It will spare the reader a somewhat lengthy digression if we give him
a peep at an extract from a letter written at this period by the Abbé
D'Esmonde to a friend and fellow priest in Ireland. It was written on
the very evening whose events we have just mentioned, and when fresh
from the scenes of which he speaks.
The name or circumstances of the Abbe's confidant have no interest for
us; nor need we allude to him more particularly than by stating that he
was one who took a prominent part in his country's politics, and was
a well-known agitator, both in print and on the platform. The present
moment might not be inopportune to show the injustice of that sneer so
often passed upon men of this stamp, and which assumes that their whole
lives are spent in the agitation of small and irritating questions of
mere local interest,--the petty intrigues of a village or a hamlet,--and
without knowledge or interest for those greater themes which stir the
heart of all Europe. We must not, however, be led away from our purpose,
but, leaving these inferences to our reader's appreciation, keep to the
sober business of our task.
We have only to premise that D'Esmonde and his friend had been
schoolfellows and college companions, and that the revelations made were
in all the confidence of unbounded trust and security. Neither was the
hazard of a post-office incurred, for the document was forwarded, with
several letters from Rome, by a private hand,--a priest, who twice each
year performed the journey on a similar errand, and--shall we startle
our reader if we add, in a spirit apart from all the caprices of
fiction----still travels on the same mission.
After some apology for the time the epistle would be on the road, seeing
that it should first return to Rome ere it began its journey northward,
D'Ësmonde next alludes to some private and personal matters, and some
individuals of their acquaintance, and then proceeds:----
“It is not without much inconvenience that I am here at this
moment, but my presence was necessary to neutralize the
influence of this troublesome old Countess, and who would
fain stop, if she could, all these liberal movements ere
they have developed their true meaning. You can have no idea
how difficult is this task, nor with what persistent folly
people go on repeating each other's 'platitudes' about
'timely checks,' 'scotching the snake,' and so forth. It is
now upwards of half a century since Europe has seen a real
political convulsion.
A new lesson is wanting. I often used to hope that you of
the West might be able to give it. I had great expectations
of Chartism at one time. It possessed the due elements of
mischief in abundance; it was infidel and hungry; but it
wanted the great requisites,--determination and courage. The
example must come from the Continent, and, in one respect,
it is so much the better. Your home disturbers would be
necessarily the enemies of the Anglican Church, whereas
_our_ anarchists here are inseparably associated with
Protestantism. This _coup_ required some cleverness, but we
at last accomplished it. Ronge's movement of secession gave
the first opportunity; the Swiss troubles offered the
second; a little more, and the _Bonnet rouge_ will be the
symbol of the Protestant faith. Mark the advantage of this;
see the distrust with which every nation of the Continent
will regard England and her constitution mongering; look how
they will be induced to associate her printed cottons with
her Church, and connect the spread of her trade with the
treacherous dissemination of her doctrines. So far, so good.
And then, remember, that to all this anarchy and ruin the
Church of the true faith alone offers any effectual
opposition,--the 'Platoon' for the hour of conflict; but to
the priest must they come to consolidate the shattered
edifice,--to rebuild the tottering fabric of society. Men do
not see this yet; and there is but one way to teach it,--a
tremendous lesson of blood and anarchy. This is in store for
them, believe me.
“My great difficulty is to persuade these people to
patience. They will not wait, as Napoleon did for the
Prussians, till they were _'en flagrant délit;_' and yet, if
they do not, the whole experiment goes for nothing. With all
their hordes of horse, foot, and dragoons, their grape and
canister, their grenades and rocket-batteries, they have not
the courage of a poor priest His Holiness is, however,
doing better. He has taken the whole _au sérieux_; he has
brought himself to believe that moderate reforms--what are
they?--will satisfy the wishes of demagogue ambition, and
that when he has lashed popular fury into full speed, he can
check it at will. Of course you guess what will follow, and
you already see what a busy time is before us. Oh, my dear
Michel, I can stop here, and, closing my eyes, revel in the
glorious future that must succeed! I see the struggle before
me; and know that some good men, mayhap some great ones,
will fall in it; but in the distance I see the dome of St.
Peter's rising majestically above the clouds of battle, and
the countless millions kneeling once more before its altars!
“I do not clearly understand you about Ireland, although I
agree in the policy of putting the Protestant rebel in the
foreground. A conflict ever so brief with the Government
would be most useful. I have thought a good deal on the
subject, and am convinced that nothing would awe England
more than the impression of any foreign assistance being
given to Irish insurrection, while it would lend to _your_
loyalty the grand trait of nationality. This is a highly
important feature. Remark how they are taunting us with
being ultramontane just now, and think what an answer this
will be to the sarcasm! I am sure--that is, if you concurred
with me--I could easily persuade some young fellows in this
service to join the movement. As officers, and well
acquainted with military details, they would have a
formidable effect in English eyes. I have two or three in my
mind already; one, a brother of my young Princess, that fair
damsel of whom I spoke in my last letter as my destined
_chargé d'affaires_ at St. Petersburg,--a very difficult
post to fill, and one for which I am by no means sure she
will be adequate. When I reflect on the difficulties
experienced by us in arriving at truth, we, who have the
hearts of men so open before us, I am astounded at any
success that attends a mere secular government. More than
two thirds of those with whom I live are, so to say, in my
power,--that is, their reputation and their fortunes; and
yet I must make them feel this ten times a day to turn them
to my account. Believe me the Holy Office was right: there
is an inseparable bond of union between truth and a thumb-
screw!
“Tell me if you wish for military aid; substantially, I am
well aware, it would be worth nothing, but it might assist
in pushing your patriots, who, I must own, are a cautious
race, a step further. This Dalton boy is a thorough Austrian
up to this,--a regular 'God and the Emperor' soldier; but I
have thrown more stubborn metal into the crucible, and seen
it come out malleable.
“You ask about the 'converts;' and I must own that their
defection is a greater slur on Protestantism than any matter
of glorification to us. They are unceasing in their
exactions, and all fancy that no price is too high for the
honor of their alliance; not a shovel-hat amongst them who
does not expect to be a 'monsignore' at least!
“Some, however, like my friend Lady Hester, are wealthy, and
in this way reward the trouble they give us. On her security
I have obtained a loan, not of the sum you wished for, but
of a smaller amount, the particulars of which I enclose. I
know not if you will agree with me, but my opinion is, that
nothing should be expended on the Irish press. Its influence
is slight, and purely local; reserve all your seductions for
the heavier metal on the other side of the Channel, and who,
however ignorantly they talk, are always heard with respect
and attention.
“I cannot go over as you propose, nor, if I could, should I
be of any use to you. You all understand your people, their
habits and modes of thought, far better than we do, who have
been fencing with cardinals, and sparring with the sacred
college, for the last ten or a dozen years. Above all
things, no precipitation; remember that your grand policy is
the maintenance of that feverish condition that paralyses
every effort of English policy. Parade all your grievances;
but rather to display the submission with which you bear
them than to pray for their relief. Be touchy only for
trifles; keep all your martyrdom for great occasions; never
forget that this time it is your loyalty! is to be rewarded.
Adieu, my dear Michel. Tell his Grace whatever you think fit
of these my opinions, and say, also, that he may rely on us
here for withdrawing or confirming, as he pleases, any
concessions he may deem proper to grant the English
Government. We know his difficulties, and will take care not
to augment them. As to the cardinal's hat, let him have no
doubts; only beg him to be circumspect, and that this is not
the time to assume it! If men would but see what a great
cause we have, and how it is to be won by waiting,--nothing
more, Michel,----nothing more, believe me, than mere
waiting!
“All that you tell me, therefore, about titles and
dignities, and so forth, is premature. With patience you
will be enabled to assume all, from which a momentary
precipitation would infallibly see you repulsed. A few of
your leading men still cling to the ruinous notion of
elevating Ireland; for Heaven's sake cease not to combat
this. It is the Church--the Church alone--for which we
combat. Her difficulties are enough, without linking her
fortune to such a sinking destiny! you have many able men
amongst you, and they ought to see this proposition in its
true light.
“You are right--though you only threw it out in jest--about
the interest I feel for my little Princess and her brother.
It was the charity of a relative of theirs--a certain Mr.
Godfrey--that first gave me the entrance into my career.
He sent me to Louvain as a boy, and thence to Salamanca, and
afterwards to Borne. He paid liberally for my education, and
I believe intended, had he lived, to have provided
handsomely for me. The story has an ugly ending; at least
the rumors are gloomy ones; and I would rather not revive
their memory. Here have I fallen into a sad track of
thought, dear Michel; and now it is past midnight, and all
is silent about me, and I feel half as if I ought to tell
you everything, and yet that everything resolves itself into
nothing; for of my actual knowledge, I possess not one
single fact
“Can you conceive the position of a man with a great, a
glorious future before him,--rewards the very highest his
wildest ambition ever fancied,--a sphere to exercise powers
that he feels within, and but needing a field for their
display? Picture to yourself such a man, and then fancy him
tortured by one terrible suspicion, one damning doubt,--that
there is a flaw in his just title to all this; that some day
or other there may rise up against him--he knows not how or
whence or why--from the very earth as it were, a voice to
say, 'you are disowned, disgraced,--you are infamous before
men!' Such a terrible hell have I carried for years within
me! Yes, Michel, this ulcer is eating at my very heart, and
yet it is only like a vision of evil,--some mind-drawn
picture, carried up from infancy through boyhood, and
stealing on, year by year, into the prime of life,
strengthening its ties on me like a malady.
“You will say this is a diseased imagination,--the fruits of
an overworked brain, or, not improbably, the result of an
overwrought vanity, that would seek consolation for failures
in the dim regions of superstition. It may be so; and yet I
have found this terror beset me more in the seasons of my
strength and activity than in those of sickness and
depression. Could I have given a shape and color to my
thoughts, I might have whispered them in the confessional,
and sought some remedy against their pain; but I could not.
They flash on my waking faculties like the memories of a
recent dream. I half doubt that they are not real, and look
around me for the evidences of some change in my condition.
I tremble at the first footstep that draws near my door,
lest the new-comer should bring the tidings of my downfall!
“I was at Borne--a student of the Irish college--when this
cloud first broke over me. Some letter came from Ireland,--
some document containing a confession, I believe. I was
summoned before the superiors, and questioned as to my
family, of which I knew nothing; and as to my means, of
which I could tell as little. My attainments at the college
were inquired into, and a strict scrutiny aa to my conduct;
but though both were above reproach, not a word of
commendation escaped them; on the contrary, I overheard,
amid their whisperings, the terrible word 'degradato!' You
can fancy how my heart sank within me at a phrase so
significant of shame and debasement!
“I was told the next morning that my patron was dead, and
that, having no longer the means to support the charges of a
student, I should become a 'laico;' in other words, a
species of servant in the college. These were dreadful
tidings; but they were short of what I feared. There was
nothing said of 'degradation.' I struggled, however, against
the hardship of the sentence,--I appealed to my proficiency
in study, the prizes I had won, the character I bore, and so
on; but although a few months more would have seen me
qualified for the priesthood, my prayer was rejected, and I
was made a 'laico.' Two months afterwards I was sent to the
convent of 'Espiazione,' at Ancona. Many of my early letters
have told you the sufferings of that life!--the awful
punishments of that gloomy prison, where all are
'degradati,' and where none are to be found save men stained
with the foulest crimes. I was seventeen months there,----a
'laico,'--a servant of the meanest class,--no consolation of
study, no momentary solace in tracing others' thoughts to
relieve the horrible solitude of my own. Labor--incessant
debasing labor--my lot from day till dawn.
“I have no clew to the nature of my guilt I declare solemnly
before Heaven, as I write these lines, that I am not
conscious of a crime, save such as the confessional has
expiated; and yet the ritual of my daily life implied such.
The offices and litanies I had to repeat, the penances I
suffered, were those of the 'Espiazione!' I dare not trust
myself to recall this terrible period,----the only
rebellious sentiment my heart has ever known sprang from
that tortured existence. As an humble priest in the wildest
regions of Alpine snow, as a missionary among the most
barbarous tribes, I could have braved hardships, want, death
itself; but as the 'de-gradato,' dragging out life in
failing strength, with faculties each day weaker, watching
the ebb of intellect, and wondering how near I was to that
moping idiocy about me, and whether in that state suffering
and sorrow slept! Oh, Michel! my hands tremble, and the
tears blot the paper as I write. Can this ordeal ever work
for good? The mass sink into incurable insanity,--a few,
like myself, escape; and how do they come back into the
world? I speak not of other changes; but what hardness of
the heart is engendered by extreme suffering, what
indifference to the miseries of others I How compassionless
do we become to griefs that are nothing to those we have
ourselves endured! you know well that mine has not been a
life of indolence, that I have toiled hard and long in the
cause of our faith, and yet I have never been able to throw
off the dreary influence of that conventual existence. In
the excitement of political intrigue I remember it least; in
the whirlwind of passions by which men are moved, I can for
a time forget the cell, the penance, and the chain. I have
strong resentments, too, Michel. I would make them feel that
to him they sentenced once to 'degradation' must they now
come for advice and guidance,--that the poor 'laico' can now
sit at their councils and direct their acts. There is
something so glorious in the tyranny of Rome, so high above
the petty sovereignty of mere kings, soaring beyond the
bounds of realms and states, crossing Alps and oceans,
proclaiming its proud edicts in the great cities of Europe,
declaring its truths in the silent forests of the Far West,
stirring the heart of the monarch on his throne, thrilling
the rugged breast of the Indian in his wigwam, that even to
bear a banner in its ranks is a noble privilege. And now I
come back to these children, with whose fortunes I feel
myself--I know not how--bound up. They were related to this
Mr. Godfrey, and that, perchance, may be the secret link
which binds us. The girl might have won a grand destiny,--
she had beauty, grace, fascination, all that men prize in
these days of ours; but there was no high ambition,--nothing
beyond the thirst for personal admiration. I watched her
anxiously and long. There was a weak goodness about her
heart, too, that gave no promise of self-sacrifice. Such,
however, as she is, she is mine. As for the boy, I saw him
yesterday for the first time; but he cannot be a difficult
conquest. Again I hear you ask me, why can I turn from great
events and stirring themes to think of these? and again I
own that I cannot tell you. Power over every one, the
humblest as the highest, the weakest in purpose and the
strongest of heart,--power to send forth or to restrain, to
crush or to exalt,--this is the prize of those who, like you
and me, walk humbly, that we may reign proudly.
“And now, dear Michel, good-bye. I have made you a
confession, and if I have told little, the fault is not
mine. You know all my sentiments on great events,--my hopes
and my anticipations. I must leave this to-morrow, or the
day after, for there is much to do beyond the Alps. If kings
and kaisers but knew as much as we poor priests, the coming
would scarce be a merry Christmas with them.
“Yours, in all truth and brotherhood,
“Mathew D'Esmonde.
“Feast of St Pancratras, Hof Thor, Vienna.”
It was already daybreak when D'Esmonde finished his letter; but, instead
of retiring to bed, he opened his window, and sat enjoying the fresh air
of the morning. Partly from habit, he opened his book of “offices;” but
his eyes wandered, even from the oft-repeated lines, to the scene before
him,----the spreading glacis,----where already the troops were mustering
for parade. “What a strange thing is courage!” thought he. “I, who feel
my spirit quail at the very rumbling sound of a gun-carriage, haye a
soul to see all Europe convulsed, and every nation in arms, undismayed!”