did. The baby, as if to supplicate his pity, smiled also, with that

angelic expression of innocence that would have moved the most hardened and obdurate of hearts. But he, seizing it by the leg, whirled it round for an instant, and then—oh! horror!—dashed its head against the heavy edge of the huge stove. Its brains spattered over its mother’s face. Like a tiger she sprang at the murderer of her child. Maternal love gave her superhuman strength, and, seizing him by the throat, she buried her fingers in his flesh. He tottered; his face turned black, and he fell heavily to the floor, suffocated by the strength of her desperate grasp. She would have undoubtedly strangled him, had not another savage at that instant struck her a blow on the head with his hatchet. My poor sister! her death was indeed a cruel one, but her agony only lasted a moment—her troubles are ended, and she is now in heaven. But I—what will become of me? You see the condition that I am in. O my God, my God! have pity on me.”

And the young girl, wringing her hands in despair, threw herself sobbing into my arms, pressed me to her heart, and implored me not to abandon her into the hands of these brutal savages. But, oh! what is more heart-breaking than to witness misfortune without the power of alleviating it! We spent the night in weeping and trying to encourage her, but I could not help feeling at the time that it was cruel to inspire her with a confidence that I had not; for I knew these savages too well. I knew that the monsters never abandoned their victims. The next day, my father tried in every way to conciliate them, and then interceded in behalf of the young captive. He offered any amount of ransom for her, but in vain; nothing would tempt them. The effects of the liquor had not entirely worn off, and they were sullen and obstinate. My father used in turn prayers and threats to move them; but neither presents, prayers, nor threats could rescue her from their merciless hands. The wretched girl threw herself at their feet, and, embracing their knees, besought them to listen to her supplications; but the monsters only replied to her entreaties by bursts of laughter; and, in spite of her prayers, and sobs, and supplications, they carried her off with them.[186]

“Alas!” said Mlle. Baby, looking sorrowfully at the young officer, “are you surprised now at my sadness, and that I could not smile and be gay after having witnessed such a scene?”

“The demons!” exclaimed the officer, stamping his foot in horror and indignation. “This infamous, bloodthirsty race should be exterminated—exterminated to the last man. Why did I not know this sooner? Yesterday, a Potawatamie came to my quarters to sell some furs. He asked three times as much as they were worth, and I declined buying them. He hung around for some time, annoying me very much, until I finally ordered him to leave. He refused to do so; then, losing all patience with the fellow, I rose from my seat, and, leading him to the door, I kicked him out. He went away muttering, and threatening me with his knife. I had a stick in my hand, and I now regret that I did not knock him down.”

“How imprudent!” said the young girl. “You ought not to have provoked that Indian; don’t you know that a savage never forgets an injury? He may wander around the fort for a year, spying all of your movements, watching your footsteps, tracking you everywhere, hiding in the woods and among the rushes in the river, until an opportunity offers, and he will approach with all the _finesse_ and cunning of a serpent, spring upon you like a tiger, and strike you a death-blow, when you least expect it. I see that you go every day out of the fort to fish on the banks of the river. I advise you not to go any more; it is not safe, and something terrible might happen to you.”

“Pshaw!” said the young officer, “you are too timid. I saw the fellow leave this morning with a number of warriors belonging to his tribe; they were going to Quebec to sell the furs, which they could not dispose of here.”

VI.—THE DREAM.

The clock in the _salon_ had just struck one. Mme. Baby and her daughter were seated sewing in the deep recess of an open window, with a little work-table in front of them. M. Baby had gone away that morning, to look after some land that he had just bought on the other side of the river. The streets were deserted; nearly all the inhabitants of the fort were at work in the fields in the vicinity. The heat was intense. Not a breath agitated the trees in the garden, whose motionless branches drooped languidly toward the earth, as if imploring a refreshing breath or a drop of dew. A negro servant was spreading some linen out to dry on the bushes, and put to flight, in her perambulations, some chickens that were panting with the heat under the sheltering foliage of the trees and shrubs. The silence was only broken by the buzzing of insects, and the noisy whirr of the grasshopper as it danced through the sunlight. The open window, filled with bouquets, looked into the garden, and the pale, melancholy face of Mlle. Baby could be seen between them, bending over an open flower which imaged her loveliness in its fragrant corolla. “Mamma,” said she at last, raising her head, “do you think papa will be away a long time?”

“I think he will be back in four or five days at the latest,” replied her mother. “But why do you ask such a question?”

“Oh! because I am so anxious to have him back again. I want him to take us immediately to Quebec, instead of waiting until next month. The trip will divert my thoughts; for, since those Indians were here the other day with that poor girl they had captured, I have not had a moment’s piece of mind. She is always before my eyes. I see her everywhere; she follows me everywhere. I even saw her in my dream last night. I thought I was sitting in the midst of a gloomy and immense forest, near a wild, rushing river that dashed over a precipice into a bottomless chasm a few steps from me. On the opposite bank, which was covered with flowers, and charming to behold, stood the young captive, pale and tranquil, in a halo of soft, transparent light. She seemed to be in another world. She held in her hands an open book, and, bending towards me, she slowly turned over the leaves. She turned at least sixteen; then she stopped and looked at me with an expression of the greatest sorrow and distress, and made a sign to some one, who then seemed to be standing near me, to cross the torrent. At the signal, all his limbs trembled; his knees knocked together, and his eyes dilated, his mouth gasped with terror, and a cold perspiration stood upon his forehead. He tried to draw back, but an invincible power drew him toward the abyss. He turned toward me, and besought my help most piteously. I experienced the greatest commiseration for him, and tried in vain to extend my hands to help him; invisible cords bound all my limbs, and prevented any movement whatsoever. Vainly he tried to cling to the cliffs along the shore; a relentless force impelled him towards the abyss. He had already reached the middle of the stream, whose deep and foaming waters roared around him, as if impatient to swallow him up. He tottered at every step, and came near losing his equilibrium; but, rallying his strength, he struggled on. At last a great wave broke over him, and he lost his balance. His feet slipped; he looked toward me with a glance of the most inexpressible anguish, and fell. In an instant, he was borne to the brink of the precipice; he threw out his hands, and grasped at a piece of rock that jutted out of the water, burying his fingers in the green and slimy moss which covered it. For an instant, he hung on with the strength of despair; his body, stopped suddenly in its precipitate course, appeared for an instant above the waves. The foam and spray enveloped it like a cloud, and the wind from the fall blew through his dank and dripping hair. His dilated eyes were fastened on the rock, which little by little receded from his convulsive grasp. Finally, with a terrible shriek, he disappeared in the yawning gulf below. Transfixed with agony and horror, I looked across at the young captive; but she, without uttering a word, wiped away a tear, and silently pointed to the last page in the book, which seemed to me to be covered with blood. I screamed aloud with fright, and awoke with a start. My God! will it be a page in my life?”

VII.—BLOOD.

Scarcely had Mlle. Baby finished speaking, when the sound of hasty footsteps was heard at the door, and a man, covered with blood, and with a terrified look, rushed in. It was the young officer. His right arm was broken, and hanging at his side.

“Hide me quickly,” cried he. “I am pursued by the Indians.”

“Up in the attic, quick,” said Mme. Baby to him, “and do not stir for your life.”

In another moment, the savages had entered the room; but, before they could say a word, Mme. Baby pointed to the next street, and they went out again quickly, believing that the officer had escaped in that direction. The admirable composure of Mme. Baby had completely deceived them. Not a muscle of her face betrayed her excessive agitation, and, happily, they did not have time to notice the mortal pallor of the young girl, who, still leaning among the flowers on the window-sill, had almost fainted away. It was one of those moments of inexpressible anguish when a chill like death strikes the heart. Mme. Baby hoped that the savages, fearing the superintendent, would not dare to force themselves into the house; and yet, who could stop them if they did, or who could foresee what these barbarians, once having tasted blood, might do? She hoped that their fruitless efforts might induce them to abandon their search, or, if they persisted, that she would have sufficient time to obtain help, in case they again entered the house. Making a sign to a servant who was at work in the garden, she ordered him to run as fast as he could, and notify some men belonging to the fort of the danger which threatened them. Some anxious minutes elapsed, but the savages did not return. “Do you think they have really gone?” asked the young girl, in a low tone. A faint glimmer of hope appeared in her countenance.

“Even if they should return,” answered Mme. Baby, “they would not dare ...”

She did not finish, but leaning toward the window, she tried to catch the sound of human voices which were heard in the distance. Was it the help that she expected, or was it the voices of the Indians coming back? She could not distinguish. The sound drew nearer and nearer, and became more distinct as it approached. “They are our men,” exclaimed Mlle. Baby. “Don’t you hear the barking of our dog?” And she drew a long breath of relief, as if an immense weight had been taken from her heart.

Mme. Baby did not reply; a faint smile played over her lips. She, too, had heard the dogs barking; but another noise that she knew only too well had also reached her ears. Very soon the voices became so distinct that it was impossible to be deceived any longer. “Here they are, here they are!” shrieked the young girl, sinking into a seat near the window, as the different-colored feathers with which the savages decorated their heads appeared between the trees.

“Don’t tremble so,” said Mme. Baby in a quiet voice to her daughter, “or you will betray us. Look out of the window, and don’t let them perceive your emotion.”

Courage and coolness at a critical moment are always admirable, but when a woman possesses these qualities, they are sublime. Calm and impassive, without even rising from her seat, Mme. Baby tranquilly continued her work. The most practised eye could not have detected the smallest trace of emotion, the least feverish excitement or agitation, on her commanding and noble countenance. A heroine’s heart beat in her woman’s breast, and it was thus that she awaited the arrival of the savages. “Tell us where you have concealed the white warrior,” cried the first one who entered the room. It was the Potawatamie whom the young officer had so imprudently offended. He was dripping with perspiration, and out of breath with his long and fatiguing quest. You could see the rage and exasperation of his disappointment in his ferocious glances, his scowling brow, and the excitement that made every feature quiver.

“Comrade,” replied Mme. Baby, in a tranquil tone of voice, “you know the superintendent well; and, if you have the misfortune to misbehave in his house, you will get into trouble.”

The Indian hesitated a moment, then said, in a feigned mildness of voice, “My white sister knows that the Potawatamie loves peace, and that he never makes the first attack. The white warrior is on the war-path, or the Potawatamie would not have pursued.”

“I have not hidden the white warrior,” answered Mme. Baby. “It is useless to search here; you had better look elsewhere, or he will escape you.”

The Indian did not reply, but, looking at Mme. Baby with a smile, he pointed to a little stain on the floor that no one but an Indian would have discovered. But the sharp eye of the savage had detected there a trace of his enemy. It was a drop of blood, which Mme. Baby had taken the precaution to wipe away most carefully. “My sister has told the truth,” said the Indian, in an ironical tone. “The white warrior has not passed this way; that drop of blood, I suppose, she put there to persuade the Indian that she had concealed the white warrior.” Then, assuming a more serious tone, he continued: “My sister, know well that the Potawatamie will do the white warrior no harm; only show us where he is hidden, and we will go away; we only want to take him pris ...” He stopped, and, bending his head forward, looked through an open window at the other end of the apartment; then, giving a hideous yell, he rushed across the room, and leaped out of the window that opened into the garden. His ferocious companions followed him, howling like a troop of demons. Without seeing what had happened, Mme. Baby understood all. The young officer, hearing the Indians return, and believing himself lost, had the imprudence to jump out of one of the windows into the garden. He ran toward a covered fountain in the centre of the _parterre_ to hide, when the Indian perceived him. How can I describe the scene which followed? The pen drops from my hand. In two bounds, they had reached him, and one of the savages, striking him a terrible blow with his fist, sent him reeling to the ground. He fell on his broken arm, and the excruciating pain caused him to utter a deep groan. They then seized hold of him, and bound his hands and feet. Poor young man! what resistance could he make to his cruel enemies, with a broken arm, and totally disabled and weakened by the loss of blood. He called for help, but the echoes in the garden only answered his cries, and redoubled the horror of the scene. Mlle. Baby, bereft of her senses, threw herself at her mother’s feet, and, hiding her face on her knees, she covered her ears with her hands, to shut out, if possible, from sight and hearing the frightful tragedy. While the rest of the savages were tying their victim down, the Potawatamie drew out his knife, and deliberately commenced to sharpen it on a stone. His face betrayed no excitement whatever; not even the horrible pleasure of gratifying his vengeance, which caused his heart to palpitate with an infernal joy, could change his stoical countenance. “My brother the white warrior,” said he, continuing to whet his knife with the utmost coolness, “knows very well that he can insult the Potawatamie with impunity, because the Potawatamie is a coward, and would rather run than fight.... Does my brother now wish to make peace with his friend, the Potawatamie? He can speak if he wishes, and name his terms, for he is free.” Then, suddenly assuming a ferocious air, he straightened himself up, and, fixing his inflamed eyes on the young officer, said: “My brother the white warrior can now chant his death-song, because he must die.” And brandishing his knife, he plunged it into his throat, while another of these monsters caught the blood in a little copper kettle. The rest of the savages then kicked and stamped upon the body with the most infernal yells and contortions. The death-rattle of the poor victim, mingling with these howls, reached the ears of the young girl, and she shook in a convulsion of horror. At last it all ceased. The victim had been immolated. Pushing aside the corpse with his foot, the Potawatamie, followed by his companions, came again toward the house. “Ha! ha! so you would not tell us where your friend, the white warrior, was?” cried the Indian, as he entered the room. “Very well, since you love him so much, you shall drink his blood.” Mme. Baby, pale as a marble statue, drew herself up firmly. “You can kill me,” said she, “but you can never make me drink it!” The young girl had fainted, and was lying at her mother’s feet. They seized hold of Mme. Baby, and tried to force open her mouth; but failing in their efforts, they threw the contents of the vessel in her face, and left the house.[187]

VIII.—THE SERPENT.

Several months had elapsed since the events had taken place which we have just narrated. It was night. In the centre of the garden, a simple black cross had been erected on the spot where the unfortunate young man had been massacred. No inscription revealed to the passer-by either the name of the victim or the fatal circumstances of his death. Alas! it was written for ever in characters of blood on the hearts of the family. Every evening, the superintendent, with his wife, children, and servants, assembled at the foot of this cross, to pray for the repose of the soul of his unfortunate friend. On this especial evening, all the family had as usual visited the grave, and returned to the house, except the young girl, who, dressed in deep mourning, still remained kneeling at the foot of the sombre monument. She was very pale, and there was an expression of the most ineffable sadness on her face. The evening dew had almost entirely uncurled her long ringlets, which now hung in disorder around her cheeks. You might have mistaken her for a statue of grief. From the clear, high heaven above, the moon poured floods of melancholy light. Its dreamy rays fell on the sod at the foot of the cross and on the face of the young girl like a thought from beyond the tomb—like a silent and grateful sigh from the innocent victim whose memory had left so tender and anguishing an impression in her soul. Her lips moved in ardent prayer—prayer, that celestial solace of the grief-stricken heart, the smile of the angels through the tears of earth. For a long time she thus silently held communion with her God, breathing out her prayers with sighs and tears, as she knelt at the foot of this cross, on the sod still damp with the victim’s blood. At last she rose, and was about to leave, when, raising her eyes for a moment, she thought she saw a shadow moving across an opening in the wall of a shed near by. A cloud, at that moment passing over the moon, prevented her from distinguishing what the object was. She waited a moment until the cloud had passed over, when what was her astonishment to see a human face in the aperture! It must be a robber, she thought, and yet she knew positively that the gate was well secured. “He will find himself nicely caught when the servants come to lock up,” said she to herself. By degrees, however, the head was pushed more and more through the air-hole, and gradually emerged from the obscurity. At the same moment, the moonlight fell clear and full on the face. The young girl actually shivered. She recognized it but too well; it was impossible to be mistaken. It was he; she recognized perfectly his copper skin, his hard, ferocious features, and his yellowish eyes, rolling in their sockets. It was indeed the Potawatamie, the murderer of the young officer.[188]

Her first thought was flight, but an invincible curiosity fastened her to the spot. The Indian continued to work through the aperture; one arm was already out, and he held something in his hand which she could not discern. He tried for a long time to get through the air-hole, which was too small for his body. Finally, while making a last effort, he suddenly turned his head, and fixed his eyes with a very uneasy expression on a little bush near him. He seemed undecided what to do; then, letting go the object, he rested his hand on the ground, and, pushing it against the earth with all his strength, tried to force himself back again through the hole. But his broad shoulders, compressed on both sides by the wall, held him like a vice, and he could neither move one way nor another. Then his uneasiness increased, and he looked again anxiously toward the bushes. A slight rustling of the leaves was then perceptible, and a small head emerged slowly from the shadow of the branches, and extended itself toward the savage. It was a rattlesnake.[189] Immovable and with fixed eyes, the Indian watched the least movement of the reptile, which advanced softly and cautiously, as if aware of the strength and power of his redoubtable adversary. When within a few feet of the savage, it stopped, raised itself up, and, throwing out its forked tongue, sprang toward his face; but, before he could touch him, the Indian, as quick as thought, gave him a violent blow with the hand that was free, and the reptile fell a short distance from him. Then he began again to make every effort to disengage himself; but in vain. The snake, now furious, advanced a second time to recommence the attack, but with more caution than before. Approaching still nearer to his enemy, he threw himself forward with much greater violence, but without success; for the hand of the savage sent him rebounding further off than before. The Potawatamie then gathered all his strength for a final effort of liberation, but of no avail: he remained fast in the opening of the air-hole. Quick as lightning, the reptile, now foaming at the mouth, with blazing eyes, and jaws swollen with rage, his forked tongue extended, sprang with renewed strength toward his prey. His scaly skin glistened and sparkled in the silvery light of the moon, and the slight noise made by his rattles resembled the rustling of parchment, and alone broke the silence of the night. This mortal combat in the stillness of night, between a serpent and a savage more subtle than the serpent, had an indescribable fascination; it was more like a contest between two evil spirits, in the shadow of night, over some unfortunate victim. The serpent now approached so near the Indian that he could almost have seized him with his hand; he raised himself a last time, and, throwing back his head, sprang forward. The savage, guarding himself carefully with his one hand, had followed with his eyes the least movement of the writhing body. It was plain to see that the final fight had begun, and could only terminate in the total vanquishment of one or the other of the combatants. At the instant that the snake sprang like an arrow upon his enemy, the Indian raised his hand; but this time the attack of the reptile had been so rapid and instantaneous that, before he could strike him a blow, his fangs had entered his cheek. A hoarse cry died away in the throat of the savage, who, seizing the serpent with his hand before he could escape, raised him to his mouth, and in his rage tore him to pieces with his teeth. A vain reprisal—the blow had been struck. A short time after, the most horrible cries and fearful convulsions announced that the mortal venom had entered his veins. The victim writhed with despair in the midst of his excruciating agony. It was thought at first that he had finally succeeded in getting out; but subsequently they found the body, enormously swollen, still held in the aperture of the air-hole. His bloodshot eyes were starting from their sockets, his face as black as ink, while his gaping mouth revealed two rows of white teeth, to which still clung the fragments of the reptile’s skin, and flakes of bloody foam. Providence had indeed terribly avenged the assassination of the young officer.

THE JESUITS IN PARIS.

A WALK in the direction of the gloomy though now as ever fashionable Faubourg St. Germain is not exactly one that a non-fashionable person would ordinarily choose; nor does the Rue de Sèvres in that quarter hold out any particular inducement for a foot-passenger to traverse it.

However, it was to the Rue de Sèvres that, on the 18th of January, 1873, I bent my steps; for at one o’clock precisely I had an appointment to keep there with a Father of the _Compagnie de Jésus_; and No. 35 in that street is the society’s headquarters.

I crossed the Seine at the Pont Royale, and soon found myself in the main artery of the faubourg—the well-known Rue du Bac. I splashed along with omnibuses that seemed determined to do their best to destroy the roughly macadamized carriage-road; by huge gaps in the façade, where the _pétroleuse_ had been at work, and where the dull-red walls looked as if the destroying element were still lurking about them; by blue-coated and blue-hooded policemen, who scrutinized one to an extent that made you debate within your mind whether you had or had not picked the pocket of a passer-by, or lately become affiliated to the _Internationale_. On, by the “Maison Petit St. Thomas”—a large dry-goods establishment, the name of which may bring back perhaps to some of our lady readers the pleasant season passed a few years since in Paris, with its gay _fêtes_ and agreeable shopping excursions. On, till the plate-glass of the store windows becomes less costly, and the fish and the _charcuterie_, or ham and sausage shops, become more plentiful. On, till at last, to right and left, “Rue de Sèvres,” in bold white letters on a blue ground, tells me that I have reached my destination. To save time, I thought it necessary to ask some one where the particular house that I wanted was situated. I looked at a _sergent de ville_, but his glances repelled me. I turned towards a cabman, but I fancied he expected something more than I was prepared to give him; and then, not in despair, but in the natural order of things, I had recourse to the inevitable Parisian chestnut-man, who (I having taken the precaution of buying two sous’ worth of damply-warm chestnuts) willingly gave me all the information that I required.

The exterior of No. 35 Rue de Sèvres is as much like that of any other house in Paris as you can well imagine. There is a certain number of feet of stucco, relieved by oblong windows; and there are two large _portes cochères_, or folding-doors, far apart from one another, and looking incapable either of being opened or closed; although, in point of fact, the one leads to the church, and the other to the convent.

I entered, of course, by the last-named portal, and, passing through the usual French courtyard, knocked at a glass door, from whence it was evident that a brother porter within held communication with the world without.

I presented my letter of introduction to him, and, while he was making arrangements for the transmission of it to the rightful owner, because it was raining heavily, and because I saw only one door open, I entered by that door, and found myself uninvited and unwittingly in the _conciergerie_, or porter’s lodge, itself.

The _concierge_ and his occupation afforded me a good deal of amusement, or, to speak less lightly, a good deal of room for thought during part of the three-quarters of an hour that I was destined to wait for the arrival of the priest with whom I had the engagement. He has under his control the management of ten brown wooden handles, attached to ten wires, which wires are connected with ten different doors in different parts of the establishment.

If a person want a confessor, he pulls the wire connected with the church. If a lady desires advice, another pull opens the parlors to her. If a priest wishes to come from the convent, another pull in another direction is necessary. And as these pulls (except in the last case) are invariably followed by a message sent through a speaking-tube by the same brother porter, to inform the priest of the fact that he is wanted; and as through the before-mentioned glass door and otherwise he receives all letters, and answers all queries, both from within and without, he has, I take it, a pretty hard time of it.

I had been too much absorbed at first to observe what was taking place around me; but, after a little, I began to remark that the priests, in passing to and fro through the _conciergerie_, bestowed upon me more glances of earnest inquiry than I thought my personal appearance actually warranted. At last the mystery was solved by one father being so good as to tell me that seculars generally waited in the parlors. I bowed, thanked him gratefully, and went; but not before I had discovered that, if the pigeon-holes for letters be a true test, there were fourteen or more priests resident in the Rue de Sèvres at that particular time.

I was not sorry for the exchange of place. It was strangely interesting to be sitting in those rooms where, so short a time since, the Communists, under the command of an energetic young gentleman named Citoyen Lagrange, took prisoner the good Superior Father Olivaint and his Père Procureur, M. Caubert.

Strange to sit in those parlors, and gaze upon the large and well-photographed portraits of those two men and martyrs, and to notice the remarkable likeness existing between them. How both had the same square forehead and firmly set, powerful mouth; and how both looked—as they were—soldiers ready to die under the banner for which they fought.

_Ne pleurez pas sur moi_,[190] cried Father Olivaint to the solitary group of sympathizers whom he met on his way to the _Préfecture de Police_.

No! _mon père_, we weep not, but rather thank God that the grand old spirit of martyrdom has not yet died out among us!

Besides the thoughts which the past suggested to me, it was interesting to note the living occupants of the rooms. One silver-haired old gentleman, whom I afterwards found out to be the self-same Père Alexis Lefebvre whom Lagrange left in charge of the house, telling him to keep it _au nom de la Commune_, was holding a very serious conversation with two or three gentlemen, the red ribbons in whose button-holes declared them to be _chevaliers de la Legion d’Honneur_. Another father was having quite a small reception of middle-aged married ladies, who probably had, or desired to have, sons either at the College of Vaugirard or at that of S. Geneviève. Another—but stay! here is my particular father, to whose kindness I owe it that I have been enabled to write this paper.

The Society of Jesus is so well known to the citizens of New York that it would be superfluous for me to give any lengthened description of the general principles of government upon which the order is based. Suffice it to say, for the benefit of the uninitiated, that, in common with other religious, they have a head resident at the Roman court; provincials under him, among whom the supervision of the different stations is divided; and superiors of individual houses.

It is peculiar, however, to the Society of Jesus that each provincial has attendant upon him an officer called _socius_, whose care it is to look after the pecuniary business of the province, and in many kindred ways to assist his chief; but this office, I am informed, does not confer any additional rank upon the holder.

The case is different, however, with some other officials of the society, called “consulters,” who, as their name implies, are chosen from among the number of the elder and more experienced brethren.

The house in the Rue de Sèvres was reopened in the year 1853, after having been considerably enlarged.

The main building consists of a plainly-built quadrangle, on the north side of which, and in immediate connection with it, stands the church, dedicated to the sacred name of Jesus. Running along all the inner sides of the quadrangle, both on the ground and the other two floors, is a lofty, well-ventilated corridor or cloister, adorned here and there, after the usual manner of convents, with religious paintings.

The piece of ground forming the natural centre of the quadrangle is laid out with shrubbery, though without pretension to anything more than neatness.

On the ground floor are situated the refectory, the kitchens, and other offices; while the first and second floors are devoted exclusively to the use of the fathers. The cells, like the corridors, are lofty and well ventilated, but so simple in their arrangement as to require no description.

The priests, in the true monastic spirit, sweep and keep clean their own rooms and even the cloisters; and, from the general air of cleanliness and order that pervades the place, it is evident that the work is well done. This walk through the cloisters of the Jesuit house in Paris would be uninteresting were it not for the remembrance of one ne’er-to-be-forgotten room; and for the sake of the names printed upon the cell doors, bringing back as they do to one’s mind the recollection of past times and weary troubles; and the near presence of men so many of whom have distinguished themselves in working for the cause of holy church.

Tread softly, and be silent now, as ye approach yonder door that bears no printed name; for the key that turns the jealous lock will disclose that to thy gaze which should excite thy intensest feelings of humility!

It is the “Martyrs’ Room,” where are kept the relics of the five heroic men, each one of whom “pro lege Dei sui certavit usque ad mortem et a verbis impiorum non timuit; fundatus enim erat supra firmam petram.”[191]

Anatole de Beugy was arrested with the Père Ducoudray.

“Voilà un nom à vous faire couper le cou,” cried the officer in charge of the party of arrest.

“Oh! j’espère,” replied the father calmly; “que vous ne me ferez pas couper le cou à cause de mon nom.”

I imagine that the officer did not think more highly of F. de Beugy after this. In fact, all through the time of his imprisonment, his captors seem not to have liked him or his indomitable _sang froid_. His coat is there, in this “Martyrs’ Room” (a secular one, by the bye), and it is pierced with seventy-two Communist bullets—truly, a very palpable proof of his enemies’ animosity.

When the Père Olivaint was on his way to execution, as he descended the stairs of the prison of La Roquette, he found—how naturally!—that he had his breviary tightly grasped in his hand. “They have me,” perhaps he thought, “but they need not have _this_”; and he presented the book to the _concierge_ of the prison, who had shown him some kindness. God knows what motives the man had, but an officer of the National Guard snatched it from his hand, and threw it into the flames of a fire near by.

The _concierge_ recovered the breviary, or what remained of it, and it is now in the “Martyrs’ Room.”

He who can look upon this relic without emotion must have a very hard heart indeed!

Do any of us ever think that the spirit of penance—corporal penance—is dying out amongst us? There are instruments of self-mortification in this “Martyrs’ Room” that will convince us to the contrary.

It is not a miracle—unless the world and life be all a miracle—if, when men die wondrous deaths, wonderful things should follow upon those deaths; and when we see a marble tablet in this “Martyrs’ Room” telling how, not eighteen months ago, at Mass-time, when the priest invoked the saints whose relics lay beneath the altars in the church, a child was healed of a grievous disease, we must not be surprised.

“Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem sœculi.”[192]

The beds from La Roquette are here—pieces of sacking, stretched out by a contrivance something similar to that made use of in the formation of camp-stools.

Here are the little silver cases in which the fathers concealed the Blessed Sacrament, to be at last, as each anticipated, his viaticum.

But enough....

The church, as I before stated, is situated on the north side of the quadrangle. It is Gothic, and of fair proportions, consisting of a choir and two aisles. The only side chapel worthy of note is that where repose the bodies of the PP. Olivaint, Ducoudray, Clerc, Caubert, and De Beugy, murdered on the 24th and 26th of May, 1871, by the Communists of Paris. The walls, the floor, the whole chapel, in fact, is literally covered with wreaths of blood-red _immortelles_; while in front of what, in the event of their canonization, will be the “Martyrs’ Altar,” are five white marble slabs, bearing upon them the names of the five victims, together with the incidents and date of their deaths.

My kind guide—the priest whom I have elsewhere described as being “my particular father”—having now shown me all that was necessary of the house and chapel, returned with me to his cell, and, in some very interesting conversations then and on my succeeding visits, soon gave me an idea of the important works undertaken by his society in Paris.

“We are,” said he, “quite a military order. Fighting is as much our business as it is the soldier’s; and I will even go so far as to say that he is no true Jesuit who does not fight. Of enemies, as you may imagine, there is no lack whatever; but, undoubtedly, here our _bête noire_ is socialism; for you know in Paris, as indeed elsewhere, it has ever been our aim to undertake, if possible, the education of the male portion of society. And this, unfortunately, happens to be the favorite work of the socialists also; for, however faulty their code of moral philosophy may be in other respects, they have at least grasped the fact that to educate the affluent youth of a country is to form the intellect of a rising generation. However,” concluded my instructor laughingly, “we have never been _very_ popular in European society.”

“No,” I answered abstractedly; for I was thinking just then of the sacred name which the order bears—of him who was “Virum dolorum et scientem infirmitatem”;[193] and my thoughts reverted to the martyr shrine that I had so lately seen in the chapel. “But perhaps you, who have in such a special manner enrolled yourselves under the banner of the sacred name of Jesus, have received of him a greater share than others of the shame of the cross.”

The father’s reply was a very practical one. “My dear sir,” said he, “nothing of the kind. The world dislikes us because we persist in teaching, and because it knows perfectly well that all our teaching is impregnated to the core with that particular kind of Catholicity which it hates—the Catholicity, I mean, whose first principle is devotion and implicit obedience to the Holy See.”

It will be seen, therefore, from the foregoing fragment of conversation, that the Jesuits’ work in Paris is for the most part the Catholic education of the upper classes.

The fathers in the Rue de Sèvres do, in one way and another, a good deal of work, although but little, perhaps, of a character that directly identifies itself with the peculiar animus of the order to which I have alluded. They are popular as confessors, and this involves a good deal of labor.

They direct two confraternities of men, each numbering respectively upwards of two hundred members. One is for the fathers of families, and the other for young men. Each society meets in the chapel upon alternate Thursdays for Mass and instruction. Again, the Jesuits render every assistance that lies in their power to the parochial clergy; and thus the fathers become, now conductors of missions, and now Lenten or Advent preachers.

At the Rue de Sèvres are given retreats, not only to their own brethren and the secular clergy, but also, and on a large scale, to private individuals—men whom care has driven to seek refuge in the contemplation of the treasures laid up for them in heaven.

Jesuits, whose duty calls them to places _en route_ to which Paris becomes a natural resting-place, find a haven in the Rue de Sèvres. The provincial resides here when he is in Paris; and, finally, a few men who, at a moment’s notice, are available to be sent anywhere to meet a sudden emergency, make for the time this most interesting house their home.

In a dark, narrow street in close proximity to the Pantheon—in a street that, in its unlikeness to some other parts of the city, reminds one of the Paris of history—is situated the College of S. Geneviève. This is the chief educational establishment of the order; the other being that of the school of the Immaculate Conception at Vaugirard—a village on the southwest side of Paris.

In concluding this chapter in the life of what, next to holy church itself, must ever be considered the most wonderful organization that the world has ever seen, I cannot do better than append a brief account of the character of the work done in these two houses.

The Ecole S. Geneviève, founded in the year 1854, proposes for its object the preparation of youths for admission into the various professional colleges in France. That the work is a success may be seen in the fact that, in 1872-1873, sixty-four students were actually admitted from thence to the military academy at St. Cyr, while twenty-three more were declared “admissibles”; that the same school sent sixteen boys to the Ecole Centrale, to be educated as engineers, seven to the Ecole Navale, and twenty-three to the Polytechnique; and, lastly, that, exclusive of these, many more have been admitted into other similar establishments in Paris or elsewhere. The aggregate number of students appears, from the statistics put into my hands, to exceed four hundred and fifty.

The present rector of S. Geneviève is the immediate successor of the Père Ducoudray; and it is a noteworthy fact that three out of the five men killed under the Commune were connected with the school; the other two being PP. Caubert and Clerc. The services of the last-named father must have been extremely valuable; for, previous to his admission to the Society of Jesus, he had been for many years a naval officer.

The school of the Immaculate Conception, at Vaugirard, is perhaps as perfect a specimen of its kind as can be found in Europe.

At the present moment, there are upwards of six hundred and forty boys, representing the flower of the French _beau monde_, receiving at this institution a sound high-class education.

On his entrance, the scholar is at first put through an elementary course, out of which he is drafted into the sixth form, from which he rises to the third, and then completes his education by successive courses of classics, rhetoric, and philosophy.

Thus, to an outsider and to a passer-by in Paris, appears the work of that grand order whose aim we believe to be no less than the motto they have adopted:

_Ad majorem Dei gloriam!_

SAN MARCO: A REMINISCENCE.

IN all the great cities of the Old World, the cathedral is the nucleus round which gathers the social life of the community. It is a national monument, a historical representative; it keeps in its tombs records more precious to the nation than those treasured in archives and libraries; it is identified with the city’s success or failure, and often bears visible marks of this sympathetic life in its trophies or in its ruins. Of old, the principal church of a city became the mirror of the people’s individuality; it took on the form that best expressed the people’s genius; it was an index to the national character. If this is so with other churches, it is perhaps even more strikingly true of S. Mark’s in Venice.

This unique church, the S. Sophia of the West, and the inheritrix _par excellence_ of Byzantine treasures, is one that, to our fancy, makes a deeper impression on the stranger than S. Peter’s at Rome. To describe it technically; to speak of its uneven floor and crowded, heavy pilasters; to enumerate its columns, and analyze the color of its mosaics, is simply a desecration, besides inevitably implying an untruth. Criticism cannot be anything but an afterthought, even though genuine admiration should not be the first impression of the visitor. A spell is laid upon you at the very outset, and an indescribable feeling of reverence steals over your every sense as you tread the dusky aisles. We have always found it most satisfactory, in visiting either churches or cities, to slowly drink in the spirit of the place, rather than rush into a dissection of its detailed sights; and we are persuaded that this slow, receptive method is the only way in which to enjoy travel of any sort.

Thus, for instance, S. Mark’s became so woven in with our daily life that, without being able to give a single date or statistical fact concerning it, we were yet entirely penetrated with its peculiar beauty, but, above all, by its silent influence.

We went there every morning to early Mass—which, by the bye, is the only way to see a beautiful church on the Continent. You grow to love it, to know its every corner, to feel its peace, to be quite at home in it, to look out for the sunbeam throwing its line of gold over some particular spot on the marble floor, or for the red glow of the sunset to illumine some favorite mosaic. Then, too, you begin to know your fellow-worshippers, and to expect the clamorous hum of devotion with which this old man tells his beads, or to be disappointed if you fail to see the old beggar-woman crouching behind the ponderous door, and stretching out her hand with a ready blessing for the daily alms. S. Mark’s is one of the most peaceful churches in Europe; silence seems natural to it, and not even a great ceremony appears to create any stir there. The midnight Mass, which, by a singular exemption from the ordinary rule, takes place on Christmas eve, at five o’clock in the afternoon (this and the Christmas Mass at Vienna are the only such exceptions), is celebrated with great pomp, and the music is not too full of repose; yet the spirit of the church seems serenely unaltered, and the great brooding silence hangs over the echoes of the pageants, hushing them till the mind wanders away so far from their earthly presence that it is hardly more conscious of them than a man standing on a high mountain would be of the suppressed hum of the city lying at his feet. But another solemnity have we witnessed in this church much more congenial to its spirit, and indeed the most impressive of all Christian ceremonies—the office of _Tenebræ_. S. Mark’s is never lighted by anything save the golden lamps of its distant shrines, and the tall columns of wax on the high altar. The service on the three evenings of Holy Wednesday and Thursday, and Good Friday, is generally after dark, and every one brings his own light—a _cerino_, or coil of waxen taper—by which to read his book. This will barely suffice for two persons to read by, so that, from the gallery where we were stationed, we could see the church sown with stars, like the heavens at midnight; while, in the various fantastic recesses above and below our own, called galleries, glimmered a score of similar fitful lights. The attendance was small, and the beauty of the sight thereby increased. The chant, coming from below as the invisible choir breathed out the solemn lamentations, had a weird, stilling effect, like that of the sighing of the wind among the pines, suggesting everything that was strange, far-away, and desolate. We had heard the _Miserere_ of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and likened it to what one might dream the angels to have sung while Christ hung on the cross of Calvary; but this—the same service, the same words, almost the same chant—seemed rather what the watchers round the sepulchre might have whispered amid their sobs, as they left the sacred body of their dead Lord on the evening of the first Good Friday.

Among the few people whose faces were near enough to be recognized were some of our acquaintances of the Venetian _salons_. They wore the customary dress, black gowns and lace veils falling gracefully around them. One was a great beauty by night, though what looked a soft, cream-colored complexion then would look sallow by day. She was the daughter of a Jew, married to a nominal Catholic, but an actual atheist, and herself practised no religion whatsoever. Here she was, with her beautiful, hopeless eyes fixed on the religious ceremonial with a sort of weary, hungry, perplexed look, while a friend tried earnestly to interest her in the spirit of the ritual.

Don Carlos and his family were there too, he and his brother being mere boys at the time, and more occupied by the care required to keep the _cerino_ from burning down too low than by the solemn ceremonies at which they were assisting. The daily life, if one may so call it, of the Venetian Basilica has, however, more power to charm the memory than its hours of splendid show. We like best to think of it almost empty and quite silent, its high altar seldom used, and its Lady Chapel, Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, and altar of the Crucifix quaintly propped up against the corner of the pilaster, surrounded by the few worshippers whose faithful instincts bid them haunt the same spots day after day. In the early morning, you enter the seemingly deserted church. No hum of prayer is heard; hardly a human form is in sight. Suddenly, to the right of the high chancel, the sound of a little bell is heard, and, from the winding path that leads through chapels and pillars from the sacristy, a priest appears, vested for Mass, and accompanied by his server. From hidden corners rise up silent forms that join his train, and follow him to the altar which he has chosen; a devout congregation is quietly collected, and crowds round the rails, outside and inside, or, where there are no rails, presses up to the priest’s very feet, and often impedes the server’s movements. The latter is not always very reverential, however, and his motions sometimes savor of abruptness; but the people are too simple-minded to be shocked. When the bell should be rung, the boy ensconces himself at the side of the altar, and pulls a string attached to a bell high up above his head; and here, as in most Italian churches, the _Domine non sum dignus_ is not distinguished by a bell at all. Another feature of S. Mark’s is the collector. At every Mass, he comes round, rattling a box in the face of each person, and crying, in a monotonous tone, “For the poor, my brethren,” or, “For the souls in purgatory”; and, as there are many collectors, and the succession of Masses at each of the three or four altars is uninterrupted, it may be judged whether this simple and erratic style of collecting is not rather an infliction than otherwise; yet somehow it fits in with the spirit of the place. S. Mark’s contains no pictures; that is, no masterpieces of those whom the world recognizes as the kings of their art. SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the Jesuit church, that of the Frari, and many others, are rich in these treasures; but San Marco has its matchless mosaics, combining Scriptural, historical, and allegorical subjects of colossal dimensions, with the most fanciful arabesques and purely decorative tracery. The colors, both in the interior, where the low arches seem lined with the golden glow of an everlasting sunset, and on the outer porch, where figures of vast size and groups of bold conception strike the eye, are almost as brilliant to-day as they must have been a thousand years ago.

If there is no _chef-d’œuvre_ of modern art, there is nevertheless something more suggestive to the Catholic mind. The “picture” we grew to love most in all Venice was no Titian or Paul Veronese, nor even a Bellini (though the latter have the fragrance of Beato Angelico about them); but a brown Byzantine Madonna, hidden behind crowns and necklets of heavy gold, and enthroned in a deep, receding shrine—a temple of blazing gems under the massive, overhanging arches of S. Mark’s. The face, as revealed in the unadorned prints of it sold all over Venice, is very beautiful, the features severely regular, and the expression one of infinite majesty and calm. We know more than one of these sombre masterpieces of unknown artists, which no one admires, because no one, as a rule, _sees_ them, but which, though overloaded with precious metals to the detriment of their beauty, and branded contemptuously by sightseers as mere “miraculous images,” are yet very pure models of ancient art, and most interesting relics of early Christianity. For instance, there is one at Warsaw in universal veneration all over Poland, and whose grave, dignified, and grandly serene cast of features raises it as a work of religious art far above the portraits of simpering maidens, buxom peasants, or gorgeous sultanas, whom the world has recognized for nearly four hundred years as the type of the Mother of God. Russia is rich in these Byzantine pictures, and the Greek Church holds them in as great honor as the Catholic.

We seem to have wandered out of Venice, somehow, in this gossip about unrecognized pictures; but the mention of Byzantium in reality brings us back to the lagoons, for it is as familiar to the Venetian as his own republic. Indeed, one would think that Venice had no civilization before she invaded Constantinople in 1204; for everything of any value, artistic or historical, is always traced up to this date. As it is impossible to create a new Venice, so it would be to build a new Basilica of San Marco; the city of the Evangelist stands alone in history, and its cathedral alone in art. It has the rare merit of suggesting nothing if not Christianity; it is more individual than S. Peter’s, and less associated with pageants and festivals; it is no mere imitation or adaptation of the forms of pagan art; it suits the purple sky and brilliant atmosphere of the South, yet without jarring on the sense of the Christianity to whose use it is dedicated; and, if its style is less symbolical than the Gothic, it is at least less servile than the Palladian. The chief impression it has left on us, as well as the only analysis we wish to make of its beauties, is this—that it is the easiest church in Europe in which to pray without distraction.

“MOTHER OF GOD.”

I KNEW, O God! that thou wert great and good, Holy and just, and yet most loving, too; But never did I know thy tenderness Till these sweet words had pierced me through and through.

It seemed so far to lift my heart to thee, I could but fear and tremble as I prayed; Until thy grace made these sweet words disclose The infinite act of love which thou hadst made.

Mother of God! Then Thou art one with us— Our Brother, Lover, Saviour, all in one; And the great distance ‘twixt our souls and thee Was bridged by Mary’s words, “Thus be it done.”

Henceforth, when I would make my act of love, When my full heart would lift itself to thee, Should holy awe and fear weigh down my soul, “Mother of God” upon my lips shall be.

MEMOIRS OF A GOOD FRENCH PRIEST.

IT must not be always that men’s evil manners are writ in brass, their good deeds in water. The one grand, true, and pure wife of Henry VIII., with her strong sense of justice, commended the chronicler of the virtues of her once-potent but then fallen enemy. The history of conquerors, which most attracts the world’s admiring gaze, is but too often a record of crime; but, _fiat justitia_, with their crimes let their redeeming qualities, if any there be, stand forth, so that the good and the evil may flow down the stream of time in history, as they move in life, together.

We have recently read a work which contains in a few pages a large record of virtue and vice, of good and evil: the actors, however, were different parties—as far apart in their spheres as the spirits on the right and the left hand on the day of doom.

The _Memoirs of the Rt. Rev. Simon Gabriel Bruté_, with his sketches of scenes connected with the French Revolution, and extracts from his journal by Bishop (now Archbishop) Bayley, is one of a class of works which is deeply interesting in its nature and striking in its contrasts. The glory and shame of France are strangely brought together. The culmination of the neverending contest between the church of Christ, on the one hand, and the world and the gates of hell, on the other, appeared to be reached in the French Revolution. Heaven-born piety and hell-born iniquity, each in its most potential form, seemed to meet in a death-grapple. Astonished and awe-stricken nations looked on as spectators of the combat, as if upon that field hung the fate of Christianity, of revelation, of, in short, the subordination of the creature to the Creator. The struggle indeed was appalling; and the modern followers of that fool who said in his heart, There is no God, often threw up their fool’s-caps, _bonnets-d’âne_, or _bonnets-rouges_ in token of victory. But the end was not yet, as it is not yet. In that struggle, as in all others for eighteen hundred years, the divine prophecy was vindicated, and the oracles of Satan for a time were silenced, at least until the father of sin could rehabilitate them in other forms. The American Catholic whose memory serves him for a couple of score of years, may remember to have seen at Mount S. Mary’s College, or in Baltimore, a French priest, whose very physiognomy would strongly rivet attention. We remember once, in early college days, passing from Georgetown College, where we were acquiring the humanities, to Mount S. Mary’s on a holiday excursion. We had fresh in mind as the very ideal of a venerable priest good old Father Jerome Dzierozynski, priest, philosopher, scholar, saint, the pastor of the college, and a model for his younger brethren aspiring to Christian perfection. We found his counterpart in the French priest, Father Bruté, at the mountain. His very presence was inspiring. The man of God was plainly discernible in his calm, placid face, which spoke, without words, of holiness, of wisdom, of learning, of the subjection of self and the man of the flesh, of the age, to the spiritual man, the pilgrim to eternity. Our personal recollections of this eminent man, however, go not beyond appearances and first-sight impressions. We are indebted to Archbishop Bayley’s fascinating work for a knowledge of his eventful career. Born and bred in France in a model Catholic family, he witnessed in his boyhood the practical workings of the French Revolution. He had not the honor to undergo exile or martyrdom, but he knew intimately many of the victims of that reign of _Satanas_; and his young eyes were made to ache with the lurid coruscations of the philosophy of Antichrist, which swept over France as fire sweeps over a prairie.

Losing his father early in life, his education was conducted by a wise and prudent mother, such as is called in Holy Writ “a valiant woman.” He was sent to the best schools of the day in his native city of Rennes, and he was fortunate in having for his teachers priests eminent for piety and learning, several of whom gave up their lives for the faith. For a short time he worked as a practical printer. “In 1793-4,” he writes of himself, “during the height of ‘The Terror,’ my mother made me work in the printing-office to save me from being enrolled in a regiment of children named ‘The Hope of the Country’; and a hopeful set they were.” A regiment of boys was formed, who acted as so many young demons. “My mother was much pressed to allow me to join them, and was terribly alarmed on this account. I remained in the printing-office nearly a year, and became a pretty good compositor.” To the honor of the craft, we may add that his widowed mother had a printing establishment under her own direction, probably derived from her first husband, Francis Vatar, printer to the king and parliament at Rennes, who prided himself on his hereditary art, his ancestors having been printers for many generations.

After this interruption to his studies, he resumed them, and in due time began the study of medicine. His fondness for the profession, his talents, his industry, gave sure indications of eminent success. In 1799, at twenty years of age, he entered the Medical School at Paris. “At the time this occurred,” he says, “I was entirely wrapt up in my medical studies, and preparing for the prize.” This indeed he obtained. He graduated with the highest honors. There were at that time eleven hundred students attending the course; out of these, one hundred and twenty were chosen by _concursus_ as the best; and among this number M. Bruté received the first prize after another examination. An official appointment immediately followed this youthful triumph. But his thoughts were now turned to another field of labor, and to that vocation alone more worthy than medicine of his high endowments. He determined to study for the church. “He was not led to abandon a profession to which he had devoted so many years of assiduous study, and which opened its most brilliant prospects before him,” as Dr. McCaffrey remarks, “from any feelings of disgust. He always honored it as one of the noblest to which a highly gifted and philanthropic man can devote himself. Delightful as his conversation was to all, and to men of science in particular, it was peculiarly so to the student or to the practitioner or professor of medicine. He turned from it only because he had higher and more important objects in view. His eleven hundred classmates in medicine told him that it was easy to find physicians for the body, but the Revolution had made it more difficult to find physicians for the souls of men. The guillotine and prisons and privations of exile had spared but a comparatively small number of the former clergy, and of these many were occupied in foreign missions. Dreadful as had been the ravages of infidelity and impiety, and the almost entire privation of all spiritual succor, an immense number of the French people still remained faithful to their religion, and a new supply of Levites, to fill the places of those who had perished, was called for on every side.”

The medical student who had gone through the Parisian curriculum with a pure heart and a sinless soul proved thereby his title to join the choicest body of Levites. He not only had gone through the course with virginal purity, but he had already made a fight for the faith amidst its most potent enemies. If he resembled Aloysius at Rennes, he showed the spirit of Bayard at Paris. “Not satisfied with professing and openly practising his religion, he entered into a combination with several of his fellow-students, particularly those from his own province, boldly to oppose the false principles to which they were obliged to listen. They chose such subjects for their theses before the class as to enable them to avow their belief in revelation, and to defend its truth. One of the beneficial effects which followed from this course, was that the attention of the government was called to it. Bonaparte, then First Consul, was laboring to restore Christianity in France, as the necessary means of reorganizing society; and the infidel professors were made to confine their teaching to its proper limits.”

It would be well if infidel or atheistical professors at the present day could be restrained to their respective courses of instruction. Some of them seem to think it incumbent on them to proclaim, _ex cathedrâ_, their irreligious or atheistical convictions. Such men are entirely unfit for their occupations, no matter what talents or learning they may possess, and they ought to be silenced by authority. This may be considered illiberal by some, but let them make a little change in the order, and suppose a Catholic professor of anatomy to give a daily discourse to his pupils on the infallibility of the Pope before mixed classes of Catholics and Protestants, Jews and infidels: would such teachings, we ask, be greeted with liberal approbation? We think not. Then the infidel professor cannot expect a Christian public to consent to his teachings, beyond his proper course. This is a practical question of the day, and all honest men should demand in the teaching of medicine, or of any science or sciences, that the teachers should confine themselves to demonstrative and demonstrable facts. It is the last degree of folly or of impudence to attempt to prove anything of the relations of the soul to the body by the aid of scalpel or microscope. Professors in the Parisian schools still claim the right to teach covert or overt atheism, and they deem interference nothing less than persecution. They are philosophers, and claim free thought. But their opponents say properly (and this matter has been before the French Senate) that it is not the thought of the professors which is the matter in dispute, but their officious _teachings_. If they are free to think what they please, says an eminent medical writer, M. Garnier, they are not therefore free to profess or to teach all that they think. Animism, spiritism, materialism, are equally intractable to science. In these matters science can prove nothing; the rights of science, then, are neither compromised nor sacrificed by keeping it within the limits defined by its very nature.

All parents and guardians of youth, whatever their faith, or want of it, should protest against professors of medicine making use of their chairs to inculcate upon their pupils that the soul is subordinate to the body, the immortal to the mortal part of man. These are matters which are not now, never were, and never will be under the dominion of human wisdom or learning.

We will now follow Dr. Bruté rapidly in his career as physician in the higher order, that is, for the souls of men. He made his studies in divinity with the intense earnestness of his nature. “Theology was a science for which his mind was admirably fitted. He loved his religion, and it evidently became his delight thoroughly to explore the very foundations of it.” He was ordained priest in 1808, and was for a short time professor of theology in his native city. In 1810, he came to the United States, and began that active career in Baltimore and at Mount S. Mary’s College which made him so favorably known to the clergy and people of this country. “If Mount S. Mary’s, in addition to all the other benefits it has bestowed upon Catholicity in this country, has been in a remarkable degree the nursery of an intelligent, active, zealous priesthood, exactly such as was needed to supply the wants of the church in this country, every one at all acquainted with the history of that institution will allow that the true ecclesiastical spirit was stamped upon it by Bishop Bruté. His humility, piety, and learning made him a model of the Christian priest; and the impression of his virtues made upon both ecclesiastical and lay students surpassed all oral instruction. The Catholic religion alone can produce such men, and hence their example confirms the faith and elevates the character of all who come in contact with them. The name of Bishop Bruté has been, and ever will be, associated with that of Bishop Dubois as common benefactors to the infant church in this country.”

The church in America has obligations to a considerable body of French priests, driven from their own country for the most part by the ruthless madmen who for a season ruled fair France, which obligations can never be repaid and have scarcely been recognized. Even American Catholics often speak of Lafayette and his followers as the only Frenchmen entitled to our gratitude, forgetting entirely the valiant soldiers of the cross from the same country who Christianized our savages in the wilderness, or who astonished our Protestant civilization with their learning, their talents, and their virtues. Speaking of Bishop Cheverus, first Catholic Bishop of Boston, “which of us,” says Dr. W. E. Channing, the most eminent Protestant minister of his time in that city—“which of us would like to have our lives compared with his?” This candid and generous admission might have applied to others as well as to the almost peerless Cheverus, but none could have deserved it more. How truly is the blood of the martyrs the seed of the church!—including in the martyrs all who suffer in person or property for Christ. The French Revolution sent to our shores as fine a body of priests as the world ever saw—learned, pious, accomplished, refined, and highly cultured in every sense, they left an ineffaceable impression upon their successors in the priesthood in this country. In the order of God’s providence, persecution, in fact, has given the greatest impetus to Catholicity in America. The perpetual persecution of the Irish on account of their religion, the recent or actual persecutions by Garibaldi, Victor Emanuel, and Bismarck, all give laborers to this vineyard, where they are so much needed, and where they are doing a world of good a century in advance of an adequate supply of native priests.

In 1834, Dr. Bruté was consecrated as Bishop of Vincennes; in 1839, worn out with much and faithful service, his pure spirit took its departure. In his poor diocese, he had everything to construct, and everybody to instruct, even some Indian tribes, who received him with great joy as a “chief of the black robes,” a priest of “the true prayer.” He had no sinecure dignity. “At home he was at once the bishop, the pastor of the congregation, the professor of theology for his seminary, and a teacher for one of his academies.” These give a small idea of his labors. When the king of terrors (to most men) came, he found the bishop at his post, on duty, like the faithful Roman sentinel at the gates of Pompeii. But there were no terrors for him. “On the morning of the day before his death, he remarked to the clergyman who attended him with unwearied solicitude and affection: ‘My dear child, I have the whole day yet to stay with you; to-morrow with God!’ To another pious friend he used these simple but expressive words: ‘I am going home!’” And when his pure soul was disengaging itself, as it were, from the body, having received all the last rites of the church, he directed the prayers for the departing to be said, which he answered devoutly and fervently to the last; and then he entered upon that eternal life which he had always been contemplating, and for which his whole career had been one long preparation.

We would wish, if space permitted, to give selections from some of the good bishop’s “Brief Notes” of his recollections connected with the persecutions in France in 1793 and the following years, for they show in their simple details the striking contrasts between the lives and deaths of the children of Christ and the children of Antichrist, among the French people of that day. Never before in the history of the church, or in the history of humanity, did virtue and vice, face to face, reach loftier heights or deeper depths.

The aim of the French rulers was to extinguish Christianity. The “age of reason” had arrived, and its advanced fautors determined that the world should recognize it. But the priests stood in the way, and, by some strange mischance, all the honest and meritorious people of the land made common cause with the priests. To bring these people to a just appreciation of reason, the churches were plundered and dismantled, and turned into temples of reason or barracks and stables, and, if possible, viler uses. To take God’s house from him was to deprive him of a dwelling-place in France, and the example of France would be followed everywhere, so that God should be banished from the earth of his own creation. But the priests—the unreasonable, intractable priests—instead of adopting the new lights, would adhere to the doctrines and traditions of past ages. When the churches were closed, they would worship God by stealth, with their followers, in private houses, in the fields, in the woods, offering their pure and unbloody sacrifice on every hill and in every dale and valley of France. To correct this, their existence, and that of those who harbored them, was demanded in bloody sacrifice. “During the progress of the persecution,” says Bishop Bruté, “the greater number of the priests of the diocese had been either guillotined or shot, or transported to the penal colonies. The more aged and infirm were imprisoned in the Castle of St. Michael. Of the few left in deep concealment, some were almost daily discovered, and, according to the _law_, led with those who had harbored them to the guillotine within twenty-four hours.” Young Bruté often followed the accused to the criminal court, and listened with palpitating heart to the mock trials of priests and people. His instances are deeply touching. The very _capitula_ arrest attention: as “Trial of the priest and the three sisters of La Chapelle S. Aubert, Diocese of Rennes.” The priest, M. Raoul, was summarily convicted and sentenced; he submitted without a murmur, but attempted to offer a plea for the sisters, who sheltered him, when he was immediately silenced. The ladies were then put upon trial, and convicted and sentenced also. One of them had been a nun, and, driven from her convent home, had returned to her sister’s house. She was a woman of spirit, and when under the sentence of death she had a word to say to the court and the spectators. “When the sentence had been pronounced, the nun could not restrain her feelings of indignation. She rose from her seat, snatched from her cap the national cockade, which even the women were obliged to wear during those days of national delusion, and, trampling it under her feet, she addressed alternately the judges and the people with two or three sentences of vehement reproach: ‘Barbarous people,’ she exclaimed, ‘amongst what savage nations has hospitality ever been made a crime punishable with death?’ I cannot now call to mind her other expressions, except that she appealed to the higher tribunal of God, and denounced his judgment against them.... The same day these four victims were immolated upon the fatal guillotine. They were taken, I think, as was often the case, from the tribunal to the scaffold, which remained permanently erected under the windows.” “A priest and peasant, bound together, were led to the ‘Fusilade’ singing the service for the dead.” One morning early, young Bruté was startled from his studies by the notes of the _Libera me, Domine_, from the Burial Service of the church, sung by some one in the streets. “I understood too well what it all meant, and ran to the door to go out and follow them, agitated and partially frightened by the usual terror which rested on my heart, but at the same time animated by the song of death, for it was the priest who was thus singing his own _Libera_, and the poor peasant stepped along quickly by his side, looking, as may be supposed, very serious, but without the least appearance of fear. The impression on my mind is that the soldiers, who generally followed their prisoners with jokes and abuse, accompanied these two in silence.”

Priests and peasants and nobles were victims to the impious rage of those days, and even women and children. It is appalling to read the summary account of “children shot and children drowned; women shot and women drowned; priests shot and priests drowned; nobles drowned, and artisans drowned, besides the hosts who were guillotined or sent into exile.”

We cannot draw further from the pages of this most interesting book, but the reader may do so at his leisure. We have thought sometimes in reading it that Victor Emanuel and Bismarck might find its perusal profitable. While writing this, we see by the papers that the Upper House of the Prussian diet has passed a bill authorizing a complete control of the church—that is, of all religious matter—by the state government. In other words, the church must be the king’s creature, or must perish. We shall see. There is traditional policy in this move. In one of Frederic the Great’s letters to Voltaire, he expresses a wish to break up the Catholic Church first, for then, he adds, the Protestant churches will be very easily disposed of.

The modern persecutors might see, if they were not blind, that after all the follies and crimes and slaughters of the French Revolution—and surely they can bring nothing worse or more potent than this—the church has risen again in France in her glory, and that hers is at this day the only one great conservative influence in France, as everywhere else in Christendom. Surely it is plain that, though often doomed to death, she is fated not to die. But how strange the infatuation of princes or people who would wish to blot out Christianity from the face of the earth, or to make it a mere servile tool of tyrants! To blot it out! and what then the history of man? Some philosophic inquirer has suggested the extinction of the sun, and then on this now bright planet of ours universal darkness, intense cold, the congelation of all the waters, the death of all vegetable life, the death of all animal life, and of the last strong man in the midst of an infinitude of horrors!

Even so in the moral world if the church of Christ, by the malice of man, could be extinguished: darkness, crime, and death, death temporal and eternal, would be poor lost man’s only inheritance. But, thanks be to God, we know that the bark of Peter will survive all tempests in the future as in the past, and that she will float over the stormy sea of time in safety to the consummation of ages; for the divine assistance is promised to her for ever.

In conclusion, we beg leave to express the hope that Archbishop Bayley will give to the world a new and enlarged edition of Bishop Bruté’s life, as his materials are by no means exhausted. It will be no detriment to Mr. Clarke’s excellent work to give to many of the deceased prelates, individually, much more extended biographies than that gentleman could possibly give in his instructive pages. And finally, we may express a hope that, when Lady Herbert edits a new edition, she will not forget to give due credit to the distinguished author whose labors she has in some sense so fully appreciated.[194]

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LECTURES AND SERMONS. By the Very Rev. Thomas N. Burke, O.P. New York: P. M. Haverty. 1873.

This, the second volume, containing thirty-two of F. Burke’s magnificent discourses, has just been issued by his authorized publisher, Mr. Haverty. In neither matter nor form is it inferior to the splendid volume published a year ago. It contains lectures on most of the important questions of the day, and nowhere better than in these lectures may be found a solution to the great problems that the moral and social condition of our age and country present. The fundamental principles of religion, order, and law treasured up in the _Summa_ of S. Thomas, F. Burke has thoroughly mastered and made his own; and, armed with these, he comes forth in the might of his eloquence, prepared to offer a remedy for every disease, intellectual and moral, of the XIXth century. The principles which he advocates and has proclaimed on the house-tops, from the Merrimac to the Mississippi, are just those by which modern society must be saved, if saved at all. His mission has been called a providential one with reference to the Irish in this country; but we believe it to be a providential one with reference to the American people at large. Never before have the genuine principles of human action been so publicly and brilliantly taught in our land; and the good seed, sown broadcast as it has been, cannot but take root and produce fruit in due season.

Even now the conversions to our holy religion, wrought through the instrumentality of F. Burke’s preaching, are many and widespread. But how great and palpable the good he has done amongst his own people! He has aroused their love for faith and fatherland to enthusiasm; he has made them to realize the important influence they are to exert on this continent; he has taught them to feel their dignity; he has told them what is required of them as citizens of the republic; he has pointed out their dangers, and suggested remedies for their disorders. His constant aim has been to instil into the minds of his countrymen every sentiment of religion, patriotism, and honor that could elevate and ennoble a generous race. Since the days of O’Connell, no one man has done so much for the Irish people, and none has received so much of their gratitude and confidence. It is but a short time ago that we heard a poor fellow say he had resolved “never to get drunk again, lest he might disgrace a country that could produce such a man as F. Tom Burke”—a noble sentiment truly, and one that speaks volumes for the man who could inspire it. We seem to be describing the work of a lifetime, and surely what we have said and had reason to say would make a long lifetime illustrious. Yet in very truth are we but enumerating the labors of a few months. What may not critics be able to write in the future, should F. Burke return to us, and resume his glorious work?

THE IRISH RACE IN THE PAST AND IN THE PRESENT. By Rev. Aug. J. Thebaud, S.J. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1873.

F. Thebaud has written us a philosophy of Irish history. He has sought out the characteristics of the Celtic race, and has, we think, discovered them and successfully traced them down from the earliest to the latest annals of that grand old people. He has read Irish history, and reflected on it, and his views, in relation to the Ireland of the past at least, are correct. We are glad that one not an Irishman has written this book; for when an Irishman speaks of his country’s bygone glories, he is pretty generally accused of exaggeration, and the world refuses to be interested in the details of an antique history which it supposes to be in great part the creation of national pride. We have always regretted that Montalembert did not write a history of Ireland, as he once intended to do, and we have never quite forgiven Victor Cousin for the part he took in dissuading the count from carrying out this the cherished scheme of his youth. Had the brilliant author of _The Monks of the West_ compiled the annals of Ireland, the story of Erin’s ancient greatness and civilization would now have its fitting place in the classic lore of Europe. F. Thebaud’s treatment of early Irish history is very satisfactory; he has a real love and admiration for that land—

“History’s sad wonder, whom all lands save one Gaze on through tears, and name with gentler tone.”

Christian Ireland in its golden age is particularly dear to him, and he delights in describing the glories of that Erin, then

“Lamp of the north when half the world was night, Now England’s darkness ‘mid her noon of light.”

In dealing with the events of this period, we think the learned author more happy than in his treatment of modern Irish history, though we are not at all disposed to disagree to any great extent with his views of martyred Ireland’s wrongs and their needs. We, too, believe that

... “Ere long Peace Justice-built the Isle shall cheer.”

From what he says of the present condition of things in that misgoverned country, however, we do think he has not consulted the most reliable authorities on all points; his account of the ignorance and destitution of the poorer classes is certainly somewhat exaggerated. This is about the only thing we find to criticise in a book which is manifestly a labor of love, and executed with an ardor and enthusiasm that love alone can enlist. F. Thebaud’s work is a valuable and highly important contribution to Irish history. To our Irish fellow-citizens it commends itself. To our American and non-Catholic readers who want to form correct views of Ireland and its people, we commend it.

THE LIMERICK VETERAN; OR, THE FOSTER SISTERS. By Agnes M. Stewart. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.

This is a historical romance, and a very good one of its kind. Throughout its two hundred and fifty pages thrilling facts and pleasing fiction are well and judiciously blended. The style is really good, and the name of Agnes Stewart is sufficient warrant that the tone is high and unexceptionable. If there were anything in a name, we might be disposed to criticise it in this particular; for, in very truth, the connection between the title and the tale that hangs thereon is slight. The story opens in Scotland, and the bonny Highlands are kept pretty well in view throughout, though the scene shifts to England, France, and Germany, and the curtain falls on a Christmas scene by the frozen St. Lawrence. In a novel such as this we do believe; it amuses, it instructs; from such a book much valuable history may be learned in a pleasing way.

The publishers have done Miss Stewart justice by giving to the public her graceful story in an appropriate form.

SINS OF THE TONGUE. By Monseigneur Landroit, Abp. of Rheims. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1873.

Mgr. Landroit is already favorably known to the English reader by a series of discourses for the use of women living in the world, translated under the title of _The Valiant Woman_. The present work not only treats of the subject indicated by the title, but also of “Envy and Jealousy,” “Rash Judgments,” “Christian Patience,” and “Grace”; and is intended for those who would naturally derive greater spiritual advantage from thoughtful reading than from formal meditation.

From the unrestful condition of things in this age and country it probably comes that there are fewer vocations to a contemplative life, and less inclination to habits of systematic contemplation, than in older and more settled communities. Hence, works like the present are perhaps more appropriate to those not consecrated to the religious state than many of the ordinary books of meditation. We therefore welcome it as we do all judicious efforts to assist persons in the world to perform the duties to which they may be called, and to resist the temptations by which they may be assailed.

The Marthas are likely always to outnumber the Marys, and should have every assistance at the hands of those capable of leading them in the path of holiness. The church in this and similar ways is ever adapting its aids to the varying circumstances by which her children may be surrounded.

OUT OF SWEET SOLITUDE. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co. 1873.

This modest little volume, a “first book,” gives us confidence that the authoress will fill a useful place in the Catholic literature of America. We say a useful place, for poetry like hers is much in demand in our Catholic homes.

The three divisions of the volume—“Sacred Legends,” “Poems of the Civil War,” and “Miscellaneous Poems”—present a pleasing variety, both of matter and of style. Some of her lyrics are more accurate than others; and some of her descriptions would be stronger with fewer epithets. But her verse is, for the most part, as smooth as simple. And while no one can charge her with affectation, she is certainly not lacking in originality.

There is but a single line on which we shall make a stricture. It occurs in a poem called “The Skeleton at the Feast”: the sixth line of the fifth stanza, p. 77. She speaks of

“The flame Lit for the damned _from all eternity_.”

Now, God did not create “from eternity”; still less are any of his creatures damned “from eternity.” We therefore pronounce this line a slip of the pen, and beg that it may be altered in the next edition.

In conclusion, we thankfully welcome the authoress into the number of our Catholic poetesses, and hope that ere long she will be again tempted to come to us “out of sweet solitude.”

OLD NEW ENGLAND TRAITS. Edited by George Lunt. New York: Published by Hurd & Houghton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. 1873.

Any one acquainted with the ancient city of Newburyport will have a special interest in the reminiscences which this very readable book contains. To those who are not, it will give a very perfect idea of the New England of the past, which is even now pretty well preserved in these old seaport towns of Massachusetts. There is not a dry or tedious page in it from beginning to end, and, both in matter and style, it is just the kind of a book for any time of year, but particularly for the summer. At the end, there are a number of ghost stories. Ghosts seem to thrive well in Newburyport, judging from recent developments as well as these more ancient ones, and there can be no doubt that the reputation of Essex County for the preternatural is really very well founded.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From W. G. SIMONS & CO., Richmond: Pastoral Letter on Christian Education. By the Rt. Rev. James Gibbons, D.D. 8vo, paper, pp. 19.

From P. O’SHEA, New York: Essays on Various Subjects. By H. E. Card. Wiseman. Vol. IV. 12mo, pp. 300.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: The Year. By D. C. Colesworthy. 12mo, pp. 120.

From E. O’KEEFE, New York: Third Annual Report of St. Vincent’s Home for Boys, 10 Vine Street, Brooklyn. Paper, 24mo, pp. 16.

From D. APPLETON & CO., New York: Insanity in its Relation to Crime. By W. A. Hammond, M.D. 8vo, pp. 77.—A Review of Prof. Reese’s Review of the Wharton Trial. By W. E. A. Aikin, M.D., LL.D. Paper, 8vo, pp. 20.

From the AUTHOR: Religion in the University: Being a Review of the Subject as agitated in the Legislature of Michigan. By S. B. McCracken. Paper, 8vo, pp. 19.

From the GENERAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY, Boston: Eleventh Annual Report, April 21, 1873. Paper, 8vo, pp. 44.

From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York: Babolain. By Gustave Droz. 18mo, pp. 306.

From BURNS & OATES, London: The Question of Anglican Ordinations Discussed. By E. E. Estcourt, M.A., F.S.A. With Original Documents and Fac-similes. 8vo, pp. xvi.-381.-cxvi.—A Theory of the Fine Arts. By S. M. Lanigan, A.B., T.C.D. 12mo, pp. xiii.-194.—The Prophet of Carmel. By Rev. C. B. Garside, M.A. 18mo, pp. xiii.-348.

From T. & T. CLARK, Edinburgh: The Works of S. Aurelius Augustine—Vol. VII., On the Trinity. Vol. VIII., The Sermon on the Mount, and The Harmony of the Evangelists.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVII., No. 102.—SEPTEMBER, 1873.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

SHEA’S CHARLEVOIX.

WHEN the history of American Catholic literature comes to be written, the name of John Gilmary Shea will hold one of the most honorable places in the record. So much rough work has been needed to prepare the ground for the American church, so much polemical discussion has been called forth by our peculiar position in the midst of a hostile and prejudiced community, so many problems of philosophy and social science have pressed upon us for consideration, and the demand for books of education and devotion has been so urgent, that few of our writers have found occasion to apply themselves to strictly literary and historical studies or to those branches of criticism which are included in the department of polite letters. And yet how richly this neglected field of research would repay the labors of the Catholic investigator! The early history of many parts of the North American continent is only a chapter in the history of the Catholic Church. The most picturesque characters in the early American annals are the Catholic voyagers of France and Spain, the settlers of Canada, and Florida, and the Pacific coast, and the missionaries who followed them across the ocean, and pushed forward in advance of them into the savage wilderness. How tame and mean appear the quarrels of the Plymouth settlers with hostile Indians, and rival adventurers, and preaching sectaries, and bewitched old women, after one has read of the heroism of a Jogues and a Brebœuf, and the romantic travels of the discoverer of the Mississippi. The settlement of Virginia was a prosaic and commonplace affair beside the settlement of Canada. The monks who accompanied the armies of the Spanish conquerors passed through experiences of the most thrilling kind, whose story has been only imperfectly outlined in the glowing pages of Prescott. Within the limits of the present Union, the missionary has been the chief actor in many an extraordinary scene of dramatic interest, and the hero of many a daring enterprise. Simple-minded F. Mark traversing the desert in search of the seven mythical cities of New Mexico; the gentle Marquette guiding his canoe down the great river of the West, and breathing his last prayer on the shores of the mighty lake; Hennepin, pattern of grotesque mendacity; La Salle, model of a magnanimous commander and a daring explorer—such are among the infinite variety of figures in the early Catholic history of our country. Its later annals are not inferior in interest to the more remote. Even yet the task of the pioneer is not complete, and startling incidents are still common in the chronicles of missionary adventure.

No man has done more than Mr. Shea to preserve the record of all these events and all these personages. For more than twenty years, he has devoted himself to the study of the old materials for American Catholic history. He gave to the world the first authentic and complete narrative of the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi, and brought to light the manuscript narratives of the actors in that most important and striking achievement. He prepared the only connected account of the various Catholic missions among the Indian tribes, from the discovery of the country to the present day. He was one of the joint authors of the only general history of the American church. To these works, and a large number of books of a miscellaneous character, short histories, religious biographies, statistical publications, etc., he has recently added the result of patient and learned research into the Indian languages; he has recovered the grammars and vocabularies prepared by the old missionaries; he has assisted in the preparation of various works on the Indians printed at the cost of the United States government; he has edited an extraordinary variety of historical collections and monographs; and, finally, he has prepared for the press a number of hitherto unpublished narratives, memoirs, and relations in connection with the early French and Spanish settlements. The value of these publications can hardly be overstated. The care and judgment of the editor have been universally recognized by the highest authorities; and though Mr. Shea can hardly expect an adequate pecuniary recompense for his time, his labor, and his outlay, he has been rewarded in a most flattering way by the respect and gratitude of historical students, Catholic and Protestant alike.

His latest work is one of the most laborious of his life, and one of the most splendid in its results. It is a translation, with notes, of the _History and General Description of New France_, from the French of the Rev. P. F. X. de Charlevoix, S.J. The first of the six sumptuous volumes of this elegant work appeared from the author’s own press in this city in 1866, and the last was issued at the close of 1872. As we shall see further on, Mr. Shea has expended upon the “translation and notes” an extraordinary amount of pains of which the modest title-page affords no hint; but the book was well worth the trouble. No history of America can be written without a constant reference to the labors of F. Charlevoix. He is our best and sometimes our only authority for the transactions in all the French North American settlements. Of many of the scenes that he describes he was an eye-witness. He was a diligent and conscientious student; he had access to important and little-known sources of information; he sympathized with the sentiment of the early French explorers, and caught as by instinct the spirit of those curious expeditions wherein the priest and the peddler marched side by side through the wilderness for the glory of God and of France, and the spread simultaneously of the Gospel and the fur-trade. Born in the north of France in 1682, Charlevoix entered the Society of Jesus, and was sent to the Canada mission when he was about twenty-three years old. He spent four years in America, returning to France in 1709, and teaching philosophy for some time in various colleges of his society. Eleven years later, the king sent him to make a tour among the French settlements of the New World, and a curious account of this adventurous journey is preserved in his _Journal of a Voyage to North America_, a translation of which was published in London in 1761. He landed at Quebec in October, 1720, visited Montreal and other settlements on the St. Lawrence, and the following spring set out on his remarkable canoe voyage to the Gulf of Mexico. This took him through Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan. On the 6th of August, 1721, he entered the St. Joseph River, at the southern end of Lake Michigan. Thence by a tedious portage he reached the head-waters of the Kankakee. Towards the end of September, he found himself on the Illinois, and on the 9th of October his frail bark floated on the waters of the Mississippi. Stopping at various posts along the bank, he was nearly three months in reaching New Orleans, whence he embarked in April, 1722, for Santo Domingo. Wrecked on one of the Florida keys, he made his way back to Louisiana in an open boat, and at the end of June took ship again at Biloxi. After touching at Havana, and narrowly escaping another disaster, he made Cape François, in Santo Domingo, and there found a merchant ship, which took him home.

Before starting on this extensive and arduous tour, he had begun a series of histories of all the countries unknown to Europeans previous to the XIVth century, giving to that tolerably comprehensive portion of the universe the general name of the New World. The first instalment of his task, a _History and Description of Japan_, was printed at Rouen in three volumes in 1715. He had no expectation of completing the whole series of proposed histories. That was an enterprise beyond the powers of one man; but “the same may be said of this,” he remarked, “as of the discovery of America: the worst was done when it was once begun; there is, then, every reason to believe that it will be continued after me, and that, if I have the advantage of suggesting the idea, those who succeed me will have the glory of perfecting it.” The second fruit of the scheme was the _History of Santo Domingo_, which appeared at Paris in two quarto volumes, in 1730. The third was the _History of New France_, in three quarto volumes, in 1744; and there was a fourth book, a _History of Paraguay_, in three quarto volumes, in 1756. F. Charlevoix died in 1761, having been for more than twenty years one of the principal workers on the famous _Journal de Trévoux_.

Of the four works embraced in his uncompleted series, three are little known on this side of the ocean, except in the libraries of the curious. The _History of New France_, however, has long enjoyed an American celebrity, through the frequent references to it in the pages of modern historians; and Mr. Shea is not unreasonably surprised that it should so long have gone untranslated. Fidelity is by no means its only merit. It is well planned, and written with a carefulness, simplicity, and good judgment which give it a very respectable, if not a very high, literary character. Its style is not remarkable for eloquence, but it is chaste and direct. It is never ambitious, but it is always agreeable; rarely picturesque, but never dry. Prefixing to his work a comprehensive chronology of European explorations and settlements in the New World (taking that phrase in his own extended application), and an excellent bibliographical account of the numerous authors whom he has consulted, he begins his narrative proper with the voyages of Cortereal and Verazzano to Newfoundland, between 1500 and 1525. It is with the expedition of Jacques Cartier, however, in 1534, that the story of the French settlements in North America properly commences. Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence, visited the site of Montreal, and planned a town there, though he did not succeed in making a permanent establishment. There is a curious illustration in this part of the narrative of the simplicity which gives F. Charlevoix’s book such a peculiar charm. Misled by an unfaithful abridgment of Cartier’s narrative, the good father gently rebukes the traveller for certain marvellous tales which he is unjustly accused of bearing back to France: but there is one strange story to which the reverend historian is evidently more than half disposed to attach credit. An Indian named Donnacona is reported to have told Cartier that in a remote part of the land “were men who had but one leg and thigh, with a very large foot, two hands on the same arm, the waist extremely square, the breast and head flat, and a very small mouth; that still further on he had seen pigmies, and a sea the water of which was fresh. In fine, that, ascending the Saguenay, you reach a country where there are men dressed like us, who live in cities, and have much gold, rubies, and copper.” Now, by ascending the Saguenay, Charlevoix conjectures, and turning west, an Indian might reach Lake Assiniboin, and thence penetrate to New Mexico, where the Spaniards had begun to settle—a conjecture which certainly betrays a rather loose idea of American geography. The pigmies he supposes to be the Esquimaux. But of the men with one leg, he remarks that the story is “very strange.” He does not accept, but he certainly does not reject it. Nay, he cites a long account by an Esquimaux girl, who was in Quebec while he was there in 1720, of a kind of men among her country people “who had only one leg, one thigh, and a very large foot, two hands on the same arm, a broad body, flat head, small eyes, scarcely any nose, and a very small mouth”; they were always in a bad humor, and could remain under water three-quarters of an hour at a time. “As for the monstrous men,” he concludes, “described by the slave of M. de Courtemanche and by Donnacona, and the headless men killed, it is pretended, by an Iroquois hunter a few years since while hunting, it is easy to believe that there is some exaggeration; but it is easier to deny extraordinary facts than to explain them; and, moreover, are we at liberty to reject whatever we cannot explain? Who can pretend to know all the caprices and mysteries of nature?”

From Canada our historian passes suddenly to Florida, which he defines as “all that part of the continent of America lying between the two Mexicos, New France, and North Carolina.” To this part of the new world Admiral de Coligni sent out a colony of Huguenots in 1562 under John de Ribaut, who built a fort at Port Royal, near the site of Beaufort, South Carolina. In all the early settlements of America, there is the same story to be told of avarice and childish folly. The colonists were not settlers, but adventurers. They had come in search of a land where they could grow rich without work, and pick up gold and silver with no more trouble than the occasional killing of a few Indians. They depended for sustenance upon what they brought from France and the provisions they might purchase from the savages. But there was little to be obtained from a race of hunters who were half the year themselves on the brink of starvation, and the fresh supplies promised from home were often delayed. It is almost incredible that no attempt should have been made to cultivate the fertile lands upon which they established themselves; but year after year the same blunder was repeated: winter found the adventurers famishing; and promising colonies were broken up by their reckless improvidence. Such was the fate of Ribaut’s settlement at Port Royal. The commander had gone home to obtain re-enforcements. When the re-enforcements arrived under Laudonniere in 1564, Port Royal had been abandoned. The colonists had built a vessel, caulked the seams with moss, twisted the bark of trees for ropes, used their shirts for sails, and, with a short supply of provisions and a crew composed of soldiers, had put to sea. They suffered terribly. The water gave out, and some died of thirst. After they had eaten their last shoe and their last scrap of leather, a soldier named Lachau offered the sacrifice of his own life to save the rest. They ate Lachau, and drank his blood. Soon afterward, they sighted land, and about the same time fell in with an English vessel.

Laudonniere established himself on the St. John’s River, in Florida. F. Charlevoix tells an interesting story of his curious dealings with the Indians and the dissensions of his disorderly colonists. He seems to have been upon the whole a fair commander, but the fatal mistake of all these adventurers soon brought him to the brink of ruin. Provisions gave out. The expected relief from France was delayed. Fish and game grew scarce. In July, 1567, Laudonniere was trying to patch up his one small vessel to return home, when he was unexpectedly relieved by a visit from Sir John Hawkins with four English ships. Hawkins treated the suffering Frenchmen with great generosity. He gave them bread and wine, replenished their stores of clothing and munitions, offered the whole party a passage home to France, and finally persuaded them to purchase one of his vessels which was better fitted for their use than their own. Laudonniere now hastened his preparations for the voyage, and was actually weighing anchor, when Ribaut entered the river with seven vessels, and set about restoring the dismantled Fort Caroline, and planning an expedition after gold to the distant mountains of Apalache. But this whole chapter is a tale of surprises. Six days after the arrival of Ribaut, another squadron appeared at the mouth of the river. It consisted of six Spanish ships under the command of Don Pedro Menendez, whom Philip II. had despatched to conquer Florida, and drive out the heretics.

The story now becomes a horrible narrative of battle, treachery, and murder. Menendez attacked the French vessels without doing much injury, and then, hastening southward to the spot which he had already selected as the site of a settlement, began the building of St. Augustine. From St. Augustine he marched with five hundred men through the swamps, in the midst of a long and violent storm, surprised Fort Caroline, and put most of the garrison to the sword. At the spot of the execution, Menendez erected a stone with the inscription, “I do this, not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans.” Nearly three years afterwards, Dominic de Gourgues, after a semi-piratical cruise along the coast of Africa and among the West India Islands, crossed over from Cuba to the mainland to avenge the slaughter of his countrymen. He reached the fort unsuspected, and took it by escalade, with the help of a large force of Indians. Then the prisoners were led to the scene of the former massacre, and all hanged upon a tree, with the inscription: “I do this, not as to Spaniards nor as to maranes,[195] but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers.” Such is the story of Dominic de Gourgues, as Charlevoix gives it after contemporary French accounts. No Spanish version of it is known to exist, and Mr. Shea points out in a note the reasons for regarding it with some suspicion. The conqueror could not hold what he had won. Burning the fort, and destroying all the plunder that he was unable to carry away, he hastened back to France; and so ended the history of French Florida.

It was about thirty years after this that the Marquis de la Roche, a gentleman of Brittany, received from Henri IV. a commission as lieutenant-general of the king “in the countries of Canada, Hochelaga, Newfoundland, Labrador, River of the Great Bay [St. Lawrence], Norimbegue, and adjacent lands,” and fitted out a vessel to explore his territory. Landing on Sable Island, ninety miles from the mainland of Nova Scotia (1598), he left there a colony of forty convicts whom he had drawn from the French prisons, coasted awhile along the shores of Acadia (Nova Scotia), without accomplishing anything of value, and then went back to France. Contrary winds prevented his taking off the wretched colony of Sable Island, and it was not until seven years later that the king, hearing of the adventure, sent a ship to their relief. Only twelve remained alive, and these were brought to court in the same guise in which they were found, “covered with sealskin, with hair and beard of a length and disorder that made them resemble the pretended river-gods, and so disfigured as to inspire horror. The king gave them fifty crowns apiece, and sent them home released from all process of law.” The expedition of De Monts and Pontgravé (1604) was more fortunate. It resulted in the settlement of Port Royal (Annapolis) by M. de Poutrincourt, under a grant from M. de Monts, afterwards confirmed by the crown; it brought forward Samuel de Champlain, who was soon to play so distinguished a part in the exploration and settlement of Canada; and it offered a career to the Jesuit missionaries, whose heroism reflected so much glory upon the colony. The king had intimated to M. de Poutrincourt, when he confirmed the grant of Port Royal, that it was proper to invite the Jesuits to the new colony; and, by his majesty’s desire, two priests were selected from the many who volunteered to go. These were F. Peter Biard and F. Enemond Masse. Strange to say, the first difficulties they encountered were from their own countrymen. “M. de Poutrincourt was a very worthy man,” says Charlevoix, “sincerely attached to the Catholic religion; but the calumnies of the so-called Reformers had produced an impression on his mind, and he was fully determined not to take them to Port Royal. He did not, however, show anything of this to the king, who, having given his orders, had no doubt but that they were executed with all speed. The Jesuits thought so; and F. Biard, at the commencement of the year [1608], proceeded to Bordeaux, where he was assured the embarkation would take place. He was much surprised to see no preparation there; and he waited in vain for a whole year. The king, informed of this, reproached M. de Poutrincourt sharply; and the latter pledged his word to the king that he would no longer defer obeying his orders. He actually prepared to go; but, as he said nothing of embarking the missionaries, F. Cotton paid him a visit, to bring him to do so in a friendly way. Poutrincourt begged him to be good enough to postpone it till the following year, as Port Royal was by no means in a condition to receive the fathers. So frivolous a reason was regarded by F. Cotton as a refusal, but he did not deem it expedient to press the matter or inform the king. M. de Poutrincourt accordingly sailed for Acadia; and, with a view of showing the court that the ministry of the Jesuits was not necessary in the conversion of the heathen, he had scarcely arrived before he sent the king a list of twenty-five Indians baptized in haste.” Meanwhile, the king died, and Poutrincourt considered himself thereupon released from his obligation. It was in this difficulty that the Marchioness de Guercheville, whose name is so honorably associated with American adventure, declared herself the protectress of the missions. But the story of the troubles which this powerful advocate had to overcome gives us a curious idea of the manner in which American affairs were regulated at the French court. Biencourt, the son of M. de Poutrincourt, was about sailing for Acadia, and consented to take the missionaries. When the fathers reached Dieppe, Biencourt had changed his mind, or been overruled by his two Huguenot partners, and passage was refused. Mme. de Guercheville had recourse to the queen mother, who gave a peremptory order that the Jesuits should be taken on board. The order was laughed at, and nobody attempted to enforce it. Then Mme. de Guercheville raised a subscription, bought off the two Calvinists, and proceeded to treat with Biencourt. Not finding his title clear, she purchased of M. de Monts all his lapsed privileges, with the purpose of reviving them, and formed a partnership with Biencourt, under which the subsistence of the missionaries was to be drawn from the fishery and fur trade. Thus at last a woman accomplished what the king had failed in, and F. Biard and F. Masse reached the scene of their labors in 1611.

Mme. de Guercheville soon fell out with Poutrincourt, and resolved to found a colony of her own. She despatched a ship under the Sieur de la Saussaye in 1613. The settlers landed on Mount Desert, and there began a settlement, bringing FF. Biard and Masse from Port Royal, and having with them also two other Jesuits, a priest named Quentin, and a lay brother, Du Thet. The narrative of the destruction of this settlement as well as Port Royal by the English free-booting adventurer Argall, from Virginia, is familiar to all American readers. The colony had not yet assumed a regulated form when the Englishman swept down upon it, carried some of the settlers to Virginia, and sent the rest to sea in a small bark. The latter, among whom was F. Masse, were picked up by a French ship, and carried to St. Malo. The others, after much harsh treatment at Jamestown from Sir Thomas Dale, were taken back to Acadia with an expedition sent to complete the demolition of the French posts. Argall performed his task thoroughly, and set sail again for Virginia. Of his three vessels, scattered in a storm, one was lost; another, under his own command, reached Jamestown in safety; the third, bearing Fathers Biard and Quentin (Brother du Thet had been killed in Argall’s first attack), and having one Turnell for captain, was driven to the Azores, and forced to seek shelter at Fayal. Here the Jesuits had only to complain of the outrages to which they had been subjected, and they would have been at once avenged. Turnell was alarmed, and begged them to keep concealed when the officers of the port visited his vessel. “They consented with good grace. The visit over, the English captain had liberty to buy all that he needed, after which he again weighed anchor, and the rest of his voyage was fortunate. But he found himself in a new embarrassment on arriving in England: he had no commission, and, although he represented that he had accidentally been separated from his commander, he was looked upon as a deserter from Virginia, and put in prison, from which he was released only on the testimony of the Jesuits. After this time, he was unwearied in publishing the virtue of the missionaries, twice his liberators, and especially the service they had done him at Fayal, where they returned good for evil as they so generously did, foregoing all the advantages which they might have obtained by making themselves known. Nothing, indeed, was omitted to compensate for them in England, where they were very kindly treated as long as they remained.”

The settlements in Canada proper, however, were now firmly established, and Quebec was rapidly becoming prosperous. The early history of this town, the adventures and discoveries of Champlain, the expeditions of the settlers against the Iroquois, and the surrender of Quebec to the English under Kirk (or Kertk), who was a Frenchman by birth, though an officer in the English service, are told by F. Charlevoix at considerable length. It was in 1629 that Quebec fell, and three years afterwards the whole colony was restored to France by the treaty of St. Germain. Champlain returned with the title of Governor of New France in 1633, and began at once that zealous and enlightened career of missionary labor by which he has won so glorious a fame. For we may well style him a missionary. Entrusted with the temporal government of the young colony, it was not his part to explore the wilderness with crucifix and missal, to venture into the cabins of the savages as a teacher of the Gospel, to brave martyrdom, to suffer unheard-of tortures, even to the stake; but he nevertheless fulfilled an important, an almost indispensable, function in the establishment of the Canada missions. He was the best friend and patron of the Jesuits and other heroes who gave their lives so freely among the Indians. He took care that a number of these devoted priests should be invited to the colony, and that the settlers themselves should give an example of Christian demeanor that might do credit to their teachers. “In a short time,” says Charlevoix, “almost all who composed the new colony were seen to follow the example of their governor, and make an open and sincere profession of piety. The same attention was continued in subsequent years, and there soon arose in this part of America a generation of true Christians, among whom reigned the simplicity of the primitive ages of the church, and whose posterity have not lost sight of the great example left them by their ancestors. The consolation which such a change afforded the laborers appointed to cultivate this transplanted vineyard so sweetened the crosses of the most painful mission ever perhaps established in the New World, that what they wrote to their brethren in France created among them a real eagerness to go and share their labors. The annual _Relations_ which we have of these happy times, and the constant tradition preserved in the country, both attest that there was an indescribable unction attached to this Indian mission which made it preferred to many others infinitely more brilliant and even more fruitful.” Champlain’s career, however, as governor was unhappily too short. He died on Christmas day, in 1635. “He may well be called,” says the historian, “the father of New France. He had good sense, much penetration, very upright views, and no man was ever more skilled in adopting a course in the most complicated affairs. What all admired most in him was his constancy in following up his enterprises; his firmness in the greatest dangers; a courage proof against the most unforeseen reverses and disappointments; ardent and disinterested patriotism; a heart tender and compassionate for the unhappy, and more attentive to the interests of his friends than his own; a high sense of honor, and great probity. His memoirs show that he was not ignorant of anything that one of his profession should know; and we find in him a faithful and sincere historian, an attentively observant traveller, a judicious writer, a good mathematician, and an able mariner. But what crowns all these good qualities is the fact that in his life, as well as in his writings, he shows himself always a truly Christian man, zealous for the service of God, full of candor and religion. He was accustomed to say, what we read in his memoirs, ‘that the salvation of a single soul was worth more than the conquest of an empire, and that kings should seek to extend their domain in heathen countries only to subject them to Christ.’”

We have insensibly gone deeper into these attractive volumes than we intended, and we must pass over the remaining books, which record the growth of the Canadian settlements, the wars with the Indians after Champlain’s death, the hostilities with the English, and the progress of the missions. Neither can we linger over the fascinating story of Marquette’s voyage down the Mississippi, or the expeditions, of La Salle, or the various attempts at colonizing the shores of the Mexican Gulf. What little space remains for us we must give to an examination of a portion of Mr. Shea’s labor which has not yet been duly estimated. He has given much more than a translation of F. Charlevoix’s _Histoire_. The text is rendered with great care, and we presume with great faithfulness, into simple, graceful, and idiomatic English. The peculiarities of the original, in the orthography of proper names and in other particulars, are all preserved. It is indeed Charlevoix’s work, as exactly as any work can be reproduced in a language different from its author’s. But Mr. Shea has bestowed upon it an editorial supervision which nearly doubles its value. With extraordinary zeal, learning, and intelligence, he has traced almost every statement to its source, collated rare authorities, and in modest and compact foot-notes, whose number must amount to several thousands, has corrected errors, identified localities, and thrown a perfect flood of light upon doubtful passages and controverted statements. The patient industry, the rare judgment, and the unassuming scholarship which Mr. Shea has brought to the execution of this noble task can only be appreciated by one who has studied his work with some care, and to whom familiarity with the subject has taught something of its difficulties. He has not only been at the pains of consulting the authors to whom F. Charlevoix expressly refers, weighing the soundness of F. Charlevoix’s conclusions from their testimony, and correcting his citations, but he has made it a point to discover the authorities whom the good father followed without quoting, and he has often pursued devious statements backward through a score of forgotten books, until he has reached at last the sober truth from which they started. Doing this without parade, without verbosity, and with an icy impartiality, Mr. Shea has approved himself a model editor.

The outward appearance of the six volumes will delight the heart of the fastidious collector. Such beautiful and symmetrical arrangement of the generous pages, such royal elegance of type, such rich and refined tints, such noble margins, and such magnificent paper—every leaf stout enough to stand alone—these things make up the gorgeous apparel in which the work has been dressed, we may say, by Mr. Shea’s own hands. Excellent engravings add not merely to its appearance but its value. There are steel-plate portraits of governors, adventurers, and missionaries; there are fac-similes of autographs; there are copies of curious old maps and plans. Finally, the book is furnished with a copious and systematic index—and so Mr. Shea shows himself conscientious alike as an editor and publisher.

MADAME AGNES.

FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES DUBOIS.