Chapter II: Mrs. Monteagle (1)

“Heaven knows I wish Darrell a long life and a happy one,” said Colonel Redacre, heaving a sigh from the bottom of his heart; “but when one sees how he suffers from this terrible rheumatism, one can’t help feeling that death would be a blessed release to him, poor fellow!”

“It is dreadful! I wonder if he has ever tried homœopathy?” said Mrs. Redacre.

“Not he! He is too out-and-out a conservative to go in for any of those new-fangled systems,” replied the colonel.

“That is so foolish! I really think I will write and urge him to call in a homœopathist.”

“It would not be of the slightest use,” said her husband.

“My dear Hugh! How can you say that when you know that my father’s life was prolonged ten years by homœopathy? You know Dr. New rescued him, one may say, out of his coffin that time.”

“I mean there would be no use in your writing to Darrell about it. He would laugh at you.”

“I don’t mind his laughing, if I could persuade him to try it. He has always been civil to me, and I have not written to him for an age. I will write to him this very day.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” snapped the colonel; “he is quite old enough to manage his own affairs and look after his own health.”

“My dear Hugh, a man never knows how to manage himself,” protested Mrs. Redacre gently. “You all want a woman to do that for you; and it seems to me the dean is a particularly helpless creature. He does absolutely nothing for his rheumatism, and if it goes on as he describes it it may go to his heart one of these days and carry him off in an instant.”

“Do as you like; you always get your own way,” said the colonel. “My opinion is you had better not meddle with Darrell’s concerns; if he gives in to you, and if the rheumatism goes to the heart, people will say it was homœopathy that killed him.”

“Let them say what they like. The rheumatism is much more likely to kill him if it is left to itself. If he goes on in this agony without something being done to relieve him, he can’t hold out many months, I feel certain.”

“Do as you like, do as you like,” said the colonel.

“Now, don’t say that, my dear Hugh. You know how I hate you to give in to me in that way. I won’t write, if it annoys you.”

“Why the deuce should it annoy me? You don’t suppose I wish him dead? Heaven knows I want the money. It is becoming impossible to make ends meet on our present income, and things grow worse and worse in this infernal country, where the rent is perpetually being raised, and where a tradesman can’t send in a bill without announcing that _tout est augmenté, monsieur_, as an excuse for swelling his items. I don’t know where it is to end—I don’t, indeed.”

“We have no debts, at any rate, thank Heaven!” said Mrs. Redacre.

“No,” assented her husband; “I would rather live on beefsteaks and beer than swindle a tradesman. All the same it is hard work, this screwing one’s wants within one’s income; and poor Darrell, if the Almighty called him away, could not leave his money to anybody harder up for it than myself.”

Mrs. Redacre made no comment, but went on sorting her wools, while her husband turned over the pages of the newspaper with an ill-humored jerk and an occasional grunt. She was puzzled and pained. Could it be possible that his reluctance to let her write to the dean sprang from any unworthy motive?—he who was so emphatic in declaring in season and out of season that he devoutly wished his cousin to outlive him, that it was only on account of his children he cared for the inheritance, his present income sufficing for his own wants; and as to ambitions, he had none.

Every now and then within the last few years Col. Redacre had thrown out hints of some remote but possible catastrophe overtaking them all; he never said anything definite, but in a vague, moody way would remark that there was no saying what straits they might not be one day reduced to, and that it was well to look the danger in the face, so as not to be taken altogether by surprise if a catastrophe occurred. When he first took to saying this sort of thing Mrs. Redacre was very miserable, and conjured up all kinds of dreadful spectres to explain the mysterious words. She first thought he gambled; but after watching him for a time as a cat watches a bird, she gave that up and took to suspecting him of betting on the turf; but this, too, proved itself a chimera. Then she began to suspect him of having made some bad investments and being in terror of a sudden collapse; but this was in its turn dispelled by a conversation with their man of business, who assured her that Col. Redacre’s money—or rather his wife’s, for he had, so to speak, none of his own—was safe beyond the reach of speculating schemers. When everything was tried and found non-proven Pearl set down the gloomy forebodings to Balaklava.

“You may be sure, mamma, it is all the east wind or some turn in the weather—nothing else. I have noticed that we never hear of the ‘catastrophe’ except when Balaklava is worrying papa.” And Mrs. Redacre was thankful to believe that this was really the word of the riddle.

Mrs. Monteagle lived on the floor above the Redacres. She received on no particular evening, but she was at home every evening in general, seldom going out anywhere except to her old friends’ on the entresol. Pearl and Polly were up and down all day long with her, and she declared they hardly ever came near her.

“Why should you, my dears? A tiresome old woman—what should you young things have to say to her? But I am very glad whenever you have time to pop in for five minutes. Not that I care much about seeing anybody. One gets selfish as one grows old; one cares for nobody. And really, living amongst these French people, it is no wonder. What a set they are, to be sure! And what a government! Good gracious! when I remember how it used to be when I came to Paris first. We had a court then, and real nobles attended it. They were not much to look at, I must say; you never saw such toilettes in your life as they used to wear coming to make their court to Mme. d’Angoulême, and the Duchesse de Berri, and all of them. But it was much pleasanter. People got themselves up like guys, but nobody minded that, and they had not to ruin themselves in fine clothes. I remember one evening the Duchesse de R—— presented herself in a dyed pea-green gown with dirty feathers and lace that was the color of strong tea. I felt ashamed for her, poor thing!—I did indeed; but, goodness me! nobody saw it, I believe, but myself; the Duchesse d’Angoulême received her as if she had been dressed like the Queen of Saba. They knew how to receive, those princesses—not like this little woman you have at the Tuileries now. But it won’t last, my dear. Things are going from bad to worse, I hear. People fancy that because I don’t go _dans le monde_, as they call it, I know nothing about what is going on. Ha! ha!” And the old lady shook her finger at some invisible contradictor. “I can tell you I know a great deal more than any of you. I hear many things that I keep to myself; but I can tell you things are looking very badly indeed. I suppose you are going to the ball at the Tuileries to-morrow night, all of you?”

“Polly and I have our dresses ready,” said Pearl; “but I am afraid papa won’t be well enough to come with us.”

“What’s amiss with him? Balaklava troublesome?”

“Yes, dreadfully. I wonder if Mme. Léopold is going? I dare say she would take us, if papa asked her.”

“He mustn’t, though; he mustn’t do that, my dear,” said Mrs. Monteagle very emphatically; and then, seeing Pearl’s brown eyes widening in wonder, she added. “It would never do to have you sallying in after Blanche, my dear; three young girls in a group are sure to interfere with each other. It wouldn’t do at all.”

“What a funny idea!” And Pearl laughed merrily.

“And besides, the Léopolds are such out-and-out Bonapartists your father would not care to have you appear under their flag,” continued the old lady; “not that he thinks as much of that as he ought to do, I’m sorry to say. We English get into very loose ways when we live abroad; going to the theatre on Sunday, and going to these pinchbeck people at the Tuileries, and doing all sorts of improper things. It is very naughty of us—it is indeed; for we ought to know better. As to those French people, one never expects anything from them; there is no truth in them; they all tell lies, every one of them—they do indeed, my dear.”

“If we can’t go with Mme. Léopold I don’t see whom we can go with,” said Pearl musingly. “Polly will be awfully disappointed. There was to be a cotillon; it is in honor of the little archduchess. She can’t wait for the _petit Lundi_, and the empress said she should have the cotillon to-night. Polly would have looked so lovely in her new dress!”

“Where do you expect to go in the next world, you vain minx!” said Mrs. Monteagle. “You are a great deal too conceited about Polly.”

Pearl laughed.

“Is there to be anybody at this ball to-morrow that she is particularly anxious not to disappoint?” inquired the old lady, looking hard at Pearl.

“No; she doesn’t care a straw for one of them. I wonder if she ever will? I can’t imagine Polly in love.” And Pearl laughed gently to herself.

“More’s the pity. I don’t like a girl who goes flirting on her way, making every man she meets fall in love with her, and not caring a straw for one of them. I suppose she means to marry for money, or rank, or something of that sort.”

“O dear Mrs. Monteagle! how could you say such a thing of Polly?” said Pearl. “She is incapable of marrying for anything but love!”

“Then, you silly puss, what did you mean by saying that she could not fall in love?”

“I meant—well, I don’t know exactly. Only there is nobody going to-morrow that she is the least in love with.”

“And you? Is there to be any one you are not cruel to? Come, tell me all about them like a good child.”

Pearl tossed back her sunny head and laughed.

“As if anybody would look at me when Polly is there!”

“Nonsense! that is a matter of taste. If I were a young man I know what would be my taste,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “and I shrewdly suspect there is a certain young gentleman who is of the same opinion.” She looked steadily at Pearl as she said this, and, raising a finger, shook it at the laughing, astonished face. Pearl looked as unconscious as a baby at first, but as the finger continued its slow, significant shake she grew a little confused, then she blushed, first slightly, but the pink tint rapidly deepened to scarlet and spread all over her face and neck.

“Ha! you naughty puss. I knew I should find you out,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a mischievous laugh. “I know all about it, and, since you care for him, it is all right. I think he is a good fellow, although I confess I should have preferred your marrying an Englishman; however, since you are in love with one another, one must make the best of it.”

“Dear Mrs. Monteagle, what _do_ you mean?” said Pearl, who had now recovered her self-possession, and was looking mystified and curious, but not the least guilty.

“I know all about it, my dear. I tell you I know more about most things than people imagine. I have been watching this little game quietly in my corner while you and M. Léon were singing and playing at your piano.”

“M. Léon? Capt. Léopold?”

“Capt. Léopold, of the Third Hussars, officier de la Légion d’Honneur, and heir to the title of baron. I don’t begrudge him any of his glories, my dear; I only wish there were ten times more. I suppose he will be very well off; not that you care about that.”

“No, indeed, I don’t!” cried Pearl. “Why should I?”

“Nonsense, child, nonsense! All the same I like to hear you say it. Nowadays you young girls are so worldly-minded you only think of what a husband can give you. It is dreadful—it is indeed; as to these French, it is positively frightful to think of the way they go about it—just as if they were buying a horse or hiring a house. But your Frenchman will, I am sure, prove an exception. Of course he is supposed not to have said a word to you himself; but you don’t expect me to believe that—”

“Indeed, dear Mrs. Monteagle, I give you my solemn word of honor—” broke in Pearl.

“Ah! yes, my dear. Words of honor in a case like this are made to be broken; but has his mother spoken to you—that is to say, to your father yet?”

“Dear Mrs. Monteagle, I don’t know what you are talking about—I don’t indeed! M. Léon has never opened his lips to me on such a subject, and I feel sure he hasn’t to papa either.”

“Well, perhaps not; you young people have a way of understanding each other without much talking. I know all about it; I was young once myself, though you may not believe it. I know that in my time a young man could tell a girl he adored her without putting it in so many words.”

“I dare say they can do so nowadays, too,” said Pearl; “but I know that M. Léon never told me, in words or in any other way, that he adored me.”

“Tut! tut! Then he made his sister say it for him; these French people have peculiar ways I know. I dare say the little French girl did it.”

“Blanche? She declares that Léon adores only two things, fighting and jam. ‘Set him before the enemy or before a _pot de confiture_ and he is the happiest of men!’ That is what Blanche says of him.”

“Good gracious! what a character for any girl to give her brother. She had a motive in it, my dear—depend upon it she had a motive. She wanted to stand in your way, to prevent the marriage. I always thought she was a sly minx; they all are, those French girls, though they look as if butter would not melt in their mouths.”

Pearl was going to enter an indignant protest against this attack on her friend, but she was prevented by the arrival of visitors. Mme. de Kerbec and Mme. Léopold entered together.

Pearl started up from her seat of honor on the sofa beside Mrs. Monteagle, and as Mme. Léopold came forward, profusely affectionate, to embrace her, she blushed scarlet.

“Chère petite!” said the fond mother, playfully stroking the warm red cheek, of which Pearl for very rage with herself could have scratched the skin off. It was tantamount to confessing herself in love with Léon to blush up and look so confused the moment his mother appeared. Mme. Léopold and Mrs. Monteagle evidently thought so, too, for they laughed significantly at one another as they shook hands and glanced at Pearl.

Mme. de Kerbec wondered what the little joke was about. She was not in the intimacy of Mme. Léopold, because, as she put it, the deputy and his wife were not _de notre monde_. They were of the court set, and Mme. de Kerbec was of the faubourg; so, at least, she said, and as nobody of the other set had the _entrée_ of the faubourg, nobody contradicted her.

“How is every one _chez vous, mon enfant_—your dear mother and your excellent father? I suppose we shall meet him with you both to-morrow evening?” said Mme. Léopold.

“I hope so, madame; but papa is not very well....” Pearl began to explain.

“No; and very likely he will ask you to—” interrupted Mrs. Monteagle; but Pearl made such imploring eyes at her and gave her hand such a terrible squeeze that the old lady did not finish the sentence, but turned off the subject by exclaiming on the splendor of Mme. de Kerbec’s dress.

“You talk of the extravagance of the Tuileries set; but if we are to judge your old faubourg by you, countess, you are a great deal worse. Good gracious! what a superb costume, to be sure. In my young days one never saw such things, except it might be at court; and even there, poor old Queen Charlotte and Queen Adelaide never were much to speak of in the way of elegance; and as to the people here at the Tuileries in those days—”

When Mrs. Monteagle was thus fairly embarked Pearl seized the opportunity to slip away.

“What a sweet girl she is!” said Mme. Léopold as the door closed on the slight young figure.

“She is charming,” assented Mme. de Kerbec; “but Polly’s beauty throws her quite into the shade.”

Both the French lady and Mrs. Monteagle exclaimed at this. “I think her face more sympathetic and her manner infinitely more so!” said Mme. Léopold.

“No comparison!” chimed in Mrs. Monteagle; “and she has three times the brains of Polly.”

“One does not want much brains with such an amount of beauty,” said Mme. de Kerbec. “Polly is sure to marry much better. Men don’t care for clever wives; they are jealous of them.”

“That may be the case with Englishmen, but I protest in the name of my own countrymen,” said Mme. Léopold. “I never knew a Frenchman yet who objected to his wife having brains.”

“Very likely not,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “provided she has money, I don’t suppose a Frenchman would object to anything, even to her being a lunatic.”

“You are severe, chère madame,” said Mme. Léopold, looking hurt.

“Mrs. Monteagle suspects every Frenchman of marrying for money,” said Mme. de Kerbec. This was a tender point with her, for everybody, of course, knew that M. de Kerbec had married her for her money, and that she had married him for his title.

“I can only judge by what I see,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “and I see that the first and last and only thing that they ask, or rather that their family asks, about a young lady is, ‘How much money has she?’”

“You do us an injustice there; that may be the first question, because it is after all the essential one, but it is not the last,” said Mme. Léopold. “And I can assure you our young men of the present day follow very much the English fashion in marrying; they like to marry themselves, and they often feel a great, a very decided sympathy for their _fiancée_ before the family interferes at all. My son always said he would marry himself _à l’anglaise_.”

“I am glad to hear it, madame, and I hope you will let him have his way,” said Mme. de Kerbec.

“Certainly; my dearest wish is to see him happy,” replied Mme. Léopold, and she looked at Mrs. Monteagle. It was immediately borne in on Mme. de Kerbec that there was a marriage in the air between Léon and Pearl, and that Mme. Léopold was here to discuss the matter with Mrs. Monteagle, and, being a kind woman, she naturally felt at once a deep interest in the match.

“I suppose Col. Redacre will give very handsome fortunes to both his daughters,” she remarked; “but I think that arrangement very unjust. Pearl should have it all; Polly has beauty enough to make a queen’s dower.”

“For my part, I would rather have Pearl without a penny than Polly with the two _dots_ together,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a little angry grunt.

“Their mother was an heiress, so there will be plenty for all the children,” Mme. de Kerbec went on; “and then Dean Darrell is enormously wealthy, and his money all comes to the Redacres. To be sure he may live twenty years yet.”

“I did not know they had such great expectations,” said Mme. Léopold, her interest kindling as she listened to these details. “Who is this M. Darrell?”

“He is a cousin of Col. Redacre’s, and holds the property which comes to the Redacres at his death. It is not much to speak of, I believe; but the Dean is very rich, and will leave them all his money. He is Pearl’s godfather, too, and they say he will leave a very large sum to her.”

“She deserves it; she is a most angelic girl. I never saw any girl I admired so much,” said Mme. Léopold, waxing enthusiastic as Pearl’s merits were thus unfolded to her. “_You_ know what I feel about her, chère madame,” she added, addressing Mrs. Monteagle.

Other visitors came in, but Mme. Léopold contrived when saying _au revoir_ to whisper to Mrs. Monteagle a request that she would, at her earliest convenience, speak to Col. Redacre upon the subject “near our hearts.”

“And M. Léon’s heart?” said Mrs. Monteagle once more before committing herself.

“Chère madame! why will you doubt my dear boy?” said the mother with a smile.

TO BE CONTINUED.

VOLTAIRE AND HIS PANEGYRISTS.

Voltaire has to this day, among a certain class of people, the unenviable privilege of sharing with his great friend and patron the devil a popularity which he richly deserves. He belongs to that race of scoffers and liars that has never been wanting in the world since the arch-deceiver was allowed entrance into it, and will never be wanting as long as he sees in it anything bearing the image of God which he may hope to destroy, any truth which he may contradict, any beauty which he may defile, any goodness which he may turn into evil. Celsus, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Julian the Apostate, Luther, were of that race; and if Voltaire be inferior to most of these in genius, he has nevertheless done the work of their common master as zealously, and certainly as successfully, as any of his predecessors. Give, then, the devil his due, and let the philosopher of Ferney have the admiration of his votaries. Let him inhale in long draughts the incense which they offer him. It is not the rich perfumes of Arabia that they burn upon his altars. The god of the Revolution would have very little relish for anything sweet and pure. He delights in filth, and filth they serve him in abundance. From every cess-pool and garbage-plot, from every loathsome swamp and poisonous marsh, from every infected spot, a thick cloud laden with nauseous odors and death rises up to his nostrils. Surely the god must be satisfied. What else has he sought during his long career from his boyhood to his old age? To what did he devote his wonderful activity but to create those very sinks of moral degradation which send back to him from their unclean depths the impure homage which they are fit to give? Voltaire deserves a statue; let him have it. Why should the French government hesitate to comply with the desires of the Commune in this regard? What more worthy hands can they find for the purpose than those stained by the blood of so many innocent victims? Why should not one who thirsted during his whole life for the destruction of what is most sacred suffer the well-merited punishment of having a monument raised in his behalf by cut-throats to perpetuate his ignominy? A statue to Voltaire? Yes; and in Paris, too. Only choose the right place, and let it be emblematical of the lewdness with which the works of that infamous man reek. The fitting spot is that where all the sewers of the great city empty themselves into the Seine.

The idol of the French Commune is not without his admirers on this side of the Atlantic. One of our leading journals, speaking of the demonstration that took place on the 30th of May in the French capital in honor of Voltaire, gave us the following eulogistic and edifying editorial, which we quote as a fair specimen of the cant that is now and then reproduced in this country from the French radical papers of the most advanced school:

“France, it is said, celebrated in a characteristic way the memory
of one of her great men, one of the makers of the great Revolution.
Voltaire did France more service than any twenty generals, but did
it by strictly intellectual methods; by operation on the national
mind; by exposure of the shams, pretences, villanies, and
oppressions of the system of organized wrong that those exposures
did so much to undermine and destroy. He created in great part that
public opinion, that common judgment of the nation, in the presence
of which it was impossible that the ancient _régime_ should continue
to exist beyond the day when the power to end it fell into the hands
of the representatives of the people. As his influence was felt by
its intellectual results, it is characteristic and just that his
memory should be celebrated, not by monuments or other preservations
of a great man’s name, but by the dissemination of a printed volume
of his own best thoughts, so distributed that a copy may be given to
every Frenchman. By this method honor is done to Voltaire and good
is done to the people; for the world is very much as yet in the
condition in which he criticised it, and his keen, sound judgments
on liberty, on the rights of the people and persons, on the church,
on law, on government, on freedom of the press, may yet continue his
influence with great advantage to society” (New York _Herald_, May
31).

It would be difficult to condense into a short page a greater number of false assertions, of wrong appreciations and misleading suggestions. “_Mentons; il en restera toujours quelque chose_,” the favorite motto of Voltaire, continues to inspire his disciples all over the world. It is the idiosyncrasy by which the members of the family are recognized. The result of these often-repeated falsehoods is, in France, to keep the people in a chronic state of dissatisfaction periodically finding vent in those violent up-heavings of society which have more than once during the last hundred years brought that beautiful country to the verge of ruin; and though, in other places where they are rehearsed, they may not produce the same fatal effects, they serve, nevertheless, to make dupes of the ignorant who are unable to judge for themselves of the truth or falsity of assertions stated with such unhesitating boldness and assurance that the most glaring errors are accepted by them as articles of faith; they are an insult to the conscience not only of Catholics but of all those who still profess to retain the least vestige of Christianity; they are a gross calumny thrown in the face of France herself, who, by the voice of her most illustrious children and by a vast majority, protests against the idea that Voltaire is one of her great or representative men. “Lately,” says a French writer (the _Correspondant_, May 25), “the radicals conceived the purpose of showing to Europe the genius of France, personified in the image of Voltaire. A lying symbol, assuredly. For if it be the glory of France that they intended to represent, there are in our history twenty reputations nobler, wider, purer which would contend with our rivals for the admiration of the world. Voltaire possessed only one feeble spark of the French genius; but, thank God, the flame has been more powerful and shone with a deeper and brighter lustre, it ascended to greater heights, with St. Bernard, Pascal, Bossuet, Corneille, Racine, Molière, Mirabeau, Châteaubriand, Lamartine; and as to the other qualities that are characteristic of the French people, France would disavow them had they their type and model in Voltaire; and, in fact, how could she recognize in him that generosity which is foremost amongst the gifts of her race, her warm heart, her heroic soul, her chivalrous valor, her Christian beneficence, her love for the weak and the oppressed, her loyalty, her passion for great ideas and great actions? How could she sacrifice to the genius of Voltaire all that she had of French genius in those times of Charlemagne, of Godfrey de Bouillon, of St. Louis, of Joan of Arc, of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., when those who were her chief ornaments by their brilliant virtues so little resembled Voltaire? To pretend that a nation which has deserved to be called by Shakspere ‘the soldier of God’; a nation that has given to religion so many saints and heroes, so many doctors and martyrs; a nation that has raised by its thought and art so many monuments to Catholicity; a nation that can cite so many names dear to the church from St. Jerome, Pope Sylvester, Peter the Hermit and Suger, to St. Francis of Sales, De Bérulle, Fénelon, Massillon, and Lacordaire—to pretend that such a nation ought and desires to have its personification in Voltaire is a mockery.”

Bold indeed is the man who dares associate the idea of greatness with the name of Voltaire in presence of the evidence we have to the contrary, and which cannot be ignored by any one who has the slightest acquaintance with the literature of the last century. He uses words at random and cares very little about their true signification, or he unduly presumes on the ignorance of others. We find in Voltaire no element that constitutes the great man. He lacks those qualities of the heart which ennoble their possessor and surround him with a halo of serene splendor even in the lowliest station; his private life from beginning to end is there to show us all the meanness of his character. He had no civic virtue; he denied his country and despised the people. As a philosopher he has discovered no truth, elucidated none, contributed nothing to the advancement of knowledge. What he did was to direct all his efforts to obscure by sophistry and revile by sarcasms those truths of which mankind was in time-honored possession. He has no claim to the reputation of a great poet; all critics worthy of the name, even those of the age in which he lived, are at one in assigning to him an inferior rank in this regard. Voltaire tried his hand in every department, in literature, in the natural sciences, in philosophy, in politics, in history, in theology, and has only succeeded in giving proofs of his ignorance of the subjects he attempted to treat or of his mediocrity. “Voltaire,” says W. Schlegel (_Dramatic Literature_, lect. xix.), “wished to shine in every department; a restless vanity permitted him not to be satisfied with the pursuit of perfection in any single walk of literature; and, from the variety of subjects in which his mind was employed, it was impossible for him to avoid shallowness and immaturity of ideas.... He made use of poetry as a means to accomplish ends foreign and extrinsical to it; and this has often polluted the artistic purity of his compositions.”

We often read in the lives of holy personages that, in their very infancy, they gave signs of their future greatness and sanctity. As to Voltaire, he manifested in his early youth a degree of perverseness which foreshadowed but too well what he subsequently proved to be. The precocity of his mind showed itself by his precocious unbelief. Every one knows the prediction which his impious sneers at religion elicited from Father Le Jay when at the college of Louis-le-Grand—a prediction which was so truly realized afterwards: “Wretch,” said the father to him, “you will one day be the standard-bearer of infidelity in France.” Expelled several times from his father’s house for improper conduct, he pursues his career in the world, which he fills with the scandals of his life. His disgraceful intrigues in politics and in love, his dishonesty in business matters, his greed of money, his writings breathing lust and revolt, fixed upon him the attention of the police, and more than once brought him to the Bastille and sent him into exile. He had no heart; he proved it by the contempt he entertained for his nearest relations. He felt no shame in destroying the reputation of his mother; from allusions he makes in a letter addressed to Richelieu, and in other passages of his works, he throws suspicions upon the legitimacy of his birth. Voltaire at first signed his name “Arouet”; but soon this family name disgusted him, as he himself avows, and he rejected it for that of Voltaire. To discard the name of one’s own family is certainly no sign of a good son. He was no better citizen. The French having been beaten at Rossbach by the King of Prussia, Frederick II., Voltaire, who kept a correspondence with that prince, ridiculed his countrymen, and heaped upon them the most injurious epithets. He wishes a Prussian officer to come and take a certain city of France. He writes to the King of Prussia: “Look upon me as the most devoted subject that you have, for I have no other, and wish to have no other, master but yourself. It is to my own sovereign that I write.” The vile and crouching sycophant goes so far as to call Frederick “a god” and “the son of God.” Is it not incredible and the height of impudence that men who call themselves Frenchmen should urge their country to decree national honors to be paid to this idolatrous worshipper of Prussia, and that after the disasters of 1871? These men deserve the scorn of the whole world. Not satisfied with having turned Prussian, the ambition of Voltaire was to become Russian, and for this purpose he disowned France. In a letter of the 18th of October, 1771, to the Empress of Russia, Catherine II., after having called the French who had gone to the assistance of Poland fools and boors, he adds: “It is the Tartars who are civilized, and the French have become Scythians. Please to observe, madame, that I am not Welsh (that is, French); I am a Swiss, and, if I were younger, I would become Russian.” And Russian he soon became in spite of his old age, and Catherine could send him her felicitations on his being already “so good a Russian.” We shall not transcribe the words of sacrilegious adulation which he addressed to his idol, to a woman stained with the blood of her husband and living in adultery. “To make of the flatterer of Frederick II., the adulator of Catherine II., the adorer of Mme. de Pompadour, a republican citizen, would be a difficult task. But to make a patriot of the man who applauded the victory of Rossbach, who saw without pity the blood of France flow, who defiled the reputation of Joan of Arc with the loathsome profanation that we know, and who aspired to the happiness ‘to die a Prussian,’ would be a want of respect for France and of pride for the republic. In presence of the victors of Metz and of Sedan, in presence of Alsace-Lorraine, France would betray herself and the republic would disown France, were the one with the help of the other to erect the image of Voltaire as that of our wounded country, which stands waiting and hoping” (_Correspondant_).

We must never be astonished at anything from such a courtier of Fortune as Voltaire was. The most irascible of poets is the most flexible servant of the reigning powers. If, to use an expression of Diderot, he bore a grudge to every pedestal placed in the path of his literary glory, no one more grovellingly than he kissed the dust before every statue of success raised to command men or to impose upon them. He deserts to the King of Prussia after the defeat of De Rohan, he kisses the blood-stained hand of that other Lady Macbeth seated on the throne of Russia; he will do more: he will lower the purple of Richelieu before that of the ignoble Dubois, to whom the Revolution alone could give notoriety. Young, he had not the dignity which talent imparts; old, he had not that of his gray hairs. His pretty prose and his small, prurient madrigals will be scattered freely in the antechamber of every courtesan who has usurped for the time being the rightful place of the queens of France. It is to a Marquise de Prie, mistress of the heart and of the politics of the Duke of Bourbon, or to a Mme. de Pompadour, that he offers his mean and impure adulations. Mme. de Pompadour, metamorphosed into an Agnes Sorel, is still but a mortal; Mme. du Barry will be a divinity in this distich of the octogenarian of Ferney:

“C’est assez aux mortels d’adorer votre image,
L’original était fait pour les Dieux.”

So much for the irreproachable citizen who reviled his country, rejoiced at her misfortunes, and sold himself to her enemies; so much for the model republican who fawned on despots and courted the good graces of the most abandoned characters, provided they stood around a throne. But what of Voltaire, the great democrat, the devoted friend of the people? Those who wish to enlighten the working classes by the dissemination among them of a printed volume of Voltaire’s _own best thoughts_ have taken care, of course, to exclude from the precious popular volume, _destined to perpetuate the great man’s influence in France_, such passages as these, which clearly show his sentiments on the subject. He writes to a friend:

“I believe that we do not understand each other on the question of
the people, who, according to you, deserve to be instructed. I
understand by _people_ the populace, or those who are forced to gain
their livelihood by the labor of their hands. I doubt whether that
class of citizens will ever have the leisure or the capacity
required for instruction. It appears to me essential that there
should be ‘ignorant boors.’ When the vulgar begin to reason, all is
lost. The absurd insolence of those who tell you that you must think
like your tailor and your washerwoman should not be tolerated. As to
the _canaille_, it will never be anything else but the _canaille_. I
have nothing to do with it.”

And again: “The _canaille_ whom every yoke fits is not worth enlightening.” That hatred for the poor, the laboring classes, the people, is a satanic trait characteristic of Voltaire. Were the principles which he sought to establish to obtain in the world, we would soon see the worst times of paganism return, when the vast majority of men were slaves under unfeeling masters. From this abject condition Christianity rescued the human race. It is Christianity that can still make the people free; it is Christianity that saves it now, in spite of the efforts made to exclude Christ’s influence from the face of the earth and substitute for it that of Freemasonry, socialism, and radicalism, which would willingly replace the worship of the Redeemer by that of a Voltaire or a Mazzini. Were it possible to abolish the Christian religion in the world, the earth would at once become a den of wild beasts tearing one another to pieces. Witness the French Revolution. It is Christ who said: “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you”; it is Christ who ennobled labor by embracing a life of toil; it is Christ who taught the poor that poverty is no disgrace, but rather an honor, ever since the King of Kings sanctified it and glorified it in his own person; it is Christ who gave us the true signification of sufferings, and revealed to us their chastening and purifying influence when they are borne with resignation. But it is Christ also who taught the rich to be charitable to those not possessed of the goods of this world, and to consider themselves but as God’s stewards in favor of the needy. In the acceptance of those principles is to be found the solution of the social problems which become more and more entangled in proportion as society withdraws itself from the light of the Gospel. “Jesus has wept and Voltaire has smiled,” said Victor Hugo at the celebration of the 20th of May, “and from those divine tears and that human smile the sweetness of our civilization was the result,” and the crowd applauded. Foolish and blasphemous words! To associate Christ and his reviler in the same mission for the regeneration of the human race! Voltaire never smiled—he grinned, and in his infernal sneer he embraced those for whom Jesus especially came and wept, suffered and died. But the tactics of the evil one are always the same and are followed by his disciples, to draw men into his snares by creating illusions around them.

The age of Voltaire had no philosophy. Its great voice was silent, and was heard no more until it resounded again in the first part of this century in De Maistre and De Bonald. The generation of Malebranche, Descartes, and Bossuet had passed away, and was succeeded by a sect of sophists headed by Voltaire, whom they nicknamed the “Philosopher of Ferney.” The eighteenth century was the reign, not of philosophy, but of philosophism, which consisted in an abuse of reason directed to the demolition, by means of sarcasm and ridicule, by the corruption of morals and by falsehood, of the religion of Christ and of all the principles upon which human society is based. The pretended Reformation had given the signal; in weakening the foundations of faith and the respect for spiritual authority it opened the door to every error, to revolt, and to all corruptions. Germany began, England followed, and from England came out that spirit of incredulity and atheism which would have plunged Europe into all the agonies of dissolution, and made it a prey to renewed barbarism, had not the terrific thunder-peals of the French Revolution awakened it on the brink of the abyss and warned men to turn their eyes towards God and his church. Rousseau gives us in his _Emile_ a faithful picture of those mad dreamers, possessed by the genius of evil, who in his time proudly called themselves philosophers:

“Turn away from those who, under pretext of explaining nature, sow
in the hearts of men subversive doctrines, and whose apparent
scepticism is a hundred times more affirmative and dogmatic than the
decided tone of their adversaries. Under the haughty pretence that
they alone are enlightened, true, and sincere, they impose upon us
their peremptory decisions, and pretend to give us for the true
principles of things the unintelligible systems which their
imagination has built. Besides overthrowing, destroying, and
trampling upon everything that men revere, they take away from the
afflicted the last consolation in their miseries, from the powerful
and the rich the only check of their passions; they snatch from the
depth of the human heart remorse for crime, the hope which supports
virtue, and still boast of being the benefactors of mankind. Never,
do they say, is truth injurious to men. I believe as they do, and it
is, in my opinion, a strong proof that what they teach is not the
truth.”

Of all those who, at that period, took part in the infernal struggle against Christianity, Voltaire was the recognized chief and leader. He and Rousseau are the two men who did most to undermine the foundations of religion, to extend the reign of unbelief, and destroy the bulwarks that protect order and the family; the former by his inexhaustible fund of impious raillery that scoffed at everything, and the latter by an affectation of sickly sentimentality that paved the way but too well for the atrocities by which the last years of that disgraceful century were polluted. The eighteenth century is appropriately called the _Siècle de Voltaire_; it will be its eternal shame. For Voltaire, notwithstanding his sparkling wit and a few happy productions in literature, will remain eternally the type of a mean character, of a corrupt intellect and perverted reason. It is the conclusion to which men will necessarily arrive who wish to draw their knowledge of Voltaire from another source than that of an ignorant fanaticism, and who, not satisfied with vague sounds floating in the air, will take the trouble to study his life and his works. Not long ago the illustrious Bishop of Orleans, from his senator’s seat, instructed the radicals of his country on this subject, and his method is sure. It would be more in the interest of truth to re-echo his voice on our shores than to spread amongst us those groundless and erroneous appreciations issuing from disordered brains maddened by passion. He cited to them the judgments of men whom their party chiefly consults, to whom they defer, whom they admire and revere most, as Rousseau, Marat, Béranger, Victor Hugo, Louis Blanc, Sainte-Beuve, and Renan. He placed before their eyes the very writings of Voltaire; and thus, by testimony that commanded their confidence, he taught them what Voltaire was worth as a democrat, a citizen, a patriot, and even as a philosopher. We have no space to give quotations from those writers; but we cannot resist the temptation to place before our readers a few lines written by Victor Hugo himself, when he had not as yet lent his unquestionable genius to the vagaries of modern radicalism. They tell us what the distinguished poet then thought of the man whom he now extols to the skies and dares to put on a level with Christ. He speaks of that filthy production of Voltaire’s pen, _The Maid of Orleans_, and warns purity and innocence to beware of the poison contained in that infamous book: “An old book is there, a romance of the last century! A work of ignominy! Voltaire then reigned, that monkey of genius, sent on a mission to man by the devil himself. O eighteenth century, impious and chastised, society without God, struck by God’s hand! world-blind for Christ, which Satan illumines! Shame on thy writers in the face of nations! The reflection of thy crimes is in their renown! Beware, O child! in whose tender heart no tainted breath has as yet been felt. O daughter of Eve! Poor young mind! Voltaire the _serpent_, _Doubt_, and _Irony_ is in a corner of thy blessed sanctuary; with his eye of fire he spies thee and laughs. Tremble! This false sage has caused the ruin of many an angel. That demon, that black kite, pounces upon pious hearts and crushes them. Oftentimes have I seen under his cruel claws the feathers fall one by one from white wings made to rise and take flight towards heaven” (_Rayons et Ombres_).

Voltaire was not a great thinker, not a great poet, not a great historian, not a great novelist, and not a great manager or man of action. Of his twenty-eight or thirty dramatic pieces scarcely one rises to the highest line of dramatic art; his comedies, like his epics, are no longer read; his histories are sprightly and entertaining, but not authentic; and his essays, both in prose and verse, with perhaps the single exception of his historical disquisitions, have ceased to instruct. This is the judgment about the man which we find recorded in the _American Cyclopædia_, and we have no doubt of its correctness. If we seek, then, for the secret of his success, we must turn not to his lighter compositions, as has been advised, but to the corruption of the age in which he lived. Voltaire found around him a society in a state of disorganization produced by the orgies of the Regency, and the spirit of incredulity which had invaded the whole of Europe. He seized upon those materials which he used against Christianity. He wished to destroy it. His intention was not doubtful; it had been clearly revealed by his _Mahomet_, a tragedy given to the public in 1741. The piece had no success at first, or rather people were frightened by it. Christianity was too openly attacked in it not to revolt public opinion, which was as yet profoundly Christian. It was withdrawn after three representations; but, resumed ten years later, it was received with enthusiasm. It is at that date and with that the eighteenth century properly begins. In 1751 all was changed. Religion, morals, taste, national honor, military glory were soon to disappear from the soil of France. Fleury had ceased to live, and voluptuousness had seated a Pompadour upon the throne; flattery erected altars in her honor, whilst a philosophy, the enemy of God and of the laws, placed itself under the protection of that worthy patroness. It was not difficult to see already looming on the horizon the horrors of 1793. Voltaire, undoubtedly, was one of the makers of the great Revolution—“that grand conflict which,” as Schlegel says, “must be looked upon in no other light than as a religious war; for a formal separation, not only from the church, but from all Christianity, a total abolition of the Christian religion, was an object of this Revolution.” It is no wonder, then, that all revolutionists have made an idol of Voltaire, who played so prominent a part in bringing it about. It is still Voltaire the enemy of Christianity whom they celebrate. This they openly avow. One of the organs of the party, the _Bien Public_, declared that it was not the centenary of Voltaire the man of letters that they intended to celebrate, but that of him who had said “_Écrasons l’infâme_” (Let us crush the wretch). The _Droits de l’Homme_ also wrote: “Voltaire had no respect for things established; he dared look Christ in the face; he insulted him. This is the reason why we have chosen Voltaire to pay him our respects.” It is his hatred for the religion of Christ which they wish to propagate. The volume containing Voltaire’s _best thoughts_, ordered to be printed and distributed among the people, tells us that “everything which is related of Jesus is worthy of a pack of fools”; that “miracles are ridiculous and the work of charlatans”; that “Christ himself was a vile mechanic from the scum of the people, a seducer who had lost all scruple”; that “our sacred books are the work of insanity, and that Christians are dupes, fools, and cowards.” And they desire such a book to replace among the masses the catechism and the Gospel! Do so, and you have wolves instead of men.

BRETON LEGENDS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

The steadfastness of Breton Catholicity is proverbial. From the far-away time when the disciples of the good St. Patrick, among whom, says the Breton legend, “he was like a nightingale among wrens, or a beech-tree among ferns,” first planted the cross in Armorica, up to that last crusade in defence of it wherein only yesterday, as it were, Lamoricière and Pimodan and their gallant comrades sacrificed themselves as chivalrously as any knight of old on the fatal field of Castelfidardo, the Breton has never wavered in his faith. Evil example has not availed to weaken it; persecution has only made it stronger; the poisoned arrow of the scoffer, deadlier than the Moor’s, has fallen blunted on the armor of its tranquil simplicity. When all France beside, with few exceptions, had sunk into indifferentism or infidelity, Breton peasant and Breton gentleman still held fast to their fathers’ creed, still doffed their hats as reverently as of yore to wayside cross or Madonna, still knelt as devoutly side by side in the little rustic chapels which so cover the land “that,” says a sympathetic writer, “it seems fertilized by so many holy shrines.” Some idea may be had of the number of the religious monuments of Brittany from the fact that when, at the Restoration, the proposition was mooted to replace the wayside crosses which the iconoclastic frenzy of the Revolution had overturned, it was found that 1,500,000 francs would be needed to restore those in the department of Finisterre alone.