Chapter IV: A Glimmer of Light (2)

There is no redress but in the appeal to Christian consciences, since the public now fills the place of patrons which was formerly filled by princes and nobles, bishops and monastic or religious houses. The matter cannot be left to regulate itself, for the public taste has not been cultivated and formed to support the sort of reading demanded, and will not do it from taste and inclination, or at all except from a sense of duty. The great majority of the people of France are Catholics, yet a few years ago there {471} were Parisian journals hostile to Catholics, that circulated each from 40,000 to 60,000 copies daily, while the daily circulation of all the Catholic journals and periodicals in all France did not exceed 25,000. It should be as much a matter of conscience with Catholics to open a market for a sound and healthy literature as to refrain from encouraging and reading immoral and dangerous publications. We gain heaven not merely by refraining from evil, but by doing good. The servant that wrapped his talent in a clean napkin and hid it in the earth was condemned not because he had lost or abused his talent, but because he had not used it and put it out to usury. The church attaches indulgences to doing good works, not to abstaining from bad works.

The taste of the age runs less to books than to reviews, magazines, and especially to newspapers or the daily journals. People are too busy, in too great a hurry, for works of long breath. Folios and octavos frighten them, and they can hardly abide a duodecimo. Their staple reading is the telegraphic despatches in the daily press. Long elaborate articles in reviews are commended or censured by many more persons than read them, and many more read than understand them, for people nowadays think very little except about their business, their pleasures, or the management of their party. Still the review or magazine is the best compromise that can be made between the elaborate treatise and the clever leader of the journal. It is the best literary medium now within reach of the Catholic public, and can meet better than any other form of publication our present literary wants, and more effectively stimulate thought, cultivate the understanding and the taste, and enable us to take our proper place in the literature and science of the country. But here again conscience must be appealed to, the principle of duty must come in. Few men can write and publish at their own expense a magazine of high character, of pure literary taste, sound morals, and sound theology, able in literary and scientific merit, in genius, instruction, and amusement, to compete successfully with the best magazines going, and there is at this moment no public formed to hand large enough to sustain such periodical, and even the men to write it have in some sort to be created, or at least to be drawn out. It must be for a time supported by men who do not want it as a luxury or to meet their own literary tastes, but who appreciate its merits, are aware of the service it may render in creating a taste for wholesome instead of unwholesome reading. That is, it most be sustained by persons who, in purchasing it, act not so much from inclination as from a sense of duty, which is always a nobler, and in the long run, a stronger motive of action, than devotion to interest or pleasure; for it is in harmony with all that is true and good, and has on it the blessing of heaven. It is precisely because Catholics can act from a sense of duty that we can overcome the evil that is ruining society.

No doubt we are here pleading, to a certain extent, our own cause, but we only ask others to act on the principle on which we ourselves are acting. THE CATHOLIC WORLD is not published as a private speculation, nor with the expectation of personal gain. Our cause is what we hold to be here and now the Catholic cause, and it is from a sense of duty that we devote ourselves to it. We are deeply conscious of the need for us Catholics in the United States of a purer and more wholesome literature than any which is accessible to the great majority, and than any which can be produced outside of the Catholic community, or by other than Catholics. We need it for ourselves as Catholics, we need it for our country as a means of arresting the downward tendency of popular literature, and of influencing for good those who are our countrymen, though unhappily not within our communion. There is nothing personal to us in the cause {472} we serve, and it is no more _ours_ than it is that of every Catholic who has the ability to serve it. If we plead for our magazine, it is only as it is identified with the Catholic cause in our country, and we can be as disinterested in so soliciting support for it as if it was in other hands, and we solicit support for it no farther than it appeals to the Catholic conscience. We have seen the danger to the country, and the destruction to souls threatened by the popular literature of the day, and we are doing what we can in our unpretending way to commence a reaction against it, and give to our American public a taste for something better than they now feed on. We cannot prevent our Catholic youth who have a taste for reading from reading the vile and debasing popular literature of the day, unless we give them something as attractive and more wholesome in its place, and this cannot be done without the hearty and conscientious cooperation of the Catholic community with us.

Catholics are not a feeble and helpless colony in the United States. We are a numerous body, the largest religious denomination in the country. There are but two cities in the world that have a larger Catholic population than this very city of New York, and there are several Catholic nations holding a very respectable rank in the Catholic world, that have not so large, and upon the whole so wealthy a Catholic population as the United States. We are numerous enough, and have means enough to found and sustain all the institutions, religious, charitable, educational, literary, scientific, and artistic needed by a Catholic nation, and there is no Catholic nation where Catholic activity finds fewer "lets and hindrances" from the civil government. We are free, and we have in proportion to our numbers our full share of influence in public affairs, municipal, state, and national; no part of the population partakes more largely of the general prosperity of the country, and no part has suffered less from the late lamentable civil war. We have our Church organized under a regular hierarchy, with priests rapidly increasing in numbers, churches springing up all over the land, and Catholic emigrants from the old world pouring in by thousands and hundreds of thousands. We are numerous enough and strong enough in all religious, literary, and scientific matters, to suffice for ourselves. There is no reason in the world, but our own spiritual indolence and the torpidity of our consciences, why we should continue to feed on the unwholesome literary garbage provided for us by the humanitarianism and pruriency of the age. We are able to have a general literature of our own, the production of genuine Catholic taste and genius, if we will it, and at present are better able than the Catholics of any other nation; for our means are ample, and the government and civil institutions place no obstacles in our way, which can be said of Catholics nowhere else.

Our Catholic community is large enough, and contains readers enough, to sustain as many periodicals as are needed, and to absorb large editions enough of literary and scientific works of the highest character to make it an object with the trade to publish them, as well as with authors to write them. Works of imagination, what is called light literature, if conceived in a true spirit, if they tend to give nature a normal development, and to amuse without corrupting the reader, ought to find with us a large public to welcome and profit by them. What the people of any Catholic nation can do to provide for the intellectual and aesthetic wants of a Catholic people, we Catholics in the United States can do. If we are disposed to set ourselves earnestly about it with the feeling that it is a matter of conscience.

And we must do it, if we mean to preserve our youth to the church, and have them grow up with a robust faith, and strong and masculine virtues, to keep them clear from the humanitarian sentimentality which marks the {473} age and the country. Universal education, whether a good or an evil, is the passion of modern society, and must be accepted. Indeed, we are doing our best to educate all our children, and the great mass of them are destined to grow up readers, and will have reading of some sort. Education will prove no blessing to them, however carefully or religiously trained while at school, if as soon as they leave the school, they seek their mental nutriment in the poisonous literature now so rife. No base companions or vicious company could do so much to corrupt as the sensation novels, the humanitarian, rationalistic, and immoral books, magazines, and journals, which, as thick as the frogs of Egypt, now infest the country. Our children and youth leave school at the most critical age, and a single popular novel, or a single sophistical essay, may undo the work of years of pious training in our colleges and conventual schools. Parents have more to apprehend for their children when they have finished their school terms than ever before, and it is precisely when they have left school, when they come home and go out into society, that the greatest dangers and temptations assail them. From their leaving school to their settlement in life is the period for which they most need ample intellectual and moral provision in literature, and it is precisely for this period that little or no such provision is made.

Hence the urgency of the appeal to Catholic consciences first to avoid as much as possible the pernicious literature of the age, and second to create and provide to the utmost of our ability, good and wholesome literature for the mass of our people, such a literature as only they who live in the communion with the saints, drink in the lessons of divine wisdom, and feast their souls on celestial beauty, can produce--a secular literature indeed, but a literature that embodies all that is pure, free, beautiful and charming in nature, and is informed with the spirit of Catholic love and truth--a robust and manly literature, that cherishes all God's works, loves all things, gentle and pure, noble and elevated, strong and enduring, and is not ashamed to draw inspiration from the cross of Christ. It will require much labor, many painful sacrifices to work our way up from the depths to which we have descended, and our progress will be slow and for a long time hardly perceptible, but Catholic faith, Catholic love, Catholic conscience, has once succeeded when things were more desperate, transformed the world, and can do so again. Nothing is impossible to it. It is your faith that overcomes the world. Leo X. said when the press was first made known, "The art of printing was invented for the glory of God, for the propagation of our holy faith, and the advancement of knowledge." [Footnote 82]

[Footnote 82: Decree of Leo X. Session 10 of the Council of
Latern.]

------

{474}

Translated from the French.

EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN'S LETTERS FROM PARIS.

In the following paper we propose to fill as far as possible the hiatus which occurs between the seventh and eighth books of Mlle. de Guérin's journal, giving such details from her letters as will satisfy the curiosity that many of her readers must have felt concerning the visit she made to Paris at the time of her brother's wedding.

In a letter to M. Paul Juemper, dated March 15, 1838, Guérin describes his fiancée, with more accuracy perhaps than ardor, and yet there can be no doubt that the marriage was one of love and congeniality. In the latter part of his life Maurice appears to have concealed his deepest emotions as successfully as he had revealed them in earlier years.

"I find myself on my return better in health, and full of hope for the future. What does that mean? What novelty is this? Nothing but the most common event in the world, one which takes place every day in every country--namely marriage, here, in Paris, to a child who was born for me, eighteen years ago, six thousand leagues from Paris, in Batavia! She is named Caroline de Gervain, has great blue eyes that light up her delicate face, a very slender figure, a foot of oriental minuteness--in short (without any lover-like vanity), an exquisite and refined _ensemble_, that will suit you very well. Her fortune is in Indian trade: not large now, but with every prospect of development. The contracts are drawn up and everything is in order; we are only awaiting the arrival of some documents from Calcutta, indispensable to the celebration of a marriage, to tie the last knot. If you leave in May, you will be here in time to stand by the death-bed of my bachelorhood, and to see me cross the Rubicon."

Mlle. de Gervain lived with her aunt, Mlle. Martin-Laforêt, in a _pavillion_ in the Rue Cherche-Midi, and it is from this charming Indian house that Eugénie's first Parisian letter is dated.

TO M. DE GUÉRIN.

Paris, Oct. 8, 1838.

Oh! how I slept in the little pink bed beside Caroline! I wished to
write to you, dear papa, before going to bed, but they would not let
me, and they said too that the mail would not go out before this
morning, so that you would get the letter no sooner. I should have
written to you at each relay if it had been possible, for I said to
myself: "Now papa and Euphrasie, Mimi and Eran, are thinking of the
traveller." How I thought of you all! you followed me the whole way.
At last I am here, out of the way of dust, diligences and the
annoyances of travelling, and welcomed and cosseted enough to
compensate a thousand times over for the four long days of fatigue.
I should like to tell you everything, but there are so many, many
things;--how I left you, and bowled away towards Paris, and met them
all and fell into a dozen arms. Why weren't you on the Place Notre
Dame des Victoires when, just as I was driving off in a carriage
with Charles, I saw Maurice and Caro and Aunt running and calling
me, and kissing me, one through one window and another through the
other? Oh! it was so nice!

No one ever entered Paris more pleasantly. We went as fast as we
could to Rue du Cherche-Midi, talking, laughing and questioning.
"How is papa? and his leg? is he as well as he was last year?"
Maurice, poor fellow, cried as he looked at me, and talked of you
all, Mimi, Eran, everybody, they all love you and ask after you.
When I came down stairs, I distributed your letters, and then came
breakfast, which was very welcome to me. Half through breakfast,
Auguste entered, a little surprised that I had arrived so early, and
full of kind inquiries for you all . . .

{475}

I thought I should reach Paris ground to powder, and here I am as
fresh as if I had just stepped out of a bandbox. The dust was
suffocating during the thirty leagues of that tiresome Sologne, and
the rumbling was like thunder on the paved road from Orleans to
Paris. It was impossible to sleep that night, but during the others
I took naps, and even slept several hours--but oh! the difference of
sleeping in a rose-colored bed, and in a diligence, tossed and
jerked about! It was dreadful in the Sologne, where we went at a
snail's pace, but fortunately it did not rain--then the passengers
have to get out sometimes and push the wheels.

After breakfast I went to mass at St. Sulpice, and then to the
Tuileries when the king was absent. It was very grand and regal; the
throne is superb, and with "my mind's eye" I saw Louis XIV. and
Napoleon. There were a great many visitors, English people, and some
brothers from the Christian schools. A friend of Maurice's had got
us entrance tickets for yesterday, and as I don't often have a
chance to see palaces, I was glad to get the opportunity.

Good-by, dear papa; to-day I say only two words of greeting. Maurice
embraces you all as he embraced me yesterday. This is for Mimi and
Eran. I send much love to Euphrasie from myself and from Maurice,
who is delighted to know she is at Le Cayla. All sorts of kind
messages to the parsonage and above all to the gimblette
maker,--they were very welcome and every one liked them. They asked
me if Augustine had grown tall and if she was mischievous, and I
said yes and no;--yes for the height, you understand,--she is all
virtue since her first communion.

M. Angler came to bid me welcome, and we are already acquainted; he
looks good and is good. M. d'A. is coming this evening. I must leave
you, dear papa. Keep well,--take care of yourself; and don't be
uneasy you your traveller, who has but one trial, that she cannot
see you, and knows you are two hundred leagues away. Two hundred
leagues! but my thoughts ran every instant to Le Cayla. We are in
such a quiet place that I think myself in the country, and I slept
without waking once until six o'clock. Tell Jeanne-Marie and Miou
that everyone asks after them. My compliments to the whole household
and to all who are interested in me.

But this charming picture had its _wrong side_, only revealed by Eugénie to Mlle. Louise de Bayne, and to the cousin with whom she lived during part of her stay at Paris, Professor Auguste Raynaud. There was a worm at the heart of the bud, and she knew too well that it must wither without blooming. At the very meeting in the Place Notre Dame des Victoires, which she described so gaily in the letter to Le Cayla, the sight of Maurice's pallor aroused her anxiety, an anxiety that increased daily and marred the pleasure to which she had looked forward for months with ardent longing. "At the time of his marriage," says M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, an intimate friend of both brother and sister, "Maurice was already attacked with the disease of which he died a short time after. He already felt its first sufferings, its first illusions and early symptoms, which made his style of beauty more than ever touching; for among imaginary heads he had that beauty which we may attribute to the last of the Abencerrages. Now what others did not see in the joy and excitement of that day, she saw, with those sad, prophetic eyes that see everything when they love!"

"I want for nothing, my friend," she wrote to Louise de Bayne; "they
love me and treat me most cordially at my future sister-in-law's,
and here my kind cousin and his wife vie with each other in friendly
attention. My sister-in-law gets my dresses, gives me a pink bed,
and a jewel of an oratory next my room, where one would pray for
mere pleasure. Oh! there is enough to make me happy, and yet I am
beginning to weary of it, and to say that happiness is nowhere.
Write to me; tell me what you are doing in the mountains. I am
waiting impatiently for news from Le Cayla. I long to hear about
them all, and to see them in thought. Write to Marie sometime, it
will please her, and papa too, who loves you, you know, but do not
speak of Maurice's health, for I say nothing to them on the subject,
thinking it useless to alarm them when the trouble may pass off."

{476}

This was the one uneasiness that disturbed her enjoyment in Paris, "the drop of wormwood with which God wets the lips of his elect, that they be robust in virtue and suffering," as d'Aurevilly said.

TO MME. DE MAISTRE.
Oct. 23.

I have seen many churches, new and old, and I prefer the old. Notre
Dame, Saint Eustache, Saint Roch, and others whose names I forget,
please me more than the Madeline with its pagan form, without belfry
or confessionals, expressive of an unbelieving age; and Notre Dame
de Lorette, pretty as a boudoir. I like churches that make one think
of God, with _vaulted roofs leading to contemplation_, where one
neither sees nor hears people. I am perfectly contented in
l'Abbaye-aux-Bois, a simple little church that reminds me of the one
at Andillac. I go there because it is in our parish, and then, too,
I've found an excellent priest there, gentle, devout, and
enlightened, a disciple of M. Dupanloup. I should have liked to go
to him, but they told me that he lived at a distance, and I must
have everything within my reach, for I am still like a bird just let
out of a cage, hardly daring to stir; I should have lost myself a
hundred times in one quarter if I had not always had a companion.
However, I have scoured Paris thoroughly in every direction; first
mounting the towers of Notre Dame, whence the eye reaches over the
immense city and takes in its general plan, after which they took me
to the Invalides, the Louvre, and the Bois de Boulogne. The dome of
the Invalides, Notre Dame, and the picture galleries, struck me
most. You ask for my impressions of Paris--it is all admirable, but
nothing astonishes me. At every step the eye and mind are arrested,
but in the country, too, I paused over flowers, grass, and wonderful
little creatures. Every place has its wonders--here those of man,
there those of God, which are very beautiful, and will not pass
away. Kings may see their palaces decay, but the ants will always
have their dwelling places. Having made these reflections I will
leave you, and work on a dress. . . .

TO MLLE. LOUISE DE BAYNE.
All Saints' Day, 1838.

. . . . I do not send you news. I ought to write to you of what goes
on within and around me, that you might know my life, and it would be
charming to write so, but time flies like a bird and carries me off
on its wings. In the morning: church, breakfast, a little work; in
the afternoon: a walk or drive, dinner at five o'clock,
conversation, music--the day is gone, and nine and ten o'clock come
to make us wonder where it went. We go to bed at ten, just like good
country folk. In that and many other things I follow my usual
habits, and live in Paris as if I were not there. Good by, the bell
is ringing.

Seven o'clock. Here I am, pen in hand, sitting by the fire, with the
piano sounding, people reading, Pitt (our Criquet) asleep, and
memories of you mingling with all these things in this Paris
_salon_. . . . It is not apropos, but I take my recollections of
things as they come, and I must not fail to tell you what pleasure
you gave me at the Spanish museum of painting where I met you. It
was you, Louise: a head full of life, oval face, arch expression,
and your eyes looking at me, your cheeks that I longed to kiss. I
was so charmed with the likeness that I passed by again to see my
dear Spanish maiden. Certainly there must be something Spanish about
you, for I see you in St. Theresa, and in this noble and beautiful
unknown.

The museum amused, or rather interested me extremely, for one does
not get amusement from beautiful things, or among wonderful works
with ascetic faces such as compose this museum of painting. And what
shall I tell you of the mummies, the thousand fantastic and
grotesque Egyptian gods--cats and crocodiles--a paradise of idolatry
that no one would care to enter? I looked long at some cloth four or
five thousand years old, and at a piece of muslin and a little skein
of thread, all framed under glass--how many ages have they been in
existence? I should never end if I were learned and could describe
these curiosities and antiquities by the thousand--Etruscan vases,
exquisite in form and color, that look as if they were made
yesterday. The ancients certainly possessed the secret of eternal
works.

This is my life, seeing and admiring, and then entering into myself,
or going in search of those I love to tell them all that I see and
feel. If I could I would write to you forever, which means very
often, and what should I not scribble? what do I not scribble? Know
that I am writing in the midst of musicians, under Maurice's eye as
he sits laughing over my journal, and adds for its embellishment the
expression of his homage to the ladies of Rayssac. It was he who
noticed that picture first and pointed it out to me. He knows what
gives me pleasure and leads me to it.

{477}

We always go out together when the weather is good, sometimes to the
Tuileries, sometimes to the Luxembourg; but I like the Tuileries
best with its pretty things-sculpture, flowers, children playing
about, swans in a basin, and looking down on it all the royal
château illuminated by the setting sun. I begin to know my way about
a little in the streets and gardens, and I look upon it as a great
triumph to be able to go to l'Abbaye-aux-Bois alone, which is a
great convenience, for I can go to week-day mass without troubling
any one, which was a restraint upon me. One can go about here as
safely as in Albi or Gaillac. They had frightened me about the
dangers of Paris, when there are really none except for imprudent or
crazy people. No one speaks to any person going about his own
business. In the evening it is different. I would not go out alone
then for the world, especially on the boulevards, where they say the
devil leads the dance. We pass through sometimes returning from Mme.
Raynaud's, and nothing has ever struck me except the illumination of
gas in the cafés, running along the streets like a thread of fire. I
annoyed a Parisian by saying that the glow-worms in our hedges were
quite as effective. "Mademoiselle, what an insult to Paris!" It made
us laugh, as one does laugh sometimes at nothing. Now I am going to
the concert; I want to know what music is, and tell you my
impressions.

------

TO M. DE GUÉRIN.
PARIS, NOV. 6, 1838.

Never was a day more charming, for it began with Grembert's arrival,
and it ends with a letter to you, my dear papa. . . The wedding day
is fixed for the 15th. Last Sunday the bans were published for the
last time at l'Abbaye-aux-Bois. . .

You ask if I have everything I need, and if I am satisfied in every
respect with my Parisian life. Yes, dear papa, in every sense, and
especially for this reason, that I admire the care and assistance
that Providence bestows upon us in all places. I have never been
struck so forcibly with the abundant aids to piety anywhere as in
Paris; every day there are sermons in one place or another,
associations and benedictions. If the devil reigns in Paris, perhaps
God is served there better than in other places. Good and evil find
here their utmost expression; it is Babylon and Jerusalem in one. In
the midst of all this, I lead my customary life, and find in my
Abbey everything I need. M. Legrand is a friend of l'Abbé de
Rivières, holy and zealous like him, and full of kindness. He
provides me with books and with kind and gentle advice; it will not
be his fault if I don't improve very much. One can save one's soul
anywhere. . .

Our quarter of Cherche Midi is charming. M. d'Aurevilly calls it
_Trouve Bonheur_, an appropriate name so far Maurice is concerned.
He will be happy, as happy as he can be--at least everything looks
hopeful. He could not be allied to better souls. Caroline is an
angel; her pure, tender soul is full of piety. You will be pleased
with her, and with Maurice too, who only does things slowly, as his
fashion is; but there is much to thank God for in such conduct,
which is very rare among young Parisians. M. Buquet speaks very
highly of him; he will bless the marriage, much to our
gratification. The great day, which is to open a new life to our
Maurice, engrosses us in a thousand ways. He is the most peaceful
person concerned, and regards his future and all these affairs with
admirable _sang-froid_. M. Buquet says the fellowship is worth
nothing to him, and that he will find something else for him; so you
see he is established in the good nest Providence has provided for
him, without troubling yon.

Have I told you everything, and made you see thoughts, words, and
actions, just as you like? Eran is reading the paper and warming
himself. Everybody sends you kisses, and Caro her filial affection.
Yon would do well not to go to Rayseac when it is cold or rainy.
Advice given, and bulletin finished, I throw my arms around your
neck, and pass on to Mimi.

----

You dear Mimi, I thank you more than I can express for your night
letter, written in defiance of sleep. Poor Mimi, plagued and busy,
while I play the princess in Paris! This thought comes to me often
in the day, disturbing my repose a little, my _gentle quietude_. I
say to myself that our time is differently employed, but I help you
in my heart. We are as well as possible here and at Auguste's. Don't
let Euphrasie leave you, I beg and beseech; you would be too lonely
without her gaiety and kindness. I put both my arms around her to
keep her. M. le Curé is very good to come and amuse papa: it is an
act of friendly charity that I shall not forget Remember me to him
and to Mariette. Also to Augustine, Jeanne-Marie, the shepherd,
Paul, and Gilles, and thank them all for their compliments. Good-by,
with a kiss from Maurice, Caro and myself.

----

TO THE SAME.
Nov. 7, 1838

I shall write to you every day until I receive letters from home,
that you may see that I do not forget you, dear inhabitants of Le
Cayla. The whirlwind of Paris will not blow me away yet awhile. That
remark of papa's made me laugh, and showed me that he does not know
me yet. I am very sure that you, Mimi, had no such idea. I have told
you that I lead the same life here as at Le Cayla, and with this
{478} advantage, that there is nothing to worry me, for I have a
church within reach, and entire liberty. We are all busy with
spiritual matters now--our ladies with theirs and I with mine.
Maurice is consigned to Sunday, M. Buquet's only free day. All is
going on well in this respect, and Caroline is so edifying that she
seems to be following in Mimi's footsteps. In this too I admire the
workings of Providence in using this marriage as an occasion of
salvation.

It is beautiful to-day, one of those fine days so rare in Paris,
where the sky is almost always pale and cloudless. This struck me at
first, but now I am used to it as to other things that I see. I am
used to carriages, and am no more afraid of there running over me
than of Gilles' cart. We shall go in the sunshine to see Mme.
Lamarlière Auguste, and I don't know whom besides, for there is no
end to visits when one is once in train. In going to see our cousin
at M. Laville's, Erembert and Maurice met M. Lastic, who is living
in Paris. It is astonishing how many acquaintances one meets in the
great world where one thinks one's self unknown.

Indians visit here, Indians without end. A friend of Maurice's, H.
Le Fèvre came to spend the evening; a nice little young man, who
looks very gentle and refined. He asked me when I was going to see
my good friend De Maistre; he is a friend of M. Adrien's, who is at
present wandering amid the snows of Norway, so that he can not come
to the wedding. We shall muster pretty strong, though only the
_indispensable_ will be there.

. . . 13th. We have just come from the Pantheon, a church passed
over from God to the Devil, from St. Genevieve to the heroes of
July, and to Voltaire and Rousseau. It is an admirable work of art,
however; the interior, the dome, and the crypts, gloomy, secluded,
buried beneath vaults and only lighted here and there with lamps,
are quite effective. The imagination would easily take fright in
this darkness of death, or of glory if you choose, for all the dead
are illustrious there, as in the Elysium of which Voltaire and
Rousseau are the gods. In the depths of the crypt stands the statue
of Voltaire, smiling apparently at the glory of his tomb, which is
decorated with magnificent emblems. That of Rousseau is more
severe--a sarcophagus, from which a hand is thrust forth, bearing a
torch, "that illumines and ever shall illumine the world," according
to our guide, who was a cicerone as brilliant as the lantern he
carried. The summit of the dome is at a prodigious elevation, twice
the height of the steeple of Ste. Cécile. Paris is seen beautifully
from there, but the picture needed sunlight and there was none.
Good-by; to-morrow at this time Maurice will be married at the
Mayoralty, and day after tomorrow in church.

16th. Yesterday was the grand and solemn day, the beautiful day for
Maurice, Caro and all of us. We only needed you, papa, and Mimi, to
complete our happiness, as we all said with sincere regret. You
would have been delighted to see this family festival, the most
beautiful I ever witnessed. Everything went smoothly, the weather
was soft and pleasant, and God seemed to smile on the marriage, so
suitably it was conducted, and in such a Christian manner. How
pretty Caro was in her bridal dress, and wreath of orange flowers
under her veil à la Bengali! and Maurice looked well too. H. Angler
was so charmed that he wanted to paint them in church, kneeling on
their crimson Prie-Dieu. The church displayed all its grandeur, and
the organ playing during mass was very good. M. Buquet blessed the
marriage, and said mass, assisted by M. Legrand. Many of the _beau
monde_ were present, and a dozen carriages stood before the church
doors. Soeur d'Yversen was to be there. M. Laurichais, confessor to
our ladies, in short all the friends and relations united their
prayers and good wishes during the ceremony. I send M. Buquet's
discourse, which every one thought perfect. Why can't I add to it
his kindly voice, and the look of joy and emotion with which he
spoke to Maurice, whom he loves sincerely.

You will like to know, papa, how everything passed off on the
memorable day, and I like very much to describe it, for it seems as
if you would be able to share our pleasure, and see your children in
church, at dinner and at the evening party. The dinner was charming,
like every thing else, each course served elegantly; fish, meats,
dessert and wines. The turkey, dressed with our truffles was king of
the feast. We drank freely and merrily of Madeira and Constance, and
it all seemed like the marriage of Cana. I sat between Auguste and
M. d'Aurevilly, very charming neighbors, and we talked and laughed
very pleasantly, though Auguste scolded me for having no poetry,
which he felt disposed to read, and we had never thought of writing;
there's something bettor for Caro, which comes from the heart and
will be unfailingly hers every day. How modest she was in church,
and how pretty she looked in the evening! She was quite the queen of
the occasion. A dozen ladies came, all very elegant, and I don't
know how many men, friends of Maurice's. They were very gracious,
and asked me to dance; yes--_dance!_ _M. le Curé_ had better take
holy water and exorcise me. I danced with my groomsman, Charles; it
was _de rigueur_, and I could not decline without being conspicuous,
and playing {479} the not very amusing part of wall-flower. Auguste
performed his paternal duties admirably. He begs me to say a word of
commendation for him, and I might well say a hundred in praise of
his friendship and devotion to us.

The friend referred to in the following letter, and with whom Mlle. de Guérin left Paris early in the December of 1838, was the _Marie_ to whom she wrote the two delightful letters, introduced into the sixth and seventh books of her journal. Mme. la Baronne Henriette Marie de Maistre was the sister of M. Adrien de Sainte Marie, a friend of Guérin's, and her intimacy with Eugénie had its first foundation in ceremonious notes written about Maurice when he was ill with a fever at Le Cayla in 1837. Mme. de Maistre soon became endeared to Eugénie by her fascinating powers of attraction, and also by her mental and physical sufferings, for sufferers belonged to the "dove of Le Cayla" by natural right.

TO MLLE. LOUISE DE BAYNE.
Paris, Dec. 1, 1838.

M. de Frigeville is the most gracious, amiable, and obliging of men.
At length I found out his address, and sent my parcel with a little
note, which he answered at once, and followed in person the next
day. The good man had taken infinite pains to find me and ended by
applying to the police--a last resource that amused us a good deal.
We cannot profit by the acquaintance even now, or by his offers of
politeness "for anything in his power," as he expressed himself to
our ladies, for I was out when he came,--the fates are against me.
Mlle. Laforêt thought him very agreeable and exquisitely courteous.
I send this little notice of him for you, dear friend, and make use
of the chance to write to you up to the last moment.

I am going to the country, to another Rayssac, for Les Coynes is
among the mountains;--shall I find another Louise there? She is a
little like you, I think; but, my friend, you will always be my
friend. I will write to you from there if you like. Whom and what
shall I see? Everything looks very attractive, and yet I go forward
with timidity to meet these unknown and known. Pity my wandering
life, dragged from place to place;--no, do not pity me, for it is
the will of heaven, and all we have to do is to follow the hand that
leads us without reasoning: that alone sustains and consoles us,
teaching us to turn all things to account for heaven. I am less
attracted to the world than ever; there is more calmness and
happiness within Sister Clementine's door than in any place in the
world. I went to see her yesterday, but she was to be in retreat
until Monday, much to my regret, for I love to see and listen to
these good religious, these souls set apart from the world. . . I
should like to send you something charming and worthy of Paris, but
charming things are rare everywhere; so rare that I have none to
spare today. However, I did see the outside of Versailles;--the king
was expected, so they shut the gates on us. Did I tell you of this,
and of our _royal_ wrath? perhaps I did in my last letter.

I should have described the concert to you this morning, if Maurice,
who was to have been my escort, had not been taken ill just as we
were going;--pain instead of pleasure, no uncommon change in life.
His little wife, quite crimson with emotion, began to nurse him and
make much of him, and all grew calm under her gentle influence. I
hope Maurice will be happy with her,--I do not know any woman like
her in disposition, heart, or face. She is a foreigner, and I study
her, that I may adapt myself to her, and enter into her feelings if
she cannot into mine. There must be mutual concessions of taste and
ideas among us all, to ensure affection and family peace:--that you
see everywhere, but we shall have no difficulty with one so amiable
and generous. There is not a day when I do not receive proofs of
affection from my charming foreign sister. They always speak of her
to us as the Indian. Mme. Lamarlière thought her very
charming;--pretty and well dressed. Today a bulletin of the visit
and her _toilette_ is at Gaillac, and I am sure that it is all over
town by this time that the Indian wore a dress of _soie antique_, a
black satin shawl, trimmed with blond and lined with blue, a lace
collar, and a black velvet hat with ostrich plume, "overwhelming
heaven and earth," as Mme. Lamarlière says

Good-by, my dear. I kiss you and say love me, think of me, believe
me, write to me, talk of me. Love to you all.

One word more; I like to talk to you best because we seem to
understand each other. I will say good-by soon, for two o'clock is
striking and I have an appointment in my chapel at
l'Abbaye-aux-Bois, for I wish to put my conscience in order before
going away. I do not know to whom I shall have recourse in the
country, so far from any church. Fortunately, we {480} are to spend
Christmas at Nevers, and I shall try to grow calm, for I am not so
today. I tell you this because you are alone with Pulchérié, whom
nothing surprises. Pray in the chapel at Rayssac for your poor
friend, the Parisian, who will repay you as well as she can.
Good-by, good-by; till when? . . .

TO MLLE. DE BAYNE.
CHRISTMAS EVE, NEVERS, 1888.

I have only time to date my letter, dear friend, for the bells are
calling me to midnight mass. I listen to their clashing peals, and
think of the pretty little tinkle of the Andillac bell. Who would
have said last year that I should be so far away? but so God leads
us to things unforeseen. I'm going to the cathedral to pray for all
whom I love, and so for you.

Two days since those lines--two days of festival, prayer, offices,
and letters written and received, without preventing me from being
with you, my dearest. Our hearts can always be together before God,
and we cannot meet in a better way or in any other way for a long
time. I shall not be at Le Cayla before the fine weather comes, and
we can have flowers and sunshine to show our Indian; far enough we
are from that season, as I see by the white earth and pallid sky,
all snowy and cold.

How you would love my friend, dear Louise! She is so good, so
charming and attractive, and of such a high order of mind, that I
keep congratulating myself upon possessing her friendship and
affection. . .

Her father takes the best of care of me, and even comes to my room
to see if I have a good fire when I say my prayers. He is afraid
this cold climate may hurt me, and said laughing one very cold day,
"The southern flower will be frozen." Good, holy man! I love him
very much, and he makes me think of your father in his mode of
thought and culture. He has read everything, and he writes too; some
selections from his works, that he was kind enough to read to me,
might have been written by a Benedictine. He knows Carmelites,
Trappists, charitable orders, every one in short who is learned or
religious. Charles the Tenth loved him and saw him often; if he had
only listened to him!

Travellers from Goritz come here, among others a M. de Ch----, who
comes and goes for the exiles, from St. Petersburg to Vienna and
sometimes to Spain, from one court to another. He charms us with
stories of his adventures, and I never saw a man more agreeable,
handsome, witty or cultivated. He is a learned geologist, and
collects specimens, goes down into volcanoes and domesticates
himself among ruins.

He lived a week in Sallust's room at Pompeii, drove about the
streets in his carriage, entered the theatre, made excavations under
the very eyes of the Duchess of Berry, and saw a thief whom the lava
had caught while he was stealing a purse, at which we laughed, and
remarked that iniquity is sooner or later discovered. I have seen
his cabinets of natural history, mineralogy, and antiques, and also
the borders of Cicero's dining-hall exquisitely painted with a
delicacy inimitable or unimitated. To all these gifts, M. Ch----
unites those of a good Christian; he turns all his studies and
discoveries to advantage for the faith, and proves that science and
faith, geology and Genesis, are of one accord. If you think me very
learned, remember that I've seen Paris, and that Paris sharpens
one's wits; however, most of this I have acquired in the
neighborhood of Les Coques.

TO MLLE. MARIE DE GUÉRIN.
NEVERS JANUARY 12.

We return to Paris early in January, and shall be introduced to the
grandeurs of the world. Hitherto I have known only amiable, pretty
simplicity; now come baronesses, duchesses, princesses, and as many
clever people as I choose. It will amuse me like a picture-gallery,
for the heart finds no place among such scenes, far less the soul.
God and the world do not agree. Ah me! how little they think of
heaven amid all this rush and sparkle! So says my friend, who knows
the world and is detached from it.

M. d'Aurevilly, in his unpublished reminiscences of Mlle. de Guérin,
gives a graphic description of her as she appeared in the Parisian
world, where no doubt she was subjected to a close scrutiny as the
sister of the elegant and gifted Maurice de Guérin.

"We can affirm," he says, "that never did creature of worldly
attractions appear to us so sweet and lovely as this charming fawn,
reared like St. Genevieve among _pastours_. . . .

"Drawn from her country home, brought in state like a princess into
the intimidating light of lustres, she came without embarrassment or
awkwardness, with a chaste, patrician self-possession, that showed
in spite of fortune's wrongs for what class in society she was born.
Without ever having been there, she was _Faubourg Saint Germain_,
Byron tells us in his {481} memoir that he witnessed the
introduction of Miss Edgeworth into London society, and that she
made him think of Jeanie Deans. But the country girl of La Cayla was
the descendant of the fairest falcon-bearers who appear in the
mediaeval chronicles, gloved with buckskin, corseleted with ermine,
and wearing a train. . . . This was what we admired, this was what
impressed the world, astonished at her who did not wonder at them.
If, in speaking of such a woman, I dared to use an expression
debased to theatrical uses in our times, I should say that she had a
great success wherever she went. Women whispered together about her
genius for expression and the feeling revealed in her letters; but
no one offered her the prying importunities so coarsely mistaken
sometimes for homage. They did not call her interesting or amusing,
as the world says, patting a proud cheek with its awkward, familiar
hand. They respected her. The world treated her as a woman of the
world, for that is what it holds in highest esteem; but she knew
that she was not so. She knew that there was a second meaning in the
world's language that escaped her, as she said once _with her
accent_ in a letter, but what observer would have guessed it in
seeing her? Excepting now and then a charming swallow-glance,
piercing the tapestry and seeking the wall at Le Cayla covered with
honeysuckle and wall-wort, who would have doubted that this tranquil
maiden was a woman of the world, capable of pleasing it, and of
ruling it too, had she thought it worth her while?

Mlle. de Guérin had one of those imaginations that are easy to live with. She did not offend common people, those sensitive, coarse souls to whom the least distinction causes terrible pain, and who push their way everywhere, even in the country. They handled with their rough touch this divine opal with its vaporous shades, as indifferently as the mock ivory counters on their card-tables. Though she did not resemble a sphinx, this lovely maiden with her lingering smile, there was perhaps in her placid regularity the immovability of the sphinx, and immobility suits all things. It lends a mystery to nature, and takes from human beings the puppet-like gesticulation that ever mars the lofty _Sidera Vultum_.

And now we will return to Eugénie's letters, dated once more from Paris, where she was staying with the Baroness de Maistre, and seeing the world in a more brilliant light than in her visits to the Rue Cherche-Midi, and at the house of "Auguste and Félicité;" but it never dazzled her eyes, no matter how brightly it shone and glittered.

TO M. DE GUÉRIN.
Paris, Jan. 20, 1839.

You have had a line from me almost every day, dear papa, but I will
write more at length to-day.

The good General called here as soon as he heard of my return from
Nevers; but to tell the truth his visits are not entirely for me,
for he finds Caroline so pleasing, that I think our Indian has her
full share of the kind old gentleman's friendship. One day he came
when she was dressing a doll in Indian fashion, for the little De
Maistres, and he was so delighted that he insisted on working
himself, and wished to stay till the end of the toilette, which was
unluckily interrupted by visitors. The Marquis left us, but Caro
wrote to him the next day that the Indian lady was ready, and would
be charmed to be presented to him, so the good man came, passed the
afternoon with us, and offered to take us today to M. Aquado's
museum of painting. We shall go, for it is said to be very
beautiful, and afterward we are to see the interior of the Palais
Royal. There is nothing we may not expect of the good Marquis, and
we owe a great deal of pleasure to Palchérie, who has already
received my acknowledgments. I send a package to Rayssac with this
one.

We have no want of friends in Paris, dear papa. How can I say enough
of the perfect family I have just left, who are untiring in their
friendships and kindness! I am engaged, to go to-morrow, Saturday,
to a large and elegant party at M. de Neuville's, [Footnote 83] but
I shall give up my place to Eran, who will go with Mme. de Maistre.
There will be a sort of reunion of beauties of every
country--English, German, {482} Spanish, and the lovely ambassadress
from the United States.

[Footnote 83: Ex-Minister to Charles X.]