CHAPTER III.

CAPTAIN LEOPOLD INTRODUCES HIS FRIEND.

Blanche Léopold was in great delight at having Pearl and Polly with her.

“We are just like three sisters, are not we, petite maman?” she said, as they lightly tossed their skirts over each other so as not to crush them.

“Exactly, chères enfants!” said Mme. Léopold, with a smile at both her _protégées_; but it was Pearl’s hand she pressed, it was Pearl’s forehead that she stooped to kiss, in answer to Blanche’s appeal.

“Is M. Léon to be at the ball?” inquired Polly.

“Of course he is! What a question, you wicked child!” said Léon’s mother; and then she turned to Pearl and laughed, and pressed her hand again.

Pearl’s cheeks were burning like two live coals, but nobody saw this in the dim light of the carriage.

“I thought he was on duty at the _Etat Major_ this evening?” persisted terrible Polly.

“So he was, but he contrived to get off,” said Blanche.

“A higher duty called him to the Tuileries to-night,” said his mother.

“Oh! the emperor has named him on his staff? How glad I am!” said Polly, and Pearl longed to choke her. “Yes, it will be very nice for you to have him in the emperor’s service,” went on the incorrigible Polly, as innocent as a babe of any mischievous intentions. “You are sure to be asked to the _Petits Lundis_ now; and we shall enjoy them more for having you all there. Are you very deep in engagements to-night, Blanche?”

They compared notes and discussed partners till they drew up before the palace; that is to say, Blanche and Polly did. Pearl lay back very silent all the way, and when they alighted Mme. Léopold noticed that she was very pale and seemed provokingly out of tune with the gay scene.

Who that has ever beheld it can forget how gay it was, that brilliant gathering in the old palace?—the blaze of light, the flashing uniforms, the splendidly-attired women, all the stars of fashion and wealth forming a dazzling galaxy round the beautiful Spaniard’s throne, she herself the centre of the firmament, outshining all in grace and beauty and magnificence of attire.

“There is Léon!” cried Blanche the moment they entered the Salle des Maréchaux. And Léon, obeying the magnetic attraction that we all know of, suddenly turned round, and, across the crowd of “fair women and brave men,” espied his mother and her maidens, and at once made towards them. He was very striking in his picturesque hussar uniform with its hanging dolman.

“_Il n’est pas trop mal, mon fils?_” said Mme. Léopold, glancing from him to Pearl and smiling at the latter. But Pearl made no answer, only crimsoned and looked away.

“How late you are!” exclaimed Léon. “I have been on the watch for you this last hour. Are you all engaged, mesdemoiselles?” bowing in one sweep to the three young ladies.

They all were, but their partners were not to the fore yet, and they might not meet for a long time.

“_Les absents ont toujours tort_,” said Léon; “so I claim the privilege of replacing one of them.”

It was to Polly he spoke; she responded by holding out her hand, and in a moment they were wheeling along in a waltz.

“That is a bit of masculine coquetry; he fancies he will make somebody jealous,” said Mme. Léopold, trying to look as if the joke amused her very much; but she was really annoyed with Léon.

Pearl set her face like a flint this time, and, without blushing happily, looked about her with an unconcerned air. She and Blanche were not left long waiting. Partners quickly found them out, and came up in a body, quarrelling over their claim to priority. Before Pearl had come to a decision Mr. Kingspring was at her elbow, and proclaimed his right to the first quadrille over all comers. She caught at this with avidity and hurried away with him.

“How I hate being here to-night!” she said when they were out of Mme. Léopold’s hearing. “I can’t imagine why mamma insisted on our coming. You could tell me if you liked?”

Mr. Kingspring was taken aback by this direct appeal. He was very fond of Pearl, and she treated him with a sisterly _sans façon_ that he was proud of. They were friends, in fact. He might easily put her off with some platitude or prevarication now, but he felt this would not be acting as a loyal friend.

“Is it fair of you to ask me? If your father has not let you into his confidence yet, it would not be honorable in me to do so. It would not be acting as one gentleman should towards another. You would not have me do this? You would not have one whom you call your friend act otherwise than as a gentleman?”

“I can’t imagine why there should be a mystery about it,” sighed Pearl. “If anybody was dead, we should not have been sent to a ball, I suppose?”

Mr. Kingspring coughed and muttered a vague assent.

“Is Cousin Darrell dead?” asked Pearl abruptly.

“No, no; it is nothing about Darrell.”

“Is it anything about money?”

“Well, perhaps it may be; but I hope not. I mean I hope it will turn out a mistake.”

“Mamma was crying this morning,” said Pearl; “she does not cry for nothing.”

“I hope there may be no real cause for her tears. I believe myself there is not.”

“Papa was in a dreadful state,” continued Pearl. “I heard him storming in his study for more than an hour. Was it about a letter he got from England?”

“There was a letter. But don’t cross-examine me; don’t, Pearl. It is not fair, and I really must not speak.”

Pearl never remembered him calling her by her name before, though he declared he used to do so when she was a baby.

“To think of their insisting on our coming here to-night when there is this horrible anxiety at home!” she said, and her eyes began to fill in spite of her.

“There is no _certain_ cause for it so far,” protested Mr. Kingspring. “Don’t worry till you know there is real cause for it; there is no use in saying good-morrow to the devil till you meet him. Let us take a turn with the waltzers; you have done me out of my quadrille.”

They took a few turns down the long gallery, now densely crowded, and then he stopped to let her rest.

“Who is that Polly is dancing with?” said Pearl, as she spied her sister in the distance with a tall, distinguished-looking man in the uniform of the hussars.

“I don’t know; probably some fellow Léopold has introduced.”

While they were still standing in the embrasure of a window Léon came up.

“May I claim the honor of a dance, mademoiselle?” he said, doubling himself in two before Pearl.

“I don’t feel a bit in the mood for dancing,” said Pearl, “the rooms are so hot and so dreadfully crowded. Do you know who that is that my sister is waltzing with?”

“Captain Darvallon, one of the most distinguished officers in the service, and quite the best fellow I know; he is a great friend of mine.”

“Then it was you who introduced him to her?”

“I was proud to procure him that honor.”

“Poor devil!” said Mr. Kingspring. “I suspect you have done for him; if he has such a thing as a heart he will go home a miserable man to-night. I never saw Mlle. Polly looking so unmercifully pretty. D’Arres-Vallon you say his name is? Does he spell it in one word or two? I used to know two families of that name; one spelt it D’Arvalhon, the other D’Arres-Vallon. Which is his?”

“Neither; he writes it in one word with a big D; he does not boast the noble _particule_.”

“Then he is a man of no family?”

“None whatever. He is what we call the son of his works; he has risen in his profession by sheer force of intelligence and moral worth. There is not an officer in the army more respected than Darvallon.”

Pearl looked again at Polly’s partner, and he struck her as still more prepossessing than at the first glance.

“Amongst military men I can imagine its making no difference; but socially his low birth must subject him to disagreeables now and then,” observed Mr. Kingspring, following the direction of Pearl’s eyes, and surveying the hussar with the sort of interest one bestows on a curious variety of animal new to one’s experience.

“The man who would subject Darvallon to anything of the sort would be either a fool or a snob,” replied Léon coldly. “I suppose there are plenty of both going about the world; but men like Darvallon have a sort of charm that keeps them at a distance.”

Mr. Kingspring felt that this remark addressed to him was not that of a perfect gentleman; it sounded too like a snub. But the Léopolds, as Mme. de Kerbec said, were after all only Empire people, Léon’s grandfather having been made a baron by the first Napoleon.

Pearl admired Léon for standing up so bravely for his friend; there was that in her which responded instinctively to everything noble, even when it was violently against her own opinions or sympathies.

“He must be a nice man, as well as clever,” she said. “Introduce him to me when he has finished his waltz with my sister.”

“Reward me beforehand for that act of generosity by finishing the waltz with me,” said Léon.

And Pearl did, Mr. Kingspring being left alone to meditate on the low ideas of modern Frenchmen and the strange inconsistencies of well-born English maidens.

“Mademoiselle, may I have the honor of presenting to you my friend and brother officer, Captain Darvallon?”

M. Darvallon bowed low, and when he looked up Pearl’s soft brown eyes met his with a glance of interest so full and frank that, if he had been a coxcomb, he might have flattered himself he had slain her on the spot.

Polly was a little tired and said she wanted an ice, so Léon offered her his arm to the buffet, and Pearl followed with her new acquaintance. He was a tall, powerfully-built man, with a Gothic head set on broad shoulders, and long, well-bred hands and feet. Judging from his hands and feet, Captain Darvallon might have had the blood of the Montmorencis in him; not that he needed this _cachet_ of distinction to redeem his appearance otherwise or stamp him outwardly as a gentleman. Pearl, even in the distance, had singled him out as somebody above the common. His head, massive as it was, had nothing coarse about it; his features, without being handsome, were marked by an expression of energy, intelligence, and refinement that impressed you more than mere good looks; and though the prominent characteristic of his whole appearance was power, it was too tempered by gentleness to be alarming or repulsive. An array of stars and crosses on his breast bore witness to his prowess on the field, but his manner had borrowed no tinge of soldierly roughness from the camp; it was, on the contrary, marked by a courtesy towards the fair sex rare enough in these days, when the independence of women who have rights is too often pleaded as an excuse for forgetting that they still have privileges.

“What a crowd there is to-night!” said Pearl.

It was a silly remark, but she wanted to say something that would put her companion at his ease. It was the first time that she had been in the company of a man who had risen from the ranks, and she fancied the experience on his side must be novel enough, too, to be embarrassing.

“Just at this point the crush is rather great; but I don’t think the rooms are more crowded than usual. Is it your first ball, mademoiselle?”

“Oh! no; I came out last season in London. You have never been to England, monsieur?”

“Pardon me; I spent five months there three years ago.”

“Indeed! And did you think it a horrible place? Was it raining all the time?”

“No; it behaved very well in that respect, and I liked the country very much, and London especially; perhaps it was owing in a measure to all the kindness I received there.”

Pearl wondered who the people were who had shown him so much kindness; good-natured middle-class people, no doubt, who thought it rather fine to have a French officer to entertain.

“The English understand the virtue of hospitality in a charming way,” continued M. Darvallon; “the mere fact of your being a stranger opens every door to you.”

“Whereas in France it shuts them?” said Pearl.

“I am sorry if that is your experience of us, mademoiselle.”

“I don’t say that; I only thought you meant to say so. But it is true; we are fond of foreigners in England.”

“Nothing is more delightful, certainly, than the way in which you make them welcome. I was staying at our embassy—I went over with the Comte X—— as military _attaché_—but it was merely a kind of nominal headquarters; I spent most of the time in the houses of English people. The Duke of S—— was particularly kind to me. I had known his brother in the Crimea, and he made this a pretext for receiving me as an old friend; so did Lord B——. I spent two days at his place on the Thames. What a little paradise it is! The grounds and the house and the view combine to make it a perfect Eden. Some of the country places of your old aristocracy are the most magnificent residences in the world, I suppose; but they are so home-like, there is such a genial atmosphere in them, that one is not oppressed by the magnificence.”

“I am glad to hear you say so; one so often hears foreigners complain of our _morgue_ and stiffness.”

“I saw none of it.”

“Did you visit any of our palaces?”

“Yes; St. James and Buckingham I saw at once, of course. But Windsor is glorious. We have nothing like Windsor in France. I have seen the finest palaces in Europe, and to my mind Windsor is the most beautiful of all. There is such a prestige of historic interest about it, added to its artistic beauty; then the grounds and the surrounding country are so beautiful. Nature and art have put forth their best to make it a worthy abode of royalty.”

“And our royalties—did you approve of them, too?”

“Most highly,” said M. Darvallon, smiling; “they are excellent hosts, since we are on the subject of hospitality. No one is overlooked. La Reine Victoria has in a high degree that royal faculty of making all her guests, from the highest to the humblest, feel that they are duly noticed in her salon.”

So these were the middle-class people who had been ostentatiously civil to the French officer. Pearl was laughing to herself at the false hit she had made, and also at her foolish idea that he needed to be encouraged to be put at his ease. It was impossible to be more entirely simple and free from all shyness and affectation than he was. They had reached the buffet now, and Léon and Polly were pushing their way to get next to them. This was not so difficult, for the crowd fell back, as it instinctively does for all royalties, and made way for Polly as she advanced. Pearl looked up at her companion, and saw his eyes fixed on her sister with an expression of admiration so unfeigned, and so full of respect at the same time, that she felt quite tenderly toward the stalwart hussar.

“Monsieur le Capitaine,” said Polly, as soon as they all came together round the ices, “he insists that it was you who took Sebastopol all by yourself!”

“_Voyons_, Léopold, don’t push modesty too far,” protested M. Darvallon. “You lent me a hand; he did, I assure you, mademoiselle.”

“Don’t believe him; he is a flatterer. It is a trick he learned at courts,” said Léon, and his solemn black eyes stared Darvallon full in the face without a smile; but Pearl detected an expression of almost feminine fondness in them as they met the gray eyes looking down on him.

“I don’t believe either of you took it,” she said, with saucy defiance; “it was my papa who took it. Did M. Léopold tell you our father is a soldier too, and that he lost a leg at Balaklava?”

“Col. Redacre’s name and valor were known to us all in the Crimea, mademoiselle,” said M. Darvallon, bowing deferentially.

Both the girls blushed with pleasure, and turned a smile of fullest approbation on the speaker.

“I told you he was a flatterer,” said Léon.

Before M. Darvallon could enter a protest some one spoke from behind him.

“I say, Léopold, you are going to catch it for staying away from your mother so long with these young ladies. She’s very angry with you.”

“It’s no fault of M. Léon’s,” said Polly. “We stayed ourselves, dancing; that’s what we came for.”

“We had better go back to my mother and make an _acte de présence_,” said Léon. “Where is she, Kingspring?”

“Where you left her, in the Salle du Trône. I have just conducted Mlle. Blanche there after waltzing with her.”

Mr. Kingspring moved towards Pearl, as if he expected to conduct her back; but M. Darvallon proffered his arm, and she took it.

On their way through the long ball-room they met Blanche waltzing down on them with a slim, sallow-faced partner, of the type that Polly called “scrubby.” The partners pulled up, and then she saw that Blanche was radiant with smiles, and listening with delighted attention to whatever the scrubby man was saying.

“_Qui est ce monsieur?_” Polly inquired of Léon.

“That monsieur is the Marquis de Cholcourt, the greatest _parti_ in France just now.”

“Is he amusing?”

“I really don’t know. I shouldn’t say he was, to look at him.”

“Blanche is listening to him as if she thought him so.”

Léon made no remark, and they went on till they reached the Salle du Trône. There they saw Mme. Léopold, just where they had left her; but she had risen from her velvet seat, and was expostulating in an excited manner with M. Léopold, who had just joined her, and who seemed vainly endeavoring to pacify her. Madame shook her head, and opened and shut her fan, talking all the time volubly, and with a countenance disturbed by no pleasant emotion. When she caught sight of Léon and his companion she became suddenly silent, and awaited their approach with an air of grave displeasure.

“Mesdemoiselles, you forget you are not in England; you must know that it is not the custom here,” she began; but the good-natured deputy cut short the scolding, and broke out into compliments to the two delinquents: they were the stars of the Imperial firmament to-night; every French girl in the room was dying with jealousy, etc.

Mme. Léopold was not sorry to have their attention drawn away from herself for the moment, and while this bantering went on with Pearl and Polly she said in a _sotto voce_ to Léon:

“My son, you have behaved with criminal imprudence. Have you _said_ anything to compromise you? Tell me the truth.”

“Compromise! What on earth do you mean, mother?” said Léon in amazement. “I have spoken to no one but these two young ladies.”

“That is just it! You have been parading yourself with Pearl for the last hour. Have you said anything to lead her to hope—”

Léon began to understand, and the look of indignant surprise that answered his mother completely reassured her.

“Thank Heaven!” she muttered under her breath. “I knew you were incapable of it, my son, but—”

Léon did not wait to hear more; he abruptly turned away, fearful lest Pearl should have overheard his mother’s offensive insinuations; but a glance at her face showed him she had heard nothing.

“Are you engaged for the cotillon, mademoiselle?” he said.

“No.”

“Then may I claim your hand for it?”

“Good gracious, my son! you are not so selfish as to want to keep me here till four in the morning? I am worn out already—I am indeed,” protested the terrified mother, whom her son and everybody else knew to be simply indefatigable when the duty to society was in question.

“Pray don’t let _us_ detain you here, madame,” said Polly with a certain asperity; “we shall be glad to go the moment you feel inclined.” She saw that a change had come over their chaperon, and she was annoyed at the way she snapped at Léon about the cotillon.

“Is it indeed true? You would not mind coming away now? I am so exhausted by the heat! I never knew the palace so overheated. But Marguerite wishes to remain for the cotillon?”

“I have not the least wish to remain for it, madame,” said Pearl; the sudden change from affectionate familiarity to being called “Marguerite” showed that she had in some way incurred Mme. Léopold’s displeasure.

“Then let us come,” said that lady, signing to her husband to give his arm.

“And Blanche?” said Léon.

“Good gracious! It shows how ill I am that I could have forgotten her. Where is she? It appears that English manners are _à la mode_ everywhere to-night. Why is your sister so long away from me? Who is she with?”

“I saw her dancing with M. de Cholcourt; but it is some time ago,” said M. Darvallon.

“She was dancing with him again then, five minutes ago,” said Polly.

“M. de Cholcourt!” repeated Mme. Léopold in a tone of unmistakable satisfaction. “Are you sure?”

“M. Léon told me that was his name,” said Polly. “I asked him because Blanche seemed particularly to enjoy his conversation.”

“Dear child! I am glad she is amused. I wonder if she has made an engagement for the cotillon?” This was said interrogatively to the two girls and the two gentlemen with them.

Nobody knew. Meantime, Léon had gone in pursuit of Blanche, and it was not long before he returned with her. She looked angry.

“What is the matter with you, mamma?”

“Chérie, I am rather tired to-night, and these good children are anxious to get home.”

“It was hardly worth coming to go away so soon,” said Blanche, “and I have made an engagement for the cotillon.”

“With whom?”

“The Marquis de Cholcourt.”

“Ha! My dear child, I am always ready to sacrifice myself to your pleasure.... If your young friends don’t mind waiting, I will stay for the cotillon.”

“Pardon, ma mère,” said Léon, “Blanche prefers your comfort to her amusement; she will go home now.”

“My son, you should consider your sister. If she has made an engagement....”

“I will make her excuses to Cholcourt.”

Mme. Léopold looked exceeding displeased, and tried to convey the full motives of her displeasure to Léon through her eyes. But Léon would not see it. Blanche saw there was a conflict between the two, and she sided with her brother.

“Yes, you will tell M. de Cholcourt,” she said. “We had better go at once, mamma, as you are not well.”

“What an angel she is!” said the enraged mother, swallowing her vexation under the fondest smile.

The drive home was performed almost in silence. Mme. Léopold lay back with a pretence of utter exhaustion, and never said a word. Blanche and Polly sat opposite, and had a little confidential talk to themselves.

“Is he nice, that marquis who was dancing with you?” inquired Polly.

“Nice! He is the greatest _parti_ in all France. He is heir to the dukedom, and he has a fortune _now_ of two hundred and fifty thousand francs a year; besides that he is heir to his aunt, who has _enormous_ property in the south; and I believe, only I am not sure, that the Comtesse de V—— has left all the family diamonds to him—just think!”

Blanche summed up all this in a voluble whisper to her friend.

“What a catch he will be!” said Polly. “I hope he may fall in love with you, Blanche.”

“_Pas tant de chance, ma chère_; my _dot_ will be a drop compared to M. de Cholcourt’s. I have not the ghost of a chance of making a marriage like that.” And the young French girl sighed.

“He might fall in love with you,” suggested Polly.

“His family would never allow him.”

They drew up at Colonel Redacre’s door, and the two girls, thanking Mme. Léopold for her kindness, wished her and Blanche good-night.

* * * * *

At a preternaturally early hour next morning Mme. Léopold presented herself at Mrs. Monteagle’s.

“I make no apologies,” she said on being admitted into that lady’s dressing-room. “The case is so urgent that I could not delay an hour. Did you speak yesterday to the Redacres about that absurd idea of mine?”

“You mean did I offer your son’s hand to Pearl?”

“Oh! you have done it. We are compromised!” exclaimed Mme. Léopold in despair.

“Console yourself, madame; I had not an opportunity of doing your commission—”

“You have said nothing! I thank Heaven! Then indeed we have had a narrow escape. My son is so chivalrous there is no saying what folly he might have committed had he known it.”

“Known what?”

“That I had asked Pearl in marriage for him. Happily, he has not the faintest suspicion of anything. But I am heartily sorry for the poor child,” continued Mme. Léopold, finding room in her heart to pity Pearl the moment her terrors for Léon were allayed. “I feel deeply for her. The disappointment will be a terrible blow, she is so much in love with my son. That is the dreadful part of your English way of doing things; but it is no fault of mine.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mrs. Monteagle. “A terrible blow to Pearl, you say? My good lady, take comfort; Pearl is perfectly heart-whole. Your son is the only person to be pitied in the affair. Ha! ha! ha! Capital! So you thought Pearl was in love with him? What an excellent joke!”

Mme. Léopold did not see the joke, and was deeply offended by this manner of treating the matter.

“I see nothing surprising in the fact of my son’s inspiring a sentiment,” she replied. “You yourself seemed of that opinion yesterday. As to Léon, he could not deny it when I put it to him; he had to admit that it was true.”

“True that Miss Redacre had a _passion malheureuse_ for him? He says so, does he? Then I heartily congratulate Pearl on escaping him,” said Mrs. Monteagle, bridling with the spirit of a gentlewoman and a loyal friend. “I thought your son was a gentleman; it seems he is a cowardly coxcomb.”

“Madame!” Mme. Léopold stood up in wrath.

“I sincerely congratulate my young friend on escaping such a husband!”

“You mean to insult me?”

“I mean to speak my mind. I am sorry if it insults you; but you may tell your son from me, madame, he is stating what is false when he says that Miss Redacre is in love with him: it is a delusion of his own vanity.”

“He never said it,” said Mme. Léopold. “When I said so he did not deny it; he feigned not to believe it; but when I persisted in affirming it he spoke in the kindest terms of Miss Redacre, and declared he was ready to make any sacrifice of his own inclination and happiness if it was necessary to—”

“Pray tell him nothing of the sort is necessary. I am sure it is most kind of him,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a contemptuous chuckle. “He never will have the luck to get such a wife; he is not worthy of her.”

“Madame!”

“But since we are on the subject, may I ask why _you_ have so suddenly changed your views about this marriage?”

“Have you not heard? They are ruined.”

“Who? The Redacres?”

“Yes. Is it possible you have not heard of it?”

Mrs. Monteagle stared at Mme. Léopold with a troubled countenance for a moment.

“Sit down, I beg of you, and tell me what all this means,” she said, her tone changed in a second from anger to one of intense and painful interest.

Mme. Léopold was not sorry for the change as regarded her share in it; she did not want to quarrel with Mrs. Monteagle, and she felt that the wrong had been on her own side. She sat down and told all she knew. It seemed that a letter had arrived on the previous day, by the early post, with news of the death of some person, who by dying in this sudden way let Colonel Redacre in for an enormous sum of money—in fact, utterly ruined him. This was all that Mme. Léopold knew. Who the man was, or how the money was gone, she had not heard; but the main fact was positively true. M. Léopold heard it from M. de Kerbec, who knew more than he liked to tell; Mme. Léopold had heard it from her husband at the ball last night. Mr. Kingspring knew it too; he had been to see the Redacres in the morning. Apparently they wanted to keep the affair quiet for some little time, and this was why the door was closed yesterday on the plea of the colonel’s not being well.

“And this was why they sent the girls to the ball, no doubt,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “It is a most extraordinary affair. Do you know, I am inclined to think there is some mistake. I don’t believe Colonel Redacre ever speculated to the extent of half a crown in his life; in fact, he had nothing to speculate with, as he tells you himself; the money is his wife’s, and that, I know, is bound up so that he could not touch it.”

“I know nothing except that in some way they are ruined,” said Mme. Léopold. “The letter fell on them like a bombshell. I am very sorry for them—very.”

“To me it is like a personal misfortune,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “And to think of their not sending for me at once! How did M. de Kerbec hear it, do you know? But I tell you there is some mistake; I feel certain there is. Those poor, dear girls! It is heartbreaking to think of them if this be true. And the boys—what is to become of them?”

“Boys always pull through somehow,” said Mme. Léopold. “It is the girls that my heart bleeds for. I suppose they will have to go out as governesses—Pearl at least. Polly’s beauty would make it impossible for her to do anything; no family would run the risk of letting that face in amongst them.”

“They shall never be asked to run the risk so long as I can prevent it,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a touch of her old asperity. “While I have a home those children have one.”

“That is real friendship; it consoles me wonderfully to hear you say so, chère madame.”

Mrs. Monteagle made no answer. She was speculating on the possible truth of this story of sudden ruin, and it occurred to her how mysterious Mr. Kingspring had been on the subject of Mrs. Redacre’s not receiving the day before.

“I will go down the moment I am dressed,” she said. “I can’t lose an hour till I know the truth.”

Mme. Léopold rose to go.

“Have you breakfasted, or will you stay and have a cup of tea with me?” said Mrs. Monteagle.

“Thank you; I had my coffee before I came out. You will not mention that I have been here? They think at home that I am gone to see my poor people; I always go early, because then they do not interfere with my day.”

Mrs. Monteagle hurried through her breakfast and went down to the entresol. She was admitted at once.

“What is this? What does it all mean?” she said, as Mrs. Redacre, who was not lying on the sofa, but actively sorting letters at a table, stood up with an exclamation of welcome and hastened to meet her.

The colonel was standing with his back to the fire.

“It means this: that we are beggared,” he said.

“Only for a few years, Hugh. Don’t speak in that despairing way about things!” said his wife, and she cast a look of tender entreaty at him.

“Tell me, for goodness’ sake, what has happened,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “I hear that somebody has died and that you are ruined by their death.”

“That is about it,” said the colonel. “I put my name to a bill for £30,000 some five years ago, and the man for whom I did it is dead, and died a bankrupt, leaving me to pay the money.”

“Thirty thousand pounds!” repeated Mrs. Monteagle.

“We can pay it, Hugh, and Providence will come to our aid,” said his wife.

“By sending us another income when every penny has gone to meet this bill?”

“I don’t know how; but trust me, dearest, help will come. If only you won’t break down under it! What does poverty or anything matter so long as we are left to bear it together?”

He made no answer, but stooped down and gave the fire a savage poke.

“What madness possessed you, Redacre? I always thought you had a horror of speculation,” said Mrs. Monteagle, her resentment against him rising at the sight of Alice’s gentle face of anguish.

“It was no speculation,” said the wife quickly; “he did it to oblige a friend. Any one would have done it in his place.”

“Any fool would,” thought her friend, but she said nothing.

“Fortunately we can meet it,” Mrs. Redacre went on. “I thought at first that it might have been paid off at once with my fortune; but it shows what a goose I am in practical things,” she said, trying to laugh. “My money is so tied up that neither Hugh nor I can alienate the capital; all we can do is to surrender the income for a few years till the debt is paid off.”

“She means that we must raise the money to pay it off, and pay back the loan by mortgaging our income for about ten years.”

“It may not be for half that time, dearest. Providence may shorten the trial for us unexpectedly.”

“You mean that Darrell may die. He is more likely to bury us all. Those kind of men live for ever. I am sure I don’t want to hurry him away; I have made a point of wishing him a long life. You have always heard me say I hoped he might have a long life? Of course, if the Almighty saw fit to call him home, I could not but feel that the loss would be also a gain to me—to you and the children, that is; for myself, I count no man’s money.”

“Has he a very large property to leave?” inquired Mrs. Monteagle. Col. Redacre talked very openly about his money affairs, but in such a vague, exaggerated way that one never knew what to believe about his prospects or his difficulties.

“Broom Hollow is a glorious old place,” he said, “but it brings in nothing; that must come to me. Darrell himself is a rich man, but he may leave his money to whom he pleases. As likely as not he will leave it to pay off the national debt. He is just the man to do a thing of that sort.”

“My dear Hugh! he told you himself that you were to be his heir; that he had made his will and left you sole legatee!” said Alice.

“That’s just it. When a man tells you he has made his will in your favor, be you sure you will never see a penny of his money. I make a point of never believing what men say about their wills.”

“The dean is not the least likely to tell a falsehood, dear, even about his will,” said Alice.

“I don’t say he is. I never said he was not a truth-telling man; but people have crotchety notions about wills. However, we are a long way off from the settling of that question, I fear—that is to say, I hope; I devoutly hope the poor fellow may live for twenty years. At the same time, if the Almighty sees good to call him to his reward sooner, and that he leaves me his money, he will do as good an action as he ever performed in his life.”

“Have you written to him about this unfortunate business?” inquired Mrs. Monteagle.

“No. I will worry nobody about it. What is the use? We are beggared, and there is an end of it.”

“There is no use making things out worse than they are,” said his friend. “They are bad enough as it is; but, as Alice says, Providence will pull you through somehow. I may turn out of some use myself; but we will come to those matters by and by. The thing is, What are you going to do now? Is it out of the question—your getting something to do? You have friends who have influence; so have I.”

“What could they do for me? Could they get me back my leg? If it were not for Balaklava I should not let this catastrophe cast me down a bit; but it makes all the difference when a man has to face the world with one leg.”

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Monteagle. “You have not half the sense I gave you credit for, Redacre. What difference can it make, your having one leg or two? I don’t expect you to enter an infantry regiment and go on the march. There are appointments to be had where legs are not wanted at all. My nephew, Percy Danvers, has an appointment of fifteen hundred pounds a year at the Horse Guards.”

“But Danvers has both his legs?”

“But he doesn’t write with his legs, and the work he does is all writing.”

“How did he get the appointment?”

“His father got it for him. And, by the way, he had no legs at all, poor fellow; he lost one in the Crimea and the other in China. And he used to joke about it, and say that the loss of his legs was the best investment he ever made, and the only one that paid regularly.”

“That’s just it: if a man loses both he is a hero; if he loses only one he is a cripple. Balaklava never did anything for me but worry my life out.”

“That is a most excellent idea!” said Mrs. Redacre, turning with a look of sunny hopefulness to Mrs. Monteagle. “I don’t see why Hugh should not get something at the Horse Guards. We know so many old generals, and some of them are influential, and I am sure all our friends will be kind and anxious to help us. Hugh, dear, we must lose no time in seeing about this.”

“First of all, we have got to pay this £30,000. When that is done, it will be time to think of the other. But with the government we have now I don’t expect we would succeed. They are a beggarly lot, who toady all the self-made men, as they call them—fellows who have risen Heaven knows from what, and to whom it is as well to throw a bone to stop their mouths. I would see them farther before I asked a favor of them if I had my two legs to stand on.”

“Where are the girls?” said Mrs. Monteagle; she was losing patience with these lamentations over the missing leg.

“I sent them out for a ride before breakfast; they may as well enjoy it while they can, poor darlings!” And the mother’s voice faltered a little.

“Have you told them?”

“Not the whole terrible truth. I prepared them for it yesterday a little, and again this morning. But they guess that worse is coming, and they are very brave.”

The noise of hoofs pattering under the porte cochère announced that the girls had come back. In a few minutes they both entered the room. The fair young things, in their beautifully-fitting habits, their complexions freshened by exercise in the morning air, their features lighted up with the buoyancy of youth hitherto untouched by sorrow, made a pathetic and striking contrast with the group they broke in upon—the father stern and irritable, his fine face ploughed into sudden furrows of care, the mother courageous and tender, with undried tears on her cheeks. Pearl spied the tears at once, and, taking a bunch of violets out of her riding-habit, she went and kissed the wet face lovingly and fastened the flowers in her mother’s breast.

“My darling! Have you had a nice ride?”

“Yes; but we had no heart to care about it. I wish you would let us stay at home with you, and not send us off to amuse ourselves while you are worried. It is not kind of her, is it, Mrs. Monteagle?”

Polly was standing at the table, holding up her habit, and looking from one to the other of them all, with an expression of awakening terror in her large, lustrous eyes.

“I don’t know what it all means,” she said. “Is it very bad? Is it going to last long? Papa, we are not babies; you ought to tell us the truth.”

“I ought, my dear; but I have not the courage to do it. Ask your mother.”

“Redacre, you are a selfish brute!” burst out Mrs. Monteagle, glaring at him.

“Oh! don’t,” cried Alice, with a look at once imploring and angry. “Of course it is my duty, but I am such a coward!” She let her head fall on Pearl’s shoulder, and sobbed aloud.

“For God’s sake, Alice, don’t give way!” cried her husband. “I can bear anything but that; I can indeed, my love. It is quite true I am a selfish brute. I ought not to have asked you to tell them. Come, now, don’t! It will all come right, if you will only cheer up and help me to bear it.” And he went over and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Help you to bear it!” repeated Mrs. Monteagle; but she checked herself as she met Alice’s eyes uplifted in supplication through her tears.

“Come with me both of you, children,” said the old lady; “I know all about it now, and I will tell you everything. Come, and leave the colonel and your mother to themselves a little; they were very busy when I came and interrupted them.”

The two girls kissed Alice with many a tender endearment, and followed Mrs. Monteagle up to her own apartment. She told them the truth as gently as possible, but without disguising anything.

“Then we have nothing at all to live on except papa’s half-pay?” said Polly, her eyes wide open in dismay, her lily-white hands lying motionless on her knees.

“I fear not, my dear child; but I hope we will soon be able to get an appointment for him. Meantime you must not worry too much. I have some money lying by that he can have and welcome; he won’t refuse me an old friend’s privilege at a moment like this. You must both do your very best to help him and your mother to bear it. You will not let them see you cast down.”

“And the boys,” said Pearl—“they must come home and grow up dunces; that is the worst of all. What is to become of the boys?”

“What is to become of any of us?” said Polly. “What could have possessed papa to promise to pay such an enormous sum of money for any one? It was very wicked of him.” And the big tears welled up and came streaming down the lovely face.

“Has he written to Cousin Darrell?” said Pearl.

“No,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “I asked him, and he said he would not write; that it would worry the dean.”

“But he might give us the money to pay this, or some of it, at any rate,” argued Pearl. “I am certain he would; since we are to have all his money by and by, he would not refuse a portion of it now to do us such a service.”

“I would not be too sure of that, dear Pearl,” said her friend, with a dubious shake of the head. “Giving and bequeathing are very different things. Still, I agree with you, Colonel Redacre ought to write and tell your cousin the truth; he owes that to the dean and to you all.”

“I will make him do it!” said Polly, brushing away the tear-drops and shaking back her head with a resolute air; “and if he won’t write, I will.”

“You mustn’t do it against papa’s will, Polly,” said Pearl, a little frightened by this unexpected display of will. Polly had always had her own way hitherto without making any effort to get it.

“I think we had better go down now,” she said, not answering Pearl’s remark. There was an energy in her manner and look that amazed Mrs. Monteagle.

“Perhaps you had, dears,” said their friend; she was anxious to have a little private talk with Pearl on other things, but she did not venture to ask her pointedly to stay.

“I will go to papa at once, and tell him he must write to Cousin Darrell,” said Polly; and gathering up the folds of her long habit, she walked away, too absorbed in her own thoughts to say good-by or notice if Pearl was following her. Mrs. Monteagle signed to Pearl to stay.

The idea that this misfortune was weighted to Pearl with a super-added individual sorrow had been in her friend’s mind ever since Mme. Léopold had announced the bad news to her. When that lady declared so emphatically that Pearl was attached to her son, Mrs. Monteagle had denied it and laughed to scorn the pretended compassion of the manœuvring mother. This was clearly her duty as a stanch friend, whether she believed or not that Pearl loved Léon; but, indeed, she so earnestly desired at the moment not to believe it that she concluded she did not, that it was a delusion of Léon’s vanity or his mother’s; but now there recurred to her Pearl’s vivid blush at the mention of Léon’s name, and her confusion when Mme. Léopold was announced. It was dreadful if the young heart was to set out on the rude battle of life with its bloom rubbed off and all its brightness quenched. But though she had a true woman’s heart, Mrs. Monteagle indulged little in sentiment. If the mischief was done, it must be undone as quickly as possible, and Pearl was a girl of rare sense.

“My dear, did Léon Léopold propose to you last night?” said the old lady when they were left alone.

“No,” said Pearl, looking her straight in the face. “What put that into your head?”

“But he ought to do so, ought he not? He has been paying you a great deal of attention.”

“Léon!” The old innocent laugh rang out in spite of all her trouble, as Pearl repeated in amazement, “Léon?”

“And you really don’t care for him?”

“Not I, and I should be very sorry to think that he cared for me; but I am perfectly certain he does not. If I were a _pot de confiture_ he might.”

“You relieve me immensely, my dear,” said Mrs. Monteagle, quite at rest now on the score of Pearl’s heart. “It would have been dreadful had you been in love with that young man.”

“It would indeed,” assented Pearl. “I had better be going now; I don’t like leaving mamma alone—without me, that is. Poor darling mamma, if I could take some of the worry off her! What are we to do? I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Keep a cheerful spirit and a brave heart; that is all you have to do for the present. I promise you things will come right in good time.”

* * * * *

Mr. Kingspring called very early, and was closeted a long time with Col. Redacre. Pearl met him in the hall as she was coming out of her father’s study, and whispered to him:

“Make papa write to Cousin Darrell.”

Mr. Kingspring nodded yes and went in.

It had got wind that the Redacres were ruined, and everybody was very sorry for them. It was all conjecture yet how the ruin came about. The general belief was that a banker with whom he had lodged his money had “gone smash.” Mr. Kingspring and M. de Kerbec were the only two who had known the truth from the first, and they were not communicative as to details; Mr. Kingspring from innate discretion, M. de Kerbec from friendly desire to shield Col. Redacre from the ridicule which awaited a man imbecile enough to fool away his money by signing a bill.

“No, I can’t write to Darrell,” said Col. Redacre in answer to Mr. Kingspring’s urgent advice that he should at once apply to his rich cousin. “Darrell is a man who never did a foolish thing in his life, and he despises people who do. If he knew I had been idiot enough to put my name to a bill, he would disinherit me for a fool; he is a most eccentric fellow.”

“But he is sure to hear of it,” said Mr. Kingspring, “and he will be more likely to resent it if you seem trying to hide it from him.”

“I don’t see that he need ever hear of it. He never sees any one, never writes to any one, I believe, except his medical man, and his lawyer perhaps; he leads the life of a hermit down there with his books. If he does not hear of this miserable business from ourselves, he is likely never to hear of it.”

Mr. Kingspring could not press the point after this. Pearl, meantime, was on the watch to catch him when he left the study, and in answer to her eager “Has he promised to write?” Mr. Kingspring only replied, “No; he says it would do no good; and I think he is right.” Pearl was disappointed, and took the news to her sister, who was awaiting it in her own room.

“It is nothing but pride that prevents him,” said Polly, angry and impatient; “it is cruel and selfish of papa to sacrifice us all to spare his own pride.”

“He is sacrificing himself as well as us,” said Pearl; “and I don’t believe it is pride. I am sure papa has some good reason for it; he knows Cousin Darrell better than we do.”

“Do you write to him,” said Polly; “he is your godfather, and he pretends to be greatly interested in you. Tell him you will have to go out as a governess if he won’t come to papa’s help.”

“I could not write against papa’s will,” said Pearl.

“Stuff! Then I will.” And Polly tossed back her head, and her almond-shaped eyes had a light of dangerous wilfulness in them as she rose and went towards her writing-table.

“O Polly! you must not do that; papa would be so angry,” pleaded Pearl.

“He will forgive me when Cousin Darrell sends the money.” And Polly sat down and opened her dainty blotting-book and prepared for action.

“Polly, you sha’n’t. I will go and tell mamma of it. I won’t be a party to your defying papa in this way,” said Pearl resolutely, moving towards the door.

Polly started up.

“Come back; you need not play tell-tale. I won’t write.” And she shut the blotting-book and flung the pen angrily aside.

“I am sure it is better not, darling,” said Pearl. “We can’t know as well as papa in a matter of this kind.” She went over to Polly and would have kissed her; but Polly repulsed the caress with an impatient movement of her head. Pearl did not force the kiss on her, but she felt the tears rising as she turned away and left the room. If misfortune was going to change Polly like this, it was a worse sorrow than anything she had anticipated.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE ESPOUSALS OF OUR LADY.[152]

(SCENE: _Before the Temple_.)

ST. JOSEPH.

From boyhood up I had but one desire: To live alone with God—as much alone As wholesome concourse with my fellow-men, And scope of humble traffic, would allow: Not sullenly churlish—with a helping hand For others’ need—but peacefully obscure. And so, when came the glow of youth, and thoughts Of woman’s love dawn’d roseate, I upraised My heart to Him who was indeed to me The Good Supreme, the Beauty Infinite, And made, at once, a vow perpetual Of perfect chastity; and straightway knew ’Twas He had drawn me to it.

Strangely, then, Sounded the High-Priest’s message, summoning The unwed of David’s lineage who had claim, By sacred right of kinship, to espouse Its sole surviving maiden—bidding them Bring each a wand, whereby the Lord might show Whom he had chosen—and, among them, me, Nearest of kin, but hoping to lie hid Half-way in the fifth decade of my years! But, ever wont to obey the voice divine, Within heard or without, I came, and stood Unseemly ’mid the suitors. Then the wands Were laid upon the altar—the High-Priest Seeking the sign to Moses given of yore, When, in the wilderness, the tribes rebelled ’Gainst privileged Aaron.[153] So we knelt, and went, And waited on the Lord.

And I, that night, Like Joseph, son of Jacob, dream’d a dream. I saw a maiden, robed in purest white, Sit throned where once, in Solomon’s vanished fane, Reposed the Ark beneath the Mercy-seat, Within the Holy of Holies. While I gazed, Behold, a sudden vista of long light Opened as into heaven; and, swiftly, a dove Descended on the maid, yet settled not, But o’er her head hung brooding! Then a voice Said softly: “Fear not, Joseph, for thy vow. Bride of the Dove is she; and thou, her spouse, Shalt guard her for her Spouse.” Whereat I woke, Astonished: and to find, upon the morrow, That one of the rods had budded in the night— Budded and blossom’d; and that rod was mine!

SINGS:

Though the dream brought me peace, there is mystery still: But in time He will solve it, the Lord of my love. ’Tis enough that I know I am wedding His will— Beheld in this maiden, the “Bride of the Dove.”

Ah, who can she be—there enthroned as a bride Where the Ark of the Covenant rested of old? Is it She for whose advent our fathers have sigh’d— The long-promised Virgin Isaias foretold?

And what was the Dove? When the voice said “her Spouse,” Did it mean that Jehovah had seal’d her his own? Has she too, like me, made the sweetest of vows— To live evermore for Divine love alone?

But she comes: and I feel that the angels are here. Their charge to be mine! They will share it, then, still. And the dear God himself, was He ever so near? Be at peace, O my soul! Thou art wedding His will.

MARY (SINGS).

My God, to Thee I bow: Thy will is ever mine. Thy grace inspired the vow That made me wholly thine.

If Thou dost bid me wed, Thou canst but guide aright. I follow, darkly led, Till break the perfect light.

I take my chosen lord, And plight him troth for Thee. So find thy sovran word Its handmaid still in me.

CHORUS.

All hail, blest pair, all hail! As yet ye little know What words that cannot fail To after-times will show.

Not angel eyes command The glorious lot that waits, As, meekly, hand-in-hand, Ye leave the temple’s gates!

MAY, 1878.

Footnote 152:

Written for a children’s “May Cantata.”

Footnote 153:

Numbers xvii.

THE BOLLANDIST _ACTA SANCTORUM_.

For many reasons the Bollandist series of saints’ lives is one of the most remarkable works that ever issued from the pen of man. As a serial publication, what other work of the kind extends over a period of nearly two centuries and a half, comprises upwards of sixty volumes in large folio, and is still advancing, with upwards of one-sixth part of the whole remaining to full completion? Or as a monument of devotion to the saints of God, as a vast storehouse of example and instruction in the way of eternal life, there is nothing that can be put in competition with it. Even this view of it is narrow, as compared with other claims to regard which it possesses, and which are fully recognized by literary men, even among those who have little or no sympathy with the religious side of this great work. The whole range of history, from the foundation of Christianity, forms an essential portion of it. The lives of the apostles demand the investigation of all that is known of that remote period; a large proportion of the Roman pontiffs are among the canonized, and their records belong to the history of the Christian world, including that of the middle ages. The sainted founders of religious orders, from Benedict to Ignatius, from Anthony to Paul of the Cross, cannot be described without entering at length into the origin and progress of their holy institutes, many of which were asylums and homes of refuge for letters and learning during the darkest and most troubled periods of European history, and others served as training-places, whence the confessors and martyrs of the Christian faith went forth to the ends of the earth to propagate divine truth and love at the sacrifice of everything that humanity holds dear, even of liberty and life itself. Or, if it is question of kings and emperors whom the church venerates as saints, the secular history of their dominions naturally falls within the scope of their biographies: as of Hungary under St. Stephen; of Germany under Henry II.; of England under Edward the Confessor; of Denmark under Canute IV.; of Spain under Ferdinand III.; and of France under Louis IX. Not unfrequently the biography of a saint comprises the history of his age: as of the fourth century in the life of St. Athanasius; of the eleventh in that of St. Gregory VII.; of the twelfth in that of St. Bernard; and of the thirteenth in those of St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi. The limits of the _Acta_ are not confined to Europe; they are as wide as our globe itself. Wherever the seed of the Gospel has been sown or watered by the blood of martyrs, among every race of mankind, from China to Paraguay, from Lima to Japan, nothing is foreign to the Bollandists’ pen; their work embraces, incidentally or formally, all the history of all nations.

Intimately connected with the historical researches of their work are several auxiliary branches of knowledge which largely enter into it and cannot be overlooked in estimating its scope and value. The aid of geography, for example, had to be called in to settle the boundaries of episcopal sees, of provinces, of kingdoms; to reconcile history with topography by determining the obsolete or corrupted names of certain places, about which different authors may have held different opinions. Several treatises on chronology entered into the general scheme. Archæology furnished the means of a minute and complete examination into ancient manners, rites, laws, arts, and the rudiments of languages, and of a comparison among the sacred and secular monuments of various nations. Then, again, the art of employing the materials, characters, and other portions of ancient MSS. for the determination of dates engaged the attention of the Bollandists, and of Père Papebroch in particular; and this father, with the frankness inseparable from true genius, did not hesitate to acknowledge his debt to the illustrious master _Rei Diplomaticæ_, the Benedictine Mabillon. As might have been expected, theology, canon law, and ecclesiastical history are largely represented in those sixty volumes. The teaching of the holy fathers, the decrees of councils, the laws of the church constantly demanded scientific statement and vindication, as also did the perpetual glory of miracles, of prophecy, of celestial revelations, and the undying gift of the loftiest contemplation, as against a class of critics who, while affecting to patronize letters, assume that the lives of saints must be nothing more than a tissue of idle tales and old women’s fables, or at least speak of them as if they thought them so. In the judgment, however, of several eminent critics of the modern school even the legends of saints, regarded as popular beliefs in a remote and half-instructed age, have their value as evidence of the ideas, manners, and customs of the people in the middle ages. M. Guizot was at pains to count twenty-five thousand legends in the Bollandists’ work; and these, he remarks, were the real literature of the first half of that period, and served for aliment to the intellectual, moral, and æsthetic life of those ages, and, from a historian’s point of view, were on that account beyond all price. Another French critic, M. Renan, also regarding the _Acta_ from an external point of view, expresses himself in language of eulogy little to have been anticipated: “Quelle incomparable galerie, en effet, que celle de ces 25,000 héros de la vie désintéressée! Quel air de haute distinction! quelle noblesse! quelle poésie! Il y en a d’humbles et de grands, de doctes et de simples; mais je n’en connais pas un seul qui ait l’air vulgaire. Tous m’apparaissent tels que les pose Giotto, grandioses, hardis, détachés des liens terrestres, et déjà transfigurés. Ils plaisent peu au sens positif, je l’avoue; mais qu’ils ont, après tout, mieux compris la vie, que ceux qui l’embrassent comme un étroit calcul d’intérêt, comme une lutte insignifiante d’ambition et de vanité.”

Such being the character of the _Acta_, who conceived the comprehensive scheme and gave it actual form and being? The names of its originator and early continuators are preserved in the following lines:

Quod Rosweydus preparaverat, Quod Bollandus inchoaverat, Quod Henschenius formaverat, Perfecit Papebrochius.

Herbert Rosweyd, a native of Utrecht in Holland, entered the Society of Jesus in 1589, at the age of twenty, and taught philosophy and theology successively at Douay and Antwerp. He was a man in whom great learning was united to great piety. He composed and edited many works in Latin and Flemish, and among the rest published an edition of the Oriental ascetic Moschus’ _Spiritual Meadow_, and an original treatise on the _Imitation of Christ_ to prove its author to have been Thomas à Kempis. Eleven years before his death, in 1629, Père Rosweyd published the _Lives of the Fathers of the Desert_, in a folio volume, at Antwerp. It may be regarded as a first instalment of the _Acta Sanctorum_. While he was engaged on one of his books the idea occurred to him to collect in some twelve volumes the lives and acts of the beatified and canonized saints of the Catholic Church. At the time when he first conceived his great plan he was too deeply committed to other literary works to take it up at once; but the idea never was abandoned, and death alone prevented him from at least commencing it. When the project was mentioned to Cardinal Bellarmine, he inquired if Père Rosweyd expected to live two hundred years; such was the cardinal’s estimate of the magnitude of the undertaking—an estimate fully borne out by the result. Yet, as we shall presently see, in the first century and a half of the work not a dozen only but four times that number of volumes were published; and if twelve volumes could have comprised it the end would have been reached in little more than forty years from its commencement. What Papebroch said of Bolland may be said of Rosweyd: It was providential that he who first started such a work could not foresee its vast extent. Who but a rash man, or one assured by divine revelation of his success, would otherwise ever have dared to extend his plans and hopes to an age beyond his own, or counted upon the co-operation of future authors yet unborn in an association of labor up to that time without a parallel in the history of letters? It was probably only in the bosom of a religious order like the Society of Jesus, in which years count for days and centuries for years, that such a scheme could ever have been carried out.

Rosweyd, then, was dead, but his conception survived him. The duty of giving effect to it devolved on John Bolland (Latinized, in the style of the period, into Bollandus), after whom the whole body of succeeding editors has since been named BOLLANDISTS.[154] Bolland was by his birth, August 13, 1596, a native of Tillemont, in Flanders. At the age of sixteen he entered the society, and professed the four solemn vows January 27, 1630. His studies had been distinguished, and as a professor he stood high in many various attainments, in letters and in Oriental and other languages. But, better still, his piety and religious fervor kept equal pace with his other acquirements. Even after his appointment to carry on the work suggested by Père Rosweyd, Père Bolland would never intermit the duties of the confessional in the church of St. Ignatius attached to the house of the professed fathers of the society at Antwerp—now the church of St. Charles Borromeo, at the corner of Wyngard Street and the Katelina Rampart. It was only the spare time unoccupied by hearing confessions that he gave to sacred literature.

A glance at what had been previously done in the way of saints’ lives will enable us the better to understand the plan now adopted by Père Bolland. Of the acts of the martyrs and the other saints the very earliest form is the record of St. Stephen’s origin, arrest, trial, condemnation, and martyrdom, contained in the Acts of the Apostles. Similar records began to be kept first of all in the Roman Church by order of Pope Clement. Notaries were appointed for the purpose of collecting and authenticating the acts of martyrs. The testimony of eye-witnesses was taken down, and, when duly attested, the records were submitted to the judgment of the pope. Similarly the martyrologies took their origin from the burying-places of the martyrs in the catacombs. When a martyr was carried to his rest from the Amphitheatre an inscription was placed beside him, a name, a date, a title, a palm-branch or a dove, perhaps a monogram. Such were the rudiments of the earliest martyrologies. The Roman martyrology, in a few lines, each day records the names of the martyrs of the day under the favorite term of _Depositio_. The earliest calendar of the Roman Church is composed of a list of depositions copied as it were from the galleries of the cemeteries. These honored names thence passed into the diptychs, and were read aloud to the Christian assemblies on public occasions. Separate churches had their own diptychs, and frequently exchanged them with one another. At first martyrs only were admitted among the select number; but in the fourth century in the Western Church the first exception was made in favor of St. Martin. In the East the lists were opened to confessors somewhat earlier in favor of SS. Ephrem, Athanasius, Hilarion, and Antony. As regarded confessors, the acts were in fact an authenticated narration of their lives. In this way the martyrologies and acts of the martyrs and other saints assumed the form we now know, subject to the scrutiny of the bishops of particular sees, till a later date, when the admission of a new name into the calendar was reserved for the Supreme Pontiff. During the middle ages the literature of saints’ lives was in great part the work of the monasteries. Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian, at an earlier period laid the foundation of this class of composition. Prudentius, in the third century, celebrated in verse the martyr’s crown of victory. There was the _Spiritual Meadow_ of Moschus, and the _Mirror_ of Vincent of Beauvais; and, most celebrated of all, the _Legends of the Saints_, composed by Da Varaggio, or De Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa—a work better known by its title of the _Golden Legend_, given it by its admirers. This collection was by far the most popular of all the works of the kind, and was translated into nearly every European language. It was one of the earliest books printed in England by Caxton, in 1483, in folio. To a somewhat later period belonged Surius the Carthusian, from whose _Lives_, in seven folio volumes, we find Charles Kingsley admitting that he had picked up his knowledge of ecclesiastical history. After Surius came Père Ribadeneira, the Spanish Jesuit, author of the _Flower of Saints’ Lives_. The work contemplated by Rosweyd and put in hand by Bolland was different from everything of the kind that had gone before it. The new scheme aimed at the collection and publication of the original acts and lives of all the saints in the order in which they stand in the Roman calendar and martyrology. Difficult and obscure passages were to be elucidated. It was adopted as a general rule that no testimony could be admitted which the editors had not thoroughly examined; that, in adducing an important witness, the age he lived in, his trustworthiness and judgment as an author, should be rigorously estimated. Nothing which tended to fuller acquaintance with any saint was to be slurred over without discussion; no place to be deemed too obscure, no people too ignoble, no country too remote, to which a saint had at any time belonged; and, in a word, no language too rude to occupy their careful attention, as far as either the intervention of published and unpublished authors, or correspondence, or the agency of ubiquitous friends could utilize human labor. Their plan was not simply to write a history of the church in numerous countries, strenuously as they meant to labor for that; its scope included the particular foundations of bishoprics, of cities, of monasteries, and of religious orders, the successive stages of whose histories they professed, to the full extent of their powers, to investigate.

Père Bolland’s first care was to collect materials for so extensive a work. He opened a correspondence with churches and monasteries all over Europe and beyond its limits, inquiring in all directions for offices peculiar to different places, and for copies of the rarest archives of the religious houses. These he gradually accumulated, until the foundation of a valuable library and museum was established, which long occupied the upper floor of a detached building in the professed house at Antwerp. Out of these materials Père Bolland then commenced to form his _Acta_ for the month of January. Six years he toiled single-handed; but in 1635 a coadjutor was given him in Père Godfrey Henschen, S.J., a native of Gueldres, in Holland, then in the thirty-sixth year of his age and the sixteenth of his religious profession. The fathers prosecuted the work in company for eight years, and in 1643 the first two volumes were published, comprising the saints belonging to the month of January, to the number of upwards of twelve hundred. Père Bolland struck the keynote of his great work at a sublime height in these few words of dedication:

SANCTO SANCTORUM JESU CHRISTO ÆTERNO PONTIFICI EIUSQUE INTER MORTALES VICARIO URBANO OCTAVO ROMANO PONTIFICI.

It was no exaggeration of the fact when Père Paul Oliva, afterwards elected father-general of the Jesuits, thus addressed Père Henschen: “Your reverence and your coadjutor are dwelling, in your every thought and with your pen, in the church in heaven.” The success of the January volumes was from the first assured, and went on increasing after the publication of the February saints, in three volumes, followed in 1658. Pope Alexander VII., the reigning pontiff, recorded his opinion that “a work more useful to the church of God or more glorious for her had never been accomplished, or even begun, by any one.” About the same time a second coadjutor was taken into the work in Père Daniel Papebroch, S.J., a native of Antwerp. His family was originally from Hamburg, but at the Reformation his father removed to Antwerp, where Daniel was born in 1628. At the end of the usual studies he entered the Society of Jesus in 1646, three of his brothers eventually following his example. Père Papebroch was ordained in 1658, and called from the chair of philosophy at Antwerp to assist PP. Bolland and Henschen in the _Acta_. After the February volumes appeared the pope invited the Bollandist Fathers to Rome. Père Bolland himself was too infirm to accept the invitation, but his younger coadjutors went instead of him. They left Antwerp July 22, 1660, old Père Bolland accompanying them as far as Cologne. Their literary tour, which lasted about two years and a half, was eminently successful. They visited monasteries and libraries without number all over Germany, Italy, and France; every door, every drawer was thrown open to them. Hundreds of precious documents were copied by them and for them; their library and museum were enriched, beyond the expectation of the most sanguine, with manuscripts and books; with missals, breviaries, martyrologies, sacramentaries, rituals, graduals, antiphonaries, and other similar works of many various rites or “uses,” such as the Mozarabic in Spain, the Ambrosian at Milan, the Sarum in England, and its Aberdeen daughter in Scotland. When at its best this library possessed some twelve thousand volumes, and in value and rarity is believed to have surpassed either the Barberini in Rome or the Mazarine in Paris—collections especially noted for their pre-eminence in similar works.

Père Bolland, who was now approaching his seventieth year, survived the return of his coadjutors from their tour only a few months. To the last he took part in the work of the museum, while the fervor of his regular and holy life seemed to increase. The 29th of August, 1665, was the last day he visited the working-room, but on a proof-sheet being put into his hand he was forced to lay it aside and retire to bed. He lingered about a fortnight, and then expired, after receiving all the sacraments of the dying. In his life and in his death, as well as with his indefatigable pen, he proved how well he had studied the saintly models he had been for upwards of thirty years daily contemplating.[155]

The next issue of the _Acta_, in three volumes, comprising the saints for March, appeared in 1668, the joint work of PP. Henschen and Papebroch. It was memorable for more reasons than one. With it began one of the customs of the Bollandists, to open a new volume with a biographical notice of any of their number who had died since the issue of the last. The first volume for March opened with an _Eloge_ of Père Bolland, accompanied by an excellent engraving of his fine head, taken from a portrait of him executed by Fruytiers, a pupil of Rubens. The first difficulty that beset the undertaking arose from passages in the same volumes, in which a favorite opinion of the Carmelite Order, that their founder and first general was the prophet Elias, was quietly ignored. Not only had Baronius and Bellarmine anticipated the Bollandist view of the question, but it had already been taken for granted by two preceding authors belonging to the Carmelite Order itself. The Flemish Carmelites, however, took umbrage at Père Papebroch’s opinion, and a quarto volume soon afterwards appeared in opposition, the first in a tolerably long series of publications resulting from this curious controversy.[156] The Bollandists took no notice of their opponents until the publication of the saints’ lives for April, in three volumes, in 1675, afforded an opportunity of repeating and confirming their view of the actual origin of the order in question in the twelfth century of the Christian era. The Flemish Carmelites again asserted the more ancient origin; and when it was known in 1680 that three volumes of the May saints’ lives were about to appear, containing the life of another Carmelite saint, the order addressed an unusual request to Père Papebroch that a copy of the life might be shown them before publication. After some difficulty the Bollandist forwarded a copy to his father-general in Rome to be shown to the general of the Carmelites there. For a long time no answer was returned; three of the May volumes were ready; the bookseller was impatient; and Père Papebroch was on the point of leaving home for Westphalia. He therefore permitted the volumes to be issued for sale. He had hardly gone when Père Henschen received an order from Rome to suppress the life of St. Angel, and despatched it to Père Papebroch. But by this time many copies of the Bollandist May lives had got into circulation; it was too late to attempt the suppression of the life in question, and his father-general accepted Père Papebroch’s apologies. The result was another large volume from a Carmelite pen. Up to this time the dispute had been restricted to the Flemish province of the Carmelites, but in 1682 its area was extended to France by the casual discovery of an opinion favorable to the Bollandist view, expressed by Ducange, the illustrious archæologist, in a private letter to a friend. The provincial of the Flemish Carmelites next called on Pope Innocent XI. to interpose his authority in the matter; and Père Janning, a younger member of the Bollandist body, was sent to Rome to watch the proceedings. In 1690, two-and-twenty years after the dispute began, Père Papebroch was summoned to the tribunal of Pope Innocent XII., who referred the matter to the Congregation of the Index. Rome, however, did not move fast enough for Carmelite zeal. The _Acta_ were denounced, 1691, before the Spanish Inquisition as a work originating within the dominions of the Catholic king. Four years later a decree of the Inquisition condemned the March, April, and May volumes of the _Acta_ as “containing erroneous propositions, scenting of heresy, dangerous to faith, scandalous, impious, offensive to pious ears, schismatical, seditious, presumptuous, offensive,” etc., etc.

That this was a bitter trial to Père Papebroch and his coadjutors cannot be doubted. All the learned men of Europe were on their side, and the Jesuits succeeded in obtaining a subsequent decree of the Inquisition, 1696, permitting the Bollandists to appear and answer the charges; for the former decree had been pronounced in their absence. Upon this Père Papebroch produced a categorical defence of everything laid to his charge, in three volumes (1696-1699). The Carmelites also were quite as busy. Meanwhile, also in 1696, Innocent XII. forbade the disputants to attack each other. The Carmelite general, little satisfied with a neutral decision, petitioned His Holiness to end the dispute by a positive decree. After consulting the Congregation of the Council the pope decided to impose silence on the whole question regarding the origin of the Carmelites, and issued a brief to that effect, dated November 20, 1698. The judgment of the Spanish Inquisition, June 11, 1697, prohibited all the books relating to the dispute, but presumably excluding the _Acta_ themselves; for in 1707 an index of forbidden books, published at Madrid under the authority of the Inquisition, made no mention of the Bollandist lives.

For thirty years, then, Père Papebroch had to bear this unwelcome interruption; and forty years after his death circumstances made it desirable to restate his defence. In 1755 a _Supplementum Apologeticum_ took its place in the Bollandist series, containing all the apologetic volumes published in defence of Père Papebroch’s view in his Carmelite controversy. The successors of the early Bollandists had a noble opportunity, and used it nobly, to bury all former rancors, in the first volume of their revived work, in 1845, and the fifty-fifth of the series. _The Life of St. Teresa_, the great Carmelitess, occupies nearly the whole of its seven hundred folio pages—the largest scale on which any one life had hitherto been executed by the Bollandists. It was the solitary work of its author, Père Vandermoere, and was illustrated by drawings of places in Spain connected with the saint, and engraved in the highest style of art.

Père Henschen lived to see the first three May volumes issue from the press in 1680, and the following year closed his useful life, of which forty-six years had been devoted to work as a Bollandist. Père Papebroch was now at the head of the work, and had for his assistants PP. Janning and Baert. It went steadily on, and before his death, in 1714, Père Papebroch saw five volumes of the month of June, and of the series twenty-four, completed. For five years preceding his death he was nearly blind, and when it occurred he had reached the age of eighty-seven. This second founder of the great series was the author of several other important works, such as the _Annals of the City of Antwerp_ and the _Acta Vitæ Scti. Ferdinandi Regis Castillæ_.

It would protract our sketch beyond all reasonable limits if we were to follow the progress of the great work, during the sixty years following Père Papebroch’s death, with as much detail as we have hitherto given. Let it suffice to say that it was prosecuted by fifteen Jesuit fathers in succession in addition to those already named; and when the work was suspended in 1773, the year in which the Society of Jesus was for the time suppressed, fifty volumes of the _Acta_ had appeared, and the fiftieth was the third of the month of October. The plan of the work had indeed grown and expanded since Rosweyd estimated its contents at twelve volumes, since Bolland found two sufficient for the month of January, February, March, and April had each of them occupied three, August six, June and July seven, May and September eight. The chief sources relied upon for the heavy expenses of such a work were at first the gifts of private persons, bishops, abbots, and others, the patrimony of Père Papebroch and his sister forming no inconsiderable item in the account. Afterwards the sale of the volumes ensured a limited annual profit; and in 1688 the court of Vienna granted the fathers a pension, but burdened with the condition that subsequent volumes should each of them be dedicated to some member of the imperial house. Hence, after that date, every volume bears at the head of it an engraved portrait of an emperor or empress, of an archduke or archduchess. The Bollandists also enjoyed a certain revenue from their monopoly of the sale of classical books in the Jesuit colleges of Belgium.

A word as to the place where they lived and worked. Travellers who have visited Antwerp must remember the handsome Renaissance tower of St. Charles Borromeo’s Church, on the corner of the Katelina Rampart and Wyngard Street. That church was originally dedicated to St. Ignatius, the great first Jesuit, and was once a museum of Rubens’ art. At the suppression of the society its best ornaments were removed to Vienna, where many of them may be seen in the public gallery. The church itself perished by fire in 1718, but soon rose again as before. The small square it stands in is formed on two sides by massive buildings, formerly the Antwerp house of the professed fathers of the society. In the upper floor of the building opposite the church Père Bolland established his museum and printing-press, and there the work was carried on for nearly one hundred and fifty years. Few places in the history of Christian literature have a better title to be remembered with honor. In another article we shall trace the progress of the Bollandist _Acta_ after the suppression of the Jesuit fathers until the long suspension of the work itself consequent on the French Revolution. We shall then give our readers an account of its revival some forty years ago, together with a description of the new museum and library in the Collége St. Michel, Brussels, which the writer had the honor of visiting a short time ago.

Footnote 154:

Nothing could give a truer idea of the fog of misconception and ignorance that envelops every subject connected with Catholicity in England than an incident which occurred to the writer in the course of last summer. He had applied to the editor of an influential monthly of high standing, published in London, for permission to contribute a paper on the Bollandist _Acta_. The editor in reply said that he should be happy to receive an article on such a subject, adding, “They were old friends and benefactors of mine.” The phrase was somewhat puzzling; but it was fully explained to the writer by a literary friend of great experience as referring to the respectable family of the late Baron Bolland, a judge of the English Exchequer Court. The Catholic Bollandists were strangers even in name to the popular editor.

Footnote 155:

Among the numerous errors in the few lines devoted to the Bollandists in the new _Encyclopædia Britannica_, not the worst is the statement that Père Bolland was only a short time engaged on the _Acta_. More than one-half of a life of sixty-nine years was spent in the production of five folio volumes for his own share, besides superintending the preparation of others.

Footnote 156:

Particulars may be found in the _Bibliothèque des Ecrivains de la Comp. de Jésus_, of the Pères de Backer, S.J. Liége, 1854. Also in Nicéron, _Histoire des Hommes Illustres_, II.

TOMBS OF THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

“Let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”—_Shakspere._

One of the most secluded and picturesque valleys of Savoy is to be found about twenty miles north of Chambéry, shut in, as by cyclopean walls, among gray jagged rocks, height piled on height—Mont du Chat on the one hand, and the mountains of Beauges on the other, while away to the north, through the gorges that give passage to the arrowy Rhone, is the dark Jura range, and to the south-east, rising into the very clouds, shine the everlasting glaciers of the Alps. At the base of Mont du Chat, which here rises abruptly fifteen hundred feet from the shore, is the beautiful lake of Bourget, clear, calm, and pure as the bright summer sky which is reflected in its bosom. It is the _lac enchanté_ of Lamartine, who opens his impassioned romance of _Raphael_ upon its shores, and under the inspiration of the glorious scenery wrote his poem of “Le Lac,” in which he calls upon the hours on these enchanted waters to suspend their course, and thus prolong a bliss which, to use his expression, neither time nor eternity could ever restore. In the fulness of delight and feeling he cries:

“Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent, Coulez, coulez pour eux, Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent, Oubliez les heureux!”

The lake of Bourget winds for several leagues in and out among the capes and headlands, forming a beautiful series of bays and inlets which wash picturesque cliffs and verdant slopes covered with vines and fig-trees and fields of waving corn. Towards one end is the little islet of Châtillon, with an old manor-house that seems to grow out of the rock, the seat of an ancient race, flanked with towers, and surrounded by gardens with steps cut in the rock leading from terrace to terrace where grow fruitful espaliers and the fragrant jasmine. Further south is the promontory of Saint-Innocent, with its granite cliffs and ancient château jutting into the lake, of which it commands the entire view. Not far from the eastern shore is Aix-les-Bains, whose hot sulphur springs were frequented in ancient times by the Roman emperors, and are still resorted to for health or pleasure. Between Aix and the lake is the verdant hill of Tresserves, that rises almost perpendicularly from the water, covered with enormous old chestnut-trees. To the south you can see the mountains gradually descending towards the Arcadian valley of Chambéry, with many a village spire peering forth amid the dark walnut groves, or the tower of some ancient castle with battlements still frowning, though they now only serve to point a moral and adorn the landscape, if not, perchance, a tale. On the other side, at the foot of Tresserves, is the château of Bon Port, overshadowed by trees, near a sheltered bay where boats are to be found for crossing the lake. Every one goes over to the western shore, where in the gloomy shade of Mont du Chat, which veils it from the glare of the sun the greater part of the day, is the royal abbey of Hautecombe, the ancient burial-place of the house of Savoy. The profound solitude, the grandeur of the scenery, varying from stern mountain height to fair, sunny slopes and luxuriant valleys, and the pure, limpid waters of the tranquil lake giving expression to the landscape, render it one of the most lovely as well as peaceful spots in which to rest after life’s fitful fever. The luminous sky, the purple, light on the mountains, the stately colonnade of the pines with their solemn shades, the lulling sound of the torrents and cascades, the wind murmuring through the defiles, the sunny terraces where the eye passes from gloom to light, as the soul from darkness to joy, all dispose the heart to peace.

Hautecombe may be reached in less than an hour, but there is a delicious charm in floating idly around this gem of a lake, all blue and gold, giving one’s self up to dreamy thought, breathing the mountain air, listening to the gentle waves as they break against the shore and to the melancholy songs of the boatmen, and looking at the chalets on the hillsides, the meadows and pastures, the herds with their tinkling bells, the insects floating in the sun, the quivering leaves and shimmering lights, and the dark pile of the abbey with its shadowy cloisters on the further shore.

At length we land on the terrace at the foot of a tall, octagon tower that looks like a pharos, and, indeed, serves as one. The vast buildings that constitute the abbey, the Gothic church with its painted walls, its storied windows, the tombs and cenotaphs on every side, and the three hundred statues that people its chapels and aisles, are well worth a visit. More than one tomb tells of the brave exploits of a valiant race, the glorious part its chiefs took in the Crusades, their attachment to the Holy See, for which they often shed their blood in the continual wars of Italy, and their prowess on every battle-field of Europe. All these monuments of white stone, and these pale statues standing in niches or lying on tombs, have a somewhat ghastly, ghostly look that is the more striking from the groundwork of black schist. The house of Savoy, which gradually rose by the bravery, policy, and fortunate alliances of its counts, first ruled over a sterile domain in the Cottian Alps of which Chambéry was the principal town. These princes were remarkable for their political sagacity and gallantry on the battle-field. This was in part owing to their peculiar position. Savoy was in the middle ages a border-land which forced its knights to live in the saddle and hold themselves in readiness to meet the enemy, whether on the side of France or the vast domain of the German Empire. And when not needed at home they were always at the service of their allies, so that they took part in all the wars of the times, and led a life of knight-errantry that often bordered on romance. Humbert _aux Blanches Mains_, the first count, was a descendant of Duke Witikind, a contemporary of Charlemagne. His benefactions to the churches of that day are still on record. The line of counts ended with Amédée VIII., who was created duke in the fifteenth century. The ducal line extended through three centuries, when the peace of Utrecht in 1713 recognized Victor Amédée as King of Sardinia.

The abbey of St. Mary of Hautecombe was founded in the year 1125 by Count Amédée III. through the influence of St. Bernard and St. Guérin, with whom he had intimate relations. _Combe_ is an old French word signifying a valley between two mountains. The Cistercians generally built their convents in a valley. The first abbot was St. Amédée d’Hauterive, of a distinguished family in Dauphiné, who passed his youth at the court of the Emperor Henry of Germany, but afterwards became a monk at Clairvaux, and was appointed abbot of Hautecombe by St. Bernard himself. The Emperor Conrad II. held him in such esteem that he made him a member of his council, and Frederic I., his chancellor. And when, in the time of the Second Crusade, preached by St. Bernard, Count Amédée took the cross at Metz in presence of an immense multitude, and set forth with his nephew, Louis VII. of France (in 1147), he left both his son and estates to the guardianship of the holy abbot of Hautecombe, who proved himself fully equal to the trust. He was an able writer also, and left eight homilies in honor of the Blessed Virgin, which still form part of the collection of the fathers. They used to be read on certain days of the year in the churches of Lausanne, of which he died archbishop in 1158. His tomb is still to be seen in the cloister at Hautecombe.

The second abbot was St. Vivian, likewise a disciple of St. Bernard’s. By his exalted sanctity he gave additional renown to the abbey, which so prospered that when St. Bernard visited it a few years after its foundation it already numbered two hundred monks. Many eminent prelates have sprung from this house, two of whom were elevated to the pontifical chair—Geoffroy de Châtillon in 1241, under the name of Celestin II., and Nicholas III. in 1277, who belonged to the Orsini family. It was the latter who gave the highest sanction to the devotion of the scapular of Mount Carmel by the beatification of Simon Stock, who died at Bordeaux in 1265, in the hundredth year of his age.

Hautecombe does not seem to have been at first intended as a place of sepulture. Count Amédée III. died two years after his departure, on the isle of Cyprus, of some epidemic in the camp. His son, Humbert III., succeeded him. This prince was an able ruler, as brave as he was pious, and valiantly defended his domains against Guy IV. of Dauphiné. He also distinguished himself at the siege of Milan, and was always the ally and ardent defender of the rights of the Holy See. The religious education he had received from St. Amédée gave him a proper estimate of earthly things, and he would have gladly renounced the world and become a monk at Hautecombe, had it not been for the remonstrances of his people. He often retired here for a season, as well as at Notre Dame des Alpes, and when he felt his life was drawing to a close he took the holy habit and died a few days after with a reputation for sanctity which time has not dimmed. Pope Gregory XVI. authorized public honors to be paid him, and Savoy celebrates his festival on the 4th of March, believed to be the day of his death. It was he who conceived the idea of making Hautecombe the burial-place of his family, and he was the first to find a grave here. The statue on his tomb represents him in the Cistercian habit with _sabots_ on his feet.

Two brothers of Humbert the Saint, as he is called, Peter and John, and a sister named Margaret, embraced the monastic life and died in the odor of sanctity. Several other members of the house of Savoy have also been raised to our altars. A grandson of Humbert’s, buried behind the high altar at Hautecombe, was beatified by Pope Gregory XVI. in 1838 under the name of the Blessed Boniface. His festival is on the 13th of March. He was styled, when young, the Absalom of the age, on account of his personal beauty, but he early sought refuge from the seductions of the world in the Grande Chartreuse, where he took the habit of St. Bruno. He was subsequently called forth from his cell and appointed archbishop of Canterbury and primate of England. Pope Innocent IV. consecrated him at Lyons. He was noted for his charity, and was at once an able theologian and jurisconsult. He defended the rights of the church against Henry III. with energy, and showed equal zeal in supporting the royal authority amid the disaffections of the times, thereby inspiring so much confidence in the king that he appointed him regent when he went to France in 1259. Having gone to Savoy in 1270 to visit his brother, Count Philip, Archbishop Boniface fell ill and died, after an episcopate of twenty-five years, at the castle of St. Hélène, in the valley of the Isère, and was buried at Hautecombe. The statue on his tomb represents him with a serpent at his feet, emblem of prudence, and a bas-relief depicts him defending the rights of the church before Henry III.

Count Amédée IX. and two princesses of the house of Savoy are also invoked as saints. There is a statue of St. Margaret of Savoy in the chapel of St. Felix at Hautecombe, representing her in a monastic dress, her hands meekly crossed on her breast. She was a daughter of Amédée, prince of Achaia, and after the death of her husband, the Marquis of Montferrat, having been wholly converted to God by the preaching of St. Vincent Ferrer, she entered a monastery and devoted herself to the care of the sick in a hospital. She was canonized by Pope Clement X.

The Blessed Louise of Savoy was an angel of piety from her childhood, and after the death of her husband, Hugues de Châlons, prince of Orange, she being then twenty-seven years of age and free from all obligations to her family, was solemnly veiled a nun in the convent of the Clairists at Orbe, which had been founded by a princess of her husband’s family early in the fifteenth century, and still observed the rule in all its primitive rigor. Here she died in 1503 at the age of forty-two. Fifty years after her death the Calvinists of Switzerland overthrew the altars of the conventual church, and gave the nuns the choice of going into exile or renouncing the monastic life. They chose the former, but before quitting the cloister they sent a crier through the streets to proclaim at the sound of a trumpet that if they had offended any one whomsoever they humbly begged his forgiveness, and declaring that for the love of God they forgave the offence committed against themselves in being banished from their monastery. They were nineteen in number. They took with them some chalices, ornaments, and rich vestments they owed to the liberality of the Princess Louise, and a Madonna of carved wood, called Notre Dame de la Grâce, which she had given the convent at her entrance into religion. At Ouchy they embarked in three small boats for Evian, on the southern shore of the Lake of Geneva, then faithful to the device on one of its gates: _Deo regique fidelis perpetuo_—gates opened more than once, at that disastrous period, to exiles of the faith. The sky was clear when the nuns set forth, but a sudden tempest sprang up which threatened destruction to their frail barks. The boatmen themselves were alarmed, much more these timid doves just driven from their nest, and to lighten the boats they threw all their effects into the water. They succeeded, however, in getting ashore, and the magistrates and people of Evian came forth in procession to meet them, the bells meanwhile ringing out a peal of welcome. A few nights after some fishermen found Notre Dame de la Grâce gleaming among the cliffs of Meillerie, and the people of Evian went forth again with white banners to receive and convey it to the church. Some years later Count Emanuel Philibert built these exiles a convent at Evian, where this Madonna was preserved for more than two centuries; but in 1792 the nuns were again dispersed and the Virgin concealed. The convent is now used as a Petit Séminaire, but people from all the country around still go to the chapel to pray before the Madonna of the Blessed Louise of Savoy.

Another princess, but not of the house of Savoy, is specially honored at Hautecombe—St. Erine, daughter of the Emperor Licinius, and niece of Constantine the Great. She was taken captive in the East by the army of Sapor II. of Persia, and martyred because she would not renounce the faith. Her body was afterwards taken to Patras, and Anselmo, a bishop of the Morea in the thirteenth century, who had great devotion to her, gave a portion of her remains to the abbey of Hautecombe, which, in spite of many vicissitudes, is still preserved here in a reliquary of silver given by Charles Felix, King of Sardinia. The boatmen on the Lac du Bourget invoke St. Erine in perilous storms, and many miracles are attributed to her intervention throughout the valley. On Whitmonday her relics are solemnly exposed to veneration in the church.

In one of the aisles at Hautecombe is the tomb of Beatrice, daughter of Count Thomas I., and granddaughter of Humbert the Saint—one of the most beautiful and accomplished princesses of that age. She married Raymond Bérenger, the last count of Provence, and was not only one of the most brilliant queens of the Court of Love, but rivalled the troubadours themselves in the _Gai Science_. One of her songs, addressed to her husband, has been preserved:

“I fain would think thou hast a heart, Although it thus its thoughts conceal, Which well could bear a tender part In all the fondness that I feel; Alas! that thou wouldst let me know, And end at once my doubts and woe.

“It might be well that I once seemed To check the love I prize so dear; But now my coldness is redeemed, And what is left for thee to fear? Thou dost to both a cruel wrong: Should dread in mutual love be known? Why let my heart lament so long, And fail to claim what is thine own?”[157]

What is unique in history, this Beatrice of Savoy had four daughters and three granddaughters who were all queens or empresses. As Dante says:

“Four daughters were there born To Raymond Berenger; and every one Became a queen, and this for him did Romeo.”

It was this Romeo de Villeneuve, the able minister of Count Raymond, whom Dante finds worthy of a place in his Paradise, who is said to have first foreseen the grandeur of united France, and who negotiated the grand alliances of his master’s daughters. One married St. Louis of France; another, Henry III. of England; a third, Richard of Cornwall, afterwards Emperor of Germany; and the fourth, Charles of Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily. As for the granddaughters, Beatrice of Sicily became Empress of Constantinople; Margaret of England, Queen of Scotland; and Isabella of France, Queen of Navarre.

Beatrice of Savoy was first buried at Echelles, where a magnificent tomb was erected, on which she lay, surrounded by the statues of her children and grandchildren with their consorts—twenty-six in number, all of white marble; but the tomb was destroyed at the Revolution, and her remains afterwards transported to Hautecombe, or at least what was saved of them, and placed in a new tomb.

It was her daughter, the fair Eleanor of Provence, a princess of remarkable beauty and talent, who married Henry III. of England. Through her influence her uncle Boniface, of whom we have spoken, was appointed successor of St. Edmund of Canterbury. The English historians do not speak so favorably of Archbishop Boniface, but the number of foreigners who followed Eleanor to England gave great offence to the people. Many of them married rich heiresses, and several families, like the Fletchers, Butlers, and Grandisons, can trace their descent from a Grandson, Boutillier, and La Fléchière of that period.

That part of London called the Savoy was so named from another uncle of Queen Eleanor’s—Peter, brother of Archbishop Boniface, who was created earl of Richmond, and had this tract of land given him by the king in the Strand, where he built a palace. This was afterwards rebuilt on a grander scale by the first duke of Lancaster, and became a place of historic interest. It was appropriated to the use of King John of France while a captive in England (1356-1364), and “thyder came to see hym the kyng and quene often tymes, and made hym gret feest and cheere.” And here, by the way, King John brought his Bible in the vernacular, and thumbed it well too, it appears, for in the account of his expenses is recorded the sum of thirty-two pence paid “Margaret the bindress” for a new cover with four clasps. In the Savoy, too, lived John of Gaunt, “time-honored Lancaster,” to whom the place descended, and here the poet Chaucer was his frequent guest. One of the scenes in Shakspere’s “Richard II.” is supposed to be laid here, though at that date the palace had been sacked and destroyed by Wat Tyler’s followers.

This Peter, Earl of Richmond, who gave the name to the Savoy, was called the Petit Charlemagne on account of his valor and other eminent qualities. He acquired great influence over Henry III., but returned to his native land at the death of his brother, to whom he succeeded in the government, being then sixty years of age. The abbot of St. Maurice, in gratitude for his services in behalf of the Valaisans against their suzerain, who oppressed them with his tyranny, gave him the celebrated ring of St. Maurice, that was henceforth used as the symbol of investiture by the counts of the house of Savoy. Count Peter died at the castle of Chillon in 1268. His tomb, the richest at Hautecombe, has ten pale mourning figures around it, called _pleureuses_, and a bas-relief represents him as ambassador at the court of Louis IX., arranging a treaty of peace between France and England. Over his tomb is painted on the wall the burial of Christ, and near by is the raising of Lazarus, with their lessons of hope beyond the grave.

Archbishop Boniface, Beatrice, Countess of Provence, etc., were the children of Count Thomas I., whose first wife, Beatrice of Geneva, is buried here. She was called the _Mater Comitum_, or the Mother of Counts, because three of her sons, Amédée IV., Peter, and Philip, all succeeded to the government of Savoy. It was she who, being at Susa when St. Francis of Assisi passed through, promised to build a convent of his order if he would give her a piece of his habit. He tore off one of the sleeves and gave it to her. It was long preserved in the chapel of the princes of Savoy, whose descendants have driven the Franciscans of these days from their homes. This relic is still preserved in the church of the Capuchins at Chambéry. At Hautecombe, too, is buried Beatrice Fiescha, wife of Count Thomas II., and niece of Pope Innocent IV. She belonged to the great Genoese family from which afterwards sprang the mystic St. Catherine of Genoa. It was her son, Amédée V., surnamed the Great, whose large tomb, inscribed _Belli Fulmen_, stands on one side as you enter the nave. His is the most glorious name of the house of Savoy. He was famed for his deeds of valor, which read like a chapter from the old romances of chivalry. He is said to have taken part in twenty-two pitched battles and thirty-two sieges. His most famous exploit was his expedition to Rhodes to aid the Knights of St. John in defending the island against the Turks. At the request of the grand master he took the white cross on a red shield[158] instead of the eagle, the original cognizance of the house of Savoy. He likewise assumed the famous device, _F. E. R. T._, which is generally interpreted, _Fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit_—His valor saved Rhodes. He was on intimate terms with his royal kinsman of England, was present at the marriage of Edward II. with Isabella of Valois and at Edward’s coronation, and was employed in negotiations between England and France. Here, too, lies his daughter Agnes, with her recumbent statue on the tomb, clasping a crucifix to her breast, remarkable for pose and expression.

Count Aimon comes next. He and his wife Yolande lie on a tomb in the _Chapelle des Princes_, his feet on a lion, hers on a dog, beneath a baldachin, surrounded by saints and quaint pyramids. He was the second son of Amédée V., and destined at first to the ecclesiastical state, but, his elder brother having died, he succeeded to the title and displayed great military ability on the side of the French in their wars with England and the Netherlands. He protected the poor, loved justice, established courts of assizes, and founded hospitals and churches. Pope Benedict XII. had a special esteem for him, and gave him and his successors the first place after crowned heads at the coronation of the Sovereign Pontiffs. He married Yolande de Montferrat, of the imperial family of Palæologus.

Amédée VI., son of Aimon, called the Comte Vert, or Green Count, was one of the most chivalric knights of the fourteenth century. His whole life was spent on the battle-field, and he rendered his name immortal by his courage and gallant deeds. He gained the battle of Abrets against France, aided Pope Gregory IX. and the Emperor Charles IV. in crushing the Visconti, and rescued the Greek Emperor John Palæologus from the hands of the Bulgarians, who held him prisoner at Gallipolis, and replaced him on the throne of Constantinople. The tournament he gave at Chambéry in 1348, on the Place de Verney, was celebrated by the poets and romancers of the day. The colors he wore on this occasion, as well as his followers, and even his steed, procured for him the name of the Comte Vert. He founded the supreme order of the Annonciade, one of the most ancient known, in honor of Our Lady, consisting of fifteen knights; and built a Carthusian convent at Pierre-Châtel for fifteen monks, whose duty it was to say a daily Mass in honor of the fifteen mysteries of Our Lady’s life, for the fifteen knights of the order. Charles III. of Savoy afterwards added fifteen golden roses, part enamelled red and part white, to the collar, and the medal of the Annunciation.

The king of Sardinia is still grand master of the order, and its collar is the most glorious decoration he can confer. Two of the original collars, presented by the Comte Vert, were long preserved at Hautecombe. Amédée VI. also created a charitable office called the Advocate of the Poor, still kept up—a magistrate supported by the government for gratuitous services to the poor, whom he is bound to defend at court when their cause is just. Like all the old knights, Amédée was devout to Our Lady, and has left a monument of his piety

“Où les grands châtaigniers d’Evian penchent l’ombre.”

—the church of Notre Dame, which stands in a beautiful spot overlooking Lake Leman. He died of the plague at Naples in 1383, but his body was brought to Hautecombe for burial. Twenty-four prelates and a host of lords from Savoy and the surrounding countries attended the obsequies. His wife was Bonne de Bourbon.

Amédée VII., styled the Comte Rouge, or the Red Count, from the color of his hair, was the son of the Comte Vert. He married Bonne de Berry, daughter of John of France, Duke de Berry. He added Nice and Ventimiglia, and the valley of Barcelonette, to the domains of his ancestors, thus extending them to the sea. The gradual acquisitions of the house of Savoy gave rise to the witty saying that the kingdom thus formed was like an artichoke that had been plucked leaf by leaf. The Conte Rosso was remarkable for personal address and valor, which he loved to display at jousts and tournaments. He made his first essay at arms against the sire of Beaujeu, and at a tournament at Bruckberg defeated the earl of Huntingdon with the lance, and the earls of Arundel and Pembroke with sword and battle-axe. His judgment and prudence caused him to be repeatedly chosen mediator by the sovereigns of Europe. He was a patron of letters and founder of the University of Turin. He died in his thirtieth year at Ripaille, some say of a fall from his horse; others, that he fell a victim to poison or the medicaments of a Bohemian quack, who promised him a luxuriant head of hair and an improved complexion. The statue on his tomb represents him in armor, resting on his sword after victory. In a bas-relief he is fighting for Charles VI. of France, at the head of seven hundred Savoyards, against the English and Flemish at the siege of Bourbourg.

The Conte Rosso’s widow, Bonne de Berry, left Savoy in 1395 and married her cousin-german, Bernard VII., Count of Armagnac, who became head of the Orléans faction when his daughter Bonne married the young Duke Charles, and was murdered in a frightful manner by the Burgundians at Paris in 1418. Her first husband poisoned, her second murdered, Bonne de Berry amply expiated her strong ambition and ended her days at Rhodez in the practice of the most heroic piety. She left in Savoy, besides her son Amédée VIII., two daughters, one of whom married Louis, the last prince of Achaia, at whose death in 1418 Piedmont was united to Savoy. This princess, named Bonne, like her mother and grandmother, left one of the most curious legacies on record—a bequest for a daily Mass of Requiem in the chapel of the princes of Achaia, in the church of the Franciscans at Pignerol, for twelve thousand years! She evidently thought the end of the world very remote, and had great confidence in the stability of human affairs and the scrupulous fidelity of her heirs.

One of the chapels at Hautecombe was founded by the Count de Romont, a natural son of the Conte Rosso. He went to the Holy Wars, and was a captive seven years among the Saracens. The shield on his statue is sown with crescents, and here and there on the border of his garments is the Arabic word _Alahac_—God is just—recalling his exploits in the East. Twenty-eight princes and princesses of the house of Savoy have been buried at Hautecombe, but the place lost its prestige when Turin became the capital. In 1793 the monks were driven out, and the lands sold as part of the national domains. The republican commissioners went down into the vaults, opened the tombs, and carried off all the precious objects they could find; among others the ducal crown from the tomb of Duke Philibert in the _caveau_ of the _Chapelle des Princes_. The ancient resting-place of sovereigns was turned into a _fabrique de faience_, and the buildings had partly fallen to ruin when they were redeemed by Charles Felix, King of Sardinia, in 1824, from his own private means. He began the restoration of the church, and peopled the abbey again with Cistercians. And here he was buried, at his own request, in May, 1831. His wife, Marie Christine, completed the work and found a grave here in her turn.

Amédée VIII., the son of Bonne de Berry and the Red Count, was not buried at Hautecombe, but at Ripaille, on the southern shore of Lake Leman. Few travellers visit this place, though it is one of the most interesting excursions to be made from Geneva. It stands on a point of land projecting into the lake just beyond Thonon, but seems so low and hidden from the water that it might be taken for a mere grange and its dependencies in the midst of orchards and woods. A pleasant walk from Thonon brings you to a grove of linden-trees that shade a monastic-looking establishment with pepper-box turrets and long corridors leading to monk-like cells. Connected with it is a church of the Renaissance, with pillars of gray marble in front, and above is the cross of Savoy serving as a support to the tiara and keys of the Papacy! Here was buried the first duke of Savoy, the last of the anti-popes, the “bizarre Amédée,” as Voltaire calls him; “the Solomon of his age,” as he is styled by others.

Ripaille seems to have been a place of great antiquity, for Roman inscriptions and remains have been found here, as well as ornaments of the time of the Merovingians, but it was only a _maison de plaisance_ in the time of Amédée VI., who left it to Bonne de Bourbon. Amédée VII. made it a hunting-lodge and here died. It was Amédée VIII. who gave it a world-wide celebrity, and by his life here unwittingly added a new expression to the French language. He married Mary of Burgundy and had nine children. He united Savoy and Piedmont, over which he ruled forty years. He entertained the Emperor Sigismund with such splendid hospitality on his way to Italy that he elevated him to the rank of duke. This was in 1416. After the death of his wife, but still while in the height of his influence and prosperity, he suddenly retired from the world to Ripaille, taking with him six noblemen who had participated in the most important transactions of his reign. He rebuilt the old manor-house, surrounded it with moats, and flanked it with seven seigneurial towers, with a suite of apartments connected with each, communicating with each other by a long corridor. The tower next the lake was loftier than the others, and connected with a square edifice of villa-like pretensions reserved for his own use. The others were for the six lords who accompanied him. To the east was a park planted with oaks in the form of a star, still to be seen, venerable and broad-spreading. This park was surrounded by a wall and laid out with alleys and winding paths. Amédée and his companions did not retire here to become monks, nor did he at first give up the reins of government, as some have declared. But he laid here the foundation of the order of chivalry known as the Knights of St. Maurice—a semi religious establishment in his day, under the direction of the canons of St. Augustine. Its members assumed a particular costume, consisting of a gray habit and cowl, and a gold cross suspended from the neck. They divided their time between religious exercises and affairs of the state. They constituted, in fact, a permanent senate to manage the government, for which they fitted themselves by meditation and prayer. And Amédée wished his successors to have recourse to the Knights of St. Maurice on all important occasions. They were always to be seven in number, and recruited from the highest class. Here the duke married his son, gave judgment in certain cases, and showed by numerous acts that, though he had appointed his son lieutenant-general, he had by no means abdicated.

Of course the world took it up. There were two reports. Some said the duke had given himself up to mortification and penance with a view to the Papacy. Others declared he and his followers led a life of debauchery. The expression _faire ripaille_[159] is said to be derived from the unfavorable reports spread abroad respecting their manner of life. But it was not used in his time, nor, indeed, till the seventeenth century. These imputations are not derived from any writer of the day, unless we except Monstrelet, who in his _Chronicles_ thus speaks of the duke’s life at Ripaille: “He and his followers are served, not with roots and water from the fountain, but with the best wine and best meats that can be found.” This is by no means a proof of sensuality, and, as the knights were under no vow to live on roots and pure water like the hermits of Thebaïd, there was no reason why they should not select the best meats and use the purest wine at their repasts. What would have been a simple, abstemious life for a prince and his courtiers might seem luxurious to the peasantry around, who perhaps gave rise to such reports. But Monstrelet, who had been made governor of Cambrai by the duke of Burgundy—a prince exceedingly hostile to Amédée—would be likely to take an unfavorable view of the life at Ripaille. This is why Guichenon considers his chronicle untrustworthy in everything relating to the history of Savoy. And he was too far distant to have a personal knowledge of what was occurring there. Oliver de la Marche, who also belonged to the court of Burgundy, is not so unfavorable to Amédée. He says “he governed so wisely in the time of French divisions that Savoy was the richest, safest, and most productive of any country around.” Two other writers are more explicit as to the duke’s manner of life. Raphael Volaterra, speaking of the election of Amédée as pope under the title of Felix V. by the Council of Bâle, says he was “chosen on account of the fame of his mortifications.” Jean Gobelin, the duke’s secretary, declares he led a very austere life. Onofrio Panvini, an Augustinian monk, says his life was “angelic.” The Père Daniel, a conscientious historian, after examining the case, says it is certain he led an innocent life here, without any scandal. And Æneas Sylvius, secretary of the Council of Bâle, eminent as a writer, and who became pope under the name of Pius II., visited Amédée at Ripaille and bears this testimony: “The one who had more votes than the rest was the most excellent Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, dean of the Knights of St. Maurice in the diocese of Geneva. The electors, considering that he was leading the life of a celibate, and that his conduct was that of a religious, thought him worthy of governing the church,” and, after eulogizing the duke at some length, adds that “he only wore what garments were necessary to protect him from the cold, and only ate enough to keep him from dying of hunger.” When the members of the Council of Bâle wished to set up a pope of the Gallican race in opposition to Eugenius IV., it is evident that they would only choose, after serious consideration, a person of irreproachable life. In fact, they did make the most minute inquiries, which led to the explicit statement that the duke, though not in orders, had “always been regular in his habits, assiduous at the offices of the church, and exact in saying his breviary.”[160] It was Voltaire who made the calumny popular. The calumnies concerning Amédée have been caught up and perpetuated by a school always glad to find an ecclesiastical dignitary, even if an anti-pope, suspected of excesses, and have led some grave historians like Duclos to state that the duke and his followers led a voluptuous life at Ripaille.

Amédée certainly should not be excused for yielding to the solicitations of the Council of Bâle and usurping the tiara. Père Monod says he resisted for a while and shed torrents of tears, dwelling on the difficulty of the oaths to be taken, and even pleading the cause of his competitor, Eugenius; but the members made him believe it would be for the welfare of the church, and he yielded. A deputation from the council came to Ripaille to offer him the tiara, and he was enthroned with great pomp in his church December 17, 1439, on which occasion he abdicated the government in favor of his son Louis, drew up his will, and gave the Knights of St. Maurice a new dean, or prior, chosen from their number. But he atoned for his weakness a few years after by the voluntary resignation of his usurped office, and retired a second time to Ripaille, as cardinal of the title of St. Sabina, legate of the Holy See, and administrator of the dioceses of Lausanne and Geneva, thus restoring peace and unity to the Catholic Church. After spending two years in retirement he died, and was buried in his church at Ripaille. The eventful life of a prince who by turns had been count, duke, anti-pope, cardinal, and bishop, who was married, a widower, and a cenobite, is not without a certain dramatic interest that needs not the shading of calumny.

A grandson of Amédée VIII., Louis II., the dethroned king of Cyprus, came also to Ripaille to die. He married Charlotte de Lusignan, heiress of the king of Cyprus, and she and Louis were crowned as king and queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia—high-sounding titles that soon became a mere name, for they were forced to fly before James, a natural son of the late king, who had married Catherine Cornaro of Venice, and was aided by the soldan of Egypt. Queen Charlotte made a solemn donation of Cyprus to her nephew Charles, and died a guest of Pope Sixtus IV. at Rome in 1487, the last of the illustrious house of Lusignan, which had ruled over Cyprus for three hundred years.

In 1536 Ripaille was devastated by the Bernese—that is, the abbey. They respected the château. The tomb of Amédée VIII. was broken to pieces, and his remains at a later day were taken to Turin. In 1575 Ripaille was restored to the order of St. Maurice, which Gregory XIII. united to that of St. Lazare three years later. When St. Francis de Sales was Bishop of Geneva he placed Carthusians at Ripaille. Now it belongs to a private gentleman.

Footnote 157:

Costello’s translation.

Footnote 158:

The white cross of Savoy, won by a chivalric knight of the ages of faith, but which one now learns to loathe in Italy—the cross of torture: _crux de cruce_—for Pius IX. of blessed memory.

Footnote 159:

The more ancient writers use this expression in the sense of enjoying the pleasures of the country or making good cheer, without any invidious meaning. Voltaire is one of the first to imply by its use a life of luxurious and sensual indulgence.

Footnote 160:

Æneas Sylvius.

A TRUE LOVER.

At her heart’s door he knocked and cried, “Love! art thou there? So long to find thee I have tried. Sweet Love! dost hear?”

But Love sat silent all the while, Nor did he give One token—neither tear nor smile— That he did live.

That knock so light it might have chanced Love heard no sound, And in so fair a place entranced In sleep lay bound.

For sure no deepening of her cheek That touch awoke; No drooping of her eyelids meek, Love’s light to cloak.

He knocked more loudly than before: “Dear maid, give ear. Lo! here I wait at thy heart’s door This many a year.

“First did I seek from thy true eyes If love dwelt there; I saw in them sweet thoughts arise— Love had no share.

“Oft from the rose of thy pure cheek, In my sad quest, Did I an answer’s shadow seek, But none possessed.

“From thy sweet mouth I thought to win Some trembling sign, If that love’s life could but begin— Thine linked with mine!

“The even sunshine of thy lips Too calmly fell; If love sat there in sweet eclipse I could not tell.

“In thy pure speech’s spotless gold Some link I sought Wherewith the love I begged, to hold, But gathered naught.

“No thrill unconscious in thy hand Wherein Love spake, Too calm and gracious didst thou stand My touch to wake.

“Lo! I have asked of hand and cheek, Dear mouth and eyes; Now in thy very heart I seek If Love there lies.

“Ah! Sweet, my life is not misspent Because I wait Like soldier in his camping tent At thy heart’s gate:

“Each day my life’s work still goes on, My duty done, For thee, as time comes and is gone, Each honor won;

“And bears my life, though sadly weak, A pure renown: With honor must I honor seek— Thy love, my crown!

“I dare not, if in things most high I held no part, E’er win such love as sure must lie Within thy heart.

“I seek thy blessing on my life; Lo! here I wait That holy gift for strength in strife At thy heart’s gate.”

He knocked more loudly than before, And Love awoke, Soft loosed the latch of her heart’s door, And softly spoke;

Quick speeding unto cheek and eyes, All unforbid, Trembling in speech so pure and wise, No more heart-hid.

Her lover waits no more to win, Early and late; Love-crowned, he proud hath passed within Her pure heart’s gate.

ST. PAUL ON MARS’ HILL; OR, THE MEETING OF CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

There is, perhaps, no other episode in the adventurous journeyings and heroic life of the Apostle Paul so full of interest as his visit to Athens. To all those whose acquaintance with Grecian history enables them to take in the peculiar surroundings and associations of that visit it certainly affords the most fascinating incident in connection with the progress of the Christian faith; and it has always been regarded as the most interesting event in the heroic age of Christianity. For what other event presents such striking antithesis?—the newly-established religion of Jesus of Nazareth face to face with the intellect and cultivation of Greece, the disciple of a crucified Galilean come to dethrone the disciples of Plato, a semi-barbarian Jew come to teach the mighty Athenians, who had taught the world.

The historical outline of the subject is thus given in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles:

“And they that conducted Paul, brought him as far as Athens, and receiving a commandment from him to Silas and Timothy, that they should come to him with all speed, they departed. Now whilst Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred within him, seeing the city wholly given to idolatry. He disputed therefore in the synagogue with the Jews, and with them that served God, and in the market-place, every day with them that were there. And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics disputed with him, and some said: What is it that this word-sower would say? But others: He seemeth to be a setter-forth of new gods: because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And taking him they brought him to Areopagus, saying: May we know what this new doctrine is which thou speakest of? For thou bringest in certain new things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean. (Now all the Athenians, and strangers that were there, employed themselves in nothing else but either in telling or in hearing some new thing.) But Paul standing in the midst of Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For passing by and seeing your idols, I found an altar also on which was written: ‘To the unknown God.’ What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you. God, who made the world and all things therein, seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is he served with men’s hands as though he needed anything, seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things: and hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation. That they should seek God, if haply they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live and move and are: as some also of your own poets said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ Being therefore the offspring of God we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold or silver, or stone, the graving of art and device of man. And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance. Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed, giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead. And when they had heard of the resurrection of the dead some indeed mocked, but others said: We will hear thee again concerning this matter. So Paul went out from among them. But certain men adhering to him, did believe: among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”

St. Paul went to Athens direct from Berœa in Macedonia; he had had a most successful apostolate among the Berœans, and had no intention of quitting the place so soon, were it not that his old enemies, the Jews of Thessalonica, came down upon him and compelled him to flee for his life. It was only seventeen miles to the coast, and some of his Berœan converts conducted the persecuted apostle as speedily as possible to the sea. From where they embarked it was a sail of three or four days in a small boat to the Piræus. If the great apostle of the Gentiles had an eye for the beautiful in nature, if scenes consecrated by historic association had any charm for him, he must have revelled in this quiet sail on the Interior Sea. As soon as he cleared the headlands of the Macedonian shore he saw Mount Olympus towering close above him; and as he drew near the Thessalian Archipelago Mount Athos and the picturesque coast-line of Attica began to be visible. For a distance of ninety miles on his voyage the long island of Eubœa forms the outer boundary of the narrow sea, and every spot on either shore is classic ground, hallowed by some association of the past. On the northern shore of Eubœa itself is the pass of Thermopylæ; opposite the southern extremity, on the coast of Attica, are the plains of Marathon; and when the little vessel rounded the cape of Sunium, Ægina, Salamis, and the beautiful isles of Greece were in full view. But although one can scarcely imagine St. Paul to have been wholly insensible to the surpassing beauty of such scenes, the historic associations which they recalled gave him but little concern, for he was going to Athens to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, and this was his all-absorbing thought.

How little did the fishermen who tended their nets on the Ægean Sea think what destiny the white sail that passed them bore to Attica; and how little did the people who came down to the beach to see the strange vessel come in imagine what a conqueror they had received on their shores! After landing at the Piræus St. Paul at once sent back to Berœa for Silas and Timothy. And it might appear from the account given in the Acts as if he were afraid to begin work in Athens alone; but if he had any such hesitation his natural courage and burning zeal soon overcame it, and he lost no time in entering upon his labors.

Over the ruins of the long walls which in the days of Pericles were the bulwark of Greece, Paul of Tarsus passed on to Athens. As he entered the gates of the city a sight met his eye which “stirred up his spirit within him,” and inflamed the passionate ardor of his zeal for the knowledge of the one true God. Evidences of the grossest idolatry everywhere met his view. Turn which way he would, statues of Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, and the Muses were before him; on every street-corner, in every portico, he saw altars raised to the false gods of Greece.

It was the custom of St. Paul, as, indeed, it was of all the apostles whenever they entered a strange city, to seek out the Jews—who were even then scattered all over the civilized world—and to begin his public teaching in the synagogue. And it may have been with this object in view that he went to the Agora, or market-place, for he well knew where the trading proclivities of his countrymen would make them apt to congregate. But the Agora of Athens was a place of pleasure rather than of business; ideas were the chief commodities exchanged there, and it was far more the resort of philosophers and sophists than of merchants and money-changers. It was, in fact, a sort of City Hall park filled with statues and fountains and plane-trees, and, as a matter of course, with loungers; and in those degenerate days nearly all the men of Athens were loungers, and did little else than loll around the Agora, inquiring after news and discussing the events of the time.

Such was the market-place of Athens, where St. Paul disputed every day for we know not how many days.

Let us picture to ourselves the great apostle of the nations, clad in the toga of a philosopher visiting the Agora from day to day to break the Gospel tidings to all who would listen to him. At one moment we can fancy him seated under a plane-tree in earnest conversation with a venerable Israelite, who nervously strokes his beard as the apostle insists that Christ was the true Messias, and in him was the fulfilment of the prophecies and the only hope of Israel. At another moment he is in the midst of a group of scoffing sophists, hotly disputing with them the unity of the Godhead and the immortality of the soul. And again we can picture him walking alone through the market-place, absorbed in his thoughts, and with an expression of sadness on his countenance as he contemplates the gross errors that surround him in the “city wholly given to idolatry.”

The monuments of Athenian glory, the masterpieces of Athenian art, the works of Phidias, of Praxiteles, in the midst of which he moved, had no charm for Paul of Tarsus; they but “stirred up his spirit within him.” He longed to sweep them all away and plant in their stead the rude cross of Jesus Crucified. Renan, in his life of St. Paul, works himself up into a rhetorical frenzy over the feelings awakened in the apostle by the beautiful statues of Greece. He makes an apostrophe to them and warns them of their danger. “Ah! beautiful and chaste images,” he writes, “true gods and true goddesses, tremble. Here is one who will raise the hammer against you. The fatal word has been pronounced—ye are idols. The error of this ugly little Jew will prove your death-warrant.”[161]

The popular religion of Greece was a religion of the senses; it had little or no hold on the soul and none at all on the intellect. In its first developments it was the religion of patriotism—patriotism elevated into a divine sentiment. Its gods and goddesses were the supposed founders and promoters of the state. In its later developments it was the religion of beauty and art—an adoration of the ideal in form and feature—and its gods and goddesses became the gods and goddesses of beauty; hence the production of those masterpieces in architecture and art which are still so despairingly inimitable. If art alone could ensure the perpetuity of a religion, the religion of Greece would still remain. Neither the eloquence of St. Paul nor the sublime maxims of the Gospel which he preached would have been able to supplant it. But God has implanted in the mind of man the desire for the true as well as for the beautiful; and the possession of truth alone can satisfy the soul.

The Athenians were always in great unrest on religious matters; they were ever inquiring, ever disputing, ever seeking out new gods and new forms of worship, and of course were never satisfied. How, indeed, could they be satisfied, seeing that their religion had no foundation in reason, and hence no foundation in truth? It is one of those strange, unaccountable phenomena in the history of the development of the human mind that a people so intellectual as the Athenians, and having such a grand philosophy, should have held to such an absurd, unreasoning system of religion. Reason and religion in their minds appeared to have been wholly separate. Philosophy had its sphere, religion had its sphere, and there was little or no contact or relation between them. In this connection M. Renan makes a remark which is unusually profound and is well worth quoting. Speaking of the philosophers of Athens, he writes: “The aristocracy of thinkers cared very little for the social wants which made their way through the covering of so many gross religions. Such a divorce is always punished. When philosophy declares that she will not occupy herself with religion, religion replies to her by strangling her. And this is just; for philosophy is nothing, unless it points out a path for humanity—unless it takes a serious view of the infinite problem which is the same for all.”[162]

But although Greek philosophy did not seek to reconcile the popular religion of Greece with reason, which in truth it would have been vain to attempt, it did effect a reconciliation of supreme importance to mankind—it reconciled the mind of Greece and of the civilized world to some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and so prepared the way for the coming of Christ and the preaching of St. Paul.

It will hardly be a digression here to look a little into the origin of Greek philosophy and the glimpses of truth to which it attained.

Socrates was the father of Greek philosophy. There were philosophers before him and there were far greater philosophers after him; but those who preceded him, such as Thales and Pythagoras, were physicists, and their speculations were almost wholly confined to the material universe; and those who succeeded him were his pupils, and simply followed up the new field of investigation he had thrown open to them. Socrates was the sage _par excellence_, the first to turn his looks within and explore the regions of the soul. He was the true founder of moral philosophy, the first to lay down the great maxim that “the proper study of mankind is man.” The human mind, its powers and moral perfectibility, was the one great subject of all his speculations.

Socrates was born in Athens 469 B.C., and he died there 399 B.C. He died a martyr—the first great martyr in the cause of moral truth and liberty of conscience. His father was an indigent sculptor, and for a time he himself followed the same profession, but he early abandoned it for the pursuit of wisdom. He was a self-taught man, and the means that he took to discipline his will and obtain the mastery over his passions and senses were almost the same the saints have used. He practised self-denial and mortification in a remarkable degree; and the forbearance and long-suffering he exercised towards his violent-tempered wife, Xanthippe, betoken the sublimest patience.

The apostle of wisdom, Socrates went about the streets and squares of Athens day after day for many years, questioning, catechising, reasoning with all who would listen to him, insisting ever on the wisdom of his great maxim, Γνώθι σεαυτόν—know thyself. He felt himself commissioned by the gods to teach the higher laws of conscience to the Athenians. Nor was he so very far astray in this, for we cannot fail to recognize the providence of God in the mission of Socrates. He undertook the direction of individual consciences, and his relations towards some of his friends more nearly resembled those of a father confessor than anything else. The tie that bound the brilliant Alcibiades to the uncouth philosopher was peculiarly tender. Socrates saved his life at the battle of Potidæa, and he in turn saved the life of Socrates at the battle of Delium. The friendship that grew up between the profligate youth and the austere sage was a strange one. It was the wonder of all Athens; and whenever they appeared together in public Alcibiades was jeered at by the youth of the city. Socrates for a time exercised the greatest influence over his young friend, and restrained those passions in him which seemed ungovernable. Such was the power of Socrates over minds the least disposed to receive his moral teachings and submit to their restraints. But what were the moral doctrines of Socrates? And in what way were the teachings of this sage a preparation for Christianity, so that he should merit to be called the precursor of St. Paul at Athens? In the first place, Socrates laid down those principles of moral ethics which are also in part the basis of Christian ethics. He taught that the supreme good of man lay in the path of wisdom and virtue, and he declared fidelity to conscience to be the highest law of life. With him began that new departure in philosophy which directed the attention of mankind to mind rather than matter. The pleasures and possessions of the world are contemptible when compared with wisdom and virtue and the perfection of the soul, in the teachings of Socrates as well as in the teachings of St. Paul. In his system, too, every other consideration must yield to the law of conscience and of God. “The word of God,” he says, “ought to be first considered”; and in the exhortation which he is represented in the _Phædo_ as making to his friends to care for their souls he appears to strike the key-note of the Gospel. “O my friends,” he said, “if the soul is truly immortal, should we not take the greatest care of her, not for the short period of life but for eternity? And the danger of neglecting her eternal destiny does appear dreadful” (_Phæd._ 107). Were not these words the remote echo of the great question of the Gospel, “What doth it profit a man....”? The language of reproof which Socrates addressed to the gross-minded and sensual, whose only aspiration in life is self-indulgence and sensuality, reminds one of the energetic rebukes of St. Paul to those who make a god of their bellies and their passions. And the declaration of liberty of conscience which Socrates made before his judges when his life was trembling in the balance was worthy of a Christian martyr. “A man who is good for anything,” he said, “ought not to calculate the chances of living or dying. He only should consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong, acting the part of a good man or a bad one” (_Mem._ ii. 1. 28).

Besides these moral teachings, Socrates maintained the existence of a Supreme Being, who exercised a care over all things and preserved harmony in the universe. He did not, however, break through the pagan influences that surrounded him sufficiently to hold to the belief in one only God, but, while he accepted the doctrines of polytheism, he maintained that there was one Supreme Lord, who exercised a universal providence over all things; and he further taught that in the eyes of this Supreme Being all men were equal and there was nothing meritorious but virtue. This was a bold innovation when we remember the Athenian notions of race and caste. He was also of opinion that the gods exercised a watchful care over men and frequently inspired their actions; and the demon of Socrates, about which we hear so much, appears to have been a sort of guardian spirit, whose promptings, though always negative, he constantly looked for and never disregarded. These certainly were somewhat Christian conceptions of morality and of God, and although they are rather offset by other teachings and views of the Greek sage, yet in the main his doctrines foreshadow the light of the Gospel. Were it not, however, for the great disciple who immediately followed up his teaching and threw the light of his genius around it, the system of Socrates, if it can be called a system, would have accomplished little in the way of preparation for Christianity.

For the last eight or nine years of his life Socrates had had Plato for his disciple, and it was through Plato that his teachings were transmitted and developed into that sublime system of philosophic truth which St. Augustine so greatly admired and approved.

Plato, the prince of human intellects, by his unaided reason attained to the knowledge of many of the truths of revelation. The notion of a Supreme Being which he received from Socrates he developed into an almost Christian conception of God and his attributes. In his system the Supreme Deity is not merely the source of the harmony of the universe, but he is also the Father who created out of goodness; and he is in himself so good and perfect that no unrighteousness, no imperfection can be conceived as existing in him. Plato even appears to have had some notion of the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, though of course vague and indistinct. His speculations on the destiny of man and the immortality of the soul are wonderfully luminous. He recognized after a fashion the fallen nature of man and the need of some divine mediation or redemption to raise him up; but in his theory of Fall and Redemption moral and physical defilement and regeneration are strangely and somewhat incongruously blended. Plato’s conception of virtue was exalted and his definition of it singularly Christian. “Virtue,” he said, “is the resemblance to God according to the measure of our ability.” “Be ye imitators of Christ,” “Be ye God-like,” says St. Paul; and to become God-like is to become “holy, just, and wise,” according to Plato.

He also held the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, and he gave it as his opinion that the rewards and punishments of this life are as nothing compared to those “that await both the just and the unjust after death.” He encouraged the just to be patient in all their trials and afflictions in life, assuring them that everything would work together unto their good, for the gods would have a care over them and see to it that no enduring misfortune should happen to them, and the only great and irreparable evil, after all, was “to go to the world below having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice and impiety.”

The lofty speculations of Plato in the domain of religious truth have led many to suppose that he was acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures and drew some of his inspiration from them. And this is by no means improbable. The Jews were wanderers and exiles as early as Plato’s time; and if he did not himself read their law, he certainly, in his extensive travels, must have met and conversed with those who were acquainted with the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. At all events he must have known something of the primitive traditions of mankind; and we are not forbidden to think that, though a pagan, such a pure and lofty soul may have had some light from on high to enlighten him.

It is well known what a harmony Philo Judæus and the Alexandrian school established between the teachings of Plato and the principal doctrines of the Jewish dispensation; and what a near approach Neo-Platonism made to Christian philosophy in the first centuries of the Christian era.

Next to Socrates and Plato the man who did most to create Greek philosophy, and change the current of thought of the ancient world in the direction of Christianity, was undoubtedly Aristotle. Though a disciple of Plato, he did not follow in the wake of his great master, but struck out a new course for himself. The genius of Aristotle was neither so lofty nor so speculative as that of Plato, but his intellect was, if possible, more acute and his mind far more systematic. He made a complete analysis of the human understanding, and laid down those rules of logic and principles of certainty which are to guide men in the search after truth. He reduced all knowledge to a system, and made the grasp of the principles of all science possible to the human mind. His grand argument for the existence of a Supreme Being from the necessity of a prime mover—_Primus motor_—has never been surpassed, and has done good service in every age for the cause of theism.

The moral doctrines of Aristotle, though not so much in harmony with Christianity as those of Plato, were on the whole not adverse to it, and they exerted at least a negative influence, in preparing the minds of men to receive the morality of the Gospel.

Greek philosophy reached its acme in the schools of Plato and Aristotle; after them there were no more great creative minds. The philosophers who succeeded them did but borrow from them; they were the sources whence all future philosophic wisdom was drawn; they were the recognized masters of human thought, not alone to the Greeks but to the Romans, to the civilized and intellectual world; and the influence they exerted in giving direction to the current of thought of the ancient world can scarcely be over-estimated.

Here, then, four hundred and fifty years before St. Paul set foot in Athens, were three great pioneers of truth who prepared the way for him. They were raised up by the providence of God, in the midst of the darkness and superstition and sensuality of the pagan world, to remind man of his destiny, to teach him that he was made for wisdom and truth. They were set up as the partial teachers of truth to the gentile world until the divine Teacher should come who would teach them all truth.

During four centuries their doctrines of the existence of a Supreme Being, of the providence of God over men, of the immortality of the soul, of moral responsibility and fidelity to the law of conscience, filtered through the generations, until in the fulness of time Paul of Tarsus came to engraft their wisdom on the divine philosophy of Jesus Christ. That we should not hesitate to recognize the special providence of God in the development of Greek philosophy, that we should not refuse to Socrates, to Plato, to Aristotle a providential mission in the ancient world, are opinions for which some of the greatest doctors of the church have contended. Their philosophy certainly tended to do away with polytheism and to establish the unity of the Godhead. It led the human intellect in the pursuit of wisdom and the search after truth. It created a lofty ideal of intellectual wisdom and morality, and by elevating the moral above the material, the future above the present, it prepared the way for the spiritual reign of Christianity.

“Plato and Aristotle,” says a Protestant author, “have had a great work appointed them, not only as the heathen pioneers of truth but as the educators of the Christian mind in every age. The former enriched human thought with appropriate ideas for the reception of the highest truth in the highest form. The latter mapped out all the provinces of human knowledge, that Christianity might visit them and bless them” (Conybeare, _Life of St. Paul_).

And here we skip over four hundred years of the reign of Greek philosophy, and come at once to the actual meeting of Christianity and Greek philosophy in Athens.

The schools of philosophy that were dominant in Athens at the time of St. Paul’s visit were the Stoics and Epicureans. The Stoics were pantheists, and the Epicureans were not far removed from atheists—poor representatives both of the noble systems of Plato and Aristotle. In their hands Greek philosophy was rapidly declining. Athens, which in the century before had been the school of Cæsar and Brutus and Pompey, whither Cicero and Atticus and Horace had gone to receive instruction, had now no higher wisdom to impart than the philosophy of pleasure and pride. Nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of Christianity than the system of Epicurus, which made the highest good of man to consist in the pursuit of pleasure alone, denying the immortality of the soul and rejecting all notion of a hereafter, and having for its first principle, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.” Nor had the system of Zeno and the Stoics very much in it that was in harmony with Christianity, although there were some points of affinity. The Stoics taught that God was merely the soul or mind of the universe; that the soul of man was corporeal, and after death would be consumed by fire or absorbed in the infinite. The highest aspiration of man in the Stoic system should be to attain to the state of complete apathy, perfect indifference to all things. There should be in the human breast neither passion nor pity, no sense of pleasure or pain. Their moral doctrines, however, were based on those of Socrates, and hence they inculcated a practical rule of life and morality, and they laid great stress on fidelity to the dictates of reason. This, and the heroic spirit of fortitude which the Stoic discipline strove to impart, were its only points of affinity with Christian teaching. To be sure some of the later or Roman Stoics, such as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, made a very near approach to Christianity in many things, but then they lived more in the light of Christian truth. The worst feature in the Stoic philosophy was the view it took of suicide. Self-destruction was not only permitted but was positively approved by the Stoics, and nearly all the great leaders of the sect set the example of it.

Such were the philosophers with whom St. Paul disputed every day in the market-place of Athens. The doctrines of the Stoics at least were not new to him; for Tarsus in Cilicia, where Saul was born and educated, was a great centre of Stoic philosophy, and from his youth up he must have been more or less familiar with the salient points of the Stoic system. The “Painted Porch,” the headquarters of the Stoics in Athens, was situated in the Agora, and the Garden of the Epicureans was close at hand, so that in the market-place St. Paul was in the midst of the rival sects of philosophers—in fact, on the battle-ground. We can have little doubt of the kind of reception the Epicureans would give him. It was a part of their system to make light of everything, and to treat nothing seriously except their dinners. He spoke to them about “Jesus and the resurrection.” Of course they called him a “word-sower” or a “babbler,” though Renan will have it that they called St. Paul a “babbler” because he spoke bad Greek. The Stoics were grave men, however, and they gave him a respectful hearing. He knew the current of their thoughts and how to address himself to them; and his doctrines must have excited their curiosity, if not their interest. They it was, doubtless, who invited him to the Areopagus, the supreme tribunal, where every important question in religion, law, and philosophy was heard and pronounced upon. It was an exceedingly great mark of respect for St. Paul and his opinions that he should be invited from the vulgar discussions of the Agora to speak before the most ancient and most august assembly of Greece; it shows the impression he must have made by his learning and eloquence on the cultivated men of Athens, and it is a proof that after all St. Paul must have spoken pretty good Greek. The Areopagus, or “Council of Twelve,” was a tribunal set up in the earliest days of Grecian autonomy to try capital offences. Solon, 600 B.C., made it a sort of high council of state and bestowed upon it the power of veto. Only men of unblemished reputation, who had rendered signal services to their country, were eligible to become members of it. The Athenians regarded it as the most sacred institution of their state, and it was, in truth, the most venerable tribunal of the ancient world. Though it had been stripped of many of its prerogatives, it still retained its prestige and took cognizance of all matters relating to religion and education in Greece. Had St. Paul been invited to address the Roman Senate in the days of its greatest glory, he would have spoken before a more powerful but not a more august assembly than was the Areopagus the day that he stood before it on the summit of Mars’ Hill.

It was one of the great events that mark an epoch in the world’s history when Christianity, in the person of St. Paul, was summoned to appear for judgment before that high tribunal wherein all the cultivation and wisdom and intelligence of the gentile nations were concentrated. It was a solemn moment for the Christian cause, and what must have been the feelings of the great apostle as he ascended the long flight of stone steps that led him up to Mars’ Hill and into the midst of the sacred circle of the Areopagus? The curious multitude pressed after him; the twelve venerable judges, seated in benches hewn out of the rock, awaited him, impatient to dispose of this “setter-forth of new divinities.” It was a scene around which was gathered the glory of the ancient world and the expectation of the new. From the summit of that hill which overlooked Athens St. Paul could, as it were, survey all the wisdom and philosophy and religion of the past. His eye could rest on the spot of the Academy where Plato taught, and on the Lyceum where was the school of Aristotle. Right before him stood the Temple of Mars and the Pantheon of Minerva, and rising close above him was the Colossus of Athens, cast out of the brazen spoils of Marathon. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece were before him, and they summed up nearly all that was great in the past.

It was not the first time that St. Paul had preached Christ before a great assembly, and we may be assured that he entered upon his subject with his accustomed boldness. Standing up in the midst of the Areopagus, with outstretched hand, he began his abrupt exordium. Even the pagan poet Longinus, in his list of the orators of Greece, includes the name of “Paul of Tarsus, the patron,” as he says, “of an opinion not yet fully proved.” And St. Paul’s speech on this occasion must have called forth the full powers of his oratory. By all accounts the personal appearance of the great apostle was not striking, and we can hardly conceive of him as possessed of the graces of oratory; but these count for little in addressing popular assemblies. His power lay in the divine earnestness of his faith and his burning zeal for its propagation. He always spoke with the light that struck him blind on the road to Damascus shining in upon his soul, and the Voice that he heard ringing in his ear. Jesus Christ and his Gospel were an actuality to him, and he made them an actuality to all who heard him. There was no doubting the sincerity of his conviction—every tone of his voice, every expression of his countenance, every motion of his body was a declaration of the supreme power of the faith that possessed him. It was a novel experience to the free and easy Athenians, who were never thoroughly in earnest about anything, to have a man so consumed with earnestness make an appeal before them, and it must have impressed them not a little. They must have been a good deal taken by surprise also by the manner in which St. Paul introduced his subject. Instead of feeling his way timidly in the presence of so august an assemblage, he made a bold dash, carried the war at once into the enemy’s country, fought them on their own ground and with the weapons they themselves had furnished him. The people of Athens were so religious or so superstitious, or both, that they wanted to make sure that no god should be left unhonored in their city; and after raising an altar to every god of whom they had heard, they bethought themselves that there might still be some god of whom they had not heard, and so they raised an altar and dedicated it “To the unknown god.” Pausanias states that there were several such altars in Athens, and Petronius declares that so bountiful were the Athenians in providing altars and statues for the gods “that it was far easier to find a god in Athens than a man.” St. Paul might take it for granted that every false god was honored in Athens by name, and the only god who was “unknown” was the one true God whom he came to preach to them. This gave him at once an opening and a way to escape the accusation that he was a “setter-forth of strange divinities,” which would have been prejudicial to his cause before the Areopagus. It was a master-stroke, and in it we discover a good illustration of that cunning of the serpent which the apostles were told to imitate. It is supposed that we have only the outline of St. Paul’s speech on Mars’ Hill preserved to us in the Acts of the Apostles; and yet the outline is in itself complete and perfect in its adaptation to the audience. The Athenians were above all things proud of their city, and St. Paul told them that he was struck by its aspect; he noticed the religious feeling manifested in the setting up of so many objects of worship; and after having thus engaged the attention of the people he proceeded to lay before them the Christian conception of the Supreme Being, which must have recalled to the philosophers present the highest flights of Plato and commanded their attention. He struck directly at the atomic theory of the Epicureans by asserting the creative act of God and the divine Providence that rules the universe and orders all things. He spoke of the “God in whom we live, move, and be.” And the Stoics were full of interest; he appeared to side with their pantheistic notions of the Deity; he even quoted one of their poets—Aratus of Cilicia—and we can almost fancy some of the grave philosophers of this sect rising to applaud him. But in the next breath he crushed them, for he declared that God is a personal being, that he is equally the Father of all men, and that there is only one way to approach him—the same for all—the philosopher must come down from his high conceits and do penance just the same as the poor and illiterate. He broke down the barrier of race and national pride by declaring “that God made of one blood all the nations of mankind,” and the past times, however glorious they might appear, were in reality times of ignorance when the truth was not known. And to their utter astonishment he makes the “foolishness” of Christ and his resurrection the basis and proof of all religious truth and righteousness. This was the least philosophical part of St. Paul’s discourse and created the most opposition; but it was the most irresistible, for it was a fact.

Athens had heard great orators before, but this was the most immortal speech ever uttered in her hearing; even apart from its sacred character it would hold its own for eloquence and skill among the greatest productions of the past. It is the true model of Christian eloquence, and illustrates that economy in the way of presenting divine truth which is the most striking feature in the teaching of St. Paul. “Instead of uttering any invective,” says Dr. Newman, “against their polytheism, he began a discourse upon the unity of the divine nature, and then proceeded to claim the altar consecrated in the neighborhood to the unknown god as the property of Him whom he preached to them, and to enforce his doctrine of the divine immateriality, not by miracles but by argument, and that founded on the words of a heathen poet.”

But the speech was not well received, nay, it was interrupted, cut short, and, powerful as it was, only a very few persons in that large assembly were converted by it, and of these two only are mentioned—Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and the woman Damaris, of whom nothing is known. It created a profound impression, nevertheless. It took the philosophers of Athens completely by surprise; they were wholly unprepared to meet it, and the only part to which they could make an immediate objection was the Resurrection, and they took advantage of this to postpone the discussion and so escape the relentless logic of St. Paul.

Nor did they give him another hearing, as they had promised. They were insincere; like the modern triflers with truth, they were afraid they might hear too much, and so took refuge in evasion. Such are still the tactics of flippant philosophers and men of bad faith all the world over. They simply do not want to know the truth, and hence they mock at it and evade it. But even the conversion of one member of the high council of Greece was a great gain for Christianity. Dionysius was a conquest worthy of St. Paul, and to have given to France her glorious St. Denis was a result that well repaid the highest effort of Christian eloquence.

Thus it was that Christian philosophy encountered Greek philosophy on the summit of Mars’ Hill, and silenced and dethroned it; and during twenty centuries thus has it silenced and dethroned every system that has come in conflict with it; and although its supremacy has been constantly disputed, it still remains supreme in the domain of reason and of truth. In cultivated Athens we behold the highest point to which unaided human reason can attain, and it is in cultivated Athens that we first find Christianity asserting its claim to be the gospel of reason as well as of faith.

Christianity is the only system of religion that has made philosophy its handmaiden and used it to elucidate its doctrines. It is, in fact, the only religious system that can confidently appeal to the higher powers of reason, and hence it is the only creed that has ever made really intellectual conquests, that has ever compelled rationalism and scepticism to pause before it and believe, or at least doubt. Christianity alone, among all the religions of the world, has been able to exact the complete homage of the minds as well as the hearts of cultivated men.

But although philosophy to a certain extent prepared the way for Christianity, and Christianity constantly uses philosophy and appeals to it, it is a great mistake to suppose that philosophy played a very important part in the formation and propagation of the Christian faith. The religion that bears the name of Christ is not a theory gradually developed, but from the very first a definite system of religious teaching resting on facts. The logic of facts, not of philosophy, has propagated Christianity. St. Paul appealed to philosophy in Athens, and he converted two persons. St. Peter appealed to facts in Jerusalem, and he converted eight thousand. This is about the proportion of the relative influence of philosophy and fact in the propagation of the Christian religion. Jesus and the Resurrection, the facts at the bare mention of which the Athenians mocked, were the facts that a century later converted Greece when the tide of human testimony spread on from Judea and confirmed them. Philosophical theories have never founded a religion, they have never wrought any great revolution in the belief of mankind; facts alone can produce wide-spread conviction and change.

The rationalism of our day affects to treat Christianity as a theory of religion, a mere phase in the development of the religious thought of mankind, and as such to judge it and dispose of it; it feigns to ignore altogether the Christian religion as a system resting on facts. This is certainly a crafty move; for it is easy to get rid of a theory, but facts cannot well be explained away. Once they are well established, facts are invincible. And the evidences of Christianity are facts—well-established, invincible facts—that can neither be ignored nor explained away. The Christian religion is a philosophical religion, inasmuch as it is in complete harmony with whatever is sound in the philosophy of any age; but it is also an historical religion, and in its origin and progress rests on the certain basis of human testimony.

The divine Founder of Christianity did not appear in a remote age of darkness and obscurity, but in an age of intellectual culture and enlightenment—in an age when history had already attained to its full purpose and perfection. So that the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ, and the progress of the religion he founded, at once dropped into the stream of history and became a part of it. This is shown by the fact that so many contemporary pagan historians have in their writings referred to Christ, his miracles, his doctrines, and his sufferings.

The Great Teacher who came to give true light to the world was not afraid of the light; and it was without doubt a part of the eternal design that he should appear in an era of intellectual activity and culture and criticism, so that human reason might have no excuse for rejecting him, and the future enemies of Christianity could not upbraid it with being a system hatched out in darkness and obscurity. Here is a point we should particularly insist upon: Jesus Christ has his place in history as much as Cæsar or Napoleon or Washington or any other great man of the past. His miracles are as much matters of history as the victories of Cæsar; his law is as much a matter of history as the Code of Napoleon; and the kingdom of Christianity which he founded is as palpable a fact to-day as the republic of George Washington.

Christianity is only a theory, say the rationalists. What a barefaced falsehood in the face of all history! Christianity an effect without an adequate cause, say they. What an outrage on reason! Verily, the theories by which the rationalistic school would account for Christianity are on a par with the Hindoo theory of the world, for they also rest on nothing at all.

Christianity is not a natural outgrowth or development of Judaism; it is not a skilful adaptation of Oriental liturgy and Greek philosophy; but it is a religion of reason and truth, resting on the eternal facts of the Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the God of all truth.

Footnote 161:

Renan. _Vie de Saint Paul_, chap. vii. p. 126.

Footnote 162:

Renan, _Vie de Saint Paul_, c. vii. p. 135.

ONE TO ONE.

“The one soul to the one God.”—REV. HENRY GIESEN, C.SS.R.

“One unto one!” O Jesus, can thy creature Be truly one to one with thee, her King? Can the poor sinful heart for which thine suffered To thee alone in love and sorrow cling? To thee, the Son of God, the Word Eternal, So dreadly pure, so infinitely just? “One unto one”! My God, when I would say it, ’Tis answered me, “Remember thou art dust.”

“One unto one”! O Jesus, meek and loving, And humbled down to Bethlehem for me, Humbled to own a human heart and nature, Jesus, my Saviour, _now_ I come to thee! I see thee on thy Virgin Mother’s bosom— An infant, though a God, a Judge, a King: “One unto one”! Ah! yes, my infant Saviour, To thee at last I dare my love to bring.

Again, in prayer and sorrow I behold thee Prostrate beneath the olive-trees’ dark shade, The blood of agony for us outpouring, The burden of our sins upon thee laid. “One unto one”! Yes, here too may thy creature, With all her sins before her, bring her heart Near unto thine; for she is only asking That in thy agony she may have part.

“One unto one”! The thorny crown, the scourges, The gall, the nails, the cross, the cruel spear, The death-swoon, and the last dear words—O Jesus! “One unto one”—how can _I_ say it here? Only thy Mother with her priceless dolors, Methinks, can rightly say this daring word; She who shared all thy passion, meekly standing Beside thy cross, soul-pierced with Simeon’s sword.

Dead is the Son of God, the Son of Mary; Dead for our love—for very love of me! “One unto one”! O Jesus, my Redeemer, Grant that my life may die for love of thee. Grant that thy cross may be my only treasure, Thy blood my riches, and thy grace my prize; Until, my penance done, my sins all pardoned, “One unto one,” to thee my spirit flies!

HIS IRISH COUSINS.

Mr. Eugene Percival was seated in the dining-room of the Garrick Club, London, engaged in discussing a quiet little dinner consisting of a plate of real turtle, a red mullet, and a pin-tailed duck, preparatory to turning into Covent Garden to hear Titiens in _Semiramide_, when a servant approached him, bearing two letters upon a silver salver.

“Irish mail, sir.”

“For me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Percival quietly finished his glass of pale sherry and ordered a clean plate ere he troubled himself about his Hibernian correspondence.

“Irish letters!” he murmured. “Who could write to me from that out-of-the-world country? Jack Hotham, possibly. His regiment is quartered on some solid bit of bog called the Curragh.” He leisurely took up the nearest epistle. “A woman’s hand, by Jove! And such a hand. How she does scatter the ink! _Place aux dames._ Now, madam, I am prepared for the worst.” And throwing himself back in his chair, he proceeded to open the envelope. The letter ran as follows:

“BALLYBO, CO. MAYO, June 1, 187-.

“DEAR COUSIN: A very nice young man, who says he is intimate with you, has been stopping here for a few days for the salmon-fishing. By the merest accident your name came on the _tapis_, and I immediately claimed you as a kinsman, my mother and your father having been second cousins. As kinsfolk should at least become acquainted with one another, I take this opportunity of letting you know that my eldest boy, Charley, and his sister Geraldine, are going to visit London next week, when any attention you can show them will be most gratefully received by your affectionate cousin,

“MARTHA MARY GRACE DEVEREUX.

“P. S. They will stop at the Charing Cross Hotel. Charley is twenty-three and Geraldine four years younger.”

“Of all the cool epistles I ever read this _is_ the coolest,” muttered Percival, holding the letter at arm’s length, as though it were combustible. “_I_ never heard of Martha Mary Grace Devereux before. _I_ have no relations in Ireland. The idea of having a hulking savage with a brogue that would peel a potato, and dressed like a navvy, and an awkward, dowdy, gawky girl, thrust upon me is rather too good. No, no, my Irish friends. I respect you at Bally—Bally-what-you-may-call-it, but in Piccadilly not quite.” Here he commenced his ripe Stilton. “The idea of my being seen in Mayfair with—Pshaw! it’s too good.” He turned the second letter over with his knife.

“A school-boy’s hand. I suppose this is from Charley, with a modest demand for a box at the opera for himself and his sister for every night during their stay, seats on one of the Four-in-hand Club coaches, tickets for the Zoo for Sunday, invitations to swell balls. I know what Irish cousins mean, and, _per Bacco_! I’ll keep the Channel rolling between us. Let’s see what Charley says. A monogram, C. D. Gorgeous! Who’d have thought of so much civilization in Mayo—wherever that may be?”

“BALLYBO.

“Mr. Charley Devereux’ compliments to Mr. Percival”—that’s civil at any rate—“and begs to say that in order to oblige his mother”—whose mother? My poor mother died when I was toothless—“he writes this note. Mr. C. D. doesn’t believe in bothering people who don’t care about him”—come, now, this is a sensible lad—“and he doesn’t care for people whom he doesn’t know”—sensible again. “If Mr. Percival wants to see Mr. C. D., he will find him at the Charing Cross Hotel on and after Monday next.”

* * * * *

“I say, Minniver, just come over and take your Lafitte here. I have such a _bon bouche_ for you!” said Percival, addressing a gentleman seated at a neighboring table.

“What’s the row?” demanded Mr. Minniver, a tall, aristocratic man, whose hair was parted in the centre and whose eye-glass was the sole occupation of his life.

“Two letters from Ireland.”

“No!”

“Fact.”

“Take my glawss and decanter over to Mr. Percival’s table,” said Mr. Minniver, addressing a waiter.

“Shall I read ’em to you, Minniver?”

“Are they in Irish?”

“Oh! dear, no.”

“Then let me have the two barrels.”

“Congratulate me, old fellow.”

“On what?”

“I have been claimed by Irish cousins.”

“What a nuisance!” observed Mr. Minniver in a tone of intense disgust, and letting his eye-glass fall on the table with a click, whilst he took a sip of the rich, tawny wine.

“That’s not enough. To claim me does not fill their cup of happiness. They are coming over to see me.”

“By Jove!” wiping the glass carefully and screwing it hard into the corner of his eye.

“Yes. Just read this letter. This is the one that claims me, that takes me into the fold, and here’s another that repudiates me.”

“That’s a very extraordinary document, Percival,” observed Mr. Minniver with an owl-like glance, solemn, important, but vacant withal.

“Read this now; it’s from Charley.”

“Why, this ought to be framed and glazed. How old Thackeray would have chuckled over this in the smoking-room! You must let us have it in the smoking-room; the fellows are infernally dull just now.”

“Take both, my dear boy.”

“Thanks. What are you going to do?”

“Preserve a masterly inactivity.”

“You’ll reply?”

“I think not.”

“Drop a pasteboard at the Cross?”

“Cards are expensive luxuries just now. You forget it’s the height of the season, Minniver!”

“Then you’ll let it sink?”

“Most unquestionably.”

“I s’pose you’re right.”

“Well, rather. I can stand a good deal but Irish cousins. As the Princess Huncomun says in ‘Tom Thumb,’ ‘I shudder at the gross idea.’”

“It would never do, Percival—never, never.” And wagging his empty head sagaciously, Mr. Minniver again dipped his beak in the juice of the grape.

Mr. Eugene Percival is a swell of the first water; a bureaucrat in the most exalted sense of the term; a clerk in the Foreign Office, with expectations of a third secretaryship at no distant date. His mother, an heiress, died in giving him birth; his father, a captain in the Seventeenth Lancers, fell in the bloody ride of death at Balaklava. A guardian took possession of the boy, and, having placed him at Eton, later on transplanted him to Cambridge, where he took a degree, making a fair fight for honors. The failure of the banking firm of Overend & Gurney, of Lombard Street, deprived Percival of over half his property, and then he resolved upon work.

“I cannot live upon fifteen hundred a year and idleness,” he said.

“I could live, and live well, on a hundred a year with work.”

Through the influence of no less a personage than Benjamin Disraeli he was installed at the Foreign Office at a nominal salary, and the evening upon which this story opens he was twenty-five years of age, five feet eight inches in height, with yellow hair closely cropped, as is the fashion amongst the golden youth of the present hour, his eyes dark blue, his nose a delicate aquiline, his mouth and teeth unexceptionable, and the whole man bearing the unmistakable stamp of gentleman.

A few days subsequent to the receipt of his Irish letters Mr. Eugene Percival strolled from the Garrick into Covent Garden Market, but little altered in its appearance since the days when Sam Johnson and Topham Beauclerk went on a rouse amongst the vegetable wagons, and at unhallowed hours, as the worthy lexicographer subsequently—and sorrowfully—admitted.

Taking the central arcade, the bureaucrat stopped to admire bouquets that would have brought tears of envy into the pretty eyes of Mlle. Louise of the _Marché aux Fleurs_, so fearfully and wonderfully were they made up, so delicious in their harmonies, such veritable tone-poems in their lustrous yet satisfying effects. Stepping into a flower-shop, he invested in a two-shilling moss rosebud reclining upon the petals of a sprig of stefanotis, attached to his coat by a young lady who addressed him by name.

“Mr. Pommery ‘as just been ’ere, Mr. Percival.”

“What! another bunch of violets?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied with a saucy laugh.

“Why, he must be spending a small fortune.”

“These wiolets come from Algiers.”

“And he sends a bunch every day?”

“Every day, sir.”

“And you are sworn to secrecy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you won’t tell to whom those violets go?”

“Not for anything.”

“_Where_ do they go?”

The young lady shook her head.

“It is refreshing,” laughed Percival as he quitted the shop, “to find _one_ woman who can keep a secret.”

He strolled down the arcade, gazing at the flowers and fruits, and the _bizarre_ crowd that gently surged hither and thither, from the costermonger who came for his salad and radishes, to the “Dook” who sought his five-guinea bouquet; from the weedy-looking woman, smelling horribly of gin, who shelled peas, to the countess in search of an orchid to make up her priceless collection.

He was standing opposite a window wherein lay exposed a basket of Belle Angevine pears labelled “£30 a dozen,” when a hand was laid on his shoulder and a cheery voice exclaimed:

“Not thinking of that lot, Percival?”

“Not quite, Pommery. They’re a cut above me. My buying price is sixpence, and I falter at anything above that lordly sum.”

“They’re not much, these Angevines. I had a cut into one last night at a little dinner Baby Bowles gave six of us at the Star and Garter—a pre-marital affair.”

“Pre-marital! Has the Baby surrendered at discretion?”

“He has surrendered, which says little for his discretion.”

“_Pauvre garçon!_ By the way, you’ve been away, Pommery?”

“Yaas.”

“Whither?”

“Guess.”

“Norway, after the salmon?”

“No.”

“Monaco, after _Rouge et Noir_?”

“No.”

“Paris, after a good dinner?”

“You’d never guess. Hold on to your umbrella now, Percival, for I’m about to startle you. I’ve been in Ireland.”

“Never!”

“A fact, I assure you.”

“And you’re alive to tell the tale?”

“Ireland is not bad quarters, I can tell you. I was capitally fed. I had a game of Polo in the Phœnix Park—and that _is_ a park. I had as good a rubber at the Kildare Street Club as ever I played at the Raleigh. I saw some very fit soldiering at the Curragh of Kildare. I landed my thirty-seven-pound salmon from a river with an impossible name in Connemara. I took to Connemara _con amore_—excuse the pun, it’s rather early. And I’ll let you into a secret, Percival: I mean to return for the grouse on the 20th of August.”

“Apropos of Ireland, get Minniver to show you two letters I received last week from some people calling themselves my cousins; they are the richest things in town. They have had nothing in the smoking-room of the Garrick so good since the night old Fladgate told Thackeray that, in order to render his lectures on the Four Georges a success, he should hire a piano.”

Jack Pommery is a clever, hard-working young barrister—a coming man. He was senior wrangler of his year at Cambridge, and carried off one or two “big things.” He rowed in the ‘varsity eight and boxed like a prize-fighter. Pommery, while he believes in work, stoutly maintains that the brain can only do a certain amount of it, and under cover of this theory casts aside wig and gown for a run with the Pytchley, a pull on the Thames, a breezer in the Channel under double reefs, a month on the moors—in a word, he goes in for what Micky Free termed “hapes o’ divarshin.”

“I’ve just seen your _fleuriste_, Jack. She still keeps the key of the blue chamber.”

“She’ll not sell me.”

“And you won’t let me into the secret—you won’t divulge the name of the violet lady?”

“Some day.”

“Some day is no day.”

“It’s a caprice, Percival. Every clever man has a caprice.”

“Bravo! Let me hear you blow that trumpet again. Why, the guard of the Windsor Coach doesn’t use his yard of tin with greater effect,” laughed Percival.

“Bah! chaff! The story is very simple. It is idyllic. I meet a girl, no matter where. She has violet eyes. She is as modest as a violet. _Qui me cherche me trouve_ is her motto—a true woman’s motto, my man. I went spooney on her. I am spoons still. I told her that until I met her again I would send her a bunch of violets every day. I send the bunch of violets every day, _et voilà tout_!”

“Very pretty and sentimental, ’pon honor—worthy of being written by Wilkie Collins and set to music by Arthur Sullivan. I won’t press you on the subject, Jack, but I’ll tell you what I will press you to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Come back to the Garrick and have a steak—one of our famous fat slugs of beef that Thackeray revelled over after his favorite dish of tripe.”

“Try a chop at the Albion with me. It’s a real English chop-house, a tavern in the best sense of the good old English word. We’ll be sure to meet some queer people there. The theatrical stars most do congregate within its precincts. Toole, Irving, Barry Sullivan haunt it when not ‘on circuit.’ Confound their impudence in appropriating the pet terms of my honorable profession!”

“Have at thy chops, slave!” cried Percival melodramatically as they passed along through groves of cabbages, batteries of turnips, golden vistas of carrots, groups of women engaged in shelling peas.

The two entered the tavern, and, having seated themselves in a sort of loose box constructed of black oak, with a table set in the middle, Pommery gave the order to a waiter whose pronounced accent bespoke an intimate acquaintance with the road that leads from the Upper Lake at Killarney to Gougawn Barra. He was an honest-looking, open-faced, elderly man, civil without being servile, and the possessor of a twinkle in the corner of his eye that proclaimed the land of his nativity equally with his unctuous and oily brogue.

A loud rapping on the table in the next compartment made itself heard, while an authoritative voice called:

“Has that sheep been caught yet?”

“It’s on the fire, sir,” responded the waiter.

“I suppose you intend that as a sample of Irish wit.” This said with a sneer.

“Troth, mebbe it’s good enough for—” and the man checked himself.

“Let me have none of your impertinence, fellow. You Irish require to be kept under heel, every one of you.”

“Do we?”

“You do, and it takes an Englishman to do it.”

“See that, now,” said the waiter, angrily brushing the table, and by a vigorous effort keeping back the fierce retort that was on the leap in his heart.

“Get me my chop.”

“I’ll get it, never fear,” hurrying away.

Percival and his companion overheard this dialogue.

“If I were that waiter,” exclaimed Pommery, “I’d chuck the chop at that insolent fellow’s head.”

“What can the poor wretch do? He’s paid for this sort of thing.”

“He’s not paid to be insulted by a man who, the chances are, considers himself a gentleman.”

“It’s very bad form.”

The waiter returned with the autocrat’s luncheon.

“How dare you bring me a chop cooked in this way? Do you imagine I am in an Irish pig-sty? Send me an English waiter.”

At this moment a tall, awkward-looking youth, attired in a home-spun suit of gray frieze, ill-fitting if not shabby, slowly arose from a table right opposite, and, lounging over, quietly asked:

“Will I do?”

“Do what, sir?” demanded the irate Saxon.

“Wait on you.”

“Wait on _me_? You are not a waiter.”

“I am an Irishman; perhaps _I_ might be able to please you better than my countryman.”

Pommery leaned over to Percival:

“There’s some fun here.”

“There’s danger,” was the reply.

The bully stared very hard at the young Irishman, surveying him from head to foot.

“I don’t want _you_,” he growled.

“Oh! you don’t,” still in the same calm tone.

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“You’ve had your answer, my gentleman. Go back to your luncheon.”

“Not for one moment. I’ve not quite done with you yet. I have heard your observations to this helpless old man”—his voice quivering, his eye flashing—“your brutal insolence.”

“Sir!” starting as if he had been stung.

“Your ruffianly comments,” continued the other. “You knew that your eighteen pence was your armor, and that you could insult both him and his country with impunity. Now, my good fellow, _I_ am an Irishman, and, only that I happen to be in a very particular hurry, I’d compel you to eat that chop.”

“What do you mean, sir?” he gasped.

“Precisely what I say,” replied the other.

“How dare—”

“See here, now, my good fellow, keep your hectoring for helpless waiters and feeble women. I come from a country where the word _dare_ reaps a crop of broken bones. I know you and your mongrel class. And before I leave let me give you a bit of advice. Don’t speak disrespectfully of Ireland until you are sure of your company. The moment you find yourself surrounded by your own set fire away.” And nodding jauntily, he walked to the cashier’s desk, paid his bill, gave the now hilarious waiter a shilling, and sprang into a hansom that awaited him at the door, leaving the bully turning red and white by turns and looking the very impersonation of baffled hate and rage.

“That’s no end of a brick,” cried Pommery glowingly.

“A gentleman to the back-bone.”

“I’ll swear it.”

“Blood will tell.”

“I wonder who he can be? Depend on’t he’s of the right lot.”

“What a nice touch of the brogue!”

“Just a _soupçon_. I’m awfully sorry he didn’t whip the fellow.”

After some fierce yet gloomy consultation with the manager and a couple of obsequious waiters the autocrat approached the table at which the two swells were seated.

“You have been witness to a ruffianly act,” clearing his throat, “on the part of a scoundrel who has just left. It amounts to an assault in the eyes of the law. I do not intend to let the matter drop here. I’m an Englishman, and I’d take it out of that sneak in double-quick. You saw a gentleman assaulted—”

“I saw him assault _no_ gentleman,” said Percival.

“You saw him assault _me_, sir,” retorted the other loftily.

“I did; but I saw him assault no gentleman,” coolly surveying the bully from head to foot. “You, sir, are what we call a cad. Come, Pommery.”

The autocrat muttered something with reference to “swells,” eyes, blood, and other full-flavored language as the two young men sauntered forth in the direction of “the Garden.”

“There’s nothing to be done at the office to-day; suppose we go to the Park—the Ladies’ Mile. Alice Lindsay has been presented by her uncle, Sir Winifred, with a superb mount; let’s see how she takes to it.”

It is right genial pleasure to lean upon the rails in Hyde Park and watch equestrians and equestriennes flash past on satin-coated, arch-necked, dainty-limbed horses; to meet one’s friends beneath the shade of the elms, and to enjoy a good round gossip, than which there is nothing pleasanter under the sun.

Percival and Pommery knew everybody worth knowing. Nods, becks, and wreathed smiles greeted them right, left, and centre. Fair dames showered graciousness upon them, handsome cavaliers nodded familiarly.

“Well, you Pylades and Orestes, Castor and Pollux, Siamese twins, how am you?” exclaimed a dapper little gentleman mounted upon a rattling cob, reining in and addressing our two friends.

“Ah! Lindsay, you here? I thought you were in Constantinople,” greeted Percival.

“So I were,” perverting his English; “but I left my fez behind me to show my ’fiz’ here. Twiggey voo?”

“How is your sister?”

“Pretty bobbish.”

“I hear she has a superb mount.”

“Too superb, _mon camarade_. She’s a lucky girl if her collar-bone isn’t fractured before twenty-four hours. The brute is a good brute, but just as fit for a woman to ride as a wild zebra. Here she comes. By Jove! she can’t hold him.”

A young girl cantered up, very red in the face from hard pulling.

“Well, Alice, you’ve had enough of that brass elephant, hasn’t you?”

“Not a bit of it,” cried Miss Lindsay, a bright, aristocratic-looking, blue-eyed, tow-haired young lady, with lines of decision around a saucy mouth, and with a form that bespoke the use of dumb-bells and all those minor appanages relating to the development of muscular Christianity.

“Shall I ride with you?”

“No, Fred; I can do the mile with Bertie,” a younger brother astride a shaggy Shetland.

“Don’t you see two fellows whom you know, Alice?”

“Why, of course I do. I’ve nearly nodded my head off at both of them, and they have jerked the rims of their beavers out of shape,” laughed the girl. “_Allons_, Bertie.” And lightly touching the magnificent but vicious-looking animal, which she sat _à ravir_, she started off like an arrow from a bow, followed by the shaggy Shetland.

“Have a lift behind, queer fellows? No? Then I’ll leave you to your meditations.” And Fred Lindsay trotted off in the direction taken by his sister.

“That’s the happiest dog I know, Percival,” observed Pommery. “Ten thousand a year, a house in May-Fair, a villa on the Thames, a shooting-box in Scotland, a loving tailor, a careful cook, and the constitution of a horse and cart.”

“He has, as the Americans say, a good time of it. By the way, who’s to woo and win his sister?”

“Dymoke, of the Guards.”

“Why, he hasn’t—but, I say, what’s this? A runaway, by George!—a woman. She’ll get thrown; she reels in the saddle,” jumping excitedly on a seat. “She’s a brick. She’s pulling the brute. Yes—no—it’s Miss Lindsay. She can do nothing. She’ll be killed if she loses her seat. The pace is awful. She’s lost her head. She’s done for.”

Such were the exclamations rapidly uttered by Eugene Percival as the fainting form of Miss Lindsay was borne past him like a flash.

“Magnificently done!” shouted Pommery. “That fellow is a man, whoever he is.”

Just as the young girl was swaying heavily from side to side in her saddle, and about to sink fainting to the earth, one of the onlookers plunged forward, and, seizing the reins of the maddened horse in a grasp of steel, brought the animal almost to his haunches. The swooning girl was thrown violently forward, to be received in his arms as though she were a down pillow cast at him in play.

Percival and Pommery forced their way through the crowd.

“Make way, please; we are friends of this lady,” cried Percival. “Let her have air. Carry her into the shade.”

Miss Lindsay was borne to the pathway and placed upon one of the benches, while some cold water was dashed in her face.

“How splendidly she behaved!” cried one of the bystanders.

“Such nerve!”

“Such English pluck!”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed the gentleman who had been the means of rescuing her, “I know twenty Irish girls who would have brought that brute to his senses without any of this sort of fuss.”

At this juncture Fred Lindsay galloped up.

“Is she much hurt?” he anxiously demanded.

“She’s not hurt at all; she’s frightened.” And half a dozen persons volunteered a statement of the occurrence, all speaking together.

“How _can_ I thank you?” said Lindsay, turning to the stranger. “Let me have your name and address. By Jove! I must do something to express our gratitude.”

“I stop twenty horses a day in the fields at home, and wickeder brutes than that, so don’t say one word.” And ere Lindsay could interpose the other had mingled with the crowd.

“Did you see him?” asked Percival of Pommery.

“Who?”

“The young fellow who rescued Miss Lindsay.”

“Not particularly.”

“Why, it’s our Irishman.”

“So it is. I’m awfully sorry not to have spoken to him. What a fellow he is, to be sure!”

* * * * *

Eugene Percival, amongst other invitations, received a card for a dinner-party at the Lindsays’ for the following Tuesday.

“We’ve been sadly put about,” said Miss Lindsay as he arrived, “groomed to a hair.” “Our party was made up, fitting oh! so nicely. I had my old man and my old lady, and the man who can talk opera, and the girl who can talk Tennyson, and my M. P. who can talk politics. I had the agricultural element and the lawn-tennis element, and a man who can talk across the table, and the man who knows everything—yourself—and lo! a wicked fairy _bon gré mal gré_ adds two unexpected guests to my party by a wave of her wand, and spoils it. Isn’t it awful?” cries the hostess piteously, elevating a superb bouquet to her dainty nose.

“What did she give you?”

“Only fancy—two Irish people!”

“This is ironical of destiny,” laughed Percival.

“I won’t know what to say to them, what to do with them. I want you to stand in the gap, Mr. Percival, to see me through this miserable _contretemps_.”

“Put me down for anything, from the _Annals of the Four Masters_ to dancing an Irish jig. I haven’t the faintest idea who the Four Masters are, and I’ve never seen the jig danced, but ’shure I’ll troy,’” endeavoring to imitate the Irish brogue, and failing dismally, as does every cockney rash enough to venture upon the experiment.

“I’ve never seen these people. I called at their hotel yesterday, but they were out doing St. Paul’s, or the Tower, or the Houses of Parliament, or the Thames Tunnel, as is the habit of tourists proper.”

“How did you drop into this trap, Miss Lindsay?”

“This wise: My uncle, Sir Winifred, spent some weeks last autumn with them in Ireland. He is a man who is ever anxious to repay a courtesy twofold.”

“I wonder, if I lent him ten sovereigns, would he return me twenty?” laughed Percival.

“If it was _en règle_, he would most decidedly. He, it appears, met them—wherever do you think?”

“I’m sure I cannot say.”

“At Madame Tussaud’s.”

“Sir Winifred at such a place! What an old wax-work it is!”

“He loves that Chamber of Horrors, and every time a murderer’s head is added to it my uncle potters off directly to have a look at it. He encountered his Irish friends in this Chamber last Saturday, and instantly takes them to the Star and Garter at Richmond to dine. He had them at the Zoo on Sunday, last night at the opera, and to-night he has foisted them on me; so you won’t mind roughing it a little, will you?”

“Certainly not. Is there anything Irish in the house? One must talk Ireland, you know.”

“Nothing except a genuine Ulster that never crossed the Channel in its life. We bought it last year at the Robber of the North’s, McDougal, at Inverness.”

“Were you in Scotland lawst year?” drawled a pink-faced young man, lounging up.

“Oh! yes; we did the Kyles of Bute, and the Crenan Canal, and Oban, and on by Ballachullish to the Pass of Glencoe, and we slept at Bannavic, and went up the Caledonian Canal.” And Miss Lindsay went off into a gush of rapture over the glorious scenery of the land o’cakes.

A powdered-headed flunky announced Mr. and Miss Devereux, but in such a manner that the name might as well have been Smith. Miss Lindsay courteously advanced to receive her guests with “So pleased to see you! Called at your hotel yesterday. How long have you been in London? How do you like Babylon? Your first visit?”

Charley Devereux—for ’tis he—gazes very hard at his hostess. Could he be mistaken, or is not this the young lady whom he “chucked off” the runaway horse?

“Are you fond of riding?” he abruptly asked.

“Oh! passionately. I ride every day.”

“Did you ride in the park on Friday?”

“Yes, and was nearly killed. My horse, a thoroughbred, bolted. I fought him as long as I could. I got giddy, and I can recollect nothing till I found myself stretched on a bench beneath one of the trees on the side path.”

“Were you thrown?” asked Miss Devereux, of whom more anon.

“Well, yes and no. A man in the crowd—a young mechanic, my brother says—stopped the horse and caught me as I was flying through the air.”

“Charley, don’t _you_ know something—”

A look from her brother silenced Miss Devereux.

“Were you present?” asked Miss Lindsay.

“I should rather say he was,” interposed Lindsay, who had just entered, giving a finishing touch to his toilette as he bounded down the stairs. “Why, hang it, Alice, don’t you know that it is to this gentleman you probably owe your life?”

Miss Lindsay opened her blue eyes very wide.

“Is this possible?” she cried.

“Why, of course it is. My dear fellow,” exclaimed Lindsay, seizing Charley Devereux by both hands, “need I say what intense pleasure it is to find my sister’s rescuer in the person of a friend of my uncle?”

“Mr. Devereux,” added Alice, presenting two dainty hands in gloves of many buttons, and impulsively flinging away her brother’s hands, “this _is_ a joyous surprise. Why, Fred told me you were a mechanic—that is,” she added with a blush—“you see he is awfully near-sighted.”

“Don’t apologize, Miss Lindsay. My old home-spun suit is becoming very dingy, but I like it so well that I wouldn’t part with it for one of Smallpage’s marvellous frocks.”

The pompous flunky announced dinner.

“You will take _me_ down, Mr. Devereux. I shall jilt Lord Jocelyn for the _preux chevalier_ who has so charmingly proved that the age of chivalry is not yet dead. By the way, I must do _my devoirs_.” And summoning Percival from a distant corner of the room, she presented him to Miss Devereux.

He did not catch the name, but, offering that young lady his arm, he moved towards the door.

“Now for pigs and potatoes,” he thought.

He took a good look at the young girl on his arm, and he beheld a very charming form, soft brown wavy hair in a glorious luxuriance, tastefully and neatly bound up in plaits, a fair skin slightly freckled, a nose a little tip-tilted like the petal of a flower, a rich red mouth, and earnest gray eyes shaded by long, sweeping lashes.

“Your first visit to London?”

“My first.”

She turned her face to him, and then he perceived its delicate oval, its low, straight forehead, its pencilled brows, its charming innocence and purity of expression. This was not the brogue he expected to hear. This was not the face or form he had so dreaded to meet. Why, he could get on with this charming bit of Emerald without any reference to the Isle, save what it might please her Serene Greenship to indulge in.

“And how do you like London?” he asked, after the gentle fuss of seat-taking had subsided, and every person had opened his or her napkin after his or her own particular fashion.

“It oppresses me.”

“In what way?”

“It is too vast, too grand, too colossal. It wearies. I have had more headache since I came here than ever I earned over my Latin grammar.”

“Latin grammar! Are you so deep as Latin?”

“I have taught Latin,” and, seeing his puzzled expression, “to my _very_ young brothers.”

“By Jove!” It’s all Percival has to say, and he says it.

Miss Devereux indulged in a low, musical laugh at her cavalier’s expense.

“You’re laughing at me?” said the bureaucrat, giving a tremendous tug to his moustache.

“I am,” was her reply.

“Why?”

“It’s singularly amusing to hear an Englishman focus all his energies upon his favorite exclamation.”

“And what do you say in Ireland?” he retorted, somewhat nettled.

“You must ask my brother.”

“If he waits till I ask him,” thought Percival, “he’ll be as gray as a badger.”

Mr. Percival indulged in another gaze at his fair companion, who was engaged in the unromantic task of enjoying her dinner, while he found himself _hors de combat_ after a spoonful of soup and a devilled whitebait. He discovered a certain magnetism about her that irresistibly attracted him. The charm of her beauty was not in her golden hair, whose wavelets threw up the brilliancy of her rich color; not in the pure cream-tinted skin, not in the exquisitely delicate curve of the chin and cheek, nor in the sauciness of her _retroussé_ nose; it was the unconscious pleasure in her face, a joy that positively breathed happiness from every feature.

“How does it come that you have no brogue?” he abruptly asked.

“Oh! dear, yes I have. I would shame the bogs of Ballynashaughnagaun if I did not fairly represent them in the land of the Saxon.”

“Do pronounce that jaw-breaker again.”

“Ballynashaughnagaun.”

“How dreadful!”

“We have longer names than that.” And Miss Devereux, to Percival’s intense amusement, proceeded to run over the townlands surrounding her wild Connemara home.

“Only fancy if a man got lost in Knocka-what-you-may-call-um; why, he’d perish by the wayside ere he could ask his way to the place from whence he came.”

“I am quite prepared to think that you would,” she laughed.

“I’m rather a dab at languages,” he said, with a certain tinge of self-satisfaction in his tone.

“I beg your pardon—a what?”

“A dab.”

“May I ask which of your languages is that word borrowed from, Mr. Percival?”

“It’s supposed to be English,” he laughed.

“Oh! I am so relieved. I was afraid you were going to attach it to Ireland, and then—”

“And then?”

“_Guerra al cuchillo_—war to the knife.”

“Are you a dab?—I beg pardon; do you speak Spanish?”

“I do; we are quite an Irish-Spanish colony.”

“An Irish-Spanish colony! In the name of wonder what is that?”

“I’ll tell you. The _Infanta_, one of the largest of the vessels attached to the Spanish Armada, was wrecked on the coast of Mayo. The survivors settled along the coast as far as Galway. My great, great, great, ever so great-grand-mamma was a daughter of one of the officers.”

“How is it that you come to have such glorious gray eyes?” This was said enthusiastically.

“Do not let that iced _soufflet_ pass, Mr. Percival; it is too good to snub so unmercifully.”

“What a facer!” thought the Foreign Office clerk as he called back the servant with the _entrée_ in question.

Miss Devereux did not understand any gentleman’s gushing in this manner upon an acquaintance of twenty minutes. If young ladies would only ice menkind occasionally, instead of permitting them to say what they will, their sway would be absolutely without limit; but, alas! the girls of to-day are too—but I will not be cynical.

“What part of Ireland do you come from, Miss ——?” He has not heard her name, and mumbles something unintelligible to fill up the gap.

“Connemara.”

“I know some people living out there.”

“Indeed! As I know everybody living _out there_, I am quite sure we shall discover mutual friends.”

Now, Mr. Eugene Percival, not having the remotest idea of who Miss Devereux might be, imagines that this is a very good opportunity for being very amusing, and he accordingly plunges _in medias res_ without more ado.

“The name is Devereux,” he said.

“Devereux?” she repeated. “There is but one family of that name in Mayo.”

“Of Bally—something.”

“Ballybo?”

“That’s it. Ballybo. Do you know them?”

She gave one short, sharp glance at him. Was this Englishman about to amuse himself at her expense? Was he going to exercise his English stupidity in a practical joke? No; she instinctively felt that Percival was a gentleman and would not _dare_ take a liberty; and she perceived him so full of suppressed mirth that she resolved upon letting him have it all his own way.

“Yes, I know them,” she replied.

“What sort of people are they?”

“Oh! very commonplace, and somewhat old-fashioned in their ways,” hardly able to keep back a burst of laughter.

“I thought as much. I’ll tell you a capital thing that has occurred within the last week.” Here he indulged in a series of gentlemanly chuckles. “I had a letter from Ballyporeen.”

“Ballybo? _You_, Mr. Percival?” she exclaimed in a surprised way.

“Yes, from an excellent lady, who addresses me as her cousin, and signs herself Martha Mary Grace Devereux, and who informed me that her son and daughter were coming to town, and begged of me to take care of them.”

Miss Devereux, dropping her knife and fork, gazed steadily at Percival. She became very white, while a sudden anger flamed in her expressive eyes.

“You, then, are Mr. Eugene Percival?” she said, a harshness in her voice.

“Yaas.”

“Of the Foreign Office?”

“I have the honor to be attached to that blundering institution.”

“If I do not mistake, Mr. Percival, you received more than _one_ letter from Ballybo.”

“Yaas, I got one from a sulky young Irishman who—”

“Have you met him?” she interrupted.

“No, thank Heaven! and I hope I never shall.”

This was uttered so fervently that Miss Devereux, yielding to an ungovernable impulse, rang out a peal of musical laughter so bright, so joyous, so contagious that the remainder of the company ceased their colorless prattle in order firstly to listen and then to join in it.

“You are having all the fun to yourself,” cried Lindsay, addressing Geraldine Devereux. “What is the _mot_? Do send it round; we want something more _piquante_ than an _entrée_ at this stage of the proceedings.”

Geraldine, all blushes at this unlooked-for notoriety and isolation, declared that her laughter arose from a story that was being narrated to her by Mr. Percival.

“It’s the first time Percival ever succeeded in making anybody laugh _with_ him,” exclaimed a sour-looking old gentleman who wore the red ribbon of a C. B. round his neck.

“Let us have it, Percival, _pro bono publico_.”

“Is it any secret of the office, Mr. Percival?” demanded Miss Lindsay. “Because if it is there’s ’a chiel amang ye takin’ notes.’ Eh, Lord Jocelyn?”

“Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house,” was Percival’s retort.

“Is it worth hearing?—that is the question.”

“Very well worth hearing,” said Geraldine.

“It’s merely an Irish adventure,” observed Percival.

“Merely? Why, where is adventure to be achieved, if not in Ireland? Come, Percival, let us have it,” urged his host.

This was too good a chance for the member of Parliament. “I was in the House the night the Home-Rulers—” And he commenced an anecdote under cover of which the Foreign Office clerk was enabled to beat a retreat.

“It’s an awfully funny story, but some of the people here wouldn’t see it, you know.”

“I can’t see it yet, Mr. Percival; you have only just commenced. Pray proceed.”

“Well, you see, I got this letter raking me up, you know, and the other letter from the young Irish wolf-dog, who wouldn’t have me at any price. How awfully emerald these people must be to imagine that _I_ could—may I use an Irish word?”

“No,” hotly.

“Bother myself about them, especially in the height of the season.” And Mr. Percival emptied a glass of champagne to his own sentiment.

“Poor things! And you don’t intend taking any notice of them?”

“No more than if they never existed.”

“And are you their kinsman?”

“I believe so, now that I have looked into the matter.”

“Don’t you think you are acting rather shabbily?”

“So Jack Pommery says.”

“And Jack Pommery is right,” exclaimed Geraldine, clinching her little left hand and bringing it down into the rosy palm of her right.

“Do you know Jack Pommery?” asked Percival.

“I—I have met him.”

“Here?”

“No.”

“It must have been in Ireland, then,” earnestly.

“It was.”

“By Jove!”

This exclamation caused Geraldine to observe Percival. There was a mysterious knowingness on his face that sent the mercury of her curiosity up into the nineties.

“Is Mr. Pommery an acquaintance of yours, Mr. Percival?”

“He is my _alter ego_, my better man; and I think I have got at his secret.”

“Surely such strong friends have no secrets from one another.”

“Jack kept one bottled up ever so tight, wired down like the bitter beer they send to India. May I ask you a question?” turning abruptly to Geraldine.

“You have asked so many that usage has almost become a right, Mr. Percival.”

“Are you fond of violets?”

A red, red rose-blush spread itself over the young Irish girl’s face and neck and shell-like ears—a blush that came and glowed and refused to be put down—a blush that wooed and caressed and fondled.

“Why do you ask me?” she palpitated.

At this moment Miss Lindsay telegraphed for the ladies to retire, and the usual uprising, and rustle and removal of chairs, and grim punctilio of menkind, and saucy _insouciance_ of womenkind took place. When the gentlemen had reseated themselves the host cried:

“Close quarters, _mes braves_. Approach to the attack of this fortress of Château Lafitte. Get up here, Percival; you were lost to me for the last two hours.”

In obedience to the mandate of his host the bureaucrat moved more above the salt, and, casting his eyes across the table, he was astonished and delighted to discover the young Irishman who had so pluckily distinguished himself upon the two occasions already detailed in this truthful narrative.

“I am awfully glad to meet you,” he said, taking up his glass and moving to a vacant chair beside Charley Devereux.

Charley bowed stiffly and awkwardly.

“I was at the Albion with a friend last Thursday when you dropped upon that disgusting cad.”

Devereux blushed like a schoolgirl.

“He was a low, swaggering blackguard, and, only I had an appointment with my sister, I’d have kicked him into Covent Garden among the cabbages,” he warmly exclaimed.

“He wanted my friend and I to witness what he called the assault, but we gave him scant encouragement. I also saw you the very same day do a very plucky thing in Hyde Park.”

“Oh! I know what you mean. Pshaw! it’s not worth mentioning.”

“Isn’t it? The eyes of our fair hostess tell another story.”

Charley Devereux drained a glass of claret and remained silent.

“As you announced your nationality at the Albion, I know that you are Irish.”

“To the backbone, I hope.”

“Do you reside here?”

“No; I’ve only run over for a few days.”

“I shall be glad to make you an honorary member of my club.”

“What club is it?” asked Charley.

“I belong to two, the Garrick and the Reform. I can make you an honorary member of the Reform; at the Garrick we are powerless.”

“Thanks. I won’t trouble you, my stay is so short. I know, at least I do not know, a member of the Garrick.”

“What’s his name?”

“Well, he’s not worth naming. He’s what you call in this country a cad.”

“We don’t patronize cads in Garrick Street, Covent Garden,” said Percival, somewhat coldly.

“Well, you’ve got one full-blossomed cad amongst you at all events—what we would call in my country a _shoneen_.”

“Of course, as there’s a black sheep in every flock, there’s a shady man in every club. May I ask who this _shoneen_ is?”

Charley Devereux was on the point of uttering the two words “Eugene Percival” when Lindsay burst in.

“I say, you two fellows, you’re snubbing my cellar most awfully. You remind me of two pashas whom I met at a dinner-party at Constantinople, who—”

“Speaking of Constantinople,” interrupted the member of Parliament, “Sir Stafford Northcote on Tuesday night—” commencing a sing-song, Dryasdust House of Commons story which lasted until coffee was announced.

As the gentlemen were ascending the stairs Percival observed to Devereux:

“I took a countrywoman of yours down to dinner.”

“You took my sister.”

“Indeed! You do not resemble one another.”

“There is just a family likeness, that’s all.”

“Do you reside in Dublin?”

“Not exactly; we live in the wildest portion of Connemara.”

“Will you permit me to exchange cards with you?”

“I haven’t got a card, but my name is Devereux.”

“Devereux!” exclaimed Percival, staggering against the wall.

“Yes, Charley Devereux.”

“Of Ballybo, County Mayo?” turning red and white by turns.

“Quite right.”

“And—and—the girl I took down to dinner is _your_ sister?”

“You took Miss Devereux into dinner,” said Charley proudly.

Percival said nothing. The situation revealed itself in a lurid flash. It was too ghastly. Miss Devereux had listened to his miserable story, and, while he imagined he had been amusing her, he had been engaged in digging a pitfall in which it were well he had broken his neck. He had been constructing a pillory wherein he had sat to be pelted with contumely and ridicule. And Devereux, this lion-hearted young Irishman, whose pluck was of the age of chivalry—this splendid specimen of an Irish gentleman whom he had disowned—had written him down a cad. What should he do? What _could_ he do? What could he say? All the water in the Irish Channel were not sufficient to wash him clean of the stains imprinted by his own bovine ignorance. What idiotic folly tempted him to rush into the details of that wretched episode? Why had he not acted as a gentleman? Why had he not replied to the letter of Mrs. Devereux and left his card on his kinsfolk? The affair would have died out then and there, and he would have done his _devoir_. He felt sick and giddy. The worst impeachment is that which comes from one’s self. No sentence so stern, no torture so severe. He felt that, blinded by prejudice, he had acted a mean, unmanly part, and was now hoist on his own petard. Nemesis had followed him, and the sword of Damocles descended how unexpectedly! Of course Miss Devereux despised him. She was civil because conventionality demanded it and because true blood always tells. To her brother he should reveal himself, cost what it would. All that a gentleman can do is to apologize, and the _amende honorable_ was already an overdue draft.

To do Eugene Percival justice, he was not a bad sort of fellow. He was only thoroughly English; and, whilst the English love the Irish individually, collectively they despise them. This farcical ignorance of Ireland and the Irish leads to a deal of misconception, and there are thousands of Saxons who would travel across Central Africa sooner than undertake the four hours between Holyhead and Kingstown, the sixty-three miles separating North Wales from the county of Dublin.

They had reached the drawing-room landing. At the open door Miss Devereux was chatting with considerable animation to Miss Lindsay.

“Mr. Devereux,” said Percival, “will you oblige me by stepping this way?” advancing to where the ladies stood.

“Well, Mr. Percival,” exclaimed Alice Lindsay, “when are we to have your Irish story?”

“Now.”

There was something in the tone that compelled attention. Miss Devereux, with a woman’s quick perception, felt the approaching _dénouement_, and, like a true woman, endeavored to spare this man his utter humiliation.

“Irish stories should be told in Ireland,” she cried.

“There is one Irish story that must be told _here_, Miss Lindsay,” said Percival gravely, “and I would beg your attention for a very brief moment.”

“Why, it must be a very tragic one,” cried the hostess. “You are as grave as the entire senate when Othello addressed them,” to Percival. “_You_, my dear little Irish girl, from being as joyous as Nora Creina, are as sad as poor suffering Erin herself; and you, _caballero mio_,” to Devereux, “have summoned a winter cloud of frown to your brow, behind it thunder. If Mr. Percival insists let us hear his horrible tale in comfort. _Messieurs et mesdames, asseyez vous._”

No one took a seat but the hostess, and she sought a coigne of vantage upon the stairs.

“I hardly know how to begin,” said Percival very slowly. “I can make no _amende_ beyond the utter humiliation the narration of the story will inflict, and no ordeal that I could be put to could possibly prove more bitter. Until five minutes ago I was in utter ignorance that to Miss Devereux and her brother I could claim relationship.”

“Relationship! How awfully jolly!” exclaimed Miss Lindsay, fanning herself violently.

“You, then, are Eugene Percival?” cried Charley Devereux, surveying him with a glance in which scorn and anger struggled for mastery.

“I am Eugene Percival, your kinsman. Stay,” he added as Charley was about to interrupt him. “I ask to be heard—that is all. To err is human, to forgive divine. I have made a ghastly mistake; I now eat the humblest of pie. I can urge nothing in extenuation for my silly small-talk. It was weak, it was shabby. I pillory myself. I beg to assure you, my cousins, that within the last five minutes I have passed through a bitter agony. I did not catch your name, Miss Devereux, when the honor was conferred upon me of taking you down to dinner. I had not the faintest conception who you were whilst my stupid tongue babbled. I was not aware that this gentleman was your brother. I did not know who he was until within five minutes. Fate has been playing at cross purposes with me. I offer no apology for my bad form in not replying to the letters I received. There is none that could be accepted. A chain of circumstances has woven itself which ties me to the earth. I can only say that I earnestly hope some chance may be granted me of showing how anxious I am to redeem myself with my Irish cousins.” And making a deep bow, Eugene Percival hurried down the stairs and from the house.

* * * * *

Upon the day following this _dénouement_ Percival called upon Jack Pommery at the lodgings of the latter in New Bond Street.

“Have you been appointed secretary of legation at Ujiji?” laughed Jack. “You look about as cheerful as if you were in for the yellow fever.”

“Drop chaff, Jack; I want to have a long talk with you.”

“Take that chair, old fellow, and out with it, whatever it is,” cried Pommery, rolling a luxurious arm-chair to his companion and flinging himself upon a sofa.

“Jack, go and call at the Charing Cross Hotel to-day.”

“What to do?”

“Miss Geraldine Devereux is stopping there.”

“Miss who?” demanded the other, springing like an acrobat to his feet.

“Miss Geraldine Devereux, of Ballybo, County Mayo.”

“You don’t mean it, Percival!” a great wave of joy passing over his handsome face.

“I do indeed.”

“How did you come by this?”

“I met her at dinner yesterday at the Lindsays’.”

“What!”

Percival repeated his reply.

“And I was asked there, and refused for a vile whitebait dinner at Greenwich,” said Pommery with a dismal groan.

“She is absolutely charming, Jack—so naïve, so frank, so coquettish, and so pure.”

“Are you hit?”

“I would be if my proof-armor had not been buckled on by my friend Pommery. No, Jack, I want to ask you all about these people, and I’ll tell you why: they are my Irish cousins.”

“Not the—”

“Yes, the writer of one of those fatal letters was Mrs. Devereux; of the other, Charley.”

“This is a bad business, Percival,” observed Pommery after a silence.

“It is a bad business. I am written down a cad, and, by George! I deserve the appellation,” cried Percival, smiting the arm of the chair a severe blow.

“Giving those letters to that ass Minniver was bad form, and I said so.”

“I have got them here. Luckily, Minniver has been down with Bertie Baging for the Ascot week, and, except to old Fladgate, he has never shown them to mortal. Do you know who Devereux turns out to be?”

“Who?”

“The young fellow who so pluckily sat upon the rowdy at the Albion.”

“By Jove!”

“And only fancy, he did not know who Alice Lindsay was until he came to dinner at Curzen Street.”

“By Jove!” repeated Jack Pommery.

Impart a piece of startling intelligence to an Englishman, and he will always exclaim, “By Jove!”

“Now, Jack, tell me all about the Devereux—all that you know. She has younger brothers. Has she a sister?”

“She has.”

“Younger?”

“Yes.”

“Anything like your girl?”

“She is _not_ MY girl, Percival. I only wish that she was,” he added with fierce energy.

“You should have seen how she blushed when I asked her if she liked violets.”

“Percival!” exclaimed Pommery, “that was hardly fair.”

“Don’t agitate yourself, old fellow; the subject was handled, as we say at the office, ‘delicately.’ How old are the younger brothers?”

“One is about eighteen.”

“Bright?”

“Very. He showed me one of Browning’s poems done into Latin, French, and some other language—I think German.”

“You are certain of this, Jack?” cried Percival earnestly.

“I am certain the lad showed them to me, and that he said they were his own translations. He’s in Trinity College at Dublin.”

“What are they going to do with him?”

“They were speaking of the civil service or the Irish bar. _Entre nous_, they haven’t much money, and it’s a wonder they have a stiver, they are so recklessly hospitable. Why, my dear fellow, there were fifteen guests stopping at Ballybo while I was there, and we met a whole caravan traversing the beautiful road that runs from Westport along the Atlantic when _en route_ for the train.”

“This is admirable,” muttered Percival, half thinking aloud.

“What is admirable?”

“Never mind. Is Ballybo a handsome place?”

“It’s a fine old mansion of that order of architecture so much in vogue when Queen Anne was busying herself in distributing largess to Marlborough. It is surrounded by superb trees, in which ten thousand rooks keep up a cawing that is almost deafening. An inlet of the Atlantic almost brings the seaweed to the hall door-steps. The stables are fit for the Duke of Beaufort, and I can tell you there are horses in the stalls that would bring their five hundred guineas at Tattersall’s.”

* * * * *

The “Wild Irishman,” as the express from London to Holyhead has been termed, on account of the almost reckless speed at which it travels, was about to start from Euston Square when Mr. Eugene Percival made his appearance upon the platform, and, walking along the line of carriages, suddenly stopped opposite a first-class _coupé_. The compartment was occupied by a young lady and gentleman. The lady was Miss Geraldine Devereux, the gentleman her brother.

Percival had called at the Charing Cross Hotel, merely leaving cards. His visit was not returned. He sent Miss Devereux a box for the opera, with a superb bouquet from Covent Garden. The box voucher was sent back with the compliments of Mr. Devereux; the flowers Miss Devereux retained. For the few days that his Irish cousins remained in London Eugene Percival made no sign.

Removing his hat, he respectfully bowed to the occupants of the _coupé_. Miss Devereux sat nearest the window at which he stood.

“I have come to beg forgiveness,” he said. “Do not go back to Ireland without uttering my pardon.”

Now, it so happened that Charley Devereux, who had been dining with an old college chum, was in very good humor, all his war-paint having been removed under the pleasurable influences of a renewed friendship. So, thrusting forth his hand, he exclaimed:

“Don’t say anything more about it, Percival. I’m sure you’re sorry. You’ll do better next time, and won’t let your English prejudice bolt across country with you.”

“And you, Miss Devereux?”

“I may forgive you, and perhaps call you cousin, when you shall have made a lengthened tour in my own sweet land.”

“Am I to avoid Ballybo?”

“And commit another mistake?” she archly exclaimed.

“I have done with mistakes for ever.” And as he uttered the words the train moved silently but swiftly away.

About three weeks after Miss Devereux had regained her wild mountain home she was considerably astonished one morning upon receiving from out the post-bag a large, important-looking document with the words, “On Her Majesty’s Service,” in front, and an enormous seal on the back, with the royal arms of England stamped upon the red sealing-wax and “Foreign Office” underneath them.

“Can this be from Eugene Percival?” she thought, as she tore it open and read:

“FOREIGN OFFICE, July 26, 187—.

“DEAR COUSIN GERALDINE DEVEREUX: I enclose a nomination for the Foreign Office for my cousin, Patrick Sarsfield Devereux, your brother. From the correspondence which has taken place between my dear friend Jack Pommery and my kinsman on the subject of his future, I trust that this opening is one that will prove suitable to his tastes and his talents. It is not impossible that I may visit your ‘impossible country’ when Mr. Pommery runs over for the grouse-shooting. With kindest regards to all my kinsfolk, I remain, dear Cousin Geraldine Devereux, your friend and cousin,

“EUGENE PERCIVAL.”

“He’s a good fellow after all,” cried Geraldine with streaming eyes, “and has made more than the _amende honorable_ to his Irish cousins.”

ENGLISH STATESMEN IN UNDRESS. LORD CARLINGFORD AND JOHN FRANCIS MAGUIRE.

The English statesman whose personal acquaintance I first made was the present Lord Carlingford, who was at that time the Hon. Chichester Fortescue, Secretary of State for Ireland in the cabinet of Mr. Gladstone. I had in my possession a letter of introduction to him, but I was unwilling to use it as a means of “interviewing” Mr. Fortescue. I desired to obtain certain information from him which he might not be willing to give; and I did not wish that my possible indiscretion in asking for the information should reflect at all upon the friend who had given me the letter. I wrote to Mr. Fortescue, telling him simply who I was and what I wanted, and asking whether he would permit me to call upon him. I received a note from his secretary, informing me that at a certain hour Mr. Fortescue would receive me at his office in Great George Street, Westminster. This was before the new government offices in Whitehall were completed, and when the various governmental bureaus were scattered about, hither and thither, in houses that were not altogether magnificent or imposing. By an error of my own in estimating the time necessary for a drive from Bayswater to Great George Street, I was some minutes behind the appointed hour; and when I gave my card to the servant in waiting he regarded me with a reproachful air. “You have been asked for, sir,” he said, as he conducted me up-stairs and ushered me into an ante-room very plainly, almost poorly, furnished. In a few moments he reappeared, and, leading me through a narrow hall, opened the door of a larger room, and I found myself in the presence of the Irish secretary: a tall, slim, thin-faced, handsome man, dressed with scrupulous neatness, rather starched and stiff, not unlike Fernando Wood in his prim correctness. Motioning me to a chair in front of his table, he resumed his seat behind it, and the conversation began. Cold and calm at first, he soon warmed with the subject, and spoke with earnestness and freedom, at times with enthusiasm. Her majesty’s government, he assured me, were earnestly anxious to do justice to Ireland; he thought they had proved this by their past acts. If they remained in power they would convince all the world of their sincere desire to remove every legitimate grievance of which Ireland could complain. He appreciated the force of my suggestion that the reflex action of public opinion in America upon public opinion in Ireland was not to be despised. He questioned me closely upon the extent to which the American press was influenced by Irish thought; were there many Irish writers in the New York newspaper offices? who were they? what were their opinions? were the adverse criticisms upon the Irish policy of the imperial government inspired by them, or were these the spontaneous thoughts of American observers?

I began to think I was the interviewed and not the interviewer; but Mr. Fortescue was ready enough to answer questions in his turn. It was quite true, he said, that the land question and the question of higher education in Ireland bristled all over with difficulties. If the demands of the tenant-farmers in Ireland were granted, a precedent would be set up that might be attended with most inconvenient consequences in England; if Mr. Gladstone were to propose a measure for university education in Ireland that would be satisfactory to Cardinal Cullen, he would encounter a storm of opposition from the Irish and English Protestants, and from the even then rapidly-growing secularist party in England, that might overwhelm him. I remember the earnestness with which Mr. Fortescue refuted a chance suggestion of mine that Mr. Gladstone was at heart a foe to the Catholic Church. The very contrary was the case; he leaned, if anything, too much the other way. Archbishop Manning was his near and dear friend. He incurred the suspicion and the latent enmity of the ultra-Protestants, and especially of the Nonconformists, by his unconcealed anxiety to compensate the Irish Catholics for the wrongs they had suffered in the past, and to make the future equable and pleasant for them. In Mr. Fortescue’s belief, an American having it in his power to influence and enlighten American opinion, and especially Irish-American opinion, respecting the real wishes of the leaders of the Liberal party regarding Ireland, could not do a better work than to impress upon the minds of his countrymen the fact that England—at least the England of that day—was heartily and sincerely anxious to do justice to Ireland. The success of the then contemplated measures of the government would depend very much upon the spirit in which the Irish people received them.

Mr. Fortescue was evidently not thoroughly satisfied with the state of feeling in Ireland, and he made some remarks concerning the Irish press that it is not necessary to repeat. He returned again, however, to the subject of the influence that Americans, and Irish-Americans in particular, had upon Irish opinion; and his observations upon this point convinced me that the secret-service department of his bureau was not badly conducted. Towards the end of our conversation I mentioned that I had a letter of introduction to him from ——, and presented it, explaining why I had not done so in the first instance. We had a laugh over what he called my “un-American scrupulousness,” and we parted very good friends. Mr. Fortescue is the possessor of very enviable qualities. I was quite convinced of his sincerity; but I reflected that the fascination of his manner when he was aroused and anxious to make a point might easily blind the judgment. We met occasionally after this from time to time; and I last saw him at his residence at Strawberry Hill, where his wife, the Countess Frances Waldegrave (whose own history is a romance), is the centre of a circle of no small political and social importance. The future of which we had talked in our first interview had become the past: Mr. Gladstone had played his trump cards and had lost his game, Mr. Disraeli reigned in his stead, while Mr. Fortescue had become Lord Carlingford and was not unhappy. But Ireland was not happy yet; and I ventured to say so to his lordship. “What would you have?” he asked—“Catholic university education on Cardinal Cullen’s plan; a tenant-right law that would make the landlord the slave of the occupier; and Home Rule, under which the tragedy of the Kilkenny cats would be enacted all over Ireland until none were left to tell the tale, or tails. _Ce n’est pas possible, mon ami._”

The words “Home Rule” recall the memory of a very dear friend whose acquaintance I made in London, and who has now gone to rest. With sad but pleasant reminiscences I rummage through my letter-cases, filled with cherished epistles, until I come upon a packet tied with black tape and labelled “John Francis Maguire.” He was a splendid man, impulsive and quick, but with a sound judgment that held his emotions under sufficient control; full of lofty and poetic aspirations for his country’s future, but guided in his actions by the most sober and practical common sense. In the midst of arduous political and professional labors, all the more severe from the pressure of a constant struggle with inadequate pecuniary resources, from the demands of an exacting constituency, and from the burning passion of his soul for the happiness of Ireland, he found time for literary work that was at once a source of profit and of pleasure to him. Every one will remember his _Irish in America_ and his _Pontificate of Pius IX._; but it is with a pang that I remember the pages of manuscript that he read to me on my last visit to him. They were portions of a novel he was writing—and it was to be a Jesuitical novel. What Eugene Sue had done to vilify and traduce the Society of Jesus he would do to vindicate and exalt it. He described to me the plot; disputed with me over the proposed _dénouement_; laughed over the skill with which he had introduced well-known personages into the story; and asked me if, under the disguise of Sir Guichet de Nouvelle, I recognized that Don Quixote of Protestantism, Mr. Newdegate.

Mr. Maguire died before his novel was completed—at least, I never heard of its completion. When I first knew him he lived in pleasant apartments in Bessborough Gardens, and there it was I last parted from him. The presentation of my letter of introduction resulted in an invitation to dine with him the next day; and this was the first of a long series of little banquets that we had together, alternately at his apartments and in a cosey room on the third floor of the London Tavern, Fleet Street, where I played the host. Charming were these symposiums, generally held on Saturday nights, because the House was not then in session, and sometimes lasting far beyond midnight. I remember one of these occasions, on a lovely night in June, when, having sat together until two o’clock in the morning, I proposed that we should walk to Pimlico together, where I would leave him at his door. Our route took us through Temple Bar, up the Strand, down Parliament Street, past the Parliament houses and Westminster Abbey, and through St. James Park. The morning air was delicious. At this season of the year the night in London is very short; one can see to read without gaslight as late as nine o’clock, and the stars begin to pale as early as two o’clock in the morning. They were beginning to pale as we left the tavern and began our walk. The moon, hastening to hide itself before the sun arose, threw a soft light over the scene; all that was ugly and commonplace in the glare of day was hidden or disguised; all that was beautiful was arrayed in new and seductive splendor. The Strand was almost deserted; here and there a policeman paced his beat; here and there the form of some poor wretch glided out of the shade of an archway, lingered a moment, and disappeared. Trafalgar Square was glorious; the fountains made music for Marochetti’s lions at the base of Nelson’s pillar, and the little lion on the top of Northumberland House seemed to wag his tail as if beating time to the melody. Presently the grand vista of the Abbey and the Parliament houses opened before us; but scarcely had I glanced at it ere Mr. Maguire hurried me through a narrow passage to the left. “Come,” said he, “let us see where a king’s head fell.” I had seen it before—the little square in Whitehall where Charles I. was beheaded, and where the statue of James II. stands, the king pointing with his sceptre to the spot where the head of his father fell. In the daytime the place has a mean and squalid appearance, although the Crescent and gardens around it are handsome and trim enough. At this moment the surroundings of the place were bathed in a light that hid their deformities and enhanced their beauties, and the memories of the tragic scene enacted there had nothing to disturb them. The ghastly drama re-enacted itself before our mental vision. There was the window of Whitehall Palace in front of which the scaffold had been erected. From this window the king emerged; he stood on the scaffold, with his head erect, wishing to address the people; but the troops filled the place, and the populace were kept at a distance. “I can be heard only by you,” said the king to the soldiers; “I will therefore address to you a few words.” And he repeated to them a little speech which he had prepared. A curious discourse it was—grave and calm, “even to coldness,” as Guizot has it. He had been in the right, he said; every one else was in the wrong; the deprivation of the rights of the sovereign was the true cause of the unhappiness of the people; the people should have no voice in government; it was only on this condition that the kingdom could regain peace and liberty! While he was speaking some one touched the axe. “Do not dull the axe,” he exclaimed; “if it is dull it will hurt me.” The executioner directed him to gather up his long hair under a silk cap which he wore, and the Protestant Bishop Juxon assisted him to arrange it.

“I have,” said the king, “a good cause and a clement God.”

“Yes, sire,” replied Juxon. “There is only one more step before you; it is full of agony, but it is short, although it will transport you from earth to heaven.”

The king replied: “I pass from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown; there I shall fear no sorrow.” Then, after asking the executioner if the block was firmly fixed, and saying to Juxon the mysterious word “Remember!” he knelt down and extended his head upon the block. “I shall say a short prayer,” said he, “and when I extend my hands, then—” In a few moments the king stretched out his hands; the executioner struck, and the head fell directly over the spot where we were then standing.

“It was a wretched piece of work,” said Mr. Maguire as we walked away; “but the men who did it had the courage of their opinions. Who has the courage of his opinions now?”

“Mr. Gladstone, perhaps,” I suggested.

“Yes, no doubt; but what are his opinions? Those of to-day will be discarded to-morrow. He is all on our side now; there is nothing he would not do for us to-day; but to-morrow, if affairs go wrong, he will throw us over, and Ireland and the church may find in him their worst foe. The man wants a balance-wheel,” continued Maguire, warming with his theme as we walked on, “and only the grace of God can give it him. I think sometimes that he will have it yet. I admire him, I esteem him. If he were only a Catholic he would have a guide that would keep him from mischief. There,” said he, as we came to the end of Whitehall—“there is Westminster Hall, where Charles I. received his sentence; and there is Westminster Abbey, where his body was carried in the face of a blinding snow-storm and buried with maimed rites. There, too, is the door through which they carried the body of his murderer, Cromwell, to bury it among the kings. But the ashes of the kings are yet there, while Cromwell’s grave was broken open, his body dragged out and hung upon a gallows in Tyburn. He deserved it, the brute! Do you know the story of how, after his post-mortem execution, his head was cut off and stuck upon a spike on the top of Westminster Hall, just there in front of us, and how it remained there, blackening and withering in the air, until one stormy night it was blown down and picked up by the sentry on guard, who was an old Cromwellian himself? He hid the precious relic under his jacket, and afterwards sold it to a gentleman in Kent, in whose family the skull still remains.”

Had Mr. Maguire lived a few years longer it is probable that the Home-Rule movement would have taken a somewhat different shape, and possibly might have been brought to a successful realization. When I first met him he was engrossed in developing and shaping his ideas on the subject; and I spent a whole night with him in explaining, in all its minutiæ, our own system of duplex government, State and federal, and showing how State rights and federal sovereignty were both preserved. He was the real father of the Home-Rule movement, and to his untimely death must be ascribed, in a great measure, the present apparent collapse of the party. No member of the House of Commons was more generally respected and esteemed than he; Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli alike regarded him with admiration. Uncompromising in principle, he knew how to be firm without being offensive; and he did not commit the too common error of insisting upon impossibilities. Even Mr. Newdegate cherished a sneaking liking for the man; and Mr. Maguire once happened to let me into the secret of that strange affection. “I can turn the laugh on him any day,” said he, “and if it comes to serious work he gets the worst of it; but often it is best to let him have his fling. Occasionally I give him a lift over a stile, knowing quite well that if he goes on a little farther he will tumble into the ditch and scramble out all covered with mud.”

Respecting Home Rule, Mr. Maguire’s favorite idea was a confederation of the three kingdoms, England, Ireland, and Scotland, upon such a basis as that of our Union, with a written constitution defining with exactness the limits of provincial autonomy and of imperial sovereignty. It was to perfect this plan that he made me expound to him, in the most minute detail, the workings of our own duplex system of government; and among his papers should have been found an elaborate scheme for the British Confederation, the joint result of our deliberations. I was summoned to these momentous conferences by such notes as these—and I select with a sad heart the last I received from him, a few months before his death:

“I shall be at home this evening altogether, and would be glad to see you, and we could spend an hour or two over wine or whiskey-punch. Or I shall be at home to-morrow after seven o’clock. Send me a line quick to say when you will come.”

“Wine” and “whiskey-punch” had an esoteric meaning as well as their ordinary significance; for “wine” meant mere gossip, while “whiskey-punch” was understood to be the accompaniment of very serious political discussions.

THE CREATED WISDOM.[163] BY AUBREY DE VERE. III.

My flowers are flowers of gladness: mine The boughs of honor and of grace: Pure as the first bud of the vine My fragrance freshens all the place.

The mother of fair Love am I: With me is Wisdom’s name and praise: With me are Hope, and Knowledge high, And sacred Fear, and peaceful days.

Be strong all ye that love your God: He maketh Wisdom to abound Like Tigris swollen with vernal flood, Like broad Euphrates harvest-crowned.

Through garden-plots my course I took To bathe the beds of herb and tree: Then to a river swelled my brook:— Ere long my river was a sea.

More high that sea shall rise, and shine Far off, a prophet-beam of morn, Because my doctrine is not mine, But light of God for seers unborn.

Footnote 163:

Ecclesiasticus xxiv.

LOPE DE VEGA.

A prolific playwright, a popular poet, a voluminous romance writer, an author whose fecundity is equalled only by the elder Dumas, the contemporary of Shakspere, the friend of Cervantes, the intimate and guide of Calderon, the founder of the Spanish national drama—Lope de Vega was all these, and yet today he is carefully forgotten. His biography even remains unwritten. The attempt, it is true, has been made, with more or less success, in England by Lord Holland, in America by Mr. Ticknor, and in France by M. Damas-Hinard. None is fully satisfactory; all three are too prejudiced, the first two against him, the last in his favor. Mr. Ticknor’s is the fairest and the ablest. But the space in a history of literature which can be assigned to any one author is necessarily too limited to permit the introduction of a full-length portrait; with a slight sketch, or a kit-cat at best, we must content ourselves. The articles in the various encyclopædias and biographical dictionaries are either scant or in great part taken from Lord Holland’s book. Much biographical material exists, scattered here and there, and needing only judicious gleaning. But a few months after his death _La Fama Postuma_, a eulogy containing many curious details of his manner of life, was published by his friend and follower, Montalvan, whom Valdivielso calls the “first-born of Lope de Vega’s genius.” The allusions to him in the works of his contemporaries are copious; but his bare biography can be condensed into a few lines.

Lope Felix de Vega Carpio was born at Madrid, November 25, 1562. He was a precocious child, reading Latin as well as Spanish at the age of five, and at eleven he wrote his first plays. Left alone in the world at the age of fourteen by the death of his father, also a poet, he travelled as far as Segovia with a school-fellow. Their money gave out, and when they attempted to sell a gold chain to pay their way back they were arrested. The _corregidor_ before whom they were brought, seeing that they were but school-boys, kindly sent them back to Madrid in care of an _alguacil_. At fifteen Lope was a soldier warring in Portugal and Africa. At sixteen he was the page and secretary of Geronimo Manrique, Bishop of Avila, and also studied and took the degree of Bachelor at the University of Alcala. While in the bishop’s house he wrote a few eclogues and a pastoral comedy. Then he became the secretary of Antonio, the grandson of the great Duke of Alva; his _Arcadia_, written then, is more or less an account of the gallant adventures of his patron. Returning to the bishop, he was about to become a priest when he fell in love, and in 1584 he married Doña Isabella d’Urbina. Quarrelling with a _hidalgo_ of little reputation, he was arrested, by the aid of Claudio Conde released from prison, and exiled; he lived two years in Valencia, and there he first regularly wrote for the stage. Shortly after his return to Madrid his wife died, and in conjugal despair he embarked on the famous Armada, finding time to write a poem, “The Beauty of Angelica,” a continuation of the _Orlando Furioso_, before the dispersion and destruction of the great fleet by Drake. After travelling in Italy he returned to Spain and became the secretary of the Marquis of Sarria. In 1597 he married Doña Juana de Guardio. For nearly ten years Lope de Vega seems to have been quietly happy, devoting himself to the care of his son Carlos, but in 1607 or 1608 both his wife and his son died, leaving him an infant daughter. During these years he had been writing steadily for the stage; in 1609 he delivered his _Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias_, and in the same year he became a priest. He was also a Familiar of the Inquisition—an honorary distinction, attesting the purity of his Catholic blood, and conferring the privilege of being called into the service of the institution. In 1625, according to Mr. Ticknor, “he entered the congregation of the native priesthood of Madrid, and was so faithful and exact in the performance of his duties that in 1628 he was elected to be its chief chaplain.” After working for the theatre for forty years, in 1630 he definitely renounced dramatic authorship. In 1628 the pope, Urban VIII., wrote him an autograph letter, conferring upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity and naming him a Knight of the Order of Malta. For more than twenty-five years he daily devoted some portion of his time to the service of the church; on the title-page of his plays he calls himself Frey Lope de Vega, Familiar of the Inquisition, and the last important work he published was _Dorotea_, a long prose romance in dialogue, probably slightly autobiographical. Finally, on August 27, 1635, at the age of seventy-three, Lope Felix de Vega Carpio died. The funeral ceremonies, lasting nine days, were magnificent; the eulogistic poems published in Spain and Italy would fill several volumes; and “most solemn of all,” says Mr. Ticknor, generally disposed to underrate Lope de Vega’s popularity and ability, “was the mourning of the multitude, from whose dense mass audible sobs burst forth as his remains slowly descended from their sight into the house appointed for all living.”

For forty years the works of Lope de Vega had filled the theatres not only of Spain but of all Europe. There were but two dramatic companies in Madrid when he began to write; there were forty when he ceased. He composed over fifteen hundred dramas and an unknown number of lighter pieces, in addition to his non-theatrical works. He was as popular as he was prolific. Not only in Europe but in America were his plays performed. One of his comedies, the _Fuerza Lastimosa_, was even exhibited within the seraglio at Constantinople. His merit was so universally recognized that to call anything a _Lope_ was to stamp it as being sterling; it was sufficient to say _es de Lope_. When the king and queen of Spain met him in the street they caused their carriage to stop, that they might better see the illustrious man. The Spanish dramatists of his own and the succeeding age did not hesitate to call him their master. Tirso de Molina, Alarcon, Calderon, and Guillen de Castro hail him as their chief. And he was as popular a man as he was an author; he was personally beloved by nearly all his contemporaries; he had few enemies and many friends. A gentleman by birth, breeding, and education, he had a kind word for all. He was handsome and agile. He wittily declared that he disliked only those who ask a person’s age without matrimonial intentions, those who take snuff in the presence of their superiors, those old men who dye their locks, those churchmen who consult gypsies, and those men who, though born of woman, yet speak ill of the sex.

Although it is as a playwright that he is best known, yet he was the author of many other works. He wrote two heroic, four mythological, four historical poems (among which was _La Dragontea_, devoted to the abuse of Sir Francis Drake), one burlesque (_La Gatomachia_, describing the loves and rivalries of two cats), many descriptive and didactic verses, and a multitude of sonnets and epistles. He was also the author of eight almost interminable prose novels. His plays, however, are the noblest monument of his genius, although he himself thought otherwise. He declared that his _autos_ (a sort of revival of the mysteries and moralities of the middle ages) were his best works, and regretted that he had not devoted his whole life to religious poetry.

His dramas (the Spanish word _comedias_ meaning merely plays) may be roughly divided into three classes:

1. Comedies of common life, or domestic dramas;

2. Heroic dramas, which perhaps might sometimes be called tragedies; and

3. Comedies of intrigue, or _comedias de capa y espada_ (comedies of Cloak and Sword, as the Spanish call them, from those frequently-used “properties”).

He also wrote religious plays, some, like the _autos_, resembling the mysteries and moralities, others more infused with a modern and secular spirit. He often chose Scriptural subjects for his plays, and in some of his heroic dramas the heroes are holy men and saints. But it is especially in the _comedias de capa y espada_ that he excelled. They were interesting stories thrown into dramatic shape and written with the view of exciting surprise and curiosity. Only those ignorant of the Spanish habits and the Spanish customs of that day will reproach him for his frequent use of duels and disguises. He faithfully transcribed the romantic existence of the time. A rigid examiner may declare that his most successful pieces were comedies of intrigue rather than comedies of manners. They please by their plot, always ingenious and almost always original; by their interest, always sustained and exciting. Lope de Vega was a thorough master of stage effect. He weaves and reweaves the web and woof of his story, gaining and retaining the attention of the spectator by the growing interest. We are carried rapidly along by the skill of the dramatist, sometimes in spite of ourselves. Even in the best of his plays the incidents are often improbable, but in our enjoyment we can readily pardon this. When Shakspere has called Bohemia a desert country by the sea, and Beaumont and Fletcher speak of Naples as though it were an island, it would indeed be strange if Lope were exempt from such errors. In one play we find Adam and Eve “dressed very gallantly after the French fashion”; in another Nero sings a serenade in the streets of Rome. The American Indians discourse of Diana and Phœbus; Cyrus the Great, after his ascension to the throne, marries a shepherdess; Job, David, Jeremias, and St. John the Baptist are introduced in one play; and in “The New World Discovered by Christopher Columbus,” among the _dramatis personæ_ are Providence, Imagination, The Christian Religion, Idolatry, and a Demon. Haste is hardly an excuse for this, and De Vega worked in haste. The elder Dumas wrote a novel in seventy-six consecutive hours. For fifteen days De Vega wrote an act a day, and more than one hundred of his plays were written within twenty-four hours each. At least this seems to be the meaning of

“Pues mas de ciento en horas veinticuatro Pasaron de las musas al teatro.”

Mr. Ticknor, however, reads these lines to mean that more than a hundred were performed within twenty-four hours after their completion. Perhaps this interpretation is accurate, but to any one acquainted with the difficulties attending the mounting and rehearsing of a modern comedy it seems, to say the least, improbable; and, at any rate, De Vega’s facility of composition was so great that many writers rashly assert that he could compose a play in three or four hours! Montalvan tells a pleasant anecdote illustrating the rapidity of his work. To oblige a manager Lope and Montalvan agreed to write a piece together. The first two acts of the _Tercera Orden de San Francisco_ were divided between them, each writing an act a day. The third act was to be halved into eight leaves each. Montalvan continues, to quote Lord Holland’s version: “As it was bad weather, I remained in his house that night, and, knowing that I could not equal him in the execution, I had a fancy to beat him in the despatch of the business. For this purpose I got up at two o’clock, and at eleven had completed my share of the work. I immediately went out to look for him, and found him very deeply occupied with an orange-tree that had been frost-bitten in the night. Upon my asking him how he had gone on with his task he answered: ‘I set about it at five, but I finished the act an hour ago, took a bit of ham for breakfast, wrote an epistle of fifty triplets, and have watered the whole of the garden—which has not a little fatigued me.’ Then, taking out the papers, he read me the eight leaves and the triplets—a circumstance that would have astonished me had I not known the fertility of his genius and the dominion he had over the rhymes of our language.” At this period Lope was nearly seventy years old, or such a trifle would scarcely have tired him.

Schlegel draws a brilliant comparison between Lope de Vega and Shakspere, or rather between the Spanish and the English stage. Any such method of measurement injures the Spaniard; it is only in the management of his plots that he is able to rival the Englishman. It is curious, however, to note that each great writer was surrounded by minor lights—set, as it were, with glittering but inferior gems. Shakspere shone in the midst of a glorious company containing Jonson, Ford, Fletcher, Beaumont, Greene, Nash, Marlowe, Massinger, and Webster. Lope de Vega, following Lope de Rueda, was surrounded by a brilliant throng of friendly rivals—Cervantes, Calderon, Montalvan, Moreto, Alarcon, Matos-Fragoso, and Guillen de Castro. It is also remarkable to find that England and Spain, then the possessors of a great drama, are now barren fields; while France, once but the empty echo of the classic muse, is to-day the chief country in possession of a living dramatic literature. For this literature France owes largely to England and Spain; French tragedy and French comedy are directly indebted to Lope’s influence. From a play of Guillen de Castro, one of Lope’s followers, Corneille derived his _Cid_, the greatest French tragedy; and from a play of Alarcon, another of Lope’s followers (and the first of American dramatic authors, for by birth and education he was a Mexican), Corneille took his _Menteur_, the earliest of French comedies. In a letter to Boileau Molière said: “I owe much to the _Menteur_. At the time it appeared I desired to write, but I was uncertain as to what I should write. My ideas were confused; this work came and defined them. Without the _Menteur_, no doubt, I should have written some such comedies of intrigue as the _Etourdi_ and the _Dépit Amoureux_, but perhaps I should never have written the _Misanthrope_.”

The _dramatis personæ_ of Lope’s plays are not character studies, finely and fully polished, like those of Molière; they are rather off-hand sketches, fresh and original. Although they often disclose haste, they always show the firm though rapid touch of a master; and however wanting in completeness of detail, they never lack boldness of outline. The people who walk and talk in Lope de Vega’s comedies are living men and women, speaking and acting like human beings, and true to human nature as it was in Spain in those adventurous times; they were not lay figures, mere puppets, pulled hither and thither by visible wires. He rarely created an eccentric character, never an impossible one.

He did not allow himself Molière’s privilege of taking his material wherever he found it. Only once is it known that he used the work of another: his _Esclavos in Argel_ is based on Cervantes’ _Trato de Argel_. He was an originator—copied, not copying; and if at times his characters seem to lack novelty, it is perhaps in part because we live in the nineteenth century and he wrote in the sixteenth. For two centuries and a half the playwrights of the world have been pillaging him until his people and his plots have become public property. Calderon copied him; Molière and Corneille carried Calderon to France; the English stole from all three; so it is small wonder that what Lope de Vega transcribed from nature is now typical and traditional. He was first in the field; others have stolen his pressed flowers.

A full exposition of De Vega’s ideas of dramatic art can best be found in his own essay on the subject, the _Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias_. It would seem from this essay that in Lope’s time Spain was slowly freeing herself from the fetters of the unities, first riveted by Aristotle. England had set the example; Spain was fast following. In these two countries the fierce fight was then fought that two centuries and a half later was to agitate France. Spain then had her battle between the Romantics and the Classics, and Lope de Vega, while ironically deferential to the ancient laws, fought foremost on the side of freedom. As in France Victor Hugo in 1830, so in Spain Lope de Vega in 1600. Both were leaders; both have written essays on dramatic art. It is curious to compare the Spanish writer’s _Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias_ with the French author’s elaborate and scientific discussion of dramatic effect contained in the celebrated preface to his never-acted _Cromwell_.

The _Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias_ was written in 1609 at the request of one of those numerous academies then existing in Spain, and founded in imitation of the Italian Della Cruscans. It contains internal evidence of haste in its construction; although he knew better, Lope carelessly mistakes Terence for Plautus. Capable of composing a comedy in a day, he may easily have dashed off this little essay in a very few hours. It is written in blank verse, only the last two lines of each stanza rhyming. The stanzas, also, are of unequal length. Although the essay seems almost an improvisation, it is extremely interesting not only to the student of his plays but also to the casual reader, as it gives a view of the state of the Spanish stage at the time not elsewhere to be found. The following unabridged English rendering of the essay has been made from the excellent French version of M. Damas-Hinard:

“ARTE NUEVO DE HACER COMEDIAS.

(_The New Art of Writing Plays._)

“Noble minds, flower of Spain, who, in this illustrious academy, will soon have surpassed not only those academies of Italy which Cicero, emulating Greece, established in the land where sleep the waters of Avernus, but even that school of Plato in which Athens saw so rare an assembly of philosophers come together, you order me to write you an essay on dramatic art in accordance with the public taste to-day. This task seems easy, and, indeed, it would be to him among you who has worked the least for the stage, and who therefore better knows the rules; but it must be done by me, who have never composed except contrary to the rules of the art. It is not, thank Heaven! that I do not know them: these theories were familiar to me when I was yet a school-boy, and when the sun had not ten times passed from Taurus to Pisces; but at the time when I chose this career I found the stage filled with works very different from those which the first inventors of the art left as models, and such, indeed, as were composed by the barbarians, who had accustomed the vulgar to their crudities. And they have so thoroughly established themselves in this fashion that he who would now write for the theatre according to the precepts of the art dies without glory and without reward; for among those who lack the enlightenment of a superior mind custom always carries the day.

“Several times, it is true, I have written following these principles, which but few people know; but as soon as I see these monstrous compositions appear, full of magical apparitions, to which rush the crowds and the women, always worshipping such absurdities, then I return to my barbarian habits. And when I have a comedy to write I lock up the rules behind triple bolts; I cast Plautus and Terence out of my study for fear of hearing their cries, for truth calls aloud in these dumb books; and I then write according to the art invented by those who wished to gain the applause of the crowd. After all, as it is the public who pays for these absurdities, ’tis but just that it be served to its taste.

“True comedy has one aim, as has every kind of poem, and this aim is to imitate the action of men and to paint the manners of the age in which they lived. Now, every poetical imitation is composed of three things: dialogue, versification, harmony or melody. Comedy and tragedy agree in this; but they differ, inasmuch as the former represents the action of the lower orders, and the latter only concerns itself with kings and high personages. Judge from that how much may be said against our comedies.

“At first our pieces were called _autos_, because they confined themselves to the imitation of common actions and interests. Among us Lope de Rueda was the model of this style; his comedies, which have been printed, are in prose, and of an order so low that he has introduced artisans and traces the loves of a blacksmith’s daughter. To-day we call them _interludes_, these antique works in which the rules of art are carefully observed, in which the action is simple and takes place among the middle classes—for an interlude was never seen in which kings figured. And this explains how plays little by little fell into deep discredit because of the lowness of style, and how they put kings and princes into comedy, to the great satisfaction of the ignorant.

“In the beginning of his _Ars Poetica_ Aristotle relates, in a manner quite obscure, it is true, the debate which took place between Athens and Megara touching the originator of the theatre—the Megarians attributing this glory to Epicharmus, while the Athenians claimed it for Magnes. Donat traces back the first attempts to the ancient sacrifices, and, in this respect following Horace, he attributes the origin of tragedy to Thespis, and that of comedy to Aristophanes. The _Odyssey_ of Homer is the result of a comic inspiration, but the _Iliad_ was the noble model of tragedy. It is in imitation of this poem that is composed my _Jerusalem_, which I have called a tragic epic. They commonly call by the name of comedy the _Inferno_, _Purgatorio_, and _Paradiso_ of the celebrated poet Dante Alighieri, and Manetti gives the reasons for this in the preface to that poem.

“All the world knows that comedy, falling into disrepute, was condemned to silence for a time; that after that came the _satyres_, which, being still more cruel, passed away more promptly; and that then the new comedy was born.

“In the beginning dramatic works consisted but of choruses. Soon there was added a certain number of characters. But Menander, followed in this by Terence, rejected the choruses as tedious. This latter was a most scrupulous observer of the precepts; never did he raise the style of comedy to a tragic loftiness, wiser in that respect than Plautus, whom they have so much reproached for this fault.

“Tragedy is founded on fact, comedy on fiction, and the latter was called ‘flat-footed’ because it was played without _cothurnus_ or scenery, and because it took its plots from the humblest classes. Yet then, as now, there were several kinds of comedy: there were _pallium_ comedies and _toga_ comedies, and pantomimes, and _fabulæ atellanæ_ and _tabernariæ_.

“The Athenians, who gave prizes to their dramatic poets and to their actors, in their comedies rebuked wickedness and vice with antique elegance. This is why Cicero called comedy the mirror of manners, the image of truth—sublime attribute which raises Thalia to the rank of history, and which shows us how much she merits esteem and honor.

“But already it seems to me that you draw back, saying: ‘What use is this translating of books and this fatiguing show of erudition?’ Believe me, it is not without motive that I recalled to your memory all these things; I wished to let you see that you have asked me for an essay on dramatic art in Spain, where all plays are written contrary to art, and I wished to declare that our pieces are not according to right or the ancient rules. But let us leave this; you have recourse to my experience, and not to what I may have been able to learn of an art which tells us the truth, but to which the vulgar prefer the false.

“If, then, you asked me for the rules of the art, I should refer you to the wise and learned Rebortelo, and you would see explained in his book on Aristotle or on comedy what otherwise is scattered in a crowd of works without order and without light. But since you ask the opinion of those now in possession of the stage, acknowledging that the public has the right to establish the incongruous laws of our dramatic prodigy, I will tell you my idea, and your command must excuse my temerity. I should like, since the public is in error, to deck this error with agreeable colors; I should like, since it is no longer possible to follow the ancient rules, to find a mean between the two extremes.

“First choose the subject of your comedy, and, in spite of the old precepts, do not disquiet yourself whether there be or be not kings among your characters. I ought not to conceal, however, that our king and lord, Philip the Prudent, was angry every time he beheld a king on the stage, either because he saw in that a violation of the rules of the art, or because he thought that even in fiction the royal authority should not be presented too near the gaze of the people.

“Besides, in this we draw near to the ancient comedy, in which Plautus did not fear to place even gods, as the part he gives Jupiter in the _Amphitryon_ proves. Heaven knows it is difficult for me to approve of this. Even Plutarch, in speaking of Menander, formally blames ancient comedy; but since we in Spain have renounced the rules of the art and treat it cavalierly, this time the classicists are silenced.

“In mingling the tragic and the comic, and Terence with Seneca (from which results a species of monster like the Minotaur), you will have one part of the piece serious and the other farcical. But this variety pleases very much. Nature herself gives us the example of it, and it is from such contrasts that she gains her beauty.

“Take care only that your subject presents but one action; take care that your story is not overcharged with episodes (that is to say, with things which lead away from the main idea), and that no part can be detached without overthrowing the whole edifice. Do not trouble yourself about confining all the action within the space of one day, although it is the rule of Aristotle; we have already rejected his authority in mingling tragedy and comedy. Let us content ourselves with reducing the time as much as may be possible, unless the poet composes a story the action of which extends over several years, and in this case he could place the intervals of time in the ‘waits’—as, for instance, if one of his characters has a journey to take. These liberties, I know, disgust the critics. Well, the critics may stay away from our pieces.

“How many of these fellows cross themselves in horror, seeing several years given to an action which ought to be accomplished in the space of an artificial day—for they would not even accord us the twenty-four hours! For my part, considering that the eager curiosity of a Spaniard seated at the play cannot be satisfied even by showing him all the events from Genesis to the day of the Last Judgment in two hours, I think that, if our duty is to please the spectators, it is right that we should do all that is necessary to gain this end.

“The subject once chosen, write your piece in prose, and divide it into three acts, doing your best that each act, if it is possible, embrace but the space of one day. Captain Viruès, an illustrious writer, first put comedy in three acts, which before had gone on all fours like a child; and truly it was then in its infancy. I myself, at the age of from eleven to twelve years, wrote in four acts and four sheets, for each act was contained in a sheet of paper. In those days they played three little interludes in the intervals of the acts, and now it is much if they play even one, which is immediately followed by a dance. Dancing, however, fits so well into comedy that Aristotle approves of it, and Atheneus, Plato, and Xenophon do not blame it, except when it is not decent,[164] like that of Callipedes. The dance seems to me to replace amongst us the chorus of the ancients.

“The subject being treated in two ways, let them from the start be joined and well connected together until the end of the piece, so that one can divine the _dénouement_ but at the last scene; for when the spectators know it they turn their faces to the door and their backs to the actors, to whom they have listened for three hours with interest, and of whom they think no more when they no longer need them to know what will be the result.

“Let the stage rarely remain empty. These delays make the spectator impatient and uselessly prolong the play; and besides being a great fault, to avoid it is to add art and grace to the work.

“Then begin to versify, and in your language, always choice, use neither brilliant thoughts nor witty remarks when you treat of domestic affairs; it suffices in such a case to imitate the conversation of two or three persons. But when you bring upon the stage a character who exhorts, counsels, or dissuades, you can allow yourself the use of fine language and striking ideas, and in this you will imitate nature; for when we give advice, when we wish to encourage or deter, we speak in a manner totally different from familiar chat. In this regard we follow the opinion of the rhetorician Aristides, who desires that the language of comedy should be clear, pure, and easy, like that of ordinary conversation, adding also that it should differ essentially from the tragic style, where we may use expressions pompous, sonorous, and glittering.

“Never quote Scripture, and take care never to offend taste by an affected erudition; to imitate the language of conversation you need name neither hippogriffs nor centaurs, nor the other mythological entities.

“If you make a king discourse, let it be with the dignity proper to the royal majesty; let the old man express himself with sententious gravity; let the conversation of lovers be replete with such lively sentiments as to move those who hear. In monologues let the character be totally changed; by this transformation let him force the spectators to identify themselves with him; let him speak and reply to himself in a natural manner; and if he bemoans a lover’s lot, let him not forget the respect due to the fair sex. Under all circumstances let the ladies preserve the modesty they ought to have; and if they don male attire (which is always very agreeable to the public), let this change of costume have a reasonable motive. In short, never paint impossible things, for the first maxim is that art can only imitate the possible.

“Let not a servant treat too lofty subjects, and take care not to put into his mouth those witty sayings which we have seen in some foreign comedies.

“Let your characters never forget their nature; let them remember at the end what they have said at first, lest we make the same reproach to them as was made to the _Œdipus_ of Sophocles—that he had forgotten his fight with Laïus.

“Adorn the end of your scenes with some swelling phrase, with some joke, with lines more carefully polished, so that the actor at his exit does not leave the audience in ill-humor.

“In the first act lay the foundation; in the second let the complications commence, and contrive in such a way that until half through the third act no one can foresee the end. Always deceive the curiosity of the spectator by showing him, as though possible, a result entirely different from that to which the incidents seem to point.

“Let the versification be tastefully appropriate to the subject you treat. Decasyllabic lines suit lamentations; the sonnet is well placed in a monologue; descriptions demand the romantic stanza, although they are as brilliant as possible in octosyllabic metre. Triple-rhymed lines are reserved for grave affairs, and the _redondillas_[165] for lovers’ conversations.”

The sound sense of this little essay shows how thoroughly De Vega understood his subject. Writing to please the populace, not the learned and possibly hyper-critical, he had studied the playgoer and knew all his peculiarities—how to please him and how to take liberties with impunity. His comedies of Cloak and Sword are the least careless and the most admirable of his plays, and they were the most successful. The involved and complicated plots, the duels and disguises, the hurry and the vigor of this class of plays are seen to best advantage in Lope de Vega’s works. He had founded the school, and the bent of his genius fitted him to be its master. His works and those of his scholars went at once to all parts of Europe. In England Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Centlivre, Farquhar, Congreve, Wycherly, Holcroft, were his followers, copyists, plagiarists. Not only did others pillage him, but, like almost all prolific authors, he plagiarized from himself. Over thirty or forty times has he treated one subject: a lady and a knight forced to leave the court in disguise because of the persecutions of the king, and taking refuge in a village, where, after many mishaps and adventures, they are finally married. Of course in each of these twoscore plays the situations vary, but the central idea is the same in all. To an author of such facility the great difficulty was in the discovery of a subject. That was all he needed; its dramatic dressing was an easy task. Hardly one of the picturesque points of Spanish history did he neglect. His lighter plays were often historical. Generally they were not. His _Perro del Hortelano_ (“Dog in the Manger”) is, for instance, an original invention. It contains a delightful sketch of a woman absorbed by jealousy, and yet unable to make up her mind to marry the loved one because of his inferior birth. Both lovers are drawn with delicious vigor—a vigor suggesting, perhaps remotely, Thackeray. This charming comedy shows of what things Lope was capable in this line had he so willed. It is somewhat in the style of Scribe at his best. Indeed, in many respects he was the precursor of Scribe, who greatly resembled him in fecundity, facility, and felicity of execution. More than one of his plays, if modernized, might pass for the work of the brilliant French dramatist.

But the best of Lope’s work is many degrees above the best of Scribe’s. In ingenuity and in originality, and in the conduct of the business of the stage, the Spaniard is at least the equal of the Frenchman, while in the depicting of passion he is by far the superior. Scribe was incapable of anything at all approaching the sombre and inevitable conclusion of the _Star of Seville_, appalling with the inexorable logic of fate. Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble has produced a spirited English play suggested by it, of which Lord Holland has given a long analysis with translated extracts. As he justly remarks, no mere relation of the plots of Lope’s plays would give a sufficient idea of the attractions they possess, “nor can they be collected from a mere perusal of detached passages. The chief merit of his plays is a certain spirit and animation which pervades the whole, but which is not to be preserved in disjointed limbs of the composition.”

It is easy to find the reason for Lope de Vega’s theatrical activity. He was poor, and play-writing was profitable. He says somewhere that poverty and himself formed a copartnership to work for the stage. At the close of the sixteenth century Spain was divided into several almost independent provinces, and there was no interprovincial copyright; the bookseller of Castile could reprint and sell for his own profit the successful work first published in Leon. An author in those days could not even get pay for advance-sheets. Under these circumstances publishers naturally paid authors little or nothing. Literature was a labor of love. The dramatic taste, however, of the Spanish people was increasing. The two companies of actors gradually grew to forty, and the forty audiences asked for novelty. The managers endeavoring to satisfy this demand, the consumption of comedies was something enormous. There was a uniform price fixed in advance: a comedy was worth five hundred reals, equivalent to about forty or fifty dollars of our money. The reward was not great, but the labor was light—at least to Lope. Dramatic work paid; other literature did not. Lope would have been certainly justified in devoting himself exclusively to the drama. He might labor in other fields; on the stage he ruled. What is done quickly may die quickly, and few of Lope’s plays hold the stage to-day even in Spain. But if his plays are not seen, his influence is visible in the drama of France, of England, of Germany, and of Spain, his own country, of the literature of which he and Calderon and Cervantes are the greatest glories. Calderon was his follower and Cervantes was his friend. Although it has been said they were at enmity, it is known that Lope de Vega praised Cervantes, and the author of _Don Quixote_ generously eulogized his more successful rival thus: “At last appeared that prodigy of nature, the great Lope de Vega, and established his monarchy on the stage. He conquered and reduced under his jurisdiction every actor and author in the kingdom.... And though there have been many who have attempted the same career, all their works together would not equal in quantity what this single man has composed.”

And Cervantes wrote these lines almost twenty years before Lope de Vega’s death, almost twenty years before he had ceased composing. It is with the following brilliant paragraph that Mr. Ticknor, always strongly prejudiced in favor of Cervantes, begins his historical criticism of Lope’s life and labor, and with it we end: “It is impossible to speak of Cervantes as the great genius of the Spanish nation without recalling Lope de Vega, the rival who far surpassed him in contemporary popularity, and rose, during the lifetime of both, to a degree of fame which no Spaniard had yet attained, and which has since been reached by few of any country.”

Footnote 164:

It was recently said that there were three kinds of dancing: the graceful, the ungraceful, and the disgraceful.

Footnote 165:

_Redondillas_ are stanzas of four short lines. This paragraph on versification reads curiously to ears accustomed to the pentameter blank verse of the English drama, stately at times and sprightly when need be, and, indeed, capable of infinite variety. The Spanish plays of to-day are written in very short metre, and French tragedies still rhyme.

ENGLISH TORIES AND CATHOLIC EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

The motives which impel men to their best actions are not always, perhaps they are not generally, the best possible motives. It is not improbable that more men are driven to the tribunal of penance by attrition than are led thither by contrition. If this be true of men in their individual and private affairs, it is still more strikingly true of politicians and statesmen in their public acts. He would indeed be fanciful and credulous who should imagine that Mr. Gladstone, in framing, advocating, and insisting upon the passage of his bill for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland, was inspired by a pure love of abstract justice and right, and a disinterested desire to relieve the Irish people from a flagrantly unjust burden and a crying wrong. He saw as clearly as any one that this wrong existed, but he perceived also that by removing it he would win popular support for himself and his party. It is tolerably safe to say that had Mr. Gladstone imagined that the passage of the bill for the disestablishment of the church would have resulted in the expulsion of himself and his party from power, he would not have urged the measure. In this case there were two motives: one positively and abstractly good, the other good in the estimation of those who believed that the continuance of power in the hands of the Liberal party was desirable. The latter incentive was the ruling one. Mr. Gladstone, we believe, would not have advocated a measure which he knew to be bad, although this advocacy might have secured him an extension of power. Nor would he have insisted upon the adoption of a measure which he knew to be good had he known that this insistence would deprive him of power. But he saw that while the disestablishment and disendowment of the alien church in Ireland would be an act of justice in itself, it would also be a good political stroke, tending to strengthen his own position and to give a longer lease of power to his party.

One need not trouble himself to assign higher motives than these to the Tory government, which, to the surprise and delight of the Catholics in Ireland, has brought forward a really fair scheme for intermediate education in Ireland, and seems honestly disposed to carry it at the present session of Parliament. Just as we write the bill has passed the House of Lords, and is about to be brought up for final passage in the Commons. The queen’s speech at the opening of Parliament contained a promise that a bill for the promotion of intermediate education in Ireland should be introduced; but it was not until events made probable the speedy dissolution of Parliament and a general election that this promise was redeemed. It is not uncharitable to suppose that the government felt it necessary to have something to offer to Ireland in the event of an appeal to the constituencies under circumstances that would make every vote important. The bill passed its second reading in the House of Lords on the 28th of June—a moment when it was still possible that England might soon find herself embroiled in a foreign war, and when it was given out in governmental circles that Parliament was to be dissolved and a general election ordered. The third reading and final passage of the bill in the Lords took place some two weeks afterwards. Meanwhile the position of affairs had somewhat altered: the conclusion of the labors of the Congress of Berlin and the disclosure of the Treaty of Constantinople had greatly strengthened the hands of the government; the Opposition gave evidence of demoralization and discord in its own ranks, and toward the close of July the inspired journals announced that Parliament would not be dissolved this year, inasmuch as the general approval of the course of the government was too plain to be misunderstood or denied. The Irish Education Bill came up for its second reading in the House of Commons under these circumstances, and its friends fancied that they discovered a little less earnestness on the part of the government in pushing it forward than was displayed under the more critical circumstances in the House of Lords. Still, the probabilities are that the bill will pass and receive the royal assent before the close of the present session; and if this be so, the Tory government of Earl Beaconsfield will go down to posterity as the first administration which has had the courage, the wisdom, and the good-will to award to Ireland anything like justice in the matter of education.

The bill provides for a system of payments by results, and practically is identical with the system which Mr. Isaac Butt laid before the writer during a conversation in London four years ago. We are unaware whether the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cairns—who is, like Mr. Butt, a Protestant, an Irishman, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin—has availed himself of Mr. Butt’s ideas in the preparation of the measure; but this is not at all improbable. Mr. Butt has expressed his cordial approval of the measure. To what extent the Tory government may have been able to inspire such organs of public opinion as the _Saturday Review_, and such writers as Matthew Arnold in the _Fortnightly_, we cannot say; but the fact is that for the first time in its existence the _Saturday Review_ has recognized and defended the right of Irish Catholics to be educated in the way that they considered proper, and that Mr. Arnold seems suddenly to have arrived at the conclusion that the denial of a Catholic university in Ireland is a wicked, absurd, and mischievous freak of English Puritanism. The development of opinion in the _Saturday Review_ is startlingly rapid. In a remarkable article written before the introduction of Lord Cairns’ bill the _Review_ said that “the injustice of refusing either to give the Irish Roman Catholics a university or to allow them to set up one for themselves is so patent that if the demand for a charter were once more put forward it could scarcely be very long resisted.” But in the same pages it warned the Irish Catholics that they must not expect to receive anything like an endowment from the state for denominational education:

“The demand for a state endowment of a Roman Catholic university, or of a Roman Catholic college in a mixed university,” we were told, “may be perfectly just, but it is at the same time perfectly impracticable. For this purpose the surplus revenues of the Irish Disestablished Church will undoubtedly be treated as money belonging to the nation, and unless a radical and almost miraculous change should come over the whole mind and temper of the English people, not a shilling of it will be devoted to a denominational object. This determination on their part may be quite illogical, but it is very firmly rooted. The endowment of a Catholic university or a Catholic college may continue to furnish the text for an annual motion and for any number of annual speeches, but it will do nothing more. The late government attempted to meet the difficulty by establishing a university in which the subjects upon which Romanists and non-Romanists most differ should be temporarily excluded from the university course. Denominational colleges might be incorporated into this university and teach what they liked, but the teaching of the university was to leave burning questions on one side until the university should have become strong enough to run alone, and to decide for itself in what subjects it should give instruction to its students. The scheme fell through.”

Within a few days after this candid expression of opinion the same journal was applauding Lord Cairns’ bill for intermediate education in Ireland, which provides for the application of a certain portion of the surplus revenues of the Disestablished Church for the support of schools that certainly will be “denominational.” True, the money is not to be given directly in payment for religious instruction, but it is to be given in payment to teachers who will impart religious instruction to their pupils. “Not a shilling will be devoted to a denominational object,” said the _Review_ one week; but a fortnight afterwards it was delighted with a measure that proposed to devote a million sterling for the support of a system which is nothing if it be not “denominational.” We rejoice at this sudden and remarkable conversion without inquiring too closely how it came. Catholics everywhere, and Irish Catholics especially, should rejoice when organs of opinion like the _Saturday Review_ speak of a measure that is satisfactory to the hierarchy, the clergy, and the Catholic laity of Ireland as “an honest endeavor to supply Ireland with an article which she really wants, and which nothing but the absurd prejudices of Englishmen has prevented her from attaining before now.” It is certainly encouraging to hear Englishmen told by their most un-Catholic and worldly-minded instructor that in their rejection of Ireland’s claims for Catholic education they have been “singularly unamiable and singularly foolish”; that they have been bent upon educating Irish Catholics in a way in which Irish Catholics have been equally determined not to be educated.

The provisions of Lord Cairns’ bill are briefly these:

“A Board of Intermediate Education of seven commissioners—three to form a quorum—is to be appointed by the lord lieutenant—the members to be removable by him—with two assistant commissioners, who will also act as secretaries and inspectors, at salaries of one thousand pounds each, to be appointed by the same authority. Other officers may, from time to time, be appointed by the board, with the consent of the lord lieutenant and the approval of the treasurer. This board will be a mere examining body, conducting by its officers annual examinations in June and July at convenient local centres over Ireland. The programme of subjects includes six different classes of attainments: (1) languages, literatures, and history of Greece and Rome; (2) the same of England; (3) the same of France, Germany, and Italy; (4) mathematics, including arithmetic and book-keeping; (5) the natural sciences; and (6) another group of subjects to be named by the board. Candidates for examination must show that they have been under instruction in Ireland for the year previous to the date of the examination; and the maximum ages fixed are sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years respectively for the three years’ course. Certificates, or testamurs, will be given, setting forth the results of successful examinations; graded prizes, and also annual exhibitions, of from twenty to fifty pounds, will be awarded, the condition of attendance for at least one hundred days a year in an intermediate school being required in the latter. Holders of any other exhibitions are to be ineligible. The school in which the boy has attended the required number of days receives a bonus of three pounds should he pass in two subjects, four pounds for three, and five pounds for four of the six subjects of the first year’s course; another grant is increased in like ratio for the second and third years. No subject of religion is to enter into the examination or be paid for. A conscience clause (7), while not requiring any such school to be open to all or any classes, is thus framed to protect religious minorities who may attend: ‘The board shall not make any payment to the managers of any school unless it be shown to the satisfaction of the board that no pupil attending such school is permitted to remain in attendance during the time of any religious instruction which the parents or guardians of such pupil shall not have sanctioned, and that the time for giving such religious instruction is so fixed that no pupil not remaining in attendance is excluded directly or indirectly from the advantages of the secular education given in the school.’ One million from the surplus funds of the Disestablished Church is to form the endowment for this scheme, being, in round numbers, £35,000 a year. The Church Temporalities Commissioners are empowered to borrow this sum, pending the close of the liquidation of the assets. The board may alter and amend the whole scheme, save so as to change its leading principles, and may frame codes and rules and lay them before Parliament, when, if not objected to by either House within three weeks, they acquire the force of law.”

The debate in the House of Lords on the second reading of the bill was characterized by a remarkable exhibition of good sense and good feeling among the Protestant members who spoke, while the remarks of the two Catholics who expressed their approval of the measure, Lord O’Hagan and Lord Emly (formerly Mr. Monsell), were discreet and well considered. Lord O’Hagan gave what he properly described as some “startling statistics” concerning the aptitude of Irishmen for fitting themselves for the discharge of public trusts, even under the limited and discouraging conditions of education which had thus far prevailed in Ireland. He showed that England has 72-1/2 per cent. of the population of the United Kingdom, Ireland 17 per cent., and Scotland 10-1/2 per cent. Since 1871 there had been 1,918 places in the excise and customs bestowed in public competition. For these places there had been 11,371 candidates, of whom 11 per cent. were Scotch, 46 per cent. English, and 43 per cent. Irish. Of the places Scotland gained 6 per cent., England 38 per cent., and Ireland 56. Of every 100 Scotch candidates 9 passed, of every 100 English 14, and of every 100 Irish 22.

These figures showed what the youth of Ireland could do when they were educated. But what were their opportunities? As children, up to fifteen they might avail themselves of an excellent primary education, but after that they have few if any opportunities of advancing further. The fact was undeniable that for three hundred years legislation has been directed against education in Ireland, except in a form in which the people would not receive it. The bill now proposed was the first step in the contrary direction, and in Lord O’Hagan’s opinion, if it were administered in the same impartial and fair spirit which had dictated its framing, its results would be most wholesome.

The bill, on the whole, although not perfect, is so great a contrast to all the former educational measures which England has devised for Ireland, and is conceived in so different a spirit, that the Irish Catholics are right in accepting it gladly. It is only to be hoped that the House of Commons will prove to be as reasonable and just as the Lords have been, and allow the bill to pass without mutilating it by mischievous amendments. For half a century England has been tinkering at Irish education, always with the idea that she could compel the Irish to accept Protestant education if Catholic education were made impossible for them. Thus was devised the national system of 1831, the queen’s colleges of 1845, the supplementary charter of 1866, Lord Mayo’s charter scheme of 1867, the unfortunate University Bill introduced by Mr. Gladstone in 1873, the National Teachers’ Act, and Mr. Butt’s University Bill. The English government in their present measure do not storm the Plevna of the religious difficulty; they simply turn it. They do not propose to establish any new institutions, nor to aid the erection of any, nor to subject to inspection and control any of the existing intermediary schools that have been founded by the zeal of the clergy and the charity of the faithful. They leave these alone; but they offer to reward them, and all other similar schools that may be founded, by giving prizes to their pupils, and a bonus to the schools themselves of from fifteen to twenty-five dollars for each pupil who meets certain conditions. The Irish Catholic schoolmasters and schoolboys will not be afraid to enter into this competition; on the contrary, they will “leap at it,” and the best results may be expected to follow. More important still, this step, once taken, will lead ere long, by logical consequence, to the settlement of the Irish university question in the same way. Lord Beaconsfield’s administration of the government of England promises to live in history as an epoch of many brilliant and important events; but if under his rule the Catholic education of Ireland is adequately and satisfactorily provided for, that will be really a more lasting and glorious monument to his memory than his diplomatic victories at Berlin, his second conquest of India, or his virtual annexation of Asia Minor to the British crown.

LAC DU SAINT SACREMENT.

Fair in their peace, ’twixt shore and shore, Lake George’s waters rest, And fair the great hills, rising o’er, Lie mirrored on its breast.

The leafy forests hide no tread Of stealthy Indian foe, The sunshine gilds no dusky head In shadow stealing slow.

The calm no hostile navies rend, Pealeth no threat’ning gun, Silence and stillness softly blend Beneath the undimmed sun.

Faded the lilies’ bloom long since On Horicon’s green mere; The soldiers of the German prince Lift not the red cross here.

The stars alone are guardians now Of this bright forest sea Whose waves, whatever wind may blow, Sing freedom’s royalty.

Ah! fair Lake George, I would thy name Were changed for one more meet, That thy bright waters spoke the fame Of him whose accents sweet

First named thee in a Christian tongue— His maimed hands raised to bless— Who, rapturous, round thy beauty flung Thy Maker’s loveliness.

Who sighed blind Indian souls to lead Unto their Father’s feet, To teach strong hands for peace to plead, Fierce hearts Christ’s cross to greet.

Who bore with awe his Master’s name, Was bound for His sweet sake, God’s glory deed and thought should claim, Knowing no lesser stake.

Who ready stood, for God’s dear love, Through toil and torture fire Still with the cross to point above— A living Christian spire.

O lake beguiling! on that eve How still thy waters lay, All hushed in sunshine each green wave Calm as the golden day.

How full of grace on that blessed eve— God’s love athwart the sky; Pure as his balm for souls that grieve Thy mirror seemed to lie.

Warm as the Love that gave itself The softened mountains seemed; Fusing strong tree and rugged shelf, The wondrous glory streamed.

A burning worship heaven filled, And breathless it adored, While through the air, all-reverent, stilled, The earth’s sweet incense soared.

Did dreams of France, his own loved France, The Jesuit’s spirit steep With thought of hearts that love would trance As they God’s feast should keep

With myriad lights and thronging flowers, Strong voices’ mellow peal? And did he long through those sweet hours Before his Lord to kneel?

From far cathedral pomp aloof, And simple, loving hearts, For columned church the wood’s green roof Darkened with heathen arts.

Still seemed the glory of the day The golden hope to give Of Love Almighty’s deathless sway O’er nations yet to live.

An echo of St. Thomas’ hymn Came faintly o’er the wave; The Jesuit’s eyes with tears grew dim At thought of souls to save.

And “_Bone Pastor, Panis vere_,” His firm lips softly spoke, O “_Jesu, nostri miserere_,” From heart, love-burdened, broke.

And “_Lauda Sion, Salvatorem_” Thy glad waves seemed to cry; While “_Lauda Ducem et Pastorem_” Flung back the happy sky.

Lake of the Blessed Sacrament, That hour won thy name’s grace As holiest thought of love was lent To sign thy maiden face.

Its look of heaven as of yore Still wears thy calm, sweet face; Alas! that thou shouldst keep no more Thy first baptismal grace.

THE THREE ROSES.

I.

It was at precisely half-past ten, as he satisfied himself by looking at his watch, on the morning of the 17th of June, in the year 1743, that a young gentleman got up from a chair in front of the Café Procope (just then opening with that air of stretching itself, rubbing its eyes, and yawning which marks a café in the ante-meridian hours). He stood for a moment twirling his cane and his moustache alternately, and then, as if suddenly reminded by the look of the café of a great moral duty omitted, stretched himself slightly and yawned prodigiously. It was, to be sure, rather early in the day to begin yawning, except for cafés; but then this young chronologer had his own way of dividing time, and, believing with the poet that the best of all ways to lengthen our days is to snatch a few hours from the night, what was early in the morning for most men was only somewhat late at night for him. It is to be noted, too, since the most trifling incidents in the life of a hero are worthy of record, that he yawned with such admirable self-possession, with such a mingling of good-will and graceful languor; he had so much the air of giving his whole mind to it, and at the same time of being so used to yawning that he really didn’t care so much for it after all, that you saw at once he was a man of distinction, to whom a yawn was not, as to most of us, a rare luxury, but a daily, nay, an hourly, a half-hourly, necessary of life.

Much might here be said, if space permitted, of a highly instructive nature, on the philosophy of yawning and its many varieties: the go-to-bed yawn; the get-up yawn; the tired yawn, the yawn of simple lassitude; the good-humored yawn, which takes itself as an excellent joke; the peevish yawn, which denies itself acridly as if it were a crime; the writer’s yawn and the reader’s yawn (_quod Jupiter omen avertat!_); the chronic yawn and the fixed yawn which merges into the drawl; the imitative yawn, into which unwary grandmothers are seduced by wicked little boys with slowly-flapping palm; the bored yawn, which is a protest against the world in general; the well-bred yawn, which is a protest against the immediate company, and is practised only in solitude. (It is, of course, the last-named sort in which our hero indulges.) There is a great deal of character, too, in a yawn, from your timid little lady’s yawn, shrinking away and hiding behind fan or handkerchief, or with hypocritical feminine art so moulding itself that, like Lucy Fountain’s, “it glides into society a smile,” to your open, hearty, man’s yawn, showing all its grinders shamelessly, as if it were a fine natural prospect one ought to be grateful for. Napoleon judged men, as he led them, by their noses;[166] a true philosopher would classify them by their yawns.

Meantime, however, we are leaving our hero yawning at the risk of dislocating his jaw and of setting the reader to keep him company. Let us, therefore, resume. Having indulged himself sufficiently in this refreshment, and recomposed his features again with some care, the young gentleman stood for a moment irresolute, tapping his boot with his cane, and then, as if his mind were made up, set off at a brisk pace in the direction of Notre Dame. As he stepped out it did not need his showy uniform, which was that of the famous corps of _Mousquetaires_, his jingling spurs, or his long rapier, of a heavier make than the dress-sword then worn by every gentleman, to show him for a soldier. You saw it in his measured stride, in every movement of a lithe and graceful yet strong and well-knit figure, in the gay recklessness of his manner, and especially in the ardent and somewhat imperious glance of his dark gray eye. A trace of superciliousness and vanity on his bold, handsome face you would have pardoned to his years and comeliness. Women smiled kindly on the gay young mousquetaire as he passed them, and were not ill-pleased at the kisses he flung them in promiscuous homage from the tips of his gloved fingers. Male glances not so kind, instinct, indeed, with smouldering scorn and hatred, were shot at him covertly too—glances such as a half-century later gloated openly with savage ferocity over the death-struggles of other hapless young mousquetaires dying hopelessly and gallantly, sword in hand, for a king who knew how to make locks but not laws, and a queen who could win all hearts but those of her people.

But right little recked our young mousquetaire of glances, hostile or kindly, from those he looked upon but as a rabble of the gutter, to be kicked or beaten like other animals out of his lordly path. The young summer in his blood all unconscious of that slumbering storm, he strode along, dispensing musk and kisses, and gaily humming a madrigal of Benserade, to the Rue des Poulies, and along that street, picking his way daintily over the wretched pavement till he came in front of a certain bric-à-brac shop. There he paused, hesitated a moment, and, pulling off his plumed hat and putting on his most fascinating smile, bowed low to two persons standing in the doorway.

This simple act of courtesy had a singular effect on the two persons in question, a young man and a young woman. This effect was apparently the same on both: they first colored violently, then frowned, then turned pale. But to an observer in the attic window over the way it seemed that the internal emotions indicated by these facial changes were very unlike in each. The young man seemed—to this observer—to be moved by displeasure rising even to intense rage; the girl’s uppermost feeling seemed to be embarrassment, and displeasure, if any, only at being caused embarrassment. But the observer could not quite decide that she was displeased at all by this act of politeness, and he inclined rather to think that her blush was caused by pleasure at seeing the young mousquetaire, while her frown was directed at her companion for his inopportune presence.

“Yes, that is it,” said this acute analyst to himself: “the blush was for the mousquetaire, whom she is glad to see, the frown for M. De Trop, who is in the way, and the pallor for herself, whom she heartily wishes out of the way in the row she foresees coming.”

While this thoughtful philosopher of the attic was thus moralizing a curious incident took place. The girl, who held some roses in her hand, dropped one of them, no doubt from agitation. The mousquetaire sprang forward to seize it. As he stooped over the flower the young man of the doorway, with an angry exclamation, thrust him back with such good-will that he reeled into the roadway and came near falling. Recovering himself in an instant, he whipped out his sword and rushed upon the other, crying:

“Baseborn scullion! darest thou raise thy hand to a gentleman? Thy life shall pay it.”

This was not, perhaps, his exact language, but it is so much nicer than what he really did say that we will let it stand in despite of history. At all events the young man understood him very clearly to express an intention of skewering him upon the spot; so, with a natural reluctance to being skewered, he armed himself with an iron bar used for fastening the door of the bric-à-brac shop, and resolutely awaited the onset.

At sight of these warlike overtures the girl screamed and the neighbors came flocking to doors and windows in pleasurable anticipation. The philosopher in the attic appeared to await the issue with composure.

Suddenly she who was the lovely cause of strife between the heroes stepped forward.

“Forbear, gentlemen,” she cried. “For shame! Would you shed blood for a paltry flower? If ’tis but a rose you want, here is one for each of you.”

And with a charming mixture of shyness and coquetry-the coquetry of a pretty woman who feels herself to be the object of contention between brave men—she proffered to each of the champions a rose.

The mousquetaire sheathed his sword at once, seized his flower with rapture, pressed it to his lips and to his heart, and looked altogether so languishing and sheepish that the young girl had to bite her lips to control a smile. She could not so easily hide the laugh that sparkled in her dancing eyes and made them still more dazzling.

The young man of the doorway received his rose with reluctance, seemed half disposed to reject it, and more than half disposed to throw it away after taking it, and fell back with so sullen and sulky an air that the Helen of this _Iliad_ could forbear no longer, but laughed outright and merrily.

At that electric stroke of happy ridicule the clouds passed and the air cleared; the storm was over. The neighbors withdrew discontentedly to their shops, while the mousquetaire, with another bow and smile, departed. But he did not kiss his finger-tips to this young girl, as he had to the others.

The philosopher of the attic surveyed these events with conflicting emotions.

“Humph!” said he, rather ruefully, “the roses I spent my last sou for, the price of my breakfast, in fact, to lay upon her window-sill this morning. The one in the gutter, I suppose, is for me; was it by accident or design she dropped it? I wonder which of them she likes best?”

Gentle reader—for in these days it is only a gentle reader will deign to cast an eye over a simple love-tale like this—go with us but a little way, and we will try to unravel the philosopher’s problem.

II.

Had you chanced, then, miss or madam, to be your great-great-grandmother—as, Heaven be praised! you did not—and had you happened to be in the neighborhood of the Rue des Poulies in the year of grace 1743, and had it occurred to you to ask for the richest man in the quarter, public opinion would have answered unhesitatingly, “Papa Lamouracq, who keeps the bric-à-brac shop.” And had you further inquired who was the finest fellow and the best match in the neighborhood, the vote would still have been nearly unanimous for Raoul Berthier, the well-to-do ironmonger of the Quai de la Ferraille. And had you once more sought to know who was the prettiest girl—well, here there might have been some dissent, for the other prettiest girls and their mammas would no doubt have cast a scattering vote or so; but, counting the blind beggars for whom her hand was ever open, and the babies she was always ready to romp with, not to speak of the shrewd old fathers of families, who saw her beauty, as shrewd old fathers will, in the light of her imagined expectations, a decided majority would still have been given for Pauline Lamouracq, the old _brocanteur’s_ young and only daughter.

Now, however public opinion may have erred with regard to two of the persons named—and, indeed, Papa Lamouracq, whenever the matter was broached, would protest, with many oaths and shrugs and groans, that, so far from being the richest man in the parish, he was in reality the very poorest (but what bric-à-brac dealer was ever otherwise, especially if he be an Auvergnat, as in Paris he generally is when he is not a Jew?)—certainly it made no mistake with regard to Pauline. Pretty beyond a doubt she was, with her trim young figure and her dark brown hair and eyes, lit both with a flash of golden light, and her—but, no; let us not attempt the impossible task of describing the charm and freshness of girlish beauty at eighteen. Do you, miss, look in the glass, or do you, sir—if so be it that stray masculine eyes shall linger over these artless pages—think of her you love best, and let that be our Pauline. Only herself seemed to be unconscious of her great beauty; for, though her mirror must have whispered to her now and again the charming secret, as it will to other young maidens, she fled from that perfidious counsellor, lest she should have a grievous addition to the load of peccadilloes she was wont to carry weekly to the confessional of her good friend and adviser, the old _curé_ of the Church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois.

Indeed, she had fewer incentives to vanity than many girls not half so pretty, inasmuch as she had fewer admirers. Not that there were not many who sighed for her in secret; but Raoul’s temper was known to be as quick as his hand was heavy, and they discreetly held aloof. Raoul and Pauline had been betrothed from a very early age, and the former was not one to brook any rivalry. From the cradle almost he had been wayward and headstrong. Years before, when little more than a child, he had run away to sea, and strange tales were whispered of his doings with Jean Bart, that famous privateer and scourge of perfidious Albion. Now that he had come back a fine, bronzed, athletic fellow of six or seven and thirty to take his place in his dead father’s business, and handle, the gossips said, a very pretty pot of money, he was more violent and self-willed and exacting than ever; and there were not wanting those who, seeing the look that came too often into his dark, handsome face, shook their heads and prophesied that all would not be sunshine in the married life of the pretty Pauline.

If she herself shared any of these misgivings she never showed it, but was as affectionate, and even obedient, to her intended husband as the most jealous swain could ask. On one point only did she go counter to his wishes, and that was in seeing a distant cousin, André Thiriot, who alone of all the young fellows in the neighborhood made her the object of an absorbing devotion that every one but herself laughed at. In truth, poor André was not fitted out by nature for the ideal lover. Lame from a fall in his childhood, small and insignificant in appearance (but for a high white forehead and a pair of large and brilliant eyes), and a beggarly _huissier’s_ clerk to boot, he was a pretty fellow, forsooth, to aspire to the hand of the richest heiress in the quarter. So Papa Lamouracq thought, and, when his poor kinsman first hinted timidly at the idea nearest his heart, bade him begone with bitter rebuke and reviling. “He marry Pauline, indeed! Puny weakling! No man should have his girl who could not protect her with an arm as stout as his own. In these days,” said Papa Lamouracq, very truly, “who knows at what moment his women-kind may need protection from these vile marquises and mousquetaires that go about troubling the peace of honest folks?” And Papa Lamouracq, who had served in the wars, drew himself up to his full five feet nine—which in France, you know, is a colossal stature—squared his broad shoulders, and looked very fierce and resolute. It was, indeed, a time when beauty and innocence of the _bourgeois_ class, where, indeed, very much that there was at Paris of beauty allied to innocence resided, needed stout hearts and strong arms to fence it. The gay courtiers of Louis XV. respected few laws, human or divine, and no woman not of the privileged classes was safe from their insults.

So poor André was sent to the right-about with a very large sized flea in his ear, and could only see his fair cousin thereafter by stealth. Raoul swore that if he ever caught him prowling about her he would break every bone in his body. For that threat, indeed, André cared little, for he had a brave spirit in his little body; but he loved his cousin too well to cause her needless annoyance, and he had perforce to content himself with the stolen interviews she could give him at such odd times as her father was away with Raoul at the cabaret, which, indeed, was only too often. Nor was Pauline loath to profit by these chances to see her cousin. That everybody repulsed and derided him was to her woman’s nature of course only an additional reason for liking him. Then, too, he had been her mother’s favorite, almost as a child to her on the death of his own parents, and, lastly, he talked very differently from the others about her. Pauline, thanks to the watchful care of her good friend and godfather, the _curé_ of St. Germain, had had a better education than most girls of her class, and André was a genius and a poet—at least, they both thought so; which, for them, came to much the same thing. He rhymed about as well as the rest of the rhyming crew, in an age when in France and England there were many rhymers and few poets, and those few not always greatly cared for; when Voltaire passed sentence on Homer Shakspere; when Dorat’s perfumed nothings fluttered in every boudoir, while Gilbert starved in a garret. To the taste of one simple maiden André’s madrigals and sonnets and what-not were as good as the best, and she never tired of hearing them. Even when she could not see him she could still hear them; for our poet had a very pretty turn for music as well, and from his window opposite hers would sing her his chansons, set to his own music, with such ardor and perseverance as quite enchanted his pretty cousin, and won for the performer a singular degree of unpopularity among his neighbors.

So the lame bard remained Pauline’s only open admirer until one eventful day when there came spurring through the dull and sombre street, lighting it up like a flash of sunshine, a splendid vision of a mousquetaire. Pauline chanced to be standing in the doorway of her father’s shop, and, as he caught sight of that lovely picture set in the dark frame of the portal, the bold cavalier, riding to her side, straightway proceeded to woo her in the off-hand fashion of the court. But in the soft, half-wondering reproach of the brown eyes lifted for but a moment to his own there was a depth of purity and innocence that baffled this intrepid courtier more than any words; he stammered over his first sentence, hesitated, broke down, and—blushed. Yes, incredible as it may seem, in the middle of the eighteenth century, and in the very focus of civilization, a mousquetaire blushed. To be sure he was young. Perhaps it was a reflection from his glowing cheek that brought to Pauline’s pale one a rosier tint; perhaps it was simply wonder at this unprecedented phenomenon; Pauline, too, was young, and the culprit, it must be owned, was very handsome. At all events he could only gasp out a hasty apology before she withdrew and left him to ride away, over head and tingling ears in love.

Raoul heard of this encounter and roared—burst out into a furious passion of rage and jealousy that left Pauline in tears.

André saw the meeting from his eyrie in the attic and—sighed. With one handsome rival he might hope, he might even, with some aid from the muses, hold his own; but with two—? The poor bard took to reading Tibullus; he had no heart for madrigals when life itself was an elegy, and for a night or two the neighbors slept in peace.

III.

One morning a young man presented himself to Papa Lamouracq and asked to be taken as an apprentice to learn the bric-à-brac trade. Papa Lamouracq was a little shy of apprentices; but as he really needed help and the premium offered was large, he could not resist the temptation to his bargaining instinct, and the postulant was accepted.

The new-comer was active, intelligent, and above all good-looking; and these virtues soon won for him a fair place in Pauline’s esteem until she caught him making sheep’s eyes at her with extreme persistency and uncompromising sheepishness. Thereat she reproved him sharply, and, to punish him, set him to washing the dishes—a task he undertook with entire good-humor, but so much more zeal than skill that he broke more than he cleaned and speedily had to be relieved. Then he took to sighing like a bellows, and when his mistress laughed at him this audacious intruder made love to her outright, and of course got properly snubbed for his pains. But fancy Miss Pauline’s amazement when this astonishing apprentice, so far from being abashed by her chilling rebuke, went down upon his marrow-bones, and, revealing himself as the Chevalier d’Aubuisson, plumped her an offer of his heart and hand and a fine old château in Normandy.

The sight of this dashing mousquetaire in a shop-boy’s apron seemed so absurd that the young lady thus tenderly adjured felt more inclined to laugh than ever—indeed, she was a merry little maiden, more given to smiles than tears—but the evident sincerity of the young man’s emotion touched her.

“He has cut off that lovely moustache to be near me,” was her pensive reflection, as she gazed upon his eloquent, upturned face, from which that military embellishment was indeed missing. No doubt, too, she was secretly flattered and pleased; for it was not every day, I promise you, in the Paris of a century ago, that a shopman’s daughter had the chance of refusing to be the wife of a handsome young noble. And then what young girl’s heart could help going out a little to the romantic side of this madcap adventure?

But there was another aspect to the affair which made her grave at once.

“Pray rise, sir,” she said coldly; “this position is unbecoming to you and uncomfortable to me. ’Twas not well done, M. le Chevalier, to steal into my father’s household under false colors; and though I feel the honor you do me, I cannot listen to you further. I am already affianced. If you have any of the regard you profess for me, you will instantly quit this travesty and this house.”

This was reasonable advice, so our impetuous young mousquetaire rejected it at once. He would never leave her, he vowed with vehemence, till she had promised to be his.

This wild proposal plunged poor Pauline into great perplexity. To tell her father or her intended would, she foresaw, precipitate a terrible row and scandal with probable bloodshed; and perhaps it was not wholly tenderness for her relatives which checked her as she glanced furtively at her embarrassingly handsome wooer, revolving the problem of how most easily to get rid of him in an anxious mind. Nor could she go to her cousin; she blushed, she scarce knew why, as she thought of it. So, as usual in all the little difficulties of her life, she betook herself to her friend the _curé_, who soon found a key to the riddle.

The next day there rode up to the door of Papa Lamouracq’s bric-à-brac shop an orderly with a letter for M. le Chevalier d’Aubuisson, and by noon his majesty’s corps of mousquetaires had received a reluctant and rather mutinous reinforcement of one. And—O bitter and humiliating thought!—the moustache had been sacrificed in vain.

IV.

So matters stood in the Rue des Poulies at the time of that remarkable meeting which opens this eventful history, and apropos of which an observer in the attic asked himself, as you may remember, “Which does she like best?” Raoul’s rage upon this knew no bounds; and Papa Lamouracq, when he came to hear of it, was little better. They both insisted that the wedding-day should be fixed at once, and for no distant date, and poor Pauline was fain to consent. Yet, as the fatal day drew near, she shrank from it more and more. School herself as she would into obedience to her father’s will and love for her future husband, the coming marriage filled her with an invincible repugnance. Was it because she had given her heart to another, or only because Raoul’s brutality had alienated her esteem? I do not know; she did not know herself: it was a question she never dared ask her heart.

In the midst of this moral conflict by which she was so cruelly torn her mind went back often and longingly to the serenity and calm of the convent where she had passed so many of her early years, and to the peaceful, happy faces of the nuns. She yearned with an inexpressible yearning to be among them once more; she had even wild, half-formed thoughts of flying from her wretchedness and trouble and taking refuge in that quiet haven.

Naturally, therefore, when André, to whom she had dropped an intimation of her thought, urged her strongly to act upon it, she turned and rent him.

“How dare you say such things to me!” she cried with more passion than he had ever seen her show. “How dare you advise me to disobey my father! You know very well my first duty is to him. He wishes me to marry Raoul, and—and I wish it. I am _not_ miserable. I love Raoul dearly, and we shall be very hap—hap—happy.”

And to prove the joyful nature of her anticipations she burst forthwith into tears.

The poor poet stood aghast; he was not prepared for this display of feminine consistency. Genius as he was, he had yet to learn that to set a woman against a doubtful project she is coquetting with in her mind, the surest way is to urge her to it. Dearly as he loved his cousin and wished to make her his wife, he loved her happiness more, and would joyfully have seen her take the veil, marry the mousquetaire even, whom he suspected her of favoring, anything to escape this marriage, in what he foresaw for her only wretchedness, if not death. Raoul in his drunken furies, he knew, would stop at nothing, and even as a lover he had threatened her life.

“But,” he stammered, conscience-stricken, “I thought you said you wished to be in the convent.”

“You know I never said anything of the kind,” sobbed the indignant fair. “I forbid you ever to say such things to me again. You are very unkind to tease me so, and it is only your mis—miserable jealousy.”

The poet winced under this poisoned shaft, but was too generous to retaliate. His cousin had the right of suffering to be unjust.

Nevertheless, he could not forego another effort to rescue her, as he called it. It wanted but a day or two of the wedding when he next got a chance to see her, for she was now watched and guarded almost like a prisoner. Drawing a little packet from his pocket, he said with a sad smile:

“Pauline, here is my wedding gift. It is the most precious, indeed, the only precious, thing I have.”

Pauline opened the packet. It held only a withered rose. She looked in perplexity from the gift to the giver.

“Do you know what rose it is, Pauline? ’Tis the one that was trampled in the mire the day the mousquetaire and Raoul fought.”

“Dear André!” said Pauline, pressing his hand. She was greatly touched by his unobtrusive devotion.

“I have often wondered,” she went on musingly, “where those roses came from.” (You see, miss, a posy was more of an event in this simple life than in yours, bouqueted and basketed as it is.) “I have sometimes thought, do you know, it was—” Pauline stopped suddenly and blushed.

“Raoul, of course,” said André quietly.

“No,” said Pauline briefly, and blushed again.

“Not the mousquetaire?” said André in affected amazement.

“Yes, yes,” said Pauline, still very rosy—“that horrid mousquetaire. I’m sure,” she added with a toss of her pretty head, “he had impudence enough for anything.”

This is the way, messieurs, that the ungrateful fair for whom we run all risks characterize our devotion.

“No,” said André gently, “it was not the mousquetaire.”

The girl looked up quickly, a sudden light in her eyes.

“Dear André!” she said again, “you are very good to me.”

They were silent awhile, and then the poet, taking the girl’s hand, said earnestly:

“Listen to me, Pauline. There is a condition to my gift. It is that if at the last moment you should change your mind in regard to—to—” he hesitated—“to what we once spoke of, you will send me back this rose,[167] and I will find a way to save you.”

Pauline made no answer; but she no longer scolded, and André was satisfied that she had agreed. We shall see if he was right.

V.

On the night before Pauline’s wedding-day a merry and noisy company of mousquetaires were gathered in the Café _Aux Fers Croisés_. Some were playing billiards, others baccarat; all were drinking, and nearly all were singing and shouting at the top of their lungs. Only our old friend, the Chevalier d’Aubuisson, sat apart by himself, very woebegone and silent.

A comrade, drawing near, slapped him on the shoulder and said boisterously:

“Come, come, my friend, cheer up. Don’t mope your life away because your light o’ love is false.”

This delicate counsel the mousquetaires greeted with vociferous applause.

D’Aubuisson sprang to his feet with flashing eyes.

“Vicomte de Brissac,” he cried, “hold! The first who breathes a word against that angel dies. I swear it, by this sword!”

The mousquetaires were silent; not that they respected his evident emotion—they respected little enough, not even themselves—but they did respect his sword.

“Why, man!” said De Brissac at length, “you don’t mean to say you are in earnest—that you would marry the girl?”

“To-morrow, if she would have me. God knows how willingly; and to-morrow I lose her for ever.”

With a groan the chevalier sank back into his seat and buried his face in his hands.

“Tut, tut, man!” said De Brissac, who was naturally kind-hearted. “If you love her so, why give her up tamely? She must like you better than this shop-keeper.” Our mousquetaires had a brave contempt for all men who earned their living honestly. “Why not make a bold push for it and carry her off from under his nose? We’ll all stand by you”—“That will we,” in chorus from the rest—“and, take my word for it, the bird will thank you for her rescue from the fowler.”

D’Aubuisson looked up quickly, a gleam of hope in his face. But his brow soon grew dark; he knew Pauline too well to believe that she would sanction or forgive such an act of violence, however much she loved him. And he was more than half persuaded she did love him, in spite of her rejection, conceited young mousquetaire that he was; he was fully persuaded she did not love Raoul, both from his own observation and the statements of Papa Lamouracq’s old housekeeper, Angélique, whom he had won to his interests. If he could but bring her to consent! It was a forlorn hope, but he would make a last appeal.

He wrote a fervent letter to Pauline, proposing, if she agreed, to place her in charge of his aunt, the abbess of the Convent of Pont-aux-Dames, where she would be in safety until he could marry her. Both these lovers, you see, had the same thought, but with very different motives. This letter he despatched to his friend the housekeeper, promising her a royal reward if she got him an answer.

In an hour’s time the answer came: it was only a withered rose.

D’Aubuisson eyed it in blank amazement. Was it a cruel sneer, a mistake, or what?

“Bah!” cried De Brissac after a few moments’ study of the problem. “Love has made you dull, comrade, as it does most men. Don’t you see? Where is that weed I have seen you kissing a hundred times so insanely? This is the mate to it, and the message can have but one meaning: she is yours.”

Angélique confirmed this view, which our mousquetaire was only too willing to accept; so with much clinking of glasses and vowing of vows the rescuing party was made up.

* * * * *

All night long the poet kept lonely vigil in his attic, waiting and longing, and hoping against hope, for the rose which never came. Had it come he would have been puzzled to know what steps to take for Pauline’s deliverance; but somehow he felt he would compass it, if he had to ask the aid of his rival the mousquetaire, and though the price were his cousin’s hand. But the long hours dragged wearily on and no word came. The dawn found him still keeping his weary watch, no longer hoping, but haggard indeed and the picture of despair—a most dismal philosopher, who in all his philosophy could find no comfort.

V.

It was a very gay wedding party that gathered next day at the Mill of Javelle, then a famous resort for the Parisian merrymakers, to do honor to the nuptials of Raoul Berthier and the lovely Pauline, less lovely now, alas! for care and sorrow had worn her almost to a shadow of her former self. With the wedding guests mingled freely an unusual number of masks; but their presence excited little remark and no objection, for it was one of the familiar privileges of the time. And the strangers, whoever they were, made themselves so agreeable to the feminine part of the company that by these, at least, they were voted a welcome addition to the pleasures of the day.[168]

It had been arranged that the wedding ceremony should be performed by the curé of St. Germain l’Auxerrois in a little chapel hard by at ten o’clock, and that the wedding breakfast should follow. But ten o’clock passed, and eleven, and still there was no sign of the good priest. Noon was drawing near when Papa Lamouracq swore roundly that they would wait no longer, but sit down to the feast at once, let the marriage take place when it might—a decision hailed with acclamation by his guests. Perhaps, too, a glance at Raoul’s condition—he had been drinking deeply all the morning and through the previous night—may have suggested the wisdom of postponing the ceremony.

At this moment one of the masks drew near Pauline, who stood a little apart, pale and sorrowful, and whispered hurriedly in her ear:

“Dearest, come; it is the time. A post-chaise waits for us in yonder clump. In an hour’s time we shall have you safe behind the convent walls.”

Pauline shrank from him in mingled astonishment and terror. Then he showed her a withered rose; she knew it at once for the same she had sent the night before to André upon receiving D’Aubuisson’s letter. This she had torn to pieces in a transport of indignation and bade Angélique carry the pieces back to the writer. But the very suggestion so terrified her in her nervous state with the idea of an attempted abduction such as was only too common in that lawless time, that her scruples yielded at last, and she resolved to take André’s advice and seek refuge in a convent. With this view she commissioned the housekeeper to carry to her cousin the signal rose. That crafty old person, however, shrewdly surmising that the return of his own torn letter would win her scant esteem or guerdon from her employer, took it upon herself to give him the rose instead—a message on which at need she could put her own construction.

At sight of the flower Pauline hesitated. Surely this could not be her cousin; the figure seemed much too tall, yet, if not, how came he by the signal? In her confusion and incertitude she suffered herself to be half-passively drawn by the unknown in the direction of the thicket he spoke of. As she did so the other masks drew together about them—a movement unnoticed by the rest of the company, whose thoughts and eyes were all intent upon the loaded and steaming tables, to which they were on the point of sitting down under the trees.

Suddenly a wild scream startled them. It was from Pauline, who had just caught sight of André’s pale, reproachful face gazing at her fixedly from the outskirts of the crowd. At her scream the wedding guests, headed by Papa Lamouracq, came hurrying towards the bride with various cries of anger, astonishment, and menace. The situation bade fair to be embarrassing.

But the chevalier was a man of promptness and decision, by no means one to draw back from an undertaking once begun. Besides, to him Pauline was only hysterical; she must be saved in spite of herself. Further disguise was useless; force only would now prevail. So catching the fainting girl in his arms as if she were an infant, and shouting, _A moi, mousquetaires!_ he pressed on to the carriage.

But he was not to reach it unopposed, however. The word _mousquetaires_ made plain the whole design to the dullest-witted in the assembly: the fame of those audacious scamps for similar exploits was wide-spread. Among the wedding company was more than one old privateering comrade of Raoul’s who had swung cutlass and boarding-hatchet by his side; and it so chanced that two other wedding parties had brought to the mill that same day some scores of sturdy blacksmiths and fishermen and stout butchers from the Halles. Armed with stools and benches, with sticks and stones, they flung themselves furiously upon the mousquetaires, some fifty or sixty in number. The latter, casting off mask and domino, and forming a circle about D’Aubuisson and the unconscious Pauline, defended themselves with vigor.

The fight was long and uncertain, and many were hurt on both sides. But disciplined valor won the day as usual over brute strength, and in spite of every effort of their antagonists the mousquetaires slowly but surely made their way towards the fatal thicket. Papa Lamouracq, himself wounded more than once, and disabled, could only gnash his teeth and howl impotent curses at the foe; the bridegroom, at his first step towards the scene of conflict, had staggered and fallen, and was lying on the grass in a drunken stupor; the little poet, bleeding already from a ghastly wound in the forehead, had to be forcibly held back from flinging himself like another Winkelried upon the bristling blades of the mousquetaires. All seemed lost.

But despair, too, has its inspirations. The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, seeking everywhere for a weapon to annihilate his enemies, fell upon one of the steaming tureens of soup just served for the wedding feast. Instantly he caught it up and hurled it, contents and all, full at the heads of the victorious mousquetaires. Two went down at once before the shock; half a score were scalded by the boiling liquor; double that number—O much more direful and appalling tragedy!—had their splendid uniforms stained by good Mère Leroux’s most savory _potage_.

Shrewdly did Cæsar bid his veterans strike only at the faces of Pompey’s dandy cavaliers. Thus does history repeat itself. Death and torture our mousquetaires would have faced unflinchingly, and charged a battery as gaily as they would have danced a minuet; but their clothes were dear to them. For most of them they were their only clothes, and what wonder if at the onslaught of this novel and terrific weapon they wavered? So might the bravest knight who first faced the terrors of gunpowder have hesitated without shame to his courage. André’s example was infectious. From all sides was rained upon the hapless mousquetaires a shower of soups, ragouts and entremets, sauces, sausages and salads, omelettes _aux fines herbes_ and omelettes _sucrées_, until they fairly broke and fled, dripping, not blood, but gravy at every pore, and dragging with them by main force their frantic leader, who wished not to survive the loss of his Pauline.

VI.

Need the sequel be told? Of course the valiant poet was rewarded with the hand of her he had loved so faithfully and rescued so oddly. Papa Lamouracq was loyal to his vow that only to the man who could protect his daughter should she be given, and it was Raoul’s turn to be sent off in disgrace. He sold out his business, disappeared from the Quai de la Ferraille, and betook himself to his old trade of privateering, or, many folks said, something worse. As for André, he became a famous poet, was presented at court, and duly enrolled among the glorious fellowship of wits—the great M. Voltaire deigned to call him _confrère_, much to Pauline’s indignation, for that great man’s notions were by no means to her taste—and his poems may no doubt still be found by those who look for them in the Bibliothèque Impériale.

What were they, do you ask? Truly I have never heard, but he was a most famous poet.

What was better, he was a most happy husband, and Pauline never regretted the chance which made her his wife instead of Raoul’s. She owned she had always liked him the best, which I dare say was true, though I suspect that in her secret heart she would have liked a more romantic fashion of being won, and was not over and above pleased when André’s friends, in allusion to his valor, called him Marshal Terrine or M. De Bouillon. But she was very happy, especially when, after her father’s death, they found themselves rich enough to fulfil that dream of every good Parisian, a neat little country house with a lovely garden in the suburbs.

And the poor mousquetaire? Ah! miss, you are right. Could we but have had him for our hero, which was indeed the author’s intention at the start, as you may see by looking back to the earlier pages of this veracious history! But fate, alas! is not to be gainsaid, and on the whole, perhaps, Pauline was better off with her poet. The chevalier could not face the ridicule poured upon him for his share in the Battle of the Soup-Kettle, as the wits called it. He got himself exchanged into a regiment at the front, and fell fighting gallantly in the decisive charge which broke the English column at Fontenoy.

I forgot to mention that Pauline’s favorite pastime in her country life was cultivating roses, with which her garden in the season fairly glowed; and on each anniversary of her wedding-day it was her custom to put by her husband’s plate at breakfast a little posy containing exactly three of the flowers in question, which he never failed to receive with an air of the utmost surprise as to where they could possibly come from.

Footnote 166:

Napoleon thought a big nose to be a sign of intellect, says history, mother of lies. Fiddlesticks! He chose men with big noses because they were easier to lead. An army of snub-noses would never have gone to Moscow.

Footnote 167:

It will occur to the ingenious reader, as indeed it has to the ingenious writer, that it would have been much simpler and more natural to ask Pauline to write her wishes. So it would. But then André was a poet and a genius, and—this is a romance. Besides, who knows but Pauline might have been locked up at the critical moment and denied writing materials?

Footnote 168:

It was the very incident here related, and which in its main outlines is historically true, that led to a police regulation forbidding the intrusion of masked outsiders into wedding parties and other festivals.

THE ENGLISH PRESS AND THE PAN-ANGLICAN SYNOD.

On the 2d of July a certain, or rather uncertain, number of English, Irish, Scotch, Canadian, and American gentlemen met together in the long-desecrated chapel of Lambeth Palace; and on the 27th of the same month the same gentlemen, after listening to a discourse in St. Paul’s Cathedral from one of their number, the “Bishop of Pennsylvania,” bade each other farewell. During the twenty-five days that had intervened between these two dates the gentlemen in question had talked a great deal to and at each other, sometimes in public and sometimes with closed doors. A general sense of confusion concerning this assemblage seemed to pervade that portion of the public mind of London which paid any attention to it. The London newspapers, which must notice everything, from the arrest of a pickpocket to the reconstruction of an empire, could not agree upon the title to be given it. In the _Morning Post_ it was spoken of as “The Lambeth Conference”; the _Spectator_ called it “The Gathering of the Bishops”; the _Times_ on one day entitled it “The Pan-Anglican Synod,” on another it spoke of it as “Episcopal Visitors”; the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the _Saturday Review_ agreed upon “The Bishops at Lambeth” as a sufficiently safe and non-committal title; but the former, on one day, went so far as to venture to speak of the assemblage as “The Pan-Anglican Conference.” Nor did the reporters of the journals arrive at a _consensus_ of opinion concerning the number of these gentlemen; one authority reporting them as numbering “something like eighty-five prelates,” while another placed the assemblage at “about one hundred,” and a third, with greater precision, spoke of “about one hundred bishops and four archbishops.” A still more notable diversity of opinion prevailed as to the purpose for which these gentlemen had come together—some of the writers in the journals insisting that the affair was a mere social gathering; others that it was a species of debating society composed exclusively of Anglican bishops; others that it was a conclave to devise combined action “to put down the Ritualists”; others that its purpose was to “sell out” to the pope, if peradventure he would buy; others that it covered a scheme for the “corporate unity” of the Protestant Episcopal Churches in Great Britain, Ireland, the colonies, and America, with the Archbishop of Canterbury as patriarch. The journals which care most for the respectability and perpetuation of the Anglican body besought the gentlemen to content themselves with talking, taking tea, and smoking in Mrs. Tait’s back garden, and not to attempt to do anything else. “We recommend the bishops,” said the _Spectator_, “not to attempt a pastoral, as they did last time; not to try their hands on points of creed; not to suppose that for any purpose of defining religious belief they will be strengthened by this concourse, if not rather weakened.” They might, perhaps, discuss “what concession could be made to pagan and heathen converts brought up under a very different morality from the Christian”—as, for instance, we suppose, whether a Turkish convert might not be permitted to indulge in his peculiar ideas regarding marriage, and whether a converted Thug should not be allowed to strangle a victim occasionally. Or they might even venture to discuss “the practicability or impracticability of church discipline”—that is, whether it be “practicable” or “impracticable” for a clergyman to refuse to marry a divorced person or to exclude an unrepentant murderer from the communion-table; or for a bishop to prevent one of his clergy from turning the communion service into a Methodist love-feast, or another from making it a close imitation of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. They might “discuss” these things, but they must not act upon them, and they must above all refrain from “discussing creeds.” “We strongly recommend the Pan-Anglican Synod,” exclaimed the _Spectator_, “to renounce entirely the superstition which attaches to _such_ assemblages of bishops a sort of divine skill in discriminating truth from falsehood. Indeed, we believe them to be under very special incapacities for any such discrimination.” Honest and true advice, but hard for the so-called bishops to bear, as coming from a journal warmly attached to Anglicanism and edited by two prominent and zealous members of that church. No discussion of creeds! no discrimination of truth from falsehood! Why, here is the Anglican body throughout the English-speaking peoples, with a clergy no two of whom can agree upon the most vital dogmas of the Christian faith; who are disputing with each other and befogging the minds of their people with their discordant “views” upon the subject of baptismal regeneration; upon the sanctity and indissolubility of the marriage relation; upon the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. If these were true bishops, if their church were really a church and anything but a state-born and worldly association, these bishops would not have separated without not only “discussing” but defining the faith and providing for its preservation and enforcement.

They took the _Spectator’s_ advice. They took it all the more readily, perhaps, because the _Times_ pointed out to them that “these highly respectable gentlemen from the antipodes and the tropics, from the Transvaal and the Falls of Niagara,” must make up their minds that to eat “a dinner at the Mansion House” was the most important work they would have to perform, and that in “the social assemblages” that would follow they would “find more benefit than from their public conferences.” The _Times_ frowned upon the suggestion that the Primate of All England countenances, even tacitly, the suggestion that he should be recognized as the metropolitan of the Anglican Church; the _Saturday Review_ ridiculed the opinion that “the reliance of the independent communities upon England might be regulated and strengthened by declaring that the Archbishop of Canterbury was a patriarch, and Lord Penzance, we suppose, family lawyer all round,” and went to the extent of comparing the church to an “Odd-fellows’ society.” In the face of chaff like this the gentlemen from the antipodes and Niagara Falls, as well as those from Lincolnshire and Edinburgh, turned a deaf ear to the appeals alike of Ritualistic working-men and Low-Church green-grocers, and wisely contented themselves with eating the lord mayor’s dinner, going to sober evening parties, preaching sermons in London churches, and devoting a few hours each week to the discussion, in church-congress fashion, of such thrilling and vitally important themes as “Voluntary Boards of Arbitration,” or “the position of Anglican chaplains on the Continent of Europe and elsewhere.” To cap the climax, during the session of the conference the first anniversary of “the Reformed Episcopal Church of England” was held in Newman Hall’s church in London. The Reformed Episcopal Church of England, it may not be generally known, was imported into England from the United States, and had its birth by the secession of Bishop Cummings, Mr. Cheney of Chicago, and some others from the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Reformed Episcopal Church of England has a bishop—one Mr. Gregg—and at this anniversary meeting Bishop Gregg said:

“The Church of England might be likened to a ship. When he joined it he thought he was going straight to a Protestant port, but he afterwards found that the ship had turned its head, had altered its course, and was now bound straight for Rome. For this reason, as he did not want to go to Rome, he thought it best to come out of it. Some people had asked, ‘Why not remain in it and endeavor to alter its course? Why not try to reform it?’ His answer was that others had tried to do it and had failed, and therefore he had come to his present conclusion. After denouncing the evils of sacerdotalism Dr. Gregg said that he considered the present Prayer-book was the cause of many of the existing evils. The Reformed Episcopal Church had therefore entirely revised it, freed it from all sacerdotalism, had thoroughly uprooted all its dangerous dogmas, and the revised edition now in press would shortly be issued.”

The bishops at Lambeth were so fearful of disobeying the injunctions of the _Spectator_ not to “discuss creeds,” or to attempt to “discriminate between truth and error,” that they did not even venture to rebuke Bishop Gregg or to take any steps against this schism. Indeed, how can they be sure that he is not right and that they are not wrong?

The first Pan-Anglican Synod, convoked eleven years ago, the London _Times_ says, “excited some curiosity, mingled with more ridicule and remonstrances.” But it discharged its “apparent functions” to the satisfaction of all concerned. That is—

“It afforded to a great many hard-working gentlemen the opportunity of taking a holiday under the guise of an episcopal progress. A certain number among them it enabled to render an account in person to their constituents in England of the value they had received for the funds entrusted to their hands, and to beg for more. Over and above these material objects, the synod professed its aim to preserve Anglican churchmen throughout the world in theological harmony. This, too, it accomplished, at least negatively. English churchmen were able to testify that Protestant bishops from the east and from the west resembled each other very closely in demeanor and in their forms of thought. They even had, surmounting the obstacles of their local accent, the very tone of voice which no other body of clergy throughout the civilized world can boast, and which gives Church-of-England ministers a virtual monopoly of the clerical sore throat. Our visitors, whose episcopal residences and cathedrals are scattered over the globe, carried home, we believe, an equally good report of church conservatism in the mother-country.”

But the subtle mind of the late Bishop of Winchester, who was the reputed author of this episcopal picnic, had deeper views at bottom. He intended the first Pan-Anglican Synod as an answer to the sneer that the Church of England is a local accident, without any principle of spiritual authority, growth, or development. The synod was held, but the Bishop of Winchester was disappointed: the bishops would do nothing; they would not even order Bishop Colenso to the stake; and, “as clergymen, what they manifested above all else was that the Anglican Church in England and the Anglican Church out of England resemble each other almost to identity. The special peculiarities of the Church of England come into even more prominence abroad than at home. We are more impressed with the spirit of the state church carved out by King Henry VIII. when we meet with its foreign professors than we are in the country of its birth.” How biting is this sarcasm, and how deeply it must cut into the heart of the Anglican or the American Episcopalian who stills fancies that the mind of England is true to Anglicanism!

The Lambeth Conference which has lately ended was as barren of results as was its predecessor. On the day before its first meeting a number of the American and colonial bishops went down to Canterbury, where Dr. Tait, perhaps as an undress rehearsal of his anticipated elevation to the post of Protestant Pope, had “the chair of St. Augustine” brought forth, enthroned himself in it, and delivered a discourse. The audacity of this performance was extreme; perhaps the thoughts which it must have suggested to the spectators will yield their proper fruit. In face of the _disjecta membra_ of a creed before him Dr. Tait had the extreme rashness, not to use a harsher term, to say in this discourse that he and his hearers “had advantages which the great St. Augustine had not,” for “they stood nearer to the pure, primitive Christianity of the apostles than St. Augustine stood, ...” and that St. Augustine’s faith, which is that of the whole Catholic Church to-day, was “a sort of semi-pagan Christianity.” St. Augustine preached in England in the sixth century, Dr. Tait talks in the nineteenth; which is “nearer,” chronologically, “pure, primitive Christianity,” and which is nearer, doctrinally, the faith that St. Augustine received from Rome or that which Dr. Tait has received from Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth?

On the next day, July 2, the conference opened at Lambeth Palace. There were “something like eighty-five prelates present,” of whom forty-three were from the colonies and the United States. It seems that there are ten bishops unattached, living in and around London, who had expected to be invited and who were disgusted at being left out; but it is explained that “the primate felt that the line must be drawn somewhere, and these prelates had no jurisdiction, even of a delegated character,” so he drew it at them. Before entering the chapel to receive holy communion the bishops adopted the following declaration:

“We, bishops of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, in visible communion with the churches of England and Ireland, professing the faith delivered to us in Holy Scripture, maintained by the primitive church and by the fathers of the blessed Reformation, now assembled by the good providence of God at the archiepiscopal palace of Lambeth, under the presidency of the Primate of All England, desire, first, to give hearty thanks to Almighty God for having thus brought us together for common counsel and united worship; secondly, we desire to express the deep sorrow with which we view the divided condition of the flock of Christ throughout the world, ardently longing for the fulfilment of the prayer of our Lord, ‘That all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they may also be one in us, that the world might believe that thou hast sent me’; and, lastly, we do here solemnly record our conviction that unity will be more effectually promoted by maintaining the faith in its purity and integrity—as taught in the Holy Scriptures, held by the primitive church, summed up in the creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed general councils—and by drawing each of us closer to our common Lord by giving ourselves to much prayer and intercession, by the cultivation of a spirit of charity and a love of the Lord’s appearing.”

Is it not extraordinary that men of intelligence will persist in befogging themselves with phrases about “the deep sorrow” with which they view the divided condition of the flock of Christ throughout the world, and their longing for the fulfilment of the prayer of our Lord for the unity of his people? The flock of Christ is not divided; it has never been divided, and can never be divided for the reason that he not only prayed for its unity but willed its unity, and provided infallible means for the preservation of its unity.

The communion service over, Dr. Thomson, the Archbishop of York, pronounced a somewhat remarkable discourse, in which Catholic truth, Protestant error, and fanciful theory were strangely mixed, from the words of St. Paul, “But when Peter was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” He exposed the fallacy of the theory that the great apostle of the gentiles and the first Supreme Pontiff were in antagonism to each other, and he did this ably; but he ended his sermon with the following absurd passage:

“More than one writer has been pleased to point out that in the first century there were three periods, in which three apostles—Peter, Paul, and John—predominated in succession; and they think they can trace the same succession in the larger field of church history, so that the Petrine period ends at the Reformation, and the Pauline succeeds it, whilst the time of St. John is supposed to be the beginning. There is something fanciful in this arrangement. Yet pardon the fancy for the truth that underlies it. And when Peter falters, impulsive, and is inconsistent with himself, and Paul withstands him to the face, let the third apostle enter on the scene and remind us that we can afford to use the largest charity whilst we hold still the firmest trust. His contribution to the eternal diapason of the church’s faith and love shall be this: ‘Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God.... And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also’ (1 John iv. 15, 21).”

It will not do to set up St. Paul as the John the Baptist of Luther and Henry VIII.’s Reformation; nor will it do to assume that Peter, whose province it is to confirm the faith of his brethren, “falters and is inconsistent with himself,” or that the church has waited until now to understand the words of St. John.

But here the curtain falls upon the public proceedings of the conference. They retired from the profane sight of men, and, shut up in company with “four reporters pledged to secrecy,” and who duly gave to the journals every day accounts of all that happened, they spent a few hours of each day in discussing “not creeds,” but “modern forms of infidelity”; “the best mode of maintaining unity among the various churches of the Anglican communion”; “Voluntary Boards of Arbitration for churches to which such an arrangement may be applicable”; “the relation to each other of missionary bishops and of missionaries in various branches of the Anglican community acting in the same country”; and “the position of Anglican chaplains and chaplaincies on the Continent of Europe and elsewhere.” Nothing could be less interesting than much of this; and the prelates were no doubt glad when all was over, and when they closed their meetings by a sermon from the Bishop of Pennsylvania in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

As is plain from the comments already given by the leading organs of English opinion, the second Pan-Anglican Synod attracted even less attention and more general contempt than the first. When men come to ask themselves what has been accomplished by the twenty-five days’ session besides tea and talk, what is the only answer? It is this: the synod ended, as it began, in nothing.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ETHICS, OR MORAL PHILOSOPHY. By Walter H. Hill, S.J., Professor of Philosophy in the St. Louis University, author of _Logic and Ontology, or General Metaphysics_. Baltimore: Murphy & Co.; London: Washbourne. 1878.

We rejoice to learn that Father Hill’s first volume of the course of philosophy has met with great success. We have been long desiring to see the second part in regular order, namely, the Special Metaphysics. This is, undoubtedly, the most difficult part to treat in a satisfactory manner, as well as the one most controverted among Catholic writers, particularly as regards cosmology. Precisely on this account we were especially curious to hear Father Hill’s exposition of the debated questions, and perhaps this is also the reason why he has postponed this part of his work, and published first his Ethics. Ethics is equally important, and even more generally necessary and useful. We are, therefore, glad to welcome the Ethics of Father Hill, hoping that he may hasten, as much as his heavy labors in the work of teaching and in that of the sacred ministry will permit, the completion of his Metaphysics.

This volume is, like the first one, an English text-book of the same grade and quality with our standard Latin text-books in philosophy. It is suited for the educated reader and for the higher classes in college. Both volumes are above the capacity of pupils of a lesser degree of intellectual development and instruction. If it is possible to bring the study of philosophy down to the level of this class of pupils without reducing the science to a merely nominal and superficial condition, the text-book fitted for this purpose still remains a _desideratum_. For the general reader and the pupil who is able to understand it this manual of ethics will prove of great service. It has always been the rule and practice of the illustrious Society of Jesus to follow in instruction the doctrine of St. Thomas, as understood by the great body of Catholic theologians and philosophers, in all those particulars in which such a common understanding exists. In ethics, happily, there does exist such a common and generally accepted doctrine in regard to all chief and important topics, and there is consequently a great degree of unity and harmony in the teaching imparted by Catholic professors to their pupils. Without doubt it is the safest and most practical method to make the text-books of theology and philosophy, and the lectures of the class-room, conform to this common doctrine. Deeper and more original and free discussions of difficult and undecided or imperfectly-elucidated questions belong to another class of works.

Father Hill’s text-book may be taken as a safe and sound exponent of the system of ethics contained in our approved Latin manuals and taught in our seminaries and colleges. In substance its doctrine is scholastic, the doctrine of Aristotle, St. Thomas, Suarez, Bellarmine, Liberatore, and the generality of similar authors of approved reputation. The great number of original texts, with translations, which are interwoven with the author’s own exposition, gives the ordinary reader a notable advantage, by making him acquainted with the great writers on ethics, and furnishing a guarantee of the fidelity with which their ideas are presented by the author.

A minute criticism of the work before us in its minor details would occupy too much space for a mere notice. We are obliged, therefore, to content ourselves with a general expression of our favorable opinion of the manual as a whole, and of the treatment given to the principal topics in its several parts, and the briefest possible notation of particular points of remark. The first chapter, on the Ultimate End of Man, presents sufficiently for a treatise of such limited compass the twofold relation of humanity by nature and by grace to God as the Final Cause. One statement (p. 21), that “it is not simply impossible for God to make a creature so perfect that intuitive vision of the divine essence would be connatural to it,” we cannot concur in, and it is contrary to the common opinion that grace elevates its subject “super omnem naturam creatam _atque creabilem_,” so admirably defended by Father Mazzella in his _De Deo Creante_. We think, also, that the author confuses the abstractive with the discursive process in the same context, and refer to Liberatore’s exposition of the nature of angelic knowledge and the similar knowledge proper to the state of separated spirits, in his work _Deli Uomo_, for our reasons of dissent from the exposition of Father Hill. The qualification of “unnatural,” used in respect to a desire of the soul to see God intuitively, on page 23, seems to us objectionable, on account of the use of a term at least ambiguous, and liable to be taken as signifying a positive opposition between nature and a final term which transcends its specific active force. The remainder of the whole division of General Ethics, comprising the following chapters: ii., Action of Man as a Rational Being; iii., Principles of Moral Goodness; iv., The Passions; v., The Virtues; vi., Law; vii., Civil Law; viii., Conscience, is in our opinion admirable, and we find nothing to criticise. We are particularly pleased to see that the author refutes a common fallacy that sin is an infinite evil, meriting an infinite punishment. It is most important at this time, when the doctrine of endless punishment is so generally and violently assailed, that the exaggerations and fallacious arguments which cling around it should be cleared away, and only that which is the real doctrine of revelation be presented, sustained by rational arguments which are solid, which has been done by Liberatore, and also by Father Hill in his section of this subject.

In the second part, on Special Ethics, four chapters are included: i., Rights and Duties; ii., Special Duties; iii., Man as a Social Being; iv., Civil Society. We are glad to see that Father Hill distinctly asserts the rights of rational creatures before God, a most important point against Calvinistic, Jansenistic, and rigoristic exaggerations of the doctrine of God—absolute dominion and divine sovereignty, which make theology odious and drive many minds toward atheism in their intellectual despair. The question of veracity, lying, and mental reservation, which Grotius said made him sweat, is too briefly treated for a satisfactory enucleation of its difficulties, especially as the author departs from the common opinion of Catholic moralists. We are rather disposed to favor his view, which has strong reasons in its support, though not prepared to express an opinion that it is altogether complete and sufficient.

In treating the great question of civil society, with the subordinate question of the origin and legitimacy of government, etc., the author has shown great judgment and discrimination. He adheres to the theory of Suarez, Bellarmine, and the great body of the ablest Catholic authors, respecting political society. Ultra-monarchical and ultra-democratic theories are equally indefensible, and both are mischievous. We trust that loyal citizens of our republic who are reasonably conservative will find evidence, in Father Hill’s calm and moderate statements, that the Catholic religion is admirably suited to give stability to our own national institutions, notwithstanding its total opposition to the European liberalism and radicalism that would fain overthrow the constitutions and governments of the Old World.

In respect to style, the main point in a work of this kind is to make its ideas clearly and distinctly intelligible. The author, in general, has succeeded in his effort to accomplish this result as well as the necessity of adhering to the phraseology of Latin authors would permit. Sometimes, however, succinctness and condensation produce ambiguity and obscurity—a defect which we suspect in some instances is partly or entirely owing to errors in printing. Again, there are some words used in a way which is not conformed to the English idiom—as, for instance, the word “avert,” used intransitively, and the phrase to “put an action.” There are many minor faults of this sort which can be easily corrected in a second edition. Let us, by all means, have the other volume as soon as possible. The whole, when complete, will serve a most important end, by extending among intelligent readers of English books a knowledge and taste for scholastic philosophy. This taste, when awakened, will demand much larger and more thorough works on the same subjects. We think, moreover, that those who write these works must break away from the trammels of an artificial Latinized style and write in idiomatic English, like Dr. Newman and the best writers in the _Dublin Review_ and _Month_. We desire to see works on Catholic philosophy which are as fine specimens of pure English idiom as those written by Liberatore in his native language are of a charming and literary Italian style.

I. A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES, AND COLLEGES. By John R. G. Hassard, author of _Life of Archbishop Hughes_, _Life of Pius IX._, etc. 1 vol. 12mo, illustrated.

II. AN INTRODUCTORY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. Arranged on the Catechetical Plan. 1 vol. 16mo, illustrated. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1878.

In this history Mr. Hassard has performed a very rare feat. He has made a school-book which, while being in every respect a thorough school-book, is full of interest from cover to cover. There is not a dull page in it.

Of course the first thing that commends this book to Catholic teachers and students is that it is written by a Catholic, and Mr. Hassard’s eminent qualifications for the preparation of such a work are too well known to need any mention here. The part that Catholics played, not only in the discovery of this continent but in its exploration and colonization; the part borne by them in the War of Independence and in the later history of these United States, has been carefully forgotten, or slurred over, or misrepresented, or omitted altogether in the average history set in a boy’s hand at school. This is not history; and to remedy this capital defect, we take it, has been the chief object of Mr. Hassard’s book.

He has done his work thoroughly and in an excellent manner. He is nowhere aggressive; he is simply historical from first to last. Where Catholicity comes in he gives it its place; where it does not enter he never drags it in. He is concerned with facts, and he attends chiefly to them. How he has succeeded in grouping them together, in collecting the tangled threads of events that are scattered over a vast continent, where so many nations and tribes of men and forms of religion and government contended for the mastery; the patient skill with which he has woven these into a bright, clear, and picturesque whole, can only be judged by those who read the book, which, for our own part, we could not set down until we had read it through. The history begins with the discovery of the continent, and brings us down by easy yet rapid stages to our own times. The story of the Spanish colonies, the French, the English, the Dutch, are all given due prominence. The work of Catholic missionaries in exploring the continent and attempting to convert the native tribes is briefly yet fully set forth.

The long struggle for national independence is given with great skill, force, and clearness, and indeed these qualities characterize the whole work. It is very plain that the author had everything clear in his own mind before he sat down to inform others. The result is a clean-cut and complete whole, with no important omissions, no waste, and no redundancy. The narrative is invariably spirited and flowing, and to students is in itself a model of clear, strong, simple English. It is wonderful, too, to see how, with the brief space at his command, the author has contrived to throw in at the right time those little personal allusions, pictures, or reminiscences of famous men and events that lend its charm to history and so aptly illustrate the times. Indeed, the gifts here displayed by Mr. Hassard are obviously those that would lend grace, strength, and dignity to a much more ambitious, though not more useful, work than that before us. The sense of historical truth and accuracy plainly predominates in the author’s mind.

His efforts to produce a history that was much needed, yet had hitherto remained unwritten, have been ably seconded by the publishers. The text is a delight to the eye; the illustrations, though many, are unexceptionally excellent; the little maps thrown in here and there are of great use in illustrating the text; and the questions at the foot of the page are all that either student or teacher could desire. It is impossible to commend such a work too heartily. It simply stands alone.

We have often heard the just complaint that Catholics had no history of the United States which they could safely use in their schools—none, at least, which was satisfactory. That complaint can exist no longer.

The _Catechism of United States History_ is made from the larger work, and is in every way suitable for parish schools and junior classes in academies. The narrative is continuous, so that it can be read without the questions as a regular history.

LE PROGRES DU CATHOLICISME PARMI LES PEUPLES D’ORIGINE ANGLO-SAXONNE DEPUIS L’ANNEE 1857. Par Mgr. De Haerne, Membre de la Chambre des Representants (de la Belgique). Extrait de la _Revue Catholique de Louvain_. Louvain: Peeters. 1878.

This pamphlet is an evidence of the awakening of a great interest in Catholic Europe in the Catholic Church existing and increasing within the dominion of the British Empire and the republic of the United States. Ample justice is done by the author to the great Celtic element which pervades the church in English countries, although the term Anglo-Saxon appears so distinctively in his designation of the territory which he has made the object of his investigations. It is almost impossible to give an account of a pamphlet so full of statistics without translating the whole bodily. The author has made it as full and correct as he could, considering the means within his reach. The defects are those of his sources of information, and his few mistakes are those which a foreigner would easily make—as, for instance, in making Seton Hall College an institute of the Jesuits, and attempting to enumerate the generals of the army of the United States who have become converts. A translation of this interesting pamphlet made by a competent hand, with the corrections and additions in respect particularly to our own country and British America which a fully-informed writer living among ourselves could make, would furnish some very valuable information both to the friends and the enemies of the Catholic religion. We owe grateful acknowledgments to the eminent Belgian prelate and statesman for his excellent and elaborate essay, and for his kindness in favoring us with a copy.

I. ANCIENT HISTORY. II. HISTORY OF ROME. III. HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Adapted from the French of Rev. P. F. Gazeau, S. J. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1878.

Whoever knows the above works in their original French will be glad to see them in their present convenient, cheap, and attractive English form. The series makes delightful reading, even in a desultory sort of way. They are full of sound learning and philosophical inference; indeed, it would be hard to find books containing more wealth of research in so small a space. As might be expected, the style is concise and yet smooth, flowing, and agreeable.

Such books as these are needed. Without denying the zeal and learning of most of our teachers, it is still safe to say that few of our higher students ever finish a course of history. The difficulty lies with the text-books generally in use. They are for the most part so large and full of detail that the pupil leaves school without a fair knowledge of the events connected with the Roman Empire, the formation of the modern states of Europe, the conversion of the barbarians, the Crusades, the events that led up to the Protestant Reformation, and the important changes and revolutions that have occurred since that period, because all or most of the time available for history has been consumed in the epochs preceding the time of our Saviour.

The _Ancient History_ is a complete compendium of the history of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Media and Persia, Phœnicia and Carthage, Greece, Macedonia, Alexander’s Empire and the states founded on its ruins. The _History of Rome_ treats of the Eternal City and its dominion from the time of Romulus to that of Romulus Augustulus.

The _History of the Middle Ages_, of which we have before us advance sheets, is now in press. Scholars will be surprised by its wonderful combination of learning, sagacious reflections, and convenient grouping of events. Its narrative stops with the taking of Constantinople (1453). A _Modern History_ of the same series is in preparation, and will follow as soon as possible. It will bring the series down to our own times.

The orthography of the proper names is made to conform to the practice of the best modern English and American writers. The judgment and learning of the American editor are apparent in the many wise alterations and additions which he has made. Review questions are given at the end of each chapter, except in the _Middle Ages_, where the questions will be printed at the end of the book, so as not to break the continuous appearance of its pages for the general reader. The three books may be gone through in one term of ten months without any resort to “cramming,” and we can recommend them to our high-schools, academies, and colleges as the most compact, complete, and continuous set of histories yet given to the Catholic public.

DOSIA. From the French of Henry Greville. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1878.

It has been hinted that Henry Greville is the _nom de plume_ of a French lady who lived for some time in Russia. The sex of the writer may be readily judged from the book itself, which is decidedly feminine both in plot and in dialogue. Its sketches of Russian society are in a measure very neutral in color; and as to the two facts that peculation is very active in Russian official circles, and that extravagance is very common among the “crack” regiments at St. Petersburg, these are so very well known that the story, if written to exhibit such phases of society, is superfluous, as that information could better be obtained by reading some standard work of travels in Russia. As a novel it is trifling and flimsy, and the authoress cannot compare with Daudet either in dramatic force or beauty of diction. The plot is feeble, but the dialogue is often amusing and the situations on certain occasions not wanting in interest.

A SAINT IN ALGERIA. By Lady Herbert. (Reprinted from the _Month_.) London: Burns & Oates. 1878.

_A Saint in Algeria_ is the record of one of those lives ever living in the bosom of the church of God—a link in the vast unbroken chain of saints binding through all the centuries the church suffering on earth with the church triumphant in heaven.

We recommend this little memoir of Margaret Bergésio (better known as Agarithe Berger) to those who look on the past ages only as the days of faith and of a charity that faileth not. In the life of this pure mountain blossom of Piedmont, transplanted to the thick atmosphere of Lyons and finally finding its perfection among the hills of Algeria, these mournful souls may, in the midst of the seeming decay they weep, find consolation in a new name added to a saintly list that in future years may make some Kenelm Digby sigh for the earnest and active faith of the church in the nineteenth century.

And the devoted Agarithe has found in Lady Herbert a loving biographer, who writes with a fervor and simplicity worthy of the high humility of the holy heroine.

LEGENDS OF HOLY MARY. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1878.

As we read the preface to this little book we feel our weapons of criticism trembling in their sheath, since, should we use them, we find ourselves well-nigh denied any seat in that kingdom whereof Holy Mary is queen; while our critic’s spoils lie out of our reach safe in her hands amid whose lilies, as once wrote St. Bernard, our earthly offerings lose their stain and wear only the whiteness of the heavenly bloom.

The writer of the present volume has gathered from ancient gardens, in the devotional spirit of old-time minnesinger, a nosegay of legends breathing the pervading presence of her who is the “mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope,” the ever-merciful mother of the poor children of Eve.

Few can fail to gather some sweetness from such a nosegay—one that among its blossoms counts that fair one of Provence whose perfect perfume fills one of Adelaide Procter’s most perfect poems teaching the completeness of the mercy of God:

“Only Heaven Means _crowned_, not _vanquished_, when it says, ‘Forgiven!’”

THE YOUNG CATHOLIC.

The _Young Catholic_, published by the Catholic Publication Society Co., enters this month on its ninth year. It may be that some persons who are interested in this kind of literature have not yet seen the _Young Catholic_. For their benefit we would say that it is a monthly paper of eight pages for children and young people. It is finely illustrated and filled with original matter that is at the same time entertaining, instructive, and edifying.

As a literary work, our young people may well be proud of the _Young Catholic_. It can take its place beside the best literature of that kind in our country.

It is most suitable for Sunday-schools, convent schools, etc., and the low price at which it is published brings it within the reach of all. The following is the table of contents for September:

Thinking over the Actions of the Day; illustrated. Hero Priests. The Sparrow and her Children. Twilight Talks. Beautiful Things. The Mocking-Bird; illustrated. Heroism of a Little Girl. The Holy Rupert of Bingen. What is He? illustrated. Talk by the Fireside; illustrated. Insects of August. A Lake Asleep. The Little Cricket. Perils of Missionary Life; illustrated. Stockings. The Farmboys, Chap. III. Hymn to St. Aloysius, with music, composed by a pupil of Loretto Convent, Enniscorthy, Ireland. A Letter from “Martha from the Country.” Letters from “Uncle Ned’s Sunbeams.” Enigmas, Riddles, etc.

TERMS, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE.

5 copies, per annum, $2; 15 copies, $5; 50 copies, $16; 100 copies, $30; 250 copies, $70; 500 copies, $125. No subscription for less than five copies received, and not less than five copies sent to one address.

In sending money, a post-office order ought to be procured, and where this cannot be had the letter should be registered. Every postmaster is obliged to register a letter if required; the cost is fifteen cents extra. Large clubs can be divided into fives, tens, etc., and sent to different post offices and addresses.

Address THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO., 9 Barclay Street, New York.

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We need scarcely call the attention of our readers to the new serial from the pen of Miss Kathleen O’Meara, which has just begun, and which will run through our next volume. We have no doubt that _Pearl_ will prove to our readers, as it has proved to us, to be by far the finest story that this accomplished writer has yet given us.