Part 30

Who would expect to hear good of a Borgia?--St. Francis Borgia was virtuous enough to save his family name from entire infamy. Of no other man or woman of his house could it be said that they gave up suppers, in order to have more time for prayers. It was not Alexander VI., the papal glory of his house and the shame of mankind, that would have been content with one meal a day, and that meal--a mess of leeks, or some pulse, with a piece of bread, and a cup of water. At the same time, Francis Borgia kept a table becoming a man of his rank, for the gratification of his guests of high degree. There, while they ate their venison, and quaffed their _lachrymæ Christi_, he nibbled his leeks, and sipped his water, “and conversed facetiously with them, though at table his discourse generally turned on piety.” It was very like a Borgia to make piety facetious, but if fun in holiness be of the ingredients necessary to the making of a saint, Sidney Smith has as good a right as Borgia to be on the roll of the _beati_. Our reverend “joker of jokes,” indeed, would not have smiled at the cook who put wormwood instead of mint into his broth; and I doubt if Peter Plimley ever thought of doing what Francis Borgia did,--namely, chewing his pills, and swallowing physic slowly, as works of meritorious mortification, bearing compound interest to the profit of the practitioner. St. Wilfrid, who taught the half-starved South Saxons to catch the fish that swam at their feet, and thereby live, seems to me to have performed a far more meritorious work than if he had passed his life in gnawing leeks or masticating pills. Our native saint, a good man at table, was often better employed than St. Theresa, who is so eulogized because when serving at table, or carrying the dinner from the kitchen, “she was often seen suddenly absorbed in God, with the utensils or instruments of her business in her hands.” The hungry and expectant monks might have quoted against the rapt maid, the assertion of the royal sage, that there is a time to eat, as well as to fast and pray. But St. Theresa, with all her good qualities, was as obstinate as the Polish saint Hedwiga, who not only abstained from meat till abstinence had nearly proved suicidal, but who refused to save her life by eating any, until the Pope’s legate had issued a very peremptory precept to that effect. St. Peter of Alcantara lost all taste by his nearly total-abstinence principle, and when some one gave him warm water with vinegar in it, he thought it was his usual dinner of bean broth! That actively good saint, Charles Borromeo, was only wisely moderate. “His austerities were discreet,” is the phrase of one of his biographers; and his abstemiousness made his health rather than marred it. This was so well known, that they who dieted themselves in order to recover or preserve health, were said to have adopted the remedy of Doctor Borromeo. St. Francis Xavier had something of the discretion of Charles Borromeo,--and of the modesty too, for he dressed his own dinners, even when he was apostolic legate; and that St. Clement of Alexandria belonged to the same class of sagely temperate men, is proved by his maintaining that a little wine taken at evening, after the labours of the day, was good for the body, and cheering for the spirits. So the sainted Archbishop of York had no repugnance to a slice of roast goose, for, as he truly remarked, so good a thing was not designed especially for sinners. And this recalls to my mind a comment, similar in spirit, made by St. Thomas à Becket. A monk once saw him eating the wing of a pheasant with much relish, and the pharisaical fellow thereon affected to be scandalized, saying that he thought Thomas was more of a mortified man. “Thou art but a ninny,” said the Archbishop; “knowest thou not that a man may be a glutton upon horse-beans; while another may enjoy with refinement even the wing of a pheasant, and have nature’s aid to digest what Heaven’s bounty gave?”

This was good sense in the Archbishop, who perhaps had been reading Epicurus, before he sat down to his repast. However this may be, it is certain that the philosopher in question says something very like what Becket said to the friar. “Is man,” he asks, “made to disdain the gifts of nature? Is he placed on earth only to gather bitter fruits? For whom then are the flowers that the gods strew at the feet of mortals?... We please Providence when we yield to the divers inclinations which Providence suggests; our duties have reference to His laws; and our innocent desires are born of His inspirations.”

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There are few things more common in the Lives of the Saints, than to find them, after spare banquets of their own, working penal miracles at the banquets of others. St. Eloy was gifted with terrible power in this way, and endless are the stories of revellers turned to stone by the might of his magic right arm. Other saints had equal power in turning the tables upon those who slighted them; and I will take this opportunity of narrating one instance, and will set my Muse in slippers, to detail what occurred at

THE BRIDAL AND BANQUET OF FERQUES.

Near the marble quarries of Ferques, adjacent to Landrecthun le Nord, in the Boulonnais, may be seen a circular range of stones, bearing a close resemblance in their shape, though little in their magnitude, to those at Stonehenge; as also to the Devil’s Needles, near Boroughbridge, and to the solitary block on the common at Harrogate. Learned people recognise the stones at Ferques by the appellation of the _Mallus_, a Druidical name for an altar; but the traditionary folks, wiser in their generation, acknowledge no other title for these remains of antiquity than _Neuches_, an old provincial word, the corruption, I suppose, of _Noces_, and signifying a bridal, including the banquet which followed it. According to them, the stones at Ferques stand there as a testimony of divine vengeance, inflicted on a fiddler and other individuals belonging to a wedding party who refused to kneel before the Host, as it was being borne along by a priest to a dying brother. Rabelais says, that a well-disposed and sensible man believes all that he is told; (“Un homme de bien, un homme de bon sens, croit toujours ce qu’on lui dit, et ce qu’il trouve par écrit;”) and _argal_, as the logical grave-digger in _Hamlet_ has it, this story of a bridal and banquet will be allowed to pass without question.

Though around the bleak district there is not a grove That can boast of a shade, e’en in summer, for love, Nor a walk by the side of a murmuring stream, Where somnambulist lovers may talk as they dream; Nor a valley retir’d, nor sweet mossy dell, Where young hearts that are aching, their anguish may tell; Nor a wood where a maiden deserted may sigh, Or where youths, stripp’d of hope, may with decency die;-- Though all it can boast be a desolate heath, Where ’twould puzzle young Cupid to find him a wreath,-- Yet e’en here the Idalian has furnish’d full work For the hearts of the youths and the maidens of Ferques.

Of these there were two in the good days of old, When the hard iron heel of the baron so bold Ground those to the dust whom the mere chance of birth Had deprived of the licence to lord it on earth. The maid was as light and as shy as the fawn, Her eyes dark as night, and her brow like the dawn; And her lips, twice as rich and as red as the rose, Were more warm than the sky at a summer eve’s close; While a music fell from them made only to bless; And her shape--nay! her shape I must leave you to guess. ’Twould require the power pictorial of Burke, To record how sublime was this beauty of Ferques.

The swain was in manhood’s first op’ning bloom, In doublet, slash’d hose, martial bonnet, and plume; And he look’d, as he walk’d ’neath the moon’s silver light, Half hero, half mortal;--half _bourgeois_, half knight. If upward he gazed into heaven’s soft skies, He saw nothing there half so soft as her eyes; Or, at least, the young lover thus gallantly swore, As he ran the long roll of his soft nonsense o’er, And mincingly walk’d by the damosel’s side,-- The latter all fondness, the former all pride;-- With one arm round the maiden, one hand on his dirk, Irresistibly fine look’d this gallant of Ferques.

These walkings, these gazings, the terrible sighing, With death, or at least earnest threat’nings of dying; These sinkings of spirit, these meltings away, With the watchings by night and the dreamings by day, What could such a mixture combustible bring, But a state of incendiarism, like Swing? When hearts are the haystack, and Love holds the torch, ’Tis odds but the haystack will soon get a scorch. And what else could arise from those meetings at eve, From those flaming assertions which maidens believe, And those vows warmly breath’d ‘’twixt the gloam and the murk,’[2] But a bridal and banquet to gladden all Ferques?

Love’s eddying current, I say it in sooth, Ran, for this young couple, remarkably smooth; For the fathers paternally look’d on each child, While the mothers maternally wept as they smiled; Fraternally too a whole bevy of brothers Look’d on the alliance as fondly as mothers; And, if the young bride had possess’d but a sister, These lines would have told how she tenderly kiss’d her. Suffice it to say, that there never was seen, In valley, dale, hamlet, on moorland or green, An assembly so joyous as met at the kirk, To view and to envy the lovers of Ferques.

For, the youthful, the aged, the ugly, the fair, The idle, the busy, grave and gay, all were there. Maids with prayers on their lips, for the weal of the bride, Some who long’d for her looks, some for _him_ by her side, And, though last, yet most certain, by no means the least, Stood his Rev’rence, who having been bid to the feast, Look’d as jocund and joyous, and beaming with smiles, As the fair Cytherean, when weaving her wiles.[3] For where is the priest, be he Pagan, Hindoo, Yellow Bonze from Japan, olive sage from Loo Choo, A Franciscan Friar, an opium-drench’d Turk, But loves a fair feast like this banquet at Ferques?

’Twould be tedious to tell, when the service was done, How that of the gallants was warmly begun, How, like the old suitors in Livy’s old story, By ‘Cupiditate’ (his words) ‘et Amore,’[4] The hearts of the damsels they ruthlessly task’d, And finally gain’d twice as much as they ask’d. Ah, sigh not to think that in Love’s stricken field, The maidens of Ferques were so ready to yield; For Livy declares that no maid can withstand The wooer who comes with such arms in his hand. They’re pleasant to talk of, but ’neath them doth lurk A peril not felt less at Rome than at Ferques.

The banquet was sped, and the floor being clear’d, Terpsichore’s summons distinctly was heard, In the tuning Cremona that squeak’d forth its call, Inviting all those light of foot to the ball.

Lovely dance! of thy charms how correct was the notion Of her who the Poetry, called thee, of Motion![5] When Beauty her features in smiles deigns to grace, What are those same smiles but the dance of the face? And when Dancing and Modesty happily meet, What is Dancing just then but the smiles of the feet?[6] I’d defy e’en a hermit the summons to shirk, Ask’d a measure to tread by the beauties of Ferques.

When moonlight had risen to silver the scene, The party adjourn’d from the hall to the green, And their laughter was shaking the stars in the sky, When by chance, on the heels of their mirth, there pass’d by A Franciscan from Boulogne, Franciscanly shod,[7] Who ask’d them to kneel at the sight of their God, Whose presence mysterious he fully reveal’d. But the fiddler, he swore, he’d be hang’d if he kneel’d, And affirm’d--most irreverent charge ’gainst a monk-- That the bare-footed priest was decidedly drunk. And the party applauded each quip and each quirk That fell from this vile Paganini of Ferques.

But, oh, wonder! those ribalds their scoffs had scarce utter’d, When, at a low prayer by the Cordelier mutter’d, Their laughter was heard to change into a moan, As the priest transform’d each to a figure of stone. There motionless still do the revellers stand, Misshapen, as turn’d from their sculptor’s rough hand; Save one, who when moonlight pours down from above, May be seen from the spot vainly trying to move. Some affirm ’tis the bridegroom aroused from his trance, Some declare ’tis the bride gliding forth to the dance. But ’tis only the fiddler endeavouring to jerk His bow arm o’er the once magic fiddle of Ferques.

THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATER DAYS.

It may be seen from our last chapter, that the bill of fare of those who dined in the desert was neither very long nor very varied. It was otherwise with the better fed, but perhaps not better-taught gentlemen of the church of later days. Thus, for instance, the Curé of Brequier kept a very different table from that of the lean Amphitryons of the desert. Brillat Savarin once called on the holy man just as he had dismissed the soup and beef from the table. These were replaced by a leg of mutton _à la royale_, a fat capon, and a splendid salad. The hour was scarcely noon, and the curé had sat down to this saint’s fare alone. He was not selfish, however, and he invited his guest to “break bread” with him, but the guest, a prince of “gastronomers” in his way, declined, and the curé, like Coriolanus, did it all alone! He finished the “gigot” to the ivory, the capon to the bones, and the salad to the polished bottom of the bowl. A colossal cheese was then placed before him, in which he made a breach of ninety degrees, and having washed down all with a bottle of wine, he, like the Irishman, thanked God “for that snack,” and betook himself to digestion and repose. “Le pauvre homme!”

The nuns were in no ways behind the priests. Madame d’Arestrel, lady Abbess of the nuns of the Visitation at Belley, (_faustum nomen_!) once told a secret to a visitor who feared she was going to expound a chapter from the Prophets. “If you want a foretaste of Paradise in the guise of good chocolate,” said she, “be sure to make it over-night, in an earthenware coffee-pot. Its standing still for a night concentrates it, and gives it a velvety taste, which is divine! And Heaven cannot be angry with us for this little luxury, for is not Heaven too divine?” How wide the distance between St. Paula, widow, and Madame d’Arestrel, of the convent of the Visitation! I may add, that if the Visitandines made good chocolate, the monks of the Feuillants, in Paris, were renowned for their ratafie. But they too have superior authority for good living. A dainty dish in Italy is commonly called a “mouthful for a cardinal.”--_un boccone di cardinali._

The canons took the tone from the cardinals. When the French canon Rollet became ill through excessive drinking, his doctor interdicted all strong beverages, and was not a little wroth, on his next visit, at finding the dignitary in bed indeed, but at his bed-side a little table, neatly laid out with bottles and glasses. The canon met the threatened storm by gently remarking:--“Doctor, when you forbade me drinking wine, you did not wish to deprive me of the pleasure of looking at the bottle!” It was such canons who were the best customers of the nuns who distilled liqueurs, and of the Ursulines who manufactured the daintiest drops flavoured by the daintiest essences! But in the Archbishop of Paris himself, M. de Belley, the clergy of France had example to which they might appeal as authority for indulging in good cheer. The archiepiscopal face was wreathed in smiles at the sight of a good dinner. The prelate lived to be a veteran among gastronomers, and was, in other respects, not an unworthy archbishop.

But M. de Belley was at least a gentleman in his gastronomic propensities. He was not, like a Russo-Greek “Papa,” a brandy-bibber. The Russo-Greek priests sanctify drinking, in the minds of the people, by their evil example. Monsieur Léverson Le Duc, a French diplomatist in Russia, tells us that he knows of one parish in Muscovy where the people lock up their pastor every Saturday night, in order that he may not be too muzzy for mass on the Sunday. They occasionally find him very drunk, nevertheless, when they have forgotten previously to examine beneath his robe, under which the sinning sot sometimes smuggles his quart of Cognac! Sir George Simpson crossed the Pacific in a Russian vessel. The chaplain had been sent in her to sea, because he was always too drunk to officiate on land. He was kept sober expressly for the hour of service on Sundays, but at other times, he appears to have realized the verse in the old song of Dibdin’s, wherein it is said that

“’Tother day as our chaplain was preaching, Behind him I curiously slunk; And while he our duty was teaching, As how we should never get drunk, I show’d him the stuff, and he twigg’d it, And it soon set his Rev’rence agog. And he swigg’d, and Nick swigg’d, And Ben swigg’d, and Dick swigg’d, And we all of us swigg’d it,-- And we swore there was nothing like grog.”

These examples, however, must be understood as occurring mostly, if not exclusively, among the lower classes of the clergy. There was a time when “the Vicar and Moses” illustrated the sad doings of a similar class among ourselves.

The Greek clergy in the South of Europe present us with something no less curious of aspect. The hall-kitchen of the Greek Patriarch, at Constantinople, is crowded with inferior clergy, who take their meals there, and his All-Holiness himself is served with pipes and sweetmeats by nothing less than gentlemen in Deacon’s orders. Fancy our Lord Primate ringing his bell for cheroots for two! and having them brought in on a silver tray by the Curate of St. Margaret’s!

The Greek usages however are classical. The stranger who dines with the Patriarch has, previous to falling to, water poured over his hands as he holds them over a basin with a perforated cover, and the napkins for drying them are as delicate as rose-leaves. The guest reclines on a low couch, in ancient fashion, and his repast is placed on a low stool at his side. The same custom exists in the convents, but meat is seldom to be found there by a guest who arrives unexpectedly. The monks themselves never eat it at all. During half the year they have but one meal a day, and that consists of vegetables and bread. On the other days of the year they are permitted the more liberal, but sufficiently eremitic fare of cheese, eggs, fish, wine, and milk; but even on these gala days they are never allowed more than two meals. Poor fellows! the majority of them pass their remarkably well-spent time, when not at table, in tilling the ground or teaching wonderful feats to very accomplished tom-cats!

A Greek monk’s idea of an Englishman is that he is a plum-pudding eater. And no wonder, since the English are almost the exclusive purchasers of the currant-grapes which are cultivated all along the northern shores of the Peloponnesus, from Patra to Corinth. As the Chinese think that we take their tea that we may live, so the Greek monks conclude that we _must_ buy their currants, or die! At the convent of Vestizza, the good fathers trouble their heads about nothing but the produce and price of their great staple crop. If you ask how many brethren there are in the convent, they will answer, “Three hundred; and what was the price of currants in England when you left?” Inquire if their books be in good order, and they will reply in the negative, adding an assurance that they do their utmost to produce the best currants in the country. And they will give you permission to see their church, if you will only promise to recommend their dwarf grapes to the English merchants who are catering for plum-pudding eaters at home. The grounds of other convents in the peninsula are famous for their nuts, in the exportation of which the brethren drive no inconsiderable trade.

These worthy people are said to be a trifle more enlightened and a degree less slothful than they were some thirty years ago. There was ample room and verge enough for improvement; for at the period mentioned, the Greek priests resisted the introduction of the potato into the kitchen-garden, for the very satisfactory reason that the _pomme de terre_ was the very identical apple with which Satan beguiled Eve out of Paradise! Yes, these modern and orthodox saints very generally held that the devil tempted Eve with an “ash-leaf kidney!”

If we cross over to Abyssinia, we shall find that the priests and orthodox people there keep as poor tables, at least on fast-days, as the Greeks. Above eight months in the year are assigned by the Abyssinian Christians to abstinence! On these occasions an Abyssinian neither eats nor drinks till long after noon. On festival days, however, they make up for their moderation by unrestrained excess. Mr. Mansfield Perkyns, a traveller who has given us the most recent account of life in Abyssinia, tells us that, in honour of the festival of the Elevation of the Cross, he gave an early breakfast to some dozen guests, who were engaged to half-a-dozen other parties in the course of the same joyous day, and that these guests whetted their appetite for later meals by consuming at breakfast a fine fat cow, two large sheep, and endless gallons of mead! On these occasions the mead is pretty prolific of murder. The guests get dreadfully drunk in honour of the day, exactly as many highly civilized Christian people in happy England do on the yearly recurrence of “merry Christmas.” Indeed, a feast of the Elevation of the Cross without plenty of quarrelling and bloodshed would be as dull as Donnybrook fair now is without a row. But the Abyssinian Christian is as clever in establishing a _casus belli_ as a Donnybrook Romanist. If the latter sees the fair is likely to end without a fight, he simply takes off his hat, draws a white line round it with chalk, and declaring that he will break the head of the first man who denies that such white line is silver lace, he has speedily abundance of active work before him. So a pious Abyssinian at an “Elevation” banquet, if he finds things dull, merely remarks to his dearest friend and next neighbour, “You are a good sort of man, but you are not so handsome as I am!” and thereupon out fly the knives of the parties and their respective friends, which they proceed to clean by plunging them into each other’s ribs!