Chapter XXIX: Part III: On the Boulevards (3)

But, as we have said, all this was quicker than thought. Five minutes had not elapsed from the moment of his sudden appearance before the princess, breathless with joy and haste, fell pale with emotion into her son’s arms. George led her to her _chaise longue_, and knelt beside her, and, while she was asking him--embracing him at every word--sometimes why he had returned so soon, and sometimes why he had kept them waiting for him so long, by degrees he entirely regained his self-control. When, after a long hour’s conversation, he found himself once more alone, he asked himself if the vision he beheld at his arrival was a reality or a dream of his imagination, and then, if he were pleased or not, that it had appeared to him beneath his mother’s roof.

During this time Fleurange also regained her self-possession, though slowly, and her first sensation was a kind of terror. “O dear friends! why did I leave you?” she cried, with a feeling analogous to that of one in the midst of a tempest, longing for the security of land. She felt the need of protection even more than at Paris with want staring her in the face, and more than ever did her isolation and weakness make her afraid. She wiped away her tears, folded her hands, and endeavored to reflect calmly, but it was beyond her power to be calmed yet. Her surprise and agitation had been, this time, too violent. In spite of all her efforts, the accents still ringing in her ears filled her with an acute, almost painful joy, which pierced her heart like a sword.

“No, no, I must not dwell on it,” she said, clasping her forehead with her hands as if to stay the current of her thoughts.

All at once a new idea occurred to her: “What will he tell his mother? What would she think? Would she be proud, haughty, and disdainful as she sometimes knew how to be? Would she order her new companion to leave her at once? What was to be the result?”

She was taking this new view of her position when Barbara, without the usual formality of knocking, came rushing in with the eager air of a person who brings news and a message.

“Mademoiselle Gabrielle,” she said, “the princess has sent me to inform you of the count’s arrival, and that there will be a great many at dinner. She wishes you to look your best.”

This message, in the midst of Fleurange’s reflections, was like cold water on a furnace, causing a kind of effervescence, and the confusion of her thoughts became more inextricable than ever. She looked at Barbara as if she did not comprehend her.

“You were asleep, perhaps,” said she, noticing the young girl’s pallor and bewildered look. “Are you ill?”

This question suggested an affirmative reply, and she told the servant she would be obliged to remain in her room. She was congratulating herself on this happy means of escape, when Barbara explained:

“Remain in your room! Sick! Well, what an idea! And on a day like this!--Madame would be pleased!--Come, mademoiselle, you know well she would never consent to it!”

“But if my head aches so I can hardly raise it?” said Fleurange.

Barbara looked at her. Fleurange was not deceiving her. She had a headache; she was very pale, and there was an unusual expression in her eyes and face, but she was no less beautiful than usual; rather the contrary.

“Come, Mademoiselle Gabrielle, you are not very ill, I know,” said Barbara. “Make an effort, otherwise you may be sure the princess will be up here, and then you will have to yield.”

This perspective reduced Fleurange to immediate submission.

“Then, Barbara,” she said, in a tone half plaintive and half impatient, “let her tell me what to wear! Dress!--If she only knew how I detest it!”

“Come, mademoiselle, there are many others who would be glad to be in your place,” said Barbara in an ill humored tone.

At first she was very much opposed to all her mistress’ generosity to Fleurange, but she soon softened, for the latter had a means of conciliating her which she often made use of, and always at a seasonable time.

“Here, Barbara, take this shawl. You may keep it. Come back in an hour, and tell me what the princess wishes me to wear. That is always the shortest way, and saves me the trouble of deciding.”

Barbara went away, but reappeared in an hour, bringing a dress of sky-blue gauze and some silver pins.

“Here, mademoiselle, is your toilet for to-day. Dress yourself quick; I am going to help you. Let me arrange your hair.--There!--These bright pins have a fine effect in your black hair. Now your dress, quick. The princess is already in the salon. Monsieur le Comte also, and a great many others. You will be late.--Come, what are you thinking of, Mademoiselle Gabrielle, to sit down instead of completing your toilet?”

Fleurange was indeed at once agitated and confused. She walked to and fro in her chamber, sat down, and rose up without any attention to the appeals addressed her. At length she resigned herself to let Barbara dress her as she pleased, and the latter, with a natural taste for the art, acquitted herself so well that, when the young girl, with a trembling hand, opened the door of the salon, hoping to glide in unperceived among the numerous guests already assembled, there was a general murmur of admiration. This added a mortal embarrassment to her trouble.

If any one had asked her the color of her dress she could not have told; but the idea suddenly occurred to her that Barbara had perhaps arranged her hair and dress in a different and more becoming way than usual, and she blushed, wondering what the princess would think of her unaccustomed display.

But the princess did not appear to take any notice of her. Standing in the centre of the room in the richest of dresses, she was doing the honors of the house with her usual ease. All at once Fleurange heard her name called: “Gabrielle!” It was the princess who beckoned to her. Fleurange approached, but a mist veiled her eyes, for she had seen from the first that Count George was beside his mother.

“My bracelet is unclasped. Fasten it, Gabrielle,” said the princess in her usual tone, at once kind and patronizing. Fleurange bent down and clasped the bracelet.

“George,” said the princess, “this is Gabrielle of whom I have often spoken to you. Gabrielle, this is my son.”

George bowed without attempting to speak. Fleurange did the same, but a painful sensation made the blood rush to her face. For the first time in her life, she felt tacitly guilty of a falsehood, or at least of deception, and, though comforted by the certainty the princess had no suspicion of what had taken place two hours before, a flash of haughty displeasure escaped from her eyes as she raised them and turned away her head.

Count George looked at her attentively for an instant, then became thoughtful, and it was only with an effort he took any part in the conversation at table. But in the evening, thanks to the Marquis Adelardi, whose friendship he valued and whose mind was in sympathy with his, he became more animated, and in his turn shone almost as much as his brilliant interlocutor; but he did not approach Fleurange, and did not even seem once to look towards her.

TO BE CONTINUED.

ART AND RELIGION.

God reveals himself to all the faculties of the soul. We not only know him as truth; we also love him as beauty. As he is infinite truth, so is he perfect beauty. Without the existence of God as absolute truth, science is impossible. Science, which is co-ordinated knowledge, can never be well grounded unless it rest upon the eternal and first cause, which is God. God as truth is at the bottom of all knowledge; as beauty, he is the ideal present to the soul in every conception of art.

Art is the expression of ideal beauty under a created form. The philosopher, in his meditations, seeks the true, which he translates into formulas; the artist in his impassioned love seeks the beautiful, which he makes to live on canvas, to breathe in marble, to speak from the living page.

The end of art is not to imitate nature. On the contrary, in the presence of natural beauty it looks beyond to the type, the idea of a still higher beauty. Hence the artist is not a mere copier of nature; for he is enamored of an ideal that disgusts him with all that he beholds in the real world. The aim and despair of his life is to give to this ideal a form and a sensible expression. Ideal beauty is that which disenchants the soul of the love of every created thing, and which in the presence of reality lifts it up to a higher love. It is a gleam from the face of God reflected through the blue heavens, the starry sky, or whatever in nature is grand or beautiful. It is the eternal allurement and eternal disenchantment of the noblest souls. True beauty is ideal beauty, and ideal beauty is a reflection of the infinite. Hence art, which aims to give expression to this beauty, is essentially religious, and tends to elevate the soul from earth to heaven, and bear it away toward the infinite.

It is the ideal side of natural beauty that gives to it its religious power.

The view of the beautiful in nature creates in us a longing for heaven, because the image of God is reflected from all those objects which so inspire the soul. When, in the spring-time we seat ourselves on the border of a lake in whose tranquil waters, as in a vast mirror, are reflected the green woods and the laughing meadows, the trees and the plants and the flowers; into whose bosom the rippling waters of rill and rivulet are flowing, all joyous like children that run to meet their gentle mother, whilst the quiet winds whisper to one another from leaf to leaf, as if afraid to dispel the enchantment of the spot--does not, in such an hour, a mysterious solitude creep over the soul, and free it from the distracting thoughts of life, giving it power to raise itself on the wings of contemplation to the very throne of God? The sight of true beauty always reminds us of heaven. Seated on the border of that enchanted lake, man grows sad and thoughtful, a sweet melancholy takes hold of him, because he has caught a glimpse of home, but is still an exile. When, on a summer’s evening, the sun has sunk to rest, and not a breath creeps through the rosy air, but all nature is bowed in silent prayer, and the stars come out one by one, the guardians of the night--in this heavenliest hour, who has not been impressed by a sense of the infinite, the unmistakable presence of God, before whom heaven and earth, “from the high host of stars to the lulled lake and mountain coast,” grow still, absorbed in adoration?

There is also in the grand and rugged scenes of nature an immense religious power.

The ocean, the desert, high mountains and mighty rivers, storm and darkness, with the voice of thunder and the lightning flash, all speak of God, and in their presence man bows in homage to the omnipotence of his Creator. Hence the child of nature, however rude and imperfect his idea of God, is essentially religious in his aspirations.

Man must isolate himself and become absorbed in his own abstract and empty thoughts before he can lose consciousness of the ever-abiding presence of the Creator. For every creature is a revelation of heaven to the human soul, reminding it of its origin and high destiny. If nature leads us to God, why may not art have the same power, since both are expressions of the same eternal beauty?

Before considering this question, we wish to advert to the immense power and universal influence of art.

Few can enter into the sanctuary of science--even the rudest mind when brought in contact with ideal beauty by the creative power of art--but feel its force and its inspiration. Art is the most lasting of national glories. Indeed, we may say that without art there is no glory either national or individual.

The greatest deeds and the proudest names sink back in death unless art embalm them in poetry or in song, give them immortality on the speaking canvas or in the breathing marble.

Brave men lived before Agamemnon, but they are forgotten, for their names never shone on the poet’s page. Those nations are most glorious in which art attained its highest development.

The muse of Homer, the eloquence of Demosthenes, and the chisel of Phidias, have done more to immortalize Greece than the deeds of her proud heroes. The greatest human actions are in themselves but little removed from the commonplace affairs of everyday life; but the creative power of art transforms them and invests them with a charm which the reality never possessed. The primeval forests of Kentucky, in the day when its name was the “dark and bloody ground,” witnessed many a deed of human daring and of warlike prowess equal to those of Achilles and Hector under the walls of Troy; but art with its celestial wand never transfigured those deeds on the poet’s page, and they are forgotten, buried with the leaves that overshadowed them. The life of man is short, even that of a nation is not long; but art dies not, and has moreover the divine power of conferring immortality upon all that it touches. Shakespeare is worth more to the glory of England than all the victories of all her generals. Dante, Raphael, and Michael Angelo, with innumerable other names which represent the highest artistic power, have made Italy the consecrated land of poetry and of song, the home of beauty and of all loveliness--the native country of the soul.

Time alone, which is the approver of all things, can give to art its full power, and it is only when we consider it in the past that we become aware of its great influence in the history of the human race. The present is always a vulgar time; too real to be beautiful. The present is the slave of power and wealth, but these soon disappear, and art remains for ever. The first impulse in the movement which has carried the European mind to its present state of enlightenment was given by art in conjunction with religion. The study of the Grecian and Roman models, in poetry, in eloquence, and in architecture, fired the nations of Europe with a love of artistic perfection, and consequently greatly contributed to our present civilization. The historic power of art is in some respects greater than that of history itself. Few men know history as a science--the masses are brought into contact with the heroes of the past by poetry and by song.

Has God, who has given to art a universal mission in the development of man’s moral and intellectual nature, banished its elevating influence from the sphere of religion? It would be foreign to our present scope to discuss the actual and possible perversions of art. There is naught on earth so holy that the free will of man may not turn it to evil. The fact that a thing may be abused simply proves that it has a right and proper use. The abuse comes from the free agency of man; the use is the mission given by God, which is always holy and elevated.

The direct aim of art is the expression of infinite beauty under a created form, and hence a true work of art should elevate the soul to the contemplation of heavenly beauty. This contemplation of the divine ideal disenchants us of the things of earth; which truth is expressed by the old proverb, that there is no great genius without melancholy.

He whose soul habitually contemplates the ideal world is necessarily saddened by the reality of life, which is so infinitely beneath the elevation of his thoughts.

There is nothing sensuous in the idea of true beauty. Its property is to purify and moderate desire, not to inflame it. Hence art addresses itself less to the sense than to the soul. It seeks to awaken not desire, but sentiment. Chastity and beauty seek each other. Chastity is beautiful, and beauty is chaste.

These considerations go to show that art, the end of which is the expression of beauty, is in its tendency moral and elevating, and consequently religious.

There can, then, be no just cause of antagonism between religion and true art, as there can be no contradiction between theology and real science.

Far from being enemies, religion and art are allies. This truth the Catholic Church has ever proclaimed. She has stigmatized no one of the arts. In her universal life, she has a mission for each and every one of them. Her churches are not alone the temples of the living God--they are also the home of the arts which point heavenward.

The Christian religion in its dogmas and aspirations is essentially spiritual. The Catholic Church is the great and only successful defender of the distinction between spirit and matter. By her teachings and practices, she has rendered man more spiritual, and consequently more beautiful. By awakening him to the consciousness of the diviner and more ethereal part of his nature, she has developed in him the instinct of art, which is essentially spiritual because its soul is the ideal.

The more we meditate upon the nature of art, the more thoroughly are we convinced that true art is the sister of true religion. Protestantism, protesting against many truths, also protested against the alliance of religion and art. We speak of the Protestantism of the past; for no man knows what Protestantism is to-day. It is anything and everything, from semi-Catholicism down to naked infidelity. It has become mere individualism, and may consequently no longer be spoken of as an organization. The Protestantism which is dead objected to the alliance of religion and art because it conceived them to be of opposite nature and contrary tendency. Religion is the worship of God in spirit and in truth, and Protestantism looked upon art as purely material.

But in this as in other matters, the Protestant view was based upon a misconception both of religion and of human nature. If man were wholly spiritual, his religion would also be purely spiritual. But matter forms part of his nature. Even that which in him is most spiritual--thought--has its sensible element. An idea is an image, whence it follows that we cannot even think without forming to ourselves a mental representation of the thing thought of. No human act can be purely spiritual. The law of our being is that we rise from the visible to the invisible, from the sensible to the supersensible. An invisible and purely spiritual religion would be to us an unreal and intangible religion. An invisible church is a contradiction in terms, and without a church there can be amongst men no authoritative religious teaching. Neither religious nor intellectual life, in our present state, can exist without language, and language addresses itself directly and primarily to the senses. It is therefore impossible for man to express the spiritual without making use of the material. Hence art, which seeks to adumbrate the infinite under a finite form, in this simply conforms to the universal law of man’s nature, which in all things, even in thought, subjects him to matter.

Is not Christianity based upon this fact? Did not God take unto himself a visible and material nature in order to manifest to the world his invisible power, and beauty, and holiness? Is not the Christian religion a system of things invisible, visibly manifested? The end of religion is spiritual, but in order to attain this end it must possess a visible and material element. This fact of itself gives to art a religious mission of the highest order.

This mission is to proclaim to the world Jesus Christ and him crucified and glorified--by poetry, by song, by painting, by architecture, in a word, by every artistic creation of which genius is capable.

Jesus Christ is the beau ideal of art--the most lovely and beautiful conception of the divine mind itself. He is the visible manifestation of God, the all-beautiful.

Purity, and gentleness, and grace, with power and majesty, all combine to make him the most beautiful of the sons of woman, the fairest and the loveliest figure in all history, to whom the whole world bows in instinctive love and homage. There is a shadow on the countenance of Jesus which gives to it its artistic completeness. It is sorrow. There is something trivial in gaiety and joy which deprives them of artistic effect. The cheek of beauty is not divine except the tear of sorrow trickle down it. Hence to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified is not to preach perfect religion alone, but also the perfect ideal of art.

Christian science, which is theology, has as its object the dogmas of the church. Christian art relates directly to religious worship, but it has incidentally a doctrinal significance. If we consider eloquence an art, which we may do, for true eloquence is always artistic, we must concede that it holds a most important place in the church of Jesus Christ. He blessed eloquence and bade it convert the world when he spoke to the apostles these memorable words: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” The divine command was to preach the Gospel, not to write it. The living word spoken by the divinely commissioned teacher has alone borne fruit in the world, converted the nations, and changed the face of the earth. Eloquence must be spoken. If you take from it its voice, you take away its soul. It is the cry of an impassioned nature, in which love, and faith, and deep-abiding conviction are enrooted. Add to this purity and holiness of life in him who speaks, and let him be in earnest, and he will be eloquent. Eloquence in the mouth of a consecrated teacher has a sacramental power. It is one of the divinely established ordinances for the propagation of religious truth, and for the conversion of a soul to God.

Poetry, too, is consecrated to the service of religion. The muse never soars her loftiest flight except when lifted up on the wings of religious inspiration. The most poetic word in language is that brief, immense word--God. It is the sublimest, the profoundest, the holiest word that human tongue can utter. It forms the instinctive cry of the soul in the hour of every deep emotion. In the hour of victory, in the hour of death, in the ecstasy of joy, in the agony of woe, that sacred word bursts spontaneously from the human heart. It is the first word that our mother taught our infant lips to lisp, when, pointing to heaven, she told us that there was God our Father, and bade us look above this base, contagious earth. When the mother for the first time feels her first-born’s breath, in tenderness of gratitude she pronounces the name of God; when in utter helplessness of woe she bends over the grave of her only child, and her heart is breaking, she can find no relief for her agonizing soul, until, raising her tearful eyes to heaven, she breathes in prayer the name of God.

When two young hearts that are one vow eternal love and fealty, it is in the name of God they do it; and the union of love loses half its poetry and half its charm except it be contracted before the altar of God and in his holy name.

When the mother sends her son to do battle for his country, she says, “God be with thee, my boy!”

When nations are marshalled in deadly array of arms, and the alarming drum foretells the danger nigh, and the trumpet’s clanguor sounds the charge, and contending armies meet in the death grapple, amid fire and smoke and the cannon’s awful roar, until victory crowns them that win; those banners that were borne proudly on till they floated in triumph over the field of glory are gathered together in some vast temple of religion, and there an assembled nation sings aloud in thanksgiving: “We praise thee, O God! we glorify thee, O Lord!” How often has not God chosen the muse of poetry in order to convey to the world his divine doctrines! The Bible contains much of the sublimest poetry ever written. Some of the Psalms of David, portions of Job and Isaias, equal in deep and lofty poetic feeling anything that Dante or Milton wrote. And did not these privileged minds also receive their highest inspirations from religion?

We may not separate poetry from music. Music is poetry in tones. It is the language of feeling, the universal language of man. The cry of joy and of sorrow, of triumph and of despair, of ecstasy and of agony, is understood by every human being because it is the language of nature. All the deep emotions of the soul seek expression in modulation of sound.

Cousin says: “There is physically and morally a marvellous relation between a sound and the soul. It seems as though the soul were an echo in which the sound takes a new power.”

Byron, too, seems to have felt this:

“Oh! that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,
A living voice, a breathing harmony;
A bodiless enjoyment, born and dying
With the blest Tone that made me!”

At the awakening call of music, the universal harmonies of nature stir within the soul. The ancients were wont to say that he who cultivates music imitates the divinity, and St. Augustine tells us that it was the sweet sound of psalmody which made the lives of the monks of old so beautiful and harmonious. God is eternal harmony, and the works of his hand are harmonious, and his great precept to men is that they live in harmony. Did not Jesus Christ come into the world amid the choral song of angels? Would you, then, banish music from the church of Jesus? No art has such power as music to draw the soul toward the infinite. It would seem as though the sounds of melody were the viewless spirits of heaven, calling us away from earth to our true home in the mansion of our Father. Whosoever has enjoyed the rare privilege of being present in the Sistine Chapel, during Holy Week, when the melodies of Leo, Durante, and Pergolesi, on the _Miserere_, are sung, has felt the immense power of religious music. For a moment, at least, he has quitted this earth, and the voice of song has borne his soul in ineffable ecstasy to the very throne of God. As music develops religious sentiment, so religion gives to music its sublimest themes. To her, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart owe their divinest inspirations.

Painting, too, asks to be received into the temple of religion. What sentiment is there that the painter cannot express? All nature is subject to his command--the physical world and the moral world. His muse soars from earth to heaven, and contemplates all that lies between them. Above all, the human countenance divine, that mirror of the soul, belongs to the painter. His brush, dipped in the light of heaven, gives to virtue its own celestial hue; to vice, its inborn hideousness. He expresses every emotion of the human heart, every noble love, every lofty aspiration, every dark and baneful passion. Aristotle, the most comprehensive mind of the pagan world, affirms that painting teaches the same precepts of moral conduct as philosophy, with this advantage, that it employs a shorter method. Christian painting began in the Catacombs. In the rude pictures of that subterranean world we find the chief doctrines of Christianity reduced to their most simple expression under forms the most touching.

Painting there represents the Phœnix rising from its ashes, emblem of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection of the body; the good shepherd bearing upon his shoulders the lost sheep, which teaches with touching simplicity one of the most beautiful of our Lord’s parables; the three youths in the fiery furnace, signifying the providence of God for those who fear and love him; Pharao and his hosts engulfed in the Red Sea, proclaiming to the faithful that God is the avenger of those who put their trust in him. These and similar subjects were peculiarly adapted to inspire courage in the hearts of the Christians of the first ages, when to be a follower of the cross was to be a hero.

As men of genius and learning by their life-long labors show us the divine beauties and perfections in the character of Jesus in new bearings, so the art of painting throws around his history an intenser light. His divinity is as manifest in the “Transfiguration” of Raphael as in the famous sermon of Massillon. His ineffable sufferings on Mount Calvary and the Godlike power which consented to death, but conquered agony, are as vividly and feelingly portrayed on the canvas of Rubens as in the unequalled and inimitable discourse of Bourdaloue. No one can look upon the “Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci without being inspired with a most sublime conception of that holiest event. Can we think of the passion and death of the Saviour without forming to ourselves a mental image corresponding to the scene? If, after all, we must have a picture, why not take that of genius rather than trust to our own tame plebeian fancy? And then, for those who cannot read or meditate profoundly, for the poor whom Jesus loved, what master is like painting?

St. Basil declares that painters accomplish as much by their pictures as orators by their eloquence.

The church as a lecture-room will interest only the cultivated few; the church as the temple of art sanctified by religion is the home of worship for the multitude.

Religion, if it be anything, must be popular, which science can never be, and which art always is. Then, in the name of the religion of the poor, let architecture advance to raise to God the temple of majesty and beauty, the democratic palace of the people, where the prince and the beggar sit side by side as brothers, a basilica prouder and loftier than that of the sceptred monarch.

A FETE-DAY AT LYONS.

Some writer has remarked that “there is no purgatory in France,” meaning thereby to illustrate the great extremes of piety and irreligion in the national character; and, although on a broad ground this assertion is by no means orthodox, yet it is practically true to a certain extent, and nowhere perhaps are these traits more noticeable to a stranger than in the time-honored city of Lyons. Here faith and disbelief walk side by side through all grades of society, each stronger and more resolute from its very proximity to the other; and when the tide of revolution swept over France, nowhere have the excesses been greater or religion more monstrously profaned than here; and yet nowhere has faith been more profound, more edifying, and more uncompromising. The blood of its early Christian martyrs has been a wonderful leaven and has worked well, and the thousands of pilgrims who yearly tread the heights of Fourrière, the extraordinary solemnity and fervor of the exterior devotions and religious ceremonies, show that there is a countercurrent stronger and more powerful than any opposing force that infidelity can bring to bear against it.

It is to give a few impressions made by these latter characteristics of this old city that we now recall some reminiscences of a visit there several years ago. The antiquity of Lyons, and its many monuments of interest, are quite sufficient to induce a traveller to linger on his route, and a week can be easily filled in exploring the city proper and its environs.

Like many of the European cities, its streets are narrow, and the houses high and badly ventilated; but a great change has taken place in regard to these defects within the last ten years, and a renovation without mutilation has opened its thoroughfares, adorned it with beautiful squares, fine bridges, broad and handsome quays, and placed it on an equal footing with any city in Europe in regard to its sanitary advantages.

Dating as far back as the Christian era and beyond, there are many remnants of its Roman origin yet to be seen, which have been carefully preserved through its various vicissitudes. Christianity was here planted in blood; and under the Roman emperors, three persecutions of Christians took place, which numbered forty-five thousand martyrs on their crimson pages; and this is why faith has taken such deep root, and why it opposes itself so firmly to those subtle influences of the day which threaten to endanger a birthright so dearly bought.

To us Americans who are only familiar with Lyons in its commercial bearings, and from the superior quality of its manufactures which find their way into our market, the fact that its inhabitants are a lettered as well as a business people is rather a matter of surprise; and we gaze in wonder at its magnificent buildings, devoted to the fine arts, its lyceums, colleges, academies of science, schools and institutions of every kind for instruction and the development of the finer tastes; and the riddle is solved by knowing that their manufactures, their commerce, their business, occupy only a part of their lives, and by no means constitute the sum total, as is so nearly the case in this country. This repose is very attractive to us Cisatlantic people, who lead such restless lives; and the lovely summer days that we spent in the old city enjoying this tranquillity are never to be forgotten.

We were awaiting the celebration of the _Fête du Saint Sacrament_,[75] which is usually kept with so much solemnity in the provinces. On the eve of the feast we made the ascent of Mont Fourrière, though not in the garb of humble pilgrims, “with sandal shoon and scallop-shell,” but in the more commonplace character of sightseers from the Western World, attracted to this height by the far-famed shrine which crowns its summit, and by the many historic associations that cluster round it.

On our way up we visited a cemetery which almost hangs by the mountain-side, and from which there are lovely views in every direction. It made a strange impression, this city of the dead, so far above the noise and clatter of the busy world below. It was so still, nothing broke the silence except our footsteps along the gravelled walks. One tomb especially attracted our attention: it was fairly buried and hidden by the quantity of fresh flowers, and the crosses and wreaths of immortelles which covered it. While wondering who could be the silent occupant of a grave so much loved, a lady approached in deep widow’s mourning, leading two little children, clad in the same sombre hue. They came and knelt at the tomb. Our question was answered, and we moved silently away, sorry for even the momentary intrusion we had been guilty of. Near the cemetery is the church of St. Irenée, which contains the bones of 18,500 Christians, martyred by order of Septimius Severus, 193 A.C. The remains of its ancient crypt are also shown, which dates back to the second century. There is also a well in this crypt, in which it is said these bones were found. The roughly paved road then leads up to the Chapel,[76] and Terrace of Notre Dame de Fourrière. We found we were just in time for the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, which was given here every afternoon during the Triduum which preceded the feast.

This little chapel was not remarkable either for its architectural finish nor for the richness and perfection of its ornamentation; it is plain, very plain indeed, but the marvellous number of its _ex-votos_, the gilt and silver hearts which actually burnish its walls, the crutches and other instruments suggestive of disease which hang around, tell of the moral and physical burdens which have been brought here and left, and of the weary, sorrowing souls who have wandered up this rocky height, who have made their deposit, and returned singing alleluias.

“There is one far shrine I remember
In the years that have fled away,
Where the grand old mountains are guarding
The glories of night and day.

* * * * *

“It is one of Our Lady’s chapels,
And though poorer than all the rest
Just because of the sin and the sorrow,
I think she loved it the best.

“There are no rich gifts on the altar,
The shrine is humble and bare,
Yet the poor, and the sick, and the tempted
Think their home and their haven is there.”[77]

A fine terrace is just at the side of the chapel, and the view magnificent from the parapet which guards its eastern face. Just beneath lies Lyons in all its stateliness, traversed by two superb rivers from north to south, and prominent among its most striking points is the grand old Cathedral of St. Jean, which stands directly at the base of the mountain.

The surrounding country is a succession of lovely landscapes, and beyond, looking far away, a hundred miles off into Switzerland, the glorious Alps, with Mont Blanc’s snowy peak towering far above all, bound the horizon. We were fortunate in getting this view in perfection, for frequently a veil of mist and fog shuts out entirely this latter part of the tableau. On ascending the belfry of the chapel, we found the panorama yet more extended and enchanting. In every direction the views were entirely unbroken and uninterrupted. Seven rich provinces of France unfolded their scenery before our delighted eyes. At the extreme edge of the southern horizon rose Mont Pilat; at the west, the mountains of Forey and Auvergne; toward the north, Mont d’Or; and on the east, the Alps, in their eternal mantle of snow, completed a picture that could not be surpassed. Every prominence had caught the golden light of the sinking sun, and the shadows that had crept into the valleys only enhanced the coloring of the scene and made the effect more striking.

A Jesuit college, with its garden and appurtenances, is an appendant on the southern side of the terrace, and we crossed over to take a peep at their chapel, well knowing the good taste and exquisite finish which are usually displayed in their churches. There we found them also holding a Triduum, and, their service being a little later than that of the other chapel, we had the pleasure of attending Benediction a second time. Here the music was delightful and the chapel a gem. It was very small, and seemed to be lit entirely from the altar, which was ablaze with wax-lights and natural flowers; there appeared to be no external light to enter at all, and yet from its miniature size none of its details were lost, and, with the accessories of the solemn service then going on, it was the embodiment of beauty and inspiration.

When we turned our footsteps downward, the shadow’s had lengthened, and were fast creeping out of the valleys, and by the time we reached home the heights of Fourrière, which we still had in sight, were shrouded in gloom.

The next morning we were awakened by the booming of cannon, which announced the inauguration of the _fête_.

We hurried through breakfast, so as to reach the cathedral in time for the procession. In the square opposite our hotel, an altar had been erected, and we passed several others on our way, but their decorations, at this early hour, were not quite complete.

Everything wore a festive look, and everybody was out in holiday attire, flags and banners were flying, and the façades of some of those immensely high houses were festooned from top to bottom with crimson and yellow hangings. One building in especial was very effective; it was the Palais de Justice, which is on the right bank of the Saône, and which we faced in crossing the bridge to the cathedral. Its extended front of Corinthian pillars was draped in crimson cloth, which contrasted finely with the gray stone of which it was built. A little to its left is the old cathedral, stately and grand in its sombre livery of centuries. It has seen generations pass away, emperors and empires, kingdoms and kings, and yet it stands to-day intact, and ready to do duty for another hundred years, unless demolished by the sacrilegious hand of the iconoclast of the nineteenth century.

On reaching the _place_ in front of the cathedral, we found a large crowd awaiting the procession. In a short time the sound of martial music was heard, and presently several officers rode up on horseback to open a passage through the crowd.

The procession was escorted by a troop of cavalry and military band, and preceded by a number of lovely children, dressed in white, with silver wings, their hair flowing, and scattering flowers as they passed along. As it entered the church, the organ pealed forth, filling the vast aisles with its magnificent harmony. Then Pontifical High Mass began, in all the grandeur of the especial ritual which is attached to this church, and which is the oldest in France, having been introduced here by one of the first bishops of Lyons; the liturgy is also different from that ordinarily used, and the ceremonies are of the most imposing character. The band, placed in a remote part of the church, played at intervals during the service, and the harsh and deafening sounds which are usually the result of brass instruments in a close building were lost in the immense space, and only the sweetest strains swept up through the nave and aisles.

In like manner the glare of day fell through the richly stained windows in a mellow and subdued light, which diffused itself generally over the church.

A very pleasant American writer[78] has said: “If we could only bring one thing back from Europe, that one thing would be a cathedral.” And truly these old monuments have a prestige to which persons of all creeds must pay tribute; and the veriest scoffer lifts his hat with reverence as he enters, and feels the influence of that wonderful atmosphere which pervades their hallowed precincts. After Mass we prolonged our walk home to see the decorations of the city. The altars were now entirely finished, and dressed with a profusion of natural flowers.

In the afternoon the procession passed round the city in a line with the altars, at each of which benediction was given. In their liturgy there are four special hymns for each of these stations or _reposoirs_, and, when the latter exceed that number, the chants are repeated until they have all been visited. There is generally one altar in each ward or district of the city, to satisfy the pious devotion of those who cannot attend service at the church.

In the evening illuminations and fireworks completed the festivities of the day--of a day whose minutest detail showed how true “_the Rome of Gaul_” had been to the colors which she unfurled nearly seventeen hundred years ago on the ramparts of paganism.

Since then I have seen other _fêtes_ in other lands, but none have left the impression of the first which I saw inaugurated in the old Cathedral of St. Jean, under the shadow of Mont Fourrière.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Corpus Christi.

[76] This chapel is built on the site of the ancient _Forum Vetus_ of the Romans erected by order of the Emperor Trajan. A part of the chapel is built of the stone that was left of its ruins. It is now, and has been for more than a thousand years, a celebrated pilgrimage.

[77] Procter.

[78] Hillard.

HOW THE CHURCH UNDERSTANDS AND UPHOLDS THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.

THIRD ARTICLE.

THE MIDDLE AGES.

The middle ages were undoubtedly the epoch during which the influence of woman upon the gravest affairs and most important issues in the history of the church was most widely exercised. There was hardly a single country in Europe that was evangelized and reclaimed from social barbarism without the direct intervention of the power of women, and wherever the inevitable excesses of a system in the main both useful and honorable, such as the feudalism of the middle ages, had to be checked or corrected, it was always done through the merciful intercession of holy and generous women. To begin with the country whose daughters have ever been foremost in zeal for the cause of religion, France, we have a long list of queens whose names are conspicuous in the annals of church history. They were no less honored in their own day than they have been since the voice of the faithful has proclaimed them saints. When the French monarchy was in its first military and elementary stages, the young Frankish conqueror, the heathen Clovis, who had just forced the ancient Gauls of the province of Rheims to bow before his power, found at the court of Gondebaud, King of Burgundy, the niece of that prince, Clotildis, a Christian maiden, renowned for her learning in matters of theology, and for her undaunted stand against the Arianism of her uncle’s court. St. Gregory of Tours, says Ventura,[79] represents her as evincing the most varied and reliable knowledge of Christianity, and especially of the questions at that time lately decided at the Council of Nicæa. She knew equally how to combat paganism on her husband’s part and Arianism upon her uncle’s, and displayed all the self-possession of a great apologist, with the theological science of a doctor of the church. This was as early as the year 493, not long after Clovis won the great battle of Tolbiac against the Alemanni, and became a Christian, according to his vow, made during the engagement, to the “Son of the living God, thou whom Clotildis worships.” The queen then sent for St. Remigius, the Bishop of Rheims, to instruct and baptize her husband. She instructed the women of her court and family herself, and showed herself most zealous in the propagation of the faith. The ceremony of baptism, and the anointing of the king which followed it, were performed, by the queen’s care, with extraordinary solemnity. She herself walked in the procession between the king’s two sisters, the one formerly a pagan, the other an Arian. The first, the Princess Albofleda, renounced the world and consecrated her virginity to God, thus giving a first example to the numerous royal maidens of France who have since left the court for the cloister. Clotildis so fired her husband’s heart with her holy enthusiasm that he built and endowed the church of SS. Peter and Paul in Paris, now called St. Genevieve in honor of the sainted shepherdess who, later on, shared with Clotildis herself the title of patroness of France. Clovis was afterwards buried in this church. The Visigoths and Burgundians, who were Arians, were shamed into less inhuman ways by the example and widespread influence of the victorious Clovis and his Christian warriors; the foundations of the great French monarchy were laid by the evident desire of the neighboring tribes to coalesce with the Franks; the future Catholic monarchy of Spain was consecrated by the heroic zeal and suffering of Clotildis the younger, the only daughter of Clovis, married to the Arian Amalaric, King of the Visigoths, in Spain, and the mitigation of many lawless and still half-barbarian acts during the reigns of her sons was successfully undertaken; so that it may be said with truth of this period of history that its chief glory was the supremacy of woman. Clotildis died at Tours, where for many years she had lived in solitude and humility, entirely ignoring her high rank, and employing her influence over her sons in exhortations to preserve the peace of their respective kingdoms, to protect the poor, and to treat them as brethren. But great as her services to religion and civilization had been, the church was not destined to suffer by her death, for a long succession of imitators of her virtues took her place from century to century, and protected the interests of that church whose champions cannot fail her as long as principle and honor exist in the world. Radegundes, the daughter of Bertarius, King of Thuringia, and the captive of King Clotaire I. (fourth son of St. Clotildis), was instructed in the Christian faith at the court of the latter, whom she afterwards married. Her great delight during the short period of her court life was the care of the sick in the hospital of Athies, which she had founded, and the alleviation of the miseries of the poor. She endeavored to restrain the lawlessness of the court; but, when her husband caused her brother to be treacherously assassinated, as Butler tells us,[80] in order to possess his kingdom of Thuringia, she was so grieved at the time that she begged for leave to retire into a monastery. Here her influence was greater than it had been at court. The great abbey of Poitiers was founded and the first abbess, Agnes, chosen by her. She enriched the church of this monastery with numerous gifts, and sent ambassadors to the Emperor Justin of Constantinople to obtain a relic of the True Cross. This being given her, she had it placed in a shrine, to which it was carried in solemn procession. She had already invited to Poitiers many learned and holy men, among others the orator and poet Venantius Fortunatus, who on this occasion composed the famous processional hymn “Vexilla Regis Prodeunt,” which is now one of the most prominent features of our liturgy. Thus, to a woman’s inspiration do we owe one of the hymns of world-wide renown, synonymous with the name and practice of Catholic Christianity. Butler tells us that Radegundes herself was a good scholar, and read both the Latin and Greek fathers. She procured for her monastery the rule and constitution of St. Cesarius of Arles, and had it confirmed by the Council of Tours, assembled 566. Here again, in the letter of Cesaria, the abbess of the monastery of St. John, at Arles, we have a most remarkable instance of the great discernment and prudence of a woman in her management of a numerous community. She gives the strictest cautions against all familiarities and partiality in a religious community, and also enjoins that each nun should learn the Psalter by heart and be able to read well. Biblical learning is thus proved to have been ever foremost in the minds of the pioneers of monasticism. But Radegundes, so great was her anxiety to make her monastery of Poitiers a perfect work, repaired to Arles herself, and studied the rule personally for some time, in order to help the Abbess Agnes in establishing it the more effectually. After the death of her husband, and during the shameful disturbances caused by the famous Fredegonda, the mistress of Chilperic, Radegundes became once more the support of orthodoxy and of the persecuted bishops of the realm. Among other proofs of the high esteem in which prominent churchmen held this great woman, let us cite the letter addressed to her by the assembled bishops of the Council of Tours, wherein they say: “We are rejoiced, most reverend daughter, to see such an example of divine favor repeated in your person; for the faith flourishes anew through the efforts of your zeal, and what had been languishing through the wintry coldness of the indifference of this age, lives again through the fervor of your soul. But as you claim as a birthplace almost the same spot whence St. Martin came, it is no wonder that you should imitate in your work his example and teaching. Shining with the light of his doctrine, you fill with heavenly conviction the hearts of those who listen to you.”[81]