polite as to keep one's luggage till eight o'clock--a kindness which
is carried still further by the police, as the visa of passports does
not commence till eleven. So I proposed to walk to the beautiful
Norman church of Graville, the pendant of our own St. Cross, half way
up that delightful côte which looks down on the embouchure of the
Seine, and the high coast of Honfleur and Caen. The view from the
terrace of the old Priory is most charming; and behind the church a
most picturesque cemetery stretches up the steep hill. There is a
perfect cross a little to the west of the church, which is very
pleasing. We found the church empty, and said our English office
before one of the altars. I do not like the effect of two windows in
the apse, which symbolise, I suppose, the Two Natures, but otherwise
this church is a beautiful specimen of a Norman parish church.
However, its nave has been recently defiled by most protestant-looking
pews; and under the tower, just before the chancel, there actually is
to be seen a squireen's pew, with a table and cloth in it. The chapel
and image of the Blessed Virgin were the most pleasing. At three we
went on to Ivetot, and found a most kind welcome from our
friends. They lodged us in a house they have lately purchased, in
their garden, where, for the first time in my life, I had the honour
of a silver bason and ewer. We supped in the refectory, at a table in
the middle, with M. le Supérieur. Silence is kept at the meals, and
one of the pupils reads from a pulpit on one side. The pupils act as
servants in turn during the meal.
_Monday, July 10._--We heard two sermons, morning and afternoon, from
M. P. L. Labbé to the confirmands, fifty-nine in number. Our friend's
manner was mild and paternal, yet full of zeal and unction. His
morning subject was, "You have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we
cry Abba Father." He distinguished between servile fear and filial
fear--between Jewish bondage and Christian adoption; beseeching his
hearers ever to cherish in their hearts the sense of God's paternal
love, and that "we can never know how much God loves us in this
world;" and then he urged them, if ever they fell into sin, to fly to
God at once for pardon, never distrusting Him, however great their own
unworthiness; reminding them that the tribunal of penitence was ever
open to them. In the afternoon his subject was, "Ye shall receive
power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be
witnesses unto me." That at confirmation there was a _larger_
infusion of the Holy Spirit than at baptism--what it was to be
witnesses to God--witnesses by our whole life and conversation. These
two addresses much pleased me, both as to manner and matter.
We had the privilege of saying our English office in their chapel,
where the single lamp marks the presence of the Holy Sacrament. How
great a blessing is this, that the Lord of the Temple dwells bodily in
it--how great a realising of the Incarnation. The chapel is a very
pleasing imitation of the middle Gothic style, built from the designs
of M. Robert, who, being a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, gave up
all prospects in the world for the hard and painful life of a priest
in a petit séminaire: and not only he, but all who are there, seem to
have their daily life supported by a spring of charity in themselves;
and the great self-denial which accompanies it seems borne as if it
were no weight at all, for they look for the recompense of the reward.
During the five days we passed at Ivetot we remarked again and again
to each other the atmosphere of fraternal charity which all seemed to
breathe. There was no looking for success in the world--no thought of
gaining wealth; but the one thing in view was to train the children
committed to them as members of Christ and heirs of His kingdom. This
one thought pervaded all their actions. In the evening the
Archbishop of Rouen came, attended by his vicaire général, M. Surgis.
The masters and ourselves supped in private with him; and I was
confounded at being put on his right, as P. was on his left. His own
affability, however, and the unaffected kindness and ease of his
demeanour with his clergy, soon made one feel comfortable.
_Tuesday, July 11._--The confirmation was at nine. The pupils formed
in procession along the corridor into the chapel, some sixty or eighty
of the rear in albes, followed by the masters and some other clergy,
the cross and crosier immediately preceding the Archbishop; we
followed behind, and then mounted to the latticed tribune at the end
of the chapel, whence the whole disposition of the congregation, the
multitude of albes, the altar dressed for the Holy Sacrifice, and the
splendid habit of the Archbishop, formed a most pleasing scene. He
said Mass, and communicated, I should think, a hundred pupils; as they
knelt two and two all up the chapel and received successively from his
hands, nothing could be more solemn. There was a moment in this
service particularly touching--the Archbishop took his crosier in his
hand and standing before the altar said, "Benedicat vos omnipotens
Deus, Pater, et Filius +, et Spiritus Sanctus." It seemed like the
great High Priest Himself blessing His people. After Mass he stood
before the middle of the altar, and, requesting them to be
seated, addressed them for about twenty minutes. His manner was a
mixture of grace and simplicity most pleasing to behold; indeed, his
whole demeanour represented exactly the priest, the father, and the
bishop, and left behind it a perfume as it were of the heavenly
hierarchy, among whose earthly counterpart he ranked. He enlarged upon
the triple blessing bestowed upon us by the Holy Trinity, in creation,
in redemption, and in sanctification. Presently he spoke of the Holy
Eucharist as an extension of the Incarnation, (rapétissant) gathering
it up into little; and of Christ therein really, substantially, and
personally present in us. His vicaire général said, that in daily
confirmations during two months he never repeated himself, but varied
each address. He had no note, and spoke without effort. Then followed
an examination of the confirmans by himself during about thirty-five
minutes. He took boys here and there and asked them questions on the
elements of the faith, the sacraments, &c., in so low a voice that I
could only catch the general import. Then came the confirmation
itself, which, like our own, is very short. He stood at the middle of
the altar, and stretching out his hands towards the people, called
down on the confirmans kneeling before him the sevenfold gifts of the
Holy Ghost:
"The spirit of wisdom and understanding.--Amen.
"The spirit of counsel and ghostly strength.--Amen.
"The spirit of knowledge and true godliness.--Amen.
"Fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy fear, and sign them with
the sign of the cross of Christ unto eternal life."
The repetition of the Amen at intervals by the confirmans gives a
feature to this prayer which our own does not possess. Then the
confirmans, two by two, came kneeling to his chair before the altar,
and he signed them on the forehead with the holy chrism, naming each
by his Christian name as he said, "I sign thee with the sign of the +
cross and confirm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of
the Father+, and of the Son+, and of the Holy Ghost+. Amen." The
service occupied three hours; but in country parishes it is not
usually preceded by the Mass.
We had then a grand dinner at a table placed in the middle of the
refectory, several clergy, friends of the house, being present. There
was plenty of talking, the rule of silence being suspended by the
presence of the archbishop.
In the evening there was a solemn Benediction, at which the archbishop
did not officiate, but was in a chair near the altar.
After dinner, two of the pupils, one from the older and one from the
younger division of the school, recited verses before the archbishop,
and the whole school seemed delighted at the words of kindness
he addressed to them. I heard our friend, in one of his addresses,
remind them that the archbishop was the head and master of the house,
and so they all appeared to feel him to be.
In the evening we were all collected, in a somewhat suspicious manner,
for some exhibition in a long hall, at the end of which a carpet was
spread, and a chair placed for the archbishop. I asked M. Robert what
was coming; but he replied, "Pour nous autres Français, vous savez,
nous sommes des fous: il faut que nous rions de tout!" I will not say
that the entertainment verified his former proposition, but certainly
it did the latter. M. Picard, curé of the cathedral of Rouen, took out
a paper, and began reading a copy of verses by himself, commemorating
a recent fall from his horse of one of the tutors. At each verse the
boys took up couplet and refrain, and sung it with hearty good will.
This continued for some twenty or thirty stanzas. The boys needed but
the hint. I thought to myself, I doubt whether it would improve the
discipline of Eton to collect the boys in the long school room
together to commemorate an equestrian lapse of my friend C. or A.,
supposing them to have met with one. The refrain,
"Quel est ce cavalier là
Qu'il mene bien son dada,
Tra-la-la tra-la-la,"
sounded by 250 voices, still rings in my ears. This was succeeded by
another song, recited in the same manner, on M. Robert's propensities
to study the moon.
We supped, as before, upstairs, and had some pleasant conversation
with the archbishop.
_Wednesday, July 12._--The archbishop sent for us this morning,
inquired into our views in visiting France, and gave us each an
Imitation of Christ and a small cross which he had blessed. He
expressed in the most cordial manner his pleasure at seeing us, and
pressed us to visit him at Rouen. After an early dinner, M. P. L.
Labbé insisted on taking us to see the old abbey church of Fécamp; we
went partly by railway, and, as the diligence was waiting for the
train from Havre, walked some three miles, and then took a char-à-banc
from Goderville. We went to the curé's house at Fécamp: but he was
building, and so we all lodged with M. l'Abbé Lefevre, formerly curate
there, but now living with his sister without any direct charge. M.
Labbé kept us, both at supper and dinner the next day, in continual
merriment by his stories.
_Thursday, July 13._--M. Beaucamp, the curé, took us all over the
magnificent abbey church, dating from the 10th to the 12th century,
and near 400 feet long. He pointed out the variations in style and
construction. It sadly wants the whitewash removed. This was
last evening. This morning he took us _en pélérinage_ to Notre Dame
de Salut, a chapel built by our Henry I., and one of four on this
coast. The view was glorious over land and sea, the crag being 400
feet high. The poor fisher-women at times mount the _côte_ on their
knees, to make vows for their husbands' safe return. The pays-de-caux
is a fine rolling country, with groves of beech at intervals, a broad
expanse looking most rich and prosperous. Fécamp is stuck in a deep
valley between lofty downs. We enjoyed particularly M. Lefevre's
hospitable reception, and went back for supper at Ivetot. The weather
is delightful--a brilliant sun, with plenty of air.
_Friday, July 14._--M. P. L. Labbé, in his extreme kindness, would
take us to Rouen to lodge in the house of M. Picard, curé of Notre
Dame. It is in places a very pretty road to Rouen by the railway. We
were able to say our English office quite uninterrupted in the Lady
Chapel of the cathedral about eleven. M. Labbé staid with us all that
day, taking us to different places. Amongst others, he carried us to
the Carmelite nunnery, where we heard, but did not see, a sister who
had been there fourteen years: she was formerly confessed by him, but
in all that time he had never seen her. The rule is that none but
father, mother, sister, or brother, can have the curtain of the grille
drawn back, behind which the sister speaks to her visitors. She
was telling us how her little nephews saw her when they were very
young and came with their mother, but when a little older were no
longer allowed this privilege: so the mother sat on one side, with the
curtain drawn back before her so that she could see her sister; but
the children on the other, with the curtain drawn, could only hear
her. This pained them so much that they did not like to visit her. The
sister's conversation was anything but sad: she spoke with most lively
interest of a Carmelite nun lately departed at Tours, who had foretold
all the disasters under which France was now suffering, ascribing them
to the general godlessness, specially on two points--the blaspheming
of God's name and the profanation of the Lord's Day. She gave us
prayers composed with reference to this. When M. Labbé told her that
we were not united to the Roman Church, she made a considerable pause,
and seemed to draw her breath as if something unexpected had come upon
her; then she said that she should pray earnestly for us, and that
every Thursday with them Mass was said with special intention for
England. She went for the prioress, who likewise spoke for some time;
she had a most clear and pleasant voice, which it was delightful to
hear.
In the afternoon M. le Curé and M. Labbé took us to call on the
archbishop. He was very cordial--asked us to dine that day; and when
we said we had already dined, repeated his invitation for Saturday,
including M. Picard and his vicaire, M. de la Haye. Labbé was obliged
to return. Before we left he insisted upon taking us over his palace.
There is a splendid suite of rooms, terminating with a noble library:
he has been collecting the portraits of his predecessors: he is
himself the eighty-ninth archbishop. His palace is kept in repair at
the public expense of the department, and three rooms are even
furnished for him, an annual visitation of the furniture, as he
himself told us, taking place. This archevéché is the ancient
building, and of very great size--built as strong as a fortress: he
showed us a window from which he had lately watched a barricade in the
street below and saw a man killed. He took us last to the chapel--a
plain Grecian building: hither the remains of the Empress Maud, lately
discovered at the abbey of Bec, have been placed provisionally. It was
only at her own earnest prayer, that the emperor, her husband, allowed
her to be buried in a monastery, saying that she was too great a lady
to be buried save at Rouen. The archbishop said that he seldom
celebrated publicly in the cathedral, only about four times a year,
"mais par la miséricorde de Dieu je dis la messe tous les jours dans
ma chapelle."
M. le Curé's usual hours are to dine at twelve, before which he takes
nothing, and to sup about eight. He asked two or three clergy
continually to meet us, at one of these meals, during the three days
we were with him. His reason for taking nothing before noon, is that,
after saying Mass, he is continually so occupied by his parishioners,
that many times he would be unable to breakfast, so he thought it
better to make the rule absolute. The confessional is a very heavy
burden--a couple of hours daily, on an average; and, before great
fêtes, sometimes seven hours at a time. Labbé told us he had once
confessed for twenty-three successive hours. This is a duty to which
they may be called at any hour of the day or night. M. Picard and his
curate, M. de la Haye, could hardly find time to dine with the
archbishop on Saturday, at seven in the evening, and stole away as
soon as they could.
_Saturday, July 15._--Our good M. Labbé returned to Ivetot this
morning; he had surrendered to me his room. In the afternoon M. Picard
took us about to the Hôtel de Ville--the ancient Benedictine abbey of
S. Ouen: in the public library here we were shown the most magnificent
gradual, full of very beautiful drawings. It had been used one hundred
years before the Revolution, and, I should think, was unique, as we
were told. The garden and corridors were occupied by National Guard;
but M. le Curé's presence obtained us permission to survey the
wonderful church, the masterwork of middle and late pointed Gothic, on
that side, together with its portail des marmouzets, of matchless
beauty. At S. Vincent's we saw eleven windows of very brilliant
painted glass, which surround the choir, and are visible at once. We
then walked up Mount St. Catherine, from whence the view of Rouen and
the surrounding hills is charming. I have always thought the site of
this city one of the finest I have ever seen, and it looked so to-day,
under a July sun. We went on to Notre Dame de bon Secours, which is
now nearly finished: the inside and western façade pleased us much.
The latter has three portals, after the manner of the great mediæval
churches dedicated in honour of Notre Dame, and is well combined and
harmonised. The inside is of the architecture of our Edward II.; very
good upon the whole: all the windows of painted glass, not unmixedly
good, but the whole effect very striking. It has cost 40,000_l._,
begged or given by the curé: a noble work indeed. The ex-votos are now
inserted into the northern aisle. We should have liked to stay much
longer here, but were hurried to return to the archbishop's dinner. We
did not dine till half-past seven; nine in number, at a round table in
a large hall. He apologised that it was a maigre. But, with the
several kinds of fish, no one could have desired a better
dinner. The archbishop, myself on his right, P. on his left, MM. Les
Abbés Picard, De la Haye, Surgis, two others, and M. Barthélemi, the
architect of bon Secours. We were struck by his conversation--he
seemed a Christian architect, which is a rare and valuable thing.
During the evening the deplorable state of France, the overthrow of
fortunes, the general cessation of trade, and the frightful excesses
of the late conflict, were talked of. The archbishop mentioned a man
taken with arms in his hand, who was on the point of being executed by
the soldiers, when the general officer interfered, and, by his
solicitude, saved his life. The culprit took a pistol from his waist,
said "Mercie, Colonel," and shot him dead. He was immediately cut to
pieces. Every one seems to agree that the Republic cannot last--that
there must be a monarchy; yet that minds are so embittered, and
passions so excited, that France must come to this only through
lassitude of suffering. No one knows what a day may produce. In Rouen
there is great suffering--the shop-keepers sell nothing--the workmen
have no employment. At Havre the warehouses are crammed with goods,
for which there is no sale. Landed property, if forced to be sold,
will not fetch half its value. No one can tell how long this will go
on, or what will be the end of it. France is in complete paralysis.
The source of all this misery is a wide-spread infidelity,
united with the rage for material enjoyments, and a refined taste in
pursuing them.
The scale of the archbishop's household seemed to me decent and
proper, without being that of the Grand Seigneur in any respect. I
liked and respected him much more than if he could have had the twenty
liveried servants of his predecessor the Cardinal Archbishop Prince of
Croï, when high almoner to Charles Dix. He is now the earnest and
laborious head of a toiling and suffering but most charitable and
devoted clergy. The one hope of France lies in her children being
taught from the cradle the via crucis, via Regis.
_Sunday, July 16._--Fête du sacré cœur de Jesu. After our own
office in the morning we have been nearly six hours at the cathedral
to-day, between High Mass in the morning--and Vespers, sermon,
compline, and benediction in the evening. Certainly the key note of
all the Roman services is, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us." The presence of the Incarnation broods like a spirit over all:
gives meaning to every genuflection at the altar; life to every hymn;
harmony to that wonderful array of saints, with the Virgin Mother at
their head, who intercede with the most Holy Trinity, and join their
praises with the angelic hosts, and the voices of feeble men suffering
the conflict of the flesh. Around the Incarnation drawn out, applied
to daily life, brought before the eye and the heart, enfolding
the penitent at the confessional, exalting the priest at the altar,
the whole worship revolves; children unconsciously live on it;
mothers, through it, look on their children, till maternal love
becomes itself deeper, warmer, and holier. Through it and by it the
priest bears his life of toil and self-denial so easily, that charity
seems like the breath by which he lives. What is the secret of this?
It is that daily approach in the morning to the Most Holy One; that
daily reception of Him, which deifies flesh and blood.
Such has been the impression of to-day's worship; it was _devotion_
indeed: that is, the ascending of the heart to its own Lord: not a
perpetual effort to work on the understanding, but the lifting of the
higher power, the spirit in man, by which all are equal, to God. This
begins with the holy Sacrifice in the morning, and ends with the
exhibition of that same tremendous Sacrifice, the Incarnation of Love,
in the evening. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," is the
first and last: He comes amid a cloud of His saints: they are powerful
because they are His: their works are mighty because He works in them,
their supplications prevail because they, being flesh and blood, have
become partakers of the Word made flesh. She, most of all, whose most
pure substance He took to make His own for ever: so that what came of
her is joined in hypostatic union with God, and is God. Thus
seen, the communion of saints is a real thing, embracing our daily
life at a thousand points, the extension and drawing out of the
Incarnation, understood by it, and in it. To those who do not realise
that tremendous Presence at the altar the saints are so many sinful
men and women made gods and goddesses, and those who reverence them
idolators. How much do people lose by such a misconception: how
utterly do they fail to perceive the length and depth and breadth and
height of the Truth: they halve and quarter the Incarnation and boast
that they alone understand it. These multiplied prayers and hymns seem
to them a form, the bowing of the body a mockery, for they discern not
Him who walks amid the golden candlesticks--it is emptiness to them,
for He is not there.
The archbishop was kind enough to have us placed in the choir, just
below the sanctuary.
At dinner at twelve M. le Curé had invited M. Surgis, M. de la Haye,
and his two other curates, one of whom preached in the afternoon on
the necessity of the cross, first to the righteous and then to
sinners: he enlarged upon the many ways in which God brings both to
Him by the application of suffering, humiliation, &c.
In the evening M. le Curé took us to pay our respects to the
archbishop once more. We heard much talk again of the deplorable state
of France. He was very cordial to us, hoped we should not get
near a barricade, and expressed his satisfaction at having met us.