Ab ira et odio, et omni mala voluntate,
Libera nos, Domine.
A fulgure et tempestate,
Libera nos, Domine.
A morte perpetua,
Libera nos, Domine.
So rang forth the supplication, echoing from rock and fell, as the
people of Claudiodunum streamed forth in the May sunshine to invoke
a blessing on the cornlands, olives, and vineyards that won vantage-
ground on the terraces carefully kept up on the slopes of the
wonderful needle-shaped hills of Auvergne.
Very recently had the Church of Gaul commenced the custom of going
forth, on the days preceding the Ascension feast, to chant Litanies,
calling down the Divine protection on field and fold, corn and wine,
basket and store. It had been begun in a time of deadly peril from
famine and earthquake, wild beast and wilder foes, and it had been
adopted in the neighbouring dioceses as a regular habit, as indeed
it continued throughout the Western Church during the fourteen
subsequent centuries.
One great procession was formed by different bands. The children
were in two troops, a motley collection of all shades; the deep
olive and the rolling black eye betraying Ethiopian or Moorish slave
ancestry, the soft dark complexion and deep brown eye showing the
Roman, and the rufous hair and freckled skin the lower grade of
Cymric Kelt, while a few had the more stately pose, violet eye, and
black hair of the Gael. The boys were marshalled with extreme
difficulty by two or three young monks; their sisters walked far
more orderly, under the care of some consecrated virgin of mature
age. The men formed another troop, the hardy mountaineers still
wearing the Gallic trousers and plaid, though the artisans and
mechanics from the town were clad in the tunic and cloak that were
the later Roman dress, and such as could claim the right folded over
them the white, purple-edged scarf to which the toga had dwindled.
Among the women there was the same scale of decreasing nationality
of costume according to rank, though the culmination was in
resemblance to the graceful classic robe of Rome instead of the last
Parisian mode. The poorer women wore bright, dark crimson, or blue
in gown or wrapping veil; the ladies were mostly in white or black,
as were also the clergy, excepting such as had officiated at the
previous Eucharist, and who wore their brilliant priestly vestments,
heavy with gold and embroidery.
Beautiful alike to eye and ear was the procession, above all from a
distance, now filing round a delicate young green wheatfield, now
lost behind a rising hill, now glancing through a vineyard, or
contrasting with the gray tints of the olive, all that was
incongruous or disorderly unseen, and all that was discordant
unheard, as only the harmonious cadence of the united response was
wafted fitfully on the breeze to the two elderly men who, unable to
scale the wild mountain paths in the procession, had, after the
previous service in the basilica and the blessing of the nearer
lands, returned to the villa, where they sat watching its progress.
It was as entirely a Roman villa as the form of the ground and the
need of security would permit. Lying on the slope of a steep hill,
which ran up above into a fantastic column or needle piercing the
sky, the courts of the villa were necessarily a succession of
terraces, levelled and paved with steps of stone or marble leading
from one to the other. A strong stone wall enclosed the whole,
cloistered, as a protection from sun and storm. The lowest court
had a gateway strongly protected, and thence a broad walk with box-
trees on either side, trimmed into fantastic shapes, led through a
lawn laid out in regular flower-beds to the second court, which was
paved with polished marble, and had a fountain in the midst, with
vases of flowers, and seats around. Above was another broad flight
of stone steps, leading to a portico running along the whole front
of the house, with the principal chambers opening into it. Behind
lay another court, serving as stables for the horses and mules, as
farmyard, and with the quarters of the slaves around it, and higher
up there stretched a dense pine forest protecting the whole
establishment from avalanches and torrents of stones from the
mountain peak above.
Under the portico, whose pillars were cut from the richly-coloured
native marbles, reposed the two friends on low couches.
One was a fine-looking man, with a grand bald forehead, encircled
with a wreath of oak, showing that in his time he had rescued a
Roman's life. He also wore a richly-embroidered purple toga, the
token of high civic rank, for he had put on his full insignia as a
senator and of consular rank to do honour to the ceremonial. Indeed
he would not have abstained from accompanying the procession, but
that his guest, though no more aged than himself, was manifestly
unequal to the rugged expedition, begun fasting in the morning chill
and concluded, likewise fasting, in the noonday heat. Still, it
would scarcely have distressed those sturdy limbs, well developed
and preserved by Roman training, never permitted by him to
degenerate into effeminacy. And as his fine countenance and well-
knit frame testified, Marcus AEmilius Victorinus inherited no small
share of genuine Roman blood. His noble name might be derived
through clientela, and his lineage had a Gallic intermixture; but
the true Quirite predominated in his character and temperament. The
citizenship of his family dated back beyond the first establishment
of the colony, and rank, property, and personal qualities alike
rendered him the first man in the district, its chief magistrate,
and protector from the Visigoths, who claimed it as part of their
kingdom of Aquitania.
So much of the spirit of Vercingetorix survived among the remnant of
his tribe that Arvernia had never been overrun and conquered, but
had held out until actually ceded by one of the degenerate Augusti
at Ravenna, and then favourable terms had been negotiated, partly by
AEmilius the Senator, as he was commonly called, and partly by the
honoured friend who sat beside him, another relic of the good old
times when Southern Gaul enjoyed perfect peace as a favoured
province of the Empire. This guest was a man of less personal
beauty than the Senator, and more bowed and aged, but with care and
ill-health more than years, for the two had been comrades in school,
fellow-soldiers and magistrates, working simultaneously, and with
firm, mutual trust all their days.
The dress of the visitor was shaped like that of the senator, but of
somewhat richer and finer texture. He too wore the TOGA
PRAETEXTATA, but he had a large gold cross hanging on his breast and
an episcopal ring on his finger; and instead of the wreath of bay he
might have worn, and which encircled his bust in the Capitol, the
scanty hair on his finely-moulded head showed the marks of the
tonsure. His brow was a grand and expansive one; his gray eyes were
full of varied expression, keen humour, and sagacity; a lofty
devotion sometimes changing his countenance in a wonderful manner,
even in the present wreck of his former self, when the cheeks showed
furrows worn by care and suffering, and the once flexible and
resolute mouth had fallen in from loss of teeth. For this was the
scholar, soldier, poet, gentleman, letter-writer, statesman,
Sidonius Apollinaris, who had stood on the steps of the Imperial
throne of the West, had been crowned as an orator in the Capitol,
and then had been called by the exigences of his country to give up
his learned ease and become the protector of the Arvernii as a
patriot Bishop, where he had well and nobly served his God and his
country, and had won the respect, not only of the Catholic Gauls but
of the Arian Goths. Jealousy and evil tongues had, however,
prevailed to cause his banishment from his beloved hills, and when
he repaired to the court of King Euric to solicit permission to
return, he was long detained there, and had only just obtained
license to go back to his See. He had arrived only a day or two
previously at the villa, exhausted by his journey, and though
declaring that his dear mountain breezes must needs restore him, and
that it was a joy to inhale them, yet, as he heard of the
oppressions that were coming on his people, the mountain gales could
only 'a momentary bliss bestow,' and AEmilius justly feared that the
decay of his health had gone too far for even the breezes and baths
of Arvernia to reinvigorate him.
His own mountain estate, where dwelt his son, was of difficult
access early in the year, and AEmilius hoped to persuade him to rest
in the villa till after Pentecost, and then to bless the nuptials of
Columba AEmilia, the last unwedded daughter of the house, with Titus
Julius Verronax, a young Arvernian chief of the lineage of
Vercingetorix, highly educated in all Latin and Greek culture, and a
Roman citizen much as a Highland chieftain is an Englishman. His
home was on an almost inaccessible peak, or PUY, which the Senator
pointed out to the Bishop, saying--
"I would fain secure such a refuge for my family in case the tyranny
of the barbarians should increase."
"Are there any within the city?" asked the Bishop. "I rejoice to
see that thou art free from the indignity of having any quartered
upon thee."
"For which I thank Heaven," responded the Senator. "The nearest are
on the farm of Deodatus, in the valley. There is a stout old
warrior named Meinhard who calls himself of the King's Trust; not a
bad old fellow in himself to deal with, but with endless sons,
followers, and guests, whom poor Deodatus and Julitta have to keep
supplied with whatever they choose to call for, being forced to
witness their riotous orgies night after night."
"Even so, we are far better off than our countrymen who have the
heathen Franks for their lords."
"That Heaven forbid!" said AEmilius. "These Goths are at least
Christians, though heretics, yet I shall be heartily glad when the
circuit of Deodatus's fields is over. The good man would not have
them left unblest, but the heretical barbarians make it a point of
honour not to hear the Blessed Name invoked without mockery, such as
our youths may hardly brook."
"They are unarmed," said the Bishop.
"True; but, as none knows better than thou dost, dear father and
friend, the Arvernian blood has not cooled since the days of Caius
Julius Caesar, and offences are frequent among the young men. So
often has our community had to pay 'wehrgeld,' as the barbarians
call the price they lay upon blood, that I swore at last that I
would never pay it again, were my own son the culprit."
"Such oaths are perilous," said Sidonius. "Hast thou never had
cause to regret this?"
"My father, thou wouldst have thought it time to take strong
measures to check the swaggering of our young men and the foolish
provocations that cost more than one life. One would stick a
peacock's feather in his cap and go strutting along with folded arms
and swelling breast, and when the Goths scowled at him and called
him by well-deserved names, a challenge would lead to a deadly
combat. Another such fight was caused by no greater offence than
the treading on a dog's tail; but in that it was the Roman, or more
truly the Gaul, who was slain, and I must say the 'wehrgeld' was
honourably paid. It is time, however, that such groundless
conflicts should cease; and, in truth, only a barbarian could be
satisfied to let gold atone for life."
"It is certainly neither Divine law nor human equity," said the
Bishop. "Yet where no distinction can be made between the
deliberate murder and the hasty blow, I have seen cause to be
thankful for the means of escaping the utmost penalty. Has this
oath had the desired effect?"
"There has been only one case since it was taken," replied AEmilius.
"That was a veritable murder. A vicious, dissolute lad stabbed a
wounded Goth in a lonely place, out of vengeful spite. I readily
delivered him up to the kinsfolk for justice, and as this proved me
to be in earnest, these wanton outrages have become much more rare.
Unfortunately, however, the fellow was son to one of the widows of
the Church--a holy woman, and a favourite of my little Columba, who
daily feeds and tends the poor thing, and thinks her old father very
cruel."
"Alas! from the beginning the doom of the guilty has struck the
innocent," said the Bishop.
"In due retribution, as even the heathen knew." Perfect
familiarity with the great Greek tragedians was still the mark of a
gentleman, and then Sidonius quoted from Sophocles--
Compass'd with dazzling light,
Throned on Olympus's height,
His front the Eternal God uprears
By toils unwearied, and unaged by years;
Far back, through ages past,
Far on, through time to come,
Hath been, and still must last,
Sin's never-changing doom.