Chapter XVIII: Choosing the Path (11)

“What had he done with him?” cried Gaston aloud--“why, only what François would have done with himself sooner or later. And was he to let his house be burnt down and his gold melted to postpone the day perhaps for twenty-four hours? Pshaw! what an idiot he was to take on so about it. It was all that whistle that set his nerves on an edge. Why did it keep on hissing and hissing? The _bleus_ and their capture were half a mile out of ear-shot by this. Fate had been good to Gaston, and served him much better than he could have served himself. It had taken the matter out of his hands, and he had been no more than a passive agent in its grasp, in the grasp of law and might--ay, and right too. When François came back like a simpleton and thrust his head into the lion’s mouth, what could he expect but that it would close on him and crunch him? It was over now. Marie would never hear of his return and need never curse the day she gave her hand to Gaston, and Gaston might sleep in peace, and without being haunted by terrors of his brother’s return.” Thus did he argue with the fiend and strive to beat him off, and stifle remorse that had entered his soul, and was gnawing at him with fierce, relentless tooth. But it would not do. Across the legion of fiends there flitted visions of the past, that he could not shut his eyes to, struggle as he would. First, there rose before him a curly-headed little brother whose small arms were round Gaston’s neck, clasping him as they lay in a little cot beside their mother, breathing softly in sweet child slumber; then he beheld a frank, bright boy kneeling with him beside that mother’s death-bed, while she blessed them and promised to meet them in heaven. Then the boy was a youth who stood with his hand on Gaston’s shoulder, and looked into his eyes, and said: “Brother, I trust thee as I trust my 464 soul!” This faded away, and he saw the same youth bronzed and war-worn, and betrayed in his manly trust, but still holding out his hand to Gaston, and saying with the well-remembered voice, now husky with the strong man’s agony: “I do not blame thee, brother; God’s will be done!” Slowly but vividly the visions rose before Gaston’s soul, and he could not but look on them, and, as he looked, sweet memories of his childhood rushed upon him like a torrent and bore him down; his boasted courage was gone, his pride, his love, his gold melted away like false phantoms, and he was alone with his sin and his despair. He remembered François’ noble unselfishness, his truth, his grateful love of their common mother, his reverence for her lightest wish; he remembered his many acts of kindness to the poor and the suffering, and how he had seen him followed by blessings from the old and young whom his generosity had helped and comforted; and oh! bitterest of all was the memory of their parting, when François gave him his little hoard in trust, and bid him take care of Marie. And this was the brother he had sold! O God! It was all too horrible to be true. Gaston seized the bag of gold, rushed from the house and into the stable, and, without waiting to saddle her, leaped on his mare’s back, and dashed off in pursuit of _les bleus_. They were only six, and he had gold enough to buy them if he only came in time. The mare flew as if she knew what hung on her speed, dashing up the snow that spattered her flanks and enveloped her rider in a moving cloud as they galloped along. The moon was still magnificent, and the stars shone down with the same calm splendor--the patient, far-away stars that 1793 years ago rang out the glad tidings to the watchers on the hills of Judea: Glory to God! Peace to men! Gaston, as he flew past the scene of his recent struggle, felt a chill of supernatural terror freeze him to the marrow of his bones. The stars stooped down till they seemed to touch him, and pierce him with needles of fire; the hills, the stern, uncompromising hills, shook their pale brows at him, and turned and ran with him through the waste of snow; and above them, from the battlements of heaven, rang out a myriad voices in ecstatic song: Glory to God! Peace to men! But ever and anon, breaking the high harmony of that song, came a shriek as of a mocking fiend: “What hast thou done with thy brother?”

The mare took a longer stride and put out her strength with a sudden increase of vehemence as they came to a turn in the road where it crossed the river and rounded the base of the hills. Gaston’s heart leaped up to his throat, as he caught the hammering of hoofs ahead. Thank heaven! he was in time. The horsemen came in sight. They slackened their speed, nay, they were dismounting now. Out in the open road with no shelter of any sort in sight? What did it mean? The mare strode on. A few more pulls, and she would be up with them. Gaston could distinguish the trim figures of the soldiers and François’s loose peasant dress. But now he lost sight of them; they had moved behind a hedge. Only for a moment. The six slim figures emerged from the snowy foreground, and six muskets gleamed horizontal in the moonlight.

“Hold! in the name of heaven, hold!” shrieked Gaston.

He flung down the bag, that burst and sent the gold rippling on the ground--but it was too late; there was a rattle, and flash followed 465 flash, as he sprang from his horse and rushed between the murderers and his brother. François lay prostrate, writhing in the snow, that his blood was turning to crimson. Their eyes met for one moment, and then François’ closed for ever. Gaston fell on the body with a cry that was like the shriek of a condemned soul; and then he felt a hand on his arm.

“There are the midnight bells sounding,” said old Gervoise, in a querulous voice. “I have been calling to you through the door these ten minutes, and you wouldn’t awake. I thought you were dead, so I got my own key and opened it.”

Gaston, dazed and terror-stricken, and doubting still whether he was dreaming or waking, started up, and told Gervoise not to wait for him, that he would follow her in a minute. Then he fell upon his knees, and prayed as a soul might do who had passed the gate “where hope enters not,” and been snatched back from the dark abyss.

“It was a vision to save me from the crime of Cain. Blessed be the mercy that has rescued me!”

He lighted a candle, opened a drawer in which he kept some writing materials, and sat down with a pen in his hand. He hid his face in his hands, and his lips moved convulsively in prayer for a moment, and then he began to write. It was not long. He did not read the letter over, but sealed it with a broad red seal, and then, with that strange force of habit that asserts itself so unaccountably in moments of supreme emotion, he carefully replaced the pen and paper in the drawer. After this he laid the letter on the table in the middle of the room, and, taking his coat and cap, sallied out into the night.

The Christmas bells were ringing out their welcome to the new-born King, tripping in silver-footed chime on the midnight silence, grave and merry, full of glad pathos and exulting hope, and forebodings solemn and tender. And the hymns and anthems of the villagers answered their call and swelled the chorus of the chimes; but the voice of a noble sacrifice that went up from Gaston’s heart mingled in diviner harmony with the pure joy-jargon of the bells. He entered the church, but, instead of going up to his accustomed seat, he stood near the door, half concealed by the angel holding the _bénitier_. He saw the stream of familiar faces flow in and take their places, and then turn with eager expectation toward the sacristy. The well-trained voices of the choir, unsustained by harp or organ, intoned the glorious hymn, _Adeste Fidelis_, and old and young answered in loud-voiced chorus: _Venite adoremus, Venite in Bethlehem!_ The altar was wreathed with lights and flowers, every pillar and picture-frame sparkled with the red-berried holly; the little lowly crib with its suggestive imagery glowed with crimson lamps; and before it the loving prayer of simple hearts made a fitting welcome for the Child that was born in poverty, and first worshipped by shepherds. As midnight struck, the door of the sacristy opened, and Monsieur le Curé in his grandest vestments came forth; but before the door had closed again, Gaston caught sight of a figure kneeling furtively behind it. He gave one long look at the golden door of the tabernacle, signed himself with the sign of the cross, and slipped out of the church.

Early on Christmas morning, a horseman rode in from Chapelle-aux-lys with a letter for M. le Curé! It was signed _Loison, soldat de la République_; and its purport was to inform him that one François 466 Léonval, who had born arms for nearly four years against the republic, and taken refuge the day before at Chamtocé, whither the soldiers of the republic were bound in pursuit of him, had, in order to prevent the shedding of innocent blood, left his native village in the night, and of his own free will given himself up to justice. He had died like a soldier, worthy of a better cause, and had begged the writer to bear his last words to the curé of Chamtocé, which were that he was happy to give his life for God and the king; and he prayed a blessing on his brother, and Marie his sister-in-law, and begged them and the curé to be mindful of him in their prayers. He fell crying _Vive Dieu et le Roi!_ which treasonable words had been enough to shoot him again if he were alive; but being dead, the writer, who respected a brave man, though he was a traitor, conveyed them in fulfilment of his promise to François Léonval.

Soon after this event the Reign of Terror came to an end. The fertile fields of La Vendée smoked once more under the furrowing ploughshare, and peace and plenty smiled upon the land. Absent ones returned to gladden many hearts, and to tell the story of their short and wonderful campaign, and brought back glory-laden banners, tattered and blood-stained, to hang in the village church, as trophies of Vendéan valor, to show future sons of La Vendée how their fathers had fought the good fight. Once more there was marrying and giving in marriage, and toil and prosperity reigned in Chamtocé.

When the winter snows had twice melted off the hills, and the snowdrops peeped up under the grimy hedges, like white-robed little choristers singing their glad good-by to the winter, and the lusty young spring had laid his emerald finger on the earth, the bells rang out their full, exhilarating peal, and a gay procession wound its way to the church, where Monsieur le Curé in his surplice and stole awaited the bridal train. His voice shook, and big drops rolled down his aged cheeks, as he laid his hand on the two bowed heads and called down the blessing of the God of Abraham on Marie and François Léonval. This was his last ministration. He tarried long enough to bless the marriage of his two best-loved children, and then he went home. They laid him to rest beside a humble grave that was always freshly decked with flowers. It bore a white stone cross and a marble slab, on which it was recorded that François Léonval in life was a brother with a noble heart, and in death a martyr who had died for a noble cause, and that, like his Master, “having loved his own, he loved them to the end.”

----------

THOUGHTS FOR THE WOMEN OF THE TIMES. 467

BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.

The woman of the nineteenth century owes all the advantages of her social position to the Catholic Church.

The disadvantages of that position, which are more or less justly the causes of discontent and complaint, are the natural fruits of Protestantism.

For many centuries, the church maintained a severe conflict against influences, principalities, and powers, which must have baffled the efforts of any but a divine institution, to rescue woman from the depths of degradation into which the iniquities of heathenism had thrust her. It required the superhuman patience and energy of a system animated by divine charity and sustained by omnipotent power to prosecute the struggle successfully, and to place woman in the position for which she was designed by her Creator. So far as she has since preserved the high relations with her Maker, with the family, and with society which were achieved for her by that struggle, it has been by virtue of the same power that first effected her elevation.

The divided and antagonistic forces of Protestantism have been as adverse to the interests of woman as it was possible for disjointed elements, acting discordantly, to be. Fortunate has it been for her that the very discrepancies of its moral elements have operated in a great measure to neutralize its influence. Since the days when the first Reformers (?) pronounced the result of a solemn debate in their decision that the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel might live with two wives conjointly without compromising his character as a good Christian under the _new religion_, and those of England exulted in the action of Henry VIII. when he repudiated the saintly Catharine of Aragon--for twenty-five years his faithful and lawful wife--and took the wanton Anne Boleyn in her stead, the general tendency of Protestant influence has been to rob woman of the dignity with which the church had invested her, by loosening the obligations of the marriage bond and diminishing the sanctity of the conjugal relation. If it has not entirely succeeded in degrading her to be the mere victim of man’s capricious whims, it has done what it could. Want of harmonious action between its constituent parts has been the best protection Protestantism has afforded to woman against this result. The boasted “progress”--originating in the revolt against divine authority exercised through the church--so far as it affects the condition of woman, has been steadily in this direction, especially during the present century.

Women are conscious of this. They are aware that the ground upon which they stand is becoming, year by year, less and less firm, the guarantees of their rights more and more feeble and inoperative, while the chances of a conflict for gaining a more secure footing are strongly against them. But while they are keenly alive to these facts, the cause for their existence is an enigma they have not yet solved--its remedy, a contingency they have not reached even in conjecture.

They could not be persuaded that it is the boasted “spirit of the age” which is in fault; that its irrepressible tendencies are to raise one 468 class by depressing another, and to create a countless multitude of tastes and wants which can be gratified by none but the favored class who are the possessors of great wealth.

They fret vainly--beating against the little that remains of ancient bulwarks erected to shield them, as if by destroying these their condition would be improved--and indulge an idle dream that women’s suffrage will remedy the evils, real or imaginary, of which they complain. “Let us vote,” they say; “let us have some voice in regulating our own affairs, and, if we do not succeed in shaping them entirely to our wishes, we shall at least reduce the number and weight of our grievances, be enabled to open new channels through which we can attain the independence we desire, and, by making our presence felt as an element of the body politic, be acknowledged as an existing fact that is of some importance to the nation.”

It is indeed an idle dream! The mind of every intelligent person must, upon a very little reflection, discover innumerable reasons why woman must cease to be woman, wife, and mother, before she can exercise the elective franchise to any purpose.

As a true American woman, we cannot regard the clamor which has been raised upon the subject of woman’s rights with the entire contempt it has met in many quarters. There is an invisible current of sad and mournful facts underlying this agitation.

If “material prosperity” is the key-note of Protestantism--as the testimony of its own writers would seem to prove--the development of material comfort and luxury is its highest expression. In all the appliances, arrangements, and habits of our domestic and social life, there has been a constant and alarming increase of expense during the past fifty years. New fashions have been invented, new wants created and multiplied, so rapidly that the supply, never exceeding the demand, has altogether exceeded the means of a great majority of our people. The few who were able to indulge in each novelty as it appeared have gone to surprising lengths; while the many, whose revenues were wholly inadequate, have strained every possible resource to keep pace with their wealthy leaders in expensive follies. Crime, bankruptcy, widespread ruin, and desolation have followed, of course. Multitudes have been left in poverty, with all the habits, tastes, and aspirations which wealth alone can gratify, and of these multitudes a large proportion are women. Accustomed to affluence, they are determined not to accept poverty--the synonym for _disgrace_ in their circle--and eagerly cast about them for some avenue of escape. Hence the frantic efforts to obtain entrance into new paths, hitherto untrodden by woman, for securing the object of their ambition.

Woman has a right to be all that her Maker designed when he created her as a “help” to man. He is not of more importance to society in his own place than she in hers. He would not render himself more ridiculous by forsaking his own duties and avocations for the care of the household, the kitchen, and the nursery, than she would by abandoning these for the public employments of men. The present state of affairs is sufficiently deplorable, but I do not see how such an exchange would mend the matter. Nor can we see any remedy, but by returning to old-fashioned ways. Very comfortable ways they were, too, however disdainfully the Flora McFlimsys of modern times may toss 469 their pretty befrizzled heads at the mere mention of them.

What sensible woman would not prefer the happy solitude of a Eugénie de Guérin--whereof her pen discourseth so eloquently that even the chickens fed by her hand seem to the reader like birds-of-paradise--in her beloved Cayla, to all the magnificent bleakness, splendid miseries, and heart-burning rivalries too often enclosed within the walls of a palace on the Fifth Avenue?

There are still further causes of uneasiness for women.

Twenty-four years of security in Catholic certainties, and in the enjoyment of such countless consolations as flow from the acceptance of Catholic verities and guidance, have not obliterated from our memory the discomforts formerly experienced from some of these. American women cannot abide the patronizing and condescending tone assumed by the men of society toward them. For our own part, the air of lofty contempt for which it was exchanged after our profession of the Catholic faith was truly refreshing in comparison. They want no such ostentatious toleration. They glory in the consciousness that woman may claim as inalienable a right to be sharply criticised as men enjoy, and have no thanks for such forbearance and namby-pamby nonsense as would be extended to a spoiled child. Nor would men offer it, if they possessed the robust hardihood and manly frankness of their grandfathers.

These women, many of them intelligent and thoughtful, are restless with an unrest which comes from being tossed upon the heaving waves of vague uncertainty from point to point, without the power to attain any fixed position.

Men regard their efforts to gain _terra firma_ with a blending of pity and contempt--in which the contempt is ill concealed and largely predominates--and the question whether a party rope shall be thrown out to draw them ashore, only to offer them before the car of some new political Juggernaut, hangs in the balance. Woe to the women of America should that question be decided in the affirmative!

In all the perplexing “changes and chances of this mortal life,” it is much to stand upon the firm basis of a well-defined and secure position, with the assurance that, so long as one is true to the duties and requirements of that position, a power fully competent to sustain its own guarantees is pledged to shield and protect it in every exigency.

This is the situation in which the Catholic woman is placed at the present juncture. She occupies an elevated standpoint, from which she can watch with great serenity and confidence all the strifes and agitations, moral, social, and political, that convulse this nineteenth century. She knows that the firm and consistent action of the church of Christ, as the champion and protector of woman’s rights, from the period of its first establishment to the present time, is a sufficient assurance of its future course; and she need not fear that an institution through which the Almighty sways the moral forces of the world so potently as to bring to naught the raging of the heathen, and render all the fractional efforts of Protestantism powerless, will prove a broken reed to lean upon in the hour of danger.

But the church requires from her daughters a _quid pro quo_. Nor does she leave them in doubt as to its character. Every duty of the Catholic woman of whatever age, relation, or state in life is so 470 simply and clearly defined for her, that to mistake or err is impossible, except through wilful dereliction: For the child, reverence and submission to parental authority; for the maiden, humble devotion to the plain everyday duties of home, and a modest reserve that seeks the seclusion from which she must be

“Wooed,
And not unsought be won”;

for the married woman, respect for him who is “her head, even as Christ is head of the church”; entire devotion to his spiritual and temporal interests; and a loyal fealty to the sacred gift of maternity, by which the First Great Cause brings her into most intimate communion with himself; permitting her through its penalties, as one of Eve’s daughters, to offer her portion of expiation for the sin of that first parent, before his holy altar. For the mother, this tender Mother of souls provides abundant consolations and counsels in every hour of need, with measureless grace and strength to enable her to discharge perfectly every duty towards the young immortals committed to her keeping.

In no feature of the maternal care and solicitude with which the church surrounds her daughters is the contrast with the cold neglect and indifference of Protestantism more striking, than in the treatment extended by each system to those women who remain in a state of celibacy.

The condition of such under the Protestant _régime_ is truly pitiable, and the very title of “old maid,” with rare exceptions, entails odium and contempt more surely than moral depravity.

Hence the dread entertained by the girl in Protestant society for a single life, and the universal impression that to be married is the first great object of her existence. Alas! that escape from the sacred but irksome duties involved in that step should too frequently be the next!

Even mothers encourage their daughters in this view of the matter, and enter into their conspiracies for securing husbands with misguided zeal. Very little reflection is devoted to the question whether the parties are suited for each other, or the mutual attachment sufficiently strong to enable them to bear jointly the numerous and inevitable trials which pertain to every state and condition of life. The attention is chiefly directed to considerations of a widely different character, relating wholly to pecuniary affairs. It is a most singular fact, in connection with this phase of our subject, that--the great _desideratum_ once secured--the young wife too generally begins at once to regard and treat the husband whom she has been so anxious to gain as the adversary to her interests and happiness, instead of adopting the old-fashioned idea that he is her best friend. Strange as it may seem, this is a very common mistake in these days, and the source of much domestic discord and misery.

A lovely young mother--one of the fairest and most intelligent specimens of the modern American woman whom we are so happy as to know--said to us, the other day: “My boys are well provided for in any event, and, if they were not, they could fight their way in the world like others; but, I assure you, I shall bestir myself to make such provision for my girls as will secure them from being ground to powder by their husbands!”

This from a most devoted and exemplary wife, happy in a husband who dotes upon her, was sufficiently surprising.

“But,” said we, “you would not on any account have your daughters 471 remain unmarried; and would you be willing to give them to men with whom you would not trust their money?”

“Ah!” she replied, “I should prefer to rely upon their securing respect and good treatment with plenty of their own money at command, than with an empty purse.”

We sighed as we inquired mentally if it could be that our American men were really becoming so mercenary, and, recalling the old-fashioned doctrine of perfect community of interests between husbands and wives, marvelled much whether families governed by such maxims, and homes regulated from the start upon such a footing, would more abound in the desirable elements of old-fashioned comfort than those wherein the wife ruled, as of yore--yea, and supremely, too--by the old, old fashion of _love_!

The Catholic maiden of advanced age has a place as secure, and a sphere of action as respectable, in Catholic society as the married woman, nay, the very spirit and effect of her religion is to ensure for her increased respect on account of her vocation to celibacy. We know of many beautiful instances where such persons are the beloved and guiding spirits of households embracing all ages, and the beneficent patrons of their neighborhoods.

If she is favored with a vocation to a religious life, how many homes are open to her happy choice, where affection, honor, and countless opportunities for the exercise of angelic virtues and charities await her!

Verily, the Catholic maiden need not despair if she has no vocation for matrimony! She knows she does better in remaining single than she would in entering the married state without such vocation. These questions are, therefore, made the subjects of long, serious, and prayerful consideration. The Catholic wife enters that state, forewarned and forearmed for all the painful trials and anxious cares it involves, with the full knowledge that she can evade none of them, however trying to flesh and blood or irksome to her tastes and habits, and remain guiltless in the sight of the Arbiter of her destiny, before whose tribunal she appears as often as she approaches the holy sacrament of penance.

She takes up the tender and healthful delights of maternity with joy. and bears its pains and penalties with cheerful courage and patience. Already the Catholic mothers of America may glory in the fact that their children will form a very large proportion of the future citizens of our great republic. Let them, then, rise to the level of their destiny. Let them see that those children are thoroughly instructed in the principles of their religion. No station is so humble and no lot so hard as to prevent the mother from teaching the children God has given her, if she is earnest in her wish to do so. In no way can her boys be better prepared for exercising their elective franchise intelligently, and no one can deny that a woman’s suffrage offered through a fine group of boys will be far more efficient than her single vote.

Catholic women are inexcusable if they do not put aside the allurements of the world, spurn the glittering kaleidoscope of fashionable vanities, and, clinging with ever-increasing affection and allegiance to the ancient and mighty Mother, who is their best, their only sufficient, friend and protector, keep themselves aloof from all the agitations that distract their less favored sisters in the fruitless attempt to build up woman’s rights upon the ruins of her 472 ancient safeguards.

Woman’s suffrage--should they obtain it--will only betray their feet into a political slough, and bespatter them with political defilements from which none but an omnipotent power can rescue and cleanse them. Woman has everything to lose and nothing to gain in this movement, for, after all, men will manage affairs to suit themselves. The Almighty pronounced no idle decree when he said to the woman: “Thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.”

----------

EVER.

The steadfast gaze brings out the star,
That, like an eye
Set in the sky,
Its sweet light shedding from afar,
At morning dawn, and still at even,
The night alway,
And livelong day,
There twinkles ever, deep in heaven:

Thy constant prayer so reacheth Love,
That, like the star,
Seeming so far,
Its glad strength sending from above,
To youth’s fair dream, and memory’s smart,
To grief’s sad moan,
And joy’s sweet tone,
Aye burns for us, deep in God’s heart.

----------

THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 473