Chapter III: Au Revoir.--The Pilgrim’s Progress (2)

Not that a gleam of sunshine never came to us. Some stray ray will penetrate the darkest alley and crookedest winding, and warm and gladden and give at least a moment’s life and hope and cheerfulness to something, provided only a pinhole be left open to the heaven that is smiling above us all the while. I began to make acquaintances, pleasant enough some of them, others not so pleasant. There was much food for meditation and mental colloquy in the daily life I was living, but I had no time for such indulgence. I was compelled to work very hard; for this was certainly not a vineyard where the laborers were few; and the harvest, when gathered in, was but a sorry crop at the best. Is not the history of the human race the record of one long and unsuccessful expedition after the Golden Fleece? Such stray remnants of it as fell into my hand went for the most part, for a long time at least, into the treasury of Mrs. Jinks, who, like a female Atreus, served up my own children, the children of my brain, or their equivalents, to me at table. Horrid provender! One week it was an art criticism--dressed up with wonderful condiments and melted down into mysterious soup, whose depths I shuddered to penetrate--that sustained the life in me. Another time it was a fugitive poem that took the form of roast beef and potatoes. A cruel critique on some poor girl’s novel would give me ill dreams as pork-chops. A light, brisk, airy social essay would solidify into mutton. And so it went on, week in week out, the round of the table. An inspiriting life truly, where your epigrams mean cutlets, and all the brilliant fancies of your imagination go for honest bread and butter.

I believe that Mrs. Jinks secretly entertained the profoundest contempt for me and my calling, mingled with a touch of pity for a young, strong fellow who had missed his vocation, and who, instead of moping and groping over ink-pots and scraps of paper, might be earning an honest living like the butcher’s young man over the way--an intimate acquaintance and close personal friend of mine who “kept company” with Mrs. Jinks’ Jane. I ventured once to ask Mrs. Jinks whether she did not consider literary labor an honest mode of earning a living; but I was not encouraged to ask a similar question a second time. “She’d knowed littery gents afore now; knowed ’em to her cost, she had. They was for ever a-grumblin’ at their board, and nothing was good enough for them, though they ate more than any two of her boarders put together, and always went away owin’ her three months, besides a-borrerin’ no end o’ money and things.” Such was Mrs. Jinks’ experienced opinion of “littery gents.” She was gracious enough to add: “You know I don’t say this of _you_, Mr. Herbert. _You_ don’t seem to eat as well as most on ’em. You don’t grumble at whatever you git. _You_ don’t borrer, and you never fetches friends home with you at half-past three in the mornin’, as doesn’t know which is their heads and which is their heels, and a-tryin’ to open the street-door with their watchkeys; tellin’ Mr. Jinks, who is a temperance man, the next mornin’, that you’d been to a temperance meetin’ the night afore, and took too much water. No, Mr. Herbert, I wouldn’t believe _you_ capable of such goins-on. But that’s because you an’t a reg’lar littery gent; _you’re_ only what they calls an amatoor.”

Mrs. Jinks was right; I was only an amateur, though I had a faint ambition some day of being regularly enrolled in “the profession.” I flattered myself that I was advancing, however slowly, to that end. More than a year had now flown by since I had left home. I came to be more and more absorbed in my work, and the days and months glided silently past me without my noticing them. This close and intense absorption succeeded in shutting out to a great extent the thoughts of home. Indeed, I would not allow my mind to rest on that subject; for when I did, I was quite unmanned. It was not until I had made sufficient trial of the sweet bitterness or bitter sweetness, as may be, of what was a hard and often seemed a hopeless struggle, that I wrote to Kenneth under the strictest pledge of secrecy, giving him a true and unvarnished account of my life since we parted, and transmitting at the same time certain evidences of what I was pleased to accept as the dawn of success in the shape of sundry articles in _The Packet_ and other journals. He was enjoined merely to inform them at home that I was in the enjoyment of good health and reaping a steady income of, at an average, ten dollars a week, which I hoped soon to be able to increase; and by a continuance of steady work and the strictest economy I had every hope, if I lived to the age of Methusaleh, of being in a position to retire on a moderate competency, and end my patriarchal days in serene retirement and contemplation under the shade of my own fig-tree. I described Mrs. Jinks and her household arrangements at considerable length, and did that estimable lady infinite credit, while I drew a companion picture of Mr. Culpepper that would have done honor to the journal of which he was the distinguished chief. But put not your trust in bosom friends! Mine utterly disregarded my binding pledge, and the only answer I received to my letter was in Nellie’s well-known handwriting on the occasion and in the manner already described.

* * * * *

That was a stormy passage back to England. We were detained both by stress of weather and an accident that occurred when only a few days out. It was the morning of Christmas eve when at length we landed at Liverpool. The delay had exasperated me almost into a fever. I despatched a telegram to Nellie announcing my arrival, and that I should be in Leighstone that evening. The train was crowded with holiday folk: happy children going home for the Christmas holidays; stout farmers, red and hearty, hurrying back from the Christmas market; bright-eyed women loaded with Christmas baskets and barricaded by parcels of every description. The crisp, cold air seemed redolent of Christmas pudding and good cheer. The guard wished us a merry Christmas as he examined our tickets. The stations flashed a merry Christmas on us out of their gay festoons of holly and ivy with bright-red berries and an ermine fringe of snow, as we flew along, though it seemed to me that we were crawling. Just as we entered London the snow began to fall, and I was grateful for it. I was weary of the clear, cold, pitiless sky under which we had passed. London was in an uproar, as it always is on a Christmas eve; but the uproar rather soothed me than otherwise. What I dreaded was quiet, when my own thoughts and fears would compel me to listen to their remorse and foreboding. I saw lights flashing. I heard voices calling through the fog and the snow. Songs were sung, and men and women talked in a confused and meaningless jargon together. I heard the sounds and moved among the multitude, but with a far-off sense as in a dream. How I found my way about at all is a mystery to me, unless it were with that secret instinct that guides the sleep-walker. I saw nothing but the white snow falling, falling, white and silent and deadly cold, covering the earth like a shroud. I remember thinking of Charles I., and how on the day of his death all England was draped in a snow-shroud. That incident always impressed me when a boy as so sad and significant. And here was my Christmas greeting after more than a year’s absence: the sad snow falling thicker and thicker as I neared home, steadily, solemnly, silently down, with never a break or quaver in it, mystic, wonderful, impalpable as a sheeted ghost; and more than a month ago my sister called me away from another world to tell me that my father was dying.

“Great God! great God!” I moaned, “in whom I believe, against whom I have sinned, to whom alone I can pray, spare him till I come.”

“Leighstone! Leighstone!” rang out the voice of the guard.

I staggered from the railway carriage, stumbled, and fell. I had tasted nothing the whole day. The guard picked me up roughly--the very guard who used to be such a great friend of mine in the old days--a year seemed already old days. He did not recognize me now. I suppose he thought me drunk, for I heard him say, “That chap’s beginning his Christmas holidays pretty early,” and a loud laugh greeted the sally. I contrived to make my way outside the little station. Not a soul recognized me, and I was afraid to ask any one for information, dreading the answer that I could not have borne. Outside the station my strength gave out. My head grew dizzy; I staggered blindly towards some carriages drawn up in front of me, and fell fainting at the feet of one of the horses.

My eyes opened on faces that I did not recognize. Some one was holding up my head, and there were strange men around me. “Thank God! he recovers,” said a voice I knew well, and all came back on me in a flash.

“Kenneth!” I cried, “Kenneth! Is he dead?”

“Hush, old boy. Take it easy. Rest awhile.”

His silence was sufficient.

“My God! I am punished!” I gasped out, and fainted again.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

THE CARDINALATE.

I.

The Senate and Sovereign Council of the Pope in the government and administration of the affairs of the church in Rome and throughout the world is composed of a number of very distinguished ecclesiastics who are called Cardinals. The office and dignity of a member of this body is termed the Cardinalate.

There is some dispute among the learned about the precise origin and meaning of the word cardinal as applied to such a person; but the commoner opinion derives it from the Latin _cardo_, the hinge of a door, which is probably correct; but the reason assigned for the appellation--because the Cardinals are, in a figurative sense, the pivots around which revolve the portals of Christian Rome--is more descriptive than accurate. At a comparatively early age the parish priests of the churches, and later the canons of the cathedrals of Milan, Ravenna, Naples, and other cities of Italy, also in parts of France, Spain, and other countries, were called cardinals; and Muratori suggests that the name was taken in imitation, and perhaps in emulation, of the chief clergymen of the church in Rome. He thinks that they were so called at Rome and elsewhere because put in possession of, or immovably attached--_incardinati_--to certain churches, which was expressed in low Latin by the verb _cardinare_ or _incardinare_, formed, indeed, from _cardo_ as above, and the application of which in this sense receives an illustration from Vitruvius, who writes, in his treatise on architecture, of _tignum cardinatum_--one beam fitted into another.

Our oldest authority for the institution of the cardinalate is found in a few words of unquestionable authenticity in the _Liber Pontificalis_, or _Lives of the Popes_, extracted and compiled from very ancient documents by Anastasius the Librarian in the IXth century. It is there written of S. Cletus, who lived in the year 81, was an immediate disciple of the Prince of the Apostles, and his successor only once removed: “Hic ex præcepto beati Petri XXV[95] presbyteros ordinavit in urbe Roma, mense decembri.” These priests, ordained by direction of blessed Peter, formed a select body of councillors to assist the pope in the management of ecclesiastical affairs, and are the predecessors of those who were afterwards called cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. Hence Eugene IV. said in his constitution _Non Mediocri_ (_XIX Bull. Mainardi_) that the office of cardinal was evidently instituted by S. Peter and his near successors. Again, in the _Life of Evaristus_, who became pope in the year 100, we read: “Hic titulos in urbe Roma divisit presbyteris.” To this day the old churches of the city, at the head of which stand the cardinal-priests, are called titles, and all writers agree that the designation was given under this pontificate. There is hardly less difference of opinion about the original meaning of this word than there is about that of cardinal. Some have imagined that the fiscal mark put on objects belonging to, or that had devolved upon, the sovereign in civil administration being called _titulus_ in Latin, the same word was applied by Christians to those edifices which were consecrated to the service of God; the ceremonies, such as the sprinkling of holy water and the unction of oil used in the act of setting them apart for divine worship, marking them as belonging henceforth to the Ruler of heaven and earth. Others think that as a special mention was made in the ordination of a priest of the particular church in which he was to serve, it was called his title, as though it gave him a new name with his new character; and this may be the reason of a custom, once universal, of calling a cardinal by the name of his church instead of by his family name.[96] Father Marchi, in his work on the _Early Christian Monuments of Rome_, has given several mortuary inscriptions which have been discovered of these ancient Roman priests and dignitaries, and from which we take these two: “Locus Presbyteri Basili Tituli Sabinæ,” and “Loc. Adeodati Presb. Tit. Priscæ.” After _locus_ in the first and its abbreviation in the second inscription, the word _depositionis_--“of being laid to rest”--must be understood.

Let us here remark with the erudite Cenni that these titled priests were not such as were afterwards called parish priests or rectors of churches, with whom they were never confounded, and over whom, as intermediaries between them and the pope, they had authority. These titulars were a select body of men not higher in point of _order_, but otherwise distinct from and superior to those priests who had parochial duties to perform within certain limits. Whether we believe that cardinal meant originally one who was chief in a certain church, just as was said (Du Cange’s _Glossarium_) _Cardinalis Missa, Altare Cardinale_, and as we say in English, cardinal virtues, cardinal points; or whether we accept it as one who was appointed to a particular church, it is not true that the _Roman_ cardinals were so called either because they were the chief priests--_parochi_--of certain churches, or because they were attached--_incardinati_--to a title. The great Modenese author on Italian antiquities has been deceived by similarity of name into stating that the origin and office of the cardinals of Rome did not differ from that of those of other churches (Devoti, _Inst. Can._, vol. i. p. 188, note 4). Observe that the ordination performed by Cletus was done by direction of blessed Peter; that it was that of a special corps of priests; that it was not successive, but at one time, and that in the month of December, the same which an unbroken local tradition teaches is the proper season[97] for the creation of cardinals, out of respect for the first example. Now, the pope surely needed no special injunction to continue the succession of the sacred ministry; we may consequently believe that the ordination made by him with such particular circumstances was an extraordinary proceeding, distinct from, although immediately followed by, the administration of the sacrament of Orders. Therefore if after the Evaristan distribution of titles the successors of these Cletan priests came to be called cardinals, it was not so much (accepting the origin of the _name_ given above) because they were attached to particular churches as because they were attached _in solidum_ to the Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all churches, or, better still, as more conformable to the words of many popes and saints, because they were attached to (some good authors say incorporated with) the Roman pontiff. And it is in this figurative but very suggestive sense that Leo IV. writes of one of his cardinals whom he calls “Anastasius presbyter _cardinis nostri_, quem nos in titulo B. Marcelli Mart. atque pontif. ordinavimus” (Labbe, _Conc._, tom. ix. col. 1135). In the same sense S. Bernard, addressing Eugene III., calls the cardinals his coadjutors and collaterals, and says (_Ep._ 237) that their business is to assist him in the government of the whole church, and (_Ep._ 150) that in spiritual matters they are judges of the world. Not otherwise did Pope John VIII., in the year 872, write that as he filled in the new law the office of Moses in the old, so his cardinals represented the seventy elders chosen to assist him. For this reason cardinals alone are ever chosen legates _a latere_--_i. e._, _Summi Pontificis_. The cardinals of Rome, therefore, were not cardinals because they had titles, but just the contrary. We have been a little prolix on a point that might seem minute, because there was once a determined effort made in some parts of France and Italy, especially during the last century, to try to prove that the cardinals of the Roman Church were no more originally than any other priests having cure of souls in the first instance, except that by a fortunate accident they ministered in the capital of the then known world. This was an attempt to depress the dignity of the cardinalate, or at least, by implication, to give undue importance to the status of a parish priest, as though he and a cardinal were once on the same footing. The like insidious argument would be prepared to show, on occasion, that the pope himself was in the beginning no more than any other bishop. The same name was often used in the early church of two persons, but of each in a different sense; and thus the mere fact of there having been cardinals in other churches than that at Rome no more diminishes the superior authority and higher dignity of the Roman cardinalate than the name of pope, once common to all bishops, lessens the supremacy of the Roman pontificate. In ecclesiastical antiquities a common name often covers very different offices. In general, however, the instinct of Catholics will always be able to make the proper distinction, no matter how things are called; and the words of Alvaro Pelagio, who wrote his lachrymose treatise _De Planctu Ecclesiæ_ about the year 1330, show how different was the popular opinion of the provincial and of the urban cardinals: “Sunt et in Ecclesia Compostellana cardinales presbyteri mitrati, et in Ecclesia Ravennate. _Tales cardinales sunt derisui potius quam honori._” The name of cardinal was certainly in use at the beginning of the IVth century; for the seven cardinal-deacons of the Roman Church are mentioned in a council held under Pope Sylvester in 324; and a document of the pontificate of Damasus in 367, registering a donation to the church of Arezzo by the senator Zenobius, is subscribed in these words: “I, John, of the Holy Roman Church, a cardinal-deacon, on the part of Damasus, praise this act and confirm it.” Among the archives, also, of S. Mary in Trastevere, there is mention of Paulinus, a cardinal-priest in 492. The name of cardinal was restricted by a just and peremptory decree of S. Pius V. in 1567 exclusively to the cardinals of pontifical creation, and it was only then that the haughty canons of Ravenna dropped this high-sounding appellation. The idea figuratively connected with the cardinalship in the edifice of the Holy Roman Church is briefly exposed by Pope Leo IX., a German, in a letter to the Emperor of Constantinople. “As the gate itself,” he says, “doth rest upon its post, thus upon Peter and his successors dependeth the government of the whole church. Wherefore his clerics are called cardinals, because they are most closely adhering to that about which revolveth all the rest” (_Labbe_, tom. ii. _Epist._ i. cap. 22.) The author of an old poem on the Roman court (_Carmen de Curia Romana_) gives in a few lines the principal points of a cardinal’s pre-eminence:

“Dic age quid faciunt quibus est a cardine nomen
Post Papam, quibus est immediatus honor?
Expediunt causas, magnique negotia mundi,
Extinguunt lites, fœdera rupta ligant.
Isti participes onerum, Papæque laborum,
Sustentant humeris grandia facta suis.”

More completely, however, than anywhere else are the rights, prerogatives, and dignity of the cardinalate set forth in the 76th _Constitution_ of Sixtus V., beginning _Postquam ille verus_, of May 13, 1585.

A fact recorded by John the Deacon in the life of S. Gregory I. shows us how high was the office and rank of a cardinal, and that to be appointed to a bishopric was considered a descent from a higher position. He says that this great pope was always careful to obtain the consent of a cardinal before appointing him to govern a diocese, lest he should seem, by removing him from the person of Christ’s Vicar, to give him a lower place: “Ne sub hujusmodi occasione quemquam _eliminando deponere videretur_.” That bishops undoubtedly considered the cardinalate, in the light of influence on the affairs of the whole church and the prospect of becoming pope, as superior to the episcopate, appears at an early period, from a canon which it was necessary to make in order to repress their ambition in this direction. In a council held at Rome in the year 769 this canon was passed: “Si quis ex episcopis … contra canonum et sanctorum Patrum statuta prorumpens in gradum Majorum[98] sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, id est presbyterorum cardinalium et diaconorum, ire præsumpserit, … et hanc apostolicam sedem invadere … tentaverit, et ad summum pontificalem honorem ascendere voluerit, … fiat perpetuum anathema.”

There was at one period not a little divergence of opinion about the precedence of cardinals over bishops; but the matter has long ago been irrevocably settled. A cardinal, indeed, cannot, unless invested with the episcopal character, perform any act that depends for its validity upon such a character, nor can he lawfully invade the jurisdiction of a bishop; but apart from this his _rank_ in the church is always, everywhere, and under all circumstances superior to that of any bishop, archbishop, metropolitan, primate, or patriarch. Nor can it be said that this is an anomaly, unless we are also prepared to condemn other decisions of the church; for the precedence of cardinals over bishops has a certain parity with that of the archdeacons in old times over priests, which very example is brought forward by Eugene IV. in 1431 to convince Henry, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had a falling out with Cardinal John of Santa Balbina: “Quoniam in hujusmodi prælationibus officium ac dignitas, sive jurisdictio, præponderat ordini, quemadmodum jure cautum est ut archidiaconus, non presbyter suæ jurisdictionis obtentu, archipresbytero præferatur” (_Bullarium Romanum_, tom. iii.) But we could bring a more cogent example from the modern discipline of the church. A vicar-general, although only _tonsured_, outranks (within the diocese) all others, because, as canonists say, _unam personam cum episcopo gerit_; with as much justice, therefore, a cardinal, who is a member of the pope, whose diocese is the world, precedes all others (we speak of ecclesiastical rank) within mundane limits. There is one example, particularly, in ecclesiastical history that shows us how important was the influence of the Roman cardinals in the whole church, and how great was the deference paid to them by bishops. After the death of S. Fabian, in the year 250, the priests and deacons--cardinals--of Rome governed the church for a year during the vacancy of the see, and meanwhile wrote to S. Cyprian, bishop, and to the clergy of Carthage, in a manner that could only become a superior authority, as to how those should be treated who, having lapsed from the faith during the persecution, now sought to be reconciled. The holy bishop answered respectfully in an epistle (xxth edition, Lipsiæ, 1838), in which he gave them an account of his gests and government of the diocese. Pope Cornelius testifies that the letters of the cardinals were sent to all parts to be communicated to the bishops and churches (Coustant, _Ep. RR. PP._ x. 5). It is also very noteworthy that in the General Council of Ephesus, in 431, of Pope Celestine’s three legates, the cardinal-priest preceded the two others, although bishops, and before them signed the acts. Those who say the Breviary according to the Roman calendar are familiar with the fact that at an indefinitely early age the cardinals were created (just as now) before the bishops of various dioceses were named, hence those familiar words: “Mense decembri creavit presbyteros (tot), diaconos (tot), _episcopos per diversa loca_ (tot).”

The importance of a cardinal a thousand years ago can be imagined from the fact recorded by Muratori (_Annali d’Italia_, tom. v. part. i. pag. 55), that when Anastasius had absented himself from his title for five years without leave, and was residing in Lombardy, three bishops went from Rome to invite him back, and the emperors Louis and Lothaire also interposed their good offices.

Although all cardinals are equal among themselves in the principal things, yet in many points of costume, privilege, local office, and rank there are distinctions and differences established by law or custom, the most important of which follow from the division of the cardinals into three grades, namely, of bishops, priests, and deacons. Although the whole number of suburbicarian sees, of titles, and deaconries amounts to seventy-two (six for the first, fifty for the second, and sixteen for the third class), the membership of the Sacred College is limited since Sixtus V. to the maximum of seventy. There can be no doubt that the episcopal sees lying nearest to, and, so to speak, at, the very gates of Rome, have enjoyed from the remotest antiquity some special pre-eminence; but it is not easy to determine at what epoch their incumbents began to form a part of the body of cardinals. It is certain only that they belonged to it in the year 769. These suburban sees all received the faith from S. Peter himself; and the tradition of Albano is that S. Clement, who was afterwards pope, had been consecrated by the apostle and sent there as his coadjutor and auxiliary. The number of these sees was formerly seven, but for a long time has been only six. The Bishop of Ostia and Velletri is the first of this order and Dean of the Sacred College. He has the privilege of consecrating the pope, should he be only in priest’s orders when elected, and of wearing the pallium on the occasion.

The titles of the cardinal-priests are fifty, some being held by persons who have been consecrated bishops but have no diocese, or by jurisdictional bishops--_i.e._, those who are at the head of dioceses and archdioceses. The most illustrious, though not the oldest, of these is S. Lawrence in Lucina, which is called the first title, and gives its cardinal precedence--other things being equal--in his class.

In the life of S. Fabian, who reigned in the year 238, we read that he gave the districts of Rome in charge to the deacons: “Hic regiones divisit diaconibus”; and these are supposed to have been the first cardinal-deacons, or regionary cardinals, as they were long called. This order is third in rank, but second in point of time when it was admitted into the Sacred College. The number of cardinal-deacons became fourteen (one for each of the civil divisions of the city) towards the end of the VIth century, under the pontificate of S. Gregory the Great. In the year 735 Pope Gregory III. added four and raised the number to eighteen, which was reduced under Honorius II., in the beginning of the XIIth century, to sixteen. After various other mutations of number it was fixed as at present. Until the pontificate of Urban II. in 1088 these cardinals were denominated by the name of their district or region, except those added by Gregory III., who were called palatines. After the XIth century they were called from the name of their deaconries. S. Mary in Via Lata is the first deaconry. The cardinal-deacons are often in priests’ orders; but in this case they cannot celebrate Mass in public without a dispensation from the Pope, but they can say it in their private chapel in presence of their chaplain. In early times cardinal-deacons held a position of very singular importance, and the pope was frequently chosen from their restricted class. Even now some of the highest positions at Rome are occupied by them.

Although a cardinal is created either a cardinal-priest or a cardinal-deacon, there is a mode of advancement even to the chief suburbicarian see. This is called, in the language of the Curia, _option_, or the expressing a wish to pass from one order to a higher, or from one deaconry, title, or see to another. The custom is comparatively recent, and was looked upon at first with considerable disfavor. It owes its origin to the schism which Alexander V. attempted to heal in 1409 by forming one body of his own (the legitimate) and of the pseudo-cardinals of the anti-pope Benedict XIII. As there were two claimants to the several deaconries, titles, and sees, he proposed to settle the dispute by permitting one of them in succession to optate to the first vacant place in his order. What was meant as a temporary measure became an established custom under Sixtus IV. (1471-1484). If a cardinal-bishop be too infirm to perform episcopal duties in the see which he already fills, Urban VIII. decreed that he cannot pass to another one. If a cardinal-deacon obtain by option a title before he has been ten years in his own order, he must take the lowest place among the priests; but if after that period, he takes precedence of all who have been created in either of the two orders since his elevation. The favor of option is asked of the pope in the consistory held next after a vacancy has occurred, by the cardinal proposing such a change. The prefect of pontifical ceremonies having previously assured himself that no cardinal outranking the postulant contemplates the same, the cardinal-priest, to give an example from this order, rises and says: “Beatissime Pater, si sanctitati vestræ placuerit dimisso titulo N. transitu ex ordine presbyterali ad episcopalem, opto ecclesiam N.,” naming his title and the suburbicarian see that he seeks to occupy.

These three orders of cardinals certainly had a corporate character at an early period, and formed what the ancients called a college with its officers and by-laws; but Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux in the Xth century, was the first to call them collectively _Collegium Sanctorum_; hence in all languages it is now called the Sacred College. A proof that the cardinals acted together in a public capacity, and of their exalted dignity, is that they are termed _Proceres clericorum_ by Anastasius in the _Life of S. Leo III._ In olden times cardinals were strictly obliged to reside near the pope; and a Roman council, composed of sixty-seven bishops, held in 853 under S. Leo IV., called in judgment and deposed the cardinal-priest of S. Marcellus for having contumaciously absented himself during a long time from his title. This obligation of residence in the house or palace annexed to the title or the deaconry was somewhat relaxed in the XIIth century, when bishops of actual jurisdiction began to be created cardinals. The first example of a bishop governing a diocese who was made a cardinal is that of Conrad von Wittelsbach, of the since royal house of Bavaria, Archbishop of Mentz, who was raised to this dignity by Alexander III. in 1163.

Innocent III., however, refused a petition of the good people of Ravenna to let them have a certain cardinal for their archbishop, saying that he was more useful to Rome and to the church at large where he was than he could possibly be in any other position. At this period, and until a considerable time after, it was very rare that a bishop was made a cardinal without having to resign his diocese and reside _in curia_.

Leo X. was so strict in his ideas of the duty of cardinals to live near him that he issued a bull renewing the obligation in very strong terms; and in 1538 it was proposed to Paul III. to draw up a plan of reform making it incompatible to govern a diocese and be at the same time a cardinal, except in the case of the Fathers of the First Order, who, from the nearness of their sees to Rome, could perform their service to the pope as his councillors and assistants, and not neglect the faithful over whom they were placed (Natalis Alexander, _Hist. Eccl._, tom. xvii. art. 16). No such stringent rule was adopted, and a cardinal might be this and govern a diocese, if he made it his place of habitual residence, according to the decree of the Council of Trent (Session xxiii., on Ref., ch. 1).

Of the virtue, learning, and other qualities required in a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, SS. Peter Damian and Bernard have written eloquently, and Honorius IV., of the great family of Savelli, once so powerful in Rome, was inexorable against unworthy subjects, saying that “he never would raise to the Roman purple any save good and wise men.” Different popes have made excellent laws on these matters and others connected with the cardinalate; but in some cases they have been disregarded, especially those about age and about there not being two near relatives in the Sacred College at the same time. The practice of the last hundred years has been above cavil, and the abuses of other ages have been exaggerated, partly through malice, and partly from not knowing the secret reasons that popes may have had for creating, for instance, mere youths--royal youths--cardinals, or conferring the high dignity upon members of their own family, or upon men who had nothing to recommend them but the importunate demands of their sovereigns. The hat bestowed upon S. Charles Borromeo was productive of more good than all the rest of “nepotism” was able to effect of evil.

The creation of cardinals is an exclusive privilege of the popes; but they have sometimes granted the prayers of the Sacred College or of sovereign princes asking to have the dignity conferred upon certain subjects. For a long time, especially during the XVIth century, the governments of France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and the republic of Venice were favored by being permitted to name once in each pontificate a candidate for the cardinalate. This was called a crown nomination. Clement V. is said (Cancellieri, _Mercato_, p. 105, note 3) to have been the first to grant to princes the right of petitioning for a hat; and the sultan Bajazet II. wrote on 28th September, 1494, to Alexander VI., begging him to make a perfect cardinal of Nicholas Cibo, Archbishop of Aries, and cousin of Pope Innocent VIII. Clement XII. in 1732 tendered to James III. (the “Elder Pretender”) the nomination of some subject to the cardinalate, and he, like a true Stuart, neglecting his countrymen and those who had suffered in his cause, proposed Mgr. Rivera, whom he had taken a liking to for little courtesies shown at Urbino. It has long been a custom for the pope to promote to this dignity a member of the family or one of that religious order to which his predecessor belonged, from whom he himself received it. The Italians call this a restitution of the hat--_Restituzione di capello_. The number of cardinals has greatly varied at different times. It was generally smaller before than ever since the XVIth century. The cardinals could, of course, well be all Romans, as they were in the beginning; but with a change of circumstances the pontiffs have recognized the propriety of S. Bernard’s suggestive query to Eugene III.: “Annon eligendi de toto orbe, orbem judicaturi?” (_De Consid._, iv. 4). In 1331 John XXII. (himself a Frenchman), being asked by the king to create a couple of French cardinals, replied that two were too many, and he would make but one, because there were only twenty cardinals in all, and seventeen of them were Frenchmen. In 1352, after the death of Clement VI., the cardinals attempted to restrict the Sacred College to twenty members, on the principle that a dignity profusely conferred is despised--_communia vilescunt_; but Urban VI. found himself constrained, by the course of events at the schism, to create a large number of cardinals, in order to oppose them to the pseudo-cardinals of Clement VII., and at one creation he made twenty-nine, all except three being his own countrymen, Neapolitans; so that the French of another generation were richly paid back for their former preponderance. From this time the membership of the Sacred College gradually increased up to the middle of the XVIth century. It is much to the credit of Pius II. that when the Sacred College in 1458 remonstrated with him on the number of cardinals, saying that the cardinalate was going down, and begged him not to increase its membership to any considerable extent, he told the fathers that as head of the church he could not refuse the reasonable requests of kings and governments in such a matter, but that, apart from this, his honor forbade him to neglect the subjects of other countries than Italy in the distribution of the highest favors in his gift (_Comment. Pii II._, lib. ii. pp. 129, 130). Leo X., believing himself disliked by many cardinals, added thirty-one to their number at a single creation on July 1, 1517, the like of which the court has never seen before or after; but it had the desired effect. The Council of Trent ordained (Sess. 24, _De Ref._, c. i.) concerning the subjects of the cardinalate that “the Most Holy Roman Pontiff shall, as far as it can be conveniently done, select (them) out of all the nations of Christendom, as he shall find persons suitable.” This is not to be understood, however worded, as more than a recommendation to the pope. Paul IV. (Caraffa, 1555-59), a great reformer, after consulting the Sacred College and long discussions, issued a bull called the Compact--_Compactum_--in which he decreed that the cardinals should not be more than forty; but his immediate successor, Pius IV. (Medici), acting on the principle that one pope cannot bind another in disciplinary matters, created forty-six. Sixtus V. in 1585 fixed the number at seventy in imitation of the seventy elders chosen to assist Moses; and since then all the popes have respected this precedent. During the long reign of Pius VII., although, on account of the times, unable to hold a consistory for many years, he created in all ninety-eight cardinals, and when he died left ten _in petto_. Although, on the one hand, an excessive number of cardinals would lessen the importance and lower the dignity of the office, yet a very small number has occasioned long and disedifying conclaves, whereby for months, and even years, the Holy See has been vacant, to the great detriment of the church. This was the case four times during the XIIIth century, and by a coincidence, each time it was after a pope who was the fourth of his name, viz., Celestine (1241), Alexander (1261), Clement (1268), and Nicholas (1292).

The subject of this article has grown so much under our hands that we are reluctantly compelled to defer a description of the ceremonies attendant on the election of cardinals, etc., till the July number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

ON THE WAY TO LOURDES.

“Quacumque ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium
ponimus.”--_Cicero._

The most direct route from Paris to Notre Dame de Lourdes crosses the Bordeaux and Toulouse Railway at Agen, where the pilgrim leaves the more frequented thoroughfares for an obscurer route, though one by no means devoid of interest, especially to the Catholic of English origin; for the country we are now entering was once tributary to England, and at every step we come, not only upon the traces it has left behind, but across some unknown saint of bygone times, like a fossil of some rare flower with lines of beauty and grace that ages have not been able to efface.

Approaching Agen, we imagined ourselves coming to some large city, so imposing are the environs. The broad Garonne is flowing oceanward, its shores bordered by poplars, and overlooked by hills whose sunny slopes are covered with vineyards and plum-trees. Boats from Provence and Languedoc are gliding along the canal, whose massive bridge, with its gigantic arches, harmonizes with the landscape, and reminds one of the Roman Campagna. The plain is vast, fertile, and smiling; the heavens glowing and without a cloud. Every hill, like Bacchus, has its flowing locks wreathed with vines of wonderful luxuriance, and is garlanded with clusters of grapes, under which it reels with joyous intoxication. Everywhere are white houses, fair villas, pleasant gardens, and all the indications of a prosperous country.

The town does not correspond with its surroundings. It is damp and said to be unhealthy. The streets are narrow and winding, the houses without expression. The population is mostly made up of merchants, mechanics, and _gens de robe_. Here and there we find a noble mansion, a few great families, and a time-honored name; but the true lords of the place are the public functionaries, worthy and grave, and clad in solemn black, quite in contrast with the joyous character of the people. The local peculiarities of the latter may be studied to advantage in an irregular square bordered with low arcades--the centre of traffic for all the villages eight or ten leagues around. Famous fairs are held here three or four times a year, one for the sale of prunes--and the Agen prunes are famous--but the most important one is the lively, bustling fair of the Gravier, which brings together all the blooming grisettes of the region, who, in festive mood and holiday attire, gather around the tempting booths. The Gravier was formerly a magnificent promenade of fine old elms, which Jasmin loved to frequent, and where he found inspiration for many of his charming poems in the Gascon language--one of the Romance tongues; for the so-called _patois_ of this part of the country is by no means a corruption of the French, but a genuine language, flexible, poetic, and wonderfully expressive of every sweet and tender emotion. Some of Jasmin’s poems have been translated by our own poet Longfellow with much of the graceful simplicity of the original. Most of the fine elms of the Gravier have been cut down within a few years, to the great regret of the people.

One of the most striking features of the landscape in approaching Agen is a mount at the north with a picturesque church and spire. This is the church of the Spanish Carmelites, who, driven some years ago from their native country, came to take refuge among the caves of the early martyrs beside the remains of an old Roman _castrum_ called Pompeiacum. Here is the cavern, hewn centuries ago out of the solid rock, where S. Caprais, the bishop, concealed himself in the time of the Emperor Diocletian to escape from his persecutors. And here is the miraculous fountain that sprang up to quench his thirst; sung by the celebrated Hildebert in the XIth century

“Rupem percussit, quam fontem fundere jussit;
Qui fons mox uber fit, dulcis, fitque saluber,
Quo qui potatur, mox convalet et recreatur.”

That is to say: “Caprais smote the rock, and forth gushed a fount of living water, sweet and salutary to those who come to drink thereof,” as the pilgrim experiences to this day.

From the top of this mount S. Caprais, looking down on the city, saw with prophetic eye S. Foi on the martyr’s pile, and a mysterious dove descending from heaven, bearing a crown resplendent with a thousand hues and adorned with precious stones that gleamed like stars in the firmament, which he placed on the virgin’s head, clothing her at the same time with a garment whiter than snow and shining like the sun. Then, shaking his dewy wings, he extinguished the devouring flames, and bore the triumphant martyr to heaven.

After the martyrdom of S. Caprais, the cave he had sanctified was inhabited by S. Vincent the Deacon, who, in his turn, plucked the blood-red flower of martyrdom, and went with unsullied stole to join his master in the white-robed army above. Or, as recorded by Drepanius Florus, the celebrated deacon of Lyons, in the IXth century: “Aginno, loco Pompeiano, passio sancti Vincentii, martyris, qui leviticæ stolæ candore micans, pro amore Christi martyrium adeptus, magnis sæpissime virtutibus fulget.”

His body was buried before S. Caprais’ cave, and, several centuries after, a church was built over it, which became a centre of popular devotion to the whole country around, who came here to recall the holy legends of the past and learn anew the lesson of faith and self-sacrifice. Some say it was built by Charlemagne when he came here, according to Turpin, to besiege King Aygoland, who, with his army, had taken refuge in Agen. This venerable sanctuary was pillaged and then destroyed by the Huguenots in 1561, and for half a century it lay in ruins. The place, however, was purified anew by religious rites in 1600; the traditions were carefully preserved; and every year the processions of Rogation week came to chant the holy litanies among the thorns that had grown up in the broken arches. Finally, in 1612, the city authorities induced a hermit, named Eymeric Rouidilh, from Notre Dame de Roquefort, to establish himself here. He was a good, upright man, as charitable as he was devout, mocked at by the wicked, but converting them by the very ascendency of his holy life. He brought once more to light the tomb of S. Vincent and S. Caprais’ chair, and set to work to build a chapel out of the remains of the ancient church. The dignitaries of the town came to aid him with their own hands, the princes of France brought their offerings, and Anne of Austria came with her court to listen to the teachings of the holy hermit. Among other benefactors of the Hermitage were the Duc d’Epernon, Governor of Guienne, and Marshal de Schomberg, the first patron of the great Bossuet.

Eymeric’s reputation for sanctity became so great that he drew around him several other hermits, who hollowed cells out of the rock, and endeavored to rival their master in the practice of rigorous mortification. They rose in the night to chant the divine Office, and divided the day between labor and prayer, only coming together for a half-hour’s fraternal intercourse after dinner and the evening collation. Eymeric himself, at night, sang the _réveillè_ in the streets of Agen, awakening the echoes of the night with a hoarse, lamentable voice: “Prégats pous praubés trépassats trépassados que Diou lous perdounné!”--Pray for the poor departed, that God may pardon them all!

Eymeric was so scrupulous about using the water of S. Caprais’ fountain for profane purposes that, discovering some plants that gave indications of a source, he labored for six months in excavating the rock, till at length he came so suddenly upon a spring that he was deluged with its waters.

During the plague of 1628, and at other times of public distress, his heroic charity was so fully manifest that he was regarded as a public benefactor; and when he died, the most distinguished people in the vicinity came to testify their veneration and regret.

The cells of the Hermitage continued, however, to be peopled till the great revolution, when the place was once more profaned. But in 1846 a band of Spanish Carmelites came to establish themselves on the mount sanctified by the early martyrs. Martyrs, too, of the soul are they; for there is no martyrdom more severe than the inward crucifixion of those who, in the cloister, offer themselves an unbloody sacrifice to God for the sins of the world. Some, who have not tried it, think the monastic life to be one of ease and self-indulgence. But let them seriously reflect on the “years of solitary weariness, of hardship and mortification, of wakeful scholarship, of perpetual prayer, unvisited by a softness or a joy beyond what a bird, or a tree, or an unusually blue sky may bring,” with no consolations except those that spring from unfaltering trust in Christ and utter abandonment to his sweet yoke, and they will see that, humanly speaking, such a life is by no means one of perfect ease.

On this new Carmel lived for a time Père Hermann, the distinguished musician, who was so miraculously converted by the divine manifestation in the Holy Eucharist, and it was here he gave expression to the ardor of his Oriental nature in some of his glowing _Cantiques to Jésus-Hostie_, worthy to be sung by seraphim:

“Pain Vivant! Pain de la Patrie!
Du désir et d’amour mon âme est consumée
Ne tardez plus! Jésus, mon Bien-Aimé,
Venez, source de vie,
Ne tardez plus! Jésus, mon Bien-Aimé!”

Agen is mentioned on every page of the religious history of southern France. In the IIId century we find the confessors of the faith already mentioned. Sixty years later S. Phoebadus, a monk of Lerins who became Bishop of Agen, defended the integrity of the Catholic faith against the Arians in an able treatise. He was a friend of S. Hilary of Poitiers and S. Ambrose of Milan. St. Jerome speaks of him as still living in the year 392: “Vivit usque hodie decrepitâ senectute.” In the time of the Visigoths SS. Maurin and Vincent de Liaroles upheld and strengthened the faith in Novempopulania.

In feudal times the bishops of Agen were high and puissant lords who had the royal prerogative of coining money by virtue of a privilege conferred on them by the Dukes of Aquitaine. The money they issued was called _Moneta Arnaldina_, or _Arnaudenses_, from Arnaud de Boville, a member of the ducal family, who was the first to enjoy the right.

It was a bishop of Agen, of the illustrious family Della Rovere that gave two popes--Sixtus IV. and Julius II.--to the church, who induced Julius Cæsar Scaliger to accompany him when he took possession of his see. Scaliger’s romantic passion for a young girl of the place led him to settle here for life. Not far from Agen may still be seen the Château of Verona, which he built on his wife’s land, and named in honor of his ancestors of Verona--the Della Scalas, whose fine tombs are among the most interesting objects in that city. This château is in a charming valley. It remained unaltered till about forty years ago; but it is now modernized, and therefore spoiled. The oaks he planted are cut down, the rustic fountain he christened Théocrène is gone. Only two seats, hewn out of calcareous rock, remain in the grounds, where he once gathered around him George Buchanan, Muret, Thevius, and other distinguished men of the day. These seats are still known as the Fauteuils de Scaliger.

The elder Scaliger was buried in the church of the Augustinian Friars, which being destroyed in 1792, his remains were removed by friendly hands for preservation. They have recently been placed at the disposition of the city authorities, who will probably erect some testimonial to one who has given additional celebrity to the place. The last descendant of the Scaligers--Mlle. Victoire de Lescale--died at Agen, January 25, 1853, at the age of seventy-six years.

Agen figures also in the religious troubles of the XVIth century, as it was part of the appanage of Margaret of Valois; but it generally remained true to its early traditions. Nérac, the seat of the Huguenot court at one time, was too near not to exert its influence. Then came Calvin himself, when he leaped from his window and fled from Paris. Theodore Beza too resided there for a time. They were protected by Margaret of Navarre, who gathered around her men jealous of the influence of the clergy and desirous themselves of ruling over the minds of others. They boldly ridiculed the religious orders, and censured the morals of the priesthood, though so many prelates of the time were distinguished for their holiness and ability. Nérac has lost all taste for religious controversy in these material days. It has turned miller, and is only noted for its past aberrations and the present superiority of its flour.