Chapter IV: Part 4

Louis de Chantal was born in France, of noble parents, about the middle of the eighteenth century; being a younger brother, he was destined from his earliest years to the ecclesiastical state, but on arriving at a maturer age, his tastes and inclinations were so adverse to the sacred functions, that he proceeded no further than receiving the tonsure, which enabled him to hold the rich ecclesiastical preferment in the gift of his family, and entitled him to the appellation of Monsieur l'Abbé de Chantal. He soon became commendatory abbot of two once great religious establishments, then languishing under a sad decay of zeal and discipline consequent on the loss of a regular head. The great object of commendatory abbots was to keep the number of religious to the lowest possible amount, in order to profit the more by the revenues, which they diverted to their own private benefit and luxury. At Conques the decay of the temporal kept pace with that of the spiritual; the buildings which, for the most part, had been erected during the glorious period of S. Louis, were falling fast to ruin. The regular portions, now much too large for the habitations of the few religious that remained, exhibited the desolate appearance of neglect and emptiness. Verdure luxuriated in the untrodden courts, and sprung up even in the very cloister, whose vaults had long ceased to echo the regulated tread and solemn chaunt of the ancient Benedictines. It was evident that essential repairs could not long be postponed, and a bull issued by the Pope a few years previous, requiring the conventual buildings of France to be substantially repaired out of the revenues, was still in force. The matter was, however, deferred for a short time, as our young abbé was about to proceed on his travels to the more classic ground of Italy, at that period ignorantly regarded as the great repository and source of all art and taste. The noble mediæval cathedrals of France were considered by Monsieur de Chantal as so many specimens of ancient barbarism, but the extravagancies of Bernini and the distortions of Le Pautre were splendid achievements in his eyes. It may be readily conceived what class of objects arrested his attention in his travels: his enthusiasm on arriving at the Eternal City was boundless—he almost believed that the heathen mythology was revived, and that he was in the presence of those divinities whose exploits had been the study of his early youth. The splendid galleries of voluptuous art, where the metamorphoses and amatory combats of Ovid were depicted to the life. The marble goddesses in shady groves, and sporting tritons cooling the air in high and sparkling jets—the obelisks, the sarcophagi, the endless treasures of classic art. Then even the churches, they were scarcely to be distinguished from the exquisite taste of the heathens themselves. Thinly draperied saints were borne into paradise by hovering Cupids. Voluptuous female statues reclined on the sarcophagi of bishops and ecclesiastics,—herculean martyrs writhed like dying gladiators, while naked angels held aloft the victor's crown. Our abbé was ravished with astonishment and delight as the eager cicerone drew him from one far-famed object to another, each more wonderful than the last. In his perambulations he occasionally passed some venerable looking sanctuaries, but the usual exclamation of the guide, _eh, una porcheria_, was quite sufficient to repress any desire of examining them; and in a word, he returned from Italy like most of the ecclesiastics of that period, with a thorough contempt for the ancient traditions of church architecture, and a determination to Italianize, as far as possible, in any work with which he might be connected. The time had now arrived when the repairs of the abbey of Conques could be no longer delayed, and accompanied by an architect of the Souflot style, with a thickly curled wig reaching half-way down his shoulders, he one morning started from his hotel at Paris, and proceeded thither. Although only a few leagues distant, the bad roads so delayed their progress, that it was late in the afternoon when they attained the top of the descent that led down into the valley where the abbey was situated. A little to the eastward of the scattered houses which formed the village, and small but characteristic church, stood the then lofty and irregular abbatial buildings. High above the rest rose the long grey mass of the church, surmounted by a high leaden roof, whitened with age. A forest of pinnacles surrounded the apse, while buttress and arc buttant continued in regular succession to surround the vast fabric. At the western end were two towers, but the southern one alone had been carried up to its intended height, the other had received a temporary roof, when raised a few feet above the nave; the abbacy shortly after fell into _commendam_, and it rose no higher. A small but elegant leaded spire was placed at the intersection of the nave and transept, but it was evidently a substitute for some far grander design in the way of a centre lantern, as might be divined by the rising of angle masonry left incomplete.

A dense mass of wood covered the opposite hill with a deep green, while the warm tints of a westerning sun relieved each turret and pinnacle in a glowing hue on the verdant background. A rapid descent soon brought the abbé and his companion to the gates, which were opened with some difficulty to admit the equipage within the first court; such vehicles were utterly unknown when these buildings were raised, and further progress was impossible except on foot. The abbé then alighted, and was received with much external respect by the few religious who remained the occupants of a monastery, where more than a hundred sons of S. Benedict had kept the rule together in older and better times.

The next morning the architect waited on Monsieur de Chantal in his chamber, "Monseigneur," he exclaimed, "j'ai parcouru les bâtimens;—rien de plus gothique, de plus mauvais; point de règles, point de principes; ces gens-là ils n'ont jamais connu le beau; il faut tout démonter, tout démolir." This proposition, however well it might accord with the tastes of the commendatory abbot, was by no means agreeable to his intentions, as the proposed demolition and rebuilding would cost a considerable sum, which he thought might be as well expended on some new gardens attached to his hotel at Paris, and he therefore, on a personal inspection, considerably modified the sweeping intentions of his architect, and confined his operations to indispensable repairs and the erection of some new offices. These points arranged, he proceeded at once to the inspection of the church. On entering by the western cloister door, the venerable fabric appeared nearly in its original state: the nave was divided into nine bays with light clustered shafts, the centre one of each running quite up to receive the groin; the triforium was divided into compartments corresponding to the mullions of the clerestory windows, and filled with imagery and devices in painted glass. The upper windows contained the image of a saint in every light, under a high canopy of rich design. The lower windows of the aisles had been altered in the fifteenth century, the tracery was more elaborately ramified and the glass exhibited a higher degree of pictorial skill, though inferior in severity and style to the more ancient glazing.

The ribs of the groining were richly painted at the intersections, with images in relief on every boss. The pavement was irregularly studded with incised slabs of benefactors, who were permitted to repose beneath the floor of that edifice to whose support and glory they had contributed while living. But the most striking object that presented itself to the sight, was a most elaborate jubé or rood loft, extending completely across the entrance to the choir. Eight slender shafts sustained seven arches, richly crocketted on the labels, with images of angels in sexfoils, filling up the spandrils. Between every arch and over the shafts, was an image standing on a corbel under a projecting tabernacle; immediately over them were sixteen arched and canopied recesses, each containing, in high relief, a mystery of our Lord's life and passion, most artificially wrought in stone, and heightened with gilding and colours, and over all, in the midst, was a great rood rising almost to the vault of the church, with most cunning work of leaves and foliage running up and about it, and sprouting forth at its extremities, and on it an image of our Lord as it were a king with a diadem on his head, and a long tunic, all gilt, reaching down to his feet, with the borders set with crystals, and on either side an image of our Blessed Lady and S. John, and two cherubims with images of gold. This rood, which was held in singular veneration by neighbouring inhabitants, and by them commonly termed Le Bon Dieu de Conques, found but little favour in the eyes of our refined abbé; "Il faut démonter cette vieillerie-là," said he, turning to the architect. "Ah, mon Dieu, oui," was the ready answer, "_ça fera du bien_; on peut y mettre une grillage en fer, comme à S. Denis."[20]—"C'est une bonne idée!" cried Monsieur de Chantal, "et je la ferai exécuter." It is probable that, in carrying out this barbarous and sacrilegious intention, the abbé meant to _improve_ the church!! Brought up in the principles of error and paganism, to him nothing was beautiful that did not savour of classic art. It is probable that he really meant well, as far as so debased a mind could mean well; let us hope his ignorance obtained his final pardon, and that he was permitted to expiate in his doleful end this terrible deed of destruction. The religious of Conques mourned most bitterly over the demolition of the ancient jubé. Men who live a religious life are naturally adverse to change: the removal of an image, a picture, an object on which they have been accustomed to look with devotion, is to them an irreparable loss, and great were the wailings of the little community when they learned their abbé's decision; remonstrance was, however, useless against such superior power, and the demolition of the whole was finally decided. But its destruction was not deplored by the religious only,—the inhabitants of Conques, a simple-minded but devout race, had, for many generations, regarded this ancient and edifying imagery with singular veneration. From their early years, succeeding fathers had taught their little ones that the great king upon the cross was the son of the king of kings, who expired on the rood to save them, and there was his blessed mother weeping at his side, and the beloved disciple to whose care she was committed; and below all were wonderful mysteries shown, from the salutation of the angel to the painful bearing of the cross to Calvary. All these and much more were set forth and most artificially, and great was the lamentation of the good people of Conques when they heard that it was to be no more seen.

Impatient to begin his improvements, the abbé procured some workmen to commence the demolition before his return to Paris. Among those who presented themselves was a young man of great athletic powers, but of a sinister and scornful countenance, and who appeared to proceed in the task of destruction with singular alacrity and energy. Several men with ropes and ladders had now ascended the upper part of the rood, while the young man before mentioned stood at the foot, and alternately applied a crow and axe to cut away the mortice in which the base rested and prise it out. Before the men above had the ropes properly fast to lower all, by a tremendous effort he forced the foot from its socket, and the cross, inclining to the Gospel side, fell over, carrying away the image of the Blessed Virgin in descent, and the whole mass lay broken on the pavement. The movement was so sudden that it startled the abbé, who was standing near the man, and a feeling of dread seemed to appal the other workmen as they gazed on the fallen rood, but the face of the youth was flushed with ill-concealed exultation, which the abbé remarked, and attributed at the time to his successful display of strength; but it came from a far deeper feeling, as he afterwards discerned to his own destruction.

The whole screen was afterwards demolished; and by the end of the succeeding year, when Monsieur de Chantal came to inspect the alterations, he found, to his great satisfaction, that something of the character of a Berninian church had been imparted to the ancient choir. A rococo screen of open iron work, with his own arms in the centre, had supplanted the ancient screen. Pointed arches had been turned into round ones by help of plaster; the ancient capitals, luxuriant in salient foliage and quaint imagery, had been transferred into heavy Corinthians; most of the painted glass had been removed and replaced by large square white panes. The shafts of the pillars were marbled by streaks of paint, and this once perfect choir reduced down to a base and bad imitation of the corrupt Italian style.

About a furlong from the abbey-gate was the old parish church, a simple and unpretending structure, with its slate-topped steeple and gilded cock, a most fitting emblem of the exemplary and vigilant pastor, the Père Duchesne, a venerable priest, who for many years had most faithfully discharged the sacred duties of his cure; a man of most retired habits, who devoted that portion of his time that was not occupied by parochial cares to learned researches and pursuits. He was deeply read in liturgical lore, and held the ancient traditions and offices of the church in great veneration. Every Sunday and feast the most respected of his parishioners assembled round the lectern in the chancel, where they sang the praises of God in the old plain song, for no other music was tolerable to the ears of either priest or people. The interior of the church, though simple, was not devoid of interest. There were considerable remains of painted glass, especially towards the eastern end; the high altar was coeval with the erection of the church itself, and had been traditionally consecrated by a holy bishop, now numbered among the saints of God. The altar of the Lady chapel dated from the end of the fourteenth century, and was erected by a seigneur who lived in the old chateau on the hill, then in ruins. The rood loft was remarkable; the front was supported by four pillars, sustaining three equal arches; the space between these pillars was enclosed by a sort of iron trellis, set up with the original work, as a protection to two side altars, the reredoses of which formed a solid wall for nearly six feet high, and were then divided by mullions into lights, like a window; these were also secured by bars, and a massive pair of doors, with rich ornamental iron-work, closed the entrance to the chancel. I have been thus particular in the description of this screen, as it is important for a subsequent part of this history. Such was the church, and such its curé. The Abbé de Chantal, in ordinary courtesy to the old priest, determined to call at his residence previous to his departure. On arriving, he was ushered into a small chamber, where the curé was seated with a folio extended on the table before him. Somewhat surprised at the sudden entrance of the abbé, and not over well pleased, as he held such quasi ecclesiastics at the lowest estimation, he begged to know the reason for so unlooked-for a visit. "Oh, Monsieur le curé," carelessly exclaimed the abbé, "I have been making great improvements at the abbey, and I wish to know if you have seen what has been done?" "I have, indeed, seen what has been done, or rather undone," cried the old priest with increasing emotion, "but surely you cannot expect me to approve the destruction of Catholic antiquity and symbolism, and the substitution of unmeaning and offensive novelties." "_Eh, patience_, Monsieur le curé; why I was going to propose to you to reform your church _à l'Italienne_, and to get rid of the monstrous barrack in the middle, _on les démonte partout_." At these words, the curé, reddening with indignation, exclaimed, "Monsieur de Chantal, the present degraded state of ecclesiastical discipline permits you, a layman in every respect but in the fashion of your clothes and the form of your peruke, to hold the highest office in a foundation where, in more ancient and better days, you would not have been permitted to take part in the most menial duties. You have destroyed that which your predecessors respected; you have defaced and mangled the Temple of God; you have dressed it out à la mode; and its solemnity is departed for ever, to the sorrow and disgust of myself and my people. But allow me to tell you, the parish church is under my care, and while I live not one stone of that venerable enclosure of the holy place shall be touched or removed, or its sacred imagery injured." The abbé, deeply mortified at the reproaches of the curé, endeavoured to conceal his mortification by diverting the discourse on the times and his parishioners. The curé, however, turning to his visitor, said in a sad and solemn tone, "The times are full of sad presage. The riches, the corruptions, immunities, and extravagant privileges that disgrace even the highest ecclesiastics of the land, are the subject of deep and merited murmurs among the neglected people; men begin to hate religion for the vices of its ministers, and those who squander in worldly vanity the revenues intended for the service of religion and Christ's poor, will have to give a fearful reckoning." The abbé started to his feet: "Nay, hear me," continued the curé. "You are one of these spoilers; it is true the abbey was given to you as a heritage, but it was the gift of those who had no power to bestow. Think of that choir, once filled with a hundred devout servants of God chanting his praises by night and day, now debased and almost deserted. The vast refectory in ruins,—its vaulted gateway, where hundreds partook the hospitality and charity of the house, now scarcely shelters a single straying mendicant—all is neglect and decay, and how will it end?" "Ah, mon Dieu," cried the abbé, "I cannot bear this; how often have I thought and tried for better things! But no, impossible. My rank, my family honour, all must be supported." So, hastily departing, he summoned his servants and carriage.—"To Paris!" he exclaimed. That night the Hotel de Chantal was a blaze of light, the rendezvous of the _élite_ of the capital; and among the many cavaliers who escorted the fair dames of Paris that graced the mirrored and lustred saloons, none could surpass the gallantry and devotion of the noble owner of the mansion, the commendatory abbot of Conques....

Fifteen years had elapsed since that night of revelry—the Hotel de Chantal is closed—it has been pillaged of its costly furniture—its saloons are desolate: some few miserable people live in its upper rooms—a ferocious _sans-culotte_ has replaced the liveried porter. Where is its once noble, its wealthy owner? In the corner of a miserable mansard of the Faubourg S. Germain crouched the figure of a man approaching the middle age, but whose unshaven visage and neglected state added several years to his appearance. His dress was that of a labourer, but the coarseness of his outer garments but ill accorded with his fair and unworked hands. A small leathern valise was by his side, and he anxiously listened to every sound. "This was the time he should have arrived," he exclaimed, "my retreat is only known to him. Mon Dieu! can he have betrayed me?" At this moment a confused and increasing sound of cries and snatches of songs was heard in the street—it is on the staircase—the tramp of ascending footsteps, mingled with imprecations of vengeance, strikes on the terrified ears of the unhappy Chantal, for such was the seeming labourer. He rushed to the window, but it afforded no chance of escape, as the eaves of the tiles were overhanging the street at a prodigious height, and the steepness of the pitch precluded all hope of ascending to the top. At this moment the door was assailed, the feeble fastenings soon gave way, and a party of men rushed in, among whom De Chantal distinguished his treacherous servant, who had betrayed his retreat. "Le voila!" he exclaimed, and in a moment the abbé was in the grasp of men who never spared an aristocrat. At the same time a red handkerchief held out of the window, announced to the crowd below that the victim had been captured and was secured, amid yells of triumph and execration. A few moments served to drag down the unfortunate abbé to the street, half filled by a mixed rabble, in which the women were conspicuous for their savage exclamations and menaces. "A bas les aristocrats, à bas les prêtres, à bas les tyrans," were heard on all sides, while the terrified abbé was forced along, strongly grasped by two ferocious _sans-culottes_.

In a short time they arrived at a small open space; some straw was scattered on the pavement, and by the side of a common butcher's block, hastily brought to the spot, stood a man of enormous muscular strength and lofty stature, a shirt loosely bound round his waist and a pair of sabots completed his attire, while he wielded a huge chopper or axe, in savage impatience for his victim. The abbé cast a terrified look at this popular executioner, and seemed indistinctly to recollect his ferocious features. "Oh, Jesu, Jesu," he shrieked, in agony of soul, when the furious infidel, bending towards him, in a voice of savage irony exclaimed, "_Il n'y est plus_, Monsieur l'Abbe; _nous l'avons démonté à Conques_, ha! ha!"—The executioner and the youth who cut away the rood were the same.—In a few moments a badly severed head and a bleeding corpse were tossed to and fro amid the frantic mob, and exposed to every indignity, till a common cart removed them and bore them to an unhallowed grave, and no cross ever marked the spot which held the mutilated remains of the last commendatory abbot of Conques, the _Pagan ambonoclast_.

THE REVOLUTIONARY AMBONOCLAST.

Jacques Frénin was the name of the man who so fearfully figured as the executioner of the abbé. From an early age he had imbibed those infidel opinions that were too industriously propagated among the French people for a considerable time previous to the breaking out of the great revolution. He hated the priests, because he thought they were rich, and not obliged to labour like himself; for the same reason he detested the nobility and higher classes. He considered religion as a mere invention of priestcraft; he was never seen at its offices, or participating in its rites; it was therefore not surprising that he assisted at the demolition of the ancient rood of the abbey with a sort of diabolical satisfaction. "Ma foi," he exclaimed, "c'était un beau commencement, mais ça ne s'arrêtera pas là;" and indeed, a few years later the full principles of infidelity developed themselves in the closing of all the temples of God, and total destruction of many of the most glorious religious monuments. As soon as popular fury had made head against all regular government, Jacques entered the National Guard, and proceeded to Paris, where his great strength and daring courage soon raised him in the estimation of his fiend-like associates. He was always the ready destroyer of a cleric or aristocrat; hence the terrible part he performed at the close of the last chapter. Through the continual occasions of plunder that presented themselves in those lawless times, he obtained a considerable sum of money, and with this he determined on retiring to his village, and securing some property. The abbey buildings had been nearly demolished for the materials, with the exception of the great western towers, which had resisted destruction, and stood now isolated, and of immense apparent height. Fragments of shafts, mullions, ribs, and ashlar-work were piled in heaps for sale, and the area of the church was one great mound of lime and broken materials. The sad scene of desolation produced no regret on the mind of the hardened Jacques, who merely exclaimed, "Ah, c'est fini!" and turned towards the old parish church, which was still standing. On drawing near he perceived an affiche announcing it for sale as part of the propriétés nationales. "Here is a capital chance," he thought; "a store for wood is what I require, and then if I buy that neighbouring forest my fortune is made." In a short time the purchase was concluded, and the venerable temple, which had for some time ceased to echo the divine praises, was disposed of to become a common wood-store. The interior of the building had a most desolate appearance; the whole was denuded of every ornament; the side altars were standing, but the high altar had been thrown down in a fruitless search for supposed treasure. An ancient image of our Lady had been removed, but the corbel remained, and the outline of the figure itself was traceable on the wall. The floor was strewed with rubbish, and damp was gathering round the bases of the pillars and chancel steps.

Jacques viewed his purchase with great satisfaction. Could he but fill it with wood, what profit he should realize! "But, peste!" he exclaimed, "with that diable de jubé, it is impossible to get a cart up near the end. Tu descendras vite." Now Frénin had assisted during his revolutionary campaigns at the destruction of many a noble church, and had remarked the expeditious way in which this was effected by cutting away the bases of the shafts, and propping them up with pieces of timber, smeared with pitch, which, when fired, were rapidly consumed, and caused the instant fall of the superincumbent weight; so that, as one of the writers of that period triumphantly explains, "_On peut détruire toute une cathédrale dans un petit quart d'heure._" Having frequently witnessed the success of this plan on a great scale, Jacques determined to apply it to the pillars of the rood screen, and with the aid of a mason who had been employed in the demolition of the abbey, he succeeded in stilting all the shafts on wooden shores, which he afterwards covered with grease and pitch. He calculated that in their fall they would bring in the vaulting of the loft, and, in fine, save all the trouble of pulling down piecemeal. All being prepared, he entered the church early in the morning, and twisting the wooden props with straw, he proceeded to ignite them. Those who have read the last chapter should remember the peculiar construction of this screen, with its iron trellis-work between the walls, the solid reredoses towards the chancel. A volume of smoke rose from each of the four piles of wood, succeeded by fierce crackling flames, and still denser smoke. Frénin was quickly escaping, when in the confusion of the moment, he pressed the iron gate from him; it closed with a spring catch, and with the rebound shot the key far beyond his reach into the nave. He rushed to the chancel doors, but they were barred within. In the midst of the increasing flame he frantically dashed himself now against the door, and now straining at the iron trellis, he roared with despair and terror; for at that early hour no one would be near to force the gates and save him. But two little children, belonging to a devout widow of the village, had been taught to go and offer their morning prayers before the church doors, though its portals had been closed for the ingress of the faithful; and, as usual, they bent their knees before the sacred threshold. Scarcely had they commenced their orisons, when the crackling sounds within the building attracted their attention; these were rapidly succeeded by the shouts of Frénin. Looking through the crevice, they beheld flames, and ran back affrighted to the village, exclaiming, "Le feu est à l'église." At this cry the peasants rushed from the houses, and the smoke, which now escaped from the broken windows of the edifice, showed that the alarm was too well founded. Proceeding to the western doors, which Frénin had closed on entering, they forced them open by means of a felled tree, swung by their united efforts as a ram.

On entering, the most horrible spectacle presented itself. The pillars and arches of the rood screen encircled in fire, and in the midst of smoke and blaze the gigantic figure of a man whose hair and clothes were already burning, yelling imprecations; in the agony of despair he grasped the bars with fruitless efforts to tear them from their faithful rivets. "Ah, mon Dieu, c'est Frénin," exclaimed the terrified villagers. "Il est perdu!" cried another voice, and at that instant the wooden shores, reduced to gleaming embers, gave way, and arches, vaulting, all fell in crushing weight on the wretched ambonoclast, who was speedily consumed beneath the burning mass. Water was now procured, and by the ready help of the numerous villagers who had been gathered to the spot, all danger to the fabric itself was soon prevented; but when the smoking ruins had been cleared away, a few ashes were all that remained of the powerful frame of Jacques Frénin, the revolutionary ambonoclast.

At this moment a man of venerable aspect entered the building, and who, notwithstanding his secular apparel, might still be recognized as the old curé, the Père Duchesne; for it was him, indeed. He had been concealed during the Reign of Terror by a neighbouring farmer, in whose loft the holy rites had often been privately celebrated. "My children," he exclaimed, "you behold the terrible judgments of God on those who sacrilegiously deface his holy temples. The unhappy Abbé de Chantal perished by the hand of that wretched man of whose awful death you have but just been the terrified spectators." A cry of subdued horror was heard among the listening people. "Yes," he continued, "I was an unwilling witness of his murder at Paris, and it was Frénin who struck the blow. Inured to every crime, a despiser of God's ordinances and of his ministers, he came at last to pollute this very temple to profane uses. But divine justice would not suffer this enormity; he has perished by his own hands, and his end was destruction. My dear children," continued the curé, "my heart bleeds to enter this church where I for so many years united with you in daily sacrifice and prayer, and from which we have been so long excluded, to see it so forlorn and desolate; and even now who knows but by my presence here I may be discovered and destroyed?" "Ah, mon père, mon père," murmured the villagers, "we will protect you." "God's will be done!" replied the curé. At that moment the sound of an approaching horseman was heard. The women instantly drew near the pastor, while some of the men hastened to the doors, to ascertain the person who was arriving. In a few moments they returned with a substantial farmer of the neighbourhood, covered with dust, who, hastening to the curé, exclaimed, "Ah, Monsieur le curé, nous sommes sauvés; le premier consul a restauré le culte," and handed a paper to the venerable priest, who could scarcely peruse it from emotion. It was, indeed, true; the concordat with the Holy Father was made, religion was restored. Such was the exultation of the inhabitants, that they would have had mass celebrated in the church, if the curé had not explained to them that, after its recent desecration, and the horrible death of Frénin, it would require reconciliation before any sacred rites could be performed within its walls; and for that purpose they must wait either for the bishop or his authority.

A procession in thanksgiving was then speedily arranged; and now with what alacrity long-concealed objects appeared! One good woman triumphantly produces a cope she had concealed under a quadruple layer of mattresses; another hastens with the holy water vat, brightening it up as she came along; half the contents of the ancient sacristy returned to view as if by magic. But what gave greater joy to the old curé than all the rest, was the ancient rood, that had been removed from the jubé and concealed in a roof by a pious parishioner. It came supported by four of the strongest youths, carried in triumph. The voice of the curé, enfeebled by age, and tremulous with overflowing devotion, could scarcely entone the Vexilla Regis, but it was instantly taken up by a chorus of voices. With caps in hand, tearful eyes, and swelling hearts, the villagers of Conques followed the venerable image of the Redeemer till arrived at the cemetery. The curé, after an ardent address of exhortation and thanksgiving, dismissed them with his blessing. One bell yet remained in the old tower; a rope was soon obtained, and loudly it rang on that happy day. The church was soon after reconciled, and the holy sacrifice has been continually offered up ever since. The rood was raised again on high, with great rejoicings, and Père Duchesne saw that day, and sang his _Nunc Dimittis_. He reposes in peace in the adjoining cemetery, but his spirit lives in his successor, who equally venerates the ancient traditions of his ancient faith. The rood is now safe from further profanation. The traces of Frénin's destruction will be shortly effaced by a perfect restoration; but the frightful end of the ambonoclasts of Conques will long form the subject of discourse among the inhabitants of the village.

THE MODERN AMBONOCLAST.

This character is of comparatively recent creation,—none of the species having been seen about in this country previous to the consecration of S. George's church. About that time two or three made their appearance, and, though not by any means in a flourishing condition, they have somewhat increased. It has been asserted that their first dislike of screens arose from a desire of literary notoriety, and that, finding several old women of both sexes had taken a most unaccountable and inexplicable offence at the ancient division of the chancel, and the restoration of the crucifix, which had been so wisely destroyed in the good old days of Queen Bess, they profited by the occasion to increase the sale of a periodical. But this may be mere calumny; and, indeed, it is very probable that it is a case of pure development, as at first they did not exhibit any repugnance to pointed churches, which they rather lauded, and only took objection to certain upright mullions and painful images; but they speedily developed other propensities and ideas, and latterly have exhibited symptoms almost similar to hydrophobia at the sight, or even mention, of pointed arches or pillars. The principal characteristics of modern ambonoclasts may be summed up as follows:—Great irritability at vertical lines, muntans of screens, or transverse beams and crosses; a perpetual habit of abusing the finest works of Catholic antiquity and art, and exulting in the admiration of everything debased, and modern, and trumpery; an inordinate propensity for candles and candlesticks, which they arrange in every possible variety; they require great excitement in the way of lively, jocular, and amatory tunes at divine service, and exhibit painful distress at the sound of solemn chanting or plain song; at divine worship they require to sit facing the altar, and near the pulpit, and then, if the edifice be somewhat like a fish-market, with a hot-water pipe at their feet, a gas-pipe in the vicinity, and a stove in the rear, they can realize a somewhat Italian atmosphere in cold and cheerless England, and revive some sparks of that devotion that the gloomy vaulting of Westminster and the odious pillars of a new rood screen had well nigh deprived them of. It must be, however, stated, to their credit, that the modern ambonoclasts, unlike their predecessors, confine their attacks to strokes of the pen; and we do not believe that they have hitherto succeeded in causing the demolition of a single screen. Indeed, it is probable that, if the development of their real character had not proceeded so rapidly, they might have caused some serious mischief to Catholic restoration; but the _cloven foot_ is now so visible, that men are looking out in expectation of the _tail_, and are already on their guard.

[20] The choir of S. Denis, near Paris, had been modernised a few years previous.

CONCLUSION.

It now only remains to make some remarks on the recent revival of Catholic art and architecture, the difficulties with which it has to contend in England, and the opposition that has been raised against it. As the enclosures of the sanctuary can be traced from the erection of the earliest Christian churches, and as they are inseparably connected with reverence and solemnity, we might have hoped, and indeed expected, that the restoration would have been hailed by all who profess the ancient religion as an evidence of returning faith. But, alas, we have a class of men to oppose the revival of ancient symbolism, on whom the examples of fifteen centuries of Catholic antiquity fail to produce the slightest recognition of respect. The past is to them a nullity, and they would fain have us believe that the present debased externals of religion are to be equally received and propagated as those which were generated during the finest ages of Christian art. Now, knowing the whole history of this debasement in religious art, its origin and progress, and the general decline of Catholic faith and Catholic principles, corresponding to its increasing influence, it is impossible for us to regard its very existence otherwise than as an intolerable evil, and we must labour incessantly for its utter expulsion from our churches. The decline of true Christian art and architecture may be dated from a most corrupt era in the history of the church; and ever since that most unnatural adoption of Pagan externals for Catholic rites, we mourn the loss of those reverend and solemn structures which so perfectly embodied the faith for which they were raised. Bad as was the Paganism of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was dressed out in much external majesty and richness; but now nothing is left but the fag end of this system; bronze and marble are replaced by calico and trimmings; the works of the sculptor and the goldsmith are succeeded by the milliner and the toyshop; and the rottenness of the Pagan movement is thinly concealed by gilt paper and ribands,—the nineteenth century apeings of the dazzling innovations of the Medician era. Cheap magnificence, meretricious show, is the order of the day; something pretty, something novel, calico hangings, sparkling lustres, paper pots, wax dolls, flounces and furbelows, glass cases, ribands, and lace, are the ornaments and materials usually employed to decorate, or rather disfigure, the altar of sacrifice and the holy place. It is impossible for church furniture and decoration to attain a lower depth of degradation, and it is one of the greatest impediments to the revival of Catholic truth. It is scarcely possible for men to realize the awful doctrines and the majestic ritual of the Church under such a form; and yet these wretched novelties are found on the altars of some of the most venerable temples, equally as in the abortions of modern erection. They disfigure alike the cathedral of the city and the wayside chapel of the mountain-pass; they flourish in religious communities, and are even tolerated in the seminaries for the education of the priests of the sanctuary. Bad, paltry, miserable taste has overrun the externals of religion like a plague; and to this state of deplorable degradation would these new men bind our desires and intellects, as if it were of God, and on a par with the noble works achieved in times of zeal and faith, and at a period when all the art and talent of Christendom was devoted to the one object of increasing the glory and magnificence of the great edifices devoted to the worship of Almighty God. Moreover, it is very important to observe the extraordinary similarity of idea that actuated the artists of all Christian countries during the middle ages. Making due allowance for climate and materials, the same ruling spirit presided over the arts of Italy and England. The same devout effigies, recumbent and praying, each robed in the flowing ecclesiastical habits of the order, may be seen in every old Italian church, as in our own cathedrals. There was no difference then between a Roman chasuble and an English chasuble, between a Roman mitre and an English mitre. The same beautiful forms and proportions reigned universal. Even where the Christians extended their conquests in the East, in the city of Jerusalem itself, the edifices they raised were in architecture Pointed and Christian; some of which even still remain. Everywhere the Catholic might be traced by the works he raised; but now, alas, excepting by the extreme ugliness, and deformity, and paltry ornament, that are the usual characteristics of modern Catholic erections, it would be difficult to distinguish them from the recent productions of modern sects. Is it not a consideration that should fill every true Catholic heart with grief, that the propagation of the faith is no longer attended by the propagation of ecclesiastical traditions? Every year what zealous missionaries depart for distant climes, bearing with them, indeed, the true principles of faith, but with it the most degraded externals possible. The sources from whence they supply themselves are the magazines of Lyons and Paris, places filled with objects made entirely on the principle of cheap magnificence, uncanonical in form and often in material, hideous in design, utter departures from the beautiful models of mediæval antiquity, calculated only to please the vulgar and the ignorant, dazzling in the eyes of savages, but revolting to every man of true ecclesiastical knowledge and feeling. These things are not only expedited to the colonies and even to the antipodes to form in any mission a fresh nucleus of deplorable taste and ideas, but they inundate the sister island itself; yes, in Ireland, where, even in times considered barbarous, the ancient goldsmiths wrought exquisitely cunning work for the altar and the shrine, they now deck out her sanctuaries in Parisian trumpery, and borrow the model of her churches from the preaching-house of the Presbyterian settler; and to such a low ebb is all feeling for ecclesiastical art and architecture fallen—that when a cathedral is raised after the old form of the cross of Christ, its very bishop walls off the holy place, and converts it into _a room_! Room-worship, where all see, is the modern shell in which innovators and nineteenth-century men could _exhibit_ those sacred mysteries for which Catholic antiquity raised those glorious choirs and chancels, witnesses of their reverence and our degeneracy. But sad to relate, this principle of room-worship is gradually extending itself into those majestic edifices of antiquity by the manner in which they are perverted to the modern system. The month of May is more especially devoted to the honour of our Blessed Lady, an excellent devotion, but how is it carried out? All who have had the misfortune of travelling on the continent during this month must have noticed an unusual disfigurement of the fabric in the shape of enormous festoons of red calico or some other material, as the case may be, pendent from the groining over a catafalque of painted canvass, flower-pots, and glass cases, surmounted by an image intended for our Blessed Lady herself, in the most meretricious attire covered with gauze and spangles. This miserable representation is usually set up in the very centre of the transept or the last bay of the nave, completely altering the whole disposition of a church. Great devotion to the blessed mother of our Lord, was a striking feature in mediæval antiquity. Almost every cathedral was dedicated in honour of Notre Dame, and where was the parish church of any size that did not possess its Lady chapel set apart for her peculiar honour? What beautiful examples have we of these in England, though, grievous to relate, some of them are converted to unworthy purposes, and all disused; but in many of the continental churches it is little better; for, except an occasional mass, Lady chapels, _as such_, are no longer kept up. In one of the finest churches of Liege I saw an altar set up for the month of May, a heap of paltry showy materials; but on getting to the other side I discovered this gilded front to be sustained by old packing-cases, trestles, casks, and planks, hastily piled up, and not even concealed from those who might penetrate eastward of the nave. Further on was the real Lady chapel in a very neglected state, without furniture or decoration: this was undoubtedly the portion of the church where the devotions of May should be celebrated; but the nave is more like a _room_, and is therefore used in preference to that portion of the fabric which the devout builders had set apart for the purpose. And what majestic Lady chapels did the old churches contain! usually the most eastward portion of the church,—the _refugium peccatorum_; they displayed in their windows and their sculptures all those edifying—those touching mysteries of our Lady's history which are so fruitful for contemplation, and the tryptych altar unfolded its gilded doors when adorned for sacrifice, with many a saint and angel depicted on its painted panels, and the office was sung by our Lady's chaplains, all in their stalls of quire, and the morrow mass-priest celebrated most solemnly, and many a taper burnt brightly before her image, and our Lady's chapel was one of the fairest portions of these fair churches. But now, alas, while these chapels are in a great measure abandoned to neglect, a wretched piece of scenery is substituted, and this is set up in the centre of the nave, to the disguise of the architecture and the impediment of its proper use. Even making all allowances for the reduced revenues of the continental churches, it must be admitted that they are for the most part most miserably neglected, and in a great measure disused. There are splendid crypts where no rites are ever celebrated. Lateral chapels turned into confessionals, or what is much worse, into deposits for lumber; everything is carried on on the smallest scale, and with the least trouble, and not only are the generality of modern Catholic churches on the continent most miserable abortions, but every year sad mutilations are permitted in many of those sacred buildings that are still preserved for religious purposes.

Even in the Pontifical States, within a very short period, a fine church, of mediæval construction, was shorn of both its aisles, by the act of the very canons themselves; one they demolished for the materials, and the other they converted into a custom house and stores. Indeed, many modern canons have been miserable stewards of the churches committed to their care, which makes their partial suppression in the eighteenth century the less to be regretted. As shown in the course of this work, they were great destroyers of choral arrangements and painted glass in the latter times; and from a much earlier period they were accustomed to raise a revenue by permitting domestic erections against the sacred edifices themselves,—shops and houses between buttresses and lodgments in porches.

At the north portal of Rouen cathedral but a few years since, I was obliged to climb into the roof of a wretched barrack or book-stall, erected in the seventeenth century, to inspect the unrivalled sculpture representing the creation of the world and the early Scripture history, and the very purloins of the roof were held by mortices cut into images of splendid design, and the rough walls built rudely against the most elaborate tabernacle-work and bas-reliefs. The tenants of these miserable shops, which gave the name of the Cour des Libraires to the northern approach of the cathedral, paid regular rent to the chapter down to the great revolution. I am happy to state that these unsightly excrescences have been demolished by the government, and the whole beauty of the original design is now visible.

At Aix-la-Chapelle, a city reported, and, I believe, with truth, to be full of devout persons, the Dom is incumbered with houses and shops for the sale of snuff-boxes, pipes, and tobacco, between every buttress of the apsis surrounding the high altar, and the owners of these habitations are driving their bargains and cooking their victuals within a few feet of the high altar of a church which is the depository of the most venerable reliques of Europe. I mention these things to show how sadly the ancient reverence of sacred buildings and things has declined in latter times, and most assuredly they are intimately connected with the screen question. Rites so sacred as those of the Catholic church require every watchfulness, both in conduct and in externals, to preserve them in due veneration; and an irreverent arrangement in the construction of a church may be the cause of infinite sin and scandal. Now, therefore, that we are beginning, as it were, _de novo_, to restore the churches of God, how important is it that we should so construct them, that they may by their symbolic and ancient fashion, set forth the stupendous mysteries for whose celebration they are raised, and, at the same time, prove them to belong to that very faith that generated, centuries ago, those great principles of Christian art which we may rival, but scarcely excel!