The Mont St.-Michel on the Norman Coast played a conspicuous part in
the wars of the sons of William the Conqueror. Maupassant uses it as
the background for several of the chapters of his novel _Notre Coeur_
(1890). The mountain also figures in his story "Le Horla" (1886).
THE DEMON POPE
BY RICHARD GARNETT
The following two stories by Richard Garnett have been taken from his
book _The Twilight of the Gods_, which was first published anonymously
in 1888, and in a "new and augmented edition," with the author's name,
in 1902. The title recalls Richard Wagner's opera _Götterdämmerung_,
but may have been directly suggested by Elémir Bourges, whose novel
_Le Crépuscule des dieux_ appeared four years earlier than Garnett's
collection of stories. In his book Richard Garnett plays havoc with
all religions. The demons, naturally enough, fare worse at his hands
than the gods. _The Twilight of the Gods_ is a panorama of human folly
and farce. Franz Cumont has said that human folly is a more
interesting study than ancient wisdom. The author finds a great joy in
pointing out all the mysterious cobwebs which have collected on the
ceiling of man's brain in the course of the ages. Mr. Arthur Symons
rightly calls this book "a Punch and Judy show of the comedy of
civilization."
The story of "The Demon Pope" is based upon a legend of a compact
between a Pope and the devil. It is believed that Gerbert, who later
became Pope Silvester II, sold his soul to Satan in order to acquire a
knowledge of physics, arithmetic and music. The fullest account of
this legend will be found in J. J. Dollinger's _Fables Respecting the
Popes of the Middle Ages_ (Engl. Translation, 1871). _The History of
the Devil and the Idea of Evil_ by Paul Carus (1900) contains the
following passages on this legend:
"An English Benedictine monk, William of Malmesbury, says of
Pope Sylvester II., who was born in France, his secular name
being Gerbert, that he entered the cloister when still a
boy. Full of ambition, he flew to Spain where he studied
astrology and magic among the Saracens. There he stole a
magic-book from a Saracen philosopher, and returned flying
through the air to France. Now he opened a school and
acquired great fame, so that the king himself became one of
his disciples. Then he became Bishop of Rheims, where he had
a magnificent clock and an organ constructed. Having raised
the treasure of Emperor Octavian which lay hidden in a
subterrenean vault at Rome, he became Pope. As Pope he
manufactured a magic head which replied to all his
questions. This head told him that he would not die until he
had read Mass in Jerusalem. So the Pope decided never to
visit the Holy Land. But once he fell sick, and, asking his
magic head, was informed that the church's name in which he
had read Mass the other day was 'The Holy Cross of
Jerusalem.' The Pope knew at once that he had to die. He
gathered all the cardinals around his bed, confessed his
crime, and, as a penance, ordered his body to be cut up
alive, and the pieces to be thrown out of the church as
unclean.
"Sigabert tells the story of the Pope's death in a different
way. There is no penance on the part of the Pope, and the
Devil takes his soul to hell. Others tell us that the Devil
constantly accompanied the Pope in the shape of a black dog,
and this dog gave him the equivocal prophecy.
"The historical truth of the story is that Gerbert was
unusually gifted and well educated. He was familiar with the
wisdom of the Saracens, for Borell, Duke of Hither Spain,
carried him as a youth to his country where he studied
mathematics and astronomy. He came early in contact with the
most influential men of his time, and became Pope in 999. He
was liberal enough to denounce some of his unworthy
predecessors as 'monsters of more than human iniquity,' and
as 'Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God and playing the
part of the Devil' (the text inadvertently reads: and
playing the part of God); but at the same time he pursued an
independent and vigorous papal policy, foreshadowing in his
aims both the pretensions of Gregory the Great and the
Crusades."
MADAM LUCIFER
BY RICHARD GARNETT
Perhaps the most fascinating--and the most dangerous--character in the
infernal world is this _Mater tenebrarum_--Our Lady of Darkness. "A
lady devil," says Daniel Defoe, "is about as dangerous a creature as
one could meet." When Lucifer fails to bring a man to his fall, he
hands the case over to his better half, and it is said that no man has
ever escaped the siren seductions of this Diabo-Lady. A poem, _The
Diabo-Lady, or a Match in Hell_, appeared in London in 1777.
According to Teutonic mythology, this diabolical Madonna is the mother
or the grandmother of Satan. The mother or grandmother of Grendel, the
Anglo-Saxon evil demon, became Satan's mother or grandmother by
adoption. A mother was a necessary part of the devil's equipment.
Having set his mind to equal Christ in every detail of his life, Satan
had to get a mother somehow. In his story "The Vision Malefic" (1920)
Mr. Huneker tells of the appearance of this counterfeit Madonna on a
Christmas Eve to the organist of a Roman Catholic church in New York.
Partly out of devotion to her and partly also because he could not
obtain the sacramental blessing of the Church, Satan was forced to
remain single. In the story "Devil-Puzzlers" by Fred B. Perkins the
demon Apollyon appears as an old bachelor. "I have a mother, but no
wife," he tells the charming Mrs. Hicok. The synagogue was more
lenient towards the devil. The rabbis did not hesitate to perform the
marriage ceremony for the diabolical pair. According to Jewish
tradition the chief of the fallen angels married Lilith, Adam's first
wife. She is said to have been in her younger days a woman of great
beauty, but with a heart of ice. Now, of course, she is a regular
hell-hag. If we can trust Rossetti, who painted her Majesty's
portrait, she still is a type of beauty whose fascination is fatal.
This woman was created by the Lord to be the help-meet of Adam, but
mere man had no attraction for this superwoman. She is said to have
started the fight for woman's emancipation from man, and contested
Adam's right to be the head of the family. Their married life was very
brief. Their incompatibility of character was too great. One fine
morning Adam found that his erstwhile angelical wife had deserted him
and run away with Lucifer, whom she had formerly known in heaven.
The King-Devil apparently always succeeded somehow or other in
breaking the chains with which, according to legend, he had repeatedly
been bound and sealed in the lowest depths of hell. From antediluvian
times the demons appear to have been attracted by the daughters of men
and to have come frequently up to earth to pay court to them. The only
devil who must always remain in hell is the stoker, Brendli by name.
The fires of hell must not be allowed to go out.
The anatomically melancholic Burton also tells of a devil who was in
love with a mortal maiden. Jacques Cazotte tells the story of
Beelzebub as a woman in love with an earth-born man.
LUCIFER
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
This writer has a great sympathy for devil-lore, and many of his
characters show the cloven hoof. An analyst of illusions, he has a
profound interest in the greatest of illusions. An assailant of every
form of superstition, he has a tender affection for the greatest of
superstitions. An exponent of the radical and ironical spirit in
French literature, he feels irresistibly drawn to the eternal Denier
and Mocker.
The story of the Florentine painter Spinello Spinelli, to whom Lucifer
appeared in a dream to ask him in what place he had beheld him under
so brutish a form as he had painted him, is told in Giorgio Vasari's
_Vite de' più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, ed Architteti_ (1550),
which is the basis of the history of Italian art. It was treated by
Barrili in his novel _The Devil's Portrait_ (1882; Engl. tr. 1885),
from whom Anatole France may have got the idea for his story. But
there is also a mediaeval French legend about a monk (_Du moine qui
contrefyt l'ymage du Diable, qui s'en corouça_), who was forced by the
indignant devil to paint him in a less ugly manner.
The devil is very sensitive in regard to his appearance. On a number
of occasions he expressed his bitter resentment at the efforts of a
certain class of artists to represent him in a hideous form (cf. M. D.
Conway, _Demonology and Devil-Lore_). Daniel Defoe has well remarked
that the devil does not think that the people would be terrified half
so much if they were to converse face to face with him. "Really," this
biographer of Satan goes on to say, "it were enough to fright the
devil himself to meet himself in the dark, dressed up in the several
figures which imagination has formed for him in the minds of men." It
makes us, indeed, wonder why the devil was always represented in a
hideous and horrid form. Rationally conceived, the devil should by
right be the most fascinating object in creation. One of his essential
functions, temptation, is destroyed by his hideousness. To do the work
of temptation a demon might be expected to approach his intended
victim in the most fascinating form he could command. This fact is an
additional proof that the devil was for the early Christians but the
discarded pagan god, whom they wished to represent as ugly and as
repulsive as they could.
The earliest known representation of the devil in human form is found
on an ivory diptych of the time of Charles the Bald (9th century).
Many artists have since then painted his Majesty's portrait.
Schongauer, Dürer, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, Rubens, Poussin, Van
Dyck, Breughel and other masters on canvas vied with each other to
present us with a real likeness of Satan. None has, however, equalled
the power of Gustave Doré in the portrayal of the Diabolical. This
Frenchman was at his best as an artist of the infernal (Dante's "Great
Dis" and Milton's "Satan at the gates of Hell").
Modern artists frequently represent the devil as a woman. Félicien
Rops, Max Klinger, and Franz Stuck may be cited as illustrations.
Apparently the devil has in modern times changed sex as well as custom
and costume. Victor Hugo has said:
"Dieu s'est fait homme; soit.
Le diable s'est fait femme."
"Lucifer," as well as the other stories which form the volume _The
Well of St. Claire_, is told by the abbé Jérôme Coignard on the edge
of Santa Clara's well at Siena. The book was first published serially
in the _Echo de Paris_ (1895). It has just been rendered into Spanish
(_El Pozo de Santa Clara_).
THE DEVIL
BY MAXIM GORKY
This story shows reminiscences of Le Sage's _Le Diable boiteux_. It
will be recalled that Asmodeus also lifts the roofs of the houses of
Madrid and exhibits their interior to his benefactor.
The fate of a Russian author was, indeed, a very sad affair. "In all
lands have the writers drunk of life's cup of bitterness, have they
been bruised by life's sharp corners and torn by life's pointed
thorns. Chill penury, public neglect, and ill health have been the lot
of many an author in countries other than Russia. But in the land of
the Czars men of letters had to face problems and perils which were
peculiarly their own, and which have not been duplicated in any other
country on the globe.... Every man of letters was under suspicion. The
government of Russia treated every author as its natural enemy, and
made him feel frequently the weight of its heavy hand. The wreath of
laurels on the brow of almost every poet was turned by the tyrants of
his country into a crown of thorns." (From the present writer's essay
"The Gloom and Glory of Russian Literature" in _The Open Court_ for
July, 1918.)
THE DEVIL AND THE OLD MAN
BY JOHN MASEFIELD
_POSTCRIPT_
For the benefit of the gentle reader, who is about to shed a tear or
two over the demise of the devil, the following episode from Anatole
France's _My Friend's Book_ is retold here:
Pierre Nozière (Anatole France) takes his baby-girl to a Punch and
Judy show, the culmination point of which always consists of the duel
to the death between Punch and the Devil. The terrible battle ends, of
course, with the death of the Devil. The spectators applaud the heroic
act of Punch, but Pierre Nozière is not happy over the result of the
fight. He thinks that it is rather a pity that the Devil has been
slain. Paying no heed to Suzanne sitting by his side, he goes on
musing:
"The Devil being dead, good-bye to sin! Perhaps Beauty, the
Devil's ally, would have to go, too. Perhaps we should never
more behold the flowers that enchant us, and the eyes for
love of which we would lay down our lives. What, if that is
so, what in the world would become of us? Should we still be
able to practise virtue? I doubt it. Punch did not
sufficiently bear in mind that Evil is the necessary
counterpart of Good, as darkness is of light, that virtue
wholly consists of effort, and that if there is no more any
Devil to fight against, the Saints will remain as much out
of work as the Sinners. Life will be mortally dull. I tell
you that when he killed the Devil, Punch committed an act of
grave imprudence.
"Well, Pulchinello came on and made his bow, the curtain
fell, and all the little boys and girls went home; but still
I sat on deep in meditation. Mam'zelle Suzanne, perceiving
my thoughtful mien, concluded that I was in trouble.... Very
gently and tenderly she takes hold of my hand and asks me
why I am unhappy. I confess that I am sorry that Punch has
slain the Devil. Then she puts her little arms round my
neck, and putting her lips to my ears, she whispers:
"'I tell you somefin: Punch, he killed the nigger, but he
has not killed him for good.'"
INDEX
[List of authors and titles contained in the Notes. Names are
alphabeted after omission of _de_ or _von_, and titles are entered
without their initial article. Each title is followed by the author's
name in parentheses.]
_Ambrosio, or the Monk_ (Lewis), 296
_Anathema_ (Andréev), 286
_Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Burton), 318
Andréev, Leonid, 286
_Artificial Paradises_ (Baudelaire), 304
_Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren_ (Richter), 286
_Autobiography of Satan_ (Beard), 286
Barham, Richard Harris (307)
Barrili, Anton Giulio, 319
Baudelaire, Charles Pierre, 279, 296, 303-06
Beard, J. R., 286
_Belphagor, or the Marriage of the Devil_ (Machiavelli), 281-83, 301
_Belphagor_ (an English play), 281
_Betrogener Teufel_ (Rückert), 313
_Bon-Bon_ (Poe), 295-97
Bourges, Elémir, 315
Brevio, Giovanni, 282
Browning, Robert, 280, 303
Burton, Richard, 318
Caballero, Fernán, 300-02
Caesarius of Heisterbach, 296-97
Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 300
Carus, Paul, 315
Cazotte, Jacques, 318
Chamisso, Adalbert, 297
Chappuys, Gabriel, 281
Chateaubriand, François Auguste René, 283
Chatterton, Thomas, 283
_Christliche Mystik_ (Görres), 299
Conway, Moncure Daniel, 298, 318
_Crépuscule des Dieux_ (Bourges), 315
Cumont, Franz, 315
Daborne, Robert, 281
_Daniel and the Devil_ (Field), 294
_Danish Legends_ (Thiele), 313
Dante Alighieri, 320
Daudet, Alphonse, 307-08
Defoe, Daniel, 317, 319
_Demon Pope_ (Garnett), 315-16
_Demonology and Devil-Lore_ (Conway), 298, 319
_Demonology and Witchcraft_ (W. Scott), 285, 296
Deulin, Charles, 311-12
_Devil_ (Gorky), 304, 321
_Devil; his Origin, Greatness and Decadence_ (Réville), 309
_Devil and his Dame_ (Houghton), 281
_Devil and the Old Man_ (Masefield), 322-23
_Devil and Tom Walker_ (Irving), 284-85
_Devil in a Nunnery_ (Mann), 279-80
_Devil in Germany_ (Freytag), 293
_Devil in the Belfry_ (Poe), 301
_Devil is an Ass_ (Jonson), 281
_Devil-Puzzlers_ (Perkins), 306, 309-10, 317
_Devil's Fiddle_, 279
_Devil's Mother-in-Law_ (Caballero), 300-02
_Devil's Portrait_ (Barrili), 319
_Devil's Round_ (Deulin), 311-12
_Devil's Violin_ (Webster), 279
_Devil's Wager_ (Thackeray), 290-91
_Diable_ (Baudelaire), 306
_Diable au café_ (Ménard), 305
_Diable boiteux_ (Le Sage), 300, 314, 321
_Diablo cojuelo_ (Guevara), 300
_Diabo-Lady, or a Match in Hell_, 317
_Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northampshire_ (Sternberg), 313
_Dialogus Miraculorum_ (Caesarius), 297
_Dieux ont soif_ (France), 307
Dollinger, J. J., 315
_Du moine qui countrefyt l'ymage du Diable_, 319
Dunlop, J. C., 282
_Elixir of the Reverend Père Gaucher_ (Daudet), 307
_En Route_ (Huysmans), 280
_Evangelium Nicodemi_, 283
_Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka_ (Gógol), 289
_Fables Respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages_ (Dollinger), 315
_Fairy Tales_ (Grimm), 313
_Faust_ (Goethe), 280
_Faust_ (Lenau), 279
_Faustus_ (Marlowe), 305
Field, Eugene, 294
_Fisherman and his Soul_ (Wilde), 297
Flaubert, Gustave, 313
_Flowers of Evil_ (Baudelaire), 303
France, Anatole, 307, 319-20, 322-23
Frazer, James George, 289, 301, 304
Freytag, Gustav, 293
_From the Memoirs of Satan_ (Hauff), 286-88
Fulwell, Ulpian, 281
Goethe, Wolfgang, 280, 284
Gógol, Nikolái Vasilévich, 289
_Golden Bough_ (Frazer), 289, 304
Gorky, Maxím, 304, 321
Görres, Joseph, 299
_Götterdämmerung_ (Wagner), 315
_Grim, the Collier of Croydon_ (Fulwell), 281
Grimm, Jacob, 296, 313
Guevara, Luis Velez, 300
Hauff, Wilhelm, 286-88
Heine, Heinrich, 290
Henslowe, Philip, 281
Herbert, George, 294
Hill, Rowland, 279
_History of Fiction_ (Dunlop), 282
_History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil_ (Carus), 315-16
_History of the French Novel_ (Saintsbury), 290-91, 292
Hoffmann, E. Th. A., 286
_Homme qui vendit son âme au Diable_ (Veber), 306
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), 291
_Horla_ (Maupassant), 314
Houghton, P. M., 281
Hugo, Victor, 320
Huneker, James, 279, 303, 317
Huysmans, Joris Karl, 280, 306
_Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth and Marvels_ (Barham), 307
Irving, Washington, 284-85, 294
_Italian Novelists_ (Roscoe), 282
Jarintzow, Mme., 289
Jonson, Ben, 281, 305
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 301
_Là-Bas_ (Huysmans), 306
La Fontaine, Jean, 281
Lavigne, Germond, 302
_Legend of Mont St.-Michel_ (Maupassant), 313-14
Lenau, Nikolaus, 279
Le Sage, Alain, 300, 314, 321
Lewis, ("Monk") Matthew, 296
_Lettres de mon Moulin_ (Daudet), 307
_Little Key of Rabbi Solomon_, 301
_Lucifer_ (France), 319-20
_Machiavel and the Devil_ (Daborne and Henslowe), 281
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 281-83, 301
_Madam Lucifer_ (Garnett), 317-18
_Man and Superman_ (Shaw), 305
Mann, Francis Oscar, 279-80, 308
Marlowe, Christopher, 305
Masefield, John, 322-23
Maupassant, Guy, 307, 313-14
_Mediaeval Mind_ (Taylor), 293
_Mémoires du Diable_ (Soulié), 286, 292
_Memoirs of Satan_ (Hauff), 286-88
Ménard, Louis, 305
Milton, John, 283, 320
_My Friend's Book_ (France), 322-23
Nerval [Labrunie], Gérard, 279, 305
_Notre Coeur_ (Maupassant), 314
_Nouvelles andalouses_ (Caballero), 301
_Origin of German Carnival Comedy_ (Rudwin), 283, 312
_Painter's Bargain_ (Thackeray), 290
_Paris Sketch Book_ (Thackeray), 290
_Parlement of Devils_, 283
_Parlement of Foules_, 283
Parliament of Sprites (Chatterton), 283
Peabody, Josephine Preston, 280
Perkins, Frederick Beecher, 306, 309-10, 317
_Peter Schlemihl_ (Chamisso), 297
_Pied Piper of Hamelin_ (Browning), 280
_Piper_ (Peabody), 280
Poe, Edgar Allan, 292, 295-97, 301, 303
_Poèmes en Prose_ (Baudelaire), 306
_Pope's Mule_ (Daudet), 307
_Pozo de Santa Clara_ (France), 320
_Prince des Sots_ (Nerval), 305
_Printer's Devil_, 289-99
Rabelais, François, 313
Réville, Albert, 309
Riche, Barnabe, 281
Richter, Jean Paul, 286
_Robinson der Jüngers_ (Campe), 300
Roscoe, Thomas, 282
Roskoff, Georg, 309
Rückert, Friedrich, 313
Rudwin, Maximilian J., 283, 306, 312, 321
_Russian Poets and Poems_ (Jarintzow), 289
Sachs, Hans, 281
_St. John's Eve_ (Gógol), 289
Saintsbury, George, 290, 292
Sansovino, Francesco, 281
_Satan's Diary_ (Andréev), 286
_Satanism of Huysmans_ (Rudwin), 306
_Satires_ (Horace), 291
Schmidt, Julian, 300
Scott, Walter, 285, 296, 305
_Selections from the Devil's Papers_ (Richter), 286
Shakespeare, William, 295
Shaw, George Bernard, 305
Shipley, Joseph T., 306
_Sonata del Diavolo_ (Tartini), 279
_Sonate du Diable_ (Nerval), 279
Soulié, Frédéric, 286, 292
_Spanish Fairy Tales_ (Caballero), 302
Staël, Madame, 284
Sternberg, T., 313
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 284
Straparola, Giovan-Francesco, 281
_Supreme Sin_ (Huneker), 279
Symons, Arthur, 315
_Tales from Twelve Tongues_ (Garnett?), 302
Tartini, Giuseppe, 279
Tasso, Torquato, 283
Taylor, H. D., 293
_Temptation of St. Anthony_ (Flaubert), 313
_Tentations ou Eros, Plutus et la Gloire_ (Baudelaire), 279, 296
_Teufel in Berlin_ (Hoffmann), 286
_Teufel mit der Geige_ (Gengenbach), 279
_Teutonic Mythology_ (Grimm), 296
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 290-94
Thiele, Just Mathias, 313
_Thrawn Janet_ (Stevenson), 284
_Three Low Masses_ (Daudet), 307-08
_Twilight of the Gods_ (Garnett), 315
_Undying Fire_ (Wells), 305
Vasari, Giorgio, 310
Veber, Pierre, 306
_Vinculum Spirituum_, 301
_Violon du Diable_, 279
_Vision Malefic_ (Huneker), 317
_Vision of Saint Simon of Blewberry_ (Mann), 308
_Vite de' più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, ed Architteti_ (Vasari), 319
Wagner, Richard, 315
_Wandering Willie's Tale_ (Scott), 305
Webster, Benjamin, 279
_Well of St. Claire_ (France), 320
Wells, H. G., 305
Wilde, Oscar, 297
_Wintermärchen_ (Klopstock), 301
THE END