Famine reigned in France, for the resources of the country were
drained off to sustain the court in luxury and vice. In seven years,
Louis XV added seven hundred and fifty millions of francs to the two
billions and a half of debts left by Louis XIV. Archbishop Fénélon
wrote to the Grand Monarque: ‘At length, France is become one great
hospital, desolate and unprovided with the necessaries of life. By
yourself alone these disasters have been created. In the ruin of
France, everything has passed into your hands; and your subjects are
reduced to live upon your bounty.’
Louis the Well-Beloved was hunting one day in the forest of Sénart.
He met a peasant carrying a coffin. ‘For whom is that coffin?’ asked
the king. ‘For a man.’ ‘What did he die of?’ ‘Hunger.’ France was
dying: in a few years, but for the Revolution, it would have been
dead and buried, killed by famine.
‘In my diocese,’ said the Bishop of Chartres, ‘men browse with the
sheep.’
Taxes innumerable were paid. But there was not money enough.
Hundreds perished, that the beasts of Æsop’s fables might squirt
water in the duck-ponds of Versailles. The royal mistresses sparkled
with jewels, and each jewel cost a human life. One hundred millions
of francs went in pensions, the Red Book told on whom. Exemption
from taxes was given liberally; the king created nobles, the revenue
created employés, all these were exempt. Thus, whilst the sum
required of the people increased every year, every year the number
of payers decreased. The load weighed on fewer shoulders, and became
more and more oppressive.
At Versailles, fifteen thousand men and five thousand horses were
supported at the public cost to give splendour to the seat of
royalty; they consumed sixty million livres per annum. The king’s
house cost eighteen millions, that of the queen four millions, and
those of the princes nine millions, though they possessed as their
apannages a seventh part of the territory of France. The Church drew
an annual income of four hundred and fifty millions; the tithes were
worth eighty millions, and its buildings were estimated at five
hundred millions. Of the land in France, one-fifth belonged to the
Church.
What was the condition of the peasant? It has been already described;
it was he who bore the burden and heat of the day. On his toils
the court, the nobles, and the Church lived. It was his blood that
they sucked. The peasant might not plant what he would in his
fields; pastures were required to remain pastures, arable land was
to be always arable. If he changed his field into meadow, he robbed
the curé of his tithe; if he sowed clover in his fallow land, the
landlord or the abbot turned in his flock of sheep, to crop off it
what he deemed his share. The lord and the abbot sent out their
cattle to pasture an hour before those of the peasant; they had the
right to keep huge dovecots, and the pigeons fed on the grain of the
farmer. The tenant worked for his landlord three days in the year
for himself, three days for each of his sons and servants, and three
for each horse and cart. He was bound to cut and make and stack his
lord’s hay in spring, and to reap and garner his wheat in autumn; to
repair the castle walls, and make and keep up the castle roads. Add
to all this the tax to the king, twelve sous per head for each child,
the same for each servant, the subvention for the king; the twentieth
for the king, that is, the twentieth portion of the fruits of the
earth, already tithed for the Church.
When we hear folk declaim against the French Revolution, do not let
us forget what was the state of the people before that event. The
Revolution was a severe surgical operation, but it was the salvation
of France.
To the beautiful gothic church of Notre Dame de la Couture, the
people of Bernay and the neighbouring villages went in procession, on
the Feast of the Assumption, to entreat the Blessed Virgin to obtain
for them relief from their miseries. Human succour seemed in vain. If
they appealed to the king, his answer was, _Give!_ If they besought
the nobility, they also answered, _Give!_ If they threw themselves at
the feet of the Church, her response was also, _Give!_
Now, throughout the land a cry went up to Heaven. At Bernay it took
the form of a pilgrimage.
The origin of the Church of La Couture was as follows. Far away in
the purple of antiquity, when first the faith of Christ began to dawn
in Gaul, a shepherd-boy found himself daily deserted by his flock,
which left him as he entered the forest in the morning, and only
returned to him at nightfall. Impelled by curiosity, he followed
the sheep one day, and they led him through bush and brake till he
emerged on a pleasant sunny glade upon the slope of the hill, where
the pasture was peculiarly rich, and where also, resting against a
magnificent wild rose, leaned a black statue of the Blessed Virgin.
This discovery led to a concourse of pilgrims visiting the image,
which had been thus unaccountably placed in the heart of a forest.
The clergy of the ancient city of Lisieux sent a waggon to transport
the image to their church; but no sooner was it placed upon their
altar than it vanished, and was found next morning in the glade of
Bernay. A chapel was erected over it, and was served by a hermit,
but the afflux of pilgrims made the shrine rich, and a church was
built in the forest, and about the church a village soon arose.
The trees were cut down, and the bottom of the valley was brought
into cultivation, from which fact the church obtained its name of La
Couture, or Ecclesia de Culturâ Bernaii.
The church is beautifully situated on the steep side of the hill,
with its west front towards the slope, and its apse standing up high
above the soil, which falls away rapidly from it into the valley.
The western doorway is richly sculptured and contains a flamboyant
window, occupying the tymphanum of the arch. Above this portal is a
large window, which, at the time of our story, was filled with rich
tracery, and with richer glass that represented Mary, the Queen of
Heaven, as the refuge of all in adversity. In the central light, the
Virgin appeared surrounded by flames and rays, her face and hands
black, whilst angels harped and sang around her. A fillet surmounted
her, bearing the text ‘Nigra sum, sed formosa, sicut tabernacula
cedar.’ (Cant. i. 4.) On one side, cripples and sick persons
stretched forth their hands to the sacred figure; on the other,
were peasants trampled on and smitten by the servants of nobles in
armour, whilst above in the tracery might be seen houses and barns in
conflagration, and ships about to be engulfed in waves[1].
From the west door, a flight of fifteen steps leads down into the
nave, so that on entering, the appearance of the church is almost
that of a magnificent crypt.
On the 15th of August, in the afternoon, the church presented an
imposing spectacle. Eight parishes had united to visit the shrine,
and supplicate the protection of the Blessed Virgin. The day had
been hitherto very fine, and the sight enjoyed from the churchyard
of the processions arriving from different quarters, in the bright
sunshine, had been singularly beautiful. Each parish procession was
headed by its banner; the clergy, by crucifix and candles. Various
confraternities, with their insignia, united to give picturesqueness
to the scene. From the interior of the church the effect was
striking, as the line,--endless it seemed,--rippled down the flight
of western steps, with tapers twinkling and coloured banners waving;
whilst the organ thundered, and the people shouted the refrain of
a penitential litany. The illumined figures in the yard contrasted
with those in shadow, as they flowed through the portal: this was
especially noticeable when a band of girls in white, with white
veils, and lighted taper in hand, preceded by their white banner
emblazoned with a representation of the Assumption, moved through the
doorway. The leading ribbons of this banner were held by two maidens
in white; one of these was Gabrielle, and her appearance in this pure
garb was most beautiful. A wreath of white roses encircled her head,
and clasped the muslin veil to her temples. As the shadow of the arch
fell upon her, a slight puff of wind extinguished her candle, but on
reaching the foot of the steps a taper was held towards her, and she
was about to re-light hers at the flame, when, raising her eyes, she
encountered those of M. Berthier, who, with a smirk, proffered her
his burning candle. She shrank away, and kindled her light at the
candle of a girl who followed her.
M. Berthier was in company with an old gentleman, very thin, with
a hatchet face, white hair, and black eyes active and brilliant.
He was dressed in an old brown riding-coat, with high collar, over
which protruded a short wiry pig-tail, fastened with a large bow. He
took snuff, at intervals of a few minutes, from a large gold box;
and he took it in a peculiar manner, not from his fingers but from
the palm of his hand, into which he shook the tobacco dust, and from
which he drew it into his nostrils by applying the palm to his face.
This method of snuffing might be economical, but it was ungainly and
dirty, for it left crumbs of tobacco upon the lips, nose, and cheeks
of the old man.
‘That is the wench,’ said Berthier, after he had politely returned
the taper, which he had unceremoniously snatched from the hand of a
peasant, that he might offer it to Gabrielle.
‘A pretty little darling,’ the old man replied. ‘Is this the
third flame this year, and we only in August? Bah! my lad, you are
positively shocking.’
‘Are you going to remain here among these rascals?’
‘A moment or two, my friend; I want to see who are the malcontents.
Bah! these people ask Heaven for food. Let Heaven give them rain and
sunshine, and the earth yield her increase; who will profit thereby?
Not they. Bah! Famine is not the result of the seasons, it is no
natural phenomenon. It is good for the people to be kept on low diet,
it humbles them; America bred fat cattle, and they have thrown off
the yoke. What makes the famine, my boy? Why, _we_ make famine, and
keep up famine, because the people must be retained in subjection.’
Berthier touched the old man to silence him; Lindet was close
to them, and his glittering eye rested on the Intendant and his
father-in-law. But Foulon took no notice of the touch, and he
continued:--‘Bah! If they are hungry, let them browse grass. Wait
till I am minister, I will make them eat hay; my horses eat it.’
Thomas Lindet heard the words as distinctly as did Berthier. A flush,
deep as ruby, suffused his face, and he clenched his teeth, whilst a
flame darted from his eyes.
‘Who is that devil?’ asked Foulon, with imperturbable calmness, of
his son-in-law.
‘He is the priest of S. Cross, at Bernay. I owe him a grudge. Come
out of this crush into the air, I am stifled.’
Berthier drew his father-in-law to the door.
The weather was undergoing a change. To the west, above the hill, a
semicircle or bow of white cloud, in which the sun made prismatic
colours, edged a dense purple-black mass of darkness. It was like
gazing into a hideous cavern whose mouth was fringed with fungus.
‘A storm is at hand,’ said Berthier; ‘it is approaching too rapidly
for us to escape. We must remain here.’
An ash with scarlet berries grew opposite the west door, on high
ground. This tree stood up against the advancing clouds like a tree
of fire, so intense was the darkness within the bow of white. The
leaves scarcely rustled; at intervals a puff of wind swept over the
churchyard and shook the tree, but between the puffs the air was
still. Gradually a peculiar smell, very faint, like the fume of a
brick-kiln at a great distance, filled the air. The white vapourous
fringe dissolved into coils of cloud, ropy, hanging together in
bunches, and altering shape at each moment. A film ran over the sun,
which was instantly shorn of its rays; a chill fell on the air, and
a shadow overspread the ground; the ash turned grey, and everything
that had been golden was transmuted into lead.
From the church within sounded the organ, and the people chanting
the Magnificat; and incense rose before the altar, on which six
candles burned.
From over the western hill came the mumble of distant thunder, a low
continued roll like the traffic of heavy-laden vehicles on a paved
road. A few large drops fell and spotted the flagstone on which
Berthier and Foulon stood. They looked up. The sky was now covered
with whirling masses of vapour, some light curl-like twists flew
about before the main body of lurid thunder-cloud, which was seamed
and hashed with shooting lights.
The wind arose and moaned around the church, muttering and hissing
in the louvre-boards of the spire; the ash shivered and shook, the
willows and poplars in the valley whitened and bent, and the long
grass in the cemetery fell and rose in waves; the jackdaws flew
screaming around the tower, a martin skimmed the surface of the
ground, uttering its piercing cry.
Foulon had been scratching his initials listlessly on the flag on
which he stood, with the ferule of his walking-stick. Drops like
tears falling about it made him say:--‘Come in, Berthier, my boy. The
rain is beginning to fall, and you will have your smart coat spotted
and spoiled.’
The two men re-entered the church. Vespers had just concluded, and
Lindet ascended the pulpit. From where he stood he saw them in the
doorway, with the sheet-lightning flashing and fading behind them.
At one moment they appeared encircled with flame, at another plunged
in darkness.
‘As I came into this church to-day,’ spoke Lindet with distinctness,
‘I heard one say to another: _If the peasants are hungry, let them
browse grass. I would make them eat hay; my horses eat it._ As I
stand in this pulpit, and the lightning illumines yonder window,
I see painted there a lean, famished peasant, trampled under the
hoofs of the horse of some noble rider, and the great man has his
staff raised to chastise the peasant. Under these circumstances,
the poor man lifts his hands to heaven, as his only refuge. That is
what you do this day,--you, the down-trodden, scourged, and bruised;
you who are bidden browse the grass, because that is the food of
brute-beasts. Just Heaven! the importunate widow was heard who cried
to the unjust judge to avenge her on her adversary, and shall not God
avenge His own elect, though He bear long?’
The rain burst with a roar upon the roof,--a roar so loud and
prolonged that the preacher’s voice was silenced. The vergers closed
the great doors to prevent the rain from entering, for the wind
began now to blow in great gusts. The fountains of heaven seemed to
have burst forth, the rain rattled against the west window, loudly
as though hail and not rain were poured upon it. Dazzling flashes
of lightning kindled up the whole interior with white brilliancy,
casting no shadows. The congregation remained silent and awed, the
clergy in their tribune opposite the pulpit sat motionless. The
candles flickered in the draughts that whistled round the aisles;
their flames seemed dull and orange.
Suddenly the bells in the tower began to peal. According to popular
belief their sound dispels tempests, and the ringers were wont to
pull the ropes during a storm. The clash and clangour of the metal
alternated with the boom of the thunder. The darkness which fell on
the church was terrible, men and women on their knees recited their
beads in fear and trembling. Scarce a heart in that great concourse
but quailed. Once a child screamed. Then, as for one instant, the
bells ceased, the sobbing of a babe at its mother’s breast was heard.
The water began to flow down the hill, collect into a stream in the
churchyard, and to pour in a turbid flood down the steps into the
nave. It boiled up under the closed door, it rushed into the tower
and dislodged the ringers, who were soon over shoe-tops in water.
A startled bat flew up and down the church, and dashing against the
altar-candles extinguished one with its leathern wings.
All at once the rain ceased to fall, and the wind lulled. None
stirred; all felt that the tempest was gathering up its strength
for one final explosion ere it rolled away. Then a tall thin woman
in black, with a black veil thrown over her head, was observed
to have stationed herself immediately before the altar, where she
knelt with outstretched arms and uplifted face. Those who were near
observed with horror that the face, from which the veil was upthrown,
was of a blue-grey colour. When she had made her way to her present
situation none knew; none had observed her in the procession, for
then she had been, probably, closely veiled. She threw her arms and
hands passionately towards the black Virgin above the altar, and in
the stillness of that lull in the storm her piercing cry was heard
pealing through the church, ‘Avenge me on my adversary.’
‘My God!’ whispered Berthier to his father-in-law, as he pointed to
the excited worshipper, ‘look at my wife, Foulon! she has gone mad.’
‘Bah!’ answered the imperturbable old man; ‘nothing of the sort, my
boy; she is invoking vengeance upon you and me.’
Instantly the whole church glared with light, brighter than on the
brightest summer day. No one present saw any object, he saw only
light--light around him, light within him, followed by a crash so
deafening and bewildering that it was some minutes before any one
present was able to perceive what had taken place, much less to
realize it.
The lightning had struck the tower, glanced from it, bringing part
of the spire with it; had rent the west wall of the church, and had
shattered the slab on which, some minutes previously, Foulon and
Berthier had been standing.
This was the last effort of the storm; the sky lightened after this
explosion, the rain fell with less violence, and gradually ceased.
The congregation left the church. The torrent, which had rushed down
the hill, had in some places furrowed the graves and exposed the
dead. The grass was laid flat, and much of it was buried in silt.
Every wall and eave dripped, and the valley of the Charentonne lay
under water.