(FROM THE FRENCH.)

ORLEANS, January, 1867.

I hasten to tell you, my darling sister, of our happy arrival in the

city of Joan of Arc. It was cold during this long journey, but I was

so _silkenly_ enveloped inside the elegant _coupé_ which was René’s

New Year’s gift to me that I did not feel it.

_Ah! qu’un autre vous-même est une douce chose!_—“How sweet it is to

have a second self!” You know how often I used to say this at the

Sacred Heart, and with what questioning eyes our Parisian companions

were wont to regard the daughters of Erin. Our impassioned fondness

for one another surprised them, and we said that doubtless in France

people did not know how to love. Dearest, we have now learnt that the

country of our adoption is as _warm_ as our native land. What kind

hearts have we not found here! I am glad, therefore, to remain here

for the winter; besides, with René I cannot grow weary anywhere. Why,

darling Kate, are you not with us? Prepare yourself for frequent

letters, as I have the mania of a scribbling friendship, to the

astonishment of my mother-in-law. True, my writing-desk accompanies me

everywhere, and before all other pleasures I prefer that of conversing

with you.

Our home is delightful for comfort and elegance. We—that is, René and

I—occupy the second story. Our house is in the _Rue Jeanne d’Arc_, and

I have only to go to the window to see the beautiful cathedral, which

I do not fail to visit often, there to pray in union with my Kate. _A

tout seigneur tout honneur._[128] Let us, then, speak first of this

marvel of stone; of this Gothic pile whose lofty towers excite the

admiration of the artist. Dearest, shall I tell you? I felt myself

more _at home_ there than in any other church. I am not going to

describe either the rich chapels or the splendid windows. In these

first visits to _Sainte-Croix_ my heart melted with joy at the thought

that I am a Catholic. “Well, my little _Irlandaise_, and so you are

enthusiastic about Orleans,” said René softly to me, on observing the

flush upon my cheeks.

I have been shown also the statue of Joan of Arc in the _Place du

Martroi_. This, however, I do not admire; it is not the young

shepherdess of my dreams, but a robust maiden of vigorous mould on

horseback. But the bas-reliefs!… These are magnificent, sublime! What

memories! What a history!—put to death upon the soil of this same

France which she had saved. My blood boils when I think of the cruelty

of England.

We are quite a large colony here. I must introduce you, Miss Kate,

into this family circle. You scarcely know my mother-in-law, having

only had an occasional glimpse of her amid the solemnities of my

marriage, and when you were thinking only of your Georgina. We orphans

were all in all to each other—we who were then on the point of being

separated. Dear, dear Kate! my _alter ego_, my idol, who, wholly

possessed by the highest love, have willed to consecrate your youth

and future to the service of our Lord in the persons of his poor; and

now there are you in your coarse habit, while Georgina the worldly is

adorning herself with the jewels which became you so well!

My mother-in-law, who is kindness itself to me, is a person of

exceeding dignity; quite a mediæval _châtelaine_, with the noble

bearing of the heroines of Walter Scott. Her piety is fervent, and,

her sons tell me, just a little austere. Ah! dearest, what a blessing

is such a mother as this. The breath of the present age has not passed

over her dwelling; her children believe and worship; and I seem to

behold in her a Christian of the early centuries or a Blanche of

Castile. My four sisters-in-law are very kind to the last comer, your

Georgina. You saw my brothers in Paris.[129] Mme. Adrien is a Belgian,

lively and graceful, and as proud of her “jewels” as the Cornelia of

antiquity. She has three sons, who are pupils of the Jesuit Fathers in

the _Rue des Postes_, and whom we shall only see during the vacations.

Her daughter Hélène, a superb _blonde_, worthy of inspiring a Raphael,

has just completed her education at the Benedictines of ——. Mme. Raoul

was born of a French family on the other side of the Rhine. Her two

daughters, Thérèse and Madeleine, are my delight. I sometimes go and

look at them sleeping, and then go to sleep myself to dream of angels.

Picture to yourself these twins, the one small and fair, the other

tall, slender, with a pale complexion and brown curls; gayly bearing

the light burden of their ten years, and alike in one thing only—the

voice; and thus they often amuse themselves in taking us by surprise

and making us guess which of the two is speaking. Mme. Paul has four

treasures: the _dauphin_, Arthur, and demoiselles Marguérite, Alix,

and Jeanne, the pretty one who arrived last—all this little

population, young, fresh, smiling, chattering, and roguish. Mme.

Édouard, the most sympathetic of all, the most French, and the most

attractive, who has been married three years, is rich in the sweetest

little cherub that could flatter maternal pride.

Adieu, dearest; this is only a sign of life. I am tired with the

expeditions of the day, and René reminds me that it is late. Be happy,

my Kate, and help me to bless God for my happiness; I am so afraid of

being ungrateful.

YOUR GEORGINA.

JANUARY, 1867.

Booksellers are abundant here, my dear; and René, who knows my

weakness, daily brings me something new. I have just read _Mme.

Rosély_, by Mlle. Monniot, a name dear to our youth. How much I should

like to know this authoress! The mind capable of such conceptions must

be a personification of virtue and devotedness. The thought occurred

to me of writing to her. Dear busy one, you will not even open this

book; and yet how much it would please you, it is so beautiful! What

pleasure it gave me there to find Margaret again, become a sister of

_Bon-Secours_![130] I visited yesterday two churches, St. Paul and

_Recouvrance_, both newly restored. There are fine windows at St.

Paul’s, but the colors are too vivid for my taste. To the right

is a chapel nearly dark, and a black Virgin held in great

veneration—_Notre-Dame des Miracles_. I shall often return thither. I

prayed there with all my heart for you, for our friends, for our own

Ireland. _Recouvrance_ is a charming church, close upon the Loire.

(Did I tell you of my transport on seeing the beautiful river about

which I had written volumes in the upper classes?) The altar is

surmounted by sculptures—Mary and Joseph finding Jesus in the midst of

the doctors. This sanctuary is a casket. Around the side aisles are

delicious little chapels, with frescoes by Hippolyte Lazerges. I will

mention those of the baptistery—Moses striking the rock, and the

Samaritan at Jacob’s well. The Samaritan is admirably fine in form and

expression. I stayed long before it—this fair page of Scripture made

to live, as it were; the Saviour teaching the truth to this sinful

woman! Here are the most beautiful confessionals that can be seen,

with exquisite little paintings—the father of the prodigal welcoming

his son, and the good Shepherd recovering his sheep from among the

thorns.

Your letter has just reached me. Thanks, Kate! How sweet and good a

thing it is to be so loved! Fain would I shed around me some little of

the happiness with which I am flooded. My mother-in-law is so kind as

to let me share in her works of charity, and my good René accompanies

me into the abodes of the poor. Oh! in these low streets what miseries

there are, what repulsive infirmities! These poor quarters remind me

of London. In the evening we pay visits. Orleanese society appears to

me much less frivolous than that of Paris. I felt very shy at the

prospect of all these introductions, but they came about in the most

natural way in the world. Our family party is so united, so animated,

that we have no need to seek amusement from without. At ten o’clock

_Grandmother_ gives the signal for us to separate. René and I prolong

the evening by reading together. With regard to René, I am full of

remorse for having—quite inadvertently, however—neglected to enclose

in my last letter the one which he had written to you, and which you

must since have received. Oh! how excellent he is, this brother of

yours; and how proud of him I am—so intellectual, so distinguished, so

handsome, and, what is far better and worth all the rest, so pious!

Every morning we go together to Mass at _Sainte-Croix_. The Masses of

communion are said in an expiatory chapel before the image of the

Mother of Sorrows. From an artistic point of view this chapel is an

anachronism—a Greek marble in a Gothic church. But what peace reigns

there, what recollection; and one can pray there so well! Orleans

seems to me empty in the absence of its great bishop, now in Rome. Do

you remember our enthusiastic exclamations while reading his excellent

work on education? I am impatient to be presented to him, to speak to

him of Ireland—of this people which he has justly called “a people of

martyrs and apostles.”[131]

Have read the _Souvenirs d’une Institutrice_, by Mme. Bourdon. That

isolation, those struggles against penury, that life so troubled and

stormy, made a hymn of thanksgiving gush out of my heart to Him whose

providence has ordained for me so different a destiny. “O fortune!”

said the Solitary of Cayla, “what suffering dost thou not cause when

thou art adverse!” Dear Kate, with all my heart I pity the poor,

especially the mothers. René made a discovery yesterday—a young

married couple in utter distress, owing to the illness of the husband.

The young mother is wholly occupied in the attendance necessary to the

sick man and to her new-born son, who might be well named Benoni, the

poor darling! It does not possess even a cradle. How I wept while

listening to the story of their last three months! We sent the doctor

to them, and I felt the pleasure of a child in myself choosing

whatever I thought needful for this family. Mary and Joseph must have

been thus at Bethlehem. The poor woman had sold her furniture bit by

bit, not venturing to beg or speak to any one of her troubles; and yer

the charities here are admirably organized.

Lucy (Mme. Édouard) is coming with us to-morrow on a pilgrimage to

Cléry; I shall pray there for my Kate, and for all whom we love. I go

the round of the churches with Lucy; René carves, paints, or writes,

and we have music together. My mother-in-law has given me a beautiful

piano, one of Pleyel’s. Our brothers have excellent voices. Lucy and I

play splendid pieces of Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Beethoven. What

concerts, what harmonies, what an enchanted life! From eight o’clock

in the evening until ten we work for churches or the poor. Don’t be

uneasy, dear Kate, with regard to what you call the unsettled, aimless

life of the world; my hours and minutes are regulated with a

mathematical precision. René loves order above everything, and my

mother-in-law’s hobby is punctuality. Your Georgina, who is not

over-exact and a bit of a loiterer, is making rapid strides to attain

to the perfection of her lord and master, who is good and lovable a

thousand times over, and never scolds.

Do you remember our old mistress Annah, who invariably used to say

upon quitting us, “My husband will scold,” at which we always laughed,

little giddy ones that we were? I bow before your gravity, and kiss

you a hundred and a hundred times.

FEBRUARY, 1867.

I am just come from _St. Pierre du Martroi_, where the Père Minjard

has been preaching a sermon in behalf of the Society of St. Vincent de

Paul—an institution shown by the eloquent orator to be a source of

comfort to sorrows otherwise inconsolable, and also a preservative

against a social danger. What a picture he drew of atheistic

poverty—poverty without God! What eloquence! What a soul of fire! At

last, under this austere Dominican habit, I have beheld a man of

genius. Thought makes this manly countenance its abode, and here

dwells intellect in its plenitude. His eyes sparkle at times with a

lightning flash almost dazzling. Ah! dear Kate, what an absorbing

discourse.

How exactly like yourself it is to be so interested in Benoni and his

family! I scarcely venture to go there, the poor woman so overwhelms

me with her thanks. In vain I tell her again and again that she is my

_sister_, and that in giving her a little from my abundance I have

done nothing more than my strict, rigorous, obligatory duty. She

receives me as if I were an angel from Paradise. The young man is

recovering his health, and the child his roses. Thanks to my good

René, who is really the most generous of men, I have installed them in

a commodious and airy apartment where everything is bright with

sunshine. This morning the God of the Eucharist entered this truly

sanctified dwelling. This little household is so religious, resigned,

and thankful to a kind Providence that God must take pleasure in it as

in a temple.

Our pilgrimage was charming. Lucy consecrated her baby to Our Blessed

Lady; and how happy the little love appeared to be about it! The

church of Cléry is of Gothic architecture, sufficiently remarkable,

but how dilapidated, poor, and bare! I noticed a clock and a Christ

which must be as old as the time of Louis XI.; a magnificent Way of

the Cross; beautiful antique carving in a small chapel which is quite

in a ruinous state. The black Virgin is _Notre-Dame de Cléry_, who

shared with _Notre-Dame d’Embrun_ the affection and the eccentric

devotion of the son of Marie d’Anjou, in whose mind they represented

two distinct persons; and were invoked (O blasphemy!) almost as

witnesses of the atrocities and revengeful deeds of the sombre lord of

Plessis-lez-Tours. The black Virgin is over the high altar. I had a

couple of tapers placed before this miraculous image, one for my

Kate’s intentions and one for my own. The tomb of Louis XI. and of

Charlotte of Savoy is in the nave. By the side of the pulpit is a

monument of black marble; four colonnades of white marble support the

upper portion, also of the same material, upon which the King of

France is kneeling, his hand joined and his face turned towards the

altar of the Blessed Virgin. His countenance has not by any means the

wily and cruel expression given to him in the portraits of the time.

At the four corners are four angels facing the spectators. On the way

home we visited the Church of St. Fiacre. The road is animated in

spite of the season; there, too, is the river, the beautiful river,

the river so eminently French. Besides, must not even the dullest

landscape appear radiant when one is twenty years old, with a husband

whom one adores, a golden future in prospect, and heaven itself in the

heart? Kate dearest, I am faithful to my daily _Te Deum_; it is the

only hymn that can express what I feel.

My mother-in-law gave a large dinner-party in the evening. I made

myself resplendent … in simplicity! This, at least, is the encomium

bestowed on me by René, who pretends that I was very much admired. I

would not say this to any one but my sister. Great names were

represented there; some of the greatest in France—names of chivalrous

associations. How happily inspired was Mother St. Athanasius in making

us read the chronicles of the middle ages! It is to my having done so

that I am indebted for the most gracious smiles of two honorable

dowagers to whom I spoke of the glorious and historical deeds of their

ancestors. Edward sang with me _Le fil de la Vierge_;[132] and

altogether _la petite Irlandaise_ found the evening too short and the

company too amiable. These kind brothers and sisters never weary of

bringing me forward, placing me in the light, and making everybody

love me; my mother-in-law calls me her lily, her heath-flower, her

violet; and the children are wild about Aunt Georgina. Dear Kate, how

ravishingly fair is the dawn of my existence as a young wife!

A fortunate meeting, dearie—namely, with Margaret W——, the beautiful

Englishwoman, who is, she says, _en passage_ here. I was at Ste.

Croix, lost in my thanksgiving after communion, when a rustling of

silk and lace reminded me that I was still on earth, and a musical

voice with a slight English accent said in my ear: “_C’est bien

vous?_—Is it really you, Georgina?” I raised my head and recognized

our friend. We came out together. Margaret has since paid me a visit,

and my mother-in-law asked her to spare a whole day to Georgina. All

the family is won by the grace and lively wit of _la belle Anglaise_.

She is on her wedding tour; her husband is very agreeable—an

accomplished gentleman, with the manners and bearing (if you please)

of a peer of England. Lady Margaret told us about her presentation at

court. Queen Victoria is very fond of her. In the evening

twilight[133] we found ourselves alone together; then, looking

straight into my eyes, Margaret asked me: “Are you truly and perfectly

happy, Georgina?” You may guess what was my answer. “So much the

better; so much the better,” sighed the lofty lady; and then, blushing

and with a full and beating heart, she confided to me her grief—her

husband does not love her! And yet he had seemed to me full of

thoughtful attention to her. “Ah! dear Georgina, if you only knew what

I suffer. I love Lord William passionately. I believed in his love,

and now I know that my large fortune tempted his mother, who, by dint

of entreaties, persuaded him to marry me, when he really loved his

cousin, a poor and pretty orphan, who was, moreover, well deserving of

his affection.” I did not know what to say to her. Was she seeking

consolation? I cannot tell. She was lofty and proud until this

intimate confidence. I took her hand, and with the utmost tenderness

expressed my sympathy, assuring her that no one could see her without

loving her, and that there could be no doubt that Lord William

returned her affection. She burst into tears and kissed me twenty

times. Had I convinced her? In the evening I watched the English peer

attentively; his amiability was perfect. I managed skilfully to bring

out the talents of Margaret, who sang and played the loveliest things,

and with such an expression!… Pray for this heart, dear Kate. Ah! how

true it is that a serpent hides among the flowers. Who would not envy

the happiness of this young bride, endowed with all the good things of

this world, and of an aristocratic beauty really incomparable? On

returning from Italy Margaret will visit Switzerland. We have agreed

that she is to write to me, and that we will do impossibilities to

meet again.

René complained of my being melancholy after the departure of “the

English.” I could not confide to him the secret of my friend. “Dear

Georgina, has this fine bird of passage inspired you with her

wandering propensities?” “You know very well, René, that with you I

desire nothing.” “Smile, then, my lady, or I shall think you are ill;

come, sing me ‘The Lake,’ to shake off your gloom.”[134]

My eyes will no longer stay open, dear sister; my tender affection to

you.

FEBRUARY 17, 1867.

A heavenly day, dear Kate; all fragrant with holy friendship, and,

still better, with divine love. Père Minjard preached a charity sermon

at Ste. Croix on behalf of the schools in the East. We went _en

chœur_,[135] as the twins say. What incomparable eloquence! Nothing so

captivates me as the art of language. I was fascinated, and as if

hanging on the lips of this son of Lacordaire. He took for his text,

“We must rescue Christ. Christ is in danger.” In a sustained and

always admirable style he showed us Christ, in peril in the Gospel, by

false criticism; in peril in tradition, by false science; in peril in

the church teaching, by false politics; in peril in the church taught,

by false literature—all this is a social danger. Oh! what beautiful

things, what sublime thoughts; I could have wished the sermon never to

end, and felt myself living a life of intelligence in a higher region

than I had ever dreamed of before. Here is one among other beauties:

“In our hours of poetry and youth have we not all dreamed of the East,

with its clearer sun, its balmier breezes, its holier memories?… Such

is, in fact, the incomparable favor that Christ has granted us in

leaving in our hands the destiny of his name and his works.” Would

that I could transcribe to you this living harmony, this austere

teaching, ardent and true! How splendidly he brought before us the

ancient memories of that East from which everything we have has come

to us; the grand and Christian souvenirs also of the Crusades, and of

those ages of faith when men were capable of a passionate ardor for

the beautiful and the good! Never had I imagined such rapidity of

thought, such facility of elocution, such magnificence of language.

The few words of allusion to Mgr. Dupanloup were of exquisite

delicacy: “And I say this with so much the more freedom because he to

whom my eulogies would be addressed is not present.” What a picture,

too, he drew of the debasement of our souls if we no more had Jesus

Christ!

A walk yesterday in the _Jardin des Plantes_. Our English parks are

naturalized in France, except in the official gardens—flat and

monotonous squares. A fine view from the top of the rising ground and

the sky of France with René—all this I found superb. The twins were

with us, amusing themselves with a violet, and at every step uttering

exclamations of joy. Thérèse takes the airs of a duchess, and thus

gets called by no other name—a custom which does not seem to displease

her. As for Mad, so small and fragile, I have named her Picciola. My

nieces are already pious, and delight to take me into the churches; we

have seen five—the Visitation, the Sacrè-Cœur, the Presentation, the

Bon-Pasteur, and the Sainte-Enfance.

Great sensation at home: my mother expects her elder sister, _la tante

solennelle_—the solemn aunt—as the _dauphin_, Arthur, has whispered to

me. Everybody makes up a countenance and a toilet suitable to the

occasion; even the babies put on serious faces. These preparations

make me afraid. I whisper to you that the least cloud frightens me;

our sky is always so clear. My mother-in-law, kind and maternal as she

is to me, nevertheless intimidates me greatly. René is going away

to-morrow on business, and this first separation causes me more pain

than I am willing to confess. I long so much to say to him: “Take me

with you.” I feel it would be unreasonable. He is going to travel

eighty leagues in a few days, and does not wish to expose me to this

fatigue, though it seems to me that with him nothing could be

difficult. What will you say, dear Kate, to your Georgina?—that you no

longer recognize her great courage, and that inability to bear the

least contrariety is not the mark of a Christian; that I ought rather

to thank Providence for sending me the opportunity of gaining a little

merit. Dear little preacher! the heart that loves does not reason, and

René is my universe. But I promise you to accept this light trial.

Send your good angel to the traveller, darling Kate.

_Evening._—I set out to-morrow with the dawn! René read in my eyes

that I was fretting, and altered his itinerary; I am radiant, and

looking forward to a thousand delights.

Love your Georgina. Let us pray together for our green Erin, so worthy

of our love. I have always in my heart the hope of its resurrection.

MARCH 6, 1867.

Shall I tell you about my journey, dearest Kate? We made a halt in

Brittany, the land of true poets, where we are to pass the summer. As

we walked over the barren heaths we shut our eyes and evoked the old

memories of Armorica, while the mild image of Guy de Bretagne and of

Isabelle aux Blanches Mains[136] mingled in our imaginations with the

shades of the martyrs. Dear Kate, I enjoyed this excursion immensely.

The farther I go, the more I realize the happiness which God has

allotted me in giving me for guide, adviser, and support this dear and

gentle René, so truly the _brother_ of my heart. We have been reading

together the life of Saint Elizabeth by M. de Montalembert. The “dear

saint” of Protestant Germany was wont to call her husband by the sweet

name of brother, and this we thought so suave, so charming, and

angelic that we agreed to call each other brother and sister when we

are alone. Oh! what a heavenly thing is Christian love. That which I

first of all admired in René, even when he was to me merely a

stranger, was his recollectedness in church. He has often said to

me—and with what earnestness!—“Georgina, let Jesus be all in all to

us.” It is to your prayers, my darling Kate, that I owe this happy

destiny.

What a surprise! My Aunt de K—— was not expected before the end of the

week; but this morning, on returning from my visits among the poor,

René left me at the house door, and I hastened as usual into the

drawing-room to say good-morning to the dear little ones who daily

welcome me with shouts of joy. On entering I beheld an unknown face;

it was the _solemn aunt_. A sudden blush mounted even to my forehead.

My mother-in-law introduced me; while I lost myself in reverences, my

aunt bestowed on me a half-inclination of the head—so cold! looking at

me all the time with so searching an eye that I was almost out of

countenance. Fortunately, the door was again thrown open very wide,

and a footman in full livery announced Mme. Edouard, M. Gaston (this

is the pretty baby), and in succession M. et Mme. Adrien, M. et Mme.

Raoul, M. et Mme. Paul. All were richly dressed. I hid myself as well

as I could behind Lucy’s fauteuil to keep my shabby toilet out of

sight, and then took advantage of the entrance of the children to make

my escape before the entry of René. The solemnity of the _déjeûner_

nearly sent me to sleep. At eight o’clock in the evening Mme. de K——

retired to her room, alleging that she was fatigued with her journey;

you may judge whether any one tried to detain her. Then we began to

dress ourselves up, and exchanged silence for joyous dances and merry

laughter. _Duchesse_ was a “golden fairy,” superb with her lofty air;

there is a touch of my _solemn aunt_ about her. Picciola was charming

in her ribbon-decked costume of a shepherdess. Your Georgina was

dressed _en Sévigné_; the sparkling Lucy as a _soubrette_ of the time

of Louis XIV. A few intimate friends joined us about nine o’clock. The

brilliant chords of the piano troubled not the repose of Mme. de K——,

who was purposely lodged far from the noise. Our songs, our dances,

and lively follies went on till one o’clock; and as I am not tired,

and, besides, make a point of sending you news of us before

_mortifying_ Lent shall have proclaimed a truce to our delights, with

René’s permission I relate to you these little events. Dear Kate, my

letters will no longer speak of anything but sanctity. I kiss you with

all my heart. _My brother_, who is beginning to read me a chapter of

the _Imitation_, tells you how much he is devoted to you in Him whose

love is the bond of our souls.

MARCH 10.

My dearest Kate, do not be anxious if I tell you that I am going to

keep all the fasting days of Lent. The good doctor gives me permission

to do so, in spite of my eighteen years, on condition that in case of

the slightest fatigue I give it up. This is understood. M. l’Abbé

Charles Perraud, of the Oratory, is preaching the Lent at

_Sainte-Croix_. What a congregation! It was a compact crowd. The text

was, “Man does not live by bread alone.” In order to please your love

of sacrifice I will not send you another note during all these forty

days; but as I have not yet made any vow to renounce the most

legitimate gratifications of the heart, I shall keep a journal with

great regularity, to send you after Easter.

I am reading again _Rob Roy_ with René; this is for our secular

reading, but for the spiritual we have the Conferences of Fathers

Lacordaire and De Ravignan.

12th.—Was at the sermon: “Enter into your heart.” The orator spoke of

recollectedness, inviting us to enter into our heart, promising that

by so doing we should find _light_, _joy_ and _virtue_; these were the

three points of his discourse. We take interminable walks with

Isabelle (Mme. Raoul) and her children. I am working a magnificent

chasuble which I wish to present to our _curé_ in Brittany. René reads

to us the _Revue du Monde Catholique_ and the _Union_. These gentlemen

do not go to the club, but occupy themselves, according to their

respective tastes, in painting, carving, illuminating, and creating

surprises for us. My _solemn aunt_ took her departure this morning,

and all that is cold, heavy and pompous went with her.

I have not told you that Hélène and I are the best of friends. We are

of the same age; she has always had an especial liking for René, and

she also entrusts me with her confidences. Dear Kate, this good young

heart has likewise been wounded by the divine Hand, and she who is the

idol of her family desires to leave us, that she may give herself

wholly to God. The poor mother knows nothing, but she has a

presentiment of this secret (at the same time sweet and distressing),

and strives to dissuade her daughter from her purpose. Hélène wishes

to be a Carmelite. She has her grandmother’s energy and greatness of

soul, and nothing can shake her resolution. Thus there will be a

separation under this happy roof; the singing-bird is about to spread

her wings and fly away to other skies. Since my pretty niece opened

her heart to me I have become quite thoughtful. If it should so happen

that God required of me a similar sacrifice; and if, after giving up

my sister to him, I must also give him a child of my own!… But I put

aside this apprehension. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

14th.—“Bear God in your heart and glorify him in your bodies.” This

sermon has deeply impressed me; how I love the Catholic doctrine

respecting the body of man!

I love to communicate by the side of René. Hélène followed us this

morning; in returning from the altar I involuntarily looked at her,

and was struck by the air of ecstatic joy and profound happiness which

shone on her countenance. Kate, she is truly called! Adrien dotes upon

his daughter. Each one of the family feels the charm of her bright and

cheerful piety, which makes her admirable even in the smallest things;

she is _grandmother’s_ right hand, who feels herself living over again

in this fair child.… How we are going to suffer!

16th.—A long walk with all the darlings, which made me miss a sermon

of the Abbé Bougaud, whom I so much want to hear. Visited two

churches. Orleans is full of them, and reminds me of the towns in

Italy, where one comes upon them at every step. I have had some

letters from Ireland, from our friends in Dublin. Lizzie asks me if,

like her, I have a “dear, sweet home”; she is enchanted with her

position. Ellen, the lively Ellen, gently rallies me on my love for

France, and reminds me of Petrarch:

_Non e questa la patria!_

How she misjudges my feelings if she thinks that my happiness could

make me forgetful of Ireland!

21st.—Sermon on the love of our neighbor. I have no trouble in loving

this dear neighbor of mine. _Duchesse_ allows herself to rally her

aunt on what she calls her _love of everybody_! Happily for this lofty

little person, Berthe (Mme. Raoul) wages unflinching war against the

slightest tendency to pride, and the uncles surpass one another in

teasing her out of it. My room is all perfumed with the sweet

fragrance of violets. René has brought me home splendid ones from his

morning’s ramble. I delight in my bouquets like a child with a

plaything; it is long since I have had any flowers, and I love these

balmy things, which the poetic Margaret calls the “beauties of nature,

queens of solitude, and daughters of the sun.”

25th.—The weather was fine; René had the horses put in, and we set out

together, delighted to be alone. As we were coming down the _Rue

Royale_ I caught sight of Hélène and her father, lost in admiration

before some fine engravings. “Shall we take them with us?” I said to

René; and a minute afterwards the future Carmelite was giving us her

impressions of the day. How charming she is! And all this beauty is

going to conceal itself under the austere _bandeau_ and thick veil.…

We went to the _Chapelle Saint-Mesmin_, where Monseigneur has his

college and his summer residence. The pure air, the perfumes of the

spring, the evening calm, gave me an inexpressible feeling of

enjoyment. For a moment I forgot this earth, and in the isolation of

thought went back to my childhood; saw our beloved home, and our so

lamented mother watching us at play. Why is she not with us still? She

would have been so proud of René. “What are you thinking of,” asked

Hélène, “looking in this way up to heaven like the picture of the

Mignon of Ary Scheffer?” “She is dreaming of Ireland,” replied _my

brother_, who had understood me.

31st.—Sermon on the intellectual life: “Lord, give me understanding

and I shall live.” My mother-in-law was rather unwell; I passed the

day in her room. The whole _flight of doves_, profiting by this fine

Sunday, went out to flutter in the bright sunshine. Hélène presented

her grandmother with a bunch of double violets; she took them with a

smile, and then delicately placed them in my hair, saying as she did

so: “Darling Violet, receive your sisters.” I kissed her hand—that

soft, white hand which reminds me of my mother’s.

April 2.—“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The

days succeed each other, but are not much alike, it is said,

immutability not belonging to this earth. That which always resembles

itself is my union with René. He is no sooner absent than something

within me suffers; as soon as he returns my heart overflows with joy.

Lucy asked me, “Are you never sad?” “Never!” “Happy sister!” she

rejoined; “as for me, I weep sometimes when baby suffers; then I feel

as if all was lost—as if I must die. Edward calls this exaggeration.”

“Dear Lucy, the Holy Ghost has said, ‘If you are glad of heart, sing:

if sorrowful, pray.’ Pray, then, so that you may never be sad. God is

so good that we ought to serve him with a joyful heart.”

7th.—Played some splendid duets with Hélène, who has remarkable power.

Sermon on the supernatural life: “If you eat not the flesh of the Son

of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” The Père Perraud

was the intimate friend of the gentle Abbé Perreyve—“this delightful

apparition,” said M. de Montalembert, “which, after an interval of

thirty years, has made me seem to see again Lacordaire as he appeared

before the court of the peers of France, young, eloquent, intrepid,

gentle and frank, austere and charming, but above all ardent and

tender, endowed with that spring of fascination, that key of hearts,

which is found so rarely here below. In him one saw again that noble

and sympathetic look which no one who had once received it could ever

forget—that eye, questioning and candid as that of a child.”

I am reading again, with René, _Quentin Durward_ and _Charles the

Bold_. I am translating into English _Les Enfants d’Édouard_ for Lucy,

who says she likes English better than anything, and wishes to teach

it to her son. Edward (ours) pretends that I possess all the

qualifications for a good professor. They will spoil me, these kind

brothers.

12th.—Way of the Cross, of the Friday. I love this devotion. Even the

_dauphin_, Arthur, begs to go to it; he has a taste for music, and the

pretty voices of the children of the choir fascinate him.

I have to-day been absorbed in a delightful book for which I am

indebted to the obliging kindness of Adrien. It is the letters of

Silvio Pellico, translated by M. Latour. What an admirable man Silvio

is! Do you recollect the _Mémoires d’Andryane_? Silvio speaks of this

book, and deeply regrets that his friend, the Frenchman, did not use

more reserve in his confidences to the public, as there were still

prisoners in the Spielberg.

14th.—Copied a beautiful letter of Mgr. le Comte de Chambord, _our

king_, as _duchesse_ proudly says. Mgr. Dupanloup is at Orleans; this

evening he appeared in the pulpit. I was there; for, although the

sermon was for men only, I like so much to witness this fine spectacle

of the nave quite filled with men. I know of nothing more solemn and

imposing than the _Miserere_ chanted by this multitude of deep and

powerful male voices, accompanied by the rich tones of the great

organ. My heart beat; for I was about to listen to the great orator.

Alas! after the invocation Monseigneur left the pulpit, and was

replaced by the Père Perraud. He took for his text the words of the

prophet Isaias: “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the

night? And the watchman answered: The morning cometh, and also the

night: if you seek, seek: return, come.”[137] M. Bougaud preaches the

retreat for ladies; we are entering upon the week that is indeed holy.

15th.—Dear Kate, I am in a state of enthusiasm. M. Bougaud is quite

what his _Sainte Chantal_ had led me to anticipate: an ardent soul, a

heart of fire, his style unique, rich, picturesque, poetic, incisive,

penetrating; the priestly heart which knows all the feelings, the

aspirations, and the needs of souls.

“Who are you, and what say you of yourselves?” It was admirably fine.

He described to us the three wounds, the three martyrdoms, or the

three honors of man in this world:, in the mind, the thirst for

infinite illumination; in the heart, a keen and incessant hunger after

affections; and in the whole being, the craving for eternity. It is

from eternity that we are descended, and thither we must ascend again.

I warmly expressed my admiration to René and Edouard, who were waiting

for me. My sisters were detained at home by their maternal cares, but

it is settled that to-morrow we are to go _in choir_.

16th.—Sermon on the duties of mothers: “Three things constitute a

great soul, a soul strong and invincible: a horror of sin, a contempt

for all that passes away, and the love of God.” Oh! if it were granted

me to have a child, what happiness it would be to me to develop in him

these three things.

17th.—I have not been to the sermon, dear Kate … A letter from Fanny

W—— has informed me of the sudden death of our dear Mary. I have been

weeping all day, thinking of the despair of her poor mother. There had

been nothing to prepare her for this thunderclap. Mary appeared to

have entirely recovered from the fall she had last year, of which the

only remaining effect was an excessive paleness—“a paleness which

rendered her so attractive that no one saw in it any alarming symptom.

The eve of her death she was speaking of you, of Kate, the chosen one

of her heart. Our vigil was prolonged to a later hour than usual; I

make use of the word _vigil_, because Mary loved it. We spoke of the

great subjects of interest about which she was so enthusiastic—of the

church, of Ireland, and of Poland, that other martyr; and Mary said to

us: ‘How the saints must implore the Lord for their brethren upon

earth!’ Dear soul! she also implores him now. Comfort us, darling

Georgina.” I have written. I have tried to comfort these two hearts,

so stricken by death—that wound which is incurable here below. May God

be their help! Dear Kate, you will not hear of this loss for eight

days to come, in the midst of the Catholic alleluia; but it is indeed

alleluia that one ought to sing over this early tomb. Happy are they

whom God calls to himself! René has been reading to me this evening

some chapters on the sufferings of Jesus Christ, by Father Thomas of

Jesus. Truly, the Calvary of Lady W—— is the sudden departure of her

angelic child; and who can console a mother?

Fanny is saddened on account of their isolation, although, with the

marvellous intuition of pure souls, she feels that death separates

bodies only. “She is always present to me,” she writes. A world of

memories revived within me upon reading these pages, bedewed with many

tears. How warmly this family is attached to us!

18th.—I could write a volume upon this Holy Thursday, the Thursday

_par excellence_. At seven o’clock I was in the _Black Chapel_ with

René; and we did not leave Ste. Croix until past eleven. What a

service, dear Kate! The Catholic worship is nowhere more magnificently

celebrated. To adorn this vast temple, Monseigneur is having admirable

Stations of the Cross sculptured in the walls themselves; the sculptor

requires a year for each station, of which the earlier ones are now

open to the pious curiosity of the public. Before one o’clock I set

out with René, Hélène, and the twins for the visits to the churches—a

veritable steeplechase. _Duchesse_ had laid a wager with Arthur that

she would see fifteen; and as she was bent upon gaining it, she so

prettily pressed me to show her “some more” that we still went on and

on. We had afterwards a time of repose; a sermon from that true

orator, M. Bougaud: “Whensoever you shall do these things, do them in

remembrance of me.” Our Lord has left us a remembrance. What is this

remembrance, and with what feelings ought we to regard it? What

eloquence! How well he depicted this remembrance, and also how

thorough an insight he possesses of the heart! What happy similitudes

and figures! How he feels and how he loves! It is plain that the love

of God predominates all else in this soul. “When I was young I took

offence at Bossuet for saying that friendships pass away with years;

but now I am offended with him no more: he saw clearly; he saw only

too well.” “When I glance over the globe I am greatly moved. I see

Ireland dying of famine; Poland groaning forth her last sigh of agony;

Germany, who has not yet stanched the bleeding wounds inflicted by her

fratricidal wars; Italy, binding up her wounds in the sun like a poor

stricken Samaritan; France, who perhaps in a few months’ time will be

covered with blood—all the nations shattered and expiring.… “Dear

Kate, I wept as I listened to this enumeration; for I thought of Mary,

who died almost while speaking of the martyr-nations. With regard to

what M. Bougaud said about the love of God, my pen is powerless to

express it.

We are come back this evening from Ste. Croix. Never did I see

anything more imposing. The cathedral was full. The singing of the

_Stabat_ was something admirable. We were in the transept, and before

us this mass of men like a moving sea, a profusion of lights, numerous

clergy, the grand voice of the organ, and in the tribune the children

of the choir, with the voices of angels. I was transported. A good

day, upon the whole, although I should have preferred to all this

agitation a few hours of solitude at the feet of Jesus. It is late;

René is waiting for me for the holy hour. Good-night, dear Kate; let

us love Jesus more and more.

19th.—This morning I hastened with Hélène to make the Way of the Cross

before there was a crowd. The service was very fine. Monseigneur was

present; he seemed to me to be in great suffering. I was at the sermon

preached by M. Bougaud on the Passion. What attractive eloquence! What

love for the divine Crucified One! The preacher showed us the Passion

as the true Sacrifice in which are united the three parts of the

sacrifices of antiquity: oblation, immolation, and communion. He

portrayed the august Victim, his beauty, his courage, and his love;

and in accents of the most touching pathos he retraced for us the

great tragedy of the cross. How he has understood and experienced the

Saviour’s love! Speech is inadequate to express his lofty enthusiasm,

accompanied as it is by a heart and an imagination enkindled with such

fervor.

On a day like this one does not know how to quit the church. We were

there again this evening for the sermon of the Père Perraud: “He was

bruised for our sins.” This young preacher was truly eloquent; he too

believes and loves, and the love of God is a flame which is marvellous

in its inspiration. He pointed out to us in the Passion of Jesus

Christ a great teaching: hatred of sin; a sure hope; the mercy of the

Lord. Kate dearest, this is the first Good Friday that I have ever

spent away from you!

20th.—Heard three Masses with René; his ardent piety is a help to my

tepidity. This is _the vigil par excellence_, the last of the holy

forty days.

M. Bougaud’s concluding sermon has been worthy of the preceding ones;

it was taken from the words of St. Augustine, spoken on the same day,

in the year 387, when St. Ambrose gave holy baptism to this _son of so

many tears_: “I believe in God; I believe in Jesus Christ; I believe

in the church.” To listen to M. Bougaud is a royal treat; I hung, as

it were, on his lips, drinking in that eloquence which is indeed the

two-edged sword spoken of in Scripture. “God is the place of souls. A

place is that which bears, which supports.” How ably he developed this

great proposition! “Jesus Christ is the only veritable source of love,

devotedness, immolation, and sacrifice. All in the present age that is

vile, or despicable, or impious will never be able to effect anything

against the church; while all it has that is beautiful, noble,

refined, great, and excellent will never be able to effect anything

but by the church; these I call the two axioms of the intelligence and

love of the church. The distinctive and immortal sign which

characterizes the church, and which belongs to her alone, is not

science, eloquence, or genius; it is devotedness, immolation,

sacrifice.” And speaking of the love of God, of Jesus Christ, and of

the church, the characteristic of living souls, he said: “It is

needful to awaken in souls this threefold love.” It was beautiful,

sublime; but a discourse like this cannot be reproduced by lips

profane. This evening we had no regular sermon, owing to the fatigue

of the preacher. He contented himself with thanking his male auditors

for their assiduous and willing attention (the Abbé Bougaud thanked us

also, with a charm peculiarly his own), gave a _résumé_ of the

principal features of the plan he has been following in this course of

instruction, and, after saying a few words on the subject of the

Paschal Communion, ended by inviting to it those who have not yet

responded to the call of their Saviour, entreating them to be among

the workmen who came at the eleventh hour. O Lord Jesus! draw all

souls unto thee; reveal to them the incomparable sweetness of thy

service.

Dear Kate, I am told so much of the beauties of the Procession of the

Resurrection that I have decided to go to it. Marianne promises to

wake me. Do you remember the good Duchess Elizabeth giving orders for

her foot to be pulled in the night by one of her attendants, and of

the pleasing trait of the Landgrave? To-morrow I shall have this

volume put into the post; read in every line the unalterable affection

of your Georgina. I do not mention René, our hearts having been melted

into one alone. _Alleluia_, dear sister of my soul! When will the

Catholic alleluia be sung in all the universe? Who can ever have made

the title of _papist_ a term of reproach? May England herself one day

become papist and receive the pardon of Ireland! O my country! how

devotedly I love her.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[128] “To every noble, all honor” (proverb).

[129] Mmes. de T—— were detained in Brittany at

the time of Georgina’s marriage. The birth of Jeanne,

Mme. Paul’s fourth child, took place the same day.

[130] Our Lady of Good Help.

[131] Sermon preached at St. Roch, 1861.

[132] “The Virgin’s Thread,” the poetic and popular

name in France for the gossamer.

[133] _L’entre chien et loup._

[134] _Désassombrir._

[135] _In choir_—in a body; a whole party.

[136] The white-handed Isabelle.

[137] Is. xxi. 11.

THE TYPICAL MEN OF AMERICA.

The commemoration of the birth of American independence one hundred

years ago, which is now engaging the attention of our entire

community, and exciting a lively interest in every quarter of the

civilized world, while it affords us an excellent opportunity for the

display of the most tangible evidences of great national prosperity

and progress in arts, sciences, and industrial pursuits, will not be

without its salutary influence on the thousands of intelligent

foreigners who this year, for the first time, may visit our shores.

Whether these strangers come to us merely to gratify their curiosity,

or, actuated by a laudable spirit of investigation, to study our laws,

institutions, and peculiar systems of labor, a personal inspection of

our social and political condition will doubtless have the effect of

removing many latent prejudices and false conceptions from their minds

which have been planted and fostered there by ignorant journalists and

hostile critics.

And if, instead of confining their observations to the things to be

seen in the grand Exhibition at Philadelphia, or even to the seaboard

cities, with their fleets of shipping, gigantic warehouses, and

immense factories, they should penetrate into the interior, they will

behold a condition of society unequalled in any country or age. There,

in the near and far West, the observant traveller will find millions

of happy homesteads, wherein the laborious husbandman can repose in

the twilight of his useful existence, conscious that the fertile soil

upon which he has spent the best years of his manhood, and the

roof-tree that covers him, are absolutely his own, subject to no

earthly authority but the law which he and his fellows have devised

for their mutual happiness and protection.

But while these advances in material as well as political greatness

are naturally subjects of honest pride with the people of this

country, they likewise give rise to grave reflections, and

instinctively suggest the question: Has our progress in the higher

aims of life, in civilization, morality, and religion, kept pace with

our extraordinary increase in wealth, population, political power, and

material development? We have no desire to throw a passing shadow over

the festive spirit of this centennial year by dwelling too

emphatically on individual and national faults—faults which, though

more apparent in our popular system of government than in the more

secretive polity of other nations, are nevertheless common to all—but

we are obliged in candor to admit that the grosser pursuits of life,

the desire to possess the perishable things of the world, have

occupied much more the attention of the busy brains and restless

physical energy of our population, than the cultivation of solid

mental gifts and the practice of public and private virtues.

Much, of course, may be urged in palliation of this undue tendency to

materialism. Possessing a fertile, unsettled country of vast

dimensions and inexhaustible agricultural and mineral wealth, it was

not unnatural that the new-born energies of our young republic should

be directed to the attainment of personal independence, by the

cultivation and exploration of the almost illimitable public domain of

which we became the owners by right of conquest or purchase. But is it

not now time to pause on the threshold of our second century of

existence, and enquire whether, in this headlong pursuit of material

success, we have not almost lost sight of the great and sole end for

which man was created, and the means by which his destiny in this

world and the next is to be accomplished? Has not our test of human

usefulness been an incomplete one, and our standard of mental and

moral excellence far too low?

In nature, it is said, everything is great or little by comparison. If

the same rule be applied to the conduct and achievements of the men of

the present day, as contrasted with those of a past age, we fear it

would be found that, while we are willing to honor the virtues of our

ancestors and eager to claim a share of their glory, we have

lamentably failed in following their brilliant example, and much more

so in improving on their plans and methods of benefiting mankind. And

yet examples worthy of imitation are not wanting in the short but

eventful pages of our history. We need not go back to remote antiquity

for them, or even search through tomes of mediæval chronicles for what

is so plentifully supplied us in modern records—models of moral

purity, unsullied reputation, unselfish ambition, and perfect manhood.

Take, for instance, those two illustrious men whose names are most

inseparably connected with American history—Christopher Columbus, the

discoverer of the New World, and George Washington, the central figure

in that group of patriots and statesmen who founded the only really

free republic that now exists or ever had an existence.

From the day he left his father’s house in Genoa, at the early age of

fifteen, till, spent by toil and worn down by disease, he expired in

Valladolid, the great discoverer pursued one unvarying course with a

tenacity of purpose and a strength of will that were truly heroic. But

Columbus was more than a hero: he was a Christian in the highest

sense, a Catholic thoroughly imbued with the doctrines of the church,

and as jealous of her honor and authority as the most loving son could

be of the reputation of his earthly mother. During nearly half a

century of constant study, adventure, grand successes, and

disheartening changes of fortune, the experienced seaman, erudite

astronomer, and close observer of natural phenomena exemplified in his

whole career, with singular consistency, all the supernatural virtues

with which God is sometimes pleased to endow his creatures. To a mind

well disciplined and stored with all the human knowledge of his age

were added a profound faith; deep-seated reverence for authority; a

sincere love, not only for friends and relatives, but for all mankind;

and an implicit reliance on the beneficence and justice of divine

Providence that no terror could shake and no reverse lessen in the

slightest degree.

A careful examination of the career of Columbus leads to the

conviction that his chief object and ultimate aim from the beginning,

what in after-life became more apparent, was to rescue the Holy

Sepulchre from the polluting grasp of the infidel, and to bring the

light of Christianity to races of men who were in darkness; all other

efforts, though consistent with this grand scheme, were subordinate

and auxiliary to it. Actuated by an ambition less exalted or an

enthusiasm less aborbing, he could never have attained that glorious

success which, though partial, has linked his name to immortality.

Neither was this crusader a theorist or a religious fanatic, but, on

the contrary, one of the most practical and calculating of men. Though

thoroughly satisfied with the feasibility of his plans and confident

in the rectitude of his motives, he neglected no opportunity of

qualifying himself for the noble task upon which he had set his heart.

While others attempted to reach Asia by slow and uncertain coasting

along the western shores of Africa, he proposed to launch boldly out

on the unknown and trackless deep, and, by taking a direct course

westward, to reach the remotest parts of the East, where was situated,

it was reported, the great Christian empire of Kublai Khan, the land

of gold and precious stones, a tithe of which would be sufficient to

initiate and sustain a new and more successful crusade against the

Mohammedans.

With this end constantly in view, Columbus carefully studied every

work on cosmogony and the physical sciences within his reach,

accurately noted down each new discovery in navigation, and was never

tired of consulting old mariners on their experience and observations.

Even the writings of learned churchmen were placed under contribution.

“He fortified himself,” says one of his biographers, “by references to

St. Isidore, Beda, St. Ambrose, and Duns Scotus.” He also became a

practical sailor, and grew as familiar with the frozen seas of Iceland

and the torrid heats of the African coast as with the bays and inlets

of his native Italy. “I have been seeking out the secrets of nature

for forty years,” he tells us, “and wherever ship has sailed, there

have I voyaged.”

Having at length, by study and personal observation, accumulated a

large and varied stock of scientific knowledge, the future discoverer

retired with his family to the remote island of Porto Santo, the

advanced outpost of African discovery. There for several years he

devoted his leisure to the patient collation and arrangement of his

authorities, till he was able to reduce a mass of crude philosophical

speculations and ill-digested cosmical theories to an elaborate

system, which, if not altogether borne out by subsequent

investigation, was in the main correct, and far in advance of the

intelligence of the fifteenth century.

His plans thus thoroughly matured, Columbus considered that the time

had arrived to put them into execution. He had already submitted

certain proposals to Portugal, but they were rejected by a body called

the Geographical Council, who, while they treated with seeming

contempt the scheme of the astute Italian, had the unparalleled

meanness to appropriate and attempt to use secretly the results of his

long years of toil and study. Armed with letters of recommendation, he

now appeared before the court of Spain, and, with the earnestness and

lucidity of a mind thoroughly convinced by long and patient analysis,

he explained to Ferdinand and Isabella his great project of crossing

the Atlantic and adding to their dual crown, not only a new continent,

but the everlasting glory of having been the means of bringing into

the bosom of the church millions of human beings. Though engaged in

the desperate war which ended in the final overthrow of Moslem power

in Spain, the Catholic sovereigns gave the daring adventurer a kind

reception, and referred his proposition to a junta of cosmographers

for consideration. The members of that body, however, seem to have

been as incapable of understanding the merits of the questions

submitted for their deliberation as they were of appreciating the high

resolve and mental comprehensiveness of their originator. After five

tedious years, during which Columbus, with anxious steps but

unfaltering courage, followed the court from place to place as the

exigencies of the war required, the junta reported that his plans were

“vain and impossible.”

Disgusted, but not disheartened, Columbus retired to the small port of

Palos, where, in the society of a few learned men, clerical and lay,

he forgot for a while his disappointment, but not his darling project.

Through the interference of friends negotiations with the Spanish

court were renewed, and again broken off on account of the conditions

demanded by Columbus being considered exorbitant. He did not think so,

however, and the result proved that he did not overrate the value of

his services. Abandoning all hope of co-operation from Spain, the

gifted Italian was about to pass the Pyrenees, and was actually on his

way to the French frontier, when a courier was despatched to recall

him to court. The remonstrance of influential friends, and the fear of

yielding to a rival the profits as well as the political prestige

which were sure to follow the success of Columbus’ projects, at last

overcame the caution of Ferdinand; while a strong sympathy with the

daring designs of the gifted adventurer, and an ardent desire for the

propagation of the faith, made Isabella an active advocate of his

interests. At Santa Fé, on the 17th of April, 1492, the agreement

between Columbus and the Catholic sovereigns was signed, whereby he

became admiral and viceroy of all the seas and countries he might

discover; a sharer, to the extent of one-tenth, in all the profits

accruing from the trade with such foreign possessions; and, by virtue

of his contribution of one-eighth of the expenses of the voyage, a

proportionate part of the gains which might result from it.

These conditions, which had previously been looked upon as

inadmissible, but which were now willingly allowed, furnish the key to

the character of Columbus. Few men of that age cared less for titles,

power, or wealth than he; but these means were necessary, he

considered, for the accomplishment of his grand ulterior design—the

Christian possession of Palestine. He had studied human nature

thoroughly, and knew that no great movement, social or political,

could ever command the confidence and sympathy of the world unless

directed by leaders of approved position and sustained by liberal

expenditures of money.

So far, then, his wish was gratified. Ferdinand, the cautious, had

yielded a reluctant consent to the fitting out of the expedition on

satisfactory terms, and Isabella, his consort, the noblest woman that

ever graced a throne, pawned her jewels to procure funds for its

proper equipment. Amid the congratulations of his sanguine friends and

the prayers of the populace, Columbus, with his fleet of three frail

boats and scanty crews, “after they had all confessed and received the

sacraments,” set sail from Palos on the memorable 3d of August, 1492.

Once out of sight of land, on the boundless ocean where keel of ship

had never ploughed before, naught around him but a gloomy waste of

waters, naught above him save the sun and stars, no friend to consult,

no familiar voice to whisper hope or combat despair, with a crew both

ignorant and superstitious, he held on his prearranged course,

self-reliant, watchful, and dauntless. Night succeeded day, and light

followed darkness, in dreary succession, yet still no land appeared.

Appalled by imaginary dangers and sick from hope deferred, his men,

whose hearts were never wholly in their work, first began to murmur,

then broke out into open reproaches, and finally threatened to throw

their captain into the sea. It was amid such trying circumstances that

the true character of the man became manifest in all its magnificent

proportions. Calm alike in sunshine and storm, his hand constantly on

the tiller and his eye directed to the west, he heeded little the

rumbling of mutinous discontent beneath his feet, nor for a moment did

he allow himself to doubt that God in his own good time would conduct

him safely to the haven of his hopes.

In the dark watches of the night, when the waves ran highest and the

heavens were obscured as with a pall, he felt that he had that within

his soul beckoning him on, more brilliant in its coruscations than the

starry cross that illumines the southern hemisphere, as unerring in

its guidance as the beacon which of old led the children of Israel

through the pathless desert—implicit belief in the sublimity of his

mission, and an entire reliance on the mercy of his Creator, in whose

hands he felt himself an humble instrument for the accomplishment of

noble ends. Nor were his confidence and humility long unrewarded.

After eight weeks of constant watching and unspeakable anxiety, land

was at length discovered, the first glimpse of the New World presented

to European eyes; and scarcely had the anchor of the _Santa Maria_

become embedded in the sands of San Salvador, than her brave commander

and his now repentant followers hastened ashore to plant the sacred

emblem of our salvation, and, weeping and prostrate on that heathen

soil, to pour forth their thanksgiving to the Almighty.

The honors which were showered upon Columbus on his return to Spain

after this great event were in strange contrast to the neglect,

treachery, and injustice of which he was afterwards the victim. Three

times again did he cross and recross the Atlantic, making on each

occasion new and important discoveries. But ignorance, venality, and

envy of his fair fame and spotless honor conspired to raise up against

him a host of powerful enemies, who at last stripped him of his

hard-earned rewards, and would, had it been possible, have robbed him

even of the glory of having been the discoverer of America. However,

he bore his trials with fortitude as he had worn his great honors with

meekness, seldom retorting on his enemies, and but once, as far as we

are aware, condescending to complain of the rank ingratitude of a

country to which he had given a whole continent. This occurred during

his fourth voyage, in a despatch to the king, in which he says:

“Wearied and sighing, I fell into a slumber, when I heard a piteous

voice saying to me: ‘O fool! and slow to believe and serve thy God,

who is the God of all. What did he more for Moses, or for his servant

David, than he has done for thee? From the time of thy birth he has

ever had thee under his peculiar care. When he saw thee of a fitting

age, he made thy name to resound marvellously throughout the earth,

and thou wert obeyed in many lands, and didst acquire honorable fame

among Christians. Of the gates of the ocean sea, shut up with mighty

chains, he delivered to thee the keys; the Indies, those wealthy

regions of the world, he gave thee for thine own, and empowered thee

to dispose of them to others according to thy pleasure. What did he

more for the great people of Israel when he led them forth from Egypt?

or for David, whom from being a shepherd he made a king in Judea? Turn

to him, then, and acknowledge thine error; his mercy is infinite. He

has many and vast inheritances yet in reserve. Fear not to seek them.

Thine age shall be no impediment to any great undertaking. Abraham was

above a hundred years when he begat Isaac; and was Sara youthful? Thou

urgest despondingly for succor. Answer! Who hath afflicted thee so

much and so many times—God or the world? The privileges and promises

which God hath made to thee he hath never broken; neither hath he

said, after having received thy services, that his meaning was

different, and to be understood in a different sense. He fulfils all

that he promises, and with increase. Such is his custom. I have shown

thee what thy Creator hath done for thee, and what he doeth for all.

The present is the reward of the toils and perils thou hast endured in

serving others.’”

Whether Columbus had a vision, which is not improbable, or that he

adopted this metaphorical style of complaint to avoid giving offence

to Ferdinand, it is equally characteristic of the depth of his

religious feelings and the depth of his gratitude to the Almighty. But

remonstrance, no matter how just or how delicately urged, had little

effect on the court of Spain. He was soon after recalled, to end his

days in comparative want and obscurity. It was not apparently in the

designs of Providence that Columbus should have succeeded in his

primary object—the delivery of Jerusalem—but his half-success, the

demonstration of the rotundity of the earth and the discovery of our

hemisphere, were productive of more benefit to humanity than the

complete victories of most other great benefactors of mankind. While

he has handed down to all ages an imperishable name, he has also left

an example to posterity—and particularly to us Americans, who owe him

so much gratitude and reverence—that far outweighs in importance his

contributions to science and his efforts to aggrandize his adopted

country. He has proved in his own person that a soul filled with deep

and intense devotion to the Creator, and a will conformable in all

things to his laws, are alone capable of leading human beings to the

achievement of true and lasting greatness.

Equally salutary, though different in degree and purpose, is the

lesson taught us by the life and labors of George Washington, who may

be considered as having been in the natural what Columbus was in the

supernatural order—a noble specimen of humanity; a lover and

benefactor of his kind.

As Americans, we cannot study too diligently the character of him who

was properly called the Father of his Country. No other among our

Revolutionary ancestors embodied in himself so many of those civic

virtues which constitute the perfect citizen. Like most men who have

played prominent parts on the world’s stage, Washington was born with

strong passions and an imperious disposition; but careful self-culture

early changed his powerful impulses into tenacity of purpose and

strength of will, while his natural exclusiveness gave him afterwards

that dignity of word and action which is absolutely necessary for

those who are called upon to command. As general of the army and

president of the infant republic, he had men around him of more

brilliancy, larger experience, and greater mental attainments; but he

alone possessed in a superior degree that well-balanced organization

and intuitive wisdom to which all could pay the homage of obedience.

Washington’s mind, however, was neither synthetical nor originating.

He was more a man of ability than of genius. He never could have

initiated a revolution, though once begun, as experience has proved,

he was admirably adapted to carry it out successfully. In a monarchy,

he might have been a loyal, chivalrous subject; under a wise,

conservative government, he would have been the first to oppose

innovation; under all circumstances, he could not have failed to be a

high-toned, accomplished, and honorable gentleman.

We are not surprised that our Protestant fellow-citizens love to point

with commendable pride to the example of their great and good

co-religionist, though Protestantism, particularly that professed in

his day, and by his family and associates, had little to do with the

formation of his character or the regulation of his public actions;

but as Catholics we yield to none in admiration and affection for the

noblest citizen of our common country. We can never forget that when

our numbers were “few and faint, but fearless still,” when Puritan

fanaticism and Anglican superciliousness endeavored to underrate our

services, malign our motives, and misrepresent our doctrines, George

Washington, rising superior to the narrow, petty bigotry of his

generation, was the first to give a hearty and candid recognition to

our claims as good and faithful citizens. His words to Bishop Carroll

and the other representatives of the Catholics of the Revolution are

indelibly impressed on the memory of the millions of Catholics among

us who feel, and are proud to acknowledge, that to him and his

associates they are mainly indebted for the civil and religious

liberty they now so freely enjoy. “As mankind become more liberal,” he

wrote, “they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct

themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to

the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among

the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I

presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part

which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the

establishment of their government, or the important assistance which

they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is

professed.”

Though a sincere Christian, Washington cannot be said to have been a

religious man. The cold formalities of Episcopalianism to which he was

accustomed could not touch his heart nor inspire his soul with great

and glowing emotions; but this was more the fault of the system in

which he was reared than of himself. The motives of his actions seem

to have been principally based on a refined sense of honor, on his

comprehension of the requirements of the natural law, which in his

regard was usually in conformity with the teachings of the church. He

was just, honest, truthful, and manly; faithful in his social

relations and moderate in his ambition. Had he possessed some of the

glorious enthusiasm of Columbus, great as he was, he might have been

still greater; and had the discoverer united to his other wonderful

qualities the worldly wisdom of Washington, his star might not have

descended amid the darkness and disappointment which clouded the last

years of his eventful life.

Taking the character of the two greatest personages, we find in their

collective lives the development of the highest qualities which human

nature is capable of exhibiting. As such, we desire to hold them up

for imitation to the youth of this country, who in a short time will

take the place of the present generation in the conduct of our civil

and domestic affairs. That those men were of different races and

peculiar national tendencies does not prevent the blending of their

characters into one harmonious whole. The greatest nations of ancient

and modern times, those which have developed the most equitable and

stable systems of government, with the greatest liberty and the

highest civilization, have been formed upon the union of various

tribes, clans, and families, having many radically different

tendencies and special characteristics. In what one people may be

deficient another may have a superabundance; and the volatile and

supersensitive nature of one race is counteracted by the sedateness

and stolidity of others less imaginative. As the river Nile, flowing

from different sources, bears in its course the riches of the soils of

a hundred climes, and empties them all into the lap of Egypt, so

families of men, gifted by their Creator with various qualities of

heart and mind, collect together, each with its contribution, to form

a lasting and magnificent commonwealth. This is as true of religious

as of political society. The church, guided by a divine instinct,

finds employment and turns to account the genius of all her children,

no matter how peculiar or dissimilar their attributes. She welcomes

and perfects the organizing power of the Latin races, and the fire and

enthusiasm of the Celtic, equally with the solidity of the Germanic

and the imagination of the Orientals. Unity in diversity, authority

with liberty, are essentials and correlative in the science of good

government, whether it be that of a republic or of the universal

church.

Who knows but that the nation now in process of forming in the bosom

of our republic, from the various races of Europe, with ampler natural

capacities quickened into greater activity by the political character

of its institutions, is destined, in the order of events, to give to

Christianity an expression more adequate and more in accordance with

its universal spirit and divine origin? The church of Christ has no

reverses in the movement of her divine mission, and she has turned to

account each race according to its gifts in the Old World from her

beginning. May not all these, in their best energies combined in the

New, be called to realize the highest type of the Christian character?

Do not the leading traits of Columbus and Washington point out to us

the ideal Christian, the union of the most exalted faith with the

thoroughest manhood? For as Christ was perfect God and perfect man in

one personality, so is he who unites the most exalted faith with the

most thorough manhood in one personality the complete Christian. Is

not this ideal Christian the glorious promise of the future of this

New World?

Protestantism, which has been the religion of the vast majority of our

countrymen, is gradually losing its hold upon their convictions. The

religion alone which can claim the attention of all mankind is the

Catholic. It alone has all the notes of truth, both inward and

outward, in its favor.

Unsupported by religious convictions, no nation can realize its true

destiny. Unity of religious conviction, and the virtues necessary to

uphold its institutions, are more necessary to a republic like ours

than to any other form of political government. The principles and

views of human nature on which our republic is based are sustained by

the doctrines of Christianity taught by the Catholic Church. Gradually

the church and the republic are approaching each other, and with this

nearer approach there springs up reciprocal appreciation and sympathy.

Fanatics on one hand, and infidels on the other, may warn, may threat,

and may attempt to keep them apart by conspiracy and persecution, but

in vain; for God, in whose providence they are destined to be united,

will not be frustrated by the puny efforts of his enemies to keep them

asunder. Out of this divine wedlock will spring forth children whose

lives will be of the highest type of Christian manhood, and whose

civilization will be the most glorious development of God’s kingdom on

earth.

CATHOLICS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The moment of England’s triumph in the last century was the dawn of

American independence. When England, aided by her colonies, had at

last wrested Canada from France, and, forcing that weakened power to

relinquish Louisiana to Spain, had restored Havana to the Catholic

sovereign only at the price of Florida, her sway seemed secure over

all North America from the icy ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, from the

shores of the Atlantic to the Mississippi. But her very success had

aroused questions and created wants which were not to be answered or

solved until her mighty American power was shattered.

While Spain and France kept colonies in leading-strings, England

allowed her American provinces to thrive by her utter neglect of them.

Monarchs granted charters liberally, and with that their interest

seemed to vanish, until it was discovered that offices could be found

there for court favorites. But the people had virtually constituted

governments of their own; had their own treasury, made their own laws,

waged their wars with the Indian, carried on trade, unaided and almost

unrecognized by the mother country.

The final struggle with France had at last awakened England to the

importance, wealth, and strength of the American colonies. It appeared

to embarrassed English statesmen that the depleted coffers of the

national treasury might be greatly aided by taxing these prosperous

communities. The Americans, paying readily taxes where they could

control their disbursement, refused to accept new burdens and to pay

the mother country for the honor of being governed. The relation of

colonies to the mother country; the question of right in the latter to

tax the former; the bounds and just limits on either side, involved

new and undiscussed points. They now became the subject of debate in

Parliament, in colonial assemblies, in every town gathering, and at

every fireside in the American colonies. The people were all British

subjects, proud of England and her past; a large majority were devoted

to the Protestant religion and the house of Hanover, and sought to

remain in adherence to both while retaining all the rights they

claimed as Englishmen.

A small body of Catholics existed in the country. What their position

was on the great questions at issue can be briefly told.

They were of many races and nationalities. No other church then or now

could show such varieties, blended together by a common faith.

Maryland, settled by a Catholic proprietor, with colonists largely

Catholic, and for a time predominantly so, contained some thousands of

native-born Catholics of English, and to some extent of Irish, origin,

proud of their early Maryland record, of the noble character of the

charter, and of the nobly tolerant character of the early laws and

practice of the land of Mary. In Pennsylvania a smaller Catholic body

existed, more scattered, by no means so compact or so influential as

their Maryland brethren—settlers coming singly during the eighteenth

century mainly, or descendants of such emigrants, some of whom had

been sent across the Atlantic as bondmen by England, others coming as

redemptioners, others again as colonists of means and position. They

were not only of English, Irish, and Scotch origin, but also of the

German race, with a few from France and other Catholic states. New

Jersey and New York had still fewer Catholics than Pennsylvania. In

the other colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia, they existed only

as individuals lost in the general body of the people. But all along

the coast were scattered by the cruel hand of English domination the

unfortunate Acadians, who had been ruthlessly torn from their Nova

Scotian villages and farms, deprived of all they had on earth—home and

property and kindred. With naught left them but their faith, these

Acadians formed little groups of dejected Catholics in many a part,

not even their noble courage amid unmerited suffering exciting

sympathy or kindly encouragement from the colonists. Florida had a

remnant of its old Spanish population, with no hopes for the future

from the Protestant power to which the fortunes of war and the

vicissitudes of affairs had made them subjects. There were besides in

that old Catholic colony some Italians and Minorcans, brought over

with Greeks under Turnbull’s project of colonization. Maine had her

Indians, of old steady foes of New England, now at peace, submitting

to the new order of things, thoroughly Catholic from the teaching of

their early missionaries. New York had Catholic Indians on her

northern frontier. The Catholic Wyandots clustered around the pure

streams and springs of Sandusky. Further west, from Detroit to the

mouth of the Ohio, from Vincennes to Lake Superior, were little

communities of Canadian French, all Catholics, with priests and

churches, surrounded by Indian tribes among all which missionaries had

labored, and not in vain. Some tribes were completely Catholic; others

could show some, and most of them many, who had risen from the

paganism of the red men to the faith of Christ.

Such was the Catholic body—colonists who could date back their origin

to the foundation of Maryland or Acadia, Florida or Canada, Indians of

various tribes, new-comers from England, Germany, or Ireland. There

were, too, though few, converts, or descendants of converts, who,

belonging to the Protestant emigration, had been led by God’s grace to

see the truth, and who resolutely shared the odium and bondage of an

oppressed and unpopular church.

The questions at issue between the colonies and the mother country

were readily answered by the Catholics of every class. Catholic

theologians nowhere but in the Gallican circles of France had learned

to talk of the divine right of kings. The truest, plainest doctrines

of the rights of the people found their exposition in the works of

Catholic divines. By a natural instinct they sided with those who

claimed for these new communities in the western world the right of

self-government. Catholics, of whatever race or origin, were on this

point unanimous. Evidence meets us on every side. Duché, an Episcopal

clergyman, will mention Father Harding, the pastor of the Catholics in

Philadelphia, for “his known attachment to British liberty”—they had

not yet begun to talk of American liberty. Indian, French, and

Acadian, bound by no tie to England, could brook no subjection to a

distant and oppressive power. The Irish and Scotch Catholics, with old

wrongs and a lingering Jacobite dislike to the house of Hanover,

required no labored arguments to draw them to the side of the popular

movement. All these elements excited distrust in England. Even a

hundred years before in the councils of Britain fears had been

expressed that the Maryland Catholics, if they gained strength, would

one day attempt to set up their independence; and the event justified

the fear. If they did not originate the movement, they went heartily

into it.

The English government had begun in Canada its usual course of

harassing and grinding down its Catholic subjects, putting the

thousands of Canadians completely at the mercy of the few English

adventurers or office-holders who entered the province, giving three

hundred and sixty Protestant sutlers and camp-followers the rights of

citizenship and all the offices in Canada, while disfranchising the

real people of the province, the one hundred and fifty thousand

Canadian Catholics. How such a system works we have seen, unhappily,

in our own day and country. But with the growing discontent in her old

colonies, caused by the attempts of Parliament to tax the settlers

indirectly, where they dared not openly, England saw that she must

take some decisive step to make the Canadians contented subjects, or

be prepared to lose her dear-bought conquest as soon as any war should

break out in which she herself might be involved. Instead of keeping

the treaty of Paris as she had kept that of Limerick, England for once

resolved to be honest and fulfil her agreement.

It was a moment when the thinking men among the American leaders

should have won the Canadians as allies to their hopes and cause; but

they took counsel of bigotry, allowed England to retrace her false

steps, and by tardy justice secure the support of the Canadians.

The Quebec act of 1774 organized Canada, including in its extent the

French communities in the West. Learning a lesson from Lord Baltimore

and Catholic Maryland, “the nation which would not so much as legally

recognize the existence of a Catholic in Ireland, now from political

considerations recognized on the St. Lawrence the free exercise of the

religion of the Church of Rome, and confirmed to the clergy of that

church their rights and dues.”

Just and reasonable as the act was, solid in policy, and, by

introducing the English criminal law and forms of government,

gradually preparing the people for an assimilation in form to the

other British colonies, this Quebec act, from the simple fact that it

tolerated Catholics, excited strong denunciation on both sides of the

Atlantic. The city of London addressed the king before he signed the

bill, petitioning that he should refrain from doing so. “The Roman

Catholic religion, which is known to be idolatrous and bloody, is

established by this bill,” say these wiseacres, imploring George III.,

as the guardian of the laws, liberty, and religion of his people, and

as the great bulwark of the Protestant faith, not to give his royal

assent.

In America, when the news came of its passage, the debates as to their

wrongs, as to the right of Parliament to pass stamp acts or levy

duties on imports, to maintain an army or quarter soldiers on the

colonists, seemed to be forgotten in their horror of this act of

toleration. In New York the flag with the union and stripes was run

up, bearing bold and clear on a white stripe the words, “No Popery.”

The Congress of 1774, though it numbered some of the clearest heads in

the colonies, completely lost sight of the vital importance of Canada

territorially, and of the advantage of securing as friends a community

of 150,000 whose military ability had been shown on a hundred

battle-fields. Addressing the people of Great Britain, this Congress

says: “By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended,

modelled, and governed as that, by being disunited from us, detached

from our interests by civil as well as religious prejudices; that by

their numbers swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by

their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they

might become formidable to us, and on occasion be fit instruments in

the hands of power to reduce the ancient free Protestant colonies to

the same slavery with themselves.” “Nor can we suppress our

astonishment that a British parliament should ever consent to

establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in

blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and

rebellion through every part of the world.”

This address, the work of the intense bigot John Jay, and of the

furious storm of bigotry evoked in New England and New York, was most

disastrous in its results to the American cause. Canada was not so

delighted with her past experience of English rule or so confident of

the future as to accept unhesitatingly the favors accorded by the

Quebec act. She had from the first sought to ally herself with the

neighboring English colonies, and to avoid European complications.

When she proposed the alliance, they declined. She would now have met

their proposal warmly; but when this address was circulated in Canada,

it defeated the later and wiser effort of Congress to win that

province through Franklin, Chase, and the Carrolls. It made the

expeditions against the British forces there, at first so certain of

success by Canadian aid, result in defeat and disgrace. In New York a

little colony of Scotch Catholics, who would gladly have paid off the

score of Culloden, took alarm at the hatred shown their faith, and

fled with their clergyman to Canada to give strength to our foe, when

they wished to be of us and with us. In the West it enabled British

officers to make Detroit a centre from which they exerted an influence

over the Western tribes that lasted down into the present century, and

which Jay’s treaty—a tardy endeavor to undo his mischief of 1774—did

not succeed in checking.

Pamphlets, attacking or defending the Quebec act, appeared on both

sides of the Atlantic. In the English interest it was shown that the

treaty of Paris already guaranteed their religion to the Canadians,

and that the rights of their clergy were included in this. It was

shown that to insist on England’s establishing the state church in

Canada would justify her in doing the same in New England. “An

Englishman’s Answer” to the address of Congress rather maliciously

turned Jay’s bombast on men like himself by saying: “If the actions of

the different sects in religion are inquired into, we shall find, by

turning over the sad historic page, that it was the —— sect (I forget

what they call them; I mean the sect which is still most numerous in

New England, and not the sect which they so much despise) that in the

last century deluged our island in blood; that even shed the blood of

the sovereign, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, superstition,

hypocrisy, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of

the empire.”

One who later in life became a Catholic, speaking of the effect of

this bill in New England, says: “We were all ready to swear that this

same George, by granting the Quebec bill, had thereby become a

traitor, had broke his coronation oath, was secretly a papist,” etc.

“The real fears of popery in New England had its influence.” “The

common word then was: ‘No king, no popery.’”

But though Canada was thus alienated, and some Catholics at the North

frightened away, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the French West the

fanaticism was justly regarded as a mere temporary affair, the last

outburst of a bigotry that could not live and thrive on the soil.

Providence was shaping all things wisely; but we cannot be surprised

at the wonder some soon felt. “Now, what must appear very singular,”

says the writer above quoted, “is that the two parties naturally so

opposite to each other should become, even at the outset, united in

opposing the efforts of the mother country. And now we find the New

England people and the Catholics of the Southern States fighting side

by side, though stimulated by extremely different motives: the one

acting through fear lest the king of England should succeed in

establishing among us the Catholic religion; the other equally fearful

lest his bitterness against the Catholic faith should increase till

they were either destroyed or driven to the mountains and waste places

of the wilderness.”

Such was the position of the Catholics as the rapid tide of events was

bearing all on to a crisis. The Catholics in Maryland and Pennsylvania

were outspoken in their devotion to the cause of the colonies. In

Maryland Charles Carroll of Carrollton, trained abroad in the schools

of France and the law-courts of England, with all the learning of the

English barrister widened and deepened by a knowledge of the civil law

of the Continent, grappled in controversy the veteran Dulany of

Maryland. In vain the Tory advocate attempted, by sneers and jibes at

the proscribed position of the foreign-trained Catholic, to evade the

logic of his arguments. The eloquence and learning of Carroll

triumphed, and he stood before his countrymen disenthralled. There, at

least, it was decided by the public mind that Catholics were to enjoy

all the rights of their fellow-citizens, and that citizens like

Carroll were worthy of their highest honors. “The benign aurora of the

coming republic,” says Bancroft, “lighted the Catholic to the recovery

of his rightful political equality in the land which a Catholic

proprietary had set apart for religious freedom.” In 1775 Charles

Carroll was a member of the first Committee of Observation and a

delegate to the Provincial Convention of Maryland, the first Catholic

in any public office since the days of James II. “Charles Carroll of

Carrollton, the great representative of his fellow-believers, and

already an acknowledged leader of the patriots, sat in the Maryland

Convention as the delegate of a Protestant constituency, and bore an

honorable share in its proceedings.”

When the news of Lexington rang through the land, borne from town to

town by couriers on panting steeds, regiments were organized in all

the colonies. Catholics stepped forward to shoulder their rifles and

firelocks. Few aspired to commissions, from which they had hitherto

been excluded in the militia and troops raised for actual service, but

the rank and file showed Catholics, many of them men of intelligence

and fair education, eager to meet all perils and to prove on the field

of battle that they were worthy of citizenship in all its privileges.

Ere long, however, Catholics by ability and talent won rank in the

army and navy of the young republic.

We Catholics have been so neglectful of our history that no steps were

ever taken to form a complete roll of those glorious heroes of the

faith who took part in the Revolutionary struggle. The few great names

survive—Moylan, Burke, Barry, Vigo, Orono, Louis, Landais; here and

there the journal of a Catholic soldier like McCurtin has been

printed; but in our shameful neglect of the past we have done nothing

to compile a roll that we can point to with pride.

When hostilities began, it became evident that Canada must be gained.

Expeditions were fitted out to reduce the British posts. The Canadians

evinced a friendly disposition, giving ready assistance by men,

carriages, and provisions to an extent that surprised the Americans.

Whole parishes even offered to join in reducing Quebec and lowering

the hated flag of England from the Castle of St. Louis, where the

lilies had floated for nearly two centuries. But the bigotry that

inspired some of our leaders was too strong in many of the

subordinates to permit them to reason. They treated these Catholic

Canadians as enemies, ill-used and dragooned them so that almost the

whole country was ready to unite in repulsing them. Then came

Montgomery’s disaster, and the friends of America in Canada dwindled

to a few priests: La Valiniere, Carpentier, the ex-Jesuits Huguet and

Floquet, and the Canadians who enlisted in Livingston’s, Hazen’s, and

Duggan’s corps, under Guillot, Loseau, Aller, Basadé, Menard, and

other Catholic officers.

Then Congress awoke to its error. As that strategic province was

slipping from the hands of the confederated colonies, as Hazen’s

letters came urging common sense, Congress appointed a commission with

an address to the Canadian people to endeavor even then to win them.

Benjamin Franklin was selected with two gentlemen from Catholic

Maryland—Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll. To increase their

influence, Congress requested the Rev. John Carroll to accompany them,

hoping that the presence of a Catholic priest and a Catholic layman,

both educated in France and acquainted with the French character,

would effect more than any argument that could be brought to bear on

the Canadians. They hastened to do their utmost, but eloquence and

zeal failed. The Canadians distrusted the new order of things in

America; the hostility shown in the first address of Congress seemed

too well supported by the acts of Americans in Canada. They turned a

deaf ear to the words of the Carrolls, and adhered to England.

Canada was thus lost to us. Taking our stand among the nations of the

earth, we could not hope to include that province, but must ever have

it on our flank in the hands of England. This fault was beyond

redemption.

But the recent war with Pontiac was now recalled. Men remembered how

the Indian tribes of the West, organized by the mastermind of that

chief, had swept away almost in an instant every fort and military

post from the Mississippi to the Alleghanies, and marked out the

frontier by a line of blazing houses and villages from Lake Erie to

Florida. What might these same Western hordes do in the hands of

England, directed, supplied, and organized for their fell work by

British officers! The Mohawks and other Iroquois of New York had

retired to the English lines, and people shuddered at what was to come

upon them there. The Catholic Indians in Maine had been won to our

side by a wise policy. Washington wrote to the tribe in 1775, and

deputies from all the tribes from the Penobscot to Gaspé met the

Massachusetts Council at Watertown. Ambrose Var, the chief of the St.

John’s Indians, Orono of Penobscot, came with words that showed the

reverent Christian. Of old they had been enemies; they were glad to

become friends: they would stand beside the colonists. Eminently

Catholic, every tribe asked for a priest; and Massachusetts promised

to do her best to obtain French priests for her Catholic allies.

Throughout the war these Catholic Indians served us well, and Orono,

who bore a Continental commission, lived to see priests restored to

his village and religion flourishing. Brave and consistent, he never

entered the churches of the Protestant denominations, though often

urged to do so. He practised his duties faithfully as a Catholic, and

replied: “We know our religion and love it; we know nothing of yours.”

Maine acknowledges his worth by naming a town after this grand old

Catholic.

But the West! Men shuddered to think of it. The conquest of Canada by

a course of toleration and equality to Catholics would have made all

the Indian tribes ours. The Abnakis had been won by a promise to them

as Catholics; the Protestant and heathen Mohawks were on the side of

England, though the Catholics of the same race in Canada were

friendly. If the Indians in the West could be won to neutrality even,

no sacrifice would be too great.

Little as American statesmen knew it, they had friends there. And if

the United States at the peace secured the Northwest and extended her

bounds to the Mississippi, it was due to the Very Rev. Peter Gibault,

the Catholic priest of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and to his sturdy

adherent, the Italian Colonel Vigo. Entirely ignorant of what the

feeling there might be, Col. George Rogers Clark submitted to the

legislature of Virginia, whose backwoods settlement, Kentucky, was

immediately menaced, a plan for reducing the English posts in the

Northwest. Jefferson warmly encouraged the dangerous project, on which

so much depended. Clark, with his handful of men, struck through the

wilderness for the old French post of Kaskaskia. He appeared before it

on the 4th of July, 1778. But the people were not enemies. Their

pastor had studied the questions at issue, and, as Clark tells us,

“was rather prejudiced in favor of us.” The people told the American

commander they were convinced that the cause was one which they ought

to espouse, and that they should be happy to convince him of their

zeal. When Father Gibault asked whether he was at liberty to perform

his duty in his church, Clark told him that he had nothing to do with

churches, except to defend them from insult; that, by the laws of the

state, his religion had as great privileges as any other. The first

Fourth of July celebration at Kaskaskia was a hearty one. The streets

were strewn with flowers and hung with flags, and all gave themselves

up to joy. But Clark’s work was not done. The English lay in force at

Vincennes. Father Gibault and Colonel Vigo, who had been in the

Spanish service, but came over to throw in his fortunes with us, urged

Clark to move at once on Vincennes. It seemed to him rash, but Father

Gibault showed how it could be taken. He went on himself with Dr.

Lefont, won every French hamlet to the cause, and conciliated the

Indians wherever he could reach them. Vigo, on a similar excursion,

was captured by British Indians and carried a prisoner to Hamilton,

the English commander at Vincennes, but that officer felt that he

could not detain a Spanish subject, and was compelled by the French to

release him. When Clark, in February, appeared with his half-starved

men, including Captain Charlevoix’s company of Kaskaskia Catholics,

before Vincennes, and demanded its surrender with as bold a front as

though he had ten thousand men at his back, the English wavered, and

one resolute attack compelled them to surrender at discretion. What is

now Indiana and Illinois, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, was won to the

United States. To hold it and supply the Indians required means. Clark

issued paper money in the name of Virginia, and the patriotic Colonel

Vigo and Father Gibault exhausted all their resources to redeem this

paper and maintain its credit, although the hope of their ever being

repaid for their sacrifice was slight, and, slight as it might have

been, was never realized.[138] Their generous sacrifice enabled Clark

to retain his conquest, as the spontaneous adhesion of his allies to

the cause had enabled him to effect it. The securing of the old French

posts Vincennes, Fort Chartres, and others in the West which the

English had occupied, together with the friendship of the French

population, secured all the Indians in that part, and relieved the

frontiers of half their danger. Well does Judge Law remark: “Next to

Clark and Vigo, the United States are more indebted to Father Gibault

for the accession of the States comprised in what was the original

Northwestern Territory than to any other man.”

Those Western Catholics did good service in many an expedition, and in

1780 La Balm, with a force raised in the Illinois settlements and

Vincennes, undertook to capture Detroit, the headquarters of the

English atrocities. He perished with nearly all his little Catholic

force where Fort Wayne stands, leaving many a family in mourning.

The first bugle-blast of America for battle in the name of freedom

seemed to wake a response in many Catholic hearts in Europe. Officers

came over from France to offer their swords, the experience they had

acquired, and the training they had developed in the campaigns of the

great commanders of the time. Among the names are several that have

the ring of the old Irish brigade. Dugan, Arundel, De Saint Aulaire,

Vibert, Col. Dubois, De Kermorvan, Lieut.-Col. de Franchessen, St.

Martin, Vermonet, Dorré, Pelissier, Malmady, Mauduit, Rochefermoy, De

la Neuville, Armand, Fleury, Conway, Lafayette, Du Portail, Gouvion,

Du Coudray, Pulaski, Roger, Dorset, Gimat, Brice, and others, rendered

signal service, especially as engineers and chiefs of staff, where

skill and military knowledge were most required. Around Lafayette

popular enthusiasm gathered, but he was not alone. Numbers of these

Catholic officers served gallantly at various points during the war,

aiding materially in laying out works and planning operations, as well

as by gallantly doing their duty in the field, sharing gayly the

sufferings and privations of the men of ’76.

Some who came to serve in the ranks or as officers rendered other

service to the country. Ædanus Burke, of Galway, a pupil of St.

Omer’s, like the Carrolls, came out to serve as a soldier, represented

South Carolina in the Continental Congress, and was for some time

chief-justice of his adopted State. P. S. Duponceau, who came over as

aide to Baron Steuben in 1777, became the founder of American

ethnology and linguistics. His labors in law, science, and American

history will not soon be forgotten.

Meanwhile, Catholics were swelling the ranks, and, like Moylan, rising

to fame and position. The American navy had her first commodore in the

Catholic Barry, who had kept the flag waving undimmed on the seas from

1776, and in 1781 engaged and took the two English vessels, _Atlanta_

and _Trepassay_; and on other occasions handled his majesty’s vessels

so roughly that General Howe endeavored to win him by offers of money

and high naval rank to desert the cause. Besides Catholics born, who

served in army or navy, in legislative or executive, there were also

men who took part in the great struggle whose closing years found them

humble and devoted adherents of the Catholic Church. Prominent among

these was Thomas Sims Lee, Governor of Maryland from 1779 to the close

of the war. He did much to contribute to the glorious result,

represented his State in the later Continental Congress and in the

Constitutional Convention, as Daniel Carroll, brother of the

archbishop, also did. Governor Lee, after becoming a Catholic, was

reelected governor, and lived to an honored old age. Daniel Barber,

who bore his musket in the Connecticut line, became a Catholic, and

his son, daughter-in-law, and their children all devoted themselves to

a religious life, a family of predilection.

In Europe the Catholic states, France and Spain, watched the progress

of American affairs with deepest interest. At the very outset

Vergennes, the able minister of France, sent an agent to study the

people and report the state of affairs. The clear-headed statesmen saw

that America would become independent. In May, 1776, Louis XVI.

announced to the Catholic monarch that he intended to send indirectly

two hundred thousand dollars. The King of Spain sent a similar sum to

Paris. This solid aid, the first sinews of war from these two Catholic

sovereigns, was but an earnest of good-will. In France the sentiment

in favor of the American cause overbore the cautious policy of the

king, the amiable Louis XVI. He granted the aid already mentioned, and

induced the King of Spain to join in the act; he permitted officers to

leave France in order to join the American armies; he encouraged

commerce with the revolting colonies by exempting from duties the

ships which bore across the ocean the various goods needed by the army

and the people. The enthusiasm excited by Lafayette, who first heard

of the American cause from the lips of an English prince, soon broke

down all the walls of caution. An arrangement was made by which

material of war from the government armories and arsenals was sent

out, nominally from a mercantile house. A year after the Declaration

of Independence, France, which had opened her ports to American

privateers and courteously avoided all English complaints, resolved to

take a decisive step—not only to acknowledge the independence of the

United States, but to support it. Marie Antoinette sympathized deeply

with this country, and won the king to give his full support to our

cause. On the 6th of February, 1778, Catholic France signed the treaty

with the United States, and thus a great power in Europe set the

example to others in recognizing us as one of the nations of the

earth. America had a Catholic godmother. Amid the miseries of Valley

Forge Washington issued a general order: “It having pleased the

Almighty Ruler of the universe to defend the cause of the United

American States, and finally to raise us up a powerful friend among

the princes of the earth, to establish our liberty and independence

upon a lasting foundation, it becomes us to set apart a day for

gratefully acknowledging the divine goodness and celebrating the

important event, which we owe to his divine interposition.” France now

openly took part in the war, and in July, 1778, a French fleet under

d’Estaing appeared on our coasts, neutralizing the advantage which

England had over us by her naval superiority. The ocean was no longer

hers to send her army from point to point on the coast. This fleet

engaged Lord Howe near Newport, and co-operated with Sullivan in

operations against the English in Rhode Island. After cruising in the

West Indies it again reappeared on our coast to join Lincoln in a

brave but unsuccessful attack on Savannah, in which fell the gallant

Pulaski, who some years before had asked the blessing of the pope’s

nuncio on himself and his gallant force in the sanctuary of Our Lady

of Czenstochowa, before his long defence of that convent fortress

against overwhelming Russian forces.

In July, 1780, another fleet, commanded by the Chevalier de Ternay,

entered the harbor of Newport, bringing a French army commanded by an

experienced general, John Baptiste de Vimeur, Count de Rochambeau. An

army of Catholics with Catholic chaplains, observing the glorious

ritual of the church with all solemnity, was hailed with joy in New

England. The discipline of that army, the courteous manners of

officers and privates, won all hearts. What that army effected is too

well known to be chronicled here in detail. When Lafayette had

cornered Cornwallis in Yorktown, Washington and Rochambeau marched

down, the fleet of the Count de Grasse defeated Admiral Graves off the

capes of Virginia, and, transporting the allied armies down, joined

with them in compelling Cornwallis to surrender his whole force; and

old St. Joseph’s Church, in Philadelphia, soon rang with the grand _Te

Deum_ chanted in thanksgiving at a Mass offered up in presence of the

victorious generals.

None question the aid given us by Catholic France. Several who came as

volunteers, or in the army or fleet, remained in the United States.

One officer who had served nobly in the field laid aside his sword and

returned to labor during the rest of his life for the well-being of

America as a devoted Catholic priest.

But France was not the only Catholic friend of our cause. Spain had,

as we have seen, at an early period in the war, sent a liberal gift of

money. She opened her ports to our privateers, and refused to give up

Captain Lee, of Marblehead, whom England demanded. She went further;

for when intelligence came of the Declaration of Independence, she

gave him supplies and repaired his ship. She subsequently sent cargoes

of supplies to us from Bilbao, and put at the disposal of the United

States ammunition and supplies at New Orleans. When an American envoy

reached Madrid, she sent blankets for ten regiments and made a gift of

$150,000 through our representative. When the gallant young Count

Bernardo de Galvez, whose name is commemorated in Galveston, was made

governor of Louisiana, he at once tendered his services to us; he

forwarded promptly the clothing and military stores in New Orleans;

and when the English seized an American schooner on the Louisiana

lakes, he confiscated all English vessels in reprisal.

Spain had not formally recognized the United States. She offered her

mediation to George III., and on its refusal by that monarch, for that

and other causes she declared war against England. Galvez moved at

once. He besieged the English at Baton Rouge, and, after a long and

stubborn resistance, compelled it to surrender in September, 1780; he

swept the waters of English vessels, and then, with the co-operation

of a Spanish fleet under Admiral Solano and de Monteil, laid siege to

the ancient town of Pensacola. The forts were held by garrisons of

English troops, Hessians, and northern Tories, well supplied and ready

to meet the arms of the Catholic king. The resistance of the British

governor, Campbell, was stout and brave; but Pensacola fell, and

British power on our southern frontier was crushed, and neutralized.

Spain gave one of the greatest blows to England in the war, next in

importance to the overthrow of Burgoyne and Cornwallis.

On the Northwest, too, where English influence over the Indians was so

detrimental, Spain checked it by the reduction of English posts that

had been the centre of the operations of the savage foe. America was

not slow in showing her sense of gratitude to Catholic Spain. Robert

Morris wrote to Galvez: “I am directed by the United States to express

to your excellency the grateful sense they entertain of your early

efforts in their favor. Those generous efforts gave them so favorable

an impression of your character and that of your nation that they have

not ceased to wish for a more intimate connection with your country.”

Galvez made the connection more intimate by marrying a lady of New

Orleans, who in time presided in Mexico as wife of the Viceroy of New

Spain.

But it was not only by the operations on land that the country of

Isabella the Catholic aided our cause. Before she declared war against

England, her navy had been increased and equipped, so that her fleets

co-operated ably with those of France in checking English power and

lowering English supremacy on the ocean.

Yet a greater service than that of brave men on land or sea was

rendered by her diplomacy. Russia had been almost won by England; her

fleet was expected to give its aid to the British navy in reasserting

her old position; but Spain, while still neutral, proposed an armed

neutrality, and urged it with such skill and address that she detached

Russia from England, and arrayed her virtually as an opponent where

she had been counted upon with all certainty as an ally. Spain really

thus banded all Continental Europe against England, and then, by

declaring war herself, led Holland to join us openly.

Nor were France and Spain our only Catholic friends. The Abbé Niccoli,

minister of Tuscany at the court of France, was a zealous abettor of

the cause of America. In Germany the Hessians, sent over here to do

the work of English oppression, were all raised in Protestant states,

while history records the fact that the Catholic princes of the empire

discouraged the disgraceful raising of German troops to be used in

crushing a free people; and this remonstrance and opposition of the

Catholic princes put a stop to the German aid which had been rendered

to our opponent.

Never was there such harmonious Catholic action as that in favor of

American independence a hundred years ago. The Catholics in the

country were all Whigs; the Catholics of Canada were favorable, ready

to become our fellow-citizens; France and Spain aided our cause with

money and supplies, by taking part in the war, and by making a

Continental combination against England; Catholic Italy and Catholic

Germany exerted themselves in our favor. Catholics did their duty in

the legislature and in the council-hall, in the army and in the navy;

Catholics held for us our northeastern frontier, and gave us the

Northwest; Catholic officers helped to raise our armies to the grade

of European science; a Catholic commander made our navy triumph on the

sea. Catholic France helped to weaken the English at Newport,

Savannah, and Charleston; crippled England’s naval power in the West

Indies, and off the capes of Virginia utterly defeated them; then with

her army aided Washington to strike the crowning blow at Cornwallis in

Yorktown. Catholic Spain aided us on the western frontier by capturing

British posts, and under Galvez reduced the British and Tories at

Baton Rouge and Pensacola. And, on the other hand, there is no

Catholic’s name in all the lists of Tories.

Washington uttered no words of flattery, no mere commonplaces of

courtesy, but what he felt and knew to be the truth, when, in reply to

the Catholic address, he said: “I presume that your fellow-citizens

will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the

accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their

government, or the important assistance which they received from a

nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.”

[138] “Father Gibault, but especially Vigo, had on

hand at the close of the campaign more than $20,000 of

this worthless trash (the only funds, however which

Clark had in his military chest), and not one dollar

of which was ever redeemed.”

THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.[139]

What is the real nature of the new political movement or organization

in Ireland which emblazons on its banner the device “Home Rule”?

Beyond all question it has attained to national dimensions. It has

concentrated upon itself more of the attention and interest, hopes and

sympathies, of the Irish people than any political endeavor on the

same field of action for many years. More than this, it seems to have

succeeded in exacting a tribute to its power and authority which no

previous movement received from the adverse ministers, publicists, and

people of England. These, while they combat it, deal with it as

“Ireland.” It makes propositions, exacts terms, directs assaults,

assents to arrangements on behalf of and in the name of the Irish

people; and, as we have indicated, the singular part of the case is

that not only is its action ratified and applauded by them, but its

authority so to act in their name is virtually recognized by the

government. In the House of Commons it takes charge of Irish affairs;

has almost an Irish (volunteer) ministry, certainly an organized party

not inferior, if not superior, in discipline to that of the

“government” or “opposition.” We hear of its “whips,” its councils,

its special division-lists, its assignment of particular duties,

motions, or bills to particular individuals; and, lastly, we hear of

it boldly challenging the Disraelian hosts, fighting them in debate

throughout a set field-day, and, despite the actual government

majority of forty-eight and working majority of seventy, running the

ministerialists to within barely thirteen votes.

In all this there is much that is new in the history of Irish

politics; and it were impossible that it should not intensely

interest, if not affect, the Catholic millions of America, bound, as

most of them are, to Ireland by the sacred ties of faith and kindred

and nationality.

What, then, is Home Rule? Is it Fenianism, “veiled” or unveiled? Is it

Repeal? Is it less than repeal, or more than repeal? Is it a surrender

or a compromise of the Irish national demand; or is it, as its

advocates claim, the substance of that demand shaped and adjusted

according to the circumstances, requirements, and necessities of the

present time?

With the fall of the Young Ireland party, and the disastrous collapse

of their meditated rather than attempted insurrection in 1848, there

seemed to foes and friends an end of national movements in Ireland for

the balance of the century. It is almost a law of defeats that the

vanquished are separated into two or three well-defined parties or

sections: those whom the blow has intensified and more embittered in

their opposition; those whom it wholly overawes, who thereafter

consider they have done enough for honor, and retire entirely from the

field; and, lastly, those who recognize, if they do not accept, the

defeat; who admit the impossibility of further operations on a

position so advanced, fall back upon some line which they imagine they

can hold, and, squaring round there, offer battle with whatever of

strength and resources survive to them. This is just what resulted in

Ireland in 1848-49. The Young Ireland movement of 1848 was never

national in dimensions or acceptance. O’Connell’s movement _was_, from

1842 to 1844; but from that date forward, though there were two or

three rival movements or parties, having for their leaders

respectively O’Connell, Smith O’Brien, and John Mitchel, no one of

them had the nation at its back. The Young Irelanders led away from

O’Connell the youth, talent, enthusiasm, and, to a large extent,

though not entirely, the resolute earnestness and honesty of the old

Repeal party. It is a very common but a very great fallacy that they

broke away on a “war policy” from the grand old man whose fading

intellect was but too sadly indicated in the absurd conduct that drove

the young men from his side. They had no “war” policy or design any

more than he had (in the sense of a war attack on England), until they

caught up one in the blaze and whirl of revolutionary intoxication

scattered through Europe by the startling events of February, 1848, in

Paris. They seceded from O’Connell on this point,[140] because they

would not subscribe to the celebrated test resolutions (called “Peace

Resolutions”) declaring that under _no_ circumstances was it or would

it be lawful to take up arms for the recovery of national rights.

Spurning such a declaration, but solemnly declaring they contemplated

no application of its converse assertion in their political designs

for Ireland, the seceders set up the “Irish Confederation.” But the

magic of O’Connell’s name, and indeed the force of a loving gratitude,

held the masses of the people and the bulk of the clergy in the old

organization. The Confederates were in many places decidedly

“unpopular,”[141] especially when, the Uncrowned Monarch having died

mournfully in exile, his following in Conciliation Hall raised the cry

that the Young Irelanders “killed O’Connell.” Soon afterwards the

seceders were themselves rent by a secession. The bolder spirits, led

by John Mitchel and Devin Rielly, demanded that the Confederation, in

place of disclaiming any idea of an armed struggle against England,

should avowedly prepare the people for such a resort. The new

secession was as weak in numbers, relatively towards the

Confederation, as the original seceders were towards the Repeal

Association. The three parties made bitter war upon one another. A

really national movement there was no more.

Suddenly Paris rose against Louis Philippe, and throughout Europe, in

capital after capital, barricades went up and thrones came down.

Ireland caught the flame. The Mitchel party suddenly found themselves

masters of the situation. The Confederation leaders—O’Brien, Duffy,

Dillon, O’Gorman, Meagher, and Doheny—not only found their platform

abandoned, but eventually, though not without some hesitation and

misgiving, they themselves abandoned it too, and threw themselves into

the scheme for an armed struggle in the ensuing summer or autumn. It

was thought, perhaps, that although this might not reunite the

O’Connellites and the Young Irelanders, it would surely reunite the

recently-divided sections of the O’Brien following; but it did so only

ostensibly or partially. There were two schools of insurrectionists in

the now insurrectionary party: Mitchel and Rielly declared that

O’Brien and Duffy wanted a “rosewater revolution”; O’Brien and Duffy

declared the others were “Reds,” who wanted a _jacquerie_. The refusal

of the leaders to make the rescue of Mitchel the occasion and signal

for a rising, led to bitter and scarcely disguised recrimination; and

when, a couple of months later, they themselves, caught unawares and

unprepared by the government, sought to effect a rising, the result

was utter and complete failure. The call had no real power or

authority behind it. The men who issued it had not the mandate of the

nation in any sense of the word. They were at the moment the fraction

of a fraction. They had against them the bulk of the Repeal millions

and the Catholic clergy; not against them in any combative sense, but

in a decided disapproval of their insurrection. Some, and only some,

of the large cities became thoroughly imbued with and ready to carry

through the revolutionary determination—an impress which Cork has ever

since retained; but beyond the traditional vague though deep-rooted

feeling of the Irish peasantry against the hateful rule of England,

the rural population, and even the majority of the cities and towns,

had scarcely any participation in “the Forty-Eight movement.”