From her waist a sky-blue cincture, loosely tied, hung, in long

bands, to the instep of her foot. Behind, and enveloping in its

fulness her arms and shoulders, a white veil descended from her

head to the hem of her robes. No ring, no necklace, no diadem or

gem; none of those ornaments were there that human vanity loves to

parade. A chaplet, whose drops of milky white slid on a golden cord,

hung from her hands, fervently clasped together. The beads glided

through her fingers. Yet the lips of this Queen of Virgins remained

motionless. Instead of reciting the rosary, she was, perhaps,

listening to the eternal echo in her own heart of that first Ave! and

the deep murmur of invocation ever rising from this earth of ours.

Each bead was undoubtedly a shower of heavenly graces that fell upon

souls like the liquid diamonds into the chalice of the flower.

She kept silence; but later, her own words and the miraculous facts

which we shall have to record, were to attest that she was truly the

Immaculate Virgin, the sinless and stainless among women, Mary, the

Mother of God.

This wonderful apparition looked upon Bernadette, who, as we have

seen, shrinking and speechless, had fallen upon her knees.

X.

The child, in her first movement of fear, had instinctively seized

her rosary; and, holding it in her hands, endeavored to make the

sign of the cross. But she trembled so violently as to render this

impossible. "Fear not," said Jesus to his disciples, when he came

walking on the waves of the sea of Tiberias. The look and smile of

the Blessed Virgin appeared to say the same thing to this frightened

little shepherdess.

With a sweet, grave gesture, which seemed like a benediction to earth

and heaven, she, as if to encourage the child, made the sign of the

cross. And the hand of Bernadette, raised, as it were, by her hand

who is called the Help of Christians, repeated the sacred sign.

"Fear not, it is I," Jesus said to his disciples.

The child felt no more fear. Astonished, charmed, scarcely trusting

her senses, and wiping her eyes, whose glance was riveted by the

heavenly vision, no longer knowing what to think, she humbly recited

her rosary: "I believe in God"--"Hail, Mary! full of grace!"

When she had finished saying the last "Glory be to the Father, and

to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," the bright Virgin suddenly

disappeared, reëntering that eternal paradise, the dwelling of the

Holy Trinity, whence she had come.

Bernadette felt like one who has suddenly fallen from a great height.

She stared vacantly around. The Gave still flowed on, moaning over

the pebbles and broken rocks; but the noise seemed to her more

sorrowful than before; the waters themselves seemed more gloomy, the

landscape and sunlight less bright than formerly. In front the cliffs

of Massabielle extended, and beneath them her companions were still

engaged in collecting the sticks of wood. Above the grotto were still

the niche and the arch of eglantine; but nothing unusual appeared

there; no trace remained of the celestial visitor. They were no

longer the gate of heaven.

The scene which we have just related must have lasted for a quarter

of an hour; not that Bernadette was conscious of the lapse of time;

but it may be measured by the circumstance that she had been able to

recite five decades of the rosary.

Completely restored to herself, Bernadette finished removing her

shoes and stockings, and rejoined her companions. Absorbed by what

she had seen, she did not dread the cold of the water. All her

childish powers were concentrated in recalling the facts of this

strange apparition.

Jeanne and Marie had seen her fall upon her knees and betake herself

to prayer; but as this, thank God, is not a rare occurrence with

these mountaineers, and as they were occupied at their task, they had

paid no further attention.

Bernadette was surprised at the perfect calmness which her sister and

Jeanne evinced. They had just finished their work and, entering the

grotto, began to play as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

"Have you seen nothing?" asked the child.

They then noticed that she seemed disturbed and agitated. "No," they

replied; "have you seen any thing?"

Was it that Bernadette feared to tell what filled her soul, for fear

of profanation? Did she wish to enjoy it in silence? Or was she

restrained by a bashful timidity? Nevertheless, she did obey that

instinct which prompts humble souls to conceal as a treasure the

special graces with which God favors them.

"If you have seen nothing," said she, "I have nothing to tell you."

The little fagots were bound up. The three children began to retrace

the road to Lourdes. But Bernadette could not conceal her trouble. On

the way, Marie and Jeanne teased her, to find out what she had seen.

The little shepherdess yielded to their entreaties and their promise

of eternal secrecy.

"I saw," she began, "something dressed in white." And she went on to

describe her marvellous vision. "This is what I saw," said she in

conclusion; "but do not, for the world, say anything about it."

Marie and Jeanne did not doubt a syllable. The soul in its first

innocence is naturally believing. Doubt is not the besetting sin of

childhood. And even were they disposed to be sceptical, the earnest

accents of Bernadette, still agitated and full of what she had seen,

would have irresistibly led them to believe. Marie and Jeanne did

not doubt, but they were frightened. The children of the poor are

naturally timid. Nor is it strange, since sufferings come to them

from every side.

"It is, perhaps, something that will do us harm," said they. "Let us

never go there again, Bernadette."

Scarcely had the confidants of the little shepherdess reached the

house, when the secret fairly boiled over. Marie told it all to her

mother. "What is all this stuff, Bernadette, that your sister has

been telling me?" The little girl repeated her story. Marie Soubirous

shrugged her shoulders.

"You have been deceived, child. It was nothing at all. You thought

that you saw something, but you did not. This is all fancy and

imagination."

Bernadette still adhered to her story.

"At any rate," said her mother, "never go near that place again. I

forbid it."

This prohibition wounded Bernadette to the heart. For, ever since the

apparition had vanished, she had felt the greatest desire to see it

once more.

Nevertheless, she was resigned, and said nothing.

XI.

Two days, Friday and Saturday, passed. The extraordinary event

was continually present to the mind of Bernadette, and became the

absorbing topic of conversation with her sister Marie, with Jeanne,

and a few other children. Bernadette still bore in her mind the

memory of this heavenly vision; and a passion--if one may use a word

so profane to designate so pure a sentiment in a heart so innocent

and girlish--a burning desire to see again this incomparable lady had

taken possession of her soul. This name of "lady" was the one which

they naturally used in their rustic language.

Whenever she was asked if this apparition resembled any one

celebrated in the place for beauty, she shook her head and said

sweetly, "Not at all. This does not give the faintest idea of her.

She is of a beauty impossible to express."

She longed to see her once more. The other children were divided

between fear and curiosity.

XII.

On Sunday morning, the sun rose brightly; the weather was beautiful.

The open winter in the valleys of the Pyrenees frequently has days

which equal spring.

On returning from mass, Bernadette begged Marie and Jeanne and two or

three other children to insist with her mother and persuade her to

take off the prohibition and permit them to return to the cliffs of

Massabielle.

"Perhaps it may be some wicked thing," said the children.

Bernadette answered that she was not afraid, for it had such a

wonderfully kind face.

"At all events," replied the children, who, better taught than the

poor shepherdess of Bartrès, knew something of the catechism--"at all

events, we must throw some holy water at it. If it comes from the

devil, it will go away. Say to it, 'If you come from God, approach!

If you come from the devil, be off!'"

This is not the precise formula for exorcism; but these little

theologians of Lourdes could not have reasoned better in this

matter, if they had been doctors of the Sorbonne.

It was therefore decided, in this juvenile council, that one of them

should carry the holy water. A certain feeling of apprehension had

stolen over Bernadette on account of this talk. Nevertheless it only

remained to obtain permission.

The children assembled after dinner to ask for it. The mother was

still unwilling to remove the prohibition, alleging that the Gave

ran close to the cliffs of Massabielle, and that there might be

danger; that the hour for vespers was near at hand, and that they

ought not to run the risk of being late; and that the whole story was

pure childish prattle, etc. But every body knows what a regiment of

children can do. All promised to be careful, to be quick, etc., and

the matter ended by the mother's yielding.

The little band went to the church, and there prayed for some time.

One of Bernadette's companions had provided a small bottle. It was

now filled with holy water.

On arriving at the grotto, nothing was to be seen.

"Let us pray," said Bernadette, "and recite the rosary."

The children knelt and began the rosary, each to herself.

Suddenly the face of Bernadette appeared to be transfigured.

Extraordinary emotion was manifested on her features, and her

countenance seemed to shine with heavenly light.

With feet resting upon the rock, clad as formerly, the marvellous

apparition again stood before her.

"Look! look!" she cried, "there it is!"

Alas! the vision of the other children was not miraculously cleared

from the film which hides glorified bodies from our sight. The little

girls saw nothing but the lonely rock and the branches of eglantine,

which descended to the foot of that mysterious niche, where

Bernadette contemplated an unknown being. The features of Bernadette

wore an expression that made it impossible to doubt that she really

saw something. One of the children placed the bottle of holy water in

her hands. Then, Bernadette, remembering what she had promised, arose

and sprinkled the wonderful lady, who stood in the niche before her.

"If you come from God, approach!" said the little girl. And, at her

words, the Blessed Virgin advanced close to the edge of the rock. She

seemed to smile at the precautions of Bernadette, and, at the sacred

name of God, her face shone even brighter than before.

"If you come from God, approach!" repeated Bernadette. But, seeing

the heavenly goodness and love of her glorious visitor, she felt

her heart sink when about to add, "If you come from the devil, go

away!" These words, which had been dictated to her, seemed monstrous

in the presence of this incomparable being; and they fled from her

thoughts without mounting to her lips. She prostrated herself again,

and continued to recite her rosary, to which the Blessed Virgin

seemed to listen, telling also her own. At the end of her prayer, the

apparition vanished.

XIII.

Returning to Lourdes, Bernadette was full of joy. She rehearsed in

the secrecy of her heart these extraordinary scenes. Her companions

felt a sort of terror in her presence. The transfiguration of the

countenance of Bernadette had convinced them of the reality of the

supernatural vision. And every thing that surpasses nature brings

with it a sense of awe. "Let not the Lord speak to us lest we die,"

said the Jews of the Old Testament.

"We are afraid, Bernadette. Never go to that place again. Perhaps

what you have seen will do us mischief." So said the timid companions

of the little seer.

According to their promise, the children returned in time for

vespers. When they were over, numbers of people came out to walk and

enjoy the last rays of the sun, so delightful on these fine winter

days. The story of the little girls was told among various groups of

walkers, and passed from mouth to mouth. Thus it was that the rumor

of these strange things began to spread in the town. The report,

which at first had agitated only a humble band of children, increased

like a tide-wave, and reached every fireside. Quarry-workers, (very

numerous at this place,) tailors, laboring-men, peasants, servants,

waiting-maids, and other poor people conversed about this matter,

some believing, some denying, others openly scoffing at, and many

exaggerating, the facts of this rumored apparition. With one or two

exceptions, the bourgeoisie did not pay the least attention to all

this talk. Strange to say, the father and mother of Bernadette, while

they confided fully in her sincerity, regarded the apparition as an

illusion.

"She is only a child," they said. "She thinks she has seen something;

but she has seen nothing. It is only the imagination of a little

girl." Nevertheless, the extraordinary precision of Bernadette's

recital startled them. At times, won by the earnest accents of their

daughter, they felt their incredulity shaken. And while they desired

that she should not revisit the grotto, they did not dare to forbid

her. She did not do so, however, until Thursday.

XIV.

During the first days of the week, several persons came to see

the Soubirous, in order to question Bernadette. Her answers were

brief and exact. She might be laboring under a delusion, but it was

only necessary to see her to know that she was in good faith. Her

perfect simplicity, her innocent age, her tone of earnestness, all

contributed to give her words a force which carried conviction.

All who visited her were entirely satisfied of her veracity, and

persuaded that something extraordinary had happened at the cliffs of

Massabielle.

The statement, nevertheless, of an ignorant little girl could not

suffice to establish firmly an event so entirely out of the ordinary

course of things. There must be other proofs besides the word of a

child.

But what was this apparition, supposing it to have been real? Was

it an angel of light, or a spirit from the abyss? Was it not some

suffering soul, wandering and seeking prayers? Might it not have

been so-and-so or so-and-so, who, but recently dead in the odor of

sanctity, had appeared to manifest the glory of the life to come?

Faith and superstition each proposed their hypotheses.

Did the mournful ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday help to incline a

certain lady and a young girl of Lourdes to one of these solutions?

Did they see in the shining whiteness of the garments which the

apparition wore, some likeness to a shroud or some sign of a ghost?

We know not. The young girl was named Antoinette Peyret, and was a

member of the society of the Children of Mary; the other was Mme.

Millet.[289]

"It is undoubtedly some soul from Purgatory, who implores us to have

masses offered up for it." So they thought; and they went to see

Bernadette.

"Ask this lady who she is, and what she wishes," said they. "Get her

to explain it to you; or, if you cannot understand, let her put it in

writing."

Bernadette, who felt a keen desire to return to the grotto, obtained

from her parents a new permission; and the following morning,

Thursday, February the 18th, about six o'clock, at daybreak, and

after having heard mass at half-past five, she, together with

Antoinette Peyret and Mme. Millet, turned her steps in the direction

of the grotto.

XV.

The repairs in the mill of M. de Laffite had been completed, and

the canal which moved the machinery had been opened to the current;

so that it was impossible to reach the end of their journey by the

old way of the Châlet. They were obliged to ascend the side of the

Espélugues, choosing a steep path which led to the forest of Lourdes;

then to descend by a break-neck route to the grotto, over crags, and

the steep, loose soil of Massabielle.

In the face of these unforeseen difficulties, the two companions

of Bernadette were somewhat dismayed. But she, on the contrary,

even then trembled with an eager desire to reach their destination.

It seemed as if an invisible power sustained and endowed her with

unwonted energy. She, usually so frail and weak, felt at that moment

stout and strong. Her steps became so rapid as they began the ascent,

that Antoinette and Mme. Millet, though both were strong and in

perfect health, had a good task to keep up with her. The asthma,

which usually hindered her from running, seemed to have left her for

the time being. On reaching the summit, she was neither tired nor out

of breath. Although her companions were perspiring and panting, her

face was perfectly calm. She descended the cliffs, which she thus

traversed for the first time, with the same ease and agility, feeling

conscious that an invisible power guided and sustained her. Over

these steep and sharp declivities, among slippery stones, hanging

over the abyss, her step was as bold and firm as if walking upon the

highway. Mme. Millet and Antoinette did not endeavor to follow at the

same gait. They descended slowly, and with the precaution required by

so perilous a way.

Consequently, Bernadette arrived at the grotto some minutes before

them. She prostrated herself and began reciting her chaplet,

earnestly regarding the niche, still empty and embowered by the

entwining boughs of the eglantine.

Suddenly she uttered a cry. The well-known light of the aureole shone

from the depths of the cave; she heard a voice calling her.

The wonderful apparition was again visible a few steps above her. The

lovely Virgin turned toward the child her face lit up with eternal

beauty, and with her hand beckoned her to approach.

At this moment, after surmounting a thousand and one difficulties,

the two companions of Bernadette, Antoinette and Mme. Millet, reached

the spot. They saw the features of the child transfigured with

ecstasy. She heard and saw them.

"She is there!" the girl cried, "she beckons me to draw near!"

"Ask if she is annoyed because we are here with you. If so, we will

go away."

Bernadette looked at the Blessed Virgin, invisible to all save

herself. Then she turned toward her companions. "You may remain," she

answered.

The two women knelt beside the child and lighted a blessed taper,

which they had brought with them. It was, beyond doubt, the first

time that such a light had ever shone in this savage place. This

simple act, which seemed to inaugurate a sanctuary, had in itself a

mysterious solemnity.

This visible sign of adoration, this humble flame lighted by two

poor women, on the supposition that the apparition was divine, was

never more to be extinguished but to brighten daily, and to grow with

the lapse of years. The breath of incredulity was to exhaust itself

against it in vain efforts. The storm of persecution was to arise;

but this flame, lit by the devotion of the people, was to point for

ever toward the throne of God. While these rustic hands lighted the

first illumination in this strange grotto where a child was praying,

the east had changed its color from gray to gold and purple, and the

sun had begun to flood the world with light and to peep over the

highest crest of the mountains.

Bernadette, in ecstasy, contemplated a cloudless beauty. "_Tota

pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te_:" Thou art all

beautiful, my beloved, and there is no spot in thee.

Her companions spoke to her again.

"Go toward her, if she makes a sign. Go, ask her who she is, and

why she comes here?... Is she a soul from purgatory that needs our

prayers, or wishes us to have masses offered up for her?... Ask her

to write on this paper what she desires. We are willing to do any

thing she wishes--all that is needful for her rest."

The little seer took the paper, ink, and paper, which were given her

and advanced toward the apparition, whose maternal glance brightened

on seeing her draw near. Nevertheless, at each step that Bernadette

made, the apparition receded into the interior of the cave. The child

lost sight of it for a moment, and it went under the arch of the

lower grotto. There, just above her and much nearer at hand, she saw

the Blessed Virgin shining in the opening of the niche.

Bernadette held in her hand the objects which had been given her; she

stood on tiptoe to reach the height of the supernatural being. Her

two companions advanced to hear, if possible, the conversation which

was about to take place. But Bernadette, without turning, and as if

obeying a gesture of the vision, signed to them not to approach.

Abashed, they withdrew.

"My Lady," said the child, "if you have any thing to tell me, will

you not please write what you wish?"

The heavenly Virgin smiled at this naïve request. Her lips parted and

she spoke:

"What I have to tell you I do not need to write. Only do me the favor

to come here every day for two weeks."

"I promise to do so!" said Bernadette.

The Blessed Virgin smiled again and made a gesture of satisfaction,

showing her full confidence in the word of this poor little peasant

of fourteen years. She knew that the little shepherdess of Bartrès

was pure as one of those little ones whose golden heads Jesus loved

to caress, saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

To the promise of Bernadette, she replied by a solemn engagement:

"And I for my part promise to make you happy, not in this world, but

in the next."

To the child who accorded her a few days, she promised, in return,

eternity.

Bernadette, without losing sight of the apparition, returned to her

companions.

Following her glance, she noticed the eyes of the Blessed Virgin

resting kindly and for some time on Antoinette Peyret, who was

unmarried and a member of the Confraternity of the Children of Mary.

Bernadette told them what she had seen.

"She is looking at you now," said the child to Antoinette.

The latter was filled with pleasure by these words and always

recalled them with joy.

"Ask," said they, "if she is willing to have us accompany you hither

during the fortnight."

Bernadette addressed the apparition.

"They may come with you," answered the Blessed Virgin, "and also any

other persons. I desire to see every body here."

Saying these words, she disappeared, leaving behind her that

brilliant light with which she was surrounded, and which slowly

melted away.

In this instance, as in others, the child noticed something which

seemed a rule with regard to the aureole which always surrounded the

Blessed Virgin.

"When the vision appears," said she, in her own language, "I see

first the light and then the 'Lady;' when it disappears, the 'Lady'

first vanishes and afterward the light."

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[287] Bascle de Lagrèze, Conseiller à la Cour Impérial de Pau,

_Chronique de la Ville et du Chateau de Lourdes_.

[288] The Ordo of the diocese of Tarbes for 1858, Feb. 12, contains

the rubric, _Sanctæ Genovefæ_, (_Proprium Tarbense_.)

[289] These two persons are still living. Unless the contrary be

expressly stated, all those named in the course of this work are

still alive, and can be questioned. We would urge our readers to

examine and verify all our assertions.--THE AUTHOR.

THE "PARADISE LOST" OF ST. AVITUS.

The indebtedness of Milton to Andreini for the conception of

_Paradise Lost_, is proved not only by internal evidence, but by the

ascertained fact that the English poet was well acquainted with the

work of the Italian. Another poet of merit, centuries before, had

produced a noble work on the subject, with which we may suppose,

from Milton's classical and theological learning, he was familiar,

though no proof exists that he had read it. We refer to the three

poems of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, _The Creation_, _Original

Sin_, and _The Judgment of God_, which form a triad, or a poem in

three parts. Its resemblance to _Paradise Lost_, in general idea and

in some important details, is very striking, and a curious fact in

literature. These, with other works of the author, were published at

the beginning of the sixteenth century, though written long before.

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, born about the middle of the fifth century,

was of a senatorial family in Auvergne. He became bishop A.D.

490, dying in 525. His part in the church of Gaul was active and

important, as he was chief among the orthodox bishops of the east and

south of Gaul, and Vienne belonged to the Burgundian Arians. In the

struggle to maintain the true faith against the Arians, St. Avitus

had to contend not only against theological adversaries, but the

civil power. In the year 499 he held a conference at Lyons with some

Arian bishops, in the presence of King Gondebald; and he influenced

King Sigismund to return to the true belief.

He was the most distinguished among all the Christian poets from

the sixth to the eighth century, and only the obscurity of the age

can account for the oblivion into which his works have fallen. It is

true that his poetry abounds in labored comparisons and artificial

antitheses; but in treating of sacred subjects he adheres to the

scriptural simplicity, and though living much nearer to the days of

paganism than Milton, has nothing like his mythological allusions

and ornaments. He wrote a hundred letters on his own times, besides

homilies and treatises. His six poems are in hexameter verse. They

are, _The Creation_, (_De Initio Mundi_,) _Original Sin_, (_De

Originali Peccato_,) _The Judgment of God_, (_De Sententia Dei_,)

_The Deluge_, (_De Diluvio Mundi_,) _The Passage of the Red Sea_,

(_De Transitu Maris Rubri_,) and _In Praise of Virginity_, (_De

Consolatoria Laude Castitatis_, etc.) The first three constitute what

may be called the _Paradise Lost_ of St. Avitus.

In the _Creation_, the peculiar features of the descriptive poetry

of the sixth century appear, resembling the school founded by the

Abbé Delille; elaborate beyond good taste, dissecting and anatomizing

in details. This is almost painfully shown in the account of the

creation of man, in which the anatomical particulars are minute and

scientific to the utter destruction of the picturesque. Then comes

the description of paradise, which is in curious analogy to Milton's.

We translate part of it:

"Beyond the Indies, where the world begins,

Where, it is said, the confines meet of earth

And heaven, there spreads an elevated plain

To mortals inaccessible, inclosed

By barriers everlasting since for sin

Adam was cast out from that happy home.

There never change of seasons brings the frost;

There summer yields not place to winter's reign;

And while elsewhere the circle of the year

Brings stifling heat, or fields with crisp ice bound,

There bides eternal spring. Tumultuous winds

Come not, and clouds forsake skies always pure.

No need of rains; the ever genial soil

With warm, sweet moisture of its own, keeps fresh

Its vivid verdure; herbs and foliage live

Fadeless, their vigor drawn from their own sap,

Mingling their leaves with blossoms. Annual fruits

There ripen every month; the lily's sheen

The sunbeams taint not, nor the violet's blue;

The fresh rose never fades; the laden boughs

Shed odoriferous balm; the gentle breeze

Skimming the woods, with softest murmur stirs

The leaves and flowers, thence wafting sweet perfume.

Clear founts gush out from their pellucid source,

And polished gems have not their flashing lustre.

Along the crystal's margin emeralds gleam,

With varied hues of every jewel's sheen

The world holds rich, enamelling the sands,

And glistening in the meads like diadems."

Book i. 211-257

The Latin is as follows:

"Ergo ubi transmissis mundi caput incipit Indis,

Quo perhibent terram confinia jungere cœlo,

Lucus inaccessa cunctis mortalibus arca

Permanet, æterno conclusus limite, postquam

Decidit expulsus primævi criminis auctor,

Atque reis digne felici a sede revulsis,

Cœlestes hæc sancta capit nunc aula ministros,

Non hic alterni succedit temporis unquam

Bruma, nec æstivi redeunt post frigora soles,

Excelsus calidum cum reddit circulus annum,

Vel densante gelu canescunt arva pruinis.

Hic ver assiduum cœli clementia servat;

Turbidus Auster abest, semperque sub ære sudo

Nubila diffugiunt jugi cessura sereno.

Nec poscit natura loci quos non habet imbres,

Sed contenta suo dotantur germina rore.

Perpetuo viret omne solum, terræque tepentis

Blanda nitet facies; stant semper collibus herbæ,

Arboribusque comæ; quæ cum se flore frequenti

Diffundunt, celeri confortant germina succo.

Nam quidquid nobis toto nunc nascitur anno;

Menstrua maturo dant illic tempora fructu.

Lilia perlucent nullo flaccentia sole,

Nec tactus violat violas, roseumque ruborem

Servans perpetuo suffundit gratia vultu.

Sic cum desit hiems, nec torrida ferveat æstas,

Fructibus autumnus, ver floribus occupat annum.

Hic quæ donari mentitur fama Sabæsis

Cinnama nascuntur, vivax quæ colligit ales,

Natali cum fine perit, nidoque perusta

Succedens sibimet quæsita morte resurgit;

Nec contenta suo tantum semel ordine nasci;

Longa veternosi renovatur corporis ætas,

Incensamque levant exordia crebra senectam,

Illic desudans fragrantia balsama ramus

Perpetuum promit pingui de stipite fluxum.

Tum si forte levis movit spiramina ventus,

Flatibus exiguis, lenique impulsa susurro,

Dives silva tremit foliis, ac flora salubri,

Qui sparsus late maves dispensat odores.

Hic fons perspicuo resplendens gurgita surgit.

Talis in argento non fulget gratia, tantam

Nec crystalla trahunt nitido defrigore lucem.

Margine riparum virides micuere lapilli,

Et quas miratur mundi jactantia gemmas,

Illis saxa jacent; varios dant arva colores,

Et naturali campos diademate pingunt."

The parallel passage of Milton runs thus:

"Thus was this place,

A happy rural seat of various view;

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,

Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,

Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,

If true, here only, and of delicious taste.

Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks

Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,

Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap

Of some irriguous valley spread her store,

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose;

Another side, umbrageous grots and caves

Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine

Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps

Luxuriant; meanwhile, murmuring waters fall

Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake

That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned

Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.

The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs,

Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune

The trembling leaves, while universal Pan

Knit with the graces and the hours in dance,

Led on th' eternal spring."

_Paradise Lost_, iv. 246, etc.

The Nile, according to religious traditions, was one of the four

rivers of paradise. In his description of its fertilizing inundation,

St. Avitus paints, in a poetical figure, the view presented in

after-years:

"When, swollen, the river overflows its banks,

Strewing the plains with dark slime, fertile then

The soil with calm skies and terrestrial rain;

Then Memphis in the midst of a vast lake

Appears, and o'er their fields submerged in crafts

The laborers sail. The flood's decree sweeps forth

All boundaries, equalizing all, and stays

The season's labors. Joyful sees the shepherd

His meadows swallowed, and from foreign seas

Strange shoals of fish where erst his herds were fed.

Then, when the waters have espoused the earth,

Impregnating its gems, the Nile recedes,

Calls back its scattered waters, and the lake,

Once more a river, to its bed returns,

Its floods encompassed in the ancient dyke."

Book i. 266-281.

We give also the original:

"Nam quoties tumido perrumpit flumine ripas

Alveus, et nigris campos perinundat arenis,

Ubertas taxatur aqua, cœloque vacante

Terrestrem pluviam diffusus porrigit annis.

Tunc inclusa latet lato sub gurgite Memphis,

Et super absentis possessor navigat agros.

Terminus omnis abest, æquatur judice fluctu

Annua suspendens contectus jurgia limes.

Gramina nota videt lactus subsidere pastor,

Inque pecorum viridantis jugere campi

Succedunt nantes aliena per æquora pisces.

Ast postquam largo fecundans germina potu

Lympha maritavit sitientis viscera terræ,

Regraditur Nilus, sparsasque recolligit undas:

Fit fluvius pereunte lacu; tum redditur alveo

Pristina riparum conclusis fluctibus obex," etc.

An analogous phenomenon--far more vast and terrible--the descent

of the waters of the upper firmament, and the overflow of earthly

floods, is described by St. Avitus in his poem on _The Deluge_.

In the second part of the triad, _Original Sin_, the sacred

traditions are implicitly followed; something is to be found of

Andreini's conception of the prince of hell preserving in the demon

the grandeur of the angel, carrying into the pit of evil the traces

of a heavenly nature. The Satan of St. Avitus is not the devil of

mere traditions, odious, hideous, malignant, with no elevation of

feeling. He retains some traits of his first estate and a certain

moral grandeur. Nevertheless the conception lacks the sublimity of

Andreini's and Milton's, presenting none of those fierce conflicts of

the soul, those appalling contrasts, which are so effective. It has,

however, originality and energy, forcibly impressing the reader.

Satan, first entering paradise, and perceiving Adam and Eve, is thus

portrayed:

"When he beheld the new-created pair

In their fair home, their happy sinless life,

Under God's laws the sovereigns of the earth,

With tranquil joy surveying all around

In peace their sway confessing--jealous rage

Like lightning raised a tempest in his soul;

Like to volcanic fires his fury burned.

Too recent his great loss; hurled down from heaven,

Down to the infernal pit, and with him fallen

The troop who shared his fate! The agony,

The shame of such defeat, with added pangs

And horror, rose afresh, when he beheld

Those happy ones; and full of bitter grief,

Envy, despite, he poured his anger forth.

Ah! woe is me; this new world sprung to life,

This odious race the offspring of our ruin!

Woe! Heaven was mine; from heaven I am expelled,

This dust of earth to angels' pomp succeeding!

Frail clay, to fair form moulded, will usurp

The power, the sovereignty torn from our hands,

To him transferred! Yet not of all despoiled,

Some power we hold, some evil we can do.

Be it done without delay! I yearn for strife!

I long to meet these foes; yea, now to meet them,

In their simplicity, which knows as yet

Naught of deceit; naught but the things they see,

Which leaves them shieldless. Easier the task

To tempt them and mislead, while thus alone,

Ere they have thrown a vast posterity

Into the eternity of ages!--No--

We will not suffer any thing immortal

To rise from earth! Let us destroy the race

Here in its source! Oh! that its chiefs defeat

May be the seed of death! Life's principle

Give rise to pangs of death! all struck in one!

The root cut and the tree for ever prone!

Such consolation in my fall is mine;

If I must never more ascend to heaven,

At least its portals shall be closed 'gainst these!

The misery I suffer is less keen

Knowing these creatures lost by a like fall;

If they, accomplices in my destruction,

Become companions in my punishment,

Sharing with us the flames I now discern

Prepared for us!

But to allure them on,

I, who have fallen, must show them the same road,

That the same pride which drove me out of heaven

May chase man from the bounds of paradise.

He spoke, and heaving a deep sigh, was silent."

Book ii. 60-117.

The Latin is as follows:

"Vidit ut iste novos homines in sede quieta

Ducere felicem nullo discrimine vitam,

Lege sub accepta Domino famularier orbis,

Subjectisque frui placida inter gaudia rebus;

Commovit subitum zeli scintilla vaporem,

Excrevitque calens in sæva incendia livor.

Vicinus tunc forte fuit, quo concidit alto,

Lapsus, et innexam traxit per prona catervam.

Hoc recolens, casumque premens in corde recentem,

Plus doluit periisse sibi quod possidet alter.

Tunc mixtus cum felle pudor sic pectore questus

Explicat, et tali suspiria voce relaxat.

Proh dolor, hoc nobis subitum consurgere plasma,

Invisumque genus nostra crevisse ruina!

Me celsum virtus habuit, nunc arce reje

Pellor, et angelico limus succedit honori.

Cœlum terra tenet, vili compage levata

Regnat humus, nobisque perit translata potestas.

Non tamen in totum periit; pars magna retentat

Vim propriam, summaque cluit virtute nocendi,

Nec differre juvat; jam nunc certamine blando

Congrediar, dum prima salus, experta nec ullos

Simplicitas ignara dolos, ad tela patebit.

Et melius soli capientur fraude, priusquam

Fecundam mittant æterna in sæcula prolem,

Immortale nihil terra prodire sinendum est;

Fons generis pereat, capitis dejectio victi

Semen mortis erit; pariat discrimina lethi

Vitæ principium; cuncti feriantur in uno;

Non faciet vivum radix occisa cacumen.

Hæc mihi dejecto tandem solatia restant.

Si nequeo clausos iterum conscendere cœlos,

His quoque claudentur," etc.

Thus Milton's Satan:

"O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!

Into our room of bliss thus high advanced

Creatures of other mould; earth-born perhaps,

Not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright

Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue

With wonder, and could love, so lively shines

In them divine resemblance, and such grace

The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.

Ah gentle pair! ye little think how nigh

Your change approaches, when all these delights

Will vanish and deliver ye to woe!

More woe the more you taste is now of joy;

Happy, but for so happy ill secured

Long to continue, and this high seat your heaven

Ill fenced for heaven to keep out such a foe

As now is entered; yet no purposed foe

To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,

Though I unpitied; league with you I seek,

And mutual amity, so strait, so close,

That I with you must dwell, or you with me

Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,

Like this fair paradise, your sense; yet such

Accept your Maker's work; he gave it me,

Which I as freely give. Hell shall unfold,

To entertain you two, her widest gates,

And send forth all her kings; there will be room,

Not like these narrow limits, to receive

Your numerous offspring; if no better place,

Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge

On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged.

And should I at your harmless innocence

Melt as I do, yet public reason just,

Honor and empire with revenge enlarged,

By conquering this new world, compel me now

To do what else, though damned, I should abhor."

Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 358-392.

More elevated, impassioned, and complex are the feelings of Milton's

Satan, more eloquent his expression; yet the simple energy, the

menacing concentration of the arch-fiend painted by St. Avitus, has a

powerful effect.

The third book exhibits the despair of Adam and Eve after the fall;

the coming of the divine Judge; his sentence, and their expulsion

from paradise. Where Milton represents Adam as giving way to

indignation against Eve, St. Avitus causes him to rage against the

Creator himself.

"Adam thus saw himself condemned: his guilt

By inquiry made manifest. Yet not

In humble suppliance did he sue for mercy:

Nor with deep penitence, and tears, and prayers,

And self-accusing, shamed confession, plead

For the remission of his punishment;

Fallen, miserable, no pity he invoked.

With lifted front, with anger flushed, his pride

Broke forth in clamorous reproach.

'Twas then

To bring my ruin that the woman was given

To be my helpmeet! That which from thy hand,

Creator! was received as best of blessings--

She--overcome herself--has conquered me

With counsels sinister! prevailed with me

To take the fruit she had already tasted;

She is the source of evil; from her came

The sin, beguiling me too credulous;

And thou, Lord, thou didst teach me to believe her

By giving her to be my own in marriage,

With sweet ties joining us! Ah! if my life,

Lonely at first, had so continued--happy!

If I had never known this fatal union,

The yoke of such companionship!

These words

Of Adam the divine Creator heard,

And thus severely spoke to desolate Eve;

Woman, why hast thou in thy fall drawn down

Thy wretched spouse? Deceived, and then deceiving,

Instead of standing in thy guilt alone,

Why sought'st thou to dethrone the higher reason

Of this thy husband?

And the woman, full

Of shame and sorrow, daring not to raise

Her face with conscious blushes all suffused,

Answered: The serpent did beguile me; he

Persuaded me to taste the fruit forbidden."

Book iii. 96-112.

The original poem runs thus:

"Ille ubi convictum claro se lumine vidit,

Prodidit et totum discussio justa reatum,

Non prece submissa veniam pro crimine poscit,

Non votis lacrymisve rogat, nec vindice fletu

Præcurrit meritam supplex confessio pœnam.

Jamque miser factus, nondum miserabilis ille est.

Erigitur sensu, timidisque accensa querelis

Fertur in insanas laxata superbia voces.

Heu male perdendo mulier conjuncta marito!

Quam sociam misero prima sub lege dedisti,

Hæc me consiliis vicit devicta sinistris,

Et sibi jam notum persuasit sumere pomum.

Ista mali caput est, crimen surrexit ab ista.

Credulus ipse fui, sed credere tu docuisti,

Connubium donans, et dulcia vincula nectens

Atque utinam felix, quæ quondam sola vigebat,

Cœlebs vita foret, talis nec conjugis unquam

Fœdera sensisset, comiti non subdita pravæ.

Hac igitur rigidi commotus mente Creator,

Mœrentem celsis compellat vocibus Evam.

Cur miserum labens traxisti inprona maritum

Nec contenta tuo deceptrix femina casu,

Sublimi sensum jecisti, ex arce virilem!

Ilia pudens, tristique genas suffusa rubore,

Auctorem sceleris clamat decepta draconem,

Qui pomum vetito persuasit tangere morsu."

Thus Milton:

"Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,

Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,

Soft words to his fierce passion she essayed;

But her with stern regard he thus repelled.

Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best

Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false

And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,

Like his, and color serpentine, may show

Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee

Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended

To hellish falsehood, snare them! But for thee

I had persisted happy; had not thy pride

And wandering vanity, when least was safe,

Rejected my forewarning, and disdained

Not to be trusted, longing to be seen,

Though by the devil himself; him overweening

To overreach; but with the serpent meeting,

Fooled and beguiled; by him thou; I by thee

To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,

Constant, mature, proof against all assaults;

And understood not all was but a show,

Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib

Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,

More to the part sinister, from me drawn;

Well if thrown out, as supernumerary

To my just number found. Oh! why did God,

Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven

With spirits masculine, create at last

This novelty on earth, this fair defect

Of nature, and not fill the world at once

With men, as angels, without feminine;

Or find some other way to generate

Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen,

And more that shall befall; innumerable

Disturbances on earth through female snares,

And strait conjunction with this sex.'"

_Paradise Lost_, x. 863-897.

The scriptural simplicity of this passage, as found in the poem

of St. Avitus, will be by many esteemed better than Milton's

ornamentation.

The book ends with a prediction of the advent of Christ, who is to

triumph over Satan. The leaving of paradise is touchingly described

at the close of the poem.

"The sentence given, and by the trembling pair

Received, with skins of beasts the Lord himself

Clothed both the man and woman.

Then he drove

Them out for ever from the happy garden

Of paradise. Prone to the ground they fell,

Those hapless ones. They entered on the world

That was to them a wilderness. They fled

With hasty steps, as by the avenging sword

Pursued. The earth before them had its bowers

Of trees and verdant turf; green meads and fountains,

And winding streams, appear to greet their sight;

Yet ah! how hideous is the landscape drear

After thy lovely face, O Paradise!

Startled, the pair survey the doleful scene,

And weep to think of all that they have lost;

They do not see the limits of the world;

And yet it seems a narrow cell; they groan

Immured in such a prison! Even the day

Is darkness to their eyes; while the clear sun

Is shining in his strength, they bitterly

Complain that all the light has vanished from them."

A Dutch poet also--Joost Van Den Vondel--wrote a drama on the fall

of man, before Andreini's. Among the personages are Lucifer and his

attendant evil spirits, Gabriel, the King of Angels, Michael, Uriel,

etc. Adam and Eve are attended in paradise by a chief guardian angel.

The lyrics of the heavenly host have considerable poetic beauty.

THE WILLIAN GIRLS

Some persons have a natural enjoyment of tribulation. They take a

real pleasure in raising their eyebrows lugubriously, holding their

heads a little on one side with a sorrowful and resigned expression,

and looking at the world through blue spectacles. They "always sigh

in thanking God," and can find a cloud in the sunniest sky. You can

never conquer such people on their own ground. If you have a slight

pain in your little finger, they have an excruciating pain in their

thumb; if you have caught your robe on a nail, theirs has been rent

on a spike; if you have been wet in a shower, they have been soaked

in a torrent. These persons have minor voices, make great use of

chromatics in speaking, and their affections seem to be situated in

the liver.

Mr. Christopher Willian had a taint of this "green and yellow

melancholy" in his disposition, and his rapidly increasing family

gave full scope for its development.

"If Eva were a boy, now," he sighed, "I could soon have some one to

help me in the shop. But--nothing but girls!"

"Eva is a treasure!" Mrs. Willian answered stoutly. "I wouldn't

exchange her for the best boy in the world."

"But girls are so expensive," the father objected, "and they can't

earn any thing; that is, mine can't. I don't want a daughter of mine

to leave my house till she marries."

"And there is no need of their doing any thing, my dear," the mother

replied cheerfully. "We own our house, and your business is very

good. Then, when the mortgages are paid off on your building, the

rent of the upper flats will make us quite independent. In three or

four years we shall be out of the wood, all our pinching and toiling

over."

Mrs. Willian was a thrifty, clear-headed, energetic woman; but,

though she would not have owned it, she herself found the prospect

appalling. As she sat there after her husband left her, she glanced

out the chamber window and saw Dinah, the one servant of the house,

putting out the washing, her accusing face looming darkly over the

interminable lines of wet dry-goods. Oh! the strings to tie, the

buttons to button, the hooks to hook! And here on her knees lay

another candidate for such services, an unconscious little affliction

of two weeks old! Oh! the rents and rips to mend, the darnings and

makings over, the little faces to wash and locks to comb, the faults

to chide, the teasings to bear, the questions to answer! She had just

got a glimpse through the door of Eva with her hair in a snarl, and

of Helen with soiled stockings on; she knew that Frances had tumbled

downstairs and set her nose bleeding; she could hear Anne crying

pathetically for mother to come and rock her to sleep, and she was

almost sure that every thing was at sixes and sevens in the kitchen.

"But I will not lose my courage!" she exclaimed vehemently, and, in

proof that she would not, burst into hysterical weeping.

The fifth girl grew apace, and after her came Josephine, and after

Josephine came Jane.

"Mr. Willian is among the blessed," said the priest when this seventh

daughter was carried to him for baptism. "_Verily, he shall not be

confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate._"

Others besides the priest had their jest concerning this regiment of

girls. Tradesmen smiled when purchases were made for them, people

laughed and counted when invitations were to be sent to them,

neighbors went to their windows to see the Willian procession start

for church. They became proverbial, especially with their father.

But as years passed, words of praise began to drop in among the

jests. Mothers marvelled to see how early the Willian girls learned

to sew and mend, how deftly they could use the broom and duster,

what womanly ways the elder had toward the younger. These mothers

reproachfully told their shiftless daughters what a dignified and

careful maiden Miss Eva was, and how even Anne could put a room

to rights after the smaller fry, and sing Jenny to sleep with a

voice like a bobolink's. For all these children took to singing as

naturally as birds do, and warbled before they could speak.

Nor were their happy hearts less valuable in the house than their

helpful hands. Half the mother's load of care melted from her

in the brightness of their faces, and the anxious cloud on Mr.

Christopher Willian's brow lightened in spite of him whenever some

gushing sprite, all laughter and kisses, ran to welcome him home.

He was sometimes vexed on recollecting how he had been lured from

a good grumble by their baby wiles. Indeed, he was not nearly so

dissatisfied as he pretended to be. Such sweet and healthy affections

as theirs were, which, never having been checked, flowed out in

joyous innocence; such pure, unerring instincts, that needed no

knowledge of baseness in order to shrink from its contact; such

open hands for the poor, such tender hands for the afflicted; and,

crowning all, such steadfast, unassuming piety. Among the young

ladies who, dressed to attract attention, promenaded the public

streets, the Willian girls were never found; their father's house was

the place where they made new acquaintances and entertained old ones.

And what did they conceal from their parents? Nothing. Their hopes

and plans and fears, their mistakes, their faults, all were freely

told. And how pretty they were! Their father secretly made the most

flowery comparisons when looking at them. He mentally challenged the

dew-washed morning roses and violets to vie with their fresh faces

around the breakfast table. When at evening they formed a ring of

bloom around the piano, and sang for their parents, or for visitors,

his private opinion was, that a choir of angels could not far excel

them; and when the circle broke, like a wreath falling into flowers,

and each went about some pretty employment, then Mr. Willian had

not eyes enough with which to watch his seven girls. But once own

to any such feeling, and there would be an end to his privilege

of grumbling. He well knew what a chorus would assail his first

grievance: "Why, papa, you said that we were--" etc.; or, "Now, Mr.

Willian, do be consistent! With my own ears I have heard you say--"

etc. So he wrapped the silver lining of his cloud inward, and showed

them only the gray.

But one evening, for a wonder, he came home with a joyful face and

no word of fault-finding. When Jenny, the youngest, ran to meet him,

he gave her a toss nearly to the ceiling; he gave one of Fanny's

curls a pull in passing her; he presented his wife with a bunch of

late flowers, he praised every thing on the supper-table. Finally,

when they were gathered in the evening, he told them the cause of

this unusual hilarity. He had that day made the last payment on the

building in which he had his shop, and now their weary economies were

at an end.

"But don't imagine, you young witches, that all this is to go in

finery," he said, giving the nearest one a pinch on the cheek. "The

house here needs a little fitting up, and perhaps we will have a new

piano. But I must begin now to lay by something. A man with such a

load of girls on his shoulders has to think of the future."

They were too much accustomed to remarks like the last to be greatly

disturbed by them, but this threw a momentary dampening. Then the

silence was broken by Miss Eva's calm and musical voice: "The house

needs to be painted and papered and furnished from basement to attic.

It is very shabby."

Mr. Willian forgot to exclaim at the dimensions of this proposition

when he looked in the fair face of his eldest daughter, and saw the

serene grace with which she seated herself beside her mother, and

smoothed down the folds of her dress. Eva was now twenty, calm,

blonde, and stately.

"O papa!" cried Florence across the fireplace; "do buy a lovely

landscape of Weber's we saw to-day. It is just what we want to put

over the mantel-piece in the front parlor." Again the father looked,

but said nothing.

Florence was a girl of artistic tastes, was frail and excitable, and

had brilliant violet eyes and an unsteady scarlet in her cheeks.

"Now at last I can have a watch!" cried Frances in a ringing voice.

"I've nearly got a curvature of the spine from looking round at the

clock to see if I have practised long enough."

"My dear Fanny," interposed her mother, "we need a new set of china

much more than you need a watch."

Frances was the romp of the family, a large girl of sixteen, with

heaps of brown curls around a _piquante_ face.

"I wish I had a little rosewood writing-desk and a pearl pen-handle,"

came in a clear, insinuating voice very high up the scale. Anne sat

in a low chair, with her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee, and

her gaze fixed intently on the cornice of the room. But perceiving

no notice taken of her remark, she lowered her glance, and gave her

father a look out of the corners of her eyes, which thereby got the

appearance of being nearly all whites.

Anne was fourteen years of age, and had a quiet way of doing as she

pleased and getting all she wanted without seeming to try. Frances

called her pussy-cat.

"O papa!" broke in Georgiana, "can't I have a pair of skates and

learn to skate?"

"I want a silver mug!" cried Jane, the youngest, striking in before

Josephine.

Josephine sat in the shadow of her father's chair, and had two small

wrinkles between her brows.

"Is there any thing else any one will have?" asked Mr. Willian with

excessive politeness, after having caught breath. "Don't be bashful,

I beg! It is a pity there are only seven of you, with your mother

making eight. Possibly by putting a mortgage on the house, I may be

able to gratify your wishes. Speak up--do!"

Ever so slight a cloud settled upon the gentleman's audience as he

glanced over them, bowing suavely, and rubbing his hands with an

appearance of great cordiality.

"Papa!" came in a little voice out of the shadow. Every one had

forgotten Josephine.

A real smile melted the waxen mask of a smile on Mr. Willian's face.

"Poor Josie!" he said.

She came out of her corner and stood by his side. "Papa, have you got

the block insured?" she asked.

Her father colored suddenly as he put his arm about the child and

drew her closer to him. "Here girls," he said, "is one who thinks

of the means as well as the end. She never will ruin any one by her

extravagance."

"But have you, papa?" she persisted.

"This house is all right, dear; and I'm going to insure the store

to-morrow."

He spoke carelessly, but there was a slight stir of uneasiness

perceptible beneath.

His wife looked at him with surprise. "Why, father, how happened you

to let it run out?"

"I was so busy to-day I forgot all about it," he said almost

pettishly. "The policy expired only yesterday. I'll see to it the

first thing in the morning. Go and sing something, girls."

All but Josie gathered about the piano, and sang one of William

Blake's songs:

"Can I see another's woe,

And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another's grief,

And not seek for kind relief?

"Can I see a falling tear,

And not feel my sorrow's share?

Can a father see his child

Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

"Can a mother sit and hear

An infant groan, an infant fear?

No, no! never can it be;

Never, never can it be!

"And can He, who smiles on all,

Hear the wren with sorrows small,

Hear the small bird's grief and care,

Hear the woes that infants bear,

"And not sit beside the nest

Pouring pity in their breast?

And not sit the cradle near,

Weeping tear on infant's tear?

"And not sit both night and day,

Wiping all our tears away?

Oh! no; never can it be;

Never, never can it be!

"He doth give his joy to all;

He becomes an infant small,

He becomes a man of woe,

He doth feel the sorrow too."

In the midst of the last soft strain Eva's hands paused on the keys,

her sisters ceased singing, and her father and mother lifted their

faces to listen; for a loud gamut of bells outside had run up the

first stroke of the fire-alarm. At the last stroke, Mr. Willian

started up and went into the entry for his hat. Not a word was said

as he went out; but the girls gathered about their mother, and stood

with the breath just hovering on their lips, counting the alarm over

and over, hoping against hope. But, no; they had counted rightly at

first. The loud clear strokes through that silence left no room for

doubt.

The girls drew nearer their mother, their faces losing color.

"I can't bear the suspense, Eva," she said. "Get our bonnets, and we

will go down-town. Don't cry, Josie! You children all stay here and

say the rosary while we are gone. We will soon be back, and perhaps

we shall bring good news."

Florence took her beads from her pocket, put her arm around the

weeping Josie, and drew her down to her knees before their mother's

chair. Mrs. Willian glanced back as the others knelt too, then shut

the door, breathing a blessing on them. "If it should be God's will

to spare us now," she said, "I shall be the happiest mother in the

world."

It was not God's will to spare them, she soon found. As they turned

the last corner and came in sight of Mr. Willian's building, they

saw it the centre of a vast crowd, firemen, volunteer workers, and

lookers-on. There was no appearance of fire in the lower stories, but

smoke was gushing through all the interstices of the upper windows.

Mrs. Willian wrung her hands and turned away. "There go the savings

and toil of a lifetime!" she said.

It was impossible for the firemen to work well at that height,

and the flames were creeping to the air. In a few minutes the

smoke reddened, a little tongue of flame crept through a crevice,

broadened, and the fire burst forth. No effort could stay it.

Leisurely descending from floor to floor, it carried all before it.

A thread of smoke in a corner of the ceiling, a tiny flame, and soon

the whole room would be an intolerable brightness with masses of

falling flaming timbers.

At midnight the family were all at home again; Mr. Willian lying

half-senseless upon a sofa, his wife and children ministering to him.

In his frantic efforts to save something from the burning building,

one of his arms had been broken by the falling bricks.

Those were sorrowful days that followed, verifying the proverb

that it never rains but it pours. Josephine was taken ill the week

after the fire; but she was sure to be well soon, they said. She

was not very ill. There was a little cough, a little fever, and a

great weakness. The girls thought not much of it. They were too much

engaged, indeed, attending to their father, and doing an immense deal

of mysterious outside business.

"If Eva were only a boy!" sighed the father weakly. "A boy of twenty

could earn a good salary."

"Father," Eva began very decidedly, "a girl of twenty can earn a

good salary. Let me tell you what your good-for-nothing daughters

are going to do. We haven't been idle the fortnight past. I am to

take immediate charge of a class in the N---- school, with a salary

of five hundred dollars to begin with, and a yearly advance. I shall

stay at home, by your leave, and nearly all my money will go toward

the housekeeping expenses. Besides that, I have a music class of

four. So much for me. I doubt if that wonderful son would spare you

more out of his earnings. Florence is to take a few more lessons in

Indian-ink from Mr. Rudolf, and he says that in four or five weeks

she will be able to earn ten dollars a week, painting photographs.

Frances has got tatten and crochet-work to do for Blake Brothers, and

they promise to pay her well. She does such work beautifully. Anne is

to cut out paper bordering for Mr. Sales, who is building blocks upon

blocks of houses. He says that he will keep her busy three months.

Georgiana is to help mother about the house, and Dinah is going

away. So now, father, you can lie on your sofa and rest, and your

troublesome daughters will not let you starve."

Miss Eva ended with her cheeks very red, and her head very high in

the air. But her pride softened immediately when she saw her father's

quivering lips, that vainly attempted to speak.

"It is our turn now, dear papa," she said, kissing him; "and we are

quite proud and eager to begin. You have cast your bread upon the

waters in former times; now you must lie still and see it float back

to you."

"What can I do?" asked a weak little voice from the arm-chair where

Josie reclined.

"You can see which will get well the most quickly, you or papa," Mrs.

Willian said, bending with tearful eyes to caress the child. In this

careful little one she saw embodied all the unconfessed sadness and

anxiety of the one despondent period of her life. Poor Josie was the

scape-goat on whose frail shoulders had been laid her mother's doubts

and fears, and her father's selfish complaining.

Success almost always attends brave and cheerful effort, and the

Willian girls succeeded. Besides, they were heroines in their way,

and every one was sympathizing and helpful to them. But for their

father's depression, they would have been happier than ever before.

At last they were of use, and not only of use, but necessary. They

were no longer a burden tenderly but complainingly borne, but they

bore the family cares and labors on their own young shoulders.

What wonderful consultations they held, what plans they laid, what

economies they practised! What latent administrative powers were

developed at the hour of need, and what superlative managers they

proved themselves to be! How elastic a little money could be made

when smoothed out by such coaxing taper fingers, and shone upon by

such bright and careful eyes! Besides, they could not see but that

they lived as well as ever. Their breakfasts and dinners and suppers

were as good, and their home was the same.

"Half the pleasure of wealth is in the consciousness of possessing

it," said Florence philosophically. "Was it John Jacob Astor who said

that all he had from his riches was food and lodging? Well, we have

that. Of course it is a pity that papa's arm is still bad, though it

gives him time to develop his capacity for novels. What! ascetical

works are they? Yes; but I have seen novels too, papa. And here's a

new one for you. Take it easy. Just lie there and make believe that

you have become so rich that you have retired from business. Oh! what

blocks of houses you have. What ships, what lands, what bank-stock!

Isn't it weary to think what heaps of money you have to spend and

give away. Don't let's think about it!"

"I came past the ruins of the fire to-day, papa," Eva said, seating

herself by his sofa, and looking at him with her calm, sweet eyes.

"At first I was so foolish as to shrink and turn my head away, but

the next moment I looked. And I thought, papa, that may be what has

seemed to us a calamity may turn out a great blessing. We had built a

good many hopes into that brick and mortar, and instead of the fire

destroying, perhaps it has only purified them." Seeing that tears

came into his eyes, she added hastily, "Fanny was with me, and, of

course, took a grotesque view of the affair. She said that row of

tall buildings, with ours gone, looked like somebody who had lost a

front tooth."

Mr. Willian smiled faintly, but could answer nothing to their

cheerful talk. Even while it comforted him, it made him feel bitterly

ashamed of himself. Besides, he was very anxious about Josie.

It came upon them like a thunderbolt: Josie was dying! They could

scarcely believe the doctor, or the evidence of their own senses.

They hoped against hope. There was no definable disease; but the

child was dying merely because, instead of having had a healthy,

careless childhood, and time to learn gradually that life is not all

joy and sunshine, her infant eyes had looked too early upon the cross

of pain, and she had seen the shadow and felt the weight of it before

she could understand its consolation.

"That'll make one less, papa," she said faintly, looking up with

faded eyes as he bent over her.

"One less what, my dear?"

"One less girl to support," says Josie.

The father's face sank to the pillow. Oh! what a bitter punishment

for his selfish complainings, when his own child, in dying out of

his arms, thought only that she was ridding him of a burden! He

could scarcely find words in which to sob out his love, his regrets,

his entreaties that her tender spirit might be spared at least long

enough to witness his expiation. But even while he prayed it escaped

him. He clasped only a frail waxen form that answered no kiss,

uttered no more any childish, plaintive word.

"God forgive me!" he said. "Now I know what real loss is; and I

deserve it."

How they missed the careful, pathetic little face! How often they

became suddenly speechless when, in laying their plans--they found

that they had unconsciously included Josie! But they worked on

bravely in spite of pain--worked the better for it, indeed. And when

in after-years, all happy and prosperous and with homes of their own,

they talked over the past, and Mr. Willian told of the wonderful time

when his daughters had made caryatides of themselves to support the

edifice of his fallen fortunes, Josie was gratefully mentioned as the

noblest helper there. "For it was by her means that the cornerstone

of our new home was laid in heaven," he said.

RELIGION IN EDUCATION.

In every century there has arisen some question which, by reason of

its intrinsic importance, or immediate influence on society, may

be called the problem of the age. Our century, though differing

in so many respects from all the others, is not, however, an

exception to this seeming law of history. Not a few long-standing

grievances have been righted, knotty political intricacies severed,

and brilliant scientific triumphs achieved; yet important as was

the emancipation of 1829 or the disestablishment of 1869, the

laying of the transmarine cable, or the cutting of Suez, we believe

with the _Dublin Review_ that the great problem of our age is the

adjustment of the oft-debated educational question. Much has been

said, many editorials have been written, and pamphlets published

on this subject. It has afforded a noble theme for such orators as

Lacordaire, Montalembert, and Archbishop Hughes; and a trying task

for the skill and practical wisdom of such eminent statesmen as

Thiers, Lord Derby, and Gladstone. We know no better proof of the

vital importance of education, than the active part thus taken in its

discussion by men of every religious persuasion and political shade.

In fact, few questions affect so directly the welfare and interests

of the people; and assuredly in this country there is none of more

moment as regards the well-being and permanence of our national

institutions.

Two centuries ago, Leibnitz declared the proper training of youth

to be "the foundation of human happiness;" in the last century,

Washington called it the "pillar" of society; and in our own, Bishop

Dupanloup assures us that it and it alone "forms the greatness

of a nation, maintains its splendor, and prevents decay." But it

may be argued that intellectual discipline without the coöperation

of any religious element will produce these great and inestimable

results. This we deny. Did polite literature, for instance, save

the most refined nation of antiquity? Listen to the masters of the

lyre bewailing the degradation of their countrymen, and sighing for

a purer and loftier virtue than any their religion could inspire.

Did the plastic arts? Phidias and Apelles will return the melancholy

answer. The eloquence of the orator? The noblest appeals of duty,

the most patriotic harangue or spirit-stirring philippic palled

alike upon a degenerate race. The wisdom of the legislator? All

the sagacity of Solon and Lycurgus could but retard the downfall

of the country. In fine, did philosophy? Its schools were often

sinks of immorality, and vice. A few great minds, indeed, rose

above the absurd creations of mythology, and taught the precepts

of natural morality; but, like the dragon-fly of the tropics, they

flitted across the night of paganism, lights to themselves and mere

ornaments of the surrounding darkness. No wonder that the Grecian

states declined, that their last day soon "quivered on the dial of

their doom," and that they went down into a night which never knew a

morrow. The Romans once added to the speculative wisdom of the Greeks

an almost heroic practice of all the natural virtues. Yet they, too,

were swept by a torrent of vice into the common tomb of nations; and

only a few broken columns remain to-day to tell the traveller what

was once the seat of a world-wide empire.

Separate religion, then, from education, as Mr. John Stuart Mill

would fain do; banish it entirely from the class-room, and you

will have taken the most effective means of insuring proximate

dissoluteness and ultimate ruin. Even the author of _Lothair_

recognizes that "without religion the world must soon become a scene

of universal desolation." If, when children are asked how they are

occupied in school, they cannot say with the Joas of Racine,

"J'adore le Seigneur, on m'explique sa loi,"

sooner or later, we may have to say with Abner,

"Juda est sans force, Benjamin sans vertu."

Intellectual culture, therefore, even in its highest perfection,

can gain at best but an ephemeral triumph. It cannot perpetuate the

civilization to which a people in the meridian of their greatness may

attain; and it certainly has never raised a fallen empire, nor poured

a quickening stream through the veins of a superannuated nation. This

inefficiency can be accounted for only by the absence of that pure

and sublime faith which commanded the respect of the hordes that

poured from the north, to batter down the last remains of a gigantic

fabric, as well as of that sublime moral code which tamed these rude

nomads and raised them from a savage state to the loftiest heights of

Christian civilization.

The term education is from the Latin _e_ and _duco_, meaning

literally to lead or draw out. Some writers have attempted to define

it "the drawing out or development of the mental faculties." This

may be a "scientific" view of head-culture; but as a definition of

education, it is defective and very unphilosophical. Defective,

because it embraces only a part; unphilosophical, because it

substitutes the secondary for the essential. We maintain that

instruction is but a branch of education, to which religion is as

the parent stem. If we consult the masters of thought, and those

who shape the destinies of nations, we shall be surprised to find

how unanimously they hold moral training paramount to intellectual

culture, and how strongly they insist on making the latter always

subservient to the former. The better to substantiate our assertion

against the cavillings of sceptics, we will give a few quotations,

selecting only from Protestant authors. The end of education,

according to Milton, "is to fit man to perform justly, skilfully,

and magnanimously all the offices both public and private of peace

and war." "The hard and valuable part of education," says Locke, "is

virtue; this is the solid and substantial good which the teacher

should never cease to inculcate till the young man places his

strength, his glory, and his pleasure in it." "The educating of a

young man," writes Lord Kames, "to behave well in society is of

still greater importance than making him a Solomon in knowledge;"

and "We shall never know," says Sir Walter Scott, "our real calling

or destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing

else as moon-shine compared with the education of the heart." And

Lord Derby: "Religion is not a thing apart from education, but is

interwoven with its whole system; it is a principle which controls

and regulates the whole mind and happiness of the people." And

Guizot: "Popular education, to be truly good and socially useful,

must be fundamentally religious."

Thus, then, the essential element of education--its pith and

marrow, so to speak--is the religious element. To exclude it from

the school-room is, therefore, a crying injustice to the rising

generation and a crime against society.

It is not one portion of the "triple man," but the whole--the

physical, intellectual, and moral being--the body, the mind, the

head--that must be cultivated and "brought up." Neglect any one part

of man's nature, and you at once disturb the equilibrium of the

whole, and produce disorder; educate the body at the expense of the

mind and soul, and you will have only animated clay; educate the

intelligence at the expense of the moral and religious feelings, and

you but fearfully increase a man's power to effect evil. You store

the arsenal of his mind with weapons to sap alike the altar and

the throne, to carry on a war of extermination against every holy

principle, against the welfare and the very existence of society.

Catiline, the polished patrician, was more dreaded by the Roman

senate than the steel of his hired assassins. The French revolution,

the most violent outbreak that ever convulsed society, was ushered

in by a blaze of genius; but, like the high intelligence of the

"archangel ruined," it brought desolation and death in its fiery

track. Science without religion is more destructive than the sword in

the hands of unprincipled men. "Talent if divorced from rectitude,"

says Channing, "will prove more of a demon than a god." It is these

enlightened infidels that arrest the progress of true civilization

and prepare those terrible catastrophes which deluge a country with

blood. Who were the leaders in the work of destruction and wholesale

butchery in the Reign of Terror? The nurslings of lyceums in which

the chaotic principles of the "philosophers" were proclaimed as

oracles of truth. Who are those turbulent revolutionists who now long

to erect the guillotine by the Tuileries? And who are those secret

conspirators and their myrmidon partisans who have sworn to unify

Italy or lay it in ruins? Men who were taught to scout the idea of a

God and rail at religion; to consider Christianity as a thing of the

past and a legion of "isms" as the regenerators of the future; men

who revel in wild chimeras by night, and seek to realize their mad

dreams by day.

The frightful excesses to which irreligion directly leads so struck

one of the most frantic revolutionists of 1793 that, yet dripping

with blood, he mounted to the pediment of a temple and with a pencil

wrote this memorable inscription, "The French nation recognizes the

existence of a Supreme Being;" and a few hours before ascending the

scaffold to suffer the just penalty of his enormities, he cried out

to his countrymen, "The republic can only be established on the

eternal bases of morality." Terrible confession wrung from a regicide

in the most impious moment of history!

Robespierre proclaimed the truth. The only safety for a commonwealth,

the only source of greatness and prosperity for a nation, as well as

of tranquillity and happiness for the individual, is religion. When

men reject its heavenly guidance, duty becomes as void of meaning to

them as "honor" was to a well-known Shakespearean character, the most

sacred obligations dwindle down into mere optional practices, and the

moral code itself soon becomes little more than the bugbear of the

weak-minded. "The safeguard of morality," says De Tocqueville, "is

religion;" and he concludes a chapter of his _American Republic_ with

the following pertinent remark: "Religion is the companion of liberty

in all its battles and triumphs; the cradle of its infancy, and the

divine source of its claims; it is the safeguard of morality, and

morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of

freedom."

The philosophers of the eighteenth century, by their monstrous errors

and shameless depravity, have shown but too clearly that science

without religion

"Leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind."

These vaunted _esprits forts_ had entered the realms of learning

and returned as conquerors laden with treasures; but instead of

consecrating the spoil to the service of the true, the good, and

the beautiful, they paid it as a votive tribute to the evil genius

of license and disorder. The world then saw these very men to whom

princes had offered the incense of adulation enthrone an impure

goddess on the altar of the Most High, and fall prostrate before a

public harlot.

If further proof were needed of the immoral tendency of science

separated from religion, we could silently point to the nameless

abominations of the Communists, Fourierists, and other such vile and

degraded fraternities; we could dwell on the cold-blooded murders and

frightful suicides that fill so many domestic hearths with grief and

shame; the scarcely concealed corruption of public and professional

men; the adroit peculation and wilful embezzlement of the public

money; those monopolizing speculations and voluntary insolvencies so

ruinous to the community at large; and, above all, those shocking

atrocities so common in unbelieving countries--the legal dissolution

of the matrimonial tie and the wanton tampering with life in its very

bud. These humiliating facts are sufficient to convince any impartial

mind that there can be no social virtue, no morality, no true and

lasting greatness without religion.

Here we meet the question, When should these salutary doctrines

be inculcated? As well might it be asked when the builder should

lay the foundation of his edifice, or the farmer sow his field. If

religious principles be not laid broad and deep in childhood, there

is great danger that the superstructure will topple and fall. Youth

has been called the seed-time of life; and experience as well as

reason proves the same law to hold good in mental as in material

husbandry; "What you sow that you shall reap." Men do not seek grapes

from thorns, nor figs from thistles. Yet, by a strange inconsistency,

some would expect virtuous youths from godless schools. But the order

of nature cannot be reversed. Like generates like.

In childhood the mind is simple and docile; the soul, pure and

candid; and the heart may easily be cast into any mould. It is of the

highest importance for parents and educators to bear in mind that

the first impressions are the last forgotten. The pious child may in

after-life, in an evil hour, be led astray by the force of passion or

bad example, but at least, when the fires of youth have cooled with

advancing age, there is great probability that he will return again

to virtue and piety. With great truth the poet has said,

"Take care in youth to form the heart and mind,

For as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

One of the greatest thinkers of our age, thoroughly convinced of

the paramount importance of early moral training, would have the

air of the school-room, as it were, impregnated with religion.

"It is necessary," says Guizot, "that natural education should be

given and received in the midst of a religious atmosphere, and that

religious impressions and religious observances should penetrate

all its parts." It would, indeed, be well if those who advocate the

exclusion of religion from our schools would read and maturely weigh

these words of the illustrious Protestant statesman and historian. A

little further on occurs the following remarkable passage: "Religion

is not a study or an exercise, to be restricted to a certain place

and a certain hour; it is a faith and a law which ought to be felt

everywhere, and which in this manner alone can exercise all its

beneficent influence upon our minds and lives." In the same spirit

Disraeli says, "Religion should be the rule of life, not a casual

incidence." It is then absurd to devote six days of the week to

the teaching of human learning, and trust to a hurried hour in the

Sunday-school for the imparting of religious knowledge. By such a

system, we may make expert shop-boys, first-rate accountants, shrewd

and thriving "earth-worms," as Bishop Berkeley says; but it would

be presumption to think of thus making good citizens, still less

virtuous Christians.

To-day more than ever we need a thorough religious education. The

enemies of Christianity are now making war upon its dogmas more

generally and craftily than at any former period. Their attacks, for

being wily and concealed, are all the more pernicious. The impious

rage of a Voltaire, or the "solemn sneer" of a Gibbon, would be less

dangerous than this insidious warfare. They disguise their designs

under the appearance of devotion to progressive ideas, hatred of

superstition and intolerance, all the better to instil the slow

but deadly poison. By honeyed words, a studied candor, a dazzle of

erudition, they have spread their "gossamer nets of seduction" over

the world. The press teems with books and journals in which doctrines

subversive of religion and morality are so elegantly set forth that

the unguarded reader, like Roger in Ariosto, is very apt to be

deceived by the fascination of false charms, and to mistake a most

hideous and dangerous object for the very type of beauty. The serpent

stealthily glides under the silken verdure of a polished style.

Nothing is omitted. The passions are fed and the morbid sensibilities

pandered to; firmness in the cause of truth or virtue is called

obstinacy; and strength of soul, a refractory blindness. The bases

of morality are sapped in the name of liberty; the discipline of the

church, when not branded as sheer "mummery," is held up as hostile

to personal freedom; and her dogmas with one or two exceptions are

treated as opinions which may be received or rejected with like

indifference.

Nor is this irreligious tendency confined to literary publications;

it finds numerous and powerful advocates in men of scientific

pursuits, who, like Belial in Milton, "strive to make the worse

appear the better cause." The chemist has never found in his crucible

that intangible something which men call spirit; so, in the name of

science, he pronounces it a myth. The anatomist has dissected the

human frame; but failing to meet the immaterial substance--the soul,

he denies its existence. The physicist has weighed the conflicting

theories of his predecessors in the scales of criticism; and finally

decides that bodies are nothing more than the accidental assemblage

of atoms, and rejects the very idea of a Creator. The geologist,

after investigating the secrets of the earth, triumphantly tells us

that he has accumulated an overwhelming mass of facts to refute the

biblical cosmogony and thus subvert the authority of the inspired

record. The astronomer flatters himself that he has discovered

natural and necessary laws which do away with the necessity of

admitting that a divine hand once launched the heavenly bodies

into space and still guides them in their courses; the ethnographer

has studied the peculiarities of the races, he has met with

widely-different conformations, and believes himself sufficiently

authorized to deny the unity of the human family; in a word, they

conclude that nothing exists but matter, that God is a myth, and the

soul "the dream of a dream."

Thus do men attack these sacred truths which, in the words of Balmes,

"cannot be shaken without greatly injuring and finally destroying

the social edifice." What, then, must be done to save society from

the perils that menace it--to stem the tide that bids fair to sweep

away eventually even civilization itself? What is the remedy for

the profligacy that disgraces some of our crowded centres, and the

demoralization that is fast gangrening our rural districts? There is

_one_, and we believe there is _but_ one. Let the rising generation

be "brought up" in a "religious atmosphere." If we Christianize our

youth, we may be sure of having a virtuous and a virile people; for

it is an ethical truth, that "the morals are but the outward forms

of the inner life."

The Father of our country, then, was right, when he said, in his

farewell address to the American nation, that religion and morality

are the "props" of society and the "pillars" of the state. History

tells in its every page that the decline and downfall of nations have

ever been caused by immorality and irreligion.

Our national institutions, our prosperity and civilization depend

for their permanence and perpetuity not so much on the culture of

the arts, sciences, literature, or philosophy, as on the general

diffusion of the salutary and vivifying principles of religion.

Let us then infuse good morals by the most powerful of all means,

Christian education; let doctrine be taught simultaneously with

science; let the class-room be impregnated with the sweet and

life-giving aroma of Christianity, and we shall soon check the

torrent of infidelity, avert impending evils, and prepare the golden

age of our republic.

TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE MILITAIRE FRANCAISE.

THE JOURNAL OF THE CAMPAIGN OF CLAUDE BLANCHARD,

COMMISSARY-GENERAL TO THE AUXILIARY TROOPS SENT TO AMERICA UNDER THE

COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THE COUNT DE ROCHAMBEAU. 1780-1783.

"I spent three years, in the capacity of commissary-general, with the

body of troops which General Rochambeau brought to the assistance of

the Americans. During the entire war, I wrote down every day, dating

from our departure from Brest, both the events I witnessed, and those

that were personal. This journal is not in very good order, and now

that I have leisure, (Messidor, second year of the Republic,) I

intend to copy it out clearly, without making any important change in

either the style or the matter. I wrote, however, merely for my own

amusement, and for an occupation in idle moments."

Thus begins a manuscript, hitherto unpublished and entirely

unknown, which appears worthy of being noticed and rescued from

oblivion. The author of this journal, Commissary Blanchard, became

later commissary-general, but was deprived of this position by

the government of the Reign of Terror, whose persecutions at the

time--the eve of the fall of Robespierre--ending generally in a

sentence of death, he hid himself in Paris. Such is the leisure he

speaks of in the passage cited above; leisure very short, however,

and which he occupied in the manner indicated, by reviewing his

notes of past times and collecting his personal reminiscences of the

American expedition so dear to all who had taken part in it. Soon

afterward he was restored to active service, and thought no more,

in a career occupied with the wars of the period, of the manuscript

which he had not intended for publicity, and which, after his death

in 1803, remained forgotten among family papers, as so many other

documents have which are still unknown. Compared with the works

published on the same events which he writes of, this journal, now

ninety years old, certainly has its own value and special interest.

It is apparent from the first lines of the manuscript, quoted at the

beginning of this article, that M. Blanchard wrote without special

thought--merely for his own satisfaction, and prompted by the

natural desire to note down whatever he saw, without any intention

of composing a history or a book of memoirs. This is an excellent

disposition for sincerity, and our epoch loves and prefers to all

others these unstudied writings, when they refer, as they do in this

case, to interesting periods of the past.

The author of this journal was forty years of age at the time of

the American war. Though now completely forgotten, he attracted

considerable attention in his day, and he figures in the "Biographies

Universelles" of the beginning of the century. Born at Angers, on

the 16th of May, 1742, and sprung from a distinguished family of

that city, he appears, for the first time in 1762 in the war bureau,

under the orders of one of his relations, M. Dubois, "Chief of the

War Bureau and General Secretary of the Swiss and Grisons."[290]

He was appointed commissary in 1768, and served in this capacity

throughout the Corsican campaign, remaining on the island ten years.

As commissary-general, in 1780 he accompanied General Rochambeau to

America. In 1788, he was commissary at Arras, where the following

year he was put in command of the national guard of the city; and

soon afterward became, with Carnot, then unknown, its representative

in the legislative assembly. Here M. Blanchard played a modest but

active and useful part, and he, with Lacuée and Matthieu Dumas,

formed the standing committee on military questions. Removed by

the Committee of Public Safety, he afterward held the position of

commissary-general successively to the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, to

that of the interior, to the army of Holland, and finally to the

Hotel des Invalides, where he died, leaving the reputation of an

officer "remarkable for his talents and virtues."[291]

The First Consul, on hearing of his death, expressed deep regret,

according to the testimony of General Lacuée. Blanchard, although

at the time but sixty years of age, was the oldest among the

commissaries of the army.[292]

The journal of M. Blanchard will give a more correct idea of the

character of the man, of his upright and honest nature, and of his

strong and good sense. A few words are necessary, however, on the

events of which we have to speak, and of the writers who have related

them at first hand.

The violent struggle of the English colonies against the mother

country began in 1775; Declaration of the Independence of the United

States--the hundredth anniversary of which is near at hand--was made

on the 4th of July, 1776. Soon afterward, when the Americans were

hard pressed, France came to their aid, and the war with England

opened with the fight at Ouessant on the 17th of June, 1778. It was

at first a naval war which spread over the whole ocean. Subsequently,

when the American cause was in a most critical condition, France,

at the request of Congress, sent pecuniary assistance, and also a

body of troops, who were placed under the chief command of General

Washington.

This war, in which we acquired glory at sea, and which raised up our

navy--this reappearance of the white flag in the new world, from

which the seven years' war had excluded it[293]--the part taken by

France in establishing the independence of the United States, and

in founding a nation destined for so grand a future--are events

of far more than ordinary importance, and which possess the same

interest to-day as when they transpired. Nevertheless their details

are, as a general thing, but imperfectly known; and particularly

the campaign of the corps sent to America, which brought into

close contact the soldiers of old France and the militia of the

young republic, is in the larger histories usually summed up in a

few lines.[294] This doubtless arises from the fact that no work

of importance has treated this subject in a special manner. It is

true that the little army commanded by General Rochambeau had few

opportunities of distinguishing itself. But, although its active

services were confined to a few important marches, and to the taking

of York town, which was forced to surrender, together with a division

of the English army, it gave the Americans no inconsiderable moral

support, as well as effective assistance which was most opportune.

The revolution which followed soon after, and the twenty-five years

of war rendered glorious by so many famous campaigns, effaced the

remembrance of the naval combat of Chesapeake Bay and the taking

of Yorktown, and turned attention from military operations which

are insignificant, if we consider the number of troops engaged, but

important, if we look to the result. In fact, these battles between

a few thousand men, decided the fate of one of the most powerful of

modern nations as well as the future balance of the world.

It is not, however, because documents on the American campaign

are wanting; on the contrary, they are numerous and interesting;

our archives should possess intact the official reports; while

individual reminiscences contained in a number of books published at

different times, are valuable sources of information from which as

yet nothing has been drawn. Four distinguished officers engaged in

this expedition among the French (not to mention American or English

writers) have found pleasure in recalling the memory and narrating

the incidents of what they considered the noblest or the dearest

portion of their career; the _Mémoires du Maréchal de Rochambeau_,

(1809,) the first source of information, give with clearness

and precision, but without embellishment, a detailed account of

the campaign which above all else has served to render his name

illustrious. Next comes the _Correspondance et Manuscrits du Général

La Fayette_, (1837,) although La Fayette took part in the war of

independence as a volunteer and an American general, independent of

the action of the royal forces. The _Souvenirs du Comte de Ségur_,

(1835,) and those of _Comte Matthieu Dumas_, (1839,) young and

brilliant aides-de-camp to General Rochambeau, also furnish some

particulars about this campaign worthy of note. We must not forget

the _Mémoires du Duc de Lauzun_, (1822,) colonel of a regiment in the

expeditionary corps, and the _Voyages dans l'Amérique Septentrionale

de M. le Marquis de Chastellux_, (1786,) major-general; this work,

though full of description and of anecdote, is of only moderate

ability; but the name of its author, a member of the Academy and a

friend of Voltaire, gave it a certain degree of success at the time

of its appearance, owing to curiosity and to circumstances.

After these works, which possess each a peculiar interest, and

without pretending to the importance which they derive from the names

of their distinguished authors, the journal of Commissary Blanchard

(who is mentioned in all of them) deserves certainly an honorable

place. It is remarkable for great exactness, variety of information,

and a genial and pleasant tone. Moreover, as it is devoted solely to

the American expedition, it is naturally more diffuse on this special

subject than books which treat of an entire life.

We shall now let the journal speak for itself:

"Lieutenant-General the Count de Rochambeau, having been

appointed to the command of the corps which was under orders

to embark, although their destination was not yet positively

known, engaged me to serve with these troops, in my capacity of

commissary.

"I accordingly repaired to Brest on the 20th of March, 1780. M.

de Tarlé, commissary of provisions, who performed the duties

of purveyor to the troops, did not arrive for eight or ten

days after; he brought me a commission as commissary-in-chief.

Finding myself alone at Brest, I assisted both the land and

naval commanders to ship all the supplies and whatever would

be necessary for the troops after they had landed. As the

navy had not been able to furnish a sufficient number of

transports, they were obliged to leave in France the regiments

of Neustrie and Anhalt, which were to have accompanied the

expedition as well as two or three hundred men of the legion of

Lauzun. Those who embarked numbered five thousand, consisting

of the regiments of Bourbonnais, Soissonnais, Saintonge,

Royal-deux-Ponts, about five hundred artillery-men, and six

hundred of the legion of Lauzun, of whom three hundred were

to form a body of cavalry. These troops, their baggage, the

artillery, and other things necessary to an army, were put on

board twenty-five to thirty transports or store-ships; they

were accompanied by seven vessels of war and seven frigates.

La Fantasque, an old vessel, was armed as a store-ship and

intended for a hospital; they put on board of her the money,

the heavy artillery, and a considerable number of passengers.

"All the general officers slept on board the 14th of April; I

was there also, and embarked on the Conquérant, commanded by La

Grandière.

"The following are the names of the principal persons who

composed our army:

"Count de Rochambeau, lieutenant-general, commander-in-chief.

"The Baron de Vioménil, the Count de Vioménil, the Chevalier de

Chastellux, field-marshals, (the last mentioned performs the

duties of a major-general.)

"De Béville, brigadier-general and quartermaster, (de Choisy,

brigadier, did not arrive till the 30th of September.)

"De Tarlé, general commissary, acting as purveyor.

"Blanchard, commissary-general.

"De Corny, de Villemanzy, chief of ordnance.

"Gau, commissary of artillery.

"D'Aboville, commander-in-chief of artillery.

"Désandrouins, commander of the engineers.

"Daure, purveyor of provisions.

"Demars, purveyor of the hospitals.

"There were yet many other purveyors, for forage, meat, etc.;

in general there were too many employed, particularly as

purveyors-in-chief; all this was according to the taste of M.

de Veymérangers, in whose hands had been left the organization

of the commissary department of our army; a man skilful in

business matters, but given to expense and extravagance, and

who needed looking after.

"M. de Ménonville and the Chevalier de Tarlé, brother of the

commissary, were general staff officers; M. de Béville junior,

and M. Collot, were assistant quartermasters.

"M. de Rochambeau had for his aides-de-camp M. de Fersey, de

Damas, Charles Lameth, Closen, Matthieu Dumas, Lamberdiére, de

Vauban, and Cromot-Dubourg.

"M. de Vioménil had also several, among whom were MM. de

Chabannes, de Pange, d'Olonne, etc.

"Those of M. de Chastellux were MM. Montesquieu, grandson of

the president, and Lynch, an Irishman.

"The colonels were:

"Of the regiment of Bourbonnais, the Marquis de Leval and the

Count de Rochambeau, (as second in command,) son of the general

in chief.

"Of the Royal-Deux-Ponts, MM. de Deux-Ponts, brothers.

"Of the Saintonge, MM. de Custine and the Viscount de Charlus,

son of M. de Castries.

"Of the Soissonnais; MM. de Sainte-Mesme and the Viscount de

Noailles.

"Of the legion of Lauzun, the Duke de Lauzun and M. de

Dillon."[295]

I have copied this page because it shows to some extent the formation

of the staff of an army corps of the last century, and also on

account of the names which it gives. They are those of the very

highest nobility of France, who threw themselves with enthusiasm into

this expedition, which they called the "crusade of the eighteenth

century."

Among the companions in arms of M. Blanchard, whose names often recur

in his journal, many who were then young afterward became celebrated.

Not to speak of two generals already distinguished, Rochambeau and La

Fayette, and the Chevalier, later the Marquis, de Chastellux, known

by his connection with the encyclopedists, and who died in 1788,

the following are worthy of mention: Biron (the Duke de Lauzun) and

Custine, two generals of the republic, who shared the same tragic

fate; the Prince de Broglie, field-marshal in the army of the Rhine,

indicted before the revolutionary tribunal, and executed in 1794;

the Count de Dillon, general in 1792, falsely accused of treason,

put to death by his troops, and to whom the Convention, in gratitude

for his devotion, decreed the honors of the Pantheon; Pichegru, at

that time only an artillery-man; the Viscount de Noailles, who, on

the famous night of the fourth of August, was the first to propose

the abolition of the feudal laws; (his military future promised to

be brilliant when he died in consequence of a wound received in

the expedition to San Domingo.) By the side of these men, whose

careers were cut short by death, we find others whose lives were

long and illustrious. Berthier, then an under-officer, destined to

become marshal of France and minister of war, Prince of Wagram and

Neufchâtel, etc. The Count de Ségur, general, diplomatist, historian,

whose son, equally distinguished and still alive, is the author of

the _Campaign of_ 1812, that touching recital of an eye-witness.

Matthieu Dumas, a general, an able commissary and esteemed military

writer, a peer of France in 1830; Aubert-Dubayet, an inferior officer

in the expeditionary corps, minister of war under the republic.[296]

The Duke de Damas, the faithful companion of the Bourbons during

their exile; Charles de Lameth, equally brilliant in speech and in

action, a member of the assembly, lieutenant-general in 1814, deputy,

and peer of France. The Count de Vauban, aide-de-camp to the Count

d'Artois, who fought in the army of Condé and of Quiberon; the Duke

de Castries, who died in 1842, a peer of France, etc.

On the 9th of July 1780, after a voyage of sixty-nine days, America

was signalled by the French squadron. Nevertheless, the disembarkment

did not take place at Newport, Rhode Island, for some days after.

"On the 12th, the troops had not yet landed; there had even

been an express prohibition against their going ashore; and

I had not permission to do so until four o'clock in the

afternoon. I then landed at Newport. This town is small and

pretty; the streets are straight, and the houses, though for

the most part built of wood, make a good appearance. There was

an illumination in the evening. A citizen invited me to his

house and treated me well. I there took tea, which was served

by the daughter of my host."

The daily business and special occupations of a commissary as well

as the incidents of a campaign life, date from this day for M.

Blanchard. In an army in active service, the position of a commissary

affords him an opportunity, if he is so inclined, to carefully

observe, if not military operations, at least the strange country

to which the war has brought him. After his immediate duties, he

should acquaint himself with its resources, and have relations

with the population, be they friendly or otherwise, of every kind.

Hence arises a great variety of impressions and remarks which we

accordingly find in this journal.

A short time after landing, M. Blanchard was sent to the assembly

in Boston, to ask the immediate assistance of the provincial troops

in case of an attack upon Rhode Island by the English, which they

anticipated. A German dragoon in the American service, with whom

he was obliged to converse in Latin, acted as his guide. Boston,

with its Presbyterian population descended from some of Cromwell's

followers who had emigrated to America, was still the active head of

the revolution. M. Blanchard met there some of the remarkable men

connected with it: Dr. Cooper, John Adams, and Hancock. He describes

the general appearance of the city which reminded him of Angers.

He met among the inhabitants of Boston two who bore the same name

as himself; they were the descendants of refugees driven from this

country by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and who in less

than a century had become completely American.

The expedition to America lasted from July, 1780, to December,

1782, a period of two years and a half, and during that interval it

seems to us that comparatively little was done. Certainly in those

days they did not move so fast as now, and no one appeared to be in

a hurry; it was reserved for our revolution to give a quickening

impulse to the world.