PART I.

Once upon a time, some sixty years ago, on one of the bleakest points of

the coast of Picardy, high perched like a light-house overhanging the

sea, there was a building called the Fortress. You may see the ruins of

it yet. It had been an abbey in olden times, and credible tales were

told of a bearded abbot who “walked” at high water on the western

parapet when the moon was full. One wing of the Fortress was a ruin at

the time this story opens; the other had braved the stress of time and

tempest, and looked out over the sea defiant as the rock on which it

stood. The Caboffs lived in it. Jean Caboff was a wiry, lithe old man of

seventy—a seafaring man every inch of him. His wealth was boundless,

people said, and they also said that he had gained it as a pirate on the

high seas. There was no proof that this was true; but every one believed

it, and the belief invested Jean Caboff with a sort of wicked prestige

which was not without its fascination in the eyes of the peaceful,

unadventurous population of Gondriac. Caboff had a wife and three sons;

the two eldest were away fighting with Bonaparte on the Rhine; Marcel,

the youngest, was at home. A shy, awkward lad, he kept aloof from the

village boys, never went bird’s-nesting or fishing with them, but moped

like an owl up in his weather-beaten home. They were unsocial people,

the Caboffs; they never asked any one inside their door; but the few who

accidentally penetrated within the Fortress told wonderful stories of

what they saw there; they talked of silken hangings and Persian carpets,

and mirrors and pictures in golden frames, and marble men and maidens

writhing and dancing in fantastic attitudes; of costly cabinets and

jewelled vases, until the old corsair’s abode was believed to be a sort

of enchanted castle. The stray visitors were too dazzled to notice

certain things that jarred on this profuse magnificence. They did not

notice that the damp had eaten away the gilded cornices, and the rats

nibbled freely at the rich carpets, or that Jean Caboff smoked his pipe

in a high-backed wooden chair, while Mme. Caboff cut out her home-spun

linen on a stout deal table, the two forming a quaint and not

unpicturesque contrast to the silken splendor of their surroundings.

Some five miles inland, beyond a wide stretch of gorse-grown moor, rose

a wood, chiefly of pine-trees, and within the wood, a castle—a fine old

Gothic castle where the De Gondriacs had dwelt for centuries. The castle

and its owners, their grandeur and state and power, were the pride of

the country, every peasant along the coast for fifty miles knew the

history of the lords of Gondriac as well as, mayhap sometimes better

than, he knew his catechism. The family at present consisted of Rudolf,

Marquis de Gondriac, and his son Hermann. The Marquis was a hale man of

sixty; Hermann a handsome lad of eighteen, who was at college now in

Paris, so that M. le Marquis had no company but his books and his gun in

the long autumn days. He was a silent, haughty man, who lived much alone

and seldom had friends to stay with him. When Hermann was at home the

aspect of the place changed; the château opened its doors with ancient

hospitality, and laughter and music woke up the echoes of the old halls,

and the village was astir as if a royal progress had halted on the

plain; but when Hermann departed things fell back into the stagnant life

he had stirred for a moment. It was natural that the young man’s

holidays were eagerly looked forward to at Gondriac. But one August

came, and, instead of returning home, Hermann joined a regiment that was

on its way to the frontier. He went off in high-hearted courage as to

the fulfilment of his boyish dreams. M. le Marquis, who had himself

served in the guards of the Comte d’Artois, was proud of his son, of his

soldier-like bearing and manly spirit, and kept the anguish of his own

heart well out of sight as he bade the boy farewell. “I will come back a

marshal of France, father,” was Hermann’s good-by.

Not long after his departure tidings were received of the death of

Hugues Caboff, the old pirate’s eldest son. He had fallen gloriously on

the field of battle; but glory is a sorry salve for broken hearts, and

there was weeping in the Fortress that day—a mother weeping and refusing

to be comforted. Old Jean Caboff bore his grief with an attempt at

stoicism that went far to soften men’s hearts towards him—farther than

his gold, which they said was ill-got, and his charity, which they

called ostentation.

“Who may tell what will come next?” said Peltran, the host of the

village inn.

“They say that M. le Marquis has been over to see the Caboffs,” said a

customer, who dropped in to discuss the event. People felt for the

Caboffs, but, there was no denying it, this sad news was a break in the

dull monotony of Gondriac life.

“I saw his carriage at the foot of the cliff,” said Peltran; “he stayed

full fifteen minutes up at the Fortress. Père Caboff conducted him down

to his carriage, and Marcel stood watching them till it was out of

sight.”

“It must have consoled them mightily to have M. le Marquis come in and

sit talking to them in that neighborly fashion,” remarked lame Pierre, a

hero who had lost a leg and an eye at Aboukir; “that, and poor Hugues

being killed by a cannon-ball under the emperor’s own eye, ought to

cheer up the Caboffs wonderfully.”

“Ay, ay,” said Peltran; “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”

“M. le Marquis looked as down-hearted as if he had lost a child of his

own,” observed Pierre; “may be he was thinking whose turn it might be

next.”

“There goes Mère Virginie with the little one!” said Peltran; and all

present turned their heads towards the window and looked out with an

expression of interest, as if the objects in view were a rare and

pleasant sight. And yet it was one that met them in their daily walks by

the roadside and on the cliff—the little old lady in her nun-like dress,

with her keen gray eyes and sweet smile, and the dark-eyed,

elfin-looking child whose name was Alba. Alba was always singing.

“Is not your little throat tired, my child?” said Virginie, as the

blithe voice kept on soaring and trilling by her side.

“I am never tired singing, petite mère! Do the angels tire of it

sometimes, I wonder?”

“Nay, the angels cannot tire; they are perfectly happy.”

“And I, petite mère—am I not perfectly happy?”

“Is there nothing you long for, nothing you would be the happier for

having?”

“Oh! many things,” cried Alba: “I wish I were grown up; I wish I were as

beautiful as the flowers; I wish I had a voice like the nightingale—like

a whole woodful of nightingales; I wish I lived in a castle; I wish I

were so rich that I might make all the poor people happy in Gondriac; I

wish everybody loved me as you do. Oh! I should like them all to adore

me, petite mère,” cried the child, clasping her little hands with

energy.

“Nay, my child, we must adore none but God; woe to us if we do!” said

Virginie, and her face contracted as with a sudden pain. “But it seems

to me, with so many wishes unfulfilled, you are a long way off from

perfect happiness yet?”

“But I am always dreaming that they are fulfilled, and that does as

well, you know.”

Yes, perhaps it did, Virginie thought, as she bent a wistful smile on

the young dreamer’s face. Alba’s face was full of dreams—beautiful and

passionate, changeful as the sunbeams, tender and strong, pleading and

imperious by turns. How would the dreams evolve themselves from out that

yearning, untamed spirit that shone with a dangerous light through the

dark eyes? Would they prove a mirage, luring her on to some delusive

goal, and leaving her to perish amidst the golden waste of sands, or

would they be a loadstar beckoning faithfully to a safe and happy

destiny?

The child gave promise of rich fruit; her instincts were pure and true,

her heart was tender; but there was a wild element in her nature that

might easily overrule the rest, and work destruction to herself and

others, unless it were reduced in time to serviceable bondage. Who could

tell how this would be—whether the flower would keep its promise and

prove loyal to the bud, or whether the fair blossom would perish in its

bloom, and the tree bring forth a harvest of bitter fruit?

“It will be as you will it,” a wise man had said to Virginie; “the

destiny of the child is in the hands of the mother, as the course of the

ship is in the hands of the pilot.”

“Then Alba’s will be a happy one!” Virginie replied; “if love be

omnipotent here below, my treasure is safe.”

* * * * *

Hermann de Gondriac had won his epaulets. Every post brought letters to

the castle full of battles and victories; and though the young soldier

was modest in his warlike narrative, it was clear to M. le Marquis that

Hermann shone like a bright, particular star even in the galaxy of the

_grande armée_, and that now, as in olden times, France had reason to be

proud of the De Gondriacs. If the boy would but calm his rhapsodies

about Bonaparte! M. le Marquis’ patrician soul heaved at the sight of

this enthusiasm for the upstart who had muzzled his country and usurped

the crown of her lawful princes. But he was a great captain, and it was

natural, perhaps, that his soldiers should only think of this when he

led them in triumph from field to field.

So far Hermann bore a charmed life. Not so the Caboffs. One day, some

eight months after the death of the eldest son, the second brother

followed him—“killed gloriously on the immortal field of Wagram,” the

official letter announced in its most soothing style. M. le Marquis’

carriage was again seen standing at the foot of the cliff, and Peltran

informed the population that he had remained over twenty minutes this

time at the Fortress.

“M. le Marquis is a true _grand seigneur_, and never begrudges any

condescension for the good of his inferiors,” observed the old tory

host. “This time it was only Marcel who accompanied him down the cliff.

Old Caboff, they say, was more cut up by this last blow; still, grief

ought not to make a man selfish and unthankful.”

“Just so,” said lame Pierre, who sat puffing in the bar; “and it’s only

what those two poor lads had to expect; moreover, since a man must die,

better be killed in battle than die of the small-pox.”

“All the same, it’s hard on the folks up yonder,” remarked a bystander,

“and it isn’t their money-bags—no, nor even M. le Marquis’ good

words—that can comfort them to-day.”

Soon after this M. le Marquis left Gondriac rather suddenly one morning.

After reading his letters he ordered his valise to be got ready, and in

an hour he was posting to X——. There he dismissed the postchaise, and no

one knew whither or how he had continued his route. Gondriac busied

itself in endless conjectures as to the purport and destination of this

mysterious journey. Had M. le Marquis been summoned to Paris to assist

the government in some political crisis? Had he gone over to England to

pour oil on the angry waters there? For the king of England was full of

wrath and jealousy against the great emperor, and it was well known at

Gondriac that he was plotting foul play of some sort against France. Or,

again, could M. le Marquis’ hasty departure have had any reference to M.

le Comte? Perhaps M. le Comte was wounded or a prisoner; who could tell?

So the wiseacres gossiped, adopting first one theory, then another.

A month went by without throwing any light on the mystery. Then the cold

set in suddenly, and the gossips had something else to talk about. The

cruel winter was down upon them, catching them unprepared, so how were

they to face it? They were only in October, and the wind blew from the

northeast as if it were March, keeping up its shrill, hard whistle day

and night, and the sea, as if it were exasperated by the sound, roared

and foamed and thundered, till it seemed like a battle between them

which should make most noise. And it was hard to say who carried the

day.

One night, when the battle was at its fiercest, the wind shrieking its

loudest, and the sea rolling up its biggest waves, Alba sat at her

window watching the tempest with thrills of sympathetic terror. Virginie

thought the child was in bed and asleep hours ago, and she was glad of

it; for the storm drove right against the cottage, and burst upon it

every now and then with a violence that shook her in her chair and made

the walls rock. She was knitting away, but between the stitches many a

prayer went up for those who were out breasting the fury of the

hurricane. Suddenly a sound came up from the sea that made her start to

her feet with a cry. Boom! boom! boom! it came in quick succession,

leaping over the rocks with a sharp, dull crash. The door of the little

sitting-room was thrown open, and Alba stood on the threshold, white as

a ghost, her dark eyes gleaming. “It is the signal-gun, mother!” she

cried. “There is a ship in distress!”

“How came you up and dressed, child?” exclaimed Virginie.

“Mother, I could not sleep; I have been watching the storm. Hark! there

it is again. Why don’t they answer it? Let us hurry down to the beach.”

“Of what use would we be there, my child?” said Virginie. “Let us rather

kneel down and pray that help may come.”

“I cannot pray; I cannot stay here safe and quiet while that gun is

firing! Hark! there it is again. Oh! why don’t they make haste? Mother,

I must go! If you won’t come I will go by myself.” Alba, as she spoke,

threw back her head with the wild, free movement that Virginie knew, and

knew that she could no more control than she could check the flight of a

bird on the wing.

“I will go with you,” she cried, and, wrapping a cloak round Alba, she

flung another round herself, and then lighted her lantern, and the two

sallied forth into the storm, clinging fast to one another for support

until they got under the shelter of the overhanging cliff. Lights were

glancing here and there, hurrying down from the cottages, and a few

fishermen were already on the beach watching the distressed ship,

helpless and hopeless. Presently old Caboff appeared, holding his

lantern high above his head—an aged, shrivelled man, likely to be of

little use in this desperate strait; but such was the prestige which his

supposed antecedents lent him in the eyes of the panic-stricken group

that of one accord they turned to him as to the only one who might give

help or counsel. The night was pitch dark, and the blinding rain and

deafening roar of the breakers seemed to make the darkness thicker. It

was impossible to see the ship, except when the flash of the gun lighted

up the scene for a second. In the lull of the billows—that is, between

the heavy sweep of their rise and fall—the cries of the crew and the

whistle of the captain issuing his commands were faintly audible. How

was it with the ship? Had she struck upon a rock, or was she simply

going down before the storm? It was impossible to say. On finding that

her signals were heard and her position seen from land, she slackened

fire, and the gun only spoke every three minutes or so. In the interval

of unbroken darkness all conjecture as to the immediate cause of the

peril was at a stand-still. Caboff said she had struck upon a rock; the

others thought she was simply disabled and rolling in the trough of the

sea.

“Can we put out a boat? Who is for risking it?” said Caboff, pitching

his voice to a whistle that was heard distinctly above the roar of the

black breakers clamoring for the moon. There was no answer, but heads

were shaken and hands gesticulated in strong dissent.

Alba pushed her way into the midst of the group. “What does it matter

what the danger is? Go and help them!” she cried. “If you don’t help

them they will all perish!”

“We cannot help them, little one,” said an old fisherman. “No boat could

live in such a sea. See how the waves run up in mountains to our very

feet, and think what it must be out yonder! See, now the signal-gun

lights it up! Look! again it flashes.”

It was an appalling sight while the flashes lasted. The waves, rushing

back, left the side of the ship visible, and then, returning with a

tremendous sweep, broke over her and buried her out of sight in foam.

The stoutest heart might well recoil from venturing to put out in such a

sea.

“Naught but a miracle could do it,” said one of the oldest and hardiest

of the fishermen; “and we none of us can work miracles.”

“God can!” cried Alba, and she looked like the spirit of the storm, her

dark hair streaming, the light of courage and scorn and beseeching hope

illuminating her face with an unearthly beauty—“God can, and he does for

brave men; but ye are cowards!”

“Gently, little one; men will risk their lives to do some good, but it

is suicide to rush on death where there is not a chance of saving any

one.”

It was Caboff who spoke, and his words were followed by strong approval

from the rest.

“Ye are cowards!” repeated Alba passionately. “God would work the

miracle, if ye had courage and trusted him. See, there is the light

now!” She pointed to the sky, where, as if to justify her promise, the

moon came forth, and, scattering the darkness, shed her full blue

radiance over sea and shore. The storm was now at its height. The guns

had ceased to give tongue, and the crowd stood watching the scene in

mute horror, while the reverberating shore shook under their feet at

every shock of the furious billows.

Caboff was right. The ship had struck upon the Scissors, and, caught

between the two blade-like rocks, was rapidly falling to pieces. The

deck was deserted. The crew had either gone down into the cabin to meet

their fate or they had been swept away by the devouring waters. One man

alone was descried by Caboff’s keen eyes clinging to the broken mast. “I

will risk it!” cried the old pirate, after watching the wreck for some

minutes intently. “I will risk it; my old life may as well go out in

saving his. Come, boys, help me to push down a boat. I must have three

pairs of hands. Who is to the fore?”

A dozen men rushed forward; the boat was at the water’s edge in a

moment, and after a short scuffle—for now all were fighting for

precedence—three men got into it, and the others, putting their hands to

the stern, launched it with their might. A cheer rang out from the

shore; but close upon it came a cry, piercing and full of terror. It was

Marcel Caboff, who was flying down the cliff, and reached the scene just

as the boat put off.

“Father! father!” cried the lad, and he fell on his knees sobbing.

“Don’t be afraid, Marcel,” said Alba, falling on her knees beside him;

“he is a brave man, and God will protect him!”

Something in the tone of the child’s voice made him turn and look at

her, and as he caught sight of the beam of confidence, almost of

exultation, on her face, he felt his courage rise and despair was

silenced. But what meant that shout?

The boat was no sooner borne out on the receding wave than it went down

into the sea as if never to rise again; there was a moment of breathless

suspense, and then the wave rose and tossed it violently to and fro, and

flung it back upon the shore. The men who had launched it were still

upon the spot, and rushed forward to seize the boat and help the brave

fellows out again. One was so stunned by the force of the shock that he

became insensible and had to be lifted out. Old Caboff refused to stir.

“It is madness to try it again,” said his companions. “A cork could not

live in such a sea!”

“I will risk no man’s life,” said Caboff. “I will go alone. Here, my

men, lend a hand once more!”

There was a clamor of expostulation from all present; but the old man

was not to be moved.

“I will go with you, father,” said Marcel, stepping in and seizing an

oar.

“You here, lad! And your mother?”

“She sent me to look after you. _Allons! mes amis_; push us out and say

God speed us!”

But there was now a third figure in the boat. “Now we are three, and God

will make a fourth!” cried Alba; then, turning to the men, “Push us

out,” she said, “and then go home, lest ye take cold here in the rain!”

“Good God! the child is mad,” cried Virginie, rushing forward to snatch

her away. But it was too late; a heavy wave rolled in and made the boat

heave suddenly, which the men seeing, with one impulse put their hands

to it, till the breaker washed under it and swept it out to sea once

more. Virginie stood there like one turned to stone, watching in dumb

horror the boat drifting away on to the seething waters. Alba was on her

knees, her arms outstretched, her face uplifted in the moonlight,

transfigured into an apparition of celestial beauty—a heaven-sent

messenger from Him who can unchain the storm and bid the winds and waves

be still. The rough men, subdued by the sublimity of the scene, knelt

down like little children and began to pray.

Gallantly the little boat rode on, now drowned out of sight, now rising

lightly on the crest of the wave, while the sea, as if enraged at so

much daring, redoubled in fury and pitched it to and fro like a ball.

Old Caboff, grown young again, worked away like a sea-horse. Many a time

had he and Death looked into each other’s faces, but never closer than

now; and it was not the old seaman who quailed. Marcel, feeble Marcel,

seemed endowed with the energy and strength of an athlete. They were now

close upon the sinking ship; but the peril grew as they approached it.

There was a lull for one moment, as if in very weariness the hurricane

drew a breath; then a huge wave rose up like a mighty water-tower,

oscillated for a moment like a house about to fall, and, dashing against

the boat, swallowed it up in an avalanche of foam. Five seconds of

mortal suspense followed; not a gasp broke the horrible silence on the

beach. But the boat reappeared and rode bravely on to within a stone’s

throw of the ship. The solitary man on deck was signalling to them with

one hand, while with the other he clung to the mast. At last the little

skiff was close under the bows. Old Caboff threw up a rope-ladder; it

missed its aim, once, twice, three times. “How the old fellow is

swearing! I can see it by his fury,” cried one of the fishermen,

stamping in sympathetic rage. “Ha! the poor devil has caught it. Bravo!

Hurrah! He is in the boat!”

Then there was a cheer, as if the very rocks had found a voice to

applaud the brave ones who had conquered the storm. Wind and tide were

with them as they returned, the waves pitching the boat before them like

an angry boy kicking a stone, until one final plunge sent it flying on

the beach.

“Vive Caboff! Vive Marcel! Vive la petite Alba!” And every hand was

stretched out in welcome. Then there was a pause, a sudden hush, as when

some strong emotion is checked by another.

“Monsieur le Marquis!”

“Yes, my friends, thanks to these brave hearts I am amongst you and

alive.”

He was the first to step from the boat; then he took Alba in his arms

and lifted her ashore into Virginie’s. Marcel alighted next, and was

turning to assist his father when M. le Marquis pushed him gently aside

and held out both hands to his deliverer. But the old man still grasped

his oar and made no sign.

“Mon père!” cried Marcel, laying a hand on his arm, “mon père!”

But old Caboff did not answer him. He was dead.

* * * * *

The _grande armée_ was still winning famous victories, ploughing up

sunny harvest-fields with cannon-balls, and making homes and hearts

desolate.

“There is one comfort,” said old Peltran, sitting moodily in his

deserted bar: “when things come to the worst they must get better.”

“They’ve not come to the worst yet,” observed a neighbor. “There’s lots

of things that might happen, that haven’t happened yet; the plague might

come, or the blight, or the _grande armée_ might get beaten. We’ve not

come to the worst yet, believe you me.”

“There’s one thing anyhow that can’t happen,” said Peltran: “there can’t

be another recruitment in Gondriac, for there isn’t a man left amongst

us fit to shoulder a musket; we are all either too old, or lame, or

blind of an eye.”

“There’s young Caboff is neither one nor the other. To be sure, he’s not

the stuff to make a soldier out of; but when they’ve used up all the men

they must make the best of the milk-sops.”

“Marcel is a widow’s only son; he’s safe,” said Peltran.

“From one day to another the last reserves may be called out,” observed

the neighbor; “it will be hard on the mother, after two of her sons

going for cannon’s meat. It was a plucky thing of the old father putting

out that night. I wonder if he knew for certain who was on the deck of

the ship.”

“If he didn’t he wouldn’t have been such an ass as to put out,” said

Peltran. “Why should he fling away his bit of life for a stranger that

he owed nothing to?”

“For the matter of that, he owed nothing to M. le Marquis; the Caboffs,

they say, are rich enough to buy up every inch of land in Gondriac.”

“Folks may owe more than money can pay,” retorted Peltran. “M. le

Marquis was very kind to the old man when his sons were killed, and,

whatever Caboff’s sins may have been, he had a fine sense of his natural

obligations. It didn’t surprise me much when I saw how handsomely he

paid off his debt to M. le Marquis.”

“They say that monseigneur swore to Mme. Caboff that if ever she asked

him a favor, whatever it was, he would grant it,” said the neighbor.

“Very likely,” remarked the host. “M. le Marquis has a grand-seigneur

way of doing everything. I hope the Caboffs will have the delicacy never

to abuse it.”

Not many days after this conversation Mme. Caboff was to be seen walking

across the moor on her way to the castle. She looked an older woman than

she was; sorrow had broken her down, and it would take little now to

destroy the frail tenure of life that remained to her.

This was the first time she had ever entered the castle. Under other

circumstances the visit would have thrown the widow into some

trepidation. She would have been pleasantly fluttered at the prospect of

an interview with the great lord in his own halls, and would have been

much exercised on her way thither as to what she should say to him; but

her mind was full of other cares to-day.

M. le Marquis was at home. He had spent the morning over a letter from

Captain Hermann de Gondriac, which contained a graphic personal

narrative of the retreat from Moscow of that disastrous expedition from

which, out of the fifty thousand cavalry who went forth, only one

hundred and twenty-five officers returned. A pang of anguish and

patriotic indignation wrung the old nobleman’s heart as he read and

re-read the terrible story, but tears of deep thankfulness fell from the

father’s eyes at the thought that his son was spared and was returning

safe and unhurt with that decimated army of starved, exasperated

spectres. The marquis was perusing the letter for the tenth time when

Mme. Caboff was announced. He rose to receive her with a warmth of

welcome that boded well for her petition.

“M. le Marquis, you made me give you a promise once—that night; do you

remember it?” she said, holding his white hand lightly between her two

black-kidded ones, and looking up into his face with the meek and hungry

look of a dog begging for a bone which may be refused and a kick given

instead.

“Remember it? Yes,” replied the Marquis, returning the timid pressure

with a cordial grasp. “You are in trouble; sit down, madame, and tell me

what there is that I can do to make it lighter for you.”

“My son, my last and only son, Marcel, is called out, M. le Marquis!”

“And you want to find a substitute for him. It shall be done. I will set

about it without an hour’s delay.”

“M. le Marquis, it cannot be done; there are no more substitutes to be

had. I would give every penny I possess to get one, but there are none

left. The widows’ only sons were the last spared, and now they must go.

Marcel has been to the prefecture, and they told him there was no help

for it: he must join the new levy to-morrow at X——M. le Marquis, have

pity on me! It will kill me to let him go; and, oh! it is so dreadful to

see the boy.”

“He is frightened at the prospect of going to battle?” There was an

imperceptible ring of scorn under the courteous tone of the aristocrat

as he put the question.

“He is mad with delight, M. le Marquis; he has always been wild to

follow his brothers and be killed as they were.”

“Brave lad! But he shall not have his wish; he shall not be made food

for Bonaparte’s cannon,” said the Marquis. “Go home in peace, madame,

and break the bad news to him as tenderly as you can.”

“Thank God! God bless you, M. le Marquis!” said the widow fervently.

“But is it indeed possible? I can hardly believe in so great a joy.”

M. le Marquis was silent for a moment, as if making a calculation; then

he said musingly:

“The emperor is in Paris to-day; I will start in an hour from this and

see him to-night. He owes me something. I never thought to have asked a

favor at his hands; but I will stoop to ask him that your son be

exempted from the service.”

“O M. le Marquis!” Mme. Caboff began to cry with joy; but remembering

suddenly that this great emperor was conquering the whole world and

turning kings in and out like valets—for Gondriac heard of his fine

doings and was very proud of them—it occurred to her that he might by

possibility refuse a request proffered even by so great a man as M. le

Marquis. “You think his majesty is sure not to refuse you, monsieur?”

she added timidly.

M. de Gondriac was too well cased in his armor of pride to be touched by

the poor woman’s unconscious insult; he smiled and replied with a quiet

irony that escaped his visitor: “I think that is very unlikely, Mme.

Caboff. Be at rest,” he continued kindly. “I pledge you my word that

your son shall not be taken from you. Instead of going to-morrow to X——,

he had better start off at once with a letter which I will give him to

the prefect.”

He wrote the letter and handed it to Mme. Caboff.

* * * * *

It was late that evening when M. de Gondriac arrived in Paris. He drove

straight to the Tuileries. Time was precious, and he had travelled in

court dress, so as not to lose an hour at the end of the journey. It did

not occur to him that there could be any delay in reaching the presence

of the emperor. Petitioners of his class were not so common at the great

man’s door that it should close upon them because of some informal haste

in their demand for admittance. He handed in his card and asked to see

the lord chamberlain. After some delay he was shown into the presence of

that high functionary, to whom he stated his desire for an immediate

audience of his majesty. The lord chamberlain smilingly informed him

that this was impossible; mortals were not admitted into the august

presence in this abrupt manner; but he—the lord chamberlain—would

present the request at his earliest opportunity to-morrow, and

communicate in due time with M. le Marquis.

“Things do not proceed so summarily at court,” he added graciously. The

marquis felt his blood boil. This mushroom duke telling a De Gondriac

how things were done at court!

“I know enough of courts to be aware that on occasions etiquette must

yield to weightier reasons,” he replied. “Oblige me, M. le Duc, by

taking my message at once to the emperor.”

There was something in his tone which compelled the obsequious courtier

to obey. He withdrew, and returned presently with a face full of amazed

admiration to announce to the visitor that his majesty was willing to

receive him.

The emperor was standing with his hands behind his back in the embrasure

of a window when M. de Gondriac entered. He did not turn round at once,

but waited until the door closed, and then, walking up to M. de

Gondriac, he said brusquely: “I have invited you many times, marquis,

and you have never come. What brings you here to-night?” The speech was

curt, but not insolent; it did not even sound uncivil.

“Sire, I am an old man, and it is so long since I have been at court

that I have forgotten how to behave myself. My lord chamberlain was

deeply shocked, I could perceive, at my breach of ceremony in coming to

the palace in this abrupt way without going through the usual

observances. My motive will, I hope, excuse me to your majesty.”

“Yes, yes, I will let you off easier than Bassano,” said the emperor.

“But what do you want of me?” He had his hands still behind his back,

and, without desiring his visitor to be seated, he turned to pace up and

down the room.

“I have come to ask a favor of your majesty.”

“Ha! that is well. I am glad of that. Do you know, that boy of yours has

behaved admirably,” he said, facing round and looking at the marquis.

“We are accustomed to fight, sire,” replied M. de Gondriac. “It came

naturally to my son; he had, moreover, the advantage of drawing his

maiden sword under a great captain.”

“I mean to keep him by me. I have appointed him on my own staff. We are

not done with war. I am raising troops for a campaign in the spring.”

“Sire, I am aware of it; it is precisely about that that I have come to

speak to your majesty. There is in my village a widow whose two sons

have fallen in the service of the country; there remains to her one more

son, a lad of nineteen....”

“And she is ambitious that he should share the glorious fate of his

brothers; that is natural,” broke in the emperor.

“Sire, she is a widow, and this boy is all she has in the world. It is

no longer possible to procure a substitute; therefore I come to crave at

your hands his exemption from the service.”

“What! you would rob France of a soldier, when they are so scarce that

gold cannot buy one? Is this your notion of duty to your country, M. de

Gondriac? Is it thus you aristocrats understand patriotism?” The emperor

confronted him with a flashing eye.

“My son has answered that question, sire.”

“Tut! And because, forsooth, your son has done his duty, you would have

other men’s sons betray theirs! A peasant makes as good a soldier as a

peer, let me tell you. Because your son condescended to share the glory

of the _grande armée_ you expect me to make you a present of a strong

young soldier! I do not understand such sentimental logic.”

“Neither do I, sire. I was not putting forward the services of my son as

a claim for this poor lad, but those of his two brothers who lost their

lives, one at Wagram, the other at Friedland.”

“What better could have befallen them?”

“Nothing, in my estimation; but their mother....”

“France is their mother; she claims their allegiance and their life

before any one. The man who puts his mother before his country is a fool

or a coward!”

“This young man has not asked to be exempted; his mother came and

besought me to have him spared to her, and, counting on your gratitude

and generosity, sire, I have come to lay her petition at your feet. The

boy himself is frantic to be off and die like his brothers.”

“Then he shall have his wish and France shall count one more hero. Tell

his mother she shall have a pension. Give me her name, and it shall be

done at once.”

“She is not in want of it, sire; she has wealth enough to buy a score of

men, if they were to be had.”

“But they are not, and so her son must go.”

“This is your last word, sire?”

“Yes, marquis, my last.”

“Then I have only to crave your majesty’s forgiveness for my intrusion.”

M. de Gondriac bowed and was moving towards the door, when the emperor

called out:

“Stay a moment. What motive have you in pleading this widow’s cause so

strongly?”

The marquis in a few words told the story of that memorable night when

Caboff saved him at the cost of his own life. The emperor listened to

the end without interrupting him; then he resumed his walk, and,

speaking from the other end of the room, “You are naturally anxious to

pay back so heavy a debt,” he said. “Would this feeling carry you the

length of making some sacrifice?”

How could Bonaparte ask the question? Did not M. de Gondriac’s presence

here to-night answer it exhaustively?

“I think I have proved that, sire,” he answered coldly.

The emperor was silent for a while; then, turning round, he looked

fixedly at the marquis and said:

“I withdraw my unconditional refusal. I will let you know to-morrow on

what terms I consent to exempt the son of your deliverer from dying on

the field of battle.”

M. de Gondriac bowed low. “I have the honor to salute your majesty.”

“_Au revoir_, marquis.”

What did he mean, and what was this condition so mysteriously hinted at,

and only to be declared after the night’s preparation?

M. de Gondriac was sitting over his breakfast next morning when an

estafette rode up to his old hôtel, bearing a large official envelope

stamped with the imperial arms and the talismanic words, “Maison de

l’Empereur.” M. le Marquis broke the seal and ran his eye down the large

sheet, and then tossed it from him with an exclamation of anger and

contempt.

“Enter _his_ service! Play lackey at the court of an upstart who is

drenching my country in blood from sheer vanity and ambition—a usurper

who is keeping my liege sovereign in exile, and the best part of my

kindred in idleness, or else in a servitude more humiliating than the

dreariest inactivity! A De Gondriac tricked out in the livery of a

mountebank king like him! Ha! ha! M. de Bonaparte, when you give that

spectacle to the gods, ... _je vous en fais mon compliment_!”

M. le Marquis laughed a low, musical laugh as he muttered these

reflections to himself. But presently he ceased laughing and his face

took a dark and troubled look. The emperor made his acceptance of this

offer the price of Marcel Caboff’s exemption. If he rejected it, the lad

must join. “Would gratitude carry you the length of a sacrifice?” When

the question had been put to him, it seemed to M. de Gondriac that he

had forestalled it; but the emperor evidently did not think so, and now

he was putting him to the test. It was the severest he could have

chosen. When Hermann de Gondriac took service under Bonaparte, the old

nobleman considered his son was making a fine sacrifice of personal

pride to patriotism; but the service here, at least, was a noble one,

and rendered to France rather than to the upstart who had captured her.

But this other was of a totally different order. Even in the bygone

days, when France had a legitimate king and real court, the De Gondriacs

had been shy of taking office in the royal household, preferring the

service of the camp, diplomacy abroad, or statesmanship at home; to

stoop now to be a courtier to Bonaparte was a degradation not to be

calmly contemplated. If the tyrant had asked any sacrifice but this, M.

le Marquis said to himself, he would have made it gladly; but this was

impossible. It meant the surrender of his self-respect, of those

principles whose integrity he had hitherto proudly maintained at no

small personal risk and cost. Before he had finished his coffee, the

question was settled, and he rose to write his answer.

Trifles sometimes affect us with the force of great repellant causes.

The act of taking the pen in his hand brought before him vividly the

last time he had held it: it was in his library at Gondriac; the widow

sat watching him with a swelling heart, made glad by his promise

solemnly given: “I pledge you my word that your son shall not be taken

from you.” M. le Marquis laid down his pen and fell to thinking. “No, I

can’t do it,” he said after a long pause. “I can’t belie the traditions

of my race; I can’t stain the old name and turn saltimbanque in my old

age.” He took up the pen and wrote to the emperor, declining his offer.

The next day the town of X—— was full of excitement. The new recruits

were pouring in, sometimes in boisterous crowds, singing and hurrahing,

sometimes in sober knots of twos and threes, sometimes singly,

accompanied by weeping relatives, mostly women. There had been an

official attempt to get up a show of warlike enthusiasm, but it had

failed; people were growing sick of the glories of war, sick of sending

sons and brothers and husbands to be massacred for Bonaparte’s good

pleasure. The recruits were called out by name, and answered sullenly as

they passed through the Mairie out to the market-place, where the

sergeant was waiting to give them their first lesson in drill, showing

them how to stand straight and get into position.

“Marcel Caboff!” called out the recruiting agent.

“_Remplacé!_”

“By whom?”

“Rudolf, Marquis de Gondriac!”

TO BE CONTINUED.

HIGHER.

I have lifted up my eyes unto the mountains, whence help shall come to

me.—_Ps._ cxx.

Too late have I known thee, O Infinite Beauty! too late have I loved

thee, O Beauty ever ancient and new!—_St. Augustine._

I.

'Mid wide green meadows, made more fair with flowers—

Tall, golden lilies, swaying in the sun,

Slight, clustering rue that web of silver spun—

I lingered dreaming through the day’s first hours.

About me men in work-day toil were bent,

Swift levelling the daisies’ drift of snow,

The clover’s purple sweetness laying low,

And ripened grain whose summer life was spent.

I sat where leafy trees a shadow wrought

Amid the broad, warm sunshine of the plain,

Where, undisturbed, poured forth the wood-birds’ strain

And fancy’s magic played with every thought:

A whole life centred in each daisy-round,

And work-day toil seemed but a slumbrous sound.

II.

Low rippling at my feet a loitering stream

Slipt, murmuring music to each listening stone,

Or flung its silver laughter where soft shone

The slant sunbeam breaking the shadows’ dream;

Betwixt the robins’ song the swift blue-bird

Flashed like a heavenly message through the shade

Where with the sunshine gentlest breezes played,

And quiet shadows to soft motion stirred.

Between me and the meadow’s smitten flow’rs

The fresh June roses wreathed the rude fence bars,

Frail elder trailed its galaxy of stars,

While butterflies sped by in golden show’rs—

Far, far beyond, the earth-haze shining through,

Rose the great mountains’ dim and misty blue.

III.

So far and strange those misty hills! so near

And intimate the little, shady nook,

The skies reflected in the merry brook—

Those distant heights so lonely and austere!

Scarce e’en the busy mowers of the field

Lifted their eyes to those dim gates of blue

Where all their gathered harvest must pass through,

Its grass and stubble be one day revealed.

As grew the day, more clear the summits grew;

Springing from shadow, radiant waterfalls

Flung trails of sunshine o’er the stern rock-walls—

Such sunshine as the valley never knew!

Paled the June roses, fading in my hand,

Tarnished the lowland river’s golden sand!

IV.

Then seemed to stir the trembling leaves amid,

To mingle with the robins’ cheerful call,

A low, sad voice, as if the hills let fall

Faint, wandering echoes of sweet music hid

In dark ravine, on solitary height.

I dropped my roses, gone their ravishment;

I passed the mowers o’er their harvest bent;

I sought those distant mountain-lands of light.

Wild, thorny brambles stretched across my way,

Sharp rocks were weary pathways for my feet,

Yet ever lured me on those accents sweet

Whose very sadness was my weakness’ stay,

With every step more intimate and near—

“Take heart, poor child! ’tis I; have thou no fear.

V.

“Take heart, and I thy faltering steps will lead

Above the earth-mists and the brier-strewn road

To my far mountain-tops, the pure abode

Of heaven-born stream, and fair enamelled mead

Whose flow’rs immortal fells not any scythe.

Long have I sought thee 'mid the withering flowers

Wherewith thou smiling crown’dst the fading hours,

Weaving fine fancies 'mid the murmuring blithe

Of lowland stream, and birds, and pattering leaves;

Long have I called thee, waiting for thy voice,

So faint it rose above the troublous noise

Of earthly harvesters among their sheaves;

Long have I waited thy dear heart to win,

So long desired to reign with thee therein.”

VI.

O sorrow-stricken Voice, so piercing sweet!

Blinding my eyes with tears, smiting my heart

Like some fire-pointed, swift-descending dart,

And giving strength unto my climbing feet

Seeking those dim and misty hills of blue.

Lo! the great mountains at thy music thrilled,

And all their deep recesses echoes filled—

Near and more near the sunlit summits grew!

The little birds that gathered, unafraid,

On berry-laden boughs beside my way

Mingled thy cadence with their roundelay—

Its joyousness grown sweeter through thy shade.

O Voice of love and grief, sad for my sin,

What ways were thine so poor a thing to win!

VII.

O thou Almighty Lord of life and death,

Thou that hast led me out the wilderness

And shown me thy great hills’ pure strength to bless,

Guard in my soul, lest still it perisheth!

The cross thou gavest still I strive to bear—

So light it grows that half, at times, I fear

My trust is lost, sign of thy service dear—

Dost thou bear all, dear Lord, for me no share?

So in thy steps to follow still I seek,

The wearing way thy patient feet have pressed,

The blood-stained way thy heavy cross hath blessed—

Dost thou hold me to suffer aught too weak?

E’en when I strive one little thorn to grasp

It turns to tender roses in my clasp.

VIII.

The very stones win smoothness from thy feet,

Beneath whose tread immortal flowers spring,

Holding within their snowy hearts no sting,

And breathing spices for love’s incense meet.

The lark, swift rising thy approach to greet,

The fulness of his heavenly song to pour

No higher than thy breast divine need soar,

There hiding life and song in joy complete!

Though sheltering trees o’ershadow not my way

To ward the sultry glow of noonday sun,

Yet 'neath thy cross the coolest shade is won

That dims no ray of that eternal day

That from yon unstained hills of peace doth shine,

Whereto thou leadest me, O Love Divine!

IX.

Yet many bitter tears I needs must weep,

Remembering the glimmer of the plain

Where nodding lilies and the bending grain

Seemed rarest treasure in their gold to keep;

Those thoughtless hours ere I learned to look

Beyond my roses to the misty hills—

The far-off pastures only God’s hand tills;

Where lost I in the laughter of the brook

And song of earthly birds that loving Voice,

That patient call, alas! too long denied.

Still in my heart in weeping woe must bide,

E’en in His breast who bids my soul rejoice,

The mem’ry of that day’s ingratitude

When God in vain for love his creature sued.

THE IRON AGE OF CHRISTENDOM.

Our period is emphatically one of historical studies, as we have had

occasion to remark in a former article on the _Life and Works of M.

Ozanam_. Among other illusions swept away by the light of truth which

these laborious researches have let in upon the obscurity of the past,

there is one great illusion about golden and iron ages. In respect to

the Christian period, specifically, it is manifest that it is vain to

look, in the apostolic, ante-Nicene, mediæval, or modern ages, for that

ideal perfection in real, concrete existence which may have been in our

imagination as a pleasing picture. There has never been an age of gold

unmixed with baser metal for the church any more than for humanity in

general. The analogy of the past, which is the only sure criterion we

can apply to the future, forbids us to expect that there ever will be

such a purely golden age on the earth. Moreover, those iron ages or dark

ages, of Christian or pre-Christian, historic or pre-historic times,

which have been imagined to precede or to interrupt the epochs of

splendor and light, are seen on inspection not to have been all iron or

all darkness. The progress of mankind towards its destination has been

continuous from the beginning, although, in larger or smaller local

extensions or numerical portions of humanity, there has been in various

periods a stoppage or retrogradation of the movement, in appearance, and

in respect to individual progress. The earth keeps its regular course,

though men walk on its surface in an opposite direction, and they are

carried with it unconsciously. The ship goes on and carries with it the

passenger, while he is walking from the bow to the stern. Clouds, night,

and eclipses are not a destruction or suspension of the irradiation of

light from the sun on the earth, but its partial and temporary

impediments. The ship which makes a long, dangerous, but successful

voyage is making headway while plunging into the trough of the sea as

well as while riding the crest of the waves; often is less delayed by

beating against adverse winds than by calm weather and light breezes.

The bark of Peter, freighted with the treasures of human hope and

destiny, is steadily proceeding, under the guidance of her heavenly

Pilot, over the waves of time, through calm and stormy seas, toward the

port of eternity. Seldom does she seem to be in safety, and show the

speed of her motion, to the uninstructed eyes of those who do not

possess the sublime science of the stars and charts by which her

celestial course is directed. “Never,” says Lacordaire, “is the triumph

of the church visible at a given moment. If you look at any one point in

the expanse of the ages, the bark of Peter appears to be about to be

engulfed, and the faithful are always prompt to cry out: _Lord, save us,

we perish!_ But if you look at the whole series of times, the church

manifests her strength, and you understand what Jesus Christ said in the

tempest: _Man of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?_”[75]

Footnote 75:

_Conf. de Notre Dame_, tome i. conf. iv. at the end.

There is nevertheless a difference in the character of epochs. The

epochs of Constantine, Charlemagne, Gregory VII., of the thirteenth and

seventeenth centuries, are seen in the retrospect to have a special

light of glory about them. The seventh, tenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth

centuries present a dark aspect. The tenth century particularly, which

we are at present bringing under review, is generally called “the iron

age” even by our modern Catholic historians, and not without

considerable reason, more especially in respect to the state and

condition of the Roman Church and the sovereign pontificate.

Nevertheless, the common notion, derived from compendious histories and

the generalized statements which form the commonplaces of popular

literature, respecting the tenth age of Christendom is not correct and

is extremely confused. It was not an age of complete barbarism and

universal ignorance. Ozanam says: “Indeed, letters did not, at any time,

perish. The truth is that the period of complete barbarism, supposed at

first to extend over a space of a thousand years, from the fall of the

Roman Empire to the capture of Constantinople, then gradually reduced to

narrower limits, until it remained finally restricted to the seventh and

tenth centuries, vanishes away under a more severe scrutiny.”[76] Cantù

remarks: “This epoch is justly called the iron age, because of the cruel

sufferings endured by individuals and nations; but humanity made a

sensible progress in the face of these trials. We cannot, therefore,

concur in the judgment of those who consider it the most unhappy period

of the human race.”[77] We cannot make logical divisions of history into

epochs exactly corresponding with the numerical notation of years and

centuries. It would be absurd to suppose that at 12 A.M. of January 1,

A.D. 900, to borrow Carlyle’s expression, “the clock of Time struck and

an era passed away”; and that the same venerable old timepiece, from its

corner in the parlor of the universe, struck again in just a hundred

years, announcing the end of the iron age and the beginning of another

of some different metal. The boundaries of epochs are not quite so

determinate, and centuries, periods, epochs, run into one another, mix,

blend, elude precise delineation. Cantù’s tenth epoch is not the tenth

century, but the period beginning A.D. 800 and ending A.D. 1096. This

period, between Charlemagne and the Crusades, far from presenting the

aspect of a desolate waste to the eye, is crowded and variegated with

events and persons of the most important and interesting character, and

their history is one great act in the European drama, advancing it

sensibly toward the consummation which we are still, in our own age,

hastening forward and awaiting in the near or distant future. Within

this great period are other and lesser cycles, embracing epochs, phases,

temporary states of ecclesiastical and civil prosperity or adversity,

alternations of various kinds, in Christendom, in Europe, or in portions

of the Christian commonwealth, each having its distinctive notes. That

part of it which is in the centre presents the characteristics of an

iron age more distinctly marked than the preceding or following periods.

The latter half of the ninth and the earlier half of the tenth century,

taken together, really constitute the period which can with strict

propriety be called the iron age. And within this century a period of

about forty years, including the end of the ninth and the first years of

the tenth century, was a sort of crisis in which Christian Europe seemed

to have reached the dead-point in her progress, and, having passed it,

went on again under the attraction of a new force.

Footnote 76:

Dante, _Disc. Prelim._, sec. v.

Footnote 77:

_Hist. Univ._, ep. x. epilogue, tome ix. p. 478.

This statement must not be taken as rigorously and uniformly applicable

to all Europe and Christendom. The Greek Empire and the degenerate

Eastern Church were in a state of hopeless decadence, verging toward a

permanent downfall. England and Spain, on the other hand, passed through

their worst times earlier, and were going upward and onward, led by

great men and heroes—Alfred and the forerunners of Ferdinand and the

Cid—just at the time when the rest of Europe was in the most disordered

and disastrous condition. The crisis of the iron age affected chiefly

the countries which had constituted the great domain of

Charlemagne—France, Germany, and Italy. Its phases were various, in

respect to time and other conditions, in these very countries. The whole

panorama, as presented to our view in the pages of historical narrative,

is as shifting, varied, apparently capricious, as mountain scenery in

the changing aspects of light and shade, produced by sunshine, clouds,

and moonlight, by transforming mists and sombre night. It is only when

we rise to the logical order and sequence of events, trace effects to

their causes, enlarge our scope of vision, ascend into the upper regions

of a true philosophy of history whose atmosphere is the Christian idea

and whose light is celestial faith, that a real order, harmony, and

progression toward an intelligible and grand result are clearly

discernible.

Some few general statements borrowed from this higher branch of

historical science must be premised before we can come at a satisfactory

view of our particular and immediate topic and set its details in

systematic order.

The actual evils and miseries which afflicted the Christian people of

Europe during the iron age were invasions of Saracens, Scandinavians,

and Hungarians, incessant wars among greater and lesser princes,

terrible famines and pestilences, and, in general, a state of

turbulence, insecurity, social and moral confusion. This whole state of

things was a relapse into the condition brought about by the fall of the

Roman Empire and the barbarian irruption in the seventh century. The

great reason why it occurred is found in the fact that Charlemagne’s

great empire and power passed away and that no unifying, organic power

succeeded it until Europe had passed through a period of transition. The

Roman Empire had to pass away to make room for Christendom, and for a

time its _débris_ and the new material lying on the ground for a

reconstruction made a state of confusion. Charlemagne’s fundamental work

was solid and lasting, but he had to make some temporary structures

which were showy but not substantial, and therefore fell down or were

torn down; causing more disorder for a time, until they were cleared

away to make room for the permanent and splendid walls to be built up

according to the idea of the divine Architect. The European, Christian

Idea is not that of one, uniform political western empire, ruled by an

autocracy which continues or succeeds to the old, imperial Roman power.

It is that of a community of nations, bound together by a common faith,

common principles, international law, mutual alliance and amity, and

preserving full scope for distinct and beautifully various forms of

free, spontaneous growth and culture. Its regenerating, vivifying, and

controlling spirit is Christianity in the Catholic organization. Its

centre of unity and force is Rome and the spiritual supremacy of the

pope. The political supremacy of an emperor—understanding by an emperor

a universal monarch ruling subordinate kings set over dependent

kingdoms—is incompatible with this true idea of a Christendom. Even,

supposing this universal political sovereignty united with the sovereign

pontificate of the Pope, it is incompatible with that true idea, partly

for the same reasons, partly for different reasons from those which

militate against it, supposing the two distinct powers to exist

separately. It was necessary that the pope should possess his own

separate sovereignty in a kingdom of moderate size. It was also

necessary that some one powerful king should be endowed by the pope with

a special, sacred pre-eminence among other sovereigns, as the protector

of his civil princedom and of his spiritual supremacy. This was the

meaning of Charles the Great’s imperial coronation. He was, in fact,

really the king of almost all Europe. But this was temporary. His

kingdom was divided. The imperial dignity was conferred on different

sovereigns of France, Italy, and Germany from time to time, and for

above thirty years remained in abeyance for want of a proper subject to

receive it, until it rested at last on the head of the first of the

Saxon line, passing thence to the Franconian house, and afterwards to

the Hohenstaufen. The German emperors were, however, by election kings

of Germany, and as such governed their states; whereas they were made

emperors by papal consecration, and in that capacity were protectors of

the Holy See and the church. The authority which they lawfully exercised

as emperors in the city and principality of Rome was the authority of a

civil magistrate who was not the head but the right arm of the pope, the

real political sovereign in his own state.

The European crisis of the tenth century was a period in which the

Carlovingian dynasty was going into decadence, and the new dynasties of

France and Germany had not yet arisen. There was a great want of able

sovereigns, and especially of men who were strong enough to fulfil the

functions of the imperial office. To turn now especially towards Italy

and Rome, it was the lack of a strong hand to preserve peace and order

among the petty princes and states of Italy, and to protect the pope and

the Holy See from the rebellions and intrigues of powerful nobles and

contending factions within and around the Roman principality, which was

the chief cause of the long obnubilation of the sun of Christendom—the

Roman Church—during the tenth epoch. We propose to enter now more

minutely into the exposition of the historical truth respecting this

period, so far as it relates to the popes and the Roman Church directly

and immediately.

The ordinary accounts of this epoch in Roman and Italian history produce

a singular impression on the mind of the reader. It seems as if the gas

had been suddenly turned off and all had become dark, or as if an

express-train filled with passengers had all at once been stopped by an

impediment in the middle of the night at an obscure way-station, to the

surprise and chagrin of all on board when they awoke in the morning. One

is puzzled and disgusted by a confused, disconnected story which reads

like the record of crimes and disasters in a modern newspaper. The

persons mentioned seem to have no reality or distinct character—to be

like the spectres of dreams or the personified abstractions in parables.

The very names of the popes, such as Formosus, Marinus, Lando, Romanus,

have a strange, unpapal sound. They appear and vanish with marvellous

rapidity, leaving no trace behind. When we read that the world was

generally expected to explode in the year 1000, we are not surprised,

but rather wonder why it did not, and are quite relieved to find

ourselves safe and sound in the eleventh century, and hear those “whom

the Lord hath sent to walk through the earth answer the angel of the

Lord, and say: We have walked through the earth; and behold, all the

earth is inhabited, and is at rest.”[78]

Footnote 78:

Zacharias i. 10, 11.

One great difficulty in picking the thread of history out of this snarl

is the paucity of contemporary documents. Another cause of

misunderstanding and misrepresentation has been the flippant and

mendacious character of the most extensive and minute of the chronicles

of the period, that of Luitprand. The same kind of gossiping,

scandal-mongering centres which exist among us may not have existed in

the tenth century. There were no newspapers filled with libels and

calumnies, falsifications of news, reports of the army of detectives of

the press. But there were the same violent factions, party animosities,

intrigues, mutual denunciations, raising a cloud of smoke and dust like

that which overhangs a battle-field, in even more virulent activity then

than we now behold them in our modern political _mêlées_. All the

condensed scandal, partisan vituperation, indecent gossip, and malicious

calumny of the time in which he lived are collected in the memoirs of

Luitprand, and from these have been infiltrated through succeeding

times, leaving great stains which only the acid of criticism has been

able to efface. Even Fleury says of him that he is extremely passionate,

excessive both in his abuse and his flattery, and given to buffoonery to

a degree which transgresses the bounds of decency. He was originally a

subdeacon of the church of Toledo in Spain, afterwards a deacon of the

church of Pavia, during which time he was sent by Berenger, King of

Italy, on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. Later he became Bishop

of Cremona, but was a disgrace to the episcopate. He was a courtier of

Otho the German emperor, who sent him on another mission to

Constantinople, a violent adherent of the German party, bitterly hostile

to the Italian party and all the popes who favored it, and a

participator in the schismatical proceedings of Otho’s anti-pope. His

credit is now entirely lost. But at the time of the revolt of Luther all

the incriminations of the popes and the Roman clergy, whether true,

false, or doubtful, were gathered up and made the most of to sustain the

bill of indictment against the Holy See. The same stories, repeated by

numbers of writers, produced the effect of concurrent testimony on the

general mind of the readers of history. Baronius and other Catholic

historians, not having sufficient materials for testing and correcting

all these accusations, let a number of them pass uncontradicted or

admitted their truth. Fleury and some others of the lowest Gallican

school, who always write like advocates who have taken out a brief

against the Holy See, have in their historical works neglected and

perverted facts in a manner which is equally shallow and perfidious, and

as contrary to sound criticism as it is to orthodox doctrine. It is only

since the discovery of Flodoard’s _Lives of the Popes_, the critical and

learned researches of Muratori, and the great modern advance of genuine

historical science, that the tissue of lies depending solely on the

worthless testimony of Luitprand has been swept away. A better

appreciation of the great course of events and the essential facts of

history is now possible, and even easy. Men of genius, learning, and

conscientious devotion to truth have lighted up these dark, buried

crypts of the substructure of Christendom, as the zealous archæologists

of York have done in the old minster, whose foundations were laid in the

very period we are describing.[79]

Footnote 79:

See Mr. Ticknor’s _Life_, vol. i. p. 436.

In regard to many particular events and certain individuals whose names

figure in connection with the transactions of an obscure epoch we cannot

expect to acquire a perfect certainty. Nor is there anything of moment

depending on the discovery of the truth in such cases. We have to be

content with a probability or with a doubt in thousands of matters of

detail. There are a considerable number of popes of whom we know next to

nothing. In certain instances it is not easy to determine whether an

election of a given individual was valid or invalid. Of the truth or

falsehood of the accusations made against several popes and other

persons of high ecclesiastical or civil rank, and of the reports of

assassinations and other great crimes, which are so frequent in this

period of disorder, we cannot always form a certain judgment. There is

enough, however, of that which is certain or fairly probable to show the

connection, the continuity, and the identity of principles both with the

foregoing and the following epochs, and to furnish ample material for

the vindication of the cause of the Holy See and the Papacy. There is a

sequence in the progress through the struggles of transition; there are

great and good men, noble and heroic achievements, interesting and

curious episodes—in fine, there is a human and a Christian character

showing its lineaments in place of the cloudy spectre with distorted

features which has heretofore scared the imagination.[80]

Footnote 80:

We make here our acknowledgment of indebtedness to the series of

articles in the _Civiltà Cattolica_ entitled “I Destini di Roma,”

which was begun Aug. 19, 1871, for a great part of what is to follow

in this article.

We begin our historical sketch with Pope Formosus, who was elected A.D.

891. This is one of the popes of whom we have said above that they seem

in our common histories like a mere shadow of a great name without a

personal reality. Besides, there is a certain cloud on his memory,

arising from the fact that he was deprived of his see of Porto by John

VIII., and that he was the subject of a great outrage from his

successor, Stephen VI. A careful examination of his history shows,

however, that he was no common man and was both a good and an able pope.

As Bishop of Porto he was one of the most conspicuous among the Italian

prelates. He left his see to become a missionary among the Bulgarians,

where he labored zealously and successfully in the work of their

conversion. There is nothing to show that his censure by Pope John

VIII., which seems to have been chiefly occasioned by his taking an

active part in a political opposition to the Emperor Charles the Bald,

involved in it any moral dishonor. He was restored by Pope Marinus, and

the indignities inflicted on his memory by his successor were a wanton

and causeless outrage, which was condemned and repaired by a subsequent

pope with the approbation of the Roman people.

Europe was just then in the depths of the disorders and miseries caused

by the decay of the imperial authority and the degeneracy of

Charlemagne’s successors. Berenger was king in Northern Italy, but

Guido, Duke of Spoleto, and his son Lambert had been crowned emperors in

opposition to him and to all the French and German claimants. Toward the

end of the short reign of Formosus, which lasted less than five years,

and after the death of Guido, the dissatisfaction of the pope with the

conduct of Lambert and his mother, Ermengarda, induced him to summon

Arnulph, King of Germany, to come to the relief of the Holy See and of

Italy. He obeyed the summons, made a forcible entry into Rome, where the

Lambertine faction had gained the upper hand and thrown Formosus into

prison, and was by him crowned emperor. This was the beginning of the

appeals of the popes to Germany for intervention in Italian affairs, and

of the never-ending conflicts between the Italian and German parties in

Italy, whose _finale_ we have but just witnessed in our own day in the

exclusion of Austria from her dominion in Venetia. We have no doubt that

it was necessary, and on the whole productive of good results, that the

imperial crown should be transferred to the German sovereigns. But,

without delaying to consider this point, we simply take note of the fact

that this was one of the great questions of violent dispute and

contention which disturbed the Roman Church and the papal elections so

long as there were Italian princes who disputed the imperial dignity

with the Germans. Arnulph returned almost immediately to Germany.

Formosus died and was followed to the tomb a few weeks after by his

immediate successor, Boniface VI. The party of Lambert succeeded in

obtaining the election of Stephen VI., the first of the popes who

grievously dishonored the tiara. His violent and shameful conduct caused

a temporary reaction in favor of the opposite party, by whom he was

imprisoned and strangled. Lambert was, nevertheless, acknowledged by the

three succeeding popes, Romanus, Theodore II., and John IX., and by two

successive councils, and the pact between the church and the empire was

solemnly renewed. These three pontificates filled only a space of three

years and closed the century. The year 901 saw a new competitor for the

imperial crown, which death had taken from Lambert’s head, in the person

of Louis of Provence, who was actually crowned by Benedict IV., but very

soon driven away by Berenger, who was still reigning in the north of

Italy. Berenger was an able and warlike sovereign, in many respects

worthy of admiration, and capable of filling the imperial office with

honor to himself and advantage to Italy. Circumstances were, however,

extremely adverse. He maintained himself in possession of a certain

pre-eminence among the petty sovereigns of Italy, and carried on

vigorously wars against the Saracen and Hungarian invaders. He was even

crowned emperor in 915, but was never able to establish his authority on

a solid and permanent basis, and at last, in 924, he was assassinated by

a conspiracy of Italian nobles. With him the imperial office became

extinct, and remained so until it was resuscitated, thirty-eight years

afterward, in the person of Otho the Great.

The failure of the imperial power which had been instituted in the

person of Charlemagne left the Holy See and all Italy a prey to

contending, petty sovereigns, to powerful and mutually hostile nobles

and factions, and to fierce heathen invaders. The Roman pontiffs

maintained with difficulty a restricted, often merely nominal, civil

sovereignty in the city and principality of Rome. Between the years 900

and 914 six popes succeeded each other: Benedict IV., Leo V.,

Christopher, Sergius III., Anastasius III., and Lando. Of the nine popes

who came between Stephen VI. and John X., it is certain that nearly all

were worthy of their exalted position, and the grave accusations made

against two of the number, Christopher and Sergius, rest on uncertain

testimony. The average length of their reigns being less than two years,

and that of the longest among them only seven, most of the number had no

time to make a conspicuous figure in history, and their annals are so

scanty that very little is known of the acts of their administration.

The reign of John X., which lasted fourteen years, from 914 to 928, was

of a different character. He was one of the great popes, and proved

himself fully equal to the emergencies of the time and the difficulties

of his position. For nine years previously to his election to the Roman

See he had been Archbishop of Ravenna, and the extraordinary ability

which he had exhibited in his government of that important church had

pointed him out as one capable of making head, in conjunction with

Berenger, against the perils with which Rome and Italy were beset at

this most dangerous crisis in their destinies. In fact, he was obliged

to do the work alone; for Berenger was unable to help him, having his

hands full in fighting Saracens and Hungarians in Northern Italy. There

was no hope to be placed either in Germany or France. The only resource

for the pope was to place himself at the head of his own barons and in

alliance with the neighboring princes, and to lead the war against the

Saracens in person. For this purpose he formed a league among the

princes of Southern Italy, and, obtaining also auxiliaries from the

Greek emperor, conducted a short and brilliantly successful campaign

against the Saracens, by which they were completely discomfited and

finally expelled from that part of Italy. The entire reign of John X.

was in conformity with its glorious beginning; but soon after the

violent and tragical overthrow of the noble Emperor Berenger by the

turbulent Italian nobles, a similar catastrophe ended the career of the

great pope, his friend and compeer. Alberic, Count of Tusculum, and

Theophylact, senator of Rome, had been the two most powerful supporters,

and the former had been the chief subordinate leader, of the great

military operations of John X. The almost exclusive glory and credit

which the popular voice ascribed to John for the liberation of the

country from the Saracens, and the great increase and concentration of

the sovereign authority under his vigorous administration, stirred up

the jealousy and discontent of these great nobles. The wife of

Theophylact was the famous Theodora, the younger Theodora was their

daughter, and another daughter, Mariuccia, commonly called Marozia, was

the wife of Alberic. These women, but especially the last mentioned,

were remarkable for their beauty, talents, and ambition. The stream of

filthy tradition which has come down through the sewer of Luitprand and

the popular romances of the period has transmitted to posterity the

names of these women, stained with every kind of foulness and cruelty.

How much of calumny and exaggeration there may be in these scandalous

stories we cannot determine. It is certain that the family exercised a

great sway in Rome for many years both before and after the great _coup

d’état_ in which the intrigues of Marozia culminated and collapsed, as

we are about to relate. One year after the murder of Berenger, Alberic

was killed in an unsuccessful assault on Rome, and Marozia married

Guido, Marquis of Tuscany. The sister of Guido, Ermengarda, Marchioness

of Ivrea, was another of the group of Italian princesses of that period,

remarkable in all respects, except in the special virtues of Christian

women. In 926 Marozia set on foot, with these two accomplices, a

revolution in Italy, by which Rodolph of Burgundy, the successful rival

and successor of Berenger in the kingdom of Italy, was chased out to

make room for Hugo of Provence, the half-brother of Guido. After the

coronation of Hugo at Pavia, Guido and Marozia took possession of Rome

by force of arms and imprisoned Pope John X., who died a few months

afterward, it is suspected by violence. Guido also died within a year

from his usurpation, and Marozia governed the city alone with the titles

of senator and patrician. After the two short, and perhaps abbreviated,

pontificates of Leo VI. and Stephen VIII., she caused the younger of her

two sons by Alberic to be elected pope under the name of John XI. Still

unsatisfied, she aspired to become queen of Italy, and empress, and for

this purpose contracted a marriage—which by the ecclesiastical law was

null and void[81]—with her brother-in-law, Hugo, the King of Italy. The

marriage was celebrated in 932, and the imperial coronation was expected

to follow in due time. But the violent and imperious temper of the

Burgundian Hugo ruined all these plans. Alberic, eldest son of Marozia

by her first husband, Alberic of Tusculum, was a youth who inherited all

the brilliant qualities of both his parents, and whose character was

certainly not derived from his mother or due to her influence. One day

at dinner the princely youth was acting as page to the king, and by

accident or design poured too much water on his hands, for which he

received a buffet on the cheek from his rude step-father. He immediately

left the room in a towering passion, and, running out upon the piazza,

summoned the people, with words of burning eloquence, to vengeance and

rescue. The Castle of St. Angelo was very speedily taken by assault,

Hugo was forced to save his life by flight, and Marozia, banished from

Rome, repudiated by her husband, thwarted in her wicked schemes,

disappeared from view, and, it is to be hoped, passed the rest of her

days until her death, which did not occur later than 945, in doing

penance for her sins.

Footnote 81:

A dispensation may have been granted, but Hugo afterwards disavowed

the marriage on the plea of the ecclesiastical impediment.

Now followed one of the most curious and interesting of episodes in the

history of Christian Rome. Alberic reigned during his whole life-time—a

period of twenty-two years—as absolute sovereign of Rome, with ability,

justice, and popularity. He was in harmony with the popes, a protector

of his kingdom and of the Holy See, a munificent patron of religious

orders, a benefactor to the church and religion. The period of his reign

is like an oasis in the desert of the tenth century. It is true that he

kept his brother, John XI., in an honorable yet strict imprisonment

during his life-time. Yet, although there is nothing recorded to the

discredit of this pope, Alberic’s conduct toward the succeeding pontiffs

shows that he must have had strong reasons for his treatment of his

brother. The elections of popes during his reign were free and peaceful,

and the best men among the Roman clergy were chosen. By degrees the

legal form of the administration was so regulated that the sovereign

rights and titles of the pope were preserved; and although the actual

civil government was entirely in the hands of Prince Alberic, it was

administered by him as the pope’s temporal vicar, without discord

between the two powers. As a provisional arrangement it worked well, but

Alberic was too wise and far-seeing to think its permanent continuance

possible or desirable. By a singular stroke of policy he prepared for

the restoration of the real sovereignty to the one who had not ceased to

retain the title and the right. His son Octavian was educated as an

ecclesiastic, and the chiefs of the clergy and nobility were induced to

make a solemn engagement before Alberic’s death to elect Octavian pope

on the first vacancy of the Holy See. He was accordingly elected pope

soon after the death of his father, although he was but eighteen years

of age, and assumed the name of John XII.

Of the personal and private character of this youthful pontiff, who died

at the age of twenty-six after a reign of eight years, it is very

difficult, if not impossible, to form an exact and certain estimate. The

accusations made against him during his life-time are atrocious, and

they are still repeated by modern writers, although the most judicious

and moderate historians soften them down considerably. The learned

writer in the _Civiltà_ gives his judgment that as a pontiff all his

acts were laudable, and, as a king, worthy of one who was the son of

Alberic. In respect to his private morals, he considers that the

accusations of his political enemies and of writers attached to the

German, imperial party—the almost sole remaining source of information

respecting that period—are to be distrusted; but that it is difficult to

exculpate him altogether from the reproach of having lived more as

secular princes are wont to do than as became the holy state of a

bishop. The salient point of his administration was the calling in of

the King of Germany, Otho the Great, and the subsequent imbroglio

between the pope and the emperor. Otho, who well deserves the name of

Great, notwithstanding grievous errors and wrongs in his conduct toward

the Holy See, had been reigning twenty years when he was summoned to

Rome and crowned emperor. The return of the old disorders in Italy made

his intervention necessary, but he carried it too far, and John XII.,

probably with good reason, and certainly acting in a way which was

natural in a high-spirited and youthful sovereign trained in the maxims

and sentiments of an Italian prince, joined with the other princes of

Italy in opposition to the German domination. A struggle between John

and Otho was the consequence. The emperor, misled by the bad advice of

Luitprand and other bishops, attempted to depose the pope and substitute

an anti-pope, who called himself Leo VIII., in his place. John XII. died

suddenly before this conflict had any decisive issue, and Benedict V.

was elected in his place, but was soon after carried away into Germany

by Otho and kept in captivity at Hamburg. On the death of the anti-pope,

which occurred in March, 965, a few months after the death of John, the

Romans requested the restoration of Benedict V., which was granted by

Otho. The pope, however, died on his journey to Rome, venerated and

regretted even by the emperor and by all with whom he had come into

personal contact, as well as by the Romans.

The emperor and all the various parties by which Rome was divided agreed

together and concurred in the election of John XIII., who favored the

German party in politics, and had, on the whole, a peaceful and

prosperous reign of six years, sustained by the imperial power, although

it was interrupted by one violent sedition, which was repressed and

punished in the severest manner.

The close of the reigns of the Pope John XIII. and the Emperor Otho the

Great was marked by one extraordinary and most interesting event—the

marriage of the young Emperor Otho II. with Theophania, a Greek princess

of distinguished beauty, intellectual accomplishments, and personal

virtues. She brought with her as dowry all the Greek possessions in

Italy, and was regarded as an angel of peace between the two empires.

The death of Otho I. in 973 was the signal for new outbreaks and

disturbances in Italy. In Rome a struggle began between two powerful

families: the Crescenzi, who were the great lords of the Sabine

territory, and the Conti—that is, the Tusculan counts—who were the

principal barons of Latium. The latter favored, while the former

opposed, the imperial power in Italy. Crescenzio, or Cencio, the first

leader of the Italian faction, is supposed by many writers to have been

a grand-nephew of Marozia. He attempted an imitation of Alberic, though

not by the same honorable means, and endeavored to gain possession for

himself of the Roman principality. The pope, Benedict VI., who had

succeeded John XIII. a few months before the death of Otho I., was

assaulted and dethroned by armed force, imprisoned in the Castle of St.

Angelo, and at last strangled. An infamous ecclesiastic, a partisan and

accomplice with Crescenzio in his crimes, was intruded into the chair of

St. Peter while he was still, in the language of Pope Sylvester II.,

dripping with the blood of his predecessor. This so-called Pope Boniface

VII., who is commonly regarded as an anti-pope, was dispossessed, after

one month, together with his patron, Crescenzio, by a counter-revolution

under the counts of Tusculum, and fled to Constantinople. At a later

period he returned and succeeded in seizing on the government for a

brief period, but came at length to a most tragical and ignominious end.

Crescenzio ended his days in a monastery. It is uncertain whether there

was or was not a pope named Donus II. who reigned for a few months after

the death of Benedict VI. Benedict VII., a nephew of Alberic, Count of

Tusculum, and Bishop of Sutri, was enthroned, according to Mansi, on the

28th of December, 974, and governed the Roman Church during his

pontificate of nine years in such a manner as to leave no stain upon his

reputation. One of his first acts was to excommunicate, in a council of

bishops, Cardinal Franco, the anti-pope. In 980 he was obliged to call

upon the young emperor, Otho II., to come to his assistance in Rome. He

came, in fact, during the following year, but, after an unsuccessful

campaign against the allied Greeks and Saracens, died in his imperial

palace at Rome, Dec. 9, 983, in the twenty-eighth year of his age—a

prince whose character made him worthy of his father, but who was less

fortunate in his destiny. His premature death and the infancy of Otho

III. seemed to threaten both Germany and Italy with great disasters.

Germany was preserved from these menacing evils by the sanctity and

ability of two noble and heroic women—St. Adelaide, the widow of Otho

the Great, and Theophania, widow of Otho II., and imperial regent in the

name of her son, who was but three years old, yet universally recognized

as King of Germany and emperor-elect. Rome, however, had still to

suffer, and remained for another half-century to come the foot-ball of

rival factions. The son of Crescenzio, called Crescenzio Nomentano,

obtained the upper hand in Rome, recalled the anti-pope, Boniface VII.,

imprisoned and put to death John XIV., the successor of Benedict VI.,

and made himself patrician and governor of Rome. The sudden death of

Boniface, however, and the universal hatred in which his memory was

held, enabled the clergy and people of Rome to elect a worthy pope in

the person of John XV. (April, 986), who held the see ten years,

governing with great prudence and success, notwithstanding the great

difficulties of his position. In 989 the empress-mother, Theophania,

came to Rome and held an imperial court. It was expected that she would

put an end to the tyranny of Crescenzio Nomentano, but she was deceived

by his extreme cunning and hypocritical promises so far that she

confirmed him in his office as patrician. After her departure he became

so much worse that the pope was obliged to leave Rome and take refuge

with Hugo, Marquis of Tuscany, through whose intervention a pressing

request was sent to the emperor-elect, Otho III., now seventeen years of

age, to come in person to Italy. So great was now the fear of the

imperial power that Crescenzio hastened to reconcile himself to the

pope, who returned and was reconducted with great manifestations of

honor to the Lateran palace.

On his arrival in Rome at the head of a large army, early in 996, Otho

III., who, with precocious vigor of mind and character, had assumed the

reins of government, found the Roman See vacant by the death of John

XV., and his first care was the election of his successor. The one whom

he proposed, and who was accepted by the electors, was a young

ecclesiastic but twenty-four years of age, the son of the Duke of

Franconia and his own cousin-german. His name was Bruno, and his

accomplished education, joined with a mature virtue, made him worthy to

fill the see of Peter. He assumed the name of Gregory V., and gave great

promise of adorning the Holy See during a long pontificate, as Otho did

of becoming an illustrious emperor of Germany. The hopes of the church

and the empire were, however, frustrated by the early death of both.

Crescenzio had been condemned to banishment, but, at the request of

Gregory, his sentence was remitted. The generosity of the two youthful

and confiding sovereigns was requited by Crescenzio, as soon as Otho’s

back was turned, by an uprising against the German pope and the imperial

officers, the expulsion of Gregory, and the creation of an anti-pope,

who was John Philagathos, a Greek monk, Bishop of Piacenza, and lately

ambassador of the emperor at the court of Constantinople. The bold plan

of these two conspirators was nothing less than the restoration of the

sovereignty of the West to the Greek emperor, under whose auspices each

one hoped to be confirmed in his usurped authority at Rome. In 998

Gregory and Otho re-entered Rome together, and this time showed no

clemency either to Crescenzio or Philagathos, both of whom were victims

of a terrible vengeance.

Pope Gregory died in 999, in the twenty-seventh year of his age and the

third of his pontificate. He was succeeded by the celebrated Gerbert, a

French monk, formerly abbot of the famous monastery of Bobbio, and at

this present time Archbishop of Ravenna, who took the name of Sylvester

II. He had been the guide, the tutor, and the friend of Otho during his

boyhood. In his earlier career he had been somewhat hot-headed, and had

sustained a sharp and obstinate contest with Pope John XV. in respect to

the see of Rouen. Now, however, he was an old man and a wise. No pope so

truly great, in the sense of the word most appropriate to a bishop and

an ecclesiastical ruler, had ascended the papal throne since the time of

St. Nicholas the Great, in the middle of the ninth century. Otho

remained always in Rome and Italy, for which he had a special

predilection. Nothing can be more beautiful than the picture of this

venerable and learned old man, with his gifted and loving pupil by his

side, “_pulchri Cæsaris pulcherrima proles_,” filling together the

throne of ancient, eternal Rome with their pontifical and imperial

majesty. What a subject for a painter or a poet! Otho is one of the most

winning characters to be found in all history. His mother, the Greek

princess, had given him an exquisite mental culture, and his

grandmother, St. Adelaide, a most pious education. There was something

visionary and romantic in his nature which only adds to his personal

attractiveness. He dreamed of great things for Rome and the empire, such

as the Florentine seer who had the vision of the unseen world dreamed

of, but which were not in accordance with the plans of divine

Providence, and probably not with the views of Sylvester II. He died at

a castle near Civita Castellana, in the twenty-third year of his age, in

the arms of Sylvester, who followed him to the tomb in a little more

than a year after, on the 12th of May, 1003.

The dreaded year 1000 had been passed and the eleventh century was

begun. It was really one of the most fortunate of all the centuries for

Rome and the popes, yet it began under dark and menacing auspices. The

Crescenzi regained the predominance in Rome and kept it for twelve years

during three pontificates—viz., those of John XVII., which lasted only

five months, of John XVIII. and Sergius IV., both of whom ruled the

church in peace and with honor to themselves, yet were obliged to

tolerate the usurpation of the patrician Giovanni Crescenzio, who seems

to have governed with more mildness than his father, Nomentano, had

done. In 1012, after his death, the dominion of this family came finally

to an end, being supplanted by that of the Conti Tusculani, who retained

it for thirty years. Count Gregory, a descendant of Alberic and Marozia,

whose later years were rendered illustrious by piety and good works of a

splendid munificence, left at his death three sons, Alberic,

Theophylact, and Romanus. The second of these became pope under the name

of Benedict VIII., and governed the church as well as the Roman

principality during twelve years with consummate ability, aided in his

civil administration by his two brothers, and in perfect amity with the

emperor, St. Henry II., who had succeeded his cousin, Otho III., but had

always been prevented by wars and other pressing employments elsewhere

from interfering in Italian affairs. In 1014 St. Henry was able to come

to Rome with his queen, St. Cunegunda, to receive the imperial

coronation from the pope. A rival king of Italy, Arduin, the last of the

Italian kings who aspired to the iron crown of Lombardy until Victor

Emanuel appeared, had been conquered, and, retiring to a monastery,

passed the rest of his days in penance. Henry and Benedict together made

successful war upon the Greeks and Saracens, putting an end to the

troubles of Italy from both these enemies. The pope and the emperor both

died at about the same time in 1024, and with Henry II. was ended the

Saxon line of emperors, which was succeeded by the Franconian, called

also the Ghibelline from the family castle of Waiblingen, and the Salic,

from the tribal name Salii—_i.e._, dwellers by the river Sala.

Benedict’s brother Romanus succeeded him on the pontifical throne under

the name of John XIX., and united more strictly in his own person the

functions of ecclesiastical and civil sovereignty than had been the case

during the reign of his predecessor. His pontificate of eight years was

a laudable administration, without any event of note which has been

recorded, except the coronation of the first Franconian emperor, Conrad

II. This coronation was marked by the presence of an unusually numerous

and splendid assemblage of princes and prelates from all parts of

Europe, among whom were Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy, and Canute the Great,

King of Denmark and England. This grand ceremony was performed in the

spring of 1027, but, notwithstanding the new splendor which seemed at

that time to environ the Holy See, the greatest disgrace and scandal

with which it was ever afflicted was close at hand and came upon it in

the next pontificate. On the death of John XIX., in 1032, there was no

one of the family of the Conti upon whose head the tiara could be placed

with any sort of fitness and propriety. So great and so strongly fixed

was the power of that family that they succeeded in securing the

election and coronation of a young boy, Theophylact, nephew of the two

preceding popes, and the son of Count Alberic, their elder brother. He

is said by some historians to have been twelve years old, by others to

have been perhaps seventeen. Under the name of Benedict IX. he continued

during the thirteen years of his reign, under the protection of the

emperor and supported by the power of his family, to harass his subjects

by his capricious tyranny, and to afflict and desolate the church by the

unrestrained license of his moral conduct. His scandalous life and

maladministration of the government brought on a schism headed by an

anti-pope calling himself Sylvester III., caused frequent and violent

popular tumults, and excited universal contempt and odium against his

own person. At last the discontent reached such an extreme that of his

own free-will Benedict abdicated his office, that he might have greater

freedom to live without any restraint upon his conduct. The most

distinguished and the most respected priest of the Roman Church at this

time was John Gratian, arch-priest of the church of St. John at the

Latin Gate, the preceptor of St. Hildebrand, who was afterwards Pope

Gregory VII. Desiring to put an end to the calamities of every kind

which were the consequence of a sacrilegious pontificate, Gratian took

the extraordinary course of offering a large subsidy in money to

Benedict IX. on condition of a complete renunciation of all his rights

to the Roman See. He was then himself canonically elected Pope under the

name of Gregory VI., and began with zeal the work of reformation in both

church and state. Nevertheless, the circumstance that he had given a sum

of money to induce Benedict to resign gave occasion to such a plausible

outcry of simony and personal ambition against Gregory, and the

resistance of the anti-pope Sylvester as well as that of Benedict, who

reclaimed his former office, was so violent, that it was necessary to

call in the aid of the new emperor Henry III., and to summon a numerous

council, that the rival claims might be adjudicated and sufficient

measures be adopted for restoring peace and order. The council, which

met at Sutri, set aside entirely both Sylvester and Benedict. The

decision of his own case was referred to Gregory with great respect, but

with a manifest wish that he should resign. The pope disclaimed in the

most solemn manner all mercenary and selfish motives for what he had

done, yet nevertheless, on account of the scandal which had been

occasioned, he judged himself to be unworthy of the papal dignity, and

abdicated it with many tears and expressions of humility. The council

confirmed his resignation, which St. Hildebrand and many others

regretted, but which the greater number, with St. Peter Damian, highly

approved, notwithstanding their esteem for Gregory, who retired into a

monastery, where he lived a secluded and holy life. Even Benedict at

last repented, and spent the few remaining years of his life in prayer

and penance in the monastery of Grotta-Ferrata, which his grandfather,

Count Gregory, had founded.

On Christmas eve, 1046, Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg, was proposed by the

emperor to the Roman clergy and people, and by them elected pope, taking

the name of Clement II. He was enthroned on Christmas day, and on the

same day crowned the emperor and empress, and, as a safeguard against

the abuse of the power of the Roman patrician by the Italian barons, it

was transferred to the emperor, who was thus made the recognized head of

the Roman aristocracy, with a special right of superintending the

election of the sovereign pontiffs. From this moment commenced the dawn

of better and brighter days for Rome. The great work of reformation was

begun by Clement; and, although his reign lasted but one year, and his

successor, another German prelate of high character—Poppo, Bishop of

Brixen, who became Damasus II.—survived his enthronization but

twenty-three days, a saint was waiting to inaugurate the glorious series

of the Hildebrandine popes.

Bruno, Bishop of Toul, who was St. Leo IX., having after long resistance

been persuaded by the emperor and the most eminent prelates to consent

to assume the tiara, stopped at Cluny to see Hildebrand, a young monk,

who became St. Gregory VII. With difficulty he induced him to accompany

him to Rome, on the condition that he would make the journey in

pilgrim’s garb, and submit the imperial nomination without reserve to

the free election of the clergy and people of the Roman Church. He was

enthroned on the 12th of February, which was the first Sunday of Lent,

1049. The eleventh century was at its zenith, and the bright sun of a

new era shed its rays upon Christendom, as a new St. Leo sat upon the

throne of St. Peter, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory, and St. Nicholas,

chasing away the darkness and the clouds of the tenth century, and

putting an end to the period of the obnubilation of the Roman Church.

We have confined our attention almost entirely to the local history of

the popes, without noticing their administration of the universal

church. The general ecclesiastical history of the whole period between

St. Nicholas I. and St. Gregory VII. furnishes abundant proof of the

universal recognition and continuous exercise of the papal supremacy in

the East as well as in the West. Adrian II. celebrated the eighth

œcumenical council at Constantinople in 870. John VIII., John X., and

John XV. exercised throughout Europe the same spiritual authority which

was exercised by Nicholas the Great. The local difficulties of the

popes, and even the scandals which disturbed the Roman Church, had no

effect throughout Christendom to diminish the authority of the Roman

See. During the general anarchy and chaos caused by the new irruption of

barbarians the unity and common life of Christendom was oppressed and

enfeebled, and the corporate, organic action of the universal church

could not manifest itself so vigorously as it had done before and did

afterwards. When all the evils which had attacked the church and

Christendom at the very centre of life in Rome reached their crisis in

the pontificate of Benedict IX., it was certainly felt by all good and

honest men that the very existence of the Papacy and the Catholic

Church, of the whole European society, and of all civilization,

morality, and order on the earth, was in imminent danger. The spectacle

of a youth who was no better in morals, and no stronger in intellectual

or princely qualities, than the weakest and most dissolute of the

Carlovingian monarchs, seated on the throne of St. Peter, shocked and

scandalized Christendom to such an extent that the loud outcry has not

yet ceased to resound in our ears. Yet we perceive in the action of the

Council of Sutri, and of the emperor, Henry III., in respect to Gregory

VI., one of the most signal and splendid testimonies to the undoubting

and unshaken faith of that age in the supremacy of the pope. Sylvester

was judged and condemned to perpetual imprisonment as an intruder and a

pseudo-pope. Benedict was set aside, not because the council pretended

to judge him for his conduct while pope, but because he had executed a

legal and valid abdication of his office. In respect to Gregory, the

council examined and judged of nothing except the validity of his

election, and, this being ascertained, left the judgment of his own case

to his own supreme authority, to his conscience, and to Almighty God.

Just one rapid and parting glance we must cast over Christendom, to take

in by a general view its movement through this segment of the great

cycle of time, and the state into which it had grown in the middle of

the eleventh century. The great barbarian and heathen irruption into

Christian Europe was like the casting of an immense mass of fresh coals

upon a glowing but gradually-expiring fire in a great foundry furnace.

The general aspect was black and dead, and the momentary effect was a

suspension of the great works commenced, but the result was a rapid

kindling from the burning bed beneath, a stronger and hotter fire, and a

more vigorous resumption of operations. The threatened Mohammedan

conquest of Europe was averted, the Hungarian invasion completely and

finally repelled, the Scandinavian eruptions changed into a most

beneficial colonization and infusion of a new element of strength. Many

other most remarkable and salutary political and social transformations

were effected. The Scandinavians, Hungarians, Russians, and other

Sclavonian nations were converted and added to the church. A beginning

was made with the Prussians, even, by the martyrdom of their first

apostle, St. Adalbert, although the work was not completed until near

the close of the thirteenth century and proved to be short-lived. Since

they have resumed the persecution of bishops, there may be, perhaps, a

hope of their reconversion.

The calendars of the two centuries from 850 to 1050 are crowded with the

names of great saints and other illustrious men and women. Among the

popes flourished St. Leo IV., founder of the Leonine City, St. Nicholas

I., John X., Benedict VIII., and Sylvester II. Among the emperors and

kings we may single out Berenger, Henry the Fowler, Otho the Great, St.

Henry II., Hugh Capet, Robert, Alfred, Canute, Edward the Confessor;

Edward and Edmund, martyrs; Brian Boroihme, Ferdinand, St. Stephen, St.

Olaf, Rollo, and Wladimir. In the brilliant group of Christian empresses

and queens shine with special lustre Theodora, St. Adelaide, St.

Cunegunda, St. Matilda, Theophania, and Olga. As illustrious specimens

of the great number of bishops and abbots of high virtue and merit, we

mention St. Anscharius, St. Methodius, St. Ignatius of Constantinople,

St. Dunstan, St. Odo of Cluny, and St. Romuald. These two centuries

contributed but little to the treasury of literature. There is,

nevertheless, a considerable list of authors, among whom are worthy of

mention Nithart, Flodoard, Suidas, Pascharius Radbert, Wuthikind the

German annalist, and John Scotus Erigena. One of the most gifted and

clever of the Latins, Luitprand, and the most intelligent and erudite of

the Greeks, Photius, were unhappily both so morally despicable that they

reflect disgrace rather than honor upon their age.

The epoch we are considering was more remarkable for action than for

writing. The vast and strong foundations were laid for the future

superstructure. Empires and kingdoms, smaller states, cities, towns,

universities, monasteries, and great churches, rose in majesty during

the latter part of this epoch upon the ruins made during its earlier

period, or upon heretofore waste and desert land. The glorious orders of

Cluny and Camaldoli, the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Cordova,

several of the great minsters, and the first efforts of the new school

of Christian art date from this period. It made scanty records of its

own history, but it is crowded with the richest materials for the

student and the literary artist. M. Ozanam projected a course of

lectures at the Sorbonne covering the whole space from the fifth to the

fourteenth centuries, but executed only the first and last part of his

programme. The middle portion still lies open to any one worthy to

complete his work. The Iron Age is worthy of more study than has been

given to it, and, when it is carefully examined, there are many great

discoveries to be made concerning the ages which preceded as well as

those which have followed this hard era. When will intelligent

Englishmen and Americans begin to read history and find out how they

have been duped? When will the wretched little manuals such as Mrs.

Markham’s _History of England_ be driven out of our schools and

children’s libraries and replaced by books which tell the truth? Let us

lay bare history and search for the hard foundations of society and

civilization, and we shall see with ocular evidence that the converging

and diverging lines of all the centuries have but two centres, Jerusalem

and Rome. The rocky height of Jebus, which David carried by craft and

valor; the Capitoline Hill, where Romulus and Numa laid the foundations

of Rome, are in the cycle of history what the two foci are in an

ellipse. When the fortunes of Juda are at their lowest point, the

supernatural providence of God over that royal tribe and the house of

David is most signally manifested. It is impossible to read

intelligently the history of the Roman See and the popes without

perceiving a providence of a higher order, working on a more sublime

plane, in the disasters as well as in the glories and triumphs of the

New Jerusalem and its line of priestly kings, the vicegerents of David’s

royal Son and Lord. The supernatural providence manifest in the

destinies of Rome and its dependent Christendom makes also the

supernatural end toward which God is conducting mankind equally

manifest. The search after natural causes without regard to the first

cause being proved absurd, the search for natural effects without

respect to the final cause is equally absurd. The ideal kingdom on earth

is not to be found. Not only are we unable to find it realized, we

cannot even find a tendency toward a future realization. Royal power,

national greatness, the achievements of art and science, the external

order and splendor of the church, are all, manifestly, only means, and

the end is in the spiritual order, in the souls of individual men.

Everything external and temporal is built on the shifting, unstable sand

of human free-will, and is therefore evanescent and changeable. The only

permanent and eternal result is in the great, unknown mass of human

beings who have found the gate and the way to the kingdom of heaven, and

in the _élite_ of the human race who have found the way to its highest

places and wear its brightest crowns. The earth is only a _palæstra_, a

school, an ingenious contrivance of divine art for the acquisition and

exercise of virtue, for gaining merit, for nurturing the childhood of

the destined citizens of the true and eternal city of God—_Cœlestis

Urbs, Jerusalem_. The whole order of divine Providence in the church and

the world, and its chief intention, must be changed, if any ideal and

stable state of perfection is established on the earth; for this would

require that no longer free scope should be given to the liberty of the

human will. We conclude, therefore, that future ages will not differ

essentially from those which are past. As the fourth and the seventh

centuries differ, as the tenth and thirteenth, the fifteenth,

seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries mutually differ, so there are

possible cycles of change from worse to better, or the reverse, so long

as the world continues. There is a perpetual progress toward that

consummation which God has in view. But there is no change in the

_militant_ state of the Catholic Church. We are informed by divine

revelation that the earthly sovereignty of Jesus Christ will continue

only so long as he has enemies to conquer, and that when his conquest is

completed he will give up this kingdom to the Father, that God may be

all in all. His eternal reign, in which all the elect will share,

consists in the glory won by merit. All the rest is only scaffolding to

be torn down and thrown away for fire-wood; it is scenery and

stage-costume, of no use when the play is over. The lessons of history

teach us to discern all the illusions which have deceived past ages; if

we are wise we shall learn also not to make new illusions for the

future. We shall fear nothing for the eternal cause of truth and right,

and we shall have no fanciful hopes of a coming millennium. We shall

learn the one needful and useful maxim that all effort is a waste of

time, except the one effort to make ourselves and others better and more

virtuous.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.