VI

_The Empress's_ MONEY-CHEST

_The Empress's_ MONEY-CHEST

The Bishop had summoned Father Verneau to appear before him. It was on

account of a somewhat unpleasant matter. Father Verneau had been sent to

preach in the manufacturing districts around Charleroi, but he had

arrived there in the midst of a strike, when the workmen were rather

excited and unmanageable. He informed the Bishop that he had immediately

on his arrival in the Black Country received a letter from one of the

leaders of the men to the effect that they were quite willing to hear

him preach, but if he ventured to mention the name of God either

directly or indirectly, there would be a disturbance in the church.

'And when I went up into the pulpit and saw the congregation to whom I

should preach,' said the Father, 'I felt no doubt but that the threat

would be carried out.'

Father Verneau was a little dried-up monk. The Bishop looked down upon

him as being of a lower order. Such an unshaven, not too clean monk,

with the most insignificant face, was, of course, a coward. He was,

probably, also afraid of the Bishop.

'I have been informed,' said the Bishop, 'that you carried out the

workmen's wishes. But I need not point out----'

'Monseigneur,' interrupted Father Verneau in all humility, 'I thought

the Church, if possible, would avoid everything that might lead to a

disturbance.'

'But a Church that dare not mention the name of God----'

'Has Monseigneur heard my sermon?'

The Bishop walked up and down the floor to calm himself.

'You know it by heart, of course?' he said.

'Of course, Monseigneur.'

'Let me hear it, then, as it was delivered, Father Verneau, word for

word, exactly as you preached it.'

The Bishop sat down in his arm-chair. Father Verneau remained standing.

'"Citizens and citizenesses," he began in the tone of a lecturer.

The Bishop started.

'Yes, that is how they will be addressed, Monseigneur.'

'Never mind, Father Verneau, only proceed.'

The Bishop shuddered slightly; these two words had suddenly shown him

the whole situation. He saw before him this gathering of the children of

the Black Country, to whom Father Verneau had preached. He saw many wild

faces, many rags, much coarse merriment. He saw these people for whom

nothing had been done.

'"Citizens and citizenesses," began Father Verneau afresh, "there is in

this country an Empress called Maria Theresa. She is an excellent ruler,

the best and wisest Belgium has ever had. Other rulers, my

fellow-citizens, other rulers have successors when they die, and lose

all power over their people. Not so the great Empress Maria Theresa.

She may have lost the throne of Austria and Hungary; Brabant and Limburg

may now be under other rulers, but not her good province of West

Flanders. In West Flanders, where I have lived the last few years, no

other ruler is known to this very day than Maria Theresa. We know King

Leopold lives in Brussels, but that has nothing to do with us. It is

Maria Theresa who still reigns here by the sea, more especially in the

fishing villages. The nearer one gets to the sea, the mightier becomes

her power. Neither the great Revolution, nor the Empire, nor the Dutch

have had the power to overthrow her. How could they? They have done

nothing for the children of the sea that can compare with what she has

done. But what has she not done for the people on the dunes! What an

invaluable treasure, my fellow-citizens, has she not bestowed upon them!

'"About one hundred and fifty years ago, in the early part of her reign,

she made a journey through Belgium. She visited Brussels and Bruges, she

went to Liege and Louvain, and when she had at last seen enough of large

cities and profusely ornamented town-halls, she went to the coast to see

the sea and the dunes.

'"It was not a very cheering sight for her. She saw the ocean, so vast

and mighty that no man can fight against it. She saw the coast, helpless

and unprotected. There lay the dunes, but the sea had washed over them

before, and might do so again. There were also dams, but they had fallen

down and were neglected.

'"She saw harbours filled with sand; she saw marshes overgrown with

rushes and weeds; she saw, below the dunes, fishing-huts ravaged by the

wind--huts looking as if they had been thrown there, a prey for the sea;

she saw poor old churches that had been moved away from the sea, lying

between quicksands and lyme-grass, in desolate wastes.

'"The great Empress sat a whole day by the sea. She was told all about

the floods and the towns that had been washed away; she was shown the

spot where a whole district had sunk under the sea; she was rowed out to

the place where an old church stood at the bottom of the sea; and she

was told about all the people who had been drowned, and of all the

cattle that had been lost, the last time the sea had overflowed the

dunes.

'"The whole day through the Empress sat thinking: 'How shall I help

these poor people on the dunes? I cannot forbid the sea to rise and

fall; I cannot forbid it to undermine the shore; nor can I stay the

storm, or prevent it from upsetting the fishermen's boats; and still

less can I lead the fish into their nets, or transform the lyme-grass

into nutritious wheat. There is no monarch in the world so mighty that

he can help these poor people in their need.'

'"The next day it was Sunday, and the Empress heard Mass at

Blankenberghe. All the people from Dunkirk to Sluis had come to see her.

But before Mass the Empress went about and spoke with the people.

'"The first person she addressed was the harbour-master from Nieuport.

'What news is there from your town?' asked the Empress. 'Nothing new,'

answered the harbour-master, 'except that Cornelis Aertsen's boat was

upset in the storm yesterday; and we found him this morning riding on

the keel.' 'It was a good thing his life was saved,' said the Empress.

'Well, I don't know,' said the harbour-master, 'for he was out of his

mind when he came on shore.' 'Was it from fear?' asked the Empress.

'Yes,' said the harbour-master; 'it is because we in Nieuport have

nothing to depend upon in the hour of need. Cornelis knew that his wife

and his small children would starve to death if he perished; and it was

this thought, I suppose, that drove him out of his mind.' 'Then that is

what you need here on the dunes--something to depend upon?' 'Yes, that

is it,' said the harbour-master. 'The sea is uncertain, the harvest is

uncertain, the fishing and the earnings are uncertain. Something to

depend upon, that is what we need.'

'"The Empress then went on, and the next she spoke to was the priest

from Heyst. 'What news from Heyst?' said she to him. 'Nothing new,' he

answered, 'except that Jacob van Ravesteyn has given up making ditches

in the marshes, and dredging the harbour, and attending to the

lighthouses, and all other useful work he had to do.' 'How is that?'

said the Empress. 'He has inherited a sum of money,' said the priest;

'but it was less than he had expected.' 'But now he has something

certain,' said the Empress. 'Yes,' said the priest; 'but now he has got

the money he dare not venture to do anything great for fear it will not

be sufficient.' 'It is something infinitely great, then, that is needed

to help you at Heyst?' said the Empress. 'It is,' said the priest;

'there is infinitely much to do. And nothing can be done until we know

that we have something infinitely great to fall back upon.'

'"The Empress then went on until she came to the master-pilot from

Middelkerke, whom she began to question about the news from his town. 'I

do not know of anything new,' said the master-pilot, 'but that Ian van

der Meer has quarrelled with Luca Neerwinden.' 'Indeed!' said the

Empress. 'Yes, they have found the cod-bank they have both been looking

for all their lives. They had heard about it from old people, and they

had hunted for it all over the sea, and they have been the best of

friends the whole time, but now they have found it they have fallen

out.' 'Then it would have been better if they had never found it?' said

the Empress. 'Yes,' answered the master-pilot, 'it would indeed have

been better.' 'So, then, that which is to help you in Middelkerke,' said

the Empress, 'must be hidden so well that no one can find it?' 'Just

so,' said the master-pilot; 'well hidden it must be, for if anyone

should find it, there would be nothing but quarrelling and strife over

it, or else it would be all spent, and then it would be of no further

use.'

'"The Empress sighed, and felt she could do nothing.

'"She then went to Mass, and the whole time she knelt and prayed that

power might be given her to help the people. And--you must excuse me,

citizens--when the Mass was finished, it had become clear to her that it

was better to do a little than to do nothing. When all the people had

come out of the church, she stood on the steps in order to address them.

'"No man or woman of West Flanders will ever forget how she looked. She

was beautiful, like an Empress, and she was attired like an Empress. She

wore her crown and her ermine mantle, and held the sceptre in her hand.

Her hair was dressed high and powdered, and a string of large pearls was

entwined amongst the curls. She wore a robe of red silk, which was

entirely covered with Flemish lace, and red, high-heeled shoes, with

large diamond buckles. That is how she appears, she who to this day

still reigns over our West Flanders.

'"She spoke to the people of the coast, and told them her will. She told

them of how she had thought of every way in which to help them. She said

that they knew she could not compel the sea to quietness or chain the

storm, that she could not lead the fish-shoals to the coast, or

transform the lyme-grass into wheat; but what a poor mortal could do for

them, that should be done.

'"They all knelt before her whilst she spoke. Never before had they felt

such a gentle and motherly heart beat for them. The Empress spoke to

them in such a manner about their hard and toilsome life that tears came

into their eyes over her pity.

'"But now the Empress said she had decided to leave with them her

Imperial money-chest, with all the treasures which it contained. That

should be her gift to all those who lived on the dunes. That was the

only assistance she could render them, and she asked them to forgive

her that it was so poor; and the Empress herself had tears in her eyes

when she said this.

'"She now asked them if they would promise and swear not to use any of

the treasure until the need amongst them was so great that it could not

become any greater. Next, if they would swear to leave it as an

inheritance for their descendants, if they did not require it

themselves. And, lastly, she asked every man singly to swear that he

would not try to take possession of the treasure for his own use without

having first asked the consent of all his fellow-fishermen.

'"If they were willing to swear? That they all were. And they blessed

the Empress and cried from gratitude. And she cried and told them that

she knew that what they needed was a support that would never fail them,

a treasure that could never be exhausted, and a happiness that was

unattainable, but that she could not give them. She had never been so

powerless as here on the dunes.

'"My fellow-citizens, without her knowing it, solely by force of the

royal wisdom with which this great Queen was endowed, the power was

given her to attain far more than she had intended, and it is therefore

one can say that to this day she reigns over West Flanders.

'"What a happiness, is it not, to hear of all the blessings which have

been spread over West Flanders by the Empress's gift! The people there

have now something to depend upon which they needed so badly, and which

we all need. However bad things may be, there is never any despair.

'"They have told me at the dunes what the Empress's money-chest is like.

They say it is like the holy shrine of Saint Ursula at Bruges, only more

beautiful. It is a copy of the cathedral at Vienna, and it is of pure

gold; but on the sides the whole history of the Empress is depicted in

the whitest alabaster. On the small side-towers are the four diamonds

which the Empress took from the crown of the Sultan of Turkey, and in

the gable are her initials inlaid with rubies. But when I ask them

whether they have seen the money-chest, they reply that shipwrecked

sailors when in peril always see it swimming before them on the waves as

a sign that they shall not be in despair for their wives and children,

should they be compelled to leave them. But they are the only ones who

have seen the treasure, otherwise no one has been near enough to count

it. And you know, citizens, that the Empress never told anyone how great

it was. But if any of you doubt how much use it has been and is, then I

will ask you to go to the dunes and see for yourself. There has been

digging and building ever since that time, and the sea now lies cowed by

bulwarks and dams, and no longer does harm. And there are green meadows

inside the dunes, and there are flourishing towns and watering-places

near the shore. But for every lighthouse that has been built, for every

harbour that has been deepened, for every ship of which the keel has

been laid, for every dam that has been raised, they have always thought:

'If our own money should not be sufficient, we shall receive help from

our Gracious Empress Maria Theresa.' But this has been but a spur to

them: their own money has always sufficed.

'"You know, also, that the Empress did not say where the treasure was.

Was not this well considered, citizens? There is one who has it in his

keeping, but only, when all are agreed upon dividing it, will he who

keeps the treasure come forward and reveal where it is. Therefore one is

certain that neither now nor in the future will it be unfairly divided.

It is the same for all. Everyone knows that the Empress thinks as much

of him as of his neighbour. There can be no strife or envy amongst the

people of the dunes as there is amongst other men, for they all share

alike in the treasure."'

The Bishop interrupted Father Verneau.

'That is enough,' he said. 'How did you continue?'

'I said,' continued the monk, 'that it was very bad the good Empress had

not also come to Charleroi. I pitied them because they did not own her

money-chest. Considering the great things they had to accomplish,

considering the sea which they had to tame, the quicksands which they

had to bind, considering all this, I said to them surely there was

nothing they needed so much.'

'And then?' asked the Bishop.

'One or two cabbages, your Eminence, a little hissing; but then I was

already out of the pulpit. That was all.'

'They had understood that you had spoken to them about the providence of

God?'

The monk bowed.

'They had understood that you would show them that the power which they

deride because they do not see it must be kept hidden? that it will be

abused immediately it assumes a visible form? I congratulate you, Father

Verneau.'

The monk retired towards the door, bowing. The Bishop followed him,

beaming benevolently.

'But the money-chest--do they still believe in it at the dunes?'

'As much as ever, Monseigneur.'

'And the treasure--has there ever been a treasure?'

'Monseigneur, I have sworn.'

'But for me,' said the Bishop.

'It is the priest at Blankenberghe, who has it in his keeping. He

allowed me to see it. It is an old wooden chest with iron mountings.'

'And?'

'And at the bottom lie twenty bright Maria Theresa gold pieces.'

The Bishop smiled, but became grave at once.

'Is it right to compare such a wooden chest with God's providence?'

'All comparisons are incomplete, Monseigneur; all human thoughts are

vain.'

Father Verneau bowed once again, and quietly withdrew from the

audience-room.

_From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD