Chapter XIII: “our Lady of Snow.” (2)

Jewish emigration to this country began at a very early period in its history, but only within the last thirty years has this emigration assumed perceptible dimensions. The Jews who came to the United States prior to 1848 were for the most part members of a low class; they were chiefly of Polish, Russian, Portuguese, or Spanish birth; they were either poor or pretended to be poor; they were peddlers, dealers in old clothes, pawnbrokers, money-changers in a small way, and petty merchants. From all social intercourse with the rest of the community they were cut off; they did not seek that which probably would have been denied them had they asked for it; the traditional prejudice against the Jews which exists so generally among the Gentiles was not diminished by the appearance, the actions, and the general reputation of these children of Israel. They were supposed to be exclusively devoted to trade and to money-making, and to be quite devoid of any scruples as to the means by which they might get the better of the person to whom they sold or of whom they bought. A Hebrew writer of some note many years ago remarked that the Jews, as a race of people, were more widely and generally known and less generally appreciated than any other class upon the earth; that the peculiarities which have marked them as objects of dislike were by no means original in their character, but were the fruits of centuries of oppression and degradation; and that they needed only a few years of existence in a free country, where equal rights would be accorded to them, and where they might in peace and security manifest the virtues which were in them, in order to win for themselves not only the toleration but the active esteem and respect of their fellow-citizens. The truth of this remark has been amply substantiated by what has occurred in England, France, Germany, and other portions of Europe; while in this country the Jews have succeeded in Americanizing themselves to a very great extent, and in obliterating in a marked degree the peculiarities which formerly served to point them out as a wholly separate and foreign people. That this process has been accompanied by the partial loss of their religious faith is unquestionably true, but it is not clear whether they have become Americanized because they have to this extent lost their faith, or whether they have lost their faith because they have become Americanized.

The Jews in America at the present moment are divided into five classes—the “Radical Orthodox,” the “Orthodox,” the “Conservative Reformed,” the “Reformed,” and the “Radical Reformed.” There is a wide gulf between the first and the last of these classes; but the shades of difference between a Radical Orthodox Jew and an Orthodox Jew, or between a Conservative Reformed Jew and a Reformed Jew, are somewhat difficult to define. The Radical Orthodox Jews are few in number, and are said by their co-religionists to be daily growing less. They are chiefly of Polish, Austrian, or Hungarian birth; they for the most part are in humble and obscure walks of life; they form no associations with Gentiles; they accept as the rule of their life the Mosaic law interpreted by the “Talmud” and the “Cabala”; they do not welcome Gentiles, or even Jews of later views, to their synagogues. We believe there is but one synagogue in New York belonging to this school of Jews, and in which one may witness Jewish worship as it was performed a thousand years ago. The children of the Radical Orthodox Jews—especially the male children—do not adhere closely to the faith and ritual of their fathers; and some of the fathers themselves, as they become rich in this world’s goods, manifest a disposition to affiliate themselves with one or other of the less rigorous sects. Some of them are content to join the ranks of the Orthodox Jews, who hold most firmly to all matters of dogma, and to all the essential rules of life laid down by the law of Moses, but who at the same time dispense themselves from the strict observance of a certain number of the more onerous observances and regulations enjoined by the rabbinical writers.

The line of demarcation between the Orthodox Jews and the Conservative Reformed Jews is vague and undetermined; but the Reformed Jews are very much advanced. They hold themselves bound no longer to obey the ceremonial and dietary laws laid down by Moses and his successors, and their faith in the predictions of the prophets has almost wholly faded away. The higher class of the Hebrew community for the most part belong to the Reformed sect; but these congregations are also largely composed of the well-to-do middle-class Jews. Nearly all of the Jews of American birth are found in the ranks of this sect or in the one of which we have yet to speak; and very many of the German and English Jews resident here are also members of the Reformed synagogues. They openly avow their desire and ambition to become thoroughly Americanized, and to cease in all respects to be regarded as an alien and foreign people. They still retain their belief in God, but this belief is in too many cases vague and ill-defined. The expectation of the coming of the Messias in any literal sense has, with rare exceptions, ceased to be entertained among them. They will not confess that the prophecies of his coming were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and their philosophy has led them to the conclusion that these prophecies do not now remain to be fulfilled, save in a metaphorical sense. The Messias is indeed to come—but not as an individual. Humanity as a race, elevated, happy, prosperous, blessed with long life, health, and earthly comfort, is the Messias; the prophets saw him and were glad, but it was reserved for the children of this generation to discover what was the hidden and real meaning of their predictions concerning him.

A learned Jewish scholar has thus expressed this phase of Jewish thought: “The majority of intelligent Israelites have long since abandoned the wish of building up an independent national existence of their own. The achievement of higher conditions of human life they are disposed to regard as the fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, and the furthering of this end, in intimate union with their fellow-men, as the highest dictate of their religion.” These are weighty words; and there is abundant reason to believe that they truthfully represent the dominant tone of thought among the American Jews. The latest sect among them—the Radical Reformed Jews—go to the root of the matter and have the full courage of their opinions. They have the goodness to admit that there is, or may be, a God, but they deny that he has ever revealed himself to man save by the law of nature, and that God is himself nature. In other words, these Jews have become Pantheists. Benedict de Spinoza was excommunicated and denounced by the forefathers of those who now revere and extol him. The most eloquent and gifted, if not the most learned, of the Jewish rabbis in America has become the leader of this sect, and has left the magnificent synagogue which was built for him, only to draw after him into new paths a large proportion of his former congregation. They are extremely wise in their own conceit; they prate of the necessity of doubting all things; they deride the rites and practices of external religion; they say they worship God, but inasmuch as God, as they insist, is only nature, and nature is part of themselves, in worshipping God they worship themselves. We are told that many of those Jews who still maintain their connection with the Conservative Reformed or Reformed congregations are by conviction in full sympathy with the Radical Reformers. The laity are far in advance of the rabbis of each sect. The rabbis are for the most part men of foreign birth and foreign education; there are, we believe, not a dozen rabbis of American birth in the whole Union. The almost universal tendency of thought and practice among the younger Jews is in the direction of that phase of infidelity of which we have spoken; and the elder members of the race take little care to counteract in any effectual manner this apostasy. The education of Jewish children in this country is left pretty much to take care of itself. There are few, if any, Jewish schools, and none at all of a high character. The Jewish children for the most part attend the public schools, where they either are taught no religion at all or listen to such vague and disjointed utterances concerning the truths of Christianity as the caprice or the prejudices of the teacher may lead him to pronounce. In some instances the children of well-to-do Hebrews among us are sent to receive their education in Unitarian academies; in others the sons of wealthy American Jews are educated in the German universities, from whence they return full-blown infidels. Intermarriages between Jews and nominal Christians are not rare; and the children of these unions are, as a rule, educated in the religion of the mother—if she happens to possess any.

We have said that the Jewish laity is in advance of the rabbis in the matter of what is called “reform,” but which is too generally nothing but destruction. The position of the rabbis is a peculiar one. They are not priests, for they no longer offer sacrifice. They are not even the sons of priests; the hereditary character of their office has long since been lost; they are rabbis, or, in other phrase, teachers, not by hereditary descent nor by divine selection or consecration, but merely by their own choice and the good-will of their neighbors or friends. The last high-priest of the Jewish Church who had any divine sanction for the title which he bore was Caiphas, and his office was taken away from him, in the sight of God and in truth, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended to dwell until the end of time with the Christian Church. Since that day there have been no priests of God upon the earth, save the priests of the Catholic Church; and consequently since that day there have been no true Jewish priests. The altars of the Jews have crumbled away; their sacrifices have ceased; the sons of the tribes of Aaron and Levi have abandoned even the pretence of belonging to a priestly order. In the place of the priests have come the rabbis, who are mere ministers or teachers. They are to the Jews what the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other Protestant ministers are to the respective Protestant sects. They are a little less than some of the Protestant ministers claim to be; for some of these do set up in an uncertain way a vague and altogether fallacious pretence to the possession of “orders” and to having been empowered to perform priestly functions. The rabbis make no such pretence, and their position, such as it is, is confessedly invested with only purely human sanction. They are teachers, but do not claim that they have a divine authority to teach. They are subject to the will and caprice of the congregation to which they are attached; they are like school-teachers, whose tenure of office depends upon the pleasure of the school commissioners. Some of them have sought to put themselves at the head of the reform movement, and have succeeded, but only on the condition that they should keep pace with the advance of the laity. The younger German rabbis have been most prominent in this respect. They have effected an organization among themselves, as well here as in Germany, and have managed to act together with something approaching to unanimity. Destitute, however, of any rule of faith and practice higher than their own will and whim, and having no central or supreme authority to which they can appeal, they lack the essential bond of unity, and some of them are constantly wandering off in one direction or the other. They began their work of reform by modernizing the ritual of the synagogue, and eliminating from it, little by little, those portions of it which, directly or indirectly, assert the dogmas that are inconveniently opposed to the new ideas whereof they are enamored. Among the regular prayers of the synagogue, for instance, were supplications for the bringing back of the chosen people to the land of their fathers, the restoration of the throne of David, and the coming of the Messias. The new philosophy, as we have shown, teaches that the Messias is not to come in any literal sense; that inasmuch as modern progress is best subserved by democratic or republican institutions, the establishment of a monarchy of any kind is not to be desired or prayed for; and that the return of the Jews as a nation to Palestine is not to be wished, even if it were feasible.

It became advisable, therefore, to reconcile theory with practice, and to cease pretending to pray for that which was either impossible or undesirable. If it were absurd to believe any longer that the Messias was to come as a personal king and redeemer, to lead back his people to the Promised Land, and to elevate them as the rulers and princes of the earth, then it was something worse than absurd to continue the repetition of the prayers imploring the hastening of his coming. If the Books of the Law and of the Prophets are not the veritable word of God; if they contain merely ingenious and beautiful myths, symbolical poetry, and a code of moral and dietary rules which, in some respects at least, are no longer either necessary or advisable to be obeyed, it is dishonest to pretend to regard these writings with devout reverence, and to insist upon any one governing himself by them. By this course of reasoning the German rabbis, often pushed further than they cared to go by the laity who were behind them, sapped the foundations of faith among the common people of the Jews, and prepared them for the downward path which so many of them are now treading.

Having thus reviewed the present state of Judaism in America, we may ask ourselves what is likely to be the future of what was once the church of God, but has now fallen to the level of a mere sect. It is clear that the Jews, here as in the Old World, and more rapidly here than in the Old World, are losing the faith of their fathers. Judaism, divine in its origin, but no longer invested with the divine sanction nor inspired or guided by the Holy Ghost, is undergoing the same process of disintegration and decay which the Protestant sects are suffering. Judaism, now wholly human, like Protestantism, is leading its adherents to infidelity. Every day, as Protestants see this, the devout and pious among them turn to the one church which Jesus Christ established in the world, and in her bosom find refuge, peace, and salvation. The number of conversions from Protestantism to the holy Roman Catholic Church, here and in Great Britain, is continually on the increase. But nothing is more rare than the conversion of a Jew. They are rapidly parting with their own faith, but very seldom do they embrace any form of Christianity in its stead. In a few years the great majority of Jews in the United States will probably have ceased to be Jews, save only in name. But how many of them will become Catholics? All roads lead to Rome; but very few Jews have made that journey. A Jew who becomes a Catholic is a most excellent Catholic; he seems to desire, by the fervor of his faith and the burning zeal of his charity, to make some reparation for the sins of his people. Jews should be the best Catholics in the world; and God has told us, through the mouths of Jewish prophets, that the time will come when they will be all that they should be. The word of God is sure and cannot fail. He has told us that the day is coming when the Jews shall ask him, “What are those wounds in the midst of thy hands?” and when he shall reply, “With these was I wounded in the house of them that I love.” In that day he “will pour out upon the house of David the spirit of grace and the spirit of prayers; and they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and shall grieve over him as the manner is to grieve for the death of the first-born.” In that glorious day God has promised that he will destroy the names of idols out of the earth, so that they shall be remembered no more; and that he will take away the false prophets and the unclean spirit out of the earth. He will bring back the captivity of Juda and the captivity of Jerusalem, and “will build them as from the beginning”; he will cleanse them from all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against him and despised him; and he will so crown them with blessings that all the world shall be amazed thereby. “It shall be to me a name, and a joy, and a praise, and a gladness before all the nations of the earth that shall hear of all the good things which I will do to them.” “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform the good word that I have spoken to the house of Israel and to the house of Juda.” When the Jews become Catholic Christians, Jerusalem shall “be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name,” and the Jews shall become “a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of God.” Then they shall no more be called forsaken, and their land shall be no more called desolate; “but thou shalt be called 'my pleasure in her,’ and thy land inhabited.” Then shall the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass be celebrated by Jewish hands in the Holy City where Jesus Christ first offered up the ever-living Sacrifice, and then shall the Jews eat the heavenly Bread and drink the sacred Blood which have so long been given to us Gentiles and rejected by them. “The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength: Surely I will no longer give thy corn to be meat for thy enemies, and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine for which thou hast labored; for they that gather it shall eat it, and they that have brought it together shall drink it in my holy courts.” Wonderful are these words; full are they of a meaning at once mystical and clear. The Jews, in God’s own time, will become Catholic Christians, and, united with the whole body of the faithful on earth, they shall eat the divine Bread which is the life of the world. The abandonment of their traditional faith will continue to lead them more and more to the abandonment of all their distinctive national peculiarities and practices, and they will become merged in the great body of the children of men. Then such of them as God may choose will have given to them the grace of faith, and as individuals, and not as a nation, will they become Catholic Christians. We know that in the vision of St. John the Apostle he saw one hundred and forty-four thousand of the children of Israel, of every tribe twelve thousand, who had come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. We are certain, then, that before the end of the world at least this number of Jews will have been converted. It may be that the number represents only those who belonged to the church while it was yet mainly composed of Jews. If so, let us hope that those of the once chosen people who yet remain may be found, or at least many of them, in that great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, which St. John also saw, standing before the throne and in the sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice “Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb.”

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.
FROM THE FRENCH.
CONCLUSION.

JULY 30.

This morning I was in a sort of mortal sadness. I opened the “Book of those who suffer” at these words: “You have willed, O my God! to separate me from her to whom I have so often said that I should wish to die the same day as she. This desire has not been granted, and thou hast condemned me to survive.

“_She_ is at rest; and never have I more fully realized than in this my exceeding grief the meaning of that beautiful Christian word, _quies_—rest.”

I said this with all my heart, and I have comprehended.... O Kate! I loved you too much for this world. Bless me from on high, and visit me with Picciola. It seems to me that the divine Goodness must permit that.

AUGUST 2.

“The present war is the natural and necessary consequence of the great apostasy of the sixteenth century and the principles of the Revolution!” O my God! if this might be a holy war! But I fear; for France is so guilty! Prayers are being offered in all the dioceses; the emperor has put himself at the head of the army. May God save us! We needed a St. Louis, if we were to deserve victory. Do you remember, Kate, how much we admired these words of Bossuet? “War is often a salutary bath, in which nations bathe and are regenerated.” Oh! how you must pray, all our kind friends in heaven.

AUGUST 4.

Amélie has bidden us adieu; she is a charming creature. Her mother will not accompany her. She fears her own weakness; and she is a veritable Spartan.

On the 2d of August took place a first engagement at Saarbrück; our troops were victorious. May this success augur well! They say that there is a terrible effervescence in minds. Our Bretonnes are praying that their sons may soon return.

Arrival of our Parisians! Alix and Margaret have all the grace of the twins; my godson is magnificent. I like to feel that we are together in these troubled times. How I pity mothers!

AUGUST 7.

Terror, anguish, defeat—these are the synonyms of this date. Two days ago we were beaten at Wissembourg; yesterday at Forbach. We are waiting for news. Our reverses are a chastisement; the French government is withdrawing its troops from Rome. Is it, then, to secure success that France abandons the Pope? Oh! it is not France which acts thus; she is too profoundly Catholic for that; but she will be none the less certain to undergo the penalty for this cowardice. Kate, pray for France! The Prussians are upon our soil, and civil war is also feared.

AUGUST 13.

Horrible details are received of the battle of Reichshoffen. Marshal MacMahon behaved with admirable heroism. He would not quit the field of battle after witnessing this odious butchery—40,000 against 150,000! Lord, O Lord! have pity. There must have been some treason there. The cuirassiers and chasseurs of MacMahon sacrificed themselves to facilitate the retreat. The newspapers make one weep. Kate, what is said in heaven?

My Guy is charmingly beautiful; and when he is twenty years old an enemy’s cannon-ball will have the right to carry him off!

AUGUST 21.

Dear Kate, I bless God for having placed you in the peace of eternity before these murderous struggles, in which your heart would so often have been wounded! Ah! it seems to me that it is a great favor to be taken from this earth before the calamities which are impending.

A subscription has been set on foot, in order that all France shall offer a sword of honor to MacMahon. Marshal Lebœuf, General-in-Chief, is replaced by Marshal Bazaine; the army is falling back on Chalons. There were brilliant affairs on the 14th, 15th, and 16th. But what agitation in the country! The republicans consider the moment favorably for their triumph, and René declares that the Prussians of France are still more to be dreaded than the Prussians of Germany. Montaigne said: “There are triumphant defeats which equal the finest victories.” Our troops are sublime. Fresh levies are being made, companies of _francs-tireurs_ are organized; will France be saved? Catholic La Vendée is rising _en masse_.

AUGUST 24.

The Prussians are at Saint-Dizier. It is said that in the partial engagements the losses are considerable on both sides. The enemy is bombarding Strasbourg. Read heart-rending details. _Povera Francia!_ They say that two sons of Count Bismarck are dead; it is the justice of God passing by! Oh! when we think of so many families who are suffering from the disasters of invasion, who see their homes invaded and their days in peril, how ardent are our prayers!

That which I dreaded is come upon us. René and his brothers are going! O my God! guard them from danger. I love France too well to hinder René from defending her. The fear of afflicting me held him back. God aid us and have at the English! as our Breton ancestors used to say. The English of to-day are the Prussians.

They leave us, five brothers, all valiant and strong, courageous as lions. Ah! if they should not return. I believe in presentiments, and something tells me that all hope of happiness is at an end for me. “Give all to God,” a saintly priest wrote to me. _Fiat!_ Take all, my God, but leave me thy love!

Do you remember, Kate, my mother’s stories of the heroism of our grandfather? Do you remember that Georgina whose name I received, who said to her brother, “Go and fight without thinking of me. God and his angels will guard me; think of your country!”

Could I be less courageous than she? Pray for me, holy soul in heaven! What shall I do without him?

AUGUST 26.

Levies are being raised _en masse_. Men will not be wanting, but soldiers cannot be made at a moment’s notice, especially in our days. It is said that Bazaine is blockaded in Metz with 70,000 men, and that he has before him 200,000 Prussians. MacMahon is going to his relief with an equal number of heroes. The French have burnt the camp at Chalons. What will be the issue of this frightful struggle? The ministry which has caused all our misfortunes has resigned; a clear understanding is most important, and time passes away in useless discussions. General Trochu, a Breton, is Governor of Paris.

To-day we shall be left alone....

AUGUST 29.

It is over. René has taken with him all my heart, and I feel a strange sense of suffering. My mother has been sublime. O these adieux, these last embraces! Who would have said that we should come to this?

Protect them, ye holy angels! Bring them back to us soon with the return of peace! There are wounded everywhere; my mother has asked for ten, to whom we shall attend ourselves. It is terrible to see these mutilations. O war! how I hate it.

The army of Prince Frederick Charles is marching upon Paris; there are no official tidings of our soldiers. Phalsbourg, Toul, Metz, Strasbourg are all undergoing the horrors of bombardment. Where shall we go? Prayer alone will save us. There is much patriotic eagerness in the populations; the loan of 750,000,000 has been covered with astonishing rapidity. What will become of the capital? What chastisement will visit it for having erected a statue to Voltaire?

A visit—the Comtesse de G—— and her two daughters, friends of Lucy. What a difference between the two sisters! The younger calm, gentle, and placid, like a beautiful lake, seraphic and tender; the elder ardent and enthusiastic to exaggeration, impassioned for the cause of good, peace, and right, but like a volcano.

Kate, tell me that you pray for us, and that God will have pity upon his people!

AUGUST 31.

A letter from René! Alas! his presence was so sweet to me. Gertrude and I do not quit the chapel, except for the wounded. Mary and Ellen, Marguerite and Alix, multiply their prayers. Arthur has made his mother give him a Zouave’s uniform; thus equipped, he drills the children at the school. You should hear him say how he wants to join his father and fight with him. Our savage enemies commit revolting atrocities. How truly are they the sons of the Teutons!

Berthe’s family is in Switzerland.

SEPTEMBER 4.

Lord, save us; we perish!

The public journals speak in an ambiguous manner of triumphs with respect to which a terrible silence had been observed in official quarters; a great battle was imminent.... The day is come, and its events are brought to light. _Povera Francia!_ The emperor and 40,000 French prisoners, MacMahon grievously wounded, and a capitulation—it is horrible! My God! hast thou abandoned France? The public consternation cannot be described. It was said yesterday that, owing to a crypt whose existence was generally unknown, the women and children had been able to quit Strasbourg, so valiantly defended by General Uhrich. The enemy aims his murderous projectiles especially at the cathedral—that unequalled marvel in stone. Horrible! horrible! It seems as if hell had vomited innumerable legions of monsters upon France. There were 550,000 in this last three days’ battle. How will all this end? “Arise, O Lord! and deliver thy people, for the time to show mercy is come!”[52]

Footnote 52:

Ps. ci.

SEPTEMBER 6.

The republic is proclaimed. Paris is in a state of delirium. Did not Joseph de Maistre say: “The French Revolution has been satanic; if the counter-revolution is not divine, it will be a nullity”? Read the _Univers_ yesterday—so Christian, so right-thinking. Louis Veuillot calls Prussia the _Sin of Europe_. Will the republic save us? The enemy is at Soissons. We see now the result of twenty years of despotism.... “MacMahon is dead!” said a workman on the boulevards with a journal in his hand. At these words arose a general cry: “Honor to MacMahon!” This report is contradicted, and Mme. la Maréchale set out yesterday to join her husband. O this wound! What Frenchman would not give his life to heal it? No army left! Bazaine is still blockaded in Metz, bombarded by the Prussians. MacMahon had done wonders, but was unable to effect his junction with Bazaine. He was thrown back by the enemy upon Sedan, and a bridge not having been destroyed, notwithstanding his orders, he was surrounded by a network of the enemy; grievously wounded, he placed the command in the hands of General Wimpffen, who capitulated. MacMahon would never have done this—never! Without a miracle, France is lost. It seems as if one were suffering a bad dream in reading that, owing to our woods, the enemy slaughter us without mercy, whilst our blows fall on emptiness, and that on the fatal day which annihilated our army our artillery was for a quarter of an hour playing upon a regiment of French cuirassiers.... The _Angelus_ is ringing. O Angelic Salutation! with what anguish Christian hearts yesterday repeated you, on this beginning of a new era of which no one can tell the form or the duration.

SEPTEMBER 7.

A line from Adrien to reassure us all. Alas! who does not tremble at this hour? Kate, protect us! Some members of the Left have, themselves alone, made the republic and seized the reins of government. Can the enemies of God regenerate a people? “The Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Napoleon I. (Louis Veuillot, the valiant heart, tells us) used to say that the general who dared speak of capitulation ought to be shot; what, then, would be the deserts of him who surrenders? Poor France, humiliated, vanquished, deprived of her noblest children!

SEPTEMBER 8.

On this festival of your nativity, O Our Lady of Victories! succor us. No courier from Paris, which must be invested. The _Garde Nationale_ is being organized; the scheme is to oppose the whole of France to these Vandals of the nineteenth century—barbarous hordes who seem to be impelled by some irresistible force into the heart of our unhappy country. How French I feel myself in these days of sorrow! Dear Kate, is it true, as we believe, that all our saints of France, headed by St. Remi, Charlemagne, St. Louis, and Joan of Arc, are prostrate at the feet of the Eternal to obtain the pardon which would save us?

SEPTEMBER 11.

In the frightful catastrophe of Sedan our soldiers were in want of munitions and had not eaten for four days.

I send daily a long bulletin of news to my devoted Margaret. Has not Marcella also something to fear? Poor Italy! Poor France! We can but have either a shameful peace or a pitiless war.... Laon is threatened with the fate of Strasbourg. Alas! these poor cities, besieged and heroic. “Country of my brethren and of my friends, may the words of God for thee be words of peace: 'May peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy towers!’ O my God! save thy servants who put their trust in thee!”[53]

Footnote 53:

Ps. cxxi.

Every man under arms, every woman at prayer! This decree makes me bless the republic. And René—where is he?

SEPTEMBER 13.

Laon must have ceased to exist; the commander has had the citadel blown up. They say that Garibaldi, the insulter of Pius IX. and the king of vagabonds and bandits, is coming to succor France; is not this the depth of humiliation? “How long, O Lord! wilt thou delay to succor us? O God! be thou our judge, and defend our cause against this pitiless nation; deliver us from these men, who are full of injustice and deceit!”

The enemy is six leagues from Paris. M. Thiers has set out for Vienna, St. Petersburg, and London. The United States have offered their mediation. We are assured that the foreign powers desire peace, but what proofs do they give? Russia is preparing formidable armaments, doubtless finding the present moment opportune for taking possession of Constantinople. The excommunicated king is adding to his crimes in annexing to his own the last remaining States of the church.

We are told that the republican world boasts greatly of the circular of Jules Favre and the letter of Victor Hugo.

I do not know from whence there comes to us a copy of a revelation announcing that from the 20th to the 29th all will be over, and that France will be delivered by a stranger. O feast of St. Michael the Archangel! be to us a day of salvation. But, Lord, does France deserve it? Ah! she is no longer the eldest daughter of the church, since she consents to the odious spoliation of Italy, and since every sort of hatred is let loose against religion. Do they not say that at Lyons the Visitandines have been driven from their convent? We deserve every misfortune and disgrace. Louis Veuillot, calm in the midst of so many storms, gave yesterday a beautiful article, in which he predicted the near approach of the triumph of the church; and today, the splendid history of Judas Machabeus. Save us, O Lord! we who are thy people. “God gives to his church the flotsam of every wreck, as he gives her, sooner or later, the laurel of every triumph.”

It is said that Paris will be destroyed. “Unless the Lord keep the city, he that keepeth it watcheth in vain!”[54] Hope! hope! Prayer will save us!

Footnote 54:

Ps. cxxvi.

I knew yesterday that Réne was alive. O Kate! pray for us.

SEPTEMBER 17.

O surprise! O joy!—if I dared to say so.... Margaret here! Kind, dear, and perfect friend! she could not remain away from us during these troubles. Lord William and Emmanuel have come with her. What an exquisite proof of affection! How we have wept together! O dear Kate, dear flower transplanted to heaven! your native soil, how much we have spoken of you. How René will be touched at hearing of this arrival! My mother and sisters give a festive welcome to my _belle Anglaise_, who is English only in name, being as Catholic, as Irish, and as French as we are.

Communications are interrupted, or are on the point of being so. The line of Orleans is cut. The Paris _Journal_ is here, however, with frightful accounts of the barbarity of the Prussians. Save us, my God; have pity on those who are fighting _pro aris et focis_!

Margaret has brought me a bit of the soil of Ireland, and some flowers gathered from our mother’s grave.

SEPTEMBER 19.

What is happening to-day, twenty-four years after the Apparition of La Salette? We are melting away in prayers. My mother has obtained from the bishop the most liberal permissions for benedictions. Our good _curé_ is dying ... of old age and grief. The love of their country is a robust plant among the Bretons.

Dear Kate, we speak of you with Margaret. I told her that I continue to write to you; she was touched at hearing it. How kind it is of her to have quitted her home to share our anguish and our dangers! The province will be invaded—that is certain. No news of René; but who does not feel courageous at this time? Ah! assuredly, in face of the extent of our disasters, selfish anxieties disappear, and the soul grows, in her prodigious faculty of suffering, to compassionate all the present miseries, all the crushing misfortunes, all the deaths. How long, O Lord! will thy hand be heavy upon us? O mysterious depths of the designs of God! O militant church! O venerated Pontiff, the purest glory of our age! O Rome, invaded like France! I have just read an admirable pastoral letter of Mgr. Freppel, the illustrious successor of Mgr. Angebault in the see of Angers. He sees a reason for hope in this community of sorrows between the mother and the _eldest daughter_. O Pontiff!—is not this title become a bitter derision? The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, and we are surely not far distant from her signal triumph; but how many tears, it may be, and how many martyrdoms, before that hour! Italy, France, Ireland—the three countries of my heart, lands that are mingled in one in my enthusiasm and love, daughters of God, and the privileged ones of his heart—you cannot perish; God will fight for you, and we shall bless him for ever!

Kate, beloved sister, tell me that you hear me, that your soul touches mine. Be René’s guardian angel!

SEPTEMBER 21.

Our life is strange. Beneath all it has a wonderful serenity, a confidence in God which defies everything; on the surface it is a sort of fever, passing from the wildest hope to the most complete discouragement. Gertrude has appointed us her _aides-de-camp_—Margaret and myself. There is much to do around us. Our Bretonnes have need to be consoled, and there are sick and dying. The good _abbé_ multiplies himself with admirable self-forgetfulness; our pastor is dying, happy to be called away at the present crisis.

I have a letter from René—a kind, long, sweet letter, from which I cannot take away my eyes. He only speaks to me vaguely of the war, so as not to increase my alarm. Every ring of the bell makes us start; the gallop of a horse makes us run to the windows. My mother never quits her psalter and rosary; Mistress Annah faithfully keeps her company when we are not there; Mary and Ellen, with the other dear young ones in the house, are our sunshine. The courageous Margaret talks politics with Lucy, the _abbé_, and the doctor, organizes plans of defence, creates fortresses, and finally expels the enemy. Lord William was just now reading to us in the Paris _Journal_ of the 18th details of deep interest relating to the affair of Sedan—“the Waterloo of the Second Empire, and the greatest disaster of modern times.”

SEPTEMBER 25.

Jules Favre has made an appeal to William and Bismarck. France is very low. The result has been the affirmation of the exorbitant demands of the conquerors. The struggle is to be pushed to extremities. Regiments are to be formed of National Guards. Here none are left but old men. No official news. It is said that the enemy has been repulsed at Versailles, that Nantes is burnt, that headquarters are at Meaux; they said yesterday at Rheims: “O Clovis! why are you not there with your Franks?” The Prussians are burning Rouen. When, then, will the terrible work of these executioners of Heaven be ended? William wants Alsace and Lorraine, Metz, Strasbourg, Toul, Verdun, and Mont Valérien. Ah! we also, we shall say with the Bishop of Orleans that which was said by Louisa of Prussia—a magnanimous soul, to whom the life of her four sons was less dear than the honor of her country; a believing and valiant woman, who beheld so violent and devastating a storm pass over her kingdom that Prussia was on the point of being erased from the map of nations: “I believe in God; I do not believe in force. Justice alone is stable. God prunes the spoiled tree. We shall see better times, if only each day find us better and more prepared.” The son has not inherited the sentiments of the mother. It is said that it was Prince Albert who commanded the burning of Bazeilles; this fearful barbarity would suffice for his reprobation in the memory of men. “The Hebrew people saw Deborah and Judith arise in the day of its affliction; Gaul, St. Geneviève; and France of the middle ages, Joan of Arc.”[55] Who shall save modern France? Whose arm shall God raise up to avenge her? “But now thou hast cast us off, and put us to shame: and thou, O God! wilt not go out with our armies.... Arise, O Lord! Why sleepest thou?”[56]

Footnote 55:

Gabourd.

Footnote 56:

Ps. xliii.

Rome is invaded by the republican troops; they leave the Pope the castle of Sant’ Angelo and the Leonine city, with _magnificent_ assurances of security. O the time of deliverance, the hour of salvation!—soon, doubtless, soon. The church cannot perish. Gentle Pontiff, Pius IX., Vicar of Christ and his representative, like him crucified in heart, given gall to drink, overwhelmed with insults, your powerless children join their supplications to your own, and God will arise, mighty and terrible, to confound your enemies—you who have loved justice and hated iniquity!

Letter from René, hastily written in a cottage. Our Blessed Lady protect his devotion! “Our help is in the name of the Lord!” O church of Jesus Christ! how happy are thy children in the midst of their distress. What ineffable consolations in thy sacred prayers! I live in the Psalms, I nourish my soul with them; every feeling of the heart is there so marvellously expressed, and in incomparable language.

SEPTEMBER 27.

Louis Veuillot, the intrepid defender of the Catholic faith, a few weeks ago wrote as follows: “God will have pity on us. Justice will not exceed mercy. We shall not be scourged beyond the needs of our future well-being; we shall find in the cup of chastisement a healthful beverage. The love of their country raises hearts above vulgar vexations. They are willing to be ruined; they are willing to die. But these abject and senseless things mingled with our tragedies, these intoxicating songs when the earth is being watered with generous blood, these statesmen who ask for prayers and authorize blasphemy, these blasphemies beneath the falling thunderbolt, these assassins of the pavement and these orators in the tribune—all this revelation of the stupid crowd which will not be saved—it is these things which keep souls under the millstone, which suffocate and grind them down.” How well this great mind describes the deepest sufferings of all that is still Christian in this nation of crusaders and martyrs! The admirable demonstrations of the Bretons and Vendéans console one for the irreligion of the greater number. Why has not all Europe risen to defend in the Pope the cause of outraged sovereignty? The sacrilege of Victor Emanuel has met with no resistance.

“Be to us, Lord, a place of defence against the enemy!” We are on a volcano—the volcano of popular passions; if the hand of God does not arrest them, what will become of us? Confidence! confidence! “Infidel France is abased and humiliated, and is not yet willing to repent; eucharistic France will pray, will arise, and increase in greatness!”[57]

Footnote 57:

Louis Veuillot.

O beloved soul gone hence before _me_, and who art _myself!_ offer to God our prayers.

OCTOBER 2.

Toul has surrendered, after a splendid resistance worthy of a better fate. The 29th—the looked-for 29th, the feast of the glorious Protector of France—has brought us another sorrow more: the capitulation of Strasbourg! O dear and beautiful cathedral, which I loved so well! “There is nothing left but ruins,” writes one of Berthe’s cousins. Why does the Lord delay to help us? Will not our other fortresses be also forced to give themselves up into the enemy’s hands? What will become of France? William is at Versailles; he lay down, booted and spurred, in the bed of the great king who so imperiously dictated laws to all Europe. Who will redeem us from all our humiliations?

Margaret and Lord William have apprehensions which will only too soon, alas! be verified. La Vendée is rising at the call of Cathelineau and of Stofflet—two illustrious names. Ah! who will merit for us that we shall be saved, when the public papers lavish outrage and abuse against everything that is holiest in the world—against the church of God, his priests, his pontiff, the glorious Pius IX.? Who shall restrain thine arm, O Lord! when scarcely a voice is raised to recall to conquered France that thou art the Salvation of the nations?

OCTOBER 7.

The gentle Bishop of Geneva used to say: “Alas! we shall soon be in eternity, and then shall we see of how small account were the affairs of this world, and how little it mattered whether they were accomplished or not.” Adrien sends us long details. My soul is in anguish. O Kate! pray for us. I went yesterday with Margaret to the cemetery; we stayed there long. A splendid moonlight illumined the golden crosses surmounting the marble columns beneath which our doves repose. A feeling of profound peace took possession of my soul in the midst of this striking contrast—the calm and tranquillity of this field of death with the tumult and agitation of actual life in our poor France.

OCTOBER 8.

The journals give accounts, only too faithful in their details, of the battle of Sedan, the catastrophe of Laon and of Strasbourg. It is horrible—this destruction, these savage attacks! Of how many valiant defenders are we not deprived, while the enemy’s forces are going to strengthen the army now besieging Paris! William is at St. Germain; he desires to be present at the bombardment of the brilliant capital which gave him so splendid a reception three years ago. To the shame of humanity, Europe remains unmoved in presence of our misfortunes. America sends an insignificant number of volunteers. O divine Justice! wilt thou not avenge us? Who shall tell the story of this sanguinary epic? Who shall recount this unheard-of intermingling of shameful cowardice and prodigies of courage, of base treason and sublime devotion, of reverses and successes equally impossible? Who shall tell posterity that the most loyal and generous of nations, the people which has been eager in its succors to every misfortune, has found no defender in the day of its calamities? And who shall make known to France that her success is a consequence of her repentance, that there is something greater than victory, more decisive and more powerful than the most formidable engines of war—the protection of Him who holds in his hands the destinies of nations? _Deus, Deus, quid reliquisti nos?_

OCTOBER 10.

Two melancholy, dark, and rainy days, such as always depress my soul. Garibaldi has arrived at Marseilles with a thousand volunteers—doubtless the scum of Italy. Mgr. de Saint-Brieuc summons all Bretons to the defence of their country. “No, France will not die! This cry from the heart of forty millions will pierce heaven and awaken all the echoes of the earth!” Paris has provisions for two months; but after? Surely all France will rise, and, as soon as she feels herself strong enough, she will meet these barbarians, to whom all has been successful hitherto! What bloodshed! What ruins! What opprobrium! Will not God raise up some hero from this soil which has given so much to the world? Anna Maria Taigi predicted that the Council would last eighteen months, that Pius IX. would die towards its close, and the gentle and venerated Pontiff would see the dawn of a new time. Does not this mean that soon the trials of the Papacy will cease? “The church cannot perish; but God has not made to nations the same promises of immortality.”

O Kate and Mad, my two idols! I think of you. To-morrow we go to Auray, all together; the _abbé_ will say Mass for us there, if we can arrive before noon.

OCTOBER 14.

I have prayed much, thought much, suffered much, hoped much, loved much, during these four days!

A prediction, said to be from Blois, assures us of definitive success. Alas! we were in need of saints; this republic of lawyers makes me afraid. My mother quoted to us yesterday an old prophecy from the works of Hugues de Saint-Cher, Cardinal-Dominican of the thirteenth century: “There will be four sorts of persecutions in the church of God: the first, tyrants against the martyrs; the second, heretics against the doctors; the third, lawyers against simple people; and, lastly, Antichrist against all.” We are in the third. There is no _unity_; there is impotence, and therefore nothing succeeds.

A terrible rumor which will only too soon be confirmed—Orleans is invaded. M. de Bismarck’s plan is to ruin France in detail, in order that it may for a long time be impossible to her to avenge herself. But vengeance belongs to God, and he will take it! The journals gave us so much hope! What a spectacle—two nations slaughtering each other, and a land which God created so fair covered with blood and ruins! Send us, O Lord! legions of angels; fight for the cause of civilization and right; save France, and may there no longer be amongst us a single soul which does not by its worship glorify thee!

The news from Metz is reassuring in that direction—Metz, which has been our ruin! The inhabitants are admirable in their patriotism, and engage to defend the city if Bazaine and the one hundred thousand men can make themselves an opening. Without a miracle, however, can the aspect of events undergo a change? Bitche continues to resist. O my France! must thou, like Ireland, also be crucified?

_Evening._—An enigmatic despatch, in _negro language_, announces that the army of the Loire has been compelled to retire before superior forces, and that St. Quentin has repulsed fifteen thousand of the enemy. Garibaldi declares that fifteen thousand Italians will march at the first signal. The six thousand Pontifical Zouaves will form a splendid regiment, under the leadership of a hero, M. de Charette. Oh! how these words rend my soul: _Garibaldi, Pontifical Zouaves_. What an assemblage! May God pardon France! How will all this end? Phalsbourg holds out, and other towns; but to see the enemy always in imposing numbers, to know that everywhere they make crushing requisitions, that each day brings fresh mourning, is a deadly sorrow! What part of our soil will remain unpolluted by the passage of these emissaries of death?

Orleans is in the enemy’s power—Orleans, the key and the heart of France—Orleans, the Queen of the Loire, the faithful city, the town saved from Attila by St. Aignan, from the English by Joan of Arc! A great battle is imminent.

Our venerated pastor suffers no more. This morning, at three o’clock, one of our farmers, who, with Mistress Annah, was sitting up with him, came to let us know that he was sinking, and we reached him in time to receive his last blessing. O Kate! draw us also. The words of the divine Office for to-day are admirably suitable to our distress: “I am the Salvation of my people, saith the Lord; in whatsoever affliction they shall be, I will hear them when they shall call upon me, and I will be their God for ever.” “If I am in trouble, thou, O Lord! shalt preserve my life; thou shalt stretch forth thy hand against the fury of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me!”