Fleurange attended to the princess’ wants, and then very willingly

took a slight repast, which the heat of the mid-day hour made quite

acceptable. While she stood taking an ice, the princess opened the

pile of notes and letters on a small table near her. She read the

notes first.

“Well, there are more people here than I expected. So much the

better! Let me look over my cards.”

She read out a succession of names of people from various

countries, with a running commentary on each which would have given

the impression that these people she was so glad to find again were

individually perfectly indifferent to her. Then she took up her

letters.

“Ah! at last!” she exclaimed, tearing open a large envelope. “Let

me see the date.--Now I am relieved!--Thank heaven, he is still

there!” She read about a page, and then suddenly cried: “In less

than a month? What, in less than a month?” Then she finished the

letter in silence, and afterward remained a long time without

speaking, but with an anxious and thoughtful look.

“Ah! Gabrielle, are you still here?” she said, rousing at last from

her reverie. “I beg your pardon.” She rang. “You must be shown to

your room. I advise you to take some repose. I shall do the same.

We shall see each other again at seven o’clock, which is my hour. I

expect hardly any one to-day, and shall wear my morning dress.”

Fleurange, thus dismissed, gladly followed the valet de chambre,

who answered the bell, through the salons and up the grand

staircase to the second story where her chamber was. There he left

her with a respectful bow, after pointing out the corridor that

gave access to the princess’ apartments without the necessity of

passing through any of the rooms.

The chamber to which she was taken was handsome and spacious,

but it seemed rather ornamented than furnished. Its size, its

painting and gilding would have allowed much more and much richer

furniture. But such as it was, it pleased the young girl’s fancy.

The broad and lofty window in a deep embrasure admitted floods

of light, but would have afforded no other view than the sky, if

three stone steps had not made it accessible. From the upper step

the eye looked down upon the interior court of the palace, which

resembled a cloister with its light colonnade. A limpid stream

flowed from a white marble fountain in the midst of velvet-like

turf and surrounded by rhododendrons. Birds were warbling in a

large aviary. All these things combined to make up a soft, pleasing

picture, crowned by the azure vault of heaven--a picture singularly

quiet and dreamy, and Fleurange remained a long time seated on a

stone seat within the embrasure, allowing her thoughts to wander,

as often happened, in vague regions, until a servant with her trunk

reminded her it was time to descend in more than one sense from her

elevation, and proceed to the matter-of-fact task of unpacking and

arranging her effects. About to commence, she found she had left

her satchel in the salon. As it contained her keys, she was obliged

to go for it, and she took the short passage which led directly

to the princess’ sitting-room; but, instead of returning the same

way, she could not resist the desire of examining again, alone

and at leisure, the sumptuous rooms she had only passed through

before. She went leisurely through them, admiring as she went, with

a mixture of childlike curiosity and an innate perception of the

beautiful, all the objects that were collected here in uncommon

profusion; but, notwithstanding the exquisite taste displayed, she

could not help observing the ostentation, which by contrast vividly

recalled the remembrance of the Old Mansion--the dear Old Mansion!

where simplicity was so happily combined with the magnificence of

art, where everything that charmed the eye appealed to the soul,

inspired serenity and peace, and inclined one to application and

study; whereas here, what met the eye and struck the attention

spoke of amusement, luxury, and pride.

This comparison made Fleurange melancholy. She ceased looking

around with interest, and was about to return to her chamber by

the grand stairway without continuing her explorations, when, in

crossing the hall, a large half-opened door opposite attracted

her attention, and she yielded to the curiosity of glancing into

the only apartment she had not seen. She pushed the door open,

and entered a room equally as large as the others, but which

seemed rather a study-room than a salon. The half-open shutters

allowed the volumes in Russia leather that lined the walls to be

seen, as well as the ebony book-cases on all sides. Furniture

systematically arranged and protected by coverings, tables loaded

with books placed in order as if no one had touched them for a

long time, everything showed this room was unoccupied, and had

not, like the rest, been prepared for the return of the mistress

of the house; but a certain atmosphere of studious repose pervaded

it which was more in conformity with Fleurange’s real tastes than

all the magnificence she had just beheld. She therefore advanced

some steps, looking around, and, the better to see the objects

scarcely to be distinguished in the obscurity, she went to one

of the windows and ventured to throw the shutters entirely open.

The strong light which at once filled the room revealed a picture

before her which she had not previously noticed. She glanced at

it, and--it is impossible to describe her feelings!--She could not

herself have found words to express her extreme astonishment and

the overpowering emotion that made her turn pale and then red

as she almost fell.--The picture thus suddenly revealed to her

was that which had played so important a part in her life--her

father’s last work--in a word, the Cordelia for which she had sat

so long ago, and which she had never heard mentioned since without

agitation!

For some moments she was overpowered by a thousand thoughts rushing

over her--thoughts similar to those she had so successfully

banished some months before by a supreme effort. It is not

astonishing they should be involuntarily reawakened now. The lively

curiosity with which she was filled was excusable, as well as her

impatience to know how this picture came here, and whose room

it was.--She felt she should soon know, and, with a heart still

throbbing, she closed the shutters, and softly left the room in

which she had just beheld this unexpected apparition, as it were.

She crossed the hall, and was at the foot of the stairs when she

met Mademoiselle Barbe in a great hurry, and in that stage of

fatigue bordering on ill-humor which, on a day of departure or

arrival, is to be seen (and not wholly without reason) in those on

whom rests the weight of packing and unpacking. Fleurange stopped

her nevertheless, having resolved to ask an explanation of the

first person she met.

“Barbara,” she said, “I have been examining all the rooms.”

These words brought a smile to the servant’s face, for she prided

herself on the splendor of her mistress’ palace.

“We are well quartered, aren’t we?” she said, with an air of

satisfaction.

“Yes, quite. Does the whole palace belong to the princess?”

“Certainly, from the garret to the cellar.”

“And she lives here alone?”

“Alone, of course, with Monsieur le Comte.”

“The count?”

“Yes; her son, who always lives with her when here. There--in that

room,” said she, pointing towards the door Fleurange had just

closed.

“Her son! What is his name?”

“Count George de Walden.”

“Count George de Walden?” echoed Fleurange, as if in a dream.

“Why, yes; that was the name of the princess’ first husband. Did

you not know it?”

“No, I did not.”

“He died young--that one. Madame, too, was young. She mourned for

him a long time, and then married again, but had no more children.

The prince is dead also, but--”

Just at that moment a servant appeared with an armful of packages

of all sizes, one of which fell from his hand. Barbara left

Fleurange abruptly, and sought relief from her fatigue in a severe

reprimand to the awkward man, more tired than herself.

XVIII.

Fleurange returned to her seat on the top of the three steps that

led to her window, and was again looking down on the quiet and

secluded court. But what a change had been wrought in her feelings

since she sat there half an hour before! What contrast between

this tranquil scene, which then harmonized so perfectly with the

serenity of her thoughts, and her present agitation of mind! She

endeavored to be calm, but for some time could not succeed. Was the

emotion caused by this unexpected discovery surprise and joy, or

regret and fear? She could not clearly decide, but it was a mixture

of all these different sensations; and she gave herself up for a

time to be buffeted by a whirlwind of contradictory thoughts. By

degrees they at last became clearer and more distinct. Fleurange

recalled the last time she heard Count George’s name mentioned, as

well as the resolution she made that day. That resolution had been

easily kept, thanks to all that had since happened to divert and

absorb her attention. She must still remain faithful to it under

entirely different circumstances. It was, however, no longer a

question of forgetting the very name of Count George, as she was

doubtless to see him, know him, and live under the same roof. But

what she must impress most seriously on her mind was--that he would

be as widely separated from her here in his mother’s house as when

he only lived in the world of her dreams. This of course would

be extremely difficult, but it was evidently a duty she owed to

herself. This point once established, her course was plain.

The gentle hand that guided her childhood did not try to extinguish

the exquisite though somewhat dangerous qualities with which she

was gifted. She did not stifle the liveliness of her imagination,

or the ardent tenderness of her heart, or the tendency of her

sentiments to extremes.

Madre Maddalena considered these precious gifts only dangerous in

the absence of two other qualities which she sought to develop in

Fleurange, with a care only comparable to that which is used (in

an inferior sense) in developing the human voice, and transforming

it into an instrument at once powerful, harmonious, and almost

divine. However musical a voice may be, one cannot sing without

correctness of ear, and the power of sustaining its clearness for

a long time without faltering. The divine harmony of the human

faculties also depends on the correctness with which the word

_duty_ is echoed in the soul, and the strength of character to

act upon it unhesitatingly and unfalteringly. These were the two

qualities that overruled all others in Fleurange’s nature, and had

hitherto preserved her from the dangers to which the others exposed

her.

More than two hours passed away: the shadows of the columns grew

longer beneath the portico: the evening star, herald of holy

thoughts in Fleurange’s soul, came out clear and brilliant in the

cloudless sky, reminding her of her accustomed prayer. She had

hardly finished it when the clock struck and abruptly recalled the

young girl to herself. She hastily opened her trunk, changed her

dress, and entered the dining-room the very moment the Princess

Catherine appeared.

Fleurange wore a plain dress of black silk. In the present state

of her wardrobe, she would have been embarrassed if required to

increase the elegance of her toilet, but she had not thought of

it on the present occasion, after hearing the princess say she

intended dining in her morning dress. She was, therefore, somewhat

surprised to see the garment thus designated was a flowing robe

of white cashmere richly embroidered with gold. Her coiffure was

a tissue of lace and gold, and she wore on her neck six strings

of magnificent pearls which hung down over her waist. But what

surprised and disconcerted the young girl more was the dissatisfied

look the princess gave her when she appeared. It was the first time

the kind and cordial greeting to which she had become accustomed

was wanting.

But it was no time to give or receive any explanations, for the

princess was not alone. There were two or three guests whose names

Fleurange afterwards learned: an old _savant_ named Dom Pomponio;

Signor Livio, a young artist: and the Marquis Trombelli, who was

somewhat of a bore. To tell the truth, they occupied an inferior

rank among the _habitués_ of the palace, but they preserved the

mistress of the house from the mortification of seeing the products

of her cook’s skill waste their sweetness on the desert air, as

well as the danger of dining without a sufficient number of guests

in a vast room, where a _tête-à-tête_ with Fleurange would have

been unsatisfactory. Not that she was by any means indifferent to

the quality of those she received in her drawing-rooms, but with

respect to her _convives_ she attached almost as much importance

to their number as to their worth, and only required in return the

ability of appreciating the exquisite dishes placed before them.

Notwithstanding the simplicity of her dress, Fleurange did not

escape notice. The man of letters talked a little more than usual

with the hope of dazzling her; the marquis directed his eye-glass

towards her several times; and the young artist ventured on some

words complimentary in their tone, but as she only replied in

monosyllables the conversation languished. The evening seemed long,

and the princess had yawned more than once, when she was suddenly

roused at hearing announced--the Marquis Adelardi! She made a

joyful exclamation.

The gentleman who appeared was about forty years of age. Fleurange

afterwards learned he was a Milanais. She immediately perceived

he was one of those men who converse well on every subject, and

know how to excite an interest in what they are talking about,

whether it be fashionable gossip, a political novelty, or a social

and literary question, and who have no other fault than that of

treating these subjects as if they were all of equal interest!

The atmosphere of the room at once changed. The Marquis Adelardi

had not been there a quarter of an hour before he found means of

setting off the indifferent elements of the circle to the best

advantage, making each one talk of what he knew the best. He passed

from politics to history, from the sciences to the arts, showing

himself capable of conversing on all these subjects, if not of

sounding their depths.

Fleurange silently listened to this conversation, which amused

her, but her interest redoubled and changed its nature when the

new-comer, drawing near the princess’ arm-chair, said:

“And when are we to see our George again?”

The princess replied in a pleased and yet half-anxious tone: “We

shall see him again soon, for the letter I received from him this

morning, written at St. Petersburg, announced his return at the end

of this month.”

“So much the better, I miss him everywhere, and every way, here.”

“And I assure you I do also, as you may imagine,” said the

princess, with a thoughtful air, as she played with her necklace of

pearls. “Nevertheless, Adelardi, you know as well as I it would be

better for him to remain where he is till the end of the year.”

“Come, my dear princess, give it up. I advise you to abandon the

idea of making a courtier of George.”

“That is not the only point.”

“Yes, I understand. You think the fair Vera--” Here the marquis

leaned forward, and exchanged some words with the princess in a low

tone. Fleurange only heard these: “And you know this is my only

wish.” It was the princess who spoke.

“And he?” said the marquis.

“He! You know him well.”

“But that is precisely the reason I should not have supposed him

insensible to such attractions as hers.”

“Yes, indeed, but it is never sure he is not absorbed by some fancy

not to be foreseen. Moreover, I believe if she had not been at

court--” Here the princess again lowered her voice.

“Do not worry. He will yield at last.”

“I truly hope so, but meanwhile acknowledge it would be better for

him not to return.”

“Yes and no. I am not sure it is very judicious to expose him to

compromise himself, as he is always tempted to do.”

The princess looked very grave. “You are right from that point of

view,” said she. “He really terrifies me often. But I think he

would become more prudent if obliged to be so. It is a necessity of

which one is at last convinced by living in Russia.”

The conversation was continued for some time in a low tone. Then

the princess declared herself fatigued, and an exception was made

to her custom of prolonging the evening to a late hour, and they

all retired.

Fleurange was about to do the same when the princess stopped her

and asked the reason of her simplicity of dress. “I am particularly

desirous,” she said, “that they who in some sort aid me in doing

the honors of my salon should be dressed stylishly--and I pay them

accordingly,” she added with the want of delicacy sometimes to be

remarked even in well-bred ladies with regard to their dependents.

It was a fault the princess was not often guilty of, but this side

of her nature became apparent when she was in a bad humor.

Fleurange blushed. “I beg your pardon, princess,” said she, “but I

cannot comply with your request--I cannot,” she repeated, her eyes

filling with great tears.

“What does all this mean?”

Fleurange hesitated an instant, but, obedient to her impulses,

always frank and simple, she related what the princess had hitherto

been ignorant of--the ruin of her family, and the motive that had

induced her to accept the place she now occupied.

“If I am obliged to expend the money I receive from you in

adorning my person; if I can only aid my relatives at the risk

of displeasing you, then--then--” And her voice faltered. “Alas!

madame, I should be obliged to seek elsewhere the means of--”

The princess did not allow her to finish. The young girl’s accent,

as she gave her simple account, excited her sympathies; her

dissatisfaction vanished, and the result of this little scene was

that Fleurange was allowed not only to dispose of a part of her

salary as she pleased, but the whole, on one condition, which the

princess insisted upon, and to which Fleurange was at length forced

to consent--that the princess, and she alone, should have the

direction of her young companion’s dress and ornaments.

From that time Fleurange was profusely provided with all that

could satisfy the singular requirement of her protectress, and at

the same time gratify her generosity, keenly stimulated by her

interest in the account she had just heard. Fleurange yielded with

a mixture of gratitude and repugnance, endeavoring to reconcile the

simplicity of her tastes with the elegant taste of the princess.

The result, however, was that, when she appeared for the first time

in public, the effect she produced far surpassed the expectations

of her who seemed to attach so much importance to enhancing her

beauty.

Elegance and luxury seemed really to be necessary elements of the

Princess Catherine’s existence, and as an inferior article of

furniture or hangings of any plainness would have been considered

out of place in her apartments, so Fleurange’s simple black dress

would have marred the prevailing harmony, and she regarded it as

a matter of importance to change what injured the general effect.

But she was by no means disposed Fleurange should cease to be her

_protégée_, which gratified her pride as well as her kind heart.

If the somewhat too enthusiastic homage paid the young girl at

her first appearance had been sought or even welcomed by her, the

princess’ humor would doubtless have been affected by it; but the

dignified modesty of Fleurange’s deportment soon modified the

admiration whose incense would only have troubled the purity and

elevation of her heart had vanity given it entrance.

Fleurange was not vain. This was one of her charms, and at the same

time a safeguard.

The princess’ observant eye soon assured her there was no cause for

fear. This increased her confidence in Fleurange, which soon became

boundless. It was the height of her wishes to be attended by one

whose beauty added to the attractions of her salon and gave her no

anxiety as to the consequences; to enjoy, herself, the charm of

Fleurange’s presence, her activity, and a thousand little talents

which made her useful at every turn; and this without requiring the

least vigilance on the part of herself, which would have greatly

annoyed her. She was glad she could now be indolent at her ease.

Fleurange wrote her notes, arranged her flowers, and completed

work she zealously commenced and then abandoned, and afterwards

complacently showed as her own. Fleurange was also ready to read to

her, with her harmonious voice and expression only the more rare

because perfectly natural, sometimes Italian or German poetry, and

sometimes articles in the reviews and journals; then, at the hour

of receiving visits, she was glad to absent herself, unless the

princess invited her to remain or sent for her. By thus following

her own judgment, she unwittingly fulfilled the secret wishes of

the princess, who was perhaps better pleased with the tact with

which she knew how to anticipate her desires than the promptness of

her obedience.

Meanwhile the days passed away, and it was more than a month since

their arrival at Florence. During this time Count George’s name was

mentioned a thousand times in Fleurange’s presence, but it ceased

to produce the effect she once wisely resolved to resist. Sometimes

she smiled to herself as she thought it possible, after knowing

him, she might be greatly astonished at his ever having occupied

her thoughts to such an extent. “Phantoms always vanish, they say,

when we approach and look them in the face.”

Such was the thought that crossed her mind, one morning, as she sat

alone in the small salon. The princess had gone out, and Fleurange

was seated at an embroidery frame completing some work. The thought

just mentioned was suggested by the news received that morning of

the certain arrival of Count George by the end of the week.

“Yes, reality puts all fancies to flight; and it is very probable,”

she continued, pursuing the course of her reflections, “when I

know him better--” She was suddenly interrupted by the noise of

hasty steps in the next apartment. Generally, no one came that way

without being announced. Surprised, Fleurange hastily rose to leave

the room according to her custom, but had scarcely started when she

found herself face to face with the person who entered.

It was he--yes, _he_--Count George!

She had not time to define her sensations. The effect she herself

produced surprised her, or, to speak more correctly, terrified her

so much that she remained motionless, silent, and astonished.

“Fleurange!--Great God! is it possible! Is it true? Fleurange!”

repeated he with an emotion more profound than that of joy. His

voice, no less than his features, was graven on the memory of

her who heard it. The name, the almost forgotten name of her

childhood, uttered in such a tone; the hand that grasped her own

as that of a friend he had found again, but with a look that made

Fleurange instinctively withdraw her eyes; his rapid questions,

incoherent replies, the eager, tender, passionate tone of his

words--everything in this meeting was sudden, ardent, and dangerous

as lightning!

A carriage was now heard; but, before the Princess Catherine

entered the salon, Fleurange had reached her chamber, pale and

ready to faint.

All the unreasonableness, the madness almost, of her former

thoughts, all that had seemed impossible, was in an instant

transformed into a sudden, unforeseen, and dangerous reality! What

had she just heard? What did he say? What! The thought of her had

followed him for a year; he had endeavored to banish it, but had

not succeeded; and now he had returned decided to make every effort

to find her again--to behold her once more whose image had been

constantly present in his mind!

Yes, he said all this!--And what she heard was the counterpart of

what she herself had felt and struggled against.--Poor Fleurange!

was it joy her pale and troubled face expressed? Was it a transport

of pride, or of tenderness, that caused her heart to beat so

painfully? Was it happiness that made her shed such a torrent of

tears?

Oh! no, the words so sweet to hear when it is lawful to listen;

the happiness of being loved when one loves--one of the greatest

in the world; the words so readily understood because they express

what one has so deeply felt; all that sometimes suddenly illumines

a life like the light of the sun, had just fallen on hers with the

brightness, instantaneousness, and danger of a thunderbolt!

XIX.

Count George de Walden possessed every exterior quality that could

please or fascinate, and, though it would not have been wise to

regard his chivalric air and the nobleness of his features and

manners as the sure indices of a soul exempt from egoism, it was

impossible not to be struck by his appearance, and difficult to

forget him after he was once seen. The lively impression he made on

Fleurange’s memory was not therefore so strange as might appear,

and there were more excuses for it than she found herself. What was

much more surprising was that, notwithstanding the charm with which

she was endowed, the impression was reciprocal, and, at the end of

a year, was not effaced.

We must not, of course, compare the simple, confused, and

involuntary feelings of a young girl with those of such a man

as Count George. Under the semblance of Cordelia, Fleurange had

been constantly before his eyes as well as in his imagination.

He passionately desired to behold her again. He resolved to find

her without examining his intentions as to the project, and

this tenacious preoccupation influenced more than he would have

acknowledged the decision he recently made in spite of his almost

pledged word.

Nevertheless, without being very scrupulous, the Count de Walden

would have thought twice before allowing himself to make such a

declaration to his mother’s companion as that with which he greeted

her. But he by no means expected to find in the Gabrielle sometimes

mentioned in his mother’s letters her whose singular name had

remained imprinted on his memory, as well as her wonderful beauty,

and the first moment of surprise deprived him of the faculty of

reflection. Then, seeing the young girl’s sweet face blush and turn

pale, seeing her charming eyes full of alarm, he uttered in spite

of himself the words he would perhaps have been better able to

suppress if she herself had been more successful at concealment.

But, as we have said, all this was quicker than thought. Five

minutes had not elapsed from the moment of his sudden appearance

before the princess, breathless with joy and haste, fell pale with

emotion into her son’s arms. George led her to her _chaise longue_,

and knelt beside her, and, while she was asking him--embracing

him at every word--sometimes why he had returned so soon, and

sometimes why he had kept them waiting for him so long, by degrees

he entirely regained his self-control. When, after a long hour’s

conversation, he found himself once more alone, he asked himself

if the vision he beheld at his arrival was a reality or a dream of

his imagination, and then, if he were pleased or not, that it had

appeared to him beneath his mother’s roof.

During this time Fleurange also regained her self-possession,

though slowly, and her first sensation was a kind of terror. “O

dear friends! why did I leave you?” she cried, with a feeling

analogous to that of one in the midst of a tempest, longing for

the security of land. She felt the need of protection even more

than at Paris with want staring her in the face, and more than ever

did her isolation and weakness make her afraid. She wiped away her

tears, folded her hands, and endeavored to reflect calmly, but it

was beyond her power to be calmed yet. Her surprise and agitation

had been, this time, too violent. In spite of all her efforts, the

accents still ringing in her ears filled her with an acute, almost

painful joy, which pierced her heart like a sword.

“No, no, I must not dwell on it,” she said, clasping her forehead

with her hands as if to stay the current of her thoughts.

All at once a new idea occurred to her: “What will he tell his

mother? What would she think? Would she be proud, haughty, and

disdainful as she sometimes knew how to be? Would she order her new

companion to leave her at once? What was to be the result?”

She was taking this new view of her position when Barbara, without

the usual formality of knocking, came rushing in with the eager air

of a person who brings news and a message.

“Mademoiselle Gabrielle,” she said, “the princess has sent me to

inform you of the count’s arrival, and that there will be a great

many at dinner. She wishes you to look your best.”

This message, in the midst of Fleurange’s reflections, was like

cold water on a furnace, causing a kind of effervescence, and the

confusion of her thoughts became more inextricable than ever. She

looked at Barbara as if she did not comprehend her.

“You were asleep, perhaps,” said she, noticing the young girl’s

pallor and bewildered look. “Are you ill?”

This question suggested an affirmative reply, and she told the

servant she would be obliged to remain in her room. She was

congratulating herself on this happy means of escape, when Barbara

explained:

“Remain in your room! Sick! Well, what an idea! And on a day like

this!--Madame would be pleased!--Come, mademoiselle, you know well

she would never consent to it!”

“But if my head aches so I can hardly raise it?” said Fleurange.

Barbara looked at her. Fleurange was not deceiving her. She had a

headache; she was very pale, and there was an unusual expression in

her eyes and face, but she was no less beautiful than usual; rather

the contrary.

“Come, Mademoiselle Gabrielle, you are not very ill, I know,” said

Barbara. “Make an effort, otherwise you may be sure the princess

will be up here, and then you will have to yield.”

This perspective reduced Fleurange to immediate submission.

“Then, Barbara,” she said, in a tone half plaintive and half

impatient, “let her tell me what to wear! Dress!--If she only knew

how I detest it!”

“Come, mademoiselle, there are many others who would be glad to be

in your place,” said Barbara in an ill humored tone.

At first she was very much opposed to all her mistress’ generosity

to Fleurange, but she soon softened, for the latter had a means

of conciliating her which she often made use of, and always at a

seasonable time.

“Here, Barbara, take this shawl. You may keep it. Come back in an

hour, and tell me what the princess wishes me to wear. That is

always the shortest way, and saves me the trouble of deciding.”

Barbara went away, but reappeared in an hour, bringing a dress of

sky-blue gauze and some silver pins.

“Here, mademoiselle, is your toilet for to-day. Dress

yourself quick; I am going to help you. Let me arrange your

hair.--There!--These bright pins have a fine effect in your black

hair. Now your dress, quick. The princess is already in the salon.

Monsieur le Comte also, and a great many others. You will be

late.--Come, what are you thinking of, Mademoiselle Gabrielle, to

sit down instead of completing your toilet?”

Fleurange was indeed at once agitated and confused. She walked to

and fro in her chamber, sat down, and rose up without any attention

to the appeals addressed her. At length she resigned herself to

let Barbara dress her as she pleased, and the latter, with a

natural taste for the art, acquitted herself so well that, when the

young girl, with a trembling hand, opened the door of the salon,

hoping to glide in unperceived among the numerous guests already

assembled, there was a general murmur of admiration. This added a

mortal embarrassment to her trouble.

If any one had asked her the color of her dress she could not

have told; but the idea suddenly occurred to her that Barbara

had perhaps arranged her hair and dress in a different and more

becoming way than usual, and she blushed, wondering what the

princess would think of her unaccustomed display.

But the princess did not appear to take any notice of her. Standing

in the centre of the room in the richest of dresses, she was doing

the honors of the house with her usual ease. All at once Fleurange

heard her name called: “Gabrielle!” It was the princess who

beckoned to her. Fleurange approached, but a mist veiled her eyes,

for she had seen from the first that Count George was beside his

mother.

“My bracelet is unclasped. Fasten it, Gabrielle,” said the princess

in her usual tone, at once kind and patronizing. Fleurange bent

down and clasped the bracelet.

“George,” said the princess, “this is Gabrielle of whom I have

often spoken to you. Gabrielle, this is my son.”

George bowed without attempting to speak. Fleurange did the same,

but a painful sensation made the blood rush to her face. For the

first time in her life, she felt tacitly guilty of a falsehood, or

at least of deception, and, though comforted by the certainty the

princess had no suspicion of what had taken place two hours before,

a flash of haughty displeasure escaped from her eyes as she raised

them and turned away her head.

Count George looked at her attentively for an instant, then became

thoughtful, and it was only with an effort he took any part in the

conversation at table. But in the evening, thanks to the Marquis

Adelardi, whose friendship he valued and whose mind was in sympathy

with his, he became more animated, and in his turn shone almost

as much as his brilliant interlocutor; but he did not approach

Fleurange, and did not even seem once to look towards her.

TO BE CONTINUED.

ART AND RELIGION.

God reveals himself to all the faculties of the soul. We not

only know him as truth; we also love him as beauty. As he is

infinite truth, so is he perfect beauty. Without the existence of

God as absolute truth, science is impossible. Science, which is

co-ordinated knowledge, can never be well grounded unless it rest

upon the eternal and first cause, which is God. God as truth is at

the bottom of all knowledge; as beauty, he is the ideal present to

the soul in every conception of art.

Art is the expression of ideal beauty under a created form.

The philosopher, in his meditations, seeks the true, which he

translates into formulas; the artist in his impassioned love seeks

the beautiful, which he makes to live on canvas, to breathe in

marble, to speak from the living page.

The end of art is not to imitate nature. On the contrary, in the

presence of natural beauty it looks beyond to the type, the idea

of a still higher beauty. Hence the artist is not a mere copier of

nature; for he is enamored of an ideal that disgusts him with all

that he beholds in the real world. The aim and despair of his life

is to give to this ideal a form and a sensible expression. Ideal

beauty is that which disenchants the soul of the love of every

created thing, and which in the presence of reality lifts it up to

a higher love. It is a gleam from the face of God reflected through

the blue heavens, the starry sky, or whatever in nature is grand or

beautiful. It is the eternal allurement and eternal disenchantment

of the noblest souls. True beauty is ideal beauty, and ideal

beauty is a reflection of the infinite. Hence art, which aims to

give expression to this beauty, is essentially religious, and tends

to elevate the soul from earth to heaven, and bear it away toward

the infinite.

It is the ideal side of natural beauty that gives to it its

religious power.

The view of the beautiful in nature creates in us a longing for

heaven, because the image of God is reflected from all those

objects which so inspire the soul. When, in the spring-time we seat

ourselves on the border of a lake in whose tranquil waters, as

in a vast mirror, are reflected the green woods and the laughing

meadows, the trees and the plants and the flowers; into whose bosom

the rippling waters of rill and rivulet are flowing, all joyous

like children that run to meet their gentle mother, whilst the

quiet winds whisper to one another from leaf to leaf, as if afraid

to dispel the enchantment of the spot--does not, in such an hour,

a mysterious solitude creep over the soul, and free it from the

distracting thoughts of life, giving it power to raise itself on

the wings of contemplation to the very throne of God? The sight

of true beauty always reminds us of heaven. Seated on the border

of that enchanted lake, man grows sad and thoughtful, a sweet

melancholy takes hold of him, because he has caught a glimpse of

home, but is still an exile. When, on a summer’s evening, the sun

has sunk to rest, and not a breath creeps through the rosy air, but

all nature is bowed in silent prayer, and the stars come out one

by one, the guardians of the night--in this heavenliest hour, who

has not been impressed by a sense of the infinite, the unmistakable

presence of God, before whom heaven and earth, “from the high

host of stars to the lulled lake and mountain coast,” grow still,

absorbed in adoration?

There is also in the grand and rugged scenes of nature an immense

religious power.

The ocean, the desert, high mountains and mighty rivers, storm

and darkness, with the voice of thunder and the lightning flash,

all speak of God, and in their presence man bows in homage to the

omnipotence of his Creator. Hence the child of nature, however rude

and imperfect his idea of God, is essentially religious in his

aspirations.

Man must isolate himself and become absorbed in his own abstract

and empty thoughts before he can lose consciousness of the

ever-abiding presence of the Creator. For every creature is a

revelation of heaven to the human soul, reminding it of its origin

and high destiny. If nature leads us to God, why may not art have

the same power, since both are expressions of the same eternal

beauty?

Before considering this question, we wish to advert to the immense

power and universal influence of art.

Few can enter into the sanctuary of science--even the rudest mind

when brought in contact with ideal beauty by the creative power

of art--but feel its force and its inspiration. Art is the most

lasting of national glories. Indeed, we may say that without art

there is no glory either national or individual.

The greatest deeds and the proudest names sink back in death unless

art embalm them in poetry or in song, give them immortality on the

speaking canvas or in the breathing marble.

Brave men lived before Agamemnon, but they are forgotten, for

their names never shone on the poet’s page. Those nations are most

glorious in which art attained its highest development.

The muse of Homer, the eloquence of Demosthenes, and the chisel of

Phidias, have done more to immortalize Greece than the deeds of

her proud heroes. The greatest human actions are in themselves but

little removed from the commonplace affairs of everyday life; but

the creative power of art transforms them and invests them with

a charm which the reality never possessed. The primeval forests

of Kentucky, in the day when its name was the “dark and bloody

ground,” witnessed many a deed of human daring and of warlike

prowess equal to those of Achilles and Hector under the walls of

Troy; but art with its celestial wand never transfigured those

deeds on the poet’s page, and they are forgotten, buried with the

leaves that overshadowed them. The life of man is short, even that

of a nation is not long; but art dies not, and has moreover the

divine power of conferring immortality upon all that it touches.

Shakespeare is worth more to the glory of England than all the

victories of all her generals. Dante, Raphael, and Michael Angelo,

with innumerable other names which represent the highest artistic

power, have made Italy the consecrated land of poetry and of song,

the home of beauty and of all loveliness--the native country of the

soul.

Time alone, which is the approver of all things, can give to art

its full power, and it is only when we consider it in the past

that we become aware of its great influence in the history of the

human race. The present is always a vulgar time; too real to be

beautiful. The present is the slave of power and wealth, but these

soon disappear, and art remains for ever. The first impulse in the

movement which has carried the European mind to its present state

of enlightenment was given by art in conjunction with religion. The

study of the Grecian and Roman models, in poetry, in eloquence,

and in architecture, fired the nations of Europe with a love of

artistic perfection, and consequently greatly contributed to our

present civilization. The historic power of art is in some respects

greater than that of history itself. Few men know history as a

science--the masses are brought into contact with the heroes of the

past by poetry and by song.

Has God, who has given to art a universal mission in the

development of man’s moral and intellectual nature, banished its

elevating influence from the sphere of religion? It would be

foreign to our present scope to discuss the actual and possible

perversions of art. There is naught on earth so holy that the free

will of man may not turn it to evil. The fact that a thing may be

abused simply proves that it has a right and proper use. The abuse

comes from the free agency of man; the use is the mission given by

God, which is always holy and elevated.

The direct aim of art is the expression of infinite beauty under a

created form, and hence a true work of art should elevate the soul

to the contemplation of heavenly beauty. This contemplation of the

divine ideal disenchants us of the things of earth; which truth is

expressed by the old proverb, that there is no great genius without

melancholy.

He whose soul habitually contemplates the ideal world is

necessarily saddened by the reality of life, which is so

infinitely beneath the elevation of his thoughts.

There is nothing sensuous in the idea of true beauty. Its property

is to purify and moderate desire, not to inflame it. Hence art

addresses itself less to the sense than to the soul. It seeks to

awaken not desire, but sentiment. Chastity and beauty seek each

other. Chastity is beautiful, and beauty is chaste.

These considerations go to show that art, the end of which is the

expression of beauty, is in its tendency moral and elevating, and

consequently religious.

There can, then, be no just cause of antagonism between religion

and true art, as there can be no contradiction between theology and

real science.

Far from being enemies, religion and art are allies. This truth

the Catholic Church has ever proclaimed. She has stigmatized no

one of the arts. In her universal life, she has a mission for each

and every one of them. Her churches are not alone the temples of

the living God--they are also the home of the arts which point

heavenward.

The Christian religion in its dogmas and aspirations is essentially

spiritual. The Catholic Church is the great and only successful

defender of the distinction between spirit and matter. By her

teachings and practices, she has rendered man more spiritual, and

consequently more beautiful. By awakening him to the consciousness

of the diviner and more ethereal part of his nature, she has

developed in him the instinct of art, which is essentially

spiritual because its soul is the ideal.

The more we meditate upon the nature of art, the more thoroughly

are we convinced that true art is the sister of true religion.

Protestantism, protesting against many truths, also protested

against the alliance of religion and art. We speak of the

Protestantism of the past; for no man knows what Protestantism

is to-day. It is anything and everything, from semi-Catholicism

down to naked infidelity. It has become mere individualism, and

may consequently no longer be spoken of as an organization. The

Protestantism which is dead objected to the alliance of religion

and art because it conceived them to be of opposite nature and

contrary tendency. Religion is the worship of God in spirit and in

truth, and Protestantism looked upon art as purely material.

But in this as in other matters, the Protestant view was based upon

a misconception both of religion and of human nature. If man were

wholly spiritual, his religion would also be purely spiritual.

But matter forms part of his nature. Even that which in him is

most spiritual--thought--has its sensible element. An idea is an

image, whence it follows that we cannot even think without forming

to ourselves a mental representation of the thing thought of. No

human act can be purely spiritual. The law of our being is that we

rise from the visible to the invisible, from the sensible to the

supersensible. An invisible and purely spiritual religion would

be to us an unreal and intangible religion. An invisible church

is a contradiction in terms, and without a church there can be

amongst men no authoritative religious teaching. Neither religious

nor intellectual life, in our present state, can exist without

language, and language addresses itself directly and primarily

to the senses. It is therefore impossible for man to express the

spiritual without making use of the material. Hence art, which

seeks to adumbrate the infinite under a finite form, in this simply

conforms to the universal law of man’s nature, which in all

things, even in thought, subjects him to matter.

Is not Christianity based upon this fact? Did not God take unto

himself a visible and material nature in order to manifest to

the world his invisible power, and beauty, and holiness? Is not

the Christian religion a system of things invisible, visibly

manifested? The end of religion is spiritual, but in order to

attain this end it must possess a visible and material element.

This fact of itself gives to art a religious mission of the highest

order.

This mission is to proclaim to the world Jesus Christ and him

crucified and glorified--by poetry, by song, by painting, by

architecture, in a word, by every artistic creation of which genius

is capable.

Jesus Christ is the beau ideal of art--the most lovely and

beautiful conception of the divine mind itself. He is the visible

manifestation of God, the all-beautiful.

Purity, and gentleness, and grace, with power and majesty, all

combine to make him the most beautiful of the sons of woman, the

fairest and the loveliest figure in all history, to whom the whole

world bows in instinctive love and homage. There is a shadow on the

countenance of Jesus which gives to it its artistic completeness.

It is sorrow. There is something trivial in gaiety and joy which

deprives them of artistic effect. The cheek of beauty is not divine

except the tear of sorrow trickle down it. Hence to preach Jesus

Christ and him crucified is not to preach perfect religion alone,

but also the perfect ideal of art.

Christian science, which is theology, has as its object the dogmas

of the church. Christian art relates directly to religious worship,

but it has incidentally a doctrinal significance. If we consider

eloquence an art, which we may do, for true eloquence is always

artistic, we must concede that it holds a most important place

in the church of Jesus Christ. He blessed eloquence and bade it

convert the world when he spoke to the apostles these memorable

words: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” The divine command

was to preach the Gospel, not to write it. The living word spoken

by the divinely commissioned teacher has alone borne fruit in the

world, converted the nations, and changed the face of the earth.

Eloquence must be spoken. If you take from it its voice, you take

away its soul. It is the cry of an impassioned nature, in which

love, and faith, and deep-abiding conviction are enrooted. Add to

this purity and holiness of life in him who speaks, and let him

be in earnest, and he will be eloquent. Eloquence in the mouth of

a consecrated teacher has a sacramental power. It is one of the

divinely established ordinances for the propagation of religious

truth, and for the conversion of a soul to God.

Poetry, too, is consecrated to the service of religion. The muse

never soars her loftiest flight except when lifted up on the wings

of religious inspiration. The most poetic word in language is that

brief, immense word--God. It is the sublimest, the profoundest, the

holiest word that human tongue can utter. It forms the instinctive

cry of the soul in the hour of every deep emotion. In the hour

of victory, in the hour of death, in the ecstasy of joy, in the

agony of woe, that sacred word bursts spontaneously from the human

heart. It is the first word that our mother taught our infant lips

to lisp, when, pointing to heaven, she told us that there was God

our Father, and bade us look above this base, contagious earth.

When the mother for the first time feels her first-born’s breath,

in tenderness of gratitude she pronounces the name of God; when

in utter helplessness of woe she bends over the grave of her only

child, and her heart is breaking, she can find no relief for her

agonizing soul, until, raising her tearful eyes to heaven, she

breathes in prayer the name of God.

When two young hearts that are one vow eternal love and fealty, it

is in the name of God they do it; and the union of love loses half

its poetry and half its charm except it be contracted before the

altar of God and in his holy name.

When the mother sends her son to do battle for his country, she

says, “God be with thee, my boy!”

When nations are marshalled in deadly array of arms, and the

alarming drum foretells the danger nigh, and the trumpet’s clanguor

sounds the charge, and contending armies meet in the death grapple,

amid fire and smoke and the cannon’s awful roar, until victory

crowns them that win; those banners that were borne proudly on

till they floated in triumph over the field of glory are gathered

together in some vast temple of religion, and there an assembled

nation sings aloud in thanksgiving: “We praise thee, O God! we

glorify thee, O Lord!” How often has not God chosen the muse of

poetry in order to convey to the world his divine doctrines! The

Bible contains much of the sublimest poetry ever written. Some of

the Psalms of David, portions of Job and Isaias, equal in deep and

lofty poetic feeling anything that Dante or Milton wrote. And did

not these privileged minds also receive their highest inspirations

from religion?

We may not separate poetry from music. Music is poetry in tones.

It is the language of feeling, the universal language of man. The

cry of joy and of sorrow, of triumph and of despair, of ecstasy

and of agony, is understood by every human being because it is

the language of nature. All the deep emotions of the soul seek

expression in modulation of sound.

Cousin says: “There is physically and morally a marvellous relation

between a sound and the soul. It seems as though the soul were an

echo in which the sound takes a new power.”

Byron, too, seems to have felt this:

“Oh! that I were

The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony;

A bodiless enjoyment, born and dying

With the blest Tone that made me!”

At the awakening call of music, the universal harmonies of nature

stir within the soul. The ancients were wont to say that he who

cultivates music imitates the divinity, and St. Augustine tells

us that it was the sweet sound of psalmody which made the lives

of the monks of old so beautiful and harmonious. God is eternal

harmony, and the works of his hand are harmonious, and his great

precept to men is that they live in harmony. Did not Jesus Christ

come into the world amid the choral song of angels? Would you,

then, banish music from the church of Jesus? No art has such power

as music to draw the soul toward the infinite. It would seem as

though the sounds of melody were the viewless spirits of heaven,

calling us away from earth to our true home in the mansion of our

Father. Whosoever has enjoyed the rare privilege of being present

in the Sistine Chapel, during Holy Week, when the melodies of Leo,

Durante, and Pergolesi, on the _Miserere_, are sung, has felt the

immense power of religious music. For a moment, at least, he has

quitted this earth, and the voice of song has borne his soul in

ineffable ecstasy to the very throne of God. As music develops

religious sentiment, so religion gives to music its sublimest

themes. To her, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart owe their divinest

inspirations.

Painting, too, asks to be received into the temple of religion.

What sentiment is there that the painter cannot express? All nature

is subject to his command--the physical world and the moral world.

His muse soars from earth to heaven, and contemplates all that lies

between them. Above all, the human countenance divine, that mirror

of the soul, belongs to the painter. His brush, dipped in the light

of heaven, gives to virtue its own celestial hue; to vice, its

inborn hideousness. He expresses every emotion of the human heart,

every noble love, every lofty aspiration, every dark and baneful

passion. Aristotle, the most comprehensive mind of the pagan world,

affirms that painting teaches the same precepts of moral conduct as

philosophy, with this advantage, that it employs a shorter method.

Christian painting began in the Catacombs. In the rude pictures of

that subterranean world we find the chief doctrines of Christianity

reduced to their most simple expression under forms the most

touching.

Painting there represents the Phœnix rising from its ashes, emblem

of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection of the body;

the good shepherd bearing upon his shoulders the lost sheep, which

teaches with touching simplicity one of the most beautiful of our

Lord’s parables; the three youths in the fiery furnace, signifying

the providence of God for those who fear and love him; Pharao and

his hosts engulfed in the Red Sea, proclaiming to the faithful that

God is the avenger of those who put their trust in him. These and

similar subjects were peculiarly adapted to inspire courage in the

hearts of the Christians of the first ages, when to be a follower

of the cross was to be a hero.

As men of genius and learning by their life-long labors show

us the divine beauties and perfections in the character of

Jesus in new bearings, so the art of painting throws around his

history an intenser light. His divinity is as manifest in the

“Transfiguration” of Raphael as in the famous sermon of Massillon.

His ineffable sufferings on Mount Calvary and the Godlike power

which consented to death, but conquered agony, are as vividly and

feelingly portrayed on the canvas of Rubens as in the unequalled

and inimitable discourse of Bourdaloue. No one can look upon the

“Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci without being inspired with a

most sublime conception of that holiest event. Can we think of the

passion and death of the Saviour without forming to ourselves a

mental image corresponding to the scene? If, after all, we must

have a picture, why not take that of genius rather than trust to

our own tame plebeian fancy? And then, for those who cannot read or

meditate profoundly, for the poor whom Jesus loved, what master is

like painting?

St. Basil declares that painters accomplish as much by their

pictures as orators by their eloquence.

The church as a lecture-room will interest only the cultivated few;

the church as the temple of art sanctified by religion is the home

of worship for the multitude.

Religion, if it be anything, must be popular, which science can

never be, and which art always is. Then, in the name of the

religion of the poor, let architecture advance to raise to God the

temple of majesty and beauty, the democratic palace of the people,

where the prince and the beggar sit side by side as brothers, a

basilica prouder and loftier than that of the sceptred monarch.

A FETE-DAY AT LYONS.

Some writer has remarked that “there is no purgatory in France,”

meaning thereby to illustrate the great extremes of piety

and irreligion in the national character; and, although on a

broad ground this assertion is by no means orthodox, yet it is

practically true to a certain extent, and nowhere perhaps are these

traits more noticeable to a stranger than in the time-honored city

of Lyons. Here faith and disbelief walk side by side through all

grades of society, each stronger and more resolute from its very

proximity to the other; and when the tide of revolution swept over

France, nowhere have the excesses been greater or religion more

monstrously profaned than here; and yet nowhere has faith been

more profound, more edifying, and more uncompromising. The blood

of its early Christian martyrs has been a wonderful leaven and has

worked well, and the thousands of pilgrims who yearly tread the

heights of Fourrière, the extraordinary solemnity and fervor of the

exterior devotions and religious ceremonies, show that there is a

countercurrent stronger and more powerful than any opposing force

that infidelity can bring to bear against it.

It is to give a few impressions made by these latter

characteristics of this old city that we now recall some

reminiscences of a visit there several years ago. The antiquity of

Lyons, and its many monuments of interest, are quite sufficient to

induce a traveller to linger on his route, and a week can be easily

filled in exploring the city proper and its environs.

Like many of the European cities, its streets are narrow, and the

houses high and badly ventilated; but a great change has taken

place in regard to these defects within the last ten years, and a

renovation without mutilation has opened its thoroughfares, adorned

it with beautiful squares, fine bridges, broad and handsome quays,

and placed it on an equal footing with any city in Europe in regard

to its sanitary advantages.

Dating as far back as the Christian era and beyond, there are

many remnants of its Roman origin yet to be seen, which have been

carefully preserved through its various vicissitudes. Christianity

was here planted in blood; and under the Roman emperors, three

persecutions of Christians took place, which numbered forty-five

thousand martyrs on their crimson pages; and this is why faith

has taken such deep root, and why it opposes itself so firmly to

those subtle influences of the day which threaten to endanger a

birthright so dearly bought.

To us Americans who are only familiar with Lyons in its commercial

bearings, and from the superior quality of its manufactures which

find their way into our market, the fact that its inhabitants are

a lettered as well as a business people is rather a matter of

surprise; and we gaze in wonder at its magnificent buildings,

devoted to the fine arts, its lyceums, colleges, academies of

science, schools and institutions of every kind for instruction and

the development of the finer tastes; and the riddle is solved by

knowing that their manufactures, their commerce, their business,

occupy only a part of their lives, and by no means constitute the

sum total, as is so nearly the case in this country. This repose is

very attractive to us Cisatlantic people, who lead such restless

lives; and the lovely summer days that we spent in the old city

enjoying this tranquillity are never to be forgotten.

We were awaiting the celebration of the _Fête du Saint

Sacrament_,[75] which is usually kept with so much solemnity in

the provinces. On the eve of the feast we made the ascent of Mont

Fourrière, though not in the garb of humble pilgrims, “with sandal

shoon and scallop-shell,” but in the more commonplace character of

sightseers from the Western World, attracted to this height by the

far-famed shrine which crowns its summit, and by the many historic

associations that cluster round it.

On our way up we visited a cemetery which almost hangs by the

mountain-side, and from which there are lovely views in every

direction. It made a strange impression, this city of the dead, so

far above the noise and clatter of the busy world below. It was

so still, nothing broke the silence except our footsteps along

the gravelled walks. One tomb especially attracted our attention:

it was fairly buried and hidden by the quantity of fresh flowers,

and the crosses and wreaths of immortelles which covered it. While

wondering who could be the silent occupant of a grave so much

loved, a lady approached in deep widow’s mourning, leading two

little children, clad in the same sombre hue. They came and knelt

at the tomb. Our question was answered, and we moved silently away,

sorry for even the momentary intrusion we had been guilty of. Near

the cemetery is the church of St. Irenée, which contains the bones

of 18,500 Christians, martyred by order of Septimius Severus, 193

A.C. The remains of its ancient crypt are also shown, which dates

back to the second century. There is also a well in this crypt, in

which it is said these bones were found. The roughly paved road

then leads up to the Chapel,[76] and Terrace of Notre Dame de

Fourrière. We found we were just in time for the Benediction of the

Blessed Sacrament, which was given here every afternoon during the

Triduum which preceded the feast.

This little chapel was not remarkable either for its architectural

finish nor for the richness and perfection of its ornamentation;

it is plain, very plain indeed, but the marvellous number of its

_ex-votos_, the gilt and silver hearts which actually burnish its

walls, the crutches and other instruments suggestive of disease

which hang around, tell of the moral and physical burdens which

have been brought here and left, and of the weary, sorrowing

souls who have wandered up this rocky height, who have made their

deposit, and returned singing alleluias.

“There is one far shrine I remember

In the years that have fled away,

Where the grand old mountains are guarding

The glories of night and day.

* * * * *

“It is one of Our Lady’s chapels,

And though poorer than all the rest

Just because of the sin and the sorrow,

I think she loved it the best.

“There are no rich gifts on the altar,

The shrine is humble and bare,

Yet the poor, and the sick, and the tempted

Think their home and their haven is there.”[77]

A fine terrace is just at the side of the chapel, and the view

magnificent from the parapet which guards its eastern face. Just

beneath lies Lyons in all its stateliness, traversed by two superb

rivers from north to south, and prominent among its most striking

points is the grand old Cathedral of St. Jean, which stands

directly at the base of the mountain.

The surrounding country is a succession of lovely landscapes, and

beyond, looking far away, a hundred miles off into Switzerland,

the glorious Alps, with Mont Blanc’s snowy peak towering far

above all, bound the horizon. We were fortunate in getting this

view in perfection, for frequently a veil of mist and fog shuts

out entirely this latter part of the tableau. On ascending the

belfry of the chapel, we found the panorama yet more extended and

enchanting. In every direction the views were entirely unbroken

and uninterrupted. Seven rich provinces of France unfolded their

scenery before our delighted eyes. At the extreme edge of the

southern horizon rose Mont Pilat; at the west, the mountains of

Forey and Auvergne; toward the north, Mont d’Or; and on the east,

the Alps, in their eternal mantle of snow, completed a picture that

could not be surpassed. Every prominence had caught the golden

light of the sinking sun, and the shadows that had crept into the

valleys only enhanced the coloring of the scene and made the effect

more striking.

A Jesuit college, with its garden and appurtenances, is an

appendant on the southern side of the terrace, and we crossed over

to take a peep at their chapel, well knowing the good taste and

exquisite finish which are usually displayed in their churches.

There we found them also holding a Triduum, and, their service

being a little later than that of the other chapel, we had the

pleasure of attending Benediction a second time. Here the music was

delightful and the chapel a gem. It was very small, and seemed to

be lit entirely from the altar, which was ablaze with wax-lights

and natural flowers; there appeared to be no external light to

enter at all, and yet from its miniature size none of its details

were lost, and, with the accessories of the solemn service then

going on, it was the embodiment of beauty and inspiration.

When we turned our footsteps downward, the shadow’s had lengthened,

and were fast creeping out of the valleys, and by the time we

reached home the heights of Fourrière, which we still had in sight,

were shrouded in gloom.

The next morning we were awakened by the booming of cannon, which

announced the inauguration of the _fête_.

We hurried through breakfast, so as to reach the cathedral in time

for the procession. In the square opposite our hotel, an altar had

been erected, and we passed several others on our way, but their

decorations, at this early hour, were not quite complete.

Everything wore a festive look, and everybody was out in holiday

attire, flags and banners were flying, and the façades of some of

those immensely high houses were festooned from top to bottom with

crimson and yellow hangings. One building in especial was very

effective; it was the Palais de Justice, which is on the right bank

of the Saône, and which we faced in crossing the bridge to the

cathedral. Its extended front of Corinthian pillars was draped

in crimson cloth, which contrasted finely with the gray stone of

which it was built. A little to its left is the old cathedral,

stately and grand in its sombre livery of centuries. It has seen

generations pass away, emperors and empires, kingdoms and kings,

and yet it stands to-day intact, and ready to do duty for another

hundred years, unless demolished by the sacrilegious hand of the

iconoclast of the nineteenth century.

On reaching the _place_ in front of the cathedral, we found a

large crowd awaiting the procession. In a short time the sound of

martial music was heard, and presently several officers rode up on

horseback to open a passage through the crowd.

The procession was escorted by a troop of cavalry and military

band, and preceded by a number of lovely children, dressed in

white, with silver wings, their hair flowing, and scattering

flowers as they passed along. As it entered the church, the

organ pealed forth, filling the vast aisles with its magnificent

harmony. Then Pontifical High Mass began, in all the grandeur of

the especial ritual which is attached to this church, and which

is the oldest in France, having been introduced here by one of

the first bishops of Lyons; the liturgy is also different from

that ordinarily used, and the ceremonies are of the most imposing

character. The band, placed in a remote part of the church, played

at intervals during the service, and the harsh and deafening sounds

which are usually the result of brass instruments in a close

building were lost in the immense space, and only the sweetest

strains swept up through the nave and aisles.

In like manner the glare of day fell through the richly stained

windows in a mellow and subdued light, which diffused itself

generally over the church.

A very pleasant American writer[78] has said: “If we could only

bring one thing back from Europe, that one thing would be a

cathedral.” And truly these old monuments have a prestige to

which persons of all creeds must pay tribute; and the veriest

scoffer lifts his hat with reverence as he enters, and feels

the influence of that wonderful atmosphere which pervades their

hallowed precincts. After Mass we prolonged our walk home to see

the decorations of the city. The altars were now entirely finished,

and dressed with a profusion of natural flowers.

In the afternoon the procession passed round the city in a line

with the altars, at each of which benediction was given. In their

liturgy there are four special hymns for each of these stations or

_reposoirs_, and, when the latter exceed that number, the chants

are repeated until they have all been visited. There is generally

one altar in each ward or district of the city, to satisfy the

pious devotion of those who cannot attend service at the church.

In the evening illuminations and fireworks completed the

festivities of the day--of a day whose minutest detail showed how

true “_the Rome of Gaul_” had been to the colors which she unfurled

nearly seventeen hundred years ago on the ramparts of paganism.

Since then I have seen other _fêtes_ in other lands, but none have

left the impression of the first which I saw inaugurated in the old

Cathedral of St. Jean, under the shadow of Mont Fourrière.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Corpus Christi.

[76] This chapel is built on the site of the ancient _Forum Vetus_

of the Romans erected by order of the Emperor Trajan. A part of

the chapel is built of the stone that was left of its ruins. It

is now, and has been for more than a thousand years, a celebrated

pilgrimage.

[77] Procter.

[78] Hillard.

HOW THE CHURCH UNDERSTANDS AND UPHOLDS THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.

THIRD ARTICLE.

THE MIDDLE AGES.

The middle ages were undoubtedly the epoch during which the

influence of woman upon the gravest affairs and most important

issues in the history of the church was most widely exercised.

There was hardly a single country in Europe that was evangelized

and reclaimed from social barbarism without the direct intervention

of the power of women, and wherever the inevitable excesses of a

system in the main both useful and honorable, such as the feudalism

of the middle ages, had to be checked or corrected, it was always

done through the merciful intercession of holy and generous

women. To begin with the country whose daughters have ever been

foremost in zeal for the cause of religion, France, we have a

long list of queens whose names are conspicuous in the annals of

church history. They were no less honored in their own day than

they have been since the voice of the faithful has proclaimed

them saints. When the French monarchy was in its first military

and elementary stages, the young Frankish conqueror, the heathen

Clovis, who had just forced the ancient Gauls of the province of

Rheims to bow before his power, found at the court of Gondebaud,

King of Burgundy, the niece of that prince, Clotildis, a Christian

maiden, renowned for her learning in matters of theology, and for

her undaunted stand against the Arianism of her uncle’s court. St.

Gregory of Tours, says Ventura,[79] represents her as evincing

the most varied and reliable knowledge of Christianity, and

especially of the questions at that time lately decided at the

Council of Nicæa. She knew equally how to combat paganism on her

husband’s part and Arianism upon her uncle’s, and displayed all the

self-possession of a great apologist, with the theological science

of a doctor of the church. This was as early as the year 493, not

long after Clovis won the great battle of Tolbiac against the

Alemanni, and became a Christian, according to his vow, made during

the engagement, to the “Son of the living God, thou whom Clotildis

worships.” The queen then sent for St. Remigius, the Bishop of

Rheims, to instruct and baptize her husband. She instructed the

women of her court and family herself, and showed herself most

zealous in the propagation of the faith. The ceremony of baptism,

and the anointing of the king which followed it, were performed,

by the queen’s care, with extraordinary solemnity. She herself

walked in the procession between the king’s two sisters, the one

formerly a pagan, the other an Arian. The first, the Princess

Albofleda, renounced the world and consecrated her virginity to

God, thus giving a first example to the numerous royal maidens of

France who have since left the court for the cloister. Clotildis so

fired her husband’s heart with her holy enthusiasm that he built

and endowed the church of SS. Peter and Paul in Paris, now called

St. Genevieve in honor of the sainted shepherdess who, later on,

shared with Clotildis herself the title of patroness of France.

Clovis was afterwards buried in this church. The Visigoths and

Burgundians, who were Arians, were shamed into less inhuman ways

by the example and widespread influence of the victorious Clovis

and his Christian warriors; the foundations of the great French

monarchy were laid by the evident desire of the neighboring tribes

to coalesce with the Franks; the future Catholic monarchy of Spain

was consecrated by the heroic zeal and suffering of Clotildis

the younger, the only daughter of Clovis, married to the Arian

Amalaric, King of the Visigoths, in Spain, and the mitigation of

many lawless and still half-barbarian acts during the reigns of her

sons was successfully undertaken; so that it may be said with truth

of this period of history that its chief glory was the supremacy of

woman. Clotildis died at Tours, where for many years she had lived

in solitude and humility, entirely ignoring her high rank, and

employing her influence over her sons in exhortations to preserve

the peace of their respective kingdoms, to protect the poor, and to

treat them as brethren. But great as her services to religion and

civilization had been, the church was not destined to suffer by her

death, for a long succession of imitators of her virtues took her

place from century to century, and protected the interests of that

church whose champions cannot fail her as long as principle and

honor exist in the world. Radegundes, the daughter of Bertarius,

King of Thuringia, and the captive of King Clotaire I. (fourth

son of St. Clotildis), was instructed in the Christian faith at

the court of the latter, whom she afterwards married. Her great

delight during the short period of her court life was the care of

the sick in the hospital of Athies, which she had founded, and the

alleviation of the miseries of the poor. She endeavored to restrain

the lawlessness of the court; but, when her husband caused her

brother to be treacherously assassinated, as Butler tells us,[80]

in order to possess his kingdom of Thuringia, she was so grieved

at the time that she begged for leave to retire into a monastery.

Here her influence was greater than it had been at court. The great

abbey of Poitiers was founded and the first abbess, Agnes, chosen

by her. She enriched the church of this monastery with numerous

gifts, and sent ambassadors to the Emperor Justin of Constantinople

to obtain a relic of the True Cross. This being given her, she

had it placed in a shrine, to which it was carried in solemn

procession. She had already invited to Poitiers many learned and

holy men, among others the orator and poet Venantius Fortunatus,

who on this occasion composed the famous processional hymn “Vexilla

Regis Prodeunt,” which is now one of the most prominent features of

our liturgy. Thus, to a woman’s inspiration do we owe one of the

hymns of world-wide renown, synonymous with the name and practice

of Catholic Christianity. Butler tells us that Radegundes herself

was a good scholar, and read both the Latin and Greek fathers.

She procured for her monastery the rule and constitution of St.

Cesarius of Arles, and had it confirmed by the Council of Tours,

assembled 566. Here again, in the letter of Cesaria, the abbess

of the monastery of St. John, at Arles, we have a most remarkable

instance of the great discernment and prudence of a woman in

her management of a numerous community. She gives the strictest

cautions against all familiarities and partiality in a religious

community, and also enjoins that each nun should learn the Psalter

by heart and be able to read well. Biblical learning is thus

proved to have been ever foremost in the minds of the pioneers of

monasticism. But Radegundes, so great was her anxiety to make her

monastery of Poitiers a perfect work, repaired to Arles herself,

and studied the rule personally for some time, in order to help the

Abbess Agnes in establishing it the more effectually. After the

death of her husband, and during the shameful disturbances caused

by the famous Fredegonda, the mistress of Chilperic, Radegundes

became once more the support of orthodoxy and of the persecuted

bishops of the realm. Among other proofs of the high esteem in

which prominent churchmen held this great woman, let us cite the

letter addressed to her by the assembled bishops of the Council

of Tours, wherein they say: “We are rejoiced, most reverend

daughter, to see such an example of divine favor repeated in your

person; for the faith flourishes anew through the efforts of your

zeal, and what had been languishing through the wintry coldness of

the indifference of this age, lives again through the fervor of

your soul. But as you claim as a birthplace almost the same spot

whence St. Martin came, it is no wonder that you should imitate in

your work his example and teaching. Shining with the light of his

doctrine, you fill with heavenly conviction the hearts of those who

listen to you.”[81]

The tradition of constant faith and resolute orthodoxy on the part

of the queens of France was upheld in the century following that

of Radegundes (the seventh), by Bathildis, the wife of Clovis

II.; the friend of Eligius, Bishop of Noyon, and of Owen, Bishop

of Rouen. Both of these had been placed in responsible positions

at court through the influence of Radegundes--the co-operator of

Genis, the holy almoner, who subsequently became Archbishop of

Lyons, and the wielder of great power through the complaisance

of her husband. Bathildis was pre-eminently the support of the

episcopate and the refuge of the poor. She had herself been a

captive, being by birth an Englishwoman, and having fallen to the

lot of Erchinoald, the first officer of the King of Neustria,

who treated her very kindly. Ventura says of her: “At the death

of her husband, having been entrusted with the regency of the

kingdom and the guardianship of her three little children, the

oldest only five years old, she acquitted herself of this double

office with such wisdom and prudence that even the great nobles

and statesmen could not withhold their admiration and respect.

With such counselors as the holy bishops Eligius, Owen, and Leger,

it is not astonishing that she should have succeeded in banishing

from the church in France the shameful simony which, through royal

connivance, had hitherto dishonored it, and abolishing in civil

matters the unjust and vexatious taxes that were grinding down the

people. She multiplied hospitals, monasteries, and abbeys. The

famous monastery of Chelles owes its origin to her.... But the

most important of all her foundations was that of Corbie, which

afterwards became so celebrated in France, and where this queen,

as zealous for the propagation of science as for the strengthening

of religion, established under able masters, gathered from all

parts of the world, a system of the most complete literary and

scientific education. This monastery, next to that of Lerins, was a

true university and a centre of enlightenment. The regency of this

woman renewed the glories and wonders of the reign of Pulcheria.

Never had sovereign so exerted herself for the welfare of her

people, both religiously, scientifically, and politically. But her

greatest glory, which has not been sufficiently recognized, was ...

that, contrary to the cold calculations of a false philosophy, she

dared to do what no man had done before her. She abolished slavery

in France (where it still subsisted), and was the first Christian

sovereign who proclaimed as a national principle ... that a slave

becomes free on setting his foot on the soil of France!”[82]

Between Bathildis and Blanche of Castille, from the seventh to the

thirteenth centuries, there was no lack of holy and learned women

in France, but it would be impossible to enumerate them all. “The

mother of St. Louis, though the church has never formally canonized

her, stands out as one of the grandest figures in ecclesiastical

history. Her stern and unflinching devotion to religious principle,

instilled early into the mind of her son, sowed the seeds of

sanctity in the exceptional life of that holy king. Her talents

were no less remarkable than her austerity. Her marriage at the age

of fourteen with Louis VIII., King of France, gave her the high

position to which her birth, her genius, and her beauty entitled

her. This union was the model of Christian marriages, and her

historian, the Baron Chaillon, says that during the twenty-six

years it lasted she and her husband were never separated for a

single instant, and that not the slightest shadow darkened the

serenity of their intercourse. Even at an early age and before

her husband’s accession to the throne, her father-in-law, Philip

Augustus, did not refuse to take and follow her advice in matters

of state importance.”[83] At her husband’s death she became, by

his desire, regent of the kingdom. Ever eager to put her son’s

personal prestige foremost, she carefully initiated him into the

affairs of the realm, and accustomed him early to appear in his

royal character in public. She wisely averted the ever-impending

coalitions of the great vassals of the crown against the royal

authority. She continued the war against the Albigenses, whose

dissensions were ruining the kingdom; she obtained the annexation

of the territory of the Counts of Toulouse to the crown, and

quelled the revolt of the Duke of Brittany, who ended by gladly

recognizing his fealty to her son. When she committed to Gaulthier,

the Archbishop of Sens, the mission of treating for the hand of

Margaret of Provence for the young king, these were the severe

instructions she gave him: Only to propose the marriage formally

after he had well studied the character of the young princess, and

had well satisfied himself as to the stability of her principles,

the purity of her life, and the sincerity of her religion. Butler,

in his life of St. Louis, says of the queen: “By her care, Louis

was perfectly master of the Latin tongue, learned to speak in

public, and to write with elegance, grace, and dignity, and was

instructed in the art of war, the wisest maxims of government, and

all the accomplishments of a king. He was also a good historian,

and often read the works of the Fathers.” Thus it will be seen

that, without departing from the strictest feminine delicacy, a

woman may be the sole responsible preceptor of a statesman and

warrior, and yet leave no stain of “petticoat government” on his

education, nor any suspicion of undue asceticism on his belief.

Concerning the dissensions of the nobles and vassals who refused to

be present at the young king’s coronation, Butler says: “The queen

regent put herself and her son at the head of his troops, and,

finding means to bring over the Count of Champagne to his duty,

struck the rest with such consternation that they all retired....

The whole time of the king’s minority was disturbed by these

rebels, but the regent, by several alliances and negotiations,

and chiefly by her courage and diligence, by which she always

prevented them in the field, continually dissipated their cabals.”

Of the negotiations with the Count of Toulouse, a dangerous and

powerful vassal, Butler gives these details: “In the third year

of her regency, she obliged Raymund, Count of Toulouse and Duke

of Narbonne, to receive her conditions, which were that he should

marry his daughter Jane to Alphonsus, the king’s brother, who

should inherit the county of Toulouse, and that, in case they

should have no children by this marriage, the whole inheritance

should revert to the crown, which last eventually happened.” The

same author says of Margaret of Provence “that she surpassed

her sisters in beauty, wit, and virtue.” In 1242, after the

majority and marriage of her son, Blanche founded the monastery

of Maubuisson. Louis was remarkable for the even-handed justice

with which he protected the serfs against the encroachment of their

feudal lords, and on one occasion refused to allow Mgr. Enguerrand

de Coucy the privilege of being tried by his peers, and condemned

him to death by the ordinary process of law, for having arbitrarily

hanged three children who had been caught hunting rabbits in his

woods. He afterwards spared his life, but deprived him of all his

estates and exacted from him an enormous fine, which he employed

in building and endowing a mortuary chapel where Mass should be

offered every day for the souls of the murdered children. The rest

of the fine was divided into several foundations for hospitals and

monasteries. In 1248, St. Louis, according to a vow he had made

in sickness, set out for the crusade against the Sultan of Egypt,

leaving his mother once more regent of France. Ventura says of her

during this second regency that, “being in France in the body, yet

in the East in spirit, and following mentally her heroic son in his

dangerous undertaking, she seemed to multiply herself. Entirely

absorbed in the care of the home government of a great kingdom,

that she might make justice, order, and peace supreme therein, she

was also participating none the less entirely in the great struggle

between the Cross and the Crescent, ... and it is impossible to

entertain a correct idea of the wisdom, forethought, and activity

of which Blanche, during those five years, gave proof, thus being

enabled to send aid in kind, in arms, and in money, to the army in

the East, yet without taxing and unduly oppressing the people at

home. Thus she did not neglect the smallest details in order to

assure the success of an expedition in which the rational honor of

France as well as the triumph of Christianity was engaged.” Ventura

then goes on to remind the would-be “emancipators” of woman that,

throughout her arduous duties, Queen Blanche, notwithstanding her

immense governing powers and her proud experience of fifty years,

did not hesitate to take as a trusted friend and counsellor the

learned Archbishop of Sens, Gaulthier-Cornu. Of this latter prelate

and statesman, a contemporary historian has said, “As long as his

power was in the ascendant, fraud and dishonesty hid their face,

while peace and justice reigned.” Blanche of Castille died before

her son’s return from Egypt, and hastened to pronounce her vows of

monastic consecration to God before she breathed her last, on the

first of December, 1252.

We must now go back some centuries to place before our readers a

fugitive account of those French princesses who exercised in Spain

a true apostolate. We have already mentioned the younger Clotildis,

but Indegonda, the daughter of Sigisbert, King of Austrasia, and

Rigontha, the daughter of Chilperic, King of Neustria, remain

to be noticed. They were married to two brothers, the former to

Hermenigild, the latter to Reccared, sons of Levigild, King of the

Spanish Visigoths. Indegonda suffered great persecutions from her

husband’s step-mother on account of her religion, the second wife

of Levigild being a bigoted Arian, and it was even a long time

before Hermenigild consented to become a Catholic. When at last

Indegonda had obtained this happy conversion, she herself and her

husband’s uncle, the holy Leander of Seville, were exiled, and

Hermenigild so persecuted by his father that, having been betrayed

by the Greeks and deserted by the Romans, he fell a victim to

Arian vengeance, and, after suffering torture and imprisonment, was

cruelly put to death by order of Levigild himself. This barbarian

king, however, repented his unnatural cruelty before he died,

and, recalling his brother-in-law Leander, entrusted him with the

care of his remaining son Reccared. Rigontha, the wife of the

young prince, had suffered great injustice at the hands of her

own father Chilperic, the lover of the too famous Fredegonda. She

had succeeded in converting her husband, and, together with his

uncle Leander, exercised a salutary influence over him. Reccared

assembled the Arian bishops of his kingdom, and spoke to them

so persuasively that they acknowledged themselves willing to be

reconciled to the church. The province of Narbonne, at that time

under his dominion, followed his example, while the neighboring

tribe of the Suevi, also Arians, speedily joined the church. A

council was then assembled at Toledo, and the intimate union of

Spain with Catholic interests was founded on a solid and reliable

basis.

It is told as a pleasantry of some shrewd critic of modern times

that, whenever he saw or heard a disturbance of any sort, his

unfailing question was, “Who is she?” being certain that, whatever

might be the effect, a woman was sure to be the cause. If this

is unfortunately no longer a libel on the sex in this distracted

century, at least we may point back to the so-called dark ages, and

proudly say, with a certainty far more absolute than that of our

cynical contemporary, when we read of any great consummation in the

history of religion and civilization, “Who was she?”

Not long after the death of Blanche of Castille, another Spanish

princess, the daughter of Peter III. of Aragon, and the niece of

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, took up the tradition of holiness, which

seemed the birthright of the royal maidens of mediæval times. Her

father attributed his success in his undertakings against the

Moors to her prayers and early virtues. At twelve years old she

was married to Denis, King of Portugal, to whom she was not only

a most faithful wife, but whom she succeeded, by her meekness and

silent example, in winning back from his sinful courses. She is

praised by her biographers for her ascetic virtues, and for her

utter disregard of her earthly rank. But what concerns us more

is to look into the influence she held on social and political

affairs. Among these it is impossible not to reckon her charities,

for private charity has often much to do with public honesty and

morality. Butler tells us that she “made it her business to seek

out and secretly relieve persons of good condition who were reduced

to necessity, yet out of shame durst not make known their wants.

She gave constant orders to have all pilgrims and poor strangers

provided with lodging and necessaries. She was very liberal in

furnishing fortunes to poor young women, that they might marry

according to their condition, and not be exposed to the danger of

losing their virtue. She founded in different parts of the kingdom

many pious establishments, particularly a hospital near her own

palace at Coimbra, a house for penitent women who had been seduced

into evil courses, at Torres-Novas, and a hospital for foundlings,

or those children who for want of due provision are exposed to

the danger of perishing by poverty or the neglect and cruelty of

unnatural parents. She visited the sick and served them with her

own hands, ... not that she neglected any other duties, ... for she

made it her principal study to pay to her husband the most dutiful

respect, love, and obedience, and bore his infidelities with

invincible meekness and patience.” Let us stop to note this last

sentence, which no doubt by many of our chafing sisters of this

age may be misunderstood. This meekness was not a want of spirit;

it was the effect of “the subordination of our inferior nature

to reason, and of our reason to God,” as one of the most lucid

and most sympathetic of American exponents of Catholic truth once

expressed to the writer the whole duty of man upon earth. It was no

passiveness, no supineness, but the heroic endurance of the martyr,

who is more concerned at another’s sin than his own wrong, and who

does not consider that reprisal and resentment are efficient means

to win the sinner back. When a woman stoops to retaliation, she

forgets the dignity of her sex, and, if _she_ forget it, who can

she expect will remember it?

We may also be allowed to say one word about the numerous

foundations constantly mentioned in the lives of these great

Christian women of past ages. It is perhaps the general belief

that nothing but monasteries were endowed in early times. We

have sufficiently shown how fallacious such belief would be.

Institutions of every kind, in which Catholic ingenuity was

multiplied till it embraced every need and provided for every

contingency, were sown all over the Christian world. The East was

not forgotten, and, indeed, even the great orders of the Templars

and the Hospitallers were originally nothing but organized bodies

for the defence and shelter of the pilgrims who flocked to the

holy places. Such charities as tended to diminish the temptations

to crime were foremost among the many originated during the middle

ages. We have only to refer to history to prove this. Even had

these foundations been confined to monasteries, we must remember

that the conventual abodes of old united in themselves nearly

all the characteristics of other institutions, and in the less

favored districts virtually supplied their place. Besides being

the only secure and recognized homes of learning, the solitary

centres of education, they were also the refuge of the homeless or

benighted wanderer; the asylum of the oppressed poor, of threatened

innocence, and of unjustly accused men; the hospital of the sick,

the sure dispensary of medicines to the surrounding peasantry, and

the unfailing granary of the poor during troublous times or years

of famine. There was hardly one want, physical or spiritual, that

could not find ready relief at the monasteries of both monks and

nuns, so that in founding such retreats it is no exaggeration to

say that orphanage, asylum, reformatory, hospital, and school were

comprised within their walls.

We must return to the great queen whose munificence has led us into

this digression, and resume, as was our purpose from the beginning,

the rigid relation of mere historical facts to which we more

willingly entrust the cause than to the most eloquent apologies.

When Elizabeth’s son, Alphonsus, revolted against his father and

actually took up arms, she made the most prudent efforts to mediate

between them, for which the Pope, John XXII., greatly praised her

in a letter he wrote to her on the subject; but, certain enemies of

hers having poisoned her husband’s mind against her, he banished

her to the town of Alanquer. She refused all communication with the

rebels, and at last was recalled by her penitent husband. Butler

says: “She reconciled her husband and son when their armies were

marching one against the other, and she reduced all the subjects

to duty and obedience. She made peace between Ferdinand IV., King

of Castille, and Alphonsus della Corda, his cousin-german, who

disputed the crown; likewise between James II., King of Aragon, her

own brother, and Ferdinand IV., King of Castille, her son-in-law.

In order to effect this last, she took a journey with her husband

into both these kingdoms, and, to the great satisfaction of the

Christian world, put a happy end to all dissensions and debates

between those states.” During her husband’s illness, which followed

soon after, Elizabeth nursed him most devotedly, and ever exhorted

him to think of his spiritual welfare. Her husband’s death was

the end of her public career as queen--a fitting proof of the

little value she placed upon the distinctions for which half the

world is periodically laid in ashes. Her son, Alphonsus, and her

grandson, also named Alphonsus, the young King of Castille, having

again proclaimed war upon each other, Elizabeth set out to meet

and reconcile them. She died on the way, in 1336, having obtained

peace through her exhortations to her son, who attended her at her

deathbed. Thus peace and brotherly love among princes and nations,

as well as among the individuals of her own immediate circle, was

ever nearest the heart of this great and admirable woman. How well

it would be if she were taken as a model by the women of our day,

and if her influence could be followed by the reward which our Lord

himself attached to the noble office of peace-makers!

Turning to England, once the Island of Saints and the home of

religious learning, we see the influence of woman most peremptorily

asserted. There is Bertha, the daughter of Charibert, King

of Paris, and wife of Ethelbert, King of Kent, whom we have

already mentioned, with Brunehault, as being the apostles of

the faith in England, and the zealous helpers of Gregory and

Augustine. Rohrbacher says of her that she contributed mainly to

the conversion of her husband and of the whole nation, and St.

Lethard, her almoner and Bishop of Senlis, greatly aided her.

There is Eanswide, her grand-daughter, the child of Eadbald, who

was also converted later on and became abbess of the monastery

at Folkestone, as Butler tells us. There is the great Edith, or

Eadgith, the daughter of King Edgar, who in the tenth century was

the ornament of her sex and the marvel of men. “She united,” says

Butler, “the active life of Martha with the contemplation of Mary,

and was particularly devoted to the care of the sick. When she

was but fifteen years old, her father pressed her to undertake

the government of three different monasteries, of which charge

she was judged most capable, such was her extraordinary virtue

and discretion. But she humbly declined all superiority.... Upon

the death of her brother, Edward the Martyr, the nobility who

adhered to the martyred king desired Edith to quit her monastery

and ascend the throne, but she preferred a state of humility and

obedience to the prospect of a crown.” Another Edith, the daughter

of the great Earl of Kent, Godwin, became the queen of Edward the

Confessor, with whom she lived by mutual consent in perpetual

virginity, according to a vow the king had made many years before

his marriage. Reading, studying, and devotion were her whole

delight. Edward’s mother, Emma, is ranked among the saints, and

was mainly instrumental in the religious and learned education

of her son. Ventura, in his admirable work on Woman, which has

become, as it were, a text-book for all those who are truly

interested in the theme and history of woman’s greatness, draws

attention to the fact that it was under the reign of Edward the

Confessor--who is credited by prejudicial historians with “womanly”

weakness, and who, on the contrary, was such an irrefragable proof

of what the grave and wise influence of good women can do--that

the equality of all men before the law was first recognized as a

principle. Edward’s niece, Margaret, the wife of Malcolm, King

of Scotland, was also a most eminent and influential princess.

Her husband, whose confidence in her was unbounded, deferred to

her in every particular of state government, whether internal or

external, secular or religious. Their children’s education he left

entirely in her hands, and, while she carefully surrounded them

with masters well versed in all the knowledge then attainable, she

was no less solicitous for the improvement of the nation. Butler

says of her: “She labored most successfully to polish and civilize

the Scottish nation, to encourage among the people the useful and

polite arts, and to inspire them with a love of the sciences.... By

her extensive alms, insolvent debtors were released, and decayed

families restored, and foreign nations, especially the English,

recovered their captives. She was solicitous to ransom those

especially who fell into the hands of harsh masters. She also

erected hospitals for poor strangers.” Her daughter Maud, who was

the first wife of Henry I. of England, followed in her footsteps,

and was highly revered, both during her life and after her death,

by the two nations to which her birth and marriage linked her. Two

great hospitals in London, that of Christ Church, Aldgate, and of

St. Giles in the Fields, are due to her munificence and foresight.

We have no space to mention many of the Anglo-Saxon princesses who,

either on the throne or in the cloister, swayed great political

issues and protected learning while they shielded the virtue of

their sex. We must leave the Island of Saints for other kingdoms

whose queens were conspicuous not only in procuring the conversion

of these realms to Christianity, but also in the territorial

aggrandizement and material prosperity of the countries they

governed. Bridget, Queen of Sweden, the famous author of the most

interesting revelations ever written, was no less remarkable

personally than fortunate in her many and distinguished children.

Warriors and crusaders, holy wives and consecrated virgins, she

offered them to God in every state, and instructed each with

particular care. A pilgrimage to Rome in days when the journey

from Scandinavia to the south was more an exploration than a safe

pastime was bravely undertaken by her in her widowhood, and the

foundation of her order and chief monastery at Vatzen is certainly

one of the most boldly conceived systems known to the world. The

monasteries of this order were double, and contained a smaller

number of monks and a larger of nuns, divided by so strict an

enclosure that, although contiguous, the communities never even

saw each other. In spiritual matters, the monks held authority,

but in temporal the nuns governed the double house; and in fact

the monks were only attached to the foundation in a secondary

degree of importance, and for the greater spiritual convenience

of the cloistered women. Such subordination goes far to show how

the pretended inferiority of woman is really an unknown thing in

the church. The fanaticism and bad faith of later times affected

to see an abuse in this system, and most of these monasteries were

destroyed at the Reformation, but Butler says that a few exist yet

in Flanders and Germany. St. Bridget’s works have been printed and

reprinted from age to age, and have seemingly never lost what may

be styled in modern parlance their popularity. She also procured

a Swedish translation of the Bible to be written by Matthias, the

Bishop of Worms, who died about the year 1410. She was altogether

one of the most prominent women of the fourteenth century, and no

unworthy successor to the central figure of the preceding age,

Catherine of Sienna, of whom we shall have to speak briefly later

on.

Two empresses of Germany deserve a passing notice here--Mathilda,

the wife of Henry I. called the Fowler, and her daughter-in-law,

the famous Adelaide. The former had been educated by her

grandmother, who bore the same name as herself, and who was the

abbess of the monastery of Erfurt. Once again we have a woman of

genius, prudence, and great governing powers coming forth to rule a

disturbed empire--and from what school? The world will hardly dare

to call it unenlightened or narrow-minded; yet it was a monastery.

During her husband’s wars against the Danes and Hungarians, then

(it was in the ninth century) nothing better than barbarians,

Mathilda was several times left regent, and Ventura tells us “that

public affairs did not prosper less, the country was not less

tranquil, nor the people less contented, because it was a woman who

steered the helm of the state. When the emperor returned, he found

everything in perfect order. The empress relinquished the functions

of regent only to resume her former place of intercessor for the

unfortunate, protectress of prisoners, and wise auxiliary to

justice.” Adelaide, Princess of Burgundy, renewed in the following

century the glories of Mathilda’s reign. She was married to the

son of the latter, after having been for a short time the Queen

of Lothair, King of the Lombards in Italy. Ventura says that her

zeal for the public good and her love of the people gained her the

appellation of the “mother of her kingdom.” After her husband’s

death, Adelaide, says Butler, “educated her son Otho II. with

great care, and his reign was happy as long as he governed by her

directions.” His mother became regent after his death and that of

his wife, and her biographer, Butler, tells us that she “looked

upon power as merely a difficult stewardship, and applied herself

to public affairs with indefatigable care.”[84]

The middle ages are so fruitful a field for historical details of

the greatness of woman, that we find our materials crowding one

upon the other in too great a profusion for our present limits.

But some great figures in what we may call the Christian Pantheon

of woman cannot be passed over without a word of notice. The

tenth century gave another holy empress to Germany, Cunegonda,

the wife of Henry II., himself a saint, and a descendant of St.

Mathilda. His sister Giselda married King Stephen of Hungary, upon

the express condition that he would endeavor to christianize his

people. Cunegonda, who reigned for a short time between the death

of St. Henry and the election of his successor, proved herself

as competent to govern a realm as the greatest man; these are

Ventura’s own words. The story of Elizabeth of Hungary has been

eloquently told by the author of the _Monks of the West_, and

pictorial art has handed down from generation to generation the

touching legend of her life. Married early to a prince remarkable

for his piety and generosity, she was able to indulge in her

favorite pastime--working for and serving the poor. We, in these

days, seem to think that philanthropy, the “love of man,” is an

invention coeval with the erection of gossiping committees and

wrangling “boards”; but, when we look back upon the history of

our race, we are forced to remember that when man was loved for

the sake of God, spiritually as well as temporally, and when the

old-fashioned virtue of “charity” was not ashamed to own its

created--not self-existent--origin, a broader system of benevolence

was spread over Christian earth, and more daring undertakings

were cheerfully and successfully carried through. Elizabeth of

Hungary was not untried by adversity, and after her husband’s death

suffered cruel persecutions from her brother-in-law Henry, with

the undaunted fortitude which a good conscience ensures and which

God’s grace strengthens. We are told of her that she spoke little

and always with gravity, and especially shunned tattlers. Women

are always being taxed on one side with ridiculous frivolity in

speech, and urged, on the other, to a contradiction of the charge

by the pedantic phraseology of surface science. We have not alluded

in these pages as often as we should have done to the great love

of silence which distinguished the great women whose memory is

honored. Whether as religious or as seculars, the useful employment

of time and a discreetness of conversation were the two special

and similar characteristics of their widely different lives, and

thus they provided for the devotions and the acts of charity which

shared so large a portion of their days and nights. They were never

idle or even uselessly occupied, and we know but few women of our

own generation who could truthfully say the same of themselves.

What powers, what energy, do we not see wasted in superfluous

social duties; for while, as our modern phrase goes, they _kill

time_, they are also engaged in stifling, dwarfing, or destroying

the higher powers of their mind. Solitude, silence, meditation,

these are essentials to a well-balanced mind; but how many minds

there are who voluntarily go on, not heeding, until the world and

its claims, its sham triumphs, and its petty rivalries upset this

balance and obscure the mind’s eye! There are as many women whose

intellect is wrecked on the shoals of Fashion with its “laws of

the Medes and Persians,” as there are others whose sensibility is

stranded on the rocks of Woman’s Rights Conventions with their

reckless disregard of all natural ties and time-honored duties.

Poland presents us with several instances of heroic womanhood

during the middle ages. Dombrowka, the daughter of Boleslas, Duke

of Bohemia, married Mieczylas, Duke of Poland, on condition of

his becoming a Christian. By her example he not only became a

religious, but a pure, merciful, and just, man. His wife could not

forget her own countrymen while evangelizing her new subjects,

and it was to her repeated solicitations that Bohemia owed the

establishment of the Archiepiscopal See of Prague. Christianity,

which in those times we might call the dower of the royal maidens

of Europe, was first carried into Hungary by the marriage of

Adelaide, the sister-in-law of Dombrowka, to Geisa, chief of the

Huns. This Geisa was father to St. Stephen, of whose exemplary

queen, Giselda, we have already spoken. Of another Polish princess,

Hedwige, the wife of Henry, Duke of Silesia and Poland, we are told

that by her prudence and persuasiveness she succeeded in delivering

her husband, who had been made a prisoner by her uncle, and in

obtaining peace between these two princes. Even in our own days,

have we not had recent examples of the high esteem in which the

mediation of woman was held in a Catholic country by a Catholic

sovereign? Who can forget that delicate diplomatic missions have

been confided in past years to a woman who was the incarnation of

social charm as she was also the most devoted and uncompromising

enthusiast in the cause of the Catholic religion--the Empress

Eugenie! This Hedwige, who, in 1240, was so instrumental in raising

an army with which to encounter the heathen hordes of Tartars

who threatened at that time to destroy civilization in Europe,

was succeeded by another queen of the same name as the saintly

Cunegonda of Germany. It was she who towards the beginning of

the fourteenth century, as Dlugossius, her biographer, and the

Bollandists relate, was the first to provide for the working of

the salt mines of Wieliczka, which afterwards proved an infinite

source of wealth to the kingdom. She also cheerfully contributed

the _whole_ of her princely dowry to the equipment of an army

to be led against the Tartars who had made a second raid upon

the frontiers of Poland. But the greatest heroine of the country

whose women are to this day the bravest under misfortune, and

the most faithful to their religion, was another Hedwige, to

whom Poland is indebted for her territorial aggrandizement and

some of the most interesting as well as useful of her public

institutions. Born a princess of Hungary, the elective crown of

Poland was offered to her when she was only eighteen, and, when

her marriage became a matter of national importance, she made,

_herself_, a choice which only her own consummate prudence and

foresight could have justified. Jagellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania

and the surrounding barbarous provinces, became her husband, on the

conditions, proposed by Hedwige, that his entire domains should

be incorporated _for ever_ in the kingdom of Poland; that his

people should embrace Christianity; that Christians who had been

enslaved should be set free; that certain Polish provinces once

alienated should be restored, and that all Lithuanian treasures,

whether hereditary or conquered by Jagellon from his enemies,

should be appropriated for the benefit of the kingdom of Poland.

Here is a treaty in which a kingdom is consolidated and a dynasty

established, through the unassisted efforts of the genius and

prudence of a woman. Hedwige founded numberless hospitals, schools,

churches, and monasteries; the great cathedral of Wilna and seven

episcopal sees also owe their origin to her. Only through her death

and her husband’s good-natured but weak indifference when once her

influence was removed was a great monastic institution abandoned,

which had for its object the study and preservation of the Slavic

languages and peculiar rites. The University of Prague was already

in her day a world-famed seat of learning. Hedwige, in concert

with the King of Bohemia, founded and endowed in that city a

spacious and magnificent college, where the youth of Lithuania were

gratuitously received and provided for during their academical

course. Education was certainly as gravely thought of in those

days as in our later times, when we boast of its benefits being

so _widely_ diffused. Whether it is as _deeply_ impressed on its

ordinary recipients, let the recent “commemorations” at Oxford

proclaim. Dlugossius says the college (which exists to this day)

was called the Queen’s House, “a name which is in itself an undying

monument to the memory of this great woman, whose worthy thought

it embodied, and charity it still expresses; remaining for ever

a living testimony to the world of the merits of its illustrious

foundress.” Boniface IX., who reigned during the last decade of the

fourteenth century, corresponded with Hedwige, upon whom he relied

as the principal support and auxiliary of religion in her realms.

She was always appealed to as mediatrix between the king and his

subjects, as also by the vassal nobles among themselves. What

the king could not do by threats, she accomplished partly by her

persuasive exhortations, partly by her grave and majestic demeanor.

Her historian relates that she even quelled a popular rising, and

put down the abuses which had given occasion to it, before the king

had time to march an army into the disaffected district and reduce

it by force. Once, while her husband was fighting in Lithuania,

the Hungarians, her own countrymen, invaded Poland and captured

several towns. “She no sooner heard of this,” says Ventura, “than

she assembled the nobles and barons, improvised an army on the

spot, and, without losing an instant, herself led it on to the

frontiers. There, to the great astonishment of her generals, she

displayed the military talents and bravery of an old warrior. It

was she who directed the sieges, organized the sallies and attacks,

and gave battle on the open ground, while the whole army obeyed

her enthusiastically, proud to serve under a woman-general. She

conquered the enemy at every encounter, wrested from them the

important stronghold of Leopol, took other cities, and not only

repossessed herself of the Russian territories usurped by the

Hungarians, but also added to the kingdom of Poland a vast tract

of country which voluntarily surrendered itself to her rule.”[85]

Hedwige is perhaps less known than other renowned women of the

middle ages, and therefore we have been led to speak more at

length of her extraordinary powers. It would be useless to remind

the reader that she was no less remarkable for the modesty of her

private life and the austerities and charities of her secret life

than famed for the wonderful and versatile talents displayed in

her public career. Chastity and devotion invariably accompany all

greatness in Catholic womanhood, but, as we shall have occasion to

illustrate this fact later on, we will not now stop to consider it

in its evident bearings on the vexed question raised by certain

indiscriminate apostles of the rights of woman.

We cannot pass over, among the prominent women of mediæval times

the famous Countess Mathilda, of Tuscany, the friend and ally of

Gregory VII., Hildebrand the Reformer. Rohrbacher calls her the

modern Deborah, and adds that in Italy, whose princes were mostly

traitors to the cause of truth and patriotism, “one man only,

during a long reign of fifty years, showed himself ever faithful,

ever devoted to the church and her head, ever ready to second them

in efforts for the reformation of the clergy and the restoration of

ancient discipline, ever prompt to defend them, sword in hand, from

their most formidable enemies, never allured by bribes, intimidated

by threats, or cast down by adversity, and this _one man_ was _a

woman_, the Countess Mathilda.”

Her donation of Tuscany, the Marches, Parma, Modena, Reggio, and

various other cities and lands, to the Holy See, is a fact that

stands alone in history, and is simply the most momentous act of

practical devotion which the Chair of Peter ever received. This

generous and unreserved gift, first made to Gregory VII. in 1077,

and confirmed in 1102 to Pascal II., is the unparalleled expression

of the whole nature of woman, in its thoroughness, its spirit

of martyrdom, its enthusiastic and unerring instincts, towards

the good and the true. Henry IV. of Germany, having incurred

excommunication, was reconciled to the Pope through the good

offices of the great countess, and met him for that purpose at

the fortress of Canossa, then a fief of the Countess of Tuscany.

Ventura says of her that she was as learned as she was pious, and

as solicitous for the propagation of science and the interests

of literature as for the reformation of clerical abuses and the

consolidation of the church. She multiplied schools and colleges

over her dominions, but the crowning work of her great reign was

the foundation of the famous University of Bologna, confessedly

the best seat of learning in Europe for many centuries. Mathilda

gathered together all the enlightened and talented masters of her

age in this time-honored and world-renowned university, and in

honor of her munificence it has remained a custom to this day to

allow women to graduate there, to take a doctorate, and “profess”

in public any of the learned faculties. Women, we are told by

Ventura, the earnest panegyrist of the sex, have taken advantage of

this custom at all times, and even up to the present day, when (in

the beginning of this century, we believe) the celebrated female

professor, Tambroni, taught Latin and Greek within the Bolognese

university. Cardinal Mezzofanti, the great linguist, was at one

time her pupil.

We have been led so far in the search, however superficial, for

instances of the greatness of woman, as recognized, protected,

and rewarded by the church, that we have reached a limit to our

explorations in this article without mentioning any of the great

women of the middle ages save those of royal descent. There are

many who claim our attention, and whose influence over public

affairs and the minds of men was not less than that exercised by

the royal matrons and maidens we have cursorily named. Some were

destined to mingle in political struggles, others owe their fame

to their learning, one of them to actual feats of arms, and all to

the spirit of chivalry which rendered a woman inviolable and sacred

wherever honor was known and laws revered. But this spirit itself,

what was it save the offspring of that higher spirit of reverential

homage ever inculcated by the church towards that sex which gave a

mother to our God?

Before taking up the subject of the status of woman within the

church after the sixteenth century, we may, perhaps, return for a

brief space to the Catherines of Sienna, the Joans of Arc, and the

Genevieves of ecclesiastical history.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] _Donna Cattolica_, ii. p. 74.

[80] _Lives of the Saints._

[81] _Life of St. Radegundes._ By Busslère

[82] _Donna Cattolica._

[83] _Donna Cattolica_, vol. ii. p. 104.

[84] _Lives of the Saints._

[85] _Donna Cattolica_, p. 174.