CHAPTER VII.

A PROVIDENTIAL EVENT.

Victor and I then entered upon a singular life of which I think there

are but few instances. I felt from the first that his convalescence

was deceptive, and the physician secretly told him so. We both felt

that God allowed us to pass a few more months together, but no longer.

The disease was checked, but it still hung about my dear one. It

assumed a new form, and changed into a slow malady that was surely

accomplishing its work. As frequently happens in such complaints,

Victor was but partially cured of inflammation of the lungs, and now

became consumptive.

A great poet says that no language, however perfect, can express all

the thoughts, all the emotions, that spring up in the soul.[35] This

is true. I have often felt it, and now realize it more than ever. Ten

months elapsed between Victor’s amelioration and his death—months

memorable for great suffering, but which have left me many delightful,

though melancholy, remembrances. I wish I could impart these

recollections to you. I hardly dare attempt it, so conscious am I of my

inability to do them justice.

How, indeed, could I depict the love, stronger than ever, that bound

me to my husband, spared in so unhoped-for a manner, though but for a

brief period—so brief that I could almost count the hours? How make

you understand how elevated, superhuman, consoling, and yet sorrowful,

were our conversations? How many times Victor said to me: “Agnes, how

merciful the good God is! See, he could have recalled me to himself

at once, but still leaves me with you a few months longer. Oh! how

heartily I desire to profit by this time in order to prepare for death,

though I fear it not! I do not wish to spend one of these last hours

in vain. I wish to do all the good in my power, and love you better

and better as the blessed do in heaven. Oh! how sweet it will be to

enter upon that perfect love above, which we have imagined, and had a

foretaste of, here below—what do I say?—a thousand times sweeter,

more perfect. Its enjoyment will be without any alloy of fear or

sadness, for in loving, we shall have a right to say: ‘It is for ever!’”

But of all the thoughts that occupied Victor’s mind at that period,

that which was most constantly in his heart he expressed in these

simple but significant words: to do all the good possible! Penetrated

with this desire, he resumed his duties at the _Journal_ office as

soon as he was able. His talents had developed under the influence of

suffering. Every one remarked it. But controversy fatigued him, and he

was not able to go out every day. He was, therefore, provided with an

assistant—a young man of ability, to whom he could transfer most of

the labor. He took pleasure in training him for the work, saying to

himself: “He will be my successor. I shall still live in him, and have

some part in the good he will do.”

A part of the day, therefore, remained unoccupied. He employed these

hours in writing a small work—a simple, touching book, which was

published a short time before his death, and is still doing, to my

knowledge, much good among the people.

Training his successor and publishing a useful book were two good acts

he took pleasure in, but, so great was his ardor for benefiting others,

that they did not suffice. He earnestly longed for some new opportunity

of testifying to God how desirous he was of making a holy use of the

last moments of his life. “And yet,” he added, “I acknowledge this

work is perhaps presumptuous. It is asking a special grace from God of

which I am not worthy.” But God granted him this longed-for opportunity

of devoting himself to his glory, and he embraced it with a heroism

that won universal admiration.

Spring returned, and we fell into the habit of going from time to time

to pass a day in the country with Jeanne, my old nurse. Jeanne was one

of those friends of a lower condition whom we often love the most.

There is no jealousy in such a friendship to disturb the complete union

of soul. It is mingled with a sweet sense of protection on one side,

and of gratitude on the other—which is still sweeter.

We went there in the morning, walked around awhile, then breakfasted

and resumed our walk. Jeanne lived at St. Saturnin, six kilomètres

from town. It is a charming place, as you are aware. Near the village

flows a stream bordered by poplars and willows that overshadow the deep

but limpid waters. One morning we were walking in the broad meadow

beneath the shade of these trees, when suddenly we saw a young man on

the opposite shore, not six rods off, throw himself into the stream.

Victor still retained a part of his natural vigor. Before I thought

of preventing him, he sprang forward, and, seeing that the man who

had precipitated himself into the water did not rise to the surface,

jumped into the river, swam around some time, and finally succeeded

in bringing the stranger to shore. I was wild with anxiety and grief.

Without allowing him to stop to attend to the person he had rescued,

I forced him to return to Jeanne’s in order to change his clothing.

He gave orders for some one to hasten to the assistance of the poor

man for whom he had so courageously exposed his life. Several persons

hastily left their work, and in a short time returned with the man who

had tried to drown himself. He was still agitated, but had recovered

the complete use of his faculties. At the sight of my husband in the

garb of a peasant, he at once comprehended to whom he owed his life.

He was seized with a strange tremor; he staggered, and seemed on the

point of fainting. Victor made every effort to bring him to himself,

and at length succeeded. As soon as this young gentleman, who was clad

with uncommon elegance, recovered his strength and self-possession,

he seized my husband’s hand and kissed it with a respect that excited

strange suspicions in my mind. Victor appeared to know him, but I did

not remember ever having seen him before. Why had he thrown himself

into the river? To drown himself, of course.... Why, then, did he

testify so much gratitude and respect for one who had hindered him from

executing his project?...

He requested, in a faint, supplicating tone, to be left alone with

Victor. The rest of us withdrew into the garden. At our return, Victor

whispered to me: “This gentleman is Louis Beauvais, the banker’s oldest

son. He himself will relate his history to you after our return home.”

The carriage was not to come for us till four o’clock. We therefore

passed several hours together at Jeanne’s. Victor devoted himself to

Louis with an attention that touched me inexpressibly. As to Louis, a

son could not have shown more affection to the best of fathers than he

to Victor.

The hour of our departure came at last. We entered the carriage, and

were all three at home in half an hour.

TO BE CONTINUED.

HOME EDUCATION.

AS the family is the type and basis of society, so does it contain,

as in a microcosm, all the questions, problems, and difficulties that

agitate the larger world. Marriage is first in importance within the

family and in society, as representing the principle of creation;

education comes next, as representing the principle of development.

Given a new and perfect society, made up of individual couples whose

union should be absolutely satisfactory, and whose motives, thoughts,

and actions absolutely irreproachable, how is it to be perpetuated in

this desirable state? If to the perfection of marriage were not added

the consequent perfection of education, the new society, for a moment

raised up above former standards of approximative goodness, would, in

the course of half a generation, be reduced lower than any standard of

Christian times. This is so well understood that education has come to

be the one cry of all parties, representing with some the conscientious

result of their religious belief, with others merely their ambition to

make a stir in the political world. Christians look to it as fitting

men for heaven; statesmen turn to it as fashioning the law-abiding

citizen; atheists see in it the means whereby successfully to blind

mankind, and make them swallow the poison hidden under the appearance

of superficial cleverness; the devil grasps it as a tool, or recoils

from it as from a thunderbolt; but to no thinking being can it be a

matter of indifference.

We do not propose to go into that broader question of public education

which, once within the scope of the law, and face to face with

established national systems, immediately sets both hemispheres in

a ferment; but to discuss that preliminary and more vital training

whose silent power shows itself every day in the homes of thousands,

neutralizing on the one hand good examples and wholesome teaching, and

on the other often redeeming from utter badness its half-corrupted

subject. And first taking the literal meaning of the word education,

_i.e._ to _lead up_, or _out of_ (_e-duco_), we must remark that as

education is coeval with the dawn of reason, so it is also continuous.

It begins in the cradle, and goes on hand in hand with life to the

grave. All experience, good or bad, is education, not only the lessons

taught in school-hours, the lectures given in classes, halls, and

colleges, not alone the books we read and the examinations we undergo,

but, more emphatically, the places we frequent, the people we meet,

the misfortunes we go through, the work we perform. Even prosperity is

education, though seldom in the highest sense, but it is chiefly in the

lower walks of fortune that the more important part of this daily and

hourly education is imparted. For this reason specially, and in view

of the future in which a chance word heard in the street or a stray

visit to some place or person may become of such subtle and paramount

gravity, should home education in the Christian sense of the word be

encouraged to the utmost. More particularly should this be the case in

non-Catholic countries. We have no outward atmosphere of religion to

trust to; no wayside crosses to remind us of the sufferings which our

sins caused our Blessed Saviour; no simple shrines to bid us remember

to pray for our invisible brethren in purgatory; no street processions

to bring vividly before our minds that our King is more than an earthly

lord, and our Mother more than an earthly parent.

We do not breathe Catholicity in our daily life, and there is therefore

the greater need of our drinking it in with our mother’s milk. This

insensible and gradual instilling of religion into our infant minds

is the essence of Christian “home education.” First among all the

influences that go towards it is example. This extends over every

detail of the household, and can be and should be kept in view in the

poorest as well as the most comfortable home. In the latter, certainly,

the duty is more stringent, the incentives to its performance lying

so near at hand that it requires an absolutely guilty carelessness to

neglect them. In the former, though a thousand excuses might be made

for the neglect of this paramount duty, it should still be remembered

that God’s grace is all-powerful, and never fails those who seek to

do his will. Parents sorely tried during a day of toil and anxiety

are often found more loving and forbearing towards their helpless

children than others who, with no trouble on their minds, yet delegate

the “tiresome” office of nurse to a hired attendant; and although it

is certainly to be deplored that in so many cases the children of the

poor should be nothing but little men and women already weighed down

by cares that ought to belong only to a later age, still it may be

questioned whether even this is not a lesser evil in the long run than

that other sort of neglect which makes the children of the rich, for

the most part, only the playthings of their parents.

The poor, on the contrary, though necessity may make their children

drudges, yet have in them early friends, while too often among their

more fortunate neighbors children count only as the ornaments of

the house. So that even out of evil comes good, and God has planted

consolations in the path of his poor which go far to soften the

miseries of their inevitable lot. We say inevitable, not as denying the

immense, unexplored possibilities of alleviating this lot which remain

in the power of future philanthropists, but as believing in our Lord’s

prophecy, “The poor you have _always_ with you,” which blessed promise

we count as a staff vouchsafed in mercy to help us on our way to heaven.

We have said that the duty of good example is incumbent upon every

parent, rich or poor. But not only those broad examples which could

hardly fail to strike even an idiot, such as abstaining from unseemly

brawls, from excesses of language and of self-indulgence—in plain

words, from swearing and drinking—or from manifest dishonesty; there

are subtler things than these, and which produce indeed greater effect

on the child spectator. Gross vice has often that redeeming phase of

being its own antidote by disgusting those who come in daily contact

with it. The principle on which the Spartans educated their children in

temperance by exhibiting before them the drunken helots was (however

cruel its application on the persons of their unhappy prisoners) a

consummate proof of practical wisdom. That which does not carry such an

antidote with it is more to be feared in the education of a child. A

spirit of irritability between husband and wife; a carelessness on the

part of either in entering cordially into the other’s little interests;

an exhibition of temper over absurd trifles or of unamiability in small

questions of self-denial—these tell gravely upon a child’s character.

Observation and criticism are childhood’s natural characteristics,

and very logical and very pitiless are childhood’s judgments. The

old-fashioned code of a “well-behaved” child used to be never to ask

questions; we are not so sure that this code was faultlessly wise. We

suffer perhaps under a somewhat aggravated form of a very dissimilar

one just now, and may be tempted—not unpardonably—to wish for the

peace of the good old times back again. As usual, the middle course is

the most rational as well as beneficial, and if it were in our power to

stop the violent swayings of the social pendulum from one extreme to

the other, we would gladly do our part in the work.

It is therefore in the more unheeded and less abnormal occurrences

of every day that the greatest force of example lies, and that harm

or good may be done beyond recall. Christian gentleness, that daily

unobtrusive charity which in rough homes amply makes up for what

outward refinement may be lacking, and in more prosperous households

alone sets the seal of true worth upon such exterior polish as there

is, is the golden secret of a perfect example. And this spirit should

extend to every domestic relation, covering the whole field of

contingencies which may assume such grave proportions in a child’s

memory. Your deportment to the poor, if you are rich yourself, has

an invaluable force of example; the patience with which you listen

to a tale of distress, the delicate courtesy implied in an attentive

attitude, the gracefulness of your alms, and the wise but gentle

discrimination of your questioning, all have an untold effect upon the

little trotter by your side, hardly old enough to reason however dimly,

but old enough to bear away a nameless impression of the scene. On the

other hand, think of the responsibility incurred by a rude or callous

reception; a sneering or lofty air of caution against what you think

may be an imposture; above all, perhaps, a careless alms given to be

rid of a disagreeable importunity, and a half-expression of relief when

the interruption is happily over! The child at your side bears away

this impression quite as surely, and in after-years uses its imitative

powers quite as skilfully, as if the impression had been one of mercy

and kindness; and a very few scenes of this sort are enough to mould

for a child a certain standard of behavior.

Among the domestic relations, none is more likely to strike a child’s

eye than that between master and servant. Here also dangerous seeds of

future heartlessness may be easily sown by the example of a careless

or haughty parent. Considerate thought for the proper comforts of

those whose toil ensures your leisure is one of the foremost Christian

duties. A child is naturally tyrannical, and this disposition, if

fostered by an injudicious mother, may lead to a shameless persecution

of the very persons to whose care children are most often left. This,

in turn, will encourage tyranny on the nurse’s part, and engender a

system of mutual deceit; the child and the servant trying to circumvent

each other in carrying tales, and then sheltering themselves by lies

from the consequences of having carried them. Now, all this is to the

last degree injurious to the future character of the child; it withers

the principle of honor; it kills all manliness and straightforward

dealing, and sows the seeds of those two inseparable vices, cruelty and

cowardice. In after-life, when the despairing mother sees her darling

sink below himself, and earn the unenviable names of bully and sneak,

can she blame him for shattering the ideal she blindly worshipped in

his person? Not so, for with justice can she look back on her own

folly, and with bitterness cry out, “_It was my fault._”

Very different is the other and the good example shown by so many holy

and conscientious women in their relations with their households.

Considerateness and forbearance in all things are not incompatible with

firmness in some. A sense of your own dignity, were it nothing higher,

will dictate a kind bearing towards those in humbler station; for to

those who never obtrude their superiority a double homage will ever be

accorded. A child can exercise on its attendants some of the noblest

virtues of manhood; the household is a little world, a preparatory

stage on which to rehearse in miniature the opportunities of

after-life. Pleasure given to some, a little gift or a gracious speech

vouchsafed to others; consolation afforded to one in grief, attention

shown to one in sickness; and, above all, a mindfulness of not making

the yoke of servitude too galling by restricting the natural and proper

diversions of those whom God has destined to bear it—such are a few of

the lessons a child should learn, not in words alone, but in the manner

of its parents and the unconscious radiating of an habitual example.

Another class of influences under which a child will necessarily

come is that of social relations. For the most part, children are

made too much of a show. They are taught—or allowed—certain little

mannerisms which, at their age, are called charming, but, if looked

at by the light of common sense, are simply as absurd as they are

forward. Later on, when they begin to use their reason, they are

often listeners to frivolous or scandalous conversations, in which

they pick up, if not a half-knowledge of vice, certainly a whole

love of gossip. Now, all this is deplorable from a Christian point

of view. In a really Christian home—a home such as we aspire to see

at least in every Catholic family—the case would be very different.

Entertainments and fêtes would be judiciously “few and far between,”

and in its mother’s visitors the child would see only fresh objects of

its mother’s charitable tact. If anything against charity were said,

the hostess would gently check the conversation, either by palliating

the fault alluded to, suggesting a better motive than the apparent one

concerning any person implicated, or turning the conversation skilfully

to some less dangerous topic. Those formal visits, made to kill time

or otherwise uselessly, would have no part in her day’s programme, and

with ever charitable but firm demeanor would she effectually check the

frequent demands thus made upon her time by others. The child, quick

of perception, as almost all children are, would be unconsciously

moulded to habits of orderly and discriminating hospitality, and would

soon learn to do something for God in every social pastime which it

legitimately enjoyed.

This brings us to the subject of order, an important virtue in the

Christian home. Education itself, if given in a desultory fashion,

would be next to useless, and some of that strict apportioning of time

which gives to our study hours their wholesome monotony is essential

also for the home training of youth. This may seem at first sight a

very arbitrary decision, but, when we come to look deeper into it, we

find that it has the same relation to the future moral life as the

study of the classics or of mathematics to the intellectual life. A

knowledge of the Greek and Latin poets, orators, and historians has

perhaps very little influence on the practical and ultimate result of

a college education; but the effect of refinement it has on the mind,

and the polished tone it imperceptibly gives to thought, manners, and

conversation, are benefits simply incalculable. So with mathematics. A

boy may not have any aptitude for that science, and may never hope to

become proficient in it; still, the habit of application, the facility

of concentrating and commanding his thoughts, which is the natural

result of the close study demanded by the exact sciences, are things

whose influence on his future career cannot be rated too high. They may

not unlikely ensure temporal success, and, in these days of feverish

competition, this argument should not be overlooked. Still, it is from

a higher motive that we say the same of habits of order in the home.

This regularity, which, no doubt, may be tedious, just as mathematics

may be dry, is not lost on the general impressions of childhood, and,

were it only for its own sake, should be looked upon as a seal of

likeness to the works of God, which cannot fail to hallow the family

circle. We have said that the family is the world in miniature, and

as the principle of order was the presiding attribute in creation, so

ought we in our daily lives to take it as a means of creating more and

more time, more and more opportunities, for the service of God. “Be

perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

In the education given by the constant example of the parents, nothing

is more important than family prayer, or, at least, prayer said at

the mother’s knee. In the most solemn of duties, it is not fitting

that parent and child should be separated. If Jesus has said that

his Father can refuse nothing to “two or three _gathered_ together

in his name,” how much more invincible must be the joint prayer of

those who are linked by such close and sacred ties, those who present

to him a faint shadow of his own humble home at Nazareth! Think you

that Jesus in his kingdom forgets the simple hearth where his Mother

taught him, according to the development of his human nature, those

formulæ of prayer and thanksgiving which he himself, in his divine

nature, had taught to the Jewish lawgivers? Does he forget the rites

of circumcision and presentation, the offerings and ransom paid for

him according to the law, the visit to the temple at Jerusalem? He has

shown us in his obedience to these religious observances his wish that

we should imitate his outward devotion and submission to the church.

Family worship is dear to him in remembrance of his own childhood, and

as it is one of the most solemn, so it is also one of the sweetest

duties of the Christian parent. It tends to give the child a proper

spirit of faith and simple reliance, in that it sees its earthly

parent, to whom it looks up for everything and considers as the final

arbiter of its small world, prostrate before a higher Fatherhood, and

taking towards the divine Omnipotence the very attitude of a submissive

and expectant child.

Next to prayer itself, pious reading cannot fail to demand our

attention as the second great spiritual help in the routine of

home education. This should be simple and well suited to the

understanding of young children, and, above all, should not be a dry

and barren formality, but should be explained and amplified by the

mother’s comments. How, unless questions are freely allowed—nay,

encouraged—can the extent of the impression made by spiritual reading

be measured? Then, what an inexhaustible resource does not this

reading or its equivalent—descriptions by word of mouth—afford to a

thoughtful parent! The beautiful narratives of the Old Testament, the

stories of the four gospels, the many striking incidents in the lives

of the saints, the legends of the faithful middle ages, the histories

of the contemporaneous manifestations of God’s mercy, all offer mines

of wealth to a skilful narrator. If, instead of goblin tales more

fit for the entertainment of rational people than for the staple of

a child’s too credulous meditations, these holy histories became the

nursery rhymes of the future generation, it would be well indeed for

the spiritual advance of our age. If among the romances of mediæval

times more of those were chosen in which religion figures than of those

where fairy and elf appear, it would be a better promise for the future

health, moral and physical, of our people. Who knows how much of that

nervousness which is the characteristic disease of our day is due to

those unwholesome terrors of infancy, those threats of bogy and ogre,

with which children are frightened into silence or lulled into uneasy

sleep! The child who would be, in a manner, the companion of the boy

Jesus, of the child Precursor, the infant Samuel, the Holy Innocents,

the children of whom our Lord said, “Suffer them to come unto me, and

forbid them not,” and of the many boy and girl saints—S. Rose of

Viterbo, S. Aloysius Gonzaga, S. Stanislaus Kostka—would be a far

healthier and more manly subject than the mental companion of deformed

sprites and forest goblins. The young mind is so impressionable that it

is the greatest possible mistake to let its first exercise of reason

spend itself on unrealities; they are apt to take on an influence not

readily shaken off, and to cumber the ground long after room is needed

for more serious growths of thought. This may seem an exceptional mode

of proceeding, perhaps an eccentric one, the contrary having for so

many ages held sway, but we take leave to think that it has reason,

expediency, and religion on its side.

To this great duty of example, which ramifies itself as often as there

are distinct classes of influence, is added the duty of vigilance.

Parents need not only the knowledge of what to impart, but the instinct

of what to shun. As watchers over a citadel, they have to guard against

the masked inroads of the enemy, and carefully to sift their children’s

surroundings, whether social or domestic, lest any taint should lurk

in the association. We have read somewhere in a book of devotion that

those who carry great treasures in a frail vessel naturally take the

greater care as to their gait and speed; they look well to see if the

road is level, or to avoid its irregularities if it is not; they take

heed to keep their eyes and mind intent on what they bear, so as to

bring it safe to its destination. Even so does the mother carry in her

hands the priceless treasure of a human soul, and her solicitude for

its perfect preservation from all taint or attack should be little less

than that of the child’s Guardian Angel himself. If, as we have just

hinted, she should choose with such scrupulous care even the companions

of his fancy, so much the more should this judicious censorship be

extended to the real companions of his studies or recreations. Perhaps

the influence of childish association is even greater than the mother’s

own, and what the latter may have laboriously sown will be uprooted in

a moment by the former. Children’s minds, in indiscriminate contact

with each other, are as powder and spark brought together; if each

had been kept until the right moment, and applied in the right way,

we might have had an illumination; as it is, we have a conflagration.

As childhood merges into youth, the choice of a school brings this

question of companionship into prominence. In a public institution,

it is not possible to admit only children who come, well-taught and

docile-minded, from irreproachable homes; the very aim and end of

the institution would thus be frustrated. Nor is it possible for its

parents, once a child is admitted, to choose absolutely who, among its

many school-fellows, shall be its special friends. Much may be done

in that way by advice, tact, and prayer; still, guidance falls far

short of absolute choice. It is therefore evident that the greater

care should be taken to choose the school which in itself shall have

the greatest influence in moulding the character of its scholars,

and thereby in transforming into fitter companions for the new-comer

those very children who, _nolens volens_, must needs be his everyday

acquaintances. But the influence of home does not cease with the first

day at school. Letters from home, breathing the old atmosphere, will

carry the child back, week by week, to his old associations, be they

good or bad; the holidays will bring him again within the fascination

of the old circle, and occasional visits from the companions of his

early childhood will complete the charm. Thus an infinite amount of

good, or a corresponding amount of harm, may yet be done after the home

education period has, strictly speaking, passed away.

And here is, perhaps, the best place to touch upon the holy influence

which an elder brother or sister may exercise on a younger one. This,

one of the most powerful means of good, is only second to that of the

parents themselves, and may furnish a very beautiful illustration

of true and discerning brotherly love. It is spiritual friendship

engrafted upon the stock of natural affection, itself a noble virtue

and most sweet tie, which has often, even in heathen times, produced

great effects. Under this figure of brotherhood God has typified

his union with creatures; he made himself our Brother through the

incarnation; and everywhere brotherhood is synonymous with the

dearest and purest fellowship. Our brothers and sisters in the flesh,

especially if they are younger than ourselves, are as much our care

and charge as they are of our parents; and of this we have a striking

instance in the very first book of the Pentateuch, and only a few

years after the sinless creation of Adam. Cain’s defiant plea, “Am

I my brother’s keeper?” failed to meet with God’s endorsement, but

brought instead the terrible answer that he should be “a fugitive and

a vagabond upon the earth.” In the daily companionship of brotherhood,

this scene is often re-enacted; souls are slain by their own kindred,

and the world smiles and passes blindly on. But God has set a mark upon

the murderer by which the devils know him and kill him not, because

they know too well whose road he is even now treading, and that in the

last day his mark shall be revealed to all. Here is the dark side of

that continuous education which is as potently at work in dens of shame

and places of pleasant danger as it is in Christian homes and schools.

Here is that nefarious education which neutralizes or obliterates the

happy past, and leads our young men by tortuous paths of gradual vice

to the end of many such deceptive panoramas—the gallows or suicide.

False example, insidious promptings, rash indulgences, intoxicating

freedom, wily friendship—through these and many kindred forms, subtle

may be and proportionately dangerous, the devil, in the person of your

brother or your seeming friend, leads you on till the murder of Abel

is repeated, and the insolent excuse flung back to heaven: “Am I my

brother’s keeper?”

The system of rewards and punishments has much to do with the moral

training of youth. With regard to this, we may startle our readers

by broaching views so different from those time-honored ones that

pretend to find their sanction in the Biblical rule, “Spare the rod,

and spoil the child,” as to seem heretical to good old-fashioned,

jog-trot parents.[36] But what if the Scripture itself were to fail

them? What authority have they for understanding “the rod” in its

literal instead of its figurative sense? The rod was, with the Hebrews,

an emblem of power: witness the miracles of Aaron in Egypt, and the

blossoming of his rod when his supreme authority was called in question

by the rebellion of Core. “The rod” may therefore very plausibly be

taken as meaning parental authority, and the text would thus imply

nothing more than a declaration that the _carelessness_ of the parent

will be responsible for the wrong-headedness of the child. In this

sense we prefer to read this passage, and for this reason: physical

punishments and rewards will be indissolubly associated in a young

child’s mind with his good or bad actions, just as they are coupled

in the memory and instinct of a dog with the various desirable or

undesirable things it has been taught or forbidden to do. This produces

a low and degrading standard by which moral actions are henceforward

measured by the child, and later on will lead to the impression that

the absence of such tangible consequences argues the right to do as

he pleases, irrespective of merely moral restraints; whereas, if

the rewards and punishments meted out to him are of the moral and

intellectual order, his conception of the principle of duty will be

abstract and independent. Childhood has a natural leaning towards

deception; therefore truth should be made not only prominent, but

attractive. To own a fault, and even to confess it unasked, should be

an understood palliation of the fault itself; whereas any attempt at

concealment should be treated as a far graver offence than the action

concealed. In a word, the principle of Christian honor should be the

keynote of home education, and any meanness should be condemned as

the most contemptible of all faults. Sensitive as children are to

the slightest alteration of manner in their regard, they would feel

keenly the silence and avoidance which this plan presupposes in their

parents’ conduct towards them when guilty of a dishonorable action,

and, by associating the idea of _wrong_ with that of _disgrace_, would

very soon be brought to a truer estimate of morals than if wrong with

them was only the synonyme of _pain_. Again, the system of physical

punishment invariably leads to defiance; it stirs up a spirit of

contradiction and sullenness which gradually encrusts the young mind

with the deplorable proof-armor of ultimate indifference. We need give

but one example—a personal one—of the immense superiority of moral

over physical punishment. As a child, we were stubborn and self-willed,

and were frequently treated, not exactly to corporal indignities, but

to threadbare schoolroom devices for overcoming temper. Two or three

times it happened that, these worn-out means proving as inefficient

as “water on a duck’s back,” fatherly authority had to be invoked. It

always took one form—silence. For a week there would be none of the

happy familiarities between father and child, but, instead, a cessation

of the usual pleasant and indulgent intercourse, and now and then a

grave look of displeasure as the culprit would make some spasmodic

and despairing advance. This was the only punishment which made the

slightest impression, and the keen remembrance of it lasts to this

day. Sometimes, when we were older, another variety was tried. Instead

of being, according to the old code, starved on bread and water in a

dark closet, we were seated alone at a table, while the rest of the

family ate together as usual; every dish was ceremoniously brought up

and served at our solitary meal, and every servant in the house was

perfectly aware of the cause; no one spoke or offered us the least

attention beyond the ordinary formalities, and we were treated half

like a distinguished prisoner, half like an excommunicated person. The

result was admirable, prompt in the extreme, and certain to ensure an

unusually long term of subsequent docility.

Rewards are no less important than punishments. Of these, knowledge

and religious opportunities should, in our idea, form the staple.

They are thus invested with a personal interest to the child; they

come before him as things specially concerning his own good behavior

and his parents’ appreciation of it. For instance, the mother reads

him Scripture stories and the legends of the saints; he listens with

absorption, and longs to read the book himself, but the road through

the alphabet and spelling-book is uninviting. Why not teach him through

the book itself? The illuminated capitals will strike him by their

beauty, the pictures will lend force to the difficult words, and help

his memory to connect them with the illustrated subject. Instead of

finding church services an irksome interruption to his games, he might

be made to look upon them as the highest rewards he can obtain. For a

well-learnt lesson in catechism, he might be taught to chant one of

those immortal poems, the Psalms; for proficiency in Bible history,

he might be taken to some of the most picturesque of our solemn

ceremonies, and hear, on the way, of the typical manner in which it

is connected with that history; for an act of childish self-denial,

he might be allowed to serve as acolyte at Mass. Even these rewards,

however, should not be injudiciously multiplied, for familiarity would

beget irreverence,—the worst stumbling-block that could be laid in

a child’s spiritual path. We think that a Christian education in

the early days of childhood could go no further in perfection than

this—the thorough identification of all happiness with religion.

We have yet to speak of a detail in household economy, which, in point

of interest, is one of the foremost. Personal attention to a child is a

part of the mother’s duty of vigilance, and the fashionable custom of

leaving such attention to domestics cannot be reprobated too strongly.

This personal care is, first of all, an instinct of nature which it

must require a very thick coating of frivolity entirely to supersede;

and it is, secondly, a duty of religion from which even great physical

sickness cannot conscientiously release the parent. Numberless evils

flow from a neglect of this imperious duty. The forsaken child will

learn in time to forget its mother, to think of her as a splendid

being very far from him—one not to be annoyed by his cries or made

nervous by his romps, but to be gazed at from afar, like a grand

picture or work of art. Happy child if an affectionate, compassionate

nurse takes the vacant place of his own mother, and makes him familiar

with those sweet, nameless trivialities that make up the world of a

child’s heart; but, even so, how sad the necessity for such comfort!

How much more sad, then, the position of the unloved child, neglected

even by its nurse, or left to the well-meaning but questionable petting

of the other servants! They will not be reticent, though they may be

obsequious, and the future character of their charge will be warped

beyond remedy. Pride, too, will be ridiculously fostered, and will

drive tenderness away; a certain recklessness will be infused into

the child’s habits, and reverence, refinement, sensitiveness, will be

petrified within him. He will feel himself of no value, since no one

cares for him, and, if no happy influence stops his downward course, he

will be a cynic before he is twenty-five.

We have said so much in this strain, and made so much of the gloomy

side of the question, that we feel bound to speak a little more fully

of the model Christian home, not only as it should be, but—thank God

that we can say it!—as it very often is. We know that, according

to Father Faber’s beautiful expression, “God has many Edens in this

world,” and surely among our Christian homes many deserve this name.

There are those in which the father is not absorbed in business and the

mother by fashion, where the servants are happy and attached members of

the family, where daily prayer and cheerful work alternate with each

other in order, where recreation does not degenerate into riot, nor

work conduce to moroseness. Healthy exercise and early hours keep the

doctor from the door, while constant industry repulses the proverbial

visitor who always “finds mischief for idle hands to do.” The father

is the genial companion of his children, and does not lose their

respect by gaining their confidence; the mother is the guardian spirit

of the household, the wise woman of the Proverbs, “whose children

rose up and called her blessed; her husband, and he praised her.”

Towards each other the husband and wife behave as they would before

the angels of God, because they remember that he who scandalizeth “a

little one” is accursed, and that the angel of “the little one,” who

is there continually beside him and in some sort represents him in

heaven, “beholds the face of the Lord.” The children are submissive,

not through fear, but through _reason_ and love; for the acknowledged

superiority of their elders has a rational force with them, and they

think themselves honored in obeying those who are wiser than they. They

have Jesus of Nazareth ever before their eyes—the Boy who, as he grew

in years, “waxed strong in wisdom and grace,” and who, though he was

God, “went down, and was subject to them.”

This life, peaceful, orderly, religious, the life of the cloister

translated into the home, is in itself education. Its holy influence

is not confined to space or time, but will live in the hearts of

the scattered family through youth and manhood to extreme old age.

In fancy, they will be able to reconstruct that home; in spirit, to

revisit it long after its dearest inmates shall have left it for their

heavenly home, long after its material frame shall have passed away to

other, perhaps to careless, hands. In their various resting-places,

whether a new home, the daughter of that shrine, or only a rock just

above the level of the sea of fortune, the hallowed remembrance will

come back to them freighted with hope and strength for the future. Even

in heaven, the Son of God is called Jesus of _Nazareth_, and can _we_

forget the home and the mother that made us what we are?

In all that pertains to this ideal, although man is bound to subserve

it to the utmost, woman is more solemnly pledged to its fulfilment.

Man has the world for his empire: woman has man—during the years of

his pupilage. The mother’s education is the child’s second birth, and

she who, being mother to the body of her child, neglects that more

laborious training which accompanies its moral development, practically

refuses to be the mother of its soul. To a woman failing in her home

duties is attached more reproach than to a neglectful husband and

father, because her office is the more sacred, her position the nearer

to God. It was a woman who was glorified by the most miraculously close

union with God that the universe has ever seen, and by that standard

alone should womanhood and motherhood be judged. If it falls short of a

faint copy of Mary the mother of Jesus, it is condemned, for the state

that has been the most divinely exalted should ever after remain the

most humanly perfect.

The mere temporal importance of home education, though secondary to

its spiritual aspect, cannot be overlooked. Besides the duty of the

angel—training souls for heaven—woman has the duty of the citizen,

_i.e._ training patriots for the state. Without faith there is no love

of country in the highest sense; without discipline, no love of law.

It is woman’s task to mould the men who, in the future, will mould the

nation. High or low it matters not: the mother of the statesman and the

mother of the laborer work alike towards their country’s glory. The

state needs hands as well as heads, and the mason who cuts the common

stones has as much part and should have as much pride in the completed

building as the artist who carves the wonderful pinnacles or fashions

the marvellous capitals.

We have spoken perhaps too exclusively of the duties and circumstances

of the higher classes in this matter of home education. Perhaps it is

not altogether unprovidential that we should have been led to do so;

for of the various divisions of humanity which our Lord in his parable

of the sower represents under the figure of the different accidents

that befell the good seed, we know which is, unhappily, the least

productive. Jesus himself has explained that the thorns which choked

the seed are the “cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life.”

Mark well, the _cares_; not only the riches and pleasures, for those

self-sought and profitless cares have not the blessings on them which

the God-given cares of poverty have. The poor and lowly too often

shame their more fortunate brethren by their greater self-devotion and

generosity. Their homes, so much less prosperous, are yet often so much

more edifying, than ours; and let it be remembered that every act of

theirs has, according to the measure of their inferior opportunities,

double the merit of any similar act of ours. So with the wholesome

reticence which becomes us who have so many opportunities _and neglect

them_: we have preferred to point out the beam that is in our own

eye, rather than pharisaically to expatiate on the mote that is in

our neighbor’s. Yet we would not that any class should deem itself

exempt from the duties of home education—duties which, with the poor,

have all the added merit of absolute heroism. The poor are told, and

doubtless truly, by our teachers and superiors, that their condition

should be dear to them because it was that of our Lord himself; but

we, their brethren and fellow-pilgrims, should labor to supplement

this teaching by making that very condition less irksome to them. Who

can dream of Jesus on earth as _not_ being poor and destitute? But, on

the other hand, who would dare, were he now on earth, to be behindhand

in ministering to his poverty? Now, the alms we _owe_ to his earthly

representatives are twofold, _i.e._ spiritual and temporal. Among the

former, none are so meritorious as good examples. Have we not in these

days a perpetual and most sadly grotesque picture of class aping class,

of tawdriness following close on the heels of fashion, of aspiring

vanity actually crowding out the legitimate needs of the body? If

this system of imitation must be, why not give it a worthy subject to

practise upon?

Reform, to be practical, must begin in the higher strata of society;

for not only to individuals, but also, in a wider sense, to classes,

is the keepership of brotherhood entrusted. We _are_ our “brother’s

keeper,” and our “brother” is the mass of men who look up to us for

guidance. As long as our fathers and husbands care more for their

office than their home, so long will the bulk of the nation be mere

animated machines snatching after precarious wealth; as long as our

wives and mothers care more for the drawing-room than for the nursery

and study, so long will the mass of women be heartless coquettes or

abandoned harlots. We speak strongly, because we feel strongly. This

is an age of initial struggle, which our faith should turn into an

era of better things. If we need any “new departure,” let it be the

departure from frivolity to domesticity, from contemptible weakness

to the manliness of the Gospel. And here let us say one word to the

head of the family, to him without whose example even the mother’s

influence is incomplete. Business is _not_ the whole of life; it is

_not_ even the first earthly good to be sought for. Success often kills

happiness, and its exclusive pursuit always kills peace. The father who

allows business to isolate him from all the tenderer interests of his

home achieves two things: he alienates his children’s affection—after

having very likely worn out his wife’s devotion—and he teaches them

betimes the baneful lesson that before Mammon all other interests

must bow. This false doctrine his children will teach to theirs by an

example equally gloomy with his own, and thus God will be forgotten in

the very gifts which one word of his mouth could turn in a moment to

dust and ashes.

Shall this be so, or will Christian parents take heed to their duty?

THE PICTURE OF THE RIVIÈRE QUELLE.

A CANADIAN LEGEND.

FROM THE FRENCH OF M. L’ABBE CASGRAIN.

I.—THE MISSIONARY.

READER, have you ever been in the old church of the Rivière Ouelle? In

one of its side-chapels is an _ex-voto_ which was placed there many

long years ago by a stranger who was miraculously preserved from death.

It is a very old picture, full of dust, and of no artistic value,

but it recalls a touching story; I learned it when very young, on my

mother’s knees, and it has remained as fresh and vivid in my memory as

when I first heard it.

It was a cold winter evening, long, long ago. The snow was beating

against the window-sashes, and the icy north wind howled and shrieked

among the naked branches of the great elms in the garden. The whole

family had assembled in the _salon_. Our mother, after playing several

airs on the piano, allowed her fingers to wander restlessly over the

keys—her thoughts were elsewhere. A shade of sadness passed over her

brow. “My dear children,” said she, after a moment’s silence, “see what

a fearful night this is; perhaps many poor people will perish before

morning from cold and hunger. How thankful we ought to be to God for

our good food and warm, comfortable beds! Let us say our rosary for the

poor travellers who may be exposed to such dangers during the night.”

And then she added, “If you say it with devotion, I will tell you all

a beautiful story.” Oh! how we wished that our rosary was finished! At

that age the imagination is so vivid and the soul so impressionable.

Childhood possesses all the charms of the golden dawn of life;

enveloping every object in shade and mystery, it clothes each in a

poetry unknown to any other age.

We gathered around our mother, near the glowing stove, which diffused a

delicious warmth throughout the apartment, and listened in a religious

sort of silence to her sweet and tender voice. I almost think I hear it

now. Listen with me to her story:

Toward the middle of the last century, a missionary, accompanied by

several Indians, ascended the south bank of the St. Lawrence River,

about thirty leagues below Quebec. The missionary was one of those

intrepid pioneers of faith and civilization whose sublime figures are

thrown out from the dark background of the past, surrounded by a halo

of glory and immortality. Nailed on Golgotha during the days of their

bloody pilgrimage, they shine to-day on a new Tabor; and the light

which radiates from their faces illuminates the present and throws

itself far into the future. At their names alone, the people, seized

with wonder and respect, bow low their heads; for these names recall

a courage most superhuman, a faith most admirable, and a devotedness

most sublime. He whom we are following at this moment was one of those

illustrious children of the Society of Jesus, whose entire life was

consecrated to the conversion of the savages of Canada. He was not

very tall, and stooped slightly; his beard, blanched prematurely by

hardships, and his pale and attenuated features, seemed to indicate

a want of strength and endurance for so hard a life; but this frail

body concealed one of those grand souls which draw from the energy of

their will an inexhaustible strength. His large, expansive forehead

suggested a proportionate intellect, and his features wore an

expression of incomparable sweetness and simplicity; the least shade

of a melancholy smile played over his lips—in a word, his whole face

seemed filled with that mysterious glory with which sanctity illumines

her predestined souls.

The leader of the little band was a few steps in advance. He was

an old Indian warrior who a long time before had been converted to

Christianity by this holy missionary, and who from that time became the

faithful companion of all his adventurous wanderings.

The travellers advanced slowly on their _raquettes_[37] over a soft,

thick snow. It was one of those superb December nights whose marvellous

splendor is entirely unknown to the people of the South, with which

the old year embellishes its waning hours to greet the advent of the

new-comer. Innumerable stars poured their light in silver tears over

the blue firmament of heaven—we might say tears of joy which the

glory of the Sun of Justice draws from the eyes of the blessed. The

moon, ascending through the different constellations, amused itself

by contemplating in the snowy mirror its resplendent disk. Toward

the north, luminous shafts radiated from a dark cloud which floated

along the horizon. The aurora borealis announces itself first by pale,

whitish jets of flame which slowly lick the surface of the sky; but

soon the scene grows more animated, the colors deepen, and the light

grows larger, forming an arch around an opaque cloud. It assumes the

most bizarre forms. In turn appear long skeins of white silk, graceful

swan-plumes, or bundles of gold and silver thread; then a troop of

white phantoms in transparent robes execute a fantastic dance. Now it

is a rich satin fan whose summit touches the zenith, and whose edges

are fringed with rose and saffron tints; finally, it is an immense

organ, with pearl and ivory pipes, which only awaits a celestial

musician to intone the sublime hosanna of nature to the Creator. The

strange crackling sound which accompanies this brilliant phenomenon

completes the illusion; for it is strangely like the sighs which escape

from an organ whose pipes are filled with a powerful wind. It is the

prelude of the divine concert which mortal ears are not permitted

to listen to. The scene which presented itself below was not less

fascinating in its savage beauty than that of the sky above.

The cold, dry atmosphere was not agitated by a single breath; nothing

was heard but the dull monotonous roaring of the gigantic river,

sleeping under a coverlet of floating ice, which dotted its dark waters

like the spotted skin of an immense leopard. A light white vapor rose

like the breath from the nostrils of a marine monster. Toward the

north, the blue crests of the Laurentides were clearly defined, from

Cape Tourmente to the mouth of the Saguenay. In a southern direction

the last slopes of the Alleghanies stretched along, covered with

pines, firs, and maples; almost the entire shore was densely wooded,

for at the remote period which we describe those vast clearings along

the banks covered with abundant meadows were not to be seen, nor the

pretty little whitewashed houses grouped in villages along the shore

so coquettishly, a person could easily compare them to bands of swans

sleeping on the river-banks. A sea of forest covered these shores. A

few scattered houses appeared here and there, but this was all.

II.—THE APPARITION.

The travellers advanced in silence toward the middle of the wood,

when suddenly the leader of the party stopped, making at the same

time a sign with his hand for his companions to do likewise. “You are

mistaken, comrade,” said the missionary to him; “the noise that you

have just heard was only a tree split by the frost.”

The Indian turned slowly toward him, an almost imperceptible smile

passing over his face. “My brother,” said he, in a low voice, “if you

saw me take your holy word,[38] and try to read in it, you would laugh

at me. I do not wish to laugh at you, for you are a black-gown; but

I tell you, you do not know the voices of the forest, and the noise

which we have just heard is a human voice. Follow me at a distance,

while I go on to see what is happening yonder.” The travellers walked

on for some time without seeing anything. The father began to think he

had not been deceived, when they came to an opening in the woods, and

saw the Indian stop. What was his astonishment, when, following the

direction in which the savage was looking, he saw at the extreme end of

the opening a very extraordinary light, apparently detached from the

obscurity of the trees. In the midst of this luminous globe appeared

a vague, indistinct form, elevated above the ground. Then another

spectacle that the brilliancy of the strange vision had prevented him

from seeing before, was presented to his gaze.

A young man dressed in military uniform was kneeling at the foot of a

tree. His hands were clasped and his eyes turned towards heaven; he

seemed absorbed in the contemplation of a mysterious and invisible

object. Two corpses, which were easily recognized as an officer and a

soldier from their uniforms, were lying by his side in the snow. The

officer, an elderly man with gray hair, was lying against a maple; in

his hands was a little book, about to slip out of them. His head was

leaning on his right shoulder, and his face had that ashy hue which too

plainly told that death already claimed him. A bluish circle surrounded

his half-closed eyes, and a last tear stood congealed on his livid

cheek. A placid smile was on his face, indicating that a supreme hope,

which faith alone could inspire, had consoled his last moments.[39]

The noise made by the travellers’ feet in the snow caused the young

man, who was still on his knees, to turn suddenly round. “O father! my

father!” cried he, rushing toward the missionary, “it is Providence who

has sent you here to save me. I was about to share the terrible fate of

my unfortunate companions, when—a prodigy!—a miracle!”—suffocated by

his tears and sobs, he could say no more, but, throwing himself into

the arms of the missionary, he pressed him to his heart.

“Calm yourself, my dear son,” said the old man; “for in your feeble

and exhausted state such violent emotion might prove fatal.” Scarcely

had he finished the words, when he felt the young man’s head sink

heavily on his shoulder, and his body become a dead weight—he had

fainted.

The travellers eagerly bestowed on him every care that his situation

required and that lay in their power. His two friends, alas! were

beyond reach of human succor. The savages dug their graves in the snow,

and the saintly missionary, after reciting some prayers over their

bodies, cut with his knife a large cross in the bark of the maple at

the foot of which they had breathed their last—a simple but sublime

monument of hope and love, destined to guard their earthly remains.

III.—A CANADIAN HOME.

See you yonder, on the slope of the hill, that pretty cottage, so neat

and white, with its little thatched barn, so clearly defined against

the caressing foliage of that beautiful copse of maples? Well, that is

a Canadian home. From its high green pedestal it smiles at the great

rolling river, in whose wave is mirrored its trembling image, and which

so gently comes to expire at its feet; for the happy proprietor of this

pretty dwelling loves his great, beautiful river, and has been careful

to establish his home on its banks. Sometimes, when necessity obliges

him to go away, he is always homesick, because he must listen to its

grand voice, and contemplate its wooded islands and distant shores;

he must caress with his eyes its waters, sometimes calm, sometimes

foaming and turbulent. A stranger who is not familiar with the

_habitant_ of our country, and who imagines that there is an affinity

to his ancestor—the peasant of old France—is much mistaken. More

enlightened, and, above all, more religious, he is far from sharing

his precarious condition. The former is, in comparison, a veritable

prince; perfectly independent on his sixty or eighty arpents of land,

surrounded by a cedar enclosure, he is furnished with everything

necessary for an honest and comfortable subsistence.

Let us now peep under this roof, whose exterior is so attractive.

I should like to sketch it just as I’ve seen it so frequently. On

entering the _tambour_, or passage-way, two pails of fresh water,

standing on a wooden bench, and a tin cup hanging against the wall,

hospitably invite you to quench your thirst. In an inner room the

mother of the family is quietly spinning near the window, while the

soup is boiling on the stove. A calico cape, a blue skirt of domestic

manufacture, a _caline_[40] neatly fixed on her head, completes her

toilet. The baby sleeps in its cradle at her side; from time to time

she smiles at its bright little face, as fresh as a rose, peeping out

from the quilt, whose triangular patches of the brightest colors are

ingeniously distributed over it. In a corner of the room the eldest

daughter sits on a chest, singing merrily, while she works at her loom;

quickly and skilfully the shuttle flies between her hands; she makes

in a day several measures of cloth, which she will use next year to

make into garments. In another corner stands the huge bed, with its

white and blue counterpane, and at its head a crucifix surrounded with

pictures. That little branch of withered fir above the cross is the

blessed palm. Two or three barefooted little urchins are playing on

the floor, harnessing up a dog. The father, bending over the stove,

gravely lights his pipe with a firebrand. He is accoutred in a red

woollen cap, vest and pants of a grayish material, and rough, heavy

boots. After each meal he must “take a smoke” before going out to

plough or to thresh in the barn. There is an air of thrift and comfort

about the house; the voices of the children, the songs of the young

girl, with her spinning-wheel accompaniment, the appearance of health

and happiness written on their faces, tell of the peace and serenity of

their lives.

If ever, in travelling through this country, you are overtaken by a

snowstorm or severe cold, go and knock without fear at the door of

the Canadian cottager, and you will be received with that warmth and

cordiality which their ancestors have transmitted to them as a souvenir

and a relic of the Old Country; for this antique French hospitality,

which can scarcely be found now in certain parts of France, seems to

have taken refuge under the roof of the Canadian _habitant_. With his

language and religion, he has piously preserved many of his old habits

and customs. The traveller who rested under his roof a century ago

would to-day find the same manners and characteristics.

It is in the parish of the Rivière Ouelle, in the bosom of one of these

good Canadian families, that we find again our missionary and his

companions. All the family, eager to hear the extraordinary adventures

of the young officer, had gathered round him. He was a young man, from

twenty to twenty-five years of age, with fine, delicate features;

his dark wavy hair fell over and partially shaded his high forehead,

and his proud glance revealed the loyalty of the French soldier; but

an extreme pallor, consequent on the fatigue and privations he had

undergone, had left a touching and melancholy expression on his face,

while his refined and finished manners told of an equally finished and

careful education.

IV.—THE SILHOUETTE.

“More than a month ago,” said the young officer, “I left the country

of the Abnakis, accompanied by my father, a soldier, and an Indian

guide. We were bearing very important dispatches to the governor of

the colony. We travelled along through the forest for several days

without any accident, when, one evening, overcome with fatigue, we lit

a fire and camped for the night near an Indian cemetery. According to

the custom of the savages, every corpse was wrapped in a shroud of

coarse bark, and placed high above the ground on four stakes. Bows

and arrows, tomahawks, and some ears of maize were hung against these

rude graves, and shook and rattled as the wind passed over them. Our

own savage was seated just in front of me, on the half-decayed trunk

of a pine-tree that had fallen to the ground, and seemed half buried

in profound meditation. The fitful flames of the fire threw a weird

light over his gigantic frame. An Indian might readily have compared

him to one of the superb maples of our forest, had he been able at the

same time to have united with it the cunning of the serpent and the

agility of the elk. His height was increased by a quantity of black,

red, and white feathers tied with his hair on the top of his head. His

ferocious features, piercing black eyes, his tomahawk and long knife,

half concealed by the trophy of scalps which hung from his belt, gave

him a wild and sanguinary appearance. The night was dark and bitter

cold. The low and unequal arch formed by the interlacing branches of

the trees, and illuminated by the flickering light of our pine-wood

fire, seemed like a vast cavern, and the old trunks of the rotten

trees, which were buried in the snow, looked like the corpses of giants

strewn around. The birches, covered with their white bark, seemed

like wandering phantoms in the midst of this _débris_, and the dull

rumbling of the distant torrent, and the wind moaning and whistling

through the leafless branches, completed the weird funereal aspect

of the place. Any one slightly superstitious could easily believe he

heard the sighing spirits of the Indian warriors who lay buried so

near us. In spite of myself, a shiver of horror ran through my veins.

Here, in the midst of all this grim rubbish, where every rock and tree

was transformed by the shadows into as many spectres watching his

movements; our audacious savage appeared as grave and tranquil as if he

had been in his own cabin.

“‘Comrade,’ said I to him, ‘do you think we need fear any danger still

from those Iroquois whose trail we discovered yesterday?’

“‘Has my brother already forgotten that we found it again this morning?’

“‘But there were only two,’ said I.

“‘ Yes; but an Iroquois can very quickly communicate with his comrades.’

“‘But these were not on the war-path; they were hunting an elk.’

“‘Yes; but the snow is deep, and they could soon kill him without much

fatigue, and then—’

“‘Well!’

“‘And then, their hunger once satisfied—’

“‘Finish!’

“‘I say they might, perhaps, amuse themselves by hunting the

whiteskins.’

“‘But the whites are at peace with the Iroquois.’

“‘The Iroquois never bury but half of the war-hatchet; and, besides,

they have raised the tomahawk against the warriors of my tribe, and if

they discover the track of an Abnakis among yours—’

“‘You think, then, that they might pursue us? Perhaps it would be more

prudent to extinguish our fire.’

“‘Does not my brother hear the howling of the wolves? If he prefers

being devoured by them to receiving the arrow of an Iroquois, he can

extinguish it.’

“The words of our guide were not very reassuring, but I was so overcome

with fatigue that, in spite of the evident danger to which we were

exposed, I fell asleep. But my sleep was filled with the wildest

dreams. The dark shadow of our guide, that I saw as I went to sleep,

seemed to lengthen and rise behind him, black and threatening, like

a spectre. The dead in the cemetery, shaking the snow from their

shrouds of bark, descended from their sepulchres, and bent towards

me. I fancied I heard the gritting of their teeth as the wind rushed

through the trees and the dry branches cracked and snapped. I awoke

with a start. Our guide, leaning against a post of one of the graves,

was still before me, and from his heavy and regular breathing I knew

that he slept profoundly. I fancied I saw just above him, peeping over

the grave against which he was leaning, a dark form and two fixed

and flaming eyes. My imagination is excited by my fantastic dreams,

thought I, and tried to compose myself to sleep again. I remained a

long time with my eyes half shut, in that state of semi-somnolence,

half watching, half sleeping, my stupefied faculties scarcely able to

discern the objects around. And yet the dark shadow seemed to move

slightly, and to lean more and more towards our savage, who was still

in a deep sleep. At that moment the fire suddenly blazed up, and I saw

distinctly the figure of an Indian. He held a long knife between his

teeth, and, with dilated eyes fixed on his enemy, he approached still

nearer to assure himself that he slept. Then a diabolical smile lit up

his face, and, seizing his knife, he brandished it an instant in aiming

a blow at the heart of his victim. The blade flashed in the firelight.

At the same moment a terrible cry rang out, and the two savages rolled

together in the snow. The flash of the steel, in awakening our guide,

had also betrayed his enemy. Thus my horrible nightmare terminated in a

more horrible reality. I had hastily seized my gun, but dared not fire,

lest I should kill or wound our guide. It was a death-fight between

them. The snow, streaked with blood, blew up around them like a cloud

of dust. A hatchet glittered in the air, then a dull, heavy sound,

followed by the cracking of bones. The victory was decided. A gurgling

sound escaped from the victim—it was the death-rattle! Holding in

one hand a bloody scalp, the conqueror, with a smile, raised himself

proudly. At that instant a shot was heard. A ball struck him in the

breast, and our savage, for it was he, fell dead in front of the fire.

Taking aim with my gun, and sending a ball in the direction whence

the shot had come, and where I saw another shadow gliding among the

trees, was for me the work of an instant. The Indian, with a terrible

death-cry, described an arch in the air with his body, and fell dead to

the ground. The tragedy was finished; our savage was avenged, but we

had no longer a guide. I then thought of our conversation that evening,

and how his apprehensions of the two savages whom we had tracked in the

morning had been so fearfully realized.”

V.—DEATH.

“Abandoned, without a guide, in the midst of interminable forests, we

were in a state of extreme perplexity. We hesitated a long time whether

to proceed on our route or retrace our steps. The danger of falling

into the hands of the Iroquois, who infested that part of the country,

decided us to continue our journey.

“The only means left of finding our way was a little compass which my

father had fortunately brought along. Several days later found us still

on our painful march, in the midst of a violent snowstorm. It was a

veritable tempest; the snow fell so thick and fast we could scarcely

see two feet in advance.

“In every direction we heard the trees splitting and falling to the

ground. We were in great danger of being crushed. My father was struck

by a branch, which completely buried him under the snow, and we had

great difficulty in extricating him. When we raised him up, he found

that the chain around his neck which held the compass was broken, and

the compass had disappeared. We searched long and carefully, but in

vain—it could not be found. In falling, my father received a severe

injury on the head. While dressing the wound, which bled freely, I

could not restrain my tears on seeing this old man, with his white

hair, enduring intense suffering with so much fortitude, and displaying

such calmness in the midst of an agony which he tried to conceal from

me by an outward show of confidence. ‘My son,’ said he, when he saw my

tears, ‘remember that you are a soldier. If death comes, it will find

us on the roll of honor. It is well to die a martyr to duty; besides,

nothing happens except by the will of God. Let us submit at once with

courage and resignation to whatever he pleases to send.’

“We marched two days longer in an intense cold, and then my father

could go no further. The cold had poisoned the wound in his head, and

a violent fever came on. To crown our misfortunes, our little store of

matches had become damp, and it was impossible to kindle a fire. Then

all hope abandoned me, and, not having been able to kill any game for

the past day or two, we had been almost entirely without food; then,

in spite of all my warning and advice, the soldier who accompanied us,

exhausted by fatigue and hunger, and utterly discouraged, went to sleep

in the snow, and, when I found him some time after, he was dead—frozen

stiff! Overcome by the most inexpressible grief, I remained on my knees

by the side of my dying father. Several times he besought me to abandon

him, and escape death. When he felt his last hour approaching, he said,

handing me an _Imitation of Christ_ which he held in his hand, ‘My son,

read to me.’ I took the book, and opened it at chance, reading between

my sobs: ‘Make now friends near God, in order that, after leaving this

life, they will receive you in the eternal tabernacles.’[41] ‘Conduct

yourself on earth as a traveller and a stranger who has no interest in

the affairs of the world. Keep your heart free and raised toward God,

because here below you have no substantial dwelling-place. You should

address to heaven every day your prayers, your sighs, and your tears,

in order that, after this life, your soul will be able to pass happily

into the bosom of our Lord.’

“I replaced the book in his hand. A smile of immortal hope passed over

his countenance, for these lines were a _résumé_ of his entire life.

After a moment’s silence, he said: ‘My son, when I shall be no more,

take this little gold cross which hangs around my neck, and which was

given to me by your mother on the day of your birth’—there was a

moment’s silence. A shade of profound sadness passed over his face,

and, taking my two hands in his, he added, ‘Your poor mother!—oh! if

you live to see her again, tell her I died thinking of God and of her.’

Then, making a supreme effort to put aside this painful thought, at

which he feared his courage might fail him, he continued: ‘Always wear

this little cross in remembrance of your father. It will teach you to

be faithful to your God, and to your country. Come nearer, my son, that

I may bless you, for I feel that I am dying.’ And with his faltering

hand he made the sign of the cross on my forehead.”

At these words the young man stopped. Large tears rolled down his

cheeks as he pressed to his lips the little gold cross which hung on

his breast. All around him remained silent, in respect to his noble

grief, but their tears flowed with his. Sorrow is so touching in youth!

We cannot see, without a pang, the bright flowers which adorn it wither

and fade away. The missionary was the first to break the silence. “My

son,” said he, addressing the young man, “your tears are legitimate,

for the cherished being for whom you weep is worthy of them; but do not

weep as those who have no hope. He whom you have lost now enjoys on

high the recompense promised to a life devoted to sacrifice and duty.”

“But, oh! my father, if only you could have been with him to console

his last moments!”

After a pause, he continued: “I pressed my father for the last time

in my arms, and imprinted a last kiss on his pale, cold forehead. I

thought at this moment he was dying. He remained immovable, his eyes

turned towards heaven, when suddenly, as if by inspiration from above,

he said, ‘I wish you to make a vow that, if you succeed in escaping

with your life, you will place a picture in the first church which you

reach on the road.’ I promised to do as he desired. Some moments after,

a few vague and incoherent words escaped his lips, and all was over.”

VI.—THE VISION.

“How long I remained on my knees beside my father’s corpse I cannot

tell. I was so utterly overwhelmed by grief and sorrow that I was

plunged in a kind of lethargy which rendered my soul insensible to

everything. Death, the loneliness of the forest, terrified me no

longer; for solitude dwelt in my heart, where so short a time before

all was bright and joyous. Dreams, illusions—those flowers of life

that I have seen fall leaf by leaf, to be swept away by the storm;

glory, happiness, the future—those angels of the heart who so lately

entranced my soul with their mysterious music, had all departed,

veiling with their drooping wings their sorrowful faces. All had

gone—all. Nothing remained but a void, a horrible nothingness. But

one feeble star watched yet in the midst of my night. The faint lamp

of the inner sanctuary was not entirely extinguished; there came a ray

from its expiring flame. Remembering the vow that my dying father had

desired me to make, I invoked with a sort of desperation the Blessed

Virgin, Comfortress of the Afflicted; and behold, suddenly—but can

I tell what took place within me? Human words are inadequate to

unveil the mysteries of God. I cannot explain, human ears cannot

comprehend—yes, suddenly, in the midst of my darkness, my soul

trembled, and a something seemed to pass through me like an impetuous

wind, and my soul was carried over the troubled waters; then, rapid as

the lightning that flashes through the storm-cloud, a light appeared

in the darkness, in this chaos—a dazzling, superhuman light—and the

tempest was appeased within me; a wondrous calm had entered my soul,

and the divine light penetrated its most remote recesses and imparted

a delicious tranquillity and peace, but such a peace as surpasses

all comprehension; and through my closed eyelids I saw that a great

light was before me. O my God! dare I tell what happened then? Would

it not be profane to weaken thus the marvels of your power! I felt

that something extraordinary, something supernatural, was taking place

around me, and a mysterious emotion, a holy terror, that every mortal

should feel at the approach of a Divine Being seized me. Like Moses,

my soul said within me, ‘I will go and I will see this grand vision’;

and my eyes opened, and I saw—it was not a dream—it was a reality, a

miracle, from the right hand of the Most High. No; the eye of man has

never seen, nor his ear heard, what was permitted that I should see

and hear then. In the midst of a cloud of dazzling light, the Queen of

heaven appeared, holding in her arms the divine Child. The ineffable

splendor that enveloped her form was so brilliant that in comparison

the sun is only a dim star; but this brilliancy, far from fatiguing

the sight, refreshed it deliciously. Twelve stars formed her crown,

the colors of the rainbow tinged her robes, while under her feet were

clouds which reflected the colors of aurora and the setting sun, and

behind their golden fringing myriads of angels were smiling and singing

hymns which have no echo here below. And what I saw and heard was so

real that all that I had heard and seen heretofore seemed like a vague,

dark dream of night. The divine Virgin looked at me with an immortal

smile, which was reflected no doubt from the lips of her divine Child

on the day of his birth.

“She said to me: ‘Here I am, my son. I come because you called me. The

help that I sent you is very near. Remember, my son—’ But, oh! what

was I going to say! I am only permitted to reveal a few words of this

celestial conversation, which relate to my deliverance. The rest is a

secret between God and myself—sufficient to say these words have fixed

my destiny.

“For a long time she spoke to me, and my soul, ravished, absorbed,

transfigured, listened in unspeakable ecstasy to the divine harmony of

her voice. It will vibrate eternally in my soul, and the torrents of

tears that poured from my eyes were as refreshing as dear to my heart.

At last the mysterious vision gradually vanished. Clouds, figures,

angels, light, all had disappeared, and yet my soul invoked the

celestial vision by ineffable sighs and moans.

“When at last I turned round, the help which had been miraculously

promised to me had arrived. ‘Twas then, reverend father, that I

perceived you near me. You know the rest.”

The next day there was great excitement among the little population

of the neighborhood. The news of the miracle had spread rapidly, and

a pious and devout crowd had gathered in the modest little church

to assist at a solemn Mass celebrated by the holy missionary. More

than one pitying look was turned during the ceremony toward the young

officer, who knelt near the sanctuary, praying with an angelic fervor.

It is said that some time after, in another country, far, far beyond

the sea, a young officer who had miraculously escaped death abandoned a

brilliant future, and consecrated himself to God in a cloister. Was it

he? No one has ever known positively.

If ever you pass by the old church of the Rivière Ouelle, don’t forget

to stop a moment. You will see hanging in one of the side-chapels the

antique _ex-voto_ which recalls the souvenir of this miraculous event.

The picture has no intrinsic value; but it is an old, old relic, that

one loves to see, for it tells a thrilling story. Often travellers who

come from distant lands stop before this dusty old picture, struck by

the strange scene it represents. Oftentimes pious mothers stand before

it with their little ones, and relate to them the wondrous legend; for

the souvenir of this thrilling story is still vivid throughout the

country.

THE RECORDS OF A RUIN.

THE Palais Royal derives its chief historical interest from its

association with the memory of Cardinal Richelieu. When it first

attracted his notice by its situation, at once delightful and

convenient, surrounded by richly planted gardens, and close to the

Louvre and the then fashionable thoroughfare of the city, it was the

property and residence of the Marquis d’Estrée. From this nobleman

Richelieu purchased it in 1624. Soon, however, the elegant mansion,

which had been abundantly spacious for the lords of d’Estrée with their

innumerable retainers and long corteges of valets of every degree in

the lengthy domestic hierarchy of those days, became too small for the

growing importance of Louis XIII.’s magnificent minister.

Richelieu fell a conquest to the building and decorating mania

prevalent at that period amongst princes and princely prelates; he

threw down the walls of the Hôtel d’Estrée at the north end, pushed

the house into the gardens, drove the gardens further out into the

open space beyond, and pierced a way through into the street which was

henceforth to be honored by bearing his name. Philippe of Champagne

was invited to paint the ceilings and decorate the walls of the

stupendous eminence whose cipher gleamed over all the doors, sometimes

engrained in gold letters upon marble, sometimes curiously interlaced

with emblematic figures, or emblazoned in the Richelieu arms. When all

was complete, it was necessary to rechristen the dwelling which had

been so enlarged and renovated as to be virtually a new edifice—the

mansion which had been metamorphosed into a palace. After much serious

consultation, and many times changing his mind, Richelieu decided that

it should be called Palais Cardinal. A slab bearing these two words

in large gold letters was accordingly placed over the gates of the

_ci-devant_ Hôtel d’Estrée. The next morning all Paris beheld it, and

burst out laughing. The _beaux-esprits_ of the sarcastic capital, with

Balzac at their head, rushed in a body to the square in front of the

new palace, and woke the echoes of the sleeping aristocratic gardens

with their uproarious mirth; there they stood, armed with grammars,

lexicons of divers tongues, and pens and portfolios, discussing with

much solemnity the two inoffensive nouns on the marble slab; every

now and then a wag from the crowd raising shouts of laughter by some

ludicrous explanation of his own. Presently the gates were swung apart,

and out drove the cardinal, and beheld the spectacle, so eminently

gratifying to his sensitive pride, of “all Paris laughing at him.”

The scoffers gathered round his equipage, books and pen in hand,

imploring him to enlighten their ignorance from the depths of his

unfathomable erudition; how were they to parse the name of his

eminence’s house? _Palais_ and _Cardinal_—it was most perplexing to

their weak intelligence. The conjunction was a turning upside down of

all established rules—a topsy-turvy of principles and of all known

precedents.

Separately, the two nouns were comprehensible, but joined together,

what were they? Was it, mayhap, Greek or Latin construction, or was it

taken from the legends of old Gaul French, or a specimen of some new

and unknown tongue evolved from the universal genius of the minister?

Richelieu, writhing under the pitiless hilarity of the tormentors,

lent a deaf ear to them, and rode forth in scornful taciturnity;

petitions from imaginary savants, who professed to be laboring in

the mazes of a new grammar, flowed in the following days upon the

unlucky author of the ungrammatical inscription, beseeching him to

let the ignorant world into the secret of its proper parsing; the

enemies of the cardinal, in fact, made capital out of his vanity to

their heart’s content, but Richelieu’s pride was a match for them. The

only answer he condescended to make was to point to the inscription

over the Hôtel Dieu. The precedent was no doubt unanswerable; but

vanity remained, nevertheless, more prominent in the imitation than

either sense or grammar. It held its place, however, in spite of all

attempts to laugh it down. The splendors of the Palais Cardinal have

been enlarged upon in most of the memoirs and chronicles of that time.

Richelieu, while busy making and mending quarrels between the king and

the queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, governing France, and pulling the

strings of all the governments of Europe, found time to devote to his

hobby of enriching and beautifying his palace, overseeing in its most

minute details the architectural part of the work, and directing the

research after objects of art far and near for its adornment. While

he was thus variously occupied, a knot of literary men were in the

habit of meeting quietly once a week close to his palace gates, to

read aloud their own works, and discuss the state of letters, whose

horizon was just then beginning to brighten under the rising sun of

the great Corneille. The meetings were held at the house of one of the

circle; they were quite unostentatious, and aspired to no notoriety

beyond their own circle; the members sought only to encourage each

other by honest criticism, and by the emulation that comes of working

in common towards a common end. Soon, however, these weekly gatherings

became talked about; courtiers heard of them, and begged to be allowed

to assist at them. By-and-by Richelieu came to hear of them; his

curiosity was excited, first from a political point of view—he feared

the so-called _réunions littéraires_ might be a covert for something

more dangerous; he was not slow, however, to find out his mistake,

and to detect in the modest literary club a germ of future greatness;

he expressed his desire that the meetings should be held henceforth

at the Palais Cardinal, and under his immediate auspices. The members

protested; they were not worthy of so distinguished an honor, etc.;

but Richelieu assured them that he saw in their modest labors the

promised fulfilment of his long-cherished desire “to raise the French

language from the ranks of barbarous tongues, and to cleanse it from

the impurities which it had contracted in the mouth of the people

and on the lips of courtiers.” The little band of writers yielded

reluctantly to the pompous summons so flatteringly sent forth against

their independence, and the Académie Française was founded. Louis XIII.

gave it letters-patent, and became its chief patron, while Richelieu

was named President. The number of academicians was limited to forty.

Amongst the great and gifted men who figure at the birth of this modern

Areopagus, destined to be glorified in its after-career by so many

brilliant members, Pierre Corneille stands out conspicuous. The young

poet found in Richelieu a kind and munificent patron, until he had the

ill-luck to wound his vanity in one of its most vulnerable points. Not

content with being a potentate, a warrior, a financier, and innumerable

other things besides, the insatiable cardinal aspired to being a

poet—a disastrous form of ambition which gave a cruel handle to his

enemies, and furnished them with many a shaft of ridicule wherewith

to pierce his thin-skinned susceptibilities. Richelieu, however,

pursued his way in serene self-confidence, despising the ignorance

and jealousy of the vulgar herd, and periodically bringing forth the

offspring of his genius in the shape of plays and poems. One set of

verses with which he was particularly satisfied he handed in MS. to

Corneille, desiring to secure his approval before launching them on

the sea of public criticism, and modestly requesting the young poet

to overlook them and make any alteration that he thought advisable.

Corneille had not graduated long enough in the school of courtiers to

know what this flattering request was worth, so he set about complying

with it conscientiously, pruning and altering with his fine critical

pen as it ran along the course of the ministerial poem. Richelieu’s

amazement on beholding his masterpiece thus audaciously overhauled was

only equalled by his indignation. Corneille, instead of falling on his

knees and crying _peccavi_ when he saw his mistake, proceeded with

infantine _naïveté_ to argue the case with the wrathful poet, and prove

to him that every correction had been called for by some glaring fault.

This did not mend matters. Such insane honesty met with the fate it

deserved—the fate that from time immemorial it has met with in similar

circumstances. The scene between Gil Blas and the bishop was enacted

in the library of the Palais Cardinal between Corneille and Richelieu,

and certainly Gil Bias was not more astonished by the effect of his

candid criticism on the bishop’s long-winded sermon than was the young

academician by the thunderbolt which fell from his patron’s brow on

perusing his MS. revised and corrected. He was dismissed peremptorily,

and withdrew cursing his own stupidity, and vowing that never again

would he be entrapped into the folly of believing in the common sense

of a patron. Shortly after this mishap, while wandering about in

listless pursuit of an object at Rouen, his native place, he fell in

accidentally with a gentleman who had read his first poetic efforts,

and discerned through their faults and trammels the promise of true

genius that lay beneath. “Why do you waste and hamper your talent in

the threadbare conventionalities of French art?” inquired M. de Chalan.

“You want a higher and a wider scope; read Guillen de Castro, and there

you will find a subject worthy of you, and which will bring out your

powers with a fire and force unsuspected by yourself.”

“Unfortunately, I am not acquainted with Spanish,” replied the young

man.

“But I am,” returned M. de Chalan, “and, if you like, I will teach it

to you.”

Corneille, having nothing else to do, accepted the proposal, and to

this chance circumstance the world apparently owes _The Cid_. That

masterly composition came upon the dramatic world of France—hitherto

fed on threadbare conventionalities, as de Chalan had well said—like

a revelation, and raised such a tempest of senseless vituperation and

malignant opposition as has no parallel in the history of literary

cyclones. Richelieu, who was far too good a judge not to see the rare

merits of the poem, had not the magnanimity to proclaim his opinion,

and thus quell the storm, but fell in with the rioters, and was one

of the loudest in crying down the new tragedy. He could not forgive

the young poet who, without his patronage, nay, in spite of his own

disgrace, had succeeded in climbing to the topmost round of the ladder.

Corneille’s star rose steady and clear above the stormy waters, and he

lived to see it shine out in glorious lustre through the clouds of envy

and hostile criticism. His career was one of unparalleled triumph, till

the appearance of his last work, _Pertharite_, written in 1653. It was

played on the boards of the Palais Cardinal theatre, that had echoed to

so many of his previous triumphs, and was received with a coldness that

was equivalent to condemnation. Corneille saw in this isolated defeat

the ruin of his poetic fame; he became possessed by a morbid despair,

flung away his lyre, and gave up the theatre in disgust. During the

interval of depression that followed this fancied humiliation, he

devoted himself to the translation of Thomas à Kempis’ _The Imitation

of Christ_, sacrificing, as he said himself, “his own reputation to the

glory of a sovereign author.”

The Palais Cardinal, during Richelieu’s multifarious reign, was the

theatre of many boisterous scenes, dark intrigues, and events otherwise

important than these literary skirmishes that occasionally engage

the thoughts of ambitious statesmen. Its propinquity to the Louvre

enabled him to keep his lynx eyes on the busy hive of friends, foes,

and tools who gathered round the king; to frustrate the petty plots

of courtiers; and forestall the schemes of faction by his ubiquitous

presence. Nor are comic chapters lacking in the annals of the Palais

Cardinal at this period. One related by the sprightly Duchesse de

Chevreuse, in a letter to Mme. de Motteville, is grotesque enough to

be worth recording, as characteristic of the cardinal and the court.

Richelieu, it was said, had dared to raise his eyes to the queen, then

in the full bloom of her youth and beauty. As might be expected, the

unwarrantable presumption inspired Anne of Austria with no gentler

feeling than contempt, not unmixed with disgust. She gathered up her

purple robes, as she might have done at the touch of a viper, and

shook them, and passed on with a shudder and a shrug. But her volatile

friend, Mme. de Chevreuse, whose _rôle_ was fun at any price, thought

the cardinal’s love too good a joke not to be turned to account. She

proposed playing him a trick which would have the double advantage

of giving herself and her royal mistress an hour’s good fun, and of

making Richelieu, whom she hated with a woman’s inventive hate, appear

thoroughly ridiculous. “Let me tell him from myself,” she entreated,

“that your majesty is only inexorable because you do not believe in

the sincerity of his love; but that, if he can give you proof of it,

you are open to conviction. I will propose that he come here by the

private way, dressed as a harlequin, and dance the saraband before

you one of these evenings, assuring him, if he does this, you will

believe in the reality of his protestations.” Anne was young, her life

had not much sunshine in its splendor, and the demon of frolic which

so madly possessed her friend was not without its power over her.

She consented that the outrageous joke should be played off on her

gloomy swain. The duchess accordingly informed him that the queen was

passionately fond of the saraband, and had often expressed a desire

to see it danced by one whose dignified deportment and elastic figure

were so admirably adapted to bring out the peculiar characteristics

of the spirited and stately dance, and that nothing would gratify and

flatter her more than to see his eminence yield to this fancy. It was

necessary, she added, that he should be dressed as a harlequin, in

order to bring out in all their perfection the picturesque points of

the dance. Richelieu bit at this outlandish bait, and it was agreed

on a given night he would roam to the Louvre, and disport himself in

the aforesaid manner for the edification of the queen, he being alone

in one room, while her majesty looked on at the performance from

behind a screen in an adjoining one; a musician, concealed also from

view, was to accompany the performance on the violin. The duchess,

who had not bargained for her own share in the sport, took care not

to be deprived of it, but stood beside the queen, peeping through

the screen, while the haughty statesman, bedizened in the variegated

costume of harlequin, “with bells on his fingers, and bells on his

toes,” and jingling from his comical fool’s cap, tripped it on the

light fantastic toe. Mme. de Chevreuse describes the scene with the

mischievous glee of a schoolboy: herself and the queen squeezing each

other’s hands, and terrified lest one explosive burst should betray

them and suddenly cut short the performance; the musician convulsed in

another corner, scratching away frantically at his fiddle to drown the

irrepressible laughter of the trio; while Richelieu, the proud, the

grave, the vindictive and all-powerful Richelieu, capered backwards

and forwards on the polished floor, snapping his fingers at each rapid

_pirouette_, stamping his heel and pointing his toe as the figures of

the saraband demanded. The performance over, he donned his cloak, and

made his way back discreetly to the Palais Cardinal. No time was lost

in recapitulating the farce to the court, and the merriment that it

provoked may be readily imagined. But who might laugh with impunity

at Richelieu? The true motive of the unseemly burlesque to which he

had lent himself was soon made known to the hero, and terrible was the

vengeance that awaited its authors. He bided awhile, and then began

that series of calumnies and persecutions that poisoned so many years

of the young queen’s life. Richelieu had insinuated himself into the

confidence of Louis XIII., and his influence over him was boundless.

This tremendous weapon he used against the queen with cruel ingenuity.

He contrived to implicate her in the odious and diabolical conspiracy

of the arch-traitor de Chalais; accused her of having plotted to

dethrone and murder the king, with a view to putting Gaston d’Orléans,

his brother, on the throne, and marrying him. When Louis XIII. brutally

challenged his wife to vindicate herself from the twofold criminal

charge, she replied, with _spirituelle_ disdain: “I had too little

to gain by the exchange.” It is more than probable that Louis never

seriously suspected Anne of Austria of having had any share in the

guilt laid to her charge by Richelieu; but the calumny did its work

efficiently in another way: it cut at the root of her affection for

her husband and of his trust in her—it chilled and alienated them for

years. The Duchesse de Chevreuse, accused, with some show of truth, of

having conspired with Gaston d’Orléans to dethrone the king, was exiled

from France. Richelieu followed up the advantage of his first attack by

accusing the queen of keeping up a correspondence with the enemies of

the state. Anne, too proud to justify herself, imprudently paraded her

contempt for Richelieu’s malevolent intrigues by openly and on every

occasion showing her love for her own family, at that time at war with

France; expressions full of the warmth of natural affection were made

a handle of by her enemies, construed into treason against the king

and the state. The birth of Louis XIV. (1638) brought about a partial

reconciliation between her and the husband who had insulted and treated

her with systematic neglect. But Richelieu’s sway remained unshaken to

the end. It was entirely an intellectual sway; the heart had no share

in it on either side. The minister hated the king, and the king hated

the minister; their natures were essentially antagonistic, and mutual

interest alone held them together. Louis, hearing that he was about to

be freed from the bondage under which he had chafed so long—that the

summons had come for Richelieu—went in haste to the Palais Cardinal to

receive the adieux of the dying minister. The interview between them

was short and utterly devoid of pathos; no shade of tenderness had

entered into the bond that was about to be dissolved. The breaking up

of it was simply a matter of business. The king left the death-chamber

of the man to whom he owed all the glory of his reign, without a tear

in his eye or a passing emotion in his heart, and paced the adjoining

room with a steady step and satisfied air, while a smile, amounting

at intervals to a suppressed laugh, was visible on his features. When

all was over, and the signal came forth that Richelieu was no more, he

exclaimed tranquilly: “_Voilà un grand politique de mort!_”[42] (1642.)

A few months later, he himself had joined the great politician in

another world.

Richelieu, whose more than royal munificence of state had roused the

jealous susceptibilities of the king, atoned for it by bequeathing his

beautiful palace, with its accumulated treasures of art and industry,

to his unthankful master. Anne of Austria inaugurated her reign as

regent by taking up her abode under the roof of the man who had been to

the last day of his life her implacable enemy. Immediately after the

death of Louis XIII., she came to the Palais Cardinal with the little

king and his brother, the Duc d’Anjou. The theatre on which Richelieu

had lavished so much taste and wealth was included in the bequest,

though he had often expressed his intention of presenting it to the

nation, and endowing it for the benefit of rising dramatic artists.

Notwithstanding that Anne of Austria had good reason to execrate the

cardinal for his injustice and malignity to herself personally, she did

full honor to his merits as a statesman; and years after his death,

when at the zenith of her popularity as regent, she said once, looking

up at a portrait of Richelieu which hung in the state-saloon of the

Palais Cardinal: “Were that man alive now, he would be more powerful

than ever.” It was a generous and exhaustive tribute to the memory of

those services which had consolidated the monarchy in France, and made

her own position what it was.

The name of Palais Cardinal, which, despite its equivocal grammar, was

appropriate while Richelieu inhabited it, ceased to be so when it

passed into the possession of the crown. Anne was advised to change it,

but refused to do so, at the solicitation of the Duchesse d’Aiguillon,

who besought her to retain a name which so honorably associated

Richelieu with the glorious reign of Louis XIII. Public opinion,

however, prevailed before long, and the palace was henceforth by common

consent designated as the Palais Royal. With its new name began a new

era in its annals.

Anne has been compared by some of her admirers and biographers to

Blanche of Castille; but, while rendering full justice to the queenly

qualities of the Austro-Spanish regent, we own that the comparison

strikes us as being suggested rather by their circumstances than by

the characters of the two queen-mothers who each played so remarkable

a part in the history of their epochs. Blanche of Castille made it

her first and paramount ambition to render her son worthy of that

imperishable crown which awaited him in the Kingdom that is not of

this world: Anne of Austria aimed at securing for hers the supremacy

of earthly glory—at making him a great and powerful king. In each

case, as it mostly happens, the omnipotent mother’s will worked out

its own ideal. The minority of the future Grand Monarque opened in

troubled times; the elements of the Fronde were fermenting deep down

under the apparently smooth surface, and the _fêtes_, and masquerades,

and merry-making with which the regent celebrated her tardy accession

to sovereign power were soon followed by more exciting events. Mazarin

had succeeded to Richelieu—oily, pliant Mazarin, so zealous in his

endeavors to keep well with all parties; flattering the ambitious

hopes of Gaston d’Orléans, and laying himself out with elaborate zeal

to please the regent and secure her confidence; yielding outwardly,

with alluring grace, to every caprice of her soft despotic sway; and

pulling dexterously the complicated strings of the malcontents, Condé,

and Conti, and Longueville, and many other illustrious personages who

chafed uneasily under the sceptre of the foreigner; benevolent and

outspoken, but irreclaimably despotic. Mazarin, in his desire to please

all parties whom it was of use to propitiate, and make money plentiful

where it was needed for his purposes, had gone on taxing till he raised

the devil in the _then_ much enduring people. Everything was ready for

an outbreak. The _Te Deum_ after the victory of Lens gave the signal

for it. It was a burning day in August, in the year 1648. The city

had turned out to join in the jubilee, and, amidst the inspiriting

chorus of trumpets, and cannons, and bells that sent exulting chimes

from many belfries, such small matters as hunger and empty hearths and

misery in its multiform moods and tenses were forgotten for a moment.

But it needed only a touch to rouse the sleeping furies in the hearts

of the hungry, rejoicing crowd. Broussel was seized by the troops, who

had just played their part in the gay thanksgiving, and carried off

to prison—Broussel, the venerable magistrate, the people’s sturdy

friend; who had fought their battles over and over again against mighty

Mazarin himself; who had stood by them and upheld their rights in the

teeth of the foreign queen and her foreign minister; Broussel, whom

the people called _notre père_—were they going to see him seized by

soldiers, and carried off before their eyes? No; they would stand by

him as he had stood by them. The last notes of the _Te Deum_ were

still ringing over the city, when up leaped the shouts of revolution

and the cry “To arms!” and chased away their holy echoes. The mob

surrounded the carriage in which Broussel was placed, guarded on all

sides by armed men; they were beaten back and trodden down; the people

returned to the charge undaunted, and finally bore down on the Palais

Royal, vociferating unmannerly threats, and demanding Broussel: “Give

us Broussel, or we will burn down your house about you!”—pleasant

sounds for the queen to hear beneath her windows! Anne of Austria

had not foreseen this bursting up of the vulgar depths over which

she had hitherto ridden in safe and scornful unconcern; nor, in all

probability, had Mazarin. He was with the queen in that sumptuous

apartment called the queen’s boudoir, whose one broad window, mounted

in a frame of massive silver wrought like a brooch, looked out upon

the court; the regent paced the room in feverish excitement, her face

flushed, her hands, alternately crossed on her breast with an air of

stern resolve, moving in the animated and expressive play that was

familiar to her; every now and then she would stand in the embrasure

of the rich and cunningly carved window, and cast a glance of mingled

scorn and defiance on the vociferous rabble below. They catch sight

of her, and greet her with ominous signs and gestures. They see in

her cool courage a taunt that rouses them to desperation. All unarmed

as they are, except with stones and sticks and such like unmilitary

weapons, they are ready to give battle to her troops. At this crisis,

when the Fronde was born, a young man named Gondi starts to the

surface, shooting up from the dark horizon like a glittering rocket.

He is endowed with that peculiar kind of alcoholic eloquence which

appears to be in all climes and ages the apanage of demagogues. Gondi

had already made himself conspicuous as a discontented spirit whom it

would be well either to crush or to conciliate; and Mazarin would in

all likelihood have adopted the latter plan but for the fact of his

jealousy having been aroused by the queen’s kindly notice of the young

firebrand; he foresaw a possible rival in Gondi’s ardor and talents,

and forthwith decreed his ruin. Gondi was just now making himself

popular by declaiming on the wrongs of the people, and denouncing the

seizure of Broussel as iniquitous and tyrannical. There was some talk

of sending a despatch to the regent to demand his release; Mazarin

caught at this opportunity of lowering Gondi in the estimation of the

queen by placing him in the position of a leader of the Fronde, so he

sent word to him indirectly to come to the Palais Royal and present

the people’s petition. Gondi, who saw in the mission an occasion

for distinguishing himself with all parties, accepted it. He told

the people that he undertook to ask, and pledged himself to obtain,

the liberation of Broussel within an hour. They followed him with

enthusiastic cheers to the Palais Royal, where he was admitted to the

presence of the queen. She received him with flattering promptitude,

unconscious of the motive of his visit. Anne was in no mood for

compromises or concessions; the rebellious attitude of her subjects had

steeled her heart for the moment against the demands of clemency, and

when Gondi, announcing himself the bearer of the demands of the people,

asked for the liberation of the magistrate, her anger broke out into

violence: “Give up Broussel!” she cried, with a sardonic laugh, “I will

strangle him first with my own hands!” And clenching those beautiful

little hands that have been sung by every poet of her day, she went

close up to Gondi, and shook them in his face. The deputy, confounded,

stood rooted to the spot, and uttered not a word; when Anne, abruptly

turning away, said, with a quiet sarcasm the more chilling from its

sudden contrast with her foregoing vehemence: “Go and rest, Monsieur de

Gondi; you have worked hard.”

He left her presence, and carried his perplexity to Mazarin. But

Mazarin, who had led him into the dilemma of playing false to the

people and vexing the queen, coldly declined interfering, and bowed

the unsuccessful diplomatist out. Gondi, betrayed and baffled, left

the Palais Royal with an oath that the morrow would see him master

of Paris. When a lad of eighteen, he had written an essay on the

_Conjuration de Fiesque_, which drew from Richelieu the remark: “_Voilà

un esprit dangereux._”[43] The day had come when the fiery young

author was to fulfil this sagacious prophecy. The future Cardinal

de Retz had entered the Palais Royal an ambitious courtier: he left

it an infuriated _frondeur_. The next day Paris was bristling with

barricades—its traditional mode of expressing its irritated feelings.

This day, famous as _la journée des barricades_, saw Mathieu Molé

appear in one of the finest attitudes that have marked his noble and

honorable career.

While still young, Molé had risen to the brilliant and perilous

position of _Premier Président du Parlement de Paris_ by the mere

force of talent and rigid integrity of character; he had never courted

the patronage of a minister, nor accepted a favor from one; he had

lent no base compliance to Richelieu’s despotism or to Mazarin’s

more captivating rule; he had remained the staunch friend of the

heterodox Abbé de St. Cyran, holding faster by him in his disgrace and

imprisonment than in the days of his transient popularity, persecuting

Richelieu to obtain his pardon, dodging the inaccessible minister late

and early, waylaying him in all possible and impossible places with the

same persistent cry, “Give me back my friend St. Cyran,” till at last

Richelieu, worn out with his importunity, seized the president by the

arm one day, and said: “This M. Molé is a worthy magistrate, but the

most obstinate pleader in France,” and gave him back his Abbé de St.

Cyran. This was the man who was chosen to head a second embassy from

the people to the Palais Royal. The regent was aware of his coming,

and received him with cold civility; but her high spirit was slightly

subdued since the preceding day; she had passed a sleepless night

waiting for the events of the morrow, and was disposed to admit the

possibility of coming to a compromise with her unruly citizens. Mathieu

Molé was not an orator in the classical sense of the word, but he had

that sort of eloquence that stirs the hearts of men. It achieved a

victory, in the first place, over the angry mob by making them listen

to reason and take a dispassionate view of their position, and now it

gained an equally important one with the regent, inducing her to yield

a reluctant consent to the liberation of Broussel. The barricades

were lowered, and Paris gave a joyous welcome to its friend. But the

blaze thus rashly kindled was not to be so quickly quenched. Anne of

Austria eventually conquered both the Fronde and the less violent but

equally dangerous pretensions of Mazarin, who, succumbing with a fairly

good grace before the indomitable courage and inflexible firmness of

the regent, renounced the ambition of making her his tool, and was

satisfied with being her right hand in governing the state. How high

his ambition soared may be guessed from the following trait. Once, when

conversing with Anne of Austria, emboldened by that gracious _abandon_

of manner which made the haughty Spaniard so charming in her amiable

moods, Mazarin alluded to the boyish passion of the king for his niece,

Marie Mancini, and observed how deeply he would have deplored it had

his majesty, yielding to the infatuation of the hour, committed the

chivalrous folly of marrying her. Anne of Austria drew herself up with

all the pride of her Castilian blood, and answered: “Had my son been

capable of such an unworthiness, I should have placed myself with his

brother at the head of the nation against him and against you.” The

proud daughter of kings, who, by the strength of her solitary will,

could govern a nation and cow the daring leaders of the Fronde, was

in person as tender and delicate as a child; her health was fragile,

and her skin so sensitive that it was difficult to find any cambric

soft enough to clothe without hurting her. Mazarin, alluding once to

this Sybarite delicacy of temperament, declared to the regent that her

purgatory in the next world would be to sleep in Holland sheets. Yet,

when Anne was attacked by the cruel malady which ended her days, no

Roman matron could have endured it with greater fortitude. Her piety,

which had guarded her youth through the alluring temptations of the

court, despite the neglect and rudeness of a morose and heartless

husband, sustained her in the protracted tortures of her last illness.

Shortly before she expired, Louis XIV. was kneeling by the bedside of

his mother, weeping bitterly, and covering her hand with his tears;

she drew it gently away, and, looking for a moment at that hand which

had been her chief woman’s vanity, she murmured: “They are beginning

to swell; it is time to go!” Some historians have flippantly taxed

Anne with having systematically kept her son in the background, and

sacrificed him selfishly to the prolongation of her own power; but

Louis’ passionate grief at her death, and his lifelong gratitude to

the memory of his mother, sufficiently repudiate this charge. Louis

XIV. never resided at the Palais Royal after her death; when necessity

obliged him to remain in Paris, he occupied the Louvre.