There were great abuses in the use of modern art at the Council of Trent.

Yet the fathers of the council declined altogether to forbid its use.

They tacitly allowed its continuance, as it had come into existence,

and could not be removed without serious evils. And with regard to the

favorable light in which its use was viewed by some of the bishops of

that council, and by some other men of authority who have since spoken in

its commendation, it should be borne in mind that all such commendation

has had annexed to it the condition, _provided that such music be grave

and decent, that the meaning of the divine words be not disguised in it,

and that it possess nothing in common with the theatre_ (Benedict XIV.,

Encyclical Letter). Of which conditions the subsequent history of the use

of modern music in the church is, to say the least, a very inadequate

fulfilment, as the ensuing testimony will show.

Bishop Lindanus, quoted in the same Encyclical Letter on the subject of

church music, says: “I know that I have often been in churches where I

have listened most attentively to learn what it was that was being sung,

without being able to understand one single word.”

Salvator Rosa, the celebrated painter of the XVIIth century, gives the

following account of the church music of his day--the middle of the

century:

“An effeminate and lascivious music is the only thing that people at

all care for. The race of musicians eats up all before it, and princes

do not scruple to lay burdens on their subjects to glut them according

to their desires. The churches are made to serve as nests for these

owls. The Psalms become blasphemies in passing through the mouths of

these wretches; and no scandal can equal that of the Mass and Vespers,

barked, brayed, and roared by such fellows. The air is so filled with

their bellowings that the church resembles Noah’s ark. At one time it

is a _Miserere_ sung to a _chaconne_ (a sort of polka of that day); at

another, some other part of the Office adapted to music in the style of a

farce.” (Quoted in M. Danjou’s _Revue de Musique_, 3d year, page 119.)

Again, Abbot Gerbert, in 1750, complains so deeply of the degradation

of the church music of his day as to say, in the preface to his learned

work _De Musica Sacra_, that the evil had grown to so great a pitch that,

unless God in his mercy applied the remedy, which he had daily besought

him to do, all was over (_actum est_) with the decorum and solemnity of

the Catholic worship.

Yet this result ought really not to be a matter of surprise; for how can

it be expected that the majesty and solemnity of worship should long

survive when its music is left to the control of individual tastes?

Musicians, therefore, when they plead for modern music, must plead for

it as it exists in an ideal form in their own minds; and the advocate

for the use of the Ritual Chant objects to it, not as it might be if

every organist and company of singers were other Davids and the sons of

Asaph, but for being what he hears it to be with his own ears wherever

he goes; for being what he knows it to have been, and still to be, from

the testimony of writers and travellers; and, lastly, from what he

foresees it will be to the end of time. The one has before his mind’s eye

the harmonies of heaven and the choirs of angels, and hopes to attain to

these with the elements of earth. A vision of glory flits before him,

and, forgetting that the earth is peopled by sinners, he thinks it may at

once be grasped. The other remembers the sad reality of what it is; he

thinks of the churches in which he has been present, where he has heard

the sounds of the theatre--the fiddle, the horn, and the kettle-drum;

where he has heard the song of dancing-girls rather than of worshippers,

and choruses rather of idolaters than of men believing in the mysteries

at which they were present.

Ἠΰτε περ κλαγγὴ γεράνων πέλει οὐρανόθι πρὸ,

Αἵτ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν χειμῶνα φύγον καὶ ἀθέσφατον ὄμβρον.

Κλαγγῇ ταίγε πέτονται ἐπ’ ὠκεανοῖο ῥοάων,

Ἀνδράσι Πυγμαίοισι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέρουσαι.

_Iliad_, b. iii.

Or, in the more humble words of an English poet--

“As if all kinds of noise had been

Contracted into one loud din.”

_Hudibras_, canto ii. book ii.

And I would ask, considering the endlessly varying caprices of the human

mind, how any thing else except confusion and disorder is to be expected

from the principle of the supremacy of individual taste; and if music in

the Christian Church is to be regarded as called to fulfil the intention

of a God of order, in what way it is expected that this end will ever be

realized, where the safeguards of a fixed order and system are discarded,

and individual discretion enthroned in their stead?

LAST POINT OF THE COMPARISON.

_Catholicity of the Ecclesiastical Song, or its Companionship

of the Catholic Doctrines over the whole Globe._

This last point of the comparison, though far from the least weighty,

to those who will fairly consider it, may happily be much more shortly

stated. The Prophet Malachi predicted that, from the rising of the sun

to its setting, God’s name should be great among the Gentiles, and a

“pure offering” (_munda oblatio_) should be offered to him; a prediction

fulfilled by the fact of the Christian missionaries having carried the

Holy Sacrifice of the Mass over the globe. If, then, there be a song

which has ever been the faithful companion of this Holy Sacrifice,

wherever it has been conveyed; that has ever been present with it when

solemnly offered; which has survived the passing away of generations;

has undergone no change, but is now what it was of old; is the same to

the priests of one nation which it is to those of another--if such a

song there be, it will hardly be disputed that such is an accredited

and authentic song of the Christian kingdom. Yet such is the Ritual

Chant, which, at least in its well-known parts, has literally overspread

the whole globe. A French traveller in Russia, finding there the

Ecclesiastical Chant, and that the Greek Church had preserved it equally

with the Latin, speaks of it as a part of the “_Dogme Catholique_”--these

church traditions of song seeming to him as great a bondage as the church

traditions of faith. (See a very well written paper in the _Ecclesiastic_

for July, 1846, a magazine conducted by clergy of the Established Church.)

If, then, the advocate for modern music be unable to point to any such

fact as this for his art--if he be compelled to acknowledge that it is

necessarily confined to people either of European origin or education;

that it is no song for the Caffre of Africa, the Tartar of Asia, the

savage of Australia, the Red Indian of North America, the Esquimaux, the

Paraguay Indian--nothing but the luxury of the European; there can be

little room to doubt that, on this last particular also, the Ritual Chant

is the only adequate fulfilment of the divine idea.

DR. DRAPER.

In consequence of the eulogy passed by Prof. Tyndall on Dr. Draper’s

book, which is entitled a _History of the Intellectual Development of

Europe_, we inquired with some curiosity for this work, and have since

examined it. It is evident that Prof. Tyndall himself is largely indebted

to it, as he states; but a more flimsy and superficial attempt to trace

the history of philosophy we have never met with. It seems that this

gentleman, Dr. Draper, is a professor of chemistry and physiology at New

York. His object, as he informs us, in this compilation, was to arrange

the evidence of the intellectual history of Europe on _physiological_

principles. The style is feeble and incorrect, and the analysis of the

Greek philosophy positively ludicrous. As, however, it might be inferred

from Prof. Tyndall’s address that Dr. Draper was, like himself, a

disciple and admirer of Democritus, we will give the American philosopher

the benefit of citing his own appreciation of the atomic theory. After

stating that the theory of chemistry, as it now exists, essentially

includes the views of Democritus (a point on which we bow to his

authority), he proceeds thus, if we may be permitted slightly to abridge

a very clumsy sentence:

“A system thus based on secure mathematical considerations, and taking

as its starting-point a vacuum and atoms--the former actionless and

passionless, which recognizes in compound bodies specific arrangements

of atoms to one another; which can rise to the conception that even a

single atom may constitute a world--such a system may commend itself

to our attention for its results, but surely not to our approval,

when we find it carrying us to the conclusion that the soul is only a

finely-constituted form fitted into a grosser frame; that even to reason

itself there is an impossibility of all certainty; that the final result

of human inquiry is the absolute demonstration that man is incapable of

knowledge; that the world is an illusive phantasm; and that there is no

God.”

Such is the sentence passed upon Democritus and the atomic theory by Dr.

Draper, on whom Prof. Tyndall assures us that he relies implicitly as

an authority in the history of philosophy. Dr. Draper’s account of the

philosophical opinions and writings of Cicero is in the highest degree

inaccurate. But enough; we have done with him, and we advise Prof.

Tyndall to seek a better guide. Suppose, for example, he were to read

the dialogue of Velleius and Cotta in the first book of the _De Natura

Deorum_.[153]--_Edinburgh Review._

DANIEL O’CONNELL.

Man seeks in nature a hidden sympathy with himself. The quickened

beatings of his heart, the restless currents of his mind, make for

themselves a reflex image in the forces of the sea and sky. For ever, the

white crests of the breakers rolling in from the western ocean curl up

and lash themselves against the rocks on the coast of Kerry. For ever, in

the gray dusk, the waves, advancing and retreating, moan out a sad and

hollow sound. In sorrow and in gladness their monotone is the same. Yet

it well might be that the Irish peasant, in the year 1775, gathering kelp

for his patch of land from the shallow coves where the sea broke in over

his naked feet, felt, without thinking too closely about it, that nature,

chill, leaden, and stern, mirrored there his own lot. The sudden gleams

of blue sky through the drifting clouds reflected a buoyant humor that no

sufferings could quite subdue.

George III. had reigned fifteen years. Dull, bigoted, cruel; striving

in a blind way to be honest, but his blood tainted with the stains of

centuries of intolerance, he was now the living type of Protestant

fanaticism. In Europe, the old order of things existed without break

or fissure. In America, the first heavings of the volcano were plainly

felt. The King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland existed in name. The Irish

Parliament sat in College Green to register the degrees of the English

Privy Council. But what a Parliament! Four millions of Catholics without

a representative. The broken Treaty of Limerick might still be spoken of

among the traditions of the Irish peasantry, but its guaranties had sunk

more completely out of the mind of the English and Irish legislatures

than the statutes of Gloucester. The Penal Code was in full legal

effect. Burke had described it a few years before with the calmness of

concentrated passion as “well-digested and well-disposed in all its

parts; a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted

for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the

debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the

perverted ingenuity of man.” Yet even Burke hardly gave credit enough

to the magnificent qualities of the race which was able to survive this

code. It failed in its object. It did not succeed in extirpating them. It

never could degrade them, for they yielded neither to its blandishments

nor its terrors.

But though holding fast the faith with such power as if God’s arm

specially supported them therein for providential ends, English

Protestant domination had broken down and crushed this once proud race

to the very earth, in all material ways. The Israelites sweated not

more hopelessly in the Egyptian sands. In some respects the lot of the

Irish was worse. Their task-masters were an intruding race; they were

aliens in their own land. The face of the country in many places still

bore mute witness to Cromwell’s pathway of blood and fire. Then the

scriptural image had been reversed, and the Irish had been hewn down

like the Canaanites of old. The noonday horrors of Drogheda and Wexford

had left a scar in the national memory which time has not yet effaced.

Murder, lust, and rapine, under the guise of religious fanaticism, had

made this people throw up its hands despairingly to heaven, as if hell

itself had been thrown open, and its demons issued forth to scourge the

land. The XVIIIth century had opened under changed, but it could hardly

be said better auspices. The fury of destruction had ceased, but had been

succeeded by the ingenious devices of legislative hatred and tyranny. The

sword of Cromwell, dripping with the blood of men, women, and children,

had given place to the gibbet of William of Orange. The lawless murderer

was followed by the judicial torturer and jailer. The successors of

William III. trod faithfully in his footsteps. The parliaments of Anne,

of George I., of George II. heaped new fetters on the Irish papist. What

wonder that a lethargy like death settled down upon the native race? The

national idea was almost lost. It wavered and flickered like an expiring

flame, yet was not quite extinguished. In caves and barns, by stealth,

and at uncertain times, the Irish priest poured out a little oil from

his scanty cruse which kept alive in the heart of his countrymen the

memory of his religion and his national history. The “iron fangs” of

the code relaxed a little during the first years of the reign of George

III. Its victim lay stretched supine. More truly even than on a later

occasion the words of Henry Grattan might have been applied to the

condition of the country. Ireland “lay helpless and motionless as if in

the tomb.” But though politically dead, the vitality of the race was

inexhaustible, unconquerable. Population increased. There was little or

no emigration except among the Protestant linen weavers of the north. The

amazing fertility of the soil, spite of legislative drawbacks, made food

plentiful. An English traveller, Arthur Young, in 1776, found the Irish

peasantry quiet, apathetic, content to till their wretched holdings,

at the mercy of their landlords, without complaint so long as they

could keep a shelter over their heads, and had potatoes enough to eat.

Political ambition or aspirations, the hope or even desire of shaking

off their chains and asserting their rights as freemen, did not seem to

exist among them. Thus far the oppression of centuries had done its work.

Some efforts at enfranchisement had been made by the Norman Catholic

aristocracy and the few old families of pure Irish blood who still held

their estates, or portions of them, by sufferance; but the words of Swift

continued true of the mass of the native race--not from want of natural

capacity or manhood--far from it; but from the effect of this grinding

oppression of centuries, and the systematic uprooting of all organization

among them by English policy. They were “altogether as inconsiderable,”

said the author of _Drapier’s Letters_, “as the women and children, …

without leaders, without discipline, … little better than hewers of wood

and drawers of water, and out of all capacity of doing any mischief if

they were ever so well inclined.” Swift went further and declared them

devoid of “natural courage.” But this was the libel of the Protestant

Dean, not the belief of the Irish patriot. The title of the land, with

a few unimportant exceptions, had passed completely out of the native

race. Under the law none could be purchased. Education was forbidden.

Yet such was the ardor of the inherited love of learning which had once

distinguished the island, that Arthur Young found everywhere schools

under the hedges, or, as he himself says, often in the ditches.

The breath of liberty was beginning to stir among the Protestants of

the north, and the Volunteer movement was soon to lead the way to the

short-lived recognition of the legislative independence of Ireland which

terminated with the Union. But among the mass of the Catholic Irish

peasantry no corresponding feeling as to their political rights was

manifested, or was even in any degree possible. Arms were forbidden them.

Terrible as the appellation sounds applied to that chivalrous race which

had won a deserved renown on so many battlefields of Europe, at home

they, were, in all outward respects, helots. The risings which sometimes

took place were seldom or never political. They were solely agrarian.

The infamous tithe-proctor roused a spasmodic, bloody resistance, which

ended with the removal of the special cause exciting it, never extending

to any effective organization against the political slavery under which

they lay torpid. The Whiteboys and Hearts of Steel were not the material,

nor were their aims and programmes the policy, out of which could spring

such a revolution as was contemporaneously taking place in the American

colonies. The mass of the people looked on in hopeless indifference

at the outbreaks of those secret societies, or in some instances

voluntarily combined against their indiscriminate violence. The native

Irish bore their misery alone, without friends or sympathy except from

France; and the interference of this power, by means of some feeble and

unsuccessful landings in Ireland, served only to irritate England and

tighten the chains of her captive. The mighty lever of moral support

which is now wielded by the united voice of her sons in every quarter

of the globe did not exist. In some counties, such as Kerry, where the

native language was chiefly spoken, and the Milesian Irish largely

predominated, the harsh hand of the law was never stretched out but to

seize upon the substance or the life of the people. The memory of liberty

could scarcely be said to exist in the hearts of this ancient race. That

gift which the Greek fable had declared to have remained at the bottom

of Pandora’s box when all else escaped, seemed to have taken wing from

Ireland. Hope had fled.

In that age, under those skies, Daniel O’Connell was born.

One hundred years have passed. Rises now the Genius of the Irish race

in America to celebrate the centennial anniversary of that glorious

birth, to invoke in tones that peal across the waves--the memory of that

illustrious and beloved name. A majestic, youthful presence, daughter of

Erin, robed in white and with a garland of green upon her brow, comes

with her sisters to lay a wreath upon the tomb of the Liberator of his

country. _Non omnis moriar_, wrote the Latin poet:

“I shall not wholly die. Some part,

Nor that a little, shall

Escape the dark Destroyer’s dart

And his grim festival.”

Conquerors and statesmen have repeated his words. But neither the

glories of war nor the triumphs of politics have won for any a surer

immortality than O’Connell’s. His fortunes waning at the close, his

blighted hopes, the broken column of his labors, have only endeared his

memory the more to his countrymen. Time has terminated discussion or

softened its asperity. Nothing is remembered but his love and his labors

for Ireland. From Montreal to New Orleans, from the first shore on which

the Irish exile set his foot, across the continent to the Pacific Coast,

over an expanse of country so vast that the parent isle would form but an

oasis in its central desert--myriad voices repeat his name, proclaiming

in various forms of words, but with one meaning, this eternal truth, that

freedom beaten to the earth will rise again. If in spirit the heroic

figure of the great Tribune could top once more the Hill of Tara, what

a spectacle would spread out before his eye unobscured by its earthly

veil! A mightier multitude would listen to his strong and mellow voice.

The descendants of the men into whose bruised and downcast hearts he

first breathed the hope and the ardor of liberty have built up a greater

Ireland in America. Sharing in the glories and faithful to the traditions

of American freedom--yielding to none in the duties of citizenship--they

have yet carried with them, and handed down to their sons, that love

of the mother country which seems ever to burn with a brighter flame

in man’s heart in enforced or unmerited exile. Irish-American generals

have equalled or eclipsed the fame of those distinguished soldiers whose

exploits in the service of foreign powers are household words in the

military history of the race.

Citizens and soldiers unite to commemorate the birth of the man whose

single arm struck off the fetters that had bound their fathers for nearly

three hundred years.

If we turn to Ireland itself, we shall find the change which has been

accomplished in those one hundred years in some respects more profound

and startling than the corresponding advance in the fortunes of the Irish

in America. The latter has been the regular and graduated result of

causes working in ascertained channels; the former has all the character

of a moral revolution. Ireland has not, it is true, gained that political

independence with which her sons in these United States started. But over

the far longer road before her to reach that goal her stride has been

vast and, if we consider the growth of nations, rapid. To appreciate the

transformation in the character and position of the Irish peasant we must

recall what he was in 1775. Catholic emancipation was a wrench to the

religious and social traditions of the English nation, and at the same

time a dead-lift to the moral status of the Irish, to which no parallel

will be found in history. Repeal failed from causes which we can now

easily discern, but which were hidden from O’Connell by his proximity to

the Union. But no Coercion Bills can conceal the fact that the strength

of Ireland is growing in a ratio greater than her bonds. The tendency

of modern European politics, and, willingly or unwillingly, of English

legislation itself, and the increasing material prosperity of Ireland,

are adverse to them, and continuously wearing them away. Her national

spirit is indomitable. The hour may be distant, but it is inevitable,

when they will fall from around her, and she will step forth in all the

majesty of freedom.

What, then, is the place O’Connell holds in the national development

of his race during those one hundred years? What are the achievements,

greater than all defeats, which demand from his countrymen a recognition

that no centennial celebration of his memory can too honorably offer.

In any view of modern Irish history it is essential to a clear

understanding of its motives that we should distinguish the character

and position of the three great races occupying the island. It is not

enough to divide the people into Saxon and Celt. The native Irish race,

the blended result of the successive ancient colonizations of the island,

remained essentially distinct from the Catholic Norman Irish even after

the Reformation. The intermarriages and adoption of Irish customs, which

had early given to the descendants of Strongbow’s followers the title

“Hibernicis Hiberniores,” had still left them a higher caste. They

retained a not inconsiderable portion of their great estates through all

the civil wars. The Penal Code never fell upon them with the rigor and

leaden weight that paralyzed the native Irish. Their wealth purchased

immunity. Although formally ostracized from political life, their

influence as landowners secured them consideration. The observance of the

duties enjoined by their religion was connived at. In other cases they

were powerful enough to make it respected.

Far different was the case of the Milesian Irish. Their history had

been a series of heroic struggles, ending in what appeared to be

irretrievable disaster. Before the process of consolidation, which was

simultaneously going on all over Europe, and which would have welded

the various septs and kingdoms into one nation, could be completed, the

Norman invasion under Strongbow had introduced a new and more furious

element of strife. The Reformation only changed their masters, but

changed them for the worse. Hitherto they had been serfs. They now became

helots. The glorious deeds of arms of the O’Neals and other chieftains,

which more than once threatened to drive the English into the sea,

delayed but could not finally avert the complete triumph of combined

craft and superior resources. Projects for the extirpation of the native

race were freely mooted. Famine, the sword, and the gallows at one time

seemed almost to promise it. The same price was set on the priest’s and

the wolf’s head. A non-Catholic writer, Lecky, gives this summary of the

Penal Code as it existed when O’Connell was born:

“By this code the Roman Catholics were absolutely excluded from

the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the corporations,

from the bench, and from the bar. They could not vote at

parliamentary elections or at vestries. They could not act

as constables, or sheriffs, or jurymen, or serve in the army

or navy, or become solicitors, or even hold the position of

gamekeeper or watchman. Schools were established to bring up

their children as Protestants; and if they refused to avail

themselves of these, they were deliberately consigned to

hopeless ignorance, being excluded from the university, and

debarred under crushing penalties from acting as schoolmasters,

as ushers, or as private tutors, or from sending their children

abroad to obtain the instruction they were refused at home.

They could not marry Protestants; and if such a marriage

were celebrated, it was annulled by law, and the priest

who officiated might be hung. They could not buy land, or

inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold life

annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any

lease on such terms that the profit of the land exceeded one

third of the rent. If any Catholic leaseholder so increased

his profits that they exceeded this proportion, and did not

immediately make a corresponding increase in his payments,

any Protestant who gave the information could enter into

possession of his farm. If any Catholic had secretly purchased

his old forfeited estate, or any other land, any Protestant

who informed against him might become the proprietor. The

few Catholic landholders who remained were deprived of the

right which all other classes possessed, of bequeathing their

lands as they pleased. If their sons continued Catholic, it

was divided equally between them. If, however, the eldest son

consented to apostatize, the estate was settled upon him, the

father from that hour becoming only a life-tenant, and losing

all power of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of

it. If the wife of a Catholic abandoned the religion of her

husband, she was immediately free from his control, and the

chancellor was empowered to assign her a certain proportion of

her husband’s property. If any child, however young, professed

itself a Protestant, it was at once taken from its father’s

care, and the chancellor could oblige the father to declare

upon oath the value of his property, both real and personal,

and could assign for the present maintenance and future portion

of the converted child such proportion of that property as the

court might decree. No Catholic could be guardian either to

his own children or those of any other person; and therefore

a Catholic who died while his children were minors, had the

bitterness of reflecting upon his deathbed that they must pass

into the care of Protestants. An annuity of from twenty to

forty pounds was provided as a bribe for every priest who would

become a Protestant. To convert a Protestant to Catholicism

was a capital offence. In every walk of life the Catholic was

pursued by persecution or restriction. Except in the linen

trade, he could not have more than two apprentices. He could

not possess a horse of more than the value of five pounds,

and any Protestant upon giving him five pounds could take his

horse. He was compelled to pay double to the militia. He was

forbidden, except under particular conditions, to live in

Galway or Limerick. In case of a war with a Catholic power,

the Catholics were obliged to reimburse the damage done by

the enemy’s privateers. The legislature, it is true, did not

venture absolutely to suppress their worship, but it existed

only by a doubtful connivance, stigmatized as if it were a

species of licensed prostitution, and subject to conditions

which, if they had been enforced, would have rendered its

continuance impossible. An old law which prohibited it, and

another which enjoined attendance at the Anglican worship,

remained unrepealed, and might at any time be revived; and the

former was in fact enforced during the Scotch rebellion of

1715. The parish priests, who alone were allowed to officiate,

were compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep

curates, or officiate anywhere except in their own parishes.

The chapels might not have bells or steeples. No crosses

might be publicly erected. Pilgrimages to the holy wells

were forbidden. Not only all monks and friars, but also all

Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons, and other dignitaries,

were ordered by a certain day to leave the country, and, if

after that date they were found in Ireland, they were liable

to be first imprisoned and then banished; and if after that

banishment they returned to discharge their duties in their

dioceses, they were liable to the punishment of death. To

facilitate the discovery of offences against the code, two

justices of the peace might at any time compel any Catholic of

eighteen years of age to declare when and where he last heard

Mass, what persons were present, and who officiated; and if he

refused to give evidence they might imprison him for twelve

months, or until he paid a fine of twenty pounds. Any one who

harbored ecclesiastics from beyond the seas was subject to

fines which for the third offence amounted to the confiscation

of all his goods. A graduated scale of rewards was offered for

the discovery of Catholic bishops, priests, and schoolmasters;

and a resolution of the House of Commons pronounced the

prosecuting and informing against papists ‘an honorable service

to the government.’”[154]

This is a dark picture. Yet it is drawn by an unwilling hand. Instances

might be accumulated where the severity of the law was outstripped by

the barbarity of its execution. Important relief bills were passed in

1777 and 1793. But they provided only for the removal of some of the

civil and political disabilities of the Catholics. The badge of religious

degradation remained untouched. The heaviest fetters of that iron code

still trailed after the limbs of the Irish Catholic. It is the glory of

O’Connell that he finally snapped them in twain, and trampled them for

ever in the dust. Englishman, Norman, and Milesian--the British colonist

who clung to a proscribed faith in every quarter of the globe--shared in

the results of that herculean labor.

But it is the special claim of O’Connell to the eternal gratitude of that

native Irish race to which he belonged, that he, first of all, after

that bondage of centuries, taught them to lift up their heads to the

level of freemen. Had his work stopped at Emancipation, had his claim

to fame and a place in the national memory been included solely in the

noble title of Liberator, enough had been done by one man for humanity

and his own renown. But in the course of that long struggle a greater and

further-reaching consequence was involved. A transformation took place

in the character of the native Irish, the full results of which are not

yet visible. In their journey through the desert, in their marchings and

counter-marchings, their victories and transient defeats, as they neared

the borders of the promised land towards which he led them, a change

wonderful, but not without parallel, became visible in their spirit and

their hopes. Insensibly and by slow degrees the political torpor of

centuries yielded to a new and living warmth. A generation sprang up

which had flung aside the isolation and submissive hopelessness of 1775,

yet was capable of a greater and more sustained effort than the frenzy of

despair which prompted ’98. Under the ardor of O’Connell’s burning words,

a full understanding of the functions of self-government permeated a race

which had hitherto seemed to exist by the sufferance of its masters. He

not only liberated his countrymen from religious bondage, he organized

them into a nation. He gave them the first impact of self-government

since the Invasion. And that impact is never again likely to be lost.

Daniel O’Connell did not, like some other great popular leaders, spring

directly from the midst of the people whose passions he swayed and

whose actions moved obedient to his will. His family belonged to the

old Irish gentry. He had the advantages of that collegiate course in

France which was the only way then open to Catholics of the upper classes

to afford their sons a liberal education. Yet his family was allied

closely enough to the people to make him share in all their feelings,

sympathies, and sufferings. The author whom we have already quoted,

with that curious blindness, the result of unconscious prejudice, which

makes most non-Catholic writers, however otherwise acute, miss the

true threads of Irish history, and insult the national sensibility at

the very moment they think themselves the most liberal, sets down as a

defect in O’Connell what was in reality the secret of his power. “With

the great qualities,” he says, “of O’Connell there were mingled great

defects, which I have not attempted to conceal, and which are of a kind

peculiarly repulsive to a refined and lofty nature. His character was

essentially that of a Celtic peasant.”

Yes, this was at once his glory and his strength. O’Connell’s personal

traits of character reflected faithfully, on a heroic scale, the national

features of his race. Not the coarseness nor scurrility ascribed to it

by the stage buffoon or the unsympathetic publicist, but the powerful

yet subtle understanding which has won for Irishmen in every age the

highest distinction in the field and in the schools, the large, warm

heart, easily swayed by generous impulses, the humor closely allied

to tears which is the secret of the most popular oratory. It is this

thorough identification with the national spirit, with the religion which

the persecution of centuries had made inseparable from it, that makes

O’Connell without equal or second among the great men who nobly contended

for their country’s freedom at the end of the last and beginning of the

present century. He stands alone, gifted with a power to which neither

the highest intellect nor the most brilliant oratory could otherwise

obtain. He swayed the force of the nation he had welded into shape.

It was this tremendous lever--obedient, one might almost say without

figure of speech, to his single arm--that enabled him to wrest Catholic

Emancipation from the combined determined opposition of the King,

Parliament, and people of England.

For forty years Henry Grattan labored with chivalrous devotion in the

service of Ireland. His eloquence has a charm, a poetical inspiration,

a classical finish O’Connell’s never equalled. It thrilled the Irish

Parliament like the sound of a trumpet, and held spell-bound the hostile

English House of Commons. His patriotism was as unselfish, his zeal, in a

certain sense, as ardent as O’Connell’s. Yet what did Grattan ultimately

accomplish? What was the end of all these noble gifts and labors? Having,

as he said, “watched by the cradle” of the constitutional independence of

the Irish Parliament, he lived to “follow its hearse”; and when he died

in 1820, Catholic Emancipation, the cause of which had been committed to

his hands, became more hopelessly distant than ever. His was individual

genius, individual energy, of a very high, if not the highest, type. But

it needed something more to win in such a cause. Classical eloquence was

thrown away in such a struggle. The concentrated strength of national

enthusiasm, careless of form, animated only by a single giant purpose,

was demanded. Grattan, though such a man as Irishmen of every creed might

well be proud of, was, unfortunately for his success in the attainment of

great national aims, neither a Catholic nor identified with the “Celtic

peasant.” He lacked the fundamental force bred of the soil. O’Connell, on

the other hand, might truly be likened to that fabled giant of antiquity,

Antæus, who gained a tenfold strength each time he was flung upon his

mother earth. Well might he declare, when reproached on one occasion

for the violence of his language, “If I did not use the sledge-hammer,

I could never crush our enemies.” It was a war of extremities. It was

an epoch surcharged with the elements of moral explosions, when men’s

passions were roused to the highest pitch. Those who read now the

measured language of Disraeli in Parliament will pause in astonishment

when they turn back to the frenzied raving with which he replied on a

memorable occasion to the terrible invective of O’Connell. In such an era

of violence, of anarchic strife, Grattan’s “winged words” fell harmless,

but O’Connell’s “sledge-hammer,” wielded with the arm of Thor, thundered

its most effective blows.

Another great Irishman had passed off the stage while the young Dublin

law student, Daniel O’Connell, was still only dreaming of the liberation

of his country. Edmund Burke--revered and illustrious name!--had rounded

off the labors of his long and honorable life in the cause of oppressed

humanity, wherever found, by some strenuous and well-directed efforts for

the relief of his Catholic fellow-countrymen. Yet he too failed, or at

best gained but an indifferent success. The principles he enunciated are

imperishable; his arguments will be preserved for ever among the grandest

vindications of religious liberty in the English tongue. But in that age

they fell upon deaf ears. He too wanted that element of success which

comes from identity of race, religion, feelings, opinions, sympathies.

To that native Irish race which must ever determine the destinies of

Ireland he was a stranger. What a satire upon humanity to expect that men

in their position--bondsmen, systematically, and under legal penalties,

deprived of all education, of every means of information--could

appreciate the teachings of a political philosopher, living in what they

regarded, with good cause, as a foreign or even hostile country. It

was well if they knew of his existence. He was no leader for them. Nor

did Burke ever affect to act with them, but rather for them, upon the

convictions of the higher English and Irish classes. Hence it is that

O’Connell is to be regarded as the purely national type of leader; by

means of action exercising a more powerful influence on human affairs

through the wide-spread Irish race than Burke by means of thought.

It will thus be seen that we place O’Connell on a high plane--above,

and different from, that of mere orators, or statesmen administering

established affairs, however great. He is to be ranked with the

nation-builders of all ages. This was the verdict of most contemporary

European observers, of Montalembert, of Ventura, and other exponents of

continental public opinion. To the English mind he was, and probably will

always be, a demagogue, pure and simple. But so no doubt was Themistocles

to the Persians. O’Connell stormed too many English prejudices--stormed

them with a violence which to his opponents seemed extravagant and

unendurable, but without which he could never have gained his end--to be

forgiven. The judgment of his countrymen, however--the supreme arbiter

for him--is already maturing to a decision in his favor which will place

him in a niche in the hall of Irish heroes above all others, and side

by side with that old king whose memory recalls the ancient glories and

victories of Ireland.

But what of his defeats?--of the failure of Repeal? This is not a

panegyric on O’Connell, but a sincere examination of his place in Irish

history. In many instances, and above all on the question of Repeal,

he miscalculated his forces and the strength of the forces opposed

to him. Like the greatest men of action in every age, his movements

were directed by the circumstances and exigencies of the occasion, by

experience, by the shifting currents of events, by his ability to create

those currents, or to turn them to his own purpose. The cast-iron rules

of policy which political philosophers formulate in their closets may

be singularly inappropriate for the uses of popular leaders. In 1829,

under the banner of Moral Force, with the nation arrayed behind him, he

had wrested Emancipation from the king and ministry. It was an immense

triumph. His temperament was sanguine--an element of weakness, but also

of strength. In the hopeless state in which he found Ireland, only a

character of the most enthusiastic kind would have ventured on the

crusade he opened. In 1843, he thought he could repeat his victory on

the question of Repeal. But in 1829 Peel and Wellington yielded, not to

moral force, which, so far as Ireland is concerned, is a term unknown in

English politics, but to the armed figure of rebellion standing behind

it. They were not prepared for the contest. In 1843, the English ministry

were ready to crush opposition with an overwhelming military force. If

they did not invite rebellion, as in ’98, they were equally ready to

ride roughshod over Ireland. The circumstances of the contest had also

changed. Catholic Emancipation attacked the religious prejudices of

England; Repeal threatened its existence as a nation. It could grant the

one, and still maintain its hatred of Popery; it could not yield the

other without setting up a legislature with rival interests in politics

and trade. The instinct of self-preservation was evoked. No argument

will ever convince the average Englishman that in restoring a separate,

independent Parliament to Ireland, he is not laying the foundation of a

hostile state. The result in 1843 was inevitable. As soon as a sufficient

military force was concentrated, remonstrance or negotiation ceased.

England simply drew her sword and flung it into the scale. O’Connell and

his associates were thrown into prison, and the guns of the Pigeon-House

Fort were trained on the road to Clontarf.

In the varied history of the human race few spectacles have ever been

presented of equal moral grandeur to those immense peaceful open-air

meetings which gathered to hear the great tribune. No greater testimony

was ever given of a nation’s confidence and love. Competent judges put

down the number who assembled at the Hill of Tara at half a million

of people. Yet to the unbiassed observer there is something almost as

pathetic in the helplessness of this great multitude--hoping to wrest

their independence from England without arms--as grand in the mighty

surge of its numbers. It was the confederacy of the sheep against the

wolves. O’Connell’s failure shows vividly how narrow is the plank

upon which the popular leader walks between an immortal triumph and a

prison cell. It reveals the tremendous power residing in an organized

government, capable only of resistance by a people in arms and inured to

the use of arms. That was a monster meeting of a different kind held on

Bunker Hill one hundred years ago, and commemorated this year by these

United States.

We are neither impeaching here the wisdom of the course pursued by

O’Connell in 1843, nor advising armed rebellion against England at

the present day. We discuss simply the historical aspects of the

question in the light of the experience of other nations. Nothing can

be more hazardous, however, or often absolutely fallacious, than broad

generalizations from the history of other countries as capable of

determining a particular line of policy for any given state. In nothing

else did O’Connell show a higher wisdom as a leader of the Irish people

than in rejecting those specious appeals to the success of arms in

America, made by the more ardent patriots in 1845-46.

The circumstances of the two countries were radically different. The

Americans exhausted every kind of “moral force” at their disposal, and

their revolution, when it finally came to blows, was not aggressive but

defensive; the policy of England made it incumbent on Ireland to strike

the first blow in a contest which she would quickly have found herself

unable to sustain. The Americans had a boundless territory; the Irish a

narrow island, capable of being pierced from shore to shore by English

troops in three weeks. The Americans were trained to arms by a war of one

hundred years with the French and Indians, in which they were drilled

and fought side by side with English regiments; the Irish--the native

Catholic Irish, the people for whom O’Connell was responsible before

God and mankind--could not keep a pike since the Treaty of Limerick.

An Irish rebellion, therefore, would have meant simply a massacre;

and O’Connell, in choosing the wiser course of present submission to

superior force, merited as much, although in defeat, the gratitude of his

countrymen as he did in his triumph in the cause of Emancipation. For it

will have been gathered from what we have already said that we regard

O’Connell’s greatest achievement in the service of his country--its

political organization, the education of its sons in the knowledge of the

rights and duties of freemen--as going on with equal step as well with

the unsuccessful agitation for Repeal as with the triumphant struggle

for Emancipation. His defeats carried with them the germs of victory.

The most ardent lover of his country can scarce escape an uneasy feeling

when he reads in the annals of Ireland that story, reiterated with

painful monotony, page after page, of the harryings, the devastations,

the ceaseless intestine wars, which mark its early history. It would seem

sometimes as if the ancient learning of Ireland which produced those

numerous and minute chronicles, served only the purpose of a reproach

to the island which fostered it. Other nations had struggled through

this transition period--common to the whole of Europe--and finally

consolidated themselves into peaceful and harmonious states. But it was

the misfortune of Ireland that this opportunity of domestic organization

was snatched from her by a foreign invasion ending in a domination of

which the cardinal principle was to “divide and conquer.” English writers

satirize the civil discord of the Irish race, forgetful that from the

time of Henry II. to that of George III. it was the steady, and as it

then seemed intelligent, policy of successive English statesmen to foster

wars between the rival chieftains and clans, to employ them against one

another, and in every way to break down any incipient attempt at union,

which must have been dangerous, if not fatal, to English power. No man

had arisen among the Irish race till O’Connell’s time who neutralized

that policy. He showed that they were capable of organization and

self-government in a patriotic common cause. In those immense meetings

which marked his progress, where men of every county united in one vast

brotherhood, he proved, first, that the Irish people loved domestic

peace and co-operation as much as any other race; and, secondly, that

under happy auspices they possessed a wonderful capacity for order

and self control. Even hostile observers concur in expressing as much

admiration for the undisturbed peacefulness of those assemblages of from

a quarter to half a million of people, as amazement at their vastness,

unprecedented in history. They were the foundation of the political

education of Ireland.

In another country, and a more remote age, another man of kindred, kingly

spirit and organizing power, with whom O’Connell is not unworthy to be

compared, had built up his vast empire by like national meetings, not

less than by force of arms. In the great national meetings of the Franks,

the _Champs de Mai_, Charlemagne gave the first impress of government to

Europe, torn to pieces after the fall of the Roman Empire. O’Connell,

another “king of men”--such as the Homeric legend sings of--emulated his

labors on a less extended scale in Ireland. But the empire of Charlemagne

fell to pieces with his death. Chaos reigned again. O’Connell’s work was

more homogeneous, and promises to be more enduring. We are only entering

upon the dawn of a more hopeful Irish history.

When we seek a comparison of individual action, in the history of

England, with O’Connell’s, we are struck at once with the grand but

sorrowful isolation of his position. Fortunate the country which has

never needed a liberator! Happy the kingdom whose greatest revolution

meant only a change of dynasty, a stronger leaven of republicanism,

and surer guarantees against religious toleration! The growth of

constitutional government in England has been comparatively steady

and uniform. Never--since the amalgamation of races following the

Norman invasion--subjected to the terrible consequences of conquest

and occupation by a race alien in language, religion, and national

prejudices, her political and religious struggles have been wrought

out to an issue among her own population. Whenever her civil liberty

or parliamentary privileges were threatened, sturdy champions were not

wanting among her own sons. Her Pyms, Hampdens, and Eliots find their

counterparts in the Grattans and Floods of Ireland. But the deliverer

of a crushed and hopeless people, the inspired guide who led them out

of bondage and defied their taskmasters, is a figure happily absent in

English history.

The imagination naturally turns with vivid interest to great deeds of

arms. The pomp and panoply of war, the heroic daring of the headlong

charge, the valor, disdainful of death, that awaits with constancy an

overwhelming foe--these are incentives to action, in presence of which

the labors and even triumphs of peaceful agitation appear tame and slow.

And the Irish are a people strongly susceptible to those influences.

They are a warlike race. Wherever the tide of battle turns against great

odds, where the smoke is thickest, and the carnage deadliest, there will

be found some Irish name upholding the traditions of his country’s fame.

O’Connell had therefore no easy task in restraining within peaceful

limits the immense agitation he had evoked. And in estimating his place

in history the same considerations place him at a disadvantage compared

with those great warriors, the glitter of whose victories is identified

with the warlike glories of their country. The “Bridge of Lodi,” the “Sun

of Austerlitz”--these are talismanic words which then rang in people’s

ears with startling sequence? Yet if we compare O’Connell’s labors and

their results with those of the great soldier whose career had closed

while the former was only beginning his peaceful struggle with England,

there is no reason to shrink from the verdict. Emancipation was worth

many Marengos. The _rôle_ of the Liberator may fairly be set off against

that of the Conqueror. The civic crown of green and gold placed on

O’Connell’s head on the Rath of Mullaghmast, in the presence of 400,000

men, was an emblem of true sovereignty greater in many ways than that

iron crown which Napoleon lifted with his own ambitious hands from the

altar at Milan. One was rust-eaten, it might be said, with the blood

and tears of unknown thousands; the other was invested with the halo of

peace, which the attainment of religious liberty and education in the

rights of freemen had introduced into a million humble homes. The career

of both Napoleon and O’Connell ended in defeat. But how conflicting

the emotions of each as he gazed for the last time on the shores of his

country! One, preoccupied by the shattering of his gigantic ambition,

and the assertion of petty details of etiquette in the midst of the ruin

around him; the other, oblivious of self, weighed down by the doom of

famine impending over his country--his last words a solemn and pathetic

appeal for its protection. In the hour of adversity, stripped of the

adventitious circumstances of power, O’Connell stands forth a figure of

greater moral grandeur. Of the victories of Napoleon nothing remains

but their name, and the terrible retribution that has followed them.

The influence of O’Connell’s unselfish labors in the cause of religious

freedom has a future practically endless; and after a season of adversity

and apparent forgetfulness, his political maxims and principles are again

reviving in Ireland in the constitutional agitation for Home Rule. Not in

the demand itself, stopping short as it does of Repeal, but in the means

by which alone its advocacy may be made successful.

It is a curious instance of the ebb and flow of historical movements

that O’Connell was at one time prepared to take up, under the name of

“Federalism,” the present demand for “Home Rule.” Ultimately, as is

well known, he was forced to abandon it by the mutiny of his followers,

who would be satisfied with nothing less than simple “Repeal.” And this

reluctance to adopt a middle course was natural enough at the time.

In 1840-45 the Irish people were still too close to the Union; the

infamous history of that measure and the burning eloquence of Grattan and

Plunkett in denouncing it were too strongly impressed upon the national

memory, to allow any hope of success to a leader who would promise

less than its total erasure from the statute book. Too many were still

living--like O’Connell himself--who could remember the brief yet glorious

history of Irish legislative independence, to give up the belief that it

was yet possible to see an Irish parliament sitting in College Green.

Experience, and the statesmanship which does not aim at the unattainable,

have shown the practical superiority of the lesser demand as a political

programme at the present day. But this does not impugn the wisdom of the

Repeal agitation. The true course of a people in its national affairs is

necessarily learned slowly. There is no ready-made chart in politics; and

were any offered, Burke’s satire upon geometrical demonstrations in state

affairs would be conclusive against it. Experience, even the experience

of failure, is the only trustworthy guide; and successive agitations,

though varying in their object, keep alive the cause in the national

memory.

Though the best and truest friends of Ireland, including that venerable

hierarchy which has steadily seconded every rational movement for

justice and equal rights, have never hesitated to give their support to

O’Connell’s policy of moral force, there have not been wanting from the

first restless spirits who have made it their bitterest reproach against

him, that he was unwilling to fling away the scabbard and plunge the

country into rebellion. It would be unjust to speak of all these men as

influenced by unworthy motives. Some of them breathed, and still breathe,

the purest aspirations of patriotism. But it was a mistaken patriotism,

influenced by examples which might indeed make martyrs, but which would

never lift one chain from the neck of their country. They might make good

soldiers, but were poor leaders. Ireland was not then, and is not now, in

a position to gain anything by a policy of violence.

But there are others, inflamed not with a love of Ireland, but with a

spirit of hostility to all governments, who would plunge their country

into bloodshed in hope of themselves floating to the top. These men are

infected with the spirit of the Commune. They are revolutionists--not

in the sense in which Washington or Hampden or O’Connell were

revolutionists--leaders of great movements for the liberties of

peoples--but socialists, whose single incentive is the envy and hatred

of all superior authority. Most of all, they desire to supplant the

Irish priesthood as the guides of the people. A sorry exchange, from the

well-tried friends, proved by the exacting ordeal of a thousand years, to

men of no responsibility--mere political gamblers--whose highest motive

is ambition, but a lower and more common one, the love of easy-gotten

money from confiding people. These conspirators are the promoters of the

secret societies against which O’Connell warned the Irish people. But

unfortunately they too often find that generous-hearted race--embittered

by the recollection of centuries of oppression--willing to give ear to

their delusive promises. Indifferent to their own future, these men

rejoice in anarchy. Some of them are no doubt poltroons, who would fly

as soon as they had led their dupes into danger. But it would be false

to deny them all the attributes of courage. Others would die bravely

enough behind a barricade. But their wars are essentially wars of the

barricades. If defeated they would perish recklessly, having nothing at

stake to make life valuable--absolutely indifferent to the slaughter, to

the burned homes, to the widows and orphans of the unfortunate people who

had submitted to their fatal guidance. If successful, their next attack

would be upon the Catholic Church. But success under such leadership is

a delusion wilder than the most exaggerated dream of fiction. They have

no conception of a national revolution higher than a conspiracy. The

elevated principles, the far-sighted calculations of a Washington, an

Adams, or a Franklin, which almost assured success from the start, are an

unknown language to them. Blind hatred, even of an existing tyranny, is a

poor basis upon which to sustain a long and exhausting war. And no one,

with the history of the American Revolution before him, can doubt what

the character of an armed struggle with England for the independence of

Ireland would be.

The same spirit of patriotism, therefore, that urged Washington to throw

his sword into the scale in the contest with Great Britain, animated

O’Connell with a contrary purpose in the case of Ireland. Yet not less is

the latter deserving of the title of “Father of his Country.” Success has

crowned the American patriot with a more splendid fame. But when we weigh

the individual exertions of each in his gigantic struggle with the great

empire opposed to him, and consider the incalculable advantages which a

boundless territory and an intervening ocean afforded to the American

leader, the Irish liberator will not suffer from the comparison.

Washington was surrounded and sustained by a group of great men who would

seem to have been providentially raised up at that momentous epoch to lay

the foundations of the noble structure of American liberty. O’Connell,

standing alone, an Atlas supporting the fortunes of six millions of

Irish Catholics on his shoulders, is a figure unexampled in history.

His herculean labors recall the fables of antiquity. In the whole

parliamentary history of England we read of no other example of one man

facing and trampling over the utmost hostility of that proud and powerful

assembly--the English House of Commons.

Yet though the pre-eminence of O’Connell makes him appear almost a

solitary figure in the records of that day, it would be unjust, in a

notice of him, to pass over the assistance he received from the brilliant

rhetoric and astute intellect of Richard Lalor Sheil. Though holding

a subordinate place to that of the great Agitator, and accused of

lukewarmness, in the end, by O’Connell himself, whose “Sheil, Sheil! this

will never do,” has become historic, his early exertions merit a grateful

remembrance. Nor can any Irishman ever forget the profound learning,

the masterly reasoning, the weight of character which Dr. Doyle, the

celebrated “J. K. L.,” brought to the contest in the early days of the

Catholic Association. Rivalling Swift in the keenness of his satire, and

“Junius” in the brilliancy of his style, he united to those qualities a

purity of purpose and freedom from personal rancor which neither of those

writers possessed. His life is an imperishable monument of the patriotism

of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland.

It is not the purpose of this article to speak of O’Connell’s position

in the English House of Commons, of his action on the question of

Reform, or the revenues of the Irish Church, on which he anticipated the

tardy measure of Mr. Gladstone; nor of the truly liberal and tolerant

spirit which made him welcome into the ranks of the Repealers the

talented Protestant youth of Ireland, and oppose every manifestation

of religious rancor wherever he found it. We have sufficiently pointed

out what we believe to be his enduring claims to immortality--Catholic

Emancipation, and, in pursuance of that aim and of Repeal, the new level

of political thought and action to which he lifted the Irish race. He

is the grandest representative of the pure Celtic blood of Ireland that

the ages have produced. His power, like that of all other great national

leaders, depended upon that representative quality. And he used his

power faithfully. Unlike the great German chancellor of the present day,

who, beginning with the _rôle_ of a national liberator and organizer,

has ended in a career of foreign domination and domestic persecution,

O’Connell never perverted the strongest and noblest of popular forces

to the uses of tyranny under any form. Prince Bismarck’s plans lead up

to that very régime of hate, cruelty, and oppression which O’Connell

combated in Ireland, and if they become the settled policy of the Empire,

must in time give birth to a German Liberator.

It remains only to say a word upon the future of that Irish people to

whom O’Connell devoted his life. We will not venture upon hazardous

speculations. The wisdom of his policy was never more apparent than

to-day. The motives upon which it was founded repeat themselves

anew. There are too many interests in Ireland--Irish and Catholic

interests--opposed to revolutionary violences, to make rebellion either

desirable or practicable. It is only those who want to confiscate and

live by tumult that cry out for it. The same communists who burned Paris

and murdered its priests and archbishop under the name of liberty, would

like to sack Dublin under the cry of “Down with the Saxon!” National

ideas are everywhere the footballs of those radicals, by which they lead

the easily-swayed multitude to follow them in their game of plunder. But

an Irish communist--that is, one born of a Catholic Irish stock--is a

creature of abnormal growth. He will never make much headway in Ireland.

The true course of modern Irish politics points to the assertion of

that principle of federalism which has been established as the basis of

government in Austro-Hungary, in Canada and all the great free British

Colonies, and in the United States, and which, under the name of “Home

Rule,” is now the matured policy of the trustworthy exponents of Irish

public opinion. We would not be understood to commit ourselves to any

particular political programme, but before any of what may be termed

sentimental considerations, it would seem that the leaders of public

opinion in Ireland must direct their energies to build up its material

prosperity, and this can be best accomplished by local self-government.

Unanimity in its pursuit is therefore demanded even of those who

ultimately look beyond it. A rich and prosperous community will not long

remain enslaved. It is only the poor who are trampled on, among nations

as among individuals. It must be admitted, however, that nothing could

well appear more hopeless than the present position of the Home Rulers in

the English House of Commons. The decisive triumph of the Conservative

reaction has put them out of the calculations of both parties. But

this state of things is not likely to exist in the next Parliament,

nor in the one after. Courage and endurance, therefore--the virtues of

O’Connell--are the virtues that are needed in this temporary Slough of

Despond. The contempt, so loudly and persistently expressed as to imply

some apprehension, the frenzy of opposition, Home Rule has evoked in the

House of Commons, we do not count for more than it is worth. It is not

more bitter or uncompromising than the same feeling prior to Emancipation

or even Reform. The same threats of eternal opposition were then common.

It took sixty years of active opposition to gain the former; the same

number at least and enormous outside agitation to carry the latter. The

success of great national movements is necessarily slow against existing

forces, and must often be transmitted from generation to generation.

There is no need therefore of discouragement at a temporary check. Local

self-government--the same that exists in New York and Massachusetts, and

for the same objects--leaving foreign and exclusively national questions

for the consideration of an Imperial Parliament, as for Congress--is a

demand that commends itself to the feeling of justice of all mankind, a

feeling which England will eventually be unable to resist. We are not

of those who inculcate an eternal policy of revenge. This is easy for

irresponsible demagogues to preach, but blows are not given without

being received. The reality, the dreadful experiences of war, soon teach

moderation where war is felt. Even were the two states independent, peace

with England would be the true policy of Ireland.

As for the Irish in America, the future lies before them brilliant,

unclouded. It is bounded only by their own ability to make it honorable

and useful. Relying primarily, like every other man in the community,

upon his own industry, sobriety, and energy, the Irishman in the United

States or Canada may attain to any position he is fitted for. If in some

instances he has to encounter native prejudices, these will be best

overcome by an earnest effort on his own part to observe faithfully all

the duties of citizenship. No one who does so will ever fail to obtain

the respect and support of his Protestant neighbors. Those who make

foreign grudges their first consideration must expect to be looked upon

as strangers. Yet we must face what exists. So long as the stream of

immigration continues to pour into this country, so long will there be

a large body of our countrymen, receiving continual accessions, whose

dearest thoughts will be directed towards Ireland, their bitterest

towards England. This is inevitable. England reaps the fruit of her

past. She is now in the position of a jailer who would fain take off the

handcuffs from her prisoner, but dares not, for fear of retrospective

revenge. The misgovernment of ages cannot be blotted out from the

memory of the misgoverned in a day--nor in a hundred years. It is a

national Nemesis; and it will be well for England if it do not overtake

her in some dreadful form. This feeling naturally finds its strongest

expression in the United States. Sympathy with the mother country will

never fail. And God forbid that it should do so. But let that sympathy

take a proper direction, an efficient form. Give the strength of your

moral support--of your purses, if you will--to the men who are carrying

on under a different form the work of O’Connell in Ireland--who are now

bravely struggling for Home Rule. But turn a stern countenance on those

adventurers and desperadoes who have nothing wiser to advise than wild

and criminal incursions into a friendly province, where Irishmen possess

all the rights they do here, or conspiracies and secret societies in

Ireland--projects which make the honest patriotism and tried courage

of Irishmen a farce for the laughter of mankind. The Irish in America

have many traps laid for their nationality and their faith; but let them

avoid the snares of revolutionary, infidel leaders for themselves, and

of godless schools for their children, and the day will eventually dawn

when the weight of their support will turn the scale in favor of their

country’s rights against England. This is the true way to follow the

example and honor the memory of O’Connell.

In spirit, the Great Liberator still beckons the way to his countrymen.

The echo of that voice, sonorous, but clear and sweet as a silver bell,

is heard no more on the hillsides of Erin. The clover springs up where

the feet of thousands pressed closer to listen to its magic spell. But

his memory is eternal as the hills themselves.

“By constancy like his sustained,

Pollux, of yore, and Hercules,

The starry eminences gained.”[155]

Unwearied by labors, animated by a single passion--the love of

country--men like him “becoming the heroes and benefactors of the human

race, attain to the glory of immortality.” The national historian, in a

future age, will date the rehabilitation of Ireland from the birth of

O’Connell.

ULTRAISM.

To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of

the throne, and the mitre in the name of the altar; it is to maltreat

the thing you support; it is to kick in the traces; it is to cavil at

the stake for undercooking heretics; it is to reproach the idol with a

lack of idolatry; it is to insult by an excess of respect; it is to find

in the Pope too little papistry, in the king too little royalty, and too

much light in the night; it is to be dissatisfied with the albatross,

with snow, with the swan, and the lily, in the name of whiteness; it is

to be the partisan of things to the point of becoming their enemy; it is

to be so very pro that you are con.--_Victor Hugo._

MARIA IMMACOLATA OF BOURBON.[156]

We still see her, a gentle and beautiful girl of fourteen, seated beside

her brother, the exiled King of Naples, in a low carriage which passes

through the Villa Borghese, in Rome. Her face is of the Bourbon mould. A

fair, open forehead, doubly suggestive of the water-lily, because of its

snowy whiteness and the innocent frankness with which it seems to turn

towards heaven. Bright hazel eyes, the limpid, loving depths of which

are expressive of the innocence and purity of the soul, which gives them

life and light; while the lines of her chaste mouth and finely-chiselled

chin are ever forming themselves into a subdued smile of love, of peace,

and of quiet resignation. There is a modesty, and withal an elegance in

her dress and carriage, which strike the beholder at once. Her eyes do

not wander about, but are fixed with trusting tenderness on the face of

her brother, or rest affectionately upon the beautiful greyhound which

crouches at her feet and looks up at her with an earnestness almost

human. It may have been a mere fancy of ours, founded on our knowledge of

the history of that lovely creature; but it always seemed to us that the

earnest look of the dog at its young mistress was one of pity as well as

of affection--pity because she was an exiled princess; affection, because

she was fair to behold and gentle in demeanor, and the life-giving

spirit of both qualities was a pure and noble soul, which we have since

learned to regard with a veneration not unlike that which we bear towards

a saint. We do not purpose to write her biography, nor even her memoirs.

We will merely sketch briefly, and in the simplicity with which they

were narrated to us, some recollections of that short life of nineteen

years which wrought a chastening and ennobling influence upon all whose

happiness it was to be near her.

Maria Immacolata Aloysia of Bourbon was the youngest child but one

of Ferdinand II., King of Naples, and Maria Theresa of Austria, his

second wife, and was born in the castle of Caserta, on the 21st of

January, 1855. Her father the king died when she was quite young, and

was succeeded on the throne by Francis II., the first-born of his

marriage with the saintly Maria Christina of Savoy. After the death of

Ferdinand, the Queen-Mother, Maria Theresa, devoted all her energies to

the religious and secular education of her four children, the Princess

Maria Pia; Prince Don Pasquale, Count of Bari; the subject of this

sketch, Princess Maria Immacolata, and Prince Don Gennarino, Count of

Caltagirone. In doing this she was actuated by a strong sense of the

obligations of a Christian mother towards her children, while she felt

that in discharging these obligations with fidelity she paid a worthy

tribute to the memory of her deceased consort. Maria Immacolata, even

in childhood, showed herself worthy of the sweet name which was given

her in baptism, and the name of Aloysia was peculiarly becoming to her;

for as S. Aloysius was called “the Angel of the Court of Mantua,” so

did her sweet and angelic disposition win for her the appellation of

“Angel of the Court of Naples.” Naples, however, was not destined to

possess its “angel” long. The sad history of the treacherous expulsion of

Francis II. by his own first cousin, Victor Emanuel, is too well known

to need recital here. Enough to say, that in 1861 the Bourbons were

forced to fly from the fortress of Gaeta and seek refuge in Rome, which

was still the home of the exile, the weary, and the world-worn. As their

father Ferdinand had offered an asylum to Pius IX. when the revolution

of 1848 drove him from Rome, so now the noble heart of the Pontiff

sympathized with the exiles, and he forthwith ordered the Quirinal

Palace to be prepared for their reception. King Francis soon after took

up his residence in the Farnese Palace, and the Queen-Mother retired

with her four children to Palazzo Nipoti. It is into this sanctuary of

piety, order, and industry that we would introduce the reader, that he

may admire with us the domestic virtues of that Christian mother Maria

Theresa. All is order, tranquillity, and modesty. Each prince has his

own separate apartment and his own instructors. The hours for retiring

to bed at night, rising in the morning, for prayers, Mass, study,

meals, and recreation are regularly established. Besides the ordinary

exercises of piety, there is a religious instruction given once a week,

and a spiritual retreat once a year, at which the queen herself and

every member of her household assist. She is the ruling and guiding

spirit of all, and it was but natural, under the influence of such a

perfect model, that the children should soon give evidences of those

rare qualities of mind and soul which, in later years, became the theme

of general admiration. Such was the domestic life of the exiles. It was

here that the character of Maria Immacolata began to develop itself

with singular beauty. Naturally pious, she loved God tenderly. At the

religious instructions she observed a gravity of demeanor rarely met with

in a child of her years, and on retiring to her room, she used to note

down upon a slip of paper the principal points in the discourse which

she had just heard. Her temperament was a lively one, and no one enjoyed

the hours of recreation more heartily than she did. Yet it was apparent

to all as she grew up that she was struggling hard to obtain a perfect

mastery over herself, and the success which attended her efforts was

especially manifest in her affectionate obedience to the queen, to her

elder brothers and sister. The sweetest little nook in the Nipoti Palace

was the room of Maria Immacolata. It was so small, so neat, so orderly,

and the little altar in one corner, surmounted by a statuette of the

Immaculate Conception, and ornamented with sweet-smelling flowers, told

more plainly than words could who was the occupant. During the month

of May her room became a little Eden of flowers in honor of the Virgin

Mary. But other flowers were offered up to Our Lady which were far more

acceptable to her than the fairest flowers of earth. On the altar stood

a little vase of porphyry, containing a number of slips of paper, upon

which was written the name of some virtue, some act of charity to be

performed, or little mortification to be practised. Every morning, she

and her sister, Maria Pia, repaired together to this urn, and, with joy

depicted in their countenances, each drew out a slip of paper. Immacolata

was always wont to say, when she had read her slip of paper, “O mamma!

I need this virtue so much.” It has been said that love is ingenious;

and if this be true of that love which creatures, following a God-given

instinct, bear one towards another, it must find a proportionately more

beautiful application in the love which a pure creature of the earth

cherishes for the Immaculate Queen of Heaven. Maria Immacolata and her

sister were not content with practising daily the virtues named on each

slip of paper, but on the last day of the month they collected all the

slips of paper together, and, with the addition of some lilies, they

wove them into a chaplet, with which they crowned the statue of their

Queen. The idea had a doubly beautiful significance, being suggestive

at once of purity of heart and the traditional love of the Bourbons for

the lily. The young princess was scarcely eleven years of age when she

was told, to her unutterable delight, that she might prepare to receive

her First Communion. In this event of her life our admiration is divided

between the solicitous care of her noble mother in preparing her daughter

for a worthy reception of the Blessed Eucharist, and the holy readiness

and thorough spirit of appreciation with which the child performed all

that was enjoined upon her. In order to remove every possible occasion

of distraction during the spiritual retreat of eight days, which she

made in the palace under the direction of a Jesuit father, she sent all

her toys to a conservatory of little girls, and on the day previous

to her beginning the exercises, she was overheard to say to a parrot,

of which she was very fond, “Bird, you and I must part for awhile; a

great Visitor is coming, and I must prepare to receive him.” She went

so far as to deny herself the cup of chicken-broth which she was in the

habit of taking in the morning, because of her delicate constitution.

During the retreat she prayed most fervently to S. Aloysius, to whom

she was tenderly devoted, beseeching him to obtain for her the grace of

overcoming the enemies of her soul--the world, the passions, and the

demon. After her death, a slip of paper was found in her prayer-book,

upon which she had noted down all that she intended to ask our Lord for

at her First Communion. She seems to have been strongly attached to her

governess, for she writes: “and I will pray for Maria Laserre, that she

may never be separated from me; and I will also pray,” said the child,

“for Victor Emanuel, that God may enlighten him and pardon him all the

harm he has done to us.” The first prayer received a gracious hearing,

and we find Maria Laserre her constant and cheerful companion in all

the trials and vicissitudes to which that short and guileless life was

afterward subject. The other prayer reveals a sensitive soul, which was

penetrated to its depths with a full and saddening consciousness of

the monstrous wrongs which her family had suffered from their disloyal

cousin, and at the same time a generous, forgiving spirit, not unlike

that which prompted the touching prayer of Christ upon the cross,

“Father! forgive them.” Many a noble deed is recorded of the Bourbons

when they were in power, when the _fleur-de-lis_ was the emblem of a

glorious reality; but there is a sublimity of pathos in the forgiving

prayer of the delicate child of eleven, despoiled of every vestige of

royalty but her princely name, which is far beyond our appreciation, and

is only justly estimated by Him who taught us to forgive the trespasses

of others if we would hope for the forgiveness of our own. For all the

favors which she asked of S. Aloysius she promised to give him a clasp of

diamonds, which she had received from the king her father. Her anxiety,

however, was great lest her mother might not consent to her parting with

such a precious souvenir, as will appear in the letters which she wrote

to the saint during the retreat, and which were found after her death in

a small silver purse which she carried about with her. They are written

in elegant French. As they were never intended for mortal eyes, but were

addressed in all innocence and simplicity to a saint in heaven, we take

them up with all possible delicacy, and reverence for the chaste heart

of which they were the candid outpouring. While they bear testimony to

her purity of soul, they are also an evidence of what religion was to

her--not a hard, galling yoke, which must be borne from sheer necessity,

nor a heavy burden, to be carried only on a Sunday or a holyday. No,

there was an every-day warmth in her religion; it was something near at

hand, familiar, consoling, and refreshing, and nowhere more perfectly

embodied than in the short definition of the Redeemer: “My yoke is

sweet, and my burden light.” Here is one of her letters:

“O great saint! who never lost your innocence, and who by your sanctity

brought so much glory and honor upon your mother; S. Aloysius Gonzaga,

patron of the young, you who were possessed of a great knowledge of the

world and of human frailty, I recommend myself to you, that, by your

intercession with Jesus Christ our Lord, you obtain for me the grace that

I too may make a good First Communion. S. Aloysius Gonzaga! you who knew

so well how to make a First Communion, oh! grant that the First Communion

may be for me the beginning of a new life, the rule and guide of all my

actions; and that I too may begin to battle courageously with the world,

the demon, and my own passions. Grant me this favor, O great Saint!

Meanwhile, I choose thee for my protector, and I will recommend myself

to thee every day, in every sorrowful trial, at every suggestion of the

enemy, and in every instance of impatience; and when temptation assails

me, I will say a Gloria Patri for thee.

“MARIA IMMACOLATA OF BOURBON (great sinner).

“_Postscript._--Pray for me, O great Saint! and obtain for me these

graces. Glory be to God the Father! O my S. Aloysius Gonzaga! pray that

mamma will permit me without hesitation to carry as a gift to your chapel

that little clasp of diamonds, and give me light to know how to ask her

well for the favor, and how to reply, if she makes any objection.

“THE GREAT SINNER.”

Another letter is couched in these terms:

“O S. Aloysius Gonzaga! you see that I recommend myself to you every

day, as I promised you. Now, obtain this grace for me, that mamma may

look at me with a good face when I ask her for the cope for Father

N., of your own society; but especially when I ask her for the first

favor (permission to bestow the diamonds upon S. Aloysius), that she

may say yes without hesitating; and that she may also allow me to give

my photograph to Don Domenico (an old domestic in the family). But let

mamma say _yes_ without difficulty. I ask you earnestly. Glory be to the

Father.”

Here is another precious document:

“O S. Aloysius! my protector, I again recommend myself to thee. Give me

light and obtain for me the grace that I may make my First Communion

well. O happy day! O day that comes but once! O thrice happy day! Great

Saint! give me thy faith, give me the faith of all the saints. Pray that

I may not be ashamed to confess my sins. Meanwhile, I am thankful to thee

for the favor which thou hast granted me in the clasp of diamonds, and

for other favors, which I received from thee on other occasions. Pray for

the most humble servant of God.

“M. I. OF B. (great sinner).

“_Postscript._--I recommend myself to thee, my dear protector; do me this

favor: ask God to pardon me.”

The “thrice happy day” came at last, and on the 24th of December, 1865,

she received Holy Communion from the hands of Cardinal Riario Sforza, in

the same chapel in which her “dear Protector,” S. Aloysius, pronounced

his vows. This chapel is in the Roman College, where S. Aloysius lived

and died. It was beautifully ornamented for the occasion, and, besides

the king, queen, and queen-mother, with their suites, a number of

distinguished persons were present, and a score of little girls, dressed

in white, assisted at the Mass, bearing lighted tapers in their hands.

Every eye rested on Maria Immacolata, whose recollection edified all

present. The smile which played around her mouth, and the blush which

mantled her cheeks, were but faint indications of the happiness in her

soul. What passed in that abode of purity and innocence is known only to

herself and Him whom she loved. We can only narrate what we saw. Having

obtained permission, she repaired with her governess, after thanksgiving,

to the room of S. Aloysius, and with a face all aglow with joy, she

placed a little casket on the altar. It was the clasp of diamonds. On

leaving the room of the saint, she remarked to her companion that she was

overwhelmed with gratitude towards God. “I must make him a present;” and

before the day was over she had bestowed every coin in her purse upon

his poor. Only one piece of gold was reserved, and that she sent on the

following day to a conservatory, to clothe a little orphan girl of her

own age, who was preparing for her First Communion. But of her boundless

charity we will have more to say anon.

The summer of 1867 found the royal exiles at Albano, a charming country

resort on the Appian Way, about fifteen miles from Rome. They had not

been there long when the Asiatic cholera broke out with a violence

unprecedented in the history of that terrible plague. The victims daily

were numbered by hundreds. Not a family in the city was spared.

The first victim in the Bourbon family was the young Prince Gennarino,

a bright little boy of eight years. At the first symptoms of the malady

he asked for his confessor, and confessed with such compunction of heart

that the good priest was moved to tears. He begged earnestly that he

might receive Holy Communion; “for,” said the little fellow, “I want to

die like a man.” Though he was so young, his request was granted. His

First Communion was his Viaticum, and “like a man” the young Bourbon

passed to another life. But death had singled out a more illustrious

victim in the person of Maria Theresa, the Queen-Mother. Her whole life

having been one of preparation, her death was that of the just. And here

we would willingly stop to admire the character of that noble Christian

mother, and worthy descendant of the great Maria Theresa of Austria; but

we are restrained from doing so by the reflection that we cannot pay a

more worthy or glowing tribute to her memory, than by sketching the life

and character of her saintly daughter Maria Immacolata. To a heart so

sensitive, so appreciative and affectionate, as was that of Immacolata,

the death of a mother was a great blow, and it was a long time before

she could be comforted. King Francis now became the natural protector of

the orphans, and took them to his own residence in the Farnese Palace,

in Rome. The habit of study had already been formed in the children by

their saintly mother, and so they applied themselves with renewed vigor

to the acquisition of knowledge. Maria Immacolata was gifted with talents

of the highest order. Besides speaking her own language with captivating

sweetness she spoke French and German fluently, and the facility with

which she could pass from one language to another was surprising. Drawing

was her passion, and her sketches in oil and water colors gave evidence

of no inconsiderable genius. Wherever she went, she brought her drawing

materials with her, and amused herself by sketching landscapes, palaces,

villas, and the like. She was equally skilled in portraits, and the last

production of her pencil, a beautiful picture of the Immaculate Heart,

has been very much admired. Literature was another source of pleasure to

her. Though she had a lofty appreciation of the beauties of the Italian

language, and was passionately fond of reading, she was never known to

indulge in light and promiscuous literature. While applying herself

to the cultivation of her mind, she did not forget the more modest

accomplishments which become her sex; and there are several beggars in

Rome this day who will show, with no small pride, the coarse stockings

which were knitted for them by the tiny hands of Maria Immacolata of

Bourbon. But these and many other accomplishments were but as the gold

which encircles a diamond of rare value and purity. Her richest treasure

was her humility and modesty. Her conversation, though entertaining and

lively, was modest; her deportment, though easy and graceful, equally

so. The sweetness of her disposition was especially noticeable in her

treatment of domestics.

In the October of 1867 the Eternal City was thrown into a state of

excitement and trepidation by the news that Garibaldi, with his horde

of desperadoes, was on the march for Rome. The little army of the Pope

prepared to make a gallant defence, and a number of chivalrous Roman

youths of the best families offered themselves to swell the ranks of the

Papal legions. Francis II. and his two brothers were among the first to

rush to the defence of the country--the only country which was now left

them. Their two orphan sisters, Maria Pia and Maria Immacolata, were

consequently left alone in the Farnese Palace. They did not remain long

unprotected, for the Holy Father sent for the two princesses, and had

them brought into the Vatican, where the magnificent apartment of the

Countess Mathilde had been prepared for them. Here they remained until

after the battle of Mentana, and the Papal troops returned in triumph to

the city. While the children were in the Vatican, they assisted every

morning at the Pope’s Mass, and received Holy Communion daily from

his hands. Every day, when he went to take his usual walk through the

galleries and corridors of the palace, he sent for the orphans, and by

his sweet and consoling conversation made them forget the anxiety which

tortured them about their brothers. During those days--the happiest of

her life--Maria Pia conceived a veneration and love for the Holy Father

which she cherished ever afterwards, and which, we may here remark,

was characteristic of her mother, Maria Theresa. When the storm had

blown over, the orphans returned to the Farnese Palace, and resumed

their usually quiet and retired life. It did not last long. This time

it was not the Garibaldian hordes that marched upon the city, but the

well-disciplined troops of a king who called himself “the dutiful son of

Pius IX.” To be brief, the year 1870 was one of woe to the Romans, but

to none was it more sorrowful than to the poor persecuted Bourbons. Once

more they were forced to fly, and in their flight the noble family was

obliged to divide itself. Some of them fled into Bavaria, some to France,

while Maria Immacolata went with her sister, now Duchess of Parma, into

the Tyrol, and afterwards to Cannes, on the confines of France. She was

accompanied by her governess Maria Laserre, her faithful friend and

comforter in every trial.

But the cold climate of the mountains was too severe for Immacolata. She

was a frail, delicate flower, and under the rough, inclement blasts of

a northern winter she began to wilt away. What with her weak health and

her strong affection for the Holy Father, she began to pine for Rome, her

country, as she called it. All this passed within her own bosom. For the

rest, she was patient, resigned, and more forgiving than ever towards

those who were the cause of her exile, first from the land of her birth,

and afterwards from Rome, to which her heart clung most lovingly. A soul

so closely united to God as was hers, soon found the wherewithal to

comfort her, and it was with a smile of heavenly joy in her countenance

that she brightened up and said to her maid, “Ah! well, there is one

consolation left me: the poor I have always with me.” From her infancy

she had been noted for her charities. What little she possessed in

childhood she gave to the poor joyfully. When she grew up and received a

monthly allowance from her mother for ordinary expenses, she gave with

such a liberal hand that her allowance used to be exhausted long before

the end of the month came. The Queen-Mother had become so accustomed to

the charitable prodigalities of her daughter that she used to say when

she would hear a modest knock at her door, about the 20th of each month,

“Here comes my little prodigal daughter; but, God bless her! she has not

wasted her substance.” When the Queen died, and Maria Immacolata came

into her inheritance, her charity was more a profusion than a giving; and

it was remarked that no one knew anything of her charities. The gospel

directed her to give in secret, and the Holy Spirit assured her that the

“Father who seeth in secret” would reward her. It was her chief delight,

when she went out to take a walk, to gather the young people around her,

and ask them the catechism, and teach them how to pray; and in order to

stimulate them to study the catechism thoroughly, she would give them

rosaries, medals, and pictures, which she had sent to her at regular

intervals from Rome. Whenever she met any one who was on the way to the

Eternal City, she could not restrain her tears, as she thought of the

happiness which was denied to herself; and, she would often remark, “It

is _so_ cold here, that not only the body, but the soul too shivers for

that warmth which can only be felt near the Vicar of Christ.”

About this time she became acquainted with Henry Bourbon, Count of Bardi,

son of Charles III. of Parma, and nephew of the Count of Chambord. Her

sister, Maria Pia, had already been married to Robert, Duke of Parma, and

the nuptial blessing was pronounced by the Holy Father, in the year 1869.

As her sister’s marriage was one of Christian love, not of political

or worldly interest, contracted under the influence of religion, and

not to keep up the “equilibrium of relationship,” as the saying is in

Europe, so was the marriage of Immacolata with the Count of Bardi. Among

other motives in favor of accepting his hand in marriage she was wont to

adduce this one, that the fact of his having been educated in the college

of the Jesuits at Feldkirch was an assurance to her that her marriage

would be a happy one. As she had prepared herself for the reception of

her First Communion, so by recollection and spiritual exercises did

she dispose herself for the Sacrament of Matrimony, and on the 27th

of November, 1873, she became the Countess of Bardi. The marriage was

a modest celebration throughout. The domestics of the family and the

poor of the city were the only merrymakers. As for the young spouses,

they were destined only to drink the cup of tribulation. The lily of

Bourbon was fast drooping, the color was fading from her cheeks, and the

unnatural brilliancy of her eyes told, more clearly than words could,

that Immacolata was not destined to live much longer. No one knew this

better than herself. Still she was resolved to do her duty, as if she

had long years before her. She began by studying the character of her

husband. Prior to all, however, she had marked out for herself a simple

line of conduct, which she couched in the two words, “affectionate

submission.” In the heaven-given light of this resolution, she loved him,

and by its influence and the discharge of all those kind and endearing

offices which are the noble prerogatives of the gentler sex, she won his

confidence, and strengthened his affection, as with a wall of granite.

Having acquired a thorough knowledge of his character, she anticipated

every desire of his, and executed his every wish with such readiness that

he was afterwards known to say that he could not decide whose wish she

accomplished, his or her own. In this way she obtained great influence

over him, but she only exercised it in the things of God. Wherever she

knelt down to pray, there he knelt at her side. When she was gone to her

rest, he was heard to say of her, “She took me by the hand, and led me to

God.”

On the day after their marriage the young spouses set out on a journey to

Egypt. The voyage was long and ill-suited to her delicate constitution;

but she went cheerfully, thinking not of herself, but only how she might

please her consort. During the forty days they were sailing up the Nile,

she lay prostrate with a malignant fever, which, together with the

ravages of consumption, reduced her almost to the last extremity. It

was hoped that she would rally during their voyage in Upper Egypt, but

in vain. When they arrived there, she became weaker and weaker, until,

finally, the most they hoped for was that she might live until their

return to France. Setting sail from Cairo, they arrived at Marseilles in

the March of 1874, where she rallied at the sight of her sister, Maria

Pia, and her beloved governess, Maria Laserre, who had come to meet her.

In a consultation of her physicians, it was resolved to bring her to

Cauterets, a little village in the Upper Pyrenees, and celebrated for

its sulphur baths. Maria Immacolata was delighted with the proposal,

not because she hoped for any relief from the waters of Cauterets, but

because in their journey thither they would pass Lourdes, to which she

had long yearned to make a pilgrimage.

Accordingly, they set out for Cauterets, stopping at Lourdes on the

way. The weary invalid’s heart throbbed with joy as she knelt for

the first time in the holy grotto. For two whole hours she remained

absorbed in silent prayer, giving no other sign of life than the long

and affectionate gaze which she fixed upon the image of Our Lady. During

their stay at Lourdes, she visited the grotto twice every day, and at

each visit she prayed long and fervently. Twice she insisted on being

immersed in the water, notwithstanding it was exceedingly cold. On being

asked what she prayed for, she replied, “That God’s will be done.” The

waters of Cauterets gave her no relief. The disease had taken deep root

in her system, and was rapidly advancing to a fatal termination. An

eminent physician was called from the city of Pau, who gave it as his

opinion that it was useless to hope for her recovery. She might live for

fifteen days more, and possibly might linger on for a month. The young

count thought no longer of the great loss he was about to suffer, but

only how he might make the remaining days of her short life as quiet and

devoid of pain as possible. It was resolved to bring her to Pau, the

principal city of the Lower Pyrenees, where she would receive better

attendance, and, above all, have the consolations of her religion. As

they carried her on a species of litter from the hotel to the carriage,

she said to her husband, “Not long ago I could move about with ease;

afterwards they carried me in an arm-chair; now it is a litter; the next

will be a bier.” Her sufferings on the road between Lourdes and Pau

were very great, but she bore them cheerfully, and only prayed that they

would let her die in Pau. After their arrival in that city, she rallied a

little, and her husband tried to raise her hopes by saying that she would

recover. “Do not be deceived, dear Henry,” she said; “before another

month passes away I shall be gone. Bring me a confessor.” One of the

Jesuit fathers came immediately, and her first prayer was that they would

erect an altar in her room at which Mass might be said on the following

day. Meanwhile, she prepared to make a general confession of her whole

life, and begged every one in the house to pray for her. Her first care

was to fulfil a number of promises which she had made to the Madonna, and

calling her husband to her bedside, she begged of him to make them good.

Her jewels, wedding-dress, and crown had already been promised to Our

Lady of Issoudun. After her death, the Duke of Parma and the Duchess, her

sister, repaired to that sanctuary and made the offering. She had also

vowed a silver heart to Our Lady of Einsiedeln, and a set of vestments to

Our Lady of Lourdes. She had begun to embroider the chasuble herself, but

was obliged from sheer weakness to lay it aside. She begged her sister to

finish it, and carry it in her name to the holy grotto. In addition to

these, she had also vowed to have two hundred Masses celebrated for the

suffering souls in purgatory. Opening her purse to fulfil this promise,

she found it empty. Indeed, that was its normal condition, and it was

said of her that a heavy purse never wore a hole in her pocket. She asked

her husband, with child-like simplicity, to give her six hundred francs,

and having received them, ordered the sum to be distributed among the

churches in the city according to her intention. On the following day,

the 20th of August, she confessed and received Holy Communion with

edifying fervor. Her only desire now was to remain quiet, that she

might commune with God and prepare for her final departure. On the day

mentioned, she was visited by Margherita, the wife of Don Carlos. But the

dying princess turned her eyes lovingly on the visitor and said, “Pardon

me, Margherita, but I must be alone with God.” The Princess Maria Pia

and her governess remained by her bedside constantly, and prayed aloud

with her. When her confessor entered the room she would say to him, “Must

I live many days longer? Pray God not to tarry.” Then she would chide

herself for a want of resignation, and say, “As thou wilt!”

It was no difficult task for one whose heart was detached from the things

of this world to make a will, and that of the Princess Immacolata of

Bourbon did not give her much anxiety. Still, she observed the legal

formalities, and showed such clearness and precision in her dictation

to the notary as surprised all present. With the exception of that

part of the will which affects her natural heirs, the rest is but one

long series of donations for religious purposes--foreign missions,

religious houses, orphanages, and the like. She was not content with

making a handsome provision for each of her domestics, but even made

appropriations for their relatives. The poor are called in the will

“my dearest heirs,” and to these, she left the sum of 20,000 francs in

gold, the distribution of which she entrusted to her governess, Maria

Laserre, begging her especially not to forget the poor families she

knew in Rome, and elsewhere, during her wanderings. In short, after

disposing of the enormous sum of 107,000 francs in gold, to be bestowed

in Christian charity, this generous soul concludes her will in these

terms: “I intend, moreover, that what remains, over and above, of my

capital be all expended in purchasing sacred vessels and vestments for

poor churches.” This last provision has already passed into effect, to

our personal knowledge. Among the many charitable institutions which

Rome possesses there is one whose members devote themselves especially

to making vestments and procuring sacred vessels for poor churches. We

know of one, composed of some eminent French ladies, who make it their

duty to provide for the poor churches of Italy; only a short time ago,

they exhibited a splendid assortment of vestments and church furniture,

mostly all purchased on the strength of the donation of Maria Immacolata

of Bourbon.

And now, having removed every earthly care from her mind, Maria

Immacolata disposed herself to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

She begged her confessor to read aloud from some ascetic work, that her

soul might be drawn more closely to God. When he had read for awhile, she

said, “Now I am ready,” and in the presence of her brother the Count of

Bari, her sister the Duchess of Parma, the Princess Margherita, wife of

Don Carlos, and her beloved governess, she received the last sacrament.

It was then that her confessor informed her that the following day,

August 23d, was the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whereat she

besought all present to pray that she might obtain the singular favor

from God of dying on that day and of receiving the Holy Eucharist once

more; and with the holy simplicity and fervor of her childhood, she

recited aloud the following prayer: “Most Holy Virgin, I resign myself

to suffer still more for your honor, and the glory of your divine Son.

O my Mother! you who have permitted your daughter to bear your own

sweet name of Immacolata, obtain for me the grace to receive once more

the most Sacred Body of your divine Son, and to die on the Feast of

your Immaculate Heart.” Both favors were granted. On the following day,

Mass was celebrated in her room, and she received her Lord for the last

time. Her husband also, her brother Count of Bari, the Duke and Duchess

of Parma, the Princess Margherita, and all her maids and domestics,

communicated. It was a touching scene that transpired after Mass, when

the whole household gathered around the bed of the dying princess, and

asked her blessing. A smile of angelic delight mantled her face, and, as

she said herself, her soul seemed to be inundated with consolation. She

no longer felt the oppression and pain which had tortured her an hour

previous. Her sister Maria Pia, desirous of having a precious remembrance

in after-life, held her own photograph to her lips, that she might

imprint a kiss upon it. When she had kissed it, she asked for a pen, and

wrote upon the card, in a trembling hand, “Living or dead, I shall always

be near thee. Thy own Maria Immacolata”; and on the photograph which her

governess presented to her, she wrote, “In heaven and on earth I shall

never have but one heart with you. Your little Mistress.”

Calling every one of her domestics to the bedside, she gave each a

souvenir of herself, accompanied with a few words of wise counsel.

Turning then to the princes her brothers, her sister, and her

brother-in-law, she besought them to live together in harmony, and

to love one another for her sake. She then asked for her jewels, and

choosing a ring, she put it on the finger of Margherita of Spain; another

precious ring she put on the finger of her sister, and a third upon that

of her governess. While doing this, she asked them to pray that she might

be pardoned for the vanity of wearing those ornaments. She asked pardon

three successive times of her maid, Maria Grazia, for all the annoyance

she had ever given her, and taking another ring from her own finger, she

held it out saying, “This is for your sister Francesca in Naples, of whom

I ask pardon from afar.” But the Duchess of Parma had still one favor to

ask--a blessing for her four little children in the Castle of Wartegg,

in Switzerland. The dying sister answered, “Yes, I will pray for them

in heaven,” and pronouncing the name of each she kissed the Crucifix and

blessed them. The apostolic Benediction of His Holiness had already been

sent to her, and now a second arrived, and with it the plenary indulgence

_in the hour of death_. This was followed by a despatch from the Comte

de Chambord which said, “We are in great affliction, and are praying.”

While all this was passing, her eyes rested upon the form of her husband,

who knelt by her side. But recollecting herself, she said, “My Madonna

for Mademoiselle”--meaning her governess. “Now,” said she, “I have naught

to give away but my soul, and that I give to God.” Turning to her young

husband, she said, “Henry! O my Henry! I leave thee, to go where I am

called by that God who made us companions for a few short months on

earth; but I leave thee in good hands”; and holding in her right hand the

crucifix and her rosary, and inclining her head towards a statue of the

Blessed Virgin, as if saluting her, and recommending to her care him who

knelt there in sorrow, she died.

NOTRE DAME DE LOURDES.