"I will not anticipate the executioner," answered the count, mounting

his horse.

"Courage!" murmured Diego in the ear of the sinking Perico. "Look at

us. We are all going to die, and we are all serene."

They entered Seville amidst the maledictions of the populace,

horrified by their recent crimes. But the indignation with which the

crowd saw the vile traitor who had sold his companions, walking among

them free, was beyond measure.

This traitor was the convict, who by betraying the others had bought

his own pardon, and obtained the reward promised to the person who

should secure the arrest of the notorious robber Diego, who had so

long laughed at the efforts of his pursuers.

CHAPTER XX.

The prison of Seville was at that time badly situated, in a narrow

street in the most central part of the city. It was an ill-looking

structure, scaly and mean; wanting in its style the dignity of legal

authority and the outward respect which humanity owes to misfortune,

even when it is criminal. A few steps from this centre of hardened

wickedness and beastly degradation the street ends in the grand

_plaza_ of _San Francisco_--an irregular oblong area, bounded by those

edifices which make it the most imposing plaza of the famed deanery of

_Andalucia_, On the right are the chapter-houses whose exquisite

architecture renders them in the eyes of both Sevillans and strangers

the finest ornaments of the city. On the left, forming a projecting

angle, stands the regular and severe edifice of the _Audiencia_, the

tribunal to which justice gives all power. Surmounting it, like a

signal of mercy, is its clock--ten minutes too slow; venerable

illegality, which gives ten minutes more of life to the criminal

before striking the cruel hour named for his execution. Thus all the

laws and customs of ancient Spain have the seal of charity. Ten

minutes, to him who is passing tranquilly along the road of life, are

nothing; but to him who is about to die, they are priceless. Upon the

threshold of death, ten minutes may decide his sentence for eternity.

Ten minutes may bring an unhoped-for but possible pardon. But even

though these considerations, spiritual and temporal, did not exist;

though this impressive souvenir of our forefathers were nothing more

than the grant of ten minutes of existence to him who is about to die,

it would still prove that, even to their most severe decrees, our

ancestors knew how to affix the seal of charity. As such it is

recognized by the people, who understand and appreciate it, for it is

one of the customs which they hold in highest reverence. O Spain! what

examples hast thou not given to the world of all that is good and

wise! thou that to-day art asking them of strangers!

{801}

On one side of the town-hall, forming a receding angle, is seen the

great convent of San Francisco with its imposing church. The other

fronts form arches that, like stone festoons, adorn the sides of the

plaza. At the end opposite the point first mentioned is an immense

marble fountain, of which the flow of waters is as changeless and

lasting as the material of the basin which receives it.

One day the plaza of San Francisco and the streets leading to it were

covered with an unusual multitude. What drew them together? Why were

they there? To see a man die--but no, not die; to see a man kill his

brother! To die is solemn, not terrible, when the angel gently closes

the sufferer's weary eyes and gives his soul wings to rise to other

regions. But to see a man killed, by a human hand, in travail of

spirit, in agony of soul, in tortures of pain, is appalling. And yet

men go, and hasten, and crowd each other, to witness the consummation

of legal doom. But it is neither pleasure nor curiosity that attracts

the awe-struck multitude. It is that fatal desire of emotion which

takes possession of the contradictory human heart. This might have

been read in those faces, at once pale, anxious, and horrified. An

indistinct murmur ran through the dense multitude, in the midst of

which rose that pillar of shame and anguish; that usurper of the

mission of death; that foothold of the forsaken, which no one but the

priest treads voluntarily--the fearful scaffold, built at night, by

the melancholy light of lanterns, because the men who raise it are

ashamed to be seen by the light of God's sun and the eyes of their

fellowmen. The crowd shuddered at intervals at the mournful strokes of

the bell of San Francisco, pealing for a being who no longer existed

except to God, for the world had blotted him from the list of the

living. Its notes, now rising to God in supplication for a soul, now

descending to mortals in expressive admonition, forming part of the

overwhelming solemnity which was inhaled with the air and oppressed

the breast, seemed to say, Die, guilty ones die in expiatory sacrifice

for this sinful humanity. Only the pure and limpid fountain continued

its sweet and monotonous song, unconscious as childhood and innocence

of the terrors of the earth. O innocence, emanation of Paradise, still

respired in our corrupted atmosphere by children and those privileged

beings who have, like faith, a bandage upon their eyes, that they may

believe without seeing, and another upon their hearts, that they may

see and not comprehend; who have, like charity, their heart in their

hand, and, like hope, their eyes fixed on heaven, thou art always

surrounded by reverence, love, and admiration, which, as the daughter

of heaven, thou meritest.

There are two classes of charity: one relieves material sufferings in

a material way, and with money--this is beautiful and liberal, but

easy, and a social obligation. The other is that which relieves moral

anguish, morally. This is sublime and divine.

Of the latter class, one that has not been sufficiently praised by

society, which finds so many occasions for censure and so few for

eulogy, is the Brotherhood of Charity. And who compose this admirable

congregation? Those, perhaps, who waste so much paper and phraseology

in favor of humanity, philanthropy, and fraternity? No, not one of

them condescends to enter this corporation, which is formed

principally of the aristocracy of those places where it has been

established. The truth is, that between theory and practice, as

between saying and doing, there is a great space.

In Seville, a short time after the events related in the last chapter,

several gentlemen of distinction were seen passing through the

streets, each holding out a small basket, as he repeated in a grave

voice, "For the unfortunates who are to be put to death."

{802}

Diego and his band were assembled in the chapel of the prison,

constantly attended by some of the brotherhood, who, leaving their

homes, their pleasures, and their occupations, came to take part in

this prolonged agony, consoling the last moments of these sinful men;

anticipating their wishes with more attention than those of kings are

anticipated, and pouring balsam into the wound inflicted by the sword

of justice.

Two of the most zealous and devoted of the brotherhood, the Count of

Cantillana and the Marquis of Greffina, had been to the tribunal,

which is established and remains in session in the jail while the

condemned are being prepared and led to the scaffold, and during the

execution, to ask of it the bodies of those who were to suffer. The

following is the formula adopted by this noble and affecting Catholic

institution:

"We come, in the name of Joseph and of Nicodemus, to ask leave to

take the body down from the place of punishment." The judge grants

the prayer, and they withdraw.

Each prisoner was accompanied by his confessor--a blessed staff to

sustain the steps that are turned toward the scaffold.

When Perico had finished his sacramental confession, he said to the

venerable religious who assisted him: "My name is not known; they call

me 'Perico the Sad;' but, since between earth and heaven nothing is

hidden, my family will, sooner or later, know my fate. Have the

charity, father, to fulfil my last desire, and be yourself the one to

carry the news to my mother. Tell her that I died repentant and

contrite, and not so criminal as I appear. An evil life is a ravine

into which one is drawn by the first crime. That crime which has

weighed and is weighing so heavily upon me, I committed because I

preferred a vain thing which men call honor, and which has sometimes

to be bought with blood, to the precepts of the gospel, which make a

virtue of forbearance and command us to forgive. O father! how

different appear the things of life on the threshold of the tomb! Tell

my poor sister, whose bridegroom I killed, that I commend her to

another and immortal One, who will never deceive her. Tell Pedro that

I know he has forgiven me, as did his son, and that I carry this

consolation to the grave, and my gratitude to God. Tell Rita that I

lived and died loving her, and that, if I had lived, I never would

have reminded her of the past, since she has repented of it. Ask my

mother-in-law, who is so good, to recommend me to God . . . . and my

poor children . . . my orphans . . . . Oh! if it were possible that

they might never know . . . . the fate of their father . . . . who . . . .

blesses them . . ."

Here his bursting heart found vent in sobs.

The priest who heard him, convinced of the innocence of his heart,

seeing how he had been surprised into crime by all that exasperates

and blinds the reason of a husband, a brother, and a brave man, and

forced into an evil life by circumstances, necessity, and his natural

want of firmness, felt as one who without means or power to save it

sees a fair vessel dashing to pieces at his feet.

Rita's constant and energetic movements to discover the whereabouts of

Perico, whose pardon, with the assistance of charitable souls, she had

obtained from the king, brought her, with her mother, that day to

Seville. Attempting to pass the plaza of San Francisco they

encountered the great crowd which had gathered there, and, asking the

cause of the tumult, were shown the scaffold. They would have retired,

but could not for the press behind them.

One of the condemned is approaching; all burst into exclamations of

pity--"Poor boy! This is the one they call 'Perico the Sad;' they say

that his wife, a good-for-nothing, was the ruin of him."

Rita's heart beats violently--the criminal passes--she sees--she

recognizes him. A shriek, another such was never uttered, rends the

air--heard in all the market-place.

{803}

Perico stops: "Father," he says, "it is she! it is Rita!"

"My son," replies the priest, "think only of God, in whose presence

you are going to appear, contrite, reconciled, and happy, carrying

with you your expiation."

"Father, if I could only see her before I die?"

"My son, think of the bitter punishment and of the glorious

illumination you are going to receive from man, who is the instrument

of God in your destiny." Perico wishes to turn "Forward!" orders the

sergeant.

He mounts the scaffold and kneels to the spiritual father, who with a

calm face, but a heart sorely oppressed, blesses him. He kisses the

crucifix, that other scaffold, upon which the Man-God expiated the

sins of others, still turning his eyes toward the place from which the

voice sounded that pierced his heart; seats himself upon the bench;

the executioner, who stands behind him, places the garrote around his

neck; the priest intones the creed; the executioner turns the screw,

and a simultaneous cry, "Ave Maria purissima!" sounds in the plaza.

With this invocation to the Mother of God, humanity takes leave of the

condemned at the moment that he is separated from it by the hand of

the law.

The executioner covers the face of the victim with a black cloth, and

the black shadow of the wings of death falls upon the hushed

multitude.

Some compassionate persons carried Rita away senseless. Her situation

was terrible beyond expression. The convulsions which shook her left

her but few moments of consciousness, and in these moments she gave

way to her despair in a way so frightful that they were obliged to

hold her as if she had been mad. For some days it was impossible to

move her. At length her relatives brought a cart to take her away.

They laid her in it, upon a mattress, but not one of them would

accompany her for shame. Maria went alone with her child, sustaining

her head upon her lap. Rita's long black hair fell around her like a

veil, covering her from the glances of the indiscreet and curious.

"There goes," they said, as they saw her pass, "the wife of the

criminal, who by her indiscretion sent him to the scaffold." But the

oxen did not hasten their deliberate steps. It seemed as if they also

had a mission to fulfil, in prolonging the punishment of reprobation

to her who hid provoked it with so much audacity. Maria went like a

resigned martyr. Her gentle heart had been made as it were elastic, in

order to contain without bursting an immensity of suffering. From time

to time Rita shuddered and broke into lamentations, pressing

convulsively her mother's knees. The latter said nothing, for even she

found no words of consolation for such grief.

They reached the village as night was coming on. The cart stopped

before their house, and Rita was lifted out.

She sees a window wide open in her mother-in-law's house; through this

window an unusual light is shining. She breaks away from the arms that

sustain her and rushes to the grating. In the middle of the room which

she inhabited in happy times, stands a bier. Four wax candles throw

their solemn light upon the calm form of Elvira. She is as white as

her shroud; her hands are crossed, and through her right arm passes a

palm branch--emblem consecrated to virginity. Thus in simple grace,

and in the attitude of prayer, lies the pious village maiden.

In the front part of that melancholy room were still seen the withered

plants which on a happier day had formed the mimic Bethlehem. At the

extremity of the room sits Anna, as pale and motionless as the corpse

itself. On one side of her is Pedro, and on the other the priest who

accompanied Perico to the scaffold.

{804}

Years after the events we have related, the Marquis of ---- went to

spend some days at one of the haciendas of Dos-Hermanas. One evening,

when he was returning from the estate of a relative, he noticed as he

passed near an olive-tree that the overseer and the guard who

accompanied him uncovered their heads. He glanced upward, and saw

nailed to the tree a red cross. "Has there been a murder in this quiet

place?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," answered the guard, "here was killed the handsomest and

bravest youth that ever trod Dos-Hermanas."

"And the murderer," added the overseer, "was the best and most

honorable young man of the place."

"But how was that?" questioned the marquis.

"Through wine and women, sir, the cause of all misfortunes," replied

the guard.

And as they went along they told the story we have repeated, with all

its circumstances and details.

"Do any of the family still live in the place?" asked the marquis,

extremely interested in the recital.

"Uncle Pedro died that year; Perico's wife would have let herself die

of grief, but the priest that assisted her husband persuaded her to

try to live to fulfil the will of God and her husband, by taking care

of her children; but to stay here where every one knew and loved her

husband, she must have had a brazen face indeed; she went with her

mother to the _sierra_, where they had relatives. One who came from

there awhile since, and had seen her, says that she does not look like

the same person. The tears have worn furrows in her cheeks; she is as

thin as the scythe of death, and her health is destroyed. Poor aunt

Anna died only the day before yesterday. She looked like a shadow, and

walked bent as if she were seeking her grave as a bed of rest."

They had now reached the village, and as they were passing a large

gloomy building, the overseer said, "This is her house."

The marquis paused a moment, and then entered. An old woman, a

relation of the deceased, lived alone in the sad and empty house, over

which, at that instant, the moon cast a white shroud.

"How these vines are dying!" said the marquis.

"They were not so," answered the woman, "when that poor dear child

took care of them. They used to be covered with flowers that

flourished like daughters under the hand of a mother. But she closed

her eyes, never again to open them in this world, the day she heard of

her brother's fate."

"Oh!" exclaimed the gentleman, "what a pity! this magnificent

orange-tree is dead."

"Yes; it is older than the world, sir, and was used to a great deal of

petting and care. After poor Anna lost her children, neither she nor

any one else minded it, and it withered."

"And this dog?" asked the marquis, seeing a dog, old and blind, lying

in one comer.

"The poor Melampo, from the time he lost his master he grew melancholy

and blind. Anna, before she died, begged me to take care of him; it

was almost the only thing the dear soul spoke of; but there will be no

need; when they took away her corpse he began to howl, and since then

he will not eat." The marquis drew nearer. Melampo was dead.

------

{805}

From The Month.

BURIED ALIVE.

"It may be asserted without hesitation, that no event is so terribly

well calculated to inspire the supremeness of bodily and mental

distress as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the

lungs; the stifling fumes of the damp earth; the clinging to the

death-garments; the rigid embrace of the narrow house; the blackness

of the absolute night; the silence like a sea that overwhelms; the

unseen but palpable presence of the conqueror worm--these things, with

thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who

would fly to save us, if but informed of our fate, and with

consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed; that our

hopeless portion is that of the really dead--these considerations, I

say, carry into the heart which still palpitates a degree of appalling

and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must

recoil." [Footnote 187]

[Footnote 187: E.A. Poe's "Premature Burial."]

I have chosen this sentence from a writer whose forte is the terrible

and mysterious for my introduction, because it sums up, in a few

expressive words, the thoughts which arise in our minds on hearing or

reading the words "Buried Alive." To avert so fearful a doom from a

fellow-creature would surely be worth any trouble; and yet it is to be

feared that the very horror which the thought inspires causes most of

us to turn aside from it, and to accept the comfortable doctrine that

such things are not done now, whatever may have formerly been the

case. Were this true, I should not feel justified in bringing before

the readers of the "Month" a ghastly subject, which could be

acceptable only to a morbid curiosity; but it is unfortunately but too

certain that persons are now and then buried alive, and that,

therefore, this fate may be possibly our own. The subject is one which

naturally excites more attention abroad; for in England the custom of

keeping deceased relatives above ground for many days after their

death, has long prevailed, and incurs the opposite danger of injuring

the health of the survivors who thus indulge their grief. We believe

no important work has ever been published in this country on the

subject; for Dr. Hawe's pamphlet is not up to the present standard of

medical information, and contains instances of very doubtful

authenticity. The tales of premature interment which can be collected

in conversation, or occasionally noticed in the public journals, are

not very numerous; few of them are circumstantial enough to have any

scientific interest; and some prove the supposed fact by the hair or

nails having grown, and the body having moved when in its coffin--

things which are well known to happen now and then after death has

undoubtedly taken place, and being therefore no proofs at all. After

examination, I have, then, come to the conclusion that no estimate of

the frequency of premature interment can be obtained. Indeed, the only

statistics which we possess are from Germany, and they are not very

reassuring. In some of the largest towns of that country, mortuary

chambers (in which the dead are placed for some days before burial)

have long been established; and we learn from a report of one in

Berlin, that in the space of only thirty-months ten people, who had

been supposed dead, were there found to be alive, and thus saved from

true death {806} in its most horrible form. But in France and Italy,

especially during the summer months, the dead are buried so very early

that fears are frequently entertained. In France, indeed, the law

prescribes a delay of twenty-four hours after death before interment,

and also requires a certificate of death from an inspector, who in

large towns is usually a physician with no other employment (_le

médecin des morts_;) but so many instances of carelessness and of

incapacity on the part of the country inspectors have been noticed,

that the Chamber of Peers, during Louis Philippe's reign, and lately

the Senate of the Empire, have received many petitions praying for an

inquiry, and for further precautions. To these the answer has

generally been, that the existing law provides sufficient safeguards;

and in this the Senate only followed the prevailing opinion of men of

science in France.

For, some years ago, Dr. Manni, a professor in the University of Rome,

offered a prize of 15,000 francs, to be given by the French Academy of

Sciences to the author of the best essay on the signs of death and the

means to be taken to prevent premature interment. The prize was

obtained in 1849 by M. Bouchut, an eminent physician in Paris, who,

after a very detailed examination of the question, came to these two

conclusions: first, that when the action of the heart could be no

longer heard by means of the stethoscope, death was certain; and

secondly, that not a single case of interment before death has ever

been clearly and satisfactorily made out: and the learned body, who

awarded the prize to him, entirely assented to these opinions. Since

that time, however, cases have been quoted, by some French doctors of

note, in which the action of the heart could not be detected, and yet

life was in the end restored. Their observations have been summed up

in a pamphlet by M. Jozat. This gave a fresh impulse to the subject;

and on the 27th of February last, M. de Courvol presented a petition

to the Senate of the same tenor as those mentioned above. This would

have received the same answer as they did, and the matter would have

been again shelved, if several of the senators present had not quoted

instances which had fallen under their own observation, and in which

death was escaped only by some happy accident. The most remarkable of

these was narrated by Cardinal Donnet, as having happened to

_himself_; and his story was copied into most English newspapers at

the time. It is, however, so much to the purpose of this paper, that I

make no apology for quoting it in his own words:

"In 1826, a young priest was suddenly struck down, unconscious, in

the pulpit of a crowded cathedral where he was preaching. The

funeral knell was soon after tolled, and a physician declared him to

be certainly dead, and obtained leave for his burial next day. The

bishop of the cathedral where this event had occurred, had recited

the 'De Profundis' by the side of the bier; the coffin was being

already prepared. Night was approaching; and the young priest, who

heard all these preparations, suffered agonies. He was only

twenty-eight years old, and in perfect health. At last he

distinguished the voice of a friend of his childhood; this caused

him to make a superhuman effort, and produced the wonderful result

of enabling him to speak. The next day he was able to preach again."

This remarkable account, coming almost from the grave, produced a very

great impression; and, as is not unusual in deliberative assemblies,

the Senate yielded to striking individual cases what it had before

refused to argument, forwarding the petition to the Minister of the

Interior, and so implying that it considered the existing law

insufficient. The plan which finds most favor in France is the

establishment of "mortuary houses," like those in Germany. Although

some of the highest authorities in {807} France are opposed to them,

there can be no doubt, if the statistics quoted above are to be

believed, that they would be the means of saving many lives,

especially in cases where (as in hotels and lodging-houses) the

funeral is now hurried as much as possible. The only precautions which

need be taken in England are of a simple kind, and will be more

evident after the description I shall now proceed to give of the two

diseased states which most nearly simulate death.

In the first of these, called _catalepsy_, the patient lies immovable

and apparently unconscious; the limbs are rigid and cold; the eyes are

fixed, sometimes remaining open; and the jaw sometimes drops. But the

resemblance to death goes no farther; the face has not a corpse-like

expression; although the limbs are cold, the head continues to be

warm, or is even warmer than when in the usual state; the pupils are

never completely dilated, and are, sometimes at least, contracted by

exposure to light. The pulse and breathing, although slow and

irregular, can always be noticed; and the muscles are so far stiffened

as to keep the limbs, during the whole course of the attack, in the

position (however constrained and inconvenient) in which they chance

to be at the time of seizure, or may be placed in by bystanders during

the fit. This state of the muscular system is a decisive proof that

the case is one of catalepsy.

Were this rare and curious disease the only cause of error, the

physician called upon to discern in a given case between life and

death would have a comparatively easy task; but there is a still rarer

condition, which gives rise to most of the lamentable mistakes that

are made; the state of _trance_ or _prolonged syncope_, is a far more

perfect counterfeit of death. The patient is motionless, and

apparently unconscious, although he is usually aware of all that is

passing around him; the pulsation of the heart and arteries, and the

breathing gradually diminish in force and frequency, until they become

at last quite imperceptible; the whole surface of the body grows cold;

and all this may last even for many days. How is one in such a

condition known not to be dead? In the first place, it is noticed that

this disease is rare in a previously healthy person; it has been

generally preceded by some cause producing great weakness, (especially

long-continued fevers, great loss of blood, severe mental affliction,

or bodily pain.) It almost invariably, too, occurs suddenly, without

any preparation, and of course without the signs which immediately

precede death.

Sometimes mere inspection will convince the physician that the person

is still alive. Thus, the face, although fixed, may not have the look

of death; the mouth may be firmly closed, the eye not glazed, and the

pupil not entirely dilated. Supposing, however, that every one of

these signs of life is absent, and that the pulse and breathing are

imperceptible by the ordinary means of observation, careful

examination of the chest with a stethoscope will detect the

heart-sounds, if life be not quite extinct, in almost every case. I

dare not, in view of the cases cited by M. Jozat, say that absence of

the heart-sounds in this state _never_ occurs; but all medical men

will agree with me that it must be exceedingly rare. It also seems to

me probable that, in the cases on which M. Jozat relies, the movements

of the heart were so few and far between that the chest happened to be

ausculted only during the intervals; at any rate, it would of course

be advisable to make frequent and prolonged examinations before

deciding that no sound could be heard. The late Dr. Hope suggested

that the second sound of the heart might be detected, although the

first was quite inaudible; but this is merely theoretical. Again,

although the surface of the body be quite cold, it is probable that a

thermometer introduced far into the mouth would show that some

internal warmth {808} remained in every case of trance. At a variable

time after death the muscles lose their "irritability," (that is,

their power of contracting under galvanic stimulation;) and this

change is speedily followed by another--the stiffness which is noticed

all over the body. It is to be remembered that loss of muscular

irritability, and rigidity of the whole body, may both be noticed and

yet the person be alive; still, if these two symptoms are not present

at first, and only appear soon after supposed death, they will afford

strong presumption that the person is dead; which will be strengthened

if the skin be slightly burned, and yet no bleb forms in consequence.

Every one, however, of the signs enumerated is open to exceptions;

although, of course, the concurrence of many, or of all, tending in

the same direction, will make death or life almost certain; but the

_only_ absolutely conclusive evidence of death is putrefaction, which

is sometimes much delayed by the previous emaciation of the deceased,

or by cold dry weather, but which sooner or later removes all doubt.

The first indications of decay are in the eyeball, which becomes

flaccid, and in the discoloration of the skin of the trunk; its later

ones are well known to every one. One M. Mangin (who contributed a

notice of this subject to the "Correspondant" for March 25th last, to

which I am indebted for several facts I have mentioned) supposes that

the buzzing, humming noise which is heard over all the body of a

living person would furnish a certain means of distinguishing real

from apparent death. He does not seem to be aware that M. Collongues,

the principal authority for what is called "dynamoscopy," has found

that this noise is absent in some cases of catalepsy and trance, for

which it is proposed as a test. Certain authorities, both in England

and France, have thought that microscopal examination of the blood

would be decisive; but unfortunately irregularity in shape and

indentation of the red disks (on which they would rely) occur

sometimes during life, and are only among the earliest signs of

putrefaction after death.

These, as far as I know« are the only means which science has hitherto

suggested for distinguishing a living body from a corpse; and we have

seen that none of them, save putrefaction, are invariably certain. In

a doubtful case, therefore, time should always be allowed for this

change to take place, so that the body may be interred in perfect

security. If this is done under the direction of a medical attendant

of ordinary information, relatives and friends may be convinced that

no mistake is possible; and their plain duty is to urge this salutary

delay in the very few cases where it can possibly be required.

It is particularly important to urge this delay, when necessary, in

the case of persons who have apparently died of some contagious

disease, and who might otherwise have been buried alive. It is indeed,

much to be feared that persons in the collapse stage of cholera have

been sometimes buried as dead; especially (Cardinal Donnet remarks)

when they are attacked in hotels or lodgings, where a death from such

a cause would be particularly prejudicial.

M. Mangin mentions one such case of a medical student in Paris, who

apparently died of cholera in 1832, and for whose funeral all

preparations were made, when a friend applied moxas to the spine. He

recovered consciousness at once, and survived many years; and there is

something grimly amusing in reading that he told the narrator: "Je me

suis chauffé avec le bois de mon cercueil!" Those, again, who have

read Mr. Maguire's "Life of Father Mathew," will not soon forget his

graphic description of a similar case, in which Father Mathew rescued

a young man from the hospital dead-house during the same epidemic at

Cork, just as he was being wrapped in a tarred sheet and placed in his

coffin.

{809}

Poe, in the tale from which I have quoted above, gives an instance of

burial during typhus fever, probably in one of the long periods of

unconsciousness and immobility occasionally occurring in that disease.

The unfortunate man remained in the grave for two days, when his body

was disinterred by the "body-snatchers," for the purpose of enabling

his medical attendants to make a _post-mortem_ examination. A casual

application of the galvanic current revived him, and he was soon after

restored to his friends, alive and in good health. This is said by Poe

to have happened to a Mr. Edward Stapleton, a London solicitor, in

1831. I have been unable to obtain any verification of this marvel,

but give it for what it may be worth.

It is very remarkable that the state of prolonged syncope, or trance,

can sometimes be produced by a mere effort of the will. One of the

best-described cases is given by St. Augustine. [Footnote 188] It is

that of a priest named Restitutus, who used frequently, in order to

satisfy the curiosity of friends, to make himself totally immovable,

and apparently unconscious, so that he did not feel any pricking,

pinching, or even burning; nor did he appear to breathe at all. He

used afterward to say that "he could hear during the attack what was

said very loud by bystanders, as if from afar." He brought on the

attack "ad imitatas quasi lamentantis cujuslibet voces;" a sentence

which is unfortunately of rather uncertain meaning. Another case is

recorded by Dr. Cheyne, a fashionable Bath physician of the last

century. A patient of his, one Colonel Townsend, in order to convince

Dr. Cheyne's incredulity, one day voluntarily induced this state of

death-like trance "by composing himself as if to sleep." He then

appeared perfectly dead; and neither Dr. Cheyne nor another physician.

Dr. Bayard, nor the apothecary in attendance, could detect any

pulsation at the heart or wrist, or any breathing whatever. They were

just about to give him up for dead, when, at the end of half an hour,

he gradually recovered.

[Footnote 188: "De Civ. Dei," xiv. cap. 24. ]

But these performances are quite thrown into the shade by those of

certain fakeers in India. Mr. Braid, in his very interesting

"Observations on Trance, or Human Hybernation," collected several of

these almost incredible tales from British officers, who spoke as

having been themselves eye-witnesses of them in India. In the most

wonderful of them Sir Claude Wade (formerly Resident at the court of

Runjeet Singh) says that he saw a fakeer buried in an underground

vault for six weeks: the body had been twice dug up by Runjeet Singh

during this period, and found in the same position as when first

buried. In another case, Lieutenant Boileau (in his "Narrative of a

Journey in Rajwarra in 1835") relates that he saw a man buried for ten

days in a grave lined with masonry and covered with large slabs of

stone; and the fakeer declared his readiness to be left in the tomb

for a twelvemonth. In all these cases it is said that the body, when

first disinterred, was like a corpse, and no pulse could be detected

at the heart or the wrist; but warmth to the head and friction of the

body soon revived the bold experimenter. Supposing that the watch

(which was carefully kept up during each of these curious interments)

was not eluded by some of the jugglery in which Indians excel, we have

here proofs that the state of trance cannot only be voluntarily

induced, but prolonged over a very long time.

The rationale of such phenomena is not very difficult to comprehend.

St. Augustine was undoubtedly right when he explained the case that

fell under his own observation by the supposition that some persons

have a remarkable and unusual power of the will over the action of the

heart. Dr. Carpenter suggests that the state of syncope could be kept

up much longer {810} in a vault in a tropical climate, where the body

would not lose too much of its natural heat, than in more temperate

countries; and Mr. Braid compares this condition to the slowness of

respiration and circulation during winter in hybernating animals. But

whatever may be the explanation, I cannot at least be accused of

digression in ending this gloomy paper with an account of men who are

voluntarily buried alive.

------

Translated from Le Correspondant.

A CELTIC LEGEND.--HERVÉ.

TO THE MEMORY OF M. AUGUSTIN THIERRY.

BY H. DE LA VILLEMARQUÉ.

I was one day walking in the country with a book in my hand. It was in

a district of that land where La Fontaine has said, "fate sends men

when it wishes to make them mad." Fate had not, however, sent me there

in order to make me mad. I found, on the contrary, in the charming

scenes which on all sides presented themselves to my view, and in the

original population which surrounded me, a thousand reasons for not

sharing the sentiment of the morose narrator of fables. A peasant

accosted me in the familiar but at the same time respectful style

habitual to those of that country, and, pointing to my book with his

finger:

"Is it the Lives of the Saints," he said to me, "'that you are reading

there?"

A little surprised at this address, which, however, by no means

explained my reading, I remained silent, thinking of this opinion of

the Breton peasants, according to whom the "Lives of the Saints" is

the usual reading of all those who know how to read; and, as my

interlocutor repeated his question,

"Well, yes," I replied, to humor his thought, "there is sometimes

mention made of the saints in this book."

"And what one's life are you reading now?" he continued obstinately.

I mentioned at random the name of some saint, and thought I had

quieted his curiosity, but I had not satisfied his faith.

"What was he good for?" he asked.

For an instant I stopped short; what reply to offer to a man who

judged the saints by their practical utility? I turned upon him: "And

your own patron," I replied, "what maladies does he care?"

"Oh! a great number," he said; "those of men as well as those of

animals. Although during his life he was only a poor blind singer, he

has a beautiful place in paradise, I assure you. The day he entered

heaven the sky was all illuminated." And, accompanying it with

commentaries, he chanted for me the legend of the patron of his

parish.

I knew it already by Latin and French publications; but I was well

pleased to collect it fresh from the living spring of popular

tradition. By the aid of this later source and of the written record,

I have reconstructed the account about to be read. It presents, if I

do not deceive myself, a somewhat interesting page in the history of

Christian civilization in Armorica, in the sixth century; so judged

the great historian, my teacher and my friend, to whom I dedicate it.

Moral truth shines through all the legend as a light shines through a

veil. [Footnote 189]

[Footnote 189: The most ancient compilation of this legend, written

six hundred years after the death of Saint Hervé, which is placed on

the 22d June in the year 568, exists in the Imperial Library, in the

portfolio of the "Blanc-Manteaux." No 38, p. 851: the two more

modern are, one of P. Albert le Grand, who has taken for his model

Jacques de Voragine; the other by Dom Lobineau, who has fallen into

the contrary extreme.]

{811}

I.

It was the custom of the Frank kings to have a large number of poets

and musicians at their court; they often had them come from foreign

countries, taking pleasure, mingled with a barbarous pride, in

listening to verses sung in their honor, of which they understood not

a word. Among them were seen Italians, Greeks, and even Britons, who,

uniting their discordant voices with the singers of the German race,

emulated each other in flattering the not critical ears of the

Merovingian princes. Welcomed to their palace, after having been

driven from his own country by the Lombards, the Italian Fortunatus

has preserved for us recollections of these singular concerts at

which, lyre in hand, he performed his part while "the Barbarian," he

says, "added the harp, the Greek the instrument of Homer, and the

Briton the Celtic rote." The rote had the same fate as the lyre; it

sought in Gaul an asylum from the invaders of the British Isle, of

whom it might be said with equal truth as by the Italian poet of the

conquerors of his country, that they did not know the difference

between the gabble of the goose and the song of the swan. The

Merovingian kings piqued themselves on having more taste.

Among the Britons who took refuge with them, and who continued to play

in Gaul nearly the same part that they played in the dwellings of

their native chiefs, there was a young man, named Hyvarnion. This

name, which signifies just judgment, had been given him in his own

country on the following occasion: He was in a school where he was

only known as the _petit savant_, and had for his teacher one of the

sages of the British nation, both monk and poet, named Kadok, now

known in Armorica as Saint Cado. At the end of the fifth century this

successor of the last Latin rhetors of Albion, instructed the young

islanders in grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, poetry, and music,

mingling, as it appears, with the methods of instruction transmitted

by classic antiquity, the traditions of the ancient Druids. The master

disputed one day with his little scholar after the manner of the

Druids, the subject of debate being: What are the eighteen most

beautiful moral virtues? Kadok indicated eighteen, but he purposely

omitted the principal, wishing to leave to his pupil the pleasure of

finding them out for himself.

"For my part," said the scholar, "I believe that he possesses the

eighteen virtues _par excellence_, who is strong in trials and in

tribulations; gentle in the midst of suffering; energetic in

execution; modest in glory and in prosperity; humble in conduct;

persistent in good resolutions; firm in toil and in difficulties;

eager for instruction; generous in words, in deeds, and in thoughts;

reconciler of quarrels; gracious in his manners and affable in his

house; on good terms with his neighbors; pure in body and in thought;

just in words and deeds; regular in his manners; but above all,

charitable to the poor and afflicted."

"Thine the prize!" cried Kadok, "thou hast spoken better than I."

"Not so," replied the _petit savant_, "not so; I wished to carry it

over thee, and thou hast given a proof of humility; thou art the

wiser, and thine the palm." [Footnote 190]

[Footnote 190: "Myvyrian archaeology of Wales," iii. p. 45.]

This just judgment brought good fortune to the young scholar. It

procured for him the fine name by which he was afterward designated,

and under which he is presented to us in the Armorican legends.

{812}

Once passed over to the continent, Hyvarnion became henceforth only a

vague remembrance in the minds of the islanders. His countrymen knew

very little of his history, and it may be believed that he would have

been wholly forgotten had not a Cambrian poet consecrated to him three

verses recalling the memorable sayings of the great men of his nation.

"Hast thou heard," said he, "what sang the _petit savant_ seated at

table with the bards?"

"The man with a pure heart has a joyous countenance."

The table which is here mentioned is that of the Frank king

Childebert. Hyvarnion sat there for four years, probably from the year

513 to the year 517. In the midst of the debaucheries and the scandals

of that court he appeared calm and serene in conscience and in

countenance, and like the children in the furnace, he sang. His songs

and his verses rendered him agreeable to the king, says a hagiographer

who charitably claims that the bard "merited the esteem of the king

even more by his virtues than by his talents." Whatever might be the

esteem of the murderer of the sons of Chlodimer for the virtues of the

poet of his court, Childebert showed himself as generous to him as

were the island chiefs to their household minstrels. But not precious

stuffs, nor gold, nor mead, the three gifts most dear to a poet, could

retain in the court of Paris a young man in whose eyes purity of soul

and of body, regularity of manners, and justice were among the most

beautiful of virtues.

Under pretext of returning to his own country, where a brilliant and

decisive victory of Arthur over the Saxons had restored security, he

asked permission of the king to leave him. He departed loaded with

presents, even carrying, we are assured, a letter to Kon-Mor, or great

chief, who governed Armorica in the name of Childebert, in which the

king ordered that a ship should be placed at the service of the

British bard.

Hyvarnion had been three days at the court of the Frank officer, and

the ship, which was to conduct him to the British isle was ready to

sail, when three dreams, followed by a meeting which he had probably

made after his arrival in Armorica, prevented his embarkation. A young

girl of the country, as remarkable for her beauty as for her talent

for poetry and music, appeared to him in his sleep. Seated on the

border of a fountain she sang in a voice so sweet that it pierced his

heart. Somewhat troubled on awaking, he drove away the dangerous and

too charming recollection; but the following night, the same young

girl, more beautiful still, if possible, and singing even more sweetly

than before, appeared to him a second time. "Then," says an author,

"he seriously feared that it was some wile or snare of the spirit of

fornication," and the night coming, he prayed the Lord to deliver him

from this dream, if it came not from him. "If on the contrary, it is

thou who dost send it to me," said he, "let me know clearly what it is

thou wouldst that I should do."

And he sought his bed. But behold! scarcely had he slept than he had a

third dream. He saw a young man surrounded with light, who entered his

room and thus spoke to him: "Fear not to take for your wife her whom

you have seen seated on the border of the fountain, and whom you will

see again. Like you, she is pure and chaste, and God will bless your

love."

The Frank officer to whom the bard related his dream, wished, without

doubt, to be agreeable to one recommended by the king, and took upon

himself to realize the prophecy. He proposed a hunting party to the

young man, where, he said, he would meet a certain marvellous hare,

called the _silver hare_, but with the secret purpose of contriving a

meeting with the {813} young girl of his dream. His hope was not

deceived. As they entered the forest where lodged the pretended silver

hare, they heard a voice singing in the distance. The young man

trembled and reined up his horse. "I hear," said he, "I hear the voice

singing which I heard last night."

Without replying to him the royal officer turned himself toward the

part of the forest whence the voice proceeded, and following a

footpath which wound along the side of a stream, they reached a

spring, near to which a young girl was occupied in gathering simples.

"The young girl sat by the fountain," says a poet. "White was her

dress, and rosy her face.

"So white her dress, so rosy her face, that she seemed an eglantine

flower blooming in the snow.

"And she did naught but sing: 'Although I am, alas! but a poor iris on

the banks of the water, they call me its Little Queen.

"The Lord Count said to the young girl as he approached her, 'I salute

you, _Little Queen of the Fountain_. How gaily thou dost sing, and how

fair thou art!

"'How fair thou art, and how gaily thou dost sing. What flowers are

those you gather there?'

"'I am not fair, I sing not gaily, and these are not flowers that I

gather;

"'These are not flowers that I gather, but different kinds of salutary

plants;

"'One is good for those who are sad; for the blind, the other is good;

and the third, if I can find it, is that which will cure death.'

"'Little Queen, I pray thee, give me the first of these plants.'

"'Save your grace, my Lord, I shall give it only to him whom I shall

marry.'

"'Thou hast given it! Give it then,' cried the royal officer, 'Thou

hast given it to this young man, who has just come to ask thee in

marriage.'"

And the _Little Queen of the Fountain_ gave to the bard, in pledge of

her faith, the plant which produces gaiety. [Footnote 191]

[Footnote 191: The Breton text of the legend of Saint Hervé, in

verse appears in the fifth edition of the _Barsas[??] Breis, Chante

populaires de la Bretagne_.]

If we may credit the legend, it was even in the same mind that

Rivanone, as she was called, went to the fountain; for she also had a

dream the preceding night, a dream altogether like the bard's. She

herself confessed it, and if she had not avowed it, we could divine

it, "Those who love, have they not dreams?" _An qui amant, ipsi sibi

somnia fingunt?_ Seeing in this a certain proof of the will of heaven,

the Frank count brought the brother of Rivanone, an Armorican chief,

in whose manor the young girl had lived since the death of her father

and mother, and having related to him all that had passed, he demanded

of him his sister in marriage for the favorite of the king.

Thus was settled this well-assorted union, and the wedding was

celebrated at the court of the Frank count.

Tradition has described it in a manner almost epic. The small as well

as the great, the poor as well as the rich, were guests at the feast;

churchmen and warriors, magistrates and common people, arrived there

from all sides. Neither wine, nor hydromel, drawn from casks, was

wanting to the guests. Two hundred hogs were immolated, and two

hundred fat bulls, two hundred heifers, and one hundred roebucks, two

hundred buffalos, one hundred black, one hundred white, and their

skins divided among the guests. A hundred robes of white wool were

given to the priests, one hundred collars of gold to the valiant

warriors, and blue mantles without number to the ladies. The poor had

also their part; there was for them a hundred new suits; they could

not receive less at the marriage of a poet who placed duty to them at

the head of the most beautiful virtues. But in order worthily to do

him honor for himself--in order properly to celebrate the union of the

Armorican muse {814} with the genius of the island bards--a hundred

musicians did not seem too many--a hundred musicians who from their

high seats played for fifteen days in the court of the count. In order

to complete this by an act destined to crown the glory of the young

couple, we are assured the king of the bards of the sixth century, the

last of the Druids, the famous Meri, finally celebrated the marriage.

Be this as it may, in regard to an honor which another popular

tradition appears to claim with more reason for the heroes of another

legend of the same century, the wedding at last at an end, the bride,

accompanied by a numerous suite, was conducted with her husband to the

manor of her brother, and if the Armorican customs of our days already

existed at that epoch, the minstrels at the wedding played on their

way a tender and melancholy air, named the Air of the Evening before

the Festival, which always brought tears to the eyelids of the bride.

"God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her

wedding night."

It is said that Rivanone shed several tears in the midst of her joy.

Had she not for ever bid adieu to the sweet and simple girlish beliefs

which had surrounded her? to her dear fountain, on the banks of which

her companions the fairies danced at night in white robes, with

flowers in their hair, in honor of the new moon? to those graceful

dances which she herself, perhaps, had led, and to her songs in the

wood? to her salutary plants less brilliant but more useful and more

durable than flowers? to the herb which causes the union of hearts and

produces joy, which, wet in the waters of the fountain by a virgin

hand, she had shaken upon the brow of the man whom she was to take for

her husband? to the golden herb which spreads light, and in opening

the eyes of the body and the mind, opens to the knowledge of things of

the future? finally, had she not renounced the search for the plant

called the _herb of death_, which would be better named the _herb of

life_, because those die not who once have found it?

But no! "God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on

her wedding night!" The spring of the fountain will cease not to flow;

the charming apparitions will desert not its borders; there shall be

ever seen there gliding through the night a luminous shadow of which

the moon will be but an imperfect image--the shadow of that immaculate

Virgin whom the Druids seem to have prophesied when they raised an

altar to her under the name of the _Virgin Mother_, and the white

fairies of Armorica less white, less pure than she, bending before

their patroness, will sing _Ave Maria!_

No plant shall wither there, not the lemon-plant which produces joy,

for it is at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, that it will

spring henceforth; it is to Him it owes its virtue, and shall be

called the _herb of the cross;_ nor _sélago_ which gives light, for it

is from the aureole of the saints that it borrows its rays, and to

discover it, it is necessary to be a saint; nor, more than all, the

herb of life, for he has shown it, he has given it as a legacy to his

disciples, to whom he has said; "I am the life; whosoever believeth in

me shall not die."

And no more than the living spring which nourishes the herbs by its

side shall be exhausted that which sustains the fruits of the Spirit;

the soul shall not be stifled, it shall be purified; and for a moment

bent under regrets, as a rose under the rain, the Druid muse shall be

transformed and awake a Christian.

Rivanone so awoke; God had consoled the inconsolable heart, the heart

of the girl on her wedding-night.

{815}

II.

God consoles in his own way; he blesses in the same. Three years after

their marriage, Rivanone and Hyvarnion rocked the cradle of a crying

infant whom they endeavored to put asleep with their songs. Now this

infant was blind; and in remembrance of their sorrow they had named

him _Huervé_ or _Hervé_, that is to say, _bitter_ or _bitterness_.

But, if his mother did not try upon his eyes the better appreciated

virtue of the herb which should cure the blind; if she asked of her

Christian faith surer remedies to give light to her son, she found, at

least, at the foot of the cross, the herb which sweetens bitterness;

and her husband himself without doubt recollected that he had said in

his childhood that one of the most beautiful of virtues is strength in

trials and tribulations.

Two years afterward this strength was even more necessary by the side

of the cradle of the blind; a single hand rocked that cradle, a single

voice sang there--the other voice sang in heaven. The father had

already found the true plant which gives life.

With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more

cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that

it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more

charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the

widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted.

It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent

to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the

manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs,

that assistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears,

where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that God sends

forth salvation.

"One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his

little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go

to church;

"'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet

been.'

"'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my

bed.'

"'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be

forced to go and beg for alms.'

"'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if

you will permit me.

"'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.

"'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'

"And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not

walk.

"Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not

moved on the way to church;

"Seeing the little blind child of seven years without other guide than

his little white dog.

"Hearing him sing, shivering, beaten by the wind and the rain, without

covering on his little feet, and his teeth chattering with cold."

It was the festival of All Saints, as the legend tells us; the

festival of the Dead follows it, and is prolonged during the second

night of this month which the Bretons call the _Month of the Dead_.

Having feasted the blessed, every one goes to the cemetery to pray at

the tomb of his parents, to fill with holy water the hollow of their

gravestone, or, according to the locality, to make libations of milk.

It is said that on this night the souls from Purgatory fly through the

air as crowded as the grass on the meadow; that they whirl with the

leaves which the wind rolls over the fields, and that their voices

mingle with the sighs of nature in mourning. Then, toward midnight,

these confused voices become more and more distinct, and at each

cottage door is heard this melancholy canticle.

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,

greeting to you, people of this house, we come to you to ask your

prayers.

{816}

"Good people, be not surprised that we have come to your door; it is

Jesus who has sent us to wake you if you sleep.

"If there is yet pity in the world, in the name of God, aid us.

"Brothers, relatives, friends, in the name of God, hear us; in the

name of God pray, pray; for the children pray not. Those whom we have

nourished have long since forgotten us; those whom we have loved have

left us destitute of pity."

Bands of mendicant singers, poor souls in trouble, they also,

wanderers like those of the dead, go by woods and graves, to the sound

of funereal bells, lending their voices to the unhappy of the other

world.

The blind orphan, who, from the bed of his sick mother, went to kneel

on the couch of his dead father, commenced in their company his

apprenticeship as a singer, and if it is believed, as is claimed, that

the _chant des ames_, such as it has come to us, was composed by a

blind singer, under the inspiration of his father, whom he would have

delivered from pain, the blind singer should be Hervé, and the

inspirer Hyvarnion.

The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time

is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which

have been translated into touching narratives:

"The evening of All Souls, long before the night, the child returned

to his mother, after his circuit.

"And he was very tired, so tired that he could not hold himself on his

feet--all the route was slippery with ice.

"So tired that he fell on his mouth, and his mouth vomited blood,

blood with broken teeth."

Now these broken teeth did not give birth to furious warriors, like

those of the dragon in the fable; they were changed into diamonds

which shone from far in the darkness.

Such is the language of the tradition. Can we better paint the songs

drawn forth by the sorrow of the son of Hyvarnion, these songs of a

Christian muse which cleared away the shadows no less crowded than

those of the night of All Souls?

But these shadows were not dissipated instantly; the resistance made

to Christianity by the remains of Armorican paganism is not less

clearly indicated in traditional recollections than by the action and

influence of the little Christian singer.

As he passed the cross-roads of a village where the inhabitants have

to this day preserved the sobriquet of _paganiz_, that is to say,

heathens, he fell in the midst of a circle of young peasants, who,

interrupting their dance, ran after him, hooting at him, throwing dirt

upon him, and crying: "Where are you going, blind one, blind one!

Where are you going, blind brawler?"

"I'm going out of this canton, because I must," replied Hervé, "but

cursed be the race that comes from you." And, indeed, the little

mockers, struck by the anathema, returned to the dance, and they must

dance, it is said, to the end of the world, without ever resting or

ever growing, becoming like those dwarfed imps whom the Armoricans

adored, and whose power the Breton peasants still fear.

Nature herself, that great Celtic divinity, took the side of the imps

against Hervé, while the mother of the saint, in beholding him

preaching the gospel, could say with the church: "How beautiful are

the feet of those who come from the mountains!" "The granite earth on

which he walked, refused to carry him, tearing his naked feet, and no

one," says the complaint, "no one wiped the blood from his wounds,

only his white dog with his tongue, who washed the feet of the saint,

and warmed them with his breath."

Then, as he had cursed the mocking spirits, the saint cursed also the

stony ground which would arrest his steps, and it was rendered harder

than iron; when, going, according to his promise, into a district

where the rocks were such, the legend assures us, that "iron {817} nor

steel could ever pierce them," that is to say, the inhabitants were

obstinate and incorrigible barbarians, he returned to the saint who

inspired and enlightened him.

"My mother, for seven or eight years I have gone over this country,

and have gained nothing from these hard and cruel hearts.

"I would be in some solitary place where I should hear only songs;

where every day, my mother, I should hear only the praises of God."

"Thou wouldst be a cleric, my son, to be later a priest! God be

praised! How sweet it would be to me to hear you say mass!"

"It is not, my mother, to be a priest; the priest's state is a great

responsibility, and it frightens my weak spirit; besides the charge of

my own soul I should have the charge of other souls; but I would like

far better to live my life in the depths of the forest with the monks,

and to be instructed how to serve God by those who serve him."

Rivanone agreed to the wishes of her son; the forest which he chose

for his retirement was inhabited by one of her uncles. Hervé sought

him, while his mother asked an asylum for herself of some pious women

who lived in community in another solitary place, having no

intercourse with the world except with the sick and infirm to whom

they were a providence.

III.

An ancient Breton ballad represents a magician going over the fields

of Armorica at the dawn of day, accompanied by a black dog. I do not

know what Christian voice addresses him: "Where are you going this

morning with your black dog?" "I go to find the red egg, the red egg

of the sea-serpent, on the edge of the river in the crevice of the

rock."

Vain search! This egg, a sacred symbol to the ancient priests of Gaul

and other heathen worship, had been crushed with the serpent of the

Druids; the day was about to appear and put to flight the magician,

darkness, and the black dog. When, on the contrary, Hervé put himself,

guided by his white dog, on the way to his uncle's hermitage, the last

shades of night had disappeared, the day had risen, and he was to find

in the Christian school more precious talismans than the egg of the

Druid serpent.

"Saint Hervé went to the school the sun encircled his brow with a

circle of light, the doves sang along his road, and his white dog

yelped for joy.

"Arrived at the door of the hermitage, the dog barked louder and

louder, so that the hermit, hearing it, came forth to receive his

niece's child.

"May God bless the orphan who comes in good faith to my school, who

has sought me to be my clerk; my child, may blessings be on thy

head.'" [Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: Same Breton legend of Saint Hervé.]

This great unde of Hervé was named Gurfoed; like many other hermits he

brought up the children of Armorica. Among the grammarians whom he

made them learn by heart, the ecclesiastical writers indicate

Martianus Capella, the author of the "Noces de Mercure et de la

Philologie," of whom they make a monk, and among the subjects of his

instruction they specially mention poetry and music. Music took a

sufficiently high place in the schools and in the tastes of that age,

as is proved by a synod assembled at Vannes in the middle of the sixth

century, which believed it necessary to call the attention of the

Armorican bishops to that point, and drew up an article on the

necessity of adopting, in the whole province, a uniform chant.

Besides, in introducing it into the Christian ceremonies, and giving

it place even in the choir of the temple, the church has shown the

esteem which she has for this art. Hervé perfected himself in it more

and more; he even became so clever in it, observe the hagiographies,

"that he took the prize from all his fellow-students."

{818}

After seven years of study passed at a distance from his mother, he

wished to see her and receive new force and new light from her

counsels. According to some, Gurfoed conducted him to her; according

to the popular legend, she came herself to seek her son.

And she said on approaching him:

"I behold a procession of monks advancing, and I hear the voice of my

son; though a thousand were singing, I should know the voice of Hervé;

I behold my son dressed in gray, with a cord of hair for his belt. God

be with you, my son, the clerk!"

"God be with you, my beloved mother! God is good; the mother is

faithful to her son. Coming from so far to see me, although you could

not walk!"

"And now that I have come, and I see you, my son, what have you to ask

of me?"

"I have nothing to ask of you, my mother, but the permission to remain

here to pray to God day and night, that we may meet each other in

paradise."

"We shall meet in paradise or its surroundings, with the help of God,

my son. When I go there you shall have warning; you shall hear the

song of the angels."

"In fact," continues the French legend, "the evening of her decease

and the next day, all those that were near saw a brilliant ladder by

the side of her oratory, one end reaching to the skies, by which

angels ascended and descended singing the most melodious motets and

canticles."

The pious woman-poet, who had given to the church such a saint as

Hervé, well deserved that God's angels should sing, making a festival

for her last hour.

Hervé, guided by Gurfoed, arrived at the bedside of his dying mother,

in time, if not to see her, (he could never see her except in heaven,)

at least to receive her blessing, and to mingle his canticles with

those of the pious companions of Rivanone, truly angelic choirs.

IV.

After the death of his mother, Hervé returned to the hermitage of his

uncle; but Gurfoed, wishing to live a still more retired life,

abandoned his dwelling, and buried himself in the forest. Aided by

some pious men, who, in order to work and pray under his direction,

had built their cabins by the side of his, the saint continued to hold

the school of his predecessor. This school prospered; and every

evening could be seen a crowd of children coming from it, who

assembled there in the morning from all the manors, as well as from

all the surrounding cottages; a crowd as noisy, says a poet, as a

swarm of bees issuing from the hollow of an oak. The master, being

blind, could not teach them their letters; but he taught them

canticles, maxims in verse, religious and moral aphorisms, without

omitting those precepts of pure civility, so necessary to coarse

natures; and while exercising their memory he cultivated their

understanding and their heart: he polished their rude manners; he

endeavored, finally, to make men of them while bending their restless

natures under the curb of his discipline. Lessons of wisdom were not

clothed in other form in those heroic times; poetry and music,

inseparable from each other, had always been considered by the

ancients as necessary to cultivation, not only on account of the

harmony which they produced, but for utility, instruction, and

civilization of the people. Hervé in taking them for the basis of his

instruction, followed, without doubt, the counsels of Aristotle. It is

said that Orpheus thus civilized people by his songs. Those of Hesiod

have come to us, and present us with valuable examples of that

didactic poetry, the first with all nations. But though we have left

us some poems of Saint Hervé, they are very few in number; the most

were composed rather in his {819} spirit and according to his rules

than by himself. They give him the honor of those aphorisms to which

his name is given, which, at least, have the strong imprint of the

instructive poetry of the monks; they turn upon three of the virtues

which the religions principally endeavored to inculcate in their

Ignorant pupils, idle and independent, as are all barbarians, namely,

the love of instruction, the love of work, and the love of discipline,

elements which are the strength of all civilized society.

"It is better to instruct a little child than to amass riches for

him."

Saint Cado, the teacher of Hervé's father, said the same thing in

other terms, "There is no wealth without study;" and he added, "There

is no wisdom without science, no independence without science, no

liberty, no beauty, no nobleness, no victory without science," and,

giving to science its true foundation, he thus terminated his eloquent

enumeration:

"No science without God."

The second axiom credited to Saint Hervé is this: "He who is idle in

his youth heaps poverty on the head of his old age."

The Breton mariners have retained the third maxim of which Saint Hervé

passers as the author: "The words of Hervé are words of wisdom," they

say; "Who yields not to the rudder will yield to the rock." I have

also seen attributed to him a moral song, widely spread in Brittany,

in which, perhaps, there are several couplets of his, but in any case

modernized in language and style.

"Come to me, my little children, come to me that you may hear a new

song, which I have composed expressly for you. Take the greatest pains

in order that you may retain it entire."

"When you wake in your bed, offer your heart to the good God, make the

sign of the cross, and say, with faith, hope, and love:

"'My God, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. Grant that I may

be an honest man, or that I may die before the time.'

"When you see a raven flying, remember that the devil is as black as

wicked; when you see a little white dove, remember that your angel is

as gentle as white.

"Remember that God sees you like the sun in the midst of the sky;

remember that God can make you bloom as the sun makes bloom the wild

roses of the mountains.

"At night, before going to bed, recite your prayers; do not fail, so

that a white angel will come from heaven to guard you until morning.

"Behold, dear children, the true means of living as good Christians.

Put my song into practice and yon will lead a holy life."

Such lessons, where were so effectively found some of the practices

which make a man strong, that is to say, Christians; where there was

so much freshness and grace; where the sun, and the flowers, the birds

and the angels, all the most smiling images were purposely united,

captivated and charmed the young barbarians. I am no longer surprised

if the legend assures us that Hervé tamed the savage beasts; if it

recounts that one day he forced a thief of a fox to bring back,

"without hurting her," his hen which he had carried off, and another

time a robber of a wolf who had eaten up his ass--others say his

dog--to serve and follow him like a spaniel. This new style of spaniel

was seen in a crowd of bas-reliefs held in leash by the saints, and as

elsewhere mothers threatened their children with the wolf, the Breton

Mothers frightened their brats with _Hervé's spaniel._ Orpheus is thus

represented followed by tamed tigers; and another bard, a half pagan,

whom we have seen before accompanied by his black dog, is painted,

running through the woods with a wolf which he calls _his dear

companion. Tu Lupe, care comes_. The poets of the primitive times were

supposed to be in a perpetual union with nature, {820} and to have

reconquered the power, lost since leaving the Garden of Eden, of

making all animals obedient to them. Hervé was considered to be

endowed with the same power; but poetry and music were not the only

form which the Christian gave to his charms. His true magic was

prayer. See how he chanted when he was exposed to the snares or the

ferocity of animals or of men:

"O God! deign to preserve me from snares, from oppression, from evil,

from the fox, the wolf, and the devil."

Not more than men and wild beasts, could nature resist the force of

his prayer. Somewhat troubled in his retreat, and above all in his

humility, by the too noisy veneration of the Armorican chiefs, who

sent their sons to him, he plunged into the forest, as had Gurfoed,

seeking the hermitage, and the counsels of his former teacher; but the

grass and fern had effaced the path which led there, and all Hervé's

researches had been in vain, when he came to an opening in the forest

where a moss-covered rock was raised up on four stones; the ruins of a

cabin where the badgers had made their nests, were seen near at hand;

briers, thickets of holly and thorns encumbered the ground. Before

these ruins the saint, struck with a secret presentiment, prostrated

himself, his arms in the form of a cross, and cried three times: "In

the name of God, rock, split; in the name of God, earth, open, if you

hide from me my light." His prayer was scarcely terminated when the

earth trembled, the rocks split, and through the opening came a soft

odor, which revealed to him the sepulchre of him whom he was seeking.

Such is the popular narrative; but, if it is intended to show his

power over nature, it shows still more his humility. It is exhaled

from this legend, as perfumes from the tomb of him whom he sought as

his light.

I remember a song in which a kind of Druidess gives the assurance that

she knows a song which can make even the earth tremble: after a

frightful display of magical science, she finishes by saying, that

with the help of her _light_, as she calls her master she is able to

turn the earth in the contrary way. Here it is the pagan pride which

vaunts itself; but a voice from heaven is heard, "If this world is

yours, the other belongs to God!" and the sorceress was confounded.

Hervé, on the contrary, who is humble, and who prays; Hervé, who

speaks, not in his own name, but in the name of God, is heard and

exalted. It is verifying the words of the Gospel: "And the humble

shall be exalted."

As he advanced in age, the saint continued to realize this promise. We

have up to this moment seen him glorified under the tatters of a

vagabond singer, as well as under the poor robe of an instructor of

little barbarians; we are now to see him as an agriculturist, even

architect, but always all the strongest when he would wish to appear

weakest in the eyes of men, always the greatest when he would wish to

be the lowest.

The counsels which Hervé had gone to ask of his old teacher, he

received from his bishop, a wise and holy man, who came from Britain

to the country of Léon. The bishop judged him worthy to be a priest,

and wished to confer upon him the ecclesiastical character; but the

hermit, who from childhood had considered himself unworthy of this

great responsibility, persisted in his humble sentiments, and he would

consent to be promoted only to the lowest orders, to those called

minor orders. It is easy to believe that his bishop induced him to

definitely fix his dwelling somewhere with his disciples, and to give

to the Armoricans the example of a sedentary life, of manual labor,

the cultivation of the earth, and building, all things which are at

the foundation of all society, and which the barbarians little liked;

for he went to work to seek a place where he could establish a small

colony.

{821}

V.

About half a century before, another bard also blind, and his hair

whitened by age, journeyed in Armorica from canton to canton, seated

on a small horse from the mountains, which a child led by the bridle.

He sought, like Hervé, a field to cultivate and in which he could

build. Knowing what herbs were produced by good ground, and what herbs

by bad ground, he asked from time to time of his guide:

"Seest thou the green clover?"

And always the child replied:

"I see only the fox-glove blossoms." For at that epoch, Armorica was a

wild country.

"Well, then, we will go farther," replied the old man.

And the little horse went on his way. At last the child cried out:

"Father, I see the clover blooming."

And he stopped. The old man dismounted, and seating himself on a

stone, in the sun, he sang the songs of labor in the fields, and of

their culture in different seasons. This agricultural bard was

invested with a venerated character by the ancient Bretons. They

regarded him as a pillar of social existence; but his heart, open to

the cultivation of nature, was closed to the love of humanity. With

one of his brethren he said willingly: "I do not plough the earth

without shedding blood on it." He thirsted for the blood of Christian

monks and priests, and he offered it with joy as sacrifice to the

earth. To the wisest lessons in agriculture he added the most

ferocious predictions, "The followers of Christ shall be tracked; they

shall be hunted like wild beasts, they shall die in bands and by

battalions on the mountain. The wheel of the mill grinds fine; the

blood of the monks will serve as water."

Scarcely sixty years had rolled away, and these same monks whom the

bard cursed as usurpers of the Celtic harp and as stealers of the

children of the Bretons, advanced peaceably over the ruins of a

religion of which he was the last minister, ready to shed blood also,

but their own; ready to perform prodigies, but of intelligence and of

love. Their chief was not on horseback, he walked with bare feet, (he

went always unshod, says his historian,) and having journeyed for a

long time, he spoke thus to his disciples:

"Know, my brothers, it wearies me to be always running and wandering

in this way; pray to God that he will reveal to us some place in which

we can live to serve him for the rest of our days."

They all commenced to pray, and behold a voice was heard saying: "Go

even toward the east, and where I shall three times tell thee to rest,

there thou wilt dwell." They commenced then on the road to the east,

and when they had gone very far, having found a field filled with high

green wheat, they sat down in its shade. Now, as he was thus reposing,

a voice was heard which said three times: "Make your dwelling here."

Filled with gratitude, they knelt to thank God, and being thirsty with

the heat and the travel, the saint by his prayers obtained a fresh

fountain.

But the possession of the land was not easy to obtain from the

avaricious proprietor, whom the French legend charitably calls "an

honest man." Hervé demanded of him, however, only a little corner in

which to erect a small monastery.

"Bless my soul, bless my soul!" cried the owner, "but my wheat is

still all green, and so if you cut it now it will be lost."

"No, no," said Saint Hervé, "it shall not be so, for as much wheat as

I cut now so much will I render to you ripe and in the sack at harvest

time."

{822}

To this he agreed, and commenced to cut down the wheat, which he tied

in bundles and sheafs and laid apart; and God so favored them, that at

the time of the harvest, these sheafs which had been cut all green,

not only became ripe, but had blossomed and so multiplied that where

there had been one there were now two. The owner of the field seeing

this, gave thanks to God, who had sent these holy men to him, and gave

the whole field to the saint. [Footnote 193]

[Footnote 193: Albert le Grand.]

Thus the toil and intelligence of the monks made the earth render

double the ordinary crops, and, conquered by such miracles, the

barbarians, who, moreover, did not lose anything, gave willingly all

that was asked of them.

The good religious from whom I have borrowed the translation of the

preceding narrative even assures us that the proprietor went so far as

to promise Hervé to build him a beautiful church at his own expense.

This new miracle, however, was only half carried out; for we see

Hervé, once the land had been conceded to him, going to work with his

disciples to procure the wood necessary for the construction of his

church and convent. He made a collection for this end, not only in the

country of Léon, but even in the mountains of Aiez, and in Cornwall,

visiting the manors of the chiefs and the richest monasteries.

Everywhere, it is said, he was well received, thanks to the benefits

that he spread along his passage, and all the nobles to whom he

applied caused as many oaks to be cut down for him in their forests,

as he desired. It is, however, probable, notwithstanding the

assertions of the legendaries, that he found many but little disposed

to aid in the building of a Christian church, and that all those whom

he visited did not show themselves very eager to cut down the trees,

so venerated in Armorica; for in the following century, a council held

at Nantes near the year 658, attests that no one dared break a branch

or offshoot of one. The legend itself allows us to see imperfectly

some stumbling-blocks which the holy architect found in his way; they

must have torn his feet as cruelly as those which we have seen him

punish by hardening them, in the days when he was a public singer. At

first there was a rude chief who passed near him with a great train of

men, dogs, and horses, without saluting him, even without looking at

him; again there was another who did not believe in his miracles, and

said so out loud at supper before a large company, and in the face of

the saint. At that same banquet, at the commencement of the repast,

while Hervé was singing with the harp to bless the table, a new kind

of adversary, the frogs, commenced also to sing, to defy him, to sing

_their vespers_, as a Breton poet explains it, provoking the laughter

of the guests. At another banquet, a cup-bearer who was a demon in

disguise, one of those who excited to intemperance, to gluttony, to

idleness and noise, to discord and quarrels, wishing to kill him,

served him, together with the other guests, a beverage the effect of

which was to make them cut each other's throats.

This evil spirit followed the holy architect even to the midst of a

monastery, with the intention of deceiving him more surely. Taking the

form of a monk, he offered his services to help him in building his

church.

"What is thy name?" Hervé asked of him.

"I am a master carpenter, sir."

"Thy name, I tell thee," returned the saint.

"Sir, I am a mason, locksmith, able to work at any trade."

"Thy name? For the third time, I command thee in the name of the

living God, to tell thy name."

"Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan!" cried the demon; and he threw himself, head

foremost, from a rock into the sea.

Thus did the Druid superstitions vanish before Hervé, having for a

moment resisted him, and sought to deceive him under different

disguises.

{823}

This Hu-Kan, that is to say, Hu the genius, is no other than the god

_Hu-Kadarn_ of the Cambrian traditions. The devil who incites to

idleness and debauchery is the Celtic divinity corresponding to the

Liber or Bacchus of the Romans. There is in these frogs who chanted

_their vespers_ a recollection of Armorican paganism. "The saint

silenced them as suddenly as if he had cut their throat" says a

hagiographer, adding, "he left voice but to one, who ever since has

continued to croak."

Now, by a sort of prodigy of tradition, a popular song, entitled the

"Vespers of the Frogs," has come to us; it is the work of the pagan

poets of Armorica, represented in common recitatives under the

grotesque figure of these beastly croakers. It offers a summary of the

Druid doctrines of the fourth century; and it seemed so necessary to

the first Christian missionaries to destroy it, that they made a Latin

and Christian counterpart, as if they would raise the cross in the

face of the heathen pillars. One of these missionaries, Saint Gildas,

was so opposed to the pagan music of his time that he qualified its

croaking with the sweet and gentle music of the children of Christ;

and his disciple Taliésin, the great poet baptized in the sixth

century, hushed at a banquet, as Saint Hervé had done, the infamous

descendants of the priests of the god Bel, who wished to put him to

defiance.

The sound of Christian music was to be heard from all the vaults of

the church, for the construction of which Saint Hervé had made so many

journeys. Twelve columns of polished wood were erected to hold the low

and arched framework; three large stones formed the altar; the spring

with which he had refreshed his disciples furnished the water

necessary to the sacrifice; the wheat sown by them, the bread for

consecration; and the wines of some richer monastery, more exposed to

the sun, the eucharistic wine; for it was an ancient and touching

custom that those who had vineyards gave wine to those who had not,

and in exchange, the owners of bees furnished wax to those who lacked

it. Hervé, according to his biographers, himself superintended the

workmen, or rather incited the laborers by his words, and sustained

them by his songs. Like another poet of antiquity, he built, with his

songs, not a city for men, but a house for God.

VI.

The fathers of an Armorican council of the fifth century terminated

their canons by these noble words: "May God, my brethren, preserve for

you your crown." A last flower seemed wanting to that of Hervé. He was

now to obtain it. The poor shoeless child, the poet of the wretched,

the school-teacher of little children, the wandering agriculturist,

the mendicant architect, was to become the equal--what do I say?--the

corrector of bishops and kings.

At that time there reigned a Kon Mor in Brittany, who had rendered

himself abominable to the men of that country by his tyranny and

cruelties. Unable to endure him, they flocked in great numbers from

all parts of Armorica to their bishop, the blessed Samson; and as he

saw them at his door, silent and with lowered heads, he asked them:

"What has happened to the country?"

Then answered the more respectable among them:

"The men of this land are in great desolation, sir."

"And why so?" asked Samson.

"We had a good chief of our own race, and born on our own land, who

governed us by legitimate authority; and now there has come over us a

foreign Kon Mor, a violent man, an enemy to justice, possessed of

great power; he holds us under the most odious oppression; he has

killed our national chief, and dishonored his widow, our queen. He

would hare killed their Sun, had not the poor child taken to flight

and sought refuge in France."

{824}

The bishop, moved with pity, promised the deputies that he would aid

them, and seeking a means to re-establish their rightful chief, he

resolved to begin by striking the usurper with the terrible arm of

excommunication.

He therefore sent letters to all the Armorican bishops to unite with

him in devising some means of frightening the tyrant. The place of

reunion was a high mountain much venerated by the bards and the

people, named the Run-bre, and situated in the heart of the country

governed by the Kon Mor. Although only prelates should have been

present, Hervé was sent there, and even the venerable assembly were

not willing to enter into deliberation until he came, notwithstanding

the opposition of one member of the meeting, less humble and less

patient than the others. This _courtier bishop_, as the legend styles

him, finding that Hervé made them wait a long time, "Is it proper that

men like us," he exclaimed, "should remain here indefinitely on

account of a wretched blind monk?" At this moment, the saint arrived.

His bare feet, his miserable hermit's robe made of goat-skin, in the

midst of the men and horses richly apparelled, belonging to the

prelate of the court, drew perhaps a smile of proud disdain to the

lips of many. Hearing the impious words of which he was the object,

the saint was not irritated, but said gently to the bishop: "My

brother, why reproach me with my blindness? Could not God have made

you blind as well as me? Do you not know well that he makes us as he

pleases, and that we should thank him that he has given us such a

being as he has?" The other bishops, continues the legend, strongly

rebuked this one, and he was not long in feeling the heavy hand of

God; for he immediately fell to the ground, his face covered with

blood, and lost his sight; but the good saint, wishing to render good

for evil to this proud mocker, prayed to God for the unfortunate; and

then, rubbing his eyes with salt and water, restored him his sight; he

gave him understanding also; according to the remark of another

hagiographer, understanding, that light of the soul, obscured by

pride, more precious still and not less difficult to recover than the

light of the body. After this they proceeded to the ceremony of

excommunicating the great chief of the Armoricans.

Standing on a rock, at the summit of the mountain, a lighted taper in

his hand, and surrounded by the nine bishops of Armorica, each one

holding a blessed taper, the saint pronounced, in the name of all,

according to the formula of the times, these terrible words against

the foreign tyrant: "We in virtue of the authority which we hold from

the Lord, in the name of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy

Ghost, do declare the great chief of the Armoricans excommunicated

from the threshold of the holy church of God, and separated from the

society of Christians; that, if he comes not quickly to repentance, we

crush him beneath the weight of an eternal malediction, and condemn

him by an irrevocable anathema. May he be exposed to the anger of the

sovereign Judge, may he be torn from the heritage of God and his

elect, that in this world he may be cut off from the communion of

Christians, and that in the other he may have no part in the kingdom

of God and his saints; but that, bound to the devil and his imps, he

may live devoted to the flames of vengeance, and that he may be the

prey, even in this world, to the tortures of hell. Cursed be he in his

own house, cursed in his fields, cursed in his stomach, cursed be all

things that he possesses, from his dog that howls at his appearance

even to his cock who insults him by his crowing. May he share the lot

of Dathan and Abiron whom hell swallowed alive; the lot of Ananias and

of Sapphira, {825} who lied to the Apostles of the Lord, and were

struck with instant death; the lot of Pilate and Judas, who were

traitors to God; may he have no other sepulchre than have the asses,

and may these tapers which we extinguish be the image of the darkness

to which his soul is condemned. Amen." [Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: This formula of excommunication of the sixth century

has been discovered and recently translated by M. Alfred Ramé, in an

article, the "Melanges d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie Bretonne," a

commendable publication.]

The bishops repeated three times, Amen; and the president of the

synod, having extinguished under his foot the candle which he held in

his hand, all the prelates did the same. But this dying candle, the

image of the extinguished light of the great chief, was not so easily

relighted as that of the haughty prelate. Once the tyrant's head was

under the bare foot of the mendicant monk, tyranny was dishonored and

humanity avenged.

Hervé does not appear to have long survived this great act of national

and religious justice, in which he performed the greatest part; he

saw, however, the result, and could hail the dawn of a noble reign

which would assure, without the effusion of blood, say the historians,

the death of the usurper.

Another dawn was rising for the saint.

It is related that being shut up in the church which he had built,

fasting and praying for three days, separated from his disciples and

his pupils, the heavens opened above his head, and with the heavens

his eyes were opened to contemplate the celestial court. Ravished to

ecstasy, he chanted a Breton canticle, which was later put into

writing, and has received its modern form from the last apostle of the

Armoricans, Michel Le Nobletz.

"I see heaven opened, heaven my country; I would that I might fly

there as a little white dove!

"The gates of Paradise are opened to receive me; the saints advance to

meet me.

"I see, truly I see God the Father, and his blessed Son, and the Holy

Ghost.

"How beautiful she is, the Holy Virgin, with the twelve stars which

form her crown.

"Each with his harp in his hand, I see the angels and the archangels,

singing the praises of God.

"And the virgins of all ages, and the saints of all conditions, and

the holy women, and the widows crowned by God!

"I see radiant in glory and beauty, my father and my mother; I see my

brothers and my countrymen.

"Choirs of little angels flying on their light wings, so rosy and so

fair, fly around their heads, as a harmonious swarm of bees,

honey-laden in a field of flowers.

"O happiness without parallel! the more I contemplate you, the more I

long for you!"

The heavens did not close again until the canticle was finished, as if

they had taken pleasure in the song of the predestined son of

Hyvarnion and Rivanone, who heard him with smiles and called him to

them.

VII.

Before the Revolution there was preserved in the treasury of the

Cathedral of Nantes a silver shrine, enriched with precious stones, a

present from an ancient Breton chief. In great judicial cases it was

carried in procession to the judges to receive the solemn vows which

they afterward made upon the book of the Evangelists. A king of France

and a duke of Brittany, after long wars, united under this shrine

their reconciled hands and swore to live in peace.

At the same time there was seen, in the depths of lower Brittany, in

the sacristy of a little country church, an oaken cradle, with nothing

about it remarkable unless its age. The inhabitants of the parish,

however, venerated it as much as the silver shrine. The mendicant

singers, above all, have {826} for it an especial affection. They love

to touch it with their great musical instruments, their traveller's

goods, their rosaries, their staffs, all that they have which is most

precious. Kneeling before this cradle, they kiss it with respect, and

arriving sad, they depart joyous.

Now, the silver shrine contained, wrapped in purple and silk, the

relics of Saint Hervé. The oaken cradle was the same in which he slept

to the songs of the bard and his poet-wife, whom God had given him for

father and mother.

To-day the ducal reliquary is no longer in existence. The metal,

thrice consecrated by sanctity, justice, and royalty, was stolen and

melted down in that sadly memorable epoch when these three things,

trampled under foot, were valued less than a bit of silver. But the

wooden cradle of the humble patron of the singers of Brittany, that

poor worm-eaten cradle, so like his fate on earth, exists still, and

more than one mendicant having respectfully pressed his lips upon it,

as in other times, goes away singing with a clearer voice and a

comforted heart.

--------

From Once a Week.

LOST FOR GOLD.

She stood by the hedge where the orchard slopes

Down to the river below;

The trees all white with their autumn hopes

Looked heaps of drifted snow;

They gleamed like ghosts through the twilight pale.

The shadowy river ran black;

"It's weary waiting," she said, with a wail,

"For them that never come back.

"The mountain waits there, barren and brown,

Till the yellow furze comes in spring

To crown his brows with a golden crown,

And girdle him like a king.

The river waits till the summer lays

The white lily on his track;

But it's weary waiting nights and days

For him that never comes back.

"Ah! the white lead kills in the heat of the fight.

When passions are hot and wild;

But the red gold kills by the fair fire-light

The love of father and child.

"'Tie twenty years since I heard him say,

When the wild March morn was airy,

Through the drizzly dawn--'I m going away,

To make you a fortune, Mary.'

{827}

"Twenty springs, with their long grey days.

When the tide runs up the sand,

And the west wind catches the birds, and lays

Them shrieking far inland.

"From the sea-wash'd reefs, and the stormy mull,

And the damp weed-tangled caves:--

Will he ever come back, O wild sea-gull.

Across the green salt waves?

"Twenty summers with blue flax bells,

And the young green corn on the lea,

That yellows by night in the moon, and swells

By day like a rippling sea.

"Twenty autumns with reddening leaves,

In their glorious harvest light

Steeping a thousand golden sheaves,

And doubling them all at night.

"Twenty winters, how long and drear!

With a patter of rain in the street.

And a sound in the last leaves, red and sere;

But never the sound of his feet.

The ploughmen talk by furrow and ridge,

I hear them day by day;

The horsemen ride down by the narrow bridge,

But never one comes this way.

And the voice that I long for is wanting ther,

And the face I would die to see,

Since he went away in the wild March air,

Ah! to make a fortune for me.

"O father dear I but you never thought

Of the fortune you squandered and lost;

Of the duty that never was sold and bought.

And the love beyond all cost.

"For the vile red dust you gave in thrall

The heart that was God's above;

How could you think that money was all,

When the world was won for love?

"You sought me wealth in the stranger's land,

Whose veins are veins of gold;

And the fortune God gave was in mine hand,

When yours was in its hold.

"If I might but look on your face," she says,

"And then let me have or lack;

But it's weary waiting nights and days

For him that never comes back."

------

{828}

From The Dublin University Magazine.

THE SOLUTION OF THE NILE PROBLEM. [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: "The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and

Exploration of the Nile Sources." By Samuel White Baker, M.A.,

F.R.G.S. London: Macmillan. & Co. 1865.]

For some time the complaint of those who have been everywhere, and

seen everything men of travel and of fashion ought to see, has been

that the world is "used-up" for the tourist. Where can he now go for a

fresh sensation? Asia and America remain no more untrodden fields than

Europe; and as for the isles of the farthest sea, rich and idle

"fugitives and vagabonds" have braved as many dangers among savage

tribes as the early missionaries, from impulse no nobler than

restlessness. Whither next shall they direct their strides? Iceland

stood in favor for a year or two; but the cooks are bad there, and the

inhabitants speak Latin. Japan has novelties, but bland Daimios are

not trustworthy. The sightseeker has no relish for being among a

people who, on very slight provocation, may perform upon him a process

akin to their own "happy despatch." In the exhaustion of interest in

mere horizontal locomotion, the Cain-like race we form part of try the

effect of ascension to the highest and hugest cloud-capped peaks;

but Matterhorn accidents have rather brought these

mountains-of-the-(full)-moon performances into disfavour. Pending the

discovery of some new wonder or feat, to occupy many vacant minds and

stir a few energetic ones, and during the crisis of a Continental war,

the migratory section amongst us must bear their misery as best they

can. It may console them to hope that the flying-machine will yet be

perfected, and air-sailing supersede Alpine climbing. Probably it

would be quite as exciting, and it would not tire the limbs. If there

be one geographical problem still left unsolved, it must be to find

the site of that cave of Adullam which has sorely puzzled numbers of

erudite Parliamentarians, one of whom was heard to make answer to a

query regarding its locality that he "never was a geographer." For the

purpose of stimulating the curiosity of the gentleman, and of guiding

him in his search among the lore of school-boy days, we may take from

a book well known a real, and not figurative, description of the Cave

in which shelter was lately found by some forty wayfarers uncertain as

to their route in a difficult country. "Leaving our horses," says an

Adullamite, who long preceded them, "in charge of wild------, and

taking one for a guide, we started for the cave, having a fearful

gorge below, gigantic cliffs above, and the path winding along a shelf

of the rock, narrow enough to make the nervous among us shudder. At

length, from a great rock hanging on the edge of this shelf, we sprang

by a long leap into a low window which opened into the perpendicular

face of the cliff. We were then within the hold of, ------ and creeping

half-doubled through a narrow crevice for a few rods, we stood beneath

the dark vault of the first grand chamber of this mysterious and

oppressive cavern. Our whole collection of lights did little more than

make the damp darkness visible. After groping about as long as we had

time to spare, we returned to the light of day, fully convinced that

with ------ and his lion-hearted followers inside, all the strength

of ------ under ------ could not have forced an entrance." Next to a

search for the celebrated cave, we can {829} imagine no geographical

extravagance equal to one for those Nile Sources that have been the

dream of ancients and moderns. The undertaking possessed an the

attraction of freshness. Your North-west passage is a mere track

through a waste, without the possibility of novelty. What its dangers

and privations, its few monotonous sights and events, were to

half-a-dozen navigators they would be to half-a-dozen more. But in

passing upward to the huge plateau in Central Africa where the Nile

Basin lies, itself again overtopped by the lofty range of the Blue

Mountains, down which giant cascades ceaselessly roll in unwitnessed

splendor, the traveller encounters perils enough, but relieved with a

human interest. The tribes he meets are many and unique in their

habits, strangely unlike each other, within short distances, and

having about them an extraordinary mixture of an incipient

civilization with some of the most depraved of the customs of savage

life. In the journey, too, there is endless variety. The expedition up

the river, with its hunting episodes, its difficulties with mutinous

servants and _seamen_, its devices to appease native cupidity and

circumvent native cunning, and its encounters with those vilest of the

pursuers of commerce, the slave-traders, forms one part of the

interest; and next come inland rides through tangled forest shades,

rude villages of cone-shaped huts, suspicious hordes of naked

barbarians, to whom every new face is that of a plunderer of slaves or

cattle, and "situations" in which it is impossible for the honest

traveller to escape sharp contests with a party of Turkish marauders,

for whose sins against the commandment he would otherwise be held

responsible by the relentless javelin-men of the desert. All this

offers adventure of a genuine description to him who has the love of

it in his disposition; and such a man is Mr. Samuel White Baker. His

impulses are irrepressible: nature made him a traveller. He is the

modern counterpart of those primitive personages, the Columbuses of

the times just succeeding the flood, whose purposeless wanderings into

far space from the spot where the Mesopotamian cradle of mankind was

rocked, peopled lands lying even beyond great seas; men whose feats

were such that the philosophers of five thousand years after can

hardly believe they performed them. If Mr. Baker had been a dweller in

Charran, he would have begged the patriarch Abraham to give him

camels, water-bags, and bushels of corn, and would have set off for

the eastern margin of the globe, and the shores of the loud-sounding

sea. Arrived there, he would have burned a tree hollow, and launched

boldly forth upon the deep, to go whithersoever fortune listed.

All his life a traveller in the true sense, Mr. Baker last conceived

the idea of securing for "England" the glory of discovering the

sources of the Nile. This bit of patriotic sentiment undoubtedly added

to the zest of the undertaking, to which, as has been said, he was

impelled by instinct. He is a man of resolute will, and to think and

to do are with him simultaneous acts. His preparations were instantly

in progress, and from that moment his motto, come what might,

was--Forward. Part of this perseverance no doubt was due to the

encouragement of Mrs. Baker's presence. That lady is the model

explorer's wife, and we could wish for such a race of women if there

were any problems geographical left to be solved. She set out with Mr.

Baker from Cairo, determined to go through all dangers with him, and

well knowing their nature; and she successfully accomplished the task,

and has returned to share his renown. To a full share of it she is

really entitled; for Mrs. Baker was much more than a companion to her

husband on his wanderings. She assisted him materially, not only

tending him when sick, not only conciliating the natives by her

kindness, but contributing to remove difficulties by wise {830}

counsel, bearing all hardships uncomplainingly, and--rare

virtue!--submitting to her lord's authority when he was warranted in

deciding what was best to be done, or left undone. Mrs. Baker could

also somewhat play the Amazon when occasion required. If she did not

actually take the shield and falchion, and go to the front of the

fight, she spread out the arms, loaded and prepared the weapons, and

rendered brave and effective aid on an occasion when the Discoverer of

the Great Basin of the Nile was likely to have become, if he did not

succeed in intimidating his foes by the parade of his armory, a sweet

morsel for the palate of the Latookas. Mr. Baker speaks with manly

tenderness of his wife, and the picture drawn of her in his incidental

references, will gain for her hosts of friends among his readers.

The narrative is quiet until he reaches Gondokoro. There, in March,

1863, he met Speke and Grant, who were descending the Nile, having

completed the East African expedition. When there the report reached

him on a certain morning that there were two white men approaching who

had come from the sea. These were the travellers from the Victoria

N'Yanza, the _other_, and smaller, source of the Nile. They had

undoubtedly solved the mystery. Still they had left something for

Baker to do, and candidly declared to him that they had not completed

the actual exploration of the Nile sources. In N. lat. 2° 17' they had

crossed the river which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but

it had there (at Karuma Falls) taken an extraordinary bend westward,

and when they met it again it was flowing from the W.S.W. There was

clearly another source, and Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, had informed them

that from the Victoria N'Yanza the Nile flowed westward for several

days' journey, and fell into another lake called the Luta N'Zige, from

which it almost immediately emerged again, and continued its course as

a navigable river to the north. Speke and Grant would have tracked out

this second source had not the tribes in the districts been at the

time at fend, and on such occasions they will not abide the face of a

stranger. Mr. Baker, guided by their hints, set out to complete what

they had begun.

Gondokoro is a great slave-market--Mr. Baker says "a perfect hell,"

"a colony of cut-throats." The Egyptian authorities wink at what goes

on, in consideration of liberal largesses. There were about six

hundred traders there when Mr. Baker visited it, drinking,

quarrelling, and beating their slaves. These ruffians made razzias on

the cattle of the natives, who are a cleanly and rather industrious

race of the picturesque type of savage. Their bodies are tattooed all

over, and an immense cock's feather, rising out of the single tuft of

hair left upon their shaven crowns, gives them rather an imposing

appearance. Their weapons of defence are poisoned arrows, with which

the traders at times make deadly acquaintance. Of course Mr. Baker had

unforeseen difficulties on setting out. What traveller ever started on

an expedition without meeting with his most irritating obstacles at

the threshold? Mr. Baker, however, was an old hand, and it took a good

deal to daunt him. His escort were as troublesome a set of vagabonds

as could have been collected together probably in Africa itself. He

had a mutiny to quell ere many days; and it is at this point we come

to see what sort of man is our explorer. He is a muscular Christian of

the stoutest type. Heavy fell his hand on skulls of sinning

niggers--it was the readiest implement, and down went the offender

under the blow so signally that his fellows saw and trembled. Mr.

Baker was a great "packer." His asses and camels carried a vast amount

of stuff, but so arranged and fitted that no breakdown occurred in the

most trying situations for man and beast.

{831}

The Latookas were the first race of savages Mr. Baker encountered.

They are about six feet high, and muscular and well-proportioned. They

have a pleasing cast of countenance, and are in manner very civil.

They are extremely clever blacksmiths, and shape their lances and

bucklers most skilfully. One of the most interesting passages of the

whole book is the author's account of this tribe: