|AT the foot of a group of tall pointed limestone rocks, which seemed to
be much higher than the seventy-five feet ascribed to them, nestled this
most theatrical looking little town on the river Meuse, which winds
in and out most charmingly through a district once covered with dense
forests. All about were beautiful gorges between which the river rushed
noisily, now following the base of a precipice of solid limestone, and
again laving the roots of large trees growing luxuriantly on the slaty
banks. Each of these valleys, each breach in the limestone wall, was
overgrown with lush verdure, contrasting most strikingly with the dark
brown or gray tones of the cliffs. Hereabouts small towns and hamlets,
with scant room for the old houses and mills clinging to the steeps,
thickly occupied the spaces between the rocks and the rushing stream.
This small town of St. Mihiel, with its population of about eight
thousand inhabitants, is said to have grown up around an ancient abbey
dedicated to St. Michael, established here by some pious monks in the
eighth century, but the landlord of the Hôtel du Cygne told me, with a
shrug of the shoulders, that the abbey was not so old as all that;
that M. le Père had informed him that the abbey had been built in the
seventeenth century; the same year as the church; that he wished to set
M. le Voyageur (myself) right in the matter; not that he cared how old
or how new it was, but that he, the proprietor of the Hôtel du Cygne,
was a truthful man, and no one, least of all, a gentleman who had
made such a long journey as Monsieur the American from New York--"bien
intendu," should receive any but the most truthful information from
him, proprietor as he was of the Hôtel du Cygne. Which long speech
he delivered with appropriate shrugs, gesticulations, and uplifted
eyebrows.
Mine host turned out to be an interesting personality. There were
many such in these small towns on the banks of the Meuse. He was named
Camille Robert Joseph Laroche, and not only was he a genial and valuable
"raconteur," but he had a saint for a forebear. According to his tale,
which I have no reason to discredit, more than three hundred years ago
his ancestor bequeathed the entire family patrimony to the church,
which in gratitude therefor promptly canonized him, insomuch that he
now adorns the galaxy at St. Matthias Roche. For this great honor and
distinction, said mine host, all the descendants had ever since been
paying, for, deprived of their estates, they became "hoteliers" and
"négociants," their only wealth being the good will and esteem of the
countryside. Thus I had the high honor at St. Mihiel of lodging at an
inn kept by the scion of a saint.
It was pleasant to arrive at this pretty hill-embosomed town when
evening was drawing on and the stars, like unto glimmering altar tapers
in a vast cathedral space, were shining forth one by one.
I sat before the inn door upon a bench with mine host» who had lapsed
into silence, and watched the crystal disk of the moon over the
"Falaise," shining, with that peculiar tint which has no name nor
likeness on earth; that large mystic peace, the charm of a village at
eventime, brooded in the air: Truly God is known in the breath of the
still woods; a very frankincense.
Some passing girls in groups who had come to see the arrivals by train,
that puffing, cautiously moving train that had come from Verdun, with
the mail, the writer, and a few "commis-voyageurs," several soldiers
on leave, and three shovel-hatted priests lent some animation to the
street.
Each girl, chattering and laughing, was knitting industriously. Their
eyes were bright and blue; their hair, gathered with gay ribbons into
knots, was sunny: they seemed care-free.
The great gray limestone pointed rocks stand sentry over St. Mihiel.
Upon one stands a Calvary. There were fragmented castles round about.
Each dominated a ridge, stretching away like a line of bulwarks for
the nestling towns between. I found, in the days of exploration that
followed my arrival, that facing beyond the thread of the river, an
amphitheater of great beeches, tier upon tier, ensconced all.
One might fancy a couchant lion on guard here, the old town lying snug
between its outstretched paws, or to use another simile as if it had
been cast down by giant hands and caught in the cleft.
The town lay in somewhat the shape of a T, the head-stroke turned
downwards on both sides; the upright formed by the long nestling town of
the valley, the cross bar by the bowed overspread of habitations at
the valley's mouth, one thronged crescent of river, road, and terraced
verdancy. Just at the point of junction in the nailhead was a small
convent garden, all scarlet, pink, white and dazzling emerald green.
One would think this quiet, rident town, looking down upon it by morning
light from the Calvary on the limestone pinnacle, a very sanctuary
home of dreams. On the contrary, it was only a more or less prosaic
manufacturing town to the inhabitants who lived among all this
picturesqueness without realizing it. Listening from my perch at the
foot of the Calvary on the "Falaise," I could hear the hum of looms.
At the clang of the midday Angelus they stopped short for the brief hour
of rest and repast. For a thousand years some of the old walls had lain
much as I saw them, for St. Mihiel figures in territorial documents of
a. d. 950. It is said that there was a time when the outstretched paws
of the lion were joined by huge stone-turreted walls. These closed in
the town and made a sanctuary. The Barons of St. Mihiel were greatly
distinguished personages; they played a noble part in the Crusades. I
found their records quaintly set forth upon tombs in archaic words, the
meaning of which was often entirely puzzling and obscure. I made notes
of these names and dates, but they were carelessly mislaid. Should one
be curious about them, I doubt not that Froissart has recorded them in
all their state and glory. St. Mihiel claimed the usual list of heroes
and warriors, and her claim was granted without question.
The old market place was graced by lime trees, and the ruined walls were
overgrown with ivy and vine of luxuriant leafage, hiding crack and gap
cunningly. The aged towers still cleaved to the rock by leave of the
roots of beech and fir tree, whose spreading roots are more lenient foes
to masonry, perhaps, than German mines. Imagine the great empty shell of
the donjon, with a rugged façade, ivy grown and rook-haunted, a ruined
chapel-apse with its suspended "piscina and aumbry," (thus named for me
correctly by a scholarly architect friend, else I should not have
known how to call them), its Gothic columns and arches; this sheer wall
overhung the town perilously.
There was a story told of the old bell's tolling at the death of a
child. Within the donjon is the remains of the well, fifty feet deep. In
olden days a young chatelaine threw herself down this well, her child
in her arms, to escape the brutality of the besiegers, in the
fourteenth--or was it the thirteenth?--century. There were twin brothers
who did the same, in some remote period, after refusing to open the
gates to Wenceslaus, or was it Baldwin of the Iron Arm*? There was
a cavern at the bottom where the knights-proprietors hid their gains
during the sieges. All these and many other tales of fear, blood and
bravery were told at St. Mihiel.
Some years ago, they said, a young maid drawing water from the well,
discovered a golden bracelet at the bottom of the bucket; but beyond a
few fragments of bone and some pieces of rusty iron that is all that has
been discovered of treasure.
It was said that the great hidden treasure is guarded by an immense
serpent, which, when any one was so foolhardy as to attempt its
recovery, blew out his candles and then devoured him at leisure. On the
night before Maundy Thursday, at the hour of twelve, the master knight,
clad all in his Templar's armor regalia, and bearing the scarlet cross
upon his breast, rides the ruins with his cohort: but to no one save a
true and devout Catholic was this vision vouchsafed, so it was said. St.
Mihiel was unusually quaint in many ways.
One did not find sheep grazing anywhere. When by some rare chance they
were brought to town by a drover, the sensation produced was equal to
that which might be caused by the appearance of an elephant or a camel.
Children ran after the poor frightened dusty things, tugging at their
wool, some trying to climb upon their backs, and the whole square was in
an uproar. There were plenty of pigs about, and these, curiously, were
in charge of a professional pig handler, who took them to pasture,
and cared for them for a weekly wage. It was not uncommon on a morning
ramble to come upon a drove of them occupying the whole road to the
limit of space: a symphony in pink amid a cloud of dust.
The little town was the residence of the great Cardinal de Retz, who is
said to have written his memoirs here. The Rue Notre Dame, which led to
the ancient abbey, and the church of St. Michael, had some very fine
old fifteenth century houses, which were still (in 1910) in an
excellent state of preservation. The great church dated in part from the
seventeenth century, and contained a remarkable statue of the Madonna,
attributed to Ligier Richier, a pupil of Michelangelo, who also carved
the noted sepulchral monument of René de Châlons, Prince of Orange, in
the church of St. Pierre at Bar-le-Duc. There was here too, a figure of
a child surrounded by skulls, with two of which she was playing. Said
to be by Jean Richier, this was a most beautiful piece of seventeenth
century miniature work.
The Madonna mentioned above was depicted as fainting in the arms of St.
John, the pose being most remarkable. One of the curiosities of the
old church was the remains of a stone rood loft, a structure said by
architects to be very rarely met with. The ruined remains of the abbey
at the east end of the church were found near some sort of public
offices, which should have been cleared away so that they might be seen
the better. In the Rue des Ingénieurs was the house of the sculptor,
Ligier Richier, dated 1538. And in the church of St. Sepulcré was the
famous tomb by this master, consisting of thirteen figures, showing
the Virgin, Mary Cleopas and John, and some dice players, all of great
realism and character.
This whole region is filled with legend, related with such great
circumstantial detail that one might not venture, on pain of giving
offense, to show disbelief, no matter how fantastic the story. There
was one curious old house which I saw in the Rue de la Vaux, which had
a rude frieze of great animals below its roof, the effect being so
singular as to be well nigh unbelievable. What its history or origin
I was unable to discover. Indeed much mystery was made of it, when I
inquired; much as if I had asked an indiscreet question. So I desisted.
In the neighborhood were the most delightful walks and rambles,
overgrown with verdure, leading past small farmsteads embosomed in thick
forests, in a region filled with myth and legend.
Following the course of the Meuse, dotted with small mills taking toll
of her one by one, whose splashing mossy wheels she cheerfully spins;
eddying here and there, bright gardens, one was led to a certain gushing
fountain, under a shelving bay of ferny rock, and this was named "the
Easter fountain." It would be strange indeed if a fountain in this
region had not a story connected with it. This one was no exception,
and here follows this story of the Easter fountain, as told by Brother
Antoine of St. Mihiel.
In the thirteenth century of our redemption Count Reni, in the castle
on the heights, governed this region; at Commercy reigned Count Alan. A
common sorrow bound the two to friendship: their young wives had faded
in their first bloom. The châtelaine of Reni had left a boy of four
years, and the Lady Elsa a girl baby at the cost of her life. This
babe, sweet souvenir, was also named Elsa by her mourning, inconsolable
father. All fêtes and celebrations were thenceforth banished from the
two castles, the lords of which sought comfort only in the high and holy
offices of the Church, and in mutual companionship. Pope Honoré, at the
call of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, summoned all knights to the
Holy Crusade. In this call the two bereft counts found the command of
the Most High. Burying their grief in the forests of St. Mihiel, they
set their affairs in order, gave over their domains to the care of
overseers, and taking down shield and great cross hiked sword, ranged
themselves "cap à pie" beneath the banner of their high and knightly
leader, the Emperor Frederic.
Count Reni leaves his little Elsa to the care of her godmother and the
abbess under the protection of his faithful aged squire, Père Carol. So
passes by the period of ten or more years, young boy and girl grow up
even as brother and sister, ranging the paths of the scented wood, hand
in hand; learning together the lore of God's wisdom of flower and bird,
and with the pious help of the abbess, the wondrous stories of the lives
of the saints in those great vellum bound, brass clasped office books
of the altar. Occasionally to the castle comes a wandering singer, who
teaches them in song the doughty deeds of the absent soldiers of the
Cross, naming their fathers gloriously. To these songs the children, now
grown tall in stature, listened with shining eyes and panting breath.
Thus they dreamed of the brave fathers they had hardly known.
Now that the young Count had come almost to man's estate, the old
esquire thought of presenting him at the Court of Rheims. It was
summertime, and the time had come for the parting. Elsa wandered alone
through the wooded paths of the forest. But the once loved scenes of
nature had lost half their charm for her. To pass the time she set about
acts of devotion and mercy; visiting the poor huts of the woodsmen,
dispensing tender charities to their families and teaching the children
to pray to the saints and the Holy Fathers.
So passed the long months of summer and then came autumn in a blaze of
red and golden leaves. Now the young Count, learning at the Court of
Rheims that the two Counts were shortly expected to return from the
Crusades in the East, returned to the castle with his retinue, and
passing a small cottage by the roadside on the river bank, caught a
glimpse of his former playmate and companion, on her knees, binding up
the wounds of a poor charcoal burner, who had been injured by the fall
of a tree trunk. But, lo: there was something in the expression of
her face that was all new to him. Dismounting from his horse, he knelt
before her, as to a saint. She was to him, all at once, an aureoled
angel; a burning reverence overcame him, surging from head to foot, and
he knew in that instant that for him time had brought its fullness to
him, and that henceforth they were to be inseparable.
Entranced, he studied her face, so different to him from those which
he had seen at court at Rheims, exquisite as those faces were. But this
one! Ah, now it was clear to him that he had all his life never had a
soul.
Elsa had gazed into his eyes unable to speak, her hands clasped upon her
bosom. Now she gave a cry of gladness, but stopped all at once, for a
new and strange quickening in her heart: Young Alan is transfigured in
her sight, like unto St. Michael.
Alan seizes her hand, he calls her his sweet flower of innocence, and so
swears to be her loyal knight even unto death; thus they remained hand
in hand in ecstasy, while she prayed that the blessed mother watch over
them forever more. At the castle the pair knelt before the good abbot,
and then the old Esquire and the Abbess joined their hands and blessed
them.
When the news of the Count's arrival at the coast, and young Alan's
home coming went forth, the whole region rejoiced, the bells rang in the
churches, and the vassals assembled to greet the young seigneur. From
her bower in the lofty tower of the castle Elsa watched the road along
the river. It was eventide when the sounds of approaching cavalry broke
the stillness. Soon the great drawbridge of the castle fell with a
clang of chains, and young Alan was clasped in the arms of the returned
Crusader.
In the great banquet hall, hung with flags and trophies of the chase,
the retainers thronged to welcome and acclaim their returned lord and
master. Great flagons and cups of wine were passed, and the vaulted
stone roof rang with the loyal shouts of "Long live Count Alan!"
But, strange to say, all was not well with Alan the Crusader. A dark
cloud sat upon his knitted brow, and his worn thin hand bent upon
the knob of the great chair upon which he sat. Elsa, in a very heaven
between the joys, plied him with questions which he answered vaguely,
and finally bade the churls to bring the torches from the walls, and
gave the word of dismissal to the throng.
Much troubled, Elsa gave her white brow to her father's kiss, bade him
good night; and very shortly the castle was in darkness, and silent save
for the measured tread of the sentinels on the parapet.
On the following day the Abbess told Elsa that the two counts, once
so inseparable, had for certain reasons become enemies, that the young
Count of Bré must never more be named within the hearing of her father;
and that henceforth she must forget her love for Alan, which now was
quite hopeless. Broken hearted but obedient, the young girl, bathed in
tears, spent hours before the altar upon her knees, but devoted herself
to her father whenever he would see her.
Autumn came, and brought winter in its train. Young Alan she had not
seen since the day of his return when they met at the charcoal burner's
cottage in the wood. The fête of Noël came in with a great snow storm.
The Count no more went forth, nor did he attend at chapel. The abbot had
admonished him upon one occasion--"If ye from your hearts forgive not
those who--" whereupon the Count had struck the rail with his hand,
arose, and left the chapel.
Affairs at the other castle were quite similar, and the lord had refused
to offer his hand in friendship to his old friend Count Alan, swearing
a terrible oath that he would wither away unshriven ere he did such a
thing. Thus matters stood at the two castles, and two fond hearts were
breaking, while pride held out. As to the young Alan, he had well-nigh
lost his reason but for the kindly and wise advice of the old Abbot.
Then one day the aged châtelaine lay upon her death bed, with Elsa
bathed in tears beside her.
"Call thee thy father, child," she said, "I have much to say to him
before I go." Of the conversation between them nothing was ever known,
but a marked change came over the old knight, after the chatelaine had
been laid at rest beneath the altar in the chapel. He passed the whole
night before the Stations of the Cross, and cried aloud for mercy,
striking his breast with both hands.
In the morning he called Elsa and told her that he was to set out upon
a long journey, and she begging that he allow her to accompany him he
at length consented, and so together, with an escort, the old knight and
the tender maiden set out through the forest.
It was the Holy Week of the Passion, and there were bands of pious
pilgrims met upon the road, nearly all afoot, for that was the custom.
Seeing this the old knight dismounted, and bidding the escort take the
horses and return to the castle, they joined one of the processions,
and continued on foot as far as the Calvary which was at the bend in the
road toward St. Mihiel. Here they paused and let the procession proceed
without them.
It was fair spring time; the fairest flowers bloomed all about them,
and wild birds in the trees hymned the Resurrection of God. Elsa's
heart sang in unison with the birds. She suspected the object of the old
knight's pilgrimage.
When they were near the castle of Count Alan, all at once she saw on the
road the Count and his son, arm in arm, approaching them. When they met
there was an instant's silence, then cried out the old knight, "Alan! I
come to thee!"
"And I was coming to thee to ask thy forgiveness," replied Count Alan
with shining eyes; and they embraced, retiring arm and arm beneath the
great beech trees, leaving Elsa and young Alan face to face. Elsa's
hands were clasped upon her heaving bosom, her brimming eyes raised to
the sky; then she knelt down beside the cliff in the moss, and young
Alan knelt beside her. All at once Elsa's voice burst forth in the holy
canticle, "Benedicite, opera Domini, Domino--fontes benedicite," and as
she uttered the last words of the canticle, there burst forth from the
limestone rock, just where their united tears had dropped, a tiny stream
of crystal clear water. Soon this grew larger, bubbling forth like
pearls into the sunlight, and making a channel for itself, flowed
onward, dancing and leaping as for joy. And thus kneeling there at the
fountain of their united tears the knights found them....
And this is the story of the fountain of the lovers' tears at St.
Mihiel, where broken friendships were said to be healed by one draft of
the waters, partaken of by both be it understood.
One wonders now as to the fate of St. Mihiel-on-the-Meuse; is that gray
old church entirely destroyed by the rain of shells that has beaten
upon it for more than two years? And what remains of the little town
clustering against the two tall limestone peaks all clad with green
verdure, where all was so prosperous and peaceful before the onslaught
of the destroying legions?