CHAPTER XII.

“TO BE, OR NOT TO BE.’

The Signora’s life in these days was disturbed by a doubt that was all

the more troublesome because she was obliged to solve it unaided, and

that without delay. What should she do with Mr. Vane?

Advice could be of no use, even if she had been willing to ask it. He

satisfied perfectly all the conditions concerning which outward

influence could have weight with a woman of character and refinement. It

is always possible to tell a woman that she should not marry a man, the

reasons given being good ones; but it is never possible to tell her that

she should marry him, if she does not wish, however excellent he may be.

The question with the Signora was, Should she marry at all? She

certainly did not wish to marry. Was she willing? Here came up a host of

arguments for and against, till she was as tormented and uncertain as

Hamlet. If Mr. Vane would have consented to spend his life in Rome and

remain her friend, without asking for more, she would have been

satisfied, and have thought that her life had gained by him a sweetness

she had never known, nor even thought of. For she had not been conscious

of anything wanting, till his companionship had taught her that one

niche in her house was vacant. She contemplated the possibility of

marrying him only in order to keep him near her, not because she wished

to change their relations. But the choice was forced upon her to lose

him or to marry him.

It was a choice between two evils. Her life had been so exquisite, so

nearer perfect than any one but herself could know, that to introduce

new and important interests there was a dangerous experiment. How much

more likely they would be to disturb than to complete the harmony! And

yet, how pleasant was that masculine presence, like a shady tree in the

midst of a sunny garden of flowers! How pleasant the sense of a superior

physical strength and manly sympathy ever near! How pleasant the

consciousness of constantly pleasing one worth pleasing by the thousand

little feminine ways and words, and by the very being what she was, like

a fragrant rose set in a chamber, silent and gracious. How many little

pleasures he gave her which a man gives only to the woman he prefers to

all others! It seemed to her she had never been well listened to before.

Then to see her do a favor to any one, perform some graceful little act

that might pass unregarded by others, even go about her ordinary duties,

gave him a vivid pleasure. He appreciated the very rose in her hair, the

ribbon at her throat, the bow on her slipper. Little things: but it is

the little pleasures which make life sweet, as the little displeasures

may do more than afflictions can to make it bitter.

She watched to see what danger there might be of certain small

annoyances which she had seen fretting the course of many a married

life, and he came out triumphantly from the ordeal. He did not hang for

ever about the house till the women grew tired of him, any more than he

went to the opposite extreme of staying away too much. He preserved a

respectful ignorance of household affairs, in which he held that women

should be autocrats, and at the same time listened with interest to any

details that might be vouchsafed him, as to curious particulars of a

country he had never visited, but which sent him important supplies. He

was habitually polite to women, but never gallant, and he would have

given a civil reply to a civil question proffered him even by an

infamous person; and in the most private life, he dropped only ceremony,

never respect. As far as personal habits went, he was a man who might

have been a hero, even to his _valet-de-chambre_.

Point by point the Signora tried him, and still found no defect which

could seem to indicate a disagreeable habit or an intolerable opinion.

She could but laugh—a little nervously, indeed—at her own perplexity.

“You dear soul!” she thought, “why will you not do something hateful and

set my mind at rest?”

He would not. He was not even guilty of the one fault that might

naturally have been expected of him under the circumstances: he had no

appearance of hanging upon her words and looks, as if for some

indication of a change of intentions regarding him. She was free to act

herself perfectly, without fear of misinterpretation. And yet, in spite

of his forbearance, she felt that time was committing her, and that she

must soon either decidedly prevent or decidedly receive a renewal of his

offer.

The Signora might easily be accused by persons of little refinement of

being one who did not know her own mind. On the contrary, she was rather

exceptionally prompt and clear as to her requirements. But she was past

the age when women usually marry in haste to repent afterward at

leisure; and was, moreover, one of the comparatively few women who are

fitted by their character to be friends to men without marrying them.

The insidious sisterhood which ends in wifehood or in mischief she saw

through and reprobated. “No man can have a sister,” she was wont to say,

“other than the daughters of his mother. But he may have a friend. And

no man has a right to expect sisterly service and familiarity from a

woman not born his sister. It is a snare.” As a friend, she would never

have charged herself with the care of Mr. Vane’s collars and cravats,

advised him regarding the most becoming cut of his beard, nor performed

the sentimental service of “bathing his fevered brow” when he had a

headache, though she might have done all these things as a sister or a

wife.

It was, altogether, a perplexing and even painful situation, and the

Signora found all her pleasure disturbed by that ever-present fear of

either throwing away a good which she might afterward regret, or

committing herself to a state of life which she might regret still more.

The weather added to her annoyance. Summer had reached its meridian heat

rather prematurely, the sun poured his rays down in a torrent, and at

noon the city was like a martyr at the stake. The nights began to lose

their freshness and be scorched about the edges; the early stars,

instead of shedding dews, were like the coals left in a half-swept oven;

and the mornings languished on the horizon. It was a time for not only

_dolce far niente_, but _dolce pensar niente_. Besides, people, being at

this season so shut up together, need to be at ease with each other.

There was very little to call them out, few friends left in town, and

but few _festas_.

On one of these days came the _festa_ of the Nativity of St. John the

Baptist, the vigil of which is unique in Rome, being a real witch’s

holiday, according to popular superstition. It is an ancient belief

among the people that on this vigil the witches have liberty to go about

where they will; and, since the world all goes to St. John Lateran, the

witches go there too. In order to detect them it was the custom to

procure a stick with a natural fork at the end. This fork was placed

under the chin, the two prongs coming up over the jaws. Looking at a

person over it in this wise, it could be known if he or she were a

witch. Moreover, since it was believed that the witches would take

advantage of the absence of the heads of the family to enter the houses

and do harm to the children, the little ones being their favorite prey,

a new broom was bought, and set, broom-end upward, outside the door.

Before entering, the witch was obliged to count every spill of the

broom. As a further precaution, some salt was sprinkled on the

threshold, and, in case that should not prevent their entering, these

words were repeated while sprinkling it: “Come tomorrow to borrow salt

of me.” The witch who entered was constrained to come and knock at the

door the next day, and ask the loan of a little salt. For the further

safe-keeping of the children during the night, the mothers hang some

object of devotion about their necks or bind it around their bodies,

and, when they are about going to sleep, whisper the _Credo_ in their

ear, repeating every word twice, thus: “I believe, I believe, in God, in

God,” etc.

“What do they think a witch would do to the children, if she should

enter?” we asked our Roman informant.

“Take off the object of devotion and touch them, or do something to them

so that they would die,” was the reply. “A child that has been touched

by a witch pines away to a skeleton, and dies, without any one being

able to find out what ails it. I believe, and I do not believe,” she

said with a shrug. “Who knows? The Scriptures tell of evil spirits

having power. Who knows how it may be? My sister, however, lived and

died persuaded that her only child was touched by a witch, though it was

not on St John’s eve. She had been getting her baby to sleep one day,

when a neighbor came and called her to the door for some reason. She

went out, leaving the door open and the baby in its cradle. When she

returned, there was an old woman bending over the cradle and talking to

the child—an ugly, dirty old creature, that she had never seen before.

My sister took fright at once, and called out to her to go away. 'I saw

the door open and heard the baby crying, and I came in to soothe it,’

the old woman said. My sister told her she had no right to come in, and

chased her away. On the threshold the woman turned and shook her finger.

'You will repent this,’ she said. In fact, the babe, which had been

healthy, and was just dropping peacefully asleep, began to moan and cry,

and nothing could pacify it. My sister examined and found that the

little devotion it wore had been taken away. From that day the child

pined. She got nurses for it, she tried everything possible, but nothing

helped it. Finally, she carried it to the church of St. Theodore, in the

Roman Forum, where all the mothers carry their sick babies. The priest

blessed it, but told her that it was too late: the child would die. And

it did die. She tried then one proof more. She took all its clothes that

it died in, and that it had on when the witch touched it, put them in a

grate, and kindled a fire under them. They burned as if there had been

gunpowder among them. That was a sure proof, they said. But for me,”

continued the story-teller, with another shrug, “I believe, and I don’t

believe. _Chi lo sa?_”

It is curious to find how this witch-idea is embodied in every nation,

and always with very nearly the same features: old, ugly, child-hating,

powerful for petty malice, but a slave to the most trivial spells,

repelling, disgusting—a fair representation of the utter despicableness

and feebleness of evil.

At the first soft fall of twilight the family of _Casa Ottant’Otto_

stepped into a carriage and drove out to the Lateran by the roundabout

way of the Roman Forum. From the Colosseum up to the church, all about

the church and palace, in a part of the piazza, and the ends of the

streets leading to it, every nook and door-way and every rod of ground

had its table or booth, some lighted by a soft olive-oil lamp, others

clear and bright with petroleum, others flaring with the red light of a

torch. Piles of cakes of every shape and size, wine in bottles, flasks,

and jars, cones of the delicious Roman lemons, that are so juicy and

fragrant, trinkets, scarfs, knick-knacks of various sorts, covered the

tables and counters. Here and there a more ambitious salesman, probably

a Jew, had erected a little shop. Everywhere were pinks and lavender.

Each table and counter held sprigs and bunches, and men, women, and

children went about with their arms full of it. A little crowd of these

noisy venders surrounded the carriage the moment it stopped, and the

ladies supplied themselves with lavender for their drawers, and bought

large bunches of red pinks, and each of them a St. John’s bouquet. This

bouquet consists of a little white flower surrounded by pinks, and

outside four sprigs of lavender. The lavender for drawers is ingeniously

done up. A bunch is gathered with long stems to the sweet gray seeds and

blue flowers, and a string is tied close under their little chins. The

stems are then turned back to make a cage for the cluster, and tied

again at the other end; and yet again turned back and tied a third time,

so that only glimpses can be had of the caged bloom; and all is

lavender.

“We should have come to first Vespers, if we wished to think of the

austere St. John,” the Signora said. “The scene is simply picturesque

and beautiful at this hour, and will be bacchanalian later. The world

doesn’t begin to come till twelve o’clock, and at that time it will be

almost impossible to move for the crowd, which does not disappear

entirely till daylight.”

They drove off toward Santa Croce, and, turning there, stayed awhile

under the soft dusk of the trees, looking back on the twinkling lights

and crowding figures, and talking a little. The fiery half-ring of the

three days’ moon touched the tip of a pine-tree in the west and kindled

it; the stars overhead seemed to be melting out of their orbits in a

glowing rain; the air was full of a sweet fragrance and delicately

fresh. Sounds of laughter and mingled voices reached them now and then.

But all—the wafts of air, the sounds, the radiating lights, the

motions—were so soft that the whole might be a great picture which they

half imagined to be alive.

The Signora leaned back in her seat and gave herself up to the scene,

mingling with it the ever-present thought: What should she do with this

man who sat opposite her? His face was turned to look back, so that she

saw the profile, a fine one. She felt very feminine and weak just

then—not at all like taking care of herself all her life long, being

both mistress and master of her house, and her own adviser and support.

The spirit of strength, of an enthusiastic liberty of effort and labor,

faded and fainted within her. They could not live in such a scene. She

wanted to be taken care of. All the insidious arguments of the sluggard

began to whisper themselves to her. Of what use was this constant toil

and strain, which was but a daily rolling up hill of a burden that every

night rolled down again? Of what use the study, the thought, the

self-denial? All had seemed pleasant; but, come to think of it, where

had been the repose? Had she ever looked at a flower without, after the

first glance, studying how she should present its beauties in words to

other eyes? Had she ever drunk a sunset with all its color down into her

own soul, and left its glory there, but speedily her pen must dip the

light of it up to shine on a page for others to see? Whither had fled

the long, tranquil sleep, the calm folding of the hands, the deep and

steady thought for thought’s sake? There was no one in the world, it

seemed to her, who thought so much of others as she did. She analyzed

her pains, her religious emotions, her very temptations, for them, and

studied her own breathing that she should be able to tell them how they

breathed. And what was the return? Bread, and not too much of that. She

had studied her art as the painter, the sculptor, and the musician

study, making a science of it, and not one in a hundred looked on it as

any more than an idle and facile play. She had felt her way, by a

natural gift and an acquired power, into the depths of souls, and had

led them out alive into the light; yet how many an ignorant critic and

shallow moralist had set up his wooden or card-paper model for her to

follow!

How odd she had not known before how tiresome it was! She had at times

felt tired, but to know that all was tiresome, and vanity of

vanities—that had but just broken on her. This soft and joyous scene,

usurping the hours of sleep, making the work of the day to follow an

impossible thing to be done, and finding its playground under the

stars—this was what had opened her eyes. A careless laugh had done it.

She looked at Mr. Vane and thought: “I hope he won’t ask me to-night,

for if he should I shall certainly promise to marry him; and I do not

like cutting Gordian knots with sudden resolutions. I would rather untie

this a little more leisurely,” she considered, still looking at him. “If

I want honors and favors, I could win more by giving good dinners than

by writing good books. A dinner is more powerful than an epic; for

anybody can take in a dinner, but everybody cannot take in an epic. If I

want friends and the reputation of being amiable, the good-natured

complacency of prosperous ease will go a great deal further than the

somewhat over-earnestness of a serious life.”

She snatched her eyes and her thoughts quickly away from the subjects

that occupied both, and began to talk; for Mr. Vane turned, as if aware

of being observed, and looked at her.

“I must have a little longer to think,” she said to herself, with a

fluttering heart. “It will never do to decide to-night.”

“If we are going to keep up our character of a sober and orderly

household, we must soon be on our way home,” she said. “The witches are

certainly abroad—I almost see them—and we have no spell to prevent their

getting into our carriage.”

Mr. Vane had been holding his breath for the last few moments. He knew,

without looking, what eyes were on him, and almost knew what thoughts

were passing in the Signora’s mind. He felt that his fate was in the

balance. The prize seemed to be within his grasp; for to hesitate, even,

seemed to give consent. At the first word he felt that hope grow dim.

Consent would have lingered in that enchanted scene, would have given

itself up to some ideal dream, forgetting the flight of time. She was

evidently resisting, if not refusing.

“Let us take one turn round by the wall and Santa Croce,” he said. “Then

we will go. I don’t think I shall ever have another drive just like

this, and I would like to prolong it a little.”

“Prolong it as much as you please!” the Signora exclaimed, with quick

compunction. “I only made a suggestion, which came from habit. If you

like to stay, I shall be pleased.”

His voice, a little quickened and a little deepened, had seemed to have

a touch of reproach in it, as though he should say: “Think, at least, a

little of me!” But his answer to her was quite friendly: “You were

right. We had better not stay long. One turn will be enough.”

They went on, the Signora fighting now two forces instead of one—for

pity for him was added to pity for herself. What a beautiful and noble

patience his life had shown, and with what a sweet dignity he had

covered that painful thought that he had never been first to anybody!

As they passed round near the wall, approaching Santa Croce, the trees

hid all the lights from them. The two daughters, one at either hand of

the father, leaned on his arm and sighed with delight; Marion, seated

beside the Signora, leaned forward to touch Bianca’s hand, unable in

that shadow to see her. The darkness touched their faces like a down, so

thick and moist was it, and so full of fragrance.

They came out before Santa Croce, and, turning, went back as they had

come. More than one of the company would have liked to propose walking

back along the avenue, but did not venture to do so. A few minutes

brought them to the piazza of St. John’s again, and into the midst of a

crowd of eager buyers and sellers. Here and there out of some dim corner

a face shone red in the flare of a half-shaded torch, small figures ran

and danced across the lights, black as _silhouettes_; the whole coloring

was Rembrandt.

Then home through the quiet streets, where occasionally they met a

couple or a party, all going toward St. John’s.

“It seems to me a kind of Santa Claus time, except that it is hot

weather,” Bianca said when they reached home. “I feel as though somebody

ought to come down the chimney to-night.”

“By the way,” the Signora exclaimed, “I have never introduced you to my

Santa Claus. How ungrateful I am! I am going to tell you my little

story; for I am almost sure that you four good people are as ignorant of

the genealogy of the Santa Claus of Christmas fame as I was when I came

to Rome. If you are wiser, then you can at least hear how I was

enlightened. When I had been in Rome but a little while, I made the

acquaintance of an elderly prelate, who was so kind as to do for me many

of those little services which a stranger needs, and was of the greatest

use to me in many ways. I seldom, almost never, asked anything of him,

but it was constantly happening that he offered some kindness at the

very moment it was needed. I never went to visit a city new to me but he

introduced me to some influential friend there, and I never heard of a

new old sight to see but he could tell me how to gain the best view of

it. His kindness was so pleasant and opportune that after a while,

without the least intention of being disrespectful however, I came to

call him in my own mind Santa Claus. His Christian name is Nicholas. One

day, while talking with me, he asked if I had any of the manna of St.

Nicholas of Bari. I replied that I did not even know what it was. He

looked at me in astonishment, and explained that it was a limpid

substance like water which had oozed from the bones of St. Nicholas the

Great, without ceasing, for more than fifteen hundred years, the saint

having been born somewhere late in the third century; that every morning

the sacristan gathers it with a sponge and preserves it in bottles; and

that the people of Bari and all that region have so great a faith in the

saint and his miraculous 'manna’ that they use it for every malady. He

ended by promising to send to his brother, an archbishop somewhere in

the south of Italy, to procure a bottle of this precious liquor for me.

In a few days he brought it. Here it is!” The Signora brought from a

little shrine that closed with a door in the wall, and displayed, a

bottle filled with what appeared to be the brightest and most limpid

water. “Monsignor showed me a similar bottle that he has had forty

years,” she continued, “and it was as pure and bright as this—perfectly

unchanged. He had opened it, now and then, to take out a few drops. Some

years ago he gave a bottle also to the Holy Father, who keeps it beside

his bed on a little shelf. Here is the picture of my saint.”

It was a quaint old print, copied, doubtless, from a picture in the

church of St. Nicholas, in Bari, and represented the sainted archbishop

standing on the shore, with the sea and ships behind him. At his right

knelt a youth on the sands; at his left three infants were rising out of

a tub, commemorative of two of his miracles.

“After having given me this relic of his great patron, Monsignor, full

of zeal for his honor and of pity for my ignorance, began to tell me

something of his life, and how knowing of an impoverished noble family,

driven to desperation by need, and almost deciding to sell the daughters

to a life of vice, since they had no money to marry them, this young

saint went slily by night, and dropped a bag of gold in at the window

sufficient for a _dot_ for the eldest; and, after a while, in the same

manner, provided for the others, the family rejoicing over their escape

and repenting of their evil resolution. When Monsignor had got so far

with his story, I broke out, 'Why, it is Santa Claus!’ And, sure enough,

it was. The great saint was no longer a stranger to me. I had known,

without knowing, him all my life, from the time when I had first read

the wonderful illustrated story-books of Christmas, and seen my mother

hang my stocking in the chimney-corner before taking me off to bed on

Christmas eve.”

The Signora was very glad to have this little story to tell by way of

making an inclined plane to the saying of good-night. Undercover of it

she escaped to her own room without being entrapped into a private

interview, which she almost suspected Mr. Vane of plotting.

Then they had a little expedition for the morning to see the making of

tapestry in the great hospice of St. Michael.

“If the weather and the time of day were not so hot,” the Signora said,

“we would go a little further on, to the scene of a miracle of Santa

Francesca Romana; but I don’t believe we shall be able to do so. A

little way from the hospital is the Porta Portese, and outside that is

the vineyard where that beloved saint and her companions worked one

January day from dawn till noon, without having anything to eat or

drink. They had forgotten to bring provisions; and Francesca, when she

saw her companions suffering from thirst, accused herself of having

neglected to provide for them. She was then, you know, a

mother-superior, and these were her oblates. Well, the youngest of them,

almost crying with thirst, begged to be allowed to go to a fountain out

on the public road. The saint told her to be patient, and, withdrawing

herself, began to pray: 'Lord Jesus, help us in our need; for I have

been thoughtless in neglecting to provide food for my sisters.’ 'She’d

much better take us home at once,' said the poor little nun to herself.

And then Francesca, rising from her knees, pointed to a tree around

which twined a vine loaded with large clusters of grapes—just as many

clusters as there were poor nuns to eat them. They had passed this very

tree again and again, and seen the vine dead and withered that very day.

That same Santa Francesca is one of the dearest saints in the calender,”

the Signora said. “Though, to be sure,” she added, “when we think over

their lives, each one seems to be the dearest.”

“My idea of saintliness is always associated with asceticism,” said

Isabel.

“If only the asceticism be not sour, as it never is with the saints,”

responded the Signora with a sigh. “About the most uncomfortable company

one can have is that of a person who, we cannot doubt, is virtuous in

many ways, but who looks upon one with an expression full of suspicion

and condemnation, without seeming aware that in so doing he has

committed a sin against charity which, according to St. Paul, renders

his other virtues nothing. To my mind, one of the first requisites of a

Christian character is to mind one’s own business.”

“Oh! I don’t mean asceticism that goes only far enough to stir up the

bile,” Isabel said, “but that which clears the heart, so that the light

of charity shines quite through it and brightens every object it looks

upon.”

They were already on their way to the asylum of St. Michael—that immense

establishment, which contains a little world within itself, where beauty

and charity dwell together; where the young find protection and

instruction, and the old a refuge, under the same roof; where music,

sculpture, painting, and kindred arts have made their home. Here the

poor, instead of being swept away like dead leaves from a garden, to

decay in obscure disgrace, slip, consoled and unashamed, into the grave,

like fallen leaves that die in peace between the embracing roots of the

green tree they once helped to adorn. The long, arched corridors were

fresh and cool, the brilliant day entering only in a tender light, or,

here and there, in some splash of gold that burned only the spot it fell

upon. Fountains murmured in the courts, and all the business of the

place moved with a subdued and leisurely action which made work seem a

pleasure. It was not toil, but occupation—that wise and healthy degree

of work which makes work possible for many years, instead of crowding

the force of a whole life into a few feverish days. There was not a face

which showed anxious and nervous hurry. All were calm and cheerful.

Our friends did not attempt to see anything more than the

tapestry-making and mending, the first in the men’s department, the last

done entirely by women and girls. The two immense halls devoted to these

works, with the ante-chambers, were completely hung with old tapestries,

making a softly and richly-colored picture-gallery of the whole place.

In the manufacturing hall upright frames held the great squares of the

warp, with the design drawn or stamped carefully on the

closely-stretched threads. Behind these sat the weaver, working in the

figures with long spools of colored wools, pressing down closely each

stitch with a little instrument he held in the left hand. A score or

more of these bobbins hung at the back of the tapestry, each to be

caught up and woven in in its turn. Across the lower part of the carpet

already a yard was splendidly woven of solid and brilliant color. In

another part of the hall hung a large picture for a future weaving—a

balcony with a vine and figures—and on a table under it were arranged

the myriad selected shades and colors that composed it. Here all in the

work was brightly colored; but when they went to the other part of the

building, where the women were occupied in restoring, it was like

passing from dazzling midsummer to a late October day. The very light

and atmosphere of the place seemed different. Stretched on large frames

laid out like country quilting-frames were dim old tapestries with

figures of gods and goddesses, of mythical heroes and heroines, or of

historical persons and events, the fabrics all more or less ragged, but

inestimably precious. Girls were grouped around these, mending, directed

by an artist. Hanging on the walls were other tapestries that had been

repaired, and so perfectly that it was impossible to distinguish what

part had been restored without looking at the wrong side of the work.

Lying in bunches and snarls on the work, or hanging in long rows of

varied hues on the wall, were skeins of wool, of every shade and color,

dim, dark, soft, or pallid, like colors seen by night, by the stars, or

by the moon, or colors guessed at by eyes half-blind or by eyes that are

dying. There was a suggestion of tragedy in those old new colors, as in

sad or blighted faces of children. And how much more of interest and

tragedy in the old tapestries for which they had lost all their

brightness! Nothing else is so interwoven with romantic possibilities as

old tapestry. Luxury, which may have been regal, clings to it, but it is

the luxury of olden times, when the beggar touched the prince. Mystery

and terror are its companions; for who knows who or what may sometimes

have been hidden behind that splendid curtain? Lifting its fold on some

day of an age gone by, what white, cold face might have been found there

between it and the wall, what sliding figure of a hiding spy, what

twinkle of a dagger-point in the dusky corner! And then what pageants

does it not suggest of the times when life was a picture!

“It really takes one out of the nineteenth century,” Mr. Vane said.

“The weaving of this tapestry,” the Signora told her friends, “was first

taught here by a monk—I have forgotten in the time of what pope. This

monk was a backslider and ran away from his convent; after being absent

ten years he repented, and came back to throw himself at the feet of the

Holy Father. 'Give me any penance, Holy Father,’ he said, 'and I will do

it gladly.’ The pope, rejoiced to receive this prodigal, asked him where

and how he had passed the ten years of his absence, and was told that

they had been spent in the tapestry-works of Coblentz, where he had

learned all the art of tapestry-making. 'Go, then, to St. Michael’s,’

said the pope, 'and teach them to make tapestry. That shall be your

penance.’ And so it was done; and that is the origin of the work in

Rome. The story was told me by a prelate who was formerly director of

St. Michael’s.”

It was too near noon when the inspection was over for them to go to

Santa Francesca’s vineyard. They could only hide themselves in the large

covered carriage, and drive slowly home through the almost silent

streets. They sighed with contentment when they reached the doorway,

where, through the half-open valves, the floor showed freshly sprinkled

and all the place cool and softly lighted.

Isabel glanced back into the street. A sick beggar, who was at his post

on a doorstep of the opposite convent so constantly that one might well

believe he had no other home, leaned back and seemed to sleep, his

pallid face whiter than the white stone it lay against. A poor man slept

in the shadow of the garden wall above, lying flat on his face on the

pavement. Further up, a woman, with two little children clinging to her,

sat on the ground in the shadow, and ate her dinner of a piece of bread.

“It seems to me,” the girl said thoughtfully, as she followed the others

up-stairs, “that there should be a perpetual thanksgiving society which

every one who has a home or a roof to cover them should join.”

The Signora touched Isabel’s arm affectionately and smiled in her

pretty, sober face. She found this girl changing, or, rather, developing

into something nobler and more serious than she had expected.

“There is a Perpetual Thanksgiving Society in Rome, my dear,” she said.

“I am so glad you have had the thought without having heard of it. It is

one of the most beautiful societies in the world. It has its meetings

the third Thursday of every month, at the Caravita, a little church that

used to belong to the Jesuits. There is an instruction, Benediction of

the Blessed Sacrament, and afterward the _Magnificat_ is sung. The

special objects of the association are to thank God constantly for the

good we receive through the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Sacred

Heart, and by the intercession of the Virgin Mary; and the special

festas of the society are Epiphany, Pentecost, Corpus Domini, Sacred

Heart, Annunciation, Visitation, Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin, St.

John the Evangelist, St. Gertrude, St. Felix de Cantalice, and Our Lady

of Grace. The loveliest thing of all is the practice enjoined on the

members of making constantly the aspiration, 'Thanks be to God.’ I wish

this society were in every town in the world. We beg, we are always

begging, and the showers are always coming down. How beautiful is the

idea of a society which asks nothing, but sends up a perpetual _Deo

gratias_, as the earth sends up mists in return for the rain!”

“I shall join that society at once,” Isabel said with decision.

The Signora laughed. “You had better take off your bonnet and have some

dinner now,” she said.

“Your society pleases me very much,” Mr. Vane remarked. “But the most

perfect act of thanksgiving I know is that in the _Gloria_: 'We give

thee thanks for thy great glory.’”

There was a little moonlight reception and tea-party that evening out on

the _loggia_. Clive Bailey came to take leave before going away for a

few weeks into the country. Mr. Coleman also had been unexpectedly

called to England on business, and was so afflicted about going that the

Signora was vexed.

“I cannot bear to have a man about who cannot get along without me,” she

said privately to Isabel, “especially when I can get along perfectly

well without him. When a man falls into that dependent and moony state,

he loses all his character and becomes despicable. It disgusts me the

more, besides, because it is usually the strong-willed, driving women

who have such masculine appendages. I do hope I’m not getting into that

way. For pity’s sake, tell me if I show signs of it. I have seen

ladies—I recollect at this moment a lady, clever, pretty, prompt, and

circumscribed in character, who makes all her familiar gentlemen

acquaintances either hate her or serve her like dogs. I’ve seen her take

a man whom I thought a very respectable sort of person, with a mind of

his own, and, by dint of smiling and scolding, rewarding him promptly

when he was good, and punishing him promptly when he didn’t obey, end by

making a perfect ninny of him. He couldn’t brush his boots or tie his

cravat except just as she directed him; if she was vexed with a person,

he didn’t dare be civil to them; if she was reconciled to the same, he

immediately beamed upon them with the most unconscious and imbecile

servility. Yet the two were not lovers, and never dreamed of being so, I

presume, and both of them would have been astonished, or would have

pretended to be astonished and indignant, if one had hinted that his

firmness had been nothing but starch, and she had washed that out of

him. I wouldn’t be such a woman for the world. I wouldn’t be a driving,

positive woman for anything. I wouldn’t be a woman persistent in small

things for my eyes. Mr. Coleman makes me feel as if I were growing so.”

“Nonsense!” Isabel laughed. “It isn’t in you to be so. Mr. Coleman needs

change of scene, that is all. He has been circling round you so long

that he has got dizzy.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s going off at a tangent,” the Signora replied, only

half-reassured. “He certainly would provoke me dreadfully, if he were to

go on in this way under my eyes. Don’t let him come near me this

evening, and don’t give him a chance to say good-by to me. Take him

quite off my hands—that’s a dear girl.”

Isabel promised, and kept her promise so well as to make of the poor

bewildered gentleman as nearly an enemy as he was capable of being to

any one. He had another source of disquiet, too, and that was the

exceeding politeness and cordiality with which the Signora treated the

very cruel relative who had come to take him away, and whom he had

brought up with him that evening in the vain hope that she would help

him to escape. On the contrary, she merely sealed the compact.

“You are quite right, sir,” she said. “These affairs of property can so

much better be attended to in person than by proxy.”

“Besides,” replied the cousin, “a man who has property in the country

has really some duties there. He should spend a little of his money for

the benefit of the state, his neighbors, and the church.”

He privately despised this city of Rome, which he now visited for the

first time. Its dinginess, its dirt, and its religion disgusted him.

“Church!” echoed the Signora with calm inquiry. “I was not aware that

Mr. Coleman belonged to any church.”

“He has certainly deteriorated very much since he left England,” was the

rather sharp response, “but our family are all Catholic.”

“Indeed!” she exclaimed, in real surprise. “I have always understood

from Mr. Coleman that his family belonged to the English Episcopal

Church.”

“We claim that to be the Catholic Church, madam,” the gentleman

responded proudly. “Or, rather, we claim the title for that older branch

of it which now restores the ceremonies and beliefs it laid aside for a

while.”

“Oh! the family are Ritualists,” said the Signora.

The gentleman drew himself up. “The term does not describe us,” he said.

“We have a ritual, of course; but that is not all. I consider the title

trivial and disrespectful.”

“I did not intend the least disrespect in the world,” the Signora made

haste to say. “I merely repeat the name I have heard. I have always

considered Ritualism very—refined—and”—she seemed to be laboriously

seeking some words of suitable praise—“and—delicate. It has many

beauties—and—in short, is, it seems to me, an—eminently—lady-like

religion.”

Mr. Vane took pity on the Englishman, who looked confounded, as if not

knowing whether to believe his ears, which had heard, or his eyes, which

beheld, the perfectly simple and courteous expression of his

entertainer. Mr. Vane, without seeming to have heard a word, introduced

the subject of property, on which men can always talk unflaggingly for

any length of time.

The Signora gave her attention to an enthusiastic Catholic lady, who was

making a pilgrimage of her visit to Italy. This lady was one of those

charming Christians who sometimes puzzle us a little. Her whole life was

given up to what may be called religious pursuits. She attended

functions unceasingly, and on every day was to be found in the church

dedicated to the saint whose day it was. She visited relics, shrines,

and scenes of religious events, and she did all with an enthusiasm which

expressed itself in the most gushing manner. In short, she luxuriated in

religion. She knew all about the lives of the saints, and spoke of them

with the ease and familiarity of an intimate friend. One could perceive

by her conversation that she believed them to be particularly watchful

over her, and rather more ready to do her favors than to attend to the

wishes of most others. She exhorted people a little now and then,

gently, with the air of one who knows. The whole manner of the woman, in

things religious, was that of a favorite daughter in her own father’s

house, to which the world at large was welcomed with a smiling charity

and hospitality. But that others were there also in their own father’s

house, and equally beloved by him, did not seem to occur to her. The

clergy and all religious she admitted and gave precedence to, seeking

and admiring them almost as she did the saints. But, after them, she

seemed to walk alone; or rather, she entered with them, and others

waited a permission. People in the laity, like herself, were, in some

mysterious manner, assumed to be unlike her. The silence of deep

religious feeling in others she treated as indifference, and sometimes

strove, with seeming good intention, to stir up the souls of those

already more deeply moved than herself. She abounded in little

devotions, little pictures, little lamps and candles, a multiplicity of

pious knick-knacks, enough to bewilder a person of simpler tastes. She

wore every scapular, and all the medals she could get, and her girdle

was laden with rosaries. By most people she was called a very pious

woman; by many she was believed to be a saintly woman. She certainly was

a fairly good woman and a nice lady of religious tastes. But, looked at

by clear eyes, she was a little puzzling, like some others of her kind.

One missed there a central virtue, the sweet humility that makes little

of its own goodness, and the charity which rejoices to see others

beloved and preferred. With such assumption, one would have expected

these virtues. Looking so, moreover, one suspected the existence of a

deep and pernicious pride. How did she receive a word of exhortation

from an equal? Not as she expected her own exhortations to be received,

certainly, but with an expression of astonishment, mortification, and

even displeasure. When did she sacrifice herself for others, and say

nothing about it? when did she do an act of charity, and conceal that

she had done it? when did she hesitate to obtain for herself an

advantage because it was to be at the cost of another, unless that other

were a person in orders or in religion?

The Signora looked at this lady, and liked her, and admired her in many

ways, but she could not help wishing that there were a little less

self-complacency in spiritual matters, and a little more willingness to

sacrifice her own wishes and aims at times. The thought would intrude

itself into her mind that it was less a real, working Christian that she

beheld than a religious sybarite. She could not say of her, as a famous

author has said of some characters rather similar, that “their celestial

intimacies did not seem to have improved their earthly manners, and

their high motives were not needed to account for their conduct”; but

she was frequently pained to perceive a striking discrepancy between the

profession and the practice.

“I have been to-day for the first time to see Santa Maria degli Angeli,”

the lady said, in the gay and pleasant way habitual to her. “There seems

to be no one left there but a few old, old men. They were in choir when

I went to the church, but I should never have suspected it. I asked the

sacristan if there would be a Mass soon. 'After _coro_,’ he said. I

asked when _coro_ would be, and he replied, looking at me with some

surprise, that it was going on then. I had heard a sound like a little

company of bumble-bees among the clover, but that it had anything in

common with the great, ringing chorus of St. Peter’s or the other great

churches I never dreamed. By and by choir and Mass were over, and they

all came out. Such a group of dear old Rip Van Winkles! They were all

tall, had long hair and long beards of white, or streaked black and

white; they drooped in walking, and their black and white robes, not

very fresh, gave me a strange impression of antiquity and decay. It must

have been the color and oldness of their clothes that made me think of

Rip Van Winkle. I was quite ashamed of the thought. More than one head

among them would have answered for a St. Jerome. That dear St. Jerome!”

she added, drooping into pensiveness, as if, in uttering the name, she

had been rapt away.

She recovered herself after an instant, and came back smilingly to the

present. “You have no idea what a devotion I have for St. Jerome,” she

said.

“I can quite understand it,” the Signora replied. “His character is one

to inspire a great admiration and reverence. Here in Rome one becomes

more familiar, in a certain way, with the saints. One is so much nearer

their earthly lives, their relics and their _festas_ abound so, and one

comes so constantly upon places which they have inhabited or visited,

that one has a sense of shame and humiliation at coming no nearer their

virtues.”

The lady smiled. “I had not thought of that,” she said. “I approach the

saints with all confidence and simplicity.”

“That is a very pleasant feeling,” the Signora said calmly, “and, to an

extent, may be a virtue. But do you not think that we should have also a

feeling of awe in view of that splendid faith of theirs, and of that

sublime constancy and ardent charity, which led them to face torments

and death without flinching, while our lives seem but a series of

compromises, and dispensations from everything that does not agree with

our delicate and pampered natures? It seems to me that, if we remember

the difference between our lives and theirs, we shall almost expect that

when we approach their shrines they will perform one miracle more, and

speak an audible reproof to us.”

The lady looked disconcerted and a little displeased. But, some one

interrupting them, the subject was dropped.

After they were gone Mr. Vane displayed a letter he had received that

day from the prior of Monte Cassino, inviting him and his family to

visit their monastery. This clergyman had been on very friendly terms

with Mr. Vane in America, where he had spent a good many years, and now,

hearing of his conversion, was anxious to renew a friendship which would

have a charm it had not before possessed, and to welcome to a

brotherhood of faith one who had always been kin to him by a community

of generous nature.

“He writes that we can stay a few days on the mountain and see

everything there at our leisure,” Mr. Vane said. “There is a house

outside the gate where you ladies can stop, and I can have a bed inside.

What do you say to it?”

The invitation was accepted by acclamation. Monte Cassino was one of the

places to see in Italy—a gem of nature, religion, and art. Before

sleeping that night their plans were made. They would put off the visit

a little, hoping for cooler days, as the journey was one of five or six

hours. Meantime they had a little trip to Genzano in view, to see the

_festa_ of the Santissimo Salvatore. And close upon them was Santa Maria

delle Neve.

To Be Continued.

“MAY-FLOWERS.”

Dear Mother, on our country’s breast—

Our country that is thine—

Our poets place as scutcheon flower

Small argent stars that shine

With pallid light when scarcely wake

The leaf-buds from their sleep,

When, nursing summer’s waiting bloom,

The storm-stained leaves lie deep.

Fair, little stars that faintly gleam

Like planets sunset-dimmed,

The dearer for their glory scant

On barren heavens limned.

Pale May-flowers, whose stainless cheek

Seems born of winter snow—

One rosy drop of living blood

Flushing the veins below.

Whose faint-breathed perfume seems to rise

Like prayer of anchorite,

The heart that pours its incense forth

Low hidden from our sight;

Whose sweetness seems like nimbus pale

Crowning some saintly head,

The light of self-forgotten life

In holy odor shed.

Kind Mother, see, these little flowers

Our land is given to wear,

When still the forest arches stand

Of leafy tracery bare;

When still the heavens’ softened blue

Grows dim with wind-swept snow,

And lonely-seeming Phœbe chants

Disconsolate and low.

This precious bloom bears thy dear name—

Though given unaware—

And in its gentle life we trace

The gleam of thine more fair.

In France’s thoughtful land they give

Bright flowers to be thine eyes,

Within their blue forget-me-nots

Thy glance’s calmness lies.

Upon our matin blossom rests

No depth of peaceful blue,

Yet breaks the rosy dawn of love

Its cheek’s pure whiteness through.

Amid the darkened leaves it lies

In blest humility,

A lowly handmaid of the Lord,

Unstained of earth, like thee—

A hidden life e’er pouring forth

An offering pure of prayer;

The sweet unconsciousness of grace

Soft’ning the rude, bleak air.

The blood-stained heart the sword hath pierced

The spotless breast within,

The quiet shining on a world

Bitter and drear with sin.

A crown of stars that perfects all

With heaven-won aureole—

Let France’s blossom claim thine eyes,

Claim ours thy spotless soul;

Whose gracious blessing ever rest

On this broad land of ours,

That not in vain her poets’ shield

Be quartered with May-flowers.

THE LEPERS OF TRACADIE.[28]

Footnote 28:

This article is condensed from one which appeared in the _Revue

Canadienne_, by M. de Bellefeuille.

“Ah! little think the gay, licentious crowd,

Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround—

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,

How many pine! how many drink the cup

Of baleful grief! how many shake

With all the fiercer tortures of the mind!”

—THOMSON’S _Seasons_.

“In a rage, I returned to my dwelling-place, crying aloud: 'Woe unto

thee, leper! Woe unto thee!' And as if the whole world united

against me, I heard the echo through the ruins of the Château de

Bramafan repeat distinctly: 'Woe unto thee!' I stood motionless with

horror on the threshold of the tower, listening to the faint tones

again and again repeated from the overhanging mountains: 'Woe unto

thee!'”

—XAVIER DE MAISTRE.

On the low and miry land forming the borders of the county of Gloucester

in New Brunswick, fifty miles from Miramichi and twenty-five south of

Caraquet, between a narrow river and the waters of the Gulf of St.

Lawrence, stands a little village. The situation it occupies is dreary

and sad to a degree. On one side moans the gray sea, on whose dull and

turbid waters rarely is seen a sail. On the other stretches a long, low

line of coast, dotted at intervals by the huts of the fishermen. The

whole landscape is painfully monotonous, desolate, and mournful. The

cottages are mean in the extreme, while the simple church is without

architectural merit. Afar off frowns forbiddingly a large building shut

in by high walls. In this melancholy spot the passing traveller says to

himself: “Is this place accursed alike by God and man?”

Accursed, alas! it has indeed been by despairing lips and hearts; for

the building is the lazaretto of Tracadie. Before the year 1798 no

register was kept of baptisms, marriages, or burials in the parish.

Since that date, however, and up to 1842, Tracadie was under the care of

the _curés_ of Caraquet, a neighboring parish.

On the 24th of October, 1842, arrived the first resident priest, M.

François Xavier Stanislas Lafrance, who remained there until January,

1852. M. Lafrance has since died. At Tracadie he was succeeded by the

present _curé_, M. l’Abbé Ferdinand Gauvreau,[29] with whose name the

history of these poor lepers must always be interwoven.

Footnote 29:

The author writes: From this excellent and faithful priest I have

obtained the greater part of my information on this subject. In

addition, M. Gauvreau has allowed me free use of his notes and

documents.

Probably the most terrible chastisement inflicted on a guilty people is

that known as leprosy. In ancient times it was only too well known, for

it was then more frequent than in our day. It made such fearful ravages

in certain parts of the world that its very name was whispered in

accents of horror and dread.

From time immemorial has this scourge been looked upon as utterly

distinct from all other diseases; more virulent in its effects; more

insidious in its approaches, and above all by reason of the frightful

manner in which it distorts and disfigures its victims.

Leprosy has probably been known from the creation of the world. Nothing

in history leads us to reject this idea, and, indeed, many interpreters

who have exercised their talent on certain obscure passages of Holy Writ

have found no better way of defining the terrible sign with which God

marked the fratricide Cain than by supposing it to be leprosy. The alarm

that has always been felt in regard to this most loathsome disease

arises not alone from its hideous results, but also from the conviction

that has always existed as to the absolute hopelessness of cure.

Before the time of Moses leprosy was well known. The first mention made

of it in Holy Writ is in the fourth chapter of Exodus. God, having

chosen Moses to deliver the Hebrews from the tyranny of the Egyptians,

orders him to present himself before his afflicted people and to

announce himself to them as their deliverer. Moses objected, saying:

“They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say,

The Lord hath not appeared unto thee!” Then the Lord, to convince Moses

of his divine mission, said unto him, “Put now thine hand into thy

bosom,” and he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out,

behold his hand full of leprosy, white as snow—“_instar nevis_.”

Here, then, was leprosy easy to recognize, since it had the whiteness of

snow. Let us not forget this peculiar feature, for we shall see it again

later.

From this incident we see clearly that the disease was by no means

unknown to Moses, because on seeing his hand he said: “_Leprosam instar

nevis._” Therefore we have a right to believe that the disease existed

before Moses. To the support of this opinion Dom Calmet, in his

_Biblical Dictionary_, cites Manetho the Egyptian, Lysimarchus, Appian,

Tacitus, and Justin, who have advanced the idea that the Jews went out

from Egypt on account of the leprosy. Each one of these historians

narrates the events in his own fashion, but all agree that the Hebrews

who left Egypt were attacked by leprosy.

Not only does leprosy fasten on mankind, but it clings to clothing and

to the stone walls of houses. It is to be presumed, however, that the

leprosy brought by the Israelites out of Egypt was not of this malignant

type; for Moses, by the order of God, takes pains to mention another and

more virulent kind known in the land of Chanaan, the promised land of

the Israelites.

In Leviticus, chapter xiii., we find the following: “If there be a spot,

greenish or reddish, in the garment, of wool or of skin, the garment

must be shown to the priest; and the priest shall look on the plague,

and shut it up for seven days; and if at the end of the time the spots

have spread, the priest will burn the garment, for it is a fretting

leprosy. If the priest find, however, that the spots have not spread, he

shall order the garment to be washed; and, behold, if the plague have

not changed his color, and be not spread, it is unclean: thou shalt burn

it in the fire.”

As to the suspected taint of leprosy in their houses, let us see their

method of proceeding: “When you be come into the land of Chanaan, if you

think there be leprosy in the house, he that owneth the house shall go

to the priest, who shall order the house to be emptied. If the priest

finds in the walls hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, he shall shut

the house for seven days. The priest shall come again the seventh day,

and shall look; and if the plague be spread, the stones shall be taken

away, and cast into an unclean place without the city. Then the rest of

the house shall be scraped within and without, and they shall pour the

dust without the city, and they shall take other stones and put them in

the place of these, and other mortar to plaster the house.

“And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, it is a

fretting leprosy, and the house is unclean and shall be destroyed.”

Thus it is seen that the leprosy known to the ancients—this lamentable

scourge, “this eldest daughter of death”—attacked in its fury not man

alone, but his clothing and the very walls of his house. The primary

cause of an evil so malignant and so wide-spread must for ever remain a

mystery. The learned Dom Calmet, as commentator of the Bible rather than

as a physician, offers a theory in his notes on Leviticus. He maintains

that the disease is caused by a multitude of minute worms. These

parasites glide between skin and flesh, gnawing the epidermis and the

cuticle, and then the nerves, producing, in short, all the symptoms that

are remarked in the beginning, the progress, and the end of leprosy. Dom

Calmet concludes by saying that “venereal diseases are but forms of

leprosy which were only too well known to the ancients.” In this century

leprosy still exists in some portions of Italy and in Norway to a very

considerable extent, according to the reports of Drs. Danielson and

Boëk. It is still to be met with in Turkey in the village of

Looschori—the ancient Mytilene of the Ægean Sea—in the Indian

Archipelago, on the coast of Africa, and in the West Indies. I myself

have seen it in Jerusalem and at Naplouse, ancient Samaria; at Damascus

also, where there is a lazaretto very poorly supported by public

charity. To Mr. Charles A. Dana, one of the editors of the _New American

Cyclopædia_, the _maladie de Tracadie_ is not unknown; for he says that

leprosy exists in Canada and in other portions of America.

But to return to the Scriptures: Moses is not the only one of the

inspired writers who speaks of leprosy, and more than once our blessed

Lord, on his journeys through Judea, exercised his charity and showed

his goodness by curing lepers who threw themselves at his feet,

entreating mercy. Job was struck by the hand of God with this scourge,

and has described it with marvellous beauty and pathos. He was forsaken

by his wife and his friends in his humiliation and suffering; they

shrank from him, saying that he must have committed some fearful crime

to have drawn upon himself so heavy a chastisement. A similar horror of

this disease existed among all nations. In Pérsia no citizen infected by

it could enter a village or have any intercourse with his

fellow-creatures, while a stranger was driven pitilessly forth into the

desert (Herod., _Clio_).

Æschines, giving an account of his sea voyage, states that, the ship

putting into Delos, they found the inhabitants suffering from leprosy,

and the travellers hurried away in fear and trembling, lest they

themselves should fall victims.

In Egypt Pliny[30] says that when this evil attacked kings, it was most

unfortunate for their people; for to cure them baths of warm human blood

were believed to be efficacious.

Footnote 30:

_Hist. Nat._, l. xxvi. c. i. proem.

In later days we find that lepers have been the victims of most unjust

and cruel laws among almost all nations. Thus, among the Lombards, in

643, one law ordered not only that lepers should be confined to isolated

localities, but declared them also civilly dead, deprived them of their

property, and confided them to the charity of the public. Several

provinces in France adopted this law with some qualifications. In

certain localities even the posterity of lepers were excluded—as at

Calais—from all rights of citizenship, and in 757 an ordinance of Pepin

le Bref permitted divorce between a healthy wife and leprous husband, or

a healthy husband and leprous wife. Charlemagne augmented the severity

of laws already so hard. He ordered lepers to live apart, permitted them

no social intercourse whatever, and finally, as their crowning misery,

these unfortunates saw themselves thrust on one side by the church

itself from communion with the faithful.

At the time of the separation of the lepers from family, home, and

friends, the church pronounced over them the prayers for the dead.

Masses were said for the repose of their souls, and, to complete the

mournful illusion, a handful of earth was thrown upon their bodies. They

were forbidden to enter any church or any place where food was prepared,

nor could they dip their hands in a running stream, nor accept food or

anything handed them, save with a fork or the end of a stick. They were

compelled, moreover, to wear a particular costume that could be seen and

recognized from afar off, and, under threats of severe penalties for

disobedience, were ordered to ring a little bell to announce their

coming. More recently, in France, lepers herded together, in secluded

places, which were called _léproseries_. In the year 1244 there were

throughout all Christendom 19,000 of these léproseries, and in France

alone 2,000.

There these poor wretched creatures passed their desolate lives,

separated from the outside world, without occupation or interest, save

that of watching the slow but sure progress of their companions toward

the inevitable and horrible death that was impending.

In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, says Mgr. Gaume,

leprosy extended its ravages over a large part of the world. The

pestilence attacked suddenly all parts of the body at once, drying it

up, as it were; and, like the plague, leprosy was unquestionably most

contagious. To receive the infection it was but necessary to touch the

clothes or the furniture, or even to breathe the tainted air;

consequently, every one fled in dismay at the sight of a leper. They

were driven from the vicinity of towns, and they were seen from afar

wandering over the fields and hillsides like living corpses, while at a

distance they were compelled to signal their approach by a rattle or

bell. Abandoned by the whole world, and a prey to horrible sufferings,

they called on death to deliver them.

The King of France, anxious to protect his subjects from exposure to

this disease, formed a complete code of laws for lepers. “Every person,”

said M. Deseimeris in his _Medical Dictionary_, “who is suspected of

leprosy must submit to a thorough examination by a surgeon. The

suspicion confirmed, a magistrate takes possession of the individual to

dispose of him according to law. If he be a stranger, he must be sent at

once to the place of his birth, bestowing first upon him, however, the

poor gifts of a hat, a gray mantle, a beggar’s wallet, and a small keg.

The poor creature, on arriving at his native village, must carefully

avoid all contact with his fellow-creatures.” Even the church rejects

him. Each town or village was compelled to build for his reception a

small wooden house on four piles, and, after the death of its inmate,

the house, with all that was in it, was consigned to the flames.

As the number of lepers was constantly increasing, the erection of so

many of these small tenements became a source of great expense. It was

therefore finally decided to unite them under one roof, and give them

the name of a léproserie. In this way their support became less onerous,

while their seclusion was far greater, and their diet and medical

treatment was easier of regulation.

Louis VIII. published in 1226 a code of special laws for the government

of léproseries. These laws were intolerably severe. A leper once

incarcerated within the walls of a lazaretto incurred the penalty of

death if he passed over the threshold again; scaffolds were erected

where they could be seen from the hospital, thus keeping this fact ever

in the remembrance and before the eyes of the miserable inmates.

I have recounted these details to demonstrate the utter horror with

which leprosy was regarded. It must not be supposed that only the

ignorant and superstitious were overwhelmed by foolish dread, or that it

was an idle prejudice, a relic of barbarism; for in the nineteenth

century we witness the same horror, and here on our own shores encounter

the same rigorous legislation. We should also find the lepers as uncared

for, as shunned and neglected, as they were of old, were it not for the

Catholic Church, which, with its customary zeal in all labors of charity

and mercy, aroused in the hearts of a humble priest and a few weak nuns

the wish and determination to consecrate their lives to the service of

this most miserable class of their fellow-creatures.

The first settlements on the Miramichi River were made after the treaty

of Utrecht in 1718 by the subjects of France—Basques, Bretons, and

Normans. Under the administration of Cardinal Fleury stringent measures

were taken to encourage and protect these colonies. After a time, when

their prosperity seemed secure, a certain Pierre Beauhair was sent from

France as intendant to rule and arrange matters for the French

government. He erected a small villa on a point of land that since his

death bears his name, at the mouth of the northwestern branch of the

Miramichi River. The island opposite l’Ile Beauhair was strongly

defended, and tradition states that the intendant built within the walls

of the fort a foundry for cannon, and other buildings for the

manufacture of munitions of war.

During the summer of 1757 the colony on the Miramichi suffered much from

the war between France and England, which sadly interrupted their

traffic in fish and furs. Consequently, the following winter was one of

great suffering, and many of the colonists died of hunger. Two transport

ships, laden with provision and supplies of all kinds, were sent out by

the French government in 1758, but both vessels were captured by the

English fleet then assisting at the siege of Louisburg.

While these colonies were enduring suspense and starvation a French

vessel, called the _Indienne_, from Morlaix, was wrecked at the mouth of

the Miramichi near the “Baie des Vents”—a name now corrupted into “Baie

du Vin.” Tradition states that this ship, before coming to America, had

traded in the Levant, and that a large number of bales of old clothes

had been taken on board at Smyrna. The clothes were strewn upon the

beach after the vessel went to pieces, were seized by the inhabitants,

dried, and afterwards worn. However this may be, it is certain that from

that date arose a most terrible pestilence among the Canadians, who were

already decimated by famine. The first victim of this malady was M. de

Beauhair, and he, with eight hundred others, it is said, were buried at

Point Beauhair. The survivors abandoned Miramichi and fled, some to

l’Ile Saint-Jean—now Prince Edward’s Island—and the greater number

settled along the western coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they

formed scattered hamlets under the names of Niguaweck, Tracadie, and

Pokemouche, combined in one parish—that of Caraquet.

For eighty years, although it was known that isolated instances of

leprosy existed in the different colonies, they attracted little or no

public attention up to 1817, when a woman named Ursule Laudry died of

the disease.

An account written by one of the nuns of l’Hôtel Dieu attributes a

somewhat different origin to this scourge. This good sister writes that

the disease was carried to New Brunswick in 1758 by a ship from the

Levant; the vessel having made the port late in the autumn, the crew

were paid off and dispersed, many seeking a temporary home in Caraquet.

Unfortunately, this crew was afflicted by a malady that was unsuspected

by any one. The colonists were kind to the sailors; the women washed

their clothes and in this way contracted the disease, which was

transmitted from one to another and from father to son, and in time

acquired its peculiar features. Hamilton Gordon, the Lieutenant-Governor

of New Brunswick in 1862, has assigned a similar origin to the malady in

an interesting pamphlet entitled _Wilderness Journeys in New Brunswick

in 1862-3_.

“A vague and uncertain tradition exists,” he says, “that somewhere

about a hundred years ago a French vessel was wrecked on the coast

of Gloucester or Northumberland, and that among the crew were some

sailors from Marseilles, who in the Levant had contracted the

hideous leprosy of the East, the veritable elephantiasis Græcorum;

however this may be, it is beyond all question that for many years a

part of the French population of these two counties has been sorely

afflicted by this mysterious disease, or by one that closely

resembles it, and which may be, indeed, the form of leprosy so well

known on the coast of Norway.”

“It is difficult,” says in his turn M. Gauvreau, _curé_ of Tracadie

and chaplain of the lazaretto, in a letter published in the _Journal

de Montreal_, November 30, 1859—“it is difficult to persuade one’s

self that this malady could be the spontaneous generation of the

locality where it now exists. The geographical position of Tracadie

is on the sea-coast, with the fresh currents of a river close at

hand, the waters of which are salt for eight or nine miles above the

mouth. The soil in some portions is sandy, in others clayey; in the

vicinity are no marshes, no stagnant water, consequently no

injurious malaria. These facts seem to justify the opinion which I

have long held, and which as yet I see no reason to change, that the

poisonous virus was not the growth of this spot, but was brought

here by some traveller.”

These traditions are, in the main, probably correct as to the origin of

the scourge in this Canadian village. The inhabitants of other villages

than Tracadie subsist almost entirely on fish, are equally poor, equally

ill-fed and insufficiently clothed, living in the same damp and foggy

atmosphere; but it is only in Tracadie or its vicinity that a leper is

to be seen. The inhabitants of Labrador and Newfoundland eat fish almost

exclusively, and live amid similar climatic conditions, paying no more

enlightened attention to hygienic laws, and yet the “maladie de

Tracadie” does not attack or decimate them.

From the date of the introduction of this disease into the village it

increased slowly but steadily until 1817, when certain precautions began

to be taken; but not until 1844 did the authorities try any active

precautions. In that year a medical board was organized, who made a

report of their investigations to the government, and later in the same

year an act of the Provincial Legislature was passed, renewed and

amended in 1850. It authorized the lieutenant-governor to establish a

health committee. This committee recommended the erection of a lazaretto

on l’Ile de Sheldrake, an isolated spot in the middle of the Miramichi

River eighteen miles above Chatham. “Whoever was found to be

unquestionably tainted by the disease,” says the article, “must be torn

from his family, using force if needful. The husband must be taken from

his wife, the mother from her children, the child from its parents,

whenever the first symptom of leprosy declares itself. An eternal

farewell to all they hold most dear must be said, and the poor creature

is sent to the lazaretto. It often happens that a leper refuses to go

quietly; he is then dragged by ropes like a beast to the shambles—for

none is willing to lay a finger upon him. Often the unhappy beings are

driven with blows to the very door of the lazaretto.” Things, of course,

could not long remain in this brutal condition. The lepers, driven to

desperation by their physical and mental sufferings, by a wild longing

for the liberty denied them, and for the sight of their loved ones,

sometimes effected their escape.

An attempt was finally made to ameliorate their condition, and in 1847

the lazaretto was removed to the spot where it now stands, about half a

mile from the parish church of Tracadie. A large tract of land was here

purchased by the government, and the present building was erected,

surrounded by a wooden wall twenty feet high, set thick with nails to

hinder the escape of the lepers. The windows of the lazaretto were

barred heavily with iron, and thus added to the melancholy aspect of the

building. The lepers, weary of the revolting resemblance to a prison,

themselves tore most of the bars away, and, when the nuns arrived there

they at once ordered the remainder to be removed.

In 1868 the nuns from the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal took possession of the

lazaretto of Tracadie. For some few years a strong necessity had been

felt for the reorganization of this institution. A wish was expressed

that it could be placed under the care of the Hospital Nuns. I have now

before me a letter from the Rt. Rev. James Rogers, Bishop of Chatham, in

which is given an account, for the _Conseil Central de la Propagation de

la Foi_ at Paris, of the steps that had been taken up to December, 1866:

“Since my first visit to the establishment,” says the bishop, “I

have always thought that it would be most desirable to place it

under the care of the Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu, who would watch

over the souls and the bodies of these sufferers, whose number

varies from twenty to thirty. But so many great and pressing needs

claimed my attention—while my resources were insufficient even for

the alleviation of physical suffering, and also, perhaps, for the

spiritual wants of certain souls—I was compelled to postpone my

plans in regard to the lazaretto, until my diocese could satisfy the

religious needs of its inhabitants by an increase of the number of

priests, and by the erection of chapels in places where they had

long and earnestly been demanded, and also by the establishment of

schools for the Christian education of youth. Another obstacle to

the immediate execution of my intention was the lukewarm approbation

and co-operation of the government. The total lack of suitable

lodging for the nuns, as well as the uncertainty whether the

Protestant element which pervades our government and our legislature

would be willing to grant us funds or permit us to make needful

preparations for the sisters to take charge of the lazaretto—all

conspired as hindrances to my desires.

“Last spring I petitioned the government, but political changes

interfered, and no steps were taken until now. This is the reason

why the worthy _curé_ of Tracadie continues to be the only priest

who administers the consolations of religion to that portion of his

flock so bitterly afflicted.”

The steps taken by Bishop Rogers seem to have been singularly

felicitous. He obtained from Bishop Bourget the assistance of the nuns

of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, and the government appears to have

regarded with favorable eyes this regeneration of the lazaretto, which

produced in a very brief period of time the best possible results upon

the patients. Abbé Gauvreau draws a sad picture of the state in which

these poor creatures lived before the nuns went to their assistance. In

a letter dated April 28, 1869, addressed to the mother-superior of the

Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, he says:

“I am absolutely incapable of describing the state of abject misery

in which our poor lepers passed their lives before the coming of the

sisters. I can only say that from the hour of their transfer from

l’Ile aux Bec-scies (Sheldrake) at the entrance of the river

Miramichi, discord, revolt, and insubordination toward the

government, divisions and quarrels among themselves, made the

history of their daily lives. The walls rang with horrible

blasphemies, and the hospital seemed like a den of thieves.”

The Board of Health spared nothing to make the lepers comfortable. Good

food, and abundance of it, appropriate clothing, and careful medical

attendance were liberally provided; but, in spite of these efforts, the

hearts of these poor creatures were as diseased as their bodies. Some of

them revolted against the summons of death, notwithstanding the constant

exhortations of the chaplain, and even after their last communion clung

strongly to the futile hope of life. Of this number was one who had been

warned by the physician that his hours were numbered and that a priest

should be summoned. His friends, and those of his relatives who were

within the walls of the lazaretto, implored him to prepare for death.

“Let me be!” he cried. “I know what I am about!”

About nine o’clock in the evening he begged his companions in misery not

to watch at his bedside, and, believing himself able to drive away

Death, who was hurrying toward him with rapid strides, insisted on

playing a game of cards. The game had hardly begun, however, when the

cards dropped from his hands and he fell back on his bed. Before

assistance could reach him all was over.

With the arrival of the nuns a new order of things began. Without

entering into a detailed account of all the labors performed by the

sisters since their arrival, it is enough to state that cleanliness and

order prevail and true charity shows itself everywhere. The poor

creatures, who formerly revelled in filth and disorder, now see about

them decency and cleanliness. They are induced to be submissive and

obedient by the hourly example of the sisters; their modesty and

reserve, their virtue and careful speech, their watchful care and

devotion, their tender attention to the sick, teach the inmates of the

hospital the best of lessons. It is easy to imagine with what joy the

poor lepers welcomed the nuns who came to consecrate their lives to this

service, and also to understand with what affection and respect these

holy women are regarded.

“The enclosed grounds of the lazaretto,” says Governor Gordon in his

_Wilderness Journeys_, “consist of a green meadow three or four

acres in extent. Within these limits the lepers are permitted to

wander at their will. Until recently they were confined to the

narrowest limits—a mere yard about the lazaretto. I entered these

dreary walls, accompanied by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Chatham,

by the secretary of the Board of Health, by the resident physician,

and by the Catholic priest of the village, who is also the chaplain

of the institution.

“Within the enclosure are several small wooden buildings, separated

from each other, consisting of the kitchen, laundry, etc. A

bath-house has recently been added to these, which will be a source

of infinite comfort to the patients. The hospital contains two

larger halls—one devoted to the men, the other to the women. Each

room has a stove and a table with chairs about it, while the beds

are ranged against the wall. These halls are both well lighted and

ventilated, and at the time of my inspection were perfectly clean

and fresh. At the end of these halls is a small chapel arranged in

such a way that the patients of both sexes are able to hear Mass

without meeting each other. Through certain openings they also

confess to the priest and receive the holy communion.”

Many changes in the interior arrangements of the lazaretto followed the

arrival of the sisters. The patients and the nuns now hear Mass at the

same time. The male patients occupy two rooms twenty-five feet square,

while similar apartments above are reserved for the females. The grounds

of the lazaretto have also been enlarged.

“Before giving the characteristics of this appalling disease,” says

Mr. Gordon, “I wish to reply to a question which you undoubtedly

wish to ask: How is this malady propagated? No one knows. It seems

not to be hereditary, since in one family the father or mother may

be attacked, while the children entirely escape. In others the

children are leprous and the parents healthy. In 1856 or '57 a woman

named Domitile Brideau, wife of François Robichaud, was so covered

with leprosy that her body was one mass of corruption. While in this

state she gave birth to a daughter, whom she nursed—the mother

shortly afterward dying in the hospital. Meanwhile, the child was

absolutely healthy, and remained until she was three years of age in

the hospital without any unfavorable symptoms being developed. The

girl grew to womanhood and married, and to-day she and her children

are perfectly healthy. Many similar examples might be cited.”

This malady, then, can hardly be contagious, since in one family husband

or wife may be attacked, while the other goes unscathed. There is now at

Tracadie a man, François Robichaud by name, who has had three wives; the

two first perished of leprosy, the third is now under treatment at the

lazaretto—the husband in the meanwhile enjoying perfect health. In one

family two or more children are lepers, while the others are untainted.

One servant-woman resided for eight years in the hospital, ate and drank

with the patients, yet has never shown any symptoms of the disease. The

laundress of the institution lives under its roof, and has done so for

two years; she is a widow, her husband having died of the scourge, she

being his sole nurse during his illness. She is in perfect health. It

has also happened more than once that persons suspected of leprosy, and

placed in the hospital, after remaining there several years and

developing no further symptoms, are discharged as “whole.”

All the patients now in the hospital agree that the disease is

communicated by touch, and each has his own theory as to where he was

exposed to it—either by sleeping with some one who had it, or by eating

and drinking with such.

I am strongly persuaded that this disease, whatever may be its origin,

is greatly aggravated by the kind of life led by the natives of

Tracadie, who are all fishermen or sailors. Their food is fish,

generally herring, and their only vegetables turnips and potatoes. Such

is their extreme poverty that there are not ten families in Tracadie who

ever touch bread.

Let us follow Governor Gordon into the lazaretto.

“At the time of my visit,” he says, “there were twenty-three

patients, thirteen men and ten women. They were all French and all

Catholics, belonging to the lower class. They were of all ages, and

had reached various stages of the disease. One old man, whose

features were distorted out of all semblance to humanity, and who

had apparently entered his second childhood, could hardly be

sufficiently aroused from his apathy to receive the benediction of

the bishop, before whom all the others sank on their knees.

“There were also young people who, to a casual observer, seemed

vigorous and in health; while, saddest of all sights was that of the

young children condemned to spend their lives in this terrible

place. Above all was I touched by the sight of three small boys from

eleven to fifteen years of age. To an inexperienced observer they

had much the look of other children of their own age and class.

Their eyes were bright and intelligent, but the fatal symptoms that

had sufficed to separate them from home and kindred were written on

their persons, and they were immured for life in the lazaretto.

“The greatest sympathy must naturally be felt for these younger

victims when one thinks of the possible length of years that

stretches before them, hopeless and cheerless; to grow to manhood

with the capacities, passions, and desires of manhood, and condemned

to live from youth to middle age, from middle age to decrepitude

possibly, with no other society than that of their companions in

misery. Utterly without occupations, amusements, or interests, shut

off from all outside resources, their only excitement is found in

the arrival of a new disease-stricken patient, their only occupation

that of watching their companions dying before their eyes by inches!

“But few of the patients could read, and those who could were

without books. There was evident need of some organization that

might furnish the patients with employment. Both mind and body

required occupation. Under these circumstances I was by no means

surprised to learn that in the last stages of the disease the mind

was generally much weakened.

“The suffering of the majority of the patients was by no means

severe, and I was informed that one of the characteristic features

of the malady was profound insensibility to pain. One individual was

pointed out to me, who by mistake had laid his arm and open hand on

a red-hot stove, and who knew nothing of it until the odor of

burning flesh aroused his attention.”

After Governor Gordon’s visit the condition of the lepers was much

improved. The sisters taught the young to read and employed them in

making shoes and other articles.

The investigations of Governor Gordon, although made during a brief

inspection of the lazaretto, are correct as far as they go, but are far

from complete. The Abbé Gauvreau has been for eighteen years chaplain of

the hospital. He has watched keenly the progress of the disease in over

a hundred cases. He has noted every symptom of its slow and fatal march.

He has been present at the deathbeds of many of the lepers, and he

recounts with horror the terrible scenes he has witnessed.

“Without wishing to impose my opinions on you,” he says, “I cannot

resist the conviction that, apart from divine will, this scourge of

fallen man is a most subtle poison introduced into the human body by

transmission or by direct contact, or even, perhaps, by prolonged

cohabitation.

“But whichever of these suppositions is the more nearly correct,

when once the poison is fairly within the system its action is so

latent and insidious that for some years—two, four, or even more—the

unfortunate Naaman or Giezi perceives in himself no change either in

constitution or sensations. His sleep is as refreshing and his

respiration as free as before. In a word, the vital organs perform

all their functions and the various members are unshorn of their

vigor and energy.

“At this period of the disease the skin loses its natural color, its

healthy appearance, and is replaced by a deadly whiteness from head

to foot. This whiteness looks as if the malady had taken possession

of the mucous membrane and had displaced the fluids necessary to its

functions. Without knowing if the leper of the Orient possesses

other external indications, it is certain that in this stage the

malady of Tracadie is precisely similar to the leprosy of the

ancients—I mean in the whiteness of the skin. In the second stage

the skin becomes yellow. In the third and last it turns to a deep

red; it is often purple, and sometimes greenish, in hue. In fact,

the people of Tracadie, like myself, are so familiar with the early

symptoms of the disease that they rarely fall into a mistake.

“Only one death has ever occurred in the first stage—that of Cyrille

Austin. All the other cases have passed on to the second or third

stages before death; and, strangely enough, it has been remarked by

the patients themselves that the treatment of Dr. La Bellois had

always a much better chance of success during the third period than

during the second.

“At first the victim feels devouring thirst, great feverish action,

and a singular trembling in every limb; stiffness and a certain

weakness in the joints; a great weight on the chest like that caused

by sorrow; a rush of blood to the brain; fatigue and drowsiness, and

other disagreeable symptoms which now escape my memory. The entire

nervous system is then struck, as it were, with insensibility to

such a degree that a sharp instrument or a needle, or even the blade

of a knife, buried in the fleshy parts or thrust through the tendons

and cartilage, causes the leper little or no pain. Some poor

creature, with calm indifference, will place his arm or leg on a

mass of burning wood and tar, and let it remain there until the

entire limb, bones and all, is consumed; yet the leper feels no

pain, and may sleep through it all as quietly as if in his bed.”

In another letter the abbé gives the following example of this

astonishing insensibility:

“One of these afflicted beings who died at the lazaretto, and to

whom I administered the last sacraments, lay down to sleep near a

hot fire; in his slumbers he thrust one arm and hand into the

flames, but continued to sleep. The overpowering smell of burning

flesh awakened one of his companions, who succeeded in saving his

life.”

One of the nuns says: “Since we reached Tracadie two of the patients

have burned their hands severely, and were totally unconscious of having

done so until I dressed the wounds myself.” In regard to this torpidity

of the system, M. Gauvreau remarks that it is but temporary, but he

knows not its duration; and the nun adds that the torpidity is not

invariable with all the patients, and with some only in a portion of the

body. In certain individuals it is only in the legs; in others, in the

hands alone; but all complain of numbness like that of paralysis.

“By degrees,” says M. Gauvreau, “the unnatural whiteness of the skin

disappears, and spots of a light yellow are to be seen. These spots

in some cases are small and about the size of a dollar-piece. When

of this character, they appear at first with a certain regularity of

arrangement, and in places corresponding with each other, as on the

two arms and shoulders—more generally, however, on the breast. They

are distinct, but by degrees the poison makes its way throughout the

vitals; the spots enlarge, approach each other, and, when at last

united, the body of the sick man becomes a mass of corruption. Then

the limbs swell, afterward portions of the body, the hands, and the

feet; and when the skin can bear no further tension it breaks, and

running sores cover the patient, who is repulsive and disgusting to

the last degree.

“The entire skin of the body becomes extremely tender, and is

covered with an oily substance that exudes from the pores and looks

like varnish. The skin and flesh between the thumb and forefinger

dry away, the ends of the fingers, the feet, and hands dwindle to

nothingness, and sometimes the joints separate, and the members drop

off without pain and often without the knowledge of the patient.

“The most noble part of the being created in the image of God—the

face—is marred as much as the body by this fell disease. It is

generally excessively swollen. The chin, cheeks, and ears are

usually covered by tubercles the size of peas. The eyes seem to

start from their sockets, and are glazed by a sort of cataract that

often produces complete blindness. The skin of the forehead thickens

and swells, acquiring a leaden hue, which sometimes extends over the

entire countenance, while in other cases the whole face is suffused

with scarlet. The explanation of these different symptoms may be

found, of course, in the variety of temperaments—sanguine, bilious,

or lymphatic. This face, once so smooth and fair, has become seamed

and furrowed. The lips are two appalling ulcers—the upper lip much

swollen and raised to the base of the nose, which has entirely

disappeared; while the under lip hangs over the chin, which shines

from the tension of the skin. Can a more frightful sight be

imagined? In some cases the lips are parched and drawn up like a

purse puckered on strings. This deformity is the more to be

regretted is it precludes the afflicted from participation in the

holy communion. Leprosy—that of Tracadie, at least—completes its

ravages on the internal organs of its victims. It attacks now the

larynx and all the bronchial ramifications; they become obstructed

and filled with tubercles, so that the unhappy patient can find no

relief in any position. His respiration becomes gradually more and

more impeded, until he is threatened with suffocation. I have been

present at the last struggles of most of these afflicted mortals. I

hope that I may never be called upon to witness similar scenes.

Excuse me from the details. If I undertook them my courage would

give out; for I assure you that many of you would have fainted. Let

me simply add that these lepers generally die in convulsions,

panting for air; frequently rushing to the door to breathe; and,

returning, they fling themselves on their pallets in despair. The

thought of their sighs and sobs, the remembrance of their tears,

almost breaks my heart, and their prayers for succor ring constantly

in my ears: 'O my God! have mercy on me! have mercy on me!’

“At last comes the supreme moment of this lingering torture, and the

patient dies of exhaustion and suffocation. All is over, and another

Lazarus lies in Abraham’s bosom!”

After the above vivid picture of this loathsome disease we naturally ask

if the evil be such that no medical skill can combat it with success.

The Hospital Nun in the infirmary of the lazaretto tells us all that she

has yet learned upon this point.

In 1849 and 1850 Dr. La Bellois, a celebrated French physician residing

at Dalhousie, treated the lepers for six months and claimed to have

cured ten of them: T. Goutheau, Charles Comeau, T. Brideau, A. Benoit,

L. Sonier, Ed. Vienneau, Mme. A. Sonier, M. Sonier, Mme. Ferguson,

Melina Lavoie. “All the above cases are now quite well, and the

treatment I adopted was entirely for syphilitic disease, thus

establishing without any doubt the nature of the disease” (extract from

La Bellois’ report, Feb. 12, 1850).

Meanwhile, from the report of the secretary of the Board of Health—Mr.

James Davidson—we gather that all the sick above mentioned returned

after a time to the hospital; that they died there, with the exception

of three, of whom two died in their own houses and the third still

lives. Of this one Dr. Gordon, of Bathurst, says: “The disease is slow

in its progress, but it is sure, and the fatal termination cannot be far

off.”