Chapter XX (2)

It is said that Rivanone shed several tears in the midst of her joy. Had she not for ever bid adieu to the sweet and simple girlish beliefs which had surrounded her? to her dear fountain, on the banks of which her companions the fairies danced at night in white robes, with flowers in their hair, in honor of the new moon? to those graceful dances which she herself, perhaps, had led, and to her songs in the wood? to her salutary plants less brilliant but more useful and more durable than flowers? to the herb which causes the union of hearts and produces joy, which, wet in the waters of the fountain by a virgin hand, she had shaken upon the brow of the man whom she was to take for her husband? to the golden herb which spreads light, and in opening the eyes of the body and the mind, opens to the knowledge of things of the future? finally, had she not renounced the search for the plant called the _herb of death_, which would be better named the _herb of life_, because those die not who once have found it?

But no! "God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her wedding night!" The spring of the fountain will cease not to flow; the charming apparitions will desert not its borders; there shall be ever seen there gliding through the night a luminous shadow of which the moon will be but an imperfect image--the shadow of that immaculate Virgin whom the Druids seem to have prophesied when they raised an altar to her under the name of the _Virgin Mother_, and the white fairies of Armorica less white, less pure than she, bending before their patroness, will sing _Ave Maria!_

No plant shall wither there, not the lemon-plant which produces joy, for it is at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, that it will spring henceforth; it is to Him it owes its virtue, and shall be called the _herb of the cross;_ nor _sélago_ which gives light, for it is from the aureole of the saints that it borrows its rays, and to discover it, it is necessary to be a saint; nor, more than all, the herb of life, for he has shown it, he has given it as a legacy to his disciples, to whom he has said; "I am the life; whosoever believeth in me shall not die."

And no more than the living spring which nourishes the herbs by its side shall be exhausted that which sustains the fruits of the Spirit; the soul shall not be stifled, it shall be purified; and for a moment bent under regrets, as a rose under the rain, the Druid muse shall be transformed and awake a Christian.

Rivanone so awoke; God had consoled the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her wedding-night.

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II.

God consoles in his own way; he blesses in the same. Three years after their marriage, Rivanone and Hyvarnion rocked the cradle of a crying infant whom they endeavored to put asleep with their songs. Now this infant was blind; and in remembrance of their sorrow they had named him _Huervé_ or _Hervé_, that is to say, _bitter_ or _bitterness_.

But, if his mother did not try upon his eyes the better appreciated virtue of the herb which should cure the blind; if she asked of her Christian faith surer remedies to give light to her son, she found, at least, at the foot of the cross, the herb which sweetens bitterness; and her husband himself without doubt recollected that he had said in his childhood that one of the most beautiful of virtues is strength in trials and tribulations.

Two years afterward this strength was even more necessary by the side of the cradle of the blind; a single hand rocked that cradle, a single voice sang there--the other voice sang in heaven. The father had already found the true plant which gives life.

With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted. It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs, that assistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears, where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that God sends forth salvation.

"One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go to church;

"'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet been.'

"'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my bed.'

"'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be forced to go and beg for alms.'

"'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if you will permit me.

"'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.

"'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'

"And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not walk.

"Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not moved on the way to church;

"Seeing the little blind child of seven years without other guide than his little white dog.

"Hearing him sing, shivering, beaten by the wind and the rain, without covering on his little feet, and his teeth chattering with cold."

It was the festival of All Saints, as the legend tells us; the festival of the Dead follows it, and is prolonged during the second night of this month which the Bretons call the _Month of the Dead_. Having feasted the blessed, every one goes to the cemetery to pray at the tomb of his parents, to fill with holy water the hollow of their gravestone, or, according to the locality, to make libations of milk. It is said that on this night the souls from Purgatory fly through the air as crowded as the grass on the meadow; that they whirl with the leaves which the wind rolls over the fields, and that their voices mingle with the sighs of nature in mourning. Then, toward midnight, these confused voices become more and more distinct, and at each cottage door is heard this melancholy canticle.

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, greeting to you, people of this house, we come to you to ask your prayers.

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"Good people, be not surprised that we have come to your door; it is Jesus who has sent us to wake you if you sleep.

"If there is yet pity in the world, in the name of God, aid us.

"Brothers, relatives, friends, in the name of God, hear us; in the name of God pray, pray; for the children pray not. Those whom we have nourished have long since forgotten us; those whom we have loved have left us destitute of pity."

Bands of mendicant singers, poor souls in trouble, they also, wanderers like those of the dead, go by woods and graves, to the sound of funereal bells, lending their voices to the unhappy of the other world.

The blind orphan, who, from the bed of his sick mother, went to kneel on the couch of his dead father, commenced in their company his apprenticeship as a singer, and if it is believed, as is claimed, that the _chant des ames_, such as it has come to us, was composed by a blind singer, under the inspiration of his father, whom he would have delivered from pain, the blind singer should be Hervé, and the inspirer Hyvarnion.

The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which have been translated into touching narratives:

"The evening of All Souls, long before the night, the child returned to his mother, after his circuit.

"And he was very tired, so tired that he could not hold himself on his feet--all the route was slippery with ice.

"So tired that he fell on his mouth, and his mouth vomited blood, blood with broken teeth."

Now these broken teeth did not give birth to furious warriors, like those of the dragon in the fable; they were changed into diamonds which shone from far in the darkness.

Such is the language of the tradition. Can we better paint the songs drawn forth by the sorrow of the son of Hyvarnion, these songs of a Christian muse which cleared away the shadows no less crowded than those of the night of All Souls?

But these shadows were not dissipated instantly; the resistance made to Christianity by the remains of Armorican paganism is not less clearly indicated in traditional recollections than by the action and influence of the little Christian singer.

As he passed the cross-roads of a village where the inhabitants have to this day preserved the sobriquet of _paganiz_, that is to say, heathens, he fell in the midst of a circle of young peasants, who, interrupting their dance, ran after him, hooting at him, throwing dirt upon him, and crying: "Where are you going, blind one, blind one! Where are you going, blind brawler?"

"I'm going out of this canton, because I must," replied Hervé, "but cursed be the race that comes from you." And, indeed, the little mockers, struck by the anathema, returned to the dance, and they must dance, it is said, to the end of the world, without ever resting or ever growing, becoming like those dwarfed imps whom the Armoricans adored, and whose power the Breton peasants still fear.

Nature herself, that great Celtic divinity, took the side of the imps against Hervé, while the mother of the saint, in beholding him preaching the gospel, could say with the church: "How beautiful are the feet of those who come from the mountains!" "The granite earth on which he walked, refused to carry him, tearing his naked feet, and no one," says the complaint, "no one wiped the blood from his wounds, only his white dog with his tongue, who washed the feet of the saint, and warmed them with his breath."

Then, as he had cursed the mocking spirits, the saint cursed also the stony ground which would arrest his steps, and it was rendered harder than iron; when, going, according to his promise, into a district where the rocks were such, the legend assures us, that "iron {817} nor steel could ever pierce them," that is to say, the inhabitants were obstinate and incorrigible barbarians, he returned to the saint who inspired and enlightened him.

"My mother, for seven or eight years I have gone over this country, and have gained nothing from these hard and cruel hearts.

"I would be in some solitary place where I should hear only songs; where every day, my mother, I should hear only the praises of God."

"Thou wouldst be a cleric, my son, to be later a priest! God be praised! How sweet it would be to me to hear you say mass!"

"It is not, my mother, to be a priest; the priest's state is a great responsibility, and it frightens my weak spirit; besides the charge of my own soul I should have the charge of other souls; but I would like far better to live my life in the depths of the forest with the monks, and to be instructed how to serve God by those who serve him."

Rivanone agreed to the wishes of her son; the forest which he chose for his retirement was inhabited by one of her uncles. Hervé sought him, while his mother asked an asylum for herself of some pious women who lived in community in another solitary place, having no intercourse with the world except with the sick and infirm to whom they were a providence.

III.

An ancient Breton ballad represents a magician going over the fields of Armorica at the dawn of day, accompanied by a black dog. I do not know what Christian voice addresses him: "Where are you going this morning with your black dog?" "I go to find the red egg, the red egg of the sea-serpent, on the edge of the river in the crevice of the rock."

Vain search! This egg, a sacred symbol to the ancient priests of Gaul and other heathen worship, had been crushed with the serpent of the Druids; the day was about to appear and put to flight the magician, darkness, and the black dog. When, on the contrary, Hervé put himself, guided by his white dog, on the way to his uncle's hermitage, the last shades of night had disappeared, the day had risen, and he was to find in the Christian school more precious talismans than the egg of the Druid serpent.

"Saint Hervé went to the school the sun encircled his brow with a circle of light, the doves sang along his road, and his white dog yelped for joy.

"Arrived at the door of the hermitage, the dog barked louder and louder, so that the hermit, hearing it, came forth to receive his niece's child.

"May God bless the orphan who comes in good faith to my school, who has sought me to be my clerk; my child, may blessings be on thy head.'" [Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: Same Breton legend of Saint Hervé.]

This great unde of Hervé was named Gurfoed; like many other hermits he brought up the children of Armorica. Among the grammarians whom he made them learn by heart, the ecclesiastical writers indicate Martianus Capella, the author of the "Noces de Mercure et de la Philologie," of whom they make a monk, and among the subjects of his instruction they specially mention poetry and music. Music took a sufficiently high place in the schools and in the tastes of that age, as is proved by a synod assembled at Vannes in the middle of the sixth century, which believed it necessary to call the attention of the Armorican bishops to that point, and drew up an article on the necessity of adopting, in the whole province, a uniform chant. Besides, in introducing it into the Christian ceremonies, and giving it place even in the choir of the temple, the church has shown the esteem which she has for this art. Hervé perfected himself in it more and more; he even became so clever in it, observe the hagiographies, "that he took the prize from all his fellow-students."

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After seven years of study passed at a distance from his mother, he wished to see her and receive new force and new light from her counsels. According to some, Gurfoed conducted him to her; according to the popular legend, she came herself to seek her son.

And she said on approaching him:

"I behold a procession of monks advancing, and I hear the voice of my son; though a thousand were singing, I should know the voice of Hervé; I behold my son dressed in gray, with a cord of hair for his belt. God be with you, my son, the clerk!"

"God be with you, my beloved mother! God is good; the mother is faithful to her son. Coming from so far to see me, although you could not walk!"

"And now that I have come, and I see you, my son, what have you to ask of me?"

"I have nothing to ask of you, my mother, but the permission to remain here to pray to God day and night, that we may meet each other in paradise."

"We shall meet in paradise or its surroundings, with the help of God, my son. When I go there you shall have warning; you shall hear the song of the angels."

"In fact," continues the French legend, "the evening of her decease and the next day, all those that were near saw a brilliant ladder by the side of her oratory, one end reaching to the skies, by which angels ascended and descended singing the most melodious motets and canticles."

The pious woman-poet, who had given to the church such a saint as Hervé, well deserved that God's angels should sing, making a festival for her last hour.

Hervé, guided by Gurfoed, arrived at the bedside of his dying mother, in time, if not to see her, (he could never see her except in heaven,) at least to receive her blessing, and to mingle his canticles with those of the pious companions of Rivanone, truly angelic choirs.

IV.

After the death of his mother, Hervé returned to the hermitage of his uncle; but Gurfoed, wishing to live a still more retired life, abandoned his dwelling, and buried himself in the forest. Aided by some pious men, who, in order to work and pray under his direction, had built their cabins by the side of his, the saint continued to hold the school of his predecessor. This school prospered; and every evening could be seen a crowd of children coming from it, who assembled there in the morning from all the manors, as well as from all the surrounding cottages; a crowd as noisy, says a poet, as a swarm of bees issuing from the hollow of an oak. The master, being blind, could not teach them their letters; but he taught them canticles, maxims in verse, religious and moral aphorisms, without omitting those precepts of pure civility, so necessary to coarse natures; and while exercising their memory he cultivated their understanding and their heart: he polished their rude manners; he endeavored, finally, to make men of them while bending their restless natures under the curb of his discipline. Lessons of wisdom were not clothed in other form in those heroic times; poetry and music, inseparable from each other, had always been considered by the ancients as necessary to cultivation, not only on account of the harmony which they produced, but for utility, instruction, and civilization of the people. Hervé in taking them for the basis of his instruction, followed, without doubt, the counsels of Aristotle. It is said that Orpheus thus civilized people by his songs. Those of Hesiod have come to us, and present us with valuable examples of that didactic poetry, the first with all nations. But though we have left us some poems of Saint Hervé, they are very few in number; the most were composed rather in his {819} spirit and according to his rules than by himself. They give him the honor of those aphorisms to which his name is given, which, at least, have the strong imprint of the instructive poetry of the monks; they turn upon three of the virtues which the religions principally endeavored to inculcate in their Ignorant pupils, idle and independent, as are all barbarians, namely, the love of instruction, the love of work, and the love of discipline, elements which are the strength of all civilized society.

"It is better to instruct a little child than to amass riches for him."

Saint Cado, the teacher of Hervé's father, said the same thing in other terms, "There is no wealth without study;" and he added, "There is no wisdom without science, no independence without science, no liberty, no beauty, no nobleness, no victory without science," and, giving to science its true foundation, he thus terminated his eloquent enumeration:

"No science without God."

The second axiom credited to Saint Hervé is this: "He who is idle in his youth heaps poverty on the head of his old age."

The Breton mariners have retained the third maxim of which Saint Hervé passers as the author: "The words of Hervé are words of wisdom," they say; "Who yields not to the rudder will yield to the rock." I have also seen attributed to him a moral song, widely spread in Brittany, in which, perhaps, there are several couplets of his, but in any case modernized in language and style.

"Come to me, my little children, come to me that you may hear a new song, which I have composed expressly for you. Take the greatest pains in order that you may retain it entire."

"When you wake in your bed, offer your heart to the good God, make the sign of the cross, and say, with faith, hope, and love:

"'My God, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. Grant that I may be an honest man, or that I may die before the time.'

"When you see a raven flying, remember that the devil is as black as wicked; when you see a little white dove, remember that your angel is as gentle as white.

"Remember that God sees you like the sun in the midst of the sky; remember that God can make you bloom as the sun makes bloom the wild roses of the mountains.

"At night, before going to bed, recite your prayers; do not fail, so that a white angel will come from heaven to guard you until morning.

"Behold, dear children, the true means of living as good Christians. Put my song into practice and yon will lead a holy life."

Such lessons, where were so effectively found some of the practices which make a man strong, that is to say, Christians; where there was so much freshness and grace; where the sun, and the flowers, the birds and the angels, all the most smiling images were purposely united, captivated and charmed the young barbarians. I am no longer surprised if the legend assures us that Hervé tamed the savage beasts; if it recounts that one day he forced a thief of a fox to bring back, "without hurting her," his hen which he had carried off, and another time a robber of a wolf who had eaten up his ass--others say his dog--to serve and follow him like a spaniel. This new style of spaniel was seen in a crowd of bas-reliefs held in leash by the saints, and as elsewhere mothers threatened their children with the wolf, the Breton Mothers frightened their brats with _Hervé's spaniel._ Orpheus is thus represented followed by tamed tigers; and another bard, a half pagan, whom we have seen before accompanied by his black dog, is painted, running through the woods with a wolf which he calls _his dear companion. Tu Lupe, care comes_. The poets of the primitive times were supposed to be in a perpetual union with nature, {820} and to have reconquered the power, lost since leaving the Garden of Eden, of making all animals obedient to them. Hervé was considered to be endowed with the same power; but poetry and music were not the only form which the Christian gave to his charms. His true magic was prayer. See how he chanted when he was exposed to the snares or the ferocity of animals or of men:

"O God! deign to preserve me from snares, from oppression, from evil, from the fox, the wolf, and the devil."

Not more than men and wild beasts, could nature resist the force of his prayer. Somewhat troubled in his retreat, and above all in his humility, by the too noisy veneration of the Armorican chiefs, who sent their sons to him, he plunged into the forest, as had Gurfoed, seeking the hermitage, and the counsels of his former teacher; but the grass and fern had effaced the path which led there, and all Hervé's researches had been in vain, when he came to an opening in the forest where a moss-covered rock was raised up on four stones; the ruins of a cabin where the badgers had made their nests, were seen near at hand; briers, thickets of holly and thorns encumbered the ground. Before these ruins the saint, struck with a secret presentiment, prostrated himself, his arms in the form of a cross, and cried three times: "In the name of God, rock, split; in the name of God, earth, open, if you hide from me my light." His prayer was scarcely terminated when the earth trembled, the rocks split, and through the opening came a soft odor, which revealed to him the sepulchre of him whom he was seeking.

Such is the popular narrative; but, if it is intended to show his power over nature, it shows still more his humility. It is exhaled from this legend, as perfumes from the tomb of him whom he sought as his light.

I remember a song in which a kind of Druidess gives the assurance that she knows a song which can make even the earth tremble: after a frightful display of magical science, she finishes by saying, that with the help of her _light_, as she calls her master she is able to turn the earth in the contrary way. Here it is the pagan pride which vaunts itself; but a voice from heaven is heard, "If this world is yours, the other belongs to God!" and the sorceress was confounded. Hervé, on the contrary, who is humble, and who prays; Hervé, who speaks, not in his own name, but in the name of God, is heard and exalted. It is verifying the words of the Gospel: "And the humble shall be exalted."

As he advanced in age, the saint continued to realize this promise. We have up to this moment seen him glorified under the tatters of a vagabond singer, as well as under the poor robe of an instructor of little barbarians; we are now to see him as an agriculturist, even architect, but always all the strongest when he would wish to appear weakest in the eyes of men, always the greatest when he would wish to be the lowest.

The counsels which Hervé had gone to ask of his old teacher, he received from his bishop, a wise and holy man, who came from Britain to the country of Léon. The bishop judged him worthy to be a priest, and wished to confer upon him the ecclesiastical character; but the hermit, who from childhood had considered himself unworthy of this great responsibility, persisted in his humble sentiments, and he would consent to be promoted only to the lowest orders, to those called minor orders. It is easy to believe that his bishop induced him to definitely fix his dwelling somewhere with his disciples, and to give to the Armoricans the example of a sedentary life, of manual labor, the cultivation of the earth, and building, all things which are at the foundation of all society, and which the barbarians little liked; for he went to work to seek a place where he could establish a small colony.

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V.

About half a century before, another bard also blind, and his hair whitened by age, journeyed in Armorica from canton to canton, seated on a small horse from the mountains, which a child led by the bridle. He sought, like Hervé, a field to cultivate and in which he could build. Knowing what herbs were produced by good ground, and what herbs by bad ground, he asked from time to time of his guide:

"Seest thou the green clover?"

And always the child replied:

"I see only the fox-glove blossoms." For at that epoch, Armorica was a wild country.

"Well, then, we will go farther," replied the old man.

And the little horse went on his way. At last the child cried out:

"Father, I see the clover blooming."

And he stopped. The old man dismounted, and seating himself on a stone, in the sun, he sang the songs of labor in the fields, and of their culture in different seasons. This agricultural bard was invested with a venerated character by the ancient Bretons. They regarded him as a pillar of social existence; but his heart, open to the cultivation of nature, was closed to the love of humanity. With one of his brethren he said willingly: "I do not plough the earth without shedding blood on it." He thirsted for the blood of Christian monks and priests, and he offered it with joy as sacrifice to the earth. To the wisest lessons in agriculture he added the most ferocious predictions, "The followers of Christ shall be tracked; they shall be hunted like wild beasts, they shall die in bands and by battalions on the mountain. The wheel of the mill grinds fine; the blood of the monks will serve as water."

Scarcely sixty years had rolled away, and these same monks whom the bard cursed as usurpers of the Celtic harp and as stealers of the children of the Bretons, advanced peaceably over the ruins of a religion of which he was the last minister, ready to shed blood also, but their own; ready to perform prodigies, but of intelligence and of love. Their chief was not on horseback, he walked with bare feet, (he went always unshod, says his historian,) and having journeyed for a long time, he spoke thus to his disciples:

"Know, my brothers, it wearies me to be always running and wandering in this way; pray to God that he will reveal to us some place in which we can live to serve him for the rest of our days."

They all commenced to pray, and behold a voice was heard saying: "Go even toward the east, and where I shall three times tell thee to rest, there thou wilt dwell." They commenced then on the road to the east, and when they had gone very far, having found a field filled with high green wheat, they sat down in its shade. Now, as he was thus reposing, a voice was heard which said three times: "Make your dwelling here." Filled with gratitude, they knelt to thank God, and being thirsty with the heat and the travel, the saint by his prayers obtained a fresh fountain.

But the possession of the land was not easy to obtain from the avaricious proprietor, whom the French legend charitably calls "an honest man." Hervé demanded of him, however, only a little corner in which to erect a small monastery.

"Bless my soul, bless my soul!" cried the owner, "but my wheat is still all green, and so if you cut it now it will be lost."

"No, no," said Saint Hervé, "it shall not be so, for as much wheat as I cut now so much will I render to you ripe and in the sack at harvest time."

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To this he agreed, and commenced to cut down the wheat, which he tied in bundles and sheafs and laid apart; and God so favored them, that at the time of the harvest, these sheafs which had been cut all green, not only became ripe, but had blossomed and so multiplied that where there had been one there were now two. The owner of the field seeing this, gave thanks to God, who had sent these holy men to him, and gave the whole field to the saint. [Footnote 193]

[Footnote 193: Albert le Grand.]

Thus the toil and intelligence of the monks made the earth render double the ordinary crops, and, conquered by such miracles, the barbarians, who, moreover, did not lose anything, gave willingly all that was asked of them.

The good religious from whom I have borrowed the translation of the preceding narrative even assures us that the proprietor went so far as to promise Hervé to build him a beautiful church at his own expense. This new miracle, however, was only half carried out; for we see Hervé, once the land had been conceded to him, going to work with his disciples to procure the wood necessary for the construction of his church and convent. He made a collection for this end, not only in the country of Léon, but even in the mountains of Aiez, and in Cornwall, visiting the manors of the chiefs and the richest monasteries.

Everywhere, it is said, he was well received, thanks to the benefits that he spread along his passage, and all the nobles to whom he applied caused as many oaks to be cut down for him in their forests, as he desired. It is, however, probable, notwithstanding the assertions of the legendaries, that he found many but little disposed to aid in the building of a Christian church, and that all those whom he visited did not show themselves very eager to cut down the trees, so venerated in Armorica; for in the following century, a council held at Nantes near the year 658, attests that no one dared break a branch or offshoot of one. The legend itself allows us to see imperfectly some stumbling-blocks which the holy architect found in his way; they must have torn his feet as cruelly as those which we have seen him punish by hardening them, in the days when he was a public singer. At first there was a rude chief who passed near him with a great train of men, dogs, and horses, without saluting him, even without looking at him; again there was another who did not believe in his miracles, and said so out loud at supper before a large company, and in the face of the saint. At that same banquet, at the commencement of the repast, while Hervé was singing with the harp to bless the table, a new kind of adversary, the frogs, commenced also to sing, to defy him, to sing _their vespers_, as a Breton poet explains it, provoking the laughter of the guests. At another banquet, a cup-bearer who was a demon in disguise, one of those who excited to intemperance, to gluttony, to idleness and noise, to discord and quarrels, wishing to kill him, served him, together with the other guests, a beverage the effect of which was to make them cut each other's throats.

This evil spirit followed the holy architect even to the midst of a monastery, with the intention of deceiving him more surely. Taking the form of a monk, he offered his services to help him in building his church.

"What is thy name?" Hervé asked of him.

"I am a master carpenter, sir."

"Thy name, I tell thee," returned the saint.

"Sir, I am a mason, locksmith, able to work at any trade."

"Thy name? For the third time, I command thee in the name of the living God, to tell thy name."

"Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan!" cried the demon; and he threw himself, head foremost, from a rock into the sea.

Thus did the Druid superstitions vanish before Hervé, having for a moment resisted him, and sought to deceive him under different disguises.

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This Hu-Kan, that is to say, Hu the genius, is no other than the god _Hu-Kadarn_ of the Cambrian traditions. The devil who incites to idleness and debauchery is the Celtic divinity corresponding to the Liber or Bacchus of the Romans. There is in these frogs who chanted _their vespers_ a recollection of Armorican paganism. "The saint silenced them as suddenly as if he had cut their throat" says a hagiographer, adding, "he left voice but to one, who ever since has continued to croak."

Now, by a sort of prodigy of tradition, a popular song, entitled the "Vespers of the Frogs," has come to us; it is the work of the pagan poets of Armorica, represented in common recitatives under the grotesque figure of these beastly croakers. It offers a summary of the Druid doctrines of the fourth century; and it seemed so necessary to the first Christian missionaries to destroy it, that they made a Latin and Christian counterpart, as if they would raise the cross in the face of the heathen pillars. One of these missionaries, Saint Gildas, was so opposed to the pagan music of his time that he qualified its croaking with the sweet and gentle music of the children of Christ; and his disciple Taliésin, the great poet baptized in the sixth century, hushed at a banquet, as Saint Hervé had done, the infamous descendants of the priests of the god Bel, who wished to put him to defiance.

The sound of Christian music was to be heard from all the vaults of the church, for the construction of which Saint Hervé had made so many journeys. Twelve columns of polished wood were erected to hold the low and arched framework; three large stones formed the altar; the spring with which he had refreshed his disciples furnished the water necessary to the sacrifice; the wheat sown by them, the bread for consecration; and the wines of some richer monastery, more exposed to the sun, the eucharistic wine; for it was an ancient and touching custom that those who had vineyards gave wine to those who had not, and in exchange, the owners of bees furnished wax to those who lacked it. Hervé, according to his biographers, himself superintended the workmen, or rather incited the laborers by his words, and sustained them by his songs. Like another poet of antiquity, he built, with his songs, not a city for men, but a house for God.

VI.

The fathers of an Armorican council of the fifth century terminated their canons by these noble words: "May God, my brethren, preserve for you your crown." A last flower seemed wanting to that of Hervé. He was now to obtain it. The poor shoeless child, the poet of the wretched, the school-teacher of little children, the wandering agriculturist, the mendicant architect, was to become the equal--what do I say?--the corrector of bishops and kings.

At that time there reigned a Kon Mor in Brittany, who had rendered himself abominable to the men of that country by his tyranny and cruelties. Unable to endure him, they flocked in great numbers from all parts of Armorica to their bishop, the blessed Samson; and as he saw them at his door, silent and with lowered heads, he asked them:

"What has happened to the country?"

Then answered the more respectable among them:

"The men of this land are in great desolation, sir."

"And why so?" asked Samson.

"We had a good chief of our own race, and born on our own land, who governed us by legitimate authority; and now there has come over us a foreign Kon Mor, a violent man, an enemy to justice, possessed of great power; he holds us under the most odious oppression; he has killed our national chief, and dishonored his widow, our queen. He would hare killed their Sun, had not the poor child taken to flight and sought refuge in France."

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The bishop, moved with pity, promised the deputies that he would aid them, and seeking a means to re-establish their rightful chief, he resolved to begin by striking the usurper with the terrible arm of excommunication.

He therefore sent letters to all the Armorican bishops to unite with him in devising some means of frightening the tyrant. The place of reunion was a high mountain much venerated by the bards and the people, named the Run-bre, and situated in the heart of the country governed by the Kon Mor. Although only prelates should have been present, Hervé was sent there, and even the venerable assembly were not willing to enter into deliberation until he came, notwithstanding the opposition of one member of the meeting, less humble and less patient than the others. This _courtier bishop_, as the legend styles him, finding that Hervé made them wait a long time, "Is it proper that men like us," he exclaimed, "should remain here indefinitely on account of a wretched blind monk?" At this moment, the saint arrived. His bare feet, his miserable hermit's robe made of goat-skin, in the midst of the men and horses richly apparelled, belonging to the prelate of the court, drew perhaps a smile of proud disdain to the lips of many. Hearing the impious words of which he was the object, the saint was not irritated, but said gently to the bishop: "My brother, why reproach me with my blindness? Could not God have made you blind as well as me? Do you not know well that he makes us as he pleases, and that we should thank him that he has given us such a being as he has?" The other bishops, continues the legend, strongly rebuked this one, and he was not long in feeling the heavy hand of God; for he immediately fell to the ground, his face covered with blood, and lost his sight; but the good saint, wishing to render good for evil to this proud mocker, prayed to God for the unfortunate; and then, rubbing his eyes with salt and water, restored him his sight; he gave him understanding also; according to the remark of another hagiographer, understanding, that light of the soul, obscured by pride, more precious still and not less difficult to recover than the light of the body. After this they proceeded to the ceremony of excommunicating the great chief of the Armoricans.

Standing on a rock, at the summit of the mountain, a lighted taper in his hand, and surrounded by the nine bishops of Armorica, each one holding a blessed taper, the saint pronounced, in the name of all, according to the formula of the times, these terrible words against the foreign tyrant: "We in virtue of the authority which we hold from the Lord, in the name of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, do declare the great chief of the Armoricans excommunicated from the threshold of the holy church of God, and separated from the society of Christians; that, if he comes not quickly to repentance, we crush him beneath the weight of an eternal malediction, and condemn him by an irrevocable anathema. May he be exposed to the anger of the sovereign Judge, may he be torn from the heritage of God and his elect, that in this world he may be cut off from the communion of Christians, and that in the other he may have no part in the kingdom of God and his saints; but that, bound to the devil and his imps, he may live devoted to the flames of vengeance, and that he may be the prey, even in this world, to the tortures of hell. Cursed be he in his own house, cursed in his fields, cursed in his stomach, cursed be all things that he possesses, from his dog that howls at his appearance even to his cock who insults him by his crowing. May he share the lot of Dathan and Abiron whom hell swallowed alive; the lot of Ananias and of Sapphira, {825} who lied to the Apostles of the Lord, and were struck with instant death; the lot of Pilate and Judas, who were traitors to God; may he have no other sepulchre than have the asses, and may these tapers which we extinguish be the image of the darkness to which his soul is condemned. Amen." [Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: This formula of excommunication of the sixth century
has been discovered and recently translated by M. Alfred Ramé, in an
article, the "Melanges d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie Bretonne," a
commendable publication.]

The bishops repeated three times, Amen; and the president of the synod, having extinguished under his foot the candle which he held in his hand, all the prelates did the same. But this dying candle, the image of the extinguished light of the great chief, was not so easily relighted as that of the haughty prelate. Once the tyrant's head was under the bare foot of the mendicant monk, tyranny was dishonored and humanity avenged.

Hervé does not appear to have long survived this great act of national and religious justice, in which he performed the greatest part; he saw, however, the result, and could hail the dawn of a noble reign which would assure, without the effusion of blood, say the historians, the death of the usurper.

Another dawn was rising for the saint.

It is related that being shut up in the church which he had built, fasting and praying for three days, separated from his disciples and his pupils, the heavens opened above his head, and with the heavens his eyes were opened to contemplate the celestial court. Ravished to ecstasy, he chanted a Breton canticle, which was later put into writing, and has received its modern form from the last apostle of the Armoricans, Michel Le Nobletz.

"I see heaven opened, heaven my country; I would that I might fly there as a little white dove!

"The gates of Paradise are opened to receive me; the saints advance to meet me.

"I see, truly I see God the Father, and his blessed Son, and the Holy Ghost.

"How beautiful she is, the Holy Virgin, with the twelve stars which form her crown.

"Each with his harp in his hand, I see the angels and the archangels, singing the praises of God.

"And the virgins of all ages, and the saints of all conditions, and the holy women, and the widows crowned by God!

"I see radiant in glory and beauty, my father and my mother; I see my brothers and my countrymen.

"Choirs of little angels flying on their light wings, so rosy and so fair, fly around their heads, as a harmonious swarm of bees, honey-laden in a field of flowers.

"O happiness without parallel! the more I contemplate you, the more I long for you!"

The heavens did not close again until the canticle was finished, as if they had taken pleasure in the song of the predestined son of Hyvarnion and Rivanone, who heard him with smiles and called him to them.

VII.

Before the Revolution there was preserved in the treasury of the Cathedral of Nantes a silver shrine, enriched with precious stones, a present from an ancient Breton chief. In great judicial cases it was carried in procession to the judges to receive the solemn vows which they afterward made upon the book of the Evangelists. A king of France and a duke of Brittany, after long wars, united under this shrine their reconciled hands and swore to live in peace.

At the same time there was seen, in the depths of lower Brittany, in the sacristy of a little country church, an oaken cradle, with nothing about it remarkable unless its age. The inhabitants of the parish, however, venerated it as much as the silver shrine. The mendicant singers, above all, have {826} for it an especial affection. They love to touch it with their great musical instruments, their traveller's goods, their rosaries, their staffs, all that they have which is most precious. Kneeling before this cradle, they kiss it with respect, and arriving sad, they depart joyous.

Now, the silver shrine contained, wrapped in purple and silk, the relics of Saint Hervé. The oaken cradle was the same in which he slept to the songs of the bard and his poet-wife, whom God had given him for father and mother.

To-day the ducal reliquary is no longer in existence. The metal, thrice consecrated by sanctity, justice, and royalty, was stolen and melted down in that sadly memorable epoch when these three things, trampled under foot, were valued less than a bit of silver. But the wooden cradle of the humble patron of the singers of Brittany, that poor worm-eaten cradle, so like his fate on earth, exists still, and more than one mendicant having respectfully pressed his lips upon it, as in other times, goes away singing with a clearer voice and a comforted heart.

--------

From Once a Week.

LOST FOR GOLD.

She stood by the hedge where the orchard slopes
Down to the river below;
The trees all white with their autumn hopes
Looked heaps of drifted snow;

They gleamed like ghosts through the twilight pale.
The shadowy river ran black;
"It's weary waiting," she said, with a wail,
"For them that never come back.

"The mountain waits there, barren and brown,
Till the yellow furze comes in spring
To crown his brows with a golden crown,
And girdle him like a king.

The river waits till the summer lays
The white lily on his track;
But it's weary waiting nights and days
For him that never comes back.

"Ah! the white lead kills in the heat of the fight.
When passions are hot and wild;
But the red gold kills by the fair fire-light
The love of father and child.

"'Tie twenty years since I heard him say,
When the wild March morn was airy,
Through the drizzly dawn--'I m going away,
To make you a fortune, Mary.'

{827}

"Twenty springs, with their long grey days.
When the tide runs up the sand,
And the west wind catches the birds, and lays
Them shrieking far inland.

"From the sea-wash'd reefs, and the stormy mull,
And the damp weed-tangled caves:--
Will he ever come back, O wild sea-gull.
Across the green salt waves?

"Twenty summers with blue flax bells,
And the young green corn on the lea,
That yellows by night in the moon, and swells
By day like a rippling sea.

"Twenty autumns with reddening leaves,
In their glorious harvest light
Steeping a thousand golden sheaves,
And doubling them all at night.

"Twenty winters, how long and drear!
With a patter of rain in the street.
And a sound in the last leaves, red and sere;
But never the sound of his feet.

The ploughmen talk by furrow and ridge,
I hear them day by day;
The horsemen ride down by the narrow bridge,
But never one comes this way.

And the voice that I long for is wanting ther,
And the face I would die to see,
Since he went away in the wild March air,
Ah! to make a fortune for me.

"O father dear I but you never thought
Of the fortune you squandered and lost;
Of the duty that never was sold and bought.
And the love beyond all cost.

"For the vile red dust you gave in thrall
The heart that was God's above;
How could you think that money was all,
When the world was won for love?

"You sought me wealth in the stranger's land,
Whose veins are veins of gold;
And the fortune God gave was in mine hand,
When yours was in its hold.

"If I might but look on your face," she says,
"And then let me have or lack;
But it's weary waiting nights and days
For him that never comes back."

------

{828}

From The Dublin University Magazine.

THE SOLUTION OF THE NILE PROBLEM. [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: "The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and
Exploration of the Nile Sources." By Samuel White Baker, M.A.,
F.R.G.S. London: Macmillan. & Co. 1865.]