Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The Père Odo de Gissey, of the Society of Jesus, in his history of Roc Amadour published in 1631, devotes several chapters to this _merveilleuse cloche_, in which he testifies that “though it has no bell-rope, it sometimes rings without being touched or jarred, as frequently happens when people on the ocean, in danger from a tempest, invoke the assistance of Our Lady of Roc Amadour, the star of the sea. Some persons,” he goes on to say, “may find it difficult to believe this; but if they could see and read what I have the six or seven times my devotion has led me to Roc Amadour, they would change their opinion and admire the power manifested by the Mother of God.” The first miracle he relates is of the fourteenth century, but when he came to Roc Amadour the archives had been destroyed by the Calvinists, and he could only glean a few facts here and there from papers they had overlooked. Most of the cases he relates had been attested before a magistrate with solemn oath. We will briefly relate a few of them.

On the 10th of February, 1385, about ten o’clock in the evening, the miraculous bell was heard by a great number of persons, who testified that it rang without the slightest assistance. Three days after it rang again while the chaplain was celebrating Mass at Our Lady’s altar, as was solemnly sworn to by several priests and laymen before an apostolic notary. One instance the père found written on the margin of an old missal, to the effect that March 5, 1454, the bell rang in an astonishing manner to announce the rescue of some one who had invoked Mary on the stormy sea. Not long after those who had been thus saved from imminent danger came here from a Spanish port to attest their miraculous deliverance.

In 1551 the bell was heard ringing, but the positive cause long remained uncertain. It was not till a year after a person came from Nantes to fulfil the vow of a friend rescued from danger by Our Lady of Roc Amadour at the very time the bell rang.

The sailors of Bayonne and Brittany, especially, had great confidence in the protection of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, and many instances are recorded of their coming with their votive offerings, sometimes of salt fish, after escaping from the perilous waves. The sailors of Brittany erected a chapel on their coast, to which they gave her name. It is of the same style as that of Quercy, and the Madonna an exact copy of St. Mary of Roc Amadour.

In those days, when the miraculous bell was heard the inhabitants of the town used to come in procession to the chapel, and a solemn Mass of thanksgiving was sung by the canons amid the joyful ringing of the bells.

“The tuneful bells kept ever ringing
While they within were sweetly singing
Of Her whose garments drop alway
Myrrh, aloes, and sweet cassia.”

St. Amadour’s bell has not ceased to proclaim the power of Christ’s holy Mother. It is still heard now and then softly announcing the benefit of having recourse to her efficacious protection.

To many this may sound weird-like, and recall

“The wondrous Michael Scott,
A wizard of such dreaded fame
That when, in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame.”

We leave such to fathom the mystery. Our part is only that of the historian. Blessed is he who finds therein something more than sounding brass or tinkling cymbal!

The holy chapel is no longer adorned with the rich offerings of other times, but there are still many objects that attest the piety of the people and the clemency of Mary. On the rough cliff that forms one end hang a great number of crutches and canes, and models of limbs, in token of miraculous cures. A glass case suspended on the side wall contains watches, rings, bracelets, gold chains, lockets, etc., the memorials of grateful piety. At the side of the altar stand immense Limoges vases, an offering from that city. And around the chapel are hung several votive paintings, of no value as works of art, but full of touching beauty to the eye of faith.

The most interesting of these is one offered by M. and Mme. de Salignac de Lamothe Fénelon in gratitude for the restoration of their child to health. The little Fénelon lies with a head of preternatural size in a long box-like cradle with no rockers. Beside him kneel his father and mother, the former with a long curled wig, a flowing scarlet robe, over which is turned a Shaksperian collar, lace at the wrists, his hands crossed on his breast, and his face bent as if in awe before the Virgin. Mme. Fénelon wears an amber-colored tunic over a scarlet petticoat, with deep lace around the low-necked waist. Her hands are prayerfully folded and her face raised to the Virgin, who appears in the clouds holding in her arms the infant Jesus, who bends forward with one hand extended in blessing over the cradle—almost ready to escape from his Mother’s arms.

Madame Fénelon always manifested a particular devotion to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, and by her will of July 4, 1691, ordered her body to be buried in the holy chapel, to which she bequeathed the sum of three thousand livres, the rent of which continued to be paid till the Revolution. She is buried near the door that leads to the church of Saint-Sauveur.

The Château de Salignac, where Fénelon was born, and which had been in his family from time immemorial, is not far from Roc Amadour. Old documents go so far as to assert that St. Martial, when he came to Aquitaine to preach the Gospel in the first century, was hospitably received at this castle, and that St. Amadour, hearing of his arrival, went there to see him.

Beyond the miraculous chapel of Our Lady is the church of Saint-Sauveur, built in the eleventh century for the use of the canons. It is a large edifice of a certain grandeur and severity of style in harmony with the cliff which forms one end. Two immense pillars stand in the middle of the nave, each surrounded by six columns, and between them is a large antique crucifix quite worn by the kisses of the faithful who come here to end their pilgrimage at the feet of Christ Crucified.

This church presents a striking aspect on great solemnities, with its crowded confessionals, the Holy Sacrifice constantly going on at the different altars amid solemn chants or touching hymns, and the long lines of communicants moving devoutly to and from the table of the Lord. Over all is the divine Form of Christ depicted on the arches in the various mysteries of his earthly life, filling the church, as it were, with his Presence. On the walls are the majestic figures of some of the greatest pilgrims of the ages of faith. To mention a few of them: St. Louis, King of France, came here in 1245 in fulfilment of a vow, after recovering from a severe illness, accompanied by Queen Blanche, his three brothers, and Alphonse, Count of Boulogne-sur-Mer, afterwards King of Portugal. In 1324 came Charles-le-Bel and his queen, with King John of Bohemia. In September, 1344, came John, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of Philippe de Valois. In 1463 Louis XI., on his return from Béarn, paid his devotions to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour on the 21st of July. St. Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne, of illustrious birth, had such a tender love for the Blessed Virgin that for many years he fasted every Wednesday in her honor, and twice during his episcopate he visited her chapel at Roc Amadour. Simon, Count de Montfort, came here in 1211 with his German troops, who wished to pay their homage to the Mother of God before returning to their own country.

To come down to recent times: It was at the feet of the Virgin of Roc Amadour that M. Borie made his final choice of a missionary life that won for him the glorious crown of martyrdom in Farther India at the age of thirty.

The mill where M. Borie was born stands solitary on the border of a stream, surrounded by chestnut-trees, in a deep, narrow, gloomy valley of La Corrèze, near Roc Amadour—a humble abode, but the sanctuary of peace, industry, and piety. When the news of his martyrdom came to this sequestered spot, his heroic mother was filled with joy, in spite of her anguish, and his youngest brother cried: “I am going! God calls me to the land where my brother died. Mother, give me your blessing. I am going to open heaven to my brother’s murderers!” He went; and we remember hearing a holy Jesuit Father relate how, like the knights of the olden time, he made his vigil before the altar of Our Lady of Roc Amadour the night before he joined the sacred militia of the great Loyola.

Beneath the church of Saint-Sauveur is the subterranean church of St. Amadour, with low, ponderous arches and massive columns to sustain the large edifice above. You go down into it as into a cellar. At each side as you enter are elaborate carvings in the wood, one representing Zaccheus in the sycamore-tree, eager to behold our Saviour as he passed; the other shows him standing in the door of his house to welcome the divine Guest. On the arches is painted the whole legend of St. Amadour. Then there is Roland before the altar of the Virgin redeeming his sword with its weight in silver, and beyond is a band of knights bringing it back from the fatal battle-field. In another place you see St. Martial of Limoges and St. Saturnin of Toulouse, coming together to visit St. Amadour in his cave. And yonder is St. Dominic, who, with Bertrand de Garrigue, one of his earliest disciples, passed the night in prayer before the altar of Our Lady in the year 1219.

All that remains of the body of St. Amadour is enshrined in this church behind the high altar.

A service for the dead was going on when we entered this crypt, with only the priest and the beadle to sing it. Black candlesticks stood on the altar, and yellow wax-lights around the bier. The church was full of peasants with grave, devout faces and lighted candles in their hands. The funeral chant, the black pall, the motionless peasants with their lights, and this chill, tomb-like church of the eleventh century, all seemed in harmony.

The pilgrim, of course, visits the chapel of St. Ann overhanging the town, and that of St. Blaise, with its Roman arches of the thirteenth century, built to receive the relics, brought by the Crusaders from the East, of a holy solitary who lived many years in a cave of the wilderness, the wild beasts around as submissive to him as to Adam in Paradise.

The chapel of St. John the Baptist was founded in 1516 by a powerful lord named Jean de Valon, who became a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem. Out of piety towards Our Lady of Roc Amadour, he built this chapel, authorized by the pope, as the burial-place of himself and his family, and bequeathed the sum of five hundred livres to the prebends, as the foundation for a Mass of requiem every Monday, and the Mass of Our Lady every Saturday, for the remission of his sins and those of his friends and benefactors.

The family of Valon, which still exists, has always shown a remarkable devotion to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour. We read of a Dame de Valon whose pilgrimage to this chapel in the twelfth century was marked by a miracle. This family owned considerable property in the neighborhood, and had a right to part of the revenues from the sale of the _sportulas_, or _sportellas_, which were medals of lead bearing the image of Our Lady on one side and of St. Amadour on the other. Sir Walter Scott, in his _Quentin Durward_, deridingly depicts Louis XI. with a number of leaden medals of like character in his hat. The pilgrim who wore one needed no other safe-conduct in ancient times. His person was so sacred he could even pass in safety through the enemy’s camp. In 1399, during the war between the French and English, the sanctuary of Roc Amadour was frequented by both parties, and both camps regarded the pilgrim hither with so much respect that if taken prisoner he was set free as soon as his quality was discovered. Three of these old almond-shaped _sportellas_ are still to be seen in the Hôtel de Cluny at Paris.

The ancient standard of Our Lady of Roc Amadour was held in great veneration. It was not only carried in religious processions, but sometimes to the field of battle. Alberic, a monk of Trois Fonts, relates that the Virgin appeared three Saturdays in succession to the sacristan of Roc Amadour, and ordered her standard to be carried to Spain, then engaged in a critical contest with the Moors. The prior, in consequence, set forth with the sacred banner and arrived at the plain of Las Navas on the 16th of July, 1212. The Christians had refused to give battle the day previous, because it was the Lord’s day, but the fight began early Monday morning. The Templars and Knights of Calatrava had been put to flight and the army partly routed. At the last moment, when all hope seemed lost, the prior of Roc Amadour unfurled the banner of the Virgin. At the sight of the holy image of Mary with the divine Babe every knee bent in reverence, fresh courage was infused into every breast, the army rallied, and the fight was renewed to such purpose that they smote the infidel hip and thigh. Sixty thousand of the enemy were slain and a greater number taken captive. The archbishops of Toledo and Narbonne, the bishop of Valencia, with many other prelates and a great number of priests, sang the _Te Deum_ on the field of battle. The King of Castile, Alfonso IX., had always shown a special devotion towards Our Lady of Roc Amadour. In 1181 he consecrated to her service the lands of Fornellos and Orbanella, in order, as he says in the charter, to solace the souls of his parents and secure his own salvation. And, by way of intimidating the lawless freebooter of those rough times, he severely adds: “And should any one trespass in the least on this gift or violate my intentions, let him incur the full wrath of God, and, like the traitor Judas, be delivered over to the torments of hell as the slave of the devil. Meanwhile, let him pay into the royal treasury the sum of one thousand livres of pure gold, and restore twofold to the abbot of Roc Amadour.”

This gift was afterwards confirmed by Ferdinand III., Ferdinand IV., and Alfonso XI.

King Alfonso was not the only royal benefactor of the miraculous chapel. Sancho VII., King of Navarre, for the weal of his soul and the souls of his parents, gave in 1202 certain rents amounting to forty-eight pieces of gold, to be employed in illuminating the church of St. Mary of Roc Amadour. A candle was to burn night and day before the blessed image on Christmas, Epiphany, Candlemas, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, the Assumption, and All Saints’ day. And twenty-four candles, each weighing half a pound, were to be placed on the altar on those days. The remainder of the money was to be used for the incense.

Sancia, wife of Gaston V. of Béarn, and daughter of the King of Navarre, sent the chapel of Roc Amadour a rich piece of tapestry wrought by her own royal hands.

Count Odo de la Marche in 1119, during the reign of Louis-le-Gros, offered the forest of Mount Salvy to God, the Blessed Mary of Roc Amadour, and St. Martin of Tulle, free from all tax or impost, adding: “And should any one presume to alienate this gift, let him incur the anger of God and the saints, and remain for ever accursed with Dathan and Abiram.”

In 1217 Erard de Brienne, lord of Rameru, allied by blood to the royal families of Europe, and Philippine, his wife, daughter of Henry, Count of Troyes and King of Jerusalem, made an offering of two candles to burn night and day before the image of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour for the redemption of their souls and the souls of their parents.

Alfonso, Count of Toulouse, brother of St. Louis, presented a silver lamp to burn before the statue of Our Lady, and another was given by the Countess de Montpensier, a French princess.

Letters are still extant by which Philip III., King of France, in 1276, ratified the foundation of his uncle Alfonso, Count of Toulouse, amounting to twenty livres of Touraine money, to be paid, one-half at the Ascension and the other at All Saints, to keep a candle constantly burning before the Virgin of Roc Amadour.

Pope Clement V. bequeathed a legacy to this church in 1314 that a wax candle might burn continually in Our Lady’s chapel, in her honor and to obtain the redemption of his soul. It was to be honorably placed in a silver basin or sconce.

Savaric, Prince de Mauléon and lord of Tulle, celebrated for his familiarity with military science and the elegance of his poesy, among other gifts in 1218 gave the lands of L’Isleau, exempt from all tax, to the church of St. Mary of Roc Amadour.

Louis of Anjou, afterwards King of Sicily, in 1365 ordered twenty livres to be given annually to this church from his domain of Rouergue, out of the love he bore the holy Virgin.

The Vicomte de Turenne, in 1396, assigned a silver mark annually from one of his _seigneuries_ as a contribution to the support of the miraculous chapel.

On the 22d of June, 1444, the noble and puissant lord, Pierre, Count of Beaufort, moved by his devotion towards Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, and to Mary, his glorious Mother, and desirous of procuring his own salvation and the solace of the suffering souls in purgatory, assigned to the monastery of Roc Amadour the sum of ten livres annually from the ferry over the Dordogne at Mount Valent, that a solemn Mass might be sung every Thursday, at least in plain chant, with three collects, one in honor of the Holy Ghost, another of the Blessed Virgin, and the third for the repose of the faithful departed. After Mass the priest, laying aside his chasuble, was to go daily, with all the clergy of the chapel, to sing before the statue of Our Lady either the _Salve Regina_ or the _Regina Cœli_, according to the season, with the _Libera_ or the _De Profundis_, for the repose of his and his wife’s souls and the souls of his parents.

We could multiply these beautiful examples of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, but forbear, though it is not useless to recount the deeds of our forefathers in the faith. They have their lesson for those who know how to read aright.

Among the glorious prerogatives with which the chapel of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour is favored is the Grand Pardon, accorded by several popes of the middle ages, on the feast of _Corpus Christi_ whenever it coincides with the nativity of St. John the Baptist. This frequently happened before the correction of the Calendar by Gregory XIII., but it now only occurs when Easter falls on St. Mark’s day—that is, the 25th of April. The Grand Pardon comprises all the privileges of a solemn jubilee, and is gained by all who visit the miraculous chapel on the appointed day, receive the sacraments with the proper dispositions, pray for concord among Christian princes, the extirpation of heresy, and the exaltation of our holy mother the church. So great was formerly the affluence of the pilgrims on such occasions, as in the jubilee of 1546, the town could not contain them, and tents were set up in the country round. Pilgrimages to this ancient chapel are still common.

A remnant of the old palace of the abbot of Roc Amadour is still standing, but is used for the sale of objects of devotion. Here Arnaud Amalric, the papal legate, spent the whole winter of 1211, and many other eminent prelates received hospitality, as the holy martyr St. Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne. Behind this building a narrow, dangerous path leads along the side of the cliff to an ancient hermitage that now bears the title of _Maison à Marie_, where people desirous of spending a few days in retreat can find an asylum. It hangs like a bird’s nest on the edge of a fearful precipice, and must be a trying residence to people of weak nerves. The Sisters of Calvary, who have charge of it, look like doves in the clefts of the rocks. Still further along the cliff is their convent.

A winding stair of two hundred and thirty-six steps, hewn out of the live rock, and lighted only by the fissures, leads from the sacristy of the church up to the ancient castle, and a scarcely less remarkable ascent has been constructed zigzag over the cliff. This castle, half ruined, was bought by the Père Caillau about forty years ago, and repaired as a residence for the clergy who served the sanctuaries of Roc Amadour under his direction. The old ramparts remain, affording a fine view of the whole country around. Bending over them, you look straight down on the group of churches below, and the village still further down, while in the very depths of the horrid abyss is a faint line marking the course of the Alzou along the bottom of the _Vallée Ténébreuse_.

A few years ago the ruined castle and crumbling churches below looked as if they belonged to the time of King Dagobert, but they have lost in a measure their air of charming antiquity in the necessary restorations, by no means complete. Nothing, however, can destroy the singular grandeur and wild beauty of the site, or the thousand delightful associations—historic, religious, poetic, and legendary—connected with the place.

We close this imperfect sketch by echoing the sentiments that animated the saintly Père Caillau when he entered upon his duties as superior of Roc Amadour: “With what joy I ascended the mysterious stairs that lead, O Mary, to thy august sanctuary! With what fervor I celebrated the holy mysteries at thy altar! With what love and respect I kissed the sacred feet of thy statue! With what impatience I awaited the hour for returning! Happy the moments passed at thy feet! The world seemed as nothing in my eyes. What devotion, what profound silence there was in my soul! What sweet transports of joy! My heart seemed consumed by a sacred fire. Why, why were such moments so short? May their remembrance, at least, abide for ever! And may I never cease to chant thy praise and exalt thy wondrous mercy!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A SILENT COURTSHIP.

Italian hotels of the old kind are a very pleasant remembrance to travellers from the north; they have the romance and the forlorn beauty which one expects to see, and few of the obtrusively modern arrangements called comforts. The new hotels that have arisen since the age of progress are very different, and not nearly so pleasant, even to the traveller with the most moderate expectations of the picturesque. The less-frequented towns inland have kept the old style of hostelry, as travel does not increase enough in their neighborhood to warrant the building of new-fashioned hotels; and though the palace floors and walls may be cold and look cheerless on a damp winter day, there are a hundred chances to one that no foreigner will be there to note down such an experience.

But Macchio, in the Umbrian Marches, once had a hotel more singular than almost any other. It had no name, such as even the most unmistakable palazzo generally puts on to show its present destination; it was called after the name of the old family whose stronghold it had once been; and as of this stronghold only one part was whole, the hotel was called “Torre Carpeggio.” It consisted, indeed, of a tower—that is, only the tower was whole, furnished, and usable; among some ruins of the rest of the building were a rude kitchen and stables, patched up with modern masonry not half so solid as the original, and some servants slept in the lofts above these apologies for “offices,” but the remarkable tower only was in good repair. The owner, a native of the place, and whose family had been for generations in the service of the Carpeggios, was an unsophisticated countryman of the old school, not at all like the exasperating landlord of city hotels, who has just begun to wake up to the dignity of his position and to experiment in his behavior towards his foreign guests. He was the real owner, having paid good money down for the castle; but he still called the last Carpeggio his young master, and loved him like his own son. This youth, like some of his remoter forefathers, was fond of learning, and, seeing no other means of securing an education and a start in life that should make something better out of him than a starveling noble of the Marches, had sold his inheritance to his old retainer, keeping back only one-third of the vintage produce as a small yearly income to fall back upon, and had gone to a German university, where even the most exacting of the professors considered him a modern Pico della Mirandola. The selling of his old ruined castle had brought down upon him the anger and contempt of neighbors of his own class, but he was indifferent to local opinion and despised the disguised meanness of too many of his neighbors. He had in reality passed through a severe struggle with his own prejudices before yielding to his better sense and parting with the shadow to pursue the substance.

If learning should ever bring him money, he meant to reclaim the old place, which in the meanwhile could not be in safer hands; but on this he did not reckon, and while he looked down on the sordid poverty that only prompted his neighbors to sell butter and milk, and take toll from visitors coming to see the faded frescos or old armor in their ruinous dwellings, he saw with very different eyes the probable future of another kind of poverty before him: the pittance and privations of a student’s lot, the obscure life of a professor or the uncertain one of a discoverer; but withal the glorious counterweight of intellectual life, the wealth of vigor and progress, and stimulated, restless thought, doubling and trebling his interests, and making akin to himself all the mental processes or achievements all over the world, which would come of a few years’ study and the sacrifice of his home. Far more patriotic and far more proud was this youth who sold his inheritance than the indignant vegetators around him, who all felt the honor of their order insulted by his unheard-of deed, and their country deprived of another son unworthy of her because he could see in Germany something more than a barbarous, hereditary tyrant and enemy!

So it came about that the good Salviani kept a hotel in Carpeggio tower, the walls of which had always been kept in good repair, and which was easily furnished, at no great expense, from the contents of various lumber-rooms and a little intelligent help from the local carpenter, who, like most Italians, had an intuitive understanding of the artistic. Tourists who had stopped here for a night or two; artists who had established their sketching headquarters here; Italians of some fortune who passed here on their way to their inland _villeggiature_; anglers and peddlers, friars, and even commercial travellers of various nations who had begun to experiment on the rural population hereabouts; pilgrims to the two neighboring shrines hardly known beyond twenty miles around, and yet the boast of the neighborhood for nearly four hundred years; wine merchants from the next cities—these and many more could witness to the satisfactory way in which Salviani kept the only hotel in Macchio. And of course his prices were moderate—indeed, to a foreigner they seemed absolutely ridiculous; and he always made it a point to give an Englishman or an American plenty of water, having found that by experience a salve to the fault-finding spirit, and his young master having also accustomed his old attendant to it by requiring it himself ever since his boyhood. Foreigners with a “turn” for antique furniture spent more time roaming the old chambers than they did eating at the landlord’s excellent, if strictly national, table (for Salviani, knowing that he was ignorant of foreign dishes, never attempted to drive away his guests by bad imitations). The tower was very high and uncommonly large in proportion; in fact, it reminded you rather of two Cecilia Metella tombs raised one above the other than of an ordinary tower; and it was oddly distributed within. A staircase wound in the centre of the building, communicating with the rooms on each tier by a circular corridor on which the doors opened; but from the third floor this staircase ceased, and from that to the fourth there was no access except from a winding stair within the thickness of the outer wall. The great stairs were of stone and uncarpeted, and in the corridor on which the doors of the rooms opened were placed at intervals pieces of furniture, such as chairs, tables, stands, bronzes, vases, marble cornices, things picturesque, but not always available for use, and many sadly injured and mutilated, yet forming such a collection as sent a thrill of envy to the heart of a few stray connoisseurs who had come across it and never been able to bring away even a specimen. Old Salviani had his superstitions, but, unlike his countrymen in general, he felt that these forbade him to sell anything belonging to the old family seat, especially to a foreigner.

One day two travellers stopped at the hotel, a mother and daughter—“English, of course,” said the landlord with a smile, as he saw their costume and independent air. The daughter was, equally of course, in evident and irrepressible raptures about everything she saw in the place, from the ruinous outhouses to the museum-like interior. Their own rooms on the first floor, large, marble-paved, and scantily but artistically furnished with the best preserved of the antique things, satisfied them only for a short time; they wanted to be shown over the whole house. The bedrooms were not quite in such good taste, they thought; and indeed, as Salviani was not perfect, here the “cloven foot” _did_ appear, for a peddler had once beguiled him into buying some Nottingham lace curtains with which he disfigured one of the third-story rooms, and some cheap chintzes which he had made into curtains for some of the patched-up bedsteads. But as the two strangers went up through each corridor, looking down at the tier below and at the various beautiful things beside them, they forgot these blemishes in their delight at a sight so unusual as this large, inhabited, well-preserved tower. They had seen nothing like it and could never have imagined it. It had an air of dignity, of grandeur, of repose, and yet of connection with the present to which one is more accustomed in old English country-houses than in Italian palaces.

One of the rooms on the fourth tier was almost unfurnished, having only two dilapidated bedsteads, one very large and promiscuously heaped with bed-quilts of equal dilapidation, while the other, in the form of a cot, or child’s bed, was also much larger than such beds are made now. On this was thrown an old-fashioned but almost new black mantle trimmed with silk ribbon. This was the room afflicted with the Nottingham lace curtains, which were cleaner than seemed natural in such a room. The view hence was beautiful, and the young Englishwoman was moved to suggest that they should change their plans a little and stay here a few weeks, when she would endeavor to learn the language and would make a study of this tower-nest with the fine view. It would be so out of the way, and a few antique chairs and a table would be enough furniture to replace the beds, which could be put into the next room. The mother smiled; she was used to these sudden schemes growing up full-fledged out of any pleasant and suggestive-looking circumstances, but the landlord, seriously entering into the proposal, said he feared the other room was too small to hold the beds—certainly the big one, which could not be got through the door, and, in fact, did not take to pieces. This set the young girl to examining the bed, and suddenly she called her companions to notice a panel in the tall head-board, which reached nearly to the ceiling. It seemed movable, she said, and might she not try to find the spring? Did the signor know anything about it? Salviani turned rather pale and hastily crossed himself, muttering something in Italian; then, in bad French, attempted to explain to his guest that there was a story of a former Carpeggio who was said to have lived alone on this top story and to have been a wizard, but how long ago he could not tell, nor if the bed had been there then. The young girl insisted on getting to the bottom of the secret of the panel, which at last yielded, and revealed a space between itself and another room of which only a corner was visible, and a very small grated window high up in the wall. She scrambled through the panel opening, out into a lot of rubbish which filled the intervening space and covered the sloping floor several inches deep. The door into the other room was gone, or else there had never been one, and there were large hooks on either side of the gap, as if curtains might once have hung there. The floor was sunk much lower than this level—quite three feet—giving one the impression of a shallow well, so that there must have once been some movable way of descent. An old press or chest, with two drawers at the bottom, filled one corner, and on it was a faded piece of green silk, looking unmistakably part of a woman’s dress, and a beautiful, delicate ivory desk lying open, with many thin plates folding together like the leaves of a portfolio. The curious girl handled it with a sort of dread, yet eagerly and closely inspected it, leaving it afterwards in just the position in which she had found it. As she turned from it she gave a cry of surprise; a chair stood in the corner, half hidden by the press, and across the back of it hung a long lock of hair, brown and silky, now fluttering in the unaccustomed draught from the open panel. Suddenly the intruder was aware that the walls were covered with books but they were hidden behind a close, thin green wire netting, which had at first looked like the pattern of the wall. She eagerly called for a chair to stand on to examine them; the landlord handed her one through the door, and then for the first time, fascinated yet afraid, gazed into the room. Many were the voluble and simple exclamations he uttered; but he was evidently more concerned as to the risk of touching such uncanny things than pleased at the discovery of the energetic stranger. Meanwhile, she looked at the books, which filled up two sides of the room from floor to ceiling—they were a treasure, as she knew: old Italian and German books on theological and philosophical subjects; translations into Italian of some Elizabethan authors—these, perhaps, unique of their kind, and rarer than originals in either English or Italian; Italian translations of more modern English books; poetry, science, illuminated manuscripts, first editions of sixteenth-century printed books—the Italian ones, even those in black-letter, perfectly clear and legible to a tyro, while a few English books of a century later were not half so decipherable; a good many Greek and Latin books, but not so many as of the Italian and German; and a few Oriental manuscripts, chiefly Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. In two places on the wall, which showed traces of a rough kind of painting as a background, were hung unframed Chinese landscapes on wood, and in other parts of the room old engravings, some plainly framed, some not, but pasted on to boards, and one or two unfinished etchings. The most interesting purported to be a head of St. Peter—not a conventional one, but a copy from some old painting, itself copied from a Byzantine fresco, and claiming to be—so said the quotation at the foot of the etching—a portrait of the apostle as he really was. The pedigree of the portrait, however, was the really interesting point, and this was minutely traced in the foot-note, added by one signing himself Andrea C., to the unfinished etching of the artist, who, it seems, had died while engaged on this work.

And here ends the part the strangers took in the affair; for they continued their journey to Ancona, and often in after-years, in their quiet English home between lake and rocky fell, wondered what became of the books of Torre Carpeggio. But the faithful Salviani had written to his young master at once, and Carpeggio returned a joyous answer, full of excitement and curiosity, promising a visit as soon as his means and his studies combined would allow of it. It was a year before he was able to come—a year during which he had changed and ripened, but which had left the old tower, and, indeed, the sleepy, beautiful old city, as unchanged as anything can be where human beings are being born, married, and buried in due season. Even this inevitable change, however, was neutralized by the firmly-grooved life which, as each generation grew up, it placidly inherited from the last and religiously carried out, undreaming of any other possibilities and ignorant even of its own dormant energies. This was before the commotions of the last twenty years, and there was not even a political ferment, much less an intellectual one, to disturb the even flow of things. One or two of the cathedral clergy had the reputation of being great scholars, and, indeed, had the right to be so looked upon, if by scholarship we understand the kind of knowledge which made the men of the Medici days fully the equals of the Oxford dons of only one generation ago; but that sort of scholarship harmonized well with the air of serene drowsiness that covered the picturesque and half-deserted old city. The old canons kept much to themselves, and studied in a dainty, desultory, solitary way, not extending the daintiness to dress or furniture, but keeping up an unconscious kind of picturesqueness which they chiefly owed to such details as velvet skull-caps and bits of stray carving, or an old and precious ivory crucifix or Cellini relic-case—things prized by them for their meaning rather than for their art-value.

To this quaint, quiet city Emilio Carpeggio came back, after a two years’ absence, a youth still—for he was only twenty—but a phenomenon, if any one had known what was passing in his brain. He found the state of things more deplorable than ever, now that he had had experience of a different lot; he had thought it hopeless enough before. Practical and far-seeing, he did not find a panacea in reckless political disturbances, and in impossible strivings to make citizens and statesmen out of his easy-going neighbors, so he was saved the loss of time that clogged the efforts of so many well-meaning men of his acquaintance abroad; individual mental activity was what he looked forward to as the thin edge of the wedge that should break up this spell of what he could not help looking upon as lamentable stagnation, however beautiful the disguise it wore.

His three months’ holiday came to an end, and he disappeared again, carrying off his treasures with him to Germany, where they became the wonder and envy of the professors. But such luck, after all, was only due, said the kindly old men, to one who had done so much to win knowledge.

There was one of these men, not nearly so old as the rest, the special teacher to whom Carpeggio had attached himself, who was the young man’s best friend. To him only the dreams and hopes and resolves of this concentrated young mind were made freely known; for, though young as regards most of the professors, Schlichter was like a father to the Italian student. He was only forty-two, and already had a European reputation in his own line—mining engineering. A year after Carpeggio came back from his visit to Italy his master received an invitation from a scientific society in England to give a course of lectures in London during the summer. He proposed to the young man to accompany him, telling him that there was no knowing what practical advantages might result from his visit to a country where you needed only energy to grasp success.

“But you forget the Mammon-worship of the English,” said Emilio, “of which you yourself have so scornfully told me, and that obscure young foreigners without interest are not likely to have a chance of showing off their energy. I think I had better stay and study here another year or two, instead of deliberately exposing myself to the vertigo of London.”

“Nonsense!” said Schlichter impatiently. “Society is not likely to dazzle us, or, indeed, take much notice of us; they know how to keep the streams separate, even if the fine ladies do play at a little pretty enthusiasm for science now and then. A lecture nowadays is only another excuse for a pretty toilette, a change from the breakfast and morning concert or the afternoon kettle-drum; but that does not imply a real, personal notice of the lecturer, or, indeed, of any other working-bee. But, seriously, I know some men in London who might help you, if they had a mind to do it. You know how many surveys and plans there are—always some new expedition to far-away places—and young men of brains are always useful, especially single men, who can leave home without regret or difficulty. You speak English and other useful modern languages, and you have every chance, I tell you, if you will only keep your eyes open. As for study, a man need never say he can find no time for it, however busy he is. If my evil genius had made me a merchant, I should have found time for study, and so will you, just as well as if you stayed at home. It is settled, is it not?”

So they went, and the lectures were given, and the little world of learned men which is the leaven of England met the two strangers heartily; but, as Schlichter had foretold, nothing very remarkable or very dazzling occurred to them, though, to be sure, the elder man kept a jealous eye on his young friend, as if he had fears or expectations of something happening. But Emilio calmly came and went, studied and saw sights, went to quiet family gatherings or to large parties which the uninitiated could not have distinguished from those of the charmed uppermost circle, and yet no one of the many girls he saw seemed to dwell in his thoughts more than courtesy required while he was in their presence. One day Schlichter told him that a friend of his had recommended him to a mine-owner as general overseer and agent of his underground property, and that he probably would have nothing to do but to step into the place. “You would rather have been tacked on at the tail of some South American expedition or Central African survey, I dare say,” he said; “but you had better take this and be thankful, Carpeggio. The country is wild and picturesque, I believe—Monmouthshire, just on the Welsh border—and you will be pretty much your own master. It only depends on you to go up higher; but still I would not have you forget the practical altogether. One must live, even if one does not run after money for its own sake, which you, at all events, are not likely to do.”

So Emilio was left alone in England, in a responsible if not very brilliant position, and faithfully did his work so as to gain his employer’s whole confidence and respect. The local society decidedly flattered the grave young overseer, whose title had over women the vague charm it always awakens in romantic or speculating Englishwomen, and was even not obnoxious to the men, whose practical minds forgave the “foreign bosh” for the sake of the man’s good English and modest, hard-working life. He was popular among the miners, and altogether, in his little sphere, supreme. But parties and picnics sadly wearied him, and he feared he was growing misanthropic (so he wrote to Schlichter), when his employer took a new turn and began to court the notice of guests for one of his newest mines, of which he made a pet and a show. Whenever he had people to see him he arranged a party for going to see the mine and its new improvements; it was to be a model, the machinery was carefully chosen on improved principles—in fact, the place became a local show. Strangers came, and the country people began to take pride in it, so that Carpeggio often had to escort fat dowagers, experienced flirts, fast young men, and statesmen on a short holiday, down the mine. The contrast between this and his old home among the vineyards of Umbria often made itself felt with strange vividness as he sat by these people in the large cage or basket, swinging up or down between the dark, damp, unfragrant walls of the shaft, he shouting one steady word to the men who held the ropes, and then quieting the half-sham tremors of a young lady, or smiling at the equally assumed carelessness of another whose part in the play was the reverse of the old-fashioned ingénue.[7]

It was the contrast between his old life in Germany, so true and still, and this English one, so full of froth and shifting scenes, that kept him from feeling the fascination of his new surroundings. Graver and graver he grew, as the wonder in his mind grew also, concerning the effect that all this whirl of unreality must have, in its different degrees, upon its victims. Were they all willing or passive ones? Did no one ever rebel against the mould? Did no woman’s heart and woman’s hopes strive against those worldly calculations which seemed to hedge in every family, from that of the half-starving village solicitor, and even that of the hard-working vicar, to that of his employer, and no doubt also of the squires and the marquis, whose two daughters had just been presented at court? Report said that one of these was very beautiful; it also added, wilful. But that probably meant only a spoilt child, not a woman with an individuality of her own.

One day Emilio was in the mine, making a sketch by the light of a lantern for an improvement that had just occurred to him, when he heard a noise not far off, and knew it to be the basket coming down the shaft. He was putting his papers together to go and see who had come, when he was met by one of the men smiling covertly, who told him that two young ladies had insisted on coming down with him as he returned from an ascent with a load of ore. They were alone, he said, and wore gray waterproof cloaks and rubber boots, which they said they had put on on purpose, meaning to go down the mine. He had begged them to wait till he brought the overseer to do them the honors. “As pretty as pictures,” said the man as Carpeggio moved off, “but evidently strangers to the place.” A solution at once darted to the young man’s mind, but he said nothing, and, when he got to the opening, he saw before him the great, dirty basket, and two laughing, fresh faces still inside, as the girls clung with ungloved hands to the ropes and peered out into the darkness beyond them.

“Allow me,” he said, as he offered one of them his hand. “I am afraid you will be disappointed in the very little there is to see, but I shall be happy to show you over the place.” The two girls seemed suddenly confused and answered only by letting him help them down. He led them on, and here and there explained something which was Greek to them. Presently one whispered to the other: “Why, Kate! he is a gentleman.” “Hush,” said the other in sudden alarm: “he will hear you.” And she immediately asked a question of their guide. When she found out that there was a lower level than the one they were on, she asked to go down at once, but Carpeggio gravely declined, on the plea of their being alone and his not wishing to take the responsibility if they should get wet through.

“No one need know,” said one of them. “We ran away on purpose, and there is just time to go down and get home for tea. Luncheon does not matter.”

“Forgive me, madam,” said the young man with a smile, “but I would rather not, and you can easily come again, with any one authorized to let you have your own way. I cannot in conscience allow it while you are alone.”

“It is no fun coming with a lot of old fogies, and in a carriage, and one’s best behavior, and so on,” said the spokeswoman; “is it, Kate?” The other blushed and hesitated, and at last said she thought it was best to give up the lower level and go home; yet she seemed just as full of life and fun as her companion, and had evidently enjoyed the escapade just as much. Carpeggio looked at her for a moment and led the way towards the basket. He went up with them and courteously bade them good-by at the mouth of the shaft. The younger one held out her hand and said: “You will tell us whom we have to thank, I hope?”

“Oh!” he said confusedly, glancing at the other and only seeing the outstretched hand just in time not to seem rude, “I am only the overseer.”

The other girl suddenly looked up and held out her hand to him, saying: “Thank you; I am sure you were right about going further down. And now we must say good-by.”

Carpeggio went down again to his interrupted drawing, but the face and name of “Kate” came between him and his work. He saw neither of the girls again for weeks, and carefully forbore to make any inquiries; the gossip of the men did not reach the society which might have twitted him with the visit of those unexpected explorers, and he kept his surmises to himself.

Yet the door had been opened, and he was no longer the same, though to outsiders no change was visible. Two months later there was a public ball in the county town—an occasion on which many persons meet officially on terms that are hardly kept up all the year round, but which yet offer opportunities of social glorification “warranted to keep” till the same time next year. This ball was to be followed the next night by another, given by the regiment; and though this was “by invitation,” it was practically nearly as public as the other. These gayeties greatly excited the small world of the mining district, and for the first time became of interest to Emilio, though he was angry and ashamed to acknowledge it to himself. His work was the only thing that did not suffer; as to his studies, they were interrupted, and even his calm gravity became absent-mindedness. He was one of the earliest guests present at the county ball, and watched the door eagerly for an hour at least before he was rewarded. Then came a large party, to whom the appointed ushers paid unusual attention, though the head of it seemed but a kindly middle-aged man, remarkable only for his geniality. Every one, however, knew the marquis by sight; Carpeggio, who did not, felt it was he before even the deference paid to him told him so. By his side were the two girls he had first seen in the mine-basket, now dressed in white ball-dresses, airy and commonplace, just the same society uniform as the three co-heiresses, the daughters of his own employer, but to him how different, how tender, how sacred! That is to say, Lady Katharine’s; for her pretty sister seemed an ordinary woman beside her.