; so rare was 
the promise of a babe. Need it be 
said that, nurtured under the eye of 
his stern sire, he grew in the strength 
of justice ? To such a degree had 
he inherited the zeal of his ancestors, 
that while yet in his cradle he stran- 
gled a wretched nurse for stealing 
his spoon; whereat there was an- 
other flourish of trumpets. Subse- 
quent reflections upon the loss of so 
useful a servant taught him to re- 
strain the exercise of his just powers ; 
and hence, when his tutors failed to 
instruct him within a given time in 
the arts, sciences, languages, and 



literatures, he merely broke their 
heads. We live to learn ; and so it 
proved even to a prince as well en- 
dowed as Philip the Mighty. In 
these early acts we can see the foun- 
dations of that character which was 
afterwards so great a monument 



among men. 



During the famous period in which 
our prince served his sire in the ad- 
ministration of justice, the dungeons 
were never empty of thieves and 
wranglers, nor the axe long idle for 
want of miscreant heads. To a 
peasant who once stole an apple, he 
said, " How now, varlet, dost con- 
fess ?" Answered the trembling churl : 
" Nay, most puissant lord, I stole 
not the fruit." Then spoke Philip j 



Odd Stories. 



139 



" By my halidom, I'll mend thine blow the trumpet of gold right lusti- 
honesty " ; whereupon the fellow was ly, to the wonder of lords and peo- 
put on the rack till he broke a blood- pie. Now, it was whispered that the 
vessel, still not confessing, for it was slain sorcerers had helped husband- 
death to steal an apple out of the men and artisans with their strange 
duke's garden. At night the peas- inventions ; that the malefactors 
ant died in his bed of a hemorrhage, were slaughtered outright for the 
piously acknowledging in his last crimes of their fellows ; that the 
moments that he had committed the giants were amiable men. sometimes, 
theft; whereat was another flourish but provoked beyond endurance ; that 
of trumpets. Life is a great lesson, dwarfs and witches were poor old 
however, and it must not be supposed people, seldom as bad as they seem- 
that our powerful hero could con- ed to be. Nevertheless, the real 
tent himself with a few exploits at monsters of the land increased day 
court when he felt that he had a by day, in spite of the champion 
mission to reform the world. killer's sword and his squire's golden 

Therefore it was that Philip the trumpet. 

Mighty set out upon a knight's er- Weary with much slaughter of 

rand to slay all the witches, devils, false knights and caitiff wretches and 

malefactors, giants, goblins, and monsters, the paladin Philip resolved 

monsters that came in his path, to undertake the deliverance of the 

But one squire rode with him, bear- poor from the oppressions of the 

ing a golden trumpet, which, when rich. Filled with this noble idea, he 

Peter had done to death a sour- slew a yeoman who was chastising 

faced hag who shrieked at him on his servant without mercy. Seeing a 

the mountain-side, he blew right number of slaves at work, he set them 

merrily. Now, the old witch had ask- all free by killing their master. He 

ed the valiant knight for justice divided the estates of the rich among 

against her lord at court. Life is a the poor. He distributed largesses 

science not to be mastered without among multitudes of the needy. He 

blows ; and Philip learned to slay rescued honest damsels who were 

and fear not in such stout earnest being carried away by villain lords, 

that soon he won the renown of be- Alas ! for an ingrate world. 'Twas 

ing, as in fact he was called, the rumored that the yeoman had left a 

Champion Wrong-killer of the age. widow and seven children to mourn 

When a foul, black-hearted necro- him. The slaves became marauders; 
mancer was tracked to his hiding- the poor quarrelled among th em- 
place, what else should our good selves ; the beggars got drunk ; and 
knight do but put him to the sword ? some of the honest damsels lament- 
When a five-eyed dwarf was accused ed their fallen lords. Howbeit, the 
of deviltry, who else should carve faithful squire blew his trumpet 
him for the crows but our duke's louder than ever, 
son ? When a grim ogre, breathing Meanwhile had our good knight 
death and fury, beset him whose arm grown religious, and burned men at 
was so mighty, when malefactors the stake ; but the more the fuel, the 
pestered the land, when monsters of greater the flame. The more lances 
all kind raged on every hand, who he shattered for honor's sake, the 
dealt them such lightning doom as more swords he blunted for justice's 
the champion wrong-killer ? On sake ; the more money he spent to 
every occasion did his trusty squire give feasts to beggars, and the more 



140 



New Publications. 



land he parcelled among the poor, his legs and arms increased their 

all the more honor, justice, bounty, strength of muscle, his ears grew 

estate, remained to be won and ad- longer, and his eyes grew blinder, 

justed. His sharp judgments had, He scorned, nay, devoured the weak 

after all, won him nothing but the he once defended, and, at last, a 

sound of his trumpet. He had monster himself, was killed by a con- 

killedtheinnocentandrobbedthepoor, spiracy of those whose champion he 

when he intended to do otherwise, once was. For Philip, though a 

and, if he executed Heaven's judg- champion wrong-killer, was blind to 

ments, it was by a kind of mistake, his own wrong-doing ; and, though a 

One thing he had not slain himself, reformer, never allowed people to 

All the while, he who had killed so reform themselves ; so he destroyed 

many monsters was growing in bulk the wheat with the chaff and killed 

and stature out of all proportion. As the good with the bad. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



THE BOOK OF THE HOLY ROSARY. A 
Popular Doctrinal Exposition of its 
Fifteen Mysteries, mainly Conveyed in 
Select Extracts from the Fathers and 
Doctors of the Church. By the Rev. 
Henry Formby, of the Third Order of 
St. Dominic. Embellished with thirty- 
six full-page illustrations. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 

The devotion of the Holy Rosary 
is one of the most beautiful which 
the Catholic Church proposes to 
her children, and is also probably 
the one which has been received by 
them everywhere, without distinc- 
tion of nationality or class, with the 
most sincere delight. Catholics, it 
is true, are for the most part fami- 
liar with the general history and 
significance of this devotional prac- 
tice, which in itself forms a compen- 
dium of popular theology. Most of 
the books, however, on this subject, 
with which we are acquainted, are 
intended to excite Christians to the 
frequent and devout use of this form 
of prayer, rather than to give them 
a full and clear understanding of its 
natural connection with the great 
and fundamental truths which form 
the basis of Christianity. The book 



of F. Formby is both doctrinal and 
devotional ; all the more devotional 
because the piety which it incul- 
cates is enlightened by true Chris- 
tian science. 

The work is divided into three 
parts corresponding with the three 
groups of mysteries of which the 
Rosary is composed. The author 
prefaces each of these groups with 
an introduction, in which he care- 
fully compares its mysteries with 
their corresponding types in the 
Old Testament. This comparison 
is again instituted in a more parti- 
cular manner as each mystery in 
turn presents itself for elucidation. 

In treating of the different mys- 
teries, he first quotes from Scripture 
those passages upon which they are 
formed, and then adduces the cor- 
responding types from the Old Tes- 
tament, still further illustrating the 
subject by apposite quotations and 
allusions taken from the classics 
of pagan literature. These are 
followed by extracts from the writ- 
ings of the great Fathers and Doc- 
tors of the church, many of which 
will be new to the English reader. 
Thus each chapter of the book forms 



New Publications. 



141 



a comprehensive treatise, both doc- 
trinal and devotional, of the particu- 
lar mystery in the life of our divine 
Saviour or that of his Blessed Moth- 
er to which it is devoted. 

Without going out of his way, 
F. Formby by the simple exposi- 
tion of the doctrine and practice 
of the church shows in the most 
conclusive manner how utterly 
groundless are the objections of 
Protestants to Catholic devotion to 
the Mother of Christ. We have not 
for a long time read a book with 
which we are so perfectly pleased 
as with this of F. Formby. The 
clergy especially will find in it a 
rich mine from which to draw in- 
struction for the people. It may 
be read with profit, however, by all 
classes of persons, as the plain and 
simple style in which it is written 
does not raise it above the compre- 
hension of even uneducated minds. 
The book is ornamented with thirty- 
six full-page woodcuts, unusually 
excellent both in design and execu- 
tion ; which, added to the attractions 
of clear typography and tasteful 
binding, make it a work of art as 
well as of religion. 

HENRY PERREYVE. By A. Gratry, Pretre 
de 1'Oratoire, etc. Translated by 
special permission. London : Riving- 
tons. 1872. (New York: Sold by The 
Catholic Publication Society.) 
After a life of singular purity and 
great activity in the cause of truth, F. 
Gratry entered upon his rest on the 
6th of February, 1872. His impul- 
sive and ardent nature hurried him 
for a moment, towards the close of 
his life, into a controversy which, 
for a time, caused the greatest anx- 
iety to his friends, and threatened 
to throw a cloud over an existence 
otherwise so brilliant and precious. 
His heart, however, always remained 
loyal to the church and to truth, 
and, when he was made aware of his 
error, he himself was the first to 
acknowledge it, and to do all in his 
power to atone for it. The writings 
of F. Gratry have always possessed 
for us a singular charm. He has in 
a high degree the gift of making his 



thoughts contagious. He throws 
the warmth and life of his whole 
heart into his writings ; his words 
breathe and palpitate and affect one 
like the presence of a noble and 
high-wrought nature. In Henry 
Perreyve he found a subject pecu- 
liarly fitted to call forth these quali- 
ties of his style. The history of the 
outer life of Henry Perreyve was 
uneventful and short. Designed by 
his parents for the bar, disposed by 
his own vigorous and impetuous 
nature to the military life, he was 
called of God to the priesthood. 
When he had once recognized the 
voice of God, he devoted to this high 
vocation all the energies of a most 
gifted and courageous nature. At 
an early age he developed remark- 
able talents both for writing and 
speaking. He possessed the divine 
gift of eloquence, and Lacordaire, 
who loved him more than any 
other man in the .world, looked 
forward to the day when his own 
voice, having grown feeble by age, 
would be born again with redoubled 
strength and warmth on the lips of 
Henry Perreyve. Alas, that such 
hope should be delusive ! He to 
whom Lacordaire wrote, " You live in 
my heart eternally as my son and my 
friend," was destined soon to follow 
his great preceptor to the grave. 
He died in 1865, when but thirty- 
four years old. The story of his life, 
as told by F. Gratry, is a poem full 
of the most exalted sentiment, and 
impressed with the highest forxi of 
beauty. " All who knew him," says 
his biographer, " agree on this point, 
that the one characteristic which 
stamps his outward life and his in- 
ward soul is only to be expressed 
by that word Beauty. All the in- 
ward beauty wherewith courage, 
intelligence, devotion, and goodness 
can invest a soul, and all the out- 
ward expression of beauty with 
which such a soul can stamp the 
living man, were combined in him. 
Nature and grace had alike done 
their very best for him ; he overflow- 
ed with their choicest gifts." Who- 
ever will read F. Gratry's sketch 



142 New Publications. 

will be persuaded that these words the missionary priest entered upon 

are not too strong. The life of a life of toil which gave but scant 

Henry Perreyve is another confirm- opportunity for adding to the fund 

ation of the truth that the ideal type of learning that served as its outfit, 

of perfect manhood canbe developed Hence, while the greatness of the 

only hi the Catholic Church. We Catholic champions, who entered 

especially recommend this book to the arena armed cap-a-pie by a long 

the young men of our country. Even and thorough training, was brought 

though it should not inspire them into striking relief, the depression 

with the exalted ambition of conse- of minds less trained and of less ca- 

crating their lives to God, it will at pacity among the clergy was marked 

least teach them the transcendent by the absence of a native literature 

beauty of Christian courage, of self- suited to their class, 

devotion, of nobility of purpose. When a priest rarely had a day 

Henry Perreyve was most ardent free from harassing labors, and was 

in urging his friends to aspire to barely able to run into debt for the 

the priesthood. ,In this connection brick, beams, and shingles of a non- 

F. Gratry remarks : " Truly, I know descript building wherein to assern- 

no wiser enthusiasm than that which ble his flock, he certainly did well 

stimulates men to become laborers if, after reading his breviary and 

for God. We have too few priests ; peeping into his moral theology, he 

we have far too many soldiers. No kept himself informed of current 

man becomes a priest whether he events. Such circumstances of 

will or no ; but on all sides the strong poverty were not favorable to litera- 

hand of the powers that be con- ture or eloquence. Ecclesiastical 

strains men to be soldiers whether art, with its intricate ceremonial 

they will or no. Why is the priest's and its peculiar music, was in a fair 

lot to be counted worse than the way to be lost ; and the refinements 

soldier's? He who chooses the of clerical education were rather 

sacred toil of God's harvest-field for sources of discouragement in the 

his life's labor, chooses the better present than of bright anticipation 

part. Surely his ambition is beyond for the future. 

all comparison the greatest, best and But this phase, having in some 

noblest : his work the most fruitful, measure passed away in England, 

the most necessary. That is but a has lost much of its gloom for us 

sorry delusion by which the world in America. Pastors have more 

would set the priesthood before men time to prepare instructions for their 

as in the shadow of death, and other people. Congregations by their 

careers as in a glow of light and magnitude and intelligence call forth 

glory." the highest efforts of eloquence. 

The instincts of Catholic devotion 

IHE SPOKEN WORD; or, The Art of Ex- ire that God>s houge shou]d 

temporary Preachmg: Its Utility its * f and 
Danger, and its True Idea. With an r . ' J ' 
easy and practical Method for its At- mand ' f r their satisfaction and m- 
tainment. By Rev. Thomas J. Potter, crease, the sacristy and choir, whicl 
Professor of Sacred Eloquence in the shall be ' for a glory and a beauty. 
Missionary College of All Hallows, Meanwhile, increasing wealth fur- 
Author of "Sacred Eloquence," etc., nishes means for fulfilling the re- 
etc. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872. quirements of the Roman Ritual. 
One of the most favorable omens The work which we notice is one 
attending the great Catholic re- of many signs of the times, and also 
vival in the English-speaking world one of a series of similar efforts by 
is the appearance of works bearing its earnest and experienced author, 
upon the various duties of the sa- It is written in a clear and flowing 
cred ministry. In the earlier days style, slightly marred, however, by 
of struggle in England and America, the frequent repetition of the ad 



New Publications. 



jective " expedite," as qualifying 
the noun " knowledge," and the per- 
petual recurrence of "a man who," 
or "the man who." The general 
effect is nevertheless pleasing, and 
the book itself ought to be read. 
The title contains a fair analysis of 
the work. It remains for us to say 
that the author is thorough in the 
treatment of his subject. His hints 
and warnings are useful to those 
accustomed to preach extempore ; 
while his suggestions for the com- 
position of sermons are entirely ap- 
plicable to those who perfect their 
oratorical preparations before as- 
cending the pulpit. 

The appearance of the book is 
also quite in its favor, and we 
might adduce it as a sign of the 
times in a department to which we 
have not yet alluded. 

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE. By the Rev. 
Father Rawes, O.S.C, London : Burns, 
Gates & Co. 1872. New York : Sold 
by The Catholic Publication Society. 

This is a beautiful sketch of the 
life of " the disciple whom Jesus 
loved." Father Rawes, in common 
with S. Jerome, S. Augustine, and 
S. Bernard, has a great and special 
devotion to the Evangelist S. John. 
This little book is well written and 
is eminently devotional and instruc- 
tive. 

UNAWARES. By the Author of " The 
Rose Garden." Boston : Roberts 
Bros. '1872. 

One experiences a sense of rest 
and refreshment in reading this un- 
pretending volume. It is a narra- 
tive of French life, not at all after 
the sensational order, but beauti- 
fully wrought out. with enough of 
romance to sustain the interest and 
chain the attention of the reader, 
but not a line or word that one 
could wish unwritten. With a slight 
plot and few incidents, this pleasing 
story charms us with a delightfully 
artistic description of a quaint old 
town in France, where the grand 
cathedral stands, the central object 
of attraction solemn, steadfast, ever 
varying severe or tender, as the 



case may be but always inconceiv- 
ably peaceful. 

The characters, drawn with a skil- 
ful hand and admirably sustained, 
the chaste beauty of the language 
and style, with the gems of thought 
worthy of life-long remembrance 
scattered throughout the volume, 
lead us to desire an acquaintance 
with other books this attractive 
author may have written 

THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. By George 
MacDonald. Boston : Roberts Bros. 
1872. 

if not to be sensational is a merit, 
this book certainly has that merit. 
The Introduction, which in most 
books is apt to be dull, and often is 
skipped by the reader who wishes 
to plunge in medias res, is here the 
spiciest part, the sugar-coating of 
the pill if it be not ill-natured to 
call this work a pill. A very 
mild one it is, and the patient, if 
none the better, will certainly be 
none the worse for taking it. Its 
object seems to be to promulgate 
some Presbyterian ideas concerning 
the means to be used for elevating 
the spiritual condition of the poor. 
The London poor is the class con- 
sidered, but the general rules laid 
down may be supposed good for all 
poor. Some very queer ideas are 
broached ; among others, that it is 
better to give a workman a gold 
watch than a leg of mutton, because 
by so doing you will pay him a com- 
pliment for which he will be grate- 
ful, but that he should have nothing 
given him "which he ought to pro- 
vide for himself such as food, or 
clothing, or shelter." There is a 
Miss Clare who is possessed by such 
a missionary spirit and love for the 
poor, that we cannot help wishing 
she might find her proper sphere by 
becoming a Catholic "Little Sister 
of the Poor," or some other equally 
useful sister of charity. The church 
utilizes such women much more 



wisely than they manage to find the 
best way alone. There is a chapter 
of Miss Clare's reading and discuss- 
ing of the Gospel with some work- 
men, which, if not positively irreve- 



144 New Publications. 

rent itself, will be very likely to The illustrations to the book are 

make the reader, who has any sense clever, and the type and binding 

of humor, feel so in spite of his bet- attractive. 
ter instincts. 

The Vicar's daughter, Mrs. Perci- AMBITION'S CONTEST; or, Faith and In- 

vale, is a very sprightly and well- Christine." Boston : P. 

drawn character, whom we cannot >onahoe. 1872. 

help liking very much. She is the We cannot, perhaps, give a better 

teller of the story, and in this Dr. idea of the style and scope of this 

MacDonald has shown much skill, modest volume than by a quotation 

It is in some parts so like a woman's from the Preface : " It would be pre- 

way of thinking and writing, that sumptuous to say that I have at- 

we can hardly believe it to be the tempted this little work in order to 

work of a man, especially in Mrs. aid in preventing these numerous 

Percivale's thoughts after the birth wrecks of the soul ; for where other 

of her child. And in this the author and gifted pens, essaying so much 

approaches very nearly the Catho- and so well in this direction, still 

lie ideal : find it difficult to do all thty would, 

it would be folly to suppose that my 

[ had read somewhere-and it clung cmde effort cou i d accomplish any . 

to me a though did not understand it th| Stm . . an effoi / made 

that it was in laying hold of the heart ,. . . 

of his Mother that Jesus laid his first the Purpose of accomplishing 



hold of the world to redeem it ; and now &9 d ' an ? written under the auspices 

at length I began to understand it. What of her who has never Y et falled to 

a divine way of saving us it was to let assist the weak, the ever-glorious 

her bear him, carry him in her bosom, and Blessed Virgin-Mother of God, 

wash him and dress him and nurse him and it may perhaps add a mite to that 

singhim to sleep ! . . . Such a love might which is now being done for the 

well save a world in which were mothers proper training of our Catholic 

enough." youth." 

But alas ! he makes the vicar him- GARDENING BY MYSELF. By Anna War- 

self save his faith from shipwreck ner> New York: A. D. F. Randolph. 

by marrying the woman he wants 1872. 

a queer and new argument for the We canno t imagine a pleasanter 

marriage of the clergy, to be able to way of stu dying horticulture than 

believe through such means. Not by adopting Miss Warner's volume 

that this is intended by the author as a text-book. We can overlook 

for any such argument; he being a the mtle atte mpts at moralizing, 

Presbyterian, makes no question of after the evange lical fashion, as she 

the propriety and wisdom of the goes along> in view of the dismal 

clergy marrying, but that a clergy- theo logical efforts made by her sis- 

man should be taught belief by get- ter (}f we mistake not) a few yea rs 

ing the woman of his choice M since> We advise our lady rea ders 

"passing strange." 3e also prefers who haye e for cultivating flow- 

giving his daughter to a sceptic ra- ers to consult this litt i e manual, 

ther than to a thoroughly religious assured that the occupation of which 

man, for fear the latter might " con- it discourses , an d its results, will 

firm her m doubt." To a Catholic, brin g them a large store of unalloyed 

this seems a wonderful conclusion. eniovment 

The chapter called " Child Non- 

sense ' is nonsense indeed, and THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION So- 

much below "Mother Goose" in CIETY has in press, and will publish 

literary merit. We wonder it found early in November, The Life and 

a place in the" volume, which con- Times of Sixtus the Fifth, by Baron 

tains much genuine wit and good Hubner. Translated from the orig- 

writing. inal French by James F. Meline. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. XVI., No. 91. NOVEMBER, 1872. 



CENTRES OF THOUGHT IN THE PAST. 



SECOND ARTICLE. 



THE UNIVERSITIES. 



THE change from the monastic to 
the scholastic era was one of which 
we can hardly form an idea. As 
radical as that brought about in poli- 
tics by the tempest of 1793, it was 
less sudden, and, though to the full 
as dangerous as the unhappy " Re- 
formation/' it was fortunately shorn 
of its heretical perils by the vigorous 
and successful hand laid upon it by 
the church. Instead of producing 
an organized system of antagonism 
to revealed truth, which it seemed at 
one time on the very verge of doing, 
it became so thoroughly absorbed in- 
to the church's system that to many 
minds " scholasticism " is synony- 
mous with "bigotry." Yet how 
opposite was the reality to the idea 
which it conveys to the modern 
mind ! The real temper of the 
church, the temper which will be 
hers eternally in heaven, is the 



temper of Mary; the contempla- 
tive, monastic ideal of perfect 
peace. In the Xlllth century (we 
say the Xlllth typically, for the 
change was gradually working some 
time before, and only grew to its ma- 
turity in that age), a giant intellectual 
convulsion took place, and the church 
was rudely wakened out of her pla- 
cid ecstasy, to find herself assailed 
by brilliant and popular fallacies, 
urged by men of dazzling talent and 
fearless powers of questioning. It 
was as if some holy monk, who from 
childhood to ripe old age had spent 
his life on his knees before the silent 
tabernacle of a huge and perfect ab- 
bey-church, were suddenly to be 
startled into action, by the rude at- 
tack of a sacrilegious band on the 
very altar at whose steps he had 
worshipped so long. See him spring 
to his feet, and with unexpected 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of 
the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



146 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

strength throw himself before the a drop in the ocean in the midst of 
priceless treasure, quell by his eagle such a vast and organized corruption, 
glance the bewildered assailers of his Man may be met by man, but a sys- 
peace, and convert by his heaven- tern only can oppose a system. A 
vlictated eloquence those very men religious institution, combining the 
into saints, those enemies into friends, poverty of the first disciples of Christ 
those proud opponents into fellow- with eloquence and learning, would 
watchers at the same hall owed shrine, alone stand a chance of success in 
3o sprang the church to the defence working a regeneration." He tells 
of those doctrines which hitherto it us further on that Albertus Magnus, 
had been mainly her duty to guard, the master of S. Thomas, saw that 
and the struggle, distasteful as it " Aristotle must be christianized, and 
must have been at first, nevertheless that faith itself must be thrown into 
ended by producing a new harvest the form of a vast scientific organism, 
of saints, and increasing the human through the application of Christian- 
prestige as well as the spiritual ar- ized philosophy to the dogmata of re- 
in ory of the church. The reader will vealed religion." The state of 
no doubt be pleased to see what the men's minds is thus pithily described 
writers already quoted have to say by the same author : " For, especially 
of this mighty intellectual revolution, at this period, theory speedily resolv- 
and we gladly yield to them the field ed itself into practice ; what to-day 
of description. " It will suffice to was a speculation of the schools, to- 
reconcile us to the temporary neces- morrow became a fact ; men lived 
sity of the change," says the author quickly, thought quickly, and acted 
of Christian Schools and Scholars," that quickly in the days of William of 
it was accepted by the church, and Champeaux and Abelard." Still, in 
that she set her seal to the due and summing up the character of those 
legitimate use of those studies which strange, contradictory times, so emi- 
were to develop the human intellect nently " ages of faith " when contrast- 
to its full-grown strength. Nay, ed with our day, yet ages of jarring 
more, she absorbed into herself an contention when compared with the 
intellectual movement which, had previous centuries, Prior Vaughan 
she opposed it, would have been di- gives us the brighter side of the picture 
rected against her authority, and so also : " Men were not startled in 
to a great extent she neutralized its those days by the unusual deeds 
powers of mischief. The scholastic and privileges of chosen men. They 
philosophy which, without her direc- took God's word for granted. They 
tion, would have expanded into an believed what they saw ; they did 
infidel rationalism, was woven into not pry and test and examine their 
her theology itself, and made to do souls. They got nearer the truth than 
duty in her defence, and that won- we do. Their minds were not cor- 
drous spectacle was exhibited, so roded by false science." And in a 
common in the history of the church, footnote he adds, speaking of the 
when the dark and threatening thun- great difference between heresy in 
der-cloud, which seemed about to the middle ages and heresy now : 
send out its lightning-bolts, only dis- " In this (the reverence for authority) 
tils in fertilizing rain." Speaking of is seated the great distinction be- 
S. Dominic, Prior Vaughan, in his tween the darkness of those days 
Life of S. Thomas of Aquin, says : and the darkness of the present. 
" He felt that a single man was but Then, men fell away in detail, they 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 



147 



denied this or that truth, or fanati- 
cally set up as teachers of novel doc- 
trines, or were cruel, or superstitious, 
or fond of dress, or of excitement, or 
self-display. But they held to the 
master-principle of order and of sal- 
vation, they did not reject the au- 
thority of the teaching church, or 
presume to call in question the di- 
rective power and controlling office 
of the sovereign pontiff." 

Now, let us at the outset anticipate 
one question our readers may very 
naturally ask themselves : Have we 
undertaken a sketch of the history of 
the church, or that of human thought 
and progress ? The latter, undoubted- 
ly. Then, how is it that " the church" 
runs through the whole, like the 
ground melody of the system ? How 
is it that, even in the emancipating 
times on which we have now come, 
the doctors and masters of the 
schools are all monks and clerics, 
the theses chosen from Scripture 
texts, the disputes all turning on 
points of doctrine, and those, too, un- 
compromisingly of Catholic doctrine ? 
We can only answer that such are 
the facts ; secular learning hardly 
existed, and what there was of it was 
so tinged with religion that it was 
hardly distinguishable from that of 
theologians. Take Dante, for in- 
stance, an accomplished scholar, a 
patriot, a politician, and a keen phi- 
losopher. Who would not think him a 
priest and a theologian, from the way 
he has cast his grand and unrivalled 
poem ? It is a summary of Catholic 
doctrine and tradition, a poetical ver- 
sion of S. Thomas' Summa, without 
some knowledge of which it is abso- 
lutely impossible to read the third 
part, the Paradiso, and understand 
We cannot help it if we seem to 
be sketching ecclesiastical, while we 
are engaged on intellectual, history. 
Never before the "Reformation" 
were they divorced, and no better 
proof than this could be adduced of 



the essentially teaching mission of 
the church. 

The proximate cause of the great- 
ness of the University of Paris may 
be traced through four or five gen- 
erations of scholars up to our Saxon 
master Alcuin. His pupil Rabanus, 
the great Abbot of Fulda, formed 
Lupus of Ferrieres in his own mould ; 
he in turn instructed Henry of Aux- 
erre, the scholasticus or master of the 
Auxerre school, where he found 
Remigius, destined to become the 
re-establisher of sacred studies at 
Rheims, the Canterbury of France. 
From Rheims this Remigius re- 
moved to Paris (in the Xth century), 
and from his time the schools of that 
city continued to increase in reputa- 
tion and importance till they devel- 
oped into the great university. He 
it was " who opened the first public 
school which we know with any cer- 
tainty to have been established in 
Paris." * The first rudiments of the 
laws governing the greatest corpo- 
rate institution of scholastic times 
seem to have sprung from the very 
disorders occasioned by the immense 
numbers and pugnacious national 
characteristics of the rival students 
of all nations who flocked to Paris. In 
1195, we find a certain John, Abbot 
of S. Alban's, associated with the 
body of elect masters^ and the year 
previous Pope Celestine III. ruled 
that the students should -be subject 
to ecclesiastical tribunals only, and 
should be exempt from all civic in- 
terference in their affairs on the part 
of the town authorities. | In 1200, 
the university is acknowledged by 
Philip Augustus as a corporate body, 
governed by a head who shall not 
be responsible _ for his acts to any 
civil tribunal whatsoever. And now 
begins in good earnest a system the 
like of which was never seen, and for 
brilliancy as for license will never 

* Christian Schools and Scholars* i. 327. 

t Ibid. % Ibid. 



148 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

be surpassed. It is like plunging famishing for knowledge, and han- 
into the seething cauldron of a kering after a sight of some of those 
" witches' Sabbath "' to read of the famous doctors of whom they had 
marvellous and feverish state of heard so much when far away in the 
things in the Paris of the Xlllth cen- woods of Germany or the fields of 
tury, and even of that of earlier days. France." * Many had to share their 
For a vivid description of the turbu- miserable garments with their corn- 
lent city we can refer our readers to panions, and take it by turns to wear 
the recent work of the Benedictine, their one tunic so as to make a de- 
Prior Vaughan, and to the no less cent appearance in the lecture-hall, 
graphic pen of Victor Hugo in his while the rest stayed at home, 
Notre Dame de Paris. A grotesque- Others spent all they had on parch- 
ness wholly French pervades the ment, and were in need of oil for 
latter work, but gives perhaps a their lamps to study at nights, 
truer picture of the reality than any Long before the collegiate system be- 
less fastidious language could con- came general, the lay-students were 
vey. In the Paris of old, as in our huddled together in unhealthy tene- 
own day, things seem to have been ments, over the shops of the burgh- 
inextricably mingled : the sage and ers, with whom they had many an 
the buffoon are elbowing each other affray on the score of extortion and 
in the streets; students who have injustice. While the rich students 
come for fashion's sake flaunt their employed their many servants and 
vulgar splendor and their disgusting the tradesmen they patronized as 
shamelessness in vice in the face of instruments in their shameful in- 
the poor scholar who sits attentive trigues, the poor- scholars struggled 
and eager on the straw-covered floor on, some selling books at ruinously 
of the lecture -room ; midnight orgies low prices, others absolutely begging 
that seldom end in less than murder their food in the streets or at the 
take place within a few feet of the doors of the rich shopkeepers, while 
oases of monastic life, where the others again, more miserable because 
canonical hours are still faithfully re- less determined, took refuge in the 
peated and the rule still silently kept taverns, and drank away the little re- 
up. Vanity and frivolity are there, mains of vitality left in them, or as 
and the arrogance of wealthy dunces, often were despatched in the unseem- 
Witness the young man whose father ly brawls which tavern-life was sure 
sent him to Paris with an annual al- to foster. Then, as the brighter side 
lowance of a hundred livres. " What of the picture, there were the monas- 
does he do ?" asks a chronicler of teries, especially that of the Domini- 
that time, Odofied. " Why, he has his cans of S. James, where eager scholars 
books bound and ornamented with studied in peace and order ; the clois- 
gold initials and strange monsters, ters of Notre Dame, where venerable 
and has a new pair of boots every orthodoxy was long entrenched ; the 
Saturday." This was at the time that Sorbonne, destined to be for ages the 
pointed shoes were the "rage," and most celebrated school of theology 
the university even passed a decree in Europe, and to hold its own long 
against them as follies unbecoming after the mediaeval university had de- 
a scholar.* " We read of starving, cayed. Disputed cases were sent 
friendless lads with their unkempt to the Sorbonne for decision, popes 
heads and tattered suits, who walked took the advice of its doctors on im- 
the streets, hungering for bread and portant ecclesiastical matters, and its 

* Christian Schools and Scholars. * Life of S, Thomas of A quin. 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 149 

students possessed even greater per- of Notre Dame was his; his name 
sonal immunities than their fellows eclipsed that of all the masters of 
of other colleges. Then, if we are to Paris, and drove from men's minds 
take the personal representatives of even the fame of the doctors of the 
this wonderful university into account, church. . . . And then what was the 
what a forest of illustrious names climax ? It is told in three words 
starts up before our bewildered vision ! Helo'ise, Soissons, and Sens. True, 
In the Xlth century, quite at the latter there was a long interval between 
end, we are introduced to the gifted the two misfortunes represented by 
Abelard, who during the first half of the first two names, and that galling 
the Xllth century gathered together one which at last proved his salva- 
all the stormy elements of the age, and tion at Sens, and during the interval 
centred upon himself the attention his fame revived, and again at Paris, 
of the intellectual world. " He ap- though at S. Genevieve and no long- 
pears to have possessed," says Prior er at Notre Dame, his prestige broke 
Vaughan, " the special gift of render- down all prejudice and his victorious 
ing articulate the cravings of the age career began afresh. Then see the 
in which he lived. . . . One day he last drama of his stormy, eventful life, 
took into his hands Ezechiel the He meets S. Bernard at Sens before a 
Prophet, and boasted that next morn- court of bishops, monks, and princes, 
ing he would deliver a lecture on his own disciples crowding triumph- 
the Prophecy. With bitter irony antly around him, a huge concourse 
some of his companions implored of people heaving before him, he " the 
him to take a little longer time to spokesman of thousands, from whose 
prepare ; he replied with disdain, ' My midst he would, as it were, advance 
road is not the road of custom, but and proclaim the creed of human rea- 
the road of genius.' He was true to son."* Opposed to him stands one 
his word, and mockery was speedily whose cheeks are furrowed with tears, 
turned to amazement when his com- and who has made no preparation 
panions, overcome with his eloquence, to meet the irrefragable dialectician, 
followed him verse after verse as he the prince of debate, but who, "though 
unfolded the hidden sense of the in appearance but an emaciated mys- 
obscurest of prophecies, with a facility tic from the solitude of his cell, would 
of diction and clearness of exposition represent as many thousands more 
and a readiness of resource which sub- who saw beyond the range of human 
dued the mind and captivated the im- vision, and judged the highest natural 
agination." Success was his idol, pride gifts of God from the elevation of a 
his natural temper. He thought no life of faith." f History gives us the 
question above his understanding, no thrilling denouement in startlingly sim- 
truth beyond his apprehension ; he pie form. When summoned to de- 
threw down the glove in the face of a fend, deny, or explain the heretical 
system more for the sake of routing propositions drawn from his brilliant 
its exponent than of impugning its works, Abelard turns in sudden con- 
truth, and when all eyes were upon tempt from the august assembly, and 
him, and the populace of Paris rushed answers thus : " I appeal to the Sov- 
madly out on its door-steps and ereign Pontiff." But all felt that 
house-tops to cheer him as he pass- this was defeat, the blow had be en 
ed, his end was won and his dearest struck, the heresy was dead. And 
wish fulfilled. One by one all his the heretic ? Let many who have 
opponents were silenced ; from school 
to school he rose, till at last the chair * s. Thomas of Aquin. 



150 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

tried to-day to walk in the dizzy will bless the cloak of yonder man, 
path his footsteps have marked out, and you can take what you please."* 
strive rather to imitate the end of his John of St. Quentin, also, a famous 
life ; let them follow him to the soli- doctor, who, preaching on holy pov- 
tary Benedictine Abbey where his erty and the vanity of all learning, 
gentle friend Peter the Venerable all riches, and all honors, suddenly 
led him like a little child, and where stops, descends the pulpit-stairs, 
his earnest, passionate nature, that kneels at the feet of the astonished 
could do nothing by halves, soon prior of the Dominicans, and will not 
transformed him into a saint. And rise before the latter has thrown 
let the world which knows him chief- around him his own black cloak and 
ly through his sin and early shame enrolled him in the army of that 
fix its eyes upon him as one who, holy poverty he had just praised with 
having abdicated honors greater so much zeal. Then Albert the 
than those of the greatest throne, Great, whose followers were so nu- 
having sorrowed with more than merous that he had to leave the 
David's sorrow, and taught with more schools and speak in the open air, so 
than Solomon's wisdom, at last found that the square where he delivered 
peace and justification in a narrow his lectures was called Place du mat- 
cell and in his daily avocations of tre Albert, which name later on be 
instructing a small and obscure com- came corrupted into the form it still 
munity on " divine humility and the bears, Place Maubert. Albert brings 
nothingness of human things." * before us the school of Cologne, in- 
Among the other great names that ferior of course to the mighty univer- 
stand out in the tumult of Paris as sity, but yet a centre, at least for 
stars of learning and holiness are Germany. There S. Thomas of 
William of Champeaux, Abelard's Aquin first studied, and now and 
chief adversary, and the founder then astonished his undiscerning 
of that saintly school of S. Victor companions by the " bello wings of 
which gathered in one the spirit of the great dumb Sicilian ox," until he 
the old cloisters with that of the new was finally sent to Paris, the scene 
scholastic teachers, and led the way of his matchless and altogether spir- 
through its famous doctor-saints, itual triumph. In him, the heir of 
Hugh and Richard, to the final weld- the old Benedictine school of quits, 
ing together of the new form of the- sanctity worked that marvellous 
ology, the incomparable Summa of union of the old spirit and the new 
S. Thomas. Then, too, we have the which ended by harmonizing the 
preacher Fulk of Neuilly, who be- truths of the church with the clam- 
came a scholar at a ripe age, and oring aspirations of a new and ven- 
soon surpassed the young students turesome age. But, inseparably con- 
whose aim was display rather than nected though he be with the crisis 
knowledge the man who preached of the XIHth century, when passion 
the fifth crusade at the tournament was at its hottest, and the intoxi- 
of Count Thibault de Champagne,! cation of world-wide success made 
and was followed by such crowds Paris reel like a drunken man, we 
that, to rid himself of them and their feel nothing but peace in the life of 
inconvenient homage (shown by cut- the Angel of the Schools, the greatest 
ting pieces out of his habit), he called scholar of the European university, 
out, " My habit is not blessed, but I A divine calm seems to curtain off 

* S. Thomas of Aquin. 

t Christian Schools and Scholars. * Ibid 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 151 

his soul from the contentions in which undertaking, so bold in its concep- 
his mind and body are engaged; tion, so lucid in its exposition has it 
his lessons seem rather to be given ever been sufficiently examined out- 
from a holy of holies than from a side the church ? And will the 
professor's chair, and, while we see world be astonished to know who 
in him the greatest thinker of the age, was its compiler and who spent 
we feel that above all he was its twenty-five years of his hidden life 
greatest saint. One might say of him, upon it ? A simple Benedictine 
with all due reverence, that he was the monk of Chiusi, of whom nothing is 
only man of that turbulent and ques- known but his immortal work, 
tioning day who had looked upon M. de Maistre has cleverly said, 
the face of God and lived. Beside " Grattez le Russe et vous trouverez k 
him was his gentle friend, Bonaven- Tartare" and we might adapt the 
ture, of whom, though a professor pithy saying thus : Raise but the thin- 
also, we hear but little intellectually, nest crust of what we call civilization, 
but whom the highest authority on and you will find beneath the solid 
earth has sealed as a doctor of the structure, the immovable foundation 
church, a burning seraph of love. of monasticism. 

And here we must leave that In 1138, Frederic Barbarossa con- 
greatest of centres, Paris, whose pros- suited the Bolognese doctors as to 
perity at that time seemed so unalter- the framing of a code of laws for his 
able, and take a glance, necessarily a Germano-Italian Empire, and in re- 
cursory one, at the other continental turn for their help gave them the 
universities. Bologna undoubtedly Habita, or series of protective or- 
claims the first place. It was called dinances which raised the Italian 
the " Mater Studiorum " of Italy, and university almost to the level of that 
vied more successfully with Paris of Paris. Alexander III., formerly a 
than any other of the universities, theologian in its schools, also favored 
The great Countess Mathilda of Tus- Bologna, and a tide of scholars from 
cany, the liberal patroness of learn- all parts of Europe began to flow to- 
ing and protectress of the Holy See, wards the Apennines. Among these 
was connected with its foundation, .we find S. Thomas of Canterbury, 
and by the end of the Xlth century it who, as we know, made such brave 
was celebrated as the first law school use of the legal science he acquired 
in Europe.* This characteristic it there. Bologna was the second cen- 
always retained, while in the Xllth tre of the Dominican Order, the 
century canon law began to be teaching order of the church the 
equally studied there. Connected instrument raised up in the warm- 
with Bologna was the publication of hearted but intemperate middle ages, 
the Decretals of Gratian, a summary to guide aright those lava-streams of 
of the decrees of the popes, of a misdirected enthusiasm which at one 
hundred and fifty councils, of selec- time threatened to rationalize or fa- 
tions from various royal codes, and naticize the intellectual world. It is 
of extracts from the fathers and oth- at Bologna that we read of the mira- 
cr ecclesiastical writers, t The few cles of the gentle and bright S. Do- 
errors in this gigantic work have minic, and of the angels that con- 
often served as a peg whereon to stantly followed him to do the bid- 
hang many calumnies against the ding of him who through opposition 
church ; but the whole scope of the and misunderstanding was always- 
doing God's bidding. Here, too, S. 

* Christian Schools and Scholars. t ibid. Thomas of Aquin came once, and, 



152 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

being unknown to the procurator of sure. The description of his harem, 

the convent, was required to carry his kiosks, his palaces, his gardens at 

the basket while his companion col- Naples, reads like a page from the 

lected the friars' daily pittance Arabian Nights, and rival the impos- 

through the streets. A true monk, sible tales that are told of Bagdad's 

he gladly obeyed, and was pained lavish magnificence under the ca- 

and confused when some of the liphs. Utterly pagan the university 

passers-by told the procurator of the seems to have avowedly been. It 

mistake he had made. had no being of its own, but was a 

Italy was fruitful in universities, royal appurtenance, as the other in- 
for, to mention only prominent stitutions of Frederick II. Learning 
names, there were Padua, Pavia, Sa- was a luxury, and it behooved the 
lerno, and Naples, besides Rome, emperor to have all luxuries at his 
where the tradition of learning, es- feet. Studentsafrom all parts of his 
pecially sacred learning, was never kingdom of Naples were compelled 
quite broken. Padua was an off- by arbitrary enactments to study no- 
shoot from Bologna, and became fa- where else but in the exotic universi- 
mous in the Xlllth century for its de- ty ; the professors were all paid from 
votion to classic literature and the the public treasury, and among them, 
liberal arts. At the time of the with characteristic pride and con- 
" Renaissance" it had become, how- temptuous eclecticism, the imperial 
ever, a notorious focus of atheism.* patron had canonists, theologians, 
Salerno was a school of medicine, and monks. Astrology and the 
and Pavia a brilliant and wicked wildest theories were broached, Mi- 
resort of every intellectual aberra- chael Scott, the pretended seer and 
tion. We remember reading an ex- alchemist, was conspicuous for his 
cellent description of its vices, its brilliant talents and pagan tenden- 
dangers, and its attractions, in the cies, the existence of the soul was 
life of a Venetian, a poet and child freely questioned, materialism openly 
of genius, the friend and librettist of professed, and many literati ostenta- 
Mozart, whose name we cannot, tiously paraded their preference of 
however, recall. Even in those days the philosophy of Epicurus or Py- 
of moral decadence the picture thagoras over the religion of Jesus 
seemed appalling, and at Pavia as at Christ. A secret society is also alluded 
Paris, as at Oxford in old times and to in a popular poem of the day, its 
our own. day, there appears to have express purpose being the expunging 
been no lack of brainless young of Christianity and the introducing of 
profligates whose college career was the exploded obscenities of paganism in 
a disgrace to their early .education, its place.* This reminds us of Dis- 
.and must have been a remorse pre- raeli's Lothair, in which such promi- 
pared for their more sober con- nence is given to a secret society 
science in later life. called Madre Natura, framed for the 

The University of Naples, as we identical purpose we have just men- 
learn from Prior Vaughan, was the crea- tioned. It is said to have existed ever 
tion of Frederick II., the Sybarite since the time of Julian the Apostate, 
emperor whose splendid barbaric phy- and always with the same intent. The 
sique knew how to make all Eastern materialistic theories of the artist 
luxury of body and Greek luxury of Phoebus concerning the absolute ne- 
mind minister to his sovereign plea cessity of " beauty worship " and the 

* Christian Schools and Scholars, ii. 370. * See 5". Thomas of Aquin, i. 42. 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 153 

superiority of the Aryan over the Se- Salamanca had a wider reputation, 
mitic races (or principles) are only and fell heir to all the brilliant learn- 
modern echoes of this pestilential ing of the Arabian and Jewish 
teaching of the deification of materi- schools, whose influence on Christian 
alism. .Whether Disraeli, descended thought in the days of S. Thomas of 
from that high race whose history and Aquin had been so dangerous. All 
laws are a standing protest, and have the scientific knowledge of the East 
been for ages a bulwark, against the thus became its natural property, while 
" concupiscence of the flesh," be- the intensely Catholic mind of the 
lieves in these theories, is more than Spaniards held them aloof from what 
we can tell ; he has at any rate was poisonous in Eastern philosophy, 
clothed them with suspiciously gra- And here let us stop to remark that 
tuitous beauty in his recent work,' Spain, ranked as it has always been 
and has, moreover, tried to fix upon among the Latin nations, neverthe- 
the Anglo-Saxon race the stigma of less owes its first Christian traditions, 
practically adopting them as her and, no doubt, also its imperial notions 
own. The monastic history of the of universal sway, to the vigorous 
countrymen of Bede and Wilfrid tells Gothic races, mingled with the 
a very different tale, and neverthe- Frankish and Burgundian blood 
less does not omit to mention the brought in by intermarriage with 
love of sport and athletic exercises the Merovingian princes of France, 
peculiar to Englishmen. How far, There is something in Spanish his- 
however, is the character of the tory, in Spanish perseverance, we 
young race-riders * and fox-hunters f might almost say in Spanish tough- 
of monastic England from that of the ness, that reveals the Visigoth, the 
voluptuous Oriental and sensuous man of the northern forests, with his 
Greek ! indomitable energy and insatiable 
Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Spain, thirst for the sole rule of land and 
and Flanders likewise had their own sea. Alcala, the creation of Cardi- 
centres, more local, however, than nal Ximenes, and Coimbra, besides 
those of Italy, all of them under the twenty-four colleges dignified by 
new form of universities, and all the name of universities, make up 
more or less emancipated from the the quota contributed by Spain to 
strictly monastic spirit of the older the intellectual progress of Europe, 
centres of learning. Vienna, Erfurt, We wish we had more space and 
Heidelberg, and Wittenberg were time to devote to them, 
the foremost in Germany ; Cracow Flanders, the home of art in the 
was founded by a saint, the holy middle ages, and the model of dig- 
Hedvvige of Poland; and Prague, nm>ed and successful civic govern- 
which gave so much trouble and ment > was not fated to be behincl- 
anxiety to the church in former nand in the world of letters. As 
times and hardly less in our own day, early as 1360, a gay scholar of the 
owes much of its glory to the holy* University of Paris, and a native of 
women of the middle ages. Thus Deventer, returned to his birthplace 
Dombrowka, a princess of Bohemia, with the halo of success and world- 
married to a Polish chief, and Heel- ] 7 fame about him - After a few " 
wige, the great queen and patron Y ears of vain display, Gerard of 
saint of Poland, established colleges Deventer suddenly, through the 
there and endowed them liberally. a gency of a holy companion, be- 
came an altered and converted man. 

Montaletnbert, Monks of the West, v. 159. ...... 

v. 97. Having fitted himself for a spiritual 



154 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

career by a three years' seclusion as usual, the Dominicans were fore- 
among the Carthusians, he returned most in the breach, and enjoyed 
to his native city and instituted a great privileges, while their influence 
congregation of Canons Regular, made itself powerfully ft-it through- 
whom he entrusted to a disciple of out the university. S. Thomas of 
his, a former canon of Utrecht. Aquin was, of course, the recognized 
He himself died soon after, but un- authority followed by the whole uni- 
der his successor, Florentius, the versity in matters of theology, 
school grew in importance and re- Ireland was not so fortunate dur- 
nown till, in 1393, a scholar entered ing the scholastic as during the mon- 
its cloisters, by name Thomas Ham- astic era of intellectual development, 
merlein, now known to the Christian but what benefits she had she owed 
world as Thomas a Kempis, the repu- them again to the same institution 
ted author of The Following of Christ, which had educated her sons in old- 
His life is too entirely spiritual to be en days. The first University of Dub- 
mentioned here, but of the institute lin was founded in 1320, and had for 
in which he was reared the same its first master a Dominican friar. It 
rule will not apply. Although the soon decayed for want of funds and 
aim of the Deventer school was to in consequence of the troubles of 
revive the old monastic ideal, and the times, but the Dominicans would 
although its spirit seems forcibly to not let learning perish, if they could 
remind us of Bede and Rabanus of help it. In 1428, a century later, 
Fulda, still it gave forth scholars like they opened a free " high school " on 
the " Illustrious Nicholas of Cusa, Usher's Island, where they taught 
the son of a poor fisherman, who gratuitously all branches of know- 
won his doctor's cap at Padua, and ledge, from grammar to theology, 
became renowned for his Greek, and admitted all students, lay and 
Hebrew, and mathematical learn- ecclesiastical. Between this college 
ing." * It is also told of the De- and their convent in the city they built 
venter brethren that they " displayed a stone bridge, the only erection of 
extraordinary zeal in promoting the such solid material known in Dublin 
new art of printing, and that one of for two centuries afterwards, and, says 
the earliest Flemish presses was set Mr. Wyse in a speech on Education 
up in their college."! The famous delivered at Cork in 1844, "it is an 
Erasmus passed his first years of study interesting fact in the history of edu- 
at Deventer in the latter end of the cation in Ireland that the only stone 
XVth century, and drew from his mas- bridge in the capital of the kingdom 
ters the prediction that he would "one was built by one of the monastic 
day be the light of his age." The orders as a communication between 
later Flemish University of Louvain, a convent and its college, a thorough- 
founded in 1425, by Duke John of fare thrown across a dangerous river 
Brabant, was eminently an orthodox for teachers and scholars to frequent 
institution, and became, in the XVIth halls of learning where the whole 
century, " one of the soundest nur- range of the sciences of the day was 
series of the faith," as well as the chief taught gratuitously." * A few years 
seat of learning in Flanders. Even later, the four Mendicant orders, 
Erasmus owned in his letters that the headed by the Dominicans, obtain- 
schools of Louvain were considered ed from Pope Sixtus IV. a brief con- 
second only to those of Paris. Here, stituting their Dublin schools one 

* Christian Schools and Scholars. t Ibid. * Christian Schools and Scholars. 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 155 

university, with the same ecclesiasti- Abbey, and the Benedictine school 

cal rights and privileges enjoyed by in connection with Winchcomb Ab- 

the great University of Oxford, and bey, are among the earliest founda- 

this body corporate is mentioned as tions, but as yet (in 1175) there were 

in active exercise of its powers just no buildings of any architectural 

before the " Reformation." It show- pretensions. About that time a great 

ed the general destruction brought fire destroyed the greater part of the 

by the apostasy of England on all city, and for a long while very little 

monastic bodies, but such as it was order prevailed among its motley 

it was the church's creation, and a inhabitants. Robert Pulleyn, an Eng- 

fitting successor to those centres of lish scholar from Paris, who had 

rare learning, the Columbanian mon- set up a school in 1133 and in 1142, 

asteriesof the Vllth and VHIth cen- went to Rome, was made cardinal 

turies. there, and obtained many ecclesiasti- 

The Scotch universities of Edin- cal privileges for the Oxford scholars, 
burgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen have Law already began to be studied in 
been purposely left out, as we have this century, but a historian of the 
no records of them at hand; of the time complains bitterly that " purity 
latter, the remains of which we hap- of speech had decayed, philosophy 
pened to ( visit some years ago, it will was neglected, and nothing but Pa- 
suffice to say that it possesses a risian quirks prevailed. Had the 
library, the germs of which are due to monastic schools retained their as- 
Catholic collectors, and still has some cendency," he says, " polite letters 
very fine specimens of illuminated would never have fallen into such 
manuscripts! The wood carvings of neglect." * In the XIHth century 
the choir stalls and screen, of Flem- there were 30,000 students at Ox- 
ish workmanship, are very beautiful, ford, though many among them were 
and the collegiate chapel, still exist- " a set of varlets who pretended to 
ing, bears marks of the harmony and be scholars," and passed their time 
symmetry natural to the grand wor- in thieving and villany. The brawls 
ship it once typified. of these said " varlets " were to the 

We have left Oxford to the last, full as violent as those of the Rue 

since its history is perhaps almost Coupegueule, and much of the same 

unique. No university of its day kind of license disgraced Oxford as 

can match it; its vitality has out- it did Paris. Nationality seems to 

lasted the " Reformation " itself, and have been a common pretext for 

its spirit and statutes remain to this fights, and S. George's, S. Patrick's, 

moment as obstinately Catholic as in and S. David's days were, instead of 

the days of Bacon and Duns Scotus. peaceful festivals, days of bloodshed 

True, infidelity has not respected it, and plunder. At last every demon- 

but no more did it respect the Uni- stration on these days had to be for- 

versity of Paris in the XIHth century, bidden under pain of excommuni- 

and far more vigorous than its great cation. " Town and gown " fights 

mediaeval rival, Oxford still epi- too were frequent, and even inter- 

tomizes the genius of a nation, while necine battles took place among the 

Paris has lost every vestige of its scholars themselves over a false 

former academical sway. Its begin- quantity in pronunciation or a dis- 

nings are lost in the ages of fable, for puted axiom in philosophy. The fare 

tradition asserts that long before m those days seems to have been 
Alfred there were schools and dispu- 

* For all these and the following details, see 

there. The SChOOls Of Osiiey Christian Schools and Scholars. 



156 Centres of Thought in the Past. 

scanty; here tor instance is a col- streets bore singular names "School 

legiate menu : " At ten of the clock Street," " Logic Lane," " Street of 

they go to dinner, whereat they be the Seven Deadly Sins." Here is 

content with a penny piece of beef the " Schedesyerde," where abode 

among four, having a few pottage the sellers of parchment, the schedes 

made of the broth of the said beef, or sheets of which gave their name* 

with salt and oatmeal and nothing to the locality. The schools can be 

else." When they went to bed, " they distinguished by pithy inscriptions 

were fain to run up and down half over dingy-looking doors Amascicn- 

an hour to get a heat on their feet," tiam, Itnpostu ras fuge, Litteras disce 

and what the beds were may be sur- but you will look in vain for public 

raised from the fact of the students schools or collegiate piles. In these 

lodging where they could, generally humble schools many great scholars 

in lofts over the burghers' shops, as were reared : S. Edmund of Canter- 

at Paris. bury, who, for instance, unless he 

In the earlier part of the Xlllth chanced to spend it in relieving the 
century Cambridge was founded, and distress of some poor scholar or little 
Peter of Blois, the continuator of orphan child, left the money his 
Ingulphus, tells us that from this pupils paid him lying loose on the 
" little fountain (the first lectures window-sill, where he would strew 
given successively in the same barn, it with ashes, saying, " Ashes to 
on various subjects, by three or four ashes, dust to dust"; or, again, S. 
monks of Croyland) of Cottenham, Richard, Edmund's friend, and after- 
the abbot's manor near Cambridge, wards his chancellor at Canterbury, 
which has swelled to a great river, who while at Oxford was so poor 
we now behold the whole city of God that he could seldom allow himself 
made glad, and teachers issuing from the luxury of mutton , then reckoned 
Cambridge, after the likeness of the as ordinary scholar's fare, and who 
Holy Paradise." Cambridge seems lodged with two companions, of 
to have cultivated the Anglo-Saxon whom we hear the Parisian tale of 
tongue, as Tavistock also did, a the single gown worn alternately at 
monastic school where the language lecture by each, while the others re- 
was regularly taught "to assist the mained at home; Robert Grossetele, 
monks in deciphering their own an- the Franciscan, a universal genius and 
cient charters." a most holy man, a zealous lover of 

" Old Oxford " was not the im- natural science, and so well versed in 
posing pile of ecclesiastical build- the Scriptures that one of his modem 
ings its later representative is now. biographers has candidly admitted 
Osney and S. Frideswide stood like that his " wonderful knowledge of 
castles in its surrounding meadows, them might probably be worth re- 
but the main body of the university mark in our day, though in its own 
consisted in straw-thatched houses not more than was possessed by all 
and timber schools. There were theological students "/ Roger Bacon, 
pilgrimage wells where, on Roga- the greatest natural philosopher who 
tion Days, various blessings were appeared in England before the time- 
invoked on the fruits of the earth, of Newton ; and Alexander of Hales, 
and these were called by our fore- " the Irrefragable Doctor," who also 
fathers " Gospel places." It was a taught in the Franciscan schools of 
sort of religious " Maying," the stu- Paris were among prominent Ox- 
dents carrying poles adorned with ford scholars of the middle ages. Then 
flo wers and singing the Benedicite. The the marvellous Duns Scotus a scho- 



Centres of Thought in the Past. 

lar of Merton and afterwards a Lollardism faded from men's minds, 
Franciscan monk, an Abelard in bril- a revival of letters took place, and 
liancy. versatility, and keenness of in the XVIth century Erasmus, who 
argument, wITb, disputing one day be- was very kindly entertained and 
fore the doctors of the Sorbonne (to welcomed at Oxford, pays the fol- 
whom he was personally unknown), lowing tribute to its literary pro- 
was interrupted by one of them with ficiency : " I have found here classic 
this exclamation, " This must be erudition, and that not trite and 
either an angel from heaven, a de- shallow, but profound and accurate, 
mon from hell, or Duns Scotus from both Latin and Greek, so that I no 
Oxford!" A similar legend is told longer sigh for Italy."* And again : 
of Alanus de Insulis, a Paris doctor, " I think, from my very soul, there is 
who, having left the schools and be- no country where abound so many 
come a lay-brother at Citeaux, ac- men skilled in every kind of learn- 
companied the abbot to Rome to ing as there are here "f (in Eng- 
take charge of his horses. Being al- land). His own Greek learning was 
lowed to sit at the abbot's feet dur- chiefly acquired at Oxford, for, pre- 
ing the council against the Albigen- vious to his coming hither, his know- 
ses, and finding the scales inclining ledge of that language was very 
in favor of the heretics, he rose, and, superficial. 

begging the abbot's blessing, sudden- We have lingered over the history 
ly poured forth his irresistible argu- of mediaeval Oxford longer than our 
ments and defeated the sophistry of readers may be inclined to think 
the Albigenses, who, baffled and furi- reasonable, and we must confess that 
ous, exclaimed, " This must be either our interest in the only institution of 
the devil himself or Alanus." the middle ages which stands yet 

Thomas of Cantilupe, the son of unimpaired in glory, influence, and 
the Earl of Pembroke, was another renown, has led us beyond the limits 
representative Oxford scholar. Of we had honestly proposed to our- 
noble birth and great intellectual selves. 

powers, he rose to the highest dig- Little now remains to be said, 
nities of the realm, and, though We have come upon the uninviting 
Oxford was still a scene of violent times when reason broke away from 
disorders, he preserved his purity and faith and carried desolation in its 
calmness through all its dangers, headlong course through the field of 
The collegiate system soon came to the human intellect. A literary and 
put an end to this state of things, philosophical madness settled on 
and Merton was the first college, men's minds, and Babel seemed to 
properly so-called, where moral have come again, except where the 
order and architectural proportions calm round of old studies was pur- 
received some attention. The aspect sued with the old spirit of quiet with- 
of the university now rapidly chang- in the sphere of the ancient faith, 
ed. Lollardism seriously affected the All beyond was confusion and hurry; 
great seat of learning, and at first every one set up as a teacher before 
its doctrines were much upheld by having been a disciple ; each man 
the jealous secular teachers, who saw dictated and no one listened; each 
in his calmunies a weapon to be would be the originator of a system 
used against the saintly and success- which his first follower was sure to 
fill friars ; the tone of the university alter, with the perspective of having 
declined, and literature was wofully his alterations remodelled again by 
neglected for a time. However, as * Christian spools and Scholars. 



158 FUurange. 

his first pupil, and so on ad libitum, till With all its turbulence and oc- 

systems came to be called by men's casional excesses contrasted with the 

names, and to vary in meaning accord- cynical refinement and polite indif- 

ing to the particular temper of each ferentism of to-day, was not the 

one that undertook to explain them. older system the better one ? 





FLEURANGE. 

} ff BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF " A SISTER'S STORY." 
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION. 

PART THIRD. 

THE BANKS OF THE NECKAR. 
XXXIX. 

ABOUT a fortnight after Christmas, They were then fighting on the 

Clement was returning to his lodg- square before the palace, and the 

ings a little sooner than usual, when emperor was in the midst of the 

he met Wilhelm Muller at the door. fight." 

" Ah ! you have come at the right " Constantine ?" 

moment," said he. "Let me tell " No, indeed; his brother." 

you why. A courier from St. Peters- "The Grand Duke Nicholas? Is 

<>urg arrived this morning with *im- he at the head of the plot ?" 

portant news, which will have a seri- " No ; on the contrary, it seems to 

ous effect on our business." be Constantine, and yet it is not he 

" Are you referring to the death either. In fact, no one knows 

of the Emperor Alexander ? I anything about it, the report is so 

knew that yesterday. What else is very confused. But come and help 

there ?" me, if you will. We have despatch- 

" Quite another affair, indeed, es to send in every direction. We 

Constantine has been set aside, and shall certainly have further news 

the Grand Duke Nicholas is to sue- this evening. I dare say Waltheim 

ceed his brother." (the chief member of the firm of 

" Are you sure ?" which they were the principal clerks) 

" Yes. But that is not all ; we is this very moment beside himself." 

knew that yesterday. The news the The two friends set off together, 

courier brought this morning is They had hardly gone two steps 

more serious. It seems a conspiracy before they came upon quite a group 

has broken out " standing around the doorway of a 

" A conspiracy ! Where?" fine house almost opposite Miiller's. 

" At St. Petersburg. The courier It was the residence of the Russian 

left the twenty-fourth of December, legation. They were told in reply 



Fleurange. 159 

to their questions that a courier the chancellerie^ where M. de Noisy 

had just arrived on horseback, cov- passed the greater part of his time, 

ered with dust and half-dead with He found him seated at a table cov- 

fatigue. He left St. Petersburg on ered with papers. Before Clement 

the twenty-sixth, and had been ten had time to utter a word, the young 

days on the way. attache exclaimed, without leaving 

" Does anybody know what news his place : 

he has brought ?" asked Mliller of " Have you come with news ? or 

the man who gave him this informa- to get some ?" 
tion. " What a question ! You know 

" Nothing definite, of course. And well our commercial agents are never 

we shall learn nothing there," point- able to rival the speed of the bearers 

ing to the diplomatic residence, " ex- of political despatches." 
cept what they please to tell us." " And yet it happens sometimes." 

Miiller and Clement stopped no " But not this time, unfortunately, 

longer. The Russian legation t has just re- 

" The twenty-sixth !" said Miiller. ceived a despatch frwiv^St.re'ters- 

" I should like to know the contents burg dated the twenty-si^h^5 '.*?*' 
of the despatch." " So we have justheard. ; " It;came 

"The other legations must soon in an incredibly short ttrn.Q.v*.,*! rea,r , 

have news of as late a date, to say ours will not do as weft. ' And yet 

nothing of our own correspondent, the French embassy St' Sfc.~ Peters- 

who will give us the earliest infor- burg is not often caught napping." 
mation possible. But, now I think Some one rang furiously. A hus- 

of it, one of the attaches of the sar opened the door and made a sign 

French legation is somewhat of a to the vicomte, who sprang forward, 
friend of mine ; what if I go and ask "The courier!" he exclaimed, 

him for the details ?" " Bravo ! Vive Fambassadeur ! To 

Miiller thought this a capital idea, be only one hour behind the Rus- 

and Clement left him at once to go sian courier is wonderful ! Here, 

to the residence of the French lega- mon cher, are some cigars. Take 

tion. Miiller kept on to his office at the arm-chair and wait till I return. 

Waltheim's, where he would wait for I shall soon be back, and will bring 

him. you the news." 

The young attache referred to Clement threw himself into the 
was the Vicomte de Noisy. He had arm-chair, lit a cigar, took up a news- 
been present at one of the public as- paper, and patiently awaited the 
semblies in which Clement distin- young attache's return beside a good 
guished himself as a speaker, and fire, which, without prejudice to the 
conceived a fancy for him from that large stove at one end of the room, 
time. They frequently made excur- did not give out too much heat at this 
sions together on foot or horseback, rigorous season. At the end of an 
and the vicomte sought every oppor- hour, however, he was beginning to 
tunity of meeting Clement with an feel he was losing his time, when the 
eagerness the latter sometimes re- Vicomte de Noisy reappeared with 
proached himself for not responding his hands full of letters, which he 
to with more warmth. He relied, threw on the table, 
therefore, on a cordial reception, and, " There," he said. " To decipher 
in fact, as soon as he was announced, and read these is not all : they are to 
he was taken into a small room next be answered, and I do not know 



160 Flair ange. 

when I shall be able to leave the forced to leave you. I dare say we 

chancellerie" shall have to work all night. Here," 

" Would it be indiscreet for you to said he, searching in his pocket, 

tell me the nature of your des- " here is a letter I have received from 

patches ?" St. Petersburg by the courier. You 

" By no means. We have good may find in it some additional details 
news. It is all over. The struggle that will interest you." 
was severe, but short. The new em- The attache hurried off through 
peror conducted admirably. The the door of the chancellerie, and 
regiments in revolt have returned to Clement left the house. It was not 
their duty, all the leaders of the in- till he found himself in the street that 
surrection have been taken. The he began to recover from the stupe- 
only serious thing is that among the faction caused by the news he had 
latter are several belonging to the just heard. He turned mechanically 
noblesse, and a great many gentle- towards the office, where Mtiller was 
men of social standing are compro- waiting for him, and gave him an ac- 
mised. This interests me more than count of what he had just learned, 
anything else, because I was connect- with the exception of the one fact of 
ed with the embassy at St. Peters- this political event of infinitely more 
burg before I came here, and know importance to him than all the rest, 
them all." He remained some time at his post, 

" Have they given any of the making an almost superhuman effort 

leader's names ?" to control his bewildered mind and 

" Oh ! yes : Troubetzko'i, Rilieff, keep it on the work he had to do. 
Mouravieff, Wolkonsky, and a host At last he took leave of Miiller and 
of others. But among all these went back to his lodgings. Without 
names there is one I am amazed at stopping, as he usually did, to see the 
finding. Who would ever have family, he went directly up-stairs, and 
thought Walden would be drawn into shut himself up in his room. He 
such a row ?" wished to be alone, that he might de- 
Clement's heart gave a leap, cide at leisure upon the course to 
" Walden, did you say ? What, the pursue in consequence of so unfore- 
Count George de Walden ?" seen and serious an event. 

" The very person. Do you- hap- Gabrielle ! He thought of her 

pen to know him ?" and her alone. How would she 

" Yes, I know him." support such a blow ? How was she 

"Well, can you conceive of a man to be informed of it? 

of his ability and distinction being He remained a long time buried in 

mixed up in such a plot ? It was an these reflections without thinking of 

atrocious conspiracy to assassinate the letter in his pocket. At length he 

the emperor, and a foolish attempt to bethought himself of it, and with the 

establish a republic. Constantine's hope of 'getting some light began to 

name was only made use of as a pre- read it attentively. After some pre- 
amble, which he ran over hastily, he 

" And is Count George seriously came to what follows : 

compromised ?" asked Clement. This conspiracy, which broke out 

; He could not be more so. He with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, 

is classed among those who have no and appeared to be only the spontane- 

other alternative but Siberia or death, ous result of the prevailing doubt at 

-But excuse me, Dornthal, I am the beginning of the present reign as 



Flcurange. 



161 



to which of the two brothers was the 
real emperor, was really arranged a 
long time before, it seems. It is said 
to have had deep and extensive ra- 
mifications, and they who fomented 
and directed the plot only availed 
themselves of the circumstances that 
followed Alexander's death as a pre- 
text. It is said their plans were to 
have been executed in the spring, 
if the deceased emperor's life had 
been prolonged till that time. But 
what seems equally certain is that a 
great number of those who are now 
seriously compromised had only a 
very imperfect idea of what was going 
on. Among these, I cannot doubt, 
is our poor friend George de Walden. 
You know he has always been dream- 
ing of possible or impossible reforms. 
As evil would have it, he met in Italy 
during the past year a certain man 
named Lasko very intelligent and 
capable, but an intriguer ready for 
anything, and mixed up with all the 
plots that have agitated Italy and 
Germany the past ten years. Impri- 
soned, then released, Heaven knows 
how, assuming a thousand names, in 
a word, one *of those evil-minded 
persons who are docile instruments 
in the hands of the real leaders of 
the great plots of the day, George 
was accidentally brought in contact 
with him, and once, only once, was 
persuaded to attend one of their meet- 
ings through mere curiosity. There by 
a still more unfortunate accident he 
happened to meet one of the leaders 
just referred to. The latter at once 
saw the influence to be derived from 
George's name, position, enthusiasm, 
1 even his ignorance of the extent 
their schemes. He persuaded him 
repair to St. Petersburg at a given 
time, and hold himself in readiness to 
second a combined movement, secret- 
ly arranged, but too extensive to be 
pressed. This movement, he said, 
was to bring about the realization of 
VOL. xvi. ii 



some of George's theories. I had these 
details from the Marquis Adelardi, 
the genial Milanais who spent a win- 
ter here three years ago, and is, you 
know, George's intimate friend. The 
marquis, uneasy about the count's 
sudden departure from Florence, and 
still more so when three months pass- 
ed away without his return, came here 
to join him. He arrived only three 
days before the fatal twenty- fourth. 
It appears George was certainly on 
the square that day and in the fore- 
most ranks of the insurgents. Ade- 
lardi declares he went there sincerelv 

4 

convinced, by the representations of 
those who were desirous of leading 
him on, that Constantine's renuncia- 
tion was a pretence, and his rights 
ought to be maintained in the inter- 
ests of their projects, which that 
prince, they declared, was ready to 
second. However that may be, it is 
only too certain that close beside 
him on the square was this same 
Lasko, who was killed at the very 
moment of firing at the Grand Duke 
Michael. One witness and but one, 
for it requires some courage to testify 
in favor of a man in his situation has 
stated it was George who turned his 
deadly weapon aside (thus saving the- 
grand duke's life) before the aide-de- 
camp of the latter shot the assassin. 
But there is so strong a feeling 
against him, both at court and in the- 
city, that no one dares insist how 
much this circumstance is in his. 
favor. He himself obstinately refus- 
es to take advantage of it, and his. 
haughty attitude since his arrest is by 
no means favorable to his interests. 
What makes his case more complicat- 
ed, his secretary was an Italian most 
intimately connected with Lasko. 
This man, Fabiano Dini by name, 
was also on the square the day of 
the insurrection, and was severel}' 
wounded." 

Here Clement stopped. These las! 



1 62 



Fleurange. 



lines increased his agitation to the 
highest pitch. All their vague fears 
were thus confirmed his cousin's fa- 
tal destiny pursued him to the end ! 
Unfortunate himself and a source 
of misfortune to others ! Yes, that 
was Felix : capable of realizing his 
disgrace, but not of repairing it ; seek- 
ing the post of danger and the oppor- 
tunity of displaying his courage, re- 
luctant to leave the obscurity in which 
he had hidden his life, he became one 
of those secret agitators who were 
then, perhaps even more than now, 
silently undermining Europe. He 
soon became their agent, and his 
talents, contempt of danger and death, 
made him a useful one. In this way 
he speedily came to an end that was 
inevitable. 

Clement paced up and down his 
chamber a long time unable to calm 
'his confused mind, but, after much 
reflection, came to the conclusion 
^George's trial would probably be pro- 
longed, and might terminate less tra- 
gically than was to be feared from this 
ietter. At all events, he ought to 
:spare Fleurange all the anguish of 



this uncertainty as long as possible. 
This would not be difficult at Rosen- 
heim, for the professor was not allow- 
ed to read the newspapers, and there- 
fore none were left about the rooms 
occupied by the family. Hansfelt 
alone read them and communicated 
the news. Clement hastened to write 
his sister Hilda a few lines, confiding 
to her all he had just learned, and re- 
commending her, as well as Hansfelt, 
to withhold from Gabrielle all infor- 
mation on the subject. " I shall be at 
Rosenheim in a week," said he at the 
close, " and we will consult together, 
dear sister, about what will then be 
advisable. Meanwhile, I rely on your' 
prudence and affection for her." 

Clement and his sister had never 
discussed the subject now referred to, 
but they had long read one another's 
thoughts. They were now of the 
same mind, and Fleurange would 
have renlained a long time ignor- 
ant of what they wished to con- 
ceal from her, had not an unforeseen 
circumstance overthrown, a few days 
after, all the plans laid by their pru- 
dence and affection. 



XL. 

The poor you always have with you. the most pleasant feature of chanty 

This is our Saviour's declaration, and kind words, and sometimes long 

it accords with human experience, chats with the poor on whom she be- 

"VVe find the poor everywhere, unless stowed alms. 

we wilfully turn away our eyes with " I only wish they understood a 

culpable indifference. Mademoiselle little French," she said. " It seems as 

Josephine, we are well aware, was if it might be easy enough for them, 

not of the number of these blind or whereas it is utterly impossible for 

insensible persons. She therefore me to learn German." In a word, 

found quite as much work on her not to know French and to under- 

hands at Heidelberg as at Paris, with stand German seemed to Mademoi- 

this difference, which was a keen mor- selle Josephine among the mysteries 

tification she was unable to hold any of nature. Nevertheless, as the poor 

communication with the objects of people persisted in using only their 

her bounty, except by gestures rarely own language, and resentment must 

expressive enough on either side to not be carried so far as to refuse 

be understood. This forced her to aiding them, mademoiselle was very 

dispense with what had always been glad to accept Fleurange as her in- 



Fleurange. 163 

terpreter and the agent of her chari- your cousin Clement left two nice 

ty. The young girl came every day cigars for him which I forgot. While 

at the same hour, either to accom- I am gone for them, you can put 

pany her or receive her orders and all these things in your basket." 
make the daily round in her stead. The kind woman left the room to 

She generally found mademoiselle get the cigars. They were up-stairs, 

in her laboratory, that is, in a room on but she never thought of counting 

the ground-floor, in which the princi- her steps when it was a question of 

pal piece of furniture was an immense doing a kind act, however insignifi- 

anrwire. containing all kinds of things cant, for another. Only, she did 

to be distributed among her actual or not ascend the stairs quite as nimbly 

anticipated/;v/4/.f. She liked to have as she once did, and on this occasion 

a good supply on hand, and it was it took her about fifteen minutes to 

seldom a poor person found her with- go and return, 
out the means of aiding them at once. During this time Fleurange, stancl- 

" Here, Gabrielle," said she one ing at the table, proceeded to stow 

morning, when Fleurange appeared away all the things in her basket, and 

as usual, basket in hand, to get the last of all was about to put in the 

charitable supplies for the day. " See, newspapers when her eye fell on a 

everything is ready." And she pointed paragraph in one of them that gave " 

towards the things on the table, which, her a start. She seized the paper, 

with the large armoire and two chairs, opened it, and began to read with 

comprised all the furniture in the ardent curiosity. All at once she 

room. Everything was indeed ar- uttered a feeble cry, the journal 

ranged in fine order : on one side dropped from her trembling hands, 

were two pairs of stockings and a a mist came over her eyes, and, when 

woollen skirt ; on the other, a covered her old friend returned, she found 

tureen of broth, a small quantity of her lying on the floor, pale, cold, and 

sugar, a bottle of wine, some tobacco, senseless. 

and two or three newspapers. To all Fortunately, Mademoiselle Jose- 

these things she added a small vial, phine did not lack presence of mind 

the contents of which required some or experience. She flew to Fleur- 

explanation. ange, knelt beside her, raised her 

" The stockings and skirt," said head, and supported her in her arms, 
mademoiselle, '' are for the mother of Then she drew a smelling-bottle from 
the little girl to whom you carried her pocket to revive her, and while 
clothes yesterday. The broth and showing her these attentions she 
sugar are for our poor old woman, as racked her brains to guess what 
well as this little vial of eau de melisse could have caused one so robust and 
of my own preparation, and not the generally so calm to faint in this 
worse for that. And the wine and mysterious way. All at once she 
tobacco are for the invalid soldier, noticed the newspaper, which had 
the old carpenter whom you visited fallen at the young girl's feet. " Ah !" 
last week. His daughter succeeded she said, " she read something in 
in making me understand yesterday that medley, perhaps some bad 
that nothing would give this poor news ; but, merciful heavens ! what 
man more pleasure than to lend him could it have been to produce such 
a newspaper occasionally. You can an effect ? Dear child," she con- 
give him these which I procured for tinned, looking tenderly at the pale 
him this morning. Ah ! apropos, and lovely face resting on her shoul 



164 Fleurange. 

clers, " she said yesterday she never all now," she suddenly exclaimed, 
fainted but once in her life, and that " But is it true ? May not this be 
was at our house in Paris two years false a mere idle tale ?" 
ago when she was overcome by " Who can tell ?" replied made- 
weakness and hunger." moiselle vaguely. " That is quite 

Poor Mademoiselle Josephine ! possible. They say so many things." 

compassion, and the remembrances " But tell me all you know." 

thus awakened, doubly affected her, " No, no, not now, Gabrielle, not 

and her eyes were still filled with now. You are not able to hear it. 

tears when Fleurange opened hers Do as I say, and we will talk aboui 

with an expression of surprise soon it at another time." 

followed by an indistinct recollec- Fleurange made no reply. A 

tion. She rose slowly up, but,- be- moment after, she rose. " I am 

fore mademoiselle could aid her, she well now," she said ; " I feel revived." 

threw her arms around her old She gathered up her long hair, 

friend's neck. which had fallen around her shoul- 

" O dear mademoiselle !" she ders, took the journal and' put it in 

murmured, " did you know it ? did her pocket, then put on the little 

you know it ?" velvet hat trimmed with fur which 

Poor Josephine had never been so she generally wore in winter, and 

embarrassed. To say she was total- said : " Thanks, dear mademoiselle, 

ly ignorant of the point was to invite and pardon me. I have quite re- 

a confidence quite unsuitable at such covered, but do not feel equal, how- 

a moment, and a contrary reply ever, to the visits you expected me 

would also have its inconveniences, to make to-day." 

She therefore took refuge in an in- " No, indeed, of course not." 

nocent subterfuge. " I must go home at once." 

" Well, well, my poor child, what " Yes, certainly, I am going with 

use is there in speaking of it now ? you. You must go to bed. You 

Be calm, and do not say anything at are generally pale, but now your 

present. We will talk about it an- cheeks are as red as those curtains," 

other time. Be easy," she added pointing to the bright cotton curtains 

at a venture, " everything will be ar- at the window, 

ranged if you take what I am going " No, no, I am not ill," said 

to give you." Fleurange, her eyes aflame. " The 

Then aiding Fleurange to rise, and air will do me good. Do not feel 
placing her in a chair, she ran for a uneasy. You see my faintness has 
glass of water, into which she pour- entirely passed off." 
ed a few drops of eau demelisse a As mademoiselle had not the least 
genuine panacea in her estimation idea of the cause of this sudden in- 
which she held to the young girl's disposition, and the young girl real- 
lips. Fleurange drank it all, and ly seemed quite recovered, she did 
then gave a long sigh. not oppose her wish to go home 

" What happened to me ?" she said, alone and on foot. The distance 

" Nothing. You were only faint, was not far. Fleurange came every 

That is all." day without any escort, she allowed 

"That is strange, for I never faint." her therefore to go, merely accom- 

And she passed her hand over her panying her as far as the gate of her 

forehead. ' little yard, where they separated, bid- 

" O my God ! I remember it ding each other good-by till evening. 



Fleurange. 
XLI. 



The thermometer was down to 
five or six degrees. The little hat 
Fleurange wore protected her fore- 
head, but showed the tresses of 
her thick hair behind. She drew up 
her hood when she wished to guard 
more effectually against the severity 
of the weather. But now she did 
not take this precaution. She only 
drew the folds of her thick cloak 
around her form, and set off with 
rapid steps. The keen, frosty air 
was refreshing to her burning cheeks 
and revived her strength, and, with 
the exception of an unusual glow in 
her complexion and in her eyes, 
there was no trace of her recent 
faintness when she reached home. 
As soon as she entered, without stop- 
ping an instant, she went directly up- 
stairs, and, giving a slight knock at 
the door, entered the chamber be- 
tween her own and Hilda's, which 
Hansfelt had used as a study since 
his arrival at Rosenheim. When 
Fleurange entered, she found him 
and his young wife together. They 
started with surprise at seeing her, 
and stopped talking, with a certain 
embarrassment which did not escape 
Fleurange. 

" I can guess the subject of your 
conversation," she said with emotion, 
but without hesitation, " and it is 
what I wish to speak to you about." 

Her cousin looked at her, uncer- 
tain what reply she ought to make. 

" Hilda," said Fleurange, " you 
agreed never to mention Count 
George's name to me till I should 
speak of him first. Well, I have 
now come to speak of him, and beg 
you both to tell me all you know 
about him. Here," continued she, 
throwing the newspaper she had 
brought on the table, " read that, and 
then tell me all I am still ignorant 
of." 



What could they say ? She stood 
before them so calm, resolute, and 
decided, that any reticence seemed 
useless. Hansfelt ran over the jour- 
nal. He saw the article Fleurange 
referred to did not contain any de- 
tails, but only a list of the accused, 
followed by some very clear com- 
ments on the fate which awaited 
them. Count George's name fig- 
ured among the first on the list. 

"What is he accused of? What 
is the crime in question ?" asked she 
in a decided tone. 

Hamsfelt still hesitated. But his 
wife knew better than he the charac- 
ter of her who was questioning them. 
" Karl," said she, " you can tell her, 
and ought to do so. We must con- 
ceal nothing more from Gabrielle." 

" And why have you done so 
hitherto ?" said Fleurange. " Ah ! 
yes, I understand " and a slight 
blush mounted to her forehead 
" the secret I thought so well hid- 
den has been discovered by you 
all !" 

" No, no," cried Hilda, " only by 
me and you know I can conceal 
nothing from Karl by me and Cle- 
ment." 

" Clement also ?" said Fleurange, 
with a start of surprise and a con- 
fusion which deepened her blush. 
" But, after all, what difference does 
it make ?" she continued. " I shall 
conceal nothing more from any one, 
and I wish nothing to be kept from 
me either. Come, Karl, I assure 
you earnestly I do not lack fortitude, 
and hereafter you must not try to 
spare me. Surprise alone overpow- 
ered me for an instant. Now I am 
prepared for the worst, and ready to 
hear what you have to tell." 

But in spite of these words, when 
Hansfelt at last decided, after some 
further hesitation, to satisfy her, 



1 66 Fleiirange. 

while he was giving her a circum- tinued: "Then nothing can save 

stantial account of all Count George him ?" 

had clone to forfeit his life, the color " You wished for the truth without 
produced by the keen air, her walk- any disguise, Gabrielle, and I have 
ing so fast, and her agitation, van- not concealed it from you. Accord- 
ished completely from the young ing to all human probability, no- 
girl's face, and she became as pale thing can save Count George from 
as death. the fate that awaits him : that is be- 

" Siberia or death !" she repeated yond doubt. But it sometimes hap- 

two or three times in a low tone, as pens in Russia that sudden caprice 

if it were as difficult to understand on the part of the sovereign arrests 

as to utter such terrible words. the hand of justice. Nevertheless, it 

" As to the worst of these two sen- would be deceiving you if I did not 

tences, it is to be hoped he will es- add that there is nothing to lead us 

cape," said Hansfelt. to hope he will be such an object of cle- 

Fleurange shuddered. Was it real- mency. On the contrary, ail the re- 
ly of him him ! they wer talk- ports agree in stating that the irrita- 
ing in this way ? " But tell me, tion against him is extreme, and sur- 
Karl, is there no other alternative ? passes that against all the other con- 
May he not be condemned to prison spirators." 

or expatriation ? They are also great Fleurange remained a long time 

and fearful punishments. Why speak absorbed in thought. " Thank you, 

only of two sentences, one almost as Karl," said she at length. " You 

horrible as the other ?" will hereafter tell me all you learn, 

Hansfelt shook his head. " His will you not ?" 

name, his rank, the benefits the gov- After receiving the promise asked 
ernment had conferred on his fa- for, she turned to leave the chamber, 
mily, the favors so many times of- " One more question," said she. 
fered him, will all aggravate his " My head must be very much con- 
crime in the eyes of his judges. His fused, or I should have asked you 
life, I trust, will be spared, but " before in what way his poor mother 

" But the mines, fetters, and learned the news, and how she bears 

fearful rigors of Siberia do you it." 

think he will be condemned to suffer " Clement heard she was at Flor- 

all these penalties without any allevi- ence, as usual at this season, but 

ation ?" on learning the news started at once 

Hansfelt was silent. Hilda pressed for St. Petersburg." 

Fleurange's hands and tenderly kiss- " St. Petersburg ! at this time of 

ed her colorless cheeks. year ! The poor woman will die on 

" I have said enough, and too the way." 

much," said Hansfelt. " Why will " I can tell you nothing more, 

you ask me such questions, Gabri- Clement will be here this evening, 

elle ? And why do you tell me to He may have additional news." 

answer her, Hilda ?" But when Clement arrived that 

" Because I wish to know every- night, Fleurange, prostrated by the 

thing," said Fleurange, raising her anxiety and excitement of the day, 

head, which she had rested a mo- was unable to leave her chamber, 

ment on her cousin's shoulder, and Her aunt, who remained with her, 

recovering her firmness of voice, declared she should see no one else 

After a moment's hesitation she con- till the next day, and the interview 



Fleurange. 



167 



she hoped to have with Clement was 
deferred. Meanwhile the Latter was 
steeling himself for the new phase in 
the trial before him by listening to 
all the details of what had occurred. 
Mademoiselle Josephine informed 
them of what had happened to Fleur- 
ange at her house, and in return 
learned with interest mingled with 
profound astonishment the real 
cause of her fainting. Of all the suf- 
ferings in the world, those caused by 
love were the most unintelligible to 
her. If she had been suddenly in- 
formed that her dear Gabrielle had 
lost her mind, or was going into a 
consumption, she would not have 
been more surprised and disturbed. 
Perhaps less so, for the terror mys- 
tery lends to distress, and a complete 
ignorance of the suitable remedies 
for such a case, added powerlessness 
to anxiety. She, who had so many 



remedies of all kinds for every occa- 
sion, could absolutely think of no- 
thing suitable for this. How this 
unknown person, whose name she 
had never heard until to-day, could 
all at once become so essential to 
the happiness of this dear child, who 
was surrounded by so much affec- 
tion from others and had always 
seemed so happy, was in her eyes a 
still greater phenomenon than know- 
ing German. As for that language, 
she now resolved to study it, think- 
ing the day might again arrive when 
there would be something within her 
comprehension and power to do for 
her. '' I will endeavor to acquire it, 
that I may not lose an opportunity 
of profiting by it," said she. Thi? 
vague hope consoled her for her pres- 
ent incompetency, and satisfied, for 
the time, the devotedness of her kind 
heart, now quite out of its latitude. 



XLII. 



The following morning Fleurange, 
quite recovered from the physical ef- 
fects of her agitation, was up at her 
usual hour, that is, at daybreak. 
She put on her thick cloak, her little 
fur-trimmed hat, and started off to 
church for the first Mass, which she 
daily attended at this season. At 
her arrival she threw back her hood, 
and knelt as near the altar as possi- 
ble. The church was so dark that 
each one brought a lantern, a bit of 
candle, or some other portable light 
to read by. These lamps and ta- 
pers, increasing with the number of 
worshippers, at last diffused sufficient 
light throughout the church to en- 
able one to distinguish the people and 
objects in it. Fleurange did not 
bring a candle and needed none, for 
she had no prayer-book, but she was 
not the less profoundly recollected. 
Pale and motionless, her hands 
clasped, her head raised, her eyes 



fastened on the altar, the delicate 
and regular outline of her face dis- 
tinctly visible by a neighboring taper, 
she resembled a statue of white mar- 
ble wrapped in sombre drapery. She 
prayed with fervor, but without agi- 
tation, without tears, and even with- 
out moving her lips. Her whole soul 
seemed centred in her eyes. Her look 
at once expressed the faith that im- 
plores and hopes, submission to God's 
will, and courage to fulfil it. It was a 
prayer that must prevail, or leave the 
heart submissive and strengthened. 

The Mass ended, all the lights 
were extinguished one after the 
other, but the faint glimmering in the 
east soon increased to such a degree 
that, when Fleurange rose after the 
church was nearly empty, she recog- 
nized Clement only a few steps oft. 
He followed her to the door, she 
took the holy water from his hand, 
and they went out together. 



1 68 



Fleurange. 



It was now broad daylight, but 
the sky was veiled with gray clouds, 
a violent wind swept before it the 
snow that covered the ground, and 
when they issued into the street they 
were met by a perfect whirlwind of 
driving snow which Fleurange was 
scarcely able to withstand. Clem- 
ent supported her, then retained her 
arm, and they walked on for some 
time without speaking. He had 
dreaded this interview in spite of 
himself, and now rallied all his 
strength to listen calmly to what she 
was about to say. But, at last, as 
she remained silent, he spoke first : 

" You were ill last evening, Ga- 
brielle. I was far from expecting to 
find you at church so early in such 
severe weather." 

"111?" replied Fleurange. "No; 
I was not ill, but suffering from a 
great shock, as you know, do you 
not, Clement?" 

" Yes, Gabrielle, I know it." 

These few words broke down the 
Darner. What had haunted Clem- 
ent's thoughts now proved to be an 
actual reality ; but energetic natures 
prefer the most terrible realities to 
/ague apprehensions, and even to 
v-ague hopes, and he felt his courage 
rise in proportion as self-abnegation 
became more completely rooted in 
his soul. After a moment's silence, 
he said : 

" Gabrielle, why have you not 
treated me of late with the same 
confidence you once showed me ?" 

She replied without any hesitation : 
" Because I made a resolution never 
to mention him I made it," she 
continued, without noticing the slight 
start Clement was unable to repress, 
" because I wished to forget him. It 
was therefore better for me to be re- 
served even with Hilda even with 
you, Clement. But now," continu- 
ed she, with a kind of exaltation in 
which grief and joy were confound- 



ed, " now I think of that no longer, 
It seems as if a new life had com- 
menced for him and for me. And 
yet we are separated, as it were, by 
death. But death breaks down bar- 
riers, and reunites, too. What shall I 
say, Clement ? I seem nearer to 
him to-day than yesterday, and in 
spite of myself (for I am well aware 
it is an illusion) I feel I shall be able 
to serve him in some way or other. 
At all events, I no longer have any 
motive for concealing my feelings, 
and to throw off this restraint is in 
itself a comfort." 

Clement listened without interrupt- 
ing her. Each word gave him a 
sharp pang, but he steeled himself, 
somewhat as one does to the clash 
of arms and the firing of cannon till 
there is not even a movement of the 
eyelids to betray the fear of death 
or the possibility of being wounded. 
As to the illusion she spoke of, it 
was the last dream of sorrow and 
love. He would not try to dispel it. 

" Let us hope, my dear cousin," 
said he in a calm tone. " So many 
unforeseen circumstances may occur 
during a trial like that about to com- 
mence ! There is no reason to de- 
spair. Whatever may happen," add- 
ed he, as they approached the house, 
" promise me, Gabrielle, from this 
time forth, to show the same con- 
fidence in me you once did a con- 
fidence which will induce you to tell 
me everything, and rely on me un- 
der all circumstances. You once 
made me such a promise : have you 
forgotten it ?" 

" No, Clement, and I now renew 
it. You are my best friend, as I 
once told you. My opinion has not 
changed." 

Yes, she had said so. He had for- 
gotten neither the day nor the spot, 
and his heart throbbed at the re- 
membrance ! Though he was but 
little more than twenty years of age, 



Fleurange. 



169 



and the honeysuckle he still preserv- 
ed in memory of that hour was 
scarcely withered, a long life seemed 
to have intervened since they ex- 
changed nearly the same words. 

But when they separated with a 
pressure of the hand at the end of 
the conversation, on that gloomy 
winter morning, Clement was left 
with a less painful impression than 
that which came over him on the 
banks of the Neckar, when, in the 
pale light of the moon, he had so 
sudden and fatal a revelation from 
the expression of her eyes and the 
tone of her voice. She had told him 
nothing to-day he did not know be- 
fore. Instead of happiness, a vague 
perspective of devotedness opened 
before him. But even this was 
something to live for. 

The following days passed without 
any new incident. The necessity 
of concealing their preoccupation 
from the professor obliged them all 
to make an effort which was bene- 
iicial especially to Fleurange, who re- 
mained faithful to her ordinary du- 
ties, passing as much time as usual 
beside her uncle's arm-chair, and 
with Mademoiselle Josephine and 
her poor proteges. But a feverish 
anxiety was sometimes apparent in 
her movements and in the troubled 
expression of her eyes when she went 
daily at the regular hour to ask 
Hansfelt what was in the newspa- 
pers. For more than a week, how- 
ever, there was nothing new either 
to comfort her or to increase her 
sorrow. Clement had returned to 
Frankfort, and the days dragged 
along with deep and silent anguish. 
One morning, when least looked for, 
he suddenly appeared with unex- 
pected news : the Princess Catherine 
was at Frankfort, and would be at 
Heidelberg the following day ! 

Fleurange trembled. The Princess 
Catherine ! All the remembrances 



connected with that name revived 
with an intensity that for a moment 
overpowered her. She felt incapable 
of uttering a word. " Coming here ?" 
she said at length. " To Heidel- 
berg ? What for ? What can bring 
her here ? How do you know ? 
Who told you ? Oh ! tell me every- 
thing, and at once, Clement !" 

Clement implored her to be calm, 
and she became so by degrees while 
he related what he had learned the 
night before from the Princess Cath- 
erine herself. At her arrival at 
Frankfort, she was informed by M. 
Waldheim, her banker, that young 
Dornthal was in the city, and she 
begged him to call on her. Clement 
complied, but not without emotion, 
with the wish of Count George's 
mother, and found her fearfully pros- 
trated with grief and illness. He 
had, however, a long conversation 
with her, the substance of which was 
that, leaving Florence as soon as she 
learned the fatal news, she travelled 
night and day till she reached Paris, 
where she fell ill. After four days, 
however, she resumed her journey, 
but when she arrived at Frankfort 
the physician declared her utterly in- 
capable of continuing it, and espe- 
cially of enduring the increasing se- 
verity of the weather in proportion 
as she approached St. Petersburg. 
Able to go no further, she resolved 
at least to keep on as far as Heidel- 
berg, hoping the care of a young 
physician of that city, since and even 
then very celebrated, would speedily 
enable her to resume her sad journey. 

" I shall make the effort," said the 
princess, " for I wish to live. I wish 
to go to him, if possible. I long to 
behold him once more ! I hope 

much from Dr. Ch 's attendance, 

as well as your cousin Gabrielle's. I 
depend on her, tell her so. Tell 
her," added she, weeping, " that I 
long to see her again, and beg her 



I/O Fleurange. 

to come to me as soon as I arrive at in the room prepared for the prin- 

Heidelberg." cess, arranging the furniture in the 

" And she will be here to-mor- way she knew would suit her, trying 

row ?" said Fleurange, much affected, to give everything a cheerful aspect, 

'' Yes, towards night. I am go- to lessen the sadness of the poor 
ing to notify the physician, and have traveller, who, towards the close of 
the best apartments in the city pre- this long day, at length arrived ex- 
pared for her. Though she did not hausted with fatigue, and fell sobbing 
say so, I am sure, Gabrielle, she ex- into the young girl's arms, 
pects to meet you at her arrival." The time when she feared no 

Fleurange merely replied she other danger for her son than Ga- 
would be there, but her heart beat brielle's presence was forgotten, 
with a joy she thought she could The impressions of the moment al- 
never feel again. To behold ways overruled all others, and her 
George's mother once more, and at present troubles were, besides, well 
such a time ! Was it not like catch- calculated to absorb every thought, 
ing a glimpse of him ? She would be Therefore, in meeting her young /As- 
sure of constantly hearing his name tc'ge'e she only thought of the plea- 
of constant and direct news respect- sure of seeing her again, of the com- 
ing him in a word, this was the fort to be derived from her care and 
realization of a secret wish she had presence at a time when they were 
not dared utter. most needed, and everything except 

The next day, a long time before her first fancy for Fleurange seemed 

the appointed hour, Fleurange was to be effaced from her memory. 

XLIII. 



A subdued light veiled every ob- To this the afflicted mother continu- 
ject. A bright fire sparkled in the ally came back, sometimes with agi- 
small fireplace, only intended to be tation, sometimes with a dull despair, 
ornamental, as the room was other- but always with profound grief, heart- 
wise heated by a stove. The prin- rending to her whose sorrow equal- 
cess was, as we have already seen led her own. 

her, reclining on a canape sheltered It was the first time the Princess 

by a large screen. Her elbow rest- Catherine had ever been subdued 

ed on a small table loaded with the by misfortune. Subdued, but not 

various objects she always carried changed, she not only instinctively 

with her; her feet were covered with retained all her elegant habits, but 

a large shawl, and near her sat her passionate nature was tm- 

Fleurange on a stool in the old fa- changed, and burst forth into re- 

miliar attitude. criminations against all whom she 

There was a great change, how- thought implicated in her son's 

ever. They no longer resorted to misfortunes. This enabled her to 

reading as they once did, or followed pity, without blaming, him. It was 

the lead of the princess' thoughts, on of these occasions Fleurange 

generally more or less frivolous, heard her exclaim that " Fabiano 

One subject alone absorbed every Dini was his evil genius !" and she 

faculty a subject which she who shuddered in recalling her presenti- 

listened with such ardent interest ment, so soon and so fatally justified, 

was still less weary of than herself. " Yes," said the princess during 



Fleurange. 



171 



pne of their conversations, " it was 
he it was that Fabiano Dini who 
brought him in contact with that 
reprobate of a Lasko !" 

And then she told the young girl 
about that person whose tragical end 
did not seem to have sufficiently ex- 
piated all the evil he had done her 
son about his arrival at Florence, 
the ascendency he acquired over 
George, and the skill and prompt- 
ness with which he took advantage 
of all his weak points. She had 
been incredulous at first, notwith- 
standing Adelardi's warnings alas ! 
too long, too foolishly incredulous ! 
But her fears once roused, how 
much had she not suffered ! What 
efforts had she not made ! Alas ! 
but in vain ! 

" He was always so that dear, 
unfortunate child ! No prudence, 
no fear of danger, ever stopped him 
on the very brink where his incli- 
nations led him. Oh ! those wretches ! 
they soon discovered his impru- 
dence, his generosity, and his cour- 
age ! And now," she exclaimed, ris- 
ing from her pillow, while her thick 
but somewhat gray hair fell over her 
shoulders in unusual disorder, " can 
he possibly be confounded with 
them ? Oh ! if I could only get 
well, only strong enough to start, to 
make the journey, to see the young 
empress even but once, I should ob- 
tain his pardon, I am sure !" 

Then she fell back exhausted, 
murmuring as she wrung her hands : 
" And Vera ! Vera absent from St. 
Petersburg at such a time ! She was 
expected there, but who knows if she 
may not arrive too late ? And 
above all, who knows but she will be 
his worst enemy, and if he has not 
foolishly poisoned the very source 
whence he might now derive safety ?" 

These words, which perhaps might 
have caused fresh trouble, were not 
heard by her to whom they were ad- 



dressed. Fleurange had softly left 
the princess' side as she laid her 
weary head on her pillow, and was 
at the other end of the room prepar- 
ing a soothing draught which the 
poor invalid mechanically took from 
her hand from hour to hour without 
obtaining the relief of a moment's 
sleep. This overpowering excite- 
ment, which resisted every remedy, 
was somewhat soothed at the arrival 
of one of the Marquis Adelardi's fre- 
quent letters. He was still at St. 
Petersburg, and kept her accurate- 
ly informed of all that happened, 
sometimes reviving her hopes, and 
again confirming her fears. But 
hitherto he had not succeeded in 
learning anything certain as to the 
fate reserved for his friend. Some- 
times, therefore, after eagerly reading 
these letters, she threw them into 
the fire with despair. 

So much agitation at length 
brought on a high fever, and the 
princess had been confined to her 
bed several days, when one morning 
another letter arrived from St. Peters- 
burg. Fleurange softly approached 
the bedside, and perceived the inva- 
lid was fast asleep. It was impor- 
tant this brief moment of repose 
should not be disturbed, and, besides, 
the physician had requested, some 
days previous, that no letter should 
be given her till it had been read, for 
fear she might learn some distressing 
news before she was prepared as it 
was easy to foresee might happen. 
Fleurange promised to read the let- 
ters first, and with the less scruple 
that for more than a week she had 
been obliged to read them to the 
princess, who was too worn out to 
do so herself. 

She now left her to the care of the 
faithful Barbara, and went into the 
salon, where, carefully closing the 
door, she broke the seal of the letter 
in her hands, which was also from 



I7 2 Fleurange. 

the Marquis Adelardi. " At last," " As much precaution therefore 

he wrote, " I think I can certainly re- must be taken in informing him of 

assure you as to the most terrible of the mitigation of his punishment, as 

the events that seemed possible, in announcing to others the severity 

The extreme rigor of the law will of theirs. Before that time, I hope 

only be enforced against the acknow- to obtain entrance again, 
ledged leaders of the conspiracy " Meanwhile I have learned with 

four or five in number. All the as much admiration as surprise that 

others, among whom is George, will several who are doomed to the same 

incur, alas ! a terrible penalty, but punishment as he are to have an un- 

we must be thankful not to look for- expected and unparalleled consola- 

ward to one more frightful I say tion. Their wives their admirable 

we, my dear unfortunate friend, for, and heroic wives have begged to 

as to him, I fear this sentence will be allowed to share their fate, and 

produce a contrary effect. I am per- at this very moment several ladies 

suaded he will consider it a thousand whom you know, young, beautiful, 

times more dreadful than the other. and accomplished, are preparing to 

" Since I last wrote you, through follow their husbands to Siberia by 

the intervention of one of the ambas- inuring themselves to the rigor of the 

sadors, I have been allowed the pri- season. These unfortunate men, de- 

vilege of entering the fortress where graded from the nobility, deprived 

George is confined, and having a pri- of their wealth, and stripped of 

vate interview with him. Pardon everything in the world, cannot be 

has been offered him if he will reveal deprived of the affection of these 

the names of some of his accom- self-sacrificing creatures whose noble 

plices. You will not be surprised devotedness nothing daunts. I con- 

at his refusing. But the numerous fess this amazes and confuses me, 

proofs of their criminal projects, for I never before realized, or even 

which have been set before him in suspected, how much heroism and 

order to wrest some acknowledg- generosity there is in the heart of a 

ment from him, have convinced him woman !" 

of the nature of the enterprise in Fleurange's own heart throbbed so 

which he risked his honor and life, violently she was unable to continue 

The effect of this discovery has been the letter. With overflowing eyes 

to plunge him in the deepest dejec- she was still dwelling on the page 

tion, and his only fear now is that she had just finished reading it 

his life may be spared. over and over when she was told 

" ' I merit death for my folly, Ade- the princess was awake, and wished 

lardi,' said he : ' you were right in to know if there was a letter for her. 

warning me there would be no con- For some days her mind had been 

solation in such a reflection at the so full of terrible anticipations about 

extremity I am now in. But I shall the final result as sometimes to pro- 

submit to my fate without weakness, duce fits of delirium. When, there- 

as you do me the honor to believe, I fore, the contents of this letter were 

hope. I do not wish, however, to communicated to her, she felt an 

appear more courageous than I am, unexpected an unhoped-for relief, 

and if, instead of death, I am sen- His life George's life! would be 

fenced to drag out the life of a crim- spared ! There was yet time for her 

inal in Siberia, I do not know what to effect something. She began to 

my despair might lead me to do.' hope everything from the future, and 



Fleurange. 



173 



became calmer than she had been 
for a long time. She was even to 
get up in the evening. She convers- 
ed, she spoke eagerly of her plans, 
her hopes, all she would do to soften 
her son's exile, and the efforts she 
would make to abridge it ; but what 
was extraordinary. Fleurange seemed 
absent-minded and made scarcely 
any reply. 

About nine o'clock Julian or 
Clement always came to accompany 
her back to Rosenheim a half- 
hour's walk from the princess' house, 
which was at the other end of the 
city. On this occasion, when she 
was sent for, she was so absorbed in 
her own thoughts that she did not 
notice which of the two was with 
her. It was starlight, but very cold, 
and her hair was blown about by the 
wind from beneath her little velvet 
hat. 

" Draw your hood up, Gabrielle ; 
it has not been so cold this win- 
ter." 

It was Clement's voice which sud- 
denly roused her from her reverie. 

" Is it you, Clement ? Excuse 
me, I did not know whether I was 
with you or Julian." 

He gently attempted to raise her 
hood. 



" No, no !" she said earnestly. 
" Let me breathe the air. Though 
it is scarcely more than two years 
since I saw snow for the first time in 
my life, I am not afraid of the cold. 
I could if necessary endure far more 
severe weather than this. There !" 
And she took off her hat and walk- 
ed some steps with her head com- 
pletely exposed to the frosty night 
air. " You know," she continued, 
with an animation that singularly 
contrasted with her previous silence 
" you know, during the Russian 
campaign, those who endured the 
cold best were the Neapolitan sol- 
diers. Well, like them, I have 
brought a supply of sunshine from 
the South which much harder frosts 
than this could not exhaust !" 

Nevertheless, at Clement's re- 
newed entreaties, she laughingly put 
on her hat, and they walked quickly 
along, leaving scarcely a trace of 
their steps on the hard snow, deep 
as it was. 

Her liveliness that evening was 
strange ! Clement noticed it without 
comprehending the cause. Her 
cheerful tone and charming smile, in- 
stead of delighting him as usual, now 
made him inexpressibly uneasy, and 
sadder than ever ! 



XLIV. 



As is often the case with people 
of violent and inpressionable natures, 
the Princess Catherine seldom saw 
things long in the same light. 
Though her thoughts were sorrow- 
fully fastened on one subject in con- 

[uence of the tragical events that 
so suddenly threw a dark, ominous 
veil over a life hitherto so smiling, 

e found means of giving a thou- 

:id different shades to her misfor- 
tune, and it was not always easy to 
follow her in the fitful turns of her 
grief. What consoled her one day 



was a source of irritation the next : 
what she affirmed in the morning, 
she vehemently denied in the even- 
ing. Sometimes she expressed her 
fears on purpose that they might be 
opposed; at other times, she burst 
into tears at the slightest contradic- 
tion, and, if they endeavored to reas- 
sure her, she accused them of cruelty 
and indifference to her troubles. 

In consequence of one of these 
sudden fluctuations, the day follow- 
ing the arrival of the Marquis Ade- 
lardi's letter which had seemed so 



174 



Fleurange. 



consoling, Fleurange, at the hour of 
her usual visit, found her aban- 
doned to the deepest dejection. 
Everything had assumed a new as- 
pect, or perhaps it would be more 
just to say that everything now wore 
the terrible aspect of truth. And 
was it really enough that her idol- 
ized son was delivered from death ? 
Was not the prospect she now dwelt 
on almost as fearful to bear ? He 
George ! her son ! in her eyes 
the perfect model of manly beauty, 
elegance, and nobleness of character, 
clad in the frightful garb of a crimi- 
nal ! and going alone amid that 
wretched crowd to that dreary re- 
gion, where the hardest and most hu- 
miliating labor awaited him, without 
even the consoling voice of a friend 
to encourage him, to take him by 
the hand, to love him, and to tell 
him so ! 

" Oh !" she exclaimed, in that ac- 
cent which is as different from every 
other, as the grief of a mother differs 
from every other grief " oh ! feeble, 
ill, and exhausted as I am, why can- 
not I accompany him ? It really 
seems to me, Gabrielle, if I were al- 
lowed, I should find strength, I 
should have the courage to go. I 
would start, I would go and share 
his wretched existence, I would par- 
ticipate in all the severities of so 
frightful a life, and by dint of affec- 
tion I would make it endurable for 
him !" 

This energetic cry of disinterested 
affection its evident sincerity was 
so rare a thing with the princess that 
it was the more affecting. Pale, si- 
lent, and motionless before her, 
Fleurange listened with an emotion 
that prevented her uttering the words 
that hung on her trembling lips. 
The poor princess was sobbing 
aloud, with both hands to her face, 
apparently exhausted by her own ve- 
hemence, when Fleurange, suddenly 



kneeling beside her, said in a low 
tone : 

" Do you remember, princess, the 
promise you exacted from your son, 
one evening ?" 

The princess raised her head with 
surprise and a shade of resentment : 
" What do you mean ? Do you 
wish to reproach me at such a time ? 
The moment is well chosen, but such 
a thing from you, Gabrielle, surprises 
me !" 

" Reproach you ! " cried Fleurange. 
" No, I did not think of such a thing. 
It was a request, a petition, or, rather, 
it was a question I wished to ask 
you. " 

" A question !^" The princess look- 
ed at Fleurange. She was struck by 
the expression of her countenance, 
and interest, mingled with surprise, 
roused her from her dejection. What 
request was she going to make in so 
extraordinary a manner ? And why 
did she look so determined, and speak 
in so supplicating a tone ? 

" Go on, speak, ask whatever you 
wish, Gabrielle." 

" Well, first let me tell you this : 
The eve of my departure from Flor- 
ence, while descending from San 
Miniato with him with Count 
George, he asked if I would be his 
wife, adding he was sure of obtain- 
ing your consent." 

"Why recall all these remem- 
brances, Gabrielle ? I thought you 
generous, but you are without 
mercy !" 

Fleurange went on as if she did 
not hear : " I replied that I would 
never listen to him, unless, by some 
unforeseen circumstance impossible 
to conceive, his mother you, prin- 
cess would gladly consent to receive 
me as a daughter." She stopped a 
moment, as if too agitated to con- 
tinue. 

" What are you aiming at ? ' said 
the princess. 



Fleurangc. 



175 



" I beg you to listen to me, prin- 
cess. Here is my question : When 
this terrible sentence is pronounced, 
when Count George de Walden is 
degraded from his rank, deprived of 
his wealth, and even of his name (you 
shudder, alas ! and I also at the 
thought) but to return when that 
day comes, if he asks the consent he 
promised you to wait for, will you 
grant it ? " 

The princess looked at her with 
astonishment, without appearing to 
comprehend her. 

" Will you allow me to tell him 
you have consented ? Will you on 
that day tell me you are willing I 
should become your daughter ?" 



The 



princess began to catch at 



her meaning, but she was too stupe- 
fied to reply. 

" Ah ! say the word, princess," con- 
tinued Fleurange, her face expressing 
both angelic tenderness and a more 
than feminine courage, " say it, and I 
will start. I will be at St. Petersburg 
before his sentence is pronounced, and 
when he comes out of his dungeon I 
M>11 be there, and before he departs 



for the place of his exile a tie shall 
unite us that will permit me to ac- 
company him and share all its sever- 
ity ! '' She continued in faltering 
tones : " And if ever the tenderness 
of a mother, the care of a sister. 
or the love of a wife, were able to 
alleviate misfortune, my heart shall 
have the combined power of these 
various affections." 

We are aware that, when certain 
chords were touched in the princess' 
heart, they vibrated strongly, and 
made her for a moment forget her- 
self. But never, under any circum- 
stances of her life, had she felt an 
emotion equal to that now caused by 
Fleurange's words and accents. She 
looked at her a moment in silence 
Vhile great tears rolled down her 
cheeks, then, opening her arms and 
pressing the young girl passionately 
to her heart, she covered her fore- 
head and eyes with kisses, repeating 
at intervals with a voice broken bv 

J 

sobs : " Yes, yes, Gabrielle, be my 
daughter : I consent with joy with 
gratitude. I give you now my con- 
sent and a mother's blessing ! " 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



THE POOR PLOUGHMAN. 

A TRUE worker and a good was he, 

Living in peace and perfect charity ; 

God loved he, best, and that with alle his herte, 

At alle times, were it gain or smart; 

And then his neighbour right as himselve. 

He wolde thresh, and thereto dyke and delve 

For Christe's sake, for every poor wight 

Withouten hire, if it lay in his might. 

His tithes paid he full fair and well, 

Both of his proper work, and his cattel. s. Anselm. 



I7 6 A Dark Chapter in English History. 



A DARK CHAPTER IN ENGLISH HISTORY.* 

ONE of the most gratifying fea- falsehood been woven around the 
tures of the literature of the present, true designs and actions of the re- 
and one that in some measure com- formers that it required the labor of 
pensates us for the evils produced by many skilful and patient hands to 
the .many worthless books that are undo the meshes and reduce the 
still allowed to issue from the press, fabric, so dexterously spun, to its ori- 
is its tendency by close investigation ginal elements. This is peculiarly 
and collation to vindicate the truth difficult with the works of English 
of modern history, and especially of historians and biographers of the 
that portion of it directly or indi- past three centuries, whose unanimi- 
rectly relating to the XVIth century, ty in magnifying the virtues and 
Gradually, but most effectually, the screening the crimes of their public 
inventions and gross calumnies of men is so remarkable as to utterly 
the post-Reformation writers are being* destroy the value of their works as 
dissipated, and the meretricious gran- authorities among people of other 
deur with which the characters and nations. The beastly vices of the 
acts of the anti-Catholic sovereigns, eighth Henry were, of course, so glar- 
statesmen, and generals of that event- ing that they could neither be de- 
ful period were designedly clothed, nied nor extenuated ; but who would 
lias been stripped off, revealing to expect to find that his worthy daugh- 
their descendants the deformity and ter Elizabeth, the " virgin queen ' 
impiety of the heroes of the Refor- and Gloriana, before whose benign 
mation. Whether we turn to Eng- altar even Shakespeare offered the in- 
land or Germany, Edinburgh or cense of his flattery, should at this re- 
Geneva, we find the men and women mote period be discovered to be : as 
who in our own school -boy days we a woman ugly, ill-tempered, and un- 
were urged to regard as patterns of chaste, and as a ruler fickle, cruel, 
patriotism and morality, become un- cold-blooded, and thoroughly despot- 
der the scrutiny of living historic- ic. James L, the head of a long line 
graphers the veriest counterfeits- of gallant princes', to whom his pli- 
the prey of passion and the untiring ant prelates attributed " divine illu- 
enemies of every principle of govern- mination," and subsequent historians 
ment and religion which we are bound praised for his learning and wit, we 
to respect. Yet this is what, logical- at length know to have been a miser 
ly, we might have anticipated. A and a charlatan, as deformed in mind 
bad cause needs to be sustained by as he was uncouth in person. " His 
vicious instruments ; but so closely cowardice," says his compatriot and 
and consistently has the web of co-religionist Macaulay, " his chilcl- 

* The Condition of the Catholics under James i. ishiiess, his pedantry, his ungainly 

Father Gerard's Narrative of the Gunpowder i -\ i 

riot. Edited, with his Life, by John Morris, P erson and manners, his provincial 

Priest of the Society of Jesus. London: Long- aCCCllt, made him ail object of den- 
mans, Green & Co. 1871. New York : Sold by . i T- r i , rri 
The Catholic Publication Society. sion to ms English Subjects. The 
Her Majesty's Tower. By William Hcpworth unscrupulous Northampton and the 
)ixon. Second series. Philadelphia: J. B. ,,, >, ., c 

Lippincott & Co. 1869. Reprinted subtle Cecil, the trusted ministers of 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 



both sovereigns, who had long been re- 
garded as the unswerving champions 
of English independence and the 
bulwark of Protestant ascendency, 
are now proved to have been all 
along the paid tools of Catholic 
Spain, with whose ill-gotten gold 
their lofty palaces were built and 
their luxurious wants regularly sup- 
plied.* The chivalrous and roman- 
tic Raleigh of other days, examined 
by the inexorable scrutiny of the 
XlXth century, turns out a spy in 
the pay of a foreign and by no 
means friendly power; the philoso- 
phic Bacon, a common peculator; 
and Coke, the father of English com- 
mon law, a falsifier of sworn evidence 
and a concocter of legal conspiracies 
against the liberties of his country- 
men. Yet these were the leading 
personages, who, with many others 
equally corrupt, in their day and 
generation swayed the destinies of 
England, desolated the church of 
God, originated or abetted plots and 
schemes, at home and abroad, for 
the spoliation and extermination of 
the professors of the ancient faith. 

This tardy measure of historical 
justice is partly due to the appear- 
ance in different parts of Europe of 
important public and private docu- 
ments and correspondence, which have 
shamed British Protestant authors 
into something like truthfulness, but 
principally to the revival of Catholi- 
city in England, which has been the 
means of drawing out a mass of ori- 
ginal and reliable information, that 
had long been allowed to slumber 
in the dark closets of a few noble 
families or in inaccessible libraries 
during the gloomy era of persecu- 



* " The great house then rising at Charing 
Cross was said, in reference to these gifts, to be 
plated with King Philip's gold. Much of Don 
Juan's money passed in Cecil's pocket. . . . 
Northampton and Suffolk also obtained the 
most princely sums." Her Majesty's Tower^ pp. 
59, fr>. 

VOL. XVI. 12 



tion and proscription. Our reader? 
are already familiar with the articles 
which formerly appeared in these 
columns on the long-unsettled and 
vexed question of the character of 
Mary, Queen of Scots, and the jus- 
tice or injustice of her treatment by 
Elizabeth contributions to current 
literature which in their collective 
form have found their way among 
the literati of all nations, and, from 
their admirable cogency of argument 
and conscientious appeals to con- 
temporary authorities, have at length 
cleared away from the character of 
that ill-starred lady the foul asper- 
sions and unexampled obloquy heap- 
ed on it by the minions of the Eng- 
lish sovereign. 

Some more recent publications have 
thrown additional light on the tragic 
incidents of her reign and of that of 
her successor James, which, as far as 
they relate to the Catholics of Great 
Britain, are full of freshness and inte- 
rest. Chief among them is the Life 
of Father John Gerard, for many 
years a Jesuit missionary in England 
under both rulers, with his account 
of the celebrated Gunpowder Plot, 
written soon after the failure of that 
conspiracy. Many of the participants 
in the plot were personally known to 
him, and he himself was accused of 
having taken an active part in its 
formation ; but, though his name has 
been frequently mentioned in connec- 
tion with it and his manuscript nar- 
rative more or less correctly quoted, it 
remained for a member of his Order, 
the Rev. John Morris, the able editor 
of the book before us, to present to 
the world for the first time the only 
complete and accurate history of an 
event which has been the fruitful sub- 
ject of misrepresentation and com- 
ment by every writer on English his- 
tory for the last two hundred years. 

Few incidents of modern times can 
be said to have provoked more hosti- 



178 A Dark Chapter in English Plistory. 

lity to the church and the Jesuit Order English Catholics of the last genera" 

than the Gunpowder Plot, few have tion, his refutation is not of that 

been so dexterously used by the ene- full and hearty nature which might 

mies of Catholicity to poison the public be expected from so clear and critical 

mind against the priesthood, and none a scholar. 

the details of which are so little un- What Dr. Lingard was unwilling 
derstood even at the present day by or unable to undertake may now, in 
friends and foes. The 5th of No- view of more complete evidence, be 
vember, the anniversary of its discov- accomplished by persons of lesser eru- 
ery, has long been a gala-day with the dition, who, untrammelled by nation- 
more ignorant of the British populace; al partiality, are not alarmed at po- 
Protestant writers, divines, and politi- pular clamor or unwilling to disturb 
cians of the lower sort are not yet time-honored but unfounded histo- 
tired of alluding to the time when, rical fallacies. We design, therefore, 
-as they are wont to allege, the Ca- in this article to prove : 
tholics by one fell swoop attempted i. That the Gunpowder Plot was 
to destroy king, lords, and com- formed and carried out to its disas- 
mons ; and even Lingard and Tier- trous end by not more than a dozen 
nay, with the very best intentions desperate men, the victims of unre- 
and after considerable examination lenting persecution for conscience' 
of authorities, give a partial assent sake. 

to the old popular conviction that, 2. That the Catholic body in 
in some way or another, the Jesuits England, lay and clerical, till its dis- 
were at the bottom of the diabo- covery, neither were aware of its ex- 
lical scheme, which in reality was the istence, approved of its aims, nor 
creation of a handful of desperate rendered any assistance to its pro- 
laymen. In fact, the former, with a jectors. 

penetration totally at variance with 3- Tnat no priest, Jesuit or other, 
his general character, alludes to the was concerned in its formation, or 
taking of the oath of secrecy by afforded it any encouragement at 
Catesby and his companions in terms any time ; and that of all the secu- 
that would lead any superficial reader lars and regulars in the kingdom 
to adopt this absurd hypothesis. "All but two were ever aware of its exist- 
five," he says, " having previously ence, and that to them the knowledge 
sworn each other to secrecy, received came under the seal of confession 
in confirmation of their oath the and could not be revealed, 
sacrament at the hands of the Jesuit 4- That those two used every pos- 
missionary Father Gerard." * It is sible effort to dissuade the cbnspira- 
true that in a subsequent edition of tors from their design, and denouno 
his History he endeavored to explain ed on every occasion all violent at- 
away, but in a very unsatisfactory tempts to redress the wrongs under 
manner, the implication of guilty which the Catholics suffered, 
knowledge on the part of Gerard ; The state of England at the begin- 
but, whether from an imperfect ac- ning of the XVIIth century, when 
quaintance with the writings of that James of Scotland was called upon 
priest, then unpublished, or from to ascend the throne of his mother's 
that spirit of timidity which too often murderer, was deplorable in the ex- 
characterized the conduct of the treme. Less than half a century 

had sufficed to change entirely the 

* History of England, \*. 36. whole face of the country socially 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 



1/9 



and morally, and the once " merrie " 
people were divided into two hostile 
camps, one tire army of plunder and 
persecution, the other the cowering, 
dissatisfied, and impoverished mass- 
es. Many were yet alive who recol- 
lected with sorrow the time when the 
cross gleamed on the spires of a 
thousand churches, when the solemn 
sacrifice was offered up on myriads 
of altars, when the poor and afflicted 
easilv found food and shelter at the 

t 

numerous convents and abbeys that 
dotted the land of S. Augustine, and 
the young and the aged, the weak 
woman and the strong man, together 
bowed their knees in reverence be- 
fore the statues of the " blessed 
among women " and other saints. 
Now all was reformed away chang- 
ed not with the consent of the peo- 
ple nor by the argument or eloquence 
of the preacher, but by the brute 
force and cunning fraud of a corrupt 
sovereign, a dissolute and avaricious 
court, and, partially at least, by a 
venal and cowardly episcopate. The 
churches no longer resounded from 
morning till night with the solemn 
sacred chants, the monasteries were 
in ruins or the scenes of impious rev- 
elry, the festivals of the church were 
abolished, and the peasantry, former- 
ly accustomed to look forward to 
them as days of rest from hard toil 
and occasions of innocent enjoy- 
ment, were sullen and discontented. 
Those who had shared in the eccle- 
siastical plunder spent their time in 
the metropolis in wild extravagance, 
while the gentry, most of whom still 
adhered secretly to the faith, remain- 
ed at home, the prey of anxiety and 
the tax-gatherer. The masses were 
fast degenerating into that state of 
stolid ignorance and unbelief from 
which all subsequent legislation has 
failed to raise them. The laws of 
Elizabeth aimed at the suppression 
of all outward manifestation of Ca- 



tholicity and the ultimate protestant- 
izing of the nation; those of James, 
at the utter extirpation of the Cath- 
olics themselves. 

As early as A.D. 1559, the first 
year of Elizabeth's reign, a law was 
passed compelling every person hold- 
ing office, either temporal or spirit- 
ual, under the crown, to take an oath 
of allegiance declaring the queen the 
supreme head of the church. The 
penalty for refusing this oath was 
forfeiture of goods and imprisonment, 
and a persistence in such refusal, 
death. Whoever affirmed the spirit- 
ual supremacy of the pope was de- 
clared guilty of treason; penalty, 
confiscation and death. Attendance 
at Mass was to be punished by per- 
petual imprisonment, and non-attend- 
ance at Protestant service by a week- 
ly fine. In the fifth year of her reign, 
any aider or abettor of such offenders 
was for the first offence to be fined and 
imprisoned for life, for the second to 
suffer death. Any clergyman celebrat- 
ing Mass or refusing to observe the 
regulations of the Book of Common 
Prayer forfeited offices, goods, and 
liberty. In the thirteenth year, in- 
troducing into the kingdom a bull or 
other instrument of the pope was 
treason, penalty death abetting the 
same, death acting under such au- 
thority, death ; introducing, wearing, 
or having in his or her possession an 
Agnus Dei, cross, etc., confiscation 
and perpetual imprisonment ; and 
for leaving the kingdom without per- 
mission, forfeiture of lands and per- 
sonal estate. In the twenty-third 
year, any person granting absolution 
from sin in the name of the " Roman 
Church," or receiving the same, their 
aiders, etc., was declared guilty of 
treason, penalty death ; and for not 
disclosing knowledge of such offend- 
ers, confiscation and imprisonment. 
In the twenty-ninth year, the tax for 
non-attendance at Protestant service 



180 A Dark Chapter in English History. 

was increased to ^20 per lunar delay. If one of the laity attended 
month, or forfeiture of two-thirds of Mass or wore the image of his cruci- 
all lands and goods; and for keeping fied Redeemer, he was to be imprison- 
a schoolmaster or tutor, other than a ed for life ; if he did not attend Pro- 
Protestant, a fine of \Q per month testant service, he was to be fined 
was imposed, together with imprison- enormously ; if he had no money to 
ment at pleasure. By the statutes pay the fine, he might be banished for 
of the 2ist, 27th, and 28th Elizabeth, ever from his home and country, and 
every priest, Jesuit, or other ecclesi- if he endeavored to conceal himself 
astic ordained out of the realm was at home his career was to be ended 
obliged forthwith to leave the king- by the hangman, 
dom, and in case of his return he Nor must it to be supposed that 
was to suffer death; those who receiv- these sanguinary statutes, affecting 
ed or harbored him were subject to a the rights and liberties of at least one- 
like punishment. Those being edu- half of the population, were nothing 
cated abroad were required to return but the splenetic fits of a jealous and 
home, and after neglect to do so, tyrannical bigot or mere idle threats 
upon their being found in the king- to frighten a half-civilized horde. On 
dom, were to be put to death. For the contrary, we have abundant facts 
contributing money for colleges to prove that they were thoroughly 
abroad and for sending students and cruelly enforced, and that the 
there, fine and imprisonment for life sufferers were principally the better 
were considered adequate punish- class of the community. In 1573, 
ments ; but by the 25th chapter of the Rev. Thomas Woodhouse was 
Elizabeth, all who persisted in refus- drawn, half-hanged, and then quar- 
ing attendance on Protestant worship tered alive in the usual way at Ty- 
were liable to be transported for life, burn, for having denied the queen's 
and if they evaded the statute they supremacy. Two years later, Father 
were liable to suffer death* Cuthbert Mayne was executed with 
We see, therefore, by this compre- similar barbarity in Cornwall for hav- 
hensive penal code that every office ing in his possession a copy of a 
under the crown was reserved as a Jubilee and for saying Mass in the 
bribe to recreant Catholics ; that pri- house of a Mr. Teagian ; the latter, 
vate tutors were commanded to teach with fifteen others, for being present 
nothing but the new heresy in Catho- on the occasion, was imprisoned for 
lie families, while those who objected life. In 1577, Mr. Jenks was tried 
to such method of instruction could and convicted at Oxford for exposing 
neither send their children abroad nor some Catholic books for sale, and 
contribute to the support of those about this time we are informed the 
already there. All priests were oblig- prisons were so full of " recusants " 
ed to take the oath of supremacy that a pestilence broke out and large 
and observe the Book of Common numbers of the inmates perished. 
Prayer ; such as did not were to be Among the sufferers in 1578 we find 
banished, and if they returned were the names of Father Nelson and a 
to be executed forthwith. No priest Mr. Sherwood, who were hanged 
could, of course, be ordained at home, and quartered solely for being recu- 
and if ordained abroad he was to be sants. In 1582, Fathers Campion (the 
hanged whenever caught, without celebrated Jesuit missionary), Sher- 
* statutes n f T??;?, fi, wm > an ^ Briant, after the mockery of 

statutes of Elizabeth^ chap, i., v., XUl., xxi., . , . . 

-tui., xxvh., xiviii., xxix., xxxv. a trial, were executed in London, 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 



181 



and in May of the year following no 
less than seven other priests suffered 
death at Tyburn. Thus nearly every 
year supplied its quota to the mar- 
tyrology of the church in England, 
not to speak of the nameless thou- 
sands who died in confinement by 
the quick but silent process of tor- 
ture and pestilence, or abroad, bro- 
ken-hearted and neglected. During 
the fourteen years succeeding the 
dispersion of the Spanish Armada, 
when fanaticism was rampant and 
bigotry held full sway in the councils 
of Elizabeth, sixty-one clergymen, 
forty-seven laymen, and two gentle- 
women expiated their offence of be- 
ing Catholics by a horrible and igno- 
minious public death ; while, accord- 
ing to the records still extant, the 
total number of the " good Queen 
Bess' " ecclesiastical victims amount- 
ed to the handsome number of one 
hundred and twenty-three, including 
one hundred and thirteen seculars, 
eight Jesuits, one friar, and one 
monk, besides innumerable laymen 
in whose veins flowed the best blood 
of the land. 

The rack and the thumb-screw al- 
most invariably preceded the half- 
hanging and disembowelling, so that 
many looked upon the gallows as a 
welcome relief from worse sufferings. 
Priests were tortured to compel 
them to disclose the names of their 
penitents, and laymen to force them 
into the betrayal of their pastors. 
Father Campion was four times rack- 
ed, and then secretly brought before 
the queen to discuss theology with 
that model Supreme Head of the 
Church; while others like Nichols 
found it more convenient to swear to 
all their tormentors required, for, as 
that recreant shepherd naively says 
in his Apology, " it is not, I assure 
you, a pleasant thing to be stretched 
on the rack till the body becomes 
almost two feet longer than nature 



made it." Father Gerard, who 
speaks from personal experience, has 
left us in his Memoirs the following 
account of this most effectual method 
of extorting confessions in the glori- 
ous reign of that queen to which so 
many of our modern writers refer 
with pride and congratulation : 

" Then they led me to a great upright 
beam, or pillar of wood, which was one 
of the supports of this vast crypt. At the 
summit of this column were fixed certain 
iron staples for supporting weights. Here 
they placed on my wrists manacles of 
iron, and ordered me to mount upon two 
or three wicker steps; then raising my 
arms they inserted an iron bar through 
the rings of the manacles, and then 
through the staples in the pillar, putting 
a pin through the bar so that it could not 
slip. My arms being thus fixed above my 
head, they withdrew those wicker steps I 
spoke of, one by one, from my feet, so 
that I hung by my hands and arms. The 
tips of my toes, however, still touched 
the ground ; so they dug away the ground 
beneath, as they could not raise me high- 
er, for they had suspended me from the 
topmost staples in the pillar. Thus 
hanging by my wrists I began to pray, 
while those gentlemen standing around 
me asked again if I was willing to con 
fess. I replied, ' I neither can nor will.' 
But so terrible a pain began to oppress 
me that I was scarcely able to speak the 
words. The worst pain was in my breast 
and belly, my arms and hands. It seemed 
to me that all the blood in my body rush- 
ed up my arms into my hands, and I was 
under the impression at the time that the 
blood actually burst forth from my fin- 
gers and the back of my hands. This 
was, however, a mistake, the sensation 
was caused by the swelling of the flesh 
over the iron that bound it. ... I 
had hung this way till after one of the 
clock, as I think, when I fainted." * 

It must not be supposed, however, 
that the zeal of the queen's ministers 
was satisfied with these harsh mea- 
sures against the clergy and the 
more prominent delinquents. All 
Catholics were put beyond the pale 
of the law. The country swarmed 

* The Life of Father John Gerard, xcvii.-ix. 



1 82 A Dark Chapter in English History. 

with spies and informers. Lists were and Winchester, leaving their flocks 
accurately made out and carefully to the devouring Puritan wolves, 
preserved of the recusants who own- constituted themselves a sort of 
ed property of any sort, and every episcopal sheriffalty, and vied with 
possible method of espionage was each other in their ardor for the 
adopted to detect them in the slight- spread of the Gospel and their love 
est infraction of the bloody code, for the spoils of the Papists. Their 
Domiciliary visits became the order leader in all this was a vulgar wretch 
of the day, or rather of the night, named Topcliffe, whose audacity, 
for that was the time usually chosen profanity, and lewdness made him 
by the pursuivants. Doors were the terror of men and the abhor- 
broken open, closets ransacked, bed- rence of women, but whose useful- 
rooms of women and invalids in- ness was so apparent that he was 
vaded without ceremony ; and fre- constantly the object of government 
quently, the previous movements favors and clerical eulogy, 
having been properly concerted, But human hate and diabolical 
whole families were simultaneously ingenuity, it was thought, could not 
borne off to prison, there to be de- last for ever. On the 24th of March, 
tained without the least warrant of A.D. 1603, Elizabeth died, to the 
law for months and years. The tax last the prey of vain desires and un- 
of^26o annually, equal to at least satisfied ambition. For weeks be- 
five thousand dollars at the present fore her decease she was haunted 
day, was not only vigorously en- by the phantoms of her innumerable 
forced, but upon the faintest rumor crimes, and so terrified at the approach 
of a foreign invasion or domestic of death that she refused to lie in her 
broil, special imposts were laid on bed or to receive any sustenance 
the remaining prqperty of the Ca- from her usual attendants. The 
tholics, and the owners were carried courts of Europe, to which she had 
to the nearest dungeon till the affair ever been an object of dislike and 
blew over, when they were as un- fear, could ill conceal their pleasure 
ceremoniously dismissed until the at the event, but millions of her sub- 
next occasion arose for plunder and jects, the impoverished, the widowed, 
personal revenge. and the orphaned, made desolate 
Thus was the work of reformation by her despotic cruelty, in silence 
and evangelization urged briskly for- execrated her memory, 
ward in free England, and she was The Catholics generally found con- 
fast becoming converted and en- solation in the thought of her suc- 
lightened, Torture, death, and con- cessor, and, with that unqualified 
fiscation dogged the steps of the un- confidence in the house of Stuart, 
happy recusant who dare to profess, which now seems like fatality, they 
even in the privacy of his house, the began to hope for better days under 
faith of his fathers for ten centuries his sway. Was he not, they asked 
that religion which had raised his each other, the son of Elizabeth's 
ancestors from barbarism, freed him royal victim, and could he be un- 
from the thraldom of feudalism, and mindful of the affection with which 
given him Magnet Charta, trial by the Catholics of the three kingdoms 
jury, and representative government, ever regarded his mother? Had he 
The crown lawyers, like Coke, Stan- not before he ever put foot in England 
hope, and Bacon, laid the plans, pious authorized Father W^atson to promise 
bishops like those of London, Ely, in his name justice and protection, 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 183 

and did not Percy, the agent and heirs of his authority and cruelty ; and 

kinsman of the great Duke of North- being constitutionally a coward and 

umberland, assure his friends, on the an intriguer, he was bent on making 

strength of the royal word solemnly peace with foreign powers, and thus 

pledged, that the days of persecution cutting off all sympathy which the 

were at an end ? Poor deluded peo- Catholic sovereign's might have felt 

pie, they little knew how much de- it their interest to express for their 

ceit lay in the heart of him whom suffering co-religionists in Great 

the Protestant lord primate rather Britain. 

blasphemously averred " the like had Though the principles of recipro- 
not been since the time of Christ." cal protection and allegiance were 
He had scarcely put on the crown not as well defined at that period as 
when the Catholics discovered that they have since been, the Catholics 
they had neither mercy nor justice of England would have been more 
to expect from him. Once secure in or less than human if they could 
the support of the Protestant party, have regarded James' government 
he turned a deaf ear to their com- with any feeling other than detesta- 
plaints, and even had the mendacity tion, and the wonder is not that a 
to deny his own word of honor, giving plot was laid to destroy it, but that 
as a reason " that, since Protestants so very few of the persecuted multi- 
had so generally received and pro- tude could be found to embark in it, 
claimed him king, he had now no notwithstanding the manifold reasons 
need of Papists." Being by nature afforded by the king and parliament 
intolerant, he oppressed the Puritans, for their destruction. It was an age 
by whom he had been trained, to of conspiracies and counterplots, 
please the Episcopalians, and to when the highest and most trusted 
gratify both he ground the Catholics in every land endeavored by force or 
into dust ; arrests for recusancy multi- fraud to accomplish political and 
plied, illegal visitations became more personal ends, success being the only 
frequent, and if possible more annoy- criterion of merit. The history of 
ing, the arrears of the monthly tax Europe from the middle of the pre- 
which he at first pretended to remit ceding century is full of dark 
were demanded, and the amount, al- schemes and secret contrivances, in 
ready enormous, was even increased which nobles and princes figure al- 
so as to satisfy the ever-increasing ternately as the bribers or the bribed, 
rapacity of his pauper courtiers who the patrons or the victims of the 
had followed him into England. In assassin, now devoted patriots and 
place and out of it, he made the most anon double - dyed traitors. The 
violent attacks on the faith of his long civil wars, the vicious legacy of 
dead mother and of at least one-half the Lutheran attempt to unsettle the 
of his English subjects, and his re- faith of Christendom, had nearly 
marks were taken up and repeated ceased from sheer exhaustion, and 
from every Protestant pulpit and in unemployed soldiers of desperate for- 
every conventicle throughout the tunes but undoubted courage were 
length and breadth of the land, till to be easily had for any enterprise, 
the hopes of the Catholics grew no matter how dangerous, 
fainter and fainter, and finally ex- Of this character was Guy or 
pired. Unlike Elizabeth, he was not Guido Fawkes, whose name, though 
only expected to live a long life, but not himself the originator of the 
his progeny would succeed him, the Gunpowder Plot, is most intimately 



184 A Dark Chapter in English History. 

associated with it in popular tradi- which had been used by a coal 
tion. The real authors were Robert dealer, was vacated by the tenant, 
Catesby, Thomas Percy, Thomas and Percy rented it, ostensibly for 
Winter, and John Wright ; all of storage purposes. The mine was 
whom were country gentlemen of abandoned, and thirty-two barrels of 
good family and "education, but, ex- powder, which had been stored pre- 
cept Catesby, very much reduced in viously at Lambeth, were introduced 
circumstances owing to the unjust in the night-time, and covered from 
and repeated exactions of the penal observation by wood, furniture, etc. 
laws, which had not only robbed All that was now required to complete 
them of their property and shut them the conspiracy was a proper moment 
out from all public employment, but for the application of the match, 
had branded them with the stigma This work had brought them into the 
of traitors to their country and ene- spring of 1605, and, as parliament 
mies to their sovereign ; for, having was not to assemble for some 
in the early part of their lives con- months, they resolved to separate, 
formed to Protestantism, they had some going into the country to see 
subsequently returned to the church their relatives, and others to the Con- 
into which they had been baptized tinent to enlist the assistance of such 
an offence in the eyes of the rulers adventurers as could be found will- 
of that day of the deepest dye. ing to take service under the antici- 
In the early part of 1604, the five pated new regime. Meanwhile eight 
conspirators met in London, and, more persons were admitted into the 
having taken a solemn oath of se- plot, the principal of whom were 
crecy, determined on their future Rokewood, Grant, Tresham, and Sir 
schemes for the total destruction of Everard Digby, all young men of 
the government. Wishing, however, family and fortune, whose proud 
it seems, to exhaust all milder reme- spirits chafed continually under the 
dies, they sent agents to Spain and social and political ostracism to 
other foreign powers friendly to the which all recusants of the period were 
Catholic cause, to induce them to doomed. 

use their good offices in mitigating The opening of parliament, ex- 

the sufferings of the English recu- pected in September, was, however, 

sants. The answers were generally postponed till the 5th of November, 

favorable, but non-committal, and the but, to the secret satisfaction of 

practical result nothing. They then Catesby and his fellows, the penal 

determined to depend on themselves laws continued to be rigidly enforced, 

alone, and in the autumn rented a and additional measures of persecution 

building adjoining the Palace of were devised by the king's council 

Westminster, the old House of Par- for the adoption by the legislature 

liament, and commenced to under- when it should meet. As that time 

mine the dividing wall. This, some approached and everything augured 

three yards thick of solid masonry, success, the parts of the leading act- 

they found a work of difficulty, and ors in the bloody drama were dis- 

from the paucity of their numbers tributed. Fawkes was to fire the 

and their inexperience in manual powder which was to blow the king, 

labor, advanced slowly. A circum- his oldest son Henry, and the lords 

stance soon occurred to modify their and commons into eternity ; Prince 

plans. A portion of the cellar imme- Charles, the next in succession, hav- 

diately under the prince's chamber, ing been seized by Percy, was to be 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 185 

proclaimed king at Charing Cross by Guy was made of stern stuff, and, 
Catesby; while Tresham, Grant, and while he freely admitted that his in- 
Digby were to gain possession of the tention had been " to blow the 
person of the infant princess Eliza- Scotch beggars back to their native 
beth, at Lord Harrington's country- mountains," he obstinately refused to 
seat. After the explosion, Fawkes disclose the names of his associates, 
was to sail for Flanders to bring over The news spread with rapidity, and 
reinforcements, and the others, a London at daylight was in the wild- 
protector for the royal children hav- est commotion. The other conspi- 
ing been appointed, were to rendez- rators in the city, with the exception 
vous at Digby's residence and raise of Tresham, fled to Digby's house 
the country in favor of the new gov- near Dunchurch, where a hunting 
eminent. There was a method in party had assembled, but upon the 
the madness of these men, and the disclosure of the treason and its fail- 
first part of their programme would ure the guests rapidly dispersed, two 
undoubtedly have been carried out or three only, from friendship or 
but for one important fact upon other causes, resolving to remain 
which it seems they did not reckon : with the conspirators and share the 
Cecil was fully cognizant of all their fate which now seemed certain to 
movements, and for his own good overtake them. One of these was 
reasons, as we shall hereafter see, al- Stephen Littleton, who resided at 
lowed them to proceed unchecked to Holbeach in Staffordshire, a strongly 
the very last moment. Catholic county, and thither the 

That moment expired soon after whole party, numbering between 

midnight on the night of the 4th 5th forty and fifty, including grooms and 

of November, only a few hours be- other servants, proceeded through 

fore the expected catastrophe. As Warwick and Worcester, vainly en- 

Fawkes was entering the cellar to as- deavoring on their road to excite the 

sure himself that all was in readiness, people to join them. At Holbeach 

he was seized by a body of soldiers they resolved to make a stand, but 

under the command of Sir Thomas an accident destroyed whatever little 

Knevett. His dress denoted that he chance might have remained of a 

was prepared for a journey, arms and successful resistance. Their ammu- 

matches were found upon his person, nition, which had been wet during 

a dark-lantern was discovered in a their hurried journey, exploded while 

corner, and the removal of the debris being dried, and not only seriously 

that was piled in the vault revealed injured Catesby and three others, but 

the powder arranged ready for ex- afforded an excuse for their handful 

plosion. of followers to forsake them. In this 

The scene that ensued was highly condition they were soon surrounded 

dramatic, and did great credit to the by the forces of Sir Richard Walsh, 

histrionic genius of the secretary, who, after summoning them to sur- 

The lords of the council were hastily render and receiving a defiant nega- 

summoned to the king's bed-cham- tive, ordered his men to fire. The 

ber, the prisoner was brought up for brothers Wright, Percy, and Catesby, 

examination by torch-light, and the fell mortally wounded ; Rokewood, 

royal pedant sat on the side of his Winter, Morgan, and Grant were 

couch in his night-clothes for several wounded and taken prisoners, and 

hours, questioning and cross-ques- Digby and the two others were soon 

tioning the would-be murderer. But after captured. They were immedi- 



1 86 A Dark Chapter in English History. 

ately taken to London, tried, and pression of their anger was both loud 

with Fawkes executed on the 3 oth and deep The priests were st 

...,.,, . T prompt to denounce it than their nocks. 

Of the following January. The venerable Archpriest, George Black- 

Under ordinary circumstances, this ^\\, took up his pen before a single 

insane conspiracy of a dozen despe- man had yet been killed or captured in 

rate men would have ended here, the shires, and in a brief address to the 

and the plot itself have become lost Catholic clergy stigmatized the plot as 

, j j j a detestable contrivance in which no 

m the thousand-and-one concerted tme Catholic cou]d haye a share _ as an 

crimes against authority which disfig- abominable thing, contrary to Holy Writ, 

ure the annals of European monarchy to the councils, and to the instructions 

in the middle ages; but the Puritan of the spiritual guides. Blackwell told 

party in England, the more insatiable his cler sy to exhort their flocks to P eace 

r ,, /- .1 r i, an d obedience, and to avoid falling into 
enemies of the Catholics, who saw 

. . . - snares. 

in it an excellent opportunity for 

wholesale spoliation of what yet re- Bu * it was necessary for the pur- 
mained to the persecuted, endeavor- pose of affording a decent pretext 
ed to involve the millions in the trea- for further penal legislation, long 
sonable guilt of the few, and Cecil, since agreed upon in the council, as 
who had so long nursed the designs wel1 as to destroy the sympathy still 
of the traitors, had his own deep ^ at forei g n courts for the perse- 
schemes to subserve by endorsing cuted English, that the blame of the 
this foul calumny. But James, bigot foul conspiracy should be laid not 
as he was, could not, in the face of on the inhuman laws which had 
such palpable facts to the contrary, driven gallant and loyal men into 
go to this extreme length. " For deadly conflict with the government, 
though it cannot be denied," he said but on the church. As it was im- 
in his speech to parliament recount- possible to implicate any consider- 
ing the discovery and origin of the able number of the laity or the secii- 
plot, " that it was only the blind su- lar clergy, it was resolved to single 
perstition of their errors in religion out the few Jesuits then in the coun- 
that led them to this desperate de- try, and through them the entire 
vice, yet doth it not follow that all Order, as fitting objects of national 
professing that Romish religion were hatred and universal obloquy. The 
guilty of the same." Yet the Puritan trick was not new even then, though 
party, who hungered for the spoils, since much practised and refined, 
by constant repetition succeeded in Its execution was consonant also 
fastening the imputation of guilt on wit h the parliamentary design of ex- 
the entire Catholic body in England, terminating Catholicity in the three 
and for a long time it was partially kingdoms. The old clergy, or, as 
believed abroad, and re-echoed with- they "were called, " Queen Mary's 
out hesitation by subsequent histori- priests," were few, aged, and sure 
ans. The author of Her Majesty's soon to die out in the course of na- 
Tower, to whom Catholicity owes lit- ture, while the authorities had taken 
tie else, has, we are happy to say, had good care that they should leave no 
the manhood to set the matter in its successors of native education. The 
true light in his recent publication. Jesuits, on the contrary, were young 
He says : men, generally scions of noble houses, 

The news of this plot was heard by S entle in Breeding, and, from their 

the old English Catholics with more continental training, thorough hn- 

astonishment than rage, though the ex- guists, acute reasoners, and polished 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 187 

gentlemen. Their erudition made that he could not use a pen to sign 

them feared by the half-taught so- his name, much less could he read 

phists of the reformed prelacy, their what had been written for him, and 

refined manners secured their ad- Nicholas Owen, a lay-brother, was 

mission into the best families, and so stretched that his bowels pro- 

their noble enthusiasm defied the truded and he expired in the hands 

utmost severity of the Puritan and of his tormentors. Of Father Ge- 

Episcopal magistrates. Their know- rard, mention was made by two of 

ledge of the country was accurate, the original plotters, Fawkes and 

and, though they were accused by Winter, in allusion to the oath of se- 

such hired defamers as Coke of using crecy. The latter said that " the 

many aliases, the odium was not five administered the oath to each 

theirs, but the law's, that made their other in a chamber in which no other 

very presence in their native land body was" which the latter confirms 

treason. No religious community, more in detail. 

it is well known, is the church, nor The five/ > he says> did meet at a 

is she responsible for the conduct of house in the field, beyond S. Clement's 

each particular member, but the or- I nn > where they did confer and agree 

ders may be regarded as the vedettes u P on the P lot ' and there the y took a so1 - 

r i i i f emn oath and vows by all their force and 

of her grand army, and before it can power to execute th y e gam6( and of se _ 

rfully attacked they must crecy not to reveal it to any of their fel- 

be driven in or captured. lows, but to such as should be thought 

Accordingly, one of the first Steps fit persons to enter into that action ; and 

taken by the king's advisers after the in the same house the y did receive the 

c ,, . . sacrament of Gerard the Jesuit, to per- 

trial of the conspirators was to issue form their yow and Qath of secre ; y af ? re _ 

a proclamation for the arrest of Fa- sa id. But that Gerard -was not acquainted 
thers Gerard, Greenway, and Garnett, with their purpose" * 
three of the four Jesuit missionaries This last sente nce was by order 
known to be m England. In of Coke under ii ne d with red, notated 
official document it was alleged hucus quc, and was carefully sup- 
to be plain and evident from the pressed in the reading of the exami . 
examinations that all three had been nation on the trial , The origina] 
peculiarly practisers m the plot." document is still preserved in the 
us examine for a moment Public Record office, and how such 
those grave accusations an i nde fatigable student as Mr. Dix- 
imply on confessions on could have over l O oked this part 
the prisoners, for it has never been of it is? to say the least> very suspi . 
that the slightest proof, doc- cious> His yersion of the affair is as 
umentary or oral, other than those f n ows . 

and the admission of Father Garnett, 

. , " An upper room of Widow Herbert s 

the provincial, were ever produced to house was l turned into a chapel . and 

connect the priests with the conspir- w hen the priest was ready for his part, 

acy. The examinations were con- Catesby, Percy, Tom Winter, Jack 

ducted with the most exquisite tor- Wright, and Fawkes assembled in the 

tures, taken down by the creatures ^oose-a quaint old Tudor pile at the 

c , corner of Clements Lane first in the 

the government, and afterwards lower room> where they svvore each other 

mutilated and altered by the attor- Up0 n the Primer, and then in the upper 

ney-general to suit his own views, room, where they heard Father Gerard 
Fawkes, by special command of his 

. * Fifth Examination of v awkes, November 

majesty, was so frequently racked and zoth, state Paper office, NO. 54 . 



i88 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 



say Mass, and took from his hand the 
sacrament on that oath. Each of the five 
conspirators was sworn upon his knees, 
with his hand on the Primer, that he 
would keep the secret, that he would be 
true to his fellows, that he would be con- 
stant in the plot." 

Is this perversion of the facts of 
history accidental, or a piece of down- 
right dishonesty ? At first, overlook- 
ing the writer's known hostility to the 
Jesuits, and his insinuation about the 
priest being " ready for his part," we 
concluded that the sentence describ- 
ing how the conspirators were sworn 
was intended to commence after the 
word " Primer," to preserve the unity 
of the action, but by inadvertence 
was put after the mention of the tak- 
ing of the sacrament, thus conveying 
the false idea that the conspirators 
swore also after or during Mass ; but, 
having had occasion to refer to the 
index, we find that we had done 
Mr. Dixon's dexterity injustice at the 
expense of his veracity. In seeking 
for the page of his book upon which 
this opaque statement appears, we find 
the following words in the index under 
the head " Gerard " " administers the 
oath of secrecy to the Powder Plot 
conspirators in a house in Butcher's 
Row, p. 95." Thus the author of 
Her Majesty's Tower, who, we pre- 
sume, occupies a decent position 
among men of letters in his own 
country, not only cannot discover 
after the " occasional labor of twenty 
years " a most essential point of testi- 
mony bearing on the very subject 
to which his book is mainly devoted, 
but to make out a case against the 
much-hated Jesuits actually falsifies 
and perverts facts already known 
and admitted ; doing in the year of 
grace 1869 gratuitously, what Coke 
in 1606 did for hire. Can the force 
of malice go further ? Digby, who, 
it will be remembered, was subse- 
quently admitted into the plot, on 
his trial went even further than the 



originators of it; and, in exculpating 
the Jesuit Order, was most emphatic 
in denying any knowledge of the 
conspiracy on the part of Gerard, 
either in its progress or, as far as he 
knew, at its inception. So much for 
Father Gerard's innocence as proved 
by others ; the following is his own 
statement, made years after the occur- 
rence when he was beyond the reach of 
English law, and subsequently affirm- 
ed in substance on his solemn oath : 

"I have stated in the other treatise of 
which I spoke, that a proclamation was 
issued against those Jesuit fathers, of 
whom I am one ; and, though the most 
unworthy, I was named first in the pro- 
clamation, whereas I was the subject of 
one and far inferior in all respects to the 
other. All this, however, I solemnly 
protest was utterly groundless ; for I 
knew absolutely nothing of the plot from 
any one whatsoever, not even under the 
seal of confession, as the other two did ; 
nor had I the slightest notion that any 
such scheme was entertained by any 
Catholic gentleman, until by public 
rumor news was brought us of its dis- 
covery, as it was to all others dwelling in 
that part of the country."* 

The treatise referred to in this ex- 
tract is his Narrative, and in it Ge- 
rard takes frequent occasion to reite- 
rate in the most positive manner, 
speaking in the third person, all 
knowledge of the conspiracy, even to 
saying Mass on the occasion alluded 
to by Fawkes. The house in Cle- 
ment's Inn, he fully acknowledges, 
was used by him and his friends, 
among whom there were at least two 
priests during his absence ; and we 
can well believe that the two prison- 
ers were mistaken in his identity, as 
we have no evidence that they were 
familiar with his appearance or per- 
sonally acquainted with him. How- 
ever, this does not signify. Some 
priest undoubtedly celebrated Mass, 
and the question is, Did he adminis- 
ter the oath, or knowingly administer 

* Life of Father John Gerard, p. clxxviii. 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 189 

the sacrament in confirmation of it? did so earnestly persuade him, and 
Winter and Fawkes declare he did by him the rest, to leave off that 
not; Digby, who was most intimate course (as his duty was), that Mr. 
with Father Gerard, denied in open Winter might well find himself in 
court that that Jesuit knew anything conscience to clear this father from 
about the plot; and Gerard himself his wrongful accusation of being a 
repeatedly, under the strictest forms counsellor and furtherer of the plot."* 
known in his Order, asserts his entire This statement was also repeatedly 
innocence, and it has never even been confirmed by Father Tesimond, both 
hinted that any other priest was con- in his writings and in his account of 
cerned in the early stages of the con- the matter soon after his escape, pub- 
spiracy. This matter may therefore lished by Joannes in his Apologia. 
be considered closed. Gerard and Tesimond having fled 
Now, it is equally certain that Fa- the country to avoid the popular 
thers Garnett and Tesimond, alias tumult, " which," says Mr. Dixon, 
Greenway, did become acquainted " took no note of the difference be- 
with the plot during it progress ; but tween the children of S. Edward and 
the information came to them under the pupils of S. Ignatius," the only 
the seal of confession, and could not remaining victim was the provincial 
be revealed. It is unnecessary to sup- Father Garnett. Him the govern- 
port this proposition by argument, as ment spies soon hunted down, and 
its wisdom is now generally recog- in company with Father Ouldcorne 
nized by the civil law even in Pro- arrested at Hendlip House and lodg- 
testant countries. Confidential com- ed in the tower. This capture oc- 
munications to priest, doctor, or law- curred on the 28th of February, and 
yer are at last held sacred. What his trial took place on the 28th 
was the extent of their know- of March ; the intervening month 
ledge, and what was their conduct having been spent by the officers of 
on receiving the same ? In Thomas the crown in procuring evidence of 
Winter's public dying declaration, his guilt, but with so little success 
communicated by an eye-witness to that an attempt was made to procure 
the author of the Narrative, he said : his condemnation by parliament, with- 
" That whereas divers of the fa- out the intervention of a jury, by in- 
thers of the society were accused of serting surreptitiously a clause in the 
counselling and furthering them in bill of attainder introduced against 
this treason, he could clear them all, the families of Digby and others, 
and particularly Father Tesimond, Cajolery was first resorted to, next 
from all fault and participation there- torture, then the subterfuge of 
in." " And indeed Mr. Thomas allowing him speech with his fel- 
Winter might best clear that good low-prisoner Ouldcorne, overheard 
father, with whom he was best ac- unknown to them by persons secretly 
quainted," adds Father Gerard, " and hidden for the purpose, and again 
knew very well how far he was from torture, but all to no effect. He at 
counselling or plotting that business. fi rs t refused to admit any knowledge 
For himself, having first told the o f the conspiracy, but finally con- 
father of it (as I have heard) long fessed that he had heard of it from 
after the thing was ready, and that in Father Tesimond (Greenway) under 
such secret as he might not utter it, the seal of confession, and that he 
but with his leave, unto his superior 
only, the father, both then and after, * Page 221. 



190 A Dark Chapter in English History. 

had reprimanded that priest for ever not well, Catholics will no more be 

so communicating it to him, and quiet. What shall we do ? Jesuits 

had admonished him to use all cannot hinder it. Let Pope forbid 

efforts to dissuade the conspirators all Catholics to stir." In May fol- 

from their rash designs. This was lowing he says : " All are desperate, 

all that could be proved against him divers Catholics are offended with 

at his trial, but he was of course con- Jesuits ; they say that Jesuits do im- 

demned, not however for treason, but pugn and hinder all forcible enter- 

for misprision of treason, and two prises." On the 24th of July, after 

months after executed, declaring his reviewing the threatening state of 

entire innocence most solemnly. Fa- affairs in the kingdom, he repeats his 

ther Ouldcorne, who was also found request for pontifical assistance in 

guilty of knowledge after the fact, on keeping the people quiet. He then 

no better evidence, suffered with him. wrote : 

The provincial was examined no Wherefore, in my judgment, two 

less that twenty-three times before things are necessary; first, that his 

his trial, and much stress was laid holiness should prescribe what in any 

during its progress and long after- c * se *? to be done 5 and then that he 

, should forbid any force of arms to the 

wards on his equivocations in an- Catholics under * ensureS| and by brief 

swer to the various searching que- publicly promulgated, an occasion for 
ries touching the guilt of himself which can be taken from the disturbance 
and others. The question of the late ly raised in Wales, which has at 
morality of such evasion of the truth len s th come to n thing." 
under the peculiar circumstances has, His public acts were consistent 
however, no practical value for us, as with his views thus confidentially ex- 
now by the well-recognized policy of pressed. It is acknowledged that he 
law in all civilized countries no per- was mainly instrumental in defeating 
son is bound to criminate himself the Grey conspiracy, in which Father 
either as a principal or a witness, and Watson and many Catholics were in 
every individual is allowed to be the volved, and, when Catesby and the 
judge of his own case in this respect, other conspirators approached him 
No one has a right to entrap a pris- on the subject of forcible resistance 
oner into a confession of guilt, much to James' government, he denounced 
less compel disclosures by foul means all such attempts in the most positive 
or torture. manner. " It is to you and such as 
Let us inquire for a moment how you," said that desperate plotter to 
far Father Garnett's statements in pri- the provincial, " that we owe our pre- 
son were borne out by his previous sent calamities. This doctrine of non- 
conduct. Several letters of his are resistance makes us slaves. No 
still extant addressed to Father Per- authority of priest or pontiff can de- 
sons, the English superior at Rome, prive a man of his right to repel in- 
on the state of the Catholics in Eng- justice." When it became apparent 
land previous to the explosion of the that such men as Catesby could not 
plot, in which he intimates his suspi- be stayed by ordinary means, he re- 
cions that something desperate was commended that before any forcible 
about to be attempted against the measures were adopted an agent 
government, and begs the superior to should be sent to Rome, and in the 
influence the Holy Father to inter- meantime took steps to procure the 
fere. On the 29th of August, 1604, he co-operation of the sovereign pontiff 
wrote : " If the affair of toleration go * A Narrative, etc., PP . 7 6- 77 . 



A Dark Chapter in English History. 191 

himself to suppress all attempts at greatest incentive for their destruc- 
insurrection. In fact, his whole life tion. Their intimacy with the con- 
was divided between his duty to God spirators was simply that of pastors 
and his efforts to teach peace and with their penitents ; the asser- 
longanimity to his persecuted coun- tions of Bates, the servant of Cates- 
trymen, but the very fact that he was by, to the contrary notwithstanding, 
a Jesuit and a Catholic missionary That poor wretch was tortured and 
was enough to condemn him in the tampered with to induce him to make 
eyes of the judges of that day. Let some accusation 'against the mission- 
us hope that posterity will do him aries, and then hanged, but not be- 
fuller justice, fore he retracted on the scaffold 
The general accusation against the every sentence uttered by him when 
Order was grounded on the fact that a hope of pardon had been held out 
many of the conspirators were converts as the reward of his perjury. Fur- 
ana pupils of the Jesuits, and there- ther, Mr. Dixon's wild attempts to 
fore they were their agents and in- throw discredit on the English Jesuits 
struments. This is plausible, and abroad rest on no foundation what- 
might be worthy of attention if true, ever, nor has he a single impartial 
but it lacks the essential element of authority to support him in his broad 
reliability. Some were Catholics from assertions and elaborate reports of 
their birth, others had only for the what are said to have been strictly 
time being or during their minority private interviews and confidential 
outwardly conformed to Protestant- correspondence between the plotters 
ism, and were simply reclaimed from in England and the Jesuit colleges 
their vicious habits by the Jesuits, abroad. Owen and Baldwin, the 
But even if they had all been con- alleged foreign correspondents, the 
verts it would not strengthen their parties most sought to be implicated, 
opponents' position. So were many were never tried, but the latter was 
hundreds, nay, thousands of English- examined in England ten years after 
men who took no act or part in the and discharged, nothing having been 
conspiracy. Besides the Jesuits that proved against him. So much for 
had suffered in the preceding reign, the bugbear of Catholics justifying 
the four fathers we have just men- wholesale assassination as a re- 
tioned had spent each over eighteen medy for persecution, that has 
years in the country, laboring with been such a sweet morsel under 
a zeal and success seldom equalled, the tongues of Protestant divines 
and it was this very success in gain- and zealots for so many centu- 
ing souls to Christ that furnished the ries. 



192 



The Progressionists. 



THE PROGRESSIONISTS. 



FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN. 



CHAPTER VI. CONTINUED. 



THE tumult continued. As soon 
as the orator attempted to speak, his 
voice was drowned by cries and 
stamping. 

" Commissary !" cried the chair- 
man to that officer, " I demand that 
you extend to our assembly the pro- 
tection of the law." 

" I am here simply to watch the 
proceedings of your meeting," re- 
plied Parteiling with cool indiffer- 
ence. " Everybody is at liberty in 
meetings to signify his approval or 
disapproval by signs. No act for- 
bidden by the law has been commit- 
ted by your opponents, in my opin- 
ion." 

" Bravo ! bravo ! Three cheers for 
the commissary !" 

All at once the noise was subdued 
to a whisper of astonishment. A 
miracle was taking place under the 
very eyes of progress. Banker Greif- 
mann, the moneyed prince and lib- 
eral, made his appearance upon the 
platform. The rioters saw with 
amazement how the mighty man be- 
fore whom the necks of all such as 
were in want of money bowed even 
the necks of the puissant leaders 
stepped before the president of the 
assembly, how he politely bowed and 
spoke a few words in an undertone. 
They observed how the chairman 
nodded assent, and then how the 
banker, as if to excite their wonder 
to the highest pitch, mounted to the 
speaker's desk. 

" Gentlemen," began Carl Greif- 
mann, " although I have not the hon- 
or of sharing your political views, I 



feel myself nevertheless urged to ad- 
dress a few words to you. In the 
name of true progress, I ask this hon- 
orable assembly's pardon for the dis- 
turbance occasioned a moment ago 
by a band of uncultivated rioters, 
who dare to pretend that they are 
acting in the cause and with the 
sanction of progress. I solemnly 
protest against the assumption that 
their disgraceful and outrageous con- 
duct is in accordance with the spirit 
of the party which they dishonor. 
Progress holds firmly to its principles, 
and defends them manfully in the 
struggle with its opposers, but it is 
far from making itself odious by rude- 
ly overstepping the bounds of de- 
cency set by humanity and civiliza- 
tion. In political contests, it may be 
perfectly lawful to employ earnest 
persuasion and even influences that 
partake of the rigor of .compulsion, 
but rudeness, impertinence, is never 
justifiable in an age of civilization. 
Commissary Parteiling discovers no 
legally prohibited offence in the ex- 
pression of vulgarity and lowness 
may be. Nevertheless, a high mis- 
demeanor has been perpetrated 
against decorum and against the de- 
ference which man owes to man. 
Should the slightest disturbance be 
again attempted, I shall use the 
whole weight of my influence in 
prosecuting the guilty parties, and 
convince them that even in the spirit 
of progress they are offenders and 
can be reached by punishment." 

He spoke, and retired to the other 
end of the hall, followed by loud ap- 



The Progressionists. 



193 



plause from the ultramontanes. Nor 
were the threats of the mighty man 
uttered in vain. Spitzkopf hung his 
head abashed. The other revellers 
were tamed, they listened demurely 
to the speakers, ceased their con- 
temptuous hootings, and stood on 
their good behavior. Greifmann's 
proceeding had taken Seraphin also 
by surprise, and the power which the 
banker possessed over the rioters set 
him to speculating deeply. He saw 
plainly that Louise's brother com- 
manded an extraordinary degree of 
respect in the camp of the enemies 
of religion, and the only cause that 
could sufficiently account for the fact 
was a community of principles of 
which they were well aware. Hence 
the opinion he had formed of Greif- 
mann was utterly erroneous, conclu- 
ded Gerlach. The banker was not 
a mere secluded business man he 
was not indifferent about the great 
questions of the age. Then there 
was another circumstance that per- 
plexed the ruddy-cheeked millionaire 
to no inconsiderable degree Greif- 
mann's unaccountable way of tak- 
ing things. The tyrannical mode 
of electioneering which they had 
witnessed at the sign of the " Green 
Hat " had not at all disgusted Greif- 
mann. Spitzkopf s threats had not ex- 
cited his indignation. He had with 
a smiling countenance looked on 
whilst the most brutal species of ter- 
rorism was being enacted before him, 
he had not expressed a word of con- 
tempt at the constraint which they 
who held the power inhumanly 
placed on the political liberty of 
their dependents. On the other 
hand, his indignation was aroused by 
a mere breach of good behavior, an 
offence which in Gerlach's estimation 
was as nothing compared with the 
other instances of progressionist vio- 
lence. The banker seemed to him 
to have strained out a gnat after 
VOL. xvi. 13 



having swallowed a whole drove of 
camels. The youth's suspicions be- 
ing excited, he began to study the 
strainer of gnats and swallower of 
camels more closely, and soon the 
banker turned out in his estimation 
a hollow stickler for mere outward 
decency, devoid of all deeper merit. 
He now recollected also Greifmann's 
dealings with the leaders of progress, 
and those transactions oifly confirm- 
ed his present views. What he had 
considered as an extraordinary de- 
gree of shrewdness in the man of bus- 
iness, which enabled him to take ad- 
vantage of the peculiar convictions 
and manner of thinking of other men, 
was now to his mind a real affinity 
with their principles, and he could 
not help being shocked at the dis- 
covery. 

He hung his head in a melancholy 
mood, and his heart .protested earn- 
estly against the inference which was 
irresistibly forcing itself upon his 
mind, that the sister shared her bro- 
ther's sentiments. 

" This doubt must be cleared up,, 
cost what it may," thought he. 
" My God, what if Louise also turn- 
ed out to be a progressionist, a wo- 
man without any faith, an infidel ! 
No, that cannot be! Yet suppose 
it really were the case suppose she 
actually held principles in common 
with such vile beings as Schwefel, 
Sand, ' Erdblatt, and Shund ? Sup- 
pose her moral nature did not har- 
monize with the beauty of her per- 
son what then ?" He experienced 
a spasmodic contraction in his heart 
at the question, he hesitated with the 
answer, but, his better self finally get- 
ting the victory, he said : " Then all is 
over. The impressions of a dream, 
however delightful, must not influ- 
ence a waking man. My father's 
calculation was wrong, and I have 
wasted my kindness on an undeserv- 
ing object." 



194 



The Progressionists. 



So completely wrapt up was he in 
his meditations that he heard not a 
word of the speeches, not even the 
concluding remarks of the president. 
Greifmann's approach roused him, 
and they left the hall together. 

" That was ruffianly conduct, of 
which progress would have for ever to 
be ashamed." said the banker indig- 
nantly. "They bayed and yelped 
like a pack of hounds. At their first 
volley I was as embarrassed and 
confused as a modest girl would be 
at the impertirence of some young 
scapegrace. Fierce rage then hur- 
ried me to the platform, and my 
words have never done better service, 
for they vindicated civilization." 

" I cannot conceive how a trifle 
could thus exasperate you." 

Greifmann stood still and looked 
at his companion in astonishment. 

" A trifle !" echoed he reproach- 
fully. " Do you call a piece of wan- 
ton impudence, a ruffianly outrage 
against several hundreds of men en- 
titled to respect, a trifle ? 

" I do, compared with other 
crimes that you have suffered to pass 
unheeded and uncensured," an- 
swered Gerlach. " You had not an 
indignant word for the unutterable 
meanness of those three leaders, who 
were immoral and unprincipled 
enough to invest a notorious villain 
with office and honors. Nor did 
you show any exasperation at the 
brutal terrorism practised by men of 
power in this town over their weak 
and unfortunate dependents." 

" Take my advice, and be on your 
guard against erroneous and narrow- 
minded judgments. The leaders 
merely had a view to their own ends, 
but they in no manner sinned against 
propriety. The raising a man of 
'Shund's abilities to the office of 
mayor is an act of prudence by 
no means an offence against human- 



"Yet it was an outrage to moral 
sentiment," opposed Seraphin. 

" See here, Gerlach, moral senti- 
ment is a very elastic sort of thing. 
Sentiment goes for nothing in practi- 
cal life, and such is the character of 
life in our century." 

" Well, then, the mere sense of 
propriety is not worth a whit more." 

" I ask your pardon ! Propriety 
belongs to the realm of actualities or 
of practical experiences, and not to 
the shadowland of sentiment. Pro- 
priety is the rule that regulates the 
intercourse of men, it is therefore a 
necessity, nothing else will serve as a 
substitute for it, and it must continue 
to be so regarded as long as a differ- 
ence is recognized between rational 
man and the irrational brute." 

" The same may be said with 
much more reason of morality, for it 
also is a rule, it regulates our actions, 
it determines the ethic worth or 
worthlessness of a man. Mere out- 
ward decorum does not necessarily 
argue any interior excellence. The 
most abandoned wretch may be distin- 
guished for easy manners and elegant 
deportment, yet he is none the less a 
criminal. A dog may be trained to 
many little arts, but for all that it 
continues to be a dog. 

" It is delightful to see you break- 
ing through that uniform patience of 
yours for once and showing a little 
of the fire of indignation," said the 
banker pleasantly. " I shall tell 
Louise of it, I know she will be glad 
to learn that Seraphin too is suscepti- 
ble of a human passion. But this by 
the way. Now watch how I shall 
meet your arguments. That very 
moral sentiment of which you speak 
has caused and is still causing the 
most enormous crimes against hu- 
manity, and the laws of morality are 
as changeable as the wind. When 
an Indian who has not been raised 
from barbarism by civilization dies, 



The Proressionists. 






the religious c'ustom of the country gress has convictions as well as ul- 

requires that his wife should permit tramontanism. If the latter is ac- 

herself to be burned alive on the tive, why should not the former be 

funeral pyre of her husband. Moral so too ? If, on the side of progress, 

sentiment teaches the uncivilized wo- the weak and dependent permit 

man that it is a horrible crime to re- themselves to be cowed and driven, 

fuse to devote herself to this cruel it is merely an advantage for the 

death. The pious Jews used to powerful, and for the others it is a 

stone every woman to death who weakness or cowardice. For this 

was taken in adultery in our day, reason, the mode of electioneering 

such a deed of blood would be re- pursued by Spitzkopf and his com- 

volting to moral sentiment, and rades amused but nowise shocked 

would claim tears from the eyes of me, for they were not acting against 

cultivated people. I could mention propriety." 

many other horrors that were prac- Seraphin saw it plainly : for Carl 

tised more or less remotely in the Greifmann there existed no distinc- 

past, and were sanctioned by the tion between good and evil ; he rec- 

prevailing moral sentiment. Here ognized only a cold and empty sys- 

is my last instance: according to tern of formalities. 

laws of morality, the usurer was at The two young men issued from a 

one time a monster, an arch- villain narrow street upon the market-place. 

at present, he is merely a man of This was occupied by a large public 

great enterprise. Propriety, on the building. In the open space stood 

other hand, enlightenment, and polish a group of men, among whom Flach- 

are absolute and unalterable. Whilst sen appeared conspicuous. He was 

rudeness and impertinence will ever be telling the others about Greifmann's 

looked upon as disgusting, good man- speech at the meeting of the ultra - 

ners and politeness will be considered montanes. They all manifested 

as commendable and beautiful." great astonishment that the influen- 

Seraphin could not but admire tial moneyed prince should have ap- 

the skill with which Greifmann jum- peared in such company, and, above 

bled together subjects of the most all, should have made a speech in 

heterogeneous nature. But he could their behalf. 

not, at the same time, divest himself " He declared it was vulgar, im- 

of some alarm at the banker's decla- pudent, ruffianly, to disturb a re- 

rations, for they betrayed a soul-life spectable assembly," reported Flach- 

of little or absolutely no moral sen. " He said he knew some of us, 

worth. Money, interest, and respec- and that he would have us put where 

tability constituted the only trinity the dogs would not bite us if we 

in which the banker believed. Mo- attempted to disturb them again. 

rality, binding the conscience of man, That's what he said; and I actually 

a true and only God, and divine rev- rubbed my eyes to be quite sure it 

elation, were in his opinion so many was banker Greifmann that was 

worn-out and useless notions, which speaking, and really it was he, the 

the progress of mankind had success- banker Greifmann himself, bodily, 

fully got beyond. and not a mere apparition." 

" When those who hold power " I must say the banker was right, 

take advantage of it at elections, for it isn't exactly good manners to 

they in no manner offend against howl, stamp, and whistle to annoy 

propriety,", proceeded Carl. " Pro- one's neighbors," owned another. 



196 The Progressionists. 

"But we were paid for doing it, about restlessly. To 'those of their 

and we only carried out the orders party who chanced to pass they 

given by certain gentlemen." nodded and smiled knowingly, upon 

" To be sure ! Men like us don't doubtful voters they smiled still more 

know what good breeding is it's for blandly, added some pleasant words, 

gentlemen to understand that," main- and pressed the acceptance of the 

tained a third. " We do what men green ticket, but for ultramontane 

of good breeding hire us to do, and voters they had only jeers and coarse 

if it isn't proper, it matters nothing to witticisms. As Greifmann approached 

us let the gentlemen answer for it." they respectfully raised their hats. 

' ' Bravo, Stoffel, bravo !" applaud- The banker drew Gerlach to one 

ed Flachsen. " Yours is the right side, and stood to make observations, 
sort of servility, Stoffel ! You are a " What swarms there are around 

real human, servile, and genuine re- the drinking-shops," remarked Greif- 

active kind of a fellow so you are. mann. " It is there that the tickets. 

I agree with you entirely. The gen- are filled under the persuasive influ- 

tlemen do the paying, and it is for ence of beer. The committee pro- 

them to answer for what happens, vide the tickets which the voters 

We are merely servants, we are hire- have filled with the names of the 

lings, and what need a hireling care candidates by clerks who sit round 

whether that which his master com- the tables at the beer-shops. It is 

mands is right or not ? The master quite an ingenious arrangement, for 

is responsible, not the hireling, beer will reconcile a voter to the 

What I am telling you belongs to most objectionable kind of a candi- 

the exact sciences, and the exact date." 

sciences are at the pinnacle of mod- A crowd of drunken citizens com- 
ern acquisitions. Hence a hireling ing out of the nearest tavern ap- 
who without scruple carries out the preached. Linked arm-in-arm, they 
orders of his master is up to the high- swayed about and staggered along 
est point of the age such a fellow has with an unsteady pace. Green tick- 
taken his stand on servility. Hallo ! ets bearing the names of the candi- 
the election has commenced. Be off, dates whom progress had chosen to 
every man of you, to his post. But watch over the common weal could 
mind you don't look too deep into the be seen protruding from the pockets 
beer-pots before the election is over, of their waistcoats. Gerlach, seeing 
Keep your heads level, be cautious, the drunken mob and recollecting 
do your best for the success of the the solemn and important nature of 
green ticket. Once the election is the occasion, was seized with loath- 
carried, you may swill beer till you ing and horror at the corruption of 
can no longer stand. The gentle- social life revealed in the low means 
men will foot the bill, and assume all to which the party of progress had 
responsibilities. recourse to secure for its ends the 

They dispersed themselves through votes of these besotted and ignorant 

the various drinking-shops of the men. 
neighborhood." Presently Schwefel stepped up and 

Near the door of the building in saluted the young men. 
which the voting was to take place " Do you not belong to the corn- 
stood a number of progressionist mittee in charge of the ballot-box ?" 
gentlemen. They all wore heavy inquired Greifmann. 
beards, smoked cigars ; and peered " No, sir, I wished to .remain en- 



The Progressionists. 197 

tirely untrammelled this morning," this money, waste all this beer and 
answered the leader with a sly look time ? Why does not progress settle 
and tone. " This is going to be an this business summarily ? Why not 
exciting election, the ultramontanes simply nominate candidates fit for 
are astir, and it will be necessary for the office, and then send them di- 
me to step in authoritatively now rectly to the legislature ? This mode 
and then to decide a vote. More- would do away with all this nonsen- 
over, the committee is composed ex- sical ado, and would give the matter 
clusively of men of our party. Not a prompt and business cast, conform- 
a single ultramontane holds a seat able to the spirit of the age." 
at the polls." " This idea is a good one, but we 

" In that case there can be no have an election law that would 

question of failure," said the banker, stand in the way of carrying it out." 

" Your office is closed to-day, no " Bosh election law !" . sneered 

doubt ?" the banker. " Your election law is 

" Of course !" assented the manu- a mere scarecrow, an antiquated, 

facturer of straw hats. " This day is meaningless instrument. Do away 

celebrated as a free day by the offi- with the election law, and follow my 

ces of all respectable houses. Our suggestion." 

clerks are dispersed through the tav- " That would occasion a charm- 

erns and election districts to use their ing row on the part of the ultramon- 

pens in filling up tickets." tanes," observed the leader laughing. 

" I am forced to return to my old " Was the lion ever known to heed 

assertion : an election is mere folly, the bleating of a sheep ? When did 

useless jugglery," said the banker, progress ever pay any attention to a 

turning to Seraphin. " Holding row gotten up by the ultramon- 

elections is no longer a rational way tanes ?" rejoined Greifmann. " Was 

of doing, it is no longer a business not the fuss made in Bavaria against 

way of proceeding, it is yielding to the progressionist school-law quite a 

stupid timidity. Mr. Schwefel, don't prodigious one ? Did not our own 

you think elections are mere folly ?" last legislature make heavy assaults 

" I confess I have never consider- on the church ? Did not the entire 

ed the subject from that point of episcopate protest against permitting 

view," answered the leader cautious- Jews, Neo-pagans, and Freemasons 

ly. " But meanwhile what do you to legislate on matters of religion ? 

understand by that ?" But did progress suffer itself to be 

" Be good enough to attend to my disconcerted by episcopal protests 
reasoning for a moment. Progress and the agonizing screams of the 
is in a state of complete organization, ultramontanes? Not at all. It 
What progress wills, must be. An- calmly pursued the even tenor of its 
other party having authority and way. Be logical, Mr. Schwefel : pro- 
power cannot subsist side by side gress reigns supreme and decrees with 
with progress. Just see those men absolute authority why should it 
staggering and blundering over the not summarily relegate this election 
square with green tickets in their law among the things that were, but 
hands ! To speak without circum- are no more ?" 

locution, look at the slaves doing the " You are right, Greifmann !" ex- 

behests of their masters. What claimed Gerlach, in a feeling of utter 

need of this silly masquerade of disgust. " What need has the knout 

an election ? Why squander all of Russian despotism of the sanction 



198 The Progressionists. 

of constitutional forms ? Progress pearance, and some audacious hand 

is lord, the rest are slaves !" had scrawled on the broad gilt frame 

" You have again misunderstood the following ominous words : " May 
me, my good fellow. I am consider- he be the last in the succession of 
ing the actual state of things. Should expensive bread-eaters." Down the 
ultramontanisra at any time gain the middle of the hall ran a baize-cover- 
ascendency, then it also will be justi- ed table, on which were numerous 
fied in behaving in the same man- inkstands. Scattered over the table 
ner." lay a profusion of green bills ; the 

Upon more mature consideration, yellow color of the ultramontane bills 
Gerlach found himself forced to ad- was nowhere to be seen. The table 
mit that Greifmann's view, from the was lined by gentlemen who were 
standpoint of modern culture, was writing. They were not writing for 
entirely correct. Progress independ- themselves, but for others, who mere- 
ently of God and of all positive re- ly signed their names and then hand- 
ligion could not logically be expect- ed the tickets to the commissary, 
ed to recognize any moral obliga- Several corpulent gentlemen also oc- 
tions, for it had not a moral basis, cupied seats at the table, but they were 
Everything was determined by the not engaged in writing. These gen- 
force of circumstances; the autocracy tlemen, apparently unoccupied, wore 
of party rule made anything lawful, massive gold watch-chains and 
Laws proceeded not from the divine sparkling rings, and they had a corn- 
source of unalterable justice, but from manding and stern expression of 
the whim of a majority fashioned countenance. They were observing 
and framed to suit peculiar interests all who entered, to see whether any 
and passions. man would be bold enough to vote 

" We have yet considerable work the yellow ticket. People of the 
to do to bring all to thinking as humbler sort, mechanics and labor- 
clearly and rationally as you, Mr. ers, were constantly coming in and 
Greifmann," said the leader with a going out. Bowing reverently to 
winning smile. the portly gentlemen, they seated 

Schwefel accompanied the million- themselves and filled out green tick- 
aires into a lengthy hall, across the ets with the names of the liberal can- 
lower end of which stood a table, didates. Most of them did not even 
There sat the commissary of elec- trouble themselves to this degree, but 
tions surrounded by the committee, simply laid their tickets before the 
animated gentlemen with great penman appointed for this special 
beards, who were occupied in dis- service. All went off in the best or- 
tributing tickets to voters or receiv- der. The process of the election re- 
ing tickets filled up. The extraor- sembled the smooth working of an 
dinary good-humor prevailing among ingenious piece of machinery. And 
these gentlemen was owing to the there was no tongue there to de- 
satisfactory course of the election, for nounce the infamous terrorism that 
rarely was any ultramontane paper had crushed the freedom of the elec- 
seen mingling in the flood that pour- tion or had bought the votes of vile 
ed in from the ranks of progress, and venal men with beer. 
The sides of the hall were hung with Seraphin stood with Greifmann in 
portraits of the sovereigns of the the recess of a window looking on. 
land, quite a goodly row. The last " Who are the fat men at the ta- 
one of the series was youthful in ap- ble ?" inquired he. 



The Progressionists. 199 

" The one with the very black gress soon fluttered about him, offer- 
beard is house-builder Sand, the sec- ing him a green ticket. Holt glanced 
ond is Eisenhart, machine-builder, at it, and a contemptuous smile 
the third is Erdfloh, a landowner, spread over his face. He next tore it 
the fourth and fifth are tobacco mer- to pieces, which he threw on the 
chants. All those gentlemen are floor, 
chieftains of the party of progress." " What are you about ?" asked the 

" They show it," observed Gerlach. angel of progress reproachfully. 

" Their looks, in a manner, command " I have reduced Shund and his 

every man that comes in to take the colleagues to fragments," answered 

green ticket, and I imagine I can. Holt dryly, then approaching the 

read on their brows : ' Woe to him commissary he demanded a yellow 

who dares vote against us. He shall ticket. 

be under a ban, and shall have " Glorious ! " applauded Gerlach. 

neither employment nor bread.' It " I have half a mind to present this 

is unmitigated tyranny ! I imagine true German man with another thou- 

I see in those fat fellows so many sand as a reward for his spirit." 

cotton-planters voting their slaves." The fat men had observed with 

" That is a one-sided conclusion, astonishment the action of the land 
my most esteemed," rejoined the cultivator. Their astonishment turn- 
banker. " In country villages, the ed to rage when Holt, leisurely seat- 
position here assumed by the mag- ing himself at the table, took a pen 
nates of progress is filled by the lords in his mighty fist and began filling 
of ultramontanism, clerical gentle- out the ticket with the names of the 
men in cassocks, who keep a sharp ultramontane candidates. Whilst he 
eye on the fingers of their parishion- wrote, whisperings could be heard 
ers. This, too, is influencing." all through the hall, and every eye 

" But not constraining," opposed was directed upon him. After no in- 

the millionaire promptly. " The considerable exertion, the task of 

clergy exert a legitimate influence by filling out the ticket was successfully 

convincing, by advancing solid accomplished, and Holt arose, leav- 

grounds for their political creed, ing the ticket lying upon the table. 

They never have recourse to com- In the twinkling of an eye a hand 

pulsory measures, nor dare they do reached forward to take it up. 

so, because it would be opposed to " What do you mean, sir ?" asked 

the Gospel which they preach. The Holt sternly. 

autocrats of progress, on the contrary, " That yellow paper defiles the 

do not hesitate about using threats table," hissed the fellow viciously, 

and violence. Should a man refuse " Hand back that ticket," com- 

to bow to their dictates, they cruelly manded Holt roughly. " I want it 

deprive him of the means of subsist- to be here. The yellow ticket has 

ence. This is not only inhuman, but as good a right on this table as the 

it is also an accursed scheme for green one do you hear me ?" 

making slaves of the people and rob- "Slave of the priests!" sputtered 

bing them of principle." his antagonist. 

" Ah ! look yonder there is Holt." " If I am a slave of the priests, then 

The land cultivator had walked you are a slave of that villain Shund," 
into the hall head erect. He looked retorted Holt. " I am not to be brow- 
along the table and stood undecided, beaten by such a fellow as you par- 
One of the ministering spirits of pro- ticularly least of all by a vile slave of 



200 



The Progressionists. 



Shund's." He spoke, and then 
reached his ticket to the commis- 
sary. 

" That is an impudent dog," 
growled leader Sand. " Who is he ?" 

" He is a countryman of the name 
of Holt," answered he to whom the 
query was addressed. 

"We must spot the boor," said 
Erdfloh. " His swaggering shall not 
avail him anything." 

Holt was not the only voter that 
proved refractory. Mr. Schwefel, 
also, had a disagreeable surprise. 
He was standing near the entrance, 
observing with great self-compla- 
cency how the workmen in his em- 
ploy submissively cast their votes -for 
Shund and his associates. Schwefel 
regarded himself as of signal import- 
ance in the commonwealth, for he 
controlled not less than four hundred 
votes, and the side which it was his 
pleasure to favor could not fail of 
victory. The head of the great 
leader seemed in a manner encircled 
with the halo of progress : whilst his 
retainers passed and saluted him, he 
experienced something akin to the 
pride of a field-marshal reviewing a 
column of his victorious army. 

Just then a spare little man ap- 
peared in the door. His yellowish, 
sickly complexion gave evidence 
that he was employed in the sulphur- 
ating of straw. At sight of the com- 
mander the sulphur-hued little man 
shrank back, but his startled look did 
not escape the restless eye of Mr. 
Schwefel. He beckoned to the la- 
borer. 

" Have you selected your ticket, 
Leicht ?" 

" Yes, sir." 

" Let me see the ticket." 

The man obeyed reluctantly. 
Scarcely had Schwefel got a glimpse 
of the paper when his brows gathered 
darkly. 

" What means this ? Have you 



selected the yellow ticket and not 
the green one ?" 

Leicht hung his head. He 
thought of the consequences of this 
detection, of his four small children, 
of want of employment, of hunger 
and bitter need he was almost be- 
side himself. 

" If you vote for the priests, you 
may get your bread from the priests," 
said Schwefel. " The moment you 
hand that ticket to the commissary, 
you may consider yourself discharged 
from my employ." With this he 
angrily turned his back upon the 
man. Leicht did not reach in his 
ticket to the commissary. Stagger- 
ing out of the hall, he stood bewil- 
dered near the railing of the steps, 
and stared vaguely upon the men 
who were coming and going. Spitz- 
kopf slipped up to him. 

" What were you thinking about, 
man ?" asked he reproachfully. " Mr. 
Schwefel is furious you are ruined. 
Sheer stupidity, nothing but stupidity 
in you to wish to vote in opposition 
to the pleasure of the man from 
whom you get your bread and meat ! 
Not only that, but you have insulted 
the whole community, for you have 
chosen to vote against progress when 
all the town is in favor of progress. 
You will be put on the spotted list, 
and the upshot will be that you will 
not get employment in any factory 
in town. Do you want to die of 
hunger, man do you want your chil- 
dren to die of hunger ?" 

" You are right I am mined," 
said the laborer listlessly. " I 
couldn't bring myself to write 
Shund's name because he reduced 
my brother-in-law to beggary this 
is what made me select the yellow 
ticket." 

" You are a fool. Were Mr. 
Schwefel to recommend the devil, 
your duty would be to vote for the 
devil. What need you care who is 



The Progressionists. 



2OI 



on the ticket ? You have only to 
write the names on the ticket no- 
thing more than that. Do you think 
progress would nominate men that 
are unfit men who would not pro- 
mote the interests of the state, who 
would not further the cause of hu- 
manity, civilization, and liberty ? 
You are a fool for not voting for 
what is best for yourself." 

" I am sorry now, but it's too 
late." sighed Leicht. " I wouldn't 
have thought, either, that Mr. Schwe- 
fel would get angry because a man 
wanted to vote to the best of his 
judgment." 

" There you are prating sillily 
again. Best of your judgment ! you 
mustn't have any judgment. Leave 
it to others to judge ; they have more 
brains, more sense, more knowledge 
than you. Progress does the think- 
ing : our place is to blindly follow its 
directions." 

" But, Mr. Spitzkopf, mine is only 
the vote of a poor man ; and what 
matters such a vote ?" 

" There is your want of sense 
again. We are living in a state 
that enjoys liberty. We are living 
in an age of intelligence, of moral 
advancement, of civilization and 
knowledge, in a word, we are living 
in an age of progress ; and in an age 
of this sort the vote of a poor man 
is worth as much as that of a rich 
man." 

" If only I had it to do over ! I 
would give my right hand to have it 
to do over!" 

" You can repair the mischief if 
you want." 

" Instruct me how, Mr. Spitzkopf; 
please tell me how !" 

" Very well, I will do my best. 
As you acted from thoughtlessness 
and no bad intention, doubtless Mr. 
Schwefel will suffer himself to be pro- 
pitiated. Go down into the court, 
and wait till I come. I shall get 



you another ticket ; you will then vote 
for progress, and all will be satisfac- 
tory." 

" I am a thousand times obliged 
to you, Mr. Spitzkopf a thousand 
times obliged !" 

The agent went back to the hall. 
Leicht descended to the courtyard, 
where he found a ring of timid ope- 
rators like himself surrounding the 
sturdy Holt. They were talking in 
an undertone. As often as a pro- 
gressionist drew near, their conversa- 
tion was hushed altogether. Holt's 
voice alone resounded loudly through 
the court, and his huge strong hands 
were cutting the air in animated ges- 
ticulations. 

" This is not a free election ; it is 
one of compulsion and violence," 
cried he. " Every factoryman is 
compelled to vote as his employer 
dictares, and should he refuse the 
employer discharges him from the 
work. Is not this most despicable 
tyranny ! And these very tyrants of 
progress are perpetually prating 
about liberty, independence, civiliza- 
tion ! That's a precious sort of liber- 
ty indeed !" 

" A man belonging to the ultra- 
montane party cannot walk the 
streets to-day without being hooted 
and insulted," said another. " Even 
up yonder in the hall, those gentle- 
men who are considered so cultiva- 
ted stick their heads together and 
laugh scornfully when one of us 
draws near." 

" That's so that's so, I have my- 
self seen it," cried Holt. " Those 
well-bred gentlemen show their teeth 
like ferocious dogs whenever they 
see a yellow ticket or an ultramon- 
tane. I say, Leicht, has anything 
happened you ? You look wretch- 
ed !" Leicht drew near and related 
what had occurred. The honest 
Holt's eyes gleamed like coals of fire. 

" There's another piece of tyranny 



202 



The Progressionists. 



for you," cried he. " Leicht, my 
poor fellow, I fancy I see in you a 
slave of SchwefeFs. From dawn till 
late you are compelled to toil for the 
curmudgeon, Sundays not excepted. 
Your church is the factory, your re- 
ligion working in straw, and your 
God is your sovereign master Schwe- 
fel. You are ruining your health 
amid the stench of brimstone, and 
not so much as the liberty of voting 
as you think fit is allowed you. It's 
just as I tell you you factory men 
are slaves. How strangely things 
go on in the world ! In America 
slavery has been abolished ; but lo ! 
here in Europe it is blooming as 
freshly as trees in the month of May. 
But mark my word, friends, the fruit 
is deadly ; and when once it will have 
ripened, the great God of heaven will 
shake it from the trees, and the gen- 
eration that planted the trees will 
have to eat the bitter fruit." 

Leicht shunned the society of the 
ultramontanes and stole away. Pres- 
ently Spitzkopf appeared with the 
ticket. 

" Your ticket is filled out. Come 
and sign your name to it." Schwe- 
fel was again standing near the en- 
trance, and he again beckoned the 
laborer to approach. " I am paci- 
fied. You may now continue work- 
ing for me." 

Carl and Seraphin returned to the 
Palais Greifmann. Louise received 
them with numerous questions. The 
banker related what had passed ; Ger- 
lach strode restlessly through the 
apartment. 

" The most curious spectacle must 
have been yourself," said the young 
lady. " Just fancy you on the rostrum 
at the ' Key of Heaven ' ! And very 
likely the ungrateful ultramontanes 
would not so' much as applaud." 

" Beg pardon, they did, miss !" 
assured Seraphin. "They applaud- 
ed and cried bravo." 



" Really ? Then I am proud of 
a brother whose maiden speech pro- 
duced such marvellous effects. May 
be we shall read of it in the daily pa- 
per. Everybody will be surprised 
to hear of the banker Greifmann 
making a speech at the 'Key of 
Heaven.' ' Carl perceived the irony 
and stroked his forehead. 

" But what can you be pondering 
over, Mr. Seraphin ?" cried she to 
him. " Since returning from the tur- 
moil of the election, you seem un- 
able to keep quiet." He seated 
himself at her side, and was soon un- 
der the spell of her magical attrac- 
tions. 

" My head is dizzy and my brain 
confused," said he. " On every hand 
I see nothing but revolt against mo- 
ral obligation, sacrilegious disregard 
of the most sacred rights of man. 
The hubbub still resounds in my 
ears, and my imagination still sees 
those fat men at the table with their 
slaveholder look the white slaves 
doing their masters' bidding - - th-e 
completest subjugation in an age of 
enlightenment all this presents itself 
to me in the most repulsive and la- 
mentable guise." 

" You must drive those horrible 
phantoms from your mind," replied 
Louise. 

" They are not phantoms, but the 
most fearful reality." 

" They are phantoms, Mr. Sera- 
phin, so far as your feelings exagger- 
ate the evils. Those factory serfs 
have no reason to complain. There 
is nothing to be done but to put up 
with a situation that has sponta- 
neously developed itself. It is use- 
less to grow impatient because differ- 
ence of rank between masters and 
servants is an unavoidable evil upon 
earth." A servant entered to call 
them to dinner. 

At her side he gradually became 
more cheerful. The brightness of 






The Progressionists. 203 

her eyes dispelled his depression, and He was only roused to conscious- 

her delicate arts put a spell upon his ness of their proximity by the unusu- 

young, inexperienced heart. And ally loud and excited tone in which 

when, at the end of the meal, they Louise spoke. He could not be 

were sipping delicious wine, and her mistaken ; it was the young lady's 

beautiful lips lisped the customary voice but oh ! the import of her 

health, the subdued tenderness he words. He looked through an 

had been feeling suddenly expanded opening in the foliage, and sat thun- 

into a strong passion. derstruck. 

" After you will have done justice " You have been attempting to 

to your diary," said she at parting, guide Gerlach's overexalted spirit 

" we shall take a drive, and then go into a more rational way of thinking, 

to the opera." but the very opposite seems to be the 

Instead of going to his room, result. Intercourse with the son of a 
Seraphin went into the garden. He strait-laced mother is infecting you 
almost forgot the occurrences of the with sympathy for ultramontanism. 
day in musing on the inexplicable Your speech to-day," continued she 
behavior of Louise. Again she had caustically, " in yon obscure meet- 
not uttered a word of condemnation ing is the subject of the talk of the 
of the execrable doings of progress, town. I am afraid you have made 
and it grieved him deeply. A suspi- yourself ridiculous in the minds of all 
cion flitted across his mind that per- cultivated people. The respectability 
haps Louise was infected with the of our family has suffered." 
frivolous and pernicious spirit of the " Of our family ? " echoed he, per- 
age, but he immediately stifled the plexed. 

terrible suggestion as he would have " We are compromised," continu- 

hastened to crush a viper that he ed she with excitement. " You have 

might have seen on the path of the given our enemies occasion to set us 

beautiful lady. He preferred to be- down for members of a party who 

lieve that she suppressed her feel- stupidly oppose the onward march of 

ings of disgust out of regard for his civilization." 

presence, that she wisely avoided " Cease your philippic," broke in 

pouring oil upon the flames of his the brother angrily. " Bitterness is an 

own indignation. Had she not ex- unmerited return for my efforts to 

erted herself to dispel his sombre re- serve you." 

flections ? He was thus espousing " To serve me ? J; 

the side of passion against the ap- " Yes, to serve you. The disturb- 

palling truth that was beginning ing of that meeting made a very un- 

faintly to dawn upon his anxious favorable impression on your intend- 

mind. ed. He scorned the noisy mob, and 

But soon the spell was to be bro- was roused by what, from his' point of 

ken, and duty was to confront him vic\v, could not pass for anything 

with the alternative of either giving better than unpardonable impudence, 

up Louise, or defying the stern de- To me it might have been a matter 

mands of his conscience. of indifference whether your intended 

The brother and sister, thinking was pleased or displeased with the 

their guest engaged with his diary, fearless conduct of progress. But as 

walked into the garden. They di- I knew both you and the family felt 

reeled their steps towards the arbor disposed to base the happiness of 

where Gerlach had seated himself. your life on his couple of millions, as 



2O4 



The Progressionists. 



moreover I feared my silence might 
be interpreted by the shortsighted 
young gentleman for complicity in 
progressionist ideas, I was forced to 
disown the disorderly proceeding. 
In so doing I have not derogated 
one iota from the spirit of the times ; 
on the contrary, I have bound a heavy 
wreath about the brow of glorious 
humanity." 

" But you have pardoned yourself 
too easily," proceeded she, unappeas- 
ed. " The very first word uttered by 
a Greifmann in that benighted as- 
sembly was a stain on the fair fame 
of our family. We shall be an object 
of contempt in every circle. 'The 
Greifmanns have turned ultramon- 
tanes because Gerlach would have re- 
fused the young lady's hand had they 
not changed their creed,' is what will 
be prated in society. A flood of de- 
rision and sarcasm will be let loose up- 
on us. I an ultramontane ? " cried she, 
growing more fierce; "I caught in the 
meshes of religious fanaticism ? I ac- 
cept the Syllabus believe in the Pro- 
phet of Nazareth ? Oh ! I could sink 
into the earth on account of this dis- 
grace ! Did I for an instant doubt 
that Seraphin may be redeemed from 
superstition and fanaticism, I would 
renounce my union with him I would 
spurn the tempting enjoyments of 
wealth, so much do I hate silly cre- 
dulity." 

Seraphin glanced at her through the 
gap in the foliage. Not six paces from 
him, with her face turned in his direc- 
tion, stood the infuriate beauty. How 
changed her countenance ! The 
features, habitually so delicate and 
bright, now looked absolutely hideous, 
the brows were fiercely knit, and 
hatred poured like streams of fire 
from her eyes. Sentiments hitherto 
skilfully concealed had taken visible 
shape, ugly and repulsive to the view 
of the innocent youth. His noble 
spirit revolted at so much hypocrisy 



and falsehood. What occurred before 
him was at once so monstrous and so 
overwhelming that he did not for an 
instant consider that in case they en- 
tered the arbor he would be discov- 
ered. He was not discovered, how- 
ever. Louise and Carl retraced their 
steps. For a short while the voice of 
Louise was still audible, then silence 
reigned in the garden. 

Seraphin rose from his seat. There 
was a sad earnestness in his face, 
and the vanishing traces of deep 
pain, which however were soon super- 
seded by a noble indignation. 

" I have beheld the genuine Louise, 
and I thank God for it. It is as I 
feared, Louise is a progressionist, an 
infidel that considers it disgraceful to 
believe in the Redeemer. Out upon 
such degeneracy ! She hates light, 
and how hideous this hatred makes 
her. Not a feature was left of the 
charming, smiling, winning Louise. 
Good God ! how horrible had her 
real character remained unknown un- 
til after we were married ! Chained 
for life to the bitter enemy of every- 
thing that I hold dear and venerate 
as holy think of it ! With eyes 
bandaged, I was but two paces from 
an abyss that resembles hell thank 
God ! the bandage has fallen I 
see the abyss, and shudder. 

" * The ultramontane Seraphin ' 
' the fanatical Gerlach ' ' the short- 
sighted Gerlach,' whose fortune the 
young lady covets that she may pass 
her life in enjoyment a heartless 
girl, in whom there is not a spark of 
love for her intended husband how 
base ! 

" ' Ultramontane'? ' fanatical'? 
yes ! * Shortsighted ? ' by no means. 
One would need the suspicious eyes 
of progress to see through the hypo- 
crisy of this lady and her brother a 
simple, trusting spirit like mine can- 
not penetrate such darkness. At any 
rate, they shall not find me weak. 



The Progressionists. 20$ 



The little flame that Avas beginning John reappeared with a telegraphic 

to burn within my heart has been for despatch. He read it, and was stun- 

ever extinguished by her unhallowed ned. 

lips. She might now present herself " Meet your father at the train this 
in the garb of an angel, and muster evening." He looked at the con- 
up every seductive art of womanhood, cise despatch, and fancied he saw his 
'twould not avail; I have had an father's stern and threatening coun- 
insight into her real character, and tenance. 

giving her up costs me not a pang. The contemplated match had for 

It is not hollow appearances that several years been regarded by the 

determine the worth of woman, but families of Gerlach and Greifmann 

moral excellence, beautiful virtues as a fixed fact. Seraphin was aware 

springing from a heart vivified by how stubbornly his father adhered to 

faith. No, giving her up shall not a project that he had once set his 

cost me one regretful throb." mind upon. Here now, just as the 

He hastened from the garden to union had became impossible and as 

his room and rang the bell. the youth was about to free himself 

" Pack my trunks this very day, for ever from an engagement that 

John," said he to his servant. " To- was destructive of his happiness, the 

morrow we shall be off." uncompromising sire had to appear 

He then entered in his diary a to enforce unconditional obedience 

circumstantial account of the unmask- to his will. A Tearful contest awaited 

ed beauty. He also dwelt at length Seraphin, unequal and painful ; for a 

upon the painful shock his heart ex- son, accustomed from childhood to 

perienced when the bright and beauti- revere and obey his parents, was to 

ful creature he had considered Louise maintain this contest against his own 

to be suddenly vanished before his father. Seraphin paced the rooi 

soul. As he was finishing the last line, and wrung his hands in anguish. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



THE VIRGIN. 

MOTHER ! whose virgin bosom was uncrost 

With the least shade of thought to sin allied : 

Woman ! above all women glorified, 

Our tainted nature's solitary boast; 

Purer than foam on central ocean tost, 

Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn 

With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon 

Before her vane begins on heaven's blue coast, 

Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween, 

Not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend, 

As to a visible power, in which did blend 

All that was mixed and reconciled in thee 

Of mother's love with maiden purity, 

Of high and low, celestial with terrene. Wordsworth. 



206 The Homeless Poor of New York City. 



THE HOMELESS POOR OF NEW YORK CITY. 

IN this class, the homeless poor, of crime, to avoid the inclemency of 

we embrace all those who have no the winter nights. Few persons can 

fixed habitation who have no idea form an idea of the struggles, the 

in the morning where they will ob- privations, and the daily sufferings 

tain shelter for their weary bodies of lone women who earn their daily 

during the coming night. We find bread by the use of the needle. If 

here every age represented from the fine ladies who adorn themselves 

the infant in the mother's arms, in costly robes could go behind the 

through the rapid stages of develop- scenes after they have left their 

ment (as it is well known that pain orders at the elegant shops of the 

and hunger have a wonderful effect dressmakers ; could they see their 

in maturing infant humanity), to the delicate fabrics taken home by 

aged, tottering towards the grave, only the poor sewing-women; see the 

waiting for their summons to cross weary forms bent over their work in 

over the river of time ; looking with the cheerless tenement-houses, each 

yearning eyes towards the Home stitch accompanied by a painful 

prepared for them on the shore of throb of heart and brain as the 

eternity. night wears on and the solitary 

It is impossible to estimate the candle burns low; the famishing 
number of this class, as we have child as he tosses and turns on his 
no statistics to guide us, but it is bundle of rags, murmuring, " Bread, 
supposed that there are about forty mother, bread!" ay! if the beam- 
thousand vagrant children alone in ing eyes of the votaries of fashion 
this metropolis. From this frightful could by some magic power see on 
number of infant waifs we may their rustling silks, their costly linen, 
judge of the amount of misery and their beautiful lace, the imprint of 
destitution in our midst hidden from the gaunt, lean fingers of the poor 
view behind our imposing marble sewing-women ; could the tears that 
warehouses and stately brownstone trickled down the worn cheeks crys- 
mansions. tallize where they have fallen ; could 

We have been informed by a re- the sighs which welled up from the 
liable police official that there are a overburdened heart strike with their 
large number of poor widows, whose low wailing sound on the ears of 
husbands died in the service of our these worldlings they would be fill- 
country during the late war, in a ed with a larger sense of duty to their 
most destitute condition in this city, fellow-creatures, a greater desire to 
and that they frequently bring their follow the golden motto, " Do unto 
children with them and apply for others as ye would that others should 
shelter at the station-houses. They do unto you." 

attempt to eke out a miserable live- There is an official apathy to 

lihood by sewing, and when this the condition of the extreme poor 

fails them they are obliged to go which, with the ballot placed in the 

(in this Christian city) to the abodes hands of every man, has already pro- 



The Homeless Poor of New York City. 207 

duced baneful results to the well- this city, the lady in charge pointed 
being of the Republic, and must out to us a little girl, not more than 
eventually, if not remedied, act de- nine years old, telling us that she 
trimentally to its safety. If an un- never came to the house without 
fortunate wretch, clad in tattered being more or less under the in- 
garments, pass through our streets fluence of liquor, and a glance at 
or loiter near our homes, he is at the bloated features and nervous, 
once eyed suspiciously to wear the trembling hands showed conclusive- 
habiliments of poverty is evidence ly that it was her habitual condition, 
sufficient that the black heart of a We understand that there are fiends 
criminal is enclosed within. It is in the shape of men and women 
true that promiscuous chanty may in this city who will sell such 
do great harm, but it is surely the children a penny's worth of rum. 
correct policy for a government, Some persons have argued that 
while it judiciously supplies the im- these children are from bad parents, 
mediate wants of its poor classes and under any circumstances, no 
with one hand, to open the avenues matter how favorable, would be cor- 
to employment with the other ; thus rupt. Such an opinion is a libel 
teaching them the lesson impressed on God and human nature. A cer- 
upon our first parents as they were tain proclivity to vice may be trans- 
banished from the Garden of Eden mitted in the blood, but free-will 
that man must earn his daily bread remains in the most degenerate, and 
by the sweat of his brow. is sufficient, with the aid of a good 
We have already said that it is education and the grace of God, 
computed by well-informed persons to overcome this obstacle to virtue, 
that we have in our midst some forty We know well the plastic nature 
thousand vagrant children. Let us of childhood, and, if educated from 
glance for a moment at their condi- the first to honesty, morality, and 
tion, and what is being done for sobriety, it will indeed be found a 
them. It is difficult for any one rare exception in which the deve- 
to conceive the deplorable condi- loped man will not possess these 
tion of these homeless children with- virtues, and prove an honor to him- 
out personal observation. They tread self and society. But if the first 
the paths leading to moral destruc- lisp of the infant repeats an oath 
tion with such rapidity that hun- which is used more frequently than 
dreds of them are confirmed thieves any other word by the debased mo- 
and drunkards before they reach the ther, or if, as is the case with many, 
age of twelve years. The day is as soon as the babe can walk alone 
passed in pilfering, and at night they it is taught the art of begging and 
sleep in some out-of-the-way place stealing, what can we look for in 
-under door-steps, in wagons, or the same child simply developed to 
wherever they can store their dimin- manhood ? Are you surprised that 
utive forms. Some time since, a re- he makes a thief? He has never 
gularly organized band of boys were been taught anything else, and he 
discovered to have constructed a naturally looks upon the law as 
shelter under one of the piers ; and something that interferes with the 
here they congregated at night, each right to take anything he desires, 
bringing in his booty stolen during if he can only do so without being 
the day. A few days since, during a detected. Would you look for pure 
visit to one of the mission-houses of water from a stream whose bed is 



208 The Homeless Poor of New York City. 

covered with filthy slime, and whose are the following : " The Five Points 
banks are the receptacle of disgust- House of Industry," " The Five 
ing, decomposed offal ? Surely you Points Mission-House," " The Ho- 
would not drink of such, no matter ward Mission " ; and last, but we 
how pure you knew the gurgling hope soon to be first in its wide- 
springs to be high up on the moun- spread influence over these little 
tain-side from whence it received its creatures, is the one established some 
supply. Look at a babe as it is two years ago, and now located in 
blessed with the first gleam of reason East Thirteenth Street. This is man- 
its ability to notice things about it. aged by certain charitable Catholic 
Is there anything in the bright black ladies, and called " An Association 
eye to indicate the future cunning for Befriending Children." As most 
of the burglar ? Do the rosy lips, of the poor children on the Island 
wreathed in angel smiles, look as if are, or should be, Catholics, it is but 
they were fashioned to utter foul just that the last-mentioned should 
oaths and blasphemies ? And the receive support and countenance 
little chubby hands clasped in baby from every Catholic in the city able 
glee around the mother's neck, to assist it, and thus enable the 
could they, by a natural instinct, lady managers in a short time to 
ever be turned in brutal wrath erect branch homes in every parish 
against that self-same mother ? Rea- on the Island. 

son answers No to all these ques- But come with us, dear reader, and 
tions ; and we argue that such vices let us look for ourselves at the con- 
are developed principally by educa- dition of those who take advantage 
tion and example. Take this for of the hospitality of the station-houses, 
granted, and, if we do nothing to Think for a moment that in 1862 
save the child from such education, there were seventy thousand nine 
what right have we to imprison the hundred and thirty-eight lodgers, 
developed man for acting upon the while 1871 presents the fearfully in- 
only doctrine he has ever been creased number of one hundred and 
taught ? Or a better view of the sub- forty-one thousand seven hundred 
ject is: Would it not be the dictate and eighty who sought this shelter. 
of a sound political economy to take Oh ! that this number (equal nearly 
these children from the streets, and to one-sixth of the population of this 
teach them some useful trade or vast metropolis), with its fearful 
pursuit, giving them, at the same weight of destitution and misery, 
time, the fundamental principles of suffering and despair, could be plac- 
Christianity, without which society ed in burning letters upon the minds 
is a tottering fabric, minus its very of those able, even without discom- 
foundation ? Do this, and we make moding themselves, to relieve it ! 
producers out of the very men and Let us go back to midwinter. A 
women who will otherwise become blinding snow-storm is wrapping the 
consumers upon the state in the earth in a white mantle, and it is 
common prisons. after midnight, but these are only 
In several parishes of this city better reasons for our undertaking, 
benevolent efforts are being made as they secure us increased opportu- 
to rescue these children, but, so far nity to see the phase of suffering we 
as we can learn, the only institutions seek; for surely in a night like this 
established where they are regularly the shelter of any roof is a luxury corn- 
taken care of and kept permanently pared to the exposure of the street. 



The Homeless Poor of New York City. 209 

Let us stop first at the Fifteenth where is the stone floor ? It cannot 
Precinct : we ask the sergeant at the be seen, so densely is it packed with 
desk for the presiding officer, and we outcast humanity. We can think of 
are at once shown to the captain's no other comparison but the way we 
room. He reads the note from have seen sardines packed in little 
headquarters giving us the en- tin boxes. Glance at this first row : 
tree, and informs us that he will give here is an old German, next what 
us any information we desire. We looks to be a countryman, then three 
request him to show us the quarters negroes, so black that they might 
of the night lodgers. He leads us have just arrived from the burning 
through a rear door into the yard, climate of Africa, then three Arabs, 
and here we find a second building, and in the distant corner more white 
two stories high, built of brick and men. The other rows are but copies 
stone. The lower story is cut up in- of this, differing only in color or na- 
to cells, with iron cross-barred doors, tionality, and such a heterogeneous 
for prisoners ; and the upper is divi- mass of humanity, made common 
ded into two rooms one devoted to bed-fellows by want, it would be im- 
the female, and the other to male, possible to find. Around the wall 
lodgers. The heavy granite stone are placed iron frames, about one 
forming a roof to the cells is also the foot high, and in these fit plain 
floor of the upper rooms. As we boards, painted black; but here, 
make an inspection of the prison, we again, none of this can be seen, the 
ask the captain what he thinks of this human flooring covers all. Think 
connection of homeless vagrants with of this apartment, with seventy-four 
prisoners ? He promptly replies men, of every description, from the 
that it is most unfortunate, and octogenarian leaning over the brink 
should not be allowed, and with great of the grave, to the young boy seven- 
kindness of heart says he would be teen or eighteen years old. Every 
willing to take care of a house in his clime has a representative ; nd in 
precinct for any number of lodgers, if the vast group every variety of shade 
allowed to do so. He tells us that he and color possessed by the human 
does everything to alleviate the con- family can be seen. Opening the 
dition of these paupers he can ; that, door to the female apartment, we 
if a particularly distressing case pre- find it occupied by a much smaller 
sents itself, he allows the doorman to number; and we can see better the 
give the party a cell in the prison, arrangement of the floor. The iron 
that this is far more comfortable than frames with their board covering ex- 
the rooms above. tend from each wall towards the cen- 

Think of this, you who at night tre about six feet, leaving a space in 
rest your heads on pillows of down the middle of the room as a passway. 
and wrap your bodies in fine rose The same variety in color, age, and 
blankets; think of beings so unfor- nationality is visible. Look at the 
tunate that a prisoner's cell, with different expressions of countenance 
the clanking iron-barred door, is look- how replete with sadness, misfortune, 
ed upon as a special favor ! But let degradation, and misery ! These 
us ascend to the upper story. The lodgers are divided into three classes : 
door to the male apartment is open- the first are officially known as burn- 
ed, and the picture is before us. The mers ; they are generally inebriates 
ceiling is lofty, and a large ventilator and worthless idlers, the drones of 
opens to the roof from its centre, but the hive, who make the station- 
VOL. xvi. 14 



2IO 



The Homeless Poor of Nciv York City. 



houses their permanent lodging- 
places, going night after night to 
different ones, thus distributing their 
patronage to a large number; but 
in spite of this the wary eye of the 
policeman soon recognizes them as 
belonging to this class. The second 
are those who by misfortune are 
obliged to seek this temporary shel- 
ter. Here are poor women, with 
their young children, forced out of 
their homes at night by drunken hus- 
bands ; single persons, temporarily 
unable to obtain employment; here 
also you find those whose lives have 
been failures, whose every effort to suc- 
ceed has proved abortive, who hate 
been held down to the world's hard 
grindstone by the iron grasp of pover- 
ty. The third class embraces those 
who have homes in the rural dis 
triers, and other poor strangers, who 
are by accident left in the city for the 
night. 

Having completed our survey 
here, let us look in for a few mo- 
ments at the Eighth Precinct. We find 
the captain obliging in his polite- 
ness, and we ask at once to be per- 
mitted to see the night lodgers. 
About the centre of the building a 
door opens, leading by a common 
stairway to the basement below. A 
fearful and sickening odor greets us 
as we pass down, and this, the 
captain informs us, permeates every 
part of the building, to the great 
detriment of his officers. He also 
tells us that his accommodations for 
wayfarers are very poor ; that he is 
obliged to put them in two small 
rooms in the basement, which are 
close and unhealthy. We find this 
statement correct, the floor upon 
which the lodgers rest being about 
four feet below the street level ; the 
ceiling is also very low, and the 
ventilation extremely imperfect. The 
only light in the apartment is from a 
small oil-lamp, and its sickly flame 



seems to add intensity to the aspect of 
the miserable surroundings. Look at 
that old man with long white beard 
and tattered garments, the first in the 
row near the entrance. There lingers 

o 

still a look of dignity about his fine 
face, but his whole appearance de- 
notes the victim of intemperance. 
See that young boy with his chest 
exposed, the third from the old man. 
He has never known his parents. 
Picked up in the streets when a 
babe by an old crone, he has been 
tossed about ever since with the 
vilest scum of metropolitan society. 
He is sixteen, but can count for you 
the number of dinners he has had in 
all those years, the number of times 
he has slept in a comfortable bed, 
ay, even the number of kind words 
that have been spoken to him ! What 
can be expected from the future of 
such children, cradled in a den for 
the punishment of crime while yet 
the snowy innocence of babyhood is 
untarnished, the only lullaby the 
coarse jest, rude repartee, and foul 
oaths of the outcasts who surround 
them ? The curses and impotent 
railings against a fate for which gen- 
erally each is individually to blame, 
and the bitter invective against their 
more fortunate fellow-beings, form 
a sad school in which to nurture 
plia*ble minds. But enough ; the 
foul air of this basement oppresses 
us, and we gladly make our way to 
the outer world. 

In the large cities of Europe, there 
are refuges established for this class 
on the following simple plan : An 
airy, comfortable, and well-ventilated 
room is procured, and fitted up with 
plain bedsteads and bedding, the 
latter of such materials as are easily 
washed. The next thing of impor- 
tance is to provide means for bath- 
ing, and to require every person 
admitted to make use of these means 
before retiring to rest. It is also the 



The Homeless Poor of New York City. 



211 



custom to give the lodgers when 
they come in, and again in the 
morning when they leave, a large 
basin of gruel and a half-pound of 
bread. The cost of such hospitality 
here would not exceed fifteen cents 
per night, and not as much as 
this if these houses were under the 
care of a religious community, 
saving by this the salaries of matrons 
and other employees, and at the 
same time ensuring the order always 
produced by the presence of dis- 
ciplined authority. There should be 
separate houses for males and females, 
and each could be cared for by 
persons of their own sex ; but all 
such institutions would require super- 
vision by the police, as some unruly 
characters must be expected in a 
promiscuous crowd of vagrants. The 
night refuges of London for women 
and children, established by Catho- 
lics, are under the care of the Sisters 
of Mercy, and are most admirably 
conducted. The order and docility 
of the lodgers is said to be remark- 
able under the gentle sway of these 
ladies. Those in Montreal and 
Quebec are in charge of the Gray 
Nuns. It would not require a large 
number of these lodging-houses for 
the relief of our city, but they should 
be located with regard to the density 
of population in given districts. Four 
or five for each sex, with proper 
accommodations, would be amply suf- 
fkient, as the total number of lodgers 
in the most inclement nights would 
hardly reach one thousand. 

It is difficult to estimate the ad- 
vantage to society as well as to the 
poor these homes would prove. In 
erecting them we should strike at the 
very foundation of the great social 
evil, and save hundreds of young 
women strangers and unfortunates 
out of employment from the snares 
set for their ruin in their lonely wan- 
derings at night in search of shelter. 



"There is near another river flowing-, 

Black with guilt, and deep as hell and sin ; 
On its brink even sinners stand and shudder, 
Cold and hunger goad the homeless in." 

Procter. 



As the station lodgings now are, 
they form an incentive to the class 
known as bummers to avoid work. 
These people know there are thir- 
ty station-houses, and by frequent 
changes they manage to pass the 
year through without drawing mark- 
ed attention at any one place. This 
class is composed of low thieves, 
drunkards, and beggars. If but few 
lodging-places existed, they would 
soon become well known, and could 
then be committed to the workhouse. 
A sojourn for them on the " island 
of penance " in the East River would 
result in a marked decrease in the 
thieving constantly 'carried on about 
our wharves and private dwellings. 

In erecting these night homes, 
either by chanty or legislative enact- 
ments, we should save our city from 
a burning disgrace, and give hopes 
of respectability to many a weary 
soul beaten down to the dust by the 
undeserved humiliations which link 
misfortune with crime. 

As a charitable investment, these 
homes would prove a wise economy, 
as they would permit the truly un- 
fortunate to be properly cared for, 
which is impossible at present. They 
would throw a safeguard around the 
morals of homeless young women 
by giving them shelter with persons 
of their own sex, who could protect, 
sympathize with, and advise them. 
They would assist in detecting those 
who live by swindling their hard- 
working neighbors. Lastly and most 
important, they would separate the 
children of poverty from the abodes . 
of crime. 



[NOTE. The foregoing article is the substance 
of a lecture delivered by Dr. Raborg before the 
Catholic Institute connected with the parish 
of S. Paul the Apostle in this city. Its sugges- 



212 



The House that Jack Built. 



tions are so apropos to the present season that 
we have deemed them worthy of reproduction 
in this permanent form. We desire also to state 
that the lecture had the effect of inducing several 
philanthropic ladies and gentlemen to visit the 
station-houses and make a personal examination 
themselves, the result of which was a rather ex- 
tended article in Frank Leslie's Newspaper of 
March 2, 1872, embracing some passages from 
the lecture, and accompanied by a clever illus- 
tration. 

The sectarian institutions for vagrant children 
having been alluded to, and certain former allu- 
sions to the same in this magazine having been 
misunderstood, we think it necessary to make a 
remark here in explanation. We must admit 
and praise the philanthropic motive which sus- 



tains these institutions. At the same time, we 
regard them as really nuisances of the worse 
kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned, 
on account of their proselytizing character. More- 
over, in their actual working they violate the 
rights both of parents and children, and we have 
evidence that these poor children are actually 
sold at the West, both by private sale and by 
auction. The horrible abuses existing in some 
state institutions are partly known to the public, 
and we have the means of disclosing even worse 
things than those which have recently been ex- 
posed in the daily papers. We trust, therefore, 
that the eloquent appeal of the author of the arti- 
cle will produce its effect upon all our Catholic 
readers, and stimulate them to greater efforts in 
behalf of these poor children. ED. C. W.] 



THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT 

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE HOUSE OF YORKE." 

IN TWO PARTS. 



PART I. 



IT stood in one of the wildest 
spots in New England, surrounded 
by woods, a " frame house " in a 
region of log-houses, and, as such, 
in spite of defects, a touch beyond 
the most complete edifice that could 
be shaped of logs. 

The defects were not few. The 
walls were slightly out of the perpen- 
dicular, there were strips of board 
instead of clapboards and shingles, 
the immense stone chimney in the 
centre gave the house the appearance 
of being an afterthought, and the 
two windows that looked down to- 
ward the road squinted. 

Yes, a most absurd little house, 
with all sorts of blunders in the mak- 
ing of it, but, for all that, a house with 
a worth of its own. For Jack May- 
nard had put the frame together with 
his own unassisted hands, had raised 
it with but two men to help him, and 
had finished it off alone. And round 
about the work, and through and over 
it, while his hands built visibly, his 
fancy also^ built airy habitations, fair 



and plumb, and changed all the land- 
scape. Before this fairy wand, the for- 
est sank, broad roads unwound, there 
was a sprinkle of white houses through 
the green country, like a sprinkle of 
snow in June ; and in place of this 
rustic nest rose a fair mansion-house, 
with a comely matron standing in 
the door, and rosy children playing 
about. 

At this climax of his castle-build- 
ing Jack Maynard caught breath, and, 
coming back to the present, found 
himself halfway up a ladder, with a 
hammer suspended in his hand, the 
wild forest swarming with game all 
about him, and the matron of his 
vision still Miss Bessie Ware, spinster. 

Jack laughed. " So much the bet- 
ter ! " he exclaimed, and brought his 
hammer down with such force, laugh- 
ing as he struck, that the nail under 
it bent up double and broke in two, 
the head half falling to the ground, 
the point half flattened lengthwise 
into the board, making a fragment 
of rustic buhl-work. 



The House that Jack Built. 



213 



" There's a nail driven into the 
future," said the builder, and selected 
another, and struck with better aim 
this time, so that the little spike went 
straight through the board, and pierc- 
ed an oaken timber, and held the 
two firmly together, and thus did its 
work in the present. 

" Well done ! " said Jack ; " you 
have gone through fifty summers in 
less than a minute." 

The startled woods rang to every 
blow, the fox and the deer fled at 
that tocsin of civilization, and the 
snake slid away, and set the green 
grass crawling with its hidden wind- 
ings. Only one living creature, be- 
sides the builder, seemed happy and 
unafraid, and that was a brown-and- 
white spaniel that dozed in the sha- 
dow of the rising walls, stirring only 
when his master whistled or spoke to 
him. 

" Wake up, Bruno, and tell me how 
this suits your eyes," Jack would call 
out. Whereat Bruno would lift his 
lids lazily, show a narrow line of his 
bright brown eyes, give his tail a 
slow, laborious wag, and subside to 
his dreams again, and Jack would 
go on with his work. It seemed 
to be his heart, rather than the ham- 
mer, that drove the nails in; and 
every timber, board, latch, and hinge 
caught a momentary life from his 
hands, and learned his story from 
some telegraphing pulse. The very 
stones of the chimney knew that 
John Maynard and Bessie Ware 
were to be married as soon as the 
house should be ready for them. 

There was not a dwelling in sight ; 
but half a mile further down the road 
toward the nearest town, there was 
an odd, double log-house, wherein 
lived Dennis Moran and his Norah, 
three little girls, and Bessie Ware, 
Dennis Moran's sister's child. 

Jack paused in his work, took off 
his straw hat to wipe away the 



perspiration from his face and toss 
his hair back, first hanging on 
a round of the ladder just above him 
the hammer that had driven a nail 
through fifty summers. As he put his 
hat on again, he glanced down- 
ward, and there, at the foot of the 
ladder, stood twenty summers, look- 
ing up at him out of a face as fair 
as summers ever formed. The apple- 
blooms had given it their pink and 
white, the June heavens were not 
bluer than those eyes, so oddly full of 
laughter and languor. The deepest 
nook under a low-growing spruce, 
nor shadow in vine-draped cave, nor 
hollow in a thunder-cloud, ever held 
richer darkness than that hidden in 
the loose curls and waves of hair 
that fell about Bessie Ware's shoul- 
ders. No part of the charm of her 
presence was due to her dress, save 
an air of fresh neatness. A large 
apron, gathered up by the corners, 
was full of fragrant arbor- vitas boughs, 
gathered to make a broom of. The 
large parasol, tilted back that she 
might look upward, allowed a sun- 
beam to fall on her forehead. 

" Oh ! what a tall pink has grown 
up since I came here ! " exclaimed 
the builder, as he saw her. 

" And what a great bear has climb- 
ed on to my ladder," retorted the 
girl. 

He came down from the ladder 
and began to tell her his plans. 

" Bessie, I mean this shall be yet 
one of the best farms in the state. 
On that hill I will have corn and 
clover ; there shall be an orchard in 
the hollow next to it, with peach- 
trees on the south side of the little 
rise ; and I will plant cranberries in 
the swamp beyond. In ten years 
from now, if a man should leave 
here to-day, he wouldn't know the 
place." 

Bessie smiled at the magician who 
was to work such wonders never 



214 The House that Jack Built. 

doubting but he would then glanced " Oh ! he gets up earlier than any 
about at the scene of his exploits, of us," she answered lightly. " He 
Sombre, blue-green pines brooded doesn't act cityfied at all. And you 
over the hill that was one day to be know, Jack, the reason why he is 
pink with clover, or rustling with white is because he has been sick, 
corn ; oaks, elms, maples, birches, Good-bye ! Aunt Norah will want 
and a great tangle of undergrowth, her broom before she gets it." 
with rocks and moss, cumbered the Bessie struck into the woods in- 
ground where peaches were to ripen stead of going down to the road, 
their dusky cheeks, when Jack should and was soon lost to view. Stand- 
bid them grow, and large, green, and ing beside her little house, she had 
red-streaked and yellow apples were looked a tall, fairly-formed lassie ; 
to drop through the still, bright, but with the great trunks of primeval 
autumn air ; and she knew that the forest-trees standing about her, and 
future cranberry-swamp now stood lifting their green pyramids and cones 
thick and dark with beautiful arbor- far into the air, she appeared slim 
vitse trees, whose high-piled, flaky and small enough for a fairy. Even 
boughs, tapering to a point far up in the birds, chippering about full of 
the sunshine, kept cool and dim the business, seemed to flout her, as if 
little pools of water below, and the she were of small consequence not 
black mould in which their strong worth flying from, 
roots stretched out and interwove. She laughed at them, and whisper- 
But Jack could do anything when ed what she did not dare to say 
he set out, and her faith in him was aloud : " Other people besides you 
so great that she could shut her eyes can build nests !" then looked quickly 
now and see the open swamp matted - around to see if any listener were in 
over with cranberry-vines, and hear sight. 

the corn-stalks clash their green There was a slight, rustling sound, 
swords in the fretting breeze, and the and an eavesdropping squirrel scam- 
muffled bump of the ripe apple as it pered up a tree and peered down 
fell on the grass. with twinkling eyes from a safe 

After a while, BcSoIe started to go, height. She was just throwing one 

but came back again. of the green twigs in her apron at 

"I forgot," she said, and gave him, when she heard her name spoken, 
her lover a book that had been hid- and turned quickly to meet a plea- 
den under the boughs in her apron, sant-faced young man, who approach- 
" A book-pedler stopped at our house ed from an opposite direction. This 
last night, and he left this. Uncle was the white-faced boarder who 
Dennis doesn't want it, and I do not. had left the city to find health in this 
Perhaps you can make some sense wild place, 
out of it." The two walked on together, Bes- 

It was a second-hand copy of sie as shy as any creature of the 

Comstock's Natural Philosophy, for woods, and her companion both 

schools, and was scribbled through pleased and amused at her shyness, 

and through by the student who had and trying to draw her out. To his 

used it, years before. questioning, she told her little story. 

Jack took the book. Her mother was Dennis Moran's 

" And that reminds me of your youngest sister, her father had been 

white- faced boarder," he .said, with a a color-sergeant in the English army. 

slight laugh. " Is he up yet ?" There had been other children, all 



The House that Jack Built. 215 

younger than she, but all had died, grass, and Norah she helped Mrs. 

some in one country, some in an- Smith make butter. Then they 

other. For Sergeant Ware's family wanted me to get in the crops, and 

had followed the army, and seen after that I had a chance to go into 

many lands. the woods logging. When I came 

" I am an East Indian," Bessie out of the woods, Mrs. Smith wanted 

said naively. " I was born at Calcutta, me to plough and plant for her. 

The others were born in Malta, in And one thing led to another, and 

England, and in Ireland. It didn't there was always something to keep 

agree with them travelling about m*e. Norah had a young one, and 

from hot to cold. My father died at Bessie came a young witch, ten 

Gibraltar, and my mother died while years old," said Dennis, pulling his 

she was bringing me to Uncle Den- niece's hair, as she stood beside him. 

nis Moran's. May God be merciful " So I had to take a house. And 

to them all !" the long and short of the matter is. 

Mr. James Keene had heard this that I've, been here going on ten 

pious ejaculation many a time before years, when I didn't mean to stay ten 

from the lips of humble- Catholics, weeks. But I shall pull up stakes 

and had found nothing in it to ad- pretty soon, sir," says Dennis, 

mire. But now, the thought struck straightening up. " I don't mean to 

him that this constant prayer for stay where I have to go twenty miles 

mercy on the dead, whenever their to attend to my Easter duties, and 

names were mentioned, was a beau- where my children are growing up 

tiful superstition. Of course he little better than Protestants (he 

thought it a superstition, for he was a called it Prodestant). I'm pretty 

New England Protestant of the most sure to move next fall, sir." 
liberal sort that is, he protested At this announcement, Mrs. Norah 

against being obliged to believe any- tossed up her head and uttered an 

thing. unspellable, guttural " Oh !" brought 

They reached the house, near from the old land, and preserved un- 

which Dennis Moran and his wife adulterated among the nasal-speak- 

stood watching complacently a brood ing Yankees. " We hear ducks !" 
of new chickens taking their first air- Whatever might be the meaning 

ing. The young gentleman joined and derivation of this remark, the 

them, and listened with interest to the drift of it was evidently deprecia- 

farm talk of his host. tory, and it had the effect of putting 

What had set Dennis Moran, one an end to her husband's eloquence, 
of the most rigid of Catholics, in a Doubtless, Mrs. Moran had heard 
solitude where he saw none of his such announcements made before, 
own country nor faith, and where no Bessie stole a little hand under 
priest ever came, he professed him- her uncle's arm. and smiled into his 
self unable to explain. face, and told him that she 'had given 
' I'm like a fly caught in a spider's Jack the book, and soon made him 
web, sir," he said. " When Norah forget his mortification. She knew 
and I came over, and I didn't just that he was sometimes boastful, and 
know what to do, except that I that the great things he was constant- 
wanted to have a farm of my own ly prophesying of himself never came 
some day, I hired out to do haying to pass; but she knew also that lie 
for John Smith's wife John had died had a kind heart, and it hurt her to 
the very week he began to cut his see him hurt. 



216 The House that Jack Built. 

That same book, which the girl wide brow of his waked up, and de- 
mentioned merely to divert attention, manded knowledge. He got other 
was to be a matter of more consequence and more complete works on me- 
to her than she dreamed. It was more chanics and studied them in his lei- 
important than the wedding-dress and sure hours, he made experiments, he 
the wedding-cake, which occupied so examined every piece of mechanism 
much of her thoughts more important that came in his way. 
than the jealous interference of Jack's Coming home one Sunday from a 
mother, who did not like Bessie's for- meeting which she had walked six 
eign blood and religion, though she miles to attend, Mrs. Maynard, sen- 
did like Bessie more important than ior, was horrified to find that her son 
even her Uncle Dennis' actual flit- had paid her a visit during her 
ting, when fall came all which we absence for the sole purpose of pick- 
pass by. Only one thing in her life ing in pieces her precious Connecticut 
then was of more consequence than clock. There lay its speechless frag- 
that old school-book, which the ped- ments spread out on the table, while 
ler left because no one would buy it, the yawning frame leaned against 
and that was the earnest and sorrow- the wall. Bessie sat near, looking 
ing advice of good old Father Con- rather frightened, and Jack, in his 
ners when, against his will, he united shirt-sleeves, sat before the table, an 
her to a Protestant. open book at his elbow. He was 

John Maynard said later, that be- studying the page intently, his earnest, 

fore he read that book he was like a sunburnt face showing an utter un- 

beet before it is pulled out of the consciousness of guilt, 
ground, when it doesn't know but it " Land sakes, Jack !" screamed his 

is a turnip, and firmly believes that it mother. " You've been and ruined 

is growing upward instead of down- my clock !" 

ward, and that those waving leaves A clock was of value in that region, 

of its own, which it feels, but sees where half the inhabitants told the 

not, exist in some outer void where hour by sun-marks, by the stars, or 

nothing is, and that angle-worms are by instinct, 
the largest of locomotive creatures. He put his hand out to keep her 

It is doubtful if the artistic faculty back, but did not look up. " Don't 

is any more a special gift in the fine worry, mother," he said, " and don't 

than in the useful arts, or if he who touch anything. I'll put the machine 

creates ideal forms, in order to together in a few minutes." 
breathe into them the breath of such Mrs. Maynard sank into a chair, 

life as is in him, is more enthusiastic and gazed distressfully at the ruins, 

in his work, or more fascinated by it, That the pendulum, now lying. prone 

than he who, taking captive the and dismembered, would ever tick 

powers of nature, binds them to do again, that those two little hands 

his will. would ever again tell the time of day, 

This enthusiastic recognition of the that the weights would run down 
work. to which nature had appointed and have to be wound up every 
him, John Maynard felt from the Saturday night, or that she. should 
moment when he first knew that a ever again oh any June day hear 
crowbar is a lever. He read that the faithful little gong strike four 
book that Bessie gave him with in- o'clock in the morning her signal 
terest, then with avidity, and, having for jumping out of bed with the un- 
read, all the power latent in that varying ejaculation : " Land sakes ! 



The House that Jack Built. 217 

it's four o'clock!" seemed to her maze; and she was thinking of him. 

impossible. He was thinking that this forest, that 

" And to think that you should do once had bounded his hopes and 

such work on the Sabbath-day !" she aspirations, now pressed on his very 

groaned out, casting an accusing breathing, and hemmed his steps in, 

glance on her daughter-in-law. "You and wishing that he had wings, like 

seem to have lost all the religion you that bird flitting before him ; and she 

ever had since you got married." was watching his eyes till she, too, 

Bessie's blue eyes lighted up : "I saw the bird. 

think it just as pious for Jack to Jack stopped, raised his rifle, took 
study, and find out how useful things a hasty aim, and fired. Bessie ran 
are made, as to wear out a pair of to pick up the robin : 
shoes going to hear Parson Bates " Plow could you, Jack !" she ex- 
talk through his nose, or sit at home claimed reproachfully, as she felt the 
and spoil his eyes reading over and fluttering heart stop in her hand, 
over about Abraham, Isaac, and He looked at it without the 
Jacob." slightest compunction. " I wanted 

" Come, come !" interposed Jack; to see, as it stood on that twig, which 

" if you two women quarrel, and way the centre of gravity would 

bother me, I shall spoil the clock." fall," he said. " Don't fret, Bessie ! 

This procured silence. There are birds enough in the 

Had he been a little more thought- world." 

ful and tender, he would have told The young wife looked earnestly 
his mother that Bessie had tried to into her husband's face, as they walk- 
dissuade him from touching the ed on together. " Jack," she said, 
clock, and had urged the impro- " you might kill me, and then say 
priety of his doing such work on that there are women enough in the 
Sunday ; but he did not think. She world." 

shielded him, and he allowed her to, He laughed, but looked at her 

scarcely aware that she had, indeed. kindly, as he made answer : " What 

The young man's prediction was would all the women in the world be 

fulfilled. Before sunset, the clock to me, Bessie, if my woman were out 

was ticking soberly on the mantel- of it ?" 

piece, the minute-hand hitching Could she ask more ? 

round its circle, and showing the " Jack, where do you suppose the 

reluctant hour-hand the way, and Jack song has gone to ?" she asked, pre- 

was marching homeward through sently. 

the woods, with his rifle on one arm " Bessie, where does a candle go 

and his wife on the other. when it goes out ?" was the counter- 

They were both so silent that question. 

dark-browed man and bright -faced There had been a season in this 

woman that they might almost be man's life, during the brief bud and 

taken as kindred of the long shadows blossom of his love for Bessie Ware, 

and sunstreaks over which they when his mind had been as full of 

walked. He was building up a vis- fancies as a spring maple of blossoms, 

ionary entanglement of pulleys in the But he was not by nature fanciful, 

air, through which power should run and, that brief season past, he settled 

with ever-increasing force, and study- down to facts. Questions which could 

ing how he should dispense with not be answered he cared not to ask 

an idle-wheel that belonged in that nor ponder on and all speculations, 



2i8 The House that Jack Built. 

save those which built toward an and only a few patches of cultivated 
assured though unseen result, he land had displaced the stumps and 
scouted. The sole impression the stones. A hop-vine draped the 
bird had made on him was that it porch at the back of the house, and 
was a nice little flying-machine, a group of tall sunflowers grew near 
which he would like to improve on one of the open curtainless windows, 
some day. Meantime, he had much Civilization had passed by on the 
to learn. other side, and, though not really so 
The extent of his ignorance did remote, was still invisible. Twice a 
not discourage John Maynard, per- day, with a low rumble, as of distant 
haps because it opened out gradual- thunder, a train of cars passed by 
ly before him, over a new, unknown through the valley beyond the woods, 
path starting from the known one. There was no sound of childish 
He was strong, fresh, and healthy, and voices, no glimpse of a child any- 
the very novelty of his work, and his where about. The air bore no more 
coming to it so late, was an assist- intelligent burden than the low collo- 
ance to him. " I have a head for quial dropping of a brook over its 
all I want to get into it," he said to pebbly bed, the buzzing of bees about 
his wife. " When my brain gets a hive, and a rustling of leaves in the 
hold of an idea, it doesn't let go." faint stir of air that was more a res- 
It seemed so, indeed ; and some- piration than a breath. The only 
times when he sat studying, or think- sign of human life to be seen without 
ing, utterly unconscious of all about was a frail thread of blue smoke that 
him, his eyes fixed, yet glimmering, rose from the chimney, and disap- 
his mouth close shut, his breathing peared in the sky. 
half lost, his whole frame, while the Inside, on the white floor of the 
brain worked, so still that his hands kitchen, the shadows of the sunflow- 
and feet grew cold, Bessie became ers lay as if painted there, only now 
almost afraid of 'him, and was ready and then stirring slightly, as the air 
to fancy that some strange and per- breathed on the wide, golden-rayed 
haps malign spirit had entered into shields outside. In the chimney- 
and taken possession of her husband's corner, almost as silent as a shadow, 
soul. an old woman sat in a rocking-chair, 
And thus it happened that, after knitting, and thinking. The two 
two years, the house that Jack built small windows, with crossing light, 
was abandoned to one of his rela- made one corner of the room bright ; 
tives, and the young couple, with but where this woman sat, her face 
their baby boy, left the forest for the could be seen plainly only by fire- 
city, light. 

Of course, no one is to suppose It was a rudely-featured face one 

that John Maynard failed. seldom sees finely moulded features 

It was summer again, and lavish in the backwoods but it showed 

rains had kept to July the fresh lux- fortitude, good sense, and that un- 

uriance of June. The frame house conscious integrity which is so far 

stood nearly as it was when its build- nobler than the conscious. The gray 

er finished it. The walls had chang- hair was drawn tightly back, and fas- 

ed their bright yellow tint for gray, tened high on the head with a yellow 

and a few stones had fallen from the horn comb ; the tall, spare figure 

top of the chimney that was all. was clad in a gown of dark- blue cali- 

The forest still gathered close about, co covered with little white dots, and 



The House that Jack Built. 



219 



a checked blue-and-white apron tied 
on with white tape strings, and the 
hands that held the knitting were 
bony, large-jointed, and large- veined. 

The stick of wood that had been 
smouldering on the andirons bent in 
the middle, where a little flickering 
flame had been gnawing industrious- 
ly for some time. The flame bright- 
ened, and made a dive into this break, 
where it found a splinter. The stick 
bent yet more, then suddenly snap- 
ped in two. one end dropping into 
the coals, the other end standing up- 
right in the corner. 

" Bless me !" muttered the old wo- 
man, dropping her work with a start. 
" There's a stranger ! I wonder who 
it is." 

She sat gazing dreamily at the 
brand a moment, and, as her face 
half settled again, it became evident 
that the expression was one of pro- 
found melancholy as well as thought- 
fulness. The lifted eyelids, and the 
start that roused without brightening, 
showed that. 

After a moment's reverie, she drew 
a long sigh, and, before resuming her 
work, took the long iron tongs that 
leaned in the corner, and most inhos- 
pitably tossed the figurative stranger 
into the coals. 

" I wonder why my thoughts run 
so on Jack and Bessie to-day," she 
soliloquized, fixing the end of the 
knitting-needle into the leather 
sheath at her side. " I wish I knew 
how they are. It's my opinion they'd 
have done as \vell to stay here. I 
don't, think much of that machinery 
business." 

The coming event which had thus 
cast its shadow before, was already 
at the gate, or, more literally, at the 
bars. Bessie Maynard had walked 
alone up the road she had not trod- 
den for years, and now stood leaning 
there, and looking about with eyes 
that were at once eager and shrink- 



ing. Her face was pale, her mouth 
tightly closed ; she had grown taller, 
and her appearance disclosed in 
some indefinable way a capacity for 
sternness which would scarcely have 
been suspected, or even credited, in 
the girl of twenty we left her. A 
glance would show that she had suf- 
fered deeply. 

Presently, as she gazed, tears be- 
gan to dim her eyes. She brushed 
them away, let down the slim cedar 
pole that barred her passage, stepped 
through, replaced the bar, and walk- 
ed up the path to the house. 

The knitter in the chimney-corner 
heard the sound of advancing steps, 
and sat still, with her face turned 
over her shoulder, to watch the door. 
The steps reached the threshold and 
paused there, and for a moment the 
two women gazed at each other the 
one silent from astonishment, the 
other struggling to repress some 
emotion that rose again to the sur- 
face. 

The visitor was the first to recover 
her self-possession. She came in 
smiling, and held out her hands. 

" Haven't you a word of welcome 
for me, Aunt Nancy ?" she asked. 

Her voice broke the spell, and the 
old woman started up with a true 
country welcome, hearty, and rather 
rough. It was many a year since 
Bessie Maynard's hands had felt such 
a grasp, or her arms such a shake. 

" But where is Jack ?" asked his 
aunt, looking toward the door over 
Bessie's shoulder. 

" Oh ! he's at home," was the 
reply, rather negligently given. " But 
how are you, Aunt Nancy ? Have 
you room for me to stay awhile ? I 
took a fancy to be quiet a little while 
this summer. The city is so hot and 
noisy." 

The old lady repeated her wel- 
comes, mingled with many apologies 
for the kind of accommodations she 



22O 



The House that Jack Built. 



had to offer, all the while helping 
to remove her visitor's bonnet and 
shawl, drawing up the rocking-chair 
for her, and pressing her into it. 

" Do sit down and rest," she said, 
" But where is the baby ? Why on 
earth didn't you bring her ?" 

Bessie clasped her hands tightly in 
her lap, and looked steadily at the 
questioner before answering. "The 
baby is at home !" she said then, in 
a low voice. 

Aunt Nancy was just turning away 
for some hospitable purpose, but the 
look and tone arrested her. 

" You don't mean " she began, 
but went no further. 

" Yes," replied Bessie quietly ; 
" there is only James left." 

James was the eldest child. 

Mrs. Nancy Maynard was not 
much given to expressions of tender- 
ness New England people of the 
old sort seldom were but she laid 
her hand softly on her niece's shoul- 
der, and said unsteadily : 

" You poor dear, how tried you 
have been !" 

" We have all our trials," respond- 
ed the other, with a sort of coldness, 

The old woman knew not what to 
say. She turned away, mending the 
fire. If Bessie had wept, she would 
have known how to comfort her ; but 
this strange calmness was embar- 
rassing. Scarcely less embarrassing 
was the light, indifferent talk that 
followed, the questions concerning 
crops, and weather, and little house- 
hold affairs, evidently put to set aside 
more serious topics. 

This baby was the fourth child 
that Bessie Maynard had lost. After 
the first, no child of hers had lived 
to reach its third year. Each one 
had been carried away by a sudden 
distemper. The first death had been 
announced to John Maynard's aunt 
in a long letter from Bessie, full of a 
healthy sorrow, every line stained 



with tears. John had written the 
next time, his wife being too much 
worn out with watching and grief to 
write. At the third death, there 
came a line from Bessie : " My little 
boy is gone, Aunt Nancy. What do 
you suppose God means ?" 

Aunt Nancy had wondered some- 
what over this strange missive, but 
had decided that, whatever God 
meant, Bessie meant resignation. 

But now, as she marked her niece's 
changed face and manner, and re- 
collected that laconic note, she was 
forced to give up the comforting 
thought. There might be endurance, 
but there was no resignation in that 
face. 

The sense of distance and strange- 
ness grew on her, though Bessie be 
gan to help her get supper ready, 
drawing out and laying the table as 
though she had done it every day of 
her life, and even remembering the 
cup that had been hers, and the little 
iron rack on which she used to set 
the teapot. " Jack found the brass- 
headed nail this hangs on miles back 
in the woods," she said. " It's a 
wonder how it got there." 

" Why didn't Jack come with 
you ?" asked Aunt Nancy, catching 
at the opportunity to say something 
personal. 

A deep blush ran up Bessie's face 
at being so caught, but her hesita- 
tion was only momentary. 

" He is too busy," she answered 
briefly. 

" But I should think he might 
take a rest now and then," persisted 
her aunt. 

Bessie gave a short laugh that 
was not without bitterness. 

" What rest can a man take when 
he has a steam-engine spouting car- 
bonic acid in one side of his brain, 
a flying-machine in the other side, 
and a wheel in perpetual motion be- 
tween them ? John is given over to 



Where arc You Going? 



221 



metals and motions. I might as 
well have a locomotive for a hus- 
band. Shall I take up the apple- 
sauce in this bowl ?" 

" Yes. I should think that James 
might have come." Aunt Nancy 
held desperately to the thread she 
had caught. 

" James is a little John," replied 
Bessie, pouring the hot, green apple- 
sauce into a straight, white bowl 



with a band of narrow blue stripes 
around the middle of it. " Never 
mind my coming alone, Aunt Nancy. 
I got along very well, and they will 
do very well without me." 

They sat down to the table, and 
Bessie made a great pretence of eating, 
but ate nothing. Then they went out 
and looked at the garden, talking all 
the while about nothing, and soon, to 
the relief of both, it was bed-time. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



WHERE ARE YOU GOING? 

WE happened, the other day, to Before going any further, we will 
notice in the columns of a ribald in- designate more precisely what class 
fidel newspaper an advertisement in of persons we intend by the above 
which a young lady gave notice of description. In general, all who do 
her desire to find " board in an infi- not believe in a law made known to 
del or atheist family." There ' are the mind and conscience by Al- 
many persons nowadays who are mighty God, and, in particular, those 
looking for a lodging-place and for who, having been brought up in the 
food which will give rest and refresh- Catholic faith, no longer believe in that 
ment to their minds and hearts, in law as made known by the authority 
the bosom of the infidel and atheistic of the church. We class these last 
family circle. They may not, in individuals, for whose benefit chiefly 
most cases, distinctly perceive and though not exclusively we are writ- 
expressly avow that they are going ing, with those first mentioned ad 
over to dwell in the tents of atheism, visedly and for a reason; and warn 
but they have turned their faces and them that they are included in the 
steps in that direction, and into the number of those whose faces are set 
path leading thitherward, and those toward atheism. Nevertheless, we 
who keep on their way must arrive, clo not say this on the ground that 
sooner or later, at that destination, every one who is not a Catholic is 
It is to these that we address the either incapable of knowing God and 
question : Where are you going ? We his law, or logically bound to deny 
would like to have them reflect a lit- their existence. A Theist, a Jew, or 
tie on the kind of entertainment a Protestant has a rational ground for 
which they may reasonably expect to holding against the atheist or infidel 
find in the private family of the house- all that portion of Catholic truth 
hold, and in the larger family of hu- which his religion includes. There- 
man society, when these are consti- fore, we have not included any of 
tuted on atheistic principles. these in the number of the atheistical. 



222 Where are You Going? 

Those only who do not believe in moral precepts which she promul- 

any law of God over the conscience gates in the name of God. Their 

we have charged with this tendency revolt is against the law itself and 

to positive atheism. Against such, the sovereign authority of God. 

the justice of the charge is manifest. They sin against faith and against 

For they are practically atheists al- reason also; against the natural as well 

ready, and by denying an essential as the revealed law. They sin with 

attribute of the Creator, and a rela- the understanding as well as with the 

tion which the creature must have will, and their sin is one which goes 

toward him on account of this attri- to the root of all moral obligation 

bute, the way is opened to a denial and responsibility in the creature 

of his existence. As for those who toward the Creator. It is an asser- 

have been instructed in the Catholic tion of perfect individual liberty of 

faith and have thrown off its authori- thought and action, of independence 

ty over their conscience, we say that and self-sovereignty ; and as such 

they have turned towards atheism, an independence is completely in- 

because we are convinced that, as a compatible with the existence of 

matter of fact, the motives and rea- God, it is but a step to deny that he 

sonings which have induced them to exists, or at least that we have any 

this fatal apostasy are practically and knowledge of his existence. More- 

theoretically atheistical, even if they over, modern unbelief proceeds by 

themselves are not distinctly aware the way of objections, difficulties, and 

of their ultimate tendency. We do doubts. It is sceptical in its princi- 

not deny that a Catholic may lapse pie; and one who rejects the authori- 

into some imperfect form 'of Christi- ty of the church and of divine revela- 

anity or natural religion. The first tion on the principle of ' scepticism, 

Protestants had been originally Ca- easily rejects all philosophy and 

tholics, and so have been some of natural religion on the same princi- 

the so-called philosophers professing pie, and runs down into pure materi- 

natural religion. But the present alism and atheism, 

tendency of unbelief is toward athe- There are many persons in Eu- 

ism, and those believers in positive, rope, and some in this country, who 

revealed religion, whether Catholics, have sunk into a state of avowed im- 

Protestants, or Jews, who are swept piety and violent hostility to all reli- 

by this current, are carried toward gion which places them beyond the 

the abyss whither it is rushing, reach of every appeal to reason, con- 

Those who reject the law of God science, or right feeling. We do not 

which is proclaimed and enjoined by attempt to argue with such as these ; 

the authority of the church, do so but we suppose in those whom we 

because its moral or intellectual re- address a condition of the mind and 

straints are irksome, and they wish heart much less degenerate and 

to be at liberty. In plain words, hopeless. We suppose them to re- 

they wish to be free to sin, to follow cognize the excellence and necessity 

the proclivity of our fallen nature to of the private and social virtues, and 

indulge in pride and concupiscence, to retain some intellectual and moral 

without any fear of God before their ideal in their minds which they cher- 

eyes to disturb their peace. There- ish and venerate. They believe in 

fore, they deny the authority of the truthfulness, honor, fidelity, honesty, 

church to bind their conscience to true love, friendship, in the cultiva- 

believe the doctrines and obey the tion of knowledge and the fine arts, 



Where are You Going? 223 

in all that can give decorum, refine- who have sprung from material 

ment, and charm to domestic and so- forces and are resolved into them by 

cial life, power, dignity, and' splendor dissolution, can have no more obli- 

to political society. But all this is gation of speaking the truth than their 

looked on as a spontaneous, natural cousins the monkeys. If lying, cal- 

growth, which finds its perfection timny, or perjury will increase the 

and its end from and on this earth, means of your sensible enjoyment, 

and in this life, without any direct why not employ them against your 

relation to God and an immortal brother-apes, as well as entrap a 

life in another sphere of existence, monkey and cage him for your 

Now, that such persons are intellect!!- amusement ? Whence comes the 

ally and morally on a height which excellence and obligation of honor, 

elevates them far above those who that principle which impels a man 

are wholly degraded in mind and rather to die than to betray a trust 

character, we readily admit. But or abandon the post of duty ? On 

they are on the verge of a precipice, what is based honesty ? Why should 

It is the black and awful abyss of one choose to pass his life, and to 

atheism which yawns beneath them, make his family pass their lives, in 

And we invite them to look over the poverty and privation, rather than 

brink, and down into those dark take the gold of another, when he can 

depths, that they may consider de- steal it with impunity ? Where lies 

liberately whither their steps are the detestable baseness of bribery 

leading them, before it is too late to and swindling ? Why does the heart 

retreat to a safer position, revolt against the conduct of the 

In what consists the reality of man or woman who is faithless to 

truth, let us ask of one who professes conjugal, parental, or filial love, who 

to love truth, or the obligation of re- is a false friend, ungrateful for kind- 

specting it, if Christianity is a false- ness, a traitor to his country ? It is 

hood, and its Founder a deceiver of all very well to say that our natural 

mankind ? One who knows the evi- instincts impel us to love certain 

dence on which Christianity rests, and qualities and detest others, as we 

rejects it as a delusion, has adopted spontaneously admire beauty and 

a principle of scepticism which de- are displeased with ugliness. This 

stroys all the evidence on which any is certainly true. And it is very well 

truth can rest. The principles of to say that happiness and well-be- 

reason are denied or called in ques- ing are, on the whole, promoted by 

tion, unbelief or doubt extends to virtuous sentiments and actions, and 

everything. The existence of God hindered by those which are vicious, 

is doubted, the distinct and immortal But if mere selfish, sensitive enjoy- 

existence of the soul is questioned, ment of the good of this life be the 

nothing remains but the senses and end of life itself, all virtue is resolved 

the phenomena which are called sen- at last into the quest of this enjoy- 

sible facts. Take away God, the Es- ment by the most sure and suitable 

sential Truth, who can neither be de- means. When virtue requires the 

ceived nor deceive us, and who has sacrifice of this enjoyment, it is no 

manifested to us the truth by the longer virtue. Why should a wife 

lights of reason and revelation, and sacrifice her happiness to a cruel, 

there is no such thing as truth. The sickly, or disagreeable husband, a 

descendants of apes, whose whole husband preserve fidelity to a wife 

existence is merely one of sensation, who is hopelessly deranged or who 



224 Where are You Going? 

has violated her marriage vows ? to know God and recognize his law 

Why should a soldier expose his life as our supreme rule. The obligation 

in obedience to the order of a stupid of doing that which is just and honor- 

or reckless commander, or shed his able is derived from that law. Our 

blood in an unnecessary war brought own rights and the rights of our 

on by the folly or ambition of in- neighbor are inviolable, because God 

competent or unscrupulous rulers ? has given them. They are the 

Why should a seaman die for the rights of God, as that great philoso- 

sake of saving passengers who are pher Dr. Brownson has so frequently 

nothing to him, and many of whom and conclusively proved. God, as 

are perhaps worthless persons, leav- our lawgiver, must necessarily give 

ing his widow and children without us a law which is plain and certain, 

a protector ? Why trouble ourselves It can be no other than the Chris- 

about taking care of the poor, ruined tian law. And every one who has 

wrecks of humanity, who can never been instructed in the Catholic faith 

more be capable of enjoying life must see that Christianity and the 
or contributing to the enjoyment of Christian law are guaranteed, defin- 

others ? If we are not the offspring ed, proclaimed, and enforced on the 

of God, but of the earth, mere sensi- conscience by the authority of the 

tive and mortal animals, existing for church. 

the pleasure of a day, all the virtues Let him reject that authority, and 

which demand self-sacrifice are ab- he has disowned God ; and by so 

surd; and the sentiments which doing has taken away the basis of 

we feel about these virtues are illu- virtue. Self-interest, sentiment, and 

sions. It is very well to appeal to human instincts are no sufficient sup- 

these sentiments ; but those who do port for it. For, although our tem- 

so must admit that these sentiments poral interests coincide in great 

must be capable of being justified by part with the claims of virtue, and 

reason. An atheist or a sceptic can- natural sentiments and instincts are 

not do this. If a man is essentially radically good, we are subject to 

the same with a pig, there cannot be inordinate and even violent passions, 

any reason for treating him other- Take away the fear of God, and the 

wise than as a pig. Our natural passions will sweep away all slighter 

sentiments, which revolt against the barriers. Pride and concupiscence 

practical consequences of the de- will assert their sway, make a wreck 

grading doctrine of atheism, prove of virtue, and eventually destroy even 

that it is contrary to nature, and our earthly and temporal happiness, 
therefore false. It is because our Even with all the power and influ- 

nature is rational and immortal that ence which religion can exercise over 

we owe to ourselves and our fellows men under the most favorable cir- 

those obligations and charities which cumstances, there is enough of sin 

are not due to the brutes; that and misery in the world; but what 

life, chastity, property, honor, love are we to expect if atheism should 

and friendship, promises and engage- prevail ? The practical atheism, or, 

ments, political, social, and personal to speak Saxon, the ungodliness of 

rights of all kinds, are to be respected the age, has produced enough of bitter 

and held sacred. Our rational and and deadly fruit to give us a taste of 

immortal nature cannot exist except the entertainment which is awaiting 

by participation from God, and its us if the time ever comes when the 

constitutive principle is the capacity power which religion still retains is 



Where are You Going? 



22$ 



altogether taken away. We do not 
need to refer to the pages of professed 
moralists, or to quote sermons on 
this topic. It is enough to take 
what we find in the works of those 
masterly novelists wlio describe and 
satirize the crimes and follies of 
modern society and depict its tragic 
miseries, and what we read every 
day in the newspapers. The in- 
trigues, villanies, swindlings, divor- 
ces, murders, and suicides which 
blacken the record of each passing 
month, and the hidden, untold 
tragedies going on perpetually in 
private life, give us proof enough of 
the ravages which the passions of 
fallen, weak human nature will make 
when all fear of God is removed, and 
they are left uncontrolled by any- 
thing stronger than self-interest, and 
physical coercion in the hands of the 
civil power. No one who casts off 
all faith in God, allegiance to his 
authority, and fear of his just retri- 
bution, can foresee what he himself 
may become, or what he may do 
before his life is ended. The natural 
virtues, the intellectual gifts, the 
education, refinement, elevated senti- 
ments, and pure affections which such 
a person may possess in youth, 
whether it be a young man or a 
young woman, are no sure guarantee 
or safeguard, even in a religious and 
moral community. Much less are 
they in one which is wholly irreli- 
gious. No one knows, therefore, 
how wicked he may become, or how 
miserable he may make himself. 
Still less can any one foresee what 
treachery, cruelty, and ingratitude, 
what bitter sufferings, and what ruin, 
may await him at the hands of 
others, if he is to be a member of 
a great infidel or atheist family which 
he has helped to form. He will be 
like the unhappy Alpine tourist who 
fell down from the Matterhorn, 
dragging with him and dragged by 
VOL. xvi. 1 5 



his companions from his dangerous 
foothold, and all dashed in pieces in 
the abyss beneath. 

Let any one who has been brought 
up in the enjoyment of those advan- 
tages which give decorum, charm, 
and refined pleasure to life and 
who wishes and expects to possess 
the same in the future which he 
looks forward to in this world, with a 
zest and freedom increased by the 
riddance of all fear of God think 
for a moment about one very impor- 
tant question. To what is he in- 
debted for the blessings he has al- 
ready enjoyed, and to what can he 
look for those he is expecting ? In 
order that he should have a happy 
home, his parents must fulfil all the 
obligations of the conjugal and pa- 
rental relations. If he is bom to- 
wealth, his father has had to work 
for him, or at least to take care of his 
property. If he has had a good mo- 
ther, it is needless to expatiate on all 
that a woman must be, must do, and 
must suffer, to give a child such a 
blessing as that which is expressed 
by the tender and holy name of mo- 
ther. For his education, how many 
noble and disinterested men have 
toiled, how many generous sacrifices 
of time, and labor, and money have 
been required ! To create the na- 
tion which gives him the advantages 
of political order, the civilization 
which gives him a society to live in, 
the arts which minister to his higher 
tastes and personal comforts, how 
many causes have concurred toge- 
ther, what a multitude of the most 
noble, self-sacrificing, heroic exer- 
tions of genius, philanthropy, patri- 
otism, fructified by a plentiful be- 
sprinkling of the blood of just and 
faithful men, have been necessary 
through long ages of time! In his 
ideal of a happy life, which he hopes 
for in this world, what a multitude of 
things he requires which presuppose 



226 Where are You Going? 

the fidelity of thousands of persons to or less rapidly the vital principle of 
those obligations and relations of life the family, of society, of the state, of 
on which he is dependent as an indi- human civilization. Human beings 
vidual. His bride must bring to the cannot live together in peace and 
nuptial feast her virgin purity, and order, in love and friendship, in 
keep her wedding-ring unbroken and mutual truth and fidelity, in happi- 
undimmed. His children must be such ness and prosperity, if they believe 
as a father's heart can regard with that they are mere animals, whose 
pride and joy. Those with whom only good is the brief pleasure 
he has relations of business must act which can be snatched from the 
with honesty and integrity. He present life. Even the imperfect 
must have good servants to work for amity and good-fellowship, the lower 
him, and hundreds of skilful and in- grade of society, the inferior well- 
dustrious hands must minister to his being and enjoyment, the faint dim 
wants or caprices. Society must be similitude of the rational order which 
kept in order, the machinery of the exists among the irrational animals, 
world must be kept going, the law cannot be attained by the human 
must protect his life and property, race when it strives to degenerate 
and the majority of his fellow-men itself to the level of the brute creation, 
must remain content with a lot of The irrepressible, inextinguishable, 
hard work and poverty, that he may violent appetite for a satisfying good, 
enjoy his dignity, leisure, splendor, when it is defrauded of its true object 
and comfort in peace and security. and turned away from its legitimate 
Now it is a simple fact, that the prin- end, becomes a devastating tornado 
ciples and laws which have wrought of .passion. There is too much suffer- 
out whatever is high and excellent ing, and too small a supply of sensi- 
in modern civilization, have been de- ble enjoyment in human life, to al- 
rived from the Christian religion, low mankind to be quiet, and to agree 
The public, social, and private virtues together amicably in the relations of 
which alone preserve society from cor- civilized society, in the common pur- 
ruption and extinction, are the fruit suit of temporal happiness. Pride 
either of religious conscientiousness, and concupiscence are as insatiable 
or of the influence of religion on the as the grave and as cruel as death, 
natural conscience of those who live in The fear of God can alone restrain 
the atmosphere which it has purified them. Take that away from the 
and irradiated. There has. never been individual, and he will be faithless to 
such a thing as human society found- the duties of life, friendship, honesty, 
ed on atheism ; and when atheism, patriotism, philanthropy, to his nobler 
practical or theoretical, has begun to instincts, his higher sentiments, his 
prevail in any community, it has be- ideal standard of good, in proportion 
gun to perish. Whoever tampers as his passions gain power over him. 
with that poison is preparing suicide Take it away from the family and the 
for himself, and death for all around social order, and mutual faithlessness, 
him that is living. A large dose will breeding mutual hatred and warfare, 
kill at once all that is capable of death will be the result. Take it away 
in a soul which is, in spite of itself, from the masses of men, and the 
immortal. The slow sipping of small commune will come, the maddened 
doses will gradually produce the rabble will rush for the coveted pos- 
same effect. The general distribu- sessions of the smaller number who 
tion of the poison will destroy more appear to have exclusive possession 



Number Thirteen. 



227 



of the real good, and at last all will 
be resolved into a state of barbarism 
in which the race will become ex- 
tinct. 

This will never take place ; for the 
church and religion of Jesus Christ 
are imperishable, and God will bring 
the world to a sudden end before the 
human race has had time to destroy 



itself. But such is the tendency of 
the infidelity and atheism of the age. 
Whoever turns his back on Christian- 
ity is a partaker in this tendency, 
and a companion of that band of 
conspirators against religion and 
society whose end is more infernal 
and whose means are more cruel 
than those of the Thugs of India. 



NUMBER THIRTEEN. 



AN EPISODE OF THE COMMUNE. 



CONCLUDED. 



THERE was music enough chiming With this she bought a ham and a 

at No. 13 to keep a choir of angels few other delicacies that tempted 

busy. Mme. de Chanoir, with the Mine, de Chanoir out of her suicidal 

petulance of weakness, grumbled un- abstinence ; she ate heartily, neither 

ceasingly, lamenting the miseries of asking nor guessing at what price 

her own position, altogether ignoring the dainties had been bought; and 

the fact that it was no worse, but in Aline, only too glad to have had the 

some ways better, than that of those sacrifice to make, said nothing of 

around her, whin gin g and whining what it had cost her. Gradually 

from morning till night, pouring out everything went that could be sold 

futile invectives against the Prussians, or exchanged for food. Aline would 

the Emperor, the Republic, General have lived on the siege bread, and 

Trochu, and everybody and every- never repined, had. she been alone, 

thing remotely conducive to her suf- but it went to her heart to hear the 

ferings. She threatened to let her- never-ending complaints of Mme. 

self die of hunger rather than touch de Chanoir, to .see her childish indig- 

horse-flesh, and for some days she nation at the great public disasters 

so perseveringly held to her deter- which her egotism contracted into 

mination that Aline was terrified, and direct personal grievances. Fortu- 

believed she would hold it to the nately for herself, Mile, de Lemaque 

end. The only thing that remained was not a constant witness of the 

to the younger sister of any value irritating scene. From nine in the 

was her mother's watch, a costly morning till late in the evening she 

little gem, with the cipher set in was away at the Ambulance, active 

brilliants ; it had been her grandfa- and helpful, and cheering many a 

ther's wedding present to his daugh- heavy heart 'and aching head by her 

ter-in-law. Aline took it to the bright and gentle ministry, and for- 

jeweller who had made it, and sold getting her own sufferings in the ef- 

it for one hundred and fifty francs, fort to alleviate greater ones. 



228 



Number Thirteen. 



" If you only could come with me, 
Felicite, and see something of the 
miseries our poor soldiers are endur- 
ing, it would make your own seem 
light," she often said to Mme. de 
Chanoir, when, on coming home from 
her labor of love, she was met by the 
unreasonable grumbling of the inva- 
lid ; " it is such a delight to feel 
one's self a comfort and a help to them. 
I don't know how I am ever to set- 
tle down to the make-believe work 
of teaching after this long spell of 
real work." 

She enjoyed the work so much, in 
fact, that, if it had not been for the 
sufferings, real and imaginary, of her 
sister, this would have been the hap- 
piest time she had known since her 
school days. The make-believe 
work, as Aline called it, which had 
hitherto filled her time had never 
filled her heart. It was a means of 
living that kept her brains and her 
hands at work, nothing more ; and 
it had often been a source of wonder 
to her in her busiest days to feel 
herself sometimes seized with ennui. 
That trivial, hackneyed word hardly, 
perhaps, expresses the void, the sort 
of hunger-pang, that more and more 
frequently of late years had made her 
soul ache and yearn, but now the 
light seemed to break upon her, and 
she understood why it had been so. 
The work itself was too superficial, 
too external. It had overrun her 
life without satisfying it ; it had not 
penetrated the surface, and brought 
out the best and deepest resources of 
her mind and heart it had only bro- 
ken the crust, and left the soil below 
untilled. She had flitted like a but- 
terfly from one study to another; 
history, and literature, and music 
had attracted her by turns ; she had 
gone into them enthusiastically, mas- 
tered their difficulties, and appropri- 
ated their beauties ; but after a time 
the spell waned, and she glided im- 



perceptibly into the dry mechanism 
of the thing, and went on giving her 
lesson because it brought her so much 
a cachet. But this work of a Sister 
of Mercy was a different sort of life 
altogether. The enthusiasm, instead 
of waning, grew as she went on. At 
first, the prosaic details, the foul air, 
the physical fatigue and moral strain 
of the sick-nurse's life were unspeak- 
ably, repugnant to her; her natural 
fastidiousness turned from them in 
disgust, and she would have thrown 
it all up after the first week but for 
sheer human respect ; she persevered, 
however, and at the end of a fort- 
night she had grown interested in 
her patients ; by degrees she got re- 
conciled to the obnoxious duties their 
state demanded of her; and before a 
month had passed it had become a 
ministry of love, and her whole soul 
had thrown itself into the perfect 
performance of her duties. She was 
often tired and faint on leaving the 
Ambulance, but she always left it 
with regret, and the evident zest and 
gladness of heart with which she 
set out each morning became at 
last a grievance in the eyes of her 
sister. Mme. de Chanoir vented her 
discontent by harping all the time 
of breakfast on the hard-heartedness 
of some people who could look at 
wounds and all sorts of horrors with- 
out flinching ; whereas the very sight 
of a drop of blood made her almost 
faint ; but then she was so constitu- 
ted as to feel other people's wounds 
as if they were her own ; it was a 
great misfortune; she envied people 
who had hard hearts; it certainly 
enabled them to do more, while she 
could only weep and pity. Aline 
bore the querulous reproaches as 
cheerfully as if she had been blessed 
with one of those hearts of stone that 
Mme. de Chanoir so envied. She had 
the indulgence of a happy heart, and 
she had found the secret of making 



Number Thirteen. 229 

her life a poem. But the nurse's strong in death, he gathered his rags 

courage was greater than her around him, and made ready to die 

strength. After the first three in silence. 

months, material privations, added to It was on such people as Mme. de 

arduous attendance on the sick and Chanoir and her sister that the siege 

wounded, began to tell; her health pressed hardest; their concierge was 

showed signs of rebellion. far better off than they; she could 

M. Dalibouze was the first to no- claim her bons, and fight for her ra- 

tice it. He came regularly on the tions; and she had fifteen sous a day 

Saturday evenings as of old; his age as the wife of a National Guard, 

exempted him from the terrible out- As to Mme. Clery, she proved 

post work on the ramparts ; and he herself equal to the occasion. She 

profited by the circumstance to keep had no National Guard to fall back 

up, as far as possible, his ordinary upon, but she was sustained by the 

habits and enjoyments, " afin de sou- thought that she was suffering for her 

tenir le morale" as he said. When country ; she, too, was a good patriot, 

he noticed this change in Aline, he Patriotism, however, has its limits of 

immediately used his privilege of endurance, and hay bread was the 

friend of the family to interfere ; he border line that Mme. Clery's patri- 

begged her to modify her zeal for the otism refused to pass. When the 

poor sufferers at the Ambulance, and good bread was rationed, she showed 

to consider how precious her life was signs of mutiny ; but when it degene- 

to her sister and her friends. rated into that hideous compound, of 

Aline took the advice very kindly, which we have all seen specimens, 

but assured him that, far from wear- her indignation declared itself in open 

ing out her strength as he supposed, rage. " What is this ? " she cried, 

her work was the only thing that sus- when the first loaf was handed to her 

tained it. The tone in which she after three hours' waiting. " Are we 

said this convinced him it was the cattle, to eat hay ? ' And, breaking 

truth. It then occurred to him that the tawny, spongy lumps in two, she 

her pallor and languid step must be pulled out a long bit of the offensive 

caused by the unhealthy diet of the weed, and held it up to the scorn of 

siege. Everybody suffered in a more the queue. 

or less degree ; but, as it always As to Mme. de Chanoir, when she 
happens, those who suffered most saw it she went into hysterics for the 
said least about it. The gros rentier, rest of the day. But Providence was 
who fared sumptuously on kangaroo, mindful of No. 13. Just at this crisis, 
and Chinese puppies, and elephant when Aline's altered looks aroused 
at a hundred francs a pound, talked her sister from the selfish contempla- 
loud about the miseries of starvation tion of her own ailments and wants, 
which he underwent for the sake of M. Dalibouze arrived early one morn- 
his country ; but the petit rentier, ing soon after Mme. de Lemaque had 
whose modest meal had long since started for the Ambulance, and an- 
been replaced by a scanty ration of nounced that he had received the 
horse-flesh, and that only to be had opportune present of a number of 
by " making tail," as they call it, for hams, tins of preserved meat, con- 
hours at the butcher's shop the densed milk, and an indefinite nuni- 
petit rentier said very little. He was ber of pots of jam. It was three 
perishing slowly off the face of the times as much as he could consume 
earth ; but, with the pride of poverty before the siege was raised for raised 



230 Number Thirteen. 

it infallibly would be, and, if he were long to call back the Prussians, and 

11 ot greatly mistaken, within forty- help them out of the mess. How it 

eight hours so he begged Mme. la began, and grew, and ended we have 

G enerale to do him the favor of ac- heard till we know the miserable 

cepting the surplus. story by heart. I am not going to 

Mme. de Chanoir, with infantine tell it here. The Commune is only 

simplicity, believed this credible the last episode in the history of 

story, and did M. Dalibouze the favor No. 13. 

he requested. So, thanks to his gen- There was work to do and plenty 

erous friend, the professor in turn be- in binding the wounds and smoothing 

came the benefactor of the two sisters, the pillows of dying men, and words 

and had the delight of seeing Aline to be spoken that dying ears are open 

revive on the substantial fare that ar- to when spoken in Christian love, 

rived so apropos. Well, it came at Aline de Lemaque's courage did not 

last, the end of the blocus ; not, in- fail her in this last and fearful ordeal, 

deed, as M. Dalibouze had prognosti- She resumed her duties as Sister of 

cated. But that was not his fault. Mercy, asked no questions as to the 

He had not reckoned with treachery, politics of the wounded men, but 

He could not suspect what a brood did the best she could for them, 

of traitors the glorious capital of civ- Mme. de Chanoir could not under- 

ilization was nourishing in her patri- stand how her sister spent her time 

otic bosom. But wait a little ! It and service on Red-Republicans ; the 

would be made square yet. Europe sooner the race died out, the better, 

would see France rise by-and-by, like and it was not the work of a Chris- 

the Phcenix from her ashes, and spread tian to preserve the lives of such 

her wings, and take a flight that snakes and fiends, 

would astonish the world. As to the " There are dupes and victims as 

Prussians, those vile vandals, whose well as fiends among them," Aline 

greasy moustaches were not fit to assured her ; " and those who are 

brush the boots of Paris, let them bide guilty are the most to be pitied." 

a while, and they shall see what they After a time, however, the dangers 

should see ! attendant on going into the streets 

Thus did M. Dalibouze resitmer la became so great that Aline was forced 

situation, while Paris on her knees to remain indoors. Barricades were 

waited humbly the terms that Prussia thrown up in every direction, and 

might dictate as the price of a loaf of made the circulation a dangerous and 

bread for her starving patriots. almost impracticable feat to members 

But the worst was to come yet. of the party of order. The Rue Roy- 

Hardly had the little menage at No. ale, which had been safe during the 

13 drawn a long breath of relief after first siege, was now a threatened cen- 

the prolonged miseries and terrors tre of accumulated danger. It was 

of the siege, than that saturnalia, the armed to the teeth. The Faubourg 

like of which assuredly the world end of it was barred by a stone barri - 

never saw before, and let us hope cade that might have passed for a 

never will again, the Commune, began, fortress a wall of heavy masonry 

Like a fiery flood it rose in Paris, and weighted with cannon, two black 

rose and rose till the red wave swept giants that lay couched like monster 

from end to end of the city, spreading slugs peeping through a hedge. But 

desolation and terror everywhere, and after those terrible weeks there came 

making the respectable party of order at last the final tug, the troops came 



Number Thirteen. 231 

in, and Greek met Greek. Shell and die with terror if that comes again 

shot rained on the city like hailstones, while I'm here by myself." 

The great black slugs gave tongue, " Come with me, then," said Aline. 

bellowing with unintermitting fury; And, taking her sister's hand, they 

all round them came responsive roars went down together. 

from barricades and batteries ; it was Mme. Clery was not killed. This 

the discord of hell broke upward fact was made clear to them at once 

through the earth, and echoing by the spectacle of the old woman 

through the streets of Paris. standing in the porte-cochere, and 

Aline de Lemaque and her sister shaking her fist vehemently at some- 
sat in the little saloon at No. 13, lis- body or something at the further end 
tening to the war-dogs without, and of it. 

straining their ears to catch every " Stay here," said Aline to Mme. de 

sound that shot up with any signifi- Chanoir, motioning her back into the 

cant distinctness from the chaos of house. " I will see what it is ; and 

noise. Mme. Clery was with them ; if you can do anything I'll call you." 

she stayed altogether at No. 13 now, It was the concierge that Mme. 

sleeping on the sofa at night. It Clery was apostrophizing. And this 

would have been impossible for her was why : a shell had burst, not in 

to come and go twice a day while the yard, as the sisters fancied, but 

the city was in this state of commo- in the street just outside, and the ex- 

tion. To-day the old woman could plosion was followed by a shriek and 

not keep quiet ; she was constantly a loud blow at the door, while some- 

up and down to the concierge's lodge thing like a body fell heavily against 

to pick up any stray report that came it. 

through the chinks of the porte- " Cordon /" cried Mme. Clery ; " it 
cochere. Once she went down and is some unfortunate hit by the shell." 
remained so long that the sisters " More likely a communist corn- 
were uneasy. An explosion had re- ing to pillage and burn. I'll cordon 
verberated through the street, shaking to none of 'em !" declared the con- 
the house from cellar to garret, and, cierge. " The door is locked ; if they 
like an electric shock, flinging both want to get in, they may blow it open." 
the sisters on their knees simulta- But Mme. Clery flew at her throat, 
neously. Mme. de Chanoir's spine and swore, if she didn't give up 
had recovered itself within the last the key, she, Mme. Clery, would 
week as if by magic. She had aban- know the reason why. The concierge 
doned her usual recumbent posi- groaned, and felt, in bitterness of 
tion, and came and went about the spirit, what a difficult task the cor- 
house like the rest of them. If don was. But she opened the door ; 
the Commune did nothing else, it under it lay two wounded men, 
did this. We must give the devil his both of them young; one was evi- 
due. dently dying ; he had been mortally 

" Felicite, I must go and see what struck by a fragment of the shell 

it is. I hear groans close under the that had burst over the thick oaken 

window; perhaps a shell has fallen in door and dealt death around and 

the court and killed her," said Aline, in front of it. The other was wound- 

And, rising, she turned to go. ed, too, but much less seriously ; he 

" Don't leave me ! For the love had been flung down by his com- 

of heaven, don't leave me alone, panion, and the shock of the fall, 

Aline !" implored her sister. " I'll more than his wound, had stunned 



232 



Number 1 fnrteen. 



him. Mme. Clery dragged them in 
under the shelter of the porte-cochere, 
and proposed laying them on the 
floor of the lodge. But the concierge 
had no mind to take in a dead and a 
dying man, and vowed she would not 
have her lodge turned into a coffin. 
The dispute was waxing warm, Mme. 
Clery threatening muscular argument, 
when Aline made her appearance. 
Her training in the Ambulance stood 
her in good stead now. 

" Poor fellow ! He will give no 
more trouble to any one," she said, 
after feeling the pulse of the first, and 
laying her hand for a moment on his 
heart ; " bring a cloth, and cover his 
face ; he must lie here till he can be 
removed." 

The concierge obeyed her. They 
composed the features, and laid the 
body under cover of the gateway. 

Aline then examined the other. 
His arm was badly wounded. While 
she was still probing the wound, the 
man opened his eyes, stared round 
him for a moment with a speculative 
gaze of returning consciousness, made 
a spasmodic effort to rise, but fell 
back at once. " You are wounded 
not severely, I hope," said Aline ; 
" but you must not attempt to move 
till we have dressed your arm." 

She despatched Mme. Clery for the 
box containing her ambulance ap- 
pliances, lint, bandages, etc., and 
then, with an expertness that would 
have done credit to a medical stu- 
dent, she washed and dressed the 
shattered limb, while Mme. de Cha- 
noir watched the operation in shud- 
dering excitement through the glass 
door at the foot of the stairs. What 
to do next was the puzzle. The 
concierge resolutely refused to let him 
into her lodge ; there was no know- 
ing who or what he was, and she 
was a lone woman, and had no mind 
to compromise herself by taking in 
bad characters. The poor fellow 



was so much exhausted from loss of 
blood that he certainly could not 
help himself, and it would have been 
cruel to leave him down in the court- 
yard, where his unfortunate comrade 
was lying dead within sight of him. 
Aline saw there was nothing for it 
but to take him up to their own 
apartment. How to get him there 
was the difficulty. He looked about 
six feet long, and might have 
weighed any number of stone. She 
and Mme. Clery could never suc- 
ceed in carrying him. He had not 
spoken while she was dressing his 
arm, but lay so still with his eyes 
closed that they thought he had 
fainted. 

" We must carry him," said Aline 
in a determined voice, and beckoned 
the concierge to come and help. 

But before proceeding to the gi- 
gantic enterprise, Mme. Clery poured 
out a tumbler of wine, which she had 
had the wit to bring down with the 
lint-box, and held it to the sufferer's 
lips, while Aline supported his head 
against her knee. He drank it with 
avidity, and the draught seemed to 
revive him instantaneously ; he sat up 
leaning on his right arm. 

" We are going to carry you up- 
stairs, mon petit" said Mme. Clery, 
patting him on the shoulder with the 
patronizing manner an amazon might 
have assumed towards a dwarf. 

" You carry me !" said the young 
man, measuring the short, trim figure 
of the charwoman with a sceptical 
twinkle in his eyes : they were dark- 
gray eyes, particularly clear, and 
piercing. 

" Me and Mile. Aline," said Mme. 
Clery, in a tone that testified against 
the supercilious way in which her 
measure was being taken. 

Aline was behind him. He turned 
to look at her with a jest on his lips, 
but, changing his mind apparently, 
he bowed; then, with a resolute ef- 



Number Thirteen. 



233 



fort, he bent forward, and, before venturesome career. All day and all 

either she or Mme. Clery could inter- night the four inmates of the little 

fere, he was on his feet. It was well, entresol waited and watched in 

however, they were both within breathless anxiety for the close of 

reach of him, for he staggered, and the battle that was raging around 

must have fallen but for their prompt them. It never flagged for an in- 

assistance. stant, and as it went on the noise 

" La !" said Mme. C16ry, " what it grew louder and more bewildering, 

is to be proud ! Lean on Mile. Aline the tocsin rang from every belfry in 

and me, and try and get up-stairs the city, the drum beat to arms in 

without breaking your neck." every direction, the chassepots 

" It is the fortune of war," said the hissed, the cannon boomed, and yells 

gentleman laughing, and accepting and shrieks of fratricidal murder filled 

the shoulder that Aline turned to- the air, mingling with the smell and 

wards him. smoke of blood and powder. It was 

They accomplished the ascent in a night that drove hundreds mad 
safety, and then, in spite of his asser- who lived through it Yet the worst 
tion that he was all right now, Mme. was still to come. Late the nekt 
de Chanoir insisted on their guest afternoon, Aline, who was constantly 
lying down on her sofa while the char- at the window, peeping from behind 
woman prepared some food for him. the mattress stuffed into it to protect 
But safety, in truth, was nowhere, them from the shells, thought she dis- 
The fighting grew brisker from min- covered something in the atmosphere 
ute to minute. The troops were in indicative of a change of some sort, 
possession of the neighboring streets; She said nothing, but slipped out of 
they had taken the Federals in the the room, and ran up to a bull's-eye 
rear, and were mowing them down at the top of the house that served 
like corn. The struggle could not as a sort of observatory to those who 
last much longer, but it was despe- had the courage of their curiosity, as 
rate, and the loss of life, already ap- the French put it, and ventured their 
palling, must be still greater before it heads for a moment to the mercy of 
ended. The stranger who had intro- the missiles flying amongst the chim- 
duced himself so unexpectedly to ney-pots. It was an awful sight that 
No. 13 had formed one of the party met her. A fire was raging close to 
of order, he told his good Samari- the house. Where it began and 
tans, who had gone unarmed, with a ended it was impossible to say, but 
flag of truce, to the Federals in the clearly it was of immense magnitude, 
Rue de la Paix ; he had seen the and blazed with a fury that threat- 
ghastly butchery that followed, and ened to spread the flames far and 
only escaped as if by miracle him- wide. She stood rooted to the spot, 
self; he had fought as a mobile literally paralyzed with horror. Were 
against the Prussians, and received a they to be burnt to death, after living 
sabre-cut in the head, which had kept through such miseries, and escaping 
him in the hospital for weeks; he death in so many shapes ? Yet how 
had, of course, refused to join the could they escape it ? There were 
Federals, and it was at the risk of his barricades on every side of them ; if 
life that he showed himself abroad in they were not shot down like dogs, 
Paris; just now he had been making which was the most likely event, 
an attempt to join the troops, when they would never be allowed to pass, 
that shell burst, and stopped him in his All this rushed through her mind as 



234 



Number Thirteen. 



she gazed in blank despair out of the 
little bull's-eye, that embraced the 
whole area of the Rue Royale and 
the adjacent streets. As yet, there 
was a space between the fire and 
No. 13. Mercifully, there was no 
wind, and she saw by the swaying of 
the flames that they drew rather to- 
wards the Madeleine than in the di- 
rection of the Rue de Rivoli. Flight 
was a forlorn hope, but still they 
must try it. She turned abruptly 
from the window, and was crossing 
the room, when a loud crash made 
her heart leap. She looked back. 
The roof of another house, one 
nearer to No. 13, had fallen in, and 
tne flames, leaping through like rat- 
tlesnakes out of a bag, sprang at the 
sky, writhing and hissing as they 
licked it with their long red tongues. 

" O God, have pity on us!" 

Aline fell on her knees for one mo- 
ment, and then hurried down to the 
salon. 

" We must leave this at once," she 
said, speaking calmly, but with white 
lips; " the street is on fire." 

M. Varlay, citoyen Varlay, as he 
gave his name, started to his feet, 
and, pulling the mattress from the 
window, looked out. He saw the 
flames above the house-top. 

" Let us go, with the help of God !" 
he exclaimed. " We must make for 
the Rue de Rivoli !" 

Mme. de Chanoir and the char- 
woman, as soon as they caught 
sight of the fire, shrieked in chorus, 
and made a headlong rush at the 
stairs. 

" You must be quiet, madame !" 
cried M. Varlay in a tone that ar- 
rested both the women ; " if we lose 
our presence of mind, we had better 
stay where we are. Have you any 
valuables, papers or money, that you 
can take in your pocket ?" he said, 
turning to Aline. She alone had not 
lost her head. 



Yes; there were a few letters of 
her parents, and some trinkets, valu- 
able only as souvenirs, which she had 
had the forethought to put together. 
She took them quickly, and the four 
went down the stairs. There was no 
one in the lodge. The concierge had 
taken refuge in her cellar, and her 
husband was supposed to be saving 
France somewhere else. Mme. Clery 
pulled the string, and the little band 
sallied forth into the street. The air 
was so thick they could hardly see 
their way, except for the fiery forks of 
flame that shot up successively through 
the fog, illuminating dark spots with a 
momentary lurid brightness, while 
now and then the crash of a roof or 
a heavy beam was followed by a pil- 
lar of sparks that went rattling up in- 
to the sky like a fountain of rockets. 
The Babel of drums, and bells, and 
artillery added to the confusion of 
the scene as the fugitives hurried on 
singly under the shadow of the 
houses. They fared safely out of 
the Rue Royale and turned to the 
left. The Tuileries was enveloped 
in smoke, but the flames were nearly 
spent, only here and there a tongue 
of fire crept out of a crevice, licked 
the wall, twisted and twirled, and 
drew in again. A crowd was gather- 
ed under the portico of the Rue de 
Rivoli, watching the last throes of 
the conflagration, and discussing ma- 
ny questions in excited tones. Our 
travellers pushed on, and came un- 
molested to the corner of the Rue 
St. Florentine, where a sentry level- 
led his bayonet before them, and 
cried " Halt !" Mme. de Chanoir, who 
walked first, answered by a scream. 
Citoyen Varlay, laying his hand on 
her shoulder, drew her quickly behind 
him. " Stand here while I speak to 
him," he said, and he advanced to 
parley with the Federal, at the same 
time putting his hand into his pocket. 
They had not exchanged half a doz- 



Number Thirteen. 235 

en words when the sentinel shoulder- while, the fire was gaining on No. 13. 
ed his chassepot, and said : The house three doors down from it 
" Quick, then, pass along !" was flambee. It had been deserted 
Varlay stood for the women to the day before by all its occupants, 
pass first. Mme. de Chanoir and save one family composed of a hus- 
the charwoman rushed on, but no band and wife, who had obstinately 
sooner had they stepped into the refused to believe in the danger till it 
street than, clasping their hands, they was too late to evade it. They were 
fell upon their knees with a cry of friends of M. Dalibouze's and the 
agonized terror. The sight that met professor turned in to see them this 
them was indeed enough to make a morning on his way to No. 13. 
brave heart quail. To the left, ex- " The situation was a difficult one," he 
tending right across the street, rose a said; "it were foolhardy to defy it, and 
barricade, a fortress rather, surmount- the time was come when good citizens 
edat either end by two warriors of the should save themselves." He con- 
Commune, bending over a cannon as vinced M. and Mme. X that this 

if in the very act of firing ; in the was the only reasonable thing to do. 

centre two am azon ////-#/<?//.$<*.$ stood So casting a last look at their belong- 

with chassepots slung en baudeliere ings, they sallied forth from their 

and red rags in their hands that they home accompanied by their servant, 

waved aloft proudly like women an ex-sapeur, too old for military ser- 

who felt that the eyes of Europe vice, but as hale and hearty as a 

were upon them ; the intermediate youth of twenty. The professor had 

space on either side of them was fill- got in by a backway from the Faubourg 

edup with soldiers planted singly or in St. Honore, and thither he led his 

groups, and/<v/dfin the attitudes of friends now; but, though less than 

men whom forty centuries look down fifteen minutes had elapsed since he 

upon. Just as Mme. de Chanoir and had entered, the passage was already 

her bonne came in front of the terrible blocked : part of the wall had fallen 

mise-en-scne, and before they could and stopped it up. There was noth- 

go backward or forward, the word ing for it but to go boldly out by the 

Fire! rang out from the fortress, two front door, and trust to Providence, 

matches flashed in the hands of the But they reckoned without the pctro- 

gunners, and the women dropped to leuses. Those zealous daughters of 

the ground with a shriek that would the Commune, braving the shot, and 

have waked the dead. the shell, and the vengeful flames of 

" What's the matter now 1" cried their own creation, sped from door to 

the sentinel. door, pouring the terrible fluid into 

" They are going to fire !" holes and corners, through the gra- 

" Imbeciles ! No, they are going tings of cellars, under the doors, 

to be photographed !" * through the chinks of the windows, 

And so they were. A photograph- everywhere, dancing, and singing, and 

ic battery was set up against the rail- laughing all the time like tigers in 

ings opposite. Aline and citoyen human shape tigers gone mad 

Varlay seized the two half-fainting with fire and blood. When the sa- 

women by the arm, and dragged peur opened the door, he beheld a 

them across and out of the range of group of them on the trottoir ; one 

the formidable tableau vivant. Mean- was rolling a barrel of petroleum on 

to the next house, another was steep- 

* Told to the writer as a fact. ing rags in a barrel already half emp- 



236 



Number Thirteen. 



ty, and handing them as fast as she 
could to others, who stuffed them into 
appropriate places, and set a light to 
them ; every flame that rose was 
hailed by a shout of demoniacal ex- 
ultation. The sapeur banged the 
door in their faces. 

" We must set to work, and cut a 
hole through the wall," he said ; 
" it's the last chance left us." 

No sooner said than done. He 
knew where to lay his hands on a 
couple of crowbars and a pickaxe ; 
the professor fired the contents of his 
chassepot at the wall, and then the 
three men went at it, and worked as 
men do when death is behind them 
and life before. It was an old house, 
built chiefly of stone and mortar, 
very little iron, and it yielded quickly 
to the hammering blows of the work- 
men. A breach was made a small 
one, but big enough to let a man 

crawl through. M. X passed 

out first, and then helped out his 
wife. M. Dalibouze and the sapeur 
followed. They hurried through the 
next apartment. M. Dalibouze re- 
loaded his gun ; whiz ! whiz ! went 
the bullets ; bang ! bang ! went the 
crowbars; down rattled the stones; 
another breach was made, and again 
they were saved. Three times they 
fought their way through the walls, 
while the fire like a lava torrent 
rolled after them, and then they 
found themselves at No. 13. M. 
Dalibouze's first thought was for the 
little apartment on the entresol at the 
other side. They made for it; but 
as they were crossing the court a 
blow, or rather a succession of 
blows, struck the great oak door; it 
opened like a nut, and fell in with 
a crash like thunder. The burglars 
beheld M. Dalibouze in his National 
Guard costume scudding across the 
yard, and greeted him with howls 
like a troop of jackals. Whiz! went 
the grape-shot. M. Dalibouze fell. 



Mme. X and her husband 

had fallen back before the door gave 
way, and thus escaped observation. 
No one was left but the old sapeur. 

" What sort of work is this ?" he 
said, walking defiantly up to the 
men there were five of them 
" what do you mean by breaking into 
the houses of honest citizens ?" 

" You had better break out of this 
one if you don't want to grill," 
answered one of the ruffians ; " we 
are going to fire it, par ordre de le 
Commune." 

The women had disappeared, and 
left their implements in the hands of 
the men. 

" Oh ! par ordre de le Commune /" 
echoed the sapeur " then I've noth- 
ing to say ; I hope they pay you 
well for the work ?" 

" Not over and above for such 
work as it is," said one of the incendi- 
aries, rolling a barrel into the con- 
cierge's lodge. 

" How much ?" 

" Ten francs apiece." 

" Ten francs for burning a house 
down ! Pshaw ! you're fools for 
your pains !" 

The sapeur shrugged his shoulders, 
and, turning on his heels, walked 
off. Suddenly, as if a bright thought 
struck him, he turned back, and faced 
them with his hands in his pockets. 

" Suppose you got twenty for leav- 
ing it alone ?" 

" Twenty apiece ?" 

"Twenty apiece, every man of 
you !" 

They stopped their work, and 
looked from one to another. 

" Ma foi, I'd take it, and leave it 
alone !" said one. 

" Pardie ! we've had enough of it, 
and, as the citoyen says, it's beggarly 
pay for the work," said another. 

" Done !" said the sapeur* 

* This incident is authentic, and occurred at 
No. i-} Rue Royale 



Number Thirteen. 237 

He pulled out a leathern purse course, to flatten herself against the 

from his breast-pocket, and counted wall, and stay where she was, and of 

out one hundred francs in five gold course she did not do it. She saw a 

pieces to the five communists. flock of people running, and she 

" Une poignce de main, citoycn !" started from her hiding-place, and 

said the first spokesmen. The others turned and ran with them. They 

followed suit, and the sapeur, after tore along the Rue St. Honore till 

heartily wringing the five rascally they came to the Rue Rohan; here 

hands, sent them on their way rejoic- the band broke up, and many dis- 

ing to the cabaret round the corner, appeared at opposite points; but one 

This is how No. 13 was saved. No. little group unluckily kept together, 

1 1 was burnt to the ground, and then and, though diminished to a third its 

the fire stopped. size at the starting point, it still held 

But to return to Aline and her in view, and gave chase to the pur- 
friends. They got on well till they suers. Mile, de Lemaque kept with 
came to the Rue d'Alger, where they this. On they flew like hares before 
\vere caught in a panic, men, and the hounds, till,, turning the corner 
women, and children struggling to of the Place du Palais Royal, they 
get out of reach of the flames, and were stopped by two Federals, who 
threatening to crush each other to levelled their chassepots and bade 
death in their terror. Our friends them stand. The fugitives turned, 
got clear of it, but, on coming out of not like hares at bay to face the 
the mette at separate points, the sis- hunters and die, but to rush into an 
ters found they had lost each other, open shop, and fall on their knees, 
Mine, de Chanoir had held fast by and cry, " Mercy !" 
Mine. Clery, and was satisfied that The Federals were after them in a 
Aline was safe under the wing of second. Instead of shooting them 
citoyen Varlay. But she was mis- right off, however, they set to discuss- 
taken. He had indeed lifted her off ing the propriety of taking them out 
the ground, holding her like a child and standing them in regulation or- 
above the heads of the crowd, and so der, with their backs to the wall, and 
saved her from being trampled under doing the thing in a proper business- 
foot, most likely ; but when he set her like manner. While this parley was 
down, and Aline turned to speak to going on, Aline de Lemaque cast a 
him, he was gone. It would have glance round her, and saw that her 
been madness to attempt to look for fellow-victims were two young lads 
him in the welee, so she determined and half a dozen women, all of them 
to wait at the nearest point of shelter, of the lower class apparently; most of 
and then when the crowd dispersed them wore caps. The men who were 
they would be sure to meet. She making ready to shoot them without 
made for the door-way of a mourn- rhyme or reason, as if they were so 
ing house at the corner of the Rue many rats, were evidently of the very 
St. Honore. But she had not been dregs of the Commune, and looked 
many minutes there when she heard a half-drunk with blood or wine, or both 
hue and cry from the Tuileries end it was hard to say but there was no 
of the street, and a troop of men and trace of manhood left upon the faces 
women came flying along, driving that gave a hope that mercy had still 
Some people before them, and firing a lurking-place in their hearts. One 
at random as they went. The sensi- of the women suddenly started to her 
ble thing for Aline to do was, of feet. " What ! " she cried, " you call 



238 Number Thirteen. 

yourselves men, and you are going in order was restored restored so far 

cold blood to shoot unarmed women as to enable honest men to sleep in 

and boys ? Shame on you for cow- their beds at night, 

ards ! There is not a man amongst Mme. de Chanoir was back again 

you!" in the little saloon at No. 13, and 

She snapped her fingers right into diligently reading the newspaper 

their faces with an impudence that aloud to a gentleman who was lying 

was positively sublime. The cowards on the sofa near her ; the generate 's 

were taken aback. They looked at spine complaint had been radically 

each other, and burst out laughing. cured by the Commune, and she sat 

" Sapristi! She's right," exclaimed erect in a chair now like other peo- 

one of them ; " they're not worth pie. The invalid's face and head 

wasting our powder on !" were so elaborately bandaged that it 

Like lightning, the women were on was impossible to see what either 

their feet, fraternizing with the men, were like, while his bodily proportions 

embracing, shaking hands, and swear- disappeared altogether under a volu- 

ing fraternity in true communistic minous travelling-rug. He listened 

fashion. Mile, de Lemaque alone for some time without comment to 

stood aloof, a silent, terror-stricken the political tirade which Mme. de 

spectator of the scene. Chanoir was reading to him, an in- 

" What have we here ? Une ca- vective against France, and her sol- 
naille d' aristocrats, I'll be bound ! diers, and her generals, and the na- 
It's written on her face," said one of tion at large a sweeping anathema, 
the ruffians, seizing her by the arm ; in* fact, of everything and everybody, 
" let us make away with her, com- till he could bear it no longer, and, 
rades ! It will be a good job for the sitting bolt upright, he exclaimed : 
Republic to rid it of one more of the " Madame, the man who wrote 
lazy aristos that live by the owner's that article is a traitor. France is 
meat." There was a lull in the kiss- greater to-day in her unmerited mis- 
ing and hand-shaking, and they turn- fortunes than she was in the apothe- 
ed to stare at Aline. Her life hung osis of her glory ; she is more sublime 
by a thread. A timid word, a guilty in her widowed grief than her ignoble 
look, and she was lost. But the sol- foe in his barbarous successes ! She 
dier's blood rose up in her ; she be- is, in fact, still France. The situation 
thought her of her abus, and lanced it. is compromised for a moment, but 

" Lazy ! " she cried ; " I am a sol- " LA, Id, voyons /" broke in Mme. 
dier's daughter ; my father fought for Clery, putting her head in at the 
France, and left his children nothing door, and shaking the lid of a sauce- 
but his sword ; I work for my bread pan at the invalid. " How is the 
as hard as any of you ! " tisane to take effect if you will talk 

The effect was galvanic; they politics and put yourself into a rage 

gathered around her, shouting, " Bra- about la situation / Mme. la Gene'- 

vo ! Give us your hand, citoyenne ! " rale, make 'um keep still !" 

And Aline gave it, and, like the The generate thus adjured laid 

statesman who thanked God he had down the newspaper, and gently in- 

a country to sell, she blessed him that sisted on M. Dalibouze's resuming 

she had a hand to give. his horizontal position on the couch. 

Blood ran like water in the sewers Aline was not there ; she was off ^at 

of Paris for a few days, and then the her old work at the Ambulance again, 

troops were masters of the field, and The hospitals had been replenished 



Number Thirteen. 



239 



to overflowing by the street-fighting 
of the last week of the Commune, la 
denouement de la situation, as M. 
Dalibouze called it, and nurses were 
in great demand. Citoyen Varlay 
had not turned up since the night 
they had lost him in the crowd. The 
excitement and confusion which had 
reigned in the city ever since had 
made it difficult to set effective in- 
quiries on foot, even if the sisters had 
been accurately informed regarding 
their quondam guest's identity and 
circumstances, which they were not. 
All they knew of him was his appear- 
ancej his name, and his wound. This 
was too vague to assist much in the 
search. Mme. de Chanoir was sin- 
cerely sorry for it ; she had been at- 
tracted at once by the frank bearing 
and courteous manners of the young 
citoyen ; but his cool courage, his for- 
getfulness of himself for others, and 
the stoical contempt for bodily pain 
which he had displayed on the occa- 
sion of their flight, had kindled sym- 
pathy into admiration, and she spoke 
of him now as a hero. She spoke of 
him constantly at first, loudly lament- 
ing his loss ; for lost she believed him. 
He had, no doubt, been overpowered 
by the crowd ; his disabled arm de- 
prived him of half his strength, and, 
exhausted as he was by previous 
pain, and the violent effort to protect 
Aline in the struggle, he had probably 
fainted and been suffocated or crush- 
ed to death. This was the conclusion 
Mme. de Chanoir arrived at ; but 
when she mentioned it to Aline, the 
deadly paleness that suddenly over- 
spread the young girl's features made 
her wish to recall her words, and 
from that out the name of the young 
soldier was never pronounced be- 
tween the sisters. 

Mme. Clery had formed on her side 
an enthusiastic affection for him, and 
sincerely regretted his fate, but with 
a woman's instinct she guessed that 



the one who regretted it most said 
least about it. She never mentioned 
citoyen Varlay to Aline, but made 
up for the self-denial by pouring 
out his praises and her own grief into 
the sympathizing ear of the generate. 

"What a pretty couple they would 
have made ! " said the old woman 
one morning, wiping her eyes with 
the corner of her apron ; " he was 
such a fine fellow, and so merry ; he 
only wanted the particule to make 
him perfect; but, after all, who 
knows ? He may not have been as 
good as he looked. One can never 
trust those parvenus" 

A month passed. Mme. de Chanoir 
was alone one afternoon, when Mme. 
Clery rushed into the room in a state 
of breathless excitement, her eyes 
literally dancing out of her head. 

" Madame ! madame ! I guessed 
it ! I was sure of it ! I'm not that 
woman not to know a gentleman 
when I see him. I told madame he 
was ! Let madame never say but I 
did ! " 

And having explained herself thus 
coherently between laughing and 
crying, she held out a card to her 
mistress. 

Mme. d"e Chanoir read aloud : 

LE BARON DE VARLAY, 

Avocat a la Cour de Cassation. 

Another month elapsed, and the 
great door of the Madeleine was 
opened for a double marriage. The 
first bridegroom was a tall, slight 
man, on whose face and figure the 
word distingue was unmistakably 
stamped. The second was a plump, 
dapper little man, who, as he walked 
up the carpeted aisle of the church, 
seemed hardly to touch the ground, 
so elastic was his step ; his counte- 
nance beamed, he was radiant, and 
it is hardly a figure of speech to say 
that he was buoyant with satisfaction. 
If he could have given utterance to 



240 Use ancf Abuse of the Novel. 

his feelings, he would have said that could wish, and more than her wildest 
" the situation was perfect, and ambition had ever dreamed of for 
absolutely nothing more could be her favorite Aline. The second she 
desired." had grown philosophically reconcil- 
Mme. Clery was present in her ed to. The marriage had one draw- 
monumental cap, trimmed with Val- back, a grievous one, but the char- 
enciennes lace brand-new for the oc- woman consoled herself with the re- 
casion, and a chintz gown with a flection that Mme. de Chanoir might 
peacock pattern on a pea-green condone the bourgeoisie of her new 
ground that would have lighted up a name, by signing herself: 
room without candles. She, too, look- 
ed the very personification of content. FELICITE DALIBOUZE, 
The first couple was all her heart Nee de Lemaque. 



USE AND ABUSE OF THE NOVEL. 

IF the question were put to us collateral branch of modern educa- 

What class of books, viewed merely tion. 

as reading, without tutelage or com- Every age, every cycle, every 

mentary of any kind, had the greatest period in the history of the world 

influence in moulding and training has its distinctive features, its proper 

the thoughts, aspirations, mode of individualities, its representative men, 

life, of the mass of readers in these systems, or facts, strongly and clearly 

days ? we should, notwithstanding marked. Ours is the iron age. Our 

the slur and sneer which it is fash- province is matter. Our tastes are 

ionable for clever writers to cast material. The world seems, strangely 

upon them, answer unhesitatingly enough, to be working backwards. 

Novels. We began with intellect: we finish 

This answer, we have no doubt, with matter. The signs of the past 

might shock the sensibilities of some are stamped with intellect or the 

of our readers, as it might very intellectual. The development of 

cordially agree with those of a not the present is steam and electricity, 

insignificant body of others. With- If we ask the ages, What have you 

out going into a dry analytical dis- given us ? the answer comes rolling 

cussion of the//w and cons of the down out of the dim mountain of the 

question, we will adopt the easier past: Homer, Phidias, Apelles; the 

course of taking at the outset alphabet, the geometrical figure, the 

everything we want for granted, and science of numbers ; Plato and Aris- 

allowing the truth of it to emanate totle ; Virgil and the historians ; the 

from the body of our article ; merely practical greatness of Rome; the 

premising that, if it be true, Catho- great faith of the new-born middle 

lies have too much neglected, are ages ; the Crusades, the Gothic 

far too weak in, this very important order, the great masters, Dante, 



Use and Abuse of the Novel. 241 

Shakespeare, and Milton. We have treatment. If this test be applied to 
our distinctive mark; the one indi- us, what a show should we make! 
cated : the mastery over the material But happily the test, though in the 
world. In the intellectual order, if main a true one, is not an infallible 
we look for one, we must set it in one. The facility opened up by the 
the daily newspaper and the novel, invention of printing for writers of 
These are the peculiar intellectual every shade of opinion to express 
development of the XlXth cen- their thoughts upon any given sub- 
tury. Against the names of Homer, ject at any length and in any quanti- 
Plato, ^Eschylus, Virgil, Horace, ty, provided only they pay the print- 
Dante, Shakespeare, we pit those of er, must weaken to some extent the 
Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Eugene theory that writers are the exact re- 
Sue, George Sand, Victor Hugo, flex of the times and peoples for and 
Dumas, Bulwer, Wilkie Collins, among whom they write. Still there 
Miss Braddon, and her kin. rests the significant fact that to-day 

Surely this is rank heresy. Is not the novel, and particularly the worst 
this the age of the rationalists, the form of it, is the book of the period ; 
free-thinkers, " the swallowers of the most popular, widely read, best 
formula," of Hegel, Cousin, Comte, paid class of literature that we pos- 
Mill, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, sess a fact which tells its own tale 
Thomas Carlyle ? All these are of our intellectual and moral ad- 
nothing to the purpose. Thinkers, vance. 

dreamers, idealists, doubters, belong The ancients seem not to have 

to all ages. The novelists belong conceived such a thing. And, de- 

to ours alone, as surely as do the spite the danger of such an admission 

steamboat, the railway, the electric in the face of what the novel has 

telegraph, the daily press, the penny come to be among ourselves, we can 

post. only regret its loss among them. 

In saying this, we are not blind to Had the Greeks and Romans caught 
the fact that novels and romances the idea, and turned their brilliant, 
were written long before our century clear-sighted, manly, and truth-loving 
dawned. Cervantes and Le Sage intellects to the portrayal of every- 
are old enough ; the Romaunts are day life ; to the picture of how the 
older still. De Foe, Fielding, Smol- world wagged behind the scenes long 
lett, Sterne, Richardson, are names ago, what a flood of light would have 
of a bygone century. But novelism, been let in on their history, its mean- 
to use the word in a new sense, con- ing, its philosophy, so as to render 
sidered as a science for such it has almost superfluous the works of such 
practically become as the most men as Niebuhr, Gibbon, Grote. We 
popular branch of literature known should have had plenty of evil un- 
in these days, with men and women doubtedly, plenty to sicken us ; but, 
of genius devoted to its pursuit, after all, would the foulness of the 
with an ever-increasing progeny pagans have been much worse than 
spreading and growing, and stifling the spicy dishes cooked and served 
each other out of life, is an intel- up to us every day by our own novel- 
lectual phase proper of to-day. ists ; by gray-haired men ; by ladies, 

Philosophic historians trace the de- at whose age we will not venture to 

cline of peoples and periods in the guess ; by smart young girls who 

decline of their literature ; in its tone, have just bounced out of their teens ? 

its style, its subjects, and manner of The glimpse we have had of Soc- 

VOL. xvi. 1 6 



242 Use and Abuse of the Novel. 

rates' spouse makes us wish for a what a lost world would have been 
closer acquaintance with that dame, opened up to us ! 
We are anxious to know how she Abandoning, however, such vain 
received the news of his draught of and useless regrets, let us turn to the 
hemlock, for she evidently entertain- immediate subject of our own article, 
ed the utmost contempt for all his The title, Novel, we here use in the 
doctrine an$ philosophy, and must popular signification of the word, as 
have been rather surprised at the comprising all works of fiction, dis- 
state bothering itself so much about tinct from those that are purely sa- 
her husband. What an irreparable tirical, and history as written by such 
loss we have sustained in Diogenes, men as Mr. James Anthony Froude 
his sayings and doings, his snarls and Mr. John S. C. Abbott. Novel- 
and life in that tub of his ! What ists, we know, are apt to be nice on 
living pictures would have been left the question of titles. No lady of 
us of the life in the groves, the dis- third-rate society, who with time on 
putations, the clash of intellect with her hands to do good devoted it to the 
intellect where all was intellect ; the study of the court balls and the pages 
great games, who betted, who lost, of Debrett, was ever more so. Here 
who won, who contended; of the is your romance, which looks down 
mysteries and the sacrifices; of upon your mere story; your novelette 
Greece at the invasions ; of the par- which shrinks with awe from your 
ty strifes; how Alcibiades pranked psychological romance; your story 
and ruled in turn ; how Balbus built of real life, a republican sort of fel- 
that famous wall of his that he is low often, who hustles and bustles 
always building in the Delectus and shoulders them all and stands on 
how Agricola ploughed his field; his own legs; and a variety of others 
how the Symposia passed off with as numerous as they are, to the pub- 
Cicero and his friends ; how Caesar lie at large which is, as it should be, 
spent his youth, and how the con- a poor respecter of titles unnecessa- 
spiracy worked that destroyed him ; ry. We purpose, in the name of the 
what sort of companions brought public, dealing very summarily with 
Catiline's conspiracy about ; the ef- these titled folk, throwing them, high 
feet of the quousque tandem speech re- and low, in the same category, and 
lated by an eye-witness ; the coming designating one and all as novels 
of the great Apostles ; the dawn of pure and simple, with the single dis- 
Christianity ; how the gay Greeks tinction, which shall appear in due 
listened to that first strange sermon time, of the sensational novel, 
given from the altar to the Unknown As we have arrived at this point, 
God. it may not be amiss to ask, What 
These things have been told us in a purpose do novels serve ; with what 
way. We can pick and sort them out object are they written ? 
of the brilliant works of the writers of A hard question truly. We reply 
the time. But had they been told to the second part of the query first. 
us by a Greek or Roman novelist, a It may not be unnatural, nor dealing 
Thackeray, Dickens, or Bulwer, with unfairly with their authors, to sup- 
the actors set living and real and pose that novels are written, in the 
palpable on the scenes, speaking the first place, with the very laudable de- 
language, using all the little pecu- sire of earning one's bread : so that 
liarities, of everyday life, with all their "the root of all evil" lies at the 
.natural surroundings and coincidents, bottom of the " psychological ro- 



Use and Abuse of the Novel. 243 

mance." as of far humbler things in to any alarming extent, no doubt M. 
this world. As to what purpose, Dumas fils will be satisfied that at 
earthly or unearthly, they serve, the last the world is beginning a new era 
answer to that depends, first of all, on of advancement, that there is still 
the author's secondary motive in hope for it; and he will hold him- 
writing them ; secondly, on the effect self answerable for all the conse- 
they produce on the reader which quences. By the bye, we believe he 
are two very different things. We has omitted one little thing : the 
have not the slightest doubt that course to be adopted by the wife in 
the French novelists, as popularly the event of the husband's infidelity, 
known, entertained the very loftiest But probably such a high-minded, 
ideas with regard to morality, Chris- virtuous man as M. Dumas never 
tianity, the laws of God and man, contemplated the possibility of such 
the conventional relations between a contingency arising, 
husband and wife, and so on, before Mr. Collins, Mr. Reade, Miss Brad- 
ushering into the world the represen- don, and the rest hold, doubtless, the 
tatives of their to put it mildly same ideas with regard to the rela- 
somewhat peculiar views on these tive value of their productions, 
questions. Well, if the world read Whether their praiseworthy efforts 
them wrongly, mistook faith for infi- have been duly appreciated ; whether 
delity, a deep lesson in purity for they have ever made man, woman, or 
adultery, loyalty and obedience to the child a whit better or sounder by the 
sovereign for rank outspoken distur- perusal of any of their works, we do 
bance and rebellion, who was to not know. We are inclined to think 
blame ? The world was simply stu- not. If any reader would kind- 
pid. M. Dumas fils, for instance, ly come forward and show that we 
has lately been good enough to en- are wrong in this from his or her own 
lighten us with his ideas on the experience, we shall only be too hap- 
vexed questions of matrimony and py to stand corrected. At all events, 
women in general. M. Dumas fils the advantage derived must be in 
is undoubtedly an excellent guide on very small proportion to the quantity 
such subjects. He is an advanced of literary medicine and advice ad- 
man, a man of the age, of society, ministered by those social physicians 
of the world. His testimonies on to the craving multitude, 
such subjects ought, therefore, to be Laying aside, then, the invariably 
of value. He has disposed of the pure and lofty motives of the au- 
whole question in, for a Dumas, a thors; laying aside the cloak which 
few words a single volume. The novels serve for at times, as in the 
moral of his doctrine comes to this : hands of a Disraeli, to attack a policy 
if your wife is faithless, kill her. or a system ; and taking them as they 
We have not yet heard of any prac- affect ourselves, the readers, one may 
tical results arising from this new safely say that they serve mainly 
gospel, as preached by M. Dumas to amuse; to fill up those spare 
fils ; from which, we have no doubt, moments that nothing else can fill 
he will draw the very agreeable in- up. They constitute the play-ground 
ference that his remedy for the of literature a recreation and relief 
regeneration of society, and the for the mind. We gulp them down 
nice adjustment of the marriage-knot as we are whirled along in the rail- 
once for all, was altogether unneces- way train. We take them with us 
sary. If his doctrine should spread on long voyages, as the Scotch patient 



244 Use and Abuse of the Novel. 

took his weekly sermon at the gerous moments those moments 
kirk, as an opiate thus fulfilling to that come to all of us when mat- 
the letter the traditional notion of ter holds the mastery over mind, 
the " Sabbath " being a day of rest. Place in the hands of the reader at 
When the brain is heavy and the such a time a book which, while it 
body worn, when to talk is labor interests, while it soothes, lulls, and 
and to think is pain, then we can seize gently enwraps in its kindly meshes 
the novel, loll on the sofa, or re- the abstracted brain, never palls ; 
cline under the leafy shade by the containing at least what is harmless ; 
brink of the musical river, and and good, not very great certainly, 
float away, half asleep, half awake, but at least of a kind, is effected, 
into dreamland. In a moment a But let the novel be like the favo- 
new world, as real and living to the rites of its class, a thing to fire the 
mind's eye as that in which we move, imagination with impure thoughts 
is conjured up before us. We are on clothed in the thinnest veil of mock 
intimate terms with a villain whose morality, at the very moment when 
dagger is as air-drawn as Macbeth's. the imagination of the reader is ready 
We can commit cold-blooded mur- to run riot; and evil, great, sometimes 
ders that will never bring us to the irreparable, is produced, 
dock ; or shocking improprieties that " All the wrong that I have ever 
even the far-reaching nose of Mrs. done or sung has come from that 
Grundy will fail to catch scent of. confounded book of yours," writes 
Or we go over " the old, old story," Byron to Moore in a moment of bit- 
and are bumped, jerked, and jolted terness. If the accusation be well 
along the delicious course that never founded, what an intellectual wreck 
will run smooth; mapping it out if we has Moore to answer for; what a 
have not yet had the fortune (or mis- multitude of lesser disasters following 
fortune) to traverse it ; filling it in in the train of a great genius, so 
with many a well-known form, if we early led astray ! 
have. And if the never-running- The novelist beats every other 
smooth theory be true of love, this writer from the field. We all read 
much we ungrudgingly grant the him, from the crop-haired schoolboy 
novelists they certainly hold to their to the octogenarian who has quite 
tether. The labyrinth of Daedalus grown through his hair; from the 
was nothing to it ; the twistings, the nearest approach to Mr. Darwin's 
windings, the sudden and unexpected ideal man to the philosopher " who 
meetings, the separations, the jiltings, would circumvent God " ; from the 
the halts by the way, the joy, the sor- artless maiden who fondly dotes over 
row, the ecstasy, the despair, the los- those wicked but excessively hand- 
ings, the seekings, the findings, the some villains, those athletic but ri- 
torturing uncertainty, the wanderings diculously stupid lovers, those con- 
through hopeless mazes, to end, as we . sumptive heroines with the luminous 
knew at the outset it would and must eyes and rippling glories of golden 
end, according to " the eternal fitness hair ; those lady poisoners with the 
of things," in some man marrying floating locks and sea-green orbs- 
some woman the most extraordin- to the dyspeptic lady who makes 
ary phenomenon that the world ever novel-reading a science, who dawdles 
witnessed ! out her languid existence in elegant 
The novel invites us, as the noon- nothingness, who looks to the pro- 
day devil is supposed to do, at dan- duction of a new story as men look 



Use and Abuse of the Novel. 245 

to a change in the constitution, or as stole out of the magic mist, and call- 
astronomers lately looked to the ed us on to do great things ; to rift 
comet that would not come; who is, the mist and open up the glorious 
in a word, utterly useless for all the world of God, as we saw it in our 
purposes of life, of wifehood, of wo- imaginings. The morning of life, 
manhood novel-struck, novel-bred, like the morning of the world, is all 
only fit to "resolve and thaw into a Eden. We walk with God, for we 
dew " of weak sentimentality and es- are innocent. But the doom is on 
sence of inanity. From this category us; we must pluck the fruit of the 
of readers we must not omit the typical tree of knowledge. The moment we 
old maid, who is continually telling taste of it, the golden dream is no 
us that she renounced such things as more; the mist is reft asunder; and 
love and other rubbish long ago; yet slowly the world opens on our sad- 
daily treats herself to her spruce, dened eyes in all its hard reality, to 
strong, highly flavored dish of the be subjected by the labor of our 
purest, spiciest scandal, and takes her hands and the sweat of our brow, 
diurnal dose of immorality as regular- As we merge from that innocence, so 
ly as her " drops " or her tea. we go on. Some great event may 

All the world lies open to the nov- change us; may make this one a 

elist. From no place is he excluded, saint, that a fiend. But, as a rule, 

save frotfi a few high and dry quar- the sapling grows into the tree, 

terlies ; and even they are stirred weakly or strong, straight and tall 

from their abstract regions into sledge- and looking heavenwards, or stunted, 

hammer activity or solemn admira- useless, and unsightly as it grew from 

tion by him from time to time, the grafting. 

Of monthlies, fortnightlies, weeklies, The grafting is the mother's voice, 

dailies, he forms the chief ingredient, the father's example, the companions 

Even editors of metaphysical fort- around us, the guidance of our 

nightlies find they must flavor their thoughts. And the great mass of 

own romance with a spice, of the our thoughts, at a time when we are 

more regular and orthodox in order to all imagination, springs from the 

make it " go down with the public." books we read. Here steps in the 

What a field, then, is the novel- crying need of a series of story-books 
ist's ! what ground for a high, pure- for Catholic children ; for all chil- 
minded man or woman to sow seeds dren up to the age when study be- 
in that may sprout, and spread, and comes a more serious work, 
fill the world with truth, with purity, One other glance back at the days 
with noble aspirations, with right of our childhood, and the manner in 
teachings set in the goodliest garb ! which they were spent ; for it is not 
The youth of the generations is their the least important part of our sub- 
own, ject. What a round of acquaintance 

Who has forgotten those earlier we had, necessitating a correspond- 

days when we stood, fair-haired, ing round of visits ! One day we 

open-hearted children, on the thresh- dropped in on our best of friends, 

old of life, steeped in the morning Robinson Crusoe, on that lonely is- 

sun of a future that looked all golden ? land of his, wishing that all the world 

A warm mist hung about us, shroud- were islands and we were all Crusoes. 

ing all in beautiful, mystical dimness. All we wanted to live happily was 

There was no storm, no darkness, no a boat, six or seven guns and pistols, 

night. Whisperings of soft voices a goat-skin cap, a parrot, a Man 



246 Use and Abuse of the Novel. 

Friday, an umbrella, and an occa- him for dear life into to-day. What 
sional savage to kill. After taking a a race it is ; how the world spins 
sail with him in his boat, helping him past us; how our heart throbs, and 
to build his castle, tending the goats, our eyes grow dim, and our hopes 
running down to see if we could find sink as we fall and dislocate our 
that second footprint on the sand, shoulder at that last fence. By 
giving Friday a lesson in English, we heaven ! up again on, and in a win- 
bade him good-bye with the promise ner ! And we sink to the ground 
of calling again soon, and hurried with the shouts of thousands ringing 
off on that expedition to the other in our ears, to wake in a darkened 
end of the world with our old ac- chamber with low voices breaking 
quaintance Captain Marryat, to on us the voices of our dear Irish 
search for our father, play our practical girls, who make "smithereens" of 
jokes, and fight our triangular duels, our hearts only to heal them the 
Then we had to hunt up that Indian next minute, and sit there wooing us 
trail for Cooper, and no redskin back into life and love, 
ever followed the track half so keenly Such was the favorite mental food 
as we, marking the way, notching of our earlier days, our literary can- 
the giant trunks with our six-bladed dy. If the reading of youth were re- 
penknife, shooting the buffalo with stricted to authors such as these, on 
our pop-guns, sleeping round the the whole we might consider them in 
campfires in those limitless prairies safe hands. But books multiply and 
and thickest jungles of our irnagin- cheapen day by day, and as usual 
ation. Ha ! by'r Lady ! Here we " the cheap and nasty " carries every- 
are at the gentle trial of spears at thing before it. The favorite stories 
Ashby de la Zouch. How brave it of the mass of boys that we see 
was ! The glinting of the lances, consist of what is known as the 
and the clash of steel on helm and Dime Novel and those blood-and- 
hauberk ; the gay plumes shorn and thunder weeklies with the terrific 
floating on the wind like thistle- titles and startling pictures. By 
down. And out we rushed, and call- some strange freak of nature, boys 
ed the friend of our bosom a caitiff are fond of blood ; the warlike ele- 
knight and a false knave, and plight- mem prevails ; the peaceful is no- 
ed our troth to that imprisoned where. We feel certain that, if Mr. 
maiden no matter who, and no Barnum possessed a real live mur- 
matter where to do her right, and derer among his collection of curiosi- 
do our devoir as leal and belted ties though we fear he could scarce- 
knight. That caitiff deals in leather ly ticket such an animal " a curiosi- 
now, and does a thriving business ; ty " in these days and caged him 
his knightly limbs are cased in the up among the other wild beasts, he 
best of cloth, cut by the cleverest would prove a greater attraction to 
of artists ; his knightly stomach is the juvenile visitor than anything 
naught the worse for wear, but quite else in the famous exhibition. It 
beyond the girth of steel armor; and were easy enough to satisfy this mor- 
he has a son who, at this moment, is bid craving for muscular Christianity 
assisting at the joust as we did, in a safe and sound manner, if our 
spurring into the melee and bearing writers of fiction took up systemati- 
all down before us, to spur out again cally the incidents of history ; the 
victor, and meet Charlie O'Malley great wars; the crusades, the parts 
waiting for us outside; to ride with played by great Christian heroes, by 



Use and Abuse of the Novel. 247 

the saints of God ; the scenes of with it somewhat in the following 

martyrdom, the labors of the mission- style : 

aries, and a thousand other subjects Sensational Novel : A complexity ^ 
as entertaining as they are instruc- of improbabilities woven around a 
tive and strictly true. We know crowd of nonentities, interspersed 
that there are ma-ny such ; but we with fashionable filth, and relieved 
want to be overloaded with them, as by sleek-coated beastliness; mean- 
we are with those others to which ing nothing, and good for less, 
we referred. We can scarcely at the What is this word that possesses 
moment call to mind one Catholic us ! Sensation ! as though we had 
story to compete at all with a crowd not enough of it. The age is so 
of children's books written by Prot- dreadfully prosaic, so workaday, so 
estants. The production of children's dull. We must run off the track, 
stories has grown into a science out of the common groove, or we 
among them. We frequently see are ill at ease. Where is the sensa- 
pages of stately reviews and the col- tion in steam and electricity ? We 
umns of the London Times devoted are whirled through a continent in a 
to as critical an examination of this week : but that is a thing done every 
class of books as to the works of the day. It almost equals the mantle of 
greatest writers. They recognize the the genii in the Arabian Nights we 
necessity and the advantage of giv-. had only to step upon it, and find cur- 
ing their children something to save selves at whatever point of the compass 
them from the evil effects that must we wished. We cross thousands of 
ensue from a continual history of dar- miles of ocean in a similar period, 
ing and impossible feats by young mastering the elements with a clock- 
burglars, detectives, spies, and the work regularity, fair weather or foul, 
like. The best writers of this kind We knit sea to sea. We rise from 
are, as they should be, women, who foe-encircled cities, and sail safe 
know best how to interest children, away into the air. The whisper of 
who watch them with an eye to their what has been done in one quarter 
every want, that a man cannot attain, of the world has not had time to 
Here, then, is a field for Catholic la- pass abroad before it is discussed in 
dies a field wide open, which cries the others. We have linked the dis- 
to be filled up. jointed world by an electric flame 

But our article deals not alone with that flashes knowledge throughout 

children and children's books. We its circle instantaneously. We build 

purpose looking higher and looking up vast empires and topple clown 

deeper, at the mental recreation of thrones every day, as though they 

the day, of the age; at the literature were ninepins, and yet we want 

that loads our tables, our shelves, sensation ! We sigh for the cap and 

our public libraries, our bookstalls: bells: the jousts and games and 

the book " of the period" the sensa- junketings of eld. Even the feast 

tional novel. of horrors, crimes, and incidents, the 

What is a sensational novel ? births, deaths, and marriages, and 

Who has defined it ? Who dare de- the scandals of the " fashionable 

fine it? It is a pity the author of world," served up to us at breakfast 

Rasselas had not some faint concep- daily, with all the inventive genius 

tion of it. The idea of calling Rasse- of the newspaper correspondent, pall 

las a novel in these days ! We upon our surfeited appetites. " We 

might imagine him to have dealt have supped full of horrors. Time 



248 Use and Abuse of the Novel. 

was when our fell of hair would have peeps we have into the green-room ! 

uplifted to hear a night-shriek. But Pages are devoted to the eyes of an 

now, how weary, stale, flat, and un- opera-singer, the ankles of a danseuse, 

profitable seem to us all the uses the charming slang of an actress. 

of this world of ours. Life is as The scene is varied by dips into the 

dreary as a twice-told tale." We purlieus of society; into the bagnio 

are not satisfied; we feel a craving and the gin-mill; the prize-ring and 

after something. Our want, our the barracks; the dancing saloon and 

craving, springs not from the desire the gaming-table; the betting ring; 

for a higher spirit in it all, not from into every place, every person, every- 

an absence of faith and noble thing the lowest, the meanest, the 

purpose, of something greater than worst. 

utility, not from a horror of a daily Is this exaggeration ? Is it a false, 
widening infidelity and impurity that outrageous libel on this' age, so full of 
mocks the pagan ; but simply and great things, and still greater capa- 
purely from a lack of sensation ! In bilities ? Is it particularly false of 
the face of the dull routine of this ourselves, the simple-hearted, simple- 
age of marvels that old Friar Bacon mannered republicans, who have 
dimly saw in his dreams, and was set our faces as sternly against the 
deemed a madman for his foresight ; ungodly and the ways of sin as our 
in the face of wars like our own re- old crop-haired, steeple-crowned Pu- 
bellion and the devastation of ritans professed to do ? We shall 
France ; in the midst of fallen thrones only be too happy if somebody con- 
and falling peoples we ask for sen- vinces us that such is the fact. In 
sation ! as the philosopher, though the meanwhile; incidentally to our 
perhaps with more reason, took a purpose appeared a few statistics the 
lantern to look for a man. We find other day from public libraries, bear- 
it not in these things ; we pass them ing on this very question, showing 
by, and bury ourselves in the pages that in libraries, which, as a rule, a 
of Wilkie Collins, Miss Braddon, and class of intelligent and sensible read- 
their kind. They are the wonder- ers are supposed to frequent, the 
workers of the age. books most in demand were of the 
Here we find what we are seek- style we deplore, and complaints were 
ing ; here is a response to our raven- laid at their doors because they failed 
ous craving, in those delicious, tor- adequately to supply this demand, 
turing plots that take our breath There must be something very de- 
away. Here we sit hob and nob with licious in vice. Nothing else will 
what the fourth-rate newspaper is satisfy us. The novelists have sound- 
fond of calling " the scions of nobili- ed the depths of depravity; and in 
ty." We get an animated descrip- their efforts to find a lower depth 
tion and category of their articles of still, are driven to walking the hos- 
clothing, from their boots and who pitals, diving into blue-books, fre- 
made them, to their linen and where quenting the asylums for the diseased, 
it was bought. What a pleasure it is the depraved, the insane. The re- 
to know a count and a lord, and a pertory of evil seems almost used up. 
lady and a duchess; to know how They have so beaten the drawing- 
they eat and drink, and the chronicle room carpet, so sifted and shaken 
of all the fearful scandal that goes on out for the public gaze the smallest 
in what the newspaper man again speck of fashionable filth that the 
knows as " certain circles " ! What most delicately organized imagination 



Use and Abuse of t/ie Novel. 



249 



of the refined lady could discern, 
that there is nothing left on it. Ti- 
tles even are growing common, and 
we want some new type of a coronet- 
ed brow to bind our scandal on. 
Dickens and Collins and Yates have 
overrun us with burglars and detec- 
tives. They did good service in their 
day ; but even they are growing un- 
romantic. The Krupp, the mitrail- 
leuse, the needle-gun, have killed off 
the slashing cavalry heroes, who 
rode at everything, neck or nothing, 
in perfect safety, and were as irresis- 
tible in love as in war. We must 
abandon these higher regions with a 
sigh, and go down to the dirtiest col- 
umns of the dirtiest newspapers in our 
efforts to find " something rich and 
strange." And to this men and wo- 
men of " genius," as it is called, bend 
their every effort. The gifts that God 
has given them to ennoble man they 
devote to stirring the puddle of filth 
which they take as the mirror of hu- 
man nature, and, holding before the 
admiring gaze of humanity whatever 
they have fished up, say Behold 
yourselves ! 

Are these the lessons societv must 

* 

look for in its gifted children ? Is 
the great book of nature narrowed 
down to these limits ? Is there no- 
thing in human life, human thought, 
human activity, more worthy our at- 
tention, more deeply interesting to 
man, than the chronicle of his vices ? 
Is the attractive in human nature 
confined to third or fourth hand 
glimpses of " the scions of nobility," 
the bywords of the barracks, the 
slang of the gutter, the echoes of the 
footlights ? Is vice alone captivat- 
ing, and morality such an everyday, 
humdrum affair that we are sick of 
excess of it? Is love the thing they 
present to us ? love, the great pas- 
sion, the pure divine flame that God 
has set in our hearts to link together 
and perpetuate the generations, and 



finally lead us up to him ? Is this 
maudlin rubbish that the writers of 
the day surfeit us with, love ? this 
weak, puny, consumptive thing; in- 
ane, jejune, sickly, fleshly, sensual, 
impure, inhuman ? Love is a divine- 
inspired passion of the soul, planted 
there by God, to grow and flourish 
in its great, pure, single strength. 
They have cut it, and hacked and 
torn it to shreds, and left nothing of 
divinity in it. They set it in the 
flesh, and convert a heaven-born 
gift into the lowest of animal passions. 

It requires no very powerful stretch 
of the imagination to draw from the 
foul pens of these writers the germ 
of the question which to-day threat- 
en to turn the world topsy-turvy 
the so-called theory of Woman's 
Rights which has for champions 
philosophers of the stamp of Stuart 
Mill and Professor Fawcett, and for 
first-born, Free Love. 

We will suppose Mr. Stanley, of 
the New York Herald, to have 
brought back with him a native of 
the countries he visited in his mar- 
vellously successful search for Dr. 
Livingstone. The native has learn- 
ed the English language on his jour- 
ney. He is suddenly thrown among 
a people whom he can only look 
upon as gods, as the Indians first 
looked upon the Spaniards. He is 
surrounded by the results of all the 
ages. He wishes to learn something 
about these gods : how they live and 
move and have their being. A novel 
" of the period " any one by any 
of the thousand authors of the spe- 
cies is put into his hands as the 
faithful reflex of this society. What 
can we imagine would be his feelings 
at the end of its perusal ? A com- 
parison rather in favor of his own 
countrymen would be the most natu- 
ral inference. 

But it may be objected that we 
are pessimists. We attack a class 



250 



Use and Abuse of the Novel 



whom no decent person would de- 
fend. There are more schools of 
novelists than the sensational school. 
There are Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, 
Bulwer. Are these all that we would 
wish, or do they also fall under our 
sweeping condemnation ? 

As for Scott, we are still proud to 
acknowledge him by his old title 
"The Wizard of the North." He 
was a man who, taking into account 
the times in which he lived, the pre- 
judices still rife, the people for 
whom he wrote, the purpose of his 
writings, turned every faculty of his 
marvellously gifted, richly stored 
mind to its best account. Even Livy's 
" pictured page " almost dims in our 
eyes before the range and variety 
of his. His works are the illumina- 
tion of history ; his characters almost 
as true, as rounded, as full as Shake- 
speare's, and partaking of the great 
master's " infinite variety." His plots 
are deeply interesting, his fidelity to 
nature in character and scene sus- 
tained and equal, whether the subject 
be Queen Bess or Queen Mary of 
Scotland, Louis XI. or King Jamie, 
a moss-trooper or a crusader, a 
free-lance or a pirate, a bailie or 
a Poundtext; whether the scene lie 
in Palestine or in the Trosachs, in 
mediaeval France or mediaeval Eng- 
land, in the camp or the court, the 
prisons of Edinburgh or the purlieus 
of Alsatia. He has laughed at us 
Catholics good-naturedly sometimes, 
but despite that, his novels did us a 
vast service at a time when our road 
was very dark, and we were looked 
upon at best as something utterly 
inhuman something, in fact, like 
what the sailor conceived who, when 
stranded somewhere with his mess- 
mate in the neighborhood of the 
North Pole, beheld for the first time 
a white bear squatted on its haunches 
before them, and taking a contented 
survey. 



"What's that 'ere beggar, Jack ?" 

" Oh !" said the other, taking a 
solemn glance at the animal, be- 
tween the whiffs of his pipe. " I can't 
say exactly, but I expect it's one o' 
them there what they call Roman 
Cawtholics too." 

Scott first made us known to the 
mass of English readers in a fair 
way. The barriers of an ti- Catholic 
prejudice, centuries old, which had 
resisted stoutly and stubbornly every 
effort which reason, right, and com- 
mon humanity made against it, crum- 
bled at once beneath the fairy wand 
of the magician, and English Pro- 
testants came to know something of 
us and recognize us, though still in 
a cautious manner, as fellow-men. 

From Scott all readers may un- 
doubtedly derive much good. And 
now we turn to the others, the lead- 
ers of modern fiction : the standard, 
though, as we showed, not the most 
widely read authors of the day. 

They are Thackeray, Dickens, 
Bulwer ; and though the men them- 
selves, so far as their lives are known 
to us, had little or no faith in any 
particular church or any particular 
creed, and must therefore be wanting 
in a firm, steadfast groundwork, ab- 
solutely necessary to impart a pure, 
high-minded spirit to their writings, 
we lay this aside, and look at them 
only through their works. In Thack- 
eray and Bulwer we have two emi- 
nently clever, highly cultivated men 
writers who cannot fail to grace 
everything that they touch, who can- 
not fail to interest deeply and always. 
They were men of much learning, 
of great insight into character, whose 
mode of life and circle of acquaint- 
ances threw them into the heart of 
the world, their world, and gave them 
every facility of knowing it thorough- 
ly. They came and saw. And what 
is the result of their investigation ? 
They found it all a great sham. The 



Use and Abuse of the Novel. 



251 



genius of both consists in thoroughly 
exposing this great sham, in tearing 
off the gilded mask, and showing the 
hollow, empty, grim death's-head be- 
neath it; in leaving not a rag to 
cover its nakedness. After reading 
Thackeray, there springs up in us an 
utter contempt for ourselves and for 
the world in general. All human 
nature is false, rotten, and utterly 
worthless. There is no religion in it, 
no faith, and as a consequence no 
honesty and no law save the law of 
expediency. If there are any char- 
acters to admire at all, they are cer- 
tainly not his good men ; for they, 
and those of Dickens also Tom 
Pinch, for instance are the most in- 
sipid numskulls that ever crossed 
our vision ; the most wretched cari- 
catures of goodness that could possi- 
bly be conceived. Very truly might 
he say that, " when he started a story, 
he was very dubious as to the moral- 
ity of his characters." We respect 
his good men infinitely less than his 
rogues. Among them he is at home : 
in his Lord Steynes, his Becky 
Sharpes, his drunken parsons, his 
wicked gray-hairs, his asses or black- 
legs among the young, his solemn 
humbugs, his tuft-hunters, his silly, 
useless, vain, untruthful women, his 
worldly mammas who hold up their 
charming daughters at auction ; those 
charming daughters who submit to it 
with such good grace, who simper 
so chittishly under their pink bon- 
nets and look for soft places on the 
sofa to faint; his designing and un- 
principled adventuresses, to whom 
the world is as a market, a betting 
ring, or a faro-table, and the thing to 
be sold, the stake to be played for, 
is the virtue they never possessed. 
Such is Thackeray's world ; and he 
has done well to show it up so open- 
ly and unsparingly in all its naked- 
ness. But is it altogether a true por- 
trait ; could he do no more than 



this ? Is this the true world, after 
all so utterly depraved and given 
over to evil ? Are there no such 
things as truth, honesty, morality, 
religion, among us ? Are there no 
men and women, no bodies, endow- 
ed with sense enough, power enough, 
and wit enough to give the lie to this, 
and bring this false world with shame 
to their feet ? If there be, it is not 
to be found in the pages of Thack- 
eray. 

In Bulwer, it is the same story told 
in Bulwer's way, with less of heart 
and more of licentiousness. Thack- 
eray was, we believe, a virtuous man, 
as the phrase goes ; that is, he was 
contented with one wife, paid his 
bills, kept his word, and very rarely 
woke with a headache. But Bulwer 
rather glories, or was wont to do, in 
the opposite character. He used to 
be fond of telling us that he knew 
the world ; had mixed in, shared, felt 
its vices and its follies. He comes 
out of this world of his, sits down, 
and tells us all about it ; what sort 
of men and women he found in it ; 
what motives actuate them ; what 
they live for f what code of morality 
they follow. Taken as a whole, their 
code of morality is fashion ; their 
temple is the world; their religion, 
worldliness; their god, themselves. 
Crime is only crime in the humble ; 
in the wealthy it is elevated into vice. 
Such is the doctrine of the Bulwer 
world ; the doctrine that our children 
imbibe unconsciously, while only di- 
verted momentarily by the interest 
of the story. So far, then, notwith- 
standing grace of style, elegance of 
diction, happiness of conception all 
which may be found in a hundred 
writers infinitely superior, essayists 
and historians we have nothing but 
a very doubtful negative gain. 

And Dickens who has made us 
weep over fireside virtues, the hard- 
ness and quiet nobleness of humble 



252 Use and Abuse of the Novel. 

struggle, and the greatness of spirit would have blushed at ; who passed 
that beats as strong in the cottage unharmed and triumphant from the 
as on the throne must we cast him court of justice, and found lawyers 
into the same category ? Hard as and excellent " ministers of God's 
it is to say, we find him wanting, Word" to uphold them, and pro- 
though in a less degree than the two claimed in the press and elsewhere 
above-mentioned. He has fought that they were honest, humane men 
sham, and fought it, as few others and maligned saints. Dickens show- 
have done, successfully. He did not ed us what these Squeerses and Stig- 
take up the whole world and fight ginses were made of. He showed 
it as one gigantic falsehood. This us what the jails were made of, the 
is useless. The world is large asylums, the workhouses, the schools; 
enough and strong enough to with- and undoubtedly aided in effecting 
stand the mightiest single-handed and many a reform. He warmed our 
hold its own. It will not be put hearts towards each other, and to- 
down in this way, and it only laughs wards the unfortunates to whom all 
at the tooting tin whistles that are life was a bitter trial from birth 
continually blowing such shrill but to the grave. He undoubtedly 
tiny blasts of regeneration at it, till did great good; and many a book 
they crack and are silenced for- ever, of his is a never-ending, never- 
Dickens fought it as the first Napo- wearying sermon, preached to a 
leon fought the combinations arrayed broad humanity. As Catholics we 
against him; he cut them off in owe him a deep debt for never 
detachments. So with the world; having systematically or seriously 
you must take it by pieces. Show it abused his talents by abusing us, 
one sham, and all the other shams where abuse is ever welcome and 
will cry shame. The silks, and the well rewarded. But he has given 
satins, and the perfumed licentious- us so much that we look for more 
ness of the drawing-room, Dickens from him ; for some great, broad, 
left to other hands. But he opened sound principles to guide us through 
up to the eyes of these fine folk, who the hard battle of life; since his prob- 
sinned so elegantly in their carriages lem was life, human nature, its difrl- 
and palaces, a black, yawning, start- culties and its dangers. While con- 
ling gulf right under their feet; fessing our debt to him for what he 
with its hot elements seething in cor- has done, we find a good deal in 
ruption and danger beneath them, Dickens that we do not like. His 
because they would not look at it; code of ethics is a very easy one, and 
because they would not recognize a very dangerous one, running into 
this other nation, as Disraeli called that indifferentism so prevalent and 
it in Sybil ; because that world was demoralizing to-day. We find, after 
to them as far off and unknown as reading him, that there is a great 
Timbuctoo. He showed them the amount of evil in the world counter- 
thieves' and harlots' dens, and how balanced by a tolerably fair amount 
they were fed; by the innocent and of good, and that it is useless to hope 
pure, brutalized by the system of the for anything more. That, so far as 
jail, school, and workhouse, pre- religion goes, mankind maybe divid- 
sided over by such men as have ed into two classes the humbugs 
lately stood unabashed in the broad and the humbugged : the humbugs 
light of day before us, and openly the Chadbands, the Stigginses get- 
confessed to cruelties that Squeers ting decidedly the better of the bar- 



Use and Abuse of the Novel. 253 

gain. That, provided a man is not in- every turn, and impregnates and poi- 
tolerably bad, he is as good as the sons the innocent streams that ought 
generality of his neighbors, and has a to beautify and fertilize the intellect 
fair chance of arriving safe at the end of the mass when it comes to us 
of life's journey, wherever or what- half disguised in the literature that 
ever. that end may be, without being we place in the hands of our sons 
extraordinarily particular about it. and daughters, it is time for us to 
That drunkenness is not a vice un- purge this poison out. 
worthy of man, it is rather an amia- Stop novels we cannot. Let 
ble weakness, a good joke, something preachers thunder as they may, they 
funny, something to be laughed at ; will be written, and they will be read. 
something that you and ourselves It is for us to seize upon that wea- 
might fall into now and again with- pon, and turn it to our own purpose, 
out doing much harm. Nowhere in We have already done so to a de- 
Dickens, as far as we recollect, does gree. Our great thinkers, Wiseman, 
drunkenness appear as what it is, a Newman, have recognized the neces- 
vice lower than the appetite of the sity of this, and themselves set us the 
brute. As for our quarrel with him example. But not to such men as 
as Americans, though a grievous and these are we to look for a Catholic 
a just one, we will let that pass now. school of novelists : their duties are 
He endeavored to atone for it at the higher, their work more laborious, 
end, so let it rest with him in his though not, and we may say it ad- 
grave. In considering his works as visedly, from the necessities of the 
a whole, his almost unrivalled power day more important. We want a 
of moving us to laughter or to tears, crowd of such writers as Gerald Grif- 
we cannot help contrasting what he fin, Bernard McCabe, Lady Fullerton, 
has done, great as it is, with what he the authoress of The House of Yorke. 
might have done had he been en- In France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, 
dowed with a clear religious belief, and Spain, we have been more success- 
and not a heart open only to mere ful. The Countess of Hahn Hahn, 
human goodness. Bolanden, Mrs. Craven, Conscience, 
To conclude, then : the point of Manzoni, Fernan Caballero, show us 
our article is this. The novel is a that Catholic writers who give them- 
power among us to-day : a new wea- selves to this necessary and noble work 
pon thrown into the midst of the strife can make the novel their own, and 
of good and evil, to be taken up by compete successfully even in the mat- 
either party. Those who would up- ter of sale with the Dumases, the Eu- 
root all morality, all law, all faith, gene Sues, George Sands, Wilkie 
the basis of humanity, have been Collinses, Charles Reades, Miss 
quick to see its efficacy, seize upon it, Braddons. Their works are received 
and turn it to a terrible account. It with heartfelt approval by the critics 
is not so much the open direct of the Protestant press. And we 
teachings of heathen, pagan, ration- cannot refrain from thanking these 
alistic call it what you will, it means gentlemen for the very fair, honest 
the same in the long run philoso- and manly, and conscientious use 
phy that we are to fear. The intel- they make of their pens in this par- 
lects that breathe in that atmosphere ticular at least. Critics are heartily 
are few and far between. But when weary of the mass of rubbish they 
this heathenism comes filtered down are compelled to wade through 
to us through sources that meet us at week after week, month after month. 



254 



Review of Vaugharis Life of S. Thomas. 



If anything, they are too mild. We 
lack something of that hearty knock- 
down criticism which prevailed in the 
palmy days of the quarterlies ; which 
killed or cured ; which lashed Byron 
into savagery and brought out his 
true genius; which crushed the 
weakly and the worthless. 

Catholic novelists, and Protestant 
also, have a noble field before them 
wherein to sow and reap. It is for 
them to show that vice and unchasti- 
ty are not the only subjects which 
can interest us; that godliness and 
true love are not such dull, insipid, 
everyday things ; that suffering and 



self-denial and sacrifice for a noble 
purpose, the soul-conflict of human 
passion against the eternal decrees, 
and its mastery after much struggle 
and weary strife, are full of the pro- 
foundest interest for man ; that histo- 
ry is but the chronicle of this con- 
flict, and when rightly read shows it 
forth in every page ; that our souls 
can be fired, our flagging senses 
stimulated, our a.dmiration aroused, 
by the well-told story of the struggle 
of right when we see a God moving 
and acting in it all, far more than 
by the adoration of indecency dei- 
fied. 



REVIEW OF VAUGHAN'S LIFE OF S. THOMAS.* 



CONCLUDED. 



IN our last number, we endeavored Confucius, or at least as the times of 

to give our readers some idea of his early disciples ; and whilst its ob- 

Prior Vaughan's Life of S. Thomas ject has been, on the whole, the same 

of Aquin. We purposely omitted, in all ages, its forms have undergone 

however, to say anything of his treat- infinite variety. Men have written 

ment of the personal history of the Lives in order to cheat Death of his 

saint himself. The name of Thomas victims. They have tried to keep 

of Aquin belongs to church history, heroes alive by embalming them in 

to theology and philosophy; but it incorruptible and imperishable speech, 

also belongs to what is known by the that all time might know them, and 

somewhat uncouth name of hagio- their influence might reach from age 

graphy; and the story of the saint to age. Biography has always had 

is more engaging to the greater num- a moral purpose : to make men pa- 

ber of readers, than the history of the triotic, or brave, or virtuous to make 

theologian or the philosopher. We them better in heart, rather than 

have already hinted that some of more subtle in intellect. Example 

Prior Vaughan's best pages are to be being the great motive power in the 

found in the narrative of the saint's world, the images of men in books 

personal story. have done much to shape the world's 

Biography is as old as the days of course. But the books that have 

* The Life and Labors of s. Thomas of Aquin. preserved the memory of heroic men 

By the Very Rev Roger Bede Vaughan, O.S.B. h ave |^ een O f many different SOrtS. 

a vols. London: Longmans; Hereford: James . , . . , 

Hull. 1871-2. In old times, they used to be books 



Review of Vaiiglians Life of 5. Thomas. 255 

of anecdote books which were a pensity to the picturesque is a curi- 
threaded series of pithy sayings and ous problem. Why is it that Homer 
generous deeds, each with a point of never describes Troy, that Herodotus 
its own, and altogether tending to never gives us a picture of Marathon, 
form the citizen, the soldier, or the that Caesar has no eye for the Rhine, 
virtuous man. And the style of Plu- and that Froissart does not paint St. 
tarch and of Diogenes Laertius was Denis on the day of the Oriflamme, 
continued by Ven. Bede, by William whilst, on the other hand, Montalem- 
of Malmesbury, by Froissart, and by bert stops his story to describe the 
the innumerable chroniclers of the Western Isles, De Broglie lets us see 
middle ages. The biographer speaks the Council of Nicea as it sat, Stan- 
in his own person now and then, but ley consecrates pages to paint Judaea 
his words are very brief, and are often and Carmel, and every writer of a 
not so much an assistance to the saint's life at the present hour pro- 
tale, as a break in it or a sort of pri- vides for a picture or two in every 
vate aside with the reader. The per- chapter ? Who began this ? We do 
sonal features of the hero, his mind not mean who began the picturesque 
or his body, are not made much of in literature, for that question, though 
by the old biographers. You hear a curious one is not so difficult to 
about his height, his complexion, the answer; but who began the pictur- 
color of his hair, or the length of his esque in biography ? It is Chateau- 
chin ; but you are never told when briand who usually gets the credit 
his eye flashes or his lip curls. Dates of having initiated all the romance 
are not matters of importance. You and sentimentality that has crept into 
have his birth and his death, but serious literature during the last 
there is none of that curious compar- half-century. Chateaubriand has 
ative chronology which modern read- only left, if we remember rightly, 
ers know of. And as for any sense one attempt at biography, and the 
of the picturesque, any idea of scene- Vie de Raneg contains certainly sen- 
painting or putting in backgrounds, timent and romance enough, but it 
it need not be -said that the old bio- is not graphic in the way that mo- 
graphies are as plain as the back- dern biographies are. The author 
ground of a Greek theatre. They dashes off brilliant sketches of soci- 
now and then give particulars of ety. he recites imaginary scenes, or 
time, place, and circumstance which rather episodes, in which nature 
their modern transcribers seize plays her part, he makes incisive 
upon as a miner seizes on the rare remarks, and utters beautiful poetry ; 
and welcome nugget ; but these are but when he comes face to face with 
entirely beyond their own intention. De Ranee, the penitent and the 
The historical and the moral are the monk, his hand seems to falter, and 
only two elements to be found in he grows feeble and disappointing, 
lives from Xenophon down to Dr. just where a modern writer would 
Johnson. The latter biographer sug- have seized the opportunity of pow- 
gests that, in his days, the moralizing erful painting and strong situation, 
element had developed out of the For ourselves, whatever influence 
merely moral. But the life of Prior Chateaubriand had and he had 
and the life of Alcibiades are not much in directing men's thoughts 
very distantly related. The time was to analogies that lie beneath the sur- 
jcoming when lives began to be pic- face of nature, of history, and of the 
turesque. The growth of the pro- human heart, we are inclined to at- 



256 Review of Vaughan s Life of S. Thomas. 

f 

tribute the modern craving for the movements of the fight ; he will not 
picturesque to the development of a easily forget it. Something must, 
quality in which Chateaubriand did no doubt, be added to this ; some- 
not especially excel; we mean, ear- thing must be allowed to modern 
nestness and reality. Many causes, culture, to modern appreciation of 
and most of all, perhaps, that series art as art, to modern love of land- 
of political and religious phenomena scape, and to the general romanesque 
which is summed up in the word tendency begun by Chateaubriand. 
revolution, have combined, ; during But so far from the tendency to 
the present century, to take literature picturesque biography being wholly 
out of the hands of merely profes- attributable to sentiment, we hold 
sional writers, or to make those only that it is precisely our modern earn- 
choose it as a profession who have estness that makes us demand to see 
something earnest to say. Style and things nearer and more real. Doubt- 
thought have come to be considered less the picturesque biographer is 
one thing. As De Quincey observes, exposed to many dangers, and his 
style is not the mere alien apparel- readers to many trials. He m&y 
ling of a thought, but rather its very "realize ' what does not exist; he 
incarnation. may " analyze " out of his inner con- 
It is easy to see how earnestness sciousness alone; he may usurp what 
leads to the picturesque in biography, is the privilege of the poet and the 
In proportion as the writer is able to romancer, and give names and habita- 
fix his mind upon his hero, in the tions not only to airy nothings, but, 
same proportion he comes to realize what is much more serious, to un- 
him, as the phrase is. Not only are substantial mistakes. And therefore 
all the facts and circumstances col- we do not wonder that many well- 
lected with the care of a lawyer get- meaning people, with the results of 
ting up a brief, but words and names romantic biography or history before 
that look dead and speechless are their eyes, and youthful remem- 
analyzed as with magnifying power, brances of Lingard and Butler, have 
till they take significance and life, come to distrust every account of a 
Every name, as Aristotle saw, is personage or of a fact which con- 
itself a picture ; but it is a picture tains the smallest mixture of imagin- 
that only requires a more powerful ation. 

imaginative lens to grow greater, The length of these prefatory re- 
fuller, and more living. And there- marks may lead the reader to sup- 
fore the earnest writer, because he pose that Prior Vaughan has written 
looks more intently at his subject, picturesquely and sensationally about 
sees more in it to put upon his can- S. Thomas of Aquin. Yet this, stat- 
vas ; and the reader, struck by the ed absolutely, would by no means be 
significance that he cannot gainsay, true. We shall presently give one or 
and moved by the pictures, as pic- two passages, in which a fine imagi- 
tures always move the human fancy, native and descriptive power, we 
is held in bonds by the writer, and think, is displayed. But the book 
remembers long and vividly what bears no sign of a straining after 
impressed his thought so strongly at pictorial effect. Yet its whole idea 
the first. He is like one who has is pre-eminently picturesque. Prior 
seen the site of a great battle, and Vaughan has written with the idea 
has once for all fixed for himself, as of not merely giving the history of 
he gazed, the relative positions and his chosen saint, but of localizing it 



Review of Vaughan* s Life of S. TJiomas. 257 

in time and in space. It is with this the author, " S. Thomas of Aquin was 

view that he enters into descriptions a Benedictine monk. Had he con- 

of Aquino, of Monte Cassino, of tinned in the habit till his death 

Paris and its University; it is for this without any further solemnity beyond 

that he brings S. Dominic and S. the offering of his parents he would 

Francis on the canvas, and sketches have been reckoned as much a Ben- 

the figures of Frederick II., of Abe- edictine as S. Gregory, S. Augustine, 

lard, of S. Bernard, of William of S. Anselm, or S. Bede " (i. 20). We 

Paris. Each of these names has do not think that this can be denied, 

some connection with Thomas of It was affirmed on oath, in the process 

Aquin, and each throws fresh light of canonization, by an exceedingly 

on the central object, when it is ana- trustworthy witness, that the saint's 

lyzed with care. father " made him a monk " at Monte 

Here is the description, taken from Cassino. And a monk he was, no 

the opening pages of the first volume, doubt, as much as a boy of twelve 

of the town of Aquino, which was, if can be a monk and the Council of 

not the birthplace of the saint, at Trent, be it remembered, had not 

least the principal seat of his family : then fixed the age of religous vows 

The little town of Aquino occupies at sixteen. But the frightful con- 

the centre of a vast and fertile plain, com- fusion of the times brought his Ben- 

monly called Campagna Felice, in the edictine days to a premature close, 

ancient Terra di Lavoro. This plain is Monte Cassino was pillaged and 

by bare and rugged near] dest d the commimitv was 

mountains, one of which pushes further J , imi c > 

than the rest into the plain ; and on its scattered, and Thomas of Aquin went 

spur, which juts boldly out, and which to Naples to study and to find the 

was called significantly Rocca Sicca, was habit of S. Dominic, 

situated the ancient stronghold of the The p ers0 nal character which is 

Aquinos. The remnants of this fortress, -, ,, , ^ c i 

as seen at this day, seem so bound up drawn m thls work 1S that of a lar g e ' 

with the living rock, that they appear minded, serene man, of powerful 

more like the abrupt finish of the moun- natural genius and winning character, 

tain than the ruins of a mediaeval fortress. w ho Steps forth from the ranks of 

Yet they are sufficient to attest the me dia2val nobility, and, turning his 

ancient splendor and importance of the , , j i i j 

place ; and the torrent of Melfi, which, back n SWOrd and lance ' and lvm S 

tumbling out of the gorges of the Alps, no heecl to the tumult of war and 

runs round the castellated rock, marks rapine, deliberately consecrated him- 

it out as a fit habitation for the chivalrous self wholly to God, and, grace being 

and adventurous lords of Aquino, Lo- added to natural g if ts illuminates 

reto, and Belcastro. 1.3,4. ^ u j j 

the world as a doctor and as a saint. 

Prior Vaughan, as a Benedictine, is It would be interesting to dwell, if 

naturally drawn to dwell upon the we had space, upon the circum- 

fact of S. Thomas having lived as a stances of S. Thomas joining the 

boy for five or six years in the Ab- Order of S. Dominic. The opposition 

bey of Monte Cassino. It certainly of his family, the utter unscrupulous- 

seems true that the child was placed ness with which they carried out; 

by his parents in the abbey with a their opposition, the quiet yet fer- 

view to his continuing there after he vent persistence of the saint feudal 

came to years of discretion ; just as violence, maternal desperation, and 

so many children had been from ecclesiastical interference all this 

the days of S. Benedict downwards, makes up a scene of wonderful reai- 

To all intents and purposes," says ity and deep suggestiveness. But 
VOL. xvi. 17 



258 



Review of Vaugharis Life of S. Thomas. 



we must pass it over. S. Thomas 
became a Dominican, and we follow 
him from Naples to Cologne, from 
Cologne to Paris. We follow the 
course of his academical life, his 
writings, his teaching, his promotion 
to the grade of bachelor, of licen- 
tiate, of doctor. The first chapter 
of the second volume is entitled 
"S. Thomas made doctor." It 
contains a lively picture of the great 
University of Paris and its life from 
day to day ; and with it, moreover, 
the author gives an eloquent sum- 
mary of the character of his hero, 
part of which we extract, because it 
is in some sort a k:y to the whole 
story of his life. 

"A man with the power possessed by 
the Angelical could sfford to be serene 
and tranquil. He lived, as it were, be- 
hind the veil ; he saw through, and val- 
ued at its intrinsic worth, this earth's 
stage, and took the measure of all the 
acto-rs on it. Like Moses, he came down 
from the mountain, into the turmoil of 
the chafing world below, and, enlarged 
by the greatness of the vision in which 
he habitually lived, it shrank into insig- 
nificance before his eye ; and those 
events or influences which excited the 
minds of others, and disturbed their 
peace, were looked upon by him some- 
what in the same way as we may imag- 
ine some majestic, solitary eagle surveys 
from his high crag, with half-unconscious 

<eye, the world of woods below him. The 
Angelical himself had drawn his first 
lessons from a mountain eyrie. His 
elastic mind, even as a boy, had expand- 
ed, as he looked down from the mighty 

-abbey, on teeming plain and rugged 
mountain, with the far-distant ranges of 
the snowy Apennines standing up delicate 

.and crisp against the sky. God, who 
made all this, had drawn him to himself, 
and the fingers of a heavenly hand, strik- 
ing on his large, solitary heart, had 
sealed him imperially, for all his life to 
come, as the great master of the heavenly 
science, and as the gentle prince of 
peace. . . . Immense weight of 

^character, surpassing grasp of mind, and 
keenness of logical discernment, added 
to a sovereign benignity and patience, 

and to a gentleness and grace which 



spoke from his eyes and thrilled in the 
accents of his voice, made men con- 
scious, when in contact with him, that 
they were in presence of a man of untold 
gifts, and yet of one so exquisitely noble 
as never to display them, save for the 
benefit of others. Men knew that 
he had the power to crush them ; but 
. since he was so great, they knew also 
that he never would misuse it; they 
found him ever self-forgetting and self- 
restrained. A character with such a ca- 
pability of asserting itself, and yet ever 
manifesting such gentle self-repression, 
must have acted with a singular fascina- 
tion on any generous mind that came 
into relation with it. ... He was a 
vast system in himself, and appears to 
have been specially created for achiev- 
ing such an end. He was one single, 
simple man doubtless. But he was a 
4 system,' or the representation of a sys- 
tem the highest type of what heroism 
can do in human heart and mind. 
Christ, in choosing him, had chosen the 
most majestic of human creations, con- 
verting it into a powerful exponent of the 
light, peace, and splendor which strike 
out from the cross. He, if any man, had 
rested on the bosom of his Lord. He, 
the great Angelical, with the golden sun 
flashing from his breast, and the fire of 
heaven scintillating round his massive 
brow he, if any man, had broken the 
bread of the strong, and had refreshed 
his lips with the blood of the grape, and 
had been transfigured by the draught. 
There is a largeness about him which, 
whilst it expands the heart, seems almost 
to take away the breath. We look up at 
him, and say : 4 How great art thou ! 
how gently courteous, and how tenderly 
true ! Sweet was the power of God, and 
the grace of Christ, which made thee all 
thou art. O gentle mighty sun, shine on 
in thy sweet radiance, spread thy pure 
invigorating rays amidst the deep sad 
shadows of the earth !' . . . Such 
was his character. And, prescinding 
from his natural gifts, how did he become 
so mighty? The cause has been touched 
on and partially developed already. The 
reader, adequately to realize it, would do 
well to study and master, with his heart 
as well as with his head, the monastic 
theology of S. Victor's the Benedictine 
science of the saints. Grasp the spirit 
of S. Anselm, S. Bernard, and the Victor- 
ines, weigh it as a whole, follow its drift, 
mark its salient points, learn to recog- 



Review of Vaug/ians Life of S. Thomas. 259 

nize the aroma of that sweet mystic life place in the records of mental and 

of tough yet tender service and self-for- theological history is that of a dis- 

q-etfulness, and you will have discovered , i 

, . , coverer, a conqueror, and a king, 

that spring of living waters which ran ' 

into the heart and mind of the great An- Here 1S a scene which is perhaps 

gelical, and lent to all his faculties aye, more or less familiar, but it is a type 

and even to his very person and expres- of many scenes ill this wonderful life, 

sion-a warmth and glow which seemed It occurre d whilst Thomas was under 

to have come direct from heaven. From iu TVT /-* i 

Albertus Magnus, at Cologne : 
the rock, which was Christ, flowed straight 

and swift into the paradise of his soul " Master Albert had selected a very 
four crystal waters : Love fixing the en- difficult question from the writings of 
tire being on the sovereign good, and Denis the Areopagite, and had given it 
doing all for him alone ; Reverence to some of his scholars for solution, 
that is, self-distrust and self-forgetful- Whether in joke or in earnest, they 
ness, produced by the vision of God's passed on the difficulty to Thomas, and 
high majesty awfully gazed on with the begged him to write his opinion upon it. 
eye of faith ; Purity treading all created Thomas took the paper to his cell, and, 
things, and self first, under the feet, and, taking his pen, first stated, with great lu- 
with entire freedom of spirit, basking cidity, all the objections that could be 
and feeding in the unseen world; Ado- brought against the question; and then 
ration love, reverence, and purity, com- gave their solutions. As he was going 
bined in one act of supreme worship, as out of his cell, this paper accidentally 
the creature, with all he has and all he fell near the door. One of the brothers 
is, bends prone to the earth, and with a passing picked it up, and carried it at 
feeling of dust and ashes whispers to his once to Master Albert. Albert was ex- 
soul : ' The Lord he is God, he made cessively astonished at the splendid tal- 
us, and not we ourselves !' " (ii. 31-48.) ent which now, for the first time, by mere 

,, r j accident, he discovered in that big, silent 

The mind and heart are both fond student / He determined to bri ng out, in 

the heroic ; and the t he most public manner, abilities which 

heroic is met with at every step in had been for so long a time so mo- 

the life of S. Thomas. We are re- destly concealed. He desired Thomas 

minded, as we read, of that Achil- to defend a thesis before the assembled 

, - f school, on the following day. The hour 

on whose prowess hangs the fate arrived The hall was 5 fi lled. There sat 

Iroy and of the Greeks, Master Albert. Doubtless the majority 

' Full in the midst, high-towering o'er the rest," of. those who were to witness the display 

imagined that they were about to assist 

limbs encased in an armor that is at a * egregious fai f ure . H ow could that 

more divine than that which the heavy, silent lad who could not speak a 

father of fire forged for the son word in private defend in public school, 

of Peleus, the gold upon his breast, against the keenest of opponents, the 

the sword of the Spirit by his side, difficult niceti f s of I 5 e ? lo ??. ? 

r . , . , , 1 were soon undeceived, for Thomas spoke 

broad refulgent shield of wkh such clearnesSf established his the- 

heavenly faith upon his arm, and in s is with such remarkable dialectical skill, 

his hand the great paternal spear that saw so far into the coming difficulties of 

none but he can wield not a the case, and handled the whole subject 

" whole ash " felled upon Pelion by in so masterly a manner, that Albert him- 

i -, n - i ., . - r c ., J self was constrained to cry aloud, Tu 

Juron ; but the seven gifts of the nm vidgris tenere kcum respondeniis sed de _ 

Christian doctorate wielded by the terminantis ! ' ' Master,' replied Thomas 

force of seraphic love. His appearance with humility, ' I know not how to treat 

in the lists of argument, in the contest the question otherwise.' Albert then 

of the schools, in the field of in- thou s ht to P"* 6 ""? f nd s c how him l ! iat 

L . c ' , ,, ., . he was still a disciple, bo, one alter 

lectual strife, has all the quelling another> he started jections , created a 

ower that is ascribed to the greatest hundred labyrinths, weaving and inter- 
heroes of the battle-field ; and his weaving all manner of subtle arguments, 



260 



Revieiv of Vauglians Life of S. Thomas. 



but in vain. Thomas, with his calm 
pirit and keen vision, saw through every 
complication, had the key to every fal- 
lacy, the solution for every enigma, and 
the art to unravel the most tangled skein 
till, finally, Albert, no longer able to 
withhold the expression of his admira- 
tion, cried out to his disciples, who were 
almost stupefied with astonishment : ' We 
call this young man a dumb ox, but so 
loud will be his bellowing in doctrine 
that it will resound throughout the whole 
world'" (i. 321, 322). 

How exactly this prophecy was 
fulfilled need not be said. S. Thom- 
as was soon employed in speaking to 
the world what God had given him 
to say. He spoke in the class-hall 
and in the church ; he wrote for 
young and for old ; and wherever 
his voice was heard men wondered 
as at a portent. The students of 
Paris, the professors of France and 
of Italy, his fellow-religious, the inti- 
mate friend of his privacy, the rough 
people round his pulpit, the pope 
himself as he sat and heard him 
preach, every one said over again 
the wondering words that Albert the 
Great had used* in the hall at Co- 
logne. And if we had no record of 
what men thought, we should still 
be secure in saying that they were 
astonished ; for we are astonished 
ourselves. Many men who have 
made a great noise in their lifetime 
have left posterity to wonder, not at 
themselves, but at their reputation. 
But the writer of the Summa must 
have been great even in his lifetime. 
That breadth of view, that keenness 
of analysis, that comprehensive reach 
of thought, that enormous memory 
we can see it for ourselves, and 
every story of his prowess we can 
readily credit from what the imper- 
ishable record of his written works 
attests to our own eye. Prior 
Vaughan relates interesting anec- 
dotes of his power of discussion, and 
of his influence over the irreverent 
world of his scholastic compeers, fill- 



ing up the outlines of the annalist with 
no greater exercise of imagination 
than is fairly permitted to the serious 
biographer. 

But the heroic in the life of the 
Angel of the Schools would not be 
perfect unless the giant strength had 
been joined to the gentleness of the 
servant of Christ. There is nothing, 
perhaps, that will so strike a reader 
of this Life as his mild, equal, and 
gentle spirit. It does not seem that 
S. Thomas was naturally of a quick 
and impetuous nature, like S. Ignatius 
or S. Francis of Sales. From his 
youth he had been a contemplative 
in the cloisters of Monte Cassino ; 
when but a child he had charmed 
his teachers by asking with childish 
meditative face, " What was God ? ' 
His quiet determination had conquer- 
ed his mother when she opposed him 
being a Dominican; his calm cour- 
age had converted his sisters and 
shamed his brothers. And in the 
schools, his silence and his humility, 
virtues never more difficult to be 
practised than in the field of intellec- 
tual combat, had soon become the 
marvel of all who knew him. A 
great natural gift the gift of a 
changeless serenity of heart and tem- 
per was perfected in him by grace, 
until it became heroic. The contest 
he once had in the Paris schools with 
Brother John of Pisa, a Franciscan 
friar who afterwards became Archbish- 
op of Canterbury, is typical of what 
always happened when the Angelical 
discussed : 

" John of Pisa, though a keen and a 
learned man, had no chance with the An- 
gelical. It would have been folly for any 
one, however skilled yes, for Bonaven- 
ture, or Rochelle, or even Albert the 
Great himself to attempt to cross rapiers 
with Br. Thomas. He was to the manner 
born. Br. John did all that was in him, 
used his utmost skill but it was use- 
less : the Angelical simply upset him 
time after time. The Minorite grew 
warm ; the Angelical, bent simply on 



Review of VaiigJians Life of S. Thomas. 261 

the truth, went on completing, with un- his genius imperial, his rights un- 
moved serenity, the full discomfiture of doubted ; and he used his privileges 

Franciscan. John of Pisa at and ^ d jj f 

length could stand it no longer. In his i . . 

heat he forgot his middle term and forgot u P on the nois 7 s P ints of the time, 

himself, and turned upon the saint with and upon all generations of students 

sarcasm and invective. The Angelical yet to be, that the true type of theo- 

in his own gentle, overpowering way, logical discussion was " humilis colla- 

giving not the slightest heed to these im- fy . ifi disputatio 

pertinences, went on replying to him with ' f y ^ . 

inimitable tenderness and patience ; and lhe theologian was to be no 

whilst teaching a lesson which, after so proud dogmatist, laying down the 

many hundred years, men can still learn, law as if he had discovered all truth, 

drew on himself, unconsciously, the sur- h. ut one wnOj taking the faith for his 

prise and admiration of that vast assem- standing . point humbl t forth and 
bly. Such was the way in which the An- x J x . 

gelical brought the influence of Benedic- peacefully discussed the views that he 

tine quies and benignitas into the boister- thought to be true. This was his 

ous litigations of the Paris schools, great lesson; he taught it in the tone 

And what is more, Frigerio tells us that o f h { s Qwn l ec tures and discussions, 

the saint taught the great lesson of self- .-, r i i 11 

, . .. in the turn of his phrase when he 
control, not only by the undeviating . 

practice of his life, but also by his writ- wrote > m the meekness of his answers, 
ings ;*that he looked upon it as an ' ig- and in the moderation of his con- 
nominy ' (ignominia) to soil the mouth elusions. And we may thank the 
with angry words; and contended that Providence that sent S. Thomas for 
immoderate contentions, vain fa j d . di . { }[ } 
ostentation of knowledge, and the trick J . . J 
of puzzling an adversary with sophistical has ever been the prevailing charac- 
arguments such as is often the practice ter of Catholic theology. The great 
of dialecticians should be banished Dominican school that he founded 
from the schools " (\i. 57-59). carried on the traditions of their 
The appearance of such a man as master ; and (to take an example 
S. Thomas, in the midst of the scho- not far from our own days) the 
lastic agitation of the XHIth century, weighty and admirably clear pages 
partakes of that providential charac- of a Billuart are not unworthy, in 
ter which the eye of faith sees in the their broad, searching, yet tranquil 
lives of all the great saints. We argument, of the master whom they 
have already, in a former notice, follow. A troubled reach of time 
touched upon the marvellous way separates Paris in the XHIth century 
in which he turned the current of from Douay in the XVIIth ; yet the 
thought against rationalism, heresy, spirit of S. Thomas had been living 
and impiety. But his personal in- over it all. Not only in his own reli- 
fluence was no less than what we gious family was his influence strong, 
may term his official. At the mo- The Franciscan Order has its own 
ment when theology was beginning, tradition; but it is a tradition that 
with philosophy as her handmaid, to sprung up side by side with the Do- 
enter on that course of development minican. It was the seraphic Bona- 
in which system, on the one hand, venture that sat beside Thomas of 
advanced in equal steps with dis- Aquin in the hall of the University 
covery on the other, it was the will of Paris on the day when each of 
of God that a saint should show the them received the insignia of the 
world in his own person a perfect doctorate. They were friends 
model of the Catholic scholastic theo- more than friends, for each knew the 
logian. His powers were undeniable, other to be a saint. Each heard the 



262 



Review of Vaughan's Life of S. Thomas. 



other speak, and the spirit of one was 
the spirit of both. And in spite of 
divergences and varieties, such as 
our Lord permits in order to draw 
unity from diversity or good from 
evil, the two Orders have taught in 
harmonious spirit during all the long 
centuries they have been before the 
world. S. Thomas, who reverenced 
S. Bonaventure, has had the rever- 
ence of all S. Bonaventure's children ; 
and we have before us as we write 
the Cursus Theologies, of a venera- 
ble bearded Capuchin, considerably 
esteemed in the theological classes 
of the present day, wiio stops in his 
enumeration of fathers and of doc- 
tors to add his emphatic tribute of 
veneration to the Angelic Doctor, 
who, he reminds us, is, with S. 
Augustine, "pracipuus theologorum om- 
nium temporum magister " the great 
master of theologians of all ages. 
And what we say of the Franciscan 
Order we may say of that great 
school which dates its traditions from 
that Cardinal Toletus who was the 
pupil of the Dominican Soto. It is 
not that the Jesuit theologians, even 
the many-sided Suarez, have looked 
up to S. Thomas as to their prince 
and teacher: this they have done; 
but even if they had left his teach- 
ing, or where they have left his teach- 
ing, they have followed his spirit. 
That spirit we might name the spirit 
of conciliation. We do not mean the 
spirit of compromise, or of going 
only half-way in matters of truth. 
S. Thomas was as downright as 
Euclid. But what we refer to is that 
readiness to admit all the good or 
the true in an opposite view, the 
shrinking from forcing a vague word 
upon an adversary, the impartial dis- 
section of words and phrases which 
issues from the scholastic and Thomis- 
tic method of distinction. The dis- 
tinguo of the tyro or the sophist is a 
trick that is easily learned and easily 



laughed at; but we claim for the 
scholastic method that its distinguo 
is the touchstone of truth and of 
falsehood ; it requires acuteness and 
stored-up learning to make it and 
sustain it ; but it requires, above all, 
that perfect fairness of mind, that 
judicial impartiality of view, which 
calms the promptings of ambitious 
originality; it requires that patience 
which seeks only the truth and cares 
nothing for the victory, and that 
honesty which is afraid of declama- 
tion, and sets its matter out in un- 
adorned and colorless simplicity. 
This is the true scholastic spirit, and 
it is pre-eminently the spirit of S. 
Thomas. If we might personify that 
grand science which has been so 
high in this world, and seems now to 
have sunk so low (yet, with the 
signs around us, we dare hardly say 
so now), it would be under the 
figure of him who is its prince and 
lawgiver. 

" See him, then, our great Angelical, as 
with calm and princely bearing he ad- 
vances, a mighty-looking man, built on 
a larger scale than those who stand 
around him, and takes the seat just va- 
cated by Bonaventure. His portrait as a 
boy has been sketched already. Now 
he has grown into the maturity of a man, 
and his grand physique has expanded 
into its perfect symmetry and manly 
strength, manifesting, even in his frame, 
as Tocco says, that exquisite combina- 
tion of force with true proportion which 
gave so majestic a balance to his mind. 
His countenance is pale with suffering, 
and his head is bald from intense and 
sustained mental application. Still, the 
placid serenity of his broad, lofty brow, 
the deep gray light in his meditative eyes, 
his firm, well-chiselled lips, and fully de- 
fmed jav/, the whole pose of that large, 
splendid head combining the manliness 
of the Roman with the refinement and deli- 
cacy of the Greek impress the imagina- 
tion with an indescribable sense of giant 
energy of intellect, of royal gentleness of 
heart, and untold tenacity of purpose. 
That sweet face reflects so exquisite a 
purity, that noble bust is cast in so impe- 



Review of Vaiighan s Life of S. Thomas. 



263 



rial a mould, that the sculptor or the 
painter would be struck and arrested by 
it in a moment ; the one would yearn to 
throw so classical a type into imperish- 
able marble, and the other to transfer so 
much grandeur of contour, and such de- 
licacy of expression, so harmonious a fu- 
sion of spotlessness with majesty, of 
southern loveliness with intellectual 
strength, to the enduring canvas" (ii. 
108, 109). 

The angelic quality of the Angel 
of the Schools his calmness and his 
power over men was not bought 
without a price. Like all the saints, 
he too had to bear the cross, and 
like all the saints he was not content 
with suffering the cross, but he sought 
it and courted it. We cannot quote 
much more of Prior Vaughan's nar- 
rative, or else we would fain draw 
attention to the account he gives 
from authentic sources of Thomas' 
holy distress of mind, and his mid- 
night prayer the night before he re- 
ceived the doctorate. But the fol- 
lowing paragraph must be transcrib- 
ed : 

" Let the carnal man, after looking on 
the sweet Angelical fascinating the 
crowded schools, take the trouble to fol- 
low him, as silently, after the day's work, 
he retires to his cell, seemingly to rest; 
let him watch him bent in prayer; see 
him take from its hiding-place, when all 
have gone to sleep, that hard iron chain ; 
see him as he looks up to heaven and 
humbles himself to earth without mercy 
to his flesh, scourge himself with it, 
striking blow upon blow, lacerating his 
body through the greater portion of the 
sleepless night : let the carnal man look 
upon this touching sight ; let him shrink 
back in horror if he will still let him 
look on it, and he will learn how the 
saints labored to secure a chaste and 
spotless life, and how a man can so far 
annihilate self-seeking as to be gentle 
with all the world, severe with himself 
alone. If in human life there is anything 
mysteriously adorable, it is a man of 
heroic mould and surpassing gifts show- 
ing himself great enough to smite his 
own body, and to humble his entire being 
in pretence of his Judge" (ii. 60, 61). 



S. Thomas died in the prime of 
life when scarcely forty-eight years 
old. He was called away a little be- 
fore his great work, the Summa, was 
completed, as if his Master wished to 
show the lamenting world that his 
own claims were paramount to every 
other thing. But it was that divine 
Master himself who had rendered it 
necessary to take away his servant 
when he did ; for S. Thomas could 
write no more. After that vision 
and ecstasy which rapt his soul in 
the chapel of S. Nicholas at Naples, 
he ceased to write, he ceased to dic- 
tate ; his pen lay idle, and the Sum- 
ma stood still in the middle of the 
questions on penance. It was, as he 
said to his companion Reginald, Non 
possum! "I cannot! Everything 
that I have written appears to me as 
simply rubbish." From that day of 
S. Nicholas he lived in a continual 
trance : he wrote no more. As the 
new year (1274) came in, he set out, 
at the pope's call, to attend the gen- 
eral council at Lyons : but he was 
never to get so far. He had not 
journeyed beyond Campania he 
was still travelling along the shores of 
that sunny region which had given 
him birth, when mortal illness arrest- 
ed him, and he was taken to the 
Abbey of Fossa Nuova to die. 

" The abbot conducts him through the 
church into the silent cloister. Then the 
whole past seems to break in upon him 
like a burst of overflowing sunlight ; the 
calm and quiet abbey, the meditative 
corridor, the gentle Benedictine monks ; 
he seems as if he were at Cassino once 
again, amidst the glorious visions of his 
boyish days amidst the tender friend- 
ships of his early youth, close on the 
bones of ancient kings, near the solemn 
tomb of Blessed Benedict, in the hallow- 
ed home of great traditions, and at the 
very shrine of all that is fair and noble in 
monastic life. He seemed completely 
overcome by the memories of the past, 
and, turning to the monks who sur- 
rounded him, exclaimed " This is the 



264 Review of VaugJians Life of S. Thomas. 



place where I shall find repose!' and knows something which other men 

then ecstatically to Reginald in presence c j o not> ^} ie p res ent time, therefore, 

of them all: * Hac est requies mea in stzcti- ^ Qne ^ which w are tQ look for 

him sccculi. hie habitaoo quomam elegi earn , . i ,1 

This is my rest for ever and ever; here and to hope for men who in the- 

-vill I dwell, for I have chosen it' " (ii. 921). ol g7 and Catholic philosophy shall 

be as able and as learned as are the 

The whole of this last scene of the leaders of profane science. Hard 

v^reat saint's pilgrimage is admirably work and unwearying devotedness 

and most touchingly brought out by are essential to this; and the exam- 

the author, and our readers must go p i e of S. Thomas shows us what these 

to it themselves. As we conclude things mean. But there is something 

the story, we are forced to agree which is more necessary still ; some- 

with Prior Vaughan when he ex- thing which is especially necessary in 

claims, "It is but natural, it is but sacred science. " In malevolam ani- 

beautiful, that he who in early boy- mam non intrabit Sapientia, nee ha- 

hood had been stamped with the sig- bitabit in corpore subdito peccatis." 

net of S. Benedict, should return to There is no such thing as the highest 

S. Benedict to die !" wisdom without the highest purity of 

We are sure that this life of S. heart The perfection of the Chris- 
Thomas of Aquin will do good. It tian doctorate is the consequence 
is a large book, but it deals with a o f the perfect possession and excer- 
large and a grand life. It is the c ise of the Seven Gifts of the Holy 
work of one who evidently has an in- Ghost. And the holy fathers who 
terest in his subject far beyond that have written on Christian wisdom 
of the mere compiler. The earnest- tell us repeatedly, using almost iden- 
ness, the warmth, the very redundan- tical words, that a man might as 
cy and fulness of the author's style, well try to study the sun with pur- 
leave the impression of one whose blind eyes as to be perfect in theo- 
heart is strongly impressed by the logy with a heart defiled. There 
glorious career which he has been has been no greater example in the 
following so minutely, and there is range of sanctity of what S. Augustine 
little doubt that his readers will sym- calls the " niens purgatissima ' : than 
pathize with him. And there can be that of him who on account of his 
just as little doubt of the benefits purity has been called the Angelical, 
which a practical study of the life of Leaving the world as a child, his 
the great doctor will confer upon stu- heart hardly knew what earthly con- 
dents, upon priests, and upon all seri- cupiscence was. With his loins gird- 
ous men at the present day. Sane- ed by angels' hands, with his body 
tity taught by example is always an subdued by hard living, with his 
important lesson ; but the saintliness thought always ranging among high 
of learning and genius is still more and elevating things, the soul of S. 
important and still more rare. We Thomas lived in a region that did 
live in an age when there are num- not belong to the world. He learnt 
bers of men who are profoundly his wisdom of the crucifix, he found 
scientific and splendidly accom- his inspirations at the foot of the 
plished in the different branches of altar ; and the same lips that dictated 
knowledge which they profess; and the Commentaries on Aristotle were 
there is no one who is more sure of ready to break forth with the Lauda 
the world's attention and reverence Sion and the Pange Lingua. If he 
than the man who can show that he taught in the daytime, he chastised 



To S. Mary Magdalen. 265 

his body during the watches of the in consideration of the heart and 
night. Born to a gentle life, with soul he has thrown into it. S. Thomas 
powerful friends, with the world and of Aquin is evidently a very real, liv- 
its attractions within his reach, he ing being with him. His hero is no 
lived in his narrow cell, cleaving to abstraction of the past, no quintes- 
his desk and to his breviary, walk- sence of a scholastic that must be 
ing the streets with a quick step and looked at as one looks at an E gyp- 
downcast eye, letting the world go tian papyrus in a museum. He is a 
on its way. He wanted only man to know, not merely to know 
one thing not as a reward for his about ; a man who taught in Paris 
labor, because his labor was only a and who reigns in heaven ; a man 
means to a great end he wanted who led an angel's life here below, 
only that one object which he asked and who can help us to lead a life 
for when the figure spoke to him more or less angelic from his place 
from the Cross, "Thee, O Lord! above. To have worked with such 
and thee alone ! " a spirit is to have worked in the true 
Prior Vaughan has accomplished spirit of the Catholic faith. The 
a task for which he will receive the saints are our teachers and masters ; 
thanks of all English-speaking Catho- and, what is more, they are the trum- 
lics. His book will be read, and pets that rouse us to battle, the living 
will be treasured; for it is a book voices that make our hearts burn 
with a large purpose, carried out to follow them. And therefore a 
with unwearying labor, presenting true life of a saint will live, and 
the results of wide reading, and offer- will do its work. Our wish is that 
ing the student and the general read- Prior Vaughan's S. Thomas may 
er a large variety of solid information make its way into the hearts of earn- 
and of suggestive thought. If the est men, and it is our conviction that 
book were less honestly wrought out it will make its way, and that men 
than it is, we could excuse the author, will be the better for it. 



TO S. MARY MAGDALEN. 

'Mm the white spouses of the Sacred Heart, 

After its Queen, the nearest, dearest, thou. 

Yet the aureola around thy brow 

Is not the virgins'. Thine a throne apart. 

Nor yet, my Saint, does faith-illumined art 

Thy hand with palm of martyrdom endow : 

And when thy hair is all it will allow 

Of glory to thy head, we do not start. 

O more than virgin in thy penitent love ! 

And more than martyr in thy passionate woe ! 

How should thy sisters equal thee above, 

Who knelt not with thee on the gory sod ? 

Or where the crown our worship could bestow 

Like that long gold which wiped the feet of God ? 



266 God's Acre. 



GOD'S ACRE. 

IN all countries and in all creeds, of God ; but how far harder now for 
the dead have claimed the affection- a fond heart, a clinging nature, to 
ate notice of the living. The idea see in those it loves so many perish- 
of housing them, deifying them, pro- able puppets, without future and 
pitiating them, of remembering them without hope ! But happily there is 
in some way, however diverse, has a haven to which these storm-tossed 
always been a prominent one. The souls may come with the precious 
belief in the soul's immortality seems freight of their love and their unerr- 
to have been even more clear to the ing Catholic instincts. Their coin- 
ordinary mind of the natural man panions and brethren are not gone 
than that of a Supreme and Almighty into trackless chaos, they are not ab- 
Being. When Christianity appeared, sorbed into that monstrous " noth- 
the departed had a place assigned ing " of which a false philosophy has 
them among the members of the made a bewildering bugbear. Every 
church, and were commemorated as year the church protests against such 
absent brethren gone before their revolting doctrines on the day which 
fellows one stage further on the last she publicly consecrates to prayers 
great journey ; when the Reformation for and remembrance of the depart- 
disfranchised human nature in the ed. This festival is like a spiritual 
XVIth century, and levelled all its harvest-home; coming as it does 
hallowed aspirations with the brute just at the close of the ecclesiastical 
instincts of the animal kingdom, the year, it marks an epoch in the life 
dead, though divorced from commit- of the church suffering; and various 
nion with the living, were yet remem- "revelations" made to saints, as 
bered, and placed in two categories well as the collective belief of the 
the elect, or the precondemned. faithful, agree in considering it a day 
Another life was even then believed of liberation and rejoicing among the 
in, and later branches of the reform- souls in Purgatory. " God's Acre " 
ing sects all condescended at least (according to the touching and sug- 
to theorize on the future state of dis- gestive German idiom) is reaped on 
embodied spirits. It remained for that auspicious day, though, like Boaz, 
our times to foster the cruel ////belief the Divine Reaper leaves yet a few 
that dooms our loved ones, not even ears of corn to be gleaned into heav- 
to everlasting perdition, but to ab- enly rest by the prayers of the faith- 
solute annihilation. It was hard ful on earth. 

enough in Puritan days for a pious Before we go further into our own 

though mistaken mind to bring itself beautiful view of the future life, let 

to the belief that possibly the loved us stop to see how other races and 

companion of childhood, the chosen religions have treated the dead, 

mate of youth, the venerable parent, Of the Egyptians, it is difficult to 

the upright teacher, was one of those speak except at too great a length, 

predestined to eternal torments, one and, not having at hand sufficient au- 

of the holocausts to the greater glory thority, we can only set down what 



God's Acre. 267 

our recollection will supply. The warriors, men of influence, went to 

readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD the happy hunting-grounds, while the 

will no doubt remember some inter- slothful, the weak, the cowardly, were 

esting articles published a few months doomed to eat serpents and ashes in 

since regarding the ancient civiliza- dreary regions of mist and darkness, 

tion of Egypt, in which copious refer- . . . The spirits, in form and feature, 

ence was made to the esteem and re- as they had been in life, wended their 

spect paid to the dead in that coun- 'way through dark forests to the vil- 

try. The singular custom of pledg- lages of the dead, subsisting on bark 

ing the embalmed body of a father and rotten wood. On arriving, they 

or ancestor, on the receipt of a loan, sat all day in the crouching posture 

was noticed ; also the dishonor at- of the sick, and when night came 

taching to the non-redemption of hunted the shades of animals, with 

such a pledge. A learned English the shades of bows and arrows, 

author, speaking incidentally of among the shades of trees and rocks; 

Egyptian embalming, mentions that for all things, animate and inanimate, 

the word mummy is derived from were alike immortal, and all passed 

" mum," which, he says, is Egyptian together to the gloomy country of 

for wax. Representations of the the dead." The public ceremony of 

embalming process have been found exhuming the dead, of which some 

on tombs and sarcophagi, in which interesting details are given further 

the men engaged in it are seen wear- on, was supposed to be the occasion 

ing masks with eagles' beaks, proba- of the beginning of the other life, 

bly iron masks, thereby denoting of The souls " took wing, as some 

what a poisonous and dangerous na- affirmed, in the shape of pigeons ; 

ture this absolutely incorruptible em- while the greater number believed 

balmment must have been. The Pyr- that they journeyed on foot ... to 

amids are perhaps the most imposing the land of shades, . . . but, as the 

funeral monuments ever raised to the spirits of the old and of children are 

memory of mortals, and even the fa- too feeble for the march, they are 

mous Mausoleum of Artemisia can forced to stay behind, lingering near 

have had no more massive or eternal their earthly homes, where the living 

an aspect. often hear the shutting of their invisi- 

To pass from the cradle of older ble cabin doors, and the weak voices 

civilization to the land whose origi- of the disembodied children driving 

nal peopling has sometimes been at- birds from their corn-fields. . . . The 

tributed, though we believe inaccur- Indian land of souls is not always a 

ately, to Egyptian enterprise, the region of shadows and gloom. The 

America of the Aztec and the Red Hurons sometimes represented the 

Indian, we find in Parkman's Jesuits souls of their dead as dancing joyously. 

in America some lengthy details on ... According to some Algon- 

the funereal customs of the Huron quin traditions, heaven was a scene 

tribe, now extinct. He says that of endless festivity, ghosts dancing to 

"the primitive Indian believed in the the sound of the rattle and the drum, 

immortality of the soul, but not al- ... Most of the traditions agree, 

ways in a state of future punishment however, that the spirits were beset 

or reward. Nor was the good or with difficulties and perils. There 

evil to be rewarded or punished was a swift river which must be 

(when such a belief did exist) of a crossed on a log that shook beneath 

moral nature. Skilful hunters, brave their feet, while a ferocious dog op- 



268 



God's Acre. 



posed their passage, and drove many 
into the abyss. This river was full 
of sturgeon and other fish, which the 
ghosts speared for their subsistence. 
Beyond was a narrow path between 
moving rocks which each instant 
crashed together, grinding to atoms 
the less nimble of the pilgrims who 
endeavored to pass. The Hurons 
believed that a personage named 
Oscotarach, or the Head-Piercer, 
dwelt in a bark house beside the 
path, and that it was his office to re- 
move the brains from the heads of 
all who went by, as a necessary pre- 
paration for immortality. This singu- 
lar idea is found also in some Algon- 
quin traditions, according to which, 
however, the brain is afterwards 
restored to its owner." 

Le Clerc, in his Nouvelle Relation 
de la Gaspe'sie, tells a curious story, 
which is mentioned in a foot-note 
by Parkman. It was current in his 
(Le Clerc's) time among the Algon- 
quins of Gaspe and Northern New 
Brunswick, and bears a remarkable 
likeness to the old myth of Orpheus 
and Eurydice. "The favorite son 
of an old Indian died, whereupon 
the father, with a party of friends, 
set out for the land of souls to re- 
cover him. It was only necessary to 
wade through a shallow lake, several 
days' journey in extent. This they 
did, sleeping at night on platforms 
of poles which supported them above 
the water. At length, they arrived 
and were met by Papkootparout, the 
Indian Pluto, who rushed on them 
in a rage, with his war-club upraised, 
but, presently relenting, changed his 
mind and challenged them to a game 
of ball. They proved the victors, 
and won the stakes, consisting of 
com, tobacco, and certain fruits, 
which thus became known to man- 
kind. The bereaved father now beg- 
ged hard for his son's soul, and 
Papkootparout at last gave it to him 



in the form and size of a nut, which, 
by pressing it hard between his 
hands, he forced into a small leather 
bag. The delighted parent carried 
it back to earth, with instructions to 
insert it into the body of his son, who 
would thereupon return to life. When 
the adventurers reached home, and 
reported the happy issue- of their 
journey, there was a dance of rejoic- 
ing; and the father, wishing to take 
part in it, gave his son's soul to the 
keeping of a squaw who stood by. 
Being curious to see it, she opened 
the bag, upon which it escaped at 
once, and took flight for the realms 
of Papkootparout, preferring them to 
the abodes of the living." 

These superstitions, although they 
may make us smile, yet attest, 
through their rude simplicity, the 
natural and deep-rooted existence in 
all races of a belief not only in the 
immortality of the soul, but in the 
possibility of communication with the 
departed. The Buddhist doctrine of 
transmigration is but a distorted ver- 
sion of the truth we call purgatory, 
that is, a state of temporary expia- 
tion and gradual cleansing. The 
Egyptian practice of embalming the 
dead and often of preserving the 
bodies of several generations of one's 
forefathers in the family house, is 
another consequence of the primeval 
belief in the soul's immortality. 
Everywhere reverence for the' dead 
implied this belief and symbolized it, 
and even the custom of placing in 
the mouth of the Roman dead the 
piece of money, denarius, with which 
to pay their passage over the Styx, is 
referable to the true doctrine of good 
works being laid up in heaven and 
helping those who have performed 
them to gain the desired entrance 
into eternal repose. 

The following minute description of 
the Indian feast of the dead, of which 
mention has already been made, is in- 



God's Acre. 269 

teresting, and is condensed from the less rolls, others were made up into 
account given by Father Brebceuf: clumsy effigies, adorned with feathers, 
"The corpses were lowered from beads, etc. In the morning (the 
their scaffolds and lifted from their procession having arrived over night 
graves. Each family claimed its at Ossonane) the relics were taken 
own, and forthwith addressed itself to down, opened again, and the bones 
the task of removing what remained fondled anew by the women, amid 
of flesh from the bones. These, after paroxysms of grief. When the pro- 
being tenderly caressed with tears cession bearing the dead reached the 
and lamentations, were wrapped in ground prepared for the last so- 
skins and pendent robes of beaver, lemnity, the bundles were laid on the 
These relics, as also the recent ground, and the funeral gifts out- 
corpses, which remained entire, but spread for the admiration of the be- 
were likewise carefully wrapped in holders. Among them were many 
furs, were carried to one of the robes of beaver and other rich furs, 
largest houses, and hung to the nu- collected and preserved for years 
inerous cross poles which, rafterlike, with a view to this festival. Fires 
supported the roof. The concourse were lighted and kettles slung, and 
of mourners seated themselves at a the scene became like a fair or cara- 
funeral feast, the squaws of the vanserai. This continued till three 
household distributed the food, and o'clock in the afternoon, when the 
a chief harangued the assembly, la- gifts were repacked, and the bones 
meriting the loss of the deceased and shouldered afresh. Suddenly, at a 
praising their virtues. This over, the signal from the chiefs, the crowd ran 
mourners began their march for Os- forward from every side towards the 
sonane, the scene of the final rite, scaffolding, like soldiers to the as- 
The bodies remaining entire were sault of a town, scaled it by the rude 
borne on litters, while the bundles of ladders with which it was furnished, 
bones were slung at the shoulders of and hung their relics and their gifts 
the relatives, like fagots. The pro- to the forest of poles which sur- 
cession thus denied slowly through mounted it. The chiefs then again 
the forest pathways, and as they harangued the people in praise of the 
passed beneath the shadow of the departed, while other functionaries 
pines, the mourners uttered at inter- lined the grave throughout with rich 
vals and in unison a wailing cry, robes of beaver skin. Three large 
meant to imitate the voices of disem- copper kettles were next placed in 
bodied souls, . . . and believed to the middle, and then ensued a scene 
have a peculiarly soothing effect on of hideous confusion. The bodies 
the conscious relics that each man which had been left entire were 
carried. The place prepared for the brought to the edge of the grave, 
last rite was a cleared area in the flung in, and arranged in order at 
forest, many acres in extent, the bottom by ten or twelve In- 
Around it was a- high and strong dians, stationed there for the purpose, 
scaffolding of upright poles, with cross- amid the wildest excitement and the 
poles extended between, for hanging uproar of many hundred mingled 
the funeral gifts and the remains voices. Night was now fast closing 
of the dead. The fathers lodged in in, and the concourse bivouacked 
a house where over a hundred of around the clearing. . . . One of 
these bundles of mortality hung from the bundles of bones, tied to a pole 
the rafters. Some were mere shape- on the scaffold, chanced to fall into 



God's Acre. 



the grave. This accident precipita- 
ted the closing act, and perhaps in- 
creased its frenzy. All around 
blazed countless fires, and the air re- 
sounded with discordant cries. The 
naked multitude, on, under, and 
around the scaffolding, were flinging 
the remains of their dead, relieved 
from their wrappings of skins, pell- 
mell into the pit, where were disco- 
vered men who, as the ghastly 
shower fell around them, arranged 
the bones in their places with long 
poles. All was soon over; earth, 
logs, and stones were cast upon the 
grave, and the clamor subsided into 
a funereal chant, so dreary and lugu- 
brious that it seemed like the wail of 
despairing souls from the abyss of 
perdition." 

These processions and ceremonies 
relating to the bones of the dead re- 
mind us of the singular custom ob- 
served at the Capuchin Convent of 
the Piazza Barberini in Rome. The 
skeletons of the dead monks are 
robed in the habit of the order and 
seated in 'choir-stalls round the crypt, 
until they fall to pieces, or are dis- 
placed by a silent new-comer to their 
ghostly brotherhood. The bones 
which are thus yearly accumulating 
are formed into patterns of stars and 
crosses on the walls of the crypt 
and surrounding corridors, while the 
skulls are often heaped up in small 
mounds against the partitions. The 
convent is strictly enclosed, and is only 
accessible to men during the rest of 
the year, but on All Souls' day and 
during the octave, the public, men 
and women alike, are allowed to visit 
this strange place of entombment. 
Crowds flock to see it, especially for- 
eigners. Hawthorne, in his Marble 
Faun, has described it in terms that 
make one feel as if his impression 
were vivid enough to supply the 
place of a personal one on the part 
of each of his readers. 



The ancient Roman customs and 
beliefs concerning the dead are well 
worth noticing, as embodying the es- 
sence of the utmost civilization a 
heathen land could boast. It is said 
that the Romans chose the cypress 
as emblematic of death because that 
tree, when once cut, never grows 
again. The facts of natural history 
are sometimes disregarded by the 
ancient poets, but it is not with that 
that we now have to deal, but with 
the false idea symbolized by this 
choice. The Romans, nevertheless, 
fully believed in an after-life, though 
one modelled much on the same 
principle as their life on earth. The 
unburied and those whose bodies 
could not be found were supposed 
to wander about, unable to cross the 
river Styx, and their friends therefore 
generally built them an empty tomb, 
which they believed served as a retreat 
to their restless spirits. Pliny ascribes 
the Roman custom of burning the 
dead to the belief that was current 
amongst the people, that their ene- 
mies dug up and insulted the bodies 
of, their soldiers killed in distant 
wars. During the earlier part of the 
Republic, the dead were mostly bu- 
ried in the natural way, in graves or 
vaults. Some very strange ceremo- 
nies are recorded in Adams' Roman 
Antiquities concerning the funeral 
processions, which usually took place 
at night by torch-light. (This was 
chiefly done to avoid any chance of 
meeting a priest or magistrate, who 
was supposed to be polluted by the 
sight of a corpse, as in the Jewish 
dispensation.) After the musicians, 
who sang the praises of the de- 
ceased to the accompaniment of 
flutes, came " players and buffoons, 
one of whom, called archimimus (the 
chief mimic), sustained the character 
of the deceased, imitating his words 
or actions while alive. These play- 
ers sometimes introduced apt sayings 



God's Acre. 27 1 

from dramatic writers." Actors were and ornaments, and, " in short, whar 

also employed to personate the indi- ever was supposed to have been 

vidual ancestors, and Adams' com- agreeable to him when alive." As 

mentator adds in a foot-note : " A the funeral cortege left the place 

Roman funeral must therefore have where the body had been burnt, they 

presented a singular appearance, with " used to take a last farewell, repeat- 

a long line of ancestors stalking ing several times Vale, or Salve 

gravely through the streets of the aternum* also wishing that the earth 

capital." Pliny, Plautus, Polybius, might lie light on the person buried, 

Suetonius, and others are the authori- as Juvenal relates, and which was 

ties quoted on this curious point. It found marked on several ancient 

is said by some authors that, in very monuments in these letters, S.T.T.L. f 

ancient times, the dead were buried " This is a very remarkable instance 

in their own houses ; hence the origin of the dead being considered, in one 

of idolatry, the worship of household sense, as conscious, sentient beings, 

gods, the fear of goblins, etc. Rela- and evidently has an origin which 

tions also consecrated temples to the can hardly be disconnected from 

dead, which Pliny calls a very an- some remote or indistinct recollection 

cient custom, which had its share in of the true religion." 
contributing to the establishment of Adams goes on to say that " obla- 

idol-worship. In the Book of Wis- tions or sacrifices to the dead were 

dom * we find a reference to this in afterwards made at various times, 

these words : " For a father, being both occasionally and at stated pe- 

afflicted with bitter grief, made to riods, consisting of liquors, victims, 

himself the image of his son, who was and garlands, as Virgil, Tacitus, and 

quickly taken away , and him who Suetonius tell us, and sometimes to 

then had died as a man, he began appease their manes, or atone for 

now to worship as a god, and ap- some injury offered them in life, 

pointed him rites and sacrifices The sepulchre was bespread with 

among his servants. Then in process flowers, and covered with crowns and 

of time, wicked custom prevailing, fillets. Before it there was a little 

this error was kept as a law." altar, on which libations were made 

Adams tells us that " the private and incense burnt. A keeper was 

places of burial of the Romans were appointed to watch the tomb, which 

in fields or gardens, usually near the was frequently illuminated with 

highway (such as the Via Appia near lamps. A feast was generally added, 

Rome, the Via Campana near Poz- both for the dead and the living, 

zuoli, the Street of Tombs at Pom- Certain things were laid on the tomb, 

peii), to be conspicuous and remind commonly beans, lettuce, bread, 

those who passed of mortality, and eggs, or the like, which it was 

Hence the frequent inscriptions supposed the ghosts would come and 

Siste, viator, \ Aspice, viator.\ Games eat. What remained was burnt, 

of gladiators were frequently held both After the funeral of great men, . . . 

on the day and the anniversaries of a distribution of raw meat was made 

great funerals ; and on the pyre to the people." 

slaves and clients were sometimes " Immoderate grief was thought to 
burnt with the body of their deceased be offensive to the manes, accord- 
master, as also all manner of clothes ing to Tibullus, but during the short- 

* xiv. 15, 16. f " Stop, traveller." * " Farewell," or " Hail, for ever." 

% " Behold, traveller." t Sit tibi terra levis. 



272 God's Acre. 

ened mourning that was customary, Wiseman is so popular an author, and 

the relations of the deceased abstain- Fabiola so standard a novel, that we 

ed from entertainments or feasts of may be forgiven for drawing a little 

any sort, wore no badge of rank or on treasures so temptingly ready to 

nobility, were not shaved, and dress- our hand. There is in the first chap- 

ed in black, a custom borrowed (as ter of the second part of Fabiola an 

was supposed) from the Egyptians, interesting reference to the old-estab- 

" No fire was ever lighted, as it lished craft of the fossores, or exca- 

was considered an ornament to the vators of the Christian cemeteries, 

house." Cardinal Wiseman says that some 

The common places of burial modern antiquarians have based 
were called columbaria, from the like- upon the assertion of an -anony- 
ness of their arrangement to that of a mous writer, contemporary with S. 
pigeon-house, each little niche scoop- Jerome, an erroneous theory of the 
ed out in the walls holding the small fossores having formed a lesser ec- 
urn in which the ashes of the dead clesiastical order in the primitive 
were deposited. These columbaria, church, like a lector or reader. "But," 
Adams tells us, were often below he adds, " although this opinion is 
ground, like a vault, but private untenable, it is extremely probable 
tombs belonging to wealthy citizens that the duties of this office were in 
were in groves and gardens ; as, for the hands of persons appointed and 
instance, that of Augustus, mentioned recognized by ecclesiastical author- 
by Strabo, who calls it a hanging ity. ... It was not a cemetery or 
garden supported on marble arches, necropolis company which made a 
with shrubs planted round the base, speculation of burying the dead, but 
and the Egyptian obelisks at the en- rather a pious and recognized con- 
trance. The tomb of Adrian, now fraternity, which was associated for 
the Castel S. Angelo, was a perfect the purpose." Father Marchi, the 
palace of wealth and art, and sup- great Jesuit authority on ancient 
plied many a later building with subterranean Rome, says that a series 
ready-made adornment before it be- of interesting inscriptions, found in 
came what it now is, a fortress. The the cemetery of S. Agnes, proves 
tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the that this occupation was continued 
Via Appia, was also used as a medi- in particular families, grandfather, 
seval stronghold, and looks more fit father, and sons having carried it 
for such a use than for its former on in the same place. Thefesseres 
funereal distinction. also transacted such rare bargains 

From ancient and imperial, we as were known in those days of sim- 
now pass to modern and Christian plicity and brotherly love, when 
Rome, so undistinguishable in the wealthy Christians willingly made 
chronology of their first blending, so compensation for the privilege of be- 
widely apart in the moral order of ing buried near a martyr's tomb, 
their succession. Such an arrangement is commemor- 
The subject of the catacombs ated in an early Christian inscription 
and the early inscriptions on Christian preserved in the Capitol. The trans- 
graves is one so widely known- and lation runs thus: "This is the grave 
so copiously illustrated by many for two bodies, bought by Artemisius, 
learned works, both English and and the price was given to the 
foreign, that it would be superfluous fossor Hilarus that is ... (the 
to say much about it. Yet Cardinal number, being in cipher, is unintel- 



God's Acre. 273 

ligible.) In the presence of Severus ' deposited \\\ peace,' ' ; the deposition of 
the/0ss0r, and Laurentius." . . .' are the expressions used ; that 
Cardinal Wiseman, jealous of is, the dead are left there for a time, 
Christian traditions, particularly till called for again, as a pledge or 
notes that the theory of the sub- precious thing, entrusted to faithful 
terranean crypts, now called cata- but temporary keeping. The very 
combs, ever having been heathen ex- name of cemetery suggests that it is 
cavations for the extraction of sand, only a place where many lie, as in a 
has been disproved by Marchi's care- dormitory, slumbering for a while, 
ful and scientific examination. He till dawn come and the trumpet's 
then describes the manner of entomb- sound awake them. Hence the 
ment used in these underground grave is only called the ' place,' or 
cemeteries : " Their walls as well as more technically the small home,'* 
the sides of the staircases are honey- of the dead in Christ." 
combed with graves, that is, rows of The old Teutonic Gottcs-Acker, 
excavations, large and small, of suffi- the acre or field of God, denotes the 
cient length to admit a human body, same eminently Christian idea j the 
from a child to a full-grown man. . . . dead are thus likened to the seed 
They are evidently made to measure, hidden in the ground for a while, to 
and it is probable that the body was ripen into a glorious spiritual harvest 
lying by the side of the grave while when the last call shall be heard, 
this was being dug. When the corpse We have read somewhere, in an 
was laid in its narrow cell, the front English novel whose name has escap- 
was hermetically closed either by a ed our memory, the same beautiful 
marble-slab, or more frequently by idea most poetically expressed. It 
several broad tiles put edgeways in a was something to this effect : " \Ve 
groove or mortise, cut for them in the put up a stone at the head of a grave, 
rock, and cemented all round. The just as we write labels in the spring- 
inscription was cut upon the marble, time for the seeds we put into the 
or scratched in the wet mortar. . . . earth, that we may remember what 
Two principles, as old as Christianity, glorious flower is to spring from the 
regulate this mode of burial. The little gray, hidden handful that seems 
first is the manner of Christ's entomb- so insignificant just now " a Catho- 
ment; he was laid in a grave in a lie thought found astray in a book 
cavern, wrapped up in linen, em- that had nothing Catholic about it 
balmed with spices, and a stone, save its beauty and poetry ; for beau- 
sealed up, closed his sepulchre. As ty is a ray of truth, and truth is one 
S. Paul so often proposes him for the and Catholic. One other remark is 
model of our resurrection, and speaks worth remembering about the early 
of our being buried with him in Christian inscriptions on the tombs 
baptism, it was natural for his dis- of the departed. There is generally 
ciples to wish to be buried after his some anxiety to preserve a record of 
example, so as to be ready to rise the exact date of a person's death, 
with him. This lying in wait for the and, in modern days, if it happened 
resurrection was the second thought that there was no room for both the 
that regulated the formation of these day and the year, no doubt the day, 
cemeteries. Every expression con- would be left unnoticed, and the year 
nected with them alluded to the ris- carefully chronicled. " Yet," says 
ing again. The word to bury is 
unknown in Christian inscriptions: * LOCUS, 
VOL. xvi. 1 8 



274 God's Acre. 

Cardinal Wiseman, "while so few spiritual help and sympathy of the liv- 

ancient Christian inscriptions supply ing, and to dwarf in the souls of men 

the year of people's deaths, thou- what even human laws commanded, 

sands give us the very day of it on or at least protected, concerning their 

which they died, whether in the bodies. The want of our age is a 

hopefulness of believers or in the as- want of heart ; heartlessness and 

surance of martyrs. Of both classes callousness to the most sacred, the 

annual commemoration had to be most natural feelings, is shown to a 

made on the very day of their de- fearful extent among our modern 

parture, and accurate knowledge of mind-emancipators and reformers, 

this was necessary. Therefore it On the one hand, nature is held up 

alone was recorded." as a god to which all moral laws are 

O ages of faith ! when it was the to be subject, or, rather, before 

ambition of Christians to be inscrib- whose fiat they are to cease to exist, 

ed in the Book of Life, instead of while, on the other, nature (in every- 

leaving names blazoned in gold in thing lawful, touching, noble, gen- 

the annals of an earthly empire ! erous) is told that she is a fool, 

Prayers for the dead were in use and must learn to subdue "child- 

among the primitive Christians, and ish " aspirations and outgrow a child- 

in one of the inscriptions mentioned ish " beliefs! 

by Cardinal Wiseman the following But the belief of a communication 
reference to these prayers is found : between the living and the departed 
" Christ God Almighty refresh thy is not only a natural one ; it is also 
spirit in Christ." That this hallowed Biblical. S. Matthew speaks of the 
custom is akin to the natural feelings middle state of souls when he men- 
of a loving heart is self-evident ; the tions the strict account that will have 
coldness of an " age of philosophy ' to be rendered of " every idle 
alone could doubt it. Well might it word." * S. Paul says that " every 
be called the age of disorganization man s work ... shall be tried in 
.and not of philosophy (which is fire : and the fire shall try every man's 
><k love of wisdom"), for the wisdom work of what sort it is. If any man's 
that seeks to pull down instead of work burn, he shall suffer loss, but 
.building up is but questionable, he himself shall be saved ; yet so as 
The disorganization of political soci- by fire." f S. Peter makes mention 
ety which we see at work through of " the spirits in prison," | and S. 
=the International and the Com- John, in the Apocalypse, implies a 
mune; the disorganization of moral state of probation when he says that 
society which we behold every day "there shall not enter into it [the 
(increasing through the ease with New Jerusalem] anything defiled or 
which the marriage-tie is dissolved, that worketh abomination, or maketh 
.and the hold the state is claiming on alie." In the Second Book of Mach- 
children and even infants; the dis- abees, one of the most national of 
.organization of religious society the Jewish records, and the most fa- 
which we find in the ever-multiply- vorite and consolatory of the reli- 
dng feuds of sects, like gangrene gious books held by the Jews as in- 
gradually eating away an unsound fallible oracles, the whole doctrine 
body ; these are all fitting compan- of purgatory and prayers for the de- 
ions to that most ruthless severing of parted is most plainly adverted to. 

this world from the next which pre- 

, . . i j j / i * Matt - xn - 32. 1 1 Cor. in. 13, 15. 

tends to isolate the dead from the $ T p e t. Apocalypse xxi. 27- 



God's Acre. 275 

After a great battle and victory, Ju- whole house of Israel be accepted in 

das Machabeus searches the bodies the presence of their Father who is 

of his slain warriors, and finds that in heaven, and say ye Amen. [The 

some of them had appropriated congregation here answer Amen.] 

heathen votive offerings made to the May the fulness of peace from 

idols whose temples they had burnt heaven with life be granted unto us 

at Jamnia a short time before. Up- and to all Israel, and say ye Amen." 

on this discovery, according to the " My help is from the Lord, who 

sacred text, which is here too pre- made heaven and earth. May he 

cious a testimony to be condensed, who maketh peace in his high hea- 

he, " making a gathering, sent twelve vens bestow peace on us and on all 

thousand drachms of silver to Je- Israel. And say ye Amen." 

rusalem for sacrifice to be offered During these prayers, the mourners 

for the sins of the dead, thinking well stand up and answer. Other invo- 

and religiously concerning the resur- cations mention " the soul of my 

rection. (For if he had not hoped father " or " mother," etc., as the 

that they that were slain should rise case may be. In the service for 

again, it would have seemed super- the dead read over the corpse, 

fluous and vain to pray for the dead.) these words occur: " O Lord our 

And because he considered that they God r cause us to lie down in peace, 

who had fallen asleep with godliness, and raise us up, O our King, to a 

had great grace laid up for them, happy life. I laid me down fearless 

It is therefore a holy and whole- and slept ; I awoke, for the Lord 

some thought to pray for the dead, sustained me." All through the 

that they may be loosed from their Old Testament we constantly find 

sins." * "sleep " used as a synonym for death. 

It may not perhaps be gen- Scattered through the morning and 

erally known that, among the Jews, evening services of the Hebrew lit- 

the custom of praying for the dead urgy there are invocations, frequently 

exists, and has always existed unin- repeated, referring to the dead, such 

terruptedly. Some of the supplica- as these : " Thou, O Lord, art for 

tions are very beautiful, and we do ever powerful ; thoti restorest life to 

not hesitate to give them here, as an the dead, and art mighty to save, 

interesting corroboration of the as- Thou art also faithful to revive the 

sertions we have made throughout, dead : blessed art thou, O Lord, who 

The chief prayers for the dead are revivest the dead." God is also said 
contained in the " Kaddisch " for " to hold in his hands the souls of 
mourners, which forms part of the the living and the dead," thus giving 
evening as well as the morning ser- at least equal prominence to the de- 
vice for the Jewish Sabbath. Al- parted and those they have left in 
though the dead are not mentioned their place. The Jews believe and 
by name, it is to them alone that the hope that their prayers on earth 
prayers apply, as we understand from benefit and refresh their lost breth- 
persons of that persuasion. The ren, and pray daily for them. The 
text is the following : bodies of the departed are plainly 

" May our prayers be accepted dressed in a linen shroud without su- 

with mercy and kindness ; may the perfluous ornamentation, but many 

prayers and supplications of the of the old ceremonies and purifica- 
tions enjoined in the old law are now 

* a Mach. xii. 43-46. dispensed with. The old manner of 



276 God's Acre. 

burial was in a cave or spacious se- from the neighborhood of one's fami- 
pulchre in a field or garden, and the ly and their hereditary place of en- 
body was wrapped in spices, which tombment. This feeling has continu- 
were often burnt around it. The ed very strong in most civilized and 
double cave of Mambre, bought for in all savage races ; the graves of 
Sarah by Abraham, stood at the end their forefathers are even more sym- 
of a field, and the sepulchres of the bolical of home and fatherland to 
kings were also in a field. The gar- the wandering desert tribes of differ- 
den where Our Lord was laid is ent nations, than what we should call 
another instance of the universality their hearths and firesides. In later 
of this custom. In the Second Book times, how often have we not seen 
of Chronicles * we read of King Asa gorgeous and imposing buildings, es- 
that " they buried him in his own pecially cathedrals and abbeys, built 
sepulchre which he had made for over the shrine of a dead king or 
himself in the city of David : and bishop, canonized by that popular 
they laid him on his bed full of veneration whose last expression was 
spices and odoriferous ointments, the public honor decreed them by 
which were made by the art of the the Roman Pontiff? In places 
perfumers, and they burnt them over where these monuments are not de- 
him with great pomp." This burn- dicated to the sainted dead whose 
ing (of spices) is oftened mentioned shrines they guard, we often find 
throughout Holy Writ. Rachel, them burdened with the condition 
says the Book of Genesis,! was buried of Masses being perpetually offered 
" in the highway " that led to Beth- within their walls for the soul of the 
lehem, and Jacob erected a pillar dead founder; others are memorial 
over her sepulchre ; Samuel, " in his churches to friends or relations of the 
own house at Ramatha" ; and Saul, founder. Public charities, doles of 
beneath an oak near the city of bread and money, annual distribu- 
Jabes Galaad, the inhabitants of tions of clothing, hospitals, schools, or 
which place provided for his burial, municipal institutions, etc., spring 
and fasted seven days in sign of chiefly from the desire of the survi- 
mourning for their sovereign, vors to have their loved ones remem- 
Joram, king of Juda, was punished for bered to all future ages, while some- 
his misdeeds by exclusion from the times a generous testator himself will 
sepulchre of his fathers, " and the take this simple and practical means 
people did not make a funeral for of recommending himself to the 
him according to the manner prayers of unborn generations. Fa- 
of burning [spices], as they had mily names are perpetuated in re- 
done for his ancestors. \ Ozias, be- membrance of the departed ; family 
ing a leper, a disease which came records are valuable only in propor- 
upon him in punishment for having tion as they embody a proof of long- 
usurped sacerdotal functions, was bu- er or shorter descent from the distin- 
ried " in the field " only " of the roy- guished dead. There is no test of 
al sepulchre." Thus we see the im- success or popularity so sure as that 
mense importance attached to the of death, and no one can tell which 
place of burial under the old Jewish of our living friends will be known to 
dispensation, and how it was an eter- and loved by future nations, and 
nal disgrace to be expelled in death which other will be passed by in ob- 
scurity and silence, until long after 
*xvi. 14. txxxv. 19, 20. % 2 Chron. xxi. 19. our exit and their own from this 



God's Acre. 277 

present life-scene. Real life is cen- its atmosphere. Here we have again 
tred in the dead, it revolves around the wretched imitation in plaster of 
them, it depends on them. They the marble Parthenon and Acropolis ; 
are the root of which we are the the cold stuccoed pillars looming like 
leaves and flowers. The life of fame huge bleached skeletons through a 
is theirs, while only the life of strug- November fog, and yet supposed to 
gle is ours ; they are victors calmly represent the sun-tinted columns of 
bearing their palms, umpires gently exquisite workmanship that rear 
encouraging their successors, but we themselves against the purple sky of 
are only striving competitors, who Greece ; the vast desert-looking 
know not and never will know our streets which, bordered by " Hauss- 
fate till we have gone with them be- mann " palaces, seem intended for/- 
yond the veil. ture rather than present habitation, 
Germany is, above all, the home and each of which, if cut into a dozen 
of these beautiful traditions of an un- equal parts, would furnish any capi- 
broken communion between the souls tal with twelve good-sized public 
who have left earth and those who squares ; above all, a stuccoed church, 
remain behind. There are the dazzlingly, painfully white, the Thea- 
churchyards most loved, and the an- tiner-Kirche, a sort of S. Paul's (Lon- 
niversaries of deaths most remember- don) without the smoky coat thrown 
ed, even among Protestants. It is over it by the chimneys of the busy 
a custom in Germany to wear black city. Then, turning with relief to the 
and to keep the day holy every re- little that is left of the old town, we 
curring anniversary, were it twenty, find a few quaint streets leading to 
forty, fifty years after the death of a the cathedral, a plain but grand 
relative or beloved friend. The building, very fairly " restored "' and 
cemeteries are always blooming with adorned with the distinctive Munich 
every flower of the season, the crosses statues of angels and saints, which 
or headstones always hung with are now sold all over the world, as 
wreaths of immortelles. In Catholic the worthy substitutes of plaster-of- 
German countries, such as Bavaria, Paris images of the Bernini type of 
the festival of All Souls' is one of the sculpture. A very interesting old 
most interesting, because the most triptych stands over the altar, with its 
individual of the ecclesiastical year, strange medley of figures forming a 
We happened to be in Munich on striking and novel reredos. A pro- 
one of these occasions, and had been cession was slowing winding its way 
there for a week previous, visiting down the aisles as we entered the 
the galleries and inspecting the art- cathedral one afternoon, and though 
manufactures for which that city is the congregation was not numerous 
world-famous. But rich as it is in it was very devout. A few comfort- 
such treasures, the hand of its old able-looking old houses and quiet 
King Louis the grandfather of the streets surround the cathedral, and 
present sovereign, and whom in his form quite an oasis in the midst of 
retirement we have met at Nice some the modernized city. Indeed, the 
few years before his death has efifac- monotonous stretch of apparently 
ed much of its mediaeval stamp, and uninhabited mansions was really 
attempted to varnish it over with a wearying to look at, and we began to 
Renaissance coating very unconge- think that King Louis had built his 
nial to the northern character of its town as if he expected its population 
people and the northern mistiness of to increase at a Chicagoan rate ! It 



278 



God's Acre. 



is true the season of fetes had not 
come, and, according to the recog- 
nized phrase, " all the world ' had 
left Munich for the country villas 
and hunting-boxes in its neighbor- 
hood, but on the day of All Saints, 
the vigil of All Souls, how magically 
the scene changed ! After Mass in 
the Royal Chapel, which, by the way, 
is beautifully decorated with frescoes 
of mediaeval saints on a gilt back- 
ground, we started for the great 
" Gottes - Acker " (churchyard.) We 
had been told that this was worth see- 
ing, and so it proved. The desert seem- 
ed to have blossomed like the rose. 
The road leading to the cemetery was 
crowded \yith carriages, carts, horse- 
men, and foot passengers. Every 
one, especially those on foot, carried 
wreaths of immortelles and small 
lanterns. The carriages were most- 
ly laden with wreaths. Every one 
looked cheerful, but great quiet pre- 
vailed throughout the crowd. It 
seemed to us that until the dead call- 
ed for a visit, the living in Munich 
must have been well hidden, so great 
were now the numbers that incum- 
bered the hitherto lonely road. 
All were going in the same direction, 
and once there the scene was almost 
festive. Military bands (the best, 
we believe, next to the Austrian) 
were stationed near the cemetery 
gates. The " Gottes-Acker " itself 
is an immense square, the length 
being about twice the breadth of the 
inclosure. Round the four sides runs 
a covered cloister, under which are 
all the graves, monuments, and vaults 
of the more wealthy part of the 
Munich population. Each of these 
was a perfect forest of evergreens and 
hot-house plants, artistically heaped 
up around a vessel of holy water, from 
which any pious passer-by was free to 
sprinkle the grave while repeating a 
prayer for its occupant. The large 
square in the centre was crossed and 



recrossed by narrow paths between 
the serried files of graves. Nearly 
all were distinguished by a cross, of 
stone, marble, wood, or metal. To 
these the wreaths and lamps were 
hung, and here and there a kneeling 
figure might be seen. Within the 
covered cloister a dense crowd pro- 
menaded slowly, while the bands 
played unceasingly, not always, how- 
ever, appropriately. It was a strik- 
ing scene, the like of which we do 
not remember to have ever witnessed 
elsewhere. At Innsbruck, in the 
Tyrol, the cemetery is similar to this 
in construction and arrangement, 
though it is, of course, smaller in 
size. Night fell gradually as we 
were admiring this peculiar expression 
of national idiosyncrasy, but the 
crowd did not seem to grow less 
dense. It was a remembrance worth 
carrying away from that old Munich 
whose spirit, though outwardly im- 
prisoned in a pseudo-classic shape, 
lives yet in the simple Christian in- 
stincts of its laboring classes. At 
this time, when it threatens to become 
another Wittenberg, have we not also 
seen the unconscious and magnifi- 
cent protest of its inveterately Ca- 
tholic feelings in the unique Passion 
Play, that worthily kept relic of the 
heroic ages of faith and chivalry ? 
Kings and philosophers cannot 
change the world as long as peasants 
like those of Ammergau, and artisans 
such as work in the Munich manufac- 
tories that should not be degraded to 
comparison with the materialistic esta- 
blishments of Manchester or Sheffield 
are yet to be found bearing through 
the present times the banner of their 
forefathers' undying traditions. There 
is more simple faith among the German 
people, including also the Slavic and 
Hungarian races, than among some 
other modern Christian nations, and 
no doubt there must be a hidden law 
of gracious compensation in this fact, 



God's Acre. 279 

since the same country has been the includes the communion of saints as 

cradle and the teacher of almost every a vital dogma, and whose humble 

modern heresy and philosophical hope it must ever be to become one 

(sic) aberration. No doubt the faith of the church suffering after having 

of the masses is intimately connected done our weak share in the cause of 

with their wonderful love of home and the church militant shall we be no 

fatherland, their domestic instincts, better for this belief than are those 

their love of quiet family gatherings, who have it not ? Let the dead be 

All this easily leads to great love and guides to us, while we are helps to 

tenderness for the departed, and it them ; let us each remember that be- 

reads almost more like a German sides the angel we have at our side, 

than a French saying, that " the there is another spirit who rejoices or 

dead are not the forgotten, but only the grieves for and with us a company 

absent."* Love for the dead and a rev- of spirits perhaps, but seldom less 

erent, prayerful remembrance of them than one. 

are as much bulwarks to the morali- Mother or father, sister, brother, 

ty of the living, as they are spiritual husband, wife, or child, that spirit 

boons to the departed themselves, from its prison looks sadly and lov- 

We would not speak ill of an absent ingly earthward, marking our every 

friend, or break our word with one step from its own patient haven of 

who had gone on a long journey; suffering sinlessness. No longer 

even a short earthly distance seems racked by the personal fear of falling 

to make a pledge more sacred. How away, no longer haunted by the pos- 

much more when the distance is the sibility of temptation, it concentrates 

immeasurable breadth of the valley its loving anxiety on the soul whom 

of the shadow of death! We all of it will perchance precede to heaven, 

us remember promises once made to but on whom it is yet dependent; let 

those who have fallen asleep in us not grieve it, let us not willingly or 

Christ : those promises will be guar- knowingly wound it, but rather let 

dian angels to us, if we keep them; us take heed that we fit ourselves to 

they will be so many drops of re- go and bear it company in the new 

freshing dew to those who are per- and glorious God's-Acre to which we 

haps suffering at this moment for the hope to be called when that " which 

unfulfilled promises once made by was sown in mortality shall be raised 

them in life. Shall we whose faith in immortality, and that which was 

sown in dishonor and weakness shall 

* " Les marts ne sont pas les oublies : Us ne , . , i >i 

i e , ahem*." be raised in glory and in power. 



2 So Personal Recollections of the late President Juarez of Mexico. 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LATE PRESIDENT 

JUAREZ OF MEXICO 



i. 

THE PRESIDENT IN THE RECEPTION- 
ROOM. 

WE saw President Juarez for the 
first time in the fall of 1865. He 
was then temporarily established with 
his government in the town of El 
Paso, on the northern frontier of 
Chihuahua, and within almost a 
stone's throw of American soil. Fort 
Bliss, Texas, then recently reoccupied 
by the Union troops, was not more 
than ten minutes' distance from the 
Plaza of El Paso. 

The prospects of the Mexican Re- 
public were not then very bright ; the 
treasury was almost exhausted, the 
government was barely on Mexican 
soil, and on the American side of the 
Rio Grande it was generally looked 
upon as a question of time when 
President Juarez would have to seek 
safety on our own side of the boun- 
dary. It is needless to say that he 
would have been received by the 
Americans of that region with right 
royal hospitality. 

American sympathy and material 
aid were looked for, and Americans 
were very popular with all the fol- 
lowers of the Mexican president. 

Shortly after the arrival of Presi- 
dent Juarez and his cabinet in El 
Paso, we joined a party of American 
gentlemen who paid him a visit. 
The party comprised, we think, nearly 
all the Americans of any standing 
about El Paso. There were the 
American consul, the collector of 
customs, three or four army officers 
from Fort Bliss, some local civil 



officials, and one or two leading busi- 
ness men. 

President Juarez and his cabinet 
occupied a house on the Plaza a 
large building constructed in the 
usual Mexican fashion. On announc- 
ing ourselves as a party of American 
citizens desirous of paying their re- 
spects to the chief of a sister republic, 
we were immediately ushered into a 
room where we found President Jua- 
rez with most of the members of his 
cabinet notably his successor Senor 
Lerdo de Tejada, then Secretary of 
State, and Senor Yglesias, Secretary 
of the Treasury now also named 
for the presidency rather a sinecure 
office at the time. 

We were presented in turn to the 
president by Senor Yglesias, the only 
person present attached to the presi- 
dent who spoke English. President 
Juarez spoke neither English nor 
French. He shook hands cordi- 
ally with each of us, and expressed 
through Senor Yglesias the very great 
pleasure it gave him to receive our 
visit. We were sufficiently familiar 
with the Pueblo type to recognize 
Juarez immediately on entering. 

President Juarez was low in stature, 
rather stout, but dignified, and at the 
same time easy in his manners. The 
Pueblo Indian was marked in every 
lineament of his face the aquiline 
nose, the small bright black eyes, 
the straight cut mouth showing no 
trace of redness in the lips, the coal- 
black hair, the swarthy complexion. 
Yet he was, as it were, an Indian 
idealized ; his forehead was high, ca- 
pacious, and the light of intellectual 



Personal Recollections of the late President Jut^-ez of Mexico. 281 

cultivation illuminated his face. He American republics, to the indepen- 

\vas dressed in plain black. dence of Mexico, etc. The//<?, who 

The secretary of state, Sen or Ler- was not a very bright specimen of 
do de Tejada, is evidently, judged his tribe, exerted himself to his 
merely from externals, a man of utmost to open the bottles suffi- 
great intellectual ability. His skin ciently fast. In his tremulous hurry 
is as white as that of the fairest he got within point-blank range of 
daughter of the Anglo-Saxon. A the president, and a peculiarly ex- 
forehead, so high as to seem almost cited bottle going off prematurely, 
a monstrosity, and of a marble white- discharged about half its contents 
ness, towered above a face that into the president's shirt-bosom, 
gleamed with the glance of the eagle. Juarez looked at the poor peon 

Senor Yglesias was of a darker whose swarthy face grew sickly pale, 
complexion than his colleague in the and who seemed about to sink to the 
cabinet. He seemed to be in rather ground with terror and confusion 
indifferent health. The expression neither in sorrow nor in anger. He 
of his face was remarkably gentle and took no notice whatever of the inci- 
pleasing. We have already said that dent, but went on talking cheerfully 
he acted as interpreter. He spoke as before. Such an accident hap- 
English with a very marked accent, pening to most men would have been 
but with great care and correctness, laughable in the extreme. It did 
We happened to be seated next him not seem to us to place Juarez in a 
on a sofa, President Juarez being on ludicrous position at all, his self- 
his right. He told us that he learned command was so perfect, his dignity 
to speak English in the city of Chihua- so thoroughly preserved, 
hua, and that he had never been a After all the patriotic toasts pro- 
day in an English-speaking country. per to the occasion had been drunk, 

Notwithstanding that President we took our leave. The president 

Juarez did not speak English, and the again shook 'hands with us, again 

necessity of an interpreter naturally expressed, through Senor Yglesias, 

causes some embarrassment, yet his his gratification at meeting American 

manners were so pleasant and affable citizens and officers, and hoped that 

that he placed us at our ease at once, he should receive further visits from 

He spoke about our war, and asked us. 

with much interest about our great We departed very greatly pre- 
military leaders, Generals Grant, possessed in favor of the Mexican 
Sherman, and Sheridan. He seem- president. We agreed in thinking 
ed to feel some sympathy with Gen. that there was a simplicity and 
McClellan. A very pleasant half- honesty of purpose about, him which 
hour was spent in conversation on made him the best man for the diffi- 
these and kindred subjects. It was cult position of chief magistrate of 
at length interrupted by the entrance the struggling republic in her great 
of a peon bearing a tray with quite a hour of trial, 
generous number of bottles of cham- 
pagne on it. ii. 

We were invited to partake of the 

n c i nr THE PRESIDENT IN THE BALL-ROOM. 

Green Seal. We stood around the 

table, President Juarez standing at Some time after the visit just de- 

the head. Toasts were drunk to the scribed, President Juarez gave a ball 

lasting friendship of the two North in honor of the anniversary of Mexi- 



282 Personal Recollections of the late President Juarez of Mexico. 



can independence. We had the honor, 
in common with some other Ameri- 
cans, of receiving an invitation to 
the ball, which, of course, we accept- 
ed. 

There were four American ladies 
in our party two the wives cf 
infantry officers stationed at Fort 
Bliss, the post surgeon's wife, and 
the wife of one of the leading citi- 
zens of Franklin. We were all invit- 
ed to pass the night or such portion 
of it as would remain after the close 
of the ball at the mansion of a 
lady, a native of El Paso, of Ameri- 
can descent. 

We were bestowed in three or 
four vehicles, and forded the Rio 
Grande successfully a little before 
dark. We found El Paso in festal 
array. The cathedral was covered 
with shining lamps from foundation 
to steeple. The Plaza was bril- 
liantly illuminated, and crowds of 
both s'exes were already assembling 
for the grand open-air baile of the 
profanum vulgus. Class lines of de- 
marcation are very sharply drawn in 
El Paso, and the getfte fina alone 
were admissible to the president's 
ball. 

We dined at the Setlora L 's, 

where we had the pleasure of meet- 
ing several Mexican officers of high 
rank. Among them were General 
Ruiz, the Postmaster-General (an- 
other sinecurist just then), and other 
staff officers, whose names we have 
forgotten. A little son of one of the 
officers at Fort Bliss a child of five 
or six, who spoke Spanish very well, 
having passed nearly all his little 
life in New Mexico, only remaining 
sufficiently long in New York to 
set all doubts at rest as to his 
being born in the Empire State be- 
came a very great favorite with the 
Mexican officers. 

Between ten and eleven P.M. our 
vehicles were again in requisition, and 



away we went to the ball. It was 
given in the spacious house of a 
wealthy citizen, the front of which 
was brilliantly illuminated. A guard 
of Mexican soldiers was posted in 
front of the house, and lined the long 
hall leading to the ball-room. Their 
pieces were at order, and they salut- 
ed the chief officers by striking the 
butt of their muskets against the 
ground. They were dressed in 
gray jackets, like the undress of the 
New York National Guard, white 
cross belts, white trousers, and a 
leather cap, somewhat Hussar shape. 

We had the honor of giving an arm 
to one of the four American ladies 
on entering. Arrived at the door of 
the ball-room, four white-vested and 
kid-gloved Mexican gentlemen offer- 
ed an arm each to the four American 
ladies, bowing at and smiling most 
sweetly on us the while. At first, we 
were disposed to resist " the deep 
damnation of this taking off." The 
ladies hesitated and drew back. The 
situation would have become re- 
markably comic ; but Don Juan 

Z , well-known to all Americans 

who visit El Paso, seeing the critical 
state of affairs, came to us and whis- 
pered that it was the costumbre de> 
pais the custom of the country. 
We submitted, but, we fear, not with a 
good grace. By the way, we only 
saw our American ladies at a distance 
for the rest of the evening. The 
Mexican gentlemen took entire 
charge of them. Don Juan informed 
us that we were expected to take our 
revenge among the sefioras and 
senoritas. 

The ball-room was very tastefully 
arranged. The placeta, or open 
square in the centre of all Mexican 
houses, on which all the rooms in the 
building open, was roofed and floored 
for the ball-room. The window-cur- 
tains were hung outside the window 
of the house; mirrors, paintings, etc., 



, Personal Recollections >/ tJie late President Juarez of Mexico. 283 

were hung on the outer walls, mak- or silver stripes, and the magnificent 

ing the illusion that you were inside gold-embroidered sashes of the Mexi- 

the house instead of outside of it, can general and field officers. By 

complete. American and Mexican the way, the lowest officer in rank of 

llacrs were festooned around the walls, the Mexicans in the ball-room was a 

O 

The music, softly and sweetly played, colonel. The only captains and 
was placed in aside room, entirely out lieutenants admitted were the Ameri- 
of sight. No braying cornet flayed cans. Juarez' son "the image of 
your ears, and no howling fiddler, his father" though somewhat short- 
calling out the figures from a position er in stature, in the undress uniform 
dominating everything and every- of a second lieutenant of artillery 
body, gave you an attaque de iicrfs. was in the vestibule with the guard. 
The fiddlers would be heard, not seen. The president, with his cabinet 
The waltz, the national dance of and staff, was already in the ball- 
Mexico, was, of course, the terpsi- room when we arrived. After being 
chorean piece de resistance ; but a dispossessed of our fair companions, 
fair number of quadrilles were sprin- we were ushered to the portion of 
kled through the programme, in com- the room in which the president sat. 
pliment to the Americans. We paid our respects in turn, and 
We have seen many balls in the Em- were kindly and cordially welcomed, 
pire City some given under " most Juarez was dressed in plain black, 
fashionable auspices " -but we must except his gloves, which, of course, 
in justice declare that we have seen were white. 

none which surpassed the Mexican The male portion of the American 

President's ball. There may have party then broke ranks, and spread 

been more glare, more glitter, more themselves through the ball-room, 

diamonds, if you will, but there cer- enjoying themselves each after his 

tainly was not more good taste, more fashion; some in the fascinating 

elegance and refinement, more genu- " see-saw ' of the Spanish dance, 

ine good-breeding and gentlemanly others in the apartments off the ball- 

and ladylike good-humor. There room where exhilaration of a different 

was no rushing, steam-engine fashion, kind was provided, 

the length of the ball-room ; knock- W T e passed a very agreeable hour 

ing couples to the right and left, with Signor Prieto, a Mexican poet 

and tearing dresses, without even an and orator of distinction. Signor 

apology. The ladies were richly but Prieto was then known as the 

not gaudily dressed, and made no " Henry Clay ' of Mexico. He 

barbaric display of golden ornaments, spoke French very well. He told us 

as their New Mexican sisters are with just pride that he considered 

wont to do on baile occasions. The the highest recognition his efforts 

gentlemen except the army officers had received was the translation of 

wore the traditional black dress- one of his poetical pieces by our 

coat and pantaloons, with white vest American patriarch-poet, William 

and gloves, clothes and gloves fitting Cullen Bryant. 

admirably, for the gente fina of El Just before supper-time, an official 

Paso got both from Paris. The ar- came with President Juarez' compli- 

my officers were, of course, in full ments, to say that President Juarez 

uniform, the American uniform look- and the members of his cabinet 

ing rather sombre compared with the would take the American ladies in to 

red-leg top trousers, with broad gold supper, and requesting the American 



2S4 Personal Recollections of the late President Juarez of Mexico. 

gentlemen to take in Mexican ladies, had the cares of a tottering govern- 

We immediately sought our friend ment with an empty treasury upon 

Don Juan T , and begged him to his shoulders. 

find us some Mexican lady who Capt. O - asked us to go out 

could talk either English or French, with him and have a look at the 

He found compliance with our re- great bronco, the public fandango, on 

quest impossible, but gave into our the Plaza. As we passed out through 

charge the Senora S , a magnifi- the hall, the Mexican guard now 

cent beauty of the Spanish type, with lying on their arms jumped up and 
coal-black hair and large lustrous brought their muskets to the ground 
black Juno-like eyesfendvs en with a crash to salute our companion, 
amande. The other gentlemen of the much to his discomposure, as he wish- 
American party were soon provided ed to go out without attracting atten- 
with supper partners, and we began tion. 

our march for the supper-table, The great fandango was a sight 

President Juarez taking in Mrs. worth seeing. A leviathan Spanish 

Capt. O ; the secretary of state, dance wound its way around and 

Senor Lerdo de Tejada, Mrs. Capt. through the Plaza, filling to over- 
B ; the secretary of the treasury, flowing the market-place, the side- 
Mrs. Dr. S ; and the secretary of walks, and the arcades. Swarthy 

war, Mrs. W , of Texas. The first Mexicans with immense sombreros, 

table was for the president and cabi- with cigarettes of corn-husks in their 
net, with the American party. The mouths, abandoned themselves to the 
supper was rather a solemn affair, swaying movements of the slow waltz, 
It consisted of nine courses, though their dark-eyed partners often part- 
the courses seemed as like each ners in the cigarette as well as the 
other as railway stations on the dance now moving with a graceful 
plains. All seemed to be desiccated, languor, now dashing out with wild 
and reminded us somewhat of what and unrepressed vigor to the clatter- 
we had read about Chinese feasts, ing of a thousand castanets. 
When a course was served to every Unusual gambling facilities were 
guest, the President looked down the to be found everywhere, of course, 
table to his right and bowed; he Cake merchants, fried hot cakes in 
then looked to his left and bowed, the open air, lemonade, vino del pais, 
Then, and not before, knives and fresh queso, fruits, puros, were to be 
forks were observed, and the guests had for the paying, 
attacked the viands. This repeated Having seen sufficient of the great 
nine times was not calculated to im- unwashed fandango, we returned to 
part gaiety to the repast. It was the ball-room. Our companion was 
slow, but ended at last, and we re- again the object of another demon- 
tired in the same order in which we stration of respect on the part of the 
entered, making way for the ladies guard. " I wish," said he, " those 
and gentlemen of the second table, fellows would go to sleep ; this begins 

After the supper, President Juarez to be unpleasant." 

sat for over an hour with the Amen- A waltz was in full gyration when 

can ladies, chatting pleasantly with we returned to the ball-room. We 

them in the simplest Spanish phrases took chairs and sat near the door 

he could devise. Seeing him chat- chatting. Suddenly we became 

ting away and laughing gaily, no aware that some one stood behind 

one could have imagined that he us, placing a hand on either chair. 



Neiv Publications. 285 

Looking round, we saw that it was been guests of this house. All the 

President Juarez. We immediately rooms opening on the large placeta 

arose, but he insisted on our being were turned into lodging-rooms, 

seated, and resumed his former atti- There was hurrying to and fro with 

tude. He talked with us for half an lights in hand, putting every one in 

hour, in Spanish well adapted to his place. Some people put them- 

our limited knowledge of the Ian- selves in other people's places. No- 

guage, and which we had no difii- tably our enthusiastic friend, who 

culty in understanding. had taken up his quarters in a room 

During the evening, from time to intended for F and his new 

time, we had received invitations Spanish bride. He was found by the 

from the president to drink wine happy pair, just as happy as they 

with him - - invitations which, of were, sleeping the sleep of the just, 

course, we did not refuse. Many In the meantime, the partner of his 

patriotic toasts and sentiments were joys and sorrows sat solitary and 

offered on both sides. It must have alone in the room intended for her and 

been in one of those festive moments her spouse, on the other side of the 

that an enthusiastic gentleman of our placeta, wondering at his absence and 

party slapped the president on the anxiously awaiting his return. This 

back, called him " Ben " (Juarez' complication, however, was settled 

Christian name was Benito), said he by transferring the lady to the room 

was " a brick," and bade him " never in which lay her sleeping lord, and 

say die ' till he was dead ! We bestowing the F s in the room 

were not a witness to this scene. It she had occupied. 

was described to us by members of After a good breakfast, we set out 

our party. on our return to the Land of the 

Between two and three P.M. the Free, forded the Rio Grande at 

president's party left the ball-room, about noon, under a September sun 

Shortly after, the American clans were no contemptible luminary about 

gathered, we got our fair ones back latitude 32, let us assure the reader, 

again, and set out for the hospitable We sought our casas, darkened up 

dwelling of the Senora L . our respective rooms, and shut the 

There was plenty of bustle and Venetian blinds to keep out the flies, 

activity there. It seemed to us that and having turned night into day, 

half the people at the ball must have proceeded to turn day into night. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 

ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. Designed as a same with other treatises of this 

Manual of Instruction. By Henry kind, and is written in a clear, siin- 

Coppee, LL.D., President of the Lehigh pj e style, well adapted to an elemen- 

U.niversity. Revised edition. Phila- tarv text-book. But here our ap- 

delphia: E. H. Butler & Co. 1872. probation must cease. The history 

President Coppee has carefully of logic is altogether defective. The 

excluded from this edition of his author advocates the doctrine de- 

Logic everything which could give rived by Hamilton from ,Kant, that 

offence to a Catholic. The main our rational knowledge is merely 

part of the work, treating of formal ' conditioned," which is pure scepti- 

logic, is of course substantially the cism, and confounds Christian phi- 



286 



New Publications. 



losophy with theolog) r , which is 
effectually to subvert both sciences. 
Teachers may find some useful assis- 
tance from this book in explaining 
the laws of thought; but it is alto- 
gether unfit to be placed in the 
hands of Catholic pupils. We re- 
iterate the desire we have so often 
expressed, that some competent 
person would translate one of 
our standard Latin text-books of 
logic, for the use of pupils and 
teachers who cannot read them in 
the original language. 

THE POCKET PRAYER-BOOK. Compiled 
from approved sources. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 

This is certainly the most com- 
plete little manual we have seen, 
arid, although it contains 650 pages, 
is small enough for the pocket ; and 
gives, among other things, the three 
indulgenced litanies, the entire Mass 
in Latin and English, Vespers, and 
the Epistles and Gospels for the 
Sundays throughout the year. The 
type, moreover, is singularly large 
and good. Thus the book supplies 
a long-felt want ; and ought to be- 
come very popular amongst Catho- 
lic men, for whose especial benefit 
it was compiled. There is another 
edition without the Epistles and 
Gospels, which fits the vest pocket, 
and can therefore be made emphati- 
cally a daily companion. 

ENGLAND AND ROME. By the Rev. W. 
Waterworth, SJ. London : Burns 
& Lambert. 1854. (New York : Sold 
by The Catholic Publication Society.) 

A COMMENTARY BY WRITERS OF THE 
FIRST FIVE CENTURIES ON THE PLACE 
OF S. PETER IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, 

AND THAT OF S. PETER'S SUCCESSORS 

IN THE CHURCH. By the Very Rev. 
J. Waterworth, D.D., Provost of Not- 
tingham. London : Richardson. 1871. 
(New York : Sold by The Catholic Pub- 
lication Society.) 

The reader will perceive, if he 
takes notice of the titles of these 
two books, that they are by two 
different authors, both bearing the 
name of Waterworth. They are 
brothers, and one of the two is a 
Jesuit, the other being a dignitary 



of the Catholic Church in England. 
The work whose title stands first in 
order at the head of this notice, is 
not a recent publication, having 
been issued as long ago as 1854. 
We think it, however, not unsuit- 
able to recall attention to it as a 
work specially useful at the present 
time. About one-third of the vol- 
ume is taken up with a very solid 
and scholarly disquisition on the 
general topic of the Papal suprem- 
acy. Its principal and special topic is, 
however, the relation of the church 
in England to the Holy See from 
the year 179 to the epoch of the 
schism of Henry VIII. It is han- 
dled with great learning and abilit)', 
and the sophisms and perversions 
of those disingenuous or ill-informed 
controversialists who pretend to 
establish the original independence 
of the British Church are scattered 
to the winds. 

The work of Dr. Waterworth, the 
Provost of Nottingham, was pub- 
lished last year. This learned di- 
vine is the author of the celebrated 
treatise entitled The Faith of Catho- 
lics, and is well known as a most 
profound and accurate patristic 
. scholar. The present volume was 
prepared by him for the press be- 
fore the publication of the Decrees 
of the Vatican Council ; but its 
issue having been delayed by an 
accident, the author took the op- 
portunity of making a re-examina- 
tion of its contents, with special 
reference to the objections raised 
by Dr. Dollinger, and of adding 
some new prefatory remarks. The 
result of his revision did not sug- 
gest to him the necessity of any 
alteration whatever, or show any- 
thing in the cavils of the petulant 
old gentleman, who has so com- 
pletely stultified himself by retract- 
ing the deliberate convictions of 
his better days, worthy of any spe- 
cial refutation. 

As for Dr. Waterworth 's work 
itself, it is quite unique in English 
Catholic literature, and different 
from the other works on the Papal 
supremacy, able and learned as 



New Publications. 287 

these are, which we have hitherto ed with the conviction that, when 
possessed. It is literally an ex- the tocsin of rebellion against God's 
hau stive collection of all the say- law was sounded by Henry Tudor, 
ings of fathers and councils on the the people of the whole of his domi- 
two topics discussed, during the nions arose in hostile opposition to 
first five centuries of the Christian the authority of the church. None 
era, by one who has mastered the but a critical few, familiar with fo- 
whole of this vast body of litera- reign contemporary authorities, were 
ture. One hundred and seven aware that, while the nobles who 
fathers and councils are quoted, hungered for the spoils of convents 
and copious tables at the end of the and monasteries, and the suppliant 
volume place the whole array of courtiers, lay and ecclesiastical, 
authorities in a convenient order whose fortunes depended upon the 
for reference under the eye of the smiles of the sovereign, basely bow- 
reader. It is needless for us to ex- ed down before the brutal passions 
patiate on the value of such a work, of Henry and Elizabeth, the mass of 
or to say anything more to recom- the people, particularly the educated 
mend it to the attention of all who and moral middle class, held firmly 
wish to study this great subject of to the faith, braving persecution, 
the Papal supremacy. poverty, imprisonment, and even 
THE TROUBLES OF OUR CATHOLIC FORE- death > in defence of Catholicity. 
FATHERS, RELATED BY THEMSELVES. England, in fact, can count her 
First Series. Edited by John Morris, thousands of uncanonized martyrs, 
Priest of the Society of Jesus. Lon- priests and laity, men and women, 
don: Burns Gates. 1872. (New who, in common with their co-reli- 
York : Sold by The Catholic Publica- gionists of the Continent, fell vic- 
tion Society.) tims to the lust, cupidity, and inhu- 
One of the outward and by no manity of the " Reformers." Some 
means the least significant signs of of their most glorious achievements 
the revival of religion in England is will probably never be recorded in 
the appearance in rapid succession this world, but there is every hope 
of a most useful class of books, hav- that, through the exertions of such 
ing for their main object the vindi- conscientious searchers as this 
cation of the character and con- learned Jesuit, a flood of light will be 
stancy of the Catholics of that coun- thrown ere long on the darkest, but 
try during and subsequent to the not least edifying, days of the Chris- 
so-called Reformation. We have tian Church in England. Hereto- 
had occasion elsewhere to refer to fore this noble work has been delay- 
Father Morris' work on the Condi- ed for various reasons. Contempo- 
tion of Catholics itnder James I. The rary documents were either in the 
book before us may be considered a hands of the Government, or were 
continuation of that exceedingly scattered among many convents and 
interesting contribution to history, private libraries, and from long ne- 
and, as it is the first of a series, we gleet had become almost forgotten; 
may expect at an early day others and it required so much industry as 
equalty valuable from the same pains- well as knowledge to search for and 
taking and indefatigable student. utilize them, that until lately no one 
Until lately, with very few excep- was found equal to the task. Be- 
tions, historical works relating to sides, the English Catholics of the 
Great Britain have been the cornpo- last generation were so few and so 
sition of prejudiced, anti-Catholic lukewarm that it was difficult to find 
writers, each in his turn guilty of a publisher willing to risk his money 
the same omissions while servilely and his reputation in bringing out 
copying the misrepresentations of books that were considered neither 
his predecessors ; so that the public profitable nor politic. A change has 
mind has at length become impress- come over the spirit of their dream, 



288 



New Publications. 



as the appearance of late of so many 
Catholic works, well printed and 
handsomely bound, from some of the 
first publishing houses in Europe, 
amply testifies; and the ancient 
faith is fast regaining its power in 
what, for three centuries, has been 
considered the stronghold of dis- 
sent. While of primary interest to 
English readers, works of this cha- 
racter will also have peculiar attrac- 
tions for Americans, many of whom 
by blood and affinity are as much 
heirs to the virtues and courage of 
the British Catholics of the XVIth 
and XVIIth centuries as those born 
on that soil. No historical library 
in our language would be complete 
without such works as those of F. 
Morris, containing as they do ori- 
ginal, authentic documents which 
hitherto have never appeared in 
print, in whole or in part. Such 
documents, carefully annotated, and 
modernized only as regards their 
obsolete orthography, are the true 
materials of history, worth an infi- 
nity of commentaries and second 
and third hand statements filtrated 
through, the minds of ignorant or 
partial writers. 

The present volume contains the 
memoirs of Mother Margaret Cle- 
ment ; a sketch of the history of the 
Monasteries of SS. Ursula and Mo- 
nica at Louvain ; an account of the 
dissolution of the Carthusian Monas- 
tery of the Charter House, London, 
and the execution of several of its 
monks, in the reign of Henry 
VIII. ; a detailed narrative of the 
imprisonment of Francis Tregian 
for sixteen years ; some additional 
particulars relating to the missions 
of Fathers Tesimond and Blount ; 
the trial of the Rev. Cuthbert Clap- 
ton, chaplain to the Venetian am- 
bassador, as related by himself, and 
the correspondence of that offi- 
cial with his government from A.D. 
1638 to 1643 5 with several interest- 
ing details of the sufferings and per- 
secution of some noble Catholic 
families. These documents were 



procured in various places in the 
Public Record Office ; S. Mary's 
College, Ascott ; Stonyhurst ; the 
Archives de 1'Etat, Brussels ; S. Au- 
gustine's Priory, Abbotsleigh ; Ar- 
chives of the Archbishop of West- 
minster, and in numerous private 
MS. collections ; each original being 
preceded by a short but comprehen- 
sive introduction from the pen of 
the learned editor. 

PETERS' CATHOLIC CLASS BOOK : A Col- 
lection of copyright Songs, Duets, 
Trios, and Choruses, etc., etc. Com- 
piled and arranged by William Dress- 
ier. New York : J. L. Peters. 

The first half of this work is a re- 
production of ballads of sentiment 
of no special merit, issued, as the 
foot-notes ingeniously advertise to 
the purchaser, " in sheet-music form, 
with lithograph title-page," by the 
publisher. The latter half is chiefly 
a reprint of so-called religious songs 
which persistently return to us 
under one or another guise in pub- 
lications of this class, like poor re- 
lations, and with as hearty a wel- 
come as such visitors proverbially 
receive. 

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SO- 
CIETY has fixed upon the 5th of No- 
vember as the publication day of 
The Illustrated Catholic Family Al- 
manac for 1873 : over 35,000 copies 
have already been ordered by the 
different booksellers. The Society 
has just published an edition of The 
Little Manual of Devotion to the 
Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Spiritual 
Bouquet, formerly published by John 
P. Walsh, of Cincinnati; and will 
soon issue in book-form Fleura^ge, by 
Mrs. Craven ; Col. Meline's trans- 
lation of Hubner's Life of Sixtus V. ; 
Myrrha Lake, or Intr> the Light of 
Catholicity. All-Hallow Eve and Un- 
convicted 'will appear early in Novem- 
ber. Canon Oakeley's work on Catho- 
lic Worship is in press, and will be 
published uniform with his excellent 
treatise on The Mass. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD 



VOL. XVI., No. 93. DECEMBER, 1872. 



THE SPIRIT OF PROTESTANTISM. 



RECENT events in Europe, parti- 
cularly in Prussia and Italy, have 
done much to awaken the attention 
of thinking men in this country to 
the true spirit of what is known as 
Protestantism. While they have once 
more presented to our view humili- 
ating spectacles of human weakness, 
injustice and downright tyranny 
under the guise and in the sacred 
names of religion and liberty, they 
have confirmed with remarkable force 
all that has been alleged against the 
spirit that actuates and has always 
governed the enemies of the Catholic 
Church. 

When the revolt against Catholic 
doctrine and the spiritual authority 
of the See of Rome was first inaugu- 
rated in the XVIth century under 
the banner of liberty of conscience 
and freedom of thought, it was as- 
serted by those who then upheld the 
ancient faith that these were specious 
pretexts invented to cover ulterior 
designs, which, by giving full scope 
to the worst passions of our nature, 
would inevitably fix in the minds and 



in the hearts of mankind a moral 
slavery more debasing, and a servi- 
tude more irradicable, than even the 
most astute pagans of ancient times 
ever dreamed of; that dissent from 
the dogmas and discipline of the uni- 
versal church did not in itself con- 
stitute a creed, but simply the nega- 
tion of all Christian truth, and that 
the right of private judgment in 
matters of faith meant in reality the 
right, when seconded by the power, 
to pull down and destroy, to perse- 
cute and proscribe, to desecrate and 
desolate the Christian temples and 
charitable institutions which pious 
hands had reared and richly endowed 
throughout Europe. How sadly pro- 
phetic were the sagacious champions 
of true liberty and divine authority, 
the history of the last three centuries 
fully attests. 

Whoever has studied the career of 
modern civilization, either in the de- 
tached records of nations and dynas- 
ties, or by following the course of the 
church herself from her foundation 
to the present day, cannot fail to dis- 



Entsred according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of 

the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



290 The Spirit of Protestantism. 

cover that the advance of Europe our own time. Those workers in 
from the epoch of the disruption of wool, cotton, and silk, stone, metal, 
the Roman Empire until the com- and wood, have left us lasting monu- 
mencement of the XVIth century ments of their skill not only in the 
was a steady, constant, and rapid productions of the looms of Flanders 
march towards true civil polity and and Italy, and the forges of Spain 
enlightenment ; frequently checked, and England, but, better still, in the 
it is true, by wars and local schisms, multiplicity of magnificent cathedrals 
but ever flowing onward in an irre- and basilicas, in the contemplation of 
sistible and majestic flood. which the artisan of this generation, 
From the barbarism and chaos in- with all his supposed advantages, is 
cident to the disappearance of the lost in silent admiration. Poetry, 
central authority of the empire, Eu- painting, architecture, and sculpture, 
rope emerged into the preparatory the four highest developments of 
condition of feudalism, at that time creative genius, may be said to have 
another name for order; and, through reached, at the period immediately 
this state of order, the first necessity anterior to the Reformation, the 
of freedom, she was fast acquiring acme of glory and greatness, never 
that second essential element of poli- before nor since excelled or even 
tical excellence liberty. Already the equalled by man; while the discovery 
humble peasants of Helvetia were as of the art of printing had given a 
free as the air of their romantic moun- new impetus to literature, and corn- 
tains; Italy was dotted with repub- merce spread her white wings in the 
lies; the Spanish peninsula was ruled Indian Ocean and along the shores 
more by its cortes than by its sover- of the New World, 
eigns; France had her several " es- Now, all these beneficent results 
tates"; Poland her elective monarchy; were directly and indirectly the work 
and Germany and the North were of the Catholic Church. From the 
fast becoming imbued with liberal details of ordinary life to the more 
and constitutiona. ideas ; England, profound schemes of state policy, her 
the last to adopt the feudal system, animating presence was felt, and her 
had by degrees abrogated its slavish influence cheerfully recognized and 
restraints and commercial restrictions, obeyed, for it was always exercised 
and, with justice, boasted of her great for the benefit of humanity and the 
charters and independent parliaments; greater glory of God. From the 
while over all a species of interna- forging of the Toledo blade that 
tional law was established, the chief flashed in the dazzled eyes of the 
executive of which sat in the chair of Saracen, to the rearing aloft of that 
S. Peter, before whose moral power wonder of the Christian and pagan 
warriors sheathed their swords and world, S. Peter's; from the humble 
crowned kings bowed their heads in Mechlin girl meshing a robe for a 
submission. Municipalities, the germs statue of the Virgin, to Columbus ex 
of which had first clustered around ploring unknown seas in search of 
the monasteries, had become numer- treasure to ransom the holy shrines ; 
ous and powerful enough to defy and, from the poor friar teacMrg the child 
on occasion, to curb the power of the of the degraded villein, vo Archbish- 
feudal nobles, and, under the protec- op Langdon framing Magna Charta ; 
tion of the guilds, the mechanical arts from the enfranchisement of a serf, to 
had acquired a degree of perfection the organization of the crusades, there 
fully equal if not superior to that of was no step in human progress that 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 291 

was not inspired and directed by the deluded followers. The " Reforma- 

church for the wisest and most ex- tion," as the last and greatest rebel- 

alted purposes. Guided by the spirit lion is called, forms no exception to 

of religion, the amount of solid hap- the rule. 

piness, simple virtue, and rational In the early part of the XVIth 
liberty enjoyed by the people of Eu- century it broke out in Germany 
rope at the opening of the XVIth under the auspices of three or four 
century was greater, far greater, than Saxon ecclesiastics, principal among 
their descendants possess at the pre- whom were Luther and Melanch- 
sent time, after nearly four hundred thon. The former schismatic, who was 
years' experience, and countless at- a preacher of some eminence, corn- 
tempts at religious, social, and politi- menced by inveighing against the 
cal revolutions. abuse of indulgences, and by rapid 
Yet, under the name of Reforma- transitions ended by totally denying 
tion and greater liberty, this grand the authority of the church in every 
march towards human perfection and point of doctrine and discipline. He 
eternal bliss was to be stayed, and bases man's salvation on faith alone 
even for a time turned backwards, so regardless of works, proclaimed the 
that morally and politically Christen- right of every individual to make his 
dom has not yet, nor is it likely own religion according as it seemed 
for a long time, to recover from the best to himself, and boldly advocated 
shock which it experienced at the the massacre of priests and bishops 
hands of the Protestant reformers, and the pillage of churches and reli- 
their aiders and abettors. The mo- gious homes the existence of all of 
tives which actuated these reaction- which he declared to be contrary to 
ists were neither new nor doubtful. Holy Writ. " Now is the time," he 
Under various names and pretences, wrote, at the commencement of his 
bodies of fanatics or knaves swayed crusade, " to destroy convents, ab- 
by the same inducements had ap- beys, priories, and monasteries " ; to 
peared from time to time in different which advice he added a little later, 
parts of the world, generally causing " These priests, these Mass-mum- 
much local disturbance, but always biers, deserve death as truly as a 
suppressed by the authority of the blasphemer who should curse God 
church or the strong arm of the and his saints in the public streets." 
state. They were simply detached A system of belief at once so conve- 
efforts on the part of the worst por- nient and so conformable with the 
tion of the population to throw off greatest license, so free from all 
all spiritual restraint as well as tern- moral responsibility and so sugges- 
poral authority, and, by being thus tive of rapine and spoliation, could 
freed both from moral and civil law, not but attract followers, and Luther 
to give full scope to their passions, became so popular with the more de- 
undeterred by either religious or so- based of his countrymen and with 
cial considerations. The history of the rapacious among the nobles, that 
fanaticism, of the Albigenses, the rivals soon sprang up, who, accepting 
Fratricelli, and the Lollards, proves his premises, quickly outstripped hira 
that the leaders in such movements in the race of fanaticism. The Ana- 
were invariably the enemies of exist- baptists under Munzer, thinking that 
ing civil authority, and that profli- they also had a right to private 
gacy and plunder were the lures by judgment, declared against infant bap- 
which they drew around them their tism, demanded a reorganization oi 



292 The Spirit cf Protestantism. 

society on what would now be called to every species of outrage by those 

a socialistic basis, and proceeded to wretches, who, true to their master 

put the heresiarch's theory into prac- and his teachings, even went to the 

tice by overrunning the fairest pro- extent, in mockery of the church, to 

vinces of Germany with fire and formally suspend Clement VII., and 

sword, destroying alike feudal castles elect in his stead their new apostle, 

and Catholic churches, and slaugh- How Luther must have chuckled at 

tering with unheard-of barbarity the news ! 

every one who opposed them, Never perhapS( in the history of the 

whether layman or cleric. world," says a distinguished historian, 

This practical commentary on the " had a greater capital been given up to 

new doctine affrighted even its found- a more atrocious abuse of victory ; never 

, , j i 4.1 had a powerful army been made up of 

er, so he hastened to implore the 

more barbarous elements ; never had the 

interposition of his friends among the res traints of discipline been more fear- 
German nobility. Accordingly, Phi- fully cast aside. It was not enough for 
lip of Hesse, in 1625, marched an ar- these rapacious plunderers to seize upon 

my against them, and, meeting their the rich stores of sacred and Pfane 

. i j i A/r .. i wealth which the piety or industry of the 
mam body under Munzer, a quondam 

' ' people had gathered into the capital of 

friend and pupil of Luther, at Mul- the Christian world; the wretched inhabi- 

hausen, cut them to pieces and sub- tants themselves became the victims of 

sequently hanged their leader. About the fierce and brutal soldiery ; those who 

thirty thousand peasants are stated were suspected of having hidden their 

v i i 4 j 4.1 wealth were put to the torture. Some 
to have been slaughtered on this oc- 

. were forced by these tortures to sign 

casion, when the new Reformation promiss0 ry notes, and to drain the purses 

may be said to have been baptized, O f t h e ir friends in other countries. A 

and the right of private judgment great number of prelates fell under these 

according to Luther fully vindicated, sufferings. Many others, having paid 

Nearly at the same time another their ransom and while rejoicing to think 

J - ... themselves free from further attacks, 

scene of even greater barbarity was were obliged to redeem themselves again 

enacted at the Other extremity of the an d died from grief or terror caused by 

Continent. Attracted by reports of these acts of violence. The German 

rich spoil to be obtained in Italy du- troops were seen, drunk at once with 

rine the wars of the emperor and the win( : and blood > ; eading abo "t bishops 

..... c in full pontifical attire, seated upon 

French king for the possession of mules? / dragging cardinals through the 

that lovely but unfortunate country, stree ts, loading them with blows and 

sixteen thousand German Lutheran outrages. In their eagerness for plunder, 

mercenaries crossed the Alps and they broke in the doors of the taberna- 

joined the forces of Constable de cles and d estroyed masterpieces of art. 

i. , i ir *. The Vatican library was sacked; the 

Bourbon, himself a traitor in arms pubHc square and J churches of Rome 

against his country. Under the were converted into market-places, where 

command of that gifted apostate, they the conquerors sold, as promiscuous 

marched on Rome, and, though their booty, the Roman ladies and horses ; 

leader fell in the attack, the city was and these bruta ! excesses were commit- 

TT , , - , ,_, f . ted even in the basilicas of S. Peter and 

captured. Had he survived, the fate g pau]( held by Aladc as sacred asy _ 

of the Eternal City might have been lums . the p }ii ag e which, under Gcnser- 

sad enough, but, unrestrained by su- j c , had lasted fourteen days, lasted now 

perior authority, the conduct of the two months without interruption."^ 

victors was simply diabolical. For Having disposed of his rivals the 

weeks and months the city was given 

over to plunder, and the inhabitants * sismondi, His. itai. Rep. 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 293 

Anabaptists and set afloat his anath- these concessions to heresy for the 
emas against the church, Luther pro- general good, this weak recognition 
ceeded systematically to disorganize of an unlawful assumption of ecclesi- 
society and obstruct the efforts of the astical and political authority, were 
sovereign pontiff and the Catholic not what the reformers desired. Not 
princes to save Europe from the hor- even toleration or equality would sat- 
rors of a Mahometan invasion, at isfy them. They wanted the right to 
that time most imminent. He form- persecute, to eradicate by forcible 
ed a league among the semi-indepen- means and as far as their power ex- 
dent German princes favorable to tended, every vestige of Catholicity, 
his views, particularly on the matter They declared that in their opinion 
of confiscation, and the power he had " the Mass is an act of idolatry, con- 
denied to the pope and bishops of the demned by a thousand passages of 
church he assumed to himself by Sacred Scripture. It is our duty and 
forthwith creating a number of evan- our right to overthrow the altars of 
gelical ministers to preach the new Baal." Thus protesting their duty 
gospel. In 1529, the members of and right to persecute, they retired 
this league, with other nobles of the from the diet, left the Mahometans, 
empire, were summoned by the Em- as far as they were concerned, free 
peror Charles V. to a diet at Spires to scope to destroy Christianity wher- 
concert means for the general defence ever they pleased, and Lutheranism, 
of Christendom against the Turks, or rebellion, was henceforth known 
then threatening it by the way of by the generic title of Protestantism. 
Hungary. The Lutherans, taking ad- So far from Protestantism being, as 
vantage of the critical condition of popularly represented, the assertion 
affairs, and not being particularly ad- of liberty of conscience in religion, 
verse to the success of any movement it originated in the denial of that 
that would destroy Christianity, de- liberty, by asserting the right to 
manded the most unreasonable terms persecute those who differed from 
as the price of their active co-opera- them in religion. 
tion. On the part of the emperor, it From this time the Reformation 
was proposed that all questions of a under its new and more comprehen- 
religious nature should remain in statu sive name made vast strides on the 
quo pending the struggle against the Continent, its path being everywhere 
infidels, and be submitted as soon as marked by the same spirit of fanati- 
practicable thereafter to a general or cism, sacrilege, and destruction of 
oecumenical council of the church, at property devoted to religion, learning, 
which all parties were to be repre- and charity ; the insane dissensions 
sented. " The edict of Worms," of the Catholic rulers granting it 
they proposed, " shall be observed in immunity, if not positive encourage- 
the states in which it has already ment. Geneva and part of Switzer- 
been received. The others shall be land first embraced the gloomy 
free to continue in the new doctrines doctrines of Calvin, and made active 
until the meeting of the next general war on the church ; spreading into 
council. However, to prevent all France, the Netherlands, and the 
domestic troubles, no one shall northern countries, their adoption by 
preach against the sacrament of the the ignorant and venal was invaria- 
altar; the Mass shall not be abolish- bly followed by the greatest atroci- 
ed ; and no one shall be hindered ties and the wildest anarchy. Europe 
trom celebrating or hearing it." But was shaken to its centre, and wars, 



294 The Spirit of Protestantism. 

the worst of wars, because waged in and monks, thirty-eight doctors, twelve 

the name of religion, desolated the dukes and counts, one hundred and 

entire Continent for over a century sixty-four noblemen of various ranks, 

with but pause enough to enable the one hundred and twenty-four private 

combatants to rest and recruit their citizens, and one hundred and ten 

strength. The destruction of life females. If all of those did not suf- 

during this period must have, been fer the fate of the Charter-house 

immense, morals degenerated, indus- monks, Sir Thomas More, Bishop 

try languished, and the principles of Fisher, and the Countess of Salis- 

rational freedom, which had been bury, it was not his fault, but theirs 

steadily gaining ground, were lost who were ungrateful enough to fly 

sight of in the clash of arms and the their country and perish in poverty 

angry conflict of contending systems, and exile, thus robbing the Refor- 

From this epoch we may date the mation in England of half its glory, 
rise of modern Csesarism and revo- Under his daughter Elizabeth, 

lutionary ferocity which at the present nearly two hundred ecclesiastics are 

moment are contending for supre- known to have suffered for their faith 

macy in the Old World. on the scaffold, besides laymen, and 

But it was not continental nations the multitude who died in prison : 

alone that suffered from the blight of and if her successor, James I., does 

this stupendous curse. Great Bri- not present as striking a record of 

tain and Ireland soon experienced its his zeal, it was because there were 

baleful influence. Henry VIII., in very few priests left to be hunted 

order to be able to divorce his law- down, and very little Catholic prop- 

ful wife and marry a mistress, cut erty to be confiscated. To do that 

himself loose from the See of Rome, light of the Reformation justice, 

and became, by act of parliament, wherever he could catch a priest he 

head of the church in his own do- hanged him, and, with a keenness emi- 

minions. Henry was no mean re- nently national, wherever a penny 

former, as the record of his life testifies, could be squeezed out of a recusant 

He married in succession six wives, Papist he or his friends were sure to 

two of whom he repudiated, two be- have it. Still he was only a glean- 

headed, and his sudden demise alone er in the field so cleanly reaped by 

prevented the execution of his stir- his predecessors ; for even in unhap- 

viving consort, whose death-warrant py Ireland Elizabeth's captains had 

had been signed by his royal and done their work so thoroughly that 

loving hand. " For the glory of he had nothing to seize upon or give 

Almighty God and the honor of the away but the uninhabited and deso- 

realm," he seized upon all the lated lands. 

churches in England, as well as However, lest the traditions oi 
nearly four hundred religious houses, the early fathers of his church 
and confiscated their property " for Luther, Calvin, and the royal Henry 
the benefit of the crown " -that is, should be forgotten, and having no 
for his own use and that of his facile longer any Catholics to persecute, he 
courtiers and parliament. With the turned his attention to the Presby- 
same pious purpose, we suppose, he terians, Covenanters, and Puritans 
ordered for execution, at different with some effect. The humanizing 
times, besides his wives, a cardinal, custom of cropping the ears and slit- 
two archbishops, eighteen bishops, ting the noses of those dissenters 
thirteen abbots, five hundred priors became greatly the fashion in this 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 295 

reign; for, though James acknow- with the Swedes and Quakers, up the 
ledged the right of private judgment Hudson with the Hollanders, and 
in the abstract, the exercise of the pervaded the hold of the Mayflower 
right was found by his subjects to be from stem to stern. Whatever phy- 
a very dangerous pastime. The sical, mental, and moral qualities those 
Puritans, who also based their reli- early adventurers, of many lands and 
gton on the same right, improved on divers creeds, may have possessed, 
the lessons thus taught ; for, when in Christian charity was certainly not 
the next reign it became their turn to of the number, and though they each 
persecute and punish, instead of and all proclaimed the right of every 
cutting off the ears or the nose of his one to be his own judge in matters 
son and successor, they took off the of religion and most of them claim- 
entire head, and gave to the English ed to have suffered for conscience' 
Church its first and only martyr, sake not one had the consistency 
Oliver Cromwell and the Long Par- or the courage to tolerate, much less 
liament interpreted " King James' protect, the expression of an opinion 
Version " too literally, and of course, or the observance of a form of wor- 
believing in freedom of conscience, ship differing from his own. So corn- 
swept away episcopacy, kings, bish- pletely had the rancor of the foun- 
ops, and all. After the Restoration, ders of Protestantism eaten up what- 
the English Church was again in the ever of Christianity it retained of the 
ascendant. Then they dug up the church's teaching, that each of the 
bones of the Puritan regicides, scat- sects, having no common enemy to 
tered them to the winds, and ever prey upon, turned round, and, like 
since the followers of John Knox and hungry wolves, were ready to tear 
the believers in the Westminster and rend each other. With the ex- 
Catechism have held a very subor- ception of one small settlement, there 
dinate place under the feet of " the were no Catholics in the early colo- 
church as by law established." nies ; but still, the Puritan found it 
If the fell spirit of Protestantism, as unsafe to live in Virginia as the 
which, as we have seen, was bloody Episcopalian did in New England, 
and cruel in its inception and growth, while the non-combatant Friend dared 
had been confined to the eastern not risk his life in either locality, 
hemisphere, we, as Americans, feel- There was one little bright spot in 
ing grateful to Providence for the ex- the darkened firmament that hung 
emption, might have less cause of over the infant settlements, and that 
complaint against it. But unfortu- was near the mouth of the St. Mary's, 
nately it was not so. The virgin on the Potomac. Here Lord Balti- 
soil of the New World, from the first more had planted a colony of Catho- 
consecrated to freedom, we are often lies which soon showed signs of life 
told, was destined to be polluted by and vigor, worshipping according to 
the evil genius evoked by the apos- the old faith, and proclaiming the 
tate monk of Wittenberg. Every doctrine of charity and religious tol- 
breeze from the east that wafted eration to all Christians. But it was 
hither an immigrant-ship bore on its not long allowed to enjoy its honors 
wings the deadly moral pestilence of in peace. Its very existence was a 
intolerance and persecution. It ac- reproach to its bigoted neighbors, 
companied the Huguenots to the Taking advantage of its humane and 
Carolinas, landed at Jamestown with equitable laws, Protestants of the va- 
the royalists, went up the Delaware rious denominations, persecuted in 



296 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 



the other colonies, flocked to it as to 
a city of refuge, abused its hospi- 
tality, when strong enough in num- 
bers changed its statutes, and actu- 
ally commenced to persecute the 
very people who had sheltered them. 

As the colonies grew in population 
and extent, we do not find that they 
increased in equity or liberality. 
Many of them were even at the pains 
of passing laws prohibiting the settle- 
ment of Catholics within their limits; 
and now and then we hear of some 
solitary priest being executed or a 
group of humble Catholics driven 
into further exile. The dawn of our 
Revolution created some change in 
religious sentiment, but it was more 
on the surface than in the heart. 
England, the oppressor, was the 
champion of Protestantism ; France, 
the ally, was as essentially Catholic ; 
so it was not considered politic to 
manifest too openly that bigotry of 
soul which pervaded all classes of 
society in those days, though even in 
the continental congress there were 
found some candid enough to object 
to asking the assistance of Catholic 
Frenchmen to help them to wrest 
their liberties from their Protestant 
enemy. These patriots preferred the 
Hessians and their Lutheranism to 
Lafayette and Rochambaud. 

Our independence once gained by 
the efficient aid of the troops of the 
eldest son of the church, a pause ap- 
pears to have occurred in the perse- 
cuting progress of the sects. Com- 
mon decency required as much, but 
commercial interest demanded it. 
Our finances were in a ruinous con- 
dition, and it was only among the 
Catholic nations of Europe that we 
could look for sympathy and sup- 
port. Then the new states very gen- 
erally repealed the colonial penal 
laws, and finally the amended con- 
stitution prohibited the interference 
of the general government in matters 



of religion. Still, though we owe 
much to French sympathy and influ- 
ence in placing us, as Catholics, free 
and equal before the law, we owe 
more to those of our own country- 
men who actually had no religion at 
all. We would rather, for the honor 
of human nature, that the benefits 
thus received had been derived from 
another source; but it is an historical 
fact that the minds of many of the 
leaders of the Revolution, before and 
during that struggle, had become 
deeply imbued with the false phi- 
losophy then prevalent among the 
intellectual classes in Europe, and, 
believing in no particular revelation, 
dogma, or religion, they could see no 
reason why one party calling itself 
Christian should ostracise another 
claiming the same distinction. To 
their credit, be it said, our country- 
men never carried their theories to 
the same extent as their fellow-phi- 
losophers across the Atlantic, and 
their impartiality, which we would 
fain hope to have been sincere, took 
a direction in accord with the spirit 
of justice and impartial legislation. 

If, then, our young Republic has 
not been disgraced by such penal 
enactments against Catholics as have 
long disfigured the statute-books of 
England, and which are yet in force 
in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and 
Norway, the Protestant sects, as such, 
deserve neither credit nor gratitude. 
The active Protestants of that day 
the ministers, deacons, and poli- 
ticians were just as narrow-minded 
and as bigoted as were their ances- 
tors, and as would be their descend- 
ants if it were not for certain good 
reasons best known to themselves. 
Witness the periodical outbursts 
of Nativism or Knovv-Nothingism 
which have from time to time dis- 
graced our national character. These 
have been directed invariably against 
Catholics not against foreigners as 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 297 

such, for with a Protestant or even we are thankful. Grateful not, how- 
infidel foreigner their promoters have ever, to the Protestant sects, but to 
never professed to find fault. The a benevolent Providence who has 
occasional destruction of a convent, vouchsafed it to us; and, under him, 
the burning of a church and we to our Catholic predecessors who 
have had many so dealt with or the helped to found, and our co-religion- 
mobbing of a priest may only show ists who have bravely defended, our 
that depravity exists in certain sec- institutions, and who now stand ready 
tions of the country, but the news to oppose with might and main any 
of such atrocities has been received attempt to infringe upon our liber- 
with such ill-concealed satisfaction ties. 

certainly with nothing like hearty But even as to the letter of the 
condemnation by the clerical dema- law we are not without just cause 
gogues and the so-called religious of complaint. For instance, we ob- 
press, that we are forced into the ject most emphatically to the pres- 
conviction that to the absence of ent school law of this state as unjust 
opportunity and power on their part and inequitable in its provisions and 
we alone owe our exemption from method of administration. The 
such villanies on a larger and better state has no right to prescribe how 
organized system. or what our children shall be taught, 
We are told, in a tone of patron- and then make us pay for its so do- 
age, if not menace, that we ought to ing. We Catholics are unanimously 
be content as long as the Catholics in favor of educating our own off- 
of America are free and enjoy equali- spring according to our conception 
ty under the law. We grant the of the demands of religion and 
freedom and equality, but only so far morality, and, as the artificial body 
as the letter, not the spirit, of the called the state is a judge of neither, 
law is concerned. Let any one look it is manifestly incompetent to direct 
at the way our Catholic missions in the training of our children. We 
the far West have been defrauded are also willing to pay, and are actu- 
for the benefit of Methodist and ally expending, large sums of money 
Baptist preachers of the Word and in this good work ; and while we are 
cheaters of the Indians, and tell us doing so, we hold it not just to tax 
are they free and equal ? How many us for the support of schools we do 
Catholic chaplains are there in the not require. Our duty to the state 
army and navy, the bone and sinew and society is performed when we 
of which are mainly Catholics ? For teach our children to obey the laws 
how many foreign consuls are we of one and respect the usages of the 
paying merely to act as agents for other, and, if parents and the minis- 
the Board of Foreign Missions, Bible ters of religion are unable to do this, 
Societies, and Book Concerns ? How mere officials and strangers certainly 
are our numerous state institutions cannot. However, if the state will 
penitentiary, reformatory, and elee- insist on levying a school-tax, let it 
mosynary attended to in the inter- in justice give us a pro rata share of 
ests of their Catholic inmates ? When the money, and let the -Evangelical 
these questions are satisfactorily an- Alliance of the sects take theirs and 
swered, we will be able to estimate bring up their children in their own 
the extent of the legal equality we way. We ask nothing for ourselves 
possess. For so much of freedom that we would not willingly see grant- 
and equality as we actually enjoy, ed to others, but, until one or other 



298 The Spirit of Protestantism. 

of these measures be adopted, we In stating our grievance in this 

maintain that a large class of the manner, we do not address ourselves 

citizens of the United States is de- specially to the sense of justice or 

prived of one of its most vital and fair play of the leaders of Protestant 

dearest religious rights. opinion, but rather to the manhood 

Then, again, look at the treatment and intelligence of our co-religion- 

meted out by the legislative author- ists who, by a more determined effort, 

ities to Catholic institutions, to our might easily remove the evils of 

hospitals, foundling - asylums, re- which we complain. We are more 

formatories, and orphanages, which confirmed in this view by a recent 

save annually to the state hundreds event which happened at the nation- 

of thousands of dollars, and are daily al capital. The force of well-regu- 

conferring on society incalculable lated public opinion will always be 

advantages. What begging, peti- very powerful in this Republic, and 

tioning, and beseeching must we not we are satisfied that the opposition 

resort to, to get the least legislative very generally expressed by the 

favor for them, even to a bare act of Catholics of the country to the 

incorporation ! For a quarter of a scheme of compulsory education by 

century or more, irresponsible bodies the general government, some time 

under the names of the sects, or even ago introduced into Congress by 

in no names but their own, have been some distinguished members, had a 

fattening on the public money, our powerful effect in defeating, for a 

money, and no word of remonstrance time at least, a measure fraught with 

has been uttered ; but, as soon as the greatest danger to our rights, and 

anything is asked for our institutions, to the general liberties of all the 

the cry of " sectarian appropriations " states.* 

and " Romish designs " is immedi- We expect little from the Protest- 
ately raised and repeated along the ant press or pulpits. The manner in 
line. Every petty bigot who mis- which the revival of religious perse - 
uses a pen gets up a howl about the cutions in Europe has been looked 
" Papists," and " Romanism the Rock upon by them precludes the faintest 
Ahead," etc. ; the pigeon-holes of the hope that they will listen to the ap- 
religious newspaper offices, and of peals of humanity or justice where 
newspapers the contrary of religious, their passions, prejudices, or interests 
are ransacked for stale calumnies are concerned. Not very long since, 
against the church, and slanders the schismatic king of Sardinia wan- 
over and over refuted are launched tonly levied war on the most defence- 
at the most gifted and reputable of less and venerable sovereign in the 
our citizens. This must all be world, and despoiled him of the 
changed before we can consider that, larger half of his small dominions ; 
as Catholics, we stand on an equality yet there was not a single Protestant 
with non-Catholic Americans, and voice heard among us in reproba- 
before we are prepared to admit that tion of the foul act. Two years ago 
Protestantism, mollified by time and the same royal filibustero, with, if pos- 
distance, has lost any of its pristine sible, less pretence, and without any 
love of persecution and proscription, warning, stealthily advanced his army 
We would prefer to live at peace on the Eternal City, took possession 
with every shade of Christians, but, of its churches and their sacred furni- 
if they will not let us, they must take . gee CATHOLIC WORL ^ yol ^ No 
the responsibility. April, 1871, p. i. 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 



299 



ture ; its convents, and turned them 
into barracks and stables ; its trea- 
sures of art and literature, and sold 
them to the highest bidder; its col- 
leges and schools, and drove out the 
students and poor children to wander 
on the face of the earth. Then the 
Protestant churches and meeting- 
houses rang with acclamations ; and 
public assemblies were held by free- 
dom-loving American citizens to con- 
gratulate the modern vandal on his 
" victory " over justice, religion, and 
civilization. 

Rome has again been sacked, this 
time not by the rude Lutheran Lands- 
knechte, but by a more ruthless and 
more insidious foe, the Garibaldini, 
the enemies of all forms of revealed 
religion, the men who swear on the 
dagger and the bowl because they 
have no God to swear by. The 
sovereign pontiff is virtually a prison- 
er in his Vatican; monks and priests, 
passing along the streets to comfort 
the afflicted or administer the sacra- 
ments to the dying, are set upon and 
slain at noon-day ; weak and deli- 
cately nurtured ladies are turned out 
of their peaceful retreats into the 
highways, to be insulted and derided 
by a crowd of vagabonds gathered 
from every quarter of Europe; the 
libraries, statuary, paintings, castings, 
and all the treasures which made 
Rome the centre of Christian art, 
and the depository of the world's 
store of classic literature, lie at the 
mercy of a horde of ruffians, the very 
offscourings of Italian society, called 
together to that devoted city by the 
hope of plunder and the certainty of 
immunity for their crimes. All this 
and more is matter of public notoriety, 
yet no word of execration, no wail 
of sorrow, at this worse than vandal- 
ism rises up from a country that 
boasts its love of civilization, its 
chivalry to women, its respect for 
sacred things, and its patronage of 



the arts and letters. Why ? They 
are only priests that are assassinated, 
only helpless nuns that are jeered at, 
only Catholic treasures that are stolen, 
shattered, or destroyed ; right, jus- 
tice, liberty, and even ordinary hu- 
manity, can afford to suffer and be 
forgotten, so that Catholicity be 
thereby weakened and checked in its 
onward course. The force of bigotry 
can go no further. 

Late European mails bring us an 
account of a general election 
throughout " United Italy ' on the 
universal suffrage plan that sup- 
posed panacea for all political ills. 
The Catholics in certain portions of 
the country, it seems, who had hith- 
erto abstained from voting, resolved 
this time to take part in the contest. 
As soon as this became known to the 
ministry, a circular was sent to even 
the local government officials, may- 
ors of cities, magistrates, police cap- 
tains, poll-clerks, returning officers, 
etc., warning them of the danger, 
and threatening the severest penal- 
ties if steps were not immediately 
taken to prevent the Catholics from 
electing their candidates. The re- 
sult was what might have been ex- 
pected. The officials have done 
their duty to the government, and 
now feel secure in their places. The 
Catholics of one city, and that the 
largest, Naples, did, however, de- 
spite of all official precautions to the 
contrary, carry their election by an 
overwhelming majority; but, being 
only Catholic voters, the election has 
been set aside without even the 
mockery of an investigation or the 
least show of reason. Now, if such a 
thing had occurred in France, or any 
other country governed under Catho- 
lic auspices, we would be treated by 
nine-tenths of the press of this coun- 
try to a dissertation on the inability 
of the Latin nations to understand 
free institutions, and the folly of ex- 



300 The Spirit of Protestantism. 

pecting an ignorant and slavish mul- without popular support, can make 

titude to be able to appreciate the little resistance to the encroachments 

right of suffrage; but, as this gigantic of the state; but the Catholic body, 

fraud was perpetrated by a govern- powerful not less from its intelli- 

ment in direct hostility to the head gence and independence than from 

of the church, it is passed over in dig- its numbers, utterly refuses to recog- 

nified silence. Not a syllable of re- nize the right or the authority of the 

monstrance is uttered by our free- chancellor to interfere in their spi- 

dom-shrieking friends our Beechers, ritual affairs. That astute statesman 

Fultons, and Bellowses who are so first tried to frighten them by abo- 

fond of interlarding their sermons lishing the denominational schools, 

with political appeals against ballot- then by patronizing a few dissatisfied 

stuffing and intimidation at the polls, professors who call themselves " Old 

Let us turn for a moment to the Catholics," but without avail; and 
present sad condition of Germany, now, like a genuine follower of the 
the cradle and the victim of religious teachings of Luther, he is resorting to 
dissent and doubt. Prussia emerged expatriation and persecution. He has 
from the late war not only the victor already attacked the religious orders, 
of France, but the conqueror of the and, as is generally known, has pro- 
several independent states and cities cured a law to be passed expelling 
of the late Germanic Confederation, the Jesuits and all religious in affilia- 
Her capacious maw has engulfed tion with them from the empire. It 
them all. Prince Bismarck, whose is not pretended that the members of 
absolutist tendencies have long been that illustrious trady, individually or 
recognized, not content with his sue- collectively, have committed any of- 
cess in creating an empire one and fence against the state, nor is it even 
indivisible, desires to found a Ger- proposed that a semblance of a trial 
man church, to be conducted on should be granted them before con- 
strictly military and autocratic prin- demnation ; but they have been guil- 
ciples. Having disposed of a good ty of opposing the designs of a con- 
many of the bodies, and taken pos- firmed despot, and their removal 
session of a large share of the proper- from home, country, and the sphere 
ty of the subjects of the new empire, of their duties is forthwith decreed, 
he is now anxious to take care of and effected with all that mean ma- 
their souls, and, whether they will or Kgnity which subordinates who hope 
not, guide them in the way of salva- for future favor so well know how to 
tion and the Gospel according to exercise towards the victims of offi- 
Bismarck. Obedience to the central cial oppression. The summary ex- 
civil head in Berlin is to be the lead- pulsion of so many learned and stu- 
ing feature in his new religious sys- dious men from their schools and 
tern, and the emperor, like his broth- colleges has filled Europe with dis- 
er of Russia and the Grand Lama, is gust and amazement; and even the 
to unite in himself absolute political more enlightened class of German 
and spiritual power, tempered by non-Catholics, who at least know the 
Bismarck. value of their acquirements and won- 

A large portion of the Germans, derful skill in training youth, have 

having great doubts as to whether or denounced, in the most forcible terms, 

not they have such things as souls to an act so detrimental to the true in- 

be saved, feel philosophically indif- terests of their country, 

ferent ; the sects, being weak and In England, a meeting of promi- 



The Spirit of Protestantism. 301 

nent Catholics was lately held, to pro- gle for this principle, even against those 

test, in the name of religion and learn- enemies wh falsel 7 use his holy name as 

,1 i M , r i i a pretext for their hostility against our 

ins:, against this exhibition of high- J. J 

. internal peace; but it will be a source 

handed authority ; but Protestantism, of re joicing to every one of my country, 

true to its instincts, took the alarm, men that in this contest Germany has 

and, lest the Prussian Government met with the approval of so numerous 

might in the slightest degree be influ- and influential a body of Englishmen." 
enced, hastened to send an address to Now, all this simply means that the 

Berlin to assure Bismarck of English man who controls the affairs of Ger- 

sympathy and support. This pre- many for the present is determined 

cious document was signed by fifty- to destroy or to subject the spiritual 

seven persons, including the Marquis order to the state ; to enforce com- 

of Cholmondeley, the Bishops of pulsory education, and prescribe 

Worcester and Ripon, Lord Law- forms of faith according to his ideas 

rence, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Arthur of what the " independence and safe- 

Kinnaird,the Archbishop of Armagh, ty of the country" demand; the 

the Moderators of the Established penalty of resistance, as in the case 

Church of Scotland, of the United of the Jesuits, being banishment, per- 

Presbyterian Church of Scotland, of secution, and perhaps worse, should 

the English and Irish Presbyterian the necessities of the case, in his in- 

Churches, and the President and Sec- dividual judgment, require it. In 

retary of the Wesleyan Conference, this as in every other respect his 

The reply of Bismarck, who is not word is all-powerful in the empire, 

remarkable for his " religiosity," is Still, we have yet to learn that one 

full of sanctimonious cant and what, advocate of the higher law in Ameri- 

under the circumstances, seems to us ca, one enemy of the union of church 

very like grim irony : and state, one stickler for the rights 

, of conscience, one believer in private 

Most warmly do I thank you and . ' . . r 

the gentlemen who were co-signataries judgment and religious freedom, has 

of the address you were good enough to raised his voice against this violation 

present to me for this encouraging mark of every right said to be so dear to 

of approval. Your communication, sir, the p ro testants of the United States, 

a greater value coming as it Notone Protestant has protested 
does from a country ivhich Eiirope has . . . r v i 

learnt for centuries to regard as the bulwark against this assumption of absolute 

of civil and religious liberty. Rightly does power over the minds and conscien- 

the address estimate the difficulties of ces of forty millions of people. Why? 

the struggle which has been forced upon The answer i s simple : the blow, in 

the desire and expec- }[ instance is aimed at Catholicity, 
tation of the German governments. It 

would be no light task for the state to Yes, the Republic is silent when even 

preserve religious peace and freedom of monarchical England feels herself 

conscience, even were it not made more constrained to speak. Ill a late 

difficult by the misuse of legitimate au- num b er o f tne Manchester Examiner, 

thority and by the artificial disturbance i T n i 

r i v T a paper, we believe, anything but 

of the minds of believers. I rejoice that . 

I agree with you on the fundamental favorable to Catholics on general 

principle that in a well-ordered commu- grounds, we noticed a very pertinent 

nity every person and every creed should article on the address alluded to, of 

enjoy that measure of liberty which is wh j ch the f o n ow i ng j s an extract, 
compatible both with the freedom of the , j .. ,, 

remainder, and also with the indepen- and we ^commend it to the serious 

dence and safety of the country. God will consideration of the conductors of 

protect the German Empire in the strug- the sectarian newspapers : 



3O2 The Spirit of Protestantism. 

"We cannot understand why bishops wish whatever to be at variance with the 

and deans of the English Church should Pope. Besides, the necessity for getting 

go into ecstasies over a united Germany, rid of the Jesuits by depriving them of 

or why it should furnish a theme for the their civil rights is a thing to be de- 

pious applause of Wesleyan presidents plored ; since, so far as it does not spring 

and Presbyterian moderators. Political from political considerations, the acts to 

changes concern politicians and political which it leads are acts of persecution, 

societies. When the kingdoms of this and entitled to our regret, if not to our 

world adopt a different principle of reprehension. We like the Jesuits just 

grouping, all who take an interest in the as little as the Germans do, but we allow 

political concerns of mankind may find them to settle amongst us, feeling sure 

in the altered arrangements abundant that the law is strong enough to keep 

reason for gratulation or for dismay, but them in order. The thing really to be 

theological creeds and spiritual interests deplored is that Germany cannot afford 

have no direct concern in the matter. If to do the same, and it is a proper subject 

the unity of Germany were likely to give for commiseration rather than for eu- 

a great impetus to Roman Catholic doc- logy." 
trine, and aid the extension of Papal au- 

thority Mr. Kinnaird would hardly have w haye ^ han fi h 
found in it a subject of thanksgiving, 

though, as a political change, it might to convince the most ^supine 
have been equally desirable. Is it Prince lie that Protestantism in this country 
Bismarck's assumed hostility to the dog- has lost little if any of its anti-Chris- 
ma of papal infallibility, and the trench- tian ren own, and, if it cannot perse- 
ant steps he has taken with the Jesuits, } . . . f R th with 
that constitute the real merit of his policy ' 
in Protestant eyes ? Well, then, to begin those in Europe who can ; that, while 
with, it is not at all clear that Prince Bis- it has lost much of its capacity, it 
marck has any absolute aversion either to has given up none of its desire for 
papal infallibility or to the Jesuits. If proscription. Split, as it is, into so 
the pope had only thrown his influence antagonistic sects, and con- 
into the scale of German unity, and em- / . 4 

ployed it to further the new political stantly losing large numbers who at 

policy in Fatherland, he might have made following out its teachings logically 

himself as infallible as he pleased without and gliding into indifferentism and 

provoking any hostility from Prince Bis- infinity, it is comparatively power- 

raarck. If the Jesuits, instead of fighting fc injuries but ;t j g 

against him, had fought for him, he J 

would have made them welcome to as for us, by continued harmony, labor, 

much power as they liked to grasp. At and self-sacrifice, to put beyond per- 

present, he finds them in his way, and he adventure the question of our right 

sends them off about their business ; but tQ full an( j un q ua li ne d religious liber- 



cf Catholics to govern, and he has no ministration of the 



Fleurange. 303 



FLEURANGE. 

BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF "A SISTER'S STORY." 
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION. 

PART THIRD. 

THE BANKS OF THE NECKAR. 
XLV. 

FLEURANGE, as we have said, gen- as to my brother and my best 

erally returned to Rosenheim in the friend." 

evening, but that day she left the As Clement looked at her and 
princess several hours earlier than listened to this preamble, his heart 
usual, and it was not yet night when instinctively warned him more and 
Clement, who was alone in a room more strongly a great trial was at 
on the ground floor, absorbed in a hand and he must prepare to suffer, 
large volume open before him, saw But when, without much circum- 
her suddenly appear at an hour locution, she came to the point; when 
when he expected her the least. Per- she clearly laid before him her de- 
haps, instead of reading, he had sign ; when, with a simplicity fearful 
really been dreaming over his cousin's from the strength of affection and 
gayety which made him so sad the devotedness it revealed, she unfolded 
night before. At all events, when the plan of her projected immola- 
she appeared so suddenly before him tion an immolation longed for, em- 
at this unusual hour, the same sensa- braced, and decided upon Clemen* 
tion contracted his heart. There literally felt his hair stand on end 
was, however, nothing in her appear- and it seemed to him as if his reasoi 
ance to justify his presentiment. He was deserting him. 
feared in seeing Fleurange again What ! lose one so dear, so pre- 
he might behold traces of the tears cious, so adored ! lose her for- 
on her face which had probably sue- ever ! and in what way ? To see 
ceeded her feverish and causeless her voluntarily embrace a destiny 
gayety. But now, if not smiling and too horrible for the imagination to 
gay as the evening before, if, on the contemplate. And wherefore ? 
contrary, she looked serious and wherefore ? Ah ! the cry of 
grave, her brow nevertheless was Othello now resounded in Clement's 
radiant, and in her brilliant eyes it soul : " The cause the cause !" Yes, 
was easy to read an expression of the cause of this sacrifice was what 
almost triumphant joy. All this by added so much bitterness to his 
no means resembled the dejection pain and stung him so sharply, so 
that usually follows a fit of factitious cruelly, so intolerably, that, overpow- 
gayety. ered by the Unexpected disclosure, 

" You are alone ! ' said she im- overcome by an emotion impossible 

mediately. " So much the better, to master, Clement for a moment 

Clement. I have something to tell lost all control over himself. A 

you you first, before any one else, smothered cry escaped him, and, 

You will see," she continued, throw- leaning his head on his clasped 

ing off her cloak, " that I am faithful hands, the tears he could not repress 

to my promise. I come to you now fell on the floor at his feet. 



304 Fleurange. 

Clement's firmness was so habit- " In a week ! That will be 
ual that Fleurange was surprised at before the end of January ! And 
its failing him now, and perhaps at have you thought of the means of 
the moment the hidden cause of this making such a journey at this sea- 
fit of despair came over her like a son ? >: 

momentary flash ! But it was no Fleurange hesitated. " I am quite 

time to dwell on such a thought, and, well aware," said she," that it will be 

besides, Clement did not give her difficult for me to go alone." 

the opportunity. He rose and walk- Clement hastily interrupted her in 

ed around the room in silence. His a terrified tone : " Alone ! I declare, 

manly and courageous heart sought Gabrielle, it is impossible to listen to 

to regain self-control, by an interior you coolly, though I know your rash 

appeal to Him who alone could save words must be taken seriously." 

it from bursting and renew its failing " You must, however, take them 

strength. He soon approached her, so," said she, in the same tone of ener- 

having triumphed over his emotion, getic tenderness which had struck the 

and his first words gave an explana- Princess Catherine. "You must re- 

tion quiet natural. sign yourself to see me set out alone, 

4< Pardon me, Gabrielle," said he, if there is no other means of joining 

" I beg you, for my inconceivable him." 

weakness. But I could not indeed Oh ! how willingly Clement would 
have any any friendship what- that moment have changed places 
ever for you, to consider calmly the with the prisoner ! He was look- 
frightful perspective you so abruptly img at Fleurange with sorrowful ad- 
unfolded to me ! You understand miration when she resumed : " I 
that, I imagine ? " thought it would not be difficult to 

" Yes, I expected to see all the find some one travelling to Russia 

rest greatly terrified. But you, Cle- with whom I could make the jour- 

ment I thought you capable of ney." 

listening coolly to anything ? " " Go with strangers on so long and 

" Well, my dear cousin, you had, tedious a journey ! That is impossi- 

you see, too high an opinion of my ble, Gabrielle, more impossible than 

courage. However, I will endeavor the rest." 

to behave better in the future. Do " Ah !" cried Fleurange then, 

not deprive me of your confidence, " with what confidence I would have 

that is all I ask." had recourse to the kind friend 

" Oh ! no, far from that, for it is on Heaven once sent me. I feel his 

you I rely to inform the rest of the loss more now than ever." 

family of my resolution, and espe- " You mean Doctor Leblanc ? 

cially, and before any one else, your Yes, I render justice to his memory, 

mother. You may imagine, Clement, I am sure his devotedness would not 

that I must have her consent, and have failed you under these circum- 

her blessing likewise. *And you will stances. But you try my patience in- 

plead my cause with her." deed, Gabrielle ; you are too cruel." 

Clement was silent for some mo- " Clement ! " 

ments. He was trying to command " What ! you need a friend who 

his voice, but it still trembled as he has the unpretending merit of being 

said : " And when do you think of faithful, devoted, capable of protect- 

starting ? ' ing VO u in so difficult a journey, and 

" In a week, if I can." ready to remain with you till till he 



Fleurange. 



305 



can follow you no longer! And at 
such a time you do not deign even to 
remember you have a brother ! And 
do you not see that, in thinking of 
others, you overlook what is at once 
his privilege and his duty ?" 

" Clement ! my dear Clement !" 
said Fleurange, with tearful surprise, 
" what do you say ? and what an- 
swer can I make ? Assuredly I re- 
lied, and do rely, on you as a bro- 
ther, and yet I confess I should not 
have ventured to ask you to make 
such a journey with me." 

Clement smiled bitterly. He could 
not help comparing what she was 
ready to do for another with what 
she thought him incapable of doing 
for her. 



" Well, my cousin," said he coldly, 
" you were wrong; it seems to me it 
was the very time to remember the 
promise you made me. As to me, 
I am merely faithful to the engage- 
ment I made the same day, that is 
all." 

" God bless you, Clement 1 bless 
and reward you !" said she, much 
affected. "Yes, I acknowledge I 
was wrong. I should have known 
there was no kindness on earth equal 
to yours." 

She held out her hand. He press- 
ed it- in his without saying a word, 
and without looking at her; then 
they separated. Fleurange longed 
to be alone. Clement went to fulfil 
her commission to his mother. 



XLVI, 



It was the professor's regular hour 
of repose in the latter part of the 
morning. Everything was quiet 
around him. His wife was seated at 
her wheel in the next room ready to 
answer the slightest call; for Madame 
Dornthal knew how to handle the 
spindle, and, in accordance with a 
custom kept up longer in Germany 
than anywhere else, had spun with 
her own hands the two finest pieces 
of linen for her daughter's trousseau. 
She looked up as her son entered, 
and saw by his face that something 
agitated him. She gave him an in- 
quiring look. 

" I wish to speak to you, mother," 
said he, in a low tone. " Let us go 
where we can talk freely." 

Madame Dornthal stopped spin- 
ning, immediately rose, and, ordering 
a young servant to take her place and 
call her if needed, she followed her 
son, softly closing the door behind 
her. 

The opposite door, on the same 
corridor, opened into Clement's 
chamber. They went there. Clem- 
VOL. xvi. 20 



ent began to relate the conversation- 
he had just had. His first words- 
were met by an exclamation of sur- 
prise, after which Madame Dornthal 
listened without interrupting him 
Her face by turns expressed interest,, 
pity, and admiration, as he spoke 
and it was with tearful eyes and a* 
faltering voice she finally replied : 

" My consent and blessing, do you* 
say ? You ask them for her ? Poor 
child J how can I refuse my blessing 
. to such devotedness ! But my con- 
sent," she continued gravely " I 
cannot give that unconditionally." 

"What! mother," said Clement 
earnestly, " can you think of refus- 
ing to let her go ?" 

"No, dear Clement; but I can 
refuse to let you accompany her." 

Clement started. " Mother !" cried 
he with surprise. 

Madame Dornthal brushed back 
Clement's hair with her hand, and 
looked him in the face, as we know 
she loved to do when moved to un- 
usual tenderness towards him, then 
slowly said : 



306 



Fleurange. 



"Alone to St. Petersburg with 
Gabrielle ! Have you reflected on 
this, Clement ?" 

Clement's face slightly flushed, but 
Iris eyes met his mother's with a 
beautiful expression of candor and 
purity. " Mother," said he, " Ga- 
brielle looks upon me as a brother. 
A.S for me " he hesitated a moment 
\nd turned pale, but continued in a 
firm tone " as for me, I regard her 
now as the wife of another. I hope 
you do not think it possible I can 
ever forget it !" 

Madame Dornthal's eyes -filled 
with tears, and for a moment she 
looked at her son silently. Never 
had she loved him so much ! Never 
had she so fully comprehended how 
worthy of affection he was ! But 
the hour had come perhaps the only 
period in life when the most passion- 
ate maternal love is powerless, and 
can do nothing, absolutely nothing, 
to comfort her suffering child ! 

She realized this ; she felt she must 
respect her son's secret sorrow, and 
repress the impulse of her own affec- 
tion. Neither compassion nor sym- 
pathy could be of any avail at such 
a time. She therefore refrained with 
the sure instinct of a responsive 
heart, and Clement's agitation soon 
subsided. He resumed in a calm 

* 

tone: 

" If you think it indispensable on 
her account, or on account of others, 
that a third person should go with 
us, then, mother, we will try to find 
some one." 

" Ah !" said Madame Dornthal, 
" if a cherished and paramount obli- 
gation did not retain me here, you 
would not have far to go for some 
one." 

Clement took his mother's hand 
and kissed it. " I thought so," said 
he, smiling. Then he continued: 
" We shall find some one, you may 
be sure, if necessary. For the mo- 



ment we will leave it ; we have some- 
thing else to do." And so to one 
after another the astonishing news 
was announced by him and his mo- 
ther : first to the professor, and then 
to all the other members of the fami- 
ly. We will not describe their feel- 
ings individually, we will not tell how 
many tears were shed, what a succes- 
sion of emotions poor Fleurange had 
to pass through that day. We will 
only say that, on the whole, they 
were all much more affected than 
surprised. So pure an atmosphere 
pervaded this unpretending house- 
hold that everything beautiful and 
noble was at once perceived and 
comprehended without difficulty. To 
lose this charming sister, who had 
grown dearer and dearer, was too 
painful to be concealed, but Madame 
Dornthal's daughters, like her, were 
ready for any sacrifice. Therefore 
the young girl felt that they entered 
into her feelings, and would regret, 
without blaming her. This sympa- 
thy not only increased her affection 
for those she was to leave, but gave 
great support to her courage. 

The only person who did not at 
first participate in this general hero- 
ism was Mademoiselle Josephine. 
The knowledge of Fleurange's reso- 
lution threw her into a state of stupe- 
faction that would have been comi- 
cal under any other circumstances. 
Her eyes wandered from one to an- 
other with a perplexed expression of 
consternation, as if imploring an ex- 
planation which would enable her to 
comprehend so extraordinary a fact. 
When, at her usual time, she joined 
the family circle in the evening, she 
was still speechless. She took her 
place among them, knitting-work in 
hand, without saying a word or look- 
ing at any one. 

The professor, cautiously informed 
of this new separation, heard it with 
resignation a feeling that had grown 



Fleurange. ' 307 

upon him with respect to everything, take to reach the end of her first 

in consequence of the increasing con- journey. Being enlightened on this 

viction that he had a long time to point, mademoiselle relapsed into her 

suffer and should never be well, former silence, but not for a long 

Fleurange was now sitting near him. time. A new idea suddenly occurred 

Madame Dornthal and her daughters to her. She snatched off her glasses 

were at work beside the table where hastily. 

sat the silent Josephine. Clement " But those two children cannot 

alone sat apart, talking in a low tone travel all alone!" she exclaimed, 

with his little sister on his knee. She Madame Dornthal and Fleurange 

was in her turn asking an explana- looked up, and Clement gave a start 

tion which no one had thought of which disturbed the sleep into which 

giving her. While he was replying Frida had fallen : every one became 

in a whisper, Frida's large eyes open- attentive. 

ed to their utmost extent, her little " No, certainly not," said the old 

mouth contracted, and a flood of lady earnestly. " How would that 

tears inundated her face ; then she look, I beg to know ? Excuse 

threw both her arms around her me, Clement, you know how I es- 

brother's neck, and said in broken teem and love you; but then, my 

accents : good friend, how old are you, pray ? 

" O Clement ! how can I do And as to Gabrielle, besides her age 

without her ? - - 1 love her so much ! (which is equally objectionable), she 

I love her so much ! " has, as I have told her a thousand 

Clement hid his face in the child's times, a dangerous face a face which 

long curls, pressed her in his arms, will not allow her to do a great 

and kissed her affectionately, but he many things permissible to others not 

could not succeed in calming her older than she I tell you the truth, 

till he promised that Gabrielle and defy any one to deny it." 

should return, and that he would No one attempted it, for the 

bring her back. At this assur- thought just expressed so character- 

ance, the child's tears ceased to istically was the opinion of all. 

flow, she became quiet, and re- "Therefore," continued made- 

mained serious and thoughtful in moiselle, " Gabrielle must be accom- 

her brother's arms. panied by some repectable person. 

All at once Mademoiselle Jose- Once more pardon, Clement; this 

phine broke her long silence : " Si- does not imply you can be dispensed 

beria is a great way off, is it not ?" with (you are a protector not to be 

said she. easily replaced) ; but, my dear friend, 

A general smile accompanied the les convenances require she should 

reply to this question, which was the have at the same time an elderly and 

first-fruit of the elderly maiden's pro- reliable companion. Now, I propose 

longed deliberations. that this reliable and elderly person 

" And is Clement going to Siberia, be myself! " 

also ?" There was a general exclamation 

'No; he is going to St. Peters- at these unexpected words. Every 

burg." one spoke at once, and for some mo- 

' And how far is to St. Peters- ments no one could be heard. The 

burg ?" good Mademoiselle Josephine, how- 

They replied by giving her a full ever, comprehended at once that her 

account of the way Fleurange would proposition v/as generally approved. 



308 



Fleurange. 



But before any one uttered a word, misconception about the whole ar- 

before Clement even had time to go rangement which she could not seem 

and grasp her hand, Fleurange to clear up. 

sprang forward, and, throwing her "Why," said she an hour after, 

arms around her old friend's neck, when, following her servant, who had 

exclaimed : " Oh! how shall I thank come for her with a lantern, she took 

you ? May God reward you for Clement's arm to go home " why 

all it is his will I should owe you !" cannot we also go to Siberia with 

This signified that she accepted her her, if not disagreeable to this M. le 

generous offer without any formali- Comte, whose name I can never pro- 

ty. A few hours previous, her aunt, nounce ?" 

we know, had attached a condition to Clement could not repress a smile 
her consent, and this was preoccupy- at this, but there was too much bitter- 
ing Fleurange when her excellent old ness in it for him to wish to reply, 
friend suddenly decided the matter She did not perceive it. She was 
in so unexpected a way. only thinking aloud without regard 

From this moment, everything was to him, and, following the course 

plain to Mademoiselle Josephine, of her reflections, she soon made 

The opportunity she so greatly de- another, which, far from exciting the 

sired had not been long delayed, least temptation to smile, made Cle- 

In this extraordinary phase of Gabri- ment shudder from head to foot, 
elle's life she found an opportunity " If," she said, after a few mo- 

of manifesting the greatest devoted- ments' silence " if this Monsieur 

ness, and of retarding still longer the George is only worthy of the sacrifice 

hour of separation from her beloved she is going to make for him ! If 

protegee. She felt comforted, and after leaving us all us who love her 

was at once restored to her usual so much she does not hereafter dis- 

placid good humor. There re- cover he does not love her as much 

mained, however, more than one as we !" 



XLVII. 



Clement left Mademoiselle Jose- 
phine at her door, and hastened back, 
struggling against the new tem- 
pest excited in his breast by the words 
he had just heard. Hitherto, in 
consequence of the impressions left 
by his meeting with Count George, 
and the prestige he had acquired in 
his eyes from the very attachment 
of his cousin, Clement had always 
regarded him as a superior being, to 
whom it merely seemed right, in the 
unpretending simplicity of his heart, 
that his humble affection should be 
sacrificed. To doubt him worthy 
of her to fear that, beloved by her, 
he could cease to love in return, 
had never occurred to him, and 



mademoiselle had quite unwittingly 
thrust a warm blade into his bleeding 
heart. To admit such a thought 
would absolutely shake the founda- 
tions of his devotion and add despair 
to abnegation. He therefore repelled 
the thought with a kind of terror, and 
by way of reassuring himself he began 
to recall all the remembrances that 
once were so torturing. He took 
pleasure in dreaming of the devotion 
of which his rival was the object, the 
better to persuade himself it was 
absolutely contrary to the nature of 
things he could ever be ungrateful. 

Fleurange's reflections at the same 
hour were of a different nature. 
Somewhat recovered from the sue- 



Flcurange. 309 

cessive emotions of the day, she among the best, and it is the ordi- 

could now freely indulge in the secret nary path of virtue. But we would 

joy with which her heart overflowed, observe here that it is not the path 

She was at last free ! free to think of of exquisite and inexpressible happi- 

George at liberty to love him and to ness already referred to, and we 

confess it ! The feeling so long repress- moreover add that, when a soul is in- 

ed, fought against, and concealed, clined to make an idol of the object 

could now be indulged in without re- of its love, and place it on too frail a 

straint ! A few weeks more, and she foundation, it is not rare that suffer- 

would be with him \ She would be ing suffering whose severity is in 

his ! All horror of the fate she was proportion to the beauty and purity 

going to participate in was lost in the of the soul leads it back sooner or 

thought of bestowing on him, in the later to that point where it sees the 

hour of abandonment and misfortune, true centre to which, even unknown 

all the treasures of her devotion and to ourselves,, we all aspire, and which 

love, and this appeared a sweeter all human passion, even the most 

realization of her dreams than if unit- noble and most legitimate in the 

ed to him in the midst of all the world, makes us lose sight of. 

tclat that rank and fortune surround- Fleurange perhaps had a confused 

ed him with !- intuition of this, and it made her 

Ah ! Madre Maddalena was right in look upon the frightful conditions on 

thinking hers was not a heart called which happiness was vouchsafed her 

to the supreme honor of loving God as a kind of expiation, which she ac- 

alone, of bestowing on him that in- cepted with joy, hoping thereby to 

effable love which does not suffer assure the permanence of the love 

the contact of any other affection, that overruled all other sentiments, 

that unique love which, if it has not After Gabrielle's conversation with 

always been supreme, blots out, as Princess Catherine, the state of the 

soon as it springs up, all other love, latter underwent a salutary change, 

as the sun causes the darkness to flee Her physical sufferings, and her 

away and return no more to its grief itself, seemed suspended. A 

presence ! . . . " Whosoever loveth, fresh activity was aroused as soon as 

knoweth the cry of this voice." * she perceived a way of exerting her- 

It was this voice which spoke self for her son, and entering into 

directly to Madre Maddalena's heart, almost direct communication with 

Fleurange did not hear it so dis- him. Let us add to these motives 

tinctly, even while silently listening the princess' natural taste for the ex- 

to it apart from the noise of the traordinary, and we shall compre- 

world, though by no means deaf to hend that Fleurange's heroic resolu- 

the divine inspirations. She was pure: tion afforded her an interesting dis- 

she was pious and steadfast : she traction, and, at the same time, a 

had a fervent and courageous heart source of activity which was useful 

a heart shut against evil, which pre- and beneficial. 

ferred nothing to God, but which She made every arrangement her- 
was ardently susceptible to affection self. They were forced to allow her 
when she could yield to it without to direct all the preparations for the 
remorse. This is doubtless the ap- long journey the young girl was go- 
pointed way for nearly all, even ing to undertake. She and her el- 
derly companion were to go as far as 
* The Following of Christ^ b. in. chap. v. St. Petersburg' in one of the princess' 



3ic 



Fletirange. 



best carriages, and everything that 
would enable Fleurange to bear the 
severe cold on the way was anxious- 
ly prepared. At St. Petersburg, it 
was decided she should take up her 
residence in the princess' house until 
the day the terrible day of the de- 
parture that must follow. 

All this was transmitted by the 
princess to the Marquis Adelardi, 
whom she charged to receive and 
protect Gabrielle. Moreover, he 
must find means of announcing to 
George the unexpected alleviation 
Heaven granted to his misfortunes. 

As to the steps to be taken in 
order to obtain the necessary permis- 
sion for the accomplishment of this 
strange lugubrious marriage, and for 
the newly-made wife to accompany 
her condemned husband, the prin- 
cess thought the most successful 
course would be to obtain for Ga- 
brielle an audience of the empress. 

" Either I am very much de- 
ceived," wrote the princess, " or her 
heart will be touched by such heroic 
devotion, by Gabrielle's appearance, 
and the charm there is about her, 
and perhaps even by a remnant of 
pity for my poor George. Some- 
thing tells me this pity still survives 
the favor he showed himself un- 
worthy of, and that the day will per- 
chance come when I can appeal to 
her with success. Obtain my son's 
pardon ! behold him again ! Yes, 
in spite of everything, I hope, I 
believe, I may say I feel sure, that 
sooner or later this happiness will be 
granted me, unless so much sorrow 
shortens my life. Nevertheless, the 
effect of this terrible sentence, should 
he incur its penalty only for a day, 
will never be effaced. I feel it. My 
hopes for him have all vanished, 
never to return. How, then, could I 
hesitate to accept Gabrielle's gener- 
ous sacrifice to accept it at first with 
a transport of enthusiasm which, I 



confess, I was seized with when, with 
indescribable words and accents, she 
so unexpectedly begged my consent 
on her knees, but afterwards deliber- 
ately, and, in consideration of the 
strange and painful circumstances in 
which we are situated, with sincere 
gratitude ?" 

" No doubt," she added, with an 
instinctive and natural feeling, never 
wholly or for a long time dormant 
" no doubt, when the time comes 
which I look forward to with hope 
the time when he will be restored to 
me, other regrets will revive. But 
then, his condemnation, only too cer- 
tain, puts an end to all hope in that 
direction. The conspirator acquit- 
ted, or even pardoned, might win a 
heart in which love perhaps still 
pleads his cause; but the haughty 
Vera will never bestow a thought on 
the returned exile from Siberia. I 
resign myself, therefore and, after 
all, Gabrielle is charming, and, as far 
as I know, he never loved any one 
else as well. You will perhaps say 
that a quick fire is soon extin- 
guished in George's heart. I know 
that well, but it is very certain that 
this young girl's devotion is calcu- 
lated to foster the love she has in- 
spired, and even to revive it if dead- 
ened by the revolutionary tempest 
he has passed through. As for me, 
I know, if anything can make me en- 
dure this fearful separation, it is the 
thought that this beautiful and noble 
creature, who is better fitted than 
any one else to preserve him from 
despair, will be with him in his 
exile." 

In the princess' eyes, Gabrielle was, 
in spite of the pure generosity of her 
love, only a pis-aller, or rather she 
was only something relatively to her- 
self. She overwhelmed her to-day 
with attentions and caresses as before 
she abruptly dismissed her, and as 
she would be quite ready to do again 






Fleurange. 



if a sudden turn of fortune brought 
about chances more favorable to her 
wishes. But, even if all these senti- 
ments were evident, they could not 
change Gabrielle's determination or 
diminish her courage. Her fate was 
already united in heart to George's. 
Everything but this thought, and the 
anticipated joys and sacrifices con- 
nected with it, became indifferent to 
her. Calm and serene, she made all 
the preparations for her departure 
without haste or anxiety, and was 
equally mindful of her dear old friend, 
for whom she reserved the rich furs 



and all the other things which the 
princess had been careful to provide 
for herself as a protection against the 
cold. 

The days, however, passed rapidly 
away, and as the time of separation 
approached, more courage was re- 
quired for those she was to leave be- 
hind than for herself. 

And when the farewell hour atlength 
arrived, and she knelt in church with 
Clement, to utter a last prayer, the 
All-Seeing Eye saw to which of the 
two belonged at that moment the 
palm of devotedness and sacrifice. 



PART IV. 

THE IMMOLATION. 
L'amour vrai, c'est 1'oubli de sol. 
XLVIII. 

Our travellers were already far tween the sea and the high dunes of 

away, having pursued their journey sand which ward off the winds from 

for more than twelve days without the scattered habitations of this deso- 

stopping. In spite of the increasing late region, all situated so as to face 

severity of the weather, Fleurange the lake and turn their backs on the 

and her companion went as far as sea. 

Berlin, and even beyond, without suf- . The princess* carriage remained, 

fering from the cold thanks to the therefore, at Konigsberg, to await 

numerous precautions taken by the the return of Fleurange's travelling 

princess to protect them from it. But companions. She took with her, 

at Konigsberg they were obliged to however, the rich furs, so warm 

leave the comfortable carriage in and light, with which she had been 

which they had travelled thus far, provided, to wrap around Mademoi- 

for they wished, above all things, to selle Josephine, in spite of her resist- 

travel fast, and they had the Strand ance. As for herself, she reserved a 

to cross (the only way to St. Peters- cloak of sufficiently thick material to 

burgh at that season), that is to say, protect her from the cold, not wishing 

the narrow tongue of sandy soil that to accustom herself to comforts she 

extends along the Baltic as far as the must afterwards be deprived of. 

arm of the sea which separates Prus- The change from one carriage to 

sia from Courland like a wide canal, another was promptly effected, and 

and then forms the basin or inland the small caleche in which they were 

lake of Kurishe Haff. This bounds closely seated was soon on its way 

the Strand at the right, whereas at over the Strand towards Memel, 

the left its dreary coast is shut in be- which they hoped to reach the same 



312 



Fleurange. 



evening. Clement, in front, gazed 
with secret horror on the desolate 
aspect of nature. Everything around 
him seemed a fitting prelude to that 
Inferno of ice towards which he was 
escorting her whom he would gladly 
have sheltered from too rude a sum- 
mer breeze. 

The weather was not as cold as 
on the previous day. The gray 
clouds charged with rain seemed to 
indicate a sudden thaw, and through 
them the sun, veiled as before a 
coming storm, cast a pale light over 
the dark waves and the sandy shore. 
The postilion, to favor his horses, 
rode so close to the water that the 
waves broke over their pathway. To 
the right rose the dismal sand-hills, 
and on that side, as well as before 
them, nothing was to be seen but 
sand as far as the eye could reach ; 
to the left, nothing but the tumultu- 
ous and threatening waves. Not a 
house far or near, not a tree, not a 
blade of grass, not a living creature, 
save now and then some sea-birds 
skimming wildly over the waves, add- 
ing another melancholy feature to 
the dreariness of the scene, which 
with the storm was a sufficiently ex- 
act image of the mental condition of 
him who was regarding it. 

As to Fleurange, instead of looking 
around, she closed her eyes, the bet- 
ter to wander in imagination among 
the cherished scenes of the past and 
those she looked forward to. She 
beheld again the blue waters of the 
Mediterranean, and the radiant sky 
whose azure they reflect, and the 
graceful undulations of the mountains 
veiled in a pearly mist; then Flor- 
ence, sparkling and poetical in the 
golden rays of departing light, and 
beside her she heard a voice mur- 
muring words once dangerous to 
hear, but now delicious to recall and 
repeat to herself. How much she 
then suffered in struggling against 



her own impulses ! Recalling those 
sufferings, how could she fear those 
she was about to brave ? sufferings 
repaid by the immense happiness of 
loving ! of loving without fear ! 
loving without remorse ! Besides, 
they were both young. His mother's 
hopes might be realized. Yes, per- 
haps some day they would again be- 
hold, and together, that charming 
region, and then in the restored 
brilliancy of -his former position, with 
her beside him, he would be convinc- 
ed, convinced beyond doubt, that 
that was not the attraction which 
had won her, but really himself, and 
only him, whom she loved ! 

Yes, she was now happy ; no fears 
troubled her ; she was full of hope ; 
and, as it is said of the only great 
and true love that it " believes it may 
and can do all things,"* so earthly 
love which is its pale but faithful re- 
flection, made every earthly happiness 
appear possible and certain to Fleur- 
ange, inasmuch as the greatest of all 
was in store for her. 

Clement was still absorbed in si- 
lent contemplation, and Fleurange 
in her sweet dreams, when Made- 
moiselle Josephine awoke from the 
drowsiness favored by the ample furs 
in which she was wrapped, which not 
only excluded the air but the sight 
of outward objects. She looked up 
and around for the first time that 
morning, and gave a sudden start of 
surprise. 

" Ah ! mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! " 
she cried with alarm. " Gabrielle, 
what is that ? " 

Fleurange, suddenly recalled from 
the land of dreams to what was pass- 
ing around her, replied : " It is the 
sea. Did you not notice it before ?" 

" The sea ! the sea !- ' repeated 
Mademoiselle Josephine, as if stupe- 
fied. " No, I had not seen it, and 

* Following of Christ, b. Hi. chap. v. 



Fleurange. 313 

never imagined we should go on the tale for the benefit of those who 
sea in a carriage. What a country ! never go from home." 
What a journey!" murmured she to "No, no," cried Fleurange, " d& 
herself, endeavoring to conceal the not say so. The sea is really beau- 
terror she had not ceased to feel as tiful where it is as blue as the hea- 
they proceeded on their way and vens above, and where its shores are 
found everything so different from luxuriant with trees, plants, and flow- 
France, and consequently the more ers; but not here, I acknowledge." 
alarming. But in her way she made And, in spite of herself, the sweet 
an act of heroism in trying to over- impression of her recent dreams, 
come the surprise and fear caused by caused by the contrast, entirely van- 
so many strange sights. She was es- ished. Her heart sank. She became 
pecialJy desirous of not being trou- silent, and for a long time none of 
blesome to her companions. " Be- the three travellers spoke, 
sides," thought she, " if these two The Strand, about twelve or four- 
children are not afraid, I must at teen leagues in length, was divided 
least appear as brave as they." into several stages by post-stations 
Nevertheless, she could not help re- on the othsr side of the sand-hills, 
peating with astonishment : " Going whence were brought fresh horses. A 
on the sea in a carriage it is real- carriage could not approach the sta- 
ly very singular !" tions on account of the deep sand, 

Fleurange laughed. " Here, dear and when they paused a few mo* 

mademoiselle, look on this side, and ments to exchange horses r the tra* 

you will see we are not on the sea, vellers were only made aware of a 

but only on the shore." neighboring habitation by a peal of 

" Very near it, however, for we are the horn which responded afar off to 

riding through the water." that of the postilion as he announced 

" It is only the waves that break his approach. While they were thus 

on the shore and then recede, halting at the last stage, Fleurange 

There, you see the land, now." noticed Clement's anxious look to- 

Mademoiselle felt somewhat reas- wards the sea and the threatening 

sured. She looked to the right, she sky. The wind grew stronger and 

looked to the left, she looked before stronger, and the waves mounted 

her, then turned her eyes towards the higher. A violent storm was evi- 

gloomy immensity of the sea beside dently at hand. She beckoned to 

which they were riding. him, and said in a tone inaudible to. 

" Oh ! how dismal, how repulsive her companion : " We are going to 

it is," she exclaimed, at last. have bad weather, are we not ? ' 

Fleurange now gazed around. "Yes," replied he, in the same 

Her thoughts were no longer wan- tone. " It will be dark in about an 

dering. " The scene is indeed sin- hour, and I fear we may find the 

gularly gloomy," said she. " The crossing rough and difficult. I do 

leaden sky that mock sun the not say this on your account," added 

dark waters of that melancholy sea, he, with a somewhat forced smile, 

and the interminable sand. Yes, "I know well I am, not allowed to 

the whole region is frightful ! ' : And tremble for you, however great the 

she slightly shuddered. danger, but I fear you may find it 

" I have always been told," said difficult by-and-by to reassure your 

mademoiselle, " that the sea was glo- poor friend." 
rious ; but it seems it was a traveller's He mounted to his seat again, or- 



Fleurange. 



dered the postilion to hurry, and the 
little caleche set off as speedily as 
possible to avoid the enormous 
waves which threatened to upset 
them. In spite of their haste, night 
came on, and the storm set in before 
they arrived at the ferry across the 
arm of the sea which connects the 
Kurische Haff with the Baltic. The 
passage was short but dangerous. 
They could not stop an instant, for, 
though well sheltered here, the sea 
rose higher and higher, and the large 
boat that was to take the carnage 
across was difficult to manage in bad 
weather. They therefore rapidly de- 
scended the bank to the boat, and 
Mademoiselle Josephine was roused 
from the drowsiness produced by the 
motion of the carriage, by a sudden 
and violent shock, accompanied by 
cries and vociferations mingled with 
the roar of the sea and the frightful 
howling of the wind. 

" O Jesus, my Saviour !" prayed 
the poor demoiselle, clasping her 
hands with terror : " the time, then, 
has come for us to die !" 

The rain fell in torrents. The 
waves broke over the boat. Dark- 
ness added its horrors to the danger, 
which, to her inexperienced eyes, ap- 
peared to be extreme. The sweet 
voice of her young companion vainly 
sought to encourage her. By the 
light of the lanterns carried from side 
to side to light the boatman, she soon 
distinguished Clement standing be- 
side the carriage, holding up a sail 
with a firm hand to screen them on 
the side most exposed to the waves. 



" Poor Clement," she exclaimed, 

" it is all over with us, then." 

" No, not quite, unfortunately," re- 
plied Clement. " It will be at least 
half an hour before we reach the 
shore." 

" The shore ! the shore ! He im- 
agines, then, we shall reach it alive ?" 
said mademoiselle, hiding her face 
on Fleurange's shoulder. 

" Yes, yes," replied the latter, 
pressing her in her arms. " Dear 
friend, there is no danger, I assure 
you. Believe me, I am only alarmed 
to see you so terrified." 

" Pardon me, child," said the 
other, raising her head. " I resolved 
you should know nothing about it. 
But this time, Gabrielle, you cannot 
say we are not crossing the sea in a 
carriage," continued she, with renew- 
ed alarm as she felt the increased 
motion of the waves. 

Fleurange embraced her, repeating 
the same reassuring words. The 
poor old lady made no reply, she was 
trying to overcome her terror by a 
genuine act of heroism. " Danger 
or not, it is like what I have always 
imagined a terrible tempest, destruc- 
tive of human life. But then," mur- 
mured she still lower, " God over- 
rules all, and nothing happens with- 
out his consent." 

Her physical nature was weak, 
but her soul was strong, and piety, 
a support in every trial, served 
now to calm her. She began to 
pray mentally, and did not utter 
another word till they reached the 
shore. 



XLIX. 



But a far greater danger awaited 
our travellers beyond Memel, whence 
they continued their journey the fol- 
lowing day in sledges. The first, 
containing their baggage, preceded 
them several hours in advance to an- 



nounce their arrival at the post-sta- 
tions; the second somewhat resem- 
bled a clumsy boat on runners, sur- 
mounted by a hood, and protected 
by a boot of thick fur. It was in this 
sledge Fleurange and her companion 



Fleurangc. 3 1 5 

were stowed away. They were let the heaviest sledge go first : we 
obliged to lie nearly down to avoid will follow, if we can." 
the piercing wind. The third vehicle, " Yes, if we can," said the other, 
entirely uncovered, was very light, The order was instantly given, and 
and so small that it barely contained the sledge that contained Fleurange 
Clement, in front of whom sat a and her companion passed rapidly 
young fellow wrapped in a caftan, on. But it had scarcely gone ten or 
strong and vigorous, but with a slen- twelve feet from the shore before an 
der form quite adapted to the seat he ominous cracking was heard. The 
occupied and the sledge he drove, frightened driver stopped. Clement 
With this light equipage Clement imperiously ordered him to proceed 
went like the wind, sometimes pre- without a second's delay. But, in- 
ceding the other sledge as a guide, stead of obeying, the driver, seized 
and then returning to accompany it with fear, jumped out on the ice and 
and watch over its safety. sprang back to the shore he had just 
The cold had become as intense left. This jar increased the breaking 
as ever within a few hours. The of the ice which had already corn- 
pouring rain of the previous night menced. That next the shore gave 
after several days of thawing weather, way and began to move with the 
alarming at that season, caused great current, leaving an open gulf be- 
gullies in the road, and endangered tween the land and the still solid 
the passage over the rivers, at that ice where our travellers remained, 
time of the year, on the ice. Though Great promptness of decision was 
scarcely four o'clock, the short day necessary at a moment of such sud- 
was nearly ended, and daylight was den and extreme danger, and orders 
declining when our travellers came to as prompt as the judgment, 
the river they were obliged to cross " Descend, Gabrielle," said Clem- 
in order to reach the small town of ent, with authority. 
Y- -. It was a deep, rapid stream, The young girl instantly sprang 
which at the beginning of every win- from the sledge. Clement took 
ter was encumbered with thick cakes Mademoiselle Josephine in his arms 
of floating ice before the surface and placed her beside Fleurange. 
of its waters was congealed, and " Get into my sledge, Gabrielle," 
which, at the approach of spring, was said he calmly, but very quickly, 
also the first to resume its course and " As soon as you are safe, the sledge 
break the icy fetters that confined its shall return for your friend. There 
current. This river was therefore al- is time, but you must not hesitate." 
most always difficult to pass over, " I do not hesitate," said Fleur- 
and very often dangerous, and, ange. "I shall remain myself : she 
when the travellers came to the only shall be saved first." 
place where it could be crossed, they Clement shuddered. But there 
felt they had reason to be anxious was not time to contest the point, 
about the thaw. As soon as Clem- Besides, he knew from the tone of 
ent cast his eyes on the river, he Fleurange's voice that her decision 
thought there were really some alarm- was irrevocable, and he yielded with- 
ing indications. He at once saw out another word. He placed poor 
there was no time to be lost, and mademoiselle, who was incapable of 
drove directly on to the ice. Then comprehending what was transpiring, 
he stopped, and hurriedly said to the in the light sledge, gave the order 
young guide : " I think we should obeyed at once and it darted off. 



316 



Fleurange. 



The sound of the bells on the horses' 
necks was heard for a few moments, 
and then died away. 

Fleurange and Clement were left 
alone. Night was gathering around 
them. Not far off could be heard 
the slow cracking of the ice beneath 
the heavy weight of the sledge at the 
edge of the first opening. The noise 
increased, and the ice broke away 
the second time. The huge mass, 
thus detached, quivered, then, like 
the first, slowly descended the river, 
carrying the sledge with it. The 
opening became frightfully large. 
Clement looked before him to see if 
he could venture, by taking Fleur- 
ange in his arms, to cross on foot the 
long interval that separated them 
from the opposite shore. But it was 
too dark to distinguish the path, and, 
if they left that, death was inevitable. 
They might lose the only chance of 
being saved by awaiting the return 
of the sledge. And yet they could 
not remain long where they were. 
The ice was already loosening 
around them. In a few moments 
there was another cracking, and it 
gave way before them. The frag- 
ment on which they stood became a 
kind of floating island. Clement 
saw at a glance the only course to 
be taken. He did not hesitate. He 
seized Fleurange in his arms, and, by 
the uncertain light of the snow, sprang 
boldly across the opening before them. 
They were once more on the solid 
ice, but who could tell how long it 
would be so ? Who knew whether 
the sledge would succeed in reach- 
ing them again ? Perhaps it was 
swallowed up in the impenetrable 
darkness, or left on the ice broken 
up around it. Otherwise it should 
have returned. 

These thoughts crowded into Cle- 
ment's mind faster than they can be 
written. Fleurange, silent but cour- 
ageous, was equally sensible of their 



danger. She bent down her head 
and silently prayed. Leaning thus 
against Clement, her hair brushing 
his very face, she might have heard 
the rapid pulsations of his heart and 
felt the trembling of the arm that 
supported her, and the hand that 
pressed her own. But he did not 
utter a word. His sensations were 
strange. A desire to save her 
doubled his strength and courage, 
and quickened all his faculties. At 
the same time, he was conscious of a 
transport he could not control that 
she was there alone with him, that 
they were to die together, and she 
would never be able to fulfil the 
odious design of her journey ! 

But this moment of selfish love 
and despair was short. His thoughts 
returned to her her alone. He 
must save her save her at whatever 
cost. But how? It seemed as if 
an hour had passed away. It was 
useless to hope for the return of the 
sledge. He thought he felt the ice 
quiver anew beneath his feet. He 
looked at the dark current behind. 
Should he jump into the water, and 
endeavor to regain the shore they had 
left, but now no longer visible ? 
He hesitated a moment no, that 
would expose her to certain death, 
and a more speedy one than now 
threatened them. It would be better 
to remain where they were, and en- 
dure the fearful suspense to the end. 

They therefore remained motion- 
less for some minutes more of silent 
agony. Notwithstanding her cour- 
age, the young girl's strength began 
to fail. Her sight grew dim. There 
was a strange hum in her ears. Then 
her head fell on her cousin's shoulder. 

" Oh ! I am dying," murmured she. 
" May God restore you to your mo- 
ther, Clement ! " 

At this moment of supreme an- 
guish, Clement raised his eyes to 
heaven, and the cry of love and de- 






Flcurangc. 



317 



spair that rose from his heart was a 
prayer as ardent and pure as was 
ever uttered by childlike faith. He 
felt he was heard. Yes, almost at 
the same instant. Was he mis- 
taken ? Afar off, so far he could 
hardly catch the sound, he thought 
he heard the jingle of bells. He lis- 
tened without breathing. O Di- 
vine Goodness ! is it true ? Yes, 
yes, there is no longer any doubt. 
The sound becomes more distinct. 
It approaches. It is really the 
sledge. It is coming rapidly; it 
reaches them ; it stops ; it is really 
there ! 

" Blessed be God ! she is saved ! ' 
was Clement's cry. But Fleurange, 
overcome by weakness and terror, 
was already senseless in his arms. 

He bore her to the sledge, and as 
he placed her within, but half con- 
scious of what was occurring, he 
pressed her once more to his heart 
with unrestrained tenderness, and 
said : " Adieu, dear Gabrielle. Re- 
gret not that I die here. God is 
good. He spares me the sorrow of 
living without you." And he added, 
in a lower tone : " Gabrielle, I have 
loved you more than anything else in 
the world. I can acknowledge it 
now, for death is at hand." Then 
he stepped back, and ordered the 
young guide to hurry away. 

His first words had only been in- 
distinctly heard by Fleurange, as in 
a dream ; but she clearly understood 
this precise order. It brought her 
at once to herself. 

" Away ! " she exclaimed. " Away 
without you ! What do you mean ? " 

" It must be so," said Clement. 
" The sledge can only hold you and 
the guide. Any additional weight 
would be dangerous. Go, without 
an instant's delay." 

" Never ! " said Fleurange reso- 
lutely. " Clement, we will all three 
die here, rather than leave you ! " 



" You must go 1 " repeated Clement 
energetically. " Go, I tell you ! The 
sledge will return for me." 

" It will be impossible to cross a 
third time," said the young conductor. 

Clement knew it. He only replied 
by imperiously ordering him to start. 

Fleurange, no less firm than Cle- 
ment, rose and checked the hand 
that held the reins. The driver at 
once jumped down from his seat. 
" Do you know how to drive ?" said 
he. 

" Yes." 

" Well, I know how to swim. 
Here, get in quick. Keep that 
for me," continued he, hastily taking 
off his caftan and throwing it into 
the sledge. " Do not be uneasy. I 
shall get it ag'n to-morrow. I know 
the way and am familiar with the 
river." 

And without hesitating he plunged 
'into the dark current, while Clement 
sprang to his seat in the sledge. 

With a boldness that is the only 
chance of safety in such a case, he 
forced the horses into a gallop. 
They thus traversed with giddy rapid- 
itv the considerable distance that 

4 

separated them from the other shore. 
The ice, jarred by the two former 
trips, cracked beneath the horse's 
feet. To slacken their course an in- 
stant would have submerged them 
in the river, but the sledge flew 
rather than ran on the ice, and the 
hand that guided it was firm. 
They arrived at the goal in less 
than half an hour, and Fleurange, 
pale, exhausted, and chilled, fell into 
the arms of her dear old friend. 

The latter was quietly awaiting 
them in a warm, well-lighted room 
at the post-station, and supper had 
been ordered, but Fleurange was 
neither able to talk nor eat. Made- 
moiselle saw that instant repose was 
absolutely necessary. She only per- 
suaded her to take some hot mulled 



Fleurange. 



wine before going to sleep, and then 
went to join Clement in another room, 
where she learned, for the first time, 
all the danger she, as well as the rest, 
had escaped. 

After the experience of the past 
day, Mademoiselle Josephine resolv- 
ed never to manifest any astonish- 
ment at whatever might occur in this 
strange journey. She would go in a 
balloon without wincing, as readily 
as in a sledge, at Clement's slight- 
est injunction, for he seemed, more 
and more to merit boundless confi- 
dence. 

Perhaps, at the end of this terrible 
day, Clement did not give himself 
so much credit. He recalled what 
he had dared say to Fleurange in 
the height of their danger, and 
anxiously wondered if she heard and 



understood the words that rose from 
his heart at the moment death seem- 
ed so inevitable. Was she conscious 
when he uttered that last farewell? 
He did not know, and it was natural 
he should await the following day 
with anxiety. 

But he was then reassured by 
finding his cousin as calm and frank 
as ever. She evidently had not 
understood, and probably not heard 
his words, or thought them sufficient- 
ly explained by the intensity of 
emotion naturally irrepressible at 
such a moment of extreme danger. 
The young girl was forced to rest 
a whole day to recover from her ex- 
haustion. But it was their last halt- 
ing-place, and, when they resumed 
their journey, it was not to stop again 
till they arrived at its end. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



SAYINGS OF JOHN CLIMACUS. 



IF any one has conceived a real 
hatred of the world, he is emanci- 
pated by this very hatred from all 
sadness. But if he shall cherish an 
attachment to things that are visible, 
he carries about with him a source 
of sadness and melancholy. . 

It is impossible that they who ap- 
ply their whole mind to the science 
of salvation, should not make ad- 
vancement. Some are permitted to 
perceive their progress, whilst from 
others, by a particular dispensation 
of Providence, it is altogether con- 
cealed. 

He who strenuously labors to con- 
quer his passions, and to draw nearer 
and nearer to God, believes that 
every day in which he has to suffer 
no humiliation is to him a grievous 
loss. 



Repentance is the daughter of 
hope, and the enemy of despair. 

Before the commission of sin, the 
devil represents God as infinitely 
merciful; but after its perpetration, 
as inexorable and without pity. 

A mother will sometimes hide her- 
self from her child, to watch its 
eagerness in seeking her, and she is 
exceedingly pleased to observe it 
seeking for her with sorrow and 
anxiety. By this means she wins its 
love, and binds it inseparably to her 
heart, that it may never be alienated 
from her in affection. " He that hath 
ears to hear," saith our Lord, " let 
him hear." 

Meekness is an immutability of 
soul, which ever continues the same, 
whether amidst the injuries or the 
applaudits of men. 






Dante s Purgatorio. 319 



DANTE'S PURGATORIO. 

CANTO FIFTH. 

[NOTE. lu this Canto, Dante introduces three other spirits, who relate the manner of their de- 
parture from the body, and recommend themselves to his prayers, that their penal sufferings may 
be alleviated. 

The first of these penitents is Jacopo del Cassero, a townsman of Fano in Romagna, who, flying 
towards Padua from the vengeance of one of the tyrannous Este family, was waylaid and murdered 
in the marshes near Oriago. 

The second is Buonconte, son of Guide di Montefeltro. He was a fellow-soldier with Dante in the 
battle of Campaldino, and there slain ; but what became of his body was never known until this 
imaginary narration. 

The third is the noble lady of Sienna, Pia de' Tolommei, whose story, told by Dante in three 
lines, has formed the subject of a five-act tragedy, recently illustrated in this country by the genius 
of Ristori. TRANS.] 

ALREADY parted from those shades, I went 

Following the footsteps of my Guide, when one 
Behind me towards my form his finger bent, 

Exclaiming " See ! no ray falls from the sun 
To the left hand of him that walks below ! 

And sure ! he moveth like a living man." 
Mine eyes I turned, at hearing him say so, 

And saw them with a gaze all wonder scan 
Now me, still me, and now the broken light 

My body caused. The Master then to me : 
" Why let thy wonder keep thee from the height 

To drag so slowly ? what concerns it thee 
What here is whispered ? only follow thou 

After my steps, and let the crowd talk on : 
Stand like a tower, firm-based, that will not bow 

Its head to breath of winds that soon are gone. 
The man o'er whose thought second thought hath sway, 

Wide of his mark, is ever sure to miss, 
Because one force the other wears away." 

What could I answer but" I come " to this ? 
I said it something sprinkled with the hue 

Which, in less faults, excuseth one from blame ; 
Meanwhile across the mountain-side there drew. 

Just in our front, a train that as they came 
Sang Miserere, verse by verse. When they 

Observed my form, and noticed that I gave 
No passage through me to the solar ray, 

Into a long, hoarse " O ! " they changed their stave. 
And two, as envoys, ran up with demand, 

" In what condition is it that ye go ? " 




320 Dante s Purgatorio. 

And my Lord said " Return ye to the band 

Who sent you towards us, and give them to know 

This body is true flesh. If they delayed 
At sight, I deem so, of the shadow here 

Thereby sufficient answer shall be made : 

Him let them reverence, it may prove dear." 

I never saw a meteor dart so quick 

Through the serene at midnight, or a gleam 
Of lightning flash at sunset, through a thick 

Piled August cloud, but these would faster seem 
As they retreated ; having joined the rest, 

Back like an unreined troop towards us they sped. 
" This throng is large by whom we thus are pressed, 

And come to implore of thee," the Poet said 
" Therefore keep on, and as thoti mov'st attend." 

" O soul who travellest, with the very frame 

Which thou wert born with, to thy blessed end, 
Stay thy step somewhat ! " crying thus they came. 

" Look if among us any thou dost know, 
That thou of him to earth mayst tidings bear. 

Stay wilt thou not ? ah ! wherefore must thou go ? 
We to our dying hour were sinners there : 

And all were slain : but at the murderous blow, 
Warned us an instant light that flashed from heaven, 

And all from life did peacefully depart, 
Contrite, forgiving, and by Him forgiven 

To look on Whom such longing yearns our heart." 
" None do I recognize," I answered, " even 

Scanning your faces with mine utmost art ; 
But whatsoe'er, ye blessed souls ! I may 

To give you comfort, speak, and I will do; 
Yea, by that peace which leads me on my way 

From world to world such guidance to pursue." 

JACOPO DI FANO. 

" Without such protestation," one replied, 

" Unless thy will a want of power defeat, 
In thy kind offices we all confide ; 

Whence I, sole speaking before these, entreat 
If thou mayst e'er the territory see 

That lies betwixt Romagna and the seat* 
Where Charles hath sway, that thou so courteous be 

As to implore the men in Fano's town 
To put up prayers there earnestly for me 

That I may purge the sins that weigh me down. 

* The Marquisate or March of Ancona was then governed by Charles of Valois, who held Naples. 



Dante s Pur gat or io. 321 

There I was born ; but those deep wounds of mine 

Through which my life-blood issued, I received 
Among the children of Antenor's line,* 

Where most secure my person I believed : 
Twas through that lord of Este I was sped 

Who past all justice had me in his hate. 
O'ertook at Oriaco, had I fled 

Towards Mira, still where breath is I might wait. 
But to the marsh I made my way instead, 

And there, entangled in the cany brake 
And mire, I fell, and on the ground saw spread, 

From mine own veins outpoured, a living lake." 

BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO. 

Here spake another : " O may that desire 

So be fulfilled which to the lofty Mount 
Conducts thy feet as thou shalt bring me nigher 

To mine by thy good prayers. I am the Count 
Buonconte : Montefeltro's lord was I. 

Giovanna cares not, no one cares for me ; 
Therefore with these I go dejectedly." 

And I to him : " What violence took thee, 
Or chance of war, from Campaldino then 

So far that none e'er knew thy burial-place ? " 
" O," answered he, " above the hermit's glenf 

A stream whose course is Casentino's base, 
Springs in the Apenm'ne, Archiano called. 

There, where that name is lost in Arno's flood, 
Exhausted I arrived, footsore and galled, 

Pierced in my throat, painting the plain with blood. 
Here my sight failed me and I fell : the last 

Word that I spake was Mary's name, and then 
From my deserted flesh the spirit passed. 

The truth I tell now, tell to living men ; 
God's Angel took me, but that fiend of Hell 

Screamed out : ' Ha ! thou from heaven, why robb'st thou me ? 
His soul thou get'st for one small tear that fell, 

But of this offal other work I'll see.' 
Thou know'st how vapors gathering in the air 

Mount to the cold and there condensed distil 
Back into water. That Bad Will which ne'er 

Seeks aught but evil joined his evil will, 
With intellect, and, from the great force given 

By his fell nature, moved the mist and wind 
And o'er the valley drew the darkened heaven, 

Covering it with clouds as day declined 

* That is ; in the territory of Padua, founded, as the student will remember, by the Trojan 
Antenor, whose tomb is shown in Padua to this day. 

t That is to say, the hermitage of the Camaldolites in Milton's Vall'ombrosa. 

VOL. XVI. 21 



322 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 



From Pratomagno far as the great chain,* 

So that the o'erburdened air to water turned : 
Then the floods fell, and every rivulet's vein 

Swelled with the superflux the soaked earth spurned 
When to large streams the mingling torrents grew 

Down to the royal river with such force 
They rushed that no restraint their fury knew. 

Here fierce Archiano found my frozen corse 
Stretched at its mouth, and into Arno's wave 

Dashed it and loosened from my breast the sign, 
Which when mine anguish mastered me I gave, 

Of holy cross with my crossed arms : in fine, 
O'er bed and bank my form the streamlet drave 

Whirling, and with its own clay covered mine." 

PlA DE* TOLOMMEI. 

" O stay ! when thou shalt walk the world once more, 

And have repose from that long way of thine," 
Said the third spirit, following those before, 

" Remember Pia ! for that name was mine : 
Sienna gave me birth : Maremma's fen 

Was my undoing : he knows that full well 
Who ringed my finger with his gem and then, 

After espousal, took me there to dwell" 

* Far as to the upper Apennines. 




SANSKRIT AND THE VEDAS.* 

u But in justice, I am bound to say that Rome has the merit of having first seriously attended 
to the study of Indian literature." CARDINAL WISEMAN : Connection between Science and Revealed 
Religion. 

" The first missionaries who succeeded in rousing the attention of European scholars to the 
extraordinary discovery (Sanskrit literature) that had been made were the French Jesuit mission- 
aries." MAX MULLER: Lectures on the Science of Language. 



WHAT manner of language is the 
Sanskrit ? 

By what people or nation was it 
spoken ? 

When ? and where ? 

What are its literary monuments ? 

Whence comes it granting it to 



* Oriental and Linguistic Studies. The Veda; 
The Avesta; The Science of Language. By 
William Dwight Whitney, Prof, of Sanskrit and 
Comparative Philology at Yale College. One 
vol. Svo, 416 pp. New York: Scribner, Arm- 
strong & Co. 1873. 



be as ancient a tongue as is repre- 
sented that neither in Greek, Ro- 
man, nor, indeed, in any ancient lit- 
erature, is it ever mentioned, and 
that we only read of it in modern 
works, scarce a century old ? 

Such questions as these are fre- 
quently asked, even at the present 
day. Forty years ago, it is doubtful 
if there were ten persons in this 
country able to reply to them satis- 
factorily, and more than doubtful if 



Sanskrit and tJie Vcdas. 323 

a single scholar could have been the celebrated editions of the Mceso- 
found capable of translating the sim- Gothic Bible of Ulphilas, and of the 
plest Sanskrit sentence. Within that Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf. The 
period, however, philological science German reviewer credits Prof, 
in general, and Sanskrit in particular, March's work with extensive and 
have made long and rapid strides original investigation, great erudi- 
among us, and we now have scores tion in the Anglo-Saxon texts, and 
of scholars fully awake to the impor- valuable contributions to the grammar 
tance of cultivating the resources of of the language. He adds, that the 
this wonderful tongue, as the origin study of Anglo-Saxon is pursued with 
or common source of the European more zeal and success in the United 
family of languages, in which our States than in England. Solid corn- 
own English is included. mendation like this, from such a 
At the head of these scholars source, speaks well for American 
stands, without dispute, Prof. Wil- progress in the field of philological 
liam Dwight Whitney, whose, lin- science. 

guistic acquirements and philo- During the past twenty years, Prof, 

sophical treatment of difficult philo- Whitney has published numerous es- 

logical problems have earned for says on Sanskrit literature which, 

him a very high and well-merited limited to the special circulation of 

reputation. Nor is this opinion a scientific or literary periodicals, have 

merely patriotic and partial estimate, not fallen under the notice of the 

Prof. Whitney's merits as a Sanskrit general reading public. Many of 

scholar and comparative philologist these articles he has now collected 

are fully acknowledged, not only in and published in a volume,* edit- 

this country, but by the eminent Ori- ed by himself. Four of the essays 

entalists of Europe. The first peri- are on the Vedas and Vedic litera- 

odical of Germany and of the world ture, one on the Avesta (commonly 

for the comparative study of Ian- called the Zend-Avesta), and seven 

guages (Zeitschrift fur vergleichende upon various philological topics, in- 

Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des eluding two reviews of Max Midler's 

Deutschcn, Griechischen und Latein- Lectures on Language, which are ad- 

ischen, Berlin, 1872), in a late num- mirable specimens of temperate and 

ber recognizes, in the most flattering careful criticism, guided by sound 

manner, Prof. Whitney's high rank scholarship. 

in the philological republic of letters, Prof. Whitney's first paper on the 

and refers in complimentary terms Vedas (originally published in the 

to the fact that he is well known in Journal of the American Oriental 

Germany as the editor of the San- Society, vol. iii., 1853) opens thus: 

skrit text of the Atharva Veda. 

, 17 , i -n " It is a truth now well established, 

We may here incidentally note, in 4 . , , r . , . , 

* . ' that the Vedas furnish the only sure 

the same number of the Zeitschrift, foundation O n which a knowledge of 

another gratifying recognition of ad- ancient and modern India can be built 

vanced American scholarship. We up. They are therefore at present en- 

refer to a review of Prof. March's grossing the larger share of the attention 

^ , /- / ^/ A r of those who pursue this branch of Ori- 

Comparative Grammar of the Anglo- . , 

*. ental study. Only recently, however, has 

from the pen of Montz their param0 unt importance been fully 

Heyne, the well-known author of the recognized : it was by slow degrees that 

Brief Comparative Grammar of the , Title of the work g|yen at head of this 

Old German Dialects, and editor of article. 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 



they made their way up to the considera- 
tion in which they are now held. Once 
it was questioned whether any such 
books as the Vedas really existed, or 
whether, if they did exist, the jealous 
care of the Brahmans would ever allow 
them to be laid open to European eyes. 
This doubt dispelled, they were first in- 
troduced to the near acquaintance of 
scholars in the West by Colebrooke." 

Not stopping to raise a question 
as to just reclamation in favor of Sir 
William Jones for a portion at least 
of the credit of the introduction of 
the Vedas to the " acquaintance of 
scholars in the West," which, perhaps 
Professor Whitney means to solve 
in advance by a distinction between 
acquaintance and " near acquaint- 
ance," we would observe that this 
comprehensive statement as to the in- 
troduction of the Vedas to European 
scholars takes for granted the pre- 
vious interesting history of the mod- 
ern discovery of the existence of the 
Sanskrit and of Vedic literature. We 
use the expression " takes for granted " 
in no invidious sense. 

The author was writing for scholars 
who, he had a right to assume, were 
already acquainted with the objective 
history of his subject-matter, and 
were probably informed as to the 
details of the gradual steps by which 
the certainty of the existence of a 
great language and a rich literature 
long buried in darkness was at length 
brought to light. His concern was 

O . o 

with the internal, not the external, his- 
tory of Sanskrit. Now, it is upon 
this external history that we propose 
to say something, returning to Prof. 
Whitney's work when we reach the 
subject of the Vedas. 

It is not necessary that our readers 
should, to any extent, be linguists or 
philologists in order to become 
deeply interested in the relation of 
the modern discovery of a language 
so old that it had ceased to be spo- 
ken and was a dead language hun- 



dreds of years before the Christian 
era a language to which cannot with 
any certainty be assigned the name 
of the nation or people who spoke it, 
and which is at once the most an- 
cient of all known tongues, living or 
dead, and, despite all modern re- 
search, still prehistoric. 

To our Catholic readers, the nar- 
ration of this discovery is full of inte- 
rest ; for in it they will recognize an 
additional version of the familiar 
story of the enlightened intelligence, 
piety, and self-sacrifice of our devo- 
ted missionaries who, combining ac- 
tive zeal for knowledge with aposto- 
lic zeal for souls, amid privation and 
suffering, even in distant and savage 
lands, with one hand built up the 
walls. of Zion, while with the other 
they erected temples to science. 

In order fully to appreciate the 
bearing and importance of the reve- 
lation of Sanskrit to Europe, it is es- 
sential that we should first look a 
moment upon the condition of Eu- 
ropean comparative philology at the 
end of the XVIth and commence- 
ment of the XVI Ith centuries. A 
short digression will suffice for this. 

The Hebrew language was, from 
the earliest period of Christianity, 
settled upon by almost common con- 
sent of the learned as the primitive 
tongue. It was generally admitted 
by scholars that the sole great and 
essential linguistic problem to be 
solved was this : 

"As Hebrew is undoubtedly the mo- 
ther of all languages, how are we to ex- 
plain the process by which Hebrew be- 
came split into so many dialects, and 
how can these numerous dialects, such 
as Greek and Latin, Coptic, Persian, 
Turkish, be traced back to their common 
source, the Hebrew?" 

Upon this hopelessly insoluble 
problem an amazing amount of re- 
markable ingenuity and solid erudi- 
tion were, for hundreds of years, 



Sanskrit and tJic Vedas. 325 

hopelessly wasted, for, at this day, doubtful if he ever heard of Sanskrit, 

instead of Hebrew, Sanskrit is recog- although he lived until 1716, a full 

nized as being the oldest of all known century after one, at least, of our 

languages. How came this about ? missionaries had mastered Sanskrit 

Reply to this inquiry will at the same and all the Vedas. 

time answer the questions proposed SANSKRIT 
at the outset of this article. 

The result of labor on the problem, 1S the ancient lan S ua ge of the Hin- 

How could all languages be traced had ceased to be a s P oken 

back to the Hebrew ?" was of course laD g ua S e three centuries before the 

unsatisfactory. No solution could 'hnstian era - Th e sacred Vedas, 

be obtained. None indeed was pos- the oldest llterar y Productions of the 

sikle Hindus, and even the laws of Manu 

At last it was suggested, why should and the P ura nas, later works, are 

all languages be derived from the wntten m a dialect stl11 older than 

Hebrew? and with investigation the Sanskrit, of which it is the parent, 

thus taken off its false route, the and are assi n ed by different scholars 

question was in a fair way to be to P enods varying from twelve hun- 

successfully treated. Leibnitz vigor- dred to two thousand years B.C. Thus, 

ously denied the claims set up for the dialects of Sanskrit spoken by the 

Hebrew, and said : " There is as P e P le of India three hun dred years 

much reason for supposing Hebrew B ' c ' ma ^ be said to have been to the 

to have been the 'primitive language Vedlc Sansknt what Italian now is 

of mankind, as there is for adopting to the Latm - These dialects, modi- 

the view of Goropius, who publish- fied bv admixture with the languages 

ed a work at Antwerp in 1580 to of the vanou s conquerors of India, 

prove that Dutch was the language the Arablc , Persian, Mongolic, and 

spoken in Paradise." More than Furkish, and changed also by gram- 

this, he indicated the necessity of matlcal corruption, yet survive in the 

applying to language as well as to modern Hindi, Hindustani, Mah- 

4-4- A "ID ' 1 ' 

any other science the principle of a ratta ? ai engalee. 
sound inductive process, and in this Specimens of the dialects spoken 
he was greatly aided by the Jesuit bv the P e P l e of the northern, east- 
missionaries in China. ern >. and southwestern regions of 

India have come down to us in the 

"It stands to reason," he said, "that ,. r i T> jji , v 

we ought to begin with studying the insc nptlons of the Buddhist king 

modern languages which are within our Piyadasi (third century B.C.), and 

read), in order to compare them with ill the account of the victory over 

one another, to discover their differences AntiocllUS which King Asoka (206 

and affinities, and then to proceed to c x had en Qn the rockg of 

those which have preceded them m form- TAI ' v /-.- i tr -,- 

er ages, in order to show their filiation )hauh '. Girnar > and Kapurdigin. 

and their origin, and then to ascend step These inscriptions have been deci- 

by step to the most ancient tongues, the phered by Burnouf, N orris, Wilson, 

analysis of which must lead to the only ant i others, and are found to be in the 

trustworthy conclusions." p rakrit ( common ) ? not the Sanskrit 

But Leibnitz, while properly dis- (perfect) or exclusive dialect. From 

puting the justice of the claims of these facts the best Oriental scholars 

Hebrew as the mother-tongue, knew draw the conclusion that, at the 

of none other for which a similar periods of Piyadasi and Asoka, the 

claim might be advanced. It is Sanskrit, if spoken at all, was then 



326 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 



already confined to the educated 
caste of Brahrnans, having been a 
living language at some remote pre- 
vious period (most probably be- 
tween the Vlllth and IVth centuries 
B.C.), spoken by all classes of that 
race which emigrated from Central 
India into Asia, and the language so 
spoken is that to which modern Ori- 
entalists give the name of Aryan. 
For it will be borne in mind that the 
term Sanskrit is no indication of the 
people or race who originally spoke 
the language so called : it merely 
indicates the estimation in which it 
is held by their successors, and signi- 
fies " the perfect language." 

Meantime, during all these centu- 
ries, Sanskrit continued to be pre- 
served as the classic tongue and 
literary vehicle of Brahmanic thought 
and study, and we are told on good 
authority that, "even at the present 
day, an educated Brahman would 
write with greater fluency in Sanskrit 
than in Bengalee." It is now well 
established that Sanskrit is certainly 
not the parent, but the eldest brother 
or chef de famille of the large groups 
of Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, 
Teutonic, and Scandinavian families 
from which all the modern European 
tongues (Basque excepted) are de- 
rived (we omit mention of the Ori- 
ental branches). When we write the 
Sanskrit words mader, pader, dokhter, 
sumi, bruder, mand, lib, nasa, vidhu- 
va, stara, we very nearly write the 
corresponding English terms, and 
see in them their English descend- 
ants through Mceso-Gothic and Ger- 
man. The Sanskrit and Greek equi- 
valents of / am, tJwn art, he is, are 
almost identical : 

Sanskrit asmi, asi, asti. 

Greek esmi, eis, esti. 

We find the Sanskrit dinCira in the 
Latin denarius ; ayas in Sanskrit 
passing through the Gothic ais toEng- 



lish iron ; &\~\&plava, in Sanskrit, a ship 
appearing in the Greek ploion (ship), 
Slavonic ploug, and English plough 
for the Aryans said the ship ploughed 
the sea, and the plough sailed across 
the field. In like manner, similar 
illustrations might be multiplied in- 
definitely to the extent of volumes, 
showing not hazardous and doubtful 
etymological similarities, but clear, 
distinct, and sharp-cut affinities by 
clearly traceable descent. 

" Who was the first European that 
knew of Sanskrit, or that acquired a 
knowledge of Sanskrit, is difficult to 
say," remarks Prof. Max Muller. Very 
true. But it is not at all difficult to 
reach the certainty that that Euro- 
pean, whatever might have been his 
name, was a Catholic missionary. 

Soon after S. Francis Xavier began 
to preach the Gospel in India (1542), 
we hear of our missionaries acquiring 
not only the current dialects of the 
country, but also the classical San- 
skrit language; of their successfully 
studying the theological and philo- 
sophical literature of the exclusive 
priestly class ; and of their challeng- 
ing the Brahmans to public disputa- 
tions. If the example of their la- 
bors, humility, sufferings, and piety 
were not sufficient to win souls, they 
always, where it was needed, had 
science at their command, and were 
at once scholars, linguists, mathe- 
maticians, and astronomers as well as 
lowly messengers of the glad tidings 
of salvation. 

Prominent among the most re- 
markable of these men stands 

ROBERT DE' NOBILI. 

A nephew of Cardinal de' Nobili 
and a relative of Pope Julius the 
Third and of the great Bellarmine, 
he was nobly bom and tenderly 
reared. He went a missionary to 
the Indies in 1603, and began his 
public labors at Madura in 1606. 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 327 

Being a man of superior education, and blind, Robert de' Nobiii died, 

cultivation, and refinement, he soon aged eighty years, at Melapour, on 

perceived the reasons which kept all the coast of Coromandel. The dis- 

the natives of high caste especially tinguished Professor of Sanskrit at the 

the Brahmans from joining the English university of Oxford, Max 

communities of Christian converts Miiller, pays the following earnest 

formed by the common people of tribute to the acquirements of this 

the country. He saw that the admirable missionary and scholar : 

Brahmans could be successfully met ,- ** 

"A man who could quote from Manu, 

and argued with only by a Brahman, from the Pur a naS) and even from such 
and he at once resolved on the he- works as the Apastamba-sutras, which 
roic project of fitting himself by long are known even at present to only those 
study and almost incredible labor to few Sanskrit scholars who can read San- 
become a Brahman in outward ap- skrit L MSS -; ust h f av f been fa [ ad vanced 

. \ in a knowledge of the sacred language 

pearance, language, and accomplish- and i itera ture of the Brahmans ; and the 

ments, and thus obtain access to the very idea that he came, as he said, to 

noblest, most learned, and most ac- preach a new or a fourth Veda, which 

complished men in India. The task had been los *, shows how wel1 he knev/ 

was full of difficulty. For years he de- fhe strong and weak points of the theo- 

* ., J logical system which he came to conquer, 
voted himself to his silent work, ac- 
quiring in secret the dialects of Tamil Religious bigotry has sought to 
and Telugti, and the language and fix upon de' Nobiii the forgery of the 
literature of Sanskrit and the Vedas. Ezour-Veda ; but the examination 
When in time he felt himself strong of the charge by distinguished Eng- 
enough in Brahmanic learning and lish (Protestant) Orientalists has only 
accomplishments to meet them in resulted in bringing out into brighter 
argument and debate, he publicly relief that devoted missionary's re- 
appeared arrayed in their costume, markable acquirements and admira- 
wearing the cord, bearing the exclu- ble virtues. Francis Ellis, Esq., a 
sive frontal mark, and submitting to distinguished Orientalist, discovered 
the rigid observance of their diet the Sanskrit original of the Ezotir at 
(eating nothing but rice and vegeta- Pondicherry, and made an elaborate 
bles) and their complicated require- report upon it, which was published 
ments of caste. So exhaustive had at the time, in the Asiatick (sic) Re- 
been his studies, so thorough was his searches (vol. xiv., Calcutta, 1822), 
preparation, and so admirable his from which we cite the following- 
talent, that his success was perfect, short extract : 

The Brahmans whom he met found Robertus de No bilibus is well known 

in him their master even m their own both to Hindus and Christians, under 

exclusive field of literature, philoso- the Sanskrit title of Tatwa-Bodha Swami, 

phy, and religion. Miillbauer (Ge- as the author of many excellent works in 

schichte der katholischen Missionen Tamil > on polemical theology. In one of 

Ottindienti savs thev WPTP nfniH nf these ' the Atma-Nirnaya-mvecam, he con- 
trasts the opinions of the various Indian 

him. As a devoted and successful sects on the nature O f the soul, and ex- 
missionary, his life is full of interest; poses the fables with which the Puranas 
but we have to do with him here abound relative to the state of future ex- 
only as the first known European istence, and in another, Punergeum* 
Sanskrit scholar. After fortv-two ^^^ he confutes Ae doctrine of the 
r . . . ' metemps}-cnosis. Both these works, in 
missionary labor m that stv le and substance, greatly resemble the 
exhausting climate, worn out, infirm, controversial part of the Pseudo Vedas ; 



328 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 



but these are open attacks on what the 
author considered false doctrines and 
superstitions, and no attempt is made to 
veil their manifest tendency, or to in- 
sinuate the tenets they maintain under a 
borrowed name or in an ambiguous form. 
The style adopted by Robertus de No- 
bilibus is remarkable for a profuse ad- 
mixture of Sanskrit terms ; those to ex- 
press doctrinal notions and abstract 
ideas he compounds and recompounds 
with a facility of invention that indicates 
an intimate knowledge of the language 
whence they are derived ; and there 
can be no doubt, therefore, that he was 
fully qualified to be the author of those 
writings. If this should be the fact, con- 
sidering the high character he bears 
among all acquainted with his name and 
the nature of his known works, I am in- 
clined to attribute to him the composi- 
tion only, not the forgery, of the Pseudo 
Vedas." 

But the result of further examina- 
tion has decided that the Ezour-Veda 
was not even written by de' Nobili, 
but by one of his native converts. 
It is plain, from the testimony of Mr. 
Ellis, that he was not a man to seek 
the cover of the anonymous or the 
ambiguous, in order to attack the 
superstitions of Buddhism. This he 
did openly and boldly. Max Miiller 
decides that " there is no evidence 
for ascribing the work to Robert." 

The example of Robert de' Nobili 
was sedulously followed up by other 
members of his Order. 

Roth, another -Jesuit, appeared in 
1664, master of Sanskrit, and success- 
fully disputed with the Brahmans. 
Yet another, Hanxleder, who went 
to India in 1669, labored for more 
than thirty years in the Malabar mis- 
sion, composed works of instruction, 
compiled dictionaries, and wrote 
works in prose and verse. Many of 
his writings are preserved at Rome. ' 
Among the most prominent of the 
Jesuit missionaries in the field of 
modern Oriental and Sanskrit litera- 
ture was Father Constant Beschi, 
who went out to India in 1700. He 



made himself master of Sanskrit* 
Tamil, and Telugu, and wrote moral 
works in Sanskrit which are still pre- 
served and highly prized by the 
Brahmans. The natives called him 
the great Viramamouni. Scores of 
other missionaries might be named, 
equally devoted, equally learned. 
But they acquired science, Sanskrit, 
and Oriental erudition as a means, 
not an end. They sought no worldly 
distinction, no literary reputation. 
They had but one engrossing object 
and thought here below their mis- 
sion of charity and of love. 
Nevertheless, the day of 

SANSKRIT FOR EUROPE, 

long delayed, was now fast approach- 
ing. Its revelation to the West is gen- 
erally ascribed to Sir William Jones,. 
This assumption may be stated to be 
incorrect without in the slightest 
degree detracting from the merits of 
that distinguished English scholar. 
For more than a century before Sir 
William Jones went to India, the 
published letters of the Jesuit mis- 
sionaries had established the exist- 
ence and general characteristics of 
that remarkable tongue, the Sanskrit; 
and in 1740 (November 23), Father 
Pons, then at Karikal [Madura], ad- 
dressed a letter to Father Duhalde, 
giving what Professor Max Miiller 
.describes as " a most interesting and, 
in general, a very accurate description 
of the various branches of Sanskrit 
literature ; of the four Vedas, the 
grammatical treatises, the six systems 
of philosophy, and the astronomy of 
the Hindus. He anticipated, on 
several points, the researches of Sir 
William Jones" 

The letter in question was, in fact, 
an essay ; and Father Pons so speaks 
of it. It fills sixteen closely printed 
octavo pages, and refers to the feet, 
not mentioned by Prof. Miiller, that 
it is one of a succession of communi- 






Sanskrit and the Vedas. 329 

cations upon the same subject, inas- and its energy, was at some remote 

much as he mentions a treatise writ- period the spoken tongue of the 

ten by himself on Sanskrit versifica- country inhabited by the first Brah- 

tion, transmitted to Europe the pre- mans." 

vious year, and specifies a Sanskrit Parenthetically, and also by way 
grammar (Kramadisvar) which he of comparison, let us look for a mo- 
sent two years before. Although ment at the impression made by 
Adelung, in his Mithridafes, mildly Sanskrit upon two other distinguish- 
censures both Father Pons and Sir W. ed scholars from among those who 
Jones for exaggerating the value of were earliest in the field Sir William 
Sanskrit, the exposition made by the Jones and Frederick von Schlegel. 
former of the wealth of the Sanskrit At the outset of his researches, the 
language and literature is, to this first declared that, whatever its anti- 
day, held by distinguished scholars quity, it was a language of most won- 
to be " very accurate." derful structure, more perfect than the 

The Pons-Duhalde letter is often Greek, more copious than the Latin, 

referred to, but seldom quoted. We and more exquisitely refined than 

will therefore here cite a few short pas- either, yet bearing to both of them a 

sages from it, which may give the read- strong affinity. " No philologer," 

er some idea of the nature of the com- he adds, "could examine the San- 

munication and an early estimate of skrit, Greek, and Latin, without 

the value of Sanskrit. We translate : believing them to have sprung from 

" The Brahmans have always been, some common source, which, per- 

and still are, the only class who de- haps, no longer exists. There is a 

vote themselves to the cultivation of similar reason, though not quite so 

the sciences as a matter of hereditary forcible, for supposing that both the 

descent. They originally descend Gothic and Celtic had the same 

from seven illustrious penitents, origin with the Sanskrit. The old 

whose progeny, in course of time, Persian may be added to the same 

was multiplied infinitely, etc. They family." And Frederick von Schlegel 

are exclusively consecrated to learn- (Essay on the Language and Philoso- 

ing, and a Brahman who strictly phy of the Indians) says : " The sim- 

adheres to the rule of his order ilarity between Sanskrit, on the one 

should devote himself solely to re- hand, and Latin and Greek, Teu- 

ligion and study ; but, in course of tonic and Persian, on the other, is 

time, many have fallen into a very found not only in a great number of 

lax life. roots possessed by them in common, 

" These sciences are inaccessible but it also extends to the inner struc- 

to all the other castes of people, to ture and grammar. The remarkable 

whom it is permitted to communi- coincidence is not merely such an 

cate certain compositions, grammar, accidental one as may be explained 

poetry, and moral sayings." by an admixture of language, but an 

" The grammar of the Brahmans essential one which points distinctly 
may fairly be classed in the rank of to a common descent. Comparison 
works of science. Never were further shows that the Indian (San- 
analysis and synthesis more happily skrit) tongue is the more ancient, the 
employed than in their grammatical others younger and derived from it." 
works on the Sanskrit language. I But to return to our missionaries. 
am satisfied that this language, so The interest excited in Europe by 
admirable in its harmony, its wealth, the remarkable letter of Father Pons 



330 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 



was purely one of surprise and specu- 
lation, inasmuch as Western scholars 
were without the means of testing 
the value of the great linguistic dis- 
covery. Sanskrit grammars, diction- 
aries, and even vocabularies were 
then unknown in any European 
tongue. This want, however, was 
soon supplied by another missionary, 
John Philip Wesdin, more widely 
known as Father Paulinus a Santo- 
Bartolomeo. He spent thirteen 
years in India, and subsequently 
published (1790) at Rome, under 
the auspices of the Propaganda, 
several works on Sanskrit gram- 
mar and upon the history, theology, 
and religion of the Hindus. . 

Referring to his numerous publica- 
tions (vielen Schrifteii), no less an au- 
thority than Adelung qualifies them 
as indispensable to a knowledge of 
Sanskrit as also to the other langua- 
ges of India (welche zur Kentniss 
sowohl dieser Sprache als auch In- 
diens tiberhaupt unentbehrlich sind) ; 
and he adds (writing in 1806) : " Per- 
adventure has no European up to 
this time so deeply penetrated into 
this language as he."* Of his first 
Sanskrit grammar, published at Rome 
in 1790,1 Prof. Max M tiller says: 
" Although this grammar has been 
severely criticised, and is now hardly 
ever consulted, it is but fair to bear 
in mind that the first grammar of 
any language is a work of infinitely 
greater difficulty than any later gram- 
mar." 

In this connection we must not 
omit some mention of that prodigy of 
linguistic industry and erudition, the 

* Still stronger in the original : " Vielleicht ist 
noch kem Europaer so tief in diese Sprache ein- 
gedrungen als er." Mithridates^ vol. i. p. 134. 

t Sid'narubain seu Grammatica Samscrdamica, 
cut accedit dissertatiohistorico-criticain linguam 
Samscr.^micam, vulgo Samscret dictam, in qua 
hujus linguae existeHtia, origo, exarati critice 
recensentur, et simul aliquze antiquissimse gen- 
tilium orationes liturgicse paucis attinguntur et 
explicantur autore Paulino a S. Bartolomseo. 
Romse, 1790, 



Spanish Jesuit, Don Lorenzo Her- 
vas y Pandura, who, in the midst of 
his missionary labors, collected spe- 
cimens of more than three hundred 
languages.* This of itself was a 
gigantic work, and its rich results 
furnished to Adelung an important 
portion of the material of his Mithri- 
dates. Hervas, moreover, prepared 
grammars for more than forty langua- 
ges, and is the founder of the true 
method of ascertaining lingual afrini- 
nity by grammatical analysis, rather 
than by etymology, always more or 
less deceptive. Klaproth's enuncia- 
tion of this principle established by 
Hervas is so felicitous that we cannot 
refrain from citing it here : " Words 
are the stuff or matter of language, 
and grammar its fashioning or form." 
Concerning Hervas we need say 
no more than to add the noble trib- 
ute to his memory and his merits to 
be found in the pages of Max Muller's 
Lectures on the Science of Language, 
p. 140 : 

" He proved by a comparative list of 
declensions and conjugations that He- 
brew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, 
and Amharic are all but dialects of one 
original language, and constitute one 
family of speech, the Semitic. He scout- 
ed the idea of deriving all the languages 
of mankind from Hebrew. He had per- 
ceived clear traces of affinity in Hunga- 
rian, Lapponian, and Finnish three dia- 
lects now classed as members of the Tu- 
ranian family. He had proved that 
Basque was not, as was commonly sup- 
posed, a Celtic dialect, but an indepen- 
dent language, spoken by the earliest in- 
habitants of Spain, as proved by the 
names of the Spanish mountains and 
rivers. Nay, one of the most brilliant 
discoveries in the history of the science of 
language, the establishment of the Malay 
and Polynesian family of speech, extend 
ing from the Island of Madagascar east ot 
Africa, over 208 of longitude, to the 
Easter Islands west of America, -was made 



* Catalogo de las Lengtias de las Naciones 
conocidas. Madrid, 1800-1805. Six large 8vo 
volumes. 






Sanskrit and the Vedas. 331 

by Hewas long before it was announced to had just finished his great work ill 

the world by HumboldC which he derives mankind from a 

English literature has made us fa- cou P le of a P es > and a11 the dialects 

miliar with the name of Sir William of the world from the language of the 

Jones as the European originator of Egyptian gods, was petrified with 

the cultivation of Sanskrit. The astonishment. His Egyptian theory, 

merits of Sir William Jones are not a hls men Wlth tails > and ms monkeys 

subject of doubt or contest. Full without tails, were all equally doomed 

justice has been done them. But to destruction. To his credit, though, 

when we come to settle the question Jt must be said that he soon afterward 

of priority of successful and distin- accepted the situation with commend- 

guished labor in the field of Sanskrit, able intelligence and alacrity, 

the names and transcendent services Other P et theories and other deep- 

of the humble and self-sacrificing 1 Y ingrained prejudices of many 

missionaries, Robert de' Nobili, scholars of the best education were 

Roth, Hanxleder, Beschi, Pons, Pan- shocked and scandalized at the 

linus a Santo-Bartolomeo, Hervas, daims set U P for Sanskrit. lie idea 

and scores of others, their predecessors that the cla ssical languages of Greece 

and companions, must ever be grate- and Rome could be intimately re- 

fully remembered. lated to a J ar g n of mere savages 

as they supposed the natives of India 

THE TRIUMPH OF SANSKRIT. tQ b _ was tQ ^ ^ dggree rfcpug . 

Through the publications of the nant to these gentlemen, and they 

Asiatic Society at Calcutta, European went great lengths in assertion, ab- 

scholars were now furnished with fa- surd argument, irony, and ridicule, 

cilities for the study of Sanskrit, and to escape the, alas ! too inevitable 

it would be difficult to say which of and horribly unpleasant conclusion 

the two, the language or the litera- that Greek and Latin were of the 

ture, excited the deeper or more last- same linguistic kith and kin as the 

ing interest. language of the black inhabitants of 

The absolute identity of gramma- India. The distinguished Scotch 

tical forms of Greek and Latin with philosopher, Dugald Stewart, by way 

Sanskrit was at once recognized, and of protest against the claims set up 

it was evident that these three Ian- for Sanskrit, even went so far as to 

guages sprang from one common deny that any such language existed 

source. The revelation created one or ever had existed, and wrote his 

of the greatest literary sensations famous essay to prove that those 

ever known in Europe. The theory arch forgers and liars, the Brahmans, 

that upheld Hebrew as the mother had manufactured the dialect on the 

tongue already seriously damaged model of the Greek and the Latin, 

now received its death-blow. Clas- and that the whole thing, language, 

sical scholars shook their heads seep- literature, and all, was a piece of 

tically. Theologians were troubled, daring invention and bold imposture. 

Ethnographers were all at sea. Ety- How deeply rooted were the pre- 

mologists and lexicographers were judices, and how stubborn the igno- 

dumfounded. The philosophers of the ranee, even among scholars and men 

day, each one of whom had his own of literary pursuits, in favor of the 

little system of the universe to take Hebrew and against the reception 

care of, saw their theories ruthlessly of Sanskrit in its place, may be judg- 

upset; and Lord Monboddo, who ed from the representative fact, that 



332 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 



so late as the ninth day of August, 
1832, we find no less a man than 
Coleridge making this entry in his 
note-book : " The claims of the San- 
skrit for priority to the Hebrew as a 
language are ridiculous." 

The first European scholar of dis- 
tinction who dared boldly accept the 
facts and conclusions of Sanskrit scho- 
larship was Frederick von Schlegel. 
He began his study of the language 
with verbal tuition from Sir Alex- 
ander Hamilton, continued it at Paris 
with the aid of M. Langles, custodian 
of Oriental MSS. in the Imperial Li- 
brary at Paris, and subsequently had 
the advantage of the rich collection 
in the British Museum. The result 
was his Language and Wisdom of the 
Indians, published in 1808. It em- 
braced in one glance the languages 
of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and 
Germany, riveted them together by 
the name of Indo-Germanic (by com- 
mon consent of scholars since chang- 
ed to Indo-European), and became 
the foundation of the science of lan- 
guage. Appearing only two years 
after the publication of the first vol- 
ume of Adelung's Mithridates, " it is 
separated from that work," says Prof. 
Mtiller, " by the same distance which 
separates the Copernican from the 
Ptolemsean system," and this work 
of Schlegel, he adds, " has truly been 
called the discovery of a new world." 

Omitting mention of the labors of 
many distinguished French and Ger- 
man laborers in the same field, we 
may close our record of the services 
rendered by Catholic scholars to the 
cause of Sanskrit literature by refer- 
ence to the remarkable course of lec- 
tures on " Science and Revealed Re- 
ligion," delivered by the Reverend 
(afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, at 
Rome, in 1835,* on ^y two years and 

* These lectures, printed in book-form at 
London, were soon alter rirst published in the 
United States by the Presbyterian College of 
Andover. 



six months after the memorable entry 
of Coleridge in his note-book. 

SANSKRIT LITERATURE AND THE 
VEDAS. 

It was perfectly natural that the 
fresh enthusiasm of the earliest San- 
skrit scholars should have carried 
them into what is now looked upon 
as an undue estimate and hyperbolic 
praise of their new discovery and 
acquisition. And this early enthusi- 
asm was neither short in duration 
nor limited in extent. 

A tidal wave of admiration swept 
over European scholarship with the 
appearance of Sacontala, or The Fatal 
Ring (Calcutta, 1789), certainly a 
beautiful specimen of dramatic art 
and admirable poetry by Kalidasa, 
the Indian Shakespeare, who is as- 
signed to the period of Vikrama the 
Great (B. c. 56). Sir William Jones 
very judiciously selected this master- 
piece of Indian literature for trans- 
lation as a first specimen, and, al- 
though in prose, it so delighted a 
French scholar, Chezy, that it in- 
duced him first to learn Sanskrit and 
then to publish a French version of 
it. This was followed by no less 
than four German translations, prose 
and verse, a Danish translation, and 
an additional English translation 
(the best) in a mingling of verse and 
prose (following the original) by 
Monier Williams. Goethe was en- 
raptured with the Sacontala, and it 
drew from him the celebrated verse : 

" Willt Du die Bliithe des Friihen, die Fruchte 

des Spateren Jahres, 
Willt Du, was reizt und entziickt, willt Du 

was sattigt nnd niihrt, 
Willt Du den Himmel, die Erde mit einem 

Namen begreifen, 

Nenn ich, Sacontala, Dich, und so ist Alles 
gesagt." * 

* ll Wouldst thott the young year's blossoms and 

the fruits of its decline, 

And all by which the soul is charmed, enrap- 
tured, feasted, fed, 
Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in 

one sole name combine ? 
I name thee, O Sakuntula, and all at once is 
said." 



Sanskrit and the Vedas. 333 

A. W. von Schlegel finds in it so Key or M. Oppert has cited the 

striking a resemblance to our roman- fact that, when the Indian rajah 

tic drama that we might, he says, Rammohun Roy found the distin- 

be inclined to suspect we owe this guished Sanskrit scholar Rosen at 

resemblance to the predilection for work in the British Museum upon an 

Shakespeare entertained by Sir Wil- edition of the hymns of the Veda, he 

liara Jones, if the fidelity of his trans- expressed his surprise at so useless an 

lation were not confirmed by other undertaking. It was not that the 

learned Orientalists. And Alex, von Indian philosopher looked upon all 

Humboldt says of Kalidasa that Vedic literature as worthless. On 

"tenderness in the expression of feel- the contrary, he was of the opinion 

ing, and richness of creative fancy, that the Upanishads were worthy of 

have assigned to him his lofty place becoming the foundation of a new 

amongst the poets of all nations." religion. The rajah most probably 

Voltaire went into ecstasies over a did not also consider the fact that, 

French translation of the Ezour-Ve- whatever might be the intrinsic lit- 

da, a Sanskrit poem in the style of erary merit of the Vedic hymns, 

the Puranas, quite an inferior pro- they were none the less valuable to 

duction, written in the XVIIth cen- the comparative grammarian and 

tury by a native convert of Robert philologist. For the purposes of 

de' Nobili. This French translation grammatical construction, it is per- 

was published by Voltaire under the fectly immaterial whether or not a 

title, " L'Ezour-Vedam, traduit du text has the fire of genius or the in- 

Sanscritam par un Brame," and he spiration of poetry, 

stated his belief that the original was And here it may be mentioned 

four centuries older than Alexander, that Rammohun Roy, the descendant 

and that it was the most precious on both the paternal and maternal 

gift for which the West had been in- side of the highest caste Brahmans, 

debted to the East. and familiar with the whole body of 

Adelung, as we have seen, found Vedic and Sanskrit literature, indirect- 
fault with Sir William Jones and Fa- ty bears high testimony to one of the 
ther Pons for overrating the claims grandest results obtained by Euro- 
of Sanskrit, and subsequent critics P ean study of Sanskrit literature, 
have gone so far as to assert that its That result is the exposure of Brah- 
literary and scientific . value is very nanism as a gross imposture. Against 
slight. Among the latest of these an 7 attack on its social and religious 
are M. Jules Oppert* and Prof. Key errors, the Brahmans formerly en- 
of University College, London, trenched themselves in the pretended 
Their objections and arguments are warrant of high antiquity and the au- 
met and discussed by Prof. Whitney thority of the sacred works. " Thus 
in the seventh essay of his volume, in Sa 7 the Veda s " was a sufficient justi- 
a tone so moderate and a treatment fi cation for any claim, and "That is 
so thorough as to present a more not in the Vedas " an unanswerable 
than satisfactory vindication of the argument against any objection, 
claims of Indo-European philology Although they threw every possible 
and ethnology to the serious atten- obstacle in the way of Europeans who 
tion and close study of every scholar, strove to obtain a knowledge of San- 
We are not aware that either Prof. skrit and access to the Vedas, by re- 

^UAryanis^ctdelatrop^-andepart^on f Usln S l teflch tliem aild b 7 ^ithhold- 

afaite a son influence, etc. ing the Sacred books, tllCSC difficulties 



334 Sanskrit and the Vedas. 

were finally overcome, and when the might, we regret to say, be truthfully 
Vedas were read and understood it made of a Christian country of far 
became apparent that fully one-half higher civilization than that of India. 
of the social and religious institutions Not stopping to discuss what has 
of Brahmanism, as it existed down to been called the " standing reproach " 
the commencement of the present against Indian literature, that it is 
century, were not only without a sha- barren of historical and geographical 
dow of authority in the Vedas, but results, nor to point out much that is 
absolutely opposed to the spirit and of high value and interest to every 
letter of its law. Thus, it is certain scholar, we will close by an inquiring 
that nothing of the great characteris- comment as to the following state- 
tic feature of Brahmanism the sys- ment made by Prof. Whitney at p. 
tern of castes can be found in the 22. He is speaking of the Vedic 
Vedas. The belief in the transmi- texts, and says : " So thorough and 
gration of souls and in the doctrines religious was the care bestowed upon 
flowing from it has no existence their preservation that, notwith- 
there. And the Suttee, or system of standing their mass and the thou- 
widow immolation, the singular min- sands of years which have elapsed 
gling of pantheistic philosophy with since their collection, hardly a single 
gross superstition, and the worship various reading, so far as yet known, 
of the triad Brahma, Vishnu, and has been suffered to make its way 
Civa, are all equally without Vedic into them after their definite and final 
foundation. settlement." 

Robert de' Nobili discovered all We have italicized the passage 
this at an early period, and it was which we wish to make the subject 
only when he first fought the Brah- of our inquiry, for, unless we are mis- 
mans with their own weapons the taken, two instances may be pointed 
Vedas that they were, for the first out in which the texts in question have 
time, silenced. Rammohun Roy been garbled or seriously tampered 
had his eyes opened at an^early age with. 

to the idolatrous system of the Hin- We find the first instance in the 

dus, came out from among them, developments growing out of the dis- 

and openly attacked its pretensions, cussion as to whether there are three 

" I endeavored to show," he says, Vedas or four Vedas (Goverdhan 

"that the idolatry of the Brahmans Caul on the "Literature of the Hin - 

was contrary to the practice of their dus," Asiatic Researches, Calcutta, 

ancestors, and to the principles of the 1788, vol. i., p. 340, and Sir William 

ancient works and authorities which Jones' Works, vol. iv. p. 93 (edition 

they profess to revere and obey." of 1807). Even down to the present 

Prof. Whitney, referring to the day, Indian scholars sometimes 

same subject, says : " Each new speak of three Vedas, sometimes of 

phase of belief has sought in them four. According to Indian tradition, 

(the sacred texts) its authority, has Brahma has four mouths, each of 

claimed to found itself upon them, which uttered a Veda. Yet most 

and to be consistent with their teach- ancient writers speak of but three 

ings; and the result is that the sum Vedas, Rig, Yajush, and Sama, 

of doctrine accepted and regarded as from which it is inferred that the 

orthodox in modern India is incon- Atharva was written after the three 

gruous beyond measure, a mass of first. The Atharva is spoken of 

inconsistencies ": a summing up that and called the Veda of Vedas in 



Sanskrit and the Vcdas. 



335 



the eleventh book of Manu, and 
the designation affirms the asser- 
lion of Dara Shecuh, in the preface 

tO his Upailisliad, that the first three 

Vedas are named separately, because 
the Atharvan is a corollary from 

them all, and contains the quilltes- 

sence of them all. But this verse of 
Manu, which occurs in a modern 
copy of the work brought from Be- 
nares, is entirely omitted in the best 
copies, so that, as Manu himself in 
other places names only three Vedas, 
we must believe this line to be an inter- 
polation by some admirer of the 
Atharva. 

The second instance to be specifi- 
ed is furnished by Prof. Whitney him- 
self, at pages 53, 54, and 55, where 
he gives a translation of a hymn from 
the concluding book of the Rig- 
Veda (x. 18), describing the early 
Vedic funeral services. When the 
attendants leave the bier, the men go 
first, while the director of the cere- 
mony says : 

" Ascend to life, old age your portion makin^ 



cause that you here enjoy a long existence." 

The women next follow, the wives 
at their head : 

'These women here, not widows, blessed with 
May^ck^mselves with ointment and per- 

fume ; 

y tearS ' ad rned ' unt uched with 



The wives may first ascend unto the altar." 



The wife of the deceased is then 
summoned away the last : 

G o up unto the world of life, o woman ! 

Thouliest by one whose soul is fled; come 

To hi'mwho grasps thy hand, a second hus- 
band ' 

Thou -t as wife to spouse become related." 

In commenting upon this hymn, 
Prof. Whitney notes its " discordance 
with the modern Hindu practice of 
immolating the widow at the grave 
of her husband," and adds : " No- 
thing could be more explicit than 
the testimony of this hymn against 
the antiquity of the practice. It 
finds, indeed, no support anywhere 
in the Vedic scriptures." And now 
we come to the " various reading," 
for Prof. Whitney concludes the pas- 
sage with this statement : " Authority 
has been sought, however, for the 
practice, in a fragment of this very 
hymn, rent from its natural connec- 
tion, and a little altered; by the 
change of a single letter, the line 
which is translated above, " The 

W1VCS may first ascend lintO the 

altar '" '; as been raade to read > " The 

W1VCS shall gO Up llltO the place of 

the fire." 

We heartily welcome this Avork of 

Prof. Whitney, and thank him for it 
aS * S lid Con tnbutioil to literature 

and to philological science, honorable 
to himself, and reflecting credit on 

American Scholarship. 




336 



The House that Jack Built. 



THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE HOUSE OF YORKE." 



IN TWO PARTS. 



PART II. 







IT was late before Aunt Nancy 
felt the approach of sleep that night. 
She turned restlessly from side to 
side, thinking over Bessie's strange 
behavior, and trying to find a solu- 
tion for it. The appearance of a 
mystery disturbed all calculations 
based upon her plain and outspoken 
experience. 

But the habits of years are not 
easily broken, and sleep, that for 
more than six decades had been 
wont to settle over this woman's 
head as regularly as darkness settled 
on the earth, began now to dim her 
senses. She was about losing con- 
sciousness, when the vague sense of 
pain and perplexity which still clung 
to her mind strengthened and took a 
new form. It was no longer a wo- 
man who laughed bitterly when she 
should have wept, but a woman sob- 
bing violently, she knew not why. 

The sound continued, and before 
its dreary persistence Aunt Nancy's 
hovering sleep took flight. She 
started up and listened, not yet quite 
recalled to recollection. It was in- 
deed a woman's voice sobbing un- 
controllably. For one moment, the 
listener's blood chilled with a super- 
stitious fear ; the next, she recollected 
that she was not alone in the house. 
It was Bessie who mourned. " Ra- 
chel weeping for her children, because 
they were not" the old woman thought 
pityingly. 

Poor Bessie had forgotten how 
thin the walls were in her old home, 



and, when the door opened and a 
tall figure clad in -white entered her 
room, she uttered a cry of affright. 

" You poor child ! I couldn't stand 
it to hear you cry so," Aunt Nancy 
said, going to her bedside and bend- 
ing down to put a caressing arm 
around her. " Don't cry ! Try to 
remember that you have not lost 
everything." 

" I'm sorry I disturbed you, Aunt 
Nancy," Bessie said faintly, sinking 
back on the pillow. " You had 
better leave me to have it out alone. 
I don't often get a chance to have a 
good cry, and you have no idea 
what a relief it is." 

" I know all about it !" Aunt Nan- 
cy replied, and her voice, low and 
deep, had a sound like a tolling bell. 
" I have seen 'em all go and leave 
me, one after another, father and 
mother, brothers and sisters, husband 
and children, till every earthly hope 
was covered over with dust, and it 
seemed as though there was dust on 
the very bread I ate. Yes, I know 
what it is better than you, for you 
have your husband and one child left 
yet, and I have nothing on earth !" 

" I have not !" Bessie cried out 
passionately, with the jealousy of 
one whose grief is underestimated. 
" John and the boy are further away 
from me than my dead children 
are !" 

The barrier was down. She had 
betrayed herself, and must tell the 
whole, though she might be sorry 






The House that Jack Built. 337 

afterward for having spoken. Con- have always the advantage over 

cealment and self-control were no sensitive ones, and seem to triumph 

longer possible. by their very inferiority. 

It was a tale too often true, though Bessie was silent, and her husband 

not so often told. The husband, en- thought that she was convinced, and 

grossed in business, and missing no dimissed the subject from his mind, 

home care which the love and duty If he observed that she grew pale, 

of his wife could bestow, had for- he supposed that city air did not 

gotten, or did not care, or did not agree with her. He missed no home 

believe, that any return was due from comfort, heard no complaint, and 

him save a pecuniary support, or that therefore took for granted that all 

he could be guilty of any sin of was right. He frequently absented 

omission toward his wife, save the himself from home on business, 

omission to provide her with food never asking his wife to accompany 

and shelter. him, women being- in the way on 

Perhaps no woman ever saw the such occasions, and she seemed satis- 

heart she had once possessed slip- fied to see nothing beyond her own 

ping away from her, without making fireside. He brought home his plans 

a mistake in her efforts to retain it. and studies at evening, and, when 

Indifference is her surest means of the children's play and caresses dis- 

success, but indifference the loving turbed him, their mother took them 

heart can never affect. As well away and amused them elsewhere, 

might flame hope to hide itself, liv- When, later, her little ones asleep, 

ing, in ashes. as she sat by her husband silently 

The reserve and gravity of wound- working, he found that the snip of 

ed feeling, when at length the hus- her scissors and the rattle of her 

band noticed them, he named sulki- spools fretted him, Bessie said not a 

ness, and the meanness of the causes word, but went off to bed, and wet 

to which he ascribed that were felt her pillow with bitter and unavailing 

as an insult. The few timid reproach- tears, finding no comfort, 

es and petitions the wife had brought The thought of seeking comfort 

herself to utter he listened to with and help in her religion had not 

surprise and annoyance, or with ridi- once entered her mind. She was 

cule. Why, what in the world did dead to its obligations. They had 

she want ? to begin their courting never been impressed on her, and 

days over again ? In order to do her heart had been engrossed by 

that, thev must first be divorced, other interests. Her children had 

' > 

What had he done ? Had he beaten, been baptized, and she usually went 

or scolded, or starved her? Had to an early Mass on Sunday, but 

he gone gallivanting about with other never heard a sermon, and never 

women ? Nonsense ! He had his read a religious book. She prayed 

business to attend to. Of course he often, but it was the outcry of pain, 

loved her, but she mustn't bother the petition for an earthly good, not 

him. the prayer for resignation and wis- 

What reply is possible to such dom. 

arguments ? How small seem all Of his wife's real life John May- 

our sweetest human needs when they nard knew no more than he did of 

are put into words, simply because life at the antipodes. His profession 

words can never express them ! In . engrossed his heart. His happiness 

such a controversy, hard natures was to work and study over polished 
VOL. xvi. 22 




338 



The House that Jack Built. 



metals, to fit cylinder, crank, and 
valve with nicety into their places ; 
and at last, when that exquisite but 
irresistible power of steam, so delicate 
in its fineness, yet so terrible in its 
strength, began to steal into his work, 
to see the creature of brass and iron 
grow alive, and become more mighty 
than an army of giants, how ten- 
derly could he handle, how carefully 
arrange, how patiently study out, the 
parts of his work ! For the problem 
of that infinitely more exquisite 
mechanism his wife's heart he had 
no time. 

The boy, as boys will, followed in 
the footsteps of his father. He emu- 
lated the slighting of which the 
father was himself unconscious, and 
treated his mother with that intolera- 
ble mixture of patronizing kindness 
and impatient superiority so often 
witnessed in the presumptuous chil- 
dren of our time. 

When Bessie Maynard had poured 
out her complaint, with many an il- 
lustration of which a woman could 
well understand the bitterness, Aunt 
Nancy was silent a moment. 

" It's pretty hard, dear," she said 
then, embarrassed what to say. 
" Some men have that way of not 
caring anything about their wives, as 
soon as they have got them ; but I 
never thought John would act so. 
And you know, Bessie, that, if it is 
hard, still he is your husband, and you 
can't leave him for that. Try to be 
patient, and don't lose courage. I'm 
sure he loves you, though he doesn't 
show it ; and he'll come round by- 
and-by." 

The reply almost broke in on this 
trite advice : " I did not mean to 
leave him. I came down here to 
think. I can't think there. I want- 
ed to see again this place where I 
was a child, and where I was so 
happy. I thought that perhaps 
some of the old feelings might come 



back. I have been afraid of some 
things. Aunt Nancy, I was afraid I 
should grow to hate John !" 

" Oh ! no, Bessie," the old woman 
exclaimed. " Never let yourself 
hate your own husband ! It would 
be a dreadful sin ; and, besides, it 
wouldn't mend matters. It is better 
for a woman to love one who cares 
nothing for her than not to love any- 
body. I don't believe but John is 
fond of you still, if he'd only stop to 
think of it." 

There was no reply. 

" What else were you afraid of?" 
Aunt Nancy asked presently. " You 
said you were afraid of some things ?" 

Bessie did not answer. 

That other fear that, shunned at 
first, then glanced upon, then brood- 
ed over silently till it had grown al- 
most a probability, flashed out again 
on her in all its original hatefulness 
when she found herself about to ex- 
plain it to a listener like this. 

" If you don't want to tell, I won't 
ask you," Aunt Nancy said, with al- 
most childlike timidity. " But, may 
be. since you have begun, you would 
feel better not to keep anything back. 
You know, Bessie, I am on vour 

' j 

side, though I am John's own aunt." 
The younger woman crept nearer 
into the arm that half held her, and 
said, in a hurried whisper, " Every 
one is not so indifferent to me as 
John is !" 

" I'm glad of it, child," was the 
calm reply. " I don't like to praise 
people to their faces, but you always 
had a sweet, winning way. I am 
glad that other people are good to 
you." She waited again for the ex- 
planation, not dreaming that it had 
been given. 

Bessie Maynard drew a breath, 
like one who plunges into water. 
" There's some one who thinks me 
worth watching and sympathizing 
with, if John doesn't, "^she said. 



*lhe House tJtat Jack Built. 339 

" You don't mean a man !" ex- so. I'm afraid ; but, for all that, I 

claimed Aunt Nancy. respect him. I wish John were half 

" Of course I do," answered Bes- as good." 

sie almost pettishly. The story was ended j* but with 

The words were scarcely out of the feeling of relief which followed 
her mouth, before she was flung the disburdening of her heart came 
back on to the pillow by the arms also the uneasiness and half regret 
that had held her so tenderly, and we always experience when we have 
Aunt Nancy stood erect by the bed- been led unawares to confide a secret 
side. Aren't you ashamed of you- to one whom we have not delibe- 
self, Bessie Maynard ?" she cried out rately chosen as a confidant. Con- 
indignantly, scious of this new uneasiness, Bessie 

" No, I am not !" was the dogged wished to close the conversation, 
.answer. " I have nothing to be " Don't let me keep you any long- 
ashamed of." er," she said. " Go to bed now, 

The flash of the old woman's eyes and forget all the nonsense I have 

could be seen in the dim light, been talking. I am sorry I disturb- 

" What ! you, a married woman, not e d you." 

ashamed to let a man who is not Aunt Nancy paid no attention to 

your husband talk love to you !" this request. She sat a few moments 

" He never spoke a word of love in deep thought, then spoke abruptly: 

to me," said Bessie, still sulky. " Bessie, did you ever go to any 

Aunt Nancy was utterly puzzled, of your priests about this business ?" 

" How do you know, then ?" she " To a priest !" repeated Bessie, 

asked. astonished at such a question from a 

Neither by nature nor education rigid Puritan like her aunt, and 

was this woman fitted to understand doubtful in what spirit it was asked, 

that subtile manner by which im- " What made you think of that ?" 

pressions and assurances are convey- " I am not a Catholic," the old 

cd without a word having been woman said, " but you are. And I 

spoken. A man would have been like to see people live up to their 

obliged to use plain language indeed, religion, whatever it is. A religion 

if he would have had her, a wife, un- that won't help you in a strait like 

del-stand that he loved her. this isn't worth having." 

While Bessie described some of the Bessie was silent, knowing not 

delicate kindnesses of this dangerous what to say. Her faith was sleeping, 

friend of hers, Aunt Nancy listened That religion would help as really as 

attentively, and presently resumed the trials of earth can hurt she had 

her seat by the bed. She really not thought. Like many others, she 

could not see that the child had invoked the aid of the church on the 

done, or meant, or wished any real great events, the births, the marri- 

harm. ages, and the deaths, but let the rest 

" But, still, you must look out for of life fight its own battles, 

the fellow, dear," she said. " He " Now, you listen to me," Aunt 

wouldn't hang round you so if he Nancy said earnestly. " I'm not 

was what he ought to be. You very wise, but I'm going to give you 

never know what these city gentle- the best advice that you can get 

men are." anywhere. Just you write to old 

" He isn't a bad man !" Bessie ex- Father Conners, the priest that mar- 
claimed. " I won't have him called ried you and John, and tell him what 



340 



The House that Jack Built. 



a trouble you are in. I've seen him, 
and I believe he's a good Christian, 
if he is a priest, and a sensible man, 
too. He omes three or four times 
a year up to a Mr. Blake's, over on 
the railroad, and says Mass in his 
house. There are a good many 
Catholics round there now. It's 
about time for him to come again. 
You write to him, and you won't be 
sorry for it. There's nothing else for 
you to do. Will you write, Bessie ? 
I want you to promise." 

The promise was given hesitating- 
ly, doubtingly, more to get rid of the 
subject than from any conviction of 
its wisdom. 

But a promise is a promise, and 
next morning Bessie wrote the letter, 
not because she wished to, but be- 
cause she must ; and a very dry, 
cold letter it was. She was a little 
helped to the writing of it by the 
pleasant prospect of carrying it to 
mail. That would give her a long, 
solitary walk and a whole afternoon 
quite to herself; for the post-office 
was in a desk, in a corner of the sit- 
ting-room of a farm-house four miles 
distant. This house was at the end 
of postal and stage accommodations 
in that direction. Three times a 
week a double-seated open wagon 
was driven there from a seaport 
town thirty miles to the southward, 
passing through several small villages 
on its way. This stage had brought 
Bessie up, and was to return the next 
morning. 

She set out on her walk soon after 
their early dinner, and reached the 
post-office just at the high tide of 
that country afternoon leisure, when, 
their noon dinner quite cleared away, 
the women of the house are ordinarily 
free from everything that they would 
call labor. At this time the house- 
wife smooths her hair and ties on 
a clean apron. One hears the snap 
of knitting-needles through the si- 



lence, or the drowsy hum of the 
spinning-wheel, or the sound of the 
loom where the deep-blue woollen 
web grows, thread by thread, while 
the weaver tosses her shuttle to and 
fro. 

Bessie had dreaded the gossip- 
which she must expect to encounter;, 
but, as she approached, the sight of 
blue and pink sun-bonnets out in the 
field, where the women were raking, 
hay, relieved her fear. Not a soul 
was in the house. The watch-dog,, 
recollecting her, gave no alarm, only 
walked gravely by her side, and 
looked on while she slipped her 
letter into the bag left to receive 
the mail. All the doors and win- 
dows stood open,. and the sunshine 
lay bright and clear on the white 
bare floors. Large, stupid flies 
bumped their heads against the 
panes of glass, and a bumble-bee 
flew in at the front door, wandered 
noisily about the rooms, and out 
again by the back door. The paint- 
ed wooden chairs stood straightly 
against the yellpw-washed walls, and 
a large rocking-chair, with a chintz 
cushion, occupied one corner. A 
braided cloth mat covered the hearth,, 
and the fireplace was filled with 
cedar boughs, through which glitter- 
ed the brass andirons. On the high 
mantel-piece stood a pair of brass 
candlesticks, and a tumbler filled 
with wild roses. 

Bessie glanced hurriedly about, then 
stole out, trembling lest she should 
be discovered and pounced upon by 
some loud-voiced man or woman 
from whom escape would be impossi- 
ble. But no one appeared, and in a 
few minutes she was out of sight of 
the house. 

Loud would be their exclamations 
of wonder and regret when they 
should discover that letter, knowing 
who must have brought it. How 
curiously would they handle it over r 



The House that Jack Btiilf. 341 

and examine it, and try to peep into been less exclusively devoted to her 

it while they speculated and guessed husband, and had interested herself 

-concerning its contents ! in other people and in the events of 

" One comfort," said Bessie to her- the day, she would have been wiser 

self, as she glanced over her shoul- and happier. She had made herself 

der, and saw the last sun-bonnet dis- as a slave, and had received a slave's 

appear, " I sealed it so that not even portion. It would be better to stand 

a particle of air could get in; and on a more equal footing, and, since 

they can't see a word without com- works of supererogation, instead of win 

mining felony." ning his gratitude and affection, only 

The June day was passing away in fostered his selfishness and lowered 
a soft glory. All the world was her, to confine herself to the duties 
green, all the sky was blue, and all she was bound to perform, 
the air was golden. But the green " But it is my nature to love some- 
was so various, from a verdant black- thing with my whole strength, so 
ness, through many tints, to a vivid that all else seems small in compa- 
green that was almost yellow, it seem- rison," she said, sighing. " How can 
eel many-colored as it was many- I help it ?" 

shaped. There was every shape and While she gazed fixedly at the sky, 

size, from the graceful plume of ferns at first without seeing, she presently 

to the square-topped oak with its became aware of a red-gold crescent 

sturdy, horizontal branches. Through moon that had grown visible under 

it all wound the narrow brown road, her eyes, curved like a bow when the 

with a line of grass in the middle arrow is just singing from the string, 

between the wagon-wheels where like the new moon whereon Our Lady 

the horses feet spared it. The birds stands, a tower of ivory, 

were singing their evening song, and The tears in Bessie's eyes made 

a brook at the roadside lisped faint- the shining curve tremble in the sky 

ly here and there, then lay still and as though a hand held it; and, as 

shone, then suddenly laughed out- though it were a bent bow, an arrowy 

right. thought flew from it, and struck quiv- 

On such an evening one does long ering into her heart : 
to be happy ; and, if happy, then one " Love God, and all will be well !" 
feels that it is not enough. Bessie She sat a minute longer, then rose 
walked on slowly, taking long and went quietly homeward. Aunt 
breaths of the clear, perfumed air Nancy would be anxious about her; 
that had now an evening coolness, and the desire for solitude was gone. 
She would fain have stayed out till She was glad now that she had writ- 
night fell. The house was near, so ten to Father Conners, though the 
she stepped aside, sat down on a letter might have shown a gentler 
mossy rock, and looked at the sunset, spirit. It was a comfort to have 
The last, thin, shining cloud there done something that was right, 
melted in the fervid light, grew faint, though it was not much, 
and disappeared. Bessie's eyes, so One does not ordinarily become 
tearful that all this universe of green pious in a moment. We may recog- 
ancl gold swam before them, were nize the voice of God, and be start- 
fixed on the sky, and she thought led at the clearness and suddenness 
over, with a- clearer mind now, the of the summons, but our sluggish 
last feverish, miserable years of her life, faith has ever an excuse for a little 

It seemed to her that, if she had more folding of the hands to sleep. 



342 



The House that Jack Built. 



But though not obedient at once, 
Bessie Maynard felt, rather than saw, 
that there was a. refuge which made 
it no longer possible for her to de- 
spair. 

Within a few days she received an 
answer to her letter. The priest was 
coming to that neighborhood by the 
last of the week, and would see her. 
The letter was brief and to the 
point, and contained not one word 
of sympathy or exhortation ; but 
the tremulous characters, that told 
of age or infirmity touched the 
heart of the reader. This old man 
gave her no soft words, but he was 
hastening to her relief. For the first 
time, she anxiously asked herself if it 
had not been possible for her to 
avoid all her trouble, and if there was 
any element in her story which could 
reasonably be expected to call forth 
anything but reproof for herself from 
a man whose whole life had been 
one of chanty and self-denial. She 
wished to see him indeed, but she 
awaited his corning with a feeling 
little short of terror. 

Bessie had not written to her hus- 
band. She could not bring herself 
to do that, for she did not wish to 
write coldly to him, and she would 
not use expressions of affection which 
had no echo in her heart. But she 
wrote to her son a gentle and tender 
letter, of which he was neither old 
nor sensitive enough to feel the 
pathos. Only one reproach found a 
place there : " I thought you might 
like to hear from me, though you 
cared more for your play than you 
did to say good-by to me when I 
came here, and left me to go to the 
depot alone." She did not inti- 
mate, though she thought, that the 
business which had called her hus- 
band away at the same time might 
as easily have been postponed. 

Father Conners came. His open 
buggy was driven to the door one 



morning, and the boy who sat with 
him held the horse while the priest 
slowly alighted. He was a large,, 
powerful-looking man, still vigorous, 
though slightly bent and stiff with 
age. Snow-white hair framed his. 
expressive face, in which sternness 
and benevolence were strangely min- 
gled. His color was fresh, perfect 
teeth gave a brilliancy to his infre- 
quent smile, and his pale-blue eyes 
were almost too penetrating to be 
met with ease. He walked with his 
head slightly bent down and his. 
gaze fixed upon the ground till he 
reached the door, then looked up to 
see Bessie standing on the threshold. 

She was a pretty creature still, in 
spite of troubled years, and her man- 
ner and expression would have pro- 
pitiated a sterner judge. Blushes 
overspread her face, and she trem- 
bled ; yet an impulse of joyful wel- 
come broke through and brightened 1 
her, as a sunbeam brightens the 
cloud. 

The priest stopped short, with no- 
ceremony of greeting, and regarded 
her a moment, while she waited for 
him to speak. 

The scrutiny satisfied him appar- 
ently. 

" You did well to come back 
here," he said then, and made a mo- 
tion to enter. She stood aside for 
him to pass, and followed him into- 
the little parlor which she had spent 
all the morning in preparing for him. 
An arm-chair had been improvised 
out of a barrel, some pillows, and a 
shawl, the rude fireplace was filled 
with green, and there were dishes* of 
flowers about. 

Her visitor did not appear to no- 
tice these simple efforts to do him 
honor. Almost before seating him- 
self, he began to speak of what had 
brought him there. 

" Now, my child, though I have 
time enough to say and hear all that 



The House tJiat Jack Built, 343 

is necessary, though it should take a your duties toward your husband 

week, I have no time to waste. Tell and, indirectly, towaid God. You 

me the meaning of your letter?" say that you have not practised your 

No time for gradual approach, for religion, but mean to do so in future, 
timid intimations, or delicate reserves There is attrition, at least, and a pur- 
till, warming with the subject, she pose of amendment. You say that 
could show plainly all that Was in you know all you have committed 
her heart. She must make the " epic of serious wrong in these years, 
plunge " without delay. Stimulated don't you ?" 
by the necessity, Bessie called up her " Yes," was the answer, 
wits and her courage, and, without "You know humanly, as far as 
being aware of it, told everything in you can know, without the illumina- 
a few words. tion of the Holy Spirit ?" the priest 

When she paused and expected corrected. 

him to question her, to her surprise " Yes," said Bessie again. " But I 

he seemed already to know the want to think it over, and make sure 

whole. And, to her still greater of my sorrow and good resolutions." 

pleasure, those points on which she " In short, you wish to reform and 

had touched lightly, fearing that they convert yourself, then go to God," 

might seem trivial in his eyes, he said Father Conners. "That is not 

spoke of with sympathy. the way. It is God who is to con- 

" It is those little attentions and vert you. You need not stay to try 

kindnesses which sweeten human life, to conquer your feelings, and hesitate 

my child, and help to sustain us un- for fear you may not be able to. 

der its heavier trials," he said. Your reason is convinced. It is 

Bessie lifted her grateful, tearful enough.' Go to God, and ask him 

eyes, and thanked him with a sad to help you to do the rest. .While 

smile. you are thinking the subject over in 

" And now," he continued, " I the woods here, you may die, or the 

want you to go to confession." . devil may come and tempt you in 

Her eyes dilated with astonish- the shape of this friend of yours. I 

ment. She was confused and clis- will give you half an hour. While I 

tressed, and a painful blush rose to have gone out to read my office un- 

her face. der the trees, you kneel down here, 

" I have not confessed for years," and first ask the Holy Spirit to en- 
she stammered. " I am not prepar- lighten you, and reveal all your sins, 
ed. When I have time to think, I Then say, and mean, that you are 
will go to confession in a church. It sorry, and plan how you may do 
seems strange to confess here." better with God's help in the future." 

The priest was by nature and hab- He had risen while speaking, and 

its peremptory, and he knew that this was going toward the door. Refu- 

was the proper time to exercise that sal was impossible. Bessie carried 

quality. " Any place is proper for her shawl-covered arm-chair out, and 

confession, if a better one is not to set it under a thick old pine-tree on 

be had," he said. " As to being pre- the slippery brown pine-needles, 

pared, let us see. You tell me that through which tiny ants were run- 

you have been thinking this all over ning in every direction, very busy 

this week, to see wherein you may about some buildings of their own, 

have done wrong. There, then, is an carrying sticks larger than them- 

examen of \our conscience as to selves. 



344 



The House that Jack Built. 



Father Conners seated himself, set 
his hat on the ground by his side, 
spread a red silk handkerchief over 
his head, and took out his Breviary. 
He had but little time to attend to 
the beauties of nature, but the situa- 
tion brought an expression of plea- 
sure to his face. He gave one 
glance up into the overshadowing 
branches that spread their fragrant 
screen between him and the sun, 
then a kindlier glance to the young 
woman who stood looking wistfully 
at him. 

" Come here for your confession 
when you are ready, child," he said, 
" and don't be afraid. See how 
peaceful the skies are. Is God less 
gentle ? And here ! take my watch, 
and come back in twenty-five min- 
utes. You have lost five minutes al- 
readv." 

^ 

Bessie took the large silver watch 
on its black ribbon, and hastened 
to shut herself in her room, and 
Father Conners became absorbed in 
his office. So much absorbed was 
he, he did not observe that the silk 
handkerchief slipped slowly from his 
head, and that a large spider let it- 
self down by a thread from the tree 
above, stopped within a few inches 
of that silvery hair, which it contem- 
plated curiously, then ran up its 
silken ladder again as a young wo- 
man came out of the house, walked 
with faltering steps across the sward, 
and sank on her knees by the priest's 
side. 

An hour later, Father Conners 



climbed laboriously into his carriage, 
and drove away, and Bessie leaned 
on the bars, and watched him as 
long as he was in sight. She felt 
strong and peaceful. She counted 
over the promises she had made him, 
and resolved anew that they should 
be kept. 

She stood there so long that Aunt 
Nancy, after having kept her dinner 
waiting out of all reason, came down 
to speak to her. She came with 
anxiety and hesitation, not knowing 
whether her niece was better or worse 
for this visit. 

" You gave me good advice, Aunt 
Nancy," Bessie said, turning at the 
sound of her step. 

The old lady was delighted. " So 
you're all right ?" she said. 

" I have got into the right track, 
at least," Bessie answered, as they 
walked up toward the house. "I 
have been to confession." 

Aunt Nancy's face clouded again 
on hearing this avowal. That was 
all the priest's visit had amounted to, 
then that John's wife had been in- 
duced to go to confession ! How 
could, people be so superstitious, so 
subjected, to their priests ? She had 
hoped that Bessie might have re- 
ceived some good sound advice and 
instruction. 

This she thought, but said nothing. 

How was she to know that in that 
one word confession was included 
advice, instruction, good resolution, 
and sorrow for sin, as well as the 
mystical rite which she abhorred ? 



TO BE COXTIXUKD. 



S. Peter's Roman Pontificate. 



345 



S. PETER'S ROMAN PONTIFICATE. 



THE history of mankind presents 
us innumerable facts that strike the 
reader with astonishment, and tax 
his ingenuity to its utmost to ex- 
plain. The sudden fall of nations 
from the height of prosperity to 
misery and subjection, the invasion 
of hordes of barbarians to substitute 
their uncouthness and ferocity for 
the polish and civilization of centu- 
ries, the apparent vocation of some 
one nation, at different epochs, to 
assume a preponderance over all 
others in the government of the 
world, the appearance of some one 
great mind that shone like a sun 
amid the galaxy of intellect, revo- 
lutionizing his time, and then setting, 
without leaving any one to continue 
his work; all these facts confuse the 
mind, and, when man has lost the 
light that was sent into this world to 
guide him, seem to him but the bit- 
ter irony of destiny. Not so, how- 
ever, are they viewed by him to 
whom revelation has imparted its 
illumining rays. He sees Providence 
everywhere, and, knowing some wise 
end has been intended by the Crea- 
tor whose power conserves and di- 
rects the evolutions of the planets 
and the vicissitudes of human life, 
he is encouraged to inquire into the 
end for which such wonderful events 
have been brought about. 'Twas by 
this light the great Bishop of Hippo 
saw the providential disposition of 
the changes that took place in the 
world; looked on all history but as 
the preparation and continuation of 
the master- work of God his 
church. 'Twas by this light that, fol- 
lowing in the footsteps of S. Augus- 



tine, Bossuet understood the rela- 
tions of such different facts, and 
showed their connection in his Uni- 
versal History. These men, and 
those who, like them, have studied 
the history of the nations of the earth, 
had no difficulty in realizing the rela- 
tion of all these facts, and in looking 
on them as so many confirmations 
of the truth of Christianity ; but 
those who are without faith stand 
aghast at the inexplicable phenomena 
they see before them, and of all 
none so sets at naught their judg- 
ment and defies their explanation as 
the greatest, the most persistent, the 
most important of all historical facts- 
trie existence of the Catholic Church. 
They see it everywhere ; modifying 
everything ; setting at defiance all 
calculation ; and when, according to 
human judgment, it should cease to 
exist, coming forth from the ordeal 
purer, stronger, more brilliant and 
powerful than before. Yet, they are 
not willing to learn by experience, 
but look forward to a future day 
when an expedient or a means will 
be discovered to destroy in its turn 
this gigantic fabric that appears to 
scorn the ravages of time and the 
fury of tempest, just as the Jews look 
forward to the Messiah who is to de- 
liver them from captivity among the 
nations. In their useless hope, they 
leave nothing untried, and often scru- 
ple not at what in their private ca- 
pacity they might scorn distortion 
of history and downright calumny. 
No human institution could ever 
have withstood the array of powerful 
enemies the church of Christ has 
had since she first went forth from 



346 



S. Peter's Roman Pontificate. 



Mount Sion. No age has ever seen 
her without them ; sometimes fierce 
persecutors, sometimes insidious plot- 
ters, sometimes open impugners of 
her dogmas ; at other times dangerous 
foes, cloaking their hostility under 
the garb of devotion that they might 
better strike deep into her bosom 
the poison with which, in their fool- 
ish hate, they fancied they were to 
deprive her of life. But the spouse 
of Christ has always cast them from 
her, and walked majestically over 
the ruins they themselves had 
brought about, and this she will ever 
do. And why ? Because she does 
not lean on a broken reed nor put 
her trust in an arm of flesh. She 
bears about her a charm that defies 
all attack the protection of the Most 
High and presents to all the proof of 
her holy character, those motives of 
credibility, that as they were intended 
for all time, so now as on the day of 
Pentecost, accompany her wherever 
she goes, invincibly proving to the 
mind of man her own divine origin 
and her claim to his obedience. As 
she was one, in the union of all her 
children in one faith and in one bap- 
tism ; as she was holy in the lives of 
those that obeyed her; as she was 
catholic and universal, embracing 
peoples of all climes and of all ages ; 
as she was apostolic in her origin 
and in the succession of her ministry, 
so is she now, one, holy, catholic, 
and apostolic in the succession of 
her priesthood and in the infallibility 
of her head. As she was able to 
point to the wonders wrought by the 
apostle in the name of her divine 
founder, so now can she point to the 
miracles of her chosen servants : an 
Alphonsus de Liguori, a Paul of the 
Cross, a Ven. Pallotta, a Maria Taigi, 
a Maria Moerl, and a host of others, 
down to the martyred victims of com- 
munistic fury. She can show in the 
XlXth century, as she did in the first, 



a host of martyrs; old men and 
youths, matrons and tender virgins,, 
who, when arraigned for their faith 
before the Chinese mandarin, fulfilled 
the promise of Christ, and gave in- 
spired answers, as did the glorious, 
children of the early church, and 
sealed, too, with their blood the be- 
lief they held dearer than life. 

We can understand, then, how the 
church can look fearlessly at the 
storms that ever and anon burst 
upon her, because, built on the solid- 
ity of her belief, she knows the waves 
can but break harmless at her feet. 
She has no need of human means to 
secure her existence, for that has a 
promise of perennial duration. The 
condition, too, of her being is one of 
struggle and warfare, and, when it 
comes upon her, her only act is to 
oppose the shield of faith and the 
sword of the word of God her only 
arms the truth. And as it is written 
that truth will prevail, so in every 
battle in which she has been engaged 

*^> O 

she has come forth at last with vic- 
tory inscribed on her banner victory 
through the truth. 

We have said that the condition 
of her being is struggle and warfare. 
This, therefore, is never wanting; as 
all the world knows, she is called on 
to defend herself just now against 
the fiercest attacks she has perhaps 
ever suffered perhaps even beyond 
what she underwent in that fearful 
persecution, in which her enemies di- 
rected against her every engine of 
destruction, and in their mad rejoic- 
ing recorded the inscription, Chris- 
tiano nomine deleto. To-day the 
openly declared foes of her faith are 
seated in triumph in her stronghold, 
and strain every nerve to uproot from 
the mind and heart of her children 
the faith of their fathers. Not con- 
tent with attacking the dogmas she 
teaches, they assail every fact which 
in any way may favor her, no matter 



5. Peter $ Roman Pontificate. 347 



how clearly the history of past ages to seek it only, and not mar its beau- 
may proclaim its truth. An instance ty by adding to or detracting from it. 
of this we have had but recently, but In the present case the remark is 
a few months ago, when an attempt highly applicable. Catholics have 
was made to prove that the fact nothing to fear in examining the his- 
upon which the whole jurisdiction of toric proofs on which the coming of 
the church is grounded never occur- S. Peter to Rome rests; while those 
red that S. Peter forsooth never who differ from them, in so far as 
came to Rome, and never founded they love truth, should be equally 
the church there ! With what sue- glad to look well into the claims to- 
cess the champions of this assertion truth which this same fact puts for- 
advocated their cause is known; ward. We propose to go briefly 
and it may still further be judged of over the ground. We say briefly,, 
from the fact that a person who came because it seems almost presumptu- 
to the discussion, doubting of the ous, since so many able pens have 
fact of S. Peter's having been in dedicated themselves to this task,. 
Rome, left the hall after hearing the that we should undertake it anew. 
Catholic speakers, convinced that There seems to us, however, a want 
such an historical personage as S. to be supplied, on this subject, some- 
Peter had lived and been in Rome, and thing succinct and not too learned 
he recorded his belief in one of the or too lengthy for the ordinary 
leading journals of Italy not favor- reader, engrossed in pursuits that da 
able to the Catholic cause. not allow time for more extended 
It may be said to be a strange studies. This must be our excuse as 
phenomenon that a fact of history so well as our reason for the present 
notorious, and for which so great an undertaking. 

amount of proof exists, which has at In the discussion that took place in 
its command every fount of human Rome on the gth and loth February,, 
certitude, as that of the coming of S. 1872, the chief speaker on the nega- 
Peter to Rome, ever should have tive side ended his discourse by say- 
been called in question. But what ing that, no matter what weight of 
will not party spirit attempt ? It is testimony could be brought to sus- 
not the first time nor will it be the tain S. Peter's coming to Rome, the 
last that partisans will seek to rid silence of Scripture was for him an 
themselves of troublesome facts by unanswerable argument; the Scrip- 
downright denial of them. This ture should have spoken of the fact 
spirit, however, is a dangerous one, had it existed ; it said nothing about 
and especially unbecoming the sin- it, therefore it had never existed, 
cere student of history. We know Were it not that the subject is too- 
what Bacon has said about the idola, serious for such quotations, we should 
and it is incumbent on every one say with Gratiano, " We thank thee 
who is searching after historic truth for teaching us that word !" This 
to lay aside prejudice or even the de- was the feeling that came over us as 
sire that facts may favor him. He we heard the expression from the lips 
must look at them merely as they of the speaker, and now, after so- 
are, take them on their proof, without, much has been written, we have it 
striving to lessen them or give them still. It is needless to say that such 
other proportions than are inherent an expression betrays anxiety with 
in them. If the scope of all research regard to positive argument, if not a 
is to find out the truth, it is our duty suspicion of weakness in one's own 



348 



Peter s Roman Pontificate. 



cause. We shall endeavor to show secondly, because neither the Acts 

that there was reason both for this nor the Epistle to the Romans was 

suspicion and this anxiety. called on by circumstances to allude 

And, first, the opinion which is least to S. Peter's being in Rome, 
probable concerning the death of S. And, first, the Acts and Epistle to 
Peter satisfactorily accounts for the the Romans are not adequate wit- 
silence of the Acts and of the Epistle to nesses that S.Peter never came to 
the Romans, the portions of Scripture Rome. We call attention to the 
on which our adversaries lay most fact that the Epistle to the Romans 
stress in this matter. According to was written two years before S. Paul 
this opinion, S. Peter was martyred in came to Rome. What therefore we 
Rome, Nerone et Vetere Consulibus, are going to say under this first head 
i.e., according to the Bucherian Cata- regarding the Acts applies withgreat- 
logue, in the second year of Nero, the er force to the Epistle to the Ro- 
year 54 of the Christian era, this mans. We shall then confine our 
leaving S. Peter twenty-five years remarks wholly to the Acts in this 
of pontificate, from the year 29 to connection. We say, then, that, in 
the year 54, S. Linus succeeded order that the Acts should be 
him, and ruled the church twelve received as an adequate witness, 
years, dying after S. Paul, who was it should cover the whole period 
put to death before Nero went into from the time S. Peter first left Judaea 
Greece. S. Peter was therefore, ac- to that of his death as fixed by re- 
cording to this chronology, dead be- ceived historical data, for we cannot 
fore S. Paul reached Rome. It is arbitrarily determine the period of 
not strange, then, the Acts does not his death. Now, ic is well known that 
speak of his being there. As for the history indicates the date of S. Peter's 
Epistle to the Romans, if it was death as that of S. Paul's.. They are 
written in the year 53, or two represented as dying on the same 
years before S. Paul came to Rome day and in the same year, one by 
according to Eusebius, the reasons the sword, the other on the cross; 
we adduce further on will explain the such are the words of the Roman 
silence with regard to S. Peter. If, Martyrology. This being so, we call 
as the ordinary opinion has it, the attention to the fact that the chief 
Epistle was written from Corinth, in disputant on the negative side of the 
the year 58, S. Peter being already question fixed on the year 61, from 
four years dead, the omission of his the Fasti Consulares atti consolari, 
name is easily accounted for. as that in which S. Paul came to 

We say, secondly, that, in the be- Rome, this being the year in which 

lief that S. Peter and S. Paul died at Portius Festus went to take posses- 

the same time in Rome, sufficient sion of his province.* The Acts tells 

reason can be found for the silence us that after S. Paul came to Rome 

both of the Acts and of the Epistle he dwelt for two years in his own 



to the Romans. 



hired house. Here the narration 



We beg particular attention to ceases', leaving Paul alive and in the 
what we are going to say. Those 

portions of Scripture do not prove . * How such information could have been had 

by their silence that S. Peter never from the Fasti Consuiares ^ difficult to say ; the 

suppression was probably a lapsus memories 
Came tO Rome, first, because the ActS for Josephus Fiavius. The date of S. Paul's 



and the Epistle to the Romans are comin to Rome f i 

6i,yetwe accept this year on the authority 
not adequate witnesses in the Case ; those who put it forward in the discussion. 



vS. Peter s Roman Pontificate. 349 

year 63 of the Christian era. From Judaea, from his intimate contact 
that time to his death, according to with S. Peter, it is probable S. Luke 
historical data, occurs a period, ac- would have mentioned a fact so im- 
cording to different computations, of portant as the death of the first of the 
from two to four years. About this apostles. He was not dead. He 
period of time no mention is made and the other apostles no longer ap- 
in the Acts for the simple reason that pear in the narration of S. Luke, if 
it is not embraced there ; the narra- we except S. James, Bishop of Jer- 
tive breaks off just as it begins, usalem, whom S. Paul saw (chapter 
What was to prevent S. Peter's com- xxi.), because S. Luke did not pro- 
ing to Rome during this period of pose to give a complete history of 
from two to four years ? If he had, the church at that time, or of the 
the Acts could have said nothing apostles, but only of S. Paul and his 
about it, nor could it if he had not. acts. The Acts are contained in 
The conclusion is simple, the Acts, twenty-eight chapters. In chapter 
and, a fortiori, the Epistle to the Ro- vii.,v. 57, Saul the persecutor is spoken 
mans, written prior to it, are no com- of for the first time ; in the next four 
petent or adequate witnesses to prove chapters he is frequently mentioned. 
S. Peter never came to Rome, nor In the xv., S. Peter is mentioned for 
died there. the last time ; and from this to the 
We come to the second head : xxviii. S. Paul is the theme of the in- 
neither the Acts nor the Epistle to spired writer. In the 151!! verse of 
the Romans was called on to men- chapter xxviii. the Christians go 
tion the fact of S. Peter's being in out to meet Paul at Forum Appii r 
Rome. With regard to the Acts, and in verse 16 he is in Rome a 
any one who will carefully read it prisoner; v.erse 7 shows him to us 
will see that S. Luke narrates the calling together not the Christians,, 
acts of S. Paul, It was necessary tq but the chief men of the Jews, to ex- 
begin with some account of the com- plain that he has not appealed to 
mencement of the church to show Caesar because he had anything 
S. Paul's connection with it. This against his people. After these 
S. Luke does, speaking of the de- words, at verse 21, the Jews reply to- 
scent of the Holy Ghost, of the in- him, and he instructs or upbraids 
stantaneous and marvellous results them as far as verse 29, which re- 
of the preaching of S. Peter, of his presents the Jews going away in- 
admission of the Gentiles after the credulous. Verse 30 says : " He 
vision of the cloth containing all remained two years in his own hired 
manner of animals, and then passes house, and received all who came 
on to speak of S. Paul, of his per- unto him; 31, Preaching the king- 
secutionof the church, of the martyr- dom of God, and teaching with all 
dom of S. Stephen, of the wonderful confidence, and without prohibition, 
conversion of S. Paul. Here S. the things that are of the Lord 
Paul is brought into contact with Jesus Christ." Here the Acts ends. 
S. Peter ; but after the Council of Does there seem to the reader any 
Jerusalem, when S. Paul sets out to place in these two verses for a men- 
evangelize the heathen, S. Peter is tion of Peter ? Ought the inspired 
no more heard of, not even when S. writer to have added more to his 
Paul returns to Jerusalem, as narrat- account? It seems to us not, for 
ed in chapter xxi. Was he dead ? the end he had in view was gained. 
Had this been so ere S. Paul left He had been a companion of S. Paul, 



350 



Peter 's Roman Pontificate. 



he had told those who knew it not 
what had happened in their travels, 
and now S. Paul was in Rome, and 
dwelling there, in the centre of the 
world, he did not deem it needful to 
.say any more, otherwise he would 
have told us some of the actions of 
S. Paul, for wonders and conversions 
he certainly wrought in those two 
years. But as S. Luke says nothing 
about these, nor about the flourish- 
ing Church of Rome to which S. Paul 
two years before had addressed his 
Epistle from Corinth, it is not strange 
he says nothing about S. Peter. 

The silence of S. Paul in regard to 
S. Peter, in his Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, is not only of no avail to our 
adversaries, but the Epistle itself con- 
tains matter for strong argument that 
S. Peter was permanently in Rome, 
and in fact founded the church there. 

First, with respect to the silence 
of S. Paul in regard to S. Peter. It 
is a received canon of criticism that 
the silence of authors does not affect 
the existence of a fact, when that fact 
is proven from documents of weight ; 
and this all the more when no valid 
reason can be put forward to show 
the author or authors should have 
mentioned the fact in question. Now, 
this is precisely the case with regard 
to S. Paul's silence about S. Peter. 
We have documentary and monu- 
mental evidence, as we shall see here- 
after, that S. Peter did come to 
Rome, while there was no practical 
reason why S. Paul should mention 
S. Peter : not for the sake of com- 
mending him, for that was neither 
becoming, as S. Peter was head of the 
apostolic college, nor necessary, as 
S. Peter's works bore the stamp of 
divine sanction ; not for the purpose 
of asking permission to labor in 
Rome, as the apostles were equal in 
the ministry, and united in a. bond 
of perfect harmony and mutual un- 
derstanding, though with subjection 



to the centre of unity, S. Peter, with- 
out, however, the distinctions of 
the various rights and duties after- 
wards introduced by ecclesiastical 
custom ; not for the purpose of salu- 
tation, for he could not address S. 
Peter as head of the church in a 
tone of authoritative teaching ; and 
salutations, if. contrary to what is 
generally held, Peter were in Rome 
at the time the letter was written, 
could be made privately by the mes- 
senger who carried the letter, and 
thus the duty of urbanity or charity, 
the only one that could require ex- 
press notice of S. Peter, may have been 
fulfilled. In fact, propriety itself re- 
quired this latter mode of salutation, 
lest it should be said that S. Paul, 
instead of having directly addressed 
S. Peter, had saluted him publicly 
through those to whom he wrote- 
the Christians of Rome, the spiritual 
subjects of S. Peter. The silence, 
then, of S. Paul is of no weight to 
prove S. Peter never was in Rome. 

The argument of silence, therefore, 
fells to the ground. 

We said the Epistle to the Romans 
contains matter to show S. Peter was 
in Rome, and founded the church 
there. 

Let us bear in mind who S. Peter 
was the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
Why was it he did not go 'at once to 
the centre of the Gentile world ? 
Could any more potent means have 
been adopted to spread Christianity ? 
There centred the civilization of the 
known world; there the Ethiopian 
met the Scythian, the s \varthy men 
from the banks of the Ganges were 
face to face with those who first saw 
light by the waters of the Tagus, and 
the Numidian horseman and the 
German warrior strolled through th6 
Forum, admiring the temples of the 
gods of Rome. Nowhere was there 
more certainty of success in spread- 
ing abroad novelty of any kind than 






S. Peter s Roman Pontificate, 



35' 



in this Babylon, receiving into its vast 
enclosure men of all the nations over 
which it ruled, and sending them 
forth again filled with wonder at 
what they saw, and eager to impart 
to their less fortunate countrymen 
what they had learned in their so- 
journ in the great city. Thither, 
however, S. Paul did not go, and 
why ? Because some one was there 
already some one of power and 
authority; some one whose labors 
bad been crowned with success, and 
who had built up a church, the faith 
of which at the time this epistle was 
written was known throughout the 
whole world. S. Peter tells us himself 
he desired to go to the Romans to im- 
part to them something of spiritual 
grace to strengthen them, that is, to 
be comforted in them " by that which 
is mutual your faith and mine." 
The mode of expression of S. Paul in 
this place, vv. n and 12, is worthy 
of notice. He says to the Romans 
he longs to see them to strengthen 
them, and, as if he might be misun- 
derstood, he adds immediately, " that 
is to say, that I may be comforted to- 
gether in you." Evidently he speaks 
here as one who is careful lest he 
seem to usurp the place of another, 
or assume a right of teaching with 
authority which belonged to another. 
He would not have the Romans 
think he considers that the one who 
rules them is inferior to himself or 
stands in need of his support. In 
verse 18 he says: "I do not 
wish you to be ignorant, brethren, 
that I have often proposed to come 
unto you (and I have been prevented 
hitherto) that I may have some fruit 
among you as among other peoples." 
It is manifest here that S. Paul's du- 
ties with the Greeks kept him from 
going to Rome, and this, as we said 
before, because, the Romans being 
already provided with one who could 
teach them, there was not the press- 



ing need of him that would make 
him leave those who had none to 
preach to them. 

What we have said with regard to 
the tone of the first chapter of the 
Epistle is confirmed by the words of 
the apostle in chapter xv. 19-26. 
Here S. Paul says why he had not 
gone to Rome because he was 
preaching to those who had ?io one to 
preach to them. Had the Romans 
had no apostle preaching to them, 
this would not have been a reason to 
put forward, because the superiority 
of an apostle over any other preacher 
of the word was such as to do away 
with the necessity of any comparison, 
and to make all desirous in an emi- 
nent degree of seeing and hearing 
the chosen men the sound of whose 
voice was to be heard throughout the 
whole world. S. Paul then con- 
tinues : " When I shall begin to take 
my journey into Spain, I hope that 
as l*pass, I shall see you, and be 
brought on my way thither by you, 
if first, in part, I shall have enjoyed 
you." From this it results, first, that 
S. Paul had no intention of remain- 
ing in Rome ; and, secondly, that 
what he desired was to enjoy, in meet- 
ing the Romans, the consolation of 
seeing their faith, and of sharing 
with them the spiritual gifts he him- 
self had received, which should serve 
to make them yet more steadfast in 
their fidelity to the Gospel, precisely 
as, to use an example, the preaching 
of the same doctrine they have heard 
from their own bishop, by a bishop 
who is his guest, strengthens the 
faithful in their religious belief. 

The fact, then, stands that a flour- 
ishing church existed in Rome at the 
time S. Paul wrote his Papistic, and 
this is still further shown by the salu- 
tations in the last chapter. Who 
founded it ? History is silent regard- 
ing any one but S. Peter. As Alex- 
dria claims S. Peter and S. Mark ; as 



352 



Peter s Roman Pontificate. 



Ephesus, S. John ; as innumerable 
other cities and countries their re- 
spective apostles, so does Rome 
claim S. Peter as its first evangelizer. 
It would be absurd to say that all 
these other cities and nations could 
retain the memory of him who first 
preached to them the word of God, 
and Rome the greatest of all, where 
so notorious a fact as the preaching 
of Jesus Christ could not pass by 
unnoticed, especially when its effects 
were so luminously conspicuous as 
S. Paul tells us they were this Rome 
should alone be ungratefully forgetful 
of her best benefactor. The thing is 
absurd on the face of it. But history 
is silent about any other founder ex- 
cept S. Peter; therefore we are justi- 
fied in concluding that S. Peter, and 
S. Peter alone, was the original 
founder of the Church of Rome, and 
that Rome is right in holding her 
tradition that such was the fact. 

This tradition of S. Peter's having 
been in Rome, having founded the 
church there, and having died there, 
gives strength to the conclusion 
which Scripture has aided us to form. 
To any one who is at all conversant 
with Rome,^ it must always have 
appeared a very remarkable fact that 
the discoveries made by the zeal of 
her archaeologists have, as a rule, con- 
firmed the traditions existing among 
the people both with regard to locali- 
ties and facts. It would seem as if 
Providence, in these days of wide- 
spread scepticism, were unearthing 
the long-hid monuments of the past 
to put to confusion those who would 
fain treat the history of early ages as 
a myth. The monuments stare them 
in the face, while their value is under- 
stood by men of sound practical 
sense. This is the reason of the 
reaction that is taking place against 
the sceptical style of writing history 
which Niebtihr and Dr. Arnold 
adopted, and made to a certain 



extent fashionable. The words of a 
well-informed writer, whose works 
have been deservedly well received- 
Mr. Dyer are an excellent reply to 
authors of that stamp, based, as they 
are, on sound sense and the experi- 
ence of mankind the safest .guides 
we can possibly follow; for it is folly 
to think that those who have gone 
before us blindly received everything 
that was told them. Whatever may 
have happened with regard to indi- 
viduals, such certainly never was the 
case with regard to all. As well 
might we say that, because some 
writers of to-day speak in a spirit of 
scepticism, all writers adopt the same 
style. Men in general never were 
sceptical, and never will be ; they 
will use their senses and their intel- 
lect, and judge of things on their 
merits, and not according to the ex- 
travagant ideas of any one, however 
brilliant he be. Mr. Dyer, though 
speaking of ancient Roman history, 
makes remarks that are applicable in 
our case. He says, in the Introduc- 
tion to the Histoiy of the City of 
Rome, p. xvi. : "It would, of course,, 
be impossible to discuss in the com- 
pass of this Introduction the general 
question of the credibility of early 
Roman history. We can only state 
the reasons which have led us to 
doubt a few of the conclusions of 
modern critics about some of the 
more prominent facts of that history, 
and about the existence or the value 
of the sources on which it professes 
to be founded. If it can be shown* 
that the attempts to eliminate or to 
depreciate some of these sources can. 
hardly be regarded as successful, and; 
that the general spirit of modern 
criticism has been unreasonably scep- 
tical and unduly captious with re- 
spect to the principal Roman histo- 
rian, then the author will at least 
have established what, at all events, 
may serve as an apology for the 



Peter s Roman Pontificate. 



353 



course he has pursued." And at 
page Ixii. : " There is little motive 
to falsify the origin and dates of 
public buildings; and, indeed, their 
falsification would be much more 
difficult than that of events trans- 
mitted by oral tradition, or even 
recorded in writing. In fact, we 
consider the remains of some of 
the monuments of the Regal and 
Republican periods to be the best 
proofs of the fundamental truth of 
early Roman history." If this author 
could justly speak in this manner of 
a period regarding which there is 
certainly not a little obscurity, what 
are \ve to say when we are speaking 
of so well-known an epoch as that 
of the Roman Empire under Clau- 
dius and Nero, and of a fact so 
luminous as that of the foundation 
of Christianity in the capital of the 
world ? The certainty of the tradi- 
tions concerning this fact undoubt- 
edly acquires a strength proportion- 
ally greater, and this all the more 
because we have the monuments 
around which these traditions centre, 
and the existence of these monu- 
ments in the lid century is attested 
by the Roman priest Caius writing 
against Proclus, apud Eusebium, Hist. 
Eccl., c. xxv.: "I can," he writes, 
show you the trophies (tropaea) of 
the apostles. For, whether you go 
to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, 
the trophies of those who founded 
the church will present themselves to 
your view." These monuments are 
the place of imprisonment of S. 
Peter, the place of his crucifixion, 
that of the martyrdom of S. Paul, 
the place of their burial, that in which 
their remains were deposited for a 
time, and their final resting-place, 
over which the grandest temple of 
the earth rises in its majesty a wit- 
ness of the belief of all ages. 

The tradition of S. Peter having 
founded the church in Rome receives 
VOL. xvi. 23 



additional force from the fact that 
but a short period elapsed before 
writers whose genuine works have 
come down to us iccorded them, 
and thus transmitted them to us. 
Not to speak of S. Clement of Rome, 
of S. Ignatius of Antioch, of Papias, 
we take the words of S. Irenseus, 
Bishop of Lyons, who was martyred in 
the year 202 of the Christian era. We 
omit speaking of the other Fathers, 
not because we consider their testi- 
mony without great value, for it is 
impossible, in our judgment, for any 
one who takes up their works with an 
unprejudiced mind, and reads them 
in connection with later and more 
precise writers on this subject, not to 
feel that they refer to a matter so uni- 
versally and thoroughly known as 
not to need any further dwelling on 
than would a fact well known to a 
correspondent, demand details from 
the person who writes him the letter. 
S. Irenseus, we said, died in the year 
202. He had been for a long time 
Bishop of Lyons, whence he wrote to 
S. Victor, Pope, on the subject of the 
controversy regarding the celebration 
of Easter, dissuading him from harsh 
measures with respect to the Chris- 
tians of the East. S. Victor was 
Pope from the year 193 to 202, and 
succeeded Eleutherius, who became 
pope in the year 177. To this latter 
Irenseus was sent by the clergy of 
Lyons in the case of the Montanist 
heresy, he having been received and 
ordained priest of the diocese of 
Lyons by the Bishop Photinus, and 
it was during the pontificate of the 
same pope that he wrote his celebra- 
ted work against heresies. He \vas 
at this time not a young man, and 
we shall not be wide of the mark if 
we put his birth some years before 
the middle of the second century, 
and this all the more because he 
himself in the above-mentioned book 
speaks of his early studies as gone 



354 $" Peters Roman Pontificate. 

by. According to the best author!- the churches, pointing to the tradi- 
ties, S. John the Apostle was ninety tion of the greatest, most ancient and 
years old when he was thrown into universally known, founded and con- 
the caldron of boiling oil, under stituted at Rome, by the two most 
Domitian, in Rome. He lived sev- glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, to 
eral years longer at Patmos, and at that which it has from the apostles, 
Ephesus, where he died in the year and. to the faith announced to men, 
101, during the reign of Trajan. We through the succession of bishops 
have thus a period of from thirty to coming down to our time, we put to 
forty years between the death of S. confusion all who in any manner, by 
John the witness of what SS. Peter their own self-will, or through empty 
and Paul did, and who was fully ac- glory, or through blindness, or from 
quainted with all that had occurred malice, gather otherwise than they 
at Rome and Irenseus. Independ- should. For to this church, by rea- 
ent of the means of information this son of its more powerful headship 
proximity to the apostles gave him, (principalitatem), it behooves every 
both because in his youth he must church to come, that is, those who 
have known many who had in their are faithful everywhere, in which (in 
own youth seen and heard S. Peter, qua) has always been preserved by 
and because he had himself visited men of every region the tradition 
Rome, the interval between him and which is from the apostles." He 
S. John is filled up by the link that goes on to say : " The holy apos- 
unites them in an unbroken tradition, ties, founding and building up the 
by the celebrated martyr and Bishop church, gave to Linus the episcopate 
of Smyrna, S. Polycarp, the disciple of administration of the church, 
of S. John and the master of S. Ire- Paul makes mention of this Linus in 
nseus. We ask the reader to say, in his letters to Timothy. To him sue- 
all candor, whether this link be not ceeded Anacletus; after him, in the 
all that can be desired to secure be- third place from the apostles, Cle- 
lief in the testimony handed down ment (who also saw the apostles, 
through it, from the apostles, espe- and conferred with them) obtained 
cially with regard to such a thing as the episcopate, while he yet had the 
the chief theatre of the life, labors, preaching of the apostles sounding in 
and death of the head of the aposto- his ears and tradition before his eyes ; 
lie college. Anticipating a favorable not he alone, for there were many 
answer, we proceed to give the words then living who had been taught by 
of S. Irenaeus of undoubted authen- the apostles. Under this Clement, 
ticity. In his work, Contra Hcereses, therefore, a not trifling dissension 
1. iii. c. i., he writes : " Matthew having arisen among the brethren 
among the Hebrews composed his who were at Corinth, the church 
Gospel in their tongue, while Peter which is at Rome wrote a very 
and Paul were evangelizing at Rome strong letter etc. . . .To this Cle- 
and founding the church. After ment succeeded Evaristus, and to 
their decease, Mark, the disciple and Evaristus Alexander, and afterwards 
interpreter of Peter, committed to the sixth from the apostles was Six- 
vv-riting what had been preached by tus, and after him Telesphorus, who 
Peter." In the same book, c. iii. 3, also gloriously suffered martyrdom; 
S. Irenaeus says: "But since it is and then Hyginus, next Pius, after 
too long to enumerate in a volume whom Anicetus. When Soter had 
of this kind the successions of all succeeded Anicetus, now Eleutherius 






S. Peter's Roman Pontificate. 



355 



has the episcopate in the twelfth place 
from the apostles. By this order and 
succession, that tradition which is 
from the apostles in the church, and 
the heralding of the truth, have come 
down to us. And this is a most full 
showing that one and the same is the 
life-giving faith which from the time 
of the apostles down to the present 
has been preserved and delivered in 
truth. And Polycarp, not only 
taught by the apostles, and convers- 
ing with many of those who saw our 
Lord, but also constituted by the 
apostles bishop in Asia, in the 
church which is at Smyrna, whom we 
also saw in our early youth, taught 
always the things he had learned 
from the apostles, which also he de- 
livered to the church, and which are 
alone true. To these things all the 
churches, which are in Asia, and 
those who up to to-day have suc- 
ceeded to Polycarp, bear witness." 
And in his letter to Florinus, S. Ire- 
naeus says more explicitly that he 
was a disciple of Polycarp, that he 
had a most vivid recollection of his 
master, of his ways and words, which 
he cherished more in his heart 
even than in his memory. * Euse- 
bius, in the Chronicon, says that Poly- 
carp was martyred in the year 169, 
the seventh of Lucius Verus. 

Nothing clearer, more explicit, or 
of greater value than a tradition with 
such links as S. John the Evangelist, 
S. Polycarp, and S. Irenaeus could be 
desired to establish beyond a doubt 
that S. Peter came to Rome and 
founded the church there. 

This fact having been shown to 
rest on a solid basis, we have now to 
say a word with regard to the time 
at which S. Peter came to Rome. 
On this point there is a difference of 
opinion ; but this very difference of 
opinion as regards the epoch is a 

* See Op, S. Irencet\ Ed. Cong. S. Mauri, Yen. 
in. 1734. 



new proof of the fact. The most 
probable opinion, that which seems 
to have found most favor, fixes it at 
the year 42 of the Christian era, the 
second year of Claudius. This is 
what S. Jerome, following Eusebius, 
records. The learned Jesuit Zacca- 
ria puts it at the year 41, in the month 
of April, the 25th of which was kept 
as a holyday, in the time of S. Leo 
the Great, in honor of S. Peter. This 
writer bears witness to the very re- 
markable unanimity among the Fa- 
thers with respect to the twenty-five 
years' duration of the pontificate of 
S. Peter in Rome, which according 
to S. Jerome would fix the date of 
his death as the fourteenth year of 
Nero, the 6yth of the present era. 
The words of S. Jerome are: "Si- 
mon Peter went to Rome to over- 
throw Simon Magus, and had there 
his sacerdotal chair for twenty-five 
years, up to the last year of Nero, 
that is, the fourteenth ; by whom also 
he was crowned with martyrdom by 
being affixed to the cross." * S. Je- 
rome, we know, was well versed in 
the history of the church, had dwelt 
for a long time at Rome, and may 
consequently be presumed to have 
been excellently well informed with re- 
gard to the general belief and tradi- 
tion of the people of Rome. The 
manner of the death of both apostles 
is mentioned by Tertullian, in his 
book De Prascriptionibus, c. 126, 
where, after bidding tho^e he ad- 
dresses have recourse to the aposto- 
lic churches, he says : " If you be 
near to Italy, you have " Rome, 
whence also we have authority. 
How happy is this church, for which 
the apostles poured forth all their 
doctrine with their blood, where 
Peter equals his Lord's Passion, 
where Paul is crowned with the end 
of John (the Baptist), where, the 

* De Viris Illustribus, c. i. 



356 5. Peter 's Roman Pontificate. 

Apostle John, after suffering no harm the nations among them ; and, burn- 
from his immersion in the fiery oil, ing with the fire of zeal sent down 
is banished to an island." Origen, upon them on the day of Pentecost, 
too, says : " Peter is thought to have they went about, everywhere kind- 
preached to the Jews throughout ling in others the flame that burned 
Pontus, Galatia, Bythinia, Cappado- within themselves. As for the diffi- 
cia, and Asia ; who, when he came to culties or facilities of travel, especi- 
Rome, was finally affixed to the cross ally in the case of S. Peter, we can- 
with his head down." * not do better than to cite the words 

Before concluding what we have of the learned Canon Fabiani in his 

undertaken to say on the subject of Discussion with those who impugned 

S. Peter's coming to Rome, we wish the coming of S. Peter to Rome, 

to notice the objection against this In the authentic report of this dis- 

fact, and the duration of his pontifi- cussion, page 52, he says: "How 

cate, which must naturally appear to many days were required for a jour- 

those not well acquainted with anti- ney from Caesarea to Rome ? Little 

quity one of not a little strength, more than fifteen days. 

How could S. Peter hold the pri- Lately very learned men among 

macy at Rome, when the Acts repre- Protestants, and at the same time 

sents him continually as in Judaea, men thoroughly skilled in what re- 

among those of his nation to whom g ards the seafaring art, Smith and 

he had, as S. Paul says, a peculiar Penrose, have calculated from the 

mission, the apostleship of circum- ver 7 voyage of S. Paul, and from the 

cision ? We reply, first : that the narrations in the Acts, the time that 

apostleship of S. Peter to the Jews, vessels took to come from Caesarea to 

did not exclude his labors with the Rome.^ They went at the rate of 

Gentiles; in fact, we know from the seven knots an hour > so that it took 

Acts that S. Peter had a vision on e hundred and seventy - seven 

which led him to work for the latter, hours, or seven days and a third, to 

and that vision was immediately fol- came from Caesarea to Pozzuoli; and 

lowed by the admission, by S. Peter plin y himself assures us that vessels 

himself, of the centurion Cornelius. came from Alexandria to Pozzuoli in 

Moreover, it is well known that there m ' ne da y s > from Alexandria in Egypt 

were Jews dispersed throughout the in nine davs > and from Alexandria to 

world, to whom S. Peter is said to Messina in seven days. Caesarea 

have gone, as we have shown in and Jerusalem, you know, differ but 

Pontus and the other countries of little in distance to Rome, from 

Asia Minor; and also in Rome they Alexandria in Egypt. The journey 

were numerous. Duty therefore,' from Messina and Pozzuoli to Rome 

both to the Jew and Gentile, could was made in about two or three days, 

and did lead S. Peter to Rome. so that the whole time required to go 

We say, secondly : there is no diffi- from Rome to Jerusalem was not 

culty in the fact of S. Peter having more than half a month." It is easy, 

been often in Judaea. The apostles, then, to understand how S. Peter 

from their very charge, were obliged could be ofte n in Judaea, though he 

to travel much ; and the sound of had fixed his permanent residence in 

their voice was heard in every land. Rome. 

As is narrated of them, they divided To sum up what we have been 

saying, no argument can be had from 

*Ap. Euselium, II. E. lib. iii. c. i. the sileilCC of Scripture tO prOVC S. 






S. Peter's Roman Pontificate. 



357 



Peter never came to Rome, because 
the Acts and Epistle to the Romans 
do not cover the whole epoch of S. 
Peter's apostleship. Moreover, the 
silence of Scripture does not prove 
that S. Peter did not rule the Church 
of Rome twenty-five years, because, 
as we have shown, there was no 
reason why either the Acts or the 
Epistle to the Romans should speak 
of S. Peter's going to Rome and 
being there. What we have here as- 
serted is all the more true because 
we have positive testimony not only 
with regard to S. Peter's coming to 
Rome, but also respecting the date 
of his coming, the period of his rul- 
ing the church there, the time and 
the manner of his death there, and 
because we have the monuments re- 
cording the memory of the Apostles 
Peter and Paul, the trophies of 
the apostles, as Caius calls them, 
tropcea apostolorum, which exist to 
this day, surrounded by the marks 
of veneration and the pious 



traditions of the people of Rome. 
Against all these proofs difficulties 
of history and chronology are of no 
avail ; for, in the first place, the very 
difficulties and discussions only serve 
to confirm the fact, especially since 
these difficulties and discussions have 
lasted for fifteen centuries without 
bringing about the rejection of the 
main fact; in the next place, we 
know there are many well-established 
facts regarding which there exist 
difficulties to clear up, and this no- 
where more than in past history. 
When we have proved by one solid, 
unanswerable argument a fact, we 
should not trouble ourselves much 
regarding what may be brought 
against it. The elucidation of 
knotty points may delight us and 
reward the labors of the erudite ; 
for common practical use the mat- 
ter is settled ; and any one who rises 
up against it must not wonder if he 
be looked on as either not well in- 
formed, or, to say the least, eccentric. 



SAYINGS. 



"REJOICE not in riches or other 
transient gifts, for thou shalt be de- 
prived of them like the actor, who, 
after finishing his part, lays aside his 
costume," S. Chrysostom. 

" God has implanted in us con- 
science, and by this he acts in a man- 
ner more loving than our natural fa- 
ther; for this latter, after he has 
warned his son ten and a hundred 
times, expels him from his home ; but 
God ceases not to warn us by con- 
science even to the latest breath." 
Ibid. 



" To restrain anger assimilates 
man to his Creator." Ibid. 

" The man who forgives his enemy 
is like God." S. Augustine. 

" He is a true Christian who car- 
ries with him the whole belief of 
Christ, who acts virtuously through 
the spirit of Christ, and who dies to 
sin through the following of Christ." 
S. Thomas. 

" No one is lost without knowing 
it ; and no one is deceived without 
wishing to be deceived." S. 
Thomas. 



358 



The Progressionists. 



THE PROGRESSIONISTS. 



FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN. 



CHAPTER VII. 



AN ULTRAMONTANE SON. 




GREIFMANN and Gerlach had driv- 
en to the railway station. The ex- 
press train thundered along. As the 
doors of the carriages flew open, 
Seraphin peered through them with 
eyes full of eager joy. He thought 
no more of the fate that threatened 
him as the sequel of his father's 
arrival ; his youthful heart exulted 
solely in the anticipation of the meet- 
ing. A tall, broad-shouldered gentle- 
man, with severe features and tanned 
complexion, alighted from a coupe'. 
It was Mr. Conrad Gerlach. Sera- 
phin threw his arms around his father's 
neck and kissed him. The banker 
made a polite bow to the 
wealthiest landed proprietor of the 
country, in return for which Mr. 
Conrad bestowed on him a cordial 
shake of the hand. 

" Has your father returned ?" 
" He cannot possibly reach home 
bef<^e September," answered the 
banker. The traveller stepped for a 
moment into the luggage-room. The 
gentlemen then drove away to the 
Palais Greifmann. During the ride, 
the conversation was not very ani- 
mated. Conrad's curt, grave man- 
ner and keen look, indicative of a 
mind always hard at work, imposed 
reserve, and rapidly dampened his 
son's ingenuous burst of joy. Sera- 
phin cast a searching glance upon 
that severe countenance, saw no 
change from its stern look of author- 
ity, and his heart sank before the ap- 



palling alternative of either sacrific- 
ing the happiness of his life to his 
father's favorite project, or of oppos- 
ing his will and braving the conse- 
quences of such daring. Yet he 
wavered but an instant in the resolu- 
tion to which he had been driven by 
necessity, and which, it was plain 
from the lines of his countenance, he 
had manhood enough to abide by. 

Mr. Conrad maintained his reserve, 
and asked but few questions. Even 
Carl, habitually profuse, studied 
brevity in his answers, as he knew 
from experience that Gerlach, Senior, 
was singularly averse to the use of 
many words. 

" How is business ?" 

" Very dull, sir ; the times are 
hard." 

" Did you sustain any losses 
through the failures that have re- 
cently taken place in town ?" 

" Not a farthing. We had several 
thousands with Wendel, but fortu- 
nately drew them out before he 
failed." 

" Very prudent. Has your father 
entered into any new connections in 
the course of his travels ?" 

"Several, that promise fairly." 

" Is Louise well ?" 

" Her health is as good as could 
be wished." 

" General prosperity, then, I see, 
for you both look cheerful, and Sera- 
phin is as blooming as a clover field. 

" How is dear mother ?" 



The Progressionists. 



359 



" Quite well. She misses her only 
child. She sends much love." 

The carriage drew up at the gate. 
The young lady was awaiting the 
millionaire at the bottom of the steps. 
While greetings were exchanged be- 
tween them, a faint tinge of warmth 
could be noticed on the cold features 
of the land-owner. A smile formed 
about his mouth, his piercing eyes 
glanced for an instant at Seraphin, 
and instantly the smile was eclipsed 
under the cloud of an unwelcome 
discovery. 

" I am on my way to the indus- 
trial exhibition," said he, " and I 
thought I would pay you a visit in 
passing. I wish you not to put your- 
self to any inconvenience, my dear 
Louise. You will have the goodness 
to make me a little tea, this evening, 
which we shall sip together." 

" I am overjoyed at your visit, and 
yet I am sorry, too." 

"bony! Why so?" 

" Because you are in such a hurry." 

" It cannot be helped, my child. I 
am overwhelmed with work. Har- 
vest has commenced ; no less than 
six hundred hands are in the fields, 
and I am obliged to go to the exhi- 
bition. I must see and test some 
new machinery which is said to be of 
wonderful power." 

" Well, then, you will at least spare 
us a few days on your return ?" 

" A few days ! You city people 
place no value on time. We of the 
country economize seconds. With- 
out a thought you squander in idle- 
ness what cannot be recalled." 

" You are a greater rigorist than 
ever," chided she, smiling. 

" Because, my child, I am getting 
older. Seraphin, I wish to speak a 
word with you before tea." 

The two retired to the apartments 
which for years Mr. Conrad was ac- 
customed to occupy whenever he 
visited the Palais Greifmann. 



" The old man still maintains his 
characteristic vigor," said Louise. 
" His face is at all times like a prob- 
lem in arithmetic, and in place of a 
heart he carries an accurate estimate 
of the yield of his farms. His is a 
cold, repelling nature." 

" But strictly honest, and alive to 
gain," added Carl. " In ten years 
more he will have completed his 
third million. I am glad he came; 
the marriage project is progressing 
towards a final arrangement. He is 
now having a talk with Seraphin ; to- 
morrow, as you will see, the bashful 
young gentleman, in obedience to the 
command of his father, will present 
himself to offer you his heart, and 
ask yours in return." 

"A free heart for an enslaved one," 
said she jestingly. " Were there no 
hope of ennobling that heart, of free- 
ing it from the absurdities with which 
it is encrusted, I declare solemnly I 
would not accept it for three millions. 
But Seraphin is capable of being im- 
proved. His eye will not close itself 
against modern enlightenment. Ser- 
vility of conscience and a baneful 
fear of God cannot have entirely ex- 
tinguished his sense of liberty." 

" I have never set a very high 
estimate on the pluck and moral 
force of religious people," declared 
Greifmann. " They are a craven set, 
who are pious merely because they 
are afraid of hell. When a passion 
gets possession of them, the impo- 
tence of their religious frenzy at once 
becomes manifest. They fall an easy 
prey to the impulses of nature, and 
the supernatural fails to come to the 
rescue. It would be vain for Sera- 
phin to try to give up the unbelieving 
Louise, whom his strait-laced faith 
makes it his duty to avoid. He has 
fallen a victim to your fascinations; 
all the Gospel of the Jew of Nazareth, 
together with all the sacraments and 

O 

unctions of the church, could not 



3 6 



The Progressionists. 



loose the coils with which you have 
encircled him." 

In this scornful tone did Carl 
Greifmann speak of the heroism of 
virtue diid of the energy of faith, 
like a blind man discoursing about 
colors. He little suspected that it 
is just the power of religion that pro- 
duces characters, and that, on this 
very account, in an irreligious age, 
characters of a noble type are so 
rarely met with ; the warmth of faith 
is not in them. 

" Mr. Schwefel desires to speak a 
word with you," said a servant who 
appeared at the door. 

The banker nodded assent. 

" I ask your pardon for troubling 
you at so unseasonable an hour," 
began the leader, after bowing low- 
ly several times. "The subject is 
urgent, and must be settled without 
delay. But, by the way, I must first 
give you the good news : Mr. Shund 
is elected by an overwhelming ma- 
jority, and Progress is victorious in 
every ward." 

"That is what I looked for," 
answered the banker, with an air of 
satisfaction. " I told you whatever 
Csesar, Antony, and Lepidus com- 
mand, must be done." 

" I am just from a meeting at 
which some important resolutions 
have been offered and adopted," 
continued the leader. " The strong- 
est prop of ultramontanism is the 
present system of educating youth. 
Education must, therefore, be taken 
out of the hands of the priests. But 
the change will have to be brought 
about gradually and with caution. 
We have decided to make a begin- 
ning by introducing common schools. 
A vote of the people is to be taken 
on the measure, and, on the last day 
of voting, a grand barbecue is to be 
given to celebrate our triumph over 
the accursed slavery of religious 

J O 

symbols. The ground chosen by 



the chief-magistrate for the celebra- 
tion is the common near the Red 
Tower, but the space is not large 
enough, and we will need your mea- 
dow adjoining it to accommodate the 
crowd. I am commissioned by the 
magistrate to request you to throw 
open the meadow for the occasion." 

The banker, believing the request 
prejudicial to his private interests, 
looked rather unenthusiastic. Louise, 
who had been busy with the teapot, 
had heard every word of the con- 
versation, and the new educational 
scheme had won her cordial ap- 
proval. Seeing her brother hesitated, 
she flew to the rescue : 

" We are ready and happy to make 
any sacrifice in the interest of educa- 
tion and progress." 

" I am not sure that it is compe- 
tent for me in the present in- 
stance to grant the desired permis- 
sion," replied Greifmann. " The 
grass would be destroyed, and per- 
haps the sod ruined for years. My 
father is away from home, and I 
would not like to take the responsi- 
bility of complying with his honor's 
wish." 

" The city will hold itself liable 
for all damages," said Schwefel. 

" Not at all !" interposed the young 
lady hastily. " Make use of the 
meadow without paying damages. 
If my brother refuses to assume the 
responsibility, I will take it upon my 
self. By wresting education from 
the clergy, who only cripple the in- 
tellect of youth, progress aims a 
death-blow at mental degradation 
It is a glorious work, and one full of 
inestimable results that you gentle- 
men are beginning in the cause of 
humanity against ignorance and su- 
perstition. My father so heartily 
concurs in every undertaking that 
responds to the wants of the times, 
that I not only feel encouraged to 
make myself responsible for this con- 






The Progressionists. 



361 



cession, but am even sure that he 
would be angry if we refused. Do 
not hesitate to make use of the mea- 
dow, and from its flowers bind gar- 
lands about the temples of the god- 
dess of liberty !" 

The leader bowed reverently to 
the beautiful advocate of progress. 

" In this case, there remains no- 
thing else for me to do than to confirm 
my sister's decision," said Greifmann. 
"When is the celebration to take 
place ?" 

" On the loth of August, the day 
of the deputy elections. It has been 
intentionally set for that day to im- 
press on the delegates how genuine 
and right is the sentiment df our 
people." 

" Very good," approved Greif- 
mann. 

" In the name of the chief-magis- 
trate, I thank you for the offering 
you have so generously laid upon 
the shrine of humanity, and I shall 
hasten to inform the gentlemen be- 
fore they adjourn that you have 
granted our request." And Schwefel 
withdrew from the gorgeously fur- 
nished apartment. 

Meanwhile a fiery struggle was 
going on between Seraphin and his 
father. He had briefly related his 
experience at the Palais Greifmann ; 
had even confessed his preference 
for Louise, and had, for the first time 
in his life, incurred his father's dis- 
pleasure by mentioning the wager. 
And when he concluded by protest- 
ing that he could not marry Louise, 
Conrad's suppressed anger burst 
forth. 

" Have you lost your senses, fool- 
ish boy ? This marriage has been 
in contemplation for years; it has 
been coolly weighed and calculated. 
In all the country around, it is the 
only equal match possible. Louise's 
dower amounts to one million florins, 
the exact value of the noble estate 



of Hatzfurth, adjoining our posses- 
sions. You young people can occu- 
py the chateau, I shall add another 
hundred acres to the land, together 
with a complete outfit of farming im- 
plements, and then you will have 
such a start as- no ten proprietors 
in Germany can boast of." 

Seraphin knew his father. All the 
old gentleman's thought and effort 
was concentrated on the management 
of his extensive possessions. For 
other subjects there was no room in 
the head and heart of the landholder. 
He barely complied with his reli- 
gious duties. It is true, on Sundays 
Mr. Conrad attended church, but 
surrounded invariably by a motley 
swarm of worldly cares and specula- 
tions connected with farming. At 
Easter, he went to the sacraments, 
but usually among the last, and after 
being repeatedly reminded by his 
wife. He took no interest in pro- 
gress, humanity, ultramontanism, and 
such other questions as vex the age, 
because to trouble himself about 
them would have interfered with his 
main purpose. He knew only his 
fields and woodlands and God, in 
so far as his providence blessed him 
with bountiful harvests. 

" What is the good of millions, 
father, if the very fundamental con- 
ditions of matrimonial peace are 
wanting ?" 

" What fundamental conditions ?" 

" Louise believes neither in God 
nor in revelation. She is an infidel." 

-"And you are a fanatic a fana- 
tic because of your one-sided edu- 
cation. Your mother has trained 
you as priests and monks are trained. 
During your childhood piety was 
very useful ; it served as the prop to 
the young tree, causing it to grow up 
straight and develop itself into a 
vigorous stem. But you are now 
full-grown, and life makes other de- 
mands on the man than on the boy; 



362 The Progressionists. 






away, therefore, with your fanati- " That will all come right," re- 

cism." turned Mr. Conrad. " Louise will 

" To my dying hour I shall thank learn to pray. You must not, sim- 

my mother for the care she has pleton, expect a banker's daughter to 

bestowed on the child, the boy, and be for ever counting her beads like 

the young man. If her pious spirit a nun. Take my word for it, the 

has given a right direction to my weight of a wife's responsibilities will 

career, and watched faithfully over make her serious enough." 

my steps, the untarnished record of " Serious perhaps, but not religi- 

the son cannot but rejoice the heart ous, for she is totally devoid of faith." 

of the father a record which is the " Enough ; you shall marry her 

undoubted product of religious train- nevertheless," broke in the father, 

ing." "It is my wish that you shall marry 

" You are a good son, and I am her. I will not suffer opposition." 
proud of you," accorded Mr. Conrad For a moment the young man sat 
with candor. " Your mother, too, is silent, struggling painfully with the 
a worhan whose equal is not to be violence of his own feelings, 
found. All this is very well. But, if " Father," Sciid he, then, "you corn- 
Louise's city manners and free way mand what I cannot fulfil, because it 
of thinking scandalize you, you are goes- against my conscience. I beg 
sheerly narrow-minded. I have been you not to do violence to my con- 
noticing her for years, and have science; violence is opposed to your 
learned to value her industry and own and my Christian principles, 
domestic virtues. She has not a An atheist or a progressionist who 
particle of extravagance ; on the con- does not recognize a higher moral 
trary, she has a decided leaning order, might insist upon his son's 
towards economy and thrift. She marrying an infidel for the sake of 
will make an unexceptionable wife, a million. But you cannot do so, 
Do you imagine, my son, my choice for it is not millions of money that 
could be a blind one when I fixed you and I look upon as the highest 
upon Louise to share the property good. Do not, therefore, dear 
which, through years of toil, I have father, interfere with my moral free- 
amassed by untiring energy ?" dom ; do not force me into a union 

" I do not deny the lady has the which my religion prohibits." 

qualities you mention, my dear " What does this mean ?" And a 

father." dark frown gathered on the old 

" Moreover, she is a millionaire, gentleman's forehead. " Defiance 
and handsome, very handsome, and disguised in religious twaddle ? 
you are in love with her what more Open rebellion ? Is this the man- 
do you want ?" ner in which my son fulfils the duty 

" The most important thing of all, of filial obedience ?" 

father. The very soul of conjugal " Pardon me, father," said the 

felicity is wanting, which is oneness youth with deferential firmness, 

of faith in supernatural truth. What " there is no divine law making it 

I adore, Louise denies ; what I obligatory upon a father to select a 

revere, she hates ; what I practise, wife for his son. Consequently, also, 

she scorns. Louise never prays, never the duty of obedience on this point 

goes to church, never receives the does not rest upon the son. Did I, 

sacraments, in a word, she has not a beguiled by passion or driven by 

spark of religion." recklessness, wish to marry a creature 



The Progressionists. 



363 



whose depravity would imperil my 
temporal and eternal welfare, your 
duty, as a father, would be to oppose 
my rashness, and my duty, a-s a son, 
would be to obey you. Louise is 
just such a creature ; she is artfully 
plotting against my religious princi- 
ples, against my loyalty to God and 
the church. She has put upon her- 
self as a task to lead me from the 
darkness of superstition into the light 
of modern advancement. I over- 
heard her when she said to her 
brother, * Did I for an instant doubt 
that Seraphin may be reclaimed from 
superstition, I would renounce my 
union with him, I would forego all the 
gratifications of wealth, so much do 
I detest stupid rredulity.' Hence I 
should have to look forward to being 
constantly annoyed by my wife's 
fanatical hostility to my religion. 
There never would be an end of dis- 
cord and wrangling. And what kind 

*J CJ 

of children vvould such a mother 
rear ? She vould corrupt the little 
ones, instil into their innocent souls 
the poison of her own godlessness, 
and make me the most wretched of 
Bathers. For these reasons Miss 
Greifmann shall not become my 
wife no, never ! I implore you, 
dear father, do not require from me 
what my conscience will not permit, 
and what I shall on no condition 
consent to," concluded the young 
man with a tone of decision. 

Mr. Conrad had observed a sol- 
emn silence, like a man who sudden- 
ly beholds an unsuspected pheno- 
menon exhibited before him. Sera- 
phin's words produced, as it were, 
a burst of vivid light upon his mind, 
dispelling the multitudinous schemes 
and speculations that nestled in 
every nook and depth. The effect 
of this sudden illumination became 
perceptible at once, for Mr. Gerlach 
lost the points of view which had in- 
variably brought before his vision the 



million of the Greifmanns, and he 
began to feel a growing esteem for 
the stand taken by his son. 

" Your language sounds fabulous," 
said he. 

" Here, father, is my diary. In it 
you will find a detailed account of 
what I have briefly stated." 

Gerlach took the book and shoved 
it into the breast-pocket of his coat. 
In an instant, however, his imagina- 
tion conjured up to him a picture of 
the Count of Hatzfurth's splendid es- 
tate, and he went on coldly and de- 
liberately : " Hear me, Seraphin ! 
Your marriage with Louise is a favor- 
ite project upon which I have based 
not a few expectations. The obser- 
vations you have made shall not in- 
duce me to renounce this project un- 
conditionally, for you may have been 
mistaken. I shall take notes myself 
and test this matter. If your view is 
confirmed, our project will have been 
an air castle. You shall be left en- 
tirely unmolested in your convic- 
tions." 

Seraphin embraced his father. 

" Let us Ifave no scene ; hear me 
out. Should it turn out, on the other 
hand, that your judgment is erroneous, 
should Louise not belong to yon 
crazy progressionist mob who aim 
to dethrone God and subvert the 
order of society, should her hatred 
against religion be merely a silly con- 
forming to the fashionable impiety 
of the age, which good influences 
may correct then I shall insist upon 
your marrying her. Meanwhile I 
want you to maintain a strict neutral- 
ity not a step backward nor a step 
in advance. Now to tea, and let your 
countenance betray nothing of what 
has passed." He drew his son to his 
bosom and imprinted a kiss on his 
forehead. 

The millionaires were seated 
around the tea-table. Mr. Conrad 
playfully commended Louise's talent 



364 



The Progressionists. 



for cooking. Apparently without de- 
sign he turned the conversation upon 
the elections, and, to Seraphin's utter 
astonishment, eulogized the benefi- 
cent power of liberal doctrines. 

" Our age," said he, " can no long- 
er bear the hampering notions of the 
past. In the material world, steam 
and machinery have brought about 
changes which call for corresponding 
changes in the world of intellect. Great 
revolutions have already commenced. 
In France, Renan has written a Life 
of Christ, and in our own country 
Protestant convocations are proclaim- 
ing an historical Christ who was not 
God, but only an extraordinary man. 
You hardly need to be assured that 
I too take a deep interest in the in- 
tellectual struggles of my countrymen, 
but an excess of business does not 
permit me to watch them closely. I 
am obliged to content myself with 
such reports as the newspapers furnish. 
I should like to read Kenan's work, 
which seems to have created a great 
sensation. They say it suits our 
times admirably." 

The brother and siste* were not a 
little astonished at the old gentle- 
man's unusual communicativeness. 

" It is a splendid book," exclaimed 
Louise " charming as to style, and 
remarkably liberal and considerate 
towards the worshippers of Christ." 

" So I have everywhere been told," 
said Mr. Conrad. 

" Have you read the book, 
Louise ?" 

" Not less than four times, three 
times in French and once in Ger- 
man." 

" Do you think a farmer whose 
moments are precious as gold could 
forgive himself the reading of Re- 
nan's book in view of the multitude 
of his urgent occupations ?" asked he, 
smiling. 

" The reading of a book that ori- 
ginates a new intellectual era is also 



a serious occupation," maintained the 
beautiful lady. 

" Very true ; yet I apprehend Re- 
nan's attempt to disprove to me the 
divinity of Christ would remain un- 
successful, and it would only cause 
me the loss of some hours of valuable 
time." 

" Read it, Mr. Gerlach, do read it. 
Renan's arguments are unanswer- 
able." 

" So you have been convinced, 
Louise ?" 

" Yes, indeed, quite." 

" Well, now, Renan is a living au- 
thor, he is the lion of the day, and 
nothing could be more natural than 
that the fair sex should grow enthu- 
siastic over him. But, of course, at 
your next confession you will sorrow- 
fully declare and retract your belief 
in Renan." 

The young lady cast a quick 
glance at Seraphin, and the brim of 
her teacup concealed a proud, trium- 
phant smile. 

" Our city is about taking a bold 
step," said Carl, breaking the silence. 
" We are to have common schools, in 
order to take education from the con- 
trol of the clergy." And he went on 
to relate what Schwefel had reported. 

" When is the barbecue to come 
off?" inquired Mr. Conrad. 

" On the loth of August." 

" Perhaps I shall have time to at- 
tend this demonstration," said Ger- 
lach. " Hearts reveal themselves at 
such festivities. One gets a clear in- 
sight into the mind of the multitude. 
You, Louise, have put progress un- 
der obligations by so cheerfully ad- 
vancing to meet it." 

After these words the landholder 
rose and went to his room. The 
next morning he proceeded on his 
journey, taking with him Seraphin's 
diary. The author himself he left at 
the Palais Greifmann in anxious un- 
certainty about future events. 




The Progressionists. 



365 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FAITH AND SCIENCE OF PROGRESS. 



Seraphin usually took an early 
ride with Carl. The banker was 
overjoyed at the wager, about the win- 
ning of which he now felt absolute 
certainty. He expressed himself 
confident that before long he would 
have the pleasure of going over the 
road on the back of the best racer 
in the country. "The noble ani- 
mals," said he, " shall not be brought 
by the railway; it might injure them. 
I shall send my groom for them to 
Chateau Hallberg. He can ride the 
distance in two days." 

Seraphin could not help smiling at 
his friend's solicitude for the horses. 

" Do not sell the bear's skin before 
killing the bear," answered he. "I 
may not lose the horses, but may, on 
the contrary, acquire a pleasant claim 
to twenty thousand florins." 

" That is beyond all possibility," 
returned the banker. " Hans Shund 
is now chief-magistrate, has been 
nominated to the legislature, and in 
a few days will be elected. Mr. 
Hans will appear as a shining light 
to-morrow, when he is to state his 
political creed in a speech to his 
constituents. Of course, you and I 
shall go to hear him. Next will fol- 
low his election, then my groom will 
hasten to Chateau Hallberg to fetch 
the horses. Are you sorry you made 
the bet ?" 

" Not at all ! I should regret very 
much to lose my span of bays. Still, 
the bet will -be of incalculable bene- 
fit to me. I will have learned con- 
cerning men and manners what 
otherwise I could never have 
dreamed of. In any event, the expe- 
rience gained will be of vast service 
to me during life. 

" I am exceedingly glad to know 



it, my dear fellow," assured Greif- 
mann. " Your acquaintance with 
the present has been very superficial. 
You have learned a great deal in a 
few days, and it is gratifying to hear 
you acknowledge the fact." 

The banker had not, however, 
caught Gerlach's meaning. 

But for the wager, Seraphin would 
not have become acquainted with 
Louise's intellectual standpoint. He 
would probably have married her for 
the sake of her beauty, would have 
discovered his mistake when it could 
not be corrected, and would have 
found himself condemned to spend his 
life with a woman whose principles 
and character could only annoy and 
give him pain. As it was, he was 
tormented by the fear that his father 
might not coincide in his opinion of 
the young lady. What if the old gen- 
tleman considered her hostility to reli- 
gion as a mere fashionable mania 
unsupported by inner conviction, a 
girlish whim changeable like the 
wind, which with little effort might be 
made to veer round to the point of 
the most unimpeachable orthodoxy ? 
He had not uttered a word con- 
demning Louise's infatuation about 
Renan. On taking leave he had 
parted with her in a friendly, almost 
hearty, manner, proof sufficient that 
the young lady's doubtful utterances 
at tea had not deceived him. 

Upon reaching home, Gerlach sat 
in his room with his eyes thought- 
fully fixed upon a luminous square 
cast by the sun upon the floor. 
Quite naturally his thoughts ran upon 
the marriage, and to the prospect of 
having to maintain his liberty by a 
hard contest with his inflexible par- 
ent. He was unshaken in his resolu 



3 66 



The Progressionists. 



tion not to accede to the projected 
alliance, and, when a will morally 
severe conceives resolutions of this 
sort, they usually stand the hardest 
tests. So absorbing were his reflec- 
tions that he did not hear John an- 
nouncing a visitor. He nodded me- 
chanically in reply to the words that 
seemed to come out of the distance, 
and the servant disappeared. 

Soon after a country girl appeared 
in the entrance of the room. In 
both hands she was carrying a small 
basket made of peeled willows, quite 
new. A snow-white napkin was 
spread over the basket. The girl's 
dress was neat, her figure was slen- 
der and graceful. Her hair, which 
was wound about the head in heavy 
plaits, was golden and encircled her 
forehead as with a nimbus. Her fea- 
tures were delicate and beautiful, 
and she looked upon the young gen- 
tleman with a pair of deep-blue eyes. 
Thus stood she for an instant in the 
door of the apartment. There was a 
smile about her mouth and a faint 
flush upon her cheeks. 

" Good-morning, Mr. Seraphin ! " 
said a sweet voice. 

The youth started at this saluta- 
tion and looked at the stranger with 
surprise. She was just then standing 
on the sunlit square, her hair gleam- 
ed like purest gold, and a flood of 
light streamed upon her youthful 
form. He did not return the greet- 
ing. He looked at her as if fright- 
ened, rose slowly, and bowed in si- 
lence. 

" My father sends some early 
grapes which he begs you to. have 
the goodness to accept." 

She drew nearer, and he received 
the basket from her hands. 

" I am very thankful !" said he. 
And, raising the napkin, the delicious 
fruit smiled in his face. " These are 
a rarity at this season. To whom am 
I indebted for this friendly attention ?" 



" The obligation is all on our side, 
Mr. Seraphin," she replied trustfully 
to the generous benefactor of her 
family. " Father is sorry that he 
cannot offer you something bet- 
ter." 

" Ah ! you are Holt's daughter ?" 

" Yes, Mr. Seraphin." 

" Your name is Johanna, is it 
not?" 

" Mechtild, Mr. Seraphin." 

" Will you be so good as to sit 
down?" And he pointed her to a sofa. 

Mechtild, however, drew a chair 
and seated herself. 

He had noted her deportment, and 
could not but marvel at the graceful 
action, the confiding simplicity, and 
well-bred self-possession of the ex- 
traordinary country girl. As she sat 
opposite to him, she looked so pure, 
so trusting and sincere, that his as- 
tonishment went on increasing. He 
acknowledged to himself never to 
have beheld eyes whose expression 
came so directly from the heart a 
heart whose interior must be equally 
as sunny and pure. 

" How are your good parents ?" 

" They are very well, Mr. Sera- . 
phin. Father has gone to work with 
renewed confidence. The sad ah ! 
the terrible period is past. You can- 
not imagine, Mr. Seraphin, how 
many tears you have dried, how 
much misery you have relieved!" 

The recollection of the ruin that 
had been hanging over her home af- 
fected her painfully; her eyes glis- 
tened, and tears began to roll clown 
her cheeks. But she instantly re- 
pressed the emotion, and exhibited a 
beautiful smile on her face. Sera- 
phin's quick eye had observed both 
the momentary feeling, and that she 
had resolutely checked it in order 
not to annoy him by touching sor- 
rowful chords. This trait of delicacy 
also excited the admiration of the 
gentleman. 



The Progressionists. 



367 



" Your father is not in want of em- 
ployment ?" he inquired with inter- 
est. 

" No, sir! Father is much sought 
on account of his knowledge of farm- 
ing. Persons who have ground, but 
no team of their own, employ him to 
put in crops for them." 

" No doubt the good man has to 
toil hard ?" 

"That is true, sir; but father seems 
to like working, and we children 
strive to help him as much as we can." 

" And do you like working ?" 

" I do, indeed, Mr. Seraphin. Life 
would be worthless if one did not 
labor. Man's life on earth is so or- 
dered as to show him that he must 
labor. Doing nothing is abominable, 
and idleness is the parent of many 
vices." 

Another cause of astonishment for 
the millionaire. She did not converse 
like an uneducated girl from the 
country. Her accurate, almost choice 
use of words indicated some culture, 
and her concise observations revealed 
both mind and reflection. He felt a 
strong desire to fathom the mystery 
to cast a glance into Mechtild's past 
history. 

" Have you always lived at hbme, 
or have you ever been away at 
school ?" 

She must have detected something 
ludicrous in the question, for sudden- 
ly a degree of archness might be ob- 
served in her amiable smile. 

" You mean, whether I have re- 
ceived a city education ? No, sir ! 
Father used to speak highly of the 
clearness of my mind, and thought I 
might even be made a teacher. But 
he had not the means to give me the 
necessary amount of schooling. Until 
I was fourteen years old, I went to 
school to the nuns here in town. I 
used to come in of mornings and 
go back in the evening. I studied 
hard, and father and mother always 



had the satisfaction of seeing me re- 
warded with a prize at the examina- 
tions. I am very fond of books, and 
make good use of the convent library. 
On Sundays, after vespers, I wait till 
the door of the book-room is opened. 
I still spend my leisure time in read- 
ing, and on Sundays and holidays I 
know no greater pleasure than to read 
nice instructive books. At my work 
I think over what I have read, and I 
continue practising composition ac- 
cording to the directions of the good 
ladies of the convent." 

"And were you always head at 
school ?" 

" Yes," she admitted, with a blush. 

" You have profited immensely 
by your opportunities," he said ap- 
provingly. "And the desire for 
learning has not yet left you ?" 

" This inordinate craving still con- 
tinues to torment me," she acknow- 
ledged frankly. 

" Inordinate why inordinate ?" 

" Because, my station and calling 
do not require a high degree of cul- 
ture. But it is so nice to know, and 
it is so nice to have refined inter- 
course with each others. For seven 
years I admired the elegant manners 
of the convent ladies, and I learned 
many a lesson from them." 

" How old are you now ?" 

" Seventeen, Mr. Seraphin." 

"What a pity you did not enter 
some higher educational institution !" 
said he. 

A pause followed. He looked 
with reverence upon the artless girl 
whom God had so richly endowed, 
both in body and mind. Mechtild 
rose. 

" Please accept, also, my most 
heartfelt thanks for your generous 
aid," she said, with emotion. " All 
my life long I shall remember you 
before God, Mr. Seraphin. The Al- 
mighty will surely repay you what 
alas ! we cannot." 



368 The Progressionists. 

She made a courtesy, and he ac- his guest to accompany him to the 
companied her through all the apart- church of S. Peter, where Hans Shund 
ments as far as the front door. - Here was to address a large gathering, 
the girl, turning, bowed to him once " In a church ?" Gerlach exclaim- 
more and went away. ed, with amazement. 

Returning to his room, Seraphin "Don't get frightened, my good 
stood and contemplated the grapes, fellow. The church is no longer in 
Strongly did the delicious fruit tempt the service of religion. It has been_ 
him, but he touched not one. He secularized by the state, and is cus- 
then pulled out a drawer, and hid the tomarily used as a hall for dancing, 
gifts as though it were a costly trea- There will be quite a crowd, for sev- 
sure. For the rest of the day, Mech- eral able speakers are to discuss the 
tild's bright form hovered near him, question of common schools. The 
and the sweet charm of her eyes, so church has been chosen for the meet- 
full of soul, continually worked on his ing on account of the crowd." 
imagination. When he again went The millionaires drove to the dese- 
into Louise's company, the grace and crated church. A tumultuous mass 
innocence of the country girl gained swarmed about the portal. " Let us 
ground in his esteem. Compared permit them to push us; we shall 
with Mechtild's charming naturalness, get in most easily by letting them do 
Louise's manner appeared affected, so," said the banker merrily. Two 
spoiled; through evil influences, officious progressionists, recogniz- 
The difference in the expression of ing the banker, opened a passage 
their eyes struck him especially. In for them through the throng. They 
Louise's eyes there burned a fierce reached the interior of the church, 
glow at times, which roused passion which was now an empty space, strip- 
and stirred the senses. Mechtild's ped of every ornament proper to a 
neither glowed nor flashed; but 1 house of God. In the sanctuary 
from their limpid depths beamed could yet be seen, as if in mournful 
goodness so genuine and serenity so abandonment, a large quadrangular 
unclouded, that Seraphin could com- slab, that had been the altar, and at- 
pare them to nothing but two heralds tach'ed to one of the side walls was 
of peace and innocence. Louise's an exquisite Gothic pulpit, which on 
eyes, thought he, flash like two me- occasions like the present was used 
teors of the night ; Mechtild's beam for a rostrum. Everywhere else 
like two mild suns in a cloudless sky reigned silence and desolation, 
of spring. As often as he entered The nave was filled by a motley 
the room where the grapes lay con- mass. The chieftains of progress, 
cealed, he would unlock the drawer, some elegantly dressed, others ex- 
examine the fragrant fruit, and handle hibiting frivolous miens and huge 
the basket which had been carried beards, crowded upon the elevation 
by her hands. He could not himself of the chancel. All the candidates 
help smiling at this childish action, for the legislature were present, not 
and yet both great delicacy and for the purpose of proving their quali- 
deep earnestness are manifested in fixations for the office progress never 
honoring objects that have been troubled itself about those but to 
touched by pure hands, and in rever- a ir their views on the subject of edu- 
ing places hallowed by the presence cation. There were speakers on hand 
of the good. of acknowledged ability in the dis- 

Next morning the banker asked cussion of the doctrines of progress, 



The Progressionists. 369 

who were to lay the result of their Cries of "Good!" from various 

investigations before the people. directions. 

Seraphin also noted some anxious " Gentlemen ! if you know my 
faces in the crowd. They were record, you must also be aware that 
citizens, whose sons were alarmed at I am passionately fond of the chase, 
the thought of yielding up the train- I even follow this amusement in 
ing of their children into the hands the legislative hall. Our country 
of infidelity. And near the pulpit abounds in a sort of black game, and. 
stood two priests, irreverently crowd- for me it is rare sport to pursue this, 
ed against the wall, targets for the species of game in the assembly." 
scornful pleasantries of the wits of A wild tumult of applause burst 
the mob. Leader Schwefel was voted forth. Jeers and coarse witticisms- 
into the chair by acclamation. He were bandied about on every side 
thanked the assembly in a short of the two clergymen, who looked 
speech for the honor conferred, and meekly upon these orgies of progress, 
then announced that Mr. Till, mem- " Gentlemen ! " Till continued,, 
ber of the former assembly, would " the blacks are a dangerous kind o 
address the meeting. Amid murmurs wild beast. They have heretofore 
of expectation a short, fat gentle- been ranging in a preserve, feed- 
man climbed into the pulpit. First ing on the fat of the land. That is- 
a red face with a copper-tipped nose an abuse that challenges the wrath, 
bobbed above the ledge of the pulpit, of heaven. It must be done away 
next came a pair of broad shoulders, with. The beasts of prey that in the 
upon which a huge head rested with- dark ages dwelt in castles have long 
out the intermediary of a neck, two since been exterminated, and their 
puffy hands were laid upon the desk, rocky lairs have been reduced to 
and the commencement of a well- ruins. Well, now, let us keep up the 
rounded pauch could just be detected chase in both houses of the legisla- 
by the eye. Mr. Till, taking two ture until the last of these black 
handfuls of his shaggy beard, drew beasts is destroyed. Should you 
them slowly through his fingers, entrust to me again your interests, I 
looked composedly upon the audi- shall return to the seat of government 
ence, and breathed hotly through to aid with renewed energy in rid- 
mouth and nostrils. ding the land of these creatures that 

"Gentlemen," he began, with a are enemies both of education and< 

voice that struggled out from a mass liberty." 

of flesh and fat, " I am not given to Amid prolonged applause the fat 

many words, you know. What need man descended. The chieftains 

is there of many words and long shook him warmly by the hand^. 

speeches ? We know what we want, assuring him that the cause absolute- 

and what we want we will have in ly demanded his being reelected. 

spite of the machinations of Jesuits Gerlach was aghast at Till's speech, 

and the whinings of an ultramontane He hardly knew which deserved 

horde. You all know how I acquit- most scorn, the vulgarity of the- 

ted myself at the last legislature, and speaker or the abjectness of those 

if you will again favor me with your who had applauded him. Their wild 

suffrages, I will endeavor once more enthusiasm was still surging through 

to give satisfaction. You know my the building, when Hans Shuncl 

record, and I shall remain staunch to mounted the pulpit. The chairman 

the last." rang for order ; the tumult ceased, 
VOL. xvi. 24 



370 



The Progressionists. 



In mute suspense the multitude 
awaited the great speech of the no- 
torious usurer, thief, and debauchee. 
And indeed, progress might well en- 
tertain great expectations, for Hans 
Shund had read a pile of progres- 
sionist pamphlets, had extracted the 
strong passages, and out of them had 
concocted a right racy speech. His 
speech might with propriety have 
been designated the Gospel of Pro- 
gress, for Hans Shund had made 
capital of whatever freethinkers had 
lucubrated in behalf of so-called en- 
lightenment, and in opposition to 
Christianity. The very appearance 
of the speaker gave great promise. 
His were not coarse features and gog- 
gle eyes like TilPs ; his piercing 
feline eyes looked intellectual. His 
face was rather pale, the result, no 
doubt, of unusual application, and 
he had skilfully dyed his sandy hair. 
His position as mayor of the city 
seemed also to entitle him to special 
attention, and these several claims 
were enhanced by a white necktie, 
white vest, and black cloth swallow- 
tail coat. 

" Gentlemen," began the mayor 
with solemnity, " my honorable pre- 
decessor in this place has told you 
with admirable sagacity that the 
kernel of every political question is 
of a religious character. Indeed, re- 
ligion is linked with every important 
question of the day, it is the ratio 
ultima of the intellectual movement 
of our times. Men of thought and 
, of learning are all agreed as to the 
condition to which our social life 
should be and must be brought. 
The friends of the people are active- 
ly and earnestly at work trying to 
further a healthy development of our 
social and political status. Nor have 
their efforts been utterly fruitless. 
Progress has made great conquests; 
yet, gentlemen, these conquests are 
far from being complete. What is it 



that is most hostile to liberalism in 
morals, to enlightenment, and to hu- 
manity ? It is the antiquated faith 
of departed days. Have we not 
heard the language of the Holy 
Father in the Syllabus ? But the 
Holy Father at Rome, gentlemen, is 
no father of ours happily he is the 
father only of stupid and credulous 
men." 

" Bravo ! Well said !" resounded 
from the audience. Flaschen nudged 
Spitzkopf, who sat next to him. 
" Shund is no mean speaker. Even 
that fellow Voelk, of Bavaria, can- 
not compete with Shund." 

" Gentlemen, our good sense teach- 
es us to smile with pity at the infalli- 
ble declarations of yon Holy Father. 
We are firmly convinced that papal 
decrees can no more stop the onward 
march of civilization than they can 
arrest the heavenly bodies in their 
journeys about the sun. 'Tis true, 
an oecumenical council is lowering 
like a black storm-cloud. But let 
the council meet; let it declare the 
Syllabus an article of faith ; it will 
never succeed in destroying the trea- 
sures of independent thought which 
creative intellects have been hoarding 
up for centuries among every people. 
Since men of culture have ceased to 
yield unquestioning submission, like 
dumb sheep, to the church, they have 
begun to discover that nowhere are so 
many falsehoods uttered as in pul- 
pits." 

Tremendous applause, clapping, 
and swinging of hats, followed this 
eloquent period. A distinguished 
gentleman, laying his hand upon 
Till's shoulder, asked : " What calibre 
of ammunition do you use in hunting 
black game ?" 

" Conical balls of two centimetres," 
replied Till, with no great wit. 

" Yon fellow in the pulpit fires 
shells of a hundredweight, I should 
say. And if in the legislative as- 



The Progressionists. 







sembly his shells all explode, not a ish our fatherland and the people, we 

man of them will be left alive." must take the initiative. We are not 

Till thought this witticism so good striving to effect a revolution ; we 

that he set up a loud roar of laugh- want intellectual development, pro- 

ter, that could be heard above the founder knowledge, and healthier 

general uproar. morality. 

Stimulated by these marks of ap- 

nreciation Shund waxed still morp Shall peace be seen beneath our skies, 

n ' The spirit's freedom first must rise," 

eloquent. " Gentlemen," cried he, 

" no body of men is more savagely concluded the orator poetically, and 

opposed to science and culture than he came down amidst a very hurri- 

a conventicle of so-called servants of cane of applause. 
God. Were you to repeat the mul- There followed a lull. In the 

tiplication table several times over, audience, heads protruded and necks 

there would be as much prayer and were stretched that their possess- 

sense in it as in what is designated ors might obtain a glimpse of the 

the Apostles' Creed." great Shund. In the chancel, the 

More cheering and boundless en- chiefs and leaders crowded around 

thusiasm. " Gentlemen !" exclaimed him, smiling, bowing, and shaking 

the speaker, with thundering empha- his hand in admiration, 
sis and a hideous expression of ha- " You have won the laurels," 

tred on his face, " the significance of smirked a fellow from amidst a wil- 

religious dogmas is simply a sort of derness of beard, 
homoeopathic concoction to which " Your election to the Assembly is 

every succeeding age contributes a certainty," declared another, 
sone drops of fanaticism. Subjected "You carry deadly weapons against 

to the microscope of science, the Christ," said a professor, 
whole basis of the Christian church Mr. Hans smiled, and nodded so 

evaporates into thin mist. We must often that he was seized with a pain 

shield our children against religious in the muscles of the face and neck, 

fables. Away with dogmas and saws At length, the chairman's bell came 

from the Bible ; away with the Trim- to the rescue. 

ty; the divinity and humanity of "The Rev. Mr. Morgenroth will 

Jesus, and other such stuff! Away now address the meeting." 
with apothegms such as this: Christ The clergyman mounted the ros- 

is my life, my death, and my gain, trum, but scarcely had he appeared 

Such things are opposed to nature, there, when the crowd became pos- 

Children's minds are thereby warped sessed by a legion of hissing demons, 
to untruthfulness and hyprocrisy. In " Gentlemen," began the fearless 

this manner the child is deprived of priest, " the duty of my calling as 

the power of thinking; loses all in- well as personal conviction demands 

terest in intellectual pursuits, and that I should enter a solemn protest 

ceases to feel the need of further cul- against the sundering of school and 

ture. The times are favorable for a church." 

reformation. Our imperial and roy- Further the priest was not allowed 

al rulers have at length realized that to proceed. Loud howling, hissing, 

minds must be set free. For this end and whistling drowned his voice, 

it was as unavoidable for them to The president called for order, 
break with the church and priesthood " In the name of good-breeding, 

as it is necessary for us. If we cher- I beg this most honorable assembly 



372 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 



to hear the speaker out in patience," 
cried Mr. Schwefel. 

The mob relaxed into unwilling 
silence like a growling beast. 

" Not all the citizens of this town 
are infected with infidelity," the rev- 
erend gentleman went on to say. 
" Many honorable gentlemen believe 
in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and 
in his church. These citizens wish 
their children to receive a religious 
education ; it would, therefore, be 
unmitigated terrorism, tyrannical con- 
straint of conscience, to force Chris- 
tian parents to bring up their chil- 
dren in the spirit of unbelief." 

This palpable truth progress could 



not bear to listen to. A mad yell 
was set up. Clenched fists were 
shaken at the clergyman, and fierce 
threats thundered frem all sides of 
the church. " Down with the priest !" 
" Down with the accursed black- 
coat !" " Down with the dog of a 
Jesuit !" and similar exclamations, r v e- 
sounded from all sides. The chair- 
man rang his bell in vain. The mob 
grew still more furious and noisy. 
The clergyman was compelled to 
come down. 

" Such is the liberty, the educa- 
tion, the tolerance, the humanity of 
progress," said he sadly to his col- 
league. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



CHRISTIAN ART OF THE CATACOMBS. 



BY AN ANGLICAN. 

" I do love those ancient ruins : 
We never tread upon them but we set 
Our foot upon some reverend history." Webster (1620). 

Quamlibet ancipites texant hinc inde recessus, 
Arcta sub umbrosis atria porticibus ; 
Attamen excisi subter cava viscera montis 
Crebra terebrato fornice lux penetrat; 
Sic datur absentis per subterranea solis 
Cernere fulgorem luminibusque frui." 

PrudentiHs, Peristephanon^ Hymn iv. 



THE Catacombs of Rome were the 
birthplace of .Christian art as well as 
the sepulchre of the children of the 
early church. It is only within a few 
years that the modern traveller has 
been induced, through the careful 
study which the Catacombs have re- 
ceived, to visit these subterranean 
homes of the persecuted Christian, so 
filled with the symbolism of his faith. 
From 1567, the year in which Fa- 



ther Bosio began his investigations in 
the Catacombs, till the present cen- 
tury, some minds of kindred interest 
in these burial-places of the martyrs 
have been fascinated with their 
Christian archeology, and from time 
to time have appeared works upon 
subjects connected with the Cata- 
combs. F. Bosio spent thirty years 
in making explorations, and left for 
posthumous publication his Roma 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 373 

Sotterranea, which F. Severano issued ism with which it is clothed. We 

from the press in Rome in 1632. approach these pictures in the dark 

Seventy years later came Inscriptio- crypts and amid the countless tombs 

num antiquarum explicatio by the of the first martyrs of the faith with 

learned Fabretti, and eighteen years no little reverence. We lay aside our 

later still, F. Boldetti, who had devo- shoes, for the ground consecrated to 

ted the greater part of his life to the the early dead is sacred, and the 

examination of the monuments, in- earnest wish of our heart is to put 

scriptions, and paintings of the Cata- away the prejudice of ecclesiastical 

combs, embodied the results of his education and association. With this 

patience and industry in the great view before us, we make the noble 

work Osservazioni sopra i Cimiterii words of Montesquieu our own : 

del Santi Martiri, etc., di Roma. " Ceux qui nous avertissent sont les 

Then came Bottari's wonderful stu- compagnons de nos travaux. Si le 

dies on the Christian art of the Cata- critique et 1'auteur cherchent la ve- 

combs entitled Sculture epitture sagre, rite, ils ont le meme intret ; car la 

estratte dai Cimiteri di Roma. Fol- verite est le bien de tous les hommes : 

lowing in the paths opened by these ils seront des confederes, et non pas 

zealous Italian students, M. D'Agin- des ennemis."* 

court, M. Raoul Rochette, Abb6 From the early ages of the church 

Gaume, and the eminent artist M. till the close of the Vth century, the 

Ferret, have contributed to the ar- Christians of Rome were driven by 

chaeological literature of France sev- the sword of persecution to seek a 

eral important works on the Roman hiding-place wherein to exercise the 

Catacombs. holy mysteries of their religion, and 

To the pontificate of Pius IX. be- to inter the remains of their dead. 

longs the honor of producing the The vast subterranean caverns, now 

two greatest antiquarian scholars of known as Catacombs, but more an- 

our age. The one, the Cavaliere ciently called Area, Crypta, and 

Canina, has treated with remarkable C&meteria, afforded a shelter for the 

acuteness and judgment of the Ap- living and sepulture for the faithful 

pian Way from the Capenian Gate departed. These Catacombs doubt- 

to Bovillae j* the other, the Cavaliere less had their origin in the sand-pits, 

de Rossi, of the Catacombs,! and it is or arenarice. arenifodina, which the 

of the latter that we propose to speak, pagans had excavated to procure 

It is impossible, in the brief space that materials for building purposes, t 

is allotted to us, to do more than se- Suetonius f describes how Phaon ex- 

lect one of the interesting subjects horted Nero to enter one of these 

with which his works on the Cata- caverns made by excavations of sand, 

combs abound, and as an Anglican and Cicero alludes to the arenaruK t 

student of the Catholic Church, its outside of the Porta Esquilina. In 

doctrines, its discipline, and its litera- the admirable essay by Michele Ste- 

ture, there is none which so enkin- f an o de Rossi, entitled Analisi Geolo- 

dies our enthusiasm as the Christian g{ ca e d Architettonica, and annexed to 

art of the early ages, and the symbol- the work of his brother, it is stated 

that the Catacombs, with perhaps 



* Via Appia da Porta Catena a Boville. De- fa Q exception of tWO that are 
scritta dal Commendatore L. Canina. a vols. 

* Defense de V Esprit des Lois, 3 e partie. 
T La Roma Sotterranea Christiana. Descnt- ... ... 

ta ed illustrat dal Cav. G. B. de Rossi. Roma. t Aringhi, Roma Subterr. lib. in. c. 2. 

1864. $ Ner. 48. Pro Cluent. 13. 



374 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 



ish> are the work of the earl)' Chris- 
tians.* 

By singular perseverance and care- 
ful discrimination in the study of do- 
cuments running far back into the cen- 
turies, the Cavaliere de Rossi trans- 
ferred the situation of the Catacombs 
of S. Callistus from the church of S. 
Sebastian, where they had erroneous- 
ly been located, to a place a half mile 
nearer Rome, between the Via Appia 
and the Via Ardeatina; on the left of 
the road was the cemetery of S. Pne- 
textatus, and on the right that of S. 
Callistus. The discovery of these 
hallowed crypts and sarcophagi of 
the early saints and popes, is of ines- 
timable value in elucidating intricate 
questions of doctrine and practice, 
of history and tradition, which have 
vexed the theological world for cen- 
turies. We can scarcely resist the 
temptation to follow M. de Rossi 
through these dim cathedrals of our 
Christian ancestors, and reproduce a 
part, at least, of his masterly elucida- 
tion of their general topography, to- 
gether with the history of heroic suf- 
fering and Christlike courage which 
the sites and names of those dark 
ages of danger suggest. But we 
must forbear, and proceed to the pic- 
tures and emblems in order to draw 
from them some lessons of that early 
fortitude, which the child of the 
church of the first centuries learned, 
as he knelt by the tomb of his 
companion in the faith, and looked 
up to the ceilings of crypts and 
semicircular compartments to catch 
by the glimmering light of smoking 
lamps the lineaments of some de- 
sign of the religion which he pro- 
fessed. 

The paintings of the Catacombs 

* / cimeteri sotteranei di Roma sono stati sca- 
vati dai cristiani fossari tranne pochissime ecce- 
zloni^ le quali importanti per la storia, nelf am- 
piezza perb della sotteranca escavazione scompa- 
jono ,' e possono veramente dirsi guello, che i ma- 
teinatici nppellano una quantitia infinitesima e 
da non essere tenuta a calcolo. App. p. 39. 



represent the cardinal truths of 
Christianity, and their types are 
taken from both the Old and New 
Testament Scriptures, as also, in rare 
instances, from heathen mythology. 
The picture, perhaps most common 
to the eye of the worshipper at those 
shrines of the martyred dead, was the 
representation of the Saviour in that 
character which exhibits the tender- 
est attributes of his sacred humanity, 
and appeals to the sympathetic ele- 
ment in man. Christ as the Good 
Shepherd conveys in its fulness of 
meaning what perhaps no other type 
of our Lord does. It is variously 
represented, and under different 
forms may refer to the foreshadowing 
of the Messiah's coming in the Old 
Testament and its fulfilment in the 
New. King David had been a shep- 
herd, and understood the needs and 
labors of the shepherd life, and it 
may be that in the days of his pas- 
toral innocence, when the lion and 
the bear were the destroyers of his 
flock, he wrote that psalm whose 
tone is one of quiet and trustfulness : 
" The Lord is my shepherd ; there- 
fore can I lack nothing. He shall 
feed me in a green pasture, and lead 
me forth beside the waters of com- 
fort. Yea, though I walk through 
the valley of the shadow of death, I 
will fear no evil ; for thou art with 
me ; thy rod and thy staff comfort 
me."* Thus, in the days of persecu- 
tion, the Christian of the Catacombs 
might read the sacred legend of our 
Lord under the figure of a shepherd- 
bearing the sheep upon his shoulders. 
The Good Shepherd was pictured 
again as bearing a goat, and in the 
Catacombs of S. Callistus he stands 
between a goat and a sheep; the 
former occupies the more honorable 
place, the right hand, and the latter 
the left. Often the Good Shepherd 

* Psalm xxiii. 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 375 

leans on his pastoral crook, and omens which might yield him some 
bears in his hand a pipe. All these token to enlighten the spiritual dark- 
typical allusions refer to his charac- ness of his soul. The mythological 
ter as exhibited in the Gospels. They system of the pagan was a vital re- 
teach the merciful watchfulness of ality. It accompanied him not only 
our Lord, and the readiness with to the solemn festival in the temple, 
which he takes back into his fold, the but on the march, in the camp, and 
church, yea, to the more honorable in the market-place. It was with 
place by his side, the wayward and him in hours of joy and of sorrow; 
the erring. " I am the good shep- but it penetrated not beyond the 
herd, and know my sheep, and am boundaries of this world. It offered 
known of mine. And other sheep I no cross here, and knew nothing of 
have which are not of this fold : the crown hereafter. There were no 
them also I ' must bring, and they bright pictures of the rewards of eter- 
shall hear my voice ; and there shall nity. This life was the narrow limit 
be one fold and one shepherd."* of his hope and his labor. Hades or 
Protestant critics have not been the grave was dreaded because of its 
wanting in an attempt to trace the sunlessness. Iphigenia entreats her fa- 
symbolism of this figure of the Good ther for life in an impassioned appeal, 
Shepherd to a heathen origin, and ad- which sums up the heathen's belief: 
duce as an argument in behalf of "To view the light of life, 

their theory that its prototype is in To mortals most sweet ; in death there is 

rr , f. , ' J . Nor light nor joys; and crazed is he who seeks 

I Olllbs Of the NasOlieS. Even in To die ; tor lite, though full of ills, has more 

questions of Christian archaeology is of good than death." 
exhibited the same polemical spirit Occasionally the ancient philoso- 

which animated the accomplished phers and poets give intimation of a 

English scholar, Conyers Middleton, belief in immortality, but not in re- 

who lent all the resources of his vast surrection, as Cicero in that eloquent 

learning in classical history to prove longing for the day when he shall 

the resemblance and identity of pa- meet his illustrious friend Cato. * 

gan and Catholic rites. But a more But, as we have said, of the great 

learned and reverent critic in the doctrine of the resurrection, which 

field of antiquities is the incompa- solved the dark enigmas of humanity, 

rable Marangoni, whose splendid they were ignorant. The hold which 

work, Cose Gcntilesche trasportate ad classical mythology had upon the 

Uso delle Chiese, sets at rest for ever human mind was relaxed before this 

many problems which Mr. Poynder, august mystery of the Catholic faith, 

a shallow pretender to scholarship, Pagan temples were deserted, and 

revived in the Alliance of Popery and the sacrificial fires on their altars ex- 

Heathenism. tinguished. 

While the ancient heathen lived in "The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
the atmosphere of a religion which The fair humanities of old religion, 

The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 
incited tO Cheerfulness and pleasure That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 

in the present life.it portrayed but Or forest by slow stream, or "pebbly spring, 
r . . : . Or chasms and wat ry depths; all these have 

faintly any idea of immortality. I he vanished. 

world around him was peopled with The y live no lon ^ er in the faith of reason r t 

Unseen Spirits. They inhabited WOOds *O prceclarum diem, cum ad illud divinum 

and streams, and he was ever watch- ani > 1 concilium cKtu,n que profichcar 

cumque ex nac turbo, et colluvione aisceaatn .' 

ful tO interpret the Slightest Signs Or Projiciscar enim, non ad eos solum -viros.de qui- 

bus ante dixi, sedetiam ad Catonem meuin. De 
Senectute, 25. 
* S. John x. 14-16. t Coleridge's Piccolomini^ scene iv. 



Christian Art oj the Catacombs. 

It is not remarkable, therefore, that means of reverses ; our griefs are our 
delineations of the doctrine of the consolations ; we lose Stephen to 
resurrection should not have been gain Paul, and Matthias replaced 
unusual in the church of the Cata- the traitor Judas."* When the eye 
combs. Two such representations, of the early Christian rested upon 
one from the Old Testament, and the this fourth representation from the 
other from the New, will exhibit the prophet's life, it caught another and 
forms under which it was presented, a more subtle signification, which is 
Jonas as a type of the resurrection of read perhaps oftener in the night of 
our Lord has its authority from S. affliction and persecution than in the 
Matthew.* "For as Jonas was day of joy and prosperity. Our cen- 
three days and three nights in the tury, Catholic and Protestant alike, 
whale's belly ; so shall the Son of man needs to study its outlines as much as 
be three days and three nights in the the first century and the worshippers 
heart of the earth." Four scenes in the Catacombs. " Should not I 
from the history of Jonas are found spare Nineveh, that great city, where- 
in the chapels and on the tombs of in are more than sixscore thousand 
the Catacombs, sometimes represent- persons that cannot discern between 
ed singly, sometimes all compressed their right hand and their left?"f 
under one type. The first is the pro- Here is a beautiful symbolism of the 
phet befng thrown into the deep, the tender mercy of our God for all who 
second as swallowed by the great are in error and in sin. It opposes 
fish which " the Lord had prepared," the spiritual Pharisaism of our day, 
the third as " vomited out upon dry and exacts meekness and charity 
land," the fourth as lying under the from all men. It is the destroyer of 
shadow of a gourd. As we have seen, malevolence and anger and strife, f 
according to the Gospel of S. Mat- Another picture, taken from the 
thew, the swallowing of Jonas by the New Testament, and of frequent rep- 
whale, and being cast forth in safety resentation, is the " man sick of the 
after three days, was typical of the palsy." It is generally regarded by 
burial and the resurrection of our Protestant writers as belonging to 
Lord himself; and may not the pic- that series of symbolical illustrations 
tures of the fourth series denote not which embody the doctrine of the 
only the sufferings of the individual resurrection ; and, to give greater force 
Christian, and the care which his ris- to their interpretation of the painting, 
en Master bestows upon him, but they place much stress upon the 
also the vicissitudes of the Church words of the sacred text : " Arise, 
Catholic in every age of the world ? take up thy bed, and go unto thine 
" Sometimes she gains, sometimes she house." So far as we have examined 
loses ; and more often she is at once copies of this picture, we are inclined 
gaining and losing in different parts to believe that it is connected with 
of her history. . . . Scarcely are these which refer to the resurrection, 
we singing Te Deums, when we have except in one remarkable instance, in 
to turn to our Misereres ; scarcely which it clearly symbolizes the sacra- 
are we in peace, when we are in per- 
secution ; scarcely have we gained a tio * n Newr 
triumph, when we are visited by a t Jonas iv. 2. 
scandal. Nay, we make progress by s J S y ' t t"l"r^ SftSt'JSSJ'&Sfc tt 

maintenance of truth; strive for the truth with- 
out harshness ; pray for those whom you rebuke 

Xli - 40. and confound." Contra lit. Petiliani^ 1. i. 



Christian Art oj the Catacombs. 
i 

ment of penance as it is taught in the sacred pictures of the early ages 
the Roman communion. In the place the representation of this mir- 
Catacombs of S. Hermes is a repre- acle of Moses in the Catacombs of S. 
sentation of a Christian kneeling be- Agnes among the finest specimens 
fore another, which seems from its of primitive delineation. Moses is 
close proximity to the series of pic- pictured as bearing a rod, the em- 
tures of the Paralytic to point more blem of power, with which " he smote 
directly to that other passage of the the rock twice, and the water came 
Gospel narrative : " Son, be of good out abundantly." It is worthy of 
cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." remark in passing that on vases 
If our Lord delegated " such power found in the Catacombs, and on the 
unto men " and the only logical sarcophagi as early, perhaps, as the 
and intelligent interpretation of the IVth century, this same scene is de- 
words of S. John* conveys this doc- picted, and the rod, instead of being 
trine or it conveys nothing here is in the hand of Moses, is in that of 
a clear illustration of the power of S. Peter, and, in a few instances, the 
the priesthood, which admits of no two are represented together, but the 
evasive contradiction, of no compli- person who smites with the rod has 
cated and artificial hypothesis for the inscribed over his head the name of 
sake of escaping the recognition of S. Peter. Catholic writers on sub- 
the belief of the early Christians in terranean symbolism draw from it an 
the doctrine of sacerdotal absolution, artistic argument, which, coupled 
As resurrection is the portal of the with the historical, seems an un- 
church triumphant, so is baptism to answerable statement of the question 
the church militant. The former is of the primacy of S. Peter. Qiiando 
but the complement and fulfilment Christus ad wmm loquitur, unitas 
of the latter. " Know ye not, that so commendatur ; et Petro primitus, quia 
many of us as were baptized into in Apostolis Petrus est primus* S. 
Jesus Christ were baptized into his Peter bears the same relation to the 
death ? Therefore we are buried Christian church that Moses did to 
with him by baptism into death." f the Israelitish. The one received 
The blessedness of the final consum- from God the decalogue, which was 
mation of the faithful departed was to govern the actions of the Jews ; 
pictured in the symbols of the resur- the other, the keys, which were to 
rection, and, as baptism is the fore- open the kingdom of heaven. Nam 
shadowing of that glorious change et si adkuc clausum putas coelum, me- 
which shall come over our vile bodies, mento claves ejus hie Dominum Petro, 
it became a common subject of Chris- et per eum Ecclesia reliquisse.\ Ano- 
tian art in the Catacombs. Its types ther type of baptism taken from the 
are somewhat complex, and often Old Testament, and capable of two 
susceptible of a twofold explanation, expositions, is Noah in the ark. 
From the four scenes in the life of Here again, on the authority of an 
Moses, which are constantly repeat- apostle, the church in the early ages 
ed in the different Catacombs, we read the history of Noah by the light 
select that which prefigures Christian of the new revelation made through 
baptism the miraculous supply of the institutions founded by Christ. S. 
water in Kadesh. Art critics who Peter, speaking of the small number 
have bestowed any attention upon saved by water at the deluge, adds : 

* S. Augustine, Sernt. 296, p. 1195, torn. v. 
* xx. 23. t Romans vi. 3, 4. t Tertullian, Scorpiace^ p. 628. 



378 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 



" The like figure wheretmto, even bap- 
tism, doth now also save us, ... 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," * 
The ark is generally represented by 
a small box in which Noah sits or 
stands, receiving from the dove the 
olive branch of peace. Some writers 
on Christian archaeology find in it a 
secondary meaning, regarding it as 
typical of the church, and the 
danger of those who are without the 
ark of safety. 

Among favorite Old Testament 
subjects familiar to art students of 
the Catacombs are Daniel in the 
lions' den, and the three children of 
Israel in the fiery furnace at Baby- 
lon. Both are types of persecution, 
and of final deliverance through. the 
miraculous interposition of God. In 
the cemetery of S. Priscilia, each of 
these pictures is to be seen, varying 
but slightly in the details of the por- 
traiture. The three children appear 
clothed, and standing on the furnace. 
In a compartment beneath, the fig- 
ure of a man is represented as feed- 
ing the fire with fresh fuel. Daniel, 
in the same cemetery, stands with out- 
stretched arms between lions. The 
attitude in both these scenes from 
Jewish history appears to exhibit the 
ancient posture of the suppliant when 
in the act of prayer.. A late writer 
on the Roman catacombs, the Rev. 
J. Spencer Northcote, D.D., formerly 
of Corpus Christ! College, Oxford, 
spent much time, in company with 
the Cavaliere de Rossi and M. Ferret, 
the French artist, in collecting ma- 
terials for his small work on the 
burial-places of the early Christians 
in Rome. He is so trustworthy a 
guide in everything that appertains 
to their archaeology, that we gladly 
accept the explanation which he sug- 
gests of the position of Daniel and 
the three chjldren'of Israel. Speak- 

* i Epist. iii. a. 



ing of the ancient attitude of Chris- 
tian prayer the hands extended in 
the form of a cross he says :* " This 
form, which, as we learn from the 
Fathers, was universal among the 
early Christians, is still retained in 
some measure by the priests of the 
present day in the celebration of Mass, 
by Capuchins and others in serving 
Mass, and by numbers among the 
poor every where ; it is worth noticing 
that S. Gregory Nazianzen expressly 
speaks of Daniel overcoming the 
wild beasts by stretching out his 
hands, meaning, of course by the 
power of prayer; but the explanation 
might almost seem to show that S. 
Gregory himself was familiar with 
this usual way of representing him." 

The publication of the Cavaliere de 
Rossi, which has so greatly alarm- 
ed the Protestant controversialist, is 
Immagine Scelte della B. Verging 
Maria, tratle dalle Catacombe Romane. 
It is most beautifully illustrated with 
chromo-lithographic engravings, and 
reflects great honor on the present 
state of art in Rome. The purpose 
of the work is to exhibit the venera- 
tion with which the Christians of the 
Catacombs esteem the Mother of our 
Lord. At a period of time in the 
history of the church, almost apos- 
tolic, that purest of human feelings, 
maternal love, subdued the soul of 
the artist, and kindled his imagina- 
tion to trace with the brush or carve 
with the chisel the Blessed Virgin 
and her Divine Son. 

The Virgin Mother, 

" Who so above 

All mothers shone, 
The Mother of 
The Blessed One," 

is depicted by the artist with a tender 
and devout affection. The scenes 
are taken from the sacred narrativ< 
of the Evangelists, and an examina- 
tion of them, simply from an aestheti- 

* Am. ed. p. 82. 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 



379 



cal point of vie\v, will more than 
repay the connoisseur of art. But 
to the conscientious archaeologist and 
the sober inquirer, they occupy a 
grave relation. They throw addi- 
tional light on the writings of S. 
Justin, S. Irenseus, S. Cyril, S. Je- 
rome, and Tertullian, in regard to 
that dogma which, of all others, 
has perplexed the minds of earnest 
men outside the Roman communion. 
The honor paid to the Blessed Vir- 
gin is to-day the especial " crux " of 
Dr. Pusey,* as it is, perhaps, of many 
not so learned as he, but as tho- 
roughly dispassionate in the temper 
of their souls toward the attainment 
of divine truth. The poet of The 
Christian Year reached a lofty strain 
in behalf of a long-forgotten doctrine 
in the Anglican .Church when he 
gave in his verses for the Annuncia- 
tion : 

" A ve Maria ! blessed Maid ! 
Lily 01 Eden's fragrant shade. 

Who can express the love 
That nurtured thee so pure and sweet, 
Making thy heart a shelter meet 
For Jesus' holy dove? 

" Ave Maria ! Mother blest ! 
To whom, caressing and caress'd, 

Clings the Eternal Child ; 
Favor' d beyond Archangel's dream, 
YTnen first on thee with tenderest gleam 
Thy new-born Saviour smil'd." t 

But Keble caught from an excur- 
sion to Ben Nevis, as his biographer 
conjectures, the hints of that beauti- 
ful poem, " Mother out of Sight," 
which was intended for the Lyra In- 

* An Eirenicon^ Eng. ed., p. 101. 

t ll If there be one writer in the Anglican 
Church who has discovered a deep, tender, 
loyal devotion to the Blessed Mary, it is the 
author of The Christian Year. The image of 
the Virgin and Child seems to be the one visio.i 
upon which both his heart and intellect have 
been formed ; and those who knew Oxford 
twenty or thirty years ago say that, while other 
college rooms were ornamented with pictures 
of Napoleon on horseback, or Apollo and the 
Graces, or Heads of Houses lounging in their 
easy-chairs there was one man a young and 
rising one in whose rooms, instead of these, 
might be seen the Madonna di Sisto or Domeni- 
chino's S. John fit augury of him who was in 
the event to do so much for the revival of Ca- 
tholicism." Newman's Essays^ vol. ii. p. 453. 



nocentium, but through the influence 
of two friends, Dyson and Sir John 
Coleridge, was withheld by the au- 
thor, and only saw the light as one 
of his posthumous pieces. It has a 
clearer doctrinal ring than the stan- 
zas for the Feast of the Annuncia- 
tion, which foreshadow something 
of the intercessory power of the 
Mother of God. It merits the high 
praise which Keble's ever- faithful 
friend and, for years, his gifted ally 
bestows upon him. We more than 
regret that space forbids us giving 
the entire poem. It loses much of 
its beauty and continuity by frag- 
mentary quotation, yet, from the 
fourteen stanzas, we are only able to 
reproduce four : 

" Yearly since then with bitterer cry 
Man hath assailed the throne on high, 
And sin and hate more fiercely striven 
To mar the league 'twixt earth and heaven. 
But the dread tie that pardoning hour. 
Made fast in Mary's awful bower, 

Hath mightier prov'd to bind than we to break; 

None may that work undo, that Flesh unmake. 

" Thenceforth, whom thousand worlds adore, 
He calls thee Mother evermore ; 
Angel nor saint his face may see 
Apart from what he took of thee ; 
How may we choose but name thy name. 
Echoing below their high acclaim 
In holy creeds ? since earthly song and praj'er 
Must keep faint time to the dread Anthems 
there. 

" Therefore, as kneeling day by day, 
We to our Father duteous pray, 
So unt<3rbidden we may speak 
An Ave to Christ's Mother meek 
(As children with 'good morrow' come 
To elders, in some happy home), 
Inviting so the saintly host above 
With our unwortoiness to pray in love. 

" To pray with us, and gently bear 
Our falterings in the pure, bright air. 
But strive we pure and bright to be 
In spirit. Else how vain of thee 
Our earnest dreamings, awful Bride ! 
Feel we the sword that pierced thy side ; 
Thy spotless lily-flower, so clear of hue, 
Shrinks from the breath impure, the tongue un- 
true." * 

Another poet, once an Anglican, 
then a Catholic priest, and now pass- 
ed into the land where the mists of 

* Memoir of Keble. By Sir J. T. Coleridge, 
Eng. ed., p. 305. 



3 So 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 



controversy are cleared away, attain- 
ed a higher plane of truth in regard 
to the Mother of our Lord : 

'* ." ut scornful men have boldly -said 

Thy love was leading me from God; 
And yet in tins I did but tread 
The very path my Saviour trod. 

"They know but little of thy worth . 

Who speak these heartless words to me ; 
For what did Jesus love on earth 
One-half so tenderly as thee ? 

44 Get me the grace to love thee more ; 
Jesus will give, if thou wilt plead ; 
And, Mother, when life's cares are o'er, 
Oh ! I shall love thee then indeed. 

44 Jesus, when his three hours were run, 

Bequeathed thee from the cross to me ; 
And oh ! how can I love thy Son, 
Sweet Mother, if I love not thee ? " 

We return to these pictures of the 
Catacombs, and we will content our- 
selves with an allusion only, prefer- 
ring that the reader who is interest- 
ed in them should examine them 
through his own, rather than through 
another's eyes. From a lunette in an 
arcosolio in the cemetery of S. Agnes 
is a picture which of late years has 
been frequently copied. It repre- 
sents the Blessed Virgin with uplifted 
hands, seemingly in the act of inter- 
cession, with the Infant Jesus in her 
lap. In the cemetery of Domitilla 
is a picture of the Mother and Son, 
and four Magi offering their oblations. 
It may be well to remark that the 
Gospel history of the Adoration of 
the Wise Men from the East does 
not limit their number. We have 
somewhere seen it suggested that the 
restriction to three had its rise from 
the offerings presented gold, frank- 
incense, and myrrh. Another scene 
of the Adoration of the Magi is given 
with some difference of detail. The 
Virgin Mother is seated holding the 
Divine Son in her lap, above her head 
appears the star which guided the 
wise men to where the Infant lay. To 
the left is a somewhat youthful per- 
son, supposed to be S. Joseph. He 
holds in his hand a book, which the 
Cavaliere de Rossi very wisely and 
ingeniously interprets to be the wri- 



tings of the evangelical prophet 
Isaiah, whose prophecies concerning 
the Messiah had now their fulfilment 
in the Infant Jesus. 

Such are some of the many beau- 
tiful pictures which Roman art, 
through the indefatigable industry of 
de Rossi, has given us of the Blessed 
Virgin as represented in early ages. 
To other than jaundiced eyes, calmly 
and candidly studying them, they re- 
veal the light in which they were so 
often viewed by the suffering children 
of the church amid the persecutions 
which attended the conflict between 
paganism and Christianity. In 
teaching us to honor the Mother of 
our Lord QSUTOK.U; they impress us 
with more distinct and more tangible 
thoughts of the incarnation of her 
Son.* With his usual discrimination 
and mastery of style, Dr. John Hen- 
ry Newman has well said: "The 
Virgin and Child is not a mere mod- 
ern idea; on the contrary, it is repre- 
sented again and again, as every visi- 
tor to Rome is aware, in the paintings 
of the Catacombs. Mary is there 
drawn with the Divine Infant in her 
lap, she with hands extended in pray- 
er, he with his hand in the attitude 
of blessing. No representation can 
more forcibly convey the doctrine of 
the high dignity of the Mother, and, 
I will add, of her power over her Son. 
Why should the memory of his time 
of subjection be so dear to Christians 
and so carefully preserved ? The 
only question to be determined is 
the precise date of these remarkable 
monuments of the first age of Chris- 
tianity. That they belong to the 
centuries of what Anglicans call the 
' undivided church ' is certain, but 
lately investigations have been pur- 

* Dr. Nevin, one of the leaders of religious 
thought in the German Reformed communion, 
of which the Mercersburg Review is the organ, 
has said : " The man cannot be right at heart in 
regard to the faith of the Incarnation, whose 
tongue falters in pronouncing Mary Mother of 
God!" 



Christian Art of the Catacombs. 



sued which place some of them at 
an earlier date than any one antici- 
pated as possible." * 

One other topic remains to be con- 
sidered before we pass on to some 
general reflections which early Chris- 
tian art suggests. It was not uncom- 
mon for the artist in the first ages of 
the church to take subjects of heathen 
mythology, and invest them by his 
art with a Christian symbolism. The 
genius of Michael Angelo, so truly 
Catholic in taste and devout in ex- 
pression, transplanted pagan forms 
from the broken temples of the elder 
civilization to the Christian churches 
of the new. He retouched them un- 
der the aureate light shed upon them 
by the reverent imagination of the 
Fathers. On the magnificent ceiling 
of the Sistine Chapel are painted by 
this master-hand the Sibyls, who in 
early times were regarded as the un- 
conscious prophets of divine truth, 
uttering in their blindness crude in- 
timations of the glory of him who 
was to be the fulfilment and comple- 
tion of all shadows and of all types, f 
In the Catacombs may be seen a 
representation of Orpheus playing 
upon his lyre, and subduing by his 
melodious strains the ferocity of man 
and beast, and drawing even from 
inanimate creation by the power of 
music the subjects of his sway. 
Rocks and trees yielded to his lyric 
sweetness, the region of Plato open- 
ed to the sound of his " golden 
shell," the wheel of Ixion ceased its 
revolutions, and Tityus forgot for 



* A Letter to Dr. Pusey on his recent Eirenicon^ 

p. 59- 
t The late Dr. Faber, when an Anglican, said : 

'Thus I hold it pious to believe that in pagan 
times many a wandering beam, many a pitying 
angel, many a rent in heaven, many a significant 
portent, many an overflow of the appointed 
channels of grace, were vouchsafed, whereon 
a poor glimmering faith might feed, and grow, 
not wholly of itself, into a feeble yet steady 
light, acceptable for his sake who sent such faith 
its food." Foreign Churches and Peoples, p. 
535- 



the nonce the vulture that preyed 
on his vitals. The Thracian bard 
was the representative of the civilizer 
of savage men. 

"Silvestres homines sacer interpresque Deorum 
Csedibus et victu fcedo deterruit Orpheus ; 
Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque 
leones." * 

The symbolism of the picture 
seems to be this, that as Orpheus 
drew the whole creation to him by 
the music of his lyre, and called from 
the realms of Hades his beloved 
Eurydice to the regions of light, so 
Christ by his compassion command- 
ed the love of all men, as well by his 
divine power the hidden forces of 
nature. Hades, or the grave, opened 
to him on that first Easter morning, 
as it will open to us on the last. 

41 Prisoner of Hope thou art look up and sing 

In hope of promised spring. 
As in the pit his father's darling lay 

Beside the desert way, 
And knew not how, but knew his God would 

save 

Even from that living grave ; 
So, buried with our Lord, we'll close our eyes 
To the decaying world, till .angels bid us 
rise." t 

The late Dean of S. Paul's, Dr. 
Milman, remarks, with an air of tri- 
umph, in his Ecclesiastical History ,\ 
that " the Catacombs of Rome, faith- 
ful to their general character, offer no 
instance of a crucifixion." For the 
absence of the crucifix in the Cata- 
combs, we as a Protestant can con- 
ceive of two causes, either of which 
would to our mind be sufficient to 
account for it. First, in the early 
ages it was highly important for the 
growth of the church, especially in 
the Roman Empire, to guard against 
the introduction of any symbol which 
would suggest pain or repugnance to 
Jewish converts; secondly, it was 
essential to clothe truth under a type 
which would not inspire mockery on 
the part of pagans, and so assist in 

* Horace, De Arte Poetica, 391. 
tKeble's Christian Year Easter Eve. 
% Lib. iv. 0.4. 



382 Christian Art of the Catacombs. 

keeping alive the persecuting spirit history is ingenious, and, therefore, 
of the times. This in a measure no we will tarry for a moment ere we 
doubt led the early artists to use the conclude. It naturally calls to mind 
heathen symbol of Orpheus as typi- the solemn parting of our Lord with 
cal of Christ. A beautiful passage the apostles by the Sea of Tiberias, 
in the work of D'Agincourt affords when their nets were filled with fish, 
still another general cause : " En- and Jesus " taketh bread and giveth 
tirely occupied with the Celestial them, and fish likewise." In the 
recompense which awaited them church of the Catacombs this tender 
after the trials of their troubled life, scene from the Evangelic record is 
and often of so dreadful a death, the always associated with the Holy Eu- 
Christians saw in death, and even in charist. As IXGTS, the Greek word 
execution, only a way by which they for a fish, contains the initial letters 
arrived at this everlasting happiness ; of the name and title of Christ 
and, so far from associating with this 'Irjaovc Xptorbc Qeov T/of Surfy- -Jesus 
image that of the tortures or priva- Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour- 
tions which opened heaven before the figure was constantly used as a 
them, they took pleasure in enliven- symbol of the divinity of Christ. In 
ing it with smiling colors, or present- his Iconographie Chretienne, M. I)i- 
ing it under agreeable symbols, dron assumes that this emblem on 
adorning it with flowers and vine- the sarcophagi of the Catacombs is 
leaves ; for it is thus that the asylum simply indicative of the fact that the 
of death appears to us in the Chris- person buried beneath was by trade 
tian Catacombs. There is no sign a fisherman. Certainly the number- 
of mourning, no token of resentment, less instances proving the falsity of 
no expression of vengeance ; all this position render the opinion ut- 
breathes softness, benevolence, chari- terly worthless, 
ty." * We must take leave of the Cava- 
Many emblems denoting the car- Here de Rossi and the Christian art 
dinal virtues are sculptured on the of the Roman Catacombs. Feeble 
walls of the chapels and on the as may be the execution of these pic- 
tombs of the Catacombs. Flowers, tures, crude in conception, and often 
garlands, and grapes intertwine each colorless through the lapse of time, 
other and embellish these ancient yet they speak of the ardor of the 
crypts. The laurel speaks of victory, early Christian artists, and of the de- 
the olive of peace and reconciliation, votion and doctrine of the children 
and the palm of final triumph. The of that church which is the mother 
lyre is significant of the aesthetical of us all. In parting with the Cava- 
element of religion, and the anchor Here de Rossi, we say with all sin- 
of hope for the heavenly port. The cerity, that we have found nothing in 
dove represents the Holy Spirit, the his volumes unworthy of the rever- 
lamb the adorable Saviour the Ag- ential regard of honest and candid 
nus Dei the stag the thirsting of the minds. Passages there are, which 
soul for the paradise of .God, and the the timidity of Anglican churchmen 
peacock the belief in immortality, would regard as dealing too freely 
Among these general symbols so fa- with the symbolism of the Catacombs, 
miliar to the saints of old, none is Without accepting his conclusions in 
more prominent than the fish. Its detail, we gratefully acknowledge 

that the Cavaliere de Rossi has 

* Hist, de r Art. shown English writers in what spirit 



Beating the Air. 



all the grave questions of theology 
connected with subterranean art 
should be treated. His has been a 
great subject, and he has written with 
humility and ripeness of learning and 
clearness of apprehension, which 
well become the Christian scholar 
and the sacred theme. In closing 

O 

his masterly work, we seem again 
bidding adieu to Rome, the reflec- 
tion of whose classic greatness and 
Christian glory mellows hill and 



plain, pagan ruin and Catholic 
shrine. 

" Gran Latina 

Citti di cui quanto il sol auieo gira 
Ne altera piti, n piii onorata mira." 

And because of the house of the 
Lord our God, we utter from the 
depths 'of our heart the wish of the 
Psalmist of old : " Fiat pax in virtutc 
tua : et abundantia in turribus tnis. 
Propter fratres meos, et proximos 
meos, loquebar pacem de te" 



BEATING THE AIR. 

" I CAN call spirits from the vasty be born in it, or because their friends 

deep," says Owen Glendower, the belong to it, or because as Giles has 

great magician. it, " Payrson says so, and Payrson's 

" So can 1," replies the sturdy, in- daughter be married to Squoire." 
credulous Hotspur. " But will they They will have the why and where- 
come ?" fore : why they must take this creed 

We are living in a sterner age than and reject that; why they must take 

that in which Hotspur is supposed a part and not the whole; why it is 

to have put this poser to the Welsh- necessary to be bothered with any 

man. Great declamations and fine form of belief at all, when, as they 

promises will not do for any length of say, and many of them truthfully, 

time, at least. We are hard, and prosy, they can get on well enough without 

and practical. We must have facts, it, and live happily, and play their 

and figures, and something clear be- part, and die out of the world with- 

fore we are asked to choose a policy, out having committed any special 

or a system, or take a stand on a plat- faults against society, leaving behind 

form. Love of country, homes and them children whose rule in life shall 

altars, and all the old watchwords, be the truth and honor which they 

serve no longer ; they come down to have bequeathed them as a last 

a vulgar question of taxes, of custom- legacy. They have saved them- 

house duties, of imports and exports, selves infinite trouble by not rnin- 

of pauperism, and the increase of gh'ng in the clashing of the sects, 

crime. This hard, practical spirit where each one claims to be the one, 

has been carried with all the keen- the only one, the church of Christ, 

ness of, if not an intellectual, at least a One would imagine that Christ came 

very intelligent age, into the sanctuary only to set the world on fire and all 

of religion, and men and women are good people by the ears ; that, in 

no longer content to follow a sect or fact, it would be better had he not 

a creed because they happened to come at all if this is to be the result, 



384 



Beating the Air. 



this wrangling and jangling and eter- 
nal jargon about what one must do 
to be saved, as though good people, 
who do no earthly harm must join 
one or other of these conflicting 
parties, who can never agree among 
themselves, and use the name of the 
God of peace as a firebrand to stir up 
dissension and the worst of strife. 
Influenced by thoughts such as these, 
we find so many of the most intelli- 
gent people, what we might call 
Nothingarians, believing in noth- 
ing but the law of the land, that is, 
of expediency a class that is grow- 
ing wider every day in propor- 
tion as the sects are loosening and 
parting asunder; which embraces 
the ablest writers on the ablest secu- 
lar journals ; which sees only one re- 
ligious body in the world endowed 
with a consistency, and a uniqueness, 
and years, and a glorious history, and 
a strange unity that will not be bro- 
ken ; a church which takes to-day, as 
it has always taken, the bold stand 
before the world we are the one 
church founded by Jesus Christ, in 
this church and in this church alone 
is salvation, not because we say it, 
but because he has said it : a stand 
in their eyes outrageous, so utterly 
opposed, as it is, to the dictates of 
human reason, with its doctrines of 
infallibility and what not ; yet, after 
all, logical and strangely consistent 
throughout; so bold, so logical, so 
strangely consistent and united, that 
if there were a church at all it would 
be this, for all else is uncertainty. 
And as the Nation said the other day 
in an article on the Old Catholics, 
written evidently by one of the class 
we have been describing : " The 
great strength of the Church of Rome 
lies now in the fact that he who quits 
her knows not whither he is going, 
and^ can find no man to tell him." 
Schism and heresy and persecution 
have tried her in turn, and exhausted 



their efforts in vain ; she stands to- 
day as she stood on the morning of 
the Christian era, full and fair in the 
light of God, not a dint in the rock, 
not a loosening in the edifice, though 
the ages have washed over her, and 
washed all other landmarks away ; 
and the dove that leaves the ark 
finds no resting-place over the bar- 
ren waters ; and the olive branch of 
peace is not yet found to tell us that 
the waters have subsided, and the 
earth is again as God made it. 

Religious unity has been the dream 
of earnest seekers ever since Jesus 
Christ gave the final mandate to the 
apostle to go forth and convert the 
world ; and it would seem that the 
dream is as far from fulfilment to-dav 

J 

as it ever was ; that it is likely to Ire 
so till the end of time. The Catho- 
lic Church is denounced as the great 
stumbling-block in the way of the 
much-desired unity. The sects say 
to her each in turn: You will not 
come to us; you will not join us. We 
are ready to make some sacrifices, 
but you will not budge an inch. You 
are false; you are absurd; you are 
mysterious; you are superstitious; 
you are everything that is bad but 
only give up infallibility, says one, 
and we are with you ; surrender the 
doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion of the Mother of God, says 
another, and we will join you ; 
only let your priests marry, says a 
third ; give up the sacraments, says a 
fourth. To these, and all and many 
more, the church replies now as al- 
ways : " Non possumus" We can- 
not ; God gave the laws to his 
church. They are his laws ; they are 
irrevocable; more fixed than those 
of nature ; it is not for us to change 
them. . There again, say her adver- 
saries : the old cry. You will not 
change; you will not 'concede; you 
are perverse and implacable. How 
can we ever have unity ? They for- 



Seating the Air. 385 

get that they ask tne church to dis- beliefs. Such is the inevitable end 
member herself; to destroy her own of all religions that men make for 
identity ; to break up, and come themselves ; vain efforts ; uncertain- 
down to their level. Suppose she ty ; good perverted or rendered use- 
were to do so, what would the result less ; disagreement and religious an- 
be ? She would be lost and absorb- archy. 

ed in the sea of sectarianism. The No wonder that men cry out for 
one object to which all eyes look, something fixed. No wonder that 
whether faithfully or maliciously, as so many turn infidel. Protestantism 
at least fixed and united to-day as to- has proved an utter failure as a guid- 
morrow, as yesterday, would be blot- ance and a religion to men. So 
ted out of the sight of man. Even much so that, if one asked for a defi- 
humanly speaking, much would be nition of the Protestant religion to- 
lost ; nothing would be gained ; and day, it could not be given him ; and 
union would be farther off than ever, the only right answer would be not a 
The best example of the truth of faith or a system, but the opposition 
this is given in the history of the last of non-Catholic Christians to the Ro- 
great departure from the Catholic man Catholic Church. Perhaps the 
Church the Protestant Reformation, most striking proof of this is exempli- 
Though this movement never reach- fied in the late meeting at Cologne, 
ed to the proportions of Arianism, There were assembled delegates 
yet it was a movement that captivat- from several rival sects and churches, 
ed nations, and was eminently adapt- in the endeavor to bring order out of 
ed to favor the revolutionary spirit chaos, to plant a new church and a new 
then breaking out among men, to faith which all men might accept. If 
throw off all constraint of whatever the Protestant bishops who attended 
nature, and stand upon the false no- there were satisfied that their religion 
tion of unbridled liberty of thought or form of religion was true and all-suf- 
and action. The new doctrine of ficient, why not stay at home ? Why 
private interpretation spread rapidly, did they go at all ? While Dollin- 
because it pandered to the age. Na- ger and the rest, satisfied of the fail- 
tions broke away from the church; a ure of Protestantism, cling fast to the 
new faith, a new creed, grander, larg- torn shred of the Roman Catholic 
er, fuller, purer than the old, was to faith, and proclaim loudly and ab- 
be built up. And what was the re- surdly that they are Catholic still, 
suit ? What is the result ? A mul- it is a deep and bitter lesson to 
tiplication of sect upon sect; afresh Protestants of the hopelessness of their 
departure ; a new interpretation of efforts to create a unity such as they 
the Gospel of God day after day ; see alone in the Catholic Church, 
a breaking out into the wildest and In the midst of this general and 
most erratic courses of belief and con- growing dissatisfaction, a pamphlet 
duct, oftentimes so utterly subversive has been put into our hands which 
to all government that it was obliged promises to settle the vexed question 
to be forcibly repressed by the law once for all. It is written by a Bap- 
of the lands which at first favored it tist minister, the Rev. James W. Wil- 
for its own purposes. This tower of marth, pastor at Pemberton, N. J. 
faith that men would build from earth Who he is, beyond the fact stated on 
to heaven, like the old tower of pride, the cover, we do not know. His 
ended in nothing crumbled away pamphlet has no claim to our atten- 
and caused a Babel a confusion of tion beyond the thousand-and-one 
VOL. xvi. 25 



386 Beating the Air. 

such thrust upon our notice day after in love,' " perhaps it was only natural 

day. But as it is somewhat preten- to find, particularly towards the end, 

tious, and has received the sanction his temper proving a little too much 

of no less distinguished a body than for his " love," so that we must not 

the West New Jersey Baptist Asso- be astonished, though " in no parti- 

ciation, which body, by vote, request- san spirit has he discussed his theme," 

ed its publication (the substance at meeting little phrases scattered 

of it having been delivered in the here and there of a decidedly un- 

" doctrinal sermon ' : preached Sep- lovable nature. Thus, the Holy 

tember 13, 1871), it may be taken to Father is mentioned as " the bigoted 

represent the orthodox Baptist doc- Pope of Rome " who " sits cursing 

trine, and may, therefore, be glanced modern civilization and freedom, and 

at just to see what that doctrine is, sighing for the return of the dark 

or is supposed to be, for we have no ages and the inquisition " ; the whole 

doubt many Baptists would disagree Catholic system " a diabolical im- 

with it. The author takes a bold posture," italicized ; " Catholics ap- 

line, " The True Idea of the Church : peal chiefly to sentiment," " under- 

Baptist vs. Catholic," for he recog- value the importance of Scriptures," 

nizes * no logical middle position be- " may be good Catholics, and yet 

tween Baptist and Catholic ground, profane, immoral, untruthful, and 

and, therefore, salvation lies in one regardless of the will of God, and 

of the two bodies, as it cannot lie in that millions notoriously are so." If 

both. What Methodists, Anglicans, this be our author's mode of asking 

Presbyterians, and the rest may think for his views " the candid considera- 

of this high-handed mode of dealing tion of every reader of whatever re- 

with their several pretensions to truth, ligious persuasion," we should strong- 

we may imagine. But they can ly recommend him for the future to 

scarcely complain, as all in turn adopt alter his tone; if it be " speaking the 

precisely the same line of argument : truth in love," we wonder what his 

the haven of salvation resting not notions of speaking the truth in 

between Presbyterian and Baptist or wrath would be. Catholic writers 

Methodist and Episcopalian, but be- are habitually accused of intolerance 

tween each of these sects and Rome, in tone and controversy : we humbly 

They slide by each other, and con- submit that, when we have to en- 

front us. The only similar example counter as we are compelled to do 

we can call to mind at present of every day adversaries of this stamp, 

such union out of disunion, is that we may be reasonably pardoned for 

of the fallen spirits. not using studious phrases with men 

It is unnecessary to observe that, on whom politeness is thrown away. 

in a contest of this nature between A year has now flown by since 

an individual Baptist minister and this " discourse was prepared and 

the whole Catholic Church, the delivered under a profound convic- 

church, notwithstanding her rather tion of the importance and timeli- 

formidable array of theologians and ness of the vital truths therein set 

philosophers, gets decidedly the worst forth, and it is now given to the pub- 

of the battle. And, though the lie with the same conviction." As 

author, as he tells us in his preface, to its timeliness, we have nothing to 

" has endeavored to ' speak the truth object, it was probably meant for 

Baptists rather than Catholics, and 

* page 3 6. with an eye to the dissensions that 






Beating the Air. 



387 



seem racking and threatening to rend 
that body at present. In fact, from 
its whole tone and the round rating 
he gives members of his community 
who " would give up their vantage- 
ground by concealment or compro- 
mise of truth," and his insisting on 
their " maintaining their Baptist atti- 
tude " (whatever that may be pre- 
cisely he fails to explain), the pam- 
phlet sounds very much like a warn- 
ing-note like the weak cry of " No 
surrender !" when surrender follows 
immediately, like Mr. Winkle's " all 
right " when Mr. Winkle felt satisfied 
that it was all wrong. With regard 
to its " importance," notwithstanding 
the writer's " conviction " on the 
point, we may be permitted to enter- 
tain some slight doubt. Authors are 
sometimes apt to overrate the im- 
portance of their productions. At 
all events, after a year of trial, we 
have heard of no very wonderful 
result following the launching of 
this pamphlet on the troubled waters 
of controversy. Catholics are Catho- 
lics still. The church stands precisely 
at its first starting-point of some nine- 
teen centuries ago, while the Baptists 
stand at theirs a point involved still 
in a region of mist, and apparently 
rapidly dissolving into it. So that, 
with regard to this closing of the con- 
troversy generally, we are compelled 
to arrive at the painful conclusion 
that it has either been very greatly 
undervalued by the public at large, 
or is absolutely good for nothing. 

The author proposed to himself to 
place the only two ideas of the 
church, Baptist and Catholic, which 
he acknowledges, in such juxtaposi- 
tion, in so clear a light, that all who 
read must be compelled to adopt 
either the one or the other. In 
other words, be purposed ending for- 
ever all the controversies that have 
ever raged between church and 
church, in a pamphlet of forty-two 



pages. And his mode of setting 
about it is at least original. 

" I do not propose to discuss this 
question of ' true church ' after the 
common method. I shall not raise 
questions of apostolic or of historic 
succession, of * legality ' or ' validity ' 
or ' regularity.' I propose to go 
deeper than that into the heart of the 
subject." 

Now, with all due respect to the 
reverend author, these little items, 
which he finds it so convenient to 
throw overboard in such an arbitrary 
fashion, constitute, for his readers at 
least, the heart of the subject. He 
tells us that " all the Christian ages 
with one consent acknowledge the 
church to be a divine society " hu- 
man-divine, Catholics would say 
" governed by divine law, established 
by Jesus Christ." 

Here we have, then, according to 
the author's own words, a society, es- 
tablished by a person, at a certain 
date, which has come down from 
that person to to-day. Men say 
that it has altered from its original. 
Two societies claim to be the origi- 
nal, the Baptist and the Catholic. 
It lies in one or the other, not be- 
tween. We want to find out which 
it is. In this inquiry, history is nothing, 
legality is nothing, succession is noth- 
ing, validity is nothing. That is not 
the true method of going to work to 
find out what this society is; whether 
it has ever been broken, whether it 
contains and carries out what Christ 
its founder gave it, whether its mem- 
bers practise to-day what they prac- 
tised at the beginning all that is 
nothing. The question is " the idea 
which underlies it all. What then is 
the true idea of the church ? This is 
the great question." 

If the author proposed to argue in 
this style, he should have stated at 
starting his definition of the true idea 
of the church. He should have de- 



383 



Beating the Air. 



fined the terra in order to explain 
clearly what he was seeking. But 
he does nothing of the kind. In fact, 
he soon loses the very word " idea," 
and substitutes for it in one place 
" view," in another " theories." So 
that after all it comes down in plain 
English to what is your opinion on 
the subject, or what is your notion 
about it, despite his trite " challenges 
of the Catholic idea of the church at 
the bar of reason," and so forth. 

In fact, there is just that show of 
shallow learning sprinkled throughout 
the whole pamphlet which a preacher 
endowed with more words than 
weight generally uses to a thick-head- 
ed congregation, who take his words 
for wisdom from the very fact that 
they cannot understand them. There 
are the divisions and subdivisions : 
the i, 2, 3, in large and small figures, 
and occasionally in Roman charac- 
ters ; the appeals to this, that, and 
the other ; the citing of " well-known 
facts " and " notorious things " with- 
out substantiating them by any refer- 
ences, as in p. 17. "Witness the 
Baptist originators of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society; Carey, Jud- 
son, and their successors " in support 
of the view that with Baptists origi- 
nated the desire for the revision of 
the Bible. Again, speaking of Ca- 
tholic doctrine : " If men leave the 
church, they part from grace and are 
lost." Apropos of which telling fact 
he informs us in the next sentence 
that : " the history of Augustinianism 
is an instructive illustration. Au- 
gustine, Bishop of Hippo, was, in 
many respects, what would now be 
termed a high Calvinist. His fervid 
eloquence and mental power made a 
deep impression upon the theology 
of the Catholic (not then Roman Ca- 
tholic) Church of the Latin world." 
And that is all he says about him. 
As far as any evidence he furnishes 
to support it goes, he might just as 



well have substituted the name of S. 
Thomas Aquinas for S. Augustine, or 
Pius IX., or, as far as the majority 
of his readers know to the contrary, 
Tippoo Sahib. And in the very open- 
ing of the pamphlet the same shal 
lowness is strikingly exemplified. He 
chooses the text, Acts ii. 47, " And 
the Lord added to the church daily 
those who are saved," which, as he 
observes, reads in the version of King 
James, " Such as should be saved." 
This text his own rendering "is 
one of those passages in which an 
incidental statement, as by a flash of 
lightning, reveals a whole body of 
doctrine." In what it involves we 
find the true idea of the church, that 
is, the Baptist doctrine that we are 
regenerated in Christ by his death, 
and that baptism is, as it were, only a 
symbol, a sort of mark, by which we 
are known as belonging to the 
church, but not necessary for salva- 
tion, inasmuch as we are saved be- 
fore we receive it. He alleges, with 
reference to the Greek version, that 
" should be saved " is wrong and 
" are saved " is right. And there the 
matter rests. Now, while on this 
very important point, whereon indeed 
rests his theory, he might as well 
have been a little more exact and ex- 
plicit. A Greek reference is such a 
vague thing to build on. We agree 
with him that " should be saved " is 
a wrong rendering ; as " are saved " 
happens also to be. The verse runs : 
6 Kvpios irpoaenQei TOVQ cufrpevovc KaO' 
Vfiepav rrj E/e/c^wa. The present par- 
ticiple ou&nevove means being saved; 
but a present participle following a 
verb in the imperfect or aorist tense 
must be rendered imperfect, and 
therefore the passage should run, 
" And the Lord added daily to the 
church such as were being saved," 
that is, such as were in the act or 
state of coming into the church 
through the merit of the death of 






Beating the Air. 389 

Christ and the movements of his di- divinely commanded, after being 

vine grace; a fact which throws al- thus saved, to unite with the church 

together another light on the author's for the sake of personal profit and 

fixed starting point. These things of usefulness ; and that the church so 

\ve mention to show how little trust constituted is to be governed by the 

can be placed on men who talk so law of Christ. He makes doctrine 

loudly and pretentiously in this loose and converson come first. Out of 

style. It shows also how very weak doctrine and out of conversion pro- 

and treacherous is this absolute de- ceeds the church. And the saved 

pendence on the private interpreta- man, already saved, comes into the 

lion of the word of the Bible, where- church for training, for work," etc. 

on the Baptists stake their doctrine Now, this passage is the author's 

and salvation ; and how insufficient exposition of the true idea of a 

the absolute creed which hangs for church, and on this everything else 

life or death on the possibly dubious hangs. We may be obtuse, but we 

rendering of a passage in a dead Ian- confess the exposition is somewhat 

guage. misty to us ; at all events, it does not 

lUit let us examine this doctrine, captivate our intellect so completely 
which all, whether Catholic or An- as we would wish in a matter all-im- 
glican, Methodist or Jew, are bound portant eternal salvation. We are 
to accept if they would be saved, told here that salvation is a personal 
We Catholics are asked to surrender matter between the individual and 
for it the faith which we have held Christ ; that there is no person or 
through the centuries of the Christian nothing intermediate. In plain Eng- 
era, in defence of which we have lish, that a man's own conscience is 
poured out our blood so lavishly, his rule and guidance ; that it in- 
tracing the martyr stream down structs and satisfies him on all points 
through the long vista of ages, from of doctrine and conduct as a Chris- 
the death on the cross to the stoning tian. Now, it is Catholic doctrine 
of Stephen, to the massacre of the that salvation is an entirely personal 
nuns in China but yesterday. We affair between the individual soul and 
are told to-day that all our history, Jesus Christ. The individual is not 
our sacraments, our doctrine, the saved or condemned on the merits 
faith on which we are built, our sue- or dements of the society, the church 
cession of pontiffs, the sacred orders of which he is a member : in exactly 
of our priests, the church itself, which the same way that a prisoner at the 
we define as the union of all the faith- bar is held answerable to the law of 
ful under one head, which head is the land for his wrong actions, and 
Jesus Christ, whose successor is the judged on them, and it avails him 
pope, are one and all " a diabolical nothing to speak of the respectability 
imposture," and that if we hope for of his relations, or of their evil be- 
salvation we must surrender them for havior which may have partly led 
the true doctrine as explained by this him into crime ; such evidence may 
author. constitute to an extent extenuating 

" The Baptist holds that men re- circumstances, but a man is con- 
ceive salvation directly from Christ, demned finally on his own act. If 
and by virtue of an independent the prisoner, on the verdict being 
transaction with him ; that a believ- given against him, pleads : But you 
er's salvation is secured by a person- condemn me ; you do not take into 
al union with Christ ; and that he is consideration my relations ; you tell 



390 



Beating the Air. 



me that all that has nothing to do 
with it ; that I knew myself what was 
right and what was wrong ; that, in 
fact, I was the best and only judge in 
the matter; well, I acknowledge it, 
I am the only judge, and if I am the 
only judge, and I make a mistake, 
you cannot punish me, there is noth- 
ing between you and my conscience. 
The court would respond : There is 
the law written plain for all men to 
read. The government made the 
law, you are judged by that. And 
this is precisely the Catholic doctrine 
of salvation. Though it be a final 
question between the individual soul 
and Jesus Christ, the law of Christ 
comes between them, as the law of 
Moses came between God and his 
people, and that law being made for 
the whole world, for the universal 
society of human beings, rests in the 
hands of the government duly con- 
stituted and appointed from that 
society by Jesus Christ himself, who 
no longer abides among us visibly, 
and is only known to us by faith. 

Well, then, faith is enough ; faith 
saves us, say the Baptists. If this be 
true, then, are the devils saved since 
they must have a far more vivid 
faith belief in God than the gener- 
ality of human beings ? If faith is 
enough to save a man, why not stop 
there ? Why be baptized ? Why 
join a church at all ? " For the sake 
of personal profit " (a phrase apt to 
be misunderstood), "'and of useful- 
ness," replies our author. After all, 
this idea of the church reduces itself to 
that of Mr. Beecher, which the au- 
thor stigmatizes a church of " expe- 
diency." Later, on page 22, in 
" challenging the Catholic idea of 
a church at the bar of reason," he 
says : " Now, in the case before us, 
what is the effect ? Salvation." Well, 
here we have it; the effect; the thing 
that the whole world is looking for 
salvation. Why, that is everything ; 



that is all we want, no matter how it 
comes. You are saved before enter- 
ing the church. Then, what more is 
necessary ? There is no need to go 
beyond that. Stay outside; live and 
let live; our safety is attained; let 
people wrangle as they may, there is 
no further fear. There is no need of 
a church at all, of communion, and 
the rest, if we are saved before enter- 
ing it. That is all God asks of us, 
to save ourselves. It is already ac- 
complished by regeneration and faith 
in him. There we stop, happy and 
contented, without any more quarrel- 
ling with our neighbors. 

Then comes the further and final 
question : After all, who is Christ ? 
How do we know him ? Where do 
we find him ? When and how does 
he speak to us ? Of course, to " re- 
generate persons," it is unnecessary 
to put these questions: But our au- 
thor proposed going deeper into the 
matter than the common method, 
and, if the world is to become Bap- 
tist, it must know why. The regen- 
erate enjoy " a personal union " with 
him, says the Baptist, and know 
when he speaks ; when the Spirit im- 
pels them. This will never do for 
human nature. We must have some- 
thing stronger than assertion, how- 
ever strong. Christians can believe 
and understand S. Paul, when he tells 
them that he was caught up into 
paradise, and heard secret words 
which it is not granted to men to 
utter. The great apostle excuses 
himself for bringing this to the know- 
ledge of the faithful, and only men- 
tions it as a single act in his life, and 
one that affected his salvation in no 
wise. If the Baptists hold that they 
are continually in the third heavens, 
well and good. That at least has 
the merit of a clear, defined ground 
to stand on ; but they will scarcely 
win many converts. Who is Christ, 
then, with whom you have this per- 



Beating the Air. 391 

sonal union ? He is the founder of tholic. When we speak of a conver- 

the Baptist Church, our author would sion, of a mercy gained, or a favor 

respond; of what is known as Chris- bestowed from heaven, though all 

tianity ? That is to say, of the sys- these things happen through the 

tern or systems of religion held by all hands and sometimes ministry of in- 

people of the present day who call dividuals, we always say, "The Lord 

themselves Christians, but among did it ; God Almighty wrought it ; 

whom the Baptists only hold the true No man converted me, but the grace 

church. Then we will work back- of God; No medicine saved my sick 

wards to the foundation of your so- child, but the favor of God which ac- 

ciety and the others, and see which companied its workings," as the child 

reaches to Jesus Christ. Oh ! no, answers to the first question of the 

says our author; that is one of the catechism, Who made you? God. 

common methods ; they are poor. But for all this God works through 

" Read the New Testament. You human instruments. His priests are 

will find the Baptist doctrine of sal- an ordination of his own for the gov- 

vation, and the resulting Baptist idea ernment of his church, and by a 

of the church, taught or implied on worthy probation and preparation re- 

every page,* and you will not find a ceive certain graces of God necessa- 

trace of the Catholic doctrine of sal- ry for their state involved in the re- 

vation, or of the Catholic idea of the ception of what the church calls the 

church. If you doubt, search for sacrament of Holy Orders : a certain 

yourselves the Scriptures, like the no- form to be gone through which 

ble Bereans, and see whether these Christ ordained for the reception of 

things are so." the special powers and graces con- 

In support of this loose, sweeping ferred on that particular office, as in 
assertion, this author contorts his text human governments a judge receives 
into a puny quibble, which any well- .his insignia, a minister his portfolio, 
instructed child might see through at a doctor his diploma, in order to pre- 
once. He says : " We do not read vent everybody taking the adminis- 
the priests or the apostles added sin- tration of the law into his own hands, 
ners to the church in order to save or every quack practising as he 
them," but we do read : " The Lord pleases. And so with the other sac- 
added to the church daily those who raments. 

are saved." Ergo, " salvation was But apart from appeals to texts, 

dealt with as a personal matter." which we are almost weary of pro- 

If the Baptist Church rests on no ducing in favor of Catholic doctrine, 
better foundation than this, and if and of the church who watched over 
its teachers can only support its and preserved those texts from de- 
truth and doctrine on distorted struction, the mutilation of which 
meanings and texts of this descrip- was wrought, as our author himself 
tion, we fear it will not hold together complains, not by us, but by the 
much longer, and we feel half in- Protestants in the version of King 
clined to apply to it a few of the James, and because we know that 
" truths spoken in love " of which version to be mutilated, we appeal 
our author is so lavish in dealing against its use in the schools which 
with the Catholics. This very use our children frequent : let us look at 
of the word " Lord " is eminently Ca- the broad Christian system, how it 

would stand as built up by this 

* Page 3 o. writer. 



39 2 Beating the Air. 

People who believe in Christ at himself, a being who no longer was 
all, and indeed all who acknowledge, present, visibly and palpably, before 
as they must, Christianity to be a fact, the eyes of men ? As he chose men 
a vast social system, existing under to do his work, to build up Chris- 
our eyes, looking back, see a time tianity, he let them accomplish it 
when it did not exist. A man came after a human fashion, assisted by 
into the world at the point of time in the saving fact that he would allow 
its history which we fix upon as the them never to err in the doctrines 
beginning of the Christian era. At which he bade them preach : and to 
that time religion, speaking largely, this end he gave them an order 
consisted of the Hebrew and the which was to be handed down for- 
pagan. The Hebrews were the cho- ever : the apostleship. That was his 
sen of God, and preserved the only government, and at this government 
true system which corresponds to the was a head, Peter. And Peter, like 
rational idea of the foundation and all other human governors, at his de- 
aim of humanity. This it kept to it- parture handed his authority down 
self and did not seek to spread, to the next chosen to fill his place, 
Christ came, the man-God, and the promise of the abiding Spirit 
founded a new order, enlarging upon passing to all, or the system must 
the old, which was to embrace in its have broken down ; and so to-day 
bosom the universe, and lead all na- Catholics recognize in infallibility no- 
tions back and up to God. The thing more than the apostles recog- 
change contemplated was the vastest nized in the decisions of Peter at An- 
that could possibly be conceived, the tioch. And so this author is correct 
union of the discordant elements of in saying that the church with Ca- 
human nature in a system entirely tholics comes first, and not the Bible ; 
above the capabilities of that na- for the church embraces the Bible, 
ture. Men were to be chaste, to be which is only the written document 
humble, to love poverty, to speak no of the laws and ordinances of God to 
evil, to obey, to mortify themselves al- man, the letter of the law resting in 
ways, to pray always, to acknow- the hands of the government which 
ledge the nothingness of their na- has charge of it, but that government 
ture. This man, Jesus Christ, came, itself subject to the law. The gov- 
and, before he had converted people ernment existed among the Hebrews 
enough to form a single city even, before the law was ever written, 
was crucified, rose from his grave, This system which we have endeav- 
and ascended into heaven, leaving ored faintly to sketch here is denied 
twelve poor ignorant, timid men, by the Baptist. He says : Chris- 
and a few others to spread this new tianity comes this wise : Christ came, 
doctrine, this new and all-absorbing died, and thus regenerated us. All 
social system, throughout the world who believed in him were saved, 
and through all time. What did he '* The apostles preached the Gospel, 
leave to guide them in this tremen- Men were pierced to the heart and 
dous work ; a system, an order per- asked what they must do." They 
feet in all its details, and capable of must be immersed, not as a necessity, 
spreading with the contemplated for they were saved by the fact of 
growth of the church ? or did he believing ; but this act of immersion 
leave each to follow his own will gave them the entry to the church 
and do what he could, by means of Christ. Then the New Testament 
of what is called personal union with was written, not by Christ, though 



Beating Jhe A ir. 393 

inspired by him, and left in the hands in which they are born. This stain 
of everybody to interpret the law as which they inherit, but do not incur 
he pleased. by any act of their own, is washed 
Now, we ask, can this system com- away by the sacrament ordained by 
mend itself to the human reason as Christ, which admits them into the 
rounded and complete enough to society of the church at the same 
fulfil the Christian idea of a church, time that their birth admits them to 
which should receive and embrace human society, its privileges as well 
the whole world in one union of reli- as its trials. Extreme unction is ad- 
gious harmony ? A book thrown ministered to the dying person, even 
into the world for so it must look though he be unconscious, and is the 
to human eyes who knew nothing of most touching token of the love of 
its divinity which each one was to the universal Mother for her children, 
take up and interpret as he pleased ; who at the last moment will, although 
a book subject to more or less of the dying man cannot ask it, adminis- 
change in transmission from language ter the sacrament which God has or- 
to language, and in the absolute loss dained for that occasion, because she 
of the living tongue in which it was knows that his heart desires such aid 
originally written, and the verdict of at its passage from the world. But 
its genuineness, the verdict for or all sacraments given to adults give 
against the teachings of a living God, grace only in proportion as the reci- 
resting upon the dictum of a gram- pient receives them worthily, 
marian. " If the priest refuses to come, then 
If Christianity hangs on this, for the sufferer, infant or adult, must die 
we tiave not misrepresented the wri- unbaptized and unsaved." 
ter then we refuse to be Christian If this gentleman had only taken 
at all ; for such a system does not the trouble to consult a Catholic 
and cannot, as he alleges, " sustain catechism, he would have been spar- 
the test of sound reason, of stern ex- ed the trouble of putting this further 
perience, and of infallible Scripture, absurdity into print. He would have 
which ordeal the Baptist idea of the found little children taught at school 
church endures." that " in a case of necessity, when a 
We need trouble ourselves with priest cannot be had, any one may 
this writer no further. There is a baptize," and the instructions for ad- 
great deal more in the pamphlet that ministering the sacrament ; and fur- 
might be touched on as showing the thermore, that, if a person were plac- 
either absolute or wilful ignorance ed in such a position that even this 
under which writers of this stamp la- means could not reach him, the very 
bor when speaking of Catholics. He desire is sufficient, as sometimes hap- 
speaks of the Catholic doctrine with pens in the case of sudden conver- 
regard to sacraments in this loose sions and martyrdoms, 
way : " They are useful to infants As for Catholicity necessitating a 
and the dying. Men come to them ritual, all religions must more or less, 
for grace apart from the state of their Do men object to the old law be- 
own hearts." Now, Catholics will cause of its glorious ritual ? Is not 
perceive the utter absurdity of such the very Baptist-act of immersion a 
a statement at once. The sacrament ritual, and their singing in common ? 
of baptism is necessary to infants, who So much so that, for neglect of this 
f course are unconscious recipients of observance, Baptists cut off the 
it, as they are unconscious of the sin whole Christian body from commu- 



394 Beating the Air. 

nity with them. Which is harder to tained by the power of a true hidden 
believe the Catholic doctrine which life." This latter is a very saving 
teaches that we must obey the clause ; so truly hidden is the work 
church which we believe to be the that our author can point to no fruit 
only church of Christ, and in sup- resulting from it. And as for those 
port of which teaching we bring ''thousands of civilized and chris- 
forward some very substantial proofs, tianized disciples," we took the 
or this ? You may interpret God's trouble to look for them, and we 
Word as you please ; that alone is regret to say, for our author's vera- 
sufficient ; but you are not in com- city, found them all " wanting." 
munion with his church unless you Judson did not succeed in convert- 
are immersed ; a fact which it is very ing one either in Burmah or any- 
difficult to twist out of the Scriptures, where else; and his own sufferings 
Again, he shows his weakness in seem to have been reduced to the 
saying that " Francis Xavier, working martyrdom of marrying successively 
on the Catholic idea, baptized mil- three wives. 

lions of Asiatics, and believed that If then, as our author says, " Logi- 
in so doing he had saved their souls, cally there is no middle position 
But the heathen remained heathen between the high rock ground of 
still. There is no evidence, so far as Baptist truth and the low marsh 
I am aware, that under his labors ground of Catholic error ; all things 
one solitary soul was transformed follow their tendencies, and it is 
into the image of Jesus Christ." easier to go down an inclined plane 
Not one, but millions, so that Sir than to go up," we fear that, for all he 
James Stephens, a Protestant lecturer can do to prevent them, people will 
on history in a Protestant university, follow their natural tendencies. As 
calls him a saint, not only of the a last word, we would strongly re- 
Catholic Church, but of the world, commend him, before undertaking to 
Colleges were founded by him, and set a church in its true colors be- 
thousands of Christians suffered fore the eyes of men, to consider a 
martyrdom for the faith. But " Jud- little 'whether he knows anything 
son" is the apostle after our author's of the subject he is writing about, 
heart. Judson "lived to see thou- and not stultify himself by an 
sands of civilized and christianized ignorance which looks like malice, 
disciples in that dark Burman land ; though he calls it truth spoken in 
and the work still goes on, self-sus- love. 



A Retrospect. 



395 



A RETROSPECT. 



AND it fell out, says the chronicle, 
that Childebert, hunting one day in 
the forest of Compiegne in company 
with his wife Ultragade, was sudden- 
ly accosted by S. Marcoul, a holy 
man who stood in great repute of 
sanctity even during his lifetime ; he 
seized the king's bridle, and boldly 
petitioned alms for his poor and his 
church of Nanteuil, which was in a 
state of shameful unrepair. While he 
was yet speaking, a hare, pursued by 
the hounds, flew to the spot and took 
refuge under his mantle. S. Mar- 
coul, letting go the bridle to place 
his hand protectingly on the trem- 
bling refugee, the king's horse broke 
away, seeing which his piqueur 
rushed forward, and in tone of arro- 
gance exclaimed : 

" Miserable cleric ! how durst thou 
interrupt the king's chase ? Give 
back that hare, or I will strike thee 
for thine insolence !" 

The saint, humby unfolding his 
cloak, set free the hare ; it bounded 
away, and the dogs dashed after it. 
But lo! they had not made three 
strides, when they were struck mo- 
tionless, rooted to the ground as if 
turned to stone. The piqueur, in- 
furiated, flew after the hare, but he 
had not taken many strides, when he 
fell fearfully wounded by a large 
stone that had been hurled at him, 
no one saw whence, and laid his 
head open. The huntsmen, seized 
with terror, fell upon their knees, and 
implored the holy man to forgive 
them and intercede for the life of 
their companion. S. Marcoul for- 
gave them, and then, going towards 
the prostrate body of the piqueur, 



he touched it and prayed over it, 
and presently the stricken man rose 
up healed. Childebert, being quick- 
ly informed of the two miracles, 
hastened after the man of God and 
knelt for his blessing, and took him 
home that night to the shelter of the 
castle, and dismissed him the follow- 
ing day loaded with presents for his 
church and rich alms for his poor. 
So stands the legend. 

A witty Frenchman once said to 
a sceptic who sneered at the story 
of Mucius Scaevola : " My friend, I 
would not put my hand in the fire 
that Mucius Scaevola ever put his in 
it, but I should be desolated not to 
believe it." How much wiser was 
that Frenchman than the dull criti- 
cism of our XlXth century, that goes 
about with a broomstick sweeping 
away all the lovely fabrics that less 
prosaic ages have raised to mark 
their passage on the road of history 
a vicious old fairy, demolishing with 
her Haussmann wand the storied, 
moss-grown monuments of the past, 
giving us naught in their stead but 
ugly, rectangular blocks built with 
those stubborn bricks called facts, 
statistics, and 'such like ! Why try 
to prove to us that Frangois I.'s 
heroic Tout esl perdu fors Vhon- 
neur 7 was only the poetized essence 
of a rigmarole letter written not even 
from the field of Pa via, but from Pis- 
sighittone? Why insist that Philip 
Augustus never said to his barons, 
gathered with him round the altar, 
before the battle of Bouvines, " If 
there be one among you who feels 
that he is worthier than I to wear 
the crown of France, let him stand 



396 A Retrospect. 

forth and take it " ? True, Guillaume country ' for decrepit old women, 
le Breton, who wrote the history of and, afraid of missing the right one, 
the campaign and never left Philip caused the entire lot to be seized 
throughout, makes no mention of it, and put to death before her eyes, 
but what of that ? The story is far The details of the tortures inflicted 
too beautiful not to be true. Let us on them by the ruthless mother are 
turn a deaf ear, then, to this old hag too terrible to be described, 
called Criticism, or deal with her and Clotaire II. lived many years at 
her bricks and mortar as the Senate Compiegne, much beloved for his 
of Berne did with a man who wrote gentle and benevolent disposition, 
a book to prove that William Tell but nothing particular marks that 
never shot the apple, and, in fact, period. King Dagobert made it 
that it was doubtful whether he and likewise his principal residence, and 
the apple were not both a myth, enriched the surrounding country 
The Senate burnt the book by the with many fine churches and noble 
hand of the hangman publicly in monasteries. The most celebrated 
the market-place. We will deal in of these was the Abbey of S. Ouen's 
like manner with any profane mortal Cross. The king was out hunting, 
who questions the authenticity of the one hot summer's day in the year 
legend of S. Marcoul's hare, which of grace 631, and emerging from 
furnishes the first mention we find in the forest to the open road, he sud- 
history of the chateau of Compiegne. denly saw before him a gigantic cross 
The forest was its chief attraction of snow. Marvelling much at the 
to the kings of old Gaul, as it has unseasonable apparition, he sent for 
been in later days to their successors. S. Ouen, who dwelt in the wood 
Clotaire I. met with an accident hard by, and bade him interpret its 
while hunting there in 561, and died meaning to him. The saint replied 
of it; he was interred at Soissons, that he saw in the sign a command 
whither his fourteen sons accom- to the king to build a church on the 
panied him, bearing torches and sing- site of the miraculous cross. No 
ing psalms all the way. Fredegonda sooner had he said this, than the 
made the merry hunting-lodge the cross began to melt, and presently 
scene of atrocities never surpassed vanished like a shadow. Dagobert 
even by her, fertile as she was in at once set about obeying the man- 
inventive cruelties. Her infant son date uttered in the peaceful symbol, 
fell ill of a fever at Compiegne and and raised on the road from Corn- 
died, while the son of the prefect, piegne to Verberie the stately pile 
Mumondle, who was taken ill with called the Abbaye de la Croix de 
the same illness at the same time, re- S. Ouen. 

covered. The courtiers, thinking to Many other foundations followed, 
allay the despair of the terrible but no event of note took place at 
mother by giving it an outlet in Compiegne till Louis le Debonnaire 
revenge, whispered to her certain appeared on the scene in 757 unless, 
stories that were current in the vil- indeed, we may record as such the 
lage about a witch who had sacri- arrival there of the first organ ever 
ficed the royal infant to secure the seen in France. It was sent as a 
potency of her charms in favor of present to Pepin by the Emperor 
the life of the other. Fredegonda Constantine, and the first time it was 
caught at the bait like a tiger at the played a woman is said to have swoon- 
taste of blood. She scoured the ed, and awoke only to die. Louis le 



A Retrospect. 397 

Debonnaire lived chiefly at Verberie, king was forced to take the field once 
the magnificent palace of Charle- more in defence of his crown ; he 
magne, a right royal abode, befitting fell fighting against his three sons on 
the greatest monarch of France, the frontiers of the Rhine, and ex- 
Bronze, and marble, and precious pired with words of mercy and for- 
stones, and stained glass, and all giveness on his lips, 
costly and beautiful materials were In 866, Charles the Bald held a 
lavished with oriental prodigality on splendid court at Compiegne to re- 
this wonderful Verberie, whose colos- ceive the ambassadors whom he had 
sal towers and frowning battlements sent on a mission to Mahomet at 
and elaborately wrought gates and Cordova, and who returned laden 
gables were the marvel of the age with costly presents from the Turkish 
and the theme of many a trouba- prince to their master. Charles did 
dour's song. But what monument a great deal to improve Compiegne; 
built by the hand of man can with- the old chateau of Clovis, which was 
stand the ravages of man's ruthless no better than a hunting-lodge grown 
passions ? The palace of the Gallic into a fortress, he threw down and 
Caesar was not proof against the rebuilt, not on its old site, in the 
successive wars and sieges that bat- centre of the town, but on the banks 
tered its massive walls, till not even of the Oise. Louis III. and Charles 
a vestige of the wonderful pile re- the Simple spent the greater part of 
mains to mark where it stood. their respective reigns at Compiegne, 
The sons of Louis le Debonnaire, and added to the number of its insti- 
Louis, Pepin, and Lothair, rebelled tutions primitive enough some of 
against their father ; Lothair got pos- them for the instruction of the peo- 
session of his person, stripped him of pie. " Good King Robert ' comes 
all the ornaments of royalty, clothed next in the progress of royal tenants 
him in sackcloth, and in this unseem- (1017): his name was long a house- 
ly plight exhibited the old king to hold word among the people to whom 
the insults and mockeries of the peo- his goodness and liberality had en- 
pie. After this he compelled him to deared him. One day at a banquet, 
lay his sword upon the altar, and sign where he was dispensing food to a 
his abdication in favor of the unnatu- multitude of poor and rich, a robber 
ral son, who presided in cold-blooded stole unobserved close up to him, and, 
triumph at the impious ceremony. As under pretence of doing homage to 
soon as this was done he sent his the king, clung to his knees, and be- 
father, bound hand and foot, to Com- gan diligently cutting away the gold 
piegne, where he was kept a close fringe of his cloak. Robert let him 
prisoner. Lothair's brothers, how- go on till he was about halfway 
ever, hearing of this, were moved to round, and then, stooping down, he 
indignation, and, stimulated perhaps whispered discreetly : " Go, now, 
not a little by jealousy of the success- my friend, and leave the rest for some 
ful rival who had started with them, other poor fellow." Like many 
but secured all the winnings for him- another wise and good man, Robert 
self, they set out for Compiegne, was harassed by his wife ; she was a 
stormed the fortress, and set free the hard and haughty woman, who, while 
king. But the unhappy father was professing great love for him, made 
not to enjoy long the freedom he owed his home wretched to him by her 
to these filial deliverers. Louis again quarrels and her domineering tern- 
rose up in arms against him, and the per. The people knew it, and hated 



398 



A Retrospect. 



Constance; but, like the king, they 
bore it rather than quarrel with the 
shrew. " Let us have peace, though 
it cost a little high!" the hen- 
pecked husband was for ever repeat- 
ing ; and his people seemed to have 
been of one mind with him, for Con- 
stance ruled both him and them with 
her rod of nettles to the end, and 
had her own way in everything. 

Philip II.'s occupation of Com- 
pie"gne, which in those days of sim- 
ple faith, when religious fervor ran 
high, had a significance that can 
hardly be appreciated in our own 
chill twilight days, so slow to see be- 
yond the material world, so reluctant 
to recognize the supernatural as an 
aim or a motive power in the great 
movements that enlist men's energies 
and direct them, changing the face 
of nations. This was the translation 
of the holy winding-sheet from the 
casket of carved ivory in which it 
had been given to Charlemagne, along 
with many other relics of the same 
date,* by Constantine II. and the 
King of Persia, as a reward for his 
services in expelling the Saracens 
from the Holy Land into a reliquary 
of pure gold, inlaid with jewels. 
The holy shroud, when it was taken 
by Charles the Bald to the Abbey of 
S. Corneille at Compiegne, is thus 
described in the proces-verbal of the 
translation, given at full length in the 
Grandes Chroniques : "It was a 
cloth so ancient that one could with 
difficulty discern the original quality 
of the stuff, being two yards (aunes) 
in length and a little more than one 
yard in width. . . . The liquors 

* The scourge used by one of the executioners 
at the pillar was amongst the number, and is 
now to be seen in the cathedral of Aachen. It 
is composed of narrow leathern thongs, termi- 
nated by an iron point, the whitish color of the 
leather bearing manifest stains of the precious 
blood that bespattered it. Constantine's signet, 
the eagle and ciphers, is distinctly visible on the 
time-worn, faded seal, that looks like a sort of 
hard chalk. The reliquary is a crystal vase, en- 
cased in gold and gems. 



and aromatic ointments used in the 
embalmment had rendered it thicker 
than ordinary linen, and prevent one 
from discerning the color of the stuff, 
esteemed by the greater number of 
the spectators to be of pure flax, 
woven after the manner of the cloth 
of Damascus." There are old pic- 
tures still extant, representing Charles " 
amidst a vast concourse of prelates 
and nobles, accompanying the relic 
with prayer and solemn ceremonial. 
In 1093, Matilda of England, on 
rising from an illness which had been 
considered mortal, sent as a thank-of- 
fering for her recovery a costly shrine 
of gold and precious stones to Philip 
II., with a request that the holy 
shroud might be placed in it. Philip, 
in a charter drawn up and signed by 
himself, thus testifies to the gift and 
the translation : " It has pleased us 
to place in a shrine (chasse) of gold, 
enriched with precious stones, and 
given to this church by the Queen 
of England, the relics of our Saviour; 
we have beheld this cloth (linge), in 
which the body of our Lord reposed, 
and which we call shroud (si/aire), 
according to the holy evangelist, and 
which has been withdrawn from the 
ivory vase." We cannot realize, we 
say, how an event like this would stir 
the hearts of men in those days. 
Peter the Hermit was preaching the 
first crusade ; his burning eloquence, 
like a lever, uplifting the arm of 
Christendom, and compelling every 
man who could draw a sword to shoul- 
der the cross and go forth to fight and 
die for the deliverance of the tqmb, 
where for three days their Lord had 
lain wrapped in this winding-sheet. 
The union of mystical devotion and 
enthusiastic service which character- 
ized the crusaders was fed by every 
circumstance that tended to embody 
to their senses those mysteries which 
had their birth in that remote eastern 
land towards which they were hasten- 



A Retrospect. 



399 



ing, and the transfer of this sacred 
memento of the Passion from its sim- 
ple ivory casket to a sumptuous one 
of gold and gems, the offering of a 
powerful sovereign, occurring at such 
a moment, was calculated to arouse 
a more than ordinary interest. They 
hailed the honors so apportioned paid 
to the holy shroud as a symbol and 
a promise ; their faith, already quick- 
ened by the renunciation of all that 
made life dear, home, kindred, nay, 
life itself, for the deliverance of the 
Sepulchre, was stimulated to more 
heroic sacrifice; their hope was in- 
tensified to prophecy, by what ap- 
peared like a typical coincidence, a 
manifestation of divine approval that 
must ensure beyond all doubt the 
success of their enterprise. We 
should not be astonished, then, at 
the paramount importance assigned 
by the historians of that time to this 
event, but recognize therein the sign 
of our own condemnation, and of a 
spirit that is no longer of our day, 
but belongs, like those glorious relics, 
to a bright and glowing past.* 

Philip's son, Louis le Gros, like his 
father, lived principally at Com- 
piegne; while he was away carrying 
on the second crusade, his incompara- 
ble minister, Suger, took up his abode 
there, and, dividing his time between 
prayer and the business of the state, 
governed wisely during the king's 
absence. 

When another crusading hero, Phi- 
lip Augustus, offered his hand and his 
crown to the fair Agnes de Meranie, 
destined to expiate in tears and exile 
the ill-fated love of the king and her 

* It is not within the limits of this sketch to fol- 

SaintSuaire" through its subsequent 

ranslations, but it may interest such of our 

saders as are not acquainted with the fact, that 

s now at Aix-la-Chapelle, where every seven 

s opened by the chief prelates of Catho- 

Germany, and in the presence of princes and 

shops exposed to the veneration of the faith- 

l for three days, the church bells ringing all 

time, and the cathedral crowded day and 

night. 



own short-lived happiness, it was at 
Compiegne that he presented her to 
the court and the people ; it was here 
that amidst pomp and popular re- 
joicing the marriage was celebrated. 
But the most curious episode in 
the whole range of the annals of 
Compiegne is perhaps that of a 
claimant whose story opens at this 
date. Baldwin IX., Count of Flan- 
ders and Hainaut, usually called 
Baldwin of Constantinople, before 
starting for the Holy Land came to 
Compiegne to swear fealty to the 
King of France, who invested him 
with knighthood on the same day 
that Agnes, like a softly shining star 
of peace and love, rose upon the 
troubled horizon of the kingdom. 
At Constantinople Baldwin was pro- 
claimed emperor, and solemnly 
crowned by the pope's legate at S. 
Sophia (1204). He immediately 
sent off his crown of gold to his be- 
loved young wife, Marie de Cham- 
pagne, desiring her to hasten to re- 
join him, and share his new-found 
honors. The countess obeyed the com- 
mand and set sail for Constantino- 
ple, but, overcome by the unexpected 
news of her husband's election to the 
throne, she died upon the journey. 
Baldwin's grief was inconsolable ; he 
laid her to rest in S. Sophia, the 
scene of his recent honors, and swore 
upon her tomb never to marry again, 
but to devote himself henceforth to 
the sole business of war : he kept his 
vow, and began that series of bril- 
liant feats which culminated in his 
triumphant entry to Adrianople. 
Such was the fame of his prowess 
that powerful chiefs trembled at his 
very name: Joanice, the formidable 
king of the Bulgarians, sent a mes- 
sage to " the great French warrior," 
humbly praying for his friendship. 
But the warrior mistrusted these 
overtures, and haughtily repulsed 
them. Whereupon Joanice, full of 



I 

400 A Retrospect. 

wrath, vowed vengeance, and in^due session of the throne when the report 

time kept his vow. He raised an was bruited about that her father was 

army, made war on Baldwin, whom alive; he had been seen by some pil- 

he took prisoner after a fearful grims journeying through Servia, 

slaughter of his army at the battle of who having lost their way in the for- 

Adrianople. When the news of the est of Glaucon came upon the grotto 

disaster reached Flanders, Henri of of a hermit, and were taken in and 

Hainaut, brother of Baldwin, was at restored by him and sheltered for the 

once proclaimed regent ; he con- night. This hermit, they recognized as 

tinued the war against Joanice, but their former prince, Baldwin ; he was 

without success, nor could he by much altered by suffering, and his 

bribes, concessions, or threats obtain long white beard and uncouth garb 

the emperor's release ; Joanice would were calculated to disguise him from 

not even vouchsafe to reply to any eyes but such as had known him 

any of his overtures on the subject, well, but the pilgrims recognized 

All else failing, the pope interfered, him at once; they, however, dis- 

and besought the conqueror not to erectly forebore announcing the fact x 

sully his triumph by revenge, worthy till they brought other witnesses to 

only of a savage, but to treat mag- corroborate their own assurance, 

nanimously, or at least according to They returned soon with several 

the rules of civilized warfare, for the trustworthy persons who had known 

ransom of his captive. To this ap- Baldwin too well to mistake his iden- 

peal Joanice condescended to reply tity after any lapse of years, and 

that, alas! it was no longer in his these declared unhesitatingly that the 

power, or any man's, to comply with hermit was no other than the hero of 

the desires of his holiness. The an- Adrianople. 

swer was taken for an announcement Baldwin, rinding his secret dis- 
of Baldwin's death, and universally covered, fled to a distant and more 
accepted as such. Stories soon be- inaccessible part of the forest ; he 
gan to eke out concerning the horri- was tracked thither, and again fled ; 
ble tortures practised on the unfortu- but the pursuers finally got posses - 
nate prince by his cruel captor; sion of him, and dragged him by 
some accredited eye-witness declared main force into the neighboring 
that he had been barbarously muti- town ; the people flocked eagerly to 
lated, his hands and arms cut off, see him, and with one voice they 
and in this state thrown to the wild proclaimed him their long-lost Bald- 
beasts, his skull being afterwards win, welcoming him with joyful ac- 
made into a drinking-cup for the clamations as a father returned from 
brutal Joanice, who had stood by the dead. Whether this popular wel- 
gloating over the spectacle of his vie- come merely emboldened the real 
tim's agony. Years went by and no- Baldwin to confess his identity and, 
thing transpired to throw the least as a necessary consequence, claim 
doubt on the fact of Baldwin's death, his rights, or whether it suggested to 
though the accounts as to the man^ the false one the idea of simulating 
ner of it were somewhat conflicting, the person whom he resembled and 
Henri of Hainaut was proclaimed was taken for, it is impossible to say, 
sovereign of Flanders ; after reigning but at any rate from this period we 
ten years he died, and was succeed- no longer see him dragged, but 
ed by Jeanne, eldest daughter of marching forth, of his own free-will, 
Baldwin. She was not long in pos- from town to town, and surrounded 



A Retrospect. 401 

by all the paraphernalia of an injured wielded the sceptre, was condemned 
claimant. His march was not, how- to dig the earth ; I dug until some 
ever, one of unbroken triumph ; the German merchants, to whom I con- 
town of Flanders refused to believe fided my story, ransomed me, and 
in him, and indignantly scouted him- sent me back to my country, and lo ! 
self and his followers as a band of I arrive and show myself, and you 
impostors. The daughters of the repulse me ! My daughter Jeanne 
dead man, Jeanne and Marguerite, refuses to own me in order not to re- 
refused to believe in him, and de- sign her rank and subside into the 
nounced him as a malefactor whose subject of a court !" Unmoved by 
aim was to stir up disorder in the this touching denunciation, Jeanne 
state for his own ambitious purposes, persisted in disowning him, but, fail- 
But Jeanne's government was odious ing to prove her case, she referred it 
to the people; to escape from her to Louis VII. of France. Louis, 
harsh and cruel rule they would have much interested in the extraordinary 
willingly adopted any claimant who story, willingly undertook the arbitra- 
came with a fair show of right to tion. The claimant, on his side, 
enlist their credulity. Jeanne knew testified great satisfaction on hearing 
this, and at once took strong mea- that his fate was placed in the hands 
sures to put down the movement, of a wise and powerful monarch, who 
It proved more difficult than she was sure to prove a just and discern- 
anticipated. Before many months ing judge ; he set out in high spirits 
the country was in a blaze, divided to Compiegne, where the king was 
into two camps, one of believers, the then residing. Attired in the violet 
other disbelievers, but both ready to robes of a hermit, and bearing a 
devour each other to prove and dis- white wand in his hand, he entered' 
prove their special theories. A wit- the august assembly with a counte- 
ness whose testimony went hard nance full of unblushing assurance, 
against the claimant was that of the saluted the King of France with an 
old bailiff of Quesnoy ; he had known air of proud equality, and noticed the 
Baldwin from a child, and mourned barons and knights by a courtly in- 
over him like a father, and, when he clination of the head. Louis, who 
now appeared at the castle gates and had carefully studied the case, con- 
demanded admittance, the old man ducted the examination himself; he 
refused to open to him, and vowed put many subtle and perplexing 
solemnly that he was not his master, questions to the supposed Baldwin 
but a base impostor. The conduct concerning events which had passed 
of this stubborn sceptic drew forth a in his youth, and which it was 
pathetic appeal from the claimant, thought impossible he could have 
" I find," he says, " more cruel ene- learned from any one he had seen 
mies in my own house than in the since his return, and the claimant 
land of strangers. Flanders, my answered accurately with an assur- 
mother, dost thou repulse thy son ance that carried conviction with it. 
whom Greece and Macedonia re- The examination lasted several 
ceived with open arms! I escaped hours, and, the closer it pressed him, 
from Adrianople through the care- the more triumphantly it established 
lessness of my guards; I fell into the his identity. The witnesses who 
hands of barbarians, who dragged boasted of being able to confound 
me to the distant plains of Asia ; the imposture in the twinkling of an 
there, like a vile slave, I, who had eye were themselves confounded ; 
VOL. xvi. 26 



402 



A Retrospect. 



they withdrew covered with con- 
fusion, and vowing inwardly that 
" this man was sold to the devil," as 
only the father of lies could have 
told him so many hidden things, and 
borne him to success through such a 
quagmire of difficulties. There was, 
indeed, much conflicting evidence 
forthcoming. Henri, his brother, 
was dead, but the Dukes of Brabant 
and Limbourg, cousins and contem- 
poraries of Baldwin's, swore that the 
claimant was the real man ; on the 
other hand, sixteen knights of unim- 
peachable honor swore to having 
seen the real man dead on the field 
of Adrianople. The king, after hear- 
ing with great patience, and weighing 
most impartially what was said on 
both sides, declared in favor of the 
claimant. The excitement was in- 
describable when he rose to pro- 
nounce the verdict ; but at this point 
the Bishop of Beauvais stepped from 
his seat, and, holding up his right 
hand, adjured Louis to suspend for 
one moment the final words while he 
put a few short questions to the her- 
mit. The king consented; a death- 
like silence fell upon the assembly, 
and the bishop, going close up to the 
hermit, who was seated on a chair in 
the centre of the great hall, address- 
ed him thus in a loud voice : 

" Answer me three questions: ist, 
In what place did you render homage 
to King Philip Augustus ? 2d, By 
whom were you invested with the 
order of knighthood ? 3d, Where did 
you marry Marie de Champagne ? " 

The claimant stammered, grew 
pale, and, after a vain attempt to 
fence with the questions, broke down. 
Extraordinary as it may seem, he had 
never given a thought to these prom- 
inent events in the life of Baldwin of 
Constantinople, or foreseen that he 
would be questioned concerning 
them. The enthusiastic sympathy 
of the court was changed in an in- 



stant to rage and scorn. Sentence 
of death was pronounced on the hei- 
mit of Glaucon on a charge of high 
treason, conspiring, fraud, perjury, 
and the long list of iniquities that 
make up the sum of a claimant's 
budget. But having thus far acquit- 
ted himself of his office, the king 
handed over the criminal to Jeanne 
to be dealt with as she thought fit. 
In those rough and ready days there 
were no back-stairs for a plucky claim- 
ant to escape by, no counsel to save 
him with a nonsuit, or such like 
modern convenience; the make-be- 
lieve Baldwin was without more ado 
hung up between two dogs on the 
market-place of Flanders. Some 
chroniclers throw uncomfortable 
doubts on the justice of the execu- 
tion; a few maintain that this was 
the true man, and anathematize 
Jeanne as a parricide who sacrificed 
her own father to the love of power. 
Pere Cahour, who is certainly a con- 
scientious writer, speaks of her, on 
the other hand, as a just and upright 
woman, utterly incapable of so dia- 
bolical a crime, and stoutly vindicates 
the evidence of the sixteen knights, 
though how he adapts it to the belief 
in Baldwin's capture by Joanice, 
which appears to have been general 
after the battle of Adrianople, it is 
difficult to see. The Chronique de 
Meyer, again, denounces Jeanne as an 
execrable monster, and declares that 
the man who was hanged was the 
real Baldwin. Clearly claimants 
have been always a troublesome 
race to deal with; even hanging does 
not seem to make an end of them, 
for their claims outlive them, and 
leave to historians a legacy of doubt 
and discord that is exceedingly diffi- 
cult to settle. 

The passage of S. Louis at Com- 
piegne is marked by an event charac- 
teristic of him and of his time. He 
had ransomed from the Venetians at 



The Russian Clergy. 



403 



at an enormous price the crown of 
thorns of our Saviour. To do it 
public honor he carried it bare-head- 
ed and bare-footed from the wood of 
Vincennes to the Cathedral of Notre 
Dame, and thence to the Sainte Cha- 
pelle, that gemlike little shrine which 
had been raised expressly to receive 
the priceless relic, and whose beauty 
is invested with a fresh interest since 
it escaped the fire of the Communists ; 
the Conciergerie and the Palais de 
Justice were burning so close to it 
that the flames might have licked its 
walls, yet not even one of its wonder- 
ful stained-glass windows was injured. 



Other monuments S. Louis left be- 
hind him, not built of stone or pre- 
cious metals, but which have never- 
theless endured and come down to 
us unimpaired by the lapse of ages, 
while houses and castles of stony 
granite have crumbled away, leaving 
no record on the hearts of men. 
Compiegne in the days of the saint- 
ly king was the refuge of God's poor, 
of the sick and the sorrowing; S. 
Louis gave up to them all the rooms 
he could spare from his household, 
and devoted to tending and serving 
them with his own hands what time he 
could steal from the affairs of state. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



THE RUSSIAN CLERGY. 



WE have heard nothing new of 
late about the project of certain zeal- 
ous Anglicans and members of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
United States to establish commu- 
nion between their churches and the 
schismatic Oriental Christians in the 
empire of Russia. It seemed fitting 
enough at first glance that the special 
variety of Christianity introduced by 
Henry VIII. should agree with the 
methods of ecclesiastical discipline 
prescribed by an equally autocratic 
sovereign at the opposite extremity 
of Europe ; and there were, of course, 
abundant reasons why the Anglicans 
and their American descendants 
should covet a recognition from a 
branch of the church which, what- 
ever its corruptions and irregularities, 
can at least make good its connec- 
tion with the parent stem. Our 
readers have not forgotten, however, 



how coldly the overtures of these am- 
bitious Protestants were received. 
The Russian clergy ridiculed the 
hierarchical pretensions of their En- 
glish and American friends. They 
denied their apostolical succession. 
They questioned their right to call 
themselves churchmen at all ; and, in 
short, looked upon them as no better 
than heretics, and not very consistent 
heretics either. The movement for 
union was a foolish one, begun in ut- 
ter misconception of the radical dif- 
ferences between the two parties, and 
sure from the first to end in discomfit- 
ure and irritation. 

Indeed, it was even more foolish 
than most of us still suppose. Not 
only was it impossible for the Russian 
Church to make the concessions re- 
quired of it, but there is no reason 
to believe that the Episcopalians 
would have been very well satisfied 



404 



The Russian Clergy. 



with their new brethren had the alli- 
ance been effected. The Russian 
Church is an organization which 
stands far apart from every other in 
the world, presenting some monstrous 
features which even Protestantism 
cannot parallel. The Jesuit Father 
Gagarin has published a very curious 
work on the condition and prospects 
of the Russian clergy,* which would 
perhaps have modified the zeal of the 
English and American petitioners for 
union and recognition if they could 
have read it before making their re- 
cent overtures. We see here the 
rottenness and uselessness into which 
a national church falls when it is cut 
off from the centre of Christian unity 
and the source of Christian life. 

The Russian priests are divided into 
two classes, the white and the black 
clergy, or seculars and monks. The 
great difference between them is, 
the white clergy are married, and the 
black are celibates. Whatever learn- 
ing there is in the ecclesiastical order 
is found among the monks. The 
bishops are always chosen from the 
monastic class ; and the two classes 
hate each other with remarkable 
heartiness. The marriage of priests 
is an old custom in the East, which 
antedates the organization of the 
Russian schism. It prevails in some 
of the united Oriental churches to 
this day. But in Russia it exists in 
a peculiarly aggravated form. Peter 
I. and his successors, by a multitude 
of despotic ukases, succeeded in erect- 
ing the white clergy into a strict 
caste, making the clerical profession 
practically hereditary, and marriage 
a necessary condition of the secular 
clerical state. The candidate for or- 
ders has his choice between matri- 
mony and the monastery ; one of the 

* The Russian Clergy. Translated from the 
French of Father Gagarin, S.J. By Ch. Du 
Card Makepeace, M.A. London: Burns & 
Gates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Ca- 
tholic Publication Society.) 



two he must embrace before he can 
be ordained. 

The rule seems to have originated 
in an attempt to improve the educa- 
tion of the white clergy. The de- 
plorable ignorance of the order led 
the government to establish ecclesi- 
astical schools. But the schools re- 
mained deserted. The clergy were 
then ordered to send their children to 
them, and sometimes the pupils were 
arrested by the police and taken to 
school in chains. The Czar Alexan- 
der I. ordered, in 1808 and 1814, 
that all clerks' children between six 
and eight years of age should be at 
the disposal of the ecclesiastical 
schools; and, that there might be 
no lack of children, the candidate for 
the priesthood was compelled to take 
a wife before he could take orders. 
Once in the seminary, the scholar has 
no prospect before him except an ec- 
clesiastical life. He cannot embrace 
any other career without special per- 
mission, which is almost invariably 
refused. At the same time, the semi- 
naries are closed against all except 
the sons of the clergy. The son of 
a nobleman, a merchant, a citizen, a 
peasant, who wanted to enter, would 
meet with insurmountable obstacles, 
unless he chose to become a monk. 

Thus the paternal government of 
the czar secures first an unfailing sup- 
ply of pastors for the Russian Church, 
which otherwise might be insuffi- 
ciently served ; and, secondly, a career 
for the children of the clergy, free 
from the competition of outside can- 
didates. And, indeed, the priests 
might very well say : Since you com- 
pel us to marry, you are bound, at 
least, to furnish a support for our off- 
spring. But the system does not 
stop here. What shall be done with 
the priests' daughters ? In the de- 
graded condition of the Russian 
Church, where the white clergy or 
popes are popularly ranked lower in 



The Russian Clergy. 405 

the social scale than petty shop- ed by several persons concurrently, 
keepers or noblemen's servants, these each going at the top of his speed, 
young women could not expect to The clerks of the lower ranks, how- 
find husbands except among the ever, may pursue a trade, but they are 
peasantry, and they might not readily all enrolled in the same caste, out of 
find them there. The obvious course which they must not marry. The 
is to make them marry in their own number of parish priests in Russia is 
order. The seminarian, therefore, by about 36,000; of deacons, 12,444; 
a further regulation of the paternal of inferior clerics, 63,421. One-half 
government, is not only obliged to the revenue of the parish belongs to 
marry, whether he will or no. but he the priest, one-quarter to the deacon, 
must marry a priest's daughter, and and one-eighth to each of the two 
some bishops are so careful of the clerics. The prizes of the profession 
welfare of their subjects that they are the chaplaincies to schools, col- 
will not suffer a clerk to marry out leges, prisons, hospitals, in the army, 
of his own diocese. Special schools in the navy, about the court, etc., 
are established for these daughters of most of which are liberally paid. The 
the church ; and we could imagine a parochial clergy are supported by : 
curious course of instruction at such i. Property belonging to the parish, 
institutions, if the Russian ecclesias- chiefly in the towns, yielding about 
tical schools really attempted to fit $500,000 per annum ; 2. A govern- 
their pupils for the life before them ; ment allowance of $3,000,000 per 
but, as we shall see further on, they annum; 3. About $20,000,000 per 
do nothing of the kind. annum contributed by parishioners ; 

Sometimes it happens that a priest 4. Perpetual foundations, with ob- 
has built a house on land belonging ligation to pray for the departed, in- 
to the church. He dies, leaving a vested in government funds at four 
son or a daughter. His successor in per cent, say $1,075,000. The ave- 
the parish has a right to the use of rage income of a priest is thus about 
the land, but what shall be done with $341. In addition to this, however, 
the house ? The law solves this dif- each parish has a glebe, of which the 
ficulty by providing that the living usufruct belongs to the clergy. The 
shall either be saved for the son (who minimum extent of this church do- 
may be a babe in arms), or given to main is about eighty acres, and it is 
any young Levite who will marry the divided after the same rule as the 
daughter. Thus the clerical caste is revenues, namely, one-half to the 
made in every way as compact and priest, one-quarter to the deacon, and 
comfortable as possible, and, for a the remainder to the inferior clerks, 
man of mean extraction, moderate When there is no deacon, the priest's 
ambition, and small learning, becomes share is, of course, proportionately 
a tolerable, if not a brilliant career. larger. In many parishes, the glebe 

The clergy of a fully supplied par- is much more extensive than eighty 

ish consists of a priest, a deacon, and acres. In Central Russia, it amounts 

two clerics, who perform the duties sometimes to 250, 500, even 2,500 

of lector, sacristan, beadle, bell-ring- acres ; and, in those fertile prov- 

er, etc. The deacon has little to do, inces known as the Black Lands, the 

except to share on Sunday in the share of the priest alone is sometimes 

recitation of the liturgy, which, being as much as 150 acres. At St. Peters- 

inordinately long, is sometimes di- burg, the church provides the par- 

vided into sections and read or chant- ish priest a comfortable and elegant 



406 The Russian Clergy. 

home. " The furniture is from the attired with elegance ; they do not 
first shops in Petersburg. Rich car- discard crinoline, and never go out 
pets cover the floors of the drawing- without a parasol " except, of 
room, study, and chamber ; the win- course, when they are going to hoe 
dows display fine hangings ; the walls, corn and dig potatoes, 
valuable pictures. Footmen in liv- The voluntary contributions of the 
ery are not rarely seen in the ante- parishioners are collected, or enforc- 
room. The dinners given by these ed, in a variety of ways, and paid in 
cures are highly appreciated by the a variety of forms. Towards the 
most delicate epicures. Occasionally feast of S. Peter each house gives 
their salons are open for a soiree or from three to five eggs and a little 
a ball ; ordinarily it is on the occa- milk. After the harvest, each house 
sion of a wedding, or the birthday of gives a certain quantity of wheat, 
the cure, or on the patron saint's day. When a child is born, the priest is 
The apartments are then magnifi- called in to say a few prayers over 
cently lighted up ; the toilettes of the the mother, and give a name to the 
ladies dazzling ; the dancing is to the baby ; the fee for this is a loaf and 
music of an orchestra of from seven to from 4 to 8 cents. Baptism brings from 
ten musicians. At supper the table 8 to 24 cents more. For a second 
is spread with delicacies, and cham- visitation and prayers at the end of 
pagne flows in streams. A Peters- six weeks there is a fee of a dozen 
burg cure, recently deceased, loved eggs. At betrothals the priest gets a 
to relate that at his daughter's nup- loaf, some brandy, and sometimes a 
tials champagne was drunk to the goose or a sucking-pig. For a mar- 
value of 300 roubles (48)." riage he is paid from $i 60 to $3 20 ; 
Considering the education and for a burial, from 80 cents to $i 60; 
social standing of a Russian priest, for a Mass for the dead, from 28 to 
this is not bad. In the rural districts 64 cents ; for prayers for the dead, 
there is much less clerical luxury ; which are often repeated, 4 or 8 
there is even a great deal of poverty cents each time ; for prayers read at 
and hardship. But we must not the cemetery on certain days every 
forget that the rustic clergy is but a year, some rice, a cake, or some 
little higher in culture than the rud- pastry. The peasants often have a Te 
est of the peasantry, and a life which Deum chanted either on birthday or 
would seem intolerable to an Ameri- name-day, or to obtain some special 
can laborer is elysium to a Russian favor; the fee for that is from 8 to 
hind. Most, even of country priests, 16 cents. The penitent always pays 
have comfortable houses, well fur- something when he receives absolu- 
nished with mahogany and walnut ; tion ; but as confession is not frequent 
and, though they do not eat meat in the Russian Church, the income 
every day that the church allows it, from this source must be smp.ll. In 
they have their balls and dancing the towns the fee is often as high as 
parties, at which their daughters $i, $2, $4, and even more. Among 
dance with the young men from the the peasantry it sometimes does not 
neighboring theological seminaries, exceed a kopec (one cent) ; but if the 
The wives and daughters of the penitent wishes to receive commu- 
reverend gentlemen, to be sure, have nion, he must renew his offering 
to labor sometimes in the fields ; but several times. At Easter, Christmas, 
" they are dressed by the milliner of the Epiphany, the beginning and end 
the place ; you will always see them of Lent, and on the patron saint's 



The Russian Clergy. 



407 



day, which sometimes occurs two or 
three times a year, it is customary to 
have prayers chanted in every house 
in the parish, for which the charge 
varies in the rural districts from 4 
cents to 60 cents each visit, accord- 
ing to the importance of the occa- 
sion. In the large cities the fees are 
much more considerable. Father 
Gagarin cites the case of a parishion- 
er in St. Petersburg to whom the 
clergy presented themselves in this 
manner twenty-seven times in a 
single year, and at each call he had 
to give them something. This, 
however, was an exception. Gene- 
rally the visits are only fifteen a year. 
" Sometimes it happens," continues 
our author, " that the peasant can- 
not or will not give what the priest 
asks. Hence arise angry disputes. 
One priest so runs the story un- 
able to overcome the obstinacy of a 
peasant refusing to pay for the pray- 
ers read in his house, declared that 
he would reverse them. He had just 
before chanted, " Benedictus Deus 
noster " he now intoned, " NON 
Benedictus, NON Deus, NON noster" 
thus intercalating a non before each 
word. The affrighted peasant, the 
chronicle says, instantly complied. 
Often enough, too, in spite of all the 
prohibitions of the synod, the wives 
and children of the priests, deacons, 
and clerks accompany their husbands 
and fathers, and stretch out their 
hands also. The worst of all this is 
that the Russian peasant, while long 
disputing merely about a few cen- 
times, will think himself insulted un- 
less the priest accept a glass of bran- 
dy. And when the circuit of all the 
houses in the village has to be made, 
though he stay only a few minutes 
in each, this last gift is not without 
its inconveniences." It must be an 
edifying round certainly. But then 
the reverend gentleman has a wife 
to help him home. 



The black clergy is not in a much 
better condition than the white. All 
the monasteries are supposed to be 
under the rule of S. Basil ; but they 
are not united in congregations, each 
establishment being independent of 
all the rest. Most of them do not 
observe the great religious rule of 
poverty and community of goods, 
but each monk has own purse, and 
the superiors are often wealthy. One 
hundred years ago, the number of 
convents, not reckoning those in 
Little and White Russia, was 954. 
The ukase of Catharine II., which 
confiscated the property of the clergy, 
suppressed all but 400. Since then 
the number has increased, and Father 
Gagarin gives the following statistics: 





o 


'o 


OT 






en 


if 
E 


2 _; 


en C 




en 
M 


en 


. 3 

3.2 


8 


g 


3 
> 


> 


a 
o 


3 


^ 


^^ 


g 


c> 


*" Q 


^3 


+ 


L^ C) 







o ^ 


r\ 






p^ 




O 


O 










1815 


387 


9 1 


478 


4900 


1696 


6596 


1818 

















7000 


1830 


408 


IOI 


59 











1835 










4396 


3161 


7557 


1836 


410 


102 


5" 


4432 


2544 


6976 


1837 


412 


I0 3 


515 


5703 


2655 


8358 


1838 


435 


"3 


548 


6724 


2352 


9076 


1849 


462 


123 


585 


5105 


2595 


7700 


1850 


464 


123 


587 


4978 


2313 


7291 


1860 


614 


137 


75i 









The great increase in the number 
of monks between 1836 and 1838 
is accounted for by the forcible 
incorporation of the United Greeks. 
This was not formally effected until 
1839, but the United Greeks were 
reckoned as part of the Russian 
Church in 1838, and many of their 
monks were transferred from their 
own to the non-united monasteries 
earlier than that. It will be seen, 
however, that the increase thus ob- 
tained was not permanent. 

The curious discrepancy between 
the number of monks and the num- 
ber of nuns has an equally curious 
explanation. Women are forbidden, 
by a decree of Peter the Great, to 



408 



The Russian Clergy. 



take the vows under forty years of 
age. Hence the convents are crowd- 
ed with postulants who must wait 
sometimes twenty years before they 
can take the veil. Some persevere, 
some return to the world, and many 
continue to live in the convent with- 
out becoming professed. If we 
reckon the whole population of the 
convents monks, nuns, novices, and 
aspirants we shall find the number 
of the two sexes more nearly agree : 

Years. Men. Women. Total. 

1835 5,739 6,411 12,150 

1836 5,978 9,271 15,249 

1837 ...7,163 6,089 13,252 

1838 8,339 6 >385 14,724 

1861 10,527 

It is interesting to see from which 
classes of society these monks and 
nuns are drawn. F. Gagarin dis- 
tinguishes five classes : I. The clergy, 
including priests, deacons, and clerks, 
with their wives and children ; II. 
The nobility, embracing not only the 
titled nobility, but government func- 
tionaries and members of the learned 
professions ; III. The urban popula- 
tion, comprising merchants, artisans, 
citizens, etc. ; IV. The rural popula- 
tion, consisting of peasants of all 
conditions; V. The military. The 
monks are recruited from these five 
classes in the following ratio : 

Clergy 54.3 per cent. 

Urban population 22.3 

Rural u 16.3 

Military 3.4 

Nobility 3 

The immense preponderance of 
the clerical element is owing prima- 
rily, of course, to the regulation of 
caste, which virtually compels the 
children of the clergy to follow the 
profession of their fathers. For the 
ambitious, the monastery alone offers 
an alluring prospect, since it is from 
the black clergy that the bishops 
are taken. The religious calling, 
therefore, in Russia is not so much 
a vocation as a career. If there 
were really an unselfish devout ten- 



dency towards the monastic life 
among the children of the clergy, 
we should expect to find it stronger 
with the daughters than with the 
sons. But the case is far otherwise. 
There are no bishoprics for the wo- 
men ; their career is to marry priests, 
go with them from house to house 
collecting alms, and help them home 
when they have taken too much 
brandy. Hence we find the follow- 
ing ratio among the population of 
the nunneries : 

Urban population 38.8 per cent. 

Rural " 31 

Clergy 13 

Nobility 12 

Military 4 " 

The number of recruits supplied to 
monasteries by the clerical profession 
averages 140 a year. These com- 
prise a curious variety of persons. 
First, there are priests or deacons 
who have committed grave crimes; 
they are sentenced to the convent, as 
lay convicts are sentenced to the 
galleys. Next there are seminarists 
who have failed in their studies ; if 
they quit the ranks of the clergy al- 
together, they are forced into the 
army ; if they remain among the 
white clergy, they have no prospect 
of becoming anything better than sa- 
cristans or beadles ; by entering a 
convent they will at least live more 
comfortably and may aspire to be- 
come deacons or priests. Then there 
are deacons and priests who have 
lost their wives; they cannot marry 
again ; the Russian government hesi- 
tates to entrust a parish to a wifeless 
priest; the wife indeed, as we have 
just seen, has some very important 
functions to perform in the ad- 
ministration of parochial rites ; so 
the unfortunate widower is not only 
advised but sometimes compelled to 
go to a convent. Again, there are 
seminarists who after completing 
their studies act as professors for some 
time before they are ordained. Sup- 



The Russian Clergy. 409 

pose such a man has been married remembered equivalent to our semi- 
and his wife dies. He cannot be or- narians) are in the habit of frequent- 
dained if he marry again. He can- ing public-houses and getting drunk, 
not be ordained a secular priest They are carried home on hand-bar- 
without a \vife. He must either go rows, and this proceeding is known 
to the convent or seek some career as the " Translation of the Relics." 
outside the clerical profession, and When a young man has been fixed 
that, as we have seen, it is almost upon as a desirable recruit for the 
impossible to find. Ambition draws monastery, the superior has only to 
many to the monastery. A student watch until he is brought home on a 
of any one of the four great acade- barrow ; the next morning, while his 
mies of St. Petersburg, Moscow, head and his stomach are rebuking 
Kasan, and Kieff, who embraces the him, he is informed that he has been 
monastic life during his academical expelled for his disgraceful conduct ; 
course, is morally certain on quitting but, if he will give a proof of his sin- 
the academy of being named inspec- cere repentance by making a written 
tor or prefect of studies in a seminary ; request to be received as a monk, he 
at the end of a few years he becomes may be forgiven, 
rector ; and if he do not impede his There is no novitiate in the Rus- 
own advancement he can hardly fail sian convents. The neophyte makes 
to be a bishop after a while. Still his vows at once provided he has 
there is difficulty in obtaining from reached the age prescribed by the 
the academies a sufficient number of law and instances are not wanting 
educated monks, and according to F. of monks who have even attained 
Gagarin some extraordinary devices the episcopate without ever having 
are resorted to in order to supply the lived in a convent. According to 
demand. When persuasion has the Russian law, academy pupils may 
failed, the student whom the convent make the religious profession at 25; 
wishes to capture is invited to pass other men at 30. It often happens 
the evening with one of the monks, that a youth has finished his studies 
Brandy is produced and it is not before reaching 25 ; in that case, in- 
difficult to make the young man stead of applying for a dispensation, 
drunk. While he is insensible the he makes a false statement of his 
ceremony of taking the habit and re- age. Others who fail at their books 
ceiving the tonsure is performed on wait for their thirtieth year, and 
him, and he is then put to bed. are placed meanwhile each one 
When he awakes, he finds by his side, under the care of some monk, who is 
instead of the lay garments he wore supposed to form him for the monas- 
the night before, a monastic gown, tic state. But he receives no reli- 
All resistance is useless. He is told gious training. He does not learn 
that what is done cannot be undone, to pray, to meditate, to examine his 
and after a while he submits angrily conscience. He waits upon his mas- 
to his fate. This at any rate was the ter ; he joins in the long service in 
method of impressment into the reli- the church ; and the rest of the time 
gious state adopted fifty years ago. he spends in amusement within or 
\ T o\v, says our author, it is unneces- without the convent. His pleasures 
sary, inasmuch as a shorter way has are not always of the most edifying 
been found of reaching the same re- character, and his excursions are not 
suit. The students of the academies confined to the day. 
(these are students of theology, be it What sort of monks can be formed 



The Russian Clergy. 



by such training ? The asceticism 
prescribed by S. Basil is rarely ob- 
served. Meat is forbidden, but it is 
a common dish on the convent tables. 
Drunkenness is so prevalent that it 
hardly causes surprise. " After that," 
says our author, " one can imagine 
what becomes of the vow of chasti- 
ty." There is, as we have already 
said, no pretence of observing holy 
poverty. Every monk has a certain 
share of the convent revenues, pro- 
portioned to his rank, and this share 
is sometimes large. The average in- 
come of the black clergy is not easily 
ascertained. There are two sorts of 
convents those which receive aid 
from the state, as compensation for 
confiscated estates, and those which 
depend entirely upon private resourc- 
es. Those of the first kind are divid- 
ed into monasteries of the first, 
second, and third classes, receiving 
from the government respectively 
2,006, r, 600, and 670 roubles a year 
($1,680, $1,344, $563). There are 
278 of these convents, receiving 
259,200 roubles, or about $217,- 
728 from this source. In former 
years, each convent was entitled to 
the compulsory services of a certain 
number of peasants. Since the eman- 
cipation of the serfs the government 
has commuted this privilege by 
paying an annual sum of 307,850 
silver roubles, or $258,594. Endow- 
ments with an obligation to pray for 
the departed yield in addition $2,150,- 
400 to white and black clergy to- 
gether. Let us suppose that the 
monks get one-half; that would be 
$1,075,200 per annum. Then the 
convents possess large properties in 
arable lands, woodlands, meadows, 
fisheries, mills, etc. One convent is 
mentioned which has derived an in- 
come of $10,000 merely from the 
resin collected in its forests. The 
greater part of the revenues, however, 
are derived from the voluntary con- 



tributions of the people. These 
seem to be enormous. Russians pre- 
fer to be buried within the precincts 
of the monasteries, and the monks 
not only ask an exorbitant price for 
the grave, but make the deceased a 
permanent source of profit by charg- 
ing for prayers over his remains. 
Images famous for miracles, church- 
es enriched with the relics of saints, 
have multitudes of visitors who never 
come empty-handed. How much 
can be made from this concourse of 
the faithful may be imagined when it 
is remembered that a single laura, 
that of S. Sergius at Moscow, is visit- 
ed every year by a million pilgrims. 
Begging brothers traverse all Russia, 
gathering alms. A very pretty trade 
is driven in wax tapers. The various 
arts resorted to by the white clergy 
to collect money are well known to 
the monks also. The Laura of S. 
Sergius is said to have a revenue all 
told of at least 2,000,000 roubles 
($1,680,000), and a single chapel in 
Moscow yields to the convent to 
which it is attached an annual in- 
come of about $80,000. These 
princely revenues are not devoted to 
learning, education, charity, religion. 
A large part is misappropriated by 
the persons appointed to gather 
them. A third is the property of the 
superiors. The rest is divided among 
the monks. The annual income of the 
superior of one of the great lauras is 
from $33,600 to $50,400 ; of the su- 
perior of a monastery of the first 
class, from $8,400 to $25,200 ; se- 
cond class, $4,200 to $8,400; third 
class, $840 to $4,200. All this is 
for their personal use ; the monastery 
gives them lodging, food, and fuel, 
and they have to buy nothing But 
their clothing. The proportion in 
which the revenues are distributed 
may be understood from the follow- 
ing table of the allowances made by 
the state to a monastery of the first 



The Russian Clergy. 41 r 

class under the head of compensa- done so. A new regulation pre- 

tion for confiscated estates : scribes two additional confessions 

The archimandrite $420 and communions, namely, at Christ- 

42 mas and the Assumption, and at- 

Treasurer 21 r 

Eight priests 88 tempts another reform by ordaining 

TW"^!,::::::::::::':::::::: J 7 4 * seminarians shaii say their P ra y . 

Baker, housekeeper, and s monks.. 7 6 ers morning and evening, and grace 

Five overseers of infirmary 33 v. f A ft f 

Lay employees writer, 19 roubles ; meat. 

24 servants, 9 roubles each ; sup- The bishops are appointed by the 

plementary, ss roubles 244 , r j j j 

Maintenance and repair of church.. 336 Czar, and transferred, promoted, de- 
Keep for horses ss graded, imprisoned, knouted, or put 

Fuel 126 ' .' ' 

Hospitality 84 to death at the imperial pleasure. 

Beer and brandy s Until very recently, no bishop could 

Total $1,685 leave his diocese without the permis- 

It is easy to see how the archi- sion of the synod, so that consulta- 

mandrite, or superior, of a monas- tions among the episcopacy were, of 

tery gets rich from such a distribu- course, impossible. Now, however, 

tion of goods, and enriches all his a bishop may absent himself for 

family. eight days, on giving notice to the 

The seminaries, governed by the synod. It is the synod at St. Peters- 
state, teach successfully neither piety burg that exercises, under the czar, 
nor learning. The tendency of the the whole ecclesiastical authority of 
courses of instruction is to become the empire. The bishop has no 
secular rather than ecclesiastical. A power, and nothing to do but to sign 
proposal has recently been made that reports. All the business of his 
each bishop shall choose for his dio- diocese is really transacted by a lay 
cesan seminary a learned and pious secretary, appointed not by the 
priest to hear the confessions of the bishop, but by the synod. Under 
pupils, and excite them to devout the secretary is a chancery of six 
practices; but it is objected that no or seven chief clerks, with assistant 
secular priest can be found who is fit clerks and writers. This office super- 
to discharge such important func- intends all the affairs of the clergy, 
tions, while those monks who are fit and transacts no business without 
are already employed in more im- drink-money. It is the most venal 
portant duties; besides, if one could and rapacious of all Russian bureaus, 
discover among the white clergy the and such a mine of wealth to the 
right sort of man, so much virtue officials that recently, when the 
would come very expensive, and the chancery of a certain town was 
bishops could not or would not pay abolished on account of the destruc- 
the salary he would be in a condi- tion of its buildings by fire, the em- 
tion to demand. The seminarians ployees petitioned to be allowed to 
are required to confess twice a year, restore them at their own expense, 
namely, during the first week of The secretary is the one all-powerful 
Lent and during Holy Week. In person of the diocese. From 12,000 
reality, most of them omit the second to 15,000 files of documents are 
confession ; they go home to their referred to the chancery every year 
families at Holy Week, and rarely for decision, and it is he who passes 
approach the sacraments, though upon them, asking nothing of the 
they always bring back a certificate bishop except his signature. He is 
from the parish priest that they have almost invariably corrupt, and as he 



412 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 



possesses, through his relations with 
the synod, the power to ruin the 
bishop if he chooses, there is no one 
to interfere with him. 

The synod consists of the metro- 
politan of St. Petersburg and a num- 
ber of other bishops chosen by the 
czar and changed every now and 
then, and of two or three secular 
priests, one of whom is the czar's 
chaplain, and another the chief chap- 
lain of the army and navy. But in 
reality, the whole power of the synod 
is held by an imperial procurator, 
who sits in the assembly, watches all 
its proceedings, stops deliberations 
whenever he sees fit, is the interme- 
diary between the church and the 
state, and formulates decisions for 
the signature of the synod. Most of 
these decisions are signed without 
reading, and sometimes they are 
made to express the direct contrary 
of the sense of the assembly. The 



procurator, in a word, is to the synod 
what the secretary is to the bishop 
the representative of the civil power 
ruling the enslaved and submissive 
church. The czar speaks through 
the procurator, the procurator speaks 
through the lay secretaries of the 
bishop, and so the church is govern- 
ed practically without troubling the 
clergy at all. 

The " Old Catholics " of Germany, 
and the new and improved Catholics 
who are (perhaps) going to be made 
under the patent of Father Hyacinthe 
and wife, are understood to be look- 
ing eagerly for connections in various 
parts of the world. Let them by all 
means go to Russia. They will see 
there how much liberty a church 
gains when it cuts itself off from its 
obedience to the See of Peter, and 
what kind of a clergy is constructed 
when men try to improve upon the 
models of Almighty God. 



THE CROSS THROUGH LOVE, AND LOVE THROUGH THE 

CROSS. 



MAHELETH CRISTALAR was the 
daughter of a Spanish Jew. Her fa- 
ther had once been very wealthy, 
and indeed until the age of sixteen she 
had lived in princely splendor. The 
beauties of her Spanish home were 
very dear to her; she had many 
friends, and as much time as she 
chose to spend in study. 

But one day, her mother, a stately, 
handsome matron, came into her 
little sitting-room, looking pale and 
worn. 

" Maheleth, my child," she began, 
in faltering tones, " we have had 
some bad news this morning. I am 



afraid we are in danger of being 
totally ruined." 

The young girl looked up; she 
was very beautiful, and the spiritual 
expression on her face intensified 
and heightened her beauty in a sin- 
gular degree. 

" Ruined, dear mother ? Is my 
father very unhappy about it ?" 

" He is more angry than unhappy ; 
it has happened through the dishon- 
esty of persons he trusted." 

" Shall we have to leave home ?" 
asked Maheleth. 

"I fear we shall; it is a heavy 
trial." 



The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 413 



" It will be for our good in the 
end, mother darling. I am so sorry for 
you and my father, because you have 
always been used to riches." 

" So have you; my poor child." 

" But not for so long a time; and it 
is easier to root up a sapling than a 
full-grown tree." 

" Ah ! you hardly know what may 
be before you, Maheleth; your sisters 
are mere children; we have but few 
relations ; with fortune, so also friends 
will forsake us ; the shock will be 
very sudden, and we shall have to 
bear it alone." 

"You forget our God," said the 
girl gently. 

A shade of impatience passed over 
the elder woman's face. 

" We do not hope for miracles 
now, child," she answered; " your fa- 
ther has worked hard for his wealth, 
but God will not treat him as he 
treated Job." 

" Depend upon it, if he does not, 
mother mine, it is because he knows 
what is best for us. You would not 
have us lose our hopes of the here- 
after for the sake of more or less 
comfort in the earthly present ?" 

" My child, you should have been 
a boy ; such sayings would tell well 
in a sermon, but in practical business 
matters they are but cold comfort." 

" Oh ! they are comfort sufficient, 
believe me ; besides, they do not debar 
us from prudent measures and precau- 
tions in a temporal point of view." 

" Well, child, you are a visionary, 
I always knew that ; it remains to 
be seen if you can be a stoic." 

" What need of that, dear mother ? 
Stoicism is not obedience nor resig- 
nation." 

Here a light step was heard, and 
the half-open door was pushed quick- 
ly back. A little girl, about nine 
years old, ran in with flushed face, 
and, holding in her hands a velvet 
casket, cried out in gleeful voice : 



" O mother ! sister ! see ! I got 
leave to bring this in myself. It has 
just come from the jeweller's, just as 
my father ordered it !" 

And she opened the casket, dis- 
playing a wonderful parure of opals 
and diamonds, exquisitely and ar- 
tistically wrought. Sefiora Cristalar 
turned away impatiently, saying to 
the child : 

" Thamar, I am engaged ; don't 
come fooling here about these jew- 
els ; put them down, and go into the 
next room." 

The child, hurt and astonished, 
looked blankly at her sister. Ma- 
heleth reached out her hand for the 
casket, and half rose from her seat. 

" I will come to you presently, lit- 
tle sister, if you wait in there ; never 
mind the pretty gems just now." 

And so saying, she kissed the little 
eyes that were ready to overflow 
with childish tears, and, setting the 
jewels on a table out of sight of her 
mother, resumed her seat. 

" There are the first-fruits of our 
circumstances," said the mother bit- 
terly. " The man expects to be paid 
for those to-day, and I shall have to 
tell him to take them back !" 

" Come ! if there were nothing 
worse than that ! Now, mother, we 
will both go to my father, and pray 
together, and then consult among 
ourselves." 

Maheleth's father was very fond 
and very proud of his eldest daugh- 
ter, and this indeed was -his best trait. 
Shrewd and clever in worldly affairs, 
yet strictly honest in his dealings, he 
was not devoid of that hardness that 
too often accompanies mercantile 
success, and as often turns to weak- 
ness when that success disappears. 

One thing seemed to sustain him, 
but it was only a hollow prop after 
all his pride of race. For genera- 
tions his family had been well known 
and honored : he could trace his 



414 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 

ancestry back in an unbroken line " Oh ! you and I will be co-work- 
of descent from one of the exiles ers. I will look after those two until 
from devastated Jerusalem. Rabbis you can marry them well, and so we 
and learned men had borne his name, will both have a definite object in life, 
and though in later times no opening We can keep my mother in some de- 
save that of trade and banking had gree of comfort from the very begin- 
been available to those of his race, ning, if we only look things in the 
yet his blood yielded it in nothing to face." 

that of the proverbially haughty no- The opals and diamonds had to be 
bles of Spain. It mattered little that returned to the jeweller's ; the pleas- 
by some he was shunned as of an in- ant home was broken up, and what 
ferior extraction or lower social sta- with the sale of his property, and 
tus ; his own wealth, his wife's beau- various other legal arrangements, 
ty, his lavish hospitality, his daugh- Ephraim Cristaler was able to pay all 
ter's charms, were strong enough, he his creditors, with a few trifling ex- 
knew, to break the barriers of preju- ceptions, for which he bound him- 
dice, at least as far as appearances self by solemn promise to provide 
went. As to marriages, he did not shortly. 

covet for his children the alliance of Then the banker and merchant 

a poor foreigner, and poor most of disappeared, and the nine days' won- 

the proud families were whom he daily der was forgotten by his former circle 

entertained at his splendid house of acquaintances, 

poor in brains, poor in beauty, poor One day, a young Englishman, 

in energy and strong will. travelling or rather sauntering about 

And yet, though he almost de- Europe in a way unlike the usual 

spised his neighbors, this shock was useless rush of tourists from one point 

very galling to him. They now to another of Murray's Guide-Book^ 

would turn from him, would forget arrived at Frankfort and settled there 

his open-handedness, and rerhember for how long, he, least of all, could 

only his race and creed ; would pity have told. 

him perhaps, but with the pity that At the hotel, nothing was known of 

is almost contempt. And this seem- him but his name, Henry Holcombe, 

ed to paralyze him, for all his fiercely and that he had come with a black 

expressed consciousness of superiori- portmanteau containing a number of 

ty to his friends. books. He went slowly to see the 

Maheleth' tried to persuade him to sights, one by one, as if he had plenty 

take the trial calmly; for even in a of leisure and wanted to enjoy it; 

temporal aspect calmness would and, when he did go, he never mea- 

sooner show him how to retrieve his sured the length and breadth of 

fortunes. saloons, the height of towers, the 

" For," she said, " you know that, number of statues in the cathedral- 
with your abilities, you can, if you niches; nor did he ever disgrace his 
will, gain enough for my little sisters' name by carving it side by side with 
dowry by the time they will be the ambitious Joneses or the heaven- 
grown up ; and that is the first thing soaring Smiths on the pinnacle of a 
to be considered, and after that we temple, or the bark supports of a 
shall even have enough to live in summer-house ; when he went out 
comfort." with a book in his hand, it was 

" And what is to become of you, neither the obtrusive Murray nor the 

Maheleth ?" asked her father fondly, ostentatious Byron / and, in fact, he 



The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 415 

departed altogether from the stand- He was dreadfully romantic, this 
ard of the regulation British tourist. young Englishman, but in a subdu- 
He was walking one day down the ed, quiet way that seldom showed it- 
Judcn-Strasse, the picturesqueness of self in words, and was specially re- 
whose mediaeval-looking houses had pelled by the gushing style too much 
a special attraction for him, when it followed just then by some of his fair 
came on to rain very suddenly, and countrywomen, 
the sky seemed to threaten a storm The door was opened and shut, 
in good earnest ; the street was soon and, except through his notice of the 
deserted, and the narrow roadway number over it, 25, his relation with 
became a miniature stream. Present- the beautiful stranger was cut off. 
ly he heard a step behind him, and a He thought of it day after day, 
slight figure, half-hidden by a large got a directory, and found out 
umbrella, pressed quickly past him. that in the house No. 25 there 
It was a woman, and, he thought, a lived three families of the names of 
very young one, but more than that Zimmermann, Krummacher, and 
he could not tell, because she was Lowenberg. The occupations of 
veiled and muffled, and held the the heads of the families were given 
dripping umbrella very close down thus : " money-lender," " banking- 
upon her head. She had not gone a clerk," and " lace-merchant," respect- 
dozen paces beyond him before she ively; no clue whatsoever, of course; 
dropped something white like a roll and, unless in a regular and received 
of music, and stooped slowly to pick manner, Mr. Holcombe could not 
it up. The cloak and long skirt she think of entering the house. Still, 
was holding fast to keep them from the face he had seen veiled under 
the mud embarrassed her, and the the prosaic tent of a wet umbrella 
young Englishman had time to kept between him and his thoughts, 
spring forward and restore the white and would not be driven away, 
roll of paper to her hand before she Then, too, what business was it of 
had grasped it. his to go and throw himself in the 

:< Oh! thank you, mem Herr!" way of a girl who most likely was a 

said a low, rich voice, in very soft Jewess? Yet, reason as he might, the 

German. And, as Henry took off his mysterious face would visit him, and 

hat in silence, the girl made a pretty itseemed to him as the face of an 

sweeping inclination, and left him, angel. Very often he passed the 

walking as quickly as before. house, and once or twice- even made 

But he had seen more this time, a pretence of sketching it; but he 
and he knew she was beautiful, and never saw the figure again. Once a 
had a dainty, graceful hand. Curious young face looked out over the flow- 
and interested, he watched the dark- ers in the window of the ground- 
clad figure down the street, quicken- floor room, a merry face full of health 
ed his own steps as it hastened on, and mischief not his dream. The 
slackened them as it paused to clear blinds were always drawn on the first 
a crossing without splashing the long floor, even when the windows were 
and rather inconvenient garments, open, and he began to fancy she must 
ie saw it stop at last, and ring a be hidden behind those discreet 
at an old forlorn-looking door, shrouders of privacy. A friend of 
'here he might have expected to see his met him at his hotel one day 
the face of a gnome appear, as guard- when he came home from the Juden- 
lan of unsuspected treasures within. Strasse, and surprised him by telling 



41 6 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 



him he was going home in a fort- 
night to get married. 

" I've been half over the world, 
my dear fellow," he said, " and en- 
joyed myself immensely. And I've 
got such a pile of things going home 
to my fiancee, for our house. She 
will be delighted, she is so fond of 
queer, foreign things, not like what 
other people have, you know. I'll 
show you some, but most are gone in 
packing cases through agents from 
the different parts of the world I've 
been in." 

And the two young men went up- 
stairs to examine the bridal gifts. 

" Look here," said Ellice to his 
quieter friend, " it was a pasha's wife 
sent me these," dragging out a hand- 
ful of Eastern jewelry, golden fillets, 
and embroidered jackets and slippers. 
" A cousin of mine is the wife of the 
consul at Smyrna, and she got them 
for me, for of course I was not allow- 
ed to go near the Eastern lady ! 
And look here, these are carved 
shells, and mother-of-pearl crucifixes 
from Jerusalem, and boxes made 
from Olivet trees and cedars of Leba- 
non; you should value those." 

"I hope your future wife will," 
gravely said young Holcombe ; " the 
wood of the olives of Gethsemani is 
almost a relic in itself." 

" Oh ! Miss Kenneth will appreci- 
ate them just as much as you do, 
Holcombe, she is very reverential. 
See, here is some alabaster, Naples 
coral, and Byzantine manuscripts, and 
marble ornaments from the Parthenon. 
Ah ! here is the filigree silver of 
Genoa; that is one of my last pur- 
chases, except these pictures on china 
from Geneva ; see the frames, too, 
they are Swiss." 

Then he turned out a huge tiger- 
skin, and said : " All my Indian 
things except this were sent from 
Bombay, and a year ago I sent 
home all kinds of jolly things from 



North America furs and skins, ant- 
lers, and other curiosities. By the 
bye, I have some Q\& point from Ve- 
nice, but some people had been there 
before me and cleaned the shop out 
pretty nearly, so I shall have to get 
some more. Belgium is a good 
place, isn't it ?" 

Holcombe looked thoughtful ; his 
truant mind was at No. 25 again, 
and he did not answer. His friend 
went on : 

" I'll just ask the landlady, she'll 
be likely to know if there is any 
place here, just for a souvenir of 
Frankfort." 

" Yes," said Holcombe, " I suppose 
she knows." And, as he spoke, the 
phantom face was directly in his 
mind's eye, and he could not drive 
the vision away. 

" And now, old fellow, suppose 
you show me the lions here," said El- 
lice ; " you have been here longer 
than I have." 

So they walked out, and of course in 
due time came to the high, irregular 
houses bordering the curious Juden- 
Strasse. It was Friday evening, and 
the street was full of people hurrying 
to one spot ; the air was balmy, and 
told of summer; the scene was very 
striking. The stream of people dis- 
appeared under the archway ot a 
splendid Moorish-looking building, 
with Hebrew characters carved above 
the portal. It was the new syna- 
gogue. The two friends followed 
the men ; the women were lost to 
view in the stair-cases leading to the 
galleries. A gorgeous lattice-work 
defended these galleries, and the as- 
semblage in the main part of the 
temple were men with their hats on 
and light veils or shawls across their 
shoulders. 

The service began ; low, plaintive 
chants resounded through the build- 

*^j 

ing ; sometimes the congregation join- 
ed. It was very solemn, and Henry 



TJie Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 4 1 7 

Holcombe seemed fascinated. Some the address: "Jacob Zimmermann, 

one passed him a book and found the 25 Judeu Stmsse" 
place for him. And now came the " I don't know much about laces," 

prayer for the mourners, the mourn- he answered, " but I will go with 

tfsKaddisch, as he saw it printed be- pleasure." 

fore his eyes. There was a stir among " It feels like going on an adven- 
the people, and he could hear the ture, like something you read of in a 
women's clothes rustling in the gal- book," said Ellice," " this penetrating 
lory. Those who had recently lost into the privacy of those tumble- 
friends and relations stood up during down dens of the Juden-Strasse" 
the intercession, and then another " Well," returned Holcombe quiet- 
prayer was offered up in German, ly, " it does give one the idea." 
Holcombe thought the sound of the They rang at the door No. 25, 
old Hebrew was like the passing of and the merry, mischievous face 
water through a narrow rocky chan- he had seen once at the 'window - 
nel; it was soothing and flowing, sad greeted Henry as he entered. They 
and majestic, and he wondered if the inquired for Herr Zimmermann. 
girl he had seen once thought and <; Oh !" said the girl, laughing and 
felt about it as he did. looking astonished, " he is up on the 

When the crowd dispersed, he third floor. Shall I show you the 

tried to linger at the entrance, watch- wa y ? But he is ill, and, as he lives 

ing the women as they passed out. a ^ alone, he has got into very queer 

His friend was hardly so patient, and ways." 

reminded him of the table d'hote they They went up, guided by the 

had most likely already missed. laughing girl, who rattled on as she- 

" I am afraid," he said, " your peo- preceded them. 

pie would scarcely approve your ad- " Gentlemen like you most often* 

miration of the pretty Jewesses." inquire for us, for my father, I mean,. 

Holcombe blushed and moved an d no one ever comes to see old 
away, and, just as he came out on the Zimmermann except some wrinkled- 
sidewalk, a girl in black passed him old ladies, and heaven knows how 
slowly, with an anxious, absent look, they find him out; and as to Herr 

" By jove ! that is a pretty face !" Lowenberg, he is a stranger and has. 

exclaimed Ellice ; but the other said no friends." 

nothing. For the second time, he The two young men then knew 

had seen the face he was always that she was the money-lender's 

dreaming of, " She looks like an an- daughter, and Holcombe thought 

gel," he thought, " and yet she is not his dream companion must bear the- 

even a Christian." name of Lowenberg. 

'I never saw a German Jewess "But is not Zimmermann a rich 
like that," his friend went on to say. old merchant, and is he not well- 
She looks like a Spaniard." known in the town?" asked Ellice.. 

The next day, Ellice had got an ad- " My landlady named him at once 

dress written down, and said to Hoi- when I asked for laces." 

" Oh ! yes ; rich he is ; so rich he 

If you care to go with me, we will won't sell generally; but then an 

go and look after this lace-merchant Englishman is another thing! He 

this morning." lives like a rat in a hole, and starves 

Holcombe's heart gave a great himself." 

throb as he asked carelessly to see By this time, they had reached the 
VOL. xvi. 27 



41 8 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 



door of the miser's room ; a low, sub- 
dued voice was heard within read- 
ing. 

Their knock was answered by a 
noise of light footsteps, and the door 
was drawn ajar by some one inside. 

" Rachel, what is it ? You know 
Herr Zimmermann is ill." 

Holcombe knew that voice must 
belong to the girl he had never for- 
gotten. Just then the light from the 
door fell upon the men in the dark- 
ened, narrow passage, and the slight 
figure drew back a little. 

" They are English gentlemen," 
said Rachel. " They want to buy." 

" To-day, Rachel ? It is the Sab- 
bath." 

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, 
and Ellice stepped forward. 

" I beg your pardon. I forgot 
that. But since we are here, perhaps 
you will let us see the laces, and we 
can come back and choose on Mon- 
day." 

The girl looked uneasily back into 
the room, and then said, in a very low 
voice : 

" No ; please do not ask to come 
in to-day; he is hardly conscious, 
and he might forget it was the Sab- 
bath in his excitement." 

" Very well," said Ellice politely, 
and Holcombe whispered to him : 
" Come away ; don't you under- 
stand ?" 

The door was closed gently, and 
Henry said : 

" She was afraid he could not re- 
sist the temptation of a good offer, 
if it were made to him, and she want- 
ed to prevent his doing anything 
wrong." 

" How stupid I am !" said Ellice. 
" Of course that's it. But, I say, is 
she not pretty ?" 

" Beautiful !" answered Holcombe 
very quietly. 

" Is that Fraulein Zimmermann ?" 
asked Ellice of Rachel. 



" No ; Fraulein Lb'wenberg," said 
the girl. "She is very kind to the 
old man. Her own father is ill and 
can't work, and she is very good to 
him. She reads to old Zimmermann, 
and looks after him, too, when he is 
ill. She has two little sisters also." 

" And how do they live ?" asked 
Ellice. 

" She keeps them, I think. The 
father used to be clerk in Haupt- 
mann's bank ; but he has been laid 
up six months now, and the mother 
died two months after they came 
here." 

" Are they Germans ?" said Ellice, 
really interested. 

" Their name is, but I fancy they 
are foreigners. Maheleth speaks 
like a foreigner." 

" Maheleth ! A curious name." 

" Yes, an unusual one ; so is her 
sister's Thamar." 

They were at the street-door now, 
and Ellice bade the girl good-morn- 
ing, saying they would come again 
on Monday. 

" What a curious chance !" he 
went on. " It is the same girl we 
saw coming out of the synagogue 
last night. Did you notice ?' 

" Yes," said Holcombe. 

" You don't seem very much inter- 
ested, anyhow." 

" My dear fellow, I never could 
get up an ecstasy !" 

" Still waters run deep, Holcombe. 
I suspect that is the case with you, 
you sly fellow." 

Monday came, and the two 
friends were again at No. 25. Ra- 
chel admitted them as before, and 
showed them into the old lace-mer- 
chant's den. He was alone, and 
looked very eager; but his wasted, 
wrinkled hands and dried-tip face 
spoke his miserly character, and 
froze the sympathy he so little cared 
to receive. He laid out his precious 
wares with trembling fingers, and it 






The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 419 



was curious to see these cobweb trea- 
sures drawn from common drawers 
and boxes, and heaped on a rickety 
deal table near the stove that was 
just lighted, because he was still so ill. 
Everything about the room looked 
cold and hungry ; the floor was bare ; 
the paint on the walls dirty and dis- 
colored; and an untidy assortment 
of tin pans and cheap crockery litter- 
ed the neighborhood of the stove. 
The window looked into a back-yard, 
and what panes were not broken 
were obscured by dirt In strange 
contrast to all this was a bouquet of 
fresh flowers on a chair. 

While Ellice and the old man were 
bargaining, Holcombe fastened his 
eye on the flowers, conjecturing well 
whose present they were. 

The old Jew asked enormous 
prices for his laces, and gave mar- 
vellous accounts of the difficulties he 
had sustained in procuring them as 
an excuse for his exorbitant de- 
mands. So the time seemed long to 
Henry, who" knew little or nothing 
about such things, when suddenly 
Rachel appeared at the door with a 
basin of soup. " Fraulein Lowen- 
berg sent you this," she said to the 
old man, and then to the strangers : 
" You must excuse us ; he is too 
weak to do without this at the ac- 
customed time, and the fraulein is 
gone out." 

" Gone out !" querulously said the 
miser. " Gone out without coming 
to see me !" 

" She knew you were engaged," 
retorted Rachel. " You will see her 
again to-night." She spoke as to a 
spoiled child. 

" Well, well, business must be first, 
and she has business as well as I 
have." And he went on with his 
flourishing declamations over his 
lovely laces. 

Holcombe understood why she 
had omitted her morning's visit to 



her old prottgt, and, indeed, it would 
have been unlike his ideal of her had 
she acted otherwise. 

" Have you nearly done, Ellice ?" 
he said, coming up to the table. 

" Yes ; all right See, I have 
chosen the nicest things I could find, 
as far as I know; but the fellow 
asks such confounded prices." 

" Well, you had only that to ex- 
pect," was the smiling answer, and 
then the young man turned to the 
lace-merchant 

" Have you been ill long ?" 

" Only a month, and I should be 
dead if it were not for Maheleth. I 
cannot do without her." 

" But she is poor herself; she can- 
not bring you what you want, can 
she ?" 

" No, she cannot ; she is poor, and 
her father is poor, and so am I. I 
sell nothing now ; I have no custom- 
ers." 

Holcombe smiled slightly, but he 
went on : 

" Are you fond of flowers ?" 

" Yes, but I cannot afford them." 

" Then it would be cruel of me to 
ask a violet hearts-ease of you ; but, if 
you would give me that, I will send 
you more flowers, and bring you 
something you will like to-morrow." 

" Yes, you may take one ; but, if 
you want flowers, Maheleth can give 
you some ; she has some growing in 
her room." 

" No, this one is enough. Good- 
by, and I will try and see you 
again." 

As they left the house, Ellice said 
to his friend : 

" Well, Holcombe, you are green ! 
You don't mean to say you believe 
he is poor ?" 

" No, I don't believe it ; but he 
will be none the worse oft for a few 
flowers and some good food, if he 
won't get them for himself." 

" I suppose you remember that 



420 



Odd Stories. 



there is another invalid in the house, 
and the same person nurses both ?" 

" I know what you mean, Ellice, 
and I wish you wouldn't joke ; it is 
not fair." 

" Very well, old fellow ; but, if you 
were anybody but yourself, I should 
say ' take care.' You always were 
the steadiest old chap going." 

A day or two afterwards, Hoi- 
combe was left alone again ; he had 
sent things to Zimmermann as he had 
promised ; but as yet he had not re- 
visited the Juden-Slrasse. On Fri- 
day, there was a special service at 
the Catholic cathedral, at eight 
o'clock, and the young man, hardly 
knowing why, determined to go. 

The church was only partially 
lighted, except the chancel, which 
was dazzling. The music was good, 
the congregation devout, and the 
German sermon as interesting as 
could be expected. The whole effect 
was very beautiful, and seemed to 
Henry a peace-giving and heart- 
soothing one. A rush of voices came 
breaking in upon his reverie at the 
Tantum Ergo, and the surging sound 



was like a mighty utterance of his 
own feelings. 'As the priest raised 
the Host, he bowed his head low, and 
prayed for peace and guidance ; and 
when he lifted it again the first ob- 
ject his eye fixed on was a slight, 
dark-robed figure, standing aside in 
the aisle, drooping her head against 
one of the columns. He knew the 
figure well ; but, with a strange thrill, 
he asked himself why was she here ? 
For the music ? For the beauty of the 
sight ? For love of a creed she was 
half ashamed to embrace ? Or from 
the curiosity of a chance passer-by ? 

He watched her as she moved be- 
hind the shadow of the pillar, and 
waited till she was enticed from her 
hiding-place by the quick desertion 
of the once crowded church. Now 
the light from a lamp streamed down 
on her; the face was anxious and 
troubled, as if weary with thought. 

" Friday, too !" he said to himself. 
" And she has come here on the very 
Sabbath. Perhaps she has been to 
her own service first. But what can 
it mean, if she only were what this 
would point to ?" 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



ODD STORIES. 



IV. 



THE WHITE SHAH. 



IF thou wouldst hear a choice his- 
tory of princes, go into the garden of 
the shah's pleasure-house, and hear- 
ken to what the humming-birds tell 
thee in sleep. How else could thy 
servant have learned the memory of 
Shah Mizfiz, the forgotten ? Was it 
not he who built the palace of a 
hundred towers in the valley of 
groves ? Beautiful beyond compare 



was that valley's lake which present- 
ed itself like a mirror before the pa- 
vilion of the shah; and magnificent 
as a house in the sky were the hun- 
dred delicate towers that rose one 
above the other, amid gardens and 
fountains, and half lost in groves of 
venerable height and shade. High 
hills whose sides were covered with 
woods and flowers, and watered with 






Odd Stories. 421 

streams and fountains, shut out the it came to pass that, seeing his beard 
valley from the world save where it was like almond-blossoms, and the milky 
entered through a great gate crown- color of his throne-bearer, they who 
ed with towers ; and a long colonnade visited the gardens of the lake re- 
of loftiest trees pranked with beds of membered him as the White Shah, 
tulips, hyacinths, and roses, and inter- Leaning on the cushions of his vine- 
wined with flowering vines that here encircled pavilion, his silken beard 
and there made curious arbors, and silvery locks floating in the 
From the windows, or from the bal- breath of the zephyr, how often have 
conies, or from the pavilions of his the minstrels passed by beneath him 
palace, the shah could see the lords over the mirror of the lake, singing 
and ladies who, dressed in gold- under their gorgeous sails or to the 
broidered silks of all colors, shook time-beat of their oars those songs 
their plumes as they rode up to his which, with a tinkling and rippling 
gate, or, listening to the song of min- melody, lingered in his ear. Less 
strels, sailed upon the bosom of the was it known how looked and fared 
lake. the shah when he retired to the in- 
Naught now could the shah do most bowers of the interior gardens 
but dream. Surrounded by hills that of the hundred towers. But what 
fenced him from mankind, by waters wonder if in one of those fine day- 
that mirrored the skies or leaped dreams so celebrated by the poet 
into the sunlight, by flowers whose Bulghasel the flower-fairies them- 
odors inspired the sense, by trees selves did him veritable honor, and, 
which everywhere made repose for circling gardens of roses, tulips, and 
him, and by towers, the intricacies lilies, danced at his feet and round 
and ingenuities of which rendered about him, an illusion of humor and 
his palace ever new to him, he forgot beauty ? 

all common things. The cares of Ah! the deep-eyed, far-gazing 

state he left to his ministers at the White Shah! What dreams he 

gate of the valley ; while in one or dreamed of green ages in the youth 

other of the innumerable courts of of the world, of far-off golden centu- 

his palace, or among its unknown ries to come, of ships navigating 

and invisible gardens, he retired from the air of sunset, of adventures in the 

the intrusion of mortals. " I went to stars, and of nights with the great 

seek the rose-king," said or sang a moon-shah! They were not to be 

poet of the court ; " so I stripped a told or counted ; the number and 

great rose of all its leaves, one by wonder of them would have tasked a 

one, and in its heart of hearts I found hundred scribes, and put as many 

the Shah Mizfiz." Now, having cap- dreamers to sleep. Howbeit, the 

tured the tenth of a number of white shah's visions persuaded him to be- 

elephants, the like of which was never come an oracle for all his empire, 

seen, except in the woods and by the Statesmen consulted his dreams, and 

lake of the imperial valley, where poets made themes of them, and 

they roamed in romantic innocence doubtless the humane spirit of his 

and tameness, the Shah Mizfiz be- visions found its way into the laws, 

took himself to his dreams as others Thanks to them, the people had 

do to their books. abundant feast-days, and, if a mine of 

At times, seated high on his favor- precious stones were discovered, or 

ite white elephant, the old shah rode the caravans were richer than usual, 

in state through his grounds. Thence or the lords were moved to more 



422 



Signs of the Times. 



than wonted bounty, or new foun- 
tains were built on the dry roads, or 
new temples set up here and there, 
the shah's dreams were praised. 
When he had completed the thou- 
sandth of a line of dreams, the small- 
est of which would have made a 
paradise on earth again, he dreamed 
that his people were prosperous like 
none other under the sun; for his 
prime minister had artfully omitted 
to report that his eastern provinces 
were suffering the horrors of a fa- 
mine, and those of the west were 
threatened by war. But on neither 
of these facts did the White Shah lay 
the blame for that final eclipse which 
ruined his dreams. In a fatal hour, 
having too long slept among the 
poppies, and drunk too much wine 
and coffee, he dreamt that the demon 
Sakreh had caught him up in a 
storm on the desert of Lop, out of 
which he let him drop into the Lake 
of Limbo, whence, fishing him up by 
the hair of his head, he banged him 
against the Caucasus and set him 
down to cool on the Himalaya, ere, 
taking him to the topmost height of 
the palace of the hundred towers, he 
allowed him to fall through the 
many-colored glasses of the dome of 
delights. His displeasure with the 



effects of this dream was heightened 
and consummated when the poet Bul- 
ghasel, in a moment of malediction, 
trod on his particular corn. From 
that moment, peace forsook the 
couch of the White Shah, and dreams 
of glory visited not his slumbers. 

Henceforward what had been 
dreamland to the too happy shah 
became the saddest reality. In a 
white age he had lost his visions as 
old men lose their teeth. He wan- 
dered about the valley no longer 
seated high on the pride of his white 
elephant, but crownless and on foot 
murmuring from hour to hour : " I 
have lost my dream I have lost my 
dream." One day, leaving palace 
and throne, he passed out of his gate 
liked one crazed, to seek, as he said, 
his dream. Far away among the 
Parsees the poet Bulghasel found him 
after many pilgrimages : " And O 
my white-haired sire," cried the affec- 
tionate poet, "hast thou found the 
object of thy search ?" " Yea, son," 
rejoiced the White Shah, " I have 
found that which I never lost, but 
would that I had possessed ; for then 
my dream was a fiction, and now 
truth is a sufficient dream for me. 
If the new shah would sleep well, 
let him have this dream." 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



IN Europe, of late, meetings have been 
the order of the day. There have been 
meetings of emperors and International- 
ists ; of " Old Catholics " and Catholics ; 
of church congresses and congresses to 
disestablish the church ; of " Home- 
Rulers" and Dilkites. The voluntary ex- 
patriation of the Alsace-Lorraine popula- 
tion has followed close on the heels of the 
violent expulsion of the Jesuits, both in- 
fluenced by the same motive power ; 
trades-unions have called together a so- 



ciety of German professors, who, by dint of 
powerful speeches of an explosive nature, 
succeeded finally in showing, in a very 
conclusive manner, that they knew little 
or nothing of what they were talking 
about. Gambetta has found his voice 
again ; Russia has mildly but decidedly 
objected to its inflammable utterances , 
and in the midst of all the hubbub the 
eyes of the world have been attracted to 
the strange spectacle in these days of a 
nation, by a sudden and spontaneous 



Signs of the Times. 423 

movement, turning its steps to an humble ed out of memory. We rejoice that it 
shrine of the Blessed Virgin. did occur, in order to show the " move- 
As for the meeting of the emperors, we ment " in its true light. Luther himself 
were not present at the council, and had had not half the chance which Dollinger 
no secret emissary concealed in the cup- and the rest enjoyed. The strongest of 
board. What was effected, or what was governments at their back, the whole anti- 
intended to be effected, is an utter mystery Catholic world looking with eager eyes 
to us. We very much doubt if anything on this mountain in travail -parturict ; 
were effected at all ; that is, anything real, and not even the ridiculus nms is born in 
lasting, and permanent. The composing recompense for all this labor, storm, fuss, 
elements were in themselves as incapable and anxiety. We forget ; there issued a 
of mingling as oil and water. If people long string of resolutions, which one or 
looked to permanent peace or peace for two newspapers published, the generality 
any length of time from it, we fear they very sensibly finding them of too great 
will be sadly mistaken in view of what length and of too little importance to 
we have since seen. The effective forces burden their leaders with .them. The 
of Austria are fixed at 800,000 men. The whole affair was utterly ridiculous even to 
government, actuated doubtless by peace- the m/nu, which, as became a solid din- 
ful motives; finds it necessary to keep on ner, composed for the most part of Ger- 
hand a peace effective of 250,000 ; and, man professors with a few Episcopal 
that this force may be in fighting order at waifs and strays from England and 
any moment, the recruits must be kept America, was in Latin, and commenced 
for three years under colors. To supply thus : 

this contingency, 30,000 more men are re- Symposium. Gtistatio: Pisciculi oleo 

quired, which draws a sum of $1,850,000 perfusi et salmones fumo siccati ad cibi 

out of the national chest, a chest neither appetentiam excitandam. Mensa prima, 

very deep nor very safe. The measure etc. 

was objected to, whereupon Count An- And this is the way in which the " Old 

driissy spurred them up by informing the Catholics" meet to found or reform a 

astonished members that, notwithstanding church! The effect of it all is shown in 

the imperial exhibition of brotherly love the comments of the secular press. The 

at Berlin, the speeches, manceuvrings, fire- cleverest journals in England and Ameri- 

works, and the rest, he would not venture ca, those who expected much from it, gen- 

to answer for the continuance of peace erally express themselves to the effect 

even to the end of the present year. As that, though far from saying that the meet- 

an echo of the truth of this, Prussia has ing was without significance, it did not 

just given an order for 3,000,000 rifles of succeed in erecting a platform whereon a 

a new pattern, on the strength, doubtless, body could stand. The fact is this : We 

of the discharge of the French debt, are far from denying to the majority of 

Russia is increasing her already vast army the men there assembled abundance of 

steadily and surely, while France hopes intellect and that sort of talent that can 

by her new scheme of raising forces to make a fine speech or perhaps compose a 

show at the end of five years an active readable book, but the world, if it must 

army' of 715,000, and a territorial force of be changed, wants something more solid 

720,000 men. So much for the effects of than this, 

the imperial conference as regards peace. Prince Bismarck's measures are what 

The Internationale, true to the discor- Strafford would call " thorough " ; and he 
dant elements of which it was composed, is carrying out this "thorough" policy with 
adjourned without effecting anything or far greater effect than the vacillating Stuart, 
coming to any conclusion. This was The latter lost hishead fortoo much heart ; 
only to be expected ; but we should not the German chancellor is not likely to imi- 
judge from this that it is dead, as has tate him in that. The Jesuits had small 
been too hastily done by many journals, respite. We presume they are all out of 
Its life is disorder, and, if it can catch the Germany by this time. How much the 
trades-unions, its influence would be country at large will gain in peace, solid- 
paramount, ity, and security by their expulsion it is 

As for the meeting of the " Old Catho- impossible for us to say. Oddly enough, 

lies " we presume they call themselves in Prince Bismarck's stronghold, Prussia 

" Old " Catholics as the Greeks called the itself, we find that the new order is not 

furies Eumenidcs it will soon have pass- destined to run quite smoothlv. The diet 



424 



Signs of Ike Times. 



is dissolved because the Upper House 
refused to pass the country reform bill in 
the face of the emperor and an official in- 
timation from the minister of the interior 
that if the measure were defeated the 
government would dissolve the diet and 
convoke a new one. Whether the mem- 
bers of the Upper House will continue 
the fight, and come into direct collision 
with the power which they so helped to 
make supreme, we do not know yet, but 
we expect not. 

Meanwhile, the Jesuits have not gone 
out of their fatherland alone. The sym- 
pathy of the whole Catholic world has 
gone out with them, and its expression is 
gaining volume daily. Addresses of con- 
dolence and protestations against the 
legal violence which expelled them are 
rising up day after day from the hearth- 
stones of the land they have quitted, as 
well as from lands and multitudes to 
whom they as individuals are utterly un- 
known. Perhaps the most noticeable of 
the many which are continually appear- 
ing in their own land is that of the so- 
ciety of German Catholics recently assem- 
bled at Cologne, which passed a series of 
resolutions protesting strongly: 

i. Against the assertion that the Catho- 
lic population is indifferent to the inter- 
ests of fatherland, and hostile to the em- 
pire. 2. Against the laic laws which 
would control the affairs of the churches. 
3. Against the state direction of the 
schools. 4. Against the expulsion of the 
Jesuits. 5. Against the encroachment of 
the state on the jurisdiction of the bishops. 
6. Against the suppression of the tempo- 
ral power of the Pope. 

Such is the Catholic voice all the world 
over. If rulers can respect this voice, 
they will have no more faithful, earnest, or 
devoted children than the children of the 
Catholic Church. If they cannot respect 
it, they have only to expect an unfailing 
legal opposition until they are compelled 
to respect it, as Ireland, speaking in 
O'Connell, compelled England to do ; as 
Germany, by lawful agitation and peace- 
ful though unceasing and determined 
protest, will compel Prince Bismarck to 
do, until we see again restored to the 
country which they love and which loves 
them the sons who, by peaceful counsel 
and wise guidance, and religious instruc- 
tion, will bring more glory, solid pros- 
perity, enlightenment, and peace to the 
nation than a cycle of Bismarcks. 

The Bishop of Ermeland still survives 



the terrible threats of the chancellor 
which have been gathering over his head 
in deepening thunder this long while for 
excommunicating heretic priests ; the bolt 
has not yet fallen. Perhaps Jove finds 
himself a little puzzled how to fulminate 
it to a nicety. To show the justice of the 
Bismarck government, and how equally it 
deals with all classes, the Consistory of 
Magdeburg has quite recently decreed 
the excommunication of all Protestants 
who by mixed marriages shall educate 
their children as Catholics ; the decree 
has been carried into execution at Lipp- 
spring ; the case brought before the civil 
courts, and of course the pastor, one 
Schneider, who wrought the excommuni- 
cation publicly and openly in the church, 
was supported by the just weight of the 
law. Now, excommunication is excom- 
munication whether you call it Catholic 
or Protestant. Why, then, threaten with 
impeachment? Why stop the salary 
which the government for the country be- 
stows in the one case, and let the other go 
entirely free ? And yet this is all accord- 
ing to law ! 

Another anomaly according to law is 
displayed in the seizing of the schools by 
the government. We have not space here 
to go into the whole question, instructive 
though it would be, as showing the de- 
termination of this government to uproot 
the Catholic faith by every means in its 
power. But we will mention one in- 
stance. A ministerial circular accompa- 
nied the notice of the new arrangements, 
informing the teachers that it was desira- 
ble that their scholars should belong to 
no religious confraternities of the 
Rosary, Blessed Virgin, and such like 
and that if they persisted in belonging to 
them they should be dismissed. We find 

9 

it necessary to endorse this statement by 
informing our readers that it is plain, un- 
varnished fact. Civil marriage is now in 
full sway ; that is to say, it is no longer a 
sacrament according to law. What won- 
der that the German bishops assembled at 
Fulda gave utterance to their solemn 
protest, an extract of which we cull ? It 
reads as though it had been penned in 
the days of Diocletian, or Julian the Apos- 
tate, or Henry VIII. But in these days, 
when mere human society has come to 
know its power, and dream that it pos- 
sesses freedom, the protest jars on our 
ears as something out of tune, out of 
time, out of date altogether : 

" We demand, as a right which no one 



Signs of the Times. 



425 



can dispute to us, that the bishops, the 
parish priests of the cathedral churches, 
and the directors of souls, be only ap- 
pointed in accordance with the laws of 
the church and the agreement existing 
between the church and state. 

" In accordance with these laws and 
agreements, the Catholic people and our- 
selves cannot consider as legal a director 
of souls or a teacher of religion one who 
has not been so named by his bishop ; 
and we, the Catholic people and ourselves, 
cannot consider as legally recognized a 
bishop who has not been named by the 
Pope. 

" We claim equally for ourselves and for 
all Catholics the right of professing 
throughout Germany our holy Catholic 
faith in all its integrity, at all times and 
in all freedom, and to rest upon the prin- 
ciple that we are in no wise constrained to 
suffer within the bosom of our religious 
community those who do not profess the 
Catholic faith, and who do not submit en- 
tirely to the authority of the church. 

" We consider as a violation of our 
church and of the rights which are guar- 
anteed to it every attack made against the 
liberty of religious orders. We regard 
and vindicate, also, as an essential and in- 
alienable right of the Catholic Church, the 
full and entire liberty which it possesses 
of elevating its servants in accordance 
with ecclesiastical laws, and we demand 
not only that the church exercise over the 
Catholic schools (primary, secondary, and 
higher) the influence which alone can 
guarantee to the Catholic people that its 
children shall receive in the schools a 
Catholic education and instruction, but 
we claim also for the church the free- 
dom to found and direct in an indepen- 
dent manner, certain private establish- 
ments ordained for the teaching of the 
sciences in accordance with Catholic 
principles. In fine, we maintain and 
defend the sacred .character of Christian 
marriage as that of a sacrament of the 
Catholic Church, as well as the right 
which the divine will has given to the 
church in connection with this sacra- 
ment." 

The signatures of the bishops are affix- 
ed to this document, which is addressed 
to all the German governments, and pro- 
duced a commotion and irritation among 
all the national liberal journals which 
were unexampled. We have given this 
tract here in order to bring home to 
the minds of our readers how hard 



the church is driven in Germany. 
When the bishops and the laity com- 
bined feel themselves called upon to 
protest in this style, the government 
which for no reason whatever can give 
rise to such a protest signed by the saint- 
ly chiefs of a body of 14,000,000, and en- 
dorsed in meeting after meeting by those 
14,000,000 and the countless numbers of 
their co-religionists outside of Germany 
scattered through the broad world must 
be one which does not govern, but tyran- 
nizes. 

The same "thorough" policy prevailed 
in Alsace and Lorraine. On the very 
day, October i, when the option of de- 
claring for France or Germany arrived, 
all the men who remained in the coun- 
tries named were enrolled in the Prussian 
service from that date. This, beyond 
what Mr. Disraeli would call a " senti- 
mental grievance," drove them from the 
country, as it must have been intended to 
do. Service under the power that annex- 
ed them, which they but yesterday fought 
against, and a service the most rigorous 
and exacting that exists, as it must be in 
order to retain its supremacy, was some- 
thing that seems to have been ingenious- 
ly invented in order to drive the people 
out. The provinces are more than deci- 
mated ; the Prussian army, if increased 
at all, is increased in the event of a re- 
newed war by untrustworthy men, and a 
new drop of gall is thrown into the al- 
ready overbitter cup which France is 
compelled to swallow. And yet the Pro- 
vinzial Correspondenz (official) of Berlin, in 
view of October i, said : " The govern- 
ment has not hesitated an instant in call- 
ing without delay on the inhabitants of 
Alsace and Lorraine to serve in the Ger- 
man army, as the best and surest means 
to evoke and develop speedily among the 
population newly reunited to Germany 
the sentiment of an intimate community 
with the German people." 

This smacks of excess of credibility. 
If Bismarck wanted reaily to annex the 
provinces in heart and soul, he adopted 
the very surest means of emptying them 
in the speediest manner, and letting in 
the Germans, who now, sick of war and of 
the rumors of war, wish to emigrate in such 
formidable numbers. Probably the chan- 
cellor proposes using the deserted provir- 
ces as a safety-valve for these recreant spir 
its. One of the most significant signs of the 
instability of the new empire is the desire 
of so many earnest workers to leave it 



426 



Signs of the Times. 



just when it has been established in all 
its glory and power. But glory and pow- 
er do not last long in the eyes of men 
who look to a peaceful life and to which 
side, in a popular phrase, their bread is 
buttered. Instead of peace, they find the 
service more rigorous than ever ; the 
money which was won by the blood 
of their kin and countrymen going to 
the pockets of the generals, to carry out 
emperors' fetes, and purchase millions of 
rifles of a new pattern. Evidently the 
business of the German Empire wears a 
very martial look. But the artisan and 
clerk have fought well, and find no re- 
turns. Your German is of a logical bent, 
so he determines on going elsewhere, 
where he may live at peace, and let Bis- 
marck look after his own empire. 

In France, we have had and are having 
the pilgrimages.to Lourdes. Not alone to 
Lourdes, and not alone in France, but in 
Belgium and Germany also there have 
been numerous pilgrimages to various 
shrines. Of course the wits of the secular 
journals, with a few honorable exceptions, 
have had a fine time of it, and have twist- 
ed the stories of the miracles of Lourdes 
and La Salette into every possible shape in 
which they might squeeze a laugh out of 
it. They are at great pains to show what 
we were long ago convinced of that they 
do not know what faith means. 

Mgr. Mermillod, after a residence of 
seven years in full enjoyment and exer- 
cise of his ecclesiastical functions, has 
suddenly come to be non-recognized by 
the Swiss government, or, more properly, 
by the Grand Council of Geneva, and his 
pension stopped. The Grand Council of 
Geneva had already expelled the Sisters 
of Chanty and the Christian Brothers. It 
essays the role of Bismarck, and where it 
purposes stopping we do not yet see. 
But as the population of Geneva is com- 
posed of 47,000 Catholics against 43,000 
Protestants, we may presume that the 
Grand Council of Geneva will very speed- 
ily be brought to> its senses. Its miser- 
able pension of 10,000 francs was raised to 
23,000 in two days by a voluntary contri- 
bution set on foot by M. Veuillot of the 
Univers. The Grand Council has incurred 
the contempt of all rational minds, while 
Mgr. Mermillod is supported in his action 
by all his fellow-bishops, by his Holiness, 
and by the Catholic world. It may be as 
well to remember that the Protestant 
party in the Swiss cantons voted, but 
were happily outvoted, for union with 



Prussia. It is not difficult to see whence 
the persecution of Mgr. Mermillod 
starts. 

Gentlemen who have visited the Al- 
hambra in London, or any one almost of 
the Parisian theatres, or Niblo's in New 
York, are not apt to be squeamish on the 
score of the decent and moral in theatri- 
cal representations. Things must there- 
fore be at a very bad pass when we find 
the correspondents of the London Times 
and the other English newspapers, in 
common with those of our own and the 
Parisian press, uniting in condemning in 
the most unsparing terms the pieces 
which are now in vogue on the boards of 
the Roman theatres. Cardinal Patrizi ad- 
dressed an official letter to Minister 
Lanza on the subject. That gentleman, 
who is extremely active in suppressing a 
Catholic paper which dares to carica- 
ture his majesty's government, sends back 
an answer which, divested of its diplo- 
matic wool, is cowardly, stupid, and insult- 
ing. We have been astonished to find 
" religious " newspapers in this city glee- 
ful over these representations which the 
good sense, if nothing more, of the secu- 
lar correspondents of all journals in all 
countries condemns as odious, detesta- 
ble, and utterly unfit to be presented in 
any civilized, or for that matter uncivilized, 
community. These journals which are 
religious see in them " a new means of 
evangelizing Italy." Another feature in 
" united Italy" is the utter insecurity of 
life and property in Rome, Naples, and 
Ravenna principally, though, in fact, 
through the length and breadth of the 
land. Victor Emanuel has held the 
country long enough now to give some 
account of his stewardship. The govern- 
ment of the Pope and of the Bourbons, we 
were told, favored brigandage and every 
other atrocity; yet the correspondents of the 
London Times, the London Spectator, and 
by this time most of the other anti-Catho- 
lic journals, are furnishing articles which 
must rather astonish the upholders of the 
blessings which were to flow from " Italy 
united." They picture scenes of rapine 
and blood before which the graphic Ar- 
kansas letters of the Herald ^\Q, while the 
doers of these deeds, the thieves and 
murderers, are " well known to the po- 
lice," in fact, on excellent terms with 
them, and walk about in the open day 
with any man's life in their hands who 
dares frown on them. The government 
is simply afraid of them, afraid to use 



New Publications. 



427 



the only remedy now in its hands by believe Mr. Miall's measure to be the 
proclaiming martial law, a proceeding logical sequence of the last of these 
which the English journals strongly ad- 
vise. If such a state of things continues 
much longer, we fear the inevitable ver- 
dict must come to Victor Emanuel, 
Now thou shalt be steward no longer." Of 



measures, a fact which Mr. Disraeli in 
opposing it foretold. It is an anomaly 
a church supported by a majority 
which does not believe in it. Mr. Miall's 
measure is only a growth of time ; in 



his ill-gotten power, indeed, it may be said, fact.it only requires the conversion of 

" blood hath bought blood, and blows have such organs as the Times and Saturday 

answered blows." People are apt to be Review to bring it to pass to-day. 

logical ; if a government robs and kills As a corollary to Mr. Miall's move- 

and calls it law, why should not they do 

the same? Italy will continue in a state 

of chronic anarchy until religion is re- 



ment comes the annual Church Con- 
gress held this year at Leeds under 
presidency of the Bishop of 



the 



stored to it ; then order will follow as it is 
following in France to-day. 



Ripon. This annual congress is a curi- 
ous thing ; it is a meeting of everybody, 



In England, though Parliament has not high and low, church and lay, to compare 

been sitting, questions of moment have notes and see how the church is getting 

been rife. Mr. Miall has again raised the on a very useful proceeding, no doubt, if 

war-cry against the Established Church, there were only something faintly ap- 

ably seconded by Mr. Jacob Bright. The preaching unanimity among its members. 

Times and Saturday Review and other As it happened, unanimity was the one 

journals affect to laugh at Mr. thing wanting, and certain stages of the 

Miall, as they and such as they proceedings were as warm as those of the 

laughed at the Reform Bill, the Act " Old Catholics" at Cologne. In fact, the 

of Catholic Emancipation, and the dis- account of the whole proceedings reads like 

establishment of the Irish Church. We an extract from The Comedy of Convocation. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



THE HISTORY OF THE SACRED PASSION. 
From the Spanish of Father Luis de la 
Palma, of the Society of Jesus. The 
Translation revised and edited by 
Henry James Coleridge, of the same 
Society. London : Burns & Gates. 
1872. (New York : Sold by The Catho- 
lic Publication Society.) 
This is the third volume of the Quar- 
terly Series which the Jesuit Fathers are 
bringing out in London. The series is 
beautifully got up, and we wish it every 
success. 

The present work on the Passion has 
a prologue by the author, in which he 
sets forth the end he has had in view. The 
prologue is followed by a brief treatise on 
the method of meditation on the Passion, 
together with four sections suggestive of 
aids to the memory, the understanding, 
the will, and the colloquy. The whole is 
prefaced by the editor, from whose re- 



marks we transcribe the following : " That 
he (the author) was a man of sound and 
deep theological learning is sufficiently 
proved by the work which is now pre- 
sented to the English reader. . . . Every- 
thing he has written is of the most ster- 
ling value, and has always been very 
highly esteemed, especially by those who 
have labored in illustrating and explain- 
ing the Spiritual Exercises of S. Ignatius. 
. . . He tells us (in the prologue) that 
the book is designed both for simple 
reading and also for the purpose of fur- 
nishing matter to those who are in the 
habit of practising meditation and of pre- 
paring their meditation for themselves. 
Those who use the book for the first- 
named purpose will hardly discover that 
it is intended also to serve the other ; 
while those who practise meditation, and 
refer to these pages for matter pregnant 
with such considerations and suggestive 



428 



New Publications. 



of copious affections and practical reso- 
lutions, will not find it easy to exhaust 
the stores which are here so unostenta- 
tiously collected. It may be worth while 
to point out that the design of the author, 
that his book should thus serve the pur- 
pose of a storehouse for meditation on the 
Passion, accounts for the only kind of 
amplification which he has allowed him- 
self. This is the paraphrastic com- 
mentary which he generally substitutes 
for or subjoins to the words of our blessed 
Lord in the various scenes of the Passion. 
The meaning of these sacred words is 
often very fully and lovingly brought 
out, although the narrative form in which 
the whole work is cast might less natur- 
ally suggest this method of treatment, so 
valuable to those who desire to feed on 
the sayings of our blessed Saviour in all 
their rich fertility and meaning." 

The editor expresses a fear "that the 
translation will be found to be, at least in 
parts, rugged and unpolished " ; but says 
he has " tried, on the other hand, to make 
it as faithful as possible ; and to that ob- 
ject has been well content to sacrifice 
smoothness of style, though the original 
deserves the most careful rendering in 
matter and in form." " Palma belongs," 
he adds, " to what I believe is the best 
age of Spanish religious literature the 
age of Louis of Grenada, John of Avila, 
Louis of Leon, S. Teresa; S. John of the 
Cross, Louis da Ponte, and other famous 
writers. In point of style he is, perhaps, 
not equal to them ; but he shares with many 
of these writers the characteristic of mascu- 
line common sense, theological culture 
alike exquisite and solid, and the tender- 
cst and simplest piety. Happily, these 
are qualities which do not easily evaporate 
in a translation." 

He then goes on to say that he has 
"thought it better not to attempt in any 
way to edit Father Palma as to points on 
which he would perhaps write differently 
were he living in the present century." 
We quite agree with his decision ; and 
shall here close our notice of the book, 
since, after what we have borrowed from 
the preface, any comments of our own 
would be superfluous. 

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF 
FUTURITY, AND OTHER STORIES. New 
York: The Catholic Publication So- 
ciety. 1872. 

This book, containing three tales, All- 
Hallow Eve, Unconvicted, and Jenifer's 
Prayer, while it will doubtless afford 



much amusement to many readers during 
the long winter evenings, will, we trust, 
have other and more decided effects. By 
contrast, it shows that fiction of the very 
highest order may be successfully written 
without the extraneous aid of bad taste 
and more than doubtful morality, and by 
example it will encourage our aspiring 
writers who, now overawed by the shadow 
of departed genius, are unwilling or afraid 
to risk their reputations in endeavoring 
to rival the efforts of those who formerly 
delighted and instructed us by their com- 
positions. When the Star of the North, 
Scott, set, it was feared that this species 
of literature had suffered an irreparable 
loss ; but soon a host of writers sprang up 
in England, Ireland, and, we may say, 
America, who not only compensated for 
the loss, but more than repaid us for the 
decadence of the historico-romantic school. 
When those in turn disappeared, it was 
confidently predicted that the present 
generation, barren of imagination and 
powers of observation and description, 
could not produce anything equal to 
what adorned the pages of men like 
Griffin, Dickens, and Hawthorne. Daily 
experience teaches us that this was a 
fallacy. New buds of promise are con- 
stantly springing up around us which 
need but the encouraging voice of the 
press and the smiles of a discriminating 
public patronage to warm into full-blown 
vigor and loveliness. 

The three tales before us are an earnest 
of this. The story entitled All-Hallow 
Eve, the first in this collection, as it is, we 
think, the first in merit, is a tale of singu- 
lar beauty, power and truthfulness. In 
construction artistic without the appear- 
ance of art, in verisimilitude it is all that 
would be required by the most orthodox 
French dramatist. The characters arc 
few and clearly defined, the plot simple, 
the scene scarcely changes, the time from 
beginning to end is short, and the de- 
noument, though tragic, offends neither 
our sensibilities nor our sense of justice. 
Ned Cavana and Michael Murdock are 
two aged well-to-do Ulster farmers whose 
lands lie contiguous. The former has a 
daughter Winifred or Winny, and the 
latter a son Thomas ; and the natural 
desire of the fond parents is to form a 
matrimonial alliance between their chil- 
dren, and thus unite the families and the 
farms. Tom Murdock is handsome, at- 
tractive, cunning, mercenary, and un- 
scrupulous, while Winny, who is limned 



New Publications. 



429 



with more than a painter's art, adds to 
her natural graces a noble heart and keen 
perception. Edmond Lennon, a young 
peasant rich in everything but money, 
falls in love with her, and, besides en- 
countering the secret or open hostility 
of the Murdocks, he finds an almost in- 
surmountable barrier in the caste 'pride 
of the father of his lady-love. Aided, 
however, by the gentle and astute Winny, 
he partially succeeds in overcoming this 
difficulty, when the machinations of his 
rival are employed against him, and the 
result is but we will not destroy the 
pleasure of our fair and necessarily curi- 
ous readers by unfolding the catastrophe. 
The contrasts of character of the two old 
men, each in his way aiming at the best, 
and also between the suitors, are excel- 
lently drawn ; the interludes, such as the 
All-Hallow Eve festival and the "hurl- 
ing" match, are accurate and lifelike, 
and the bits of pathos which here and 
there dot the course of the story are 
so touching in their very simplicity that 
we venture to say many an eye unused to 
the melting mood will be none the less 
moistened on their perusal. The style 
adopted by the author is easy and fam- 
iliar, a little too much so, we imagine, to 
suit the tastes of the more exacting read- 
er ; and herein lies the only defect, if it 
can be called one, that we can perceive 
in this story. 

Unconvictcd ; or, Old Thorneley's Heirs, is 
a tale of an altogether different character, 
illustrating what may be called a more 
advanced state of civilization. The scene 
is laid in London, and the principal per- 
sonages occupy a high social position. 
It is a story of suffering and affection, of 
deep, dark, and unruly passion, and un- 
dying love and friendship. It would be 
vain to attempt to epitomize the plot, 
which is woven so closely and so dexter- 
ously that our interest in the actors js 
kept constantly on the qui vive, and it is 
only at the very last chapter that we are 
relieved from all anxiety on their account. 
The tale opens with the death of old Gil- 
bert Thorneley, it is supposed by poison, 
and the discovery of his murderer forms 
the principal theme of the entire narra- 
tive. This involves a great deal of legal 
discussion and analysis, and, for the first 
time in the history of fiction, as far as our 
knowledge goes, we have a clear and 
accurate description of the niceties, quib- 
bles, and profundity of English law. 
Though more curious and instructive 



than amusing, this does not, however 
detract from the interest of the novel as 
such, but rather acts as an offset to the 
numerous scenes of connubial and filial 
affection with which it is replete. The 
moral is of course unexceptionable and 
easily drawn. 

Janifer's Prayer, a shorter but no less 
meritorious story of English life, com- 
pletes the volume, which, appearing at this 
season when good books become more a 
necessity than a luxury in the household, 
will no doubt be warmly welcomed by 
those who, from taste or inclination, pre- 
fer the attractions of the novel to the 
more serious study of science and his- 
tory. 

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY AL- 
MANAC FOR THE UNITED STATES, FOR 
THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1873, calcu- 
lated for different parallels of latitude, 
and adapted for use throughout the 
country. New York : The Catholic 
Publication Society. 
There are something over five million 
Catholics in the United States, represent- 
ing over five hundred thousand families. 
This little Catholic Family Almanac, then, 
should have a circulation of five hundred 
thousand. If it has not, the fault is not 
with the Publication Society, but in the 
Catholics themselves neglecting to diffuse 
it each in his. own circle. A few years 
ago such a little annual would have been 
regarded as an impossibility. Beautiful 
in typography, with woodcut illustrations 
which in design and execution rival those 
of any work issued in the country, it is 
something that a Catholic can view with 
pride, and can never blush to open before 
any one. This is merely taking it at its 
mechanical value. Its scope is to give 
the yearly calendar of the church with 
what is locally interesting to us as Catho- 
lics in America, or associated with the 
trials and triumphs of the church in that 
Old World to which by some degrees 
more or less we must all trace our 
origin. 

In this year's little volume, we find 
portraits of various ages, with original 
sketches, telling us of great prelates 
among ourselves, Archbishop Spalding 
and Bishop McGill, representative men 
who knew the necessity of diffusing in- 
formation among our people ; bishops of 
the last generation like Milner, whose 
works are familiar to all, yet whose coun- 
terfeit presentment few have ever met ; 



430 



New Publications. 



or Bishop Doyle, J.K.L., whom Ireland 
can never forget ; or like De Haro, who 
extended his kindness to American Ca- 
tholics in their early struggles ; or like 
the illustrious Hughes, whose large mind 
gave us a national life and position. The 
Venerable Gregory Lopez will be new to 
many, great as was his fame in Mexico. 
Crespel represents the French pioneer 
clergy at the frontiers in colonial times a 
man who saw rough life by sea and land 
in his missionary career. Father Mathew 
needs no comment. The likeness is 
speaking and fine. What part Catholics 
bore in the days of the Revolution we see 
in the sketch of Charles Carroll of Carroll- 
ton, illustrated with a portrait and a view 
of the old mansion. With his cousin, a 
priest, he was laboring to make our cause 
continental before the Declaration of In- 
dependence was debated in Congress. 

Mrs. Seton y as the lady of wealth and 
influence in New York society, while 
Washington as President resided there, 
shows the wonderful hand of Providence. 
Who that saw that young wife then could 
have said that she would be the foundress 
of a Catholic sisterhood, and not be 
deemed insane? Mother Julia, foundress 
of the Sisters of Notre Dame, whom some 
people may have heard of, and whose 
schools in this country alone contain sixty 
thousand pupils. 

Next comes the Venerable de la Salle, 
founder of the Christian Brothers, whose 
pupils in our land, one might say, " no man 
can number for multitude." The portrait 
and sketch of this servant of God will be 
read in thousands of American families 
which owe the Christian training of their 
boys to his devoted community of Broth- 
ers ; and, happily in the same work, we 
have a portrait and sketch of the brilliant 
Gerald Griffin, who closed his days as a 
Christian Brother. 

The view of old S. Mary's, the cradle 
of Maryland, the Catholic settlement 
founded by the Ark and Dove, is alone 
worth all the Almanac costs. And this is 
but a portion of its contents. We have a 
stirring incident of the early missions, 
the Rock of Cashel, the Church of Icolm- 
kill, the Cathedrals of Sienna and Chartres. 

Every Catholic of means should feel it 
a bounden duty to order a number of 
copies of this Almanac, and distribute 
them among the families less likely to 
hear of its merits. In this way much 
is 3 r et to be done in the diffusion of 
popular Catholic literature. Our laity 



have to feel that there is an apostolate 
incumbent upon them. Fas est et ab J'oste 
doceri. 

TRADITION. Principally with reference 
to Mythology and the Law of Nations. 
By Lord Arundell of Wardour. Lon- 
don : Burns, Gates & Co. (New York : 
Sold by The Catholic Publication So- 
ciety.) 

This is a work in which the chronolo- 
gies, mythologies, and fragmentary tradi- 
tions of many nations are gathei'ed to- 
gether and made to do service in the 
cause of Revelation. 

The opponents of revealed truth not 
unfrequently assume this department of 
knowledge to be their exclusive posses- 
sion they have been foremost in work- 
ing this mine, all it contains is theirs, 
and must be made to sustain their theo- 
ries. Lord Arundell's book shows how 
utterly groundless is this assumption. 
Here we have facts and figures, argu- 
ments and inferences, taken from their 
own writings, which go to establish the 
truthfulness of the sacred Scriptures from 
the very standpoint whence it has been 
sought to convict them of falsehood. The 
first chapter in Genesis is a key to every 
cosmogony. The rudest code of barbaric 
laws bears some impress of the Almighty 
Finger of Sinai. Traditions, however 
distant and vague, point in one general 
direction. These facts have long since 
been established. Lord Arundell proves 
them anew, and brings forth much new 
matter in his proofs. Indeed, while in 
many books we often have occasion to 
note the absence of data and ideas, this, 
we may say, is crowded with both. 

We doubt not that this book will for- 
ward greatl)' the interests of truth, and 
thus the zeal and devotion of its noble 
author will be fully requited. 



GOD AND MAN. Conferences delivered 
at Notre Dame in Paris. By the Rev. 
Pere Lacordaire, of the Order of Friar- 
Preachers. Translated from the French 
by a Tertiary of the same Order. Lon- 
don : Rivingtons. (New York : Sold 
by The Catholic Publication Society.) 

The translator has already given us two 
volumes of the great Dominican's Con- 
ferences, and promises more in the same 
readable form. Persons as yet unac- 
quainted with Lacordaire will find his 
papers kindle their enthusiasm beyond, 
perhaps, those of any other author that 



New Publications. 



431 



Is, if they can at all appreciate the origi- 
nality of his argument, together with his 
giant grasp of thought and diction. And 
especially do we commend these confer- 
ences to earnest thinkers outside the 
church, with whom the supernatural is 
the question of questions. 

Indebted as we are to the translator, he 
must not think us hypercritical if we 
complain of bad punctuation, a comma 
being sometimes found where a colon or 
even a full stop ought to be ; or if we 
take leave to remind him that, to render 
French idiomatically, it will not do to 
preserve the sudden changes of t^nse 
which are forcible in that language, as in 
Latin, but sound very strangely in Eng- 
lish. 

THE HYMNARY, WITH TUNES : A Collec- 
tion of Music for Sunday-Schools. By 
S. Lasar. New York and Chicago : 
Biglow & Main. 

We could recommend this hymn-book 
to Catholic schools, and, on account of 
its intrinsic worth, would have been glad 
to do so, if the compiler had excluded 
the few hymns, of no special merit in 
themselves or in the tunes adapted to 
them, which are anti-Catholic in doctrine. 
Poison is dangerous, and we cannot offer 
it even in the smallest quantities to our 
children. 

THE ISSUES OF AMERICAN POLITICS. By 
Orrin Skinner, Philadelphia: J. B. 
Lippincott & Co. 1873. 
Attracted by the title of this book, the 
fact of its dedication to a distinguished 
citizen of New York, and by its compre- 
hensive table of contents, we took it up 
and read it from cover to cover. In all 
candor, we must say a more confused, un- 
grammatical, and shallower book it has 
seldom fallen to our lot to peruse ; and 
why any respectable publishing house 
should have been induced to bring it out 
in such good style, or in any form at all, 
passes our comprehension. To grapple 
with the great issues of our American 
politics, to state each leading question 
clearly and fairly, and to draw deductions 
therefrom that will stand the test of 
justice and reason is a task requiring 
infinitely more experience, judicial ability, 
and knowledge of our language than the 
author displays or evidently ever will 
Judging from this production, 
kinnerhas not the faintest concep- 
tion of the' principles upon which rests 



the framework of our government. Though 
a lawyer, he is sadly ignorant of law as a 
science ; and, though ambitious of author- 
ship, he seems unable to write a paragraph 
intelligibly. For instance, take the fol- 
lowing, snatched at random : 

" The deduction from this criticism con- 
stitutes, of course, an advocacy of intelli- 
gent suffrage. The plea is here urged 
that an unrestricted suffrage is its own 
incentive to the education of those who 
exercise it. The assertion betrays an un- 
pardonable ignorance of one of the most 
prominent characteristics of human na- 
ture. Frail humanity is so constituted 
that, when it has presented to it two ways 
of effecting its purposes, one with effort 
and the other without, it invariably 
chooses the latter. Equality as a funda- 
mental element of republican institutions 
is also urged, Let such a sciolist read 
his conviction in the quotations from 
Burke already cited." 

It were, however, useless to further at- 
tempt to criticise this most pretentious 
and least readable of books, and the best 
wish we can afford the author, and one 
that we have no doubt will be gratified, 
is that it will be read by few and soon for- 
gotten. 

A MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE : A 
Text-Book for Schools and Colleges. 
By^ohn S. Hart, LL.D. Philadelphia : 
Eidridge & Bro. 1873. 

Mr. Hart has gathered considerable 
fresh material on American literature in 
this volume. There is still much which 
he has omitted. ^ With the same industry 
and care which he has already bestowed 
on this manual, he may render it com- 
plete. There is a personality in some of 
his remarks which is uncalled for. In 
spite of these defects, this is the best work 
of the kind with which we are acquainted. 

THE MARBLE PROPHECY, AND OTHER PO- 
EMS. By J. G. Holland. New York: 
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 

When our holy church, with its venera- 
ted head, its divine sacraments and sacred 
ceremonies, is chosen by a writer of merit 
as the object upon which he feels himself 
moved to pour forth his scathing abuse 
or stinging ridicule, we bear his ponder- 
ous strokes or parry his keen thrusts as 
best we may, confessing to the pardon- 
able weakness of feeling complimented at 
being called to the lists by an adversary 
of some strength of arm or sharpness of 



432 



New Publications. 



weapon ; but, when one from the common 
crowd of chance-assembled knights, like 
our quondam Timothy Titcomb, presumes 
unchallenged to invite the attention of 
that respectable audience the American 
public to his little tilt against the giant 
of centuries, and, in his overeagerness to 
take a share in the fray, disports himself 
upon such a sorry steed as the " Marble 
Prophecy," laden with " other poems " as 
a makeweight, we at once look about us 
to see if we have not a serviceable cane 
at hand for the use of the same discrim- 
inating public, et voila f 

ROUNDABOUT RAMBLES IN LANDS OF 
FACT AND FANCY. By Frank R. Stock- 
ton, i vol. small 410. New York : 
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 
This is an instructive work, compiled 
with much judgment and good taste 
from various authors, and is beautifully 
illustrated, making it a very desirable 
holiday present for the young folk. 

NIAGARA: Its History and Geology, In- 
cidents and Poetry. With illustrations. 
By George W. Holley. New York : 
Sheldon & Co. 1872. 
This is something more than a mere 
Murray, or guide-book, at the same time 
that it serves as a valuable reference to 
the intelligent tourist. Besides some 
historical and topographical descriptions, 
for which he draws on the works of Shea, 
Parkman, Marshall, the Relations of the 
Early Jesuit Missionaries, and State Docu- 
ments, in addition to his own observa- 
tions, he indulges in some geological 
speculations which will attract the atten- 
tion of scientific readers. The whole is 
interspersed with anecdotes, incidents, 
and poetical scraps which will serve to 
relieve the tedium of travel, and hotel 
life. 

A HIDDEN LIFE, AND OTHER POEMS. By 
George Macdonald, LL.D., Author of 
" Within and Without," " Wilfred Cum- 
bermede," etc. New York : Scribner, 
Armstrong & Co. 1872. 

There is true poetry in this volume. 
The author possesses, in our judgment, 
powers of a high order. His mind, too, 
is of a deeply religious cast ; and we 
wonder how he can remain a Protestant 
after his struggles with doubt on the one 
hand, as shown in the poem of " The 
Disciple," and his attractions to Catholi- 
city on the other, as evinced especially 



in his poem on " The Gospel Woman/ 
and most in the opening one, "The Mo- 
ther Mary." But then he has a laudatory 
sonnet "To Garibaldi." 

THE " Catholic Publication Society" has 
in press, and will publish simultaneously 
with its appearance in England, from ad- 
vance sheets furnished by the author, a 
new work, entitled, My Clerical Friends, 
by the author of The Comedy of Convoca- 
tion. This will be the only authorized 
edition published in this country. 

^BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED. 

From KREUZER BROTHERS, Baltimore : The Ca- 
tholic Priest. By Michael Mttller, C.SS.R. 
i8mo, pp. 163. The u Our Father." By the 
same. i8mo, pp. 221. 

From J. A. McGEE, New York : Sister Mary 
Francis' (the Nun of Kenmare) Advice to Irish 
Girls in America. i2mo, pp. 201. 

From BURNS, GATES & Co., London : Reflec- 
tions and Prayers for Holy Communion. From 
the French. With a preface by Archbishop 
Manning. (New York : Sold by The Catholic 
Publication Society.) i8mo, pp. xii M 498. 

From R. WASHEURNE, London : A Dogmatic 
Catechism. From the Italian of Frassinetti. 
(New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication 
Society.) i8mo, pp. xix., 244. 

From JAMES DUFFY, Dublin : Sermons on 
Ecclesiastical Subjects. By Henry Edward 
Manning, D.D. (New York: Sold by The 
Catholic Publication Society.) pp viii., 456. 

From GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, New. York: 
The Moral of Accidents, and other Discourses. 
By the late Thomas T. Lynch. i2mo, pp. xviii., 



From T. & T. CLARK, Edinburgh, and SCRIBNER, 
WELFORD & ARMSTRONG, New York : Biblical 
Commentary on the Books of the Kings. By 
C. F. Keil. 8vo, pp. viii., 523 Sermons from 
1828 to 1860. By the late Wm. Cunningham, 
D.D. 8vo, pp. xxxvi , 416. The Old Catholic 
Church. By W. D. Killen, D.D. 8vo, pp. 
xx., 411. Biblical Commentary on the Book of 
Psalms. By F. Deleutzsch, D.D. Vol. III. 
8vo, pp. 420. 

From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York : Fly 
Leaves by C. S. C. 12010, pp. vi., 233. 

From the AUTHOR: Key to the Massoretic 
Notes, Titles, and Index generally found in 
the margin of the Hebrew Bible. Translated 
from the Latin of A. Hahn. With many addi- 
tions and corrections. By Alex. Merowitz, 
A.M., Professor of the Hebrew language and 
literature in the University of New York. 
New York: J. Wiley & Son. 8vo, paper, 
pp. 22. 

From ELDREDGE & BROTHER, Philadelph ; a: A 
French Verb Book. By E. Lagarde, A.M. 
izmo, pp. 130. 

From P. O'SHEA, New York: Month of the 
Holy Rosary. By Rev. P. M. Chery, O.P. 
i8mo, pp. iv., 200 The Scapular of Mount 
Carmel. By Rev. P. Tissot, S.J. 24010, pp. 
105. 

From the AUTHOR : The Irish Republic. A His- 
torical Memoir of Ireland and her Oppressors. 
By P. Cudmore, Counselior-at-Law. St. Paul: 
Pioneer Printing Company, 1871. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. XVI., No. 94. JANUARY, 1873. 



A SON OF THE CRUSADERS. 

. . . " On his breast a bloodie crosse he bore, 

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, 

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, 

And dead, as living, ever him ador'd : 

Upon his shield the like was also scor'd. 

For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had, 

Right faithful true he was in deede and word." SPENSER. 



ONE day in the month of Novem- 
ber, 1833, a stranger descended from 
the lumbering Schuellpost at the 
little town of Marburg (Electoral 
Hesse), on the pleasant banks of the 
Lahn. Looking around him, he dis- 
covered but a single object of interest 
-the old cathedral of the place, a 
noble Gothic edifice, which, although 
stripped and cold in its modern dedi- 
cation to the Lutheran service, still 
preserved the salient features of its 
inalienable beauty and majesty of 
form. 

The traveller, a young man of 
twenty-three, a Catholic, and an 
enthusiast in his intelligent and cul- 
tivated admiration of the grand archi- 
tecture of his church, recognized in 
the building a monument celebrated 
at once for its pure and perfect beau- 
ty, and the first in Germany in which 
the pointed arch prevailed over the 



round in the great renovation of art 
in the Xlllth century. 

Contrary to. Lutheran observance, 
the church happened on that clay to 
be open, in compliance with a tra- 
ditional custom, for the cathedral 
bore the name of S. Elizabeth, and 
this was S. Elizabeth's Day. The 
stranger entered. There was no 
religious service. There were no 
worshippers, and children were at 
play among the old tombs. He 
wandered through the vast and deso- 
late aisles, which not even the de- 
vastation and neglect of centuries 
had robbed of their marvellous ele- 
gance. Naked altars from which no 
ministering hand now wiped the dust, 
pillars, defaced statues, nearly oblit- 
erated paintings, broken and defaced 
wood carvings, successively struck his 
eye and attracted his attention. All 
these remains of Christian art, even 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of 

the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



434 A S n f th* Crusaders. 

in their ruin telling the story of their tedium of his way. Although written 
origin in days of fresh and fervent by a Protestant in a cold, unsympa- 
laith, appeared also to picture in a cer- thizing, matter-of-fact way, the essen- 
tain sequence the events of some de- tial charm of its mere record of 
vout life. Here was the statue of a youthful self-devotion laid a power- 
young woman in the dress of a ful spell upon him. His artistic en- 
widow; further on, in painting, a thusiasm, his heart, his piety, were all 
frightened girl showing to a crowned touched and aroused. Just emerging 
warrior her robe filled with roses ; in sorrow from one of the most trying 
yet further, these two, the young ordeals of the battle of life, with re- 
woman and the warrior, tearing them- pelled longings and disappointed 
selves in anguish from a parting em- hopes, his pent-up youthful energies 
brace. Again, the lady is seen stretch- were now seeking some outlet for 
ed on her bed of death amidst weep- escape, some fresh field of action, 
ing attendants, and, later, an emperor Uncertain what this field, this outlet, 
lays his crown on her freshly exhum- might be, he had vowed that, with 
ed coffin. the choice before him of several dif- 

It was explained to the traveller ferent objects to pursue, he would de- 

that these pictured incidents were cide for that which was the most 

events in the life of S. Elizabeth, Catholic. He had found it. "To 

queen of that country, who, that very S. Elizabeth he would," in his own 

day six hundred years ago, had died words, " sacrifice his fatigue and his 

in Marburg and lay buried in the hopes." He would write her life, and 

church. A silver shrine, richly strive to place on record its touching 

sculptured, was shown to him. It story at once a tender love-legend, 

had once enclosed the relics of the a page of mediaeval romance, and 

saint, but one of her descendants, the hallowed tradition of a saintly 

turned Protestant, ha'd torn them career. At the first stopping-place 

from it, and scattered them to the he left the diligence, and, taking a 

winds. The stone steps approaching return carriage, went immediately 

the shrine were deeply hollowed by back to Marburg, 
the countless pilgrims who, more than This traveller, this young stranger, 

three centuries agone, had come here Was Charles, Count de Montalembert, 

to kneel in prayer. " Alas !" thought peer of France. His sudden im- 

the stranger, " the faith which left its pulse, his enthusiastic vow, were not 

impress on the cold stone has left as words written in water. To what 

none upon human hearts !" would at this day seem to many an 

He desired to know more of the inconsiderate, quixotic rashness, suc- 

saintly patroness of Marburg's cathe- ceeded the deliberate realization of 

dral, and leaving the church sought an undertaking full of labor and diffi- 

out a bookseller, and asked for a life culty. He ransacked libraries, sought 

of S. Elizabeth. The man stared at out chronicles, legends, and popular 

him, bethought himself a moment, traditions, read old books and long- 

and then went up into a garret, from forgotten manuscripts, and travelled 

which he presently emerged with a far and wide throughout Germany, 

dust-covered pamphlet. " Here it wherever a locality offered the at- 

is," he said, " the only copy I have : traction of the slightest association 

no one ever asked for it before." with the name of S. Elizabeth. The 

The traveller resumed his journey, charm and fascination of his theme 

reading his pamphlet to beg.uile the grew upon him with every additional 






A Son of the Crusaders. 435 

fact he learned regarding her. Be- whose main inspiration was always 
ginning at the famous old castle of drawn from the sources of Catholic 
Wartburg, where Elizabeth came a truth and Catholic faith, 
child, the daughter of a race of kings, Montalembert died in March, 1870, 
from distant Hungary, he made a leaving a name and a reputation 
veritable pilgrimage, taking for his which for all time to come will re- 
route the itinerary of his heroine's life main one of the proudest illustrations 
-to Kreuzburg ; to Reinhartsbriinn, of France. 

where, a young wife and mother of We are fortunate in already having 
twenty, she parted in anguish from an admirable memoir of his life,* 
her husband, a crusader setting out written by one of the most distin- 
for Palestine ; to Bamberg, where guished women of England. It 
she was driven by persecution ; to cannot but be gratifying to all who 
Andechs, to Erfurth, and finally to cherish the memory of Montalem-' 
Marburg, " whither," as he says, " he bert that the task should have fallen 
returned to pray by her desecrated into the hands of one so eminently 
tomb, and to gather with pain and capable as Mrs. Oliphant. Person- 
difficulty some remembrance of her ally intimate with his family and on 
from the mouths of a people who terms of friendship with his wife (ne'e 
have renounced with the faith of their Comtesse de Merode), thoroughly 
fathers the regard due to their bene- familiar with the language, modern 
factress." history, and politics of France, and 

Bow down your heads, O genera- the successful translator of The Monks 

tion of stockbrokers and speculators of the West, it would have been diffi- 

in provisions and railway shares, to cult to find a writer better fitted, in 

the memory of this Montalembert, knowledge and in sympathy, to re- 

who, in the flower of his youthful cord the life of Charles de Monta- 

manhood, for years went up and lembert. Let us add here that, for 

down the world with an idea in his reasons which the intelligent reader 

head and heart ! may easily divine, we are glad that 

But this book, this life of S. Eliza- the biography has been written by a 

beth. you object, was, after all, a mere Protestant. Although to a Catholic 

pious legend of dubious trustworthi- reader it would be more pleasant to 

ness ? On the contrary, it was a read a life in which nothing could be 

work of the highest value, even judg- found which is not in perfect har- 

ed by the severest canons of histori- mony with the spirit of faith and loy- 

cal criticism. Its introduction alone alty toward the church, yet, for the 

is sufficient to make the work classic, public generally, the testimony of a 

Sainte-Beuve, high academic and fair and candid Protestant in respect 

critical authority, calls it majestic,* to certain very important events in 

and reviewers of all nations have the career of Montalembert will be 

contributed their verdicts of approval, more free from the suspicion of bias, 

This was Montalembert's first liter- and therefore of more value in es- 

ary production a success, as it de- tablishing the fact of his essential de- 
served to be, worthy forerunner of 

his yet greater work, The Monks of * Memoir of Count De MoHta i em bert. Peer of 

the West, and the first-fruit Of a Spleil- France, Deputy for the Department of Doubs. 

, , A Chapter of recent French History. Bv Mrs. 

erary and oratorical career, oiiphant, author of The Life of Edward'irving, 

S. Francis of Asxisi\ etc. In two volumes. 

L'ouvrage s'ouvre par une introduction William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and 

majestueusesurle treizieine siecle." London. 1872. 



43^ 



A Son of the Crusaders. 



votion to the Holy See to the end 
of his life. 

We trust that the ladies of Sorosis 
and of the various wings and van- 
guards of the grand army of " The 
Rights of Women" will not take offence 
if we endeavor to compliment Mrs. 
Oliphant by saying that we especial- 
ly admire the style in which her me- 
moir is written, for a tone and quali- 
ty which turn whither we may we 
cannot otherwise describe than as 
" manly." Making due allowance for 
the almost inevitable partiality of the 
biographer for his hero, there is a 
directness, a solidity, a sound com- 
mon-sense view of practical questions, 
and an absence of mere sentimentali- 
ty, all eminently to her credit and in 
admirable keeping with the dignity 
of her subject. Mrs. Oliphant's 
modesty, too. equals her ability. Re- 
ferring to her translation of The 
Monks of the West, she tells us : " We 
are sorry to add, to our personal hu- 
miliation, that Montalembert was by 
no means so much satisfied with at 
least the first part of the translation. 
He acknowledged that the meaning 
was faithfully rendered ; * but,' he 
wrote, ' I cannot admire the con- 
stant use of French or Latin words 
instead of your own vernacular. My 
Anglo-Saxon feelings are wounded 
to the quick by the useless admission 
of the article the or a ; and by such 
words as chagrin instead of grief, 
malediction instead of curse, etc.' The 
proofs of the translation came back 
from him laden with corrections in 
red ink a circumstance which com- 
municated to them a certain addi- 
tional sharpness, at least to the trou- 
bled imagination of the translator ; 
and the present writer may be per- 
haps allowed here to avow in her 
own person that up to this present 
moment, when she happens to have 
the smallest French phrase to trans- 
late, she pauses with instinctive 



alarm, hastily substituting freedom 
for liberty when the word occurs; 
and will cast about in her mind, with 
a certain sensation of fright, how to 
find words for authority, corruption, 
intelligence, etc., in other than the 
French form." 

Charles Forbes Rene de Monta- 
lembert was born in London on the 
1 5th of May, 1810. His father was a 
noble French emigre ; his mother, the 
daughter of James Forbes, an English- 
man of distinction. The first nine 
years of his life were spent principal- 
ly in England under the immediate 
care and in the personal companion- 
ship of his maternal grandfather, and, 
dating from this period, the English 
language was always to him a se- 
cond mother tongue. At the age 
of fourteen we find him at the col- 
lege of S. Barbe in Paris. The fact 
may be discouraging to many young 
gentlemen of the present day now at 
school and in sad possession of a 
class of ideas too generally accepted, 
to the effect that men become useful 
and distinguished by reason of the 
possession of some unaided special 
gift rather than by study and the la- 
borious acquisition of knowledge 
we say the fact may be discouraging 
to them, but nevertheless it remains 
a fact that the young Montalembert 
laid the foundation of his future dis- 
tinction as a man of letters, an ar- 
chaeologist, a great orator, a great 
writer, an eminent political leader, 
and the ornament of the Chamber of 
Peers, in close, unremitting, laborious 
application to his studies while at 
school. After he had completed his 
college course and entered society, 
we find him writing to a friend : " It 
is usual to say that youth is the time 
for the pleasures of society. I look 
upon this opinion as a complete para- 
dox. It seems to me, on the contra 
ry, that youth should be given up 
with ardor to study, or to preparation 



A Son of the Crusaders. 437 

for a profession. When a young tains of Kerry on horseback, with a 

man has paid his tribute to his coun- little Irish boy for his guide. He 

try ; when he can appear in society visited O'Connell at Derrynane, pre- 

crowned with the laurels of debate or pared and anxious to discuss with 

of the battle- field, or at least of uni- him the great subjects which rilled 

versal esteem ; when he feels entitled his mind. The Liberator received 

to command respect, if not admira- him kindly, and after dinner looking 

tion then is the time to enter socie- at the ingenuous face of twenty be- 

ty with satisfaction." fore him did what he thought pre- 

Soon there came for him the pe- cisely the proper thing to do usher- 
riod of illusions perducs, which, com- ed him at once into the drawing- 
mencing with the entrance into life room, where the young count was 
of every intelligent and ambitious thrown on true tender mercies of a 
young man, accompanies him with crowd of pretty and gay young Irish 
more or less persistence to the edge women. Encore tine illusion perdue ! 
of the grave. Young Montalembert He had crossed seas and mountains 
spent some time in Sweden, at whose to discuss freedom, the church, En- 
court his father was the ambassador glish rule and Irish emancipation, 
of Charles X. On his return to with Ireland's greatest man, who, 
France, he wrote an article upon that without listening to a word from him, 
country which M, Guizot, the editor thrust him into another room amid a 
of the Revue Franfaise, advised him bevy of laughing girls ! 
to cut down to half its length. He After Montalembert's return from 
complied, sent in his abbreviated ar- Ireland came his intimacy with La- 
ticle, and the editor suppressed the cordaire and Lamennais, and the 
best portion of what remained ! joint literary enterprise of the three 

About this time he met Lamartine, in the establishment of the Avenir^ 

became intimate with Victor Hugo, whose motto was " God and Liber- 

' then the poet of all sweet and virtu- ty." Its first number was issued 

ous things," and numbered among his Oct. 15, 1830. We will not dwell 

friends Sainte-Beuve, who then shared on its history, so familiar to all Ca- 

Montalembert's religious enthusiasm tholics, except to refer to the holy 

and his belief that Europe was to be war waged by it and its friends 

regenerated by the church. Ireland, against the monopoly of education 

too, came in for a full share of his by the government. Under the law, 

sympathy. He wrote an article on every private school, every educa- 

that country which Guizot allowed tional institution not licensed and 

to go in entire. A friend tells him regulated by the University of Paris, 

that his article on Sweden is dull, was absolutely forbidden. Utter ir- 

and that on Ireland commonplace, religiousness then pervaded the col- 

" Disappointing," writes the young leges and schools of France. The 

author in his diary, " but better than generation which passed through 

if my friend had praised me insin- those schools bears witness to their 

cerely." O'Connell, then in the ful- evil influences, and confirms Lacor- 

ness of his powers and his popularity, daire's own record, who says that he 

greatly attracted him. He would go left college " with religion destroyed 

the way to Ireland to see him. in his soul," and that he, like almost 

And he did. Crossing the two chan- all the youths of his period, " lost his 

nels, and traversing England, he faith at school." 

made the journey over the moun- Montalembert's picture of these 



43 8 A Son of the Crusaders. 

.evil influences was everywhere re- the culprit, because he had failed to 
cognized as truthful. " Is there a sin- keep the laws of Athens only in obe- 
gle establishment of the university dience to a higher law; and the exe- 
. where a Christian child can live in cutioner, because he presented the 
the exercise of faith ? Does not a cup to the victim with tears." 
contagious doubt, a cold and tena- With this proud and plain warning 
cious impiety, reign over all these ringing in their ears, the judges next 
young souls whom she pretends to heard Montalembert. He was just 
instruct ? Are they not too often twenty-one, and by the recent death 
either polluted, or petrified, or of his father but a few weeks in his 
frozen ? Is not the most flagrant, place as a peer of France. Sainte- 
the most monstrous, the most un- Beuve saw that his youth, his ease 
natural immorality inscribed in the and grace, the elegant precision of 
records of every college, and in the his style and diction, veiled the fact 
recollections of every child who has that it was a prisoner not a peer- 
passed as much as eight days who spoke, and his judges were the 
there ?" first to forget it. 

To test the law forbidding freedom " The entire chamber listened with 

in education, Lacordaire and Mon- a surprise which was not without 

talembert opened a free school for pleasure to the young man's bold 

poor children at Paris in the Rue self-justification. From that day M. 

des Arts. They were indicted for de Montalembert, though formally 

the offence, and tried at the bar of condemned, was borne in the very 

the Chamber of Peers. The audi- heart of the peerage he was its Ben- 

ence, as may well be imagined, was jamin." The sentence was a gentle 

made up from the nobility and intel- reprimand and a mild fine of a hun- 

ligence of the land. The prisoners dred francs. 

defended their cause in person. La- 1\ie: Avenir, it will be remembered, 

cordaire, who spoke first, referred to had incurred no censure from Rome, 

the fact that the government had Nevertheless, it had not prospered, 

lately impeached the previous minis- and it was resolved by its founders 

ters by virtue of power in the charter that they would appeal to the head 

not reduced to a special law. " If of the church for his explicit ap- 

they could do it, so could I," said proval. Accordingly, the publication 

the brave priest, " with this differ- of the paper was suspended, and its 

ence, that they asked blood, while I last number announced " with pomp," 

desired to give a free education to as Lacordaire says, that " the pur- 

the children of the poor." He ended pose of its editors was to suspend it 

by recalling to his judges the exam- until they had gone to P^ome to seek 

pie of Socrates " in the first struggle sanction and authority for its contin- 

for freedom to preach." " In that nation." The biographer well re- 

canse celebre by which Socrates fell," marks that " neither from primitive 

said Lacordaire, " he was evidently Ireland nor romantic Poland had 

culpable against the gods, and in such an expedition set forth." They 

consequence against the laws of his asked the head of the church " to 

country. Nevertheless, posterity, commit himself, to sanction a new 

both pagan and Christian, has stig- and revolutionary movement, to bless 

matized his judges and accusers ; the very banners of revolt, and ac- 

and of all concerned have absolved knowledge as pioneers of his army 

only the culprit and the executioner the ecclesiastical Ishmaels who had 



A Son of the Crusaders. 439 

carried fire and flame everywhere will accustom himself by degrees to the 

dunno- their brief career. There lower social level, the different spiritual 

, u atmosphere. But he who dissents from 

could, of course, be but one result the c ^ rch of Rome has no such refuge 

failure. The Avenir was condemned. The momen t he steps outside her fold he 

Lacordaire and Montalembert at finds himself in outer darkness, through 

once submitted to the decision, which awful salutations are shrieked to 

Poor de Lamennais did not, and un- him b ? the enemies of religion, by those 

.. , . , j , whom he has avoided and condemned 

happily persisted in his sad mistake. all hjs ,. fe> and wkh whom he can agree 

In connection with this subject, we only on the one sole article of rebellion, 

cannot here refrain from repeating at If he ventures to hold up his head at all 

length some reflections which, com- after what all his friends will call his 

ing as they do from an intelligent apostasy, the best that he can hope for is 

v r , to be courted by heretics, professed ene- 

Protestant, have a peculiar force and mies of the c] J rch which he has been 

value. born in, and which probably he loves 

They are from the pen of Monta- most dearly still, notwithstanding his 

lembert's biographer, and present so disobedience. To quarrel with your 

admirable, so eloquent a rdsume of ***** ne tl j in s- to fin , ds its domestic 

. ,, laws hard, and its prejudices insupport- 

the question of apostasy, that we able . but to plunge into the mjdst of the 

have not the heart to curtail the pas- enemies of that home, and to hear it as- 
sage containing them by so much as sailed with the virulence of ignorance 

the omission of a single word : to J oin in g ibes against your mother, and 

mockery of her life and motives is a 

" Except at the Reformation, when the totally different matter. Yet this is al- 
great overflow of spiritual rebellion was most all that a contumacious priest has 
favored by such a combination of circum- to look forward to. A recent and strik- 
stances as has never occurred since, no ing example, to which we need not refer 
man or group of men have succeeded in more plainly, will occur to everyone who- 
rebelling against Rome, and yet con- has watched the contemporary history of 
tinned to keep up a religious character the Roman Catholic Church. In this 
and influence. No man has been able to case a brilliant and remarkable preacher 
do it, whatever the excellence of his be- a man supposed the other day to be 
ginning might be, or the purity of the one of the most eminent and promis- 
motives with which he started. Even in ing sons of Rome after wavering and 
the Church of England the career of a falling away in some points from ecclesi- 
man who separates himself from her com- astical obedience, suddenly appeared in 
munion is generally a painful one. He an admiring circle of gentle Anglican- 
makes a commotion and excitement in ism, surrounded by a fair crowd of wor- 
the world for a time before he has fully shipping Protestants, ready to extend to- 
made up his mind ; and at the moment him all that broad and universal sympa- 
of his withdrawal he is sure of remark thy which he had no doubt been trained 
and notice, at all events, from certain to regard as vilest latitudinarianism, or 
classes. But after that brief moment he the readiness of Pilate to make friends- 
sinks flat as the spirits do in the ///- with Herod. This prospect must chill 
ferno, and the dark wave pours over the very soul of a man who has received 
him, and he is heard of no more. All the true priestly training, and who has been 
that sustained and strengthened and educated in that love of his church which 
gave him a fictitious importance as the is of itself a noble and generous senti- 
member of a great corporation has fallen ment. The best thing that can happen 
away from him. He has dropped like a to him is to fall among heretics ; the 
stone into the water like a foundered ship other alternative, and the only one, so- 
into the sea. In England, however, after far as events have yet made it apparent, 
all has been done, there is a sea of dis- to fall among infidels : and as his educa- 
sent to. drop into, and though his new tion has taught him to make but small 
surroundings rnay please him little, yet . distinction between them, and the infi- 
he will come out of the giddiness of his dels are nearer at hand, and his own 
downfall to take some comfort in them countrymen, what wonder if it is into* 



44C 



A Son of the Crusaders. 



their hands that the miserable man, torn 
from all his ancien-t foundations, ejected 
from his natural place, heart-weary with 
the madness which is wrought by anger 
against those we love, should fall what 
wonder if he should rush to the furthest 
extremity, hiding what he feels to be his 
shame, and endeavoring to take some 
dismal comfort in utter negation of that 
past from which he has been torn ! 
Whether there are new developments in 
the future for the new Protesters whom a 
recent decision has raised up, we cannot 
tell. But such has been the case in the 
past. Life is over for the rebellious 
priest who breaks with his church ; his 
possibility of service in his vocation has 
come to an end ; even the most careless 
peasant in his parish will turn from him. 
He is a deserter from his regiment in the 
face of the enemy, false to his colors, a 
man no longer of any human use." 

It was during Montalembert's so- 
journ in I^aly, on his remarkable 
Avenir pilgrimage, that he became 
.the intimate friend of Albert de la 
Ferronays, the hero of Mrs. Craven's 
'beautiful Recit tfune Sceur. He ap- 
pears in the book designated under 
-the name of Montal. From the same 
speriod, also, dates his intimacy with 
Rio, the future historian of Christian 
art. The young peer's taste for art, 
-always strong, and his enthusiastic ad- 
miration of the glorious remains of 
^mediaeval architecture, were both de- 
veloped and strengthened under the 
-teaching and influence of Rio. In 
March, 1833, he published an article 
rin the Revue des Deux Monde s, in 
which he energetically denounced the 
'desecration and ruin of the grand old 
architectural monuments of France. 
It was addressed in the form of a 
'letter to Victor Hugo, then leader of 
.the Romantic school, who strongly 
-sympathized with him on this subject, 
-and whose Notre Dame de Paris had 
been reviewed in the Avenir by 
.Montalembert with enthusiastic praise 
for the grand historical framework of 
the story. During the autumn of 
tfhat year, Montalembert went to 



Germany, and, as we have seen, 
accidentally stopped at Marburg. 
Travel, research, and the collection 
of materials for the life of Elizabeth 
now engrossed all his time, until, at- 
taining the legal age, twenty-five, he 
took his seat in the Chamber of Peers. 
His first appearance at the bar of this 
chamber had been in defence of the 
liberty of teaching, and his first 
speech was in defence of the liberty 
of the press. These two discourses 
prefigured his parliamentary career. 
He was always the ardent advocate 
of liberty ; rarely heard on the side 
of the government ; and generally the 
leader of a conscientious and loyal 
opposition : which, well considered, 
would have been found the most pru- 
dent adviser of the administration in 
power. 

Strongly imbued with English 
ideas, he fully appreciated the con- 
servative power of an energetic oppo- 
sition, ever ready to criticise, to ques- 
tion, to challenge, or to expose what- 
ever might seem arbitrary -or uncon- 
stitutional in the acts of the govern- 
ment. But this idea of an opposi- 
tion at once loyal and law-loving, 
was unfamiliar to his countrymen. 
To them, as a general thing, opposi- 
tion meant revolution, and to many 
the spectacle of a peer of France, a 
Catholic, and a proprietaire, who 
was at once the friend of the prole- 
taire, the dissenter, the oppressor, and 
the slave, was a paradox. And yet 
paradox there was none, for his de- 
claration of principles was always 
clear and bold. Thus, in striving to 
cull from the Chamber of Peers a 
public expression of sympathy for 
the Poles, he insisted that it was 
their right and their duty to make an 
avowal of national sentiments, an ex- 
pression of national opinion, that it 
was an obligation imposed by hu- 
manity and required by wise policy. 
" What is it," he asked, " that has rais- 



A Son of the Crusaders. 



441 



ed the British parliament to so high 
a degree of popularity and moral in- 
fluence in Europe ? Is it not because 
for more than a century no grave 
event has happened in any country 
without finding an echo there ? Is 
it not because no right has been op- 
pressed, no treaty broken anywhere, 
without a discussion on both sides of 
the question before the peers and 
commons of England, whose assem- 
blies have thus become, in the silence 
of the world, a sort of tribunal where 
all the great causes of humanity 
are pleaded, and where opinion pro- 
nounces those formidable judgments 
which, sooner o? later, are always ex- 
ecuted ?" 

And his independence was that of 
the man as well as of the orator. He 
was committed to no policy, sought 
no party ends, but always, and at all 
cost, maintained the good, the just, 
the honorable. A lost or desuerate 

A 

cause, if equitable, was always sure 
of his support. The three oppressed 
nations of the earth, Poland under 
Russia, Ireland under England, and 
Greece under Turkey, were his most 
cherished clients. The weaker side 
ever strongly attracted him. " Pene- 
trated by the conviction that just 
causes are everlasting," says M. 
Cochin, " and that every protest 
against injustice ends by moving 
heaven and convincing men, he 
sought out, so to speak, every op- 
pressed cause when at its last breath, 
to take its burden upon himself, and 
to become its champion. There is 
a suffering race, a race lost in distant 
isles, the race of black slaves, which 
has been oppressed for centuries. 
He took its cause in hand, and from 
the year 1837 labored for its emanci- 
pation. There are in all manufactur- 
ing places a crowd of hollow-cheeked 
children, with pale faces and worn 
eyes, and the sight of them made a 
profound impression upon him ; he 



took their cause also in hand. If you 
run over the mere index of his 
speeches, you will find all generous 
efforts contained in it." 

The year 1836 brought two notable 
events in the life of Montalembert 
the publication of his first work, his 
Life of S. Elizabeth, and his marriage 
to a daughter of the noble house of de 
Merode in Belgium. Meantime, he 
continued his attacks on vandalism in 
art and his parliamentary labors, and 
was mainly instrumental in the crea- 
tion of the committee of historical 
art and the commission on historical 
monuments, from both of which he 
was excluded under the Empire, 
which no more sympathized with his 
pure conceptions of Christian art than 
it did with his conception of Christian 
morals. 

Rio has recorded the result of the 
impression made by Montalembert 
upon the IJnglish poet Rogers, which 
admirably illustrates 'the fact that 
Montalembert's religion was not a 
sort of moral " Sunday suit " to be 
put off and on as occasion might 
require, and at the same time reveals 
to us the old poet in an entirely new 
aspect. The Montalemberts had 
spent the evening with Rogers, " and 
after cheir departure," Rio relates, 
" when I found myself alone with 
Rogers, the expression of his counte- 
nance, which up to that moment had 
been smiling and animated, changed 
so suddenly that I feared I had 
offended him by some word of doubt- 
ful meaning which I might not alto- 
gether have understood. He paced 
about the room without saying any- 
thing, and I did not know whether I 
might venture to break this incom- 
prehensible silence. At last he broke 
it himself, and said to me that, if he 
had the power of putting himself in 
the place of another, he would choose 
that of Montalembert, not on account 
of his youth and his beautiful wife, 



442 



A Son of the Crusaders. 



but because he possessed that im- 
movable and cloudless faith that 
seemed to himself the most enviable 
of all gifts." 

Mr. Neale advised Montalembert 
that he had been elected an honora- 
ry member of the Cambridge Cam- 
den Society. On receipt of the 
news of this " unsolicited and un- 
merited honor," Montalembert re- 
plied in a letter protesting against 
the usurpation of the title "Catholic" 
by the Cam den Society. Here are 
some of its trenchant passages : 

" The attempt to steal away from us, 
and appropriate to the use of a fraction 
of the Church of England, the glorious 
title of Catholic, is proved to be an usur- 
pation by every monument of the past 
and present, by the coronation oath of 
your sovereigns, by all the laws that 
have established your church. The name 
itself is spurned with indignation by the 
greater half at least of those who be- 
long to the Church of England, just as the 
Church of England itself is rejected with 
scorn and detestation by the greater half 
of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. 
The judgment of the whole indifferent 
world, the common sense of humanity, 
agrees with the judgment of the Church 
of Rome, and with the sense of her 150 
millions of children, to dispossess you of 
this name. The Church of England, who 
has denied her mother, is rightly without 
a sister. She has chosen to break the 
bonds of unity and obedience. Let. her 
therefore stand alone before the judgment- 
seat of God and man. Even the debased 
Russian Church that church where lay- 
despotism has closed the church's mouth 
and turned her into a slave disdains to 
recognize the Anglicans as Catholics. 
Even the Eastern heretics, although so 
sweetly courted by Puseyite missionaries, 
sneer at this new and fictitious Catholi- 
cism. That the so-called Anglo-Catho- 
lics, whose very name betrays their usur- 
pation and their contradiction, whose 
doctrinal articles, whose liturgy, whose 
whole history, are such as to disconnect 
them from all mankind except those who 
are born English and speak English 
that they should pretend on the strength 
of their private judgment alone to be 
what the rest of mankind deny them to 



be, will assuredly be ranked among the 
first follies of the XlXth century. . . . 
You may turn aside for three hundred 
years to come, as you have done for three 
hundred years past, from the fountain of 
living waters ; but to dig out a small 
channel of your own, for your own private 
insular use, wherein the living truth will 
run apart from its own docile and ever 
obedient children that will no more be 
granted to you than it has been to the 
Arians, the Nestorians, the Donatists, or 
any other triumphant heresy. I protest, 
therefore, against the usurpation of a 
sacred name by the Camden Society as 
iniquitous ; and I next protest against 
the object of this society, and all such ef- 
forts in the Anglican Church, as absurd." 

We now have before us a period 
of seven years in the life of Monta- 
lembert, the record of which may be 
said to be the history of the great 
public questions which then agitated 
France; so intimately was his entire 
parliamentary career bound up with 
their development. The first and 
most important of these questions 
was that of education. Then, as 
now, the examination for the degree 
of A.B. (baccalaureaf] was the key 
to all public occupations. 

But at that time, from 1830 to 
1848, no one had a right to present 
himself for this examination unless 
he had been educated in one of the 
public fyc&s, or some school licen- 
sed by the university, into whose 
hands the government had placed 
the monopoly of education. A 
wealthy parent might educate a boy 
under his own supervision in the 
best universities of England or Ger- 
many, or by private tutors, yet the 
youth would not be permitted to 
present himself for examination, al- 
though able to pass it with ease. 
And the degree resulting from this 
examination was the essential condi- 
tion upon which the possibility of a 
public career was opened to every 
young Frenchman. Without it he 
could by no possibility be admitted 



A Son of the Criisaders. 443 

to any public employment, the bench tion of the university. Let us hear 
or the bar. Ability, accomplish- the testimony of the young and elo- 
ments, acquirements, had nothing quent defender of French Protestant- 
to do with the question. The young ism, the son of our colleague M. 
man must pass through a state school, Agenor de Gasparin. . . . 'Religious 
or he was for ever debarred from a education,' he says, ' has no existence 
public career in his own country, in the colleges. ... I bethink myselt 
But to pass through a state school, with terror what I was when I issued 
as all Christian parents, both Catho- forth from this national education, 
lie and Protestant, then well knew in I recollect what all my compan- 
France, was to leave it with the loss ions were. Were we very good citi- 
of his religious principles. The bio- zens ? I know not, but certainly we 
grapher may well find it " equally in- were not Christians ; we did not pos- 
credible that such restrictions should sess even the weakest beginnings of 
have been borne by any people, and evangelical faith.' " 
that a government founded upon The results of the French compul- 
liberal principles and erected by rev- sojry anti-Christian education may be 
olution should have dared to main- read in current history. " The 
tain them ; but so it was." men it has brought up are the men 
The parliamentary campaign on who allowed France to be bound for 
the educational question opened in eighteen years in the humiliating 
1844. Discussion soon reached a point bondage of the Second Empire; who 
of warmth. " There is one result have furnished excuses to all the 
given under the auspices of the uni- world for calling her the most socially 
versity," said Montalembert, " which depraved of notions; who have filled 
governs every other, and which is as her light literature with abomina- 
clear as daylight. It is that children tions, and her graver works with 
who leave their family with the seed blasphemy; and who have finally 
of faith in them, to enter the univer- procured for her national downfall 
sity, come out of it infidels." The and humiliation." 
contradictions and mouvement incited Montalembert planted his little 
by this statement pushed the orator band in battle array against the corn- 
to more emphatic statement. " I pact and overwhelming forces of the 
appeal," he said, "to the testimony government, under the inspiration 
of all fathers and mothers. Let us and trumpet-tongued tones of his 
take any ten children out of the admirable fils des croises speech in 
schools regulated by the university, the Chamber of Peers. Here, with 
at the end of their studies, and find its memorable termination, are a few 
one Christian among them if you passages from it. We regret we can- 
can. One in ten ! and that would not give it entire. " Allow me to 
be a prodigy. I address myself not tell you, gentlemen, a generation has 
to such or such a religious belief, but arisen among you of men whom you 
to all. Catholics, Protestants,' Jews, know not. Let them call us Neo-Ca- 
all who believe humbly and sincerely tholics, sacristans, ultramontanes, as 
in the religion which they possess, it you will; the name is nothing; the 
is to them I appeal, whom I recog- thing exists. We take for our motto 
nize as my brethren. And all those that with which the generous Poles 
who have a sincere belief, and prac- in the last century headed their 
tise it, will confirm what I have said manifesto of resistance to the Em- 
of the religious results of the educa- press Catherine: ' We, who love 



444 A S n f the Crusaders. 

freedom more than all the world, and between that phalanx of resolute 
the Catholic religion more than free- opponents and the shifty mass ofirre- 
dom,' . . . are we to acknowledge solute followers, is as curious and in- 
ourselves so degenerated from the teresting as any political position ever 
condition of our fathers, that we was. He stands before us turning 
must give up our reason to rational- from one to the other, never wearied, 
ism, deliver our conscience to the never flagging, maintaining an end- 
university, our dignity and our free- less brilliant debate, now with one set 
dom into the hands of law-makers 01 objectors, now with another, 
whose hatred for the freedom of the prompt with his answers to every 
church is equalled only by their pro- man's argument, rapid as lightning 
found ignorance of her rights and her in his sweep upon every man's fal- 
doctrines ? . . . You are told to be lacy : now proclaiming himself the 
implacable. Be so; do all that you representative of the Catholics in 
will and can against us. The church France, and pouring forth his claim 
will answer you by the mouth of for them as warm, as urgent, as 
Tertullian and the gentle Fenelon. vehement as though a million of men 
4 You have nothing to fear from us ; were at his back : and now turning 
but we do not fear you.' And I upon these very Catholics with keen 
add in the name of Catholic lay- reproaches, with fiery ridicule, with 
men like myself, Catholics of the stinging darts of contempt for their 
XlXth century : We will not be weakness. Thus he fought single- 
helots in the midst, of a free people, handed, confronting the entire world. 
WE ARE THE SUCCESSORS OF THE Nothing daunted him, neither failure 
MARTYRS, AND WE DO NOT TREMBLE nor abuse, neither the resentment of 
BEFORE THE SUCCESSORS OF JULIAN his enemies, nor the languor of his 
THE APOSTATE. WE ARE THE SONS friends, . . . not always parlia- 
OF THE CRUSADERS, AND WE WILL mentary in his language, bold enough 
NEVER YIELD TO THE PROGENY OF to say everything, as his adversaries 
VOLTAIRE !" reproached him, yet never making a 
" Motivemenis divers " might well false accusation or imputing a mean 
according to the reported proceedings motive. No one hotter in assault, 
of the day follow this burst of indig- none more tremendous in the on- 
nant eloquence. The words made slaught; but he did not know what 
the very air of France tingle ; they it was to strike a stealthy or back- 
defined at once the two sides with handed blow." 

one of those happy strokes which Time has strange revenges. In 
make the fortune of a party, and April, 1849, came up the important 
which are doubly dear to all who question of the inamovibilite de la 
speak the language of epigram the magistratitre--i\\Q appointment for 
most brilliantly clear, incisive, and lite of magistrates. His old enemies 
distinct of tongues. Henceforward were delighted to find that Monta- 
ge//? des croises were a recognized lembert declared himself unreserved- 
power, but they were only known ly in the affirmative, and none more 
and heard by and through Monta- than M. Dupin, the very man who 
lembert, and, so far as the public uttered the memorable " Soyez im- 
struggle was concerned, might be placables" Again he had the go- 
said to exist in him alone. Monta- vernment to contend with, for under 
lembert fought almost single-handed, the law magistrates were no longer 
" The attitude of this one man irremovable. Mbntalernbert propos- 



A Son of the Crusaders. 445 

ed, as an amendment, that all magis- ing from its native blood and mire, 
trates in office should be reappointed, Montalembert became the dupe and 
and that all new appointments should the victim of Louis Napoleon. When 
be made for life. He pointed out power had been fully secured, the 
the evils of a system which made new president offered him the posi- 
judgeships tenable only from one re- tion of senator, along with the dotation 
volution to another, and made a of 30,000 francs, which was refused 
noble office the object of a " hunt " without hesitation. A second and a 
for promotion dishonoring to all third time the offer was renewed, the 
parties. He spoke of the magistracy last offer being urged by De Morny 
as the priesthood (sacerdoce] of jus- in person. The only position he 
tice, and added : " Allow me to held under the government of Louis 
pause a moment upon the word Napoleon was the nominal one of a 
priesthood, which I have just em- member of the Consultative Commis- 
ployed. Of all the weaknesses and sion, which he resigned on the publi- 
follies of the times in which we live, cation of the decree for the confisca- 
there is none more hateful to me tion of the property of the House of 
than the conjunction of expressions Orleans. He had already begun to 
and images borrowed from religion suffer from the attacks of the disease 
with the most profane facts and ideas, to which he finally succumbed ; and 
But I acknowledge that our old it was from his sick-bed that he went 
and beautiful French language, the to receive at the hands of the French 
immortal and intelligent interpreter Academy the highest and most dearly 
of the national good sense, has, by prized reward of French talent and 
a marvellous instinct, assimilated re- genius. Montalembert was elected 
ligion and justice. It has always to the seat in the Academy vacated 
said : The temples of the law, the by the death of M. Droz, and his re- 
sanctuary of justice , the priesthood of ception was an event. Being now 
Hie magistracy." The cause was won freed from the absorbing engagements 
by his eloquence, and thus the first of life, he made several journeys to 
political success he ever gained was England, and travelled into Hungary, 
not for himself or his friends, but for Poland, and Spain. His work enti- 
his enemies. Truly a fitting triumph tied EAvenir Politique de rAngle- 
for a son of the crusaders. terre was the fruit of his English 
The peerage now being abolished, visits ; and was well received both in 
Montalembert was returned as deputy France and England. In October, 
to the National Assembly by the 1858, the Paris Coi-respondant pub- 
Department of Doubs. Here his lished a remarkable letter from 
career was, if possible, yet more bril- Montalembert, describing a debate 
liant than in the Chamber of Peers, in the English Parliament. Its 
It would require a volume fitly to re- every paragraph was so full of a 
cord them. Soon came the presi- subtle and powerful contrast be- 
dency of Louis Bonaparte. Himself tween political liberty in England 
the soul of honor, with an eye single and the absence of it in France that 
to the welfare of France, deceived the Imperial government and its 
by solemn assurances which he un- adherents were stung to the quick, 
fortunately credited, unsuspicious of He speaks of leaving "an atmo- 
i depth of treachery which he could sphere foul with servile and corrupt- 
not conceive, and alarmed by the ing miasma (chargee de miasmes ser- 
horrible spectre of socialism, just aris- vtics et corruptcurs] to breathe a purer 



446 A Son of the Crtisaders. 

air and to take a bath of free life in pen toward the close of his career. 
England." Referring to a former These were the long and eloquent 
French colony, he says : " In Cana- addresses, L'JEglise libre dans Etat 
da, a noble race of Frenchmen and libre, delivered before the Con- 
Catholics, unhappily torn from our gress of Malines, and his Victoire du 
country, but remaining -French in Nord aux Etats-Unis, which, says his 
heart and habits, owes to England biographer, " is little ejse than a 
the privilege of having retained or hymn of triumph in honor of that 
acquired, along with perfect religious success which to him was a pure 
freedom, all the political and muni- success of right over wrong, of free- 
cipal liberties which France herself dom over slavery." 
has repudiated." A criminal prosecu- It is well known that Montalem- 
tion was immediately begun against bert was one of those who opposed 
the count for this letter. Four se- the proclamation of the dogma of 
parate accusations were brought, infallibility. On this point, his bi- 
Among them were " exciting the ographer gives us this interesting in- 
people to hate and despise the gov- formation. 

ernment of the emperor, and of at- One of his visitors said to him, 

tempting to disturb the public peace." while lying on what proved to be 

The legal penalties were imprison- his death-bed : " If the Infallibility 

ment from three months to five is proclaimed, what will you do ?" 

years, fine from 500 to 6,000 francs, " I will struggle against it as long as 

and expulsion from France. Ac- I can," he said ; but when the ques- 

cording to French custom, the pris- tion was repeated, the sufferer raised 

oner on trial was interrogated con- himself quickly, with something of 

cerning the obnoxious passages, and, his old animation, and turned to his 

when Montalembert answered, it was questioner. " What should I do ?" 

discovered that the emperor and his he said. " We are always told that 

government, not the prisoner at the the pope is a father. Eh bien ! 

bar, was on trial. With calm gravity there are many fathers who demand 

he acknowledged each damning im- our adherence to things very far from 

plication as an historical fact not to our inclination, and contrary to our 

be denied, " enjoying, there can be ideas. In such a case, the son strug- 

no doubt," says his biographer, " to gles while he can ; he tries hard to 

the bottom of his heart, this un- persuade his father; discusses and 

looked-for chance of adding a double talks the matter over with him ; but 

point to every arrow he had launch- when all is done, when he sees no 

ed, and planting his darts deliberate- possibility of succeeding, but receives 

ly and effectually in the joints of his a distinct refusal, he submits. I 

adversaries' armor." shall do the same." 

The foundation of Montalembert's " You will submit so far as form 

great work, The Monks of the West, goes," said the visitor. " You will 

was laid in his studies for the life of submit externally. But how will you 

S. Elizabeth, and the remainder of reconcile that submission with your 

his active life was now devoted to its ideas and convictions ?" 

completion. It is sufficient to refer Still more distinctly and clearly he 

to it. We need not dwell upon this replied : " I will make no attempt to 

greatest production of his literary ge- reconcile them. I will submit my 

nius. Besides this, two other re- will, as has to be done in respect to 

markable productions came from his all the other questions of faith. I 



At the Shrine. 447 

am not a theologian ; it is not my tracted agony of physical suffering, 
part to decide on such matters. And The symptoms of disease that first 
God does not ask me to understand, manifested themselves in 1852 had 
He asks me to submit my will and gone on increasing in severity until 
intelligence, and I will do so." "Af- in 1869, more than a year before 
ter having made this solemn though his death, he speaks of himself as 
abrupt confession of faith," says the vivens sepukrum. " I am fully war- 
witness whom we have quoted, " he ranted in saying that the death of 
added, with a smile, ' It is simple M. de Montalembert was part of 
enough ; there is nothing extraordi- his glory," writes M. Cochin, in de- 
nary in it.' ' scribing his constancy and resigna- 
The last years of the life of this tion. He died on the i3th of March, 
distinguished man were one long pro- 1870. 



AT THE SHRINE. 

i. 

THE sunset's dying radiance falls 

On chancel-gloom aidfed sculptured shrine, 
A splendor wraps the pictured walls, 

Where painted saints in glory shine ! 
And blent with sweet-tongued vesper-bells, 

Through echoing aisles and arches dim 
The organ's solemn music swells, 

The sweetly chanted evening hymn. 

ii. 

Low at Our Lady's spotless feet 

A white-robed woman kneels in prayer : 
The Deus Meus murmurs sweet, 

While. Glorias throb on perfumed air; 
Before the circling altar-rail 

She breathes her Aves soft and low 
The golden hair beneath her veil 

Wreathed like a glory on her brow. 

in. 

The sunset's purple splendors fade, 

The dark'ning shades of twilight fall, 
The moonbeam's silver touch is laid 

On sculptural saint and pictur'd wall; 
And while the weeping watcher kneels, 

And silence weaves her magic spells, 
The gray dawn thro' the oriel steals, 

And morning wakes the matin-bells. 

ADVENT, 1873. 



A Christmas Recognition. 



A CHRISTMAS RECOGNITION. 

WE were old-fashioned people at taken her for more than twenty-five. 
Aldred, and Christmas was our spe- She looked soft, pliable, irresolute, 
cial holiday. The house was always and tender, and men often found in 
filled with guests, not such as many her a repose which was a soothing 
of our grander neighbors asked to contrast to her cousin's energetic, 
their houses, but such as cared for peculiar, somewhat eccentric ways; 
good old-fashioned cheer and anti- only it was the repose yielded by a 
quated habits. Not all were rela- downy cushion, and people weaned 
tions, for we never asked relations of it after a while. The secret of the 
merely on account of their kinship, apparent partnership between these 
according to the regulation mixing two opposite natures was perhaps 
of a conventional Christmas party, this : the widow had a rich jointure, 
but among our own people were and was an excellent /w//, while her 
many whose presence at our Christ- cousin was portionless. Miss Hough- 
mas gatherings was as certain as the ton was thus doubly a foil to Mrs. 
recurrence of the festival itself. Burtleigh. 

Among them was a great-aunt, a soft, I shall not speak of the other 

mild old lady, always dressed in guests in detail, with the exception 

widow's weeds, but with a face as of one whom it would be impossible 

fresh as a girl's, and hair white as to overlook. He was a man nearer 

the snowy cap she wore to conceal forty than thirty-five, good-humored 

it. She had not come alone, for her and careless to all appearance, a 

adopted son was with her, the hard worker in the battle of life, a 

promised husband of her only child, cosmopolitan philosopher, and one 

dead years ago. He had left his of those handy, useful men who can 

own home and people, like Ruth, sew on a button, cook an omelet, 

for the lonely, childless woman whom and kiss a bride as easily and un- 

he was to have called mother, and concernedly as they gallop across 

remained her inseparable companion country or horsewhip a villain. He 

through her beautiful and resigned had been in Mexico, surveying and 

old age. There were, besides these, engineering for an English railroad 

a young girl whose aspect was pecu- company, and he had spent some 

liar and attractive, and whose man- years in the East as the land-agent 

ner had in its mixture of modesty and of a progress-loving pacha. Europe 

self-reliance a piquancy that added he knew as well as we knew Aldred, 

to the fascination of her person. She while the year he had been absent 

had come with a distant cousin of from us had been filled by new and 

hers, a widow of a different type from stirring experiences in Upper Egypt, 

our dear old relative, and whose ob- But I forget ; we have yet to speak of 

ject in chaperoning Miss Houghton many little details of Christmas-tide 

must have been mixed. She was which preceded the gathering in of 

small, blonde, coquettish, and thirty- the whole party, 

two, though no one would have The kitchen department was, of 



A Christmas Recognition. 449 

course, conspicuous on this occasion, appropriate to the spirit of a festival 
This included the village poor, who so highly honored in mediaeval times, 
were regularly assembled every day The chapel, a beautiful Gothic build- 
for soup until Christmas eve, when ing, small but perfect, was decorated 
each household received a joint of with mottoes wrought in leaves, such 
beef and a fine plum-pudding. Some as " Unto us a Son is born, unto us a 
of us went round the village in a Child is given," and Gloria in excel- 
sl^igh, and distributed tea and sugar sis Deo, etc., while festoons of ever- 
as supplementary items. It was a greens hung from pillar to pillar, and 
traditional Yule-tide, for the snow lay draped the stone-carved tribune at 
soft, even, and thick over the roads, the western end with a living tapes- 
as it but seldom does in England ; try. Round the altar were heaped 
Then the school was visited and in rows, placed one higher than an- 
solidly provisioned, the children were other, evergreens of every size and 
invited to a monster tea with accom- kind, mingled with islands of bright 
paniment of a magic-lantern show, camellias, the pride of the renowned 
after which the prizes were to be dis- hothouses of Aldred. White, red, 
tributed, as well as warm clothing and streaked, the flowers seemed like 
for the winter season. Nothing was stars among dark masses of clouds; 
said of the Christmas-tree, as that and, when we lit a few of the tall 
was kept as a surprise. candles to see the effect, it was so 
The decoration of house and chapel solemn that we longed for the time 
was a wonderful and prolonged busi- to pass quickly, till the midnight 
ness, and afforded great amusement. Mass should call forth all the beauty 
Holly grew in profusion at Aldred, of which we had seen but a part, 
and a cart-load of the bright-berried These decorations had been main- 
evergreen was brought to the house ly the work of the traveller (whom, in 
the day preceding Christmas eve. The our traditional familiarity, we called 
people we have made acquaintance " Cousin Jim") and of our other 
with were already with us, and vigor- friend, the adopted son of our old 
ously helped us on with the prepara- aunt ; but, though their brains had 
tions. Such fun as there was when conceived, it was Miss Hough ton's 
Miss Houghton insisted upon crown- deft fingers that executed the work 
ing the marble bust of the Indian gran- best. The last touch had just been 
dee, Rammohun Roy, with a holly put to an immense cross of holly 
wreath, and when Mrs. Burtleigh which was to be swung from the 
gave a pretty, ladylike little cry as ceiling, to supply the place of the- 
she pricked her fingers with the glossy rood that in old times guarded the 
leaves ! The children of the house choir-screen. A star of snow-white 
and those of another house in the camellias was to be poised just above 
neighborhood (orphan children whose it, and a tall ladder had been put in 
gloomy home made them a perpetual readiness to facilitate the delicate 
source of pity to us) were helping as task. Miss Houghton stood at the 
unhelpfully as ever, but what of that ? foot, one arm leaning on the ladder, 
It was a joyous, animated scene, and, the other holding aloft the white star, 
still more, a romantic one ; for the Her friend was halfway up, bearing 
traveller, who had claimed a former the great cross, when he suddenly 
acquaintance with Miss Houghton, heard a low voice, swelling gradually,, 
now seemed to become her very sha- intoning the words of the Christmas< 
-or knight, let us say ; it is more hymn : 
VOL. xvi. 29 



450 



A Christmas Recognition. 



Adeste fideles, 

Laeti triumphantes ; 

Venite, venite in Bethlehem : 

Natum videte 

Regem angelorum : 

Venite adoremus, 

Venite adoremus, 

Venite adoremus Dominum. 

Startled and touched, he began 
the repeating words of the chorus, 
pausing with his green cross held 
high in his arms. The others who, 
scattered about the chapel, heard his 
deep tones, answering, took up the 
chorus, and chanted it slowly to the 
end, Miss Houghton looking round 
with tears in her eyes, at this unex- 
pected response to the suppressed 
and undefinable feelings of her heart. 
It was an impressive scene, the 
guests, servants, gardeners, and a few 
of the choir-boys, all mingling in the 
impromptu worship so well befitting 
the beautiful work they had in hand. 
At the end of the verse, the traveller 
hastily gained the top of the ladder, 
and, having fastened the holly cross 
4n its place, intoned a second verse, 
411 which Miss Houghton immediate- 
ly joined, and the harmonious blend- 
ing of their voices had, if possible, a 
still more beautiful effect than the 
unaccompanied chant of the first 
Averse. Again the chorus chimed in, 

Venite adoremus, 
Venite adoremus, 
Venite adoremus Dorainum, 

in full, solemn tones, and all sang 
from their places, their festoons in 
'their hands, so that at the end of the 
hymn the traveller said thoughtfully 
ito his companion : " Laborare est orare 
should be our motto henceforth. I 
wish all our work were as holy as this." 

" And why not ?" she answered 
.quickly ; " only will it so, and so t 
shall be. We are our own creators." 

" What a rash saying !" he ex- 
claimed, with a smile; "but I know 
what you mean. God gives us the 
-tools and the marble; it is ours to 
carve it into an angel or a fiend." 



At last the chapel decoration was 
over, and a few of the more venture- 
some among us went out in the snow 
for a walk. 

Meanwhile, in the corridor (so we 
called our favorite sitting-room), the 
Yule-logs were crackling cheerfully 
on the wide hearth, and the fitful 
tongues of flame shot a red glimmer 
over the old-fashioned furniture. 
One of the chairs was said to have 
belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and 
there was another, a circular arm- 
chair, that looked as if it also 
should have had a history connected 
with the great and learned. Full- 
length portraits of the old possessors 
of Aldred covered the walls, and on 
the stained-glass upper compart- 
ments of the deep bay-window at 
one end were depicted the arms and 
quarterings of the family. The Yule- 
logs were oak, cut from our own 
trees, and perforated all over with 
large holes through which the flames 
shot up like fire-sprites. 

The Christmas-tree and magic- 
lantern also had to be put in order 
to save time and trouble, and a stage 
for tableaux occupied the rapt atten- 
tion of the amateur mechanician (our 
great -aunt's son) and of "Jim," the 
traveller and practised factotum. 
Miss Houghton was never very far 
from the scene of these proceedings, 
and, when she was not quite so near, 
" Cousin Jim " was not quite so eager. 
Almost all our guests had brought 
contributions for the Christmas-tree, 
of which our children had the nomi- 
nal charge, and with these gifts and 
our own it turned out quite a royal 
success. Presents of useful gar- 
ments, flannels, boots, mittens, wool- 
len shirts, petticoats, and comforters, 
were stowed away beneath the lower 
branches, while all visible parts were 
hung with the toys and fruits, lights 
and ribbons, that so delight children. 
Gilt walnut-shells were a prominent 



A Christinas Recognition. 451 

decoration, and right at the apex of of the picturesque, so much the bet- 

the tree was fixed a " Christ-child," ter, I thought One of our friends 

that thoroughly German develop- had actually donned a claret-colored 

ment, an image of the Infant Saviour, velvet suit, with slippers to match, 

holding a starred globe in one hand embroidered with gold ; and, when 

and a standard in the other. A we looked at each other in silent 

creche had also been prepared in the amusement, the wearer himself smil- 

Lady-chapel, a lifelike representa- ed round the circle, saying pleas- 

tion of those beautiful Christmas antly : 

pictures seen to such perfection in the " Oh ! I do not mind being node- 
large churches of Italy. Munich fig- ed. In fact, I rather like it this was 
ures supplied the place of wax a lady's fancy, you see." 
models, however, and were a decided " How, how ?" we asked eagerly, 
improvement. " Well," answered the Londoner, a 
Many people from the village had regular drawing-room pet, and a very 
asked leave to come in and look at clever society jester, " I was chal- 
these peculiar decorations; but, as few lenged to a game of billiards by a fair 

of them were Catholics, it had been lady, the Duchess of . She said 

thought better to wait till the third to me, ' And pray do wear something 
Mass on Christmas day to open the picturesque.' I bowed and said, 
chapel to the public. Christmas eve ' Your grace shall be obeyed.' I 
was a very busy day, and towards happened to have some loose cash 
five o'clock began the great task of about me. I could not wear uniform, 
welcoming the rest of the expected because I "did not belong even to the 
guests. This was done in no mo- most insignificant of volunteer regi- 
dern and languid fashion ; the ser- ments, and I went to my tailor. His 
vants, clad in fur caps and frieze genius was equal to the occasion, and 
greatcoats, stood near the door with this was the result. I played with 
resinous torches flaring in the still the duchess, and she won," the 
night air it was quite dark at that hero of the velvet coat was an in- 
early hour and the host and hostess vincible billiard champion. " As I 
welcomed them at the very thresh- have the dress by me, I take the 
old. The children helped them to liberty of wearing it occasionally in 
take off their wraps, and held mistle- the country. It is too good to be 
toe sprigs over their bended heads hidden, isn't it ?" 
as they reached up to kiss them. In- So he rattled on till dinner was an- 
deed, mistletoe was so plentifully nounced. It was a merry but frugal 
strewn about the house that it was meal. The mince-pies and plum- 
impossible to avoid it, but we had so pudding crowned with blue flame, 
far eschewed the freedom of the past the holly-wreathed boar's head of ro- 
as to consider this custom more mance, were not there; they were 
honored in the breach than in the reserved for to-morrow. So with the 
observance. The children and the wassail-bowl," the fragrant, spiritu- 
servants, however, made up for our O us beverage of which each one was 
carelessness. to partake, his two neighbors stand- 
Very little toilet was expected ing up on each side of him, accord- 
for a seven o'clock dinner (we were ing to the old custom intended as a 
not fashionable people), but we found defence against treachery; for o'hce 
that our well-meant injunctions had it had happened that a guest whose 
hardly been obeyed. For the sake hands were engaged holding the two- 



452 



A Cliristmas Recognition. 



handled bowl to his lips was stab- 
bed from behind by a lurking enemy, 
and ever after it became de rigiieur 
that protection should be afforded to 
the drinker by his neighbor on either 
side. 

The fare to-night was still Advent 
fare, but, after dinner, Christmas in- 
sisted upon beginning. We were 
told that the " mummers " from the 
village were come, and waited for 
leave to begin their play. They were 
brought into the hall, and the whole 
company stood on the steps leading up 
to the drawing-rooms. The scenery 
was not characteristic a broad oaken 
staircase, a Chinese gong, the polish- 
ed oak flooring, the massive hall- 
door. The actors themselves, seven 
or eight in number, dressed in the 
most fantastic and extemporized cos- 
tume, now began the performance; 
and but for the venerable antiquity 
of the farce, it was absurd and obscure 
enough to excite laughter rather than 
interest. The children were wild 
with delight, and were with difficulty 
restrained from leaping the " pit ". 
and mingling with the actors on the 
"stage." Indeed, for many days 
after nothing was heard among them 
but imitations of the "mummers." 
There was a grave dialogue about 
" King George," then a scuffle ensu- 
ed, and one man fell down either 
wounded or in a fit. The doctor is 
called; the people believe the man 
dead, the doctor denies this, and says, 
" I will give him a cordial, mark the 
effect." The resuscitated man after- 
wards has a tooth drawn by the same 
quack, who then holds up the tooth 
(a huge, unshapely equine one pro- 
vided for the occasion), and exclaims : 
" Why, this is more like a horse's 
tooth than a man's !" I never 
could make out the full meaning of 
the " mummers' " play ; but, whether 
it was a corruption of some older 
and more complete dramatic form, 



or the crude beginning of an un- 
developed one, it certainly was the 
characteristic feature of our Christ- 
mas at Aldred. It took place regu- 
larly every year, without the slightest 
deviation in detail, and always ended 
in a mournful chorus, " The Old 
Folks at Home." After the actors 
had been heartily cheered, and the 
host had addressed to them a few kind 
words of thanks and recognition, they 
were dismissed to the kitchen, to their 
much coveted entertainment of un- 
limited beer. There they enacted 
their performance once more for the 
servants, who then fraternized with 
them on the most amiable terms. 

Meanwhile, our party were gradu- 
ally collecting round the wood-fire in 
corridor. It was a bitter cold night, 
the snow was falling noiselessly and 
fast, and the wind howled weirdly 
through the bare branches of the dis- 
tant trees. Our old aunt remarked, 
in her gentle way : 

" One almost feels as if those poor 
owls were human beings crying with 
cold." 

" We look like a picture, mother," 
somewhat irrelevantly answered her 
son after a slight pause ; " the an- 
tique dresses of many of us are quite 
worth an artist's study." 

Mrs. Burtleigh, whose blonde beau- 
ty was coquettishly set off by a slight 
touch of powder on the hair, and a 
becoming Marie Antoinette style of 
negligt, here pointedly addressed the 
traveller. 

" Sir Pilgrim," she said, " did you 
ever think of home when you had to 
spend a Christmas in outlandish 
countries ?" 

" Sometimes," answered " Jim ' : 
absently, his eyes wandering towards 
Miss Houghton, who stood resting 
her head against a carved griffin on 
the tall mantel-piece. 

She caught his glance, and said 
half saucily : 



A Christmas Recognition. 453 

" Now, if it was not too common- way to the Rue Neuve, not a really 

place, I should claim a story Christ- new street, but one of Bruges' most 

mas eve is not complete without a interesting old thoroughfares. No 

story, at least so the books say." gas, a narrow street, great gaunt 

" If it were required, I know one portes*-cochcres, and projecting win- 
that is not quite so hackneyed as the dows on both sides, the pavement 
grandmothers' ghosts and wicked uneven, and a young moon just show- 
ancestors we are often surfeited with ing her crescent over the crazy-look- 
at Christmas," replied her friend ing houses such was the scene. I 
quickly. The whole circle drew soon got to No. 20. It was a large, 
closer around the fire, and imperious- dilapidated house, with every sign 
ly demanded an explanation. about it of decayed grandeur and cli- 

" But that will be descending to minished wealth. Two large doors, 

commonplace," pleaded the traveller, heavily barred, occupied the lower 

" Who knows ? It may turn out the part of the wall ; above were oriels 

reverse, when you have done," heed- and dormers whose stone frames 

lessly said Mrs. Burtleigh. were tortured into weird half-human 

" Well, if you will have it, here it faces and impossible foliage. No 

is. Mind, now, I am not going to light anywhere, and for bell a long, 

give you a three-volume novel, full of hanging, ponderous weight of iron, 

padding, but just tell you one inci- I pulled it, and a sepulchral sound 

dent, plain and unadorned. So do answered the motion. I waited, no 

not look forward to anything thrill- one came ; I thought I must have 

ing or sensational. mistaken the number. Taking out 

" Some years ago, I was in Belgium, the letter, however, I made sure I was 

hastening home for Christmas, and right. I pulled the bell again a little 

spent three or four days in Bruges, louder, and heard footsteps slowly 

I will spare you a description of the echoing on the stone flags of the 

grand old city, and come to facts. I court within. Sabots evidently; they 

was just on the point of leaving, and made a rattle like dead men's bones, 

had got to the railway station in or- I thought. A little grille, or tiny 

der to catch the tidal train for Os- wicket, was opened, and an old dame, 

tend, when a man suddenly and hur- shading her candle with one brown 

riedly came up to me, an old ser- hand, peered suspiciously out. Ap- 

vant in faded livery, who, without parently dissatisfied, she closed the 

breathing a word, placed a note in opening with a bang, muttering to 

my hand, and was immediately lost herself in Flemish. It was cold 

to sight in the crawd. The wait- standing in the street, and, as the 

ing-room was dimly lighted, but I portress of this mysterious No. 20 

could make out my own name, ini- made no sign of opening the door for 

tials and all, on the envelope. In me, I was very nearly getting angry, 

my confusion, I hurried out of the and going away in no amiable mood 

station, and, stepping into a small at the unknown who had played me 

Iwtelleric, I opened the mysterious this too practical joke. Suddenly I 

It was very short : ' Come at heard the grille open again, very 

once to No. 20 Rue Neuve.' The briskly this time, and a voice said in 

signature was in initials only. The tolerably good French : 

handwriting was small and undecided. " ' Monsieur's name is ?' 

I could hardly tell if it were a " ' Yes,' I replied rather impatient- 
man's or a woman's. I knew my ly. 



454 



A Christmas Recognition. 



" ' Then will monsieur wait an in- 
stant, till I undo the bars ?' A great 
drawing of chains and bolts on the 
inside followed her speech, and a lit- 
tle gate, three-quarters of a man's 
height, was opened in the massive 
and immovable porte-cochere. I step- 
ped quickly in, nearly overturning 
the old dame's candlestick. She 
wore a full short petticoat of bright 
yet not gaudy blue, and over it a 
large black circular cloak which cov- 
ered all but her clumsy sabots. Her 
cap was a miracle of neatness, and 
her brown face, wrinkled but cheery, 
reminded me of S. Elizabeth in Ra- 
phael's pictures. She said glibly and 
politely : 

" ' Will monsieur give himself the 
trouble to wait a moment ?' 

" She disappeared with her candle, 
leaving me to peer round the court- 
yard, where the moon's feeble rays 
were playing at hide-and-seek behind 
the many projections. Almost as 
soon as she had left, she was with me 
again, bidding me follow her up-stairs. 
* My master is bed-ridden,' she ex- 
plained. * Since he got a wound in 
the war of independence against 
Holland, he has not been able to 
move. Monsieur will take care, I 
hope, not to excite him ; he is ner- 
vous and irritable since his illness,' 
she added apologetically. 

" I confess I was rather disappoint- 
ed. I had expected that everything 
would happen as it does in a play 
it had looked so like one hitherto. I 
thought I was going to meet a wo- 
man young, beautiful, in distress, 
perhaps in want of a champion but 
it was only a bed-ridden old man 
after all ! Well, it might lead to an 
act of chanty, that true chivalry of 
the soul, higher far than mere per- 
sonal homage to accidental beauty, 
I entered a darkened room, scantily 
and shabbily furnished, and the old 
woman laid the candlestick on the 



table. The bed was in a corner near 
the fire; the uneven parquet floor 
was covered here and there with 
faded rugs, and books and papers lay 
on a desk on the old man's bed. At 
first I could hardly distinguish his 
features, but, as my eyes grew accus- 
tomed to the gloom, I saw that he 
was a martial-looking man, with eyes 
so keen that sickness could hardly 
dull them, and a bearing that indica- 
ted the stern will, the clear intellect, 
and the lofty bonhomie of an old 
Flemish gentilhomme. He looked at 
me with curious and prolonged inter- 
est, then said, in a voice full of by- 
gone courtesy : 

" * Will monsieur be seated ? I 
have .made no mistake in the 
name ?' 

" ' No,' I answered, wondering what 
the question meant. 

"'Then, monsieur, I have impor- 
tant news for you. The daughter of 
your brother ' 

" I was already bewildered, and 
looked up. He continued, taking 
my surprise for interest : * The daugh- 
ter of your poor brother is now a 
great heiress, and I hold her fortune 
in trust for her do not inter- 
rupt me/ he said, eagerly preventing 
me from speaking, 'it tires me, and 
I must say all this at once. I do 
not know if you knew of her being 
taken from her parents when a child ; 
of course you recollect that, after her 
mother's marriage with your brother, 
there was a great fracas, and poor 
Marie's father disinherited her at 
once. When the child was born I 
was her god-father, by the bye her 
parents being in great poverty, I 
begged of the grandfather to help 
and forgive them, the more so as 
your brother was making his poor 
wife very unhappy. He refused, and, 
though he generally took my advice 
(he was an an old college friend of 
mine), he was obstinate on this 



A Christmas Recognition. 455 

point. The child grew, and the pa- " ' Just like a woman, God bless 

rents were on worse terms every her !' I murmured involuntarily, 

year. Marie's father held out against The old man bent his head in cordial 

every inducement ; your poor bro- assent, but immediately resumed : 

ther forgive me, monsieur ! fell into ' Her father blessed her before she 

bad company, and made his home a died, and promised to care for the 

perfect hell; his wife was broken- little girl. He then drew up this 

hearted, but would not hear of a will ' here he laid his hand on a thick 

separation, and her only anxiety was packet on the desk ' and entrusted 

for her child. I proposed to her to it me. The child was nine years old 

take the responsibility myself of put- then, and that was fifteen years ago. 

ting the little one out of reach of this She was to be told nothing till her 

dreadful example of a divided house- twenty-first birthday, and to be 

hold, and she consented. The fa- brought up in England, unconscious 

ther stormed and raved when he of any thing save that she was the child 

found the child was gone, but for of honest parents. This went on for 

once his wife opposed him, and re- some years, and then my old friend 

fused to let him know her where- died. I continued to send regular 

abouts. Every year I interceded remittances to the little girl's tempo- 

with the grandfather, who consented rary guardians ; the bulk of the for- 

to support the little girl, but would tune I kept in the house there in 

never promise to leave her a compe- that chest ; perhaps it was a foolish 

tency at his death. One day, sud- fancy, but I did not care to have it 

denly, your poor brother died.' in a common bank. The war came 

" I could not help starting ; he saw and passed over the flower of our 

my surprise. land, and you see, monsieur, what it 

" ' Oh ! ' he resumed, * did you not has left of my former self. Well, 

know how he died ? Pardon me, after a time, five or six years ago, I 

monsieur, I remember now that none ceased hearing from my little ward ; 

of his English kin followed him to I was unable to get up and search 

the grave, but I had heard your for her ; all that advertisements and 

name before.' correspondence could do I did, and 

" * Monsieur,' I began, fearing that niy chief endeavor was to find you. 
he might be led on to talk of family I thought, if anything were likely, this 
secrets such as he might not wish to was; she would go to you, her fa- 
share with a stranger, * you have ther's step-brother, a different man, 
told me a strange tale ; but allow me as I always heard her mother say, 
to undeceive you ' from what her own unhappy parent 

" ' How did you deceive me ?' he had been.' 

asked impatiently, and I, remember- " ' But,' I said, ' allow me to cor- 
ing the old dame's warning not to rect a mistake, monsieur; I never 
excite him, was puzzled how to act. had a step-brother, or a brother 
In the meanwhile, he went on. either.' 

" l /i Men! The mother then "'What!' the old man exclaimed 

went to England, to the school where nervously ' what do you mean ? Do 

her child was, and saw her, but she did not joke about such things. Your 

not long survive the wear and tear of name is . Your hair is fair and 

her wretched life, and the grief her wavy, your figure tall and stalwart 

husband's death caused her for, poor that was the portrait of my poor little 

woman, she loved him, you see.' ward's uncle, a different man, of dif- 



456 



A Christmas Recognition. 



ferent blood, as well as different 
name, from her father.' 

" ' Do not tell me any names, mon- 
sieur,' I here insisted, ' until I have 
told you who I am.' 

" He looked at me, still agitated, his 
brows knitted, and his lips quivered, 
I told him my name, birth, country, 
profession, and assured him that I, 
an only son, had never heard of any 
story like his. He seemed thunder- 
struck, and could hardly take in the 
idea ; but, recollecting himself, said : 
* Pardon me, monsieur, but I have, 
then, caused you great inconveni- 
ence.' 

" His politeness now seemed over- 
whelming; he was in despair; he was 
desoti. What could he do? How could 
he apologize ? I quieted him as best 
I could by professing the utmost in- 
difference about the delay, and beg- 
ged him, though I would solicit no 
further confidence, to consider my 
lips as sealed, and, if he wished it, 
my services as. entirely at his dis- 
posal. 

" He smiled curiously, then said : 
' The best apology I can make is to 
tell you the whole. Your name and 
initials misled me. Having heard that 
you were in Bruges, I sent my mes- 
senger, who, it seems, only reached 
you as you were on the point of start- 
ing for Ostend. I thought it was 
my ward's uncle I had found, and, 
never having seen him, I could not 
tell if you were the wrong man. I 
must continue to try and find him ; 
if I fail never mind, I want to tell 
you her name. She is Philippa Dun- 
combe, and, when I saw her last, she 
was a dark child, quick, peculiar, and 
resolute. It is so long ago that I 
could give you no idea of her exterior 
as she is now. I think she must have 
suspected her dependence upon a 
supposed chanty, and have left school 
without the knowledge of any one. 
Anyhow, I must still try to find your 



namesake ; as for you, monsieur, I 
cannot thank you enough for your 
forbearance.' 

" I left Bruges the next day, but, as 
you may suppose, the story of the 
Baron Van Muyden never ceased to 
haunt me, and a few months after I was 
glad and flattered to receive a letter 
from the old veteran saying that he 
had now ascertained that my name- 
sake, the child's half-uncle, had been 
dead some years, and that he felt 
that to none other but myself would 
he now wish to transfer the task of 
searching for the lost heiress. Of 
course I accepted." 

Our friend paused here, and looked 
thoughtfully at the fire. The Yule-logs 
were burning so merrily that a ruin 
seemed imminent, and while the si- 
lence was yet unbroken a sound of dis- 
tant singing came towards the house. 
It was the gay company of Christ- 
mas carollers, singing their old, old 
ditties through the frosty night, in 
commemoration of the Angel-songs 
heard by the watching shepherds so 
many long centuries ago on the hills 
of Judaea. But the company was 
too much absorbed in the traveller's 
tale to heed the faint echo. Miss 
Houghton sat with her dark eyes 
fixed on the speaker, and every ves- 
tige of color gone in the intensity of 
her excitement ; Mrs. Burtleigh, tap- 
ping the fender with her tiny gray sa- 
tin slipper, seemed strangely excited, 
and glanced uneasily at her cousin ; 
the rest of us were clasping our hands 
in our unrestrainable curiosity, and 
the provoking narrator actually had 
the coolness to hold his peace ! 

At last some one spoke, unable to 
control his goaded curiosity. 

" Well ?" 

" Well ?" repeated the artful "Jim." 

" Did you find her ?" was the 
question that now broke from all lips > 
in a gamut of increasing impatience. 

" I told you a story, as we agreed," 



A Christinas Recognition. 



457 



he answered ; " but, if I tell you the 
ddnoumcnt, we shall fall into what we 
wish to avoid the commonplace." 

" Nevermind, go on," was shouted 
on all sides. Miss Houghton was 
silent, but she seemed to hang on his 
words. He had calculated on this 
emotion, the wretch, and was making 
the most of his points ! 

At last he resumed in a slow, absent 
way : 

" Yes, I accepted the search ; I 
made it ; I did all I could think of- 
but I failed." 

The bomb had burst, but we all felt 
disappointed. This was not common- 
place, not even enough to our minds. 
'' He had cheated us," we cried. 

" I can only tell you the truth ; re- 
member this was all real, no got-up 
Christmas tale, to end in a wed- 
ding, bell-ringing, and carol-singing. 
Hark ! do you hear the carollers out- 
side ?" 

No one spoke, and he went on, 
still meditatively : " I do not mean 
to give it up, though." 

Miss Houghton, who, till now, 
had said nothing, opened a small 
locket attached to one of her brace- 
lets, and, keeping her eyes fixed on 
" Cousin Jim," passed it to him, say- 
ing : 

" Did you ever see this face be- 
fore ?" 

He took it up, and looked puzzled. 
" No," he said ; " why do you ask ?" 

We all looked at her as if she had 
been a young lunatic, her interest in 
the story being apparently of no very 
lasting nature. She then unfastened 
a companion bracelet, the hanging 
locket of which she opened and 
handed to her friend again. 

; This face you have seen ?" she 
asked confidently. 

He started, and a rush of color 
came over his bronzed cheeks. 

" Yes, yes, that is the Baron Van 
Muyden younger, but the same. 



And here is his writing, * To Marie 
Buncombe, her sincere and faithful 
friend.' Miss Houghton ?" 

" Yes," she answered calmly, as if 
he had asked her a question. 

" Then what I have been looking 
for for three years I have found to- 
night ?" he said, looking up at her, 
while we were all stupefied arid silent. 

"And what I have never dreamt 
of," she answered in a low voice, " I 
have suddenly learned to-night." 

The carollers were now close under 
the windows, and the words of a 
simple chorus came clearly to our 
hearing 

The snow lay on the ground, 

The stars shone bright. 
When Christ our Lord was born 

On Christmas night. 

After a few moments' silence, our 
curiosity, like water that has broken 
through thin ice, flowed into words 
again. Many questions and a storm 
of exclamations rang through the 
room, and the concussion was such 
that the Yule-logs crashed in two, 
and broke into a race across the wide 
hearth, splinters flying to the side, 
and sparks flying up the chimney. 
Then Miss Houghton spoke with the 
marvellous self-possession of her na- 
ture. 

" I knew my own name and my 
mother's from the beginning," she 
said, " and Monsieur Van Muyden, 
and the old house, and the Flemish 
bonne in the Rue Neuve. I remem- 
ber them all when a child. I used 
often to sleep there, and the night 
before I left Bruges I still remember 
playing with the baron's old sword. 
I remember my mother coming to 
see me at school in England, a con- 
vent-school, where I was very happy, 
and giving me these bracelets. She 
told me never to part with them ; 
she said she would not be with me 
long. They told me of her death 
some months afterwards. The other 



458 



A Christmas Recognition. 



portrait is that of my grandfather, 
given by him to my mother on her 
fete day, just before her marriage, 
with a lock of his hair hidden behind. 
She always wore it. M. Van Muy- 
den's was done for her when I was 
born, and was meant to be mine some 
day, as he was my god-father. The 
remittances he spoke of used to come 
regularly ; but, when I grew older, 
my pride rebelled (just as he guessed, 
you say), and I hated to be depen- 
dent on those who, kind as they were, 
were net my blood-relations. I ran 
away from school, and lived by my- 
self for a long time in poverty, yet 
not in absolute need, for I worked 
for my bread, and worked hard. I 
had a great deal to go through be- 
cause I dared not refer any one to 
the school where I had lived. Mrs. 
Burtleigh was very kind to me ; I 
told her my story, as far as I knew 
it, and somehow she found out that 
we were cousins through my father ; 
so she made me take her maiden 
name, Houghton, instead of the one 
I had adopted before. She, of course, 
thought as I did, that the child of 
the disinherited Marie Duncombe 
and the unhappy Englishman, my 
poor father, could be naught but a 
beggar. She was kindness itself to 
me, and, though I was too proud to 
accept all she offered me, I did ac- 
cept her companionship and her 
home. Many little industries of my 
own, pleasant now because no longer 
imperatively necessary, help me to 
support myself, as far as pecuniary 
support can be called such ; my home 
has been a generous gift the gift I 
prize most." 

She stopped, and Mrs. Burtleigh 
looked up in impatient confusion, 
perhaps conscious that her feelings 
and motives had been too mixed to 
warrant such frank, unbounded grati- 
tude. " Jim " said nothing, and Miss 
Houghton seemed so calm that it 



was almost difficult to congratulate 
her. She was asked if she had rec- 
ognized herself from the first in the 
story. 

" Yes." she said ; " I knew it must 
be me." 

" You took it coolly," some one 
ventured to observe. 

" I have seen too much of the 
revers de la medaille to be much 
excited about this," she said ; but, if 
she was outwardly calm, her feelings 
were certainly aroused, for her 
strange eyes had a far-away look, 
and the color came and went in her 
cheek. 

Our friend seemed almost crest- 
fallen; we thought he would have 
been elated. Presently she said to 
him, giving him the bracelets : 

" You must take these to Bruges, 
and I think you had better take me, 
too." 

He stared silently at her. Just 
then the bell began to ring for the 
midnight Mass. What followed 
Miss Houghton told us herself. 

The guests hurried to the chapel, 
rather glad to get rid of their invol- 
untary embarrassment. Those two 
remained behind alone. She was the 
first to speak. 

" I think you are sorry you have 
found me." 

" Yes," he answered slowly, " sorry 
to find it is you : Miss Houghton was 
poor, and Miss Duncombe is an 
heiress." 

" What matter ! If you like, Miss 
Duncombe will give up the fortune, 
or, if you want it, she will give it to 
you." 

He looked offended and puzzled. 

" You do not understand me," she 
said, half laughing : " Miss Dun- 
combe will let you settle everything 
for her, and say anything you like to 
Miss Houghton." 

" You do not mean 
excitedly. 



he began 



Fleurange. 459 

" I do," she answered composedly, contented, and a merrier Christmas 

And they were engaged then and day was never spent at Aldred than 

there. He wanted to be married be- the day of this unexpected recognition, 

fore they left England, but she refused, Midnight Mass, Christmas-tree, 

saying their wedding must be in a school-feast, and all succeeded each 

Flemish cathedral, and their wedding other to our perfect satisfaction ; the 

breakfast in a Flemish house. And so health of the heroine of " Cousin 

it was; and No. 20 Rue Neuveisnow Jim's" tale was drunk in the " was- 

their headquarters, while the house- sail-bowl" on Christmas night, and, 

hold of the Belgian heiress is under as the happy, excited, and tired 

the control of the old Flemish woman Christmas party separated on the day 

who once shut that door in the face following New Year's day, every one 

of the heiress' husband. agreed that it was a pity such things 

M. Van Muyden is happy and so very seldom happened in real life. 



FLEURANGE. 

BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF "A SISTER'S STORY." 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION. 

TART IV. THE IMMOLATION; 
L. 

WHILE our travellers are complet- government. Flattery itself was cau- 

ing the last stage of their journey, tious not to excite discussions that 

we will precede them to St. Peters- might give rise to criticism. The 

burg, and transport our readers for sovereign authority did not require 

a short time among scenes very dif- approval, but only to be obeyed, not 

ferent from those in which the inci- judged. This was generally under- 

dents of our story have hitherto stood, and the consequence was a 

occurred. general silence respecting forbidden 

The sentence of condemnation has topics; whereas, on every other sub- 
been pronounced, and for some days ject, as if by way of indemnification, 
the names of the five persons who Russian wit was unrestrained, and so 
were to suffer death have been known keen that the nation which prides 
and privately circulated ; privately, itself on being the most spiritiielle in 
for the trials which excited universal the world found a rival, and only 
interest were seldom discussed in consoled itself by saying Russian wit 
society. At that epoch (different in was borrowed. It is incontestably 
this respect from a subsequent one, certain that, though there were still 
when liberty to say anything was some survivors of the time of Cathe- 
allowed in Russia before anywhere rine's reign, the French language was 
else), whether through prudence, now so universally used in society 
servility, or a fear resulting from the at St. Petersburg, that people of the 
reign of the Emperor Paul, rather highest rank, of both sexes, spoke it 
than the one just ended, every one to the exclusion of their own tongue, 
refrained with common accord from and wrote it with such uncommon 
any public expression of opinion perfection as to enrich French litera- 
whatever respecting the acts of the ture ; whereas they would have been 



460 Fleurange. 

very much embarrassed if required shoals of conversation ; to be enter- 
to write the most insignificant note, taining, agreeable, interesting, and 
or even a mere business letter, in the even apparently bold without ever 
Russian language. causing embarrassment by an in ad- 
There is no intention of discussing vertent remark ; and if. in the ardor 
here the causes that led to this en- of discourse, he approached a danger- 
grafting of foreign habits, or of exam- ous limit, the promptness with which 
ining whether the Russians at that he read an unexpressed thought suf- 
period, in imitating the French, were need to make him change, with easy 
always mindful that when others are nonchalance, the direction of a con- 
copied it should be from their best versation in which he seemed to be 
side. Still less would it be suitable the most interested. 
to consider whether the people who He was not, however, disposed to 
possess the faculty of assimilation to talk with any one the day, or rather 
such a degree are the most noble, the the evening, we meet him again this 

most energetic, and the most sincere, time at the Countess de G 's, a 

This would lead us far beyond our woman of superior intellect, already 
modest limits, to which we return by advanced in years, whose salon was 
observing that, in spite of a splendor one of the most brilliant and most 
and magnificence almost beyond con- justly popular in St. Petersburg, 
ception, in spite of a tone of good Everything, indeed, was calculated 
taste and a courtesy now almost ex- to facilitate social intercourse of 
tinct in France, in spite of hospitality every degree, arid, if there was a 
on a grand scale, characteristic of place where the bounds we have just 
Slavonic countries, an indefinable referred to were invisible, though 
restraint, felt by all, prevailed in this never forgotten, it was here. What 
attractive and brilliant circle, insinu- could not be said aloud here, more 
ating itself everywhere like an invisi- than elsewhere, had a thousand fa- 
ble spectre, modifying and directing cilities for private utterance. On the 
the current of conversation even the other hand, for the benefit of 
most trifling and affecting not only prudent people who preferred to say 
the intercourse of fashionable life, nothing at all, there were tables 
but the freedom of friendly converse where they could play whist or a 
and the very outpourings of affection- game of chess. A piano at one end 
ate confidence. of the spacious salon was always 
The Marquis Adelardi had had open to attract amateur performers, 
several opportunities of mingling in then more numerous than now, 
this society, and found it congenial, when no one ventures, even in the 
It was a society in which he was family circle, to play without unusual 
specially adapted to shine, for he, ability. 

too, as we are aware, had passed his In this friendly atmosphere, our 
life in a school of enforced silence ; marquis, generally so social, was si- 
and, if he was formerly numbered lent and preoccupied. Seated in a 
among those who revolt under such corner on a sofa where no one else was 
restrictions, he had now renounced sitting, he took no part in the gen- 
all efforts to break through them, eral'conversation. And yet, as the 
and learned to turn his attention room filled, and various groups were 
elsewhere. He understood, better formed, here and there foreigners, 
than any other foreigner at St. Peters- and especially the members of the 
burg, how to navigate amid the diplomatic corps who frequented the 



Fleurangc. 



461 



house, broached the great topic, and 
by degrees were heard on various 
sides the names of Mouravieff, Ry- 
leieff, Pestel, and two others likewise 
condemned to death, as well as the 
names of those who were to be 
exiled a punishment almost as terri- 
ble. 

A young German attache, per- 
ceiving Adelardi, approached, and 
took a seat beside him. " And Wai- 
den," said he in a low voice, " have 
you not had permission to see him 
twice ?" 

" Yes." 

" Have you seen him since he was 
informed of his fate ?" 

" No ; but I have reason to hope I 
shall obtain that favor." 

" He is not sorry, I imagine, to 
escape the gibbet." 

" Not the gibbet ; but as to death, 
I am sure he thinks it preferable to 
the fate that awaits him." 

"Poor fellow ! but then, qifallait-il 
faire ?" 

" Dans cette gale re ?" interrupted 
the marquis with displeasure. " The 
question is certainly apropos, and I 
would ask him if I could obtain a 
reply that would avail him any- 
thing." 

" By the way," said the other, " I 
suppose you know who has just ar- 
rived at St. Petersburg ?" 

The marquis questioned him with 
a lok of uncertainty, for he was ex- 
pecting more than one arrival that 
day. 

" Why, the fair Vera, who has re- 
turned to her post." 

" Really !" exclaimed Adelardi ea- 
gerly. " In that case perhaps we 
shall see her here, for I am told she 
comes every evening when in the 
city." 

1 Yes, but not till the empress dis- 
penses with her services. It is nearly 
ten o'clock. She will probably be 



here soon. Our agreeable hostess is 
one of her relatives." 

" I was not aware of it. I know 
the Countess Vera but little. She 
was not at court when I was here 
three years ago. I only saw her two 
or three times at the Princess La- 
mianorTs, who was then here, but was 
not presented to her." 

" At the Princess Catherine's ? I 
believe you. It is said she wished 
Vera to marry her son, who was in- 
deed very assiduous in his attentions. 
The young countess did not appear 
wholly insensible to them at that 
time. Do you suppose she is still 
attached to him ?" 

" I do not know." 

" Poor girl ! I pity her, in that 
case, but it is not very probable she 
will long be infatuated about a con- 
vict. Besides, she will find others to 
console her, if she makes the effort." 

At that moment the piano was 
heard. The young diplomatist was 
requested to take a part in a trio, 
and the music put an end to the 
conversation that was becoming too 
ardent on every side, through the in- 
terest caused, not by the offence, but 
by the misfortunes of the criminals. 
Every one knew them, and several 
of them belonged to the same coterie 
which now scarcely dared utter their 
names aloud. 

Adelardi remained in the same 
place, his head resting on his hand, 
more absorbed than ever. He pre- 
tended to be listening to the music, 
and was mechanically beating time. 
But he was thinking of something 
very different, and only started from 
his reverie whenever the bell an- 
nounced a new arrival. Then he 
eagerly raised his head and looked 
towards the door, but only to resume 
his former position at the entrance 
of each new visitor as if not the one 
whom he desired to see. 



462 



Fleurange. 



LI. 



At the beginning of the same eve- 
ning a different scene was occurring, 
not far distant, in a salon still more ele- 
gant and magnificent than the one we 
have just visited. It was not, however, 
intended, like that, for the reception of 
visitors, but solely for the pleasure and 
comfort of her who occupied it a 
lady, as was evident, though there 
was no profusion of useless trifles or 
superfluous ornaments. But it seem- 
ed as if her hands could only touch 
what was rare and costly. Gold, 
silver, and precious stones gleamed 
from every object destined to her 
constant use, from the open cassette 
that contained her work to the sump- 
tuous bindings of the books scattered 
over the embroidered covering of 
the table, or lying on a small etagere 
of malachite near a large arm-chair. 
This chair, intended for reading, was 
also adapted to repose by the soft 
cushion covered with the finest lace 
for the head of the reader to rest up- 
on in an attitude at once convenient 
and graceful. On all sides were 
flowers of every season in as great 
abundance as if they grew in the 
open air at the usual time. They 
gave out an exquisite odor, which, 
with perfumes more artificial but not 
less sweet, embalmed the apartment. 

If, as some think, and we have 
already remarked, places resemble 
those who inhabit them, the reader 
may be eager to know the owner of 
this. We will endeavor to describe 
her as she appeared to those who 
knew her at the time of our story : 
a woman of that age when beauty is 
in all its freshness; who was truly 
said to have the dignity of a goddess 
and the form of a nymph ; a face 
sweet and pale, but with noble, deli- 
cate features; a complexion of 
charming purity; a look and smile 



that were captivating ; and the whole 
picture was framed by hair floating 
in long curls over graceful white 
shoulders. 

Such was the person who, at the 
sound of a manly and sonorous 
voice, entered the salon just describ- 
ed, and threw herself into the arms 
of him who had called her by name. 
Their first words were expressive of 
joy at seeing each other again after 
a long separation of some hours, and 
for a time they seemed only to think 
of each other. Their glances, their 
smiles met, and it might have been 
supposed they had nothing in the 
world to do but love each other and 
tell each other so. 

But the tone of conversation gra- 
dually changed. She grew earnest 
and he became uneasy. He made 
an effort to reply to the questions she 
addressed him and sometimes persis- 
tently repeated, but he appeared to 
do so unwillingly, as if he yielded 
out of condescension, and with diffi- 
culty resisted a desire of imposing si- 
lence on her. Once he rose and 
left her, but she followed him, softly 
placed her arm within his, and, draw- 
ing herself up to her utmost height 
(for, though she was quite tall, he was 
a whole hea-d taller), whispered in his 
ear. He bent down to listen^ but 
while she was talking a frightful 
change suddenly came over his face. 
She perceived it, and looked at him 
with surprise and an anxiety she had 
never felt before, as he leaned against 
the mantel-piece and remained there 
grave and silent with folded arms. 

He was then twenty-nine years 
old, and in the brilliancy of that man- 
ly beauty which suffering, care, the 
violent passions of a later age, and 
time itself, scarcely altered. Besides 
his lofty, noble stature, and features 






Fleurange, 463 

so regular that no sculptor could ideal- tunate, but never for the ungrate- 

ize them, there was a charm in the ful !" 

expression of his face and the tone He frowned as he said these words, 

of his voice which inspired attach- and turned towards the door, but 

ment as well as admiration. Hither- she stopped him. 

to resentment or anger had seldom She felt it would not do to persist, 

been known to flash from his eyes and with the adresse which is the 

or cause his voice to tremble, and lawful diplomacy of love, she at once 

perhaps this was the first time she changed the subject, and obliged him 

had ever seen his blue eyes light up to listen while she discussed projects 

with so threatening a gleam. She did she knew he had at heart. She spoke 

not dare persist in her request, but of herself, of him, of the happy past, 

waited for him to break the silence, their brilliant future, of a thousand 

By degrees his ominous aspect gave things, and indeed of everything ex- 

place to profound and bitter melan- cept her whispered petition which 

choly. " Ah !" said he at length, she now wished him to forget. 

" this is a sad beginning !" Then The reader has already discovered 

after a short silence, he looked around himself to be in the presence of the 

as he continued : " Cherished home ! young emperor and empress, whose 

we shall perhaps often regret the hap- unexpected accession took place in 

py days passed here !" the midst of a storm. They were in 

" We will not leave it," replied she the habit of meeting thus in the pal- 

with a quickness that betrayed how ace where they lived during the hap- 

unused she was to contradiction, py days of their early married life, 

" We will keep it as it is, and always when no thought of the throne dis- 

come back to it. Our gra?id days turbed their youthful love ! * Both 

shall be passed, if need be, in the hesitated a long time about leaving 

gloomy Winter Palace, but our hap- this charming palace for the sover- 

piest days shall be spent here, and eign residence, and, when constrained 

they shall be in the future what they to do so by the necessity of their po- 

have been in the past." sition, they kept it as it was, without 

He shook his head : " The past allowing anything to be changed, as 

was ours : the future does not belong a witness of the days that, in spite of 

to us. We must henceforth devote the imperial purple, they continued 

ourselves to our great country, and to call the happiest of their life. 

sacrifice all all ! God requires it After the empress was left alone, 

of us." she remained thoughtful a moment, 

" All !" repeated she with alarm, then, approaching the malachite 

" What ! even happiness and mutual Magtre, hastily rang a small gold bell. 

confidence? Oh! no, that portion A door concealed beneath the hang- 

of the past nothing shall infringe ings instantly opened, and a young 

upon! And there is still another girl appeared. She stopped without 

right I shall never renounce that speaking, awaiting an order or some 

of imploring favor and pardon for observation. But there was nothing 

the guilty." She hesitated, and then in her attitude to indicate the timidi- 

went on, clasping her hands and ty that might have been expected in 

fixing her eyes on him with a suppli- a maid of honor answering the bell 

eating expression: " W T ill you no of her sovereign. On the contrary, 
3ten to me ?" 



Anitchkoff Pa i ace) on the Nevskoi Pros- 
Always in favor of the unfor- pe kt. 



464 Fleurange. 

there was a majestic beauty and an pointing to the other end of the 

air about her which might have apartment. " You will find a letter 

seemed haughty had it not been there." 

modified when she spoke. Then, Vera obeyed, and brought the let- 
there was a caressing glance in her ter to her mistress, 
eyes, though they sometimes sparkled " Be sure to forward it to the ad- 
as if betraying more passion than dress," said the latter. " It is the 

tenderness; but her fine form, her permission for the Princess to ac- 

black eyes, her thick fair hair, and the company her husband to Siberia. I 

delicacy of her complexion, rendered am happy to be able to render that 

her at once striking and imposing, heroic woman this sad service. But 

She waited some moments in si- she is not the only one." 

lence then, seeing her mistress did " What a fate those women are 

not address her, she advanced and bringing on themselves !" said Vera, 

spoke first : " Did your majesty ven- shuddering with horror. 

ture to plead his cause ?" said she. " Yes, it is indeed fearful," said the 

The empress started from her rev- empress; "but I admire them, and 

erie and sadly shook her head, will serve them every way in my 

" My poor Vera," she replied, " you power." 

must renounce all hope." Vera was silent, and after a mo- 

The young girl turned pale. " Re- ment, seeing the empress had nothing 

nounce all hope !" exclaimed she. more to say, she gravely approached 

" O madame ! can that be your ad- to take leave of her. As she bent 

vice ? Can it be there is no hope ?" down to kiss her hand, the empress 

The empress, without replying, pressed her lips to her forehead, 

seated herself in her arm-chair, took " Come, Vera," said she, " look a 

a book from the etagere, and began little more cheerful, I beg you. To 

turning over the leaves as if she satisfy you, I promise to make one 

wished to put an end to the conver- more effort. But I think, my dear, 

sation. Vera's eyes flashed for an you are very generous to express so 

instant, and it was with difficulty she much anxiety about him, for it is not 

repressed an explosion of grief or ir- the emperor alone who has reason to 

ritation. She remained silent, how- call him ungrateful !" 

ever, and stood beside the table ab- At this, Vera's face crimsoned, and 

sently plucking the petals from the she drew herself up at once. " Your 

flowers in a crystal vase before her. majesty has a right to say anything 

The empress meanwhile kept her to me," said she in a trembling voice, 

eyes fastened on her book, but pres- " but this right has generally been 

ently she raised them and looked at used with kindness." 

the clock. " I do not need you any " Whereas you now find me cruel, 

longer, Vera. It is ten o'clock. You Well, be it so ; we will let the subject 

are going to the Countess G 's drop. Good-night, and without any 

this evening, I think." ill-feeling, my dear." 

"Yes, madame, if your majesty She dismissed her maid of honor 

has no further orders to give me." with a motion of the head. Vera 

" No, I have nothing more. bowed, and without another word left 

Ah ! I forgot. Open that drawer," the room. 






Fleurange. 465 



LII. 



" The Countess Vera de Linin- though noble rather than slender. 

g en ! The only ornament she wore was a 

At this name the Marquis Adelardi knot of blue ribbon on her left shoul- 
looked up, but this time he did not der, to which was attached the chiffre 
resume his former attitude, for the of diamonds (her badge as maid of 
person he had so impatiently await- honor), in which were woven together 
ed at last appeared. It was she ! the initials of the three empresses : 
The cause of this impatience, if we Alexandrine, then reigning; Mary, 
would know it, was a resolution to .the empress-mother; and Elizabeth, 
make an effort that evening in be- Alexander's inconsolable widow, whe 
half of his friend through the Coun- was so soon to follow him to the tomb, 
tess Vera, but it was first indispensa- Recent emotion still flushed the 
ble to be sure of her feelings towards young girl's cheeks, and the tears of 
him. He wondered if he should wounded pride, hastily wiped away, 
discover any traces of the ill-conceal- gave her a mingled expression of 
ed passion she once manifested for melancholy and haughtiness which 
George, or if time and indignation, at once inspired a desire to pity and 
aided by the influence of the court, a fear of offending her. 
had done their work ? Or had his She first approached the table 
inconstancy inspired an indifference where the lady of the house was 
which had not been disarmed by his playing whist. The latter raised her 
misfortunes ? All this Adelardi flat- eyes, and merely smiled as she gave 
tered himself he should discover in her a friendly nod of the head, 
a single conversation, provided she Vera, without offering her hand, bow- 
consented to an interview. As to ed, and made a salutation at once 
any fear of her eluding his penetra- graceful and respectful, which was 
tion, he had too good an opinion of customary in that country when one 
himself in that respect. lady is much younger than the 

As soon as she appeared, he looked other ; she pressed her lips to the 

at her with lively interest, and an at- edge of the black lace shawl which 

tention which he indulged in without the elderly lady wore ; then she 

scruple. Having seen her only remained standing a moment near 

twice some years before, without the card-table, looking around the 

speaking to her, he thought she room. There was in this look 

would not recognize him till he was neither eagerness, nor curiosity, nor 

formally presented. coquetry : it was a mere survey of 

Vera crossed the salon without the room and its occupants, and it 

embarrassment, and with the ease was easy to see she was seeking no- 

and grace of a person accustomed to one and expecting no one. She 

high life and the sensation she pro- only replied to the salutations address- 

duced. She was dressed in black, ed her by a slight inclination of the 

the court, and even the citizens, still head, sometimes by a smile, 

wearing mourning for the Emperor Presently, seeing a vacant- seat, 

Alexander. This made the dazzling she went to take possession of it, 

whiteness of her complexion and her and thus found herself near the can- 

golden hair the more striking, and #// occupied by the Marquis Adelardi. 

suited her form of perfect symmetry, She was scarcely seated when the- 
VOL. xvi. 30 



466 Fleurange. 

young diplomatist who had so re- " No, I left Florence at the begin- 

cently spoken of her approached ning of December." 

with lively eagerness, to which she " For St. Petersburg ?" 

only responded by a look of indiffer- " Yes." 

ence and giving him two ringers "And have you been here ever 

of her gloved hand. since ? " 

The Marquis Adelardi took ad- "Yes. You were absent at my 

vantage of this favorable opportunity arrival, otherwise I should not have 

to approach the young German and waited till the present time to solicit 

beg to be presented to the Countess the favor I have just obtained." 

Vera. Adelardi's name was no soon- There was another momentary 

er pronounced than it awoke a re- pause. The young girl looked around, 

membrance, at first vague, then dis- and continued, in a lower tone : 

tinct enough to make her blush. " You were here, then, the twenty- 

This lively embarrassment was quite fourth of December ? " 

evident for a moment. She bowed " I was." 

without speaking as he was present- She hesitated an instant, then, low- 

'cd, and, turning her face immediately ering her voice still more, said : 

away, continued for some moments " And have you seen your friend 

tto converse with the other, but since that fatal day ? ' 

only long enough to recover from " Yes, and I hope to see him once 

.her confusion. She speedily put an more alas ! for the last time." 

-end to this trifling conversation, and, Vera bit her lips, quivering with 

suddenly turning towards Adelardi, agitation, but soon resumed, with a 

she said, without any trace of her coolness that surprised and, for a 

irecent embarrassment : " I remem- moment, disconcerted the marquis : 

ber very well, Monsieur le Marquis, I formerly knew Count George 

your visit at St. Petersburg three de Walden, but for some time had 

years ago, but I was so young then lost sight of him. Nevertheless, his 

you had probably forgotten me." sentence fills me with horror, and I 

Adelardi replied, as he would would do anything in the world to de- 
have done in any case, but in this liver him from it him and the rest/' 
instance with truth, that such a sup- " Him and the rest ? One as soon 
position was inadmissible. as the other ? " 

"And as for me," he continued, " One as soon as the other; they 
" never having had the honor of a all excite my pity. I wish the em- 
personal acquaintance, I necessarily peror would pardon them all." Her 
thought myself wholly unknown to voice by no means accorded with her 
you." words ; but Adelardi continued as if 

" Your friends have so often spok- he did not perceive it : 

en of you that your name was "Pardon them all! That would 

familiar, but your features, I ac- be chimerical. But there are some 

knowledge, were somewhat effaced who are deserving of clemency." 

from my memory." " The emperor is more lenient to- 

" Yours naturally clung to mine, wards inferior criminals than to those 

Besides, I also heard you constant- who, after being loaded with favors, 

ly spoken of." forget his kindness." 

There was a moment's silence. " And yet there may be extenuat- 

" Have you seen the Princess ing circumstances even in some cases 

Catherine lately ?" said she. of that number." 



Fleurange. 467 

" Do you know of any that would " A man named Fabiano Dim, 

be of any avail to Count George ?" George's secretary ; but a great cul- 

said she eagerly. prit, not considered worthy of credit. 

" Not quite so loud; we may be He told the truth, however, ardently 

overheard." hoping his testimony might save his 

"Yes; you are right," she said, master." 

resuming her former tone. " Let us " He is doubtless condemned to 

change our seats; we look as if we the same fate ?" 

' i 

were plotting something here, and " Yes, but to a more severe one ; his 

should avoid attracting attention, sentence is for life, whereas George's 

Let us examine the albums on yon- is only for twenty-five years." 

der table. There we can continue " Only twenty-five years !" repeat- 

our conversation with less restraint." ed she, with a shudder. 

" Well," continued she, as soon as " Yes, it is horrible ; it is worse 

they had effected the change pro- than death ! And George will envy 

posed, and were seated before the the wretch who was the prime cause 

albums, which they pretended to be of his misfortune, for Dini, seriously 

examining carefully. wounded on the twenty-fourth of De- 

" Well," replied Adelardi, " what cember, will probably die before the 

I mean is that many things of no sad day fixed for their departure." 

avail in the eye of the law might not They were now interrupted by 

be without influence over him who something not foreign to the subject 

is head of the law." of their discourse. A lady, unpre- 

And while she was listening with tendingly clad, who till now had re- 
interest, unintentionally betrayed by mained aloof, approached the young 
her eager, agitated expression, her maid of honor, and, with a faltering, 
glowing cheeks, and parted lips, Ade- respectful tone, asked if the petition 
lardi pleaded his friend's cause, relat- addressed his imperial majesty had 
ing what we have already learned been granted. 

respecting his apparent, rather than " Yes," said Vera eagerly. " Per- 

real, complicity, his ignorance of the mission has been accorded. The 

actual designs of the conspirators, Princess received it this very 

and the circumstances that led to his hour. I left it myself at her door, 

presence among the insurgents on on my way here." 

the twenty-fourth of December. In She kindly extended her hand to 

short, he gave her all the details. of the person who addressed her. The 

which she had been totally ignorant, latter bent down as if to kiss it, but 

having only heard, during her absence, Vera prevented it by cordially etn- 

of George's offence and the sentence bracing her. 

he had incurred. " Behold a true, faithful friend in 

" And the emperor," said she ea- misfortune," said she, as the other 

gerly, " does he know it was he who left them. " She herself is capable 

saved his brother's life that dreadful of going to Siberia with her whose 

day ?" dame de compag7iie she was in happier 

* I doubt it; there were only two days. But then, the Princess 

witnesses who could attest it. One ' has in her misfortunes the happiness 
of these did not come forward, for of feeling herself beloved and re- 
fear of compromising himself; the spected by all." 
other was exceptionable." " Assuredly," said Adelardi. " She 

; Who was the other ?" is really an admirable woman." 



468 



Flcurange. 



" So admirable that she is beyond 
my comprehension." 

" How so ?" 

" I do not understand how a person 
can resolve on the course she wishes 
to pursue she and the others." 

" What !" said Adelardi, looking 
at her with surprise. " You do not 
understand how a woman can thus 
wholly devote herself to the man 
the husband whom she loves. 

Vera shook her head. " No," said 
she. " I do not wish to appear bet- 
ter than I am. If I were in such a 
position, if I had the misfortune of 
loving one of those convicts, he 
might rely on my exertions to obtain 
his pardon, and to use every means 
in my power to that end. But, as to 
sharing his lot and following him to 
Siberia, no, my dear marquis, I 
frankly acknowledge that is a proof 
of devoted affection I feel wholly in- 
capable of." 

Another form at this moment 
passed before the marquis' mental 
vision, beside which the beauty ac- 
tually before him paled, and slightly 
modified the lively admiration with 
which he regarded her. 

" Well," said he, after a moment's 
reflection, " I know one of these 
convicts for whom a woman a 
young lady of about your age is 
ready to give a still greater proof of 

devotion than the Princess , for 

she is not his wife. She is only 
his betrothed, and wishes to marry 
him on purpose to share his fate." 

" That is something entirely origi- 
nal," said Vera. 

"To do that," pursued Adelardi, 
" she has a double favor to obtain, 
and is coming to St. Petersburg for 
that purpose. She will be here to- 
morrow, or, at the latest, in a few 
days. I have been commissioned to 
solicit for her an audience of the em- 
press. Can I do so through your in- 
strumentality ?" 



" Certainly. All these requests 
pass through my hands, and none 
have been rejected. But this is 
really the most singular case that has 
occurred." She drew her tablets 
and a pencil from her pocket. " The 
name of y owe prof e'gee ?" said she. 

Adelardi hesitated an instant, 
then, noting a little anxiously the ef- 
fect produced, said : 

" Her name is Fleurange d'Yves." 
He was relieved to hear the maid of 
honor say, after carefully writing 
down the name : 

" Fleurange ! that is a very singu- 
lar name, and one I never heard be- 
fore. To-morrow," continued she, 
rising, and returning the tablets to 
her pocket, a before noon you shall 
have a reply. A revoir, Monsieur le 
Marquis." 

As she gave him her hand, she 
added in a low tone : " I thank you 
for all your information, and will en- 
deavor to avail myself of it. If you 
see Count George, tell him but no, 
tell him nothing. If by the merest 
chance I succeed, it will be time 
enough then to tell him what he 
owes to my efforts. If I do not 
it will be better for him to remain ig- 
norant of my failure." 

The Marquis Adelardi returned 
home greatly preoccupied, and ab- 
sently took up two letters lying on 
the Jable. But after opening them, 
he successively read them with equal 
interest. First, he looked at one of 
the signatures : " Clement Dorn- 
thal ? He is the cousin who accompa- 
nies the fair traveller. They have 
arrived, then. Well, the end of the 
drama is approaching : we must all 
endeavor to play our parts with pru- 
dence. Mine is not the easiest !" 
He opened the other note, and 
hastily ran over it. " Thursday ! I 
shall see him on Thursday at two 
o'clock. Poor George ! it will be a 
sad meeting, in spite of the news 









Fletirange. 



469 



I have to surprise and console 
him." 

He had the satisfaction of learning 
by this note that, thanks to the pow- 
erful influence brought to bear on 
the occasion, he would be permitted 
to pass an hour with the prisoner 
every day during the week that yet 
remained before the sad train of 
exiles would set forth. 

" Poor George !" he again repeat- 
ed. " Can it be he has really come 
to this ? But who knows what may 
yet take place ? If the proverb, 
' What woman wills, God wills/ is 
true, all hope is not lost, for here are 



two women evidently with the will to 
aid him, and energetic enough to 
overrule the most adverse destiny. 
Two doubtless one too many, and 
I have been rather bold to risk a 
fearful collision. But things have 
come to such a point that they can 
hardly be worse. If the fair Vera 
succeeds, it is George's affair to get 
out of the complication of gratitude 
to her who has saved him, and the one 
ready to follow him. But if she fails, 
as seems only too probable, then the 
case will be very simple : our charm- 
ing heroine will have no rival to 
fear." 



LIV. 

After the succession of disagree- them of a quality to which mademoi- 

able surprises Mademoiselle Jose- selle was quite as unaccustomed as to 

phine had experienced during her the splendor with which it was served, 

painful journey, another of a differ- She looked around with mute sur- 

ent nature, but the greatest of all, prise, hardly daring touch the dishes 

awaited her at the end. Her imagi- before her, and looking at her two 

nation, we are aware, never furnished companions with an interrogative ex- 

her with anything beyond the strict- pression of the greatest perplexity, 

est necessity. It was only with diffi- But they both seemed affected and 

culty she succeeded in comprehend- preoccupied to such a degree as not 

ing that her dear Gabrielle had de- to notice what was passing around 

cided to marry a stranger condemned them, and mademoiselle, faithful to 

to the galleys, and this inconceivable her habits, forbore questioning them 

idea seemed to have penetrated her for the moment, 

mind to the exclusion of all others. The repast was made in silence ; 

She was going to join a prisoner, anc^ after which Clement wrote a note 

from the day of her departure from which she heard him ask a valet to 

Heidelberg she looked upon herself send to M. le Marquis. Then the 

as on the way to a dungeon. When two ladies were conducted to the 

therefore she heard the words, " We apartments prepared for them, 

have arrived!" and their sledge pass- Fleurange embraced her companion 

ed under the arch of an immense and wished her good-night, and 

porte cochcre, she shivered with fear. Mademoiselle Josephine was left 

It was, consequently, with a sort of alone in a chamber surpassing any 

stupefaction she found herself in a she had ever seen, with large mirrors 

brilliantly lighted vestibule, whence a around her, in which for the hrst time 

broad staircase led to a fine long in her life she saw herself from head 

gallery opening into one salon after to foot. There was also a bed a bal- 

another, at the end of which our daquin which she scarcely dared 

travellers were ushered into a dining- think destined for her modest person, 

room, where supper was awaiting but in which at length she extended 



47 Fleurange. 

herself with a respect that for a long with snow, with carriage-ways in 
time troubled her repose. Never every direction, bordered with branch- 
had the excellent Josephine found es of fir. Vehicles of all kinds were 
herself so completely out of her ele- crossing to and fro. Yonder was a 
ment. She wondered if it was really succession of vast buildings, and 
herself beneath those curtains of silk, farther off were the gloomy walls of 
and, when at last she fell asleep, it a fortress flanked by a church whose 
was to dream that Gabrielle, splen- gilded spire glittered in the winter 
didly apparelled, was mounting a sun --a sun radiant, but without 
throne, and she, Mademoiselle Jose- warmth; which imparted a dazzling 
phine, arrayed in a similar manner, brilliancy to the snow, but whose 
was at her side. Her disturbed deceptive light, far from alleviating 
slumbers were not of long duration, the severity of the season, was, on the 
Before day she was up, and impatient- contrary, the surest sign of its merci- 
ly waiting for the hour when she less rigor. 

could leave her fine chamber and While thus admiring and wonder- 
sally forth to explore this strange ing at everything, Mademoiselle 
dwelling which the night before came to the last salon of the enfilade, 
seemed so much like a fairy palace. where, before one of the large win- 
This impression was not lessened dows, she perceived Fleurange mo- 
by the light of day. The rooms were tionless and absorbed in such pro- 
really splendid, and furnished with found reverie that she did not notice 
the taste the Princess Catherine her approach. 

everywhere displayed, and which was " Ah ! Gabrielle, here you are ! 
as carefully consulted in the house God be praised ! I was lost, but 
where she only spent three months no longer feel so, now I have found 
of the year, as in her palace at Flor- you. But, for pity's sake! what are 
ence, which she made her home, you doing at that open window ?" 
Mademoiselle went from one room At this, Fleurange turned around 
to another in a state of continually with a smile. " Open ! my dear mad- 
increasing admiration, and, while thus emoiselle ? We should not be alive 
walking about, she found everywhere long, clad as we are." 
the same mild temperature, which " I really do not understand why 
seemed something marvellous, for all I do not feel the cold, and yet " 
the doors were open, and not only Fleurange motioned for her to 
were there no fires to be seen, but 'approach (for the old lady still kept 
no glass or even sashes in the win- at a respectful distance from the 
dows. Apparently there was noth- dangerous openings), and made her 
ing to screen her from the frosty touch the thick glass, one pane of 
air without freezing indeed, for on which composed the window a lux- 
their arrival at St. Petersburg the ury at that time peculiar to St. Pe- 
thermometer was down to fifteen or tersburg, and which often deceived 
sixteen degrees, and yet what was eyes more experienced than those 
the secret of this wonderful fact ? of the simple Josephine. Reassured, 
She was not cold in the least, though but more and more amazed, she re- 
the sight of the large windows made mained beside Fleurange at the win- 
ner shiver, and she only ventured to dow, profiting by the occasion to ask 
stand at a distance and look at the all the questions hitherto repressed, 
view without. Everything was gradually explained 
She beheld a vast plain covered to her, and she comprehended that 



Fleurange. 471 

this magnificent house belonged to selle Josephine. " Come, Gabrielle, 

Count George's mother. I know I am very ignorant of every- 

" And he ?" she ventured to say thing relating to foreign countries, 

when Fleurange had answered all but still, not to such a degree as to 

the questions, " he, Gabrielle, where believe that. A river ! when I see 

is he ?" with my own eyes hundreds of 

" He !" repeated Fleurange, as a carriages on it, sledges and chariots 

flush rose to her cheeks and her eyes of all kinds, going in every direction, 

filled with tears "he is there: and houses and sheds! And what 

there, mademoiselle, within the walls are those two great mountains I see 

of the fortress before us !" yonder ?" 

Poor Josephine started with sur- " They are ice-hills, such as they 

prise. " Pardon me !" said she. have in Russia, mademoiselle, and 

" If I had known that, I should not which were imitated in wood three 

have mentioned him." years ago at Paris. Do you remem- 

" Why, mademoiselle? The sight ber ? I am told these are only 
of those walls does not make me erected temporarily during the car- 
afraid ! On the contrary, I long to nival." 

enter them. I long to leave all this " Very well ; but what you have 

splendor which separates me from said does not prove that to be the 

him as it did before ! O my dear river, and that you are right." 

friend ! you must not pity me the day " It seems incredible, I know, but 

I am united to him !" everything we see there now will 

The language of passion always disappear in the spring, leaving only 

had a strange effect on this elderly a broad stream between that fine 

maiden, but she only allowed herself granite quay and the fortress. But 

to reply meekly : I confess I can scarcely realize it 

" Well, my dear child, we will not myself, never having seen it." 
pity you ! It is Clement and I who Clement now appeared. He look- 
will need pity when that day comes, ed pale and disposed to be silent, 
and you must not be vexed if " and gave every indication of having 
And in spite of herself, great tears passed a no less restless night than 
filled her eyes, which she promptly Mademoiselle Josephine, though for 
wiped away. a different reason. After exchanging 

She remained silent for some some words with his companions, his 

moments, then spoke of something eyes glanced over the broad river, 

else, feeling if she resumed the and, like those of Fleurange, fastened 

subject it would speedily lead to an on the gloomy walls of the fortress, 

explosion of grief which she resolved It was a strange chance that led 

to restrain that she might not afflict them all there precisely opposite, 

her young friend. Clement gazed at the place with 

" What wide plain is that between despair, jealousy, and horror, but 

the quay and the fortress ?" she soon still was unable to turn his eyes 

continued. away. 

" That is the Neva," replied Fleur- " There, then, is the end," thought 

ange, smiling. he; "for her, the end desired: for 

The Neva ?" me, the grave of my youth ! Yes, 

" Yes, the river that runs through when she once enters those walls, all 

the city." will be at an end for me, were I to 

" The river ?" repeated Mademot- live beyond the usual period. My 



472 



Fleurange. 



life will be ended at twenty years of 
age !" 

These reflections and others of the 
same nature were not calculated to 
make Clement very agreeable that 
morning. He was not only serious, 
which often happened, but, contrary 
to his habit, he was gloomy and 
taciturn. Their breakfast was de- 
spatched in silence, after which it 
was only by a great effort he gradu- 
ally succeeded in regaining his usual 
manner. 

" Cousin Gabrielle," said he then, 
" I appear morose this morning, I 
am aware, and I beg your pardon. 
But I am only sad, I assure you 
sad in view of what is approaching. 
This is pardonable, I hope," con- 
tinued he, taking Mademoiselle Jo- 
sephine's hand ; " you will not re- 
quire us, will you, to leave you with- 
out regret ?" 

" That is what I said to her a 
moment ago," said poor Josephine, 
wiping away her tears. " She says 
she is happy ; that she longs to be 
there," casting a glance across the 
river. " We only desire her happi- 
ness, I am sure ; but then for us " 

" Yes," said Clement, with a sad 
smile of bitterness, " for us the few 
days to come will not be very happy, 
and we really have reason to be sad. 
As for me, Gabrielle, I also regret 
those just ended; for in this new 
sphere my role is at an end. I am 
now to be for ever deprived of the 
pleasure of being useful to you in 
any way." 

He was still speaking when the 
Marquis Adelardi was announced; 
and he hastily rose. 

" Stay, Clement," said Fleurange 
eagerly " stay. I wish this excellent 
friend to become acquainted with 
you." 

" I also wish to make his acquaint- 
ance, but not now. Tell him that 
to-morrow, yes, to-morrow morning 



or even this evening, if he will receive 
me, I will call at his residence. Do 
not detain me now." 

And before the marquis appeared 
he was gone. He felt he should be 
de trap at this interview of such deep 
import to Fleurange, for such it was. 
To see George's friend once more, 
his confidential friend him who at 
this solemn period had become the 
intermediary authorized by his mo- 
ther ! There was great reason to be 
agitated at such a thought. Besides, 
Adelardi had always inspired her 
with sympathy and confidence, and 
in this new sphere she realized how 
beneficial his experience would be, 
for Clement was right in saying he 
could no longer be of any use. He 
was as ignorant as she of the habits 
and usages of the court. And yet, 
to obey the Princess Catherine's in- 
structions, her first object must be to 
obtain an audience of the empress 
a formidable prospect, which fright- 
ened her a thousand times more than 
all that afterwards awaited her. She 
therefore received the marquis with 
such childlike confidence as to re- 
double the regard he had always felt 
for her. There was the same beauty, 
the same simplicity about her, and, 
above all, the charm most attractive 
to eyes as biases as his of resem- 
bling no one else in the world ! The 
extraordinary courage she showed 
herself capable of made him appre- 
ciate the more that which she mani- 
fested in separating from George, 
and revealed to him the whole extent 
of the sacrifice then made with so 
much firmness. 

The mission confided to Adelardi 
assumed, therefore, a graver aspect in 
his eyes than before, and he was for 
an instant tempted to reproach him- 
self for having, the night previous, 
invoked the aid of a rival in George's 
behalf, who might prove an enemy 
to the charming girl before him. On 



Fleurange. 473 



all accounts, however, he could not associated with the name of Fleur- 

regret this last effort for his friend's ange. No one had called her so but 

welfare. In case Vera failed, and by George for more than three years, 

chance was afterwards tempted to And the day for ever graven on her 

display any ill-will at another's per- memory, he told her he should keep 

forming an act of devotedness she that name for himself himself alone, 

declared herself incapable of, ha had She regretted to find it here written 

taken some precautions to defeat her, by a strange hand, and felt an invol- 

and flattered himself the favor would untary contraction of the heart, 

be obtained before she discovered by " I should have preferred the re- 

whom it was implored. quest made in the name I generally 

Meanwhile, the maid of honor was bear." 

punctual. The marquis had already " Pardon me. I am to blame in 

received her reply, and now placed it this," said Adelardi. " I supposed it 

in his young friend's hands. a matter of indifference. I thought 

"Your request is granted: Made- the name of Fleurange would par- 

moiselle Fleurange d'Yves will be re- ticularly attract the attention of her 

ceived by her majesty on Thursday, whose favor you seek, and remain 

at two o'clock. V. L." more surely in her memory." 

" The day after to-morrow !" said This was merely an excuse 

Fleurange with emotion. Then, which occurred to him in reply to 

blushing as she continued : " But a question he had not anticipated. 

how happens it that the name which His real motive was to conceal from 

I have not borne for so long occurs the maid of honor another name per- 

in this note?" haps more familiar, and which might 

"It is yours, is it not ?" replied be connected in her mind with some 

the marquis evasively. prejudice injurious to the success of 

" Yes,it is mine, but "she stopped, the petition of which she was the in- 

A particular remembrance was now termediary. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



SAYINGS. 

" WE serve God by climbing up to The first degree of interior peace is 
heaven from virtue to virtue ; we to banish from us all the noise and 
serve Satan by descending into hell commotion created by the passions, 
from vice to vice."- -S. Bonaventura. which disturb the profound tranquil- 
He who reflects upon death has lity of the heart. The last and most 
already cut short the evil habit of excellent degree is to stand in no 
talkativeness; and he who has re- fear of this disturbance, and to "be 
ceived the gift of in ward 'and spiritual perfectly insensible to its excitement, 
tears, shuns it as he would fire. S. Ibid. 
John Climacus. The heart of the meek is the throne 

Spiritual blessings attained by on which the Lord reposes. Ibid. 

much prayer and labor are solid and The day will belong to him who is 

durable. Ibid. first in possession. Ibid. 



474 Prince von Bismarck and the 



PRINCE VON BISMARCK AND THE INTERVIEW OF 

THE THREE EMPERORS. 

BY M. ADOLPHE DECHAMPS, MIN. D*ETAT 

FROM LA REVUE GENERALB DE BRUXELLES. 

MY DEAR FRIEND : You ques- The following is an extract from 
tion me about the events which dur- the interesting reply which I receiv- 
ing the past two years have been sub- ed from him only a short time before 
verting Europe, and you in parti- his death : " After having been a 
cular ask me what I think of the witness and spectator of the catastro- 
meeting of the three emperors at phes which burst forth between the 
Berlin, and of the policy of von years 1789 and 1795, in the latter one 
Bismarck. I made my first entry into the higher 

Your first inquiry is too general walks of the political world, and 1 80 1 
for me to take up in a letter which I was the first year of my diplomatic 
wish to avoid making too long, but career. I consequently cannot be in 
in a work .which I am writing at ignorance of anything that has taken 
present I will endeavor to do so to place since the two remote epochs 
the extent of my ability. About the above mentioned. Now, am I 
year 1849, I went to work on an thereby in advance of other liv- 
Etude sur la France, out of which, ing men ? Can I consider my- 
during the second Empire, I put forth self capable of drawing up a prog- 
three separate publications.* In nostication of what will happen even 
these I followed the course of Napo- so far only as regards the most im- 
leon III., both in the successes and in mediate future? Certainly not! 
the blunders which brought about his But, nevertheless, one thing I know 
fall ; and now in the midst of the I can do, I can venture to affirm 
obscurity of general politics which that not during the course of the 
thickens more and more from day to last seven decades has there been a 
day, and wherein the attentive ob- single moment when the elements 
server perceives more sinister flashes which make up social existence have 
than gleams of sunshine, I am about found themselves plunged in so gen- 
to complete the main work which eral a struggle as they are now." 
I began more than twenty years ago. Since the prince thus wrote 

In 1859, I sent my first publica- me, we have had the campaign 

tion on the Second Empire to the of Italy against Austria in 1859; 

aged Prince von Metternich, who hon- the war in Germany which 

ored me with his friendship, and asked ended in Sadowa ; the civil war in 

him for his views about the condition the United States of N. A. ; the co- 

* * 

of Europe, which was then on the eve lossal war of 1870; the astounding 

of being profoundly changed by the fall of the second French Empire ; 

war in Italy. the rule of the Commune, and the 

conflagration in Paris; a Republican 

*ir. 1859, z.<? Second Empire: in 1860, La government in France ; the set- 

France^ t Autriclte et V Angleterre ; in 1865, r ,, ^ r o 

France ettAiiemagne. ting up of the Empire of Germany; 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 475 

the Italian Revolution in Rome, What is, then, the meaning, the 

which keeps the Pope a captive in character, and the bearing of the 

the Vatican and all the church in meeting of the three emperors ? Is 

mourning ; we have had Spain con- it a congress ? Is it an alliance ? 

tended for by three* dynasties and It is neither one nor the other, and 

a prey to anarchy and civil war; and this has been carefully proclaimed. 

\ve have a socialistic revolution stir- It is not an European congress, since 

ring up everywhere the laboring England and France were not pres- 

masses and unsettling the deepest ent at it, the one having been left 

foundations of the society of our day ! aside, and the other naturally exclud- 

What would old Prince von Met- ed. It is not a congress, since no 
ternich say if, having before him the treaty will sanction its views and re- 
immense upheaving of which we are suits. But, besides, Prince von Bis- 
witnesses, he could be now called marck wants neither congress nor 
upon to reply to the general inquiry treaty. He attached great importance 
which you have put to me ? He to signing the treaty of Prague alone 
would decline giving an opinion ; he with Austria and the treaty of Frank- 
would refuse to make any predic- fort alone with France ; he refused, 
tions ; he would confine himself to with a certain hauteur, to allow any 
the expression of deeper fears, be- interference of the other European 
cause of the general and formidable powers in those treaties, although they 
struggle now raging between all the brought about a fundamental change 
elements which make up the very in the status and equilibrium of Eu- 
life of society. I will do just as he rope. 

would, and for a hundredfold more In times past, after a great war, 

reasons than he could have. I feel, Europe has always intervened through 

as do all those who have any politi- a solemn congress in which it dicta- 

cal instinct, that decisive and dread- ted the terms of a general peace, 

ful events are drawing nigh ; though thereby securing for it solidity and 

I cannot yet distinctly perceive them, duration. Thus the treaty of West- 

I feel them, as one does the approach phalia brought with it its consequent 

of a storm, from the heaviness of the peace, the treaty of Vienna the peace 

air before seeing the lightning flash of 1815, and more recently the treaty 

or hearing the thunder roll. of the Congress of Paris in 1856 fol- 

I lay aside, then, your general in- lowed upon the war in the Crimea, 

quiry, and take up the second one, Heretofore Europe has been subject 

which is more precise, and which re- to a system of equilibrium : Bismarck 

lates to the meeting at Berlin and to has done away with the latter, and 

the policy of von Bismarck. broken up the former. 

It is almost needless for me to But he perceived the danger of 

mention that, retired as I have been this attitude and this situation. Ger- 

for a long time from politics, any opi- many had vanquished Austria, crush- 

nions which I may express are mere- ed France, and had won European 

ly individual ones, that I alone am supremacy, but she stood alone, 

responsible for them, and that nobody Austria, forced out first from Italy, 

can claim a right to extend that re- afterwards from Germany, could not, 

sponsibility to my friends, and still less without feeling a deep and natural 

to the political party which I have jealousy, see the German Empire rise 

had the honor of serving. I make to the first rank while she sank to the 

this express r|servation. second, Russia cannot see the Ger- 



476 



Prince von Bismarck and the 



man Empire extend from the Dan- 
ube to the Baltic, and overtop the 
Slavic Empire, without becoming also 
jealous. England cannot look upon 
this state of things, which leaves her 
nothing to do but to keep quiet and 
silent, without feeling somewhat as 
Austria and Russia do. There is felt, 
then, at St. Petersburg, as at Vienna, 
and perhaps at London, an invincible 
distrust of the predominance of Ger- 
many and of the rupture, for her be- 
nefit, of the equilibrium of Europe. 
There are deep and opposing interests 
which are incompatible with a true 
alliance between the three emperors, 
and, albeit they have at Berlin shaken 
hands, toasted, and fraternally em- 
braced one another and exchanged 
certain general ideas, they have not 
allied themselves on settled political 
views. 

M. von Bismarck has himself pretty 
accurately defined the * meeting at 
Berlin : " It is of importance that no 
one should suppose that the meeting 
of the three emperors has for its ob- 
ject any special political projects. 
Beyond a doubt, this meeting 
amounts to a signal recognition of 
the new German Empire, but no poli- 
tical design has directed it." 

It amounts to this or very nearly 
this : M. von Bismarck wanted neither 
a congress nor a treaty, nor did he 
seek an alliance which Vas impossible 
of attainment just now ; but he was 
determined to put an end to his pre- 
sent isolation, and he sought in parti- 
cular to cut short the dream of retali- 
ation in which France might indulge 
from a hoped-for alliance with Russia 
or with Austria. 

The government of Berlin has in 
the meeting of the three emperors 
sought two and perhaps three ends : I. 
To bring about the recognition of the 
German Empire by the two great 
military powers of the North, and in 
that way deprive France of all hope 



of finding an ally, with a view to war, 
either at St. Petersburg or at Vienna. 
II. To discourage at the same time 
the particularism '* of Bavaria and of 
South Germany, which has always 
looked for a support in the direction 
of Vienna. The third end may be 
to disarm the resistance of Catholics 
to the absurd and odious persecutions 
organized against them, by intimating 
to them that their cause has been 
abandoned by the Apostolic Empe- 
ror, the head of the House of Haps- 
burg. 

The remarkable letter published in 
Der Wanderer of Vienna, under the 
heading of " The Order of Battle," 
sets forth very cleverly each of these 
two hopes aforesaid of the Berlin dip- 
lomats. 

" Those diplomats," says Der Wan- 
derer, " are rather barefacedly mak- 
ing game of Austria's good-nature. 
They calculate that this good-nature 
will have the effect of paralyzing two 
(as M. von Bismarck considers 
them) implacable enemies of the em- 
pire, but heretofore friends of the 
Hapsburg dynasty ; I mean the parti- 
cularism of the minor states and the 
Catholic opposition. ' Thanks to the 
house of Austria,' say they, * we are 
going to disarm those reptiles, and 
pull out their venomous fangs.' At 
the same time, those diplomats do not 
conceal their joy (premature, I hope) 
at what they call the Canossa \ of 
Berlin and the retaliation of Olmutz. 
1 We will get the old seal of the 
empire ' (I quote their words tex- 
tually) * affixed to our heritage by 
the House of Austria.' 

It would seem, then, that the Em- 
peror of Austria, by appearing at Ber- 

* Particularism here means the tendency and 
policy on the part of Bavaria and the Southern 
States of Germany to resist absorption of their 
autonomy in certain matters by Prussia. Trans- 
lator. 

t The town where Henry IV., of Germany, 
performed a penance imposed by Pope Gregory 
VII. Trans. 









Interview of the Three Emperors. 477 

lin, meant to say to particularism and emburg, and Switzerland. Seat- 
perhaps to the Catholic body : You ed behind its impassable frontiers, 
need no longer count on me. And and relying upon its powerful mill 
the Emperor of Russia went there to tary organization and the remem- 
offer a toast to the German army brance of its recent triumphs, the 
and to signify to France : Do not German Empire appears perfectly 
count on any alliance with me for a secure from attack, 
war hereafter. But even all this was not enough 

This would indeed be the crown- for Prince von Bismarck. He has 
ing of M. von Bismarck's policy, just been repeating the policy which 
Since the two great wars against Aus- turned out so well for him in the war 
tria and against France which by of 1866 against Austria. Then, 
their prodigious results assuredly through the guilty and senseless con- 
far surpassed his hopes and previ- nivance of Napoleon III., he allied 
sions, he has but one splicitude and himself to Italy; he compelled Aus- 
one thought to isolate France, to tria to divide her forces, to have two 
secure her military and political im- armies, one at Verona, the other in 
potence, to file down the old lion's Bohemia which was making sure 
teeth and to muzzle him. beforehand of the defeat of Austria. 

To this end, he needed strong and M. von Bismarck has just begun 

impenetrable frontiers, which he got a second time this skilful manceu- 

by the acquisition of Alsace and vre. He has formed an offen- 

Lorraine. Prince von Bismarck sive and defensive alliance with 

cannot fail to perceive that the an- Italy which owes its political life to 

nexation of these two provinces to France, and repays the boon by 

Germany constitutes for it, in a po- treachery. By means of this alli- 

litical point of view, a source of weak- ance he would compel France, in the 

ness rather than of strength ; that it event of a war, to have an army of 

is an additional embarrassment to the Alps and an army of the Rhine, 

the difficulties following the organiza- which would be equivalent to certain 

tion of German unity ; that Alsace and defeat. 

Lorraine will be, for a long time to Any war of retaliation is conse- 

come, another bleeding Poland on the quently for a long time to come ren- 

flanks of the new empire ; neverthe- dered impossible, 

less, the conquest of these two prov- There would be left to France only 

inces seemed to him, in a military one resourc^, and that a distant one, 

point of view, indispensable as a first viz., an alliance with ~a great military 

material guarantee against the possi- power, such as Austria, or, in particu- 

bility of retaliation on the part of lar, Russia, whose secret jealousies 

France. By the possession of those she would turn to her account, 

provinces, he turns against France But such an alliance presupposes 

the formidable triple line of de- France raised up, in a political, mili- 

fence of the Meuse, the Moselle, and tary, and moral sense, from her pres- 

the Vosges ; at Strasbourg and at ent ruin, and in possession of a settled 

Metz he holds the strategical keys of government, stable within and in- 

France; these two strongholds are, so fluential without. Can a republic, 

to speak, iron gates of which the bolts even a conservative one, and even if 

are kept at Berlin. The other Rhenish it always had at its head as capable a 

frontiers are defended by the armed statesman as M. Thiers, so raise 

neutrality of Holland, Belgium, Lux- France ? . Can a republic which is a 



Prince von Bismarck and the 

good enough raft to take refuge on for after, having in her folly dreamt ot 

a while, a so to speak narrow bed, getting a frontier on the Rhine, she has 

which will do for France, wounded wretchedly lost, through the folly of 

and ailing, to lie on during the period her emperor, her eastern frontier; 

of convalescence can it, in a country after, having sworn to tear in pieces 

which lacks manly habits and histori- the treaty of 1815, to which she had 

cal institutions, unite enough solidity, submitted with detestation, she has 

security, wise liberty, strength, and had to sign at Frankfort the treaty in 

grandeur to become the ally of so virtue of which she was invaded and 

great an empire as Russia ? To my dismembered. 

mind, the idea of an alliance between The new Empire of Germany, rest- 
a French republic and one of the two ing on its formidable army, protect- 
empires of the North against the Ger- ed by impenetrable frontiers, certain 
man Empire is one of those impossi- of an alliance with Italy which ren- 
bilities which need but to be asserted, ders the undertaking of war against it 
not to be argued. If France could almost impossible for France, sus- 
succeed in reuniting the separated tained by the official friendship of 
links of her history, in reconciling her Austria and of Russia, compels 
present with her past, if she were to France to be resigned and peace- 
again become a traditional, represen- ful ; condemns her to political and 
tative, and free monarchy, one holding military impotence, or, what may 
itself equidistant from the abuses of sound better, to walk in the ways 
the old regime and the errors of the of prudence. M. Thiers, in words 
Revolution oh ! then her situation which the French press has publish- 
would indeed be changed, and great ed, has recently made a resolute pro- 
alliances at present impossible might fession of this policy of prudence, by 
become possible soon thereafter, proclaiming that he desires peace 
But such alliances would not have peace to build up and fructify; and 
for their object never-ending retalia- that France, at all events, will not 
tions and new wars ; they would seek to break it. 
bear their fruits through social peace, When, from the balcony of the Im- 
through the restoration of authority perial Palace at Berlin, it is proclaim- 
and order, and through that true, pru- ed that the object and result of the 
dent, and measured liberty which, meeting of three emperors is to 
now that they have it not, they talk sanction the statu quo of Europe, 
so much about. The greatness of and to consolidate a general peace, 
France depends less on the extent of we believe that they mean what they 
her frontiers than on her political, proclaim; but what is the significa- 
social, and religious renovation. tion of the proclamation ? Why, 

It is because M. von Bismarck that they have thereby accepted the 

understands perfectly that an alliance actual state of things which has 

between one of the great military grown out of the recent wars ; that is 

empires of the North and republican to say, the European supremacy of 

France is a chimerical project, that he the German Empire, founded on 

encourages the adherents of the repub- the powerlessness or the cautious 

lie at Versailles to sustain their work, prudence of France ; and that they 

Anyhow, M. von Bismarck, having think to have extinguished the centre 
in view the nature of contingencies, of combustion from which the fire- 
has sought to shut France out from brand of war might be again hurled 
hopes or temptations in this direction ; over Europe. 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 479 

This is assuredly a clever policy, one just so long as he lives, and I desire 
in which Prince von Bismarck might that his needed dictatorship be pro- 
allow himself to take a certain pride, longed for a long while yet ; but can 

But in this serene sky there is one we reasonably entertain such a hope ? 

dark cloud, and we may well suppose He has undertaken the admirable 

that this cloud has disturbed the work of saving France ; he has in 

optimism of the diplomats assembled Paris fought and won the great bat- 

at Berlin. This cloud is that dreaded tie against anarchy ; he has carried 

unknown future when France will be the loans through, reorganized the 

no longer governed by M. Thiers. army and finances of France ; he is 

Salvation is not to come to France pushing forward the evacuation of 
from the republic ; in France there her territory ; he maintains order. All 
is neither a republic nor a monarchy ; this is very fine and grand ; he is in- 
die forces which tend to a monarchy deed acting the part of the saviour 
are disunited, and consequently pow- of his country ; but let him not seek 
erless, and those which tend to a re- to do more ; let him not be ambitious 
public are still more divided ; the na- to become the founder of a govern- 
tion is living under an administration ment; let him rather be content 
ad interim ; there is an absence of set- with merely playing the first part at 
tied government and settled institu- the head of affairs, 
tions, and an impossibility of estab- I thoroughly appreciate the work 
lishing either, because of the wide M. Thiers is engaged in ; he directs 
divisions of irreconcilable parties, of his policy by the light of present 
anarchy in principles and ideas. The events, the only ones he can control; 
salvation of France for the time be- he is going through the reparative pe- 
ing is one man, a leader whose hand is nod, but what is he preparing ? What 
pliable, firm, and commanding enough is he founding for the future? What 
to hold political parties in submission heritage will he leave after him, and 
and keep down the rivalries which who will be his heir ? Such are the 
would give France over to another questions which must come up to every 
civil war. M. Thiers believes that reflecting mind, and in particular to 
any present attempt to set up a mo- his, so remarkably clear, perspica- 
narcny would light up a civil war ; cious, and penetrating, 
while the conviction of the majority The weak side of his policy is that 
of the Assembly at Versailles is just it leaves France on a political terra 
as strong that, if the republic lasts, incognita. The creation of a few ad- 
this civil war will break out on the ditional institutions will not suffice to 
morrow of the day when France will raise France out of the provisional 
have lost M. Thiers. Probably both status in which she lies since her fall ; 
are right; it is rather to the condi- I mean such as a vice-presidency, 
tion itself of France than to the men the establishing of a lower house, all 
that lead her that this lamentable which would be adding shadows to 
state of affairs is to be attributed shadows. It would never amount to 
which finds its expression in the gov- anything more than an administra- 
ernment of a provisional republic tion ad interim, and a period of ex- 
having nothing to look forward to pectation of a definite, stable, regular 
in the future but unfathomable dark- government having influence abroad, 
ness and mystery. such an one as France feels that she 

M. Thiers is the embodiment of the does not but should possess. The 

conservative republic, which will last question for M. Thiers, as well as for 



4 So 



Prince von Bismarck and tJie 



France and for Europe, remains the 
same : What is being prepared, what 
will the future bring ? 

As we know the tree by its fruits, 
so do we judge a policy by its results, 
and so will M. Thiers be judged. 

If he leaves after him the heritage 
of a traditional and representative 
monarchy, or if, like a second Wash- 
ington, he leaves as his successor to 
France a second John Adams or 
Thomas Jefferson who will enter up- 
on the work of consolidating a re- 
public really conservative, free, Chris- 
tian, and powerful, he will indeed be 
a great man ; but, if he is to be fol- 
lowed in power by a Gambetta who 
will be the predecessor of the socialist 
commune of Paris, he will, notwith- 
standing the immense services he has 
rendered, be severely judged by his- 
tory. No one assuredly ought to 
understand this better than he. 

Is the second President of the 
fourth or fifth French Republic to be 
a now unforeseen Jefferson or a Gam- 
betta ? 

Such is the dreaded question now 
before us. These threatening even- 
tualities have doubtless been atten- 
tively considered at the conference in 
Berlin. M. von Bismarck may have 
developed thereat the political plan 
which I have endeavored to analyze, 
and which has for its object the 
founding of the peace of Europe on 
France's inability to undertake an- 
other war ; but revolutionary and de- 
magogical France, bearing incen- 
diarism from Paris to Madrid, to 
Rome, and perhaps elsewhere, must 
be opposed in some other way than 
by the establishment of impenetrable 
frontiers and the formation of al- 
liances; and on these other means 
of opposition the three emperors 
must have seriously conferred at 
Berlin, and I doubt much whether 
waging war against the Catholic 
Church has seemed to them the 



best way to avert the danger afore- 
said. 



ii. 



I have sought in this letter to set 
forth the character and import of the 
meeting at Berlin, and to show the 
policy which Prince von Bismarck 
has endeavored to inaugurate there. 
I have not been eaves-dropping at 
the doors of the chambers in which 
the three emperors and their chan- 
cellors held their deliberations ; but 
there is no difficulty in conjecturing 
what vvas talked about, and, I may 
add, what was thought therein. 

We must not overestimate the im- 
portance of these conversations ; the 
meeting at Berlin will no more bring 
about positive results for the solution 
of pending questions in Europe than 
did the numerous interviews which 
Napoleon III. had with the Emperor 
of Austria, the ministers of Great 
Britain, and the czar. As we have 
stated before, it is not a congress ; it 
forms np alliances, and no treaty de- 
termining the new European equili- 
brium will come out of it. What M. 
von Bismarck wished particularly to 
bring about was the presence of the 
two emperors with their counsellors 
in the capital of the new empire. 
Their mere presence signified, in the 
eyes of the prince chancellor : 

The recognition of the German 
Empire ; the sanction of the treaties 
of Prague and Frankfort, which were 
to form the basis of the new equili- 
brium of Europe. 

The impossibility for Franc <r> find 
a powerful ally that would enable "her 
to attempt a war of retaliation. 

On the part of Austria, the aban- 
donment of all idea of returning to 
her old German policy, and the re- 
pudiation of all connivance with the 
particularistic resistance of the lesser 
states of Germany. 

I will presently examine whether 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 



481 



the presence at Berlin of the head of 
the dynasty of Hapsburg signifies also 
the repudiation of the Catholic move- 
ment which the persecutions directed 
against the church have stirred up 
throughout entire Germany. 

Assuredly this policy of M. von 
Bismarck shows, I will not say grand- 
eur, but skill and audacity; and it 
has been crowned by wonderful suc- 
cess. When I saw Prince von 
Bismarck raise Prussia, that a few 
years ago could hardly rank among 
the great powers, to the height of the 
Empire of Germany through the 
victories of 1866 and 1871 when 
I contemplated these astounding re- 
sults, I was for a moment tempted to 
consider him as a great minister, as 
one of the rare successors of Riche- 
lieu or of Stein. 

I was the more inclined to this 
judgment because, as a Belgian, I 
was grateful for the honest and upright 
policy which he had followed as 
regards Napoleon III. before the 
last war. There is no longer any 
room for doubt, now that the diplo- 
matic documents are known, that 
Napoleon III., in order to redeem 
the unpardonable blunder which he 
had committed by favoring the war 
of 1 86 1 between Prussia and Austria, 
endeavored to obtain in Luxemburg 
and in Belgium the compensations 
which he considered needful for him 
in view of the aggrandizement of 
Prussia. We know about the rough 
draft of the Benedetti treaty, which 
no amount of equivocation and timid 
denial can do away with. 

I had, in my work published in 
1865, clearly denounced the plot; 
and from the Belgian tribune, because 
I had pointed out these perils to its 
government, I have been called a 
political visionary and almost a trai- 
tor to my country. Subsequent 
events have justified' my allegations, 
and now every one knows that the 
VOL. xvi. 31 



dangers which we ran for a time 
were more real, nearer at hand, and 
greater than even I imagined them 
to be. 

The war of 1870 was the conse- 
quence of the refusal of the govern- 
ment of Berlin to yield to the guilty 
covetousness of Napoleon III. I 
ascribe the honor of the former to M. 
von Bismarck and to the integrity 
of William IV. I had proclaimed 
the existence of two eminent perils : 
a diplomatic peril, viz., an alliance of 
France with Prussia, of which Bel- 

k 

gium would have been the stakes 
and the victim ; the chance of a war 
between those two nations, in which 
France might have been victorious. 
We have, almost by a miracle, es- 
caped those two perils ; through the 
war of 1870, Belgium has been pre- 
served from diplomatic conspiracies, 
and as a Belgian I can never for- 
get it. * 

*In the work, published in 1865, which pro- 
cured me the honor of being made the subject of a 
parliamentary debate, I had dwelt upon the two- 
fold danger to be feared, whether from an alli- 
ance which might reopen the Belgian question, 
or from a war on our frontiers, it might be, on 
our invaded territory. I advised appeasing our 
political discords, the better to resist this double 
peril. This sums up in a few words the purport 
of my pamphlet. 

My adversaries in the tribune and in the press 
denied the existence of these dangers which they 
asserted were merely imaginary; they charged 
me with having got up a sham Belgian question, 
and with having, in that way, spread the know- 
ledge of it abroad. 

" With what have I charged the Honorable M. 
de Champs ?" said M. Dolez. " It is with having 
pretended that our nationality was environed by 
perils, and that a Belgian question was on foot 
in which our independence might be taken away 
from us." 

M. Frere-Orban ridiculed in a pleasant way 
my forebodings. He said that I was " a lookout 
man who, in his tower, descries that which no one- 
else can possibly see, . . . who imagines that he 
has discovered that which nobody had seen be- 
fore. To-day," he added, " when there is nothing, 
absolutely nothing, of a nature to cause uneasiness 
to the country, we are told, in consequence of 
a party scheme: Let us hold our tongues and' 
appease our discords. The liberal party must, 
in order to save Belgium from a danger which 
does not exist, cease resisting the pretensions of 
the clerical party." 

Well, what does M. Frcre-Orban think now? 
While he, as minister, was uttering in the tri- 
bune the above quieting and optimist state- 
ments, M. Benedetti had entered with M. von 



482 



Prince von Bismarck and the 



Belgium, since the late war, finds 
herself in a new position which has 
not attracted the attention it de- 
serves. 

Belgium, for a long time back covet- 
ed by France, particularly by France 
under the Empire and under the Re- 
public, had, above all, to fear an alli- 
ance between France and Prussia, 
which latter might sacrifice her to 
the political combinations growing 
out of such an alliance. That is what 
Napoleon III. attempted in the 
Benedetti negotiation, and it was this 
peril which before the recent war 
alarmed my patriotism. 

Now this peril has vanished. An 
alliance between the German Em- 
pire and France is now put off 
for a long time. But there is an- 
other motive still more powerful, and 
which constitutes our complete se- 
curity, which is this : that the exist- 
ence of a netttral and strong Belgium 
has become henceforward for the 
German Empire a necessity of the 
highest order. Since the govern- 
ment of Berlin has thought it indis- 
pensable for strategic purposes to 
hold Metz and the lines of the Meuse 
and of the Vosges, it cannot allow, 
under any consideration, indepen- 
dent Belgium to disappear and France 
to occupy that territory of Belgium 
which is watered by the Meuse and the 
Scheldt. Our neutrality protects the 
Rhine on the side of the gap between 
the Sambre and the Meuse, but can af- 
ford this protection only provided our 
neutrality is politically and militarily 
strong to such an extent as our finan- 
cial resources will warrant. 

Our neutrality, in order to be one 

Bismarck into a parley, the subject of which 
was 'he Belgian question. This was the diplo- 
Uc peril. The other peril has been clearly re- 
vealed to us after Sedan. General de Wimpfen 
has slated to General Chazal that the question 
of invading or not the territory of Belgium had 
been earnestly discussed at Sedan, 'flu* would 
have been bringing the war *n our violated 
soil. 



of the supports of the peace of Eu- 
rope, must be ever an honest one; it 
must stand as a barrier against ag- 
gression whether from the east or 
from the south ; it must be hostile to 
no power. On the other hand, it is 
plain that, in order to fill this position 
of barrier and guarantee, Belgium 
must remain always armed and able 
to repel an attack at the outset ; 
otherwise, she would become political- 
ly useless, and, in the event of a war, 
the occupation of her territory would 
follow as the fatal result of such 
omission. 

This was true before the late war, 
and on this point my views have not 
changed; but, since the new Euro- 
pean situation created by the war, 
this truth is twice as plain, and our 
duties to Europe have increased two- 
fold. It is important that all our po- 
litical men, without distinction of 
party, and that the entire nation, un- 
derstand well the position to which 
we have been brought by recent 
events.. 

Far from being hostile to the Ger- 
man Empire, I find in it a new 
guarantee for the independence of 
my country. Our neutrality now 
rests on all the powers and on all the 
treaties that have been made : it had 
become a habit, after the advent of 
the Napoleonic Empire, to consider 
England as the special protector of 
our national independence, but now 
that Germany has a particular and 
powerful interest in that independ- 
ence, instead of one special support 
only, we now have two. 

It is proper that I should make this 
statement, as I am about to submit AT. 
von Bismarck's policy to a severe cri- 
ticism. In this \> f history which 
I have been rapidly writing, I have 
not been wanting in praise; arid, if 
these lines are ever read by M. von 
Bismarck, he cannot complain of the 
appreciation which I have so far ex. 



of tJic Three Emperors. 



433 



pressed of his policy. In the pages 
that follow, I shall not spare criti- 
cism. Much as 1 have admired the 
policy which prepared the war, in 
equal decree does my mind fail to 
comprehend the policy followed at 
lierlin since the peace, and which ap- 
pears to me to be a perfect antithesis 
of the former one. 

This latter policy appears to me 
so incomprehensible that I ask my- 
self whether Prince von Bismarck, 
instead of being a political genius like 
Stein, is not entering upon the path 
of error in which Napoleon III. 
came to his ruin. 

Napoleon III. has also been the 
ruler of Kurope ; the second Empire 
for many years enjoyed preponderance 
in Kurope, anil might have retained 
it much longer but for the accumu- 
lated blunders of imperial policy. 
Napoleon III., who had begun his 
reign isolated from other monarchs, 
and to whom the appellation of my 
cousin had been disdainfully denied, 
found himself, immediately after the 
war in the Crimea and after the 
Congress of Paris, at the head of a 
great Western alliance formed with 
Kngland and Austria and by isola- 
ting Russia and annulling Prussia. 
lie had reached the zenith of power 
in Kurope; he had a star in which 
he and every one besides believed; 
kings and emperors came to Fontaine- 
bleau and to the Tuileries to pay 
their court to the parvenu sovereign 
who had been transformed into a 
Louis XIV., just as has happened at 
Berlin, 

When I saw Napoleon III., at the 
summit of such a situation, break 
with his own hands, like a hot-brain- 
ed child, this magnificent Western 
alliance to which he was indcbt- 
lor his high fortune ; conspire 

the Congress of Paris with M. de 

'vmir to bring about that fatal 
r in Italy against Austria which 



was the first cause of his disasters; 
turn out of the straight path of con- 
servative principles which he had 
sworn to follow, and then lose him- 
self in the tortuous and obscure ways 
of revolution, my judgment of him 
was definitively made. A man who 
could commit such a folly was neither 
a statesman nor a political genius ; he 
was merely a lucky adventurer who 
had been helped on and spoiled by 
events, but who did not know enough 
to turn them to account. 

It was just then, in 1859, on the 
eve of the war in Italy, that I wrote 
my first work on Le Second Empire, 
in which I did not hesitate to predict 
that this war, no matter how much 
glory it might make for the emperor, 
would nevertheless amount to a po- 
litical defeat which would lead to the 
fall of the Empire. " The heads of 
even the wisest men," I said, " are 
liable to turn when they have reach- 
ed such an elevation as he has ar- 
rived at." And I selected as the epi- 
graph of my work, the words which 
old Prince von Metternich had ut- 
tered when speaking of the extreme 
good-fortune of the Emperor of the 
French : " He is successful," said the 
prince to me ; " he has excellent cards 
in his hands, and he plays his game 
well, but he will be lost as a revolu- 
tionary emperor on the Italian reef." 
This remarkable prediction, made 
long before the war in Italy, has 
been verified to the letter, and my 
book, written in 1859, was im-rcly a 
commentary upon it which subse- 
quent events have con firmed. 

M. von Bismarck is also at the 
acme of his triumph ; he is presiding 
at his Congress of Paris. Behold 

Prussia, which but a few years ago 

j 

had hardly any voice in the councils 
of Kurope, now become tin- Cerman 
Kmpire, and behold the Kmperor of 
Cirrmany getting the czar and the 
Kmpcror Francis Joseph to sanction 



484 Prince von Bismarck and tJie 

at Berlin his victories, his conquests, German Emperor the Tarpeian rock 

and his political supremacy, by leav- so nigh to the capitol to which they 

ing France isolated, and making of have ascended ? Am I unjust towards 

no account England, which had kept the prince chancellor? 
herself aloof in her policy of forbear- No one had a higher opinion of 

ance. his political merit than I, and in ap- 

Well, I do not hesitate to select predating, as I Jiave done in this 

this hour of triumph, when M. von letter, his astounding successes, I 

Bismarck's policy has been crowned have not been sparing of praise nor in- 

at Berlin, in the midst of festivities deed of admiration. If, then, I am 

the splendor of which is talked of far compelled to draw a comparison 

and wide, to predict its failure in the between Napoleon III. and him, and 

end if he does not change it. My rea- to measure by the blunder, commit- 

son for asserting this in presence of ted by the Emperor of the French in 

a state of things so contrary to my 1859 that which he is now commit- 

prediction is that M. von. Bismarck ting, I must ask his pardon, for I 

is committing one of those blunders, make a great difference between those 

I dare not say one of those political two contemporary personages. In 

follies, which astonish reason, and the same degree that Napoleon III. 

which form the premises of a syllo- was irresolute, beset by somnolent 

gism having for its conclusion an in- indolence and continual hesitation, 

evitable failure. The blunder is pre- so does, on the other hand, Prince von 

cisely similar to that perpetrated by Bismarck know how to show a te- 

Napoieon III., who, in consequence nacious persistence and audacity in 

of having allied himself with revolu- the carrying out of his designs ; but 

tionary Italy, was led from Mexico this very tenacity may be a source of 

to Sadowa, and from Sedan to Chisel- additional danger, if he enters upon 

hurst. This blunder on the part of a road which leads to an abyss ; he 

M. von Bismarck, and of which he will go forward in. jt quicker and 

will yet repent, is his alliance with more irremediably than another 

revolutionary Italy, which drags him would, because he knows neither how 

into a war against the Catholic to stop nor to draw back. 
Church, which has always proved fa- Let us, then, study the policy of M. 

tal to those who have attempted it, von Bismarck. 

and which destroys the work of Ger- And, in the first place, without 

man unity which he had associa- wishing in the least to belittle the 

ted with his name. The epigraph share which evidently belongs to him 

of my work on Le Second Empire, in the triumphs of Prussia, we must, 

borrowed from Prince von Metter- nevertheless, admit that another im- 

nich, might serve for this letter as portant share falls to Count von 

well, if applied to the Emperor of Moltke, the greatest warrior of our 

Germany and his chancellor; if the day; and an equally considerable part 

head of the dynasty of the Hohen- is due to the blunders of his adver- 

zollerns continues in the path of revo- saries, Austria and Imperial France, 
lution in which M. von Bismarck has If, for example, Napoleon III. had 

led him, "he will also perish, like the not betrayed Austria in 1866 by al- 

revolutionary emperor on the Italian lowing and favoring the alliance be- 

reef." tween Prussia and Italy, a war 

Is it rashness on my part to point against Austria would have been im- 

out to Prince von Bismarck and to the possible, and the victory of Sadowa 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 



485 



would not have taken place ; the 
senseless war of 1870, which grew 
out of the victory of Sadowa, would 
have been without either cause or 
pretext ; France would be now erect, 
Austria would have maintained its 
influential position in Germany, and 
the German Empire would not have 
been established for the profit of 
Prussian unitarisme. 

With the foundation of German 
unity, of the German Empire, Na- 
poleon has had almost as much to do 
as M. von Bismarck. The great 
chancellor has found ready for him 
two instruments which he did not 
invent : the military genius of von 
Moltke, and the folly of Napoleon. 
To complete the expression of my 
thought, I will add that the German 
Emperor has only been, as he him- 
self proclaimed after his victories, a 
mere instrument in the hands of 
Divine Providence for the chastise- 
ment of France. France has been 
unfaithful to her past history, from 
which she has severed herself; she 
has been unfaithful to the monarchi- 
cal form of government which has 
rendered her glorious, and to the 
church which has made her great; 
she has lost, by a twofold apostasy, 
her political faith and her Catholic 
faith ; she no longer possesses her 
institutions, which 'have been, one 
after the other, destroyed either by 
the old regime or by the Revolution ; 
she no longer knows how to restore 
the monarchy, the elements of which 
have been scattered in the tempests 
of revolution; she knows not how 
to keep up a republic of which 
she has neither the habits, the his- 
torical conditions, nor the conditions 
social and political; she is in that 
state through which nations, con- 
demned to perish, fall and decay, 
and out of which those nations which 
God wishes to save can get, only 
through punishment by fire or by 



the sword. M. von Bismarck has 
been, and may become again, that 
fire and that sword ; which may per- 
haps be an honor, but does not justify 
pride. 

The political work, then, which has 
produced the German Empire un- 
doubtedly deserves praise, and as- 
suredly does honor to the political 
merits of Prince von Bismarck, but 
does not facilitate the forming of a 
definitive judgment in his regard. 
It is in the work of peace that the 
statesman shows himself, and I must 
say it, that in this respect I do not 
find M. von Bismarck as great as 
events seemed to have made him out 
to be; just as he has been seen to be 
intelligent, fortunate, almost great 
during the period of warfare, so in 
like degree do I incline to consider 
him, in the period of present organi- 
zation, improvident and blind. 

This work of organization is a diffi- 
cult one; it requires wisdom and 
time. M. von Bismarck has re- 
course to precipitation, to force, and 
to wrath. 

German unity, inuring to the bene- 
fit of Prussia, could not, before the 
war of 1866, have been foreseen. 
When, in 1863, the Emperor of 
Austria made his triumphal entry in- 
to Frankfort, bearing in his hand 
federal reform, he was surrounded by 
all the princes of Germany. Prussia 
stood alone, abandoned by all Ger- 
many ; and, if Napoleon had not fool- 
ishly thwarted the plans of the Em- 
peror Francis Joseph, the Emperor 
of Germany would have been crown- 
ed, not at Berlin, but at Vienna. 

After the war of 1866, Prusso- 
Germanic unitarism had not yet 
been accomplished. Saxony and 
the states of the South which had 
fought by the side of Austria were 
defeated ; they submitted to, rather 
than accepted, the terms which 
Prussia forced on them as the con- 



486 Prince von Bismarck and the 

sequence of their defeat. Northern empire, to accomplish his great work, 

Germany was bounded by the Main, M. von Bismarck needs prudence, 

and the minor states ever felt them- time, and the hand of a true statesman, 

selves drawn towards Vienna, their Now, what does the Prince von 

old centre of attraction. Bismarck do ? To the three consi- 

It was the war of 1870, declared derable existing obstacles he adds an- 

by Napoleon against the whole of other one, greater and more dangerous 

Germany, notwithstanding the patri- than the former, a difficulty which 

otic protest of M. Thiers, which all at did not exist, which he of his own 

once created this unity; this unity, accord created, which he wantonly 

which brought all the Germans to- got up, and which will crush him ; I 

gether under one flag, received thus mean the religious difficulty, the bru- 

the baptism of glory and of blood. tal war, the veritable persecution 

But the Prusso-German unitarism, which he is organizing against the 

extemporized and rough-cast by the Catholics. He had to fight against 

war, was not consolidated ; many particularist opposition and radical 

difficulties remained to be overcome, opposition ; he himself, with deliber- 

M. von Bismarck saw before him ate purpose, needlessly and without 

two formidable adversaries : the par- reason, raises up a third one the op- 

ticularism of the middle states, and position of sixteen millions of Catho- 

socialist democracy, which claims to lies united with their bishops ; that is 

abolish unity for its own gain, by to say, almost half of the new empire 

substituting the German Republic for which he thus unsettles and, so to 

the German Empire. speak, dissolves with his own hand. 

Several symptoms go to show that Can anything be imagined more 
the particularist movement, which incomprehensible or more thorough- 
had been stopped by the war, is re- ly preposterous ? 
viving, and certainly the hostile ac- What end is M. von Bismarck 
tion directed against the Catholics pursuing? By what thought and 
assists powerfully towards giving it what views is he guided ? The 
new life. The symptoms of the prince chancellor is neither mad nor 
awakening of this movement are nu- blind; he has given abundant evi- 
merous ; it is needless that I should dence of this ; and yet, is it not folly, 
enumerate them ; they are perfectly is it not blindness, to thus throw, with- 
known at Berlin, and have assuredly out any appreciable motive, and with 
become aggravated since the reli- a heart as light as that of M. Emile 
gious war undertaken by M. von Ollivier, sixteen millions of Catholics, 
Bismarck. including all their clergy and all 

The particularism of the states, then, their bishops, into a resistance which 
is not dead, and red democracy is will be all the more obstinate and 
full of life. These are the two great formidable because it will derive its 
difficulties which M. von Bismarck's strength from the oppression of con- 
policy finds in its way. To these must science, from the suppression of li- 
be' added a third one: the assimila- berty, the rending of the constitution, 
tion of the two conquered provinces, from the violation of justice and of 
Alsace and Lorraine, so thoroughly rights ? I have put these questions to 
French by the ties of history, of re- eminent Germans of all parties, but 
ligion, of habits, and of interests. have never got clear and satisfactory 

To overcome these obstacles, to answers, 

organize unity, the basis of the new The Catholic Germans behaved 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 487 

admirably during the war; the Ba- But I must repeat the question, 
varian, Westphalian, and Rhenish What did M. von Bismarck do ? He 
troops were everywhere foremost repulses the Westphalians and people 
under fire and in earning honor and of the Rhine who had become recon- 
glory. The priests and religious, ciled; he revives in Bavaria and in 
both men and women, have shown the South that particularism which 
a heroic devotedness on the battle- was dying out ; and on the political 
fields, in the ambulances, and in the grievance he grafts a religious one ; 
hospitals, so that M. Windthorst was he doubles the obstacles of all kinds 
enabled to say in the parliament at which lie in the way of his plans for 
Berlin that many of those religious Germanizing Alsace and Lorraine, so 
would go into exile wearing on their thoroughly French and Catholic; into 
breasts the iron cross which they had their bleeding wounds he, as it were, 
earned during the last campaign.* introduces gangrene, by entering 
The old antipathies against Prussia upon an unheard-of religious -perse- 
which prevailed along the Rhine and cution, and without any pretext that 
beyond the Main among Catholic he dare avow ; he compromises in the 
populations were dying out; the most serious manner the work of 
establishment of religious liberty in unity, towards the founding of which 
Prussia on a more generous basis he had aided so much; he acts as 
than in the lesser states had won the would the greatest adversary of that 
Catholics over to unity under Prus- unity who could not contrive any 
sian hegemony ; and the illustrious better means for its destruction than 
Bishop of Mayence, Mgr.de Ketteler, to do just what Prince von Bismarck 
in an address which made a great noise is doing he drives into the ranks of 
in Germany and throughout Europe, opposition nearly half of the sound- 
raised the standard of rallying and est population of the empire ; he sets 
unity. against himself the two hundred mil- 
The German Empire was conse- lion Catholics spread throughout the 
quently very near being established, world, and who are everywhere pro- 
M. von Bismarck stirs up a religious testing against his oppression; he 
war which divides it in two and will also turn against him the old 
breaks it asunder. The war had conservatives, who have been deeply 
brought together under the same flag hurt by the enactment of the law in 
Germans of all nationalities and all regard to schools, as well as all sin- 
religious beliefs. Should not, then, cere friends of religious and politi- 
all manner of pains have been taken cal liberty, so audaciously ignored 
to keep them united in the mutual by him. These friends of liberty 
work of the organization of the are becoming scarce ; they main- 
empire ? Should not the first tain, in the face of this odious vio- 
thought of a politician, after having lation of their principles, a shame- 
achieved such wonderful success, and ful silence which they will have to 
having before him the obstacles break, if they wish to avoid making 
which still remained to be overcome, liberalism synonymous with hypo- 
have been to begin by establishing crisy. 

peace in religious matters ? Have I erred in comparing the 

policy of M. von Bismarck with that 

nests and religious, men and women, num- l J 

ring together 1,909, have given corporeal and of Napoleon III., and his. present 

spiritual attendance to 21,000 sick and wounded, K1 im rW wifVi fhnf mmi-ml-Wl hv tlii 

and this only out oflove for God and their neigh- >lunder Wltll by 

ex-emperor when, after the Congress 



488 Prince von Bismarck and the 

of Paris, he broke up the splendid he has caused a statue to be erected. 

Western alliance ? and whose great policy he claims 

When I endeavor to interpret M. that he is continuing. In this respect, 

von Bismarck's conduct, lean find he is profoundly mistaken ; and, very 

but one motive which can serve for far from following that policy, he 

its explanation, and that is his. alii- abandons and betrays it. 

ance with Italy. That alliance, Stein and all his school have, like 

which he conceived necessary in order Burke and Pitt, combated the princi- 

to keep the forces of France divided, pies of the French Revolution, 

and to render a war of retaliation im- French ideas had, at the close of the 

possible, has drawn him into a fatal last century, invaded Germany, and 

hostility against the Catholic Church, the armies of the first Republic had 

His ally, Victor Emanuel, has con- no difficulty in conquering by their 
quered the Roman States by strata- arms a country which they had be- 
gem and by violence ; he has usurp- fore overrun with their ideas, 
ed in Rome the throne of the pon- Baron von Stein, that restorer of 
tiff king, who among the monarchs of the German Vaterland and liberty, 
Europe possesses assuredly the most was a mortal foe of the French 
ancient and most venerated titles to Revolution. His mission and his 
sovereignty; he holds the Pope work were to withdraw Germany 
captive in the Vatican, until such time from the fatal path into which, fol- 
as he can compel him to set out on the lowing France, she had strayed, and 
road to exile ; he deprives the Sov- to bring her back into the path laid 
ereign Pontiff of the church of that out for her by her history, 
sovereignty on which his indepen- He could not save Prussia from the 
deuce rests, and thus throws the univer- defeat at Jena, but he trained her. 
sal church into alarm and mourning, by his thorough and excellent re- 

This outrage against the church, forms, for revenge at Waterloo and 
perpetrated at Rome by the Italian Sedan. He it was who formed 
government, has had its counterpart Scharnhorst, the organizer o'f military 
in Berlin. No doubt the condition Prussia, and whose system Count von 
which Victor Emanuel set upon alii- Moltke perfected; he, probably, who 
ance with him has been to make the became the soul of the patriotic move- 
German Empire enter into the vast ment in 1813; he it was who, together 
plot got up against the independence with Scharnhorst, Stadion, and Ga- 
and liberty of Catholicity. geni, gave to Germany that powerful 

Well 1 without being a prophet, it impulse out of which came the great 

is not difficult to predict that the present situation ; he it was who 

Italian alliance will prove as fatal to stood the distinguished protector of 

the German Empire as it has been to the German historical school, that 

the second Napoleonic Empire, and rea l antithesis of the French revolu- 

that on the Italian rock M. von Bis- tionary school, which former had as 

marck's work will be dashed to i ts influential organs Niebuhr, Eich- 

pieces, if he allows it to remain in horn, Schlegel, Gorres, the two 

the evil path in which it is now so Grimms, de Savigny, etc., and which 

deeply sunk. M. de Sybel represents still in our 



III. . 

v Stem was a conservative, a patriot, 

Prince Bismarck considers himself and a Christian. What he fought 
to be the successor of Stein, to whom against in the French Revolution was 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 



489 



that philosophic and abstract method 
that France had adopted, destructive" 
of all national tradition; that spirit 
of exclusive and narrow equality 
which influenced her course, and in 
the pursuit of which, according to 
M. de Tocqueville, she has lost liber- 
ty; that absolutism, whether in de- 
mocracy or in Caesarism, that oblitera- 
tion of the individual, that indiffer- 
ence to rights, that worship of brute 
force, that extinguishment of all local, 
provincial, and autonomous life, that 
exaggerated idea of the state, that 
oppression of religious liberty, of 
Christian teaching, and of the Catho- 
lic Church, all of which characterized 
the French Revolution. 

Stein wanted a Germany united, but 
federal, Christian, liberal, traditional, 
and historical ; he wanted her, as 
Burke did England, to be the reverse 
of revolutionary France. 

Now, is it not Stein's work, that 
Germany born of his reforming 
genius, that M. von Bismarck is 
destroying ? The liberal national 
party, on which he leans, is merely a 
doctrinaire French party, anti-his- 
toric, ideological, and anti-religious, 
the harbinger of levelling and radical 
democracy ; a party which inclines 
to absolutism and Caesarism, adores 
centralization, unconditional unifica- 
tion, and the omnipotence of the 
state, and which is the adversary of 
all proud and free consciences, and 
of any independent church. It is 
not the Protestant idea, but the Ma- 
sonic and Hegelian one which this 
party represents. 

Stein was a Christian, a conserva- 
tive, and a German ; the Prince von 
Bismarck is sceptical, revolutionary, 
and belongs to the French school. 
Stein sought to found German unity 
on federal liberties, in the alliance of 
the church with the school, and on 
peace between religious denomina- 
tions; M. von Bismarck overturns 



that basis, substitutes in its place 
absolutist and Prussian unification, 
secularized teaching, and religious 
discord. 

It is surprising that, when in 
France the ideas which inspired the 
French Revolution have been aban- 
doned even by the most intelligent 
part of the school of liberalism ; by 
such men as Tocqueville, Thierry, 
and Guizot, who are discouraged, and 
talk more openly of their disappoint- 
ments than of their hopes ; when M. 
Renan asserts that the French Rev- 
olution " is an experimental failure "; 
when the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
through the pen of M. Montegut, 
proclaims " that the Revolution is 
politically bankrupt"; on the very 
morrow of the final miscarriage of 
that Revolution under its two forms 
of government, the Empire fallen at 
Sedan, and the social Republic fallen 
under the ruins of the Paris Com- 
mune it is at that very time that 
Prince von Bismarck thinks it skilful 
and profound to import that French 
revolutionary system into Germ'any ! 
M. Renan has cause for rejoicing ; 
he has given utterance to a wish 
which M. von Bismarck has set about 
to fulfil. " France," he said, " need 
not be considered lost if we can 
believe that Germany will be in 
her turn drawn into that witches' 
dance in which all our virtue has 
been lost." 

To sum up : German unity, the 
great German Empire, which such an 
extraordinary concurrence of circum- 
stances had created, is being dissolv- 
ed and ruined by Prince von Bis- 
marck through the most incon- 
ceivable of political blunders. He 
throws sixteen millions of Catholics, 
once friendly to the Empire, into op- 
position to it ; he gives a new food 
and new strength to the particularism 
of the Southern States, and to the 
Polonism of Posen; he makes twofold 



490 



Prince von Bismarck and the 



the difficulties of accomplishing the 
assimilation of Alsace and Lorraine ; 
to political grievances he superadds 
religious grievances, far more to be 
dreaded than the former; he en- 
kindles an implacable religious war 
upon the ruins of that denomina- 
tional peace which King Frederic 
William III. had happily established, 
and by aid of which the present em- 
peror and the empress Augusta had, 
in the opening period of their reign, 
won the hearts of the Catholics of 
the Rhine. To cover this blunder, 
M. von Bismarck enters into the 
Italian alliance which destroyed the 
second Napoleonic Empire, and will 
destroy the German Empire ; and he 
abandons the historic German policy 
restored by Stein, to rush into the 
retinue of the national liberal party, 
into the paths of the French Revolu- 
tion, into that witches' dance to which 
M. Renan refers ; and he inoculates 
his own country with the poison 
which has killed France ! 



IV. 



But there is one final consequence 
of the policy of Prince von Bismarck 
to which I wish to call attention, and 
which is not least in gravity. 

Austria, after having lost Italy, 
had, by the treaty of Prague, been 
excluded from Germany. Neverthe- 
less, the German Empire, under the 
hegemony of Prussia, had not been 
set up ; there existed only a Northern 
Germany, having the Main as its 
boundary ; the Southern States, and 
even Saxony, preserved a certain 
autonomy ; and Austria might hope 
by a wise policy to draw little by 
little into the sphere of her influence 
and attraction those countries which 
had been accustomed to look upon 
Vienna as their political pole. 

The war of 1871 against France, 
which had united all the Germans 



under one flag, established German 
unity and the German Empire. The 
boundaries of the Empire were mov- 
ed from the Main to the Danube, 
and all hope for Austria to regain her 
old German position was gone. 

Austria accepted this situation; 
the Emperor Francis Joseph and his 
two counsellors, Count von Beust and 
Count Andrassy, worked together to 
bring about a sincere reconciliation 
between Austria and the German 
Empire. 

They gave up the idea of bringing 
back the Southern States into the 
circle of Austrian influence ; they 
feared, on the contrary, lest the Ger- 
man provinces of Austria, detaching 
themselves little by little from the 
weakened rule of the Hapsburgs, 
might be irresistibly drawn towards 
Berlin, the powerful and glorious 
centre of the German Vaterland. 

Those fears may at present be en- 
tirely set at rest. There has been a 
complete reversal in the position of 
things. The people, for the most part 
so Catholic, of the Tyrol, of Lower 
Austria, and of Bohemia, will lose all 
inclination to draw nearer to the Ger- 
man Empire, where a bitter persecu- 
tion is being waged against their re- 
ligious faith. The bonds which unite 
them to Austria will be drawn the 
tighter. On the other hand, will not 
the Catholics of the Rhine, of West- 
phalia, of Poland, of Suabia, of Fran- 
conia, of Wiirtemberg, of Bavaria, of 
Alsace, and of Lorraine, driven from 
the bosom of the German Empire, in 
which they are no longer citizens, but 
pariahs, be tempted to look again in 
the direction of Austria, the centre of 
their older sympathies ? All Austria 
has to do is not to interfere ; M. von 
Bismarck is working for her. 

The prince chancellor, notwith- 
standing the elated confidence which 
he has in his strength, has under- 
stood the danger of the situation. 









Inter vieiv of the Three Emperors. 491 

In order to change it, he had but have labored for him and against 
one easy thing to do, and that was herself; she will have turned aside 
to modify his policy, to give up per- the danger imminent to the German 
scenting the Catholics, to admit that Empire through M. von Bismarck's 
he had gone astray, and to return to blunders, and of which the Austro- 
a calmer and wiser policy ; but this Hungarian Empire should have pro- 
he would not do ; he has preferred to fited ; she will have, with her his- 
keep on, and to try to drag Austria torical good-nature, served the views of 
into the same road. Prussia to the detriment of her own ; 

Last year, at Gastein, he tried to and Francis Joseph, the Apostolic 

induce Count von Beust to join in Emperor, unfaithful to his traditions 

the campaign which he wished to be- and to the arms of his house, will 

gin against the i?iter?iationale rouge have made his policy subordinate to 

and the Internationale noire, but the that of a Lutheran emperor ! 
Emperor Francis Joseph baffled the I positively refuse to believe that 

attempt. The prince chancellor re- any such result can come out of 

nevved it the same year with the em- the interview at Berlin, albeit that 

peror himself at Salzburg, but he our generation is accustomed to the 

failed a second time. realization of political impossibilities. 

Has he met with more success at I would fain persuade myself that, if 

Berlin, upon the occasion of the meet- the Prince von Bismarck has endeav- 

ing of the three emperors ? Has he ored to draw Austria into his war 

tried to get Russia and Austria to against the Catholics and against 

recognize not only the German Em- Rome, he will have failed at Berlin 

pire, but to sanction by their adhe- as he did at Salzburg through the 

sion to it his home policy against good sense of the Emperor Francis 

" Romanism," that is to say, against Joseph, 
the Catholic Church, or has he at v. 

least succeeded in inducing the be- 
lief that he had not tried in vain ? The more I study M. von Bis- 

Has he sought to drag them into the marck's policy, the less I understand 

war which he is carrying on against it. If he were a sectarian pietist, I 

the Jesuits, against the religious or- could account to myself for the idea 

ders, against denominational liberty, of perfecting the political and military 

against Catholic teaching, against unity of Germany by a religious 

the clergy and the bishops, until such unity, of creating a Protestant state : 

time as he can make it break forth at it would indeed be a sorry Utopia, and 

Rome, by laying, in the next con- to attempt it would be to make the 

clave, an audacious and sacrilegious mistake of being three centuries be- 

Iiand on the pontifical tiara ? hind his time. 

We shall find this out before long. But M. von Bismarck is neither 

If Austria follows the policy of the a sectarian nor a fanatic ; he is 

centralist party of the German profes- rather, I believe, a sceptic who has 

sors at Vienna and at Prague, to which little care for religious controversies, 

Count von Beust has already yielded and who probably understands very 

too much, and which is identical little about the question of the Papal 

with the policy of the national liberal Infallibility which he is wielding as a 

party of Berlin, she will have ad- warlike weapon against the church, 

vanced the interests of Prince von M. von Bismarck is a politician ; 

Bismarck, and not her own ; she will politics he aims at and should be 



492 



Prince von Bismarck and the 



busied in ; his mission is to help 
found an empire and not a schism or 
a sect. Now, it is the Empire, the 
political work, which he gravely com- 
promises by disturbing so profoundly 
through a denominational conflict 
the religious quiet which that Avork 
needed for its consolidation. In- 
stead of the German state founded on 
unity and general assent, it is the 
Protestant state founded on the deep- 
est and most incurable divisions that 
he seems to aim at creating. There 
is no difficulty in predicting that he 
will lose the political unity in the 
pursuit of a religious unity which is 
but a chimerical and impossible an- 
achronism. 

This political course which the 
prince chancellor has inspired the 
Emperor William to follow, whose 
past one makes such a striking con- 
trast with .it, is to me an insoluble 
enigma, and raises doubts in my mind 
of M. von Bismarck's transcendent 
ability. 

I will nevertheless try to make out 
this political enigma, by studying the 
pretexts on which the government 
of Berlin relies to justify itself, the 
circumstances by which it has been 
enticed, and the temptation to which 
it has yielded. 

The pretext which it puts forward 
is the decision of the Vatican Coun- 
cil in regard to the authority of the 
Sovereign Pontiff in matters of doc- 
trine. 

The circumstances by which it was 
carried away are the Italian alliance 
abroad and the alliance with the na- 
tional liberal party at home. 

The temptation that misleads it is 
the hope, fortunately disappointed, 
which the stand of the inopportun- 
ist bishops of Germany and of Aus- 
tria caused it to form, which stand 
the Berlin government had mistaken 
for a real dissent from doctrine, and 
destined to become the foundation 



of a national church separated from 
Rome by that dissent. 

I call the question of Papal Infal- 
libility a pretext, and, in fact, it is a 
groundless quarrel without any im- 
portance 6r earnest meaning. 

I am not called upon to enter here 
into a theological dissertation upon 
the dogma of the infallibility of the 
church and of its sovereign magis- 
tracy, etc. I refer my readers to the 
excellent works which have been 
published on the subject, and I trust 
to be excused for mentioning in par- 
ticular those written by my brother the 
Archbishop of Mechlin. 

1 will say but one word en passant 
on the question. For every Catholic, 
there is no longer any open question. 
Before the council, discussion was 
allowable ; since the definition pro- 
claimed by an oecumenical council 
united to the Pope, all discussion is 
closed. 

Every one knows of the conversa- 
tion between a very intelligent lady 
of great faith and the Count de Mon- 
talembert, shortly before the death 
of that illustrious friend, in which she 
asked him what he would do if the 
council together with the Pope 
should define infallibility. " Well, I 
will quietly believe it," replied the 
great orator, with the firm accent of 
the Christian who knows his cate- 
chism, and who recites his act of 
faith. 

In fact, no father nor doctor of 
the church, from Origen and S. Cy- 
prian down to S. Thomas and Bos- 
suet, no council, no theologian, no 
Catholic, has ever doubted the doc- 
trinal infallibility of the church. The 
controversy lay with the Gallicans, 
who claimed that the words of the 
Pope addressed to the church ex ca- 
thedra needed the assent of a coun- 
cil or of the church throughout the 
world to acquire the character of in- 
fallibility. 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 493 

All the old Catholics of all the council had adhered to it how 

schools, Gallican even included, were can he now, in his own case, re- 

asrreed to accord to the definitions of a sist the decisions of Pius IX. 

O 

council united with the Pope, that is and the Council of the Vatican ? 

to say, the church, the divine privilege He who has written so many works 

of infallibility set forth in Holy Scrip- of grave learning, and in particular 

tures and in all tradition. On this that one on The Church and the 

point Bossuet holds the same doctrine Churches, how comes it that he does 

as Fenelon and Count de Maistre. not see that he is no longer in the 

Now, in the present instance we church, and that he is seeking a 

have a council united to the Pope, and shelter for his revolt in the smallest, 

no council, from that of Trent back to the poorest, and the most dilapidat- 

that of Nicaea, has been more numer- ed of those churches of a day which, 

ously attended, more solemn, freer, or in the name of history, he has so 

more oecumenical, than that of the severely condemned ? How can he 

Vatican. To- deny this is downright find himself at ease and his soul tran- 

nonsense, in which those take refuge quil in those ridiculous conventicles 

who seek to hide their apostasy from of Munich and of Cologne, by the 

their own eyes. If the Council of side of Michelis, of Reinkens, Fried- 

the Vatican has not been cecumeni- rich, Schulte, the ex-abbe Michaud, 

cal and free, then manifestly no coun- the ex-father Hyacinthe, and sur- 

cil in the past has ever been. rounded by Jansenist and Anglican 

To reject the doctrinal definition bishops, by Protestant and schis- 
of the Council of the Vatican, in which matic ministers, by rationalists of all 
the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops colors ? How comes it that his faith 
of all the world, whether opportun- and his learning are not shocked when 
ist or inopportunist, have agreed, brought into the midst of that con- 
would undoubtedly be to abandon fusion of doctrines and of tongues, 
the church of Christ, and to renounce and of ignorance of all kinds, which 
the Catholic faith ; it would be going rendered the Congress of Cologne so 
beyond Gallicanism, which never notorious ; that congress whereat 
thought of calling in question thede- the question was discussed " of the 
cisions of a council united to a reunion of the old Catholics with the 
pope ; even beyond the Jansenism of other churches having affinity of 
Port Royal, which would perhaps faith," which means with all the sects 
have accepted the Bull of Innocent separated from Rome, to the exclu- 
X. if sanctioned by a council ; it sion of the great universal church of 
would be going beyond 1682, back S. Augustine,- S. Thomas, Pascal, 
to Luther; that is to say, to open Descartes, Bossuet, Fenelon, de Mais- 
heresy, and to the entire abandon- tre, Lacordaire, of the eight hundred 
ment of the church, our mother. bishops of the council, and of the 

How can M. Dollinger not see sainted Pontiff Pius IX. ? How can 

this ? He who in 1832, at Munich, he, a man of learning, a priest, ad- 

where the encyclical of Gregory XVI. vanced in years, on the brink of eter- 

reached M. de Lamennais, insisted nity, prefer to put himself under the 

with the latter, with all his force pastoral crook and the jurisdiction of 

as a theologian, that he should sub- the Jansenist Archbishop of Utrecht, 

mit to the pontifical encyclical, or of a schismatic Armenian bishop, 

which, in the doctor's eyes, was and fraternize with the Anglican bi- 

binding on conscience, although no shops of Lincoln, Ely, and Maryland, 



494 Prince von Bismarck and the 

rather than remain an humble priest, when it proclaimed the faith which 

but proud of that Catholic Apostolic had existed for centuries ; it is 

and Roman Church whose admir- ancient; all, or nearly all, the bish- 

able unity bursts forth in the midst of ops at the late council were agreed, 

the vast persecution which is being and are now all agreed, as to the 

begun and prepared for her, and of ground of the doctrine ; they were 

which the Provost of Munich con- only divided on the question of op- 

sents to be the guilty instrument ? portuneness, and Mgr. the Bishop of 

This closes my parenthetical re- Orleans, in his pastoral letter of as- 

marks on Dr. Dollinger and the Old sent, declared that he has always 

Catholics, who are in reality merely professed the doctrine which had 

old Jansenists and very old Protes- been proclaimed, 
tants, and I come back to M. von Nothing, then, has been changed, 

Bismarck and to his policy. and church and state remain in pre- 

Prince von Bismarck and the gov- cisely the same situation of reciprocal 
ernments of Germany have nu occasion independence in their distinct spheres, 
to trouble themselves about the ques- and of harmony in their relations, in 
tion of settling whether infallibility which they were before the council, 
attaches to the Pope speaking ex Some either imagine, through most 
cathedra, or to the Pope united to the admirable ignorance, or hypocriti- 
council ; these are all dogmatic cally make show of believing, that 
theses with which they have no the pontifical infallibility is a perso?ial 
concern. The pretext got up by privilege, in this sense, that it is con- 
politics for trespassing on the do- ferred on a person who cannot err in 
main of religious faith is the follow- anything, that the Pope is infallible 
ing : The politicians allege that the in all that he says and in everything ; 
declaration of the council has con- that he could lay upon the faithful 
ferred upon the Pope a new authority, the obligation of believing any deci- 
that this authority is absolute and un- sion that he might proclaim whether 
limited, and that this state of things in the exclusive domain of science or 
affects the relations between the in the exclusive domain of politics, 
church and the state, which is thereby where faith is not at all involved, 
thrown upon its defence against pos- The object of infallibility is the 
sible usurpation. The Emperor of doctrine of the faith and of the re- 
Germany, in a conversation which vealed law. The church has the de- 
he recently had at Ems with M. posit of revelation, of the Holy Scrip- 
Contzen, the courageous Burgomas- tures, and of tradition; the Pope is 
ter of Aix-la-Chapelle, brought out its supreme guardian ; the evangeli- 
this singular idea of the politicians cal promise of infallibility is nothing 
when he alleged " that the church, else than the promise vi fidelity in the 
by proclaiming the dogma of infalli- custody of this sacred deposit ! When 
bility, had declared war to the state." the Pope or the council united to the 

How can this be ? In what re- Pope declares that a truth is contain- 

spect does the question of the infalli- ed in the deposit of revelation, they 

bility of the church touch the rela- do not invent matter, they repeat and 

tions between the church and the discern; they do not create a new 

state ? truth, they confirm an old one, and 

The declaration of the Vatican cause new light to beam from it. 
Council is not new ; it belongs almost Infallibility is, then, not personal in 

textually to the Council of Florence the absurd sense in which the word 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 



495 



is used; neither is it absolute and 
without limits ; its domain, which is 
that of faith and morals, is clearly 
marked out by the constitution of 
the Vatican Council. " According to 
the perfectly clear text of the decree," 
say the Prussian bishops who met at 
Fulda in 1871, " all allusion to the 
domain of politics is completely ex- 
cluded from the definition of this 
dogma." His Eminence Cardinal 
Antonelli, in his despatch of the i9th 
of March, 1870, to the Nuncio at 
Paris, is even more precise. " Po- 
litical affairs belong," he says, " ac- 
cording to the order of God and the 
teachings of the church, to the pro- 
vince of the secular authority, without 
any dependence whatever on any 
other." 

But, as between the secular power 
and the church, relations are necessa- 
ry, these are settled by the two au- 
thorities through arrangements or 
concordats. 

I allow myself to call Prince von 
Bismarck's attention to this point. 
Positive relations between the church 
and states have been settled by con- 
cordats only ; always, at all periods 
of history, the popes alone have ne- 
gotiated concordats with the states ; 
pontifical infallibility has absolutely 
no connection with concordats, and 
the Pope when he signs them does 
not speak ex cathedra and as supreme 
doctor of the church. How, then, 
can the declaration of the council 
have changed the relations between 
the church and governments, and how 
can the church, by proclaiming the 
dogma of infallibility, be said to have 
declared war to the state ? 

It is, then, a mere matter of pre- 
text. In point of fact, it is the Ger- 
man Empire which is laying claim 
to absolute and unlimited power in 
the domain of religion as well as in 
the domain of politics ; it examines 
and judges dogmas, intrudes itself 



into ecclesiastical discipline ; it clos- 
es the priest's mouth in his pulpit by 
the lex Lutziana; it closes Catholic 
colleges and schools; it forbids re- 
ligious to preach, to hear confessions, 
and even to celebrate Mass ; it for- 
bids the bishops to canonically ex- 
clude from the bosom of the church 
those who openly separate them- 
selves therefrom ; it banishes, for no 
crime, without trial and in bodies, 
the religious orders, in the same way 
that Louis XIV. (though he could 
give better reasons) drove the Hu- 
guenots from the soil of France ; it 
favors schism, and aims at establish- 
ing a national church. It is, then, the 
German state which is declaring war 
to the church, and which is raising 
claim to political and religious infal- 
libility by founding a veritable civil 
theocracy. 

Let us put aside the pretext, which 
can in no wise serve either for the 
justification or for the explanation 
of the conduct of the government of 
Berlin. Let us examine the real 
motives which governed that con- 
duct, the circumstances by which the 
emperor was carried away, and the 
fatal temptations which deluded him. 



VI. 



Foremost among these reasons and 
temptations has been, as I have said 
before, the alliance with Italy. It was 
the first cause, and was the signal for 
the sudden change which took place 
in the interior policy of the German 
Empire. This is evident from the 
fact that the political storm burst 
forth during the last session of Par- 
liament precisely upon the occasion 
of a paragraph in the draft of the 
address got up by the national 
liberal party, and which was a stone 
hurled at the papacy. This was 
taking place at Berlin at the very 
hour when the Italo-German alliance 



496 Prince von Bismarck and the 

had been concluded at Rome ; the policy of the national liberal party, 

coincidence is striking, and proves which represents above all else the 

that war against the Catholic Church idea of the French Revolution. 

\j 

and her head has been made a con- The section of the centre, which, in 

dition of this alliance. 1870, in point of numbers amounted 

The next temptation, the second in the parliament to but very lit- 
blunder of Prince von Bismarck, has tie, has seen its power increase pro- 
been his exclusive alliance with the portionately with the development 
national liberal party, whose character of the pseudo-liberal party of cen- 
I have defined above. This alliance tralization, of omnipotence of the 
with pseudo-liberalism is the corol- state, of political levelling, and of 
lary of his alliance with Italy ; both anti-Christian reaction. The outrage 
rest within and without on the revo- committed on the- papacy by the 
lutionary and anti-Christian principle. Italian government gave increased 
War on Rome and the papacy has energy to the Catholic movement, 
been the condition of the alliance and the section of the centre, which, 
with Italy; war on the Catholics in at the time it was first organized, 
Germany has been the condition of consisted of fifty members only, saw 
the alliance with the national liberal its numbers increase after the elec- 
party. tions to more than sixty, all united 

Prince von Bismarck had, for sev- together by strong convictions ; it 

eral years, met a keen resistance to can count to-day nearly eighty, and 

his plans from the national liberal it is safe to predict that, unless the 

party, while during the same period government sends into the interior, 

he found a support in the conserva- or into .exile, or puts in prison tlie 

tive section of the Prussian chambers, leaders of the Catholic movement, 

with whom were joined the few Ca- the party of the centre will, after the 

tholics of note who happened to be next elections, thanks to the war be- 

members of them. gun against the church, have gained 

To-day he turns away from this a force of- more than one hundred 

weakened but still powerful conserv- votes, which will thus counterbal- 

ative section, and he wages the bit- ance those of the national liberal 

terest war against the centre section, party. 

which is made up of Catholics. It is this growing power of the 

These two sections watch over the party of the centre, the fruit of M. 

deposit of old German traditions ; von Bismarck's policy, which has im- 

they wish to preserve the federal and pelled him to his policy of violence 

constitutional character of the Em- and anger against the Catholic 

pire, to maintain the Christian and Church ; he means to make the 

denominational character of the clergy, the Jesuits, the religious or- 

schools, and throughout the nation, ders, and the bishops pay for the po- 

religious peace. Latterly the con- litical loss of rest occasioned to him 

servative section has become weak ; by this phalanx which is growing in- 

it has yielded to M. von Bismarck's to a legion, and at whose head stand 

policy; but sooner or later its tradi- such powerful leaders as Reichens- 

tions will bring it to the side of the perger, Mallinckrodt, and Windthorst. 

section of the centre, in order that The eloquent words of these orators, 

both may unite in sustaining the his- as in former times those of O'Connell 

toric principles of the Germanic race in England, and Montalembert in 

against the centralizing anti-religious France, spread beyond the bound- 



Interview of tJie Three Emperors. 497 

aries of Germany, to arouse and stir army, which, badly led and crushed 

up everywhere all lovers of right, by the fire of the German artillery, 

justice, true liberty, and the church was forced to capitulate; he will 

of Jesus Christ. henceforth find in opposition to him 

The third temptation of the Ger- the Catholic populations, with their 

man government has been the stand clergy and their bishops at their 

taken in the Vatican Council by near- head, who will rise, in the name of 

ly all the bishops of Germany and of God and of the liberty of the church, 

Austria. These pious and learned who will resist and never surren- 

prelates were all agreed, along with der. 

those of the entire world, as to the M. von Bismarck is about to have 
mere ground of the doctrine; all or experience of what the Catholic bish- 
nearly all were infallibilists ; Joseph- ops are and of what they can do. 
ism, Febronianism, had been for a They will not conspire ; they will 
long time dying, if not dead ; but not sow rebellion and revolution ; 
these same bishops were nearly all in- they will not join themselves to the 
opportunists. This M. von Bismarck red international party, but they will 
misapprehended, he believed that resist and will not yield. "In this 
there was, among the bishops in present sad condition of things," said 
council, a real dissent as to doctrine ; the bishops met together at Ful- 
he imagined that the majority of the da in April, 1872, " we will fulfil our 
German and Austrian bishops would duty by not disturbing the peace be- 
separate from Rome to follow M. tween the church and the state." " As- 
Dbllinger in the path of defection or of Christians," said the learned Bishop^ 
schism, through which he is moving of Paderborn, in his touching address, 
to his ruin. The Italian alliance and to the exiled Jesuits " as Christians,, 
the alliance with the national liberal we can oppose neither force nor 
party carried M. von Bismarck into overt resistance to the measures of 
hostile action against Rome ; the dif- governmental authority. Albeit such- 
ference of opinion among the bishops measures seem to us iniquitous and 
on the question of the opportuneness unjustifiable, we may only meet 
of the decision by the council led them by that passive resistance which 
him to hope that he would find our divine Master Jesus Christ has- 
therein the elements for a Janist* taught us by his words and example;, 
and national church. that silence, calm and full of dignity ;. 
In this he has been entirely mis- that patience, tranquil and resigned,, 
taken. "He had left the Holy but abounding in hope ; that loving 
Spirit out of his reckoning," said re- prayer which heaps burning coals on 
cently to me a learned ecclesiastic of the heads of our persecutors." 
Berlin, and I add that he had also Such is the admirable language of 
not reckoned on the faith and virtue the German bishops, as it fell from 
of the episcopate. the lips of the Archbishop of Co- 
Observe what is going on and logne, Mgr. von Droste-Vischering, 
how the Catholic tide is rising and O n the very day preceding that on 
isting. M. von Bismarck met at which he was led captive by a guard 
Sedan a splendid, courageous French o f soldiers to the fortress of Minden. 

The calm and intrepid Bishop of 

efernng to the very bitter attack on the _ ^ . . . , . L , 

finition of infallibility and the doings of the Ermeland is deprived or his salary 

vhich appeared about that time in pam- and i n j ure d in his authority ; he is- 
rm from a writer under the no:n de J 

plume of janus. Translator. marked out for punishment, and he 



498 Prince von Bismarck and the 

awaits the coming of the soldiers tholics of Germany to a crusade in 

with the fetters to bind him. opposition to the aggressions of the 

I cannot recall the venerated name government. " We claim," says this 
of Mgr. Krementz without adding to address, "for our creed that liberty 
it the illustrious one of Mgr. Mermil- and independence guaranteed to it 
loci, whom all Europe will continue to by the constitution; and under the de- 
address as Bir.hop of Hebron and vice, For God and our Country, we will 
Geneva, despite that decision of the fight to the last for the maintenance 
council of state which forbids him to of our rights." This address is 
exercise any function whatever, signed by some of the most illustri- 
whether as bishop or as curate, and ous names of Germany, foremost 
which cuts him off from all salary, among which I may mention those 
Here, then, we have this republican of Count Felix de Loe, of Baron de 
and liberal Switzerland suppressing Frankenberg, of Count C. de Stol- 
the Jesuits and all cognate religious berg, and of the Prince of Isen- 
orders, the brothers of .the schools, burg. 

the sisters of charity ; closing semina- A numerous meeting of Catholics 
ries, as at Soleure, because the moral voted to send the Archbishop of Mu- 
theology of S. Liguori was taught nich an address praising him for his 
there; unseating bishops, as at Ge- firmness and encouraging him in the 
neva; and the people that do these contest which he is maintaining. At 
things are yet shameless enough to Breslau, a Catholic Congress has just 
talk of liberty, while all the speech- assembled with great cdat. All the 
makers of liberalism, whose hair Catholic men of note in Germany 
stands erect at the mention of the were present at it. Vent was therein 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, given to the. most energetic com- 
and who dinned the world with their plaints and the most indignant pro- 
clamors in the young Mortara case, tests, resolutions of great firmness 
cannot find a single word of liberal- were adopted, a new impulse was 
ity, not a single protest, not a single given to all those associations which, 
expression of indignation, to stigma- like that of S. Boniface, of S. Charles 
tize these unheard-of outrages against Borromeo, and of Pius IX., have mul- 
all liberties at once, and against all tiplied on German soil works of 
the rights of human conscience. teaching and of charity; powerful 

I have just been adverting to the preparations were in this congress 

passive resistance of the bishops in made for resistance, while confiding 

Germany ; but the lay movement, in their rights and in God. 

which is kept strictly within the law, While the Catholic laity were thus 

is less passive, less resigned, and is meeting and organizing at Breslau 

somewhat inflamed by politics. The and at Mainz, the bishops were 

reaction against the unwarranted quietly deliberating at Fulda, presided 

persecution set on foot a year ago is over by the Archbishop of Cologne, 

breaking out everywhere. A com- who is mindful of his illustrious pre- 

mittee of direction has been formed decessor, Clement Augustus. There, 

at Mainz, whose business is to cen- as the apostles of old in the cenacitlum, 

tralize the legal resistance of German they tarry in prayer, and they will 

Catholics for the defence of religious come forth with a confidence and a 

liberty thus threatened and assailed, courage such as have overcome ad- 

This committee, in their address versaries far more powerful than the 

dated in July last, call upon the Ca- Prince von Bismarck 



Interview of the Three Emperors. 



499 



VII. 

The old rtgiirie, before it died out, 
made trial of rebellion against the 
church. Frederick the Great was 
certainly as able as M. von Bismarck ; 
he had the world at his feet, and the 
church in Germany, infected with the 
doctrines of Febronius, was apparent- 
ly in the pangs of death. The last 
act recorded in history of the then 
three ecclesiastical electors of May- 
ence, Cologne, and Treves had been 
to meet with the Archbishop of Salz- 
burg, Primate of Germany, for the 
purpose of drawing up the Punctua- 
tions of Ems (1786), which were a 
code of rebellion against the Holy 
See. What a contrast with the pre- 
sent assembling of the German bish- 
ops at Fulda ! These servile Punctu- 
ations of Ems were beginning to be 
carried out, when the armies of tl^e 
French Republic came down and in- 
flicted upon the authors of them the 
punishment they deserved. 

Every one knows about Pombal, 
Choiseul, and Charles III., who con- 
fined the Jesuits within certain terri- 
torial limits, drove them away, cast 
them into prison, or sent them into 
exile, pretty much in the same way as 
M. von Bismarck is doing. 

The power which did all this was 
swallowed up by the French Revolu- 
tion. 

This revolution, satanic, to use M. 
de Maistre's term, out and out anti- 
Christian, as M. de Tocqueville calls 
it, in its turn drove out, exiled, put 
to death, whether in the massacre of 
September, the drownings of the 
Loire, by the axe of the guillotine or 
the dagger of ruffians, the priests, Je- 
suits, and religious whom the old 
rigime had spared. 

But this sanguinary revolution 
went down in the slough of the Direc- 
tory, and Napoleon put an end to it. 

That extraordinary man perceived 



that persecution wounds the hand 
which uses it ; he sought to make 
peace with the church ; he reopened 
the churches, recalled the priests and 
the bishops, and signed the concor- 
dat. This was the great epoch of 
his reign : Ulm, Austerlitz, and Jena. 

But the potent emperor, intoxicated 
by glory and by pride, having become 
master of the world, thought he would 
be master of the church as well ; his 
rule was over bodies, he sought to 
extend it over souls ; which is the 
dream of all founders of empire. 
He stretched out his hand to the 
States of the Church, and annexed 
them to the French Empire ; for 
which he was excommunicated by that 
gentle Pope Pius VII. He seized the 
pope, bore him away from Rome into 
exile at Savona and at Fontainebleau, 
and he found that under the lamb- 
like exterior of his victim there beat 
the heart of a lion. He summoned 
together the council of 1811, think- 
ing that it would be an easy matter 
to form a national church of which 
he would be Supreme Pontiff. 

This took place in 1811. The 
next year brought the campaign of 
1812, to be followed by the events 
of 1813 and 1814 ; Leipsic, Elba, 
Waterloo, and the rock of St. Helena 
last of all. 

There is another example nearer to 
our times, upon which I have looked 
as a witness, and which I submit for 
the meditations of the Emperor of 
Germany. 

King William I. of Orange fell 
into precisely the same blunder which 
William IV. is now repeating. He 
ruled over the beautiful kingdom of 
the Netherlands, so easy for him to 
maintain, and which through his 
mistakes was broken up. He, too, 
sought to constitute national unity 
through unity of language and of re- 
ligion. So he suppressed, in 1825, 
the Catholic schools and colleges in 



500 



Prince von Bismarck and. the 



Belgium, drove out the Jesuits and 
the brothers of the Christian schools, 
founded at Lou vain the Philosophic 
College in which the clergy of the 
future national church were to be 
trained, violated the right to teach 
and of association, prosecuted the 
Bishop of Ghent, Mgr. de Broglie, 
got him condemned, and he was 
pilloried, in effigy, on a public square 
of Ghent, between two felons. This 
reckless and blind policy excited in 
Belgium a movement of resistance 
similar to that which we remark at 
the present moment in Germany. 
Five- years later, in 1830, the Catho- 
lic liberal union was brought about, 
and every one knows the events to 
which it gave birth. 

This much is matter of history. 
The German persecution is a trial for 
the church and for Catholics, but it 
will .also bear with it the salvation 
which a trial properly borne always 
brings. Two results will come out 
of this trial : the Catholic Church, 
which they mean to weaken or pros- 
trate, will, as always heretofore, come 
out of the contest more united and 
more powerful ; Protestantism, in 
whose name the persecution is set on 
foot, will be mortally wounded by it, 
and will see its dissolution hastened ; 
pseudo-liberalism, which will have 
played the part of intolerance and 
persecution, will be unmasked, and 
all the friends of a prudent and sin- 
cere liberty will make their reconcilia- 
tion with the persecuted, one with that 
great Catholic Church, ever militant, 
ever attacked, sometimes a martyr, 
but which ever in the end comes out 
triumphant over these trials which 
temper her anew, purify her, and add 
to her greatness. The world will 
understand that in trials such as she 
is now going through in Germany 
she is fighting for the liberty of the 
conscience of the human race. 

Governments, and in particular 



great empires founded on force, look 
upon the independence of the uni- 
versal church with feelings of jealousy 
and impatience ; the idea of a nation- 
al church has always been a favorite 
and a pleasing one with despotisms, 
because it promises them a servile in- 
strument to carry out their designs. 
But when the church is subject to 
the state, there can be no church. 
The high level of the consciences of 
the people sinks as freedom disap- 
pears. The true and divine church 
can be contained within no bound- 
aries and in no nationality ; it is the 
spiritual kingdom of consciences and 
of souls; from the independence of 
the church, the independence of con- 
sciences and souls derives its life. If 
the church is under the yoke of the 
state, all consciences must suffer like 
subjection. The world will at last 
cgmprehend that national churches, 
that is, churches in subjection, can 
have only enslaved souls as followers, 
and that there can be no freedom 
for the conscience of man, except 
upon the sole condition of the in- 
dependence of a church, account- 
able, not to any human power, but 
to God. 

Will the persecution which has 
been begun be kept up with the same 
tenacity and violence which the 
Prince von Bismarck now displays ? 
I fear less from it for the church than 
for himself and the German emperor, 
whose good sense, uprightness, and 
religious conscience must feel out of 
place in the midst of a policy so 
outree, revolutionary, anti-Christian, 
and anti-constitutional, so contrary to 
his instincts, his natural disposition, 
and his antecedents. " It cannot 
be," said M. A. Reichensperger, 
" that a monarch, crowned with the 
laurels of victory, after having achiev- 
ed external peace through the cour- 
age and the fidelity of the entire Ger- 
man nation, will authorize the per- 






Interview of tJie Three Emperors. 501 

secution of millions of Germans on butes more thereto than the persecu- 

account of their faith, and consent to tions exercised on her by the great 

destroy internal peace that peace ones of the earth." 

which in particular is the work of his Prince von Bismarck may perhaps 

royal brother, whose memory is still have smiled on reading these words 

blessed by all Catholics." fallen from the lips of the Pontiff 

I add my prayer and my hope to Pius IX. ; if so, he is sadly mistaken ; 
the prayer and the hope of the great those old popes who are imprisoned 
German patriot and orator, but I and exiled, but who, to use the pro- 
confess that his fears, which are found expression of the Count de 
greater than his hopes, are felt by me Maistre, always come back, are also 
also, and to like extent. The times gifted with the command of words 
are gloomy. " The deluge is drawing which are " as burning coals heaped 
nigh ; but on the waters I see the upon the heads of their persecutors." 
ark of the church," said Count de The Emperor Napoleon I., too, 
Montalembert. " She will ride it smiled at the excommunication hurl- 
out, she will live, and will preside at ed at him by Pope Pius VII., then 
the funeral of the very powers weak and disarmed, and his corn- 
that thought to have prepared her plete ruin followed shortly after. I 
own." advise the prince chancellor to bear 

Let Prince Bismarck not forget the in mind the stone falling from the 
words recently uttered by Pius IX. at mountain and breaking the feet ot 
one of those allocutions so sublimely the Colossus. I had myself, in my 
eloquent and touchingly holy in book published in 1860, ventured to 
spirit, which, from his prison in the refer to that same passage of Scrip- 
Vatican he addresses to the world, ture : " That splendid figure," I said, 
He was addressing German Catholics, "which Daniel sets before us of 
and he told them : " Be confident, be kingdoms WITH FEET PART OF IRON 
united ; for a stone will fall from the AND PART OF CLAY, and of the church, 
mountain, and will shatter the feet of that stone, cut out of a mountain, with- 
the Colossus. If God wills that out hands, which broke in pieces the 
other persecutions arise, the church kingdoms, w\& became a great mountain, 
does not fear them ; on the contrary, and filled the whole earth that figure 
she becomes stronger thereby, and has its application in every age, and 
she purifies herself, because even in should stand for all Christians as a 
the church there are things that need hope amid trials and a teaching to 
to be purified, and nothing contri- all the proud." 



502 



A Christmas Memory. 



A CHRISTMAS MEMORY. 

God did anoint thee with his odorous oil 

To wrestle, not to reign ; and he assigns 

All thy tears over like pure crystallines 

For younger fellow-workers of the soil 

To wear for amulets. E. B. BROWNING. 



No more brilliant party ever as- 
sembled for Christmas festivities in 
Northern Vermont than that which 
met on such an occasion, very early 
in this century, at the home of a 
young lawyer in the beautiful little 
village of Sheldon, since widely re- 
nowned for the efficacy of its healing 
waters. 

The host and hostess were from 
families who came among the first 
settlers to Vermont. The company 
was gathered from all parts of the 
new and sparsely settled state, with 
a sprinkling of students who were 
completing their legal course at the 
famous law-school of Judge Reeves, 
in Litchfield, Conn. of which their 
host was a graduate and of young 
ladies and gentlemen from different 
places in Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut. Several of these young 
ladies were passing the winter with 
acquaintances in Sheldon, and the 
whole country from the "Province 
Line " (and even beyond it) to St. 
Alban's was made merry with a suc- 
cession of gay parties, sleigh-rides, 
dinners, suppers, and -dances given in 
their honor. Even the sequestered 
hamlets of Richford and Montgom- 
ery, nestled among their own green 
hills, did not escape the general 
hilarity, but were startled from their 
quiet decorum, and resounded with a 
merriment which awakened unwonted 
echoes in their peaceful valleys. 

Among the guests at this Christ- 
mas festival was a young lady of Ver- 



mont, Miss Fanny A , whose fair 

form rises before us as we write 
from the dim mists of childhood's 
earliest memories a vision of gentle 
dignity and youthful loveliness which 
time has no power to efface. 

Though some years younger than 
the lady of the house, she was her 
very dear and intimate friend, and 
was now passing a few weeks with 
her. Her queenly manners, the 
silver ripple of her low, sweet voice 
in the flow of a conversation which 
held her listeners spell-bound, as it 
were, by its clear and impressive ut- 
terances, bore witness to her famili- 
arity with the most refined circles of 
city and country society, and the 
high culture of her splendid intellect. 

Other circumstances, as will be 
seen, combined with her personal 
charms at this time to make her the 
centre of interest and attraction 
wherever she appeared. 

She was the youngest daughter of 
a Green Mountain hero whom Ver- 
mont most delights to honor. Her 
father died when she was too young 
to realize her loss. Some years later, 
her mother from whom she inherit- 
ed her remarkable beauty and grace- 
ful dignity married a most amiable 
man, who was capable of appreciat- 
ing the rich treasure she committed 
to his charge in the person of her 
young daughter. Every advantage 
the country offered was secured to 
develop and polish the gem of which 
he was inexpressibly proud, and over 






A Christmas Memory. 503 



which he watched with a solicitude to her own astonishment than to the 
as tender as her own father could amazement and horror of her de- 
have exercised. voted parents a Catholic, as firmly 
At that time, the gay society in New established and steadfastly resolved 
England was strongly tinctured with as if she had been born and educat- 
the species of infidelity introduced ed in the faith ! 

and fostered by the writings of The grief and indignation of her 
Thomas Paine and his disciples, parents knew no bounds. They 
among whom Fanny's father had looked upon it as a most disgraceful 
been conspicuous. Her step-father infatuation. Peremptorily imposing 
was not of that school, but he detest- silence upon her in relation to the 
ed the cant and Puritanism of the subject, they determined to suppress 
only religious people he had ever it, if possible, until every means had 
known regarding them as preten- been used to divert her mind from 
sions of which even those who adopt- the fatal delusion, 
ed them were often the unconscious All the wiles and artifices of the 
dupes. He had never been drawn gayest and most fashionable circles in 
within reach of better influences, then various American cities to which she 
exercised only by the Protestant was taken, were exhausted in vain to 
Episcopal Church in Vermont, to captivate her youthful fancy and de- 
rescue intelligent thinkers from the liver her soul from its mysterious 
grasp of infidelity. He conducted thraldom. In vain the ardent ad- 
the education of his gifted daughter, dresses of devoted admirers who 
therefore, with the most scrupulous were destined in the near future to 
care to avoid entirely all considera- be the brightest ornaments the bench 
tions of religion in any form. When and bar of their state could boast- 
her active and earnest mind would were laid at her feet. In vain were 
peer beyond the veil he had so care- all those worldly allurements, gener- 
fully drawn between its pursuits and ally so irresistible to the young, 
the interests of eternity, and send her spread before her. Her soul turned 
to startle him with some question steadfastly away from each bewitch - 
touching those interests which he ing enticement, to solace itself with 
could only answer by evasive ridi- thoughts of the humble sanctuary in 
cule, or an emphatic request that she Montreal, where the weary bird had 
would refrain from troubling her head found a place in which she might 
about such matters, she would retire build her nest, even within the taber- 
to ponder within herself, even while nacle of thy house, O Lord of hosts! 
striving to obey her earthly father, In the autumn preceding the 
the higher obligations imposed by Christmas festival of which I write, 
One in heaven. Light and wisdom the ramblers had returned from their 
from above soon illuminated the fruitless wanderings. Fanny's pa- 
soul that surrendered itself a willing rents, discouraged and discomfited, 
victim before the altar of eternal resolved at this crisis to enlist the 
truth. She was led by a divine hand, zeal of a few very intimate friends in 
through paths she knew not, to a their cause, by disclosing to them the 
temple of which she had scarcely great and unaccountable calamity 
heard, and, while still living among which had befallen their child, 
those to whom the Catholic religion Among those whom they earnestly 
was entirely unknown, entered its entreated to aid them in efforts to 
portals to find herself scarcely less extricate her from the grasp of the 



504 



A Christmas Memory. 



great deceiver, was the lady with 
whom she was now passing the 
weeks of the early winter. A Con- 
necticut Episcopalian of the High- 
Church stamp, she occupied what 
they playfully called a " half-way 
house," at which they hoped she 
would be able to persuade Fanny to 
stop. She invited several gay young 
ladies to meet and enliven Fanny's 
visit, but took the greatest pains to 
conceal from them the religious ten- 
dencies of her beautiful guest. She 
entered with great zeal upon every 
scheme for winter pastimes, in the 
hope of diverting the mind of her 
young friend from its absorbing 
theme. In their private conversa- 
tions, she exhausted every argument 
to convince Fanny that the Episco- 
pal Church offered all the consola- 
tions for which her soul was yearn- 
ing. In vain, in vain ! She who 
had been called to drink from the 
fountain-head could not slake her 
thirst with draughts from scattered 
pools, which brought no refreshment 
to her fainting spirit. Vain also 
were the precautions used for con- 
cealment. Suspicions soon arose 
among her young companions that 
there was something wrong with 
Fanny. A rosary had been partially 
revealed as she drew her kerchief 
from her pocket. Worse still, a cru- 
cifix had been discovered under her 
pillow ! Here were proofs of super- 
stition indeed, of rank idolatry in 
unmistakable form, and no one 
knows to what unimaginable extent ! 
Then it began to be whispered 
around the admiring and compassion- 
ate circle that she had not only taken 
the first step on the downward road, 
but was even now contemplating the 
still more fatal and final one of reli- 
gious immolation ! 

It was their apprehension of this 
direful result which imparted a new 
and melancholy interest in their 



eyes to all her words and actions. 
Though she maintained a modest re- 
serve upon the subjects dearest to her 
heart, they thought they could discov- 
er some mysterious connection with 
these in every expression she uttered. 

On several occasions, the most ad- 
venturous of her companions endeav- 
ored to penetrate the silence that 
sealed her lips in regard to her reli- 
gious convictions, by direct questions, 
and, when these failed, by ridicule 
of such " absurd superstitions " ; but 
to no purpose. Her nearest ap- 
proach to any satisfactory remark 
was in reply to one of these ques- 
tions : " It is impossible to convey 
any clear idea to your mind, in its 
present state, concerning these mat- 
ters. Your opinions are founded 
upon prejudice, and your prejudices 
are the result of your entire igno- 
rance in relation to them. If you 
really desire to be better informed, 
you need, first of all, to pray with 
humility for light and guidance, and 
then s-eek for knowledge. If you do 
this with sincerity, you will surely be 
instructed, and ' know of the doc- 
trine ' ; but, if you refuse to take this 
first step, all the teaching in the 
world will be of no avail. 'They 
have Moses and the prophets; let 
them hear them. If they believe not 
Moses and the prophets, neither 
would they believe though one 
should come to them from the 
dead.' " 

She rebuked ridicule with such 
calm dignity that it was soon aban- 
doned, one of her assailants, a very 
lively young lady, remarking one 
day : " It is astonishing to see how 
terribly in earnest Fanny is! She 
certainly believes in the Catholic re- 
ligion with all her heart, though how 
a person with her extensive informa- 
tion and splendid talents can re- 
ceive such absurdities is a puzzle to 
common sense !" 



A Christmas Memory. 505 

But her severe trials were in her she " leave the ship and her father, to 
home. Her parents were unutter- follow him. Weary years of wait- 
ably grieved when she persisted in ac- ing and yearning, far from the ta- 
cepting the Catholic faith. This fur- bernacles where her soul had chosen 
ther determination to forsake those its home, did she accord in tender 
who had so fondly loved and tender- regard for the feelings of those, so 
ly cherished her, and who were so truly and deeply beloved, who could 
justly proud of the use she had made not give her up, and who had no 
of the opportunities for improvement clue by which to trace the course her 
which their solicitude had secured spirit was taking, or power even to 
for her, was beyond all human en- conjecture the motives that actuated 
durance. her. 

If she had been the victim of ad- When at length the time arrived 
versity or of disappointed hopes, to which they had consented to limit 
there might have been some excuse ; her stay with them, who shall de- 
but that the idol of doting parents scribe the pangs that rent her heart 
should abandon her elegant home to in a parting so full of grief; in sever- 
the desolation in which her departure ing these nearest and dearest ties, 
would enshroud it, and turn from all and in witnessing the anguish which 
the advantages that wealth, position, overwhelmed those around whom her 
and the homage of society could tenderest earthly affections were en- 
offer dashing to the ground on the twined ? 

very threshold of life the brilliant pros- Alone, but full of peace, " leaning 
pects which were opening before her on -the arm of her Beloved," did she 
-was worse than madness ! They tread the painful path. Her parents 
complained bitterly to. her of her in- could not accompany her to witness 
gratitude and heartless disregard of the sacrifice which prostrated their 
their feelings and wishes; poured fondest hopes, nor could they ever 
unmeasured and contemptuous re- bring themselves to visit her in the 
preaches upon her for stifling the sanctuary she had chosen, 
modest womanly instincts of her re- Her Sheldon friend did so repeat- 
lined and delicate nature, to strike edly, and was amazed to find her ra- 
out boldly upon a new road hitherto diant with a joy which her counte- 
untrodden by any woman of New nance had never before revealed 
England. Remonstrances, pleading, happy in the peaceful home that offer- 
reproaches, and contempt were alike ed only poverty and an unceasing 
unavailing. Listening only to the round of labors in the service of the 
persuasions of that " invisible Lover " sick and suffering, with a happiness 
whose voice had called her to relin- which the splendors of her worldly 
quish the seductive charms which one could never impart, 
surrounded her worldly course, she Multitudes of New England peo- 
turned away from them steadfastly to pie visiting Montreal flocked to the 
follow him and carry his cross up the convent, begging to see the lovely 
steep and thorny paths of penance young nun of the Hotel Dieu, who 
and self-abnegation, offering herself was the first daughter New England 
entirely to him on the Calvary made had given to the sacred enclosure, 
glorious to her by his precious and whom they claimed as belong- 
blood. ing especially to them through her 
Not " immediately," however, like connection with their favorite Revo- 
those whom he called of old, did lutionary hero. 



506 A Christinas Memory. 

So continual were these interrup- doubts and dark forebodings. Over 
tions that she \vas driven at length the sunken rocks of heresy and un- 
to obtain the permission of the mo- belief along this coast the billows 
ther-superior absolutely to decline break with a force that affrights the 
appearing in answer to such calls, stoutest heart, and many a would-be 
except when they were made by the voyager shrinks back dismayed be- 
friends of former days, for whom she fore their power; but once pluck up 
still preserved and cherished the live- heart of grace to pass the foaming 
liest affection. barrier, in the mid-ocean all is " peace, 

By a singular coincidence or ra- and joy unspeakable* and full of glo- 

ther, let us say, through tender me- ry." 

mories of the gentle nun long since We cannot more fitly conclude 

departed from the Hotel Dieu, and this little sketch of a real event than 

the prevailing efficacy of her prayers by a quotation from Montalembert's 

a large proportion of those who were closing chapter on the " Anglo-Sax - 

present at the Christmas party at on Nuns " : 

Sheldon, including the mistress of the " Is this a dream, the page of aro- 

feast and many of her family, were, mance ? Is it only history the histo- 

from time to time as years flew by, ry of a past for ever ended ? No; once 

received into the bosom of the Holy more it is what we behold and what 

Catholic Church. happens amongst us every day. . . . 

And so does our gracious and Who, then, is this invisible Lover, 
mighty Mother, " ever ancient, ever dead upon a cross eighteen hundred 
new," win her triumphs, one by one, years ago, who thus attracts to him 
perpetually through all the ages youth, beauty, and love ? who ap- 
wins them often in the face, nay, pears to them clothed with a glory 
even perforce, of circumstances ap- and a charm which they cannot with- 
parently the most directly opposed stand ? who seizes on the living 
to her influence ; accomplishes them flesh of our flesh, and drains the 
by means so weak and simple as purest blood of our blood ? Is it a 
would seem, according to all human man ? No ; it is God. There lies 
reasoning, utterly inadequate. In the secret, there the key of this sub- 
countries far remote from her gentle lime and sad mystery. God alone 
influence, one is called we hardly could win such victories and de- 
know how or why in this place, an- serve such sacrifices. Jesus, whose 
other in that, as if the words of our godhead is amongst us daily insulted 
divine Lord found their fulfilment or denied, proves it daily, with a 
even in this : " Two shall be in the thousand other proofs, by those mir- 
field : one shall be taken, and one acles of self-denial and self-devotion 
shall be left. Two women shall be which are called vocations. Youn^ 

O 

grinding at the mill : one shall be and innocent hearts give themselves 
taken, and one shall be left." to him, to reward him for the gift he 
And every soul thus called to has given us of himself ; and this sac- 
launch its eternal interests upon the rifice by which we are ^crucified is 
ocean of infinite truth must encoun- but the answer of human love to the 
ter much the same appalling trials, love of that God who was crucified 
be haunted by the same startling for us." 



The House that Jack Built. 



507 



THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF ""TUB HOUSE OK YORKE." 



IN TWO PARTS. 



PART II. 



CONCLUDED. 



LATE in the afternoon, Bessie 
went down and leaned on the bars 
again, looking up and down the 
road, looking at the tracks left by 
Father Conners' carriage-wheels the 
smooth curve of their turning ; look- 
ing to see the shadows creep across 
the road as the sun went down. 
The sadness of a lonely evening was 
upon her, and, though she had not 
lost her morning resolution, she had 
lost the joyous hopefulness with 
which those resolutions were made. 

At her left, and quite near, a fringe 
of young cedars made a screen be- 
tween- the ground that belonged to 
her house and the farmer next to it, 
where her uncle Dennis had lived 
when John Maynard had wooed and 
won her. 

Pain came with that recollection, 
and almost the old bitterness. " I 
must go home again, and put my 
resolutions in practice right away, or 
I shall lose them," she said to her- 
self. " It won't do for me to stay here 
and brood over my troubles. I can- 
not bear loneliness ; and how terribly 
lonely it is here ! I wish I had some 
one to speak to besides poor Aunt 
Nancy." 

She started, hearing a soft, clear 
whistling not far away. The strain 
was familiar, not to this region, but to 
her city life. While she listened, the 
sound ceased, or rather broke off 
suddenly. 



Bessie's eyes were wide open, her 
face flushed. Was there more than 
one person who could whistle so 
marvellously clearly and sweetly ? 

Some one began to sing then more 
sweetly still, and coming nearer 
while he sang words written by the 
most melodious of poets : 

41 Hark ! a lover, binding sheaves, 

To his maiden sings ; 
Flutter, flutter go the leaves, 

Larks drop their wings. 
Little brooks, for all their mirth, 

Are not blithe as he ! 
' Tell me what the love is worth 
That I give thee.' 

u Speech that cannot be forborne 

Tells the story through : 
* I sowed my love in with the corn, 

And they both grew. 
Count the world full wide of girth, 

And hived honey sweet; 
But count the love of more worth 
Laid at thy feet. 

** 'Money's worth is house and land, 

Velvet coat and vest ! 
Work's worth is bread in hand, 

Ay, and sweet rest. 
Wilt thou learn what love is worth ( 

Ah ! she sits above, 
Sighing, k Weigh me not with earth. 

Love's worth is love ! ' " 

The singer had come yet more 
near, and would have been visible 10 
her had not Bessie Maynard's looks 
been downcast and her head droop- 
ing low. When the song ended, and 
the step paused, she lifted her eyes, 
and saw James Keene standing be- 
fore her smiling and waiting for the 
greeting she was so slow to give. 

Surprise, and perhaps fear, de- 
prived Bessie for a moment of her 



5o8 



The House that Jack Built. 



self-possession. " What ! you here !" 
she exclaimed, without the least sign 
of courtesy; and with that exclama- 
tion broke down the barrier of silence 
that had existed between them. 

" Why should I not be here ?" he 
asked quietly. <; May not I also 
have memories connected with this 
place ? It was here I recovered 
health, after an illness that nearly 
cost me my life. It was here I shot 
my first bear. And it was here I 
first saw you." 

Bessie perceived at once that, if 
the old reserve was to be maintained, 
she must immediately assume an 
air of decisive politeness. For an 
instant she wavered. Silence may 
be best for those who. are doubtful 
of themselves, and, not willing to 
commit any flagrant wrong, are still 
not resolved to be absolutely honest. 
But when we are strong in the deter- 
mination to be sincere, and to let the 
light of day shine not only on our 
actions, but on our inmost thoughts, 
then, perhaps, by speech we may 
most nobly and effectually establish 
our position. 

Bessie Maynard, therefore, waited 
for the words which would give her 
an opportunity to put an end to the 
tacit and vague understanding exist- 
ing between them. 

He read her silence rightly ; it 
was a command for him to speak; 
and he obeyed it, though the pale 
face and large, downcast lids gave 
little hope of any such answer as he 
might wish to receive. 

" In those eld days, so long ago, 
when I came here to try what a half- 
savage life would do for me, and was 
astonished to find a delicate human 
flower in the wilderness, I was a 
prophet." 

He leaned on the cedar bar that 
separated them, and looked dreamily 
off toward the woods. He would 
not surprise in her face any involun- 



tary expression she might wish to 
conceal from him ; he would take ad- 
vantage of no impulse. If she came 
to him, she must come deliberately. 
For, setting aside Christianity and 
he did not pretend to believe in it 
James Keene had an exceptionally 
honorable nature. He would gladly 
have taken this woman away from a 
husband who, he believed, knew not 
how to value her, and who made her 
miserable by his neglect, but he held 
that it would be no wrong for him to 
do so. 

"Yes, I was a prophet," he con- 
tinued ; " for I believed then, what 
I am sure of now, that your marriage 
was a most unwise one. Give me 
credit, Bessie, for having been sin- 
cerely pained to see that, as years 
passed away, you had reason to 
come to the same conclusion. What- 
ever selfish wishes I may have had, 
I would at any time have renounced 
them could I have seen you happy 
with the man you chose to marry, 
knowing no other." 

Bessie lifted her eyes, and looked 
at him with a steady, tearful gaze. 
" People might say that you are 
wicked to speak so to me," she said ; 
" but I think that, according to your 
belief, you are very good ; only you 
have no faith in religion. I esteem 
you so highly that I am going to 
make a confession which, perhaps, 
you may think I ought not to make. 
There have been times during these 
last few years when, if I had not had 
some little lingering faith, I would 
have welcomed from you an affection 
which I have no right to receive. 
There have been times when you 
might have spoken as lovingly as you 
could, and I should not have been 
angry. I tell you this partly because 
you must have at least suspected 
that it was so. And more than this. 
If I had seen you here a few days 
ago, my impulse would have been to 



The House that Jack Built. 



509 



welcome you more ardently than I 
ever yet welcomed any friend. You 
can understand how it all has been, 
without my explaining. I was so 
lonely, so neglected ! I was so lone- 
ly!" 

She had spoken with a sad earnest- 
ness, and there was something touch- 
ingly humble yet dignified in her 
manner ; but, at the last words, her 
voice trembled and failed. 

He was looking at her now. Ex- 
citement and suspense showed in the 
sparkling of his clear blue eyes, in 
the slight flush that colored his usual- 
ly pale face, in the lips firmly com- 
pressed. 

' ; All is changed now," she went 
on. " I have been recalled to my 
religion, to my duty. I do not think 
that you should any more show me 
that sympathy which you have shown, 
and I do not think that you should 
see me frequently. I thank you for 
your kindness toward me. It has 
often been a comfort. But I am a 
wife"- -she lifted herself with a stately 
gesture, and for the first time a wave 
of proud color swept over her face - 
" and the sadness which my husband 
may cause me no other man may 
ever again soothe." 

There was silence for a moment. 
The gentleman's face had grown 
pale. There was a boundless tender- 
ness in his heart for this fair and 
sorrowful woman, and he was about 
to lose the power to offer her even 
the slightest comfort, while at the 
same time he must still retain the 
knowledge of her suffering.. 

' I shall respect your wish and 
your decision," he said, with emotion. 
" Forgive me if I have trespassed too 
much in the past. It seemed to me 
very little ; for, Bessie, if I had not 
known that you had a religious feel- 
ing which would have held you back, 
or would have made you miserable 
in yielding, I should long ago have 



held out my hand to you, and asked 
you to come to me. If I had felt 
sure of being able to convince you 
beyond the possibility of subsequent 
regret, I should not have kept si- 
lence so long. But I respect your 
conscience. I should esteem myself 
a criminal if I could ask you to do 
what you believe to be wrong." 

Bessie Maynard's face was cover- 
ed with a blush of shame. Her 
thought had never gone consciously 
beyond the length 'of tender, brother- 
ly kindness, and it was cruelly hu- 
miliating to see in its true light the 
position in which she had really 
stood. At that moment, too, she first 
perceived what a gulf lay between 
her soul and that of the man who 
had seemed always so dangerously 
harmonious with her. In principle, 
in all that firmly underlies the change- 
ful tide of feeling, they were antago- 
nistic ; for he could speak calmly 
and with dignity, of a possibility 
from which she shrank with a pro- 
testing tremor in every fibre of her 
being. 

" I am going back to my husband," 
she said, " and I shall never again 
forget that his honor and dignity are 
mine. I have been weak and child- 
ish, and more wicked than I knew 
or meant, and it all came because I 
loved my husband too much and 
God too little. But I trust " she 
clasped her hands, and lifted her 
eyes " I trust that I shall have 
strength to begin now a new life, and 
correct the mistakes of the past." 

She forgot for a moment that she 
was not alone, and stood looking 
away, as if there stretched before her 
gaze the new and loftier pathway in 
which she was to tread. Her com- 
panion gazed at her unchecked, with 
searching, melancholy eyes, not more 
because she was dearer to him in her 
impregnable fortress of Christian will 
than she ever had been in her human 



5io The House that Jack Built. 

weakness, than because there rose the marks of city training and habits, 
from the depths of his restless soul a The uniform gray clothing, the wide 
cry of longing for that firm foundation Panama hat, even the unobtrusive 
and trust which can hold a man in necktie, belonged to the city. This 
the place where conscience sets him, man was taller and broader-shoulder- 
no matter how the tempests of pas- ed than he whose eyes flashed out so 
sion may beat upon his trembling scornfully at sight of him. His face 
heart. was dark, vivid, and clean-shaven, the 

" There is, then, nothing left me forehead was wide, the dark-brown 

but to say farewell." hair closely cut, the gray eyes clear 

The poignant regret his voice be- and penetrating. It was a face fitter 

trayed recalled her attention. to carve in stone than to paint, for 

"It has come to that," she said its color and expression were less 

gently. " But if you could know all noticeable than its fine, strong out- 

I mean in saying farewell to you, it lines. 

would not seem an idle word ; for I Yet now there shone a soft and 
hope and pray that you may fare so eager light over that granite strength, 
well as to come before long into the There was a look of glad surprise, 
church. It is a refuge from every mingled with a certain amused self- 
danger and every trouble, and I have chiding, as though of one who comes 
only just found it out ! Good-by." back from a long and gloomy ab- 

She gave him her hand, and they straction, and finds a half- forgotten 
separated without another word, delight still waiting at his side. 
But Bessie did not stop to look after At sight of this man, James 
this visitor. Whatever regret she Keene's first emotion had been one 
might otherwise have felt was swal- of anger, his first impulse to meet 
lowed up in the one thought it had him boldly and with scorn. But 
seemed to him possible that she scarcely had he taken one quickened 
might leave, not only her husband, step before he stopped, with a re- 
but her sacred, sainted babes, and go vulsion of feeling as unsuspected as 
to him ! To what a, depth had she it was confounding. Reason as he 
fallen ! might, emancipate himself as he 

When she had disappeared in the might from what he considered the 
house, he strolled slowly down the superstitions of religion, he found 
road. Unless you had looked in his himself now overwhelmed with con- 
face, you would have taken him for a fusion. He strove to call up to his 
man who was calmly enjoying the mind all those arguments on which 
contemplation of nature in that forest he had founded himself, but they fell 
solitude. But from his face looked dead. Whether it was the instinct 
forth a spirit weary and hopeless of a noble heart that would not 
that hastened not, because it beheld betray even an enemy, or an irradi- 
nowhere a place worth making haste cable root of that religious faith 
to reach. Once only the gloom of which had been implanted in his 
his countenance lifted, and then it childhood, or the strangeness of one 
was with no cheering brightness, but who for the first time acts on prmci- 
as the cloud is momentarily illumina- pies long maintained in theory, or 
ted by angry lightning. only a sensitive perception of the 

A man was coming up the road, esteem in which the faithful world 

not such a man as one usually sees in would hold his action, he could not 

these wild places, but one who bore have told. He only knew that, in- 



The House that Jack Built. 511 

stead of standing, lofty and serene, heart beating fast as he thought of 
in the dawn of this new light before the old time, and of the slim, bright- 
which superstition and oppression faced girl he had brought there as a 
were to pass away, he felt as if he bride. If she could stand in the 
were surrounded by a baleful glare doorway now, as she was then, and 
from the nether fires. Sudden and smile at him coming home, he felt that 
scathing, it caught him, and burned he could be the old lover again. He 
his courage out like chaff. had a vague idea that Bessie had 
In his eagerness and preoccu- grown older, and sober, and pale, 
pation, John Maynard had scarcely Come to think of it, he hadn't known 
observed the person who approach- much of her lately, and she had been 
ed ; and, when the stranger turned dissatisfied about something. Why 
aside into a wood-path, he gave him had she allowed him to get his eyes 
no further thought. and ears so full of machinery ? Sure- 
There was the little crooked house ly he had lost and overlooked much, 
squinting at him out of its two win- He had a mind to complain of her, 
dows, with the boards he had nailed, only that he felt so good-natured, 
the chimney he had built, the door At sound of a step, Aunt Nancy 
he had hung; there was the whole went to the door; but at that sound 
wild, rude place, with everything Bessie took her sewing, and bent 
askew, that had once seemed a para- over it. Had James Keene repented 
dise that had been a paradise to their hasty parting ? 
him. With his hands and eyes edu- "" Does Miss Bessie Ware live 
cated, as they were now, to the here?" asked the gentleman, with 
utmost precision of outline and ba- immense dignity, 
lance, the sight made him laugh " Bessie Ware ? " repeated Aunt 
out ; and yet the laugh expressed as Nancy, in bewilderment ; then, as the 
much pleasure as mockery. recollection of Bessie's confessions 
He was taking his first holiday flashed into her mind, she stiffened 
since he had left this house, and herself up, and answered severely : 
everything was delightfully fresh and " No, sir, she does not!" 
novel yet familiar to him. He did " The idea of his refusing to give 
not see the beauty that a poet or a her her husband's name!" she thought 
painter would have found in that indignantly. 

unpruned rusticity, for he was an " Why, John !" exclaimed Bessie, 

artist of the exact ; but the wabbly over the old lady's shoulder, 

frame-house, the reeling fences, the Aunt Nancy gave a cry of delight, 

road that wound irregularly, the She would at any time have welcoin- 

straggling trees that leaned away ed John rapturously ; but his com- 

from the northwest, made a good ing now made her twice glad. Of 

background against which to con- course he and Bessie would make it 

template the trim and shining crea- all up. 

tures of his hands, regular to a hair's The exuberance of her welcome 

breadth, unvarying and direct. covered, at first, the wife's deficiency. 

Coming to the bars, he threw him- But when the excitement was over, 

self over instead of letting them and they had gone into the house, 

down, and found that he had grown Bessie's coldness and embarrassment 

heavier and less lithe than he was became evident, 

when last he performed that feat. " I am very much surprised to see 

He walked up the rocky path, his you here," she said, when her hus- 



512 The House that Jack Built. 

band looked at her. She did not cared for nothing but music. His 

pretend to be glad. name is Verheyden." 

" Are you sorry ?" he asked, with " Poor man !" Bessie sighed again, 

a laugh. looking down. " Those machines 

" I am too much astonished to be are always hurting some one." 
anything else," she replied quietly. " It was his own fault," the ma- 
" What made you come ?" chinist said hastily. " Did he sup- 
John Maynard was disappointed pose that the engine was going to 
and mortified. That for years he stop when he put his forefinger on 
had met his wife's affectionate ad- it ? Why, that machine would grind 
vances as coldly he did not seem up an elephant, and never mismake 
aware. Other things had occupied its face. But it is the first time any 
his thoughts. He did not recollect, as one was ever hurt by a machine of 
he had not noticed at the time, that mine." 

her manner was now just what it had He did not understand the glance 
long been. she gave him. It was not pleasant, 
Supper was over, eaten in an but what it meant he knew not. She 
absent way by the husband, who was thinking : " It is not the first 
glanced every moment at his wife, time one has been hurt so." 
He found her very lovely, though Aunt Nancy found business else- 
different enough from the glad, girl- where, and left the couple to them 
ish bride who had once brightened selves. 

this humble room for him. He could " I forgot you were coming" away 

not understand her. Had she no that day, Bessie," her husband said 

recollection of those days ? hastily, the moment they were alone. 

She did not seem to have, indeed, " I never thought of it till I was five 

for she made no reference to them miles off, and then I concluded that 

by look nor speech, but talked rapid- you must have changed your mind, 

ly, and with an air of constraint, of or you would have told me not to 

things nearer in time, and listened go." 

with affected interest while he told " You know I never tell you not 

the latest city news, and the latest to go anywhere," she replied coldly, 

news of his own work ; how high the He colored. " But you know that 

engine spouted; of the tiny model I didn't mean to have you go to the 

locomotive he had built, all silver, depot alone. When I read what 

and gold, and fine steel ; of the you wrote to Jamie, I felt sorry 

money he expected to make by bis enough." 

new patent ; of an accident that In all the long years that were 

had happened in his shop a Ger- past, how generously would she have 

man organist, with two or three met an apology like this! How 

others, had come to look at his quickly would she have disclaimed 

machinery, and got his hand crushed all sense of injury, and even have 

in it, which would put a stop to his tried to find some fault in herself! 

playing. But now her heart, with all its im- 

Bessie looked up with an expres- pulses, seemed frozen. She only 

sion of pain. " Poor man !" she gave him a glance of surprise, and a 

murmured. " How miserable he quiet word. " There was no need 

must be !" of company, I knew the way." 

"Yes; I was sorry for him," the There was silence. Gradually, 

husband replied. " They say he through the deep unconsciousness 




T/i House that Jack Built. 



513 



and abstraction of the man, came out 
incident after incident of their late 
life, slight, but significant. Each 
had seemed a detached trifle at the 
time, but now as he sat there, abash- 
ed and ill at ease, they began to 
show a connection and to grow in 
importance. It was as when, in a 
thick fog, the sailor sees dimly a 
black speck that may be only a float- 
ing stick, and another, and another, 
till, looking sharply, as the mist 
grows thinner, he finds himself 
caught among rocks at low tide. 

John Maynard tried to throw off 
with a laugh the weight that oppress- 
ed him. " Come, Bessie, let the late 
past go, and remember only the life 
we lived here. Let's be young peo- 
ple again." 

He went to her side, bent down, 
and would have kissed her, had she 
not evaded his touch, not shyly, but 
with a crimson blush and a quick 
flash of the eyes. 

" Don't talk nonsense, John !" she 
said, in a low voice that did not hide 
a haughty aversion. " Let us speak 
of something sensible. I have been 
thinking that some of our ways should 
be changed at home. I shall begin 
with myself, and attend strictly to 
my religion. Besides, I am not do- 
ing rightly in allowing James to grow 
up without any discipline, and I 
think he should be placed in a Ca- 
tholic school, where he will be 
taught his duty. He is quite beyond 
my control." 

Her morbid humility and diffidence 
were gone. The feeling that had 
made her give up all rights rather 
than ask for them did not outlive 
the moment of her reconciliation with 
the church. 

' I am willing he should go 'to any 
school you choose," her husband re- 
plied gravely, impressed by the 
change. " I suppose the boy is go- 
ing on rather too much as he likes. 
VOL. xvi. 33 



Do whatever you think best about 
it, and I will see that he obeys." 

She thanked him gently, and con- 
tinued : " I shall go to High Mass 
after this, and I should be glad to 
have you go with me, if you are will- 
ing. It would be a better example 
for James than to see you go to the 
shop on Sundays. He is becoming 
quite lawless. We have no right to 
give our children a bad example. I 
would be glad to have you go with 
me, if you will." 

John Maynard's face was glowing 
red. He felt, gently as she spoke, 
as if he were having the law read to 
him. " I am willing to go with you, 
Bessie." he said. " I am not a Ca- 
tholic, but I am not anything else." 

She thanked him again, earnestly 
this time, for it was a favor he had 
granted her, and she knew that he 
would keep his word. " You are 
good to promise that," she said. 

He laughed uneasily. " Have 
you anything else- to ask?" 

" I do not think of anything," she 
replied, and there was silence. 

The husband got up, and went to 
the door. The sun was sinking 
down the west. He looked at the 
glow it made, and remembered how 
he had seen it there in the days that 
were past, how quiet and peaceful 
his life had been, how much happier, 
had he but known it, than in the tur- 
moil of later years. Then the days 
had been full of healthful employ- 
ment, the nights of rest and refresh- 
ment, untroubled by the feverish 
dreams that now swarmed in his 
sleeping hours. And what was it 
that had made his life so happy ? 
What had been the motive, the de- 
light of everything? Nothing but 
Bessie, always Bessie, his help and 
his reward. 

He turned his face, and saw her 
still sitting there, her head drooping, 
her hands folded in lier lap. Those 



5'4 



The House that Jack Built. 



hands caught his glance. They were 
pale and thin. They looked as 
though she had suffered. 

He went to her impulsively as his 
heart stirred, and put his arm about 
her shoulder. " Bessie, forget the 
last years, and let's be as we were in 
the happy old time." 

She did not look angry ; but she 
withdrew herself gently from him. 

" John," she said, " that is too 
much to expect at once. Years of 
pain cannot be forgotten in a mo- 
ment. When you came to-day, you 
asked if Bessie Ware lived here. She 
does not. The Bessie Ware you 
'married is dead. I scarcely know 
yet who or what I am. I only know 
that I shall try to do my duty by 
you, and repair some of the faults 
.and mistakes of the past. But, John, 
I must warn you that it is harder to 
Teconcile an estranged wife than to 
win a bride." 

One piercing glance, angry and 
disappointed, shot from his eyes; 
then he went to the outer door. He 
stood a moment on the threshold, 
'then stepped on to the greensward. 
Another pause, and he walked 
slowly back through the garden, 
seeming not to know whither he 
went. 

Aunt Nancy, anxiously awaiting 
signs of reconciliation, saw him wan- 
der about aimlessly, then go and lean 
on a fence next the woods, his back 
to the house. 

She went into the front room at 
once. She was on John's side now. 

" Bessie," she said decidedly, 
4t you mustn't stand too much on 
your dignity with John. Men are 
stupid creatures, and do a good many 
hard things without meaning or 
knowing ; and, if they come round, it 
isn't wise to keep them waiting too 
long for a kind woid." 

Bessie Maynard laid down the work 
-she was pretending to do, and her 



hands trembled. " I am not acting 
a part, Aunt Nancy," she said, " and 
I cannot be a hypocrite. I feel cold 
toward John. And I feel displeased 
when he comes and kisses me, as if 
he were conferring a favor, and ex- 
pects me to be happy for that. I 
could not give up if I would, I ought 
not if I could. There is something 
more required than a little sweet 
talk." 

A half hour passed, and still John 
Maynard stood motionless, with his 
elbows leaning on the fence, and his 
head bowed. If Bessie had seen his 
face, it would have reminded her of 
the time when he first studied me- 
chanics, and became so absorbed in 
the one subject as to be dead to all 
else. But there was the difference 
that he studied then with a vivid in- 
terest, and now with gloomy intent- 
ness. 

An hour passed, and still he stood 
there; and the sun was down, and 
the moon beginning to show its 
pearly light through the fading rich- 
ness of the gloaming. The birds had 
ceased singing, and there was no 
voice of wild creatures in the woods. 
It was the hour for prayer and 
peace-making. 

John Maynard started from his ab- 
straction, hearing his name spoken 
by some one. " John !" said Bessie. 
She had been watching him for some 
time from the door, and had ap- 
proached slowly, step by step, un- 
heard by him. 

He turned toward her a pale, un- 
smiling face. " How late it is !" he 
said. " I must make haste." 

She spoke hesitatingly, something 
doubtful and wistful in her face. " I 
have been thinking that I might have 
received you better, when you came 
on this long journey. Won't you 
come in now and rest ? I didn't 
mean to turn you out of the house 
that vou made for me," 



The House that Jack Built. 



515 



He turned his eyes away. " And 
I've been thinking, Bessie, that I'd 
better go right back again ; I can 
go down to the post-office to-night, 
and take the stage to-morrow morn- 
ing." 

" You will not go !" she said. 

" I should only spoil your visit," he 
went on. " I don't want you to 
begin to ' do your duty ' by me just 
now. I know, Bessie, that you had 
a good deal to complain of; but I 
swear to you that I did not mean to 
be hard. You know I had twen- 
ty-five years to make up ; and I 
was always looking for better times. 
I was so blind that I was fool 
enough to think you would be glad 
to see me here, and that we could 
begin over again where we began 
first." 

She did not answer a word. There 
is something confounding in the sud- 
den humiliation of a man who has 
always been almost contemptuously 
dominant. 

He looked at his watch. " I must 
make haste, or they will be in bed," 
he said. " Make some sort of an ex- 
cuse to Aunt Nancy for me. And 
when you want to come back, let me 
know, and I will meet you at the 
depot or come after you." 

He started, and she walked beside 
him down the path to the road. He 
seemed hardly able to hold his head 
up. 

She walked nearer, and slipped her 
hand in his arm, speaking softly : " I 
said a little while ago that the pain of 
years cannot be forgotten in a mo- 
ment. But I was wrong. I think it 
may." 

He looked at her quickly, but said 
nothing, and they reached the bars. 
Neither made any motion to let down 
the pole. They leaned on it a min- 
ute in silence. 

" The fact is, Bessie," the husband 
burst forth, "I've been like a man 



possessed by an evil spirit. I'm 
sorry, and that is all I can say." 

" No matter, Jack ! Let it all go !" 
his wife exclaimed, clasping her hands 
on his arm, and holding it close to 
him. " You weren't to blame !" (Oh! 
wonderful feminine consistency !) 
" Let's forget everything unpleasant, 
and remember only the good. How 
you have had to work and study, 
poor, dear Jack! You must rest 
now, and never get into the old 
drudging way again." 

Aunt Nancy raked up the fire, and 
put down the window, looking out 
now and then at the couple who lean- 
ed on the bar below. Each time she 
looked, their forms were less distinct 
in the twilight. " That's just the way 
they used to do fifteen years ago," she 
muttered contentedly. 

She sat a few minutes waiting, but 
they did not come in. Aunt Nancy 
sighed and laughed too. " It beats 
all how women do change their 
minds," she said. " I did think that 
Bessie would hold out longer. Well, 
I may as well go to bed." 

By-and-by she heard them come 
into the kitchen. 

" Now, I shut the doors and win- 
dows, and you rake up the fire," 
Bessie said. " Do you remember it 
was always so, Jack ?" 

" Of course I do, little one," was 
the answer. " But Aunt Nancy has 
got the start of us to-night." 

" Aunt Nancy !" repeated Bessie, 
in a lower voice. " I declare, Jack, 
I forgot all about her." 

"'I'll warrant you did !" says Aunt 
Nancy to herself, rather grimly, per- 
haps. 

" We will be sure to keep all our 
good resolutions, won't we ?" Bessie 
said. 

" All right !" says John. 

The door shut softly behind them, 
and there were silence, and peace, and 
hope in the house that Jack built. 



516 A Retrospect. 



A RETROSPECT. 



CONCLUDED. 



NOTHING of interest presented it- for evoking the powers of darkness 
self during the reign of Philip the to destroy the king's reason, and 
Bold, except the council held there thereby his authority. The demon 
in 1278. In 1383, the unfortunate which had taken possession of 
Charles VI., wearied with state trou- Charles' brain does not seem to 
bles that he was so ill fitted to cope have invaded his heart or changed 
with, fled in despair from the Louvre the natural goodness of his disposi- 
to Compiegne. But he was not to tion. He was removed from Corn- 
find peace here more than in the piegne in one of his fits of madness, 
busy turmoil of the city. Soon after and when some years later he re-en- 
his arrival he was attacked with in- tered it, it was by force of arms ; 
sanity ; at first it was considered of the Bourguignons held the place, 
no moment, the natural consequence Charles laid siege to it ; after a des- 
of a violent reaction or a weak and perate resistance it surrendered, and 
nervous temperament ; great pains he entered in triumph ; nothing how- 
were taken to conceal the fact from ever could induce him to punish the 
the public, but after a time the symp- rebels, he said there was blood 
toms became alarming, and it was enough upon the ground, and he 
impossible to keep the secret. After would take no vengeance on his sub- 
the festivities which followed his ill- jects except by forgiving them, 
starred marriage with Isabeau de Compiegne was soon to be the thea- 
Baviere, the disease broke through all tre of a more momentous struggle 
bounds ; everything seemed to con- than these rough skirmishes between 
spire to exasperate it : the assassina- Charles and his people. Shortly after 
tion of Clisson by the Baron de Cra- the mock peace signed there by Bed- 
on, the apparition of the phantom in ford, it was attacked by the Due de 
the forest that seized the king's bri- Bourgogne and the English with 
die and uttered the mysterious mes- Montgomery at their head. Jeanne 
sage as it disappeared, the bal masque d'Arc on hearing of it evinced great 
when the Duke of Orleans inadvert- sorrow and alarm, but she flew at 
ently set fire to the king's Indian cos- once to the rescue, and appeared 
tume a skin smeared with a tarry suddenly in the midst of the king's 
substance and stuck all over with troops, with the oriflamme of S. Denis 
feathers all these shocks, coming at in one hand, and her " good sword 
short intervals, irritated the disorder- of liege " in the other. The sight of 
ed imagination to fury, and the at- her whom they looked upon as the 
tacks became frequent and un govern- angel of victory raised the drooping 
able. The king's illness was imputed spirits of the soldiers and filled them 
by popular superstition to the male- with new ardor ; they raised a cry 
fices of Valentina of Milan, Duchess of victory the moment they beheld 
of Orleans, who, if she lacked the Jeanne. Enguerrand de Monstrelet, 
power, no doubt had strong motives who was an eye-witness of the siege, 



A Retrospect. 517 

describes her attitude and the con- while shaving him, and finished the 
duct of the troops throughout as operation herself by smothering him 
" passing all heroism ever before seen under a pillow. For many years de 
in battle." But, alas ! the star of the Flavy's effigy was burnt regularly at 
maid of Orleans was destined to set Compiegne on the 24th of May. 
in darkness at the hour of its great- Louis XI. was liberated from the 
est splendor ; her own prediction, so English, and came to Compiegne 
often repeated to Charles and those time enough to embitter the last days 
around him, " Un homme me ven- of his father, Charles VIII., who let 
dra " (A man will betray me), was himself die of hunger there from ter- 
about to be fulfilled. On the 24th ror of being poisoned by his son. 
of May, 1429, there was a formid- Comines says that his dutiful son and 
able engagement between the two most amiable of men was so irritated 
armies. Jeanne, at the head of hers, by his courtiers for mocking " his 
performed prodigies of valor; after boorish manners, his uncouth dress, 
a brilliant sortie in which the enemy and his taste for low folk," that to 
were repulsed, she was re-entering the spite them he published an edict for- 
town by the Boulevard du Pont, and bidding them to hunt or touch the 
had almost reached the barrier game in the forest of. Compiegne, a 
through which hundreds of her own prohibition against all precedent, nor 
victorious soldiers had already pass- did he ever invite them to join him 
ed, when, lo ! the gates swing for- there in the chase. But the pretty 
ward on their hinges, and are closed palace open to the four winds of 
against her ! The maiden's cry of de- heaven soon grew distasteful to him, 
spair as she raised her sword and and he forsook it for the more con- 
stretched both arms towards the genial retreat of Plessis-les-Tours, 
gates was echoed by a yell of fiend- where, surrounded by spies and 
ish joy from the enemy ; in an in- quacks and a moat filled with vipers 
stant she was surrounded, disarmed, and venomous snakes, he ended in 
and taken captive by Montgomery, terror and suffering a life which pre- 
Guillaume de Flavy, governor of sents a strange mixture of shrewd- 
Compiegne, was accused of having ness and credulity, bonhomie and 
committed this act of treachery, ferocity, impiety and the grossest 
bribed by Jean de Luxembourg. If superstition. 

the accusation be true, and it has Francis I. took kindly to Compiegne, 
never been seriously challenged, the which had been deserted by his two 
traitor's punishment was as fitting as predecessors. His first act on corn- 
it was merited; he was immediately ing there, as king, was to do public 
destituted of his office and revenues homage to the Holy Shroud. Louis, 
by the Connetable cle Richemont, Cardinal de Bourbon, grand-uncle to 
and driven to hide his base head in the king, and abbot of S. Corneille, 
private life, where the Nemesis who exposed it to the veneration of the 
was to avenge Jeanne d'Arc awaited king and the people amidst great 
him in the shape of his wife; she was ceremony and prayer of thanksgiv- 
jealous of her husband, who, it would ing. " He took the 'holy relic, and 
seem, fully justified the fact ; after laid it on the grand altar with senti- 
leading him a miserable life and fail- ments of great devotion and tender- 
ing to convert him by slow torture ness, which he expressed by abun- 
from his evil ways, she bribed the dant tears." Francis added to the 
barber to cut his throat one morning shrine "twenty-two rose-buds of pure 



5 l8 A Retrospect. 

gold, enriched with precious stones a monastery. " What reflections," 
and pearls, and attached to twenty naively exclaims D. Carlier, " does 
fieurs-de-lys of gold," says Cambry, in not this incident suggest on the dan- 
his Description de I'Oise. There is ger of bad example, and the per- 
also a letter of Francis' giving a naive nicious effects of evil society !" It 
account of the ceremony, quoted at would be interesting to hear how the 
length in the Histoire du Saint Suaire novice behaved himself in his new 
de Compiegne. Francis passes from position, whether he developed any 
the scene, and we see " the noble latent dispositions for the mystic life, 
burgesses of Compiegne," as he was and quite left behind him the habits 
fond himself of calling them, making of his early education which had cor- 
great stir to receive his successor, rupted his good manners ; but of this 
Henri II., on his return from Rheims. D. Carlier says nothing. 
Two years more, and there is the Henri III., who lived at St. Cloud 
same merry hubbub, and the town is making omelets, expressed a wish to 
in gala dress to welcome Catherine be buried near the Holy Shroud at 
de Medicis on her marriage. This Compiegne, in the church of S. Cor- 
abnormal type of a woman fell ill not neille ; and as soon as Henri IV. 
long after her arrival, and vowed that became master of his " good town of 
if she recovered she would send a Paris " he faithfully carried out this 
pilgrim to Jerusalem to give thanks wish. Owing, however, to the di- 
for her ; he was to start from Com- lapidated state of the finances, he 
piegne, and perform the journey all could not do so with the proper 
the way on foot, making for every ceremonial. " It was pitiful," says 
three steps forward one step back- Cheverny, in his Memoirs, " to see the 
ward. Cambry says the vicarious greatest king of the earth in a chapelle 
pilgrimage was " faithfully executed ardente with only one lamp, one 
according to the queen's vow." chaplain belonging to the late king, 
Charles IX. was only a flying visit- named La Cesnaye, and a few shabby 
or at Compiegne. An odd story is ecus to keep up a shabby service." 
told by D. Carlier and others as oc- Instead of being removed to S. Denis 
curring there during his time. A after a temporary rest near the Holy 
man was discovered in the forest Shroud, the body remained on in the 
who had been brought up by the vaults of S. Corneille, on account of a 
wolves, and taken so completely to prophecy which said that Henri IV. 
their way of life that he had nearly would be buried eight days after 
turned into a wolf himself. " He Henri III. ; a prediction which was 
was hairy like a wolf, howled, out- actually accomplished, " though not," 
ran the hounds at the hunt, walked says. Bajin, " in a manner apprehend- 
on all fours, strangled dogs, tore and ed by the king. When Henri IV. 
devoured them." For a time he fell by the hand of Ravaillac, the 
made sport for the people, who hunt- Due d'Epernon advised Marie de 
ed him like other game, but having Medicis to have the obsequies of the 
shown a propensity to deal with men late king performed before those of 
as he did with dogs, they laid a her husband. Henri IV. was there- 
trap for him, chained him, and took fore kept waiting till his predecessor's 
him before the king. Charles, more grave was filled. The first ceremony 
humane than the noble burgesses, was performed quietly, almost in 
refused to have him killed, but order- secret ; and then the " good Bear- 
ed him to be shorn and confined in nias " was taken to S. Denis, all 



A Retrospect. 

France weeping and refusing to be have in all her chateaux a chapel 
comforted. " large enough to hold as many peo- 
Louis XIII. was attracted to pie as she pleased." The marriage 
Compiegne solely by the pleasures of was celebrated by proxy at Notre 
the chase. We see him watching Dame, Buckingham representing the 
the meet from a window giving on Prince of Wales, and from thence the 
the Cour d'honneur, and whispering court escorted the bridal party on 
to the Marechal de Praslin, " You their way as far as Compiegne. 
see that man down there ? He wants Louis XIII. , though he made but 
to be one of my council, but I can- short sojourns at the palace, kept up 
not make up my mind to name him." close and friendly intercourse with 
" That man " was Richelieu. The the inhabitants, writing to them him- 
words were repeated to Marie de self when any import event took 
Medicis, as all her son's words seem place. He announced to them, for 
to have been, and she, counting on instance, the siege of Rochelle, the 
the prelate's influence in supporting war with the Spaniards, the peace 
her against the king and her other with England, and many other 
enemies, vowed that he should be events in which the honor and safety 
named, and so he was. A few days of the state were interested, 
later we see Louis, equipped in his Louis XIV. was only eight years 
hunting costume, stride into the room old when he paid his first visit to 
of the queen-mother, and proclaim in Compiegne, accompanied by his lit- 
a bolstering manner, meant to vindi- tie brother the Due d'Anjou and the 
cate the independence of his choice, Queen Regent ; they were obliged 
that he " had named the Bishop of to seek hospitality from the monks 
LUC.OII member of his council as of S. Corneille, because the Carmel- 
secretary of state." Marie de Medi- ite nuns were at the palace, which 
cis looks coolly surprised, and bows had been lent to them while their 
her approval. By-and-by we have monastery was being repaired, and 
the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Hoi- Anne of Austria would neither in- 
land presenting themselves at Com- trude upon them nor suffer them to 
piegne to solicit the hand of Henriette be disturbed. What a checkered 
of France for the Prince of Wales, space intervenes between this first 
They are received with every mark of appearance of the grand monarque at 
cordial good-will on the part of Louis Compiegne and his last, when we see 
and entertained with great splendor; him passing the troops in review for 
but Richelieu looked askance on their the amusement of Madame de Main- 
mission ; it was his way to begin al- tenon ! He stands uncovered beside 
ways by mistrusting an offer, whether her chaise a porteurs and stoops 
it came from friend or foe; in this down to explain the various evolu- 
case his piety was alarmed for Henri- tions, while she raises three fingers 
ette's faith, and he suspected Eng- of the glass to catch the explanation 
land of some sinister design in seek- without letting in the cold ; the 
ing alliance with France. Louis, Duchesse de Bourgogne and the 
however, overruled his fears and scru- Princesse de Conti, and all the train, 
pies, and the minister contented him- of princes and princesses, are grouped 
self with taking extraordinary precau- round the poles of the Widow Scar- 
tions to ensure to the princess by ron's chair, listening respectfully while 
contract the free exercise of her reli- the king speaks; but he addresses 
gion, stipulating that she should none of them. 



520 A Retrospect. 

Louis XV. made his entry into prince le bienaimd and henceforth he 
Compiegne preceded by a troop of was called by no other name; he 
falconers with birds on their wrists, entered Paris like a conqueror bring- 
and accompanied by cannon and ing home the spoils of half of the 
music of fife and drum, and every world ; at every step his progress was 
demonstration of popular joy. He impeded by the people falling at his 
was just eighteen then ; his life was horses' feet and struggling to clasp 
like the beginning of a stream, bright the hand of their beloved; mothers 
and clear to its depths ; soon it was held up their babes to kiss him, and 
to grow troubled, darkening and strong men clung to his hands and 
darkening as it reached its middle covered them with kisses and tears, 
course, till at last the waters ceased Louis, overcome by this great tide of 
to flow and there was nothing but a love that was sweeping round him 
loathsome swamp. Compiegne was from his people's heart, was heard 
associated with the brightest and hap- to repeat constantly while the tears 
piest incidents of his life. In 1744, streamed down his cheeks, "O 
after he had commanded the army mon Dieu, qu'il est doux d'etre aime 
with the Marechal de Saxe, taken ainsi !" (O my God ! how sweet 
Ypres, Furnes, and Menin, and per- it is to be thus loved !) It was a 
formed that series of brilliant feats manifestation the like of which his- 
of arms that raised him to the rank tory has never chronicled. Another 
of a demi-god in the eyes of the peo- not less ardent, though on a smaller 
pie, Louis was marching to Alsace scale, awaited the king at Compiegne. 
when he was suddenly stricken down The town, deeming itself entitled to 
with a malignant fever and obliged make a special family rejoicing, in- 
to lay up at Metz. The news of his vitedhim to a Te Deum to be sung in 
illness was received as a personal ca- the time-honored abbey of S. Cor- 
lamity all over France. Never before neille. The king went and joined 
nor since was such a spectacle given with deep emotion in the solemn 
to the world of a nation wrestling hymn of thanksgiving. 'A monster 
with its agony beside the death-bed bonfire was lighted on a hill above 
of a king. The churches were filled the town, a rainbow of colored lamps, 
day and night, the people weeping stretching over an enormous space, 
as if every man were trembling for symbolized the fair promise of delight 
a wife, every woman for a son ; un- which had risen upon France, foun- 
able to control their grief they wept tains of red and white wine flowed 
aloud, " filling the streets with copiously on the great Place, and a 
lamentations " ; public prayers were ball was given at night to which 
everywhere offered up ; processions every inhabitant of the town was in- 
were formed in every town and vil- vited, and came ; gentle and simple, 
lage, and a universal concert of sup- rich and poor, old and young, all 
plication was going up to the divine welded by a common joy without 
mercy for the life of the king. When distinction of class into one kindred, 
it was known that their prayers were The victor of Fontenoy responded 
heard, and that he was restored to nobly to this magnificent testimony 
them from the jaws of death, the of his people's trust. Alas ! that he 
reaction was like a national frenzy, should have outlived this glorious 
'The nation," says Bajin, "thrilled morrow, and turned from his brave 
with joy from one end to another." career into a slough of selfishness 
They christened their new-found and vice to become a byword t( 



4 Retrospect. 



521 



the tongues that blessed him, and 
accursed of the nation that had lav- 
ished such a wealth of love upon 
him ! The title of Bienaime, which 
had been spontaneously bestowed on 
him by the people, and been regular- 
ly prefixed to his name in the alma- 
nac and elsewhere, became a butt 
for squibmongers, and was applied 
to the king only in mockery and 
scorn. The following is a specimen : 

11 Le Bien-aime" de 1'Almanach, 
N'est plus le Bien-aim de France, 
II fait tout ob Loc et ab Lac. 
Le Bien-aime* de I'Almanach : 
II met tout dans le metne sac, 
La justice et la finance, 
Lc bien-aime" de 1'Almanach 
N'est plus le bien-aime de France," etc.* 

When Marie Antoinette came to 
France as the bride of the Dauphin, 
it was at Compiegne that their first 
meeting took place. Louis Quinze 
greeted her with the most paternal 
affection ; but his great, his sole pre- 
occupation was, not how the Dau- 
phin would like his fair young bride, 
or how she would take to the timid 
and rather awkward youth who 
blushed to the roots of his hair when 
the king, after raising her from her 
knees and embracing her, desired 
him to do the same, but how this 
pure young creature, who was en- 
trusted to his fatherly care, would re- 
ceive the Marquise du Barry. He 
presented her after all the other 
ladies of the court, and with a trepi- 
dation of manner that he was not 
able to conceal ; but the incident 
had been foreseen and discussed at 
Vienna as well as at Compiegne. 
Marie Antoinette, sustained by her 
proud but polite mother, proved 
equal to the occasion ; " she showed 
neither hauteur nor empressement" 
but met the difficulty in a manner 
which put the king at ease, and im- 

* The bien-aime" of the Almanac is no more the 

bien-aim of France, 
He does everything ab hoc and ab hac, puts all 

in the same sack, 

Justice and finance, this bien-aime of the Al- 
manac, etc., etc. 



pressed the court with a high sense 
of her tact and discretion. Nor was 
this first impression belied by her 
subsequent conduct ; the Dauphine 
proved, on many trying occasions, 
that her good sense and judgment 
were a match for the nobility of her 
spirit and the goodness of her heart ; 
the busyboclies who worked so dili- 
gently to embroil her in a quarrel with 
Madame du Barry were foiled by her 
straightforward simplicity and the 
dignified reserve which she maintain- 
ed alike towards them and towards 
the favorite. An instance of this oc- 
curred a few weeks after her mar- 
riage. The son of one of her wo- 
men of the bedchamber, a Madame 
Thibault, killed an officer of the 
king's guard in a duel ; Madame 
Thibault threw herself at Marie 
Antoinette's feet, and besought her 
to implore the king for her son's par- 
don ; the Dauphine promised, and 
after a whole hour's supplication she 
obtained it. Full of gratitude and 
delight the young princess told every- 
body how good the king had been, 
and how graciously he had granted 
her request ; but one of the ladies of 
the court, thinking to spoil her plea- 
sure and excite her jealousy, informed 
her that Madame Thibault had also 
gone on her knees to Madame du 
Barry to intercede for her, and that 
the marquise had done so. Marie 
Antoinette, without betraying the 
slightest vexation, replied very sweet- 
ly : ' ; That confirms the opinion I 
always had of Madame Thibault, 
she is a noble woman, and a brave 
mother who would stop at nothing 
to save her child's life ; in her place 
I would have knelt to Zamore* if he 
could have helped me." 

* Zamore was a negro who repaid by the 
basest treachery the favors lavished on him by 
Madame du Barry ; he was the immediate cause 
of her execution, having betrayed her hiding- 
place to the convention. She is the only woman 
of that period who died like a coward, struggling 
to the last. 



522 



A Retrospect. 



Charles V.'s old chateau, which 
had been patched, and mended, and 
added to till there was hardly a stone 
of the original building left, was 
thrown down by Louis Quinze, and 
rebuilt as we now see it. It was just 
finished in time to receive Louis 
Seize on his accession to the throne. 
The new king came here often to 
hunt, but he seldom stayed at Com- 
piegne, though it was dear to him as 
the place where he first beheld Marie 
Antoinette. When the Revolution 
broke oirt, Compiegne suffered like 
other towns; some of its churches 
were destroyed, others pillaged; the 
Carmelites, whose convent had been 
the prayerful retreat of so many 
queens of France, were imprisoned in 
the Conciergerie, after appearing be- 
fore Fouquier Tinville on a charge of 
having had arms concealed in their 
cellars. To this preposterous accusa- 
tion, MereTerese de S. Augustin, their 
superioress, drawing a crucifix from 
her breast, answered camly : " Be- 
hold our only arms ! They have 
never inspired fear but to the wick- 
ed." But what did innocence avail 
against such judges ? The Carmel- 
ites were condemned to death, and 
executed at the Barriere du Trone. 
They ascended the scaffold singing 
the Vent Creator, and had just reach- 
ed the last verse as the last victim 
laid her head on the guillotine. While 
awaiting in prison the day of their 
deliverance, those valiant daughters 
of S. Teresa amused themselves 
composing a parody on the Mar- 
seillaise, of which the following is a 
couplet : 

u Livrons nos coeurs k 1'altegresse ! 
Le jour de gloire est arriv^ ; 
Le glaive sanglant est leve*, 
Preparons nous i la victoire ; 
Sous les drapeaux d'un Dieu mourant 
Que chacun marche en conqudrant; 
Courans et volons a la gloire ! 
Ranimons notre ardeur, 
Nos occurs sont au Seigneur: 



"Vlontons, Montons, 
A I'dchafaud, et Dieu sera vainqueur 1" * 

Napoleon I. furnished Compiegne 
for his young Austrian bride, Marie 
Louise ; she was on her way thither 
when he met the carriage in the 
forest, and, jumping in, scared her 
considerably by the abrupt introduc- 
tion. 

At Compiegne took place Alexand- 
er of Russia's famous interview with 
Louis XVIII. ; the king entered the 
dining-room first, and unceremonious- 
ly seated himself; his courtiers, scared 
at the royal discourtesy, began to 
murmur amongst themselves, which, 
the czar noticing, he observed with a 
smile : " What will you ? The grand- 
son of Catherine has not quarterings 
enough to ride in the king's coach !" 

Charles X. received at Compiegne 
Francis and Isabella of Naples, and 
gave for their entertainment a hunting 
fete, at which 1 1 wild boars, 9 young 
boars, 7 stags, 56 hind, 10 fawns, n 
bucks, 114 deer, and 20 hares fell 
victims to the will of the royal sports- 
men. Charles, who was on the eve 
of losing a more serious and brilliant 
royalty (1830), was, by common con- 
sent, proclaimed king of the hunt. 

The last circumstance of note con- 
nected with Compiegne is the camps 
held there by Louis Philippe in 1847, 
and commanded by the Due de Ne- 
mours. 

Under the Empire the chateau was 
inhabited for a short time by the court 
every autumn, and was the centre of 
brilliant fetes and hospitalities. 

* " Let our hearts be light and gay, 
Glory's hour is here to-day ; 
The blood-red blade is raised on high, 
We conquer when we die 

Rally to victory. 
'Neath the flag of a dying God ! 
We tread the path he trod ; 
We run, we fly 
To glory nigh. 
Behold our ardor rise, 
Our hearts are in the skies, 

Arise, arise ! 
The scaffold mount and God's the victory." 



The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 5 2 3 



THE CROSS THROUGH LOVE, AND LOVE THROUGH 

THE CROSS. 



CONCLUDED. 



THE next morning he went to the 
Juden-Strasse before the hour of the 
synagogue service, and walked up 
unannounced into old Zimmermann's 
room. As he had hoped, so it prov- 
ed she was there, reading the Psalms 
to the old man. He wondered if 
she remembered him, if she had 
noticed him when he had stood upon 
the landing last Sabbath morning. 
Zimmermann greeted him with a nod 
that had not much recognition in it, 
but said : 

" Maheleth, give the stranger a 
chair. Mcin Ilerr, this is my good 
little nurse." 

Holcombe bowed, and the girl 
looked at him in silence for a few 
seconds. 

" I remember," she then said, " you 
picked up my music for me in a storm, 
nearly a month ago." 

" I thought you would not have 
known me again," Holcombe stam- 
mered. 

" Oh ! yes, I am not forgetful. 
You have been very good to my 
patient, and I am very grateful, for 
he has eaten more this week than he 
has for a whole month." 

" I think I heard your father was 
ill, fraulein ?" 

" Oh ! he has been so for many 
months. Is your English friend 
gone ?" 

" Yes ; he has gone home to be 
married. I wish, fraulein, if you 
could suggest anything, I could be 
of some use, besides bringing fruit 
and flowers to this house. Do you 
know, since I have been in Frankfort, 
I have never found anything to do ?" 



" Do you mean," she asked very 
gravely, "you wish to be of use to 
us ?" 

" I mean, if I could come and sit 
with Herr L 6 wen berg, and read or 
write for him, while you are away ; 
for they tell me you are out all day, 
and it must be lonlely for him." 

" That is very kind of you," she 
answered, looking at him in calm 
wonder; " it is true he has no society, 
for the little girls hardly count." 

" Has he any books ?" asked Hol- 
combe. " Because / have plenty, 
and they might amuse him ; and I 
have English newspapers, too, com- 
ing in regularly. Does he speak 
English ?" 

" He understands and reads it ; but 
you are a stranger, and why should 
we place our burdens on your shoul- 
ders ?" 

" Oh ! you must not mind my way ; 
this sort of thing is a mania with me, 
you know." 

" It is a mania seldom found," 
croaked out the old man. 

" I think," put in Maheleth, " it is 
time for me to leave you. How can 
I thank you, Mr. Holcombe ? Per- 
haps, when you leave my friend here, 
you will stop at the next landing, and 
go in and see my father ?" 

" I will, and you must not think I 
am in a hurry." 

The ice thus broken, many visits 
followed, and at night, when Mahe- 
leth was at home, Henry read to the 
family in the little plain room that 
was so beautiful in his sight. More 
than once had he again seen the girl 
in the cathedral, always standing, 



524 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross 

and separated from the worshippers, know whether it might be agreeable 

always with that same sad, anxious to her or not, and she never started 

look. One night, he noticed a cer- the subject." 

tain constraint in the father's and " You know she goes to your 

daughter's manner, and Lowenberg church ?" 

was less cordial to him than usual. " Yes, I have seen her there several 

After that, Maheleth seemed yet times ; she never saw me, however, 

more troubled, and grew paler and and I never hinted to her that I had 

thinner. He asked old Zimmermann seen her." 

if he knew of any fresh trouble in the " You speak very fairly about it ; 

family, but he could learn nothing but I know how unscrupulous you 

from him. Rachel, who always Christians can be in this matter. 

answered the bell, detained him one You would think it a grand thing to 

evening, and said : convert her." 

" I would not go in to-night, if I " Undoubtedly, if I could do it by 

were you. Don't be offended, niein sheer conviction. But you should 

Jferr" know me too well to believe I would 

" Why, Rachel, what is the mat- do it by any undue or secret in- 
ter?" fluence." 

" Fraulein Lowenberg went to the You do not know how dear she 

Catholic Church last night, and her is to me ; you do not know how her 

father found it out, and he said it was defection from our ancient faith 

your fault." would break my heart; how I should 

" Well, I will go in all the same ; I have to renounce her for my other 

had nothing to do with it, and my children's sake !" 

friend must not be angry with his " And how you would stain your 

daughter." soul with the blackest ingratitude, 

Lowenberg was alone, and the Herr Lowenberg, if you did !" inter- 
room had a tossed look about it, very rupted Henry excitedly, 
different from the cosy aspect it " So you think that, do you ? You 
usually wore. The invalid lay on a don't know who she is, and how 
couch, with a discontented expression such a thing would be so unpardon- 
on his dark, thin face. able in her that no consideration 

" Are you worse to-night ?" gently could influence me. I never told you 

asked Holcombe. before, but she is of another blood 

"Ay, worse indeed, and you must than you are she is the descendant 

add to my troubles after I had treat- of martyred rabbis, and her race is 

ed you as a son !" as pure as that of the old Machabees. 

" // My friend, do you think that We are not Germans. We are Span- 

of me ? Don't you know me better ?" iards, and, though ruined, our family 

"Ah!" said the invalid irritably, pride is as great as it ever was as 

" don't try to deceive me. You great, too, as our love for our faith." 

know I have nothing left to care for " How long ago was it you were 

but my daughter, and you have been ruined ?" 

trying to convert her. I know why, " Only a year and two months, 

too, but you shall not see her any and I fell ill six months ago ; my wife 

more." died almost as soon as we came here, 

" You wrong me, Herr Lowenberg. and my Maheleth has earned our 

I have never spoken to your daughter daily bread, and taught her sisters, 

about religion, because I did not and managed the housekeeping, all 




The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 525 



alone. It is enough td make one 
curse God !" 

" Hush, hush !" said Holcombe. 
" You do not mean that you know 
you have too many blessings to thank 
him for." 

" And the best and only one you 
are seeking to take from me." 

" I swear to you that much as I 
should wish and pray for it for that 
I will not conceal from you yet I 
have never influenced your child in 
any way." 

" You have, because you love her." 

Henry was staggered at the sud- 
denness of his words. 

" You cannot deny it," continued 
the invalid. 

" No," answered the young man ; 
" I have no desire to deny it, but 
your daughter never heard it from my 
lips, and never would." 

" Never would !" echoed Lowen- 
berg, firing up. " And do you, too, 
despise her for her race she that is 
as far above you as you are above 
your lowest peasant !" 

" God forbid !" said Henry solemn- 
ly ; " for I think of her as of one of 
whom I am not worthy. But my 
faith forbids our union, and, love her 
though I shall to my dying day, my 
love should never cross my lips to 
stir and wound her heart." 

" You shall see her no more ; you 
have seen her too much already ; if 
you love her, as you say, desist at 
least now." 

" Do you mean that she knows 
perhaps returns my love ?" 

" I have said enough, and shall not 
gratify your vanity. But promise me 
you will not see her again, and I will 
even believe that you did not try to 
proselytize her." 

" No ; I cannot promise that. Cir- 
cumstances might arise under which 

O 

it would be death to keep that pro- 
mise, and yet I should have no hope 
of inducing you to give it me back." 



" You mean she might become a 
Christian ?" 

" Even so, as I pray she may." 

" And you will marry her then, and 
she feels it, and yet you pretend you 
use no influence !" 

" I would marry her if she would 
not think me unworthy." 

" I need say no more. You have 
been my friend, and I thank you for 
your kindness; but henceforth our 
paths are separate. If I lose my 
child, I shall know you robbed me of 
her. I only ask you now to consid- 
er what I told you of our family and 
fortunes as a sacred confidence." 

" My friend," said Henry sadly, as 
he rose, " I will obey you, and you may 
consider your secret as sacred as if 
it were my own. But remember this 
is your own act, and, if ever you wish 
to call on my friendship again, my 
services will be as willingly yours as 
though this breach had never been. 
God bless you and your daughter 
Maheleth !" 

He left the room as in a dream ; 
Rachel scanned his face curiously 
as she let him out at the crazy door. 

" So," he thought, " thus ends my 
connection with that house ; and yet 
God knows how true my intentions 
were. I dare not seek her, still I 
know she may need me. God grant 
it be true that Maheleth is a Chris- 
tian at heart !" 

Unconsciously he bent his steps to- 
wards the cathedral ; a few people 
were collected about the confessionals. 
The stained windows were dark and 
blurred in the uncertain light; only 
a lamp here and there hung from the 
pillars. 

. Perhaps his prayers were more fer- 
vent in intention than full in form, 
and mechanically he watched the 
shrouded confessionals. Suddenly 
from behind the green curtain of one 
of them issued the figure of the Jew- 
ish girl, a calm look lighting up her 



526 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross 



features, and her deportment alto- 
gether unlike that which he had so 
often and so painfully noticed. 

Her eye fell upon him instantly, 
and, far from shunning him, gave him 
a long glance of recognition and 
sympathy. She knelt for some time, 
then rose and walked down the 
nave. He followed her, and at the 
entrance door she paused as if to 
wait for him. 

" I have seen your father, fraulein," 
Holcombe said, " and he told me a 
great many things." 

" I hardly think he quite knows 
how far things have gone," she an- 
swered gently. " I could give up any- 
thing for him except my soul, and 
for some months I have known that 
only by becoming a Christian could 
I save it." 

" I have often seen you in church." 

" Have you, indeed ?" 

"Your father accuses me of con- 
verting you." 

She blushed, and was silent for a 
few minutes. 

" You have helped me by your 
prayers, I am sure," she said at last. 

" Tell me," he asked, " are you a 
Catholic yet ?" 

" No ; I only went into the confes- 
sional to speak to the priest; in a 
few days I shall be baptized." 

" I have a favor to ask you will 
you let me be present ?" 

" Certainly, it will make me very 
happy, believe me." 

" Do you know that, when your 
father hears of it, he will turn you 
out of your home ?" 

"He said so did he tell you 
so?" 

" He did, but he could not have 
meant it." 

" Oh ! yes," she said sadly, " he 
would do it; he would think it a 
duty, a matter of principle." 

" It would be very ungrateful." 

" Ungrateful ! Was I not bound to 



work for him who gave me life ? He 
worked hard for us, and in the time 
of trouble we owed it to him." 

" But if he throws you off, what 
will become of him ?" 

" That is the saddest part ; but I 
know God will take care of him." 

" Remember, Maheleth, that either 
for yourself or for him (for your 
sake) you must never hesitate to call 
upon me. Promise me that." 

It was the first time he had called 
her Maheleth. She blushed and 
looked down, saying : 

" You have been very generous 
and very kind to my father ; but sure- 
ly now you have parted friendship 
with him ?" 

" No, I have not, as I told even 
him ; but, were it npt so, for your sake 
it should be." 

" I have God to look after me, 
Herr Holcombe." 

" But I want to be his instrument." 

" His Raphael, as you have been 
to us through this desert of want 
and poverty." 

" And will you not be my Sarah ?" 
he asked suddenly, but in a soft, low 
voice. 

Her whole frame shook ; then she 
looked up in his face, silent. 

" I have loved you since I knew 
you," he went on to say; " I mean 
since I saw you first; but I never 
meant to tell my secret, for you know 
I could not wed a Jewess. But 
now, thank God ! the bar is gone, and 
I can be happy without sin." 

She did not answer yet. 

" Have I deceived myself, then ?" 
asked the young man sadly. " And 
do you not love me, as I hoped ? ' 

" I do," she answered, quickly 
looking up. " God knows I do, but 
I cannot marry you." 

" Why, why, Maheleth ? You tor- 
ture me." 

" Because it would break my fa- 
ther's heart, and because it would 



The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 527 



give him reason to say I had chang- 
ed my faith for you." 

" But how could he ?" 

" I could not leave him in misery, 
and my little sisters alone, and go and 
live in peace and earthly comfort 
which they could not share." 

" They are most welcome to share 
it, Maheleth." 

"You are too good, too noble," 
she said; "but it cannot be." 

" And you love me, you say ?" 

" Must we not love God better, 
dear, dear friend ? Henry, do not 
be angry with me. You will be my 
dear brother in the faith always." 

Holcombe was too overcome to 
speak. She stopped and entreated 
him to leave her. 

" I am paining you beyond neces- 
sity," she said ; " you will be happier 
and calmer if you do not see me till 
the day of my baptism. All things 
are God's will, and, bitter as the trial 
may be, he gives us strength to bear 
it, if we look to him. Farewell, 
Henry." 

He wrung her hand in silence, and 
saw the drooping figure pass quickly 
out of sight. He felt how much 
harder her trial was, and how selfish 
his own words had been, yet he did 
not try to see her again until the day 
of her baptism. 

The ceremony was to take place 
at the cathedral, at four in the morn- 
ing. The sun had just risen, and the 
quiet streets were golden with his 
light. Holcombe was watching at 
the door. She came very- soon, 
wrapped in a long black cloak, look- 
ing radiant and calm, as if nothing 
more could be of any consequence 
to her, nor stir her heart confusedly. 
She held out her hand to her friend 
with a " God bless you !" that left 
him dumb. Her cloak was laid on 
a carved bench, and her white robe 
gleamed under the rainbow from the 
great stained-glass window above 



her. More beautiful than ever she 
seemed, and more angel-like. The 
priest poured the saving waters upon 
her head, and performed all the holy 
mystic ceremonies of the sacrament, 
and she, as if in a heavenly trance, 
followed him throughout with her 
eyes and her lips. Mass was said 
directly after, and she and Henry 
knelt together at the altar-rails to 
receive the Bread of Angels. A long 
time passed after Mass, and when at 
length Maheleth, now Mary, rose 
from her knees, it was only to go to 
the distant Lady-chapel, and there 
offer up a golden brooch of Spanish 
workmanship, one of the few trea- 
sures saved from the wreck of her 
father's fortune. 

As she left the church, Henry fol- 
lowed her. 

"Are you going home?" he asked 
timidly. 

She turned her dark eyes upon 
him very softly, but with no sadness 
in them. 

" I have no home now," she said 
slowly. " Last night I bade my father 
farewell ; I am going to the con- 
vent." 

A look of terror came into Henry's 
face. 

" To stay there always ?" he 
asked. 

" As God wills I do not know," 
she replied. 

" But are you not sorry about your 
father and sisters ?" 

" It was a hard trial," she an- 
swered, with radiant calmness in her 
eyes, " but God has taken the sorrow 
out of it now." 

" And shall I not see you again, 
now your faith is mine ? I saw you 
often when there was a gulf between 
us!" 

" It is better you should forget me. 
But that shall be as God wills; I 
leave it to him, and will make no ar- 
rangements." 



528 The Cross through Love, and Love through tJie Cross. 



" Thank you for that, anyhow ; re- 
member all I told you, dear Ma- 
heleth ; so far, at least, you can make 
me happy." 

" I will remember it always, and 
bless you for it, but I do not promise 
to act up to it." 

" Never mind, you cannot help 
God protecting you, no matter 
through what instrument." 

And with these words he left her. 

For some weeks they did not 
meet, but Henry was busy at corre- 
spondence with his English agents 
and bankers. In the meanwhile, 
regular remittances arrived at Herr 
Lowenberg's house, which he at first 
refused to accept, not knowing 
whether they came from his daugh- 
ter whom he had thrown off, or his 
friend whom he had insulted, and 
not wishing to be beholden to either 
for his daily pittance. But starva- 
tion was the alternative, and, had not 
Rachel kindly shared her meals with 
his children, and sent him little inex- 
pensive dishes now and then, hunger 
would have made him yield long 
ago. As it was, he missed his daily 
sustenance sorely, and at last, under 
protest, and promising himself prompt 
repayment of these loans as soon as 
he should be well again, be began to 
use the money sent to him. Many a 
time Holcombe can to the door to 
inquire after him from the good-na- 
tured Rachel ; and every day, in the 
dusk of the evening, came his daugh- 
ter, almost always bearing a basket 
that held some little delicacy. 

One night it happened that Henry 
and Maheleth met at the door. She 
was the first to speak. 

" You see I am not yet immured in 
my convent !" she said gayly. " I 
Lave to thank you so much for com- 
ing here to look after my dear fa- 
ther. I shall be leaving Frankfort 
soon, and then there will be no one to 
be so good to him as you." 



" But / shall not leave. Do you 
really mean you are going ?" 

" Yes ; the good nuns have got me 
a governess' situation somewhere in 
Bohemia with Catholics. I shall go 
next week." 

" May I come and bid you good- 
by?" 

" Oh, yes ! come on a visiting day, 
Thursday. Have you seen my sis- 
ters ? How are they looking?" 

" I saw them a week ago ; they 
looked tired, I thought." 

" Oh ! they don't know how to 
nurse him, and he tires them, I am 
afraid. But God will see to them 
and him too." 

"Will you be able to come back 
here for a vacation ?" 

" Perhaps in a year not before." 

" Your father may be well again 
by that time." 

" God grant it ! But I must not 
stay any longer now." 

And having made some inquiries 
of Rachel, she left the house. 

Henry Holcombe longed for 
Thursday. He wanted to ask leave 
to write to Maheleth, to give her 
news of her father, he would say. 
When the time arrived, the parlor at 
the convent was full, and he hardly 
relished making his adieus in a 
crowd. He was relieved to find a 
nun come and beckon him away, and 
show him into a quiet little room, 
with a polished floor, a. Munich Ma- 
donna, and a few plain chairs round 
a dark table. 

In a few minutes, a pleasant-look- 
ing old religious came in, followed 
by Maheleth. 

The girl reached her hand to Hen- 
ry, saying : 

"Sister Mary Ambrose knows you 
by name very well." 

The talk was general for a short 
time, then the old nun got up and 
walked to the window. 

" I wanted to ask you if I might 



TJie Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 529 

write to you, Maheleth," said the the interior rim : " Crux per amore ; 

young man, much relieved by the Amor per cruce." 

prospect of a comparative tete-a-tete. " The cross through love ; Love 

" If you wish to do so, by all through the cross," he explained, 

means." She replied by kissing the ring and 

" And you don't wish it ?" he said, handing it to him, as she said : 

in disappointment. " Put it on my finger, Henry, and 

" I meant it might be painful to only you or God himself shall ever 

you after all. What I wish is of no draw it off." 

moment." " You do not mean " 

" Maheleth, how can you say so, " Hush ! how can you question 

when you know I shall always feel him ? But I fear he will not call me 

for you the same love I do now ?" in that way. Who knows, perhaps 

" Well, my friend, let that pass, we shall meet next year ? I leave my 

Write to me, then ; you know your father to God and you." 

letters will be welcome." The old nun came back from the 

" I will always let you know about window, 

your father." " My child, I am afraid I cannot 

" You will not always stay in stay any longer," she said. 

Frankfort ?" The girl rose, and took Henry's 

" Not quite, but I shall be here hand in both her own. 

* again this time next year." " God bless and reward you, my 

She smiled and said : dear, dear friend. You know all I 

" I might not be here myself." would say and yet cannot." 

" Then I shall see you wherever He kissed her hand, and, with a in- 

you are, and I shall ask you the effable look of holy calm, the Jewish 

same question you have answered convert left the room, still glancing 

once." back at him. 

" Ah ! Henry, do not trust to acci- Two months passed, and Lowen- 

dents ! It may never be ; forget me, berg grew better. One morning, a 

as I already told you." large letter was brought to him, with 

" We'll not argue about it ; we the Madrid post-mark. He opened 

will wait and see. Look, I have it hastily, and scanned its contents, 

brought you something," he added, The letter fell from his hands as he 

taking a tiny velvet case from his read, and a dizziness came over him ; 

breast-pocket. " It is not an engage- he lay back on his couch, deadly 

ment-ring, do not be afraid," he said, pale. 

as she seemed troubled ; " it is only " Is it anything bad about Mahe- 

a souvenir, and I want you to prom- leth ?" timidly asked little Thamar. 

ise me to wear it for one year, till I " No," he said, momentarily 

see you again. After that, you shall roused to anger. He took up the 

do as you like about keeping it. You letter again and muttered, " A million 

know what a rosary-ring is?" he dollars!" The children thought he 

asked, as he showed her the broad was worse, and looked on with scared 

yellow band notched by tiny bubbles faces. 

of gold. " And here is the cross laid The letter was from a banker at 

upon it, and the cross is of pearls, Madrid, saying that he was author- 

the emblem of innocence. You read ized by a person deeply in Senor 

what is inside now." Cristalar's debt, but who wished to 

She took it and read the device on remain nameless, to apprise him of a 
VOL. xvi. 34 



5 3O The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 

certain sum, a million dollars, lying in tune he was being congratulated upon, 
ready money at his command in He did not change his lodgings, but 
Hauptmann's bank at Frankfort, he hired a servant, and sent his 
The person had long been wishing to daughters to the best Jewish school 
make this restitution, but had not till in the town. As soon as he got well, 
now been able to ascertain his,hiding- which was by rapid degrees, after he 
place. The invalid was in a fever; had received the letter that once 
he could not help thinking of the more made him a millionaire, he left 
young Christian he had spurned, yet his children in charge of Rachel, and 
he tried to persuade himself it was proceeded to London, where he ad- 
not he, but the man to whose knav- vertised daily for information of 
ery he had owed his total ruin. Henry Holcombe. The weekly sup- 
Several days passed, and at last plies in small sums had never discon- 
he wrote to Holcombe at the hotel tinued, but he felt assured that, not- 
he had been staying at. In ambigu- withstanding all these blinds, he 
ous terms, he spoke of a generous ser- could not be mistaken as to the 
vice undeserved by him, and of his name of his benefactor, 
desire to see him, if only once. But Meanwhile. Maheleth in her Bo- 
the Englishman was gone and had hemian home heard from Rachel of 
left no address. He then wrote to her father's fortune, his restoration to 
his Madrid correspondent, urging health, and his journey to England, 
him to try and discover the person She, too, wrote to Henry, and asked 
from whom the money had been him to tell her if it were he that had 
sent; but the banker wrote word that thus returned good for evil. He 
the whole transaction had been kept simply said in reply that he was free 
very secret, and that, before it had to do as he liked with his money, 
become known to him, it had passed and that he thought Senor Cristalar 
through so many hands that it was knew better how to use it than he 
impossible to find out the first person did. 

concerned. There was a hint of Summer came again, and with it 

some American bank connected with Henry Holcombe ; the old Juden- 

it, and the money had been origi- Stmsse was once more before him, 

nally paid down in American gold; and then he learnt that Herr Lowen- 

but beyond this there was no clue, berg had gone three months ago to 

Cristalar thought the Spanish banker Madrid. He had been travelling in 

had been probably bribed to keep si- Italy and Greece, and had never 

lence, and a few more weeks sped by gone home to his old English coun- 

without his taking any active mea- try-house, which now was let to 

sures about his newly-found wealth, good and steady tenants. He went 

He received and acknowledged a to the convent; she was not there, 

letter of advice from Hauptmann's but they expected her. So there 

bank, telling him of the sum at his was nothing for it but to go and chat 

disposal, and Hauptmann himself ' with Rachel and old Zimmermann 

came to call upon him and offer him about old times and old friends, 

his congratulations. The Spaniard, A week later he called again at the 

who still called himself by his Ger- convent, and the portress told him 

man name, received the visit of his to wait. In the same little parlor, 

former employer as a mere conven- unchanged and clean, he waited for 

tional act of courtesy, and seemed ia a quarter of an hour, hoping and 

no wise elated by the sudden good-for* dreading to see Maheleth. She 



The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross* 531 



came in this time alone. He took 
her hand in his, and looked a hungry 
look into her eyes. She said to him, 
smiling : 

" Do you see I have kept my 
promise ? I have the dear ring on 
my finger, and every day I have said 
the rosary with it for you. And now, 
you know, I must thank you." 

" I cannot bear it ; don't, for my 
sake, Maheleth ! Have you heard 
from your father ?" 

" No ; he never will write, I knew 
that ; but I have heard #/~him ; he is 
in Spain. He will begin again as a 
banker, I feel sure, and never rest 
till he has repaid you." 

" I don't want to be repaid, except 
with interest, and you know it is not 
from him I can ask that. Do you 
remember that I was to ask you the 
'same question I asked once al- 
ready ?" x 

" Yes, Henry, but think what you 
are doing." 

" I shall ask it first, and then 
think." 

' ; Well, Henry, if I should say that, 
I will answer it as you wish, provi- 
ded you can gain my father's con- 
sent ? " 

The young man looked blank. 

" I believe that is what God would 
wish me to do, Henry. My father 
has no further need of me, and he or 
I owe you a debt of gratitude we can 
never pay ; yet I should like his dis- 
tinct permission, if I could have it, 
and you can obtain it more easily 
than I can." 

" I shall not rest till it be done," 
said Holcombe excitedly. " Shall I 
write to him ? Maheleth, you have 
had 'Crux per amore'; now God 
will give us ' Amor per cruce.' 

He wrote that very day to Ma- 
drid, asking the hand of his daughter 
from the wealthy Jewish banker, and 
pleading as hard as though he were 
some poor outcast, with never a roof 



to his head, begging for the favor of 
a royal maiden's love. Cristalar was 
overjoyed at knowing at last where 
to find the man he owed health and 
fortune to, and, instead of a letter, he 
sent a telegram to say he would be 
in Frankfort in a week. 

Henry took the telegram to the 
convent ; Maheleth turned very pale 
as she read it. 

" It is all right, surely, darling, is 
it not ?" asked Holcombe. 

" I have never seen him since the 
eve of my baptism." 

" And," interrupted the young man,, 
" please God, you will see him againi 
the eve of our marriage." 

She hid her face in her hands;. 
" God grant it !" she murmured, un- 
der her breath. 

Ephraim Cristalar. for he called; 
himself by his own name now, went? 
to the hotel where Holcombe used 
to live, and inquired for the young- 
Englishman. He had not long to. 
wait. 

" Mr. Holcombe !" he exclaimed,, 
as he caught him in his arms, " I can- 
not speak to you you are master of. 
all I am and have ; can you but for- 
give me, say ?" 

" My friend and father !" replied 
Holcombe, " you must not give way s 
like this ! I only asked you a simple 
question, a great favor, it is true, but 
that is all we have to speak of." 

" Oh ! I know better than that, . 
Henry. What have you to ask of 
me, when all I have is yours ?" 

" There is one thing I want, you. 
know what ; and my only other re- 
quest is that you will see your daugh- 
ter." 

Cristalar drew back. "She is 
yours, Henry Holcombe," he said 
solemnly, "as far as she is mine to 
give ; but she is an alien to my faith, 
and to my home." 

" No, no, it must'not, shall not be. 
Remember how she fed you, worked 



53 2 The Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross. 



for you, brought up your little ones, 
and sent you the little she earned, 
even though you had cast her off." 

" It is cruel, Holcombe, to remind 
me of that," said Cristalar reproach- 
fully " Perhaps as your wife I may 
see her as the wife of my benefac- 
tor, not as my daughter." 

" I want to take her from your 
hands. And think how she has wea- 
ried for you all this time !" 

" I know and do you think I 
have not missed her ? I have only 
half lived since she left me ; and I 
love her beyond description even yet, 
but that is an unhallowed love." 

" Say, rather, an unnatural delu- 
sion ; I mean your refusal to see her. 
You will, for my sake, for your son- 
in-law's sake ?" 

" Leave me now, Henry, I must 
think." 

Need we tell the end ? How his 
better nature triumphed ; how pros- 
perity had softened his heart, and 
gratitude had bent his pride ; how at 
last his father's love could stand no 
longer the knowledge of his child's 
great sorrow; and how Henry's 
prophecy that Maheleth should see 
her father on the eve of her marriage 
was anticipated by many weeks ? 



Her sisters and Senor Cristalar ac- 
companied her to the cathedral, and. 
after the ceremony, the banker put 
into the hands of the officiating 
priest a check for $10,000 for the 
Catholic poor of Frankfort. 

Holcombe House was made ready 
soon after for the bride's reception, 
and Senor Cristalar established a 
branch bank in London, of which 
his son-in-law was partner and re- 
sponsible head. In a very few years, 
the Holcombe income was the same 
it had been before the appalling drain 
the agents had spoken of, when the 
young possessor had drawn the 
^100,000 of ready money left him 
by his father, and added to it an 
equal sum raised on the estate. 

The old Spaniard could never be 
induced to abandon the faith that 
was as much a part of his family 
pride as of the tradition of his race; 
but Thamar and Agar, Maheleth's 
two sisters, were baptized two years 
after the marriage, under the names 
of Elizabeth and Magdalen, and, 
when they in their turn married into 
noble English houses, their father cer- 
tainly showed no sign of disapproval 
of their change of religion, in the 
princely- fortunes he allotted to each. 



Europe's Angels. 533 



EUROPE'S ANGELS, 

IT was night, and the old year was wrought in gold with stars and signs 

passing away. The angels had sung of lore and art, such as only one land 

their anniversary strains of gladness, in Europe can boast of being able to 

and had announced anew the coming interpret, taking a pen in his hand, 

of the Prince of Peace, only a week spoke to the assembled multitude, 

ago, yet there was a solemn silence . " Brethren," he said, in a deep, 

now in their serried ranks, as they musical voice whose tones indicated 

pressed around a group of their re- both gravity and conscious strength, 

preservatives. " before I write my brief record of 

I can hardly tell you where this the year we have now added to our 

was, or whether it was " in the body experience, let me speak to you, 

or out of the body " that I fancied I as fellow-watchers over our God's 

saw the glorious vision ; I only know earthly treasures. My trust has been 

that it seemed as if infinite space were a bitter and a heavy one, yet withal 

around them, and an amphitheatre a glorious vindication of faith and 

of angelic faces, like living stones, truth. We have risen among nations 

were making a barrier between them like a comet that for a moment 

and space, as the rainbow does be- eclipses the steadier and more lasting 

tween clouds. glory of the older planets, but in our 

There were many of those whom course there were obstacles which. 
I have called representatives, and have now become almost the monu- 
each bore some strange emblem, ment of martyrs. Unmindful of the 
which I understood to be the badge lion-hearted men to whom Wilfrid, 
cf the nation over which he was set. and Boniface, and Lioba preached, 
Around each stood a host similarly and of whom the strongest bulwark 
distinguished, the guardian angels of of intellectual faith was built by their 
each individual soul composing the later and more national saints, our 
nation. There was an awful stillness new rulers have sought to renew the 
on this the last night of the year, as persecutions of the XVIth century, 
the conclave of angels sat brooding and the absolutism of a State Church, 
over the events of the immediate But our God, the * dear God ' * of 
past. A few, more prominent among our people, knew how to raise up 
their brethren, presently stood for- defenders for himself in the fearless 
ward, while a figure of marvellous pastors of his flock ; knew how to in- 
beauty, but calm austerity of aspect, spire them with a bravery that scorn- 
presented a book to them, which it ed imprisonment and laughed at 
supported as a deacon against its death, that made them raise their 
head. The book was closely written voices against presumptuous and in- 
on one side, while the opposite page trusive authority on the one hand, 
was blank. and barefaced heresy on the other. 

An angel, crowned with an iron We have triumphed in persecution; 

crown, and robed in a wonderful we have re-echoed the non possumus 
garment of deep azure,* curiously 

* Der Hebe Gott^ the received formula in Ger- 
many, as the " good God," le ban Dieu, in Fench, 

* Blue is the color of knowledge. and Almighty God in English. 



534 Europe s Angels. 

of our earthly father and Pontiff; we then. The worship of the false gods 

have shown to our God the will of has come back, and we are surround- 

martyrs after having displayed before ed with a corruption as terrible as 

our sovereign the deeds of patriots, that of imperial Rome or effeminate 

He thought to weld a mighty nation Byzantium. Our name is no longer 

into one empire ; he has riven it in supreme, our escutcheon no longer 

twain in his unblest attempt, and has unstained, our sword is broken in the 

called up against his puny military hands of others, our missions are un- 

power the anger of that God who, on protected, and our influence nolong- 

the shores of the Red Sea, did punish er paramount among barbarians and 

Pharaoh and his host. ' Who is plunderers, and still our corruption 

like to thee, among the strong, O flourishes as unblushingly and un- 

Lord ? Who is like to thee, glorious dauntedly as ever, and our rivals, 

in holiness, terrible and worthy of nay, our very captors, come to learn 

praise, doing wonders ?' it at our feet. This is now our 

Those that wore robes like that of shameful supremacy ; but, in the 

the mighty angel who had spoken took midst of these Capuan revels, is there 

up his last triumphant words, and still a hope for the nation ? Yes, 

chanted them forth in two alternate my brethren, the same hope that our 

choirs, and the voice that came from glorious iron-crowned compeer has 

this host of choristers seemed like the told us was his hope the church, the 

voice of the sea thundering amid faith, the truth. If our rulers, like ! 

caves and rocks. It surged up and those of our whilom foes, forget the 

died away in long reverberating Christian heroes whom we call our 

echoes, a hymn of strength and de- forefathers, the men" who at the field 

fiance, a prophecy of a magnificent of Tolbiac vowed our nation to the 

and almost endless future. God of armies, and in a thousand 

Then the angel who had spoken fields in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt 

wrote a few words in the book, and, redeemed that holy vow, we do not 

turning, presented the pen to one and cannot forget it. Sons and 

who stood close beside him, tall, daughters of the Crusaders, heirs and 

stately, and calm, in white raiment, heiresses of the Kings of Jerusalem 

with the historical fleur-de-lis broider- and the Knights of Rhodes and Malta, 

ed thickly over his robe. On his many of our nation are now in the 

brows shone the same emblem, holier army, the holier knighthood of 

wrought in gold and pearls, while in religion ; their habit is their coat of 

his left hand he held a flame-colored mail, their swift prayers and their 

standard, the oriflamme of the Cru- swifter sacrifices are their battle-axes, 

sades. their spears, their maces; in every 

" My brethren," he began, " this land they are fighting the battle of 

year has been a silent one compared their own, in every breach defending 

with its last two predecessors: but none the honor of their fallen country, 

the less a year of sacrifice, of heroic All eyes are still upon their acts ; their 

expiation, of patient humility of spirit, land, like a magnet, compels the 

We have lived amid perils as deep as glance of Europe and the world. The 

religious persecutions; amid the perils saviours who are working hiddenly 

of a civilization that is unchristian, at the regeneration of ' the eldest 

and of refinements worse than hea- daughter of the church ' are of no 

party, own no secret master, work for 

* Exod. xv. ii. no wages, and seek no reward ; they 



Europe s Angels. 535 

are soldiers of the cross, children of continuation of the traditions of the 

God, who, in the hospitals, the past a pledge of the regeneration 

prisons, the galleys, the schools, the and safety of the future. I, too. 

Chinese stations, the Canadian mis- looked to the early past for the gold- 

sions, the cloistered monasteries, en age I would fain see revived 

under the names of Sisters of Char- among us, but, unlike you, it is neither 

ity, Order of Preachers, Missions persecution nor bloodshed that I 

Etrangeres, Christian Brothers, Bene- have to record. Our nation is not 

dictines of Solesmes, Jesuits, and eclipsed in power or in influence; 

Sulpiciens, work for God, in God, and although our rulers are hardly 

with God. ' Seek ye therefore first worthy of their chivalric forerunners, 

the kingdom of God, and his justice, yet there are yet among them some 

and all these things shall be added who are heirs to their fathers' greatness 

unto you.' " * of soul, though not to the integrity of 

The choir of white-robed angels their faith. Still, our race has kept 
that clustered round the one who more unblemished than others that 
had ceased speaking took up the reverence for authority without 
grave refrain, and chanted it as their which no faith is sure, no empire sta- 
brethren had done before, and the ble. Our life flows more calmly on in 
song swelled majestically as it seem- our island-home than does the trou- 
ed to reach the uttermost bounds of bled stream of our brethren's days 
the living barrier of angel faces round beyond the sea. Still, amid benefits 
the central groups. Ere yet it had without number, amid the march of 
subsided, the last of the heavenly science and the progress of art, 
speakers wrote his record in the book, things that in exchange for the an- 
and gave the pen into the hand of a cient gift of faith our second father- 
third angel who stood in grave ex- land every day gives us in return, 
pectancy by his side. we have one fruitful source of dread 

This one was tall and stalwart- and danger the sordid love of gain 

looking, a warrior-angel, one would which makes our people restless dur- 

involuntarily be sure to think, yet his ing life, and leaves them hopeless in 

long trailing robe of crimson was death. To strive against this demon 

woven not with dragons or golden of the air for we seem to breathe 

leopards, but with miniature cathe- his spirit in the very atmosphere is 

drals, abbeys, and priories. The the constant endeavor of my being, 

heaviness of this golden embroidery To knit art to God as it was joined 

seemed to drag the garment into yet to him in the olden days, to put 

more statuesque folds, as the mighty honor, before wealth, and conscience 

wearer drew himself slowly up and before success, to raise principle tri- 

took the pen, letting go, as he did so, umphant over interest, is my daily, 

his hold upon a silver shield bearing necessary, but most wearisome task, 

a blood-red cross. His fair waving Many voices erstwhile charmed our 

locks were uncrowned, and he bent nation that of the warrior, the bard, 

his head towards the two who had the monk ; the voice of glory, the 

spoken before. voice of learning, the voice of holy 

' My brethren," he began, and his love. Now one cry alone harshly 

voice sounded clear and clarionlike, calls our children together the cry 

"you have each of you sought in the of gain. Our country has forgotten 

its ancient fanes of learning, its island 

* Matt. vi. 33. monasteries, its townlike abbeys, its 



536 Europe s Angels. 

glorious cathedrals, colleges, libraries, seemed none other than monastic 
and halls, it has forgotten its tourna- champions turned into bright heaven- 
ments of science, its chants, its litur- ly spirits, so akin is everything in that 
gies, even its earthly pageants, and isle to the claustral ideal from which 
has run after the abject golden calf sprang its life civil, collegiate, eccle- 
of these latter days. Not the poor siastical, feudal, and social, 
alone, but the noble and great have As the chanted dirge grew less and 
with less excuse come down into the less distinct, another angel advanced 
new arena, and lowered themselves to to take the pen his predecessor had 
the level of money-seekers, till the just laid in the folds of the book, 
chivalry of our race has become a after having written, his year's record 
forgotten dream, a talisman that has within. This one had stood so far in 
lost its charm, a thing as out of date the background as to have escaped 
as a crowded abbey with its holy my awed notice until now. He 
pomps of daily service would be wore a long, loosely-falling robe of 
among the darkened, busy streets of black, and bowed his head as if in 
a modern gold-coining city. And grief; his hands were clasped, and a 
yet in many a nook, in many an ob- golden and a silver key were held 
scure street of a little town, in many between his fingers ; in his step there 
a shady, peaceful country home, are was no elasticity, and in his eye no 
rising the fair progeny of our statelier gladness. All those who followed him 
fanes of old, and beneath groined seemed equally sorrowful, but soon I 
roofs and before carved altars rise heard why it was, and no longer 
prayers as beautiful and as divers as marvelled at it. 
the trefoils and roses on capital and " Brethren," he said, in mournful 
pillar. In prayer, whether petrified tones, " brethren of all climes, who 
into fair churches standing for ever, once envied me my proud position 
or moulded into golden altar-plate of warden over the land which holds 
rich with chasing and with gems, or the father of all Christians, envy me 
flying straight to God's feet in ar- no longer the sad honors I must yet 
dent, winged words of love, we place bear. When I look at my nation, I 
our last hope, the hope of the only can see nothing through my tears, 
true conversion our land can ever Once I saw treasures of art and 
know ; for ' there is a success in beauty ; I can take pride in them no 
evil things to a man without disci- longer. I saw fair landscapes, the 
pline, and there is a finding that envy of the world, the garden of Eu- 
turneth to loss.' " * rope, the beautiful God's-acre of a 
Here a countless host of angels, past of heroic deeds, buried in ho- 
as gravely radiant, yet with the same norable oblivion as the seedlings of 
solemn shade of sadness in their as- a more glorious crop of Christian 
pect, as the last speaker, took up his heroism I can take pleasure in these 
parting words, and chanted them no more. I saw a people mild, 
slowly. I thought they caught un- inoffensive, believing, loving; now 
consciously the ring of the holy I see them corrupted, deluded, led 
words chanted so often through the away, and turned into furies, 
ages of faith, in that land of cathe- saw churches gorgeous with the 
drals and cloisters. Indeed, the many gifts of fervent piety and grate- 
angel choir and their stately leader ful wealth ; I see ruins now, sacrilegi- 
ously used for godless purposes, in 
* Ecci. xx. 9 . derision and contempt of their lofty 



Europe's Angels. 537 

dedication. I saw one city, the spoken stood apart in a conspicuous 

jewel of the universe, the city of group, conferring among themselves ; 

sanctuary and refuge, where faith but I looked with awe and interest 

reigned, and grief was comforted, at those who had hitherto been si- 

and weakness was made strength ; a lent. 

' city of the soul,' where God held The old year's span was very short 
court mid thousands of earthly an- now. On earth the snow was fall- 
gels, and where he found again the ing, preparing a fitting shroud for 
mingled worship of the mysterious the departing guest, and a fitting 
Hebrew temple and of the holy, si- cradle for the coming stranger ; 
lent house of Nazareth. But now, there were revellers in many houses, 
brethren, rude men have scattered heedless sleepers in more, and watch - 
our treasures, profaned our churches, ers in only a few ; there were monas- 
seized our cloisters, driven away tic choirs riling into silent churches 
learning and charity to put levvdnoss for the coming office of matins; and 
and brutality in their place, and have there were also miserable outcasts, 
renewed, with far more blasphemous some voluntary slaves of the world, 
intention, the horrors of the barbaric others unwilling watchers, poverty- 
invasions. I see the father of the stricken, hunger-smitten, desperately 
faithful with the crown of martyr- tempted creatures who might mur- 
dom surmounting his tiara, waiting, mur at and even curse their fate, yet 
like the Ecce Homo eighteen hun- would not begin the year by break- 
dred years ago, the final verdict ing God's commandments; there 
of an infuriate mob, while other na- were many sinners doing penance, 
tions, Pilate-like, wash their hands of many happy death-beds, many freed 
the sacred, helpless charge it were souls rushing on the wings of long- 
their first duty to defend. My breth- repressed desire towards the goal that 
ren, weep with me, weep for me, and weary years of purgatory had hardly 
yet rejoice; 'for the Lord will not hidden from their longing gaze; and 
cast off for ever.' * ' And in that day well might the angelic host thrill with 
the deaf shall hear the words of the holy delight as all these sights and 
book, and out of darkness and ob- sounds struck upon their conscious- 
scurity the eyes of the blind shall ness. The good surely outweighed 
see.' " f the bad ! 

Many were the eager voices that Just then an angel stepped from 

took up the words of hope and sang among the hitherto silent throng an 

them with a fervor which only guar- angel with a face full of suffering, 

dian spirits can know. As the strain sweetness, and patience, yet withal a 

swelled and spread, then fell into a look of something deeper and stronger 

gentle murmur, as if the singers were than mere patience; and his black 

loth to leave off the prayer of faith and robe was sown with silver stars, while 

hope, the angel had written his short a star glittered also on his forehead, 

record for the passing year, and look- In quick accents, full of strength, he 

ed around to welcome his next sue- addressed his companions, holding 

cessor. There was a pause, and among the pen in his hand, 

the angelic conclave a swaying to and " Brethren !" he said, " the march 

fro denoted that some suppressed of events, as the world calls it, has 

feeling was at work. Those who had passed over and by our nation, but 

in God's eyes we are not so soon 

*Lam. m. 3 i. tis.xxix.i8. forgotten. The civilizer of Eastern 



533 



Europe s Angels. 



Europe, the bulwark of Christianity 
against the Moslem faith, we have 
nevertheless suffered by the hands 
of Christian princess and been anni- 
hilated in the name of civilization. 
A martyr-nation, a victim to false 
diplomacy, we stand in Europe with 
the chains still about our feet, while 
empires change hands and dynasties 
come and go ; exiled and dispersed 
like the Hebrews of old, we are 
known, like them, by our indomit- 
able faith and ever hopeful patriot- 
ism. Within this year, a gigantic 
empire has manacled us more cruel- 
ty* g a gg e d us more closely, than be- 
fore, but we are steadfast yet, for 
" blessed are they that suffer persecu- 
tion for justice' sake, for theirs is the 
kingdom ot heaven. ' " * 

The words were caught up and 
re-echoed by the angel throng 
around their star-crowned leader, 
while he wrote the brief record of 
another year's bitter wrongs still so 
heroically and silently borne. He 
passed the pen to another clothed in 
purple, who looked at him with an- 
gelic sympathy before he spoke. His 
voice was still and low, but clear as 
a silver bell. 

" My brethren," he said, " my task 
is hard and dreary ; a mist of pre- 
judice hangs over those vast steppes 
which form my dominions ; a false civ- 
ilization educates our nobles to a pitch 
of unnatural and seeming polish in 
which all truth is killed, and all na- 
tural kindness crushed ; like the ap- 
ples of the Dead Sea, our country is 
fair to the eye of the world, but ash- 
es to the taste of God. We have all 
to hope, it is true, but much to fear ; 
and, while the desolate semblance of 
the true faith spreads its outward and 
deceptive gorgeousness before the 
barren and fettered nation, the souls 
of our brethren perish of thirst, as it 



were, within sight of the Fountain of 
Life. Brethren, pray for my unhap- 
py charge, and thou, O God ! enlight- 
en my people ! < How incompre- 
hensible are thy judgments, and how 
unsearchable thy ways !' "* 

The purple-robed choir around 
him took up the angel's last words, 
and slowly chanted them, as if in 
awe and expectation, while their 
leader wrote a few brief words in the 
book. 

Another came forward, gathering 
his golden robe together, the hem of 
which was broidered with figures of 
ships and charts, somewhat faded 
now, but this was redeemed by the 
effulgent brightness of the scroll he 
held on his outstretched hand a 
scroll bearing the divine motto, Ad 
majorem Deigloriam. Looking swiftly 
around, he began thus : 

" My brethren, my provinces are 
narrowed and my nation lessened 
since her ships explored the ocean, 
her fleet sent forth armadas, and her 
leaders conquered new continents, 
but the spirit of the missionary and 
the martyr has not followed that of 
the less successful and less lasting 
investigator. Chivalry still lives in 
the land of the Cid, and fires the 
hearts in whose veins flows the blood 
of the Crusaders of Granada. Saints 
took up the warrior's shield, and won 
their spurs in distant, dangerous ser- 
vices, till the names of Xavier, Loy- 
ola, Gaudia, and Teresa became 
the household words of a whole 
universe. Unbelief has poisoned our 
present position, and for our sins we 
have suffered dire misfortune and 
perennial disturbance. Still, our peo- 
ple are unchanged ; faithfully the 
sons of the Visigoth martyrs keep 
the trust of their fathers, and, secure 
amid their mountain fastnesses, with- 
in the last year have raised the stand- 



* Matt. v. 10. 



* Rom. xi. 33. 



Europe s Angels. 539 

/ 

ard of the cross wreathed with the and civilization, to that of enterprise 
golden lilies of a national and well- and freedom. I look with pride on 
beloved dynasty. We have had tri- the ocean darkened by the barks of 
umphs of the soul and heroic deeds my people, and forget, as I look, to 
of patriotic daring mingled together sigh over the ruined fanes and dis- 
in the annals of our peasant soldiers ; mantled castles of old. Children of 
the spirit of another Vendee has spo- impulse, they carry their home in 
ken to our nation ; and God has their hearts, and make another Erin 
rejoiced to find at last a human round every cross they plant. Sea 
bulwark against human unbelief, kings, but Christians, they take from 
' Judge me, O God, and distinguish the Norsemen their daring, and from 
my cause from the nation that is not their own isle its poetry, and, blend- 
holy ; deliver me from the unjust ing the two, bear the highest gifts of 
and deceitful man.' the Old World to be the heirlooms 
And while the angel wrote his re- .of the New. To my nation may it 
cord in the book, his followers echo- well and fittingly be said, ' They 
ed his last words in tones of mingled went out from thee on foot, and 
triumph and supplication, chanting were led by the enemies : but the 
them, as all the others had done be- Lord will bring them to thee exalted 
fore them, in two alternate choirs, with honor as children of the king- 
And now there was again a pause, dom.' " * 

while the first groups of angels who These prophetic words were 
had spoken drew closer to the book, caught up by the numerous followers 
and gazed at the last records written of the green-robed angel, and rang 
in it. One more representative came now in grand and now in softened 
forward, an angel robed in softest cadence through the boundless field 
green, and bearing a harp in his hand, of space that encircled the heavenly 
Turning to the west, he spoke in a throng. As the tones died away, the 
voice full of deep emotion : " My angel wrote his record in the book, 
brethren, I look towards the sea, and and the bells of earth sounded faint- 
gaze at the land of the setting sun. ly in the still air. 
I see my people spreading over the The old year was passing away, 
earth, so that I have more children and the angels in silence gathered 
in far-away lands than on my own round the book. As the last stroke 
I see them, the pioneer nation of midnight was heard, the bearer of 
of whom Brendan was the first lead- it turned the leaf, presenting a sur- 
er, planting the cross and the sham- face fair and smooth as the petal of a 
rock in unfailing union, wherever lily, and the whole company of blessed 
they go. Long ages of suffering spirits intoned the Veni Creator. 
have not reft them of the gift of I heard as it were in a dream, and 
faith, the treasure of art, or the sa \ v forms of light and beauty dis- 
strength of enterprise; their arm perse like the fleecy clouds of morn- 
hath upreared every throne and stay- i ngj till the singing died away in far- 
ed every altar ; their women make away corners of our old, prosaic, yet 
Nazareth of every home and a blessed earth. The songs of heaven 
tabernacle of every hovel ; their race we re carried into the uttermost re- 
links two worlds, that of the past cesses where earthly misery was 
and that of the future, that of culture keenest and earthly revelry loudest 

* Ps. xlii. i. * Baruch v. 6. 



540 



The Nativity of Christe. 



on that fateful night ; and, as its ech- 
oes passed over them, the misery grew 
strangely bearable, the revelry was 
unaccountably hushed. Everywhere 
the new-born year came in with a 
blessing and a promise, reverently 
gathering its predecessor's lessons 
even while mourning its inevitable 
shortcomings ; and so once more, 



according to the patience of God, 
his ministers went forth to clear for 
every man a new field where, past 
errors being forgotten, he might re- 
new his struggle in the battle of life, 
and retrieve himself in the eyes of 
infinite purity and infinite justice. 

Such was the beautiful death of 
the old year 1872. 



THE NATIVITY OF CHRISTE. 

BEHOULD the Father is His daughter's Sonne, 
The bird that built the nest is hatched therein, 

The Old of Yeares an hower hath not outrunne, 
Eternall life to live doth now begin nn, 

The Word is dumm, the Mirth of heaven doth weepe, 

Mighte feeble is, and Force doth fayntely creepe. 



O dyinge soules ! behould your living Spring ! 

O dazeled eyes ! behould your Sunne of grace ! 
Dull eares, attend what word this Word doth bringe ! 

Upp, heavy hartes, with joye your joy embrace ! 
From death, from darke, from deaphnesse, from despayres, 
This Life, this Light, this Worde, this Joy repaires. 

Gift better than Himself God doth not knowe, 

Gift better than his God no man can see ; 
This gift doth here the giver given bestowe, 

Gift to this gift lett ech receiver bee : 
God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me, 

God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. 

Man altred was by synne from man to best ; 

Beste's food is haye, haye is all mortal fleshe ; 
Now God is fleshe, and lyes in mauHger prest, 

As haye the brutest synner to refreshe : 
O happy fielde wherein this foder grewe, 
Whose taste doth us from beastes to men renewe ! 

SOUTHWELL. 



The Progressionists. 541 



THE PROGRESSIONISTS. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CONTINUED. 

ONCE more the bell of the chair- with antiquated conditions, popular 

man was heard amid the tumult. education, which in connection with 

" Mr. Seicht, officer of the crown, domestic training is the foundation of 

will now address the meeting," Schwe- the future citizen, must also undergo 

fel announced. such changes as will bring it into har- 

The audience were seized with mony with modern enlightened senti- 
amazement, and not without a cause, ment ; and this is the more necessary 
A dignitary of a higher order, a as the provisions of the law, which 
member of the administration, ascend- progress in its enlightenment and 
ed the pulpit for the purpose of mak- clearness of perception cannot refuse 
ing an assault upon Christian edu- to recognize as a fit model for the imi- 
cation. He was about to make war tation of a party dangerous to the 
upon morals and faith, the true sup- state I mean the party of Jesuitism 
ports of every solid government, the and ultramontanism allow untram- 
sources of the moral sentiment and melled scope for the reformation of 
of the prosperity of human society, the school system, provided the pro- 
A remnant of honesty and a lingering per clauses of the law and the ordi- 
sense of justice may have raised a nances relating to this matter are not 
protest in Seicht's mind against his left out of consideration. Accord - 
undertaking ; for his bearing was ingly, it is my duty to refer this hon- 
anything but self-possessed, and he orable meeting especially to the 
had the appearance of a wretch that ministerial decree referring to corn- 
was being goaded on by an evil mon schools, in accordance with 
spirit. Besides, he had the habit pe- which said common schools may be 
culiar to bureaucrats of speaking in established, after a vote of the citi- 
harsh, snarling tones. Seicht was zens entitled to the elective fran- 
conscious of these peculiarities of his chise, as soon as the need of this is 
bureaucratic nature, and labored to felt; which in the present instance 
overcome them. The effort impart- cannot be contested, since public 
ed to his delivery an air of constraint opinion has taken a decided stand 
and a sickening sweetness which were against denominational schools, in 
climaxed by the fearfully involved which youth is trained after unbend- 
style in which his speech was ing forms of religion, and in doctrines 
clothed. that evidently conflict with the tri- 
' Gentlemen," said Seicht, "in view umph of the present, and with those 
of present circumstances, and in con- exact sciences which make up the 
sideration of the requirements of cul- only true gospel the gospel of pro- 
ture whose spirit is incompatible gress, which scarcely in any respect 



542 



TJie Progressionists. 



resembles the narrow gospel of du- 
bious dogmas dubious for the rea- 
son that they lack the spirit of ad- 
vancement, and are prejudicial to the 
investigation of the problems of a 
God, of material nature, and of 
man." 

Here leader Sand thrust his fingers 
in his ears. 

" Thunder and lightning !" ex- 
claimed he wrathfully, " what a shal- 
low babbler ! What is he driving 
at? His periods are a y,ard long; 
and when he has done, a man is no 
wiser than when he began. Gospel 
gospel of progress fool numskull 
down ! down !" 

" Quite a remarkable instance, 
this !" said Gerlach to the banker. 
" Evidently this man is trying might 
and main to please, yet he only suc- 
ceeds in torturing his hearers." 

" I will explain this man to you," 
replied the banker. " Heretofore Mr. 
Seicht has been a most complete ex- 
emplar of absolute bureaucracy. The 
only divinity he knew were the sta- 
tutes, the only heaven the bureau, 
and the only safe way of reaching su- 
preme felicity was, in his opinion, to 
render unquestioning obedience to 
ministerial rescripts. Suddenly Mr. 
Seicht heard the card-house of bu- 
reaucracy start in all its joints. His 
divinity lost its worshippers, and his 
heaven lost all charms for those who 
were seeking salvation. He felt the 
ground moving under him, he real- 
ized the colossal might of progress, 
and hastened to commend himself to 
this party by adopting liberal ideas. 
He is now aiming to secure a seat in 
the house of delegates, which is sub- 
sequently to serve him as a stepping- 
stone to a place in the cabinet. Just 
listen how the man is agonizing ! 
He is wasting his strength, however, 
and the attitude of the audience is 
beginning to get alarming." 

For some time past, the chieftains 



in the chancel had been shaking their 
heads at the efforts of this official ad- 
vocate of progress. To avoid being 
tortured by hearing, they had en- 
gaged in conversation. The auditors 
in the nave of the church were also 
growing restive. The speaker, how- 
ever, continued blind to every hint 
and insinuation. At last a tall fellow 
in the crowd swung his hat and 
cried, "Three cheers for Mr. Seicht!" 
The whole nave joined in a deafen- 
ing cheer. Seicht, imagining the 
cheering to be a tribute to the excel- 
lence of his effort, stopped for a mo- 
ment to permit the uproar to subside, 
intending then to go on with his 
speech; but no sooner had he re- 
sumed than the cheering burst forth 
anew, and was so vigorously sustained 
that the man, at length perceiving 
the meaning of the audience, came 
down amid peals of derisive laughter. 
" Serves the gabbler right !" said 
Sand. " He's a precious kind of a 
fellow ! The booby thinks he can 
hoist himself into the chamber of 
deputies by means of the shoulders 
of progress, and thence to climb up 
higher. But it happens that we 
know whom \ve have to deal with, 
and we are not going to serve as 
stirrups for a turn-coat official." 

The chairman wound up with a 
speech in which he announced that 
the vote on the question of common 
schools would soon come off, and 
then adjourned the meeting. 

The millionaires drew back to 
allow the crowd to disperse. Near 
them stood Mr. Seicht, alone and de- 
jected. The countenances of the 
chieftains had yielded him no evidence 
on which to base a hope that his 
speech had told, and that he might 
expect to occupy a seat in the as- 
sembly. .Moreover, Sand had rude- 
ly insulted the ambitious official to 
his face. This he took exceedingly 
hard. All of a sudden, he spied the 






The Progressionists* 



543 



banker in the chancel, and went over 
to greet him. Greifmann introduced 
Gerlach. 

" I am proud," Mr. Seicht asseve* 
rated, " of the acquaintance of the 
wealthiest proprietor of the country." 

" Pardon the correction, sir ; my 
father is the proprietor." 

" No matter, you are his only 
son," rejoined Seicht. " Your pre- 
sence proves that you take an interest 
in the great questions of the day. 
This is very laudable." 

" My presence, however, by no 
means proves that I concur in the 
object of this meeting. Curiosity has 
led me hither." 

The official directed a look of in- 
quiry at the banker. 

" Sheer curiosity," repeated this 
gentleman coldly. 

" Can you not, then, become re- 
conciled to the spirit of progress ?" 
asked Seicht, with a smile revealing 
astonishment. 

" The value of my convictions con- 
sists in this, that I worship genuine 
progress," replied the millionaire 
gravely. " The progress of this com- 
munity, in particular, looks to me like 
retrogression." 

" } am astonished at what you say," 
returned the official ; " for surely 
Shund's masterly speech has demon- 
strated that we are keeping pace with 
the age." 

" I cannot see, sir, how fiendish 
hatred of religion can be taken for 
progress. This horrible, bloodthirsty 
monster existed even in the days of 

jro and Tiberius, as we all know. 
Can the resurrection of it, now that 
it has been mouldering for centuries, 
be seriously looked upon as a step in 
advance ? Rather a step backward, 
I should think, of eighteen hundred 
years. Especially horrible and revolt- 
ing is this latest instance of tyranny, 
forcing parents who entertain religious 
sentiments to send their children to 



irreligious schools. Not even Nero 
and Tiberius went so far. On this 
point, I agree, there has been pro- 
gress, but it consists in putting a 
most unnatural constraint upon con- . 
science." 

Gerlach's language aroused the 
official. He was face to face with an 
ultramontane. The mere sight of 
such an one caused a nervous twitch- 
ing in his person. He resorted at 
once to bureaucratic weapons in mak- 
ing his onslaught. 

" You are mistaken, my dear sir 
you are very much mistaken. The 
spirit of the modern state demands 
that the schools of the multitude, 
particularly public institutions, should 
be accessible to the children of every 
class of citizens, without distinction 
of religious profession. Consequent- 
ly, the schools must be taken from 
under the authority, direction, and 
influence of the church, and put en- 
tirely under civil and political con- 
trol. Such, too, is now the mind of our 
rulers, besides that public sentiment 
calls for the change." 

" But, Mr. Seicht, in making such 
a change, the state despotically in- 
fringes on the province of religion." 

" Not despotically, Mr. Gerlach, 
but legally ; for the state is the 
fountain-head of all right, and con- 
sequently possessed of unlimited 
right." 

" You enunciate principles, sir, 
which differ vastly from what morality 
and religion teach." 

" What signify morals what sig- 
nifies religion ? Mere antiquated 
forms, sir, with no living signifi- 
cance," explained Seicht, lavishly 
displaying the treasures of the 
storehouse of progressionist wisdom. 
" The past submitted quietly to the 
authority of religion, because there 
existed then a low degree of intel- 
lectual culture. At present there is 
only one authority it is the prepon- 



544 



The Progressionists. 



derance of numbers and of material 
forces. Consequently, the only real 
authority is the majority in power. 
On the other hand, authorities based 
. upon the supposed existence of a su- 
persensible world have lost their cause 
of being, for the reason that exact 
science plainly demonstrates the non- 
existence of an immaterial world. 
Cessante causa, cessat effectus, the 
supersensible world, the basis of re- 
ligious authority, being gone, it logi- 
cally results that religious authority 
itself is gone. Hence the only real 
authority existing in a state is the 
majority, and to this every citizen is 
obliged to submit. You marvel, Mr. 
Gerlach. What I have said is not 
my own personal view, but the ex- 
pression of the principles which alone 
pass current at the present day." 

" I agree in what you say," said the 
banker. " You have spoken from the 
standpoint of the times. The con- 
trolling power is the majority." 

" Shund, then, accurately summed 
up the creed of the present age when 
he said, ' Progress conquers death, 
destroys hell, rejects heaven, and 
finds its god in the sweet enjoyment 
of life.' It is to be hoped that all- 
powerful progress will next decree that 
there are no death and no suffering 
upon earth, that all the hostile forces 
of nature have ceased, that want 
and misery are no more, and that 
earth is a paradise of sweet enjoyment 
for all." 

Mr. Seicht was rather taken aback 
by this satire. 

' Besides, gentlemen," proceeded 
Gerlach, " you will please observe 
that the doctrine of state supremacy 
is a step backward of nearly two 
thousand years. In Nero's day, but 
one source of right, namely, the state, 
was recognized. In the head of the 
state, the emperor, were centred all 
power, all authority, and all right. 
In his person, the state was exalted 



into a divinity. Temples and altars 
were reared to the emperor; sacri- 
fices were offered to him ; he was 
worshipped as a deity. Even human 
sacrifices were not denied him if the 
imperial divinity thought proper to 
demand them. And, now, to what 
condition did these monstrous errors 
bring the world of that period ? It 
became one vast theatre of crime, 
immorality, and despotism. Slavery 
coiled itself about men and things, 
and strangled their liberty. Matri- 
monial life sank into the most loath- 
some corruption. Infanticide was 
permitted to pass unpunished. The 
licentiousness of women was even 
greater than that of men. Life and 
property became mere playthings for 
the whims of the emperor and of his 
courtiers. Did the divine Csesar 
wish to amuse his deeply sunken 
subjects, he had only to order the 
gladiators to butcher one another, or 
some prisoners or slaves or Chris- 
tians to be thrown to figers and 
panthers ; this made a Roman holi- 
day. Such, gentlemen, was human 
society when it recognized no super- 
sensible world, no God above, no 
moral law. If our own progress pro- 
ceeds much further in the path on 
which it is marching, it will soon 
reach a similar fearful stage. We 
already see in our midst the com- 
mencement of social corruption. We 
have the only source of right pro- 
claimed to be the divine state. Con- 
science is being tyrannized over by a 
majority that rejects God and denies 
future rewards and punishments. All 
the rest, even to the divine despot, 
has already followed, or inevitably 
will follow. Therefore, Mr. Seicht, 
the progress you so loudly boast of 
is mere stupid retrogression, blind 
superstition, which falls prostrate 
before the majority of a mob, and 
worships the omnipotence of the 
state." 



The Progressionists. 



545 



" Don't you think my friend has 
been uttering some very bitter 
truths ?" asked the banker, with a 
smile. 

" Pretty nearly so," replied the 
official demurely. " However, one 
can detect the design, and cannot 
help getting out of humor." 

" What design ?" asked Seraph in. 

" Of creating alarm against pro- 



gress. 



" Indeed, sir, you are mistaken. I, 
too, am enthusiastic about pro- 
gress, but genuine progress. And 
because I am an advocate of real 
progress I cannot help detesting 
the monstrosity which the age 
would wish to palm off on men in- 
stead." 

The church was now cleared. 
Greifmann's carriage was at the door. 
The millionaires drove off. 

" Pity for this Gerlach !" thought 
the official, as he strode through the 
street. " He is lost to progress, for 
he is too solidly rooted in supersti- 
tion to be reclaimed. War against 
nature's claims ; deny healthy phy- 
sical nature its rights j re-establish 
the reign of terror of the seven capi- 
tal sins ; permit the priesthood to 
tyrannize over conscience; restore 
the worship of an unmathematical 
triune God no ! no !" cried he fierce- 
ly, " sooner shall all go to the devil !" 

A carriage whirled past him. He 

it a glance into the vehicle, and 
raised his hat to Mr. Hans Shund.' 

The chief magistrate was on his 
way home from the town-hall. He 



could not rest under the weight of 
his laurels ; the inebriation of his tri- 
umph drove him into the room where 
sat his lonely and careworn wife. 

" My election to the assembly is 
assured, wife." And he went on with 
a minute account of the proceedings 
of the day. 

The pale, emaciated lady sat bow- 
ed in silence over her work, and did 
not look up. 

" Well, wife, don't you take any 
interest in the honors won by your 
husband ? I should think you ought 
to feel pleased." 

" All my joys are swallowed up in 
an abyss of unutterable wretched- 
ness," replied she. " And my hus- 
band is daily deepening the gulf. 
Yesterday you were again at a dis- 
reputable house. Your abominable 
deeds are heaped mountain high 
and am I to rejoice ?" 

" A thousand demons, wife, I'm. 
beginning to believe you have spies, 
on foot !" 

" I have not. But you are at the 
head of this city your steps cannot, 
possibly remain unobserved." 

" Very well !" cried he, " it shall, 
be my effort in the assembly to bring 
about such a change that there shall 
no longer be any houses of disrepute.. 
Narrow-minded moralists shall not 
be allowed to howl any longer. The 
time is at hand, old lady so-called 
disreputable houses are to become 
places of amusement authorized by 
law." 

He spoke and disappeared. 



CHAPTER IX. 



PROGRESS GROWS JOLLY. 



The agitators of progress were 

tin hurrying through the streets 

and alleys of the town. They knock- 

at every door and entered every 

house to solicit votes in favor of 

VOL. xvi. 35 



common schools. Thanks to the 
overwhelming might of the party in* 
power, they again carried their mea- 
sure. Dependent, utterly enslaved,, 
many yielded up their votes without 



546 



The Progressionists. 



opposition. It is true conscience 
tortured many' a parent for voting 
against his convictions, for sacrificing 
his children to a system with which 
he could not sympathize ; but not a 
man in a dependent position had the 
courage to vindicate for his child the 
religious training which was being so 
ruthlessly swept away. Even men 
in high office gave way before the 
encroaching despotism, for in the 
very uppermost ranks of society also 
progress domineered. 

One man only, fearless and firm, 
dared to put himself in the path of 
the dominant power the Rev. F. 
Morgenroth. From the pulpit, he un- 
masked and scathed the unchristian 
design of debarring youth from reli- 
gious instruction, and of rearing a 
generation ignorant of God and of 
his commandments. He warned pa- 
rents against the evil, entreated them 
to stand up conscientiously for the 
spiritual welfare of their children, to 
reject the common schools, and to 
rescue the little ones for the mater- 
nal guardianship of the church. 

His sermon roused the entire pro- 
gressionist camp. The local press 
fiercely assailed the intrepid clergy- 
man. Lies, calumnies, and scurrility 
were vomited against him and his 
profession. Hans Shund seized the 
pen, and indited newspaper articles 
of such a character as one would 
naturally look for from a thief, 
usurer, and debauchee. Morgen- 
roth paid no attention to their dis- 
graceful clamor, but continued his 
opposition undismayed. By means 
of placards, he invited the Catholic 
citizens to assemble at his own resi- 
dence, for the purpose of consulting 
about the best mode of thwarting the 
designs of the liberals. This unex- 
pected fearlessness put the men of 
culture, humanity, and freedom be- 
side themselves with rage. Thev at 

O j 

once decided upon making a public 



demonstration. The chieftains is- 
sued orders to their bands, and these 
at the hour appointed for the meet- 
ing mustered before the residence 
of the priest.. A noisy multitude, ut- 
tering threats, took possession of the 
churchyard. If a citizen attempted 
to make his way through the mob to 
the house, he was loaded with vile 
epithets, at times even with kicks 
and blows. But a small number had 
gathered around the priest, and these 
showed much alarm ; for outside the 
billows of progress were surging 
and every moment rising higher. 
Stones were thrown at the house, and 
the windows were broken. Parteil- 
ing, the commissary of police, came 
to remonstrate with the clergyman. 

" Dismiss the meeting," said he. 
" The excitement is assuming alarm- 
ing proportions." 

" Commissary, we are under the 
protection of the law and of civil 
rule," replied Morgenroth. " We 
are not slaves and helots of pro- 
gress. Are we to be denied the lib- 
erty of discussing subjects of great 
importance in our own houses ?" 

A boulder coming through the 
window crushed the inkstand on the 
table, and rolled on over the floor. 
The men pressed to one side in ter- 
ror. 

. " Your calling upon the law to 
protect you is utterly unreasonable 
under present circumstances," said 
Parteiling. " Listen to the howling. 
Do you want your house demolished ? 
Do you wish to be maltreated ? Will 
you have open revolution ? This all 
will surely follow if you persist in re- 
fusing to dismiss the meeting. I 
will not answer for results." 

Stones began to rain more densely, 
and the howling grew louder and 



more menacing. 



" Gentlemen/' said Morgenroth to 
the men assembled, "since we are not 
permitted to proceed with our delib- 



The Progressionists. 547 

erations, we will separate, with a pro- being erected, tables were being dis- 

test against this brutal terrorism." posed in rows which reached further 

" But, commissary," said a much than the eye could see, wagon-loads 

frightened man, " how are we to get of chairs and benches were being 

away? These people are infuriated ; brought from all parts of town, men 

they will tear us in pieces." were busy sinking holes for climbing- 

" Fear nothing, gentlemen ; follow poles and treacherous turnstiles ; but 

me," spoke the commissary, leading the most attractive feature of all the 

the way. festival was yet invisible free beer 

The ultramontanes were hailed and sausages furnished at public cost, 

with a loud burst of scornful laugh- The rumor alone, however, of such 

ter. The commissary, advancing to cheer gladdened the heart of every 

the gate, beckoned silence. thirsty voter, and contributed greatly 

" In the name of the law, clear the to the establishment of the system of 

place !" cried he. common schools. Bands of music 

The mob scoffed and yelled. paraded the town, gathered up 

" Fetch out the slaves of the priest voters, and escorted them to the 

make them run the gauntlet down polls. As often as they passed be- 

with the Jesuits !" fore the residence of a progressionist 

At this moment, a man was no- chieftain, the bands struck up an air, 

ticed elbowing his way through the and the crowd cheered lustily. They 

crowd ; presently Hans Shund step- halted in front of the priest's resi- 

ped before the embarrassed guardian dence also. The band played, " To- 

of public order. day we'll taste the parson's cheer," 

" Three cheers for the magistrate!" the mob roaring the words, and then 

vociferated the mob. winding up with whistling and guf- 

Shund made a signal. Profound faws of laughter. This sort of disor- 

silence followed. derly work was kept up during three 

" Gentlemen," spoke the chief days. Then was announced in the 

magistrate, in a tone of entreaty, papers in huge type: "An over- 

" have the goodness to disperse." whelming majority of the enlightened 

Repeated cheers were raised, then citizens of this city have decided in 

the accumulation of corrupt elements favor of common schools. Herewith 

began to dissolve and flow off in the existence of these schools is se- 

every direction. cured and legalized." 

" I deeply regret this commotion On the fourth day, the celebration 

of which I but a moment ago re- came off. The same morning Ger- 

ceived intelligence," said Shund. lach senior arrived at the Palais 

The excitement of the people is Greifmann on his way home from the 

attributable solely to the imprudent Exposition. 

conduct of Morgenroth." " I am so glad !" cried Louise. 

: To be sure to be sure !" assent- " I was beginning to fear you would 

ed Parteiling. not come, and getting provoked at 

The place was cleared. The Ca- your indifference to the interests of 

tholics hurried home pursued and our people. We have been having 

hooted by straggling groups of stirring times, but we have come off 

victorious. The narrow-minded ene- 

.Tie signs of the approaching cele- m-ies of enlightenment are defeated, 

bration began to be noticeable on Modern views now prevail, and edu- 

the town-common. Booths were cation is to be remodelled and put in 



The Progressionists. 



harmony with the wants of our cen- 
tury." 

"Times must have been stirring, 
for you seem almost frenzied, 
Louise," said Conrad. 

" Had you witnessed the struggle 
and read the newspapers, you, too, 
would have grown enthusiastic," de- 
clared the young lady. 

" Even quotations advanced," said 
the banker. " It astonished me, and 
I can account for it only by assuming 
that the triumph of the common- 
school system is of general signifi- 
cance and an imperative desideratum 
of the times." 

" How can you have any doubt 
about it ?" cried his sister. " Our 
town has pioneered the way : the rest 
of Germany will soon adopt the same 
system." 

Seraphin greeted his father. 

" Well, my son, you very likely 
have heard nothing whatever of this 
hubbub about schools ?" 

" Indeed, I have, father. Carl and 
I were in the midst of the commo- 
tion at the desecrated church of S. 
Peter. We saw and heard what it 
would have been difficult to imag- 
ine." He then proceeded to give 
his father a minute account of the 
meeting. His powerful memory en- 
abled him to repeat Shund's speech 
almost verbatim. The father lis- 
tened attentively, and occasionally 
directed a glance of observation at the 
young lady. When Shund's coarse 
ridicule of Christian morals and dog- 
mas was rehearsed, Mr. Conrad low- 
ered his eyes, and a frown flitted over 
his brow. For the rest, his counte- 
nance was, as usual, cold and stern. 

" This Mr. Shund made quite a 
strong speech," said he, in a noncha- 
lant way. 

" He rather intensified the colors 
of truth, 'tis true," remarked Louise. 
" The masses, however, like high col- 
oring and vigorous language." 



A servant brought the banker a 
note. 

" Good ! Shund is elected to the 
assembly ! The span of bays be- 
longs to me," exulted Carl Greif- 
mann. 

" Your bays Seraphin ?" inquired 
the father. " How is this ?" 

Mr. Conrad had twice been in- 
formed of the wager ; he had learn- 
ed it first from Seraphin's own lips, 
then also he had read of it in his dia- 
ry ; still he asked again, and his son 
detailed the story a third time. 

" I should sooner have expected 
to see the heavens fall than to lose 
that bet," added Seraphin. 

" When a notorious thief and usur- 
er is elected to the chief magistracy 
and to the legislative assembly, the 
victory gained is hardly a creditable 
one to the spirit of progress, my dear 
Carl. Don't you -think so, Louise ?" 
said the landholder. 

" You mustn't be too rigorous," 
replied the lady, with composure. 
" Rumor whispers many a bit of 
scandal respecting Shund which 
does, indeed, offend one's sense of 
propriety; for all that, however, 
Shund will play his part brilliantly 
both in the assembly and in the town 
council The greatest of statesmen 
have had their foibles, as everybody 
knows." 

" Very true," said Gerlach dryly. 
" Viewed from the standpoint of very 
humane tolerance, Shund's disgust- 
ing habits may be considered justifi- 
able." 

Seraphin left the parlor, and retired 
to his room. Here he wrestled with 
violent feelings. His father's con- 
duct was a mystery to him. Opin- 
ions which conflicted with his own 
most sacred convictions, and princi- 
ples which brought an indignant 
flush to his cheek, were listened to and 
apparently acquiesced in by his father. 
Shund's abominable diatribe had not 






The Progressionists. 549 

roused the old gentleman's anger; rehearsed every word she had utter- 
Louise's avowed concurrence with ed, and viewed the basket of grapes 
the irreligious principles of the chief- she had brought him. Again he 
tain had not even provoked his dis- pulled out the drawer, and looked 
approbation. upon the gift with a friendly smile ; 
" My God, my God ! can it be then, locking up the precious trea- 
possible ?" cried he in an agony of sure, he returned to the parlor, 
despair. " Has the love of gain so ut- He found the company on the 
terly blinded my father ? Can he balcony. The sound of trumpets 
have sunk so low as to be willing and drums came from a distance, and 
to immolate me, his only child, to a presently a motley procession was 
base speculation ? Can he be will- seen coming up the nearest street, 
ing for the sake of a million florins " You have just arrived in time to 
to bind me for life to this erring see the procession," cried Louise to 
creature, this infidel Louise ? Can him. " It is going to defile past here, 
a paltry million tempt him to be so so we will be able to have a good look 
reckless and cruel ? No! no ! a thou- at it." 

sand times no !" exclaimed he. "I A dusky swarm of boys and half- 
never will be the husband of this grown youths came winding round 
woman, never I swear it by the the nearest street-corner, foil owed im- 
great God of heaven! Get angry mediately by the head of a mock 
with me, father, banish me from your procession. In the lead marched a 
sight - - it would be more tolerable fellow dressed in a brown cloak, the 
than the consciousness of being the hood of which was drawn over his 
husband of a woman who believes head. His waist was encircled with 
not in the Redeemer of the world, a girdle from which dangled a string 
I have sworn the matter is for ever of pebbles representing a rosary, 
settled." He threw himself into an To complete the caricature of a Cap- 
arm-chair, and moodily stared at the uchin, his feet were bare, excepting a 
opposite wall. By degrees, his ex- pair of soles which were strapped to 
citement subsided, and he became them with thongs of leather. In his 
quiet. hands he bore a tall cross rudely con- 
In fancy, he beheld beside Louise's trived with a couple of sticks. The 
form another lovely one rise up that image of the cross was represented 
of the girl with the golden hair, the by a broken mineral-water bottle, 
bright eyes, and the winning smile. Behind the cross-bearer followed the 
She had stood before him on this very procession in a double line, consist- 
floor, in her neat and^imple country ing of boys, young men, factory- 
garb, radiant with innocence and hands, drunken mechanics, and such 
purity, adorned with innate grace and other begrimed and besotted be- 
uncommon beauty. And the lapse ings as progress alone can count in 
of days, far from weakening, had its ranks. The members of the pro- 
deepened the impression of her first cession were chanting a litany ; at the 
apparition. The storm that had same time they folded their hands, 
been raging in his interior was allay- made grimaces, turned their eyes up- 
ed by the recollection of Mechtild, as wards, or played unseemly pranks 
the fury of the great deep subsides with genuine rosary beads, 
upon the reappearance of. the sun. Next in the procession came a low 
Scarcely an hour had passed during car drawn by a watery-eyed mare 
which he had not thought of the girl, which a lad bedizened like a clown 



550 



The Progressionists. 



was leading by the bridle. In the 
car sat a fat fellow whose face was 
painted red, and eyebrows dyed, and 
who wore a long artificial beard. 
Over a prodigious paunch, also arti- 
ficial, he had drawn a long white 
gown, over which again he wore a 
many-colored rag shaped like a cope. 
On his head he wore a high paper 
cap, brimless; around the cap were 
three crowns of gilt paper to repre- 
sent the tiara of the pope. A sorry- 
looking donkey walked after the car, 
to which it was attached by a rope. 
It was the role of the fellow in the 
car to address the donkey, make a 
sign of blessing over it, and occasion- 
ally reach it straw drawn from his 
artificial paunch. As often as he 
went through this manoeuvre, the 
crowd set up a tremendous roar of 
laughter. The fat man in the car 
represented the pope, and the donkey 
was intended to symbolize the credu- 
lity of the faithful. 

This mock pope was not a sugges- 
tion of Shund's or of any other 
inventive progressionist. The whole 
idea was copied from a caricature 
which had appeared in a widely 
circulating pictorial whose only aim 
and pleasure it has been for years to 
destroy the innate religious nobleness 
of the German people by means of 
shallow wit and vulgar caricatures. 
And this very sheet, leagued with a 
daily organ equally degraded, can 
boast of no inconsiderable success. 
The rude and vulgar applaud its 
witticisms, the low and infamous re- 
gale themselves with its pictures, and 
its demoralizing influence is infecting 
the land. 

The principal feature of the pro- 
cession was a wagon, hung with gar- 
lands and bestuck with small flags, 
drawn by six splendid horses. In 
it sat a youthful woman, plump and 
bold. Her shoulders were bare, the 
dress being an exaggerated sample 



of the style decollete / above her head 
was a wreath of oak leaves. She was 
attended by a number of young men 
in masks. They carried drinking- 
horns, which they filled from time to 
time from a barrel, and presented to 
the bacchante^ who sipped from 
them ; then these gentlemen in wait- 
ing drank themselves, and poured 
what was left upon the crowd. A 
band of music, walking in front of 
this triumphal car, played airs and 
marches. Not even the mock pope 
was as great an object of admiration 
as this shameless woman. Old and 
young thronged about the wagon, 
feasting their lascivious eyes on this 
beastly spectacle which represented 
that most disgusting of all abomin- 
able achievements of progress the 
emancipated woman. And perhaps 
not even progress could have dared, 
in less excited times, so grossly to 
insult the chaste spirit of the German 
people ; but the social atmosphere 
had been made so foul by the abom- 
inations of the election, and the spirits 
of impurity had reigned so absolutely 
duringthecanvass in behalf of common 
schools, that this immoral show was 
suffered to parade without opposition. 

The very commencement of this 
sacrilegious mockery of religion had 
roused Seraphin's indignation, and he 
had retired from the balcony. His 
father, however, had remained, coolly 
watching the procession as it passed, 
and carefully noting Louise's re- 
marks and behavior. 

" What does that woman repre- 
sent ?" he asked. "A goddess of 
liberty, I suppose ?" 

" Only iu one sense, I think," re- 
plied the progressionist young lady. 
< The woman wearing the crown 
symbolizes, to my mind, the enjoy- 
ment of life. She typifies heaven 
upon earth, now that exact science 
has done away with the heaven of 
the next world." 



The Progressionists. 551 

" I should think yon creature tanism, he commends himself to pro- 

rather reminds one of hell," said Mr. gress, which is in power." 

Conrad." " But the government should not 

' Of hell !" exclaimed Louise, in tolerate such disgraceful behavior on 

alarm. " You are jesting, sir, are the part of one of its officials," said 

YOU not?" Gerlach. "The entire official corps 

" Never more serious in my life, is disgraced so long as this shallow 

Louise. Notice the shameless evangelist of progress is permitted to 

effrontery, the baseness and infamy continue wearing the uniform." 

of the creature, and you will be fore- " You should not be so exacting," 

ed to form conclusions which, far cried Louise. " Why will you not 

from justifying the expectation of allow officials also to float along with 

peace and happiness in the family the current of progress until they will 

circle, the true sphere of woman, will have reached the Eldorado of the 

suggest only wrangling, discord, and position to which they are aspiring ?" 

hell upon earth." " The corruption of the state must 

The young lady did not venture to be fearful indeed, when such deport- 
reply. A gentleman made his way ment in an officer is regarded as a 
through the crowd, and waved his recommendation," rejoined Mr. Con- 
hat to the company on the balcony, rad curtly. 

The banker returned the saluta- A servant appeared to call them to 

tion. table. 

" Official Seicht," said he. " Would you not like to see the 

u What ! an officer of the govern- celebration ?" inquired Louise, 

ment in this disreputable crowd !" ex- <: By all means," answered Ger- 

claimed Gerlach, with surprise. lach. " The excitement is of so un- 

" He is on hand to maintain order," usual a character that it claims at- 

explained Greifmann. " You see tention. You will have to accom- 

some policemen, too. Mr. Seicht pany us, Louise." 

sympathizes with progress. At the " I shall do so with pleasure, 

last meeting, he made a speech in When sound popular sentiment thus 

favor of common schools; he sounded proclaims itself, I cannot but feel a 

the praises of the gospel of progress, strong desire to be present." 

gave a toast at the banquet to the The procession had turned the 

gospel of progress, and has won for corner of a street where stood Holt 

himself the title of evangelist of pro- and two more countrymen looking 

gress. He once declared, too, that on. The religious sentiment of these 

the very sight of a Driest rouses his honest men was deeply wounded by 

blood, and they now pleasantly call the profanation of the cross ; and 

him the parson-eater. He is very when, besides, they heard the singing 

popular." of the mock litany, their anger kind- 

I am amazed !" said Gerlach. led, their eyes gleamed, and they 

" Mr. Seicht dishonors his office. He mingled fierce maledictions with the 

advocates common schools, insults tumult of the mob. Next appeared 

all the believing citizens of his dis- the mock pope, dispensing blessings 

trict, and runs with mock processions with his right hand, reaching straw 

a happy state of things, indeed!" to the donkey with his left, and dis- 

His conduct is the result of care- torting his painted face into all sorts 

ful calculation," returned Greifmann. of farcical grimaces. 

By showing hostility to ultramon- The peasants at once caught the 



552 The Progressionists. 

significance of this burlesque. Their quiet as a lamb, looked with an air 
countenances glowed with indigna- of astonishment at the confusion, and 
tion. Avenging spirits took posses- suffered himself to be handcuffed, 
sion of Mechtild's father ; his strong, His comrades, however, behaved 
stalwart frame seemed suddenly to like anything but lambs. They laid 
have become herculean. His fist of about them with hands and feet, 
iron doubled itself; there was light- knocking down the policemen, and 
ning in his eyes; like an infuriated giving bloody mouths and noses to 
lion, he burst into the crowd, broke all who came within their reach, 
the line of the procession, and, direct- " Handcuff us !" they screamed, 
ing a tremendous blow at the head grinding their teeth, bleeding and 
of the mock pope, precipitated him cursing. " Are we cutthroats ?" The 
from the car. The paper cap flew bystanders drew back in apprehen- 
far away under the feet of the by- sion. The confusion seemed to be 
standers, and the false beard got into past remedying. A thousand voices 
the donkey's mouth. When the were screaming, bawling, and crying 
mock pope was down, Holt's com- at the same time; the circle around 
rades immediately set upon him, and the struggling countrymen was get- 
tore the many-colored rag from his ting wider and wider ; and when 
shoulders. Then commenced a great finally they attempted to break 
tumult. A host of furious progres- through, the crowd took to flight, as 
sionists surrounded the sturdy coun- if a couple of tigers were after them, 
trymen, brandishing their fists and Many of the spectators found a 
filling the air with mad imprecations, pleasurable excitement in watching 

" Kill the dogs ! Down with the the battle between the policemen 

accursed ultramontanes !" and the peasants; but they would not 

Some of the policemen hurried up move a finger to aid the officers of 

to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Seicht the law in arresting the culprits, 

also hurried to the scene of action, They admired the agility and 

and his shrill voice could be heard strength of the countrymen, and the 

high above the noise and confusion. more fierce the struggle became, the 

" Gentlemen, I implore you, let greater grew their delight, and the 

the law have its course, gentlemen !" louder their merriment, 

cried he. " Gentlemen, friends, do Holt had been carried on with the 

not, I beg you, violate the law! motion of the crowd. When he 

Trust me, fellow-citizens I shall see dealt the blow to the fellow in the 

that the impertinence of these ultra- car, he was beside himself with rage, 

montanes is duly punished." The genuine furor teutonicus had 

They understood his meaning, taken possession of him so irresist- 

Sticks and fists were immediately ibly and so bewilderingly as to leave 

lowered. him utterly without any of the calm 

" Brigadier Forchhaem," cried Mr. judgment necessary to measure the 

Seicht, in a tone of command situation. After his first adventure, 

"Forchhaem, hither! Put hand- he had submitted to be handcuffed, 

cuffs on these ultramontanes, these and had watched the struggle be- 

disturbers of the peace put irons on tween Forchhaem and his own com- 

these revolutionists." rades in a sort of absence of mind. 

Handcuffs were forthwith pro- He had stood perfectly quiet, his face 

duced by the policemen. The tow- had become pale, and his eyes looked 

cring, broad-shouldered Holt stood about strangely. The excitement of 



The Progressionists. 553 

passion was now beginning to wear streets of the town and imprisoned, 

off. Pie felt the cold iron of the They were treated as criminals for 

manacles around his wrists, his eyes a crime, however, the guilt of which 

glared, his face became crimson, the was justly chargeable to those very 

sinews of his powerful arm stiffened, rioters who were enjoying official 

and with one great muscular convul- protection. 

sion he wrenched off the handcuffs. The procession moved on to the 
Nobody had observed this sudden ground selected for the barbecue, 
action, all eyes being directed to the A motley mass, especially of factory- 
combatants. Shoving the part of men, were hard at work upon the 
the handcuff which still hung to his scene. The booths, spread far and 
wrist under the sleeve of his jacket, wide over the common, were thrown 
Holt disappeared through the crowd, open, and around them moved a 

The resistance of the peasants was . swarm of thirsty beings drawing ra- 

gradually becoming fainter. At tions of beer and sausages, with 

length they succumbed to overpow- which, when they had received them, 

ering force, and were handcuffed. they staggered away to the tables. 

" Where is the third one ?" cried Degraded-looking women were also 

Seicht. " There were three of to be seen moving about unsteadily 

them." with brimming mugs of beer in their 

" Where is the third one ? There hands. There were several bands 

were three of them," was echoed on of music stationed at different points 

every hand, and all eyes sought for around the place, 

the missing one in the crowd. The chieftains of progress, peram- 

" The third one has run away, bulating the ground with an air of 

sir," reported Forchhaem. triumph, bestowed friendly nods of 

" What's his name ?" asked Seicht. recognition on all sides, and conde- 

Nobody knew. scendingly engaged in conversation 

A street boy, looking up at the offi- with some of the rank and file, 
cial, ingenuously cried, " 'Twas a Hans Shund approached the awn- 
Tartar." ing where the woman with the bare 

Seicht looked down upon the ob- shoulders and indecent costume had 

streperous little informant. taken a seat. She had captivated 

" A Tartar do you know him ?" the gallant chief magistrate, who 

" No ; but these here know him," hovered about her as a raven hovers 

pointing to the captives. over a dead carcass. Moving off, he 

" What is the name of your com- halted within hearing distance, and, 

rade ?" casting frequent glances back, address- 

" We don't know him," was the ed immodest jokes to those who oc- 

surly reply. cupied the other side of the table, at 

" Never mind, he will become which they laughed and applauded 

known in the judicial examination, immoderately. 

Off to jail with these rebellious ultra- The men whom Seraphin had met 

montanes," the official commanded. in the subterranean den, on the me- 

Bound in chains, and guarded by a morable night before the election, 

posse of police, these honest men, were also present : Flachsen, Graeu- 

whose religious sense had been so lich, Koenig, and a host of others, 

wantonly outraged as to have occa- They were regaling themselves with 

sioned an outburst of noble indigna- sausages which omitted an unmistak- 

tion, were marched through the able odor of garlic, and were of a 



554 



The Progressionists. 



very dubious appearance; interrupt- 
ing the process of eating with fre- 
quent and copious draughts from 
their beer-mugs. 

" Drink, old woman !" cried Graeu- 
lich to his wife. " Drink, I tell you ! 
It doesn't cost us anything to-day." 

The woman put the jug to her lips 
and drained it manfully. Other 
women who were present screamed 
in chorus, and the men laughed 
boisterously. 

" Your old woman does that hand- 
somely," applauded Koth. " Hell 
and thunder! But she must be a real 
spitfire." 

Again they laughed uproariously. 

" I wish there were an election 
every day, what a jolly life this would 
be !" said Koenig. " Nothing to do, 
eating and drinking gratis what 
more would you wish ?" 

" That's the way the big-bugs live 
all the year round. They may eat 
and drink what they like best, and 
needn't do a hand's turn. Isn't it 
glorious to be rich ?" cried Graeulich. 

" So drink, boys, drink till you 
can't stand ! We are all of us big- 
bugs to-day." 

" And if things were regulated as 
they should be," said Koth, " there 
would come a day when we poor 
devils would also see glorious times. 
We have been torturing ourselves 
about long enough for the sake of 
others. I maintain that things will 
have to be differently regulated." 

" What game is that you are wish- 
ing to come at ? Show your hand, 
old fellow !" cried several voices. 

'' Here's what I mean : Coffers 
which are full will have to pour some 
of their superfluity into coffers which 
are empty. You take me, don't 
you ?" 

" Ton my soul, I can't make you 
out. You are talking conundrums," 
declared Koenig. 

" You blockhead, I mean there 



will soon have to be a partition. 
They who have plenty will have to 
give some to those who have no- 
thing." 

" Bravo ! Long live Koth !" 

" That sort of doctrine is danger- 
ous to the state," said Flachsen. 
" Such principles bring about revolu- 
tions, and corrupt society." 

" What of society ! You're an ass, 
Flachsen ! Koth is right partition, 
partition !" was the cry all round the 
table. 

" As you will ! I have nothing 
against it if only it were practicable," 
expostulated Flachsen ; " for I, too, 
am a radical." 

" It is practicable I All things are 
practicable," exclaimed Koth. " Our 
age can do anything, and so can we. 
Haven't we driven religion out of the 
schools ? Haven't we elected Shund 
for mayor ? It is the majority who 
rule; and, were we to vote in favor 
of partition to - morrow, partition 
would have to take place. Any 
measure can be carried by a major- 
ity, and, since we poor devils are in 
the majority, as soon as we will have 
voted for partition it will come with- 
out fail." 

" That's sensible !" agreed they all. 
" But then, such a thing has never 
yet been done. Do you think it 
possible ?" 

"Anything is possible," maintain- 
ed Koth. " Didn't Shund preach 
that there isn't any God, or hell, or 
devil ? Was that ever taught before ? 
If the God of old has to submit to 
being deposed, the rich will have to 
submit to it. I tell you, the majority 
will settle the business for the rich. 
And if there's no God, no devil, and 
no life beyond, well then, you see, 
I'm capable of laying my hand to 
anything. If voting won't do, vio- 
lence will. Do you understand ?" 

" Bravo ! Hurrah for Koth !" 

" There must be progress," cried 



The Progressionists. 555 

Graeulich, " among us as well as drink it'll improve the sliding." He 

others. We are not going to con- swallowed the drink hastily, then 

tinue all our lives in wretchedness, swaying about as he looked and 

We must advance from labor to com- pointed upward, " Do you see that 

fort without labor, from poverty to pipe with tassels to it ?" he said, 

wealth, from want to abundance. " That's the one I'm going after." 

Three cheers for progress hurrah ! Throwing aside his mantle, he be- 

hurrah !" And the whole company gan to climb, 

joined in frantically. "He'll not get up, he's drunk," 

" There comes Evangelist Seicht," cried a lad among the bystanders, 

cried Koenig. " Though I didn't " Belladonna has given him two 

understand one word of his speech, I pints of double beer for carrying the 

believe he meant well. Although he cross in the procession that's what 

is an officer of the government, he ails him." 

cordially hates priests. A man may " Wait till I come down, I'll slap 

say what he pleases against religion, your jaws," cried the climber, 

and the church, and the Pope, and The spectators were watching him 

the Jesuits, it rather pleases Seicht. with interest. He was obliged to 

He is a free and enlightened man, is pause frequently to rest himself, 

he. Up with your glasses, boys ; which he did by winding his legs 

if he comes near, let's give him three tightly round the pole. At last he 

rousing cheers." reached the top. Extending his arm 

They did as directed. Men and to take the pipe, it was too short, 

women cheered lustily. Seicht very Climbing still higher, he stretched his 

condescendingly raised his hat and body to its greatest length, lost his 

smiled as he passed the table. The hold, and fell to the ground. The 

ovation put him in fine humor.' bystanders raised a great cry. The 

Though he had failed in securing a unfortunate youth's head had embed- 

place in the assembly, perhaps the ded itself in the earth, streams of 

slight would be repaired in the future, blood gushed from his mouth and 

Such was the tenor of his thoughts nostrils he was lifeless, 

whilst he advanced to the climbing- " He's dead ! It's all over with 

pole, around which was assembled a him," was whispered around, 

crowd of boys. Quite a variety of " Carry him off," commanded 

prizes, especially tobacco-pipes, was Seicht, and then walked on. 

hanging from the cross-pieces at the One of the bystanders loosed the 

top of the mast. The pole was so cross-piece of the mock crucifix ; the 

smooth that more than ordinary corpse was then stretched across the 

strength and activity were required to two pieces of wood and carried off 

get to the top. The greater number the scene. As the body was carried 

of those who attempted the feat gave past, the noise and revelry every- 

out and slid back without having where ceased. 

gained a prize. There were also " Wasn't that the one who car- 
grown persons standing around ried the cross ?" was asked. " Is he 
watching the efforts of the boys and dead ? Did he fall from the pole ? 
young men. How terrible !" 

" it's my turn now," cried the fel- Even the progressionist revellers 

low who had carried the cross in the were struck thoughtful, so deeply is 

procession. the sense of religion rooted in the 

" But, first, let me have one more heart of man. Many a one among 



556 



The Progressionists. 



them, seeing the pale, rigid face of 
the dead man, understood his fate to 
be a solemn warning, and fled from 
the scene in terror. 

The progressionist element of the 
town was much flattered by the pre- 
sence at its orgies of the wealthiest 
property owner of the country. 

The women had already made the 
discovery that the millionaire's only 
son, Mr. Seraphin Gerlach, was on the 
eve of marrying a member of the 
highly respectable house of Greif- 
mann, bankers. But it occasioned 
them no small amount of surprise 
that the young gentleman was not in 



attendance on the beautiful lady at 
the celebration. Louise's radiant 
countenance gave no indication, 
however, that any untoward occur- 
rence had caused the absence of her 
prospective husband. The wives 
and daughters of the chieftains were 
sitting under an awning sipping cof- 
fee and eating cake. When Louise 
approached leaning on her brother's 
arm, they welcomed her to a place in 
the circle of loveliness with many 
courtesies and marks of respect. 

Mr. Conrad strolled about the 
place, studying the spirit which ani- 
mated the gathering. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



'YIIN02. 

NOT now for sleep, O slumber-god ! we sue ; 

Hypnus ! not sleep, but give our souls repose ! 

Of the day's music such a mellowing close 

As might have rested Shakespeare from his art, 

Or soothed the spirit of the Tuscan strong 

Who best read life, its passions and its woes, 

And wrought of sorrow earth's divinest song. 

Bring us a mood that might have lulled Mozart, 

Not stupor, not forgetfulness, not dreams, 

But vivid sense of what is best and rarest, 

And sweet remembrance of the blessed few ; 

In the real presence of this fair world's fairest : 

A spell of peace as 'twere by those dear streams * 

Boccaccio wrote of, when romance was new. 



* The Arno, Chiana, and Mugnone. 



A Legend of Saint Ottilia. 557 



A LEGEND OF SAINT OTTILIA. 

ATTICH, Duke of Alsace, had a company with Ottilia's suitor, taking 

lovely wife, with whom he lived in the lead. They took the road to 

great happiness, desiring but one Freiburg, in Breisgau. 

thing more than he possessed this The day began to decline, and their 

was the blessing of children. His efforts to find her had been in vain, 

prayers, however, remained unan- when, on riding up a hill from whose 

swered until he vowed that, if the top they could overlook the country, 

Lord would grant his ardent wish, he they heard a cry ; turning their eyes to- 

would dedicate the child entirely to ward the place from whence the sound 

his service. At length a daughter came, they saw her whom they were 

was born to him, but the parents' seeking standing on the summit. They 

first joy was turned into sadness, for urged their steeds onward, rejoicing 

the child was blind. in the certainty of capturing the fu- 

Ottilia (thus was she named) grew gitive. Then Ottilia threw herself 

up a lovely maiden, with rare good- upon her knees, and prayed to heav- 

ness and virtues, showing, from her en for assistance. The rock opened 

earliest youth, singular piety and de- beneath her feet, and, in the sight of 

voutness of character. One of her all, she sank into the yawning depth, 

daily prayers was that God might The rock closed again, and, from the 

bestow on her the gift of sight. By- spot where it had been reft in twain, 

and-by, to the great astonishment of a clear well flowed, taking its course 

all, this prayer was answered. Beau- downward into the forest below, 

tiful before, the new expression of her The mourning father returned to 

eyes so Enhanced her charms that, his now desolate home. Never 

whereas previously she had no lack again did he behold Ottilia, 

of suitors, now she was wooed by The wonderful tale soon spread far 

many and most noble youths. These and near. The fountain became a 

dazzling prospects affected the mind place of pilgrimage. People drank 

of her father, and led him to repent from its waters, to which a wonder- 

the vow he had made to give his ful healing influence for weak eyes 

sweet child to God. Then Count was attributed. A hermit built his 

Adelhart, a brave man, and one who hut in its neighborhood, and " The 

had performed great services for At- Well of S. Ottilia" was and is much 

tich, claimed the hand of Ottilia, and frequented by old and young. The 

the duke resolved that his daughter mountain itself bears the name of 

should become his wife. Ottilia " Ottilia-Berg." 

heard this with terror; she told her Thus runs the simple legend which, 

father how wrong she believed it to even after the lapse of centuries, 

be, and how she feared the ven- brings people to visit this famous 

geance of heaven if they thus disre- spring, partly drawn thither by religi- 

irded his vow. Seeing, however, ous faith in the curative power of its 

that her entreaties were of no avail, waters, and partly attracted by the re- 

and that they meant to marry her by nowned beauty of the scenery which 

compulsion, she fled she knew not surrounds the spot where heaven - 

whither. Then Attich called out his trusting Ottilia had thrown herself 

servants to pursue her, he himself, in upon the intervention of Providence. 



558 



The Year of Our Lord 1872; 



THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1872. 



THERE lurks a grim sarcasm in our 
title for those who, as the years grow and 
die out one after the other, ask each in 
turn: What have you. brought us? what 
growth of good and lessening of evil ? 
what new bond to link the scattered and 
divided masses of a humanity which 
should be common but is not more 
closely and firmly together? Have you 
brought us a step nearer heaven, that is, 
nearer the destiny which God marked out 
in the beginning for his creation, or 
thrown us backward ? Years ai'e the 
days of the world, of national life ; and 
as each closes, even the superior minds 
which will not deign to believe in such 
old-fashioned words as a God, a heaven, 
or a hell, cannot fail to ask themselves 
the question, What has the world gained 
or lost in this its latest day ? 

We know that we shall be greeted at 
the outset by the old cry : Catholics be- 
hind the age again : it is plain their reli- 
gion was not made for the XlXth centu- 
ry ; they will drift backward and sigh for 
the days that were, the gloom and the 
mist and the superstition of the " ages of 
faith " : they refuse to recognize the cen- 
tury, to understand it and its glorious en- 
lightenment : they decline to march hand 
in hand with the great leaders, the apostles 
of the da}*, in politics, science, and reli- 
gion the Bismarcks, the Lanzas, the 
Mills, the Fawcetts, the Bradlaughs, the 
Dollingers, the Beechers, the Huxleys, 
the Buckles, the Darwins, the novelists, 
and the newspapers ; the " enlightened " 
ideas of the age on marriage, education, 
civil government, and the rest. We hum- 
bly plead guilty to the greater portion of 
this charge. Modern enlightenment, as 
preached by the apostles above enumer- 
ated, and others such, possesses still 
too few charms to win us from our 
benighted ignorance To us Utopia 
appears as far off to-day as when 
it grew upon the mind of Sir Thomas 
More in the shape of a dream too splen- 
did to be realized ; as far off as the fairy- 
land which presented itself to our youth- 
ful imagination, where everybody was 
good}'-goody, where all were kings and 
queens with crowns and sceptres, or love- 
ly princesses and amiable princes, who 



loved each other with the most ardent 
nursery love, and with only one crabbed 
old fairy to spoil the scene, whose witch- 
eries caused the amiable princes to under- 
go a certain amount of mild misfortunes, 
creating a corresponding amount of mis- 
ery in the bosoms of the lovely princess- 
es, till at length the old harridan was 
overridden to her shame and confusion, 
truth and virtue triumphed, everybody 
married everybody else, and there was 
peace and joy for ever after. To drop 
fancy: the story of the year would not 
seem to bring happier tidings of the 
great joy which was announced at the 
coming of Christ : of " peace on earth to 
men of good-will." " Civilized " govern- 
ments still hold fast by the good old rule, 

That he may take who has the power, 
And he may keep who can. 

We purpose passing in review a few 
of the chief events which have moved the 
world during the past year and made its 
annals memorable in all time. Our re- 
view must necessarily be a rapid one, a 
mere glance in fact, at the multitude of 
events which confront us, some like 
ghosts which we have summoned from 
their graves in the buried year, others 
which accompany us into the new and 
the unknown to ripen or wither with us 
into their measure of good or of evil. 

As the year opened, the eyes of the 
world were fixed upon the sick-bed of 
the Prince of Wales, stricken down lay 
fever apparently beyond hope of recovery. 
The whole thing is long forgotten ; but 
the anxiety which his illness caused in 
view of the possible political complica- 
tions which might have resulted from the 
death of the heir to the English throne 
and the enthusiasm which his recovery 
evoked from end to end of the land, 
makes the event worthy of mention in 
the record of the year as significant of 
the innate as well as outspoken loyalty 
of the English nation for their crown and 
institution a national trait which it is 
becoming fashionable to question. 

Our own year opened tragically with 
the murder of Fisk by Stokes, his boon 
companion. The man's end was in 
keeping with his life, and his name 



The Year of Our Lord 1872. 



559 



should not have sullied our pages, but 
for the consequent collapse of the long 
triumphant Erie Ring. The era of blood 
thus commenced has flourished bravely. 
Quid novi? quid novi? was the daily cry 
at Athens when S. Paul entered it. We 
would not demean the commercial me- 
tropolis of the New World and of the 
new age by comparing it with the intel- 
lectual metropolis of paganism ; but as 
the cry of the Athenians was each day : 
What new system, doctrine, or philoso- 
phy is there? the question of our more 
enlightened and Christian capital might 
well be : What new thing in the way of 
murder? Scarcely a day passes but 
some fresh horror greets our eyes in the 
morning. Nor is it left to the hand of 
man alone to take life as he pleases ; the 
privilege has passed to women, and they 
make right good use of this latest form 
of their " rights." We read till our blood 
curdles of the political poisonings of the 
XVIth century in Italy ; of their secrecy 
and the safety of their carrying out. We 
are a more honest race than the Italians ; 
we enshroud our deeds of blood in no 
false Machiavellian veil ; we kill in open 
day. The lady or gentleman who has 
just taken away a life politely hands the 
pistol to the officer, who escorts him or 
he'rwith the utmost courtesy to the police 
station, where a cell is luxuriously fitted 
up according to the exigencies of the 
case ; the murderer stands up in open 
court, with the ablest champions to de- 
fend him ; he calls upon the law to save 
him, and the " law" does. In the mean- 
time obtuse people are beginning to in- 
quire if there be such a thing as law in 

w York, and in America generally, 
and if the present administration of jus- 

be not very closely allied to adminis- 
tering injustice. 

We have felt compelled to touch on 
this point at some length ; for murder, 

1, deliberate, wilful murder, has marked 
our year with a red stain which was never 
dry ; the murderers have either escaped or 
are living at case and being " lionized " by 
the press in their prisons ; justice is not ad- 
ministered among us. So true is this, that 
:ed public feeling, which requires a 
\ force to set its inertia in mo- 

0, has at length found it necessary to 

;in to weed the judiciary. Until it 
does so thoroughly, the law of New York 
is the law of the bullet and the knife. 

If we were not above taking a lesson 
from people for whom we entertain, of 



course, a sovereign contempt, we might 
find something commendable in the ac- 
tion of the populace in Lima, Peru, on 
the occasion of the murder of Colonel 
Balta, the president, by Guttierczi the 
minister of war; who, in order to attain 
supreme power, caused Balta to be assas- 
sinated, having previously gained over the 
garrison of Lima, and had himself pro- 
claimed dictator. The people, finding 
reason to object to this summary mode 
of settling questions, refused to accept 
this dictatorship ; rose in revolt, over- 
powered the garrison, hanged the dicta- 
tor and his brother to lamp-posts in the 
public square, and burned their bodies. 
We, are far from advocating the cause of 
"Judge Lynch "; but a slight touch of the 
sensible spirit displayed by the inhabi- 
tants of Lima has a wonderfully whole- 

* 

some effect on evil doers in power. 

Our political life for the past year has 
been absorbed in the presidential election 
and the settlement of the Alabama 
claims. This latter very vexed question 
has come at last to a final, peaceful, and 
satisfactory solution. Our claim for "in- 
direct damages " against England was 
ruled out of court. An adequate propiti- 
ation was made in the final decision, given 
in our favor : England was compelled to 
pay us ;3, 000,000 ; she is supposed to 
have lost very much in prestige in conse- 
quence ; particularly as the San Juan boun- 
dary question was also decided in our fa- 
vor ; the whole thing was settled by peace- 
ful arbitration, and, therefore, no matter 
which party lost in prestige, or diploma- 
cy, or pocket, both have good reason to 
congratulate themselves on getting out 
of sight, let. us ardently hope, for ever, a 
very ugly question which was fast becom- 
ing a gangrene, corroding and eating out 
all good feeling between the two nations. 
It is one of the things which we sincerely 
trust may be buried with the dead year ; 
and the two rival claimants we hope to 
see enter on a new lease of friendship 
and good-will. 

General Grant was re-elected ; the oppo- 
sition arrayed against him under Mr. 
Greeley as candidate for the presidency, 
and such very able secessionists from the 
republican ranks as Messrs. Sumner. 
Schurx, and others, and the attempted co- 
alescing of Democrats with dissatisfied 
Republicans, who would not coalesce, 
utterly broke down. General Grant's is 
undoubtedly a national election: wo 
trust, therefore, that his future term mav 



560 The Year of Our Lord 1872. 

correspond with the confidence placed- in and dictation of the conqueror and the 

his rule by the nation ; may be productive rash declamations of Gambetta, biding 

of all the good which we expect of it for their time with a calm good sense which 

the nation at large; may heal up old we scarcely expected in the French people, 

wounds still sore, and may lead the coun- Of course the nation is taxed and heavi- 

try wisely into a new era of prosperity ly ; but the wonder is that a nation can 

and peace : the more so that the outer endure such blows and live ; can not 

world is fast pouring in on us the most only live, but present to the admiration 

skilled artisans and law-abiding, intelli- and astonished gaze of the world, a year 

gent citizens of every European race. after what we considered its death and 

Having said so much for ourselves, we burial, so glorious a resurrection into a 

turn to the workings of events in Europe powerful and wealthy country. As these 

during the past year, which indeed have two nations have been the centre of attrac- 

occupied our attention more, almost, than tion to the whole world during the year, 

our home questions. Our gaze has been we feel called upon to touch upon each 

riveted with an interest of almost painful in a more special manner than on other 

intensity on the two contestants during nations. 

the late dread struggle, and the actions On April 7th, the Emperor William dc- 

and bearing of each have brought out the livered a speech from the throne, from 

inner character of the two nations in such which we cull the following extract : 

strong relief that we can think of Ger- " Honored Gentlemen : You will share 

many and France as two individuali- the satisfaction with which the Confeder- 

ties. On the one side, we behold United ate Governments look back on the events 

Germany, the victor in the fight, like a of the first year of the newly founded 

strong athlete glorying in his great German Empire, and the joyful confi- 

strength, setting on his own brow the dence with which they look forward to 

laurels which he plucked from that of his the further national and state develop- 

fallen foe ; not resting on his honors, and ment of our internal institutions. With 

satiated for the time being with his glory, equal satisfaction you will hail the assur- 

but anxious, careful, trying his strength, ance that the policy of his majesty, the 

not letting his arms rust for want of prac- emperor and king, has succeeded in re 

tice, preparing himself for new glories and taining and strengthening the confidence 

new contests to come as though they were of all foreign states ; that the power ac- 

to come to-morrow, and as a matter of quired by Germany through becoming 

course. On the other, we have France united in one Empire is not only a safe 

wounded and bleeding at every pore, bulwark for the fatherland, but likewise 

We thought its life had ebbed out, strick- affords a strong guarantee for the peace 

en first by the terrible blows of a mcrci- of Europe." 

less conqueror, after by a delirious con- Now, that sounds so well, at least it did 

test with itself. And what do we behold? in April last, that it is almost a pity to 

No longer a weak convalescent, sick, spoil it by the inevitable comments which 

sore, and spiritless, but a great nation, cannot fail to present themselves to the 

infused with a new life ; strong and gain- minds of its readers in December, in the 

ing in strength every day; cautious in- face of one or two little events which have 

deed and still uncertain, but these are occurred since April. But before com- 

not bad signs in a nation which is recov- menting on it, we must add a further ex- 

ering at however rapid strides, and quisite little piece of irony from the same 

which fell from its overweening confi- speech of Bismarck's we mean of the 

dence. It has almost exhausted its terri- Emperor William: Prince Bismarck only 

ble debt to Germany, and rid the soil of read it : 

the foot of the foe. Its loans were eager- "The new administration in, and the 

ly taken up and covered four times over : consolidation of the affairs of, Alsace and 

its exports for the first six months of the Lorraine make satisfactory progress, 

year were in advance of those for the cor- The damage done by the war is gradually 

responding six months, esteemed a period disappearing with the aid of the subven- 

of great prosperity, prior to the war ; its tion given in conformity with the law, 

army is again on a firm and sound foot- dated June 15, 1871." 

ing ; its children are peaceful, calm and As it is not the purport of this article to 

obedient to the law in the face of the tyr- go extensively into the various subjects 

anny and unnecessarily harsh measures which come under our notice, we think 



The Year of Our Lord 1872. 



that the best mode of dealing with the 
German question will be to read the 
above speech by the December light : 

Honored Gentlemen : You will share 
the satisfaction with which the Confeder- 
ate Governments look back on the events 
of the intervening nine months since his 
majesty, the emperor and king, first found 
reason to congratulate you on the consoli- 
dation of the newly founded empire. 
Those events are, in brief, as follows : 

1. As we consider national education 
to be the first means in making good, 
sound, and efficient citizens of the Empire, 
and as we consider it, moreover, to be the 
great moralizcr of the masses in these 
days, we have found it necessary to take 
this education from the hands in which it 
has rested for so long, "which the Prussia 
of the past encouraged, and indeed enforc- 
ed ; which have had the honor to receive 
the zealous support of two deceased mon- 
archs, the father and brother of the pres- 
ent sovereign ; which have received for the 
last two generations the approbation of all 
sorts of thinkers who believed that the 
Prussian state could only subsist by a 
strict military and religious organization, 
that a definite church system must be 
chosen by the state, and the people drilled 
in it as they were drilled for his majesty's 
armies."* Notwithstanding the very 
solid proofs which our success in the late 
war gave us of the efficiency of this sys- 
tem, when our soldiers went to battle 
under the double panoply of intelligence 
and faith in God, we have since found it 
lit to divorce religion from education, and 
place this moralizer of the masses in the 
hands of those to whom moral itv is a 

j 

thing unknown, or, if it mean anything, 
uis blind obedience to the state in all 
things. 

2. Holding as we do that marriage is 
another powerful moralizer of the masses, 
and the strongest bond for the welfare, 
happiness, and power of a nation, we 
have thought fit to divorce it also from 
religion, to strip it of the sacred character 
with which Jesus Christ invested it, and 
which, even were it false, has been the 
chief means of restoring woman to her fit- 
ting station in life, of civilizing man, and 
substituting love and purity for sensuality 
and animal passion : being perfectly alive 
to all this, we have still seen fit to hand 
the power of the binding and the loosing 
of marringe into the hands of the magis- 

* London Times, Feb. 3. 
VOL. XVI. 36 



tracy, to be dealt with for the future as a 
civil contract, thus reducing it to the far 
more convenient form of a mere matter 
of buying and selling at will. 

3. Having already testified in the most 
direct and special manner our gratitude 
for the great services rendered us by the 
Society of Jesus and kindred orders re- 
cently on the fields of France, and in the 
more lasting and beneficial fields of intel- 
lectual and religious culture under the 
educational system which obtained so 
long and with such profit to us, but 
which we have since seen fit to put an 
end to, we think it fit to prove their de- 
votion still further to us by banishing 
them the Empire, breaking up their com- 
munities, closing their churches, appro- 
priating their property to our own use 
and imprisoning them if we find them 
within our territory. We mercifully 
spare them the further trial of immediate 
martyrdom. 

4. Having been compelled to meet the 
demands of two powerful bodies of our 
subjects whose interests on religious: 
questions sometimes clash, we have very 
wisely, and very satisfactorily to botk 
bodies, met those demands by special 
articles in our legislative code which 
have hitherto answered their purpose SO' 
well that both bodies have been enabled 
to work harmoniously though in friendly 
rivalry together as common children of 
fatherland. We have seen fit to erase 
those laws, at least in the case of the Ca- 
tholics. We cannot allow their bishops 
to excommunicate our subjects, though 
we have hitherto allowed it, and though 
we still allow it to the Protestants.* 

Honored Gentlemen : Having thus 
succeeded in creating a profound and wide- 
spread agitation by outraging the feel- 
ings and the conscience of 14,000,000 of 
our most faithful subjects, an agitation 
which has spread from these 14,000,000 to 
hundreds of millions of their co-religion- 
ists outside the Empire, and indeed cf 
large bodies and p'owerful secular organs 

* As was shown in THE CATHOLIC WORLD last- 
month, excommunication is not only recognized 
by the law in the case of Protestant excommu- 
nicators, but has been sanctioned and confirmed 
by law, on an actual case being brought into 
court. Of course we shall be met by the objec- 
tion that the formal declaration of Papal Infalli- 
bility has altered the connection between the Ca- 
tholic Church and the state. Unfortunatelv for 
this easy method of explaining away difficult 1 
matters, excommunication has not been a whit, 
altered in force, relation, or form from the days 
: ie'> to Pius IX. 



562 



The Year of Our Lord 1872. 



opposed to them in faith, the confederate 
governments, the most powerful of which 
is Catholic, may look forward with joyful 
confidence to the further national and 
state development of our institutions. 
With equal satisfaction you will hail the 
assurance that the policy of his majesty, 
the emperor and king, has succeeded in 
retaining and strengthening the confi- 
dence of all foreign states,* that the pow- 
er acquired by Germany is not only a 
safe bulwark for the fatherland, f but like- 
wise affords a strong guarantee for the 
peace of Europe. 

The new administration in, and the 
consolidation of affairs in, Alsace and 
Lorraine, have made most satisfactory 
progress. By careful and well-devised 
management we have succeeded in driv- 
ing out the population of these two pro- 
vinces, two of the wealthiest in the world, 
in rendering their cities desolate and 
their smiling country a desert : in gain- 
ing for ourselves a new legacy of hatred, 
and arousing the disgust and, what poli- 
tically is worse, the suspicion of all 
governments outside our own. 

As a further comment on this speech 
we must add the dangerous symptoms 
of revolt exhibited by the Upper House 
in the Prussian diet, and the dubiously 
constitutional mode adopted of bringing 
it to submission. The influx of French 
gold would seem to have created a South 
Sea Bubble commotion in financial cir- 
cles. Rent in the chief cities and towns 
has increased twofold ; the cost of living 

* In proof of which read the declaration of 
Count Andrdssy to the Austrian Parliament that, 
notwithstanding the friendly assurances with 
which the three emperors parted at the breaking 
up of their recent conference at Berlin, he could 
not guarantee peace even up to Christmas. Ob- 
serve also the significant rearming of all the great 
European powers and the recent order from Ber- 
lin of 3,000,000 rifles of a new pattern. 

t Witness Bavaria's remonstrance, which was 
disregarded, at the sudden imposition of the se- 
vere military code of Prussian service without 
allowing it time to recover. As a more recent 
comment on that, read the very able and inter- 
esting letters which appeared in the New York 
Herald, Nov. 22, on the European situation, a 
short extract from which, of a Bavarian view on 
German unity, we give : " Germany accepts it, 
because it in some respects realizes the German 
dream of unity. That, of course, every German 
wants. But no one wants a united despotism, a 
military code that turns the whole nation into a 
camp, and takes half a million able-bodied men 
away from the farms and industrious callings. 
We want a Germany for the good of the father- 
land, not for the glory of a little upstart Prussian 
prince whose name is not much older than tho 
Bonapartes' crown." 



has risen with it. This falls heaviest, of 
course, on the middle and lower classes, 
so that we are not surprised to hear, that 
the rate of living having increased 60 or 
70 per cent, for the poorer classes during 
the last six or seven years, and the French 
gold never having filtered down to their 
pockets, the poor have been unable to 
meet their new expenses, and "ever 
since the conclusion of peace with 
France," to quote the special correspond- 
ent of the London Times, April nth, " the 
German workmen have been at war with 
their 'masters.'" As a last comment we see 
the German people fleeing from this glo- 
rious consolidation of confederate govern- 
ments in such numbers that the central 
government is compelled to call into prac- 
tice measures as harsh on the one side to 
restrain their own people from running 
away as they used to force out the inhabi- 
tants of Alsace and Lorraine. We be- 
lieve we have said enough of German 
" Unity " on its first two years of lease to 
show that its workings, whether internal 
or external, have been anything but satis- 
factory so far, and far from hopeful to the 
world at large. 

The strikes which were successful in 
Germany were not restricted to that lo- 
cality. They spread through the greater 
part of Europe, and reached out here to 
us, with varied success. New York was 
in many departments of business at a 
standstill in what is generally esteemed 
as the busiest portion of the year. For- 
tunately with us and for the greater part 
elsewhere, the "strikes " passed off peacc- 
ablv, and the masters and workmen sue- 

J ' 

ceeded in coming to a compromise at least 
for the time being. This uprising of labor 
against capital formed one of the most 
significant, we fear most threatening, as- 
pects of the year. There was a union 
and a combination among the working 
classes of European nations and our own, 
which enabled them to offer a persistent, 
solid, and bold front to their employers. 
Funds and a more perfect organization, 
neither of which seem to us impossible, 
would convert tracles-un-ions into the 
most formidable power in the world. 
Christian education can alone hope to 
convert this into a legal power. At pres- 
ent it wavers between the dictates of good 
sense and fair demands and the wild and 
impossible, but, to half-educated men, 
very fascinating, dreams of the Commu- 
nists. Labor is beginning at last to feel 
its power, its numbers, its irresistible 



The Year of Our Lord 1872. 



563 



force ; that the world cannot get on with- 
out it, as little as it can get on without 
the co-operation of the rest of the world. 
Let the laboring classes receive an edu- 
cation worthy of the name, plant religion 
in their hearts while at school, and, when 
they come to face the hard problem, the 
division of wealth, they will be led away 
by no fallacious teachings that what is 
and always must, be a necessity is a 
wrong done to humanity ; but divorce 
the schools, as governments seem now 
resolved to do, from religion, and labor 
will merge into Communism. 

France has borne her terrible trials with 
a calmness, a magnanimity, and a self- 
dependence which have regained for her in 
the eyes of the world more than she ever 

j 

lost at Sedan. We speak here of the na- 
tion, not of its haphazard government. 
Thiers is at present a necessity ; and by 
the aid of the bogy " resignation " which 
he has conjured up so often, and whereby 
he frightens the still cautious Assembly 
into submission, he has managed to hold 
the dangerous elements in such a state 
of order that the nation has been able so 
far to regain public confidence that its 
loans were caught up with avidity ; it has 
almost freed itself from the foot of the 
foe ; it has frowned down the folly of 
Gambetta ; restored its army to a sound 
footing, and won the admiration and 
good-will of all by its truly patriotic bear- 
ing in the face of a rapacious, dictatorial, 
and merciless conqueror. But Thiers 
cannot last, and what is to follow? The 
country would not bear the rule of " the 
man of Sedan," though, undoubtedly, his 
twenty years of firm government wrought 
it up to the pitch of material prosperity 
which even its terrible losses have been 
unable to destroy. The speech of the 
Due d'Audiffret Pasquier on the army 
contracts, showing a system of finance in 
the army somewhat similar to that which 
has recently greeted our eyes in the city 
government, has killed Napoleonism for 
the nonce. We can only hope for the 
best in France from some other and nobler 
sprout of former dynasties ; we cannot 
foresee it. We must not forget that the 
nation has been kneeling at its altars and 
shrines. Of course superior people and 
"witty " writers have laughed at and in- 
sulted a nation for being foolish enough 
and so far behind the age as to believe in 
the assistance of a God whom they could 
not contain in their capacious intellects. 
France has survived the laughter and dis- 



regarded the laughers ; but her sons have 
been none the less obedient to the laws 
and constitution established, and thus re- 
stored confidence in their country, by 
acknowledging the efficacy of divine wor- 
ship, and the intercession of the bless- 
ed Mother with her divine Son. 

The year has, happily, borne no war 
stain on its record ; for we cannot dignify 
the English expedition against the 
Looshais in India by that title. Revolts 
among the natives have of late been crop- 
ping up again in British India, while the 
silent but steady march of Russia, with 
all her vast forces, nearer and nearer to 
the outline of the British possessions, 
threatens at no distant date an inevitable 
collision between the two powers, which, 
in the not very doubtful event of Russia's 
victory, would avenge Sebastopol, and, 
at the same time more than counter- 
balance the present supremacy of Ger- 
many in Europe. 

While England was all aglow with the 
gorgeous story of pomp and pageantry 
coming from the far East, of reviews of 
armies, of gallant processions from end to 
end of the land, of displays of splendor, 
and more than royal magnificence flash- 
ing on the bewildered gaze of the East- 
erns ; outshining in dazzling brilliancy 
their own "barbaric pearl and gold" 
wrought up to win over their allegiance 
by giving them some idea of the vast 
power of that empire far away, whose re- 
presentative could muster such a show 
of majesty came a cruel little flash across 
the world telling us that the show was 
ended by the death of the chief performer 
at the hands of an obscure assassin. A 
few feet in advance of his part)-, in the 
gloom of evening, as he is about to step 
from the pier into his boat, the stroke of 
a knife from a hidden assailant, and Lord 
Mayo, the great Viceroy, is slain. Eng- 
land viewed his death as a national cala- 
mity. Following close on the heels of 
the murder of Mr. Justice Norman by 
another native, of the outbreaks of the 
Kookas and the Looshais, it had a signi- 
ficance which the nation took to heart. 

From a further corner of the East still 
comes a dread story of famine devouring 
3,000,000 of people in Persia. Small suc- 
cor was offered them by their Christian 
brethren : and such as was sent seems to 
have reached them with the greatest diffi- 
culty. Horrible tales are told of hunger 
overcoming all the ties of nature, and 
mothers, in their madness, devouring even 



564 The Year of Our Lord 1872. 

their own offspring. The harvest for this and our own will be alive to this. No- 
season was a very excellent one ; but its thing of great import has occurred in the 
effects cannot be felt till the coming year, empire beyond the marriage of his Celes- 

The East has not exhausted its ro- tial Majesty. 

mance yet, though this time it wears a Going back to Europe, we find Spain 
less grim visage. We refer to the dis- in much the same state as the opening 
covery of Dr. Livingstone by Mr. Stanley, year found her ; restless, dissatisfied, and 
a reporter of the New York Herald, disunited. A Carlist rising was effected 
Everybody believed Dr. Livingstone in the spring, which at one time threat- 
dead : Mr. Bennett believed him living: ened to be formidable ; but, after showing 
he despatched Mr. Stanley to interview itself in fitful bursts at different points, it 
him somewhere in the middle of Africa, finally died out, for the time being at 
and Mr. Stanley obeyed as successfully least, with a greater loss of gunpowder 
as though he had only been despatched than of life. It was mismanaged. There 
to one of our hotels to " interview" a were and still are a variety of little erup- 
political man. Of course nobody be- tions here, there, and everywhere. An at- 
lieved either Stanley or the Herald ; and tempt on the life of King Amadeo was 
of course there has been much conse- got up for the purpose of arousing some 
qucnt laughing at the "easy -chair loyalty in his favor. It created a little sen- 
geographers," when white, after all, sation at first j but people speedily suspect- 
turned out to be white and not black, ed something, and the subject dropped, 
as the learned gentlemen thus desig- All parties in Spain are still at daggers 
nated demonstrated to a nicety. But drawn. Even if Amadeo could, by his in- 
we should imagine that the persistent fluence, which we very much doubt after 
doubts of these gentlemen were the high- his sufficient trial, conciliate them, they 
est compliment which could be paid, would not be conciliated. We do not 
either to Mr. Stanley or Mr. Bennett, as expect to find Amadeo's name at the head 
indicating the almost utter impossibility of the Spanish government this day 
of their stupendous and brilliant enter- twelvemonth. A good regent, not Mont- 
prise. To the world at large, the finding pensier, might bring about the restora- 
of a man, whom, with all due respect, we tion of Don Alfonso ; but where is such a 
cannot but look upon as self-lost, is the regent? Don Carlos possesses the great- 
least part of the undertaking. Mr. Stan- est amount of genuine loyalty to his name 
ley's expedition and disclosures of the and cause, and he would be the winning 
horrors of the slave trade have awakened a man, could he only manage his rising in 
new interest in that horrible traffic, and a more efficient manner. Even the Satur- 
promises to enlist the sympathies of na- day Review, the other day, almost lamented 
tions in unison against it. the loss of Queen Isabella, 

After a sleep of centuries Japan has re- The state of Italy is perhaps on a par 
opened her gates to Christian influences with that of Spain, with the advantage of 
and civilization gates closed since the the utter lawlessness touched upon in 
work so gloriously commenced by S. our last number. We are now informed 
Francis Xavier was marred by the narrow- that a bill for the suppression of religious 
ness and selfishness and unchristian orders is introduced. Of course it will pass, 
spirit of European traders. The Mikado A government which shakes hands with 
despatched an embassy under the leader- the Garibaldini, which is hand and glove 
ship of one of his chief statesmen, Iwa- with the murderer and assassin whom it 
kura, in order to study this boasted civil- fears, is strong when it comes to the spoli- 
ization and see what it was like. In the ation of religious houses and the persecu- 
meantime, Christians are still suffering tion of Christian men who it knows will 
persecution and even death in Japan, not resist. We cannot pass Italy by alas! 
But why should Iwakura interfere to stop what an Italy it has become ! without 
it when he finds "civilized" governments, one word of admiration for the Holy Fa- 
such as Germany and Italy, setting Japan ther. Men, journalists, all sorts of peo- 
a brilliant example in the same line of pie, would have driven Pius IX. from 
policy? Rome long ago. But the pilot is still at 

Correspondents give us reason to dread the helm of the barque of Peter, though 

a fresh outbreak in China similar to the pirates tread tne decks. And never dur- 

Ticntsin massacre. We trust that the ing the successive storms which have 

representatives of the European powers made his long reign so dark with trial 



The Year of Our Lord 1872. 



565 



has our great pontiff presented to the 
angry world a more forcible spectacle of a 
man utterly above all the pettiness, all 
the trials, all the misery, which human 
malice can inflict upon humanity, than at 
this moment in his own person ; looking 
afar over the troubled waters for the calm 
which shall come from heaven, and bring 
men back from their insane mood at the 
old whisper, " Peace, be still !" He 
stands there the truest and purest living 
protest of justice shackled by injustice, 
and around that prisoned throne range 
the hearts of all true Catholics and all 
true men in the world. 

In England, the Gladstone Ministry 
after many threatenings has managed to 
hold its own, in consequence probably of 
the successful termination of the Alabama 
claims. The Ballot Bill has at length 
passed, and in future we hope to be 
spared the, degrading scenes which were 
wont to accompany English elections. 
The Irish Church Establishment has falsi- 
fied Mr. Gladstone's high hopes of new 
life, vigor, efficiency, and so forth, on be- 
ing deprived of its " temporalities," which 
came into act this year. It has come to a 
miserable collapse, and is now a pauper 
asking alms to live. The agitation for 
the disestablishment of the English 
Church is gaining ground, as is also the 
Home-Rule movement in Ireland, which 
undoubtedly received a fresh impetus 
from the attack made by a renegade Ca- 
tholic judge on the Irish clergy and on 
one of their leaders, Archbishop McHale, 
whose name is venerated wherever his 
fame is known. There has been a cry of 
a coal failure, and a much more serious 
one, because better founded and more 
immediate, of a potato failure in Ireland 
as well as England, which, coupled with 
the strike of the agricultural laborers and 
the coming winter, threatens an ugly sea- 
son. Serious riots incurring a lamenta- 
ble loss of life and property occurred in 
Belfast on the repeal of the Parties Pro- 
cessions Act. The rioters held the city in 
a state of terrorism for days. " Of course 
the Orangemen began it," commented the 
London Spectator ; " the worst murder com- 
mitted, that of Constable Morton, was the 
n.urder of a Protestant by Protestants, 
because he upheld the law." 

In Mexico, the death of President 
Juarez, the murderer of the unhappy 
-Maximilian, as well as of countless 
others, whom " pec pie who ought to 
know " were never tired of calling the 



saviour of his country, the true patriot, 
and the like, oddly enough put an end to 
the internecine strife which was ravag- 
ing the country, and everybody suddenly 
collapsed into peace : " Yet Juarez was 
an honorable man." 

In the natural order, there have been 
terrible convulsions, followed, in the clos- 
ing year, by a succession of tempests on 
sea and land, productive of dismal dis- 
asters. In the spring, an earthquake 
shook Antioch, and half the city was 
gone, with a loss of 1,500 inhabitants. In 
the same month, Vesuvius belched forth 
torrents of burning lava for days, causing 
a vast destruction of property and loss 
of life to a few overcurious sight-seers. 
Later on came the inundations of the Po, 
accompanied by losses more grievous 
still. Then storms swept the country, 
and, indesd, all Europe, strewing the 
shores with wrecked vessels and their 
crews. Fire touched and marred, but, 
fortunately, did not succeed in destroying, 
t\vo of the grandest monuments of Euro- 
pean art the Escurial of Philip II. in 
Spain, and the Cathedral of Canterbury 
in England, doubly consecrated the 
second time by the blood of the mar- 
tyred S. Thomas. It was more success- 
ful among ourselves ; and a few hours' 
blaze in the month of November destroy- 
ed the finest portion of our most ancient 
city, Boston. 

Among what might be termed the curio- 
sities of the year figured the Boston Jubi- 
lee ; an assembling together of European 
bands and singers, with a native chorus of 
20,000. It was called music. A second 
curiosity was the epidemic which recent- 
ly broke out among the horses, and 
brought life in New York to a standstill, 
or at least to a walking pace, for several 
days. It is to be htfped that means of 
transit may be devised to prevent the 
effects of such a casualty in future. 
A. third curiosity was an assembly of 
recreant priests and others to the num- 
ber of 400 at Cologne in order to do 
something. What the something was 
never appeared. They dined, quarrelled, 
and separated ; while the world was 
agape to see something arise which 
should crush God's Church. Other curi- 
osities were the great trials, civil and 
military, Avhich took place during the 
year. Among the former class that of the 
man known as the " Tichborne Claim- 
ant " stands pre-eminent. The story is too 
well known to be commented on here ; 



566 



The Year of Our Lord 1872. 



the "claimant's" case broke down; he 
was committed to Newgate prison, bailed 
out, and is now " starring " the country 
to procure funds for a new trial. The 
case was remarkable for the strangest and 
oddest disclosures of character and hid- 
den life from the highest almost to the 
lowest classes, not only in England, but 
in many other countries. The trial of 
Marshal Bazaine for the surrender of 
Metz, which is still pending, stands fore- 
most in the rank of military trials. Vce 
victis ! Many of Bazaine's comrades 
werecondemned for premature surrender 
by the Committee of Inquiry ; we shall 
see whether the once great marshal will 
be able to come off with a clear escutcheon. 
Other trials were those of the Communists 
and the murderers of the Archbishop of 
Paris and the clergy. As a rule, a more 
villanous set never stood face to face 
with justice. They have had full, fair, 
and exhaustive trials ; such as could offer 
any excuse for their crimes escaped ; the 
others were shot. 

Death has been mowing right and left 
among us with indiscriminating scythe. 
In Persia he grew weary of his own grim 
harvest. Eastern Europe was threatened 
with cholera, but escaped. Some tall 
heads have fallen among the mean ; many 
whose names are memorable for evil as 
well as good ; many others whose places 
it would seem hard to fill. The Catholic 
Church has lost Archbishop Spalding, 
Bishops McGill and O'Connor in Amer- 
ica, Morris and Goss in England, Car- 
dinal Amat in Italy. Their names will 1 live 
in the church and in her prayers. Ander- 
son and Meade have gone, Seward and 
Morse, and Bennett, the founder of 
the New York Herald, and Greelej, 
the founder of the Tribune. Persigny, 
and Conti, and Mazzini, each memor- 
able in his way, dropped out during 
the year. Lever, one of the most genial 
of Irish novelists, is dead, and his much- 
lamented countryman, Maguire, of Cork. 
The only surviving son of the Due 
d'Aumale, a promising young man, 
was snatched away an important event, 



as the claims of this branch of the family 
to the French throne fall now to the Count 
de Chambord. Bernadotte, Charles XV. 
of Sweden, has gone, and was succeeded 
on the throne by his brother Oscar. 

And now, passing from the old, we look 
to the new, not without anxiety. The 
war against the church, in reality against 
the rights of man, the freedom of con- 
science, commenced in Germany, has 
spread thence to Italy, Switzerland, and 
Spain, and, under the form of the educa- 
tional question, wider and further still. 
If Catholics would save the souls of their 
children, and of their children's children, 
from the infidelity and the moral decay 
which we see around us, even in this free 
breathing atmosphere, they must be firm 
and united in their resistance to the en- 
croachment of the state, where states 
possess no rights over the dictates of 
conscience. The uprise of labor against 
capital, which was the real cause of the 
first French Revolution and its mad ex- 
cesses, we have already touched upon. 
It should be a deep source of anxiety and 
care to true statesmen. War looms on 
the European horizon, gathers in silent 
thunder-clouds all around. A flash is 
enough to kindle the combustion and 
make the thunder speak. Who shall 
say when or whence it comes? Europe 
is arming, and we have good authority 
for saying that " the next war will rage 
over half a century" Bismarck himself. 
For the church we foresee an increase of 
bitter and severe trials. We can only 
appeal to that enlightenment which the 
age vaunts ; to its common sense and 
common fairness to allow us the freedom 
in our own worship which they, if they 
possess any, claim for themselves. Public 
opinion is, to a great extent, the lever of 
the age. We must work at that until we 
shame it into powerful and persistent 
action to remove and overthrow the 
mountain of intolerance, bigotry, and 
opposition, which rulers, who are neither 
Protestant nor Catholic, are raising up in 
order to overwhelm all religion, all right, 
all freedom. 



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NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



MY CLERICAL FRIENDS. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 1873. 
We need not say more than that the 
above is by the author of that production 
of exquisite humor and satire, The Comedy 
of Convocation, to awaken a profound 
interest in its appearance. This new 
book from his pen is somewhat simi- 
lar. It is a choice compound of argu- 
ment, history, and wit. Its object is 
to represent the English clerical body 
as it is, with a special intention of 
showing the ridiculousness of the claim 
made by some of its members to the 
character of Catholic priesthood. The 
author is the son of a clergyman, and was 
himself a clergyman, and is at home in his 
subject. We promise our readers a rare 
treat in this new and spicy volume. 

CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACE. 
CONVERSION OF THE FRANKS AND EN- 

GLISH. 

SEQUEL TO THE SAME. S. BONIFACE 
AND THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY. 
By Mrs. Hope. Edited by the Rev. 
J. B. Dalgairns, of the Oratory. Lon- 
don : Washbourne. 1872. 2 vols. 
crown Svo. (New York : Sold by The 
Catholic Publication Society.) 
Few readers of English books know 
much of those most splendid and im- 
portant chapters of history, of which 
these two volumes contain a summary 
within a moderate compass. The lady 
who has written them is a very compe- 
tent and graceful narrator of historical 
scenes and events. She has given us the 
cream of authentic and truly scientific 
historical works with care and skill, 
and at the same time she has clothed 
her narrative with a flowing and agree- 
able diction. There are scarcely two 
volumes to be found in the whole mass 
of recent English literature better worth 
reading than these. We are delighted, 
also, to meet again, in the preface of the 
second volume, with F. Dalgairns, from 
whose pen nothing ever comes which is 
not choice both in matter and style. His 
editorship adds a most satisfactory sanc- 
tion to the historical and critical accura- 
cy of these volumes, over which he has 



exercised a supervision, and some pages 
of which have been written by himself. 
These volumes which have gained great 
repute and favor in England will, we 
trust, have also a wide circulation in this 
country, and help to diffuse sound his- 
torical knowledge, which, as F. Dal- 
gairns remarks, is such a powerful aux 
iliary to religious truth. 

LIFE AND TIMES OF SIXTHS THE FIFTH. 
From the French of Baron Hiibner. 
By James F. Meline. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 

iS73- 

The dying Gregory XIII., worn out 

with the difficulties and responsibilities 
of his position, raised his weary hands 
to heaven, and exclaimed: "Thou wilt 
arise, O Lord, and have mercy on Zion " ; 
prophetic words that were realized in the 
election of Pope Sixtus V., who, as 
Ranke justly observes, possessed in the 
highest perfection the moral and intellec- 
tual qualities demanded for the suppres- 
sion of the prevalent disorders of the 
times. Perhaps there- is no other pope 
whose life is of more universal interest. 
His striking individuality of character 
appeals to the popular mind, and has 
given rise to a variety of fables respect- 
ing him which fasten themselves on the 
memory and, though not literally true, 
yet embody a certain truth of their own. 
His rise from obscurity to become a 
link of that august dynasty beside which 
"the proudest royal houses are but of 
yesterday," his ability to cope with all 
the difficulties of his position at a critical 
period in the political and religious 
world, his astuteness in dealing with the 
most wily diplomatists, his clear notions 
as to the necessity of balance of power 
among different nations, his financial 
ability and genius for statesmanship, 
have all commanded the very admiration 
of the enemies of the papacy. " A grand 
old man," the British Quarterly styles 
him, and with reason. " A great pope, to 
whom posterity owes a debt of gratitude 
in consideration of the whole results of 
his pontificate," says the Edinburgh AV- 



568 



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The extraordinary events of the life of 
Sixtus V. were the result of his wonder- 
ful energy and persistency. People like 
decision of character a man with a pur- 
pose, and the ability of putting it into 
execution. This is why all admirers of 
" self-made " men like to retrace the up- 
ward steps of the life of this eminent pope, 
from the rustic boyhood of Felice Peret- 
ti on the shores of the Adriatic ; his 
thirst for knowledge that impelled him 
to study by the lamp of the sanctuary ; 
his girding himself with the cord of the 
humble Francis while yet a mere boy ; his 
career as a young friar-preacher, drawing 
crowded Roman audiences to listen to 
his fervid eloquence, among them such 
men as S. Ignatius de Loyola and S. 
Philip Neri ; his promotion to a cardi- 
nalship by a sainted pope who was his 
benefactor, and whose last moments he 
had the happiness of witnessing ; his 
temporary retirement to his villa, where 
he gave himself up to quiet observation 
of the needs of the times, especially of 
his own country, the study of architec- 
ture and the improvements needed in 
Rome, and all those pursuits which tend- 
ed to fit him for his subsequent elevation 
to the papacy. Sixtus V. did not look 
upon his success in life as solely due 
to his own merit. He recognized 
the finger of Divine Providence, and 
chose as his motto : " Thou, O God, hast 
been my defender, even from my mo- 
ther's womb." 

The Life of Sixtus V, by Baron Htib- 
ncr, though written from a Catholic point 
of view, is acknowledged by the Edin- 
burgh Review to be one of the most valu- 

o 

able contributions to the literature of the 
age, so rich in historical biography. Its 
superiority to the previous lives of that 
pope is partly due to his access to the 
archives of Simancas, not open to re- 
search at the time of Ranke. Though 
the pontificate of Sixtus V. was only 
about five years long, it embraced a rapid 
succession of extraordinary and tragical 
events, as is evident when we remember 
he was contemporary with Queen Eliza- 
beth of England, Mary Queen of Scots, 
Philip II. of Spain, and Henry of Navarre, 
whose names recall the persecution 
of the Church in England, the execution 
of Mary Stuart, the Armada, the over- 
throw of the League, and the accession 
of Henri Quatre to the throne of France, 
and show us what a weight of responsi- 
bility rested upon the Head of the Church. 



No wonder he was soon worn out by the 
pressure. The tiara is but a thorny 
crown at the best, as befits him who 
stands in Christ's stead. The very con- 
dition cf the Pontifical States was an 
affair of no slight difficulty. Only a man 
of extraordinary energy and decision of 
character could have surmounted it. 
Sixtus V. has been called pitiless from 
the terrible punishments he inflicted for 
apparently trivial offences, but he was 
personally humane, for at the murder of 
his nephew he was the first to entreat the 
pope (Sixtus being at that time Cardinal 
Montalto) to drop his investigations, 
and when he had cleared the Roman 
States of brigandage, he endeavored to 
conciliate the nobles. His inflexible se- 
verity seemed imperiously demanded. 
Twenty-seven thousand brigands ravag- 
ed his dominions ; the castles of noble- 
men were their strongholds ; they were 
protected by neighboring princes ; and 
the very streets of Rome often witnessed 
the attacks of peaceful citizens by armed 
bands. Sixtus himself when a cardinal 
had nearly lost his life in encountering 
a band of lawless young nobles as he was 
going home one night. He saw the ab- 
solute necessity of putting an end to 
such disorders and the terror of the in- 
habitants. Accordingly, one of his first 
acts after his election was to forbid the 
carrying of fire-arms in the streets, and, 
when he found his order disobeyed by 
four young men, he had them hung the 
very next morning. 

But he was strictly impartial in ad- 
ministering justice. No clerical offender 
was screened by the sacredness of his 
garments. The friar who imposed on 
the piety of the faithful was scourged 
from one end of the Corso to the other ; 
the cardinal who was desirous of protect- 
ing a guilty servant was threatened with 
the Castle of St. Angelo ; the traitor- 
priest who gave Queen Elizabeth infor- 
mation of what was occurring at Rome 
was executed in such a manner as to 
strike terror into every treacherous 
breast. No wonder Sixtus became a ter- 
ror to evil doers, and his very name suf- 
ficed to put an end to the brawls in the 
streets. The time arrived when he could 
say with grim humor: " Fitgit impi us ne- 
mine penequente" "The wicked flee 
when no man pursueth." 

Sixtus V. left proofs of his genius and 
energy all over Rome. He kept thou- 
sands of men constantly emploj-ed. The 



Neiv Publications. 



569 



dome of S. Peter's was completed in 
twenty-two months, though the architect 
said it would require ten years. He re- 
stored a colossal aqueduct that had fallen 
to ruin, and brought the Acqua Felice in- 
to Rome from a distance of about twenty 
miles. He opened great thoroughfares 
all through the city, built the Lateran 
Palace, erected monuments, undertook 
to drain the Pontine Marshes, encour- 
aged agriculture and the manufacture of 
silk, established the Congregation of 
Rites and several others, limited the num- 
ber of cardinals to seventy, and partly 
revised the Vulgate with his own hand. 
His practical nature by no means made 
him insensible to softer influences. His 
soul was so alive to music that at the 
exciting time of his election he lent 
an ear to Palestrina's music hastily com- 
posed for the occasion, and remarked 
that Pierluigi had forgotten Pope Marcel- 
lo's Mass a criticism that mortified the 
great composer, but which has since been 
acknowledged to be true. 

He won the gratitude of the Israelites 
by his favor. Amazed Rome saw a Gen- 
tile actually scourged on the Corso for 
insulting a member of that ancient race. 
To another Israelite was granted special 
privileges for his success in increasing 
the production of silk. 

Col. Meline's book is not a literal 
translation of Baron Hiibner's Life of 
Sixtus V. : it is rather a resume', as the 
preface explains. It consists of three 
parts : the first reviews the life of that 
pope, giving such details as are of inter- 
est to the general reader ; the second 
portrays the experience of a Transalpine 
traveller to Rome three centuries ago ; 
and the third is a vivid picture of Rome 
at that time : the whole being an im- 
proved edition of three essays already 
given to the public. 

The readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD 
are already too familiar with Mr. Meline's 
felicitous style and his power of analysis 
to require any commendation on our 
part. And to the public at large he has 
recommended himself by his chivalrous 
defence of Mary, Oueen of Scots. The 
strong lance he has wielded in the de- 
fence of her fair name against that 
doughty writer of fiction, Mr. James An- 
thony Froude, has been too universally 
applauded not to secure a general wel- 
come to whatever comes from his able 
pen. 



THE HEART OF MYRRH A LAKE ; or, Into 

the Light of Catholicity. By Minnie 

Mary Lee. New York : The Catholic 

Publication Society. 1872. 

The enthusiastic author of this charm- 
ing little story has succeeded in present- 
ing much logic which is usually dull, in 
very attractive attire. The arguments 
and conclusions are so wonderfully clear, 
that it is to be hoped the book will fall 
frequently into the hands of the class 
most in need of it, but, alas ! least likely 
to read it. There is in it much of quiet 
humor which is irresistible "and very 
"telling"; as, for instance, when to the 
question, " What Catholic books have 
you read, sir?" the sturdy Methodist, 
Abner White, replies : " Fox's Book of 
Martyrs, Maria Monk, Six Months in a 
Convent, Romanism at Home, Priest and 
Nun, etc." And again, in the interview 
between Aunt Ruth and the committee 
of Methodist ladies who had come to 
wait upon her after her husband's conver- 
sion, human nature, and especially 
Methodist nature, is painted with a very 
clever pen. Who has not known just 
such spinsters as Miss Nancy and Miss 
Sarah ? And what a keen dash is this : 

"' Then we shall report that you choose- 
to follow your husband, rather than the 
goodly rules of our Methodist discipline ?' 

" ' I shall go with my husband certainly,' 
was the firm, respectful answer. 

" ' And may God have mercy on your 
soul,' solemnly added the spinster, as if 
addressing a person about to be hanged. 

" ' Thank you !' absently and innocently 
responded the quiet Quakeress. 

" ' I suppose, then, we need not even pray 
foryott?' said one. 

" ' You always was a little queer, Sister 
White, you and Brother White, too, now 
that we come to think it over,' said an- 
other. 

" ' Extremely odd it is for one to lose 
all sense of propriety, and assume the 
responsibility of such a fearful step/ 
rapidly spoke little Sarah. 

" ' We pity you, and ivoitld help you, 
but you won't let us,' was Mrs. Sand's 
trembling good-by. 

" ' We wash our hands of all sin in this 
matter. It lies at your own door,' were 
the last consolatory words of Miss 
Nancy." 

Many another reader might say with 
Myrrha, " When I took up that small 
book called A General Catechism of tha 



570 



New Publications. 



Christian Doctrine, I little dreamed upon 
what a study I had entered. Again, alter 
reading it through, I as little dreamed 
upon what a sea of speculation I had 
launched." May the result of such read- 
ing prove as fruitful of good to all readers 
as to Myrrha ! But such results seem to 
happen oftener in books than in real, 
selfish life. The best of this story is its 
ending, which, this time, is neither mar- 
riage nor death for the lovers. 

FLEURANGE. By Mme. Augustus Craven. 
Translated by M. P. T. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 
1872. 

Rarely, indeed, have we met a work 
whose author exhibits so many of the 
qualities indespensable in a good novelist, 
as the one under consideration. Artistic 
in conception, pure and elevated in style, 
it is withal faultless in tone and sentiment. 
It is not our purpose to give an outline 
of the plot of this tale, or to enlarge on 
the actors through whom it is evolved, 
but we shall confine ourselves to some 
observations on certain characteristics of 
the writer as developed in her work. 

The author manifests a high degree of 
insight and the sesthetic sense, an inti- 
mate knowledge of feminine nature, and 
more of that of the opposite sex than its 
members may dream of in acquiring 
which the delicate intuitions of her own 
sex doubtless serve a better purpose than 
the mere logic and learning of ours. 
Although the story introduces the reader 
into the highest social circles, and its inci- 
dents are of the most absorbing interest, 
there is no sacrifice of the dramatic 
unities, or any departure from the essen- 
tial simplicity of the narrative. This 
severity of style, we may say, is at once 
the most winning quality of a work of 
genius, and the best test of its success ; 
making the latter dependent on inherent 
excellence, rather than adventitious aids. 
In works of this character, art in letters 
reaches its highest development that in 
which it becomes the most natural. 

A noticeable feature is the epigrammatic 
conciseness with which a sentiment or 
description is finished. The reader is 
never wearied with platitudes or over- 
minuteness of limning. Whatever idea 
occurs to the writer which she is will- 
ing to share with the reader is ex- 
pressed in the fewest possible words. 
Is a scene to be presented to the 
mind's eye? a few touches of the 



artist's pencil bring it vividly before us. 
The reader finds himself moved alter- 
nately to mirthfulness, or tears, or aston- 
ishment, as he encounters an unexpected 
bit of humor, and exquisite burst of 
pathos, or some reflection almost startling 
in depth or suggestiveness. Some pas- 
sages are open to obvious inference, 
while others constitute studies if we 
would probe their philosophy. It was a 
question with those who watched the 
serial progress of the story, how the 
author could bring order and harmony 
out of the complications in which she 
had involved her principal characters ; 
and the way this has been accomplished 
will be acknowledged as not the least of 
her achievements. No characters are 
interchanged or lose their identity. Each 
acts his part as naturally, and retains his 
individuality, as in real life ; so that, when 
the dramatis persona; are at length sum- 
moned to the footlights for a final adieu, 
we feel inclined to protest, in the name 
of all the delighted auditors, against the 
call, as a premature termination of a very 
pleasant intercourse. 

The reception Fleurange has met with 
thus far is very flattering. It has com- 
mended itself to the favorable judgment 
of the London Saturday Review , and other 
authorities of like critical acumen ; has 
been crowned by the French Academy ; 
and received the general approval of the 
press and public, so far as we have learn- 
ed, while passing through the pages of 
Le Correspondant and THE CATHOLIC 
WORLD. We know of no recent imagin- 
ative work of which we could speak in 
terms of more unqualified approbation, 
or better deserving a permanent place in 
our literature, 'both as a work of art and 
for the sound principles by which it is 
pervaded and informed. 

On the translation, we do not know 
that we could bestow higher praise than 
to say that it reads like an original work 
of the first order ; while we are convinc- 
ed that it is a faithful and conscientious 
rendering from the French text. 

LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK By Aubrey 

De Vere. Dublin : McGlashan & Gill. 

London : Henry S. King & Co. 1872. 

(New York: Sold by The Catholic 

Publication Society.) 

" If the Ireland of early times is 
ever understood, it will not he till after 
thoughtful men have deemed her legends 
worthy of their serious attention." This 



New Publications. 



571 



remark Mr. De Vere makes in his pre- 
face, and not until we had read through 
his Legends did we fully realize its truth. 
It is a most certain fact that the twilight 
of Irish history can be changed into day 
only by the profound study of its legen- 
dary lore. We have read several lives 
of S. Patrick, and more than one history 
of Ireland have we studied, but from none 
of them did we get so clear an insight 
into the character of the saint and the ge- 
nius of his people as from Mr. De Vere's 
Legends, few and short though they 
be. 

The subjects are beautiful and poetic, 
and the author's conception of them lofty 
and spiritual. Theae is indeed a sacred 
melody about early Irish song which only 
a spiritual bard can evoke. Chords 
there are in Erin's ancient harp which a 
hand of mere flesh and blood may not 
touch. Mr. De Vere has sung those 
songs ; he has touched these chords, and 
they have given forth their true melody. 
It is not to his beautiful diction and vary- 
ing metres, it is not to his wonderful 
descriptive powers and high poetic gifts, 
that we attribute this success, but it is to 
those two passions of his soul which im- 
press themselves on all that he writes 
love of God and love of Ireland. And 
here an opportunity is afforded us of 
speaking of Mr. De Vere as the poet of 
Ireland. That he is far superior to any 
Irish poet of the present day is beyond 
all question, and that his equal, in every- 
thing save popularity, to any English 
poet of the day is a verdict competent 
judges have not hesitated to give. 

We often ask ourselves, How is it, then, 
he is so little known and read by his 
countrymen in America? For twenty 
years he has scorned " the siren's tinsel 
lure," and devoted all his talents to 
sounding the praises of Ireland and of 
Ireland's Catholicity. His sole aim 
through life has been to enshrine Ire- 
land's faith and Ireland's song in the tem- 
ple of fame. Patriotism is his only incen- 
tive to labor; he seems indifferent to 
popularity, and perhaps this is one rea- 
son why he enjoys so little. But there 
are other reasons, we think, and they also 
are in his favor. Mr. De Vere is too 
polished, too though-tful, and too spiritual 
to be a popular poet. 

If he would descend from his high 
poetic ideal to sing love songs, he would 
soon be popular ; but he will never prove 
a recreant bard. Those for whom he has 



so long and so faithfully labored must 
disenthrall themselves from the spirit of 
the age, and ascend to his level ; then will 
they find in him all they can desire, and 
proclaim him their laureate. They will 
not find in him, it is true, the inimitable 
sweetness of Moore or the poetic fire of 
Davis, but they will find in him the 
patriotism of both, a polish superior to 
either, and, over all and above all, they 
will find a muse ennobled by the highest 
sentiments of religion and morality. 

THE TRUTH. By Field Marshal the Duke 
of Saldanha. Translated from the Por- 
tuguese, by William John Charles 
Henry. London : Burns, Gates & Co. 
1872. (New York : Sold by The Catholic 
Publication Society.) 
This little volume will be found to con- 
tain not only some of the most forcible 
arguments for Christianity that have ever 
been advanced, but particularly a collec- 
tion (in the first chapter) of testimonials 
from ancient heathendom to what is only 
realized in Christ and his religion. No- 
thing can be more interesting, surely, 
than the study of the great tradition of ex- 
pectation which fulfilled the prophecy of 
the dying Israel : ' And He shall be the 
expectation of the nations " (Gen. 
xlix. 10). Our noble author opens his 
first chapter with this sentence : " From 
the east to the west, from the north to the 
south, in every language, in the literature 
of all nations, with a voice spontaneous, 
universal, and unanimous, the entire hu- 
man race cried aloud for the coming of a 
Divine Teacher." And when we have de- 
lightedly perused this first chapter, we as 
heartily endorse its concluding sentence: 
"This we believe to have most clearly 
demonstrated that, . . . with one 
voice, unanimous, spontaneous, and uni- 
versal, the human race cried out for the 
coming of a God of revelation." 

The work is designed for a defence of 
Christianity against the infidelity of the 7 
day. And we think it a most able and a 
singularly attractive one. Let our young 
men especially read it. It will make 
them a match for any sceptical show of 
learning. 

CATHOLIC WORSHIP. A Manual of Popu- 
lar Instruction on the Ceremonies and 
Devotions of the Church. By Frederick 
Canon Oakeley. New York : The Ca- 
tholic Publication Society. 1872. 
Recent converts and inquirers after re- 



572 



New Publications. 



ligious truth frequently experience some 
difficulty in understanding the ceremonies 
of the church and the various devotional 
practices of Catholics. We know of no 
more suitable book to place in the 
hands of such persons than this little 
treatise of Canon Oakeley. It is con- 
cise, clear, and methodical. Nothing 
is left unexplained, from the prac- 
tice of taking holy water upon enter- 
ing the church to the consecration of a 
bishop. This book will be found to be of 
great use not only to converts, but to 
Catholics in general, containing as it 
does a thoroughly reliable explanation 
of everything connected with our wor- 
ship. This second edition is an evidence 
of the favor with which it has been re- 
ceived by the Catholic public. 

THE SHADOW OF THE OBELISK, and 
Other Poems. By Thomas William 
Parsons. London : Hatchards, Picca- 
dilly. 1872. 

This modest volume is from the author 
whose translations from Dante, that have 
appeared in our magazine, are attracting 
deserved attention. 

Mr. Parsons' powers as a lyric poet are 
considerable. His verse has, for the 
most part, the easy and often careless 
diction of a school which many think 
gone out, but which we believe destined 
to revive. Yet here and there we see the 
influence of Tennyson. The lines, "To 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," are in 
the latter style. For strength his sonnets 
are his best efforts. We wish he had 
favored us with more of ihem. 

There is ample variety in the pieces 
collected. The poet has travelled much. 
"The Shadow of the Obelisk" sets us 
musing in Rome. " The Birthplace of 
Robert Burns" takes us to " bonnie 
Scotland." "St. James' Park" tells us 
the writer has philosophized in Lon- 
don. While the "Willey House," "On 
the Death of Daniel Webster," and 
"Hudson River" are themes from his 
native America. The lines, " On a Mag- 
nolia Flower," are fragrant with the South 
the pale, sad South and one of the 
gems of the book. 

Mr. Parsons is a Unitarian, as he takes 
care to indicate ; but, like Longfellow, 
he has Catholic sympathies. However, 
there is one short translation from Dante, 
entitled " A Lesson for Easter," the last 
two lines of which seem to talk Protest- 
antism : 



" Ye have the Testament, the Old and New, 
And this for your salvation is enough." 

But the preceding lines should throw 
light on the Catholic poet's meaning : 

" Christians, be staid : walk wisely and serene: 
Be grave, and shun the flippant speech of those 
Who think that every wave will wash them 

clean 

That any field will serve them for repose. 
Be not a feather to each wind that blows : 
There is a Shepherd and a Fold for you : 
Ye have a Lender when your way is rough." 

All this is unmistakable orthodoxy ; 
and, therefore, the two lines quoted, 
which come next, speak of the evidence 
of the Old and the New Testament for the 
"one Fold and one Shepherd" and the 
infallible " Leader." 

We conclude by Hoping that Mr. Par- 
sons will vouchsafe us another volume of 
minor poems, and especially of sonnets. 

THE LIFE OF FATHER MATHEW, THE 
PEOPLE'S SOGGARTH AROON. By Sis- 
ter Mary Francis Clare, Author of 
The Illustrated History of Ireland, Ad- 
vice to Iris h Girls in America, Horne- 
hurst Rectory, etc. 

The indefatigable Nun of Kenmare 
could not have employed her pen on a 
worthier subject than the life and labors 
of the Apostle of Temperance. She 
will have accomplished a great end if 
this work serves to keep green in the 
hearts of her countrymen and of all Ca- 
tholics the memory of one who accom- 
plished more good than many who pos- 
sessed more brilliant abilities, yet who 
neglected to employ their talents in that 
usurious activity which wins a blessing. 

DAILY STEPS TO HEAVEN. New York : 
D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872. 
This, as well as the preceding work, be- 
longs to a series of publications by the 
same author, embracing religious, his- 
torical, and miscellaneous books, which 
have attained an extraordinary popular- 
ity in the old country and in the United 
States. 

A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. By Rev. 

Reuben Parsons, D.D. New York: 

D.& J. Sadlier & Co. 

This work has been compiled " for the 
use of colleges, schools, and families." 
It contains short biographical sketches 
of the principal characters of history, to- 
gether with chronological tables. The 
subjects are for the most part well select- 
ed, and, as far as we have read, are well 
and correctly treated. The style of the 



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573 



author is terse and vigorous, and well 
adapted to this kind of composition. 

The printing is excellent, the binding 
neat, but the figure in the frontispiece 
has suffered not a little at the hands of 
the artist an accident which mars some- 
what the general appearance of the book. 

THE NEW GOD. Translated from the 
German of Conrad von Bolanden, by 
Very Rev. Theodore Noethen, V.G. 
Albany: M. O'Sullivan. 1872. 
Our readers have already had a suffi- 
cient taste of this author's quality in " The 
Progressionists," now going through our 
pages, to desire the further treat to be 
found in the new products of his pen. We 
do not recall any series of fictitious writ- 
ings, designed to combat vicious principles 
and actions, more admirable as specimens 
of vigorous and effective composition. 
The most obtuse progressionist could 
scarcely fail to comprehend the drift of 
the underlying argument, while the more 
fastidious reader will be carried along by 
the interest of the tale through which it is 
conveyed. Father Noethen is performing 
an acceptable service in making these 
works known to the English reader. 

Bolanden's works fairly palpitate with 
the gravity of themes of living interest. 
The new German Government, the bur- 
then of the present tale, has given evi- 
dence of their telling effect by ordering 
their suppression. 

GERALDINE : A TALE OF CONSCIENCE. 

By E. C. A. New York : P. O'Shea. 

Geratdituvns one of the first successful 
re! igious novels which followed the revival 
of Catholic doctrine in England, and 
bids fair to hold its own for many a year 
to come. It enjoys a. wider reputation 
than cither of Miss Agnew's other works, 
one of which, Koine and the Abbey, forms a 
sequel to this. 

Mr. O'Shea also issues a reprint of 
Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on the Con- 
nection between Science and Revealed Reli- 

n ; intended, apparently, as the com- 
mencement of an uniform series of the 
great author's works. 

It is to be regretted that this work had 
not undergone a thorough revision by 

me competent hand before its reap- 
pearance, in order to adapt it to the 
present state of scientific investigation. 
Although true science can never be out 
of harmony with revelation, its succes- 
sive developments may enable us to see 



the conditions of that harmony and rela- 
tion in a clearer light than when the 
Lectures were originally published. 

THE HISTORY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN 
MARY. Translated from the French 
of the Abbe Orsini, by the Very Rev. 
F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G. Boston : 
Patrick Donahoe. 1872. 

This work is already known to many 
readers in the presentation edition issued 
by the Messrs. Sadlier some years since, 
and the recent English edition of which 
the above is a fac-simile. We are glad to 
see an edition like this made accessible 
to th,e great body of readers, though the 
fire in which the publisher was involved, 
will interfere for a time with that consum- 
mation. It has a number of pictorial il- 
lustrations, and there are appended the 
letters apostolic concerning the dogmatic 
definition of the Immaculate Conception. 

LIZA. By Ivan S. Turgenieif. New 
York : Holt & Williams. 1872. 
Liza is another work from the pen of 
M. Turgenieff, the distinguished Russian 
novelist, several of whose works are al- 
ready familiar to us. His quiet sarcasm 
in depicting the Russian of the old 
school, who needs no scratching to reveal 
the genuineTartar crafty and brutal, but 
with a kindly streak withal and the 
Russian of the present generation who 
has imbibed foreign habits and theories 
by no means elevating, is admirably cal 
culated to correct the evils of a transi- 
tion state of society. The former affords 
us two affecting pictures in this book of 
women of repressed lives, who humbly 
kiss with their dying lips the hand that 
has crushed them. One of them leaves a 
young son, Fedor Lavretsky, who never 
forgets his pale and gentle mother, who 
in turn hardly dared caress him for fear 
of the sharp eyes and cutting tongue of 
her sister-in-law, Glafira, who had taken 
charge of the child. He is brought up 
under a system of repression, and, when 
his father dies, he goes to Moscow deter- 
mined to repair the defects of his educa- 
tion. There he falls in love with the face 
of a beautiful girl who regards him as a 
schone Partie and marries him. He gives 
himself up to the happiness of his new 
life, and is induced by his wife to leave 
his estate, and, after various changes, to 
go to Paris, where admiration seems to 
have intoxicated her. Fedor, becoming 
aware of her real character, settles an an- 



574 



New Publications. 



nuity on her, leaves her, and returns to 
his native land. He cannot bear, how- 
ever, to go to his own seat where he 
passed the first happy days of his mar- 
ried life, but betakes himself to his aunt's 
place the stern Glafira, who had died 
during his absence. The desolate house 
is once more opened, and he stands alone 
in the room where she breathed her last, 
and looks with softened heart on the 
sacred icons in their gilded frames in 
the corner, and the worn carpet, covered 
with drippings from the wax candles she 
had burned before them, and on which 
she had knelt to pray. His old servant 
waits on him, he drinks tea out of the 
great cup he had used in his boyhood, 
looks over the large book full of mysteri- 
ous pictures which he had found so won- 
drous in childish days. Everything re- 
calls the earlier remembrances of his life. 
" On a woman's love my best years have 
been wasted," thought he. 

Going to pay his respects to his great- 
aunt, who is admirably drawn with a few 
vivid touches, he meets with Liza, whom 
he left a child, but is now nineteen years 
of age. There is a natural grace about 
her person ; her face is pale, but fresh ; 
her eyes lustrous and thoughtful, her 
smile fascinating, but grave, and she has 
a frank, innocent way of looking you di- 
rectly in the face. Lavretsky is instantly 
struck with her appearance, and the im- 
pression is deepened the oftener he sees 
her. Liza's mother is one of those women, 
qui if a pas invente la poudre, la bonne dame, 
as one of her visitors ungratefully remarks. 
Her daughter owes the elevation and 
purity of her character to the nurre of 
her childhood, who gave herself up to 
penitential observances. Instead of nur- 
sery tales, she told Liza of the B-lessed 
Virgin, the holy hermits who had been 
fed in their caves by the birds, and the 
female martyrs from whose blood sprang 
up sweet flowers. She used to speak of 
these things seriously and humbly, as if 
unworthy to utter such high and holy 
names, and Liza sat at her feet with rever- 
ent awe drinking in the holy influences of 
her words. Aglafia also taught her to 
pray, and took her at early dawn to the 
matin service. Liza grew up thoroughly 
penetrated with a sense of duty, loving 
everybody, but loving God supremely 
and with tender enthusiasm. Till Lav- 
retsky came, no one had troubled the 
calmness of her inner life. 

After some time, learning through a 



newspaper that his wife is dead, he con- 
fesses his love to Liza. She feels drawn 
towards him, her heart seems to respond 
to his love, but it is hardly with genuine 
passion ; it is rather the agitation of a 
lily too rudely stirred by the breeze. 
Not that she has no depth of feeling ; 
but, as she afterwards acknowledges, 
when she did indulge in hopes of happi- 
ness, her heart shuddered within her. 
Love seemed almost a profanation, as if a 
stranger had entered her pure maiden 
chamber. 

Suddenly, the wife, supposed to be 
dead, reappears. It is all a mistake. 
Her husband is stunned. He feels he 
can never give back his love to one who 
has no longer his respect. And Liza is 
lost to him. After several attempts, he 
sees her again. Her eyes have grown 
dimmer and sunken, her face is pale, and 
her lips have lost their color. She im- 
plores him to be reconciled to his wife, 
and they part without her allowing her 
hand to meet his. 

Six months later, Liza takes the veil 
in a remote convent in Russia. The 
Greek as well as the Latin convent 
seems to be the ideal refuge of start- 
led innocence and purity. Once Lav- 
retsky goes there, hoping to catch a 
glimpse of her. He sees her as she is 
leaving the choir. She passes close by 
him with the quick, noiseless step of a 
nun, but keeps steadily on without look- 
ing at him. But he sees the almost im- 
perceptible tremor of her eye ; she bends 
her emaciated face still lower, and the 
hands that hold the rosary are clasped 
more tightly together. 

But the chief value of M. TurgeniefFs 
novels to a Catholic lies not in the sto- 
ries themselves certainly, but in the de- 
lightful pictures of Russian life and 
manners they present, and the influence 
they have had in softening the rugged 
manners of the north and changing the 
condition of the serfs. 

WONDERS OF THE MOON. Translated 

from the French of Amedee Guillemin, 

by Miss M. G. Mead. Edited, with 

additions, by Maria Mitchell, of Vassar 

College. Illustrated with forty-three 

engravings. New York : Scribner, 

Armstrong & Co. 1873. 

This little book contains a tolerably 

full account of all that is known about 

the moon, and that is of interest to the 

general reader. Our knowledge of cur 



New Publications. 



575 



satellite is in some respects hardly equal 
to that which we have recently acquired 
of the much more distant sun ; though so 
near, comparatively, to us, it is still too 
far away for the telescope ever to give us 
as clear a view of it as we need ; and the 
spectroscope is of little use in its exami- 
nation. We shall never know much 
about it, and especially about its other 
side, unless we go to see it ; and a trip 
to the moon, chimerical as it may seem, 
may not always remain an impossibilit3 r 
for some adventurous person who is will- 
ing to run his chance of finding; in the ap- 
parently uncomfortable little place the 
necessary conditions for human life. 
However, not a few of us will be content 
with the information given in this book, 
which is vastly greater than what most 
persons would probably acquire by ex- 
amining the moon with the finest tele- 
scope ; for a telescope is of little service 
to one unaccustomed to use it, and few 
things are more provoking to an expe- 
rienced moon-gazer than evident failure 
of others to see what seems to him so 
plain. To those, then, who really wish 
to get a good idea of the moon, and es- 
pecially of its physical constitution and 
probable scenery, in really the most satis- 
factory way, this little volume, notwith- 
standing a few slight inaccuracies (such as 
the placing of Petit's bolide at 9,000,000 
miles from the earth), will be quite in- 
teresting and valuable. These inaccura- 
cies, if in the original, should have been 
corrected in the translation. 

THE GREAT PROBLEM : The Higher Min- 
istry of Nature viewed in the Light 
of Modern Science, and as an aid to 
advanced Christian Philosophy. By 
John R. Leifchild, A.M., author of 
Our Coal Fields and our Coal Pits ; Corn- 
wall : Its Mines and Miners, etc., etc. 
With an introduction by Howard Cros- 
bv, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor of the 
University of New York. New York : 
G. P. Putnam Son. 1872. 
Dr. Crosby introduces this really able 
and valuable essay with a just and manly 
rebuke of the unparalleled absurdity and 
impudence of our modern materialistic 
enlists ; and it is high time for him, 
considering what balderdash he is oblig- 
ed to listen to from his chancellor's chair. 
The essay of Mr. Leifchild is a series of 
arguments on the topics of natural the- 
ology, in which some of the principal 
manifestations of the power and wisdom 



of God in the physical world are pointed 
out and referred to their true cause and 
end. The author most absurdly saws 
off the limb of the tree on which grows 
all the fruit he admires so much and 
gathers so carefully, by denying the value 
of metaphysics. But, in spite of that, 
his sound mind holds implicitly the very 
metaphysics he ignorantly despises, and 
he is therefore able to reason very well 
and conclusively. Most persons who 
read books of this kind are more ready 
to listen to a geologist teaching theology 
than to a professed theologian, and they 
prefer the roundabout method of coming 
to a point by induction to the straight 
road of logical deduction. This book is 
likely to be useful, therefore, and is, 
besides, printed in very clear, legible 
type, which makes it a pleasant book to 
read, though laboring under the sad in- 
convenience of having neither index nor 
table of contents. There are a good 
many interesting facts and statements 
about eminent writers interspersed, e.g., 
Spinoza and Leibnitz ; but the author is 
seriously mistaken in ascribing anv 
pantheistic doctrines or tendencies tc 
Henry Suso and Taulcr. We are happy 
to welcome such books from English 
writers who are adepts in the physical 
sciences. For these sciences, and the 
men who are really masters of them, we 
have a great respect in their own sphere. 
And we consider it a very praiseworthy 
and useful task for men of this kind, 
to undertake to show the conformity of 
these sciences with the queen overall the 
scientific realm Christian philosophy. 

THE MINNESINGER OF GERMANY. By 
A. E. Kroeger. New York : Hurd & 
Hough ton: 1872. 

In this little book we have a very 
charming, as also very learned, exposition 
of mediaeval art. The Minnesinger or 
ministrel-knights of the latter half of the 
Xllth and earlier half of the Xlllth cen- 
turies are but little known outside of 
Germany. In this book we are introduc- 
ed to the principal masters of this beauti- 
ful and ephemeral school of song, Gott- 
fried von Strassburg, Walter von der 
Vogelweide, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, 
Hartmann von der Aue, Regenbogen, 
Conrad von Wtirzburg, and Henrich von 
Meissen, known as " Fmncntob" or 
" ladies' praise." These poets sang 
chiefly of religion and love. But fore- 
most among all women, the great Mother 



New Publications. 



of God chiefly claimed their enthusiastic 
homage, as we see by the long extracts 
given by Mr. Kroeger of some of their 
glorious " Hymns to the Virgin." Here 
is an example, from " The Divine Minne- 
song," attributed sometimes to Gottfried 
of Strassburg : 

" Thou art the blooming heaven-branch, 
Which blooming, blooms in many a grange ; 
Great care and strange 
God lavished, Maid, on thee." 

We have, unfortunately, no space for a 
selection of the beauties collected for us 
in this book, and can only recommend 
our readers to procure it for themselves. 
It is full of gems, and is especially wel- 
come to us as evidence of the high de- 
gree to which the burning faith of those 
days had led and guided lyrical art. 
Hartmann von der Aue's "Poor Henry" 
is, so we are told, "the original of that 
sweet story of self-sacrifice which Long- 
fellow has made universally known as 
the ' Golden Legend," (p. 190). The 
same hymn we have already quoted has 
this allusion to the " living wine of true 
remorse " and the following words : 

41 He whom God's love has never found 
Is like a shadow on the ground, 
And does confound 
Life, wisdom, sense, and reason." 

Conrad von Wiirzburg, in his "Golden 
Smithy," represents himself as a gold- 
smith working an ornament for the 
Queen of Heaven, and says, " If in the 
depth of the smithy of my heart I could 
melt a poem out of gold, and could 
enamel the gold with the glowing ruby of 
pure devotion, I would forge a trans- 
parent shining and sparkling praise of 
thy work,thou glorious Empress of Hea- 
ven." Walter von der Vogelweide sings 
these grand words: 

" Who slays the lion ? Who slays the giant ? 
Who masters them all, however defiant ? 
He does it who himself controlleth ; 
And every nerve of his bodv enrolleth, 
Freed from passion, under strict sub- 
jection" 

Mr. Kroeger has done a service to art, 
to history, and to religion in opening thus 
before our eyes a few of the treasures of 
the so-called dark ages. 

v 

COLLEGE JOURNAL. Georgetown Col- 
lege: Dec., 1872, Vol. I., No. i. 
This is as elegant a little paper in out- 
ward appearance as we remember to 
have seen. The articles are written with 
taste and correctness, and we offer a 
hearty welcome to the young gentlemen 
of classic Georgetown on their editorial 



dttut. We have only one piece of advice 
to give them, which is, to be careful thai 
their wit and humor be as classic and 
scholarly as their serious pieces Most 
papers, especially juvenile ones, break 
down on this point. We wish our young- 
friends honor and success in their enter- 
prise. 

The Catholic Publication Society will 
publish in a few days Wild Times, a 
story by Miss Caddell. 

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED. 

From C. DAHEAU, Quebec: Francis Parkman. 
Par L'Abbd H. R. Casgrain. iSmo, paper, 
pp. 89. 

From A. WILLIAMS & Co., Boston : The Blazing 
Star ; with an appendix treating of the Jewish 
Kabbala. i2mo, pp. 180. 

From JAMES R. OSGOOD & Co., Boston: The 
Masque of the Gods. By Bayard Taylor. 
i2mo, pp. 48. 

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston : Humanity Im- 
mortal. By L. P. Hickok, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, 
pp. 362. God-Man. ByL. T. Townsend, D D. 
i2mo, pp. 446. Autobiography of Amos Ken- 
dall. Edited by his Son-in-law, Wm. Stick- 
ney. 1872. 

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston : Paul of Tar- 
sus : An Inquiry into the Times and the Gos- 
pel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By A 
Graduate. i2mo, pp. 401. 

From D. VAN NOSTRAND, New York : A Treatise 
on Acoustics in Connection with Ventilation, 
By Alexander Saeltzer. i2mo, pp. 102. 

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & Co., Philadelphia: 
Thoughts on Paper Currency, etc. By Wm. 
Brown. iSmo, pp. 240. Black Robes ; or, 
Sketches of Missions and Ministers in the Wil- 
derness and on the Border. By Robert P. 
Nevin. i2mo, pp. 366. 

From A. D. F. RANDOLPH & Co., New York : The 
Scripture Doctrine in Reference to the Seat of 
Sin in the Regenerate Man. iSmo, pp. 125. 

From DESFORGES & LAWRENCE, Milwaukee : A 
Religion of Evolution : Letters of u Inter- 
nationalist " Reviewing the Sermons of J. L. 
Dudley, Pastor of Plymouth Congregational- 
ist Church, Milwaukee, 8vo, pp. 42. 

From C. C. CHATFIELD & Co., New Haven: 
Hints to Young Editors, ismo, pp. 31. 

From CARROLL, Wheeling : Pastoral Letter o f 
the Rt. Rev. Richard Vincent Whelan, Bishop 
of Wheeling, to the Clergy and Laity of the 
Diocese. 8vo, pp. 12. 

Ninth Annual Report of the New York Catholic 
Protectory. Paper, 8vo, pp. 66. 

Constitution and By-Laws of the Catholic Total 
Abstinence Union of America, with the Jour- 
nal of Proceedings and Add/ess of the First 
General Convention held at Baltimore, Md., 
Feb. 22, 23, 1872. 8vo, pp. 57. 

Library Work in the Army. United States Mili- 
tary Post Library Association. Annual Re- 
port, 1871-2. Paper, i2mo, pp. 57. 

The English Inquisition worse th;;u the Spanish. 
By an English Priest. Montreal. iSrao, pp. 

34- 
From Hon. EUGENE CASSERLY : Papers relating 

to the Foreign Relations of the U. S. trans- 
mitted to Congress with the Annual Message 
of the President, Dec. 4, 1871. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD 



VOL. XVI., No. 95. FEBRUARY, 1873 



WHO MADE OUR LAWS? 

IT is a characteristic of every sue- world play a small and insignificant 
ceeding century to consider itself part in the real drama of the life of a 
much wiser than any or all that have human being. The sad misconcep- 
preceded it. In this respect our tion of this solution of the problem of 
beloved NINETEENTH is no excep- man's destiny has been the principal 
tion ; in fact, with a vanity that may mistake of materialists, and their con- 
be palliated, if not excused, it con- sequent punishment here below has 
siders that, comparatively speaking, been so marked that the criticism of the 
the world has hitherto been in its charitable is considerately withheld, 
schoolboy days, and only attained Fortunately for us Catholics, the 
its majority on the first day of Janu- great desideratum the law that in- 
ary, 1800. It is true that the great eludes all laws is immovably fixed, 
advances made in the physical and no new discoveries, no alleged 
sciences, in chemistry, astronomy, progress, no experiment, can disturb 
and geology, and in the application it. Immutable as the eternal hills, it 
of steam and electricity, have marked stands to-day as when promulgated 
our age as one of true progress in a in Judaea over eighteen hundred 
certain direction, and are substantial years ago by its Divine Founder, 
subjects of self-congratulation; but and though the heavens and earth 
it must also be remembered that very may pass away, we have the assurance 
little of the genuine happiness of that it shall not. But there have 
mankind in general depends upon sprung out of the operation of this 
any or all of these discoveries and great law other laws which may be 
appliances. Man, being an intellec- called secondary or subsidiar} 7 , which 
tual as well as an animal being, must have long affected the welfare of 
look to spiritual discoveries and men- Christendom, and upon the obser- 
tal agencies for his chief sources of vance or rejection of which much of 
enjoyment ; and, as the soul controls the welfare or misery of nations has 
the body, as his main duty in this life depended and must for ever depend, 
is to qualify that soul for an eternity Political justice, social order, art, 
of bliss, as the unlimited future is science, and literature, everything 
superior to the limited present, it fol- which relates to the relations of man 
lows that the things merely of this with his fellows, and brightens and 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, bv Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office or 

the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



5/8 



Who Made our Laws ? 



beautifies life, have a great deal more 
to do with forming the character and 
insuring the purity of a people, as 
well as the regulation of their actions 
justly, than railroads, telegraphs, and 
anaesthetic agents. Respect for the 
memory of the dead and charity for 
the living prevent us from pointing 
out individual instances where men, 
remarkable for their skill and per- 
severance in forwarding the latter 
projects, have neither been distin- 
guished for their truthfulness, liber- 
ality, nor for any moral quality 
typical of intelligent Christians. The 
best of these men are simply clever 
mechanists, increasing, it is true, our 
sum of knowledge of the effect of 
certain forces in nature, yet without 
being able to reveal the nature of the 
forces themselves, which seems im- 
possible; but whoever teaches us 
true ideas regarding the active 
agencies that govern ordinary life 
is the true benefactor of his species, 
and is the governor of his audi- 
ence or race. Have our discov- 
eries in this science of making man- 
kind more moral, humane, and re- 
fined kept pace with our more in- 
timate acquaintance with the secrets 
of nature and the laws of mechanism, 
or have we to look back to the despis- 
ed past for all our ideas of rectitude 
in legislation, honesty in the admin- 
istration of government, and truth- 
fulness in the plastic arts ? We fear 
that a candid answer to this question 
would involve some loss of our self- 
esteem. While, like the degenerate 
Hebrews, we have been worshipping 
graven images, the work of men's 
hands, we have been neglecting the 
Tables of the Law. 

All national governments reflect 
more or less correctly the ideas of the 
people governed. The absolutism 
of Russia is as much the reflex of the 
mental status of the inhabitants of 
that vast and semi-civilized empire 
as that of the United States is of our 
busy, hasty, and heterogeneous popu- 



lation. The first is a necessity grow- 
ing out of a peculiar order of things, 
wherein many tribes and barbarous 
races are to be found struggling 
towards light and civilization; the 
other is the creation of the matured 
minds of experienced and profound 
statesmen, acting as the delegates of 
a self-reliant and self-sustaining- 
people. Still, though the frame- 
work of the government is unique^ 
the ideas of justice and equality 
which underlie it are old. In one 
sense they are not American, but 
European, for it cannot be denied 
that the principles of our constitu- 
tions, state and national, the laws 
accepted or enacted in harmony 
therewith, and the modes of their in- 
terpretation and administration, are 
taken from the civil polity of the 
nations of the Old World, as those 
again have been the direct and pal- 
pable result of the teachings of the 
Catholic Church. Russia to-day is 
mainly barbarous, and subject to the 
unfettered will of one man, because 
centuries ago the East broke away 
from the centre of Catholic unity, 
and, in losing the Apostolic authority, 
lost all its vivifying power, and the 
ministers of the so-called Greek 
Church their capacity and efficiency 
as civilizers and law-givers. 

The West was more loyal, and con- 
sequently more fortunate. If we 
consider for a moment the chaotic 
condition of the greater part of Eu- 
rope when the church commenced 
to spread far and wide the teachings 
of the Gospel, slowly but steadily 
pursuing her holy mission, we may 
be able to appreciate the herculean 
task before her. Then, in every part 
of Europe, from the pole to the Me- 
diterranean, from the Carpathians to 
the Atlantic, disorder, ignorance, and 
rapine prevailed. Wave after wave 
of Northern and Eastern hordes had 
swept over the continent and most 
of the islands, submerging the effete 
nations of the South, and carrying 



Who Made our Laws ? 579 

destruction and death wherever they election with the tiara of the suc- 
surged. The old Roman civiliza- cessors of S. Peter, 
tion, such as it was, was entirely ob- The influence of the church in se 
literated, all municipal law was abol- cular affairs was particularly remark- 
ished, the conquered masses were able in England, from which we 
reduced to the condition of serfs, and, have drawn so many of our political 
as each successive leader of a tribe opinions and principles. The early 
rested from his bloody labors and missionaries to the Britons and Saxons 
built a stronghold for his occupancy, were doubtless men of high intelli- 
he reserved to himself the exclusive gence as well as sanctity ; but the 
monopoly of plunder and spoliation Norman and Anglo-Norman ecclesi- 
in his own particular neighborhood, astics who came into the country with 
This of course led to rivalry and un- William the Conqueror and clustered 
ceasing warfare between rival marau- around his sons and successors were 
ders, and the incessant slaughter and still more remarkable for astuteness 
oppression of their retainers and ten- and breadth of view. For many 
ants. generations after the Conquest they 
It was with these fierce and may be said to have governed Eng- 
lawless nobles, as they loved to style land in so far as they framed her 
themselves, that the church for cen- laws, conducted her ordinary juris- 
turies waged most persistent and un- prudence, and mainly directed her 
compromising warfare, and against foreign and domestic policy. The 
them she hurled her most terrible most interesting, though by no means 
anathemas. It was she who taught the most impartial, chapters in Hal- 
the sanguinary barons and chieftains lam and Blackstone are those devo- 
that there was a moral power greater ted to the struggles between the lay 
than armed force and stronger than lawyers supported or subsidized by 
moated and castellated tower, who the nobility, and the clerical jurists 
took by the hand the downtrodden, who defended the privileges of their 
impoverished serf, freed him from his order and the natural rights of the 
earthly bonds, taught him the know- oppressed masses. The Great Char- 
ledge of God's law, the principles of ter, of which we hear so much from 
eternal justice and the rights of human- persons who very probably never 
ity, and instilled into his heart those read it, was undoubtedly the work 
ideas of human liberty which have of the latter, though signed by all the 
since fructified and now permeate barons with their seal or mark ; trial 
every free or partially free govern- by jury, the germs of which may be 
ment in both hemispheres. Those traced into remote antiquity, was 
great results were achieved in many systematized and as far as possible 
ways, as local circumstances required ; perfected under their auspices ; courts 
by teaching and exhorting, by per- of equity, for the rectification of " in- 
suasion or threats, by taking the serf justice which the law from its gene- 
into the ministry of the church and rality worketh to individuals," were 
thereby making him the superior of their creation, and even until com- 
his former master, by introducing paratively late years were presided 
gradually just and equitable laws, and over by them; and representative 
when necessary forcing their adoption or parliamentary government may 
on unwilling sovereigns and reluctant justly be said to have been the 
uobles, and, perhaps, most potently fruit of their fertile and ever-ac- 
l>y the example of her own organiza- tive brains. Its founder, in Eng- 
tion, which permitted the humblest of land at least, was de Montfort, who, 
her children to be crowned by a free though not in orders, was the fol- 



580 Who Made our Laws? 

lower, if not the pupil, of the great affecting their " lives, liberty, and pur- 

S. Bernard. suit of happiness," was obtained and 

It is thus that we, the ungrateful or carried into practical effect by a Ca- 

forgetful eulogists of the XlXth cen- tholic statesman many centuries be- 

tury, while laying the flattering unc- fore Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin 

tion to our souls that we have done Franklin were born, seems to have 

more than put a girdle round the been forgotten by our pseudo-liberals ; 

earth in forty minutes, ignore the while the grand principle of political 

long, painful, and continuous efforts equality which lies at the foundation 

of our spiritual forefathers to chris- of our republic, instead of being less 

tianize,. civilize, and make free our an- than a hundred years old, is coeval 

cestors in the order of nature whom with Christianity itself, and in itsoper- 

pagan despotism and barbaric cu- ation within the church is more ex- 

pidity sought to degrade and brutal- pansive and less discriminating as re- 

ize. In our self-glorification we for- gards social rank and condition, 

get that all we have in legislation, of But though, in this inconsiderate 

which we are naturally so proud and age, we fail to acknowledge the deep 

for which we never can be too thank- debt of gratitude we owe to the 

ful, is the product of long years of workers and thinkers of the past for 

toil and reflection of humble priests our laws,, civilization, and correct 

and learned prelates, whose names ideas of government, we cannot if we 

are now scarcely remembered. The would deny that we are still ruled by 

ideas of justice and clemency gener- those very ideas, and that none of 

ated in the minds of those men of our boasted, and in their way valu- 

the past by the spirit of Catholicity able, discoveries have had the effect 

are the same which govern our daily to give us a new or a better scheme 

actions, and regulate the most im- of jurisprudence, whereby mankind 

portant affairs of our lives and of can be made better, wiser, or happier, 

those most dear to us, though we The people of the United States are 

are so occupied or so ungrateful that not generally considered a profoundly 

we fail to acknowledge the sources reflecti ve people; we are too much en- 

from whence they arose. gaged with the present to care much 

For instance, the possession of about either the past or future ; but 

real estate forms one of the principal we respectfully suggest that, while we 

attractions for the ambition of indus- may be justly proud of our laws and 

trious Americans, yet how few of system of government, it is hardly 

them ever think that the laws regula- fair or generous to assume to our- 

ting its disposition, acquisition, and selves all the credit for their forma- 

inheritance are the very enactments tion and existence. We have done 

framed by monks, hundreds of years enough to secure the liberty of our 

ago, and recognized b,y armed lay- fellow-men, and maintain our au- 

rnen after long and at times doubtful thcrity in the family of nations, not to 

contests with the advocates of the be able to be jusc, if not generous, to 

arbitrary feudal system. Personal the memory of the men who have 

liberty, speedy trial by our peers, were bequeathed to us so invaluable a 

first secured in an incontestable form legacy; and let us therefore accord to 

by an archbishop of the church our Catholic ancestors due credit 

which some of our so-called and for the conception and transmission 

" loudly called " preachers are never of the laws under which we all so 

tired of denouncing as tyrannical, happily live. After all, their ideas 

That the right of the people governed, rule more than our own, whether we 

to elect representatives to make laws will or not. 



Dante s Pur gator io. 581 



DANTE'S PURGATORIO. 



CANTO SIXTH. 



WHEN from the game of hazard men depart, 

The loser stays, and, casting o'er his throws, 
Learns a hard lesson with a heavy heart ; 

While with the winner all the assembly goes : 
One runs before, one plucks his robe behind, 

But he delays not, though beside his way 
Another comrade calls himself to mind ; 

And every one perceives that he would say : 
" Press me no more /" to whom he lifts his hand, 

And by so doing keeps the crowd at bay ; 
Such I was, freeing me from that dense band, 

To this and that one bending my survey, 
And promising to answer each demand. 



Here was that Aretine whose lethal wound 

The savage hands of Ghin' di Tacco made ; 
Also that knight who in pursuit was drowned. 

Here with stretched palms Frederic Novello prayed, 
The Pisan, too, at whose defeat his sire, 

Good old Marzucco, showed a strength sublime. 
I saw Count Orso, and that soul whom dire 

Envy and spite, but no committed crime 
Tore from his mortal frame, as he declared ; 

Pierre de la Brosse I mean : so, while she may, 
Be that bad woman of Brabant prepared 

Lest she go join a far worse flock than they. 



When I had freed me from the gathering press 
Of shadows praying still that others' prayers 

Might hasten forward their own blessedness, 
I thus began : " Thy page, my Light ! declares 

Expressly, in one text, that Heaven's decree 
To no beseechincr bendeth.* Yet this race 



'> 



* '..Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.' Virg. An, vi. 376. 



582 Dante s Purgatorio. 

Prays with such purpose : will their praying be 

Without avail ? or have I in that place 
Misread thy word ?" He answered : " It is gross 

And plain to reason : no fallacious hope 
Is theirs, if thy sound mind consider close ; 

The topmost height of judgment doth not slope, 
Because love's fire may instantly complete 

The penance due from one of these : but where 
I closed that point with words which you repeat, 

A gulf betwixt the Most High was and prayer : 
No praying there could cover past defect. 

Yet verily, in so profound a doubt 
Rest not, till she who, 'twixt thine intellect 

And truth, shall be thy light, herself speak out. 
Dost understand me ? Beatrice I mean : 

Thou shalt behold her in a loftier place, 
This mountain summit, smiling and serene." 

" Good Guide," said I, " then let us mend our pace, 
I feel no more my weariness : o'er us 

The mountain shadow grows and hides mine own." 
" We will go forward " he gave answer thus 

" Far as we can, ere this day's light be gone ; 
But thy thought wanders from the fact. That height 

Ere thou canst gain, thou shalt behold the day's 
Returning orb, who now so hides his light 

Behind the hill that thou break'st not his rays. 
But yonder look ! one spirit, all alone, 

By itself stationed, bends toward us his gaze : 
The readiest passage will by him be shown ' : 






SORDELLO. 

We came up tow'rds it : O proud Lombard soul ! 

How thou didst wait, in thy disdain unstirred, 
And thy majestic eyes didst slowly roll ! 

Meanwhile to us it never uttered word, 
But let us move, just giving us a glance, 

Like as a lion looks m his repose. 
Then Virgil, making a more near advance, 

Prayed him to show us where the mountain rose 
With easier slope, and still that soul replied 

Nothing to his demand; but question made 
About life, and our country. My sweet Guide 

Began to answer : " Mantua " and the shade 
From where it had been, separate from his band, 

All rapt in self, sprang up towards him in haste, 



Dante s Pur gator io. 583 

Saying : " O Mantuan, I am of thy land, 
I am Sordello." And the twain embraced. 



Ah slavish Italy ! thou common inn 

For woe to lodge at ! without pilot, thou 
Ship in great tempest ! not what thou hast been, 

Lady of provinces, but brothel now ! 
That gentle soul so quickly, at the dear 

Sound that recalled his country, forward came 
To grace his townsman with a greeting here ; 

And now thy living children, to their shame, 
Are all at war, and they who dwell most near 

Prey, each on each, with moat and wall the same ! 
Search, wretched ! search all round thine either coast, 

And then look inland, in thy bosom, see 
If peace in any part of thee thou know'st ! 

What though Justinian made new reins for thee, 
What boots it if the saddle remain void ? 

Without his mending thy disgrace were less. 
And O ye tribe that ought to be employed 

In your devotions, and let Caesar press 
The seat of Caesar if God's word you heed, 

See, since your hand hath on the bridle been, 
How wanton grown and wicked is the steed, 

Through want from you of the spur's discipline. 
O German Albert ! who abandonest 

Her now run wild, unchecked by curb of thine, 
When thou shouldst ride her with thy heels hard-pressed ; 

May heaven's just judgment light upon thy line, 
And be it something strange, and manifest, 

To make him tremble that comes after thee, 
Because, for lust of barren fiefs out there,* 

Thou and thy Father have not shamed to see 
The empire's garden desolate and bare. 

Come see the Capulets and Montagues, 
Monaldi and Filippeschi, O thou being 

Without concern ! these wan with fears, and those 
Already crushed : come sate thyself with seeing, 

Thou cruel man, the outrage that is done 
To thy best blood, and make their bruises well ! 

And thou shalt see too, thou cold looker-on, 
Santafiore's lords how safe they dwell. 

Come see thy Rome that mourning all alone 
Weepeth, a widow, calling day and night, 

Why, O my Caesar, dost thou leave thine own ? 
Come see what love there how all hearts unite ! 

And if no pity move thee at our moan 

* In Germany. 




584 Dante s Pur gator io. 

Blush for thy fame beholding such a sight. 

And, lawful if I speak, O most high Jove 
Who wast for our sakes crucified on earth, 

Are thy jast eyes who watchest men above 
Turned elsewhere ? Or is this before the birth 

Of some great good a preparation hid 
From us in the abyss of thy intent, 

That all the Italian towns are tyrant-rid, 
And every clown that comes on faction bent 

Makes as much clamor as Marcellus did ? 



My Florence ! well may'st thou remain content 

At this digression ; it concerns not thee, 
Thanks to thy people, great in argument ! 

Many with justice in their hearts there be 
Who stay the shaft lest, coming to the bow 

Without discretion, it might err ; but they 
On their lips wear it. Many men are slow 

To serve the state, and turn from place away ; 
Thy people do not every one bends low, 

Crying before he's called for : " I obey." 
Now make thee joyful, who may'st triumph well ; 

Thou who art rich so wise ! and so at peace ! 
If. I speak true in this let the truth tell. 

Athens and Sparta, that raised civil Greece 
To such a height, and framed the ancient laws, 

Towards the well-ordered life made small beginning 
Compared with thee, whose legislation draws 

Threads out so fine that thy October spinning 
Comes before mid- November to a pause. 

How many times hast thou renewed thy men, 
Yea, within days that in thy memory dwell, 

And changed thy laws and offices, and then 
Customs and coins ! if thou remember well 

Thou wilt behold thyself, unless quite blind, 
Like a sick woman, restless, that in vain 

Seeks on her pillow some repose to find, 
And turns and turns as 'twere to parry pain. 



TJie Church the Champion of Marriage. 585 



THE CHURCH THE CHAMPION OF MARRIAGE. 

" THERE is nothing new under the was laboriously moulding pagan 

sun," least of all the continued cru- hordes into Christian and civilized 

sade the church has headed and now nations. The times were wild and 

heads against the enemies of Christian unsettled, the very laws hardly estab- 

marriage. What marriage is, what lished, heathen license barely reined 

duties it involves, what holiness it in by the threatening barrier of 

requires, what grace it confers, we solemn excommunication. They 

leave to other pens more learned or were times of great heroism, it is 

more eloquent to define. What are true, but none the less of great 

the Scripture authorities and allow- abuses and of startling crimes. The 

able inferences concerning the mar- bishops of the Christian church stood 

ried state, its indissolubility and its alone in the midst of the universal 

future transformation in heaven, we depravity, like mighty colossi, defying 

leave to theologians to state. Those the civil power and rebuking royal 

who may feel curious as to that part license. S. Nicetus, the Bishop of 

of the question, or as to the local and Treves, was one of these. The young 

civil enactments concerning marriage King of the Franks, Theodebert, 

and divorce, we refer to two able who was betrothed to Wisigardis, the 

articles published in THE CATHOLIC daughter of the Lombard king 

WORLD of October, 1866, and July, Wakon, had, during- a war against 

1867.* the Goths, taken a beautiful captive 

But as witnesses are multiplied named Denteria. He made her his 
when a strong case has to be made mistress, and, forgetful of his solemn 
out in favor of some important issue, betrothal, lived with her for seven 
let us turn to the tribunal of history, years. The bishop never ceased 
and look over the record of the boldly to admonish him and warn 
church's battles. Witnesses without him, but to no purpose. After a 
number rise in silent power to show while, his powers of persuasion failing 
on which side the weight of church to effect his charitable design, he re- 
influence has ever been thrown the sorted to the penalties of the church, 
side of the oppressed and weakly, and excommunicated him. But, in- 
Every liberty, from ecclesiastical im- stead of suspending his evil career, 
munities to constitutional rights, she the king persuaded many of his 
has upheld and enforced, and it courtiers to follow his example. The 
would be impossible that she, the holy bishop excommunicated them 
knight-errant of the moral world, all with calm impartiality. Despite 
should have failed to break a lance, the censures under which they lay, 
through every succeeding century, for they insolently attempted to assist at 
the integrity of the marriage bond. High Mass one Sunday in the bish- 

Take, for instance, the history of the op's presence. S. Nicetus turned to 

new Frankish kingdom in the Vlth meet the sacrilegious throng, and 

century, at the time when the church undauntedly announced that, unless 

* Divorce Legislation in Connecticut," and thOSG wh VVerG excommunicated left 

' The Indissolubility qf Christian Marriage." the church, the MaSS WOuld not be 



586 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

celebrated. The king publicly de- indulged in by violent and fierce na- 
murred to this, but a young man in tures, will make havoc of the holiest 
the crowd, possessed by the devil, laws of marriage. . . . The sanc- 
suddenly started up, and in impas- tity of marriage, the sacred founda- 
sioned language gave testimony to tion of the peace and welfare of na- 
the holiness of the bishop and the tions, is, above all, of the highest im- 
vicious and debased character of the portance in royal families, where 
king himself. Four or five stalwart excesses and disorders are apt to 
men got up to hold him, but were breed consequences whose gravity in 
unable to do so ; his strength defied the future none can calculate." 
their utmost efforts, and burning In the early part of the Vllth 
words of condemnation continued to century, S. Columbanus, the great 
fall from his lips. The king, abashed, Irish monk who founded the power- 
was forced to leave the church, while ful monastery of Luxeuil in Bur- 
S. Nicetus caused the young man to gundy, began that opposition to royal 
be brought to him. The touch of license which finally cost him his 
the holy bishop's hand, and his exalted position, and made him an 
efficacious prayer breathed over him, exile and wanderer from his chosen 
cured him at once of the grievous abode. Queen Brunehault was prac- 
afiliction which had beset him for tically reigning in Burgundy under 
ten years. Finally, the displeasure the name of her grandson Theodoric. 
of the Franks at the insult offered to She connived at the young sover- 
the King of the Lombards and his eign's precocious depravity, and her- 
daughter grew so serious that, with S. self furnished him with attractive mis- 
Nicetus at their head, they called a tresses, thereby preventing his mar- 
general meeting to denounce his con- riage with a suitable princess, for fear 
duct. He listened to their reproach- of losing her own influence over him 
es, and at last agreed to dismiss his in public affairs. One day, as S. Co- 
mistress and fulfil his contract with lumbanus, whose monastery the king 
the Lombard princess.* had munificently enriched, came to 
An eminent French writer, De see Theodoric on matters of impor- 
Maistre, says of the part played by the tance, the queen rashly presented the 
popes in the middle ages : " Never king's illegitimate children to the 
have the popes and the church saint, and begged him to bless them, 
rendered a more signal service to Columbanus refused, turning away 
the world than they did in repres- his eyes and saying sternly, " These 
sing by the authority of ecclesiasti- children are the offspring of guilt, 
cal censures the transports of a pas- and they will never sit upon their fa- 
sion, dangerous enough in mild and ther's throne." Another time, after 
orderly characters, but which, when many vain threats and remonstran- 
ces, the saint again visited Theodoric, 

* For this and the following references, see but > instead of accepting the hospi- 

Rohrbacher's Histoire Universelle de fEglise tallty of his palace, took Up his qiiar- 

Catkelique. This work is so comprehensive, i u, .!->,- "Rvi 

and so full of the most learned and accurate re' terS in a neighboring house, 

searches, that we have relied entirely upon its hault and her grandson, keenly alive 

^engthened narratives for the facts mentioned in , i v, >, ,j . 

this article. The work is excessively voiumin- to the implied rebuke, and resenting 

ous (28 vols 8vo), and to verify personally each ^16 public slight tllUS put Upon them 

y^ T SSS^*SK& before their court and subjects, sent 

ous undertaking:. We have preferred, therefore, some officers of their household With 

to rely upon the single authority of one who is , ,, ,. , c n 

confessedly the best modern church historian. COStlv vaSCS and golden dishes, Hill 



The Church the Champion of Marriage. 587 

of delicacies from the royal table, to kingdom, reigned in Burgundy in his 

Columbanus, at the same time en- stead. 

treating him to come to them. The The Byzantine Empire also was 
saint made the sign of the cross, and constantly torn by schisms and dis- 
spoke thus to the messengers : " Tell sensions originating in the unbridled 
the king that the Most High spurns passions of its ignoble sovereigns, 
the gifts of the unjust; heaven is not In the VII Ith century, Constantine 
to be propitiated by precious offer- VL, surnamed Porphyrogenitus, the 
ings, but by conversion and repent- son of the Empress Irene, married at 
ance." And as he spoke the vases his mother's instigation an Armenian 
fell to the earth and broke, scattering woman of low birth but irreproach- 
the food and wine that had been able morals, named Mary. It was 
brought to bribe the servant of God. not long, however, before he became 
The king, afraid of the divine judg- enamored of one of his wife's atten- 
ments, promised to amend, but did dants, Theodota, whereupon he pro- 
not fail to relapse into sin, upon ceeded to divorce the Empress Mary 
which Columbanus wrote to him and force her to take the veil. The 
again, and finally excommunicated Patriarch of Constantinople, Tara- 
him. Theodoric then visited the sius, refused to dissolve the first mar- 
monastery of Luxeuil, and in retalia- riage and perform the second, as re- 
tion publicly accused the saint of vio- quired by the dissolute emperor, who 
lating his rule. Columbanus an- then attempted to blind him by al- 
swered, " If you are come here to leging that his wife had conspired to 
disturb the servants of God, and stir poison him. This the patriarch 
up confusion among them, we will firmly refused to believe, and, more- 
relinquish all your aid, countenance, over, represented to the emperor the 
and presents, O Theodoric; but know scandal of his conduct, the infamy 
that you and all your race shall per- that would attach to his name in 
ish." The king retired, awed for this consequence, and especially the in- 
time into silence; but, being further calculable evil his bad example 
incensed against Columbanus by his would cause among his not too 
grandmother Brunehault, he had chaste courtiers and people. Con- 
him exiled to Besanson. The saint's stantine lost his temper, and violent- 
reputation was such that no one ly replied that he would close the 
would venture to guard him, and he Christian churches, and reopen the 
of his own accord soon returned to temples of the heathen gods. The 
Luxeuil. Theodoric, growing more patriarch threatened to refuse him 
obstinate the firmer he saw his judge the right of entering the sanctuary, 
become, again ordered him to leave, and of assisting at the sacred mys- 
even threatening force. Columbanus teries; but when an unworthy priest, 
defied him, and announced that phy- Joseph, the treasurer of the church of 
sical violence alone could drive him Constantinople, was found willing to 
from his post; but, upon the persecu- celebrate between the emperor and 
tion of the monastery continuing un- Theodota an invalid " marriage " in 
abated, he judged it more perfect one of the halls of the palace of S. 
and charitable to exile himself for Maurice, Tarasius hesitated to pro- 
the peace of his community. Three nounce the excommunication. At 
years after, Theodoric and his chil- this distance of time, it is not easy to 
dren were all killed, and Clotaire, his point out the reasons and excuses 
relative and ruler of a neighboring which the unsettled state of things in 



588 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

the Byzantine Empire may have fur- entreat him to resign the patriarchate, 
nished for this act of seeming com- With holy firmness he resisted the 
promise; much less should we rashly treacherous appeal, whereupon Bar- 
condemn a holy and zealous bishop ; das had him put in irons, depored, 
but it is noticeable that such in- and replaced on the patriarchal chair 
stances have never been repeated by Photius, a creature of his own and 
when it was the popes themselves a layman. The famous schism of 
who were directly appealed to. Photius thus sprang from the same 

As the patriarch had foretold, evil cause as later heresies, and every- 

results followed the sovereign's licen- where we see contumacy to ecclesi- 

tious example, a frightful laxity of astical authority making common 

morals prevailed, and insubordina- cause with abandoned passion and 

tion to the church went hand in hand shameless license, 

with the violation of the marriage The Photian schism was abetted in 

bond. Tarasius excommunicated the the West by another rebellious son 

priest Joseph two years after, but, al- of the church, Lothair, King of Lor- 

though he had refrained from direct- raine, who was anxious to get rid of 

ly and publicly censuring the princi- his wife Thietberga. This was .one 

pal culprit, he was none the less per- of the most famous cases of the sort 

secuted by him. during the middle ages, and was pro- 

In the following century, a still , longed over many years, breeding 
worse case of the kind took place, not only the utmost moral disorder, 
the chief actors in it being Bardas, but threatening also to bring about 
the ambitious uncle of the wretched even political convulsions. Lothair 
Emperor Michael the Drunkard, and had conceived a criminal passion for 
the Patriarch of Constantinople, S. one of his wife's maids, Waldrade, 
Ignatius. The former, who had the and to marry her his first endeavor 
practical control of the state, and had was to prove the queen guilty of in- 
induced his sottish nephew to give cest before her marriage with him. 
him the title of " Caesar " of the By- For this purpose he summoned his 
zantine Empire, deliberately left his bishops three times at Aix-la-Cha- 
lawful wife, and lived in publicly in- pelle, in 860, and had Thietberga con- 
cestuous union with the wife of his demned to- the public penance usual- 
own son. S. Ignatius indignantly re- ly inflicted in those days on a fallen 
proved him, and when the prince, brav- woman. The time-serving prelates, 
ing his censures, presented himself in after a superficial examination of the 
church on the Feast of the Epiph- evidence, allowed the divorce on the 
any, -the patriarch publicly refused plea that " it is better to marry than 
to admit him to the Holy Communion, to burn " ; thus giving an early his- 
Bardas furiously threatened him torical proof of the old saying about 
before the faithful, but the holy pre- a certain person " quoting Scripture." 
late boldly presented his breast to the Widalon, Bishop of Vienne, who had 
blows he seemed about to receive, not concurred in this iniquitous de- 
and in a few solemn words invoked cree, wrote to the pope for guidance, 
the wrath of God on the sacrilegious The pope, Nicholas I., firmly stand- 
" Caesar." He was promptly exiled ing by the tradition of the church, 
to the Island of Teberinthia, where and vindicating the fundamental dog- 
Bardas, partly by threats and partly ma of the sanctity of marriage, re- 
by hypocritical promises, induced all plied uncompromisingly that the di- 
his suffragans to repair in a body, and vorce was null and void, the bishops 



The Church the Champion of Marriage. 589 

blamable for their servility, and that Nicholas, secretly advised of this 
even were it proved beyond doubt treachery, and no doubt also divine- 
that Thietberga had been guilty ly inspired, detected the imposition, 
of incest or any other sinful inter- abrogated the decrees of the false 
course before marriage, yet the mar- council, and canonically deposed the 
riage itself could never on that ac- two guilty prelates from all their 
count be legally dissolved. The functions and dignities. They im- 
queen herself then appealed to the mediately took refuge at Benevento 
pope, who appointed two legates to with the Emperor Louis II., who, 
inquire into the matter. Baffled in hotly espousing their cause, marched 
his first attempt, Lothair now trump- with his army against Rome, and sur- 
ed up a second pretext, and pretend- prised the clergy and people in the 
ed that he had been previously mar- act of singing the litanies and taking 
ried to Waldrade, and that the queen part in a penitential procession at S.. 
had therefore never been his lawful Peter's. His soldiers dispersed the 
wife. The pope replied that, until people by force of arms, and block- 
this matter was disposed of, the aded the pope in his palace. Nicho- 
queen should be sent with all honor las escaped in disguise, and for two 
to her father, and suitably provided days lay concealed in a boat on the 
for from the royal treasury. Thiet- Tiber, with neither covering for the 
berga was now arraigned before a night nor scarcely food enough to 
packed and bribed tribunal, and sustain nature. Thus the conflict 
forced to acknowledge herself an in- between a sovereign's unbridled pas- 
terloper, but found secret means of sions and the calm and immutable 
sending word to the pope that she principles of the Gospel was carried 
had acted under compulsion. Nich- so far as to entail actual persecution 
olas then wrote an indigna-nt letter to on the sacred and representative per- 
the king and bishops, annulled all son of the pontiff. The emperor, re- 
previous decisions, and commanded penting of his hasty attack, sent his 
a new and fair trial of the case to be wife to the pope to negotiate a re- 
held. He then wrote to the Empe- conciliation. The two insubordinate 
ror of Germany, Louis II., and the bishops at the same time sent an 
King of France, Charles the Bald, as embassy to Photius, the sacrilegious 
well as to all the bishops of the four successor of S. Ignatius in the See 
kingdoms, Lorraine, France, Germa- of Constantinople, to demand his sup- 
ny, and Provence, whom he ordered port and countenance. " And thus," 
to repair to a council at Metz, where says Rohrbacher, to whom we are in- 
his legates would meet them. He debted for these graphic pictures of 
charged them to have more regard the early struggles of the church, 
to the laws of God than the will of " did the schism born of the adultery 
men, and to protect the weak and in- of Lothair in the West join hands 
nocent with all the dignity of their in- with that born of the incest of Bar- 
fluence. Lothair, however, succeed- das in the East." Lothair and the 
ed in corrupting the legates them- rebellious bishops now quarrelled 
selves, and the council merely met to among themselves, and one of the 
confirm the previous infamous de- deposed prelates, the Archbishop of 
crees and condemnations. Two of Cologne, repaired in haste to Rome 
the prelates were chosen to report to to reveal the duplicity, the plotting, 
the pope and bear hypocritical and and insincerity that had character- 
falsified messages to him, but in vain, ized the whole of the proceedings. 



590 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

The king himself, however, showed a days of princely hospitality and pro- 
disposition to submit, most of the fuse pageantry, such an occurrence 
bishops begged the pope's forgive- was rare, and, therefore, all the more 
ness, and the former legate, Rodoal- significant of the majestic and prac- 
dus, having been excommunicated for tical power of the church, 
his collusion with the king, a new one, Lothair, now thoroughly sensible of 
Arsenius, Bishop of Orta, was ap- his sin, and warned by the terrible 
pointed. The conditions he was dissensions of the past of what fur- 
charged to demand were explicit ther misery to his country and peo- 
either Waldrade must be dismissed, pie his prolonged obstinacy might 
or the excommunication until now involve, signified his intention to sub- 
delayed in mercy would be pronoun- mit unconditionally to the pope's de- 
ced. Unwilling to submit entirely, cree. High Mass was then cele- 
yet dreading the consequences if he brated in his presence and that of all 
did not, Lothair actually recalled his noble followers by the pope in 
Thietberga to her lawful position, and person, and when at the moment of 
allowed Waldrade to accompany the communion the king approached the 
legate to Rome, as a public token of altar, Adrian impressively addressed 
her repentance and obedience. But to him the following unexpected ad- 
although his royal word was plighted, juration : 

he soon found his blind appetites too " I charge thee, O King of Lor- 

much for his reason and his faith, raine, if thou hast any concealed in- 

and, sending messengers to bring tention of renewing thy shameless 

back his mistress, relapsed into his intercourse with thy concubine Wal- 

former sins. Waldrade herself was drade, not to dare approach this 

now publicly excommunicated. altar and sacrilegiously receive thy 

In the meantime, Pope Nicholas Lord in this tremendous sacrament; 

died, and was succeeded by Adrian but if with true repentance and sin- 

II., who proved himself no less stren- cere purpose of amendment thou 

nous an opponent of royal license dost approach, then receive him 

than his holy predecessor had been, without fear." 

Lothair, naturally inclined to temper- The king, evidently moved by this 

ize, offered to go to Rome and solemn address, knelt down and 

plead his own cause with the new communicated, and his retainers and 

pontiff. In a preliminary interview courtiers took their places at the sa- 

held at Monte-Casino, the pope re- cred board. That no pretext might 

iterated his firm intention of coming remain for further equivocation, the 

to no understanding before the king holy pontiff warned them also, be- 

had made his peace with Thietberga fore administering the Blessed Sac- 

and finally dissolved his criminal rament to them, saying : 
union with Waldrade. The next " If any among you have wilfully 

day was Sunday, and the king hoped aided and abetted the king, and are 

to hear Mass before he left for Rome, ready wilfully to aid and abet him 

but he could find no priest willing to again in his wicked intercourse with 

celebrate it for him, and was forced Waldrade, let him not presume to re- 

to take his departure in diminished ceive sacrilegiously the body of the 

state for Rome, where no public re- Lord ; but you that have not abetted 

ception awaited him, so that he had him, or that have sincerely repented 

to enter the Holy City almost as a of having done so, and are resolved 

pilgrim and a penitent. In those to do so no more, approach and re- 



The Church the Champion of Marriage. 



591 



ceive without fear." A few of them 
shrank back at these awful words, 
but the greater part, whether in sin- 
cerity or in contempt, followed the 
king's example and received. 

After this, which did not take place 
till 869, we hear no more of Lothair's 
passion for Waldrade. 

Germany, too, had her Lothair, and, 
in the Xlth century, King Hemy 
IV., one of the most abandoned sov- 
ereigns that ever reigned, brought 
upon himself not only the papal 
anathema, but the displeasure of his 
electors and confederated vassals 
themselves by his shameless trifling 
with his marriage vows. His wife 
Bertha, a beautiful and virtuous wo- 
man, the daughter of Otho, Marquis 
of Italy, never found favor in his 
sight; and, in concert with some of 
his simoniacal bishops, Siegfried, the 
Archbishop of Mayence at their head, 
Henry held a diet at Worms in 1069 
to procure a divorce from her. Sieg- 
fried, however, feeling uneasy at the 
part allotted him, sent to the Pope 
Alexander II. for advice, and re- 
ceived from him a severe reprimand 
for having countenanced the disso- 
lute king. The papal legate, an 
austere and holy man, Peter Da- 
mian, arrived during the session of a 
diet at Frankfort, where the king's 
cause was to be finally judged. De- 
spite Henry's protestations that his 
divorce would enable him, as he 
hypocritically said, to marry lawfully 
<. wife that would please him, and to 
abandon his numerous harem of fa- 
vorites, whom he would have no ex- 
cuse any longer to retain, the stern 
sentence of Rome was passed against 
him either excommunication or re- 
conciliation with his wife. He reluc- 
tantly submitted, but only in appear- 
ance, for he refused even to see Ber- 
tha, and soon gave himself up to his 
former illicit pleasures. His brutal 
treatment of his second wife, Prax- 



edes of Lorraine, whom he married 
according to his own choice^ after 
the death of Bertha, drew upon him 
further ecclesiastical censures, and he 
left a memory justly branded by all 
historians as more infamous still than 
that of the notorious Henry VIII. of 
England. 

At the same time that his passions 
were revolutionizing the German 
Empire, Philip I. of France was 
showing an equally deplorable ex- 
ample to his vassals and subjects. 
He was married to Bertha, daughter 
of Hugh, Count of Frisia, by whom 
he already had two children, one of 
whom, Louis le Gros, succeeded him ; 
but, blinded by a sinful affection, he 
carried off, in 1092, Bertrade, the wife 
of Fulk, Count of Anjou, and lived 
with her in a doubly adulterous 
union. 

Hugh of Flavigny, a contemporary 
historian, says of this occurrence : 
" Even if our book were silent, all 
France would cry out, nay, the whole 
of the Western church would re-echo 
like thunder in horror of this crime. 
It is truly monstrous that an anoint- 
ed king, who should have defended 
even with the sword the indissolubili- 
ty of marriage, should on the contra- 
ry wallow shamelessly for years in 
intolerable disorder" The Blessed 
Yves, Bishop of Chartres, immediately 
lifted his voice against the enormity 
of the crime ; but though his fervent 
reproaches fell upon a deadened con- 
science, and his letter to the king was 
in vain, still among the bishops of 
France none could be found, at least 
for a long time, to perform a scanda- 
lous " marriage " between the king 
and his mistress. At last the Arch- 
bishop of Rouen allowed himself to 
be blinded, and consented to unite 
them, but a prompt and sharp inter- 
ference on the part of Rome punish- 
ed him by a deposition from all his 
ecclesiastical dignities, which lasted 



592 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

for several years. The whole of the to secure immunity for himself in an- 
controversy had now come clearly to other way : he promised all sorts of 
the knowledge of the Pope Urban II. reforms, both ecclesiastical and moral, 
The Count of Anjou had de- if he could only obtain permission to 
clared war against the ravisher, and indulge his guilty passion undisturb- 
the king had put the B. Yves in ed. To this proposal the B. Yves 
irons under the guard of the Vis- replied, like S. Columbanus to Theo- 
coimt of Chartres. In the meanwhile, doric, that it was impossible to 
the pope wrote a scathing letter to compound for sin by costly gifts, that 
the metropolitan of Rheims and the God desires ourselves, not our trea- 
episcopate of France. " You," he sures, and that heaven is won by 
says, " who should have stood as a penance and not by gold, 
wall against the inroads of public At length, in 1095, the Council of 
immorality, you have been silent and Placentia was held. Philip pleaded 
allowed this great crime; for not to for a delay, which was granted him, 
oppose is to consent. Go now, but at the following council, that of 
speak to the king, reproach him, Clermont, he and his concubine were 
warn him, threaten him, and, if neces- at last rigorously excommunicated, 
sary, resort boldly to the last mea- And here Rohrbacher takes occa- 
sures." From 1092 to 1094 the sion to remark, h propos to the cru- 
pope never ceased publicly and pri- sade which was then occupying 
vately to oppose Philip's unlawful Christendom : " Indeed, of what use 
passion, and, sending as his legate would a crusade against the Turks 
Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, convok- have proved if the popes had not, 
ed an assembly at Autun for the i5th at the same time, resolutely opposed 
of October, 1094, to decide the mat- the introduction of Turkish disorders 
ter. The king insolently attempted into Christian society ?" 
to forestall the papal decision by In 1096, Philip consented to sub- 
calling a council for the roth of Sep- mit, and went in state to the Council 
tember previous, which accordingly of Nismes to meet the pope, and be 
took place, and in which a few con- absolved from the excommunication, 
tumacious bishops confirmed the king which, as he found, weighed very 
in his obstinate resistance to the heavily on his conscience. Through- 
head of the church. As the queen out the middle ages this one trait, 
had died a short time before, Philip a lively faith, proved, indeed, the 
presumptuously began to hope that only barrier against excesses which, 
his marriage with Bertrade would had they been unrestrained by the 
now be legalized ; but, since she her- fear of ecclesiastical censures, would 
self was the wedded wife of the have simply produced a state of 
Count of Anjou, it will be easy to license worse than that of the latter 
see how vain were his expectations, days of the Roman Empire. But 
The Council of Autun met, and, find- Philip's repentance was short-lived; 
ing the king determined to continue he recalled Bertrade, and even gave 
in sin, solemnly excommunicated away benefices and church dignities 
him. Philip then wrote a threaten- to her favorites, seculars, and persons 
ing letter to the pope, declaring that, of questionable morality. Urban II. 
if he did not absolve him from the died, and was succeeded by Paschal 
church's censures, he would go over II., who again sent his legates to the 
to the anti-pope Guibert, styled king, and, at the Council of Poictiers, 
Clement III. Philip now attempted excommunicated the guilty pair a 



The Church the Champion of Marriage. 593 

second time. At this council a writers, says De Maistre, that it was 
strange scene took place. A layman almost invariably marriage, its indis- 
threw a stone at one of the legates, solubility and the irregularities 
and, though it missed him, it split against its integrity, that have pro- 
open the head of another bishop who voked the " scandal " of excommuni- 
was standing near. This was the cation. In this admission, made 
signal for a violent attack on the pre- rather to criminate than to honor the 
lates; the unruly crowd outside the church, made indeed to throw the 
church battered down the doors, and obloquy of schism upon the popes 
rushed in, throwing stones and mis- themselves, is there not an unwilling 
siles of all kinds among the deliberat- testimony to the Papacy's unflinch- 
ing bishops. Of these a very few, ing championship of virtue ? 
seized with panic, hastily made their In 1140, Louis VII. of France, 
escape, but the greater part stood surnamed Le yeune, refused to sanc- 
like heroes at their post, and even tion the canonical nomination of 
took off their mitres that their heads Peter, Archbishop of Bourges, whom 
might present a better mark to the Thibault, Count of Champagne, va- 
infuriated and partisan mob. Nor liantly defended and upheld. At 
was this the only act of violence per- the same time, Raoul, Count of Ver- 
petrated in the name of Philip and mandois, a man advanced in years, 
Bertrade. Shortly after this scene, who had long been married to Thi- 
while staying 'at Sens, they remained bault's niece, wished to dissolve his 
a fortnight without hearing Mass, marriage in order to contract another 
which so incensed Bertrade that she with Petronilla, the sister of the Queen 
sent her servants to break open the of France, Louis' wife, Eleanor of 
doors of the church, and caused one Antioch. He succeeded in persuad- 
of her priests, a tool of her own, to ing a few bishops to grant him this 
celebrate the Holy Sacrifice in her permission on the plea of relationship 
presence. Philip now noisily pro- between him and his first wife, which, 
claimed that he was going to Rome if true, would have made that union 
to receive absolution, but Yves of illegal from the first. S. Bernard, in 
Chartres warned the Pope of the a fervid letter to Pope Innocent II., 
king's insincerity, and the pontiff re- denounces his vile conduct, giving a 
mained conscientiously cold to all his most lamentable picture of the state 
advances until he had wrested from of the kingdom of France. " That 
him a solemn oath not only to cease which is most sacred in the church^ he 
his criminal intercourse with Bertrade, says r " is trodden underfoot." The 
but also to abstain from seeing her pope, through his legate, Cardinal 
or speaking to her unless in the pre- Yves, excommunicated the Count of 
sence of a third person. Neverthe- Vermandois, and laid his whole terri- 
less, the solemn absolution was not tory under an interdict. Mass could 
pronounced in his favor before the no longer be said, the sacraments 
Council of Beaugency, assembled in were not administered, the churches 
1104, twelve years after his first sin in were closed, the bells silent. The 
carrying off the lawful wife of his own king revenged himself by declaring 
vassal and kinsman. war on the Count of Champagne, who 
The Xllth century, so stormily had given shelter to the archbishop, 
begun, was disturbed later on by yet and appealed to Rome against the 
another controversy of the same kind. Count of Vermandois. He devasta- 
It has been noticed by Protestant ted Thibault's territory with fire and 
VOL. xvi. 38 



594 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

sword, and behaved, says Rohr- able to conquer his dislike, which 
bacher, rather like a Vandal chief many did not fail to attribute to 
than a Christian king. In 1142, he witchcraft, for Ingeburga was both 
arrived before the town of Vitry, comely, virtuous, and accomplish- 
sacked it, and set fire to its church ed. The king now called together 
and castle. In the former were no his parliament at Compiegne, his 
less than 1300 persons, men, women, uncle, the Archbishop of Rheims 
and children, who had sought safety and legate f the Holy See, presiding, 
in the sanctuary. He ruthlessly closed The queen, who did not understand 
all avenues to the church, and burnt French, and whose Danish attendants 
the miserable inhabitants as they vain- had all been sent away, was present 
ly strove to escape. The town was at the deliberation. Unheard, there- 
hereafter called Vitry le Brtile. The fore, and even unchallenged, she was 
Count of Champagne, weakened by speedily declared too closely related 
this terrible onset, sued for peace, and to the king through his former wife 
-promised to exert his influence to Isabella to be united to him in law- 
have both excommunication and in- ful marriage. This seems to have 
terdict taken off the person and fiefs been the favorite pretext for dissolv- 
of Raoul de Vermandois. It was, in ing inconvenient marriages in those 
fact, provisionally suspended, but, as times, as it was also later in the too 
the culprit still refused to dissolve his famous case of Henry VIII. of Eng- 

criminal union, he was excommuni- land and Catharine of'Aragon, but 
cated for the second time. S. Ber- even in this we see the spirit of sub- 
nard was a prominent actor in this ordination to the general authority 
controversy, and powerfully worked of the church still underlying the 
for the preservation of peace. partial revolts of her unruly sons. 

But greater troubles were yet in When Queen Ingeburga was made 
store for France and the church. In acquainted by an interpreter with the 
1193, Philip Augustus lost his first sentence rendered against her, she 
wife, Isabella of Hainault, and soon was painfully astonished, and, burst- 
afterwards sent the Bishop of Noyon, ing into tears, cried out in her bro- 
Stephen, with great pomp to the ken French, Male France! Male 
King of Denmark, Canute III., to France / Some pitying hearts there 
ask the hand of his sister Ingeburga must have been in that assembly of 
in marriage. The request was joy- lords spiritual and temporal, some re- 
fully granted, and the queen-elect morseful consciences among that 
brought back to France with all pos- gathering of Frenchmen, who, as 
.sible honor. The" marriage took Rohrbacher quaintly says, "forgot 
place at once, and the king confessed even to be courteous to a stranger 
himself much pleased with his new and a woman." Ingeburga, rising, 

consort. The next day he caused then added, " Rome ! Rome !" -sub- 
her to be solemnly crowned, a cere- lime appeal of oppressed innocence 
mony to which great importance was to the fountain-head of justice and 
attached in those days; but, strange honor! Philip had her immured in 
to say, during the service itself he the Abbey of Cisoing. Pope Celes- 
was seen to turn pale as if with hor- tine III. sent legates to inquire into 
ror, and to cast sudden looks of aver- the rights of the case, but the king 
sion towards the queen. He, how- succeeded in intimidating them, and 
*ever, retired with her to Meaux, and no conclusion was arrived at ia the 
lived with her a short time, still un- council held at Paris. The pope 



The Church the Champion of Marriage. 595 

then wrote an energetic letter to the parations for it were as solemnly 
bishops, concluding by a decision to magnificent as if they had portended 
this effect, that, having carefully ex- the funeral of a nation. The coun- 
amined the genealogy upon which cil met at Dijon in 1199, and, during 
turned the question of the alleged its seven days' session, once more 
close relationship between the king's invited the king to attend and avert 
first and second wives, he solemnly the doom his sin had well-nigh 
annuls the unlawful act of divorce brought upon the realm. But Philip 
passed at the Parliament of Com- remained inflexible, despite the last 
piegne, and decrees that, if the king and urgent letters of the pope, and 
should attempt to marry any other the interdict was accordingly pro- 
woman during Ingeburga's lifetime, nounced. 

he should be proceeded against as Four archbishops, eighteen bishops, 
an adulterer. and a great number of abbots com- 
This speedily came to pass. Not posed the august assembly, and on 
content with repudiating his wife, he the seventh day of the council a 
attempted, in 1196, to marry another, strange and impressive scene closed 
Agnes of Merania (Tyrol). Ingeburga the unavailing deliberations. At 
instantly appealed to the pope, say- midnight the great bell of the ca- 
ing that for this outrage her husband thedral tolled out the knell of a part- 
" allegeth no cause, but of his will ing soul, the prelates repaired in si- 
maketh an order, of his obstinacy a lent and lugubrious procession to the 
law, and of his passion une fureur? high altar, now divested of all its or- 
as Rohrbacher rather untranslatably naments, the lights were extinguish- 
puts it. ed and removed, the figure of Christ 
The Protestant historian Hurter on the great rood was veiled in 
says: "In this instance, the pope penitential guise, the relics of the pa- 
stands face to face, not with the king, tron saints were removed into the 
but with the Christian. Innocent III. crypt below, and the consecrated 
(he had succeeded Celestine) would hosts yet unconsumed were destroy- 
not sacrifice the moral importance of ed by fire. The legate, clothed in 
his office even to procure help for purple, advanced to the foot of the 
the Crusade or to prepare for himself denuded altar, and promulgated the 
an ally in his dissensions with the awful sentence that was to deprive 
German emperors." a whole Christian kingdom of the con- 
Pope Innocent remonstrated with solations of religion. The assembled 
the king first through the Bishop of people answered with a great groan, 
Paris, Eudes de Sully, then personal- and, says a historian of the times, it 
ly by letter, and threatened him with seemed as if the Last Judgment had 
the last and most awful punishment, suddenly come upon men. A respite 
excommunication. The king tern- of twenty days was allowed before 
porized, and would give no satisfac- the interdict was publicly announced, 
tory answer, until in 1198 the papal "but after Candlemas Day, 1200, it 
legate, Peter of Capua, was directed was not .only announced, but rigoar- 
to give him his choice between sub- ously enforced. The effect was ter- 
mission within one month or the im- rible ; thousands flocked to Norman- 
position of an interdict upon the dy and other provinces belonging to 
whole kingdom. This appalling the King of England, to receive the 
measure had never before been so sacraments and perform their usual 
sweepingly resorted to, and fhe pre- devotions ; the king's own sister, on 



596 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

the occasion of her marriage with the where they met the king and receiv- 
Count of Ponthien, had to remove to ed his overtures. On the eve of the 
Rouen to have the ceremony canon- Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the 
ically performed. The king, mean- assembly ot lords spiritual and 
while, vented his fury on the bishops, temporal met at the Castle of S. 
imprisoned some, confiscated the tern- Leger, where the legate insisted on 
poralities of others, and caused many the deliberations being held in public, 
to be even personally maltreated. The anxious people crowded round 
Queen Ingeburga was dragged from the doors of the great hall, eager to 
her convent, and barbarously im- watch every fluctuation in the pro- 
prisoned in the Castle of Etampes, ceedings. At last, on the legate's 
near Paris. Philip's wrath extended urgent advice, and in his presence, 
to al! 4 classes ; the nobles he oppressed, Philip consented to visit Queen Inge- 
the burghers he taxed beyond their burga in state. She had been sent 
means, until his very servants left for to be present, but had not yet 
him as a God-forsaken man. The seen her husband. It was their first 
pressure at last became so terrible meeting since their separation six 
that he was heard to exclaim in a years before. At sight of her, the 
transport of rage, " I shall end by king recoiled, crying out, " The pope 
becoming a Mussulman ! Fortunate is forcing me to this." 
Saladin ! he at least had no pope " Nay, my lord," replied the injur- 
over him !" At a meeting of the lords ed wife, calmly and meekly, " he 
and prelates of the kingdom, at which seeks but justice." 
Agnes of Merania assisted, Philip Philip soon afterwards swore by 
moodily asked, in the midst of an proxy to receive the queen as his 
ominous silence, what he was to do. only and lawful wife, and to render 
" Obey the pope," was the instant and her all the honors due to her rank, 
uncompromising reply of the assem- As soon as this was done, the bells 
bly; and, when the king further ob- rang out a joyous peal, and the peo- 
tained a confession from his uncle the pie knew that peace had been made. 
Archbishop of Rheims that the de- The sacred images were again un- 
cree of divorce passed by him had covered, the church doors were open- 
been invalid from the first, he exclaim- ed, and Mass was everywhere cele- 
ed in ill-concealed anger, " You brated with great pomp. The people 
were a fool to give it, then !" were frantic with joy, but the king, 
At this juncture, both Agnes and though he had bent under the weight 
the king sent ambassadors to Rome of influence that had been brought 
to ask for a suspension at least of the to bear upon him, still persisted in 
interdict, but the pope was inflexible, asking for a divorce from his wife on 
and would hear of no negotiation the before-mentioned plea of relation- 
before an unconditional submission, ship. The pope delayed an answer, 
This Philip reluctantly promised ; the and, the better to satisfy the reason 
interdict had now lasted seven months, of the refractory king, appointed 
and he could no longer withstand the another meeting to be held at Sois- 
dangerous and threatening attitude sons, six months after the date of the 
of his dissatisfied subjects. In the recent one at S. Leger. 
summer of the year 1200, Cardinal To this meeting Canute III. of 
John Colonna, Cardinal Octavian, Denmark sent bishops and learned 
of Ostia, and several others repaired doctors to plead his sister's cause, but, 
first to Vezelay, then to Compiegne, as on the king's side was arrayed the 



TJic Church the Champion of Marriage. 597 

best though servile talent of Hindoos, or relegated to one corner 
France, the case seemed not very of the globe like a common sect, or 
hopeful, until an unknown and ob- sunk altogether in the mire of orien- 
scure ecclesiastic arose, and, towards tal voluptuousness, it was entirely 
the end of the council, which had owing to the vigilance and constant 
already lasted a fortnight, modestly efforts of the popes." And Schlegel, 
asked leave of the august judges to in his Concordia, speaks thus : " We 
speak in favor of Queen Ingeburga. hardly dare to liken the Guelphs, with 
His address startled and moved all the popes at their head, to anything 
who listened, and they agreed with approaching liberalism, so degraded 
one voice that this sudden and almost has the term become in connection 
inspired burst of eloquence was sure- with modern liberals ; yet they alone, 
ly a sign of the will of God directly because they had religion and the 
urging the queen's rights. Philip, church on their side, were the true 
anticipating the papal decision, de- liberals of the middle ages. Indeed, 
termined to surprise the assembly by if we look at the position of the 
forestalling it. He accordingly ap- popes in its highest type, we shall 
peared on horseback very early one find that they were always either 
morning at the gate of the palace of gentle peace-makers and arbiters in 
Notre Dame, the queen's residence, times of unnecessary and foolish 
and in public and shall we not say wars, or stern champions of the op- 
primitive ? token of reconciliation pressed, and austere censors of 
took Ingeburga away with him, mak- morals." 

ing her sit on a pillion behind him. We pass over a few other less im- 
They rode away quietly and almost portant cases, and come at once to 
unattended, but soon after it became the last and most fatal, those con- 
known that he had again imprisoned nected with the Protestant Reforma- 
her in an old castle, and that, having tion. In the XVIth century, the old 
thus broken up the council before a story of Bardas and Photius was la- 
public decision had been rendered, he mentably repeated in England. Ger- 
still considered himself free to seek the many was in open revolt; Philip, 
divorce. Soon after the difficulty Landgrave of Hesse, was extorting 
was lessened by the death of the un- shameful permissions for polygamy 
fortunate Agnes of Merania, whose from the married monk Luther; reli- 
health had been shattered by the gious were trampling their vows un- 
terrible and infamous publicity neces- derfoot ; Wittenberg, according to 
sarily brought upon her during her the Lutheran chronicler Illyricus, was 
recent pregnancy. It was not, how- no better than a den of prostitution ; 
ever, for many years after her death, troops of " apostate nuns," as Luther 
not until 1213, that Philip was sin- himself called them, were constantly 
cerely and permanently reconciled to arriving, begging, says Rohrbacher, 
Ingeburga, whom he calls in his will for food, clothing, and husbands 
his dear wife, and to whom he left a Luther, their prophet, was hawk 
suitable provision as queen-dowager. ing his mistress, Catharine Boris, 
Hurter and Schlegel both give wit- about among his disciples, offering 
ness to the admirable conduct of the her as a wife first to one, then to the 
mediaeval popes in these and kindred other, till he was at last forced to 
struggles. The former says : " If take her himself, to the no small dis- 
Christianity was not reduced to a gust of his best friends, who remon- 
vain formula like the religion of the strated in the following graphic words: 





598 The Church the Champion of Marriage. 

" If any, at least not this one." The read that a still more liberal dispen- 
Germanic world was crazy with a sation from the ordinary rules of mo- 
new revolution, and henceforth the rality was in the last century accord- 
struggle was no longer to be a partial ed by the Calvinistic clergy of Prus- 
one, a revolt of the flesh, but a radical sia to the reigning King, Frederick 
onset upon everything divine, upon William, successor of Frederick the 
revelation and faith, as well as upon Great, to have three wives at the 
moral restraints and social decencies, same time, the Princess of Hesse, the 
Philip of Hesse, petitioning in 1539 Countess Euhoff, and Elizabeth of 
for permission to marry a second Brunswick." The progenitor of the 
wife while the first was living, says Prussian .dynasty had already given 
that " necessities of body and of con- a similar example of licentiousness, 
science obliged him thereto " ; that In Luther's time, Albert of Branden- 
" he sees no remedy save that allow- burg, Grand Master of the religious 
ed of old to the chosen people ' order of chivalry, the Knights of S. 
(polygamy) ; that " he begs this dis- Mary, otherwise called the Teutonic 
pensation in order that he may live Order, broke his vows and took a wife, 
more entirely for the glory of God, having already abjured his faith, 
and lie more ready to do him earthly Prussia, then only a province de- 
services ; that he is ready to-do any- pendent on the Order, he seized as 
thing that may be required of him in his own, Protestantizing it, and mak- 
reason (as an equivalent), whether ing moral disorder the rule there 
concerning the property of convents rather than the exception, 
or 'anything else." He also hints But we must glance at England, 
that he will seek this permission from though the story of its defection is so 
the emperor, " no matter at what*/*- well known that we will not do more 
,cuniary cost" if it be denied him by than pencil the outlines of the con-, 
the Wittenberg divines, and alleges flict on this occasion. After twenty 
as a sufficient reason that it is too years of married life, without a scruple 
costly for him to take his wife to to mar his domestic peace, without a 
diets of the empire, with all the breath of scandal to sully the fair 
honors due to her rank, and equally fame of the queen, Henry VIII. sud- 
too hard for him to live without denly strives to obtain a divorce from 
female society during such times of his wife, Catharine of Aragon, that 
gaiety. The permission was granted he may marry one who is already his 
at last, reluctantly, it must be admit- mistress and the acknowledged head 
ted, for even the first Reformers, lax of his court. A faithful son of the 
as they were, were not Mormons, church until a personal test of fidel- 
Melancthon drew it up, and eight ity is demanded from him, he had 
divines, including Bucer and Luther, already refuted Luther's errors, and 
signed it, but made secrecy a condi- gained the title of " Defender of the 
tion. The shameful " marriage " Faith." But passion blinds him, and 
was performed on the 4th of March, everywhere he seeks a sanction for 
1540, between the landgrave and his unrestrained license. He applies 
Marguerite de Saal, and perhaps the to Rome and to Wittenberg : the lat- 
most revolting feature of the proceed- ter answers in a deprecatory tone, 
ing was the consent of Philip's law- " Rather than divorce your wife marry 
ful wife, the Duchess Christina. two queens"; the former, in the per- 
In Chambers' Book of Days, a son of Clement VII., urges him to 
collection of curious information, we desist from his unlawful courses. Re- 



The Church the Champion of Marriage. 599 

pulsed the first time, the pope sends sentient voices heard throughout the 

Cardinal Campeggio, his legate, to kingdom ; we know at what cost 

treat of the matter with Cardinal their courageous protest was raised. 

Wolsey; they summon the queen to A reign of blood was inaugurated; 

their presence ; she refuses point- confiscations enriched the royal trea- 

blank, and appeals directly to Rome, sury, and the servile episcopate bent 

In 1531, Cromwell, the astute and to the shameful yoke like one man. 
traitorous protege of Wolsey, suggests Of the Franciscan friars, Peyto and 
schism to the king as a means to the Elston, who dared to preach to the 
desired end. Henry, knowing the king's face against his adulterous 
corrupt and venal state of the clergy union, the Protestant historian Cob- 
in England, eagerly accepts the pro- bett says : " They were not fanatics, as 
posals, and instantly attempts to en- some have said; they were the de- 
force a declaration of his supreme fenders of morality and order, and I 
headship of the English Church by know of no instance in ancient or 
putting in force, against the clergy, modern history of a greater and no- 
several obsolete statutes of Norman bier heroism than this."* 
origin, named " praemunire " ; the In 1536, Queen Catharine died, 
whole ecclesiastical body is threaten- and the same year was performed 
ed with the punishment of attainder the marriage of Henry with Anne 
due to high treason, and to save the Boleyn by a Catholic chaplain, who 
rest they offer the king a ransom of was ordered to say Mass early one 
^ i oo, ooo (equal at that period to morning by the king, Henry falsely 
at least four times that sum accord- alleging that he had in his possession 
ing to modern computation). The the newly arrived permission from 
king only accepts this amount with Rome. But passion is no foundation 
the supplementary condition of the whereon to build a permanent and 
" oath of supremacy." At one stroke happy domestic life. Anne's immo- 
the episcopate is gagged, and schism rality matched Henry's, and ere long 
practically effected. Meanwhile, she was accused, vaguely, it is true, 
Cranmer is sent to Rome to apply of treason, adultery, and incest. Her 
anew for the divorce. supposed accomplices and lovers 

His mission proved unsuccessful, were all executed, and she herself, 

and on his return a final council was in cruel derision, condemned on the 

held at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, 1 5th of May, 1536, to be executed on 

where, however, the. queen refused the iQth, while, on the intermediate 

again to appear^ and was therefore lyth, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 

condemned as contumacious. Shortly according to his royal master's orders, 

after, at Lambeth, her marriage was declared her marriage annulled, and 

annulled, and her daughter, the Prin- her daughter Elizabeth illegitimate, 

cess Mary, declared illegitimate. Thus she was first proved to have 

Pope Clement VII. threatened to never been the king's lawful wife, and 

excommunicate the king; Henry then beheaded for infidelity to the man 

never heeded him. A public con- who had never been her husband, 

sistory, held at Rome in 1534, revers- Of Henry's subsequent wives and his 

ed the Lambeth decision, but the methods of disposing of them we 

die was already cast, and the com- need say nothing ; the separation 

plaisant parliament was ready to from Rome had won him a sad in- 
confirm Henry in all his desires. 

More'sand Fisher's were the only dis- * History of the Reformation. 



6oo 



Fleurange. 



dependence of the only tribunal once 
recognized by kings, and divorce, 
adultery, and consequent murder had 
already begun the dark record which 
has ever since steadily increased in 
England. 

The church was the only bulwark 
adequate to resist that flood of vio- 
lent and powerful passions which 
kingly supremacy naturally incites 
and fosters, and, in breaking with the 
church, the licentious sovereigns of 
the XVIth century acted indeed' with 
the wisdom of the children of this 
world. Still the church stood fast, 
sad but not conquered ; the Mosaic 
law stood fast, passing into the dicta 
of society even where it was exiled 
from the legal courts for who does 
not attach even now some idea of 
obloquy to a divorced or impure 
person ? still history pointed to the 



inevitable punishments that fall on 
the adulterer, and of which the 
" churches " so-called, born of royal 
adultery, have invariably been pal- 
pable monuments. 

In our days, who can doubt that 
that church alone which guarantees 
the sanctity and in dissolubility of 
marriage can hope to become the 
saviour and regenerator of modern 
society ; that that church alone which 
protects and ennobles woman can 
remain triumphant in lands where 
woman's influence is slowly leaven- 
ing the whole social mass ; who can 
doubt that that church alone which 
can trace its uncompromising laws 
back to Mount Sinai can hope to 
retain the moral mastery over the 
unruly ages to come, even to that age 
which shall witness the Last Judg- 
ment and the final condemnation ? 




FLEURANGE. 

CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF " A SISTER'S STORY." 

f 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION. 

PART IV. THE IMMOLATION. 



LV. 



The clock had just struck two. 
Vera, according to her custom, was 
waiting in the ante-room of the em- 
press' audience-chamber. The door 
was soon opened by an usher, and 
the person she was waiting to intro- 
duce appeared. There was an invol- 
untary movement of surprise on the 
part of both. Fleurange stopped as 
if in doubt. V era's appearance did 
not correspond with the idea she had 
formed of the lady-in-waiting she ex- 
pected to find at her majesty's door, 
and for an instant she thought she 
was in the presence of the empress 
herself. 

Vera, on her side, expected still 



less to see a petitioner like the one 
who now appeared. 

The Princess Catherine, with her 
usual forethought, had, in view of 
this important occasion, carefully pre- 
pared a dress for her who was to be 
regarded as her son's fiancee, and, 
when the day came, the young girl 
opened a coffer which had a special 
place among her luggage, and follow- 
ed with docility the instructions she 
there found in the princess' own 
handwriting, with the dress she was 
to wear. It was black, as etiquette 
then required, but a court dress, and 
the princess took pleasure in having 
it made as magnificent as possible. 






Fleurange. 



601 



Fleurange thus arrayed was dazzling. 
Nevertheless, her only ornaments 
were a gold chain from which was 
suspended a cross concealed in her 
corsage (a precious gift from her fa- 
ther which she never laid aside), and 
on her right arm a' bracelet the Prin- 
cess Catherine had taken from her 
own wrist the eve of the young girl's 
departure, assuring her it would bring 
her good luck. She wore no orna- 
ment on her head, but her beautiful 
hair was turned back and plaited in 
a way not common at that time, 
though so becoming and striking as 
to add another peculiar charm to 
that of her whole person, which was 
as noble as if she was entitled to a 
place at court, but simple enough to 
show that she now appeared there 
for the first time. 

The two young girls looked at 
each other, and, as we have said, 
their surprise was mutual. But it 
was only for an instant. Vera ad- 
vanced. 

" Mademoiselle Fleurange d' Yves, 
I suppose ?" 

Fleurange bowed. 

" The empress awaits you : follow 
me." She turned towards the door, 
but before opening it sh~ said : 
" Take off the glove on your right 
hand that is etiquette and hold 
your petition in that." 

Fleurange mechanically ungloved 
her beautiful hand in which trembled 
the paper she held. She stopped a 
moment, pale and agitated. 

" Do not be afraid, mademoiselle," 
said the maid of honor to her in an 
encouraging tone. " Her majesty is 
kindness itself. You have nothing 
to fear ; she could not be better dis- 
posed to give you a favorable recep- 
tion." 

There was not time to utter an- 
other word. The door then opened. 
Vera entered first. She bowed, and 
made Fleurange advance; then re- 



tired herself with another profound 
reverence, leaving the young girl 
alone with the empress. 

The audience lasted over half an 
hour, and Vera, though accustomed 
to wait, was beginning to find the 
time long, when the door again open- 
ed, and Fleurange came out. Her 
face was agitated, her eyes brilliant 
and tearful. Perceiving Vera, she 
stopped, and took her by the hand. 

" Oh ! you were right," she said. 
" Her majesty treated me with won- 
derful kindness. But I know how 
much I am also indebted to you. It 
was owing to you she was disposed 
to be gracious even before I was 
heard. May God reward you, made- 
moiselle, and repay you for all you 
have done for me !" 

Vera replied to this effusion with 
unusual cordiality, and accompanied 
Fleurange to the door. As they took 
leave of each other, their eyes met ; 
a common impulse caused them both 
to make a slight movement : but a 
little timidity on one- -side, 'and some 
haughtiness on 'the- other, stopped 
them, and the young girls parted 
without embracing each other. 

Vera slowly retraced her steps, and 
entered the empress' salon. As soon 
as the latter perceived her, she said : 
" Well, Vera, what have you to say ? 
Did you ever see a more charming 
apparition ?" 

" The young lady was beautiful in- 
deed," said Vera, with a thoughtful 
air. " I never saw such eyes." 

" That is true eyes that look you 
directly in the face, with an expres- 
sion so innocent, so frank, and al- 
most of assurance, were it not so 
sweet. I was not reluctant, I assure 
you, to take charge of her petition, 
and promise to favor it. Here, take 
it : I would not even read it. I am 
ready to grant all this charming girl 
requests. It insufficient to know she 
loves one of those criminals, and 



6o2 Fleurange. 

wishes to marry him in order to While thus examining it, the em- 
share his fate. Such a terrible favor press continued : " Take a seat at 
will not be refused, I am sure." that table, and write Prince W 

The empress seated herself in her in my name, without any further de- 
large arm-chair. " But what fools lay in my name, you understand, 
men are," she continued, after a mo- Send this petition with your letter, 
ment's silence, "to thus foolishly and say it is my 'wish it should be 
risk the happiness of others as well as granted, and that I beg him to send 
their own ! Really, I admire these me an answer a favorable answer- 
women whom nothing daunts, noth- to-morrow morning at the latest. As 
ing discourages, and who thus sacrifice soon as it arrives, you will forward it 
themselves for such selfish beings." in my name -without any delay to 

" Yes," replied Vera, " their de- that lovely girl. She is staying at 

votedness is certainly admirable ; but the Princess Catherine Lamianoft's 

the women who implore, who suppli- house on the Grand Quay." 

cate, and at length avert the punish- Vera could not resist a slight 

ment of the guilty, have also a noble start : " The Princess Catherine's ?" 

role, mad ame, and one which the un- "Yes; but make haste, and do 

fortunate have reason to bless." what should be done at once." 

" I understand you, Vera. Your Vera again looked at the bracelet ; 

large beseeching eyes have nothing the princess' name clearly recalled the 

to remind me of, or reproach me for. remembrance so vague a moment be- 

I have already told the emperor all fore. It was hers. She had seen the 

I learned from you yesterday. We Princess Catherine wear the bracelet, 

must now leave it to his magnanimity, " Come, Vera, what are you think- 

and importune him no more." ing of?" 

These words were uttered with a " Nothing, madame ; excuse me." 

slight accent of authority, and some " Then make haste and write what 

moments of silence followed. Vera, I tell you, and send the letter and 

with mingled sadness and displea- the petition without any delay." 

sure, stood motionless with her eyes Vera obeyed without reply; she took 

cast down, awaiting her sovereign's the petition, and went to a table in one 

order. In this attitude, she per- of the deep embrasures of the win- 

ceived a bracelet on the carpet, do ws, before which a gilt trellis covered 

which she picked up to give her mis- with a vine formed a genuine screen, 

tress, who recognized it. " Ah !" As soon as she was seated in this 

said she, "it is the talisman that place where she could not be seen, 

charming creature, just gone, wore she eagerly opened the petition, and 

on her arm. Keep it, Vera, you can . glanced over it before beginning the 

return it to-morrow with the reply I letter. This glance was sufficient to 

promised her." justify the suspicion just excited. A 

Vera examined the bracelet with deadly paleness came over her face ; 
curiosity. It was a massive gold her features, generally so calm, were 
chain with a deep-red cornelian clasp suddenly transformed by a violent 
on which was graven some talis- explosion of anger and hatred. She 
manic figure. It looked natural, crushed the paper, and remained mo- 
She had seen some one wear a simi- tionless on the chair into which she 
Va.r bracelet, she was sure ; who had fallen, incapable of acting, think- 
could it be ? For tlfe moment, she ing, or realizing where she was and 
could not remember. what she had to do. 



Fleurange. 603 

At length she returned to herself, whispered the name of Gabrielle, 
and made an effort to collect her but the haughty Vera was not dis- 
thoughts. The moments were pass- turbed by so trifling an affair. The 
ing away; the empress would be as- future was hers, and she was await- 
tonished at the time it took to ac- ing it without any fear, when the 
complish her wishes. She therefore news of George's crime and misfor- 
took up her pen, but had scarcely time came like a thunderbolt, en- 
written a few words with a trembling abling her to estimate the depth 
hand, when a noise, unusual at that of her affection for him by the very 
hour, was heard in the court the liveliness of her grief. From that 
sound of a drum, and the guards time she had but one thought to 
shouldering arms. Vera rose with prevail over the emperor, obtain 
surprise, and looked out of the win- George's pardon, and win him back 
dow. The emperor had arrived in to herself. Her first repulse did 
his sledge, alone and without any es- not destroy all hope of success, 
cort, according to his custom, though But while her influence, her passion, 
this was not his usual time of com- and her efforts were still without 
ing. Shortly after, the doors of the any result, another and what a 
salon were thrown-open a signal for rival ! (for Vera, in spite of her pride, 
Vera to leave the room. She tore was not so vain or so stupid as not 
up the note, put the petition in her to recognize the redoubtable charm 
pocket, and, while the empress was against which she had to struggle) 
advancing to meet her husband, the another, young, as beautiful as her- 
lady of honor disappeared through a self, and even more so, had eclipsed 
side door, and hurried to her room in an instant, by an heroic act, all 
next the empress' apartment. her own devotedness had even 

A whole hour passed away, she dreamed of, and gone beyond the 
could not tell how. She had been limits which she dare not cross ! 
able to control and generally to How could she doubt George's feel- 
effectually disguise the strong feelings ings when the young lady she had 
which pique had not suppressed just seen appeared in his prison, 
feelings which gave her assurance of How could she thwart her ? What 
some day overcoming all obstacles, was to be done ? Besides, who was 
And then, what were these obsta- this girl who suddenly appeared in 
cles ? It was not long since George, their midst who had the air of an 
her chosen husband from childhood, angel, but whom she hated as if she 
plainly testified the attraction he were a demon ? All at once an 
felt for her, and seemed as much idea flashed into her mind. " Can 
as she to recrard the union arranged this be Gabrielle ?" she exclaimed 

o o 

. in their infancy as the realization of aloud. But before Vera had time 

his wishes. It is true a cloud had to dwell on this idea, and calm the 

since passed across that brilliant fresh agitation which it caused, the 

horizon, and, when she met George sound of the little bell interrupted 

again, he was not the same. Why her painful reverie. She rose, but 

was it so ? She had often sought with some surprise, for she had not 

the reason, but all she was able to heard the usual signal of the empe- 

ascertain was that a young girl, an ror's departure, and she was very sel- 

obscure demoiselle de compagnie in dom admitted when he was present, 

his mother's service, fascinated him But her hesitation was only momen- 

for a while, and some one had tary, for the bell again hastily re- 



604 Fleurange. 

peated the summons. Vera has- gled kindness and impatience, ex- 

tened to answer it, but, confused claimed : 

at the sight of the emperor, she " Why do you not come in, Vera ? 

stopped at the door, and bowed The emperor wishes to speak to you, 

profoundly. The empress, with min- and you are making him wait!" 

/ 

LVI. 

While all we have just related was though generous scheme. How 

occurring at the palace, the Marquis would he, for whom the words duty, 

Adelardi was on his way to the fort- sacrifice, and restraint had no mean- 

ress, considering as he went what it ing, now bear up in the presence not 

was advisable to say to George, of danger, but of misfortune under 

After much reflection, he resolved not so merciless a form ? 
to announce Fleurange's arrival till The marquis asked himself these 

he knew the result of her interview questions with an anxiety founded per- 

with the empress. He must not tor- haps on some resemblance between 

ture George in his misfortunes with his own nature and that of him whom 

vague hopes ; above all, he must he comprehended so thoroughly. 

avoid arousing expectations that Both were men of the world : one 

might prove vain. This would delay more refined and cultivated, more 

the communication but little, for the captivating ; the other with more 

young girl's audience was the same acuteness, more sagacity, and more 

day, and on the morrow he could act judgment. Both were generous and 

with a complete knowledgeof the case, noble, and, apart from the political 

Strong apprehensions were mingled entanglements that had misled them 
with these thoughts as he reflected , one after the other, incapable of a 

on the new position in which his base action unworthy of their noble 

friend now stood. His fate was birth. But there exists in the human 

decided, the prolonged excitement soul a chord whose tone is the echo 

of the trial was over, and the time of. the divine voice; this chord gave 

come for him to resign himself to his out no sound in these men, otherwise 

lot. In what disposition should he accomplished ; or, if not voiceless 

find him ? With a nature ardent with the elder of the two, at least, 

and impetuous, but at the same time according to the expression of the 

delicate, sensitive to the least re- great poet of his country, inert and 

straint, and excessively fond of the feeble from " silence too prolonged." 

comforts of life, how would he endure This mysterious and hidden chord 

the horrors of this new prospect he never resounds very loudly, it is true, 

whose very object in his studies, and and the tumult of the world with its 

in the gratification of his tastes and passions, pleasures, wit, talent, and 

passions, was only enjoyment ? Plea- glory, often deadens its tone and pre- 

sure by means of his intelligence, his vents its being heard ; but when the 

affections, his intellect, and his sen- silent hour of adversity comes, then 

ses such had been the sole motive it awakes to a sweet, powerful har- 

of his actions, even the best ; and, in mony which sometimes transforms 

the dangerous risks that led to his the soul it fills. At such a time its 

destruction, he had rather sought to want is felt, and excites a horror, the 

satisfy a thirst for a new sensation cause of which is not comprehended 

than the realization of a chimerical by those who experience it. 



Fleurange* 605 

George was not confined in a dun- refuse me ?" He strode up and 

geon, but in a narrow cell lighted down his cell two or three times 

only by a high grated window, as if beside himself. " Answer me, 

There was nothing in it but a bed, a then, Adelardi !" exclaimed he, in a 

table, and two straw-bottomed chairs, violent manner. " Why have you 

In his former visits, the marquis had not rendered me this, the greatest of 

found his friend sad, but always calm, services ? In a similar position, you 

courageous, and, as it were, contemp- would have expected it of me, and 

tuous of the danger of his position. I assure you it would not have been 

Though grown pale and thin, his in vain." 

features hitherto retained their lofty, The marquis was not ignorant of 

noble character, and the disorder of the religious principles that should 

his hair and even of his garments did have inspired his reply, but he had 

not at all detract from the aristocrat- long lost the habit of appealing to 

ic appearance which, in the very best them. He therefore simply replied : 

sense of the word, characterized his " You know well, George, what you 

whole person. But this was no long- ask would have been impossible." 
er the case. He could not have " Ah ! yes, I forgot. It is 

been more changed by a long illness, just. They take precautions to pre- 

or the inroads of time, than he was vent their victims from finding an- 

since they last met Seated beside other way out of these walls than 

his table in an attitude of deep de- that opened by their murderers; but 

jection, he hardly raised his head at they do not consider all the resources 

his friend's entrance. After pressing of despair," continued he, with agita- 

his hand, the latter remained some tion. " When a man is determined to 

moments too much affected himself to die, they must be sharper than they 

break the mournful silence. George are now to prevent him, and oblige 

waited till the warden who ushered the him to accept the odious life they 

visitor in had left the cell. would inflict upon him." 

" You have come at last, Ade- Adelardi allowed him without any 

lardi," said he at length, with an interruption to give vent for some 

altered voice. " I have been surpris- time to the despair that burdened 

ed not to see you since since every- his heart, but at last he turned to 

thing was decided." him with sudden firmness : " George, 

" I could not obtain permission to I have always found you calm and 

enter any sooner ; but, to make up courageous till to-day, but now your 

for it, I am allowed to come every language is unworthy of you." 
day, till- He stopped. A slight flush rose to the prisoner's 

" Till I give up the enjoyments of brow, and he resumed his seat, 

this place for those that await me " You are right, my friend, I 

when I leave it," said George, with a acknowledge. I am no longer what 

bitter smile. " Adelardi," continued I was. I must indeed astonish you, 

he, changing his tone, and rising for I no longer recognize myself." 

abruptly, "can a friend like you He remained thoughtful for some 

come to me to-day with empty moments, and then continued: "It 

hands ? Is it possible you have not is strange ! for, after all, Adelardi, -in 

divined my wants, and are here with- saying that till now I never knew 

out bringing me the means of escap- what fear was, or shrunk in the pre- 

ing my doom, and meeting death, sence of danger or death, saying 

which they have had the cruelty to I had courage, was not laying claim 



6o6 



Fleurange. 



to any extraordinary merit, for there 
are but few men who lack it. Yes, 
if any virtue fell to my lot, it was 
certainly that, it seems to me. Why, 
then, am I so weak to-day? 
Courage," repeated he, after a pause. 
" Is it true ? Was it really courage, 
or was I merely brave, which seems 
to be another thing ? What is the 
difference between them ?" 

" I know not," replied the marquis, 
as if in a dream ; " but there is a 
difference, certainly." 

Neither of them possessed the 
true key to the enigma ; neither of 
them now thought of searching for 
it. But Adelardi, glad to see his 
fri'end's excitement somewhat allayed, 
continued the subject to which the 
conversation had led. Besides, he 
saw it would afford an opportunity 
of touching on a point he did not 
wish to introduce directly. 

" No," he resumed, " bravery and 
courage are not the same thing. 
What proves it is that the most timid 
woman can be as courageous as we 
when occasion requires it, and often 
more so." 

" Yes, I acknowledge it." 

" For example," continued Ade- 
lardi, looking at him attentively, 
" more than one of your companions 
in misfortune have had a signal proof 
of such courage to-day." 

" How so ?" 

" Do you not know that their 
wives have fearlessly and unhesitat- 
ingly requested and obtained the 
favor of sharing their lot ? Some 
are to accompany them in their sad 
journey ; others will follow them." 

" And have their husbands accept- 
ed such a sacrifice ? " 

" They who inspire such great de- 
votedness can generally comprehend 
and accept it. It was only yesterday, 
one of them conversing with a friend 
admitted to see him, as I to see you, 
said : ' I can submit to anything 



now ; 1 can endure my fate without 
murmuring; I shall not be separated 
from her. The only intolerable sor- 
row in life will be spared me. I am 
grateful to the emperor, and will no 
longer complain !' I must add that 
he was recently married, and adores 
his wife." 

" The only sorrow," repeated 
George slowly " the only one ! 
t'hat is really something I cannot un- 
derstand. To love a woman to such 
a degree as to feel her presence 
could alleviate such a lot as ours, 
and that never to behold her again, 
t would be a misfortune surpassing 
that which awaits us ! No, I do not 
understand that, I frankly confess." 

"And yet," said Adelardi, with 
some eagerness. But he stopped 
and did not continue his thought 
that one can accept and admire he- 
roic affection, but not suggest it. 

"And yet," continued George, 
smiling, " how often you have seen 
me in love, you were going to say. 
Yes, I acknowledge it, though per- 
haps I was sincerely so but once, 
only once, and yet shall I con- 
fess it, Adelardi ? Love even then 
was a holiday in my life ; it added 
to its brightness ; it was an additional 
enjoyment, another charm. Her 
beauty ; her rare, naive intelligence ; 
even her virtue, which gave a mys- 
terious attraction to the passionate 
tenderness sometimes betrayed, in 
spite of herself, by her eyes, so inno- 
cent and frank in their expression; 
Oh ! yes, that time I was in love and 
ready to commit a folly I am now 
glad to have avoided. Poor Fleur- 
ange ! If I had married her, what 
a fate I should have reserved for her, 
as well as for myself." 

" For her ! Yes, indeed ; it was a 
very different lot your affection pro- 
mised her when you displayed it 
without any scruple; but if she 
she, charming, devoted, and coura- 



Fleurange. 607 

geous, were there with you, do you melancholy gravity not habitual to 

not imagine she could sweeten him, " to be of service to you at such 

yours ? " a time, I feel I should be different 

" Mine ? my lot ? the frightful from what I am. Yes, George ; in 

lot that awaits me ? '" asked George, the fearful temptation that now be- 

with a bitter laugh. Then he re- sets you, in your despair in view of 
sumed the previous tone of their ^ the frightful lot that awaits you, there 

conversation. is only one resource, and but one. 

" No, no ; I am not one of those I feel unworthy of suggesting the 

men whom love alone can suffice only remedy." His voice faltered, 

stripped of all that outwardly adorns a he continued, with emotion : 

and adds to its value. In short, " George, you must believe - - you 

think of me as you please, Adelardi, must pray." 

but I do not resemble in the least my George was for a moment surprised 

companion in misfortune you have and affected. After a pause, which 

just referred to. No human affection neither seemed disposed to interrupt, 

could make me endure the life I lead he said, in a softened tone : " Well, 

here; judge how it would be else- Adelardi, let it at least be permissible, 

where." in praying, to implore a favor not 

He rose, and began again to walk refused to a man more guilty than I : 

around in an excited manner. Ade- Fabiano is dying." 

lardi remained silently absorbed in " I know he cannot recover from 

anxious, painful thoughts. George his wound." 

soon resumed, in a kind of fury: "But perhaps he would not be in 
" Here, Adelardi, speak to me only immediate danger had he not been 
of one thing ; give me only one hope violently attacked with typhus fever 
-death ! death ! that is all I desire." the day before yesterday. I hoped 
And touching, with a gesture of de- something myself from the conta- 
spair, the black cravat negligently gion ; but, doubtless afraid of short- 
fastened around his neck, he said, in ening our heavy chain, they sent him 
a hoarse voice : " This will be a last last night to die at a hospital, I 
resort, if in a week I do not succeed know not where." 
in finding some means more worthy At that moment the bolt flew 
of a gentleman of escaping from back, the hour had elapsed, and they 
their hands." were obliged to separate, but with 

His friend preserved a gloomy si- an effort scarcely lessened by the 
lence. What could he say ? What thought that it was not a final fare- 
reply could he make at a time when well, and that this sad interview 
every earthly hope failed, and there would be repeated more than once 
was none felt in heaven ? Adelardi before the last. 

was now fully conscious ; he had a As the marquis was about to leave 

lively sense of what was wanting, the prison, the warden said in a low 

He was born in a land where the tone, as he was opening the last 

impressions of childhood are always door: 

religious, and the longest period of " I do not think I am acting con- 
indifference or forgetfulness seldom trary to my duty in confiding this 
effaces them completely from the letter to you, sir. The dying prison- 
soul in which they were profoundly er who was taken away last night 
graven in early life. gave it to me one day, begging me 
My dear friend," said he, with a to forward it to the address after his 



608 Fleurange. 

4 

departure. He has gone away, and After leaving the fortress, he look- 

I wish to fulfil the poor fellow's ed at the letter confided to him, and 

request." was greatly surprised to find it ad- 

" Give it to me," said Adelardi, as dressed to Mademoiselle Gabrielle 

he took it. " I will see that it is d' Yves, at Professor Dornthal 's, Hei- 

forwarded." delberg. 

LVII. 

The Marquis Adelardi entered the prevented all doubt, and therefore, 

sledge awaiting him at the gate of though wounded by his coldness in 

the fortress, but gave no orders to speaking of Fleurange, he came to 

his coachman, uncertain where he the conclusion his indifference would 

should go. Fleurange by this time vanish like snow before the sun as 

must have returned from the palace, soon as she appeared. She would 

Should he go to see her, as was never perceive it or suffer from it. 

agreed upon the evening before, to He regarded this as the most im- 

learn the result of the audience, and portant point. 

at the same time remit the letter The interest Fleurange inspired 
confided to him ? This was the him with was one of the best and 
plainest course to pursue, and, if he purest sentiments he had ever expe- 
hesitated, it was because his inter- rienced in his life. Without suspect- 
view with George had left a certain ing it, and without aiming at it, she 
dissatisfaction or, at least, uneasi- exercised a beneficent influence over 
ness which he feared to betray. In him. A thousand early impressions, 
the singular mission confided to him, effaced and almost stifled by the 
he began to feel that the love and world, awoke in the pure atmosphere 
courage of the two parties were un- that surrounded this young girl, and 
equally divided, and he would have he welcomed them with a feeling 
anxiously questioned whether it was that surprised himself. Therefore, 
certain that the gratitude of one from the time of meeting her again, 
would finally correspond to the de- he seriously assumed, more for her 
votedness of the other, had he not sake than George's, the quasi-pater- 
been reassured by several reflections, nal role the Princess Catherine had 

It was not, perhaps, very surprising entrusted to him with respect to 

that George depreciated a happiness both. 

he considered beyond his reach. The considerations referred to hav- 
But if she whom he was by no ing, therefore, completely reassured 
means expecting suddenly appeared him respecting George's probable if 
in his prison, would he then com- not actual dispositions, he returned to 
plain that his bride was too beauti- his first intentions, and gave orders 
ful ? The marquis thought not. to be taken to the house on the 
He knew better than any one else Grand Quay. He had scarcely de- 
how Fleurange once charmed him. scended and asked to see Mademoi- 
No woman had ever held such em- selle d'Yves, when he saw Clement 
pire over George's mobile heart, and crossing the hall. He bethought 
he was sure the very sight of her again himself it might be better to consult 
would suffice to revive the powerful him first. 

attraction. As to this, his perfect Clement was gloomy and pre- 

knowledge of his friend's character occupied. He had just seen his 



Fleurange. 



609 



cousin return from the palace in all 
the brilliancy that dress and the joy 
resulting from success added to her 
beauty. But the marquis had not 
time to notice the young man's phy- 
siognomy, nor the effort with which 
he replied to the first questions ad- 
dressed him as soon as they were 
alone together in a room on the 
ground floor. 

" I wish to speak to . you, Dorn- 
thal, about an unexpected incident. 
But first, has your cousin returned 
from the palace ?" 

" Yes." 

" Do you know whether she is 
satisfied with the audience ?" 

" Yes ; the empress promised to 
have her petition granted by to-mor- 
row." 

" I did not doubt it. The empress 
is always so kindly disposed to grant 
a favor ; and, were it otherwise, the 
sight of her who presented the peti- 
tion could not fail to ensure its suc- 
cess." 

Clement made no reply to this ob- 
servation. " You said, Monsieur le 
Marquis, that an unexpected inci- 
dent " 

" Yes, I am coming to it. I must 
first tell you what perhaps you are 
ignorant of.- -That miserable Fabiano 
Dini, who so cruelly compromised 
George, and was confined with 
him " 

Clement, surprised, interrupted 
him with emotion. " The unfortu- 
nate man is actually dying, Monsieur 
le Marquis. He was removed from 
the fortress last night, and " 

" Parbleu ! I know it ; that was 
precisely what I was going to tell 
you. But how did you find it out ?" 

" I made inquiries respecting him." 

" You knew this Fabiano, then ?" 

" Yes, a little, and was interested 
in knowing what had become of 
him." 

" And do you know now ?" 
VOL. xvi. 39 



" Yes, I know in what hospital he 
is, and that, thanks to his illness 
which makes flight impossible, and 
the fear of contagion which keeps 
every one away from him, he is only 
guarded by the infirmarians. I hope 
to get admittance to him to-day." 

" You know him ?" repeated the 
marquis after a moment's reflection. 
" Then that explains what seemed so 
mysterious. Your cousin Gabrielle, 
in that case, perhaps knows him 
also ?" 

" Yes, she knows him the same, 
as I." 

"That explains everything; and,, 
since it is so, here, Dornthal," said 
the marquis, giving him the letter of 
which he was the bearer, " have 
the kindness to give her this." 

At the sight of his cousin's writing, 
Clement was unable to conceal his 
emotion, and, seeing the marquis' ob- 
servant eye fastened on him, it 
seemed useless to conceal the truth. 
Without any hesitation, therefore, he 

* 7 f 

briefly related all the circumstances 
of the life of him who was now expi- 
ating his faults by the final suffer- 
ings of a miserable death. 

" I am not afraid, Monsieur le Mar- 
quis, to confide to you the secret of 
his sad life. You will keep it, I am 
sure, and will never forget, I hope," 
added he in a faltering tone, " that it 
is Fabiano Dini, and not Felix Dorn- 
thal, who will be delivered by death 
from an infamous punishment." 

The marquis pressed his hand. 
" Rely on my silence, Dornthal.' 
After a moment, he continued : 
" This unfortunate man showed great 
courage during his trial, and abso- 
lute contempt of danger for himself. 
He only seemed preoccupied with 
the desire of saving him whose de- 
struction he had caused. God for- 
give him !" 

"Yes, truly, God forgive him!" 
gravely repeated the young man. 



6io 



Fleurangc. 



Adelardi again extended his hand, 
and was about to leave the room 
when Clement stopped him. " Mon- 
sieur le Marquis, will you allow me 
now to ask you a question ?" 

" Certainly." 

" Well, may I ask if Count George 
has been informed of Gabrielle's ar- 
rival ?" 

" No, not yet." 

" But he is doubtless aware of her 
intentions ?" 

" No, my friend, he is likewise ig- 
norant of them. Though I had no 
doubt as to Gabrielle's success in her 
interview with the empress to-day, 
nevertheless, before giving George 
such a surprise, I wished to be abso- 
lutely sure there was no uncertainty 
to apprehend." 

" Oh ! yes, I comprehend you. 
To lose such a hope, after once con- 
ceiving it, would indeed be more 
frightful than death !" said Clement, 
with a vivacity that struck the other. 
He soon continued in a calmer tone : 

" One more question, Monsieur le 
Marquis an absurd question, I ac- 
knowledge, but one I cannot resist 
asking at such a time. You know 
my position with regard to Gabrielle 
is that of a brother. Can you assure 
me that he whom she loves, and is 
thus going to wholly immolate her- 
self for can you assure me on your 
honor that he is worthy of her ? 
that he loves her ? that he loves her 
as much as a man ever loved a wo- 
man ? I certainly cannot doubt it, 
but then I must see her happy in 
return for so much suffering I 
must !" repeated he almost passion- 



ately, " and I beg a sincere reply to 
my question." 

The marquis hesitated a moment. 
Clement's vehemence struck him, and 
under the impression of his recent 
interview with George, he did not at 
first know how to reply. Should he 
betray his friend ? Ought he to de- 
ceive him whose noble, upright look 
was fastened upon him ? He re- 
mained uncertain for some moments ; 
at length, he decided to be frank, and 
reply as candidly'ashe was questioned. 

" You ask for the truth, Dornthal. 
Well, it is not in my power to affirm 
that George's love is at this moment 
all you desire. According to my im- 
pression, Gabrielle is now only a 
sweet dream of the past. But be 
easy, my dear friend ; as soon as this 
dream becomes a reality, as soon as 
she appears before him is with him 
his oh ! then there is no doubt but 
the almost extinguished flame will re- 
vive and become as brilliant as it 
once was, and this charming creature 
will have no cause to suspect a sha- 
dow of forgetfulness had ever veiled 
her image. What do you expect, 
Dornthal ? As to love and constancy, 
women far surpass us, and they are 
not the less happy for that. Adieu ! 
my dear friend, till to-morrow." 

Clement only replied by taking the 
hand the marquis again extended be- 
fore going out. He listened to him, 
pale and shuddering, but, as soon as 
he was alone, he exclaimed, endeav- 
oring with an effort to suppress the 
sobs that stifled his breast : 

" Ah ! my God ! my God ! Is 
that love ?" 



LVIII. 



Fleurange, to the great regret of clad in the simple high-necked dress 

Mademoiselle Josephine, laid aside of dark cloth which was her usual 

the rich dress which seemed to real- costume, when Clement, who had 

ize the old lady's dreams of the pre- told her he should not return till late 

vious night, and had just reappeared in the evening, suddenly re-entered 



Fleurange. 61 1 

the salon he left only half an hour you rejected (and I confess you act- 
before. His intention was to conse- ed wisely) was perhaps more worthy 
crate the remainder of the day to the of you than his ; for I feel if I had 
sad duty he felt he owed his cousin, met you sooner, and you could have 
and thought it useless to mention it loved me, you would have made me 
to Gabrielle, from whom he conceal- better, whereas he ! But it is too 
ed all he had learned respecting Fe- late to speak to you either of him or 
lix. But the letter just given him al- myself! It is all over. It is to you 
tered the case, and made it indispen- you alone, dear cousin, I address 
sable to inform her at once. these last words; you must repeat 

He therefore explained to her with- them to all to whom they are due ; 

out much preamble the actual situa- uttered by you they will be heard, 

tion of their unhappy cousin ; he in- Forgive and Farewell. F. D." 

formed her of the attempt he was Fleurange wiped away the tears 

about to make to see him, and then that filled her eyes. The letter 

related what he had learned from the affected her in more than one way, 

Marquis Adelardi, giving her the let- and Clement, it may be imagined, 

ter of which he was the bearer. It did not listen to it with indifference, 

was not without lively emotion Fleur- But now one thought overruled all 

ange broke the seal and hurriedly others, and, after a moment's silence, 

read it aloud : he said : " This letter was written 

" COUSIN GABRIELLE : I am con- when he expected to die from his 
demned to the mines for life, but as, at wound. Illness is now hastening 
the same time, I am dangerously his end, and perhaps he is no longer 
wounded, I shall probably have long living while we are talking. This 
ceased to exist when tl^is letter reaches evening, at all events, you will know 
you, if it ever does. I regret the mis- whether I found him dead or alive." 
fortunes I have brought on so many, Fleurange interrupted him : " Cle- 
and especially on my last benefactor, ment, listen to me. If Felix is still 
and I particularly regret this on your alive, as is by no means impossible, 
account, for it will perhaps be a I should like to see him again, and 
source of suffering to you. I should will go with you." 
have thought of this sooner, but, see- " You ! no, that cannot be; the 
ing you unexpectedly pass by in a danger from contagion is too great, 
caleche one evening at Florence, I That hospital ! you cannot go there ; 
waited at the door of the hotel where it is a place provided for criminals 
I saw you stop, and yielded to the and miserable creatures of the low- 
irresistible desire of making you think est grade. I cannot expose you to 
of me by throwing you some lines so much danger. I will not." 
concealed in a bouquet. A few days " But, perchance," said Fleurange, 
after, my patron, who was very far "this preference, this sort of sympa- 
from suspecting my acquaintance thy he has always expressed for me in 
with the original, imprudently show- his way, might give me the power 
ed me his beautiful Cordelia. I con- of consoling the last moments of his 
fess I was seized with a keen desire wretched life. Who knows but my 
to tear him away from contemplating voice might utter some word to 
it, which irritated me. Lasko oppor- soothe the despair of his last agony ? 
tunely arrived. But I did not think Clement, Clement, do you dare tell 
that would go so far. As to the rest, me I should not attempt it ? Can 
Gabrielle, believe me, my love which you conscientiously venture to dis- 



6l2 



Fleurajtge. 



suade me from it, because thereby 
I shall incur some danger ?" 

" Gabrielle," said Clement, with 
a kind of irritation, " you are always 
the same ! Do you not understand 
that you are merciless towards those 
that love you ?" 

" Come, reflect a moment," per- 
sisted she, "and answer me, Cle- 
ment." 

A moment of silent anguish fol- 
lowed these words. Then, with a 
troubled voice, he said : " Be quick ; 
lose no time. You may perhaps 
have an influence over him no one 
else could have. Make haste, I will 
wait for you." 

Before he ended, Fleurange was 
gone from the room. In less time 
than it takes to relate it, she return- 
ed wrapped in her cloak, her velvet 
hat on her head, her face concealed 
by a veil, ready to go. They went 
down without speaking a word. 
Clement's sledge was waiting at 
the door. He took a seat beside 
her, and they set off with the almost 
frightful rapidity which is peculiar to 
that mode of conveyance. It was 
no longer light, being after four 
o'clock, but the brilliant clearness 
of the night, increased by the reflec- 
tion of the snow, sufficiently lighted 
the way, and the horses went as fast 
as in the daytime. The place of 
their destination was on the oppo- 
site bank of the Neva, much lower 
down "than the Princess Catherine's 
house. They therefore crossed the 
river diagonally, following a road 
traced out by the pine branches 
which from time to time indicated 
the path. They were thus transport- 
ed in the twinkling of an eye from 
the splendor of the city into the 
midst of what looked like a vast 
white desert. In proportion as they 
descended the river, the palaces, the 
numerous gilded spires of the church- 
es, with the immense succession of 



buildings whose effect was heighten- 
ed by the obscurity, were lost in the 
distance, and, when they at length 
stopped at the very extremity of a 
faubourg on the right bank of the 
river, they found themselves sur- 
rounded by wooden hovels, with 
here and there some larger buildings, 
but all indicating poverty, and none 
more than a story high. Clement 
aided his cousin in alighting, and 
looked around for the person he ex- 
pected as his guide. A man ap- 
proached. 

" M. Clement Dornthal ?" said he 
in a low voice. 

" It is I." 

"You are not alone." 

" What difference does that 
make ?" 

" I have no permission, and a wo- 
man it is forbidden." 

" I suppose, however, more than 
one has entered the place ?" 

" Oh ! yes, but they must have per- 
mission or else " 

" Here," said Clement in a low 
tone, " mine will answer for both." 

The guide seemed to find the re- 
ply satisfactory; he pocketed the 
gold piece Clement slipped into his 
hand and made no further objection. 
They walked swiftly after him to- 
wards one of the buildings just re- 
ferred to which was the best lighted. 
As they approached, they saw the 
light proceeded from a large fire kin- 
dled in the open air, around which 
quite a number were warming them- 
selves, some squatting down, others 
standing, and some asleep near 
enough to the fire not to freeze to 
death ; all lit up with the wild light 
which revealed their bearded faces, 
their angular fur caps, and their 
sheep-skin caftans. Here and there 
were some venders of brandy, who 
furnished them with a more effica- 
cious means of resisting the cold 
even than the fire in the brazier. 



Fleurange. 613 

Clement and his companion passed poor light permitted, but on all these 
rapidly by this group, not, however, sick-beds so close to each other they 
without being assailed by some an- did not perceive one whose features 
noying words. A vigorous blow bore the least resemblance to those 
from Clement sent a curious wine- of the unhappy man whose voice 
bibber flying back who attempted to they thought they recognized, 
lift Fleurange's veil This lesson " I beg you to lend me your light 
was sufficient, and they arrived with- only for a moment," said Fleurange, 
out any further annoyance at the in a low, supplicating tone to an in- 
door of the building decorated with firmarian to whom she had just 
the name of hospital, which was only heard some one speak in German, 
a long, spacious wooden gallery. and who was rudely passing by her, 

They entered. Passing thus sud- lantern in hand. 

denly from the light of the great fire, The infirmarian stopped at hear- 
and the sharpness of the extreme ing his language spoken, and looked 
cold, into the obscurity and warmth at the young girl with surprise, then, 
of the ambulance, their first sensations as if softened by her aspect, he gave 
were caused by the darkness and sti- her the lantern, saying: " You can 
fling atmosphere. Fleurange hastily have it while I am gone to the other 
threw back her veil, then took off end of the ward ; I will take it when 
her hat and unclasped her cloak, for I return." As Clement took it, the 
she could not breathe ; she felt near- light flashed across Fleurange's face 
ly ready to faint from the effects and uncovered head. Instantly 
of this sudden transition, but she al- there was a cry, an almost convul- 
most immediately recovered. Clem- sive movement, and Gabrielle's name 
ent was alarmed at first, but soon was pronounced by the voice they 
saw she was able to continue their had just heard. This indicated 
sad search. As soon as their eyes which of the miserable beds con- 
became accustomed to the dim light tained him whom they sought, 
around them, they saw the long row They both approached with full 
of pallets on which lay, in all the fright- hearts. By the aid of the lamp they 
ful varieties of suffering, nearly two gazed at the dying man. Was it 
hundred human beings whose min- really he ? was that Felix ? His 
gled groanings rose on all sides like voice and words left no doubt, and 
one sad cry of pain, enough to chill yet there was nothing in that face, 
the veins with horror, and excite the disfigured by agony and a horrible 
pity of the most courageous and wound, to recall him whom they saw 
most hardened heart last in all the fulness of strength and 

That of Fleurange beat painfully the pride of youth. After his excla- 

as they slowly advanced through the mation, he fell back almost lifeless, 

obstructed space. Clement was re- and Clement trembled as he bent 

morsefully regretting his consent to down to ascertain if he still breathed, 

bring her to such a place, when all His heart was beating, though feebly 

at once a moan, followed by some and irregularly, 

words indicative of delirium, checked "Felix," said he, "do you hear 

every other thought, and kept them me ? Do you know me ?" 

motionless where they stood. They Felix opened his eyes. " What a 

listened - - which of these unfortu- strange dream !" murmured he. " It 

nate beings had uttered those words ? seems as if they were all here. That 

They looked around as well as the vision a moment ago, and now this 



614 



Fleurange. 



voice - - O my God, would I might 
never awake !" 

Fleurange took the dying man's 
hand, and bent over him to catch his 
words. Her features thus became 
distinctly visible in the light, and his 
eyes fastened with frightful tenacity 
on those of the young girl. 

" It is impossible !" said he. " But 
what illusion is this which makes me 
see and hear what cannot be ?" 

" Felix," said Fleurange, with a 
penetrating accent of sweetness, " it 
is not an illusion. We are here. 
God has sent us that you may not 
die alone without a friend to pray for 
you, without begging and obtaining 
pardon and peace." 

A ray of perfect clearness of com- 
prehension now lit up his eyes, hith- 
erto fixed or wandering. He seem- 
ed to comprehend, but did not reply. 
Clement and Fleurange were afraid 
to break the solemn silence. Felix's 
eyes soon wandered from one to the 
other, and, taking the young girl's 
hand and that of Clement, he pressed 
them together upon his heart, saying : 
" O my God ! what a miracle !" 
Then he added in a feeble voice : 
" What a comfort that it is he, and 
not the other !" 

They both understood his mistake, 
but were not equally affected. 
Fleurange slightly blushed, and with- 
drew her hand with a faint smile, but 
Clement's face became almost as 
pale as that of the dying man. But 
graver thoughts prevailed over both 
at such a time. After a short silence, 
Fleurange again addressed Felix some 
words, but he made no reply, and 
his head, which she tried to raise, 
fell on his shoulder. He continued 
faint for some moments, then opened 
his eyes, and saw her beside him. 

" God be praised !" said he. " The 
vision is still here !" 

"Yes, I am here, Felix," said 
Fleurange in a fervent tone : " I am 



here to pray with you. Listen to 
me," continued she, speaking softly 
and very distinctly. " Say with me 
that you repent of all the sins of your 
life." 

" Of all the sins of my life !" re- 
peated the dying man. 

" And if your strength were restor- 
ed, you would make a complete and 
satisfactory avowal of them, with a 
sincere repentance. Do you under- 
stand me ?" 

The hand she held pressed hers. 
A tear ran down Felix's cheek. 
A voice which was a mere whisper 
repeated the words : " A sincere re- 
pentance " another faintness seem- 
ed to announce his end. " O my 
God!" said Fleurange, fervently rais- 
ing her eyes to heaven, " if the sa- 
cred absolving words could only be 
pronounced over him !" 

At that moment the infirmarian 
returned and abruptly took the lan- 
tern from Clement's hand. "Excuse 
me, I need it for some one who has 
come to visit a patient." 

In the narrow space that separated 
the two rows of beds, there could be 
indistinctly seen a person of majestic, 
imposing appearance, whose long 
beard and floating hair, whose ample 
robes of silk and gold cross, clearly 
indicated his character; he was, in 
fact, a priest of the Greek Church. 
He had not, however, come to this 
sad place to exercise his ministry. 
One of the poor men suffering from 
the contagious disease was the object 
of his charity, and he had come to 
visit him. He was passing along 
without looking around, even turning 
his eyes away as much as possible 
from the sad spectacle that surround- 
ed him, when Clement's hand on his 
arm stopped him as he was passing 
Felix's bed. 

" What do you wish of me, young 
man ?" he asked, with surprise. 

" I implore you," said Clement, 



Cologne. 



' to come to this dying man who is 
truly contrite for his sins, with a sin- 
cere desire to confess them if he had 
the strength. Have the kindness to 
give him sacramental absolution !" 

In spite of the place, the hour, the 
awful solemnity of the moment, the 
young Catholic girl started at hearing 
these words ; her large eyes opened 
with an expression of the keenest 
surprise, and turned towards Clement 
with a mute glance of anxiety. He 
understood her, and, while the infir- 
marian was interpreting his words 



which had been heard but not under- 
stood, he replied : " This is a priest, 
Gabrielle, invested with all the au- 
thority of Holy Orders. In the pres- 
ence of death, we can avail ourselves 
of it, without regard to anything else." 
He knelt down. Fleurange did 
the same. The dying man clasped 
his hands, and, whilst the word " for- 
give " once more trembled on his 

D 

lips, the Greek priest raised his right 
hand with a majestic air, and pro- 
nounced over him the merciful, di- 
vine words of holy absolution ! 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



COLOGNE. 

WHAT is more familiar than the 'adding "Fifteenth Amendments" 

name of Cologne ? What is more de- to the highly respectable and ever- 

licious than the perfume of the veritable to-be-respected Constitution of the 

Jean Maria Farina? Wrfat is more United States. 

delightful than the receipt of a box, But that will pass away with Time, 

with the stereotyped picture on the the healer and destroyer ; the recon- 

co vet of the Rhine lazily flowing under structionist will make all right; the 

the bridges, of the cathedral looming " Fifteenth " will be amended with 

up to the sky, of the houses clustering the " Sixteenth" ; and, with the sway 

around it as though for protection ? of lovely woman, Cologne, without 

No one need be ashamed to avow which no well-bred, well-dressed wo- 
his or her love of it ; it is acknow- man's toilette is complete, will re- 
ledged to be indispensable. Bishop sume its reign over heads and hearts ; 
or priest, sage or philosopher, can use and " Bouquet d'Afrique " will per- 
it without being thought undignified, haps return to the hot and happy 
Imagine a pope, or cardinal, or bish- home where the indefatigable Stan- 
op, or priest, or senator, or judge scent- ley recently discovered the wander- 
ed with " Mille Fleurs," or " Jockey ing, long-sought Livingstone who 
Club," or "Bouquet de Nilsson"! The did not care to be found, as he cer- 
bare thought is revolting ! To be sure, tainly appeared perfectly content 
for some years, " Bouquet d'Afrique " among dusky dark- browed brothers 
has been the fashion among the and sisters, hunting lions and tigers, 
" potent, grave, and reverend seig- and imagining each little rivulet and 
niors " at Washington who - make lake the source of the Nile, or Con- 
our laws and amuse themselves by go, or Niger, or any other meander- 



6 1 6 Cologne. 

ing river taking its rise in the great shortly after became, one of the prin- 

water-shed by the Mountains of the cipal emporiums of the Hanseatic 

Moon. League ; the commerce of the East 

If mothers are to be judged by the was here concentrated, and direct 

character of their sons, the mother of communication with Italy constantly 

Nero, in whose honor Cologne was kept up. In 1259, the town acquir- 

named, could not have been the ed the privilege by which all vessels 

mildest and gentlest of her sex. were compelled to unload here and 

Says Lacordaire, " The education of reship their cargoes in Cologne bot- 

the child is commenced in the womb toms. 

of the mother, continued on her At this period it had a population 
breast, completed at her knees." of 150,000, and could furnish 30,000 
Sweet must have been the reveries, righting men in time of war. In the 
refreshing the instructions, edifying XHIth century, there was a mutiny 
the conduct of Julia Agrippina, who among the weavers; 17,000 looms 
brought into the world the finished were destroyed; the rebellious work- 
despot that drenched the soil of Rome men were banished from the city ; and 
with the blood of the Christian mar- that, together with the expulsion of the 
tyrs, who persecuted unto death the Jews in 1349, did great injury to the 
heroes of the faith that now people town, the number of whose inhabi- 
heaven. tants was reduced in 1790 to 42,000, 

Cologne owes its origin to a Ro- of whom nearly one-third were pau- 
man camp established by Marcus pers. Then came the devastating 
Agrippa. The Emperor Claudius, at wars which succeeded the maelstrom 
the request of his wife, Julia Agrip- of the French Revolution, when in 
pina, daughter of Germanicus and the general upheaval empires and 
mother of Nero, sent a colony of kingdoms disappeared, new political 
Roman veterans, A.D. 50, named the combinations were made which 
town after her Colcmia Agrippina, and changed the map of Europe, and the 
it then became the capital of the Rhine became the frontier of the 
Province of Germania Secunda. French Empire. 
Vitellius was here proclaimed Empe- Cologne was nominally French, 
ror of Rome, A.D. 69 ; Trajan here but the hearts of the people were 
received from Nerva the summons German as German as the most ar- 
to share his throne ; the usurper Syl- dent worshipper of the " New God,'' 
vanus was also proclaimed emperor as Von Bolanden calls the new Em- 
here in 353 ; a few years later Co- pire, the child of Bismarck and Von 
logne was , taken by the Franks; Moltke. After Waterloo, the Holy 
Childeric made it his residence in Alliance made another partition of 
464; and Clovis was here proclaimed the kingdoms and peoples, and Co- 
king in 508. logne shook off the French yoke, and 

During the reign of Pepin, it was returned to her national ways and 

the capital of the kingdoms of Neus- customs. One great cause of its de- 

tria and Austrasia. Bruno, Duke of cay had been the closing of the navi- 

Lorraine, was the first of its arch- gation of the Rhine, which restriction 

bishops who exercised the temporal was removed in 1837, and, since 

power, with which he was invested then, trade has greatly revived, and 

by his brother, Otho the Great, the town been much improved. 
From that time the town increased Many of the old streets have been 

rapidly in wealth and splendor, and widened and paved, and a consider- 



Cologne. 617 

able portion of waste ground covered years ago. In this church, there are 

with new buildings. The opening mural paintings of the early Cologne 

of the railways to Paris, Antwerp, school, representing the wise and 

Ostend, Hamburg, and Berlin has foolish virgins, numberless saints, the 

greatly added to its commercial pros- raising of Lazarus, and the founders 

perity, and Cologne bids fair to re- of the church with their children. As 

sume its former position among the in duty bound, Plectruda is properly 

chief cities of Europe. Cologne was conspicuous ; her effigy in basso-ri- 

formerly called the " Holy Cologne," lievo beneath the great east window 

and the " Rome of the North " titles is a very interesting work of the Xth 

which she owed to the number of century, and, on one of the towers, 

relics and churches she possessed. her sculptured figure appears between 

At one time, the city contained 200 two angels, who are conducting her 

buildings devoted to religious uses, to her eternal home. 

These gradually diminished, until in All the churches are more or less in- 

1790 their number was reduced to teresting. none more so than that of S. 

137. During the French Revolution, Gereon, founded in the IVth century, 

they were shamefully plundered, the S. Gereon. was the commander of a 

convents suppressed, and their prop- Roman legion, and he and his com- 

erty confiscated; so that at present panions, 700 in number, were mur- 

there are not more than twenty dered by order of Diocletian upon 

churches and seven or eight chapels; the spot where the church was built 

but many other ecclesiastical build- by the Empress Helena, the mother 

ings still remain, used as warehouses of Constantine. 

and chapels. The style is Byzantine, and very 

Maria im Capitol, so named from singular. The body of the church f 

its having been built on the site of preceded by a large portico, presents 

the Roman capitol, stands on an a vast decagonal shell, the pillars of 

eminence reached by a flight of whose internal angles are prolonged 

steps. The Frankish kings had a in ribs, which, centring in a summit, 

palace close by, to which Plectru- meet in one point and form a cupola, 

da, the wife of Pepin, retired in 696, one of the latest examples known, 

having separated from her husband A high wide flight of steps, rising 

on account of his attachment to Al- opposite to the entrance, leads to an 

pais, the mother of Charles Martel. altar with an oblong choir behind it, 

In 700, she pulled down the capitol, from whence other steps again ascend 

and erected a church on its site, to to the sanctuary, a semicircular 

which she attached a chapter of can- apse, belted, like the cupola, by an 

onesses. Until 1794, the senate and open gallery with small arches and 

consuls repaired hither annually on pillars resting on a panelled balus- 

S. John's day to assist at Mass, when trade. 

the outgoing Burgomasters solemnly The rotunda is surrounded by teii 

transferred the insignia of office to chapels, in which are the tombs of 

the newly elected, who were each the martyrs. The walls are encrusted 

presented with a bouquet of flowers with their skulls, and, in the subter- 

by the abbess. ranean church, the pavement and 

The convent no longer exists, but walls are formed by the tomb-stones 

there is a large cloister of the Xlth covering the holy dust. In the lower 

century at the west end of the church is the tomb of S. Gereon, and 

church, which was restored a few in one of the chapels is a mosaic 



618 Cologne. 

pavement laid in the time of the that we might become greater than 

Empress Helena. Behind the stalls the angels. 

of the clergy are hangings of Gobelin The Cathedral of Cologne, the 

tapestry, portraying the history of queen of pointed architecture, erected 

Joseph and his brethren. on the site of a church founded in 

The baptismal font of porphyry, 814 by Archbishop Hildebold, and 
immensely large, was a present from more beautiful than even we could 
Charlemagne j and, as the lid is too imagine it, familiar as we were with it 
ponderous for any one to lift, there is by picture and description, was com- 
a little machine that takes it off when menced in August, 1248, by Arch- 
required. We remained a long while bishop Conrad, of Hochstaden. The 
in this very delightful church, and, by works were for some years pushed on 
the time we left, what with Helen with great activity under the direc- 
and Constantine, Diocletian and tion of Master Gerard von Rile, a 
Charlemagne, we felt quite like an builder of whom nothing more is 
animated verd-antique, so intensely known than that he died before 1302. 
Roman and Catholic had we become. In 1322, the choir was completed 

Afterwards we proceeded to S. and consecrated ; then the building 

Ursula's, where the cruel Roman went slowly on until 1357, when the 

emperor was exchanged for the bar- works were discontinued for a long 

barian Huns. S. Ursula's history time. In 1796, the cathedral was 

was done in English by the old sex- converted by the French into a 

ton, who finished every sentence by warehouse, and it had very nearly 

assuring us that S. Ursula and her become a ruin in 1807, when the 

eleven thousand virgins met with brothers Sulpice and Melchior Bois- 

their untimely fate from the barbarian seree drew attention to it by their 

Huns, who massacred them in cold illustrated work on its history. In 

blood. We made a stride of a few 1824, the work of restoration was 

centuries, became Gothic, and extend- commenced, but little progress was 

ed our hatred to the barbarian Huns, made until, in 1842, the idea of com- 

As in S. Gereon, the bones of the pleting the cathedral was conceived, 

martyrs are built in the walls for a and an association was formed to 

space of two feet the whole extent. collect subscriptions for this purpose ; 

In the Golden Chamber we saw and now the entire edifice will soon 

the shrine of S. Ursula, the relics of be finished if the works are carried 

S. Margaret, a thorn from the crown on as zealously as they have been of 

of Our Lord, and one of the vases late. 

used at the marriage feast of Cana, The glorious roof, arching 150 feet 

that witnessed the first miracle of the in the air, is magnificent ; every day 

God-man. Link by link we were new beauties are added ; four hundred 

carried to the days when Our Lord men are daily at work, the stones arc 

was incarnate on the earth ; we do all cut, and in ten years at least this 

not need such testimony to assure us triumph of genius will -be ready to 

of the truth of our holy faith, but, receive the homage of all true lovers 

when we touch the vase that has of art. The shrine of the Three 

been touched by Our Lord, our Kings is superb gold adorned with 

senses are awed by the thought of precious stones. There are the heads 

the God-like condescension of him of the three men who came in faith, 

who became man, who lived like us, and bowed in all their pride and 

who mingled in our joys and sorrows, majesty before the infant Jesus in the 



Cologne. 619 

manger; their names, Caspar, Mel- scendant of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 

chior, and Balthazar, are encrusted the widow of Henri Quatre, the 

in rubies above the crowns that en- mother of Louis XJ II., the ex-Regent 

circle their brows. Their bodies of France. Banished from France, 

were brought from S. Eustorgio, in the inexorable hostility of Richelieu 

Milan, by the Emperor Frederick pursued her wherever she sought 

Barbarossa, after the taking of that refuge. No crowned head dared 

city, and presented by him to Arch- shelter her. 

bishop Rainoldo, who deposited them One heart was true, one man was 

in the ancient cathedral July 23, found who remembered in her ad- 

1164; from whence they were re- versity that she had favored him in 

moved into the present chapel in the days of her prosperity. When, 

1337. in the zenith of her power, she built 

Among the treasures of the cath- the Luxembourg, she sent for Rubens 
edral is a splendid ostensorium, one to adorn it with the creations of his 
of the finest in the world, presented genius ; she loaded him with favors, 
by some sovereign ; another, not so sent him on diplomatic missions to 
handsome, sent by Pius IX. ; and restore peace between Philip IV. of 
the cross and ring, given to the pre- Spain and Charles I. of England, 
sent archbishop by Kaiser William ; Both monarchs responded to her 
both are of diamonds and emeralds, wishes, showered honors upon the 
the ring, an immense emerald, sur- artist- diplomat, and Charles I. knight- 
rounded by four circles of diamonds, ed him, and then presented him with 
The man who showed the church the sword which had been used for 
prided himself upon his English ; the ceremony. 

would call the archbishops architects : Genius is a power. Richelieu could 
"This is the statueof Engelbert,the first command kings on their thrones, and 
architect from Cologne." And when the refugee queen was abandoned 
we innocently inquired if the archi- by all by those who should have 
tects wore mitres and copes, he im- been bound to her by the ties of 
pressively repeated his remark; so kindred, of position, by the claims of 
we are still in doubt whether the misfortune. England, Spain, Hoi- 
archbishops built the cathedral or land, refused her entrance; only in 
the architects dressed like bishops ! the free city of Cologne could she 

Wandering one day through the find sanctuary, and that sanctuary 

aisles of the cathedral, we paused for was the house of the noble, chivalric 

a while to gaze upon something artist, Pierre Paul Rubens, whose 

beautiful that attracted our attention, brave heart quailed not before the 

It was behind the high altar; we wrath of the most powerful man of 

were standing between it and the his age. 

Chapel of the Magi, when, by With loving care and respect he 

chance, we looked down, and on the watched over her, soothed her in her 

slab at our feet we saw in large letters, dying agony, and held her in his arms 

" Marie de' Medici " no date, no when she breathed her last sigh, 

epitaph. So much for human great- The house of Rubens still remains, 

ness ! Under that stone, trodden and the room in which Marie de' 

daily by hundreds, was the heart of Medici died is preserved with the 

Marie de' Medici, one of the power- greatest care. When we visited it, 

ful family that gave to the church we felt as though we were treading 

Leo X. and Clement VII., the de- on holy ground, as in a shrine made 



62O 



Cologne. 



sacred by a noble deed; for what 
more royal, more heroic, more Chris- 
tian, than the brave, grateful heart 
that dared power to shelter mis- 
fortune ? 

Meanwhile that Marie de' Medici 
lived and died in poverty in Cologne, 
Richelieu was at the apogee of his 
glory. King, nobles, courts, cower- 
ed beneath his glance. The con- 
spiracy of Cinq- Mars was quelled ; 
his head had paid the penalty of his 
youthful folly. Richelieu, satisfied 
and avenged, left Lyons for Paris, 
carried on the shoulders of his attend- 
ants in a kind of furnished room, for 
which the gates of the cities through 
which he passed were demolished if 
they were too narrow to admit it. 
But the triumph was short-lived. A 
few months after the death of Marie 
de' Medici, her relentless persecutor 
followed her to the tomb, and her 
poor wearied body was removed to 
France and buried in S. Denis ; but 
the heart was left in the Cathedral of 
Cologne a mausoleum sufficiently 
splendid for any mortal dust. 

Soon after leaving the house of 
Rubens, we came to another famous 
in Cologne ; a large building, where, 
from one of the windows of the third 
story, two stone horses were contem- 
plating the busy scene in the Neu- 
markt below ; and then we heard 
the legend of the horses. Once upon 
a time this house was the residence 
of the wealthy family d'Andocht. 
Richmodis, the wife of Herr Mengis 
d'Andocht, died during the plague of 
1357, and was buried with great 
pomp in the Church of the Apostles 
on the Neumarkt. 

Her dressing attracted the notice 
of the sexton. He fancied he would 
like to have some of the gold and 
silver adornments ; so the night 
after she was put into the vault he 
descended into it, opened the coffin, 
and took off some of the jewels. 



One of the rings would not move 
To make the task easier, he cut her 
finger ; she was only in a trance, and 
this summary process restored her ; 
she sat up ; the man rushed off 
affrighted. She managed to get out 
of the coffin. In his haste he had left 
his lantern behind ; with it she made 
her way out of the church, and reach- 
ed her home near by. 

She knocked at the door ; a servant 
opened it, and scampered off half 
dead with terror. She went to her 
husband's room. He thought she 
was a ghost or devil ; she told him she 
was his wife, as surely as that their 
horses would come up-stairs and 
jump out of the window. As she 
spoke, the horses galloped up-stairs, 
threw themselves out of the window ; 
whereupon the husband acknowledg- 
ed her to be his veritable wife. She 
soon recovered her health, lived for 
many years, and, to commemorate the 
wonderful event, the husband had 
the two horses done in stone and put 
in their respective panes of glass, 
where they have ever since remained, 
looking out of the window. 

Now the house is a hospital, and 
we hope the patients are as much 
amused as we were at the effigies of 
the two well-bred, obedient horses, 
who were as good at vouching for 
identity as Dame Crump's little dog. 
In the Church of the Apostles, a 
faded Lent hanging is still preserved 
that was presented by Richmodis in 
gratitude for her wonderful deliver- 
ance from a living death. 

The Rathhaus or Town Hall is a 
curious building, erected at different 
periods ; the Hansa-Saal is a fine 
room on the first floor, in which the 
meetings of that once powerful mer- 
cantile confederation were held ; and 
at one end of it are nine statues 
holding escutcheons emblazoned with 
the arms of the Hanse Towns. 

The Muse'e, a comparatively new 



Cologne. 621 

creation, erected partly by the gov- devouring his keeper. The Flora or 

ernment, and partly by private sub- Winter Garden is charming a crystal 

scription, contains many works of art. palace, rilled with fragrant plants, 

In the lower story are numerous Ro- green vines garlanding the sides and 

man antiquities, found in or near Co- roof, fountains playing, beautiful 

logne ; amongst them are busts of music well rendered by a good 

Caesar, Germanicus, Agrippina, a orchestra, and hundreds of people 

statuette of Cleopatra, and a very drinking coffee and smoking, who 

fine head of Medusa, said to be larger don't bother themselves by receiving 

and more beautiful than the Medusa at home, but meet and gossip in the 

Rondinini in the Glyptotheca at Mu- Flora, or the Opera House, to which 

nich. One gallery is filled with ex- they generally adjourn, 
quisite specimens of stained glass ; the The Opera House is very pretty 

upper rooms are devoted to statuary but miserably lighted, only two feeble 

and paintings,' many of which are of gas-lights by the door. Prussian 

the Diisseldorf school. officers, however, abounded, and the 

We were particularly struck with glittering uniform shone in the clair- 

one, the "Triumph of S. Michael obscur like fire-flies in Florida on 

over Lucifer." S. Michael is radiant, summer evenings. Perhaps it was to 

his sword flaming ; and Lucifer, who add to the effect of " La Dame 

is sinking into darkness, is terrible. Blanche," which was the opera we 

There he is no horned demon, but chanced to hear, that we were kept 

the beautiful fallen archangel, majes- in such gloomy darkness; but, as the 

tic and powerful ; profound despair music was well executed, the time 

and gloom on his noble features, as passed pleasantly, 
the darkness overshadows him, and One extraordinary event must be 

hell opens to receive him. chronicled we did not buy one bottle 

The people of Cologne are gay and of Cologne in Cologne ; we left the 

sociable ; in the afternoons, the Zoo- city of Jean Maria Farina, and only 

logical Gardens are filled with chil- saw the outside of his shop. What 

dren and nurses admiring the giraffes, with Gothic churches and relics, 

elephants, and every other kind of Roman towers and antiquities, time 

animal belonging to earth, air, or flew, and we found ourselves also 

water. An immense lion was a par- flying off from Cologne on an express 

ticular object of interest, as he. had train, without one drop of the veri- 

distinguished himself the day before table Eau-de-Cologne in our posses- 

we had the pleasure of seeing him by sion. Mirabile dictu ! 



622 John. 



JOHN. 

IN beauty, not above criticism ; greens in a far corner of the estate, 

in courage, undaunted ; in love, most Tapestries of woodbine hang over 

generous and most forgiving ; in pa- balconies, and porches, and bay- 

tience, rivalling Job; in constancy, windows; and the noble trees that 

unswerving ; in humility, without an stand, two and two, in stately pairs, 

equal. all about the place, and up the 

After the above enumeration of avenue, are a torchlight procession, 

qualities, it should be superfluous to which sunshine, instead of quenching, 

add that John is a dog. It would fires to a still more dazzling blaze. It 

be ridiculous to expect so much of a is that picturesque time when ladies 

man. He is, moreover, a Skye-terrier, throw gay scarfs over the summer 

well-born and well-bred. dresses they still wear ; when the sky 

To announce to John's acquaint- shakes out her violet mists to veil the 

ances that one was about to eulogize too divine beauty of earth ; that sea- 

the dog would be to incur and de- son of exquisite comfort when one 

serve some such reply as that made has open windows and open fires ; 

by the Spartan to a rhetorician who that delicious season when fruit is 

announced his intention to pronounce brought to the table still warm with 

an eulogium on Hercules : " An the sunshine in which it finished 

eulogium on Hercules ?" repeated ripening five minutes before. Above 

the Spartan. " Who ever thought of all, it is that season when people who 

blaming Hercules ?" are at all sympathetic are inclined to 

Our reply would be that we write, silence. 

not for those who deny, but for those Mrs. Marcia Clay was not at all 

who never heard. sympathetic. She was simply her- 

There is no shifting of scenes in self, a frivolous woman, with a strong 

our little drama. The unities are will, and a Chinese wall of selfishness 

preserved with almost Grecian strict- and self-complacence built up on all 

ness ; the writer, however, as chorus, sides of her. The soft " Hush !" on 

claiming the privilege of being occa- the lips of the Indian summer, when 

sionally discursive. the soul of Nature plumes her wings 

Scene. A suburban summer resi- for flight, she heard not. The sus- 
dence in that most magnificent of pense, the regret, the melancholy, the 
seasons, autumn, " in that month of fleeting rapture of the season she per- 
all months in the year," October; ceived not. To her it was surely 
furthermore, the most perfect of the fall of the year, when people get 
Octobers. The stone-colored house ready for the winter, lay in coal, buy- 
is the only neutral bit in the land- new clothes, and go back to town, 
scape ; all else is a glow of color. Flounced to the waist in rattling 
The fresh greensward recedes under silk, her fair hair furbelowed all over 
flower-bosses of solid brilliancy. A her head, and, apparently, pounds 
flower carpet, gayer than any loom of gold hanging from her ears, thrust 
of Turkey, Brussels, or France ever through her cuffs, dangling at her 
wove, lies under the clump of ever- belt, strung about her neck, and fast- 



John. 623 

ened to the pin that held her collar, The uncertain person in the black 

this lady sat in one of the pleasant silk gown ventured to suggest that 

parlors of her house, and talked as Mr. Bently might accompany them 

fast as her tongue could run. to town, and was met by a little 

The woman who listened was of shriek which made her jump, 
another kind, one who might have " Fancy him in my blue satin or pink 
come to something if she had been satin chamber! Why, my dear, he 
possessed of will and courage, but smokes, and chews / chews, dear ! 
who, having a small opinion of her- Between you and me, he is 1 a bear 
self, was only somebody by little in his habits, a positive bear. If you 
spurts, which did no good, since they will believe me, I have seen him 
were always followed by unusual self- wear slipshod shoes and crumpled 
abasement. She was not without a linen. You should see him at home, 
despairing sense of this incongruity, in his den. An inky dressing-gown 
and had more than once bewailed in that he wipes his pens on, old slip- 
her own mind the fact that she was pers with holes in them, books piled 
neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but in- all about, and dust that you could 
clined to each in turn ; had little write your name in ! In that state 
wings which, as she spread them, he sits and writes hour after hour." 
changed to little fins, which, as she Ah ! Mrs. Clay & Co., who look 
moved them, became little feet, that, at littleness through magnifying 
when she would have -walked, col- glasses, and are blind to all true 
lapsed utterly, and left her flounder- greatness, the sole of this man's slip- 
ing a woman without moral verte- shod shoe is cleaner than your 
brse, who had been all her life the tongue. There is no dust on his 
prey of people in whom the moral thoughts; there are no holes in the 
vertebrae were in excess. She was fabrics his brain weaves ; and when 
nothing in particular, physically, he writes, far-away lands that know 
either, being gayish, oldish, tallish, you not, and kindred greatness 
weakish, and dressed in that time- nearer by, feel the electric spark that 
honored, thin plain black silk gown slips from his pen's point, 
which is the infallible sign of genteel " What a shocking person he must 
poverty, and which, at this instant, be !" sa^ Miss Uncertainty, meaning 
adorns the form that owns the arm to please. " I don't wonder you 
that moves the hand that holds the won't have him in town." 
pen that writes this history. " Goodness gracious, Miss Bird !" 

Mrs. Mania Clay. " It is very pro- cried the lady, coloring up. "What 
voking, rny dear, but it can't be help- can you be thinking of! Why, Mr. 
ed. If I should intimate to him that Bently is famous. He can afford to 
our trunks are all packed to go in be eccentric. It is an honor to have 
town, he would leave instantly. He him in one's house. People have 
is the most touchy of mortals. To turned and looked at me when they 
be sure, I have invited him here heard that I am his cousin ; and his 
again and again, but I expected him name opens to me places that well, 
in summer-time, not when we were everybody can't enter. Then it is 
on the point of moving, and had our a very fine thing to have a gentle- 
very beds half made in the city, man in one's parlors who can talk to 
There's nothing for it but to unpack, those lions whom one doesn't know 
and pretend to be delighted. For- what to say to, and who can tell 
lunatdy, he amuses himself." what one's pictures, and bronzes, and 



624 John. 

marbles mean, and translate from him to translate a passage for me. 
every language under the sun. I They looked about as much like a 
well remember a time when he won printed language as the figures on 
for me a perfect triumph over Mrs. my carpet do. To my joy, he had 
Everett Adams. It was delicious, to own that he couldn't. They 
Mrs. Everett Adams is always pick- were Chaldaic, he said, and he 
ing up lions, especially learned and had made but little study in that Ian- 
scientific ones, and, when Professor guage. Mrs. Adams glanced angrily 
Person came here, she monopolized at me, and I smiled. Just at that 
him at once. You cannot conceive moment, as good luck would have it,' 
how odiously she behaved, nor what the door opened, and in came Cousin 
airs she assumed. One heard no- Bently. I flew at him with the 
thing but Person, Person, till I was books. Triumph, my dear ! Never 
sick of the name; and it was im- did I have such a rapturous moment, 
possible to go anywhere, to theatre, Cousin took the books up in his 
opera, or concert, without seeing slow way, put up his eye-glasses, and 
her sail down to the most conspicu- looked them over in such a superior 
ous place, after everybody was seated, manner that really my hopes rose, 
with Prof. Porson in her train. Well, They were Arabic, I've forgotten 
one evening she brought him to our what about, and he read out some 
house, just to plague me, and we had passages, and translated them, all the 
half a dozen or so persons to meet company looking on. My dear, the 
him. It was an evening of torment, Porson and Adams stock sank to less 
my dear. The professor was in the than one per cent, in an instant. The 
clouds, with Mrs. Everett Adams flut- professor was red, and Mrs. Adams 
tering behind him, like a tail after a was pale. I could have hugged 
kite, and all the rest were in raptures, Cousin Bently on the spot, though 
except me I was extinguished, his boots were not blacked, and his 
The professor knew what every collar was in a positively shocking 
bronze and marble was, and who state." 

made it, and if it was an original or a " How charming it must be to 

copy; and, in short, everything I had have him visit you!" says Miss Bird, 

seemed as common as possible. As wheeling about as the wind veered, 
a last desperate resort, I brought out Poor thing ! She did not mean to 

some old books in foreign languages be insincere. She merely wanted to 

that poor dear Clay had picked up. say the right thing, and didn't care 

He was always collecting things of a fig about the matter, one way or 

that sort. The professor turned them the other. 

over with the tips of his fingers, and " Charming !" repeated Mrs. Clay, 

read a word here and there. Oh ! with emphasis. " It gives a tone. 

he knew all about them. Yes; he Besides, it draws some people one 

had read them when he was a boy. likes to know. You should see Ma- 

But I had begun to suspect him. dame de Soi, the most exclusive of 

My poor husband used to say that, women, flutter round him like a but- 

when a man will not own that there terfly round a round a well, really, 

is anything he doesn't understand, I am at a loss for the word. It is 

root and branch, he was always sure impossible to call Cousin Bently a 

that that man was an impostor. So flower, unless one should make a pun 

I took up two of the books that I about the seedy contents .of his va- 

saw he had passed over, and asked lise. I studied botany once, and I 



John. 



625 



know a pun can be made of it. Ma- 
dame knows no more and cares no 
more about his learning than a cat 
does, but she has tact, and does con- 
trive to smile at the right time. I 
never could do that. When I smile, 
Cousin Bently is sure to push out his 
under lip, and stop talking. But she 
will look and listen with such rapture 
that you would positively think he 
were describing the dress the empress 
wore at the last ball; and some- 
times she even says something that he 
will seem pleased with. That very 
evening of the Person collapse she 
talked with him half an hour of 
molecules, whatever they are. I ac- 
tually thought they were speaking of 
people. Fancy being called a mole- 
cule I Yes, Cousin Bently is a great 
credit, and a great convenience to 
me. Why, but for him, I couldn't 
have gone to those stupid exclusive 
lectures of Mr. Vertebrare's, where I 
yawned myself to death among the 
very cream of society." 

The lady paused for breath, and 
her companion, feeling obliged to 
say something, faltered out that she 
always feared those very clever per- 
sons. 

" I should think you would after 
the experience you had with that 
dragon," replied Mrs. Clay signifi- 
cantly. 

Miss Bird colored, and was silent. 
" That dragon " was a rather difficult 
old lady, a Miss Clinton, with whom 
she had lived and suffered many 
years, and who had lately died. 

" And so," Mrs. Clay summed up, 
" I have Cousin Bently on my hands 
for a week or ten days, and must 
make the best of it. And " suddenly 
lowering her voice " speak of angels 
ahem ! Cousin Bently, allow me to 
make you acquainted with Miss Bird, 
an old schoolmate of mine." 

Miss Bird rose with a frightened 
air, dropped her eyes, blushed deep- 
VOL. xvi. 40 



ly, half extended her hand, and half 
withdrew it again, and stammered 
out, " Good-morning, sir !" which 
was not a very felicitous greeting, the 
time of day being near sunset. 

Mr. Bently acknowledged the in- 
troduction with rather a stately bow, 
gave the person before him a calm 
and exhaustive glance, protruded his 
under lip very slightly, without mean- 
ing to, and walked to the further end 
of the room. 

" Why need people be such fools ?" 
he muttered, half philosophical, half 
impatient. He had been, as all 
learned and even merely clever peo- 
ple must be, too much looked on as 
an ogre by the simple. It was ra- 
ther provoking to see people shaking 
at his approach, as if he were going 
to compel them to talk Greek and 
calculus, or have their lives. 

As the gentleman seated himself in 
an arm-chair before a delightful bay- 
window, and facing the window, there 
was another addition to the company, 
and enter our hero ! 

Reader, John ! 

A longish, curly-haired quadruped 
with bright dark eyes full of merri- 
ment and kindliness, and teeth so 
beautifully white and even that it 
would be a privilege to be bitten by 
them. Of course he has undergone 
those improvements which man finds 
it necessary to make in the old-fash- 
ioned plan of the Creator, and his 
clipped ears stand up pointed and 
pert, and his clipped tail is indeed 
less a tail than an epigram. But the 
bounding grace of his motions no 
scissors can curtail. 

Do not imagine that John has en- 
tered the room properly, and stood 
still to be presented and described, 
Far from it. He bounced in through 
the window, as though shot from a 
mortar, and, while we have been writ- 
ing this brief sketch of his person, 
has flown into the learned gentleman's 



626 



John. 



arms, kissed him enthusiastically a 
dozen times, pawed his hair into 
fearful disorder, made believe bite 
his nose and hands, with the ut- 
most care not to hurt him in the 
least, pulled one end of his cravat 
out of knot, and threatened to over- 
turn him, chair and all, by drawing 
back and rushing at him again like 
a little blue and yellow battering-ram. 
His manner was, indeed, so overpow- 
ering that Mr. Bently had half a 
mind to be vexed, and could not help 
being disconcerted. His affection 
for dogs was entirely Platonic, and he 
had a theory that bipeds and quad- 
rupeds should have separate houses 
built for them ; but this creature had 
struck him as being the most honest 
and sensible being in the house, and 
had, moreover, taken to him. 

Miss Bird looked askance at the 
scene in the bay-window, and Mrs. 
Clay looked askance at Miss Bird, 
and wondered at her impudence and 
folly. Bird had blushed and dropped 
her eyes when she was introduced to 
the gentleman, and she was now 
watching him out of the corners of 
her eyes. Bird was an old maid, 
with a moderate annuity; Mr. Bently 
was an old bachelor, with next to 
nothing beside brains and a name. 
Bird must be set to rights. So much 
the lady's actions told of her thoughts. 

" I wish I dared send for Marian 
Willis here," she whispered confi- 
dentially, watching the effect of her 
words. " Nothing would please me 
better than to bring those two to- 
gether again. But Cousin Bently 
would suspect my drift, and, as likely 
as not, start off at once. Nothing 
annoys him so much as to see that 
any one is trying to get him married. 
Marian is in every way suitable, and 
between you and me, dear, I think 
they would both be glad to have a 
mediator, only they are too proud to 
own it. Everybody thought, about 



ten years ago that they were engaged, 
and they certainly were in a fair way 
to be, when some lovers' quarrel oc- 
curred, and they parted. You have 
never seen Miss Willis, have you ?" 

Yes; Bird had seen her at Miss 
Melicent Yorke's wedding, and she 
was the grandest looking lady there. 
She wore a black velvet dress, button- 
ed up high with diamonds, and not 
another jewel about her. She had a 
pink half-open camellia in her bosom, 
and a wide-open one in her hair. 
Clara Yorke said that the beautiful 
plainness of Miss Willis' toilet made 
everybody else look all tags and ends. 
She gave the bride a rare engraving 
of some picture of The Visitation, 
which Miss Melicent didn't half like, 
because the S. Elizabeth was on her 
knees, and because there was a crown 
carved in the frame just over the 
Virgin's head. But the bridegroom 
had reconciled her to it, saying that 
motherhood is a crown to any wo- 
man. Mrs. Edith Yorke, Carl's wife, 
who is now abroad, was very fond of 
Miss Willis, and used to call her 
" Your Highness." 

" Oh ! their intimacy was because 
Mr. Carl Yorke was a Catholic," 
interposed Mrs. Clay rather abruptly. 

When Bird got talking of the 
Yorkes, she never knew when to stop ; 
and the subject was not pleasant to 
her listener. Mrs. Clay had tried to 
be intimate with the family, and had 
signally failed. Always kind and 
courteous, 4here still seemed to be an 
invisible crystalline wall between them 
and her. 

" Marian's religion is her one 
fault. It may be possible that she 
and Cousin Bently disagreed about 
that, though it would be hard to find 
out what he believes, or if he be- 
lieves anything. He defends every 
religion you attack, and attacks every 
religion you defend." 

" But do you think she would marry 



John. 627 

him ?" asked Bird incredulously; and lar must come off. In fine, he need- 

lier glance toward the window be- ed an indulgent wife, who would look 

came depreciatory and critical, in- out for him constantly, but with dis- 

stead of awful. cretion, never intruding the cravat 

Mr. Bently, as a learned man, was and collar question into his sublime 

to be regarded with fear and admira- moments. 

tion ; but as a bridegroom that was Was he conscious of something lack- 

ano-ther thing. ing in his life, that his expression was 

" Why, she is handsome and rich." less the gravity of the man of thought 

" What if she is ?" asked the other than the sadness of the lonely man ? 
tartly. " It only makes her more Something ailed him physical sick- 
suitable. But she is not rich, though ness, no doubt, for his face was flush- 
she lives with a rich old uncle, who ed, and his eyes heavy but some 
may leave her something. She is in trouble of the mind also. He looked 
every way suited to Cousin Bently. across the lawn, that was bounded 
He would never marry an inferior by a dense line of autumn-colored 
woman." trees, with a sky of brilliant clearness 

This last assertion Mrs. Clay made arching over. Betwixt sapphire and 
very positively, for the reason that jasper the low purple dome of a 
she was mortally afraid it was not mountain pushed up, making a back- 
true. Her private opinion was that ground for a shining cross that might 
Mr. Bently must have been very be suspended in air for any support 
lonely in his bachelor lodgings be- visible to him who gazed on it. But 
fore he came to visit her, and that he had seen that cross before, and 
he might easily be induced to marry his mind, leaping over the few inter- 
even Bird, rather than live alone any vening miles, followed down from its 
longer. sunlighted tip and touched a slim 

Meantime, the object of their con- gray tower and a vine-covered 
versation, having put the vociferous church, and, looking through the 
John away, and induced him to lie gay rose-window over the chancel, 
at his feet, instead of pervading his saw a tiny lambent flame floating in 
neck and face, sat gazing out through and fed by sacred oil of olives. Men- 
the window. He certainly was not tally he stood before the church door, 
an eminently beautiful man, neither saw the grove of beeches that hid it 
was he a pink of nicety in his dress, from the road, saw through those 
though he abhorred untidiness in heavy boughs the green slope of a 
others, particularly in women. His lawn near by and the mansion that 
form was rather fine, but his features crowned its summit. But in one re- 
were too strong for grace, his hair spect the eyes of the seer were less 
was growing gray, and his teeth were true to the present than to the past, 
discolored by his odious beloved for they beheld roses, instead of au- 
tobacco. There was something a tumn colors, wreathing pillar, porch, 
little neglected in his appearance, and balcdny. 

Evidently he needed some one with In this house Marian Willis lived, 
authority to remind him, when occa- He sat and recollected all his 
sion demanded, that his cravat was intercourse with her, from the first 
horribly awry, that he had forgotten pleasant dawn of friendly regard and 
to smooth his hair down since the sympathy, growing up to something 
last time he combed it up with his brighter and closer, yet scarcely de- 
ten fingers, and that, really, that col- fined, to its sudden extinguishment. 



628 John. 

His acquaintance with her had been no crisp, fair curls shining over his 
like a day that breaks in silent and head ; the brown hair was straight 
cloudless light, and is shut in by a and short, and here and there a 
cold and smothering fog before its white hair rewarded the search for it. 
noon. What had been expressed to The soldier's large violet eyes flashed 
her of all that sweetness he found in like jewels ; but these eyes in the 
her society ? What to him of the plea- mirror were no brighter than wintry 
sure she seemed to feel in his ? No- skies, a calm, steady blue that a 
thing that had other utterance than planet might look through, perhaps, 
silent looks and actions. What had but that were not used to lightning, 
separated them ? A mist, a fog, The soldier was clad in a trim uni- 
an impalpable yet irrestible power, form that set off well a form of man- 
Some tiny wedge had been inserted ly grace, the stripe that glimmered 
that gave a chance for pride to rush down the leg, the band, like a lady's 
in and thrust their lives apart, bracelet, that bound the sleeve, the 
There had been a slight reserve that golden eagle outspread on either 
grew to coldness and thence to shoulder, all helping to make a gal- 
alienation. Who does not know lant picture ; the raiment reflected 
how those many littles make a with pitiless fidelity by the mirror be- 
mickle ? Possibly a certain gallant fore him was decidedly neutral. No 
officer, just home from the wars, with one could call it picturesque nor 
his arm in a sling, and a sabre-scar even elegant of its kind. It was 
across his temple, had had something simply calculated to escape censure, 
to do with the trouble. Certainly Having made a full survey and, as 
the last mental picture Mr. Bently he thought, a fair comparison, this 
had carried away from his last visit self-elected judge then pronounced 
at Mr. Willis' was of this same officer sentence on the person whose reflec- 
walking in the garden with Marian tion he gazed at. 
Willis leaning on his sound arm, and " You are a fool !" he said, with a 
listening to the tale of his adventures conviction too deep for bitterness, 
as women always do and always " What is there in you that a fair and 
will listen to soldiers who bring their charming woman could prefer ? Bah ! 
wounds to illustrate their stories. She prizes you as she does those 
On that occasion, Mr. Bently had vellum Platos and Homers that she 
returned to his cousin's house and admires because others do, but can- 
behaved in what he considered a not read a word of. W T hen she sinks 
very reasonable manner. He locked into her arm-chair for that hour of 
himself into his chamber, let in all rest before dressing for dinner, does 
the light possible, placed himself be- she take with her a book of Greek or 
fore the mirror, and critically ex- of logic ? No ; she reads the poet 
amined the reflection he saw there, or the novelist. You have nothing 
There was no glorious sabre-wound to do with her more intimate life." 
across his temple, showing where he Thus had the scholar decided, 
had once wrestled with death, and gazing at his own reflection in the 
come off conqueror; but, instead, mirror, seeing there only the shell of 
there were long, faint, horizontal the man, and that not at its best, at 
lines beginning to show on his fore- its worst rather. The kindling of in- 
head mementoes of the silent com- telligence, the scintillating of sharp 
bat with time, and of anxious quest in intellectual pursuit, the soft radiance 
search of hidden truth. There were which dawning love gave him when 



John. 629 

he was shone upon by the beloved that she would not, if it could be 

object those he saw not. He saw helped, meet that gentleman who, 

only a fool. from being a daily visitor of her own, 

So far, so good. But he had not had suffered three days to pass during 
finished the work. A fool may be which he had once or twice talked 
miserable, maybe ruined by his folly, Avith her uncle over the gate, but had 
even while owning it. He must not never approached her. 
only prove the vanity of hoping, but Since that hour when, looking from 
the vanity of loving. He must re- his window, he had seen her sail past 
move the halo from his idol's brow, without raising her eyes, Mr. Bently 
not rudely, but with all the coolness had been haunted at times by two 
and gentleness of reason. What, antagonistic visions the rose dissect- 
after all, were beauty and grace, a ed. which he viewed with indifference, 
sweet voice and smile, and gracious succeeded by the rose full-blown, 
speaking ? He set himself to analyze triumphant in unassailable sweetness, 
them, physiologically, chemically, and He thought it all over now as he 
morally. sat looking out of Mrs. Clay's eastern 

So the botanist analyzes a flower, bay-window. And having thought 

and when he has destroyed its ravish- it over once, it began to go through 

ing perfume, and that exquisite com- his mind again, and still again. The 

bination which constituted its indi- various scenes passed, one by one, 

viduality a combination man can slowly, like persons in a procession, 

separate, but which only God can and he gazed at them from first to 

form he points to the fragments, last; and there was the first again! 

and says, " That is a rose !" He had had enough of it, but it 

But suppose that, even while he would not stop. His head was ach- 
speaks, those withering atoms should ing, and feeling somewhat light be- 
stir and brighten, the anthers should sides. He pressed his forehead with 
gather again their golden pollen, and his hands, and tried to think of some- 
hang themselves once more on each thing else, even if it were no more 
slender filament, the petals blush pleasant subject than the cold he 
anew, and rustle into fragrant crowd- must have taken to make him so sore 
ing circles, and a most rosy rose from head to foot. But still that 
should rise triumphantly before him ! procession moved with accelerating 

Some such experience had Mr. speed. He spoke to John, tired and 
Bently when he had finished his work annoyed himself a little wich the 
of demolition. Turning coldly away creature's antics, then leaned back in 
from the ruins of what had been so his chair, and let his brain whirl, 
fair, he walked to the window to take Certainly he was ill; but nothing- 
breath, and saw there before him the else was certain. Whether to go or 
living woman complete, her soul stay, to speak or remain silent, he 
welding with immortal fire every could scarcely decide. When dinner 
characteristic and mood into a being was announced, instinct kept him 
irresistibly lovely, baffling, and dis- conventional. He ate nothing, but 
dainful. She stood in the garden he went through all the proper forms, 
where Mrs. Clay had purposely de- with no more abstraction than might 
tained her beneath his window, and be attributed to his intellectual od- 
she stood there unwillingly. Only a dities. But dinner, with its inanities, 
social necessity had brought her to over, he made haste to escape to his 
the house, and she had determined own room. 



630 



John. 



" Going out for a walk, cousin ?" 
asked Mrs. Clay, as he passed her. 

How the trivial question irritated 
him ! He bowed, afraid to utter a 
word, lest it should be an offensive 
one. His nerves felt bare, his teeth 
on edge. 

Miss Bird looked more deeply than 
her friend had, and in the one timid 
glance she gave the gentleman saw 
a painful trouble underneath his cool 
exterior. 

" I hope he didn't hear what we 
were saying of him before dinner," 
she remarked apprehensively. 

" No, indeed !" was the confident 
response. " He scarcely hears what 
you say to him, still less what is said 
of him." 

" But he looked displeased," per- 
sisted the anxious Bird. 

Mrs. Clay cast a sarcastic glance 
on her subordinate. " My dear," 
she said with decision, " the less you 
occupy yourself with my cousin's 
feelings, the better for you. Your 
solicitude will be quite thrown away." 

Bird sighed faintly, and resigned 
herself to being snubbed. 

Mr. Bently walked up-stairs slow- 
ly, dreading to be alone, and shut 
himself into his room ; and, when 
there, desolation settled upon him. 
It is not pleasant to be sick in one's 
own home, with loving and solicitous 
friends surrounding one with their 
cares, and taking every task from the 
weak hands ; it is still less pleasant 
when, though friends are near, they 
are powerless to lift the burden which 
only those helpless hands can carry ; 
but how far more miserable, how far 
more cruel than any other desolation 
on earth, is it when sickness falls up- 
on one who must work, and the sick 
one is not only oppressed by the bur- 
den of duties unperformed, but is him- 
self a burden, coldly and grudging- 
ly tended, or tended not at all ? Mr. 
Bently knew well the extent of his 



cousin's friendship, and the worth of 
her Chinese compliments, and he 
would far rather have fallen in the 
street, and been left to the tender 
mercies of strangers, than fall ill in 
her house. 

Morning came, and it was break- 
fast-time, by no means an early hour. 
Mrs. Clay had put off the meal half 
an hour on her cousin's account. 
" He has at least one polite habit he 
does not rise early," she said. " But 
then he is as regular as a clock in his 
late hour." 

He was not prompt this morning, 
however, for they waited ten minutes 
after breakfast was on the table, and 
rang a second bell, and still their 
visitor did not appear. 

Miss Bird suggested that he had 
looked unwell the evening before, 
and might be unable to come down. 

" Really, how thoughtful you are !" 
Mrs. Clay said with cutting emphasis. 
" I had quite forgotten. Perhaps, 
my son, you will go up and see if 
Miss Bird is right." 

" My son " objected to being made 
a messenger of. "If the old fellar 
wanted to sleep, let him sleep. Don't 
you say so, Clem ? " 

Clementina always agreed with 
her brother ; the two prevailed, and 
the " old fellar " was left to sleep, or 
toss and moan, or be consumed with 
fever and thirst, or otherwise enter- 
tain himself as he or fate should 
choose, while the family breakfasted 
at their leisure. 

It is scarcely worth while to put 
Clementina and Arthur Clay in 
print. They are insignificant and, 
in a small way, disagreeable objects, 
and their like is often met with to 
the annoyance of many. The men- 
tal ignorance and lack of capacity 
which we lose sight of when they are 
overmantled by the loveliness of 
good-will, in such as these become 
contemptible by being placed on 



John. 63 i 

pedestals of presumption and ill-na- Bently ?" Bird asked, pausing at the 

ture, and hateful when they are set carriage door. 

as obstacles and stumbling-blocks " I shall give the gardener orders 

in the way of souls who would fain to get a doctor and nurse," Mrs. 

walk and look upward. Clay said impatiently, fuming with 

Breakfast over, and no Mr. Bently selfish terror. 

appearing, Mrs. Clay felt called on to " But I'm not afraid," Bird hesita- 

make inquiries, and, accordingly, dis- ted. il I've been vaccinated. And 

patched a servant to her cousin's it's hard to leave him alone." 

door, while she herself listened at the " Nonsense !" cried the lady. " I 

foot of the stairs. She heard a shall allow nothing of the sort. It is 

knock, but no reply, then a second not necessary, and, besides, it is not 

knock, followed by the servant's proper. Do get in, if you are going 

voice, as if in answer to some one to town. It really seems to me, Miss 

within. Bird, that you are altogether too 

" Paper under the door, sir ? Yes, much interested in Mr. Bently." 

sir !" Then, at last, Bird perceived what 

She was half way up the stairs by was in the speaker's mind, and, as 
this time, and snatched the slip of most women would in such circum- 
paper which the man had found stances, laid down her better im- 
pushed out under Mr. Bently's door, pulses at the feet of meanness. 
"What in the world can be the mat- Crushed and ashamed, and, at the 
ter ? Where are my eye-glasses ? same time, weakly and despairingly 
Cousin Bently is such a frightful angry, she took her place in the car- 
writer that, really " riage, and listened in silence to the 

While the lady is adjusting her lamentations and complaints of her 

glasses, and her children and com- companions. 

panion are gathering about her, we " How could Cousin Bently do 

will read this document, for there such a thing ? How could he come 

will be no time afterward. It is to me when he knew he had been so 

short, and is strongly scented with exposed ?" 

camphor. That Mr. Bently had only learned 

" I am ill, and, it is possible, may from the paper of the evening before 

have small-pox. It has been where to what he had been exposed, and 

I was a fortnight ago. Keep away had only thought during the night 

from me, and send for a doctor." what might be the meaning of his 

Confusion ensued. Screams re- illness, the lady did not inquire into, 

sounded from the parlor; orders and At the garden gate stood James, 

counter-orders were given, only one the gardener. Mrs. Clay stopped 

fixed idea penetrating that chaos to long enough to give him hurried di- 

get away from the house as quickly rections to get a doctor and nurse, 

as possible. Carriages were got out, and do all that was necessary for the 

silver and valuables piled into them invalid, then ordered the coachman 

by Bird, who alone would go up- to drive on. 

stairs, and who was made to do " I hope John isn't with us," one 

everything, and in less than half an of the young ones said presently, 

hour the whole family started for the " He was round Cousin Bently all 

city. The servants, all but the gar- day yesterday." 

dener, had already fled. No ; Bird, recollecting that fact 

' But who is to take care of Mr. also, had shut John into one of the 



632 John. 

chambers, and left him there. She to bring the doctor. He would wait 
ventured to hope that he would not patiently, since wait he must, 
be left to starve, but no one respond- An hour passed, and no one came, 
ed to her merciful wish. There was no sound in the house but 
The cause of all this terror and that occasional whining and bark- 
confusion had seen the departure of ing from the next room ; no sound 
the family without being surprised at outside except when a carriage rolled 
it. He had not undressed, but had swiftly by in the road. He saw no 
lain on a sofa all night, and, when person coming. It was impossible to 
morning came, had written the warn- endure that thirst any longer. He 
ing which proved so effectual, and went into the bathroom, and wet his 
then sank into an arm-chair near the hands and face, and drank of the 
window, longing for air. He ex- tepid water there. His head reeled 
pected the family to keep away from at sight of the stairs, and he did not 
him, and was neither sorry nor indig- dare to attempt to descend. Re- 
nant that they had removed them- turning to his chamber, he fell on to 
selves still further. Of course a doc- the sofa, and, for the first time in his 
tor would be sent, and of course life, fainted ; coming back to life 
there was some one to take care of again as though emerging from outer 
him. He sat and waited for that darkness, but not into light into a 
some one to enter. Perhaps it was sickening half-light, rather. So hours 
James, He saw the gardener shut passed, and he knew without a doubt 
and fasten the gate after the carriage that he was utterly deserted, and that 
went out, and he heard the locking a lonely and terrible death threatened 
of the stable door. He waited, but him. Could he do nothing to avert 
no one came. Well, the house must it ? He recollected that Mrs. Clay 
be attended to first, and he would be had a medicine closet in the bath- 
patient, though thirst, and alternate room. Possibly, if he could reach it, 
fever and chills, and racking pains something might be found there to 
were tormenting him. He was an- relieve, if not to cure, him. What 
noyed, too, by John's efforts to es- mountains molehills can change into 
cape from the next room, and would sometimes ! This man, so strong and 
have gone to release the creature full of life but a day before, now lay 
but for the fear of spreading conta- and gave his whole mind to planning 
gion. how he should save himself a few 
A distant door opened and shut; steps in going to the bathroom again, 
he heard a distant heavy step, and how he could avoid the stairs, lest he 
thanked God that relief and compa- should fall, and whether he could this 
nionship were at hand. But the time cross the corridor to release that 
sounds ceased, and no one came troublesome, whining dog. When- 
near him. He saw James, the gar- ever, weary and confused, he lost 
dener, laden with packages, hurry himself a moment in a half sleep, that 
down the avenue, and disappear into whining and scratching assumed 
the public road, and a thrill of fear terrible proportions in his imagina- 
shot through him. The scene out- tion, and became the fierce efforts of 
side swam before his eyes, and grew wild beasts to reach him. He start- 
dark for a moment. Could it be ed up now and then, with wide-open 
that they had all gone away, and left eyes, to assure himself that he was 
him to die alone ? No; he could not not in a menagerie; to fix in his mind 
believe it ! James had perhaps gone the picture of that airy chamber, with 



John. 633 

its clear tints of green and amber, its their mothers' laps. At this hour, 

open windows showing the long ve- men of thought, intellectual workers, 

randa outside, and the bright per- laid aside the weightier labors of their 

spective of foliage and sky. profession to indulge in an exhilarat- 

But when his eyelids drooped again, ing contention of wits, so much hap- 

and he sank back into half sleep and pier than other workers, in that their 

half fainting, back came the painful recreations do not retard, but rather 

phantoms to torment him till they accelerate their work. It is but 

were once more chased away for a dancing at evening with Terpsichore, 

time. or pacing with Calliope along the 

Toward evening he roused himself margin of the same road which 

to make that difficult pilgrimage of he had travelled by day in a 

fifty paces in search of healing and dusty chariot, or walked encum- 

refreshment, bathed eagerly his face bered by his armor. In their light- 

and head, and found his cousin's er intellectual contests, what sparks 

medicine closet. But when he had were sometimes struck out to 

reached that, his strength was nearly live beyond the moment that gave 

exhausted. He had only enough left them birth ! What random beams 

to take down the laudanum bottle, of light shot now and then into seem- 

and get back to his room with it. ing nothingness, and revealed an un- 

Laudanum might dull this pain, and suspected treasure ! 

quiet the excited nerves. Once more All these scenes of social comfort 

John must wait. He could not stop and delight rose before the sufferer's 

to release him. mind with tantalizing distinctness, 

The room in which the dog was fairer and fuller in the vision than he 
confined had a window on the bal- had ever known the reality to be. He 
cony that ran past Mr. Bently's room, felt like a houseless wanderer who, 
That window was open, but the blind freezing and starving in the street, 
was shut, and JoliH, despairing of sees through lighted windows the 
escape through the door, had turned warmth and joy of the home circle, 
all his efforts toward unfastening this Mr. Bently was not a pious man. 
blind, and had several times been He had a deep sentiment of rever- 
near success, when the spring, flying ence, and a firm belief that some- 
back, had defeated him. where there is an inflexible truth that 

The invalid's bath of cold water deserves an obedience absolute and 
had refreshed him somewhat. He unquestioning. But controversy had 
hated to take the laudanum. He had spoiled him for religious feeling, 
never been an intemperate man, and which is, perhaps, too delicate for 
had always shrunk from swallowing rough handling, and in the clash of 
anything which could in the least warring creeds some freshness and 
degree isolate his mind from the con- spontaneity had been lost to his con- 
trol of his will. He would bear the victions. Reaching truth, winning 
pain a little longer. battles for truth, he had been like a 

He lay there and thought, and traveller at the end of a long jour- 
visions of happy homes rose up be- ney, when he scarcely cares in his 
fore him. At this hour of early twi- weariness for the goal attained, but 
light, the lamps were being lighted, must needs eat and sleep. He had 
or people sat by firelight, and chil- spent too much time and.strength in 
dren, grown languid and sleepy with wiping away the mire flung on the 
the long day's play, leaned silent on garments of religion to be any longer 



John. 



quick in enthusiastic homage. " Pity 
'tis, 'tis true." The butterfly you 
would save from the net loses the 
down from its wings with your most 
careful handling ; the friend you de- 
fend from calumny you dethrone 
even while defending. The feeling 
that dictated that brutal egotism, 
" Caesar's wife must not be suspect- 
ed," dwells in a less arrogant form in 
most human hearts, and rare indeed 
is that soul which sets its love as high, 
after even the most triumphantly re- 
futed accusation, as it was before. 

Desertion and imminent death 
chilled this man's heart, and he had 
no mind to turn to God, save in a 
cold recognition of his power and 
wisdom. Love entered not into his 
thoughts, but despair did. 

The pain increased, the dizziness 
came back. He stretched his hand 
for the glass and vial of laudanum, 
and tried with a shaking hand to pour 
out what he could guess to be an ordi- 
nary potion. There was no reason 
why he should suspect that that bot- 
tle might have been standing in the 
house so long as to have made even 
the smallest dose of its contents 
deadly. As he measured, and tried 
to recollect how much he should 
take, pouring out unknowingly what 
would have been for him Lethe in- 
deed, a louder rattle and bang at the 
blind of the next room proclaimed 
the success of the four-footed prisoner. 
There was a scampering on the ve- 
randa, a dog's head, eager and bright- 
eyed, was thrust in at the window of 
the sick-room, then, with an almost 
human cry of joy, John flew at its 
occupant. 

Away went bottle and glass, 
breaking and spilling no laudanum 
for Mr. Bently that day. Down 
went Mr. Bently among the sofa pil- 
lows, prostrated by the unexpected 
onset ; and love, and delight, and ab- 
solute devotion, in the form of an up- 



roarious Skye terrier, unconscious and 
uncaring for risks, nestled in the 
breast of the deserted man, were all 
over his face and neck, and through 
his hair, and speaking as plainly as 
though human speech had been their 
interpreters. 

When the man comprehended, re- 
covering from his first confusion, rea- 
son and endurance stood aside and 
veiled their faces, and a greater than 
they took their place. 

Through a gush of tears which 
were but the spray of a subsiding 
wave of bitterness, this soul raised its 
eyes, and beheld a new light. It 
lost sight of the Almighty in a vision 
of the Heavenly Father. 

The |iight that followed was pain- 
ful, but not unsoothed. The dog, 
perceiving at once that his friend 
was ill, became quiet. He lay with 
head pressed close to the restless 
arm, and, if the sick man moaned, he 
answered with a pitying whine. 
Once he left the room, and wan- 
dered through the whole house in 
search of help, whined and scratched 
at every closed door, and, finding no 
one, came back with an air of dis- 
tress and perplexity. Later, when 
Mr. Bently seemed very ill, John ran 
out onto the balcony, and barked 
loudly, as if calling for relief. 

Morning came again, and the sick 
man's pain gave place to a deathlike 
faintness, resulting from lack of 
nourishment. For thirty-six hours 
nothing had passed his lips but 
water, and that no longer ran from 
the faucet when he tried it. He crept 
down-stairs, stair by stair, holding by 
the balusters, like a little child. 
There was no water to be seen in 
the dining-room, and he did not 
know where to find any. He 
reached the parlor, lay down on the 
floor, and prayed for death or for life 
anything to put an end to that night- 
mare of misery. It seemed that 



John. 635 

death was coming. His hands and then she crossed the room quickly, 

feet grew cold with an unnatural and knelt by him. 

chill, and, though the morning sun- " My God ! my God !" she mur- 

shine poured through the windows, mured, and lifted his head on her 

all looked dim to his eyes. His arm. " What fiendish cruelty !" 

senses seemed to be slowly receding, Her touch and voice recalled him 

without pain, without any power or to himself. He tried to put her 

wish on his part to recall them. He away. " Leave me, Marian, I beg 

lay and waited for death. of you I Do not endanger yourself 

And while he waited, as one hears for me !" 

sounds in a dream he heard a door But even while bidding her go, 

open and shut, then a quick, light every nerve in him grew alive with 

step that ran up-stairs. John, stand- the joyous conviction that he would 

ing over his friend, left him, and not be obeyed, and that, danger or 

rushed to the parlor door, barking no danger, she would not desert him. 

wildly, but was unable to get out, the Here were strength, help, and the 

door having swung to. In vain he power to command. She brought 

tried it with his paws, and thrust his the world with her, this queenly wo- 

small nose into the crack. It was man, who had not even snatched the 

too heavy for him to move. gloves from her hands since last 

Suddenly, while Mr. Bently gazed night's ball, but had hurried to seek 
with languid, half unconscious eyes news of him, after the first confused 
at the creature, the door was pushed rumor, to call doctor and nurse, to 
wide open, and a woman stood on rush to him herself with all the speed 
the threshold. She was neither her panting horses could make, 
young nor old, but simply at the age " Leave you ? Never !" 
of perfection, which is a variable age, He asked no questions, but resign- 
according to the person. Her face ed himself. How delightful the sick- 
was a full oval, but white now as ness, how sweet the pain, that led to 
hoar-frost. All its life seemed to this! How thrice blessed the de- 
centre in the large hazel eyes that were sertion that gave her to him ! 
piercing with a terrified search. She In half an hour, the doctor had 
wore her fair hair like a crown, piled come and given his decision. Mr. 
high above the forehead in glossy Bently's illness was merely a violent 
coils like sculptured amber. Over cold with fever, and a few days of 
one temple a black and gold moth careful nursing would make all right, 
was poised, as though it had just In another half hour, he was estab- 
alighted there, its wings widespread, lished in a pleasant chamber in Mr. 
The long black folds of a velvet Willis' house, with a nurse in close 
robe fell about her superb form, attendance, the whole family anxious- 
sweeping far back from her swift ly ministrant, John an immovable fix- 
but suddenly arrested step. Scintil- ture in the sick-room ; and, later, 
lating fringes of gold quivered Mrs. Marcia Clay besieging the 
against the large white arms, edged house for news of poor dear Cousin 
the short Greek jacket, and ran in a Bently, and protesting and explain- 
single flash down either side of the ing to the very coldest of listeners, 
train. A diamond cross lay like a declaring that nothing but her duty 
sunbeam on her bosom, a single dia- to her family, etc. ; and what was 
mond twinkled in each small ear. the meaning of that broken bottle 

There was but an instant's pause, and glass, and ineradicable laudanum 



636 



John. 



stain on the carpet in her house? 
Was it possible that Cousin Bently 
had thought of taking any of that 
terrible stuff that she meant to have 
thrown away ages before? And 
would they bring down John ? Ar- 
thur had asked for him. 

Some one went to Mr. Bently's 
room for John, but came back with- 
out him. The invalid was reported 
to have flown into something like a 
passion on learning the messenger's 
errand, and to have held the dog 
firmly in his arms. 

John was his ! No one else should 
have him. Whatever crime it might be 
called to refuse to give him up steal- 
ing, embezzling, false imprisonment 
he was ready to be accused and con- 
victed of it, and would go to jail for it 
with the dog in his arms. 

Mrs. Clav was enchanted to be 

^ 

able to oblige her cousin in such a 
trifle, and would he speak freely 
when he wanted anything ? and then 
went home and told all her family in 
confidence that Mr. Bently was a 
racing maniac. 

Reader, according to our promises 
at the beginning of this history, we 
should stop here. The scene has 
changed, the time already exceeds 
twenty-four hours, and only the char- 
acters remain the same. But we 
have not done. There is something 
more which we are pining to tell. 
Shall we stop, then, and perish in si- 
lence, rather than transgress rules 
made by a people " dead and done 
with this many a year," whose whole 
country, with themselves on it, could 
have been thrown into one of our in- 
land seas without making it spill over ? 
No ! Perish the unities ! 

Scene II. Large parlor, rosy-tint- 
ed all through with reflections from 
sunset, from firelight, and from red 
draperies. After-dinner silence per- 
vading, open folding-doors giving a 
view through a suite of rooms, in the 



furthest of which an old gentleman 
sleeps in his arm-chair. Or, perhaps, 
it is a picture of a library, with an 
old gentleman asleep in it. The still- 
ness is perfect enough for that. Mr. 
Bently, convalescent, first dinner 
down-stairs since his illness, stands 
near a window looking out, but 
watchful of the inside of the parlor, 
and of a lady who sits at an embroi- 
dery-frame near the same window. 
The lady is superficially dignified and 
tranquil, but there is an unusual color 
in the cheeks, and a slight unsteadi- 
ness in the fingers, which tell her 
secret conviction that something is 
going to happen. This is the first 
time the two have met since Miss 
Willis found the deserted man lying 
half senseless on Mrs. Clay's parlor 
floor. 

He is thinking of that time now, 
and that an acknowledgment is due, 
and wondering how it is to be made, 
half a mind to be angry, rather than 
grateful, for the service. Such is man. 
All the bitterness of his lonely life 
rises up before him. Gray hairs are 
on his head, lines of age mark his 
face, but his heart protests against 
being set aside as too old for anything 
but dry speculation and love of 
abstract truth. 

" I have been seeking for some 
proper terms in which to express to 
you my grateful sense of your hu- 
manity in coming to me when I was 
left sick and alone, but I cannot find 
them," he said at length, facing her. 

" There is no need to say anything 
about it," she replied quietly, setting 
a careful silken stitch. " I could not 
have done otherwise." 

Having begun, the gentleman could 
not stop, or would not. 

" I am sure you meant well, but 
did you do well ?" he went on. 
" Could you not have been content 
to send the doctor, without coming 
yourself? Did you reflect that you 



John. 



637 



were apparently incurring peril, and 
that for a man who had a heart as 
well as a head, and, worse yet, for a 
man whose heart had for years striv- 
en vainly to forget you ? You have 
deprived me of the shield and sup- 
port of even attempted indifference. 
I can no longer try to forget you, or 
think of you coldly, without the 
basest ingratitude." 

Will the reader pardon Mr. Bently 
for expressing himself so grammati- 
cally ? It was through the force of 
a long habit, which even passion 
could not break. It is true that, ac- 
cording to Gerald Griffin, Juno her- 
self, when angry, spoke bad Latin ; 
but then, Juno was a woman. 

Allons, done. We are ourselves in- 
terested in this conversation, and are 
pleased to observe that, though the 
speaker's moods and tenses are not 
flagrant, his eyes and cheeks are. 

The lady glanced up swiftly with 
that smile, half shy, half mirthful, with 
which a woman who knows her 
power, and means to use it kindly, re- 
ceives the acknowledgment of it. 

" Why should you think coldly of 
me, or forget me ?" she asked. 

Mr. Bently met her glance with 
stern eyes. " Does a man willingly 
submit to slavery ?" he demanded. 
He had not suspected Marian Willis 
of coquetry. 

She looked down at her work again, 
the smile fading, but the mouth still 
sweet, slowly threaded her needle 
with a rose-pink floss, and said as 
slowly, " I do not wish you to forget 
me." 

One who has seen the sun strike 
through a heavy fog, stop a moment, 
then fling it asunder, all in silence, 
without breath of breeze, but making 
a bright day of a dark one, knows 
how Mr. Bently's clouded face clear- 
ed at those words, and the look of 
her who spoke them. 

No more was said then. Enough 



is as good as a feast, and both tasted 
in that moment the full sweetness of 
a happiness the more perfect because 
apparently incomplete. 

On one point our mind is made up 
this story shall not end with a mar- 
riage. A marriage there was, at 
seven o'clock one spring morning, in 
the little suburban church, with only 
three visible witnesses ; and the mar- 
riage feast was be it said with all 
reverence and adoration manna 
from heaven, the Bread of Angels ! 

Mrs. Clay was, of course, shocked 
at this affair. Where was the trous- 
seau, where the fuss, the presents that 
might have been, the rehearsal at 
a fashionable church, the organ mu- 
sic, the crowd of dear criticising friends, 
the reception, cake and wine, journey, 
what not all the parade, wearin ess, 
and extravagance which have so often 
changed a sacrament into a cere- 
mony ? Where, indeed ? They had 
no existence outside of the lady's dis- 
appointed wishes. 

She did not even see what she 
called this " positively shabby affair," 
and we will not dwell on it. Turn 
we to the final scene. 

Does the reader object that John 
bears too small a part in the story 
named for him ? On the contrary, 
the whole story is because of John. 
You have, perhaps, seen a painting 
of the procession at the coronation 
of George IV., pages and pages of 
magnificent persons, names, and cos- 
tumes, the brilliant pageant of the 
long-extended quetie, all because of 
one person in it. The figure is rather 
large, apparently, for use in this 
place, but only apparently;, for 
John's record is better than any 
king's, in that it is unstained. 

A year has 'passed. In the midst 
of a fair area of gardens and trees 
stands a pleasant house. Only a 
window or two are open, for the 
spring is not yet far advanced. Un- 



638 John. 

derneath a large old pine, tree not far just as lief stay, and rather. I never 

from the porch, a hole has been dug, attended a canine funeral before." 

and at one side of it stands Mr. There was a momentary silence, 

Bently, spade in hand, and at the then Mrs. Bently spoke again, with 

other his wife. This little pit is lined still more decision and far less 

with green boughs, and the lady suavity : " On the whole, you must 

stoops and carefully and soberly excuse us from seeing you any longer 

adds one more. On the heap of this morning. If you had gone to 

earth thrown up rests a box. the door, the servant would have 

This much is visible to a young told you that we do not receive any 

man who comes strolling up the path one to-day." 

from the gate. He pauses, and looks The young man gave an angry 

on in astonishment. He recollects laugh. " Oh ! certainly ! I wouldn't 

of having heard somewhere that Cou- for the world intrude on your sor- 

sin Bently's dog John was accident- row. Good-morning ! It's a pity, 

ally shot, and that Mrs. Bently cried though, that dogs are not immortal, 

about it. Can it be possible that isn't it ? You might have John can- 

they are making a funeral over John ? onized." 

That would be too funny. Mr. Bently flashed his eyes round 

Mr. Bently stooped, took the box at the speaker. " What !" he thun- 

in his arms, and placed it carefully dered, "you immortal, and my DOG 

down among the green boughs. NOT!" 

Standing upright then, he wiped his If they had been two Parrott guns, 

eyes, and muttered a trembling, instead of two eyes and a mouth, 

" Poor fellow !" Mr. Arthur Clay could not have re- 

" Good-morning !" said a brisk treated more precipitantly. 

voice at his elbow. " I'm sorry The grave was filled in and cov- 

Johnnie met with a mishap. Are ered over with boughs, two sighs 

you burying him here ?" were breathed over it, then the cou- 

The vapid, mean, supercilious face pie walked, arm in arm, slowly to- 

gave them both such a shock that ward the house, 

they reddened and frowned. No " He was a perfect creature !" Mr. 

one could have been less welcome at Bently said, after a silence, 

that moment than Arthur Clay. " Yes !" assented the wife. " Only 

Mrs. Bently answered his question he would bounce at one so." 

with a brief, " Yes." " Marian," said her husband sol- 

" Oh ! well, there are dogs enough emnly, " if it hadn't been for John's 

in the world," said the young man, habit of bouncing at his friends, you 

meaning to be consoling. would have had no husband." 

" There are puppies enough !" It was well meant, but unfortu- 

muttered Mr. Bently, and began nately worded. The lady pouted, 

shovelling the earth savagely into the being by no means an ideal, perfect, 

grave. pattern woman, but only a natural 

" Please go into the house, and and charming one, with varying 

wait for us, Arthur," the lady said, moods and whims playing, spraylike, 

with polite decision. She had no over the deeps of principle and reli- 

mind to have this last touching rite gion. " Don't be too sure of that !" 

spoiled by such an intrusion. she made answer to him. 

But young Mr. Clay was in an Mr. Bently never bristled with vir- 

obliging mood. "Thank you; I'd tues when his wife made such re- 



Congress oj Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology. 639 



marks. He smiled now, full of kind- 
ness. " I meant to say that I should 
have had no wife," he corrected him- 
self. 

At that, the pout, which was only 
a rebellious muscle, not a rebel- 
lious heart, disappeared. " It means 
the same thing, you most patient of 
men !" exclaimed his wife fervently. 



They reached the porch, and stood 
there a moment, looking back to the 
mound under the pine-tree. 

" It is a comfort to think," said 
the wife, " that for one year of 
his life we made him such a happy 
dog." 

Then they went in, and the door 
closed behind them. 



THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PREHISTORIC AN- 
THROPOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY. 



FROM LA REVUE GENERALE DE BRUXELLES. 



THE International Congress of Pre- Bologna, in 1871, enlarged still more 
historic Anthropology and Archae- the extent of its programme ; accord- 
ology held its sixth meeting at Brus- ing, however, the first place to objects 
sels, in 1872. The idea of this con- that particularly interested Italy, 
gress originated in Italy. Some emi- The programme of the Congress 
nent Swiss, Italian, and French of Brussels was, so to speak, deter- 
naturalists, assembled at Spezzia in mined by M. E. Dupont's important 
1865, resolved to hold the first session discoveries in the caverns of the pro- 
the following year at Neufchatel. vince of Namur, and the questions 
This meeting, entirely confined to were drawn up from the Belgian 
explorations, created no sensation out point of view, in order to give our 
of the scientific world, but it was savants an opportunity of acquaint- 
agreed there should be another at the ing foreign scientific men with the 
time of the International Exposition researches and facts relating particu- 
at Paris in 1867. The congress, larly to our country. Similar pro- 
thenceforth established, appointed a ceedings had taken place at Copen- 
committee to organize the next meet- hagen and Bologna. But the pro- 
ing. More than four hundred gramme of Brussels by no means ex- 
savants responded to the invitation, eluded points of general interest. 
At Paris it was decided to meet again Here is the list of those proposed : 
the next year at Norwich, at the same I. What discoveries have been 
time as the British Association for made in Belgium to attest the anti- 



the Advancement of Science. The 
programme of questions proposed for 
discussion at Norwich presents a 



quity of prehistoric man ? 

II. What were the manners and 

pursuits of the people who lived in 
striking similarity to that at Paris, the caverns of Belgium ? Did their 
The congress held at Copenhagen manners and pursuits vary during the 
in 1869 was distinguished by a more quaternary epoch ? What analogy is 
local and practical character than the there between their manners and pur- 
preceding. Finally, the Congress of suits, and those of the troglodyte 



640 



The International Congress of 



population in other parts of Western 
Europe and of the savages of the 
present day ? 

III. What were the pursuits of the 
people who inhabited the plains 
of Hainault during the quaternary 
epoch? Can it be proved they 
held any communication with their 
contemporaries of the caverns of the 
provinces of Liege andNamur, or with 
the quaternary peoples of the valleys 
of the Somme and the Thames ? 

IV. What characterized the age 
of polished stone in Belgium ? 
What was its connection with previ- 
ous ages, and with the age of polish- 
ed stone in Western Europe ? 

V. What were the anatomical and 
ethnical characteristics of man in 
Belgium during the age of stone ? 

VI. What characterized the age 
of bronze in Belgium ? 

VII. What characterized the ap- 
pearance of iron in Belgium ? 

Excursions to the caverns of the 
valleys of the Lesse, tlie flint-works 
of Spiennes and Mesvin, and the en- 
trenched camp of Hastedon near 
Namur, formed a practical demon- 
stration of the problems discussed at 
the meeting. 

Many illustrious co-workers re- 
sponded to the invitation of the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements. England 
was represented by Messrs. Prest- 
wich, Owen, the great palaeontologist, 
Dawkins, Lubbock, Eranks, the Di- 
rector of the Department of Antiqui- 
ties and Ethnography at the British 
Museum, etc. ; France, by her most 
eminent anthropologists, archaeolo- 
gists, and geologists, Messrs, Quatre- 
fages, Broca, Belgrand, Hebert, De 
Mortillet and Bertrand of the Musee 
de S. Germain, General Faid'herbe, 
the Marquis de Vibraye, Cartaillac, 
De Linas, Doctors Lagneau et Hamy, 
one President and the other Secretary 
of the Society of Anthropology, Des- 
hayes, Gaudry, Gervais, the Abbes 



Bourgeois and Delauny, one Superior 
and the other Professor at the Col- 
lege of Pont-Levoy, Oppert', the cele- 
brated explorer of Khorsabat, and 
many others, among whom we must 
not omit the inevitable Mile. Clemence 
Royer, at least as a curiosity. The 
northern countries sent the founders 
of prehistoric archaeology in the 
North Messrs. Worsace, Engel- 
hardt, De Wichfeld, Steenstrup, Wal- 
demar-Schmidt, from Denmark ; 
Messrs. Hildebrand, Landberg, La- 
gerberg, Nillson, D'Oliviecrona, from 
Sweden ; Italy was brilliantly repre- 
sented by Messrs. Capellini, Fabretti, 
Biondelli, Count Conestabile, Gozza- 
dini, etc. ; Spain and Portugal by 
only a few; Holland by several, 
among whom was M. Leemans, Di- 
rector of the Museum of Leyden ; 
Austria by Count Wurmbrand ; Ger- 
many by the Baron de Ducker, Pro- 
fessors Fraas, of Stuttgart, Schafthau- 
sen, of Bonn, the celebrated Virchow, 
of Berlin, Lindenschmidt, of May- 
ence ; Switzerland by Desor, one of 
the founders of prehistoric archaeolo- 
gy. Belgian science was represented 
in the committee by Messrs. d'Oma- 
lius d'Halloy, the venerable Presi- 
dent of the congress, Van Beneden, 
De Witte, Dupont, with the elite of 
our savants, attended by a constella- 
tion of archaeologists de circo?istance 
belonging to the various orders of 
the literary, artistic, and political 
world, and even the commercial ; for 
philosophy does not daunt M. Jour- 
dain in these days. As for the rest, 
it was a spectacle of no slight inter- 
est to behold the extraordinary con- 
course of hearers that thronged the 
sessions at the ducal palace, atten- 
tively listening to discussions some- 
times very abstract, and again par- 
ticipating in the excursions of the 
learned assembly with a genuine in- 
terest apart from the mere pleasure 
of the excursions themselves. In 



Prehistoric A nt /tropology and A rchceology. 641 

proportion as man adds to his know- Some persons are troubled at the 

ledge of the globe he inhabits, in- discussion of grave and delicate ques- 

stead of being satisfied, the greater tions that seem to set revelation and 

jirdor and interest he manifests to science at variance. As for us, who 

know more. " The surface of both can never admit the possibility of a 

land and water explored in every conflict between the Bible and na- 

sense of the word; mountains measur- ture those two divine revelations 

ed ; oceans sounded, and their secrets or that they ought ever to be com- 

brought to light ; inorganic substan- pletely separated, we deeply regret 

ces and organized bodies analyzed the complete absence of our clergy 

and described ; plants, animals, and at these great sessions, while those 

the human races studied under every of France and Italy were represented, 

aspect ; historical traditions investi- in a brilliant manner, 
gated and revised ; the dead Ian- " I am well aware," says M. Cha- 

guages brought into use, and the bas, in an able preface, "that the 

words derived from them traced back materialistic tendency of savants of 

to their original roots all this is not very considerable attainments in an- 

enough. Knowing what he is, and thropology and other branches of 

with a thousand theories as to his prehistoric research, withholds many 

destination, man wishes to pierce the men whose concurrence would be of 

mystery of his origin ; he asks value to science from entering the 

whence he came, and how he began arena where such points are discuss- 

the career so laboriously pursued, ed." But timid minds are becoming 

and into which he was thrust by a more reassured. Therefore, as the 

destiny of which he had no con- Abbe Bourgeois happily remarked at 

sciousness." * The truths that we the Congress of Paris, " We shall 

grasp in our day were perhaps only perhaps have to add to the antiquity 

guessed at by the ancients. Lucre- of man, but we ought also to de- 

tms has drawn a very correct picture, tract from that of fossils." Besides, 

for those days, of the wretched con- hitherto, in spite of so much research, 

dition of the earlier races, their strug- man alone has been found intelligent 

gles with the elements, and even the and with a moral sense of his acts ; 

primitive weapons of stone which and in the animal kingdom there is 

they wrought before the age of not a single proof to confirm even 

bronze and iron. But this is only a po- remotely Lamarck's theory of trans- 

etical conception to which must be mutation revived by Darwin. When 

attached no more importance than so many are appealing to science to 

it merits. The science of prehistoric the exclusion of God from the uni- 

ages then had no existence. This verse, it would be well for others to 

science, scarcely known twenty years endeavor to make him manifest by 

ago, has now quite a literature of its the aid of science, 
own, several reviews, and an annual " What !" exclaims Mgr. Meignan, 

International Congress (in future it in his brilliant work on The World 

will be biennial), splendid museums and Primitive Man according to the 

in all our capitals, and a society Bible, "ought the exegete to make 

whose labors have contributed not a no account of the progress of human 

little to so prodigious a result the knowledge ? Can the savant find 

Society of Anthropology. neither profit nor light in the wisdom 

of Holy Writ ? We think otherwise. 

*E. Daily. The theologian who first studies na- 
VOL, xvi. 41 



642 



The International Congress of 



ture will be better enabled to explain 
certain passages of the Bible ; and 
the naturalist and archaeologist, in 
their turn, will find it advantageous to 
study the real meaning of Genesis." 
The human mind enters upon a 
course of examination more or less 
legitimate in subjecting religion itself 
to the trial of controversy ; it is 
almost a duty imposed on the con- 
science of all who are not vainly en- 
dowed with reason to enable them- 
selves to give a reason for the belief 
that is within them. " The task of 
the apologist," says the eminent pre- 
late just quoted, " is never at an end 
in our restless age." The disagree- 
ment that some seem to apprehend 
only exists in superficial or sceptical 
minds. 

If the Bible is not a scientific 
revelation, neither does it contradict 
science, and especially in the bold 
outlines drawn by Moses. Science, as 
it progresses, sets up its landmarks, so 
to speak, beside the immutable 
bounds of faith ; it is so with the 
laws of light, as well as the funda- 
mental principles of geology. Reve- 
lation assigns no limits to the anti- 
quity of the world, and allows the 
beginning in which God created it to 
recede to as remote a period as is 
wished, and geology corroborates the 
Scripture account of successive crea- 
tions. Is not the unity of origin 
of the human species, distinctly de- 
clared in both Testaments, connected 
with all the hypotheses that have ex- 
cited so much opposition in our day ? 
I do not mean the unity of the hu- 
man species, a doctrinal question 
very different from the other, and 
not necessarily connected with it. 
But the unity of origin of the human 
race is now taught and demonstrated 
by the greater part of those versed 
in natural history; it is a scientific 
truth. As to the existence of man 
in the tertiary epoch, it is far from 



certain, though sustained by many 
highly respectable men.* M. Evans, 
the Secretary of the Geological So- 
ciety of London, whose name is an 
authority on things pertaining to an- 
thropology and palaeontology, ex- 
pressed himself in these terms at a 
meeting of the British Association 
at Liverpool last year [1871]: " We 
cannot," said he, " possibly make any 
prediction as to the discoveries that 
still await us in the soil beneath our 
feet ; but we certainly have no reason 
to conclude that the most ancient 
traces of man on the earth, or even 
on the soil of Western Europe, have 
been brought to light. At the same 
time, I must confess that the existing 
evidence of man in the miocene pe- 
riod, and even in the pliocene, in 
France (it will be seen further on 
that thi^ has since been asserted in 
Portugal), appears to me, after the 
most careful examination on the spot, 
very far from convincing." 

Besides, the word prehistoric has 
only a relative exactness of meaning. 
In Belgium, prehistoric man comes 
down to the century before the Ro- 
man Conquest. A vast number of 
the monuments and remains so dis- 
cussed in our day might be included 
in the historic period. In most cases, 
too absolute a signification is given 
to the word prehistoric, conveying an 
idea of remote antiquity far beyond 
the bounds of chronology. It is un- 
der the influence of this preconceived 
opinion that the most distinguished 



* It is an error to suppose that the Catholic 
faith limits the existence of man to about six 
thousand years. The church has never decided 
this delicate question, and this abstention is full 
of wisdom. Nothing positive, in fact, has been 
revealed to us on this point. The various chrono- 
logical systems are the work of man ; they rest 
on bases often hypothetical. Nevertheless, we 
cannot admit even the possibility of the arbitra- 
ry theories of several distinguished geologists 
who date the appearance of man on the earth 
twenty and even thirty millions of years back. 
Good-sense alone should incline one to be mod- 
erate on this point." Mgr. Meignan, Le Monde 
ct f Homme primitif, chap. vi. 






Prehistoric Anthropology and Archceology. 643 

and independent investigators have work in which the learned and active 

allowed themselves to be carried director of our Royal Museum of 

away with the apparent revelation of Natural History has condensed his 

an entirely new world. In hearing researches.* 

of the millions of ages attributed to The opening session took place the 

quaternary man, one feels greatly be- 22d of August. The day was spent 

hind the times, and asks himself in receptions, speeches of welcome, 

anxiously if there really is a science replies, the installation of the board, 

that has a good right to make man and other official courtesies which we 

so old, and that affords means of as- spare the reader. The following 

certaining, as has been stated, what days there were two sessions a day. 

our ancestors were observing in the The morning of the 23d of August 

heavens on the 29th of January, 1 1, 542 was devoted to the first question 

years before Christ. This feeling of in the programme. There was no 

astonishment must be still livelier in one better fitted to develop it than M. 

those for whom the insoluble prob- Dupont, the Chief Secretary of the 

lems of antiquity extend back to less congress, and the most active of its 

than two thousand years. We do organizers. He had already given a 

not know the site of Alesia, and we clear outline of its history in his dis- 

pretend to know the habitat and course at the first session of the day 

manners of villages of more than before. It was started in Belgium in 

three hundred thousand years before 1829, and kept up by the researches 

the downfall of the Gallic nationality ! of Schmerling, who may be regarded 

It should be confessed that the as the Champollion of prehistoric 

science which has so recently sprung anthropology ; but our illustrious 

up, and which has for its object the fellow- citizen was not encouraged in 

study of human labor anterior to the his discoveries, and it may be said 

use of metals, is neither so firmly that he was, to a certain degree, a 

established nor so positive in its de- martyr to the scientific prejudices of 

ductions that we should blindly ac- his time. His labors, occurring at a 

cept such bold theories. This is one time when Cuvier's authority was at 

of the reasons that should encourage its height, could not counterbalance 

more men of serious pursuits to take the influence of that great genius, who 

a part in these debates, as to which declared that man could not be found 

it is allowable to hope that the truth among fossils' bones, and that the 

will some day be discovered at an vestiges of* the human race in the 

equal distance from any exaggera- caverns came under the general rule, 

tion. No one then could have dreamed of 

We shall have occasion to return referring these remains to the epoch 

to these questions which occupied of the mammoth, and it was scarcely 

the Congress of Brussels. This pre- admitted, till within a dozen years, 

amble appeared necessary as a justi- that man was contemporary with the 

fication for confining ourselves to a animals of the geological periods 

plain, simple analysts of the proceed- which preceded ours. Schmerling, 

ings of the congress others can re- but little befriended by circumstances, 

view them better than we. was deceived as to what caused the 

W^e will only add one word more, introduction of this debris into the 
The field for discussion had been pre- 
pared in a wonderful manner bv the * L: Hommt pendant les Ages dela, Pierre dans 
, ,. _ . ,, les Environs de Dinant-sur-Meuse. 2Q Edition. 

recent publication of the excellent Bruxeiies: Muquardt. 1872. 



644 



The International Congress of 



caverns. He attributed it to sudden 
inundations. Some years later, Mr. 
Spring opened the way to the true 
theory, which allows the reconstruc- 
tion of the ethnography of geological 
epochs ; but he could not continue 
his researches, and it was not till 
1 86 1 that Lartet's report concernin-g 
the caverns of Aurillac at length 
established a collection of decisive 
facts. In 1863, M. Dupont was ap- 
pointed to explore the caverns of the 
province of Namur, which gave pro- 
mise of discoveries of unusual in- 
terest; it was important that our 
country, after having taken so large 
a part in establishing the first princi- 
ples of this new science, should not 
remain inactive in the movement to 
which it had led. The immense re- 
sult of researches continued without 
relaxation for seven years, summer 
and winter, and the valuable remains 
thus found, which are the ornament 
of our principal museum, prove that 
the direction of the task could not 
have been confided to better hands. 
M. Dupont, laying aside the arbi- 
trary classifications that had hitherto 
been adopted for determining the 
antiquity of remains found in caverns, 
introduced the geologic method in 
his researches, which is founded upon 
principles almost incontestable and 
evidences of indubitable truth. The 
chronological data furnished by this 
method are generally of mathemati- 
cal exactitude. " With this point to 
start from," says M. Dupont, " I was 
sure of clearly determining the fauna 
and ethnographical remains of each 
epoch to which the objects discover- 
ed in the various subterranean ex- 
plorations belonged." * In pursu- 

e This is true, at most, of the formations previ- 
ous to the quaternary deposits ; in the latter, the 
synchronism of the fauna becomes wholly un- 
certain, and only founds the emigration or disap- 
pearance of certain species of animals on induc- 
tions that have a hypothetical basis. As to their 
emigration, we have had too many instances in 
the historic period, as M. Chabas justly observes, 



ing the application of this method, 
our young and already illustrious 
savant was enabled to show the 
evolution of physical and biological 
phenomena, and to reconstruct the 
ethnography of the age of stone. 
Whatever may be thought of the 
reality of the facts brought for- 
ward, it must be confessed that no 
ordinary mind could have formed 
such bold conceptions. 

After a communication from Dr. 
Hamy on the flint-works of France 
and England at the time of the 
mammoth, the Abbe Bourgeois dis- 
cussed the question of tertiary man. 
The learned professor's clear, fluent 
language, the distinction of his man- 
ners, and his open, animated counte- 

to make us regard that necessarily the index of 
vast chronological intervals. Where are the 
elephants that abounded in Mauretania Tingi- 
tana, according to Solinus' Polyhistor ; the hip- 
popotami of Lower Egypt, the boas of Calabria, 
the lions, aurochs, and bears of Macedonia, the 
beaver, etc. ? In the XVIIth century of our era, 
the stag, roebuck, wild boar, wolf, and bear still 
formed a part of tlie fauna of the Cevennes. The 
reindeer lived in the Black Forest in the time of 
Csesar, who describes this animal from hearsay, 
but characterizes it sufficiently by the peculiarity 
of the male and female having the same kind of 
horns. M. Lartet is also inclined to the opinion 
that the age of the reindeer is perhaps not so 
ancient as was once supposed. The mammoth is 
no longer found alive, but has been discovered 
with its flesh and skin still remaining, embedded 
in ice, and affording nourishment to dogs and 
other animals. Struck with this preservation, M. 
d'Orbigny expresses a doubt as to the antiquity 
of the mammoth. He thinks it may have existed 
five or six thousand years ago, and believes it 
may still live in some unexplored locality. At 
least, it lived in America till a comparatively 
recent period. Its remains, aad those of the 
mastodon, have been found in the auriferous de- 
posits of California, among remarkable traces of 
human labor. At the Congress of Copenhagen, 
M. Schaffhausen expressed the opinion that the 
lost species should rather be regarded of a more 
recent date than that the antiquity of man should 
be extended to hundreds of thousands of years. 
As to the wretchedness and inferiority evident 
from the primitive pursuits of man and the con- 
formity of his organs, the enemies of Christianity 
triumph over the discovery. We believe with 
Mgr. Meignan that " a proof of the authenticity 
of the Bible has been lightly transformed into an 
objection against it. The revolt and disobedience 
of man explain the wretched state in which he at 
first lived ; and the hardships he underwent dur- 
ing the period he inhabited caverns and lacustrine 
dwellings prove to all who believe in the good- 
ness of God that a great crime must have armed 
His justice." 












Prehistoric Anthropology and Archceology. 645 

nance so completely won the good'- the question. This committee pro- 
will of the audience that thenceforth, nou'nced a verdict two days after, 
whenever he spoke, his appearance in without deciding the point. Of 
the tribune was hailed with unani- thirty-two specimens presented for 
mous applause. examination, some appeared to them 
The Abbe Bourgeois and M. de evidently wrought, but most of them 
Launay, his colleague, are the true were unanimously rejected. There 
heralds of tertiary man. The chrono- was no difference of opinion as to M. 
logical discussion they so boldly Bourgeois' sincerity of belief, but 
excite seems to embarrass them but they were divided as to the authen- 
little; on the other hand, they al- ticity of the deposit. Those who 
most banish the hope some still have seen the place had no doubts ; 
seem to cling to of rinding the man- the remainder were incredulous. M. 
monkey. In 1866, M. Bourgeois de- Capellini proposed that a new corn- 
scribed and presented to the Acade- mittee be appointed to make re- 
my of Sciences some wrought flints searches on the spot. The general 
found in the tertiary deposits in the conclusion was that no solution is at 
commune of Thenay near Pont- present possible. 
Levoy (Loir-et-Cher). M. Des- The existence of prehistoric man 
noyers had already, in 1863, pointed in Greece next became the subject 
out bones found in strata incontest- of lively discussion, giving rise to the 
ably pliocene, on which were striae, most contradictory- opinions. The 
or very distinct and regularly marked conclusion was that there are no de- 
incisions. Worked flints are begin- cided proofs. The same doubt was 
ning to be found, we are assured, in manifested with respect to a skull 
the bottom of the calcareous deposits from California, said to have been 
of Beauce; that is to say, in chalk, found in tertiary formation. It is not 
They are identical in form with those even certain it is a human skull, 
found on the surface; as in other The second session of the day 
places, there are utensils for cutting, opened with an account from M. 
piercing, scraping, and hammering. Riviere of the discovery of a corn- 
Many of these instruments have been plete skeleton in a grotto at Menton, 
injured by the action of fire. Final- found among the remains of various 
ly, says the Abbe Bourgeois, " I find animals of the quaternary epoch, 
in them almost every proof of man's such as the lion, bear, rhinoceros, 
agency, to wit: after-touches, sym- etc. Then M. de Mortillet gave a 
metrical grooves, grooves artificially detailed description of the fauna, 
made to correspond with natural and the utensils, arms, pursuits, man- 
ones, and especially the multiplied ners, and even the first manifestation 
reproduction of certain forms. This of art, of man in the quaternary pe- 
is a peculiar, unheard-of fact of the riod, and he proposed a still further 
highest importance, but, to me, an subdivision of the classes than is now 
indubitable one." M. Bourgeois ex- admitted. The speaker mentioned a 
hibited to the competent judges as- very singular circumstance calculated 
sembled at Brussels what he consid- to excite reflection an inexplicable 
ered the proofs of the authenticity of hiatus between the last period of the 
his discovery. To him they are con- age of cut stone and the age of pol- 
vincing, but what he seeks, above all, ished stone, in which new races ap- 
is truth, and he asked that a special peared of greater industry and more 
committee be appointed to elucidate intelligence, agriculture was devel- 



646 Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology. 



oped, the industrial pursuits were ex- 
tended, and art disappeared. It is 
the era of lacustrine villages and of 
dolmens. M. de Mortillet's sketch 
of prehistoric civilization was pictur- 
esque but far from convincing. 

The Abbe Bourgeois did not think 
M. de Mortillet's classification cor- 
rect, because the progress of civiliza- 
tion in France and Belgium was un- 
equal. "The Belgians," he said, 
" were more advanced." And the 
orator added with charming bonhomie: 
" I cannot say it is otherwise now." 

M. Fraas, professor at Stuttgart, 
stated that he had made some explo- 
rations in the grotto of Hollenfelz 
near Ulm, in Wiirtemberg. The 
Homo unius caverncz was refuted in 
his conclusions by M. Hebert, the 
celebrated professor at the Sorbonne, 
and by other savants. M. d'Oma- 
lius was of the opinion that two geo- 
logists of different countries, desirous 
of identifying beds contiguous to 
their fields of exploration, were never 
able to agree. Between two strata 
there are always deposits that partake 
of the distinctive characteristics of 
both. 

We pass from the grave to the en- 
tertaining. The following day, at 
seven o'clock in the morning, all the 
learned assembly, glad, it may be im- 
agined, to get away from the preten- 
tious paintings of the ducal palace, 
took flight by steam for the valley of 
the Lesse. We would be the first to 
confess that, if the country excited the 
sincere admiration of the excursion- 
ists, the latter were equally a delight- 
ful source of curiosity to the native 
inhabitants. They will not readily 
forget the picturesque sight of our 
long caravan traversing the good 
town of Dinant all decked out with 
flags, parading in elegant equipages 
lost among the coucous, fiacres, and 
caleches of wondrous construction, 
or perched on the imperials of the 



most extraordinary vehicles, omni- 
buses, 2C&& pataches truly prehistoric, 
filing along the banks of the Meuse 
towards the valleys amid laughter, 
jests, joltings, and the vociferations 
of our Automedon. Charming land- 
scapes, but detestable roads. This re- 
gion has been so often described that I 
need not attempt to depict it; it is 
with the pencil and brush it should 
be undertaken. Sometimes the road 
winds around with disagreeable un- 
dulations through the deep ravines 
bordered by apple-trees whose fruit- 
laden branches sweep the imperials 
of the carriages, endangering the 
silken hat ; sometimes rolling over 
broad grassy roads walled in by im- 
mense cliffs crowned with ruins and 
verdure, or affording vistas through 
the neighboring valleys, lit up by the 
sun streaming through the woods 
with a mild radiance that recalls the 
Elysian Fields of mythological me- 
mory. At length we come to the 
Lesse, which bars the way with its 
clear, rapid current. The carriages 
have to ford the capricious and petu- 
lant waters of the little winding tor- 
rent. The horses sheer in the very 
middle of the stream, causing a deaf- 
ening noise of laughter, shouts of 
alarm, and blows of the whip. All 
ends by crossing without any great 
difficulty, but the same scene is re- 
produced five or six times with varied 
incidents; for there are that number 
of fords to cross. It was in one of 
these places, where we were obliged 
to cross the river in boats in order to 
reach the grottoes, that we saw the 
overloaded skiff capsized that bore 
among others M. d'Omalius and 
Mile. Royer. The apostle of wo- 
man's emancipation clung with shrill 
screams to the neck of a small gen- 
tleman, her chevalier servant for the 
time, and, when she found a footing 
with the water up to her chin, she 
contributed somewhat to save her as- 



The See of Peter. 647 

sistant by keeping his head out of fantastically beautiful than that im- 
\vater a fine opportunity for quot- mense panorama bathed in the pur- 
ing La Fontaine, with a kind varia- pie light of the setting sun. The 
tion : "That is nothing; it is not a visitors, under the guidance of M. 
woman that is drowning." The non- Dupont, had been through all the 
agenarian president of the congress principal caverns described in his 
was taken out safe and sound, and it book. His learned explanations were 
was with extreme difficulty he was greatly relished, and added a keen 
induced to change his chaussures, but interest to an excursion of which the 
nothing could prevail upon him to unexpected and the amusing had 
accept dry garments. Happily, the heightened the charm. We will not 
weather was superb, and the ship- speak of the banquet that crowned so 
wrecked travellers could get dry in delightful a day, or of the ovations 
the sun. that were lavished on the savants and 
We returned by way of the pla- others. For such details, we refer 
teaux that overlook the valley, you to the newspapers that published 
Nothing could be imagined more the reports. 



TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT NUMBER. 



THE SEE OF PETER. 

NOT unto hirelings, Prince of Shepherds, leave 
This distant flock. The wolf, long kept at bay, 
No longer in sheep's clothing seeks its prey, 
Nor prowls at midnight round the fold's low eave, 
Its weak, unwary victim to deceive ; 
But rampant in the flock at noon of day, 
Careering leaps, to scatter, mangle, slay, 
While from afar the banished shepherds grieve. 
How long must sycophants wax blandly wise, 
And meek-faced aspirants rebuke the cries 
Of outraged faith ! On Peter, " Feed my sheep, 
My young lambs feed," the charge benignant lies, 
And we whose vigils cheat the night of sleep, 
On Peter, still, calm eyes expectant keep. 



648 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage, 



ATLANTIC DRIFT GATHERED IN THE STEERAGE. 



BY AN EMIGRANT. 



To most of the sons and daughters 
of Columbia the few days they pass 
in returning from the Old Country 
represent but a period of wearisome 
delay an interval sometimes nau- 
seous and always irksome between 
the pleasures of travel and those of 
their own fireside, passed perhaps in 
recollection of the pleasures of Paris, 
the classic grandeurs of the Eternal 
City, or the picturesque beauties of 
Switzerland and the Rhine ; not un- 
frequently, perhaps, by our belles, 
whose elegance and social value 
have received their last gilding 
in the grand tour of Europe, in an- 
ticipation of the effect of their cos- 
tumes at Newport or Saratoga, or of 
their adventures and experiences in 
the great circle of their country 
friends. All that wealth and skill 
can do is lavished on the accommoda- 
tions of ocean steamers, and nothing 
is spared to make the traveller inde- 
pendent of the caprice or ill-temper 
of the watery god; and nowadays 
a passage from the Mersey to our 
Empire City is to the ordinary pas- 
senger almost as comfortable and 
quite as devoid of unusual interest as 
a sojourn of so many days at the St. 
Nicholas or the Fifth Avenue. There 
is, however, another class of voyagers 
whose hard-earned savings form the 
staple of the receipts of the owners 
of these splendid vessels; they 
usually belong to a sphere where 
literature hardly penetrates and 
whence come few who wield a ready 
pen; hence perhaps the general 
ignorance that seems to prevail as to 
their treatment and accommodation. 
The cabin passenger sees them only 



in squalid groups, encumbering the 
decks of the great ship, beyond the 
middle enclosure reserved to the 
saloon ; and if he dives into the close 
and half-lit steerage, a very brief 
glance round its dim precincts satis- 
fies his curiosity. Believing, how- 
ever, that many of our adopted 
countrymen will feel some interest in 
knowing how the great army of emi- 
grants who flock in hundreds of 
thousands to our shores fare on their 
ocean transit, one of us lifts a voice 
from the steerage to relate some of 
the realities of life in an emigrant 
ship. Naught have we extenuated 
or aught set down in malice, and, 
such as it is, our little narrative is a 
true history of personal and actual 
experience. 

To the reader it matters little what 
ill-fortune cast from his quiet anchor- 
age a London clerk who had already 
seen three decades, and whose life 
had hitherto run in the tranquil 
groove of uniform official duty, suf- 
ficiently well remunerated to furnish 
the comforts of a middle-class Eng- 
lish home. Unable to regain a 
similar position in his native land, he 
goes to seek his fortune in the West, 
and, thither wending, finds himself in 
the steerage of one of our principal 
ocean steamers. Candor requires 
this avowal, for those interested in 
the great liners think they dispose of 
the numerous complaints as to their 
treatment of their emigrant passen- 
gers, by retorting that they provide 
for the working- classes, and not for 
clerks out of place or penniless gen- 
tlemen. Hence what is here stated 
as to their discomfort deals not with 









Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 649 

the writer's own feelings, but speaks can, soup-basin, plate, tea-cup, or 

of what he saw endured by others, wash hand-basin, while a few com- 

and he gives voice not merely to his fort-loving people, more frequently, 

own opinions, but to the sentiments however, in the after or family steer- 

of the mechanics, artisans, and farm age than in our bachelor quarters, 

laborers who were his fellow- carried heavy loads of comfortable 

voyagers. bedding and neatly-arranged baskets 

Every emigrant has to provide of table-ware. 

himself with bedding, plate, basin, Nearly all this apparatus of bed- 
drinking and water can, and a knife ding and tin-ware is thrown over- 
and fork. Our first experience of board or given to the crew when the 
emigrant life consisted in the pur- vessel arrives at its destination; only 
chase of these articles at a Liverpool the frugal Germans carefully preserve 
slop-shop ; some ten shillings cov- their vessels, and, shaking out its. 
ered the entire outlay, except for the straw or moss contents, preserve the 
blanket, the most indispensable of ticking of the bed either as a wrap- 
all; for this purpose, the dealer per- ping for their baggage or some ul- 
suaded us to buy a horse-rug, which terior purpose. It certainly seems 
he solemnly assured us was worth strange that an expenditure of from 
double the money across the Atlan- two to three hundred pounds should 
tic : as a copy of the Times would be incurred by every ship-load of 
give about as much warmth and emigrants for articles of such brief 
shelter as the common covering sold utility. Could not this outlay be 
with the bed, we fnvested in it. An converted to the benefit of the ship- 
addition to our comfort it certainly owners by the .permanent provision 
has been in the bunk, and in the long of requisites of this description at a 
nights in the emigrant trains, and it moderate charge ? 
still remains our property ; no market The great landing stage at Liver- 
have we been able to discover for the pool on the morning of our embark- 
article, and we conclude that a cer- ation was crowded with some two 
tain spice of Americanism had com- thousand persons the passengers of 
municated itself to the mercantile three mail steamers, their friends, and 
mind of the seller. Many of the in- the swarm of porters, carters, and 
mates of our steerage dispensed with pedlers in attendance on them, 
all or most of these domestic uten- Everything was confusion ; here mo- 
sils. One gentleman's luggage, thers seeking a stray little one, there 
whose world-wide travels we may the husband anxiously gathering to- 
hereafter refer to, consisted of a gether his motley property of boxes, 
limited brown-paper parcel; in his bedding, cans, baskets, and packages 
subsequent oceanic career his Irish of every description, as they were 
suavity usually procured him the roughly tossed out of the cart from 
loan of one of the tins of an acquain- some boarding-house. The boxes had 
tance; that failing, he borrowed to be placed in one tender, the passen- 
any neighboring utensil whose owner gers and lighter luggage in another ; 
was not for the moment at hand ; or, porters drove greedy bargains with 
driven to his last resource, abjured females helplessly encumbered with 
coffee or soup and ate his portion of immovable boxes. Women with bas- 
meat on a piece of brown paper, kets full of articles for sale combs 
Some had but one vessel which and brushes, knives, scissors, and 
served indifferently for a drinking- soap pushed their way here and 



650 Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 

there. To single men, careful of to the satisfaction of the more fortu- 

small change, it was a problem how nate. 

to move the box or trunk in one di- Arrived at last on our floating 
rection and yet secure the safety of home for the coming fortnight, we 
the other articles while doing so. We pushed our way into the steerages to 
despaired of solving the problem, find our berths and enter into pos- 
and trusted to the honesty of a badge session: and here let us try to de- 
porter, who undertook for sixpence scribe. The steamer was a mag- 
to place our box on the luggage ten- nificent vessel, advertised to be of 
der; afterwards, nervous as to the 3,700 tons, and celebrated for the 
actual presence there of our little all, luxury of her saloon accommodation 
we spent two weary hours in watching and her almost unrivalled speed 
the baggage discharged into the hold, qualities, as experience taught us, at- 
A thousand trunks and chests of tained somewhat at the expense of 
every conceivable size, shape, color, the comfort of her emigrant passen- 
and dimensions passed down the gers. Right aft the forecastle or for- 
hatchway before us handsome ward part of the deck was roofed 
American boxes, ribbed and gay over with what sailors call a whale- 
with bright nails ; immense iron- back, to the entrance of the forward 
bound chests of unpainted deal, con- steerage ; a small deck house, with 
taining the whole household goods of doors on each side, and on one 
some Swedish or Norwegian family, side a small closet with a half 
directed in quaint letters to some far- door and a few racks for clothes 
off town in Minnesota or Wisconsin ; served as a deck bar; behind it, that 
flimsy papered trunks, with sides al- is, towards the stern, was the forward 
ready creaking and gaping, threaten- fresh water pump ; walking still 
ing to disgorge their finery before they sternwards, we next encounter an- 
touch the ground in Castle Garden ; other small house containing the 
and German packs of strong ticking wash-house for the forward steerage, 
or canvas about the size of a small entered from below, and two or three 
haystack and, with a sigh of relief, cabins for some of the officers or petty 
we at last saw our property shot with officers opening on the deck ; on one 
a crash into the hold. Nearly two side of this was a hot water tap ; a 
long hours did we spend on the open few feet further is the main deck 
stage under a drizzling rain, that house, extending about half the 
soaked the beds and blankets before length of the ship ; in the street-like 
the tenders moored alongside; then passages between its sides and the 
all made for the gangways, tugging bulwarks open iron railings in our 
their luggage with them ; produced vessel are the doors to the galleys, 
their tickets as they passed on, and boilers, engine-rooms, officers' berths, 
pushed, tumbled, and scrambled pell- and saloon, which, unlike most other 
mell on board ; a similar scene was steamships, is in this situated amid- 
enacted at the steamer's side; and ships; from the saloon a handsome 
when at last we reached her spacious double staircase led on to the deck 
decks we felt like soldiers passed un- above, which, however, like the tops of 
scathed through some hard-fought all the other deck houses, was tabooed 
field ; not all unscathed, however ; a ground to the emigrants. At the end 
considerable number of missing tins, of the main deck house was the en- 
blankets, and even beds attested the trance to the forward or sternmost 
severity of the struggle and gave zest steerage, and at the side of it the 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 651 

after fresh water pump; still further our two stewards sleep; and at the 

aft another deck house contained the other or after end a narrow flight of 

wash-house belonging to this steer- steps leads up to the wash-house on 

age, and, as in case of the forward deck. The main deck is lighted only 

steerage, entered from below, and by the stairs and the hatchway ; when 

one or two officers' berths, and pro- the wooden grating covering the lat- 

vided outside with a second hot wa- ter is in its place, it is dim ; when it 

ter tap ; still further, the stern deck is covered with tarpaulin to prevent 

house contained the wheel house, the entrance of the rain or spray, too 

with the engine for working the rud- dark to see. We have still another 

der, the butcher's shop, ice and meat flight of steps to descend to reach the 

house, and vegetable storehouse ; cavernous abyss of the steerage itself, 

and between its semicircular end and which is situated between-decks ; 

the bulwark round the stern ran a low when our eyes grow accustomed to 

gallery, always considered among us the obscurity, we see a central open 

as the most desirable place to settle space about ten feet wide, running 

for the day. We were free to ram- from end to end ; in this are three nar- 

ble or squat ourselves on the deck row wooden tables with benches, two 

where we listed, except the extreme lengthwise and one crosswise, each 

forecastle forward of the entrance to capable of seating about twenty peo- 

the sailors' cabin ; there an incautious pie ; on each side are the bunks, 

intruder paid his footing with the reaching to the roof, entered by nar- 

penalty of a bottle or two of beer to row streets or passages leading off on 

the nearest sailor who could catch either hand, and again benches in 

him. Under the whaleback, also, the central space all round the outer 

either by custom or some rule of the side of the bunks, 

ship, was forbidden ground to chil- Each street of bunks contained 

dren or the fair sex, and always the twenty upper and lower rows of five 

chosen resort of old hands who liked each, on either hand; the inmates, 

to smoke a quiet pipe sheltered from therefore, lay side by side, parallel 

the wind, chat with those of the crew with the ship's length, with their feet 

who were off duty, and be comfort- to their own street, and their heads 

ably near the deck bar. adjoining those of their neighbors in 

Enter the forward or bachelors' the adjoining street. The bunks 

steerage the after one being re- themselves consisted simply of 

served to married couples and single shelves of unpainted boards, with an 

women ; leaving the bright day, we opening of about an inch between 

can hardly distinguish the objects in each, and were about six feet and a 

the dim light, and feel our way down half wide, and divided into the 

the first flight of steps; this brings us spaces for each bunk, and fenced at 

on the main deck; here it is not open the foot by upright boards about a 

to the sides of the ship, along which foot high ; in short, an emigrant's 

run the berths of the saloon passen- bunk means a slightly fenced off 

gers. Entered from the saloons at space of hard board rather more than 

the fore part, where they terminate by six feet by two. The lower row are 

the hospital, two neat rooms, each about two feet from the ground ; the 

with three or four bunks with bed- upper about three feet above the 

ding, wash-basins, etc., similar to lower, and the same distance from 

those of a saloon berth, and in one the roof. They are not attached to 

of which, in the absence of patients, the side of the ship, but to a frame- 



652 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 



work a few inches from it, the in- 
terstices of which served to stow hats 
or tins. Inside this coffinlike area 
of the bunks you stow bed, bedding, 
cans, and all smaller impedimenta, 
while such boxes as found their way 
down are pushed under the lower 
berths, piled in corners of the central 
space, or serve in the streets as seats 
or footsteps to the upper berths. In 
our steamer the bunks seemed to 
have been just put up ; they were 
free from vermin, the timbers had 
nothing dirtier about them than saw- 
dust ; indeed, as we believe, the num- 
ber of steerage passengers who cross 
eastwards is much less than in the 
other direction, the greater part of 
the boards are often knocked down 
on the ship's arrival in New York, 
and the steerage filled with cargo, 
and then re-erected when she is again 
prepared for the westward trip. The 
berths next to the central space were 
the most in request, on account of 
their being nearer the fresh air, and 
the lower range everywhere objected 
to ; but nearly all the tickets had a 
number affixed, and no liberty of 
choice was permitted. Ours was in 
the upper berth in one corner, and 
consequently very far removed from 
any ventilation; as a slight com- 
pensation, being next to the side of 
the ship, we could look through the 
little window over the surging water, 
with which it was almost level and 
frequently covered. The gaps be- 
tween the planks were very annoy- 
ing, as small articles readily fell 
through them, and if they fell be- 
neath the lower range it was too 
dark and the space too narrow to 
readily recover them. From about 
nine till twelve every day the steer- 
age was closed, all the inmates sent 
on deck, and the floor brushed and 
laid down with fresh sawdust; this 
process,we think, was confined to. the 
central space and the streets, and did 



not extend to the spaces underneath 
the bunks ; and it was daily inspect- 
ed or supposed to be inspected by 
one of the doctors, of whom there 
were two on board. 

The wash-house to the forward 
steerage was of decent size, with tiled 
floor, and contained eight closet 
pans, five wash hand-basins, each 
with a tap of cold water and one 
with a hot water tap, and four sinks, 
also with salt water taps : putting 
aside the absence of any privacy, the 
arrangements were suitable, and the 
fittings generally clean ; but, as in so 
many other instances, the careless- 
ness or inattention of the crew made 
the admirable equipments of the ship 
almost useless. Except early in the 
morning there was rarely any water 
in the taps, and in the hot water 
cistern, which also supplied the hot- 
water tap outside, often none for two 
or three days : the engineer, the 
steward told us, would not waste the 
steam by putting his cistern into 
communication with the boilers ; and 
then often, when turned on, the tap 
poured out so much more hot steam 
than water that one was likely rather 
to get scalded hands than a full can. 

The after-steerage was similar in 
character to that of the single men, 
but much larger, occupying both the 
main and between-decks ; the mar- 
ried men and women slept on one 
side, the single women on the other ; 
their privacy being supposed to be 
secured by a canvas curtain let down 
at night the whole length of the ca- 
bin. In the other lines, we believe the 
men and women, married or single, 
are quite separated, but ours put it 
forward as one of their attractions 
that husbands and wives are berthed 
together ; as this simply means that 
their bunks are allotted side by side, 
the wife is really no more berthed 
with her own husband than with the 
spouse of her next neighbor. Many 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 653 

of the more respectable women com- for their dinner or tea. Of all the 
plained much of being misled by the articles of diet the warm fresh bread 
announcement, and of their being every morning was decidedly the 
unable to undress to rest during the favorite, and any shortcoming in its 
whole of the voyage, as they might supply more resented than any other 
have done if a cabin had been really infliction ; both in size and quality 
and exclusively reserved for children the loaves varied very much accord- 
and females. To the 'after steerage ing to the caprice of the bakers, but 
two wash-houses were attached, one they were generally good. Great 
for the women with closed private pyramids of butter were placed in 
closets, and one for the men similar tins on the tables; most of the men 
to ours. would not eat it on account of its 
The routine of one day's life may tallow-like flavor; for our own part, on 
serve for all. As the mornings were obtaining our coffee and bread, we cut 
generally damp and chilly, like most the latter open, put a lump of butter 
in our steerage we slept till towards to melt inside, and pressed it together 
eight o'clock, and did not rise till to distribute it equally as it melted, 
breakfast was announced ; as dress- and then proceeded on deck, and 
ing consisted in knocking off the rugs under the influence of the keen sea 
and donning coat, waistcoat, and air rarely failed to eat with a good 
boots, it was not a long process; then appetite this not very luxurious fare 
we scramble down into our street, in some quiet corner out of the wind, 
seize our can and wait ; in our cor. After breakfast, warmed with the 
ner we are too for removed from the steaming coffee, we obtained a can 
tables which would not seat half the full of fresh water from the pump, 
number the cabin contains to try to produced the toilet requisites from 
obtain seats at them ; so we sit in our satchel, and in one corner of our 
the bunks on the chests in our street, street performed our ablutions ; we 
or stand till the steward comes round always took as near an approach to 
to the entrance, and sings out, " Who a sponge-bath as circumstances per- 
is for coffee ?" Each holds out or mitted, and found the practice more 
passes on his can, and he ladles into refreshing even than sleep. Though 
it about a pint of a boiling hot decoc- the steward never interfered with me, 
tion, sweetened but without milk, it was, however, we believe, against 
and bearing a distant but still, recog- the rules to wash elsewhere than in the 
nizable relationship to the article one wash-house, or to use fresh water for 
had hitherto known under the name, the purpose. The first day or two 
A few minutes afterwards he comes we had to wash in the wash-house 
round with the fresh bread, and over before breakfast, but the crowd there 
its distribution there were always for various purposes was so great and 
much squabbling and bad language, there was so little convenience for 
partly because the bakers disliked the putting down the different articles 
trouble of baking more than the that we gave it up ; and after breakfast 
strictly necessary quantity, and were there was rarely water for the pur- 
given to restricting both the number pose. 

and size of the loaves, and partly The decks always presented a 

because many could neither eat the more crowded and busy appearance 

waxy potatoes nor hard sea-biscuits ; in the forenoon than in any other 

so that all sorts of tricks were re- period of the day ; the steerages were 

sorted to to secure additional loaves empty, and all their inmates perforce 



654 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 



on deck, huddled here and there, 
wherever the deck houses offer shel- 
ter from the winds, in compact groups 
three or four deep. The German and 
Scandinavian mothers perform the ab- 
lutions of their numerous families de- 
liberately and in public an amusing, 
if to some disgusting, process ; first, 
the white-headed urchin is held be- 
tween his mother's or perhaps his 
eldest sister's knees, and his poll care- 
fully and methodically examined with 
the fingers not a comb, and any 
strangers summarily executed. Then 
he is taken to the scuppers by the 
side of the ship, his head held over a 
tin of hot water and lathered till he 
is red in the face and his eyes full 
of soap ; then washed and taken 
back again, his head combed down 
into smoothness, and released for the 
day with a weight off his mind, the 
process being varied in the case of a 
little girl by the plaiting of her long 
flaxen locks into ribbon-adorned 
tails. The majority, however, treated 
their abode on shipboard as a time 
when the ordinary rules of civilized 
life were temporarily suspended, and 
eschewed washing, shaving, and all 
the vanities of dress until they agam 
felt themselves on terra firma. 

Dinner took place at twelve ; we 
mustered as for breakfast, but with a 
more careful marshalling of cans, for 
two, if not three, were necessary, and 
a sharp watch was requisite to pre- 
vent some hungry but tireless prowl- 
er from summarily appropriating the 
nearest ware ; first came the soup, 
dealt out as the coffee at breakfast 
a hot compound with a faint reminis- 
cence of gravy and mutton bones, 
some grains of barley, and fragments 
of celery and cabbage; sometimes, 
instead, a thick mixture of ground 
peas ; such as it was, with plenty of 
salt which one of our street usually 
fetched from the table for the general 
benefit, it was the most reliable part 



of the dinner; it was always drink- 
able, and many came down to obtain 
it who would taste no other article 
provided by the ship beyond the soup 
and bread. Next came the meat, cut 
up into chunks in an immense tin, 
and shovelled out by the steward 
with a saucer on to the tin plates. 
Sometimes it was eatable ; say, per- 
haps, on five out of the ten days a 
hungry stomach and a stern will 
could manage it ; and once or twice 
we had fresh beef as good, allowing 
for the roughness with which it was 
served, as any one could desire ; the 
salt junk and salt fish, however and 
the latter, in deference to the feelings 
of the Catholic passengers, always 
appeared on Friday were vile ; the 
junk could not be cut with a knife, 
and had to be torn into shreds along 
the grain, while the fish in taste and 
smell was simply abominable. 

The potatoes were one of our stand- 
ing grievances ; as there were but 
two stewards to assist some hundred 
and sixty people, they had to form a 
course of themselves, or the meat got 
cold while waiting for them ; and in- 
stead of being boiled, they were 
steamed by some hasty process into 
the taste and consistency of a tallow 
candle. To the natives of the Emer- 
ald Isle, accustomed to consider their 
potato the piece de resistance of their 
humble fare, this misusage of their 
favorite food was particularly aggra- 
vating, and their complaints were 
loud and endless. Boiled rice was 
generally served after the potatoes 
with coarse sugar or treacle ; as long 
as the latter lasted it was palatable, 
but the sweetening generally bore the 
same relation to the rice as did Fal- 
staff's bread to his sack, and our inge- 
nuity had to be taxed to procure a 
double or treble allowance of the 
sugar by changing places while the 
serving took place or holding the 
plate over the shoulders of the stew- 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 655 

ard who carried it. On Sundays rate order they were unassailable, 
plum duff, a heavy pudding pretty As a souvenir, we pocketed a couple 
liberally supplied with raisins, was on leaving the ship, and as we 
dealt out, and to stomachs accus- munched them on the following 
tomed to steerage fare seemed some- night on the platform of the emigrant 
thing faintly approaching the luxuries car jolting along the side of the 
of the table appropriate to the day. broad and mist-clad Hudson, hoped 
The tea, which took place at five, that Dame Fortune -would never 
may be dismissed in two words : taste reduce us in the Far West to more 
it had none, and its smell was beast- unpalatable fare, 
ly; however, it was always boiling On the whole, it was possible to 
hot, and in the cold, damp evenings subsist on the ship's provisions, par- 
any thing warming was grateful, ticularly when the transit was re- 
With it we had biscuits and butter. garded in a purgatorial or penitential 
Without a detailed notice of that sense ; and that statement, too, must 
indispensable and omnipresent article be qualified by the admission of the 
the sea-biscuit, any account of our necessity of malt liquor : without 
food would be incomplete; a barrel two or three bottles of beer or porter 
of them always stood at the head of a day, we could not have survived ; 
the staircase on the main deck, and they served as a tonic, which made 
any one could help himself as often greasy meat digestible, and biscuits 
and as liberally as he thought proper; possible to swallow; few, however, 
they formed our sole fare at tea, and lived entirely on the steerage fare, 
our dernier ressort, when the dinner nor must it be supposed that the 
was, as it usually was every other grumblers or discontented were gen- 
day, altogether uneatable. More for- erally those who had, as it is termed, 
tunate than most of our fellow-pas- seen better days. Men of that class 
sengers, we could combine recreation were slow to complain, because igno- 
and humble fare by gnawing at their rant of what they ought to tolerate 
hard sides. Of wooden consistency or endure in their altered circum- 
they certainly were ; to make any stances. It was the well-to-do arti- 
impression on their hard edges it was sans or workingmen who showed 
necessary first to break them with a the greatest disgust and were the 
smart blow of the fist, put a piece be- bitterest in their complaints. Many 
tween two sound molars, shut your families were provided with well- 
eyes, hold fast to one of the stanch- filled baskets of good bread, ham, 
ions of the bulwarks, and bring your and bottles of preserves, and had 
jaws together with a determined and their own store of tea and sugar, for 
persevering grind ! The result, to which they obtained hot water from 
our taste, was not unsatisfactory ; the galley ; while others bought the 
they were perfectly sweet, and when whole of their food, 
once pulverized not ill tasted ; and on Buying, begging, and stealing food 
several occasions, when we found the was one of the most interesting and 
other provisions inedible, two or to some the most engrossing of occu- 
three biscuits, washed down with a pations ; it required a little money, a 
bottle of porter, served us for a tol- deal of diplomacy, and very harden- 
erable meal. Few, however, shared ed feelings, and was accomplished in 
our liking or would touch them, ex- very various ways. At the commence- 
cept at the last extremity, and by ment of the voyage, little cliques were 
those whose teeth were not in first- formed of four or five people, who 



656 Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 

made up a purse of two or three were the experienced travellers among 
pounds for one of the cabin stewards, us of this want that fresh fruit general- 
who in return sold to or stole for ly occupied a large space in their 
them a regular supply of cabin pro- well-stuffed baskets. We had only the 
visions ; we were asked to join a little slender resource of pulling pieces of 
party of this sort, but declined; nor celery through the grating of the 
did we observe much of their subse- vegetable store, peeling them and 
quent fortune, except that they pro- eating them as an addendum to the 
fessed to have plenty of good food, coffee and bread of our breakfast, 
and seemed to spend most of their Unfortunately either the demand .for 
time in watching for the opportunity that cool vegetable was unexpectedly 
when their steward could safely con- great in the saloon, or we emigrants 
vey it to them ; others peeled pota- were too successful in extracting it 
toes or apples and carried water for through the bars of the always open 
the galleys, and got fed in return ; store ; for before the voyage was 
some reduced it to a system, bought half over the supply was exhausted, 
meat from the butchers, and got it we then had raw carrots and onions 
cooked in the galley, or, for a consid- from the same source, but the result 
eration, got liberty to go in at an was not satisfactory, 
idle time and cooked it themselves; Many of the passengers who had 
the ordinary way, however, was to no money suffered much from their 
buy a bottle of beer at our deck-bar, inability to cope with our daily fate, 
hand it in to one of the cooks with a One young man of about twenty-two 
tin, and ask him to give you some- or three years of age particularly at- 
thing, the best time being immediate- tracted our attention. Short and 
ly after breakfast, when the hot scouse slight, of perfectly gentlemanly man- 
or Irish stew far better food than ners and quiet address, he had little 
any provided for us was served out of the typical American about him, 
for the sailors' breakfast, or after the though as we afterwards learned from 
saloon dinner ; you then slunk about himself he belonged to a Western 
the galley door, cursed for being in family engaged in commerce and of 
their way by all the cooks except the considerable means. Some strange 
recipient of the beer, until that gen- star must have presided over his birth, 
tleman saw the head cook or chief for he had the rarest of all disposi- 
steward out of the way, filled the tin tions in the New World, a dislike to 
with anything at hand generally traffic and money-making, and an 
scouse in the morning, cold beef and unconquerable yearning for a life of 
chicken in the evening shoved it literary labor. He was returning west- 
under your coat, and told you to clear ward after residing in Dresden and 
out instantly. One's feelings suffered Florence, full of enthusiasm for 
much in this process ; but a few days Goethe and Schiller, Tasso and 
of steerage fare blunt the sensibilities Dante, and proudly conscious of a 
and whet the animal appetite to an vocation himself as a dramatic poet, 
extent that requires to be experienced He had shot, he said, in the lakes of 
to be appreciated. Minnesota, hunted in the Adiron- 
Another want that is keenly felt in dacks, become familiar with the most 
consequence of the salt food and dry beautiful and intellectual of the Eu- 
biscuit is that of something green or ropean capitals, and now -felt that 
succulent. One craves an apple or an his endowment for his career was 
orange or lemon; and so well aware enriched by the novel experiences 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 657 

of the steerage of an emigrant emigrant ship with an empty pocket, 
ship. Fine conceptions, except per- is one of those phases of existence 
haps among saints or hermits, do which he will never voluntarily again 
not thrive on an empty stomach. investigate. Another instance of suf- 
Our poet looked daily more pallid fering was that of an Englishman 
and spiritless. He listened uninter- a quiet-visaged, silent man, past 
estedly to everything except pros- middle age, whose velveteen coat 
pects of better fare or prophecies of and corduroy trowsers bespoke 
the speedy diminution of the irksome him a ploughman or gamekeeper 
voyage. One night one of the cooks from some Old World country 
in the emigrant galley gave us a tin neighborhood. He had with him 
crammed to overflowing with frag- his little daughter, a fair-haired, 
ments of meat and fowl, and, addi- sweet-faced little girl of about twelve, . 
tionally armed with a bottle of por- genteelly dressed. Neither he nor 
ter and a biscuit, we had settled in his child could eat the ship's food,., 
a quiet leeward corner to make a and the little girl used to sit all day- 
hearty supper, when we thought of the quietly pining by her father's side, 
famishing poet. We found him tend- They met, however, worse fortune on 
ing a little singing-bird he was taking shore. Bound to some town in 
out with him, and invited him to Ohio, he was apparently ignorant 
share our meal; and the enjoyment that a long journey separated it from 
with which he ate the broken meat their landing-place, and landed in 
a biscuit serving for a plate, and a Castle Garden penniless. Too shy 
clasp-knife for an instrument was or too proud to beg, the man and his 
quite refreshing. We took- alternate little girl starved for a day, until 
pulls at the porter, and felt pleased some fellow-passenger accidentally 
with ourselves and the world. His found out their condition and sup- 
inner man refreshed, our poet became plied them with food, 
another person. The charm of his No account of a sea voyage would 
conversation well repaid our little be faithful without noticing the dread 
sacrifice, and we talked art and malady, the sufferings of which form 
literature, music and the drama, until the traveller's introduction to the 
the loneliness of the deck, the chill domain of Neptune : but it is a life 
night breeze, and the bright moon over which we must perforce draw a 
mounted high in the star-spangled veil. To the voyager who has a 
heaven warned us of the approach comfortable berth, every convenience 
of midnight. A few hours after we that wealth can produce, attentive 
had landed in New York, we met our stewards, and the command of each 
poet in Broadway, in all the ele- luxury that his fancy or fears can 
gance of clean raiment, and happily suggest, the horrors of sea-sickness 
conscious of a well-lined purse, are sufficiently nauseous. What they 
Though our rough garb assorted ill are in the steerage of an emigrant 
with his gentility, he insisted on our ship, where your pangs are intensi- 
drinking glasses together to the fied by the maladies and filth, the 
memory of our meeting. As we groans and curses, of some scores of 
drank, he expatiated on the advan- other victims, can be better imagined 
tages of a varied experience of the than described; it is too disgusting, 
many-sided life of our poor human- For the first two or three days, to 
ity. Nevertheless, we opine, to cross eye, ear, and nose our steerage was 
the Atlantic in the steerage of an insufferable; there was no remedy 
VOL. xvi. 42 



6 5 8 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



but to avoid it as much as possible, 
and either abandon the meals alto- 
gether, or rush down, snatch a hasty 
portion of whatever came nearest to 
hand, and beat a hasty retreat to the 
fresh air of the deck before your ris- 
ing gorge added you to the ranks of 
the inconsolable. 

But this rough initiation had its 
practical advantage. Many of the 
younger passengers of the better 
class at the commencement of their 
voyage endeavored to keep up ap- 
pearances in spite of all difficulties, 
and to present themselves on deck 
fresh from a careful toilette and in all 



the neatness of clean linen and well- 
arranged dress ; but, when they had 
once succumbed to the qualms of the 
malady, their vanity went overboard. 
Languid and weary, they crowded on 
deck, unwashed and uncombed, muf- 
fled in a waterproof, or huddled in 
twos and threes in a corner in the 
warm folds of a blanket or horse- 
rug ; and as their spirits revived they 
thought no more of struggling against 
adverse circumstances, and were con- 
tent to " peg along " (pardon, kind 
reader, the expression) until their 
feminine instincts revived at the wel- 
come sight of the wished-for land. 



TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT NUMBER. 



A DAUGHTER OF S. DOMINIC. 



IF she had been condemned to 
have her life written, and been given 
the choice of a name under which to 
appear before the world, this would 
probably have been the one she 
would have taken. But who could 
have persuaded the humble child of 
the grand S. Dominic that such a 
fate was in store for her, or induced 
her humility to accept it ? Well, it 
matters little to her now whether men 
speak of her or for her, she is alike 
beyond the reach of their hollow 
praise and their jealous criticism. 
But to us it matters much. The 
teaching of such a life as Amelie 
Lautard's is too precious to be lost; 
it is a lesson to be sought out and 
hearkened to, for it is full of beauty, 
and light, and encouragement to 
those whom she has left behind. 

Amelie was bom at Marseilles on 
the 1 2th of April, 1807. Her father 
was a medical man, eminent in his 



profession, an honorable man, and a 
good Christian. She lost her mother 
at the age of seventeen. Early in life 
she met with an accident which injured 
her spine so seriously as to render 
her by degrees quite humpbacked; 
the progress of the deformity was 
slow and very gradual, but even 
when it had grown to its worst it 
never looked grotesque or repulsive, 
nor did it, strange to say, take away 
from the singular dignity of her ap- 
pearance or from the grace of her 
movements. In person she was tall 
and dark, not handsome, though her 
features had so much charm 'and ex- 
pression that most people considered 
her so. Her intelligence was of a 
very high order, and pre-eminently 
endowed with that delightful and un- 
translatable gift called esprit. From 
her earliest childhood she began to 
develop an angelic spirit of piety and 
a sensitiveness to the sufferings of 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 659 

others that is generally the outgrowth holiest and purest of natural ties, 
of maturer years. The sufferings of She had long been a member of the 
the poor claimed her pity especially, Third Order of S. Dominic, to 
but not exclusively. The range of whom from her childhood she had 
her sympathies was wide enough to had a great devotion. To her pre- 
embrace every kind* and degree of vious vow of virginity she now added 
sorrow that came within her know- a vow of poverty, which, in the midst 
ledge. This characteristic of her of abundance, she observed rigorous- 
charity, as rare as it is attractive, may ly to the end of her life. Dr. Lau- 
be considered as the keynote of her tard, knowing her propensities, and 
life, and explains, humanly speaking, suspecting rightly that, if her fortune 
the extraordinary influence she exer- were left completely in her own pow- 
cised over all classes indiscriminately, er, she would despoil herself of every- 

After her mother's death Amelie thing and leave herself without the 

became the chief delight and interest means of subsistence, tied it up in an- 

of her father, and she repaid his ten- nuities which could not be alienated, 

derness by the most absolute devo- But while binding herself henceforth 

tion. Offers of marriage were not to the practice of the most rigid aus- 

wanting for the accomplished and terities, Amelie did not break off from 

spirituclle young lady, but Amelie her accustomed intercourse with her 

turned a deaf ear to them all ; filial friends. She continued to receive 

duty as much as filial love had them as hitherto in her father's house, 

wedded her to her father, and shede- Dr. Lautard used to say that hospi- 

clared her intention never to sepa- tality was a virtue which it behooved 

rate from him, or let any other love Christians living in the world to ex- 

and duty come between those she had ercise towards each other, and he 

vowed unreservedly to him. It was imbued Amelie with the same idea, 

probably at this period of her life Mindful of his precepts and example, 

that she bound herself exclusively to she went on inviting her friends, and 

the service of God by a vow of per- enjoyed having them with her, and 

petual virginity. surrounding them with attentions and 

During many years Dr. Lautard's seeing them well and hospitably 
health was such as to require con- served ; at table she endeavored to 
stant and unremitting care. Amelie disguise her own abstinence under a 
nursed him with the tenderest affec- semblance of eating, or would some- 
tion, never allowing her devotions or times apologize on the plea of her 
her work amongst the poor to inter- health, which had always been ex- 
fere with her first duty to him. He tremely delicate, for not setting them 
expired in her arms, blessing her and a good example, 
declaring that she had been the Some rigid persons, unable to 
model of filial piety, the joy and reconcile this frank and genial socia- 
solace of his widowhood. Amelie bility with the crucifying life of pen- 
generously made the sacrifice of this ance and prayer and unremitting 
one great affection to God, she drank service of the poor and the sick which 
the chalice with a broken heart, but Amelie led, ventured to remonstrate 
with an unmurmuring spirit, and en- with her on the subject. She replied 
tered bravely on the new life that with unruffled humility that it was a 
was before her. Hers was to be the pleasure to her to continue to culti- 
mission of an apostle, and s*he must vate the friendships contracted for 
go forth to it unshackled by even the her and bequeathed to her by her 



660 A Daughter of S. Dominic. 

father, and tnat she felt satisfied there tinguished men delighted in it, and 
was nothing wrong in her doing so, flocked to the Rue Grignan, count- 
and that it did neither her nor them ing k a privilege to be invited to its 
any harm ; on the contrary, hospi- unpretending hospitalities. Amongst 
tality was often a means to her of the many illustrious men who ad- 
doing good; a worldly man or wo- mired Am elie's esprit and virtues and 
man who would fly from her if she who courted her co-operation in their 
approached them with a sermon, apostolic labors, one of the most 
accepted an invitation to dinner prominent was the Pere Lacordaire. 
without fear or arriere-pensee, thus The history of their first work in 
enabling her to bring them under common deserves special record, not 
desirable influences in a way that only because of its being associated 
awoke no suspicion and roused no with " the cowled orator of France," 
antagonism, and often led to the but because it is peculiarly identified 
most salutary results ; a friendly din- with the history of Provence, that 
ner was, moreover, not unfrequently land so dear to us all as the birth- 
an opportunity of bringing people place and cradle of the devotion to 
together and reconciling those who S. Joseph. " Beautiful Provence ! 
were at variance; in fact, Amelie It rose up in the west from your de- 
pleaded so convincingly the cause of lightful land like the cloud of deli- 
Christian hospitality as it was prac- cate almond blossoms that seems to 
tised in the Rue Grignan, that the float and shine between heaven and 
critics withdrew thoroughly con- earth over your fields in spring. It 
verted and rather ashamed of their rose from a confraternity in the white 
censoriousness. This thirst for doing city of Avignon, and was cradled by 
good was, moreover, so unobtrusive the swift Rhone, that river of martyr- 
and so free from anything like an memories, that runs by Lyons, 
assumption of superiority, that it was Orange, Vienna, and Aries, and 
impossible to resent it ; the tact and flows into the same sea that laves 
simplicity that accompanied all her the shores of Palestine. The land 
efforts to benefit others prevented which the contemplative Magdalen 
their ever being looked upon as in- had consecrated by her hermit life, and 
discreet or meddling. She had a where the songs of Martha's school 
way of rousing your sympathies in a of virgins had been heard praising 
charitable scheme, or your indigna- God, and where Lazarus had worn a 
tion against some act of injustice or mitre instead of a grave-cloth, it was 
cruelty, and drawing you into assist- there that he who was so marvel- 
ing in the one or redressing the lously Mary and Martha combined 
other without your suspecting that first received the glory of his devo- 
she had laid a trap for you; never tion." We all know the passage by 
preaching, never dictating, she had heart, but we quote it not so much for 
that rare grace, whose absence so its sweetness as because it so appro- 
often foils the most praiseworthy in- priately introduces the story of the 
tentions, of doing good without being work in question, viz., the restoration 
disagreeable. Her conversation was of the pilgrimage of Ste. Baume, a pil- 
so sympathetic, and, owing to her grimage once so celebrated through- 
mind being so abundantly stored by out Christendom, but of late years 
reading under her father's direction, fallen into neglect and almost total ob- 
could be, when the opportunity oc- livion. Tradition tells us the story of 
curred, so brilliant, that the most dis- its origin, its growth, its glories, and 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 66 1 

its decay. Its origin dates from a es. The legend says that Magdalen, 
little bark that eighteen centuries ago immediately on landing on the shores 
came floating down the sunny wa- of Provence, took up her abode upon 
ters of the Nile and rode into the the rocky heights of Ste. Baume and 
blue Mediterranean, freighted with a lived there for thirty years, her life 
legacy from Palestine to France, divided between agony and ecstasy, 
bearing in its frail embrace none between tears that had never ceased 
other than the family who had their to flow since that day when at Si- 
dwelling on the shores of the Lake of mon's house she broke the alabaster 
Galilee, and whose names have come vase over the feet of Jesus, and 
down to us with the halo of that heard from his lips those words that 
simple and unrivalled title, " Friends have been the strength and the hope 
of Jesus of Nazareth." Villagers and of sinners ever since : much had been 
the simple folk of the place wel- forgiven her because she had loved 
corned the exiles more kindly, let us much, and kept long vigils that were 
hope, than Bethlehem had welcomed but a continuation of her faithful watch 
the Virgin Mother and reputed father under the cross and at the door of the 
of their Friend some five-and-thirty sepulchre. It seems strange, when 
years before; at any rate, Lazarus we think of it, that she should have 
and his sisters remained in Provence, left the country where Jesus had 
The people gathered round the dead lived and died, the home at Magdala 
man whom Jesus had wept over and that he had hallowed so often by his 
raised to life, and hearkened to his presence, and whose friendly hospi- 
teaching; he planted the cross upon tality had often been a rest and a 
their soil, and sowed the seeds of the comfort to him in his weary journeys 
Gospel in their hearts, and in return round Jerusalem ; that she should, 
they thanked him as the Jews had above all, have torn herself from the 
thanked his Master, by putting him companionship, or at least the neigh- 
to death. Lazarus opened the first borhood, of his Mother and the disci- 
page of the martyrology of France, pie whom he loved ; for surely the 
Martha on her side withdrew to one remaining solace of her purified 
Avignon, where, on the ruins of a passionate heart must have been to 
pagan temple situated on the Rocher speak of her brother's Friend and her 
desDoms, she built a Christian church, own dear Saviour with those who 
and dwelt there in the midst of a had known and loved him best, to 
school of virgins, teaching the Gos- revisit the places he had frequented, 
pel. She died at an advanced age, the site of his miracles and his suffer- 
venerated as a saint, and renowned ings, and that hill of solemn and stu- 
as much for her sublime gift of elo- pendous memories where she and 
quence and her bountiful hospitality they had stood together in a com- 
as for the austere sanctity of her life, mon agony of woe, hushing their 
We are not told how far, if at all, breaths to catch the last throb of his 
Magdalen shared the apostleship sacred heart. . But perhaps this vol- 
of her brother in Marseilles; the untary exile from those beloved asso- 
only trace of her that remains ciations was the last sacrifice, the 
in that city is an altar in the crowning act of renunciation, that 
vaults of the Abbey of S. Victor. Jesus asked of her before he bade 
These vaults are like catacombs, her farewell ? Perhaps he expressed 
and the most ancient monument of a wish that she and Lazarus should 
Christian faith that Marseilles possess- be in a humble way to the West 



662 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



what Mary and S. John were to be 
to the East, and that they should 
forsake the land and the friends of 
their youth and go forth bearing the 
good news of his Gospel to France ? 
He had raised her once to the rank 
of an apostle that morning after the 
resurrection, when he gave her a 
message to the disciples and bade her 
go and tell them and Peter that he 
was risen, and before ascending to 
his Father he may have told her once 
more to go and be the harbinger of 
his resurrection to disciples who 
knew him not and were yet dwelling 
in darkness. We shall one day 
know, please God, what her motive 
was, but meantime we may reverent- 
ly conjecture that there was some 
such understanding between Our 
Lord and Magdalen which induced 
her to leave the country that was so 
full of the fragrance of his divine hu- 
manity, and where his Immaculate 
Mother still lingered in childless de- 
solation. Magdalen came to Pro- 
vence, and withdrew to a wild and 
barren spot, upon a mountain called, 
in memory no doubt of her first inter- 
view with Jesus, Ste. Baume; it rises 
above a valley that runs towards the 
Alps from the busy city of Marseilles. 
Here she dwelt in solitude, commun- 
ing only with her Saviour, and shut 
away from cruel men who had cruci- 
fied him. Many and beautiful are 
the legends grouped by the simple 
piety of the inhabitants around the 
lonely watcher of Ste. Baume; they 
tell you still in reverent and awe- 
stricken tones how seven times a day 
the saint was rapt into ecstasy, and 
carried from her cave in the moun- 
tain side to the summit of the moun- 
tain, and held there suspended be- 
tween heaven and earth by angels, 
but seeing more of heaven than of 
earth, and hearing the music of the 
angelic choirs. The peasants show 
you, even in these unmystical days of 



ours, the precise spot of an abrupt 
sally of the mountain where the an- 
gels used to come every day at their 
appointed hours to commune with 
the penitent and lift her off the earth. 
For thirty years she lived here in 
penance and expectation, then the 
term of her exile closed, the day 
came when she was to be set free 
from the bondage of the flesh, and 
admitted once and for ever into the 
presence of her risen Lord. Perhaps 
Jesus himself whispered the glad tid- 
ings to her in prayer ; or perhaps it 
was only the angels who- were 
charged with the message ; but any- 
how, tradition tells us and who 
dreams of doubting it ? that Mag- 
dalen knew by divine inspiration 
when the hour of her death was at 
hand, and that she was filled with a 
great longing to receive the body 
and blood of her Redeemer before 
entering his presence as her Judge. 
S. Maximin, who had been the com- 
panion of Lazarus and shared his la- 
bors and his pilgrimage, dwelt in the 
narrow plain which forms the base 
of the three adjoining mountains, Ste. 
Baume, St. Aurelian, and Ste. Victoire 
Ste. Victoire under whose shadow 
Marius fought and defeated the Teu- 
tons and the Cimbrians. The dying 
penitent was unable to traverse her- 
self the distance that separated her 
own wild solitude from the hermitage 
of S. Maximin, so the kindly angels 
came and performed a last office of 
love for the friend of their King, and 
bore her across the hills and the 
floods and the valleys to the oratory 
of the saint : he too had been warned, 
and was ready waiting for her. He 
heard her confession, pronounced 
again the words of pardon that had 
been spoken first to her contrite -soul 
by Jesus himself, and gave her the holy 
communion. Then she died, and S. 
Maximin laid her in an alabaster 
tomb that stood ready prepared for 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 663 

her in his oratory. The piety of the be broken open and the written testi- 
faithful surrounded the tomb with mony of the Cassianites invoked, 
enthusiastic reverence and devotion ; When the wars of the Saracens were 
pilgrims flocked from all parts of the over, and men began to breathe in 
world to venerate the remains of the peace, and turn their thoughts once 
queen of penitents, and to visit the more to the worship of God and the 
grotto where she had lived and the veneration of his saints, the fact of 
oratory where she died. Cassian, the the translation of the body of Mag- 
monk, who was himself a native of dalen from its original resting-place 
Marseilles, after graduating in the to the sarcophagus of S. Sidonius had 
school of the Egyptian anchorites, re- faded from their recollection ; it was 
turned to his native city, and raised the only repeated in a vague sort of way 
Abbey of S.Victor over the crypt where that the illustrious penitent had been 
Lazarus slept. Ste. Baume and St. removed to a place of safety, which 
Maximin soon drew him with irresis- was supposed to be at a distance ; 
tible attraction; he founded two some local coincidences pointed to 
noble monasteries there, and he ajid the Abbey of Vezelay as the spot 
his monks kept vigilant guard for a which had been privileged to receive 
thousand years, from the IVth to the and shelter her. By degrees this 
XHIth century, over the ground belief took root in the public mind, 
where Magdalen had wept, and over and the stream of pilgrims began to 
the tomb where she rested. At the flow once more and with renewed 
beginning of the VHIth century, the enthusiasm towards the venerable old 
Saracens invaded the fair land of Abbey of Burgundy ; crusaders met 
Provence, and for nearly three him- there to invoke before starting for 
dred years it was a prey to their devas- the defence of the Holy Sepulchre the 
tating fury. During this long period protection of her whom the evangel- 
of invasion, the Cassianites, terrified ists had handed down to us as the 
lest the precious remains of Magda- heroine of the Sepulchre ; kings and 
len should be discovered by the prelates, warriors and poets, sinners 
enemy and desecrated, thought best and saints, flocked to the supposed 
to remove them from the place where tomb of Magdalen, " till," in the 
they were known to be to one of words of a chronicler of the time, " it 
greater secrecy and safety. They seemed as if all France were running 
took the body, therefore, out of its to Vezelay." God is slow to tell his 
famous alabaster tomb and laid it in secrets. It was not until the close of 
the tomb of S, Sidonius, having previ- the Xlllth century that the illusion, 
ously translated elsewhere the relics which had evoked so much piety and 
of the holy bishop. With a view to so many manifestations of faith from 
future verification, the monks placed Christendom, was dispelled, and the 
on the coffin an inscription testifying truth revealed. This is how it hap- 
to the two translations, and narrating pened. We will translate from the 
the manner of their accomplishment Pere Lacordaire, whose Sainte 
and the circumstances which led Marie Madeleine has supplied us 
to it. The entrance to the crypt almost exclusively with the foregoing 
itself was then walled up with plaster, details : 

and overlaid further with a quantity " S. Louis had a nephew born of 

of rubbish. But six centuries were his brother, Charles of Anjou, King 

to roll over the arid heights of St. of Sicily, and Count of Provence. 

Maximin before the entrance was to This nephew, who was likewise call- 



66 4 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



ed Charles, and who on the death of 
his father became king of Sicily and 
the county of Provence, under the 
title of Charles II., had for S. Mag- 
dalen a tenderness which he inherit- 
ed from his race, and which, though 
common to all the chivalry of France, 
attained in him the highest degree of 
ardor and sincerity. While he was 
still Prince of Salerno, God inspired 
him with a great desire to solve the 
mystery which for six centuries had 
hung over the grave of her whom he 
loved for the sake of Jesus Christ. 
He set out therefore to St. Maximin 
without any display, and accompani- 
ed only by a few gentlemen of his 
suite, and having interrogated the 
monks and the elders of the place, 
he caused the trenches of the old 
basilica of Cassian to be opened. 
On the pth of December, 1279, after 
many efforts which up to that time 
had been fruitless, he stript himself 
of his chlamyde, took a pickaxe, and 
began to dig vigorously into the 
ground with the rest of the workmen. 
Presently they struck upon a tomb- 
stone. It was that of S. Sidonius, to 
the right of the crypt. The prince 
ordered the slab to be raised, and it 
was no sooner done than the perfume 
which exhaled from it announced 
to the beholders that the grace of 
God was nigh. He bent down for a 
moment, then caused the sepulchre 
to be closed, sealed it with his seal, 
and at once convoked the bishops of 
Provence to assist at the public re- 
cognition of the relics. Nine days 
later, on the i8th of December, in 
the presence of the archbishops of 
Aries and of Aix, and of many other 
prelates and gentlemen, the prince 
broke the seals which he had prefixed 
to the sarcophagus. The sarcopha- 
gus was opened, and the hand of the 
prince, in removing the dust which 
covered the bones, encountered some- 
thing which, as soon as he touched 



it, broke with age in his fingers. It 
was a piece of cork from which fell a 
leaf of parchment covered with writ- 
ing that was still legible. It bore 
what follows : ' L'an de la Nativite 
du Seigneur 710, le sixieme jour du 
mois de Decembre, sous le regne 
d' Eudes, tres pieux Roi des francos, 
au temps des ravages de la perfide 
nation des Sarrasins, le corps de la 
tres chere et venerable Marie Made- 
leine a ete tres secretement et pen- 
dant la nuit transfere de son sepul- 
chre d'albatre dans celui-ci, qui est de 
marbre et d'ou Ton a retire le corps 
de Sidoine, afin qu'il y soit plus 
cyclic et a 1'abri de la dite perfide 
nation.' * A deed setting forth this 
inscription and the manner of its dis- 
covery was drawn up by the prince, 
the archbishops, and bishops present, 
and Charles in great joy, after plac- 
ing his seals again upon the tomb, 
summoned for the fifth of May of the 
following year an assembly of pre- 
lates, counts, barons, knights, and 
magistrates of Provence and the 
neighboring counties to assist at the 
solemn translation of the relics which 
he had been instrumental in raising 
from the obscurity of a long series of 
ages." 

The news of the event was hailed 
with a shout of joy by all Christen- 
dom; kings and prelates vied with 
each other in doing honor to the new- 
found treasure ; gold and precious 
stones poured in in quantities to adorn 
the shrine which was destined to re- 
place the alabaster tomb of S. Max- 
imin. " When the appointed day ar- 



* " In the year of the Nativity of our Lord 710, 
the sixth day of the month of December, under 
the reign of Eudes, most pious King of the 
French, during the ravages of the perfidious Sar- 
acen nation, the body of the most dear and ven- 
erable Marie Madeleine was secretly and by 
night transferred from its alabaster sepulchre into 
the present one, which is of marble, and whence 
the body of Sidonius has been withdrawn, in or- 
der that the other may be better concealed and 
be beyond the reach of the above-named perfid- 
ious nation." 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



665 



rived," continues the Pere Lacor- 
daire, " the Prince of Salerno, in the 
presence of a vast and illustrious as- 
sembly, opened for the third time the 
monument which he had sealed, and 
of which the seals were certified to 
be intact. The skull of the saint was 
whole except for the lower jaw-bone, 
which was wanting ; * the tongue 
subsisted, dried up, but adhering to 
the palate ; the limbs presented only 
bones stripped of the flesh ; but a 
sweet perfume exhaled from the re- 
mains that were now restored to light 
and to the piety of souls. . . . 
The fact had already been made 
known of a. sign altogether divine 
having been seen upon the forehead 
of Magdalen. This was a particle of 
soft, transparent flesh on the left tem- 
ple, to the right, consequently, of the 
spectator; all those who beheld it, 
inspired at the same moment by a 
unanimous act of faith, cried out that 
it was there, on that very spot, that 
Jesus must have touched Magdalen 
when he said to her after the resurrec- 
tion, Noli me tangere ! There was 
no proof of the fact, but what else 
could they think who beheld on that 
brow so palpable a trace of life which 
had triumphantly resisted thirteen 
centuries of the grave ? Chance has 
no meaning for the Christian ; and 
when he beholds Nature superseded 
in her laws, he ascends instinctively 
to the Supreme Cause the Cause 
that never acts without a motive, and 
whose motives reveal themselves to 
hearts that do not reject the light. 
Five centuries after this first 
translation, the noli me tangere, as that 
instinct of faith had irrevocably 
named it, subsisted still in the same 
place and with the same characters ; 

* Seven years later, when the head was taken 
to Rome by Charles, Boniface VIII. sent to S. 
John of Lateran for a relic which had long been 
venerated there as the maxillar bone of Magda- 
len ; on adjusting it to the broken part, it fitted in 
so exactly as to leave no doubt as to where it had 
originally been taken from. 



the fact was authenticated by a de- 
putation of the Cour des Comptes of 
Aix. It was not until the year 1780, 
on the eve of an epoch that was to 
spare no memory and no relic, that 
the miraculous particle detached it- 
self from the skull ; and even then the 
medical men who were called in by 
the highest authority in the county 
certified that the noli me tangere had 
adhered to the forehead by the force 
of a vital principle which had sur- 
vived there." 

The piety of Charles of Anjou 
raised a stately temple to the peni- 
tent of Bethany on the site of the 
oratory of S. Maximin. Boniface 
VIII. , who had beheld with his own 
eyes the miraculous presence of the 
noli me tangere, endowed the basilica 
munificently, and authorized the king 
to transfer the custody of the relics 
from the Order of Cassianites, who 
had formerly held it, to that of the 
Sons of S. Dominic, since become 
renowned through the world under 
the name of Freres precheurs. A great 
number of popes visited the shrine, 
and every king of France held it a 
duty and a privilege to come to S. 
Maximin and Ste. Baume, and invoke 
the aid and protection of the saint ; 
up to Louis XIV., hardly a sovereign 
neglected this public tribute of re- 
spect and devotion to her ; but with 
the Grand Monarque the procession 
of royal pilgrims came to an end. The 
red tide of revolution arose, and 
waged war against men's faith, and 
destroyed its most touching manifes- 
tations and its noblest monuments. 
It broke, however, harmless, at the 
foot of S. Maximin. Not a stone of 
the grand old pile was touched, not 
an ajtar profaned, not even a picture 
stolen from the mouldy and unguard- 
ed walls; the most precious part of 
its treasure, the relics of Magdalen, 
which had been carefully concealed, 
were found intact, and duly authen- 



666 A Daughter of S. Dominic. 

ticated as before. Ste. Baume was less up and upbraided the people of Pro- 
fortunate ; the storm that respected the vence for their ingratitude to the mem- 
tomb showed no mercy to the grotto ory of their illustrious patroness, and 
which had witnessed Magdalen's for their decayed faith, and exhorted 
ecstatic communings with her Lord ; them to stir up the dead embers of a 
the hospital, the convent, and the devotion that had formerly been the 
church adjoining it were completely edification and joy of Christendom 
destroyed; nothing remained but a to repair and beautify the deserted 
barren rock and a portion of the grotto of Mary Magdalen, and re- 
neighboring forest. In 1822, a par- kindle its lamps, and restore the pil- 
tial restoration was effected ; the vast grimage of Ste. Baume in its ancient 
and massive monastery was replaced fervor. The work was one that 
by a temporary building of the appealed strongly to the sympa- 
lightest and cheapest materials, little thies of the Marseillese ; but this was 
better than a lath and plaster shed, not enough to ensure its success, 
to keep the monks under cover; the In order to make the sympathy effec- 
grotto itself, once so sumptuously tual, the Pere Lacordaire needed a 
adorned by the piety of pilgrims, was helpmate who would go about 
left in a state of nakedness and amongst the people and put their 
neglect, its costly lamps once abun- good-will into a practical form for 
dantly fed with aromatic oils were him some one who would second 
gone, their lights extinguished, like his exertions by docile and zealous 
the faith that had kindled them, and intelligent co-operation. He 
The church was rebuilt in the same looked around him, and his choice 
superficial style as the convent, and fell upon Amelie. He knew her, 
solemnly reconsecrated in the pres- and thought she was of all others 
ence of forty thousand souls assem- the person best suited to his purpose, 
bled in the forest and down in the It was no easy or pleasant task the 
plain. But the material temple, setting on foot of a movement such 
great or small,. is more easily rebuilt as this; the preliminaries were sure 
than the spiritual one ; the temple of to be full of difficulties, often of the 
stone was raised up again, but where sort that make self-love wince and 
was the temple of the spirit which smart; there was plenty of ridicule 
had animated it ? Where was the in store, a goodly harvest of sneers 
architect who would rebuild this, and snubs to be garnered at the out- 
who would collect the scattered frag- set, rude opposition to be endured 
ments, and breathe upon the dead from those who had no faith at all, 
bones, and make them live, and bind and chilling indifference from those 
them as of yore into a body of de- who looked upon anything like a re- 
vout and simple-hearted worship- turn to the forms and symbols of the 
pers ? Many, remembering the by- middle ages as poetic enthusiasm not 
gone glories of Ste. Baume, wished practicable in the XlXth century, 
that a prophet would arise and work It was just the kind of work to put 
this wonder in Provence. Perhaps the daughter of S. Dominic to. 
the wish took the form of a prayer in She did not disappoint the Pere 
some loving hearts, and so brought Lacordaire; but responded as 
about its accomplishment. The promptly to the call as his own fiery 
valiant-hearted son of S. Dominic, spirit could have wished. It was 
the Pere Lacordaire, was to be the in Amelie's house that the eloquent 
prophet of their desires. He rose Dominican inaugurated the ctuvre 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 667 

of S. Baume, and told the story of pletely that Amelia was sometimes 
the great penitent's life and death, obliged to slip out by a back door 
From the salon in the Rue Grignan in order to escape from their precious 
the burning words of the orator went but pitiless importunity. But no 
forth to all Provence and stirred importuning, however persistent or 
many hearts. A committee was soon unseasonable, could ruffle her unalter- 
formed for raising the necessary funds able sweetness, or surprise her into a 
towards the restoration of the grotto sharp answer or an abrupt ungra- 
as a preliminary to the reopening of ciousness of manner. Hers was the 
the pilgrimage. The Pere Lacor- charity that is not easily provoked : 
daire, as if the more prominently to it made her stem to self, but 
record the services Amelie had ren- long-suffering towards others, slow 
dered in the work so far, and to to see evil, softly forbearing to the 
associate her name with its progress, weaknesses of all. 
desired that the meetings should be This home work was only an epi- 
held at her house ; and so they were, sode in her everyday labors. There 
and continued to be regularly until was not a mission, or a hospital, or a 
she left Marseilles for Rome. She refuge, or a good work of any sort in 
lived to see their joint labors crowned the town, that she had not to do with 
with success ; the grotto assumed in one way or another. Just as we 
gradually something of its ancient often hear it said of a woman of the 
beauty ; an inn was built on the world, " She is of every fete" so it 
plain at the foot of the mountain for used to be said in Marseilles of Ame- 
the accommodation of travellers who lie, " She is of every charity." One of 
came from a distance, pilgrims were the most venerable fathers of the So- 
once more seen toiling in great num- ciety of Jesus declared that it was 
bers up the steep paths of the forest chiefly to her zeal and intelligent ex- 
leading to the grotto, and filling the ertions that the Jesuits owed the es- 
glade with the sound of canticles, and tablishment of their mission at Mar- 
the feast of S. Magdalen, the 22d seilles. The Pere de Magdalon look- 
of July, was again celebrated with ed upon her as his right hand ; he 
something of the pomp and fervor enlisted her co-operation in all his 
of olden times. undertakings, and he used to say that 
But events of this stirring and, so it was to her he owed in a great 
to speak, romantic interest were rare measure the success of the Maison de 
in Amelie's life. Her path lay rather Retraite of S. Barthelemy, the last 
along the valleys than upon the work of his apostolate, and which he 
heights above. The doors of the lived to see blessed with such abun- 
Rue Grignan were often open indeed dant fruits. The Filles de la Charite 
to the wise and learned, and occa- were long the special objects of her 
sionally to the great ones of the liberality and devoted exertions ; then 
earth ; but the visits of these were came the Sisters of Hope, whose ser- 
few and far between compared to vices to the sick are so praiseworthy, 
those of the poor and humble, who and whose presence 'amongst them 
besieged it at all hours of the day was hailed so gratefully by the Mar- 
and night. The poor looked upon seillese. When the- Petites Saurs des 
it as a centre of their own, where they Pauvres were in any difficulty, they 
had a right to come at all times and looked to Amelie to help them out 
seasons and make themselves at of it, and they speak with effusion 
home. They did this at last so com- still of the many proofs of generosity 



668 



A DaiigJiter of S. Dominic. 



they received from her, and of her 
unfailing readiness to assist them 
whenever they appealed to her. She 
seemed to hire herself out as a beast 
of burden to do the work and the 
bidding of every one who wanted her. 
When there was a question of estab- 
lishing the Freres Precheurs at Mar- 
seilles, she multiplied herself tenfold. 
No obstacles could deter her in the 
service of the sons of her beloved S. 
Dominic ; she found a house for them, 
and paid all the expenses of their in- 
stallation. But whatever the work 
was that came under her hand, she 
did it, and as promptly and earnestly 
as if it were the one of all others she 
most delighted in ; there was no ex- 
clusiveness, no narrowing of her sym- 
pathies to an idee fixe either in piety 
or in charity; those who had the 
privilege of being her fellow-laborers 
for many years declare they never 
once knew her charity to flag or fail 
to answer a fresh demand upon it ; 
the supply was inexhaustible, and 
seemed to increase in proportion as it 
spent itself. Her health was wretch- 
ed and kept her in almost constant 
physical pain ; yet her activity was 
extraordinary, and, considering the 
chronic sufferings she had to contend 
with for the greater part of her life, 
the amount of work she contrived to 
get through may be regarded as little 
short of miraculous. She rose habit- 
ually at five, spent several hours in 
prayer, and assisted at the Holy Sac- 
rifice before beginning the active du- 
ties of the day. These lay wherever 
there were sick to be tended, and sor- 
rowing ones to be comforted, and sin- 
ners to be converted. She was a 
member of the Congregation of S. 
Elizabeth for visiting the hospitals, and 
gave a good deal of time to this work, 
for which she had a particular devo- 
tion. Her gentleness and singularly 
attractive manner fitted her especial- 
ly for dealing with aching bodies and 



sorrowing hearts, and it was not a 
very rare thing to see Amelie succeed 
in melting the heart of some obdurate 
sinner with whom the entreaties and 
repeated efforts of the chaplain and the 
nuns had failed. The same sympa- 
thetic responsiveness that she threw 
into so many different good works 
marked her intercourse with individ- 
uals ; those whom she was tending or 
consoling or advising always felt that 
for the time being they were the 
chief object of interest to her in life, 
and that she was giving her whole 
heart to them. She made this im- 
pression perhaps more especially on 
the poor, to whom the sympathy of 
those above them has such a charm 
and such a gift of consolation. An 
amusing instance of it occurred 
once in the case of an old woman 
whom Amelie had been nursing for 
some time ; she put so much good- 
will into all she did, and performed 
the offices' of a sick-nurse so affec- 
tionately, that the poor old soul be- 
lieved she had inspired her with some 
unaccountable personal attachment ; 
she returned it enthusiastically, and 
was never tired testifying her grati- 
tude and love. One day, however, 
Amelie arrived in the poor little gar- 
ret tidy and clean, thanks to her 
but, instead of being welcomed with 
the usual smiles and embraces, the 
old woman set her face like a flint, 
and preserved a sullen silence. For 
some time she obstinately refused to 
say what was amiss with her, but 
finally, shamed by the coaxing and 
evident distress of her nurse, she con- 
fessed that the day before she had 
had a bitter disappointment. " I 
thought," she said, " that you loved 
me, but I find I was under a delu- 
sion ; you don't care a straw for me ; 
they tell me you do for every sick 
body in the town just what you have 
been doing for me." It was with 
great difficulty that Amelie was able 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 669 

to console her and obtain her for- for making clothes and lint for the 

giveness for being so universal in her sufferers, and for collecting money 

charity. to procure all that could comfort and 

But though her creed dealt in no ex- alleviate them. Her efforts were 

elusions, there were two classes of her crowned with abundant success, 

fellow-creatures who above the rest Now, as on many other occasions, 

had a decided attraction for Amelie : money flowed in to her from all sides, * 

these were prisoners and soldiers. She sometimes from strangers at a dis- 

yearned towards the former with the tance, for the fame of her charity had 

true spirit of him who loved the pub- spread much further than the humble 

licans and sinners, who gave the first- daughter of S. Dominic herself sus- 

fruits of his death to one of them on pected, and many benevolent people 

Calvary, and who prayed for them who wished to give, and knew not 

all with his last breath, saying : how to apply their offerings, sent 

" Father, forgive them, for they know them to her, satisfied that they would 

not what they do !" The wonders be well and wisely employed. The 

that Amelie worked in the gloomy way in which large sums of money 

cells of the Fort St. Nicholas, the sometimes dropped into her lap, as it 

sudden and admirable returns to God were from the sky, at some opportune 

that she obtained from the condemn- moment when she was in dire want 

ed, are not to be counted ; not by of it for some case of distress, led 

men, at least. Day after day she many of her humble proteges to be- 

was to be found in the midst of them, lieve that it came to her miraculously, 

teaching old men their catechism, But, while mindful of their bodies, 

comforting and exhorting all, prepar- Amelie's first solicitude was for the 

ing them for death, washing and souls of the brave fellows who were 

dressing their sores, combing their going out to face death in the service 

hair, performing cheerfully and affec- of their country ; while working so 

tionately the most disgusting, offices, hard to procure all that could heal 

Her labors in behalf of the troops are and solace their temporal sufferings, 

perhaps the most remarkable part of she was laboring still more assiduous- 

her life. She had for many years ly in behalf of their spiritual interests, 

been very zealous in her endeavors to Nor did her efforts confine them- 

promote religious instruction amongst selves exclusively to the soldiers, they 

the soldiers, but her mission in this extended to the officers as well, and 

direction dates chiefly from the much more difficult she often found 

Crimean war. During this brilliant them to manage than the rough-and- 

campaign, which brought so much ready men under their command, 

glory and cost so much blood to the Many a droll story is still told at 

Allied armies, the thought of the suf- Marseilles of the tricks by which they 

ferings of the soldiers in the trenches sometimes evaded her attempts to 

and on the battle-fields filled Amelie's catch them in her zealous toils and 

heart to the momentary exclusion of make them remember that they had 

all other interests and preoccupations, another enemy to fight and to con- 

Her whole time was spent working quer besides the soldiers of Holy 

for them, and begging and praying Russia. Once two young officers 

for them. She inspired all who came of good family and fortune, whose 

near her with something of her own lives were not the most edifying to 

ardor and tenderness in the cause, the community, were pointed out to 

She set up societies among her friends Amelie by one of their brother 



670 A Daughter of 5. Dominic. 

officers, a fervent Catholic, as fitting saw no sight of her. Taking for 
subjects for her zeal. He undertook granted that she was not there, 
to bring them to the Rue Grignan and that something had interfered to 
under the pretence of introducing prevent her keeping the appointment, 
them to an old and charming friend they took themselves off with the 
of his, if Amelie would promise to comfortable feeling of having done 
' try and convert them. She promised their duty, and behaved like gentle- 
of course to try, and the two scape- men, and come safe out of it. The 
graces made their appearance, never morning was raw and cold, and they 
suspecting that a trap had been laid were both tired after the long pull up- 
for them. The conversation dwelt hill, so on their way down they turned 
upon the great topic of the day, the into a little dairy where hungry pil- 
war, Amelie carefully avoiding the grims were* comforting themselves 
most distant allusion to the spiritual with cups of coffee. There was a 
condition of her visitors. The young good fire in the place, and they sat 
men were charmed with her affability down to enjoy it, and dawdled a good 
and esprit, and, when she asked them while over their hot coffee, wonder- 
to return with their friend in a few ing what kind trick of Fortune had 
days and dine with her, they accept- prevented the enemy from appearing 
ed her invitation with delight. Dur- in the field; when lo ! looking up 
ing dinner their hostess alluded to suddenly, they beheld the truant 
the numerous pilgrimages that were peering in at them through the win- 
being performed every day to Notre dow. The pair started as if they 
Dame de Garde ; few of the soldiers had seen a ghost. But Amelie knew 
or sailors started for the Crimea from human nature too well to press her 
Marseilles without climbing up the advantage at such a moment; she 
hill to salute Our Lady and ask her smiled, shook her finger threatening- 
blessing on their arms. The young ly, and went her way down the hill, 
men confessed that they had never leaving the two young men less tri- 
made the pilgrimage and evinced umphant than she had found them, 
little admiration for their more de- and very anxious to clear themselves 
vout comrades ; Amelie seemed sur- of having broken their word to a 
prised, but not at all scandalized, at lady, and eager to redeem it a second 
the frank admission, and proposed time if Amelie desired. She did de- 
that they should both make the pil- sire it, and it was not long before 
grimage next morning and hear Mass one of the two blessed her for hav- 
there with her at eight o'clock. They ing done so. He was ordered off 
assented with ready courtesy, inward- with his regiment soon after, and be- 
ly treating the expedition as a harm- fore setting sail ascended once more 
less joke, and took leave of their to the shrine of Notre Dame de 
hostess, very much delighted with her, Garde in a different spirit and with a 
and not much terrified by the salutary very different purpose, 
projects that might be lurking in her Her intercourse with the troops 
breast with regard to the morrow, during this period gave Amelie an 
They were at the bottom of the hill insight into the deplorable ignorance 
punctually at half-past seven, and in matters of faith that existed in the 
toiled up to the church, where they majority of them, and the absence 
expected to see Amelie already of all religious instruction in the 
on the lookout for them. But army ; it filled her with surprise and 
they looked round the church and grief, and she determined to set to 



A Daitghtcr of S. Dominic. 671 

work and. bring about a change in antechamber of a king, and the same 
botK. may be said most likely of the ante- 
Reforms are proverbially difficult, chamber of a minister. At least 
and in any branch of the public ser- Amelie found it so. Many a brave 
vice pre-eminently so. But difficul- spirit might well have given up in 
ties only stimulate strong hearts to despair before the contemptuous 
more strenuous efforts. Amelie was, rudeness and petty opposition of 
owing to her high intelligence, her small functionaries, and the inaccessi- 
well-known virtue, and her wide- ble coldness of great ones, and the 
spread relations, better calculated disheartening predictions of well- 
than most people perhaps to succeed wishers who had gone through simi- 
in the undertaking ; besides, what- lar experiences, and knew what it 
ever the obstacles were, she never was to want anything, even in the 
reckoned with human means when natural course of things, done at the 
God's work was to be done ; she War Office ; but Amelie's courage 
called him to the rescue, and left the never flagged for a moment. By 
issue in his hands. It would be im- degrees her perseverance began to 
possible to recount all she did and meet with some signs of success, 
suffered in this most arduous under- It was known that one military man 
taking, the journeys she took, the in high repute supported her views, 
petitions she drew up, the letters she and was doing his best to enable her 
wrote, the disappointments and an- to carry them out ; this convert- 
tagonism that attended it in the be- ed others. Several who had in the 
ginning, and the physical and moral first instance treated her project as 
fatigue that it involved all through, impracticable, or unnecessary, or sim- 
The frequent and successive journeys ply absurd, one after another came 
of eighteen hours to Paris and the over to her; it was not always be- 
same back would have been a seri- cause she convinced theny but she 
ous trial of strength to a strong per- won them ; they might resist her 
son; but to Amelie, whose health arguments, but it was impossible to 
was extremely delicate, and who come often in contact with her with- 
hardly ever knew the sensation of out feeling the contagion of her ear- 
being without pain, most frequently nestness and sincerity of purpose, 
acute and intense pain, the wear and Her labors were finally crowned with 
tear of those journeys in the sultry abundant success. She obtained all 
heat of summer and the bitter cold the concessions she asked, and every 
of winter alike must have been terri- facility for carrying them out and 
ble. But she made small account of improving the spiritual condition of 
her body, she drove it on like a beast the soldiers. One of her chief anx- 
of burden, goading it with the ardor ieties had been for the condemned 
of her spirit, and never gave in to its prisoners in the Fort St. Nidiolas. 
lamentations until it positively refused She obtained permission for one of 
to go on. Her own shortcomings the dungeons to be turned into a 
were, however, the lightest portion of chapel there, and it was henceforth 
her difficulties. She had obstacles to her delight to go there on the great 
overcome on every side, especially in feasts and decorate the altar, and make 
quarters where it was most essential it gay with lights and flowers for the 
for her to find approval and assist- captives. A chaplain was appointed 
ance. Silvio Pellico said it was easier to the fort, and he was allowed every 
to traverse a battle-field than the facility for the exercise of his ministry. 



672 A Daughter of S. Dominic. 

The little enfants de troupe whose times the brave fellows' gratitude ex- 
youth recommended them to Amelie's pressed itself in a way that was 
solicitude were provided with the rather trying to their adopted mother, 
needful means of religious instruction A regiment which had been quar- 
by the establishment of a school, over tered at Marseilles, and received 
which she herself presided from time many proofs of zeal and kindness 
to time, cheering on the pupils by from Amelie during its stay there, 
good advice, and occasional presents happened to hear, when passing 
to the most industrious and deserv- through Lyons some years later, 
ing. General de Courtigis, who that she was stopping there. They 
commanded the garrison for many started off at once in full force, and 
years at Marseilles, and left behind gave her a military serenade under 
him a memory respected by all good her windows. Amelie, of course, 
men, had been from the first a showed herself at the window, and 
staunch ally of Amelie's in her en- acknowledged the honor, but this did 
deavors to introduce a Christian not satisfy the soldiers : nothing 
spirit amongst both the officers and would do them but she should come 
men. At her suggestion he organ- out and shake hands with every man 
ized a military Mass every Sunday at in the regiment, 
the Church of S. Charles, and there Much as Amelie shrank from pub- 
a great number of men, with the lie notice or praise, her humility could 
general at their head, assisted regu- not prevent her extraordinary exer- 
larly at the Holy Sacrifice. It was tions in behalf of the troops, and the 
a great treat to Amelie, whenever she success which had attended them, 
could find time, to go and assist at it from shining out before men. The 
with them. She enjoyed the martial nature of the undertaking had neces- 
appearance and reverent bearing of sarily brought her in contact with 
the soldiers with a sort of motherly the most influential military men of 
pride, and the sharp word of com- the day, both at Marseilles and in 
mand, and the clanking of the bay- Paris. These gentlemen had ample 
onets when they presented arms at opportunity to appreciate her char- 
the solemn moment of consecration, acter and judge of the value of 
used to send a thrill of emotion her services ; and though so many 
through her frame that often melted had opposed her in the beginning, 
her to tears. when they saw her labors^ triumph- 

" Oh !" she was heard once to ex- ant, success raised her so highly in 

claim, on coming out of S. Charles', their estimation that they thought it 

" what a grand and consoling specta- would be becoming to offer a public 

cle it is, to see our soldiers publicly tribute of their esteem and gratitude 

worshipping God ! One feels that by decorating her with the Cross of 

they must be invincible in battle the Legion of Honor. Accordingly, 

when they set out with the blessing a letter was despatched one day from 

of God on their arms." the War Office, informing the quiet, 

The troops, on their side, repaid unpretending friend of the poor sol- 

her interest in them by the most dier that the government, to testify 

enthusiastic affection. They used to their approval of her conduct, invest- 

call her notre mere amongst them- ed her with the most honorable mark 

selves, and it delighted Amelie to of distinction it was in their power to 

hear a grizzly old veteran address bestow. Amelie received the an- 

her by this familiar name. Some- nouncement at first as a joke. The 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 673 

idea of her going about the world declining gratefully an honor which 
with the Cross or the red ribbon she did not feel qualified to accept, 
fastened to her black gown, and but requested that he would reward 
being greeted with the military salute what he was pleased to call her ser- 
and presented arms to whenever the vices by granting her a droil de grace. 
symbol caught the eye of a soldier This would entitle her to present pe- 
or a sentry, while she threaded her titions for a commutation of sentence 
way through the busy streets of in case of military prisoners, and 
Marseilles, struck her 'as so altogether even on certain specified occasions 
comical that she could only laugh to commute the sentence herself. 
at it. But neither the authorities The privilege was granted at once, 
nor her friends saw any laughing and, if ever virtue had a sweet re- 
matter in it; the latter combated ward in this world, it was when 
her refusal so strongly that Amelie Amelie exercised it for the first time 
was perplexed; she knew not how in favor of one of the captives of 
to reconcile her deference to their Fort St. Nicholas. Her friends re- 
wishes with what appeared to her little joiced with her, and almost forgave 
short of an act of treason to Chris- her for refusing the sterile honor of 
tian humility and common sense ; the Cross of the Legion of Honor. 
they argued that, by accepting the They never knew, so carefully did 
Cross, she would excite a good feel- her humility keep its secret, that 
ing in the minds of many towards the government, when granting her 
the government, a result which in the droit de grace, exacted as a 
those turbulent and antagonistic condition that she should submit to 
times was always desirable, and, in become a member of the Legion of 
the next place, it would invest her Honor. It was years after that a 
tvith a half-official position in certain friend, who had heard something in 
circumstances that she might find high quarters which aroused his sus- 
very useful to others in her relations picions, and who was intimate enough 
with minor functionaries. This last with Amelie to take the liberty of 
consideration had some weight with catechising her on the subject, asked 
Amelie; she turned it to account, point-blank if she was decorated, and 
though not in the way her friends under promise of secrecy learned the 
desired. She wrote to the minister, truth. 



TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT. 



VOL. xvi. 43 



674 The Progressionists. 




THE PROGRESSIONISTS. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PROGRESS GROWS JOLLY. 
CONCLUDED. 

IN passing near the tables Gerlach ed by books of solid learning, he had 

overheard conversations which xe- come out from that crisis stronger in 

vealed to him unmistakably the com- faith and more correct in his views 

munistic aspirations and tendencies of human science. The scenes 

prevailing among the lower orders, which he was witnessing reminded 

their fiendish hatred of religion and him vividly of that turning-point in 

the clergy, their corruption and ap- his life ; they were to him an addi- 

palling ignorance. On every hand tional proof that man's dignity dis- 

he perceived symptoms of an alarm- appears as soon as he refuses to fol- 

ingly unhealthy condition of society, low the divine guidance of religion. 

He heard blasphemies uttered against Grave in mood, he returned to the 

the Divinity which almost caused his table around which were gathered 

blood to run cold ; sacred things the chieftains. The marks of respect 

were scoffed at in terms so coarse shown to the millionaire were nu- 

and with an animus so plainly satan- merous and flattering. Even the 

ical that his hair rose on his head, bluff Sand exerted himself unusually 

It was clear to him that the firmest in paying his respects to the wealthy 

supports, the only true foundations landholder, and Erdblatt, whose em- 

of the social order, were tottering barrassed financial condition enabled 

rotted away by an incurable corrup- him beyond them all to appreciate 

tion. the worth of money, filled a glass 

In Gerlach's life, also, as in that with his own hand, and reached it to 
of many other men, there had been Mr. Conrad with the deference of an 
a period of mental struggle and of accomplished butler. Gerlach was 
doubt. He, too, had at one time pleased to speak in terms of praise 
found himself face to face with ques- of the nut-brown beverage, which 
tions the solution of which involved greatly tickled Belladonna, the fat 
the whole aim of his existence. Dur- brewer. Naturally enough, the con- 
ing this period of mental unrest, he versation turned upon the subject of 
had thought and studied much about the celebration, 
faith and science, but not with a "I confess I am not quite clear 
silly parade of superficial scepticism, respecting the purpose of your city 
He had resolutely engaged in the in the matter of schools," said Mr. 
soul struggle, and had tried to end it Conrad. " How do you intend to 
for once and all. Supported by a arrange the school system ?" 
good early training and a disposition " In such a way as to make it ac- 
naturally noble, instructed and guid- cord with the requirements of the 



The Progressionists. 675 

times and the progressive spirit of of this community on the subject of 

civilization," answered Hans Shund. the school question," returned the 

" An end must be put to priest rule millionaire with some warmth. " It 

in the schools. The establishment is impossible to bring up youth mo- 

of common schools will be a decid- rally without religion. You are a 

ed step towards this object. For a housebuilder, Mr. Sand. What 

while, of course, the priests will be would you think of the man who 

allowed to visit the schools at speci- would expect you to build him a 

fied times, but their influence and house without a foundation a cas- 

control in school matters will be tie in the air ?" 

greatly restricted. Education, will "Why, I would regard him as 

be withdrawn from the church's su- nothing less than a fool," cried Sand, 

pervision, and after a few years we " The case is identically the same 

hope to reach the point when the with moral education. Morality is an 

school-rooms will be closed altogeth- edifice which a man must spend his 

er against the priests. There is not a life in laboring at. Religion is the 

man of culture but will agree that groundwork of this edifice. Moral 

children should not be required to training without religion is an impos- 

learn things which are out of date, sibility. It would be just as possible 

and the import of which must only to build a house in the air, as to 

excite smiles of compassion." train up a child morally without a 

" Whom do you intend to put in religious belief, without being con- 

the place of the clergy ?" inquired vinced of the existence of a holy and 

Mr. Conrad. just God." 

" We intend to impart useful in- " Facts prove the contrary," main- 
formation and a moral sense in har- tained Hans Shund. " Millions of 
mony with the spirit of the age," re- persons are moral who have no reli- 
plied Hans Shund. gious belief." 

" It seems to me the elementary " That's an egregious mistake, sir," 
branches have been very competent- opposed the landholder. " The re- 
ly taught heretofore in our schools, pudiation of a Supreme Being and 
consequently I do not see the need the violent extinction of the idea of 
of a change on this head," said Ger- the Divinity in the breast are of 
lach. " But you have not under- themselves grave offences against 
stood my question. I mean, who are moral conscience. I grant you that, 
to fill the office of instructors in mo- in the eyes of the public, thousands 
rals and in religion ?" of men pass for moral who have no 

The chieftains looked puzzled, for faith in religion. But public opinion 

such a question they had not expect- is anything but a criterion of certainty 

ed to hear from the wealthiest man when the moral worth of a man is to 

of the country. be determined. A man's interior is a 

" You see, Mr. Gerlach," said region which cannot be viewed by the 

Sand bluntly, " religion must be done eye of the public. You know your- 

away with entirely. We haven't any selves that there are men who pass for 

use for such trash. Children ought to honorable, moral, pure men, whose 

spend their time in learning something private habits are exceedingly filthy 

more sensible than the catechism." and corrupt." 

" I am not disposed to believe that Hans Shund's color turned a 

what you have just uttered is a cor- palish yellow; the eyes of the chief- 

rect expression of the general opinion tains sank. 



676 



The Progressionists. 



Besides, gentleman, it would be 
labor lost to try to educate youth in- 
dependently of religion. Man is by 
his very nature a religious being. It 
is useless to attempt to educate the 
young without a knowledge of God 
and of revealed religion ; to be able 
to do so you would previously have 
to pluck out of their own breasts the 
sense of right and wrong, and out of 
their souls the idea of God, which are 
innate in both. Were the attempt 
made, however, believe me, gentle- 
men, the yearning after God, alive in 
the human breast, would soon impel 
the generation brought up independ- 
ently of religion to seek after false 
gods. For this very reason we know 
of "no people in history that did not 
recognize and worship some divinity, 
were it but a tree or a stone, that 
served them for an object of adora- 
tion. In my opinion, it would be far 
more indicative of genuine progress 
to adhere to the God of Christians, 
who is incontestably holy, just, omni- 
potent, and kind, whilst to return to 
the sacred oaks of ancient Germany or 
to adopt the fetichism of uncivilized 
tribes would be a most monstrous reac- 
tion, the most degrading barbarism." 

The chieftains looked nonplussed. 
Earnest thinking and investigation 
upon subjects pertaining to religion 
were not customary among the disci- 
ples of progress. They looked upon 
religion as something so common 
and trivial that anybody was free to 
argue upon and condemn it with a 
few flippant or smart sayings. But 
the millionaire was now disclosing 
views so new and vast, that their 
weak vision was completely dazzled, 
and their steps upon the unknown 
domain became unsteady. 

Mr. Seicht, observing the embar- 
rassment of the leaders, felt it his duty 
to hasten to their relief. His po- 
lemical weapons were drawn from 
the armory of bureaucracy. 



" The progressive development of 
humanity," said Mr. Seicht, " has re- 
vealed an admirable substitute for all 
religious ideas. A state well organ- 
ized can exist splendidly without any 
religion. Nay, I do not hesitate to 
maintain that religion is a drawback 
to the development of the modern 
state, and that, therefore, the state 
should have nothing whatever to do 
with religion. An invisible world 
should not exert an influence upon a 
state the wants of the times are the 
only rule to be consulted." 

" What do you understand by a 
state, sir ?" asked the millionaire. 

" A state," replied the official, " is 
a union of men whose public life is 
regulated by laws which every indi- 
vidual is bound to observe." 

" You speak of laws ; upon what 
basis are these laws founded ?" 

" Upon the basis of humanity, 
morality, liberty, and right," answered 
the official glibly. 

" And what do you consider moral 
and just ?" 

" Whatever accords with the civil- 
ization of the age." 

A faint smile passed over the 
severe features of Mr. Conrad. 

" I was watching the procession," 
spoke he. " I have seen the reli- 
gious feelings of a large number of 
citizens publicly ridiculed and gross- 
ly insulted. Was that moral ? Was it 
just ? You are determined to oust 
God and religion from the schools; 
yet there are thousands in the country 
who desire and endeavor to secure a 
religious education for their children. 
Is it moral and just to utterly disre- 
gard the wishes of these thousands ? 
Does it accord with a profession of 
humanity and freedom to put con- 
straint on the consciences of felloe- 
citizens ?" 

" The persons of whom you speak 
are a minority in the state, and the 
minority is obliged to yield to the 



The Progressionists. 677 

will of the majority," answered the wish of the majority, this terrible 

Seicht. social revolution must be moral and 

" It follows, then, that the basis of just, for the majority wills it and car- 
morality and justice is superior num- ries it out." 
bers ?" " Of course, there must be a limit," 

" Yes, it is ! In a state, it apper- said the official feebly, 

tains to the majority to determine " The demands of the majority 

and regulate everything." must be reasonable." 

" Gentlemen," spoke Gerlach with " What do you understand by rea- 

great seriousness, " as 1 was a mo- sonable, sir ?" 

ment ago strolling over this place, I " I call reasonable whatever ac- 

overheard language at several tables, cords with the sense of right, with 

which was unmistakably communis- sound thinking, with moral ideas." 

tic. Laborers and factorymen were "|ense of right moral ideas ? I 

maintaining that wealth is unequally beg you to observe that these notions 

distributed ; that, whilst a small num- differ vastly from the sole authority 

ber are immensely rich, a much of numbers. You have trespassed 

greater number are poor and desti- upon God's kingdom in giving your 

tute ; that progress will have to ad- explanation, for ideas are supersensi- 

vance to a point when an equal di- ble ; they are the thought of God 

vision of property must be made, himself. And the sense of right was 

Now, the poor and the laboring pop- not implanted in the human breast 

ulation are in the majority. Should by the word of a majority ; it was 

they vote for a partition, should they placed there by the Creator of man." 

demand from us what hitherto we The official was driven to the wall, 

have regarded as exclusively our The chieftains thoughtfully stared at 

own, we, gentlemen, will in consis- their beer-pots, 

tency be forced to accept the decree " It is clear that the will of the 

of the majority as perfectly moral majority alone cannot be accepted as 

and just will we not?" the basis of a state," said Schwefel. 

There was profound silence. " The life of society cannot be put 

" I, for my part, should most em- at the mercy of the rude and fickle 

phatically protest against such a rul- masses. There must be a moral 

ing of the majority," declared Greif- order, willed and regulated by a su- 

mann. preme ruler, and binding upon every 

" Your protest would be contrary man. This is plain." 
to morals and equity ; for, according " I agree with you, sir," said the 
to Mr. Seicht, only what the majority millionaire. " Let us continue build- 
wills is moral and just," returned the ing on Christian principles. As 
landowner. "And, in mentioning par- everybody knows, our civilization 
tition of property, I hinted at a red has sprung from Christianity. If we 
monster which is not any longer a tear down the altars and destroy the 
mere goblin, but a thing of real flesh seats from which lessons of Christian 
and bone. We are on the verge of a morality are taught, confusion must 
fearful social revolution which threat- inevitably follow. And I, gentle- 
ens to break up society. If there is men, have too exalted an opinion 
no holy and just God ; if he has not of the German nation, of its earnest 
revealed himself, and man is not and religious spirit, to believe that 
obliged to submit to his will ; if the it can be ever induced to fall 
only basis of right and of morals is away completely from God and 



6;8 



The Progressionists. 



his holy law. Infidelity is an un- 
healthy tendency of our times; 
it is a pernicious superstition which 
sound sense and noble feeling will 
ultimately triumph over. We will 
do well to continue advancing in 
science, art, refinement, and industry, 
in true liberty and the right under- 
standing of truth ; we will thus be 
making real progress, such progress 
as I am proud to call myself a parti- 
san of." 

The chieftains maintained silence. 
Some nodded assent. Hans Sh|and 
gave an angry bite to his pipe-stem, 
and puffed a heavy cloud of smoke 
across the table. 

" I have confidence in the enlight- 
enment and good sense of our 
people," said he. "You have called 
modern progress ' a pernicious super- 
stition and an unhealthy tendency of 
the times,' Mr. Gerlach," turning to- 
wards the millionaire with a bow. 
" I regret this view of yours." 

" Which I have substantiated and 
proved," interrupted Gerlach. 

" True, sir ! Your proofs have 
been striking, and I do not feel my- 
self competent to refute them. But 
I can point you to something more 
powerful than argument. Look at 
this scene; see these happy people 
meeting and enjoying one another's 
society in most admirable harmony 
and order. Is not this spectacle a 
beautiful illustration and vindication 
of the moral spirit of progress ?" 

" These people are jubilant from 
the effect of beer, why shouldn't they 
be ? But, sir, a profound observer 
does not ' suffer himself to be deceiv- 
ed by mere appearances.' " 

An uproar and commotion at a 
distance interrupted the millionaire. 
At the same instant a policeman ap- 
proached out of breath. 

" Your honor, the factorymen and 
the laborers are attacking one an- 
other !" 



" What are you raising such alarm 
for," said Hans Shund gruffly. " It is 
only a small squabble, such as will 
occur everywhere in a crowd." 

" I ask your honor's pardon : it is 
not a small squabble, it is a bloody 
battle." 

" Well, part the wranglers." 

" We cannot manage them ; there 
are too many of them. Shall I apply 
for military ?" 

"Hell and thunder military!" 
cried Hans Shund, getting on his 
feet. " Are you in your senses ?" 

" Several men have already been 
carried off badly wounded," reported 
the policeman further. " You have 
'no idea how serious the affray is, and 
it is getting more and more so ; the 
friends of both sides are rushing in to 
aid their crwn party. The police force 
is not a match for them." 

Women, screaming and in tears, 
were rushing in every direction. The 
bands had ceased playing, and noise 
and confusion resounded from the 
scene of action. Louise ran to take 
her brother's arm in consternation. 
The wives and daughters of the chief- 
tains huddled round their natural 
protectors. 

" Hurry away and report this at 
the military post," was Seicht's order 
to the policeman. " The feud is 
getting alarming. One moment !" 

Tearing a leaf from a memorandum 
book, he wrote a short note, which 
he sent by the messenger. 

" Off to the post be expedi- 
tious !" 

Louise hastened with her brother 
and Gerlach senior to their carriage, 
and her feeling of security returned 
only when the noise of the combat 
had died away in the distance. 

The next day the town papers con- 
tained the following notice: "The 
beautiful celebration of yesterday, 
which, on account of its object, will 
be long remembered by the citizens 



The Progressionists. 679 

of this community, was unfortunately the metie, of whom five have since 

interrupted by a serious conflict be- died, and it required the interference 

tween the laborers and factorymen. of an armed force to separate the 

A great many were wounded during combatants." 



CHAPTER x. 

BROWN BREAD AND BONNYCLABBER. 

Seraphin had not gone to the cele- knoll, and gleamed a friendly wel- 
bration. He remained at home on come as he came near it a welcome 
the plea of not feeling well. He was which seemed opportune for one who 
stretched upon a sofa, and his soul hardly knew whither he was hasten- 
was engaged in a desperate conflict, ing. The walnut-tree which could 
What it was impossible for himself to be seen from afar was casting an in- 
look upon, had been viewed by his viting shade over the table and 
father with composure : the burlesque bench that seemed to be confidingly 
procession, the public derision of leaning against its stem. A flock of 
holy practices, the mockery of the chickens were taking a sand-bath 
Redeemer of the world, in whose under the table, flapping their wings, 
place had been put a broken bottle ruffling their feathers, and wallowing 
on the symbol of salvation. He him- in the dust. Seated on the sunny 
self had been stunned by the spec- hillock, the cottage appeared quiet, 
tacle ; and his father ? Was it his almost lonesome but for a ringing 
father ? Again, his father had ac- sound which came from the adjoin- 
companied the brother and sister to ing field and was made by the sickle 
the infamous celebration. Was not passing through the corn. A broad- 
this a direct confirmation of his own brimmed straw hat with a blue band 
suspicions ? His father had become could be noticed from the road mov- 
a fearful enigma to his soul! And ing on over the fallen grain, and 
what if, upon his return from the presently Mechtild's slender form 
festival, the father were to come and rose into view as she pushed active- 
insist upon the marriage with Louise, ly onward over the harvest field, 
declaring her advanced notions to be Hasty steps resounded from the road, 
an insufficient ground for renouncing She raised her head, and her counte- 
a pet project ? A wild storm was nance first indicated surprise, then 
convulsing his interior. He could embarrassment. Whom did her eyes 
not bear it longer, he was driven behold rushing wildly by, like a 
forth. Snatching his straw hat, he fugitive, but the generous rescuer of 
rushed from the house, ran through her family from the clutches of the 
the alleys and streets, out of the usurer Shund. His hat was in his 
town, onward and still onward. The hand, his auburn locks were hanging 
August sun was burning, and its down over his forehead, his face was 
heat, reflected from the road, was aglow, his whole being seemed to be 
doubly intense. The perspiration absorbed in a mad pursuit. To her 
was rolling in large drops down the quick eye his features revealed deep 
glowing face of the young man, whom trouble and violent excitement. She 
torturing thoughts still kept goading was frightened, and the sickle fell 
on. Holt's whitewashed dwelling from her hand. Not a day passed 
became visible on the summit of a on which she would not think of this 



68o 



The Progressionists. 



benefactor. Perhaps there was not a 
being on earth whom she admired 
and revered as much as she did him. 
All the pure and elevated sentiments 
of an innocent and blooming girl 
united to form a halo of affection 
round the head of Seraphin. At 
evening prayer when her father said, 
" Let us pray for our benefactor Sera- 
phin," her soul sent up a fervent pe- 
tition to God, and she declared with 
joy that she was willing to sacrifice 
all for him. But behold this noble 
object of her admiration and affec- 
tion suddenly presented before her in 
a state that excited the greatest un- 

i_^ 

easiness. With his head sunk and 
his eyes directed straight before him, 
he would have rushed past without 
noticing the sympathizing girl, when 
a greeting clear and sweet as the 
tone of a bell caused him to look up. 
He beheld Mechtild with her beauti- 
tul eyes fixed upon him in an expres- 
sion of anxiety. 

" Good-morning, Mr. Seraphin," 
she said again. 

" Good-morning," he returned me- 
chanically, and staring about vaguely. 
His bewilderment soon passed, how- 
ever, and his gaze was riveted by the 
apparition. 

She was standing on the other side 
of the ditch. The fear of some un- 
known calamity had given to her 
beau-tiful face an expression of tender 
solicitude, and whilst a smile strug- 
gled for possession of her lips her 
look indicated painful anxiety. 
Mechtild's appearance soon directed 
the young man's attention to his own 
excited manner. The dark shadow 
disappeared from his brow, he wiped 
the perspiration from his face, and 
began to feel the effect of his walk 
under the glowing heat of midsum- 
mer. 

" Ah ! why, here is the neat little 
white house, your pretty country 
home, Mechtild," he said pleasantly. 



" If you had not been so kind as 
to wish me good-morning, I should 
actually have passed by in an unpar- 
donable fit of distraction." 

" I was almost afraid to say good- 
morning, Mr. Seraphin, but " She 
faltered and looked confused. 

" But what ? You didn't think 
anything was wrong ?" 

" No ! But you were in such a 
hurry and looked so troubled, I got 
frightened," she confessed with ami- 
able uprightness. " I was afraid 
something had happened you." 

" I am thankful for your sympa- 
thy. Nothing has happened me, 
nor, I trust, will," he replied, with a 
scarcely perceptible degree of defi- 
ance in his tone. " This is a charm- 
ing situation. Corn-fields on all 
sides, trees laden with fruit, the skirt 
of the woods in the background 
and then this magnificent view ! 
With your permission, I will take a 
moment's rest in the shade of yon 
splendid walnut-tree planted by your 
great-grandfather." 

She joyfully nodded assent and 
stepped over the ditch. She shoved 
back the bolt of the gate. Together 
they entered the yard, which a hedge 
separated from the road. The cock 
crew a welcome to the stranger, and 
led his household from the sand-bath 
into the sunshine near the barn. 

" This is a cool, inviting little 
spot," said the millionaire, as he 
pointed to the shade of the walnut- 
tree. " No doubt you often sit here 
and read ?" 

" Yes, Mr. Seraphin ; but the dirty 
chickens have scattered dust all over 
the bench and table. Wait a min- 
ute, you'll get your clothes dusty." 

She hurried into the house. His 
eyes followed her receding form, his 
ears kept listening for her departing 
steps, he heard the opening and clos- 
ing of doors : presently she reap- 
peared, dusted the bench and table 






The Progressionists. 



68 1 



with a brush, and spread a white 
cloth over the table. Seraph in 
looked on with a smile. 

" I do not wish to be troublesome, 
Mechtild !" 

" It is no trouble, Mr. Seraphin ! Sit 
down, now, and rest yourself. I am so 
sorry father and mother are not at 
home. They will be ever so glad to 
hear that you have honored us with 
a visit." 

" Is nobody at home ?" 

" Father is in town, and mother is 
at work with the children in the har- 
vest field." 

" Are you not afraid to stay here 
by yourself?" 

" What should I be afraid of? 
There are no ghosts in daytime," she 
said with a bewitching archness; " and 
as for thieves, they never expect to 
find anything worth having at our 
house." 

She was standing on the other side 
of the table, looking at him with a 
beautiful smile. 

" Won't you have a seat on this 
bench ?" said he, making room for her. 
" You need rest more than I do. 
You have been working, and I am 
merely an idle stroller. Do take a 
seat, Mechtild." 

" Thank you, Mr. Seraphin I 
could not think of doing so ! It 
would not be becoming," she an- 
swered with some confusion. 

" Why not becoming ?" 

" Because you are a gentleman, 
and I am only a poor girl." 

" Your objection on the score of 
propriety is not worth anything. 
Oblige me by doing what I ask of 
you." 

" I will do so, Mr. Seraphin, since 
you insist upon it, but after a while. 
I would like to offer you some re- 
freshments beforehand, if you will 
allow me." 

" With pleasure," he said, nodding 
assent. 



A second time she hurried away 
to the house, whilst he kept listening 
to her footsteps. The extraordinary 
neatness and cleanliness which could 
be seen everywhere about the little 
homestead did not escape his obser- 
vation. On all sides he fancied he 
saw the work of Mechtild. The pu- 
rity of her spirit, which beamed so 
mildly from her eyes and' was re- 
vealed in the beauty of her counte- 
nance and the grace of her person, 
seemed embodied in the very odor of 
roses wafted over from the neighbor- 
ing flower garden. He was uncon- 
scious of the rapid growth within his 
bosom of a deep and tender feeling. 
This feeling was casting a warm glow, 
like softest sunshine, over all that he 
beheld. Not even the chickens 
looked to him like other fowls of 
their kind ; they were ennobled by 
the reflection that they were objects 
of Mechtild's care, that she fed them, 
that when they were still piping little 
pullets she had held them in her lap 
and caressed them. He abandoned 
himself completely to this sentiment; 
it carried him on like a smooth cur- 
rent ; and he could not tell, did not 
suspect even, why so wonderful a re- 
action had in so short a time taken 
place in his interior. Beholding 
himself seated under the walnut-tree 
surrounded only by evidences of hon- 
orable poverty and rural thrift, and 
yet feeling a degree of happiness and 
peace he had never known before, 
he fancied he was performing a part 
in some fairy tale which he was 
dreaming with his eyes open. And 
now the fairy appeared at the door 
having on a snowy-white apron, and 
carrying a shallow basket from which 
could be seen, protruding above the 
rest of its contents, a milk jar. She 
set before him a pewter plate, bright 
as silver. Then she took out the jar 
and a cup, next she laid a knife and 
spoon for him, and finished her hos- 



682 



The Progressionists. 



pitable service with a huge loaf of 
bread. 

" Don't get dismayed at the bread, 
Mr. Seraphin ! I am sorry I cannot 
set something better before you. But 
it is well baked and will not hurt you !" 

" You baked it yourself, did you 
not ?" 

" Yes, Mr. Seraphin !" 

He attacked the loaf resolutely. 
From the dimensions of the slice 
which he cut off, it was plain that 
both his appetite and his confidence 
in her skill were satisfactory. She 
raised the jar of bonnyclabber, which 
lurched out in jerks upon his plate, 
whilst he kept gayly stirring it with 
the spoon. Then she dipped a 
spoonful of rich cream out of the cup 
and poured it into the refreshing con- 
tents of the plate. 

" Let me know when you want 
me to stop, Mr. Seraphin." Mechtild 
poured spoonful after spoonful ; he 
sat immovable, seemingly observing 
the spoon, but in reality watching her 
soft plump fingers, then her well- 
shaped hand, next her exquisitely 
turned arm, and, when finally he 
raised his eyes to her face, they were 
met by a mischievous smile. The 
cup was empty, and all the cream 
was in his plate. 

" May I go and fetch some 
more ?" she asked. 

" No, Mechtild, no ! Why, this is 
a regular yellow sea ! " 

" You wouldn't cry ' enough !' ' 

" I forgot about it," he replied, 
somewhat confused. " To atone for 
my forgetfulness, I will eat it all." 

" I hope you will relish it, Mr. 
Seraphin !" 

" Thank you ! Where is your 
plate ?" 

" I had my dinner before you 
came." 

" Well, then, at any rate you must 
not continue standing. Won't you 
share this seat with me ?" 



She seated herself upon the bench, 
took off her hat, smoothed down her 
apron, and appeared happy at seeing 
him eating heartily. 

" Don't you find that dish refresh- 
ing, Mr. Seraphin ?" 

" You have done me a real act of 
charity," he replied. " This bread 
is excellent. Who taught you how 
to make bread ?" 

" I learned from mother; but there 
isn't much art in making that sort of 
bread, Mr. Seraphin. The food 
which people in the country eat does 
not require artistic preparation. It 
only needs good, pure material, so 
that it may give strength to labor." 

" I suppose you attend to the 
kitchen altogether, do you not ?" 

"Yes, Mr. Seraphin. That's not 
very difficult, our meals are of the 
plainest kind. We have meat once 
a week, on Sundays. When the work 
is unusually hard, as in harvest time, 
we have meat oftener. We raise our 
own meat and cure it." 

" You have assumed household 
cares at quite an early age, Mech- 
tild." 

"Early ? I am seventeen now, and 
am the oldest. Mother has a great deal 
of trouble with the small ones, so the 
housework falls chiefly to my share. 
It does not require any great exer- 
tion, however, to do it. Plain and 
saving is our motto. Mother speci- 
ally recommends four things : indus- 
try, cleanliness, order, and economy. 
She advises me not to neglect any 
one of these points when once I will 
have a household of my own." 

" Do you think you will soon set 
up a separate household ?" asked he 
with some hesitation. 

" Not for some time to come, Mr. 
Seraphin, yet it must be done one 
day. If my own inclination were 
consulted, I would prefer never to 
leave home. I should like things to 
continue as they are. But a separa- 



The Progressionists. 683 

tion must come. Death will pay us havior, and her eye watched ajixious- 

a visit as it has done to others, fa- ly for the hidden hand, 

ther and mother will pass away, and " Your daughter has been so kind 

the course of events will sever us as to offer refreshments to a weary 

from one another." wanderer," said Gerlach, " and it has 

Her head sank, the brightness of been a great pleasure for me to sit 

her face became obscured beneath awhile. We have been chatting for 

the shadow of these sombre thoughts, several hours under this glorious 

and, when she again looked up, there tree, and may be I am to blame for 

appeared in her eyes so touching keeping her from her work." 

and childlike a sadness that he felt Holt's honest face beamed with 

pained to the soul. And yet this satisfaction. He entirely forgot 

revelation of tenderness pleased him, about his secret, he drew his hand 

for it made known to him a new out of his pocket, Mechtild turned 

phase of her amiable nature. pale, and a sharp cry escaped her lips. 

For a long time he continued con- " For mercy's sake, father !" And 
versing with the artless girl. Every she pointed to the broken chain, 
word she uttered, no matter how " What are you screaming for, 
trifling, had an interest for him. Be- foolish girl ? Don't be alarmed, Mr. 
sides her charming artlessness, he had Seraphin ! this chain has got on my 
frequent occasions to admire the wis- arm in an honorable cause. I will 
dom of her language and her admir- tell you the whole story ; I know you 
able delicacy. The setting sun had will not inform on me." 
already cast a subdued crimson over Seating himself on the bench, he 
the hilltops, hours had sped away, related the adventures of the day. 
the chickens had gone to roost, still The mock procession passed be- 
lie remained riveted to the spot by fore Mechtild's imagination with the 
Mechtild's grace and loveliness. vividness of reality. The narration 

" Father is just coming," she said, transformed her. Her mildness was 

pointing down the road. " How changed to noble anger. She had 

glad he will be to find you here !" heard of the vicar of Christ being in- 

His head bent forward. Holt suited, of holy things being scoffed 

came wearily plodding up the road, at, of the Redeemer being derided 

His right hand was hidden in the by a horde of wretches. With her 

pocket of his pantaloons, and his arms akimbo, she drew up her lithe 

head was bowed, as if beneath a and graceful form to its full height, 

heavy weight. As Mechtild's clear and with flashing eyes looked at her 

voice rang out, he raised his head, father while he related what had be- 

caught sight of his high - hearted fallen him. Seraphin could not help 

benefactor, and smiled in joyful sur- wondering at the transformation, 

prise. Such a display of spirit he had not 

" Welcome, Mr. Seraphin ; a thou- been prepared to witness in a girl so 

sand times welcome !" he cried from gentle and beautiful. When her 

the other side of the road. " Why, father had ended his account, she 

this is an honor that I had not ex- seized his hand passionately, pressed 

pectecl !" it warmly between her own hands, and 

He stood uncovered, holding his kissed the chain. 

cap in the left hand, his right hand " Father, dear father," she exclaim 

was still concealed. Mechtild at ed in a burst of feeling, " I thank 

once noticed her father's singular be- you from my heart for acting as you 



684 



The Progressionists. 



did! Those wretches were scoffing 
at our holy religion, but you behaved 
bravely in defence of the faith. For 
this they put chains on you, as the 
heathen did to S. Peter and S. Paul." 
Once more she kissed the chain, 
then, turning quickly, hastened across 
the yard to the house. 

" Mechtild isn't like the rest 
of us," said Holt, smiling. " There's 
a great deal of spirit in her. I 
have often noticed it. But I am 
not astonished at her being rous- 
ed at the mock procession I was 
roused myself. I declare, Mr. Sera- 
phin, it is a shame, a crying shame, 
that persons are permitted to rail at 
doctrines and things which we revere 
as holy. One would almost believe 
Satan himself was in some people, 
they take so fanatical a delight in 
scoffing at a religion which is holy 
and enjoins nothing but what is 
good." 

" It is incontestable that infidelity 
hates and opposes God and religion," 
replied Gerlach. " The boasted cul- 
ture of those who find a pleasure in 
grossly wounding the most sacred 
feelings of their neighbors, is wicked 
and stupid." 

Mechtild returned with a file in 
her hand. 

" Right, my child ! I was just 
thinking of the file myself. Here, 
cut the catches of the lock." 

He laid his arm across the table. 
A few strokes of the file caused the 
lock and remnant of chain to fall 
from his wrist. 

" We will keep this as a precious 
memento," said she. " Only think, 
father, that wicked official ordered 
you to be manacled, and he is the 
representative of authority. How 
can one respect or even pray for 
authorities when they allow religion 
to be ridiculed ?" 

" Pray for your enemies," answered 
the countryman gravely. 



" I will do so because God com- 
mands me; but I shall never again 
be able to respect the official !" 

Her anger had fled ; she appeared 
again all light and loveliness. He 
did not fail to observe a searching 
look which she directed upon him, 
but its meaning became clear to him 
only when, as he was taking leave, 
she said in a tone of humility : " Par- 
don my vehemence, Mr. Seraphin ! 
Don't think me a bad girl." 

" There is nothing to be forgiven, 
Mechtild. You were indignant 
against godless wretches, and they 
who are not indignant against evil 
cannot themselves be good." 

" We are most heartily thankful 
for this visit," spoke Holt. " I need 
not say that we will consider it a 
great happiness as often as you will 
be pleased to come." 

" Good-night !" returned the young 
man, and he walked away. , 

Deeply immersed in his thoughts, 
Seraphin went back to town. What 
he was thinking about, his diary does 
not record. But the excitement under 
which he had rushed forth was gone 
dispelled by the magic of a rural 
sorceress. He walked on quietly 
like a man who seems filled with 
confidence in his own future. The 
recent painful impressions seemed to 
his mind to lie far back in the past ; 
their place was taken up by beautiful 
anticipations which, like the aurora, 
shed soft and pleasing light upon his 
path. He halted frequently in a 
dream -like reverie to indulge the 
happiness with which his soul was 
flooded. The full moon, just peering 
over the hills, shed around him a 
mystic brightness that harmonized 
perfectly with the indefinable con- 
tentment of his heart, and seemed to 
be gazing quizzingly into the counte- 
nance of the young man, who almost 
feared to confess to himself that he 
had found an invaluable treasure. 



The Progressionists. 685 

As he stopped before the Palais Conrad earnestly. " A father's duty 
Greifmann, all the bright spirits that determines very clearly what my de- 
had hovered round about him on the cision upon the matter of your mar- 
way back from the little whitewashed riage with Louise, ought to be. But 
cottage, fled. He awoke from his I am under obligations to you, my 
dream, and, ascending the stairs son, which justice compels me to ac- 
with a feeling of discomfort, he en- knowledge. Your discernment and 
tered his apartment, where his father moral sense have prevented a great 
sat awaiting him. deal of discord and unhappiness in 

" At last," spoke Mr. Conrad, look- our family. Continue good and true, 

ing up from a book. " You have my Seraphin !" 
kept me waiting a long time, my son." He pressed his son to his bosom 

" I was in need of a good long and imprinted a kiss on his forehead, 
walk, father, to get over what I " To-morrow we shall start for 
witnessed this morning. The coun- home by the first train. Fortunately 
try air has dispelled all those horrible your prudent behavior makes it easy 
impressions. There is only one thing for us to get away, and the final 
more required to make me feel per- breaking off of this engagement I will 
fectly well, dear father, which is that myself arrange with Louise's father, 
you will not insist on my allying my- 
self to people who are utterly op- SERAPHIN GERLACH TO THE AUTHOR. 
posed to my way of thinking and DEAR SIR : Two years ago, I took 
feeling." the liberty of sending you my diary, 

" I understand and approve of with the request that you would be 

your request, Seraphin. The im- pleased to publish such portions of 

pressions made on me, too, are ex- its contents as might be useful, in the 

ceedingly disagreeable. The ad- form of a tale illustrative of the times, 

vancement of which this town boasts I made the request because I consider 

is stupid, immoral, detestable. How it the duty of a writer who delineates 

this state of society has come about, the condition of society, to transmit 

is inexplicable to me who live seclu- to posterity a faithful picture of the 

ded in the country. Society is dis- present social status, and I am vain 

eased, fatally diseased. Many of the enough to believe that my jottings 

new views professed are sheer super- will be a modest contribution to- 

stition, and their morality is a mere wards such a tableau, 
cloak for their corruption and wick- The meagre account given by the 

edness. All the powers of progress diary of my intercourse with Mech- 

so-called are actively at work to sub- tild, will probably have enabled you 

vert all the safeguards of society, to perceive the germ of a pure and 

And what your diary reports of true relation likely to develop itself 

Louise, I have found fully confirmed, further. I shall add but a few items 

Though it cost the sacrifice of a long to complete the account of the diary, 

cherished plan, a son of mine shall knowing that poets, painters, and ar- 

never become the husband of a pro- tists have rigorously determined 

gressionist woman." bounds, and that a twilight cannot 

' O father ! how deeply do I be represented when the sun is at the 

thank you !" cried the youth, carried zenith. I am emboldened to use 

away by his feelings. this illustration because your un- 

* I must decline being thanked, for bounded admiration of pure woman- 

I have not merited it," spoke Mr. hood is well known to me, and be- 



686 



The Progressionists. 



cause the brightness of Mechtild's 
character, were it further described, 
would no more be compatible with 
the sombre colorings in which a true 
picture of modern progress would 
have to be exhibited, than the noon- 
day sun with the shadows of even- 
ing. 

My memoranda concerning Mech- 
tild, which, despite studied soberness, 
betrayed a considerable degree of 
admiration, made known to my pa- 
rents, naturally enough, the secret of 
my heart. Hence it came that a 
quiet smile passed over my father's 
face every time I commenced to 
speak of Mechtild. Holt's manly 
deed at the mock procession had al- 
ready gained for him my father's es- 
teem, and, as I spoke a great deal 
about Holt's thoroughness as a culti- 
vator, my father began to look upon 
him as a very desirable man to em- 
ploy. 

" We want an experienced man on 
the ' green farm,' " said father, one 
day. " Offer the situation to Holt, 
and tell him to come to see me 
about it. I want to talk with him." 

" Give the good man my compli- 
ments," said mother; "tell him I 
would be much pleased to become 
acquainted with Mechtild, who sym- 
pathized with you so kindly on that 
memorable day !" 

I wrote without delay. Holt 
came, and so did Mechtild. But few 
moments were necessary to enable 
mother to detect the girl's fine quali- 
ties. Father, too, was delightfully 
surprised at her modesty, the beauty 
of her form, and grace of her manner. 
He visited the farm accompanied by 
Holt. The cultivator's extraordinary 
knowledge, his practical manner of 
viewing things, and the shrewdness 
of his counsels in regard to the im- 
provement of worn-out land and the 
cultivation of poor soil, completely 
charmed my father. A contract 



containing very favorable conditions 
for Holt was entered into, and three 
weeks later the family took charge 
of the " green farm." 

Upon mother's suggestion, Mech- 
tild was sent to an educational insti- 
tution, where she acquired in ten 
months' time the learning and cul- 
ture necessary for associating with 
cultivated people. 

Father and mother had received 
her on her return like a daughter. 
This reception was given her not only 
in consideration of Holt's skilful and 
faithful management of business, but 
also on account of Mechtild's own 
splendid womanly character per- 
haps, too, partly on account of my 
unbounded admiration for the rare 
girl. 

" The girl is an ornament to her 
sex," lauded my father. " Her pol- 
ished manner and ease in company 
do not suffer one to suspect ever so 
remotely that she at any time plied 
the reaping-hook, and came out of a 
stubblefielcl to regale a weary wan- 
derer with brown bread and bonny- 
clabber. I am quite in harmony 
with your secret wishes, my dear Ser- 
aphin ! At the same time, I am of 
opinion that a step promising so 
much happiness ought not to be 
longer deferred. I think, then, you 
should ask the father for his daughter 
without delay, so that I may soon 
have the pleasure of giving you my 
blessing." 

From my father's arms, into which 
I had thrown myself in thankfulness, 
I hastened away to the "green 
farm," where Mechtild with maidenly 
blushes, and Holt in speechless as- 
tonishment, heard and granted my 
petition. 

I am now four months married. 
I am the blest husband of a wife 
whose lovely qualities are daily 
showing themselves to greater advan- 
tage. Mechtild presides over Cha- 



The Progressionists. 687 

teau Hallberg like an angel of peace, ture and humanity notwithstanding 
Towards my father and mother she his deed. And why should he not, 
conducts herself with filial reverence since without faith in the Deity moral 
and never-ceasing delicate attentions, obligations do not exist, and con.se- 
Mother loves her unspeakably, and quently every species of crime is 
no access of ill humor in father can allowable ? The old gentleman 
withstand her charming smile and Greifmann died shortly after his ruin ; 
prudent mirth. Concerning the Louise lost her mind, 
banking-house of Greifmann, I have My father felt the misfortune of 
only sad things to tell. Carl's father the Greifmanns deeply, without, how- 
had entered into very considerable ever, regretting in the smallest degree 
speculations which failed and drove the wise determination which their 
him into bankruptcy. Carl saw the godless principles and actions had 
blow coming, and saved himself in a driven him to. Formerly he could 
disgraceful manner. There was a never find time to take part in the 
savings institution connected with the elections. But now he is constantly 
bank in which poor people and ser- speaking about the duty of every re- 
vants deposited the savings of their spectable man to oppose the infernal 
hard labor. Carl appropriated this machinations and plans of would-be 
fund and made off a short time be- progress. He intends at the next 
fore the failure of the house. Thou- election to use all his influence for 
sands of poor persons were robbed the election of conscientious deputies, 
of the little sums which they were so that the evil may be put an end 
saving for old age, by denying them- to which consists in trying to under- 
selves many even of the necessaries mine the foundations of society, 
of life. Accept, dear sir, the assurance of 
The maledictions and curses of the esteem with which I have the 
these unfortunate people followed honor to be 
across the ocean the thief whose Your most obedient servant, 
modern culture and progressive hu- SERAPHIN GERLACH. 

inanity did not hinder him from COm- CHATEAU HALLBERG, Jan. 4, 1872. 

mitting a crime which no Christian 

can be guilty of without losing his [Two chapters have been omitted 

claim to the title. Carl, however, still in this translation of " The Progres- 

continues to pass for a man of cul- sionists." ED. C. W.] 



688 F. James Marquette, S.J. 



F. JAMES MARQUETTE, S.J. 

AMONG the names that have be- that instilled into her illustrious son 
come immortalized in the history of that tender and fervid devotion to the 
our country, there are few more cer- Blessed Virgin which so ravished his 
tainly destined for perpetual fame soul and adorned his whole life. In 
than those connected with the dis- 1654, when but seventeen years old, 
covery and exploration of that mighty he entered the Society of Jesus, in 
river which courses so boldly and which the time of his novitiate, the 
majestically through this vast conti- terms of teaching and of his own 
nent. Thus it is probable that there theological studies, consumed twelve 
never will be a time when even chil- years. He had chosen for his model 
dren at school will not be familiar S. Francis Xavier, and in studying 
with such names as De Soto, Mar- his patron's life, and meditating on 
quette, and La Salle. his virtues, the young priest con- 
James Marquette was born in the ceived a holy longing to enter the 
city of Laon, near a small branch of field of missionary toil. He was en- 
the Oise, in the department of Aisne, roiled in the province of Champagne ; 
France, in the year 1637. His fam- but, as this had no foreign missions, 
ily was the most ancient of that an- he caused himself to be transferred 
cient city, and had, during many, to the province^ of France. His 
generations, filled high offices and cherished object was soon attained, 
rendered valuable services to their In 1666, he was sent out to Canada, 
country, both in civil and military and arrived at Quebec on the 2oth 
life. We have accounts of eminent of September of that year, 
services rendered to his sovereign by F. Marquette was at first destined 
one of his ancestors as early as 1360. for the Montagnais mission, whose 
The usefulness and public spirit of central station was at Tadousal, and 
the family, we may well suppose, did on the loth of October he started 
not expire with the distinguished for Three Rivers, in order to study 
subject of this memoir ; for we find the Montagnais language, a key to 
that, in the French army that aided many neighboring Indian tongues, 
our fathers in the achievement of under that celebrated philologist as 
American Independence, there were well as renowned missionary, F. Ga- 
no less than three Marquettes who briel Druilletes. His intervals of 
laid down their lives in the cause of leisure were here employed in the 
liberty. His maternal name was no offices of the holy ministry. F. Mar- 
less distinguished in the annals of the quette was thus occupied till April, 
church. On the side of his mother, 1668, when his destination was 
Rose de la Salle, he was connected changed, and he received orders to 
with the good and venerable John prepare for the mission on Lake Su- 
Baptist de la Salle, founder of the perior, known as the Ottawa mission. 
Brothers of the Christian Schools, so He accordingly returned to Quebec, 
distinguished for their successful ser- and thence set out for Montreal on the 
vices in the cause of popular religious 2 ist of April, with Brother Le Boesmo 
education. It was this pious mother and two other companions; and from 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



689 



the latter place he embarked on the 
Ottawa flotilla. He was accompanied 
by other missionaries on this toilsome 
and dangerous voyage up the Ottawa, 
through French River, to and across 
Lake Huron, and to the Sault St. 
Mary. This region had long before 
been dedicated to God by the erec- 
tion of the cross by Fathers Jogues 
and Raymbault, and twenty years 
later, 1660, F. Menard became the 
founder of the Ottawa mission ; and" 
when F. Marquette arrived in Can- 
ada, F. Allouez was then pushing 
his spiritual conquests beyond any 
points reached by his zealous prede- 
cessors. On the advent of F. Mar- 
quette to the shores of Lake Superior, 
it was found expedient to establish 
two missions, one of which should 
be located at the Sault St. Mary, and 
the other at Green Bay. Erecting 
his cabin at the foot of the rapids on 
the American side, F. Marquette 
opened his mission at the Sault, 
where he was joined the following 
year by F. Dablon, Superior of the 
Ottawa mission. These two zealous 
missionaries soon gathered a Chris- 
tian flock around them, and the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass was now offered 
up in that wild region in " a sanctu- 
ary worthy of the faith." " It is," 
says Bancroft, " the oldest settlement 
begun by Europeans within the pre- 
sent limits of the commonwealth of 
Michigan." So rich was the harvest 
which the enthusiastic and apostoli- 
cal Marquette saw before him that 
he writes in one of his letters : " Two 
thousand souls were ready to em- 
brace the faith, if the missionary were 
faithful to his task." Yet knowing 
the uncertainty of the Indian charac- 
ter, he proceeded cautiously and 
prudently in his undertakings. 
Though his ardent hopes were not 
fully realized, the harvest was not a 
fruitless one ; and Fathers Dablon 
and Marquette labored on with un- 
VOL. xvi. 44 



daunted courage and undiminished 
zeal, instructing the people, baptizing 
such as were in danger of death, 
and laying the solid foundations of a 
future Christian commonwealth. 

In August of 1669, F. Marquette 
was transferred from the Sault to 
Lapointe, to conduct the missions of 
the Holy Ghost among the Ottawas, 
and to fill the place recently occu- 
pied by F. Allouez, who had gone to 
Green Bay. After a perilous and 
exhausting navigation, amid snow 
and ice, of a month's duration, he 
reached Lapointe in safety, and full 
of ardor for the work before him. 
A few extracts from the account of 
this mission, which F. Marquette gave 
to his superior in his letter of the 
following year, will be more accept- 
able to the reader than any synopsis 
we could prepare from it : 

" Divine Providence having destined 
me to continue the mission of the Holy 
Ghost begun by Allouez, who had bap- 
tized the chiefs of the Kiskakonk, I ar- 
rived there on the thirteenth of September, 
and went to visit the Indians who were 
in the clearings, which are divided into 
five towns. The Hurons, to the number 
of about four or five hundred, almost all 
baptized, still preserve some little Chris- 
tianity. A number of the chiefs assembled 
in council were at first well pleased to see 
me ; but I explained that I did not yet 
know their language perfectly, and that 
no other missionary was coming, both be- 
cause all had gone to the Iroquois, and 
because F. Allouez, who understood 
them perfectly, did not wish to return 
that winter, as they did not love the 
prayer enough. They acknowledged that 
it was a just punishment, and during the 
winter held talks about it, and resolved to 
amend, as they tell me. 

"The nation of the Outaouaks Sina- 
gaux is far from the kingdom of 
God, and being above all other nations 
addicted to lewdness, sacrifices, and 
juggleries. They ridicule the prayer, 
and will scarcely hear us speak of Chris- 
tianity. They are proud and unde- 
veloped, and I think that so little can be 
done with this tribe that I have not bap- 
tized healthy infants who seem likely to 



690 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



live, watching only for such as are sick. 
The Indians of the Kinouche tribe de- 
clare openly that it is not yet time. 
There are, however, two men among 
them formerly baptized. One, now rather 
old, is looked upon as a kind of miracle 
among the Indians, having always refused 
to marry, persisting in this resolution in 
spite of all that had been said. He has 
suffered much, even from his relatives, 
but he is as little affected by this as by 
the loss of all the goods which he 
brought last year from the settlement, not 
having even enough left to cover him. 
These are hard trials for Indians, who 
generally seek only to possess much in 
this world. The other, a new-married 
young man, seems of another nature than 
the rest. The Indians, extremely attached 
to their reveries, had resolved that a cer- 
tain number of young women should 
prostitute themselves, each to choose 
such partner as she liked. No one in 
these cases ever refused, as the lives of 
men are supposed to depend on it. This 
young Christian was called ; on entering 
the cabin, he saw the orgies that were 
about to begin, and, feigning illness, 
immediately left, and, though they came 
to call him back, he refused to go. His 
confession was as prudent as it could be, 
and I wondered that an Indian could live 
so innocently, and so nobly profess him- 
self a Christian. His mother and some 
of his sisters are also good Christians. 
The Ottawas, extremely superstitious 
in their feasts and juggleries, seem hard- 
ened to the instructions given them, yet 
they like to have their children baptized. 
God permitted a woman to die this win- 
ter in her sin ; her illness had been con- 
cealed from me, and I heard it only by the 
report that she had asked a very improper 
dance for her cure. I immediately went 
to a cabin where all the chiefs were at a 
feast, and some Kiskakonk Christians 
among them. To these I exposed the 
impiety of the woman and her medicine 
men, and gave them proper instructions. 
I then spoke to all present, and God per- 
mitted that an old Ottawa rose to advise 
granting what I asked, as it made no 
matter, he said, if the woman did die. 
An old Christian then rose and told the 
nation that they must stop the licentious- 
ness of their youth, and not permit Chris- 
tian girls to take part in such dances. 
To satisfy the woman, some child's play 
was substituted for the dance ; but this 
did not prevent her dying before morn- 



ing. The dangerous state of a sick man 
caused the, medicine men to proclaim 
that the devil must be invoked by extra- 
ordinary superstitions. The Christians 
took no part. The actors were these 
jugglers and the sick man, who was 
passed over great fires lighted in every 
cabin. It was said that he did not feel 
the heat, although his body had been 
greased with oil for five or six days. 
Men, women, and children ran through the 
cabins, asking, as a riddle, to divine their 
thoughts, and the successful guesser was 
glad to give the object named. I pre- 
vented the abominable lewdness so com- 
mon at the end of these diabolical rites. 
I dc not think that they will recur, as the 
sick man died soon after. 

"The nation of Kiskakous, which for 
three years refused to receive the Gospel 
preached them by F. Allouez, resolved in 
the fall of 1668 to obey God. This 
resolution was adopted in full council, 
and announced to that father, who spent 
four winter months instructing them. 
The chiefs of the nation became Chris- 
tians, and, as F. Allouez was called to 
another mission, he gave it to my charge 
to cultivate, and I entered on it in Sep- 
tember, 1669. 

"All the Christians were then in the 
fields harvesting their Indian corn ; they 
listened with pleasure when I told them 
that I came to Lapointe for their sake and 
that of the Hurons ; that they never should 
be abandoned, but be beloved above 
all other nations ; and that they and the 
French were one. I had the consolation 
of seeing their love for the prayer and 
their pride in being Christians. I bap- 
tized the new-born infants, and instructed 
the chiefs whom I found well disposed. 
The head chief having allowed a dog to 
be hung on a pole near his cabin, which 
is a kind of sacrifice the Indians make to 
the sun, I told him that this was wrong, 
and he went and threw it down. 

" Having invited the Kiskakous to 
come and winter near the chapel, they 
left all the other tribes, to gather around 
us so as to be able to pray to God, be 
instructed, and have their children bap- 
tized. They all call themselves Chris- 
tians ; hence in all councils and important 
affairs I address them, and, when I wish 
to show them that I really wish what I 
ask, I need only address them as Chris- 
tians ; they told me even that they obey- 
ed me for that reason. They have taken 
the upper hand, and control the three 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



691 



other tribes. It is a great consolation to 
a missionary to see such pliancy in sava- 
ges, and to live in such peace with the In- 
dians, spending the whole day in instruct- 
ing them in our mysteries, and teaching 
them the prayers. Neither the rigor of 
the winter nor the state of the weather 
prevents their coming to the chapel ; 
many never let a day pass, aud I was 
thus busily employed from morning till 
night, preparing some for baptism, some 
for confession, disabusing others of their 
reveries. The old men told me that the 
young men had lost their senses, and 
that I must stop their excesses. I often 
spoke to them of their daughters, urging 
them to prevent their being visited at 
night. I knew almost all that passed in 
two tribes near us ; but, though others 
were spoken of, I never heard anything 
against the Christian women, and when 
I spoke to the old men about their 
daughters, they told me that they prayed 
to God. I often inculcated this, knowing 
the importunities to which they are con- 
stantly exposed, and the courage they 
need to resist. They have learned to be 
modest, and the French who have seen 
them perceive how little they resemble 
the others from whom they are thus dis- 
tinguished. 

" After Easter, all the Indians dispersed 
to seek subsistence ; they promised me 
that they would not forget the prayer, 
and earnestly begged that a father should 
come in the fall when they assemble again. 
This will be granted, and, if it please God 
to send some father, he will take my 
place, while I, to execute the orders of 
my father-superior, will go and begin my 
Illinois mission. 

"The Illinois are thirty days' journey 
by land from Lapointe by a difficult road ; 
they lie south-southwest of it. ' On the 
way you pass the nation of the Ketchigam- 
ins, who live in more than twenty large 
cabins ; they are inland, and seek to have 
intercourse with the French, from whom 
they hope to get axes, knives, and iron- 
ware. So much do they fear them that 
they unbound from the stake two Indian 
captives, who said, when about to be 
burned, that the Frenchman had declared 
that they wished peace all over the world. 
You pass then to the Miamiwek, and 
by great deserts reach the Illinois, who 
are assembled chiefly in two towns con- 
taining more than eight or nine thousand 
souls. These people a.re well enough 
disposed to receive Christianity. Since F. 



Allouez spoke to them at Lapointe to 
adore one God, they have begun to 
abandon their false worship ; for they 
adored the sun and thunder. Those seen 
by me are apparently of good disposition, 
and they are not night-runners, like the 
other Indians. A man kills his wife if he 
finds her unfaithful. They are less prodi- 
gal in sacrifices, and promise me to em- 
brace Christianity, and do all I require in 
their country. In this view, the Ottawas 
gave me a young man recently come 
from their country, who initiated me to 
some extent in their language during the 
leisure given me in the winter by the 
Indians at Lapointe. I could scarcely 
understand it, though there is something 
of the Algonquin in it ; yet I hope, by the 
help of God's grace, to understand and 
be understood if God by his goodness 
leads me to that country. 

" No one must hope to escape crosses 
in our missions, and the best means to 
live happily is not to fear them, but, in 
the enjoyment of little crosses, hope for 
others still greater. The Illinois desire 
us, like Indians, to share their miseries 
and suffer all that can be imagined in 
barbarism. They are lost sheep, to be 
sought amid woods and thorns, espe- 
cially when they call so piteously to be 
rescued from the jaws of the wolf. Such, 
really, can I call their entreaties to me 
this winter. They have actually gone 
this spring to notify the old men to come 
for me in the fall. 

" The Illinois always come by land. 
They sow maize, which they have in great 
plenty ; they have pumpkins as large as 
those of France, and plenty of roots and 
fruit. The chase is very abundant in 
wild cattle, bears, stags, turkeys, duck, 
bustard, wild pigeon, and cranes. They 
leave their towns at certain times every 
year to go to their hunting-grounds to- 
gether, so as to be better able to resist if 
attacked. They believe that I will spread 
peace everywhere if I go, and then only 
the young will go to hunt. 

" When the Illinois come to Lapointe, 
they pass a large river almost a league 
wide. It runs north and south, and eo 
far that the Illinois, who do not know 
what canoes are, have never yet heard of 
its mouth ; they only know that there are 
very great nations below them, some of 
whom raise two crops of maize a year. 
East-southeast of the country is a nation 
they call Chawawon, which came to visit 
them last summer. They wear beards, 



692 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



which shows intercourse with Europeans ; 
they had come thirty days across land 
before reaching their country. This great 
river can hardly empty in Virginia, and 
we rather believe its mouth is in Califor- 
nia. If the Indians, who promise to make 
me a canoe, do not fail to keep their word, 
we shall go into this river as soon as we 
can, with a Frenchman and this young 
man given me, who knows some of these 
languages, and has a readiness for learn- 
ing others ; we shall visit the nations 
which inhabit it, in order to open the way 
to so many of our fathers who have long 
awaited this happiness. This discovery 
will give us a complete knowledge of the 
southern or western sea. 

" The Illinois are warriors ; they make 
many slaves, whom they sell to the Otta- 
was for guns, powder, kettles, axes, and 
knives. They were formerly at war with 
the Nadouessi, but, having made peace 
some years since, I confirmed it, to facili- 
tate their coming to Lapointe, where I 
am going to await them, in order to ac- 
company them to their country." 

Much as he loved his children at 
Lapointe, and faithfully as he had 
served them, the voice of his superior 
had ordered him to this new, vaster, 
and more laborious field, which to 
his true Jesuit obedience was a task. 
of love. The Illinois at once become 
dear to his heart as his future children ; 
he studies their language, loses no 
opportunity of learning all about their 
country, its tribes and their customs, 
sends them presents of pious pictures 
and the loving messages of a father, 
welcomes every member of their na- 
tion who might visit Lapointe with 
open arms, and presses him to his 
heart, and devotes every moment of 
leisure afforded him from his labors 
to sedulous preparation for the con- 
templated mission of the Immaculate 
Conception. His intelligent mind 
fully comprehended the vast import- 
ance of the undertaking in its relations 
to the church and the civilized world, 
and conceived at once the bold and 
daring project of a thorough explora- 
tion of the great river around which 
so much mystery, intermingled with 



romantic fables and dim traditions, 
still hung. It is with equal truth and 
justice that Bancroft writes : " The 
purpose of discovering the Missis- 
sippi, of which the tales of the na- 
tives had published the magnificence, 
sprang from Marquette himself." 

It has already been stated that F. 
Marquette had sent some pious 
pictures to the Illinois, and by the 
same messenger to the Sioux, whom 
he expected to be embraced in his 
intended mission. The messenger 
who carried the father's presents 
also bore his request for protection 
and a safe-conduct to such European 
missionaries as might visit or pass 
through their country, and a mes- 
sage, " That the black-gown wished 
to pass to the country of the Assini- 
poils and Kilistinons ; that he was 
already among the Outagamis ; and 
that he himself was going in the fall 
to the Illinois." 

Sad indeed must have been the feel- 
ings of the good father, when, early 
in the winter, the Sioux returned to 
him the pious pictures he had sent 
them, in which he saw an ominous 
forerunner of impending war. The 
Ottawas and Hurons had by their in- 
solence aroused the indignation of the 
Sioux, and the latter had seized the 
tomahawk and prepared for the bloo- 
dy and revengeful strife. His hopes 
of reaching the cabins of the Sioux by 
an overland route now vanished before 
the approaching storm. The Indians 
at Lapointe could not withstand the 
fierce onsets of the Dakotah war- 
parties, and first the Ottawas, aban- 
doning their village, launched their 
canoes upon the lake, and were soon 
gathered in Ekaentoulon Island. The 
Hurons remained alone at Lapointe, 
and F. Marquette remained in the 
midst of them to minister to their 
spiritual wants, share their dangers, 
and uphold their .faith and courage. 
And when they too were forced to 






F. James Marquette^ S.J. 693 

depart, the good father, ever true to missionaries of the Northwest, and 
his spiritual flock, was content to from the reports of the Canadian 
" turn his back on his beloved Illi- traders among the Indians. His in- 
nois to accompany his Hurons in quiries of the more northern tribes 
their wanderings and hardships." were eagerly answered by startling 
The Hurons settled at Mackinaw, a fables of various hues and contra- 
bleak and desolate spot, but the dictory generalities, but nothing defi- 
abundance of fish the neighboring nite could be learned from them as 
waters afforded was certain to secure to the course of the great river, its 
the fugitives from starvation, while direction or outlet, or of the natives 
the very desolation of the scene along its course. All was conjecture 
seemed a protection from hostile and theory. As early as 1639 the 
bands. Scarcely had the- Hurons Sieur Nicolet, who was the interpre- 
thrown up their cabins on this dreary ter of the French colony of New 
shore, when a rude sylvan chapel, France, had penetrated westward to 
surmounted by a cross, graced and the furthest grounds of the Algon- 
cheered the scene, and became the quins, and had encountered the Win- 
cradle of religion at the mission of nebagoes, " a people called so be- 
S. Ignatius. Such was the early cause they came from a distant sea, 
origin of Michilimackinac. Beside but whom the French erroneously 
the enclosure of cabins and chapel called Puents." And we learn from 
arose a palisade fort for defence. For F. Vimont that " the Sieur Nicolet, 
several years F. Marquette labored who had penetrated furthest into those 
in this remote and arduous station, distant countries, avers that, had he 
cheered only by the consolations sailed three days more on a great 
which spring from faith and by the river which flows from that lake 
bountiful harvests of souls he reaped. (Green Bay), he would have found 
Though longing to proceed on his the sea." And although the Indians 
mission to the Illinois, as all his let- called the Mississippi itself " the sea," 
ters so earnestly manifest, F. Mar- and the Sieur Nicolet may have fallen 
quette found ample work both for into the same error, in either case it 
his mind and hands in arranging seems quite certain that he was the 
matters at Lapointe, so that his de- first to reach the waters of that river, 
parture should cause as little damage In 1641, Fathers Isaac Jogues and 
as possible to that mission, to which Charles Raymbaut carried their mis- 
he had been so faithful and devoted, sionary labors to the Sault St. Mary, 
and which he was now about to con- and received distinct accounts of the 
fide to the care of another, and in Sioux, and of the great river on whose 
making the necessary preparations banks they lived. In 1658, after F. 
for his departure ; for his time seemed Garreau had suffered martyrdom on 
now near at hand. The dreary days the St. Lawrence on his way to re- 
of winter were enlivened by recount- new the Western missions destroyed 
ing the projected plans of the coming by the recent Iroquois war, De Gro- 
spring, and in gathering all the in- seilles and another Frenchman pene- 
formation within his reach concern- trated to Lake Superior, and passed 
ing the Mississippi and the nations the winter on its shores. They visited 
inhabiting its banks. Most of the the Sioux, learned with greater clear- 
actual knowledge then possessed on ness and particularity of the course of 
the subject was derived from the ac- the great river on whose banks they 
counts and relations of the Jesuit stood. Their annalist writes : " It 



694 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



was a beautiful river, large, broad, 
and deep, which would bear com- 
parison, they say, with the St. Law- 
rence." The missionaries of the 
Saguenay had also "heard of the 
Winnipegouek, and their bay whence 
three seas could be reached." And 
war parties of the Iroquois told the 
missionaries of New York of their 
wars with the Ontoagannha, " whose 
towns lay on a beautiful river (Ohio), 
which leads to the great lake, as they 
called the sea, where they traded with 
Europeans who pray to God as we 
(the French) do, and have rosaries 
and bells to call men to prayer." * F. 
Menard, the founder of the Ottawa 
mission, also heard, in 1660, of the 
Mississippi and the nations on its 
banks, and was only prevented from 
visiting them by meeting with a mar- 
tyr's death while prosecuting his 
work. F. Allouez, his successor, also 
writes of the great river, " which emp- 
ties, as far as I can conjecture, into 
the sea of Virginia," and was the first 
to reveal to Europeans its Indian 
name; for, in speaking of one of its 
tribes, he says : " They live on a great 
river called Messipi." At the time 
that F. Dablon was appointed Supe- 
rior of the Ottawa missions, and F. 
Marquette appointed to establish the 
intended Illinois mission, and the ex- 
ploration of the river was about to be 
undertaken, the latter, as already 
stated, was for some time engaged in 
gathering information concerning its 
course and outlet. Three principal 
conjectures prevailed at this time : 
first, that it ran towards the south- 
west, and entered the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia; second, that it flowed into 
the Gulf of Mexico; third, that it 
took a more easterly direction, and 
discharged itself into the Atlantic 
Ocean, somewhere on the coast of 
Virginia. To F. Marquette belonged 

* Shea. 



the glory of solving the problem, and 
thus of opening the interior of the 
continent to Christianity and civili- 
zation. 

The war which was raging in the 
country rendered it impossible for 
the missionaries of themselves to un- 
dertake the opening of the long-de- 
sired mission of the Illinois, and they 
had accordingly applied for assistance 
to the French government to further 
this great enterprise. F. Marquette, 
as we have seen from his letters, re- 
mained ever ready at a moment's 
notice from his superiors to advance 
into this dangerous field. He was 
not deterred by a consciousness of his 
own declining health, already enfee- 
bled by labors and exposures, nor by 
the hostile character of the nations 
through whose country he would 
have to pass, nor by the danger of a 
cruel death at the hands of the fierce 
Dakotah. This last only made the 
prospect more enticing to one whose 
highest ambition was to win the glo- 
rious crown of martyrdom in opening 
the way for his brother Jesuits to fol- 
low in the battle of the faith. The 
same flotilla that carried his letter to 
F. Dablon to Quebec in the sum- 
mer of 1672, on its return conveyed 
to him the joyous news that the peti- 
tion of the missionaries had found fa- 
vor with the government; that the 
Sieur Jolliet was designated to under- 
take the exploration of the Mississip- 
pi ; and that F. Marquette was chosen 
the missionary of the expedition. It 
was the Blessed Virgin whom. F. 
Marquette says, " I had always in- 
voked, since my coming to the Otta- 
wa country, in order to obtain of God 
the favor of being able to visit the 
nations on the Mississippi River." It 
was on the feast of the Immaculate 
Conception of the same Blessed Vir- 
gin Mary that he received the glori- 
ous tidings that the realization of his 
hopes and prayers was at hand. He 






F. James Marquette, S.J. 695 



bestowed upon the great river the wood, became more frequent, and moose 

name of the Immaculate Conception, and deer browzed on the plains ; strange 

which, however, as well as its earlier a mals were * ee , n travers i ng . the river - 

. , r-r*' r an d monstrous fish appeared in its waters. 

Spanish name of River of the Holy But they procee ded on their way amid 

Ghost, has since yielded to its ongi- this solitude, frightful by its utter ab- 

nal Indian appellation. sence of man. Descending still further, 

The exploring party, consisting of the 7 came to the land of the bison > or 

"the meek, single-hearted, unpre- P^iou, which, with the turkey, became 

,. . . T., r . . sole tenants of the wilderness; all other 

tending, illustrious Marquette, with game had disapp e are d. At last, on the 

Jolhet for his associate, five French- 2 sth of June, they descried footprints on 

men for his companions, and two Al- the shore. They now took heart again, 

gonquins as guides, lifting their ca- and J olliet and the missionary, leaving 

noes on their backs, and walking ! h ^ r fi , ve f men i " th t e canoes ' ***""** 

*p little beaten path to discover who the 

across the narrow portage that di- tri be might be. They travelled on in sil- 

vides the Fox River from the Wis- ence almost to the cabin-doors, when they 

consin," set out upon their glorious halted, and with a loud halloa proclaimed 

expedition. Mr. J. G. Shea, to whom ^ eir comin s- Three villages lay before 

u j i L j r u- them ; the first, roused by the cry, poured 

we are so much indebted for his re- forth \ ts mode ' y group> ^ hich ^ at 

searches into this interesting part of t he sight of the new-comers and the well- 

the history of our country, describes known dress of the missionary. Old 

the voyage in the following graphic men came slowly on, step by measured 

and eloquent manner : st< ;P> beari "f aloft , the all-mysterious 

calumet. All was silence ; they stood at 

" In the spring they embarked at Mack- last before the two Europeans, and Mar- 
inaw in two frail bark canoes; each quette asked, 'Who are you?' 'We are 
with his paddle in hand, and full of hope, Illinois,' was the answer, which dispelled 
they soon plied them merrily over the all anxiety from the explorers, and sent a 
crystal waters of the lake. All was new thrill to the heart of Marquette ; the Illi- 
to Marquette, and he describes as he nois missionary was at last amid the 
went along the Menonomies, Green Bay, children of that tribe which he had so 
and Maskoutens, which he reached on long, so tenderly yearned to see. 
the yth of June, 1673. He had now at- " After friendly greetings at this town 
tained the limit of former discoveries ; the of Pewaria, and the neighboring one of 
new world was before them ; they looked Moing-wena, they returned to their 
back a last adieu to the waters which, canoes, escorted by the wondering tribe, 
great as the distance was, connected them who gave their hardy visitants a calumet, 
with Quebec and their countrymen ; they the safeguard of the West. With renew- 
knelt on the shore to offer, by a new de- ed courage and lighter hearts, they sailed 
votion, their lives, their honor, and their in, and, passing a high rock with strange 
undertakings to their beloved Mother, and monstrous forms depicted on its 
the Virgin Mary Immaculate; then, rugged surface, heard in the distance the 
launching on the broad Wisconsin, sailed roaring of a mighty cataract, and soon 
slowly down its current, amid its vine-clad beheld Pekitanoui, or the Muddy River, as 
isles and its countless sand-bars. No the Algonquins call the Missouri, rush- 
sound broke the stillness, no human form ing like some untamed monster into the 
appeared, and at last, after sailing seven calm and clear Mississippi, and hurrying 
days, on the I7th of June they happily in with its muddy waters the trees which 
glided into the great river. Joy that it had rooted up in its impetuous course, 
could find no utterance in words filled Already had the missionaries heard of the 
the grateful heart of Marquette. river running to the western sea, to be 

"The broad river of the Conception, as reached by the branches of the Mississip- 

he named it, now lay before them, pi, and Marquette, now better informed, 

stretching away hundreds of miles to an fondly hoped to reach it one day by the 

unknown sea. Soon all was new; Missouri. But now their course lay 

mountain and forest had glided away ; south, and, passing a dangerous eddy, the 

the islands, with their groves of cotton- demon of the Western Indians, they reach- 



6 9 6 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



ed the Waboukigou, or Ohio, the river of 
the Shawnees, and, still holding on their 
way, came to the warm land of the cane, 
and the country which the mosquitoes 
might call their own. While enveloped 
in their sails as a shelter from them, they 
came upon a tribe who invited them to 
the shore. They were wild wanderers, 
for they had guns bought of Catholic 
Europeans at the East. 

" Thus, after all had been friendly, and 
encouraged by this second meeting, they 
plied their oars anew, and, amid groves of 
cottonwood on either side, descended to 
the 33d degree, when, for the first time, a 
hostile reception was promised by the 
excited Metchigameas. Too few to resist, 
their only hope on earth was the myste- 
rious calumet, and in heaven the protec- 
tion of Mary, to whom they sent up fer- 
vent prayers. At last the storm subsided, 
and they were received in peace ; their 
language formed an obstacle, but an in- 
terpreter was found, and after explaining 
the object of their coming, and announc- 
ing the great truths of Christianity, they 
embarked for Akamsea, a village thirty 
miles below on the eastern shore. 

" Here they were well received, and 
learned that the mouth of the river was 
but ten days' sail from this village ; but 
they heard, too, of nations there trading 
with Europeans, and of wars between the 
tribes, and the two explorers spent a 
night in consultation. The Mississippi, 
they now saw, emptied into the Gulf of 
Mexico, between Florida and Tampico, 
two Spanish points ; they might, by pro- 
ceeding, fall into their hands. Thus far 
only Marquette traced the map, and he 
put down the names of other tribes of 
which they heard. Of these, in the 
Atotchasi, Matora, and Papihaka, we re- 
cognize Arkansas tribes ; and the Akoroas 
and Tanikwas, Pawnees and Omahas, 
Kansas and Apiches, are well known in 
after-days. 

" They accordingly set out from 
Akensea, on the lyth of July, to return. 
Passing the Missouri again, they entered 
the Illinois, and, meeting the friendly 
Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were 
led by them in a kind of triumph to 
Lake Michigan ; for Marquette had pro- 
mised to return and instruct them in the 
faith. Sailing along the lake, they cross- 
ed the outer peninsula of Green Bay, and 
reached the mission of S. Francis 
Xavier just four months after their de- 
parture from it. 



" Thus had the missionaries achieved 
their long-projected work. The triumph 
of the age was thus completed in the dis- 
covery and exploration of the Mississippi, 
which threw open to France the richest, 
most fertile and accessible territory of 
the New World. Marquette, whose 
health had been severely tried in this 
voyage, remained at St. Francis to recruit 
his strength before resuming his wonted 
missionary labors ; for he sought no 
laurels, he aspired to no tinsel praise. 

" The distance passed over by F. Mar- 
quette on this great expedition, in his 
little bark canoe, was two thousand seven 
hundred and sixty-seven miles. The 
feelings with which he regarded an en- 
terprise having so grave a bearing on the 
future history and development of man- 
kind maybe appreciated from the follow- 
ing closing passage of the ninth section 
of his Voyages and Discoveries : 

" ' Had all this voyage caused but the 
salvation of a single soul, I should deem 
all my fatigue well repaid. And this I 
have reason to think ; for, when I was re- 
turning, I passed by the Indians at 
Peoria. I was three days announcing 
the faith in all their cabins, after which, as 
we were embarking, they brought me to 
the water's edge a dying child, which I 
baptized a little before it expired, by an 
admirable Providence, for the salvation 
of that innocent soul.' ' 

F. Marquette prepared a narrative 
of his voyage down the Mississippi 
(from which the foregoing quotation 
is taken), and a map of that river; 
and on his return transmitted copies 
to his superior, by the Ottawa flotilla 
of that year. It is also probable that 
Frontenac, the Governor of New 
France, as he had promised, sent a 
copy of them to the French govern- 
ment. The loss of Jolliet's narrative 
and map gave an inestimable value 
to those of Marquette. Yet the 
French government did not publish 
them, probably in consequence of 
the discontinuance of the publication 
of the Jesuit Relations about this 
time; and thus the great interests in- 
volved in the discovery were neglect- 
ed. Fortunately, F. Marquette's 
narrative fell into the hands of 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



697 



Thevenot, who had just published a 
collection of travels, and such was 
his appreciation of it that he issued a 
new volume, entitled Recueil de Voya- 
ges, in 1 68 1, containing the narrative 
and map of the Mississippi.* Mr. 
Sparks, in his life of F. Marquette, 
speaks thus of the narrative : 

" It is written in a terse, simple, and un- 
pretending style. The author relates 
what occurs, and describes what he sees, 
without embellishment or display. He 
writes as a scholar and as a man of care- 
ful obervation and practical sense. There 
is no tendency to exaggerate, nor any 
attempt to magnify the difficulties he had 
to encounter, or the importance of his dis- 
covery. In every point of view, this tract 
is one of the most interesting of those 
which illustrate the early history of 
America." 

Having reached Green Bay, the 
exhausted voyager sank down under 
the effects of his recent travels and 
exposures. His disease was so obsti- 
nate and protracted that he suffered 
during the entire winter, though with 
patience and resignation, and clid not 
recover before the end of the follow- 
ing summer. Having received from 
his superior the necessary orders for 
the establishment of the Illinois mis- 
sion, he started on the 25th of Octo- 
ber, 1674, for Kaskaskia. He was 
accompanied and assisted by two 
faithful and devoted Frenchmen, and 
by a number of Pottawattomies and 
Illinois Indians. They coasted along 
the mouth of Fox River, and then, 
advancing up as far as the small bay 
breaking into the peninsula, they 
reached the portage leading to the 
lake. As the canoes proceeded along 
the lake shore, the missionary walked 
upon the beach, returning to the ca- 
noes whenever the beach was broken 
by a river or stream ; and their pro- 
visions were obtained from the abun- 
dant yield of the chase. On the 23d 

See the narrative and map in Shea's History 
of the Discovery and Exploration of the Missis- 
sippi. 



of November, the courageous mis- 
sionary found his malady returning, 
but pushed on, amid cold and snow, 
until, on the 4th of December, he 
reached the Chicago River, which 
was closed with ice. Here again the 
unpropitious elements and his own 
infirmities compelled him to stop and 
spend the winter. But his time was 
not idly spent during this detention, 
for his missionary zeal found occupa- 
tion in the spiritual care of his Indian 
companions, whom he instructed as 
well as he could, and sent them for- 
ward on their journey. His faithful 
Frenchmen remained now alone with 
him ; but at a distance of fifty miles 
was an Illinois village, where there 
were two Frenchmen, traders and 
trappers; and these, hearing of the 
forlorn condition of the missionary, 
arranged that one of them should go 
and visit him. They had prepared 
a cabin for him, and the Indians, 
alarmed for his safety, were also anx- 
ious to send some of their tribe to 
convey their father and his effects to 
their village. Touched by their at- 
tentions, he sent them every assur- 
ance of his visiting them, intimating, 
however, the uncertainty of his doing 
so in the spring, in consequence of 
his continued illness. These messa- 
ges only added to the alarm of the 
Indians, and the sachems assembled 
and sent a deputation to the black- 
gown. The presents they bore were 
three sacks of corn, dried meat, and 
pumpkins, and twelve beaver skins. 
The objects of their visits were, first, 
to make him a mat to sit on ; second, 
to ask him for powder; third, supply 
him with food ; fourth, to get some 
merchandise. The good father made 
answer in characteristic terms, as fol- 
lows : " First, that I came to instruct 
them by speaking of the prayer ; sec- 
ond, that I would not give them 
powder, as we endeavor to make 
peace everywhere, and because I did 



698 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



not wish them to begin a war against 
the Miamis ; third, that we did not 
fear famine ; fourth, that I would en- 
courage the French to bring them 
merchandise, and that they must 
make reparation to the traders there 
for the beads taken from -them while 
the surgeon was with me." Present- 
ing them with some axes, knives, and 
trinkets, he dismissed them with a 
promise to make every effort to visit 
them in a few days. Bidding their 
good father to " take heart," and be- 
seeching him to "stay and die in 
their country," the deputation " re- 
turned to their winter camps." 

The ensuing winter months, though 
marked by every bodily suffering 
and privation, were replete with 
religious consolation. His whole 
time was spent in prayer. Admon- 
ished by his disease that his last end 
could not be far off, he offered his 
remaining days entirely to God. He 
lost sight of the sufferings of his 
body in the overflow of heavenly 
consolations with which his soul was 
ravished. Still the recollection that 
he had been appointed missionary 
of the Illinois, and the duty this 
seemed to impose upon him of labor- 
ing for the conversion of those noble 
but benighted souls, filled his heart 
with the desire of visiting them, if it 
should be the will of God, and the 
establishment of the Illinois mission 
became the absorbing thought of his 
mind and the burden of the prayers 
which he addressed to the throne of 
heaven. His sufferings he bore not 
only with patience, but with joy; if 
he prayed for their cessation, it was 
only with the view that he might 
thus be enabled to encounter the new 
sufferings, labors, and hardships of 
his mission, and that he might devote 
his remaining days to the salvation 
of his beloved Illinois. To obtain 
this privilege from heaven, he indue- 
ed his companions to unite with him 



in a novena of prayers in honor of 
the Immaculate Conception of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary. Some time 
after Christmas, 1675, his Patroness 
in heaven obtained the desired boon 
of health for her devoted client ; for 
he soon began to recover from his 
disease, and, though still feeble, was 
enabled by the 2Qth of March, when 
the snow and ice began to melt, and 
the fiiundations compelled them to 
move^to set out for Kaskaskia, in the 
Upper. Illinois. He arrived at that 
Illinois town on the 8th of April, but 
his journal was discontinued from the 
6th iif /April, and we have no record 
of fyis^niovements from that time. 
He ,was; received by his children as 
an angel from heaven, for they 
soarce)y<; supposed he had escaped 
$. rigors of the winter. It was 
in Holy Week, and the 
immediately commenced 
his. w^rk,, He visited the chiefs and 
ancients-pf the town, and gave them 
and. the crowds who assembled in the 
catjin^ .he, visited the first necessary 
jns j triic : tipn.s in the Gospel. So great 
.w ; er. .t^e, throngs that assembled to 
hear .l^m^reach that the narrow ac- 
cpmm-o^aitions of the cabins could 
n,p.t hpjjd them. On Maundy Thurs- 
xUy hefcdled a general assembly of 
^Ue R$f$4n the open field, a beauti- 
jful. prajU-je^near the town, which was 
jieg^ra^^ after the fashion of the 
cp,u-nti[y ; , .and spread with mats and 
L,e$rj]$ns. He formed a little rustic 
aJJrff by suspending some pieces of 
Indian taffety on cords, to which 
iW-ere,. attached, so as to be seen on 
alL four sides, four large pictures of 
the Blessed Virgin, under whose in- 
vocation the mission was placed. The 
assembly was immense; composed of 
five hundred chiefs and ancients seat- 
ed in a circle around the missionary, 
and around these stood fifteen hun- 
dred young men. Besides these, 
great numbers of women and children 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 699 

attended. He addressed his congre- children, begged him to return to 
gation with ten words or presents, them as soon as his health should 
according to the Indian fashion, as- permit. He repeatedly promised 
sociating each word or present, which them that he or some other mission- 
represented some great truth or mys- ary would come to continue the 
tery, with one of the ten beads on good work amongst them. The peo- 
the belt of the prayer which he held pie followed him on his journey, es- 
in his hand. He explained the ob- corted him thirty leagues on his way 
ject of his visit to them, preached with great pomp, showing him every 
Christ crucified for it was the eve of mark of friendship and affection, and 
Good Friday and explained to them many contended among themselves 
the principal mysteries of the Chris- for the honor of carrying the scanty 
tian religion. The Holy Mass was baggage he possessed. .Taking the 
then celebrated for the first time in way of the St. Joseph's River and the 
this new mission. On each of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, 
following days he continued his in- along which he had yet to travel 
structions, and on Easter Sunday he over a hundred leagues through an un- 
celebrated the great Feast of the known route, his strength soon began 
Resurrection, offering up Mass for to fail entirely. He could no longer 
the second time. He took posses- help himself; his two faithful French 
sion of the land in the name of his companions had to lift him in and 
risen Lord, and bestowed upon the out of his canoe when they landed 
mission the name of the Immaculate at night; and so exhausted had he 
Virgin Mary. become under his wasting disease 
His former malady now returned that they had to handle and carry 
with renewed violence. His strength him like a child. In the midst of his 
was wasting away. To remain sufferings and the hardships of such 
would accomplish no good for his a journey in his enfeebled health, his 
children, for he was unable to dis- characteristic equanimity, joy, ancl 
charge the duties of the missionary, gentleness never for a moment left 
and no alternative was left but to him. He could even forget his own 
make an effort to reach his former sufferings to console his companions, 
mission, Mackinaw, where he hoped He encouraged them to sustain the 
to die in the midst of his fellow-mem- fatigues of the way, assuring them 
bers of the Society of Jesus. He that God would protect and defend 
was the more willing now to seek them. His native mirthfulness was 
rest in the bosom of his Redeemer even in this extreme crisis conspicu- 
and in the Society of his Blessed ous in his conversations. He now 
Mother in Heaven, because he had calmly saw the apnroach of death, 
performed his promise, the mission and joyfully and heroically welcome 
of the Illinois had been founded, his it as the reward of his toils and sac- 
words had been lovingly received by rifices. He had some time before 
his people, the good seed had been prepared a meditation on death, to 
sown in their hearts, the Holy Sacri- s?rve him in these. last hours of his 
fice had been offered up in their life, which he now used with great 
presence and for their salvation, and consolation. He said his office to 
future missionaries might now ad- his last day. His devotions fre- 
vance to cultivate the field and reap quently assumed the shape of collo- 
the harvest he had prepared. His quies with his merciful Lord, with his 
docile Indians, with the devotion of Holy Mother, with his angel guar- 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



dian, and with all heaven. He re- 
peatedly pronounced with fervor the 
sublime words, " I believe that my 
Redeemer liveth"; and again, " Mary, 
Mother of grace, Mother of God, 
remember me." Perceiving a river 
on whose banks loomed up a promi- 
nent eminence, he ordered his com- 
panions to stop, that he might die 
and be buried there. He pointed out 
the spot on this eminence in which 
he desired them to inter his remains. 
This river, until recent years, bore his 
name. His companions still desired 
to press forward, in the hope of reach- 
ing Mackinaw ; but they were driven 
back by the wind, and, entering the 
River Marquette by its former chan- 
nel, they erected a bark cabin, under 
which Marquette, like his great 
model, S. Francis Xavier, was stretch- 
ed upon the shore, and, like him, 
sighed only to be dissolved and to 
be with Christ. So cheerfully did he 
realize his approaching dissolution 
that he gave all the necessary direc- 
tions to his companions touching his 
burial. He had a week before bless- 
ed some water, which he instructed 
them how to use on the occasion, 
how to arrange his hands, feet, and 
head, with what religious ceremonies 
to bury him, even telling them that 
they should take his little altar bell, 
and ring it as they carried him to the 
grave. On the eve of his death, he 
told them with a countenance radiant 
with joy that the morrow would be 
his last day on earth. Still mindful 
of his sacred ministry, and anxious 
to be doing good, he administered 
the sacrament of penance to his two 
companions for the last time. He 
thanked them for their charity to him 
during this arduous and eventful 
voyage, begged their pardon for the 
trouble he had given them, and di- 
rected them to ask pardon for him 
and in his name of all the Fathers 
and Brothers of the Society of Jesus 



in the Ottawa country ; he also gave 
them a paper in which he had writ- 
ten all his faults since his last confes- 
sion, which he begged them to give 
to his superior, that he might pray the 
more earnestly for him. He promis- 
ed not to forget them in heaven. 
Ever mindful of others in this trying 
moment, and overflowing with chari- 
ty for his neighbor, he insisted upon 
his companions taking some rest, 
leaving him to commune with heaven, 
assuring them that his hour was not 
yet at hand, and that he would call 
them in due time. This he did ; 
summoning them to his side, just as 
his agony was approaching. Hast- 
ening to him, they fell melting into 
tears at his feet. He embraced them 
for the last time, called for the holy 
water he had blessed and his reliqua- 
ry, and, taking his crucifix from 
around his neck, and handing it to 
one of them, he requested him to 
hold it up before him, so that he could 
behold it every moment he had yet 
to live. Clasping his hands, and fix- 
ing his eyes affectionately on the 
image of his expiring Saviour, he 
pronounced aloud his profession of 
faith, and thanked God for the favor 
he enjoyed in dying a Jesuit, a mis- 
sionary of the cross, and, above all, 
in dying in a miserable cabin, amid 
forests, and destitute of all human 
consolation and assistance. He then 
communed secretly for some time 
with his Creator, but his devotion 
from time to time found vent in the 
ejaculations, " Sustinuit anima mea 
in verba ejus," and " Mater Dei, 
memento mei." These were his last 
words before he was taken with the 
agony of death. His companions 
frequently pronounced the names of 
Jesus and Mary, as he had previous- 
ly requested them to do, and, when 
they saw he was about to expire, they 
called out " Jesus, Maria," whereup- 
on he repeated those enrapturing 






F. James Marquette, S.J. 



701 



names several times with distinctness, 
and then suddenly, as if his Saviour 
and Mother had appeared to him, 
he raised his eyes above the crucifix, 
gazing with a countenance lit up 
with pleasure at those blissful appa- 
ritions. He expired as peacefully and 
gently as a child sinking into its 
evening slumber. 

Thus he died, the great apostle, 
Far away in regions West ; 



But his spirit still regards us 

From his home among the blest." 

The devoted companions of the il- 
lustrious missionary, happy, in the 
midst of their bereavement, in the 
privilege of witnessing one of the 
most heroic and saintly deaths re- 
corded in the history of bur race, 
carried out every injunction of their 
departed father, and added every act 
that love and veneration could sug- 
gest, and that their impoverished con- 
dition in the wilderness could afford, 
They laid out his remains as he had 
directed, rang the little altar bell as 
they carried him with profound re- 
spect to the mound of earth selected 
by himself, interred him there, and 
raised a large cross to mark the sacred 
spot. 

The surviving companions of the 
deceased now prepared to embark, 
One of them had been ill for some 
time, suffering with such depression 
of spirits and feebleness of body that 
he could neither eat nor sleep. Just 
before embarking he knelt at the 
grave of his saintly friend, and 
begged him to intercede for him in 

heaven as he had promised, and, 

i ,, i c 

taking some earth from the breast of 

the departed, and placing it upon his 
own breast, it is related that he felt 
his sadness and bodily infirmity im- 

mediately depart, and he resumed his 

i 1,1 j i j >T 

voyage in health and gladness. Many 

. 

the pious traditions of miraculous 
results attributed to the sanctity of 



F. Marquette; many of them are 
still handed down among the West- 
ern missionaries, and some of them 
have found a place in the pages of 
serious history. 

The remains of the saintly Jesuit 
were, two years afterwards, disin- 
terred by his own flock, the Kiska- 
kons, while returning from their hunt- 
ing-grounds, placed in a neat box of 
bark, and reverently carried to their 

mission - The flotilla of canoes ' as il 

passed along in funeral solemnity, 

j i r . , T 

was joined by a party of the Iroquois, 
and, as they approached Mackinaw, 
many other canoes, including those 
of the two missionaries of the place, 
united in the imposing convoy, and 
the deep, reverential chant, De Pro- 
fundis, arose heavenward from the 
bosom of the lake until the body 
reached the shore. It was carried in 
procession with cross, burning tapers, 
and fragrant incense to the church, 
where every possible preparation had 
been made for so interesting and af- 
fecting a ceremony ; and, after the 
Requiem service, the precious relics 
were deposited in a vault prepared 
for them in the middle of the church, 
" where he reposes," says the pious 
chronicler, " as the guardian angel of 
our Ottawa missions." " Ever after," 
says Bancroft, " the forest rangers, if 
in danger on Lake Michigan, would 
invoke his name. The people of the 
West will build his monument." 

The following notice of the charac- 
ter of F. Marquette is from the gifted 
pen of Mr. Shea : 

" Such was the edifying and holy death 

of the illustrious explorer of the Missis- 

.1 ., , ,, 
sippi, on Saturday, the i8th of May, 1675. 

He was of a cheerful, joyous disposition, 
playful even in his manner, and univer- 
sally beloved. His letters show him to 

us as a man of education . close observa- 
tion, sound sense, strict integrity, a free- 
dom from exaggeration, and vet a vein 
of humor which here and there breaks 
out in spite of all his self-command. 



F. James Marquette, S.J. 



" But all these qualities are little com- 
pared to his zeal as a missionary, to his 
sanctity as a man. His holiness drew on 
him in life the veneration of all around him, 
and the lapse of years has not even now 
destroyed it in the descendants of those 
who knew him. In one of his sanctity 
we naturally find an all-absorbing devo- 
tion to the Mother of the Saviour, with its 
constant attendants, an angelical love of 
purity, and a close union of the heart 
with God. It is, indeed, characteristic 
with him. The privilege which the 
Church honors under the title of the Im- 
maculate Conception was the constant 
object of his thoughts ; from his early 
youth he daily recited the little offices of 
the Immaculate Conception and fasted 
every Saturday in her honor. As a mis- 
sionary, a variety of devotions directed to 
the same end still show his devotions, 
and to her he turned in all his trials. 
When he discovered the great river, when 
he founded his new mission, he gave it 
the name of the Conception, and no let- 



ter, it is said, ever came from his hand 
that did not contain the words, ' Blessed 
Virgin Immaculate ' ; and the smile that 
lighted up his dying face induced his 
poor companions to believe that she had 
appeared before the eyes of her devoted 
client. 

" Like S. Francis Xavier, whom he es- 
pecially cho.se as the model of his mis- 
sionary career, he labored nine years for 
the moral and social improvement of na- 
tions sunk in paganism and vice, and, as 
he was alternately with tribes of varied 
tongues, found it was necessary to acquire 
knowledge of many American languages : 
six he certainly spoke with ease ; many 
more he is known to have understood 
less perfectly. His death, however, was, 
as he had always desired, more like that 
of the apostle of the Indies; there is, in- 
deed, a "striking resemblance between 
their last moments ; and the wretched 
cabin, the desert shore, the few destitute 
companions, the lonely grave, all har- 
monize in Michigan and Sancian." 



PRAYER OF CUSTANCE, THE PERSECUTED 
OF ALLA OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 

MOTHER, quod she, and maiden bright, Mary ! 
Soth is that through womanne's eggement 
Mankind was lorn, and damned aye to die, 
For which thy Child was on a cross yrent : 
Thy blissful eyen saw all his torment ; 
Then is there no comparison between 
Thy woe and any woe man may sustain. 

Thou saw'st thy Child yslain before thine eyen, 
And yet now liveth my little child parfay, 
Now, lady bright ! to whom all woful crien, 
Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May, 
Thou haven of refute, bright star of the day ! 
Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness 
Ruest on every rueful in distress. 

Chaucer. 



QUEEN 



A coma. 703 



ACOMA. 

" MR. S , would you like to over 225 Ibs., divided his weight be- 

visit Acoma ?" asked the comman- tween a pair of good horses attached 

dant. to a light buggy. The order of 

" Most assuredly," I replied ; " I march was : two cavalrymen five 
came out here to see all I could see. hundred yards in advance ; the corn- 
But what or who is Acoma?"* mandant, with Jim and Joe and the 

"A town built on the top of a writer; the main body of the escort ; 

rock rising from a level plain to a Don Juan Brown with his buggy, and 

height of over two hundred feet is Ac- a rear guard of two cavalrymen five 

oma the home of the Acoma In- hundred yards behind, 

dians, a tribe of the great Pueblo A brisk trot of three miles brought 

family. I am ordered thither to have us to the Puertocito, or Little Door, 

a talk with the principal men, and in- which leads from the Valley of the 

duce them to give up some Navajo Gallo into the Mai Pais, a petrified 

children captives they are said to sea of lava, which lies between the 

have taken in a recent skirmish." Puertocito and the mountains. The 

I had been enjoying the hospi- lava stream -seems to have been sud- 

tality of the commandant for some denly turned to stone by a wave of 

days at old Fort Wingate, near the some enchanter's wand while it was 

Ojo del Gallo, in the northwestern a raging, seething torrent, 

part of New Mexico. Acoma lies We halted and dismounted, tight- 

about fifty miles to the southeast of ened girths, etc. Jim and Joe, 

the fort, by a very rough trail across unused to the equitating mood, 

the mountains. It was somewhat and evidently disliking particu- 

further by the regular trail. larly the trotting tense, had fallen 

As we started, the sun was back to the rear guard, and looked 

creeping over the brow of lofty somewhat shaken. The relief of a 

San Mateo. The party consisted of walk of some miles was in store for 

the commandant, Don Juan Brown, them, as the trail through the Mai 

a Castilianized American, who speaks Pais admitted only of that gait and 

Spanish like a native, and went with of single file. 

us as volunteer interpreter; Messrs. The Puertocito is formed by two 

Jim Durden and Joe Smithers, gen- rocks about twenty feet high. We 

tlemen loafers ; a sergeant and twenty wound our way through tortuous 

cavalry as escort in case of unex- passages, through lava spires, at a 

pected and undesired rencounters with slow walk. We could not see more 

hostile Apaches or Navajoes; last, than a few yards ahead. It was a 

the writer, a denizen of the city of dreary pathway. The knowledge 

Gotham, general tourist, grand scribe that it was a haunt for Indians 

and chronicler. bound on robbery or revenge gave 

We all rode on horseback, except imagination an opportunity to put 

Don Juan Brown, who, being a trifle her darkest colors on the natural 

gloom. An hour's slow walking 

* Pronounced Ac-o-ma the accent on the first f 5 . * 

syllable. brings us to the Bajada, or Descent, 



704 A coma. 

where our path is up and down the simultaneously, and, without any fur- 
steep sides of a lava rock thirty feet ther ceremony, they rushed to the 
high. We dismount and lead our buggy, leaving their horses to take 
horses carefully down. Haifa dozen care of themselves or be taken care 
men holding on to the buggy behind of by some good-natured dragoon, 
make sufficient drag to let it down Another mile brought us to the 
in safety, though with some wrench- crossing of the San Jose. Here was 
ing of the wheels in the channelled a check to our proceedings : the 
surface of the rock. crossing was not fordable. The 

Thence our way lies on the east- stream, usually about two feet wide 
ern skirt of the lava, which runs and three inches deep at the cross- 
along with the stream known as the ing, had in consequence of recent 
San Jose through a deep and wind- heavy rains and the melting of snows 
ing gorge named Los Remanzos. I filled its steep bed and overflowed 
have seen some wild scenery in my its banks for fifty yards on either 
time, but never before nor since so side. A powerful eddy made it im- 
savage a piece of landscape as Los possible for a horse to strike ground 
Remanzos. The mountains rise per- on the other side. A dragoon 
pendicularly on either hand their dashed in and tried it, but it was with 
barren sides dotted with huge botil- great difficulty we saved him and his 
ders which seem ready to fall in- horse from being carried down the 
stantly on the traveller beneath, swollen stream, and got them safe on 
You wonder why they do not fall, our side again. 

The winding canon shuts out all view " That settles it, gentlemen," said 

beyond twenty yards in advance. A the commandant ; " we shall have to 

trail barely wide enough for one cross the mountains a rough trail, 

vehicle to pass creeps between the but we have no choice." 
San Jose and the mountains on one It was now proposed to leave the 

side; and from the stream to the buggy behind, but Joe would not 

mountains on the other the lava piles hear of it. The commandant was 

up its grim and threatening forms. too polite to insist, as he ought to 

We halted at the picket to wait have done. 

for the escort, the buggy, and Jim Crossing a narrow but steep cut, 

and Joe, beguiling the time by a com- however, the buggy went over, spill- 

forting draught of hot coffee from a ing Don Juan and Jim over the 

military quart cup which the com- mountain-side. The buggy stood on 

mander of the picket hospitably of- its top wheels in the air. The 

fered us. The laggards soon ar- horses good and gentle animals 

rived. Jim and Joe took advantage came to a full stop and stood perfect- 

of the pause before starting again to ly quiet. Otherwise, there would 

enter a solemn protest against trot- have been as little left of the buggy 

ting: as of Dr. Holmes' one-horse shay, 

" For heaven's sake, comman- the last time the deacon rode in it. 

dant!" said they with one voice and Neither the Don nor Jim was hurt, 

in a tone that showed acute feeling, though the latter was somewhat 

' either walk or lope ; we cannot en- frightened. Don Juan took the mat- 

dure that confounded trot. We ter with the coolness of an old hand, 

shall be as raw as uncooked beef- The buggy was uninjured ; it had 

steaks." merely met with a reverse. It was 

A bright thought struck them both soon put upon its legs or, rather, its 



Acoina. 



705 



wheels again. Its progress was so 
aggravatingly slow when even our 
fastest possible gait was a walk, 
that, dividing the escort, we went on, 
leaving it to proceed at its leisure. 

It was about nightfall when we 
reached the edge of a precipitous de- 
scent where all marks of a trail dis- 
appeared. The descent was prob- 
ably two hundred feet in perpendicu- 
lar height, and alarmingly steep. 

" The buggy can never go down 
there," was the general remark. 

" Confound the buggy, we shall 
have to sleep out in the cold all night 
with nothing but a saddle-blanket, 
on account of it," also translates a 
very general sentiment. 

" We cannot desert them, how- 
ever," said the commandant; " as the 
buggy has come with us we must 
stand by it. We shall wait here 
until it comes up." 

We had a long and weary wait for 
that anathematized buggy. At 
length, as the shades of night were 
falling, the long-looked-for buggy 
was seen, its top bumping up and 
down like a buffalo with a broken 
foreleg. The don walked on one 
side of the vehicle holding the reins ; 
Joe walked on the other side as 
gloomily as a chief mourner. The 
remainder of the escort with dismal 
visages followed behind. 

A glance over the steep brink did 
not give any radiance to their gloorny 
countenances. Don Juan expressed 
his regrets that we should have been 
detained by the blow and difficult 
progress of the buggy. Joe said 
nothing, but evidently felt ashamed 
of himself. 

We were still twenty miles from 
Acoma. Within about five miles, the 
commandant said there was a little 
Indian hut a sort of outpost of the 
Pueblo the owner of which, old 
Salvador, was one of the notables of 
the Pueblo. The commandant had 
VOL. xvi. 45 



notified Salvador by courier some 
days before of our intended visit. 
He had proposed to meet us at the 
ranchito and guide us over the re- 
mainder of the mountain trail. Here 
we could pass the night under cover 
at least, though we should be pretty 
closely packed. 

Joe had resumed the saddle after 
the steep descent had been accom- 
plished. He and Jim now led the 
party, and, as the rest of us stayed 
with Don Juan and the buggy, they 
got considerably in advance. Thus 
they had reached the ranchito some 
twenty minutes before we did. We 
found them knocking at the door 
and calling loudly and indignantly 
on the inmates to open. 

" We have been knocking and 
shouting here for half an hour, and 
the confounded old Indian has not 
taken the slightest notice of us. I 
believe he would let us freeze." 

" Salvador does not know you," 
said the commandant. " He is too 
wise an Indian to open his doors to 
strangers in this country after night- 
fall. Salvador is reputed wealthy, 
and it behooves him to be careful 
what nocturnal visitors he receives. 
I think I can get Salvador to open. 
Is Senor Don Salvador within ?" 
asked the commandant, in Spanish. 

" Is it the Senor Comandante who 
is without ?" asked Don Salvador, in 
the same language, with the usual 
Pueblo peculiarities of pronunciation 
the use of / for r, etc. 

Being satisfied on this point, Sal- 
vador opened the door to receive us. 

Salvador was a stout, middle-sized, 
gray-headed Indian of the Pueblo 
type. The presence of the com- 
mandant being a voucher for the 
rest, Salvador now proceeded to 
shake hands with the whole party 
in the order of rank, as he under- 
stood it taking first the command- 
ant, next the bugler, then the ser- 



706 



A coma. 



geant and the men of the escort, and 
then the civilians, Don Brown and the 
writer, and lastly Jim and Joe ; con- 
scientiously repeating in each indi- 
vidual case, " Como le va /" and 
" Btteno /" Indians believe in uni- 
forms and brass buttons. They don't 
understand official dignity without 
outward and visible signs. 

The ranchito was a little structure 
of tierrones, or sods, roofed with poles 
laid across from wall to wall, and 
covered with brush and earth. There 
were no windows. The door was 
the only aperture, I think. I am 
not quite sure whether there was a 
hole in the roof to let out a little of 
the smoke ; there may have been. 
The edifice was about large enough 
for a fair- sized poultry-house. It 
was perched on the steep mountain- 
side, the earth being cut away on the 
upper side to give an approach to a 
level foundation. There was a small 
shed for animals, the fodder for whose 
use being piled on top of it. There 
was the usual corn-crib. Our best 
horses were honored with the hospi- 
tality of the shed, Salvador's pony 
and burros being turned out to make 
room for them. The other animals 
were tied to logs in front of the 
ranchito, and a guard placed over 
them. 

It required some stooping to enter 
Salvador's residence. This was very 
hard on the stout Don, who had not 
seen his own knee for a number of 
years, but he accomplished it as if he 
had been in the daily habit of touch- 
ing his toes without bending his 
knees. But a further trial still await- 
ed him. The hut was divided into 
two rooms. The passage between 
the two rooms was a blighted door, 
cut short in its youth to the propor- 
tions of a small fireplace. We had 
to come down to all-fours to get into 
the inner chamber. When the com- 
mandant, the staunch Don, and the 



writer had entered, the place seemed 
full. But Salvador, on hospitable 
thoughts intent, insisted on Jim and 
Joe entering. Then Salvador wrig- 
gled in. The room was replete. 

After a meagre supper and a quiet 
smoke, we arranged the details of 
the morrow's trip. With our saddles 
for pillows, and our saddle-blankets 
and overcoats for beds and bed- 
covering, we lay down to sleep. 
Brown, with Jim and Joe, in the 
inner room ; the commandant, the 
old Pueblo, and myself in the outer. 
Jim and Joe lay perpendicularly to 
Brown, and Salvador described a 
horizontal to the commandant and 
myself. I slept well, considering, 
though I was waked two or three 
times by a roaring noise, which seem- 
ed to me to be that of the house 
falling, as I was endeavoring to force 
myself through the passage between 
the two apartments, in which, more 
than once during the night, I dreamt 
that I was stuck fast. On waking, I 
discovered that the sound proceeded 
from the resounding Aztec nose of 
our host, Salvador. 

We were roused before day by the 
old Indian. Dressing took no time, 
as we had not undressed the night 
before a great saving of time, labor, 
and discomfort. Breakfast was to be 
got ready, however. Salvador made 
the fire. The commandant detailed 
himself and myself as cooks for the 
morning. At supper-time, Don Juan, 
assisted by Jim and Joe, would offi- 
ciate culinarilv. Slices from a haunch 

* 

of bacon we had brought with us, 
cooked on the end of a stick, with 
" hard tack " and coffee, made in a 
camp kettle, furnished a delicious 
breakfast. What is there in the odor 
of unctuous bacon that makes it so 
pleasant to the nostrils when one is 
camping out or " roughing it " ? 
There are people who cannot abide 
the smell of bacon within the confines 







A coma. 



707 



of civilization. But put them on the 
Plains, or in the field, and a daily 
dose of the appetizing grease is neces- 
sary to "settle their stomachs." I 
have known men who, in long trips 
in the wilds, forsook chickens and 
returned to first principles and bacon. 

We made an early start. The 
buggy was left behind. Don Juan 
saddled one of his horses. He bor- 
rowed from the old Indian a saddle, 
so angular and so full of sharp points 
that it must have been hard even 
for an Indian's seat. But Brown, 
though heavy, was a good horseman, 
and he bore the infliction like a hero. 

Salvador was our guide. When we 
were all mounted, and ready to start, 
we looked around for him. After 
some hunting we saw him above us, 
mounted, and seemingly emerging 
from the roof of the ranchito. He 
went straight up the side of the 
mountain, beckoning to us to come 
on, and shouting " Caballeros ! por 
aqui / " * 

An Indian does not understand 
flank movements. He does not go 
around obstacles. He goes straight 
over them on the direct line of his 
objective. We followed our guide, 
dismounting, however, leading our 
horses, and zigzagging up the steep 
ascent like Christians and white men. 

Our course was over mountain and 
across ravine on a bee-line of ascent 
or descent for Acoma. There was 
some growling by Jim and Joe, but 
as our general gait was a slow walk, 
and they made much of their pro- 
gress on foot, they did not grumble 
much. 

I noticed moccasin tracks in seve- 
ral places where the ground was soft. 
The distance between the foot-prints 
was very great. It astonished me. 
I rode to the commandant's side, and 
called his attention to the wonderful 

* "This way, gentlemen." 



tracks. He pointed them out to 
Salvador, who said they were the 
tracks of a muchacho he had sent to 
the Pueblo last night with the news 
of our arrival at the ranchito. What 
a stepper that muchacho must have 
been ! His average bound must 
have been at least ten feet. 

" How long will it take him to go 
to the Pueblo, Salvador ? " asked the 
commandant. 

" Oh! not long," replied Salvador, 
" long as a good horse." 

Experientia docet. Before I saw 
those tracks I used to set down the 
accounts I read in my Grecian his- 
tory of wonderful time made by mes- 
sengers to Athens and other classic 
centres as antique yarns. I now be- 
lieve in the fastest Grecian time re- 
ported. Thus, the torch of faith is 
often lit by the merest straying spark 
a lesson to us not to limit our be- 
lief to what is within the scope of our 
knowledge. We know so little. 

Jim and Joe had begun to growl 
over the continual ups and downs of 
the journey when we saw Salvador, 
who was some three or four hundred 
yards ahead, dismount at the foot of 
what seemed to be the steepest ascent 
yet. 

" This must be a stiff one," said the 
commandant. "I see Salvador has 
dismounted. It takes a pretty steep 
ascent to make an Indian or a Mexi- 
can dismount. They hold to the 
saddle until the animal begins to bend 
backward." 

It was a steep and toilsome ascent, 
winding in and out through huge 
boulders just wide enough apart to 
let a horse squeeze through. It was 
not always easy to convince the 
horses that there was room enough 
for them to pass. They would re- 
fuse to be convinced, and obstinately 
draw back, to the discomfort and 
danger of those leading them, and 
more so of those following. 



708 



A coma. 



At last we reached the top of the 
ascent. The descent on the other side 
was a worthy pendant to it. We 
halted on the crest to enjoy the land- 
scape before us. From the base of 
the height a level plain spread away 
for miles, unbroken save by a cluster 
of lofty perpendicular white rocks, 
each rising independently from the 
level plain. On the top of the high- 
est of these rocks stood a little town, 
the smoke from its chimneys min- 
gling with the clouds. This was 
Acorn a. 

We descended slowly and careful- 
ly. A brisk trot of about two miles 
brought us to two lofty natural col- 
umns, through which the trail passed. 
They seemed the pillars of a gigantic 
portal a resemblance which had 
struck the Indians, for they named it 
El Puerto: The Gate. We had now 
reached the base of the inhabited 
rock. An excavation near the base 
was pointed out to us by Salvador as 
the trace of an attempt to mine the 
position by the Spanish invaders ! I 
think the story rather a doubtful one. 

I judged the rock to be about 
two hundred and fifty feet in 
height. The path up the rocky 
side to the village was steep and 
narrow. No wheeled vehicle has 
ever entered the Pueblo. The pri- 
mitive earreta, with its clumsy wheels 
of solid disks cut from the trunk 
of some gigantic cotton - wood, 
stopped short at the base going 
thus far and no further. Provisions 
and other necessaries are packed up 
on the backs of surefooted donkeys. 
Water for drinking purposes is carried 
up on the heads of the Indians in 
large earthen vessels named tinajas 
for other uses rain-water is carefullv 

j 

gathered in natural tanks or hollows 
in the summit of the rock. There is 
a bypath or short-cut up to the 
Puebio which the Acomas generally 
use when unburdened or in a hurry. 



A glance showed us that it was only 
practicable for Acoma Indians. This 
short-cut is in the most nearly per- 
pendicular of any of the rocky sides. 
It consists of holes in the smooth and 
vertical side of the rock, in which the 
Indians place their hands and feet, 
and climb up after the fashion of 
sailors clambering up rigging, and 
with no less rapidity. 

We returned to the common high- 
way, which now seemed by compari- 
son a flowery path of dalliance. It 
was slow and tiresome work, how- 
ever. After a rest or two, to breathe 
our animals and ourselves, we finally 
reached the comparatively level 
space, some acres in area, on the 
summit of the rock. 

Here we were met by Francisco, 
our guide's son, the governor, mata- 
dores, alguazils, and other function- 
aries of the Pueblo. This is as 
good a place as any other to say that 
the governor and all other officials 
are elected annually. They were 
dressed in the usual Pueblo fashion. 
Their heads were uncovered. They 
were draped in large blankets, which 
gave them a very dignified appear- 
ance. 

We received a most cordial recep- 
tion. The commandant had been a 
good friend to the Acomas had 
protected them in their little trading 
operations, and helped them in the 
long, hard winters when their gran- 
aries were empty. The entire male 
population was assembled in the 
Plaza or central square. The squaws 
and children were at their front 
doors, that is to say, on the roofs, for 
the entrance to a Pueblo's dwelling 
is from above. 

A fire for the dragoons to cook 
their rations by was made in the 
centre of the Plaza. The horses were 
picketed around. A contribution of 
corn and firewood was levied by the 
governor for the use of the escort. 




A coma. 709 

The Indians came in cheerful, laugh- We were invited to descend to 
ing groups, bearing their costals of the sitting-room, situated beneath, 
corn or their bundles of wood. The through a very narrow trap-door, 
escort being provided for, we went Don Juan walked fearlessly toward 
to the house of Francisco, the most the aperture. We begged him to 
comfortable house in the Pueblo; pause before he rushed into a place 
for Francisco was the wealthiest whence he could never hope to re- 
member of the little community. The turn. The Indians understood the 
governor's dwelling was a poor one, joke, and enjoyed it hugely, 
and himself a poor man who was un- So the Don entered the aperture, 
able to entertain us as comfortably as and by judicious squeezing actually 
Francisco could. He accompanied succeeded in passing. His coat-tails 
us thither. got through about the same time as 

Francisco's dwelling, like most of his head. The others, being of the 

the others in the Pueblo, was a two- lean and hungry-looking kind, had 

storied adobe building, whitewashed no difficulty in descending, 

inside and out. The mode of access From the room into which we had 

was a ladder placed against the outer descended ventilation was completely 

wall of the lower story. Having reach- excluded. Light was only admitted 

ed the top of this, you walk across the through one or two small panes of 

roof and enter the house by a door glass in apertures like port-holes in 

on the second story, the fagade of the walls. 

which is somewhat retired from the We took seats on sheep-skins 

front line of the first. spread in a circle around the floor. 

Here we found some rosy, apple- The commandant made known his 
faced squaws, engaged in culinary business in passable Spanish ; the gov- 
and other domestic operations. One ernor replied, through Francisco, as 
was kneeling grinding corn with the interpreter. The worthy Don inter- 
primitive matata. They smiled with vened, from time to time, between 
all their countenances on us ; and a the high contracting parties, when 
half-dozen of the whitest sets of teeth, there was a lack of language or dan- 
that dentist or dentifrice never touch- ger of misunderstanding. The busi- 
ed, gleamed a bright welcome to us. ness was completed satisfactorily and 
They wore the usual dark woollen in short order. 

robe, made of two pieces, about five While the floor was being set for 

feet long and three broad, sewed to- dinner tables not being in vogue 

gether at one of the narrow ends, but here we endeavored to obtain the 

with an aperture for the head to pass Acoma's idea of the antiquity of the 

through. The robe is then gathered Pueblo. Francisco, though he had 
round the waist and tied with a ' learned to read and write, had not 

string. Their nut-brown arms were got beyond the Indian idea of time, 

bare, and encircled at the wrist by space, or number. There is no me- 

from one to a dozen brass rings; dium between " many " and " few ' : 

their feet were bare. The thick very far, muy kjos ; and near, cerca. 

swathing of buckskin, with which " How many years old is the 

they wrap their lower limbs when Pueblo ? " 

journeying, and which gives -them " Muchos anos. Many years." 

the appearance of being terribly svvol- " About how many ? " 

len. were laid aside, much to the fur- "Who knows, senor?' : with a 

thering of a graceful effect, shrug. " A great many." 



A coma. 



"Who is the oldest man in the 
Pueblo ? " 

" The cacique." 

The cacique, we were informed, 
is the official historian of the Pueblo. 
His records consist only in oral tra- 
ditions, which he teaches to a youth 
selected for the purpose, who is to 
succeed him in his office when he 
dies. 

" Is the cacique very old ? " 

" Si, sefior ! Very old." 

It is useless to ask an Indian how 
old he or any other Indian is, as he 
never knows. So we did not ask how 
old the cacique was. 

"Was the cacique he succeeded 
very old ? " 

" Yes, sir ; very old." 

" Was the Pueblo in existence as 
long as he can remember ? " 

" Yes, sir ; and as long as the ca- 
cique before him and the cacique 
before him could remember. But 
we shall have the cacique here 
shortly, and then after dinner we'll 
have a good big talk about the many 
years ago." 

Francisco, the governor, and his 
father now engaged in an earnest 
conversation in their Indian tongue, 
the result of which was that Fran- 
cisco unlocked a vast trunk, of an- 
tique form and solidity, and took 
therefrom a pile of manuscript, which 
he handed us with great solemnity. 
The Indians looked upon this vener- 
able pile with great reverence. It 
was probably the first time it had 
been touched by " outsiders." We 
owed the permission to examine it to 
the many kind acts the commandant 
had performed for the Acomas. 

The first portion of the manuscript 
examined was a Missal. The Office 
of the Mass was copied in Latin in a 
fair plain hand, the work of some 
Spanish missionary. The ink had 
turned yellow, but the text was 
clear and legible throughout. No- 



thing in the MS. Missal indicated the 
date of its writing. A further exami- 
nation of the venerable pages furnish- 
ed us some information. Besides 
the Missal, they comprised a register 
in Spanish of births, marriages, and 
deaths. The earliest written record 
of the Pueblo which we found is the 
record of a baptism, 1725. 

Having gleaned what knowledge 
we could from the precious manu- 
scripts, they were carefully and rev- 
erently put away in the ponderous 
chest, and secured by a padlock near- 
ly as large as a travelling satchel. 

Dinner was now served. It was 
very good. ] t consisted of a chicken 
stew, good white bread, and very 
passable tea. The stew was made 
so intensely hot, however, by chile 
Colorado* that I did not enjoy it as 
much as I might have done had it 
been less fiery. I never could relish 
chile either Colorado or verde. But 
on this occasion, I determined to eat 
it if it burned me to a shell to show 
my appreciation of Acoma hospi- 
tality ! 

The cacique an old, white-hair- 
ed, blear-eyed Indian, at least ninety 
came in toward the close of the 
meal, accompanied by the youth 
whom he was instructing in the his- 
torical and legendary lore of the 
Pueblo. He evinced no inclination 
to be communicative, but showed a 
determination to make a rousing 
meal something to which he was 
evidently not accustomed. After 
dinner he devoted himself to smok- 
ing our cigars ; but riot a word could 
we get out of him about the history 
of Acoma. Joe said that as a story- 
teller he considered the cacique a 
decided failure. 

The governor signified that he 
was now readv to show us the 

4 

church. So thither we proceeded. 

* Red pepper ; chile verde, green pepper. 



Acoma. 711 

The church is, of course, of adobe, its general steep and vertical charac- 

It was unused at the time we visited ter. Some houses were situated near 

it. No priest had been attached to the superior edge of this bend. A 

the Pueblo for some years. But it thrill ran through me from head to 

was not suffered to fall into decay, foot as I saw a child roll from the 

On one side of the altar was a paint- front of one of the houses down the 

ing of the Virgin and Child ; on the incline. 

other, one of S. Joseph. On the " He will be dashed to atoms !" I 

ceiling above the altar were large cried in horror, 

paintings of the sun and moon. Here The Indians looked in the direction 

we got another chronological glim- to which I frantically pointed, and 

mer the last we found. It was an then united in a good-humored 

inscription which stated that the laugh. 

church had been renovated in 1802. Soon another urchin, and another, 

The Indians told us it was done by and another followed the first, who 

some artist-priest who came from far picked himself up just at the deadly 

away probably Spain or Italy, brink, and mounted the incline, to 

There are a pair of bells in the belfry, roll down again and again, as we 

The Acoma tradition is that these used to on a hillside in snow with 

bells were a gift to the Pueblo from our sleds, in our younger days. This 

a Queen of Spain. Of course they was play for the infantine Acomas. 

do not know the date of their recep- They were " keeping the pot a- 

tion. They say, however, that it bilin'." 

was some time before the renovation The Indians told us that no fatal 

of the church. accident had ever happened to any 

We next went to the southern Acoma either while rolling down the 
edge of the rock to look at the dread incline "in pretty, pleasant 
" short cut " from above. This was play," or climbing the steep path the 
not easy or pleasant pedestrianism. mere sight of which had made us 
The rock here ceased to be level, dizzy. Tradition records that only 
throwing up sharp craggy points, one Indian ever " went over the 
The Indians stepped from point to side." He was saved by a projecting 
point, erect and graceful and with- stump catching him by the breech- 
out difficulty. The pale faces were clout and holding him suspended 
compelled by a due discretion to until he was rescued unhurt, 
abandon erect attitudes, and pro- Our next visit was the Estufa. 
ceed bending down, and using hands Here the sacred fire was burning, 
as well as feet. A look down the The Estufa was an underground 
rocky side was sufficient. The com- apartment. We descended through 
mandant shook his head, and said a trap- door, which also served as a 
in Spanish : chimney, and down a smoke-be- 

" That is no way for a white man grimed ladder. The chamber was 
to come up " a remark which the In- some thirty feet in length and perhaps 
dians seemed to consider remarkably fifteen in width. We were informed 
humorous. They laughed and " how- that it was the general place of meet- 
how "-ed vehemently. ing the public hall the club-room 

As we returned, we remarked that of the Pueblo. It was pretty hot 

on one side of the rock it was bev- and not very sweet down there. We 

elled down from the summit about found four Indians seated around the 

forty or fifty feet, and then resumed fire, each with a loom in front of 



712 



New Publications. 



him, weaving a blanket. Their only 
covering was the breech-clout. The 
Indians told us, through Don Juan, 
that these men watched the fire, 
which was always kept burning 
waiting for the coming of Monte- 
zuma. They were relieved by four 
others at stated times. We shook 
hands with the naked watchers, and 
" how-how "-ed with them in the usual 
wav. 

+ 

" Do you think Montezuma will 
come ?" asked Joe, through Don Juan, 
of one of the vigilants. 



The worthy, shrugging his naked 
shoulders, looked up sidewise at Jo- 
seph, and replied : 

" Qidzas ? Qitien sabe ? May be ! 
Who knows ?" 

Joe withdrew. We all followed 
him. We had now seen all the lions 
of the Pueblo of Acoma. " Boots 
and saddles '" and " to horse " were 
sounded, and with many hand-shakes, 
some embraces, and general " how- 
hows," we bade adieu to the hospi- 
table Acomas and their rocky home, 
and began our return march. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



THE LIFE OF DEMETRIUS AUGUSTIN GAL- 
LITZIN, PRINCE AND PRIEST. By Sarah 
M. Brownson. With an Introduction 
by O. A. Brownson, LL.D. New 
York : Pustet. 1872. 
Women of talent and cultivation make 
admirable biographers. In religious bi- 
ography we know of nothing more 
charming than the lives written by Mere 
Chauguy. In recent English literature, 
the Lives of Mother Margaret Mary 
O'Halloran, by a lady whose name is 
unknown to us, and of S. Jane Frances 
de Chantal, by Miss Emily Bowles, are 
among the most perfect specimens of this 
very agreeable species of writing which 
we have met with in any language. This 
new and carefully prepared biography 
of a priest who was illustrious both by 
birth and Christian virtue, by a lady al- 
ready known as the author of several 
works of fiction, well deserves to be 
classed with the best of its kind in En- 
glish Catholic literature. It is a work 
of thorough, patient, and conscientious 
labor, and for the first time adequately 
presents the history and character of 
Prince Gallitzin in their true light. Cer- 
tainly, we never knew before how truly 
heroic and admirable a man was this 
Russian prince who came to pass his life 
as a missionary in the forests which 



crowned in his day the summit of 
the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania. The 
charm of a biography is found in a cer- 
tain fulness and sprightliness of style and 
manner, a picturesqueness and ideality of 
ornament and coloring, a warmth and 
glow of sentiment, which give life and 
reality to the narrative. Miss Brownson 
still possesses the juvenile efan which 
naturally finds its expression in the style 
we have indicated, and has also attained 
that sobriety and maturity of judgment 
which give it the rightly subdued tone 
and finish. In several matters of con- 
siderable delicacy which she has been 
obliged to handle, we think she has 
shown tact and discretion, while at the 
same time using enough of the freedom 
of a historian to bring out the truth of 
facts and events which needed to be told 
in order to make a veritable record and 
picture of the life of her subject. The 
prince is fortunate in his biographer. 
Would it were the lot of every great man 
in the church to find a similar one ! Miss 
Brownson's book seems to us the best 
religious biography which has been writ- 
ten by anyone of our American Catholic 
authors. We would like to see more works 
of this sort from feminine writers, to whom 
we are already so much indebted for 
works both of the graver and the lighter 



New Publications. 



713 



kind, and particularly from Miss Brown- 
son, who has fully proved her ability in 
the volume before us. 

BlBLIOGRAPHIA CATHOLICA AMERICANA. 

A list of works written by Catholic 
authors and published in the United 
States. By Rev. Joseph M. Finotti. Part 
I.., 1784 to 1820 inclusive. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 
1872. 8vo. pp. 319. 

It was said of Bartlett's Dictionary of 
Americanisms that it was the first dic- 
tionary that a man could read through 
with pleasure. The same in the way of 
bibliography maybe said of this ; for, if any 
of our readers supposes that the title tells 
the truth, he is mistaken. It is not a 
mere list, as the author modestly calls 
it. Some twelve years ago, Mr. Shea 
published in one of our Catholic papers 
a list of titles of " The First Catholic 
Books printed in this County," coming 
down to the same date and including the 
same period as our author, and giving 
sixty eight titles. This meagre begin- 
ning of American Catholic bibliography 
has in F. Finotti's hands grown to near- 
ly five hundred titles, including some few 
imprints later than 1820. 

It is not merely a collection of titles 
of Catholic works, but of all works by 
Catholic authors printed in the country, 
with notes of the highest interest to Ca- 
tholics who care at all for what was done 
by our fathers in the faith in this republic. 
Biographical notices, notices of celebra- 
ted books, accounts of controversies of 
the time, anecdotes illustrative of Catho- 
lic life in the earlier days, notes of Ca- 
tholic printers and journalists, all find 
their place in .these notes, in which the 
abundant knowledge of our earlier men 
and times, and things acquired by the 
patient and loving research of years, fair- 
ly bubble out spontaneously. It is not a 
history indeed, but to the historian will 
be invaluable as an authority and a 
guide. 

On some points this work is absolutely 
exhaustive. The collection of pam- 
phlets and works growing out of the 
Hogan affair in Philadelphia, consider- 
ing their perishable nature, is perfectly 
wonderful, and his library alone can en- 
able any one to go thoroughly into the 
history of that unhappy matter which 
was destructive to so many souls. 

Of the writings and publications of the 
celebrated Mathew Carey, we have also 



here by far the most accurate and com- 
prehensive account ever drawn up, com 
prising nearly twenty-five pages. 

Many will be amazed to see how 
many sterling Catholic books were is- 
sued early in the century, and thus be 
able to judge of the zeal and true reli- 
gious feeling of the little body of Catho- 
lics who so generously sustained the 
publishers, as well as of the public spir- 
it of a man like Bernard Dornin in our 
mind, as in F. Finotti's, the type of what 
a Catholic publisher should be. Of him 
as of many other Catholics our author 
gives biographical notices that we should 
look for in vain in all the cyclopaedias 
and biographical dictionaries. Book 
notices often end with the assertion that 
the book should be in every family ; we 
hardly suppose the publishers ready to 
supply every Catholic family in the coun- 
try with a copy, for the edition is small, 
and must be taken up at once. It is by 
no means merely a book for the Dryas- 
dust collector or antiquarian. It must 
find its place in the libraries of many of 
our gentlemen who love their religion 
and love books, as well as in our college 
libraries. We trust that it will impel all 
to endeavor to have some of the early 
printed Catholic books, as matters of 
laudable pride. If they can even find 
some that have escaped the Argus eyes 
of the reverend collector and his associ- 
ate book-hunters, they will, we trust, be 
good enough Christians to bear with 
equanimity even that severe trial to a 
bibliographer. 

This Bibliography commends itself to 
those interested in the bibliography of 
the country or the history of printing in 
the United States. 

In the Historical Magazine some 
months since there was a Bibliography 
of works on Unitarianism, but it was 
silent as to Father Kohlmann's work, and 
to a sermon by a Catholic clergyman of 
Pittsburg. So, too, Sabin's Bibliopolist re- 
cently gave a list of books printed in 
Brooklyn, but was silent as to a Catholic 
Doctrine printed there in 1817, as well as 
of Coate's very curious Reply to Rev. F. 
Richards' supposed reasons for becoming 
a Catholic. 

There is one strange point about 
American bibliography, and that is that 
the laborers in it have been almost ex- 
clusively from Europe. Ludewig gave 
the Bibliography of Indian Languages and 
that of Local History; O'Callaghan, that 



New Publications. 



of American Bibles ; Harisse, that of the 
earliest American ; Rich was a pioneer 
in the same field ; and now Finotti gives 
us the Catholic element. Where are our 
native bibliographers? 

LE LIBERALISMS. LfiCONS DONNEES A 

L'UNIVERSITE LAVAL. Par 1'Abbe 
Benjamin Paquet, Docteur en Theo- 
logie, et Professeur a la Faculte de 
Theologie. Quebec : De I'lmprime- 
rie du {Canadicn. Brochure, pp. 100. 
1872. 

Lower Canada, considered both in re- 
spect to the condition of the Catholic 
Church therein, and to the political well- 
being of its people, is an eminently for- 
tunate region, despite the rigor of its 
climate. It is especially pre-eminent in 
respect to the Catholic education given 
to young men of the leisured classes, 
and others who go through the interme- 
diate and higher courses. Laval Univer- 
sity is truly a splendid institution 
among many others which make Quebec 
an unique city in Northern America. 
These remarks are suggested by the 
pamphlet before us, which is a specimen 
of the sound and opportune instruction 
given at the Laval University. The Lec- 
tures contained in it give an exposition 
which is both learned and clear of that 
most important portion of the Syllabus 
which relates to the errors of modern 
liberalism condemned in the Pontifical 
Acts of Pius IX. When will the Catho- 
lics of the United States enjoy privileges 
similar to those which are the portion of 
the Catholics of Lower Canada? The 
Abbe Paquet's Lectures were delivered 
as a part of his course on the law of na- 
ture and of nations, and were attended 
not only by his pupils, but by a numerous 
and select audience, several of whom 
requested their publication. We have 
already sufficiently expressed our appro- 
bation of their doctrine and style, and 
they have been favorably noticed in Eu- 
rope. We are confident that a consider- 
able number of our readers will hasten 
to procure them, and receive great profit 
from their perusal. 

CARDINAL WISEMAN'S WORKS. New 
Edition, first 3 vols. New York: P. 
O'Shea. 

This is a reissue of a new London 
edition which we most cordially com- 
mend. The first two volumes, contain- 
ing the Lectiires on the Connection bctiveen 



Science and Revealed Religion, have already 
been noticed in these pages. The third 
volume contains the splendid treatise 
on the Holy Eucharist. Cardinal Wise- 
man was a great writer, a great prelate, 
and a remarkably devout and holy man. 
His works are among our choicest trea- 
sures, and as such ought to be every- 
where circulated and continually perus- 
ed by those who wish to imbue their 
minds with the purest doctrine and the 
most valuable knowledge. 

THE LIFE OF S. AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, CON- 
FESSOR, AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH. 
By P. E. Moriarty, D.D. Ex-Assistant 
General O.S.A. Philadelphia: Cun- 
ningham. 1873. 

This is a popular biography, though 
proceeding from the pen of a learned 
man, and showing marks of erudition. 
The sketch is a complete one, and shows 
great power of generalization and con- 
densation in the writer, with vigor and 
impetus of style. It is not, however, mi- 
nute in respect to the saint's public life, 
or his great work as a philosopher and 
doctor of the church. This could not be 
expected in a work of moderate size 
adapted for popular reading. There is, 
however, a brief summary of the saint's 
writings, with a synopsis, and an account 
of the Augustinian Order, all of which 
are of interest and value to the general 
reader. 

PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEWS ; OR, RELIGIOUS 
AND MORAL TRUTHS REFLECTED IN THE 
UNIVERSE. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., 
S.J. New York : P. O'Shea. 1873. 
A handsomely printed volume, with a 
very ornamental title-page quite appro- 
priate to the nature of the book. The 
views of truth presented in this book are 
expressed in aphorisms. Good taste, 
poetic sensibility, spiritual wisdom, and 
the purest Christian feeling are their 
chief characteristics. We are disposed 
to think this the best of F. Weninger's 
works. There are many persons who 
take great delight in aphorisms of this 
kind, and we think all such readers will 
like this book. It is good also as a help 
to meditation, and a treasury of short 
spiritual readings for those who have 
not time for long ones ; and will be use- 
ful to those who like to stop occasionally 
in more laborious occupations of the 
mind, and gather a little spiritual nose- 

gay- 



New Publications* 



715 



MEMOIRS OF MADAME DESBORDES-VAL- 

MORE. By the late C. A. Sainte-Beuve. 

With a Selection from her Poems. 

Translated by Harriet W. Preston. 

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1873. 

Madame Valmore was one of those 
poets of the affections who 

" Learn in suffering what they teach in song." 

No one can look for a moment at her por- 
trait as depicted in this touching book 
without feeling that the thorn is continual- 
ly pressing against her gentle breast. Her 
poetry and her letters are the very outcry of 
impassioned love and grief. " I am like 
the Indian that sings at the stake," she 
says. One of her volumes is entitled 
Tears, every line of which is a pensive 
sigh. Her poems are full of " the charm 
of that melancholy which M. de Segur 
calls the luxury of grief " M. Michelet 
says : " She alone among us had the gift 
of tears that gift which smites the rock 
and assuages the thirst of the soul !" M. 
Sainte-Beuve calls her " the Mater Dolo- 
rosa of poetry," but that title, consecrated 
to a higher, diviner type of sorrow, is one 
that most of us would shrink from apply- 
ing to ordinary mortals. 

It would almost seem as if the highest, 
purest notes " half ecstasy, half pain" 
only spring from the soul overshadowed 
by sorrow, as the eyes of some birds are 
darkened when they are taught to sing. 
Mme. Valmore herself, in allusion to a 
brother poet, wonders "if actual misery 
were requisite for the production of notes 
that so haunt one's memory." 

The tombs among which she used to 
play as a child in the old churchyard at 
Douai seem to have cast their funereal 
shadows over her whole life shadows 
that lend to her sad muse so attractive a 
charm. One of her poems thus begins : 

"Do not write. I am sad and would my life 

were o'er. 

A summer without thee ? Oh ! night of star- 
less gloom ! 
I fold the idle arms that cannot clasp thee 

more 

To knock at my heart's door, were like 
knocking at a tomb. 

Do not write." 

Mme. Valmore's nature was eminent- 
ly feminine. Her heart was her guide. 
She was a being of impulse and sympa- 
thy. But her instincts were so delicate 
and true that they were to her what rea- 
son and philosophy are to colder na- 
tures. Her imagination was thoroughly 
Catholic. It is only Catholicity that de- 



velops souls of such tender grace and 
beauty, and she was brought up under 
its influences. A cheerful piety, Catho- 
lic in tone, seems to have pervaded her 
life, and consoled and sustained her in 
its many dark hours. She loved to pray 
in the deserted aisle of some shadowy 
church full of mystery and peace. " She 
had her Christ the Christ of the poor 
and forsaken, the prisoner and the slave, 
the Christ of the Magdalen and the good 
Samaritan, a Christ of the future of whom 
she herself has sung in one of her sweet- 
est strains: 

4 He whose pierced hands have broken so 
many chains,' ' 

a line that appeals to all who have sin- 
ned and been forgiven ! 

In her last years she thus writes : " I 
see at an immense distance the Christ 
who shall come again. His breath is 
moving over the crowd. He opens his 
arms wide, but there are no more nails 
no more for ever !" 

Her devotion to Mary is constantly 
peeping out in her letters. After visiting 
a church at Brussels, she writes thus to 
her daughter : " To-day we saw the black 
Virgin with the Child Jesus also black 
like his mother. These Madonnas wring 
my heart with a thousand reminiscences. 
They are nothing in the way of art, but 
they are so associated with my earliest 
and sweetest faiths that I positive^' 
adore those stiff pink-lined veils and 
wreaths of perennial flowers made of 
cambric so stout that all the winds of 
heaven could never cause a leaf to flut- 
ter." 

She writes her brother: "Lift up your 
hat when you pass the Church of Notre 
Dame, and lay upon its threshold the 
first spring flowers you find." 

One of the most touching features of 
her life is her devotedness to this 
brother, an old soldier and pensioner in 
the hospital at Douai, whom she aided 
out of her own scanty purse, and still 
more by the moral support she was con- 
tinually giving him in the most delicate 
manner ; trying to ennoble his unfortu- 
nate past so as to give him dignity in his 
own eyes a thing so often forgotten in 
our intercourse with those who are in 
danger of losing their self-respect. 

Mme. Valmore's charity and sympa- 
thies were not confined to her own kin- 
dred. They responded to every appeal. 
The condemned criminal and prisoners 



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of every degree excited the compassion dies ; he must provoke the most wonder- 

of her heart. At a time of great distress ing and angry contradiction and com- 

at Lyons, she says she is "ashamed to ment, and gratify the small feminine spite 

have food and fire and two garments that possesses him, provided he can sting 

when so many poor creatures have none." and wound like a hornet. For him, to 

And yet she seems not to have had too scold is to live. 

many of the comforts of life herself. One The present volume, although entitled 
Christmas eve she speaks of kneeling on The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth 
her humble hearth "a hearth where there Century, is in fact occupied, for more 
is not much fire save that of her own lov- than two hundred pages, with an account 
ing, anxious heart " to pray. of the dealings of his country with Ire- 
It is sad to see a woman with such a land during the XVIIth century, and 
refined, poetical nature, and a heart sen- presents his views of Irish history at the 
sitive to the last degree, condemned to a notable periods of the insurrection or 
fate so chilling and unkind. But she alleged "massacre " in 1641, as well as 
never lost courage. Living in narrow the short reign of James II. The narra- 
lodgings, and on limited means, she con- tive ends at the time of the small French 
trived to give a certain artistic air to invasion under Thurot, shortly after the 
everything around her, and received her middle of the XVIIIth century ; leaving 
visitors with polished ease and self-pos- still to be treated the whole era of the 
session, hiding her griefs under the grace Volunteering, the Insurrection of '98, and 
of her manner and the vivacity of her the Union, so-called. Indeed, if the au- 
conversation. Her courage and forti- thor carry forward his subject into the 
tude were admirable under adverse cir- present century, as he has carried it 
cumstances and such afflictions as the backward into the one before the last, he 
loss of her daughters. No book not will have the great famines to deal with, 
strictly religious could teach a more for- and the multitudinous emigration ; so 
cible lesson of patient, cheerful endur- that we may expect a vast picture, cover- 
ance how " to suffer and be strong." ing the whole ' canvas, portraying from 
The work is elegantly translated, and is the strictly English point of view that 
a welcome addition to the lives of cele- ghastly history in its full perspective, 
brated French ladies already issued by The Froude theory is, on the whole, quite 
the same publishers. simple ; nothing can be more easily un- 
derstood. It is, in few words, that the 

THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND IN THE English nation having been "forced by 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By James situation and circumstances" to take 
Anthony Froude, M.A. In 2 vo'.s. charge of Ireland and its people, when it 
Vol. I. New York : Scribner, Arm- suited the English to change their reli- 
strong&Co. 1873. gion, or to come back to it, or to change 
We have here the first volume of a new it again, they were bound in duty to com- 
and very elaborate work by the adventu- pel the Irish to change along with them 
rous historian of England, and chival- each time, by means of pains and penal- 
rous champion of Henry VIII. and his ties, from heavy fines to transportation 
daughter Elizabeth. It might perhaps and death on the gallows; also that the 
have been hoped that enough had been English having a strong wish to possess 
said of Mr. Froude in these columns, and themselves of all the lands of Ireland, 
that our readers had done with him. everything was lawful and right to effect 
His reputation as a faithful historian had that object. The reader will remark, with 
been sorely damaged, and indeed irre- surprise (and the more surprise, the better 
trievably ruined, by several indignant for Froude), that in his lectures lately de- 
critics in England, in Scotland, and in livered in New York, which were a kind 
Ireland, as well as in the United States of abstract of the work then in press, he 
(by the short, sharp and decisive on- did not venture to say before an intelli- 
slaught of Mr. Meline) ; so that it has gent audience of freemen some of the 
been an actual surprise to the literary things which he has dared to print in the 
world to find him once more tempting book then just ready to burst upon the 
Providence in a new book, heralded and world. For example, he did not say, 
advertised by a course of lectures in New even before the " Christian young men," 
York.. But this is the nature of the such words as these which are found in 
man : he must surprise and startle, or he the book (p. 609); 



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717 



"The consent of man was not asked 
when he was born into the world : his 
consent will not be asked when his time 
comes to die. As little has his consent 
to do with the laws which, while he lives, 
he is bound to obey." 

This sentiment he perhaps thought it 
unnecessary to enunciate here ; because, 
in fact, he intended it solely for the Irish, 
not by any means for the Americans, 
although it reads like a universal maxim 
for the human race. Again, he did not 
think it necessary to say in so plain 
words what he has laid down clearly 
enough in this passage (p. 213) : 

"No government need keep terms with 
such a creed [meaning the Catholic 
Church] when there is power to abolish 
it. To call the repression of opinions 
which had issued so many times in blood 
and revolt by the name of religious persecu- 
tion is mere abuse of words." 



ELEVATIONS POETIQUES ET RELIGIEUSES. 
Par Marie Jenna. Deuxieme Edit. 2 
vols. Paris: Adrien le Clerc et Cie. 

1872. 

As the eye lingers upon a beautiful 
landscape, spring clad and fair in the 
clear light of the new-risen sun ; as the 
ear loiters unwilling to lose the last 
echoed link of some simple melting me- 
lody ; as the hand tarries loth to quit the 
gentle grasp that speaks unspoken sym- 
pathy, so have we reluctant to lose such 
fair pictures, such moving lays, such deep 
and tender feeling lingered and loitered 
and tarried with Marie Jenna, "the Poet 
of the Vosges." Gifted with the nice 
perception of a true poet, Marie Jenna 
clothes the simplest ideas in language of 
such rare delicacy, so fresh, tender, vivid, 
and withal so musical, that mind, heart, 
eye, and ear, all are at once engaged. A 
bird, a butterfly, a flower, gains new inte- 
rest in her hands ; she flings a grace 
aro,und it, she vests it with a dignity it 
never had before ; she makes it live 
again. Take, for instance, the opening 
stanzas of " Le Papillon " : 

" Pourquoi t'approcher en silence 

Et nienacer mon vol joyeux ? 

Par quelle involontaire offense 

Ai-je pu deplaire a tes yeux ? 

" Je suis la vivante dtincelle 

Qui monte et descend tour a tour ; 
La fleur & qui Dieu donne une aile, 
Un souffle, un regard, un amour. 



l Je suis le frere de la rose ; 

Elle me cache aux importuns, 
Puis sur son cceur je me repose 
Et je m'enivre de parfums. 

" Ma vie est tout heureuse et pure, 

Pourquoi desires-tu ma mort ? 
Oh ! dis-moi, roi de la nature, 
Serais-tu jaloux de mon sort ? 

" Va, je sais bien que tu t'inclines 

Souvent pour essuyer des pleurs, 
Que tes yeux comptent lesdpines 
Ou je ne vois rien que desfleurs. 

" Je sais que parfois ton visage 

Se trouble et s'assombrit soudain, 
Lorsqu'en vain je cherche un nuage 
Au fond de 1'horizon serein. 

11 Mais Celui dont la main divine 

A daigne nous former tous deux, 
Pour moi parfuma la colline, 
Et de loin te montra les cieux. 

u II me fit deux ailes de flamme, 

A moi, feu folletdu printemps; 
Pour toi, son fils, il fit une Sme 
Pius grande que le firmament. 



" Ecoute ma voix qui t'implore, 

Loin de moi de"tourne tes pas . . . 
Laisse moi vivre un jour encore, 
O toi qui ne finiras pas ! 

" Mon bonheur a moi, c'est la vie, 

La libertd sous le ciel bleu, 
Le ruisseau, 1'amour sans enyie : 
Le tien . . c'est le secret de Dieu." 



What can be fresher or more charming 
than this naive, earnest appeal for life 
and liberty? And again, in " Pour un 
Oiseau/' beginning with : 

" II est a toi, c'est vrai . . . Frre, veux tu qu'il 

meure ? 

Sa beaute, sa chanson, tout est li\ . . . dans 
ta main ; 

Et 1'arbuste oil sa voix gazouillait tout a 

1'heure 
Au bosquet, si tu veux, sera muet demain. 

" Tu le tiens : sa faiblesse & ta ibrce le livre ; 
Mais aussi ta pitie peut le laisser aller ; 
e le fais pas mourrir ! il est si bon de vivre 
Lorsque 1'ete commence et qu'on peut s'en- 
voler," 

we find the same delicacy of thought, 
the same rippling, flowing language ; and 
what joyousness and how cheery it 
sounds : il est si bon de vivre. 

But Marie Jenna strikes deeper chords, 
awakes more solemn strains, than these ; 
and through them all, the graver as the 
lighter, binding them in one harmonious 
whole, there sings out the same clear note 
of firm, enlightened faith that never 



718 



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wavers ; it penetrates each thing she 
handles, giving that breadth and large- 
ness to her field of view that it alone can 
give. In some beautiful stanzas, " Beati 
qui lugeant," she draws near to one bow- 
ed down with sorrow, and fearlessly, yet 
oh ! how tenderly touching the wound be- 
cause she knows its cure, she speaks : 

41 Va, ton sein cache en vain le glaive qui le 

blesse : 

J'ai compris ton silence et j'ai prte pour toi. 
Laisse aller ta tiert comme un poids qui t'op- 
presse, 

Et pleure devant moi. 

14 II est, je le sais bien, des jours ou la souffrance 
Trouve en sa solitude une apre volupte ; 
Et le monde leger voit passer en silence 
Sa pale majeste. 

44 Et la main d'un ami s'arretant incertaine, 
N'ose ^carter les plis de son voile de deuil. 
II est des maux si grands, que la parole hu- 
maine 

Expire sur le seuil. 

44 Mais deux jours sont passes ; il est temps que 

je vienne ; 
Oh ! laisse un front d'ami pench^ sur ta dou- 

leur ! 

Ne te deiourne pas : Mets ta main dans la 
mienne, 

Ton ame surmon cceur. 

44 Si je ne t'apportais qu'une amitte fid Me, 
Mes pas avec respect s'eloigneraient d'ici. 
J'attendrais que la tienne enfin se souvint 
d'elle, 

Mais j'ai souffert aussi. . . 

44 Je ne te dirai point cette vaine parole 
Que la douleur accueille en son muet de'dain. 
Non, ce que jai pour toi, c'est un mot qui con- 
sole, 

C'est un secret divin." 

Already we seem to see awaked atten- 
tion, a gleam of hope flit across the stern, 
wan face that marks. such helpless, hope- 
less misery ; now softening the hard, 
cold look that bid defiance to all sorrow, 
repelled all sympathy ; now changing it 
to one of anxious longing and of mute 
entreaty for the proffered gift, le mot qui 
console. And see, or is it fancy only, or 
are there really tears now falling, " gem- 
like, the last drops of the exhausted 
storm " ? Space forbids us to give it in 
its fulness, this secret divin, to curtail it 
would spoil it : so we send the reader to 
the original, and would ask him only if 
in the last stanza he does not hear two 
voices singing : 

44 Heureux les afflige's ! dit la VeSrit^ meme. 
Heureux, c'est vrai, mon Dieu ! quand vous 

avez parl. 

Nous voulons bien souffrir si le bonheur su- 
preme, 

Est d'etre consoleV' 



Then look at this exquisite little pic- 
ture, "L'Enfant Ressuscite." Rarely 
have we met with one more pathetic. It 
is very delicately painted, with shades so 
subtile that, in the simplicity of the whole, 
we are apt to overlook them. And here 
also we have a glimpse of that reverential 
love for childhood that is by no means 
the least characteristic trait of Marie 
Jenna: 

44 Elle avait tant ge"mi, sa mere, et tant pleur ! 
Tant press sur son sein le front de'colore^ 
Que dans le corps glac^ 1'ame eiait revenue, 
Et qu'en b&iissant Dieu, palpitante, ^perdue, 
Comme un tre'sor qu'on cache elle avait em- 

portd 
Dans ses deux bras tremblants 1'enfant ressus- 

cite 1 ! 
Trois mois s'&aient passes depuis mais, 

chose e'trange ! 

On cut dit que le ciel avait fait un ^change. 
L'enfant penchait son front comme un bouton 

fldtri, 

Et depuis ces trois mois, jamais il n'avait ri. 
II prefeYait aux jeux 1'ombre silencieuse ; 
Sa mere en 1'embrassant n'osait pas etre heu- 

reuse .... 

44 Des volets entr'ouverts s'elancent des chan- 
sons ; 

Dans les clochers fre"mit la voix des carillons. 
Ecoute, mon Louis, ces chants, ces joyeux 

rires .... 

Vois ; c'est le jour de 1'an ; dis ce que tu de- 
sires. 
Chaque enfant pour etrenne a des jouets nou- 

veaux. 
En veux-tu de pareils ? en veux-tu de plus 

beaux ? 
Veux-tu ce b&ier gris qu'on traine et qui va 

paitre 
Au printemps dans les prs 1'herbe qui vient 

naitre ? 
Mais regarde plutot ; des pioceaux, des cou- 

leurs, 
Qui d'un papier tout blanc font un bouquet de 

fleurs. 

Oh ! vois done ce ballon de laine tricolore 
Qui s'eleve et retombe et se releve encore ! 
Tu n'aimes pas courir Que puis-je te 

donner ? 
Dis ta mere a present ne sait plus de- 

viner. 

Veux-tu ce sabre d'or qui deji ferait croire 
Que mon petit Louis m^dite une victoire ? 
Aimes-tu ce chalet d'un long toit recouvert ? 
Mais non .... qu'en ferais-tu ? Veux-tu ce 

livre ouvert, 
Ou pres de chaque histoire on regarde une 

image, 
Ou 1'on rit, ou Ton pleure, ou Ton devient plus 

sage? 

Ah ! voici des oiseaux ! tu les aimerais mieux ! 
Les oiseaux sont vivants ; tu lesferaisheureux ! 
Si tu voulais des lisandes roses fleuries, 
J'en saurais bien trouver, Louis, pour que tu 

ries. 

Reponds ; je t'aime tant ! n'oses-tu me parler ? 
Tu pleurais ce matin ; je veux te consoler. 
Dis-moi ce doux secret pendant que je 1'em- 

brasse. 



New Publications. 



719 



Que veux-tu, mon Louis ? Et 1'enfant, a voix 
basse ; 

Des ailes pour m'envoler !" 

No one can fail to be struck with the 
sudden stillness that follows the mother's 
anxious striving to drive away the cloud 
that would hang over her little one ; with 
the awe and fear, too, that till her heart ; 
with the mystery in the whispered an- 
swer of the strange mysterious child given 
back from death in answer to her passion- 
ate prayer. It sets us thinking of that 
other mother whose grief so touched the 
Master's heart that he spoke the word, 
" and he that was dead sat up and began 
to speak. And he delivered him to 
his mother." Did that young man go 
home so grave, with never a smile to 
light his face, so strangely altered, that, 
after the first burst of gladness, his mo- 
ther, clasping him to her bosom, dared 
not rejoice? 

Of the more serious pieces, perhaps 
not one equals in force " La plus grande 
Douleur." It is the old tale, always new 
though so oft repeated : the old tale that 
startles, shocks, and brings sharp pain 
as for the first time it comes home to each 
one, telling that that strong bond which 
binds friends closer, draws classes near- 
er, makes nations firmer, has snapped 
and riven two hearts asunder ; that the 
newly-awakened intellect first meeting 
early faith has turned aside, has chosen a 
road far other than that on which till now 
both friends had travelled hand in hand ; 
that that "little superficial knowledge of 
philosophy that inclines man's mind to 
atheism " has come between them like an 
icy barrier, chilling the old friendship 
and making everything so dark and 
strange which before was warmth and 
light between them ; and with effect so 
drear, so piercing, too, and sharp, that 
the unchanged heart feels any pain than 
that would be light to bear : 

" Oui mon Dieu ! nous pouvons, sans que 1'ame 

succombe, 

Laisser notre bonheur Jl ce pass qui tombe ; 
Nous pouvons au matin former un reVe pur, 
Tout d'amour et de paix, tout de flamme et 

d'azur, 

Puis livrer les debris de sa beautd ravie 
A ce vent du ddsert, qui laisse notre vie 
Sans fleur et sans e"pi comme un champ mois- 

sonnd ; 

Meliner notre front pale et ddcouronne", 
Et devenir semblable cette pauvre plante 
Qui n'est pas morte encore, et qui n'est plus 

vivante, 
Nous pouvons voir gisant sur un lit de dou- 

leur, 
Celui qui nous restait, 1'ami consolateur, 



Compter chaque moment dc son heure der- 

niere, 
Poser nos doigts tremblants sur sa froide pau- 

piere, 

Et baiser son visage, et nous dire ; II est mort ! 
Nous le pouvons, mon Dieu ! Parfois le cceur 

est fort.) 

" Mais aimer une autre ame, et la trouver si 

belle 
Qu'on fre"mit de bonheur en se penchant vers 

elle, 
Puis un jour contempler d'un regard impuis- 

sant 

Sur sa beautt? celeste une ombre qui descend ; 
De cette ame ou passaient les souffles de la 

grace, 

Sentir parfois monter quelque chose qui glace, 
Douter, prier tous bas, pleurer d'anxi^te*, 
Craindre, espdrer Longtemps marcher a 

son cot 
Sans oser voir au fond .... Puis un jour ou 

Ton ose, 

Reculer de partout ou le regard se pose, 
Ou fut le feu sacr toucher de froids debris, 
Murmurer en tremblant un langage incompris 
Ou Dieu passa, chercher sa lumineuse trace, 
Et n'y trouver plus rien . . . rien ! pas meme 

un soupir, 

Pas un cri douloureux vers 1'aube qui s' efface, 
C'est trop souffrir !" 

The two volumes before us contain 
many poems, both short and long, of 
such great freshness and beauty, so full 
of original turns and delicate touches, 
that it is difficult to choose from amongst 
them. However, we have said enough to 
give a fair notion of Marie Jenna's style, 
and quite enough to show that it is her 
own, with its own peculiar charm. And 
so our task is done. If it be said that, 
having uttered only praise and found no 
fault, we have but half fulfilled the critic's 
task, we answer that we never meant the 
tone of criticism. All know that man's 
most perfect work is not without its blem- 
ish ; but in our first walk through so fair 
a garden, meeting new beauties on every 
side, it would have been ungracious in us 
to have sought defects: that task we 
leave to others. Ours has been to wel- 
come, and to tell of fresh flowers of much 
loveliness offered to us from across the 
sea, with the certainty that no one can 
read her " Elevations Poetiques " without 
feeling that he is indebted for some real 
enjoyment to the charming " Poet of the 
Vosges." 

THE Two YSONDES, AND OTHER VERSES. 
By Edward Ellis. London : Picker- 
ing. 1872. 

It takes but a short while to read this 
thin volume ; nor will any one with a 
taste for true poetry find the perusal a 
task. The author undoubtedly pos- 



720 



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sesses " the vision and the faculty di- 
vine," and belongs to the subjective 
school of which Tennyson is king a 
school peculiarly capable of teaching a 
subjective age. The more the pity, then, 
say we, that Mr. Ellis should have made 
his chief poem, "The Two Ysondes," 
hang on the idea that love is fate. His 
" Two Ysondes " are the two " Isolts " of 
Tennyson ; but Tennyson does not at- 
tempt to excuse the passion of Mark's 
wife for Tristrem. Our author makes it 
originate in Tristrem and Ysonde having 
"drunk," "by an evil chance," a phil- 
tre which had been placed " in Tris- 
trem's charge " as " a wedding-gift for 
Ysonde and King Mark" (p. 7). Now, 
it may be said that this does away with 
the guilty aspect of the romance, and 
throws over the whole a veil of faery. 
Yes ; but we insist that it is, therefore, 
the more mischievous, as teaching the 
doctrine of fatality. 

Neither is this the only, or even the most, 
objectionable feature of the poem ; for, 
together with descriptions of emotions 
and caresses which would be chaste if 
the theme were lawful love, all idea of 
sin is kept away, and especially as re- 
gards its eternal consequences. There 
is not a word about remorse during life, 
or of repentance at death. But Tristrem 
dies in despair of beholding the object 
of his passion ; and Ysonde, in turn, ex- 
pires on the breast of her dead lover, de- 
claring that she will " go with him beyond 
the bars of fate!' 

Now, we should not have troubled our- 
selves to make these strictures but that 
Mr. Ellis shows powers for the misuse 
cf which he will be very responsible. 
Moreover, as is clear from some of his 
shorter lyrics, particularly "At a Shrine," 
his mind has a religious bent, with (of 
course) Catholic sympathies. 

With regard to his verse, it is less Ten- 
nysonic than his thought. Better if, 
while originating metres (with which we 
have no quarrel whatever), he modelled 
both his lines and his diction on the 
peerless accuracy of England's laureate. 

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED. 

From KELLY, PIET & Co., Baltimore : The 
Money God. By M. A. Quinton. 

From LYNCH, COLE & MEEHAN, New York : 
English Misrule in Ireland : A Course of Lec- 
tures. By V. Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P. i2mo. 
pp. 299. 



From J. A. McGEE, New York : "Thumping 
English Lies ": Froude's Slanders on Ireland 
and Irishmen. With Preface and Notes by 
Col. J. E. McGee, and Wendell Phillips' Views 
of the Situation. 12010. pp.224. Half Hours 
with Irish Authors : Selections from Griffin, 
Lover, Carleton, and Lever. 12010. pp. 330. 

From A. D. F. RANDOLPH, New York : Christ at 
the Door. By Susan H. Ward. 12010, pp. 232, 

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & Co., Philadelphia : Ex- 
piation. By Mrs. Julia C. R. Dorr. 

From J. R. OSGOOD & Co., Boston : The Ro- 
mance of the Harem. By Mrs. A. H. Leon- 
owens. 12010. pp. viii.-277. 

From ROBERTS BROS., Boston : What Katy Did. 
By Susan Coolidge. Thorvaldsen : His Life 
and Works. By Eugene Plon. 12010. pp. 
xvi.-32o. The World Priest. By Leopold 
Schefer. 12010. pp. xv.-37i. 

From THE AUTHOR : Sermon at the Month's 
Mind of the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D., 
Preached at the Church of the American Col- 
lege (Rome). By the V. Rev. Dr. Chatard, 
Rector. Paper, Svo. pp. 30. 

From E. H. BUTLER & Co., Philadelphia: The 
Etymological Reader. By Epes Sargent and 
Amasa May. 

From S. D. KIERNANT, Clerk, Department of 
Public Instruction : Report of the Board of 
Public Instruction of the City and County of 
New York, for the year ending Dec. 31, 1871 ; 
with Addenda to May, 1872. Manual of the 
Department of Public Instruction, 1871-2. 
i8mo, pp. 262. 

From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York : Sermons 
by the Rev. H. R. Hawes, M.A. 12010, pp. xiv. 
347- 

From AMERICAN BAPTIST SOCIETY, Philadelphia: 
The Baptist Short Method, with Inquirers and 
Opponents. By Rev. C. T. Hiscox, D.D. 18010, 
pp. 216. 

From HURD & HOUGHTON, New York : The City 
of God and the Church Makers. By R. Abbey. 
12010, pp. xx. 315. 

From BURNS, OATES & Co., London (New York : 
Sold by The Catholic Publication Society): The 
Life of Monseigneur Berneux, Bishop of Capse. 
Vicar-Apostolic of Corea. By M. 1'Abbe" 
Pichon. Translated from the French, with a 
Preface by Lady Herbert. 

From JOHN HODGES, London : CNew York : Sold 
by The Catholic Publication Society): The 
Lives of the Saints. By Rev. S. Baring- Gould, 
M.A. March. 

From J. R. OSGOOD & Co., Boston: His Level 
Best, and Other Stories. By Edward E. Hale. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. XVI., No. 96. MARCH, 1873. 



THE RELATION OF THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE TO 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE UNDER THE LAWS 
OF OUR REPUBLIC. 

(A LECTURE BEFORE A CATHOLIC SOCIETY OF S. PATRICK'S CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CONN., Oct. 20, 1872.) 

REVEREND GENTLEMEN AND MY to the rights which respect life, liber- 
FRIENDS : Before I speak particularly ty, property, the pursuit of happiness 
of the relation of the rights of con- in general and particular, and the 
science to the laws existing in our re- means of protecting all these rights, 
public, I consider it necessary to make otherwise no society or government 
a few preliminary remarks and to lay is possible. But this cannot be done 
down a few principles regarding the by any general consent among these 
nature of law and government in gen- different parties. The Christian holds 
eral, and the relation which they hold the sacredness of life and property, 
to religion. I shall best illustrate the and the force of the law of monoga- 
difficulties which envelop this sub- my. The Mohammedan rejects this 
ject, and also give a clue to the way last, and maintains the right to a 
by which it may be extricated, by plurality of wives. The Hindoo re- 
making a supposition. gards it as a sacred right and duty 

Let us suppose that a large num.- of a widow to offer herself on the 
ber of men come together for the funeral pile of her husband, that her 
purpose of founding a new state with spirit may rejoin his spirit in another 
all its institutions of civil society and world. The Thug considers it a 
government. Some of these are most holy and meritorious act to 
Christians, among whom are Quak- murder as many persons as possible 
ers ; others are Mohammedans, Hin- in honor of the cruel goddess whom 
doos, Thugs, idolaters practising he worships; while the idolater looks 
human sacrifices, and communists, on the sacrifice of children or cap- 
It is necessary that they should agree tives as the means of placating his 
and concur with each other in regard offended deities and procuring suc- 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Rev. I. T. HECKKR, in the Office of, 

the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



722 The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 

cess in war. The Quaker will not our organic constitution and the laws 
allow of any bloodshed whatever, of our republic I intend not merely the 
either for avenging crime or repel- federal constitution and laws which 
ling aggression. And the commu- bind together the United States, but 
nist would abolish all rights of prop- also the laws and constitutions of the 
erty, reconstruct society on a wholly states, the tout ensemble of our corn- 
different plan from that which has mon and statute laws of every kind, 
heretofore existed, and banish all which form the regulating code of 
religion as noxious to the well-being our whole society as one political 
of man. people. And in regard to this or- 

It is evident, therefore, that society ganic law, I affirm that we do not 

cannot be constituted without reli- form an exception among human 

gion,and that society constituted with societies to the universal rule I have 

religion, and on the basis of religious above laid down, that the state in 

ideas, requires some agreement in political society is based on religious 

these religious ideas, and the incor- ideas. 

poration of some fixed and definite In support of this proposition, I cite 

religious principles into its very struc- the opinion of a most competent and 

ture and conformation. impartial judge, Prof. Leo, of Halle, 

If we consult history, we shall find and borrow from him a definition of 
that no state or perfect society has that which constitutes our state reli- 
ever been established on the atheistic gion. This great historian, in the 
principle. Every one that has ever introductory portion of his Universal, 
existed has had a religious basis, and History, where he is discussing the 
all political and social constitutions universal principles which underlie 
have proceeded from religious ideas all political constitutions, analyzes in 
and been founded upon them. The a masterly way the elements of our 
civilization of Christendom in gene- own system of government ; and he 
ral has received its specific form from points out that which is the religious 
the influence of the Christian religion element, namely, the rule or law of 
moulding and modifying in the East- morals, derived from the common 
ern world its previous and ancient law of Christendom, or a certain 
laws, and in the West to a great ex- standard of moral obligation, con- 
tent creating a new order out of a formity to which is enforced by the 
pre-existing state of imperfect civil- state with all its coercive power. All 
ization or semi-barbarism. To this churches or voluntary associations 
Christendom we belong, and the laws which include this moral code or re- 
of our republic are a product of this ligion of the state within their own 
Christian civilization. This cannot specific religious law possess com- 
be denied, considered as a mere his- plete equality and liberty before the 
torical fact respecting our origin ; for civil law. With their doctrines, rites, 
we are the offspring of Christian Eu- regulations, and practices the state 
rope, and in the beginning distinctly does not interfere, and gives them 
professed to be a Christian people, protection from any infringement 
But it may be said that we have upon their rights on the part of any 
changed, have undergone a politi- private members of the community. 
cal regeneration as a nation, and in But let them, on pretext of doctrine, 
the process of transformation have of ecclesiastical law, of liberty of 
thrown out all religion from our or- conscience, or even of any divine 
ganic constitution as a republic. By revelation, violate by any overt acts 



The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 723 

the rule of moral obligation recog- violable. And the exercise of this 
nized by the state, they come into right, in this due and legitimate 
direct collision with her authority, manner, must not be hindered by 
and must suffer the consequences, force and violence under any pre* 
So far, therefore, as concerns that text. Therefore no pretence of 
portion of Christian law, namely, the conscience or religion can avail to 
moral precepts of the Christian reli- cover any violation of law by an in- 
gion, which are incorporated into dividual or a society, or any such in- 
our civil law, all churches are in vital fringement on the rights of others as 
union with the state. Even Jews, has been just alluded to. All this 
because they hold, with Christians, presupposes that the state recognizes 
the decalogue ; and societies based on and bases its laws upon certain fixed 
purely natural religion, because they ideas concerning the rights which 
hold the law of nature, are in the God has really granted to men, and 
same vital union, so far, with the the obligations which he has im- 
state. And beyond this, within the posed upon them. But this has also 
limits which this Jaw sanctions or been distinctly and expressly de- 
permits, all these churches or socie- clared by a body of men, represent- 
ties are in union with the state, as ing the whole political people of the 
lawful, voluntary associations over nascent republic which was after- 
which her protection is extended, wards developed into the United 
But let a Mohammedan community States of North America. The de- 
be formed among citizens or resident claration was made in the very act 
foreigners, and attempt the introduc- which constituted the United Colo- 
tion of polygamy, our laws require nies free and independent states, and 
the civil magistrate to interfere and .which was published to the world on 
suppress by force this exercise of the the fourth day of July, 1776. In the 
privileges granted by their pro- first sentence of this Declaration, of 
phet. Let a community of Hindoos, Independence, the Congress affirms 
Thugs, or idolaters establish itself that the people of the United States 
within our bounds, and commence have judged it necessary " to assume 
any of the murderous practices of among the powers of the earth the 
those false religions, and the gibbet separate and equal station to which 
or the sword would be called on to THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NA- 
execute vengeance upon them. We TURK'S GOD entitle them." This august 
have in our borders the sect of Mor- body then proceeds to lay down the 
mons, whose doctrines and practices foundation and basis of the entire ar- 
are contrary to our fundamental laws gument of the document, as follows : 
and subversive of them. Obviously, "We hold these truths to be self-evi- 
we cannot, consistently with our dent, that all men are created equal ; 
safety, our well-being, or our essen- that they are ENDOWED BY THEIR 
tial principles of political and social CREATOR with certain inalienable 
order, tolerate the enormities of Mor- rights; that among these are life, 
monism, much less permit the forma- liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; 
tion of a Mormon state. The right that to secure these rights govern- 
to life, liberty, property, and the pur- ments are instituted among men." 
suit of happiness, must be exercised It then proceeds to argue that those 
in conformity to certain laws, which governments which fail to fulfil this 
are to the state as her axioms or end, and pursue a contrary end by 
first principles, and are held as in- invading and destroying these rights, 



724 The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 

forfeit their powers ; and makes an ap- human law, a higher sovereignty than 
plication of this principle to the casus human sovereignty, to which both 
belli between the colonies and the governments and the governed are 
British crown. subject and amenable, and which are 
In this most momentous crisis, amid acknowledged as supreme by this 
the very birth-pangs of our infant re- American Republic of which we are 
public, the people of the United States citizens. And as another proof of 
solemnly declared that the origin of this recognition, I may cite the law of 
all right, all law, all political organi- oaths, or the solemn appeal to Al- 
zation, all government, and specifi- mighty God as the Supreme Judge, 
cally of those which constitute the by which a religious sanction is given 
United States a separate political to judicial testimony and the engage- 
people, is to be found in the lex ater- ments of public officers. 
na, the law of God; that is to say, There is, therefore, in our republic 
it is in religion. For what is religion ? a religion of the state, but one em- 
According to Cicero's definition, it is bodied in civil and political society 
a bond which binds men to God and only, which leaves to citizens perfect 
to each other. This is the very freedom to organize churches and 
meaning of the word, which comes act out what they profess to be the 
from ligare, to bind, whence we have dictates of their individual conscien- 
the terms ligament, ligature, and ob- ces, provided they do not violate the 
ligation. Human right is, therefore, laws which constitute the religion of 
something conferred by God. The the state. 

right to govern must come from God, Under this law, the Catholic 
for we are created equal, and there- Church possesses in essential matters 
fore without any natural right of one theoretical liberty and equality of 
over another to give him law. The rights with the various religious bo- 
rights of the governed come from dies existing in the country, with 
God, and are therefore inviolable ; some trivial exceptions to be found 
but liberty is the unhindered posses- in the laws of some of the states. To 
sion and exercise of the rights con- a great extent, this theoretical liberty 
ferred by God, under the protection is also a practical liberty, really pos- 
of lawful government ; and liberty sessed and enjoyed, and only occa- 
of conscience is freedom to obey the sionally invaded. This is a remark 
law of the Creator, and to enjoy the which is quite specially verified in 
blessings which he has imparted to the instance of your own state of 
the creature by that law. These Connecticut. 

rights and liberties belong to each This has not always been the case 
. individual- man as a grant from the either here or in other portions of our 
Creator, which he can maintain in country. Catholics have not always 
the face of any government, be it enjoyed freedom of conscience and 
that of a monarch, of an aristocracy, liberty of religion. If we go back to 
or of a majority of the people. If a the early history of the colonies 
monarch, or one who executes by which became afterwards the United 
delegated power the sovereignty of States, we shall find that their found- 
a majority, invades the right of an ers did not intend to grant that lib- 
individual, he violates a law. This erty which now exists. In some of 
law can be no other than that of the these colonies, the Church of Eng- 
Sovereign Lord of the universe, land, in others the Church of the 
There is, therefore, a higher law than Puritans, and in those of Spain and 



The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 725 

France, which were admitted at a between the state and the Puritan 
later period, the Catholic Church Church was dissolved. Similar 
was the established religion of the causes produced similar effects in 
state. In all the English colonies other parts of the country, and, so 
the Catholic religion was proscribed far as the federal union was concern- 
and persecuted. The Puritan fathers ed, there was obviously from the first 
of New England intended to estab- an utter impossibility of making any 
lish a theocracy. There was a strict specific form of Christianity the reli- 
union of church and state under gion of the entire republic. Thus, 
their old colonial governments, by the very law which the necessity 
Only professed members and com- of the case imposed upon the sepa- 
municants of the church could vote, rate states and the entire federal 
and the legislatures regulated the republic, that liberty of religion be- 
affairs of parishes, a.nd decided came established under which the 
doctrinal questions. Our ancestors Catholic Church could come in upon 
therefore had a Christian ideal of the a footing of perfect equality with the 
state before their minds which they other religious denominations. Ca- 
attempted to make an actual reality, tholics have not come into New Eng- 
and which they dreamed should be- land and Connecticut either to de- 
come the kingdom of Christ our mand religious liberty as a right or to 
Lord upon the earth which the pro- beg toleration as a favor. We have not 
phets and apostles foretold. The obtained our rights or privileges by 
attempt failed from causes which lay any agitation or revolution stirred up 
within the bosom of the community by ourselves in our own interest, 
itself, and not because of any exter- The work was done before there was 
nal force ; and the same community a number of Catholics worth estimat- 
which had by tacit agreement or posi- ing either in Connecticut or New 
tive statutes enacted the original law England. It was done by the old 
combining a specific form of religion manor-born citizens for their own 
with the state, repealed the same by advantage and the welfare of the 
its own free will. In the Puritan state. 

state, the first change came about by So also, in regard to the political 

the multiplication of baptized per- privileges conceded to foreign-born 

sons who never became communi- immigrants. These are, in their na- 

cants. The number of citizens who ture, distinct and separate from the 

were thus deprived of the highest rights of conscience conceded to Ca- 

rights of citizenship was felt to be a tholics. Yet they have an actual 

grave anomaly and inconvenience in connection, arising from the fact that 

a democratic state, and caused the so very large a proportion of our Ca- 

adoption of the half-way covenant, tholic citizens are of foreign birth, 

By this arrangement, those baptized and so large a proportion of our 

persons who publicly acknowledged adopted citizens are of the Catholic 

their baptism were considered as religion; and therefore, in the .public 

quasi-members of the church, entitled mind, these two matters are very much 

to all political rights. When, in the blended together, and even confused 

course of time, the number of unbap- with each other. It is, therefore, 

tized persons increased, and other quite fitting that I should speak of 

sects of Protestantism began to flour- the two things in relation with each 

ish, new changes were brought about other. And I remark on this point 

by which in the end the connection that the privileges possessed by the 



726 The Rights of Conscience tinder the Laws of our Republic. 



Catholics of this state who are of for- 
eign birth, by which they are made 
equal to the native-born citizens in 
regard to both religious and political 
rights, have not been extorted by 
themselves, but freely conceded for the 
good of the state and of all citizens 
generally. The original inhabitants 
had the power to exclude the Catho- 
lic religion from all toleration. They 
had the power and the right to exclude 
all foreigners from the privileges of 
native-born citizens, or to make the 
conditions of being naturalized more 
stringent than they now are. They 
took another course, having in view 
their own good and the well-being 
of the state, and Catholics as well as 
foreigners have profited by it. Ca- 
tholics have profited by the religious 
liberty conceded to citizens, which is 
something essentially distinct from 
the privileges conceded to residents 
of foreign origin. And in point of 
fact, although the extent and pros- 
perity of the church in Connecticut 
have proceeded principally and in 
very great measure from the immi- 
gration of Irish Catholics into the 
state, yet its rights, and liberty, and 
equality do not depend on anything 
necessarily and essentially but the 
religious liberty granted to citizens, 
and which is the birthright of Ca- 
tholics as well as Protestants who are 
born on the soil of the .republic. 

It would be easy to show, in re- 
spect to our country at large, that 
the first beginnings of the Catholic 
Church have an intertwined radical 
grasp with the first fibres of national 
life in our own soil; and that there 
is a truly glorious Catholic chapter 
in the history of the United States. 
We can find something of this even 
in the history of this state. The first 
Mass celebrated in Connecticut was 
said in an open field within the 
bounds of Wethersfield, by the 
chaplain of the French troops who 



came here to aid our fathers in fight- 
ing the battle for independence. 
The first Catholic sermon in English 
was preached by the Rev. Dr. Ma- 
tignon, of Boston, in the Centre Con- 
gregational Church of Hartford, at 
the invitation of the Rev. Dr, Strong, 
the pastor of the church. The first 
Catholic church was formed at 
Hartford in 1827, by Mr. Taylor, a 
respectable citizen of that town, who 
was a convert, and who organized 
the few Irish, French, and German 
Catholic residents in the place into a 
congregation, which assembled on 
Sunday for worship. In 1830, Bish- 
op Fen wick, of Boston, a native of 
Maryland, purchased and blessed a 
small frame church, over which he 
placed F. Fitton, a native of Boston, 
who was the pastor of the entire 
state, and who is still actively en- 
gaged in the duties of the priesthood 
at Boston. During' the first five 
years of his ministry at Hartford, F. 
Fitton received eighty adult converts, 
who, with their families, made a con- 
siderable portion of his little flock, 
since, in 1835, there were only 730 
Catholics in the whole state. The 
first bishop of the diocese of Hart- 
ford was a native of New England. 
The present distinguished prelate who 
rules the church in Connecticut is a 
native of Pennsylvania; and of the 
150,000 Catholics under his jurisdic- 
tion nearly one-half must be natives of 
the state or of the United States. We 
have, then, some 67,000 native-born 
Catholics in this state, most of whom 
are native-born Yankees. * If you 

* This estimate, which was considered as too 
high by some of the clergymen present, is given 
only as conjectural. It is based on the census 
of 1870, according to which there are in the 
state, in round numbers. 203,000 persons of for- 
eign parentage at least on one side, of whom 
113,000 are foreign-born It would seem prob- 
able that we might allow out of this number 
83,000 foreien-born and 67,000 native-born Ca- 
tholics. It is certain, from other evidence, thst 
the number is over 100,000, and, whatever the 
correct number may be, nine-twentieths is very 



The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 727 

wish to see a fair sample of these, and enjoy it. This was a favor to 
you have only to visit St. Patrick's you without question ; but not a 
Church at nine o'clock of a Sunday purely gratuitous one. It was some- 
morning, where you will see the thing advanced to you, but for which 
church filled with them, and to gp you were expected to make a future 
into the school-house behind the compensation. And you have well 
church any day in the week, where purchased your rights, not only by 
you will find 1,100 of these young what you have done in the peaceful 
Catholic Yankees busily conning arts of industry, but by fighting for 
their lessons, and learning to love your adopted country and shedding 
God and their native Columbia, your blood for its integrity and the 
All these have their liberty of con- consolidation of its power. You 
science and their other rights as citi- have fought for the state, and for the 
zens secured to them by their birth- United States, and, therefore, the 
right, and therefore, on this ground compact has been sealed and made 
alone, the Catholic Church is equal inviolable by your blood, 
to the Protestant churches before the Now, what is the point I have 
law. been coming to and have at length 
And as regards foreign-born citi- reached? It is this: that you pos- 
zens, the state having conceded to sess the full freedom and equality of 
them equal rights to those of native- your Catholic religion, not by tolera- 
born citizens, their conscience or reli- tion, but as an absolute right, inher- 
gion is included among these rights, ing in your character as citizens 
The original concession was a privi- whether by birth or adoption. Ca- 
lege, but, having been once conced- tholics are legally domiciled here by 
ed, it has become a right. And it virtue of our laws, which recognize, 
was conceded, as I have said, for the maintain, and protect their religious 
good of the state which conceded it, rights as standing on an equal foot- 
and in view of a compensation or ing with those of Congregationalists 
equivalent which the party of the or Episcopalians. No doubt, we 
grantor expected to receive. You should cherish a kind feeling toward 
did not intrude yourselves upon the those who have granted these most 
soil of the state, or come uninvited precious and valuable rights, and 
to beg food and shelter. You were respect their similar rights. But we 
invited, and that not from motives of must not permit ourselves to be 
pure philanthropy. Doubtless many placed in any position of inferiority 
had a kind and philanthropic feeling to other classes of citizens. We 
in the matter, but the prime and ur- must insist upon the full recognition 
gent motive was that you were need- of our equality in the state, and 
ed and wanted for your labor. You maintain with a manly bearing all 
were told that your services were our rights of conscience to their full- 
wanted for the upbuilding of the ma- est extent, claiming and demanding 
terial prosperity of the state, and, as from our fellow-citizens a complete 
an inducement to come, you were of- respect and observance of these 
fered citizenship, and with that, free- rights, and from the state that pro- 
clom to bring your religion with you tection in their exercise which it is 

bound to give. 

near the proportion of the native-born to the The Declaration of Independence 

whole number. The entire Population of the avows as an article of the national 

state is 5^7,000. Nearly two-fifths of the whole . . 

are, therefore, of foreign parentage. Creed that the right of life, liberty, 



728 The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 

and the pursuit of happiness has tor. Wherefore it is necessary to 
been conferred by the Creator, and is keep a watchful guard over these 
inalienable, and that government is rights, to proclaim and defend them 
instituted for the purpose of securing loudly when they are assailed or in 
to us the possession and exercise of danger of being impaired, and by all 
this right. The right to liberty in- lawful means to hinder any attempt 
eludes freedom to keep the com- to interfere with their exercise by un- 
mandments of God, to observe his just legislation or a tyrannical exer- 
law, to make use of all the means cise of authority by the governing 
which he has granted to us for ob- power and its official agents. It is a 
taining grace, acquiring virtue, and universal and constant tendency of 
fulfilling the end of our creation, the sovereign power in the state to 
The right to happiness includes the usurp unjust authority and to invade 
undisturbed enjoyment of all the the rights of its subjects. The liber- 
privileges of our religion, which ty of the individual man and of the 
alone can make us truly happy in class which is governed is always in 
this world, and enable us to obtain danger, and, therefore, eternal vigi- 
eternal happiness. The right to lib- lance is the price of liberty. This 
erty and happiness gives freedom, to is true where the people retains its 
those who choose to do so, to devote sovereignty, as well as where the 
themselves to the sacred duties of sovereignty has been entrusted to a 
the altar and the cloister. It gives monarch or an aristocracy. It is a 
freedom to practise all the rites and great mistake to suppose that a popu- 
ceremonies of religious worship, to lar form of government and republi- 
dedicate our wealth to the service of can institutions are a perfect and 
God and our fellow-men, to consti- adequate guarantee of liberty in gen- 
tute and regulate our churches ac- eral or of liberty of conscience in 
"Cording to our own canonical law, particular. The political majority or 
to establish and hold possession of ascendant party can tyrannize over 
^colleges, seminaries, convents, and the minority or weaker party and 
charitable institutions, to educate over private citizens. Magistrates 
-our children, to profess and practise elected by a popular vote can misuse 
the Catholic religion wholly and en- their power to oppress those whom 
stirely. It is the end of government they ought to protect. Legislatures 
to secure these rights, so that, if it chosen by the people can pass the 
fails to do so by extending an effica- most unjust and despotic laws. The 
clous protection to their free and Athenian democracy banished Aris- 
^eaceable exercise, it is negligent of tides the Just, and poisoned Socrates, 
dtsduty; and if it impairs or violates the wisest man of pagan antiquity, 
them by unjust and tyrannical legis- the father and founder of philoso- 
ilation, it commits a positive act of phy. In our own day we have seen 
wrong and usurpation. The govern- the most perfidious violation of 
'ment, the sovereign power in the guaranteed rights, and the most tyr- 
^state :from which the government annical oppression of the religious 
holds dts authority, are amenable to freedom of Catholics, perpetrated by 
ithe eternal law, as well as the indi- the Swiss Republic. Catholics are 
vidual citizen; and they may violate always liable to oppression where 
it by neglecting to secure and pro- they are the weaker party, and have 
tect, or by infringing upon, the rights never any sufficient guarantee for the 
of conscience -conferred by the Crea- acquisition and preservation of their 



The Rights of Conscience under the Laivs of our Republic. 729 

full religious liberty, except in their privileges and fulfil all the duties of 
own numbers and strength, made their religion, if they are members of 
available by their own energetic ac- the Catholic Church. Closely con- 
tivity in their own cause. Accord- nected with this is the right of the 
ing to the principles and spirit of our Catholic clergy to have access to 
laws and political institutions, the all the members of their flock, and 
Catholic Church possesses in the to exercise the functions of their sa- 
United States a greater degree of the cred ministry wherever their duty 
liberty which belongs to her by di- calls them, unhindered, and, if neces- 
vine right than in most other coun- sary, fully protected by the law and 
tries. And in practice this liberty all official persons, 
has been to a great extent secured Another is the complete and un- 
to her by the justice of the people at trammelled freedom of Catholic edu- 
large, and the fidelity of those to cation in all its departments. The 
whom the administration of law has state has no right either to prescribe 
been e-ntrusted. We may say of and enforce religious instruction be- 
Connecticut especially that, consid- yond those first principles of morali- 
ering the old and deeply rooted pre- ty and civic obligation which are the 
judice of her native inhabitants against foundations of our political order, or 
the Catholic religion, it is remark- to interfere with the religious instruc- 
able with what comity they have re- tion which the Catholic conscience 
ceived and made place for the new demands for those who are in a state 
and mercurial race who have come of pupilage. Far less has it the right 
in to replenish their staid old towns to prescribe an irreligious and atheis- 
and quiet villages with fresh life, and tical system of instruction. I cannot 
with what composure they have be- enlarge upon this most important 
held the multiplication of the crosses topic in this place. I will here sinv 
which gleam in the sunlight, on their ply recall what I have said of the 
hilltops and in their valleys, over the possibility and danger of usurpation 
churches and convents of that which over the rights of conscience even in 
to them was a new and strange reli- popular governments, and point out 
gion. Nevertheless, we cannot and a direction from which we ourselves 
ought not to be content with any- are threatened by this very danger, 
thing short of that full and complete I refer to a project entertained by 
liberty and equality which of right some persons in high positions of 
belong to us, and which do not in establishing under the authority of 
the least degree prejudice the same the federal government a national 
rights in those who profess a differ- and compulsory system of education, 
ent religion. There are some things thus depriving not only Catholics, but 
in regard- to which it is our duty as Protestants and Jews also, of their 
well as our right to demand a great- essential right as citizens to give their 
er measure of justice than that which children a religious education. I do 
has hitherto been yielded, and to not attribute this policy to the party 
exert ourselves to prevent a still fur- of the administration as a party, but 
ther diminution of our rights as Ca- it is most undoubtedly the policy of 
tholic citizens. a considerable and very active sec- 
One of these is the right of those tion of what is called the Republican 
unfortunate persons who are inmates party, and is part and parcel of a 
of prisons, houses of reformation, and scheme for modifying most essentially 
similar institutions to enjoy all the the relations between the federal and 



730 The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 

the state governments, for extending tablishment of this infidel system by 
the authority of the governing power the coercive power of the state, 
and restricting the private liberty of The necessary sequel of all this is 
citizens. The men who are possess- the commune ; and, if such a system 
ed by these ideas are in sympathy should prevail here, we have in pros- 
with that party in Europe self-styled pect the confiscation of ecclesiastical 
the progressive party. The idea property, the destruction of those in- 
which they have of liberty is their stitutions of learning which will not 
own freedom to drive the people on conform to the ideal of the state, the 
the path which they themselves have overthrow of the most essential rights 
surveyed and marked out as the of conscience, and finally the pro- 
straight road to happiness and well- scription of religion, followed by the 
being, and this compulsory march war of the masses upon the rights of 
they dignify by the name of Progress, property and upon the order of civil 
In this country, they are avowedly society itself. 

not content with existing institutions We want none of these improve- 

and laws, but are restless to try their ments of Boston doctrinaires, and no 

improving hand upon them. They meddling of political charlatans with 

desire to secure uniformity according our constitution. Our private rights 

to their own ideal standard, by con- we hold from the Creator, and not 

solidation, concentration, unification from any social compact or grant 

of the legislative and executive pow- of government. State rights, the 

ers in the federal government, and strongest safeguard we have against 

the reduction of the states into the usurpations upon our liberty, we hold 

condition of subordinate, dependent from the fundamental law which first 

provinces in a republican empire, constituted us a political people the 

Education by the state and for the law of unity in multiplicity, which is 

state, and in accordance with so- our strength, and the geometrical 

called progressive ideas, is an essen- principle, of our harmonious and 

tial part of this Prussianizing plan symmetrical structure. There was a 

an education wholly secular, from time when our centralizing principle 

which instruction in positive, revealed was in danger; when, so to speak, 

dogmas and a positive religious dis- the centrifugal force threatened to 

cipline are wholly excluded, on the become too strong, and to make a 

plea that all these are sectarian ; and rupture of our system. Now it is 

one, of course, which is really anti- the opposite danger we have to fear 

Christian and godless an educa- the increase of the centripetal force, 

tion like that of the University of As we were in danger of flying away 

Paris, which made a whole army of from our sun and becoming separat- 

infidels among the lettered class ed, wandering political orbs, so we 

in France. It is on this ground of are now in danger of running into 

education that the tyrannical and our sun, and thus losing our proper 

infidel power of the state is waging a orbits, becoming absorbed into the 

battle with the point of the lance central mass, and thereby suffering 

against the church and the Catholic the extinction of the life of liberty in 

religion in Europe. In England, also, the individuals who form our popu- 

as I know from those who have lation. Therefore, as the exorbitant 

heard it from the lips of the leaders demands of state rights have been 

of this party, it is the fixed purpose repressed, it should now be our study 

of these leaders to work for the es- to prevent the encroachment of fede- 



The Rig/its of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 731 

ral power upon the just domain of called churches are sectarian, or sec- 
these state rights, of state power tions cut off from the church. The 
over municipal freedom, and of all true church cannot be a sect or have 
these powers upon the personal and anything sectarian about it. But the 
private liberty of the citizen. It is state is incompetent to judge or de- 
for the interest of all to do this, but cide that the Catholic Church is a 
my special purpose has been to show sect in this sense ; and, therefore, in- 
why Catholics in particular are bound capable of determining that the pub- 
to do it, in order to preserve that lie money which is granted to a Ca- 
liberty which God has given to them, tholic institution is devoted to sec- 
and their rights of conscience, among tarian purposes. The state is equally 
which this right of education is one incompetent to decide that there is 
of the most precious and the most no one true church, and that, there- 
imperilled, fore, all denominations are sections 
This leads us to another point, of the true church, or sects consider- 
All religious societies being equal be- ed in the sense of parts included in 
fore the law, and entitled to an equal a whole. But if it were competent 
protection, so long as they do not to decide this point in the sense indi- 
violate those fundamental principles cated, the only just conclusion would 
of morality which constitute the reli- be that all should be impartially treat- 
gion of the state, Catholic institu- ed and protected. The state is also 
tioas have an equal claim to a share incompetent to decide that a particu- 
in the distribution of the public lar party of men, having a system 
money with those which are not Ca- differing from that of any one sect, 
tholic. In this state, large sums and professing to retain the common 
have been granted to institutions elements of all, is not itself a sect, 
which are under the control of par- .and that its system is non-sectarian, 
ticular denominations ; for instance, It is, in fact, only another sect. Re- 
to Yale College. The state is bound gular association, government, and 
to be impartial, and whatever it de- special rites are not essential to the 
termines to do in support of educa- nature of a sect. There were the 
tion or for the nurture and relief of sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, and 
the helpless and destitute, and the Herodians among the Jews. There 
reformation of the depraved, it is are philosophical sects. A sect is a 
bound to carry out on this impartial party of men holding certain particu- 
principle. Therefore grants to use- lar opinions. Those men who pro- 
ful institutions ought never to be fess to hold what they call the essen- 
opposed or withheld on the ground tial parts of religion and morality, 
that the Catholic clergy have the and to teach the same without any 
control over them, and that within sectarian doctrines, simply mean that 
their walls the Catholic religion is they do not hold the tenets of any 
taught and practised. Nor has the of the Protestant sects around them, 
state any right to prefer, much less to by which they differ from each other, 
enforce, what is falsely called a non- But they belong to the genus Pro- 
sectarian system of religious and testant nevertheless, and have their 
moral instruction. This is one of the own specific differentia. They can- 
most patent fallacies by which the not discriminate the essential from 
common mind in our time and coun- the non-essential parts of Christianity 
try is duped and deluded. If there is without a criterion, and the criterion 
one only true church, all other so- which they adopt and apply makes 



732 The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 

their specific doctrine, which consti- ing them. But this must be done in 
tutes them a distinct, if not a sepa- such a way that no violence is corn- 
rate, sect. They assume that the mitted upon the rights or the liberty 
specific doctrines and laws of the of conscience guaranteed by law. 
Catholic Church are not essential. Religion must be left free, and not 
But in this they deny a fundamental interfered with by the state. But 
Catholic doctrine: they place them- non-interference is something quite 
selves in opposition to Catholics in incompatible with exclusion. The 
respect to the essentials of faith and state cannot confiscate the property 
practice, and thus they are, relatively which it has once granted to Yale 
to us, a sect. The state cannot de- College because the clergy of one 
cide this question, and cannot, with- particular denomination control the 
out injustice, prefer .one party to the religious instruction of the college, 
other. It is, therefore, a violation of Nor can it justly refuse to treat Ca- 
Citholic rights to compel Catholics tholic institutions of education with 
to listen to the teaching which calls a favor equal to that which it shows 
itself non-sectarian, or in any way to to others, because the Bishop of Hart- 
adopt and sanction it as a system ford will have control of their reli- 
exclusively entitled to the support gious teaching. 

and protection of the state. It is for the interest and well-being 
The truth is that the state has of the state and of all classes of its 
nothing to do directly with religious citizens that the Catholic Church 
instruction. Formerly, in this state should fully exercise all its rights, 
of Connecticut, it had to do with it, and enjoy the most perfect freedom 
because the Puritan form of Protest- of growth and development. The Ca- 
antism was the established religion of tholic Church is fully and unchange- 
the state, and made part of the law. ably committed to those essential 
But now the state has only to protect principles of morality on which our 
the religious corporations and socie- laws are founded. By the very prin- 
ties which have legal existence in ciple of the Catholic religion, those 
the enjoyment of their vested rights, who profess it can never abandon or 
Grants of money and other legal change these principles, and they thus 
provisions must be made in view of receive the strongest guarantee of 
the utility to society and the state their perpetuity in the number and 
which lies in the nature of the object the moral power of those citizens who 
which any institution aims at accom- profess this religion. By our religion 
plishing. Education, the care of the we must hold and profess that human 
orphaned, the poor, the sick, and rights are conferred by the Creator, 
other destitute persons, and the in- that they are inviolable, and that 
struction of all classes in moral and civil society has been established by 
civic virtues and the fear of that Almighty God, with its institutions 
Creator who is acknowledged in our of government, in order that these 
Declaration of Independence as the rights may be secured. We must 
Author of our natural rights, are use- profess that peoples and governments 
ful to the state and society, and even are accountable to God for the just 
necessary to their continuance and administration of the trust committed 
well-being. Therefore the state may to them, and responsible to a higher 
exercise a supervision within certain law than mere human laws, the eternal 
limits over these things, and grant law itself, which is written on the con- 
subsidies for the purpose of sustain- science and clearly promulgated by 



The Rights of Conscience under the Laws of our Republic. 733 

a divine revelation. We must profess frequently dangerous as well as dis- 
the sanctity of life, of marriage, of the tressing. Besides these more neces- 
rights of property, of oaths, contracts, sary services to humanity, the Cath- 
treaties, and civic obligations, and the olic Church contributes to the decor- 
duty of allegiance and obedience to ation and embellishment of life, to 
the laws and the lawful authorities in the refinement of taste, and to the 
the state. All that I have shown to increase of innocent and elevating 
be the religion of the state, which is in- enjoyment. It ornaments towns and 
deed nothing more than a portion of villages with specimens of fine archi- 
the universal common law of Chris- tecture, multiplies statues and paint- 
tendom, is involved in the religion of ings, cultivates sacred music, and by 
Catholics and taught by it with an au- its multifarious ceremonies acts most 
thority which they acknowledge as powerfully not only on the souls of 
unerring and supreme. Here is, there- men to raise their minds to an unseen 
fore, a principle of stability to the world, but, in their human sentiments 
state, and to the rights of all classes and manners, to give grace and refine- 
of citizens, which is involved in the ment as well as enjoyment to a life 
education and popular instruction rendered too dull and prosaic by the 
which is given by the Catholic clergy, everlasting drudgery of an industrious 
Moreover, as the pastors of 150,000 and material existence. 
of the inhabitants of the state, and All this would not weigh a feather 
wielding a moral influence over them with the severe Puritan ancients who 
far superior to that of any other body founded this commonwealth. The 
of clergy, it is for the interest and ad- Catholic religion is a religion of error, 
vantage of their fellow-citizens that they would have said; error is fatal to 
their education, training in their spe- the soul, and cannot be tolerated in a 
cial functions, and other qualifications state where laws are framed accord- 
and advantages for exercising their ing to the laws of God. But times 
civilizing power upon such a large and are changed, and both laws and the 
increasing mass of the population, minds of the descendants of the Puri- 
should be elevated to the highest pos- tans are changed with them. Even 
sible grade. Therefore the schools, a great light among the descendants 
academies, seminaries, and religious of the Scottish Presbyterians, the Rev. 
houses in which the clergy are trained Dr. Hodge, has declared that the 
are deserving of encouragement as Catholic religion teaches the essen- 
sources of intellectual, moral, and tials of Christianity, exercises a whole- 
social benefit and improvement to some moral influence, and cannot be 
society at large, which accrue to the refused the same countenance and aid 
benefit of the state. by the state which is given to the 
The same is true of institutions of Protestant religion, without the usur- 
religious women, who are a kind pation of an authority to determine 
of female clergy in a wider sense of what is religious error. Although the 
the word, of schools of all kinds, of New York Observer has raised an 
orphanages and charitable asylums, outcry against this candid statement 
In the care of the poor and the sick of a learned and honest man, and has 
especially, the Catholic Church can do vehemently denounced the Catholic 
a work which cannot be done so well religion as worse than infidelity, I 
by any other society, and thus relieve am persuaded that Yale College will 
the state of a burden as well as heal not be satisfied to take a more illibe- 
a sore on the body politic which is ral position than Princeton, and that 



734 The Rights of Conscience under the Laivs of our Republic. 



the general sense of the Protestant 
people of Connecticut will accord with 
that of Dr. Hodge, and reject the 
contrary extreme of the Observer. 
The religious people of Connecticut 

cannot fail to see that they have a 
common cause with us against athe- 
ism and progressive radicalism, and 
that we are a bulwark against a de- 
vastating flood which would sweep 
away their rights with ours if it once 
broke over the surface of our society. 
Ourrights stand upon a common basis. 
They depend from a common chain, 
which is fastened by the same ring. 
They have nothing to fear from any 
violation of their liberty or usurpation 
of their rights on our part, even 
should we obtain power enough to be 
able to attempt such an enterprise. 
We always respect vested rights and 
established laws, when these are not 
contrary to the law of God. The 
order which is now established is the 
only one that is good for a state in 
which the inhabitants are divided in 
religion, and it enables these divided 
religious communities to live together 
in political harmony and social peace. 
We will not disturb this harmony, 
and we denounce those who attempt 
to stir up the passions of the people 
to destroy it as the enemies of the 
state as well as impious transgressors 
of the law of God. The rights of 
conscience and the liberty of religion 
which we possess under our laws are 
invaluable and precious to all of us. 
And there is indeed a common bond 
between the descendants of the Puri- 
tan founders of this commonwealth 
and the descendants of the persecuted 
Catholics of Ireland who have settled 
on this soil, of which perhaps you 
have not thought sufficiently. It is 
the bond which has been made by a 

conflict which the fathers of both 
these lines of descendants have main- 
tained against a common enemy. That 
enemy was the despotic tyranny of 



the successors of Henry VIII. and 
their ministers. Our ancestors drew 
the sword against an invasion of rights 
which, they avowed, had been confer- 
red upon them by their Creator, and 
the issue of the war was the estab- 
lishment of this republic, in which 
the rights of conscience are declared 
to be sacred. The ancestors of 
the " exiles of Erin " who have 
found a new home in this republic 
fought, both with the sword and with 
the patient resistance of martyrdom, 
against the same despotic violence 
which invaded all their rights both 
civic and religious. It is fitting, there-, 
fore, that their descendants should 
dwell together in the land rescued by 
the blood of heroes from tyranny, and 
that here should flourish the religion 
rescued from the same tyranny by the 
blood of martyrs. 

I conclude with the eloquent apos- 
trophe of the Bishop of Orleans to the 
Belgians, which came from his mouth 
like the electric flash, amid thunders of 
applause, at the Congress of Malines 
in 1867, where I had the privilege 
of being present. " Vous avez nne 
patrie, sachez la garderf " You have 
a country, know how to keep it!" 

When we look abroad and see 
the dark, threatening clouds over- 
hanging older nations, threatening 
new tempests to follow those 
which have lately burst upon them, 
and then look at home on the 
peace and liberty we enjoy; our 
church and religion free, priests, 
bishops, and the Holy Father from 
his prison in the Vatican, exercising 
their lawful jurisdiction without hin- 
drance, we can esteem at their proper 
worth the blessings we enjoy. We 
learn how to value order, good govern- 
ment, and civilization founded on re- 
ligious ideas, as the most precious of 
all earthly possessions after the faith 
and the means of eternal salvation. 
These advantages we possess in the 



The Widow of Nain. 735 

laws and institutions which are sum- pared and resolved, if necessary, to 

med up in the one word our country give our blood and our lives in its 

our native land, or the land of our defence, in emulation of the patriotic 

refuge and our children's nativity. Let bravery of our noble brothers and 

us all, therefore, prize, cherish, guard, ancestors from whom we have receiv- 

and loyally serve it during life ; pre- ec^ this fair inheritance. 



THE WIDOW OF NAIN. 

* 4 The only son of his mother, and she was a widow." 

I. 

THE dust on their sandals lay heavy and white, 
Their garments were damp with the tears of the night, 
Their hot feet aweary, and throbbing with pain, 
As they entered the gates of the city of Nain. 

n. 

But lo ! on the pathway a sorrowing throng 
Pressed, mournfully chanting the funeral song, 
And like a sad monotone, ceaseless and slow, 
The voice of a woman came laden with woe. 



in. 

What need, stricken mothers, to tell how she wept ? 
Ye read by the vigils that sorrow hath kept, 
Ye know, by the travail of anguish and pain, 
The desolate grief of the widow of Nain. 



IV. 

As he who was first of the wayfaring men 

Advanced, the mute burden was lowered, and then 

As he touched the white grave-cloths that covered the bier 

The bearers shrank back, but the mother drew near. 



736 The Widow of Nain. 



v. 



Her snow-sprinkled tresses had loosened their strands, 
Great tears fell unchecked on the tightly clasped hands ; 
But hushed the wild sobbing, and stifled her cries, 
As Jesus of Nazareth lifted his eyes. 



VI. 



Eyes wet with compassion as slowly they fell 
Eyes potent to soften grief's tremulous swell, 
As, sweetly and tenderly, " Weep not," he said, 
And turned to the passionless face of the dead. 




VII. 



White, white gleamed his forehead, loose rippled the hair, 

.Bronze-tinted, o'er temples transparently fair; 

And a glory stole up from the earth to the skies, 

As he called to the voiceless one, " Young man, arise !" 



VIII. 



The hard, rigid outlines grew fervid with breath, 
The dull eyes unclosed from the midnight of death ; 
Weep, weep, happy mother, and fall at his feet : 
Life's pale, blighted promise grown hopeful and sweet. 



IX. 



The morning Had passed, and the midday heats burned 
Once more to the pathway the wayfarers turned. 
The conqueror of kings had been conquered again : 
There was joy in the house of the widow of Nain. 






Fleurangf. 737 



FLEURANGF, 

BY MRS. CRAVKX, AUTHOR OK " A SISTER'S STORY." 

TRANSLATED FROM THE KKKNCH, WITH PERMISSION. 

PART IV. 

II E IMMOLATION. 
L1X. 

Several hours had passed since preaching sacrifice, mingled with the 

Fleurange's return. Anxiety, horror, perspective of a brighter future, in 

sadness, and emotion, which by turns which her happiness with George 

filled her heart during the affecting would be increased and consecrated 

scene we have just described, now by the sufferings they first shared to- 

gave place to a feeling in which a gether the cherished theme on 

sweet, profound sense of gratitude which lingered her imagination, her 

predominated. heart, and even her soul, which had 

Ah ! no one could comprehend, faith in the efficacy of sacrifice, and 

without the experience faith alone instinctively made it the basis of its 

gives, the mysterious joy that pene- hopes. Everything, even this, was 

trates the heart when the salvation forgotten for the moment. It was as 

of a soul seems assured ; when, in if a graver, purer, holier strain had 

a tangible manner, as it were, the put to flight the mingled harmony in 

abyss of divine mercy which ever which heaven and earth seemed 

surrounds us, opens and allows us to almost confounded. Hitherto, the 

sound its depths; when, in answer to idea of immolating herself with and 

our tears, we almost behold the hea- for another had seemed noble ; but 

vens open ; when, in return for par- at this quiet hour, after a day of so 

don implored, we are made to com- much agitation, a sublimer thought 

prehend the ineffable signification of sprang up in her soul in spite of her- 

t\vo other words, sweet as mercy and self; it was that of a sacrifice un- 

boundless as infinitude pardon ob- known to the person for whom one 

lained. immolates one's self! 

Fleurange therefore felt, if not Was not the greatest of sacrifices 

happy for the impressions of the the sacrifice which is our example 

day had been too solemn not to have of such a nature ? Was it not made 

left a veil of sadness on her soul at for those who were unaware of it ? 

least calm and serene. The sight of And has not this very ignorance been 

it death-bed had put to flight some regarded by the eternal goodness as 

f the dreams she so often abandoned a plea for disarming eternal justice ? 

herself to now without scruple Fleurange did not attempt to thus 

dreams of passionate joy at her ap- define her confused thoughts; she 

VOL. xvi. 47 



738 



Fleurange. 



allowed them to float in her mind 
without welcoming or rejecting them. 
She was in that frame of mind which 
unconsciously enfolds a latent dispo- 
sition in the depths of the soul, that 
suddenly develops into efforts and 
sacrifices which seem impossible an 
hour before they have to be made. 

She was alone in one corner of a 
large, white marble fireplace in 
which blazed a good fire. She pre- 
ferred this salon to the others, which 
were heated invisibly, though it was 
the smallest in the house, and it was 
the one she habitually occupied. 
Clement, after accompanying her 
home, had returned to the sad place 
they visited together to obtain, if not 
an honorable, at least a separate 
burial of his unfortunate cousin's 
remains. Mademoiselle Josephine, 
at her usual hour, had gone to her 
fine chamber, which she now occu- 
pied with less uneasiness than the 
first night, and had been for an hour 
in the capacious bed, where she had 
learned to sleep as comfortably as 
. under the muslin curtains which gen- 

- erally guarded her slumbers. 

It was nearly ten o'clock, and 
Fleurange in her turn was about to 
retire, when the noise of a carriage 
was heard, the bell rang, and a few 
minutes after a card was brought her. 
. She looked at it : " The Countess 
Vera de Liningen " and beneath, 
written with a pencil : " Will Made- 
moiselle Fleurange d'Yves have the 

* kindness to see me a moment ?" 

" Vera ! the Countess Vera ! " 

Fleurange repeated the name 

(twice. It was the first time she had 

.thought of it since she left Florence. 

.She remembered hearing it once in 

a conversation between the Princess 
Catherine and the marquis, the first 
;time she ever saw the latter. From 

that time, Vera's name had never 
been mentioned before her. The 
marquis instinctively avoided it in 



talking with her the day before, as 
he did that of Gabrielle in convers- 
ing with Vera, and no one mentioned 
it at the palace. Fleurange's sur- 
prise was therefore inexpressible. 
She remained with her eyes fixed on 
the card, till the valet de chambre 
took the liberty of reminding her the 
Countess Vera was waiting in her 
carriage for an answer. 

" Certainly. Ask her to come up." 
Then she waited, with a mixture of 
curiosity and embarrassment, for the 
entrance of the visitor, without know- 
ing exactly why. She was almost 
breathless from agitation; but when 
the door opened, and she saw the 
beautiful maid of honor, she felt par- 
tially relieved. 

" Ah ! it is you, mademoiselle," she 
exclaimed joyfully. " Pardon me for 
not having divined it immediately, 
but I did not know this morning the 
name of her who received me so 
kindly." 

It now occurred to Fleurange that 
the maid of honor had been sent by 
the empress sooner than she expect- 
ed with the favorable reply promised, 
but the visitor's pale face and silence 
struck her and checked the words 
on her lips. 

" You were unaware of my name 
this morning, but did you never hear 
it before ?" 

Fleurange blushed. " Never would 
be incorrect," replied she. And 
she stopped. 

" No matter," continued Vera. 
" I do not care to know when or 
how you heard it. I can imagine 
they did not say much to you about 
me. But allow me to ask you in 
my turn if you have not another 
name besides that under which I 
had the honor of presenting you to 
her majesty !" 

" My name is Fleurange," replied 
the young girl simply, " but it is not 
the one I habitually bear." 



Fleurange. 739 

" And your other name ?" asked interest and astonishment, but, the 

Vera, with a trembling voice. frank decision of her character pre- 

Fieurange was astonished at the vailing over her timidity, she came at 

manner in which this question was once to the point, 

asked, and still more so at the effect " Countess Vera," said she, " if 1 

of her reply, which produced a fright- have not guessed the motive that 

ful change in the listener's face. brings you here, tell me the real one ; 

" Gabrielle !" repeated she. " I there is something in all this which 1 

guessed rightly, then." do not understand. Be frank ; I 

An embarrassing silence followed will be likewise. Let us not remain 
this exclamation. Fleurange did not thus towards one another. Above 
know what to say. She awaited an all, do not look at me as if we were 
explanation of the scene which ap- not only strangers, but enemies." 
peared more and more strange. At this word, Vera raised her head. 
But while she was looking at Vera " Enemies !" she said. " Well, yes, at 
with increased surprise during this present we are." 
long silence, a sudden apprehension What did she mean ? Fleurange 
seized her, and a faint glimpse of the crossed her arms, and looked at her 
truth flashed across her mind. No- attentively, trying to guess the mean- 
thing could have been more vague ing of her enigmatical words, and 
than the remembrance of the name the still more obscure enigma of her 
mentioned before her but once, but face, which expressed by turns the 
that time it was in a conversation re- most contradictory sentiments ; the 
specting George, and she bethought enigma of her eyes, which sometimes 
herself that she understood it to be a gazed at her with hatred, and then 
question of a marriage the princess with sweetness and a humble, be- 
desired for her son. Was it with re- seeching look. At length Vera 
luctance Vera had now brought the seemed decided to continue. "You 
permission for another to accompany are right," she said ; " I must put an 
him ? Such was the question Fleur- end to your suspense, and explain my 
ange asked herself. Approaching strange conduct; but I need courage 
Vera, therefore, she said to her soft- to do this. To come here as I have, 
ly : to appeal to you as I am going to 

" If you have come with a mes- do, I must I must, without knovr- 

sage, how can I thank you sufficient- ing why " 

ly, mademoiselle, for taking the trou- *' Well," said Fleurange with a 

ble of bringing it yourself!" faint smile, "continue. You must 

Vera hastily withdrew her hand, what ? ' 

and retreated several steps ; then, Vera went on in a low tone, as if 

as if suffering from an emotion she affected : " I must have had a secret 

could not overcome, she fell into an instinct that you were kind and 

arm-chair beside the table, and for generous." 

some moments remained pale and This result of so much hesitation 
breathless, with a gloomy, forbidding did not throw any light on the sub- 
air, wiping away from time to time ject, but only made it more obscure, 
with an abrupt gesture the tears "There has been preamble enough," 
which, in spite of all her efforts, said Fleurange, with a calm accent 
escaped from her eyes. of firmness. " Speak clearly now, 
Fleurange, motionless with sur- Countess Vera, tell me everything 
prise, looked at her with mingled without reservation. You may be- 



740 



Fleurange. 



lieve me when I assure you there is 
nothing to fear. Though your words 
do me an injury I can neither foresee 
nor comprehend, speak, I insist up- 
on it. Hesitate no longer." 

" Well, here," said Vera, suddenly 
throwing on the table a paper till 
now concealed. 

Fleurange took it, looked at it, and 
blushed at first, then turned pale. 
" My petition ! " she said. " You 
have brought it back ? It has been 
refused, then ?" 

" No ; it was not sent." 

" You mean that the empress, 
after showing me so much kindness, 
changed her mind and refused to 
present it ?" 

" No ; on the contrary, she order- 
ed me to forward your petition, and 
to add her recommendation." 

" Well ?" 

" I disobeyed her orders." 

" I await the explanation you 
doubtless intend giving me. Go on 
without any interruption; I am listen- 



ing.' 



" Well, first, did you know that 
George de Walden was the husband 
promised me to whom my father 
destined me from infancy ? " 

" Who was promised you ! from 
infancy ! No, I did not know that. 
No matter ; go on." 

" No matter, indeed ; that is not the 
point, though it is proper to inform 
you of it. Neither is it a question of 
his misfortune, or his frightful sen- 
tence, or that terrible Siberia where 
you wished to accompany him and 
participate in a lot the severities of 
which you could neither alleviate 
nor perhaps endure. This is the 
point : to preserve him from that 
destiny, to save him, to enable him 
to regain life, honor, and liberty in 
a word, all he has lost. His property, 
name, and rank can all be restored to 
him. It is this I have come to tell 
you and ask you to second." 



" All can be restored to him ?" re- 
peated Fleurange, in a strange voice. 
" By what means ? what authority ?" 

" The emperor's. I have appeal- 
ed to his clemency, and my prayers 
have prevailed, but on two condi- 
tions, one of which is imposed on 
George, and the other depends on 
me. To these two conditions, there is 
a third which depends on you you 
alone ! " 

Fleurange's large eyes fastened on 
Vera with an expression of profound 
astonishment and anguish. 

" Finish, I conjure you, if you are 
not mad in speaking to me so, or I 
in listening to you if we are not 
both deprived of our reason !" 

Vera clasped her hands, and pas- 
sionately exclaimed : " Oh ! I beg 
you to have pity on him ! " She 
stopped, choked with emotion. 

Fleurange continued to gaze at 
her with the same expression, and, 
without speaking, made a sign for 
her to continue. She seemed to con- 
centrate her attention in order to 
comprehend the words addressed 
her. 

" I am waiting," she said at last. 
" I am listening attentively and calm- 
ly; speak to me in the same man- 



ner. 

Vera resumed in a calmer tone : 
" Well, this morning just as I had fin- 
ished reading your petition and learn- 
ed for the first time who the exile was 
you wished to accompany at that 
very moment the emperor arrived at 
the palace and sent for me." 

" The emperor !" said Fleurange, 
with surprise. 

" Yes, and can you imagine what 
he wished to say to me ? You could 
not, and I am not surprised, for you 
are not aware how earnestly I had 
solicited George's pardon, and, to this 
end, how zealously I had sought out 
every circumstance calculated to con- 
ciliate his sovereign. Well, what the 



Fl en range. 



741 



emperor wished to inform me was 
that this pardon would be granted me 
me, do you understand ? but on 
two conditions." 

" His pardon !" exclaimed Fleur- 
ange. " Go on, I am listening. " 

" The first, that he should pass 
four years on his estates in Livonia 
without leaving them. " Vera stop- 
ped. 

"I hear; and next?" said Fleur- 
ange, raising her eyes. 

" Next," said Vera slowly and anx- 
iously, " that the will of my father 
and his should be fulfilled before his 
departure." 

Fleurange shuddered. An icy chill 
struck to her heart, and her head 
swam as if with dizziness. But she 
remained perfectly motionless. 

" His pardon is at this price ?" 
said she in a low voice. 

" Yes ; the emperor has taken an 
interest in me from my childhood ; 
he loved my father, and it has pleas- 
ed him to make this act of clemency 
depend on the accomplishment of my 
father's wish." 

There was a long silence. Vera 
herself trembled at seeing Fleurange's 
pale lips, and colorless cheeks, and 
her eyes looking straightforward, lost 
in space. 

" And he ?" she said at last. 
" He accepts his pardon on this con- 
dition - - without hesitation ?" 

"Without hesitation!" repeated 
Vera, blushing with new emotion. 
" That is what I cannot say. It is 
this doubt that humiliates and alarms 
me, for the emperor would regard the 
least hesitation as fresh ingratitude, 
and perhaps would annul his pardon." 

" But why should he hesitate ?" 
said Fleurange, in an almost inaudible 
tone. 

" Fleurange," said Vera, in that 
passionate tone die had used two or 
three times during this interview, 
" let us rend each other's hearts, if 



need be, but let us go on to the end- 
Have you had permission to see 
George since you came ?" 

" No." 

" But he expects you ; he knows 
you have arrived, and the devoted- 
ness that has brought you here ?" 

" No, he is still ignorant of all this ; 
he was to be informed of it to-mor- 
row." 

A flash of joy lit up Vera's black 
eyes. "Then it depends on you 
whether he hesitates or not whether 
he is saved. Yes, Fleurange, let him 
remain ignorant of your arrival, let 
him not see you again let him 
never behold you again," she con- 
tinued, looking at her with a jealous 
terror she could not conceal, " and 
his life will again become brilliant 
and happy as it was as it always 
should be and the remembrance of 
the last few months will disappear 
like a dream !" 

" Like a dream !" repeated Fleur- 
ange mechanically, passing her hand 
over her brow. 

" I have told you everything 
now," said Vera. " I have done 
you an injury I can understand bet- 
ter than any one else. But," she 
continued, with an accent that re- 
sounded in the depths of the listen- 
er's soul, " I wished to save 
George, I wished to win him back to 
me ! And I thought, I know not why, 
for I am generally distrustful yes, I 
thought I could induce you to aid 
me against yourself!" 

Fleurange, with her hands clasped 
on her knees, and her eyes gazing 
before her with a fixed expression, 
seemed for some moments insensible 
to everything. She was listening, 
however she was listening to that 
clear, distinct voice which resoanded 
in her soul in a tone so pure a voice 
she had never failed to recognize and 
obey. 

If George were free, if he recov- 



742 



Fleurange. 



ered his name, rank, and former 
position, would she not still be in 
the same position as before? In 
that case, could she treacherously 
usurp the consent obtained from his 
mother, and that to the detriment 
of the one before her the wife 
chosen from his infancy ? Would it 
not be treachery to him to present 
herself before him at the moment of 
recovering his liberty, and thereby 
endanger its loss with the momen- 
tary favor that conferred it ? 

She placed her icy hand on Vera's, 
and turned towards her with a sweet 
expression of resolution. " That is 
enough," she said, in a calm tone. 
" You have done right. Be easy, I 
understand it all." 

Vera, astonished at her expression 
and accent, looked at her with sur- 
prise. 

" Do not be afraid," continued 
Fleurange, in the same tone. " Act 
as if I were far away as if I had 
never come." And, taking the peti- 
tion lying on the table, she tore it in 
pieces, and threw it into the fire ! 
There was a momentary blaze, which 
died away, and she looked at the 
ashes as they flew. 

Vera, with an irresistible impulse, 
pressed her lips to the hand she 
seized, then remained mute and con- 
founded. She had come determined 
to prevail over her rival, to convince 
her, to use every means of contend- 
ing if she failed in her first efforts, 
but her victory suddenly assumed an 
aspect she had not anticipated. It 
had certainly been an easy one, and 
yet Vera felt it had left a bleeding 
wound. She experienced for a mo- 
ment more uneasiness than joy, and 
her attitude expressed no more of 
triumph than that of Fleurange of de- 
feat. While one remained with her 
head and eyes cast down, the other 
had risen. A passing emotion col- 
ored Fleurange's cheek, the struggle 



of the sacrifice gave animation and 
an unusual brilliancy to her face. 

" I think," said she, " you have 
nothing more to say to me." 

" No for what I would like to 
say I cannot, dare not." 

Vera rose and turned towards the 
door. A thought occurred to her. 
She approached Fleurange. " Ex- 
cuse my forgetfulness," said she; 
" here is the bracelet you lost this 
morning. I was commissioned to 
restore it to you." 

At the sight of the talisman, Fleur- 
ange started; her momentary color 
faded away, she became deadly 
pale, and, as she looked at it silently, 
some tears, the only ones she shed 
during the interview, ran down her 
cheeks. But it was only for an in- 
stant. Before Vera realized what 
she was doing, Fleurange clasped 
the bracelet around her rival's arm. 

" This talisman was a present from 
the Princess Catherine to her son's 
betrothed. She said it would bring 
her good luck. It no longer belongs 
to me. I return it to you ; it is yours." 

Fleurange held out her hand. 
" We shall never see each other 
again," she continued ; " let us not 
bear away any bitter remembrance 
of each other." 

Vera took her hand without look- 
ing at her. She had never felt 
touched and humiliated to such a de- 
gree ; gratitude itself was wounding 
to her pride. But Fleurange's sweet, 
grave voice was now irresistible, and 
spoke to her heart in spite of herself. 
She hesitated between these two feel- 
ings. Fleurange resumed : " You 
are right. It is not my place to wait 
for you at this time you have noth- 
ing more to forgive me for, I believe, 
and I forgive you everything." 

And as Vera still remained mo- 
tionless with her head bent down, 
Fleurange leaned forward and em- 
braced her. 



fleurange. 743 



LX. 



The Marquis Adelardi often de- and courage, and the idea of her 

dared he had witnessed so many drawing back at the last moment in 

extraordinary and unexpected events view of the trial never occurred to 

that he was seldom surprised at any- him. There was, then, an impene- 

thing that happened. But the day trable mystery, and he impatiently 

that now dawned brought a surprise awaited the hour he could go for the 

of the liveliest kind, and even a promised explanation. But he must 

second one in the course of a few first keep his engagement with 

hours. He rose late, according to George. Poor George ! he inspired 

his custom, and was breakfasting be- him now with fresh pity, though he 

side the fire when a note was brought had doubted, the evening before, if 

him which put a premature end to he was worthy of the consolation in 

the repast just begun. After read- store for him. It seemed now as if 

ing it, he fell into deep thought, then he could not live without it, and that 

rose and strode around his room, a new and more frightful sentence 

Finally he went to the window, and had been pronounced against him. 

read the following note a second The marquis was about to start for 

time. the fortress to fulfil more sadly than 

" MY KIND FRIEND : I have ever the painful duty of his power- 
changed my mind. I earnestly beg less friendship, when another letter 
you when you see Count George was brought him. The mere sight 
not to mention my name, and, above of this second missive made him 
all, to take the greatest precaution to start, and he examined with extreme 
keep him for ever ignorant of the astonishment the address and the 
plans I formed and the journey I very envelope that bore it, the im- 
have made. This will be easy, for pression on the seal, and the slight 
no one knows I am here, and to- perfume it gave out. All this was a 
morrow, before night, I shall have source of surprise, and, for once, it 
left St. Petersburg. Everything will was not unreasonable, as it generally 
be explained to you, but I only is, to dwell on these exterior signs 
write now what is most essential for before solving the mystery by open- 
you to know without any delay." ing the letter. The reader may judge, 

In vain he read and re-read. Such after learning that the Marquis Ade- 
were the words, signed Fleurange, lardi recognized his friend's writing in 
which he held in his hands. For the address. Since George's imprison- 
once the marquis was completely at ment, he had neither had permission 
a loss. Nothing absolutely nothing .to write, nor the means. In the 
could account for this sudden second place, the paper, the arms on 
change. The success of her petition the seal, the perfume all these things 
presented the empress the day be- belonged to a different condition, for 
fore was certain. He recalled every certainly none of these elegances 
detail of his recent interview with had been allowed him in prison, 
her, during which, having nothing The mere exterior of the letter, there- 
more to conceal, she naively reveal- fore, had something inexplicable, and, 
cd all the depth and sincerity of her when he opened it to solve the enig- 
sentiments towards George. He ma, he read as follows : 
had long been aware of her firmness " MY VERY DEAR FRIEND : Per- 



744 



Fleurangf. 



haps the very sight of this letter has 
given you a suspicion of its con- 
tents. If not, know that I am free, 
or, at least, I shall be so to-morrow ! 
Meanwhile, I have left the frightful 
cell where you found me yesterday, 
and now, thanks to the governor of 
the fortress, am established in ]iis 
own apartment and surrounded once 
more by all the delightful accessories 
of civilized life of which I thought 
myself for ever deprived accesso- 
ries which are only a dawn of the 
delightful clay before me. Yes, 
Adelardi, free ! by the favor of the 
emperor, against whom I eagerly 
pledge myself never to enter into a 
conspiracy as long as I live. Free 
on two conditions: one to live at 
my home in Livonia four years; the 
other guess what it is! It is not 
more severe than the first : it is to 
return to my first love to her to 
whom I owe my pardon. In a 
word, to end where I began, by 
marrying Vera de Liningen ! What 
do you say to that ? Is not this a 
dcnofiment worthy of a romance ? 
You predicted it once, do you re- 
member it ? ' You will renounce 
this folly which tempts you, and keep 
the promise you made/ I was far 
from believing it then, and perhaps 
it is well even now that that beau- 
tiful siren is seven hundred leagues 
off, for I know not what would be 
the result were I subjected to the 
fascination of those eyes which turn- 
ed my head, whereas I am now 
wholly absorbed in the happiness, 
that awaits me. Vera still loves me. 
She is also beautiful in her way, and, 
above all, possesses a charm which 
makes me forget all others. She has 
the beautiful eyes of liberty which I 
owe her. Therefore I am not tempt- 
ed to refuse the hand she is ready to 
accept, or even my heart, though 
somewhat blase, but now .filled with 
gratitude strong enough to sufficient- 



ly resemble the love she has a right 
to expect. 

" An rcvoir, Adelardi! Come when 
you please ; I am no longer a pris- 
oner, though I have pledged myself 
not to leave here till I go to the em- 
press' chapel to meet her who is to 
accompany me into the mitigated 
exile to which we are condemned." 

It would be difficult to describe 
the strange effect of this letter, com- 
ing so soon after the other, upon the 
person to whom they were both ad- 
dressed. It would be impossible to 
say whether he was glad or sorry, 
indignant or affected, relieved or 
overwhelmed, by such sudden news ; 
and, though only imperfectly en- 
lightened respecting some of the cir- 
cumstances he wished to know, he 
felt that somehow .Fleurange had 
been informed of George's pardon 
before himself, and the conditions 
attached to it. This was the evident 
meaning of her note, which now 
seemed to the marquis so generous, 
so touching, and even so sublime, 
that his whole interest centred, with 
a kind of passion, in this charming, 
noble girl. Her letter, which lay be- 
side George's before him, displayed 
the greatest contrast imaginable to 
the cold, selfish levity of the latter. 
At all events, he had no reason now 
to be anxious about him on whom 
everything seemed to smile, but 
rather about her who was immolat- 
ing herself to-day as much as yester- 
day unsuspected by the object 
and with a devotedness a thousand 
times more disinterested and more 
generous than before. 

At that moment the door opened, 
and the marquis uttered an exclama- 
tion of joy and welcome at hearing 
Clement announced. He was just 
thinking of him, and wishing he 
could see him at once. As soon as 
he looked at him he perceived he 
was unaware of what had. occurred. 



Fleurange. 



745 



Clement returned home at a late 
hour the night before, and had not 
seen Fleurange since their return 
from the hospital. He now Came 
from the burial of his unfortunate 
cousin in a distant, obscure spot, to 
beg the marquis to use his influence 
to obtain permission to place a sim- 
ple stone cross on his forlorn grave. 
But he could not find any opportu- 
nity of introducing the subject, the 
marquis was so eager to enter on 
that which absorbed him. He in- 
formed Clement of George's pardon 
and the conditions on which it was 
granted ; but in his eagerness he did 
not at first perceive the effect of the 
news on his listener. The latter re- 
mained motionless, and for moments 
his excessive surprise prevented him 
from replying. The aspect of every- 
thing was so changed by the intelli- 
gence that his mind refused to take 
it in. He looked at the marquis 
with so singular an expression that 
he was struck by it, and clearly saw 
he had unguardedly touched a deeper 
and more vital point than he sup- 
posed. 

" Pardon me, Dornthal, I have ex- 
cited you more than I wished or 
expected." 

" Yes," said Clement, in a strange 
voice, "I acknowledge it; but does 
she know what you have just inform- 
ed me of?" 

The marquis in reply gave him 
Fleurange's note. He read it with a 
still more lively emotion than he had 
just experienced; but he succeed- 
ed better in controlling it. 

" Poor Gabrielle ! This is evident- 
ly a generous, spontaneous impulse, 
worthy of her. But," continued he, 
in quite a different accent, in which 
trembled an indignation he repressed 
with difficulty, " I cannot compre- 
hend how this how Count George 
can unhesitatingly consent to the 
conditions proposed, for really I can 



never believe them rigorously imposed 
by the emperor, still less that they 
could be accepted if he appreciates 
as .he ought the sentiments which I 
should suppose would prevent him 
from accepting them." 

The marquis hesitated a moment, 
and then said : " Here, Dornthal, 
time presses ; it is better you should 
know everything without delay." 
And he gave him George's letter. 

As Clement read it, contempt and 
anger were so clearly displayed in 
his face that the marquis was con- 
founded at the flash of indignation 
with which he crushed the letter and 
threw it on the table. " That is ex- 
actly what I should have expected 
from the man you told me of yester- 
day. Poor Gabrielle !" he continued, 
in a voice trembling with emotion 
and tenderness, " it is thus that the 
precious treasures of thy heart have 
been lavished and wasted !" 

He leaned on the table, and hid 
his face in his hands. For some in- 
stants there was a silence neither 
sought to break. At length Cle- 
ment returned to himself. " Once 
more pardon me, M. le Marquis. 
I really do not know what you 
will think of me after the weak- 
ness I have shown before you. 
But no matter, it is not a question of 
myself, but of her. There is one 
point I recommend to you which 
there is no need of insisting upon : 
she must remain ignorant of the con- 
tents of this letter. She must never 
know never, do you understand ? 
what kind of a love she thought 
worthy of hers." 

The marquis looked at him with 
astonishment. " And it is you, 
Dornthal, who are so anxious as to 
your cousin's remembrance of Count 
George !" 

This total absence of vulgar tri- 
umph and selfish hope added another 
notable surprise to those of the morn- 



746 



Fleiirangc. 



ing. Clement neither noticed Adel- 
ardi's tone nor the kind, affectionate 
expression of regard which accom- 
panied the words he had just uttered. 

" I wish her to suffer as little as 
possible," said he briefly ; " that is 
my only aim and thought." 

He rose to go out. The marquis 
pressed his hand with a cordiality he 



rarely manifested, and after Clement's 
departure he remained a long time 
thoughtful. Perhaps at that moment 
he was thinking how much more 
satisfaction there was in meeting and 
studying such a noble heart than 
most of those whose acquaintance he 
had hitherto sought and cultivated 
with so much eagerness. 



LXI. 



AT Clement's return, he learned 
that his cousin had asked for him 
several times. He immediately went 
up to the room she occupied. His 
emotion at seeing her again, though 
less sudden than that he had just ex- 
perienced, was deeper than he antici- 
pated, for he was unprepared for the 
change wrought within so short a 
time. She was, however, as calm 
and resolute as the night before, 
though she had passed through what 
might be called the agony of sacrifice 
that hour of inexpressible suffering, 
not when the sacrifice of one's self is 
decided upon, not even that in which 
it is consummated, but the intermedi- 
ate hour in which repugnance still 
struggles against the will. It was 
this hour endured by our common 
Master in the order of his sufferings 
after he took upon himself our like- 
ness. 

Fleurange had only taken a short 
hour of repose before day. The re- 
mainder of the night she passed 
wholly in conflict with suffering. 
She then allowed the repressed sobs 
that filled her breast during her inter- 
view with Vera to burst forth without 
restraint as soon as she was alone for 
the night ; she gave herself up to the 
poor solace of tasting at leisure the 
bitterness of sacrifice, repelling every 
consoling thought almost allowing 
the waves of despair to gather round 
her, and, if not to break over her, at 
least to threaten her. 



The chamber she occupied was 
more spacious and sumptuous than 
Mademoiselle Josephine's, being that 
of the Princess Catherine herself. It 
was lighted only by a lamp which 
burned before the holy images en- 
shrined in gold and silver in one 
corner, according to the Russian 
custom. Fieurange threw herself on 
a couch, and there, with her' head 
buried in the cushions, her long hair 
dishevelled, and her hands clasped 
to her face inundated with tears, she 
gave vent to her grief for a long 
time without any attempt to moder- 
ate it. 

Once before in her life she had 
abandoned herself to a similar trans- 
port of grief, though certainly with 
much less reason. It was when she 
left Paris two years before, and it 
seemed as if she was alone in the 
world, and all the joys of life had 
come to an end. Those who have 
not forgotten the beginning of this 
story may remember that on that 
occasion the sight of a star suddenly 
appearing in the clear sky brought 
her a message of peace. God knows, 
when it pleaseth him, how to give a 
voice to everything in nature, and to 
speak to his creatures by the work 
of his hands, and even of theirs. An 
impression of such a nature now in- 
fused the first ray of calmness into 
the tempest that completely over- 
whelmed her soul. Suddenly raising 
her head from the attitude in which 



Fleurange. 747 

she had so long remained, her eyes Pardon! Yes, in spite of her 
naturally turned towards the light purity, her piety, and the uprightness 
diffused by the lamp before the im- of her soul, it was a word Fleurange 
ages in the corner of the chamber, was likewise obliged to utter. In it 
the richest of which sparkled in its she felt lay solace and peace for her 
ray. In these Greek paintings, as heart. She perceived it now for the 
we are aware, the heads alone on the first time. A new light began to rise 
canvas stand out from the gold in her soul, like the faint flush of 
and precious stones that surround aurora which precedes day, and her 
them. That which now attracted grief seemed a punishment merited 
Fleurange's attention was the image for forgetfulness, her tears an expia- 
of Christ that sacred face of the tion. These thoughts were still con- 
well-known type common to all the fused ; but their influence was already 
representations of Byzantine art. beneficent, and she soon felt really 
That long, grave face, those mild eyes, springing up within her the courage 
with their calmness and depth, have and fortitude which she outwardly 
a thrilling, mysterious effect which manifested during her Interview with 
surpasses a thousand times every re- Vera. She had always been capable 
production of human beauty. This of action in spite of suffering, and 
impression, which a pious love of art she now sought it, realizing its 
enables every one to comprehend, benefit. The night was far advanced, 
was associated with a tender remem- but she did not feel the need of 
brance of Fleurange's childhood, repose, and before seeking it she 
She had often prayed before a face would give her heart and mind, 
of similar aspect in the chapel of even more fatigued than her body, 
Santa Maria al Prato. She now the relief they needed. Under the 
looked steadfastly into those divine impression of all the incidents and 
eyes gazing at her, and it seemed as varied emotions of the day, she wrote 
if that sweet penetrating look pierced the Madre Maddalena a letter which 
to the depths of her soul, and infused was the faithful transcript of all she 
a sudden, marvellous, inexpressible had passed through. The joy of the 
consolation. Changing gradually morning, the sacrifice of the evening, 
her previous attitude, she remained her despair scarcely subsided, no- 
for some time seated with clasped thing was Concealed or suppressed, 
hands, transfixed. At last, her eyes not even a fresh ardent aspiration 
still fastened on the holy face, she towards the cloister which she 
fell on her knees, bent down her thought could no longer be shut 
head, and remained a long time against her, and which now seemed 
buried in profound recollection. Her the only refuge of her broken heart, 
immoderate grief seemed to diminish There is a certain art in reading 
and change its character. Her tears, the hearts of others; but it is as 
without ceasing to flow, lost their great a one to be able to read one's 
bitterness and changed their object; own, and this art Fleurange possessed 
for in the mildness of that majestic in the highest degree when in the 
look she read a reproach which she presence of that great soul which 
comprehended ! - afar off as well as near watched over 
" O my Saviour and my God ! par- hers. This outpouring soothed her. 
don me !" exclaimed she, with fer- She afterwards slept awhile, and, on 
vor, bending down till her forehead awaking, courageously despatched 
touched the floor. the letter which we have just, seen 



748 Fleurange. 

the Marquis Adelardi read and com- she wept at Gabrielle's leaving them, 
mimicate to Clement. it was necessary to conceal her sor- 
But such a night leaves its traces, row ; and now she was to remain, it 
Fleurange's swollen eyes, her con- was not permitted to manifest her joy. 
tracted features, her pale, trembling " All this is very singular I always 
lips, and her sad expression indicated seem to take aim at the wrong mo- 
suffering which was an insupportable ment. And yet, Clement allow me 
torture to Clement. He would have to say that I suspect that, as to this 
spared her this at the expense of his Monsieur le Comte, it was I and I 
life, as it is allowable to say he had alone who was right." 
proved. But now that the arduous This last reflection did not escape 
duty of earnestly desiring her happi- her, it is reasonable to suppose, till 
ness through the affection of another later, at one of those seasons of 
was no longer required of him, the special unburdening her mind to 
impetuous cry of his own heart be- Clement which she sought now and 
came almost irresistible in its power, then, and we should add that the 
and Clement never manifested more smile in return amply repaid her for 
self-control than this morning in sub- the frown we have just noted, 
cluing the impulse which, prompted The evening passed away almost 
him a thousand times to throw him- in silence. The Marquis Adelardi 
self at his cousin's feet, and passion- spent it with them. The frightful 
ately tell her she loved and regretted alteration in Fleurange's features did 
an ungrateful man, and that she her- not allow him to mistake the extent 
self was even more ungrateful than of her sufferings ; and her calm, sim- 
hc! But instead of that, he silently pie manner redoubled the enthusiasm 
pressed her hand. Fleurange saw she had always inspired him with 
he was aware of everything, and it an enthusiasm which gradually ripen- 
was a relief to have nothing to tell, ed into solid friendship, and ultimate- 
In a few words they made arrange- ly wrought a durable, beneficent effect 
ments for their departure, and Cle- on his life. 

ment promised her to start within Before Clement and his cousin 
twenty-four hours. separated for the night, they spoke 
Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Jose- of Felix's sad burial, and its lack of 
phine appeared, and Clement, too any religious ceremony. The mar- 
preoccupied to use any circumlocu- quis had promised to obtain the last 
tion, simply announced the change favor Clement asked that a cross 
in his cousin's intentions, without should mark the spot where he 
giving her any explanation. But reposed. The following morning 
when, in the height of her joy, ma- Mass was to be celebrated for him in 
demoiselle exclaimed, " She is going the Catholic church, 
back with us! O mon Dieu! what "We will attend this Mass to- 
happiness !" Clement frowned and gether," said Fleurange. 
pressed her hand in so expressive a " Yes, Gabrielle, that was my ex- 
manner that the poor demoiselle pectation." 

stopped short and, according to her The next morning, at an early 

custom, buried her joy in utter si- hour, Fleurange and her cousin were 

lence, saying to herself that the day prostrate at the foot of the altar in 

would perhaps come when she would the large Catholic church on the 

understand all these inexplicable Nevskoi Prospekt. After all the sor- 

things, and, among others, why, when row that had overwhelmed the young 



Flciirangc. 



749 



girl's soul since the night before, this 
was an hour of sad consolation and 
repose. Her long journey, after all, 
in spite of the bitter deception, in 
spite of the grief and sacrifice at the 
end, had not been made in vain. 
He whose last hours she had con- 
soled, and for whom they were now 
praying, had carried away with him 
the blessed influence of her presence 
into those regions to which repent- 
ance opens the door ! Repentance ! 
the salvation of the soul that feels 
it, the benediction of the soul that 
seconds it, the mysterious joy of the 
angels that inspire it and rejoice over 
it as one of the delights of their eter- 
nal beatitude ! 

They left the church, and slowly 
descended the long avenue bordered 
by trees called the Nevskoi Prospekt. 
They found their way impeded by a 
numerous crowd in front of the gate 
of the Anitschkoff Palace, which they 
had to pass. Fleurange, lost in 
thought, was walking slowly along 
without looking around, and Cle- 



ment also was absorbed in his own 
reflections, when they were both 
startled as if by an electric shock. 

" The newly married pair are com- 
ing out," said a voice. 

" Married ! condemned, you 
mean," replied another, laughing. 
" You know they are both going 
into exile." 

They heard no more. Clement's 
sudden effort to lead Fleurange away 
was powerless. She resisted it, and, 
leaving his arm without his being 
able to prevent it, she swiftly made 
her way to the front, and leaned 
against a tree. She saw the grille 
open the carriage appeared; it 
drew near ; at last she saw him ! 
Yes ; she saw Count George's noble 
features, his smiling face, his radiant 
look, and she caught a glimpse of 
the black eyes and golden locks of 
the bride. Then it seemed to grow 
dark around her, and everything 
vanished from her thoughts as well 
as from her sight ! 



EPILOGUE. 



" No, my Fior Angela, I once 
more say no, as when you made the 
same request at Santa Maria that 
lovely evening in May while we were 
gazing at the setting sun over the 
doisters. What has been changed ? 
And why should God call you now 
to this retreat if he did not call you 
then? - Because you suffer still 
more ? But, my poor child, you 
were suffering then. Life, you said, 
seemed ( empty and cheerless, unsatis- 
factory and imperfect.' And, indeed, 
you were not wrong. That is its 
real aspect when we compare it 
with the true life that awaits us. 
From that point of view nothing 
truly can give it the least attraction ; 
but with this kind of disgust there is 
no sadness mingled. AVe are not sad 



when an object seems poor and 
valueless compared with another ob- 
ject wonderful and divine of which 
we are sure. As I have already told 
you, this is the disgust of the world 
whence springs the irresistible call to 
the cloister; but, as I likewise said, 
this divine voice, when it speaks to 
the soul, resounds alone, to the ex- 
clusion of all earthly voices. A 
flame is kindled that absorbs and ex- 
tinguishes all others, even those 
earthly lights that are attractive and 
pure. That divine call has not been 
made to you. The earthly happi- 
ness you dreamed of has failed you, 
that is all. And this disappointment 
for the second time has inspired you 
with the same wish as before ; but, as 
on that occasion, I believe if God 



750 



Flcurange. 



claimed your life lie would not have 
permitted such a heart as that of my 
Fleurange to be divided for a clay ! 
. " This time, it is true, everything is 
at an end, and without remedy. 
You are irrevocably separated from 
him to whom you gave your heart 
allow me to say now, to whom you 
gave it unreasonably ! You shud- 
der, my poor child, you find me 
cruel, and all the false brilliancy 
which fascinated you, now lights up 
anew the image still present and still 
dear to your imagination ; neverthe- 
less, I will go on. 

" There is an earthly love which, if 
it lengthens the road that leads to 
God, does not, however, turn one 
from it which, by the very virtues it 
requires, the sacrifices it imposes, and 
the sufferings that spring from it, 
often seconds the noblest impulses 
of the soul. 

" Do you not feel now, Fleurange. 
that the foundation of such a love 
was wanting to yours ? I perceived 
it at Santa Maria as soon as I heard 
your story to the end, and looked 
into the most secret recesses of your 
heart. I then understood why God 
had placed obstacles in your way, 
and imposed a sacrifice on you. 
Your sufferings appeared to me the 
expiation of an idolatry you did not 
realize the extent of. 

"If you had shown any doubt or 
hesitation as to the course to be pur- 
sued, if you had been weakly desi- 
rous of sparing yourself and escaping 
the sacrifice imposed, perhaps I 
should at that time have expressed 
myself more severely. But you 
acted with firmness and uprightness, 
and I deferred revealing to you the 
secret malady of your heart till, with 
time, peace should be restored to you. 
Till then, what you suffered seemed 
to me a sufficient punishment. 

"But it was not to be so. The 
temptation was to be renewed, and 



under a form impossible for my poor 
child to resist. She yielded to the 
generous r passionate impulse of her 
heart, and found in the very excess 
of her devotedness a means of satis- 
fying her conscience which she con- 
fusedly felt the need of. But some- 
thing more was essential : she must 
suffer still more more than before. 
In short, the idol must be shattered, 
and this destruction seemed to in- 
volve the very breaking of her own 
heart ! 

" But it is not so, Fleurange. 
Across the distance that separates us 
I would make my voice heard, and 
wish it possessed a divine power 
when I say to you : ' Rise up and 
walk.' Yes; resume your course 
through the life God gives you, and 
courageously bless him for having 
snatched you from the snare of a 
love not founded on him, which 
must have proved hollow sooner or 
later. Then look around, see whom 
you can console and aid ; see also 
whom you can love ; especially no- 
tice who loves you, and banish from 
your heart the thought, equivalent to 
blasphemy, which you express in say- 
ing, ' My life is stripped of all that 
made it desirable !' 

" Some day, my Fior Angela, you 
will again recall these bitter, ungrate- 
ful words, and will, I assure you, see 
their falsity. If God did not create 
you to love him to the exclusion of 
those lawful affections which reflect 
a ray of his love, you were still less 
created to find rest in a love depriv- 
ed of that light a love whose sud- 
den rending and keen anguish pre- 
served you from proving its perish- 
able nature and spared you the pain 
of irreparable deception ! 

Ci Once more, Fleurange, prostrate 
yourself before God, and give thanks : 
then rise up and act. No lingering 
pity over yourself, no dwelling regret- 
fully on your deceived hopes and 



Flenrange. 



75 



the pain you have suffered. Cour- 
age ! Your heart has been weak, 
it yielded to fascination ; but your 
volition as yet has never ceased to 
be strong. However rough the path 
of duty, it was enough for you to see 
it in order to walk in it without fal 
tering. Courage, I say ! You will 
live. You will do better than live 
you will recover from all this, and re- 
call the time that seemed so dark as 
that which preceded the real day that 
is to illumine your life. 

" At first this letter will add to your 
sadness. You will feel yourself de- 
prived of everything, even of the con- 
solation you expected of me ; but do 
not yield to the temptation of burn- 
ing this letter after reading it. Keep 
it to read over again, and be sure 
that sooner or later the day will come 
when a sweet promise of happiness 
will respond at the bottom of your 
heart at reading it. You will then 
comprehend what were the prayers 
of your Madre Maddalena for you, 
dear Fleu range, for they will on that 
day have been heard ! " 

This reply to the letter Fleurange 
wrote during the night of agitation 
which followed her interview with 
Vera we lay before our readers at its 
arrival at Rosenheim after her return 
from her sad journey ; but one sum- 
mer evening, two years after, the 
young girl, seated on a bench over- 
looking the river, read it over the 
second time. She was in her old 
seat, but her appearance was some- 
what changed. A severe illness, re- 
sulting from the emotion and fatigue 
endured two years before, endanger- 
ed her life, and to her convalescence 
had succeeded a malady slower, 
deeper, and more difficult to heal, 
against which all remedies, though 
energetically seconded by a resolute 
will, long remained ineffectual. 

During this period of weakness 



Fleurange had never known before, 
life assumed a new and formidable 
aspect. For a long time she was 
unable to struggle actively against- 
the double languor of illness and de- 
pression ; she had to endure inaction 
without making it an additional tor- 
ture to herself and others ; in short, 
she was obliged to be constantly and 
silently on her guard against herself. 
She succeeded, however, accepting 
with grateful docility all the care 
that surrounded her. She did not 
repel her friends from her crushed 
heart, but, on the contrary, endeavor- 
ed to convince them that their affec- 
tion was sufficient, and that, once 
more with them, nothing was want- 
ing. By degrees, it required no 
effort to say this. As the sun in 
spring-time melts away the snow, 
then warms the earth and covers it 
with flowers, so, under the influence 
of their beneficent tenderness, every- 
thing began to revive in her heart 
and soul. Was it not delightful, as 
she lay half asleep on her chaise lon- 
guc for long hours, to hear around 
her, like the warblings of birds, Fri- 
da's caressing voice mingled with the 
tones of her cousin's little children 
whom she loved to hold in her arms 
and caress when they awoke her? 
Was it not a consolation to rest her 
weary head on a bosom almost ma- 
ternal ? Was it not salutary to con- 
verse with her Uncle Ludwig when 
he wheeled his chair near the young 
invalid, and spoke of so many things 
worthy of her attention without ever 
turning it away from the highest of 
all? And Hilda? And Clara? 
And Julian and Hansfelt ? Did they 
not all come with their constant af- 
fectionate interest, each one bring- 
ing, as it were, a flower to add its 
perfume to the air she breathed ? 
Finally, was it nothing when she 
opened her eyes to meet the kind 
glance of her old friend who, after 



752 



Flcurange. 



fearing to lose her, was never weary 
of gazing at her now she was again 
restored to life ? 

And what shall we say of him 
whom we have not yet named him 
whose solicitude for her was not 
apparently greater than that of his 
parents and sisters, but who, during 
her long convalescence, ended by 
taking a place beside her which no 
one thought of disputing? Clem- 
ent's character has been badly deline- 
ated if, after the unexpected occur- 
rence that restored freedom to his 
hopes, it is supposed he was prompt 
to admit them, and especially to ex- 
press them. Nevertheless, since it 
was no longer an absolute duty to 
maintain a strong, constant control 
over himself; since the fear of betray- 
ing himself no longer obliged him 
to a restraint with his cousin which 
had extended to every subject, and 
ended by frequently obliging him to 
partially conceal from her the supe- 
riority of his mind and the rare 
nature of his intelligence, a change 
was wrought in him which he did 
not realize himself, and now gave to 
his physiognomy, the tone of his 
voice, and his whole person a wholly 
different character than before in the 
eyes of her to whom he thus appear- 
ed for the first time. She noticed it 
with surprise, and, when he stopped 
reading to express the thoughts that 
sprang spontaneously from his heart 
when moved, or his mind unimpeded 
in its flight, and touched on a thou- 
sand subjects hitherto deemed for- 
bidden, she became thoughtful, and, 
in spite of herself, compared his elo- 
quence of soul, whose source was so 
profound, and whose flight was some- 
times so elevated, with the eloquence 
of another which once dazzled her, 
the only charm of which sprang from 
his carefully cultivated mind, and his 
mind alone. Every day she impa- 
tiently awaited this hour for reading 



or conversation. She already appre- 
ciated her cousin's devotedness, the 
incomparable kindness of his heart, 
his trustworthiness, his energy, and 
his courage. She had given him 
credit for all these qualities before, 
and yet, all at once, it seemed as if 
she had never known him. She even 
asked herself one day if she had 
ever looked at him, so completely 
did the expression of his countenance 
which beamed with what is most 
divine here on earth a double 
nobleness of mind and soul so fully 
did his look and smile atone for the 
imperfections already alluded to in 
Clement's features, but which time 
had greatly modified to his advan- 
tage. She soon felt that, though she 
had always cherished a strong regard 
for her cousin, she had been unjust 
to him and never appreciated his 
real worth. 

But the day, the hour, the moment 
when she discovered she had been 
not only unjust, but ungrateful, and 
even cruel, we cannot state, and per- 
haps she did not know herself. Was 
it the day when, after reading in a 
tremulous tone a passage that ex- 
pressed what he dared not utter, he 
suddenly raised his eyes and looked 
at her as he had never done before ? 
Was it on another occasion, when, 
playing one tune after another on his 
violin, he ended with that song with- 
out words which Hansfelt called 
Hidden Love, and suddenly stopped, 
incapable of continuing? Or was it 
when, towards the end of the second 
spring after their return, she had 
fully recovered, and he saw her for 
the first time in the open air standing 
near a rose-bush with her hands full 
of flowers ? Was it when he knelt 
to pick up one that had fallen at her 
feet, and remained in that position 
till she extended her hand and blush- 
ingly bade him rise ? No matter. 
That day came, and not long before 



Flciirangc. 

the one when we find her seated on learned she \vas determined to go to 

the bench by the river-side, atten- George; and, later on, the words 

lively reading over the letter Madre murmured on the ice when he 

Maddalena had written her two years thought the last hour of his life had 

before. come, scarcely heard at the time, and 

The young girl, as we have said, then speedily forgotten, came back 

had changed somewhat since we to-day like invisible writing brought 

last saw her. Her long illness had out by the application of heat. The 

left some traces, but those traces sentiments she had discovered only 

which are an additional charm in within a few days perhaps had long 

youth, betokening the complete re- been experienced by Clement, if not 

turn of brilliant health. Fleurange's always and, if so, oh! then, how 

form was more slender and supple ; great had been his love and constan- 

her complexion more transparent ; cy, and what sufferings had he not 

her long hair, cut off during her ill- endured for her sake ! Alas ! what 

ness, and now growing out again, had she not inflicted on that noble, 

encircled her youthful face with faithful soul ! 

thick, silky curls all this gave her " Oh !" cried she aloud, " was 

something of the grace of childhood, there ever a person more blind, more 

and when she stood beside her ungrateful, more cruel than I ?" 

cousin, whose tall stature and manly, She stopped, started, and raised 

energetic expression added the ap- her head; she thought she heard her 

pearance of several years to his real cousin's step. She was net mistaken, 

age, it would never have been sup- He sought her in her favorite seat, 

posed she was not the younger of and now stood before her in the 

the two. same place where, three years before, 

Motionless and absorbed, from she unwittingly caused him so much 

time to time as she read her face suffering as he looked at her. It was 

colored and expressed a variety of the same place, and the same season, 

emotions. But when she came to and also the same hour. Daylight 

her own words : " My life is now was fading away, and now, as then, 

stripped of all that made it desirable," the rising moon cast a silver ray over 

and what follows, "Some day, my the charming face which he was again 

Fior Angela, you will recall these seeking to read. But this time his 

bitter, ungrateful words, and will, I questioning look was comprehended, 

assure you, see their falsity," she and the silent response of her beauti- 

stoppecl short, and, raising her eyes ml eyes, as expressive as words, im- 

full of tears to heaven, she said : parted to the heart that understood 

" Yes, Madre mia, you were right !" it one of those human joys reserved 

She covered her face with her hands, here below for those alone who are 

and remained a long time absorbed capable of a pure, constant, peculiar 

and overpowered by a flood of love a love only worthy of being 

thoughts. In the depths of her named after that for God. 

memory, there were vague recollec- We might now end this story, and 

tions of the past traced as if by light- lay down our pen, without attempting 

ning ; and some almost forgotten to describe the joy of the family 

scenes now rose before her like a when, as night came on, they saw 

confused dream. the two absent ones return, and each 

That violent outburst of grief; the one divined from their looks the 

sobs he could not repress when he nature of the conversation which to- 
VOL. xvi. 48 



754 



Fleurange. 



night had detained them so long on 
the banks of the river. But towards 
the end of an evening so happy, 
Mademoiselle Josephine uninten- 
tionally made an exclamation it may 
not be useless to add : 

" See ! see !" she cried, in the exult- 
ation of her happiness, mingled with 
secret pride at her penetration, " how 
right I was in thinking Count 
George ! " She stopped confound- 
ed, suddenly recalling all past precau- 
tions, and fearing she had been im- 
prudent in neglecting them. 

But Fleurange unhesitatingly ex- 
claimed : " Go on, dear mademoi- 
selle, go on without any fear, and 
boldly pronounce a name I now 
neither shrink from nor seek to hear." 
And, as she spoke, the remem- 
iforance of his past tortures crossed 
-Clement's memory, giving him a 
.keener sense of his present happi- 
ness. She asked him, in a calm 
.tone, " Is he still in exile, or has he 
:been pardoned ?" 

Clement replied with a smile : 
"No, he has not been pardoned; he 
iis still undergoing his sentence to the 
;fiill extent." After a moment's si- 
lence, he added: "I had a letter 
from Adelardi this very morning 
which speaks of him. Would you 
/like: to read it?" 

At an .affirmative nod from her, 

> he took out his pocket-book to find 

: the letter. As he opened it, a little 

; sprig of myrtle fell out. Fleurange 

. immediately recognized it. " What ! 

you still keep that ?" said she, 

blushing. 

Clement made no reply. He 
looked at it with emotion ; it was a 
part of a carefully hoarded treasure, 
, and for a long time the only joy of 
his hidden love ! " Never, no never !" 
murmured he. " That was my reply 
that evening, Gabrielle, when you 
promised me a beautiful bride. Do 
you remember it ?" 



" Yes, for I had said the same 
words an hour before, and the coin- 
cidence struck me." 

" What can we think of it, now 
you are really \\\zfinancce I dreamed 
of as impossible ?" 

" That our presentiments are often 
illusory and our sentiments also, 
Clement," added she, turning to- 
wards him her eyes veiled with tears 
which seemed to implore his pardon. 

We will not say what Clement's re- 
ply was ; only, that it made them both 
completely forget Adelardi's letter. 
We will, however, lay it before our 
readers, who may be less indifferent 
to its contents than he to whom it 
was addressed was for the moment. 
It was dated at Florence. The mar- 
quis, whose visits at Rosenheim had 
become annual, announced his 
speedy arrival, after which he con- 
tinued : 

" The poor Princess Catherine, 
after whom you inquire, has had a 
return of her malady, so many times 
cured, and it is now increased by dis- 
satisfaction and apnoyance more 
than by age. No one succeeds in 
taking care of her so well as she 
whom she still remembers. Each 
new attack renews her regrets, which 
have found no compensation in the 
gratification of her wishes. I have 
often remarked, however, that there 
is nothing like the realization of a 
desire to efface the remembrance of 
the ardor with which it was sought, 
and even the transport that hailed its 
fulfilment. It is certain the prin- 
cess' actual relations with her son are 
by no means satisfactory; they are 
affected by the ill-humor of both 
parties. George's exile would seem 
enviable to many ; for the place he 
inhabits has everything to make it 
delightful excepting the liberty of 
leaving it, and this mars the whole. 
He can enjoy nothing, he says, be- 
cause everything is forced upon him. 



Fleurange. 



755 



There is reason, therefore, to fear the 
future he is preparing for himself and 
his wife is very ominous. 

" The Countess Vera is a beautiful, 
noble woman, capable of self-sacri- 
fice to a certain point, but haughty, 
high-tempered, and jealous to the 
last degree. She thought the sacri- 
fice she made in marrying George in 
the position he was then in, would 
secure his unsteady heart, and bind 
him faithfully to her through grati- 
tude. She saw only too soon it was 
not so, and that the comparative 
liberty he had regained was soon re- 
garded as a weary bondage. Thence 
resulted scenes which more than 
once have disturbed the life whose 
monotony they are not allowed to 
break. Will you credit it ? In one 
of them, Vera, in the height of her 
irritation and jealousy, betrayed the 
secret hitherto so well guarded, and 
declared in her anger that she regretted 
not Jiaving left him to the fate another 
was so ready to share with him. She 
afterwards had reason to regret her 
imprudence, for George exacted a 
complete revelation, and the remem- 
brance thus suddenly revived and 
clad with the double charm of the 
past and the unattainable caused 
him in his turn to overwhelm her 
with the most bitter reproaches. I 
am not sure but he had the cruelty 
to tell her he should a thousand 
times have preferred the fate she 
saved him from to that he now had 
to endure with her ! There can 
only be one opinion as to this mirage 
of his imagination ; but, after all 
this, you will not be surprised to hear 
that they both long with equal ardor 
for their liberty, which they must 
wait for two years longer. According 
to appearances, it will be as danger- 
ous for one as for the other. The 
princess has realized and predicted 
this since her visit to Livonia last 
-, where I accompanied her. 



During her stay, George did not spare 
her any reproaches, and they were 
the more keenly felt because she had 
for a long time seen that the result 
of her wishes had been a sacrifice of 
her own comfort and happiness 
through her opposition to what had 
at once deprived her of her son and 
the only companion that had ever 
satisfied her. And when she is dis- 
satisfied, she must always vent her 
anger on some one besides herself. 
Whom do you think she reproached 
the other day before me for all her trou- 
bles ? Gabrielle ! who, she said, 
did not know how to avail herself of 
her ascendency three years ago as 
she should, and to retain it ! 

"Since she has seen that I by no 
means sympathize in her regrets- 
which will not be shared by you 
either, I suppose, nor, I like to think, 
by her who inspires them she is of- 
fended with me in my turn, and de- 
clares in a melancholy tone that all 
friends are unfeeling and all children 
ungrateful ! ' : 

Clement's reply to this letter has- 
tened the marquis' arrival. He had 
seen his young friend's hopes spring 
up and develop, and would not for 
the world have been absent from 
Rosenheim on the day of their real- 
ization. William and Bertha, the dis- 
creet confidant who knew how to 
console Clement in his sufferings 
without questioning him, were the 
only friends, besides the marquis, who 
were admitted that day into this 
happy family. The wedding was as 
gay as Clara's, but the newly mar- 
ried pair were graver and more 
thoughtful. They had both passed 
through severe trials, which now 
gave a certain completeness to their 
happiness, often wanting here below 
in the most joyful of festivals. 

And they also, in their turn, set 
off for Italy, and it may be imagined 
that, among the places they visited 



756 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 



together, the first to which their 
hearts led them was that where 
awaited the Madre Maddalena's wel- 
come and blessing. At their return, 
Mademoiselle Josephine's house, im- 
proved and embellished, became 
their home, on the condition imposed 
by their old friend that she should 
dwell under their roof the remainder 
of her days. 

Was their destiny a happy one? 
We can safely reply in the affirma- 



tive. Was it exempt from pains, suf- 
ferings, and sacrifices ? We can 
deny that still more positively. But 
it was, however, enviable; for of all 
earthly happiness, they possessed 
what was most desirable, without 
ever forgetting that " life can never 
be perfectly happy because it is not 
heaven, nor wholly unhappy because 
it is the way thither.* 

* Eugdnie de la Ferronnays. 



AMERICAN CATHOLICS AND PARTISAN NEWSPAPERS. 



To Catholics, as such, the politi- 
cal discussions of a Presidential cam- 
paign have no special significance. 
Thus far no issues between the two 
chief parties have particularly affected 
us. Both have generally been careful 
not to offend us; and although in 
local elections questions touching our 
schools and charities have sometimes 
become prominent, in the larger con- 
test our votes have been fairly divid- 
ed between the Republican and the 
Democratic candidates. If there ever 
unfortunately arise a distinctively Ca- 
tholic party in American politics, it 
will not be because Catholics are un- 
willing to co-operate freely with their 
Protestant fellow-citizens in secular 
affairs, but because we have been 
thrown upon the defensive by some 
combination directly and designedly 
hostile to our religious interests. 
None know better than we do that 
there is no excuse in this country 
for uniting religious with political 
issues. Our constitution gives equal 
liberty and protection to all, and 
we should be sorry to have it 
otherwise, for we know that the 



church makes all the more rapid 
progress in the United States by rea- 
son of her absolute independence. 
Asking nothing of the state but fair 
play, she gives no excuse to her ene- 
mies for making any discrimination 
against her children. Her position 
has been generally understood and 
approved; and although there are 
fiery bigots at all times who rave 
about the dangerous designs of the 
papists, and affect to dread a crusade 
with torch and sword as soon as we 
get to be a little stronger, the good 
sense of the American people has 
usually treated these sectaries with 
the indifference they deserve. 

We have intimated, however, in 
former numbers of THE CATHOLIC 
WORLD, that the chronic anti-Catho- 
lic agitation might assume a new 
character which would require on 
our part a new attitude of resistance. 
A few years ago, when the settle- 
ment of the issues of the war first 
seemed to menace the dissolution of 
the Republican party, the most ac- 
tive leaders of that party began to 
cast about for a " new departure," 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 757 

and one of their favorite plans for what it assumed to be acceptable at 
keeping the organization alive was the White House. For a long time 
the scheme of compulsory education it has been notoriously unfriendly to 
by the general government. Of Catholics. It has amused itself, in 
this project the Hon. Henry Wilson its heavy, witless way, laughing at 
was a prominent advocate. It has what they hold sacred and abusing 
not yet been formally brought into all that they respect. Until a few 
politics, for the party has been able months ago, its offensive utterances 
to get along without it; but it has seemed to be merely the occasional 
not been abandoned, and we need vulgarities of a bigotry that .did not 
not be surprised if it be strongly know enough to hold its tongue. But 
pushed within the next few years, when Mr. Francis Kernan was nomi- 
Now, Catholics look upon the ques- nated for Governor of the State of 
tion of religious education as one of New York, its assaults became more 
paramount importance. They will methodical, more vehement, and ap- 
not surrender the teaching of their parently more malicious. Mr. Ker- 
children into the hands of Protest- nan is a Catholic ; so The Times in- 
ants and infidels ; they will not stantly denounced him as " a bigot." 
consent, so far as their young people An utterly untrue pretence was made 
are concerned, to the separation of re- that Democrats were asking Irish- 
ligious and secular instruction. Any men to vote for him on account of 
party which seeks directly or indi- his religion, and thus the point was 
rectly to limit the usefulness or ham- insinuated rather than openly pressed 
per the operations of Catholic schools, that on account of his religion Pro- 
must prepare to encounter in Catho- testants ought to vote against him. 
lies a united and determined resist- For the first time, to our knowledge, 
ance. since Know-Nothing days, the ques- 
Thus far no such conflict has tion of religious belief was dragged 
arisen. We may hope that it never into the dirty arena of politics, 
will arise. And yet, during the can- Happily, the Catholics as a body 
vass that has recently closed, two of kept their temper and their judgment 
the leading organs of Republican during these infamous proceedings, 
opinion have opened a bitter and They refused to be drawn into the 
apparently concerted warfare upon discussion which The Times wanted 
the Catholics of the United States to provoke, and even when that pa- 
which we cannot help regarding as per surpassed all its former disrepu- 
higlily significant. In the midst of a table acts by reproducing in its col- 
Presidential campaign, political or- umns a forged handbill, showing the 
gans never make such attacks except name of Francis Kernan surround- 
for political reasons. The papers to ing a huge black cross, and told 
which we refer are in close relations the public that such were the devices 
with the party leaders. The New by which the Democratic candidate 
York Times became for a time, sought to inflame the fanatical zeal 
when The Tribune abandoned ortho- of his followers, the Catholics con- 
doxy, the principal Republican news- tented themselves with one word of 
paper of the principal state in the indignant denial. It would have 
Union. It is known to have reflect- been a rash display of political cour- 
ed with tolerable accuracy the senti- age to which we do not believe The. 
ments of the Republican managers Times capable of rising, if an open 
in New York, and it has always said attack had been made upon the Ca- 



758 American Catholics and Partisan Neivspapcrs. 

tholic faith or Catholic morals. The with this conviction of the general 
Times was even frightened at its own wickedness of Catholic principles, it 
frankness in scolding at Mr. Kernan imagines itself justified in charging 
for a bigot. It professed to be upon individual Catholics a variety 
shocked at the introduction of reli- of specific crimes for which it has no 
gious affairs into the discussions of evidence whatever. Catholics are 
the campaign, and carried on a none too good to commit murder, 
cowardly anti-Catholic warfare un- we can imagine it saying ; therefore 
der cover of repelling purely imagi- let us accuse Francis Kernan of kill- 
nary assaults. Of course this subter- ing his grandmother. The Pope is an 
fuge was well understood by all par- impostor ; therefore it cannot be 
ties. The Catholics knew that they wrong to call Archbishop McCloskey 
had done nothing to draw this fire ; a thief. Indeed, men - who would 
the Protestants also knew it, and a blush to tell an untruth in private in- 
great many of them were indignant tercourse with their fellow-men have 
at the transaction. Was The Times no hesitation in publishing slander- 
itself deceived ? That is a question ous accusations which they suppose 
which perhaps we should not at- may " help their party " ; and, if we 
tempt to answer. In its wild bigotry, should say that their conduct in do- 
it is capable of believing almost any ing so was to the last degree infa- 
preposterous falsehood against us ; mous. they would affect to be shock- 
but it is equally capable of invent- ed by our strong language. The 
ing one. Some familiarity with the editor of The Times would think 
course of political controversies in twice before he went into a club par- 
the United States has convinced us lor, and publicly accused some prom- 
that in a fight The Times sticks at inent citizen of a criminal action, 
nothing. It would rather stab an unless he had the strongest possible 
enemy in the back than kill him in proof of the commission of the of- 
open battle. It never gives fair- fence. But he makes such accusa- 
play ; it never makes amends for a tions every clay in his newspaper, 
wrong-doing ; it never withdraws a without knowing, and we presume 
calumny. Everybody who has had without caring, whether they are 
a controversy with it will bear wit- true or not. Anybody whom he 
ness that it is not in the habit of tell- dislikes he regards as an outlaw, 
ing the truth about its adversaries. Anybody who comes in his way is a 
That it is in the habit of consciously, fit subject for the penitentiary. We 
or, to speak more correctly, deliber- saw a striking illustration of his en- 
ately, lying we do not go so far as tire insensibility to the demands of 
to say. But there is a kind of false- truth and honor in his behavior to- 
hood very common with people of wards a rival newspaper a few weeks 
strong prejudices to which The Times ago. At the close of the year, The 
is greatly addicted. It bears about Times made great efforts to secure 
the same relation to truth that hy- the old subscribers of The Tribune, 
perbole bears to historical statement, who were supposed to be dissatisfied 
Let us suppose that The Times really with that paper's recent declaration 
imagines the Catholic Church to be of political independence, and the 
a dangerous and immoral organiza- means which it took to secure them 
tion, and its bishops and supporters was one which in any other business 
in this country to be engaged in an would have resulted in a suit for 
enterprise which ought to be resisted; slander and a verdict in very heavy 



American Catholics and Partisan Neivspapers. 759 

damages. The Times first circulated But it is well for us to look at the 

a report that The Tribune had sold situation carefully, and judge who 

itself to one of the most disreputable are our friends. If any political 

stock- gamblers in Wall Street, and party is to make bigotry part of its 

then assured the public that the cir- stock in trade, we cannot help taking 

culation of its competitor had fallen notice of such a declaration of hos- 

away more than half, and was rapid- tilities, and we shall govern ourselves 

ly going down to nothing at all. accordingly. 

Both these stories were well known We have said that The Times and 
to be entirely untrue, and, if the edi- Harper's Weekly appear in this mat- 
tor of The Times was not conscious ter to have acted in concert. Per- 
of their falsity when he penned them, haps it is unfair to hold the party 
he might easily have learned the managers fully responsible for the 
truth by a moment's inquiry. But utterances of these two violent news- 
he did not want the truth. He papers; but we cannot forget that 
wanted to say something damaging, both journals are in close communion 
and these were the most damaging with the Republican administration, 
things he could think of. and that both have been governed 

How much he succeeded in dam- during the campaign by the judg- 

aging Mr. Kernan by his campaign ment of the Republican leaders, 

slanders against Catholics, we can The editor of The Times enjoys the 

guess from the figures of the election, most intimate association with the 

Mr. Kernan received about 5,000 federal organization popularly known 

more votes for Governor than Mr. as the " Custom-house faction " in 

Greeley received in this State for Pres- New York City ; the editor of Har- 

ident; but he received 5,000 fewer pet's Weekly is the personal friend of 

than the candidate for Lieutenant- the President, and speaks the mind 

Governor on the same ticket. This of the President's chief advisers in 

loss is probably attributable directly Washington. If, then, these two 

to the anti-Catholic feeling, for Mr. papers have made a systematic as- 

Kernan is a gentleman to whom no sault upon the Catholic Church in 

personal objection could possibly be the midst of a sharp political contro- 

made except on religious grounds, versy, and have taken pains to give 

No doubt an equally large number their furious Protestantism a direct 

of voters were repelled, by the bigot- political bearing, the party for which 

ry The Times fostered, from support- they speak must be prepared to face 

ing the Democratic and Liberal the responsibility. It should be ob- 

ticket at all ; so that we shall not served, however, in justice to the 

pass the bounds of probability if we sensible and unprejudiced members 

estimate the fruit of prejudice and of the party, that Harper's Weekly, 

falsehood in this case as equivalent though it may have been encouraged 

to ten thousand votes. in its bitterness by partisan considera- 

Catholics are used to injustice, tions, did not draw from such motives 

and they are not quick to resent it. its first anti-Catholic inspiration. It 

In America, the church has prosper- has always been our enemy. A 

ed under every sort of obstacle and spirit, of commercial fanaticism, the 

discouragement short of the direct hatred of a religion which it will pay 

hostility of the government, and it is to abuse, has distinguished the firm 

not likely that her course will be of the Harpers ever since the public 

stayed by The New York Times, has known anything about them. 



760 American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 

The political campaign of 1872 made now known upon earth shall be 
no difference in the tone of their eventually overthrown. Empires, 
paper; it merely gave force, and con- kingdoms, republics, are all alike to 
centration, and regularity to the her. She was founded for all ages and 
attacks which had previously been all climes ; she was not created, as 
spasmodic. Mr. Eugene Lawrence seems to think 
How coarsely it attempted to turn she ought to have been, for the exclu- 
to political account the religious bi- sive benefit of the United States of 
gotry upon which it had always tra- America. This is a great country ; 
ded may be seen in an article en- but we presume that our constitution, 
titled " Our Foreign Church," pub- amendments and all, occupies but an 
lished in Harper's Weekly of the i4th insignificant place in the divine order 
of September last. The writer starts of the universe, 
with the assumption that all religious Obeying its heaven-appointed 
denominations in this country, except head, who did not see fit to choose 
" the Romish Church," patriotically either Europe or America for the 
renounced the authority of their place of his human birth, the Roman 
European rulers when the American Catholic Church in America, accord- 
republic was founded. The Metho- ing to Harper's Weekly, is 'a foreign 
dists " rejected the control in politi- body, and, therefore, dangerous (as 
cal and ecclesiastical matters of their all foreigners are) to the peace of so- 
founders "; the Presbyterians repudia- ciety. "It is loud in its denuncia- 
ted the General Assembly of Scotland; tions of American civilization;" it 
Episcopalians revolted from the " furnishes three-fourths of the crimi- 
Archbishop of Canterbury ; the Jews nals and the paupers who prey upon 
" threw themselves boldly into the the Protestant community " ; it never 
tide of American progress " ; while intermits its " attacks upon the prin- 
the Catholic Church alone stood ciples of freedom " ; and " its great 
aloof, and " refused to separate itself mass of ignorant voters have been 
from its European masters," and con- the chief source of our political ills." 
form its organization to the Declara- Moreover, " the unpatriotic conduct 
tion of Independence and the con- of the Romish population in our 
stitution of the United States. Ri- chief cities during the rebellion is 
diculous as this complaint sounds, it well known. They formed a con- 
is no burlesque, but a faithful synop- stant menace and terror to the loyal 
sis of the nonsense which Mr. Eu- citizens ; they thronged the ' peace 
gene Lawrence is permitted to print meetings ' ; they strove to divide the 
in Harper's Weekly. A church of Union; and when the war was 
divine origin, according to this pre- over they placed in office their cor- 
posterous person, is to change its rupt leaders, and plundered the im- 
divine laws to conform to the require- poverished community." We are 
ments of temporary human institu- almost ashamed to copy, even for 
tions ; and the political theories of the purpose of denouncing it, this in- 
Thomas Jefferson are to govern the suit to the memory of our dead Ca- 
ordinances of Jesus Christ. It is tholic soldiers. There is not a man 
the glory of the true church that she is in the United States who does not 
above all secular constitutions. She know of the noble share of these out- 
has seen the rise and fall of countless raged " Romish" troops in the terri- 
dynasties and states ; she will survive ble struggles of the civil war ; not a 
the ruin, if every form of government man who is ignorant of the splendid 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 



record of the Irish regiments under 
the Union flag on every hard-fought 
field from the first Bull Run to 
the last conflict before Richmond. 
" The Romish population of our 
chief cities " furnished the bone and 
sinew of more than one gallant army 
during those four sad years. They 
gave up their lives for the country of 
their birth or their adoption with a 
heroism that stirs every sensitive 
heart. Their priests followed the 
army on the march and into the 
fight. Their Sisters of Charity nurs- 
ed the wounded and the sick. The 
greatest of their prelates, aided by 
another bishop who is still living, 
spent the last remains of his strength 
in defending the cause of the Union 
in hostile foreign capitals. Nothing, 
in fine, could be more magnificent 
than the patriotism with which the 
adherents of this " foreign church " 
sacrificed life and fortune for their 
country during its hour of need ; and 
we have no language to define the 
infamy of endeavoring to make capi- 
tal for Gen. Grant by maligning the 
devoted men whom he led to death 
at Shiloh and in the wilderness, and 
whose bravery, we are sure, he 
would be the last man to depreciate. 
And now, continues the writer in 
the Weekly, as the Presidential elec- 
tion approaches, " our foreign church 
has assumed more openly than ever 
before the form of a political fac- 
tion." " Romish priests " and " Ro- 
mish bishops " have taken the field 
as the partisans of Mr. Greeley, " the 
candidate of disunion and of religious 
bigotry " / the italics are ours and 
the church is engaged in an attempt 
" to place the fallen slaveholders 
once more in power." For these 
statements we deliberately declare 
that there is no justification what- 
ever. Mr. Eugene Lawrence invented 
them out of his own bigotry and 
malice; and when he had the folly 



and insolence to threaten us, as he 
did at the close of his article, with 
" the vengeance of the people," he' 
added to his untruthfulness a degree 
of hypocrisy which we have rarely 
seen equalled even in the publica- 
tions of the house of Harper & 
Brothers. We say hypocrisy; but 
perhaps that is unfair. Mr. Law- 
rence may be silly enough to tremble 
at the bogies of his own devising. 
He may imagine that the rest of the 
world is as much afraid of the Pope 
as he is. He may fancy that the 
whole party of which he is such 
a hard-working member is burning 
with desire to take the Jesuits by the 
throat and hang them on the nearest 
lamp-post. If he did not suppose that 
a profitable market could be found 
for his sensational wares, he probably 
would not be at the trouble of the 
manufacture. If the " vengeance of 
the people " do not menace the 
Jesuits, it will certainly not be the 
fault of Mr. Lawrence. In the issue 
of the Weekly for Oct. 12, he had a 
furious narrative of " The Jesuit Cru- 
sade against Germany," the points 
of which are substantially these : 
The Jesuits, with the aid of the In- 
quisition (of which they are the di- 
rectors) and of a hired band of con- 
victs and brigands, obtained the ab- 
solute mastery of the city of Rome 
and the papal government. The 
wretched people " cowered before 
their Jesuit rulers," and within the 
crumbling walls of the guilty capital 
" priests and cardinals perpetrated 
their enormities unchecked and un- 
seen." They then, by means of their 
" lawless police," overpowered the 
(Ecumenical Council, and forced it, 
" by intimidation and bribes," to ac- 
cept the doctrine of infallibility, to 
curse liberty and education, and to 
set on foot a bloody crusade against 
political and intellectual freedom. 
This was in accordance with the Je- 



762 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 



suits' time-honored policy. " The 
fierce and fanatical Loyola " used to 
burn heretics in Spain and Italy, and 
taught his followers that no mercy 
should be shown to such offenders. 
It was the Jesuits who set on foot 
}he persecutions under Charles V. 
and Philip II., and " excited the un- 
paralleled horrors of the Thirty 
Years' War." In 1870, they were get- 
ting ready for a new religious war. 
Napoleon III. was their chief backer. 
In fact, the attack upon Germany in 
1870 was the result of a conspiracy 
between Rome and Paris, concluded 
at the council, and the purpose of 
the war was nothing less than the es- 
tablishment of the Jesuit Order on 
the ruins of prostrate Germany! 
For this scheme the Irish Catholics 
of Dublin, London, and New York 
" f urnis ned men, sympathy, and possi- 
bly money" And now that the con- 
spiracy has failed, and that the pa- 
pists of France have been beaten (in 
spite of all the sinews of war so lav- 
ishly furnished by the Irish laborers 
and servant-girls of New York), the 
Jesuits are getting up another Euro- 
pean convulsion. " The Romish 
Church, organized into a vast politi- 
cal faction, is stirring up war in Eu- 
rope, calls upon France to lead 
another religious crusade, and pro- 
mises the aid of all the chivalry 
of Catholicism in avenging the 
fall of Napoleon upon the German 
Empire." It purposes to involve 
all the great states of Europe in 
a common min, " and erect the 
Romish See upon the wrecks 
of the temporal empires." The pil- 
grimage of Lourdes is a part of this 
scheme. The Catholic Union is 
another. The International Society 
of Workingraen (of which the Jesu- 
its are the secret instigators !) is 
another. Mr. Lawrence exhibits the 
venerable fathers in the unfamiliar 
garb of communists, and substitutes 



the red cap for the beretta with all 
the effrontery and nonchalance in 
the world. The Order which in one 
column is the detested safeguard of 
absolutism becomes in the next the 
raving propagandist of social anar- 
chy, revolution, and universal demo- 
cracy. Can any rational person 
after this condescend to dispute with 
Mr. Lawrence ? 

As in the other cases to which we 
have referred, there was a political 
moral to this story also. If we would 
avert this horrible era of blood and fire, 
said Harper's Weekly, we must vote 
for General Grant, and stand up for 
the straight Republican ticket. Grant 
is the firm ally of Germany against 
Jesuitism. Grant is the champion of 
public schools against religious edu- 
cation. Grant is the enemy of all 
manner of Romish fraud and vio- 
lence. Greeley is the friend of priests 
and persecutors, the foe of the Bible 
and education, the accomplice of that 
infamous " Jesuit faction " which 
"would rejoice to tear the vitals of 
American freedom, and rend the 
breast that has offered it a shelter"; 
and if he should be elected the "Jesuit 
Society " would celebrate the victory 
" like a new S. Bartholomew, with 
bells, cannon, processions, prayers at 
the Vatican," and hasten "the rising 
of the Catholic chivalry ... in 
their sanguinary schemes against the 
peace and independence of Ger- 
many." Such was the wicked non- 
sense with which Harper's Weekly in 
the autumn of 1872 attempted to 
make political capital out of the igno- 
rance and bigotry of its readers. 

But this was not the worst. The 
Jesuits were not only conspirators 
against political and mental freedom, 
they were the principal enemies of the 
freed people of the South. Their so- 
ciety (risum teneatis, ainici) had " al- 
lied itself with the Ku-klux of Georgia 
and Mississippi"! And so infatuated 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 763 

was the Weekly with the monstrous commands from heaven ; and in the long 

folly of this tale that week after week catalogue of fearful deeds which history 

i. ^ A r\ ascribes to the disciples of Loyola, the first 

it returned to the same slander. On 

impulse to crime must always have come 

3ct. 26 it printed a portrait of the from the abso i ine head of the Order, and 

Most Reverend Father-General, ac- its single aim has always been to advance 

companied with one of the most out- the power of the Romish Church. Scarcely 

rageous pages of falsehood and defa- had its founder gained the favor of the 

,, T Pope, and fixed his seat at Rome, when 

mation ever put into type. In our he ^ eviyed thg Inquisition> Italy tre ' mbled 

country," says the author of the ar- be f re the spectacle of ceaseless autos-da- 

ticle, " the Jesuit faction has allied fe; the tortures and the cries of dying 

itself with the Ku-klux." " The heretics, the ruin of countless families, 

Jesuit Society assumes the guise of the flight of terrified and hopeless throngs 

v, v j , ,, , , from their native land to the friendly shel- 

liberalism, and cheers on the rebel tero f Germany and Switzerland, were the 

and Ku-klux in their plots against the earliest fruits of the relentless teachings 

Union." " In America the Jesuits of Loyola. The Jesuits led the armies of 

link themselves with the Ku-klux." the persecutors into the beautiful Vaudois 

They do this because they hate the valle > rs ; f nd the worst atrocities of that 

, .. , .. . , mournful example of human wickedness 

republic. They denounce, with are due to their F brutal fanaticism . Soon 

maledictions and threatemngs, the they spread from Italy through all the 

course of modern civilization." kingdoms of Europe ; everywhere they 

brought with them their fierce and cruel 

" The world is in danger from the mad hatred of religious freedom, their cunning, 

schemes of the triumphant society ; it is their moral degradation, their bold and 

rousing France to a new crusade with desperate policy. They ruled in courts ; 

omens and pilgrimages ; it threatens the they terrified the people into submission ; 

German Empire with a war more disas- they were the most active politicians of 

trous and destructive than Europe has their time ; their wealth was enormous ; 

ever seen. It summons its adherents to their schools and colleges spread from 

the polls in Italy ; it guides the elections Paris to Japan ; and for three centuries 

of Ireland, terrifies Spain, and even dis- the name of the Jesuits, covered with the 

turbs the repose of London ; and in our infamy of the massacres of the Vaudois, 

own country, so recently torn by civil war, the Huguenots, the Hollanders, and the 

the papal crusaders, linked by the tie of Germans, surrounded by its terrible mys- 

perfect obedience, stand ready to profit by tery, the symbol of a dark and dreadful 

our misfortunes, and to stimulate our in- association, has filled mankind with hor- 

ternal dissensions ; to crush those insti- ror and affright." 
tutions that have ever reproached their 

own despotism, and destroy that freedom The practical conclusion to be 

which is the chief obstacle to their per- drawn from all this rhetoric was that 

petual sway." everybody, and especially every Ger- 

. . , . ,, r 771 man ought to vote for Gen. Grant 
The picture which the Weekly draws " "" . .. 

r*i i -i i and the straight Republican anti- 

of these dangerous brethren is horrible 

i -i j Jesuit ticket. It was the Jesuits who 

enough to throw a child into fits : ** 

"nominated Mr. Greeley, a person 

"A dreadful mystery still hangs over known to be in friendly connection 

them. Their proceedings are secret, their w t ] 1 t j ie R om i sn leaders and closely 

purposes unknown. At the command of .. , , r . o1 *-** i TK 

r.i linked to the Papal L/nurcn. ine 
an absolute master, they wander swiftly . . 

among the throngs of their fellow-men, Jesuits " cover Grant with monstrous 

eager only to obey his voice. Obedience calumnies, and celebrate the erratic 

is to the Jesuit the first principle of his Greeley." " Let every German be- 

faith, instilled into his mind in youth, warg j est he j end a ^ to t j ie enemies 

perfected by th*e labors of his later years ; _ , . T _i i A-^ 

4 . t . of his country. Let him shrink irom 
he hears in the slightest intimations of his ' 

chief at Rome the voice of his God, the the support of any candidate who is 



;6 4 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 



maintained by the influence of the 
Jesuits." " We trust every sincere 
Protestant . . . will labor cease- 
lessly to defeat the schemes of the 
Jesuits, and drive their candidate back 
to a merited obscurity." And in the 
same number we find the following 
wicked paragraph : 

" A Jesuit, the Rev. Mr. Renaud, was 
appointed some time ago by Archbishop 
McCloskey to superintend the Romish 
interest in our city charities. The result 
was at once apparent. The Jesuits exci- 
ted a revolt in the House of Refuge. 
One of the keepers was murdered. One 
of the convicts was sent to the State pri- 
son. The rebellion was subdued ; but 
the Jesuits still defend the murderer, and 
assail with calumnies the House of Refuge, 
one of the most valuable and successful of 
our city institutions. This is a curious 
confirmation of that dangerous character 
of the Jesuit Society which is painted upon 
a larger scale in our article in the present 
number on ' The Jesuits.' " 

The next slander of the Weekly 
was to identify Tweed with the 
Jesuits. " When the Romish priests," 
says this astonishing journal (Nov. 
2, 1872), "at the command of their 
foreign master, began their assaults 
upon the public schools, they found 
a ready ally in the Tammany Society. 
. . . Tammany became the re- 
presentative of a foreign influence 
and a foreign church. It was Euro- 
pean rather than American. It 
teemed with the coarse prejudices, 
the dull ignorance, the intense moral 
blindness that to American sentiment 
are so repulsive, with that mental 
and moral feebleness that belongs to 
populations racked by the despot 
and oppressed by the priest." An 
infamous compact was now struck 
between Tammany and the Papal 
Church. The " Romanists " suppor- 
ted the political leaders in riotous li- 
cense, gross vices, and indecent cor- 
ruption ; while an enormous debt was 
laid upon the city " to satisfy the de- 
mands of the Romish priests." Thus 



Tammany, by the aid of its foreign 
allies, became despotic master of 

New York. 

" Covered with the ineffaceable stains 
of treason and of public robbery, its 
members attempted to rule by force, and 
in the spring of 1871 New York lay at 
the mercy of rebels, peculators, and foreign 
priests. The press was threatened, when- 
ever it complained, with violence, law- 
suits, and the frowns of infamous courts* 
The Common Council was imported from 
Ireland, and foreign assassins threatened 
the lives of those ardent citizens who 
planned reform." 

The overthrow of the Tweed and 
Connolly Ring was a stunning defeat 
for the Pope and his agents. The 
nomination of Greeley and Kernan 
(the one openly, the other secretly,- 
a slave of the Jesuits and the Inqui- 
sition) was a desperate attempt of 
the Jesuits to recover what they had 
lost. And then followed the usual 
homily, " Vote for Grant," etc. 

In this bitter political campaign 
against the church 'the writers for 
Harper's Weekly were zealously as- 
sisted by their artist, Mr. Thomas 
Nast. This individual has done 
more to degrade his profession than 
any other draughtsman we know of, 
except, perhaps, the makers of lascivi- 
ous pictures for some of the flash 
newspapers. He has made a prac- 
tice of ridiculing the religious belief 
of hundreds of thousands of honest 
people who came to America, as he 
did, from a foreign land, because 
America offers to all immigrants the 
fullest measure of political equality 
and religious freedom. It has been 
his pleasure to depict the priest inva- 
riably as a sleek, sensual, brutal, and 
repulsive rogue ; the bishop as a 
grim, overbearing, and cunning des- 
pot, or now and then as a crocodile 
crawling with open jaws towards a 
group of children. In the Weekly 
of Oct. 12, he represents Brother 



American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers. 765 

Jonathan attempting to sever the tie Now, \ve know very well that from 
which binds an American bishop to one point of view the introduction of 
the Pope, holding out, as he does so, these calumnies into politics was 
a naturalization paper inscribed fraudulent. Mr. Greeley certainly 
" This ends the foreign allegiance." had no leaning towards the Catholic 
The Pope has his arms full of papers: Church and no affiliations with Ca- 
" Orders to all state officials that are tholic leaders, arid Gen. Grant, we 
Roman Catholics "; " Down with the venture to affirm, is insensible to the 
American public schools"; "The bigotry which his unworthy followers 
promised land, U. S.," etc. ; and the brought up as a reason for his re- 
bishop carries similar documents : election. We have nothing to ask 
" Orders from the Pope of Rome to of any President, and we give our 
the Catholics in America"; "Vote votes according to our individual 
for Horace Greeley " ; " Vote for Ker- preferences. But while we do not 
nan; he is a Roman Catholic, and purpose acting as a religious body in 
will obey the orders of the church." any political movement, we do not 
Another picture, entitled " Swinging purpose either to be set aside by any 
around the circle," was intended to political party as an outlawed and 
represent all the disreputable fup- degraded people, upon whom venal 
porters of Mr. Greeley in company, pamphleteers and ignorant politicians 
"Free love and Catholicism " were may trample at pleasure. If party or- 
side by side, in the persons of Theo- gans take pains to attack us, and pour 
dore Tilton and a priest, and " Mass out, day after day, and week after 
and S. C." figured as a conventional week, their filthy libels upon us, the 
Irishman with one of the Ku-klux. party which sanctions such a warfare 
Mr. Kernan was drawn (Nov. 2) and tries to reap the fruits of it shall 
kneeling, in an abject attitude, at the bear the responsibility. The Catholics 
feet of the Pope ("Our Foreign of the United States are too numerous, 
Ruler"), and swearing, " I will do too intelligent, and too public-spirit- 
your bidding, as you are infallible"; ed to be treated with contempt by 
in the background stood a priest any faction, whether that faction call 
loaded with papal orders against the itself Liberal, or Republican, or 
public schools; and on the wall was a Democratic. We prefer, as we have 
copy of the forged handbill, with the often said before, to let the politi- 
legend, " For governor, Francis Ker- cians alone, and go our various ways 
nan," surrounding a black cross. In in quiet, some after one leader, some 
a picture of the " Pirates under False after another. But it may as well 
Colors," a priest with a cross held be understood that, if any of these 
aloft in one hand, and a tomahawk parties invite an irrepressible conflict 
half hidden in the other, is a conspic- with us, they will find out, we trust, 
uous figure in a gang of ruffians. In that we are not disposed to flinch 
another cartoon a vulgar-looking from the defence of our rights, which 
priest is seen sprinkling the ruins of are identical with the rights of all 
Tammany Hall with holy-water. other American citizens. 



;66 



Brussels. 



BRUSSELS. 

"There wa a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then 
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spoke again, 
And all went merry as a marriage bell ; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell !" 

Childe Harold. 



THE roar of cannon that ushered 
in the day of Waterloo the deadly 
Waterloo, big with the fate of em- 
pires the fatal Waterloo, that sealed 
the doom of the mighty conqueror, 
that hurled him on the prison-island 
in the far-distant ocean, where expia- 
tion could be the only consolation of 
the proud, haughty heart that knew 
no law but the iron will, which, 
irresistible to all else, was shivered 
on the Rock of Peter was not the 
first, and may not be the last, sound 
of fearful strife there heard, as Bel- 
gium has ever been the chosen battle- 
field of Europe. 

And so well is the fact recognized, 
that the sole condition on which she 
now exists as an independent state, 
is that of perfect neutrality. No 
matter what may be her sympathies, 
what may be her interests, she cannot 
take the sword : she can only defend 
her frontier, and prevent the entrance 
of either friend or foe. This it is 
that gives her importance ; her cen- 
tral position, which makes her the 
key of the Continent, causes England 
to watch over her with tender in- 
terest, gives the mistress of the seas 
a pied-a-terre in case of a general 
war a contingency which may arise 
at any moment. 

The late King Leopold I., the Nes- 
tor of the European sovereigns, held 
an exceptional position ; the head of 
one of the smallest states, he had 



perhaps the largest personal influence. 
His sagacity and experience made his 
advice sought and respected by all. 
When, in the revolution of 1848, 
thrones were tumbling down, and 
kings flying in every direction, of 
course Brussels had to follow the pre- 
vailing fashion, and, without knowing 
exactly what was wanted, the Bruxel- 
lois assembled around the palace ; but 
before they could state their grievan- 
ces, Leopold appeared upon the bal- 
cony, told them there was no neces- 
sity of any demonstration ; he had 
come to Brussels at their invitation, 
and was ready to leave, if his de- 
parture would make them happier. 
Whereupon they reconsidered the 
question, and concluded to let well 
enough alone. 

After the separation of Holland 
and Belgium, Brussels increased 
rapidly, and is now one of the 
pleasantest capitals in Europe. The 
new part of the city, the Quartier 
Leopold, is a beautiful faubourg, and 
the boulevards that encircle the city 
with a belt of green verdure, furnish 
a delightful promenade. The park, 
a portion of the forest of Soignies, is 
charming; the great trees meet in 
arches, and shade the crowds of 
ladies and children, who live in the 
open air on fine days. On Sundays, 
the military bands play from 2 to 3 
P.M.; and every summer evening, 
from the ist of June to the ist of 



Brussels. 767 

September, the orchestra of the Montagne de la Cour and the Ma- 
Grand Opera gives concerts in the deleine is a feast for the eye, for 
kiosk of the Quinconce, the flower- lace making is one of the fine arts ; 
garden of the park. the large houses employ three or four 
Life in Brussels is very pleasant, first-class artists to draw the designs, 
easy, and independent; all the ap- and, as the competition is great, the 
pliances of modern civilization are efforts to surpass are immense. In 
within reach, botanical and zoologi- making up a bride's trousseau, it is 
cal gardens, picture galleries, thea- etiquette for the mother of the bride 
tres; the opera is a permanent fact, to give the white laces, the happy 
at a reasonable rate ; the orchestra bridegroom the black ; and the prices 
led by Hansscns (recently departed where the parties are wealthy run up 
for another world) was admirable ; to an enormous amount, 
numbered among the violinists De The gold embroideries are equally 
Beriot, blind, but playing always with beautiful ; in one fabrique we saw a 
rare skill, and the other artists were set of vestments just finished for the 
of equal merit. Of late years Brus- Cathedral of Tournai ; they were for 
sels has become a. foyer for disconten- Lent, and were violet, with the instru- 

ted spirits merits of the Passion exquisitely done 

in raised embroidery. The effect 

'' k .$i U .SV5!' 1 ' was admirable; on the back of the 

Mingle, mingle, mingle, chasuble was the cross with the spear 

You that mingle may." j ,1 j r 

and the sponge, and so perfect was 

And mingle they do without fear the sponge it seemed as though it 

of mouchards, and air their opinions, could be grasped. The column was on 

no matter how wild and dangerous. If the front of the vestment. It was a 

they go a little too far, the govern- complete set for priest, deacon, and 

ment or persons attacked interchange sub-deacon, with five copes, so that 

a few diplomatic notes with the Bel- the artist had full opportunity for the 

gian authorities, and then the police display of his talent. The same 

politely request them either to be house had recently sent off the dresses 

silent or try another dwelling-place, for the Empress of Austria and the 

Prim was for a long time resident, but ladies of her court, to be worn when 

one fine morning was advised to take they walked in the procession on the 

his departure, as his intrigues were Feast of Corpus Christi. Specimens 

becoming too open and dangerous, of the embroidery, which was of silver 

but had been kept secret long enough on white satin, were shown us, and, 

to lay the mine that exploded and judging by what we saw, the effect 

blew the Queen of Spain into France ; of the whole must have been charm- 

and Henri Rochefort, driven from ing. 

France, issued his Lanterne, which The Musee Ancien is devoted to 

threw light on many facts then the artists of the past. Hubert and 

thought to be false, but which events Jean Van Eyck, whose discovery of 

proved to have been only too true. the use of oil in mixing colors revolu- 

Brussels is a paradise for women lionized art, are represented by the 

of taste; for where else can be found " Adam and Eve " and the " Adora- 

such laces and fairy webs, such gar- tion of the Magi." Holbein's por- 

nitures of point de Bnixelles, of trait of Sir Thomas More is worthy 

Valenciennes, of Malines, of Du- of the subject and the artist. Crayer's 

chesse ? A morning stroll down the Saints and Martyrdoms abound ; one, 



;68 



Brussels. 



the " Apparition of Our Lord to S. 
Julien," illustrates the beautiful legend 
of S. Julien and his wife, S. Basilisse, 
who founded a hospital, where they 
received and tended the sick poor. 
One winter night, hearing sighs and 
groans at the door, S. Julien went 
out, and found a man nearly frozen 
to death. He carried him in, warmed 
him before the fire, restored him to 
consciousness, and then laid him in 
his own bed. The next morning the 
holy couple went in to see their guest. 
The bed was empty, and, as they ap- 
proached it, Jesus, for it was he who 
had taken the form of the poor sick 
man to try their charity, appeared to 
them, and said, " Julien, I am your 
Lord and Saviour, who announces to 
you that ere long you and your wife 
will repose in God." 

The " Martyrdom of S. Peter," by 
Van Dyck, is terrible. The saint is 
fastened to the cross, and three men 
are placing it in the ground. One, 
kneeling, is endeavoring to push the 
end of the cross into the hole pre- 
pared to receive it, another supports 
the cross on his shoulders, the third 
steadies it. Meanwhile, all the blood 
in S. Peter's body seems to have de- 
scended into his head and face, which 
is brick-dust color, and looks as though 
it would burst. Altogether it is a 
fearful picture, so lifelike that one 
waits to hear the thump the cross 
will give when finally placed. Such 
pictures make us appreciate our 
feather-bed Christianity, the com- 
fortable way we try to gain heaven 
and at the same time keep up an 
agreeable acquaintance with the 
world, and perhaps its friend, the 
devil. 

The finest Rubens in this Musee is 
" Christ ascending Calvary." It is 
when he is met by S. Veronica and 
some other women, who are magni- 
ficently dressed, thus making the con- 
trast greater between them and the 



exhausted, blood-stained figure of 
Our Lord, who is sinking beneath the 
weight of the cross, and the ago- 
nized face of his blessed Mother, 
who, supported by S. John, is 
advancing with outstretched hands 
to the assistance of her beloved 
One. 

The flower-pieces by Seghers, the 
famous Jesuit painter, are exquisite; 
interiors by Cuyp and Teniers, dis- 
playing their delicate care and finish, 
are numerous ; pictures by Rem- 
brandt, with all his wonderful effects 
of light and shade; some charming 
faces by Velasquez two lovely little 
girls hand-in-hand, who look as if 
they would step out of the frame and 
speak; two splendid half-lengths of 
Albert and Isabella, by Rubens, whose 
portraits are always admirable ; and 
some very good specimens of the 
Italian school, among which are a 
Madonna of Sassoferrato, and a por- 
trait of a young woman, by Guer- 
cina, which is very beautiful. 

The Musee Moderne is a collection 
of the modern Belgian school, which 
deservedly ranks among the first. 
" Hagar in the Desert," by Navez, is 
as touchingly beautiful as any of 
the masterpieces of the great past; 
Leys, Wiertz, Gallait, Portaels, whose 
" Fuite en Egypte " is found every- 
where, are men whose genius is recog- 
nized by all Europe; Van Schendel 
has produced effects of light as re- 
markable as Rembrandt; Willems 
and Stevens in finish rival Cuyp and 
Teniers; and Verboekhoven's cattle- 
pieces are unsurpassed. Art is en- 
couraged and fostered by the govern- 
ment ; every year there is a grand 
competition for the " Prix de Rome " ; 
a committee is appointed by the 
crown to decide upon the merit of 
the pictures, and the successful one 
receives the Prix de Rome, which is 
four thousand francs, a sum sufficient 
to maintain a student in Rome, in 



Brussels. 769 

artist style, three years, while he con- ed to give way at any moment to 

tinues his studies. expediency, but realities plain and 

Brussels is comparatively modern j palpable, upon which depended not 

it was a mere village when M alines, only this perishable present, but the 

Louvain, and other towns had ac- never-ending future, with its eternity 

quired importance. In 1005, it passed of weal or woe. As men were ex- 

by marriage into the possession of the pected to live up to their principles, 

Comtes de Louvain, under whom it so were they expected to die for 

rapidly increased ; in 1040, it was them. It is a high standard by 

surrounded by massive walls, of which which to live, but it is the safest. We 

some portions still remain in the gar- fancy nowadays that the cruelty 

den of the Cure of S. Gudule. In then dealt out for thoughts and 

1106, Comte Godfrey le Barbu ac- opinions was abominable, but we 

quired the title of Due de Brabant, forget that those ideas, those thoughts, 

but Louvain continued the most im- produced the frightful effects of the 

portant town in the duchy, and pre- ravages of the Gueux, of the orgies 

served the title of capital until the of John of Leyden; that from religious 

time of Albert and Isabella, who pre- they degenerated into social excesses 

ferred Brussels on account of its of the lowest kind excesses which, if 

healthful climate and the vicinity of prolonged, would have reduced 

the well-stocked forest of Soignies. Christian Europe to Vandal barba- 

The Grande Place of Brussels is rism. 

unique; any change is forbidden by And so the brave, unfortunate 
law; as it has been for generations, Comte d'Egmont, the hero, whose 
so it must remain ; and when one de- valor contributed so signally to the 
scends suddenly from the park and brilliant victory of Philip II. at St. 
boulevards, brilliant and gay with all Quentin, lost his life for having tam- 
the sparkle of modern life, into the pered with the political sectaries, or 
Grande Place, it is like another world, rather by being led into the snare by 
The Hotel de Yille is on one side; the Prince of Orange ; when too late, 
opposite is the Maiscn du Roi, he saw his error, which was only po- 
adorned with a statue of the Blessed litical ; his faith he ever kept pure 
Virgin, beneath which is the legend, and untarnished. The Prince of 
A Feste, Fame et Bello, libera tws, Orange, on the eve of leaving Brus- 
Maria Facts, placed there in 1625 by sels to join the enemy in Germany, 
Isabella in gratitude to our Lady of urged him to go, but Egmont re- 
Peace, for having delivered the city fused; the prince told him if he re- 
from plague, famine, and war. In the mained he would be lost; that he 
place immediately below, is the noble was a fool to run the risk. Friends 
monument erected in reparation to the until then, they parted in anger, 
memory of the unfortunate Comtes Egmont spurned him, and said, 
d'Egmont and de Homes, on the " Adieu, prince sans terre " ; the 
spot on which, as the inscription prince replied, " Adieu, comte sans 
runs, "they were unjustly executed tete " words which were too fatally 
by the decree of the cruel Due verified soon after. The Maison du 
d'Albe." Roi is now occupied by the Cercle 

It was unjust and cruel, but still Art-istique et Litteraire, and it was in 

we cannot judge the past by a small room in the second story 

the present. Then, principles were that Comte d'Egmont passed the 

positive facts, not vagaries expect- night preceding his death, and wrote 

VOL. XVI. 40 



Brussels. 

those touching farewell letters to his The first story of the Hotel de 

wife and the King of Spain which Ville contains a gallery in which are 

reveal the nobleness of his character, magnificent full-length portraits of 

The famous picture by Gallait, " La Philippe le Beau, Charles V., Philip 

tte d'un supplicie," is a portrait .of II., Albert and Isabella, and other 

Egrnont. We have seen the original dignitaries ; the council-room, audi- 

in the atelier of Gallait, and he as- ence-chamber, and all the other 

sured us it was an accurate resem- apartments are splendidly ornament- 

blance. Requiescat in pace. ed, the walls hung with Gobelin 

The Hotel de Ville on the Grande tapestry, representing scenes in the 

Place is the finest of the municipal life of Clovis and Clotilda. The 

palaces found in almost every city ceiling of the council-chamber is a 

of Belgium. It is built round a masterpiece of Janssens, in which 

quadrangle, and the oldest part is the the most extraordinary effects of 

wing to the east of the tower, com- light and shade are produced; it 

menced in 1402, at the angles of represents an assembly of the gods, 

which are elegant turrets ; the fa- and their majesties vary in their posi- 

gade consists of a gallery of open tions as they are seen from different 

arches, surmounted by the Grande points. 

Breteque, a balcony from whence The remainder of the Grande 

proclamations were made ; above Place is lined with venerable old 

this are two rows of windows, and houses, terminating -in fantastic 

.-an enormous battlemented roof, gables, most of which were originally 

pierced with thirty-seven dormer the halls of various guilds and corpo- 

windows. rations; their fagades pierced with 

The tower is 330 feet high; the numerous odd little windows and 

lower half, from the basement to the covered with quaint designs, bass-re- 

: summit of the roof, is square; the up- liefs, pilasters, balustrades, and in- 

per part, built in 1444,13 octagonal, scriptions; some of the houses are 

.surmounted by a magnificent spire gilded, which adds to the picturesque 

of open-work, remarkable for its appearance of the place,, and on the 

lightness and delicacy; on its apex summit of the Brewers' Guild is a 

is fixed a table of stone, twelve feet fine equestrian statue of Prince 

in circumference, and on this stone Charles of Lorraine the good prince, 

a globe of copper, supporting a co- as he is still affectionately called. 

-lossal figure of S. Michael trampling In mediaeval times, the Grande 

on the devil, thirteen feet high, made Place was the ordinary scene of 

-of a number of thin plates of copper- tournaments and executions; here 

gilt, in 1454, which serves as a the Knights of the Golden Fleece 

weathercock, and turns with the held their brilliant reunions, and 

least breath of wind. There is a Philip 1'Asseure and Charles V. gave 

shocking tradition, currently reported, splendid fetes, which in the reign of 

but not positively confirmed, that the Philip II. were succeeded by very 

architect of the beautiful tower hung different scenes, under the stern rule 

himself on its completion, because he of the Due d'Albe. 

'had not placed it exactly in the cen- Just behind the Hotel de Ville, at 

'tre of the fagade; which certainly did the corner of the Rue du Chene and 

j not remedy the evil, as putting him- the Rue de 1'Etuve, is the beloved 

self out of the world did not put the little statue of the " Premier Bour- 

tower in the right place. geois de Bruxelles." The present 



Brussels. 77 r 

bronze statue, after a model by Du- was taken away in a baggage- wagon 
quesnoy, was made in 1619, and this by the English troops after the battle 
replaced an old stone statue which of Fontenoy, and, on being recovered, 
is said to have existed in the IXth was allowed for a short time to de- 
century. Its origin is not known, light by his presence the inhabitants 
but the favorite tradition is that it of Grammont, until he was reclaim- 
represents a youthful Due de Bra- ed by the Bruxellois. In 1747, he 
bant, whose father dying left him an was stolen by some soldiers of Louis 
infant of three years under the re- XV., and again a few years later by 
gency of his mother, the Duchesse two English soldiers, who, however, 
Lutgarde. The neighboring Comte found him too heavy to carry away ; 
de Malines coveted the fair inherit- the last time he was disturbed was in 
ance, declared war against the boy- 1817, but the same good fortune at- 
duc, and approached Brussels, de- tended him, and he was again recov- 
tennined to take it by force of arms, ered, to the great joy of the Bruxel- 
The Brabansons flew to defend the lois, who look upon him as the good 
rightful heir, and, when the decisive genius of the city, and consider his 
day arrived, they besought the loss a public calamity, 
duchesse to let them carry the little In the XVIth century, Louvain 
fellow in his cradle, and suspend it and Brussels gave him two splendid 
from a great oak-tree that overlook- dresses for fete-days; Charles V. pre- 
ed the battle-field. The duchesse sented him with a complete suit, and 
in tears consented, accompanied settled a pension on him. In 1698, 
them to the field of Ransbeek, and the Elector of Bavaria not only gave 
remained by the tree, from the high- him a uniform, but invested him with 
est branch of which the cradle was a military order, and appointed a 
suspended. valet-de-chambre to wait on him. 
The battle raged with fury ; three Peter the Great visited him, and 
times the Brabanc.ons were driven added to his pension. In 1747, 
back to the tree, but the sight of the Louis XV. made him a knight, and 
brave little boy, who looked on with solemnly decorated him with the 
intense interest, never exhibiting fear Order of S. Louis, at the same t ; me 
or impatience, spurred them on to presenting him with a suit of gold- 
fresh efforts ; at last the day was won, laced uniform, a chapean-bros, and a 
and the cradle carried back in tri- sword; and in 1780 he was the first 
umph to Brussels, the duchesse ra- who wore the national cockade of 
diant with joy. To commemorate Brabant, hence his present title, " Le 
the event, the oak-tree was trans- Premier Bourgeois de Bruxclles." 
planted to Brussels, placed at the On national fetes, and during the 
corner of a street, since then called Kermesse in July, he is always dress- 
Rue du Chene, and the statue erect- ed in the uniform of the Garde Ci- 
cd at its side; in the course of time, vique, which he has worn since 
the tree has disappeared, but the 1830, his numerous orders displayed 
statue remains, the object of undying on his infant breast. In addition to 
love and interest. To steal it is these gifts, several persons have made 
considered an impossibility ; in 1585, him presents, while some have ac- 
he was seized and carried off to Ant- tually remembered him in their wills, 
werp, but was speedily recaptured He thus possesses a positive revenue 
and brought home in triumph by a which is regularly paid, a treasurer 
small party of Bruxellois ; again he who is responsible for his disburse- 



772 



Brussels. 



ments, a lawyer, and a valet-de-cham- 
bre; and let any stranger beware 
of ever speaking disrespectfully or 
slightingly to any Bruxellois of the 
" Premier Bourgeois de Bruxelles " ! 

Brussels abounds in charitable in- 
stitutions and convents of every or- 
der ; some are peculiar to the place. 
There is but one house in the world of 
the " Dames de Berlaimont " -an or- 
der of can on esses who follow the rule 
of S. Augustine and it was found- 
ed by the Comtesse de Berlaimont, 
whose husband was one of the great 
officers of the court of Charles V. It 
is eminently aristocratic in its design. 
Any number of quarterings was re- 
quired for the fair candidates in the 
palmy days of the old regime, but 
ideas have been modified by the 
wheel of the revolution, and now, if 
the head and heart are right, whether 
the blood is more or less blue is not 
strictly considered. The convent is 
splendid, the canonesses charm- 
ing, and the education received by 
the young ladies under their charge 
leaves nothing to be desired. 

Convents of Poor Clares are now 
few and far between ; one is still found 
in Brussels. The rule is very strict the 
strictest, we believe, for women in the 
world, not even excepting those of 
the Trappistines and Carmelites. It 
is forbidden to see strangers, but the 
superioress graciously relented in our 
favor, drew aside the heavy serge 
curtain behind double iron grilles 
armed with spikes, and told us we 
could look at her, but not speak. 
This announcement was made before 
the curtain was drawn. We kept pro- 
found silence, and for a few moments 
contemplated the figure, that stood 
motionless and speechless. What 
could have carried her there, from 
family, from home with all its 
charms ? At the moment of solemn 
choice, the world enters but little 
into the thoughts : it is the strong ties 



that God and nature have implanted 
in the human heart that are the 
hardest to unloose. 

She had left all for the rigid rule, 
for the self-denying life, of a Poor 
Clare ; the happy unbroken sleep of 
youth for the broken night of prayer 
and meditation ; and, when sleeping, 
not even to lie down, but to sit half- 
upright ; to go barefooted, never to 
touch meat, never to speak only ' 
imagine it, a woman, and never to 
speak ! never to her fellow-beings 
ever to God. It was for him she had 
left home and friends, to find her eter- 
nal home and the never-failing Friend; 
to be thirteen hours a day in prayer 
and adoration before the Blessed 
Sacrament, to expiate by her life the 
sins of the world around her. It is 
a wonderful life, a supernatural life ; 
but, when truly desired, supernatural 
grace is given to lead it courageously 
to the grave. 

*_- 

The oldest church in Brussels is 
Notre Dame de la Chapelle, in the 
Rue Haute, which derives its name 
from having been at first a simple 
oratory in which the great S. Boni- 
face, the apostle of Germany, had 
said Mass. The style is Gothic, and 
recently the choir, which is very fine, 
has been restored ; it had been dis- 
figured by an atrocious high altar in 
the style of the .Renaissance ; but in 
this reign of good taste it was de- 
cided to remove it, and in making 
the changes it was found there was a 
false wall, which, on being destroyed, 
disclosed the beautiful circle of the 
apse, which is remarkable for having 
the presbyterium and the credence- 
table cut in the wall, something that 
has only been found in two other 
churches one in France, another in 
Germany. 

Notre Dame des Victoires or 
Notre Dame du Sablon, as it is more 
generally called from its situation on 
the Place du Petit Sablon is in the 



Brussels. 



773 



form of a Latin cross, with a polygo- 
nal apse to the choir. The Place du 
Petit Sablon during several centuries 
was the favorite residence of the 
aristocracy, and is yet surrounded by 
the Hotel de Merode, and the pal- 
ace of the Due d'Aremberg, which 
was formerly occupied by Comte 
d'Egmont. Consequently in this 
church the monuments are very fine, 
especially the mortuary chapel of the 
Princes of Tour and Taxis, in which 
is an exquisite statue of S. Ursula, 
by Duquesnoy, and the tombs of the 
De Homes, d'Egmonts, and De 
Chimay. 

,The beautiful collegiate church of 
SS. Michel and Gudule is built on a 
height formerly called Mont St. Mi- 
chel, and its great towers dominate 
the city, and can be seen from every 
point. Its plan is cruciform. The 
choir is entirely surrounded by 
chapels, from which it is separated 
by double rows of columns; on one 
side is the Chapel du Saint-Sacre- 
ment de Miracle, on the other the 
Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, behind 
that of S. Mary Magdalen. It is a 
magnificent church, one of the rich- 
est in Belgium, and the vestments and 
appointments are superb. The laces 
are a treasure in themselves iaces 
which now cannot be bought, are 
used in the sanctuary, and the vest- 
ments and antependiums are of cor- 
responding magnificence. One an- 
tependium, which is the Lamb sur- 
rounded by the symbols of the four 
evangelists, is considered the finest 
piece of embroidery in Belgium. 

But the glory of S. Gudule is not 
the gold, and silver, and lace, but 
the Tres-Saint-Sacrement de Miracle, 
which is there preserved, and which 
is the object of the profoundest love 
and veneration. For it did Charles 
V. build the exquisite chapel whose 
four splendid windows were presents 
from his sisters, the Queens of Portugal 



and Hungary, his brother Ferdinand. 
King of the Romans, and Francis I. 
of France. Sovereigns, princes, no- 
bles, and people for five hundred 
years have adored the sacred Body 
of our Lord, so cruelly profaned and 
outraged by the Jews, on Good Fri- 
day of 1370, who on that day, the 
day of Redemption, assembled in 
their synagogue, and stabbed the con- 
secrated hosts stolen from S. Cathe- 
rine's, and, when they stabbed them, 
the blood which had ilowed for them 
on Calvary, flowed again beneath 
their sacrilegious hands. 

Day and t night reparation is 
offered ; the synagogue is now 
a chapelle expiatoire, attached to 
which is a community for perpetual 
adoration, and the Confrerie du Tres- 
Saint-Sacrement de Miracle, estab- 
lished in S. Gudule. embraces thou- 
sands. The Due d'Aremberg gave 
the monstrance, which is a cross of 
diamonds, surmounted by a triple 
crown of diamonds, from which 
hangs a little ship of the same pre- 
cious stones, presented by the cap- 
tain and crew of a vessel, in grati- 
tude for delivery from shipwreck. 
Marie Antoinette sent her wedding 
necklace of diamonds to be suspen- 
ded around it, and the lamps around 
the sanctuary are kept burning by the 
children of the family d'Aremberg. 

The great ornament of the nave 
is the pulpit, elaborately and ex- 
quisitely carved in oak by Verbruggen 
in 1699, originally in the church of 
the Jesuits, in Louvain, and, on the 
suppression of the Order, given to S. 
Gudule by Maria Theresa, in 1776. 
The lower part represents the expul- 
sion of Adam and Eve from Paradise 
by the angel of the Lord, armed with 
a flaming sword. On the left is seen 
Death gliding around with his dart. . 
The pulpit itself, in the hollow of the 
globe, is supported by the tree of 
knowledge, crawling up which is the 



774 



Brussels. 



serpent, while on the extreme summit 
stands the Blessed Virgin holding 
her divine Son, whom she is assisting 
to bruise the serpent's head with 
a laree cross. On either side the 

O 

railing of the steps is formed by a 
hedge in which numerous birds are 
enjoying themselves; on the side of 
Adam are the eagle, the jay, and a 
monkey; while in the vicinity of Eve 
are the peacock, the ape, and the 
parrot. 

And why these birds are there is 
the result of a little domestic disagree- 
ment between the artist 'Henri Ver- 
bruggen and his wife .Martha Van 
Meeren, whom he married, hoping to 
find a tenth muse, but who only 
proved a prosaic everyday somebody, 
who fretted herself to death because 
Henri loved pleasure even more than 
art, and, while amusing himself with 
his friends, forgot there was no money 
in the house, nothing in the larder, 
nothing wherewith to dress Mme. and 
Mile. Verbruggen. Poor Martha, who 
loved order, and would have been 
the treasure of some honest burgher, 
only provoked and irritated Henri by 
her occasional plain statement of 
facts. Affairs were in this sad con- 
dition when the Jesuits of Lou vain, 
knowing the splendid talent of Ver- 
bruggen, ordered a pulpit for their 
church. The artist was enchanted. 
Here was a field for his genius ; he 
immediately conceived an admirable 
work, which should contain, as in a 
book, the whole history of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

Said he, " I will make a globe, 
which will represent the earth, under 
which I will place Adam and Eve, 
the moment after their fatal disobe- 
dience, which entailed on us such 
misery. This globe will be the pulpit, 
the canopy of heavenwill cover it, 
the tree of knowledge will overshadow 
it, around which will creep the ser- 
pent, and above, Mary, crowned with 



stars, the moon at her feet, her infant 
Son before her, will bruise the serpent's 
head ' with the cross. By the side of 
the man I will place the cherubim 
with the flaming sword ; near the 
woman, young and beautiful, hideous 
death that will be a contrast ! " 

The artist commenced his work 
with ardor. The wood grew animated 
beneath his fingers. But pleasure for* 
ever distracted him ; the more people 
admired, the more he amused himself. 
Martha was miserable; she could see 
no hope of order and plenty. Irri- 
tated by the complaints of his wife, 
Verbruggen determined to revenge 
himself in his chef-tVceuvre, and so 
perpetuate his vengeance. He was 
making the stairs of the pulpit. In his 
angry malice, Verbruggen thought he 
would punish Martha by placing 
satirical emblems to characterize 
women. On the staircase, by the side 
of Eve, who has just sinned, and who 
still holds the apple, he placed, as 
symbols, a peacock for pride, a squir- 
rel for destructiveness, a cock for 
noise, an ape for malice four defects 
of which poor Martha was totally 
innocent. 

Man he made with pleasure. On 
his side he placed, first, an eagle, to 
typify genius but just then Martha 
bade adieu to the world and her 
troubles, and Verbruggen was a happy 
widower. Too late, the sculptor un- 
derstood his loss ; the gentle, patient 
wife was gone, and now he only re- 
membered her good qualities ; his 
courage and energy forsook him ; he 
could not w r ork. Months rolled 
on; his friends pitied him, and tried 
to rouse him from his deep despon- 
dency. 

" You weep for Martha," said they; 
" there are others as good ; you are 
only thirty-six marry Cecile Byns. 
She is joyous and lively like you. She 
will be a mother to your daughter, a 
charming companion for you." 



Brussels. 775 

Verbruggen listened to the good " Not at all," interrupted Cecile. 

advice; he asked the hand of Cecile "The eagle is a bird of prey, an emblem 

Byns, who was one of those women of brutal tyranny. What do you in- 

that rule while laughing, that carry tend adding ?" 

the point while appearing to submit. Verbruggen was silent. Cecile con- 

Cecile knew her power over Ver- tinued : " To be just to men, as you 

bruggen, and made him obey. fancied you were towards us, you will 

" I love you," said she, " but I will place near the eagle a fox, a symbol 

not marry you until the work which of vain gossip ; a monkey eating 

will make me proud of the name of grapes, for drunkenness; a jay, for 

Verbruggen is finished." foolish pride. You must avow, my 

"Only say the word," replied dear Verbruggen, these defects belong 

Henri, " and I will complete it." to men as much as the faults you have 

Accompanied by her mother, she given to us, and which adorn the 

visited his atelier. She asked the ex- other staircase. And now, when this 

planation of the emblems he had great work is completed, I will ac- 

placed on the side of Eve. The company you to the altar." 

sculptor blushed. The sculptor did not reply. He 

" When I made what astonishes obeyed, fulfilled faithfully the orders 

you," he stammered, " I did not given, and received for reward the 

know Cecile Byns." hand of Cecile Byns ; since which 

" Very well," replied the young happy event he was never known to 

lady; " but after the symbols of our offer any further insult to .the devout 

defects, which perhaps we have not, female sex. 

how do you intend to designate your And so the pulpit was finished and 

own noble sex ? ' placed in the church of the Jesuits in 

" I had just commenced," he an- Louvain, where it was the object of 

swered, blushing redder than before, universal admiration, as it still con- 

" You already see the eagle, perhaps tinues to be in beautiful S. Gudule 

it typifies vanity." the pride and joy of Brussels. 



SAYINGS OF S. JOHN CLIMACUS. 

IT is better to displease our rela- A new wound is easily closed and 

tives than displease God. healed ; but the old wounds of the 

Obedience is simply going about soul are cured, if ever, with great 

anything without any judgment of difficulty, 

our own. He is truly virtuous who expects 

Let your conscience be the mirror his death every day ; but he is a 

in which you behold the nature of saint who desires it every hour, 
your obedience. 



7/6 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 



MARRIAGE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

44 Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass." Matt. xxiv. 35. 



IT is only truth that is immutable 
in this world, and only truth's repre- 
sentative that dare speak to-day the 
same language it spoke eighteen, 
twelve, or three centuries ago. 

Truth cannot progress, for it par- 
takes of the nature of God's perfec- 
tion ; it is not an ideal of our own 
evolving, susceptible of improvement 
as our knowledge grows wider, but 
a type towards which we are, on the 
contrary, making slow stages of as- 
similation. Of all individual parts 
of truth, hardly one of which remains 
in our day unassailed, none is so 
fiercely attacked as the truth about 
marriage. And yet, as we have 
shown in a previous paper,* almost 
every argument against it has repeat- 
edly been put forward by barbarians 
and Romans, Byzantine emperors 
and feudal chiefs, and borne out by 
all the imposing display of military 
force, legal servility, and even eccle- 
siastical truculence. One might al- 
most say of the agitation against 
marriage in our day, " What has been 
will be, and what will be has been." 
If it is no longer in the individual 
passions of kings and nobles that the 
conflict centres, it is still a " sover- 
eign " who plays the part of Philip 
Augustus or Henry VIII. the" sov- 
ereign people." Instead of one 
mighty colossus, it is a legion of 
personally obscure individuals which 
the church finds opposed to her; but 
the principle is the same, the issue is 
identical. What councils and em- 
bassies did formerly is now done 

' The Church the Champion of Marriage," 
CATHOLIC WORLD, February, 1873. 



oftener and in privacy ; new agencies 
have widened the possibilities of 
communication, of discussion, and of 
adjustment, and causes are more 
rapidly multiplied, as well as more 
speedily settled. The press has lent 
its power to the altar, and redeemed, 
in part, its too well-earned reputation 
as a pander and a tempter ; and be- 
sides these new helps, we have, as of 
old, all those oft-tried resources of 
personal eloquence, canonical cen- 
sures, and grievous penances. 

Still the question is exactly the 
same in the nineteenth as it was in 
all preceding centuries : Shall pas- 
sion or reason rule mankind ? Shall 
the most sacred of all rights of pro- 
perty be protected and maintained, 
or shall communism be allowed 
gradually to extirpate the human 
race ? 

The historian Rohrbacher, whom 
we have often quoted in the paper 
referred to above, specially insists 
upon the confusion which the legal- 
ized disruption or total disregard of 
the marriage vow would introduce 
into society, and supports his opin- 
ion by that of De Maistre. He also 
adduces the argument that, since the 
creation of man in the earthly Para- 
dise was a perfect and complete act, 
and only one woman was there join- 
ed to one man, therefore the union 
of one man and one woman was dis- 
tinctly God's type of what he meant 
all future unions to be. We might 
speak of many Scripture proofs of 
the original institution of marriage 
being a state of perpetual monogamy 
until death, but such proofs would 






Marriage in the Nineteenth Ctntury. 777 

involve too lengthy a sketch of one fidelity stand out nobly as the 

portion of the subject, and this as- themes of his especial admiration, 

pect has been so often discussed that It would require a thorough examin- 

we turn with a feeling of relief to ation of many of the passages of the 

any less hackneyed view of the ques- Iliad, and greater space than we 

tion. have now before us (since this idea 

Speaking broadly, we may say can only be used here as a collateral 
that the Hebrews were the first, as one), to bring out the full force of this 
they were for a long time the only, striking fact, and some day perhaps 
people whose laws protected both it may be our good fortune to return 
the honor and the property of wo- to this topic; suffice it to say at pre- 
men. Because they did so, they sent, that any one who reads Homer 
were also most stringent as regards attentively will be struck by the ma- 
the tie of marriage. Again, with jestic attitude of Juno, the constant 
them ancestry and descent were of protectress of the Greeks, and by the 
paramount importance, and every hearty sympathy shown by the poet 
family jealously guarded its record t in a struggle undertaken purely to 
and registers ; this also implied a vindicate the dignity of marriage 
strict protection of marriage, and, and the rights of hospitality. This 
in fact, would have been impossible is perhaps even more obvious from 
without it. Even when dispensations the fact that even the good person- 
were allowed the Jews " because of ages of the poem, the self-sacrificing 
the hardness of their hearts," the son and devoted Andromache, the noble 
of the first wife was not to be put Hector, the infirm and guiltless 
aside for the son of the second, if Priam, are all included in the sweep- 
the latter were more pleasing to her ing misfortune which is the swift and 
husband than the former, and this just retribution of the cowardly rape 
because the sacred rights acquired at of Helen. The vindication of the 
her betrothal were absolutely inalien- principle of marriage is evident, 
able.* In the marriages mentioned while in the Odyssey its glorification 
in the Old Testament, the consent is even more obvious. This illustra- 
of the woman is always formally tion, for which we have to thank a 
asked,t and she is considered com- very zealous and learned religious 
petent to inherit property and trans- whose kindness put the suggestion 
fer it to her husband.j entirely at our own disposal, is one 

Among other nations of antiquity, which it is worth while for thought- 
the more truth was obscured in their ful persons to consider, as it gives a 
religious forms, the more degraded far greater moral importance, and 
became their ideal of marriage, consequently a more perfect artistic 
This is patent even among such civ- interest, to one of the few colossi of 
ilized nations as the Greeks and Ro- the intellectual world, 
mans; the whole of mythology is The law of Jesus Christ succeed- 
a deification of the passion of lust, ed the preparatory dispensation of 
and a caricature on marriage. Still, Moses, and perfected all its enact- 
where greater genius abounds, there ments, marriage among the rest. It 
also we find glimpses of a higher gave the marriage contract an added 
morality. For instance, in Homer's dignity by making it the image of 
magnificent poems, conjugal love and the union single and indivisible 

of Christ and the church, and by ele- 
Deiit. xxi 16, 17. T Gen. xxiv. 39, "57, 58. ... J 

tNumb. xxv-ii. s ; xxxvi. 3, 8. vating it into asacramcnt; in 'other 



778 Marriage in tlie Nineteenth Century. 

words, a means of sanctifying and lar inferences to be drawn from the 
special grace. In this is certainly context, and go back to the church's 
the secret of the church's inflexibility firm stand upon this matter, 
with regard to marriage. Since by it Not only has she been the fore- 
a distinct and sacramental grace was most champion of the integrity of 
vouchsafed, it followed that this marriage in past ages, but she is now 
grace in itself was sufficient to enable almost its only one. No body of 
the contracting parties, provided they such force or numbers exists in the 
faithfully corresponded to it, to re- world, which alone gives her the 
main holily in the state of matrimony priority among the upholders of 
until death; so that, whenever any Christian marriage; and when the 
serious breach took place between tenets of the few other bodies to 
them, the church could reasonably whom marriage is sacred are exam- 
argue that the fault lay with their ined, they will be found to be in- 
dispositions, not with the contract spired and created by her principles, 
itself. In the old law, marriage, so far as they refer to this matter, 
though holy, was not a sacrament, Of the Anglican communion, es- 
and was susceptible of greater relaxa- pecially in its more advanced 
tions ; but in the new law, with a branches, it is sufficient to say that, 
higher dignity added to it, and more having better than any other body 
abundant grace attached to it, it is preserved the forms, it has as its re- 
too strong to need concessions and ward attained to more of the spirit, 
too noble to wish for them. of a " church," and consequently in- 
The Hebrews also, in propagating culcates a higher morality. But 
their own race, used the only means the following testimony, which, from 
then in their power of propagating the name of the sheet furnishing it 
the knowledge of the true God; but (the Reformed Missionary], we sup- 
in the new dispensation we have substi- pose represents some other Protest- 
tuted a generation according to the ant body, is more interesting because 
spirit for the previous generation ac- more unexpected. A Catholic paper 
cording to the flesh. Polygamous mar- of Nov. 16, 1872, the Standard, has 
riages among the Jews were a myste- preserved this testimony for us. 
rious channel provisionally used for Under the title of "The Divorce 
the increase and maintenance of God's Question Again," it discusses church 
worship upon earth; but, since the authority and its relation to the civil 
coming of Christ, men have been law, and uses the following strong 
won by the Word of God, the preach- language : " Spiritual interests and 
ing of his servants, the sufferings of spiritual discipline belong to that su- 
his martyrs, and the learning of his pernatural order of grace which has 
disciples. Those who are now con- its home in the bosom of the Chris- 
stantly born into his fold are born tian church. . . . There are many 
" not of blood, nor of the will of the things besides loose divorce legisla- 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of tion which the state either tolerates 
God." Having said so much upon or legalizes, but which the church 
the historical and Scriptural aspect cannot sanction or countenance for a 
of marriage, we leave it to others to single instant without committing 
dispute the particular meaning of spiritual suicide. And if the state 
such and such texts, and the particu- should expressly dictate to the church 

a line of action at variance with the 

*s. johni. 13. plain teaching of Christ, then it 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 

would be our solemn duty to obey And then he proves, of course from 
God rather than men. . . . The the Bible, that polygamy is not in- 
church must interpret God's Word, consistent with the all-holy religion 
and exercise spiritual discipline in of the Gospel. Here is the proof ; 
accordance therewith, no matter what 'What is the use,' he asks, 'of our 
course the state may take in disposing reading to them (the heathen) the 
of kindred questions. As Dr. Wool- Bible stories of Abraham. Israel, and 
sey has expressed it : ' Whatever be David, with their many wives ?' But 
the attitude of the state, the church Dr. Colenso was not without sup- 
must stand upon the principles of port in his view on polygamy. 'The 
the New Testament as she expounds whole body of American missionaries 
them, and apply them to all within in Burmah,' he observes, ' after some 
her reach !' difference of opinion, came to the 
What is here said of the " state " unanimous decision to admit in fu- 
may be applied to the people, the ture polygamists of old standing to 
press, popular license, and all the communion, but not to offices in 
modern agencies which the evil one the church (as if the last were a 
has added to his former royal and greater privilege than the first !) ' 'I 
learned tools. But if among earnest must say,' he continues, ' that this 
though mistaken Christians we find appears to me the only right and 
such auxiliaries as the Reformed Mis- reasonable course !' 
sionary and the eloquent sermons of At the beginning of this extract, we 
Anglican divines,* we have also to read that Dr. Colenso was embar- 
encounter such authorities as the fol- rassed by the obstinate adherence to 
lowing on the side of passion and li- polygamy among the Kaffirs. This 
centiousness: " Dr. Colenso, embar- means, we infer, that he had ori- 
rassed by the obstinate adherence to ginally withstood this heathen prac- 
polygamy which he observed among tice. Why hac| he.jdo.ae go,. ? If he 
the Kaffirs, came to the resolution, believed it sufficiently immoral to at- 
after conference, it is said, with other tack it, he was guilty of violating his 
Anglican authorities of the highest conscience in ceasing his attack; if 
rank, to remove the difficulty by a he had always believed it " Scriptu- 
process which, though adopted in a ral " or allowable, he was guilty of 
well-known case by Luther and Me- hypocrisy in attacking it at all. Then, 
lancthon, had not previously received when he asks, " What is the use of our 
the official sanction of Anglican reading to them the Bible stories of 
bishops. As polygamy would not Abraham, Israel, and David, with 
yield to Protestantism, Dr. Colenso their many wives ? "' he gives us un- 
agreed to consider polygamy ' a consciously another advantage by 
Scriptural mode of existence.' Here tacitly confessing the necessity of a 
are his own words : * I must con- divinely inspired interpreter of the 
fess that I feel very strongly that the Bible. If Dr. Colenso had been a 
usual practice of enforcing the sepa- Catholic, the difficulty would not have 
ration of wives from their husbands, existed. Does he suppose that Catho- 
upon their conversion to Christian- lie converts among savage nations do 
ity, is quite unwarrantable, and op- not hear the same stories? But in 
posed to the plain teaching of our Lord} their case, a teaching and speaking 

church comes to their rescue, and 

* Jeremy Taylor's " On the Marriage Ring." explains what Otherwise WOllld Seem 
besides many modern ones, especially by the 

Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, New York. dark. It is strange to hear a Pro- 



780 Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 

testant Christian, bred up on the rule church celebration. Mr. H per- 

of " the Bible, the whole Bible, and formed the duty according to the 

nothing but the Bible," hesitate as to statute, and the bride and bridegroom 

the effect of certain stories in the went on their way rejoicing." 
Bible. If the poor Kaffirs were to be It is not foj us to judge these per- 

evangelized upon the principle that sons, nor speculate upon the motives 

a Bible precedent was practically a that led them to take such a step ; but 

permission for all time, they would the occurrence is nevertheless a sign 

soon have Judiths and Jaels among of the demoralization which is every 

them, as well as Abrahams, Israels, day on the increase among our 

and Davids. people. 

In the Times (London) of Dec. Polygamy, under the name of Mor- 
20, 1872, on the occasion of a public monism, is still tolerated and protected 
" Day of Intercession" for more mis- in the United States, and the annals 
sionaries, we read the following strin- of divorce in the states where Mor- 
gent criticism upon the body which monism is illegal quite make up the 
of all others most nearly approaches deficiency. In Connecticut, accord- 
the ideal of a church : " The Church ing to the deposition of the Rev. Dr. 
of England," says the Times, Woolsey, President of Yale College, 
" utterly abandons large regions on made before the Western Social 
the ground that in tropical climes Science Congress in Chicago, the 
there will be polygamy or an equiva- ratio of divorce is one in every eight 
lent disregard of the marriage ties, marriages. We were told by a dis- 
and that no preaching can prevail tinguished New England convert that 
against it" a confession of power- the Vermont marriage law was p-rac- 
lessness which quite coincides with tically so lax that the following 
what we have said of Dr. Colenso. " cause " for a divorce was considered 
Still it is not fair to class the Anglican legal: A couple, not very long mar- 
communion, despite this weak shrink- riecl, mutually wished 'for a separa- 
ing from a difficult task, with the tion, simply on the score that they 
more systematic deserters from the were dissatisfied with their bargain, 
championship of duty ; but, if we are They went to a lawyer to ascertain 
grieved and astonished at her defec- the technicalities of the case, and 
tion under certain circumstances, were told appearances having to be 
what shall we say of the following saved ! that some specific cause 
breach of ecclesiastical discipline on must be alleged. The easiest was 
the part of those whose very names cruelty. But the parties had never 
argue in this case a departure from been violent ; so the lawyer suggested 
the path of known duty ? In the that the husband should, in his pres- 
New York World of the 5th of Janu- ence, give his wife a "blow." This 
ary, 1873, we rea( l among the an- was soon accomplished by a light 
nouncements of business transacted slap on the cheek of the willing 
in the mayor's office the previous "victim"; cruelty was pleaded, and 
day this startling disclosure : " During the divorce obtained, 
the day the mayor was waited upon In Rhode Island, the proportion of 
by a wedding-party, the principals of divorces to marriages in 1869 was 
which were Michael M'Clannahan one to fourteen, and the law of that 
and Mary Donovan, who wished to state leaves it practically to the dis- 
be united in matrimony without going cretion of the courts to annul any ill- 
to the trouble of getting up a public assorted marriage on the ground of 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 



uncongenial temper, desertion, drunk- 
enness,, or any sort of bad conduct. 
In that year, out of 1 66 divorces, only 
66 were granted on the plea of adul- 
tery, while it must also be borne in 
mind that this grave charge is often 
unjustly and maliciously made to 
cover some shameful behavior on the 
part of the plaintiff, or to gratify his 
or her revenge. Speaking of a clergy- 
man who was reported to have mar- 
ried one man successively to five 
wives, all of whom were living at the 
same time, a Protestant paper com- 
ments thus on the story : "It may be 
true or false. // is not altogether im- 
probable. It suggests very serious 
reflections, as indicating what is pos- 
sible under our laws, and the course 
things are taking in American so- 
ciety." The paper goes on to speak 
of the clergyman's responsibility in 
such a case, and although advocat- 
ing the desirability, " for many rea- 
sons," of the office of solemnizing 
marriage being " confined almost e?i- 
tirely to ministers of the Gospel," does 
not see that it stultifies itself directly 
after by explaining that " the trust is 
reposed in them, not by any right to it 
on their part, as holding a?i ecclesiasti- 
cal office, but on account of their 
position and general character (!). 
They are able to guard marriage, and 
give it a religious character and sanc- 
tion. But they act, so far as the law 
goes, simply as civil magistrates." 

And let us'add that here is precisely 
the evil, and that as long as clergy- 
men are lowered to the level of 
magistrates, loose morals will never 
be uprooted. 

The Nation of March 2, 18/1, has 
the following : 

" We cut from the marriage notices of 
the Philadelphia Press the following illus- 
tration, omitting names, of the way in 
which attempts to rednge human mar- 
riages to the level of those of the lower 
animals arc dressed up in fine language : 



" ' In Philadelphia, February 23, S 

and S , the parties protesting against 

all marriage laws, whether legal or con- 
ventional, which subject either the wife 
or the husband to any control or in- 
fluence on the part of the other which is 
not in accordance with the dictates of 
pure and mutual love.' 

"This is, of course, simple 'pairing.' 
Marriage means the assumption by a 
moral agent of an obligation to perform 
certain duties, even after they become 
disagreeable. The arrangement by which 
the parties live together as long as they 
find it thoroughly pleasant is that common 
among birds, beasts, and fishes, and has 
nothing human about it." 

The Independent, a Protestant re- 
ligious paper, sneers at all barriers 
to divorce, Catholic, Protestant, or 
civil, as " shallow," and declares that 
" no matter with what solemn cere- 
mony the twain may have been made 
one, yet when love departs, then 
marriage ceases and divorce begins." 

A certain unhappy section of .those 
waifs of womanhood, the advocates 
of woman's rights, is known as the 
champion of " free-love," that is, in 
plain words, adultery. Mrs. Stan- 
ton, one of the leaders, has said 
somewhere that " marriage is but a 
partnership contract terminable at 
the will of the parties," and has advo- 
cated marriages for three years. 

To this last proposition we have 
only one objection. Why three 
years ? If a marriage is based on 
mere passion, three months or six at 
the furthest would be enough to 
exhaust the cohesive element, for if 
the adage be tfue that " no man is a 
hero to his ralet" it is equally certain 
that no man and woman could by 
any human possibility live together 
for that time in the familiar inter- 
course implied by marriage, without 
discovering to each other certain 
asperities of temper, inequalities of dis- 
position, in short, all the little mean- 
nesses of our poor human nature. 
This disenchantment, following the 



782 



Marriage in iJie Nineteenth Century. 



close and daily companionship that 
is almost inevitable in married life, 
is enough to kill passion, though it 
cannot even daunt principle. Again, 
in a marriage based on passion, the 
satiety that follows in the train of 
unlawful love would be reproduced, 
and would break up the connection 
in far less than three years. In fact, 
when we come to sift the question, 
we find that, putting aside the reli- 
gious spirit presiding over marriage, 
that state of life has no appreciable 
sign to distinguish it from the score 
of illicit connections punished by law 
or branded by society. We find here 
almost a parallel to the question lately 
agitated in England among Episco- 
palians, as to the reason why the 
Church of England should be called 
a " church," and not, like all other 
independent Protestant bodies, a 
" sect." We ask, What is to distin- 
guish such a " marriage " as our mo- 
dern reformers advocate from the 
"liaisons" at which society pretends 
to be so virtuously shocked ? Where 
is the intrinsic, difference between a 
woman who sells her honor to many 
men at once and one who surrenders 
it to a single man at a time for just 
that period during which pleasure 
shall keep her constant to him ? 

Another form of attack upon the 
sanctity of marriage is the trade of 
the great journals in daily advertise- 
ments such as these, which meet our 
eyes every morning : 

" Absolute divorces legally obtained in 
different states. Desertion, etc., sufficient 
cause. No publicity. No charge until di- 
vorce is obtained. Advice free. 

, Attorney, Broad way." 

Or, with slight variations, thus : 

" Also Commissioner for every State. 

, Counsellor-at-Laiv, 

Broadway." 

Here we see the press and the law 
conspiring to lend aid and, more 



than that, encouragement to the 
loosest and most devastating of pas- 
sions. Then, again, the tone of the 
newspapers with regard to moral 
irregularities is a painful sign of the 
times. Thus we read in a great 
" daily " : 

" Out West they call divorces ' escapes.' 
A speedy and safe ' escape ' is guaranteed 
for a very low figure, and, as usual, a great 
many parties figure for it." 

There is a levity about such re- 
marks that is saddening, when taken 
in connection with the future of a 
great people. 

The morbid curiosity of the pub- 
lic is thus excited under the conve- 
nient plea of satisfying it, while, with 
regard to the institution of marriage 
itself, the saying is exemplified, " Give 
a dog a bad name, and then shoot 
him." Marriage is ridiculed, conju- 
gal affection put down as antiquated, 
home-lovingness pitied as old-fash- 
ioned, family reunions voted dull, 
and, as a natural consequence, youth 
is more or less alienated from the 
unfashionable circle. It is easy, then, 
to turn on marriage as a principle, 
remove the stumbling-block altogeth- 
er, paint in seductive colors a substi- 
tute for home, and familiarize the 
public with so-called legal but trans- 
ient unions. Once this principle is es- 
tablished in the abstract, it will be 
merely a question of time as to its 
practical extension. Granted that 
a man or woman may change com- 
panions as often as they choose, who 
is to regulate how often ? Like the 
husband of Scheherazade in the 
Arabian Nights, every day ? Why 
not ? Again, if one man may have 
many " wives," why should not a 
woman have many " husbands " ? 
And so on ad infinituin the license 
might spread unchecked, till there 
would be as many conflicting inter- 
pretations of marriage as there are 
already of the Bible. Absolute com- 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 



783 



niunism would be quite a logical se- 
quence, and, in a society so utterly 
confused as to parentage, there could 
be little question as to inheritance ! 

Christian marriage, on the contra- 
ry, has both a social and a sanitary, 
as well as a religious aspect. It cre- 
ates a strong and healthy jace, and 
at the very outset of each man's ca- 
reer gives him a position by invest- 
ing him with a responsibility. He 
feels that the pride which his old 
father and mother have in him must 
not be shamed ; that the honor of his 
family is bound up in his actions ; 
and that his behavior may influence 
for good or for evil both the moral 
and temporal prospects of his near 
kindred. A man so weighted feels a 
just pride, which, in default of higher 
motives, may even yet guide him 
into greatness ; and though such a 
man may yield to temptation, fall 
into vice, and disgrace himself, so 
much at least of his early training 
will survive as to make him feel 
keenly the shame of his position. 
This alone has saved hundreds. It 
has been the serpent in the wilder- 
ness to many, but it would no longer 
be an imaginable motive were the 
ideal of Christian marriage, with its 
attendant responsibilities, to be swept 
away. There is another aspect under 
which the frequency of divorce and the 
condoned irregularities of intercourse 
between the sexes are a constant threat 
to public security we mean in pro- 
voking murder. Three parts of the 
fearful murders committed in New 
York, and also in many other parts 
of the Union, are traceable more or 
less to ill-assorted marriages and a 
spirit of unchristian rebellion against 
lawful restraints. Lately there has 
been a glaring case in point, the de- 
tails of which are fresh in the memo- 
ry of every one. A man is deliber- 
ately shot dead on the very threshold 
of what is practically a " Divorce 



Court"; the murderer is a brutal 
husband incensed at the victim's tes- 
timony against himself. In 1872, 
three of the most famous New York 
" characters " figured in a terrible dra- 
ma ending in death, imprisonment, 
and disgrace. What was the reason 
that set two of the most unscrupulous 
speculators in the world at deadly 
enmity ? The disputed favor of a 
woman who, according to the new 
code, only asserts her rights, and 
claims to change " husbands " as 
often as she pleases. God help the 
age and nation in which such things 
are daily done, and where animal 
passion laughs in the teeth of law ! 
Who does not see how every right and 
security hangs by the sanctity of 
marriage ? Marriage, in the proper 
sense of the word, implies exclusive 
and permanent possession, and re- 
presents the first and greatest right 
of property. If that property is to 
be made movable, salable, takable, 
in a word, why not other less sacred 
and less valuable property also ? 
" Property is theft," say the social- 
ists, and certainly it is, if we can 
previously agree to consider marriage 
so. If all kinds of possessions (life 
itself included) are to be thus trans- 
ferable, every individual will be re- 
duced to protect them single-handed 
against the world, and from this state 
of things will grow a monster system 
of organized murder and legalized 
rapine. The early Californian society 
would be nothing to this imaginary 
community. 

In France, Italy, and Spain, the in- 
famous laws not only encouraging 
but actually enforcing civil marriage 
are sapping the foundations of so- 
ciety; and in England, a country 
hitherto held as a model for its con- 
jugal and homely tendencies, the 
tenets of" free-love" are making giant 
inroads into social life, and leaven- 
ing the mass of everyday literature. 



734 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 



Bigamy and divorce are almost worn- 
out sensations; they have supplied 
the ablest pens with thrilling subjects, 
and have furnished the best theatres 
with the only dramas that really 
" take." Something new and more 
monstrous yet is needed, and the pru- 
rient imagination that shall first suc- 
ceed in originating a new version of 
social sin will become the power of 
the moment. 

Such is the present situation. We 
do not know if there ever has been a 
worse stage of immorality, except, 
perhaps, that before the Flood ; for at 
all times of unparalleled license there 
have been some extenuating circum- 
stances, of which we are afraid we 
must own ourselves bereft. In the 
beginning of the Christian era, license 
was confined to pagans; for in the 
tottering Roman Empire the Chris- 
tians were all soldiers of the cross, 
and their watch for the Bridegroom 
was too eager to allow them time for 
temptation; in the transition state 
that followed, the church's power al- 
ready made itself felt, and though 
barbarian kings still defied their pas- 
tors, the latter had at hand ecclesiasti- 
cal terrors that seldom failed in the end 
to subdue the half-converted Goth or 
Lombard. In the days of the ill- 
starred Renaissance, when a spirit of 
neo-classicism threatened once more 
to deify sin under the garb of art, the 
Council of Trent sat in solemn judg- 
ment, and condemned abuses which 
had unhappily paved an easy way 
for heresy : while later on, even in the 
days of the wicked and brilliant court 
of Versailles, .there was found a 
Bourdaloue to rebuke the public 
sinners who sat in the high places, 
and to eulogize Christian marriage in 
the midst of a gathering which seemed 
to have utterly forgotten its meaning. 

Faith still lingered the faith that 
made the middle ages what they 
were that faith that condemned pub- 



lic sin to as public a penance, and 
out of great excesses drew great ex- 
amples. Louise de la Valliere was 
almost the last representative of this 
mediaeval spirit of generous atone- 
ment; and her heroic words, when 
told in her cloister of the death of 
her son, " I should weep rather for 
his birth than for his death," were 
the genuine outcome of a faith that 
could restore a prostitute to inno- 
cence, and place upon a once guilty 
brow almost a virgin's crown. 

With Voltaire, the work that Lu- 
ther had begun was perfected, and 
henceforth it was not Europe that 
believed, but only a few scattered 
exiles who here and there kept the 
lamp of the faith dimly alight in the 
stifling atmosphere of universal and 
fashionable doubt. Even among be- 
lievers the spirit of ready sympathy, 
with the slightest indication of the 
church's unspoken meaning was 
gone, and there remained only the 
too self-conscious effort of unques- 
tioning loyalty. Still, thank God ! it 
did and does remain, and, though 
shorn of all poetry, it is none the less 
vigorous in self-defence. But we 
may now say that indeed the flood 
has broken loose, the Philistines are 
upon us, the whole array of the 
world's newest forces is brought to 
bear against us, and behind her dis- 
mantled outposts the church retreats 
to her citadel, the naked Rock of 
Peter. Men say that the Council of 
the Vatican was inopportune, pre- 
sumptuous, and imprudent; let the 
world's gracefully lapsing course be a 
living refutation to such words. Every 
outward stay is gone ; every difficulty 
in the way of the reunion of pastors 
is trebled ; every see is hedged about 
with physical bars that are insur- 
mountable; nothing remains free but 
what cannot be fettered the tongue. 
Who can wonder if the church, in 
this dire emergency, delegates to one 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 



785 



man the power she can no longer 
collectively exercise in peace ? As 
in old Flemish cities there sits up in 
the lonely belfry of the cathedral a 
watcher whose duty it is to guard 
the city against fire, and to warn the 
people through a brazen trumpet at 
which spot he descries the first ap- 
peajance of danger, so in the heart 
of the City of God there sits now the 
watchman whose eye and voice are 
bound to raise the alarm and direct 
the remedies through the length and 
breadth of listening Christendom. 

The Council of the Vatican has 
made the word of the Pope the bra- 
zen tocsin of the Christian world. 

And now, having said so much 
of the possibilities opened up by the 
present lax spirit in morals and 
equally lax interpetration of what re- 
mains in the shape of legal restraints 
upon vice, let us speak of what Chris- 
tian marriage ought to be. We will be 
brief, for the position almost defines 
itself. Of the indissolubility of mar- 
riage under all circumstances, even in 
the case of one of the parties break- 
ing the marriage vow, we will not 
speak, nor even of the fidelity which 
marriage requires in every thought 
and slightest intention. But we would 
insist upon that which ensures a happy 
and holy union, namely, the prelimi- 
nary motive. We have seen how 
bad marriages and an unworthy idea 
of this state of life lead to shame, 
to socialism, to violence, sometimes 
to a criminal ending in a common 
jail ; let us see now what leads to 
bad marriages themselves. Two 
motives there are one mercenary, 
and one sensual. We heard a very 
impressive Jesuit preacher say a few 
years ago, in the pulpit of one of 
the most beautiful and frequented 
churches in London, that to make a 
good marriage both prayer and seem- 
ly preparation are necessary. Some 
parents, he said, in their pious anxiety 
VOL. xvi. 50 



to leave all things to Providence, and 
to avoid that solicitude for worldly 
things which the Gospel condemns, 
neglect to avail themselves for their 
children of the allowable means and 
legitimate opportunities of social life ; 
but to these he would say, Remem- 
ber the words of Christ : '* Not every 
one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of hea- 
ven." * On the other hand, many 
parents sinned far more grievously 
and he was loth to say it more 
frequently by altogether leaving the 
Creator out of the question in the 
serious matter of their children's 
settlement in life. Which of these 
two extremes is the prominent one 
in this country ? We need not 
answer the question. We know too 
well how nine-tenths of those mar- 
riages are made which within a few 
months or years are broken in the 
divorce courts, or otherwise dis- 
solved by a shameful esclandre. We 
know how wealth especially, position, 
associations, beauty, and accomplish- 
ments all rank before moral worth in 
what is called lightly but too truly the 
" marriage-market." We know how 
marriage is looked forward to through 
girlhood, not as the assumption of a 
sacred responsibility, but as the pre- 
liminary step to emancipation; we 
know how it is heartlessly canvassed 
by men as an expensive but advan- 
tageous luxury, its cost being in pro- 
portion to the social figure it will 
enable them to make, but its essence 
of no deeper moral account to them 
than the purchase of one trotter or 
the undertaking of one speculation 
more or less. We do not say that 
there are no exceptions to this rule 
far from it ; but that is just the point: 
however honorable these cases are, 
the fact still remains that they are 
exceptions. Again, where the motive 

* Matt. vii. 21. 



786 Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 

is not directly mercenary, it is often the resurrection they shall neither 
selfish ; old men will marry for mere marry nor be married ; but shall be 
comfort, physical luxury, and the as the angels of God in heaven." * 
regularity of a well-appointed home We are not told that the tie will be 
things which the presence of a hand- like brotherhood or like friendship ; 
some, thoughtful, and tolerably intel- we are left to infer that between hus- 
lectual woman alone can ensure ; band and wife some more peculiar 
women no longer young, but still link will exist hereafter than will be 
hungering for the whirl of fashion, common to us all as children of- the 
will marry unsuitably for the sake of same Father, and it is plainly foretold 
an assured position and means to that this relation will be as that of 
continue the frivolous course of their the angels towards each other, 
former lives ; in fact, all shallow dis- We have only to look into the gos- 
guises of selfishness have their repre- pels and the teachings of the Apostle 
sentatives in the " marriage-market," of the Gentiles to see by what means 
from that of the millionaire who wants we may in the married state so sanctify 
a wife to sit at the head of his table our lives as to deserve this heavenly 
and wear his diamonds, to that of the transformation \ we have only to read 
day-laborer who wants one to cook the marriage-service to learn the 
his dinner, mend his clothes, and eke plain, straightforward, but most so- 
out his week's earnings by her own lemn duties, the performance of which 
hard work. Marriages made in this will secure us spiritual peace and joy 
spirit are unblest and always end in this life or the next. To use the 
badly : the millionaire will divorce sacrament worthily, we must come to 
his wife, and the laborer murder his it with worthy preparation and stead- 
in a fit of intoxication ; the end is the fast intention, first as Christians re- 
same, the means differ only according solved never to perjure themselves 
as natural temperament and habits before God, then as rational beings 
of education diverge. willing to abide by whatever unfore- 
How far otherwise with marriage seen consequences their deliberate 
in the true Scriptural, Christian sense vow may entail in the future. For it 
of the word ! In poverty or in riches, is an idle pretext to allege that, if one 
alike sacred and full of dignity ; al- party breaks the engagement, the 
ways conscious of its sacramental other is de facto absolved from it. 
crown ; ever mindful of its holy minis- Where in the formula, Catholic or 
try, the salvation of two souls, the Protestant, is this proviso ? The only 
ladder to heaven of two lives that qualifying sentence is this, " Until 
without it might have made ship- death do us part." How, then, can 
wreck of their eternal interests ! A any reasonable person interpret 
thing apart from the common unions " death >: to mean sin, incompati- 
of earth, different from a commercial bility, or any other incidental un- 
partnership, stronger than a political pleasantness ? We think that those 
coalition, holier than even a spon- who are so ready to foist unwarrant- 
taneous friendship. A thing which,- able meanings on the plain and naked 
like the riddle of Samson, is " sweet- oath they have sworn in full posses- 
ness out of strength," and whose sion of their senses at the altar, would 
grace is so sublime that in heaven it hardly be the persons we should like 
can only find one transformation to trust as men or women of unim- 
worthy of itself. "You err, not 
knowing the power of God; for in * Matt. xxii. 29, 30 ; Mark xii. 24, 25. 



Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. 787 

peachable honor in the ordinary means reverence for each other on 
transactions of life. the part of the persons married, as 
If mercenary motives are upper- representing in themselves the sacra- 
most in the majority of marriages in ment typical of Christ's union with 
this age and in this nation, sensuality the church ; it means reverence for 
is none the less responsible for a share the children who are entrusted to their 
of the misery attendant upon modern care by God and their country, and 
unions. We have already spoken of whom they are bound by the solemn 
the evil of marriages founded on adjuration of Christ not to scandal- 
passion, and of the shameful way in ize ; it means reverence for them- 
which the colloquial adage, " Marry in selves, as the tabernacles of a special 
haste, and repent at leisure," is thus grace and the progenitors of new wor- 
frequently illustrated. To this also shippers at God's feet, new subjects 
the remedy lies in a serious Christian of the kingdom of heaven. It is the 
spirit of preparation for marriage, woman especially who is bound to feel 
The root of all evil developments in .ind express this reverence, for woman 
the relations between the sexes lies in is, as* the French poetically say, the 
the early education of the contracting priestess of the ideal. Besides, the 
parties, and it is here that the only highest perfection ever reached in the 
radical cure can be tried. The church married state was reached by a 
bids her children be especially circum- woman, the Blessed Virgin, Mother 
spect at the juncture of marriage, but of God. Among married saints 
she also teaches them to reverence the there have always been more women 
sacrament from childhood upward as canonized than men. The women 
a type of the union between herself and of a nation form the men ; and, if rnar- 
her divine Spouse. If, as children, riage is to be reformed, it must be 
marriage appears to us in the shape done first through the women. We 
of the angel of home, watching over hope and pray that it may soon be so, 
the existence it has created, and dig- but we fear that outside the church, 
nifying the parental authority it has where the reform is, in the abstract, 
built up ; if in youth the goal of not needed, there is not sufficient 
marriage is looked forward to as the impetus to ensure its being made. 
toga virilis of life, the reward of a We say in the abstract, because prac- 
dutiful childhood, the ennobling tically there are many marriages made 
badge of our enrolment among the among Catholics, celebrated in Cath- 
soldiers of the cross, then and only olic churches, and decorously ob- 
then will our country find in us effi- served through the course of a blame- 
cient citizens, earnest patriots, and less life, which yet call loudly for re- 
reliable defenders. If among men form, and sadly lack the noble Chris- 
there is revived the chivalrous spirit tian spirit that made perfect the unions 
of deference and forbearance towards of Delphina and Eleazar, and of S. 
women which sealed the middle ages Louis of France and Margaret of 
as a charmed cycle among all divi- Provence. But however deficient in 
sions of time, and among women there some cases our practice mayunhap- 
is cultivated that generous and true pily be, our doctrine remains ever 
womanliness which made SS. Monica unchanged, and our laws ever inflex- 
and Paula, and Blanche of Castille, the ible. Thanks to the church, marriage 
typical heroines of the wedded state, is still recognized as an act not purely 
then may we expect to see " a new animal nor yet purely civil; and, 
heaven and a new earth." Marriage thanks to the infallibility of the church 



;88 



A Pearl Ashore. 



and her calm expectancy of eternal 
duration, it will remain to the end 
of time an honored institution. If 
threatened, it will still live; if de- 
rided, it will nevertheless conquer. 
Christian marriage is the mould in 
which God has chosen to throw the 
lava of natural passion, and with- 
out whose wholesome restraints we 



should have a shapeless torrent of 
licentiousness, scathing mankind with 
its poisonous breath, carrying away 
all landmarks of ancestry, property, 
and personal safety, and finally ex- 
terminating the human race long 
before the appointed time for the 
dread judgment in the Valley of 
Josaphat. 



A PEARL ASHORE. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE HOUSE OF YORKE." 



IF one should wish to enjoy per- as though Light would say to Song, 
fectly a fugue of Bach's, this is per- " With this ring I thee wed !" 
haps as good a way as any : listen to Those clustered, silvery pipes are 
it on a warm afternoon, in a Gothic surrounded by a border of dark, lace- 
Protestant church, in a quiet city like carving, and a screen of the 
street, with no one present but the same hides the keyboards. Through 
organist and one's self. If any other this screen shines the lamp on the 
enter, let him be velvet-footed, incu- music-desk. Some one is stirring 
rious, and sympathetic. It would be there. You lean back on the cush- 
better if each listener could suppose ions, so that the body can take care 
himself to be the only listener there. of itself. Mentally, you are quies- 

The wood-work of the church cent with a delightful sense of an tici- 
is dark, glossy, and richly carved, pation. If the situation should re- 
Rose, purple, and gold-colored panes present itself to you fancifully, you 
strain the light that enters, full and might say that your soul is somewhat 
glowing up in the roof, but dim be- dusty and weary, and has come 
low. On the walls, tinted with such down to this beach of silence for a 
colors as come to us from Eastern refreshing bath. Knowing what you 
looms, and on the canvas of the old are to hear, watery images suggest 
painters, are texts in letters of dull themselves ; for in the world of 
gold those beautiful letters that music it is the ocean that Bach gives 
break into bud and blossom at every us, as Beethoven gives us the winds, 
turn, as though alive and rejoicing and Handel the stately-flowing 
over the divine thought they bear, streams. 

A sunbeam here and there, too We have made a Protestant church 

slender to illumine widely, points its our music-hall, because, though not 

finger at a word, touches a dark the dwelling-place of God on earth, 

cushion and brings out its shadowed it is often the temple of religious art, 

crimson, or glimmers across the organ and, having nothing within it to 

pipes, binding their silver with gold, which we can prostrate ourselves in 



A Pearl Ashore. 789 

adoration, it can yet, by signs and ones, she was pleased to perceive 

images, excite noble and religious some of that tranquillity which, in 

feeling. Indeed, we would gladly her foreign life, had been so condu- 

banish to such concert-rooms all cive to a steady growth in art. The 

that music, however beautiful in itself, fine streets she traversed were quiet, 

which intrudes on the exclusive re- distant from the business world, and 

collection proper to the house of out of its track. The September air 

God. was golden, and the sun so warm as 

This, we repeat, is as good a way to make the shade welcome. Here 

as any to hear a fugue of John Sebas- and there, through openings between 

tian Bach's. So also thought Miss the houses, or at the ends of long 

Rothsay; and she was one who avenues, were to be seen glimpses of 

ought to know, for she was a pro- country; and a thin haze, so exqui- 

fessional singer, and as sensitive mu- site that it might be the cast-off 

sically as well could be. mantle of Beauty herself, half veiled, 

It was an afternoon in early Sep- while it embellished, the landscape, 

tember, and she had only the day It was quite in keeping to see an 

before reached her native city, after open church door. One who loiter- 

a prolonged residence abroad. Hers ed on the steps explained that there 

had been that happy lot which seems was to be an organ recital, but 

to be the privilege of the artist : her could not say who the organist was 

work, her duty, and her delight were to be. 

the same. That which she must and Miss Rothsay entered, scarcely 
ought to do she would have chosen seeing her way at first, seated herself, 
above all things as her recreation, and looked about. The atmosphere 
Now, with a perfected voice, and a of the place suited her taste. None 
will to use truly and nobly that gra- but noble and sacred images presented 
cious power, she had returned to her themselves. Art was there in its sub- 
native land. limity, and in its naive simplicity. 

Her first contact with the New Here was a form full of austere beau- 
World had given her a slight jar. ty, there one whose grace verged on 
Utility seemed to mean here some- playfulness. The scene had the effect 
thing rough and harsh, and the util- of a sacred picture, in the corner of 
ity of beauty to be almost unrecog- which one can see children playing 
nized. She had as yet met with or birds on the wing, 
only two kinds of people: those who Miss Rothsay, without knowing it, 
regarded her talent as beautiful in- made, herself, a lovely picture in the 
deed and useful, in so far as it place. Her oval, pale face was light- 
brought her money, but otherwise ed by liquid gray eyes, now lifted, 
superfluous; and that yet more de- and drinking in the upper light. On 
pressing class who were enthusiastic her fair hair was set a foreign-looking 
in hailing a new amusement, a new black hat, turned up over the left 
sensation, and who valued the singer temple with an aigrette and feather, 
as a necessity to elegant dissipation. A slight and elegant figure could be 
As yet, she had met with no serious perceived beneath the dark-blue 
disciple of music. mantle. 

Yet, when she stepped from her Wondering a little, while she wait- 
door to walk about, to renew her ed, who the organist might be, she 
knowledge of familiar scenes, and ran over in her mind those she had 
make acquaintance with changed known before going abroad. From 



790 A Pearl Ashore. 

that, dismissing the present, her " And you must love him, ere to you 

, , V i i j He will seem worthy of your love," 

thoughts glanced over those she had 

known abroad, and at last rested on is true of some of the finest natures, 
one she had not seen nor heard of Miss Rothsay, during these eight 
for eight years. Eight years before, years of her separation from Laurie, 
Laurie had gone to Germany to had more than once felt a misgiving 
study, and he was probably there on his account, lest she had done 
yet. She recollected his face, more him injustice. Observing and study- 
youthful than his years, and full of a ing the manners of those she met, she 
dreamy beauty ; the figure, tall and saw that what passed for dignity was 
graceful, yet wanting somewhat in sometimes only the distrustfulness" 
manly firmness. She heard again, in of the suspicious, the caution of the 
fancy, that changeful voice, so low, worldly-wise, the unsympathizing 
eager, and rich-toned when he was coldness of the selfish, or the vanity 
in earnest; she met again the glance of the conceited. She had lost not 
of his sparkling blue eyes, full of only her admiration, but her respect 
frankness and enthusiasm. Where for that unchangeable loftiness which 
was he now ? chills and awes the demonstrative 
Had he been a common acquaint- into silence; and she had remem- 
ance, she would have inquired con- bered, with a growing regret, Laurie's 
cerning him freely ; but he was a re- cordial ways, that seemed to expect 
jected lover, and she would not, by friendliness and sympathy from all, 
mentioning his name, remind people and to appreciate the purity of his 
of that fact. Why had she rejected soul, that never looked for evil, and 
him ? Simply because he had seem- turned away from it when it intrud- 
ed to her not to reach her ideal. It ed itself, and thus seemed scarcely 
had occurred to her since that time aware that evil existed. Still she 
that possibly his manner and not his had been too deeply engrossed in 
character had been at fault. At her studies to give him much thought, 
twenty years of age, she had been and it was only now that she became 
more mature than he at twenty-five, conscious of regret. 
She liked an appearance of dignity Meantime, the organist had taken 
and firmness, and had made the mis- his place, and was arranging his 
take often made by those older and music. The light of the lamp shone 
wiser than herself, of thinking that on a face wherein were exquisitely 
dignity of soul must always be ac- blended strength and refinement, 
companied by a grave manner, and One could see there passion purified 
that an air occasionally or habitual- by prayer, and enthusiasm too deep 
ly demonstrative and variable, which for trivial excitement. The face 
is merely temperament, indicates a showed, too, when studied, that tran- 
fickle or superficial mind. Some- quil reserve, not without sadness, 
times, indeed, the strongest and most which is learned by those who have 
profound feelings, in reserved and too often cast their pearls before 
sensitive persons, seek to veil them- swine, yet who do not despair of find- 
selves under an affectation of light- ing sympathy. 

ness or caprice, and the soul looks He placed the music, sat an in- 

forth with a sad scorn through that stant in fixed recollection, as though 

flimsy mask on the hasty and egotis- he prayed, then lifted his tapering 

tical judge who pronounces sentence hands, so nervous, light, and power- 

against it. ful, and let them fall on the keys. 



A Pearl Ashore. 791 

To the listener beyond the screen, it it reproved that fancy of hers, 
was as though her reverie had been There was no spirit of revenge nor 
broken by a burst of thunder. Then mean triumph in Laurie's nature, 
the sea rolled in its waves of sound, The audience, small and select, 
strong, steady, a long, overlapping went out quietly. The organist 
rhythm. What did it mean, that closed the instrument, and prepared 
fugue ? Did it symbolize the swift- to follow, yet waited a moment to 
coming assaults of evil that seek to recover full consciousness of the 
drag the race of man downward, as everyday world he was going to 
the persistent sea eats away, grain by meet. The air seemed to pulse about 
grain, the continents ? Was it, per- him still, and wings of flying melo- 
haps, the ceaseless endeavor of the dies to brush his face. Never had 
faithful will that, baffled once, re- he felt less inclined to meet idle corn- 
turns ever to the charge, and dies tri- pliment or talk commonplace. " I 
umphantly struggling ? Did it indicate hope no one will wait for me," he mut- 
the generations of men flowing on in tered, going out into the vestibule, 
waves for ever, to break at the feet of But some one was waiting, a pale- 
God ; or the hurrying centuries, cut faced, lovely woman, who looked at 
short, at last, by eternity ? However him, but spoke not a word The 
it might be interpreted, the music look, too, was short; for when he ex- 
lifted and bore the listener on, and claimed and reddened up to the 
the silence that followed found her eyes, and held out a trembling hand, 
otherwhere than the last silence had her eyes dropped, 
left her. She was the same in na- There is a commonplace which is 
ture, but her mood was higher ; for but the veil to glory or delight, like 
music does not change the listener, it Minerva in her russet gown. The 
merely intensifies what is positive in conventional questions that Laurie 
his nature, whether it be good or properly asked of the lady, as they 
bad, to its superlative degree. walked on together, were of this sort. 

Vibrating and breathless still with When did she come home ? was as 

the emotion caused by that grand one should say, When did Joy arrive? 

composition so grandly rendered, When do the stars come ? And the 

Miss Rothsay perceived a slip of steamer that brought her could be as 

paper on the cushion, and reached worthy of poetical contemplation as 

her hand for it. It proved to be a pro- the cloud that wrapped a descending 

gramme of the Recital. She glanced Juno, or the eagle that bore away a 

along the list, and read the name of Ganymede. 

the organist at the end it was Dun- Not long after, when some one 

can Laurie ! asked them who was their favorite 

She heard, as in a dream, the soft- composer, each answered " Bach ! ' : 

toned Vorspiele that followed, and and, when alone together, each asked 

only came back to music when the the other the reason for that answer, 

third number, a toccata, began. But " Because," said the lady, blushing, 

the music had now to her a new mean- " it was on the waves of one of 

ing. It seemed to triumph over and Bach's fugues that I reached the 

scorn her. She heard through that Happy Islands." 

melodious thunder the voice of " And because," returned the lover, 

Nemesis. " when some of Bach's music had 

But when the closing piece, a rolled back into the ocean, it left a 

noble concerto by Handel, sang out, pearl ashore for me." 



792 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



THE BENEFITS OF ITALIAN UNITY. 



FROM THE ETUDES RELIGIEUSES. 



REVOLUTION is a dangerous syren. 
The nations of the earth have yielded 
to her seductions, but the day is com- 
ing when with one voice they will 
curse the great enchantress who has 
lured them on to apostasy. For a 
century she has not ceased to an- 
nounce an era of prosperity to the 
rising generation, but at length we 
see her promises are as deceptive as 
her principles are corrupt. From the 
heart of all nations rise up groans 
and maledictions against her teach- 
ings, and against her agents who have 
betrayed the hopes of their partisans, 
brought death instead of life, ruin in- 
stead of prosperity, and dishonor in- 
stead of glory. In a word, revolution 
is in a state of bankruptcy. This is 
not acknowledged by the politicians 
of the tiers-parti and their followers. 
They still continue to proclaim the 
sovereignty of the " immortal prin- 
ciples," declare revolution a success, 
celebrate its material and moral bene- 
fits, and boast that " real social justice 
was for the first time rendered in 
1789" after eighteen centuries of 
Christianity ! But people are ceasing 
to be duped by any such political 
sophisms; they are beginning to re- 
gret profoundly the peace, order, and 
security, and all the benefits assured 
to the world by the supremacy of re- 
ligion, and lost through social apos- 
tasy. The wisest of politicians are 
tired of revolutions. People who 
have lost their sacred heritage, and 
find themselves deprived of the high- 
est blessings of life, are beginning to 
remember their baptismal engage- 
ments, and to feel the necessity of 
putting an end to revolution, and re- 



turning to the social order established 
of God. The prodigal son, famished 
with hunger, makes an energetic 
resolution : Siirgam et ibo ad patrem ! 
Hesitation is no longer possible. 
Weary of your modern theories, we 
will return to our Father's house to 
Christ and his church ! 

The man who comprehended most 
thoroughly the Satanic nature of the 
revolutionary spirit Count Joseph 
de Maistre had an intuitive assur- 
ance of the calamities that would 
avenge the disregard of the laws of 
order, and lead future generations 
back to the sacred principles of their 
ancestors. The foresight and warn- 
ings of this eminent writer are well 
known. Addressing the French, he 
says : " Undeceive yourselves, at 
length, as to the lamentable theories 
that have disgraced our age. You 
have already found out what the pro- 
mulgators of these deplorable dogmas 
are, but the impression they have left 
is not yet effaced. In all your plans 
of creation and restoration you only 
leave out God, from whom they have 
alienated you. . . . How has 
God punished this execrable de- 
lirium? He has punished it as he 
created light by a single word 
Fiat! and the political world has 
crumbled to atoms. . . . If any 
one wishes to know the probable re- 
sult of the revolution, they need only 
examine the point whereon all its 
factions are united. They all desire 
the degradation, yea, the utter sub- 
version, not only of the monarchy, 
but of Christianity ; whe?ice it follows 
that all their efforts must finally end 
in the triumph of Christianity as well 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



793 



as the monarchy."* In these few 
words the great philosopher gives us 
a complete history of the era of re- 
volution in the past as well as the 
future. He declares it a widespread 
overturning of order, necessarily fol- 
lowed by terrible misfortunes, till a 
counter-stroke turns the nations back 
to the way appointed by God. f 

While M. de Maistre was regarding 
the progress of events from the 
heights of his genius, he gave the 
most minute attention to the ravages 
of the revolutionary spirit in every 
department. In the Melanges In- 
edits, for which we are indebted to 
Count Joseph's grandson, and which 
appeared on the very eve of our great 
disasters (1870), we find more than 
a hundred pages devoted to review- 
ing the be?iefits of the French Revo- 
lution. They contain an inventory 
drawn up by the aid of the republican 
papers of the time, in which the 
moral and material results of revolu- 
tionary barbarism are attested by the 
avowal of the barbarians themselves. 
A certain historian of the Revolution 
would have done well to examine 
this catalogue before officially under- 
taking, in the presence of the Na- 
tional Assembly, the awkward apology 
so generally known. And what if he 
had continued to- verify the bene- 
fits of the revolutionary syren, still 
beloved of certain politicians, till the 



* Considerations sur la France, chapter x. et 
alibi passim. 

t M. de Maistre is sometimes quoted as taking 
i different view ; for example, in an article in the 
Correspondant for Nov. 10, Joseph de Maistre 
declared revolution an epoch and not an event. 
But this by no means signifies that the illustri- 
ous publicist meant that revolution was about 
to prevail. He says : " The French Revolution 
is an important epoch, and its manifold con- 
sequences will be felt far beyond the time of its 
outbreak and the limits of its original sphere. 
... If there is not a moral revolution through- 
out Europe, if the religious spirit is not strength- 
ened in this part of the world, the bonds of so- 
ciety will dissolve." The clergy of France, in 
particular, are called to " the essential work " of 
reacting against the influence of the Goddess of 
Reason. See Considerations sur la France, chap, 
ii. 



end of the year 1872 ? How glo- 
rious would be the balance-sheet 
of the "immortal principles" in the 
eighty-fourth year of their reign ! 
Every Frenchman knows what it has 
cost to be the eldest son of the Re- 
volution ! As statistics are held 
in such high honor in our day, why 
not draw up the accounts of '89, and 
establish clearly the active and pas- 
sive of the revolutionary spirit now 
spreading throughout the world ? 

We lay before our readers some 
notes that may be of service in this 
vast liquidation, taken from two 
valuable works that have been kindly 
brought to our notice.* We do not 
feel at liberty to designate the emi- 
nent person who wrote these Notes, 
which, if we are rightly informed, 
were first published in the Messager 
Russe. All we feel permitted to 
state is that we can place full con- 
fidence in the probity of this traveller. 
He belongs to the diplomatic corps, 
but unfortunately is not of the Ca- 
tholic religion. We will let him 
testify for himself. It will at once be 
seen by the frequent quotations we 
shall make that he is a man of superior 
mind, decision and honesty of cha- 
racter, and of an upright and incor- 
ruptible conscience. 

" Eleven years ago, I witnessed the 
foundation of the kingdom of Italy. 
I have just seen the work completed 
the edifice crowned Rome made 
the capital. My observations 
have been made in person, and 
are impartial, as I had no precon- 
ceived opinions. My numerous quo- 
tations are taken in a great measure 
from Italian sources, nay, even the 
most Italian. My position as an in- 
dependent observer, unbiassed by any 
feeling of responsibility, enables me 
to judge events in a cooler manner 



* Etudes sur t ' Italie contemporaine^ and Notes 
d'un I'oyageur. Premiere Etude, June, 1871; 
Second* Etude, July, 1872. Paris : ArnyoU 



794 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



than might be done by an opponent 
of the various publicists that have 
treated of the successive phases of 
the great Italian drama." 

Here, then, is contemporaneous 
Italy studied by an observer of incon- 
testable impartiality studied on the 
spot, and from authentic sources. It 
is by no means uncommon to hear 
the correspondents of Catholic jour- 
nals accused of exaggeration. Certain 
newspapers under party influence, like 
the Journal des Debats and the In- 
de'pendance Beige, are paid to divert 
public attention from facts that can- 
not be denied. We are sure the Italo- 
Parisian and the Italo-Belgian press 
will not say a single word about the 
Etudes sur F Italic contemporaine. \ 



I. 

How shall we characterize the 
Italian crisis as a whole ? Is it 
merely one of those accidental revo- 
lutions which history is full of, or is 
it a genuine revolution with its sys- 
tematic hatred of Christian society ? 
Our readers must not be astonished 
at such a question. I know some 
Catholics a little too liberal, it is 
true who have not thereon, even in 
these times, perfectly correct notions. 

* Premiere Etude, p. 3. 

t "Except the Univers, which has a correspon- 
dent at Rome, and keeps up constant communi- 
cations with that city in other ways, and, on the 
other side, the Journal des Debats, which is sup- 
plied with information by the Italian government, 
and, as we have been assured, receives a hand- 
some subsidy for the patronage accorded, most 
ef the French papers have no other source of 
supplying their readers with news than the con- 
jectures, more or less unreliable, of the Havas 
agency, a succursale, as to what concerns Italy, 
of the Stefani agency at Florence. It is supposed, 
however, that nothing is easier than to ob- 
tain information about a country at our very 
doors." M. Ed. Dulaurier, member of the In- 
stitute, u Impressions et Souvenirs de Rome," in 
the Gazette du Languedocio? Sept. 19. I take the 
liberty of recommending to M. Dulaurier, and 
all who wish to know the state of affairs in Italy, 
the valuable Correspondance de Geneve. The 
Journal of Florence, recently combined with the 
Cattolica of Rome, affords instructive reading. 
Besides information peculiar to itself, this paper 
reproduces in each number interesting extracts 
from various Italian journals. 



We remember certain unfortunate ex- 
pressions respecting the governments 
of the ancien regime which commit- 
ted the unpardonable fault of injur- 
ing Italian liberty, and even respect- 
ing that venerable Christian admin- 
istration that has been dragged 
through blood and fire. Did not 
the honorable M. Dulaurier recently 
confess in an ingenuous manner the 
illusions he was under before he set 
foot on Italian soil, and how he be- 
lieved in the possibility of a reconcili- 
ation between the Pope and the ex- 
communicated king ? He says he 
heard on all sides a sentiment to 
which he gave credence without 
much reflection : " Why interpose 
between the two parties contending 
for Rome? Pius IX. and Victor 
Emmanuel are both Italians : they 
will end by settling the difficulty, and 
we shall trouble ourselves for no- 
thing." The reality, the sad reality, 
forces us to a different opinion. 

It was a beautiful illusion once 
greatly dwelt upon in official papers 
to think Piedmont sincerely and 
uniquely preoccupied about the free- 
dom of Italy; to believe in the Sub- 
alpine posture of disinterested chi- 
valry, and in Napoleon III. going to 
war in a great cause merely for the 
glory of being a liberator. Doubt- 
less there was, for some time, a lib' 
eral party in Italy dreaming at once 
of a confederacy and of national in- 
dependence. But Mazzinism and its 
ideas of unity prevailed, and it was 
manifest to those whose eyes were 
not blinded that the Piedmontese 
government superseded Giovane 
Italia by taking advantage of the 
na'ivete' of honest liberals. * All sin- 



* u The French, under Napoleon I., intro- 
duced the idea of centralization into Italy and 
the code of the Revolution which the restored 
princes had the want of foresight to retain. The 
old municipalises were destroyed, and never re- 
covered their former independence even in the 
States of the Church. Piedmont, of all the states 
of the Peninsula, was the longest under the poi- 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



795 



Cere and upright minds must free 

themselves from so illusive a decep- 

rp, , , r I, 

tion. The mask has fallen off, so 

must the scales from their eyes. I he 
Italian movement is essentially revo- 
lutionary or Satanic. It is not one 

of those transformations so frequent 

,. , IT r L- *. 

in the political life of a nation : it is 

a work of subversion, a war on the 
church, a religious persecution, and 
" pure impurity," to use Joseph de 
Maistre's words 

It has been demonstrated quite re- 
cently in this magazine that the whole 
tendency of the Italian Peninsula, and 
its providential destiny, are opposed 

to unity; that the Revolution has 

/ , ,. . 

done violence to nature and religion, 

to the institutions and traditions of 
the past, and to the faith and morals 
of the people weighed down by the 
yoke of unity ; and that it has lied to 
history, to the world, and to God. 
Les Etudes snr V Italic contemporaine 
takes a similar view of the case : 

" The unity of Italy was not a national 
necessity ; . the movement was not 

spontaneous, but forced. . . . The Pied- 
montese government has shown some 
shrewdness (unscrupulous shrewdness) 
in borrowing its programme from Mazzi- 
ni. The campaign of 1859 led the way to 
this political intrigue. As to the nation, 
it imagined the promised regeneration 
would produce a new era of happiness 
when the foreigner was once got rid of. 
The masses have given in to the ambi- 
tion of the minority. 

In the transformation of Italy, we see 
action precede reflection ; we see what 
Frederick the Great said of Joseph II.- 
the second step taken before the first. . . 
It must be remembered that the geo- 
graphy of Italy was one of the causes 
of its division the length being so dis- 
proportionate to its width, which prevent- 
ed a common centre, and led to separate 
developments and outlets. . . . Even if 



sonous influence of foreign ideas. Hence it be- 
came the centre of the Revolution." Quel tst 
r Avenir de f Europe ? pages 40-41. Geneva: 
Grosset, 1871. The author of this remarkable 
work is of the school of the Count de Maistre, and 
worthy of his master. 



railways are now a means oi greatly 
shortening distances, the union of the 
remote parts ought to be the result of a 
natun / and pr t gressive tendency-not 

revolutionary. 

" The first idea of Rome as the capital 
sprang from the classics. It was a rhe- 
^'^ ^P^ssion (according to Senator 

otefano Jacini). . . . If official Italy had 
need of J Rom ^ Rome by no mean / had 

need of Italy. . . . And what do they 
wish to do with Rome? The unionists 
in favor of a monarchy wish to transform 
* l * nto a mo< ^ ern capital that it may be- 
come the centre of the general action and 
influence which unite / Italy is ambi tious 

O f exercising in the world. The Mazzi- 
nians, the socialist republicans, and the 
free-thinkers wish to make it the centre 
o^ the doctrines they are desirous of sub- 

stituting for Christianity. These new 
apostles are not agree / among them _ 

selves, but they are all fighting in the 
breach against the Catholic organization, 
and their real ob J ect is the destruction 
of christian principles."* 

To effect the unification of Italy, 
it was therefore necessary to con- 
spire against the natural inclinations 
of the inhabitants, against the rights 

o f j oca i principalities, and against 
the rgal imerests Qf h { 

conspire not only against the tem- 
poral, but the spiritual power of the 
papacy. Where they do not find 

trie normal conditions of assimila- 
^ t] do ^ hesi T 

. ' J . , . 

deeds worthy of brigands. Conspi- 

rators, alas ! have never been want- 
ing in the country of Machiavelli. In 

trie present age they superabound. 
R hag been the misfortune of Ital 
, r 7 

~ lts robe of Nessus that for twelve 

years all who have succeeded to 
power, even the best, have been con- 

S pirators."f Yes; and foremost among 
h ^ ^ f and d Q 

, .. 

whom a Preach diplomatist an 

honest man, however has lately de- 
picted, with an enthusiasm that has 

hardly died away, as Struggling tO 



* Premiere Etude* pp.6, 
Itude, pp. 4, 10, n. 
t Premiere Etude^ p. 10. 



13, 15; Seconde 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



promote the greatness of his country.* 
We do not dispute Cavours ability, 
or his perseverance in striving after a 
certain end, or his subtleness and 
patience in the execution of his de- 
signs, or his skill in availing himself 
of the very passions he pretended to 
yield to. He succeeded is it not a 
glorious title to fame ? in keeping 
Napoleon III. in leading-strings till 
a Prussian Cavour is found to con- 
tinue the role and lead the emperor 
on to Sedan. But herein Cavour 
showed himself crafty, deceitful, and 
why should we not say it ? crimi- 
nal. Has not M. Guizot called a cer- 
tain writer a " malfaiteur de la pen- 
see ? " Besides, Cavour spoke of him- 
self to his friends somewhat as we do. 
Our French diplomatist, M. Henry 
d'Ideville, in a curious page of his 
Notes Intimes, lets us into the secrets 
of the game and those who took 
part in it. 

" You see, my dear d'Ideville (it is 
Cavour who is speaking), your emperor 
will never change. His fault is a dispo- 
sition to be for ever plotting. . . . With 
a country as powerful as yours, a large 
army, and Europe at peace, what is he 
afraid of? Why is he for ever disguising 
his intentions, going to the right when he 
means to turn to the left, and vice -versa ? 
Ah ! what a wonderful conspirator he 
makes !" 

M. d'Ideville is a man of wit. 
With all possible courtesy, he replied : 

" But, M. le Comte, have you not been a 
daring conspirator also ?" 

" I ? Certainly," replied M. de Cavour. 
" I have conspired, and how could I do 
otherwise at such a time? . . . We had 
to keep Austria in the dark, whereas, 
your emperor, you may be sure, will re- 
main forever incorrigible. I have known 
him a long time ! To plot, for ever 
plot, is the characteristic of his nature. 
It is the occupation he prefers, and he 
pursues it like an artist like a dilettante. 

* Journal d' 'un Diplotnate en Italie. See the 
Etudes for July, 1872. 



In this rdle he will always be the fore- 
most and most capable of us all."* 

Us ALL! Yes, there it is ably 
expressed in a word : all conspir- 
ators and accomplices, not to speak 
of the dupes. On the 24th of 
March, 1860, M. de Cavour, after 
signing the treaty that ceded Nice 
and Savoy to France, approached 
M. de Talleyrand, and, rubbing his 
hands, whispered in his ear: "We 
are accomplices now, baron, are we 
not ?" f Alas ! wrongfully acquired, 
and never any benefit, we now see 
why we have lost Alsace and Lor- 
raine ! 

The entire route from Turin to 
Rome is marked by the deeds of 
these conspirators, by their tricks 
and intrigues, and by their crimes 
and double-dealings, which have re- 
sulted in the profit of Piedmont and 
Prussia, and the disgrace of our poor 
France. M. dTdeville's conscience 
evidently reproached him at last for 
having liked Cavour so well, and for 
imprudently interesting himself in the 
Italian scheme. The other diplo- 
matist, who has anonymously given 
his Etudes sur V Italie to the public, 
seems never to have had the least 
sympathy with the iniquitous and 
sacrilegious ambition of the Sardinian 
government. It is true he does not 
belong to the French diplomacy in- 
fatuated with the ideas of '89 ! \ He 
finds nothing seductive in the policy 
of the conspirators. The fiction dis- 
guised under the attractive title of 
national rights, the age of annexa- 
tions, the trick of the plebiscites, the 
system of moral agency, the so-called 
exigencies of civilization and pro- 



* Journal (fun Diplomate en Italie, pp. 305, 
306. 

t Journal (fun Diplomats en Italic, pp. 116, 
117. 

% Les Diplomates Frangais sous Napoleon III., 
by B. d'Agreval Paris : Dentu. 1872. A work 
we recommend to all publicists who wish to add 
to their knowledge. 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 797 

and the revolutionary messian- " Revolution leads to disorder, and, 

ism ;.uch constitutes the foundation &**%&<% l*^ 

of the Napoleonic ideas, have nc rems> Political bias must take the place 

traction for him. His style is toler- O f ca p a city and often of honor itself."* 
ably forcible when he speaks of all 

these stratagems : " Such tactics are One of the first material disasters 

nothing new. They have always produced by a triumphant conspiracy 

been resorted to in order to palliate is the squandering of the finances, 

schemes of ambition and hypocri- There is an .immediate necessity of 

sy." * enriching itself, repairing all deficien- 
cies, paying traitors, buying conscien- 
ces and votes, keeping a secret re- 

A government given to conspiracy serve o f rea( ty mone y to reward the 
condemns the nation that supports it, zea i o f journalists, and stimulate or 
as well as itself, to degradation to \ u \i trie passions according to the exi- 
moral and material ruin. If for a ge ncies of the moment. The wretch- 
while it flatters itself with the hope e( j state o f trie budgets in United 
of systematizing the revolution and j ta j v w {\\ become as proverbial as the 
directing its energies, it soon be- marches of the 4th of September in 
comes its slave and finally its victim. jr rance . With all the domains Pied- 
When the hand is caught in machin- mont j ias received from the annexed 
ery, the whole body is soon drawn s t a tes, it ought to be rich rich 
after it, the head as well as the rest. enough to pay the debt its accom- 
Our diplomatic traveller states p ]i cej trie Empire, has bequeathed to 
some aphorisms in connection with us> The finances of the different 
this subject that are full of signifi- stat e s> especially of Rome, were in 
cance, and reveal the genuine states- perfect order, and, with the exception 
man. of the kingdom of Sardinia, the re- 
' A government that owes its existence <*ipts surpassed the expenses. Now 
to a revolution is not viable in the long the credit of Italy is destroyed, and 
run unless it has the power and wisdom nothing is heard of but duties and 
to sunder all the ties that connect it with taxes, such as were unknown through- 
the party to which it owes its origin. Qut the p en i nsu l a in ^59, more par- 

Every government that has a similar ^ ^ j 

origin to the Napoleonic Empire, and, J 

still more, one which owes its existence quent we must refer to them : 
thereto, will find itself in danger when 

traditionary principles once more assert "Previous to 1860, there were seven 

themselves for the safety of society. states in Italy, each with its court, minis- 

" Governments of a revolutionary ori- ters, administration, and diplomatic corps, 

gin have been known to become conser- All these governments expended about 

vative and renounce their former princi- fi ve hundred millions of francs a year, 

pies of action. The Italian government an( j the imposts amounted to nearly the 

may likewise wish to do this, but it can- same sum. These seven states had a 

not. debt of about two milliards and a half. 

"All who have risen to power in Italy At the present time, without reckoning 

have had some connection with the revo- t he interest on the floating debt to the 

lutionary party, and are obliged to favor National Bank, Italy annually pays about 

it. In particular instances, they have three hundred millions of interest, cor- 

sometimes manifested a certain firmness responding to a debt of seven milliards, 

towards its factions, but in essentials they anc | a u this notwithstanding the sale of 
have yielded to the inevitable pressure. 

* Premier e Etude, pp. 5, i " \ Seconde Etude, 

* Premiere Etude \ p. 10. p. 4- 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



domanial property amounting to six hun- 
dred and fifty millions, notwithstanding 
the alienation of the railways of the state 
and the manufacture of tobacco, and not- 
withstanding the seizure of ecclesiastical 
property, all of which have amounted in 
nine years to nine milliards three hundred 
and sixteen millions of francs received at 
the state treasury. Nevertheless, the pub- 
lic debt amounts to the aforesaid sum of 
seven milliards. And yet the army is 
badly maintained, the navy poorly organ- 
ized, and the administration in a state of 
chaos and unparalleled demoralization."* 

And here is M. Quintino Sella, who 
has just made known the projected 
budget for 1873; he acknowledges 
a deficit of sixty millions, as had 
been anticipated, while the ordinary 
receipts amount to eight hundred and 
five millions. If the kingdom of 
Italy were administered as economi- 
cally as in the time of the seven sov- 
ereigns, a budget of eight hundred 
and five millions would leave a sur- 
plus of three hundred millions. And 
yet one of the pretexts of unification 
was that it would save the expense 
of so many courts, which bore hard 
on the people ! Poor people ! they 
know now what to think of cheap 
governments, and will soon see that 
the ministration of the imposts is 
leading to bankruptcy, in spite of the 
fresh confiscations and appropria- 
tion of conventual property about to 
be made at Rome.f 

And it must be remembered that, 
in spite of these great budgets, the 
army is badly maintained and the 
navy poorly organized. Custozza 
and Lissa had previously convinced 
us of this. Austria was well aware 
of it, and even the France of M. 
Thiers suspects that, in spite of the 
valor of the old Piedmontese sol- 
diery, and the discipline of the Nea- 

* Premiere Etude, p. 7. 

t The minister has laid before the Parliament 
the account of the expense of opening the 
breach in the walls of Rome. This crime cost 
nearly forty-eight millions. 



politan army; in spite of the aptitude 
of the Genoese and Venetian sailors, 
the military forces of Italy are a mere 
illusion, particularly on account of 
the inefficiency of the leaders of the 
army and navy. Since the time of 
M. de Cavour, whose ability is by no 
means beyond doubt, there have 
been only second-rate men beyond 
the Alps not a statesman, not an 
orator, not a minister, not a finan- 
cier, not a genuine soldier every- 
where and in everything there is the 
same disgraceful deficiency. Facun- 
dum sed male forte genus. 

" I knew well the men of 1848, some of 
whom are still remaining, but they must 
have degenerated through ambition and 
the necessity of sustaining their position, 
for even in the revolutionary ranks there 
was more elevation in 1848 than at the 
present time. 

" Previous to 1860, the armies of the 
different states, including, of course, the 
Piedmontese army, constituted a more 
powerful and better organized force than 
is now under arms. ' Our army,' says 
General La Marmora, ' has the traditional 
reputation of being disciplined, but it is 
demoralized by a want of stability in its 
organization, and a lack of moral influ- 
ences.' La Marmora opposes among 
other things the exclusion of chaplains 
and of the religious element among the 
troops. 

" The Sardinian and Neapolitan navies 
greatly surpassed the Italian. The men 
were better drilled, and the shipping in 
better order. Such is the opinion recently 
expressed by the English naval officers in 
port at Naples who were at the exposition 
of the present year." * 

And yet the military forces are the 
only remaining bulwark of order in 
Italy I mean material order, for 
moral order no longer exists any- 
where. The so-called conservative 
party, that is to say, the moderate 
revolutionists, rely on the army. 
But the ultra revolutionary element 
is also to be found there, and some 

* Premiere Etude, p. u ; Seconds Etude, p. 12. 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 799 

day the advanced party will, for its clivity that leads al fondo. It will 

own designs, entice away the officers always have against it not only the 

that followed the hero of Caprera in betrayed interests and the revolted 

his campaigns. It will not be suffi- conscience of Italia reale, but, above 

cient to name Cialdini, Cadorna, or all, Divine Providence, who will one 

even La Marmora, to counteract the day show that the favors and proofs 

fatal consequences of Castelfidardo of protection accorded to the " re- 

and the Porta Pia. By excluding generators " were merely for them, as 

religious influences from the army, for Napoleon III., the snares of 

and giving it a false idea of patriot- avenging justice. In insidiis suis 

ism, the source of courage and ener- capientur iniqui. 
gy is dried up. After all, revolution 

will never be friendly to the army, " As to greatness and political import- 

and the genuine soldier will always * -..admitting reven the possibility of 'in- 

. J . defatigable and intelligent effort, Italy 

execrate revolution, whether msti- will never equal the g i ori0 us traditions 

gated by princes, citizens, or the of its past history. Italian glory is the 

mob. A soldier who entered Rome glory of the different states of the Penin- 

through the breach, lately wrote to sula - To acquire fresh glory, there 

the Liberia : The day the King of must > be f^ es unit f' a strenth , of or " 

. ganization it does not possess, and can- 

Italy is satisfied with mere volun- not> beca use it is a mirage and not a 

teers, as the Pope was, we shall see reality. 

whether it is the Pope or the king " The North invades the South : this can- 

that is loved and esteemed the most not be called community of interests. It 

, , T r , is an attempt at absorption on the part 

y P le * of the North, and at the expense of the 

In opposing the system of ternto- South. 

rial divisions on account of the army, " Once at Rome, the programme was to 

which he considers unsuited to the have ended. A new life was to corn- 

Peninsula, General La Marmora's mence J fresh ener sy was to be the si s nal 

f j j r ., of an era of grandeur and prosperity ; in- 

opimon is founded on a proof that ' r 

. tenorly, there was to be a more perfect 

misfortune to prove too administration ; exteriorly, a prudent na- 

much. " If there were small territo- tional policy, that is to say, the Napo- 

rial armies," says he, " in addition to Iconic idea of the Latin races that Italy 

separate administrations in the va- was to revive - Rome was to be the 

c T , , f great centre of liberal influences. . . . All 

nous regions of Italy, the unity .for f his had been announced and promised . 

which we have done so much, and As for me> j see no choice between a 

Providence Still more than we, would blind alley and zpolitique cTaventure. 

incur great danger." * Why not " It seems to me the union, at a critical 

boldly declare, general, that there moment should find protection in the 

Ti , 07 j ii wishes of the inhabitants. I can testify 

are two Italys the Reale and the that . f Ae former sovereigns of Napl J ( 

Legate, one of which has a tendency Florence, Parma, and Modena could re- 

to revolt against the other ? And, turn, the day would be hailed by a ma- 

above all, why utter a blasphemy jority of the inhabitants as one of de- 

against the sovereign providence of Iterance. In Lombard? it is different, I 

rT j A TJ T 7 711 acknowledge. The noblesse say, as I 

God ? t Itaha legate labors m vain; ^ a personage of grcat note : 

the revolutionary impulse given to it We are badly governed, but at least it is 

by Cavour is an accelerated move- no longer by foreigners. The middle 

ment; it will never reascend the de- classes are republicans, and in the coun- 

try the Austrian rule is regretted. The 

* Cf. Premise Etude p. 10. ' people of Venice either aspire to a repub- 

t See a forcible and eloquent article in the Ci~ f. , A , 

Car esses de la Providence. ^ or regret the unfortunate Archduke 



Ser. viii. vol. v., No. 519, Feb., 1872. Maximilian, whom they would have liked 



goo 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



as an independent sovereign. In the old 
pontifical provinces called the Legations, 
they would not care to return to the 
former condition of ^J^^ 
but some would be satisfied with tne 
Pope and a local autonomy; the re- 
mainder form a sufficiently numerous re- 

publican party." 
In a word, THERE is EVERYWHERE DIS- 

SATISFACTION AS WELL AS DISAPPOINTMENT, 
AFTER TWELVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE." * 

It is not astonishing, therefore. 
that at an audience on the i8th of 
last Nov., the Grand Duke Ni- 
cholas, nephew of the Emperor of 
Russia, said to Pius IX., with all a 
young man's frankness : "Most holy 
Father, since I have been in Italy, 
everywhere I go, I hear nothing but 
evil of King Victor Emmanuel and 
his government." t 

We need only open our eyes to see 
the interior condition of united Italy 
as soon as there was any question, 
no longer of conspiring and declaim- 
ing, but of organizing and govern- 
ing. And its exterior political rela- 
tions compare quite as unfavorably 
with the programme of emancipation. 
By a kind of divine irony, Italy has 
become a mere humble vassal of Ger- 
many of the Holy Protestant Em- 
pire of Berlin and the future King 
of Rome was only acting his part 
when he proclaimed himself the King 
of Prussia's hussar. J It is well 
known at the Quirinal that, though 
influenced for the moment by the 
dominant party, the authorities may 
some day return, even through inter- 

* (Premiere Etude, pp. 7, 8, 27; Seconde 

Etude, PP . xx, 12.) "The irWaders take the 

stand of masters, but the people have not joined 
them. They remain isolated in their midst in the 
position of a military and administrative colony, 
about as favorably regarded and received as the 
Prussians in those departments of our country 
where they are still encamped. The Romans, it 
cannot be denied, love their Pope." M. Ed. 
Dulaurier, loc. cit. 

t Union, NOV. 26. 

t " We continue to be regarded at Berlin with 
the most favorable dispositions, as the demon- 
strations of which our princes were the object 
prove." Speech of M. Visconti-Venosta in the 
Chamber of Deputies, Nov. 27, 1872. 



est, to traditional principles and 
t he G \& political code which does 
nQt recO g n i ze the revolutionary 

schemes of nations or parties. Besides, 
. 

the Italian princes, who represent 

the law, are Still living. Francis II. 

may be found to be a genuine Nea- 

l[tsin Ferdinand IV. a very good 

? PYrellent Par- 

?****, ] L ?I1 CXCCl 

mesan, and Francis V. the best ot 
Modenais. And, lastly, is not Pius 
IX. more of an Italian than the Sa- 
yoyard who styles himself the King 
of Italy ? . . . And if the French, 
whose connivance can no longer be 
expected, even under M. Thiers, 
should favor the restoration of the 
throne to a prince, " qui a la justice 
dans le sang et dans I'dme" and would 
at need have it in his hand, the Ital- 
ian framework, which merely stands 
through toleration, would be threat- 
e ned with sudden and ignominious 
ru in. It is all this that recently in- 
duced the prince-hfritier to mount 
like a Hungarian foot-soldier behind 
the triumphal chariot of the German 
Caesar. 

Another evil : the Prussians are 
not the most scrupulous people in 
the world about other people's prop- 
er ty } and their investigations in the 
Peninsula have excited suspicions as 
to the object of their cupidity. Let 
M. de Bismarck, more audacious and 
grasping than the late M. de Cavour, 
O nce succeed in driving the Haps- 
burgs from Germany, will it not oc- 
cur to him to take advantage of the 
title of the Lombardo- Venetian king- 

r , , r ,v r'rcx-.or /^.f 

dom for the benefit of 

Berlin? For it is skilfully demon- 
/ . ~, ,1 rVr 

Strated 111 (jermany 

rnanic race has the power, and, there- 

' . 
fore, the right, to a pOWC avy, 

^ f QT ^e benefit of this navy, an 

. . . j .,' 

outlet on the Adriatic. And there is 

other DOSSlble ally but Prussia tO 

11 if 1 l " A 
protect what Calls itsell the KlllgU 

r 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 80 1 

" Alliances are beneficial when the par- and breadth of the earth, doubtless .ni- 

ties unite their influence for a common agining it is to triumph for ever. ... . 

end. (Allies, in our day, no longer seek Woe to those who are linked with the im- 

to know each other's principles or origin.) pious, and dally with the Revolution un- 

But when they are not formed inter pares, der the pretence of directing it ! Sooner 

or nearly so, and especially when they or later they will be drawn into the abyss, 

are intended to guarantee the very exist- The recent disasters at Naples may be 

t . uce the vital principle of the weaker adduced as an example. A great nuni- 

ally, then the alliance loses its true cha- ber of curious people, heedless and de- 

rac'ter, and soon ends in subjection on the void of all prudence, hastened to get a 

ground of politics or economy, and some- nearer view of the devouring flames 

times both." * issuing from the fearful mouth of Vesu- 
vius, and many of them became victims 

Such are the glories of Italy free of mistaken curiosity. So it is with those 

from the Alps to the Adriatic! Jf, in who covenant with the Revolution and 

spite of her presumptuous fara da se, < he revolutionists hoping to overrule the 

former and keep down the latter. Rash 

she was obliged to have recourse to people! they will all become a prey to 

a foreign hand in order to rise, and t he flames that surround them on every 

still needs a foreign arm to stand side." * 
erect, she will, according to appear- 

ances, have need of no one to aid her The revolutionary lava floods the 

in falling: she will topple over of streets of Rome and covers he whole- 

herself. The so-called free country Peninsula. It began in the ernes 

is only an enslaved kingdom-a spread into the country, and will end 

vassal, a satellite without strength by swallowmg up the army. The- 

universities and common schools are 

and without prestige. .. . . 

invaded, the torrent engulfs the work- 

m< shops and stalls, and undermines the 

walls of palaces. Princes even 

Of all the Italian formulas that haye Qpened their gates at its ap _ 

have served to mislead the ch> In vain the Holy Father 

mind, there is not one more odiously SQunds fche cry of alarm . in yain his 

false and deceptive than the too rime minister pu blicly denounces 

famous expression, A free church in the progress of the deadly current 

a free country. History has already t spirit seems to haye para i yzed 

interpreted it, A persecuted church &u in authority> 

in an enslaved country. We wiu not describe the exploits 

lutionary factions that of thig new Is ] am i sm against the 

sumed the authority have imposed al powen The history of its 

thereon the complete execution of ambu scades and pillages is sufficiently 
their plan, and we know that the weU known< There never was a 
Masonic lodges, though they de- richer treasure of dishonor for re- 
nounce Mazzinian deism, have fallen volution to endow a pe ople with, 
into the atheism of Renan, al fondo ! c , The title of Motors was a n t h e 

The sacrilegious frenzy of the Re- game retained< Y es, all the same ! 

volution, and the madness of those Joseph de Maistre somewhere re- 

that encouraged it, have been stig- fers tQ an English functionary as 

matized in forcible :erms by the saying that every man who spoke of 

august prisoner of the Vatican : takjng an inch of land from the Pope 

'Unbelief assumes an air of authority, ought to be hung. "As for me" 

and proudly stalks throughout the length adds the witty writer, ' I cheerfully 

* Seconds Etude, p. 13. * Address, April 28, 1872. 
VOL. XVI. 51 



802 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



consent, in order to avoid carnage, 
that 'hung should be changed to 

hissed." * 

Let us wait. An avenging God 
will do both : subsannabit, conquassa- 
bit. Had the plots of the unionists 
merely aimed at the temporal power, 
perhaps divine justice would have 
been satisfied with a hiss at the hour 
of some Italian Sedan, but the gibbet 
it is a law of history is reserved 
for persecutors and apostates. 

When the Sardinian government 
knocked at one of the gates of Rome, 
as it awaited a propitious moment 
for battering it down, it bound itself 
before all Europe to solve the pro- 
blem of the separation of church and 
state which had puzzled all the doc- 
tors of liberalism, and of which it 
pretended to have found the key. 
It was said the Roman question and 
the Italian question were to cease to 
be antagonistic, or, at least, they 
Avere to resemble those rivers that, 
while mingling their waters, preserve 
their own colors, as we see in the 
Rhone and the Saone. It was 
.promised a channel should be made 
wide enough for this double current 
<of opinions. Hence the origin of 
the famous law of the Guarantees. 
This scheme of conciliation is proper- 
ly appreciated in the Etudes sur 
V Haiti Contemporaine : 

" How many times I have heard it said 
that the Papacy and the Italian govern- 
ment, even though they never came to an 
agreement, might at least be like two 
parallel lines indefinitely and pacifically 
prolonged ! This is a mistake arising 
from a judgment founded on impressions 
and when I say impressions, I mean 
appearances. 

" From the beginning, this law of Guar- 
antees was a one-sided and fruitless at- 
tempt. . . . The government and the 
Chambers never had any doubt as to the 
refusal of the Pope. This law was like 
an olive branch presented at the point of 



the sword as a suitable corrective to pal- 
liate the violent occupation of Rome. . . . 
I do not think a single statesman could 
really have believed in the success of 
this law, otherwise than as the decree of 
the conqueror. 

" Besides the moral, juridical, and his- 
toric reasons to hinder an understanding 
between the Pope and a sovereign master 
of Rome, there was also the impossi- 
bility of coexisting with a power that rests 
on an unstable foundation. 

" Even from the point of view of modern 
but not subversive ideas, A SEPARATION 

MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT OF STATE 
AND CHURCH IS THE SEPARATION OF STATE 
AND REVOLUTION."* 

These are golden words. But our 
diplomatic traveller is forced to ac- 
knowledge that the Italian govern- 
ment cannot break its iniquitous 
bonds, that it lacks honesty and force, 
and that all the factions seek their 
own good first and then the evil of 
others. Our author, though, unfor- 
tunately, too indifferent a spectator to 
Italian persecution, at least has the 
advantage of being an unexception- 
able witness. 

" Practically, it is not the state, it is so- 
ciety, that modern Italy separates from 
the church. . . . One of the greatest mis- 
takes the unionists have made since the 
beginning of the Revolution has been 
the war declared against the clergy and 
the church. It is at once a political and 
historical error, and the greater for being- 
committed at Rome. 

" Tolerance (practised from time to time 
according to orders) has its reaction, and 
of the deepest die, in a recrudescence of 
insults, sequestrations and confiscations 
imposed on the ministers of the sanctuary 
and even the sanctuaries themselves. 

" Anti-Christianity has established itself 
with a bold front at Rome with its 
schools of free-thinkers, speeches in 
which atheism is proclaimed without the 
least reticence, burial without any reli- 
gious ceremony, and irreligious books 
sold at low prices. 

" In everything relating to teaching, the 
choice generally falls on the unbeliever. 



* Corresfondance Diplomatique in the year 
1815. 



* Premiere Etudc^ p. 17 ; Seconde Etude, pp. 
4, 14, 15, 16, 17. 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 803 

"Materialism is taught ex cathedra in all all the schemes of Freemasonry, and 

the universities. the numberless vexations and spolia- 

'They have not yet touched on the most j that tl mi ht \ the ^ 

vital question the suppression of the J . * ' . . 

convents (at Rome) and the incameration ot Stage-dancers in the sacrilegious 

of the property of the clergy. But they comedy ! Such base complacency 

will come to that, and speedily. . . . justifies the expression of a Catholic 

The attempt at what is called a concilia- wr i ter . "Europe is in a State of 

tion must sooner or later end in an out- , , 

break."* mortal sin ! 

I am almost ashamed to be 

They did come to it to that obliged to refer to the authority of a 
shameful encroachment of the gov- diplomatist who belongs neither to 
ernment on the religious corpora- our natlon nor our religion. I wish 
tions. The party demanded it, M. : could <l uote some official re P rt of 
de Bismarck advised it, and the a minister from France ! Might not 
diplomatic corps tolerated it. What M - Fourmer have employed his time 
will not diplomacy tolerate ? It better than m figuring a * banquets 
was, however, clearly demonstrated offered to a renegade, and in listening 
to the representatives of different to heretical and atrocious speeches 
governments the urgent necessity from the professors of the Romano- 
there was of taking under their uni- Piedmontese university ? I will con- 
ted protection the independence of sole m y self m transcribing a page 
the Sovereign Pontiff so poorly guar- from M - Dulaurier, the honorable 
anteed by the usurper, of declaring member of the Institute, likewise an 
the inviolability of church property, ocular witness, and a witness worthy 
the possession of which and it is a of credlt > even from a subscriber to 
wholly legitimate one is a sine qua the Deoats : 

non condition of pontifical independ- These grievances and many 

ence, without considering that most others are a ggravated by the ex- 

of these establishments have a dou- cesses to whlch the press the illus- 

ble claim as to their origin and des- trated P ress > above a U~has given 

tination, to be regarded as interna- ltself U P> and b 7 the incessant war it 

tional property.! Nothing was done. wa ? es a S amst religion. Ignoble 

The tolerance of official Europe to- caricatures are daily exposed for sale 

wards the Piedmontese filibustering m the si g ht of the P ollce > and to their 

has been unlimited, though unre- knowledge, in all the Kiosques and 

stricted usurpation has been follow- newspaper shops, and on the walls, 

ed by open persecution. Pius IX. or a re hawked around by miserable 

had good reason to severely allude creatures in rags. The Don Ptrlon- 

to " the so-called governments " that cino > a humorous paper, obsequious 

find amusement in the Revolution, to the government, diffuses three 

Europe seems to have sent its diplo- times a week lts abominations on the 

matists to the court of the usurper in most august mysteries of the Chris 

the capital of the Christian world, tian faith and the ministers who dis- 

that they might close their eyes to P ense thera - The cross Uself the 

cross before which Christians of all 

* Premiere Etude, pp. 25, 26 ; Seconds Etude. Communions bOW With respect not 

pp. 15, 16, 26. on ly Catholics, but schismatics, 

t See, in the Etudes for Oct., 1871, the article , , -^ . , , 

by Fr. Ch. Clair, who, in an address to the gov- Greeks, and Orientals, ailQ even 

ernment of M.Thiers, carries on a vigorous ar- p ro testantS is llOt Safe from its ill 

gument ad homincm respecting the necessary -11 

liberties "of the Pope. suits. My heart swells with horror 



804 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 



when I recall one of these pictures- 
a caricature of the Crucifixion. In 
the place of the God- Man is Dr. 
Lanza, Minister of the Interior. The 
words put in his mouth, and on the 
lips of his murderers, are untransla- 
table. Under his feet, at the lower 
extremity of the tree of the cross, is 
fastened transversely an instrument 
that I dare not designate otherwise 
than by saying it is made a burlesque 
use of at the end of the first act of 
M. de Pourceaugnac. Our French 
revolutionists, in their senseless fury, 
have broken the cross in pieces, but 
it never occurred to them to defile it 
in such a manner. So revolting an 
idea could only spring from imagina- 
tions the country of Aretino alone is 
capable of producing. 

" In the presence of these abomina- 
tions echoed by the political press 
devoted to the advancement of 
free-thinking, the Sovereign Pontiff", 
the clergy, and the Roman people 
who are fundamentally religious, can 
only veil their faces, resign them- 
selves, and have recourse to prayer. 
And prayer rises unceasingly to 
heaven in expiation of so many hor- 
rors. It is the only consolation left 
to all these afflicted souls. There is 
a constant succession of triduos, an- 
nounced by blank notices, headed 
Invito sacro, and signed by Mgr. Pa- 
trizi, the Cardinal Vicar. One of 
these notices, which I saw affixed to 
the columns at the entrance to his 
eminence's palace near the Church 
of Sant' Agostino, gives an idea, in 
the very first line, of the indignation 
that is fermenting in every Catholic 
breast : * The earth is full of the most 
horrible blasphemies. La terra e 
pietia della piit orrende bestemmie? ' 

IV. 

We will not deny one benefit 
and this time a real one! that has 
sprung from the Italian Revolution : 



it has served to revive the fidelity 
and fervor of all true Italians. It 
can be rightly said of it, as M. Gui- 
zot says of the Reformation of the 
sixteenth century, It has awakened, 
even among its adversaries [we 
must correct this Protestant writer's 
mistake he should have said among 
its adversaries alone], religious faith 
and civil courage. Some natures 
that were formerly nonchalantes, 
timid, and delicate, are no longer 
satisfied with groaning over the evil, 
but take a bold stand against the in- 
roads of impiety. Italy, somewhat 
inclined to the far niente, might of 
itself have yielded ; sustained by the 
hand of a great Pope, she is roused 
to withstand the unloosed tempest. 
She no longer falters before the re- 
sponsibility of a religious manifesta- 
tion or an anti-revolutionary vote. 
No longer afraid of the threats of the 
poniard, or of conciliating, through 
culpable prudence, her temporary 
masters, she at last ventures to show 
herself openly, as she really is the 
cherished and faithful daughter of the 
Church of Rome. Roused by provo- 
cations and blasphemies, her filial 
piety towards the Papacy has be- 
come more lively and aggressive. 
She protests solemnly against the 
schemes of the adventurers who have 
trampled under foot their faith, hon- 
esty, morality, and honor. At the 
sight of these sublime outbursts of a 
spirit at once Catholic and Roman, 
the church is consoled, and observ- 
ant Christendom begins to hope the 
reaction will be the more salutary 
from the extreme violence of the 
crisis. 

One of our co-laborers has ex- 
pressed all this much better than we 
can : 

" If there is a country we have reason 
to conceive such consoling hopes of, as- 
suredly it is Italy, in spite of all the scan- 
dals and all the infamy that now degrade 



The Benefits of Italian Unity. 805 

it. All who have had a favorable oppor- be ordered to assassinate the ponti- 
tunity of observing the moral condition fical zouaves open a breach in th 
of the country agree in declaring the n r -o ^ 
greater part of the inhabitants faithful to Walls f Rome > bombard Ancona or 
their belief. It is merely the froth and pes- even the quarter of the Vatican ? He 
tilential impurities that are seething on might without any great difficulty 
the surface. Some day it will doubtless present himself at the municipal and 
be with this impure froth as with the provincial ballot-boxes. The faith- 
stagnant waters for which Pius IX. some r i XT iv ... 
years ago made an opening to the sea, ^.Neapolitans, at the invitation ot 
giving fresh fecundity to the old Italian their archbishop, formed a majority 
soil. Purified by trials, as by a new bap- there, and this is not an isolated case, 
tism, this nation, in many respects so But do you, who are the safety of 
highly gifted will once more have acquired France, set the example of hasten- 
a beneficial discipline of mind and charac- ,, ,. .. XT 
ter, the advantages of a robust and manly g . tO the P olls ? No ; good 
training, the practice of energetic indi- Christians in Italy are far from being 
vidual action, and especially of great inert, nor do the clergy inculcate in- 
combined efforts which she is beginning ertness. Abstaining is quite a differ- 
to give us the consoling spectacle of in ent thi from inaction . Is the b . 

the recently formed Catholic associa- r ,, ,. ~, , .. 

tions .. * he aware that the Catholic press is 

one of the glories of the Peninsula ? 

In France we think lightly, or ra- There are a hundred journals and re- 
ther we have an incorrect idea, of views on the other side of the A1 P S 
what our brethren in Italy are effect- consecrated to the service of the 
ing. The very people among us who truth ' and some of these publications 
only talk of harmony and com- are of unequalled merit. It is suffi- 
promise reproach the Catholics of cient to name the Civilta Cattolica, 
the Peninsula for being' inactive and tbe Unith Cattolica, and the Voce della 
ihefficient. They even make them Verith - We confess our admiration 
partly responsible for the national for the courageous journalists who 
misfortunes and the decay of moral kee P their own course in s P ite of 
principle beyond the Alps. We pro- arrests, law-suits, fines, imprisonment, 
test against such superficial judg- and threats of colkUak. And the 
ments. We know Italy too well not tone of these P a Pers, with some in- 
to have a right to speak in favor of significant exceptions, is healthier 
those who are so unjustly accused. than Wlth us > the umon of sentiment 
Catholics in Italy decline public stronger, and their adhesion to the 
offices, neeletti,neelettori; and they apostolic constitutions more sincere 
do well, because the Sardinian gov- and P en - Associations have spread 
ernment imposes an oath after the from one end of the Penmsula to ^ 
style of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. other > and ^7^ produce the 
Tell us if it is proper for a Catholic most benefic ial results. [ need only 
to take a seat in a parliament estab- mentlon the Society of Catholic Youth 
lished at Rome between the Vatican at Bolo S na > celebrated on account of 
where the Pope is imprisoned, and the g enerous fihal stand * has taken 
the Quirinal where the Piedmontese from the first m fav r f PlUS IX '' and 
has established himself by the aid of the Roman Societ y for the P romoti 
a false key. Does the military career of Catholic interests, which, by its 
offer much attraction when he might branches and^parish committees, ex- 
ercises so prodigious an influence over 
the city of Rome as to excite the 

P. Toulement, La Providence et les Ck&ti- r -, . , 

dc in France^ ch. xvii. anxiety of those m authority. 



806 The Benefits of Italian Unity. 

But let us once more listen to our The intermediate party, which 

unexceptionable witness, whom I would like to consolidate le fait ac- 

think every one will feel indebted to compli, and which recruits adepts from 

us for quoting so much at length : testi- the very opposers of the mezzi morali, 

monium animce naturaliter Christiana, is not sufficiently free from all alloy 

"The religious reaction is more and f P art ^ <*"* to constitute a gov- 

mora decided, even in the middle and ernment capable of resistance and of 

lower classes, owing to the zealous asso- exacting respect from the league of 

eiations that have assumed the direction, destruction. 

This movement is worthy of study ... At Unhappy but beloved Italy! 

Rome, and throughout Italy, this reaction ^ j , , . c -^ 

has given rise to societies composed for the Great and hol 7 Clt 7 of Rome ! sha11 

most part of men still young, whose ob- we have the sorrow of seeing the 

ject is to oppose all pernicious doctrines, enemy flamber your palaces, your 

These societies are to be found at Rome, museums, your churches ? 
Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples. Turin, Not j since we were asked at 

Verona, Genoa, Lucca, Padua, Pisa, and ,, , .. , r 

Bolo n ^ Florence to read the prophecy of 

" In January, 1871, the following state- Joel, so applicable to the future of 

rnent was made in the Ri forma, the organ Italy : " Hear this, . . . tell ye 

of Rattazzi : 'The clerical party is being o f this to your children, and let your 

more and more reinforced at Rome ; the children tell their children, and their 
clerical press every day acquires more ,.,, ,, '. ,, 

strength, its organs increase in number children to another generation. That 

and boldness.' ... The clerical press is which the palmer-worm hath left, the 

really well sustained, and, in spite of the locust hath eaten ; and that which 

persecutions and ill-treatment of all kinds the locust hath left, the bruchus hath 

the editors of these journals have to under- eat an(J that wh j ch the bruchus 

go, they do not cease their energetic efforts. , tl i f . ,1 -u , ,v j j 

-The administering of the oath has hath left, the mildew hath destroyed, 

caused wholesale resignations in all the Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep, 

dicastires (at Rome). Many of these and mourn, all ye that take delight in 

functionaries are left without any means drinking sweet wine ; for it is cut off 

of subsistence. . . . As early as the year from you r mouth." Joel. i. 2-C. 
1871, there were more than four thousand T , . . r ,, 

resignations. J f 1S true * lar g e a P art f the 

"Thousands of Romans go to the Vati- Italian nation have grown giddy from 

can to give their plebiscites, and to the the intoxicating draught of liberalism, 

basilica of St. Peter to offer solemn pray- an( ] it is to be feared they may be 

ers for hastening THE DAY OF DELIVER- con d em ned to drink the bitter cup of 

ANCE 

expiation to the dregs. The inter- 

The day of deliverance will arrive, national " locusts " will devour that 
and, in spite of the sneers about our which the Sub-Alpine " palmer- 
wailing over disappointed hopes, it worm" hath left. To-day, the taxes 
will come soon ! But how will this of Sella ; to-morrow, the communism 
deliverance be effected ? United of Castellani : yesterday, a political 
Italy has against it the upper and revolution ; to-morrow, a radical rev- 
nether fires the Catholic reaction olution : yesterday and to-day, the 
that will never stoop to parley, and hypocrisy of the tribune ; to-morrow, 
the exertions of the demagogues, the bloody scenes of the national Co- 
which are continually increasing. At mitia. After the physicians and law- 
present the nether fires seem like the yers, after the members of the Con- 
prelude of the Internationale. sorteria and the friends of Rattazzi, 

the lowest grade of society the 

* Premiere Etude ', pp. 24. 25, 26; Seconde ,, , , , , , ,, MI ,, vi 

/<fc, P p.i 7 ,22, 34 . "bruchus" and the 'mildew" like 



The Benefits ef Italian Unity. 



So; 



a barbarous horde, will overturn, and 
destroy, and deluge with petroleum. 

Italy, more than France or Spain, 
has abused the divine gift. She has 
" the light of Rome and the sun," but 
has been ungrateful, proud, impious, 
shameless, and reckless. The whole 
land is now a mere haunt for ban- 
ditti, traitors, and buffoons. 

Alas 1 it is so : but Pius IX. still 
prays for his beloved Italy ! Follow- 
ing the example of its lawful ruler, 
the nation at least, the better por- 
tion of the nation have multiplied 
their holy prayers, which daily grow 
more frequent from the delay of the 
benefit and the example of France. 
It has a clearer sense of equity and 
justice; it already feels disposed to 
renew its former covenant with God, 
return to the path of order, and take 
up its national traditions of glory. 
It is awakening from its dreams of 
moral and social primacy. It will be 
satisfied with, and glory in, being the 
pa-trie environnante of the Vicar of 



Christ. Would that France, once 
more regenerated, might speedily aid 
her in breaking loose from the tyr- 
anny of lodges, and shaking off the 
Prussian suzerainty ! 

In 1860, the unhappy King of 
Sardinia said to M. de la Tour d'Au- 
vergne, the French minister at Turin : 
" I do not wish you to leave me un- 
der false impressions. I feel sure you 
regard me as impious as an infidel, 
as people persist in saying. You 
are wrong. (? ?) If I number kings 
among my ancestry, there are like- 
wise saints. Here, look around. 
Well, do you think that in yonder 
world all these sainted relatives of 
mine have any other occupation than 
to pray for me ?" * 

Our Saviour prayed for those who 
knew not what they did ! Pater dimitte 
illis. May all the saints in heaven 
and on earth pray for poor Italy ! 
It has need of it. 

* Journal (fun Diplomate en Italie^ pp. 17, 18. 



SONNET. 

FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA ZAPPI, UPON THE MOSES OF MICHAEL ANGELO IK THE 

CHURCH OF SAN PIETRO IN VINCOLI, AT ROME. 

WHOSE form there, sculptured in such mass of stone, 

Sits like a giant, carrying art so far 
Beyond all works most beautiful and known ? 

On those quick lips life's very accents are ! 
That man is Moses : on the awful front 

The double ray,* the glory of his beard, 
Reveal as much : 'tis Moses from the Mount 

When much of Deity in his face appeared ! 
So looked he once when he the vasty fount 

Of sounding waters with his one word stayed. 
Such was his aspect when the sea obeyed 

And swallowed Egypt. O ye tribes that bent 

Before the calf! had you an image made 

Like this to worship, less were to repent. 

*This alludes to the indication of superhuman power by the budding 1 horns which Michael An- 
gelo has represented upon the head of Moses, adopting the Jewish symbol of strength so frequent 
la Scripture. 



8o8 



Recollections of Pere Hermann. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF PERE HERMANN. 



FRANCE has a strange, magnetic 
power of attracting to herself, and 
absorbing into her mould, all the 
great talent of the world. How 
many men there are in Paris, who, 
from the ends of the earth, come to- 
gether to lose their nationality in her 
appreciative bosom, and to gain there 
instead a reflected light of popularity 
ensured by her endorsement alone ! 
All countries have adopted citizens, it 
is true, some by social, some by artis- 
tic, some by political adoption, but 
no country has a larger share of 
adopted intellect than France. 

To all intents and purposes, the 
famous artist-convert and artist-monk, 
Pere Hermann, was a Frenchman, 
though he was born a German Jew, 
in the free city of Hamburg. His 
biographers have told us all the 
striking incidents of his life; they 
have dwelt on his intoxicating suc- 
cess during youth, his mad extrava- 
gance of opinion, of expenditure, and 
of depravity, and, lastly, on his almost 
miraculous conversion and religious 
vocation. His death, which was a 
fitting crown to his life, and can be 
dignified by no lesser title than mar- 
tyrdom, has endeared his memory 
still more to all those who knew him 
personally and had many secret rea- 
sons to admire his sanctity and feel 
grateful for his spiritual direction. 
His was a figure not easily forgotten, 
and perhaps a few touches of person- 
al reminiscences will not be unaccept- 
able to our readers, since all that 
links us to the saints, and brings the 
shadow of their sanctity nearer to 
our littleness, can hardly fail to be 
of interest. 

The first time we were brought in 



contact with him was in the summer 
of 1862, when he came by special 
invitation to spend a few days with 
us in the country. The house itself 
had a monastic appearance and ori- 
gin. It had been, so said tradition, a 
rural dependency, half farm, half in- 
firmary, of a great Franciscan con- 
vent. It had been restored in 1849 
and 1850, or thereabouts, and thanks 
to the good taste of the owner and 
the talent of the architects employed, 
had developed into a gem of Eliza- 
bethan Gothic and of domestic com- 
fort. The little market-town adjoin- 
ing, once a centre of wealthy wool- 
merchants and a great mediaeval 
mart, contained several XlVth cen- 
tury buildings in a state of entire pres- 
ervation, besides the later pile of the 
almshouses (XVIIth century), which, 
both as a building and an institution, 
was the pride of the surrounding 
country. Twelve old and destitute 
people, six men and six women, in- 
variably widows or widowers, are 
generously supported on the fund 
left in perpetuity for this purpose by 
Joanna, Lady C , wife of the great 
loyalist Baptist, Viscount C , who 
burnt down his manor-house (oppo- 
site the almshouses), rather than let 
it fall, with its treasures of plate 
and furniture, into the hands of Crom- 
well's Roundheads. 

It was the yearly custom to feast 
these good people at the manor, the 
restored Franciscan dependency, and 
thither they were conveyed one day 
during the summer in question, in a 
large covered cart provided with 
seats like a French ehar-b-banc. 
Pere Hermann had been in the 
house since the previous evening, and 



Recollections of Pere Hermann. 809 

had stipulated with his cordial host while charitably lending his time and 

and hostess that he should wear his his bodily presence to earth. When 

Carmelite habit while within the lim- he had enjoyed, with the simplicity 

its of the private grounds. The sight of a child, the sight of the innocent 

of this alone had in it something sports and merriment of the old peo- 

homely ; it was a rest to the eye to pie, he left us for the chapel, where 

see the cowled figure pacing the ter- he spent a great part of his time, 

race in the early morning, Breviary We cannot help adverting to a little 

in hand, and to lapse into beautiful occurrence which took place at one 

day-dreams of what might have been of these almshouse feasts (we believe 

had England kept true to the faith, this very one), and which was cer- 

The Carmelite was delighted at the tainly very pathetic. A monk might 

prospect of seeing this annual feast well take pleasure in such unaffected 

given to the almshouse people, and simplicity and gentleness among 

no sooner had they all assembled those whose ancestors had been so 

round the ample board spread for intimately linked of old with monas- 

them on a shady part of the terrace tic patrons. One of the old women, 

at the back of the house, than he speaking to one of her host's daugh- 

made his way towards them, and, ters of her little grandchild, a baby 

saluting them, showed how much girl who was just dead, said, in the 

he sympathized in their enjoyment, broad dialect of the county of Glou- 

His English was, of course, very im- cester (which, however, we dare not 

perfect ; indeed, he never grew to any imitate in print) : 

proficiency in speaking that lan- 

, ' , . . ^ ' When the child was born, my daugh- 

guage, but his interest m the scene ter made me notice how long ^ i itt ie 

was none the less vividly expressed, thing's fingers were, and said, ' Bless its 

The old people Still wear the COS- little heart ! they are long enough for the 

tume appointed by the foundress of bab 7 to be a waiting-maid on the queen.' 

the institution: for the men, gaiters And we a S re f' 1 5 hing -}!, ke ' * at . a 

r 11111 i waiting-maid the child would surely be. 

and a long coat of rough black cloth, But when it died> j said to my daughter , 

with a silver badge or medal ; for the said I, 'Jane, we were mistaken about the 

women, a narrow, old-fashioned dress baby's fingers, you see. I tell you the 

of the same material, and a similar Lord gave her those beautiful long fin- 

badge. These badges, we believe, gers, not to attend on any great lady or 

, . . queen on earth, but to play on the golden 

have never been renewed since the harps in his kingdom of heaven.'" 
original endowment, and are handed 

down from one bedesman to his sue- No truer nor more reverent poetry 

cessor, and so on ; the clothes are re- can be found anywhere than that 

newed every two years. If we mis- simple utterance of an unlettered old 

take not, Pere Hermann said grace woman who had not even that in- 

for these poor people, who, though stinctive education which belongs to 

all Protestants, seemed not at all all those who learn the Catholic 

shocked at the " popish " apparition, catechism. Such women and such. 

Indeed, he gained the hearts of all poetry used to abound in the Eng- 

who ever saw him, his gentleness and land of historic times, but error and 

recollection inspiring a respect for materialism have but too well suc- 

his person which was little short of ceeded during the last three centu- 

veneration. He seemed as though ries in making the type rare and not 

he were walking with angels and lis- easily discoverable, save in some for- 

tening to heavenly converse even gotten nook of the rural districts. 



Sio 



Recollections of Pere Hermann. 



Pere Hermann that evening allowed 
us to enjoy our treat, after giving him 
his among the bedesmen, by playing 
a little on a cottage piano-forte in 
what we called the oak drawing-room. 
The servants were all collected in the 
next room (the library), and this 
seemed to give him particular satis- 
faction, as he was ever most fastidi- 
ously thoughtful of the comforts and 
pleasures of those in inferior station. 
His playing, though not comparable 
to his triumphant successes as an artist 
nearly twenty years before, was still 
admirable, and, above all, so sympa- 
thetic. He played, among other 
things, the " Prayer of Moses " with 
great solemnity and expression, and 
also some of his own Cantiques, 
which for blending passion with re- 
ligious earnestness are something 
unique. He never played anywhere 
save in private, and then only to 
small audiences in an informal man- 
ner, and never touched the organ 
save by obedience in his own church, 
or for the Forty Hours' Exposition, 
saying that he wished to have his art 
ever sanctified by a religious inspira- 
tion. The fascination and tempta- 
tion of artistic triumphs must still 
have been appreciable stumbling- 
blocks in his spiritual career. There- 
fore, to hear him play at all was no 
slight favor, and, while on this visit, 
he repeated this favor more than 
once. On the last day, he said 
Mass in the domestic chapel, and dis- 
tributed the Scapular to the house- 
hold, enrolling nearly every member 
in the Confraternity. He gave a 
short address on the origin and 
.meaning of this devotion, the dis- 
tinctive one of his Order, and which 
was further made interesting on this 
occasion by the fact of the host's 
having in former years rescued a 
picture of S. Simon Stock in the act of 
receiving the first miraculous Scapu- 
lar. The figures were life-size, and 



the painting after the manner of the 
later Italian school; the canvas was 
found riddled with holes, having 
been used as a target by ignorant or 
fanatical possessors. The restored 
picture was hung in the drawing- 
room, where it became a great source 
of interest to the zealous convert 
Carmelite, our dear guest. During 
this visit was laid the foundation of a 
spiritual friendship between him and 
the writer a friendship which proved 
a great benefit and guidance in our 
after-life. 

Meeting him again in London a 
few months later, we learnt a singu- 
lar occurrence connected with his in- 
fluence over souls. A young girl, not 
much over seventeen, and of a wilful 
and rebellious nature, who was under 
Pere Hermann's spiritual direction, 
happening to come up to town for 
a few days, experienced a strange 
phase of religious excitement. Care- 
less as she was about all serious 
matters regarding the future state, 
she was nevertheless seized with a 
strong feeling of inadequacy in 
her religious efforts. She rose sud- 
denly (it was a bright moonlight 
night), and went to the window, where 
the chastened beauty of the moon 
made even the monotonous landscape 
of London roofs and chimneys shine 
with a weird charm and take on sug- 
gestive shapes of startling vividness. 
Something the grace of God, we 
ought no doubt reverently to say 
seemed to take hold of her heart and 
shake her whole being. It was not 
the fear of punishment, the blank of 
unsated frivolity, that moved her; 
only one cry burst from her heart 
" I have never loved God enough 
I have never loved him at all." 
If any but the saints ever feel perfect 
contrition, she did at that moment ; 
for in that one sin she saw all others 
contained. Sobs came from the 
depths of her heart; she paced her 



Recollections of Per e Hermann. 811 

room with naked feet, unmindful of child in that choir, only a little 

discomfort, unheeding the autumn chorus singer, but whose early dream 

chill that is never long absent from it had ever been to become a musi- 

London atmosphere, repeating again cian and play upon an organ such 

and again, like a dirge, those words, as that majestic, imperial instrument 

" I have never loved God enough which he listened to with vague awe 

I have never loved him at all." every Sunday. He knew the story 

Then came a wondering feeling as to of the great artist who now sat at 

what this awakening meant; was it the organ in his Carmelite habit, and 

conversion, or the beginning of a he drank in eagerly the grand strains 

vocation, or a sign that some special he could but dimly understand, 

self-devotedness would be required yet admired so intensively. Things 

of her through life ? She said to which he never knew technically till 

herself, " I will see Pere Hermann, many years after, yet seemed not uri- 

and tell him ; I wonder if this will known to his sympathetic ear, and, if 

last ! ' he understood but little of the science 

Strange to say, the blessed excite- that created those rolling chords and 

ment passed away, and the next modulations, he could worship the 

morning, though she tried to revive beauty they expressed, 
it, it was impossible. Not a trace of A few days later, the little choris- 

emotion was left, although the mind ter, with six or seven companions 

recalled distinctly what an ecstasy from the Oratory School, was tak- 

of sorrow it had been, and how it en to the temporary Carmelile 

had shaken the soul to its very centre, chapel in Kensington. It was all 

The young girl, however, saw Pere very poor and unpretending, but the 

Hermann, and told him of it, and in the spirit of recollection and peace made 

parlor of the nuns of the Assumption, an Eden of the temporary refuge of 

Kensington Square, he gave her the these " knighls of poverty," and the 

advice of a father and a saint. She children were very much impressed, 

is still living, and none can tell if that Pere Hermann came to the parlor to 

prophetic call may not yet have see them, and inquired severally after 

unexpected fulfilment through the each one from the Oratorian Father 

prayers of one who is now a saint in in whose special charge they were, 

heaven. This occurrence led to a Our little chorister was dumb with 

very interesting and intimate corre- awe and delight, expecting the holy 

spondence, which we have examined Carmelite to notice him particularly ; 

ourselves, and of which we would but when the Oratorian was ques- 

gladly give some extracts were the tioned about this boy, he answered 

letters not unfortunately beyond our laughingly : 
reach at the present moment. " Oh ! this fellow is going to be a 

Pere Hermann was peculiarly fond tinker." 

of children, as indeed all saints are. Pere Plermann looked amused but 
Going one day to the Brompton incredulous, and the child grew hot 
Oratory, which the finest organ in and uncomfortable under the laugh- 
London and a very perfect and ing gaze of his companions. He had 
numerous surpliced choir contribute long made up his mind as to what he 
to make one of the leading Catholic would like to be, and the tinker sug- 
churches of the English capital, he gestion was peculiarly hateful to him, 
was prevailed upon to play a volun- because systematically used by his 
tary after the Offertory. There sat a wise instructor to " break his pride." 



812 



Recollections of Pere Hermann. 



But the gentle monk saw the boy's 
discomfiture, and came skilfully to 
the rescue. 

" And will you really be a tinker, 
my little man ? " he said, smiling. 

" No, father," readily answered 
the little one. " A musician." 

"You mean a tinker, Peter," teas- 
ingly suggested the Oratorian, and 
the boy blushed with annoyance. 

" No, no," said Pere Hermann ; 
" he will be a musician, as he says, 
and a good one. And now," he con- 
tinued, " it is nearly time for Bene- 
diction, and I am going to play the 
harmonium ; would you like to stay 
for that ?" 

The child was speechless with 
delight, and then the holy monk 
added : 

" You shall pull out the stops for 
me, Peter," which was done, and, 
though it seemed the acme of happi- 
ness to Peter, it probably did not im- 
prove the music. 

After the service, the father called 
one of the lay brothers, and entrust- 
ed the children to his care, saying, 
with simple glee, and in the broken 
accent which all who knew him re- 
member as a characteristic of his 
otherwise terse and appropriate lan- 
guage : 

" Now, brother, go and feed these 
little ones, and mind you give them 
plenty of good things." 

The order was well obeyed, for the 
tradition of ample and eager hospi- 



tality has never been lost among re- 
ligious orders, be they poor and strug- 
gling and even proscribed, or rich, 
powerful, and influential. Rich plum- 
cake and good wine, with candies of 
every sort, were set before the little mu- 
sician and his friends, but the child was 
even then thinking exultingly that Pere 
Hermann had really said he should 
be an artist. In later years, when 
studying his art in Flanders, or earn- 
ing his bread by it in England, this 
saying, that from such holy lips 
seemed a prophetic blessing and an 
earnest of success, often and often 
recurred to his mind, and encourag- 
ed him in the many dark days 
through which he had to pass. 

To all those who learned to love 
Pere Hermann from personal inter- 
course with him, every remembrance 
of his words, however trifling, is now 
doubly treasured; his death, uniting 
as it did in itself the heroism of phi- 
lanthropy, of patriotism, and of divine 
charity, has already practically can- 
onized him in the eyes of his friends 
and spiritual children ; and as we 
lay this slender wreath of praise 
among the more important tributes 
that literature, art, and religion 
have heaped around his memory, we 
are fain to exclaim, with the wise 
man of Israel, " Blessed are they 
that saw thee, and were honored with 
thy friendship." * 

* Ecclus. xlviii. xx. 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 813 



A DAUGHTER OF S. DOMINIC 



CONCLUDED. 



IT was a singular proof, not only wanted a mediator in high quarters, 
of respect for her character, but of they turned quite naturally to Amelie. 
confidence in her judgment and dis- On one occasion her courage and 
cretion, on the part of the govern- good-nature were put to a rather 
ment, to have entrusted her with this severe test. It was in the case of a 
right of mercy; knowing, as no one poor man who had been condemned 
who knew anything about her could to a long term of punishment for 
foil to know, her extraordinary tender- some fraudulent act. The circum- 
ness of heart and compassion for suf- stances of the case, the hitherto ex- 
fering, especially in the case of the cellent character of the man, the 
soldiers. It seemed a risk to invest fierce pressure of want under which 
her with a sort of judicial right to in- the fraud was committed, and certain 
terfere in their behalf at the hands of points which threw doubts on the ex- 
law and justice ; but they never had tent to which he had been consciously 
reason to regret it. She showed her- guilty, along with the misery his con- 
self to the last worthy of the trust demnation must entail on a wife and 
reposed in her. In the exercise of a young family, roused strong sympathy 
privilege whose application was one for him, and a general impulse seized 
of the keenest joys of her life, Amelie the townspeople to appeal to the 
evinced a mind singularly well ba- emperor for his pardon. But how to 
lanced, a judgment always clear, and do it so as to make the appeal effica- 
a prudence ever on the alert to guide cious who to entrust with the deli- 
and control the impulses of her heart, cate mission ? Every heart turned 
But when her judgment approved the instinctively to Amelie. Her name 
promptings of charity, no considera- rose to every tongue. The most in- 
tion could deter her from obeying fluential of the petitioners went to her, 
them. She was by nature very timid, and besought her to go to Paris and 
and of late years, owing to her having obtain an audience of the emperor, 
quite broken off intercourse with the and implore of his clemency a free 
world, properly speaking, this timidi- pardon for the convict. Her first 
ty had grown to a painful shyness, impulse was to draw back in dismay 
Whenever there was a necessity, how- at the mere contemplation of such a 
ever, she could brave it, and face a feat ; but the petitioners brought out 
gay crowd or a doughty magnate an array of arguments that it was not 
with as much ease and cheerfulness in Amelie's nature to resist. She 
as if the act demanded no effort or called up her courage, recommended 
sacrifice of natural inclination. Such the success of her mission to the 
sacrifices were frequently required of prayers of the Marseillese and the 
her. Her name had a prestige that protection of N. Dame de Garde, and 
gained entrance through doors closed .started off to Paris. Thanks to her 
to persons of infinitely higher social previous relations with the ministerial 
position and importance; and when a world, she was able to obtain, after 
community, or a hospital, or a family some delay, an audience of the em- 



A DaugJiter of S. Dominic. 

peror. He received her with the Pour les pauvres, messieurs ! ' The 
most flattering marks of personal con- words must have struck in oddly 
sideration, and granted her at once enough through the clanging of the 
the pardon she sued for. Amelie orchestra, and the rustling of silken 
telegraphed the good news to Mar- robes, and the hum of laughter as the 
seilles on leaving his majesty's pre- merrymakers swept round in the 
sence and was met on her arrival mazes of the dance. But the low. 
there the following day by her proteg6 sweet voice of the beggar rose above 
and his family in tears of joy and the music and the din loud enough 
altitude, to reach many hearts that night ; no 
On another occasion, she was ap- one turned a deaf ear to the suppliant; 
plied to for a rather large sum of the gentlemen gave money, or pledged 
money for a very pressing charity, themselves to give it; the women 
She happened for the moment to dropped rings and bracelets into the 
have exhausted all her own and her velvet bag that soon overflowed with 
friends' resources, and knew not its own riches ; and when all the 
where to turn for the necessary sum. guests had arrived, and the festivity 
Some enterprising person proposed was at its height, Amelie, after admir- 
that she should go and beg it at the ing, as she was always ready to do, 
house of a banker who was giving a everything bright and beautiful that 
grand ball that night, and at which was not sinful the brilliancy of the 
all the wealthy notabilities of the town scene, the bright jewels and the pretty 
were to be present. It was quite an toilets, and the artistic decoration of 
unprecedented proceeding, and one the rooms bade good-night to it all 
that it required the humility and the and to her host, and went home with 
courage of Amelie to undertake. She her heart full of love and gratitude 
hesitated as usual at first, and as usual, towards her kindly fellow-creatures, 
seeing that the thing had to be done, But we should never end if we 
and that no one else would do it, she were to narrate all the acts of charity 
consented. A preliminary step was and zeal that she was never tired 
to obtain the host's permission. This of performing. The following, how- 
he at first emphatically refused ; and, ever, are too characteristic to be 
seeing that it required nearly as much omitted : 

courage on his part to allow his guests Late one evening, in her rounds 

to be waylaid as for Amelie to waylay through one of those dark centres 

them, it is not much to be wondered of misery and crime that are to be 

at. Courage, however, is catching, found in all big cities, Amelie heard 

Amelie pleaded, and the banker gave that a mountebank was dying in a 

way. He opened her list of contri- neighboring cellar, all alone and in 

butions by a handsome sum, and great pain. She made her way to 

consented that she should come the the place at once. The dying man 

same evening and beg the rest at his was lying on a heap of a straw, but 

house. It was a strange episode in he was not alone; a bear and a mon- 

the brilliant scene the pale, dark- key shared his wretched abode ; 

eyed woman, in her homely black they had enabled .the poor mounte- 

gown and neat little black net cap, bank to live, and now they stood by 

standing at the door of the ball-room^ while he was dying, watching his 

and stretching out her little bag to death -throes in dumb sympathy, 

the votaries of pleasure as they passed Nothing scared by the presence of 

her: " Pour les pauvres, mesdames ! his strange company, Amelie went 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 815 

up to the man and spoke to him fiercely and bade her begone, and 

gently of his soul. If he had ever refused to hear the name of God 

heard of such a thing as an essential mentioned ; but Amelie held her 

part of himself, he seemed to have ground, pleading with all the elo- 

al together forgotten it, but he did quence at her command and those 

not repulse her ; he let her sit down who have heard it in moments when 

beside him on the live, fetid straw her soul was stirred by any great 

and try to soothe him in his pains, emotion declare that it was little less 

and instruct him in the intervals, and than sublime. She caressed the 

prepare him to make his peace with wretched creature, calling her by the 

God. By the time her part of the most endearing names, till at last the 

task was done, the night was far obdurate heart was softened, she let 

spent, but there was no time to lose. Amelie stay and speak to her, and 

Amelie went straight to the priest's even asked her to come back the 

house and woke him up. On the next day. " But," she added, " you'll 

road, she told him what he would find a monsieur at the door, and he's 

find on arriving. capable of beating you if you try to 

The two went in together. Ame- come in against his will." 

lie knelt down in the furthest corner But Amelie was not likely to be 

of the place and prayed, and the deterred by this. She came the fol- 

bear and the monkey looked on while lowing morning, and found the mon- 

the sweet and wondrous mystery be- sieur. He met her with insulting 

tvveen Jesus and the good thief was defiance, and dared her to enter, and, 

renewed before their blank, unintelli- on her attempting to do so, he raised 

gent eyes. The mountebank made his hand and clenched it, with a 

a general confession of his whole savage oath threatening to strike 

life, and received the last sacraments, her. 

Then the priest went home, and " Hit here !" said Amelie, coolly 

Amelie remained alone with the turning her hump to him. 

dying man, who expired a few hours Confounded by the words and the 

later with his head resting on her action, the man let his arm drop, 

shoulder. Before he had recovered from his 

On another occasion, she heard surprise, she had passed into the sick 
that a woman whose life had been a room, and he stood silently looking 
public scandal in the town was at on and listening in wonder to what 
the point of death. She rose at once was going on before him. Amelie 
to go to her, and, in spite of the left the house unmolested, and re- 
remonstrances of those present, she turned a few hours later with a priest, 
did go. The character of the wo- The unhappy woman had been a 
man and her associates, and the Christian in her youth. She made a 
place where she lived, were indeed general confession in the midst of 
enough to deter a less daring spirit abundant tears, and died the next 
than Amelie, but whenever an objec- day in admirable sentiments of con- 
tion was raised on prudential grounds trition and hope. The example was 
to her visiting here or there, she not lost on her companion ; he made 
would playfully point to her hump, a sudden and generous renunciation 
and say : of his sinful life, and Amelie had to 

" With a protector like that, a wo- rejoice over the return of two souls 

man may go anywhere." instead of one. 

The woman at first repulsed her As we have said before, her chanty 



8i6 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



was essentially catholic, universal in 
every sense. She was ready to pity 
everybody's troubles, and, with Ame- 
lie, to pity meant to help. The 
poor widow toiling broken-hearted 
for her children in the courts and 
alleys of the big town ; the father 
struggling with adversity in another 
sphere, trying to educate his sons and 
marry his daughters and pay the 
inexorable debt of decency that so- 
ciety exacts from a gentleman ; the 
poor, lone girl battling with poverty, 
or perhaps writhing in agonized shame 
at having fallen in the battle ; the 
rich mother weeping over the wan- 
derings of a son ; the poor orphan 
without bread or friends ; the rich or- 
phan pursued by designing relations, 
or in danger of falling into the hands 
of a worthless husband ; high and 
low, rich and poor alike, all came to 
Amelie for sympathy and counsel, 
and no one was ever repulsed. Even 
those difficulties which are the result 
of culpable weakness, and which 
meet generally with small mercy, not 
to say indulgence, from pious people, 
found Amelie full of indulgent pity 
and a ready will to help. An officer 
on one occasion was drawn, inad- 
vertently into contracting a debt of 
honor which he had no means of 
paying. In his despair he thought 
of Amelie, and, half maddened with 
shame and remorse, he came to her 
to ask for pity and advice. The 
sum in question was two thousand 
francs. Amelie happened to have 
it at the moment, and, touched by 
the distress of the man of the world, 
she gave it to him at once. There 
was no spirit of criticism, DO censori- 
ousness in her piety, no fastidious 
condemnation of things innocent in 
themselves, however apt to be dan- 
gerous in their abuse. She loved to 
see young people happy and amused, 
and would listen with real interest 
and pleasure to an account of some 



fete where they had enjoyed them- 
selves after the manner of their age. 
This simplicity and liberty of spirit 
enabled her often to take advantage 
of opportunities for doing good that 
never would occur to a person whose 
piety turned in a narrower groove; 
she was wont to exclaim regretfully 
against good people for being so 
overnice in the choice of opportuni- 
ties, and thus cramping their own 
power and means of usefulness. With 
regard to the choice of tools in the 
same way, she would often depre- 
cate the fastidiousness of certain 
pious people, urging that, when there 
was a work to do, an aim to accom- 
plish, an obstacle to overcome, we 
should take up whatever tools Provi- 
dence put in our way, not quarrelling 
with their shape or quality, but doing 
the best we can with them, profiting 
by a knave's villany or a fool's folly 
to further a just purpose, or a noble 
scheme, or a kind action, making, as 
far as honesty and truth can do it, 
evil accomplish the work of good. 

Faithfully bearing in mind that we 
may do no evil that good may come 
of it, Amelie had withal an ingenious 
gift of turning to good account the 
evil that was done by others; but 
she was slow to see the evil, and, 
when it was farced upon her, she had 
always more pity than censure for it. 
Her lamp was always lighted, and 
she was ever ready to help the fool- 
ish ones who go about this world of 
ours crying out to the wise ones : 
" Give me of your oil !" For it is 
not only when the Bridegroom comes 
that we need to have our lamp 
lighted, we want it all along the road, 
for others as well as for ourselves ; 
we must even adapt it to the necessi- 
ties of the road by changing the 
color of its light. This we can do 
by changing the oil. We must use 
the oil of faith when we want a 
strong, bright blaze to keep our feet 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 817 

straight amidst the ruts and snares and woollen gown and a shawl of the 
pools of muddy water that abound same material ; her appearance in 
at every step ; we must burn the oil the street was that of a respectable 
of hope to frighten away despond- housekeeper, but no one who saw 
ency and cheer us when our hearts the outward decency of her attire 
are heavy and our courage ebbing ; suspected the sordid poverty that 
but we must be chiefly prodigal of often lay beneath it. She limited 
the rich and salutary oil of charity, herself to a pittance for her clothes, 
for the flame it sends out is often and she would submit to the most 
more helpful to others than to our- painful inconvenience rather than 
selves. Sometimes, when our lamp exceed it. Once she gave away her 
is so low that it hardly shows the strong boots and a warm winter pet- 
ground clear under our own feet, it is ticoat to a poor person at the begin- 
shedding thanks to this marvellous ning of the winter, and, though the 
oil of charity a heavenly radiance cold set in suddenly with great sever- 
on the path of those journeying be- ity, she bore it rather than replace 
hind us; its flame is luminous as a either of them till her allowance fell 
star and soft as moonlight; people due. How her health bore the 
on whom we turn its roseate glow amount of labor and austerities that 
rejoice in it as in sunshine : it softens she underwent it is difficult to explain 
them, it heals them, it takes the sting without using the word miraculous, 
out of their worst wounds. The When, under the pious auspices of 
lamp fed with this incomparable oil Monseigneur de Mazenod, the devo- 
is, moreover, often brightest when we tion of the Perpetual Adoration was 
ourselves are sick at heart, and when established at Marseilles, Amelie at 
it costs us an effort to pour in the oil once had herself enrolled in the con- 
and set the wick in order. We do fraternity ; unable to spare time from 
not realize it, but we can believe it her multiform works of mercy dur- 
by recalling the effect of kindness on ing the day, she entrenched upon 
our own souls in some well-remem- her nights, and used to spend hours 
bered hour, when it came from one in adoration before the Tabernacle, 
in great sorrow, and who we knew Fatigue and bodily suffering were no 
was setting aside her own grief to obstacle to the ardor of her soul; her 
enter into ours. Let us be brave, spirit seemed to thrive in proportion 
then, to hold up our lamp arm-high as her body wasted. After a day of 
to the pilgrims who are toiling foot- arduous labor, constantly on her feet, 
sore and faint up the steep and rug- going and coming amongst the poor 
ged path of life along with us; its and the sick, breathing the foul air of 
flame soars on to heaven, and shines hospital wards, and dingy cellars, and 
more brightly before God than the garrets, fasting as rigorously as any 
fairest and loveliest of his stars. Carmelite, and grudging her body all 
We mentioned already that Amelie, but the bare necessaries of life, she 
on her father's death, made a vow was able to pass an entire night on 
of personal poverty. She observed her knees before the Blessed Sacra- 
this vow with the utmost rigor as far ment, and be apparently none the 
as was consistent with decorum and worse for it. Such wonderful things 
the absence of anything approach- are those who love God strengthened 
ing to a display of holiness a thing to do for him. Yet this woman was 
of which she was almost morbidly made of the same flesh and blood as 
afraid. Her usual dress was a black ourselves ; she had the same natural 
VOL. xvi. 52 



8i8 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



shrinkings and antipathies; her body 
was not made of different clay from 
ours, or supernaturally fashioned to 
defy the attacks of the devil and the 
repugnances of nature, to endure 
hunger, and pain, and fatigue with- 
out feeling them ; she had the same 
temptations to fight against, the same 
corrupt inclinations to overcome, and 
the same weapons of defence against 
her enemies that we have faith and 
prayer and the sacraments. What, 
then, is the difference between us ? 
Only this, she was generous and 
brave, and we are mean and coward- 
ly. We bargain and hang back, 
whereas she made no reserves, but 
strove to serve God with all her heart 
and all her strength, and he did the 
rest. He always does it for those 
who trust him and hearken uncondi- 
tionally to that hard saying : " Take 
up thy cross and follow me ! " For 
them he changes all bitter things into 
sweet, all weakness into strength ; for 
the old Adam that they cast aside he 
clothes them with the new, thus ren- 
dering them invincible against their 
enemies, and repaying a hundred- 
fold, even in this life, the miserable 
rags that we call sacrifices ; he fills 
the hungry with good things, and in 
exchange for creatures and the per- 
ishable delights which they have re- 
nounced for his sake he gives them 
himself and a foretaste of the bliss of 
Paradise. 

During her solitary vigils before 
the altar, the thought of the ingrati- 
tude of men and their cruel neglect 
of our Saviour in his Eucharistic 
prison sank deeply into Amelia's 
heart, and filled it with grief and an 
ardent desire to make some repara- 
tion to his outraged love. We have 
all read the wonderful chapter on 
Thanksgiving in that wonderful 
book, All for Jesus. Most of us 
have felt our hearts stirred to sorrow- 
ful indignation at the sad picture it 



reveals of our own unkindness to 
God, and the tender sensitiveness of 
the Sacred Heart to our ingratitude, 
and his meek acceptance of any 
crumb of thanksgiving that we deign 
once in a way to throw to him ; we 
have felt our tepid pulses quicken to 
a momentary impulse of generosity 
and passionate desire to call after the 
nine ungrateful lepers, and constrain 
them to return and thank him ; we 
watch them going their way unmind- 
ful, and we cast ourselves in spirit at 
the feet of Jesus, gazing after them in 
sad surprise, and we pour out our 
souls in apologies so bold does 
the passing touch of love make the 
meanest of us in consolations to him 
for the unkindness of his creatures. 
Alas ! with most of us it ends there. 
Next time he tries us we follow the 
nine selfish lepers, and leave him 
wondering and sorrowing again over 
our ingratitude. But with Amelie it 
was different. No inspiration of di- 
vine grace ever found her deaf to its 
voice ; her love knew no such things 
as barren sighs and idle mystic senti- 
mentalities. Her whole heart was 
stirred by that touching and powerful 
appeal of Father Faber's, and she 
began to consider at once what she 
could do to respond to it. The idea 
occurred to her of instituting a com- 
munity, to be called Sceurs Repara- 
trices, whose mission should be to 
give thanks and to console our di- 
vine Lord for the ingratitude of the 
world by perpetual adoration before 
the Tabernacle, and at the same time 
of getting up a regular service of 
thanksgiving among the faithful at 
large, to have short prayers appoint- 
ed and recommended by the church 
to their constant use, for the sole and 
express purpose of thanking God for 
his countless mercies to us all, but 
more especially to those among us 
who never thank him on their own 
account. Both suggestions were 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 819 

warmly approved of by many pious to be regretted, that some of them 
souls to whom she mentioned them, were drawn up by Am61ie herself 
In order, however, to carry them and full of the spirit of her own ten- 
out effectively, it was- deemed ad- der piety; they were also preceded 
visable that Amelie should go to by a preface in which she appealed 
Rome and obtain the authorization very lovingly to the children of Mary 
and blessing of the Holy Father, and the members of the Confrater- 
She had never been to Rome, but it nity of the Sacred Heart, and begged 
was the desire of her life to go there; their zealous co-operation in the 
it drew her as the magnet draws the service of thanksgiving. We may 
needle; Rome, to her filial Catholic mention, however, that she was 
heart, was the outer gate of heaven; in the habit, during the few re- 
it held the Father of Christendom, maining years of her life, of con- 
the Vicar of Christ; it held the stantly recommending to her friends 
tombs of the martyrs, its soil was the use of the Gloria Patri and 
saturated with their blood, all things the ejaculation Deo Gratias / as hav- 
within its walls were stamped with ing been particularly commended to 
the seal of Christianity, and told of her devotion b'y the Holy Father 
the wonders that it had wrought, himself. 

Amelie, glad of the necessity which An incident occurred to Amelie 
compelled her to fulfil her long-cher- during her stay in Rome which she 
ished desire, set out for the Eternal often narrated as a proof of the ex- 
City. She received the most affec- treme need we have of a service of 
tionate welcome from the Holy Fa- thanksgiving. She went one morn- 
ther, who had been long acquainted ing to an audience at the house of a 
with her by name, and knew the cardinal, and while she was waiting 
apostolic manner of life she led. for her turn she got into conversation 
With regard to the community which with the Superior of the Redemptor- 
she desired to found, and of which ist Fathers in France. Always on the 
she was to become a member, but watch to gain an ally to the cause, 
not superioress, His Holiness ap- she told him the motive of her journey 
proved of it, but beyond this, of what to Rome, and begged that he would 
passed between him and Amelie on use his influence in his own wide 
the subject, no details have trans- sphere to forward its success amongst 
pired. She said that the Holy Fa- souls. 

ther encouraged her to carry out the " Ah ! madam e !" exclaimed the 

design and gave her his blessing on Redemptorist, " it was a good thought 

it, and promised her his fatherly to try and stir up men's hearts to 

countenance and protection ; but a spirit of thanksgiving, for there is 

whether she submitted any rule to nothing more wanted in the world, 

him at this period we have not been The story of the nine lepers is going 

able to ascertain. As to the scheme on just the same these eighteen hun- 

of general thanksgiving that she pro- dred years. I have been forty years 

posed to inaugurate, he gave her a priest, and during that time I have 

abundant blessings on it, and indul- been asked to say Masses for every 

genced several prayers that she sub- sort of intention, but only once have I 

milted to his inspection. Unfor- been asked to say a Mass of tha?iks- 

Umately, we have not been able to giving!" 

procure a copy of the little book which Yes, truly the story of the nine 

contained them all; this is the more lepers is being enacted now as in 



820 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



the old days when Jesus exclaimed 
sorrowfully, " Is there no one but 
this stranger found to return and give 
thanks ?" 

But for all her clear-sighted sen- 
sitiveness to the sins and shortcom- 
ings of her day, Amelie was full of 
hope in it; nothing annoyed her 
more than to see good people lapse 
into that lugubrious way so common 
to them of always crying anathema 
on their age and despairing of it; she 
used to say that she mistrusted the 
love and the logic of such ; that those 
who love God and their fellow- 
creatures for his sake never despair 
of them, but work for them, trusting 
in God's help and in the ultimate 
triumph of good over evil ; that de- 
spair was a sign of stupidity and 
cowardice. And was she not right ? 
Surely every age has in its ugliness 
some counterbalancing beauty, some 
redeeming grace of comeliness, in the 
tattered raiment that hangs about its 
ulcers and its nakedness. God 
never leaves himself at any time 
without witnesses on the earth, and 
it is our fault, not his, if we do not see 
them. There are always bright spots 
in humanity, and those who cannot 
discern them should blame their own 
dull vision, not their fellow-men. As 
poets who have the mystic eye see 
beauties of hue and color in the ma- 
terial world where common men see 
nothing but ruin and decay, so do the 
saints and the saint-like, with the keen 
vision of faith and hope, alone pene- 
trate the external darkness and de- 
cay of humanity, and discover in the 
midst of gloom and evil much that is 
promising and fair; they see elemen- 
tal wines boiling up in the cauldron 
of travail and suffering, and they 
know that their bitterness is salu- 
tary and their fire invigorating unto 
life. 

Amelie returned to Marseilles well 
satisfied with her visit to the Holy 



City, and resumed her labors with 
renewed zest. But she had left her 
heart behind her, and from the day 
she left Rome she had but one de- 
sire, and that was to return and end 
her days there. Her health had of 
late grown so feeble that it was more 
and more a subject of wonder to 
those who witnessed it how she was 
able to continue her life of superhu- 
man activity without flagging for a 
day. Amelie felt, however, that it 
could not last much longer now. 
She had frequently expressed in the 
midst of her busy, active life a long- 
ing for a life of contemplation, and 
in proportion as the end drew near, 
the yearning for an interval of silence 
and solitude increased. She was 
often heard to say to her fellow- 
laborers : 

" It is time I left off looking after 
other people's souls, and attended a 
little to my own ; I feel the want of 
more prayer, of more time before the 
Blessed Sacrament; really, I must 
begin to get ready." 

In the year 1869, she determined 
to carry this desire into execution, 
and begin to get ready, as she said, 
by withdrawing into a more solitary 
life. Her love for the church had 
taken a new impetus from her inter- 
course with the Holy Father; from 
the first the Denier de S. Pierre 
counted her among its most zealous 
promoters, but more so than ever 
now. An abundant collection which 
she made just at this time offered a 
plausible pretext to her for going to 
Rome, in order to lay it at the feet 
of Pius IX. So after putting her 
affairs in order, and bidding good- 
by to only her immediate and inti- 
mate friends, so as to avoid anything 
like resistance or a demonstration on 
the part of the multitude of people 
to whom she knew her departure 
would be painful, Amelie took leave 
of the hospitable old home in the 



A Daughter of S, Dominic. 821 

Rue Grignan, and set her face once asked her a dozen questions, one on 

more toward the Eternal City. top of another, without giving her 

But she had a last work to do for time to edge in a word of protest, 

her native town on the road. The wondered very much what she or 

splendid military hospital of Marseil- anybody else meant by interfering 

les, in which she had taken so deep with soldiers and their hospitals and 

and active an interest, was served by the supreme wisdom of the govern- 

lay nurses, and both the soldiers and ment, of dictating to them what they 

the civil authorities were anxious to ought to do ; but that was the way 

have these replaced by Sisters of with women ; women were always 

Charity. Easy as the thing seemed, meddling with what didn't concern 

up to the present all endeavors to them; they were the most difficult 

effect the substitution had failed. It subjects to govern ; for himself, he 

rested with the government to make would rather have the management 

the appointment and to grant a cer- of ten armies than a village full of 

tain sum for the maintenance of the women, etc. In fact, his excellency 

community when attached to the bullied his visitor after the usual 

hospital, but, owing either to the case manner of his peculiar courtesy, and 

not being properly represented, or to Amelie was obliged to take her leave 

the ill-will of certain officials who after a very brief audience, during 

put obstacles in the way, every ap- which she had been rated like a 

plication on the subject had been naughty schoolboy and not allowed 

met by a refusal. The authorities, to say three sentences in self-defence, 

seeing all else fail them, turned to Clearly there was not much to be 

Amelie. They remembered her sue- done in that quarter. Her friend 

cess on a former occasion, and re- then proposed getting her without 

quested her to take the affair in hand further preamble an audience of the 

on arriving in Paris, and get from emperor. Amelie preserved a grate- 

the minister the desired concession, ful recollection of the reception she 

The mission was repugnant to her, had met with from his majesty some 

because she foresaw it would involve years before, and the idea of entering 

her having to come forward and put his presence again inspired her with 

herself in the way of notabilities and less terror than the prospect of a se- 

magnates; but, as there seemed just a cond edition of the marshal; she 

chance of being able to perform a thought, moreover, that there might 

last service to the soldiers, she ac- be a speedier and better chance of 

cepted, and promised to do her best, success by applying directly to the 

She had a military friend in Paris, emperor than by beating about the 

who, though a practical Catholic, bush with his ministers, admitting 

occupied a distinguished position in even that they were not all of the 

the service, and was on good terms same type as the one she had tried, 

with its chiefs. This gentleman pro- Amelie accepted the offer, therefore, 

cured an audience for her of Marshal and, after a shorter delay than any 

. who was then in the ministry, one but a cabinet minister might 

and the person to whom she was di- have been obliged to undergo, she 

rected to apply in the first instance. received a letter from the Lord 

The marshal, who had been made Chamberlain notifying the day and 

aware of the subject of her visit, re- hour when she was to present herself 

ceived her, according to his custom, at the Tuileries. 

in shirt-sleeves and a towering rage, She was shown into the antecham- 



822 A Daughter of S. Dominic. 

ber, where generals, dignitaries of had been an old friend. She told 

the state, bishops, and other impor- him her wishes about the hospital, 

tant personages were waiting their and he promised unconditionally that 

turn to enter the imperial presence, they should be carried out. Forcer- 

His majesty was giving audience to tain formalities, however, it was ne- 

an ambassador when Amelie arrived, cessary to refer her to his minister. 

and there was rather a long delay " You will call on Marshal ," 

before the door opened. When it did, said his majesty ; " he is the person 

it was not his chamberlain, but the to do it." 

emperor himself who appeared on the " Sire ! " exclaimed Amelie, throw- 
threshold; he stood for a moment, and ing up her hands in dismay, " any- 
looked deliberately round the room, thing but that; your majesty must 
where he recognized many noble and really manage it without sending me 

influential personages, and then, per- again to Marshal ." 

ceiving an elderly lady in a rusty " Ah ! you have been to him al- 

black gown sitting at the furthest end ready," said the emperor, with a quiet 

of it, he walked straight up to her, smile; " well, try him again, and this 

and held out both his hands. " Ma- time I warrant you a better recep- 

demoiselle Lautard," said his majesty, tion; he is bon enfant au fond, but 

" I thank you for the honor you do me you must not let him think that 

by this visit ; I am sure I have only you're afraid of him." 
to mention your name for every one Thus warned and encouraged, 

present to admit your right to pass Amelie promised to take her courage 

before them." in both hands, as the emperor said, 

There was a general murmur of and beard the lion once more in his 
assent, though it must have puzzled den. Before letting her go, his ma- 
most if not all of the spectators of jesty questioned her minutely about 
this strange scene who this poverty- the condition of the hospitals and 
stricken, humpbacked elderly lady other charitable institutions at Mar- 
was to be thus greeted by Napoleon seilles, concerning all of which he 
III., and handed over their heads appeared to be singularly well in- 
to the presence-chamber. As soon formed. 

as they were alone, the emperor drew The next day, she presented her- 

a chair close to his own, and, inviting self at the ministere, and was ushered 

his visitor to sit down, he said : into the marshal's presence. He 

" Now, tell me if, over and above had his coat on this time; whether 

the pleasure of seeing you, I am to the fact was due to accident, or to a 

have that of doing something that desire to propitiate the lady who had 

can give you pleasure ? " complained of him to his master, his- 

Amelie, in relating the interview to tory does not say; but, as soon as 

her friend, said that, when she saw Amelie entered, his excellency ac- 

his majesty bearing down upon her costed her with: " Well, so you were 

before the assembled multitude in the affronted with me, it seems ! What 

antechamber, she felt ready to sink did you say about me to the em- 

into the ground, and wished herself peror ? " 

at Hongkong; but the moment he " Excellency," replied Amelie, " I 

spoke her terrors vanished, and she told his majesty that I had expected 

had not been two minutes with him to find a minister of France, but I 

before she felt perfectly at her ease, found instead a man in a passion." 
and talked on as fearlessly as if he The marshal grunted a laugh, and 






A Daughter of S. Dominic. 823 

told her to sit down and explain her were sad ; but, amongst all his chil- 

business. She did so, this time with dren, the Vicar of Christ had no 

perfect satisfaction to both parties, more faithfully sorrowing heart than 

and they parted the best friends in Amelie's, none who entered more 

the world. keenly into his griefs or responded 

This closed her career of useful- with more filial alacrity to their claim 

ness in France ; she waited to make on her sympathy and participation 

the needful arrangements for the de- and righteous anger. She beheld 

parture of the nuns, their reception the persecutions of God's church, the 

at Marseilles, etc., and then she started hatred and malice of its enemies, the 

for Rome. cowardice of those who called them- 

On setting out for the Eternal City, selves its friends, but stood by passive 
Amelie seemed to have had the pre- and cold while the crime perpetrated 
sentiment that she had entered on outside Jerusalem eighteen hundred 
the last stage of her pilgrimage, years ago was renewed before their 
The sense of her approaching end, eyes on the body of that church which 
which betrayed itself, perhaps uncon- Christ had died to found ; she saw 
sciously, in conversing both by word pride and materialism everywhere at 
and letter with 'her most intimate work striving to undo his work, to 
friends, was accompanied by an in- prevent the coming of his kingdom, 
crease of fervor and a serenity which and to establish the kingdom of sin 
struck every one who approached her upon earth ; and the sight of all this 
as something almost divine. The filled her heart with grief, but not 
project which she had formed of with despair. It was indeed an hour 
founding and entering a community, of unexampled grief for Christendom, 
of Saurs Reparatrices was still un- but it was also an hour for activity, 
realized, but she hoped now to carry and zeal, and renewed courage ; it 
it into effect, to make the remainder was a time for each individual mem- 
of her life a perpetual Deo Gratias / ber to prove himself, for all to put 
and to die in the outward livery of their hand to the plough that was 
the religious state whose spirit her furrowing the bosom of the church, 
whole life had so faithfully embodied, and to water the travailed soil with 
But God had other designs upon her. fertilizing tears, and, if need be, blood, 
Meantime, in the twilight interval of thus preparing it for the future bar- 
comparative leisure that she had look- vest that was inevitable. For even 
ed forward to so long and enjoyed so as God's enemies of old had stood 
thankfully, Amelie did not give up at the foot of Calvary, and shook 
all active work; she prayed more, and their heads at the bleeding victim of 
lived in greater retirement ; but she their own hate and envy, and bade 
still gave a fair proportion of each him come down from the cross, know- 
day to her accustomed service of the ing not the dawn of the Resurrec- 
poor and the sick. tion was nigh, when the victim would 

These were troubled days that she arise triumphant over death, and 

had fallen upon in Rome. The compel his murderers to acknowl- 

sacrilegious hand of parricides had edge that this man must indeed have 

robbed the church of her possessions, been the Son of God so now the 

and reduced Pius IX. to the nominal enemies of his church had their hour 

sovereignty of the capital of Christen- of triumph, and clapped their hands 

dom, as a prelude to making it, what for joy to see the church that he had 

it is now, his prison. Catholic hearts built upon the Rock, and promised 



824 A Daughter of S. Dominic. 

that the gates of hell should not pre- of Marseilles in Amelie's solicitude 
vail against, tottering and crumbling during her stay in Rome. She tend- 
under the blows of progress and an ed them and worked for them in- 
enlightened civilization and the force defatigably, and dwelt continually in 
of arms. But their triumph was but letters home on the consolation the 
the hour of the powers of darkness spectacle of their childlike piety af- 
that was not to endure, but would forded her. 

perish at the appointed time before the Early in December she wrote to a 

manifestation of the Sun of Justice. friend at Marseilles: "Our dear 

Still, even faithful hearts quailed Zouaves have made their entry into 

before the storm, and were scandal- Rome. They passed under my win- 

ized at the way in which God seemed dows. They are the flower of the 

to forsake his own, not recognizing in French nation. They are full of that 

this mysterious abandonment another energy which nothing but the spirit 

trait of resemblance between his of the faith gives. It is beautiful to 

Vicar and the divine Model, who see them receive Holy Communion 

cried out in his dereliction, " Why before arming themselves. This 

hast thou forsaken me ?" morning eighteen hundred of them, 

Amelie was forced to hear and see bent on shedding' their blood in 
much that was unutterably painful to the cause of God, marched proudly 
hear as a true child of the church ; into the Eternal City with the band 
many who called themselves such, playing and colors flying; they re- 
and who were glad enough to draw minded one of the Theban legion. I 
upon her magnificent sacramental witnessed a touching sight. The 
treasury, and to praise and serve her Holy Father met them on their way, 
in the days of peace, were not stout- and they fell on their knees like one 
hearted enough to share her tribula- man to get his blessing. He blessed 
tions or even to understand them, and them with visible emotion. How 
stood aloof when they ought to have could a father riot be moved at 
acted, or remained dumb when they seeing the devotion of his children ? 
ought to have spoken, or spoke The Flemish and the Bretons are 
what they had better have left un- particularly conspicuous; ancient tra- 
said. But alongside of this indiffer- ditions have been preserved amongst 
ence or treachery she witnessed a them, and have come down from 
great deal that was beautiful and the fathers to the sons. This even- 
consoling. Pilgrims were flocking ing they accompanied His Holiness 
from the four quarters of the globe to to the Vatican, where they cheered 
lay at the feet of Pius IX. the tribute him with the enthusiasm of Chris- 
of their fidelity and abundant offer- tian hearts. It was impossible to 
ings, often collected in perilous jour- withhold one's tears as one beheld 
neys at great risk and sacrifice, the venerable Pontiff rest his loving 
Then there were the Zouaves, nos and gentle gaze on all this youth, so 
chers Zouaves, as Amelie always devoted to him, and burning to prove 
called them, presenting a noble ex- their fidelity. In these days, the posi- 
ample to us all by their heroic devo- tion of the Zouaves amongst Christian 
tion to the cause of God, their spirit soldiers is a noble one. Oh ! if the 
of immolation, their chivalrous valor idle youth of France knew what a 
in action, and the marvellous purity happiness it is to serve God, how 
of their lives. These modern cru- many families would be happy and 
saders replaced the suffering soldiers blest even in this world as well as the 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 825 

next ! I see here numbers of young a soul whom the spirit of prayer pos- 

men who had strayed away from the sessed in the fulness of its availing 

right path for a time, but who had power, and side by side with whose 

the grace to return to it, and are now growth grew the spirit of sacrifice, the 

as happy as children, pure as angels, thirst for self-immolation. She clung 

attached to the church and the Vicar firmly to hope as the anchor of cour- 

01* Christ. Their sole ambition is mar- age and resignation in the present 

tyrdom ; their joy is to look forward trials of the church, but the sense of 

to it. Oh! I see here admirable things, the outrages that God's glory was 

Adieu, dear friend. Let us pray al- enduring in the person of His Vicar 

ways." increased in her soul to positive an- 

Sinister reports and wild alarms, guish. The consideration of her own 

sometimes the result of malice, some- nothingness and utter inability to 

times of fear, were constantly start- lighten the cross that was pressing 

ing up in Rome, terrifying the weak, on the saintly Pontiff, pursued her 

and stimulating the brave to greater day and night with the mysterious 

vigilance and courage, but keeping pain that is born of the love of God. 

everyone on the quivive from day to What a wonderful thing the soul 

day. In the midst of the general ex- of a saint or even a saintlike human 

citement of expectation or terror, the being must be ! How one longs to 

serene confidence of Pius IX. re- go within the veil and get a glimpse 

mained unshaken, like the rock on of the life that is lived there ! It is 

which it rested. AmeUie, who was so strange to us to see a creature take 

admitted frequently to the honor and God's cause to heart, and pine and 

happiness of speaking to the Holy suffer about it as we do about our 

Father, was lost in wonder at it-^-at personal cares and sorrows. It sets 

the unearthly peace that was visible us wondering what sort of inner life 

in his countenance and pervaded theirs can be, and through what pro- 

every word of his conversation, cess of grace and correspondence and 

Shortly before the date of the fore- mysterious training they have grown 

going letter, she wrote to the same to that state of mind when the things 

friend : of God and his eternity are poignant 

" The most contradictory stories realities, and the things of earth hoi- 
are current here, but the peace, the low phantoms that have lost the 
calm, the abandon of the Holy Fa- power to charm, or terrify, or touch, 
ther are indescribable, and go further We see them hungering after justice 
to inspire confidence than the most as we hunger after bread, pining ac- 
sinister conjectures to create terrors, tually for the accomplishment of 
The daughters of Jerusalem followed God's will as eagerly as we pine for 
our Redeemer to Calvary : a sort .of the success of our puny enterprises 
filial sentiment holds me in Rome, and the triumph of our small ambi- 
I cannot go away. . . . Let us tions; and we are astonished, as it 
pray! The power of prayer obtains behoves our stupidity and hardness of 
all things." heart to be, at the incomprehensible 

Let us pray! This had been the character of their faith and love, 
lifelong burthen of her song, and the When life presses heavily upon us, 
cry grew louder and more intense as ana the cross is bruising our shoul- 
she drew near the close. It was not ders, and all things are dark and 
the shrill cry of those who say, Lord! dreary, we catch ourselves occasion- 
Lord ! but the irrepressible voice of ally sighing for death. This is about 



826 A Daughter of S. Dominic. 

our nearest approach to that home- sunrise and fill the universe with joy. 

sick yearning expressed in the words It is not their own selfish deliverance 

of the apostle : " I long to die, to be or the world's annihilation that they 

dissolved, and to be with Christ ! " long for, but its consummation in 

What an altogether different feeling man's happiness and the Creator's 

it must be with these saintlike souls glory. 

when they long for death ! They are Amelie longed with all the strength 
not impatient of life, or, like tired of her generous heart to do some- 
travellers, angry with the dust and sun thing for her Lord, to help ever so 
of the road, and disgusted with the little towards hastening the coming 
uncomfortable wayside inn where of his kingdom before he called her 
they put up ; they are impatient of away. One morning, after commun- 
heaven and of the vision that makes ion, as she was praying very fervently 
the bliss and the glory of heaven, for the Holy Father, whose health 
Too jealous of their Creator's rights just then was a source of great 
to rob him even in desire of one year, anxiety amongst the faithful, this 
or day, or hour of their poor service longing came upon her with an in- 
while he sees good to employ them, tensity that she had never felt be- 
they are willing to go on toiling fore; she was seized with a sudden 
through eternity if he wishes it; but impulse to make the sacrifice of her 
they are homesick, they long to see life in exchange for his, and to offer 
him, they yearn after his possession herself as a victim that he might be 
with a sacred unrest that we who spared yet awhile to guide and sus- 
have but little kinship with their spirit tain the church through the trials 
cannot understand. They are sad- and temptations that were afflicting 
dened by their exile and by the sight her. The impulse was so vehement 
of sin and of the small harvest their that it was with difficulty she re- 
Lord's glory reaps amidst the great strained herself from obeying it on 
harvest of iniquity that overruns the the spot ; the desire, however, to ob- 
world. They watch the sea of hu- tain the blessing of obedience in her 
manity rolling its waves along time, sacrifice enabled her to do so. She 
moaning with conscious agonies of quietly continued her thanksgiving, 
sin, storm-lashed and terrible, break- and, on leaving the church, went 
ing in billows of impotent rage against straight to the Vatican. There, 
the Rock of redemption, and dashing kneeling at the feet of the suffering 
headlong past it into the gulf, where it Vicar of Christ, she told him of the 
is sucked down into everlasting dark- desire that had come to her, and 
ness; and seeing these things as God begged him to bless it, and to per- 
sees them, and as they affect his mit her to offer herself up next day 
interests, they are filled with sorrow, at Holy Communion as a victim in 
and call out for the end, that this his place if it should please God to 
mighty torrent may be stayed. They accept her. 

call out to the stars to rise on the far- Pius IX. was silent for some mo- 

off heights, that loom dim and gloomy ments, while Amelie, with uplifted 

through the swirl and vapor of the face and clasped hands, awaited his 

storm. They would fain hush the reply. Then, as if obeying a voice 

winds and the waves, and hasten the that had spoken to him in the silence, 

advent of the Judge before whose he laid his hand upon her head, and 

splendor the dark horizon will vanish, said, with great solemnity : " Go, my 

and whose glory will outshine the daughter, and do as the Spirit of God 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 827 

has prompted you." He blessed her to thank those about her except by 
with emotion, and Amelie left his a smile or a pressure of the hand, 
presence filled with gladness and re- Early on the following morning, 
newed fervor. She spent the greater Wednesday, she grew calmer, the 
part of the day in prayer. In the pain subsided, and Amelie asked for 
afternoon she wrote two letters : one the last sacraments. She received 
of them, of too private a character them with sentiments of ecstatic de- 
to be given at length, contained the votion, and for some time remained 
foregoing account of the morning's absorbed in prayer. Her thanksgiv- 
occurrences ; the other we transcribe, ing terminated, she took leave ten- 
It is a revelation beyond all comment derly of those friends who surrounded 
of the state of her soul as it stood her, and then begged they would be- 
on what she believed to be the thresh- gin the prayers for the dying ; they 
old of eternity. did so, and she joined in the re- 
SATURBAY, Dec. 15 ROME. sponses with a fervor that went to 
"We still continue in the greatest calm, every heart. When they came to 
Nos chers Zouaves have the courage of those grand and solemn words with 
lions; they draw their strength from the 'which the church speeds her children 
>lood of the martyrs. Generally speaking, imo thg ncg of theif merdful 
they are pious as angels. You see them . * . . . 
constantly during their free hours slip- J ud S e > ' Depart, Christian soul, in 
ping off their knapsack and their arms to the name of the Father who created 
go and kneel at the feet of the priest in thee, in the name of the Son who re- 
the confessional, or to pray at the shrine deemed thee, in the name of the 
of the queen of martyrs ; they are truly HQ} Gh wh sanctified th 

the children of the church, and . ;,. , , , , , , .. , 

Amelie bowed her head and died. 

Here the letter broke off. The news was con veyed at once to 

The next morning was Sunday. the Vatican. When Pius IX. heard 

Amehe repaired, as usual, to early it> he ev inced no sudden surprise, but 

Mass at S. Peter's. She received raised his eyes to heaven, and mur- 

Holy Communion, and then, with mured with a smile . 

the Eucharistic Presence warm upon ^ tos f accetato ' " * 

her heart, she offered up her life to The announcement of Amelia's 

him who had been its first and last death was rece ived with universal 

and only love. The words were expressions of dismay and sorrow, 

hardly cold upon her lips, when It was not only the poor> who had 

she was seized with sudden and been her chief and most intimate 

violent pain, and fell with a cry to associates in Rome, that mourned 

the ground. She was surrounded her, all classes of society joined in a 

immediately, and carried home, chorus of heartfelt regret, and proved 

Priests and religious of both sexes how well they had appreciated the 

who were in S. Peter's at the moment, gentle French sister who had dwelt 

and knew her, filled with alarm and humbly amongst them doing good, 

distress, accompanied her to the The house where she lay in her 

Strada PJpresa dei Barberi. Medical beautiful and heroic death-sleep was 

aid was sent for, but it was soon besieged by people from every part 

evident that her illness was beyond o f the city ; all were anxious to gaze 

the reach of human skill. All that once more upon her face, to touch 
day and the next she continued in 

agonizing pain, unable to speak or * so soon accepted ! 



828 



A Daughter of S. Dominic. 



her hands with crosses and rosaries, 
to kneel in prayer beside the victim 
who had offered herself for the sins 
of the people, and been accepted by 
him who delighteth not in burnt-of- 
ferings, but in the sacrifice of a con- 
trite heart. To her truly it had been 
answered : " O woman, great is thy 
faith : be it done unto thee according 
to thy word !" 

The miraculous circumstances of 
her death were soon proclaimed. In 
the minds of those who had known 
her well they excited no surprise. 
From all they called out sentiments 
of admiration and praise. Tears flow- 
ed uninterruptedly round the austere 
court where the virgin tabernacle 
rested from its labors, but they were 
tears sweeter than the smiles and 
laughter of earth ; prayers for the 
dead were suspended by common 
impulse, and the spectators, exchang- 
ing the De Profundis for the Te Deum 
and the Magnificat, broke out into 
canticles of triumph and hymns of 
rejoicing. 

The Zouaves, her beloved Zouaves, 
hurried in consternation to the house 
as soon a"s the news reached them 
that the gentle, devoted friend of the 
soldier was no more ; and it was a 
beautiful and stirring sight to see 
them sobbing like children beside 
her, touching her hands with their 
sword-hilts and their rosaries, and 
swelling in broken but enthusiastic 
voices the hymns of thanksgiving. 

The Holy Father, wishing to pay 
his tribute to the general testimony 
of love and admiration, commanded 
that the child of S. Dominic should 
be carried to her grave with a pomp 
and splendor befitting the holiness 
of her life and the heroic character 
of her death. The remains were 
conveyed accordingly first to the 
Basilica of the Apostles in solemn 
state, escorted by a vast concourse 



of people, priests and religious, and 
exposed there throughout the morn- 
ing to public veneration ; a requiem 
Mass and the office of the dead were 
chanted ; in the afternoon, the body, 
followed by all that Rome held of 
greatest and best, was transported to 
the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Cce- 
li. The Zouaves claimed the privilege 
of bearing the precious remains upon 
their shoulders, and it was granted 
them. By special permission of His 
Holiness, Amelie was interred in San- 
ta Maria ; but her death was no soon- 
er known at Marseilles than the 
townspeople spontaneously demand- 
ed that the bodv should be returned 



to them. But Pius IX. replied that 
Rome had now a prior claim to its 
guardianship ; Amelie had made the 
sacrifice of her life at Rome and for 
Rome ; it was fitting that the ashes 
should remain where the holocaust 
had been offered and consumed. Mar- 
seilles yielded to the decision of the 
Sovereign Pontiff, and the daughter of 
S. Dominic was left to sleep on under 
the august dome of the Ara Cceli, 
there to await the angel of the resur- 
rection, whose trumpet shall awake 
the dead and bid them come forth and 
clothe themselves with immortality. 

The following is the authentic re- 
cord of this miraculous death, as 
copied from the original, legalized by 
Cardinal Patrizi, Vicar .of His Holi- 
ness : 

" Je soussigne, cure de la tres- 
sainte basilique constantinienne des 
douze saints apotres de Rome, certi- 
fie que dans le registre XII. des de- 
funts, lettre N. page 283, se 1 trouve 
1'acte dont 1'extrait mot a mot suit : 

" Le vingt-deux decembre mil-huit 
cent soixante six. Mademoiselle 
Claire-Frangoise-Amelie Lautard de 
Marseille, filie de M. Jean Baptiste 
Lautard, vierge tres pieuse, pendant 



Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology, 829 



quelle offrait Dimanche dernier a Dieu 
sa propre vie pour le salut clu souve- 
rain Pontife, Pie IX. tie Rome et de 
la sainte eglise, a etc saisie sur le 
champ par la maladie, et ayant regu 
tres pieusement les sacraments de 
1'eglise, jouissant de la plenitude de 
ses facultes, en priere, entouree de 
plusieurs pretres et vierges, a rendu 
son ame a Jesus Christ son epoux, 
avec la plus grande serenite, le Mer- 
credi dix-neuf a neuf heures et demie 
du matin dans la maison Rue Ripresa 
dei Barberi 175, a 1'age de cinquante 
neuf ans ; son corps, le lendemain 
vingt, apres le completuum a ete con- 
duit accompagne par un grand nom- 
bre de religieuse en cette basilique 
et y a ete expose pendant la mati- 
nee suivant 1'usage des nobles, 1'office 
et la Messe ont ete dit, dans I'apres- 
midi le corps a ete transporte a 
1'eglise de Sainte Marie in Ara-Cceli, 
6u il a ete enseveli dans le tombeau 



des Soeurs de St. Joseph de 1' Appari- 
tion. 

" Donne a Rome," etc. * 

.*"!, the undersigned, parish priest of the most 
holy Constantinian Basilica of the Twelve Apos- 
tles of Rome, certify that in Register XII. of the 
dead, letter N, page 283, is to be found the deed 
of which the following is the copy, word for 
word. 

"The twenty-second of December, eighteen 
hundred and sixty-six, Mademoiselle Claire- 
Frangoise-Amelie Lautard, of Marseilles, daugh- 
ter of M. Jean Baptiste Lautard, a most pious 
virgin, while offering last Sunday her life to 
God for the Holy Father, Rome, and the church, 
was seized on the spot by illness, and having 
received most piously the sacraments of the 
church, in the full possession of her faculties, in 
prayer, and surrounded by several priests and 
virgins, gave up her soul to Jesus Christ, her 
spouse, with the greatest serenity, Wednesday 
the igth, at half-past nine in the morning, in the 
house Rue Ripresa-dei-Barberi 175, at the age 
of fifty-nine years. The followingday, the 2oth, 
her body was carried, after the completuum, ac- 
companied by a great number of religious, to 
this basilica, and was here exposed during the 
morning after the manner of nobles, the office 
of the dead and a solemn Mass being performed ; 
in the afternoon it was conveyed to the Church 
of Santa Maria in Ara Cceli, and there interred 
in the tomb of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Ap- 
parition. 

" Given at Rome," etc. 



THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PREHISTORIC 
ANTHROPOLOGY AND ARCHEOLOGY. 



FROM LA REVUE GENERALE DE BRUXELLE 



CONCLUDED. 



THE sessions of August 25 began 
with fresh discussions concerning the 
troglodytes of Menton and the so- 
called tertiary skull from California 
already spoken of. M. Desor en- 
tered into extensive details concern- 
ing the hatchets of nephrite and 
jade found in the Alps, and appa- 
rently of Oriental origin. " I do not 
believe," said he, as he ended, " that 
these hatchets were utensils, but 
merely objects of display, like the 
dolmens (!) precious memorials and 
relics of the first ages of humanity." 



M. de Quatrefages thought these 
hatchets a proof of ancient commer- 
cial relations with the East. A great 
deal was said in this discussion of the 
use of stone knives by the Egyptians 
in embalming the dead, and among 
the Jews for circumcising. Only one 
thing was forgotten neither the 
Egyptians nor the Jews ever attached 
any religious importance to the use 
of stone, and they likewise made use 
of bronze and iron knives in these 
operations. The instrument of cir- 
cumcision at the present day is a 



830 



The International Congress of 



steel blade. * M. Leemans, director 
of the museum at Leyden, thought 
these hatchets came from Java. He 
reminded us that there has always 
been constant intercourse between 
Switzerland and that island, and that 
the majority of the soldiers of the 
East India Company were tradition- 
ally recruited in Switzerland. The 
Abbe Delaunay refuted M. Desor's 
opinion by merely referring to the 
collection at Pont-Levoy, where 
there are fourteen hatchets of jade 
found in that vicinity. It was 
thought desirable to ascertain the as 
yet unknown source of jade. They 
now returned to the hiatus men- 
tioned by M. de Mortillet at the pre- 
vious session, in order to oppose it 
by bringing forward an intermediary 
race, for whom M. Broca was the 
sponsor, though without flattering it 
much. He engaged in a long, sub- 
tile argument on the way tertiary 
flints were introduced into the val- 
leys and caverns. They were not 
agreed on this question, which is one 
we can only regard with speculative 
interest. 

The excursions to the ateliers of 
Spiennes and Mesvin were not as 
pleasant as the one to the Lesse. 
For that, the country around Mons 
should be as charming as that of 
the Meuse and the people likewise. 
There is a very complete work by M. 
Dupont concerning these excavations, 
in which have been found millions of 
rough flints, to which he does not 
hesitate to assign a quaternary origin 
of the mammoth period. When one 
has a taste of the mammoth, he can- 
not get too much of it. I know of 
sceptics and controversialists who 
through speculations of another kind 



* This mistake is owing to a wrong meaning 
given to a word in the Book of Joshua in the Sep- 
tuagint; where the word tsorim is translated 
knife of stone, when it also means a. sharp knife ; 
tsor only means stone in the" sense of rock or 
block. 



are plunged into foolish incredulity. 
Here is an instance : from time 
immemorial our forefathers made use 
of flints for striking fire, and many 
of us can still remember the custom, 
which may not have wholly disap- 
peared. For centuries, households 
had to be supplied with flints for the 
tinder-box, and in abundance, for 
this stone is soon worn out by iron ; 
it becomes furred and smooth, and is 
soon unfit for use. If we compare 
the considerable traffic in flints that 
must have been carried on with the 
enormous consumption that supports 
the fabrication of chemical matches, 
we can easily see that the sites of the 
workshops where flints for striking 
fire were cut must have been heaped 
with millions of rough ones nodules, 
chips, and dtbris of all kinds; that 
excavations must have been made by 
pits, which necessarily extended to 
considerable depth, and crossed very 
old geologic strata, for silex is found 
imbedded in chalk at a depth of 
thircy or forty metres in some places; 
that to argue from the stratification 
of surrounding formations, in order to 
decide on the synchronism of the ex- 
cavations, would expose us to con- 
clude/^/ hoc, ergo propter hoc. And 
I have not mentioned all the com- 
mon uses made of flints in a house- 
hold. For many years they were used 
for firearms, and silex is still used in 
ceramic manufactures, the origin of 
which is lost in the darkness of 
ages. A great many of the flints 
that appear cut are only fragments 
that may have been owing to sponta- 
neous fracture. Now, whence came 
all the flints used for striking fire dur- 
ing the historic periods that go back 
from our time to the middle ages and 
to antiquity ? Has it been proved 
that these remains, so-called prehis- 
toric, do not come within the do- 
main of history; nay, even of mod- 
ern history ? At all events, the age 



Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology. 



831 



of the quaternary deposits is by no 
means established, and it is on the 
mere presence of human remains, or 
of the productions of human labor 
among these deposits, that certain 
anthropologists found the millions of 
ages they attribute to our species. 
These remains do not indicate the 
site of ancient settlements ; they have 
been washed away from those settle- 
ments by currents of water, and the 
question is, What epoch produced 
these changes? a question not 
solved, and perhaps never will be. 

Besides, the primary defect of the 
whole prehistoric system is the indis- 
solubly confounding of two orders 
of very evident facts, but which may 
by no means have any correlation as 
to time. Wrought flints show evident 
traces of human labor, and there is 
no unprejudiced person who cher- 
ishes the least doubt about it. The 
evidence of design shown by the ex- 
amination of two or three specimens 
is in itself a proof of some value, but 
this proof makes an irresistible impres- 
sion on the mind when, in addition, 
we see an accumulation of specimens. 
It is, then, no longer possible to attri- 
bute the uniform shape of the flints 
to a mere accident. But were they 
fashioned at the time of the forma- 
tion of the terrains in which they are 
embedded? That is another prob- 
lem, the solution of which is liable 
to controversy. Mr. Taylor, who is 
very respectable authority in such 
matters, declares, after much consci- 
entious research, that the gravel-beds 
of St. Acheul were deposited in the 
earlier part of the Christian era. 
People of the historic period, such as 
the first inhabitants of Umbria and 
the Egyptians, made flints precisely 
like those of St. Acheul. The pro- 
digious antiquity of man must be 
greatly shaken by these observations. 
At Sinai, flint has been used to effect 
immense excavations in the rock ; it 



is again utilized under the form of 
hammers and chisels in the ancient 
copper mines of the Aztecs, in Can- 
ada, Spain, Wady-Maghara, and 
Bethlehem, as well as on Lake Supe- 
rior, in Tuscany, and in Brittany. 
The Bedouins of Africa and the In- 
dians of Texas still make use of them ; 
and M. Reboux, who gave the Con- 
gress a practical demonstration of the 
mounting and use of the utensils of 
the stone age, received his inspira- 
tion from those savages. They make 
the handles out of the sinews of the 
bison, covered with a wide strip of 
the animal's skin recently taken off. 
This band is wound around grooves 
made in the middle of the hammer. 
The skin, as it dries, contracts, and 
the stone, the extremities of which 
alone are uncovered, is enclosed in a 
sheath so tight that it cannot be 
drawn out.* It must be acknow- 
ledged, then, that the authenticity of 
these beds at Spiennes, as prehistoric 
ateliers, appears exceedingly doubt- 
ful, and there is a tinge of similar in- 
credulity in the behavior of the peo- 
ple around the Camp des Cayaux: 
" Countrymen, and even little pea- 
sant girls," says a reporter of one of 
our principal journals, " were selling 
the finest stones to the travellers, 
making superhuman efforts to repress 
smiles that threatened to explode 
into loud laughter. A singularly 
ironic expression was legible in the 
large eyes of these fillettes and broke 
through their pretended seriousness. 
It was very evident that the benight- 
ed villagers in the vicinity of Mons 
were not sufficiently initiated into 
the new gospel of science, and by no 
means had implicit faith in it. The 
irreverence of the population was 
still more evident at the entrance of 
the hamlet, where a group of young 
women manifested quite an uncivil 

* Simonin, La Vie Souterraine. 



832 The International Congress of 

merriment at the sight of some of the that this dynasty descended from the 
princes of science who were toiling blonde race of the dolmens, 
along under the heavy burden of M. Worsaae opposed the general's 
quaternary flint." As an example opinion, and maintained that the 
of moral contrasts, I will merely al- builders of the dolmens, on the con- 
lude to Hennuyer and the peasant trary, proceeded from the south to 
of Furfooz, one sceptical and con- the north, where they attained the 
temptuous of everything, and the height of their civilization. M. Car- 
other with genuine respect for the tailhac, however, stated an important 
traditions of his beloved valleys. fact that weakens this objection : the 
The morning of the twenty-seventh dolmens of the South of France con- 
was mostly taken up with a report tain metallic objects whose place of 
from General Faid'herbe on the fabrication could not have been far 
dolmens of Algeria. A burst of ap- off; those of the interior and the North 
plause greeted the illustrious and only contained articles of polished 
genial hero of Lille. Popular send- stone. 

ment seemed an embodiment of the A small man now sprang into the 

tribune, fierce as Orestes tormented 

Placuitvictnx causa aiis. sed victa Catoni \ .1 -r-, i , , , , 

by the Eumemdes, with black eyes, 

in the very teeth of the Borussians.* j on g streaming hair, and a person of 
General Faid'herbe assigned a his- incessant mobility. It is one of the 
toric epoch to the origin of the dol- princes of oriental philology- -M. 
mens. These monuments, which are Oppert, who began a demonstration 
tombs, were the work of one race of the chronology of remote historical 
found on every shore from Pomera- times, which he continued in the 
nia to Tunis, and which, according afternoon session. He assured us, as 
to him, proceeded from the north ne began, that he did not intend to 
to the south. The dolmens of Africa offend any one's religious convictions, 
are like those of Europe. But what or to discuss the chronology of the 
race was this ? A blonde race from Bible > which, in his eyes, is eminently 
the shores of the Baltic, as the speak- respectable. In his opinion, the dif- 
er proved by three facts: i. Blondes ference of the dates pointed out in 
are still to be found in Barbary. 2. diff erent chronological tables can be 
Ancient historians speak of the explained without any difficulty. M. 
blonde people who lived there before Oppert showed us how the chrono- 
the Christian era. 3. Fifteen centu- lo S ies of E g7Pt and Chaldea, which 
ries before Christ the blonde inhabi- were calculated by cycles of unequal 
tants of that country attacked Lower length, begin with the same date- 
Egypt. M. Faid'herbe stated that the T 9 th of January, Gregorian (the 
when he lived in Senegal there were 2 7 th of A P ril > Julian), of the year 
two powerful negro tribes in the XI 54 2 B -C. ! 

countries on the upper Niger having He therefore concluded that the 

a political organization of relative people of those regions must have 

advancement. The complexion of observed the important astronomical 

the royal family was somewhat clear, phenomena of that time, the risings 

and they prided themselves on their of Sirius perhaps, which would incli- 

descent from white ancestors. Ety- cate a de g ree of civilization somewhat 

mological indices lead us to believe advanced for a period snll ante-his- 
toric. I like to recall the very words 

* Ancient name of the Prussians. Trans. he used ; they are full of meaning. 






Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaology. 833 

M. Ribeiro had made researches evident to every one. M. Virchow 

in Portugal that appeared to him found a manifest difference between 

conclusive as to the existence of the skulls at the British Museum and 

pliocene man, and he produced ter- those of criminals in the collection at 

tiaiy flints which he believed to be the university. The Flemish skulls 

cut. The Abbe Bourgeois, who could present the same prognathism as 

not remain indifferent to any proof those of Furfooz, and certain types 

of tertiary man, allowed an unex- have characteristics that might cause 

pected declaration to escape his lips, them to be classed with the Mongo- 

" I should like," said he, " to con- loid race. 

sider these fragments as authentic As to the size of the skull, it is not 

proofs of the truth of my theory, but owing to the development of the 

the truth obliges me to declare that I psychical faculties, and we should be 

cannot discover any evidence of hu- cautious about drawing premature 

man labor in them." M. Ribeiro conclusions concerning the primitive 

sank into his seat under this coup de races of this country. M. Virchow 

hache-polie, and tertiary man was pro- cited the example of the two skulls 

perly buried, after a later correction found in a Greek tomb of the Mace- 

from M. Bourgeois, who admitted donian epoch, the form and size of 

that one of M. Ribeiro's flints bore which induced him to class them un- 

marks of human labor, but he had hesitatingly with the Mongoloids of 

doubts as to its bed. the caverns of the Lesse. Now, one 

Anthropology and ethnography of these skulls was that of a Greek 

had the honors during the greater woman of great distinction, both as 

part of this session. to her social condition and intellec- 

M. Lagneau said the researches tual culture. The learned professor 

made in Belgium showed there were from Berlin expressed a doubt as to 

three perfectly distinct species of men the Germanic origin of the Flemings., 

in this country, and he opposed M. M. Lagneau also thought we should 

Dupont's opinion that the skulls of not decide too hastily about the races- 

Furfooz belong to the Mongoloid that first inhabited Belgium. He 

race. M. Hamy demonstrated ana- could not see why the Flemings and 

tomically that a particular race, the Germans should have the same origin. 

Australioid, is spread throughout Eu- In Germany, Belgium, and France 

rope. The jaw from Naulette ap- the races are excessively mixed up. 

pears to belong to this race ; the Germany was repeatedly invaded by 

skull from Engis belongs to another, people from Gaul. Prognathism 

M. Hamy thought he discovered alone is not typical any more than 

some of the characteristics of the the temperament, color of the hair, 

Australioid race in certain inferior etc. 

types in Belgium and France. These M. ' Vanderkindere thought the 

primitive races are not extinct. They Flemish of Germanic origin, and the 

still peep out in isolated cases of Walloon of Celtic. Blondes do not 

atavism, and he exhibited a curious belong to the Aryan races. Progna- 

instance the hideous portrait of a thism is more common in them than, 

boat-woman of the neighborhood of in the dark people of the country, in 

Mons, with all the characteristics of which the speaker finds Ligurian 

the Australioid race of the mammoth traces, as in the basin of the Loire 

period. In this selection of a Mon- (Liger-Liguria). Now, the blonde 

tois type there was a spice of revenge race, has always thought itself supe- 
VOL. xvi. 53 



8 34 The International Congress of 

rior, and this belief was so strong in M. de Quatrefages thought, like 
Flanders in the heart of the middle M. Virchovv, that all the various races 
ages that the mother of Berthulphe cannot be owing to atavism. Crossing 
de Ghistelles, displeased at the alii- has a good deal to do with it. It is 
ance her son had contracted with the allowable to refer the variety of types 
beautiful Godelive, a native of Bou- to the more or less commingling of 
lonnais, whom her contemporaries the ancient races, as they are e very- 
reproached solely on account of her where mingled now. We can hard- 
black hair and eyebrows, expressed ly deny, however, that the present 
her contempt in these significant population partly descended from the 
terms : " Cur, inquit, cornicem de terra troglodytes. The people of Furfooz 
aliena eduxisti ?" She thought it dis- must still have some representatives 
graceful to defile the pure blood of in Belgium, especially among the 
her antique Germanic race (alti titi women. Science proves that woman 
sanguinis) by such an alliance. retains the type of the race to which 
In a subsequent session, this ques- she belongs longer than man. At a 
tion of races came on the carpet later day we shall doubtless succeed 
again. M. Dupont, combining the in deciphering the origin of the 
observations made in the three ex- human races. In these researches 
cursions (that to Namur had taken we must also consider the action of 
place the day before), established a les milieux. Mile. Royer expressed 
filiation between the different peoples a disbelief in the unity of the human 
who inhabited Belgium in different species. Unfortunately, the inevitable 
periods of the stone age. The crossing is always obstructing her 
people of Mesvin, the Somme, the observations. She absolutely refuses 
Tamise, and the Seine were contem- to admit that the white man is Aryan, 
poraries. The race of Mesvin in- or at least Asiatic. -She hopes, how- 
habited Hainault at the same time ever, some day to obtain a solution 
as the troglodytes, whom they did of these great problems. How far, 
=not know. It might have been the ma dame, your knowledge extends, 
people of Mesvin and the Somme, and how astonishingly you have re- 
who, gradually attaining to polished tained the persistent type of madame 
stone, invaded the country occupied la guenon from whom you flut:e* 
by the less advanced people of the yourself to have descended ! After 
caverns. M. Virchow could not re- other discussions concerning the 
commend too much prudence to bronze utensils found in various parts 
those who are investigating the of Europe, and the influence of 
science of anthropology. In prehis- Etruscan art, which extended even to 
toric times, as in our day, there were the North, M. Baudre undertook the 
variations of the same race, but that demonstration of a point singular- 
is not accounted for by atavism. It enough. Primitive man, he ftiid, 
anust be concluded that men were doubtless possessed the musical fac- 
simultaneously created or born in ulty, and it is impossible with his 
several places, and different types knowledge of the flint he daily used 
sprang from the commingling of the that it should not have occurred to 
actual races. We take pleasure in him to apply the sonorousness of 
collecting these indirect acknowledg- that stone to some practical use. No 
ments from the lips that dared say, one can positively declare this was 
; There is no place in the universe so, but who can deny it ? M. Baudre 
ifor a God, nor in man for a soul." has constructed an instrument com- 



Prehistoric A ntJir apology and Arc/urology. 835 

posed of accordant flints a prehis- The final seance of the Congress 
toric piano on which he executed a opened with a very interesting and 
braban$onne that would have excited animated discussion as to the first 
the envy of the Moncrabeaux. It is use of bronze and iron. Where did 
neither more nor less insupportable the bronze come from ? M. Oppert 
than the modern instrument of torture thought it of European origin. The 
of which some unideal creature, with Phoenicians went to England for tin 
bent body and a prey to convulsive rather than to the East. M. Wor- 
jerks, strikes the senseless ivory with saae was convinced it came from 
his skinny phalanges till it shrieks Asia, and that a bronze age will be 
under the touch. discovered in Egypt. M. Leemans 
Of the excursion to Namur we will was of the opinion that the iron age 
only allude to what bore on the sci- preceded the bronze in India and 
entific labors of the Congress; that is, Ceylon. M. Conestabile was in- 
the visit to the Camp of Hastedon. clined to think the Phoenicians ob- 
The delightful, cordial reception given tained their tin from the Caucasus 
us in that pleasant town, the banquet rather than England. M. Franks 
and concert which followed, will not said they might have found it in Spain 
soon be effaced from the memory of and Portugal, and M. Waldemar- 
the excursionists. The plateau of Schmidt thought the Egyptians ob- 
Hastedon, close to Namur, rests on tained theirs from Africa, 
a solid mass of dolomite, and is sur- M. de Quatrefages afterwards sum- 
rounded by a bastion composed of med up the character of the Con- 
fkgots calcined it is not known gress of Brussels : it appears from 
how, huge boulders, and a thick lay- scientific evidence in every direction 
er of earth and stones. The Romans that certain existing types have an 
occupied it for a certain time, but incontestable resemblance to the peo- 
the parapets that surround it are pie of the quaternary period. In the 
much more ancient. It is an im- second place, it now seems establish- 
mense plain, eleven hectares in ex- ed that man of the stone age travel- 
tent, strewed with flints, both wrought led much more than has been sup- 
and polished, that came from Spien- posed. 

nes, while those of the caverns of the The close of the session was mark- 
Lesse came from Champagne. The ed by two occurrences that produc- 
troglodytes of the Lesse and the ed a strong impression on the as- 
people of Spiennes were contempo- sembly. The two workmen who so 
raries in the age of cut stone, but ably assisted M. Dupont in the ex- 
there was no intercourse between ploration of the caverns had, at the 
them. During the age of polished solicitation of the committee, the 
stone, on the contrary, the importa- decoration ouvriere conferred on them 
tion of flints from Champagne ceased by Messrs, de Quatrefages and Ca- 
in the region of the caverns, and the pellini. Then a letter from M. G. 
flint of Spiennes was diffused among Geefs was read, stating that he had 
the plateaux of upper Belgium. The made a bust of M. d'Omalius unbe- 
inhabitants of Spiennes extended known to the latter, which he offered 
their former bounds, penetrated to as a mark of homage to the Congress, 
that region, and fortified it. Accord- This bust, concealed at the end of the 
ing to M. Dupont, the Camp of Has- apartment, was uncovered and pre- 
tedon must have been one of their sented to the venerable president, 
fortresses. old in years but youthful in feeling, 



836 Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and ArcJiczology. 

whose fine noble career M. de Qua- flints in question was ultimately re- 

trefages retraced in an address spark- garded as incontestable, 

ling with wit. Then, after some iso- " 2. The formation of the valleys 

lated communications, the Congress and the filling of the caverns were 

passed a resolution to hold its regarded as the result of fluvial ac- 

seventh meeting at Stockholm, in tion. The study of these phenomena 

1874, under the effective presidency may be considered as the fundamental 

of Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the point of research respecting man of 

Congress was declared adjourned. the quaternary epoch. 

We cannot better end this report, " 3. The bones of goats, sheep, 

which I should have liked to make and oxen, discovered in the deposits 

more complete, than by quoting M. of the mammoth age in the Belgian 

Dupont's resum^ (a little indefinite, caverns, were acknowledged to be 

in my opinion) of the labor of the similar to our goats, sheep, and cer- 

Sixth International Congress of Pre- tain species of our domestic cattle, 

historic Anthropology and Archas- An opinion was advanced that per- 

ology: haps they originated these domestic 

" After the weighty discussions that species, whose origin has often been 

have taken place at the Congress of sought in vain. 

Brussels," says M. le Secretaire Gen- " 4. Communications between dif- 
eral, " it is proper to lay before the ferent tribes of the stone age in West- 
public the chief problems discussed ern Europe were for the first time 
by the learned assembly. These prob- distinctly stated. The people of the 
lems have not all been definitely quaternary epoch were divided into 
solved. That was not to be expected, two classes, one of which, by the 
for the result of such scientific meet- regular development of its industrial 
ings is seldom the decision of ques- pursuits, arrived at such a degree of 
tions, but rather stating them with progress that it was thought they 
clearness and precision. The dis- must have invaded the region of the 
cussions at such meetings lead to the Belgian caverns in the age of polished 
opening of new paths, and preparing stone, and subjugated our troglodytes, 
the way, by throwing new light on it, " 5. The discovery at Eygenbilsen 
for calm and persevering labor in gave occasion for recognizing the 
the study. There alone is it possi- Etruscan influence in our region pre- 
ble to weigh the value of arguments, vious to the Roman conquest. There 
elucidate obscure points, and ar- was a disposition to admit that the 
rive at conclusions. In this spirit intercourse between Italy and the 
six principal points have been drawn Scandinavian countries must have 
up : been much later. 

" i. Did man really exist in the " 6. The opinion that the anthro- 
middle of the tertiary period ? Seve- pological types of the quaternary epoch 
ral of the specialists present at the have survived, and constitute an es- 
Congress declared in the affirmative, sential element of existing European 
But it appeared, especially from the nations, was admitted in principle 
flints discovered by the Abbe Bour- by all the anthropologists who ex- 
geois, that further researches should pressed any opinion on the subject, 
be undertaken before science can de- The problem of the origin of Euro- 
cide on a point so important in the pean races is thus placed in an en- 
history of mankind. The bed of the tirely new light." 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 



837 



ATLANTIC DRIFT GATHERED IN THE STEERAGE. 



BY AN EMIGRANT. 



CONCLUDED. 



THE generally fortunate voyage 
of our vessel was varied by' two or 
three days of very rough weather, 
and the miseries of our first night at 
sea were intensified by a violent gale. 
The fast steamer, built with lines 
calculated for excessive speed, cut 
through rather than breasted the 
waves. Tons of clear water washed 
over the whaleback, knocking over 
one or two hapless wights, and 
drenching many others. Her wind- 
ward side was incessantly swept by 
blinding showers of heavy spray. 
To pass from the shelter of the main 
deck to the entrance of our steerage 
was a veritable running the gauntlet. 
You watched till the ship rose, and 
then ran at full speed for the shelter 
of the whaleback, happy if you 
reached it without being rolled by a 
sudden lurch into the scuppers, or 
losing your balance and clinging to 
the nearest rope or stanchion, being 
soused by the spray from the next 
wave that struck her. 

The storm raged more fiercely as 
the evening advanced, and from timid 
lips came stories of the lost City of 
Boston and the hapless London, while 
more experienced hands regretted 
their precipitancy in selecting a vessel 
of a line in which every other quality 
was said to have been sacrificed 
to that of excessive speed, and in- 
dulged in uncomfortable surmises as 
to the consequences of the shaft 
snapping or the engines breaking 
down. When the damp and chill 
of the advancing night drove us to 
our bunks, we clambered down-stairs, 



and, staggering away into our respec- 
tive streets, crawled in. To realize my 
first impression of the steerage of our 
vessel at night, when its cavernous 
space was lit, or rather its grim dark- 
ness made visible, by a single lantern, 
would require the pen of Dickens or 
the graphic pencil of Gustave Dore. 
Crouching between those bunks and 
the roof grotesque forms, dimly seen 
in the obscure light, threw weird 
shadows on the cabin sides. Here 
one busily engaged, under innumera- 
ble difficulties, in making up a neat 
bed of sheets and blankets, into which 
he afterwards burrows by an ingen- 
ious backward movement, like a 
shore crab hiding himself in the sand 
left uncovered by the receding tide ; 
while his next neighbor retires to 
rest by the simple process of kicking 
off his boots, pulling his battered 
night-cap over his eyes, and stretching 
himself on the bare boards, with a 
muttered string of curses on the ship, 
the weather, and the world in general, 
for his evening orisons. At a corner 
of one of the tables appear a group 
of players poring over their cards in 
a chiaro-oscuro that recalls a scene of 
Teniers or Van Ostade, while at 
another a group are gathered round 
a young vocalist who quavers out in a 
dull monotone a curious medley of 
sentimental ditties and music-hall vul- 
garities. Gradually all drop away 
into their bunks, and everything is 
still, save the deep breathing of some 
hundred souls, and the groans of the 
sufferers from the malady of the sea. 
Occasionally the heavy plunge of 



838 Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 

the ship, as she dashes into some trumpet of the Judgment Day ! 
mountainous wave, extinguishes the Should I, I pondered, in such a dark 
lamp with the shock, and buries the hour, have the strength of mind or 
little windows under water, leaving the grace of God to lie still on my bed 
cabin for a few seconds in profound and let the rising water cut short the 
darkness. In the gale during the prayer on my lips, or, hoping against 
first night of our voyage, one tremen- hope, with angrily raging heart die 
dous billow struck the ship, burying fighting to breathe a few seconds long- 
us in black night, and rolling trunks, er the vital air ? Of a truth, to die suf- 
tins, and clothes cluttering to leeward focated in the darkness, without a last 
with the lurch of the vessel, and look at the great vault of heaven, a 
awakening all in a moment from last breath of the pure air, seemed to 
their slumbers. A general consterna- me to be to doubly die. 
tion prevailed, and while some called If I suffered some discom- 
in angry tones for the lamp to fort and perhaps a little anxiety 
be relighted, others could be heard from the occasional anger of the 
muttering the unfamiliar words of a mighty main, it was far more than 
half-forgotten prayer. As the great compensated for by its aspect in its 
ship shook in her conflict with the calmer and more peaceful moods. I 
raging sea, and we heard overhead the cannot understand how in a few days 
rush of many feet and the swash on voyagers can learn to complain of 
deck of a heavy mass of water, I felt the monotony of the sea ; to me, 
nervous enough till she rose again its different moods in calm and 
and, creeping to the little window, I storm, the snowy crests of the dancing 
could see the cold moon throwing waves, the foaming and often phos- 
a silvery track across the waste of phorescent wake of the great steamer, 
raging, wind-lashed surges. and the ever-changing aspects of the 
I thought of the great ships that cloud-laden heavens, were objects of 
had gone down, crowded with him- untiring interest. If I had the magic 
dreds of unprepared and unthinking pen of the author of the Quee?i of the 
souls, into the cruel bosom of the Air, I would write a book on the 
great ocean ; perhaps their unknown cloud-scenery of the Atlantic. Never, 
fate was to sink in the darkness of even in the purest Italian sky or the 
the night, crushed in a moment by cloudless heavens above the vast ex- 
an iceberg, or, maimed and helpless, panse of a Western prairie, have I 
battered to pieces and submerged by seen Diana so purely fair, Lucifer so 
the angry waves. What a horrible bright, or Aurora clad in such varied 
death-agony must be that of the garments of purple and rose; such 
doomed, who, after the sudden crash a wonderful vault lined with in- 
of a collision, or battened down in numerable flakes of spotless wool 
their dark prison in a raging storm, left by the dying wind ; such masses 
heard the cataract of water roar of cumulus, sometimes as solidly 
down the hatchway, greedy to en- white as Alpine summits, sometimes 
gulf them ! For a few moments before the rain-storm luridly gra.y- 
Avhat fearful struggles would take black with the gathered water, like 
place in the crowded cabin to mount the massive bulk of Snowdon seen 
the bunks and gain the last mouthful through a driving rain ; and, once 
of the retiring air, until the flood or twice, the pall of the thunder- 
buried all in the bosom of the deep, storm rising over the leeward heaven 
in a silence to be broken only by the and advancing towards us, its ragged 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 839 

edge momentarily lit up with the Besides the four nations of Great 
blazing tongues of the lightning, Britain, we had Germans, Danes, 
until it rolled over, deafening with Swedes, and Norwegians in consider- 
its dread artillery and hiding all able numbers, a few French, Poles, 
around in mist and blinding rain, and Russians, a Levantine Jewess 
The grandeur of sunset and of and her children, and a solitary Amer- 
sunrise, when not obscured by the ican. With the Teutons my igno- 
mistiness of a moist atmosphere, was ranee of their language prevented me 
indescribable. Every night, with holding further converse than to learn 
renewed pleasure, we watched the their nationality and their destination 
god of day sink beneath the western generally Illinois, Minnesota, or 
horizon. Turner, in his wildest Wisconsin. Unlike the Irish, with 
dreams of those gorgeous heaven- whom New York seemed to fulfil ail 
pictures that he had not seen on their notions of America, the Germans 
earth but felt that he would love to and Scandinavians appeared all west- 
see, imagined no greater luxury of ward bound, in large parties, organ- 
gold, carmine, purple, crimson, rose, ized for agricultural life; and while 
and rose-tinged snow, than was af- they were in a considerable minority 
forded by some of the spectacles of on the vessel, they formed much the 
the setting sun. One evening still larger proportion of the' passengers 
holds my memory entranced: the in the emigrant cars. The amount 
heavy curtain of dull gray mist that of their baggage was something pro- 
all day had lain low over the sea digious. Nearly all apparently pea- 
rolled eastward before the evening sants in their native land, they seemed 
breeze; the emerging sun, low on the on leaving it to transport everything 
horizon, dyed the receding masses they possessed except the roof over 
of cloud with a thousand shades of their heads to their adopted country. 
livid purple ; the peaks and shoul- What would not break they enclosed 
ders of the eastern range of moun- in immense bags of ticking and rough 
tains of dark vapor caught the light, canvas, and the residue of their pro- 
while between them sank valleys and perty in arklike chests, the immense 
depths more sombre by the contrast, weight and sharp iron-bound corners 
Westward, below the rosy, almost of which moved the sailors to multi- 
blood-red sun, ran two long narrow form blasphemy. For my part, I had 
filaments of purple cioud, dark across read so much of the contented pros- 
the glow of the heavens, like bars perity of the peasantry in Norway 
across a furnace. A few moments, and Sweden that I speculated not a 
and the shining orb sinks beneath little as to what cause could lead 
them," fringing their edges with re- them to make the long and expensive 
fulgent gold, then falls into a sea of migration from Christiania or Gotten- 
liquid fire. A little longer the crim- burg to the so far off shores of the 
son hues linger on the eastern cur- Mississippi. 

tain of clouds, then grow fainter and With the Germans, who came prin- 

fliinter, and die away into the gray cipally from the neighborhood of 

hues of a moonless night. Mannheim, the case was different. 

Among the five hundred emigrants Several of them could speak a little 

our good ship carried there were, it French, nor were they reticent as to 

is needless to say, many men of dif- the principal cause that led them to 

ferent speech, and almost every di- desert their fatherland : it was the 

versity of occupation and character, man tax, levied by the empire of 



840 Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 

blood and iron on their youth and in the old country; and I suspect 
manhood, that drove them from that everywhere the untaught man, 

their farms in the sweet Rhine valley who, ignorant of any distinct branch 

to seek abodes in the new and freer of industry, brings only his thews and 

world. Several of them had followed sinews to market, is, and will ever be, 

the Bavarian standard under Von but " a hewer of wood and drawer of 

Tannen through the hardships and water " -an ill-paid and little valued 

carnage of the Franco- German war; drudge. 

but to the shrewd sense of the pea- For one class of the Irish emi- 

sant the halo of military glory and grants, of whom we had a certain 

the pomp of wide empire meant but number on board, their countrymen 

conscription and taxation, fields un- entertained a profound and not un- 

tilled, and wife and children starving, founded contempt. Youths from 

while the blood of father and son was Cork or Dublin shops or offices, 

poured out to indite a new page in whom dissipation or misconduct had 

the gory annals of warlike fame. thrown out of place, or the desire of 

By the way, one of them assured novelty or adventure had attracted to 
us that never in the fiercest time of the New World unfit for manual 
that deadly strife, even when, in long labor, and without any special quali- 
forced marches, driving Bourbaki's fication for commerce their heads 
broken bands through the snows of were turned with tales of the giddy 
Jura, had they fared so badly as he whirl of New York life, in their no- 
did then, to which I may add the tions of which gallantry, whiskey, poli- 
experience of an Englishman whose tics, calico balls, and rowdy patriotism 
sinister countenance and shabby at- made a curious medley. Their gene- 
tire gave increased weight to his tes- ral ambition was to be bar-tenders, and 
timony who averred that we fared with some exceptions their usual be- 
little better than in a workhouse and havior showed them to be little fitted 
worse than in a jail. for any better avocation. 

Amongst us there were many me- One of the characters that most 
chanics, principally Irish, who were attracted my attention, though I eli- 
returning from visits to their friends ; cited but little response to my ad- 
norcan I omit to chronicle their uni- vances from his taciturn nature, was 
form and emphatic testimony as to a miner from Montana a man of 
the benefit they had received from short stature but powerful build, with, 
their emigration. In New York, a determined, weather-beaten face, 
Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, and a decidedly sinister squint, who 
they were sure of work, could live had rambled over the greater part of 
.and dress comfortably, and lay by a California, Nevada, Utah, Washing- 
large proportion of their earnings, ton, and Montana, and apparently 
while in England, and still more in returned no richer from his wander- 
Ireland, they were happy when their ings. Having been a seaman before 
earnings kept them in lodging, food, he took to a mountain life, his gait 
and clothing, and saving was neither had acquired an indescribably curi- 
thought of nor possible. From what ous mixture of the out-kneed walk of 
I could learn, the position of the un- a man constantly on horseback with 
skilled laborer appeared by no means the roll of a sailor, while he had, too, 
so bright. The different system of a curious habit of involuntarily work 
hiring in America made the nominally ing the fingers of his right hand as if 
higher wages more precarious than they held a six-shooter. He usually 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 841 

restricted himself to the bachelor so- was the evening after the five o'clock 
ciety under the whaleback, and, chary tea; the sailors during the dog- 
of his words, amused himself with an watches from four to eight do not 
amateur surveillance of the operations turn in, but remain on deck, and they 
of the men, or occasionally exchanged amused or persecuted the female pas- 
reminiscences in brief sentences with sengers with a coarse gallantry that 
two or three other returned Califor- generally made the more modest wo- 
nians : how he and his mates had men remain below ; the cooks, en- 
killed a grizzly at the foot of Mount gineers, and firemen stood at their 
Helena; how he had made ^1,200 doors in the deck-house and greeted 
in eight months from a claim in Sis- with horse -banter the passers-by; 
kiyou County, and lost it all in work- while on the open space before the 
ing another in El Dorado County, at wheel-house a few couples danced to 
which he persevered fruitlessly for the music of an accordion, or tried to 
three years, while the claims on each tire each other out to the whistled 
side brought heavy piles to their tune of an Irish jig. A pair of pro- 
workers ; how he had seen twenty- fessional singers, husband and wife, to 
six " road agents " hanged together in whose retinue I usually attached my- 
Montana; and other tales of far West self, used to sit at the door of the sa- 
mining, murder, and debauchery, loon and favor us with selections from 
Once only his hard face relaxed into their repertory, often with a success 
a laugh at a story he told of two men that brought metallic appreciation 
who quarrelled in a California saloon, from the gentlemen in the neighbor- 
and, dodging round the table, while ing smoking-room ; till after sunset 
the rest of the company made for the generally interpreted with extreme 
door or skulked behind the beer bar- liberality one of the stewards of the 
rels, emptied their revolvers at each after-steerage literally hunted the wo- 
other with no worse effect than one men down-stairs ; and then often on 
slight scratch. That twelve barrels fine nights the sailors would cluster 
should go off and no one be killed round the open hatchway and sing 
seemed to be too ridiculous, and his for or banter with their favorites 
risible faculties overcame him accord- below. 

ingly. Strangely enough, while he The behavior of the sailors towards 

spoke with the most hearty enthu- the women was the subject of con- 

siasm as to the pleasures of a moun- stant complaint by the more respecta- 

taineering life, which he declared, with ble of the passengers throughout the 

a good horse, a trusty rifle, and voyage; in the evening, no woman 

staunch mates, was the finest in the without her husband was safe from 

world, and to judge from appearances their persecution, and not always 

had certainly not made his pile, he with him at her side ; as they stood 

never intended to return westward, by each other, and always had the 

out was bound for some city of the sheath-knife at their side, the men 

South. Possibly some episodes in his were not very ready to commence a 

checkered existence had caused him quarrel with them; if their advances 

to bear in mind the shortened career were resented, they were apt to 

of the twenty-six road agents with a change from coarse good-humor to 

distinctness that determined his pre- the most revolting and obscene abuse, 

ference for this side of the Rocky Hence, as I have mentioned, many of 

Mountains. the women would not return to the 

The most lively time of the day deck after the evening meal. In 



842 Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 

short, if other steamers are like the accommodation provided for in- 
one in which we made the passage, stance, in the case of the wash-houses 
no young woman could cross in the and fresh-water pumps was made 
steerage without her modesty being useless by the negligence or surliness 
daily shocked, and, if she was unpro- of the -men by whom they were con- 
tected, running great risk of actual trolled; the victuals seemed general- 
insult. I have mentioned that the ly to be of good quality, and, except 
deck bar was at the head of our stair- in the case of the fresh bread and 
case and consequently near the sail- sugar, were provided with lavish if 
ors' cabin; one night it was ^broken not wasteful abundance, but they 
open and cleared of its contents ; were usually carelessly cooked, if not 
whether the culprits were either actually uneatable, and served in 'the 
sought for or detected, I never roughest and most heedless manner, 
heard; but certainly the seamen The crew were a most disorderly set- 
next day were in a state of extreme quarrels were of constant occurrence, 
conviviality : and, under the em- I saw two fights one between the 
boldening influence of liquor, one interpreter attached to the after-steer- 
lively young mariner put his arm age and one of the stewards; and 
round the waist of a very handsome another, which took place between 
young Englishwoman, whose ladylike the head-cook and the butcher in the 
dress and appearance had so far pre- saloon galley ; and I heard of several 
vented her from being molested in others. The cooks and bakers in 
this way. A fight between her hus- the steerage galley were changed 
band and the delinquent was with once or twice during the voyage, but 
difficulty prevented by the bystan- no change for the better resulted. I 
clers, and the former went to com- attribute this want of anything like 
plain to the chief officer; he mus- discipline or attentiveness to their 
tered the watch and read them a duties to the constant change of the 
lecture on their not interfering with men on board these steamers; they 
the female passengers, and told the only sign articles for the run out and 
culprit he would hand him over to home, rarely remaining more than 
the authorities at Castle Garden on one or two voyages in the ship, and 
his arrival at New York, who would many go the westward voyage merely 
certainly send him for six months to to get to New York and desert the 
prison. The latter did not seem ship the moment they arrive there, 
much discomposed at the intimation, I was told the chief officer called the 
and the day I landed in the Empire milors together and promised them, 
City he appeared at our boarding- as the ship was short-handed (she had 
house on Washington Street in a state seven less than her complement of 
of great hilarity and beer, and in- 28 seamen), they should receive 
formed us with much blasphemy that ^5 los. per month instead of the 
he had cut his connection with the 4 los. for which they had ship- 
ship, ped; but in spite of this, nearly half of 
The emigrant passengers on board them would desert when the ship came 
our ship suffered much annoyance to her moorings. The cooks, bakers, 
and discomfort; but I do not hesi- and stewards are engaged in the 
tate to say that most of our trou- same way, and the consequence is, 
bles arose from the crew and at- before they can all be got to under- 
tendants rather than the arrange- stand their positions and work well 
ments of the ship itself. Much of the together, they are paid off and a new 



Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. , 843 

set come on board. If the compa- deck that Mrs. Brady's husband or 
nies could form a permanent staff Mary Cahill's brother was seeking 
for their vessels, and go to the same 'her. Numberless inquiries were 
care and expense over their organiza- shouted as to Mike, or Mary, or the 
tion as they give to the material equip- children, until the gray twilight hid 
merit of their splendid vessels, an im- the spires and streets of the great 
mense change for the better would city across the river. The chief ofii- 
be effected in the comfort and conve- cer came round early with a lantern, 
nience of the emigrant. As to the and summarily dismissed all the. wo- 
distribution of provisions, the passen- men below, and all went quietly to 
gers might be arranged in messes of rest. Often, I believe, the last night 
ten or twenty, some of whose num- on board the emigrant ship is a scene 
ber would fetch their food from the of wild revelry, if not actual debauch- 
galley for allotment among them- ery; but the want of liquor none 
selves, and thus give them an oppor- was sold after the vessel came to her 
tunity of eating their meals at table moorings and the absence of the 
in a more Christianlike and less pig- fairer sex, effectually quenched any 
gish manner than the majority are at convivial tendencies, 
present compelled to do. Nor do I At an early hour next morning the 
see any great difficulty or additional luggage was run out of the hold, and 
expense in a different arrangement tumbled pell-mell on deck; and the 
of the bunks, by which, at the sac- youth of either sex, hitherto contented 
rifice of the wide space in the mid- with the shabbiest and most negligent 
die of the steerage, they could be of attire, watched eagerly for their 
grouped on each side of a central boxes, dragged them to a convenient 
table, so that each twenty or there- corner, and made an elaborate toi- 
abouts would form a partially sepa- lette, either for the benefit of their 
rated room, with its own table and American friends or to give the coup 
its own mess. de grace to the sweethearts they had 
At last, early on the second Sunday encountered on the voyage. It was 
morning, the thunderlike roll of the like the transformation scene in a 
cable paid out over our heads awoke pantomime, and I could hardly re- 
us as the ship came to anchor off cognize my lady acquaintances in 
Staten Island, and later in the day their gay bonnets and neat dresses, 
she moored alongside the company's Much of their finery, however, suffered 
wharf in New Jersey. In sight of serious damage before they emerged 
the promised land, the fatigue and on the Bowery. In the afternoon, 
annoyance of the voyage were soon the custom-house officer came on 
forgotten. A liberal meal of fresh board and took his place near the 
and unusually well-cooked beef and gangway, alongside of which lay a 
plum-duff, eaten undisturbed by the tender for the passengers and a barge 
vessel's motion, made the memory of for the luggage. The boxes were 
the disgusting messes we had endured scattered all over the deck, and to 
or revolted at less poignant. The get them examined one had to drag 
entire passengers went on shore in the them to the officer, open them and 
forenoon, but none of the emigrants close them, obtain a Castle Garden 
were allowed to leave, or any one to check from an official at the head of 
come on board the ship. Boatfuls of the gangway, and then they went 
friends of the passengers came along- over the side on to the barge, and the 
side, and the word passed along the passenger on to the tender. Every 



844 Atlantic Drift Gathered in the Steerage. 

one was anxious to be off, and all the first tenderful, and after waiting 

scrambled at once towards the gang- an hour or two in Castle Garden,, 

way, dragging boxes and bundles where we at once cleared the refresh- 

with them. Never did we see such a ment stall of what we then thought 

scene of tumult and confusion. Such delicious coffee and pies, we were 

a babel of tongues; such despair at told to fetch our luggage on the fol- 

boxes that either would not open, or lowing day, and then passed out into 

more frequently, being opened, would Broadway to seek our various for- 

not shut ; such lamentations over tunes. 

their often hopelessly shattered con- In the boarding-house where I 
tents the married women imploring spent the night in New York, I met 
some one to mind their children while passengers from most of the other 
they dragged their boxes to the gang- lines. All complained of their ac- 
way; the single ones begging quon- commodations, and affected to believe 
dam admirers to help them to move that they had unfortunately selected 
their heavy trunks appeals to which the most uncomfortable service. For 
the latter, sufficiently engrossed with my own part, I believe that on the 
their own struggle to be off, generally whole there is but little to choose be- 
turned a deaf and unkind ear. The tvveen the accommodations and pro- 
custom-house officer seemed to clis- visions supplied by the different corn- 
charge his duty with as much good- panics, and that the description I 
humor as the necessity of examining have given of the arrangements of 
some thousand boxes in a limited one line would generally apply to the 
time would allow. We got off with rest. 



MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS IN CHRIST. 

NOR let any of you be sad, on the which the honor of divine condescen- 
ground that he is less than those sion thus illumines, which in our own 
who, before you having suffered tor- time the glorious blood of martyrs 
ments, have come by the glorious thus makes illustrious ! Before, it was 
journey to the Lord, the world being white in the works of the brethren ; 
conquered and trodden down. The now, it is made purple in the blood 
Lord is the searcher of the reins and of martyrs. Neither lilies nor roses 
heart, he sees the secret things, and are wanting to its flowers. Let all 
looks into things hidden. The testi- now contend for the most ample dig- 
mony of him alone, who is to guide, nity of both honors. Let them re- 
is sufficient for earning the crown ceive crowns, either white from their 
from him. Therefore each thing, O works, or purple from their martyr- 
dearest brethren, is equally sublime dom. In the heavenly camp peace 
and illustrious. The former, namely, and war have their respective flow- 
to hasten to the Lord by the consum- ers, by which the soldier of Christ is 
mation of victory, is the more secure ; crowned for glory. I pray, bravest 
the latter is more joyful, to flourish and most blessed brethren, that you 
in the praises of the church, having be always well in the Lord, and 
received a furlough after the gaining mindful of us. Farewell. S. Cyp- 
of glory. O blessed church of ours, rian. 



The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE MISSION OF THE 

BARBARIANS. 

THIRD ARTICLE. 

So the great Roman world sinned on immortally; ana then took con- 
on to the last. Christianity, with a solation^ and confidence to herself 
cry of fear and alarm, pointed to the that the pillars of the firmament 
stormful North, and exhorted to re- would crumble to dust, and the 
pentanoe; but her voice was drown- heavens fall, before she could be 
ed in the mad shouts of revelry and moved from her everlasting founda- 
the wild din of reckless passion. The tions. But still there were hearts 
mistress of nations would not con- that trembled for fear, conscious 
sent to show signs of fear or alarm, that something terrible was coming 
She cast her far-seeing eye over her upon the world. The cry of the 
wide, rich provinces towards the rapt seer of Patmos seemed still to 
frowning horizon, and she had some be rising from the bosom of the 
knowledge of what sort of elements ^Egean Sea, and ringing in the ears 
were hidden behind the black cloud- of those who had faith in a God of 
wall there. Never yet had the whole justice. All those terrible woes fore- 
terrible ferocity of latent wrath burst told in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
forth ; but still, from time to time, as chapters of the Apocalypse seemed 
she had watched for some centuries about to be accomplished. With 
back, the storm-cloud had opened strange wailing sound, as of a warn- 
for a moment, and the low thunder- ing archangel's trumpet, the pro- 
peal had been heard, and the light- phetic voice appeared to repeat : 
ning-fires had scathed her frontiers, " Thou art just, O Lord, who art, 
and sometimes even had touched the and who wast, the. holy one, because 
very heart of some of her outlying thou hast judged these things : for 
provinces. But the fiery sword had they have shed the blood of saints 
been sheathed. The rent seemed to and prophets, and thou hast given 
close again, and the thunder-murmurs them blood to drink. . . . And great 
died away. Still no brightness tinged Babylon came in remembrance be- 
the angry North. But darker, wilder, fore God, to give her the cup of the 
more fiercely threatening the storm- wine of the indignation of his wrath." 
cloud grew. There was an angry Louder still that voice seemed to 
God behind it, with his warrior hosts, rise in tones of merciful warning: 
hidden, and biding the solemn, pre- " Go out from her, my people ; that 
determined moment. If the queen you be not partakers of her sins, and 
of empire felt, at times, a thrill of that you receive not of her plagues, 
alarm, she tried to shake it off again. For her sins have reached unto 
For proudly she gazed around on her heaven, and the Lord hath remem- 
widespreading dominions, and count- bered her iniquities. . . . Shesaith 
ed her almost countless monuments in her heart : I sit a queen, and am 
of conquest and glory, and appealed no widow ; and sorrow I shall not 
to the long past for her claim to live see. Therefore shall her plagues 



846 The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 

come in one day, death, and mourn- ing voice of the holy anchoret of 
ing, and famine, and she shall be burn- Bethlehem pierces with an awaken- 
ed with fire; because God is strong, ing sound, and helps to persuade 
who shall judge her." So appeared many a patrician beauty " to ex- 
to sound out clear the gad, wailing change the dream of pleasure, eo 
voice of the prophet in these sorrowful soon to be interrupted by the clang- 
days. And the people of God took or of the Gothic trumpet, for the sa- 
warning. Full of fear and dread, they cred vigils and austerities of the 
fled from the " great Babylon " and Holy Land." " Read," he cries out, 
the other principal cities of the em- " the Apocalypse of S. John : mark 
pire, and hid themselves frtom the what is written of the woman clothed 
wrath that was to come. Those who in scarlet, with the mystic inscription 
remained behind laughed with mock- on her forehead, and seated upon 
ing incredulity at their fears, and, as if seven hills, and of the destruction of 
in defiance of a mighty God, drained Babylon. 'Go out of her, my peo- 
the sparkling goblet with an intenser pie,' saith the Lord; 'that you be not 
relish, and the din of revelry waxed made partakers of her crimes, and 
louder, and the Circensian games partners in the plagues that shall afHict 
were applauded with a wilder joy. her.' Leave the proud city to exult 
Countless numbers of Christians, in everlasting uproar and dissipation, 
who still had faith in God's Word satiating her bloodthirstiness in the 
and fear of his justice, hurried with arena, and her insane passion in the 
rapid steps from these scenes of reck- circus. Leave it to her to trample 
less dissipation and pleasure. They under foot every sense of shame in 
went to kneel with uplifted hands her lascivious theatres." After these 
amid the sands of the Libyan Desert, words of startling vehemence, he at- 
or the wooded mountains of Leba- tunes his voice to gentler accents, 
non ; to implore mercy on a wicked And pours out his enthusiastic soul 
world, amid the islets of the Tyrrhe- in language of sweetest music, win- 
nian Sea, or in the rocky caves of the ning and captivating both ear and 
Thebaid. heart. He throws a ravishing fas- 
At intervals another warning voice cination and sweetness around his 
is heard, sounding, with the vehe- life at Bethlehem that must have 
mence of the Baptist's cry, from the been irresistible to souls in which yet 
holy precincts of Bethlehem. S. Je- lingered any purity of sentiment or 
rome is meditating and commenting, love for the holy and beautiful, 
in his convent cell, on the prophecy " How different," he exclaims, ' ; the 
of Ezekiel. As he ponders on the scenes that invite you hither ! The 
judgments of God on Jerusalem of most rustic simplicity is characteris- 
old, he cannot but think of Rome in tic of the natal village of our Re- 
his own day. As the images of ruin deemer, and sacred hymns and 
and destruction grow before his psalmody are the only interruptions 
mind, and his great heart burns of the heavenly stillness and serenity 
with compassion for sinful, sinning which reign on every side. Walk 
man, he pauses in his reading, and forth into the fields : you startle with 
lifts his voice in warning of the vials mingled astonishment and delisfht to 

o o o 

of wrath that are about to be poured find that 'Alleluia' is the burden 

out upon the empire. Through the of the ploughman's song; that it is 

voluptuous palaces of Rome which with some inspired canticle the 

he .once knew so well, the loud warn- reaper recreates himself, in reposing 



The Roman Empire and tJic Mission of the Barbarians. 847 



at noontide from his overpowering 
toil ; and that it is the royal Psalm- 
ist's inspiration that attunes the voice 
of the vine-dresser, as. scroll in hand, 
he plies his task all day." Thus 
does he paint in charming colors the 
immediate neighborhood in which he 
lived so happily. His words take us 
back to the days of Eden, and make 
us realize what unfallen and sinless 
mankind would have been. Then 
he passes on to those scenes and 
names which are interwoven into 
the history of our Lord's life, and 
round these again he casts the fasci- 
nation of his poetical outpourings. 
We are carried on as by a magic 
spell, and we feel ourselves drawn 
captives after the mighty heart that 
glows with such a fiery heat of love 
in that grotto of Bethlehem. We 
cannot wonder that many souls felt 
the wondrous spell of that clear, 
s \veet voice, as it broke with its music- 
tones of penetrating power into the 
palaces of Rome. The loud-wailing 
trumpet -tones of the Apocalyptic seer, 
as they rose with terrific warning from 
the bosom of the ^Egean, and the 
melodious music of the anchoret of 
Bethlehem, as it was carried west- 
ward on the breeze, both conveyed 
a message from a merciful God to 
the children whom he yet loved. 
But we will listen again to that win- 
ning voice from Bethlehem, as it 
pleads on, trying to draw Christians 
from the perils that were so near : 
" Oh ! when shall that blessed day ar- 
rive," it continues, " when it shall be 
our own delight to conduct you to 
the cave of the Nativity; together 
to mingle our tears with those of 
Mary and of the Virgin Mother in 
the sepulchre of our Lord ; to press 
the wood on which he redeemed us 
to our throbbing lips ; and, in ardent 
desire, to ascend with him from Mount 
Olivet ? We will hasten thence to 
Bethany to see Lazarus come forth 



in his winding-sheet, and to the 
banks of that blessed stream sancti- 
fied by the baptism of the Word 
made flesh. Thence to the huts of 
the shepherds who heard the canti- 
cle of " Glory to God on high " and 
" Tidings of great joy," as they were 
keeping their night-watch over their 
flocks. We will pray at the tomb of 
David, and meditate under the steep 
precipice where inspiration used to 
come on the prophet Amos, until we 
hear again the living clangor of his 
shepherd-horn. In Mambre, we 
shall commune in spirit with the 
great patriarchs and their consorts 
who were buried there ; visit the 
fountain where the eunuch was bap- 
tized by Philip; and in Samaria honor 
the relics of S. John the Baptist, 
of Abdias and Eliseus, and devoutly 
explore the caverns where the choirs 
of the prophets were miraculously 
fed, in the days of famine and perse- 
cution. W T e will extend our pilgrim- 
age to Na-zareth, and, as the name 
implies, behold the flower of Galilee. 
Hard by is Cana, where he changed 
water into wine. Thence to Mount 
Tabor, where our prayer shall be 
that our rest may not be with Moses 
and Elias, but in the eternal taberna- 
cle, where we shall enjoy the beati- 
fic vision of the Father and the Holy 
Ghost. Thence returning, we shall 
see the Lake Genesareth, and the 
wilderness where the merciful Jesus 
feasted the multitudes ; and Nairn 
shall not be passed by unheeded, 
where he gave back to the disconso- 
late mother " her only son." Hermon 
shall be pointed out, and the torrent 
of Endor where Sisera was overcome ; 
and Capharnaum, the theatre of so 
many miracles. Thence going up 
to Jerusalem, as it were in the retinue 
of our Lord, as the disciples were 
wont to do, we will pass through Silo 
and Bethel; and having made the 
circuit of so many scenes, consecra- 



848 The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 



ted by the presence, the preaching, 
and the miracles of the Son of God, 
to that grotto where he was born to 
us a Saviour, we shall at last return ; 
perpetually to hymn his praises, to 
deplore our trespasses with frequent 
tears; to give our days and nights to 
holy orisons, as if smitten with the 
same love which exclaimed, " Him 
whom my soul hath yearned for, 
have I found. I will hold him, and 
will not let him go."* Such won- 
drous music did the spiritual enchant- 
er pour forth from his lonely grotto. 
In such words as these, throbbing 
with love and holy zeal, did the great 
heart of the worn ascetjc of Bethle- 
hem gush forth. And they depicted 
in such vivid colors the sweet peace 
and purity and happiness of a new 
earthly paradise far away in the 
Eastern land, that many souls were 
lured away by the charmer's voice 
out of the great Western Babylon in 
time to escape the tempest that was 
just about to descend upon it. Many 
illustrious names appear among the 
fugitives. Paula forgot her lofty 
pedigree and her more than princely 
fortune, and fled eastward, and S. 
Melania and many others of patri- 
cian rank hurried away to Bethlehem 
to escape the impending doom. And 
there, whilst the mighty God thunder- 
ed, and hurled his flaming arrows 
of vengeance, and the great sinful 
empire tottered and crashed under 
the awful blows of his wrath, did 
those favored Christians tremble and 
pray amid holy scenes and sweet as- 
sociations, round the grand spiritual 
figure of S. Jerome. 

But it was not only among the be- 
lievers in God's Word, and those who 
observed the signs of the times from 
their watch-towers in the heart of 
the empire, that the belief in the im- 
minent catastrophe had taken a 

* S. Jerome's Epist. 44, 45. 



strong hold. The idea that ven- 
geance was close at hand was agi- 
tating with fierce intensity the barba- 
ric nations themselves. Whence that 
idea came, they themselves could 
not have told. It had long been 
working in their minds like a living 
fire ; it had gone on inflaming their 
souls till they felt their whole being 
on fire with an ungovernable passion 
for destruction and vengeance. 
They had been kept for long centuries 
by an overruling power in their 
northern forests, waiting for an un- 
known moment in the future. But 
that moment, they felt, was now at 
hand. They were ready for it, for 
they knew they were the scourges of 
wrath in the hands of a mighty God. 

But before that fierce, black storm- 
cloud up yonder in the North pours 
out its fiery wrath upon the doomed 
empire, we will try to get a glimpse 
behind it to see what elements are 
hidden there. 

Let the reader open his historical 
atlas, and follow with his eye the 
boundaries of the Roman Empire in 
the West. He will see that the east, 
west, and south of Europe are lying 
at the feet of Rome, the heart and 
centre of the world. As he casts his 
glance over his chart, he will be 
struck by the countless names that 
cover the face of Italy and Gaul and 
Spain, and all those countries that are 
comprehended within the rule and 
civilization of the great capital of the 
empire. But as he raises his eye 
northwards, he marks the outlines of 
Roman power. He might say that 
the Rhine and the Danube are the 
boundaries in that direction of im- 
perial dominion. And what does he 
see beyond ? Nothing that denotes 
that civilization has ever set a firm 
foot there. The great Hercynian 
forest begins at the Rhine, and 
stretches far away, with its dense, 
impenetrable blackness, as far as the 



The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 849 

Vistula. It looks like a long, broad blew fierce and strong. It was, in a 
line of fortification thrown up by word, a country where no delicate, 
nature to guard the North from Ro- soft races could have lived, but 
man ambition. Beyond this, again, where only men of stalwart frame 
is a wild unknown land. The stu- and hardy natures could have their 
dent becomes bewildered as he tries home ; men who could bound up the 
to gain an accurate knowledge of it. snowy mountain heights with a feel- 
It is a dreary wilderness of forest, ing of luxury, could hunt with de- 
and swamp, and vast tracts of land light among the frozen swamps, and 
that have known no tillage. He run in the teeth of the sharp blast 
finds no name of city or town, but through thick forests where the warm 
only the hard names of countless bar- sun-rays never penetrated. And 
baric tribes. These seem to fill, with- what was this strange, unknown land, 
out order or defined limit of domi- so dark and impenetrable, so vast in 
nion, the vast area from the borders its extent, so defended by rivers and 
of the Rhine and Danube to the ocean and far-reaching fortification 
Baltic Sea, and the mainland and of Hercynian forest, so wild and un- 
innumerable islets of Scandinavia, cultivated, so dismal and cold, and 
If he cast his eye towards the North- overhanging with its savage, frowning 
east, the prospect is of a land still aspect the empire of Rome ? It was 
less known, and, at the same time, the camp of the God of battles, 
less thickly peopled. But the barba- With a divine purpose of his own,, he 
ric names are there, though few in had kept it free from Roman con- 
number, and the wild waste seems to quest. He had marked it off for 
stretch away interminably into the himself by those wide rivers and 
darkness. The map calls it Scythia, stormy seas, and planted that thick 
and that is almost all the student can long line of forest trees on its frontier, 
gather from looking at it; but it and shrouded its vast area in secre- 
seems to him that it is the high-road cy and mystery by widespreading 
by which the countless barbarian woods. And under the shadow 
tribes have come into Europe. We of these thick forests he had, 
may well believe Gibbon when he for long generations, been gathering 
tells us that this vast, unknown north- his warrior-bands. The great em- 
ern land, cut off from the Roman pire had been growing for centuries 
Empire by the Rhine and the Dan- in power and riches, and had piled 
ube, and shrouded in gloom and up her monuments to tell the ages of 
darkness by its widespreading for- her glories, and had come to think 
ests, extended itself over a third part herself everlasting; but whilst she 
of Europe.* Tacitus describes it as thus developed her power so mighti- 
a country under a gloomy sky, rude, ty, her destroyers were being gath- 
dismal in aspect and cultivation ; ered together in secret in that North- 
more humid than Gaul, more stormy ern land. It was not by chance that 
than Noricum and Pannonia.f It was the Roman Empire had built herself 
a country where the waters were often up in such glory and imposing mag- 
covered with thick ice, and the nitude on the ruins of the great em- 
mountains with snow, where the air pires that had preceded her, and not 
was cold and sharp, and the storms for a barren purpose. God had 

marked with his finger the boundary- 

* Hist, of Decline and Fall of Rom. Em ..vol. r ri J i i r 

iv. ch. ix. P . 262, ist ed. line of her dominions long before 

t Germanta, i. s . she extended her power so far, and 
VOL. xvi. 54 



850 The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 

he had appointed her the work which steps, to a high state of civilization, 
she was to do for him. But he had When we first meet them in history, 
marked out, also, the term in the fu- they are a powerful nation, with 
ture whereunto she should endure, well-disciplined armies, and arts and 
and had chosen beforehand the in- sciences highly cultivated. Of those 
struments which he would use for her who took the westerly course, some 
destruction. As she was to be the settled down in the southern parts of 
most mighty of all empires which Europe, and at the opening of his- 
the world had ever seen, so would tory are found in a state of civiliza- 
her destroyers have to be mighty and tion. One section of them, wild, 
terrible in their powers of destruc- bold, and free, remain in a nomadic 
tion. And those destroyers God will state. They wander on towards the 
have ready at the right moment. Northwest, never settling down, 
No human eye could see what was ever restless. They feel themselves 
going on under that dense darkness drawn ever onward, as by some mys- 
in the North ; its mysterious depth terious power which they cannot re- 
was impenetrable to mortal kin. It sist. That strange, unseen power is 
was the secret laboratory of God, he who dwells amid the darkness of 
where he was fashioning his instru- the Scandinavian and Suabian for- 
ments of wrath. He had long been ests. And as they pour into that 
there amidst the terror and gloom weird gloom, band after band, they 
beckoning the wild races of the earth are lost to view. God wants them 
to come to him, and they had obeyed there for a time. They are one day 
his call, though they knew not why. to rush forth again, at his bidding, 
Far back in the ages of time, before wild and fierce as ever, to do their 
history had taken up her pen, there appointed work, 
was a great breaking up of the Aryan Of these multitudinous tribes, hid- 
family in the Eastern land, and they den under the dark covering of those 
divided themselves into two great Northern forests, we cannot under- 
sections. They moved in opposite take to give any detailed account, 
directions, one towards the East, the The student who has ever pored 
other towards the West. Though over his historical chart representing 
that breaking up seems, at first sight, the home of the barbarians, knows 
to have nothing providential about well how impossible it is to obtain 
it, yet it was no accidental separa- accurate ideas about them. He is 
tion. Bringing our Catholic princi- simply bewildered with the number 
pies to bear upon it, we soon see of tribes, and the hard names by 
that it was the work of God. The which they are designated. He is 
wild tribes wandered on, they knew content to let Dr. Latham and Mr. 
not whither. But they had a guide Kingsley dispute at their pleasure as 
as real and definite as the Israelites to whether the Goths were Teutons 
in after-times. It was, perhaps, no or a separate tribe. Some authors, 
pillar of fire nor mysterious moving with Gibbon, would make the Teu- 
cloud, but yet as unerring in its lead- tons the great tribe which included 
ing. The Eastern Aryans took pos- and absorbed almost all the rest, 
session of Persia, and, invading In- whilst Dr. Latham insists that they 
dia, gradually made themselves mas- were far less in numbers than is com- 
ters of the country as far as the monly supposed. It is not now our 
Ganges. In this rich and fertile re- purpose to enter on a question of 
gion they soon advanced, with rapid this nature. Our view of them is 



The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians 851 

simply as & fourmillement des nations^ in the country of their birth. But 
confused, indistinguishable, undefin- still they wandered on. Whither 
able. We cannot pretend to speak they were journeying they had 
with accuracy as to what territory no knowledge, but they were 
was occupied by each tribe. What obeying an overmastering power, 
they do we can only guess at. They They found themselves, at last, 
do not regard themselves as in their gathered together in a mysterious 
settled home. They wander about land of darkness, and there they 
restless, and unsatisfied in their wild paused. They felt they were at the 
forest lands. They have only an in- rendezvous to which they had been> 
distinct idea whence they came, but called. They were at the feet of 
they have a mysterious instinct him who had beckoned to them to* 
whither they are to go when the ap- leave their homes in the Eastern land., 
pointed day comes. At one time Their instinct now was to remain <. 
they are on the Baltic shore, at an- hidden there for a time behind the 
other on the Danube bank. They great fortification of the Hercynian 
never think of matching back East- forest. Erom beginning to end all 
ward, whence they came ; their faces through their history these barba- 
are turned towards the South, and rians are in the hand of God, under his 
they dream of a rich, golden city in generalship, and used to execute his 
which they are one day to revel and designs. Such teaching as this will,, 
feast to their heart's content. no doubt, appear puerile to the sneer- 
It is something bewildering to pause ing atheism of men like Herbert 
over and think upon, in our his- Spencer. He and those of his school 
torical studies, is this Northern land have discovered that God has no- 
of darkness, with its hidden millions thing to do with the course of human 
of wild savages silently wandering events or the government of the- 
about in their gloomy forest, under universe.* Social Science has led 
the eye of God, and waiting for the them far beyond the old-world ideas- 
signal to rush forth upon the sin- of God and divine government;, 
laden empire of Rome ! There never but, thanks to the sound and safe 
was anything more mysterious in teaching of Catholic principles, there 
history. They hang for long years, are yet men in these days who refuse 
like a suspended curse, over a sinful to run after the ignis fatuus of 
world. They would have come down Spencerian philosophy, 
thundering like a crushing avalanche But when we consider how the 
long before they did, if God had not great civilized world of the Roman 
held them back. It is wonderful to Empire and this world of the barba- 
think how really they were in the rian tribes bordered so close on one 
hand of the great Over-ruler. Sud- another for so long a time, and when 
denly it had entered into their minds, we think what conquests Christianity 
as we have seen, to break up their had made wherever civilization had 
home in the far East, in prehistoric set its foot, we wonder how that 
times, and they had obeyed the instinct, dark Northern land could remain still 
They moved away from their native heathen. Were not the citadels of the 
land, and set out upon their wander- Christian religion planted all along 
ings. They knew no land beyond the borders of the Roman Empire ? 
their own, nor had they reason to Did no gleams, then, of Christian 
expect that they would discover any- 

.. - , . 7 , The Study of Sociology," by H. Spencer, m. 

thing better than what they enjoyed the May No. of The Contemporary Review^ 1872. 



852 The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 

light shoot forth into the darkness would, perhaps, be more true to say 
beyond ? We know that such certain- that their religion was polytheism 
T y was the case in the Northwestern rather than pantheism. We find, 
portion, where the Goths dwelt, for moreover, that the tendency of their 
we read of Ulphilas and his apostolic religious belief was to keep alive in 
labors among that tribe. But for the their souls the warlike spirit. The 
most part, the darkness was unpene- greatest and highest of their gods 
trated, and we are struck by the were beings of mighty power and 
sight of two worlds running so close terrible violence. " Woden, t or Odin, 
up to one another and yet remain- as he was called in Scandinavia, was 
ing so isolated in a religious point the omnipresent, the almighty crea- 
of view. The fact was, tihe time tor, the father of gods and men ; 
for the conversion of the Northmen who ruled the universe, riding on the 
had not yet come. Their apostles clouds, and sending rain and sun- 
were to be a race of heroes born shine ; in whom were centred all 
on the mountain-heights, and nour- godlike attributes, of which he im- 
ished in the pure, bracing air of parted a share to the other gods; 
monastic solitude. The barbarians and from whom proceeded all beau- 
were waiting for the monks. It is ty, wisdom, strength, and fruitfulness, 
true that these wild tribes had already the knowledge of agriculture and the 
.a worship of their own, and deeply arts, the inspirations of music and 
religious in their way they certainly song, and all good gifts. He was 
were. It was a religion quite in the giant hunter, who in the darkest 
keeping with their wild, free charac- nights rushed through the air on his 
ter. Men who were so restless and ac- white charger, clad in a brown man- 
tive in their disposition, who delight- tie, his white locks streaming from 
ed in storm and mountain and roaring beneath his slouching hat, followed 
torrents, would have no temple of by a train of wild huntsmen, the 
wood or stone for their place of wor- horses snorting fire, the bloodhounds 
.ship. Their temple was out in the baying, announcing war and carnage, 
open air, under the driving clouds, danger and distress, as he passed 
within hearing of the tumbling water- along with lightning speed. But he 
.falls, in sight of nature's face; for na- was in a more special way the god 
>ture to them was God. They saw of war, revelling in blood and slaugh- 
.him in the great mountain towering ter, giving courage and victory to 
up on high, in the rocking forest- his votaries, and admitting to his 
.trees, in the wide-stretching plain, Valhalla, or hall of bliss, none but 
:in the flowing river, in the gushing those who died by the sword, 
-fountain. He was in every object " Next to him was his son Thor, 
.around them; in every speck of light who rode on the thunder-cloud 
in the overarching heavens; in the and whirlwind, whose hammer was 
; glistening streamlet; in the variegated the thunderbolt, whose arrows were 
.flowers bedecking nature's face; in the lightning flashes, and whose 
:the rock that stood out to break the wagon dashed through the heavens 
.power of the rushing sea-waves; in the with crashing noise and ungo vein- 
very stones scattered around them on able fury." 

the plain. There was a divinity of Then there was Saxnot, another 

some kind in everything they saw. * It son of Woden, who occupied the 

* See Mrs. Hope's Conversion of the Teutonic 

Race, ch. i. * Conv. of Teut. Race, p. 20. 



The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 853 



third place among th gods. His 
name is afterwards associated with 
those of Woden and Thor in the ab- 
juration of paganism made by those 
who were converted to Christianity. 
He is designated under many differ- 
ent names. He is Eor, or Are, or 
Ere, or Cheru, Tyr, Zio, Tuisco, or 
Tuis. He was the god of war, fierce 
and terrible, rushing to battle, at 
Woden's side, and bearing down 
whole hosts with his mighty sword 
of iron or stone. 

War, blood, and violence, then, 
were ever, in the minds of the barba- 
rians, associated with the greatest of 
those beings whom they worshipped 
and admired. The character and 
the deeds of these gods were the 
highest and the noblest they could 
conceive. To be mighty in battle 
like them; to wield their war-wea- 
pon as Thor wielded his huge ham- 
mer; to mow down enemies as 
Tuisco did with his terrible sword, 
would be the grand object of their 
soul's desire. We may judge how 
little there was in their religious wor- 
ship to tone down their fierce natures. 
Everything symbolized war; their 
deities were almost all warlike. 
Even Freyja, the Northern Venus, 
was pictured to their imagination as 
delighting in war. She was believed 
to be ever present in the battle-field, 
wielding her flaming sword, with 
frantic joy, over the heads of their 
enemies, and ready to bear off ths 
souls of the slain to Odin's Valhalla. 
In that imaginary Elysium the joys 
of their fallen heroes were also of a 
warlike and savage character. They 
revelled there in " constantly massa- 
cring visionary foes, and drinking 
without satiety, out of the skulls of 
the slain, brimming ale-cups present- 
ed by lovely Valkyrja." What shall 
we expect, then, when these wild war- 
riors are turned loose upon the Ro- 
man Empire ? 



But is it possible to obtain a fur- 
ther glimpse behind that vast, dark 
line of pine-trees ? Can we, by any 
means, get a glance at the wild in- 
dwellers of the mysterious land be- 
vond ? What are those men like 

j 

whom God has so long kept hidden 
there ? From time to time they 
have come forth from their forest 
homes and stood on the boundaries 
of the civilized world, and foiled 
their glaring eyes around over the 
rich empire that was to be their booty. 
But that has been, as it were, only 
for a moment. They have plunged 
again into their native darkness. 
Yet such writers as Apollinaris and 
Ammianus Marcellinus have told us 
something of them. By their aid we 
can picture to ourselves what those 
terrible hosts of avengers will be like, 
who will presently come down with 
such a headlong sweep upon the' 
doomed empire of Rome. 

All that we can imagine savage 
and terrible and extraordinary in fig- 
ure and habit is found in real fact 
among those barbaric hordes. There 
are among them tribes who are small 
of stature, and thin and brawny, but 
quick and fierce as the wild-cat. 
There are, too, men of giant height 
and strength, who can wield their 
huge clubs like playthings, and shiver 
the hard rock like glass. They have 
blue, flashing eyes, and bathe their 
flaxen hair in lime-water, and anoint 
it with the unsavory unguent of 
rancid butter. Some of them 
roam about nude and uncovered 
as the wild animals of the forest, 
proud of their iron necklaces and 
golden bracelets; others are par- 
tially clothed with the skins of savage 
beasts, cut and shaped after the most 
odd and fantastic fashions. Some 
give additional terror to their appear- 
ance by wearing helmets made to 
imitate the muzzles of ferocious 
beasts. Plutarch tells us that all the 



854 The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 



Cimbrian horsemen wore helmets 
made in the form of the open jaws and 
muzzles of all kinds of strange and 
savage animals, and surmounted 
these by plumes shaped like wings, 
and of a prodigious height. This 
gave them the appearance of mon- 
strous giants. They were armed 
with cuirasses of most brilliant metal, 
and covered with bucklers of uniform 
whiteness. Some shaved their chins, 
and, what must have added much to 
their hideousness, the back of their 
heads, whilst their hair was drawn to 
the front and hung down over their 
eyes like the forelock of a horse. 
So says Apollinaris, 

" Ad front em coma tracta jacet, nudata cervix 
Setarum per summa nitet."* 

Others, again, allowed their hair to 
grow, and wore long mustachios and 
beard. Their weapons of war were 
.various and strange as their own ap- 
pearance. Some fought on foot, 
wielding with savage fury the huge 
club, or crushing mallet, or heavy- 
headed hammer ; or they did fierce 
work with their rude sword, or long 
javelin with its two points, or dou- 
ble-edged hatchet ; or they were skil- 
ful in the use of the sling or the 
arrow pointed with sharp pieces of 
bone. Others rushed to battle on 
high war-steeds barded with steel, or 
on small horses, ugly and wretched 
to look at, but swift as eagles in their 
course. If they fought on the level 
plain, these barbarians were some- 
times scattered over a large space, 
or they formed themselves into cunei- 
form bodies, or they pressed together 
into compact, impenetrable masses. 
If the contest was waged in the for- 
ests, they clomb the trees, which they 
worshipped, with the agility of mon- 
keys, and there combated their ene- 
mies with wild ferocity, thus borne on 
the shoulders and in the arms of their 
gods. If they were conquerors in the 

* Apollin., Paneg, Major. 



battle, they abandoned themselves 
to acts of the most savage cruelty. 
To illustrate this we need only think 
of the tragic deeds that were done 
amid the swamps and the wooded 
hills of the Teutoberger Wald in the 
latter days of Augustus. It is sad, 
indeed, to read in Tacitus and the 
pages of Dio of the fate of that no- 
ble Roman army over which Varus 
held command. Yet we cannot re- 
gret to see the well-concerted rising 
of the German tribes, under the 
splendid military genius of Arnim, to 
throw off the Roman yoke. We hold 
in deepest horror the wrongs, the op- 
pressions of the Romans from the 
first ravages of Caesar to the ju- 
dicial murders of Varus. We think 
with feelings of indignation of 
the treachery and the bloody 
cruelty of Caesar when the Usipetes 
and the Teuchteri were all but an- 
nihilated on the banks of the Rhine, 
and the Roman general rejoiced at 
his own unprovoked atrocity. We 
recall with sorrow all that the bar- 
barians had had to suffer from their 
Roman conquerors through succeed- 
ing years, and our souls are on fire 
at the recollection of it. When, 
then, we see that the day of deliver- 
ance is at hand, we canpot but re- 
joice with Arnim and his brother 
Adelings at the prospect of future 
freedom. Our sympathies are with 
the Germans, not with their Roman 
oppressors. Whilst the Romans, 
then, are hungry and starved in the 
long, boggy valley between the sour- 
ces of the Ems and the Lippe, and 
the rain falls in torrents through the 
cold night, and the soldiers' spirits 
sink as they find themselves hemmed 
in by the enemy on all sides, we are, 
meantime, in imagination and feeling' 
with the barbarian chiefs holding 
high festival as they recall the memo- 
ry of ancient freedom and the deeds 
of former days, and we join in the 






The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 855 

war songs as they echo among the altars erected to their gods, and there 
wild, dreary hills, and swell above the surviving Roman tribunes and the 
the howlings of the storm. And centurions of the first class were 
when the morning breaks ominously offered in sacrifice. Around Varus's 
and darkly over the Teutoberger camp Roman heads were fixed, in 
Wald, and the tempest rises higher, cruel mockery, on the trunks and 
and the heavy-armed Romans can- branches of trees, and in the midst 
not advance, and find it difficult, arose a huge mound of Roman bones, 
even, to keep their footing in the wet left to be stripped of their flesh by 
and slippery swamp ; when we see the wild birds of prey, and then to 
their bows now useless from the wet, whiten under that northern sky into 
and their spears and shields no long- a long enduring monument of a great 
er glittering in military pride, and barbarian victory, 
their entire armor and clothing If, on the contrary they were con- 
drenched and made too heavy for quered, their fury was boundless, and 
the poor benumbed and hunger- was even turned against each other, 
stricken soldiers to bear, we can When Marius overcame the first 
scarcely feel one pang of sorrow. Cimbrian league, those who compos- 
On the contrary, our heart leaps with ed it were found on the field of bat- 
gladness when Arnim from his tie bound fast to each other, so that 
watch-eminence gives the signal, and they could not fall back before the 
the trumpets ring out and the war- enemy, and thus were compelled to 
weapons clang, and the terrible Bar- conquer or die. Their wives were 
ritum described by Tacitus* is heard armed with swords or hatchets, and, 
rising above the howlings of the shrieking and gnashing their teeth 
storm. We know how that .tragic with rage and grief, they struck both 
day ended, and how the evening saw Cambrians .and Romans. They rush- 
the Reman host covering, with their ed into the thickest of the fight, 
dead bodies, the length and breadth snatching with their naked hands at 
of the battle-field. Never had there the sharp-cutting Roman sabres ; 
been, in the annals of military war- they sprang upon the legionaries like 
fare, such a terrible massacre of Ro- tigers, tearing from them their buck- 
man legions. The news of it seized lers, and thtfe purposely drawing 
upon Augustus like a madness, and upon themselves their own destruc- 
the old man, during the short re- tion. It was a dreadful sight also to 
mainder of his life, wandered sad witness some of them when the for- 
and disconsolate through the apart- tune of the day had turned against 
ments of his palace, sometimes dash- them, rushing to and fro with dis- 
ing his white head against the walls, hevelled hair, their black dresses all 
and murmuring, Quintili Vare, legion- torn and bloody, or to see them 
es redde ! t But the barbarians were mounted like mad fiends on the 
not content with such terrific slaugh- chariots, killing their husbands and 
ter as nearly annihilated the Roman brothers, fathers and sons, strangling 
army; their wild ferocity and cruel- their new-born infants and casting 
ty showed themselves in their treat- them under the horses' hoofs, and 
ment of the captives. Tacitus in his then plunging the dagger into ther 
Annals tells us { that in the neigh- own bosoms.* 
boring woods the barbarians had Some of the barbarians delighted 

* Get-mania, iri. t Suet., in Oct. xxiii. \ I. 6x. * Plutarch, Vita Mar if. 



856 The Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians. 

in eating human flesh. Ammianus dreadful avengers who are to come 
Marcellinus gives us a picture in his down out of that Northern gloom, 
history which freezes our blood and unless we look for a moment at this 
haunts us with its horrid memory, most terrible of the barbaric tribes. 
He tells us that, after the defeat of The Goths themselves, the stalwart 
Valens under the walls of Constant!- giants of the Scandinavian forests, 
nople, a barbarian was seen rushing who knew no fear of men, could not 
among the imperial troops, naked but be terrified when they first fixed 
down to his waist, sword in hand, eyes on the hideous forms of the 
and uttering a hoarse, lugubrious cry. Huns. Jornandes, the Gothic histo- 
He sprang with savage fury upon rian, tells us that " the livid color of 
an enemy whom he had slain, and, their skin had in it something shock- 
applying his lips to his throat, sucked ing to the sight ; theirs was not a 
out his life-blood with a wild beast's face, but a deformed mass of flesh, 
relish. The Scythians of Europe provided, instead of eyes, with two 
were amongst those who showed this black sinister spots. Their cruelty 
same instinct of the weasel and the wreaked itself even upon their own 
hyena. We have the authority of new-born offspring, whose cheeks 
S. Jerome for believing that the At- they lacerated with iron before they 
ticoti also were accustomed to feed had tasted their mother's milk ; and 
on human flesh. When they were from this cause no down graced their 
wandering about in the woods of chin in youth, no beard gave dignity 
Gaul, and happened to meet herds of to their old age." We are told by 
swine or other cattle, they cut off the Ammianus that " they looked not 
breasts of the shepherdesses, and like men, but like wild beasts stand- 
large pieces from the bodies of the ing on two legs, as if in mockery of 
shepherds, and ate them as dainty the human species." They were, in 
bits.* The Alans tore off the heads truth, the wildest and most savage 
of their enemies, and caparisoned of all the barbarian hordes. They 
their horses with the skins of their loved to be free and unrestrained as 
bodies. The Budini and Geloni the wandering blasts of their native 
were accustomed to do much the solitudes. They ate and slept on 
same, being particulaf in reserving the ground under the open sky. 
their enemies' heads for themselves. They took their food raw and un- 
The appearance of the Geloni was cooked, like the tigers of the forest, 
a sickening sight to look upon. They No temples of worship had they ; 
were accustomed to have their cheeks their God was a naked sword fixed 
cut and gashed ; and their proudest in the ground. They were devoured 
distinction was a face all covered by an insatiable thirst for gold, which 
with wounds that were scaly, and they were ever ready to procure 
livid and crowned with blood-red through blood, and smoke, and 
crests. wholesale ruin. But the characteristic 
But if there is something terrible of their race was a ferocious delight 
m the appearance and customs of in cruel massacre, and they gloried 
the barbarians whom we have men- in pillaging, burning, and levelling 
tioned, it is surpassed by what we are down to the ground every monu- 
told of the Huns. We shall not be ment of civilization that came in 
able to form a true idea of the their path, till the regions over which 

they swept bore a resemblance to 

* s. jer. adv. jovin. u. their native deserts. The rest of the 



New Publications. 857 

barbarians were amazed at their in- to become all-enveloping in its wrath, 

humanity, and looked upon them as a deep shudder runs through her 

fiends under the likeness of men. mighty frame. And well may she 

But we need say no more. We stagger and quake for fear. The 

have caught some few glimpses of reckoning-day is close at hand, so 

what is behind the dark storm-cloud, long waited for by the holy martyrs 

and we can form some idea of the of foregone centuries. And a day 

horrors that are hidden there. Well *of dreadful destruction it will be. 

may men tremble as they look north- But lo ! the hour has already 

wards in the Vth century. Well struck. God has given the signal to 

may Christians think they hear now his warrior-hosts. The Goth has 

again, ringing out more clearly than given a ringing blast on his horn, 

ever, the warning voice of S. John, and the German has shouted the 

and flee to far-off hiding-places, first notes of his terrible war-song, 

The sinful empire herself feels, at and the pine-trees of the Hercynian 

times, as if under the horrors of a forest are trembling at the sound, 

nightmare; in her frightful dreams The avengers of the martyrs and 

she thinks she is trampled upon, and the Christian name are coming, and 

crushed under the feet of fierce, wild the whole North is shaking under 

men of terrible aspect, and torn and their tread. At last the storm-cloud 

hacked by their strange weapons of bursts, and fiery destruction sweeps 

war. As the tempest lowers over down upon the doomed empire of 

her darker and darker, and threatens Rome. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 

IRELAND'S CASE STATED : IN REPLY TO courtesy, to say the least, as to interfere 

MR. FROUDE. By the Very Rev. T. N. with F. Burke's control of the publica- 

Burke, O.P. New York : P. M. Hav- tion of his own works. The eloquent 

erty. 1873. Dominican preacher may be assured that 

Ireland's case has been stated, argued, the respect and sympathy not only of all 

vindicated, and, so far as the verdict of the Catholic Irishmen, but of all other Ca- 

American people is concerned, adjudi- tholics of the United States, will be his 

cated. Mr. Froude has given his last while he remains here as our honored 

scowl and his last growl, and gone back guest, and will follow him when he re- 

to his own country which he has damaged turns to his native land, or to his own 

by his foolish escapade the most badly beloved and imperial Rome. 

beaten man of the present decade. It is 

rather late in the day to revert to the KEEL AND SADDLE : A RETROSPECT OF 

topic of F. Burke's combat with this ob- FORTY YEARS OF MILITARY AND NA- 

stinate champion of bad characters and VAL SERVICE. By Joseph W. Revere. 

bad causes, and we will, therefore, let it Boston : J. R. Osgood & Co. 1872. 

pass with these few words. We are hop- We are so often disgusted, in reading 

ing to see soon issued Mr. Haverty's books of entertainment, with a revelation 

promised second volume of F. Burke's of positive rascality and impiety, or at 

Discourses and Lectures, and \ve once least of a want of high moral and religious 

more express our regret that any should principle in the author, that it is a relief to 

be found so unmindful of propriety and meet sometimes with a happy disappoint- 



858 



New Publications. 



ment. This is a lively, entertaining book 
of varied adventures on field and flood. 
Yet we always find the author, when his 
personality comes into view, not only a 
bold and brave soldier, but a gentleman, 
an honorable man, and a frank, staunch 
Catholic Christian, who never obtrudes 
yet never hides his faith and his princi- 
ples of virtue. His views of Spanish a{^ 
fairs strike us as rather defective, and oc- 
casionally there is a narrative concerning 
persons of depraved morals which would 
have been better omitted for the sake of 
his youthful readers. The " Golondina " 
episode in chapter xxiv. relates an ad- 
venture whose lawfulness, we suspect, 
though perhaps admitted by quarter- 
deck theology, would not stand the test 
of a strict examination. Sometimes we 
are at a loss to discover whether the au- 
thor intends us to understand his narra- 
tive as historical, or is merely relating a 
conte for our amusement. In his own 
personal adventures and the descriptions 
he gives of what he has seen, we discover 
at once that his narrative is real as well 
as picturesque. And it is certainly most 
interesting. The off-hand, unstudied, and 
unaffected style reveal the character of 
the true, genuine, frank sailor and sol- 
dier ; while at the same time, the refine- 
ment of taste and the cultivation of mind 
which are manifest throughout give these 
sketches from the diary of a long and ad- 
venturous life the literary finish which 
belongs to the work of a scholar. Not- 
withstanding certain exceptions we have 
made, we reiterate our commendation of 
the high tone of moral principle, the un- 
affected religious reverence, and the gen- 
erally healthful and invigorating spirit 
which pervades the book which the gal- 
lant General Revere has given to the 
public as the retrospect of his forty years 
of naval and military service. 

HYMNS AND POEMS : ORIGINAL AND 
TRANSLATED. By Edward Caswall, of 
the Oratory. Second Edition. Lon- 
don: Burns, Oates & Co.; Pickering. 
1873. (New York : Sold by The Catho- 
lic Publication Society.) 
Father Caswall's hymns are as well 
known as Father Faber's. Indeed, if we 
mistake not, many of them are popularly 
attributed to the departed writer. In the 
present volume we have a complete col- 
lection of the Breviary hymns, in the first 
place. This is especially valuable as the 
only one in the language (as far, at least, 



as we are aware). And the author de 
serves the more praise for this labor of 
love, because of the great difficulty of 
rendering the terse, stiff Latin. Then, 
secondly, we have " Hymns and Sequen- 
ces of the Roman Missal" ; followed by 
" Hymns from Various Offices and other 
Sources." Thus the translated portion 
of the volume is quite sufficient to mako 
it worth possessing. The execution, too, 
is very happy, on the whole. No one who 
has attempted to translate these hymns 
himself will insist overmuch on the ab- 
sence of phrases commonplace or pro- 
saic. 

The second portion of the volume, 
"Original Hymns and Meditative 
Pieces," also contains much that entitles 
it to a place in every household. The 
devout Catholic, and more especially the 
convert, will find many things said for 
him which have come into his mind, but 
without his being able to express them. 
Moreover, several pieces turn on topics 
which are generally supposed themes for 
the dryest meditation. They are here 
proved suggestive of true poetry. 

The only fault we have to find with 
Father Caswall's verse is the same that 
we find with Wordsworth's : the too fre- 
quent sacrifice of poetic diction and the 
use of too many long Latin words. But 
this defect is unimportant compared with 
the value of the thoughts and teachings 
conveyed, and we fervently thank Fa- 
ther Caswall for his contribution to our 
scanty Catholic poetry. 

THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
Boston : James R. Osgood & Co. 1872. 

" Once I wrote because my mind was full ; 
But now I writs because! feelit growing dull," 



or, 



or, 



" I have lived long enough,* 



" Poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree 
That cannot so much as a blossom yield 
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry," 

or some such saw, this Poet at the 
Breakfast-table should have affixed to 
these four hundred pages of incompara- 
ble drivelling. 

" I talk half the time," says the poet, in 
his opening paragraph, " to find out my 
own thoughts, as a schoolboy turns his 
pockets inside out to see what is in 
them." 

And what does the schoolboy find 
there ? 






New Publications. 



859 



Rusty nails, old shoe-strings, copper 
pennies, dead bugs, crumbs of bread, 
broken knives, and other trash neither 
beautiful nor useful. The similitude is 
just. The contents of the Poet's brain 
are as precious as those of the boy's 
pocket ; and if we wish to push the com- 
parison further, the wares of both are 
often of doubtful ownership. The only 
serious thing in the book is its humor. 

" I don't suppose my comic pieces are 
very laughable," writes this poet, phi- 
losopher, sage ; " at any rate, the man who 
makes a business of writing me down 
says the last one I wrote is very melan- 
choly reading ; and that if it was only a 
little better, perhaps some bereaved per- 
son might pick out a line or two that 
would do to put on a gravestone." He 
has a most infallible instinct for the right 
comparison ; as, for instance : " I love to 
talk, as a goose loves to swim. Some- 
times I think it is because lam a goose." 
This is the first evidence of intelligent 
thought in the whole book. " My book 
and I," he informs us, " are pretty much 
the same thing. Sometimes I steal from 
my book in my talk, without mentioning 
it, and then I say to myself: 'Oh ! that 
won't do ; everybody has read my book, 
and knows it by heart.' And then the 
other / says : You know there are two of 
us, right and left, like a pair of shoes ! 
The other / says : ' You're a something 
or other fool.' ' The other / is evi- 
dently a sensible fellow. "They haven't 
read," continues the other 7, "your con- 
founded old book ; besides, if they have, 
they have forgotten all about it." 

Again, the other / says : " What a Ba- 
laam's quadruped you are to tell 'em it's 
in your book ; they don't care whether it 
is or not, if it's anything worth saying ; 
and if it isn't worth saying, what are you 
braying for?" This is the question the 
reader asks himself all along, as the evi- 
dence that the poet has nothing to say 
worth the saying becomes more and more 
overwhelming. This kind of criticism, 
we know, is little better than trifling ; but 
the performance deserves no other treat- 
ment, for we candidly think that a sor- 
rier book could not proceed from a mind 
untouched. 

Why did this Poet, when he meant to 
write a book, seat himself at the break- 
fast-table? Did he not know that a full 
stomach does not argue a mind replete? 
Had not Shakespeare said long ago that 
fat paunches have lean pates, or was he 



not physician enough to know that the 
mens divinior is not to be found in hot 
rolls and coffee ? 

We shall conclude with one other briei 
quotation from the Poet : 

" What do you do when you receive a 
book you don't want from the author? 
said I : ' Give him a good-natured ad- 
jective or two if I can, and thank him, 
and tell him I am lying under a sense of 
obligation to him. This is as good an 
excuse for lying as any, I said.' ' 

As we do not believe there can be an 
excuse for lying, and as we are certain 
that in this case there is no obligation 
under which to lie, we cannot give the 
author " a good-natured adjective or 
two " ; but we shall thank him to give 'us 
no more such nonsense. 

YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD. Second Series : 
Cross and Crescent ; or, Young Ameri- 
ca in Turkey and Greece. A Story of 
Travel and Adventure. By William 
T. Adams (Oliver Optic), author of 
" Outward Bound," " Shamrock and 
Thistle," " Red Cross," " Down the 
Rhine," etc. Boston : Lee & Shepard, 
Publishers. New York: Lee, Shepard 
& Dillingham. 1873. 

This is the third volume of the second 
series of Young America Abroad, and, 
like all the rest of the series, is most in- 
structive and entertaining. 

THE TREASURE OF THE SEAS. By Prof. 
James De Mille, author of " The B. O. 
W. C.," "The Boys of Grand Pre 
School," " Lost in the Fog," " Fire in 
the Woods," " Among the Brigands," 
etc. Illustrated. Boston : Lee & Shep- 
ard, publishers ; New York : Lee, Shep- 
ard & Dillingham. 1872. 

This is one of the best of the " B. O. W. 
C. Series," and will certainly be a favor- 
ite with the boys. 

THK POLYTECHNIC: A Collection of Mu- 
sic for Schools, Classes, and Clubs. 
Compiled and written by U. C. Bur- 
nap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New 
York : J. W. Schermerhorn & Co. 

THE ATHEN/EUM : A Collection of Part- 
Songs for Ladies' Voices. Arranged 
and written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. 
W. J. Wetmore. New York : J. W. 
Schermerhorn & Co. 

The best criticism of both these musical 



86o 



New Publications. 



publications is found in the preface to the 
first one cited : 

" Collections of school music are al- 
ready sufficiently numerous and bulky, 
but too often they are found to contain 
very little that is available for the ordi- 
nary or the extraordinary occasions of 
school life." 

HART'S MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITE- 
RATURE A MISTAKE CORRECTED. 
Since writing the brief notice of this 
really valuable work which appeared in 
our December number, we have observed 
a very serious misstatement in it respect- 
ing a distinguished convert to the Catholic 
faith, the late Dr. Ives, formerly Protes- 
tant Bishop of North Carolina. Prof. 
Hart states that he returned to the Episco- 
pal Church. He never dreamed of such 
an act of superlative folly. He died, as 
he had lived, a most fervent and devout 
Catholic, we might almost say a saint, 
and was buried with all the rites and all 
the honors of solemn obsequies in St. 
Patrick's Cathedral, New York. Prof. 
Hart, who always endeavors to be fair, 
and whose notices of Catholic writers are 
marked by their courtesy, would never 
have made this incorrect statement un- 
less he had been misled by some false in- 
formation, and we rely on his rectifying 
it in his next edition. 



THE following circular has been sent 
to us, and we publish it because we think 
there is nothing more hostile to such ne- 
farious projects than free and early ven- 
tilation. Why does not Mr. Abbot re- 
nounce his popish name, in his zeal to 
abolish every vestige of Christianity? 
Our readers will not fail to see how ap- 
posite an illustration this document fur- 
nishes of some of the remarks in our first 
article. We have also received an article 
from the Cincinnati Gazette advocating the 
persecution of Catholics in this country, 
with a trenchant reply by F. Callaghan. 

{From THE INDEX, January 4, 1873.) 
ORGANIZE ! 

LIBERALS OF AMERICA, 

The hour for action has arrived. The cause of 
freedom calls upon us to combine our strength, 
our zeal, our efforts. These are 

THE DEMANDS OF LIBERALISM. 

1. We demand that churches and other eccle- 
siastical property shall no longer be exempted 
from just taxation 

2. We demand that the employment of chap- 



lains in Congress, in state legislatures, in the 
navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and 
all other institutions supported by public money, 
shall be discontinued. 

3. We demand that all public appropriations 
for sectarian, educational, and charitable institu- 
tions shall cease. 

4. We demand that all religious services now 
sustained by the government shall be abolished ; 
and especially that the use of the Bible in the 
public schools, whether ostensibly as a text- 
book or avowedly as a book of religious wor- 
ship, shall be prohibited. 

5. We demand that the appointment, by the 
President of the United States or by the Gov- 
ernors of the various states, of all religious fes- 
tivals and feasts, shall wholly cease. 

6. We demand that the judicial oath in the 
courts and in all other departments of the gov- 
ernment shall be abolished, and that simple affir- 
mation under pains and penalties of perjury 
shall be established in its stead. 

7. We demand that all laws directly or indi- 
rectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the 
Sabbath shall be repealed. 

8. We demand that all laws looking to the en- 
forcement of " Christian" morality shall be 
abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed 
to the requirements of natural morality, equal 
rights, and impartial liberty. 

9. We demand that not only in the constitu- 
tions of the United States and of the several 
States, but also in the practical administration 
of the same, no privileges or advantage shall 
be conceded to Christianity or any other spec al 
religion ; that our entire political system shall 
be founded and administered on a purely secu- 
lar basis ; and that whatever changes shall prove 
necessary to this e t nd shall be consistently, un- 
flinchingly, and promptly made. 

Liberals ! I pledge to you my undivided sym- 
pathies and most vigorous co-operation, both in 
The Index and out of it, in this work of local and 
national organization. Let us begin at once to 
lay the foundations of a great national party of 
freedom, which shall demand the entire seculari- 
zation of our municipal, state, and national gov- 
ernment. 

Let us boldly and with high purpose meet the 
duty of the hour. Rouse, then, to the great 
work of freeing America from the usurpations of 
the church ! Make this continent from ocean to 
ocean sacred to human liberty ! Prove that you 
are worthy descendants of those whose wisdom 
and patriotism gave us a constitution untainted 
with superstition ! Shake off your slumbers, and 
break the chains to which you have too long 
tamely submitted. 

FRANCIS E. ABBOT. 

TOLEDO, OHIO, Jan. i, 1873. 

LIBERALS OF NEW YORK, 

Shall the coming " National Association to 
secure a Religious Amendment to the United 
States Constitution," to be held in New York in 
February, find us unorganized for resistance ? 
Let us at once form a ' Liberal League," in 
which we may arrange a campaign offensive and 
defensive for our liberties. Send me at once the 
addresses of those who sympathize with us, that a 
meeting may be called at an early day : remem- 
ber that u he who is not for me is against me," 
and that our liberties are threatened. 
E. F. DINSMORE, 

36 Dey Street, New Yotk, 

Agent of The Index. 



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