“Like the foot of your bronze St. Peter, worn smooth with

oft-repeated, fervent kisses,” the gentleman said, with a gravity that

hid a smile.” You may say that it has only the vowel shape of a foot,

the consonant angles quite kissed away.”

The Signora lifted her head a little, and immediately changed the

subject. Decidedly, she thought, it would be necessary to correct Mr.

Vane’s conversation. But it would not be pleasant to do so the first

day.

They lingered at the table nearly an hour, talking over old times and

friends, and who were dead and who were married; till presently, it

having got buzzed about among the select number of flies in the room

that there was fruit at hand, they reminded the company to retire.

“Tea at five and supper at nine,” was the Signora’s parting reminder.

“And now, a pleasant rest to you!”

CHAPTER II.

“AY DE MI, ALHAMA!”

Those who knew little or nothing of Mr. Vane usually fancied that they

knew him perfectly, and were in the habit of describing him with

epigrammatic brevity: A kind, honorable man, indolent of mind and

body, very tolerant, has no strong convictions, and seems, not so much

to live, as to be waiting to live, and waiting quite comfortably—as if

a fish out of water should find itself for a few days in wine and

water.

Those who knew him best hesitated to describe him; but all agreed that

he was kind and honorable. We will not attempt any dissection of his

character.

Twenty-three years before we find him in Rome he married a beautiful

girl born in New Orleans of Spanish parents. He had long admired her,

but had been kept at a distance by her coldness; and when, quite

suddenly, she consented to be his wife, he could scarcely have told if

his delight were greater than his surprise.

“I do not love you,” she said with gentle calmness, “but I esteem you,

and am prepared to do my duty as a wife. I should have preferred not

to marry; but my parents desire that I should, and, as I am their only

child, I do not think it right to oppose their wishes.”

It was scarcely an explanation to satisfy even an accepted lover, and

Mr. Vane could not help asking if there were any one whom she

preferred to him.

The answer was not prompt in coming, and was given with great reserve,

though the lady showed neither confusion nor unwillingness to give it.

She thought gravely for a minute before speaking, her fair, quiet face

all the time open to his study. “I have never had a lover,” she said

then, “and I have never wished to marry any one. I have nothing to

confess nor to repent of in this regard.”

With this he had been obliged to content himself. What unacknowledged

maiden preference, untouched by passion, her words might have

concealed, if any such had been, he could not ask and he never knew;

but gentle, faithful, prompt in every duty, and sincerely desirous to

render him happy as she was, he always felt that there was an inner

chamber in her heart where he had never penetrated, and which she had

even closed to her own eyes. There was no appearance of concealment or

conscious reserve, no hidden pain, but only a something wanting, as if

some delicate spring in her soul had been broken. He had hoped to make

her forget whatever shadow of regret her life might have known, and to

restore her to an elastic joyousness more suited to her age; and, in

the earlier months of their married life, finding his efforts vain, he

had broken out in some slight reproaches now and then. But the blush

of pain and alarm, the anxious inquiries, “In what have I failed?”

“What have I done to displease you?” and the gayety she strove to

assume for his pleasure, made him regret his impatience. Tacitly he

allowed her to renounce an affectation which was the first she had

ever stooped to, and, as time passed on, they settled into a friendly

and undemonstrative intercourse. Isabel seemed to have drawn her

disposition from this lively surface of her mother’s briefly-troubled

life; but the younger showed something of that quiet melancholy which

had succeeded. Mrs. Vane died when Bianca was but six years old, and

her husband had never manifested any disposition to marry again,

seeming to be satisfied with the society of his children.

In religion the daughters followed their mother, who had been a

Catholic. The father was still Protestant.

“Poor papa!” Isabel said when speaking to a friend on the subject, “he

never will be persuaded to study theology. The only way to attract him

to a religion would be by the excellence of its professors; and he

protests that he sees no difference in people in general, that he has

no doubt the Chinese have amiable qualities, and that, if he lived

among the Turks, he should probably become very fond of them. What can

one do with such a man? Bring out all your hard little arguments and

lay them down before him, showing how perfectly they fit into the most

beautiful mosaic for your side, and he listens with the greatest

attention, then mixes them all up, and rearranges them into an

entirely different pattern for the opposite side, and ends by

declaring that both are true as far as they go. You see, he has spent

his life with two excellent women, one Protestant and the other

Catholic—his mother and our mamma—and that has spoiled him for

conversion. I’ve often wished that dear grand-mamma had been the least

bit of a vixen, or had even taken snuff in her old age; but she never

did a thing to spoil the beautiful white halo about her, and died at

last as she had lived. Mamma went as the moon goes, waning, growing

dimmer every day, till you see it like a little silver cloud in the

sky, and then it is gone. But grand-mamma seemed to look up suddenly,

and smile, and disappear, as if some one she thought the world of, and

hadn’t seen for a long time, had come and called her out of the room

for a minute.”

“You ask what you are to do with such a man as your father,” her

friend said. “I answer, you can let him alone, and I strongly advise

you to do so. He is quite capable of thinking and observing without

being teased. He leaves you free; do the same by him.”

“I suppose I must,” the girl sighed unwillingly.

Bianca, who remembered her mother only as the little silver cloud

fading in the sky, had also her pretty tribute to pay to the

grandmother, who had not been many years dead.

“Of course we wished her to be a Catholic,” she said; “but no one

could know her and doubt that she was good. She did not believe our

dogmas because she did not understand them, but she never spoke an

uncharitable word of us. Indeed, I used to think that unconsciously

she believed everything. Her religion was like a rose-bush on which

only one rose bloomed out, and that rose was Christ. All the rest were

just buds with the smallest pink tips showing. She was so dazzled and

wondering over her wonderful one rose that she could not think of the

others. What a blossoming out there will be when she reaches heaven,

if she is not there already!”

While we have been giving this little history, _casa Ottant’-otto_ has

been as tranquil as if it were mid-night instead of mid-day. The rooms

were perfectly dark, except where a chink in the shutter or a loose

hasp let in here and there a light too small to be called a ray, which

made a pale glow in one spot, showing like a blotch on the darkness.

Not a sound was heard within, and scarcely a sound from without; for,

early as it was in the season, the street had its quiet hour, and the

birds, the only noisy people on the garden side, would no more have

thought of singing at noon than of remaining silent in the morning.

But, as the afternoon wore on, something stirred on a red cushion in a

corner of the dining-room. It was a black cat, called, from its color,

the _abate_. This member of the family rose, stretched himself slowly,

first one side, then the other, opened his mouth in a portentous yawn,

and seemed to utter an inquiring “Mew!” but, what with sleepiness,

warmth, and languor, the sound was very nearly inaudible. Looking

about, he saw Adriano, the man-servant, asleep in an arm-chair, his

head, in a little scarlet cap with a tassel, dropped on one shoulder,

his arms hanging down over the arms of the chair. Wakened, perhaps, by

the glance, the man opened his eyes, gathered up his head and arms,

and began, in turn, to stretch himself out of sleep, giving an audible

yawn instead of a “Mew.” The _abate_ then exerted himself so far as to

saunter to the threshold of the door looking into the kitchen.

Annunciata, who had placed her chair in a corner of the room in such a

manner that the walls supported her while she slept, was just

stretching out one foot to pick up the sandal that had dropped off

during her nap. All this the cat saw, doubtless. It was too dark for

any one else to see.

Presently Adriano opened a half shutter in the dining-room, admitting

a faint light; then, passing, with slip-shod feet, into the _sala_,

threw the windows wide open. Instantly all the bright out-doors, which

had been waiting to enter—sunshine, perfume, and west wind—rushed in

together, lit the gilding in a new glitter, reddened the velvet again,

whitened the curtains and set them blowing about, roused a hundred

little winking mischiefs in the carvings, and almost brought a smile

into the many pictured faces on the walls that had been waiting so

long in the dark with their eyes wide open.

After a little interval, the Signora came out of her room; then

Isabel’s bright face appeared.

“I didn’t believe I should sleep a wink on this first day,” she said;

“but I have slept the whole time. One becomes accustomed to

everything. But where can Bianca be? I’m not at all sure she did right

to go out alone, and at this hour. That girl does the most

extraordinary things sometimes, quiet as she seems. I sometimes think,

Signora, that Bianca has great force of will.”

Uttering this last remark, the young woman looked at her friend as if

she expected an astonished denial. The Signora, on the contrary,

replied with a rather significant smile: “Only ‘sometimes,’ my dear?

If your sister had a motive worthy, her will would be strong enough to

oppose the whole world.”

“Bianca!” cried Isabel in astonishment. “Why, she is the softest

creature alive.”

The Signora was arranging tea-cups on a table drawn up before one of

the large sofas, and waited until her hands were free of them before

replying, as she wished to speak with emphasis. “Do you think,” she

said then, “that it is only the positive, opinionated women who have

firmness of character? My experience is that your women who are

constantly driving and directing people in small things can almost

always be themselves driven in great things, while those who do not

like to make a fuss about trifles will stand their ground when it

comes to a matter of importance. If the truth could be known, I

believe it would be found that the world’s heroines of action and of

suffering have been those same soft creatures in ordinary

circumstances. And here’s the child now.”

In fact, the entrance-door opened at that moment from without, and

Bianca Vane came in with cheeks as red as roses. She had begged the

Signora’s permission to go out instead of going to bed, promising to

go no farther than _Santa Maria Maggiore_, which was but five minutes’

walk from the house.

Isabel looked at her sister very gravely while she stood pulling the

great key out of the lock, smiling to herself, and tugging away with

the softest, prettiest hands in the world. The elder sister had been

accustomed to be called, and to consider herself, the stronger of the

two, and she was not altogether certain now that the Signora had not

been jesting.

The great Italian key, large enough for a prison, was got out of the

lock, the door shut, half by the wind and half by the lady, with a

force that made its three little bells and its two immense iron bolts

rattle and ring, and Bianca went straight to the Signora and kissed

her—a somewhat unusual demonstration. “I’ve been so happy!” she

whispered close to the cheek her lips had touched. “How beautiful it

is! You must let me have a ‘weakness’ for your church and its bells,

and all that belongs to it.”

A nod and glance of intelligence were exchanged between the two, and

the girl went to take off her bonnet.

Mr. Vane appeared at the same moment, looking as if he had enjoyed a

most satisfying nap, and tea was prepared. The Signora and the two

girls occupied the long red sofa, over which, on the wall, a stately

Penelope, seated among her maidens, laid aside her often-ravelled web,

and earnestly regarded the Ulysses whom she had not yet recognized,

but could not remove her eyes from. At the other side of the table,

opposite them, a high-backed, ample chair had been placed for the

gentleman of the family, who seemed to feel himself very much at home.

“Has my little girl been asleep?” he asked, looking at his younger

daughter.

“Well, no, papa,” was the reply, “but she has been dreaming.”

No more questions were asked then. Mr. Vane was looking at the picture

opposite him, which had a very pleasant suggestion of perils and

journeys over, and happy reunion after long separation. Suddenly his

glance dropped to the lady beneath, went back to the picture, and a

second time sought the Signora’s face.

“Why,” he said, “that Penelope looks as though you had sat for her to

a not very good artist.”

The Signora gave him his tea. “I assure you,” she said, “that I never

posed for that nor any other Penelope during the whole course of my

life. The character doesn’t suit me.”

Mr. Vane took his cup, and studied over this little speech while he

slowly stirred in his tea two cubes of sugar. He had been quite

correct in his remark. The two faces were strikingly alike—fine in

their oval shape, with dark-blue eyes, and a hint of yellow in the

thick flaxen hair.

Presently he looked up. “I can’t guess,” he said.

The lady laughed. “When it is so plain? Well, in the first place, I am

not so industrious; in the next place, I shouldn’t have let Ulysses go

away without me; in the third place, I haven’t the suitors; and, in

the fourth place, if I had had them, I should have kept them in better

order. I think the places are all taken. And now, Bianca has for a

long time had something on her mind to say. You have the floor, my

dear.”

“Oh! it’s nothing,” Bianca said; “only if you are done talking about

Penelope, I should like to give you all a piece of advice.”

The company were unanimously anxious to hear. Gentle suggestions they

often heard from this young lady; but it was perhaps the first time

they had ever heard her propose deliberately to give advice to any

one, and still less to a company of elders.

“My advice is this,” she said: “whenever any of you take your first

walk in a strange city, look at the house you live in before you go

away from it, and see how it is made, and what number it is, and make

sure of the name of the street; otherwise, though you may find every

place you do not want, you may never find your own house again. That’s

all I have to say.”

“Excellent advice!” Mr. Vane said. “But may I ask what made you think

of it just now?”

“First let me tell you a little story,” said Bianca. “Once upon a time

a young woman I know went to live in a strange city where they spoke a

language she did not understand. The very first day, almost the first

hour, she went out for a walk, and went alone; but her mind was so

full of the place she was going to that she took no note of the place

she was leaving. No matter what a nice time she had before she started

to return; that doesn’t belong to the story, which is entirely

tragical. Her troubles began when she thought that in two minutes she

would be at her own door. Come to think about it, she had no idea

where her own door was, in which of three or four radiating streets it

was to be found, or what the number of it was, nor how it looked. So

she wandered up and down, and to and fro, in the hot sun, and passed

her home without recognizing it any more than the Signora’s portrait

up there recognizes her husband; and at last, when she was just ready

to cry, and to believe that the house and everybody in it had been

bewitched and whisked off to some other continent, and that she had to

go blowing about for ever in that lost way, what do you think

happened?”

The story-teller had reason to be gratified by the expression of

intense interest with which her audience waited for the catastrophe.

“Well,” she continued, “this poor wanderer happened to glance up a

house-front as she was passing, and she saw out of a window a hand

laid on the frame—just the hand of some one who stood inside. It was

very handsome and white, and on one finger of it was a ring that she

recognized. And then the tears of sorrow that she was about to shed

changed to tears of joy, and she said: ‘O darling hand of my papa,

with my own good-for-nothing cameo face on it—’”

And Bianca finished her story by flying up out of her chair, and

rushing to hang on her father’s shoulder, and kiss the hand that had

found her.

“You don’t mean to say that you have been out wandering about Rome all

alone!” Mr. Vane exclaimed, reddening.

“I only went up to the Liberian basilica,” she said; “and it was an

absurd thing in me, getting lost. You didn’t imagine I was going

properly to sleep my first day in Rome, did you? You might as well

have put a flame to bed, and told it to shut its eyes.”

As she spoke, a dash of clear crimson stained her cheeks, as if the

juice of a ripe pomegranate had been flung over them, and her head was

raised quickly and with an air that was almost defiant, though

unconsciously so.

The Signora had seen this gesture and blush once or twice before, and

thought she understood the meaning of them; how the impassioned and

enthusiastic nature hidden under that pensive softness and silence

resented now and then the languid indifference of the father and the

superficial positiveness of the sister, and proudly asserted its own

claim to an individual and untrammelled existence.

Mr. Vane dropped his eyes, and an expression of pain passed

momentarily over his face. He also had seen the look before—seen it in

his wife’s face as well as in his daughter’s. “I do not mean to shut

you up, my dear,” he said gravely. “I only wish that you should come

to no harm. If you like to go about freely, the Signora can, perhaps,

recommend a good, trusty servant, who will protect you without being

intrusive.”

She did not say a word, only leaned close to him, and laid her cheek,

still glowing red, on his hair.

He smiled, and spoke more lightly. “But I should like to have you go

with me sometimes, and kindle my fuel with your fires.”

She embraced him silently and went back to her seat.

The Signora smiled into her teacup over this little scene, in which

nothing had pleased her more than the sweet readiness of the father to

be reconciled, and his quick comprehension of the meaning of his

daughter’s mute caress. “He has certainly great delicacy and

sensitiveness,” she thought. “I wonder if Bianca and he may not be

very much alike!”

“The chief danger in walking out in Rome,” she said, “is from the

public carriages. The traditions are evidently all in favor of those

who drive, not of those who walk, and pedestrians have no rights which

quadrupeds and the bipeds who drive them are bound to respect. For the

rest, I have gone about a good deal alone, and have had no more

annoyance than I should have had in any other large city in the world.

Of course young Italian women have not so much liberty as we take; but

all sensible and honest people here understand that foreigners do not

cross land and sea, and come to the most famous city in the world, in

order to shut themselves up in houses; and, moreover, that it may well

be inconvenient sometimes to find an escort. I told Bianca that she

could go up to the church as well as not, but must go no further. It

was stupid of me not to warn her of losing her way back. And,” she

added, with a sudden change, “it was still more stupid of me not to

recollect the difference between American and Italian bread. You poor

child!” For she had caught sight of Isabel getting quite red in the

face over a roll she was trying to break.

“They do bake their bread so hard here and in France,” the girl

sighed, giving up the attempt in despair. “In Paris I could throw our

rolls all about the room without injuring anything but the furniture.

I didn’t make the smallest dent in the bread.”

The Signora promised them the most American of bread for the future,

but added: “I have become so accustomed to this hard baking that I had

forgotten all about the difference. In time you will come to prefer

it, and to find that the lighter baking will taste raw to you. Indeed,

you will adopt a good many Italian customs in regard to eating, which,

so far as concerns health, I think they understand better than any

other nation. Their prohibitions you must certainly attend to, however

unreasonable they may seem to you; but you are not obliged to eat what

they like. The first year I came here I broke a tooth trying to eat a

piece of cake they brought me on Christmas Eve. They said it was their

custom to eat it at that season, and I obeyed dutifully. It is dark, a

caricature of our fruit-cake, and seems to be made of nuts and

raisins, held together by a tough, dry paste. It was like a piece out

of a badly-macadamized street. Fortunately, I broke only one tooth,

and that saved my stomach; for I do not know what would have become of

me if I had swallowed the stuff.”

Mr. Vane gave a significant “Ahem!” “I should have supposed,” he

remarked, “that any one who had swallowed the Infalli—”

“Papa!” cried Isabel, making a peremptory gesture to silence him.

“—bility—” he pursued calmly.

“O papa!” said Bianca, with soft entreaty. He winced, but

finished—“ought to be able to digest anything that Rome can offer.”

The two girls looked at the Signora. They knew her rather better than

their father did. She was folding her napkin up very carefully, and

considering. After a minute, still smoothing the damask folds, she

spoke. “I have always thought it wrong to ridicule even a false

religion. When I think that on the poor crumbling mythologies of the

world the souls of men have tried to climb to such a heaven as they

had glimpses of, or were capable of imagining, their mistakes become

to me sad, or terrible—anything but laughable. One doesn’t laugh at

sight of a rotten plank that broke in the hands of a drowning man. And

if falsehood, when human prayers have been breathed on it, and human

tears shed on it, and human hearts have clung to it, believing it to

be truth, is something no longer to be ridiculed, how much more should

we treat the truth seriously! The dogma of Infallibility was the

anchor the church dropped when she saw the storm coming, and it is

probable that before we shall have peace again we may hang for a time

on that one rope. Nothing in revelation is more serious to me.”

She rose, without giving any opportunity for reply, and without

looking at any one. “If you like, we will prepare for a drive,” she

added, and left the room quietly.

But in spite of the calmness with which she spoke the Signora was much

agitated, and scarcely refrained from tears when she was alone. To

give such a reproof was only less difficult than to suffer an affront

to the church to pass unreproved; and it was with a little nervousness

that she went out to meet her guest again.

He was in the drawing-room alone, evidently waiting for her, and the

first glance in his face entirely reassured her, so sweet and

untroubled was his expression.

“I am like a great rough elephant who has stepped on the kind lady who

was feeding him with sugarplums,” he said, and offered his hand to her

with a confidence in her good-will which was almost more pleasing than

her confidence in his.

And so ended their first and last quarrel.

The girls, who came presently, with a little timidity, beamed when

they saw the two standing by a window and watching the work going on

across the street. All the space there had once been a palace-garden,

but now nearly every flowery thing had disappeared, and in their place

the foundations of a large building were being laid in a superbly

solid way. Wide walls of stone, on which three men could walk abreast,

had in some places risen a few feet above the outer level, their bases

sunk ten feet, perhaps, below the deep cellar bottom, and the trenches

for founding the partition-walls were being dug in the same manner.

They could see, too, the beginning of the grand stone arches which

were to support the floors. An Italian would have passed all this

without notice; but to one accustomed to the flimsy style of American

architecture the sight was refreshing. In the centre of the space the

building was to occupy still remained a fountain-basin from which the

water had been drawn away, exposing a circle of beautiful round arches

of gray stone. Under these arches the workmen were accustomed to take

refuge when a shower came up, crouching there contentedly, and looking

out at the bright drops as they fell, like swallows out of a row of

nests under the barn-eaves.

“I have wondered whether there ever before was a house on this spot,”

the Signora said. “If there were, a garden has bloomed over it for

centuries, as, perhaps, at some future time, another garden will cover

the ruins of this work of to-day. A few months ago some flowers still

lingered here, but they were trampled or dug away, till at last only

one red poppy was left at the edge of the cellar-wall. I watched it

day after day, blazing there like a heart on fire. Every morning I

looked out I feared to miss it; but there it clung among trampling

feet of men and beasts, with stone-work being built almost over it,

and every sort of destruction threatening, but never falling. When

nearly a week had passed, I could bear it no longer. If at that time I

had seen a foot set upon, or a rock crushing, the flower, I should

have cried out as though I were myself being crushed. I sent Adriano

out to get it for me, and pressed it carefully in the prettiest book I

have—the brave little blossom! Here it is, see! The thin petals are

like faded blood-stains, but the seed-vessel in the centre is firm,

and precisely like a little marble urn with a mossy vine wreathing its

base and running up one side. In that urn repose the dust and the hope

of a long line of scarlet poppies.”

The gentleman listened indulgently to the Signora’s story, and watched

her with interest as she put the relic carefully away.

And then they went down to the carriage that was waiting for them, and

drove through the long street that stretches over hill and valley from

the Esquiline to the Pincio, so that one looks, as through a

telescope, from the sunny brow of the former to the _campanile_ where

_Maria Assunta_ and her maidens

“Sprinkle with holy sounds the air, as the priest with the hyssop

Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them.”

Some one has said of this street that it is like a boa-constrictor

after it has swallowed an ox and stretched itself out to digest him,

and the Quirinal Hill is the ox.

All the world was out that evening, and even the most insensible

promenader spared a glance for the sky. It was Roman form with Gothic

colors, the round arch of the heavens a pale, pure gold, bright, yet

tender as a flower, and against that background, less like a city than

like an embossed picture, Rome, with its great cupola, its crowded

beauties of architecture, its pines and its cypresses. Of the

personages, more or less distinguished, in the circle of carriages

behind them, the new-comers took but little note. The old papal

picture, with its cardinals’ coaches and its prelates’ costumes, was

effaced, and there was nothing in the human part of the scene more

striking than the last Paris fashions—as if some tyro with his coarse

brush should paint over a Titian. If one should seek for royalty in

that crowd, he would not find the angelic old king, clothed in white,

as if already among the blest, beaming on all the faces turned toward

him, and giving benediction right and left as he went. In place of

that might be seen to pass a brutal face, with the color of one

half-strangled, with upturned nose and curled-up moustache, and with

eyes whose glances no respectable woman would encounter. The Roman

people used to say, “When the pope comes out, the sun comes out”; but

no such shining proverb was suggested by this dark and forbidding

face.

The Signora, looking with her friends, seemed herself to behold Rome

for the first time, and to see in swift contrast both present and

past. Was it past, indeed, and for ever, that dominion of centuries,

around which had gathered a glory so _unique_? She stretched her hands

out involuntarily, and sighed in the song of the vanquished Moors:

“Ay de mi, Alhama!”

Mr. Vane turned to her rather suddenly. “I have great confidence in

your sincerity,” he said, “and I believe that you who know the truth

need not fear. Now, setting aside the questions of the right of the

church to possess Rome, and the need she has of it as a base of

operations, and the fact that the great functions are no longer

performed, tell me, do you really regret the old time?”

“You are setting aside a great deal,” she said smilingly; “but I

answer you yes with all my heart. Rome has lost in every way. There

seems no longer in the world a place for tired people to come to. All

is hurry, and fret, and fuss; and comfort is gone. Has it ever

occurred to you to think that many people, especially in progressive

countries, inflict an immense deal of discomfort on themselves and

others in striving for what they call the comforts of life, losing

with one hand what they gain with the other? The contented spirit is

gone, the quiet, the patience, the simplicity, the charity. Poverty

was never before unpitied in Rome, and now the poor not only beg, they

starve. They never starved in the old time. I would not undervalue the

improvements of modern science—I am proud of them; but they are not

all, nor the greatest, glories of life. Such of them as suited the

place would have come in gently and gradually, without disturbing

anything. They have been brought in at the point of the bayonet, and

the bayonet-point has been left in them. We still feel it. I sometimes

pity these progressionists, who are often, no doubt, sincere in their

hopes and aspirations, as well as immensely conceited at the same

time. They feel the pains of life for themselves and for others, and

they fancy that they have found a new solution for the problem that

the church solved centuries ago, and that they can have heaven let

down to them, instead of having the trouble of climbing to it. It’s a

pitiful thing to dedicate one’s life to a great mistake. Yes, Rome is

spoilt, looking at it from a philanthropic as well as from an artistic

and a religious point of view.”

“It was here Lucullus gave his famous supper,” Isabel said, glancing

back at the gardens. “Was that what is called the most costly supper

ever given? I forget.”

Bianca clasped the Signora’s arm and whispered against her shoulder:

“We know a costlier one, don’t we?”

“Speak, darling!” was the answering whisper.

“Where the Host gave himself, and made the feast eternal.”

After a few minutes they looked round to find the drive almost

deserted, and, entering their carriage, drove slowly homeward, making

a few little turns in the neighborhood to familiarize the new-comers

with the location of the house. The _Ave Maria_ was ringing from all

the belfries, great and small, from storied _campanile_, and little

arches set against the sky; workmen and workwomen were going homeward,

and windows were everywhere being shut on the beautiful twilight,

whose air the Italians so fear.

They went up to the _sala_, and, albeit with a sigh, shut out the west

with its crescent now triumphant, and all the sweetness of orange and

jasmine flowers, and all the twitter of subsiding birds.

“I think,” the Signora said, “that the Roman past wishes, to

monopolize the Roman nights, and that the unhealthy air we fear is

nothing but the breath of ghosts who do not desire our company out of

doors. But it’s a pity, besides being very disagreeable of them.”

Annunciata brought in a lamp, and said “_Buona sera!_” in setting it

down.

“They always wish you _buona sera_ when they bring the lamp, and

_felice_ or _felicissima notte_ when they leave you for the night,”

the Signora said. “Impatient as I am with them sometimes, they

constantly conciliate me by some pretty custom. I followed one of

these customs this morning—a beautiful one, too. It is this: When a

priest says his first Mass, any one who will may follow him to the

sacristy, and kiss his hand in the palm and at the back. Isn’t it

beautiful? A young priest from one of the colleges said his first Mass

in the Borghese chapel this morning. An elder priest, whom they call

in such cases the _padrino_ or god-father, stood by him, and two young

fellow-students served the Mass, one of them receiving Holy Communion.

When it was over, I begged and received permission to kiss the sacred

hand that had just consecrated and touched the Holy Eucharist for the

first time.”

They were a little tired that evening, and separated very soon after

supper. The father went to his room, Isabel to hers, and, after their

doors had closed, the Signora stole to Bianca’s to give her one

good-night kiss, and found her just kneeling by her bedside.

The girl gave a tearful smile over her shoulder, but did not rise.

“_Felicissima notte!_” said her friend, and, embracing, left her to

the care of the angels.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.

II.

Whatever the ultimate fate and fortunes of the Irish Home-Rule

movement may be, it must be conceded that the projectors of no other

political endeavor witnessed in Ireland for a century past took

greater pains than did its founders to constitute the undertaking as

the work, not of a party or a section or a class, but of the whole

nation.

For three years, from 1870 to 1873, the organization had existed in

the precursory or preliminary character described in the last number

of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Signs which could not be misread had, with

increasing frequency and force, proclaimed that even already it might

well, without presumption, adopt a more authoritative tone; but to the

men who guided its counsels, these things spoke only of the moment

come at last for submitting their work to formal ratification or

rejection by the country.

In what manner, or by what means, could the opinions of the Irish

people best be collected or ascertained for such a purpose? By the

formal and regular, open, public, and free election of parochial,

baronial, or county delegates to a national convention, of course. But

there is a law which forbids such a proceeding in Ireland. Delegates

may be elected, and may sit, deliberate, vote, and act, in convention

assembled, in England, Scotland, or Wales; but if such a proceeding

were attempted in Ireland the parties would be liable to

imprisonment.[161] A formal election of delegates to a national

convention being therefore impracticable, what course would be deemed

next best? Only by _indirect_ means could the results which such a

convention would _directly_ supply be replaced. The votes of the

parliamentary representatives would have been an excellent test of the

public feeling, had those representatives been elected by such free

choice as the present system of vote by ballot secures in Ireland. But

in 1873 it was only at desperate cost the Irish constituencies could

venture to exercise the franchise as conscience dictated. The votes of

municipal representatives, and other popularly elected public bodies,

would come next in importance, yet these were amenable to a similar

objection; although, as a matter of fact, a vast proportion (probably

a large majority) of those representatives, even in 1873, would vote a

protest against the rule of the English Parliament. Summoning classes,

as classes, to sit in Dublin as a national council was not to be

listened to. For a long period these were the questions, the

perplexing problems, which, adjourned from meeting to meeting,

occupied the Home Government Council. At length they decided that

there was nothing for it but to convene by a great National

Requisition, which should be a sort of _plébiscite_ or declaration in

itself, an aggregate conference of delegates or “deputations” from

every county in Ireland. It was urged by some that the requisition

should be an “open” one—merely calling upon the conference to discuss

the Irish situation; but this view gave way before the advantage of

making the requisition itself a more or less decisive pronouncement

from the thousands of influential and patriotic Irishmen who could

not, from one reason or another, be actually present in Dublin. The

form of the document was, in fact, decided only after consultation

with at least a few of the most prominent men in each of the various

sections of national politicians: Repealers, Conservative

Nationalists, “Forty-eight-men,” O’Connellites, Mitchelites, Fenians,

Liberals, etc. The well-known veteran Repealer, O’Neill Daunt,

proceeded to Tuam specially charged to seek the counsel and

co-operation of the great man whose name alone it was felt would be

equivalent to national approval—the illustrious Dr. McHale,

“Archbishop of the West.” If any one living could be fairly assumed to

speak as O’Connell himself would speak if now alive, “John McHale” was

the man. He was the old Repeal cause personified.[162]

Mr. Daunt returned to Dublin bearing the news that not only did the

archbishop approve, but that he would himself head the requisition.

The announcement was hailed with cheers, like the tidings of some

great victory. A few days later, accordingly, the following form of

requisition was circulated for signature:

“We, the undersigned, feel bound to declare our conviction

that it is necessary to the peace and prosperity of Ireland,

and would be conducive to the strength and stability of the

United Kingdom, that the right of domestic legislation on

all Irish affairs should be restored to our country; and

that it is desirable that Irishmen should unite to obtain

that restoration upon the following principles:

“To obtain for our country the right and privilege of

managing our own affairs, by a Parliament assembled in

Ireland, composed of Her Majesty the Sovereign, and the

lords and commons of Ireland.

“To secure for that Parliament, under a federal arrangement,

the right of legislating for and regulating all matters

relating to the internal affairs of Ireland, and control

over Irish resources and revenues, subject to the obligation

of contributing our just proportion of the imperial

expenditure.

“To leave to an Imperial Parliament the power of dealing

with all questions affecting the imperial crown and

government, legislation regarding the colonies and other

dependencies of the crown, the relation of the united empire

with foreign states, and all matters appertaining to the

defence and the stability of the empire at large.

“To obtain such an adjustment of the relations between the

two countries without any interference with the prerogatives

of the crown, or any disturbance of the principles of the

constitution.

“And we hereby invite a conference, to be held at such time

and place as may be found generally most convenient, of all

those favorable to the above principles, to consider the

best and most expedient means of carrying them into

practical effect.”

It was expected that probably between five and ten thousand signatures

might be obtained to this document among the influential political

classes in Ireland, rendering it the largest and most notable array of

the kind ever seen in the country. In a few weeks, however, nearly

_twenty-five thousand_ names of what may truly be called

“representative men” were appended to it! Only those who were in

Ireland at the time can know what a sensation was created by the

appearance of the leading Dublin newspapers one day with four or five

pages of each devoted to what could be after all only a portion of

this monster requisition. Not only was every county represented,

nearly every barony had sent its best and worthiest men. Although most

amazement was at the time created by the array of what was termed “men

of position,” the promoters of the movement valued even more the names

of certain men in middle and humble life, town traders,

tenant-farmers, artisans, and others, who were well known to be the

men in each locality most trusted by their own class. Of magistrates,

members of Parliament, peers (a few), bishops, clergymen (Protestant

as well as Catholic), mayors, sheriffs, municipal representatives,

town-commissioners, poor-law guardians, there were altogether

literally thousands. So general a mingling of classes and creeds and

political sections had never before been known (on a scale of such

magnitude) in Ireland. Yet no effort had been made to collect

signatures after the fashion of petition-signing. The object was to

seek a half-dozen names of really representative men from each

district, and these were applied for through the post-office. In

nearly every case the document, when returned signed by a score or

two, was accompanied by a letter stating that as many thousands of

signatures from that district would have been forwarded if necessary.

Tuesday, the 18th of November, 1873, was the date publicly fixed for

the conference, which was convened “to meet from day to day until its

proceedings are concluded.” As the day approached, the most intense

interest and curiosity were excited by the event, not merely in Dublin

and throughout Ireland, but all over Great Britain. The great circular

hall of the Rotunda was transformed into the semblance of a

legislative chamber, the attendant suite of apartments being converted

into division lobbies,[163] dining-rooms, writing-rooms, etc., while

the handsome gallery which sweeps around the hall was set apart for

spectators.

The English newspapers seemed much troubled by all this. They did not

like that Ireland should in any shape or form take to “playing at

parliament,” as they sneeringly expressed it; and this conference

affair was vividly, dangerously suggestive to the “too imaginative”

Irish. There was, however, they declared, one consolation for them:

out of evil would come good; this same conference would effectually

cure the Irish of any desire for a native parliament, and show the

world how unfit were Hibernians for a separate legislature. Because

(so declared and prophesied the English papers from day to day) before

the conference would be three hours in session, there would be a

“Donnybrook row”; fists would be flourished and heads broken; Old

Irelanders and Young Irelanders, Repealers and Federalists, Fenians

and Home-Rulers, would, it was declared, “fly at one another’s

throats.” At least a dozen English editors simultaneously hit upon the

witty joke about “the Kilkenny cats.”

This sort of “prophesying” went on with such suspicious energy, as the

day neared for the meeting of the conference, that it began to be

surmised the government party was meditating an attempt to verify it.

Signs were not wanting that wily and dexterous, as well as pecuniary,

efforts were being made to incite dissent and disturbance. Admittance

to the conference was obtainable by any one who had signed the

requisition, on recording his name and address; and it was quite

practicable for a few government emissaries, by pretending to be very

“advanced” Nationalists, uncompromising Repealers or anti-tory

Catholics, to get up flourishing disputations and “rows.” Indeed,

anxiety, if not apprehension, on this score seemed to prevail to some

degree on the eve of the 18th. Would there be “splits,” would there be

discord and turbulence and impossibility of reconcilement, or would

there be order and decorum, earnest debate, but harmonious spirit and

action? All felt that the event at hand was one of critical importance

to Ireland.

For four days—the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of November, 1873—the

conference continued in session, sitting each day at eleven o’clock in

the morning, and adjourning at six o’clock in the afternoon. The

number of “delegates” was 947;[164] and the daily attendance at each

sitting averaged about six hundred. Fortunately, an authentic record

was taken of the composition of the assembly; and it is only on

glancing over the names and addresses of those nine hundred gentlemen

that a full conception of its character can be formed. One of the most

notable features in the scene, one that called forth much public

comment as an indication of the deep public interest felt in the

proceedings, was the crowded gallery of ladies and gentlemen who,

having succeeded in obtaining admission-cards, day by day sat out the

debates, listening with eager attention to all that went forward. The

pressure for these admission-cards increased each day, and at the

final sitting, on the 21st, it was found impossible to seat the

hundreds of visitors who filled the avenues to the gallery.

There was much speculation as to who would be selected as chairman of

the convention. The choice when made known called forth universal

approbation. It was Mr. William Shaw, Member of Parliament for the

borough of Bandon,[165] a Protestant gentleman of the highest position

and reputation, a banker (president of the Munster Bank), a man of

large wealth, of grave and undemonstrative manner, but of great depth

and quiet force of character. He was one of the last men in Ireland

who would answer the description of an “Irish agitator” as English

artists draw the sketch. He was one who had everything to lose and

nothing to gain by “revolution,” yet he had early joined the movement

for Irish self-government, declaring that he did so as a business man

having a large stake in the prosperity of the country, and because he

saw that the present system was only the “pretence of a government”

for Ireland.

Naturally the chief event of the first day’s sitting was Mr. Butt’s

great speech or opening statement on the whole case. It was a masterly

review of the question of Irish legislative independence, and a

powerful vindication of the federal adjustment now under

consideration. He went minutely and historically into every fact and

circumstance and every element of consideration, making his address

rather a great argument than an oratorical display. At the close,

however, when he came to tell how he himself had been led into this

movement—how it began, how it had grown, till now he surrendered it

into their keeping—his voice trembled with emotion. “State trials were

not new to me,” he exclaimed:

“Twenty years before I stood near Smith O’Brien when he

braved the sentence of death which the law pronounced upon

him. I saw Meagher meet the same, and I then asked myself

this: ‘Surely the state is out of joint, surely all our

social system is unhinged, when men like O’Brien and Meagher

are condemned to a traitor’s doom?’ Years passed away, and

once more I stood by men who had dared the desperate

enterprise of freeing their country by revolt.… I heard

their words of devotion to their country as with firm step

and unyielding heart they left the dock, and went down the

dark passage that led them to the place where all hope

closed upon them, and I asked myself again: ‘Is there no way

to arrest this? Are our best and bravest spirits ever to be

carried away under this system of constantly-resisted

oppression and constantly-defeated revolt? Can we find no

means by which the national quarrel that has led to all

these terrible results may be set right?’ I believe, in my

conscience, we have found it. I believe that England has now

the opportunity of adjusting the quarrel of centuries. Let

me say it—I do so proudly—that I was one of those who did

something in this cause. Over a torn and distracted

country—a country agitated by dissension, weakened by

distrust—we raised the banner on which we emblazoned the

magic words, ‘Home Rule.’ We raised it with feeble hand.

Tremblingly, with hesitation, almost stealthily, we unfurled

that banner to the breeze. But wherever the legend we had

emblazoned on its folds was seen the heart of the people

moved to its words, and the soul of the nation felt their

power and their spell. Those words were passed from man to

man along the valley and the hillside. Everywhere men, even

those who had been despairing, turned to that banner with

confidence and hope. Thus far we have borne it. It is for

you now to bear it on with more energy, with more strength,

and with renewed vigor. We hand it over to you in this

gathering of the nation. But, oh! let no unholy hands

approach it. Let no one come to the help of our country,

‘Or dare to lay his hand upon the ark

Of her magnificent and awful cause’

who is not prepared never, never to desert that banner till

it flies proudly over the portals of that ‘old house at

home’—that old house which is associated with memories of

great Irishmen, and has been the scene of many glorious

triumphs. Even while the blaze of those glories is at this

moment throwing its splendor over the memory of us all, I

believe in my soul that the parliament of regenerated

Ireland will achieve triumphs more glorious, more lasting,

more sanctified and holy, than any by which her old

parliament illumined the annals of our country and our race.

As his last words died away the assemblage, rising as one man, burst

into cheers long protracted, and it was only after several minutes

that order was restored.

Mr. Butt had spoken to a complete series of resolutions, which he now

submitted to the conference; he concluded by formally moving the first

of them:

“I. That, as the basis of the proceedings of this conference,

we declare our conviction that it is essentially necessary

to the peace and prosperity of Ireland that the right of

domestic legislation on all Irish affairs should be restored

to our country.”

It was seconded by Mr. Joseph P. Ronayne, M.P. for Cork City, a man as

honest and as just as Aristides; an “advanced Nationalist,” one in

whose honor, sincerity, and earnestness Fenians and non-Fenians alike

implicitly confided. “I did not take part,” he said, “in public life

for the last twenty years, and I hesitated a long time before joining

the Home-Rule movement. I was a simple Repealer, when simple Repeal

was the form in which Ireland demanded the restitution of her

nationality. I was a rebel in ’48.” After this manly avowal of his

position Mr. Ronayne closed a brief but forcible speech as follows:

“I have no quarrel with the English people; their sins

against Ireland are sins of ignorance, not of intention. Our

quarrel is with the government, and against the system which

has prevailed ever since England claimed possession of this

country. The measure of Mr. Butt will solve the difficulties

of the situation. I think we will maintain what is the

sentiment of the Irish people—what they contended for with

England when England and Ireland were Catholic, as well as

when England and Ireland were Protestant and Catholic—that

is, the nationality of Ireland. And I see no way but that

proposed by Mr. Butt by which this great end can be

obtained, consistently with the maintenance of friendly

relations between the two countries.”

A still more important announcement, from what is called the

“Nationalist” as well as the Repeal point of view, was made by the

next speaker, Mr. John Martin, M.P., who moved the second resolution.

He, too, avowed himself by preference a Repealer, and every one knew

he had been a martyr, prisoner, and exile for his share in the events

of ’48. But in language strong, clear, and decisive he gave his

approval to the Home-Rule scheme:

“Because I believe that this measure of home government,

this new arrangement of the relations between the two

countries, will operate sufficiently for the interests—for

all the interests—of the Irish people; because I think, if

carried into effect according to the principles enunciated

in these resolutions, it will be honorable to the Irish

nation, it will be consistent with the dignity of the Irish

nation, and it will be safe for all its interests; and also

because, as to so much of the rights and prerogatives of the

Irish nation as are by this scheme of Home Rule to be left

under the jurisdiction of an imperial parliament, in which

we shall be represented, I consider that those are only the

same rights and attributes that, under the old system, were

practically left together to the control of the English

Parliament and the English Privy Council and ministry.”

The full report of the proceedings at this conference, compiled from

the daily newspapers and published by the Home-Rule League, is one of

the most interesting publications of a political character issued in

Ireland for many years. The speakers exhibited marked ability, and

they represented every phase of Irish national opinion. There was very

earnest debate; amendments were moved and discussed; points were

raised, contested, decided. But the great fact that astounded the

outside public, and utterly confounded the prophetic English

journalists, was that, warm, protracted, and severe as were some of

the discussions, free and full interchange of opinion in every

instance sufficed to bring about conviction, and settled every issue

without resort to a poll of votes. Every resolution was carried

unanimously,[166] and on no question, from first to last, was there

need to take a division. “It is not like Ireland at all,” said an

astonished critic. “What on earth has become of our traditional

contentiousness and discord?”

The following were the principal resolutions of the conference,

besides the first, already quoted above:

Moved by Mr. John Martin, M.P. (Meath), and seconded by Mr. Roland

Ponsonby Blennerhassett, M.P. (Kerry):

“That, solemnly reasserting the inalienable right of the

Irish people to self-government, we declare that the time,

in our opinion, has come when a combined and energetic

effort should be made to obtain the restoration of that

right.”

Moved by the Mayor of Cork (Mr. John Daly), seconded by the Hon.

Charles French, M.P. (Roscommon, brother of Lord de Freyne):

“That, in accordance with the ancient and constitutional

rights of the Irish nation, we claim the privilege of

managing our own affairs by a parliament assembled in

Ireland, and composed of the sovereign, the lords, and the

commons of Ireland.”

Moved by the Rev. Joseph A. Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity College,[167]

and seconded by the Rev. Thomas O’Shea, P.P. (the celebrated “Father

Tom O’Shea,” of the Tenant League):

“That, in claiming these rights and privileges for our

country, we adopt the principle of a federal arrangement,

which would secure to the Irish parliament the right of

legislating for, and regulating all matters relating to, the

internal affairs of Ireland, while leaving to the imperial

Parliament the power of dealing with all questions affecting

the imperial crown and government, legislation regarding the

colonies and other dependencies of the crown, the relations

of the empire with foreign states, and all matters

appertaining to the defence and stability of the empire at

large, as well as the power of granting and providing the

supplies necessary for imperial purposes.”

Moved by Sir Joseph Neale McKenna, and seconded by Mr. McCarthy

Downing, M.P. (Cork County):

“That such an arrangement does not involve any change in the

existing constitution of the imperial Parliament or any

interference with the prerogatives of the crown or

disturbance of the principles of the constitution.”

Moved by Sir John Gray, M.P. (Kilkenny), and seconded by Mr. D. M.

O’Conor, M.P. (Roscommon, brother of the O’Conor Don):

“That, to secure to the Irish people the advantages of

constitutional government, it is essential that there should

be in Ireland an administration of Irish affairs,

controlled, according to constitutional principles, by the

Irish parliament, and conducted by ministers

constitutionally responsible to that Parliament.”

Moved by Mr. Mitchell Henry, M.P. (Galway), and seconded by Mr. W. J.

O’Neill Daunt, Kilcaskan Castle, County Cork:

“That, in the opinion of this conference, a federal

arrangement, based upon these principles, would consolidate

the strength and maintain the integrity of the empire, and

add to the dignity and power of the imperial crown.”

Moved by Mr. W. A. Redmond, M.P. (Wexford), and seconded by Mr. Edmond

Dease, M.P. (Queen’s County):

“That, while we believe that in an Irish parliament the

rights and liberties of all classes of our countrymen would

find their best and surest protection, we are willing that

there should be incorporated in the federal constitution

articles supplying the amplest guarantees that no change

shall be made by that parliament in the present settlement

of property in Ireland, and that no legislation shall be

adopted to establish any religious ascendency in Ireland, or

to subject any person to disabilities on account of his

religious opinions.”

Moved by Mr. C. G. Doran, T.C. (Queenstown), and seconded by Mr. John

O’Connor Power (Tuam):

“That this conference cannot separate without calling on the

Irish constituencies at the next general election to return

men earnestly and truly devoted to the great cause which

this conference has been called to promote, and who, in any

emergency that may arise, will be ready to take counsel with

a great national conference, to be called in such a manner

as to represent the opinions and feelings of the Irish

nation; and that, with a view of rendering members of

Parliament and their constituencies more in accord on all

questions affecting the welfare of the country, it is

recommended by this conference that at the close of each

session of Parliament the representatives should render to

their constituents an account of their stewardship.”

Moved by Mr. George L. Bryan, M.P. (Kilkenny), and seconded by Mr. P.

Callan, M.P. (Dundalk):

“That, in order to carry these objects into practical

effect, an association be now formed, to be called ‘The

Irish Home-Rule League,’ of which the essential and

fundamental principles shall be those declared in the

resolutions adopted at this conference, and of which the

object, and only object, shall be to obtain for Ireland, by

peaceable and constitutional means, the self-government

claimed in these resolutions.”

The remaining resolutions dealt with the constitution of the new

organization thus founded, and decreed an appeal “to the Irish race

all over the world” for funds to assist them in the great struggle now

entered upon.

Thus was established the “Irish Home-Rule League” which to-day holds

so prominent a position in Ireland.

American readers, familiar enough with O’Connell’s demand for Repeal,

will naturally be anxious to learn in what precisely does the above

programme differ from that of the great Liberator. O’Connell, who had

himself seen the Irish Parliament, and, young as he was, sought to

resist its overthrow, grew into life with the simple idea of undoing

the evil which yesterday had wrought; in other words, restoring the

state of things which existed before the “Union.” This was known as

“simple Repeal”—Repeal and nothing more. Such a demand, arising almost

on the instant, or out of the evil act complained of, was quite

natural; but when time had elapsed, and when serious changes and

alterations in the circumstances and relations of the countries had

come about, men had to perceive that simple Repeal would land them, in

some respects, in an antiquated and impossible state of things. Thus

in the Irish Parliament no Catholic could sit, while the act of 1829

admitted Catholics to the imperial Parliament. Again, the franchise

and the “pocket” constituencies that had returned the Irish House of

Commons could not be restored without throwing the country into the

hands of a Protestant minority. Numerous other absurdities and

anomalies—things which existed in 1799, but that would be quite out of

all sense in 1844—might be pointed out. O’Connell saw this, but relied

upon the hope of obtaining not only simple Repeal, but also such

improvements as the lapse of time had rendered necessary; and he

relied further on the necessity which there would be for Ireland and

England, after Repeal, agreeing upon some scheme for the joint

government of the countries; in other words, some shape or degree of

federalism.

But the great blot upon the old system was that, although under it

Ireland had a totally separate legislature and exchequer, she never

had (or under it had the right to have) a separate responsible

administration or cabinet. The cabinet or administration that ruled

Ireland was formed by, and solely responsible to, the _English_

Parliament. The Irish Parliament had not the right or power to remove

a minister; was not able, no matter by what majority, to displace even

an administration actually conspiring against Irish liberties. Without

a separate Irish administration, responsible to the Irish Parliament,

removable by its vote, and liable to its impeachment, it may be said

that the legislative independence of Ireland was a frail possession.

Events showed this to be so.

The Home-Rule scheme has been concisely described by some of its

advocates as offering _beforehand_ the arrangements between the two

countries which under the Repeal plan would have to be laid down

_afterwards_. Instead of first simply severing the Union, and then

going to work to reconstruct everything, the Home-Rulers project their

reconstruction beforehand, and claim that one advantage of this is in

a large degree to allay alarms and avert hostility. Their plan

proposes to secure for Ireland the great advantage of a separate

responsible Irish ministry; offering, in exchange for this, to give up

to the imperial executive such powers as the States in America give to

the Washington Congress and executive, as distinguished from the

powers and functions reserved to the State legislatures and

governments. In fine, the Home-Rule scheme has been borrowed largely,

though not altogether, from the United States of America: Ireland to

rule and legislate, finally and supremely, on all domestic affairs;

all affairs common to England, Ireland, and Scotland to be ruled and

legislated for by an administration and parliament in which all three

will be represented. There are, no doubt, in America many patriotic

Irishmen who think this far too little for Ireland to demand; who

contend she should seek nothing less than total separation and

independence; the price, undisguisedly, being civil war with its

lottery of risks and chances. However this may be, the Irish people,

if ever their voice has been heard for a century, on the 18th of

November, 1873, solemnly and publicly spoke for themselves, and their

demand so formulated is now before the world.

There can be no doubt—it is now very well known—that the proceedings

at the Irish National Conference, especially the unanimity, power, and

influence there displayed, had been keenly watched by the London

government. Mr. Gladstone had been losing ground in the English

by-elections for a year past; but as long as there was a hope of the

Irish Liberal vote remaining he had no need to fear yet awhile. The

conference, however, was read by him as a declaration of war. The

Home-Rule leaders themselves realized the critical state of affairs;

they were confident Mr. Gladstone would dissolve Parliament and strike

at them in the approaching summer; and accordingly they set themselves

to prepare for the conflict. The “Christmas holidays” intervening, it

was the first or second week in January before the newly-formed

Home-Rule League had fully constituted itself and elected its council.

Its leaders, however, scenting danger, went quickly to work, and

arranged for beginning in February a thorough organization of the

constituencies. In February! They were dealing with a man who had no

idea of giving his adversaries six months, or even six weeks, to

prepare. They were doomed to be taken unawares and nearly swept off

their feet by a surprise as sudden and complete as the springing of a

mine.

On the morning of Saturday, January 24, 1874, the people of the

British Islands woke to find Parliament dissolved. No surprise could

be more complete; for Parliament had stood summoned for the first week

in February. At midnight on the 23d Mr. Gladstone sprang this grand

surprise on his foes, English Conservative and Irish Home-Ruler,

hoping to overwhelm both by the secrecy and suddenness of the attack.

And for a while it quite seemed as if he had correctly calculated and

would succeed. The wildest confusion and dismay prevailed. There was

no time to do anything but simply rush out and fight helter-skelter.

In Ireland the first momentary feeling seemed to be one almost of

despair. “Oh! had we but even another month.” Yet no cowardly despair;

only the first gasp of a brave people taken at utter disadvantage.

For the Home-Rule leaders it was a moment of almost sad and certainly

oppressive responsibility and anxiety. They knew how little allowance

would be made for the mere dexterity whereby they had been thus

outwitted, if they should lose the campaign, as it seemed to many they

must. But not a moment did they waste in sighing for what might have

been. There was an instantaneous rush to the council-rooms, and before

the tidings from London were twenty-four hours old there had begun

what may be called a three weeks’ sitting _en permanence_ of the

Home-Rule executive. It is almost literally true that it sat night and

day throughout that time, receiving and forwarding despatches from and

to all parts of the country, by telegraph, by mail, and by special

messenger. The Home-Rulers had always held forth as an object which

they could achieve, or were determined to achieve, in fair time, and

after necessary preparations, the conquest of some seventy seats out

of the Irish one hundred and three. To secure even _thirty_ just now

in this rush was deemed a daring hope. But it seemed as if enthusiasm

and popular indignation at the Gladstonian _coup_ compensated for lack

of preparation or organization. It was a great national uprising.

North, south, east, and west the constituencies themselves set the

Home-Rule flag flying. Ireland was aflame.

This was the first general election under the free and fearless voting

of the ballot.[168] No more complaints by voters of “coercion” or

“intimidation” by “landlord” or “clergy” or “mob.” Neither bullying

nor bribing would any more be of use. At last, for the first time, the

mind of the elector himself would prevail, and the constituencies of

Ireland were free to pass a verdict on the Act of Union.

One drawback, however, threatened to baffle their purpose. Candidates!

Where were trustworthy candidates to be found? The Home-Rule council

had gone upon the plan of refusing to provide or recommend candidates,

thinking to force upon the constituencies themselves the

responsibility of such selection. “We will set up no candidate-factory

here in Dublin,” they said; “it might lead to intrigue. We’ll keep

clear of it; let each county and borough choose for itself.” But this

had to be given up. The cry from the constituencies showed its folly:

“Candidates, candidates! For the love of God send us a candidate, and

we’ll sweep this county for Home-Rule.” As a matter of fact, owing to

the dearth of suitable candidates, no less than a dozen seats had to

be let go by default without any contest at all; while in as many more

cases converts from mere liberalism to Home Rule, whose sincerity was

hardly acceptable, had, from the same cause, to be let pass in “on

good behavior.”

There was, there could be, but little of general plan over the whole

field; it was fight all round, the whole island being simultaneously

engaged. This was Mr. Gladstone’s able generalship: to prevent the

Home-Rule leaders from being able to concentrate their resources on

one place at a time. Nevertheless, they were his inferiors neither in

ability nor in strategy, as the event proved. Upon the vantage points

which he deemed most precious they delivered their heaviest fire, and

in no case unsuccessfully.[169] The contests that, each in some

peculiar way, most forcibly demonstrated the determination of the

people, their intense devotion to the Home-Rule cause, were: Cavan, an

Ulster county, where for the first time since the reign of James II. a

Catholic (one of two Home-Rulers) was returned; Louth, where the

utmost power of the government was concentrated, all in vain, to

secure Mr. Fortescue’s seat; Drogheda, where Mr. Whitworth, a princely

benefactor to the town, and an estimable Protestant gentleman, was

rejected because he was not a Home-Ruler; Wexford, where the son of

Sir James Power, a munificent patron of Catholic charities, was

rejected by priests and people for the same reason; Limerick County,

where a young Whig Catholic squire, whose hoisting of Home Rule was

disbelieved in by the electors, received only about one vote to eight

cast for a more trustworthy man chosen from the ranks of the people,

although the former gentleman was believed in and strenuously

supported by the Catholic clergy; and Kildare, where the son of the

Duke of Leinster, who owned nearly every acre in the county, was

utterly routed!

At length the last gun was fired, the last seat had been lost and won,

and as the smoke of battle lifted from the scene men gazed eagerly to

see how the campaign had gone. The Home-Rulers had triumphed all along

the line! Strictly speaking, they failed as to one, and only one, of

the seats which they contested—namely, Tralee, where the O’Donoghue (a

former National leader, now an anti-Home-Ruler) succeeded against them

by three votes. They had returned sixty[170] men pledged to their

programme, in the late Parliament the Irish representation stood 55

Liberals, 38 Conservatives, and 10 Home-Rulers. It now stood 12

Liberals, 31 Conservatives, and 60 Home-Rulers. The national party

thus outnumbered all others, Whig and Tory, combined; and, for the

first time since the Union, that measure stood condemned by a majority

of the parliamentary representatives of the Irish nation.

Not in Ireland alone was Mr. Gladstone overwhelmed by defeat, his

clever stroke of the midnight dissolution notwithstanding. The English

elections also went bodily against him. In the middle of the fight he

resigned, and the minister who met the new Parliament with the seals

of office in his hand and the smile of victory on his countenance was

Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader.

There was considerable uneasiness in England when the Irish elections

were found to be going for the Home-Rulers, until it turned out that

the Disraeli party had a hundred majority on the British vote. “The

empire is saved,” gasped the alarmed Englishmen; “we were lost if such

a Home-Rule phalanx found parties nearly equal in the House of

Commons. They would hold the balance of power and dictate terms. Let

us give thanks for so providential a Tory majority.” There was much

writing in the English newspapers in this strain. They took it for

granted that the Home-Rulers were “balked” or checkmated, for a time

at least, by this unexpected Tory preponderance. It cost them over a

year to find out that no one rejoiced more than did the Home-Rule

leaders in secret over this same state of things; that it was a

crowning advantage to the Home-Rulers as a party to have the Liberals

in opposition for four or five years.

Returning a number of men as Home-Rulers did not necessarily

constitute them a political party. Neither would a resolution on their

part so to act altogether carry out such a purpose. The discipline,

the unity, the homogeneity, which constitute the real power of a party

come not by mere resolving; they may begin by resolution, but they

grow by custom and practice. Men behind the scenes in the Home-Rule

councils knew that serious uneasiness prevailed amongst the leaders

lest their ranks might be broken up or shaken by the prospect or

reality of a return of the Liberals to power _too soon_—_i.e._, before

they, the Home-Rulers, had had time to settle down or solidify into a

thoroughly compact body, and before discipline and habit had

accustomed them to move and act together. Four or five years training

in opposition was the opportunity they most wanted and desired. From a

dozen to a score of their rank and file were men who had been

Gladstonian Liberals, and whose fealty would be doubtful if in 1875

the disestablisher of the Irish Church called upon them to follow him

rather than Mr. Butt. These men would at that time have felt

themselves “Liberals first, and Home-Rulers after.” Even in any case,

and as it is, there are six or seven of these former Liberals among

the Home-Rule fifty-nine who are looked upon as certain to “cross the

house” with their former chief whenever he returns to office. In 1875

these men would have carried a dozen lukewarm waverers along with

them; in 1877 they will not carry one, and their own action,

discounted beforehand, will disconcert or surprise no one, and will

merely cause them to lose their seats on the first opportunity

afterwards.

Quickly following upon the general election, the members returned on

Home-Rule principles assembled in Dublin, 3d of March, 1874 (the

Council Chamber of the city hall being lent to them for that purpose

by the municipal authorities), and, without a dissentient voice,

passed a series of resolutions constituting themselves a separate and

distinct political party for parliamentary purposes. Whigs and Tories,

Trojans and Tyrians, were henceforth to be alike to them. The next

step was to elect a sort of “cabinet” of nine members, called the

Parliamentary Committee, to act as an executive; while the appointment

of two of their body most trusted for vigilance, tact, and fidelity,

to act as “whips,”[171] completed the formal organization of the

Home-Rule members as a party.

Not an hour too soon had they perfected their arrangements. The new

Parliament, after a technical opening a fortnight previously,

assembled for the real despatch of business on Thursday, the 19th of

March, 1874, and next day (on the debate on the Queen’s speech), in

the very first hour of their parliamentary life, the Home-Rulers found

themselves in the thick of battle. Mr. Butt had taken the field at

once with an amendment raising the Irish question. The house was full

of curiosity to hear “the Irish Home-Rulers” and see what they were

like. It was struck with their combative audacity. It frankly

confessed they stood fire “like men,” and that they acquitted

themselves on the whole with astonishing ability. From that night

forward the British House of Commons realized that it had for the

first time a “third party” within its walls. How utterly opposed this

is to Englishmen’s ideas of things proper or possible will be gathered

from the fact that they construct or seat the chamber for two, and

only two, parties; and that they even still make a great struggle to

have it regarded as a “constitutional theory” that there must be two,

and can be no more than two, parties in the house—namely, “Her

Majesty’s Government” and “Her Majesty’s Opposition.” American

legislative chambers, as well as French, German, Italian, Austrian,

are constructed and seated in a semicircle or amphitheatre. The

British, on the contrary, is an oblong hall or short parallelogram,

divided right and left by a wide central avenue running its full

length from the entrance door to the “table of the House” fronting the

speaker’s chair. There are, therefore, no middle seats; everyone must

sit on one side or another—with the ministerialists or Tories on the

right of the chair, or with the opposition or Liberals on the left.

Half-way up the floor there runs (right and left to each side of the

chamber), at right angles to the wide central avenue above referred

to, a narrow passage often mentioned in newspaper reports as “the

gangway.” “Above the gangway” (or nearest the chair) on each side sit

respectively the thick and thin followers of the present or late

ministry. “Below the gangway” (or farthest from the chair) sit on each

side men who would occupy some section of the middle seats, if the

house possessed any—the right and left centres, so to speak. The

Home-Rulers sit in a compact body “below the gangway” on the

opposition side.

In their third session public opinion has now pretty well gauged and

measured the ability and resources of the Home-Rule party. In their

first campaign, 1874, though much praised because they were infinitely

better in every respect than most people expected, they exhibited

plentifully the faults and shortcomings of “raw levies.” Their formal

debate on Home Rule, on the 30th of June and 2d of July, was utterly

wanting in system and management, and would have been a failure had

not the anti-Home-Rule side of the discussion been incontestably much

worse handled. But never, probably, in parliamentary history has

another body of men learned so quickly, and so rapidly attained a high

position, as they have done. By the concurrent testimony of their

adversaries themselves the Home-Rule members are the best disciplined

and best guided and, in proportion to their numbers, the most able and

powerful party in the British House of Commons. In order to have a

complete and accurate conception of all that relates to the Irish

Home-Rule movement, there remains only to be considered the policy or

line of action on which its leaders propose to operate. How do they

expect to carry Home Rule?

At no time have the criticisms of the English press on the subject of

Home Rule exhibited anything but the shallowest intelligence; and many

of the Home-Rule victories have been won because of the stolid

ignorance prevailing in the English camp. The English journalists

disliking the Irish government, believe and proclaim to their readers

only what accords with their prejudices; and accordingly upon them has

fallen the fate of the general who refuses to reconnoitre the enemy

and accurately estimate his strength. On this subject the British

journalist will have it that he “knows all about it,” and has no need

to investigate things seriously. From the first hour of the Home-Rule

movement he has declared it to be “breaking up,” “failing,” “going

down the hill.” It has been so constantly going _down_ that hill in

his story that one never can find out when or how it got _up_ there,

or whether there is any bottom to the declivity which it can ever

reach in such a rapid and persistent downward motion. On no feature of

the Home-Rule question has there been more affectation of knowing all

about it, and more complacent dogmatism as to its inevitable fate,

than this of the Home-Rule plan of action. The way these people look

at the matter explains their consolatory conclusions. They view the

Home-Rulers simply as sixty members in a house of six hundred and

fifty-eight. “Six hundred to sixty—surely it is absurd! Are the Irish

demented, to think their sixty will convert our six hundred?”

This mistake of viewing Mr. Butt and Home Rule just as they view Sir

Wilfrid Lawson and prohibition is just where the English show their

unpardonable and fatuous want of intelligence. Indeed, others besides

English commentators fall into this error. They imagine the

Home-Rulers contemplate working Home Rule through the House of Commons

by bringing in a “Bill” and having an annual “vote” upon it, as if it

were the Permissive bill, or the Woman’s Suffrage, or the Game Law

Bill. The Home-Rulers laugh heartily over all this sort of criticism.

They dream of nothing of the kind. There is another way of looking at

the Home-Rule party and the Home-Rule question in the House of

Commons.

Six hundred men can indeed very easily vote down sixty, and make short

work of their opposition; always supposing these latter to be units

from places wide apart, representing scattered interests or

speculative opinions. The House of Commons deals every year, session

after session, with several such sixties and seventies and eighties

and nineties. But it would be a woful apology for “statesmanship” to

regard the Home-Rule sixty in this light. In _their_ case the

government have to do, _not_ with sixty of their own general body of

British members, but with the Irish representation. The question is

not with sixty members of the House, but with _Ireland_. In any crisis

of the empire, as the English Chancellor of the Exchequer said

recently about the British representatives on the Suez Canal Board,

“_their_ votes would be _weighed_, not _counted_.”

The purpose of the Home-Rulers, for the present at all events, is much

less with the House of Commons than with the country; they operate on

the country through that house. They want to get Ireland into their

hands; and even already they have very substantially done so. They

want to convince and conciliate and enlist the English democracy; and

they have very largely succeeded. With this key to their movements,

the supreme ability and wisdom which they have displayed will be

better recognized. They have taken the whole of the public affairs of

Ireland into their charge. They have taken every public interest in

the country under their protection. Whoever wants anything done or

attended to, whether he be Catholic, Protestant, or dissenter, now

looks to the Home-Rulers, and to them alone. Not the humblest peasant

in the land but feels that, if a petty village tyrant has wronged him,

the Irish party in the House of Commons will “know the reason why.”

They have seized upon every subject deeply affecting the people as a

whole, or important classes among them, and showered bills dealing

with these subjects on the table of the House of Commons. The

distracted premier knows what is beneath all this; he detects the

master-hand of Isaac Butt in this deep strategy. These are not sham

bills, merely to take up time. They are genuine bills, ably and

carefully drawn, and every one of them dealing with a really important

and pressing matter for Ireland. Every one of them hits a blot; they

are nearly all such bills as our Irish Parliament would pass. Some of

the subjects (such as the “Fisheries Bill”) are popular with very

nearly all classes in Ireland; then there are the University Education

Bill, the Land-Tenure Bill, the Grand Jury Bill, the Municipal

Privileges Bill, the Franchise Hill, the Registration Bill, besides a

host of others. Suppose the government give way, and accept one; there

is a shout of triumph in Ireland: “The Home-Rulers have forced their

hand!” and a cry of dismay and rage from the irreconcilable Orangemen:

“The government have succumbed to the Jesuits!” Suppose they resist

and vote down the bill; matters are worse. The Irish people are

inflamed, and even ministerialists sulk and say: “This is bad policy;

‘tis playing the Home-Rule game.” Suppose, again, Mr. Disraeli adopts

a middle course and says: “This is an excellent bill in many respects,

but really we have not time to consider it this year.” A louder shout

than ever greets such a statement: “There is no room for Irish

business. Then let us transact it here at home.”

It is a matter of notoriety that there is growing up among Englishmen,

within and without the House of Commons, a feeling that, even apart

from all political considerations, _something_ must be done to lighten

the work, and remit to other assemblies a large portion of the

legislative business now attempted there. The house is breaking down

under the load laid upon or undertaken by it. So would Congress, if,

in addition to its own functions, it attempted to do the work of the

State legislatures besides. There are hundreds, it may be said

thousands, of influential English politicians who, seeing this, regard

as simply inevitable something in the direction of the Home-Rule

scheme, only, of course “not so extreme,” as they call it. Nothing but

the bugbear of “dismembering the empire” prevents an English cry for

lightening the ship. The Home-Rulers watch all this, and take very

good care that the load which the house prefers to retain shall press

heavily on it. Not that they pursue or contemplate a policy of mere

obstruction, which many persons, friends and foes, thought they would.

Mr. Butt has again and again repudiated this. He knows that such a

course would only put the house on its mettle, and would defeat his

scheme of silently sapping the convictions of the more fairly disposed

Englishmen. He knows that the present system cannot last many years.

He knows that the English people, once their convictions are affected,

soon give way before public exigency. To affect those convictions and

to create that exigency is the Home-Rule policy. It is all very well,

while the skies are clear and tranquil, for English ministers, past

and present, to bluster greatly about the impossibility of

entertaining the Irish demand. It is all very well, while the present

Tory majority is so strong, for both parties to protest their

hostility to Home-Rule. Opinions change wondrously in these cases.

When the Disraelian majority has in the course of nature dropped down

to forty, thirty, twenty, and ten; when the Liberal leaders find they

can attain to office with the Home-Rule vote, and cannot retain office

without it, they will—offer Home Rule? No. Offer palliatives—good

places for Home-Rulers, and “good measures” for Ireland? Probably. But

when these offers are found to be vain; are found to strengthen the

power and intensify the resolution of the Home-Rule party, the

transformation which England went through on so many great

questions—Catholic Emancipation, Church Disestablishment, etc. (each

in its day just as solemnly sworn to be “impossible”)—will begin to

set in; and—all the more loudly if such a moment should happen to

synchronize with deadlock in the legislature, peril abroad, and

popular resentment at home—from England itself will arise the cry that

“Ireland must be fairly dealt with.” At such a moment a British

minister will easily be found to “discover,” as it were most

fortunately, that “the question has hitherto been misunderstood,” and

that it is England’s interest not less than Ireland’s to have it

satisfactorily adjusted.

For it is not with Ireland alone British ministers will have to

settle. Although no reference has previously been made here to the

fact, the strongest arm of the Home-Rule party is in England itself.

Within the past thirty years there has grown up there, silently and

unnoticed, a new political power—hundreds of thousands of Irishmen

who, having settled in the large labor marts, have grown to

citizenship, power, and influence. From Bristol to Dundee there is not

a large city that has not now on its electoral roll Irish voters whose

action can decide the fate of candidates. Coincidently with the

establishment of the “Home Government Association” in Ireland there

arose in England, as a co-operative but independent organization, the

“Home-Rule Confederation of Great Britain.” This body has organized

the Irish vote all over England and Scotland, and holds virtually in

its hands all the vast centres of political thought and action.

Reflecting their sentiments and their influence, Dundee, Newcastle,

Durham, Tynemouth, Cardiff, and more than a dozen other important

English and Scotch constituencies returned English friends of Home

Rule to Parliament. It was not the mere matter of so many votes that

lent such value to this fact; it was the incentive which it gave to

the growing feeling (amongst the English working-classes especially)

that the Irish question was one to be sympathized with. An event which

occurred in England barely a few weeks ago was, however, beyond all

precedent in the sensation which it created. This was the recent

Manchester election. A week previously in Burnley it was found

impossible to return any but a Home-Rule Liberal, and such a man

accordingly headed the poll. In Manchester Mr. Jacob Bright (son of

Mr. John Bright) was the Liberal, and a Mr. Powell the Conservative,

candidate. It became clear that the Irish vote would decide the issue.

One morning the news was flashed through England that _both_

candidates, Liberal and Conservative, had undertaken to vote for Mr.

Butt’s motion on Home Rule! What! Manchester, the political capital of

England, gone for Home Rule? It was even so, and Mr. Bright, being

preferred of the two, was triumphantly returned by the Irish Home-Rule

vote.

All this means that on English ground Ireland now has

hostages—hostages of security that no daring act of armed violence

shall be attempted against her; hostages of friendship, too, as well

as of safety; centres of a propagandism, of conciliation; citadels of

political power. The growth of feeling in England in favor of the

concession of Ireland’s national autonomy is simply incontestable. It

may well be that, as many Irish politicians declare, “the battle of

Home Rule for Ireland will be fought and won on British soil.”

And this is how Ireland stands in 1876—erect, powerful, resolute,

united. What the future may have in store for her, victory or defeat,

is beyond human ken. This effort too may fail, as many a gallant

endeavor in her behalf has failed before. All that can be said is that

so far it has progressed with a success unparalleled in Irish

political annals; that it is wisely guided, boldly animated,

faithfully upheld. Much depends on her own children, at home and in

foreign lands; on their devotion, their prudence, their courage, their

perseverance. May this new dawn of unity, of concord of conciliation

herald the day they have so long hoped to see!

And thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways

Are far above our feeble minds

To understand,

Sustain us in these doubtful days,

And render light the chain that binds

Our fallen land!

Look down upon our dreary state

And, through the ages that may still

Roll sadly on,

Watch thou o’er hapless Erin’s fate,

And shield at least from darker ill

The blood of Conn.

[161] This odious law, known as the “Irish Convention Act,”

was passed by the Irish Parliament in order to forbid

the Volunteers and other friends of Parliamentary

Reform from “overawing the legislature.” Its repeal

has been steadily resisted by the British Parliament,

which finds the restriction now as invaluable as the

Irish people find it oppressive.

[162] Some time previously he had publicly said that Repeal

he understood, but the new programme he did not. Since

that time, however, he gave ample proof that he had

come to understand it clearly.

The clergy of his diocese, the archbishop himself in

one instance presiding at their meeting, had sent in

their formal adhesion, accompanied by large

contributions of money, to the association.

[163] Almost incredible as it may seem to some readers,

_this_ was the only portion of the arrangements never

once required. Throughout the four days of protracted

and earnest debate, as will be detailed further on, no

occasion arose for taking a division.

[164] _List of Conference Ticket-holders—names and

addresses—National Conference, November, 1873._

Dublin: Home-Rule League Publications. 1874.

[165] Since elected (1874) for the county of Cork, along

with Mr. McCarthy Downing. He had been at one time a

Protestant dissenting minister.

[166] There was one dissentient to one of the resolutions—a

gentleman named Thomas Mooney, late of California and

other places.

[167] It is impossible to treat of the Irish Home-Rule

movement without a special reference to this reverend

gentleman, who is one of the most prominent figures in

the group of Home-Rule leaders. He is a man of

European reputation in science, and of the most

upright and noble character. He is greatly loved and

universally respected. Scarcely has Mr. Butt himself

been more instrumental in the success of the movement;

and there are now few names in Ireland more popular

than that of “Professor Galbraith.”

[168] The ballot-voting in Ireland under the act of 1873,

unlike that in America, is strictly secret: there

being no “ticket” to be seen by outsiders. Only on

entering the booth, where the few persons necessarily

present are sworn to secrecy, the voter receives a

paper on which the names of the candidates are

printed. In a secret compartment of the booth the

voter marks a cross alongside the name of the man for

whom he wishes to vote, folds up the paper so as to

conceal the mark which he has made, brings it forward,

and drops it through a slit into a sealed box. He then

quits the booth, and no one, inside or outside (but

himself), knows for whom he has voted.

[169] The defeat of his Irish cabinet minister and former

chief secretary, the Right Hon Chichester Fortescue,

in Louth County, was generally regarded as the

crushing blow of the whole campaign, as Mr. Fortescue

was Mr. Gladstone’s official representative in

Ireland. He was deemed invulnerable in Louth, having

sat for it twenty-seven years, and being brother of

Lord Claremont, one of the largest and best landlords

in the county. The government laughed to scorn the

idea of disturbing him. The Home-Rulers selected for

this critical fight Mr. A. M. Sullivan, editor of the

_Nation_. It was a desperate struggle: but not only

was the Home-Ruler returned at the head of the poll,

but he polled two to one against the cabinet minister.

[170] One of them, in Leitrim, subsequently lost his return,

though in a majority, by a stupid mistake of one of

his agents.

[171] It may be doubted whether there is any man amongst the

Home-Rule members better entitled than their senior

“whip,” Captain J. P. Nolan, to be ranked as next to

Mr. Butt himself in importance and in service. On him

it rests to keep the party on the alert; to note and

advise with his chief upon every move of the enemy; to

have his own men always “on hand,” so that they may

never be caught napping; to keep his colleagues

informed by circular (or “whip”) of all forthcoming

bills or motions of importance; and finally, to act as

“teller” or counter on a division. In fact, if Mr.

Butt is the head or brain of the Home-Rule party,

Captain Nolan is its right hand. He belongs to an old

Catholic family, the O’Nolans of Leix, who in 1645

were put upon allotments beyond the Shannon in return

for their estates in fertile Leix, which were handed

over to Cromwell’s troopers. Captain Nolan is a man of

considerable literary ability. He is a captain in the

Royal Artillery and as a scientific and practical

artillerist stands in the highest repute. He is the

inventor of “Nolan’s Range-finder,” adopted in the

Russian, French, and Austrian armies.

THE VALLEY OF THE AUDE

The Aude is a rambling, capricious river of ancient Languedoc that

rises on the confines of Spain, among the oriental Pyrenees, five

thousand feet above the level of the sea. At first, imprisoned and

half-stifled among the narrow gorges of the mountains, its waters,

clear and sparkling, rush noisily and impetuously along, struggling

for room; but as soon as they find space in the sunny valleys they

slacken their speed as if to enjoy the very verdure they create; they

grow turbid, sometimes the current dwindles away to a mere thread

among poor barren hills, and again at the first storm spreads wide its

course through the rich vine-bordered plain. At Carcassonne it becomes

languid, and, turned eastward by the Montagne Noire, passes along

beneath the sombre line of the oaks, beeches, and chestnuts that cover

the mountains, and when, after being fed by thirty-six tributaries, it

falls wearily into the sea a little above Narbonne, it is no longer

the limpid, dashing stream we met in the mountains, but troubled in

its waters and indolent in flow.

We came first upon the Aude at Carcassonne, where it takes a bend

towards the sea—the Ville-basse, a thriving town in the plain that

dates from the time of St. Louis; the old fortified city on the height

above, historic, legendary, and picturesque. And ancient too, for it

was, according to some ambitious writers, founded by the fugitive

Trojans, or, what is better still, by one of the grandsons of Noe, and

prosperous in the time of the Pharaos. Be that as it may, it was in

the possession of the Romans before the coming of Cæsar. In the fifth

century after Christ it fell into the hands of the Visigoths, who are

said to have brought hither from the sack of Rome jewelled utensils

that came from the palace of King Solomon and the vessels of gold that

belonged to the Temple of Jerusalem, carried away by Titus and

Vespasian. These treasures were long believed hidden in a deep well

still to be seen in the upper city, but during a dry season a few

years ago it was explored without any discovery to confirm the

tradition. They were probably taken to Spain, or carried to Ravenna by

Theodoric the Great, to whom several of the towers of Carcassonne are

attributed. There are two walls around the old city: the inner ones,

with their circular towers of the time of the Visigoths; the outer,

with fortified gateways that date at least from the time of Louis IX.

And then there is a venerable quadrangular castle, with five towers

and a moat that bears the marks of many a hard assault, but now serves

chiefly to give a picturesque look and a pleasing air of antiquity to

the landscape. The square tower next the Aude, if not all five, is

said to have bowed down before the great Emperor of the West. But we

are anticipating.

After the Ostrogoths came the Saracens, flushed with victory, from

Spain, and they had possession of Carcassonne when Charlemagne came

into _Gaule Narbonnaise_ and laid siege to the city, determined to

drive them beyond the Pyrenees. The delightful old traditions of that

day, which are so much better than history, say it then bore the name

of Atax. According to them, the emperor remained beneath the walls

five long years without the slightest success, notwithstanding the

valor of his peerless knights. So astonishing a resistance was solely

owing to Dame Carcas, a mere woman, and a Moor at that, who not only

possessed remarkable courage, but was shrewd to the last degree, as we

are prepared to show. Of course, after a five years’ siege the

provisions had dwindled away to a very low ebb, and the inhabitants

had naturally diminished in proportion. In fact, everybody was at

length dead in the city except stout Dame Carcas, who seemed to have

lived on her wits. This wonderful woman was not discouraged. She acted

on the principle of the inscription over the gates of Busyrane—“Be

bold, be bold, and evermore be bold.” She garnished the walls with

effigies in armor—mere scarecrows—and, making the round of the

rampart, she kept up such a hail of arrows on the enemy, as if she had

the arms of Briareus, that they marvelled, as well they might, at the

resources of so well-supplied and vigilant a garrison. Wishing to

convince Charlemagne that there was no possibility of his reducing the

city by famine, she gorged her very last pig with her last bushel of

wheat, and threw it over the ramparts. It was naturally dashed to

pieces, and its internal economy fully displayed, as shrewd Dame

Carcas intended. The besiegers, astonished to see the very lowest of

animals fed on the purest of wheat, now supposed the supplies quite

inexhaustible, and Charlemagne, as sensible as he was great, at once

raised the siege. Not without regret, however, and, as he turned back

to take a last look at the walls before which he had spent in vain so

much time and labor, wondrous to relate, one of the mighty towers of

the Goths bowed down before him in reverence, and never regained its

perpendicular, as may be seen to this day by any one who goes to

Carcassonne.

Dame Carcas, you may be sure, was on the lookout. Satisfied with

having got the better of the mighty emperor, she called him back,

opened the ponderous gates, and acknowledged his sovereignty.

Charlemagne, full of admiration at her courage and wit, determined the

city should be called after her. Hence the name of Carcassonne. It is

a pity any doubt should be cast over so pleasing a tradition, but some

do say, let us hope without proof, that it bore this name in the time

of the Romans. We do not feel obliged to believe it. People who are

historically as well as religiously “convinced against their will, are

of the same opinion still.” We stick to the Middle Ages, when the

tradition was so fully credited that a bas-relief, a kind of

emblazonry, of the bust of an Amazon was placed over the principal

gate of the city, with the words below: _Carcas sum_—I am Carcas.

According to a popular legend, Charlemagne besieged Carcassonne twice.

The second time it was defended by Anchises, King of the Saracens, who

was aided by Satan himself and an efficient corps of African

sorcerers. However, the demons were routed, and the pious emperor set

up a fortress of the faith, known to us as the cathedral of St.

Nazaire, which is in the southeast corner of the city, built into the

very walls forming a part of the old fortifications. This church is

still the jewel of the place. The crypt alone is of the Carlovingian

age. The nave and aisles of the upper church are of the eleventh

century, in the Roman style, grave and sombre, with small windows,

massive pillars, and thick walls capable of resisting the enemy. These

were blessed by Pope Urban II. in 1096. The present choir was built in

St. Louis’ time, and forms a striking contrast to the heavy gloomy

nave, for it is of the pointed style, light and elegant, with seven

stained glass windows of wonderful beauty, and so close together as to

leave no wall. The arches seem to rest on the eight colonnettes that

frame the windows. In one of them may be read the whole legend of SS.

Nazarius and Celsus, celebrated in Italian art. Titian has painted

them in armor in a beautiful altarpiece of the church that bears their

name at Brescia. St. Saturnin, however, the apostle of Toulouse, first

announced the faith in this region. St. Nazaire is reputed to have

arrived soon after. His mother was a Roman matron converted by St.

Peter, and he himself was baptized by the apostle, who commissioned

him to preach the Gospel. At Milan he exhorted and comforted SS.

Gervasius and Protasius in prison, and was beaten with staves by order

of the governor. Celsus was his spiritual child and co-laborer. At

Genoa they were cast into the sea, which refused to drown them, and

they walked back over the angry billows to land. After their apostolic

journey to Southern Gaul, they were beheaded at Milan just without the

Porta Romana, where a beautiful church still stands to perpetuate

their memory. But it is inferior to St. Nazaire of Carcassonne, which

is at once antique and poetic. What deep shadows in its venerable

aisles! What rainbow lights in its jewelled windows! The rose of the

north transept is composed of twelve lobes, in six of which blue

predominates; in the other six, green—very beautiful in the sunset

light. In the window of the south transept the lobes are in two rows,

so disposed that green is under cramoisie, and cramoisie under green,

producing quite a magical effect.

North of the cathedral, just beyond its ruined cloister, is a donjon

of the thirteenth century, called the Tour de l’Evêque, which contains

a well, an oven, and everything necessary to sustain a regular siege.

Here, through the vines, figs, and almond-trees, is the best view of

the church, with its time-stained turrets, its buttressed walls, and

the fine tracery of its windows. The old city is before us with its

towers and antique walls, on which every storm that has swept over

Southern France has left its trace. Simon de Montfort scaled them

early in the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth, they braved the

Black Prince, who contented himself with feasting on the well-stocked

larders of the Basse Ville and drinking its rich wines, and afterwards

setting fire to the place. In the sixteenth century the city was

invaded by the Huguenots, who tore a statue of the Blessed Virgin from

its niche and dragged it through the streets, which so enraged the

Catholics that they rose in their fury and slaughtered all the

offenders on whom they could lay hands. Then they carried the statue

back to its place in solemn procession. And, when a royal edict of

1562 assigned the Calvinists a meeting-house just out of the city, the

people barred the gates against the returning assembly, and drove them

into the very Aude.

But let us leave these historic details, and, turning back into the

pleasanter paths of old romance, follow the Emperor Charlemagne along

the valley of the Aude. A little south of the direct road from

Carcassonne to Narbonne, we come to the village of La Grasse, of a

thousand souls, in a deep valley of the Orbieu, surrounded by the

rocky heights of the Corbières. This village grew up around a

celebrated Benedictine Abbey that flourished here for more than a

thousand years—one of the most important in Occitania. Its foundation

is so remote that it has become the theme of many popular traditions.

These are embodied in an old romance, said to have been written by

Philomène, secretary of Charlemagne, by the emperor’s order, and under

his inspection, and translated in the thirteenth century by William of

Padua, a monk of La Grasse.

Charlemagne had just taken Carcassonne, where five towers bowed down

before him. He founded several churches, such as St. Nazaire and St.

Saturnin, and appointed Roger, a clerk of noble family, bishop of the

place. Then he marched towards Narbonne, which was in possession of

the Saracens, intending to besiege it. He had with him Pope Leo III.,

most of the cardinals, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Turpin, archbishop

of Reims, and an infinite number of other prelates, abbots, and

priests, together with Roland, Oliver, Oger the Dane, Solomon of

Britanny, and Count Florestan his brother, and other famous paladins,

with dukes, counts, and barons too many to enumerate. While traversing

the valley of the Orbieu, one of the principal tributaries of the

Aude, Archbishop Turpin came across seven hermits, viz., Thomas of

Rouen, Richard of Pavia, Robert Prince of Hungary, Germain of

Scotland, Alayran of Flanders, Philip of Cologne, and Bartholomew, son

of the King of Egypt, who, after completing their studies at Paris,

left the world in search of Christ and were led by angels to this

solitary valley, where they built an oratory in honor of St. Mary the

Virgin. Here they had lived for twenty years on herbs, roots, and wild

fruit, and the people, in view of their thin, wasted aspect, as well

as the arid country, called the place of their retreat the _Vallée

Maigre_.

When Archbishop Turpin brought the emperor and Pope Leo III. to see

these holy eremites, they shed an abundance of tears and rendered

thanks unto God. Charlemagne resolved to erect a superb abbey in the

place of their modest oratory, and so well did he endow it that the

monks he established here were soon able to fertilize the wild valley

to such a degree that its name, at the suggestion of Turpin and the

Earl of Flanders, was appropriately changed to that of _La Vallée

Grasse_.

During the erection of this monastery a series of combats took place

between the Moors and the Christians, each one more marvellous than

the other. First, Matrandus, King of Narbonne, suddenly came upon the

encampment of the valley with a numerous army, but he was defeated by

Charlemagne and pursued to the point where the Niel empties into the

Orbieu. There he heard the sound of a mighty horn. It was the olifant

of Roland, who was coming to his aid. He made the Saracens bite the

dust by thousands, and Matrandus had barely time to take refuge in

Narbonne and close the gates behind him.

Then an enemy far more redoubtable made his appearance. It was

Marcilion, King of all Spain, accompanied by sixteen other kings, with

seven hundred thousand men. Charlemagne had two hundred and forty

thousand. The battle lasted five days. At length the Saracens were

vanquished. Five hundred thousand of their number were slain, together

with the sixteen kings, whereas the Christians only lost thirty-seven

thousand, among whom, however, were five bishops, fourteen abbots,

seven counts, eight hundred barons, and the Abbot of St. Denis, who,

as he was breathing his last, besought the emperor to complete the

abbey and bury him in it. His wishes were not disregarded. The abbey

was completed. A church was built. In the church were many chapels,

and in each chapel Archbishop Turpin, accompanied by many bishops and

abbots, solemnly deposited sacred relics. It was now time to consider

the appointment of the abbot, and while they were discussing the

subject Marcilion reappeared, this time with only three hundred

thousand horsemen, but Roland drove them before him into Roussillon,

where he slew more than one hundred and seventy thousand men.

Then took place a fresh battle with Matrandus, and Roland, in a

hand-to-hand encounter with Tamise, brother of the King of Narbonne,

clove him in two like an acorn with Durandal, his unerring sword. In

vain did the kings of Catalonia league together to avenge the death of

Tamise. They slaughtered, it is true, the seven holy hermits, who,

weary of the tumult in the valley of the Orbieu, had imprudently

betaken themselves to another solitude, but they were repulsed by the

abbot of La Grasse and his sixty monks with considerable loss. And yet

they would rather, they said, have demolished the abbey than taken ten

cities.

Several battles ensued beneath the walls of Narbonne before

Charlemagne took that city, and after, in the course of which Roland

clove in two Borrel de la Combe; Oliver clove in two Justeamundus, the

brother-in-law of Matrandus; and Charlemagne himself performed the

like exploit on Almanzor, King of Cordova. Durandal, Hauteclair,

Joyeuse, and other famous swords mowed down the Saracens like ripe

grain, cutting off heads and arms and legs, and causing such torrents

of blood to flow that the infidels finally renounced all hostilities

against the abbey of La Grasse.

During the night before the consecration of the abbatial church was to

be made by the Pope, the Divine Redeemer, so runs the legend, himself

vouchsafed to come down from heaven in person, accompanied by a

multitude of angels, to consecrate the edifice. The following morning,

when the Pope and Charlemagne and Archbishop Turpin saw the marks of

divine consecration, they, as well as Roland and Oliver and the rest,

shed tears of joy, and blessed God, and, while still weeping, took

leave of the monks, begging to be remembered in their daily orisons.

Charlemagne now departed for Spain, to carry war in his turn into the

country of the infidel, and with what prodigies of valor is known to

all men. The memory of his passage through the valley of the Aude has

never been effaced from the popular mind. The name of Roland, too,

echoes all through this region, like the horn he won from the giant

Jatmund. Not far from La Grasse is a cliff that still bears his name.

It was here the great paladin, when weary of hewing in pieces the

Saracens, used to come to take breath and whet his sword. The iron

ring to which he fastened his steed Brigliadoro is still in its place,

and no hand in these degenerate days is strong enough to wrench it

from the rock. The people of this region, great lovers of the

marvellous, tell how he used to gallop over the Montagne Noire on so

fiery a steed that its feet shook the very mountains beneath them and

left their imprint on the rocks, as may be seen to this day on the old

road between Ilhes and Lastours. And a little higher up is a dolmen

that bears the marks of his sword and the print of his hands. This

dolmen is on a slight eminence near a little stream. The table is in

the form of a disc about seven feet in diameter and one foot thick. It

must weigh several hundred tons, and would require a great number of

men of ordinary strength to place it on its present supports. The

people say Roland, by way of amusement in his moments of leisure,

hewed out this rock with his sword, and then used it as a quoit, which

he threw with careless ease from La Valdous to Narbonne, and from

Narbonne back to La Valdous. The prints of his mighty fingers are

still clearly perceptible. It was he who set this light plaything up

on its huge pillars, and not the Druids, and to this day it is called

the _Palet de Roland_. Near by is a mysterious hole called Roland’s

tomb, where the people insist he was buried, according to his express

wish that he might repose in the place of his innocent amusements.

There are many of these Celtic monuments in this vicinity, the object

of great conjecture among archæologists. The popular imagination is

not so embarrassed, as we have seen. A legend is generally attached to

them, often picturesque and dramatic. At Carnac, every one knows, it

was St. Corneille who changed his pagan pursuers into monumental rocks

by the petrifying influence of his wrathful visage.

On the banks of the Lamouse, a little creek in this region, is a tall

colossus of a rock called the _peulvan_, that stands quite solitary on

a little hill. It is, or _was_, fifteen feet high, a yard and a half

broad, and not more than half a yard thick. The people say it descends

to an inaccessible depth in the earth. If we may believe them, forty

years ago it was no taller than a man, but it has grown higher and

higher every year from some magic subterranean influence.

People who live among lofty mountains and dark forests, by noisy

streams and waterfalls, or even on the borders of peaceful, dormant

lakes whose mists fill the valleys and shroud the neighboring hills,

are apt to be imaginative and dreamy. Here fairies and Undines have

their origin. Here White Ladies, such as Scott has described in the

valley of Glendearg, come forth in floating vapory robes to flit about

the melancholy vales and fade away with the dawn. Such is the legend

of Lake Puivert, according to which Reine Blanche, a princess of

Aragon, issues every evening from her ancestral towers, and descends

into the valley to breathe the freshness of the air. This legendary

queen was no fair young princess who had become an untimely victim to

melancholy—“sweetest melancholy”—but a dethroned queen, so infirm and

decrepit as to have lost the very use of her limbs, and had come to

end her days in the old manor-house of Puivert, where she had been

born. A crowd of servants surrounded her day and night, attentive to

her slightest caprice. Every evening at set of sun a herald ascended

to the battlements of the tower to proclaim the coming forth of Lady

Blanche. No sooner had the echoes of his horn died away than she

appeared at the principal gate, borne on a litter by four stout men.

If the weather was calm and the sky clear, she was taken to a huge

block of marble that rose out of the edge of the lake, where she loved

to breathe the freshness of the night air and the resinous odor of the

old pines that grew on the mountain above. Two pages in purple waved

great fans to keep off the insects. There was nothing to disturb the

delicious solitude but the swallows that skimmed over the surface of

the lake and the murmuring rivulets that came down from the hills, and

here she would remain in silent reverie till the light faded

completely away, when she was borne back to her tower by the light of

torches. It frequently happened, however, that the lake was so swollen

by storms that her marble throne was entirely submerged. Then she went

to the chapel of Our Lady of _Bon-Secours_ to pray the wrath of the

threatening waters might be stayed. One day she conceived the idea of

piercing an immense rock that closed the entrance to the valley,

hoping by this means to let off the surplus waters and keep the lake

always at the same level, but, alas! at the very moment when she

thought her wishes were to be crowned with success, the pressure of

the waters against the weakened base of the rock overthrew it, and,

rushing through the narrow gorge, overwhelmed serfs, pages, and La

Reine Blanche herself. Such is the legendary cause assigned for the

rupture of Lake Puivert in 1279, which destroyed the neighboring town

of Mirepoix. The feudal manor-house, so well known in the history of

the country, escaped, being on an elevation. It is still haunted by

the troubled spirit of Queen Blanche, who, in misty white garments,

may be seen at nightfall flitting about the low valley, wringing her

pale hands over the ruin she caused.

Nor is this Queen of Aragon the only White Lady of the land. The old

people of Limoux tell of women in white who once a year come forth by

night from a crystal palace in the bowels of the neighboring hill of

Taich, and go to the fountain of Las Encantados—the fairies—where with

a golden spatula they beat their linen, after the fashion of the

country, till the dawn of day. These ghostly laundresses are not

confined to the valley of the Aude. In Brittany and Normandy they

likewise haunt many regions, but they beat their linen with an iron

hand, which they do not hesitate to apply to the ear of the curious

intruder.

On the side of a steep hill that descends to the Rebenty, another

branch of the Aude, are three narrow arches to the cave of Las

Encantados—the grotto of the fairies—where, in the depths, the noise

of the turbulent stream is repeated by subterranean echoes, and

changed, now into a soft harmonious murmur and now into a solemn roar,

giving the effect of an organ in a cathedral. Nothing could be more

impressive by night than this mysterious music, which the people

formerly ascribed to some weird influence.