also established journals and museums. The chief of the periodicals is
the "Journal of Christian Art," edited, since 1851, by Baudri. Among
the contributors to this publication, which does not meet with the
patronage it deserves, are A. Reichensperger, Ernst Weyden, of
Cologne, the learned Dr. van Endert, Canon von Bock, of
Aix-la-Chapelle, and, occasionally, Münzenberger, of Düsseldorf.
Baudri's journal is to Germany what J.N. Alberdingk-Thijm's "_De
dietsche Warande_" is to Holland, what James Weale's "_Le Beffroi_" is
to Belgium, and what Didron's "_Annales_" are to France. The claims of
church music are put forth by the "Caecilia," published in Luxemburg
by Oberhoffer. Pastor Ortlieb, whose premature death we mourn, made a
similar attempt, but failed. In fine, the organ of the altar societies
is "Der Kirchenschmuck," a monthly publication, published in Stuttgart
by Schwarz and Laib. These altar societies may now be found in every
part of Germany, and their silent influence is great. Some societies,
those of Vienna and Pesth, for instance, number thousands of members.
The Brussels and Paris societies, beside attending to their own wants,
work for foreign missions. The most recent of these societies is the
one founded in November, 1864, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, as the
Diocesan society of Limburg. The ladies of Germany have furnished
splendid {233} pieces of embroidery in the form of sacred vestments.
I cannot speak of altar societies without mentioning Kreuser, of
Cologne. Kreuser, with his hoary hair and his mighty snuff-box--a man
full of sparkling wit and endless humor--is known to all of us, for up
to 1861 we never missed him at the general conventions. Since the
Munich convention, however, we have not seen him; he was absent at
Aix-la-Chapelle, at Frankfort, and at Würzburg, and we know not the
reason of his absence. To speak concisely is very difficult, and few
speakers from the Rhenish provinces can boast of this virtue; still,
most Germans, and especially the German ladies, listened with pleasure
to old Kreuser; and no wonder, for Kreuser never failed to do justice
to the ladies of Germany. When Kreuser spoke in a city, his speech was
followed immediately by the establishment of an altar society. He
carried everything by storm, and the impression made by his speeches
was not merely transient, but produced lasting fruits. Kreuser is a
poet, also, a happy improvisatore, able to cope with the most daring
rhymster. He is one of the best read men in Germany, and deserves our
gratitude for his exertions in the cause of Christian art. Twenty
years have rolled by since he published his "Letters on the Cologne
Cathedral," and during the last twelve years his work on architecture
has been studied again and again. That Kreuser's style is deficient in
grace and harmony we will not dispute, still much benefit may be
derived from the perusal of his works.
Francis von Bock, also, deserves our notice. He is the author of a
"History of the Liturgic Vestments," in two vols., illustrated with
two hundred colored engravings. Boldly he demands the use of
appropriate workmanship; fearlessly measures swords with every
opponent, and often his impetuosity is crowned with success. To him
Casaretto, of Crefeld, is indebted for valuable suggestions. He was
also one of the founders of the school of art under the direction of
the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, at Aix-la-Chapelle. Dr. von Bock has
visited every country in Europe, Turkey excepted, which he intends
shortly to visit for the purpose of continuing his researches. Where
can be found an ancient vestment whose texture he did not scrutinize,
and a piece of which he has not begged for still closer examination?
At Gran, at Malines, in Bohemia, in Sicily, at Rome, at Paris, at
Vienna--everywhere Dr. von Bock has left traces of his unwearying
activity. The Rhenish goldsmiths owe him a debt of gratitude. He has
written papers on the church at Kaiserswerth, on the Benedictine
church at Munchen-Gladbach, on Cologne, and on the relics at Gran and
Aix-la-Chapelle. His principal work is on the "Insignia of the Holy
Roman Empire." It is a magnificently illustrated specimen of
typography, equal in every respect to any similar work published in
England or France. At Malines every one spoke loudly in its praise,
and in 1864 the author received from the Emperor Francis Joseph the
Cross of the Iron Crown. Von Bock's style reminds me of the chimes I
have heard in Holland; it consists in a constant repetition of the
same pleasing melody.
Von Bock stands in odd contrast to Dean Schwarz, of Böhmenkirch, the
able editor of the "_Kirchenschmuck._" He is the personification of
repose and dignity, a deep thinker, and a first-class archaeologist.
For many years he has wielded great influence with the clergy.
Whilst the altar societies are displaying greater activity every day,
the Christian art unions, it is said, are daily becoming less zealous.
In some places, no doubt, this is true; but in many dioceses they have
been changing into associations for furthering the completion of the
diocesan cathedral. To mention but a few instances, this was the case
in Regensburg. Since his accession to the episcopal see {234} Bishop
Ignatius von Senestrey applied himself with energy to the completion
of his cathedral. King Louis I. having furnished the means, we have no
doubt that in a few years architect Denzinger will finish the two
towers. At Mayence, likewise, everything is being done for the
completion and decoration of the cathedral. The work has been
intrusted to the skill of Metternich, and Director Veit, assisted by
Lasinsky Settegast and Hermann, is frescoing the walls and the vaults.
Since the fall of the partition between the sanctuary and the nave in
the Cologne cathedral, and since the great festival of October 15th,
1868, the building has been steadily progressing, and the cathedral
lottery promises to furnish the means for completing the towers within
seven years. Schmidt has added a new pyramid to St. Stephen's
cathedral in Vienna, which has now the highest spire in the world.
After rivalling the English architect Welby Pugin by planning almost
two hundred churches and chapels, Statz is now building a cathedral at
Linz. Archbishop Gregory von Scheer has given a new appearance to the
metropolitan Church of Our Lady at Munich, whilst the bishop of
Passau, Henry von Hofstätter, has proved his devotion to the interests
of art by renovating many churches in his diocese. Among all the
German prelates none have built more churches than Cardinal Geissel,
of Cologne, and Bishop Müller, of Münster.
Is it not an encouraging sign that we are completing the immense
edifices of the middle ages? Is it not a proof of vital energy that
the Catholics of all countries are building the grandest churches in
the most correct style? As architectural science progresses, a like
advance must take place in mechanics, and, notwithstanding many
blunders, every branch of art is daily more and more perfected. Not
many years hence all our temples will be completed and adorned with
the splendor becoming the divine service. Let every one do his duty,
fulfilling the task allotted him by divine Providence.
Let us conclude our rapid survey by calling to mind the men who have
begun and directed this movement. Among the Germans, Joseph von
Görres, F. von Schlegel, and Sulpitius Boisserée will head our list.
France justly boasts of de Caumont, Didron, Montalembert, Viollet le
Duc, Cahier, and the Abbé Martin. Oudin must not be forgotten, nor
Bossi, the historian of the catacombs. The merits of Seroux
d'Agincourt, Waagen, Guilhabaud, Schnaase, Kugler, Passavant,
Stieglitz, Geyer, Kallenbach, Forster, Moller, Heideloff, Otte,
Springer, Hefner-Alteneck, Krieg von Hochfelden, von Quast, Jacob
Schmitt, and many others known to every votary of art. To us is
assigned the task of reaping the fruits of their labors.
--------
{235}
From The St. James Magazine.
PROPERZIA ROSSI.
Properzia Rossi, a female artist, celebrated for her misfortunes,
though more for her proficiency in sculpture, painting, and music,
died of a broken heart, just as Pope Clement VII. had invited her to
Rome, to show his admiration for her masterpiece in the church of San
Petronio at Bologna.
Too late--oh, far too late! Praise comes in vain
To lull the fever'd agonies of pain.
I am no more the artist idly proud,
But the gaunt mortal waiting for a shroud.
No more the songstress, whose impassioned lay
O'er taste and feeling held unrivalled sway;
But a weak woman, desolate and worn,
Her pulses throbbing, and her heart-strings torn,
Looking above--sad, humbled, and alone--
Where mercy dwells with Jesus on his throne--
Ay, fondly hoping for one smile of light
From the meek Man of sorrows and of might,
Who from sin's thrall is powerful to save,
Died on the cross, and triumphed o'er the grave!
What though the light of genius fired mine eye,
That radiant meteor leaves us when we die,
And conscience whispers that the gifts of heaven
Were of misused. I thirst to be forgiven.
Panting I turn from streams once deeply quaff'd.
And crave the Rock's sole vivifying draught!
Ay, as I kneel and supplicate for grace,
I veil in lowliness my tear-bathed face;
Implore for pardon with intense distress,
And spurn the gauds of earthly happiness!
Oh, what avails it that aerial forms.
And colors vivid as the bow of storms.
Hang o'er my fancy with bewitching spell?
Say, have I used these varied talents well?
Oh, what avails it that my hands would mould
Beautiful models from the marble cold?
Have the rich sculptures in the hallow'd fane
Brought one soil'd spirit to her God again?--
Recall'd a virtuous feeling to the heart,
And by religion consecrated art?
Have the fair features and bright hues I wove'
In one dark breast illumed the spark of love?
Or lured the soul from sin's deceptious toys
To pure devotion's memorable joys?
Oh, have the gifts of music and of song
Soothed one sad being of the human throng?--
Angelic thoughts--submissive, hopeful, kind--
Breathed o'er a mournful or a shattered mind?
And has my genius, with a potent sway,
Gilded the road to heaven--that straight and narrow way?
{236}
God has been very bounteous; he has given
Much to enhance the blessedness of heaven.
The _threefold cords_ [Footnote 37] of talismanic power
Were meant to yield employment for the hour--
Life's potent hour of labor, want, and pain--
Brief as the April drops of sunny rain;
And yet by mercy recompensed above,
If well improved in hope, and faith, and love.
But conscience whispers, and in these dark days
That voice grows louder as my strength decays,--
Of wasted talents, of forgotten crime,
And of a judgment awfully sublime!
Of duties unfulfill'd, of gifts misspent.
Of future pangs, of fitting punishment!
[Footnote 37: Music, painting, and sculpture.]
I muse no longer on the _present_--no--
My life is with the _future_ or the _past_,
And both are mingling in a magic flow,
Like turbid waters in a fountain cast.
The _past_---oh, whether fair, or dark, or both,
Is but a picture mirror'd on the wave.
The moral sicknesses--guile, anger, sloth--
Arise as spectres from a yawning grave;
What boots it that misfortune paled my cheek.
That penury and pain obscured my way?
_Sorrow is voiceless_; 'tis remorse that speaks
In awful tones of merited decay,
And of the worm that dieth not--the vale
Of never-ending, still-beginning death.
Methinks I hear the harsh, continuous wail,
The sobs and catchings of convulsive breath.
Guilt unatoned for--thoughts and words of sin--
How do they rise up, burning as on glass!
The evil pent the wishful heart within
Asking for vengeance! O the hideous mass
Of wickedness heap'd up, long, long conceal'd!
But now as by a lightning flash reveal'd.
Woe! woe! the Eternal Judge's fiery dart
Hath pierced the labyrinthine cells within,
Where underneath the pulses of my heart
Dwells the mysterious form of crouching sin.
Thoughts, baneful wishes,--ay, as well as deeds,
Against me in strong phalanx are array'd.
In vain these tears--in vain this bosom bleeds:
I look upon myself, and am dismay'd,
Powerless, and weak, and agonized I cry,--
And hear the words, "Lost sinner, thou must die!"
Clouds roll around me, and from an abyss,
Drear, dark, profound, behold a hideous form!
Closer and closer serpents coiling hiss,
And thunders boom along a sky of storm.
{237}
There is no deed to offer thee of good,
Thou mocking fiend! laugh on without restraint!
I seem as borne along a sulphurous flood,
Too meteorically wild to paint.
The couch heaves under me, my sight is gone,--
I am with the accuser, and alone!
Alone! alone! O tell me not 'tis so.
That I must grapple powerless with the foe.
Jesus, thou Lamb of God, arise! arise!
Arrest these doubts, these daring blasphemies.
It was for sinners thou didst shed thy blood,
For guilty mortals, not for angels' good.
Listen! attend! a sinner asks for aid,--
For _me_ that blood was spilt, for _me_ thou wast betrayed.
As when a night of storms has sped away.
And robed in florid hues appears the day,
Stealingly, gently lighting up the skies
With gleams, as from a seraph's smiling eyes,
Thus o'er my spirit breeds a gracious calm,
O'er my deep wounds is poured a healing balm.
Methinks the mild Redeemer stands above,
And pleads _his_ righteousness, _his_ cross, _his_ love;
While angels' voices wafted straight from heaven
Proclaim, "Thy Savior calls! thou art forgiven!"
------
From The Hibernian Magazine.
THE CAPUCHIN OF BRUGES.
"Three monks sat by a bogwood fire--
Bare were their crowns, and their garments grey,
Close sat they by that bogwood fire.
Watching the wicket till break of day."
Ballad Poetry.
Saving the color of their garments, which, instead of grey, were of a
dark brown, and the omission of any allusion to their long flowing
beards, the above lines convey as accurate an idea as any words could
of the parties that occupied the spacious guest-chamber of the
Capuchin convent of Bruges on the last night of October, 1708.
Seated round the capacious hearth, on which, without aid of grate,
cheerfully blazed a pile of dark gnarled logs dug up from the fens,
which, in the days of Caesar, were shaded by the dense forests of
Flanders, three lay-brothers of the order kept watch for any wayfarer
that might require hospitality or information on the evening in
question. Their convent stood--and a portion of it still stands--at
the southern extremity of the town, close beside the present railway
station. But Bruges was not, a century and a half ago, what it is
today. War, and the recent decline of its ancient commerce, rendered
it, at {238} the period of which we write, anything but a safe or
attractive locality for either tourist or commercial traveller to
visit. There was no "Hotel de Flandre," or "Fleur de Blé," or even
"Singe d'Or,'" for the weary itinerant to seek refreshment or lodging.
Neither were there gens-d'armes in the streets, nor affable
shopkeepers in their gas-lit _magasins_, as at present, to whom the
benighted stranger might apply for information regarding the locality
in which his friends resided. The convents and monasteries, however,
with which Belgium was then, as now, studded, were ever open to the
traveller, be his rank or condition what it might, and pre-eminent for
their hospitality were the Capuchin fathers.
The night was a wild one; and the dying blasts of October seemed bent
on a vigorous struggle ere they expired.
"What an awful storm!" exclaimed Brother Anselm, rising to secure the
huge oak window shutters that seemed, as if in terror, every moment
ready to start from their strong iron fastenings.
"God preserve us I but 'tis fearful," replied one of his companions.
Brother Bonaventure, "and what dreadful lightning!"
Peal after peal of thunder resounded through the spacious hall and
adjoining corridors; and then, again, came the wind beating the rain,
in torrents, against door and casement, and completely drowning the
chimes of the Carillon, though the market-place, where the belfry
stood, was close beside them. Still not a word escaped their third
companion, Brother Francis, a venerable old man who sat nearer than
his younger brethren to the ample fireplace. He continued silently
reciting "Ave" after "Ave" on the beads of the large rosary attached
to his girdle, and seemed, in the excess of his devotion, utterly
unconscious of the storm that howled without.
A loud knocking at the outer gate followed quickly by the ringing of
the stranger's bell, at length announced the arrival of some guest. In
an instant, the old man let his beads fall to their accustomed place
by his side--for the rule of St. Francis gave charity toward the
neighbor a first place among its spiritual observances--and hastened,
as eagerly as his younger brothers, to admit the poor traveller, who
must be sore distrait, on such an awful night.
Lighting a lantern, they proceeded through the court to the outer
porch, and drawing back the slide that covered a small grated aperture
in the wicket, demanded who the wayfarer might be. The gleam of the
lamp fell upon the uniforms of two military men, who seemed engaged in
supporting a third between them, while their horses stood neighing in
terror, and pawing the ground beside them. In a second the gate was
unbarred, and three of Vendôme's troopers entered the court-yard; two
of them still supporting their comrade, who had been badly wounded in
a skirmish with Marlborough's troops, near Audenarde, that morning.
Leaving Anselm with the two other soldiers to look after the horses,
brothers Francis and Bonaventure led the wounded man into the convent.
He seemed weak and faint; but the cheerful blase of the fire, and the
refreshment speedily administered by the good brothers, soon restored
him somewhat, though he still suffered acutely from his wound, and was
utterly unable to stand without the aid of support.
For the first time Brother Francis broke silence. From the moment he
caught a distinct view of the stranger's face, as he sat in the light
of the fire, his gaze seemed riveted upon him; and an observer might
have noticed the old man's lip quiver and his face grow paler, might
have even observed a tear steal down his cheek, as he continued for a
while to gaze in silence on the pallid features of the young soldier.
At length he addressed him, not in French or {239} Flemish, but in a
language which to Brother Bonaventure was foreign.
The stranger's face brightened at the sound of his own tongue, and he
readily made answer to the few hurried questions put him by the old
monk. Their conversation was of very brief duration; but its result
seemed astounding. For when Anselm returned with the soldiers, he
found Bonaventure and the stranger chafing the old man's temples as he
lay in a swoon on the bench before them.
To their inquiries as to the cause of this strange occurrence, Anselm
could give no definite answer. All he knew was, that although he could
not understand what passed between Brother Francis and their comrade,
the conversation seemed to produce a wonderful effect on the former.
He trembled from head to foot, and then smiled, and seemed about to
grasp the stranger in his arms, when he suddenly fell back on the
bench as they now saw him. The young soldier--he was almost a boy,
and strikingly handsome--was equally puzzled. Brother Francis had
merely asked him if he were Irish; and when he answered "Yes;"--if his
name was Herbert, and if it was Gerald Herbert, and if his father and
grandfather were Irish;--and when he replied that his name was Gerald
Walter Herbert, and that his grandfather was not Irish, but English,
the old man muttered something which he could not catch, and fainted.
That was all he could tell them; but what that had to do with Brother
Francis's fit still remained a mystery.
For a considerable time the aged monk lay senseless and almost
motionless, the only symptoms of animation he presented being those
afforded by the convulsive throbbing of his heart, and an occasional
deep-drawn sigh. His brothers seemed deeply afflicted, and sought by
every means in their power to restore him; for Francis, though few
knew anything of his history, was, notwithstanding, the favorite of
the whole community.
Toward midnight the old man revived, and his first inquiry was for the
young soldier. He now embraced him, and, as he pressed him again and
again to his heart, with tears and blessings called him "his son,"
"his dear child." Brothers Anselm and Bonaventure looked at each other
in mute astonishment. They feared that their dear old friend, the
patriarch of the lay-brothers, was losing his reason. They knew that,
for thirty years at least, he had been an inmate of the cloister,
while the party whom he thus lovingly called his son could at furthest
number twenty birthdays, if indeed he could count so many. Still
greater, however, was their surprise, when, on a closer scrutiny, they
could not fail to observe a market family likeness between their aged
brother and the individual on whom all his affections seemed now
centred.
But this was no time for the indulgence of curiosity. The two
troopers, drenched and travel-stained, must be attended to, and the
wound of their comrade looked after. Fortunately their convent
numbered among its inmates one of the best leeches in all West
Flanders. He had been already summoned to the aid of Brother Francis,
and now that he no longer required his services, he directed his
attention to the other invalid, whose case seemed the less urgent of
the two. In a short time his skilful hand extracted a spent ball from
the sufferer's knee, and, by the application of a soothing poultice,
restored him to comparative ease. Nor were Brothers Anselm and
Bonaventure idle meanwhile. Piles of well-buttered _tartines_ made of
wholemeal bread baked in the convent, with plentiful dishes of rashers
and omelets, and a flagon or two of foaming Louvain beer, soon covered
the table. Cold meats, too, of various kinds, were served up in
abundance; and the two dragoons were soon busily engaged in satisfying
appetites good at all times, but now considerably sharpened by a hard
ride and a long fast. {240} It was the first peaceful meal they
enjoyed since the Duke of Burgundy got command; and they blessed their
stars for having been selected to escort young Herbert to the rear.
Having completed the bandaging of his wound, and administered such
medicine as he deemed best calculated to make up for his patient's
loss of blood, the infirmarian led him to the chamber prepared for his
reception; and Brother Francis begged to be allowed to take charge of
him. His request was granted, but on the sole condition that no
conversation of an exciting nature should take place between him and
the invalid till such time as all feverish and inflammatory symptoms
had subsided. Day after day, and night after night, the old man
watched, in strict silence, beside the stranger's couch; and all were
in amazement at such assiduity and attention on the part of one who,
as long as any remembered him, seemed utterly detached from all
earthly affections. They even saw him mingle tears with his prayers,
as he knelt beside the pillow of the sleeper. It was whispered that
the guardian knew something about the matter; for he, too, now came
frequently, and looked with evident interest on the invalid. No one
else ventured to speak to Brother Francis on the subject, for though
generally kind and gentle, and communicative as a child, there were
times when he became sad and reserved--and this seemed one of them.
Ten days passed on, and the invalid made such rapid progress that the
infirmarian and his staff pronounced him quite out of danger, in no
further need of medical treatment, and only requiring the aid of the
cook to recover completely his wonted vigor. The interdict was now
removed, and Brother Francis seemed happy. He could, henceforth, speak
as he pleased to his young protégé. The latter felt equally delighted;
for he felt, he knew not why, a sort of unaccountable attachment--it
was certainly more than mere gratitude--toward the old man growing
daily stronger and stronger within him. And then Brother Francis
called him "my son"--but perhaps, as an old man, that was the name by
which he addressed all youngsters. At all events, he loved the old
monk as a child loves a father, and always felt sad when the duties of
his rule obliged his venerable friend to leave him for a time.
"And so you tell me you have no recollection of your father?" said
Brother Francis, with a sigh, as they sat together one evening--it was
the eve of St. Martin--in the same apartment where we first introduced
them to our readers.
"None whatever," replied his companion; "he left France as a volunteer
with d'Usson's division, and was killed at Limerick when I was but
three years old. So I often heard my mother say."
The speaker did not remark the shudder that ran through the old man's
frame at mention of Limerick; but only paid attention to his next
question, which rapidly followed.
"And your father's father?"
"Was, as I have already said, an Englishman--but he, too, died in the
wars long ago. They say he fell in Spain."
The old man could no longer restrain his feelings. Bursting into
tears, and clasping his young companion to his bosom, as he had done
on the night of their first meeting, he said:
"No, my child--your grandfather, Walter Herbert, is not dead, but yet
survives to give you that blessing which your own poor father could
not bestow on you with his parting breath--he stands before you."
It was a touching scene to witness--that old Capuchin monk, with his
long white beard, and coarse dark gown, and leathern cincture, and
bare sandalled feet, locked in the fond embrace of the young soldier
of "the Brigade," on that eve of St. Martin, in the old convent of
Bruges! We do not mean to intrude on the sacred {241} privacy of
domestic feeling, but leaving parent and child to commune with each
other in the fulness of their hearts, will, with our readers' kind
permission, assume, for the nonce, the province of the Senachie, and
briefly relate as much of their history as we have ourselves learned,
Outre Mer--and is still oftentimes related on long winter evenings by
the brothers who have succeeded--literally stepped into the sandals
of--Brother Francis and his comrades.
THE CAPUCHIN'S STORY.
Walter Herbert, or, as he was called in religion, Brother Francis, was
the only child of an ancient family in Nottinghamshire. Entering the
army at an early age, he found himself stationed with his regiment in
Limerick, when the army of the "Confederates" sat down before that
city in the summer of sixteen hundred and forty-two. He was then in
his twentieth year. Forming part of Courtenay's company, when the city
opened its gates to Garret Barry and Lord Muskerry, he retired with
his commander to King John's castle, where, though closely besieged,
they resolutely held out till St. John's eve, when Conrtenay was
obliged to capitulate. In the course of the attack on the castle, a
mine was sprung by the besieging party, and a turret, in which Herbert
was stationed, fell to the ground with a terrific crash. For weeks he
lay delirious; and when at length he awoke to consciousness, he found
himself the occupant of a handsomely-fitted chamber looking out on the
church of St. Nicholas. His host was a middle-aged,
gentlemanly-looking person, of grave yet affable manners. He was a
widower, and his household consisted of himself, an aged housekeeper,
two sons, and an only daughter. The latter--Eily O'Brien--was the sick
man's principal nurse, and no Sister of Mercy could have bestowed more
care on a suffering invalid than she did on Walter Herbert--stranger
though he was to her creed and her country. From lengthened and almost
continual intercourse, a feeling of mutual affection sprang up between
the young people. Gratitude on the one hand, and sympathy for the
sufferings of the handsome young officer on the other, heightened this
feelings till it grew into deep and lasting love. Like Desdemona, she
loved him "for the dangers he had passed;" and he loved her "that she
did pity them." But an insurmountable obstacle to their union lay in
their difference of religion. Herbert was a Protestant; and old Connor
O'Brien would never hear of any child of his being united to one of
that creed which, in its struggle for ascendency, he believed to be
the cause of so much suffering to his country, even though no other
impediment whatever existed. A private marriage was thus their only
alternative, and to this, in an evil hour, poor Eily consented.
Months rolled on--months of bliss to Walter and Eily--but their
separation was at hand. Important letters called Herbert away, almost
at a moment's notice. He hoped, however, that his absence would be of
no lengthened duration, and that he would soon return to publicly
claim his own Eily as his wife. But alas! his hopes were doomed to sad
and bitter disappointment. On his arrival in England, he found the
entire country in arms; and as it became impossible to remain neutral,
or return to Ireland, he was forced to join the newly-formed corps
just raised in his native county by Henry Ireton, his father's
landlord. Once under military discipline there was no retreating; and
though all his thoughts were turned to Ireland, he was doomed to
maddening suspense regarding her who alone made Ireland dear to him.
All communication between the two countries was now suspended. At
Edgehill and Newbury he retreated before the king's troops--and at
Marston Moor and Naseby had a share in defeating them. But victory or
defeat was alike void of {242} interest to him. It was even with
indifference he heard of his promotion for having saved his general's
life at Naseby. The sole engrossing thought of his existence was how
to get back to Limerick. That long-sought for opportunity at last
arrived; but when it did, it scarcely brought joy to Herbert. He was
ordered to join in the invading Parliamentary force; and, when he
called to mind the fierce fanatics who were to be his fellow-soldiers,
love made him tremble for the Irishry.
The fourteenth of June saw him on the battle-field of Naseby--the
following autumn found him sailing up the Shannon--and, ere the close
of the year, he was gazing on the steeple of St. Mary's and the towers
of Limerick from the battlements of Bunratty, which had fallen into
the hands of the Parliamentarians. He fancied he could even see the
very house in which he had spent so many happy days. But beyond fancy
he could not go. To reach the city was utterly impossible. All he
could learn, from an Abbey fisherman whom they had taken prisoner, was
that Connor O'Brien was still alive, and that his daughter was married
and had a beautiful little boy. Who her husband was his informant
could not say; but he thought he was an officer in Earl Glamorgan's
army. Herbert, however, well knew who he was, and he would have risked
worlds to have sent back his prisoner in safety, with even one line to
Limerick. But Lord Inchiquin's troops were too vigilant to allow of
any communication with the city. Even this intelligence, scanty though
it was, afforded him some consolation. He knew his wife was safe, and
unable any longer to endure the Tantalus-like position in which he was
placed, he found means of returning again to England.
His next and last visit to Ireland was in the summer of sixteen
hundred and fifty. He was then pretty high in command, and had hopes,
as he sat down with Waller's army of investment before Limerick, in
the July of that year, that should he be only able to effect an
entrance into the town, his authority would be sufficient to protect
whomsoever he pleased. But the year passed away, and still the city
held out. And, had he but his wife and child without its walls, he
would have counselled its burghers to hold out even still more
manfully, for he well knew the iron heart and bloody hand of the
execrable Hardress Waller.
The spring of the next year found him still before Limerick; and could
he but communicate with any of its gallant defenders, his hatred of
treachery would have urged him to expose to them the perfidy of one of
their own whom they had raised to the rank of colonel. This wretch was
named Fennell; and, for his treason in selling the passes of the
Shannon at Killaloe, their commander-in-chief Cromwell had promised
him and his descendants many a fair acre in Tipperary. By this pass
Ireton and his myrmidons crossed the river into Clare; and with them
passed Walter Herbert. Still his heart was full of hope of saving all
he held dear in the leaguered city. Spring passed away, and summer
again came; and still the assailing host made no progress toward the
capture of the town which Ireton and his father-in-law regarded as the
key of all the Munster territories. In the burning heat of July, while
pestilence daily thinned the ranks of the besieged, an assault was
ordered on the almost defenceless keep that guarded the northern
extremity of the salmon weir, and Herbert was reluctantly obliged to
form one of the storming party. His immediate senior in command was a
person named Tuthill--one of those heartless hypocrites who could
preach and pray while his brutal soldiery were massacring the wives
and children of the brave men whom the chances of war made his
victims. The fort was carried by overwhelming numbers; and Herbert was
doomed to witness, with horror, the butchery of the surviving
defenders, mercilessly {243} ordered by Tuthill--an order which he
unhappily had no power of countermanding, but in the execution of
which he took no part. Still the city held out, though the "leaguer
sickness" was rapidly decimating its brave garrison. The north
fortress of Thomond bridge was next carried by assault--but to no
purpose. The townsmen succeeded in breaking down two of its arches,
and thus cutting off all approach to the city in that quarter, and in
resisting the sortie three hundred of their assailants perished.
Winter was now fast approaching, and the plague extending from the
city, in which fifty of its victims were now daily interred, commenced
to thin the ranks of the besiegers themselves. Ireton had serious
thoughts of raising the siege, and he would, beyond all question, have
done so, were it not for treachery. Fennell, the traitor of Killaloe,
was again at work--this time, unfortunately, within the very walls of
the city itself.
A truce of some days was agreed on; and Herbert was one of those
appointed to treat with the townsmen. The deputies met on neutral
ground, midway between the city and camp, and within range of the
rival batteries. His heart was now full of greater hopes than ever.
Could he but meet with any member of Eily's family, he hoped that his
love for her would induce them to listen to his counsels. But fate, it
would seem, had leagued all chances against him. Had he met them, he
meant to put them on their guard against Fennell's treachery, and,
without absolutely breaking trust, give them such a key to Ireton's
fears and readiness to make concessions as would, he hoped, lead to an
honorable capitulation, and prevent the bloodshed which, from the
shattered state of the town walls, and the additional element of
treachery within those walls, he now judged to be inevitable, unless
they came to terms with Ireton. But not one of them appeared; for the
traitor had laid his plans deeply, and succeeded in diverting them and
the clerical party, to which they faithfully adhered, from anything
like a compromise. He wished that the sole merit and reward of
surrendering the city should be his own. And he succeeded. The
conference ended fruitlessly; and Herbert returned to the camp
well-nigh broken-hearted.
The plague continued its ravages meanwhile; and, day after day, within
the city, the dying were brought by their relatives to the tomb of
Cornelius O'Dea, where many, it was believed, were restored to health
through the intercession of that saintly prelate, who lay buried in
the cathedral. Its effects were visibly traced in the ranks of the
besieging Army. Still Ireton, relying on treason within, pressed on
the siege. By a bridge of pontoons he succeeded in connecting the
Thomond side of the river with the King's Island, where he now planted
a formidable battery, to play on the eastern side of the city.
Herbert had fortunately escaped witnessing the horrors of Drogheda and
Wexford; but a sight almost as appalling now met his eyes. In the
smoke of the cannonade crowds of plague-stricken victims--principally
women and children--ventured outside the city walls to catch one pure
breath of air from the Shannon, on "the Island" bank,--and there lie
down and die. But when this was discovered, the heartless Waller
forbade even this short respite from suffering. By his orders, those
unhappy beings, who could have no share in protracting the siege, were
mercilessly dogged back by the soldiery into the plague-reeking city--
and such as refused to return were, by the same pitiless mandate,
_hanged_ [Footnote 38] within sight of their fellow-townsmen!
[Footnote 38: Historical]
The daily sight of this revolting butchery was sickening to the noble
heart and refined feelings of Herbert. But suffering for him had not
yet reached its climax. As he was seated in his tent, one evening
toward the {244} close of October, fatigued after a long foraging
excursion to the Meelick mountains, and musing sadly on the fate of
her who was almost within sight of him, and yet whom, by what seemed
to him an almost supernatural combination of adverse circumstances, he
had not seen for years, his attention was arrested by the cries of a
female who seemed struggling with her captors. His manhood was aroused
by such an outrage--committed almost in his very presence--and he rose
at once to rescue the victim from her assailants. But, horror of
horrors! at the very door of his tent, and in the grasp of an armed
ruffian, lay the fainting and all but inanimate form of his wife! To
fell the wretch, and clasp the beloved object to his bosom, was but
the work of a second. But, oh! how sorrow and sickness had changed
that once beautiful face, and wasted that once symmetrical form. Death
had already clutched her in his bony gripe, and selected her for his
own. His kiss was upon her lips, for they were livid and
plague-stained. And her beautiful blue eyes! how they now wandered
with the wild look of a maniac. All that remained of the beautiful
Eily he once knew were the long fair ringlets that now fell down in
dishevelled masses on her heaving bosom. The sight almost drove him
mad. In vain he clasped her to his heart, and called her by the dear
fond name of wife. She knew him not, yet, when she spoke, her ravings
were all about him; and he often wondered afterward how his brain
stood the shock, when, without knowing him, she still called on him,
"her own dear, dear Walter, to save her, to take her away from those
terrible men--at least to come to her--for, to come to him, she had
left her poor old father and little Gerald behind."
Wholly occupied with his wife, Herbert paid no attention to the
sergeant's guard that stood at the tent door under arms. When at
length he perceived them, he flew into a phrenzy of passion, asking
them how they dared stand thus in his presence?--and ended by
ordering "the catiffs who could thus treat a woman to get out of his
sight presently."
But the orderly remained unmoved. Were his hands free at the moment,
Herbert would have unquestionably run him through for presuming to
disobey his orders, such was the irritated state of his feelings. But
he could not leave the shrinking, still unconscious being that clung
to him for support. Stamping his foot in a rage, he demanded what he
wanted, or why he regained there?
"Pris'ner, sir," was the sergeant's laconic reply, as he mechanically
touched his hat.
"What prisoner?"
"The woman, sir."
"Heavens and earth! do you mean to drive me mad, man?" and the soldier
recoiled for an instant at the voice and look of his officer.
"Can't help it, sir--gen'ral's orders. Woman came to the camp three
times, sir--supposed to be a spy, and ordered to be hanged."
"Hanged!" In a second his burthen was laid on the camp-bed, and the
sergeant laid prostrate by a blow that would have almost felled an ox.
The guard now interposed; and from them he learned that the party in
question had been several times seen to leave the city, in defiance of
Sir Hardress Waller's orders. Twice already she had been flogged back,
but she came out again, that day, at noon, and was by the general's
orders sentenced to execution. The soldier added that an old rebel
[Footnote 39] calling himself her father, when he heard of the
sentence, offered himself in her stead; but Sir Hardress ordered him
to be instantly flogged back. "She was to have been hanged," he
continued, "at sunset, but she broke loose from them and ran toward
his tent as he had seen."
[Footnote 39: A Fact. _Vide_ "Ferrar's History of Limerick," page 64. ]
"Touch not a hair of her head, on your peril," exclaimed Herbert as
the {245} corporal concluded, and kissing the pallid lips of his wife,
he rushed out of the tent to seek the general, just as returning
consciousness revealed to Eily the name of her deliverer.
"Walter, my own dear husband. Oh! come back, don't leave me," were the
last words he heard as he flew toward the tent of the
commander-in-chief, more like a maniac than anything else.
"By the bones of St. Pancras, he's either mad, or she is," said a tall
weaver from Lambeth, who wore the badge of a lance-corporal.
"Ay is he, and sore wrathful to boot," replied his rear-rank man, with
a grin--he was a butcher from Newgate. "But we are the sufferers, and
shall, I fear, be late for supper. The gallows, however, is ready to
hand, thank God, and we shall make short work of it when the captain
returns."
The name of God on the lips of such a miscreant, and on such an
occasion, makes us almost shudder. But, reader, these were Cromwellian
times, and such were Cromwellian customs.
Herbert found Ireton and his second in command seated at the supper
table--and hell could not have unchained two such incarnate demons on
that same evening. The object of his visit was soon explained. But it
seemed only to supply subject of mirth to his superior officers.
"Pooh, pooh! man," said the commander-in-chief, "you are, I fear,
grown quite a papist, too soft-hearted entirely. I wonder how you
would act had you been at the _battue_ in Drogheda or Wexford?" and
Ireton sipped his hock with a devilish leer.
"But, general, she is my wife," gasped Herbert.
"Folly, man!" rejoined Waller; "no faith to be kept with heretics, you
know, and all these Irish are such. You will easily find another, I
trow you, when we sack the city one of these fine days."
Herbert heeded not the coarse jest of the speaker, but, turning to the
general, implored him to torn a serious ear to a matter on which the
happiness of his life depended. But Ireton seemed inclined to laugh it
off as an excellent joke.
Driven to desperation, the brave soldier, who never before feared or
supplicated any man, sank on his knees, and with tears of agony
besought him to cancel Waller's iniquitous sentence. He even asked him
to do so in memory of the act by which, at the risk of his own life,
he saved his at Naseby. And Ireton seemed almost inclined to relent,
and hope began to brighten in the heart of the suppliant, when a
whisper from Waller to the general blasted them for ever. He had
himself in person given the order for execution, and his callous heart
was too obdurate to feel compunction even for a bad act. Summoning an
orderly, he gave him some instructions in an undertone; and Herbert
was directed by his commander-in-chief to make his report of the
progress of the trenches under his command in the King's Island. This
was but a feint to turn his attention from the main object of his
visit. His report was, however, quickly made, and as there was no
other pretext for detaining him he arose to depart. There was
something more then fiendish in the laugh of Hardress Waller as he
wished him safe home, and a good night's rest.
That night, a heart-broken man knelt beneath the gibbet erected on the
green sward in front of King John's castle. For him all earthly
happiness was now over; and there, in the presence of the pale moon
that looked silently on his sorrow, that cold October night, he vowed
eternal fealty to his wife in heaven, eternal hatred to her murderers.
There was a strange admixture of reverence and irreligion, of love and
hatred, in his feelings and sentiments, no doubt; but the camp of
Cromwell was but an indifferent school for the culture of Christian
ethics. Beside, his brain was, for the time, astray from sorrow and
outraged feeling; he followed but {246} the dictates of human passion
unrestrained by either reason or religion. His heart and his hopes
were already buried in the grade that was soon to close over the
remains of his first and only love; and, from that night out, though
his life was a long and a chequered one, he was never known to smile,
till he became an inmate of the monastery where we found him at the
commencement of our narrative.
The remainder of the siege was a blank chapter in his life. By nature
a soldier, he got through his duties fearlessly but mechanically,
without the slightest feeling of interest in any enterprise in which
he had a share. To him defeat or victory was a matter of utter
indifference; and it was in this mood he entered the fallen city, as
the sun was sinking, on the 27th of October, 1651, and took up his
quarters with Ireton, in the old Dutch-gabled house which is still
standing, and adjoins the Tholsel in Mary street. It is more than
probable that his reason would have altogether succumbed beneath the
terrible shock it had sustained, were it not for some new incidents
that now occurred to awaken it for a time to activity.
By sunrise on the 29th, the Cromwellian garrison beat to arms. It was
the signal for the assemblage of the Irish troops in the old cathedral
of St. Mary's, where, in accordance with the third article of
capitulation, they were to lay down their arms. It was not Fennell's
fault that they escaped the fate of the soldiers and women of Drogheda
and Wexford. He had done his work of treachery well; and we cannot
venture to say what his feelings were when he beheld his brave but
ill-fated countrymen assembled round the altar to deposit at its rails
the weapons they had so long and so gallantly wielded in the cause of
one who was afterward to despoil their children of their lawful
heritage, and sanction its appropriation by the murderers of his
father. Ah! no Irishman can ever forget the ingratitude of the second
Charles. But Walter Herbert thought little of the ceremony gone
through that morning in the old church of the O'Briens till all was
over. As the disarmed garrison marched down the long aisle of the
cathedral many of them dropped dead--it might have been of the
plague, or it might have been of a broken heart. Among the dead were
two whose faces he had not looked on for years--Terence and Donat
O'Brien, his wife's brothers. The sight awakened a new thought within
him--that of his child whom he had not yet seen--and but few moments
elapsed ere he was standing in front of the old corner house opposite
the church of St. Nicholas. But its appearance was sadly changed since
last he saw it. Gable and chimney bore evident marks of the enemy's
cannon, while all around wore an air of desolation and sorrow. He
looked up into one well-remembered window, but no fragrant geraniums
were now there, as of old; no lark carolled the cheering song he so
often listened to, with pleasure, some nine years before; balcony, and
shutter, and curtain had disappeared. The whole house seemed in
mourning. Even his knock rang through the house as through a
sepulchre--so he thought. Twice he repeated it; and, at length, an
aged head peered cautiously through a dormer window, and asked who was
there. His answer quickly brought down the old domestic; but a flood
of tears was her only welcome, as she opened the door and admitted him
She had been the nurse of Eily and her brothers in childhood, and
partly his own in sickness; and was now the survivor of all her old
heart loved; of all, save one, a blue-eyed, curly-headed boy, who now
hid behind her, evidently scared at the presence of a visitor in that
desolate dwelling. A few words of greeting on the part of old Winny or
Winifred assured him that he was known and welcome; and a few words of
fondness addressed to the child soon restored his confidence. He was
even, ere long, seated {247} contentedly on his father's knee, playing
with sword-buckle--for that fair-headed, blue-eyed boy was the only
child of Eily O'Brien and Walter Herbert. And as he gazed with pride
on his beautiful boy, new hope and a new sense of duty sprang up
within him. He felt that there was even yet something to live for. To
protect that half-orphan child and his sorrowing grandsire would from
that moment be the sole duty of his life, the sole solace of
existence; and to this he pledged himself in Eily's little room, to
which he ascended with his youthful companion, who, at his nurse's
bidding, now called him father, and twined his little hands round his
neck as he kissed him. The sudden roll of drums at length announced to
him that it was time to depart, and fondly embracing his child once
more, he hurried out of the house. He would never have left it did he
then but know that in so doing he was bidding his boy farewell for
ever.
The beating to arms announced the commencement of the mock trial of
two dozen individuals, whom Ireton had already virtually sentenced to
death, by excluding them from the protection guaranteed to the
remaining citizens in the terms of capitulation. How readily would
Herbert have saved every one of them, but his vote was only effective
in one case, that of the gallant Hugh O'Neil, the city governor. The
rest were condemned, by a majority, to die; and it was not without a
tear he beheld that long file of brave and resolute men led forth to
the scaffold. Priest and layman, soldier and citizen, were alike
sacrificed, and for no crime save that of loving and defending their
native land. And what Englishman, thought he, would not readily be
guilty of the same offence? All passed silently from the
death-chamber; all, save one, a venerable man, who, with Father
Woulfe, was arrested in the lazar-house while administering the last
sacraments of the Church to its plague-stricken inmates, soon to be
deprived of all spiritual ministry. Herbert thought he recognized him,
as he stood erect and fearless in the council-hall, and with hand
pointed toward heaven, summoning Ireton to meet him, ere a month, at
its judgment bar. He had certainly seen him before, but dressed in
white serge, and not, as now, in purple. Nay, if he remembered
rightly, he had been Eily's confessor, and, with the parish
clergyman's permission, had married them privately in the church of
St. Saviour, having first obtained a promise, freely granted by
Herbert, that the children of that union, if such there were, should
be brought up in the religion of the mother. What would he not have
done to preserve the live [life?] of that venerable, heavenly-looking man! The
last of Ireton's victims was one whose presence among the condemned he
witnessed with astonishment. He had seen him closeted for hours with
that same Ireton; and knew him to have been promised lands and money
for certain services to be rendered to the general. But treachery was
met with treachery; and Fennell, the traitor, ended his days on the
same scaffold with Terence O'Brien, the bishop and martyr.
* * * * * *
The last guard was relieved on the day of execution--it was the eve of
All-Hallows--and the clock of the town-hall was just chiming midnight
as Herbert, who was the officer of the night, commenced his rounds. As
he passed along, in silence and alone, by the Dean's Close, on his way
to the castle barracks, he was suddenly stopped, at the head of an
arched passage, over which an oil lamp feebly flickered, by an
individual closely wrapped up in a large, dark frieze over-coat. To
draw his sword was his first impulse; but a single glance at that wan
face, whose gaze was sadly fixed upon him, changed his purpose in an
instant. And, though armed to the teeth, he trembled in presence of
that defenceless old man, and stood in silence before him.
{248}
"Don't you know me, Walter?" said the stranger.
"Alas! too well," was his reply. "But can I hope that you will ever
forgive me?"
"My creed tells tells me to forgive even my--but I believe you never
meant to be such"--and the old man extended his hand to Herbert.
They stood alone--with no eye upon them save that of the all-seeing
One, and, in his presence, Walter fell on his knees, protesting his
purity of intention, and asking the old man's blessing. And Conner
O'Brien, for it was he, with head uncovered, blessed the stranger for
the first time, and, raising him up, clasped him to his bosom as his
son--the husband of his darling Eily, now sleeping with her mother in
Killely.
Herbert was about to respond, with a fervent assurance of his undying
love and devotion to her, when the old man stopped him short, and,
drawing him into the recess of the bow way, asked him if he might now
rely on his friendship and protection.
"Henceforth, as God is my witness," earnestly replied Herbert, "your
interest and mine are but one."
"Good!" returned his companion. "Then, when occasion presents itself,
you will procure a pass for myself and a friend in whose safety I feel
the deepest interest. For my own life I care not, as I have no one
save you and my grandson now remaining to care for." Then the old man,
despite his resolution, sobbed aloud. "But my friend," he continued,
after a few moments, "cannot yet be spared. We cannot afford to lose
him, and it is solely on his account--though he knows nothing of my
project--that I have waited here to meet you."
After some further brief conversation, they parted with a fond embrace
--the old man to his friend, and Walter to the barracks. When his
watch was ended, he lay down to enjoy, for the first time during many
months, a peaceful slumber of several hours.
The 1st of November, 1651, dawned brightly on the old city of
Luimneach, and its now shattered fortifications--brightly on the
brown heath of the Meelick mountains--brightly on the waving woods of
Cratloe--brightly on the rapids at the salmon weir, and on the snowy
sails of the English transports at anchor in "the pool"--brightly on
the gory head of Terence O'Brien, Bishop of Emly, impaled on the
center tower of the city--brightly, too, on his murderer, Henry
Ireton, as he reviewed the body of troops destined for the siege of
Carrigaholt Castle; for God "maketh his sun to rise upon the good and
bad." Ere the sun set the vanguard of that body had left the Cratloe
hills far behind them, on their march westward; and Herbert was second
in command of the first division. He was well mounted, and with him
rode two peasants thoroughly acquainted with the country, and destined
to serve him as guides. Of late his soldiers remarked that he had
grown unusually silent and morose, and few of them cared to intrude on
him uninvited. Thus it happened that, during the march, he rode
considerably in advance, though always within sight of his detachment,
with no other companions than the two guides.
With one of them he seemed well acquainted, and the soldiers remarked
that he conversed freely with him on the road. The other seemed to
speak but seldom, and then only to his brother guide. This, however,
was no matter of surprise, as it was supposed he spoke in Irish, a
language almost utterly unknown to the English commander. And such, in
reality, was the fact. Whether he understood English or not, he spoke
in his native tongue to O'Brien, who, as the reader may have guessed,
was Herbert's other guide on the evening in question. As they
approached Ennis the old man seemed much excited, alleging, as his
reason, that he feared being recognized; but it was not difficult to
perceive that his {249} anxiety was more for his companion than
himself. They succeeded, however, in reaching their destination, and
encamped near Kilfiehera to await the arrival of the main body from
Kilrush. Under pretext of exploring the wild coast of Kilkee and
Farahee, Herbert left the camp at sunrise, attended solely by the two
individuals who had been his companions on the march from Limerick. He
returned alone, however, in the evening, and rumor went abroad that he
had been deserted by his guides amid the wild recesses of the coast.
This new piece of treachery on the part of the Irishry, after being
warmly denounced round the Cromwellian camp-fires that night, was
forwarded next morning to Limerick, to be faithfully chronicled, with
many other facts of like authenticity, in "Ludlow's Memoirs." Herbert
was too much overjoyed at the escape of his father-in-law and the
friend in whom he seemed so deeply interested, to give himself any
concern about the camp-fire gossip, or Ludlow's version of the matter.
The next week found him again in Limerick. Sudden news of the alarming
illness of the general had reached the camp, and the expedition to the
west was, for the time, abandoned. Herbert found his new post a trying
one--to keep watch and ward with Hardress Waller, one of his wife's
murderers, beside the dying bed of another. Waller was Ireton's
confidant, the ready instrument of all his infamy; and Herbert was
selected by the general to attend him as the only surviving officer
attached to his own regiment since it was first raised in Nottingham,
the native county of both. To escape from his post was impossible.
Nothing short of suicide could free him from it; and the thought of
his little son, if no higher motive, prevented him from putting an end
to his existence. Night after night was he doomed to sit by the
bed-side of the dying man and listen to the wild ravings of remorse
and blasphemy that, almost every moment escaped his plague-stained
lips. He would start up betimes, and, with the frantic look of a
maniac, call for his sword to ward off the fiends that seemed to mock
his tortures; and then he would sink back exhausted, still wildly
raving of Charles Stuart, and Terence O'Brien, the "Lord's anointed,"
as he now called them, whom he had murdered. Nay, he would clutch
Herbert's hand, and, with tears, implore his forgiveness. But Hardress
Waller stood there too, and a look from him would again rouse the
murder-fiend within him. All feeling of compunction would then pass
away; and grim despair again lay hold of him. Oh! it was a fearful
sight--that death-bed of despairing remorse. It never left Herbert's
memory, and was the commencement of that change that ultimately
converted the Puritan soldier into a Christian monk.
Ireton died in his house in Mary street on the 26th of November, 1651,
still "raging and raving," says the chronicler, [Footnote 40] of the
unfortunate prelate, whose unjust condemnation he imagined hurried on
his death. Herbert was of the party appointed to guard the remains to
England, and, before setting out, hastened to his father-in-law's
house to bring his child with him. But, alas! he found it empty, and
not the slightest trace of Winny or the boy. Nor could any one tell
him what had become of either. With a bursting heart, he set out with
the funeral cortege to Cork, and thence to Bristol, resolved never
more to draw sword in Cromwell's cause. Arrived in London, he
delivered up his charge, and at once quitted the kingdom, without
waiting for the lying in state at Somerset House, or final interment
in Westminster Abbey, of Ireton's plague-stricken corpse. Though
pledged never again to serve in the ranks of the monsters whose
atrocities in Ireland made him so often blush for his native country,
he could not yet entirely wean {250} himself away from his old
profession. After a few months passed in idleness and _ennui_ on the
continent, during which he vainly tried to forget the loss of his wife
and child, he entered the Earl of Bristol's regiment as a volunteer,
and faithfully maintained the cause of King Charles till his
restoration. It was when forming part of his body-guard at Lord Tara's
residence in Bruges, where the exiled monarch occasionally resided,
that he first met with the Capuchin fathers, and was by them received
into the Catholic Church. With the king he returned to England, but
only to have all his sad recollections awakened by meeting once more
with his old enemies, Waller and Ireton.
[Footnote 40: Burke, "_Hibernia Dominicana_."]
Ireton! some astonished reader will exclaim. Why, surely, we buried
him years ago, and are not expected, we presume, to believe in ghosts
in this enlightened nineteenth century of ours.
And yet we must repeat what we have written. On his return to London,
Walter Herbert again stood face to with Waller and Ireton--the
former, with a smile of hypocritical adulation, welcoming the return
of him whose father he had aided in murdering--the latter, a hideous
spectacle, first dangling on a gallows at Tyburn, and then grimly
staring at the by-passers--if those sightless sockets could be said to
stare--from the highest spike on Westminster Hall. It was a shocking
sight to Herbert--that ghastly skeleton and that ghastly head--and
recalled to his memory, with sadness and horror, another but far
different head which, ten years before, he saw set up, pallid and
blood-stained, on the castled tower of Limerick. God is very just,
thought he, as he passed on, with a shudder.
On his return to England Herbert found himself friendless. All his
relatives had died, or perished on the battle-field, during the civil
wars, and of his child there was still no trace. All he could learn
was that he had been sent to his grandfather, then resident on the
continent; but where the grandfather resided, there was no means of
ascertaining. Tired of England, and the cruelties and perfidies he
daily saw endorsed by the sign-manual of one who, he imagined, should
have learned toleration and honor in the school of affliction--in
hopes also of meeting with his child--he quitted his native land for
ever, and joined the ranks of the Duke of Lorraine, the old ally and
friend of his former commander, the Earl of Bristol. With him and Sir
George Hamilton he fought the battles of Spain for nigh fifteen years;
and his last achievement in her service was one of the brightest on
record. With a few resolute companions he held his ground for two
entire days in the shattered citadel of Cambrai, though the battery to
which they returned shot for shot was under the personal inspection of
Louis XIV. and the renowned hunchback Luxemburg. The bursting of a
shell laid him senseless, and when, after a long and painful illness,
he was again restored to health, he resolved, in thanksgiving, to
devote the remainder of his days to the exclusive service of God, in
the convent where he first learned to know him.
During the recital of the foregoing narrative, which, for brevity's
sake, we have given consecutively, and in our own words, Brother
Francis was frequently interrupted by his youthful auditor, as new
light was thrown by him on events in his family history which, till
then, he had never heard satisfactorily cleared up. He had already
learned from his mother that his grandfather had been an English
officer, supposed to have fallen in Cromwell's wars, though a vague
report reached the family that he was seen in Spain after Cromwell's
death. Of his grandmother, he only heard that she died young, and that
her father resided for a considerable time in Brussels, with his
grandson, whom, at his death, he confided to the care of none guardian
of St. Antoine's at Louvain, who was his brother-in-law, and who had
brought the boy, when a mere child, from Ireland. {251} He further
learned that, after the completion of his studies, and contrary to the
wish of his uncle, who intended him for the ecclesiastical state, his
father embraced the profession of arms, and, shortly after his
marriage, embarked with the French troops sent by King Louis to
Ireland. He fell at the siege of Limerick, and his widow died of a
broken heart soon after the intelligence of her husband's death
reached her. He was himself then but a boy, and was placed by his
mother's relatives at the Benedictine college of Douai, whence he
passed, in due time, like his father, to the ranks, and was then
serving, as we have already seen, in the Duke of Vendôme's anny.
"But you did not say who the other person was that accompanied you on
the march from Limerick to Carrigaholt, or what became of him or his
companion," resumed the young soldier, when he had concluded.
"That remains to this day a mystery to me," replied his grandfather,
"for I never saw either after we parted that evening. I left them on a
lofty isolated rock off the coast of Clare, to which they were
conveyed, as the surest place of safety, by a few poor fishermen, then
dwelling in a ruined keep on the verge of the cliff's, which, if I
remember rightly, they called Dunlicky. Had I much curiosity I might
have possibly learned the stranger's name, but I never inquired, and
probably, as I did not, my father-in-law never told me. Certain it is
that he must have been a person of high distinction, as all addressed
him with marked respect, I might almost say reverence, and seemed most
devoted to him, though, as far as I could see, he possessed no earthly
means of remunerating them--nothing, in fact, save the half-military,
half-rustic garments in which he was clad. And as they left him and
his companion in one of the two small huts that served as a shelter in
stormy weather for the few wild-looking sheep that browsed on the
island, they promised soon to return with such necessaries as he might
require during his stay among them. On returning to the canoe that
brought us from the mainland, I remembered that I heard something fall
from the stranger as he stepped ashore on a ledge of the island. In my
hurry at the moment I paid no attention to the circumstance; and it
was only on our arrival at the foot of the cliff on which the old
castle stood, that I found the object which he had dropped lying in
the bottom of the boat. Hoping soon to be able to restore it to its
owner, I took it with me, and ever since it has remained in my
possession; for I need scarcely say, after all you have heard, that an
opportunity of restoring it never since presented itself. I still
retain it, with the father guardian's permission, in hopes of one day
discovering its lawful claimant."
Here Brother Francis drew from the folds of his garment a small ebony
crucifix, inlaid with pearl, and richly set in gold, and, reverently
kissing it, handed it to his companion. The latter, after carefully
examining it, read the following inscription, beautifully engraved in
text characters round the rim--
"J. B. RINUC. LEG. AP. R.R.D.D.
EDM DO. O'DWYER EP O.
LUIM I. M.DCXLVI."
Still the history and after fate of the owner of the crucifix remained
a mystery to them. Perhaps some reader of the foregoing pages may be
able to throw some light on the subject, if not for their benefit, at
least for ours.
Little more remains to be told of Brother Francis. In his ninetieth
year he died peacefully in the midst of the brotherhood with whom so
many years of his life had been happily spent--and his eyes were
closed in death by the hands of Eily O'Brien's grandchild, young
Gerald Herbert, who had likewise joined the order, and given up the
camp and its turmoil, and the world and its deceit, to don the cowl of
St. Francis, and spend the rest of his days with the humble,
hospitable Capuchins of Bruges.
----
{252}
From The Month.
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE DUC D'AYEN.
The stirring events, political and military, which followed on the
outbreak of the great French revolution, giving a shock to every
institution, secular and religious, and leaving their mark on the
history of every civilized country, affected also, to an unexampled
degree, the fortunes of families and individuals throughout Europe.
The troubles that overwhelmed the thrones of kings, and seemed to
threaten the Church herself with destruction, penetrated even to the
very lowest classes of society. The great were ruined as well as their
princes; the wealthy and noble were proscribed and exiled; new
families arose as well as new dynasties; and if the cottage was spared
persecution, it did not escape the conscription, while in many cases
its inmates died on the guillotine by the side of the tenants of the
neighboring palace. By this great and universal convulsion hearts and
characters were tried to the utmost; and if many in every class sank
under the ordeal which called for courage, patience, and prudence, and
other virtues in the heroic degree, it is no less true that many
others, who seemed to have been born for a life of quiet and ordinary
duty, for unbroken and uneventful happiness, displayed unexpected
strength of character, great qualities of heart and mind, and revealed
graces of the highest order under the blows of affliction. We are in
some respects fortunate in living just at the distance we do from a
period like this; for it has not yet passed into the region of pure
history, in which we can feel no practical concern; and yet time
enough has elapsed since its close for us to reap a part at least of
the rich inheritance that it has left behind it of memoirs and
correspondence relating to those who played an actual part in its
scenes. It was crowded with lives that deserve to be written, full of
interest and instruction.
Let us confine ourselves to France alone. That country produced a
number of most remarkable men, brought to the surface, as it were, by
the breaking up of the great fountains of her national life, who, for
bad or for good, played the chief part in the political changes which
so powerfully affect Europe to the present day, or, as the soldiers of
a new era of military glory, bore her flag in triumph into every
capital on the continent. These men figured in events which write
themselves sooner than any other on the pages of history; and every
one, therefore, has heard of the names and exploits of the emperor and
his marshal. More noble and heroic, more beneficial, and more truly
glorious to their country, were the lives of hundreds--men and women--
who took a part in the great outburst of fresh religious activity
which followed upon the restoration of freedom to Catholicism, of
whose piety, charity, and devotion the present Church of France is the
fruit and the monument. A great deal remains to be done as to the
biography and history of this great religious restoration, in many
respects already equalling, in others even outshining, the earlier
glories of the French Church, for a moment submerged by the
revolution. Lastly, there is another department also in which literary
labor will be well repaid--the history of the sufferers in the
revolution, whether ecclesiastics or secular, whether they perished on
the guillotine, were transported to Cayenne, or claimed as emigrants
the hospitality of England and other European countries.
{253}
Many of these emigrants were persons who had never known what it was
to have a whim ungratified; who had lived all their lives amidst the
frivolous dissipation of the highest society in Paris, infected as it
was with the withering influences of Voltairianism; and who had shared
in the illusive enthusiasm with which the earlier steps of the
revolution had been welcomed. Exile, poverty, forced inaction,
obscurity, and the utter want of all that had before been the
occupation of their lives, came upon them as a far more severe,
because more wearing and protracted, trial than if they had had to
bear the short agony of the massacres or the revolutionary tribunal.
Yet, under an ordeal such as this, great and wonderful virtues often
unfolded themselves, which bore witness to the sound religious
training that so many of them had received, of which their patience
and courage were the natural fruits. In this way their history
furnishes us with many characters of wonderful interest; and the
effect of it is not only to enlist our sympathies for individuals, but
to give us also a higher idea of the upper classes in France than is
generally derived from the annals of that dreadful period.
I have been led to these remarks by reading a little volume lately
published in Paris, under the title "_Anne Paule Dominique de
Noailles, Marquise de Montagu_," There may, perhaps, be many more such
memoirs: this, at all events, though written without pretension or
ambition, certainly gives the history of a very beautiful character,
drawn out by continual misfortune, and it contains incident enough to
furnish the plots of three or four romances. Although it deals chiefly
with the history of Madame de Montagu, it gives us incidentally the
outline both of the lives and characters of her sisters. There are
also, of course, other subordinate figures in the picture; and the
author has shown great skill in giving us a very graphic account of
each in a few words or lines. I shall proceed, without further
prologue or apology, to use the materials furnished by this volume for
a short sketch of Madame de Montagu and her sisters.
These ladles were the daughters of the Duc and Duchesse d'Ayen. The
duke was the eldest son of the last Maréchal de Noailles; his wife was
the daughter of M. d'Aguesseau, son of the chancellor of that name.
They had five daughters, called, as the custom was, Mdlle. de
Noailles, Mdlle. d'Ayen, Mdlle. d'Epernon, Mdlle. de Maintenon, and
Mdlle. de Monclar. The eldest married her cousin, the Viscount de
Noailles; the second became Madame de la Fayette, wife of the
celebrated marquis; Mdlle. d'Epernon was twice married, but died
young, and we shall have no occasion to mention her name again; Mdlle.
de Maintenon is the principal subject of the volume we have before us,
having married the Marquis de Montagu; Mdlle. de Monclar became Madame
de Grammont. The sisters probably owed more to their mother than to
any one else in the world, and were formed by her; a short notice of
her is, therefore, the natural introduction to their history.
Many who have been acquainted with the effects of the influence of the
French emigrants who came to England at the time of the revolution
have remarked that some of the most devout and religious among them
must have had a certain tinge of strictness and rigor about them which
betrayed the distant influence of Jansenism, even over those who were
in no sort of way its disciples. This may be seen even in some of
their ascetical works. The Duchesse d'Ayen seems either to have been
brought up in this school, or to have taken up its teaching from
something in her own character congenial to it. As was natural in a
granddaughter of d'Aguesseau, she loved order and prudence with
hereditary instinct, and was, moreover, acquainted with suffering; her
piety was most genuine, and as wife and mother none could surpass her.
The {254} due was a man of the world, a thorough gentleman, with all
the dilettante learning that befitted his high station. He had passed
through several brilliant campaigns, was a member of the Academy of
Sciences, and shone even in Paris in the art of conversation. His time
was mostly spent at court, or in gay circles away from home; but when
he did return the most delicate attentions were lavished on his wife;
and she, on her side, had taught their five children to greet his
visits with love equal to their respect. And in truth, though their
father's quick temper inspired the girls with some natural fear, his
many amiable qualities could not fail to call forth their deepest
affection.
Madame d'Ayen they dearly loved. The free unbroken intercourse which
is natural to English homes was not in accordance with the rules of
those stately Parisian families, but the first act of the day was to
go and salute their mother; next, they were sure to meet her going to
or returning from mass, when they were taking their morning walk;
afterward, they all dined together at three, and then came the
pleasant hours spent in her bedroom, while she instructed and amused
them by turns in gentle maternal converse. They had other instructors
I but she really formed their minds.
A bright worldly future opened before these young girls, with their
good birth, high connections, and splendid fortune. Who would have
dreamed of coming storms? But the pious mother did not wait for
misfortune to teach them companionship with sorrow; they began when
children to visit the suffering, and two poor people of the parish
stood sponsors for Mdlle. de Maintenon at the baptismal font. She was
born in 1766, and the parish church was St. Roch; opposite stood the
family hotel, with its spacious gardens reaching up to the Tuileries.
After their marriages the sisters became brilliant stars in Parisian
society, and the tenderest union ever reigned between them. The
eldest, Madame de Noailles, was admired by every one for her sweetness
and grace, being commonly called either "that angel," or the "heavenly
viscountess." Even the family confessor, the saintly Abbé Edgworth,
writing of her after her death to Madame de Montagu, says, "The fate
of that angelic soul, which I knew so intimately on earth, can inspire
no uneasiness. For my part, I acknowledge in all simplicity that she
seems now to return me ten-fold all the good I formerly wished her.
The mere remembrance of her strengthens me, and would keep me from
loving earth, could it still offer any enjoyment."
The sisters vied with each other in love and veneration for their
mother and Madame de Noailles especially had the happiness of being
scarcely ever separated from her. The young wife, however, espoused
with ardor her husband's political opinions; and he was much more
liberal in his views than the Duchesse d'Ayen. Like many other nobles
of the time, both about court and in the provinces, M. de Noailles
hailed with enthusiasm the first dawn of the revolution, believing it
would bring about a new era for France, a grand national reform.
Madame d'Ayen, on the contrary, looked on events with some mistrust;
her experience, her natural prudence and cautious character, made her
more anxious, more inclined to circumspection.
Even after the Bastille had been taken, and when so many families
began to emigrate, M. de Noailles, like his brother-in-law M. de la
Fayette, continued to hope. The events of 1792, however, induced him
to seek refuge in England. The Duc d'Ayen had taken refuge in
Switzerland; but when he heard of the attack on the Tuileries in June,
1792, he flew to the aid of the king and the royal family, considering
that though his post of captain of the royal guard had been abolished,
the danger of Louis had created it anew. He was with that {255} small
band of devoted adherents who would have defended the king on the
fatal 10th of August--the last day of the real monarchy--when Louis'
heart failed him, and he took refuge in the assembly. The Duc d'Ayen
managed again to get away into Switzerland; the other members of his
family, quitting their splendid hotel, hid themselves in a wretched
dwelling of the nearest feubourg. Madame de Noailles was to have
joined her husband in London, where they intended shortly to embark
for America; but she lingered with her mother, first to assist her
grandfather, the Marshal de Noailles, in his dying moments, and next
to console his aged widow, now well-nigh reduced to second childhood.
The result was captivity and death for all time. Madame de Noailles'
virtue shone forth with lustre throughout these trying hours, and it
is as a meek victim of the revolution that she especially deserves
remembrance.
At first the three ladies were simply detained as "suspected" in their
own hotel, during the winter of '93; but in April following they were
transferred as prisoners to the Luxembourg. There they found in a room
below them their relatives, the Maréchal de Mouchy and his wife, who
had already suffered a detention of five months. Not far off was a
cousin, the Duchesse d'Orléans, widow of Philippe Egalité, lately
executed. These were sad recognitions, few or no prisoners being ever
set at liberty, though many went through the mockery of a trial. Soon
after Madame d'Ayen's arrival, M. and Madame de Mouchy were
guillotined. From the first she and her daughter prepared for death.
Both did all they could to alleviate the suffering around them. Madame
d'Ayen gave up her bed to the Duchesse d'Orléans, who was very ill,
and treated with even exceptional cruelty. Madame de Noailles shared
her mother's attendance on this lady, and on several others. She made
the beds for all their relatives, helped them to dress, and washed up
the dishes; in short, waited upon the whole party as if she had been
accustomed all her life to servile occupations. With true virtue, she
even showed no repugnance at anything, but preserved throughout her
usual sweet serenity of temper. Her consolation was to mount up twice
a week to an upper story, under pretence of breathing the fresh air,
but in reality to obtain a view from the window of her children in the
garden beneath. She had contrived to keep up some correspondence
outside, and they came at the stated hour, under the care of their
tutor. Occasionally she managed to receive notes from him, or to send
him one. An extract from the last she wrote, and when she _felt_ an
eternal separation impending, shows the strength of her piety:
"God sustains me, and will, I am convinced, to the end. Farewell! Be
assured that my gratitude toward you will accompany me above. But
for you, what would have been my children's fate? Farewell, Alexis,
Alfred, Euphemia! Bear God in your hearts every day of your lives;
attach yourselves steadfastly to him; pray for your father, and for
his true happiness; remember your mother also, and that her sole
desire has been for your eternal welfare. I hope to be re-united
with you in the bosom of God, and in that hope give my last blessing
to you all."
These words show a soul which could not be ill prepared for death.
When hastily summoned one day to leave the Luxembourg for the
Conciergerie, a certain road to execution, both Madame de Noailles and
her mother were quite ready. Madame d'Ayen had the "Imitation" open at
that beautiful chapter on the cross. Hastily writing on a scrap of
paper--"Courage, my children, and pray"--she put it in as a mark,
and begged the Duchesse d'Orléans, if her life were spared, to give it
to them. This commission was faithfully executed, and the little book
still exists, showing {256} traces of Madame d'Ayen's last tears as
she named her daughters.
The poor old maréchale scarcely knew what was going on, but followed
mechanically. The Conciergerie was crowded, and afforded small
accommodation for new-comers. Madame de Noailles thought it useless to
sleep that night. When her mother pressed her to lie down a little,
she said, "Why seek repose on the brink of eternity?" Early next
morning all three were astir, and persuaded each other to break their
fast, for no dinner had been provided on the previous evening. Madame
de Noailles insisted on dressing both her mother and grandmother,
whispering, "Have good courage, mamma; there is only one hour more!"
But nearly the whole day passed in terrible expectation. Not till five
in the afternoon came the open carts that were to carry forty
condemned prisoners to the Barrière du Trône for execution. Long
previous to detention, Madame de Noailles had secured, in case of
danger, the services of a good priest--Père Carrichon, of the Oratory.
News of their coming fate reached him, and, faithful to his promise,
despite the personal risk, he arrived at the prison door in time. The
first cart filled and passed out. It contained eight ladies, of whom
the last was the old maréchale. In the second were Madame d'Ayen and
her daughter; after whom six men took their places.
The account given by Père Carrichon of this closing scene is our last
view of Madame de Noailles, and tallies with what has gone before.
Serene and gentle, her thoughts appeared wrapt in God. Père Carrichon
tried to make himself seen as the cart came out. Evidently Madame de
Noailles was looking for some one; but her glance did not rest on him.
Having made a great circuit, he posted himself in a conspicuous place
at the opening of a bridge. Again Madame de Noailles anxiously scanned
the crowd around, and again without discerning the face she sought.
Père Carrichon was tempted to give up the effort in despair. Priestly
charity prevailed, however, and he hastened forward to the Rue St.
Antoine. A violent storm had come on; thunder and lightning raged, the
wind blew furiously. The poor victims were drenched; the ladies' hair
streamed about their faces, and their hands, closely tied behind each,
could give no relief. What with the jolting and wind, they could
hardly keep their seats on those narrow planks. The savage curiosity
of the populace yielded to the violence of the storm; the crowd
dispersed; windows and doors closed. Père Carrichon ventured nearer
the cart, amid the very escort of soldiers intent on guarding
themselves from the storm. Suddenly Madame de Noailles' countenance
lighted up with her own sweet smile; her eyes were thankfully raised
to heaven, and then she leaned forward, whispering to her mother. She
had seen him, Père Carrichon felt sure of it. A grateful smile stole
over the duchess's face also.
Père Carrichon continued walking beside the cart; his heart raised in
prayer; the mute confession was made, the silent absolution given.
Solemn, touching scene!--those two heads, one so fair, reverentially
bent down with looks of mingled contrition and hope; the priest
fulfilling his errand of mercy; and the storm raging on.
At length the carts stopped. The executioner and his assistants came
forward, one carelessly twirling a rose between his lips. The
guillotine fell on the maréchale; afterward on Madame d'Ayen; and
Madame de Noailles suffered next. Up to the last moment both mother
and daughter employed themselves in exhorting their companions to
Christian repentance. The vicomtesse devoted herself especially to a
young man whom she had overheard blaspheming. One foot was already on
the bloody ladder, when, turning round a last time, she {257}
murmured, with imploring accents, "I conjure you, say--Forgive me!"
Their own sweet countenances spoke only of heaven. So beautiful were
these deaths, that, despite the horrors of the scene, Père Carrichon
could but raise his full heart in praise and thanksgiving to God. Thus
lived and died the eldest of these five sisters.
The second, Madame de la Fayette, is a beautiful character; so
enthusiastic in spirit, so warm and generous in heart. Endowed with
good natural powers, her mind had been highly cultivated, she could
reason well, and possessed a ripe judgment. Prompt and decided on
great occasions, she was then energetic enough in carrying out her
resolutions; but by a strange contradiction of nature, doubts often
assailed her in little matters, and she would hang back, uncertain
what course to pursue. Ardent in her piety, she was yet tormented with
scruples; and unfortunately Madame d'Ayen had so far condescended to
these as to allow her daughter not to make her first communion till
after marriage. Naturally enough, at that late period the great act
was accomplished with much mental suffering. Madame de Montagu said
with truth that this beloved sister was not sufficiently interior, and
thirsted too eagerly after the consolations of human affections; but
for sincerity, faith, zeal, and submission to the divine will Madame
de la Fayette was most admirable. Her greatest quality was
self-sacrifice, unshrinking devotion to those she loved--the virtue of
a wife and a mother. M. de la Fayette attests that he owed to her
unalloyed happiness during a wedded union of thirty-four years.
"Gentle, tender, virtuous, and high-souled, this incomparable woman
has been the charm and pride of my existence."
She too was imprisoned, but was afterward released. Her first thought
was to join her husband, a captive at Olmutz. Other duties detained
her for a while; but the ultimate object was kept steadily, though
silently, in view. Madame de la Fayette sent her young son out of
France across the Atlantic, confiding him to Washington's protection;
then she hastened to look after her daughters in Auvergne, and settle
money accounts there. Happily, she was able to buy back Chavaniac, the
property of an old aunt who had brought up her husband. Business
concluded, she sought for Madame de Grammont; the two sisters had not
met since the tragic death of their relatives. Madame de Noailles'
orphan children were living with their aunt. Tearing herself from
them, Madame de la Fayette--who could only obtain a passport for
America--then went round by sea to Altona, in Denmark, where her other
sister, Madame de Montagu, and many French exiles, had fixed their
residence for a while. This also was a meeting in which bitter pain
was mingled with joy. "Did you see them?" were the only words Madame
de Montagu could sob forth, after a long, mute caress. "Alas! I had
not that happiness," replied Madame de la Fayette, whose filial heart
was choking with the same remembrances.
Proper measures having been taken for obtaining an audience of the
emperor, Madame de la Fayette announced her intention of proceeding to
Vienna forthwith, that she might solicit permission to share her
husband's captivity. The simple words in which she mentioned her
generous purpose thrilled through the little circle; vain attempts
were made to dissuade her from it; she gently, but firmly, persisted.
Her sister could best understand the feelings that guided her, and
that she did so was expressed by silent repeated pressures of her
hand.
Madame de la Fayette--accompanied by her two girls, aged thirteen and
fifteen--reached Vienna under an assumed name. The emperor granted her
request, and she hastened joyfully to Olmutz. Such was her enthusiasm
at sight of the gloomy fortress in which her husband was confined,
that she began repeating Tobias' beautiful canticle (c. xiii.), and
entered with it on her lips.
{258}
It was the 15th of October, 1795. M. de la Fayette had already been a
close prisoner for three years; during the last eighteen months
especially he had received no tidings of what was going on in the
world without. A vague rumor of excesses committed in France had
indeed reached his unbroken solitude, but not the name of one victim;
he knew nothing of the fate of his wife and children. Now, without one
word of preparation, the door of his cell was unlocked; figures
darkened the threshold. Could it be? His heroic wife and their two
children! Yes; they had come to share the hardships of his prison
life.
The emperor of Austria had spoken to Madame de la Fayette of her
husband's place of confinement in a manner which showed her afterward
that he was quite ignorant of the rigorous treatment to which the
prisoner was subjected. Two little cells, with a wretched bed and a
table and chair in each, formed the sole accommodation. As for eating,
there was one pewter spoon, no such luxury as knife or fork being
allowed. Pens, paper, and ink were only forthcoming on rare occasions,
and then the open letter had to be written under the eye of an
official. Madame de la Fayette endured all these annoyances for two
years; and truly the abnegation of her young daughters during this
long period is nearly as admirable as her own. The girls employed
themselves very usefully in concocting new articles of clothing out of
old materials. Madame de la Fayette, like her husband, soon began to
suffer from such close confinement; but when, after eleven months'
illness, she applied for leave to go and consult a physician at Vienna
for a few days only, the answer was that, once outside the fortress,
she would never be re-admitted. The prison doctor could only exchange
conversation in Latin with her husband, and neither of them appear to
have been adepts in that language; moreover, his hurried visit was
obliged to take place in the presence of an officer.
Friends wearied both France and foreign powers with solicitations for
the release of General de la Fayette. Fox painted the miseries endured
at Olmutz in eloquent terms before a British House of Commons; but it
was not until October, 1797, that the prison gates opened at length,
through Bonaparte's intervention.
The name she bore often proved detrimental to her, but Madame de la
Fayette gloried in it. With Robespierre's fall all prisoners in France
were set at liberty. General de la Fayette, however, was accused of
having betrayed the revolution because he had refused to become privy
to its crimes, and his wife was therefore detained. Interrogated by
Legendre, who told her how much he detested the very name of la
Fayette, she boldly expressed her readiness to defend him and it
against whatsoever accuser. Legendre remanded her to prison "for
insolence."
This devoted love for husband and children did not suffice to fill her
heart. It was burning also with other affections. To Madame de la
Fayette we owe a touching life of the Duchesse d'Ayen, written while
at Olmutz, on the margin of a stray volume of Buffon, with a broken
toothpick for her pen and a piece of Chinese ink. When told of the
tragic fate that had overtaken her relatives, she could not believe it
at first; especially it seemed impossible that men could have been so
barbarous to her "angelic sister." On recovering a little from this
overwhelming sorrow, she wrote to her children:
"I thank God for having preserved to me life and reason, and do not
regret your absence at such a moment. He kept me from revolt against
him; but I could not long have borne the semblance of any human
consolation. To follow in the track of such dear footsteps would
have sweetened the last pangs for me."
{259}
In the prisons of the revolution her sole thought was how to relieve
the wants and sufferings of those around. With her cousin, the
Duchesse de Duras, at Plessis, she was constantly interceding for the
sick and poor among their fellow captives, and this at a time when a
chance word sufficed for death, as sixty victims chosen by caprice or
at hazard were regularly dragged forth each day for execution. Her
spirit never forsook her under trying circumstances, and she often
showed wonderful presence of mind. Once she pleaded her own cause
before the tribunal of Puy, and on several occasions harangued the
people. Her language at these times was always nobly firm, and
sometimes proud even to haughtiness. In a letter addressed to Brissot,
after asking for liberty, or at least the favor of remaining a
prisoner on parole, which the whole village of Chavaniac volunteered
to guarantee, she concludes by saying, "I consent to owe you this
service." Her letters to the two ministers, Roland and Servan, or to
foreign princes on behalf of her husband, are no less elevated in
tone. She never stoops to flatter. No wonder that she exercised a
species of fascination over all those who approached her; with
whatever feelings the acquaintance began, it was impossible to know
and not to love her.
In all her sorrows, ardent faith sustained her. When danger again
threatened at Paris, she writes to Madame de Montagu: "We mast abandon
ourselves wholly to God in this critical hour. Let us live like
Abraham, ready to start whenever God calls, and to go wheresoever he
appoints." When she felt her end approaching, once more she repeated
aloud that canticle of Tobias, singing which she had, years before,
entered the fortress of Olmutz. True in death to her character through
life, her heart was inflamed with celestial desires, and still
overflowing with human affection. Drawing all her loved ones round
her, she gave them a last blessing, and gently expired, holding her
husband's hands within her own.
Of four daughters of the Duc d'Ayen, Madame de Grammont was the least
attractive. Her person was small, her appearance stiff, her features
marked; there was nothing soft about her look or manner. Her virtue
was of a stern kind; she had schooled herself into a certain absence
of feeling, neither right nor lovable; but fortunately her actions
often contradicted her professions. Thus her kindness never failed,
and her charity to the poor was boundless. There was a contradiction
too between what she said and what she wrote--her speeches are always
more or less stern, while her letters frequently betray deep
affection; like a person who speaks from principle, but dares to let
herself out on paper, sure of restraining emotion when necessary.
Sacrifice was the prominent feature of her piety; duty dictated her
every sentiment.
Eight out of her nine children she saw carried to their graves in
youth, and each time she could say with composure, "The Lord hath
given and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Writing to Madame de Montagu about a daughter whose end was
approaching, she uses these words: "As life ebbs away, her peace and
self-possession are perfect. . . . . . I do not despair of helping her
passage into the bosom of God after having erst borne her in my own;
and it is sweet to make her repeat, 'I was cast into thy arms, O Lord,
from the beginning: thou art my God, even from my mother's womb.'" It
was not in her character to disclose the struggle of natural feeling
that was going on in her heart at the time that she was writing words
like these.
Once Madame de Grammont writes to her sister: "The expectation,
experience, and long continuance of misfortune have at length made me
_impassible_." "And I," adds Madame de Montagu, commenting on the word
in {260} her journal, "am still a reed shaken by every breath." The
two phrases aptly characterize each sister.
In 1848, Madame de Grammont, who had been an eye-witness of the two
preceding revolutions, was quite surprised at the fears entertained by
those around her. "But, grandmamma," said a member of her family, "if
the guillotine were set up again as in the reign of terror, surely you
would feel some uneasiness?" "Poor child!" replied the old lady, "that
has nothing to do with the question. Must we not all die? The
important thing is to be well prepared; the mode of death is a mere
detail." And thus unmoved she lived on to the age of eighty-five--that
is, till the year 1853--having survived all her sisters. Though her
husband had been banished for some time, she never emigrated; and
sixty-seven years of her life were passed in retirement at their
château of Villersexel. There she was much beloved, being a true
mother to all the poor.
Her sisters also were warmly attached to her. Madame de Montagu held
her in such veneration, that though a little the older of the two, she
always kept a journal for Madame de Grammont to read, that she might
point out her faults and help her to amend. She called Madame de
Grammont her _second conscience_ and the province in which she resided
the kingdom of Virtue, with Peace (Villersexel) for its capital.
Madame de Grammont felt their mother's loss, in her way, as deeply as
the rest. Perhaps, too, this heavy trial laid the foundation of her
remarkable firmness; for there are some strong natures that cannot
bend through fear of breaking. When able afterward to communicate with
Madame de Montagu, she writes:
"Since the immolation of those dear victims, the cross is my sole
place of refuge. With you, and all those we love in this world and the
other, I cast myself into Gods's arms. There let all disquietude
cease; there let our minds and hearts rest for ever; thence let us
derive strength to perform our allotted task here below."
Her father had entreated Madame de Grammont to consult her personal
safety in those perilous times by joining himself and Madame de
Montagu in Switzerland. She declined, because her husband was only
just recovering from a dangerous illness, and also through fear of
compromising his family. Indeed, so much was circumspection necessary,
that her letters were written on cambric handkerchiefs, which Madame
de Grammont took the further precaution of sewing inside her
messenger's waistcoat lining.
Madame de Montagu affords a strong contrast to Madame de Grammont. She
went through life thrilling at every step; full of tears that often
gushed for joy, but oftenest welled up from deep fountains of sorrow;
heroic in faith, like the others, but quivering and writhing beneath
each new load of anguish. She never grew accustomed to suffering, and
yet God tried her well; but he could not weary her love for himself.
And thus, while human affections were ever causing sharp pain, divine
love gave her strength to bear it without asking her to overcome
_them_. Such was her character, which grace supported without
changing.
Madame de Montagu was admired in the world, but never cared for
triumphs of any kind. Her sole wish was to please God and her home
circle, and do good to her fellow-creatures. We may believe that the
pauper sponsors who held her at St. Roch watched over their charge
through life. For well and zealously, though full of natural
shrinkings, did Madame de Montagu perform her part on the busy stage.
Her timidity was put to its first great trial when, at sixteen, she
had to undergo her first introduction to her intended husband, on whom
she dared not raise her eyes, to see whether her parents' choice
suited her, in appearance at least, until he fortunately turned away
to look at a picture. Next {261} came the further suffering of
receiving congratulatory visits from all Paris, during which the poor
bride elect was seated bolt upright, pale and trembling, beside her
mother, and between two goodly rows of members of either family,
ranged along both sides of the apartment. At church on the wedding-day
she regained her composure, because all else was forgotten in the
earnest prayer breathed that she might well perform her new duties.
Almost immediately the young wife had to sacrifice her greatest
pleasure, that of seeing her mother and sisters frequently. M. de
Montagu was obliged to join his regiment, and she was left under the
tutelage of her father-in-law, a kind and clever man, but eccentric
and full of vagaries. To please him she did everything not wrong,
commencing that petty series of daily yieldings, insignificant to
careless eyes, but so meritorious because so difficult. This is
woman's battlefield, obscure but high; and in this path Madame de
Montagu always walked, perfectly ignorant that her simplicity was in
any way extraordinary. The good she did by example, and without any
words, was immense; only near relatives and intimate friends could
perceive it. One of these, M. de Mun, used to say that she was the
only _dévote_ he ever knew who made him wish to be saved. So far could
she condescend even to the pleasures of others, that in exile, after
all her sorrows, she danced at a rustic ball. And to a nature like
hers, such griefs as she had known were undying even in their
keenness. One of her characteristic traits was that she never forgot
an anniversary: everything that had happened to herself and to those
dear to her was treasured up, and recalled as the days came round. If
it was an occasion of gladness, it was celebrated in public; but her
life was more crowded with the memories of sorrow, and these she kept
for the quiet of her own room.
We should occupy a larger space than that which is at our disposal
were we to try to follow Madame de Montagu through the various stages
of her exile from France. She first came to England, settling at
Richmond; then she went with her husband to Aix-la-Chapelle, whence
the success of the revolutionary armies drove them again to England.
They stayed at Margate for a while; then the declaration of war
between England and France brought out an order for the _émigrés_ not
to live on the coast, and Richmond received them once more. Economy,
however, forced them to seek a cheaper abode at Brussels. Afterward
this place of refuge became unsafe, and Madame de Montagu was forced
to separate from her husband, and accept the hospitality of an aunt,
Madame de Tessé--a _philosophe_ old lady, who had been a friend of
Voltaire's, but who, as one of her grandnieces said of her, "_tout en
se croyant incrédule, ne laissait pas de faire un grand signe de croix
derrière ses rideaux chaque fois qu'elle prenait une médecine._"
Madame de Tessé lived at Lowemberg, in Switzerland; her character is
charmingly hit off in the memoir before us; she would have delighted
Mr. Thackeray. But the presence of Madame de Montagu brought
persecution upon her kind relation, who took the characteristic
resolution of selling her property and going elsewhere. She took her
niece and family first to Erfurt, then to Altona, where many French
_émigrés_ were assembled. Her plan was to find a quiet spot beyond the
Elbe, where she could live in peace and carry on her farming
operations; for her great delight was to manage everything herself,
and to supply all the needs of her household from her own resources.
They were a long time in finding a place that would suit Madame de
Tessé. At length an estate named Wittmold was found, on the banks of
the lake of Ploen; and here the exiles found rest for some time. The
best elements of Madame de Montagu's beautiful character were
developed under the hardships and {262} sufferings of this life of
poverty and continued apprehension. She had, of course, never known
even the idea of want before she left France. When she left Paris, she
so little expected to have to manage for herself, that it was only in
consequence of Madame de Grammont's imperturbable prudence that she
made any provision for the future. They had to part in secret, as it
was dangerous to let the servants know of the intended flight of
Monsieur and Madame de Montagu. In the suppressed agitation of the
moment, Madame de Grammont was characteristically thoughtful. She
asked her sister whether she was sure she had her jewels. "Why take
them? we are not going to a fête." "_Raison de plus; c'est parceque
vous n'allez pas à une fête, qu'il faut les emporter_." The advice was
afterward found to have been indeed important; but even the sale of
her jewels only supported Madame de Montagu for a time. In the course
of her long exile, she never made herself a very perfect manager.
She tried to study domestic economy; but she proved a greater
proficient in not spending on herself than in learning how to manage
household affairs on small means. Still her superintendence of the
farm produced good results, from the zeal with which it inspired the
workpeople. However low her funds, she always visited the sick and
poor, managing to procure them some relief; she also worked
unceasingly at objects for sale. Throughout life she never knew
idleness, devoting fixed hours to prayer, reading, the instruction of
her children, and works of charity. As years went on, she more and
more begrudged the hours often forcibly given in social life to
frivolous conversation. Her pleasure was to employ each moment
usefully in some home duty; but this could not always be the case
during exile, especially when residing with her kind but worldly aunt,
Madame de Tessé.
At this period it was that she organized her _oeuvre des émigrés_; a
stupendous work, if we consider that there were 40,000 persons to
assist, and 16,000,000 francs the moderate sum estimated as requisite
for carrying it out with success. Unfortunately the details in figures
of this work have been lost; for Madame de Montagu carefully noted
down every fraction received, from what quarter it came, and how
expended. But we know that the correspondence alone cost annually
about 500 francs during the four years it existed--that is, from 1796
to 1800. She collected money in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, France,
the Netherlands, and England; and beside distributing pecuniary
assistance, solicited employment for persons of all ages and sexes.
She had children to get into schools, young women to place as
governesses, drawings and needlework to sell, etc. All this was done
without quitting her quiet home on the borders of Lake Ploen, or
giving up one domestic occupation. When pressed for time she sat up at
night. Winter only increased her zeal. "The colder it is," said she,
"the warmer my heart grows." Indeed, she ended by selling for this
work the mourning worn for her mother and sister, which she had kept
as a relic; at another time she also sold her prayer-book for the same
object. But she never would take from this fund for members of her own
family; she preferred working for them, not from pride, but through
delicacy. For another charity she once cut off her beautiful hair and
sold it, receiving eighty francs.
It is curious to remark that this gentle woman nevertheless had her
own firm opinions, even on politics; and though never obtruding, still
constantly held them. One is surprised to find also that these
opinions were not often identical with the views held by those she
most respected and loved. In 1790, M. de Beaune, her father-in-law,
alarmed at the turn affairs were taking, wished to emigrate with all
his family. His idea was to draw Frenchmen together on neutral {263}
ground, to place their families in safety, and having gained the
support of foreign powers, to return with a good army for the
protection of the king and the party of order in the state. Madame de
Montagu fully shared these views; but her husband at this time
disapproved of emigration, considering it the greatest mistake that
could be committed by the king's friends. He hoped to arrive at an
understanding between the liberal party and the _droite_, so as to
save both the monarchy and liberty. His two elder brothers-in-law, MM.
de Noailles and la Fayette, went far beyond these views. Without
wishing to overturn royalty, their dream was to see it based on
republican principles.
So indignant did this render M. de Beaune, that he broke with them
entirely, and wished Madame de Montagu to give up seeing her two
sisters, who naturally embraced their husbands' opinions. She could by
no means understand that persons were to be proscribed because of
their political opinions; but, not to irritate M. de Beaune farther,
she would not receive Madame de la Fayette, who offered to pay her a
visit at Plauzat in Auvergne, and went instead to meet her privately
at a neighbouring inn.
Meanwhile M. de Montagu had yielded to his father's wishes, and at the
end of 1791 resolved to emigrate; his choice, however, fell on England
rather than Coblentz, where M. de Beaune then was. Madame de Montagu
was to accompany her husband. Ere leaving Plauzat she had the
happiness of seeing her mother again, but could not summon up courage
to tell her of her own approaching departure for England. Both mother
and daughter looked on public matters exactly in the same way; there
was great similarity between them as to judgment; but the duchesse was
not impulsive, like Madame de Montagu. They parted most tenderly, with
a presentiment of coming evil; but little did either dream that the
guillotine was to separate them for ever.
Then commenced for Madame de Montagu the miseries and heart-burnings
of exile. Twice she visited England, spending some time at Richmond
and Margate. Griefs began to accumulate; she lost a child for the
third time; Marat was lording it over Paris; M. de Montagu in disgust
again quitted France, and went to serve under his father's orders on
the banks of the Rhine; the massacres of September took place,
followed by the fatal battle of Jemappes. The _émigrés_ were
henceforth banished. Then the king and queen fell victims to the
revolution; Savenay destroyed the last hopes of the Vendeans. In
addition to all these public sorrows, and to the pressure of poverty,
Madame de Montagu lost another child, her fourth; it seemed as if all
her children were born but to die.
All her life she suffered from great delicacy of constitution, and
this natural tendency was further increased by her extreme
sensibility. Just after losing a child for the first time, and while
she was praying, bathed in tears, beside its dead body, a messenger
came to tell her that Madame de Grammont had just given birth to her
first infant. Madame de Montagu, drying up all traces of her own
sorrow, immediately hastened off to congratulate the young mother; but
she had scarcely left her sister's room when she fainted in the
adjoining apartment. A severe illness followed, the precursor of many
others; indeed, it may be said that her whole life was passed amid
moral and physical suffering. Death was ever busy in her family.
She lost her only son Attale, a fine young man, just when he had
attained his twenty-eighth year; and in this case sorrow was
aggravated by the circumstance of his dying through accident--a gun
went off in his hand. No fears, however, were entertained at first.
Madame de Montagu herself was only recovering by slow degrees from
{264} a dangerous malady; a sudden and fatal termination had occurred
for her son, and she knew it not. They dared not tell her. But the
next day, being Trinity Sunday, Madame de Grammont suggested that she
should receive holy communion, though still in bed: the priest, in
presenting the sacred host, invited her to meditate on the passion,
and especially on the sentiments of the Blessed Virgin at the foot of
the cross, where _her son died_.
Madame de Montagu immediately understood him. Her husband then brought
to her bedside the young widow and three orphan girls. Attale's mother
wept in silence, at length ejaculating: "Thy decree, O Lord, has thus
ordained, and I submit. But strike no more, for I am ready to faint
beneath the weight of my cross." But she reproached herself afterward
for this.
Often before had she endured the mother's agony; but this was the
hardest blow of all. And Madame de Montagu lived on to see many loved
ones go before her; father, and husband, and several other relations
preceded her to the tomb; for she lingered till 1839. Among them was
M. de la Fayette, who died in 1834, having survived his wife
twenty-seven years. Madame de Montagu and all the members of her
family requested to be buried at Picpus.
This spot was hallowed to them by sacred memories, for there reposed
above thirteen hundred victims of the revolution. Its continued
existence as a cemetery was due to the pious labors of Madame d'Ayen's
daughters. In the days of terror, a pit had been dug outside the
Barrière du Trône, and all the persons immolated in that quarter of
Paris were promiscuously thrown into it. The savage mode of proceeding
has been related. As each head fell from the guillotine, it was cast,
together with the body, still dressed, into a large barrel painted
red. Each night after the executions were over, these barrels were
taken to Picpus, and their contents indiscriminately emptied into the
pit. The ground had formerly belonged to an Augustinian convent.
There, it could not be doubted, lay the remains of Madame d'Ayen and
her daughter. Madame de Montagu and Madame de la Fayette, on their
return to France, ardently wished to raise a monument to their memory;
but on discovering the immense number of victims interred together, it
seemed more desirable that the undertaking should be of a less private
nature. By their joint efforts, many families of other victims were
attracted to the pious enterprise; souls devoted to prayer gathered
round; the old convent and church of Picpus rose from their ruins. A
cemetery was constructed round that gloomy pit, where not even a name
had been scrawled to recall the memory of those who slept below.
Madame d'Ayen's three daughters could at least enjoy the sad
consolation of praying near their mother's tomb.
All the sisters had bitterly, keenly, felt the cruel stroke that
deprived them of three such near relatives, and in such a painful
manner; but none suffered more enduringly than Madame de Montagu. She
was staying with Madame de Tessé, in Switzerland. News had reached her
of the execution of her grand-aunt and uncle, M. and Madame de Monchy;
but she was completely ignorant of what had become of her mother and
sister. Fears, however, were rife. One day she set out to meet her
father, whom she had not seen for some time; and he was so changed,
that, perceiving him on the way, she only recognized him from his
voice. Each alighted, and his first question was to ask whether she
had heard the news; but, seeing her excessive emotion, he hastened to
assure her of his own perfect ignorance. She felt a calamity
impending, but dared not press for information in the presence of a
third person. They drove to an inn; and when father and daughter were
alone together, he, after some preparation, informed her that he had
just lost his mother. {265} A deadly paleness overspread her
countenance; confused and dizzy, she exclaimed with clasped hands,
"And I--," "I am uneasy about your mother and sister," answered M.
d'Ayen, cautiously. But she was not to be deceived. His looks belied
his words. That was the hour of bitterest anguish in Madame de
Montagu's life. Cries and tears gave no relief. Again and again she
saw the scene re-enacted. Reason trembled, but still she strove to
pray and be resigned. Remembering her mother's pious practice in times
of sorrow, she also recited the magnificat; then, with beautiful
feeling, in the midst of her own anguish, she knelt down and prayed,
all shuddering, for those that made them suffer. But nature struggled
still; and days passed ere she recovered sufficient composure to be
left alone. When all the details reached her, strong religious feeling
transformed the dungeon, the cart, the scaffold into so many steps by
which the martyrs had ascended up to heaven. The love unceasingly
manifested by the three sisters for their martyred relatives is very
touching. They were first reunited at Vianen, near Utrecht, in 1799.
The ostensible object was to settle the division of property rendered
necessary by their mother's death; but in reality they were much more
occupied in calling up sweet memories of her and of their beloved
sister. Madame de la Fayette was then about forty years of age; Madame
de Montagu had reached her thirty-second year; and Madame de Grammont
was rather more than a twelvemonth younger. They remained a month
together, their husbands and families being also on the spot. Not a
little suffering was caused by cold and hunger, for their united
purses could still only produce insufficient means; fuel was wanting,
and they had scanty fare. The three, however, would sit up at night to
enjoy each other's society, wrapping their mantles round them to keep
out the cold, and sharing one wretched _chaufferette_. They spoke very
low, so as not to disturbed husbands and children sleeping in the
adjoining rooms. One great subject of conversation was to point out
their mutual defects--a Christian habit acquired under Madame d'Ayen's
training, and surprisingly brought into play again under such
circumstances.
Madame de Grammont remarked that events were graven in letters of fire
in Madame de Montagu's countenance, and characteristically advised her
to become more calm. She also took the opportunity of teaching her how
to meditate--a service which the elder sister gratefully acknowledges
in her diary. Madame de Montagu observed with admiration Madame de
Grammont's recollected demeanor at mass, which they attended almost
daily, saying she looked like an angel, absolutely annihilated in the
presence of God. "As for me, I feel overwhelmed at my poverty beside
her." Indeed, the two sisters vied in humility with each other. Madame
de Grammont having once said, "You excite me to virtue and attract me
to prayer," Madame de Montagu quickly replied, "Then I am like the
horses in this country; for one sees wretched-looking animals along
the canals drawing large boats after them."
But the chief theme at night was ever their mother. Madame de Montagu
was accustomed to unite herself with the dear victims in special
prayer every day at the "sorrowful hour," and the other two now
undertook the same practice. They also composed beautiful litanies in
remembrance of them during their stay at Vianen. Madame de Grammont
held the pen, writing sometimes her own inspiration, and sometimes
what her sisters dictated. They called these prayers "Litany of our
Mothers."