Chapter II (5)

The day was hard to bear; wife's work without wife's consolation. Sewing, sorting, packing, filled the hours too closely to leave much time for active grief. They were services that could easily have been performed by a servant; but Mary, amid the perplexity which clouded her life, kept one purpose clearly before her--to fulfil her duties thoroughly toward her husband, and even toward the unhappy woman who had poisoned her happiness, and thus prevent further entanglement.

The dinner hour, whose claims prevail over every other external circumstance in life, was lived through, thanks to the presence of Italian servants, who do not expect friends to look happy on the eve of separation, and are ready to melt into tears of sympathy at a moment's warning. Vane passed the evening in his study, transacting business with Mr. Holston and a lawyer; Mary in his dressing-room, attending to "last things."

At intervals through the weary night she heard him moving about in the library. About five o'clock, the peculiar click of the hall door told her that he had gone out. Then came two hours of sleep, and memory's dreadful reckoning when she awoke.

Breakfast was served at nine o'clock. After going through the dismal form which represents eating on such occasions, Nicholas went to the window to watch for the gondola. "Will you come here, Mary?" he said.

She went to him, and measured despairingly, as he talked to her, the gulf which separated them spiritually while they stood side by side.

After giving various directions as to material arrangements during his absence, he said, "I went to confession this morning, and to your Padre Giulio." She looked up eagerly into his sad face, stern with the rigidity of repressed emotion. "After confession, I saw him in his own room, and told him all the circumstances of the last three months, out of the confessional, in order that you may feel free to seek from him the advice and consolation I have shown myself unfit to give you."

"I don't want to speak of these things to any one," Mary answered.

"I have no right to urge you," he said; "but you will oblige me very much by speaking to him once, at least, upon the subject. I cannot tell you the weight it added to my self-reproach to find him ignorant of the wrongs you have suffered, knowing as I do the entire confidence you repose in him personally. You have been very loyal to me, Mary; I shall never forget it."

"Of course, I told him nothing concerning any one but myself."

"I have another favor to ask, which I should not ask if you were like other women."

"What is it?"

He took a note from his desk, and gave it to her unfolded. "After reading that, I beg you to give it to Lady Sackvil."

She flushed, and a slight trembling passed over her. Then she folded the note and put it into her pocket. "I will give it to her without reading it. I trust you."

Nicholas looked at her with an expression of reverence in his face. "I will earn the right to tell you how deeply I honor you," he said. "Any thing I could say now would appear like a new phase of moral weakness; but I will earn the right to speak."

As Mary met his eyes, fixed upon her with a look of reverential tenderness, her heart cried out for him. She longed to throw herself upon his breast; to urge him to put off this dreadful parting, and treat the wretched delusion he had yielded to as a dream. But something unanswerable within her soul warned her to let him leave her, that his resolutions might grow strong in solitude; that he might learn by aching experience the worth of the love and sympathy he had slighted. Therefore, she only said, "All will be well; I know it, I feel it." And he answered, "I accept your words as a prophecy, and thank God for them. One favor still I must ask. Mary, you will write to me?"

"Constantly."

"God bless you. Holston will find out when the mails go. It will be the one happiness of my life to look forward to your letters, which must give me every detail about yourself and about our child. Mary, it will be my one earthly hope to look forward to the time which shall end my exile."

The gondola was at the door, and George Holston had already taken his place in it. Vane clasped his wife's hands in his, kissed them passionately, and rushed from the room.

XIV.

"I never knew her to faint before," Deborah's voice was saying, as Mary emerged from an abyss of peaceful oblivion, to find herself deluged with _eau de Cologne_, and lying on the bed in her own room.

"Poor little soul!" answered Mrs. Holston's gentle voice. "It was a terrible shock, his going so suddenly. But, hush now, she is coming to herself."

No, not to herself; to a consciousness of nameless agony; to a sense of restlessness, without physical strength for action; to a crushing weight of misery which she must ask no living soul to share.

After some minutes, which seemed like hours of struggling to recover breath, and voice, and senses, she succeeded in thanking her kind nurses, and asking them to leave her alone for a little while.

An hour's solitude had restored her to complete consciousness, when a servant knocked on the door and asked whether she had any further occasion for the gondola, which had returned from carrying Captain Vane to the steamer. Her husband's request that she would see Padre Giulio occurred to her. Life must be taken up somewhere; why not in the performance of that duty, which would become harder with every day it should be deferred?

If she called upon Deborah for assistance, she would be prevented from leaving the house; so her preparations must be made alone. Giving orders for the gondola to wait, she put on hat and shawl with trembling hands, and walked down the long flights of marble stairs, holding on to the balustrade for support. It was useless to attempt her mission in that condition; perhaps an hour's row that soft, gray, overshadowed morning might restore her nerves to equilibrium. "Put up the awning and row on the lagoon for an hour," she said to the gondoliers. "Then take me to the Piazza San Marco without my giving you any further directions."

Through the open windows of the ducal palace she could see tourists wandering about, _Murray_ in hand. Soldiers were lolling under the arcades; sight-seers were hurrying through to and fro, taking advantage of the cool day to get through a double amount of work. A sacristan was cleaning down the steps of Santa Maria della Salute, flinging away the broom, and sitting down to rest after the labor of sweeping each step.

Then came a long period of quiet, broken only by the steady dip of oars, and an occasional remark in gondolier slang made by the two boatmen. Pearly sky and pearly sea, a soft breeze and monotonous motion exercised a soothing influence over poor Mary, who never resisted comfort, no matter in how homely a form it might come. On the steps behind the Armenian convent sat a monk, looking over the lagoon. He was a commonplace old man enough in appearance, some insignificant lay brother resting from his labors in the garden. He saw the boat approach, and noticed probably the expression of suffering on Mary's face; for as she passed, a look of kindness, that was in itself a benediction, came into his wrinkled, brown face, and sank into her poor wounded heart, never to be forgotten. From that day she remembered the old Armenian in her prayers as one who had helped her in the sorest trial of her life.

XV.

In the afternoon came Mrs. Holston, for once in her life in a hurry. "I am ashamed to disturb you," she said to Mary. "I am ashamed to say why I have come. Amelia is behaving in the most extraordinary manner. She refuses to get up, and refuses to see the doctor. She says no one can do her any good except you. I told her she was very selfish, and she said she didn't care; so now I can only ask you, for charity's sake, to come down and speak to her."

"Certainly," said Mary, by a stupendous effort speaking in a natural tone; "I will come in a few minutes. I have a little note for your sister from my husband that she may be glad to get. Did he find time to come and bid you good by?"

"Yes, indeed, but he looked dreadfully worried and unhappy, of course. I think it extremely ill-natured of the War Department to make him leave home so suddenly. That must have been what made you look so frightfully ill yesterday morning. I was very much alarmed about you."

"I will follow you directly," said Mary, escaping to her own room for a moment of preparation before facing the enemy of her peace.

But that her peace was hopelessly shaken, she no longer feared. The interview with Padre Giulio had been full of consolation; for to this impartial listener Vane had said many things that the fear of seeming insincere had prevented him from expressing to his wife. It was plain that delicacy toward herself and compassion for Lady Sackvil had made him leave Venice. She now felt that it would show a lack of faith to doubt that the future would bring happiness to them both; that their reunion would be one such as death itself confirms instead of severing.

She found Lady Sackvil looking enchantingly lovely. Her hair, dark brown, with golden red lights in it, was plaited in two great braids; her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were closed, showing their long lashes and large, full lids to advantage. By the quivering of her lips, Mary knew that she felt who was with her; but it was some minutes before she opened her eyes.

"It was kind in you to come," she said at last, looking up into Mary's face. "I am very grateful. Flora says I'm horribly selfish to send for you, and no doubt I am; but it is better than going crazy, I suppose."

Mary laid her hand on the throbbing forehead, and felt the quick pulses. "Do you feel really ill?" she asked; "or is this merely a state of nervous excitement?"

"I'm not ill. I was never seriously ill in my life. I am only going distracted. I had an idea you might do something for me."

"The first thing to be done is to quiet your nerves and reduce the fever. Then we will think of other remedies. I will get Flora's little medicine-chest, and see what its resources are."

The morning passed quietly in tending Lady Sackvil, varied by occasional visits to the nursery. It was hard to bear, "but no harder than any thing else would be now," thought Mary. "If I can save this poor soul, it will be worth suffering great as this."

By two o'clock, Amelia was physically more tranquil. Her health had always been excellent, and her temperament, though utterly undisciplined, by no means inclined to morbid excitability.

"I have a note for you," said Mary; "will you read it?"

"From whom?"

"From my husband."

Lady Sackvil shuddered, and turned away.

"Don't give it to me," she said. "Read it, and tell me what it says."

Mary read it through to herself; then, mastering her voice, read aloud the following words:

"I was unjust to you yesterday. I treated you with cruelty. For what has happened, I am more responsible than you, because I have been under better influences. We shall never meet again. God bless you, and grant us both genuine repentance!"

Amelia made no comment or reply. A quarter of an hour later, she said, "You go to confession very often, I suppose?"

"Once a week."

"Who is your confessor?"

"Padre Giulio, at St. Mark's."

"Is he old?"

"Yes."

"Wise?"

"Yes."

"Kind?"

"Very kind."

"I should like to see him. I don't suppose that I intend going to confession, but I want to talk with such a man. Has he had much to do with making you what you are?"

"He has given me good advice, and I have tried to follow it, if that is what you mean."

Lady Sackvil looked at Mary fixedly for some time.

"I made up my mind, a short time ago," she said, "that the thing most likely to convince me of the direct influence of God would be to see a Christian whose character would bear scrutiny under the severest test. I have seen such a Christian in you. Most women would have spurned me away in disdain; you have treated me like a sister. I thank you for it, and I should like to believe what you believe."

Mary smiled at the reasoning, but thanked God for the conclusion. "You would find Padre Giulio very sympathizing," she said; "I think it would soothe you to see him. Shall I send for him to come here?"

"On no account. I will go to him if you will come with me. Do come with me; I will bless you all my life," she added pleadingly.

"Of course I will go, but not to-day. If you were to take cold now, it might be the death of you. To-morrow morning we will go to St. Mark's, and I will send him word, that we may be sure of finding him at home."

Lady Sackvil looked disappointed. "I would rather go to-day. I want to have it over."

"There's no occasion to wish to have it over," said Mary soothingly. "An experienced confessor is too well used to dealing with mental suffering to wonder at it, no matter in what shape it comes."

Lady Sackvil lay with her eyes shut a long time. At last she said, "I've not been much of a Bible reader, but I remember well that it required only the sight of one miracle to convert sinners in those days. I suppose sinners are very much the same in the nineteenth century that they were in the first."

"No doubt," said Mary, and waited to hear more.

"Your conduct toward me is, in my opinion, a greater miracle than the raising of the dead. Nothing but supernatural strength could have sustained you."

"If I have done any thing remarkable, it has certainly been God's doing, not mine."

Lady Sackvil lay still some time longer. Then she said abruptly, "I am clever, I know, but I am not intellectual; and intellectual satisfaction is not what I demand in order to become a Christian. If you were to lay before me all the tomes of all the theologians, they would not convey to my mind one single definite idea."

"You were educated a Catholic, weren't you?"

"Yes, after a fashion. I was carefully prepared for confirmation in a convent school, where I spent six months, while my aunt was in Europe."

"Then you feel more inclined toward Catholicity than to any other form of religion?"

"Certainly. If I am going to be good, I mean to be decidedly so. The church demands more than any sect, and I respect her for that reason. Like St. Christopher, I wish to serve the strongest master. Then, too, the teaching at the convent made a deeper impression on me than I supposed; and now that I need support, it all comes back to me. Last, and not least, I wish to believe as you do. You are the best Christian I have ever seen."

"Your experience in Christians must have been limited, I think," said Mary, smiling.

"Perhaps so; but I am quite satisfied to have you for my standard. Why, are you going? Oh! please don't leave me. I can't bear to be alone."

"I must go now. I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and if you feel equal to the effort, we will go to San Marco."

"I shall feel equal to it physically," said Lady Sackvil. "It's very provoking. I meant to have a brain-fever and die, and I feel better every minute. I wish you had not come to take care of me."

"This is the beginning of your heroic virtue, I suppose," said Mary; "these are the first fruits of conversion. Good-by, neophyte! Disturb yourself about nothing; remember only that God loves us with a love too deep to be fathomed."

And then she went home, and sat down by the ashes that Lady Sackvil had left on her domestic hearth.

XVI.

In the morning, she found Lady Sackvil taking breakfast in her own room, looking pale and worn from the effects of reaction from fever and excitement. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Horribly cross. I think all other sensations are merged in ill-temper."

"A certain sign of convalescence. I am glad to see it."

Amelia laid down her egg-spoon, and sank back in her chair. "I wish," she remarked, "that it had pleased Heaven to make some variety in the shape of hen's eggs. I am so tired of seeing them always oval."

"You don't want any of these things, do you?" asked Mary, surveying the rather solid repast on the table.

"No--I can't bear the sight of it," said Amelia wearily.

"Rest on the couch until I come back." And Mary arranged the cushions with a skilful hand, and left the room noiselessly.

Presently she returned, bearing on a pretty little tray a glass filled with some frothy preparation, and two transparent wafers. Amelia revived at the sight. "I have dreamed of such things," she said. "This is the very apotheosis of breakfast!"

XVII.

Mary left Lady Sackvil with Padre Giulio, and went into the church to pray for the happy result of the interview. She had passed some time at the Lady chapel, with its brazen gates and oriental lamps, and before the jewel-incrusted high altar, and was kneeling in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, when she heard the door of the confessional behind her open. She looked round. Padre Giulio had entered the confessional; Lady Sackvil was kneeling at the grating.

She was sitting within the railing of the chapel when Amelia joined her. Mary looked at the beautiful creature; there was a peaceful smile on her lips, a holy light in her eyes; the pride, the caprice, the egotism were not there; she looked like a penitent child.

As they passed through one of the sombre side aisles, Amelia paused before the crucifix hanging on the wall. "I have confessed my sins and received absolution," she said; "are you willing to kiss me?"

And so the sign of peace was exchanged before the image of the great reconciler; and they passed out from the shadows of those grand old arches into the sunshine of the Piazza.

THE IRON MASK.

Through an oversight, the article on the Iron Mask in our March number, which had been lying on hand several months, was sent to the printer without its necessary complement, which we now publish.

In January, 1869, it was announced in the _Moniteur Universel_ that M. Marius Topin, a young author who had already distinguished himself by a work of remarkable historical research, had succeeded, by dint of laborious examination and the intelligent study of a mass of old official documents, in unearthing the secret of that sphinx of history--the Man with the Iron Mask.

M. Topin did not at once make known the result of what he claimed to be his entirely triumphant solution of the enigma, and publish his work in book form. He doubtless reflected that, as the world had waited in patient expectation more than a hundred and fifty years for the revelation of the mystery, it might readily summon up sufficient resignation to wait a few months longer. He accordingly announced that the successive chapters of his work would appear from time to time in _Le Correspondant_, a highly respectable Paris semi-monthly. The first number of his series was published on the 25th of February, 1869, and the last, making seven in all, on the 11th of November. We have received, as they appeared, all the numbers of the _Correspondant_, and are therefore enabled to present from the author's own articles the following statement of the result of what he has written.

M. Topin could not deny himself that universal enjoyment of the story-teller--to hold his auditors in suspense and on tiptoe of expectation by proposing a varied succession of solutions of the mystery in hand, and dismissing them in turn with a--"Well, that's not it." He takes up, one after the other, the various _prétendants_ to the honor of the Iron Mask's living martyrdom, discusses all the claims in their favor, presents the objections, demonstrates that their position is untenable, orders them off the stage, and passes on to the next; thus successively eliminating them until he reaches his objective point.

M. Topin's first article is preceded by a sort of device, or motto, in the shape of a short extract from an order of Louis XIV.: _Il faudra que personne ne sache ce que cet homme sera devenu_, (no one must know what has become of this man.) It was noticed that the date of the order is not given. The article opens with a statement of the arrival of M. Saint Mars at the Bastille (Paris) at three P.M., on the 18th of September, 1698. St. Mars was the newly-appointed governor of that prison, and came accompanied by a prisoner whose face was concealed by a mask of black velvet. This prisoner died, and was buried on the 20th of November, 1703, under the name of Marchialy. The extraordinary precautions taken after the death of Marchialy are narrated in our previous number. The dates above given are important in determining the claims of other candidates, inasmuch as the facts and dates connected with the arrival, death, and burial of a masked prisoner at the Bastille are established beyond controversy by official documents, and must be considered in any case presented.

Our author then dilates upon the difficulties of the question, the fact that it has been unsuccessfully treated by fifty-two authors, and finally abandoned as hopeless by historians like Michelet, with the conclusion that the problem of the Man with the Iron Mask will never be solved. Betraying no anxiety whatever to make haste, M. Topin then discusses the merits of several of the most prominent theories and the manner in which they have been presented. The claim that longest held its ground, and enlisted in its advocacy the greatest number of writers, was that made for a supposed and, as has been shown, entirely imaginary twin-brother of Louis XIV., the son of Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. It is easy to understand why, in France, such a version as this should be the favorite one. It possessed every possible element of popularity, intrigue, mystery, illegitimacy, crime, a rightful heir defrauded of his throne, and the association of illustrious names. All these lent their fascinations; and from Voltaire to Alexander Dumas, from the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ to the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_, all the resources of writers of their tendency and calibre were called into play to give it currency.

M. Topin devotes nearly the whole of his first article to the demonstration of the fact that the prisoner of the Iron Mask was not and could not have been a son of Anne of Austria. The discussion is thorough, and the demonstration complete. Outside of the question of the Mask one good result is thus obtained. The innocence of Anne of Austria is fully established.

Time brings roses--and justice. Marie Antoinette was first vindicated from the foul aspersions of the "progeny of Voltaire." Now, Anne of Austria is acquitted; and going further back in time--the most distant case being, of course, the most difficult--next comes the turn of Mary Stuart, and her day, we believe, is not far distant.

The claim made for the Count of Vermandois, a son of Louis XIV. and Louise de la Vallière, is next taken up. As all the details of the last illness, death, and burial of the Count of Vermandois are matters of profuse official record, M. Topin has very little trouble in disposing of this case. Then we have the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II. of England. Defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor, where the forces under his command were arrayed in armed rebellion against James II., and afterward taken prisoner, he was beheaded in the Tower of London July 15th, 1685. The dispatches of various foreign ministers in London at the time fully establish the fact of his death.

To Monmouth succeeds Francis of Vendôme, Duke of Beaufort. As grand admiral of France, Beaufort commanded the naval expedition sent out to aid the Venetians in their defence of Candia against the Turks in 1669. As in the cases of the two sons of Louis XIV., and Monmouth, the surrounding circumstances give M. Topin the fullest opportunity of indulging in court anecdotes, intrigues, and festivities, mingled with biographical sketches of distinguished personages, so in the case of Beaufort, his history warrants our author in going into all the details of the siege and military and naval operations against the army of the sultan. Beaufort is believed to have been killed in an attack upon the enemy's works, and was last seen in the thickest of a hand-to-hand struggle in the intrenchments. As his body was never recovered, this fact gave the mystery-mongers an advantageous margin. But Beaufort was born in 1616, and the Iron Mask was buried in 1703. Supposing him to be the "Mask," this would make him eighty-seven years old at his death, which, of itself, puts him out of the question.

In his third number, M. Topin introduces the so-called Armenian Patriarch, _Avedick_. Why he did so is best known to himself; for the case of Avedick has never been presented as one that would give him any right to rank among the claimants for the distinction of the Iron Mask. Taules, and the German historian Hammer, are referred to as authorities for Avedick's claim; but on being examined, they are found totally insufficient as warrants for such a theory. The essential pivot of the question of identity of the Iron Mask is the death and burial of its wearer in 1703. Now, Avedick was still in Turkey in 1706, and that settles his claim beyond question. Avedick was seized by order of the Marquis of Ferriol in the Grecian Archipelago, May, 1706, carried forcibly to France, retained in confinement in various places until September, 1710, when he was liberated. He died in Paris in July, 1711. This was most certainly a case of shameful violation of the law of nations, of power, and of humanity. A case of abominable personal cruelty it also certainly was--but it was not a case of "Iron Mask." Two such outrages as those on the persons of Marchialy and Avedick are quite enough of themselves; to say nothing of certain diplomatic arrangements with the Grand Turk which endangered Christianity and the public peace in Europe--to settle one's opinion as to the genuineness of the glories of the reign of Louis XIV., a Grand Monarque who was not great.

But to return, M. Topin's chapter on the Avedick case, appearing in _Le Correspondant_ of the 10th June, 1869, was followed by an article from the pen of Rev. Father Turquand, S.J., in the September (10th) number of the same periodical, severely attacking the statements of Avedick's case by M. Topin, and vindicating his (Turquand's) society from certain imputations cast upon it in connection with the seizure of Avedick.

In his fourth number, (Oct. 10th,) M. Topin takes up the claim made for Fouquet, whose case differs from all the others in the fact that he was a prisoner of state by sentence of a judicial tribunal. Fouquet's claims were warmly pressed by a very able literary advocate, Paul Lacroix, (Bibliophile Jacob,) in a work published in 1830. But here again the difficulty of dates is insurmountable. Fouquet died in 1680, and there is no proof of the appearance of the Man with the Iron Mask until after that period.

We pass on to another. In the year 1677, the Duke of Mantua was Charles IV. of the illustrious house of Gonzaga. He was young, careless, dissipated, and extravagant. Spending most of his time in Venice, he seldom visited his duchy, except for the purpose of raising money. He gradually fell into the hands of usurious lenders, and continued to obtain the sums he wanted by anticipating, through them, the receipt of the taxes and imposts of his duchy by several years. The Marquisate of Montferrat was among his dependencies. Its little capital, Casal, a fortified place on the Po, fifteen leagues east of Turin, was a point of great strategic importance, and essential to the safety of Piedmont. The court of Turin would not, of course, consent to its possession by France. But to France it was of the highest value, as with Pignerol and Casal it would be master of the situation. This place Louis XIV. wanted to buy, and Charles IV. was perfectly willing to sell it. Ercolo (Hercules) Antonio Mattioli, a young nobleman of the court of Mantua, at this time thirty-seven years of age, was high in favor with the reigning duke. Through Giuliani, an Italian journalist, D'Estrades, Louis XIV.'s ambassador at Venice, sounded Mattioli, and finally, through him, succeeded in opening a negotiation with the duke for the sale of Casal to France.

All three met at Venice in March, 1678, discussed terms, and agreed upon one hundred thousand crowns as the price of the cession. Mattioli then went to Paris to sign the treaty in the name of his master the duke. The treaty was completed in December, 1678, and after its signature, Mattioli was received by Louis XIV. in secret audience, presented by the king with a rich diamond ring and four hundred double _Louis d'or_, with the promise of a far greater amount of money, the appointment of his son among the royal pages, and a valuable endowment for his mother. The intrigue and negotiation had been admirably managed and crowned with perfect success. Of all who had any interest opposed to the French possession of Casal, not one had the slightest suspicion, and it would have been difficult to imagine the existence of the smallest element of failure in the enterprise.

But the best-laid schemes of men, mice, and monarchs here below oft come to naught. Two months after Mattioli's visit to Paris, the courts of Turin, of Madrid, and of Vienna, the Spanish governor of the Milanese provinces, and the state inquisitors of the Venetian republic--that is to say, all and every one most interested against the execution of the treaty--not only knew of its existence, but were fully advised of every detail concerning it, the names of the negotiators, the date of the instruments, the price of cession, when it was to be made, etc. In short, they knew every thing concerning it. Well they might. Mattioli himself had told them! His motive is a subject of dispute. One theory is, interested motive; another, patriotism. Certain it is he had more to gain--as a mere question of interest--by keeping than by betraying the secret. On this point, though, we do not undertake to judge him. In February, 1679, the Duchess of Savoy advised Louis XIV. that she was in possession of Mattioli's information. The disappointment, the mortification, and the anger of the French king can easily be imagined. He was placed in a position not only dangerous; but what was almost worse, ludicrous. Mattioli had the king's signature to the treaty in his possession, and it was all-important to recover it. The king in Paris, and his minister D'Estrades, both conceived the same idea for remedy in the matter. On the 28th of April, 1679, Louis sent the order to have Mattioli arrested, and on arrival of the order, Mattioli had already (May 2d) been carried off a prisoner. D'Estrades had managed to decoy him across the frontier, at a point where he had a detachment of dragoons waiting, and in a few hours the Italian was a prisoner at Pignerol, the commencement of a captivity that was to endure four and twenty long years. M. Topin then continues the discussion of Mattioli's case, and closes the article, leaving the reader under the impression that he decides against the claim of Mattioli.

Indeed he goes further; for he more than intimates that there is very little probability of ever penetrating the mystery surrounding the Man with the Iron Mask.

The case made for Mattioli has always been the strongest, even before the publication of the work of Mr. J. Delort, which was mostly appropriated by Ellis in his _True History of the State Prisoner_. Mr. Loiseleur has also discussed the Mattioli claim with great force; so successfully, indeed, that a very large number of critical scholars were satisfied with his adverse demonstration.

M. Topin discusses at great length the facts and the reasoning of Mr. Loiseleur, and, as we have just stated, concludes his sixth article by a decision against Mattioli. But in his concluding chapter (_Correspondant_, Nov. 10th) he comes to a right-about face, takes up some of Mr. Loiseleur's proofs, adds some new dispatches, and decides that--Mattioli is the French prisoner of state known as the Man with the Iron Mask.

We fear that after all the solution of M. Topin is no solution, and that the only result of his labor is to narrow the discussion down to the claims of Mattioli and another prisoner of unknown name.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION.[13]

The number of _The Christian World_, the organ of the American and Foreign Christian Union, for February last is entirely taken up with the school question, and professes to give "a carefully digested summary of the views and reasonings of all parties to the controversy." The views and reasonings of the Catholic party are not misstated, but are very inadequately presented; those of the other parties are given more fully, and, we presume, as correctly and as authoritatively as possible. The number does not dispose of the subject; but furnishes us a fitting occasion to make some observations which will at least set forth correctly our views of the school question as Catholics and American citizens.

It is to the credit of the American people that they have, at least the Calvinistic portion of them, from the earliest colonial times, taken a deep interest in the education of the young, and made considerable sacrifices to secure it. The American Congregationalists and Presbyterians, who were the only original settlers of the eastern and middle colonies, have from the first taken the lead in education, and founded, sustained, and conducted most of our institutions of learning. The Episcopalians, following the Anglican Church, have never taken much interest in the education of the people, having been chiefly solicitous about the higher class of schools and seminaries. The Baptists and Methodists have, until recently, been quite indifferent to education. They have now some respectable schools; but the writer of this was accustomed in his youth to hear both Baptists and Methodists preach against college-bred parsons, and a _larned_ ministry. In those States which had as colonies proprietary governments, and in which the Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists have predominated, universal education has been, and still is, more or less neglected. Even the Presbyterians, while they have insisted on a learned ministry and the education of the easy classes, have not insisted so earnestly on the education of the children of all classes as have the Congregationalists; and, indeed, it is hardly too much to say that our present system of common schools at the public expense owes its origin to Congregationalists and the influence they have exerted. The system, whatever may be thought of it, has undeniably had a religious, not a secular origin.

The system originated in New England; strictly speaking, in Massachusetts. As originally established in Massachusetts, it was simply a system of parochial schools. The parish and the town were coincident, and the schools of the several school-districts into which the parish was divided were supported by a tax on the population and property of the town, levied according to the grand list or state assessment roll. The parish, at its annual town meeting, voted the amount of money it would raise for schools during the ensuing year, which was collected by the town collector, and expended under the direction of a school committee chosen at the same meeting. Substantially the same system was adopted and followed in New Hampshire and Connecticut. In Vermont, the towns were divided or divisible, under a general law, into school-districts, and each school-district decided for itself the amount of money it would raise for its school, and the mode of raising it. It might raise it by tax levied on the property of the district, or, as it was said, on "the grand list," or _per capita_ on the scholars attending and according to the length of their attendance. In this latter method, which was generally followed, only those who used the schools were taxed to support them. This latter method was, in its essential features, adopted in all, or nearly all, the other States that had a common school system established by law. In Rhode Island and most of the Southern States, the inhabitants were left to their own discretion, to have schools or not as they saw proper, and those who wanted them founded and supported them at their own expense. In none of the States, however, was there developed at first a system of free public schools supported either by a school fund or by a general tax on property levied by the State, though Massachusetts contained such a system in germ.

Gradually, from the proceeds of public lands, from lots of land reserved in each township, especially in the new States, for common schools, and from various other sources, several of the States accumulated a school fund, the income of which, in some instances, sufficed, or nearly sufficed, for the support of free public schools for all the children in the State. This gave a new impulse to the movement for free schools and universal education, or schools founded and supported for all the children of the State at the public expense in whole or in part, either from the income of the school fund or by a public tax. This is not yet carried out universally, but is that to which public sentiment in all the States is tending; and now that slavery is abolished, and the necessity of educating the freedmen is deeply felt, there can be little doubt that it will soon become the policy of every State in the Union.

The schools were originally founded by a religious people for a religious end, not by seculars for a purely secular end. The people at so early a day had not advanced so far as they have now, and did not dream of divorcing secular education from religion. The schools were intended to give both religious and secular education in their natural union, and there was no thought of the feasibility of separating what God had joined together. The Bible was read as a class-book, the catechism was taught as a regular school exercise, and the pastor of the parish visited the schools and instructed them in religion as often as he saw proper. Indeed, he was, it might be said, _ex officio_ the superintendent of the parish schools; and whether he was chosen as committee-man or not, his voice was all potent in the management of the school, in the selection of studies, and in the appointment and dismissal of teachers. The superiority in a religious and moral point of view to the schools as now developed may be seen by contrasting the present moral and religious state of New England with what it was then.

The religion, as we Catholics hold, was defective, and even false; but the principle on which the schools were founded was sound, and worked well in the beginning, did no injustice to any one, and violated no conscience; for Congregationalism was the established religion, and the people were all Congregationalists. Even where there was no established religion and different denominations obtained, conscience was respected; for the character of the school, as well as the religion taught in it, was determined by the inhabitants of the school district, and nobody was obliged to send his children to it, and those only who did send were taxed for its support.

But in none of the States is there now an established religion, and in all there are a great variety of denominations, all invested with equal rights before the state. It is obvious, then, the Massachusetts system cannot in any of them be adopted or continued, and the other system of taxing only those who use the schools cannot be maintained, if the schools are to be supported from the income of public funds, or by a public tax levied alike on the whole population of the district, town, municipality, or State. Here commences the difficulty--and a grave one it is, too--which has as yet received no practical solution, and which the legislatures of the several States are now called upon to solve.

Hitherto the attempt has been made to meet the difficulty by excluding from the public schools what the state calls sectarianism--that is, whatever is distinctive of any particular denomination or peculiar to it--and allowing to be introduced only what is common to all, or, as it is called, "our common Christianity." This would, perhaps, meet the difficulty, if the several denominations were only different varieties of Protestantism. The several Protestant denominations differ from one another only in details or particulars, which can easily be supplied at home in the family, or in the Sunday-school. But this solution is impracticable where the division is not one between Protestant sects only, but between Catholics and Protestants. The difference between Catholics and Protestants is not a difference in details or particulars only, but a difference in principle. Catholicity must be taught as a whole, in its unity and its integrity, or it is not taught at all. It must everywhere be all or nothing. It is not a simple theory of truth or a collection of doctrines; it is an organism, a living body, living and operating from its own central life, and is necessarily one and indivisible, and cannot have any thing in common with any other body. To exclude from the schools all that is distinctive or peculiar in Catholicity, is simply to exclude Catholicity itself, and to make the schools either purely Protestant or purely secular, and therefore hostile to our religion, and such as we cannot in conscience support.

Yet this is the system adopted, and while the law enables non-Catholics to use the public schools with the approbation of their consciences, it excludes the children of Catholics, unless their parents are willing to violate their Catholic conscience, to neglect their duty as fathers and mothers, and expose their children to the danger of losing their faith, and with it the chance of salvation. We are not free to expose our children to so great a danger, and are bound in conscience to do all in our power to guard them against it, and to bring them up in the faith of the church, to be good and exemplary Catholics.

Evidently, then, the rule of allowing only our supposed "common Christianity" to be taught in schools does not solve the difficulty, or secure to the Catholic his freedom of conscience.

The exclusion of the Bible would not help the matter. This would only make the schools purely secular, which were worse than making them purely Protestant; for, as it regards the state, society, morality, all the interests of this world, Protestantism we hold to be far better than no religion--unless you include under its name free-lovism, free-religion, woman's-rightsism, and the various other similar _isms_ struggling to get themselves recognized and adopted, and to which the more respectable Protestants, we presume, are hardly less opposed than we are. If some Catholics in particular localities have supposed that the exclusion of the Protestant Bible from the public schools would remove the objection to them as schools for Catholic children, they have, in our opinion, fallen into a very great mistake. The question lies deeper than reading or not reading the Bible in the schools, in one version or another. Of course, our church disapproves the Protestant version of the Bible, as a faulty translation of a mutilated text; but its exclusion from the public schools would by no means remove our objections to them. We object to them not merely because they teach more or less of the Protestant religion, but also on the ground that we cannot freely and fully teach our religion and train up our children in them to be true and unwavering Catholics; and we deny the right of the State, the city, the town, or the school district, to tax us for schools in which we are not free to do so.

We value education, and even universal education--which overlooks no class or child, however rich or however poor, however honored or however despised--as highly as any of our countrymen do or can; but we value no education that is divorced from religion and religious culture. Religion is the supreme law, the one thing to be lived for; and all in life, individual or social, civil or political, should be subordinated to it, and esteemed only as means to the eternal end for which man was created and exists. Religious education is the chief thing, and we wish our children to be accustomed, from the first dawning of reason, so to regard it, and to regard whatever they learn or do as having a bearing on their religious character or their duty to God. Mr. Bulwer--now Lord Lytton--as well as many other literary men of eminence, have written much on the danger of a purely intellectual culture, or of the education of the intellect divorced from that of the heart, or sentiments and affections. We hold that education, either of the intellect or of the heart, or of both combined, divorced from faith and religious discipline, is dangerous alike to the individual and to society. All education should be religious, and intended to train the child for a religious end; not for this life only, but for eternal life; for this life is nothing if severed from that which is to come.

Even for this world, for civilization itself, the religious education which the church gives is far better than any so-called secular education without it. The church has not always been able to secure universal secular education for all her children; but there can be no question that the illiterate classes of Catholic nations are far more civilized and better trained than are the corresponding classes of Protestant nations. There is no comparison in personal dignity, manliness, self-respect, courtesy of manner, refined feeling, and delicate sentiment, between an unlettered Italian, French, Spanish, or Irish peasant, and an unlettered Protestant German, English, or American. The one is a cultivated, a civilized man; the other is a boor, a clown, coarse and brutal, who perpetually mistakes impudence for independence, and proves his self-respect by his indifference or insults to others. The difference is due to the difference of religion and religious culture; not, as is sometimes pretended, to difference of race. The church civilizes the whole nation that accepts her; only the upper classes in Protestant nations are civilized.

Of course, we do not and can not expect, in a state where Protestants have equal rights with Catholics before the state, to carry our religion into public schools designed equally for all. We have no right to do it. But Protestants have no more right to carry their religion into them than we have to carry ours; and carry theirs they do, when ours is excluded. Their rights are equal to ours, and ours are equal to theirs; and neither does nor can, in the eyes of the state, override the other. As the question is a matter of conscience, and therefore of the rights of God, there can be no compromise, no splitting of differences, or yielding of the one party to the other. Here comes up the precise difficulty. The state is bound equally to recognize and respect the conscience of Protestants and of Catholics, and has no right to restrain the conscience of either. There must, then, be a dead-lock, unless some method can be discovered or devised by which the public schools can be saved without lesion either to the Protestant or the Catholic.

Three solutions have been suggested: 1. The first is to exclude the Bible and all religious teaching, or recognition, in any way, shape, or manner, of religion, from the public schools. This is the infidel or secular solution, and, so far as Catholics are concerned, is no solution at all. It is simple mockery. What we demand is, not that religion be excluded from the schools, but schools in which we can teach freely and fully our own religion to our own children. It is precisely these purely secular schools, in which all education is divorced from religion--from the faith, precepts, services, and discipline of the church, as well as education combined with a false religion--that we oppose. Nor will this solution satisfy the more respectable Protestant denominations, as is evident from the tenacity with which they insist on reading the Bible in the schools. They do not believe any more than we do in the utility, or even practicability, of divorcing what is called secular learning from religion. All education, they hold, as well as we, that is not religious, is necessarily anti-religious. This is a case in which there is and can be no neutrality. We find this conclusively shown by some remarks in _The Christian World_ before us, credited to Professor Tayler Lewis, the most learned and able thinker we are acquainted with among our Protestant contemporaries. The professor's remarks are so true, so sensible, and so much to our purpose, that, though not so brief as we could wish, our readers will hardly fail to thank us for transcribing them:

"Let us test this specious plea of neutrality. What does it
imply? If carried strictly out to the exclusion of every
thing religious, or having a religious tendency, it must
consistently demand a like exclusion of every thing that in
the least manifests the opposite tendency, under whatever
specious disguises it may be veiled. It does not alter the
case in the least that opinions, regarded as irreligious,
or as undermining or in any way weakening the grounds of
belief, take to themselves the specious names of literature,
or politics, or political economy, or phrenology, or the
philosophy of history. No such sham pass-words should give
to Buckle and Combe admittance where Butler and Chalmers are
shut out. Every thing that makes it less easy for the child
to believe his catechism, 'taught at home,' as they say, is a
break of the supposed concordat. The mere objection is to be
heeded. It is enough that things seem so to serious men, as
capable of correct reasoning as any on the other side; or that
it is the opinion, the prejudice, if any choose so to call
it, of a devout ignorance. The thoughtful religious man might
be willing to forego his objection if there were or could be
real impartiality. He might trust a true moral and religious
training as fully able to counteract any thing of an opposite
tendency. But to let in the enemy, and then take away the
weapon of defence--this is a neutrality hard to be understood.

"Now, there can be no doubt of the fact that there is admitted
into our schools, our colleges, our educational libraries,
into the reading-rooms connected with them, much that is
thus _deemed_ irreligious in its tendency--at least, by the
holders of our stricter creeds. There is much that is silently
alienating the minds of their children from the doctrines
held sacred by their fathers. We might go further: there is
much that tends to undermine all religious belief, even of
the freest cast. What young man can have his mind filled
with the atheistical speculations of Mill and Spencer, or be
exposed to the uncounteracted theories of Darwin and Huxley,
and yet retain unimpaired his belief in a providence as taught
by Christ--a providence that 'numbers the very hairs of our
heads'--or listen as before to the prayer that ascends from the
family altar? These writers profess a kind of theism, it is
said; but wherein, as far as any moral power is concerned, does
it differ from a belief in quadratic equations, or the dogmas
of heat and magnetism?