Part 9

"_Amiens. Feast of St. James, 1845._--I do not intend to say much about things in general, but as you have touched on them, I do say a few words. I am, I may say, fully convinced that neither the worship of saints, nor the use of images, nor the withholding of the cup, at all affect the life of the Roman Church. What I have seen has led me to reflect bitterly on Mr. Bowdler's '_Quid Romæ faciam?_' The answer is, all that you try in vain to do in England. For, in sober truth, he has only told us that what exists there in _practice_ exists with us in _theory_. However, I agree with him that it is our duty to put it in practice at home. But, how to get ecclesiastics to live in primitive brotherhood and in primitive poverty? How to bring people to confession? How to induce candidates for holy orders to submit to education? How to get the opportunity of restoring the daily sacrifice? How to warm our churches with devotion, so that people may come in, and be cheered and helped in their prayers, &c.? These are questions to which he has supplied no answer, and the answer is not easy. It requires every allowance for the reserved and retiring character of the English to hope that we are not, even in comparison with the French, a fallen people. Still, were it not for _one_ person who thinks otherwise, I should view our failings calmly, as a mere hindrance to be surmounted, and even take easily the painful separation there is between us and so much that I must admire, considering it as the result of an over-technical system on the one side, and an unformed one on the other--a result that would vanish as the one grew in life and the other in consistency."--_M._

We determined to leave this evening, that we might secure an early passage from Boulogne on Monday morning. So at half-past-five we took the diligence to Abbeville. It is an unusually pleasant drive thither, partly by the river side, well wooded, a good road, and occasionally diversified. We even went by one country house which had a fine flower garden and lawn, and might have passed for English. It was so unusually neat and nicely kept, that I inquired if it was a private house. We had the coupé with a French gentleman, with whom I had considerable talk. He was a fair representant of the tone of mind produced by the first revolution; spoke with enthusiasm of the military and naval establishments of France, the accomplishments required of all officers, the preference given to pure merit, the equality which subsisted in all the relations of Frenchmen; contrasted his own country in these respects with ours. He claimed the full possession of liberty, which I denied to them; but I fully admitted the passion for equality and the existence of it. I observed that, by their law of inheritance, they had destroyed all equilibrium in the state, all power but the central power of the government, which was continually increasing. He spoke with passionate fondness of the late Duke of Orleans, that he had a marvellous gift of speaking, attached every body to him, was exceedingly brave and able every way. I asked if he thought Louis Philippe had contrived the revolution. He said he could not acquit him as to that. The whole of his family were patterns to France, whereas, he said, the Duke de Berri was a beast, an animal. He seemed to think there would be attempts on Louis Philippe's death, but they would not succeed; the country generally was well satisfied with his rule. He defended the system of passports as admirable, but when at Abbeville his own was kept some time being deciphered he waxed impatient. He defended the conscription too, and abused the construction of our army; nothing but the firmness of the English character produced good soldiers out of such materials. He seemed to think all property in England descended to the eldest son, and abused our horrible aristocracy. I said the old Saxon blood loved an aristocracy and would always have it.

We reached Abbeville just after dark, got some coffee, and rested a few hours at the Hotel d'Angleterre. At half-past-two the diligence from Paris took us up, and landed us at Boulogne between nine and ten. A fine rich country all along, but with nothing remarkable, except perhaps the site of Montreuil, a brow something like Windsor.

_Sunday, July 27._--Went to the British Chapel, in the Rue du Temple--a miserable meeting-house begalleried all round, with one pulpit for the prayers and another for the sermon, flanking a table in the midst. The reading and the preaching quite in correspondence. Indeed the sermon, which was without book, was one of the most extraordinary productions I ever heard: its tone may be imagined, from the speaker calling our Lord "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords--and Emperor of Emperors." "What was half an hour to speak of immortal things to an immortal soul!" The chapel was very full of well-dressed people, whose demeanour was as little religious as can be conceived; but they were bidden to beware of the superstition of the Roman Church, and of the seductions to the animal nature which it afforded. Later we walked into the upper town, and, after dinner, along the sands, and over the cliffs home. But the view of Boulogne on every side is dreary and wretched; and I should never stay there an hour longer than was necessary. We were at l'Hôtel de l'Europe--civil people, and excellent table d'hôte.

_Monday, July 28._--At six this morning we left Boulogne, and crossed to Folkstone in two hours and five minutes; a very fast vessel. We breakfasted at the hotel near the beach, got through the custom house rather quickly, were ready for the half-past-nine train, and in London shortly after one o'clock. M. and I called on E. Hawkins and Acland, and then went down to Eton, and I home to Launton.

[2] The observations between inverted commas, and ended with the letter _M._, are taken, by permission, from the journal of my fellow-traveller, the Rev. C. Marriott.

[3] It should be mentioned that the two brothers Labbé set up this school some twenty years ago, without any resources, and have maintained it ever since, living upon Providence, gradually building accommodations for their scholars, a chapel, &c.

[4] "La monition consiste à faire connaître à celui, qui nous a chargés de lui rendre cet office de charité, ses imperfections et ses défauts extérieurs contraires aux vertus Chrétiennes et ecclésiastiques."

LETTERS FROM FRANCE AND ITALY.--1847.

Hotel Windsor, Rue de Rivoli, 7th July, 1847. MY DEAR ----.

* * * The weather for the last three or four days has been melting. We have had plenty to do, and have been well occupied, instructed, and pleased. Last evening we dined with M. Defresne, a very clever, able, and energetic talker. He is a great friend of the old Royal Family, and calls Louis Philippe the greatest scoundrel under the sun. We met l'Abbé Pététot, curé of St. Louis d'Antin, one of the parishes of Paris, with 18,000 inhabitants; he has eight curates, besides occasional assistance. They give the most astonishing account of the change which has taken place in France in the last fifteen years in religious matters. Formerly a young man dared not confess that he was a Christian, or show himself in a church; now the bitter sarcasm and ridicule with which all religious subjects were treated have passed away; earnestness has laid hold of the mind of the nation, and even those who are not Christians appear to be searching for the truth, and treat Christianity as a reality, and conviction with respect. Even now, _not one young man in a hundred is a Christian_. I asked l'Abbé Pététot particularly, if he felt sure of this proportion, and he confirmed it. Out of the thirty-two millions of French, they reckon two millions who are really Christians, practising confession; many of the others send for a priest in their last illness, confess, and receive the sacraments; but M. Defresne thought this very unsatisfactory, as we should. They are making great exertions to christianise the class of workmen, the great majority of whom are not even nominally believers. You may judge of their life by the fact that they live with many different women in common, sometimes after a time selecting one of these, and confining themselves to her, but without legitimate marriage. The Church has gained about 15,000 of this class out of a hundred thousand in Paris, and worked a great reformation. At St. Sulpice they have every other Sunday a meeting of these, called conférences, at which they are addressed by different persons, clergy or lay, on religious, moral, or instructive subjects. We went to the meeting on Sunday night, and were much pleased with what we saw and heard. Their minds are laid hold of and interested; by drawing together they get a sense of union and the force of numbers, and are encouraged by each other's progress; they see their superiors in knowledge and station exerting themselves for their improvement. L'Abbé Pététot told us he had preached _eighty_ times last Lent, seven times in one day. This is entirely without note. Their labour must be very great. His manner of speaking is very pleasing, and I think the priests generally speak with great propriety, and with an abundance and arrangement of matter which is not common with us. We have just returned from a visit to M. Martin Noirlieu, once sub-preceptor of the Duke de Bordeaux, and now a curé at Paris. He has been in England, and speaks favourably of us. He thinks there is much good and real religion in the people of England, though very defective, and though the Church is suffering under many abuses. He said they computed that the Bishop of London received as much as all the French Bishops put together. The state of things here is totally different from what it is with us. There is no state religion, no temptation whatever to pretend to be a Christian if you are not. The consequence is, that there is little hypocrisy; infidelity is openly professed by a great number. On the other hand, the believers are so from real conviction, and generally after a personal conversion; there are comparatively few hereditary Christians.

The Church is gradually gaining, but much more in the higher than in the lower ranks. There are 800 priests in Paris; they want 400 more: before the great Revolution there were 5000.

On Monday we were taken to see the house of the Priests for foreign Missions. They count many martyrs in late times in China, &c. There are the bones of several in their museum; Chinese pictures of the mode in which they were tortured, expressed to the life with a frightful reality. The mother of one of these martyrs is living now, and had sent to her the original picture of her son's martyrdom, drawn by Christians in China. There is a long frame of wood, which they were forced to carry round the neck, and which prevented them from taking any rest. Young men are regularly trained here for missionary work; their disposition and talents attentively considered; above all their vocation, and without this is very decided, they are not allowed to attempt so perilous a task. Indeed, where the reverse of honour, or ease, or wealth, or leisure, or anything that delights the natural man, is all that they can expect in this life, they are not likely to have any hypocritical aspirants for the work of a missionary. As for sending out a man with a wife and children to convert the heathen, the idea would appear to them too ridiculous. Near adjoining to these we saw the central establishment of the Sœurs de Charité; they have six hundred sisters here, many novices. They count about 6000 all over the world, and are increasing rapidly. They were entirely put down at the great Revolution, so that this is all since 1801. They renew their vows annually; there are instances, though very rare, of sisters retiring. Every sister passes one week of the year in what is called a _retreat_; that is, a complete self-examination and inquiry into the past year, progress made in things spiritual, &c. This is likewise the case with every monk, nun, or priest. These _retreats_ are productive of great effects.

_July 8._--We dine to-day with M. Defresne again, to meet M. Martin Noirlieu.

We have had l'Abbé Labbé here three hours this morning. We are going a round with l'Abbé Carron at two. We have the dinner in the evening, so do pretty well.

Yours sincerely, T. W. ALLIES.

Genoa, July 20, 1847. MY DEAR ----.

* * * The last six days we have spent, as well as the heat would allow us, in enjoying the different views which this most superb city presents. My companions, who have both seen Constantinople, seem to reckon it only inferior to that. To begin with the beginning: we presented on Wednesday our letter to the Père Jourdain, a Jesuit; and no sooner was it delivered, than, without reading it, or any sort of preface, except W's reply in the affirmative to the question whether he was a Catholic, he began a most furious attack on us as rebels outside of the Church, Protestants, and what not. It so happened, however, that the points he took were just those which I had most at command; so he did not get much by his assault, was obliged to beat a retreat several times, and finally left us all three convinced that reasoning was not his forte, and that at least in his case the Jesuits were not employing gentle insinuation as a means of converting, He has, however, never renewed the battle since, but been very obliging, and given us every assistance in his power. Among the sights he directed us to was St. Anne's, a house of barefooted Carmelites, on the back of the hills some few hundred feet aloft, commanding the most delicious views of the city, the bay, the sea, and the mountains round. A straggling and precipitous garden was covered with vines festooned on trellis work, through which one caught the blue sky, and water, and towers and domes brought out against them with full effect. Then, after seeing the long, cool corridors inside, each of which had a window opening on this gorgeous scene, and the little chamber of each brother, furnished with a poor bed, some little pictures, a crucifix, and the most necessary furniture; and on hearing the quiet tenor of every day's life, the only fear was, whether there was enough of the cross in it. But doubtless the being under obedience, the having every day's work portioned out for one, supplies all that is wanted; and however calm it seemed, every chamber, as it had the figure of the Crucified, so it was conscious of the secret cross borne by its occupant. They are occupied in instruction, and have a school of novices. Genoa is particularly rich in charitable foundations; her merchant princes cannot be accused of neglecting the poor and suffering, nor of so assisting them as to show that they thought poverty a crime and an offence. We have seen three great buildings which have moved our admiration in this way. The Ospitaletto contains 444 sick men and women: it is served by six Capucins and fifteen sisters of charity. Mass is said every day at half-past-five and six o'clock, at altars so placed in the different wards that every person can see. They are confessed by the Capucins, and communicate every fortnight. All Genoese are received freely here, others pay a small sum. Again, the hospital called Pammatone, endowed by various noble Genoese, can receive 1000 sick; it had more this last winter. It is served by eighteen Capucins and thirty-four sisters. We saw here, in a shrine over the altar, the body of St. Catherine of Genoa, who died in 1510, after serving thirty-two years as a sister here. It is apparently solid and quite uncorrupt. The other great building, which we saw yesterday, is the Albergo dei Poveri--a poor house in fact, but as unlike an English poor house, as poverty in the person of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord is unlike poverty as treated by a board of guardians, and kept alive on the smallest pittance they can devise. It is a most magnificent building, with four huge courts, the chapel in the centre, of which the altar is commanded on one side by a great chamber for the men, and on the other side by one for the women; while in front it is open to the public, and behind to an infirmary for the sick.

In all these buildings what most pleases one is the bringing home the entire offices, hopes, and consolations of religion to every individual soul. I do not see how this can be done without sisters of charity, and the system of confession. Everything I see impresses on me more and more our own need of a complete renovation and restoration, if we would rise as a communion to be a reality and not a sham. Yesterday we visited the Fieschine, an institution for educating orphan girls, of which it now holds 187. They are taught reading and writing and work of all kinds, the most beautiful embroidery, artificial flowers, &c. It was founded by the Count Fieschi, and is in the patronage of his family, directed by a chaplain, and a superior, with the rules of a convent, but without any vows, as a great many marry out of it. The full recognition of the ascetic and monastic life, as a Christian state, and the highest in its kind, is of incalculable importance. For want of this, all our great institutions, whether for the maintenance of learning, or the direction of youth, or the care of the sick, fail just where they ought to be strong; they have no _authority_; the world, its views, and principles, and measures, rule in them as in ordinary life; and the reason why is, that the very life which alone is above the world, its wants, and its measures, is excluded and condemned. We have men, we have minds, we have money; but how are we to get back principles which we have in practice given up? The under-valuing celibacy, the not possessing religious orders, seems a system of christianity without the cross.

_July 21._--We go on to Milan by the courier to-day, and I shall post this letter on our arrival there to-morrow, after that to Venice, which is my farthest point. I shall return through Basle, to which place write me a line as soon as you receive this. The heat here is overwhelming,--there is no getting cool, even at night. Instead of a bonnet, all women here, ladies and commonalty, wear a muslin shawl, which is pinned on the top of the head, and descends down behind to the waist: it is most pleasing and graceful. They are, besides, often good looking, and have a natural breeding and look of blood about them which seems quite extinct in France. The majority of the women over the men in the churches here is as great as in France. The buildings themselves are full of various marbles, painting and gilding, sometimes to excess, but often the effect is very beautiful. The music is much too theatrical for my taste. Several masses going on at once in a church strike one as strange, and for devotion, at least habitually, I prefer the Low Mass which one can follow without difficulty, and which is of a moderate length, to the accompaniment with music, which distracts. Their evening service, when they have any, is the Benediction, or exposition of the Holy Sacrament. The Jesuits here seem to have plenty to do; the professed house is supported by charity alone. When we go to visit Père Jourdain, he seats us on his bed, for chairs he has not for company: I believe they may not possess anything as private property, not even a souvenir of friends. There is a reality about that order at least which ensures respect.

* * * * *

Yours very sincerely, T. W. ALLIES.

Milan, July 23. 1847. MY DEAR ----.

We took our letter to Manzoni last night, and found him sitting, after dinner, with Madame. Considering that he lives very retired, we may think ourselves three fortunate birds of passage to have had an hour's conversation with the author of the Promessi Sposi. He is from 60 to 65 years of age, with greyish hair and a pleasing kind look. He spoke of James Hope and Gladstone; with great warmth of the latter, saying it was a satisfaction to speak with such a man. Newman he regretted not having seen as he passed through, being then in the country. I mentioned his great reputation with us. "He has the same here," he said. I inquired if he could tell us anything about the Estatica and Addolorata, who are not far from Trent, and whom we wish to see. He replied that one person of his acquaintance who had seen the Addolorata was profoundly struck, and quite convinced of the reality of her state. On further conversation, it turned out that this person was no other than his wife's son by a former marriage, who was at this moment gone on a second visit to the Addolorata with a physician, for the purpose of taking an accurate account of her state. He is to return on Monday, and then we hope to hear his report. I asked if the clergy here were learned; he said there were learned men among them, but the Church was held in a state of most oppressive thraldom by the government; the bishops cannot hold a visitation, nor communicate with Rome, without permission, nor punish a parish priest without the sentence of a tribunal directed by laymen. This thraldom dates from the emperor Joseph II. What seemed most to interest Manzoni, and on which he spoke at length, was the philosophical system of his friend Rosmini; a complete system, according to his account, of great originality, thoroughly opposed to the _sensuous_ philosophy of modern times, and preparing the mind for the faith. He made all error to consist in the _will_, not in the _mind_; and was a most inexorable logician, carrying out every principle, and never leaving a fact in abeyance. Manzoni seemed thoroughly interested in Rosmini, and expects great results from his works, of which there are already fifteen vols. published, which have begun to make an impression. He got more and more animated as our visit went on. I found his Italian clear and easy to understand; nor did he address us at all in French, which his lady (a second wife) seemed to prefer. He spoke with compassion of the miserably infidel state of France, and quite admitted my remark that a great change seemed to be passing over the mind of men everywhere, and that they were in the process of being won back to the faith, as in the last century they were falling from it. The Church was the best friend of all governments, for they must be bad indeed for the clergy not to support them; and yet their position was one of jealousy towards the Church. As we bowed ourselves out of the room, he came forward cordially and said "Shake hands," the only words not Italian which he had spoken; and so we left him much gratified, and with the prospect of another visit on Monday. We were several hours in the cathedral yesterday; and at five this morning mounted to see the early morning view outside. The view, when clear, is most wondrous, embracing the range of Alps for a couple of hundred miles. This morning it was only partially open, just to the north, but still very fine. Shelley's lines on the Euganean Hills are most thoroughly Italian, and render the scene, so far as words can:--

"Beneath is spread, like a green sea, The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath day's azure eyes, Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies," &c.