I.

“Young, beautiful, poor, and alone in Paris, what will become of her?”

It was the third time Dr. Leblanc had repeated these words in the

presence of his sister, Mademoiselle Josephine, who remained so mute

that she might have been thought deaf, had not the irregular click of

her knitting-needles, and two or three indistinct exclamations as she

paused in her work, testified to a preoccupation quite equal to that

of her brother. The latter at first manifested his by swiftly striding

up and down the apartment in which they were, but now he resumed his

usual place in the chimney-corner opposite his sister, opened and shut

his snuff-box noisily, taking a useless profusion of pinches, which he

forgot to convey to their destination, and tapping the floor with his

foot in a manner that expressed great agitation or extreme perplexity.

Mademoiselle Josephine continued to knit without replying, and seemed

no less absorbed than her brother. At length she said:

“At least, if she were not, as you say, so young and so beautiful!”

“And so poor and alone in the world, you should add. A sensible

remark, indeed! It is evident if she were old, ugly, rich, and

surrounded by friends, her situation would be very different. I am

indebted to you, Josephine, for the discovery.”

“Do not be impatient, brother. I am only repeating what you have just

said. To continue the subject: if she only had a different air--”

“Well, go on!”

“And another name--”

“Another name! Why so? What has her name to do with the matter?”

“A name which was not ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous! The name of her father? Poor Gerard d’Yves’ name was very

respectable, and even noble, I believe. He committed a thousand

extravagances and ruined himself. He then became an artist, and

displayed talent enough to have repaired his fortunes had he been

wise. Besides, he was of a good family, and his name--”

“I am not alluding to his name, but to his daughter’s.”

“Well?”

“Well, brother, do you think this young girl’s name bears any

resemblance to a Christian name?”

“Fleurange? I acknowledge it is perhaps an odd name. Her father had a

taste for odd things, and hearing the name of Fior Angela in Italy, he

translated it.”

“Her mother should have had more sense.”

“Her poor mother died when she was born, so she had nothing to do with 652

it.”

“Did you not say her mother had a brother who was a professor in some

city in Germany?”

“Yes, at Leipsic; but who knows where to find him now? Her whole

family disapproved of her marriage, which was finally effected without

her father’s consent. Poor Margaret lived only a year, and Gerard, who

remained a widower, declined all intercourse with his wife’s

relatives. He remained many years in Italy, and placed his daughter,

as soon as she was five years old, in some convent near Perugia. He

took her away only two months before he came here, already ill, to

linger and die three days ago in this poor child’s arms, leaving her

entirely alone in the world.”

“But was it not very injurious to his daughter’s interests to withhold

her thus from all intercourse with her maternal relatives?”

“He began to realize it himself, but only when it was too late. During

his illness, finding his case daily growing more serious, he made some

efforts to ascertain what had become of Ludwig Dornthal, of whom we

have just spoken, who was Margaret’s favorite brother, and never

faltered in his affection for her. But he could ascertain nothing

respecting him. Ludwig had married, and, long before, left Leipsic to

settle in some other part of Germany, he could not find out what, and

this fruitless effort was a source of pain, which was not the least he

suffered during his last hours. He reproached himself, and not without

reason, for the frightful loneliness in which he was about to leave

his daughter. The poor, unhappy man bitterly expiated the imprudent

and thoughtless act of alienating himself from those whose pardon he

should rather have implored, or at least accepted. But it was the

consequence of his disposition, which was affectionate, enthusiastic,

and fascinating, I imagine, when he was young, but weak, violent, and

thoughtless. He was born neither to be happy himself, nor to make

others happy, and his daughter would have been almost as great an

object of pity, had he lived, as she is now.”

“Poor child!” said Mademoiselle Josephine, raising her small black

eyes, with an expression almost celestial lighting up her pale and

wrinkled face. After a moment’s silence, she added: “God tempers the

wind to the shorn lamb! You will see, brother, that some good luck

will befall her, or we shall have some fortunate inspiration.”

“Well, the sooner the better, for I have none. Your confidence truly

excites my admiration.”

“I trust in God,” simply replied Mademoiselle Josephine.

“Parbleu! and I too,” said the doctor. “I truly believe in his

goodness; I hope in his mercy; but in this case--”

“You would prefer to have the affair in your own hands?”

“Come, come, Josephine, let us stick to the point this time. It is

eight o’clock, and we must positively go for that poor child. She is

more lonely than ever to-day, for the sister who nursed her father,

and remained with her after his death, left this morning. She must

not, after so sad a day, pass this first night all alone up there.”

“Certainly not,” said the other.

The doctor continued: “She has not left that little room in the fourth

story for a fortnight, with the exception of this morning, when she

followed her father to the grave, and since her return how do you

imagine she has been occupied? Here, look at this.”

Mademoiselle Josephine took the paper her brother held out, and 653

glanced over it. It was a list of the poor artist’s debts.

“The whole amounts to five hundred francs, which are here. She asked

me to settle the bills and procure the receipts.”

“I see that, according to her calculation, one-fourth of this sum is

intended for the physician who attended her father,” said Mademoiselle

Josephine slowly.

“Who, in such a case, will not accept it, of course.”

“Of course not,” said his sister. “Out of this sum one hundred and

twenty-five francs will be returned to her, then?”

“Yes, sister, and that will be the amount of her fortune.”

“While we are talking, then, she has absolutely nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

Their conversation at this point was interrupted by a low knock at the

door, and almost immediately the girl of whom they had been talking

appeared before them. She stopped and leaned against the wall. The

doctor sprang toward her.

“Poor child!” he exclaimed. “While we were idly talking, she was faint

from exhaustion and fatigue.”

She had, in truth, fallen into a chair against the wall, and seemed

losing consciousness. Mademoiselle Josephine hastened to support her

head, and bathe her pale brow and colorless cheeks with cold water.

Every movement of the doctor’s elderly sister had become prompt and

decided. At a sign from her brother, she disappeared an instant, but

returned almost immediately with a vial and a glass of water in her

hand.

“That is it,” said the doctor. He let fall a few drops into the glass,

which he then held to the young girl’s lips. Two or three swallows

seemed to revive her.

“Excuse me,” she said, raising her head, and forcing herself to rise.

“Excuse me, both of you. I did not think myself so weak, and did not

intend to give you so much trouble when I came to see you.”

“Do not talk now, but drink the remainder of this.”

Fleurange put the glass to her lips, but returned it to the doctor

without tasting it. “I cannot,” she said, “I feel dizzy. I do not know

what ails me--perhaps it is the surprise I have just had. Here,

monsieur, read this. It was to show you this letter I came down.”

The doctor took the letter, but, before reading it, led Fleurange to

the fire, while the active Josephine, divining her brother’s wishes,

placed on the table a bowl of soup and some bread and wine.

Fleurange took Mademoiselle Josephine’s hand between her own: “Thank

you,” she said in a low tone. “Yes, I think it was that: I am

generally strong, but--but--”

“I dare say you have not eaten anything since yesterday?”

“No; and I am hungry.”

The doctor briskly rubbed his spectacles, and abruptly opened his

snuffbox, while the young girl hastily took the slight repast, which

brought a lively and unusual color to her cheeks. Her face was

generally very pale. Her large eyes, calm and mild, gray rather than

blue, shaded by lashes black as her hair, gave her a peculiar and

striking appearance. But notwithstanding this peculiarity,

notwithstanding her paleness, the delicacy of her features, and the

pliancy of her form, which swayed like a reed at every movement, if

obliged to characterize in two words the general impression produced

by the appearance of Fleurange d’Yves, those words would be:

simplicity and energy. Doctor Leblanc was doubtless right in thinking 654

that one so young, beautiful, and destitute needed protection, and yet

it required only a glance to see that she, better than any else, could

protect herself.

The doctor still held in his hand the letter she had given him. It was

dated at Frankfort.

“MY DEAR NIECE: It was only yesterday, and by the most

unforeseen chance, we at last learned the state of your father’s

health and where he lives. None of us have seen him since his

marriage with my poor sister Margaret twenty years ago. You know

there was at that time a profound hatred against France

throughout our country, and my father would never consent to

receive a Frenchman as his son-in-law. Then my poor sister (God

forgive her!) left the paternal roof to marry the man of her

choice. My father was exceedingly grieved, very angry, and at

first implacable, but before his death he forgave her. She was

past knowing it. From that time we lost all trace of your father.

We only learned he had left Pisa with his child, and, for a long

time, had given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or knowing

my poor sister’s daughter, when yesterday a stranger, passing

through this city, accidentally showed me a picture he had just

purchased at Paris--the work, he said, of a dying artist. This

painting represented Cordelia kneeling beside her father, and the

canvas bore the name of Gerard d’Yves. The painter’s address was

given us by the owner of the picture, and I hasten to profit by

it to tell you, my dear child, that your mother’s relatives have

not forgotten the tie that binds them to you. If you ever need a

shelter, you can find one beneath our roof. My wife and children

already regard poor Margaret’s daughter with affection. The latter

have thought of her from infancy as an absent sister whose return

they awaited. If God restores your father’s health, bring him

among us. If otherwise ordered, come yourself, my dear child. The

stranger who put us on your track told us the artist’s daughter

was the original of his Cordelia. If the resemblance is correct,

it does not diminish our desire to see you. Come soon, then, my

dear niece. At all events, answer this letter promptly, and be

assured of the affectionate regard of your uncle,

“LUDWIG DORNTHAL.”

“Josephine! Josephine!” exclaimed the doctor. “Here, read this: but,

first, embrace me. Yes, you were right. Your trust was better than my

wisdom! Yes, yes, God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. Poor child,

embrace me also.”

Fleurange rose: “Oh! very willingly,” said she as she threw herself

sobbing into the doctor’s arms. Fatigue, grief, and the emotion caused

by the unforeseen and unhoped-for offer of a refuge at the very moment

of extreme need, all combined to agitate her mind, excite her nerves,

and exhaust her strength. Her heart swelled with the emotion she could

not repress, and tears unrestrained came to her eyes, rolled down her

cheeks, and fell like rain on her clasped and icy hands, while a

convulsive movement agitated her breast, and her trembling lips gave

utterance to a feeble cry.

The doctor allowed her to weep a long time in silence, not uttering a

word to increase her agitation, and yet saying nothing to repress it.

At length the paroxysm subsided, and Fleurange rose quite confused.

“Excuse me once more,” said she; “I am distressing you, instead of

showing my gratitude as I ought. I could not restrain myself, but I

think I can safely promise it will not happen again. I seldom give way 655

to tears.”

She uttered these words in a firm tone, drying her tears, and throwing

back her hair with her two hands as if to cool her brow, then she

rose.

“Where are you going, pray?” asked Mademoiselle Josephine in an abrupt

tone of authority.

“Why,” stammered Fleurange, “I am going up-stairs. I--”

“Perhaps you are thinking to spend the night all alone in the cabinet

next the chamber--the chamber--” She stopped. Fleurange turned pale,

and her lips trembled as she replied:

“What can I do? It is sad, it is painful, I know well; but it must be

done. Besides, I am not afraid: I feel I am under your roof.”

“Well, for the present you shall also be under the protection of our

lock and key,” said the kind Josephine: and, taking Fleurange by the

arm, she led her into a little chamber next her own, where a small bed

surrounded by white curtains was in readiness for the young girl. This

little chamber, with its walls covered with blue paper, and lit up

with a good fire, had a most cheering aspect.

“Here, child, is your chamber and your bed,” said she. “Come, come, no

thanks, and, above all, no tears! Go to bed at once without giving

yourself the time to think, still less to say a word. You think you

are not going to sleep, but you are mistaken. On your knees? Well, I

consent to that, but let it be a short prayer. That is right. Now stop

till I gather up your thick hair. Is your head easy on that pillow?

Well, I am glad. May God, and all good angels, watch over you! Allow

me to kiss your forehead. Good-night!”

Mademoiselle Josephine lowered the curtains of the bed, and softly

left the chamber, while the poor orphan, in fact, lost all remembrance

of the sorrows and joys of the day in a profound and beneficent sleep.

The chamber to which Mademoiselle Josephine had taken Fleurange

rightfully belonged to the doctor’s niece, now at school in one of the

convents at Paris, but which she occupied during her vacation.

However, it was far from being vacant the remainder of the year.

Mademoiselle Leblanc was one of those persons who are devoted to the

searching out of the unfortunate, and the alleviation of their woes.

In such cases, he who seeks finds, and that without difficulty,

consequently a week seldom passed without offering a good reason for

opening the blue chamber for a few days’ shelter to some poor girl out

of work and destitute of a home, or to a poor abandoned child, or some

one recovering from illness but too feeble to resume work. The doctor

heartily approved of this. He would gladly have added to his dwelling

a veritable _succursale_ for the accommodation of his poor

patients, and if he was not yet rich enough for that, though he reaped

the benefit of his skill and celebrity, it was partly because he gave

away with one hand what he received in the other, and that with a

generosity not always in conformity with prudence. When there was a

question of benevolence between the brother and sister, one was not

more disposed than the other to count the cost. They had invented a

proverb, worthy of the Gospel, which they made use of in reply to the

remonstrances of their friends: “He who gives alms, grows rich,” they

said; and they continued to enrich themselves in this way by giving

themselves up, both of them, to a noble excess of charity. Fortune, in

fact, had not been unfavorable to them, and thus far had remained 656

unfulfilled the sinister prophecies of those who take as a _devise_

quite a different proverb, respecting charity, too well known and too

often acted upon in the world. Doctor Leblanc and his sister knew

nothing, it is true, of the luxury of elegant quarters and fine

equipages. They still lived in a street of the Latin quarter where

they were born; an old servant was the sole assistant of the cook; and

Mademoiselle Josephine continued to preserve order and neatness around

her with her own hands. But at all times they were magnificent in

their own way; and the artists they encouraged, the scholars

befriended, and the sick gratuitously attended and generously aided,

added to the renown of the distinguished physician and gave to his

name a reputation he did not seek. Simple and learned, healing the

body and respecting the soul, he loved his profession as a mission

from heaven, and practised it as a sacred ministry with respect and

with love.

II.

When Fleurange opened her eyes on the following morning, it was late,

for it was broad daylight and in the month of December. She must have

slept very profoundly, for she had not heard any one kindle the fire

already blazing in the chimney. Her slumbers must have been such as in

youth succeed great fatigue or prolonged efforts to endure anxiety and

grief in silence. The fit of weeping the evening before and the long

repose of the night had brought double refreshment to the exhausted

strength of the young girl, and her first sensation was one of

delicious comfort.

But her remembrances soon became more distinct, and the anguish of the

first awakening after a great misfortune made her heart sink within

her. She had, it is true, known her father but little. The convent

where she had been reared was not even in the town where he dwelt, and

she saw him but seldom during her childhood. But the days when he

appeared at the convent were to both great festivals. It was difficult

to understand how a father so glad to see his child could voluntarily

have allowed her to grow up away from him. But the time of reunion

came at last, and for several weeks they rambled around Italy

together. In unveiling all its wonders to a mind naturally capable of

appreciating them, the artist felt all the enthusiasm of his youth

revive. But it was a flame only rekindled to be extinguished. Soon

came symptoms of illness, the sad return to Paris, the fluctuations of

disease, which enfeeble the mind as well as the body, and separated

the child from her father while he was yet alive, and she night and

day at his bedside. His look that gave back no answering glance, the

words she murmured in his ear without making him understand, convinced

her of her loss before the separation by death which soon followed.

“O father! father scarcely known and so soon lost!” Such was

Fleurange’s cry, and perhaps an involuntary reproach mingled with her

accents of grief. She did not suspect it was a sublime and paternal

instinct that had influenced the poor artist in separating from his

child. He wished her to be self-reliant; he wished her to be pious and

pure; he wished her rare mental gifts only to be developed when order,

an immutable and divine order, was established in her soul; finally, 657

he desired her to be all that he himself lacked, and God blessed this

desire.

In a beautiful spot near Perugia, he found at the head of a charity

school one of those women whom the world itself would honor and

venerate if it comprehended them. By the _world_, I mean the mass of

light and scoffing people who are hostile to every sentiment in which

they have no share, and, above all others, to religious sentiments.

Yet this world is, on the whole, suspicious rather than unjust, and

incredulous than false: if it sees the semblance of evil, it

immediately supposes it real; if it sees the appearance of goodness,

it at once imagines this appearance deceitful; but when virtue is

unquestionably manifest, irrecusable in its simplicity and truth, and

succeeds in being regarded in a true light, the world--even the world

of which we have been speaking--generally bows down before it. The

thing is rare, it is true, more so than it should be, because the most

perfect natures aim not at displaying themselves, but at concealment;

and the world to which I refer seeks not to discover, but to deny,

their existence.

Madre Maddalena was one of these great hidden souls. No one ever spoke

of her, or of her little monastery, intended for the education of poor

children, but where a limited number of girls of a more elevated class

were also admitted. Like so many other monasteries in Italy, this one

was in a poetic and charming situation, but not one of those visible

afar off on the lofty summits that command views which ravish the eye

and transport the soul--views that kindle a desire in the most

indifferent heart to keel before them, and that have inspired

Christians to perpetuate prayer amid them in permanent sanctuaries.

The Convent of Santa Maria al Prato was, on the contrary, in a deep

valley, and surrounded by a landscape like those in which Perugino and

Raphael placed their divine creations or their sacred representations.

Afar off were mountains whose outlines were clearly defined on the

horizon in soft and harmonious colors; a stream wound through olive

groves, now and then encircling rustic dwellings--the evident

handiwork of a people with an instinctive taste for the arts; the

sombre verdure of a knot of pines or cypresses contrasted here and

there with the azure of the morning sky or the purple tints of

evening: such were the principal features of the landscape. The beauty

of such a scene subdues and reposes, as that of sublime summits

transports and exalts, and seems designed for meditation and labor, as

the other for contemplation and ecstasy.

It was to this retreat Fleurange’s father was providentially

led--perhaps guided by the protective inspiration we love to attribute

to mothers who are fond of their children. It was in the hands of

Madre Maddalena that he left his daughter as soon as she was five

years old, and, until the day she was eighteen, he only saw her twice

a year. But from year to year he felt more sure of having realized the

aim he had proposed respecting her. Fleurange had, nevertheless, no

proof to give him of her progress under the form of prizes obtained or

crowns conferred. The solemn occasions when such trophies are

distributed were unknown at Santa Maria al Prato, as well as the

examinations for which the memory is burdened for a day with facts

that are often remembered no longer. In fact, they did not aim at

giving her varied instruction, but they taught her how to learn, and 658

gave her a taste for study, work, and silence.

She was naturally sincere and courageous; she also became skilful and

active. Madre Maddalena seemed to have foreseen that this young

person, so sheltered in her early years, would one day be unusually

exposed to the rough combat of life. She probably did not foresee that

Fleurange would soon be left alone; but what she had read of her

father’s nature, what she knew of his history, made her comprehend

that prudence and a certain premature experience would serve as a

safeguard to his daughter. What would have been true had her father

lived, was no less so now his death left her entirely to herself.

Fleurange resisted the temptation of remaining in bed absorbed in sad

thoughts. She hastily rose, and was quite ready when Mademoiselle

Josephine entered her chamber for the third time. A smile enlivened

the features of the elderly maiden when she saw the effect of a good

night’s rest on the countenance of her _protégée_. The latter,

affected and grateful, and retaining the Italian habits of her

childhood, bent to kiss the hand of her benefactress.

“Do not kiss my old hand,” said Mademoiselle Josephine, “but my cheek,

if you like; now, let us not keep my brother waiting. It is nine

o’clock, our breakfast-hour which never varies.”

Fleurange followed her hostess to the breakfast-room, which was next

the parlor. The furniture of these two rooms had not been renewed for

more than fifty years, but nothing seemed dilapidated, thanks to the

exquisite neatness that everywhere reigned.

The doctor was already seated at the table. His sister took her place

opposite, giving Fleurange a seat between them.

“You have quite recovered,” said the doctor, extending his hand to the

young girl. “I am very glad to see it; but, for fear of relapse, you

must remain under my eye for some days to come. Everything has been

arranged, and from this time till your departure you will return no

more to the fourth story.”

“What can I say, monsieur? You are both so kind, and I love you so

much that I accept alms from your hands without shame and almost

without pain.”

“I forbid you making use of so shocking a word,” said Mademoiselle

Josephine.

“Yet it is really alms,” said Fleurange in a sad but firm tone, “for I

have nothing of my own, and if in want of a piece of bread to-day, I

should have to extend the hand of a beggar.”

“Come, come! you are not reduced to that yet, thank God! But let us

drop this, and speak of something more important. You must answer your

uncle’s letter without delay.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Fleurange. And after a short silence, she added:

“I am going to ask him to be kind enough to receive me for a month.”

“But from his letter, he seems disposed to offer you a much more

extended hospitality than that.”

“Perhaps so, but I am only willing to accept it till I have found the

means of living without being a burden on him.”

“What is your intention, then?”

“I do not know,” said Fleurange; “but there are many means of gaining

a, livelihood, are there not? Well, I shall endeavor to find one not

beyond my strength.”

The doctor looked at her, and then said: “There are certainly many

things not beyond your strength, but yet unsuitable for you.” 659

“Why?” asked Fleurange.

“They would be unsuitable for one of your age and condition.”

“Why so?” repeated she.

“I will explain myself after you tell me what you think of doing.”

“Come!” said Mademoiselle Josephine impatiently. “There is no need of

so much circumlocution in telling her that, when one is young and

pretty, caution is needful. If the child does not know that, the

sooner she is warned, the better it will be for her.”

“Young and pretty,” repeated Fleurange quietly without the slightest

embarrassment. “Yes, I know that will be a great obstacle to me in my

position. It would be much better to be homely and ten years older. I

had already thought of that. It is very unfortunate; but what can be

done?”

The doctor smiled. He had never heard any woman admit her own beauty

with so little vanity. Fleurange’s simplicity, the childlike candor of

her large eyes, the expression of which was yet grave and thoughtful,

struck him, and he felt an increase of the interest which up to this

moment had been excited by the young girl’s destitute condition,

rather than herself. He resumed, still smiling:

“As to this misfortune, you must resign yourself to it, at least for

twenty years to come.” But seeing that Fleurange did not smile in

return, but, on the contrary, became more and more thoughtful, he

continued: “Besides, if you ever come to that, we will find a means

for surmounting the difficulty.”

Fleurange’s face expanded. “Oh! thank you, monsieur; if you could

realize how much courage I have. And then,” she added, “I assure you

there are a great many things I know how to do.”

“For instance?” said the doctor.

“First, the instruction of children, to which I think myself adapted.

I love them, and they are generally fond of me also, and readily obey

me.”

“What else?”

“I know Italian and German (for I have made it a special point to

understand my mother’s native language thoroughly). My father thought

me also a good reader, and preferred my voice and accent to those of

any of the numerous readers and speakers he had heard. His fondness

perhaps blinded him to my defects; yet he might have been right, and I

could try.”

“Hem!” said the doctor. “There is much to be said for and against that

talent.”

“Finally, monsieur, I can do all kinds of work. I know how to sew

well--to wash, iron, and sweep. I could even cook a little.”

The doctor again regarded the noble countenance of the young girl

while she thus complacently enumerated the humble and laborious

employments she thought herself capable of. She was evidently sincere.

Her ability and willingness to do all she said could not be doubted.

He was affected, and remained silent.

But Mademoiselle Josephine exclaimed with enthusiasm: “That is what I

call an education! And who, my dear child, taught you so many

reasonable and useful things?”

Tears of emotion filled Fleurange’s eyes. “It was my dear Madre

Maddalena,” she replied.

This answer elicited fresh inquiries, to which Fleurange replied by

minutely relating the way in which her childhood had passed. The

doctor’s satisfaction increased with every word of her account, which,

nevertheless, made a breach in two of his prejudices. 660

Without any antipathy to pretty faces, they inspired him with a kind

of mistrust, or at least of solicitude, which his long experience had

doubtless very often warranted. But in regarding this young girl, so

self-reliant and so modest, so courageous and so delicate, and who

seemed ready to struggle so bravely against the difficulties of life,

how could he be angry with her for being beautiful, and how help

overlooking it in one sense?

The doctor had also a singular and, considering his belief as a whole,

an inconsistent prejudice against convents. He seemed to have retained

this point of agreement with those whom he habitually opposed on every

other subject. And here was an education which accorded not only with

all his ideas, but with all his whims--a conventual education. He

would be obliged to somewhat modify his opinions on this subject, as

well as on some others, and he resigned himself to it with a good

grace.

They finally resumed the subject of the letter to Frankfort. The

doctor and his sister already began to look forward with sorrow to the

departure of their young _protégée_, but they felt it was for her

interest not to delay joining the relatives who had invited her at so

opportune a moment. By their advice, Fleurange immediately began her

letter. Short and to the point, it was soon completed, and she gave it

to Mademoiselle Josephine. The latter began to read it with an air of

satisfaction, but when she came to the signature, a cloud suddenly

appeared on her face.

“What is it?” said Fleurange. “I have made some mistake or blunder?”

“No, you have not: the letter is very well, it could not be better,

but, but--”

“What, then? Tell me frankly, I beg of you.”

“Well, it is--indeed, I dare not tell you.”

“Pray tell me,” said Fleurange, “what has displeased you? There is

nothing in the letter I am not willing to correct according to your

advice.”

“It is--but you cannot change that.”

But what is it, then, dear mademoiselle? You really frighten me,”

insisted Fleurange with a disturbed air.

“You cannot change your baptismal name,” said the other, at length.

“My baptismal name?” exclaimed Fleurange with surprise. “Does my name

displease you to such a degree? I am sorry, for Madre Maddalena liked

it so much! She said it signified _the flower of the angels_--the

fairest of all the angels--the angel Gabriel, whom she considered my

patron. And she called me Gabrielle as often as Fleurange.”

“Gabrielle!” cried Mademoiselle Josephine eagerly. “Gabrielle! Ah!

that is a name everybody can understand. So that is the meaning of

Fleurange, according to your Madre Maddalena? Then I beseech, I

conjure you, to assume that name and give up the other!”

The doctor had for some minutes been occupied in reperusing Professor

Dornthal’s letter, which he kept the evening before; he now raised his

eyes, and attended to the conversation. While Fleurange was still

hesitating what reply to make to Mademoiselle Josephine’s singular

request, he said:

“I do not understand my sister’s persistency on this point. As to my

own opinion, it is opposed to hers. But it may be that the simpler of

the two names will be more in conformity with the tastes of the good 661

German family that awaits you, and perhaps Gabrielle would have a

better reception than Fleurange. Besides,” he continued, smiling,

“your young cousins beyond the Rhine would doubtless pronounce the

name in a way to diminish its charm and deprive it of all meaning

according to the pious and poetical interpretation you have just given

it.”

“That might be,” said Fleurange, smiling in return. “Anyhow, I will do

as you advise respecting it.”

“We will take it into consideration,” said the doctor. Then, glancing

once more over the professor’s letter, he continued: “Do you know the

name of the stranger who, by buying the last picture your father

painted, has unwittingly rendered you so great a service?”

“I do not. That picture was sold with the remainder when, at the

beginning of his fatal relapse, my father saw his finances

diminishing, and lost the hope of ever repairing them. My poor

father!” she continued with a trembling voice, “he was very ill the

day he made me sit in order to finish that picture--” Fleurange

suddenly stopped and blushed. The doctor’s look seemed to demand an

explanation, and she continued artlessly, but not without confusion:

“The owner of the picture is perhaps the stranger who visited the

studio that day. At least, I acknowledge the idea has repeatedly

occurred to me.”

“For what reason?”

“Because he was so delighted with Cordelia, and begged permission to

see it after its completion. But my father, from that day, was obliged

to give up the use of the brush, and the picture was sold as he left

it, with the others.”

“Was this amateur a German?”

“I do not know. He spoke French very well, but with a slight accent, I

know not what.”

“Was he some great lord?”

“I do not know--I have never seen a great lord.”

“But what kind of an air had this visitor--God bless him!” interrupted

Mademoiselle Josephine.

“A lofty and noble air, a remarkable physiognomy, and a grave and

sonorous voice,” replied Fleurange. “But, in spite of the gratitude I

perhaps owe him, the remembrance of his visit always troubles and

depresses me.”

“Why so?” said Josephine.

“Because it was the cause of the last and fatal crisis of my father’s

malady, who at that time even could not bear the slightest agitation.

I do not know the words the stranger murmured as he glanced at me, but

they greatly excited my father, who requested me in a tremulous voice

to leave the studio. As a general thing, he never allowed me to enter

it at the hour for visitors. The evening of that day he spoke to me in

an agitated manner of the lone condition in which I should soon be

left, and gave me some incoherent counsels, which were his last words.

He never recovered his full mind after that.”

“Poor man!” said the doctor; but he did not pursue the subject that

led to this account. Fleurange’s fleeting blush disappeared, and she

was again pale and calm as before, her pen in hand ready to correct

her letter according to the doctor’s advice. After a final

deliberation between the young girl and her elderly friends, it was

decided that the letter should be sent after it was signed

_Gabrielle d’Yves_.

III. 662

The day Margaret married Gerard d’Yves, the aged Sigismund Dornthal

blotted out his daughter’s name from his will, and gave orders that it

should never be uttered in his presence. Notwithstanding this,

softened by illness, and urged by his second son Ludwig, Margaret’s

favorite brother, he soon consented to send her his forgiveness and

blessing, but when they reached Pisa poor Margaret had just expired!

In the fury of his despair, which increased the impetuosity and

thoughtlessness of his character, Gerard tore up the letter containing

the long-delayed pardon, and only replied in these two words: “Too

late!”

It was thus the aged Dornthal was informed of his daughter’s death. He

himself died shortly after, ignorant of the existence of the child to

whom she had given birth. His property was divided between his two

sons, but Ludwig, devoted to study, and already in possession of a

professor’s chair at Leipsic, entirely abandoned to his elder brother

the administration of their common fortune, and Heinrich Dornthal

became the sole head of the commercial and banking houses founded by

Sigismund. He thenceforth made use of his brother’s capital as well as

his own, paying him regularly his income, without any interference in

his business on Ludwig’s part. The latter was at the same time

pursuing so brilliant a career as to attract the attention of all the

learned men of Germany to his labors. One of these, a resident of

Frankfort, invited him to pass at his house the annual vacations of

the numerous students who attended his lectures. The result of these

visits was that this professor’s daughter became Ludwig Dornthal’s

wife, and, in the course of time, the mother of his five children.

The professor, when he married, resigned his position at Leipsic to

settle in his wife’s native place. There, free from a professor’s

duties, he had leisure to write books that constantly added to his

reputation and increased his income, which the flourishing business of

the commercial house alone made sufficient.

Such was, in a few words, the condition of the new home that awaited

Fleurange. A second letter came promptly in reply to hers. Her uncle

expressed the liveliest joy at having found her, and invited her very

particularly to arrive at Frankfort in time for Christmas, so dear to

the Germans as the time of family reunions. To do this she would have

to leave Paris, at the very latest, on the twenty-first of December,

for at that time it took three days and nights for the journey to

Frankfort. The doctor and his sister, though sorry to part with their

young _protégée_, hastened the preparations for her departure. They

were touched by the cordial tone of this unknown uncle’s letters, and

predicted a happy life for her in his family, which they did not wish

to defer. But every day added to their attachment to Fleurange and to

her tender gratitude to them.

“If this continued a week longer,” said the doctor, “I could not part

with that child.”

“Then she must start soon,” replied Mademoiselle Josephine; “it is for

her good, and we should do wrong to keep her with us.”

Fleurange said nothing, but her eyes turned sadly from one of her old

friends to the other. At length came the last day she was to pass with

them. She made an effort to repress her tears, that she might not

distress them, and quietly put up her modest packages, actively aided 663

by the doctor and his sister.

“An English proverb which I think very reasonable,” said the doctor,

“places the hospitality which speeds the parting guest on a level with

that which welcomes his coming: it is that which I am now showing you,

my dear Fleurange.”

Fleurange had just hastily finished the repast always so sad before a

journey. The doctor perceived her courage failing. He was himself

greatly affected by her pale and youthful countenance, and in thinking

of the long and lonely journey she was about to undertake, at the end

of which she would be received by people, perhaps kind, but wholly

unknown. Nevertheless, he resumed with an encouraging voice:

“Come, come, child, everything looks favorable yonder; show your

courage, and do not allow yourself to be cast down.”

“You are right,” said Fleurange, rising. “I feel I have reason to

bless God, and I only desire to be grateful. Be sure, at all events,

that I shall be courageous.”

It was eight o’clock in the evening: the fiacre was waiting at the

door to take her to the diligence. She went out, accompanied by the

doctor and his sister, who entered the carriage with her. The night

was dark, and the snow falling in great flakes, which the young girl,

reared beneath the sky of Italy, now saw for the first time in her

life. The spectacle excited curiosity mingled with fear. The new and

the unknown seemed to surround her on every side, and these two

things, generally so attractive to those of her age, bore now an

aspect more calculated to depress her young heart than to expand it.

She involuntarily shivered, and drew around her slender form the thick

cloak that felt too thin to protect her from the severity of the

weather, to which she was so unaccustomed. They all remained silent

for some moments. Fleurange pressed Mademoiselle Josephine’s hand, and

carried it from time to time to her lips, in spite of the efforts of

the latter to prevent it.

Mademoiselle Josephine, on her side, with a faltering voice renewed a

multitude of counsels, which had already been repeated a thousand

times--among others, to write to them often and regularly. Then she

slipped on her arm a small basket which her provident kindness had

filled with everything that could be useful to her on the way, as well

as more than one souvenir which, when far distant, would recall her

old friends.

They arrived too quickly at their destination. “I have bespoken a

place for you in the coupé,” said the doctor, getting out of the

carriage. “You will be in company with one of my patients, still very

feeble, but who will absolutely go to Germany to rejoin her husband.

She has two children with her, and they will be your only travelling

companions.”

“Thank you,” said Fleurange. “The prayers of the orphan are said to

draw down blessings: may you both experience the effect of mine!” She

could not utter another word. She threw her arms for the last time

around Mademoiselle Josephine’s neck, and the next instant, leaning on

the doctor’s arm, she was crossing with some difficulty the littered

court at the end of which they found the diligence. The snow had

delayed them on the way, and now rendered every step difficult. The

other passengers had taken their places, and they were only waiting

for Fleurange. The horses were harnessed, and to the noise of their

stamping the driver added his impatient exclamations. “Come, come! We 664

are off!” he repeated in a rough voice. Fleurange, hurried, pushed

about, stunned, and frightened, had only time to press the doctor’s

hand once more and spring into the coupé. The door was instantly shut.

A fearful clashing of irons, mingled with cries, blows of the whip,

and vociferations, above which could be heard: “Adieu! à revoir! à

bientôt!” with other exclamations much less harmonious, and the heavy

diligence was in motion. Fleurange, now free from the necessity of any

restraint, allowed herself the solace of giving vent to her feelings

and letting her tears flow freely and abundantly.

She continued to weep for a long time without the least attempt at

repressing her emotion. Why should she? She was alone, entirely alone

now. She had never been so to such a degree before. All the events of

the past faded away in the distance, and the future offered nothing to

replace them. She was separated from all whom she had loved from her

infancy, either by death or indefinite absence. Would it be so always?

Was that to be her lot on earth? Would she never be permitted to love

with assurance, trust, and a sense of repose? Was she to be always

thus torn from places and persons at the very moment her heart began

to cling to them?--her heart, so tender and ardent, which she had so

often felt beating with tenderness and joy, with admiration and

enthusiasm? And while her eyes peered out through the darkness of

night at objects that seemed in the obscurity like pale phantoms, her

imagination set before her, as in a magic mirror, all the different

scenes of her past life: the beautiful cloister of Santa Maria al

Prato, with the terrace at the top, where the eye could wander so far,

and the sweet and noble features of Madre Maddalena; then came the

varied remembrances connected with her father; first, the rapid vision

of Italy in all its splendor, then the terrible and dismal days at

Paris, and finally, at the darkest hour of all; the beneficent forms

of her old friends, whom she never wished to leave, but whom she had

just bidden farewell--perhaps farewell for ever!

It was impossible for Fleurange, at this moment, to control her sad

thoughts. But, now and then, her reason recalled those who awaited

her, the welcome she had a right to expect, and the goodness of Divine

Providence in opening such a refuge; but in vain--consolation seemed

unable to find an entrance into her soul, and, in spite of her nature,

despondency obtained the mastery.

“If they are kind, and I love them,” she said to herself bitterly, “I

shall soon have to leave them. If, on the contrary, they --” Here her

imagination had free course and depicted the future in the darkest

colors. But this new reverie had not the clearness of the first, and

before long her anticipations began to mingle in vague confusion with

her remembrances. Little by little, fatigue, the motion of the

vehicle, and the influence of night lulled the young girl asleep, and

transformed into uneasy and indistinct dreams all the thoughts that

had successively assailed her.

Fifteen minutes after, she was suddenly awakened. Something quite

heavy had fallen against her shoulder and thence into her lap. She sat

up, and, groping in the obscurity, her hand came in contact with the

long silky hair of a child. From the first, she had rather supposed

than seen a pale, sick young woman in the opposite corner of the

coupé, with her arm thrown around a child beside her, against whom

slept another still smaller. It was the latter who had just suddenly 665

changed his position. Fleurange began to comprehend the case, and bent

down to raise him softly to a more comfortable seat in her lap. Then

she drew his little sleepy head against her, and kissed the sweet face

now near her own. This trifling incident had the sudden and unforeseen

effect of putting to flight all the phantoms her imagination had been

conjuring up to increase her sorrows. She recalled her interior

murmuring with remorse.

“O my God!” she cried, pressing the child in her arms, “if I love this

poor little one, whose features I have not yet seen, if I am ready to

watch the night long over his slumbers, what wilt not thou, who art

_my Father_, do for thy child?” She raised her eyes a moment in prayer,

not with her lips, but in her heart. The snow had ceased falling. The

clouds passing away, the heavens appeared brilliant with stars. The

cloud had also passed away from Fleurange’s soul, and a mysterious

light from on high was infused therein. She gazed at the starry sky

with delight, then closed her eyes, and again slept sweetly, the child

in her arms sleeping as profoundly as herself.

TO BE CONTINUED.

----------

SEVERAL CALUMNIES REFUTED; OR, EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT No. 37.[130]

In addition to the secular press, which seldom misses an opportunity

of saying something ungracious of the Catholic Church, we have

published in the United States over a hundred so-called religious

newspapers, the principal stock-in-trade of which seems to be

unlimited abuse of everything Catholic, and unqualified

misrepresentation of all who profess or teach the doctrines of our

faith. No dogma or point of discipline of Catholicity ever finds favor

in the eyes of the individuals who fill the columns of those

publications, and no man or woman who may see fit to devote his or her

life to the dissemination of the Gospel is safe from the malice or

scurrility of their pens.

For the honor of the American character we are sorry to say that we

have daily evidence of this blind prejudice and reckless disregard of

truth on the part of this class of editors, many of whom arrogate to

themselves the title of “reverend”; but we have some consolation in

knowing that the more intelligent members of the sects are fast

growing tired and ashamed of such senseless appeals to their passions

and ill-founded traditions and that the time is not far distant when

such efforts to sustain a sinking and indefensible cause will be

encouraged only by the ignorant and wilfully blind.

These repeated and continuous attacks on the church are not the work

of any one sect or confined to any particular locality, but are general

with all Protestants, and extended over the whole country. As long as 666

they are confined to newspapers, and afford employment and

remuneration to a number of persons who probably could not gain a

livelihood in any other manner, we scarcely consider them worthy of

serious attention; but we have had recently placed before us an

official document, printed at the public expense for the edification

of the United States Senate--and no doubt widely circulated throughout

the Union under the convenient frank of many pious members of

Congress--in which are reproduced calumnies so gross, and falsehoods

so glaring, that we consider it our duty not only to call public

attention to it, but to demand from our rulers in Washington by what

right and authority they print and circulate under official form a

tissue of fabrications, misrepresentations, and even forgeries,

against the religion, and the ministers of that religion, which is

professed by five or six millions of free American citizens.

This document, known as _Executive Document No. 37_, XLI_st

Congress_, III_d Session_, was furnished by Mr. Delano,

Secretary of the Interior, in compliance with a resolution of the

Senate, passed February 2, 1871, and is composed exclusively of

information supplied by Rev. H. H. Spaulding to A. B. Meacham,

Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who in his letter of transmittal

says:

“I am respectfully requested by the Rev. H. H. Spaulding, the

oldest living Protestant missionary in Oregon, to place on file

in your department the accompanying documents, giving a history

of the early missionary work and labors of Dr. Marcus Whitman,

himself, and others; the progress and civilization of the Indians

under their charge, without aid from the government; also, a

history of the massacre of Dr. Whitman and others; also,

resolutions of Christian associations in answer to _Executive

Document No. 38, House of Representatives_, and a variety of

historical information, which it would seem proper to have on

file, or placed in some more permanent form for future history.”

It may be remarked that the letter from which the above is an extract

is dated on the 28th of January, just five days before the passage of

the Senate resolution, and evidently in anticipation of such action on

the part of that body. “No one,” says a distinguished senator, “except

the few in the secret, knew anything of the matter until the document

was printed. All the previous proceedings were as of course.” The

documents that were thus to be “placed in a more permanent form for

future history,” apart from their uniformly infamous character, are

perhaps the strangest in origin and composition that have ever been

presented for the information of any deliberative body, much less one

of the gravity and importance of the Senate of the republic. They

consist mainly of extracts from the religious press, so-called;

inflammatory letters from jealous and disappointed preachers,

including the Rev. H. H. Spaulding himself; depositions written out by

that indefatigable hater with his own hand, and changed in many

essential points after having been sworn to and removed from the

control of the deponents; false quotations from _The Account of the

Murder of Dr. Whitman_, by the Very Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, V.G., and

others’ statements of the massacre; an address from the professors of

that advanced educational institution called Oberlin College, Ohio;

answers to leading queries addressed to Oregon officials, based on a

false and supposititious statement of facts; and, lastly, a report

adopted and endorsed by eight associations, including the Old School,

New School, Cumberland, and United Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, 667

Congregationalists, and the “Christian Church of Oregon,” and claiming

to represent thirty thousand brother members, all of whom, though

differing radically in other respects, are suspiciously unanimous in

denouncing the “Jesuits,” and equally positive in affirming a previous

condition of affairs, their knowledge of which must of necessity have

depended solely on the statements of the veracious Rev. H. H.

Spaulding. In style, the documents are unique, and have a very strong

family resemblance. It is a judicious mixture of sanctimonious cant

seldom heard outside of a camp-meeting, with a dash here and there of

Shakespeare and the modern poets, to give it variety, we suppose.

Now, whence this solemn assembly of presbyteries and conferences, this

pile of affidavits and newspaper extracts, and the desire of the

Senate to be enlightened as “to the early labors of the missionaries

of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Oregon,

commencing in 1836”? Simply this. On the week commencing on the 29th

of November, 1847, more than twenty-four years ago, a certain

missionary to the Cayuse Indians, named Dr. Whitman, who had resided

among them for several years, was, with his wife and twelve other

Americans, brutally murdered by the savages; and it is now attempted

by Spaulding, who was his friend, and missionary to the Nez Perces, a

neighboring tribe, to fix the guilt of this foul outrage on the

missionary priests who in that year accompanied the Rt. Rev. A. M. A.

Blanchet, Bishop of Nesqualy, to Oregon, and who, it is alleged,

instigated the Indians to commit the deed in order to get rid of the

Protestant missions. At the time of the slaughter, there was with

others under Dr. Whitman’s roof a young woman named Bewley, whom one

of the chiefs desired to have for his wife; and it is also asserted

that not only did the priests encourage her to yield to the Indian’s

wishes, but forced her from the shelter of their home and refused her

any protection whatever. Other charges growing out of this sad

calamity, such as baptizing children with the innocent blood of their

victims on their hands, inhumanity to the prisoners left unharmed,

attempting the precious life of Spaulding, supplying the Cayuses with

guns and ammunition, etc., are likewise alleged, but the first two are

the principal counts in this clerical indictment.

The slaughter of so many persons naturally created a great sensation

in Oregon at the time, but for months after no one thought of

attributing it to the interference of the Catholic missioners.

However, Spaulding, whose mind had become disturbed by the

contemplation of the dangers he had escaped, and having to abandon his

mission among the Nez Perces, and finding himself unemployed,

gradually began to give a new version of the affair, and in

conversation, preaching, and writing at first hinted, and next broadly

asserted, that the “Jesuits” were at the bottom of the whole matter.

Considering that the shock to his nervous system was so great that he

never entirely recovered from it, and that the repetition of the

falsehoods was so persistent, it is charitable to suppose that he

eventually came to believe them as truths; for no man in his right

senses would persist in forcing on the world such a compilation of

improbable statements and downright falsehoods as are contained in

_Pub. Doc. No. 37_.

As there are always many persons, made credulous by ignorance or

prejudice, willing to credit any anti-Catholic slander, the Rev. 668

Father Brouillet, the only priest near the scene of the crime, wrote

and published, in 1853, a full and authentic account of the whole

transaction, which was so clear and circumstantial that even the

greatest opponents of the Catholic priesthood were silenced. In 1857,

a special agent of the Treasury Department, J. Ross Browne, made a

tour in the far West, and in reporting on the condition of the

aborigines, and the potent causes of war between them and the white

settlers, embodied in his statement Father Brouillet’s pamphlet, which

together formed _Pub. Doc. No. 38_, against which all the powers of

the presbyteries and conferences of Oregon, under the fitting

leadership of a crazy preacher, are now directed, after a silence of

more than ten years. Is it any wonder that it is so often remarked

that the only bond of union, the sole vitalizing principles, of the

sects are their hatred to Catholicity?

A glance at the history of the early Indian mission in Oregon is

necessary to a clear understanding of the subject. It is well known

that for many years that portion of our common country was debatable

ground, and, while our government claimed the sovereignty and

appointed officials to administer its affairs, the Hudson Bay Company

held possession and virtually controlled the inhabitants, nearly all

of whom were Indians or half-breeds. Under the direction of the

company, the natives were honest, peaceable, and well disposed.

Captain Bonneville, who visited the Nez Perces in 1832, says of them:

“Simply to call these people religious would convey but a faint

idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades their

whole conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, and their purity of

purpose, and the observance of the rites of their religion, are

most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly more like a

nation of saints than a horde of savages.”

“This was a very enthusiastic view to take of the Nez Perces’

character,” says a Protestant authority, Mrs. Victor, “which appeared

all the brighter to the captain by contrast with the savage life which

he had witnessed in other places, and even by contrast with the

conduct of the white trappers. But the Nez Perces were intellectually

and morally an exception to all the Indian tribes west of the Missouri

River. Lewis and Clarke found them different from any others; the

fur-traders and the missionaries found them the same. To account for

this superiority is indeed difficult. The only clue to the cause is

the following statement of Bonneville. ‘It would appear,’ he says,

‘that they had imbibed some notions of the Christian faith from

Catholic missionaries and traders who have been among them. They even

had a rude calendar of the fasts and festivals of the Romish Church,

and some traces of its ceremonial. These have become blended with

their own wild rites, and present a strange medley, civilized and

barbarous.’”[131] It was in this happy and quiet condition that the

first Protestant missionaries from the United States found the

Indians. They were Methodist, and arrived in 1834, remaining for ten

years. “No missionary undertaking,” says Rev. Stephen Olin, himself

one of the laborers, “has been prosecuted by the Methodist Episcopal

Church with higher hopes and more ardent zeal.... This particular

mission, involved an expenditure of forty-two thousand dollars in a

single year. At the end of six years, there were sixty-eight persons 669

connected with this mission, men, women, and children, all supported

by this society.”[132] And the same writer adds: “How such a number of

missionaries found employment in such a field it is not easy to

conjecture, especially as the great body of the Indians never came

under the influence of their labors.” Dr. E. White, Sub-Indian Agent,

writes, in 1843: “The Rev. Mr. Lee and associates are doing but little

for the Indians.... With all that has been expended, without doubting

the correctness of the intention, it is most manifest to every

observer that the Indians of this lower country, as a whole, have been

very little benefited.”[133]

The two Methodist stations established, at Clatsop’s Plains and

Nesqualy were speedily abandoned, and that at the Dalles is described,

in _Traits of American Indian Life_, as being in a most fearful

condition. “The occurrence,” the author says, alluding to a murder by

a converted Indian which he had witnessed, “is but the type of a

thousand atrocities daily occurring among these supposed converts.”

And we have the authority of Mr. Gray for saying that “the giving of a

few presents of any description to them induces them to make

professions corresponding to the wish of the donor.” The success of

the missionaries at Willamette was, if possible, still more

disheartening. Mr. Olin says that of those who held relations with

them none remained in 1842; and Alexander Simpson, who visited the

valley about the same time, found the mission to consist of but four

families, those of a clergyman, surgeon, a schoolmaster, and an

agricultural overseer. It is not strange, then, that two years

afterwards the missions were entirely abandoned, and have never been

attempted to be re-established. “Had they met vice with a spotless

life,” says Gray, “and an earnest determination to maintain their

integrity as representatives of religion and a Christian people, the

fruits of their labor would have been greater.” We are forced,

therefore, to conclude that the author of _The River of the West_

is justified in saying on this and other indisputable authority, “so

far from benefiting the Indians, the Methodist mission became an

actual injury to them”--the Indians.

Thus ended the first chapter in the history of the progress and

civilization of the Indians in Oregon, to which we desire to call the

respectful attention of the United States Senate. We have the

testimony of Captain Bonneville, endorsed by Mrs. Victor, regarding

the honesty and piety of the natives in 1832, before the arrival of

the Methodists. After nine years of missionary labor, we have the

following grave statement from no less an authority than one of their

own clergymen:

“The Indians want pay for being whipped into compliance with Dr.

White’s laws, the same as they did for praying to please the

missionaries during the great Indian revival of 1839” (p. 157).

“As a matter of course, lying has much to do in their system of

trade, and he is the best fellow who can tell the biggest

lie--make men believe and practise the greatest deception” (p.

158).[134]

The Methodists having selected Lower Oregon as the field of their

labors, the Presbyterians chose the upper or eastern portion of the

territory. They arrived in 1836, three in number, afterwards increased

to twelve, and backed up by the Board of Commissioners for Foreign

Missions. Dr. Marius Whitman settled at Wailatpu among the Cayuses 670

and Walla Wallas, and Messrs. H. H. Spaulding and W. H. Gray at

Lapwai, with the Nez Perces. In 1838, the Spokane mission was

established by Messrs. Walker and Ellis. Their prospects of success

were at first most brilliant. The savages received them kindly and

listened to them attentively. “There was no want of ardor in the

Presbyterian missionaries,” says _The River of the West_. “They

applied themselves in earnest to the work they had undertaken. They

were diligent in their efforts to civilize and christianize their

Indians.” But they made a fatal mistake at the very beginning, which

not only reflects on their personal honesty, but shows that they knew

nothing of the character of the people they came to instruct. Mr. John

Toupin, who was for many years interpreter at Fort Walla Walla, gave,

in 1848, the following account of the establishment of those missions:

“I was there when Mr. Parker, in 1835, came to select places for

Presbyterian missions among the Cayuses and Nez Perces, and to

ask lands for these missions. He employed me as interpreter in

his negotiations with the Indians on that occasion. Mr. Pombrun,

the gentleman then in charge of the fort, accompanied him to the

Cayuses and the Nez Perces. Mr. Parker, in company with Mr.

Pombrun, an American, and myself, went first to the Cayuses upon

the lands called Wailatpu, that belonged to the three

chiefs--Splitted Lip, or Yomtipi; Red Cloak, or Waptachtakamal;

and Tilankaikt. Having met them at that place, he told them that

he was coming to select a place to build a preaching-house, to

teach them how to live, and to teach school to their children;

that he would not come himself to establish the mission, but a

doctor or a medicine-man would come in his place; that the doctor

would be the chief of the mission, and would come in the

following spring. ‘I come to select a place for a mission,’ said

he, ‘but I do not intend to take your lands for nothing. After

the doctor is come, there will come every year a big ship loaded

with goods to be divided among the Indians. These goods will not

be sold, but given to you. The missionaries will bring you

ploughs and hoes to teach you how to cultivate the land, and they

will not sell, but give them to you.’

“From the Cayuses Mr. Parker went to the Nez Perces, about one

hundred and twenty-five miles distant, on the lands of Old

Button, on a small creek which empties into the Clearwater, seven

or eight miles from the actual mission, and there he made the

same promises to the Indians as at Wailatpu. ‘Next spring there

will come a missionary to establish himself here and take a piece

of land; but he will not take it for nothing; you shall be paid

for it every year: this is the American fashion.’ In the

following year, 1836, Dr. Whitman arrived among the Cayuses and

began to build. The Indians did not stop him, as they expected to

be paid as they said.

“In the summer of the year 1837, Splitted Lip asked him where the

goods which he had promised him were; whether he would pay him,

or whether he wanted to steal his lands. He told him that, if he

did not want to pay him, he had better go off immediately, for he

did not want to give his lands for nothing.”[135]

But the doctor and his co-laborers did not pay for the lands, nor

indeed fulfil any of the promises of Mr. Parker, and thus the expected

neophytes received their first lesson in duplicity, which eventually

destroyed all confidence in the honesty and truthfulness of their

teachers, and led directly to the massacre of Whitman and some of his

companions, and to the total destruction of the Presbyterian missions.

This latter event occurred late in 1847. Let us see what had been done

in the eleven previous years by the agents of the Board of

Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1842, they had but three

stations. “At each of these,” says _The River of the West_,

“there was a small body of land under cultivation, a few cattle and 671

hogs, a flouring and saw mill, and a blacksmith’s shop.” In 1843, Mr.

Spaulding writes to Dr. White, the Sub-Indian Agent: “But _two_

natives have as yet been admitted into the church. Some ten or twelve

others give pleasing evidence of having been born again.”[136] It

seems, then, that it took twelve missionaries seven years to convert

two savages, at an expense of over forty thousand dollars for one year

at least! Can the English Protestant mission for converting the

Hebrews in Jerusalem show any return more preposterous than this?

But the years intervening between this time and their entire

discontinuance show no converts at all. Business was entirely

suspended, as far as spiritual affairs were concerned. Mr. Thomas

McKay, an intimate friend of Whitman, under date September 11, 1848,

says, “The doctor often told me that for a couple of years he had

ceased to teach the Indians, because they would not listen to him”;

and John Baptist Gervais about the same time assures us that “Mr.

Spaulding told me himself, last fall, that for three or four years

back he had ceased entirely to teach the Indians because they refused

to hear him”--a fact which that unscrupulous apostle corroborated in a

conversation with Dr. Ponjade, in the preceding August. “The Indians,”

he said, “are getting worse every day for two or three years back;

they are threatening to turn us out of the missions. A few days ago,

they tore down my fences, and I do not know what the Missionary Board

of New York means to do. It is a fact that we are doing no good: when

the emigration passes, the Indians run off to trade, and return worse

than when we came among them.”[137] Even as early as 1839, a missionary

of the Spokanes, writing to Dr. Whitman, said that the failure of that

mission was so strongly impressed on his mind, he felt it necessary

“to have cane in hand, and as much as one shoe on, ready for a move.”

“I see,” he adds, “nothing but the power of God that can save us.”

When we consider this condition of affairs in connection with the

brutal massacre at Wailatpu by Dr. Whitman’s immediate neighbors and

even some members of his household and congregation, at a time of

profound peace, we can form some adequate idea of the benefits of the

“progress and civilization of the Indians under their [Presbyterian]

charge.” Will the United States Senate, in its laudable search after

information, consult some of the authorities, who are with one

exception Protestant, which we have quoted?

The Catholic missions may be said to have commenced in 1838. In that

year, two Catholic priests passed Walla Walla on their way from Canada

to Fort Vancouver. In 1839 and 1840, one of them, Father Demers,

occasionally visited Walla Walla, for a short time, to give

instruction to the Indians, many of whom were in the habit of visiting

him, particularly the Cayuses and Nez Perces at the fort. This

presence excited the wrath of Dr. Whitman, and he presumed so far as

to reprimand in severe language the gentleman in charge of the post.

“From the time the Jesuits arrived,” says Gray, “his own [H. H.

Spaulding’s] pet Indians had turned Catholics, and commenced a quarrel

with him. These facts seemed to annoy him, and led him to adopt a

course opposed by Smith, Gray, and Rodgers.” The visits of the

Catholic missionaries were, however, few and far between, till the 5th

of September, 1847, when the Rt. Rev. Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet arrived 672

at Fort Walla Walla, accompanied by the Superior of the Oblates and

two other clergymen, to establish permanent missions in Eastern

Oregon. It was the design of the bishop to locate a mission on the

lands of Towatowe (Young Chief), a Catholic Indian, who had offered

him his own house for that purpose. The Young Chief, however, being

absent hunting, Dr. Blanchet was delayed at the fort, longer than he

anticipated, and while there was visited by Protestant missionaries

and Indian chiefs alike. The former treated him with great incivility

and disrespect. Dr. Whitman, we are told by an eye-witness, “made a

furious charge against the Catholics, accusing them of having

persecuted Protestants, and even of having shed their blood wherever

they had prevailed. He said he did not like Catholics; ... that he

should oppose the missionaries to the extent of his power.... He spoke

against the _Catholic Ladder_ (a picture explaining the principal

points of Catholic faith), and said that he would cover it with blood

to show the persecution of Protestants by Catholics. He refused to

sell provisions to the bishop, and protested that he would not assist

the missionaries unless he saw them in starvation.”[138] The temper of

the savages was milder than their would-be evangelizers. On the 26th

of October, Young Chief came to the fort, and asked for a priest to be

sent to teach his young people. He repeated the offer of his house,

but suggested as a substitute the lands of his relative Tilokaikt,

upon which Dr. Whitman was settled. On November 4, the four chiefs of

the Cayuses assembled at Walla Walla, and after a long “talk” agreed

to let the bishop have a site for a mission and as much ground to

cultivate as was necessary to support the priests. The bishop “told

them,” says Father Brouillet, “that he would not make presents to the

Indians; that he would give them nothing for the land he asked; that

in case they worked for him he would pay them for their work and no

more.” The author just quoted was sent among the Cayuses to select a

proper site, but, not finding one suitable, accepted Young Chief’s

offer, a camp fully twenty-five miles from Dr. Whitman’s residence, in

the midst of another tribe altogether. As one of the many traits of

Christian charity which distinguishes the Catholic missionaries in

every part of the world, it may be mentioned that, during the

conference at the fort, one of the chiefs spoke of Dr. Whitman in very

harsh terms, accusing him of dishonesty and mercenary motives. Bishop

Blanchet reproved him instantly, sternly telling him that the doctor

was a good man, and that he, the chief, had a bad heart to say so; and

when Father Brouillet was offered, by Tilokaikt, Whitman’s own mission

for Catholic purposes for nothing, he positively and peremptorily

declined it. And yet _Pub. Doc. No. 37_ would have us believe that the

Catholics coveted Whitman’s Station, and were resolved to have it at

any cost. On November 27, the bishop, with his secretary and Father

Brouillet, proceeded to the new station at Umatilla. On the day

following, Sunday, they were visited by Whitman, and on Monday by

Spaulding, who remained for supper, both these gentleman, it seems,

having modified their views during the previous two months’

intercourse with the missionaries. It was on this latter day, between

two and three o’clock in the afternoon, that Whitman and his

companions were murdered. The account of that horrible event, as 673

related by Father Brouillet, who was on the ground two days after, is

still highly interesting. In a letter to Colonel Gilliam, three months

later, when the facts were fresh in his memory, and every resident of

the neighborhood was in a position to disprove anything he might say

that was false, he writes:

“Before leaving Fort Walla Walla, it had been decided that, after

visiting the sick people of my mission on the Umatilla, I should

go and visit those of Tilokaikt’s camp, for the purpose of

baptizing the infants, and such dying adults as might desire this

favor; and the doctor and Mr. Spaulding having informed me that

there were many sick persons at their missions, I was confirmed

in the resolution, and made preparations to go as soon as

possible.

“After having finished in baptizing the infants and dying adults

of my mission, I left on Tuesday, the 30th of November, late in

the afternoon, for Tilokaikt’s camp, where I arrived between

seven and eight o’clock in the evening. It is impossible to

conceive my surprise and consternation when, upon my arrival, I

learned that the Indians the day before had massacred the doctor

and his wife, with the greater part of the Americans at the

mission. I passed the night without scarcely closing my eyes.

Early next morning I baptized three sick children, two of whom

died soon after, and then hastened to the scene of death to offer

to the widows and orphans all the assistance in my power. I found

five or six women and over thirty children in a condition

deplorable beyond description. Some had lost their husbands, and

others their fathers, whom they had seen massacred before their

eyes, and were expecting every moment to share the same fate. The

sight of those persons caused me to shed tears, which, however, I

was obliged to conceal, for I was, the greater part of the day,

in the presence of the murderers, and closely watched by them,

and, if I had shown too marked an interest in behalf of the

sufferers, it would only have endangered their lives and mine;

these, therefore, entreated me to be on my guard. After the first

few words that could be exchanged under the circumstances, I

inquired after the victims, and was told that they were yet

unburied. Joseph Stainfield, a Frenchman, who was in the service

of Dr. Whitman, and had been spared by the Indians, was engaged

in washing the corpses, but, being alone, he was unable to bury

them. I resolved to go and assist him, so as to render to those

unfortunate victims the last service in my power to offer them.”

The reverend father then goes on to relate how, after comforting the

women and children as well as he could, and having been told by the

chief “to say to them that they need fear nothing, they shall be taken

care of and well treated,” he set out toward his mission, in order to

intercept Spaulding and warn him of his danger. He was accompanied by

his interpreter, and closely followed by a son of the chief, who, it

afterward appeared, was going to his uncle Camastilo to acquaint him

of the slaughter. His meeting with Spaulding is graphic, and, if not

for the hideous surroundings, would be amusing. He says:

“In a few minutes after, while they were thus engaged in smoking,

I saw Mr. Spaulding coming toward me. In a moment he was at my

side, taking me by the hand and asking for news. ‘Have you been

to the doctor’s?’ he inquired. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘What news?’

‘Sad news.’ ‘Is any person dead?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Who is dead--is it

one of the doctor’s children?’ (He had left two of them very

sick.) ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Who, then, is dead?’ I hesitated to

tell. ‘Wait a moment,’ I said, ‘I cannot tell you now.’ While Mr.

Spaulding was asking me those questions, I had spoken to my

interpreter, telling him to entreat the Indian in my name not to

kill Mr. Spaulding, which I begged of him as a special favor, and

hoped that he would not refuse it to me. I was waiting for his

answer, and did not wish to relate the disaster to Mr. Spaulding

before getting it, for fear he might by his manner discover to

the Indian what I had told him, for the least motion like flight 674

would have cost him his life, and probably exposed mine also. The

son of Tilokaikt, after hesitating some moments, replied that he

could not take it upon himself to save Mr. Spaulding, but that he

would go back and consult the other Indians, and so he started

back immediately to his camp. I then availed myself of this

absence to satisfy the anxiety of Mr. Spaulding. I related to him

what had passed. ‘The doctor is dead,’ said I; ‘the Indians have

killed him, together with his wife and eight other Americans, on

Monday last, the 29th, and I have buried them before leaving

to-day.’ ‘The Indians have killed the doctor--they will kill me

also if I go to the camp!’ ‘I fear it very much,’ said I. ‘What,

then, shall I do?’ ‘I know not. I have told you what has

happened. Decide now for yourself what you had best do. I have no

advice to give you in regard to that.’ ‘Why has that Indian

started back?’ he inquired. ‘I begged him to spare your life,’

said I, ‘and he answered me that he could not take it upon

himself to do so, but that he would go and take the advice of the

other Indians about it; that is the reason why he started back.’

Mr. Spaulding seemed frightened and discouraged. ‘Is it possible!

is it possible!’ he exclaimed several times. ‘They will certainly

kill me.’ And he was unable to come to any decision. ‘But what

could have prompted the Indians to this?’ he inquired. ‘I know

not,’ said I; ‘but be quick and decide, you have no time to lose.

If the Indians should resolve not to spare your life, they will

be here very soon, as we are only about three miles from their

camp. ‘But where shall I go?’ ‘I know not; you know the country

better than I. All I know is that the Indians say the order to

kill all Americans has been sent in all directions.’ Mr.

Spaulding then resolved to fly. His asked me if I were willing to

take charge of some loose horses he was driving before him. I

told him I could not, for fear of becoming suspicious to the

Indians. I told him, however, that if the interpreter was willing

to take them under his charge at his own risk, he was perfectly

at liberty to do so. To this the interpreter agreed. I gave Mr.

Spaulding what provisions I had left, and hastened to take leave

of him, wishing him with all my heart a happy escape, and

promising to pray for him.... The interpreter had not left

Mr. Spaulding (after pointing out a byroad) more than twenty

minutes, when he saw three armed Cayuses riding hastily toward

him in pursuit of Mr. Spaulding. Upon coming up to the

interpreter, they seemed much displeased that I had warned Mr.

Spaulding of their intentions, and thereby furnished him an

opportunity to escape.’ The priest ought to have minded his own

business, and not to have interfered with ours,’ they said in an

angry tone, and started immediately in pursuit of him.”[139]

This Spaulding escaped to tell the tale, and to traduce the character

of the priest that saved his life at the risk of his own. At first, he

was inclined to acknowledge the obligation, for in a letter to his

“reverend and dear friend,” as he styles Bishop Blanchet, eight days

after, he writes: “The hand of the merciful God brought me to my

family after six days and nights from the time _my dear friend_

furnished me with provisions and I escaped from the Indians.” This

effort of gratitude was, however, too much for him to sustain, and,

accordingly, we find published in _The Oregon American_ (p. 13) the

following choice specimen of bigotry and base ingratitude, “worse than

the sin of witchcraft.” He says:

“It has been said by some of my friends in this country that they

felt greatly mortified to see me in the dust at the bishop’s feet

begging for my life.... This is not the first time that

Protestants (that is, heretics) have lain prostrate at the feet

of the Pope of Rome. I saw my life, under God, in the hands of

the bishop and the priests. I had a right to ask it again. I

seemed to see the hands of these priests wet with the blood of

our associates.... I stopped not to ask whose hands placed the

bishop’s foot upon my neck, the lives of so many human beings

were worth the struggle.”

Can the force of prejudice and deception go further than this? Here is

a man, who, if not an open enemy of the missionaries, was certainly a 675

violent opponent, whose life was saved by one of them at a most

critical moment at imminent danger to his own, who was shown the

pathway by which he might escape the fury of the savages whose hatred

he had awakened by long years of injustice, and who was even supplied

with food from the poor priest’s scrip, turning round on his

benefactors when he attained a place of safety, and vilifying the

church and religion to whose lesson of charity he owed his miserable

existence. This is the man, too, upon whose authority the “Christian

Associations of Oregon” have undertaken to brand the heroic priests of

that section as instigators of murder; and who has undertaken to

inform the Senate, and provide Mr. Delano with matters for history “in

a more permanent form.”

And here it may be well to dispose of some of the minor charges.

_Pub. Doc. No. 37_, at page 30, says of the scenes of the Whitman

massacre:

“They [the Indian children] leaped and screamed for joy, throwing

handfuls of blood around, drinking down the dying agonies of

their victims as a precious draught. These blood-stained little

savages were to receive the sacred ordinance of baptism a few

hours after, at the hands of the priest of God--the mangled

bodies yet lying unburied around, the food of dogs and wolves by

night, and of hogs and vultures by day, seeming to pay down to

the Indians for what they had done.”

We are not aware that in the whole course of Protestant history there

is to be found a more deliberate, cool, and atrocious tissue of

falsehoods than the above. Two days, not a few hours, after the

murder, _three_ sick children were baptized, of whom two were so ill

that they died the same day. Are those some of the children who leaped

and screamed for joy? The baptism took place two miles from Whitman’s

Station, so that the bodies of the slain could not well have been

lying around. The dogs and wolves, hogs and vultures, are purely the

creation of the Rev. H. H. Spaulding’s imagination, and would, in

vulgar parlance, be styled “piling on the agony.” Before the arrival

of Father Brouillet, Joseph Stainfield had already washed the corpses,

and, with the assistance of the good priest, they were buried. The

insinuation in the last line is worthy of Spaulding, and shows to what

extremes a man will go whose sense of truth and even decency has

become completely blunted.

Another charge against the missionaries is that they acted inhumanly

with the captives, and that Father Brouillet, who promised to return

to them, neglected to do so. It is true he did not do so, and the

prisoners may thank Mr. Spaulding for his not returning. Had he not

been as solicitous about saving that individual’s life, and thereby

enable him to go down to the grave at an old age with a load of

falsehood and forgeries on his soul, he would never have incurred the

ill-feeling of the Indians of Wailatpu, or be himself kept a prisoner

in Young Chief’s tent for two or three weeks. But his thoughts and

those of his fellow-missionaries were with the unfortunates, and his

every effort was used, and successfully too, for their liberation.

While Spaulding, from his mission with the Nez Perces, was writing

lying letters to his “reverend and dear friend,” Bishop Blanchet,

soliciting his good offices with the Indians with regard to the

captives, amongst whom was his own daughter, that ecclesiastic was

calling around him the chiefs of the Cayuses, admonishing them to

treat their captives kindly, promising to write to the American

governor for terms of peace, and attending a council at Fort Walla 676

Walla, at which the Indians consented and actually did liberate the

prisoners, the ransom being paid by the agents of the much abused

Hudson Bay Company. Spaulding himself was then virtually a prisoner

among the Nez Perces, with whom he lived eleven years, and “was very

much beloved,” if we may believe his own statement.

We now come to what we may be permitted to call the first grand

falsehood, as set forth in _Pub. Doc. No. 37_, for the information of

the Senate and the benefit of history, namely, that the Whitman

murderers were instigated by the “Jesuits.” This calumny is repeated

in several places and in many forms in this extraordinary public

document, and may be supposed to be crystallized in the two following

paragraphs:

“When the Jesuits and English had, by means of Indian runners,

excited the surrounding tribes to butcher the Protestant

missionaries and American emigrants at Wailatpu, and to

exterminate the American settlements on the Pacific, the Nez

Perces refused to join them, and rushed at once to the defence of

their beloved teacher, Mrs. Spaulding, and rescued her and her

infants from a band of forty of the murderers; then, second, fled

to the scene of the eight days’ carnage, and by their influence

stopped the bloody work of the Jesuits.” (_Resolutions adopted by

the Pleasant Butte Baptist Church of Linn Co., Oregon, Oct. 22,

1869._)

“This Brouilette [Brouillet], it is proved in part by his own

testimony, was present at the massacre, doing nothing to save the

victims, but baptizing the children of the murdering Indians, and

otherwise stimulating them to their work of death.” (_Report of the

Committee of the Presbytery of Steuben, adopted by the Christian

Associations of Oregon, 1869._)

Surely this is history run mad. In fact, so gross are the

misstatements that we are inclined to think that Spaulding either

forged the signatures or interpolated the resolutions of the

associations--a proceeding which, it will appear further on, he was

perfectly capable of doing. Now, it is well known, and stated even by

Spaulding (_Pub. Doc. No. 37_), that the so-called “Jesuits,” namely,

Bishop Blanchet and his priests, had only been in that part of the

country a short time--Father Brouillet says two months, but Spaulding

reduces it to six weeks; that no Catholic mission had been established

within hundreds of miles of Whitman’s Station till two days previous

to the mission, when one was commenced at Umatilla, twenty-five miles

distant, among a tribe of the Cayuses, who had no act or part in the

crime; that there never was a Catholic missionary, Jesuit or

otherwise, in the camps of Tilokaikt, where Whitman resided till two

days after the massacre, but once, and that for a short time when

Father Brouillet was invited by the chief to go and procure a site for

a mission, in which he failed; and, finally, that the Indians who did

the bloody deed were near neighbors of the doctor, the worst being a

member of his household; and that _every one of them were Protestants_,

as Spaulding himself partly admits[140] (_Ex. Doc. No. 37_). Even the

Rev. Gustavus Hines, who is named as one of the assistants in the 677

compilation of this document, says in his _History of Oregon_, in

describing a council of chiefs in 1843: “Tilokaikt, a Cayuse chief,

rose and said, ‘What do you read the laws for before we take them? We

do not take the laws because Tanitan says so. He is a Catholic, and as

a people we do not follow his worship!” The story of Father Brouillet

having been on the scene of massacre stimulating the Indians in their

work of death is a poor fabrication, for the doctor visited the bishop

and his two priests at Umatilla, twenty-five miles distant, late on

Sunday, the 28th, and on the 29th, the day of the slaughter, Spaulding

himself supped with them at the same place. The ridiculous reference

to the Nez Perces, under the supposition that they were Protestants,

is simply absurd. The fact is that Spaulding says, in his letter to

his “reverend and dear friend” the bishop, the Nez Perces only

promised to protect him and the American settlers if troops were not

sent against the Cayuses, and that they demanded and received from Mr.

Ogden, of Walla Walla, clothing, ammunition, and tobacco before they

would release their “beloved teacher,” her husband and infants. The

only Nez Perces who fled to the scene to stop “the bloody work of the

Jesuits” were two messengers of that tribe who bore his treacherous

letter to the bishop, begging him to assure the Cayuses that he would

use every effort to prevent the troops from being sent against them,

and which he afterwards declared was meant to deceive both the bishop

and the Indians.[141] No sooner, however, was he out of danger than he

used his best efforts to bring on a war. “I recollect distinctly,”

says Major Magone, “that he was not in favor of killing _all_ the

Cayuses, for he gave me the names of four or five that he knew to be

friendly, and another whom I marked as questionable: the balance, if I

am not very much mistaken, _he would have to share one fate_.” Truly,

this was strange advice from a minister of the Gospel of peace, and

from one who wished the bishop to assure the Indians “that we do not

wish Americans to come from below to avenge our wrongs,” etc.

But apart from the credibility of the witness Spaulding, and the

impossibility of the Catholic missionaries stirring up the Protestant

Indians to the work of death, even if they so desired, not to speak of

their early, continuous, and indignant denials of every statement and

assertion put forth by the Oregon fanatics, we have the evidence of

several persons, all Protestants we are inclined to believe, who were

either in the neighborhood at the time, or arrived soon after. R. T.

Lockwood, an old resident of Oregon and a prominent contributor to the

press, relates the following conversation which he had in 1851 with

one of the Indians who was a spectator of the murder:

“Q. Do the Indians generally want the Catholic priests among

them, and, if so, why do they prefer them to such men as Dr.

Whitman?

“A. No, not generally; yet a considerable number do, and prefer

them because they do not try to get our land away from us.

“Q. Did the priests that came among you, a little before the

massacre, encourage the killing of Dr. Whitman and the others?

“A. No. The killing of Dr. Whitman was resolved on before the

priests came.

“Q. Are you a Catholic Indian?

“A. No, sir.”

Some time after, Mr. Lockwood met a Mrs. Foster, one of the survivors.

“I asked her,” he says, “if she thought the priest had anything to do 678

with the massacre, and she said she did not think he did, as he

appeared very much pained, and was very kind and tender towards the

survivors. I asked her, also, if she thought that the priest did all

he safely could, and she answered, ‘I do.’” This impartial and

well-informed gentleman winds up his letter thus: “Suffice it to say

that, in all I ever heard said in regard to this lamentable massacre

(and it has been much) _prior to the last two years_, there was not

the slightest intimation of you or any other Catholic priest being

implicated, or in any way responsible therefor.”[142]

“Why is the Catholic exempt from danger? Why can the Hudson Bay

Company employee remain amid these scenes of blood and Indian

vengeance against the white race, at peace, undisturbed, and, what is

more loathsome, neutral in such a conflict?” asks the Hon. Elwood

Evans of Spaulding, in 1868. The answer is simple. Because the

Catholic priests treat the Indians with uniform kindness and justice;

because they neither deceive them with false promises nor appropriate

their lands and labor without payment, and because, being ministers of

peace, they are opposed to strife; all of which Whitman, Spaulding,

and his missionary companions did not and were not. And this brings us

to the real cause of the massacre. For the sake of the Senate which

desires information, and for Mr. Delano’s future history, we will give

a few extracts from authorities which, if at all prejudiced, would be

on the side of the Protestant view:

“‘I came to select a place for a mission,’ said he, ‘but I do not

intend to take your lands for nothing. After the doctor is come,

there will come every year a big ship, loaded with goods to be

divided among the Indians. These goods will not be sold, but

given to you. The missionaries will bring you ploughs and hoes,

to teach you to cultivate the land, and they will not sell but

give them to you.’... And there [among the Nez Perces] he made

the same promises to the Indians as at Wailatpu.” (_Mr. John

Toupin’s Statement, in 1848, of the Foundation of the Presbyterian

Missions by Mr. Parker, in 1835._)

“Two years ago. 1846, a Cayuse came to my house in the Willamette

settlement, and stopped with me over two weeks. During that time

he often spoke of Dr. Whitman, complaining that he possessed the

lands of the Indians, on which he was raising a great deal of

wheat, which he was selling to the Americans, without giving them

anything; that he had a mill upon their lands, and that they had

to pay him for grinding their wheat, a big horse for twenty

sacks. He said they told him to leave, but that he would not

listen to them.” (_Ib._)

“A man of easy, don’t-care habits, that could become all things

to all men, and yet a sincere and earnest man, speaking his mind

before he thought the second time, giving his views on all

subjects without much consideration, correcting them when good

reasons were presented, yet, when fixed in the pursuit of an

object, adhering to it with unflinching tenacity. A stranger

would consider him _fickle_ and _stubborn_.” (_Character of Dr.

Whitman by a brother missionary, Rev. W. H. Gray._)

“The Americans had done them much harm. Years before, had not one

of their missionaries suffered several of their people, and the

son of their chiefs, to be slain in his company, yet himself

escaped? Had not the son of another chief (Elijah), who had gone

to California to buy cattle, been killed by Americans for no

fault of his own?... So far as regarded the missionaries, Dr.

Whitman and his associates, they were divided, yet so many looked

on the doctor as an agent in promoting the settlement of the

country with whites, it was thought best to drive him from the

country, together with all the missionaries, _several years_

before. Dr. Whitman had known that the Indians were displeased

with his settlement among them. They had told him of it; they had 679

treated him with violence, they had attempted to outrage his

wife, had burned his property, and had several times warned him

to leave their country, or they should kill him.” (_River of the

West_, p. 400.)

“The fulfilment of the laws which the agent recommended for their

adoption, ... occasioned suspicions in the minds of the Indians

generally that the whites designed the ultimate subjugation of

their tribes. They saw in the laws they had adopted a deep-laid

scheme of the whites to destroy them and take possession of their

country. The arrival of a large party of emigrants about this

time, and the sudden departure of Dr. Whitman to the United

States, with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as

many as he could enlist for Oregon, served to hasten them to the

above conclusions.... The great complaint of the Indians was that

the Boston people [Americans] designed to take away their lands,

and reduce them to slavery.” (_Rev. Gustavus Hines, D.D., assistant

of Spaulding, in Pub. Doc. No. 37, on the Nez Perces in 1843,

History of Oregon_, p. 143.)

“They [the Indians] were demanding unreasonable pay for their

lands upon which the stations were erected, and paying but little

or no attention to their American teachers.” (_Gray’s History of

Oregon_, p. 365.)

“The fact is also shown that, as far back as 1835, the Indians

west of the Rocky Mountains protested against the taking away of

their lands by the white races, and this was one of the alleged

causes of the murder of Dr. Whitman.” (_J. Ross Browne, Special

Agent of the Treasury, Report to the Com. of Indian Affairs_,

Dec. 4, 1857.)

Thus we find that, whatever credit may be claimed for Dr. Whitman as a

colonist, his course toward the people whom he was sent to evangelize

was anything but just or Christian; for he not only did not pay for

his own land, but helped others to steal also, and he admits himself

that for some years he had utterly neglected the spiritual and mental

duties of his mission. But there were other and not less potent causes

at work. Of his “esteemed friend Dr. Whitman,” Sir James Douglass,

chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, writes on December 9, ten days

after the massacre:

“He hoped that time and instruction would produce a change of

mind--a better state of feeling toward the mission, and he might

have lived to have seen his hopes realized, had not the measles

and dysentery, following in the train of immigrants from the

United States, made frightful ravages this year in the upper

country. Many Indians have been carried off through the violence

of the disease, and others through their own imprudence. The

Cayuse Indians of Wailatpu, being sufferers in this general

calamity, were incensed against Dr. Whitman for not exerting his

supposed supernatural power in saving their lives. They carried

this absurdity beyond the point of folly. Their superstitious

minds became possessed of the horrible suspicion that he was

giving poison to the sick instead of wholesome medicine, with the

view of working the destruction of the tribe, his former cruelty

probably adding strength to their suspicions. Still, some of the

reflecting had confidence in Dr. Whitman’s integrity, and it was

agreed to test the effects of the medicine he had furnished on

three of their people, one of whom was said to be in perfect

health. They unfortunately died, and from that moment it was

resolved to destroy the mission. It was immediately after burying

the remains of these three persons that they repaired to the

mission and murdered every man found there.”

Several other contemporary writers confirm this calm statement of

events, which in themselves were enough to drive ignorant and

desperate savages (for it must be borne in mind that Dr. Whitman had

given up instructing them for some years to attend to his wheat and

horses) to commit any act of murder or rapine. To show that the

“horrible suspicion” of having been poisoned was not a mere groundless

suspicion on the part of the Indians, we present the following

testimony: