Chapter XIV (4)

Every now and then we met a donkey groaning under the weight of his ears and of a huge cage, or _panier_, as large as himself on each side, filled with live poultry or fruit and vegetables. Perched on the top between these queer saddle-bags was a bright-eyed, sunburnt _paysanne_, most patiently thwacking Old Dapple marketward. The oxen looked as if they fared better; they were sleek and clean, that is, what I could see of them, for they were almost entirely encased in great coverings, as if they were elephants. {647} Their drivers wore a blouse of blue cotton, and wooden shoes with most impertinently turned-up toes. They are worn (the shoes) both by men and women. They make a terrible clatter; you would think the Philistines upon you; but they are very durable.

The country reminded me of the interior of New England. The hills were finely wooded, more so than I had expected in that old country. On leaving Monléon, we entered a valley, narrow at first, but which gradually opened, forming a basin of considerable extent, with green meadows and shady thickets. It is bounded and crowned by hills, and a few hours distant are the Pyrenees. This valley is solitary--secluded, but not wild or uncultivated. Perhaps there is a score of houses in it. From about the centre rise the turrets of Notre Dame de Garaison. The whole country was once covered with magnificent oaks which had been planted by the old chaplains, but the vandals of a later day had cut away whole forests.

The rain poured down in torrents when we entered the valley of Garaison, but that did not prevent us from admiring the locality so favorable to devotion. Far from any city, free from noise, the chapel is buried among the hills and forests of Aquitaine, a spot chosen by God in which to reveal his presence and power! What a delicious solitude! We drove to a little _auberge_--Hotel de la Paix!--erected for the accommodation of pilgrims. In the olden time they were sheltered in a monastery, which was devastated during the Revolution, and now, when great festivals draw crowds of people, the women often remain in the house all night. Leaving our carriage at the hotel, we immediately went to the church in spite of the rain, passing through a long avenue of majestic oaks.

The principal entrance to this sacred retreat is quite imposing. The front is decorated with a statue of the Virgin, holding the dead Christ in her arms--the bodies of natural size, and the work of a skilful hand.

The buildings form a vast enclosure, in the centre of which is the chapel, having on the north and south two courts which separate it from the rest of the edifice. I was surprised to find so fine an establishment so far away from any city. We passed through a cloister shaded by cypresses to the chapel. Over the door and at the sides are niches, in which are statues. The vestibule, as in all these old churches, is very low. Here my attention was attracted by a great number of small paintings which cover the walls and vault, forming a complete mosaic. These _ex-voto_ are not remarkable as works of art, but precious on account of the miraculous events which they retrace. They represent the persons who have been cured of their infirmities by the intercession of Mary; to each is attached a label bearing the name of the person and the date of the cure. These paintings were left untouched at the Revolution, though the venerable guardians of this sanctuary were driven from their cherished solitude; and the sacred vestments, the holy vessels, the silver lamps, the jewels, and other _ex-voto_ of all kinds, which had been offered the Virgin in gratitude for grace received, were carried away; the fine statues of the twelve Apostles were destined to the flames, but were rescued by the people of Monléon, whose church they now adorn.

From the vestibule we passed into the nave. One feels an inexpressible emotion of piety and devotion on entering this beautiful church. {648} I went immediately to the grand altar to pay my devotions to our Lady of Garaison, while the servant took my letter of introduction to M. le Supérieur, who was fortunately at liberty. I found him a tall, fine-looking gentleman, instead of a hoary old hermit, and as polite as a Parisian. He wore a flowing _soutane_, confined at the waist by a fringed girdle, and on his head was a sort of skull-cap, such as the priests wear in that country--I imagine, to protect their tonsured heads from the cold. He conducted me over the whole establishment. In his room I saw the skull of the shepherdess to whom the Virgin appeared. She died a nun, and more than a century old. After her death, her body was given to the chapel, which had been erected during her life, and to which she had been permitted to resort from time to time. The fountain is under the grand altar; but the water is conducted into a basin in a vault to the east of the chapel. Every one says the waters still perform wonderful cures. The superior said it was not owing to any mineral qualities; and as I was not able to analyze them, I contented myself with drinking quite freely of them, bathing therein my forehead, and inwardly praying God to heal every infirmity of body and soul. On the basin is a bas-relief representing the Virgin's appearing to the shepherdess.

The arches and walls of the sacristy are covered with the frescoes of a by-gone age, but which have not lost their brilliancy of color. They represent the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles; angels bearing to our Saviour the instruments of the Passion, etc.

Over the grand altar of the church, in a niche, is a statue of Notre Dame de Garaison, the mother of sorrows, holding in her arms the inanimate body of her divine Son. There are four small chapels, two on each side, separated by walls which advance to the principal nave, and are there converted into pilasters to support the vault. In them are some oil paintings, two of which are very fine, the angel guardian and a Madonna. The niches, which were robbed in 1789, have been newly furnished with gilded statues of the twelve Apostles, large as life, and bearing the instruments of their martyrdom; and one of our Saviour in the midst. On the vault are painted the patriarchs and prophets of the old law. These gilded statues and altars give a most brilliant appearance to the lightly vaulted Gothic chapel.

In the south court is a fountain. Mary stands with her divine babe in her arms, sculptured in white marble. The water spouts out at her feet through four small masks, and falls into a basin of pure white marble, whence it flows into another still larger. The statue has been a little injured by exposure to the weather; but still it reminds one that Mary is the channel through which the grace of God comes to us--that through her flow the waters of benediction and of grace upon man!

The refectory is vaulted and paved. In it is a whispering gallery, common in the monasteries of the middle ages, so one could communicate from one corner to the other opposite in the lowest tone. I am sure the knight of the couchant leopard was no more surprised or awed by the midnight procession he witnessed in the little chapel of Engaddi, than was I at a late hour in the evening, when, while I was still rapt in prayer, and quite unconscious of what was going on around me in this still mountain chapel, I found the altar suddenly illuminated, and a door opened to a long procession of white-robed priests and about a hundred young men:

"Taper and Host and Book they bare,
And holy banner flourished fair
With the Redeemer's name.

{649}

They passed around the chapel, chanting _Tantum Ergo_, and then returned to the altar to give the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The richly gilded chapel was radiant with reflected light, and the strains of _O salutaris Hostia!_ seemed to float upward in celestial tones, as they issued from lips purified by solitude and prayer. I never felt more devotion at this solemn rite than there, in the shadow of the Pyrenees. I forgot my fatigue, and yielded to heartfelt emotion. Exiled from my native land, to which I might never return, and among those who were almost entire strangers to me, I felt myself folded to the bosom of divine Providence, and that the All-Father would have me consider every part of his world as my home, and all those souls, which he has breathed into human forms, as my brethren and sisters.

It was a late hour when I fell asleep on my hard bed at the Hotel de la Paix. Coldly looking down upon me from a rude frame was, for my guardian saint, a picture of _Napoleon le Grand;_ but, though he had routed many a formidable host, he did not put to flight a single sweet fancy or holy thought that thronged my brains, waking or sleeping.

At an early hour I was again before the altar of Our Lady. Priests were celebrating the holy mysteries at every altar when I entered the chapel. At seven o'clock, M. le Supérieur offered the Holy Sacrifice for my intentions, at which I communicated. ...

My devotions ended, I rambled around the garden and through the cloisters, drank again from the fountain, and then prepared for my departure. I had gone to Garaison with a deeper intent, more serious purpose, than is my intention to unveil here. I bore in my heart a burden--a burden common to humanity--which I laid down at the feet of Mary, thinking, as I did so:

"Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,
Forth from those lips of beauty flow!
Couldst thou but speak of all the tears,
The conflicts, and the pangs of years,
Which at thy secret shrine revealed
Have gushed from human hearts unsealed!"

I left that chapel in the strong embrace of the everlasting hills, and with sunlight flooding its walls like a glory. Turning to give it a last look, at the last turn in the valley, it seemed like a lily rising up in the green meadows--fit type of her to whom it is dedicated.

Since that time I have visited many a shrine of _la belle France_, but I turn to none with a more grateful heart than NOTRE DAME DE GARAISON.

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{650}

Count Ladislas Zamoyski.

Translated From The French
Of Ch. De Montalembert.

The nineteenth century, which is already drawing to a close, will in the course of its history present nothing more grand, more touching, more deeply impressed with the stamp of moral beauty, than Poland--vanquished, proscribed, abandoned by the world.

This nation in mourning and in blood, which yet will not die--this race of indomitable men and women, which survives all tortures, all treasons, and all catastrophes, what a spectacle and a lesson does it present! Its existence is at once a defiance and an appeal: a defiance to adverse fortune, and an appeal to what seems the too tardy justice of an avenging God. Abandoned and calumniated by successful iniquity, by selfish opulence, by the ever-ready worshippers of success, a sight intolerable to their conquerors, and a reproach to the powerful of the world--there they abide, like Mardochai before Aman, firmly resolved to forget not, to despair not, nor to capitulate; incomparable types of suffering, of sacrifice, of unwearying patience, of lofty patriotism; invincible martyrs and confessors, not only of faith, but of right, of country, and of liberty!

In the centre of this group of proscribed and oppressed, like some great oak struck by lightning in the midst of a burning forest, stands out in bold relief the noble figure of Count Ladislas Zamoyski.

Ere yet the waves of forgetfulness and indifference have effaced his noble memory, let us endeavor to recall and rescue from oblivion some traits of an existence which, by every title, belonged to ourselves; for in France he was born, (during a journey of his parents there,) and in France he died, [Footnote 188] having passed here the greater part of the thirty-seven years which he spent in exile, without having at any time returned to his true country.

[Footnote 188: January 11th, 1868.]

Here it would seem appropriate to speak of the ancestors of the illustrious dead. But how can we fitly portray to this generation the splendor and power of those ancient houses of Poland and Lithuania, whose immense possessions, countless adherents, and extent of influence find no parallel in our own country, even at the most aristocratic periods of its history? It was a Zamoyski who headed the embassy which came to offer the crown of Poland to a brother of Charles IX.; [Footnote 189] and some one of this race is ever to be found dominant in their country's annals. They may have had equals, but I know that in their native land none ever assumed to be their superiors.

[Footnote 189: For an account of this embassy, see the
excellent work of the Marquis de Noailles, _Henri de Valois
et la Pologne in 1572_.]

Nothing is more _a propos_ to our immediate subject than the legend of their device and bearings. A King of Poland, whose people had some cause for discontent, being engaged in a conflict with the Teutonic chevaliers, saw on the field of battle a Zamoyski dying, his breast pierced with three lances. The king approached to aid and comfort him. "_To mnicy [Transcriber's note: blurred.] boli!_" exclaimed the dying hero. "_It is not that which pains me!_" or in other words, "_A wound does less harm than a bad prince or a bad neighbor_."

{651}

These three words and three lances have ever since been the armorial bearings of the Zamoyski family. Reflecting upon them, we find in them a singular appropriateness to that one of the line whom we have best known; that illustrious and wounded hero whom we have had so long before our eyes with the deadly steel in his heart, and on his lips a word of proud resignation or intrepid disdain.

Fortunate are those great races who, before they are submerged by the rising tide of equality and modern uniformity, can give forth one last flash of glory, and furnish to the historian some great heart enthusiastic for a good cause and a noble faith; some vigorous lover of right and duty, capable of signalizing himself by a generous death, like our own Duke de Luynes, or by an entire life of devotion and sacrifice, like Count Ladislas Zamoyski. For reason as we will, so long as men are men, they will be always and everywhere moved by a something--I know not what--a kind of realization of completeness, which nobility of birth imparts to great virtues or great misfortunes.

Ladislas Zamoyski, in his 28th year, was an officer of the lancers in the Polish army, and aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Constantine; he was desirous above all things to serve his country as a soldier and a citizen, when the military insurrection of Warsaw broke out, at the end of November, 1830.

It was, as has often been repeated, the advance-guard of the Russian army, directed against the France of July, which turned back against the main body. Although the count had taken no part in the insurrection, the high rank of his family and the precocious maturity of his mind enabled him to profit by the particular position which he held near the prince, whose arbitrary and unwise acts had contributed more than anything else to provoke the revolt. He obtained from the brother of the emperor the order which separated the Polish troops from the Russian, and gave a sort of method to the military movement, which soon expanded into a national revolution. Believing himself freed now from all allegiance to the grand duke, the young count took part in all the exploits of the campaign of 1831--a campaign which has left imperishable recollections in the minds of all who were living at that time.

For ten months all Europe stood breathless, gazing with deep and varied emotions on those fearful turns of fortune. Every incident produced vehement agitations at the French tribune, in the streets of Paris, and even in the reviews held by the French king. There was something both of heroic and legendary interest in this conflict, so disproportioned yet so prolonged, between a handful of brave men on the one side, and the colossal resources of Russia on the other--a conflict where the veteran comrades of Dombrowski and Poniatowski were led on by youths inflamed with holy zeal for their country's liberty, where the first place was so long held by the Generalissimo Skrzynecki, true paladin of the middle ages, who always put in the orders of the day for his army prayers to the Holy Virgin as Queen of Poland, and who, brave in the field and devout at the altar, was so pre-eminently hero, Christian, and Catholic. I know not how upon this point the young Poles of our own day stand; but I know they would be faithless to the most noble examples of the heroes of 1831 if they should suffer themselves to be enervated by religious indifference, or, sadder still, should they ever trail through the depths of atheism and modern materialism that banner which their ancestors never separated from the cross of Jesus Christ.

{652}

When, finally, the countless masses which Russia threw upon Poland had dislodged the insurgents from all their positions; when the attempts at intervention made by the French government were rendered nugatory by the icy and cynical indifference of Lord Palmerston; [Footnote 190] when Europe resigned herself to be a tranquil spectator at the sacrifice of a nation, Ladislas Zamoyski, firm to the end, in the front rank of combatants, holding then the grade of colonel, laid down his arms with the last division of the Polish army, that of Ramorino, defeated in Gallicia. He crossed then the frontiers of that country which he was destined never more to see, and came, wounded and suffering, but not less resolute than in the first days of his manhood, to put himself at the disposal of his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, the venerable chief of the Polish emigration, as he had been president of their national government.

[Footnote 190: See the correspondence between Prince
Talleyrand and Lord Palmerston on the Polish question, July,
1831, in the documents submitted to the English parliament by
order of the Queen, in 1861.]

It was then that we saw him for the first time among us. Young, tall, commanding, active, and untiring, he carried in his deportment and in those glorious wounds the credentials of his mission. Always occupied with the cause of his country, but with a serenity and stability far beyond his years, he attracted to himself all attention. A solitary and embarrassed wanderer in a world which was so soon to grow heartlessly indifferent to Poland, he entered calmly and resolutely upon that obscure, laborious, and uncongenial path which honor and duty had traced for him.

I must be permitted here a just homage to that first Polish emigration of 1831, which, preceded by the members of the national government, by the Count Platen and General Kniacewicz, and grouped about Prince Czartoryski, the Generals Dembinski, Dwernicki, Rybinski, and the former ministers, Malachowski and Morawski, have given us, for nearly forty years, such noble examples of fortitude and devotedness, of modest dignity and magnanimous resignation. How many of these yet remain to whom I can address this last testimony of an admiration which I shall always account among the most salutary and most lasting emotions of my life? I owe to them a great good--the power to know and to comprehend the grandeur and beauty of a vanquished cause!

Forced by circumstances to immolate everything in the worship of their assassinated country, not one hesitated before this stern requisition. Rich and poor, old and young, citizens and soldiers, all were called on for sacrifices painful and unexpected, and none shrank back; indeed, to many the privations they were obliged to endure formed a strange contrast to their previous habits of prodigality and almost oriental luxury. Ladislas Zamoyski was conspicuous in this career, so new to himself and his comrades. The subsidies which his friends forced him to accept were invariably reserved for some general object, or divided among his less fortunate companions, saying: "_I learn every day to do without something._" One thing only did he guard carefully--his _beloved sword_, as, with juvenile _naïveté_, he was accustomed to call it, in the warm hope and belief that it might yet serve his country.

{653}

The French refugees, whom the Edict of Nantes expelled from their homes, represented liberty of conscience odiously persecuted, and by this title they won the active sympathies of all the Protestant nations. The Irish emigrants, who, about the same time, were the victims of an intolerance as bitter and inconsistent in Protestant England, found in France and Spain places freely opened to them, and which they honorably filled. The French emigration of 1792 represented not only loyalty to a monarchy, but an entire social order, whose end no one believed so near--an order which still reigned in nearly the whole of Europe; to this they owed, at least during the first years of their exile, the aid and support of all the powers affected or threatened by the Revolution. It was quite otherwise with the Polish emigration of 1831, which, nevertheless, personified, at one and the same time, liberty both political and religious, and, more than all, a grand people, erased, by injustice, by a crime without a parallel, from the list of nations, and unanimous in protesting against that decree. They received from perplexed and divided Europe not one of those consolations and encouragements which it was their right to expect.

France and England had generous alms to solace needs purely material, but nothing more. Ruled by a double fear--that of the Muscovite preponderance from without, and that of dangers from demagogues within--no statesman, even the most liberal, was able or willing to espouse the Polish cause. It was a sadder thing still that a misapprehension prevented their receiving a sympathy which otherwise would have been first offered. Beyond the little circle of liberal, free-hearted Catholics--a circle then very limited--the Polish refugees, victims of the most bitter persecutor of the church in the nineteenth century, met no response from the religious world. It was a time when Catholic Europe, monarchical and aristocratic, was miserably prostrate before the Austria of Prince Metternich and the Russia of the Emperor Nicholas. Consequently, at Paris, and, above all, at Rome, there was to be caught not one glimpse of salvation. There existed among the defenders of the throne and the altar an animosity to the Poles truly revolting, unjustifiable traces of which even yet remain. It was the heaviest cross, for a multitude of Christian souls, which the Polish emigration hid in its bosom. I have the right to speak of it, for no one, perhaps, on this subject, has received more mournful confidences, and no one, I venture to believe, has done more to induce among Catholics a happy change--a change commencing with the good and fatherly Pope Gregory XVI., and precisely on occasion of Count Ladislas Zamoyski, whom he was pleased, at my request, to encourage to visit him in Rome. [Footnote 191]

[Footnote 191: Until 1837, no Pole was allowed to enter Rome,
without a passport visé by Austria, Prussia, or Russia;
consequently, this excluded the exiles of 1830.]

But how time and efforts must fail in making reparation for this strange misunderstanding! and how much it must have aggravated the sorrows inseparable from prolonged exile--those sorrows which every noble heart must comprehend, even without having experienced them, and which inspired, in a sad, gifted soul, the last ray of its genius!

"He passed, a wanderer on earth. May God guide the poor exile! I move among the crowd; they gaze at me, and I at them, yet each to each is unknown. The exile is alone everywhere," [Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: _Paroles d'un Croyant_. 1833.]

{654}

Count Zamoyski, always sincerely attached to the faith of his fathers, even before the death of a beloved mother had developed in him a fervent piety, lived long enough to witness this happy change in Catholic opinion. He had the consolation of seeing the entire church moved, at the voice of its chief, by the incomparable sufferings of Poland. In France, at least, every Catholic worthy the name addressed prayers without ceasing to the divine mercy, that the country of St. Hedwige and Sobieski might one day resume her place, free among the nations. This harmony between the irrepressible aspirations of his patriotism and the daily increasing fervor of his religious sentiments threw over the last years of his life a warm and consoling light.

But before arriving in port, how stormy the voyage! Bound by soul yet more than by the ties of blood to his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, he had been twenty-five years his lieutenant, his coadjutor, and the sharer of his fortunes; like him, too, encountering continually repulse, deception, and injustice, without being embittered or discouraged.

Belgium, always hospitable, took full possession of her nationality in the same year, 1831, when Poland seemed to have lost hers. She immediately opened the ranks of her army to Count Ladislas, with the grade of colonel, a position he had won on the bloody banks of the Vistula.

For fifteen years [Footnote 193] he watched in vain for an opportunity to once more draw his sword in behalf of his own land, or for some cause which might even indirectly serve her interests.

[Footnote 193: From 1832 to 1847.]

He was obliged to content himself with employing his intercourse with the political men of the two great constitutional countries, to secure to the Polish question, in the order of the day, some parliamentary discussion or some diplomatic bias, and to obtain from the French chambers and the English parliament those periodical demonstrations which seemed to him so many protestations of right against the most odious of political crimes; so many guarantees against a proscription which the sad destinies of men too often drew down on them, to the profit and encouragement of injustice.

At length, in 1846, he thought he saw the dawn of better days. In the short counterfeit alliance between Pius IX. and Italian liberty, he hastened, with sixty other Polish officers, to offer their devotedness and military experience to the new pontiff, whom all believed menaced by Austria even more than by the Revolution. From thence he passed as a volunteer into the army of Charles Albert, and shared, by the side of that noble and unfortunate sovereign, in all the vicissitudes of the struggle between Piedmont and Austria. Austria, we must remember, at the time we speak of, was not the liberal Austria of the present day; and no Pole could look on this empire as aught save the author and accomplice of the calamities of his country. Piedmont being defeated and restricted to its ancient limits, it was to Hungary that Count Zamoyski next turned his steps. Hungary was then in a state of insurrection against Austria, but was also a victim herself to an insurrection of her Sclavic population, unwisely irritated. To gain from Hungary a recognition of the rights of these people--rights so misunderstood or ignored by the rest of Europe--was the mission of Count Zamoyski, and for which he was willing to confront new perils. The Russians, however, soon arrived, and, combining their armies with those of Austria and with the revolted Croats, Hungary was soon crushed. {655} After the decisive defeat of Teneswar, the remnants of the Polish legion passed into Servia, and from thence to Turkey.

For two years he occupied himself here in disciplining those indomitable spirits for future contests; for to the honor of the Ottoman Porte be it recorded that it refused the demands of the Russian and Austrian governments for the extradition of the Polish and Hungarian refugees.

During a short revisit which he made to France, the Eastern question arose, and he immediately returned to Turkey. He took part, with the rank of general, in the campaign on the banks of the Danube, and through the entire Crimean war devoted his strength, his rare intelligence, his military experience, to forming regiments of Polish Cossacks, ostensibly for the service of the sultan, but indulging in the hope of seeing them ultimately admitted to the ranks of the allies.

In January, 1856, the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris came to dash aside once more his patriotic day-dreams, and to destroy every chance of resuscitation which had seemed offered to Poland in this rupture, so pompous but so fruitless, between France and England and Russia.

No adequate reason has yet been given for that blind delusion which prevented the powerful allies, in 1855, or Napoleon I., in 1812, from using against Russia the only power which she could not control, to recall Poland to that national existence which was her sacred right; and which, at the same time, was the only efficient guarantee for the independence and security of Europe.

Made desperate by this thwarted expectation, Poland suffered herself, in 1863, to be drawn into that strenuous but unfortunate effort whose miserable consequences are in the memories of all. Count Zamoyski, now suffering with age and infirmities, made one last attempt to prevail on England to unite in some kind of action with France, and not to stand by in silence at those massacres and outrages which Russia perpetrated with such impunity, a mockery to the civilization of the nineteenth century. He failed, and this was his last attempt.

He died, leaving Europe more than ever exposed to perils he had warned her against, more than ever recklessly serving the Muscovite power.

He died, seeing Russia supremely powerful in the East, and free to put the seal on all the bloody hypocrisies of her history: _here_, making the world resound with her solicitude for the civil and religious liberty of the Cretans, while she crushed out with her unholy foot the last palpitations of Polish freedom, and extirpated, with infernal perfidy, the last vestiges of Polish Catholic faith: _there_, instigating against regenerated Austria a formidable conspiracy of her Sclavic subjects, while the highways and mines of Siberia are strewn with the skeletons of heroic Poles, whose only crime was to spurn the yoke of those Russians who are a hundred-fold less truly Sclavic than their victims.

The history of Count Ladislas Zamoyski is, then, a sad one; it is the story of a life-long shipwreck.

All his designs were frustrated, all his hopes deceived. Always hastening from disappointment to disappointment, from defeat to defeat, he wearied never, paused never, was successful never.

{656}

Deeming no sacrifice too great, and no detail too minute for the service of his country, he was prompt to avail himself of any circumstance or encounter any new risk which might gain for her a friend, remove an error, or stimulate in her behalf the indifferent. Self-armed against disasters, he raised himself from each defeat with the tenacity of an old Roman on the battle-field, where he had been once overthrown, to fall again, wounded and crushed down by an implacable adversity.

It would seem as if so many trials, mental and material, public and private, might suffice to fill that measure of suffering which is the lot of all below. But no! he had still to endure those which would appear more fittingly the portion of the idle and prosperous.

Crippled with wounds and infirmities, the last ten years of his life were passed in physical sufferings which made them one prolonged torture. He endured, during all this time, the prolonged weariness, the distastes, the feebleness of failing health; and he supported them with the same imperturbable patience, the same tranquil and unconquerable courage, which had sustained him through the sad vicissitudes of his public life.

How great the virtue, crowned by those great sufferings! There is in it a grand and mysterious lesson, and one, above all, which God seems to have designed for our instruction and edification; for his character more than his career at all times raised him far above the mass of human kind. No one could approach him without feeling a profound respect before a strength of mind so determined, a patience which never failed; before that singular union of bravery and gentleness, that generous sense of honor, that equanimity, that integrity. Rich in the domestic happiness which Providence accorded to his declining years, he was content to live, content to suffer; yet appreciating any relief, and humbly thankful for those rare moments of respite which were permitted to his numerous infirmities. Without disavowing the aspirations of his youth, he had purified and transformed them in the crucible of self-denial and sacrifice. What remained to him of generous pride was so tempered that the most exacting could not have reproached him. His Christian fervor brightened as the chills of age encircled him; and the destinies and well-being of the church inspired him no less than those of his country.

He gave a proof of this devotion in the past summer, (1867,) when, so broken in health, he went to Rome to lay at the feet of Pius IX. a last homage. In the midst of those _fètes_ of the Centenary of St. Peter, where were gathered the bishops and the faithful of the entire world, except those bound fast and gagged by the Muscovite autocrat, Ladislas Zamoyski appeared, like the living spectre of absent, enchained Poland.

Nor was it only faith: it was still more--charity--which animated this soul, so Christian and chivalrous. How can we depict that compassion and generosity, so irrepressible, toward his destitute compatriots! or how sufficiently admire that charity of forgiveness to his enemies--the pitiless enemies of his nation! Never one word of bitterness crossed his lips.

"What is to be thought of the Russians?" said a friend to him, one day, "and how far are they implicated with the emperor?"

"I never judge them," he replied: "I pray for them."

For us, who are not bound to exercise such superhuman moderation, who are witnesses and not victims of these atrocities, we raise beside the tomb of this just man a cry of grief and indignant surprise.

"_Usquequo, Domine sanctus et verus, non judicas et non vindicas, sanguinem nostrum de iis qui habitant in terrâ?_"

{657}

How long, O Lord! shall crime and falsehood triumph? How long wilt thou leave unpunished this martyrdom of a Christian nation, which will soon have lasted an entire century?

But all rebellious thoughts against the tardiness of divine justice are checked, all the poignancy of sorrow is subdued, by the remembrance alone of the departed dead. He is gone! His long and cruel trials are over! He has entered into light and peace! He lives in the bosom of his God, and his memory will be for ever cherished among men, with the annals of his illustrious house and of his unfortunate country. He leaves behind a name which will be a crown of glory to his children, born in the land of exile where he died, and rocked in their frail cradle on a stormy sea. He leaves a sacred grief, which is a treasure to her alone, to the youthful and admirable woman who gave herself to him in his darkest hour; the intrepid sharer in his vicissitudes and perils, the loving and faithful consoler of his sufferings and decline, and who enjoyed a happiness with him in this world which is to be interrupted only for a few brief days.

Finally, he leaves a great and profitable example to all who have known and loved him; above all, to those who, subjected to slighter trials, submit to them with less patience and less courage.

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The Catholic Church And The Bible.

_Does the Catholic Church condemn the Bible and forbid her people to circulate and read it?_

We answer: NO! On the contrary, the Catholic Church believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God himself, and constantly incites her people to its diligent perusal. In testimony of which, we offer: first, her official declarations; and second, her unvarying practice.

First, her official declarations.

The holy Council of Trent, which closed its sessions in the year 1564, and whose canons and decrees are the voice of the universal church, binding upon every Catholic under pain of sin, distinctly says:

"The Holy OEcumenical and General Council of Trent, ...
following the example of the orthodox fathers, does with due
veneration and piety receive all the books of the Old and the
New Testament, of both which God himself is the immediate
author. ... And, lest any doubt should exist as to what books
this council has thus received, a catalogue of the same is
annexed to this decree. (Here follows a list of the sacred
books, as found in. English Catholic Bibles.) Now, if any one
shall refuse to receive these books entire, with all their
parts, according as they are accustomed to be read in the
Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate
edition, as sacred and canonical, ... let him be anathema."
[Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: _Can. et Dec. Conc. Trid._ Sess. iv.]

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Again, the Pope, who, as the head and mouth-piece of the Catholic Church, administers its discipline and issues orders to which every Catholic, under pain of sin, must yield obedience, has positively declared, "that the faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures: for these are the most abundant sources which ought to be left open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine;" which declaration may be found in the preface to the English Catholic Bibles now in use.

Second, her unvarying practice.

The Catholic Church, from the beginning, has provided effectual means, not only for the distribution of the Bible among her people, but also for their knowledge of the truths which it contains. One of her holy orders is that of _Reader_, "whose duty," as her catechism says, "is to read the Sacred Scriptures to the people in a clear and distinct voice, and to instruct them in the rudiments of faith." [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: _Catechism. Cone. Trid._ pars. ii. De
Ordin.]

Again, from the beginning, it has been made the daily duty of her priests and religious persons to recite "the divine office," which consists of psalms, of readings from the Bible, and of prayers. The new revision of this office made by Gregory VII., in which its different parts were first collected into one volume, became known as the "Breviary," and is still so called. From this was translated and compiled, in great part, the "Daily Morning and Evening Prayer" of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the epistles, gospels, lessons, and psalms of which, thus borrowed, present, as is well known, so large a portion of the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, the Breviary is but the Bible, in a form adapted to devotional uses, and illustrated with pious meditations and devout prayers. Before us lies a copy, published in the year 1632, during the Huguenotic wars and persecutions. It bears the official order of the great Richelieu; and, as we turn over its leaves, we find that a large part of the whole Bible is embraced within its pages, and we perceive that as long as this book can be found in the hands of all her clergy, and is accessible to every one who seeks it, so long, within the borders of the Catholic Church at least, the Holy Scriptures will be widely circulated and intimately known.

Again, in every age, the most eminent and pious of the pastors and scholars of the Catholic Church have devoted their lives to the study and explanation of the Bible. The sermons of the first eight centuries were principally oral commentaries on the sacred text. The great libraries of valuable Christian works, which have come down to us from the primitive church, are made up of volumes directly based on Holy Scripture. Their writers are well known as men of great intellect, of unwearied zeal, of deep and humble piety. Look at this list of some of them: In the second century, Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen; in the third century, Pierius, Pamphilus, Hesychius, and Eusebius; in the fourth century, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, Chrysostom, and Ephrem; in the fifth century, Cyril, Theodoret, and Isidore of Pelusium; in the sixth century, Gregory the Great, Cassiodorus, Procopius, and Primasius; in the seventh century, Maximus, Isidore of Seville, Julian of Toledo, and John Damascene; in the eighth century, Venerable Bede, Alcuin, and Rabanus Maurus; in the ninth century, Christian Druthmar, Walafridus Strabo, Remigius of Auxerre, and Sedulius; in the tenth century, OEcumenius and Olympiodorus; in the eleventh century, Nicetas, Lanfranc, and Theophylact; in the twelfth century, Euthymius, Anselm, and Rupert; in the thirteenth century, the great Thomas Aquinas and Hugo de Sancto Caro; in the fourteenth century, Nicholas de Lyra, Paul of Burgos, and Gerson; in the fifteenth century, Laurentius Valla, Tostatus, Denis the Carthusian, Marsilius, and Le Fèvre: in the sixteenth century, Cornelius à Lapide, Maldonatus, and Jansen of Ghent; in the seventeenth century, Natalis Alexander and John Baptist du Hamel; in the eighteenth century, the learned Calmet, of whose work the famous Dr. Adam Clarke has written: "This is, without exception, the best comment on the sacred writings ever published, either by Catholics or Protestants." [Footnote 196]

[Footnote 196: Horne's _Introduction_. Vol. ii. part.
iii. chap. V. sec. iii. § 3, Am. ed. 1836.]

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Certainly, no age, illuminated with such lights as these, deserves to be called "_dark;_" no people, taught by such teachers, could ever have been ignorant. And when we remember that, as an eminent Protestant clergyman has said, "the writings of the dark ages are made of the Scriptures;" not merely, "that the writers constantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them as authority on all occasions, but that they thought and spoke and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this constantly as the natural mode of expressing themselves," (_The Dark Ages._ By Rev, S. R. Maidand, D.D. London, 1853;) and remember, further, that this could not be so, unless the people who wrote and those who read alike had free access to Holy Scripture both possessing the books and being permitted to circulate and use them, we shall be far enough from believing that in the Catholic Church the Bible has ever been "_a hidden book,_" or that the doors of its rich treasure-house were ever closed to men.

Again, the efforts of the Catholic Church to preserve and perpetuate the Bible have been unceasing. As early as the fourth century, by the direction of Pope Damasus, St. Jerome entered on the work of preparing a full and perfect copy of the Scriptures. He devoted twelve years to the study of the Hebrew, Syriac, and other oriental languages. He collected at Jerusalem and in the East all the most accurate versions, both of the Old and New Testaments. From these, revised, compared, and corrected with each other, he prepared that Latin version which is commonly called the "Vulgate," and which, as all biblical critics allow, is the most perfect and complete copy of the Bible which now exists. During the period between the fourth and sixteenth centuries, every great monastery (and Europe was full of them) had its "scriptorium," or writing-chamber, in which copies of the Scriptures were constantly produced. Of the 1400 manuscripts of the New Testament which are now extant, not one was written earlier than the fourth century, or by other than Catholic hands; and Protestants themselves have no higher origin for their Scriptures than these Catholic copies, and no surer ground of reliance on their accuracy than the fidelity and learning of Catholic scholars. How easy, if the Catholic Church condemned the Bible, would it have been to neglect this multiplication of the sacred books, and to silently destroy existing copies! Yet those who depend altogether on her labors for their boasted Scripture, have said, and still will say, that she fears the Bible and would gladly banish it from men. But when the age of printing came, her efforts were redoubled. {660} According to the popular idea, translations of the Scripture into the vulgar tongues were never made before the Reformation, or even till long after it, by Catholics. Nothing could be more false. The Bible, either wholly or in part, had been translated and published in no less than _seven_ of the common languages of Europe, before Luther and his Reform were ever dreamed of. In the year 1466 a translation into German was printed, copies of which still exist. This translation passed through _sixteen_ different editions at Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Augsburg, in the course of a few years, and was followed by another translation, of which _three_ editions were published at Wittemberg in 1470, 1483, and 1490; _two_ at Cologne in 1470 and 1480; _one_ at Lubeck in 1494; _one_ at Haberstadt in 1522; and _one_ each at Mayence, at Strasburg, and at Basle, in 1517. Luther first published his translation in 1530, nine years after the Diet at Worms and twelve years after he had turned Reformer. Before his time, therefore, there were no less than _twenty-seven_ different editions of the Bible in the German language in circulation among the people, besides almost innumerable editions in Latin, a tongue with which the clergy and the learned of that age were well acquainted. In the year 1471 a translation of the Bible into Italian was printed both at Rome and Venice, and passed through _thirteen_ different editions before the year 1525. Two different translations into French were also published; one in 1478, which was printed in _seventeen_ successive editions before 1546; and the other in 1512, which also passed through many editions. In 1478 a translation into Spanish was published, which was reprinted in 1515 _with the express sanction of the Spanish Inquisition._ In 1475, a translation into Flemish was published at Cologne, of which _seven_ new editions were printed before 1530. In 1488, the Bible, in the Bohemian language, was printed at Prague, and again produced at Cutna in 1498, and at Venice in 1506 and 1511. An edition in Sclavonian was also published at Cracow in the first part of the same century. Add to these the different versions made in the "dark ages," and you have no less than _twenty-two_ translations and _seventy_ printed editions of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongues of England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Sweden, prepared by the Catholic pastors and scholars of Europe, and distributed among their people, before Luther and his Bible were ever heard of. When Protestant historians relate that this renowned Reformer never saw a Bible till he was twenty years of age, and had been a student at the university upward of two years, and depict his wonder and delight at its discovery, (_Hist. Ref. D'Aubigné_, vol. i. p. 131,) we hardly know whether to condemn the ignorance of the Reformer or the dishonesty of the historian, one of which must be true. Circumstances certainly seem to cast the odium of falsehood on the latter, rather than that of unparalleled stupidity upon the former.

After the Reformation began, the Catholic Church applied herself to preserve and perpetuate the Scriptures with the same diligence and zeal as of old. A new translation into German appeared in 1534, and passed through _twenty_ different editions within the century. Another was printed in 1537, and also passed through several editions. Still another was published in 1630, and during the past fifty years there have been several others. Between the years 1525 and 1567, _eight_ different editions of the Italian translation of 1471 were printed, with the formal permission of the Holy Office at Rome. {661} Another translation appeared in 1532, which passed through _ten_ editions within twenty years. Another still was published in 1538, 1546, and 1547, and more recently there have been several others; the principal of which is that of Antony Martini, which in 1778 received the written endorsement and recommendation of Pope Pius VI. _Thirty-nine_ different editions of the French translation of Le Fèvre, as revised by the doctors of Louvain, were published between 1550 and the year 1700, since which latter date many new versions, and many reprints of former versions, have appeared in France; of one of which the great Bossuet is said to have distributed _fifty thousand_ copies with his own hands. In Spain, likewise, the Bible, and especially the New Testament, has been frequently reprinted. The most famous Spanish edition is the renowned Polyglot Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, in six folio volumes, published at Alcala in 1515. In the year 1582, the New Testament in English was issued from Rheims, and in 1609, the Old Testament, in the same language, was printed at Douay, the two together forming the Douay Bible, an edition which, if not the most elegant in phraseology, is still generally admitted by all critics to be more faithful and correct than any other version in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. This latter version has appeared in almost every form, from the largest and most ornate to the smallest and least expensive, and may be found in almost every Catholic family which possesses the ability to read it. Nearly the same may be said of all other versions in the common languages of the present age. They were intended not for the learned, but for the people. The encouragement which they received came from the people, not in opposition to, but in consequence of, the permission and recommendation of the pastors of the church: and it is simply incredible that all these different translations should have been made, and these numerous editions printed, unless the Bible had been freely read and freely circulated among the Catholic masses both of Europe and America.

So far, therefore, from ever hiding the Holy Scriptures, or even keeping them in the background, history proves, beyond the possibility of doubt or denial, that the Catholic Church has always occupied the foremost position in the preservation and diffusion of the written word of God; and that to her efforts, and to her efforts alone, is due not only the continued existence of the Bible itself, but also of those vast treasures of research and investigation which tend to throw light upon its meaning, and enforce its teachings on the hearts of those who read it; nay more, that Protestants themselves possess a Bible, only so far as the same church has bestowed it on them; and that their commentaries and expositions are but mere digests and abridgments of the laborious and extensive works of Catholic philosophers and theologians.

How, then, when the Council of Trent--which is the unerring voice of the universal church--when the Pope, who is the head and ruler of the faithful--when the unvarying practice of all ages of Catholics throughout the world--proclaims that the Catholic Church believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God, and one of the great means for the enlightenment and instruction of mankind--how, then, can Protestants ask whether the Catholic Church condemns the Bible, and forbids its members to circulate and read it? Does not all history answer them? {662} Do not thousands of sermons, homilies, and commentaries answer them? Do not hundreds of translations, scattered over all ages and all lands, answer them? Does not their own possession of the Bible at the present day, which they profess to prize so highly, and for which they are indebted to that same church, answer them? How, then, can they believe those slanders which have, for so many years, been uttered against the church of God in reference to the Scriptures? Above all, how can they _repeat_ them, after the often made and complete demonstration of their falsehood?

Still it is asked, _What, then, about these Bible burnings, this actual hinderance, in particular instances, to the use of the Bible? And why does not the Catholic Church join with the great Bible societies of the age in the diffusion of the Bible, or at least form societies of her own for the same purpose?_

These are important questions, and questions, too, which must be answered, if the preceding demonstration would have its full effect upon the mind; and for this reason we will now consider them.