THE CONFESSIONS AT ST. GUDULE
We are now in a position to realise the emotions and experiences that
lasted up to the eve of Charlotte's return to England. But there are two
events that vary the incessant conflict with Madame Heger; and that help
to form the basis of real experiences, expressed in the portraits (that
are not historical pictures) of Zoraïde Reuter and of Madame Beck. These
two events also re-appear, as scenes in _Villette, that did not take
place in the way the authoress relates_ them; but that put us in
possession of the parallel facts in Charlotte's true career: where she
felt the very same emotions she describes in the novel. The first event
gives us the actual, the original history, of what in _Villette_
reappears in the imaginary account of Lucy Snowe's Confession: and
serves there to introduce us to the Jesuit who is half a spy and half a
saint--Père Silas. In Charlotte's life the event, as it is related by
her in a letter to Emily, took place during that long and solitary
vacation in the empty Pensionnat, where, from August to October 1843,
Charlotte was left to face the position now made for her by Madame
Heger's discovery of the Secret that, possessed by her enemy, could not
remain hidden from Charlotte herself.
Charlotte's letter to Emily begins by describing the desolation of this
large house, with its deserted class-rooms, and silent garden, and
galérie, and for her solitary companion only the repulsive-minded and
malicious Mademoiselle Blanche, whom she has described in an earlier
letter as a spy of Madame Heger's.
'I should inevitably,' she writes, 'fall into the gulf of low spirits if
I stayed always by myself.... Yesterday I went on a pilgrimage to the
cemetery, and far beyond it, on to a hill where there was nothing but
fields as far as the horizon. When I came back it was evening, but I had
such a repugnance to return to the house which contained nothing that I
cared for, that I kept treading the narrow streets in the neighbourhood
of the Rue d'Isabelle, and avoiding it. I found myself opposite to _Ste.
Gudule_; and the bell, whose voice you know, began to toll for evening
_salût_. I went in quite alone (which procedure you will say is not much
like me), wandered about the aisles (where a few old women were saying
their prayers), till vespers. I stayed till they were over. Still I
could not leave the church nor force myself to go home--to school, I
mean. _An odd whim_ came into my head. In a solitary part of the
cathedral six or seven people still remained, kneeling by the
Confessionals. In two Confessionals I saw a Priest. I felt as if I did
not care what I did, provided it was not absolutely wrong, and that it
served to vary my life and yield a moment's interest. I took a fancy to
change myself into a Catholic, and go and make _a real Confession_ to
see what it was like. Knowing me as you do, you will think this odd,
_but when people are by themselves they have singular fancies_. A
penitent was occupied in confessing. They do not go into the sort of pew
or cloister the priest occupies, but kneel down on the steps and
confess through a grating. Both the confessor and the penitent whisper
very low: you can hardly hear their voices. After I had watched two or
three penitents go, and return, I approached at last, and knelt down in
a niche which was just vacated. I had to kneel there ten minutes
waiting, for on the other side was another penitent, invisible to me. At
last that one went away, and a little wooden door inside the grating
opened and I saw the Priest leaning his ear toward me. I was obliged to
begin, and yet I did not know a word of the formula with which they
always commence their confessions!... I began by saying I was a
foreigner and had been brought up as a Protestant. The Priest asked if I
was a Protestant then. I somehow could not tell a lie, and said yes. He
replied that in that case I could not "_jouir du bonheur de la
confesse_," but _I was determined to confess_, and at last he said he
would allow me, because it might be the first step towards returning
towards the true Church. _I actually did confess--a real Confession_.
When I had done he told me his address, and said that every morning I
was to go to the Rue du Parc to his house, and he would reason with me
and try to convince me of the error and enormity of being a Protestant.
I promised faithfully. Of course, however, the adventure stops here: and
_I hope I shall never see the Priest again_. I think you had better not
tell Papa this. He will not understand that it was _only a freak_, and
will perhaps think I am going to turn Catholic.'
Only 'a freak'?--an 'odd whim'? Even without the knowledge of the
special facts we now possess, could any serious student of Charlotte
Brontë believe it? Given what we know of her seriousness, of her
religious temper, that cannot take spiritual things lightly, of her
rational Protestant piety, of her antipathy to Catholic formulas--given
all this as characteristic of her aspirations,--and as characteristics
of her personality, shyness, and reserve carried almost to
morbidness--can any one believe that mere _ennui_, a craving for
variety, excitement, flung this normally shamefaced, timid Englishwoman
down on her knees, on the stone steps of the Sainte Gudule
Confessional; inspired her with the determination needed to withstand
the Priest's objections to allow her, as a Protestant, _de jouir du
bonheur de la confesse_; compelled her to insist upon her claim, by
virtue of her dire need of this '_happiness_' (or at any rate of this
_relief_) of unburthening her soul by a 'real Confession'? A _real_
Confession--of _what_? What crime has this poor innocent Charlotte on
her conscience that stands in such need of confession? No crime, we may
be sure. Only the weight, the misery of this tragic 'Secret'; too
intimate, too sacred to be confided even to those nearest to her,--even
to Emily. But now that her 'enemy' holds it, too grievous a secret to
remain unshared with Some One, who is not an enemy, nor yet a friend--a
stranger, who will not blush nor tremble for her, will not see her
whilst she whispers through the grating: whom she will not see, or meet
again;--Some One, who by profession, is God's Delegate of Mercy to
deliver the unwilling offender, who repents him of his secret sins,
Some One who is pledged, when he has given pardon and consolation,
_never to betray what he has heard--to forget it even_. Some One who,
experienced in offering counsel and consolation, may (who can say?)
offer some comfort or advice, assisting her to extricate herself from
the snare into which she has fallen, and to recover safety.
Does one not know what the 'Confession,' whispered through the grating,
really was? Or can one doubt what the Priest's advice was? Was it not
necessarily the same advice so urgently forced upon her by Madame Heger?
She must escape from the peril of temptation: she must not show this
tragic passion any mercy: she must break this spell: she must go back to
England. She felt she could not do this thing of herself without 'God's
special grace preventing her'? Therefore she must diligently seek to
obtain this grace _by the aid of the Holy Catholic Church_--and she must
call in the Rue du Parc--next morning. In so far as the last
recommendation went, we know Charlotte did not follow it. _The
adventure_--as she says herself, _stopped there_. Nor is there anything
in her own story to indicate the existence of any real Jesuit, taking
the place of the mischief-making Saint, Père Silas, familiar to readers
of _Villette_. The Priest of Ste. Gudule comes to us as a more
impressive personage just because Charlotte _never met him again._
But his advice remained vividly present to her recollection we may feel
sure. On the 23rd October, about a month after this event, she writes
once more to Ellen Nussey:--
'It is a curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of
numbers. One day lately I felt as if I could bear it no longer _and I
went to Madame Heger and gave her notice. If it had depended upon her I
should certainly have soon been at liberty. But M. Heger having heard of
what was in agitation, sent for me the day after and pronounced with
vehemence his decision that I could not leave. I could not at that time
have persevered in my intentions without exciting him to anger; and
promised to stay a little while longer._'
And so what had to be done in the end was postponed: and the old hidden
enmity between Charlotte and Madame Heger went on for another three
months.