control of the education of our children, by what other right can it
claim it? Some may say, from political necessity, that the state, in
order to protect its own interests, must see to it that a certain
amount of intelligence is diffused among its supporters. Here the
whole question comes up again. What is that intelligence which is
necessary to the preservation and well-being of our free institutions?
Is it a certain knowledge of mathematics, geography, and the physical
sciences, or is it not probity, morality, and lawful obedience to the
constituted authorities? Yet these are virtues that can only be taught
through religion, and the state, having no religion, cannot teach
them. Is it not for the general interests that we should have
stalwart, healthy, well-fed, and sober citizens? And yet the state
does not profess to enforce a general plan whereby every one should be
provided with proper exercise, employment, medicine, food, clothing,
and shelter. To do so would simply be to attempt to realize the
utopian dream of the socialists; and still it would be no greater a
usurpation of power than the design of furnishing our children with a
general system of instruction, and, indirectly, with a uniform
religion. If the state, as it ought to do, requires a certain amount
of intelligence in its citizens, let it make the presence or absence
of that knowledge the test of citizenship and the passport to places
of honor and public confidence. The right to vote and hold office, for
example, is not an inherent right, but depends on many qualifications,
such as sex, age, nationality, freedom from crime, ability to support
one’s self, and previous residence. Why not add ability to read and
write intelligibly?
There are cases, however, in which we admit that the state has not
only a right, but is in duty bound, to interfere with the disposition
and education of children. When parents, either through poverty,
misfortune, crime, or any other cause, are unable or unwilling to take
proper charge of their children, the state, for its own protection and
to save the community from the consequence of vice and idleness, is
justified in taking care of them, for this does not violate the
principle of civil polity that a state is constituted to do only for
the citizen what he is unable to do for himself. Hence, the
establishment of almshouses, asylums, nurseries, reformatories, and
other benevolent institutions, which all wise governments provide as
barriers against prospective crime and distress. But even in those
exceptional cases, as much care as possible should be observed in
following out the spirit of our free institutions, which are so
strongly opposed to any interference in matters of conscience, even
among the most humble and unfortunate.
But while we are combating the arguments of our Boston contemporary in
favor of compulsory education, it may be said that no compulsion is
used or intended to be used in this or many other states in the Union.
This is a mistake; there is compulsion of the most practical kind. It
is true that the officer of the law does not come into our homes and
forcibly drag our children to school, but the tax-gatherer does so,
almost as efficiently, if more silently. The masses of the people in
this, as in most other countries, are poor. With the American
Catholics this is peculiarly so. They are taxed to support the public 442
schools, and must either send their children there or pay for their
education elsewhere. This double payment, in most instances, they
cannot afford. How many tens of thousands of parents are there not
among us whose scanty means will not permit them to indulge in the
luxury of seeing their children instructed in the ways of true
religion, and who are consequently compelled, if they desire even a
primary education for their offspring, to send them to schools which
they neither admire nor would select if they had a free choice!
We are accused of being hostile to the Bible. Such is not the fact,
and those who make the assertion are well aware of its falsity. The
Bible has always been an object of especial care and veneration in the
Catholic Church. It is one of the sources of her authority and the
muniments of her holy mission. What we object to is the profanation of
its sacred character by unworthy and profane hands. It has repeatedly
pained us to see even “King James’s Version,” imperfect as it is,
scattered broadcast by the agents of the Bible societies in hotel and
steamboat saloons, barbers’ shops, and bar-rooms, not to be read, but
to be devoted to the meanest purposes of waste paper. The treatment of
the holy book in some of our public schools is little better. If any
person doubts that Catholics venerate and read the Bible, let him go
to our large Catholic publishing-houses and see the numerous and
splendid editions of the Old and New Testaments which are constantly
being issued from their presses.
Though on principle we decidedly object to the reading of the Bible in
our public schools, our greatest objection is to the schools
themselves. We hold that the education that does not primarily include
the religious element is worse than no education at all, and, we
hold, also, that the state has no right to prescribe what form of
faith, doctrine, or religious practice should be taught to the
children of its citizens. We claim that Catholic parents have a right
to demand that their children shall be educated by Catholic teachers,
be instructed from Catholic books, and at all times, particularly
during hours of study, be surrounded as much as possible with all the
influence that the church, into whose bosom they have been admitted by
baptism, can surround them. This can never be done in our public
schools. However high the personal character of the teachers in those
institutions, and whatever may be the peculiar merits of their
discipline and success in turning out smart accountants and
superficial thinkers, we maintain that, in the formation of character
and the cultivation of the spiritual and better part of our nature,
they have been and must necessarily be failures. What parent can read
without a shudder the following extract from a Boston paper regarding
the recent investigation of a _savant_ who, it is well known, is no
friend to Catholicity or the teachings of the church:
“Professor Agassiz has of late given a portion of his valuable
time to an investigation of the social evil, its causes and
growth, and the result has filled him with dismay, and almost
destroyed his faith in the boasted civilization of the nineteenth
century. He has visited and noted down the houses of ill-fame
throughout the city of Boston, and has drawn from the unfortunate
inmates many sad life stories. _To his utter surprise, a large
number of the unfortunate women and girls traced their fall to
influences which surrounded them in the public schools._”[102]
It has been already stated, on the authority of the _Educational
Monthly_, that in the State of Connecticut, the paradise of public 443
schools and nursery of public-school teachers, there is one divorce
annually to every nine marriages, and now we have the unbiassed
testimony of Agassiz, after mature examination of the malign influence
of state schools in the sister state. Is there any reason to doubt
that this sad state of morals exists in other cities, and may be
traced to the same source, and, if so, is it not time that our public
system of instruction, at least for females, should be discontinued?
But even in a material point of view our common schools have been far
from a success. In the efforts, conscientious we must believe, to
eliminate sectarianism from the school-books, the Board of Education
and Trustees of our cities have almost destroyed their usefulness for
any purpose. The primary rules of reading, writing, and arithmetic,
and the elements of pure mathematics, can be taught with impunity,
but, when the higher branches of study are reached, the religious
question again comes up. Take geology, for example, that most
interesting science, the abuse of which has led to more atheism than
all the sophistries of Voltaire or Volney. As at present taught in our
schools, without explanation or qualification, it cannot help being
detrimental to the faith, and consequently to the morals, of the
curious and undisciplined minds of the scholars. As to history, it is
impossible, even with the most careful revision, to reproduce it
without constant reference to disputed events and characters,
regarding which Protestants and Catholics can never agree. Can we
imagine a history of modern Europe, with the great facts of the
civilization of the Old World by the church, the establishment of the
temporal power of the Popes, the “Truce of God” and the Crusades
in the middle ages, the great rebellion against spiritual
authority--miscalled the Reformation--the penal persecution of the
Irish Catholics, and the French Revolution left out? At best, such a
book would be a sorry compilation of dates and miscalled facts, and
yet to describe those great epochs in European history with any degree
of accuracy would necessarily offend the opinions or prejudices of
either Protestants or Catholics. If history be “philosophy teaching by
example,” we must look for it somewhere else than in our public
schools.
But, because we are opposed to the existence of common schools, are we
therefore against popular education? On the contrary, the efforts of
the humbler class of Catholics throughout the country to secure
education for their children independent of state interference are
almost incredible.
In this city alone twenty thousand children are annually taught in the
free schools attached to the various churches, at an expense of a
little over one hundred thousand dollars, independent of the thousands
who attend the pay-schools of the Christian Brothers of a high
grade.[103]
Let us now sum up in brief our objections to the further continuance
of the present public school system:
I. All education should be based and conducted on true religious
principles.
II. The state has no right to teach religion in its schools.
III. State or public schools without religion are godless.
IV. As such, they are incapable of forming the character of our
children, or teaching them morality according to the Christian
principle.
V. In endeavoring to avoid what is called sectarianism, they defeat 444
the ends of even mere secular education.
Now, it may be asked, What remedy do we propose for the evils which
our public school system has already produced? What substitute are we
prepared to offer that will both satisfy the demands of religion and
the requirements of the state? We answer, by the establishment of
denominational schools for Catholics, wherever practicable, under the
supervision of the proper ecclesiastical authorities, and likewise for
such of the sects as do not approve of mixed schools. How are these
schools to be sustained? In either of two ways. If the state will
insist on levying a general school tax, let it be divided _pro rata_
according to the number of pupils taught in each school: let the
denominational schools have their proper proportion, and the mixed or
non-religious schools theirs. The amount thus apportioned to the
Catholic schools might be deposited with a board or other executive
body, to be composed in whole or in part of clerics and laymen, and,
if necessary, let the state appoint proper officials to see that
accurate returns of attendance are made. The other way, which to our
mind is much preferable, would be to abolish altogether the school
tax, and throw upon the parents of all denominations or of no
denomination the responsibility of educating their own children.
Compulsory education may do very well in countries where the subject
is but an automaton liable at any time to be moved by a despotic
government, based on principles that the people are made for the
government, not the government for the people, and where the acquired
intelligence of the masses is merely used or misused for the benefit
of a few hereditary rulers; but in a country like our republic, the
strength of which lies in individual effort, and where wealth, fame,
and honor are within the reach of every one, even the humblest who has
energy and ability enough to win them, we can have no fear that
parents, and, least of all, Catholic parents, will be derelict in
their duty in respect to the proper secular education of their
children. The struggles they have made and are making to support their
free day-schools, despite the onerous tax with which they are burdened
by the state, would be renewed with fourfold energy if that drain on
their resources were removed.
The advantages to be derived from the adoption of either plan would be
manifold and incalculable.
It would satisfy the conscientious scruples of those parents who 445
consider that they should not be required, directly or indirectly, to
send their children to the public schools, as at present conducted. It
would not only advance the material prospects of the pupil, by giving
him a thorough education devoid of all the restrictions and
mutilations which an attempt at fairness and the production of
non-religious books have produced; while he would, gradually and
without apparent effort, imbibe the true religious spirit that would
be his guide and best defence in after life. It would also elevate the
character of the teacher by placing him in his true position, midway
between the divinely appointed minister of the Gospel, and the
instructor of children in matters purely secular, and, by holding out
to him a higher and nobler goal than that resulting from mere personal
ambition or the hope of pecuniary reward, would doubly increase his
zeal and efficiency. For the public generally, the change suggested
would be equally salutary. The welfare of the state does not rest on
piety alone, nor on mental intelligence alone, but on both acting
together, the latter, of course, being subordinate to the former. No
man, no matter what may have been his natural gifts, was ever less
brave in action, less wise in council, less enterprising in commerce,
or less loyal to his government, because he was taught from his
infancy to regard the practice of religion as his first and principal
duty. The desire of eternal happiness, as much an instinct of our
nature as the mode of securing it, is the fruit of proper religious
education, reacts on a man’s conduct even in matters exclusively
pertaining to the things of the world, and compels him to a more
steadfast and fearless course in the discharge of his civic duties.
But it would also have another and not less marked effect. It would
rid the community of a host of officials, many of whom are
incompetent, and some of whom, we are sorry to say, are corrupt, and
it would also save the public treasury vast sums of money, much of
which is now uselessly squandered. Who would believe that in this
great city, where there is so much learning and public spirit, the
Board of Education, consisting of twenty-one persons, is principally
composed of liquor and billiard saloon keepers, horse dealers,
retailers of articles used in the schools, and of that nondescript
class called brokers? Yet this intellectual body exercises supreme
control over the public schools of New York, and proposed this year to
spend no less a sum than $3,150,000, or more than double the amount
required for the same purpose eight years ago.[104] The way in which a
portion of this money is spent may be inferred from a statement
recently published in one of our daily newspapers, from which we
extract the following paragraph:
“The next item is incidental expenses of the Board of Education,
including shop account, $60,000. What are ‘incidental’ expenses?
It means expenditures for which the items cannot be anticipated,
or of which it is not agreeable to furnish a statement; it means
simply a general fund to be expended by the clerks and officers
of the Board of Education as they think proper ‘incidentally.’
Among these ‘incidental’ expenses is what is known as a tea-room;
that is to say, the members have a supper or refreshments
furnished to them at their meetings, and as they choose to order.
This is never returned or charged under the head of tea-room, 446
supper, dinner, or board bill, but is covered up under the head
of postage-stamps or other ‘incidental’ expenses. How much of the
$60,000 goes in this way, it is, of course, impossible for us to
know.”
Is it any wonder, then, that, in view of such extravagant use of the
public money, of which the above is only a specimen, the education of
about one hundred thousand children, the average attendance at our
public schools, should cost over three millions of dollars, or at the
rate of thirty dollars _per capita_, while in the Catholic free
schools one-fifth of that number are taught at an expense of one
hundred thousand dollars, or at the rate of only five dollars a head,
per annum?
Are the Catholics competent and prepared to assume the duties and
responsibilities of the education of the vast number of children of
their communion who now attend the public schools? Most decidedly. As
to our ability to teach, we point with something like pride, certainly
with satisfaction, to the success of our numerous colleges,
seminaries, and convent schools, to the latter in particular, where
are always to be found among the pupils a respectable minority
composed of daughters of many of our most intelligent Protestant
families. We call attention, also, to our twenty-four city free
schools, now in full operation, many of which, though of recent
origin, will compare favorably with the oldest of our common schools.
Besides the professors of our colleges, who are constantly preparing
young men for the ministry and for the scarcely less responsible
duties of teachers, and such orders as the Christian Brothers, we have
many trained lay instructors ready and anxious to devote themselves to
the good work of Christian education. Then, again, there are numbers
of Catholic teachers now in the public schools, male and female, many
of whom we know personally, who would prefer to give their services
exclusively to the training of children of their own faith if such an
opportunity presented itself. Said one of this class, a teacher of
over twenty years’ experience, on a late occasion to the writer, “If I
dared, I would like to expose the dangers and absurdities of our
school system; but I cannot, for I would surely be found out and
dismissed, and then what would become of my wife and family? I wish we
had separate schools for ourselves, and then I would feel like
teaching even at a less salary than I now receive.”
We submit the consideration of this very grave and, in our mind, most
important question to the serious consideration of our patriotic and
reflective countrymen, no matter of what creed or opinion, having an
abiding confidence in their sense of justice and equity. To the
fanatical portion of the community who will not listen to reason, we
have only this to say: Though you may pretend not to know it, and may
even be unconscious of the fact, your instincts tell you that the
present system of education saps the foundation of the Catholic
religion, and it is for this reason you hold so tenaciously to it; but
let us add, the system itself, being godless, undermines all religion
and morality likewise. But such is your infatuation and hostility to
our religion that to so undermine it you are willing to see your own
faith, whatever that may be, ruined and wrecked as long as you can
accomplish your object, and the next generation become atheists and
sceptics, totally devoid of all faith. Holding the political power,
and in spite of your boasted fair play and in defiance of the spirit
of our free institutions, you are determined to uphold your system 447
and tax us for its support against our consciences, against religion,
freedom, equal rights, and the spirit of American institutions. Your
efforts to stretch the powers of our government, to the detriment of
our natural, divine, and political rights, will ultimately end in your
own confusion. They are more worthy of some half-crazed theorist or
mad follower of Fourrier and the Communists than of a citizen of this
great republic. The government that robs a parent of his rights and
his children is neither free nor democratic, but is the aider and
abettor of that system of free-lovism which is said to have originated
in pagan Sparta, and has culminated in our own country at Oneida. But
let it be understood that, as Catholics and free citizens, we proclaim
our rights, shall resolutely defend them, asking for nothing which we
are not willing to grant to others, and being content with no less for
ourselves.
[100] Amendment proposed March, 1789.
[101] See page 587, October number of the _Congregational
Quarterly_, under the title “The State--Religion in its
Schools.”
[102] _The Pilot_, Nov. 4, 1871.
[103] For the benefit and edification of our readers, we
subjoin an official tabular statement of the attendance on,
and expenses of, the Catholic free day schools of the city
of New York for the present year:
Daily Annual
Location of Schools. attendance. Expenses
for the
support
of schools.
Nos. 272 & 274 Mulberry St., 1,100 $6,000
Barclay and Church Sts., 573 3,118
New Bowery and James Sts., 1,400 9,000
No. 29 Mott St., 1,225 5,745
Nos. 54 & 56 Pitt St., and 264
Madison St., 1,620 9,500
Nos. 8 & 10 Rutgers St., 1,050 5,000
Leroy St., 1,000 5,500
Nos. 300 & 302 East Eighth St., 1,600 7,000
Nos. 121 & 123, and 135 & 137
Second St., 1,420 5,970
Nos. 8 & 10 Thompson St., 240 2,000
No. 208 East Fourth St., 1,700 6,217
No. 48 Fourth Ave., 200 2,000
Nos. 511 & 513 East 14th St., 1,250 10,000
No. 32 West 18th St., and 111
West 19th St., 720 5,000
No. 118 West 24th St., and
236 West 26th St., 140 1,120
Nos. 333 & 335 West 25th St., 650 3,000
No. 209 West 30th St., and 211
West 31st St., 400 1,600
No. 143 West 31st St., 400 1,000
East 36th St., near Second Ave., 1,250 6,000
No. 309 East 47th St., 130 2,660
East 50th St. and Madison Ave., 350 1,000
East 84th St., near Fourth Ave., 560 4,000
West 131st St., and West
133d St., near 10th Ave., 320 1,000
West 125th St. and Ninth Ave., 130 1,000
------- ---------
19,428 $104,430
[104] The expenses of the Board of Education of this city
for six years have been as follows:
1863, $1,450,000
1864, 1,787,000
1865, 2,298,508
1866, 2,454,327
1867, 2,939,348
1868, 2,900,000
----------
ONE CHRISTMAS EVE IN LA VENDEE.
It was in ‘93--that horrible ‘93, whose very name makes our blood
curdle and our hearts beat with a sense of terror and security, as
when we gaze on the painted panorama of a battle-field or some scene
of crime and danger and despair long since enacted, but brought
vividly before us by the graphic power of eloquence or art. The words
have a spell in them that fascinates us, and defies us to pass on
without pausing to look upon the memories they evoke. Well, it is of
this tragic ‘93 that I am going to speak. But not to describe its
horrors. It only makes the frame of my story, a most veracious story,
and full of the spirit of that wonderful epoch, where we see all that
was noble and loveliest in humanity shine forth by the side of its
most criminal and appalling aberrations.
It was Christmas eve fourscore years ago. The fertile soil of La
Vendée, red-dyed by streams of patriot blood, was hidden under a deep
quilt of snow. All the landscape slept as in a death-sleep under a
pure white pall. Hills and plains were garmented in white. The snow
had fallen heavily during the night, and its untrodden purity was as
smooth and uniform as the blue of the winter sky, that looked down
upon it and grew pale. The cottages that dotted the fair expanse
hardly broke its uniformity, for they too were liveried in white, the
roof thick thatched with snow, and the whitewashed walls only a degree
less dazzling than the brightness of the ground. The hedges that
divide the fields in La Vendée as in England were filled and covered
with snow, and the hoar-frost like a fairy lace-work glittered and
shone on the soft, unblemished surface, and the trees with rolls of
snow resting on their bare gaunt arms held up clusters of icicles that
sparkled like crystals in the tepid December sun.
The village of Chamtocé lay in this white landscape; and in the middle
of the village stood the church, and close by the church the
presbytery.
On the road that led from St. Florent to Chamtocé a young, lithe 448
figure was crushing the crisp white carpet with a long, elastic step.
His face was concealed, the upper part of it by a cap drawn low over
his forehead, and the lower part by a woollen scarf wound round his
throat, swallowing up the chin and nose in its capacious folds. The
weather was not cold enough to need this ostentatious display of
_cache-nez_; true, _la nappe blanche de la Noël_ (white cloth of
Christmas), as the peasants call it, was spread, but there was not a
breath of wind, and it was not freezing. It had frozen during the
night just enough to sprinkle the hoar-frost abroad and hang a thin
fringe of glass from the roofs of the houses and deck the trees with
icicles, but this was not what the Vendéans called freezing. The Loire
pursued its journey majestically to the sea unchecked by the icy hand
of the black frost, the cruel black frost, that had but to blow with
its bleak breath for one night on the strong deep stream to paralyze
its waters and chill their moaning into icy dumbness. So, the cold was
not bitter. The traveller knew it, too, for on coming to a point of
the road where it turned abruptly, and disclosed the church with its
slim, gray belfry, and, on the rising ground beyond it, a windmill,
still as spectre suspended midway between the white earth and the pale
sky, he looked cautiously up and down the road, assured himself there
was no one in sight, and then, raising his beaver cap, stood
bare-headed in the attitude of a man saluting some object of love and
veneration.
“Nearly four years since I knelt under the shadow of thy walls, and
now I have come home, and thou dost greet me with the same unchanged,
unchanging welcome!”
He replaced his cap, drew it low over his face, and continued his way.
“Home, did I say?” he muttered presently. “Have I still a home to come
to? Gaston most likely is gone, fallen like the best blood of La
Vendée in God’s and the king’s cause. And Marie!”
A sudden flush suffused the bronzed cheek. The pilgrim walked on with
a quicker step, and was soon at the gate of the presbytery.
“Ah! here it is, just as I left it--the little wicket that opened so
often with a ready welcome. A good omen to begin with!”
He pushed it and walked on. The door of the dwelling-house stood ajar;
winter and summer it was never shut; he pushed it open, and knocked
gently at a door on the left.
“Come in!” said M. le Curé.
And François Léonval entered and stood face to face with the only
father he had known on earth. Nearly four years had passed since they
had parted, and the old priest who had baptized him, and taught him,
and wept with him beside his mother’s grave, was just the same as when
he had left him, benign, cheerful, a trifle more bowed perhaps and a
good deal whiter, but the same in everything else--nothing was changed
within. He looked up promptly, closed his book, and then, with a
glance where “charity that thinketh no evil” deprecated a certain
vague mistrust, he said:
“What can I do for you, my boy?”
“Monsieur le Curé! mon père! Is this the welcome you give me?”
“François! my son! my best-loved!” And the old man held out his arms,
and the two clasped each other.
“Ah! my son!” exclaimed the curé, when his emotion left him power to
speak, “this is an hour worth suffering for; it pays me for many days 449
of anguish. Little did I dream to have such a joy before we met in
heaven. My son! my boy! Blessed be God and Our Lady of Mercy, who have
watched over you and brought you back to me! I never thought to see
your face before I died!”
“And why not, mon père!” said François, laughing, and embracing him
again; “you know the prodigals are sure to return sooner or later;
besides, you promised to pray me safe home, and not to go to heaven
till I came back to get your blessing. Did you forget your promise?”
“Forget it! Does a father forget his son? But you have travelled a
long way; you will tell me all presently; but first you must have need
of food and warmth. Victoire!”
The grim old gouvernante appeared, and on recognizing François her
features expanded into a smile of genuine delight, and she embraced
the young man with motherly affection, and overpowered him with
questions that she never waited to hear answered, while she bustled
about the table, running backward and forward to her kitchen, and
making ready with all speed the very best her store could supply. The
frugal meal was soon spread, and the curé, to whom, after the first
outburst of joy had subsided, her presence was an unguessed relief,
said with a sudden change in his voice and look that struck cold on
François’s heart:
“Ah! François, François, it was not well to leave me all these years
without a sign or a word. Gaston held out for a long time that either
you had escaped from the country, or that you were still fighting, and
that it was in either case only the fear of getting us into trouble
that prevented you writing, or the want of a trusty messenger, and I
believed him while I could; but when two whole years went by, and still
we had no news, what could I think but that you had fallen? Victoire,
put on your hood, and go--but stay--no, I had better go myself. We
must run no risks: there is a price on your head, you say? I will go
myself. These are times when we need the cunning of the serpent more
than the innocence of the dove. Alas! what does innocence avail my
little ones? But shame upon me for an ungrateful wretch! Does it not
avail them the palm-branch and the crown, and are not the purest of
the flock chosen for a sacrifice to plead for the guilty?”
Thus discoursing, he wrapped himself in his heavy serge cloak, and
clutched his stick, and went in search of Gaston, but not without
first speaking a word in Victoire’s ear.
And who was Gaston? Gaston was cousin-german and adopted brother of
François. They had been brought up from infancy together by Gaston’s
mother. When they were both sixteen, she died, leaving the lads to the
care of the good God and Monsieur le Curé, and bidding them love each
other like true brothers, and live together in the comfortable
cottage, which, being her own, she bequeathed them as a joint legacy
till either should marry, and then, if they chose to separate, the one
who left was to have compensation in a sum of money to be kept by M.
le Curé till the event entitled either of the youths to claim it.
Besides the cottage, their mother, for both the lads looked on her as
such, left two thousand francs, to be equally divided between them
when they came to be twenty-one. This was the wedding portion she had
brought to Gaston’s father, and as she had adopted François, and given
him a true mother’s love, she wished to divide her all, share and
share, between him and her own son.
Gaston had a goodly inheritance of land from his father, so she was 450
not impoverishing him by sharing her own with his brother, and he
could never feel in after-life that she had wronged him. So Jeanne
Léonval thought, at least. And perhaps she was right at the time. But
as years went on, Gaston saw things differently; his ideas about the
value of money changed, and with them his notions regarding right and
justice, and he began to feel an undefined vexation and sense of
injury on the subject of his mother’s will. For Gaston had a worm at
his heart--the worm that entered the heart of Judas, and sucked it dry
of love, and truth, and mercy, and led him at last to deicide and
despair. He loved money, and he was growing to love it more every day;
it was filling up his heart, and making him hard and selfish, and
brushing off the bloom of his boyish freshness. He was growing into a
miser. Nobody noticed the growth. Gaston did not suspect it. He lived
like other people, frugally but abundantly, in the homely manner of
his mother and the people of his class. He wore good clothes, and the
same as those around him. But though he did not take to the ways and
crotchets of the miser of the story-book, his heart was none the less
developing the miser’s spirit, and growing rapidly absorbed, to the
exclusion of all other aims, in the love of money. He grudged more and
more parting with it, and he longed and pined more greedily after its
possession. François, who lived with him, saw nothing of this. He saw
him indeed eager and active in turning his land and stock to account,
vigilant to seize every opportunity for gain, sharp at striking a
bargain, chary of spending his money on many innocent pleasures that
tempted the self-denial of older and wiser heads; but this was right
and fair so far. There were plenty of idlers, and fellows to spend
their money as fast as they made it, and it was well to see Gaston
prudent and thrifty, and laying by for the rainy day and the little
ones who would be coming by-and-by. So argued the honest, open-handed
François, who approved the wisdom of his brother, but did not practise
it, and never could keep a franc in his pocket while he saw any one in
want of it. Quite as self-denying as Gaston, he pinched himself from a
different motive. He saved to give. He gave to the widow who would be
driven from her shelter if he did not come in time to pay the rent; he
gave to the cold and the hungry; no hearth wanted wood, no mouth
craved for bread, while François could supply both. Not a child in the
village but loved him, not an elder but smiled a blessing on the young
man as he passed. Gaston knew it, and forgave him. He loved him well
enough to forgive him even that share in his mother’s _dot_ that was
coming to François one of these days. But when the day came, and he
saw the money that ought to have been his handed over to his
cousin--he disowned the brotherhood that moment for the first time in
his life--Gaston felt the fiend wake up in him, he felt he was badly
treated, wronged and robbed of his due, and he was wrathful against
Jeanne and François. In the angry spirit of the moment, he spoke
bitter words to François, and reproached him for having come between
him and his mother. But François, who retained the guilelessness of a
child, cared too little about the money to seize the base motive of
his brother’s anger; he thought it was an outburst of latent jealousy
against the orphan child who had come between him and the fulness of 451
his mother’s love, and, with the warmth of a generous nature, François
forgave him his unjust reproaches; he offered to give up all at once
unconditionally to his cousin, and to leave the cottage, and take no
compensation, provided only Gaston would give him back his love and
trust. Gaston was not utterly hardened, and the generosity and
frankness of his cousin disarmed him, and shamed him out of his
unworthy resentment; he embraced him, and asked him to forgive him,
and they were true brothers from that out. The coils of avarice twined
round Gaston’s heart, and choked his best instincts and his finest
impulses, but they did not crush out his love for François. That grew
and flourished like a lily amongst weeds. So they stayed together till
they grew up to man’s estate, and then an event occurred in the
distant town of Chapelle-aux-lys which was to make a new era in the
lives of both.
A niece of the curé’s died, leaving one orphan child, whom she
implored her uncle to receive and take care of; Marie was alone in the
world; and there was no one to whom the mother could bequeath her
except the curé of Chamtocé. Great was the perplexity of the worthy
priest when he received the intelligence of his niece’s death,
accompanied by the unexpected legacy of a grand-niece, and a request
that he would enter into possession at once. Victoire was called into
council, but, instead of helping him out of the difficulties of the
position, she staggered him by asking if he meant to buy a cage and
hang _la petite_ in the window like a canary? That was the only way
_she_ saw of taking her in. Why, they were so tight for room that
if she, Victoire, were not the woman she was, it would be simply an
impossibility to fit herself and her _effects_ into the space allotted
to her at the presbytery; and where, in the name of common sense, did
M. le Curé think she could make room for another inmate? The curé
admitted the inexorable logic of this fact, and immediately proposed
adding another room to the house; this was the Vendéan’s ready way of
simplifying difficulties when his family outgrew his dwelling.
Victoire said of course that this remedy was open to them, but what
were they to do with _la petite_ till the room was built? Hang her up
in the window? M. le Curé rejected the cage alternative, and suggested
his niece be sent to one of the farmers’ wives’ for the time being.
“Which of them?” Victoire begged leave to inquire. Mère Madeleine
would take her and welcome, but she had four sons at home, so that
would not do. Then there were La Mère Tustine and La Tante Ursule, and
a great many other estimable matrons who would gladly give her a
shelter, but between their hospitality and Marie’s acceptance of it
there stood some impediment in the shape of sons or brothers that shut
the door on the young stranger. The curé and his gouvernante were
puzzling over the case, and seeing no way out of it, when François
Léonval came in. The curé loved all his children, but, if there was
one that he loved better than all, it was the child-like, open-hearted
François. He told him at once of his trouble, and asked him what he
was to do. François solved the difficulty instanter by offering him
the spare room at home--his mother’s formerly, and never occupied
since her death--assuring the curé that he and Gaston and Gervoise,
their old _bonne_, would take every care of his grand-niece, and that,
far from being in the way, she would be quite a godsend to them all in
the dull cottage. The curé smiled with a deeper thankfulness than the 452
young man understood at the biblical simplicity betrayed in this
proposal, and it took a good deal of argument to make François see
that the scheme was not practicable; but when ultimately he did see
it, he was ready with an amendment which the curé saw no fair reason
for rejecting. This was that Mlle. Marie was to be installed in her
uncle’s room, and he was to come and stay with the brothers while
another was being added to the presbytery. This point settled, the
first thing to be done was to get possession of Marie. The curé would
have gladly gone to fetch the poor little orphan himself, but this was
Saturday, a very busy day for the country priest, and to-morrow would
be Sunday, a busier day still, and when it was quite impossible for
him to be absent. But François here again came to the rescue. He would
drive over to Chapelle-aux-lys, put up for a few hours--it was a good
three hours’ drive--and be back by nightfall with the legacy. François
Léonval was perhaps the only youth in the village to whom such a
mission could have been entrusted without its provoking a stream of
chattering comments on all sides, but the curé knew that not even that
queen of gossips, Tante Ursule, would find a word to say against it in
his case. So he gave his blessing to François, who ran home as fast as
he could, put the strong bay mare to the cariole, and was soon
trotting over the snow on the road to Chapelle-aux-lys. This was how
Marie came to Chamtocé.
In due time the room was built, the curé took leave of the brothers,
and returned to the presbytery, where Marie reigned henceforth with
soft, despotic sway over himself, the stiff old Victoire, and all who
came within her kingdom. She was soon the acknowledged belle of
Chamtocé, and the number of her admirers and the zeal with which they
competed for her hand in the village dance, or the honor of carrying
her red morocco _Heures_ to and from church on Sundays and fête-days,
became a serious complication in the existence of the venerable curé.
For his flock loved him with the love that casteth out fear, and had
no secrets from him; old and young went to him with their _confidences_
as a matter of course, and the rival candidates for Marie’s favors
carried their hopes and fears and complaints of her and of each other
to his sympathizing ears with merciless garrulity. It was no small
thing to bear the burden of this confidence, to hearken to these
knotty cases, and to give advice and sympathy befitting each
particular one. The curé, to be sure, had more experience than most
men in this kind of diplomacy, having been the bosom confidant of all
the swains who had sighed to the belles of Chamtocé these forty years
past; but he declared that Marie’s lovers gave him more to do than the
whole generation together. There were nine eligible _partis_ going,
and all nine were competing for her. The good man was driven to his
wits’ end. Marie remained serenely indifferent to them all, and never
gave a glance of encouragement to one above another, nor could her
uncle detect the faintest sign of preference toward any of them. He
took refuge, therefore, in perfect neutrality, and refused to
interfere in behalf of any of the suitors. She was young enough to
bide her time and try their fidelity before she adopted a choice so
important to them and to herself. Marie was fifteen when she came to
Chamtocé. The revolution had broken out in Paris and was spreading
rapidly through the provinces. La Vendée, which was destined soon to 453
play such a noble part in the fiercest tragedy the world ever saw, was
still comparatively quiet; but before Marie had spent two years in her
new home, the Royalist movement was firing the hearts of the Vendéans,
and the enthusiastic spirit of Charette and Cathelineau and Stoffel
was fanning the flames of patriotism and goading the peasants to that
grand and universal uprising whose story stands unparalleled in the
annals of chivalrous loyalty. The Republican soldiers, _les bleus_, as
they were called, were scouring the country, depopulating villages,
murdering the priests, and hunting down the nobles, ordering off whole
streets to the guillotine in a batch, spreading terror and devastation
everywhere. The peasantry had risen _en masse_ and joined the Royalist
troops, and were selling their lives and their altars dear. Chamtocé
was not behind hand in the patriotic movement. It furnished its goodly
contingent of soldiers to the king, and many were the episodes of
daring and self-devoted loyalty that marked the progress of the
Vendéan cause in the pretty, peaceful village.
Marie was just seventeen when the first recruitment took place. It was
a bright spring morning. She was sitting in the latticed window of the
presbytery parlor, a dark-eyed, merry-looking maiden in a fan-shaped
Vendéan cap, whose soft white cambric frilling set off her warm olive
complexion admirably, and made her a very pretty picture as she sat
singing to her spinning-wheel, bobbing her head with a quick, graceful
movement that kept time to the play of her foot and hands. At a table
at the other end of the room the curé was writing away diligently. He
was too much absorbed in his work to be disturbed by the musical
purring of Marie’s wheel, or the broken snatches of song with which
she varied the _rond-rond_ and enlivened the pleasant, monotonous
labor; he knew she was there, but her presence was no more hindrance
to him than the sunshine that was streaming unbidden through the
window, and filling the little room with warmth and brightness.
Suddenly the _rond-rond_ ceased, Marie looked up, and fixed her eyes
on some distant object along on the road. Then she stood up, and said
hurriedly:
“Mon oncle! mon oncle!”
“Well, my child?” answered the curé abstractedly, without pausing from
his work.
“I see horsemen galloping toward the village. _Sont-ce les bleus?_”
The word made the curé start like the touch of a spring. He dropped
his pen and was beside her in an instant. They looked out steadily
toward the dust-cloud that was advancing rapidly, and for one minute
neither spoke. Then the curé exclaimed joyfully:
“No! They are Charette’s men!”
And so they were. But none the less was there cause for Marie’s cheek
to grow pale, and the heart of the old pastor to beat with a great
emotion. They knew what brought these Royalist soldiers to Chamtocé.
Charette wanted men, and he had sent here to levy them. In less than
an hour, every available man in the village was up on the _place_ for
inspection. The difficulty was whom to take and whom to refuse, for
the brave fellows whose exploits and valor won for them later the
sobriquet of _peuple de géants_ (race of giants) were all clamoring to
be enrolled under the king’s flag, and to go forth and die for the
king’s cause.
For the first time to-day since that outbreak that had bound them in
closer brotherhood, François and Gaston quarrelled. Both wanted to go, 454
both were equally good for the service; the recruiting officer, unable
to choose between them, declared they must decide for themselves. The
only way to do this was to defer it to the curé. They walked off to
the church, where the old man was speaking plain, soul-stirring words
of encouragement and exhortation to a throng of men and women, the men
exulting, the women weeping, but all of one mind and heart in the
cause, and ready to give their best and dearest to serve under the
banner of the fleur-de-lis.
Marie was kneeling close by the altar, amidst a group of weeping
mothers and sisters. Her eyes were dry, but dim and restless; she
spoke to no one, but turned constantly toward the door, as if she were
watching for some new arrival. When the brothers came in, there was a
movement, the crowd made way for them as they walked up to the altar,
and hushed their sobs to hear what they were going to say.
“Monsieur le Curé,” said Gaston, “only one of us may enlist, and you
are to choose between us; which of us may go and fight for the king?”
“Ah! my children, what is it you ask of me! How can I choose!”
exclaimed the old man, clasping his hands. “You are both dear to me; I
would have you both fight for the king and win a crown of glory. If
you fall fighting in defence of God and his altars, yours will be the
crown of the martyrs. Which is most pure at heart, strongest in faith,
most worthy to serve in the cause of God? He alone can tell!”
“François! François!” cried many voices in chorus, and the people
gathered round the poor man’s friend, and blessed him, and bid him joy
of being chosen for the good fight.
“So be it!” said the curé; and François knelt down, and the curé laid
both hands upon his head and blessed him.
Marie was a silent and unnoticed spectator of the scene. She was still
on her knees, clasping the altar-rails with both hands so tightly that
the strain left them white and bloodless. François waited till the
crowd had followed M. le Curé out of the church, and it was empty
except of the two, and then he went close up to Marie and knelt down
beside her. He did not speak, and she did not look at him, but she
knew that it was François.
“Marie!” he said, and laid his hand on her arm.
Then she turned and looked into his eyes, and these two knew that they
loved each other.
“If I fall, you will remember me, Marie, and pray for me,” said
François, taking her hand in both his.
“Yes.”
“And, Marie, if I return--”
“We will come to this same spot and bless God together, François.”
“You will wait for me a year and a day?”
“I will wait for you to the end of my life.”
They sent up one last prayer in silence, then kissed each other and
parted.
As François left the church he met Gaston, who was seeking him in
great concern everywhere. The brothers walked home arm-in-arm,
discoursing with full hearts of this sudden and solemn parting. When
they entered the cottage, François went straight to his room, and came
out with a small deal box in his hand.
“_Frère_,” he said, “I have not much to trouble about in the way of
property, but what I have you will keep for me. My savings are nothing
to speak of, seven hundred francs in all; here is the box. I should not
have had even that sum but for the sale of the cattle at Easter. Do 455
the best you can for me with it; lay it out in stock or grain--whatever
brings most as times go. The sheep were the best investment the last
two fairs; I wish I had done more in that line; but I was never
overwise with my money, and this will thrive better in your hands than
in mine, _frère_; only I would rather you didn’t let it lie out long
at a time, as you do with your own; gather it in soon after a good
stroke, and let it grow till it’s a good sum; it’s not safe in these
days to leave one’s money floating in any business.”
Gaston’s astonishment had grown to stupefaction by the time his
brother brought this speech to an end. What did it mean, this sudden
desire to make money and let it accumulate? François had all his life
been as careless of louis-d’or as of carrots or apples, and gave them
away as readily for the asking; and now that he was about to face the
cannon, and stood a strong chance of never needing them again, he was
smitten with an insane desire to have them increase and multiply.
Though Gaston said nothing, François read this wonder in his eyes.
“Don’t think I’ve put my heart in the money,” he said, laying a hand
on Gaston’s shoulder, and looking wistfully into his face; “I’d hand
it to you for your own, to do as you liked with it, if I were alone in
the world; but I’m not, _frère_. I’ve another to think of now.”
He drew away his hand, and averted his face quickly, but Gaston saw
his lip quiver, and the drops gather in his brave, truthful eyes. He
saw it all at a glance, and followed the recruit’s figure, as it
disappeared again into his room, with an expression on his face that
it was better for both François did not see; if he had looked at his
brother then he would have read a secret that would have pierced his
heart like a sword. Gaston stood staring after him as if he had been
turned to stone, his features fierce and hard-set, the veins in his
forehead swelling and throbbing, all his frame shaken by a vehement
struggle. Gaston mastered it, his face relaxed, and he went in after
François.
“_Frère_,” he said, “you may trust me,” and held out his hand to him.
François clasped it, but looking at his brother with a puzzled smile:
“Trust thee!” he repeated, “as if I needed thy pledge for that!
Brother, I trust thee as I trust my soul.”
“And, _frère_, as Monsieur le Curé said just now, the best and purest
are chosen for the sacrifice; if--”
“_Vive Dieu et le Roi!_” cried François, raising his cap. Then he was
silent a moment before he said:
“If I fall, you will be a good brother to Marie, and do what you can
to comfort her.”
“And the money, what shall I do with it?”
“Give it to her.”
The brothers embraced, and set out in search of M. le Curé. He blessed
them all once more, and the brave young fellows fell into ranks with
the soldiers, and marched off singing their battle-psalm, their hearts
beating with high hope and faith and courage; while brave Vendéan
mothers followed them out of the village, speeding them with blessings
and cries of _Vive Dieu et le Roi!_ It echoed through the gathering
twilight with a strange, inspiring pathos. Quiet and darkness fell
upon Chamtocé, the shadows died out of the silent church, the red
flame of the sanctuary lamp rose and fell, flickering like a crimson
pulse in the gloom, and casting its halo on the bowed head of the 456
Vendéan soldier’s _fiancée_.
PART SECOND.
François’s money multiplied with such unprecedented luck in Gaston’s
keeping that the little deal box was soon too small to hold it. Gaston
kept very little money of his own in hand, he let it float, as his
brother said, but whatever he had was always in gold--he never took
payment in anything else, and he followed the same plan for François.
If it had been his own, he could not have put more zeal into the
management of it; and it was with a sense of personal pride and
success that at the end of a year he counted over François’s treasure,
and found he had trebled the original sum. And Marie--how fared it
with her? She was waiting in patience and hope and prayer till the
time named by François as the furthest date of his return came and
passed and brought no sign of him, and then her heart sank. She could
not think that he would leave her in such cruel ignorance of his fate
if he were still alive; but neither could she believe that he was
dead. They would have heard of it somehow. Bad news travels quickly at
all times, and even in those days of terror, when postal arrangements
were broken up, and it was at the risk of his head that a messenger
carried a letter, news came from the most distant points to
out-of-the-way villages in a way that was almost miraculous. _Les bleus_
were everywhere, ubiquitous, stealthy, vindictive, but they could not
cut off communication between the Royalists. Fresh recruits started
from Chamtocé, and wounds and deaths and noble exploits were
chronicled from the distant camp or battle-field, but not a word came
over the hilly plains of La Vendée to tell of the fate of François
Léonval. Two years went by, and still the silence was unbroken. Then
one morning Gaston dressed himself with unwonted care, and went to the
presbytery. He found M. le Curé alone. They sat some time together,
and when the young man rose to take his leave, the curé said:
“You will meet her probably on the way home. Plead your own cause, my
boy; I have done what I could for you; you have my best blessing if
you can persuade Marie.”
Gaston met her and pleaded. But not successfully. “François said a
year and a day, and after that, if you did not hear, you might be sure
he had gone before us,” urged Gaston, choosing the word that would
fall less harshly on his listener’s heart; “and now two years have
passed and he has neither written nor sent. I do not ask you to forget
him, or to cease to love him; we will both love him, and think of him
always as dear brother, and he will be happier in heaven for seeing
you happy here. Let me fulfil my promise to him that I would take care
of you. Come home with me, Marie, and be my wife!”
“I promised that I would wait for him,” answered Marie, her dark eyes
looking out toward the west with a gaze of patient longing as she
walked on by Gaston’s side.
“A year and a day. You told me he said a year and a day.”
“He said it, but I put no limit to the time. I said I would wait to
the end.”
“But he would not have it, Marie; he loved you too well to wish you to
waste your life in solitude and vain hopes.”
But Marie shook her head and repeated:
“I promised I would wait for him.” 457
“And your uncle--does his wish count for nothing? You know that he has
long since given up all hope, and that the thought of leaving you
alone in the world is embittering his old age. ‘I am getting old,’ he
said to me just now, ‘but the only thing that makes me dread death is
this anxiety about my _pauvre petite_. Who will take care of her when
I am gone?’ ‘I promised François I would, _mon père_,’ I said. ‘Then
go and plead with her for yourself and for me,’ he replied, ‘that
Marie may let you keep your promise.’”
They walked on in silence till they came to the gate of the
presbytery, and Marie raised her face to Gaston’s and said:
“Wait one year more, Gaston, and then, if you still wish, come and
tell me, and I will go home with you.”
“I have waited three years already, and I would wait as many more to
win you,” answered the young man; and as he bent his face over
hers--not a handsome face, but illuminated now by eyes that were
liquid and beautiful with beseeching love--Marie thought that, since
she must choose a home when her uncle was gone, she would rather share
Gaston’s than any other, and that it might not be such a difficult
thing to love him by-and-by.
That night, when Gervoise had gone to bed, and the place was quiet and
all the bolts drawn, Gaston took out François’ money-bag and counted
over the contents. It was a good round sum now. He built up the louis
into little piles and reckoned them, and then poured them back into
the bag; and the coins flashed like little suns in the dim light of
his lantern; and Gaston feasted his eyes on them: he thrust his hand
into the heap, and, gathering up a handful of coins, let them drip down
through his fingers one by one, listening to the pure ring of the
metal as if it had been music, as indeed it was to him. Now that Marie
had promised to be his wife, this gold which was hers would soon be
his, and before the year was out it would be a still bigger heap. He
had not told her or the curé that Francois had left any money in his
charge, not from any idea of latent treachery to François--oh, no!
Gaston was incapable of that; but it had been his dream ever since
François had gone to win Marie and then settle this money on her,
telling her, of course, whose gift it was. Partly from methodical
habit, and partly from an unconfessed pleasure in the sight and touch
of the gold, he had made a point of counting it all over after every
fresh transaction, but from this night out he began to count it
oftener. The fact that it was now to all intents and purposes his own
added a new zest to the operation, and the prospect of it became by
degrees the chief solace of his working hours, till at last he came to
count it regularly every night and to long for the moment when he
could lock his door and turn the flame of his lantern on the burning
blaze of the gold.
The year came to an end. There was no news of François, and Gaston,
being still of the same mind, claimed his promise, and Marie came home
with him.
But seven months later François was tramping along through the snow on
his way to Chamtocé, and now he is sitting before the pine-wood fire
in Monsieur le Curé’s parlor. He had not asked for Marie, and the curé
had not named her. The dumb entreaty of François’ eyes smote him to
the heart, and he had not the courage to tell the pilgrim that the
light which had lured him on through the smoke of the battle, in the 458
dreary watches of the bivouac, in the many miseries of his soldier
life, was a mirage that had tempted him along the desert path, only to
mock him when he neared it, and fade out of the sky like a false and
fickle star. No; he had not the courage to tell him that Marie was his
brother’s wife.
When the curé entered the cottage, he found Gaston sitting down to his
dinner alone. Marie had gone to nurse a sick neighbor’s child. The
curé was glad of her absence. It made his mission easier. “_Mon
garçon_,” he said at once, “I bring news that will startle you, and I
am thankful to be able to break it to you before Marie hears it. Your
brother is come back.” The curé expected his announcement to startle
Gaston, as he had said, but he was not prepared for the effect it
produced. The young man stood bolt upright, looked at the curé with
wild, scared eyes, and dropped again into his chair without uttering a
word.
“Have you told him?” he gasped, after an interval of silence that the
old priest felt himself incapable of breaking.
“No; her name was not mentioned by either of us.”
“Ha!” Gaston drew a breath of relief; “then perhaps--who knows? He may
take it less to heart than we fear?”
“I don’t know. At his age, four years is a long absence; still we
cannot tell. But at any rate, my son, you must come and give him a
brother’s welcome, and do what a brother’s love can do to lighten the
disappointment to him.”
He took Gaston’s arm, and they went out to the presbytery together.
The curé’s heart belied his words when he held out the hope that
François’ love might not have borne unchanged the test of absence. He
knew the youth too well to believe it. And he was right.
The meeting between the brothers was quiet, but none the less
terrible. The curé told François how it had all happened; how
faithfully Marie had kept her troth, hoping long after he and Gaston
had given up all hope; how at length he had urged her to listen to
Gaston; and how, tardily and with a sad heart, she had yielded to both
their entreaties. François heard him to the end, and then, in a voice
of heart-rending gentleness, he said:
“It was my fault, _frère_; I do not blame thee. God’s will be done!”
He held out his hand, Gaston clasped it, and the brothers stood for a
moment face to face in silence. Both were very, pale, but it was not
François who was the paler of the two.
Gaston went home, and François watched his figure across the little
garden and down the road till it disappeared like a blue speck on the
white background, and then he fell upon the curé’s neck and sobbed
like a woman.
Before many hours Chamtocé was on tiptoe with alarm and curiosity. A
shepherd had arrived in haste with the news that one of the royalist
captains had passed through Saumur in disguise, and been traced to
Chapelle-aux-lys, whence _les bleus_ were started in pursuit of him;
there was a large price on his head; and _les bleus_ were so enraged
against him for his desperate exploits and for having baffled them so
long, that they were resolved to show no quarter to the people that
harbored him, and would set fire to the town rather than let him
escape. An old cowherd who had been born and bred in the service of
the Maulevriers had recognized François Léonvel on the road, and,
guessing whither he was bound, had sent a trusty messenger with a word 459
of warning to Chamtocé.
Gaston was the only person, besides the curé and Victoire, who knew of
his brother’s arrival so far, and when Gervoise came in with this
news, which she caught from the village gossips on her way from
evening prayers, his first impulse was to rush to the presbytery, and
warn his brother to start at once, and seek some safer hiding-place.
He went out quickly, but, as he had his hand on the wicket, he saw
Marie coming towards the cottage. She was the last person he wished to
meet just then, but he could not avoid her without exciting surprise
in her mind, and perhaps suspicion. So he tarried till she came,
wondering why she walked so slowly, as if she did not make sure he was
waiting for her, or as if--as Gaston’s heart whispered to him--she
would rather he went without speaking to her. Why? Was it possible the
truth had come to her ears already? He could not believe it, still it
was with a painful quickening of his pulse that he saw her at that
leisurely pace.
“Were you waiting for me, Gaston?” she said simply.
“No. I am going in to Monsieur le Curé for a minute; I will be back
presently. Are you not well, Marie?”
“Yes, _mon ami_, quite well, only tired and cold.”
She drew her shawl closer round her with a little shudder, and passed
him and entered the cottage. Gaston’s heart leaped up as if an adder
had stung it, and then sank as suddenly with a horrible faintness. He
leaned against the snow-stuffed hedge and felt as if the very life
were frozen within him. The blood rushed to his throat; he put his
hand to his forehead as if a spasm of pain had stunned him; but soon
rousing himself from his absent attitude, he walked on to the
presbytery. But he did not enter it. He did not see it, in fact. He
walked on and on like a man in a dream, looking neither to the right
nor the left, and when suddenly he remembered where he was, and
whither he was bound, he had left the village more than a league
behind him, and was standing on the sloping beach of St. Florent,
under the shadow of its semicircular hills that look down upon the
Loire, where the little islet of ---- sits like a brooding swan midway
in its waters. The night had fallen, but the moon was not yet up, and
the darkness was only lightened by the snowy reflex of the landscape.
A bank of cloud hung like a heavy curtain over the hill, and hid away
the moon. Somehow Gaston was glad of the darkness. But it was in vain
that he strove to make it dark within. No outer darkness could conceal
from him the workings of his heart. He saw into its troubled depths as
clearly as if a thousand moons had been shining in the purple vault
above him. He saw the tempter busy with his fiercest instincts, and he
saw what a base and miserable tool he was. Ay, but desperate as well
as base. Much must be forgiven to a desperate man. Here was his whole
life wrecked. His wife’s affection and trust--he felt it had not yet
grown to love--was lost to him; his gold was lost to him--his
precious, darling gold, that he had hugged to his heart till it grew
to be a part of it, a second wife; and he must give it up just at a
moment when he wanted it as he had never done before, and had laid out
all his money, and had not a louis to ring on his hearthstone except
this gold of François’. A curse upon the hour he took it! François
would never ask it back--never accept it, most likely, Gaston felt. 460
But Marie would never consent to keep it. No, and she would grow to
hate him in spite of herself for having come between her and François,
and forced her to break her troth to him. His life, that was so bright
and rich, how dark and wretched it had become within these last few
hours! And was there no rescue from it all? Yes. He had only to speak
a word, and he was saved. Let him start off now, before Marie knew of
François’s return, and meet _les bleus_, and they would come quietly
to the presbytery, and take him away in the night, and there would be
an end of François for ever, and of the misery he was going to cause.
Treachery? Bah! His was the treachery to come back after being as good
as dead all this time. Was it a crime to have married Marie, when he
left her three whole years without a word of love or a sign of
existence? She was happy now, but if once she saw François she would
never know happiness again. The sight of his misery would fill her
heart with remorse, and break it. What right had François to go away
at all when he knew that Marie loved him? It was no doing of Gaston’s
that; he wanted to go in his stead. Would that he had! But now he was
to be a ruined, blighted man to the end of his days. And to what
purpose? To save François from being shot a little sooner than he
might be; for so surely as he had a head on his shoulders, so surely
would he have a bullet through it some day. No one would be the worse
of his having it to-morrow instead of a month hence or a year, and two
human beings would be considerably the better of it.
Gaston had flung himself on a snow-heap by the side of the river, his
face buried in his arms, while he worked out his wrongs and his despair
to this conclusion. François must die. There was no other way out of
it. Once he brought his mind to face this alternative and close with
it, there was no time to be lost, and it would be dangerous to go over
the ground again. He must act at once if he were to act at all. Gaston
shook the snow from his arms, and sprang to his feet. But a change had
come over the scene, and he could hardly realize that it was the same
he had surveyed in the dim white darkness half an hour previously. The
heavy bank of cloud had melted away; only one small patch remained,
fringed with silvery rays that lighted up the sky like the glory of a
tabernacle; all round it myriads of stars were twinkling in the liquid
depths of blue, and gazing on their own brightness in the steel-blue
mirror of the Loire, that trembled lightly as the golden shafts shot
down through it and illuminated its cold, pure bosom like a second
heaven. Presently, the moon came out, not “pale for weariness of
climbing” the steep sky, but radiant and beautiful, and shone serenely
in the clear December heaven, and all the world was bathed in silvery
twilight. The solemnity of the scene thrilled through Gaston’s soul,
and made his pulse beat with an unknown fear; but it was the ennobling
fear with which nature inspires us in her sublimest aspects--the
reverent awe that uplifts the soul, not the guilty terror that casts
it down, paralyzing and debasing it.
His ghastly project cowered before him like a fiend dragged from outer
darkness into the splendor of God’s sunshine. The divine beauty of the
world without rebuked and annihilated the foulness of the world
within. No base or treacherous thoughts could contemplate the purity
and glory of that starry splendor, and not perish. It drew the earth 461
heavenward, and made all things grand and solemn. The meek, low hills
grew mighty and majestic; they stretched their pure white peaks to
kiss the stars, soaring high above the haunts of men, as if they
scorned the earth, and would have naught in common with the pettiness,
the guilt, and the folly that had their dwelling on the plain. The
very silence had a voice in it more powerful than thunder. It rang
with inarticulate harmonies through Gaston’s soul--mysterious,
unuttered whisperings, as of angels hovering to and fro, brushing the
crystal twilight with their wings.
And were there not angels near him in his hour of struggle? Did he not
hear them pleading at his heart, touching his storm-tossed spirit with
their loving, beseeching eyes, weeping, perhaps, over the impending
ruin of his God-imaged soul? Surely, if angels ever weep, earth has no
misery more worthy of their tears. And were they less powerful than
the fallen spirits who were fighting against them for the noble prize,
or did they love God’s human creature less than the fiends hate him?
Gaston called to mind the days long ago, when he was an innocent
child, and prayed every night to his angel guardian before lying down
to sleep, and believed that the beautiful benign spirit stood at the
right side of his little cot, watching him while he slept. It was many
a day since he had prayed, but now the words came back on him with a
strange, impelling power, and played upon his heart like the notes of
a long-forgotten melody. They rose to his lips, but he choked them
down. He could not let them pass. Whom was he to speak to--an angel?
There was a gulf between the Judas that he was to-day and the unsullied
little child who used to breathe that prayer in an angel’s ear.
Gaston felt the scene was subduing his soul to a dangerous softness,
and unnerving him for his purpose. What a fool he was to stand there
moon-gazing! He turned his back on the river and the hills, and strode
homeward at a rapid pace. He tried to sing, but his voice jarred like
a discord on the holy silence, and he checked himself. It was near ten
when he re-entered the village. Every house was closed and quiet, but
not asleep. This was Christmas eve. The children were put to bed with
many a promise that they should be called for midnight Mass, but most
of the elders were watching, saying their rosaries, or singing
_cantiques_ in family groups while awaiting the summons of the bell to
gather round the crib of the new-born King. Gaston saw the lights
gleaming from many windows, and wished them out. He had no mind to be
seen prowling alone in the snow at this time of night, and on such a
night, so he crept on stealthily under the shadow of the cottages,
till he came to his own gate. He dreaded meeting Marie, and having to
answer her questions as to why he had been out so long. But perhaps
she would ask no questions. Was she really so pale when he met her
that time, or was it his terrified fancy? Anyhow, she could not know
yet for certain that François was here, whatever fears or hopes--yes,
Gaston must use the word--the gossip that had reached her ears may
have suggested. But on entering the bright, spacious kitchen where the
table was spread for supper, all its pewter and delft glancing in the
light of the pine-logs that blazed merrily in the broad chimney, he
saw no one but old Gervoise, sitting bolt upright in her high-backed
chair in the chimney-corner, and nodding significantly at the knitting 462
that lay on her knees. The noise he made drawing a stool to the fire
awoke her. He asked where her mistress was, and Gervoise told him that
Marie had come in for a few minutes and then gone out again, and that
they were not to expect her home that night, as the child was worse.
He was glad of her absence; yet it frightened him. Was it a
pretext--was she shrinking from him, afraid or loath to meet him! At
any rate, it changed his intention of starting at once; he decided
that he would wait till all the village was up and astir for midnight
Mass, and then he would slip off and ride hard, so as to reach
Chapelle-aux-lys and be back again before daylight and Marie’s return.
He said he did not care to eat anything, and went up to his room. He
locked himself in, lighted his lantern, and pulled out the fatal
money-bag; he felt he must strengthen himself by the sight of the
gold, and count over his treasure once more, to make sure it was worth
the price he was going to pay for it. This done, he flung himself
undressed on the bed, and, worn out by the conflict of the last few
hours, was soon sound asleep. But he had not been asleep long before
he was aroused by a long knocking at his door, and a rough voice
demanded admittance. Gaston sprang to his feet.
“Who’s there?” he said.
“_Les bleus._ Open in the name of the republic!” and the speaker dealt
a blow on the door that nearly broke it in.
Gaston opened without further parley, and six men entered the room.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“We want one François Léonval who is concealed in this house. Tell us
where to find him and we will go, and do you no harm; but if you try
to shirk it--” The man swore a brutal oath, and pointed his pistol at
Gaston’s head.
But Gaston Léonval had a Vendéan’s spirit withal. It was not to dastardly
personal cowardice that he would betray his brother; he felt the cold touch
of the muzzle on his forehead, and, quietly pushing it aside, he told the
man he might search the house, and he wished him joy if he found what he
was looking for. “We had better begin by the outhouses and the garden,”
said the one who seemed to take the lead; “two of you stay inside to
prevent any tricks, while we are outside.” And he left the room, followed
by all but one soldier, who remained to mount guard over Gaston.
But a safer and stronger sentinel was keeping watch by the wretched
brother, urging him with terrible power and show of reason to say the word
that would free him for ever. Only an hour ago, he was resolved to run
great risks to say it, and now he had only to make a sign, and run no risk
whatever, and he could not bring himself to do it. Confound that moonshine!
It had made a woman of him. He went to the window and looked down into the
garden to watch the proceedings of the soldiers. Then he heard them
searching the rooms below, banging doors and overturning everything, and
presently the officer came up-stairs again.
“Hearken, _mon garçon_, it’s no use trying to play hide-and-seek with
_les bleus_,” he said, “you won’t find it answer. Now, once for all,
where is this François Léonval?”
“I tell you he’s not here,” replied Gaston doggedly; “if he was, you
would find him.”
“Most likely, if we had time to lose hammering at the walls and hunting 463
up the chimneys; but _les bleus_ have a more expeditious way of going
to work. When we can’t bag our game, we fire it. So walk out, and we
will set a light to the house and make a little Christmas bonfire for
you. If he’s a coward, he’ll soon cry _merci_! If he’s a brave man,
why he’ll go out in a blaze, and that’s as good a death as another. So
here goes, give me the light!”
He seized the lantern, took out the socket, and deliberately advanced
towards the bed.
“Hold!” cried Gaston, clutching his outstretched arm; “the man you are
in search of is not here; he is at the presbytery.”
The _bleu_ laid down the light.
“Stay here,” he said to the soldier who had remained in the room; “we
will whistle for you when it’s time to join us.”
He descended the stairs quickly, and Gaston heard the door close, and
saw the five figures disappear down the road. After that he seemed to
fall into a sort of stupor, and stood without moving hand or foot,
staring stolidly out of the window, while the soldier waited in
silence for the promised signal. It came at last, wounding the silence
like the hiss of a snake, and Gaston knew that his brother was in the
hands of the torturers.
No sooner was he alone than a legion of demons seemed to people the
room, filling it with hideous forms and voices, mocking and scoffing,
and asking him what he had done with his brother. He stamped in rage,
and dashed his hands through his hair, and began to walk rapidly up
and down. But the spectres kept pace with him, grinning and hooting
and repeating with maddening iteration: “What have you done with your
brother?”
“What had he done with him?” cried Gaston aloud--“why, only what
François would have done with himself sooner or later. And was he to
let his house be burnt down and his gold melted to postpone the day
perhaps for twenty-four hours? Pshaw! what an idiot he was to take on
so about it. It was all that whistle that set his nerves on an edge.
Why did it keep on hissing and hissing? The _bleus_ and their capture
were half a mile out of ear-shot by this. Fate had been good to
Gaston, and served him much better than he could have served himself.
It had taken the matter out of his hands, and he had been no more than
a passive agent in its grasp, in the grasp of law and might--ay, and
right too. When François came back like a simpleton and thrust his
head into the lion’s mouth, what could he expect but that it would
close on him and crunch him? It was over now. Marie would never hear
of his return and need never curse the day she gave her hand to
Gaston, and Gaston might sleep in peace, and without being haunted by
terrors of his brother’s return.” Thus did he argue with the fiend and
strive to beat him off, and stifle remorse that had entered his soul,
and was gnawing at him with fierce, relentless tooth. But it would not
do. Across the legion of fiends there flitted visions of the past,
that he could not shut his eyes to, struggle as he would. First, there
rose before him a curly-headed little brother whose small arms were
round Gaston’s neck, clasping him as they lay in a little cot beside
their mother, breathing softly in sweet child slumber; then he beheld
a frank, bright boy kneeling with him beside that mother’s death-bed,
while she blessed them and promised to meet them in heaven. Then the
boy was a youth who stood with his hand on Gaston’s shoulder, and
looked into his eyes, and said: “Brother, I trust thee as I trust my 464
soul!” This faded away, and he saw the same youth bronzed and
war-worn, and betrayed in his manly trust, but still holding out his
hand to Gaston, and saying with the well-remembered voice, now husky
with the strong man’s agony: “I do not blame thee, brother; God’s will
be done!” Slowly but vividly the visions rose before Gaston’s soul,
and he could not but look on them, and, as he looked, sweet memories
of his childhood rushed upon him like a torrent and bore him down; his
boasted courage was gone, his pride, his love, his gold melted away
like false phantoms, and he was alone with his sin and his despair. He
remembered François’ noble unselfishness, his truth, his grateful love
of their common mother, his reverence for her lightest wish; he
remembered his many acts of kindness to the poor and the suffering,
and how he had seen him followed by blessings from the old and young
whom his generosity had helped and comforted; and oh! bitterest of all
was the memory of their parting, when François gave him his little
hoard in trust, and bid him take care of Marie. And this was the
brother he had sold! O God! It was all too horrible to be true. Gaston
seized the bag of gold, rushed from the house and into the stable,
and, without waiting to saddle her, leaped on his mare’s back, and
dashed off in pursuit of _les bleus_. They were only six, and he had
gold enough to buy them if he only came in time. The mare flew as if
she knew what hung on her speed, dashing up the snow that spattered
her flanks and enveloped her rider in a moving cloud as they galloped
along. The moon was still magnificent, and the stars shone down with
the same calm splendor--the patient, far-away stars that 1793 years
ago rang out the glad tidings to the watchers on the hills of Judea:
Glory to God! Peace to men! Gaston, as he flew past the scene of his
recent struggle, felt a chill of supernatural terror freeze him to the
marrow of his bones. The stars stooped down till they seemed to touch
him, and pierce him with needles of fire; the hills, the stern,
uncompromising hills, shook their pale brows at him, and turned and
ran with him through the waste of snow; and above them, from the
battlements of heaven, rang out a myriad voices in ecstatic song:
Glory to God! Peace to men! But ever and anon, breaking the high
harmony of that song, came a shriek as of a mocking fiend: “What hast
thou done with thy brother?”
The mare took a longer stride and put out her strength with a sudden
increase of vehemence as they came to a turn in the road where it
crossed the river and rounded the base of the hills. Gaston’s heart
leaped up to his throat, as he caught the hammering of hoofs ahead.
Thank heaven! he was in time. The horsemen came in sight. They
slackened their speed, nay, they were dismounting now. Out in the open
road with no shelter of any sort in sight? What did it mean? The mare
strode on. A few more pulls, and she would be up with them. Gaston
could distinguish the trim figures of the soldiers and François’s
loose peasant dress. But now he lost sight of them; they had moved
behind a hedge. Only for a moment. The six slim figures emerged from
the snowy foreground, and six muskets gleamed horizontal in the
moonlight.
“Hold! in the name of heaven, hold!” shrieked Gaston.
He flung down the bag, that burst and sent the gold rippling on the
ground--but it was too late; there was a rattle, and flash followed 465
flash, as he sprang from his horse and rushed between the murderers
and his brother. François lay prostrate, writhing in the snow, that
his blood was turning to crimson. Their eyes met for one moment, and
then François’ closed for ever. Gaston fell on the body with a cry
that was like the shriek of a condemned soul; and then he felt a hand
on his arm.
“There are the midnight bells sounding,” said old Gervoise, in a
querulous voice. “I have been calling to you through the door these
ten minutes, and you wouldn’t awake. I thought you were dead, so I got
my own key and opened it.”
Gaston, dazed and terror-stricken, and doubting still whether he was
dreaming or waking, started up, and told Gervoise not to wait for him,
that he would follow her in a minute. Then he fell upon his knees, and
prayed as a soul might do who had passed the gate “where hope enters
not,” and been snatched back from the dark abyss.
“It was a vision to save me from the crime of Cain. Blessed be the
mercy that has rescued me!”
He lighted a candle, opened a drawer in which he kept some writing
materials, and sat down with a pen in his hand. He hid his face in his
hands, and his lips moved convulsively in prayer for a moment, and
then he began to write. It was not long. He did not read the letter
over, but sealed it with a broad red seal, and then, with that strange
force of habit that asserts itself so unaccountably in moments of
supreme emotion, he carefully replaced the pen and paper in the
drawer. After this he laid the letter on the table in the middle of
the room, and, taking his coat and cap, sallied out into the night.
The Christmas bells were ringing out their welcome to the new-born
King, tripping in silver-footed chime on the midnight silence, grave
and merry, full of glad pathos and exulting hope, and forebodings
solemn and tender. And the hymns and anthems of the villagers answered
their call and swelled the chorus of the chimes; but the voice of a
noble sacrifice that went up from Gaston’s heart mingled in diviner
harmony with the pure joy-jargon of the bells. He entered the church,
but, instead of going up to his accustomed seat, he stood near the
door, half concealed by the angel holding the _bénitier_. He saw the
stream of familiar faces flow in and take their places, and then turn
with eager expectation toward the sacristy. The well-trained voices of
the choir, unsustained by harp or organ, intoned the glorious hymn,
_Adeste Fidelis_, and old and young answered in loud-voiced chorus:
_Venite adoremus, Venite in Bethlehem!_ The altar was wreathed with
lights and flowers, every pillar and picture-frame sparkled with the
red-berried holly; the little lowly crib with its suggestive imagery
glowed with crimson lamps; and before it the loving prayer of simple
hearts made a fitting welcome for the Child that was born in poverty,
and first worshipped by shepherds. As midnight struck, the door of the
sacristy opened, and Monsieur le Curé in his grandest vestments came
forth; but before the door had closed again, Gaston caught sight of a
figure kneeling furtively behind it. He gave one long look at the
golden door of the tabernacle, signed himself with the sign of the
cross, and slipped out of the church.
Early on Christmas morning, a horseman rode in from Chapelle-aux-lys
with a letter for M. le Curé! It was signed _Loison, soldat de la
République_; and its purport was to inform him that one François 466
Léonval, who had born arms for nearly four years against the republic,
and taken refuge the day before at Chamtocé, whither the soldiers of
the republic were bound in pursuit of him, had, in order to prevent
the shedding of innocent blood, left his native village in the night,
and of his own free will given himself up to justice. He had died like
a soldier, worthy of a better cause, and had begged the writer to bear
his last words to the curé of Chamtocé, which were that he was happy
to give his life for God and the king; and he prayed a blessing on his
brother, and Marie his sister-in-law, and begged them and the curé to
be mindful of him in their prayers. He fell crying _Vive Dieu et le
Roi!_ which treasonable words had been enough to shoot him again if he
were alive; but being dead, the writer, who respected a brave man,
though he was a traitor, conveyed them in fulfilment of his promise to
François Léonval.
Soon after this event the Reign of Terror came to an end. The fertile
fields of La Vendée smoked once more under the furrowing ploughshare,
and peace and plenty smiled upon the land. Absent ones returned to
gladden many hearts, and to tell the story of their short and
wonderful campaign, and brought back glory-laden banners, tattered and
blood-stained, to hang in the village church, as trophies of Vendéan
valor, to show future sons of La Vendée how their fathers had fought
the good fight. Once more there was marrying and giving in marriage,
and toil and prosperity reigned in Chamtocé.
When the winter snows had twice melted off the hills, and the
snowdrops peeped up under the grimy hedges, like white-robed little
choristers singing their glad good-by to the winter, and the lusty
young spring had laid his emerald finger on the earth, the bells rang
out their full, exhilarating peal, and a gay procession wound its way
to the church, where Monsieur le Curé in his surplice and stole
awaited the bridal train. His voice shook, and big drops rolled down
his aged cheeks, as he laid his hand on the two bowed heads and called
down the blessing of the God of Abraham on Marie and François Léonval.
This was his last ministration. He tarried long enough to bless the
marriage of his two best-loved children, and then he went home. They
laid him to rest beside a humble grave that was always freshly decked
with flowers. It bore a white stone cross and a marble slab, on which
it was recorded that François Léonval in life was a brother with a
noble heart, and in death a martyr who had died for a noble cause, and
that, like his Master, “having loved his own, he loved them to the
end.”
----------
THOUGHTS FOR THE WOMEN OF THE TIMES. 467
BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.
The woman of the nineteenth century owes all the advantages of her
social position to the Catholic Church.
The disadvantages of that position, which are more or less justly the
causes of discontent and complaint, are the natural fruits of
Protestantism.
For many centuries, the church maintained a severe conflict against
influences, principalities, and powers, which must have baffled the
efforts of any but a divine institution, to rescue woman from the
depths of degradation into which the iniquities of heathenism had
thrust her. It required the superhuman patience and energy of a system
animated by divine charity and sustained by omnipotent power to
prosecute the struggle successfully, and to place woman in the
position for which she was designed by her Creator. So far as she has
since preserved the high relations with her Maker, with the family,
and with society which were achieved for her by that struggle, it has
been by virtue of the same power that first effected her elevation.
The divided and antagonistic forces of Protestantism have been as
adverse to the interests of woman as it was possible for disjointed
elements, acting discordantly, to be. Fortunate has it been for her
that the very discrepancies of its moral elements have operated in a
great measure to neutralize its influence. Since the days when the
first Reformers (?) pronounced the result of a solemn debate in their
decision that the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel might live with two wives
conjointly without compromising his character as a good Christian under
the _new religion_, and those of England exulted in the action of
Henry VIII. when he repudiated the saintly Catharine of Aragon--for
twenty-five years his faithful and lawful wife--and took the wanton
Anne Boleyn in her stead, the general tendency of Protestant influence
has been to rob woman of the dignity with which the church had
invested her, by loosening the obligations of the marriage bond and
diminishing the sanctity of the conjugal relation. If it has not
entirely succeeded in degrading her to be the mere victim of man’s
capricious whims, it has done what it could. Want of harmonious action
between its constituent parts has been the best protection
Protestantism has afforded to woman against this result. The boasted
“progress”--originating in the revolt against divine authority
exercised through the church--so far as it affects the condition of
woman, has been steadily in this direction, especially during the
present century.
Women are conscious of this. They are aware that the ground upon which
they stand is becoming, year by year, less and less firm, the
guarantees of their rights more and more feeble and inoperative, while
the chances of a conflict for gaining a more secure footing are
strongly against them. But while they are keenly alive to these facts,
the cause for their existence is an enigma they have not yet
solved--its remedy, a contingency they have not reached even in
conjecture.
They could not be persuaded that it is the boasted “spirit of the age”
which is in fault; that its irrepressible tendencies are to raise one 468
class by depressing another, and to create a countless multitude of
tastes and wants which can be gratified by none but the favored class
who are the possessors of great wealth.
They fret vainly--beating against the little that remains of ancient
bulwarks erected to shield them, as if by destroying these their
condition would be improved--and indulge an idle dream that women’s
suffrage will remedy the evils, real or imaginary, of which they
complain. “Let us vote,” they say; “let us have some voice in
regulating our own affairs, and, if we do not succeed in shaping them
entirely to our wishes, we shall at least reduce the number and weight
of our grievances, be enabled to open new channels through which we
can attain the independence we desire, and, by making our presence
felt as an element of the body politic, be acknowledged as an existing
fact that is of some importance to the nation.”
It is indeed an idle dream! The mind of every intelligent person must,
upon a very little reflection, discover innumerable reasons why woman
must cease to be woman, wife, and mother, before she can exercise the
elective franchise to any purpose.
As a true American woman, we cannot regard the clamor which has been
raised upon the subject of woman’s rights with the entire contempt it
has met in many quarters. There is an invisible current of sad and
mournful facts underlying this agitation.
If “material prosperity” is the key-note of Protestantism--as the
testimony of its own writers would seem to prove--the development of
material comfort and luxury is its highest expression. In all the
appliances, arrangements, and habits of our domestic and social life,
there has been a constant and alarming increase of expense during the
past fifty years. New fashions have been invented, new wants created
and multiplied, so rapidly that the supply, never exceeding the
demand, has altogether exceeded the means of a great majority of our
people. The few who were able to indulge in each novelty as it
appeared have gone to surprising lengths; while the many, whose
revenues were wholly inadequate, have strained every possible resource
to keep pace with their wealthy leaders in expensive follies. Crime,
bankruptcy, widespread ruin, and desolation have followed, of course.
Multitudes have been left in poverty, with all the habits, tastes, and
aspirations which wealth alone can gratify, and of these multitudes a
large proportion are women. Accustomed to affluence, they are
determined not to accept poverty--the synonym for _disgrace_ in their
circle--and eagerly cast about them for some avenue of escape. Hence
the frantic efforts to obtain entrance into new paths, hitherto
untrodden by woman, for securing the object of their ambition.
Woman has a right to be all that her Maker designed when he created
her as a “help” to man. He is not of more importance to society in his
own place than she in hers. He would not render himself more
ridiculous by forsaking his own duties and avocations for the care of
the household, the kitchen, and the nursery, than she would by
abandoning these for the public employments of men. The present state
of affairs is sufficiently deplorable, but I do not see how such an
exchange would mend the matter. Nor can we see any remedy, but by
returning to old-fashioned ways. Very comfortable ways they were, too,
however disdainfully the Flora McFlimsys of modern times may toss 469
their pretty befrizzled heads at the mere mention of them.
What sensible woman would not prefer the happy solitude of a Eugénie
de Guérin--whereof her pen discourseth so eloquently that even the
chickens fed by her hand seem to the reader like birds-of-paradise--in
her beloved Cayla, to all the magnificent bleakness, splendid
miseries, and heart-burning rivalries too often enclosed within the
walls of a palace on the Fifth Avenue?
There are still further causes of uneasiness for women.
Twenty-four years of security in Catholic certainties, and in the
enjoyment of such countless consolations as flow from the acceptance
of Catholic verities and guidance, have not obliterated from our
memory the discomforts formerly experienced from some of these.
American women cannot abide the patronizing and condescending tone
assumed by the men of society toward them. For our own part, the air
of lofty contempt for which it was exchanged after our profession of
the Catholic faith was truly refreshing in comparison. They want no
such ostentatious toleration. They glory in the consciousness that
woman may claim as inalienable a right to be sharply criticised as men
enjoy, and have no thanks for such forbearance and namby-pamby
nonsense as would be extended to a spoiled child. Nor would men offer
it, if they possessed the robust hardihood and manly frankness of
their grandfathers.
These women, many of them intelligent and thoughtful, are restless
with an unrest which comes from being tossed upon the heaving waves of
vague uncertainty from point to point, without the power to attain any
fixed position.
Men regard their efforts to gain _terra firma_ with a blending of pity
and contempt--in which the contempt is ill concealed and largely
predominates--and the question whether a party rope shall be thrown
out to draw them ashore, only to offer them before the car of some new
political Juggernaut, hangs in the balance. Woe to the women of
America should that question be decided in the affirmative!
In all the perplexing “changes and chances of this mortal life,” it is
much to stand upon the firm basis of a well-defined and secure
position, with the assurance that, so long as one is true to the
duties and requirements of that position, a power fully competent to
sustain its own guarantees is pledged to shield and protect it in
every exigency.
This is the situation in which the Catholic woman is placed at the
present juncture. She occupies an elevated standpoint, from which she
can watch with great serenity and confidence all the strifes and
agitations, moral, social, and political, that convulse this
nineteenth century. She knows that the firm and consistent action of
the church of Christ, as the champion and protector of woman’s rights,
from the period of its first establishment to the present time, is a
sufficient assurance of its future course; and she need not fear that
an institution through which the Almighty sways the moral forces of
the world so potently as to bring to naught the raging of the heathen,
and render all the fractional efforts of Protestantism powerless, will
prove a broken reed to lean upon in the hour of danger.
But the church requires from her daughters a _quid pro quo_. Nor does
she leave them in doubt as to its character. Every duty of the
Catholic woman of whatever age, relation, or state in life is so 470
simply and clearly defined for her, that to mistake or err is
impossible, except through wilful dereliction: For the child,
reverence and submission to parental authority; for the maiden, humble
devotion to the plain everyday duties of home, and a modest reserve
that seeks the seclusion from which she must be
“Wooed,
And not unsought be won”;
for the married woman, respect for him who is “her head, even as
Christ is head of the church”; entire devotion to his spiritual and
temporal interests; and a loyal fealty to the sacred gift of
maternity, by which the First Great Cause brings her into most
intimate communion with himself; permitting her through its penalties,
as one of Eve’s daughters, to offer her portion of expiation for the
sin of that first parent, before his holy altar. For the mother, this
tender Mother of souls provides abundant consolations and counsels in
every hour of need, with measureless grace and strength to enable her
to discharge perfectly every duty towards the young immortals
committed to her keeping.
In no feature of the maternal care and solicitude with which the
church surrounds her daughters is the contrast with the cold neglect
and indifference of Protestantism more striking, than in the treatment
extended by each system to those women who remain in a state of
celibacy.
The condition of such under the Protestant _régime_ is truly pitiable,
and the very title of “old maid,” with rare exceptions, entails odium
and contempt more surely than moral depravity.
Hence the dread entertained by the girl in Protestant society for a
single life, and the universal impression that to be married is the
first great object of her existence. Alas! that escape from the sacred
but irksome duties involved in that step should too frequently be the
next!
Even mothers encourage their daughters in this view of the matter, and
enter into their conspiracies for securing husbands with misguided
zeal. Very little reflection is devoted to the question whether the
parties are suited for each other, or the mutual attachment
sufficiently strong to enable them to bear jointly the numerous and
inevitable trials which pertain to every state and condition of life.
The attention is chiefly directed to considerations of a widely
different character, relating wholly to pecuniary affairs. It is a
most singular fact, in connection with this phase of our subject,
that--the great _desideratum_ once secured--the young wife too
generally begins at once to regard and treat the husband whom she has
been so anxious to gain as the adversary to her interests and
happiness, instead of adopting the old-fashioned idea that he is her
best friend. Strange as it may seem, this is a very common mistake in
these days, and the source of much domestic discord and misery.
A lovely young mother--one of the fairest and most intelligent
specimens of the modern American woman whom we are so happy as to
know--said to us, the other day: “My boys are well provided for in any
event, and, if they were not, they could fight their way in the world
like others; but, I assure you, I shall bestir myself to make such
provision for my girls as will secure them from being ground to powder
by their husbands!”
This from a most devoted and exemplary wife, happy in a husband who
dotes upon her, was sufficiently surprising.
“But,” said we, “you would not on any account have your daughters 471
remain unmarried; and would you be willing to give them to men with
whom you would not trust their money?”
“Ah!” she replied, “I should prefer to rely upon their securing
respect and good treatment with plenty of their own money at command,
than with an empty purse.”
We sighed as we inquired mentally if it could be that our American men
were really becoming so mercenary, and, recalling the old-fashioned
doctrine of perfect community of interests between husbands and wives,
marvelled much whether families governed by such maxims, and homes
regulated from the start upon such a footing, would more abound in the
desirable elements of old-fashioned comfort than those wherein the
wife ruled, as of yore--yea, and supremely, too--by the old, old
fashion of _love_!
The Catholic maiden of advanced age has a place as secure, and a
sphere of action as respectable, in Catholic society as the married
woman, nay, the very spirit and effect of her religion is to ensure
for her increased respect on account of her vocation to celibacy. We
know of many beautiful instances where such persons are the beloved
and guiding spirits of households embracing all ages, and the
beneficent patrons of their neighborhoods.
If she is favored with a vocation to a religious life, how many homes
are open to her happy choice, where affection, honor, and countless
opportunities for the exercise of angelic virtues and charities await
her!
Verily, the Catholic maiden need not despair if she has no vocation
for matrimony! She knows she does better in remaining single than she
would in entering the married state without such vocation. These
questions are, therefore, made the subjects of long, serious, and
prayerful consideration. The Catholic wife enters that state,
forewarned and forearmed for all the painful trials and anxious cares
it involves, with the full knowledge that she can evade none of them,
however trying to flesh and blood or irksome to her tastes and habits,
and remain guiltless in the sight of the Arbiter of her destiny,
before whose tribunal she appears as often as she approaches the holy
sacrament of penance.
She takes up the tender and healthful delights of maternity with joy.
and bears its pains and penalties with cheerful courage and patience.
Already the Catholic mothers of America may glory in the fact that
their children will form a very large proportion of the future
citizens of our great republic. Let them, then, rise to the level of
their destiny. Let them see that those children are thoroughly
instructed in the principles of their religion. No station is so
humble and no lot so hard as to prevent the mother from teaching the
children God has given her, if she is earnest in her wish to do so. In
no way can her boys be better prepared for exercising their elective
franchise intelligently, and no one can deny that a woman’s suffrage
offered through a fine group of boys will be far more efficient than
her single vote.
Catholic women are inexcusable if they do not put aside the
allurements of the world, spurn the glittering kaleidoscope of
fashionable vanities, and, clinging with ever-increasing affection and
allegiance to the ancient and mighty Mother, who is their best, their
only sufficient, friend and protector, keep themselves aloof from all
the agitations that distract their less favored sisters in the
fruitless attempt to build up woman’s rights upon the ruins of her 472
ancient safeguards.
Woman’s suffrage--should they obtain it--will only betray their feet
into a political slough, and bespatter them with political defilements
from which none but an omnipotent power can rescue and cleanse them.
Woman has everything to lose and nothing to gain in this movement,
for, after all, men will manage affairs to suit themselves. The
Almighty pronounced no idle decree when he said to the woman: “Thou
shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over
thee.”
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EVER.
The steadfast gaze brings out the star,
That, like an eye
Set in the sky,
Its sweet light shedding from afar,
At morning dawn, and still at even,
The night alway,
And livelong day,
There twinkles ever, deep in heaven:
Thy constant prayer so reacheth Love,
That, like the star,
Seeming so far,
Its glad strength sending from above,
To youth’s fair dream, and memory’s smart,
To grief’s sad moan,
And joy’s sweet tone,
Aye burns for us, deep in God’s heart.
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THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 473