It is much to be doubted whether the Anglican bishops, when they

obtained from Parliament the Public Worship Regulation Act, had the

remotest idea of the tempest which, Prospero-like, they were summoning

around them, but which, unlike Shakspere’s magician, they would be

powerless to allay. And if this is the result obtained by the act just

mentioned, a still more recent one, the “Scotch Church Patronage Act,”

another measure intended by Lord Beaconsfield as an additional buttress

to ecclesiastical establishments, has produced similar storms in the

North. It has led to proceedings in connection with the “settlement” of

a parish clergyman at New Deer in Aberdeenshire which recall the furious

battles between the “intrusion” and non-intrusion parties that split the

Established Church of Scotland into fragments thirty-four years ago, and

has besides almost succeeded in uniting three-fourths of Scotland into a

solid disestablishment phalanx. The Presbyterian Kirk, moreover, in

addition to subjects of contention presented from without, has certain

characteristic squabbles of its own. A question having recently arisen

on the subject of unfermented wines in the celebration of what is called

communion, the session has maintained that it “has a right to change the

elements of communion, and in so doing is discharging its proper

functions.” Why not? If local churches can make their own doctrines,

what, we should like to know, is to hinder them from making their own

sacraments as well?

Our object in this article has been merely to sketch the present

condition of affairs in the English Establishment; but as we have in

concluding taken a momentary glance at Scotland also, we cannot leave

unnamed the Green Isle of the West, whose centuries of suffering and

oppression have at last, we earnestly trust, given place to times of

peace and long prosperity.

Should the reviving hopes of many hearts be realized, and the Green Tree

of England’s ancient church again spread its vigorous branches over the

land that was once “Our Lady’s Dowry”; and should the grand old northern

abbeys, Melrose, Jedburgh, Paisley, and even, it may be, Iona, receive

again as in past ages their cowled and consecrated sons, still England

and Scotland will have but returned to the faith which Ireland has never

lost, and which no human or Satanic power has been able to wrench from

her. No! For, rather than let the cross be torn from her bleeding

embrace, she suffered herself to be nailed upon it.

THE ASHES OF THE PALMS.

THE DISCIPLE.

“Are ashes scarce that palms must burn,

Those sweet memorials of the only day

Of triumph that thou hadst, my Prince,

Upon this woeful earth?”

THE MASTER.

“All glory unto ashes, child, must turn,

Of which this deathly world can make display.

These ashes on proud heads convince

Proud hearts of glory’s worth.”

THE DISCIPLE.

“If palms to ashes must,

So be 't. _I_ still will live to praise,

Though glory’s gage should burn.”

THE MASTER.

“E’en thou art naught but dust.

The mark thy forehead bears betrays

To what thou shalt return.”

ASH WEDNESDAY

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AN OLD WORLD AS SEEN THROUGH YOUNG EYES; OR, TRAVELS AROUND THE

WORLD. By Ellen H. Walworth. New York: Sadlier & Co. 1877.

Every school-girl who reads this book will wish that she had an uncle

who would send for her one day, while she is dreaming over her

lesson-book, and invite her to accompany him around the world. This is

what happened to Miss Ellen Walworth in June, 1873, and the volume

before us is composed of the letters which she wrote home during her

tour, and which were published as they were received in an Albany

newspaper, attracting at the time considerable attention. They are the

production of a school-girl of fifteen, but slightly altered from their

original form, and this makes their peculiarity and their special

interest. The course of her travels was through Scotland, Ireland,

England, Belgium, the country of the Rhine, Switzerland, Italy, Egypt,

China, Japan, and home by way of San Francisco. The letters are just

what they should be—natural, lively, juvenile descriptions of the little

incidents of travel and the scenes witnessed, with the freshness and

vividness of letters written at the time and on the spot to which each

one successively belongs. Two extremely interesting letters of Father

Walworth, written with his well-known charm of style and minute accuracy

of statement, are included in the collection. One of these contains a

description of the Coptic rite, the other an account of the present

state of the mission in Japan, with many interesting historical

particulars. Our young folk will find this a very entertaining volume,

and older people may read it with pleasure. It is a book very creditable

to the young author, and also an evidence of the kind of culture which

is given to young girls by the accomplished ladies at Kenwood. We

subjoin one specimen of the style in which the letters are written, not

at all childish, although suffused with a childlike gayety:

“I remember what dispute arose among the passengers the day we went

down Lake Zurich. There were mountains all around us, but from the

end of the lake towards which we were steering rose quite a high

range. Over their summits the clouds extended up some distance, and,

strange to say, a succession of peaks were to be seen above the

clouds, suspended, as it were, in the sky, and having no connection

with the peaks below, except a close resemblance in form. Their

outlines were distinctly marked against the clear blue sky, but they

had a strange, chalky, light appearance, as if they could be blown

away by a breath. Some of the passengers said they were merely

unusual forms taken by the clouds; others insisted that they were a

reflection of the peaks below—a species of _Fata Morgana_. A few old

Alp frequenters, among them our friend of the gravel acquaintance,

ventured to assert that they were real mountains, but their idea was

laughed down as ridiculous. While the dispute was the hottest, the

wind, by a strange freak, dispersed the clouds almost in an instant,

and we had before us one of the mighty ranges of Switzerland, beside

which our mountains of the lake shore were mere hillocks.

“From the foot of Lake Zurich we took the railroad carriages for

Ragatz and Chur. This journey is among my most vivid recollections

of Switzerland: for we were following the courses of the valleys and

streams through that wonderful range of mountains that we had seen

from the lake. We twisted ourselves into every possible position to

see the snow-capped summits directly above us, and our

fellow-travellers—English, French, and Germans—became so excited

over the scenery that they would call out to each other—for, though

the language might not be understood, the gestures were

unmistakable—and they would rush from one side of the cars to the

other, even dropping down on the floor, to get a sight from the

car-windows of the very tip-top of the mountains. The enthusiasm

seemed contagious; there were haughty Englishmen, stolid Germans,

fashionable young ladies, and confirmed dandies equally forgetful of

appearances. Indeed, as we passed peak after peak, now clustered

together, now opening and showing beautiful valleys between, or

dark, shaded chasms, the jagged rocks taking new shapes and hues

every instant, it was like watching a grand and ever-varying

kaleidoscope.”

MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA. A collection of Masses, Vespers, Hymns,

Motets, etc., for the service of the Catholic Church. New York: J.

Fischer & Bro.

Of this publication the Part 16 sent us, containing motets for singing

at the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, is a collection well suited

for use at that function. But we must object to the title of the general

work, as neither this nor any figured _music_ can be sung by

ecclesiastics, as such, officiating in any service of the Catholic

Church. The only melody properly styled _musica ecclesiastica_ is the

Gregorian chant. Definitions are always of grave moment. Suppose that

some one of our enterprising publishers should present the public with a

manual of prayers such as the _St. John’s Manual_, the _Key of Heaven_,

or the _Mission Book_ under the title of “Manual for the Clergy,

consisting of prayers, litanies, hymns, and other devotions _for the

service of the Catholic Church_”; it is plain that it would not receive

the imprimatur of a Catholic school-boy.

Under a proper title we give our hearty encouragement to the work which

our German Catholic brethren abroad and here in the United States have

within the last few years pursued with such praiseworthy zeal in the

composition of music for the use of our choirs, which, if we do not

think it to be the most suitable and most consistent in tone with the

letter and spirit of the Catholic ritual, is decidedly a vast

improvement upon the sensual, operatic style of music whose melodies and

harmonies have emasculated the devotion and vitiated the taste of, we

regret to say, almost the majority of Catholics in modern times.

THE COMPREHENSIVE GEOGRAPHY. Nos. 1, 2, and 3. New York: P. O’Shea,

37 Barclay St. 1876.

We are inclined to think that this series is the best of the many which

have of late years been presented to the public, and certainly do not

know of any which are superior to it in any respect except in the

department of physical geography; and it is as complete even in this as

it could well be without an additional volume specially devoted to that

subject.

The feature which should particularly recommend it to Catholics is the

prominence which it gives to facts connected with religion. There is no

branch of study for the young in which it is so important that religion

should be prominent as geography, with the exception, of course, of

history. Even the best text-books hitherto published are perhaps a

little too reticent in this respect. The desire to accomplish this

object has in the present work led to the introduction of some rather

unnecessary details; but this is a fault on the right side.

We hope that this series will become popular, as it deserves to be, in

Catholic schools.

THE COMPLETE OFFICE OF HOLY WEEK ACCORDING TO THE ROMAN MISSAL AND

BREVIARY. In Latin and English. New edition. Revised and enlarged.

18mo, pp. 563. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1877.

This edition of _Holy Week_ is a new and corrected one; it is printed

from large type on good paper, and is well and substantially bound.

Moreover, it is complete, containing all the offices of the church from

Palm Sunday to Easter Tuesday, inclusive. This edition is the only

correct one now published in this country. It has been carefully read by

persons competent to guarantee against the gross blunders that are apt

to disfigure Catholic works of the greatest importance. The price is so

low that the book is within the reach of every one, thus enabling them

to follow easily the services of the church during Holy Week.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXV., No. 146.—MAY, 1877.

THE PRUSSIAN CHANCELLOR.[26]

Footnote 26:

_Two Chancellors, etc._ By Julian Klaczko. Translated by Frank P.

Ward. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

_Pro Nihilo_ and other pamphlets on the Arnim question.

M. Julian Klaczko is by birth a Polish Jew and is a convert to the

Catholic Christian faith. He was for a time employed in the office of

the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was afterwards a member of

the imperial parliament. He has, however, generally been a resident in

France, where his numerous essays on political topics have been

published, all of which have attracted much attention and won for their

author a high reputation. We have already, in our number for last March,

made some observations on the career and policy of one of the two

chancellors, whose lives and public actions, so far as they had

progressed at the time of its publication, were sketched in the work

whose title is given below. This work is one of the most interesting

political _brochures_ of our time, and we propose to continue in the

present article the review of it commenced in our previous one,

confining our attention chiefly to the chancellor of the German Empire.

Prince Bismarck has been characterized by M. Thiers as “a savage full of

genius.” He is one of Carlyle’s “heroes”—an expression synonymous with

that of the clever French statesman, and denoting a giant in whom is

embodied intellectual and physical force, irrespective of any moral

direction. To this native strength, which has remained through life to a

great extent rude and uncultivated, and not in any way to a regular and

careful education, Otto von Bismarck is indebted for the success he has

achieved. His studies were finished on his entrance at the university,

and never resumed. It is doubtful whether he ever passed the legal

examination required before entering the civil service in Prussia.

Nevertheless, such a man is always a sort of extraordinary professor to

himself. He has read literature and studied men and events. It is absurd

to call such a man uneducated; and, although he does not possess the art

of speaking or writing according to rule, he is able to use both his

tongue and pen with an original power which sometimes rises to the

highest level of eloquence, and to coin expressions which, once uttered,

can never be forgotten. We have quoted one in our former article, about

the “iron dice of destiny,” and we will give one more, which we think is

unsurpassed in the annals of modern speech:

“One of his most happy, most memorable inspirations he suddenly drew

one day from the libretto of the _Freischütz_.

“In this opera of Weber, Max, the good and unfortunate hunter,

borrows a cartridge from Robin, the evil spirit, and immediately

kills an eagle, one of whose feathers he proudly sticks in his cap.

He then asks for some more cartridges, but Robin tells him that they

are 'enchanted balls,’ and that, in order to obtain them, he must

surrender himself to the infernal spirits and deliver his soul to

them. Max draws back, and then Robin, sneering, tells him that he

hesitates in vain, that the bargain is made, and that he has already

committed himself by the ball he made use of: 'Do you think, then,

that this eagle was a free gift?’ Well! when in 1849 the young

orator of the Mark of Brandenburg had to implore the Prussian

chamber not to accept for the King of Prussia the imperial crown

which the parliament of Frankfort offered him, he ended by crying

out: 'It is radicalism which offers this gift to the king. Sooner or

later this radicalism will stand upright before the king, will

demand of him its recompense, and, pointing to the emblem of the

eagle on that new imperial flag, it will say: _Did you think, then,

that this eagle was a free gift?_’”

The suggestion will doubtless present itself immediately to the minds of

many of our readers that the poetic myth of the _Freischütz_ is likely

to be fulfilled in sober, actual reality when the German imperial drama

is played out, and that Bismarck will prove to have been the Robin of

William I. But this is an anticipation, and we return to our sheep and

our young wolf. An equally marked and well-known trait of Bismarck’s

style in speech and writing is a cold, biting, ironical humor, which

often assumes the outward guise of frankness, sometimes ferocious,

sometimes farcical, but always dangerous and often deadly when the

master of the weapon is wielding it in a real fight. The general tone of

his disposition is contemptuous and misanthropical, as of one who

alternately sneers and laughs at mankind in general, on the whole

despising the game of life, yet going in for deep play with all his soul

when the chance presents itself, for mere occupation and amusement; just

as he plunged into the Burschen-life in his youth and hunted bears at a

later period in Russia. There is no trace of philanthropy in his

character; as an enemy he is relentless, and no gentle or noble

sentiments hamper his progress in the way of his policy of “blood and

iron.” Yet there is a most tender and devoted affection manifested in

his letters to his sister, Malvina von Arnim—“Maldewinchen”; so far as

we know he has been a kind husband and father; there seems really to be

something genuine in his long friendship for Prince Gortchakoff; and all

the world knows that he risked his life to rescue a servant from

drowning. The impression we have received from all we have ever read or

heard about him is, that his natural disposition, like that of Napoleon,

is generous and noble, but, like his, has been perverted by ambition.

His early life did not promise any great achievements. He went by the

name of “Mad Bismarck,” and was always restless, unsettled, without

steady application to any definite aim. What his real inward convictions

are or have been, in religion, philosophy, and the higher sphere of

political ethics, is very difficult to determine, at least for us who

are at a distance; or even to decide how far he has ever formed and

cherished any deep and settled convictions at all. Practically, he has

been a Pyrrhonist and Epicurean, a heathen and a materialist, using all

things and all ideas as so many counters of no value except for his own

game. The opinions which he professed at the outset of his political

career were those of “the party of the cross,” that old-Prussian,

religious, monarchical, conservative party represented by the

illustrious Baron von Gerlach, which has been in opposition to the

administration of the chancellor, and is now in a quasi-alliance with

the Catholic party.

“'I belong—' such was the defiant declaration of Herr von Bismarck

in one of his first speeches in the chamber—'I belong to an opinion

which glories in the reproaches of obscurantism and of tendencies of

the middle age; I belong to that great multitude which is compared

with disdain to the most intelligent party of the nation.’ He wanted

a _Christian state_. 'Without a religious basis,’ said he, 'a state

is nothing but _a fortuitous aggregation of interests, a sort of

bastion in a war of all against all; without this religious basis,

all legislation, instead of regenerating itself at the living

sources of eternal truth, is only tossed about by human ideas as

vague as changeable_.’”

What can be finer or truer than this statement, in which the whole of

his own policy as chancellor of the German Empire is condemned in

advance out of his own mouth? In every important respect his avowed

opinions and political action were diametrically opposite to those of a

later date. In fact, his bold and even extravagant advocacy of the cause

of the house of Hapsburg, at a moment when (1850) the attitude of

Prussia towards Austria was most humiliating, was the first occasion of

launching him into the career of foreign affairs. He was sent, with much

misgiving on the part of the king and his minister, as Prussian

plenipotentiary to the Diet of Frankfort; and here he began to go to

school to Prince Gortchakoff, now commenced that world-renowned

friendship between these two statesmen which has altered the course of

history and for whose _dénoûement_ we are at this moment intently

watching.

It would be idle to suppose that these two men traced out beforehand the

common policy which they have since pursued in concert. It was

impossible for any human sagacity to foresee the conjunctures which have

since arisen, and have furnished to Bismarck the opportunities of which

his genius has availed itself to destroy and to upbuild great political

fabrics. They could only plan, in general, the aggrandizement of Russia

and Prussia, by the breaking down of the traditional policy of coalition

and balance among the European powers. All that we can see clearly

respecting the incipient working of Bismarck’s mind at this period is,

that he contracted an aversion for Austria, a contempt for the German

confederation, and a mean opinion in general of the diplomats who had

the management of the European state-craft. The idea of a new era of

absolutism in a few great, conquering nations—an absolutism “tinged with

popular passions,” or, according to his favorite expression,“spotted

with red”—dawned on his mind and became gradually more distinct. Some

extravagant projects were at times bubbling in his restless brain, and

he often threatened to abandon the career of regular diplomatic service

and go into politics “in his swimming-drawers.” But when the Prussian

administration proposed to him to go to Russia as resident ambassador,

with a view, as he expressed it, of “putting him on ice” to cool him

down, he consented to don a “bear-skin” instead of the aforesaid

habiliments of a _sans-culottes_.

On the 1st of April, _his birth-day_, 1859, Herr von Bismarck arrived in

the capital of the Russian Empire, of which his former colleague at

Frankfort was already the chancellor. Among the Russians he was

extremely popular; for he took extraordinary pains to make himself

agreeable to them, and seemed to have turned himself into a Russian, for

the time being, in donning the bear-skin. Notwithstanding his outward

hilariousness, he was inwardly morose, dissatisfied with the course

which Prussian and European politics were following, and feeling himself

condemned to honorable exile and inaction. He was once so severely ill

through chagrin that his life was in danger. He said on his recovery

that he had gone “half-way to a better world,” and expressed regret that

he had not completed the journey. He thought of abandoning politics

altogether, and with difficulty overcame his impatience sufficiently to

bide his time a little longer. Gortchakoff said that Russia “did not

sulk, but meditated.” Bismarck sulked and meditated. But meanwhile the

course of events was preparing for him his opportunity. The strange and

mixed drama in which Napoleon III., destined to be its principal victim,

was the chief actor—whose critical moments were Sebastopol, Solferino,

Sadowa, Sedan—was going on. This great actor, once regarded as a sphinx

of political wisdom, but now designated by no more honorable title than

the “dreamer of Ham,” holds a conspicuous place in the group of those

apparently and temporarily great men to whom belongs the epitaph sadly

composed for himself by the expiring Joseph II., Emperor of Austria:

“Here lies the man who failed in all his undertakings.” More than this,

he is a signal instance of that blind fatuity by which those men who set

themselves to counteract the order of divine Providence are seduced, as

the King of Israel was by the “lying spirit” in the mouth of his

prophets, to ruin themselves and become the executioners of divine

vengeance on their own persons.

If Louis Napoleon had had good sense and moral principle enough to

imitate Charlemagne, he might have confirmed his dynasty, established

France in solid power and prosperity, and earned true glory as a

benefactor of Christendom. But he was not “of the seed of those men by

whom salvation was brought to Israel.” He aspired to imitate Cæsar and

Napoleon without possessing their genius. He imitated the profligacy of

Cæsar in his youth, the perfidy of Napoleon in his old age. His early

vices avenged themselves in the pain and disease which unmanned and

incapacitated him for action in the last eventful crisis of his career.

His criminal alliance with Carbonari and conspirators in his youth

entangled him afterwards in a mesh which he had not courage, even if he

had the wish, to break. By his alliance with the Turk he prepared an

enemy in Russia, who became one principal cause of his final downfall

and the humiliation of France, while he gained nothing beyond a

momentary prestige of glory for his army. By his Italian campaign, and

his subsequent support of Prussia against Austria, he weakened the power

which would otherwise have befriended France in her dire distress; and

he built up a kingdom which abandoned and betrayed him, at the cost of

incurring the malediction which falls on all betrayers and oppressors of

the Holy See.

By his greed of territory in annexing Savoy he alienated for ever his

former ally, England. By the war above alluded to and his miserable

Mexican _fiasco_ he used up the splendid army of France, and was found

_minus habens_ when the day of destiny came on him unprepared. He

deliberately fostered the military and political increase of Prussia,

and then madly dragged down upon France that terrible power which,

having first outwitted, in the second place crushed him.

We have read of some one who drew an enigmatical figure, in which a

crowned serpent is represented twining from his tail upward through a

combination of four letters S, and strangled by the upper crook of the

topmost letter. In this figure is strikingly symbolized the course of

events in Europe from the Crimean war to the Prussian conquest. During

Bismarck’s residence in Russia, which followed Sebastopol, came the day

of Solferino. The immediate effect of this battle was an attempt to

mobilize the Prussian army, which disclosed to the crown-prince, now

Emperor of Germany, its miserable condition, and suggested to him the

plan of its entire reformation. This plan he afterwards carried out,

accomplishing it with unprecedented rapidity and skill by the aid of Von

Moltke and Von Roon, against the violent opposition of the parliament

and the whole people. Thus was Bismarck’s great instrument of making

force bring right under subjection prepared for him in advance, without

his concurrence. The connivance and concurrence of Russia were already

secured, most cordially so far as further designs on Austria were

concerned, and at least conditionally and passively in respect to

ulterior projects of improving Prussia’s position.

The “Iron Count” is now about to try the strength of his Thor’s hammer

on the head of the sphinx. Bismarck is about to become the head of the

Prussian state, and try his craft and strength in a contest for

supremacy with Louis Napoleon. He was called home toward the end of 1861

for consultation and to assist at the coronation of King William, and

returned to St. Petersburg only to close up the affairs of his mission

and take farewell. In May, 1862, he was at Berlin, and evidently

destined for the post of Chief Minister. He was, however, _ad interim_

sent on the mission to Paris, _to take the measure of Louis Napoleon_

and study more nearly the position of European affairs, which all

centred at that time in the Tuileries. We should rather say that he went

to Paris to _complete_ these studies and observations. Already, in 1858,

he had sounded the French emperor in respect to his sentiments towards

Prussia, and found them most encouraging. During the same year Louis

Napoleon had sent this singular message by Count Pepoli to the court of

Berlin: “In Germany Austria represents the past, Prussia represents the

future; in linking itself to Austria Prussia condemns itself to

immobility; it cannot be thus contented; it is called to a higher

fortune; _it should accomplish in Germany the great destinies which

await it, and which Germany awaits from it_.” Consider this language,

and then think of the prison of Wilhelmshöhe and of the reflections

which must have passed through the mind of the unfortunate dreamer so

rudely awakened by the thunder of Von Moltke’s guns! King William had

had an interview with Louis Napoleon at Compiègne, for which Bismarck

had aided him in preparing, and it was partly the result of this

interview which had determined him to call the bold cavalier of the Mark

to his side. The dreamer’s vague and scheming mind revolved vast

projects of Pan-Latin, Pan-German, Pan-Sclavonian combinations, uniting

the three great races and the three great churches, with their

respective centres at Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, in a triple

alliance of universal monarchies, to dominate the world, to inaugurate a

new era, to bring on the millennium of civilization, and to place the

name of Louis Napoleon at least on a par with those of Moses, Alexander,

Julius Cæsar, Constantine, and Charlemagne.

We have read in the autobiography of some German philosopher that in his

youth he was ravished with ecstasy in thinking of “_the wheels of the

eternal essences_”! The visionary projects of this unfortunate imperial

seer remind us forcibly of this boyish philosopher. While he was letting

France drift on towards the _Où allons nous?_ of Mgr. Dupanloup, he was

driving his imaginary chariot, on the “wheels of the eternal essences,”

through airy regions, casting an occasional undecided glance on Belgium

and the frontiers of the Rhine. Bismarck was not long in taking his

measure, and it appears that Prince Gortchakoff had long since learned

the passes by which he could magnetize him at pleasure. With his own

peculiar, knavish frankness, Bismarck avowed his own objective aim—the

rectification of the Prussian frontiers—and found it easy to amuse the

decaying emperor with vague hints of compensation to France by allowing

the annexation of Belgium and the territory on the left bank of the

Rhine. As for the opinion which was formed respecting Bismarck himself,

at this time and during the first period of his administration, by the

emperor and the diplomats, it appears now strangely comical. They could

not bring themselves to regard him as serious, and were thrown

completely off their guard by his consummate acting. As late as 1865,

when he visited the French emperor at Biarritz, the latter, while

listening to his harangues during the promenades which they took

together on the beach, would slyly press the arm of Prosper Merimée, and

even whispered once in his ear: “He is crazy.” M. Benedetti in the

following year told General Govone that he considered Bismarck to be “a

maniacal diplomat,” adding that he had _long known his man_, and had

_followed him up_ for fifteen years. There is something grimly amusing

in this play of the cat and the mice, notwithstanding its tragical

results and the pity we must feel for the victims who thought themselves

so extremely astute, but were lured on by one deeper in craft than they

were, as easily as the meditative, solemn bruin was enticed by Reynard

the fox to go after honey.

Bismarck left Paris, convinced of three things as the result of his

studies: First, that Louis Napoleon was a “great unrecognized

_incapacity_.” Second, that “liberalism is only nonsense which it is

easy to bring to reason; but revolution is a force which it is necessary

to know how to use.” Third, “that England need not enter into his

calculations.” He returned to Berlin to assume the office of Minister of

Foreign Affairs and commence the work of rounding off Prussia. Austria

was the one decided antagonist whom he had to meet in the critical

struggle for supremacy in Germany. He was not afraid of her single power

unaided by allies, but he was anxious to make doubly sure of the

neutrality of France and Russia. Circumstances favored him most

remarkably in producing an alienation between these two powers, which

was an efficacious preventive of any amicable concord between the two to

check his plans, and in persuading each one more decisively to connive

at them. The Polish insurrection, encouraged by France and Austria,

embroiled Alexander II. with Louis Napoleon, and renewed all the former

rancor of St. Petersburg against Vienna. Bismarck was cunning enough to

make secret preparations for taking advantage of the insurrection, if it

proved too strong for Russia to quell, by occupying Poland with Prussian

troops, and securing the final disposition of the whole Polish question

for himself. At the same time he so managed as to strengthen the bond

between himself and Gortchakoff, and, in the actual event, to bind

Russia and Prussia closely together by an open common policy in respect

to Poland. Favored by fortunate circumstances, by the co-operation of

military chiefs who showed a genius in organizing and leading the

Prussian army which astonished the world, by a fatuity in Louis Napoleon

and a complaisance in the Russian chancellor beyond his most sanguine

expectations, he played during the next four years, like a Paul Morphy

of politics, four or five games at once with masterly skill. King

William of Prussia and all the other rulers and statesmen of Europe were

but pieces or pawns to be played with, taken, or checkmated; and on the

day after the battle of Sadowa he was really master of the situation.

The objective point at which Bismarck aimed in the year 1862 was to make

Prussia the most powerful state in Europe and completely independent of

every other state or coalition of states. For this end it was necessary

to destroy the German _Bund_, to deprive Austria of all power in

Germany, to increase the Prussian territory, and to establish its

hegemony in Germany. All this was accomplished, before the close of the

year 1866, by means of the imbroglio of the Schleswig-Holstein

succession. When Christian IX. succeeded to the throne of Denmark, his

right to the succession in the duchies was disputed, because it came

through a female line debarred from inheriting by the ancient law of

Schleswig and Holstein. The designs of Prussia upon these duchies were,

however, of a much earlier origin, and had their birth from the liberal

party and its revolutionary movements in 1848. In a speech delivered in

the Prussian chambers, April 21, 1849, Herr von Bismarck declared that

the war provoked in the duchies of the Elbe was “an undertaking

eminently iniquitous, frivolous, disastrous, and revolutionary.” We will

not pretend to determine the question of the validity of King

Christian’s title, as between himself and the people of the duchies. It

is evident enough, however, that the matter was one which interested all

Europe, and ought to have been calmly, justly determined, in a manner

consonant with the interests of the kingdom of Denmark, of the people of

the duchies, of the confederated states of the German _Bund_, and of

Europe. In fact, the doubt respecting Christian’s title was seized upon

by Bismarck as a mere pretext for absorbing the disputed territory,

_with its fine Baltic sea-port of Kiel_, into Prussia. The Prince of

Augustenberg, the chief claimant against Christian, had been induced, a

short time before the accession of the latter to the Danish throne, by

the influence of Bismarck himself, to sell his claim on Holstein to the

government of Copenhagen. No sooner was the old king dead than Bismarck

declared that this same prince was the rightful duke. At a later period

he brought forward several other claimants, that these rival claims

might neutralize each other. How he cheated Lord John Russell; how he

used the German _Bund_ as a tool for his own purposes and then

scornfully pushed it aside; how he drew Austria into a war against

Denmark, followed by a joint occupation of the duchies, and then

commenced a quarrel against her for their sole possession; and how

England, the declared protector of Denmark, looked tamely on while it

was despoiled and maimed, we have not time to relate in detail. It was a

great blunder in France, England, and Russia to permit what they could

easily have prevented. On the part of Austria it was a stupendous and

suicidal folly to make itself an accomplice in a conspiracy for

destroying the bulwarks of its own power. This was soon made manifest,

but too late to escape the consequences of a fatal blunder. Prussia

being ready for action, the _Bund_ and the claimants of the duchies were

summarily shoved aside. The question of the right of succession in the

duchies was referred to a high Prussian court for adjudication. It was

decided that _the King of Denmark alone_ had possessed the right of

sovereignty in Schleswig and Holstein, and that, by the cession which he

had been forced to make after being conquered in war, this right was now

vested in Prussia and Austria. Austria was politely requested to sell

her share to Prussia, which she declined to do, and the next step was to

wrest it from her by force.

The dark intrigues—at the time so hidden from sight and so almost

desperate, even in the view of the “maniacal diplomat” who held their

threads in his hand and wove them into a mesh around his victim—by which

Bismarck planned the ruin of Austria, have since been fully disclosed.

With the government of Victor Emanuel a strict and secret treaty was

contracted. At the same time, and for several years after, a

correspondence was kept up with Mazzini, looking to the overthrow of

Victor Emanuel in case of any action on his part unfavorable to the

schemes of the arch-conspirators. Arrangements were made for fomenting

an insurrection in Hungary under the leadership of Garibaldi. The

neutrality and connivance of Louis Napoleon were secured by playing upon

his Italian sympathies and holding before him vague expectations of

compensation for France.

Prince Gortchakoff lent an underhand but most valuable help to his

friend all through, beginning with the attack on Denmark. It was Louis

Napoleon, whose incapacity and weakness were not yet fully revealed even

to Bismarck’s keen eye, who was most feared and distrusted. Enfeebled as

he was in respect to whatever capacity he had really possessed in his

prime, and weakened as was the power of France, yet, with the help of

the statesmen and soldiers who were at his disposal, he still retained

the power of determining the main issue in the politics of Europe, and

Bismarck knew it. He would not stir in any decisive action until well

assured that he had mastered the French emperor by his superior craft.

He had less difficulty in this than he anticipated. Louis Napoleon, like

most other European observers, overrated the military strength of

Austria, and underrated the new Prussian army with its almost untried

leaders, Von Roon and Von Moltke; which even Bismarck himself somewhat

distrusted up to the last moment. The French emperor desired and hoped

for the liberation of Venetia. But he expected the defeat of the

Prussian army in Germany, and for himself the _rôle_ of a mediator, an

umpire, a general referee for settling all things on the basis of a new

treaty of peace. He let Bismarck play his game out, with what result is

known to the world. Although victorious in Italy, Austria nevertheless

ceded Venetia to Louis Napoleon, who handed it over to Victor Emanuel.

The victory of Sadowa agreeably surprised the victor, brought despair to

the vanquished, and astonished the world. If all the other great powers

had not been alienated from each other, and under a fatal spell of the

arch-fiend, Robin’s master, whose enchanted balls had brought down the

Austrian eagle, they might have intervened to prevent the grave ulterior

consequences of this fatal day of Sadowa. If Louis Napoleon had not been

paralyzed and demoralized to the extent of utter imbecility, he might

have interfered alone, and successfully, in this his last opportunity

for saving his dynasty and saving France. Nobody interfered. There was a

weak show of negotiations, but Bismarck had his own way in everything.

Before the end of the year 1866 his spoils were all gathered in and

safely garnered, and the centre was shifted from Paris to Berlin.

The area of Prussia had been increased, by the annexation of Hanover,

Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Frankfort, and the duchies of the Elbe, from

108,000 to 135,000 English square miles, and its population from

19,000,000 to 23,000,000. It was, moreover, the head of a North German

Confederation, and practically had control of the South German States,

with the certainty of having all Germany outside of Austria to

co-operate with it and follow its lead in case of hostilities with

France. These were the “moral conquests of Prussia in Germany” which the

king, as prince-regent, had announced to the nation when he assumed the

reins of government. This was the fulfilment of “the federal obligations

toward the Emperor Francis Joseph,” so much talked of at Potsdam, while

the future chancellor was hunting bears in Russia. Such was the sequel

of the protest of Berlin against the Piedmontese annexation. The

prophecy of Cavour was fulfilled: that “Prussia would one day, thanks to

Piedmont, profit by the example which had been given to it.”

The “Piedmontese mission of Prussia,” vaunted by the French democratic

press, was well inaugurated and pretty near fulfilment. Louis Napoleon’s

oracular sayings about the “great destinies of Prussia” proved to have

something else in them than “the stuff which dreams are made of.” He had

no longer to utter the philanthropic complaint: “_The geographical

position of Prussia is badly defined._” It was perhaps not quite perfect

in the opinion of Bismarck, but it was certainly vastly improved, and

destined to a still further rectification which had probably not been

revealed to the imperial dreamer.

Having disposed of his _first_ accomplice in the great scheme, gradually

matured during his sulky meditations at Frankfort and St. Petersburg

under the tuition of his master in diplomacy, Prince Gortchakoff—namely,

having put down Austria—Bismarck proceeded with his next plot: against

his accomplice in the one just successfully carried into execution.

Austria had been lured on by the expectation of sharing in the

spoliation of Denmark, defrauded of her portion of the spoils, and

stripped of a great part of her original possessions, to the advantage

of Prussia. In like manner Louis Napoleon was disappointed of the

acquisitions he hoped to receive as a reward for conniving at the

spoliation of Austria; he and his dynasty were overthrown completely,

and we trust finally; France was humiliated to the dust and compelled to

ransom herself from captivity by the price of her treasure and her

territory. The disruption of the European bond left France, as Austria

had been left, at the mercy of her perfidious ally, converted into an

open and relentless enemy.

During the preliminaries of peace at Nikolsburg, afterwards ratified by

the treaty of Prague, by which the German hegemony of Prussia was

established, Bismarck persuaded the French emperor through his envoy,

the unfortunate M. Benedetti—the same one who knew his man and followed

him up so skilfully—that “the reverses of Austria allowed _France and

Prussia to modify their territorial situation_.” Hints were thrown out

about the Rhine provinces and Belgium. After Prussia had completed her

own modification of her territorial situation for the time being,

Bismarck continued, while Prussia was taking a rest and making all her

political and military arrangements perfect, what he called his

“dilatory negotiations” with Louis Napoleon. The latter was asking for

compensations, for which he had not stipulated when he placed his

services at the disposal of his employer. Mephistopheles qualified this

demand as a “policy of _pour boire_.” You engage a _fiacre_ in Paris,

you pay the stipulated price to the driver, and he presents his hand

again, unless you anticipate him by a voluntary gratuity, with the

familiar phrase: “Pour boire, monsieur, s’il vous plaît!” If you are a

good-humored gentleman, you hand over a few sous and he departs

contented. If you are gruff and parsimonious, and show unwillingness to

comply with his polite request, he will reiterate it with less deference

and civility. Whereupon, if you are violent and profane, and have

sufficient command of the French language to speak after the manner of

the _gamins de Paris_, you refer him to a person beyond the “_Porte de

l’Enfer_.” The history of the secret treaty of offensive and defensive

alliance between France and Prussia, giving the aid of France to carry

out the further programme of Prussian ascendency in Germany, and the aid

of Prussia to secure Luxembourg and Belgium to France, signed by France,

though not signed, _only laid up in her archives_, by Prussia, is well

known. A previous project of a treaty ceding the Rhine provinces to

France was shown to the South German plenipotentiaries and drove them

into a secret and strict alliance with Prussia. The work of Nikolsburg

and Prague was completed, the whole military force of North and South

Germany was at the disposal of King William, and nothing was wanting but

a war with France to make him emperor of Germany, with Alsace and

Lorraine as additional provinces of his kingdom, and all expenses paid

by the French treasury. Bismarck could now drop the mask whenever he

pleased, and bully the unfortunate emperor into the folly of trying to

expiate his past misconduct by _baptizing himself in the fire_ of

Prussian artillery and _mitraille_. This dark and tragic act in the

drama of the Downfall of Europe is summed up with consummate truth and

terseness in that little masterpiece entitled _The Fight in Dame

Europa’s School: showing how the German boy thrashed the French boy, and

how the English boy looked on_:

“Only one boy—his favorite fag—did William take into his confidence

in the matter. This was a sharp, shrewd lad named Mark, not

over-scrupulous in what he did, full of deep tricks and dodges, and

so cunning that the old dame herself, though she had the eyes of a

hawk, could never catch him out in anything absolutely wrong. To

this smart youth William one day whispered his desires [of annexing

part of Louis’ garden] as they sat together in the summer house

smoking and drinking beer. 'There is only one way to do it,’ said

Mark. 'If you want the flower-beds, you must fight Louis for them,

and I believe you will lick him all to smash. You see, old fellow,

you have grown so much lately, and filled out so wonderfully, that

you are really getting quite formidable. Why, I recollect the time

when you were quite a little chap!’ 'Yes,’ said William, turning up

his eyes devoutly, 'it has pleased Providence that I should be

stout. Then, my dear Mark, what do you advise me to do?’ 'Ah! that

is not so easy to say. Give me time to think, and when I have an

idea I will let you know. Only, whatever you do, take care to put

Master Louis in the wrong. Don’t pick a quarrel with _him_, but

force him, by quietly provoking him, to pick a quarrel with _you_.

Give out that you are still peaceably disposed, and carry your

Testament about as usual. That will put old Dame Europa off her

guard, and she will believe in you as much as ever. The rest you may

leave to me.’ An opportunity of putting their little plot into

execution soon occurred. A garden became vacant on the other side of

Louis’ little territory [Spain], which none of the boys seemed much

inclined to accept. It was a troublesome piece of ground, exposed to

constant attacks from the town-cads, who used to overrun it in the

night and pull up the newly-planted flowers. 'Don’t you think,’ said

Mark one day to his friend and patron, 'that your little cousin, the

new boy [Prince Hohenzollern], might as well have that garden?’ 'I

don’t see why he should not, if he wants it,’ replied William, by no

means deep enough to understand what his faithful fag was driving

at. 'It will be so nice for Louis, don’t you see, to have William to

keep him in check on one side, and William’s little cousin to watch

him on the other side,’ observed Mark innocently. 'Ah! to be sure,’

exclaimed William, beginning to wake up, 'so it will; very nice

indeed. Mark, you are a sly dog.’ 'I should say, if you paid Louis

the compliment to propose it, that it is such a delicate little

attention as he would never forget—even if you withdrew the proposal

afterwards.’ 'Just so, my boy; and then we shall have to fight.’

'But look here, won’t the other chaps say that I provoked the

quarrel?’ 'Not if we manage properly,’ was the reply. 'They are sure

to fix the cause of dispute on Louis rather than on you. You are

such a peaceable boy, you know; and he has always been fond of a

shindy.’ So Dame Europa was asked to assign the vacant garden to

William’s little cousin. 'Well,’ said she, 'if Louis does not

object, who will be his nearest neighbor, he may have it.’ 'But I do

object, ma’am,’ cried Louis. 'I very particularly object. I don’t

want to be hemmed in on all sides by William and his cousins. They

will be walking through my garden to pay each other visits, and

perhaps throwing balls to one another right across my lawn.’ 'Oh!

but you might be sure that I should do nothing unfair,’ said William

reproachfully. 'I have never attacked anybody.’ 'That’s all my eye,’

said Louis. 'I don’t believe in your piety. Come, take your dear

little relation off, and give him one of the snug corners that you

bagged the other day from poor Christian.’ 'Come, come,’ interposed

the Dame, 'I can’t listen to such angry words. You five monitors

must settle the matter quietly among yourselves; but no fighting,

mind. The day for that sort of thing is quite gone by.’ _And the old

lady toddled off_ and left the boys alone. 'I wouldn’t press it,

Bill, if I were you,’ said John, in his deep, gruff voice, looking

out of his shop-window on the other side of the water. 'I think it’s

rather hard lines for Louis—I do indeed.’ 'Always ready to oblige

you, my dear John,’ said William; and so the new boy’s claim to the

garden was withdrawn. 'What shall I do now, Mark?’ asked William,

turning to his friend. 'It seems to me that there is an end of it

all.’ 'Not a bit,’ was the reply. 'Louis is still as savage as a

bear. He’ll break out directly; you see if he don’t.’ 'I have been

grossly insulted,’ began Louis at last, in a towering passion, 'and

I shall not be satisfied unless William promises me never to make

any such underhand attempts to get the better of me again.’ 'Tell

him to be hanged,’ whispered Mark. 'You be—no,’ said William,

recollecting himself, 'I never use bad language. My friend,’ he

continued, 'I cannot promise you anything of the kind.’ 'Then I

shall lick you till you do, you psalm-singing humbug!’ shouted

Louis. 'Come on!’ said William, lifting up his hand as if to commend

his cause to Heaven, and looking sanctimoniously out of the whites

of his eyes. 'Come on!’ shouted William, thirsting for more blood.

'_Vive la guerre!_’ cried poor Louis, rushing blindly at his foe.

Well and nobly he fought, but he could not stand his ground. Foot by

foot and yard by yard he gave way, till at last he was forced to

take refuge in his arbor, from the window of which he threw stones

at his enemy to keep him back from following. And when William, who

talked so big about his peaceable disposition, and declared that he

only wanted to defend his 'fatherland,’ chased him right across the

garden, trampled over beds and borders on his way, and then swore

that he would break down his beautiful summer-house and bring Louis

on his knees, everybody felt that the other monitors ought to

interfere. But not a foot would they stir. Aleck looked on from a

safe distance, wondering which of the combatants would be tired

first. Joseph stood shaking in his shoes, not daring to say a word

for fear William should turn round upon him and punch his head

again; and John sat in his shop, grinding away at a new rudder and a

pair of oars. 'Come and help a fellow, John,’ cried Louis in despair

from his arbor. 'I don’t ask you to remember the days we have spent

in here together when you have been sick of your own shop. But you

might do something for me, now that I am in such a desperate fix and

don’t know which way to turn.’ 'I am very sorry, Louis,’ said John,

'but what can I do? It is no pleasure to me to see you thrashed. On

the contrary, it would pay me much better to have a near neighbor

well off and cheerful than crushed and miserable. Why don’t you give

in, Louis? It is of no mortal use to go on. He will make friends

directly, if you will give back the two little strips of garden; and

if you don’t, he will only smash your arbor to pieces, or keep you

shut up there all dinner-time and starve you out. Give in, old

fellow; there’s no disgrace in it. Everybody says how pluckily you

have fought.’”

The ingenious author has made a mistake about Aleck and Joseph. Aleck

was in league with William, and his threats alarmed Joseph and kept him

from interfering. Bismarck had succeeded in reconciling Gortchakoff to

the sacrifice of all the old friends and family connections of Russia in

Germany. Moreover, he had in some way convinced him so completely that

it was for the interest and future advantage of Russia to ally itself

closely with Prussia, that he turned a deaf ear to the advances of

France and Austria in reference to the Oriental question, and gave a

strong moral support, which in case of need he was ready to transform

into active military co-operation, to his most iniquitous and oppressive

measures against France. M. Thiers was convinced of this when Prince

Bismarck handed to him his Russian portfolio and allowed him to read at

leisure thirty letters which it contained, while he sat by quietly

smoking a cigar and enjoying the chagrin and discomfiture of the aged

statesman. Besides this, we must consider that England had a reason for

coolness towards France in the unprincipled negotiations of the French

government respecting England’s _protegée_, Belgium. And at last, when

England did wish to interfere to obtain for France more favorable

conditions of peace, and made propositions for concerted action to St.

Petersburg, it was Russia which threw cold water upon the plan and kept

all Europe back while William was finishing up his quarrel with Louis.

It cannot be doubted that Bismarck had given Gortchakoff to understand

that, when the proper time came, Prussia would secure for Russia a fair

field and no interference for a decisive and final effort to destroy the

European empire of the Turk. Fuad-Pasha, said to have been one of the

greatest statesmen of Turkey, while lying on his death-bed at Nice

dictated a political testament, which was sent, after his mortal career

had closed, to his sovereign, the sultan. In this document he had said:

“When this writing is placed before the eyes of your majesty, I will no

longer be in this world. You can, therefore, listen to me without

distrust, and you should imbue yourself with this great and grievous

truth: that _the empire of the Osmanlis is in danger_. An intestine

dissension in Europe, and _a Bismarck in Russia_, and the face of the

world will be changed.” The date of this document is January 3, 1869.

The conflict between Prince Bismarck and the Catholic Church has been

treated of repeatedly in former articles in this magazine. We will,

therefore, abstain from going over that ground again. It has been

surmised that the policy of the Prussian chancellor in respect to the

church has been dictated to him by the necessity of satisfying the

demands of the radical-liberal party. We cannot think that it is to be

accounted for simply on this ground. The general idea and fundamental

principle of Bismarck has been to destroy the community of nations which

was the remnant of ancient Christendom, and raise up an independent,

self-subsisting, absolute, and dominating German Empire. It is an

essential part of this plan to destroy the principle of unity and

community centred in the Holy See, and to make the emperor absolute head

of all churches within the boundaries of his state. The idea is wholly

pagan and despotic, and includes the subversion of all right except that

which is a conceded privilege derived from the sovereign will of the

state. Not only, therefore, is all international right ignored by it,

but every right of municipalities, of orders, of legislative and

judicial bodies, of subordinate members of the government, of

associations and individuals, is suppressed and merged in one paramount

right of force, of physical power—in a word, of tyranny, the worst, as

Plato long ago taught, of all possible political organisms.

In perfect harmony with the oppressive, persecuting policy of Prince

Bismarck toward the church has been his conduct toward the Prussian

nobility, the legislative chambers, and all those who have in any way

asserted their rights against his despotic might. This is illustrated in

the case of the Count Harry von Arnim.

We had intended to go more deeply into the merits of this affair than we

now find our remaining space will permit. Catholics have little reason

for cherishing amicable sentiments toward this unfortunate victim of a

relentless persecution under the forms of law. He has been one of the

most artful and persistent enemies of the Holy See among the statesmen

of Europe. The pamphlet _Pro Nihilo_, on account of which, in great

part, he was condemned of treason by a Prussian court, is sufficient, by

itself, to show that if he had been in power he would have been more

dangerous than even Bismarck. His cold contempt is more offensive to

Catholic feelings than the violence of his successful rival.

Nevertheless, there is in him more of honor, probity, veracity, and the

courtesy of a gentleman than is at this day very common among

diplomatists of the “new era.” Besides, he has been tricked, insulted,

ill-used, and all but crushed in pieces by a cruel enemy, and therefore

we cannot help sympathizing with him. There is something deeply tragic

in his story. The gist of it lies in this: that he would not be a blind,

subservient tool in the hands of the chief of the administration, that

he dared to think for himself, and that the old Prussian nobility had

fixed their hopes on him as a desirable successor to the chancellorship,

in case anything happened to Prince Bismarck. Hence the long,

perfidious, and in the end brutal warfare waged against him by his

unscrupulous and relentless enemy, who has for the time being triumphed,

according to his own maxim, _La force prime le droit_. The Count von

Arnim is still, however, a formidable antagonist. With the pen, on the

field of legal argument, in the subtle tactics of diplomatic writing, he

is superior to his persecutor, and master of a force dangerous even to

the man who can command armies. He has a host of friends and

sympathizers in Prussia, of allies throughout Europe. M. Benedetti was

not mistaken when he applied the epithet “maniacal” to the man who was

called “mad” by the friends and boon companions of his youth. His

madness is not without method, and, like that of Charles XII. of Sweden,

has given him a certain prestige of heroism and success. On the day of

Solferino that prestige sat on the helmet of Napoleon III. Sedan,

Wilhelmshöhe, and Chiselhurst were still invisible in the future. The

career of Bismarck is not yet finished, nor can the destiny which awaits

the empire he created be foretold. It is reported that he has recently

replied to those who asked him whether there would be war in Europe over

the Eastern question: “_The devil only knows!_” He appears to regard his

Satanic Majesty as the god of modern Europe and the supreme controlling

power in modern politics. Formerly the name of God was frequently on his

lips, and his thoughts spontaneously referred all things to him. It was

God who decided battles and controlled the destinies of nations. Men of

great genius cannot escape from their clear and vivid intuitions of the

supersensible. One who has had the insight and the sentiment of the

meanness of the world, and the sole grandeur of eternal principles of

truth and morality, belonging to a mind naturally great, cannot be a

complete dupe of the illusions by which he deceives and subdues the

multitude. We can see this deep melancholy of a mind which cannot be

satisfied with the trivialities of life, and is restlessly yearning

after something greater, in all the wild conviviality, restless

scheming, audacious enterprise, ironical sporting in word and deed with

all persons and things held in awe and regarded as sacred in the common

sentiments of humanity, in the whole career of this Carlylean hero.

Satan, we have no doubt, has had a great control over the rulers and the

politics of modern Europe. Bismarck can see this, and has assuredly not

forgotten his own prophecy of the results of the policy of adorning

one’s self with the feathers of eagles which have been brought down by

the devil’s bullets. When he says that “the devil only knows whether

there will be war in Europe,” we hear Robin telling Max that he has

concluded an infernal compact and must stand by it. We know, however,

that although the devil knows his own plans, and tries to guess at those

of God, he cannot fathom or thwart these plans of one who is infinitely

stronger and wiser than he is, and has often before made him catch

himself in his own mouse-trap. Bismarck is like the legendary giant

Christopher, while he was in the service of the demon, thinking him to

be the strongest master he could serve. He has acted as if he supposed

that God had given up Europe to the devil’s dominion, yet he betrays his

conviction in a hundred ways that there is a stronger power than the

revolution or the anti-Christian despotism “spotted with red,” which is

only biding its time. He despises and sneers at his own master, because

he sees him wince at the crucifix on the cross-road. We think it quite

probable that in his secret soul he venerates Pius IX., as did Mazzini,

and is convinced that if anything on earth is great, true, and as

enduring in the future as it has been in the past, it is the Catholic

Church. His fear of it, and his war _à l’outrance_ against it, show an

estimate of its power which can have no rational foundation except in an

unwilling, hostile apprehension of its divine origin. The shallow,

clever Count von Arnim is a cool, quiet sceptic. So, we conjecture, is

Prince Gortchakoff. Bismarck is too deep for that sort of smooth, placid

incredulity. He fears an ultramontane as children are afraid of a bear

under the bed. He is afraid of Jesuits, afraid of nuns, afraid of

children singing hymns in honor of the Sacred Heart.

We think he has some reason to be afraid. The waters are rising around

him, and it is likely that he will yet have to plunge into them “in his

swimming-drawers.” “Sooner or later radicalism will stand upright before

the king, will demand of him its recompense, and, _pointing to the

emblem of the eagle on that new imperial flag, it will say: Did you

think, then, that this eagle was a free gift?_”

“Without a religious basis a state is nothing but _a fortuitous

aggregation of interests_, a sort of bastion in a war of all against

all; without this religious basis all legislation, instead of

_regenerating itself at the living sources of eternal truth_, is only

tossed about by human ideas as vague as changeable.” This is the great

case of Bismarck _versus_ Bismarck. His renunciation of his own

principles, and maniacal following of passion against reason, is but a

type of the conduct of Europe. The modern Germany has renounced and made

war upon the principles which were the foundation of its old imperial

greatness. France has done the same; Italy has done the same, with a

worse and more parricidal impiety. Europe has done it, and the natural

consequence is “war of all against all.” “La force,” says Lacordaire,

“tôt ou tard, rencontre la force.” “_A house divided against itself

cannot stand_”; and such a house is the one which Bismarck has built.

The Napoleonic fabric was overwhelmed by the volcanic fires of Sedan. We

believe that there will be a Sedan for the similar fabrics of Cavour and

Bismarck, for the whole structure of modern European politics. And where

can be found these “living sources of eternal truth” at which

“legislation can regenerate itself”? Let us remind our readers that the

Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX. were proclaimed in 1864, between the

epochs of Solferino and Sadowa. We think they will easily understand why

the Holy See condemned the principles of “accomplished facts” and

“non-intervention,” and perceive to what an abyss these principles have

conducted Europe. They will remember that the date of the Council of the

Vatican is 1870, between Sadowa and Sedan, and perceive the import and

reason of our conclusion, that the source of regeneration for Europe is

the same source from which European Christendom received its birth and

the life of its youth and manhood. To quote again from Lacordaire: “On

n’emprissonne pas la raison, on ne brûle pas les faits, on ne déshonore

pas la vertu, on n’assassine pas la logique.” That policy of which

Prince Bismarck is the great master is the policy of fraudulence,

perfidy, violence, and tyranny. The whole European apostasy and

conspiracy against the Holy See—the centre of religious unity and

political equilibrium for Europe and the world—is a revolt against

reason, history, morality, and the logic by which the sequences of

principles and events are demonstrated and applied to the concrete

matter of human destiny. These are indestructible powers, and no

artillery can overthrow them or fraud pervert their decisions. “_There

is no kingdom of hell upon earth_,” but only a continuous resistance of

the infernal powers to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which from time to

time breaks out into a revolution. And the same calm, historic record,

in which past Catholic historians have narrated the successive defeats

of these revolutionary enterprises will, in each new chapter added by

succeeding centuries, continue the chronicle of similar failures;

placing the impartial mark of indelible dishonor against the names of

all those who have sought for greatness by fraud and violence.

VERONICA

A LEGEND OF MÉDOC

_In fines terræ_

_Verba corum._

Descending the river from Bordeaux amid verdant isles, and between

shores that produce some of the choicest wines of France, we soon come,

on the right, to Blaye, with its chivalric memories of Orlando and the

fortress that makes it the Key of Aquitaine, as it was in the days of

Ausonius, who says:

“Aut iteratarum qua glarea trita viarum

Fert militarem ad Blaviam.”

At the left we pass Pauillac, the ancient villa of St. Paulinus of Nola.

The Gironde soon becomes a sea. The shore lowers and is on a level with

the waves. The poor hills of Saintonge escape to the north, and the

white houses of Royan become visible on the far-off shore. The sea-gull

flies over our head, tireless as the ceaseless waves that feed him. We

see the white tower of Cordouan at a distance framed in a dazzling sea

of blue and gold, out of which it rises two hundred feet above low tide,

full of grace and majesty, like an enchanted castle. It is said to stand

on the remains of the ancient isle of Antros, which Pomponius Mela, in

the first century, places at the mouth of the Gironde. We cannot resist

the temptation to climb its three hundred steps for the sake of the

wonderful view over fell and flood. The foundation of this tower is lost

in obscurity. Even its very name is a mystery. Some think it of Moorish

derivation, and that the first light-house here was built by the

Saracens—a most ridiculous supposition; for the Moors, though they

destroyed a great deal in Aquitaine, certainly had no time for building,

whatever their taste for architecture. Others say it was due to Louis le

Débonnaire, and that he appointed a keeper to light a beacon-fire and

sound a _cor_, or horn, night and day, to warn the sailor of the perils

of the coast; but any one who ever heard the noise of the tumultuous

waves breaking high against the cliff of Cordouan can imagine the

inefficiency of the most vigorous lungs in such violent storms as are

proverbial on the Bay of Biscay. The poor keeper would have needed the

Horn of Thunder of the Armorican legend, given St. Florentius by a

Norman chief to summon aid when attacked by his piratical horde, or the

magic oliphant of Orlando, then kept hard by at Blaye, wherewith its

owner once blew so terrible a blast that all the birds dropped dead in

the forests of Roncesvalles and it was heard for twenty miles around.

The earliest historical knowledge we have of a light-house here is from

a charter of the fourteenth century, by which we learn that the Black

Prince built a tower on the cliff of Cordouan, with a chapel dedicated

to the Blessed Virgin, kept by a hermit. In 1409 the hermit’s name was

Geoffroy de Lesparre, who subsisted by levying two _grossos

sterlingorum_ on every vessel from Bordeaux laden with wine—a toll that

Henry IV. of England authorized him to double.

As for the modern tower of Cordouan, Louis de Foix was

“Le gentil ingénieur de ce superbe ouvrage.”

He was one of the architects employed by Philip II. of Spain in building

the Escorial, and the inventor of the mechanism by which the waters of

the Tagus were carried to the highest part of the city of Toledo. Some

curious things are related of this ingenious architect while in Philip’s

service. The ill-conditioned prince, Don Carlos, seems to have placed

confidence in him; for he commissioned De Foix to furnish him with a

book heavy enough to kill a man with a single blow. The architect made

one of twelve tablets of stone, six inches long and four broad, bound in

steel covers embossed with gold, which weighed over fourteen pounds, and

might have had for its motto the excellent _mot_ of Callimachus on the

danger of weighty books. De Thou relates the account of this momentous

tome, which is also referred to in the list of Don Carlos’ expenses, and

says De Foix told him the idea was by no means an original one of the

prince’s, but suggested by a similar volume improvised in his

grandfather’s time by Don Antonio de Acuña, Bishop of Zamora, who,

confined in the castle of Simancas for taking part in the rebellion of

the Comuneros, covered a brick of the size of his breviary with leather,

and with this volume of decisive theology killed his keeper and made his

escape. Perhaps Don Carlos overlooked the fate of the bishop, who was

overtaken by the keeper’s son and hanged on the battlements of the

castle of Simancas. All who have visited the Armeria Real at Madrid will

remember the armor of this belligerent prelate.

De Foix also invented several curious clocks for Don Carlos, who seems

to have inherited Charles V.’s taste for chronometrical instruments.

Every one knows the anecdote of the servant who, suddenly entering the

emperor’s room one day, overthrew the table and broke to pieces the

thirty watches on it. The emperor laughed and said: “You are more

successful than I, for you have discovered the only means of making them

all go alike.” Among these clocks of complicated mechanism made for the

prince by De Foix was one in the shape of an antique temple adorned with

columns, that indicated the hours, days, months, and other things.

Don Carlos, as if conscious of the insecurity of his life, also ordered

De Foix to construct a machine with pulleys and weights by which he

could himself open and shut his chamber door while in bed, and yet no

one could enter the room against his will. De Foix seems to have been

faithless to the prince; for on the 18th of January, 1568—by the king’s

order, to be sure—he stopped the movement of the pulleys, unknown to Don

Carlos, whose chamber was thus opened and he conveyed to prison. De

Thou’s account of this is confirmed by the letter of an Italian at

Madrid written eight days after, in which the door with its pulleys is

mentioned.

Louis de Foix (or _sans foi_) is said to lie beneath the tower he

erected; so we could not say: “Light be the turf above thee!” even had

we been disposed.

Six or eight miles south of Cordouan we came to Soulac, amid the

sand-dunes and salt marshes, with its antique church of Notre Dame de la

Fin des Terres, held in great veneration by the sailors of the middle

ages, and recently dug out of the sands in which it had been buried for

one hundred and twenty years. In fact, it had been partly buried since

the fourteenth century. Few churches have so strange a history as this.

Tradition attributes its original foundation to the pious Veronica, on

whose linen veil the weary Saviour, on his way to Calvary, left the

impress of his sacred face. It was strange to come upon her traces on

this distant shore, and we took great interest in hunting up all the

local traditions respecting her. Lady Eastlake considers her _de trop_,

both morally and pictorially, and regards her very existence as

problematical; but we who have so often met her in the sorrowful _Via

Crucis_, and pondered on the touching lesson she has left us, feel how

utterly that somewhat stringent author is mistaken. Seraphia, Bernice,

Beronica, or Veronica—no matter by what name she is called—is a being

full of reality to us. As to her identity with the Syro-Phœnician woman

of the Gospel, we are disposed to say with Padre Ventura: “It is not

certain the _hémorroïsse_ was the same as Veronica, but it is probable

that she who had the wonderful favor of wiping the sweat and blood from

the divine face of our Saviour was the same matron who touched the hem

of his garment with so much courage and faith, and gave such a testimony

to his divinity.” Even if the contrary were proved, this would not

affect the ancient tradition respecting her apostolate in France, which

modern research is far from shaking. Holy chroniclers of the middle ages

assert that Veronica was not only an intimate friend of the Blessed

Virgin, but one of the women whom Jesus healed of their infirmities and

who consecrated themselves to his service, following him in his round of

mercy, and aiding him with their substance. The learned Lucas of Bruges

declares her positively the Syro-Phœnician woman healed by our Saviour,

who, says Julian in his chronicles, lived part of the time at Jerusalem

and part at Cæsarea of Philippi. Eusebius says he saw with his own eyes

the monument she erected at Cæsarea in memory of her cure, on which she

was represented at the feet of her divine Benefactor—a memorial

destroyed by Julian the Apostate.

A Polish poet, Bohdan Zaleski, thus alludes to the traditional intimacy

of Veronica with the Holy Family in lines full of graceful simplicity in

the original:

“Joseph and Mary have lost the child Jesus at Jerusalem. Elizabeth comes

to tell them he has been found. 'It must be either in the Temple, then,

or at Veronica’s,’ replies Mary.

“The Holy Family go to visit Elizabeth. Jesus, afar off, joyfully hails

the aged matron, as well as Veronica, Martha, and Salome.

“Joseph makes the accustomed prayer to thank God for his gifts. Jesus

breaks the bread and blesses it. Veronica passes around the basket and

distributes the bread among the guests.”

Pilgrims for centuries have mentioned Veronica’s house as at the corner

of a street near the spot where Jesus fell for the second time under the

weight of his cross. She is said to have been the wife of St.

Amadour—the Zaccheus of the Scriptures, who in early life, says the

legend, was in the service of the Blessed Virgin. He had watched over

the childhood of Jesus, and this was why he was so joyful to receive him

in his house. After the Crucifixion he and Veronica attached themselves

anew to the service of Mary, with whom they remained till her glorious

Assumption. According to a lesson in the breviary of Cahors—founded on

an old MS. of the tenth century by Hugo, Bishop of Angoulême, which Père

Odo de Gissey, who collected all the traditions respecting St. Amadour,

declares he had seen—Saul, the persecutor of the church, wished to force

Amadour and Veronica to return to the old law. They were condemned to

die of hunger, but an angel of the Lord mercifully delivered them from

the power of their persecutors and conducted them to a bark, ordering

them to abandon themselves to the mercy of the waves and land wherever

their boat should come to shore, there faithfully to serve Christ and

his holy Mother.

One old chronicle says the demon invoked the winds, swelled the waves,

and unchained the very furies against the frail bark. Death at every

moment seemed at hand in its most frightful form. But the venerable

matron, in the height of danger, seized the sacred relics she brought

with her, and, raising them to heaven, invoked the assistance of God.

Wonderful to relate, the storm at once ceased, a favorable breeze sprang

up and brought the boat safely to the western coast of France to a place

called Solac, in face of the setting sun. Here she built, as best she

could, a church in honor of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, and

deposited therein with due honor the holy relics of Our Lady she brought

with her.

Bernard de la Guionie, a Dominican of the thirteenth century, says that,

by a particular providence of God, they brought with them many precious

relics of the Blessed Virgin, such as her hair and shoes, and even some

of the _Sanctum Lac_ that nourished the divine Word. It is generally

believed this relic gave the name of Solac, or Soulac, to the

place—_Solum Lac_, because the other relics of the Virgin were

distributed among various churches. This relic was not once considered

so extraordinary. It was not only venerated in many parts of Christendom

as the symbol of the divine Motherhood, but it became a symbol of the

supernatural eloquence and sweet doctrine of several doctors of the

church. Every one who has visited the magnificent gallery at Madrid will

remember Murillo’s beautiful painting representing St. Bernard deriving

the food that lent to his lips such sweet, persuasive eloquence from the

pure breast of the gentle Deipara. The dignity and grace of the Virgin

in this painting are something marvellous, and take away everything that

might seem human from the subject.

We have all heard of the Grotto of Milk at Bethlehem, with its rock of

offence to so many scoffing tourists. It is only those who have a

profound faith in the Incarnation that venerate everything associated

with the divine Infancy. St. Louis of France built the beautiful

Chapelle du Saint Lait in the Cathedral of Rheims to receive the relic

that gave it its name. A like relic was venerated in the church of Mans

in the time of Clovis. And a vial was borne before the army at the

battle of Askalon, in 1224, which reminds one of Rubens’s painting at

Brussels in which the Madonna bares her breast before the awful Judge,

as if he could refuse nothing at the sight of the bosom on which he had

so often been pillowed, and where he had been nourished. There is an old

legend of a similar vial of this sacred _laict_ being brought from the

Holy Land by a pilgrim, who, weary, stopped one day to repose by a

fountain near Evron, and hung the reliquary on the hawthorn bush that

overshadowed him, and went to sleep. When he awoke, the bush had grown

into a tree and the relic was far beyond his reach. He tried to cut the

tree down with a hatchet, but could make no impression on the wood.

Feeling an inward assurance this was the spot where Providence wished

the relic to be honored, he gave it to the bishop, who built thereon a

church, which became known as Notre Dame de l’Epine Sainte. The high

altar enclosed the hawthorn tree. François de Châteaubriand, abbot of

Evron in the sixteenth century, gave this church a beautiful reliquary

of silver gilt, in the form of a church, beneath the dome of which was a

tube for the relic. Devotion to this relic still exists at Evron.

But to return to Soulac. It is not surprising the Syro-Phœnician woman

should come to this distant shore. We know by Strabo that the ancient

Phœnicians and Carthaginians came to traffic on this coast, and even

went to Great Britain. Soulac was probably the ancient Noviomagos spoken

of by Ptolemy. The old legend of Cénebrun speaks of Veronica as _la Dame

Marie la Phénicienne_, who came from the East under marvellous

circumstances, learned the language of Médoc, and built a church beside

which God caused a fountain of fresh, soft water to spring up out of the

salt shore for the cure of tertian fevers so common in this region.

Moreover, it appears she was in such constant relations with the

governor of Bordeaux, appointed by Vespasian, that, to facilitate the

intercourse between Soulac and the capital, a Roman road was

constructed, “very level and as straight as a line—_rectissimum sicut

corda_.” If Vespasian had anything to do with it, we may be sure it was

straight; for we know how, to rectify a bend in the Flaminian Way, he

bored a tunnel through a rock a thousand feet long.

It was at Bordeaux that Veronica converted Benedicta, a woman of

distinguished birth, and the wife of Sigebert, a priest of the false

gods, who, attacked by a cruel malady, and hearing of the marvels

wrought by St. Martial, said to Benedicta: “Go and bring the man of God;

perhaps he will take pity on me.” St. Martial gave her the miraculous

staff of St. Peter, at the touch of which Sigebert recovered the use of

his limbs. He at once proceeded to Mortagne, accompanied by a great

number of soldiers and other followers, all of whom were baptized by St.

Martial. At his return to Bordeaux he overthrew all the pagan altars,

with the exception of one, which St. Martial purified as a memorial of

the triumph of the true faith. The inscription graven thereon is still

to be seen in the museum at Bordeaux: _Jovi Augusto Arula donavit. SS.

Martialis cum templo et ostio sacravit_—Arula gave this altar to Jupiter

Augustus. Martial consecrated it with the temple and vestibule.

Benedicta continued to work miracles with St. Peter’s staff, and greatly

contributed to the propagation of the faith in the province. She died in

the odor of sanctity, and was buried in the oratory of St. Seurin at

Bordeaux, where her remains are still honored on the 8th of June.

Sigebert, whose name signifies the powerful or courageous, became the

first bishop of Bordeaux, where he is honored as a martyr under the name

of St. Fort. To his _sanctum feretrum_ at St. Seurin’s people formerly

went to take solemn oaths.

The foregoing reference of the old chronicler to Vespasian reminds us of

the part Veronica is said to have had in the destruction of Jerusalem. A

curious old play of the middle ages tells us Vespasian was afflicted

with the extraordinary inconvenience of a wasp’s nest in his nose, and,

after trying every known means of dislodging it, sent for the great

Physician of the Jews. Finding he had been put to death by his own

nation, he demanded some of his followers, whereupon Nicodemus, Joseph

of Arimathea, and Veronica are said to have gone to Rome. The emperor

expressing a desire to see a portrait of Christ, Veronica held up the

_Volto Santo_ before him, at the sight of which he was instantaneously

healed. In his gratitude he vowed to take vengeance on the murderers of

Jesus, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem. The connection between

this legend and the traditional respect in which Veronica was held by

Vespasian’s representative at Bordeaux is curious.

Some say it was Tiberius who was cured of the leprosy by the holy veil,

which accounts for his leniency to the Christians and his placing a

statue of Christ among the gods. These legends, confused by time, may be

regarded as traces left by Veronica at Rome, where a constant tradition

asserts she herself brought the _Volto Santo_.

This precious relic must have been in great repute to have been placed

at St. Peter’s in 707 by Pope John VII. When removed to the Santo

Spirito, it was confided to six Roman noblemen, each of whom had one of

the keys that gave access to it. For this service they annually received

two cows at Whitsuntide, which were eaten with great festivities. In

1440 it was restored to St. Peter’s, where it is preserved in a chamber

within one of the immense piers that sustain the wondrous dome. None but

a canon of the church can enter this chamber, but the Vera Iconica is

annually exposed from the balcony. It seems to have all the solemn

gravity traditional in the Greek representations of our Saviour.

Petrarch respectfully speaks of it as the _verendam populis Salvatoris

Imaginem_.

Veronica’s statue is beneath—one of the guardians that stand around the

tomb of the apostles. Perhaps she came to Rome with St. Martial; for

there are traces of her wherever he announced the Gospel. Else remembers

their visit, and says, when they left its walls, they directed their

course towards Gaul. Mende and Cahors carefully treasure the shoes of

the Virgin she brought, and Puy has some of her hair. St. Antoninus,

Archbishop of Florence, says that, according to the ancient traditions

of the churches of Italy and France, Amadour and his wife Veronica

accompanied St. Martial to Gaul. And St. Bonaventure, the great

Franciscan, in the thirteenth century, in one of his homilies,

represents St. Veronica in a humble cabin at Pas-de-Grave visited by St.

Martial.

St. Amadour embraced the solitary life, and is believed to have been the

first hermit of Aquitaine. His whole life is painted on the walls of the

subterranean chapel at Roc Amadour, where he died. The inscriptions

attached to these frescoes thus sum up the legend respecting him:

1. Zaccheus, because he is small and unable to see Jesus in the crowd,

climbs up into a sycamore-tree. Jesus, perceiving him, says: Zaccheus,

make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house.

2. Zaccheus is Jesus’ disciple. Veronica, his wife, becomes one of

Mary’s attendants. They are persecuted for the faith, but an angel comes

to deliver them from the prison in which they are confined.

3. An angel orders Zaccheus and Veronica to put to sea and land at

whatever port the vessel shall enter, there to serve Christ, and Mary

his holy Mother.

4. The vessel arrives on the coast of Médoc at a place called Soulac,

where they live in fasting and prayer. St. Martial visits them and

blesses an oratory they have erected in honor of St. Stephen.

5. Zaccheus, at the order of St. Martial, goes to Rome to see St. Peter.

St. Veronica remains in the Bordelais country, where she dies. Zaccheus

returns to Soulac, where he erects two monasteries and retires from the

world.

6. St. Amadour, in the year of our Lord 70, chooses as his hermitage and

place of retreat a cliff inhabited by wild beasts, since known as Roc

Amadour.

7. The inhabitants of the country are almost savages. St. Amadour

catechises them and makes known the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

8. St. Amadour erects an altar on the cliff in honor of Mary. This

humble altar, now so glorious, is consecrated by the blessed apostle

Martial, who visits our saint several times in his retreat.

9. St. Amadour, at the approach of death, is transported before the

altar of Mary, where he expires.

Veronica herself is said to have carried in her apron the turf or clay

which served to build the chapel of Soulac. It was a mere cabin, which,

with the spring, was enclosed in the church built at a later period.

This was probably destroyed by the Normans when they ravaged the coast

of France to the terror of the people, who doubtless joined heartily in

the verse then added to the liturgy, beginning:

Auferte gentem perfidam

Credentium de finibus, etc.

According to the traditions of Aquitaine, Veronica lived to a great age,

and, if already in the Temple at the Presentation of the Virgin, she

must have been about a century old at her death. She is believed to have

died about the year 70. She was, at first buried with great honor at

Soulac in the oratory she had so signally endowed. It was Sigebert, or

St. Fort, who, says tradition, went to Soulac to pay her the last

honors. It was long the custom of the bishops of the diocese, before

taking possession of their see, to visit her tomb, and render homage to

the venerable traditions of the place. Her remains were afterwards

carried for safety to Bordeaux, where her tomb, of the Roman style, is

still to be seen in the crypt of St. Seurin. She is said to have been of

uncommon stature, and this has been confirmed by the recent examination

of her remains, so wonderfully preserved amid the storms of so many

ages. Placed under the seal of the archbishops of Bordeaux, and watched

over with religious care, a source of miraculous grace, and the object

of popular veneration, they have escaped the perils of wars and civil

commotions. Cardinal de Sourdis, who opened her tomb in 1616, said her

festival had been celebrated in his diocese from time immemorial on the

4th of February.

Her remains were carefully examined a few years since by a learned

anatomist, who not only declared them of great antiquity, but said the

articulation of certain bones showed the advanced age at which she died.

Thus science comes to the aid of tradition. The popular belief as to her

majestic stature was likewise confirmed by this examination.

Veronica’s oratory, probably destroyed by the Normans, as we have said,

was afterwards rebuilt by the Benedictines, but at what precise time is

doubtful. We only know there was a monastery at Soulac in 1022, which

became dependent on that of Sainte Croix at Bordeaux. In 1043 Ama,

Countess of Périgord, gave the lands of Médrin to the monastery of

_Sancta Maria de Finibus Terræ, ob remedium animæ suæ necnon parentum

suorum_, to relieve the poverty of the monks who there served God and

worthily fulfilled their duty. An old Benedictine chronicle says the

devotion of the faithful towards this holy spot increased to such a

degree that the monks were soon enabled to build a larger church, which

they enriched with much silver and many relics. This was in the twelfth

century. This church, of the Roman style, to which the Benedictines were

partial, enclosed the miraculous fountain of St. Veronica, which had

always been in great repute, and had an altar to her memory where solemn

oaths were administered as at the tomb of St. Fort. Her statue stood

over the fountain, and, before leaving the church, the devout, after

drinking of the water and bathing their eyes, used to cross themselves

and make a reverence to “Madame Saincte Véronique.”

This church was no sooner completed than it began to be invaded by the

sands, which every year grew higher and higher. The lateral doors had to

be walled up, and the pavement raised three times to be on a level with

the sands without. Veronica’s fountain was kept open, but soon became a

well. The monastery and town finally disappeared under the dunes in the

latter part of the thirteenth century. The monks returned when the sands

were stayed. They found the church filled to the chancel arch and the

capitals of the pillared nave. They removed part of the roof, raised the

Avails, and so arranged the church that it continued to be used till

devastated by the Calvinists of the sixteenth century. It was hardly

repaired before the sands besieged it anew and soon buried it utterly,

with the exception of the top of the belfry, which a boy could easily

scale, presenting a curious and picturesque appearance on the lone

shore. Under Louis XV. the open arches of this steeple became a kind of

light-house, and the pines sown by Brémontier soon took root among the

arches of the church totally hidden in the sands.

Tradition says Soulac was once important as a port, and alive with

commercial activity. Henry III. of England embarked at old Soulac for

Portsmouth about the middle of the thirteenth century, which shows how

extensive have been the sand deposits since. Once the church was so near

the water that in great storms the foundations were washed by the waves,

though built on a slight acclivity. It appears by documents still

preserved at Bordeaux that the sands in 1748 covered the greater part of

Soulac, causing the loss of many salt marshes and other sources of

revenue. Many other parishes on the shores of Médoc have wholly

disappeared. The church of La Canau was rebuilt three times before the

moving sands. Sainte Hélène has transported hers ten kilometres, leaving

behind what is now an islet with a few trees to mark the spot where it

once stood, still called by the people Senta Lénotte, or Ste.

Hélenotte—that is, little St. Helen.

St. Pierre de Lignan, or, as called in old titles, Sanctus Petrus in

Ligno—St. Peter on the Wood, or Cross—said to have been originally built

by Zaccheus, or St. Amadour, in memory of the martyrdom of the apostle,

which he had witnessed at Rome, has been abandoned two hundred years,

and now lies under the waves of the ocean.

Pauillac, sung by Ausonius in his epistle to Théon:

“_Pauliacus tanti non mihi villa foret_,”

is likewise half-buried in the sands.

But to return to Soulac. The thirteenth century was the most glorious

era in the history of Notre Dame de la Fin des Terres. Its popularity

was at that time increased by a terrible pestilence that visited Médoc.

The people had recourse to prayer, and went in crowds to the sanctuary

of Soulac, vowing to renew their pilgrimage annually. The most noted of

these pilgrimages was that of Lesparre, a small town which excited our

interest by its reminiscences of the English occupation of the country.

Its ruined fortifications; the square tower, sole remnant of the ancient

castle, and the church with its Saxon arches and coarse sculpture—all

bespeak great antiquity. In the twelfth century the castle and village

around it were held by Baron Eyquem, a contentious lord, who liked

nothing better than a brush with his neighbors. Perhaps it was this

quarrelsome turn of mind that recommended the lords of Lesparre so

strongly to the favor of the English sovereigns. Henry III. of England

summoned Baron Eyquem to his aid at Paris. The baron’s son also served

the same king with all the forces he could muster, and Henry so counted

on his devotedness that, in 1244, after promising to reward his

services, he commissioned him to aid by his sword and counsel in

repelling the King of Navarre, who had invaded Guienne. During the

entire contest between England and France the Sires of Lesparre remained

faithful to the English; and when the last hour of English rule in the

country sounded, the Baron de Lesparre took the lead in an effort to

replace Guienne under its dominion. He went secretly to England with the

lord of Candale and several notable citizens of Bordeaux to assure the

king that the whole country would rise in his favor as soon as the

banner of St. George should be once more seen on the Gironde. The

English eagerly responded by sending the valiant Earl of Shrewsbury,

“The Frenchman’s only scourge,

Their kingdom’s terror, and black Nemesis,”

to Bordeaux, but their last chance was lost by the defeat at Castillon

in 1453, in which the gallant old earl, immortalized by Shakspere—doubly

immortalized—was slain. The Baron de Lesparre was banished, and the

following year beheaded at Poitiers for breaking his bounds. Charles

VII. of France then gave the Seigneurie de Lesparre to the Sire

d’Albret, to whom in part he owed the triumph of his arms.

Lesparre having lost two-thirds of its inhabitants by a pestilence, the

remainder, in their terror, went to prostrate themselves before the

altar of Notre Dame de la Fin des Terres, and made a solemn vow to

return every year, if spared. The account of this annual pilgrimage

reminds one of the caravans of the desert. The pilgrims were divided

into two bands. A part were mounted on horseback, preceded by the

cross-bearer and the _curé_; the rest followed on foot with baskets and

sacks of provisions. The four bells of Notre Dame de Lesparre pealed

joyfully out over the marshes to announce their departure. They stopped

at every chapel they came to, to salute its tutelar saint by some hymn

in his honor, and then kept on their way, chanting the litanies. Most of

these chapels were dedicated to saints specially invoked in time of

pestilence; for every grief of the middle ages left its record in the

churches. There was St. Catharine, always popular in this region. Then

came St. Sebastian, now destroyed, but which gave the name of La Capère

(the chapel) to a little village we passed, and St. Roch still standing

at Escarpon. As soon as the caravan came in sight of the belfry of

Soulac, on a height between St. Vivian and Talais, the pilgrims

descended from their horses to salute the Virgin on their knees. Arrived

at the holy sanctuary, each one offered his candle streaming with

ribbons—a necessary adjunct in all religious offerings in Médoc. An

enormous mass of these old ribbons have been preserved at new Soulac.

After their devotions the pilgrims went out on the seashore to take

their lunch. The next day they returned to Lesparre in the same order.

This annual pilgrimage was continued for five centuries, which accounts

for the vivid recollections of it among the people. Near the manor-house

of the Baron d’Arès, now buried in an immense dune, flowed a fountain as

late as 1830, but since filled up, where the pilgrims stopped to quench

their thirst, with the pious belief that St. Veronica had brought here a

vein of the sacred spring that flowed for the healing of the people in

her sanctuary.

Lesparre, once the capital of Médoc, has now only about a thousand

inhabitants. From the tower there is an extensive view over the broad

moor with its patches of yellow sand, here and there an oasis with a few

vegetables, and perhaps an acre or two of oats, barley, or maize, which

grow as they can. In winter this vast heath becomes a marsh. The water

stands in pools among the sand-hills. The peasant shuts himself up with

his beasts, and warms himself by the peat-fire, while the pools freeze

and the sands grow white under the icy breath of the sea-winds.

St. Veronica’s Church, so venerated in the middle ages, has within a few

years been dug out of the sands and repaired. The miraculous statue of

Notre Dame de la Fin des Terres has been restored to its place on her

altar, and, after a silence of one hundred and twenty years, the bell

once more awakens the echoes of the sand-hills, thanks to the interest

taken by Cardinal Donnet in reviving a devotion to this ancient place of

pilgrimage. Veronica is once more honored in the place where she died—a

devotion that seems significant in these times. Perhaps she comes to

hold up anew the bleeding face of Christ for the healing of the nations.

The _Volto Santo_ is said to have turned pale a few years since when

exhibited at Rome. We may well believe it, in view of all the wounds

since inflicted on Christ’s Bride—the church. “O Veronica!” cries Padre

Verruchino, a Capuchin friar, “suffer us, we pray thee, to gaze awhile

at thy holy veil for the healing of our sin-sick souls!”

An old MS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth century at Auch contains the

following sequence: _De Sancta Veronica Memoria_, showing how well our

fathers in the faith, even in those dark ages, knew how to rise above

every type and shadow to the substance of things hoped for. It is good

to echo the prayers of those earnest times.

Salve, sancta facies

Nostri Redemptoris

In qua nitet species

Divini splendoris,

Impressa panniculo

Nivei coloris,

Dataque Veronicæ

Signum ob amoris.

Salve, decus seculi,

Speculum sanctorum

Quod videre cupiunt

Spiritus cœlorum.

Nos ab omni macula

Purga vitiorum,

Inque nos consortium

Junge Beatorum.

Ave, nostra gloria,

In hac vita dura,

Labili et fragili,

Cito transitura.

Nos perduc ad patriam,

O felix figura,

Ad videndam faciem

Christi, mente pura.

Esto nobis, Domine,

Tutum adjuvamen,

Dulce refrigerium,

Atque consolamen,

Ut nobis non noceat

Hostile conamen,

Sed fruamur requie.

Nos dicamus: Amen.[27]

Footnote 27:

Hail, holy face of our Redeemer, in which shines the image of the

divine Splendor, imprinted on a veil white as snow, and given to

Veronica in token of his love!

Hail, glory of the world, mirror of the saints, whom the celestial

spirits long to behold. Purify us from the stain of every vice and

bring us to the society of the Blessed!

Hail, our glory, in this rough, uncertain life, so soon to pass away!

Lead us to our true country, O blessed symbol! that with a pure heart

we may behold the face of Christ.

Be to us, O Lord! a sure help, the sweet refreshment and consolation

of our woes, that the efforts of the enemy may not injure us, but that

we may enter into the fruition of true rest. Let us say: Amen.

DANTE’S PURGATORIO.

_CANTO FIFTEENTH._

TRANSLATED BY T. W. PARSONS.

Between the third hour’s close and dawn of day,

Much as appears of the celestial sphere

Ever in motion, like a child at play,

So much appeared now of the sun’s career

To be remaining towards his western way.

There it was evening; here the middle night;

And on our front, the rays directly beat,

For we had circled so the hill that right

On towards the sunset we inclined our feet;

When on my brows I felt a load of light,

Greater in splendor than before had been,

And o’er my sense, as ’twere from things unknown,

A stupor stole; and of my palms a screen

I made against the excess of light that shone.

As when from water or a mirror’s face

The ray leaps upward to the opponent side,

Mounting in like mode as through equal space

The ray descendeth, and with line as wide

From the direct line of a falling stone

(As science shows, and art hath verified),

So did I seem, by some reflected light

Before me there, to be so struck that fain

I would have suddenly withdrawn my sight.

“What is it, gentle Father, that in vain

I shield my visage from, and still towards us

Seems as in motion?” He made this reply:

“Marvel not if, as yet, the splendor thus

Of heaven’s bright household overpowers thine eye.

This one is sent to ask men up the height;

Soon it shall be that to behold these things

Will cause thee no dismay, but bring delight,

Even as thy soul due disposition brings.”

Soon as we reached the blessèd angel’s side

He said, with glad voice: “Here you enter in

By steps more easy than you yet have tried.”

We thence departed, and, ascending now,

Heard _Beati Misericordes_ chanted

Below, behind us, and, “Be joyful thou

To whom to conquer in this pass is granted!”

My Master and myself in lonely mood

Still mounting, I considered as I went

How I might gather from his word some good,

And turned to him inquiringly: “What meant

That spirit of Romagna speaking so

_Of partnership forbid_?” He made reply:

“Of his own worst defect he now doth know

The torment; therefore, do not wonder why

Others he chides to make their penance less.

Because you point your wishes at a prize

Where part is lost if it permit largesse,

Envy’s bad bellows move your selfish sighs.

But if the love of the supernal sphere

Heavenward exalted every wish of yours,

Your bosom would not harbor that low fear;

For so much more as there they speak of Ours,

More love in that celestial cloister glows,

And so much more of good each soul secures.”

“Now to be satisfied my hunger grows,”

I answered, “and my mind is more in doubt

Than if no question I had asked of thee.

How comes it, that a blessing parcelled out

More rich its many owners makes to be

Than if a few possessed it?” He replied:

“Because thy mind its reasoning cannot stretch

Beyond those things of earth to which ’tis tied;

Thou from true light dost only darkness fetch.

That Good ineffable and infinite

Who dwells above there, runs to love as fleet

As to a lucid body a ray of light,

And so much giveth as it finds of heat.

Broad as the flame of charity may burn,

The eternal flame above it grows more great:

And more their number is who heavenward yearn.

More for his love there are, and they love more,

Like mirrors that each other’s light return.

Now, if thou hunger still, despite my lore,

Thou shalt see Beatris, and sure, she will

Give unto this and every wish repose;

Only may those five wounds remaining still,

That heal in aching, like the twain soon close.”

Whiles I was musing, and would fain have said,

“Thou hast contented me,” I looked, and, lo!

To the next cornice we had come; here fled

All power of speech, mine eyes were ravished so!

For, seized with ecstasy, I seemed to be

Rapt in a sudden vision of a crowd

Met in a temple. I could also see

That entering, 'mid those men, a woman stood

With sweet mien of a mother, saying: “Why

Hast thou so dealt with us, my darling son?

Behold, in every place thy sire and I

Have sought thee sorrowing.” Soon as she had done

This vision vanished, and I next beheld

Another lady, with such drops besprent

As down the cheeks flow from a bosom swelled

With scorn of some one and by anguish rent;

Saying: “If thou be ruler of the town,

About whose name the gods had such a strife

And whence all knowledge gleams to give renown,

Pisistratus! avenge thee on his life

Whose bold embrace hath brought our daughter down!”

And her lord seemed to me benign and mild,

Answering with aspect that her fury stemmed:

“What should we do to one that harmed our child,

If one caressing her be so condemned?”

Next I saw people raging hot in ire,

Slaying a youth with stones, and shouting loud:

“Martyr him! martyr him!” in tumult dire;

And I saw him drop down before the crowd

Dying, but lifting, ere he did expire,

Looks that might win compassion for his foes;

And with such eyes,—they seemed the doors of heaven!

Praying the most high Father that, for those

Who wrought such wrong, their sin might be forgiven.

Soon as my mind that from itself had swerved

Came back to true things that outside it lie,

I knew my dreams false, but their truth observed.

My leader then, who could perceive that I

Walked like a man by somnolence unnerved,

Said: “Come! what ails thee that thou canst not keep

Thy footing straight, but more than half a league

Hast moved, with faltering steps, as if by sleep

Or wine o’ercome, and eyes that show fatigue?”

I answered: “O sweet Father! I will tell,

If thou wilt hear me, all that I have seen,

While my limbs failed me and my strength so fell.”

And he replied: “Shouldst thou thy visage screen

Beneath an hundred masks, I still could spell

Each slightest thought of thine, and read thy dreams.

This vision came lest thou be self-excused

Thy heart from opening to the peace that streams

From love’s eternal fount o’er all diffused.

I did not ask 'what ails thee,’ as men speak,

Who look with mortal eye that cannot see

The soul without its body. Thou wast weak,

And I, to strengthen, reprehended thee.

So men are wont dull servants to reprove

That when their watch comes round are slow to stir.”

During these words we did not cease to move

On through the evening, and attentive were

To look beyond us, far as vision might,

Against the level sun’s o’erpowering rays;

And towards us, lo! a vapor, dun as night,

Little by little growing on our gaze,

Deprived us of pure air and dimmed our sight,

Nor was there shelter from the blinding haze.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.