Chapter III: Part 3

Towards the end of her imprisonment Catherine wrote: "God will open the door for us through this storm. My will is God's. All I want is to accomplish His desire for the world. Do not worry at all. Jesus is here. There is such wonderful victory ahead that all my cry is, Lord, make us _equal to it_!--ready in every way! Ever fighting, in jail as well as on the field, following on to know Him. I have been looking at that wonderful sight--Calvary. I must ever live in sight of it."

The trial took place at Boudry on Saturday the 25th and Monday the 27th September. It excited the greatest interest in Switzerland and far beyond it. The _Journal de Geneve_ said: "This prosecution at Boudry has an immense political significance in the highest sense of that word, and the decision, whatever it may be, will take its place in the history of Republican rights." Even the most sanguine scarcely hoped for the acquittal of the accused. But the unexpected happened, and the triumph of righteousness was a woman's triumph.

The Public Prosecutor spent much time in proving that Salvationists were mountebanks and fanatics. A young Englishwoman had flung an insult in the face of the Grand Council, accusing them of violating the constitution. Her contempt for the law was the more surprising as the English never rebel against the law, however unjust it may be (!). If the _Armee du Salut_ was not suppressed they would have to enlarge their asylums. Christ, who was, perhaps, the most religious man who ever lived, favoured private rather than public prayer. Silent communion with God was better than getting up and shouting "I am saved!" While the accused placed herself above the law, the Queen of England was obliged to submit to Acts of Parliament. Having not only ignored, but deliberately violated the decree, the _Salutistes_ must bear the consequences, and no doubt they would be happy to receive the crown of martyrdom!

On the second day of the trial, after a speech in the defence by M. Monnier, the Marechale rose to plead her own cause. Though she had passed twelve days in prison, and sat many hours in the suffocating atmosphere of a crowded court-house, she overcame her exhaustion, her spirit subduing the frail body. She had been accustomed to face great crowds since she was sixteen, and she was never more completely master of herself or her audience than she was in that critical hour. Her voice was never clearer, nor her manner more commanding. Her brother Herbert, who was in the court, said he was amazed at her power. As she pleaded the cause of religious liberty, her hearers felt that she had not come to be judged but for judgment upon them all. Some extracts will serve to indicate the quality of her speech.

"What is the need of the _Armee du Salut_? Allow me to read a passage from one of your own journals: 'Cantonal Governments will see with alarm the flood of demoralisation rising menacingly higher and higher; and instead of seeking to destroy the causes of this deluge, they only take away the remaining dams.' It is needless to enlarge on the necessity for an _Armee du Salut_ in the face of these facts.

"The Prosecutor has said, in speaking of the work, that it moved the entire population, and that there must be a cause for this. He has reason to say so. I agree with him; there must be a cause, far deeper than any that has been mentioned here to-day. It is at this cause that we strike--which exists in the heart of man.

"As to our aim, we are trying to bring these people who outrage your laws, who fight against God, to the feet of Him who alone can change them, to the only hope that exists for them, the Saviour of the world. We work, we live, we suffer to do this. This is our one hope and object--to bring the world to the great Deliverer, Jesus Christ.

"Ah! The question of all questions, the question which every intelligent man ought to face, is--What are we to do with the masses? If they are not reached by the power of the Gospel, a day will come when they will turn round against you, occasioning terrible trouble and disorder, and awful will be the consequences. Then, gentlemen, you will have reason to regret your action in this matter. If these disturbers are capable of manifesting such hatred, such rage against citizens who pray to God, they will also be capable of manifesting the same rebellious spirit against any other opinions, or any other law, which may not please them.

"We have not made the people like this. Bear in mind that we have not created this terrible state of barbarism, which was let loose around that hall, and which has made my heart bleed many times in witnessing. Who is responsible for this? We cannot be, for we have only been in your town a few months.

"Although we have suffered terribly through misrepresentations that have been wilfully circulated about us, we are not discouraged! We know that truth and justice will soon triumph. I love Switzerland all the more for what we have endured (_Applause_). A little while and Switzerland will love us. We shall win thousands to righteousness, peace and heaven.

"The Prosecutor referred to the Queen saying that even she was subject to the decrees of Parliament, but that I placed myself above her in refusing to become subject to the decrees of the Grand Council. There is no parallel between Her Majesty and myself. No act has been passed to forbid her praying in a wood, or I think Her Majesty would have something to say on that subject (_Sensation_).

"One word in conclusion. You may punish us; you may imprison us; you may prosecute us as long as you are permitted; but what you cannot do is to stop this work--to suppress it. Beware what you do for your country's sake, for Jesus Christ's sake. Take care that in banishing us you do not banish the light, that you do not banish Jesus Christ, and in that great day when you are called to give an account you be found guilty of fighting against God."

Such pleading was irresistible. The jury had not the courage to enforce the law. To their honour, they let themselves be swayed by considerations of equity. They found that while the accused had violated the decree she had not acted with "culpable intention." In consequence of this verdict she was acquitted. The sentence was received by her friends in the court with a burst of fervent "Amens." And the Marechale deserved the thanks of every Swiss patriot. By her bold and successful claim of right she had made history. At a time when the old Republic was forgetful of its noblest traditions, untrue to itself, she restored its ideal. She vindicated for every man and woman freedom to worship God according to their conscience. She brought back to the hills and valleys of Switzerland the crown rights of the Redeemer.

No one appreciates or speaks more enthusiastically to-day than the Marechale of the devotion and bravery of her comrades, Colonel Clibborn first and foremost, and spiritual children at this time.

*CHAPTER VI*

*THE SOUL OF FRANCE*

It is not easy to reach the ideal and spiritual elements of character which are masked by the light laughter or the polite scorn of the typical Frenchman, who believes, or pretends to believe, that religion is only for priests and women. At the opening of a new hall in the Rue Oberkamff, a big fellow shook his fist in the Marechale's face and said, "An Englishman may accept religion--a German--or a heathen, but a Frenchman--never!" "O God, if You exist, save my soul, if I have one!" was the prayer of another man, who had attended the meetings for some time, and who indicated with a strange pathos the bewildered state of mind into which many of the educated, as well as the ignorant, had sunk. "Let there be no mistake," said a French writer, Louise de Croisilles; "it is by no means unnatural that the Army should have taken root in India, or even under Africa's burning sun, but that it should be accepted in Paris, the centre of free-thought and unbelief, that is a thing incredible."

Nevertheless the Frenchman suffers from "the malady of the ideal," even as other men. His heart is restless until it rests in God, and it is sheer faithlessness to say that he cannot be won by the grace of God. If he is sceptical, it is because he has no conception of the fascinating loveliness of Christianity; if he is a scoffer, it is because he has never come in contact with human lives which suggest to him the infinite goodness of God.

After the Marechale's great legal victory, which was really a triumph of the Gospel over its enemies, she returned to Paris and quietly resumed her tasks. She was in nowise changed, though public opinion regarding her was undoubtedly changed. She had become a person of note. Editors of newspapers and magazines sent reporters to her meetings at the Quai de Valmy, or at the new headquarters in the Rue Auber, and found piquant accounts of her sayings and doings to be excellent copy. Visitors to the city came to hear her. Artists begged for the honour of painting her portrait for the Salon, an honour which she steadily refused. The son of Garibaldi invited her to visit Italy, where, he said, she would be welcomed and not treated as she had been in Switzerland. None of these things, however, moved her. As she had promised God in her prison that she would never be depressed by the calumnies of men, so now she prayed that she might never be elated by their praises. With a stronger faith and a more ardent hope, she plunged again into absorbing work. One sees that she worked with her imagination; that she obeyed her intuitions; that she proved the originality and inventiveness of love; and her efforts were so rewarded that 1884 was her _annus mirabilis_, at the end of which she wrote: "Can you imagine the bewilderment that comes over me when I sit down to convey some idea of the wonderful way in which God has led and helped us during the year? ... It is not too much to say that during the past twelve months we have passed from the position of a small and almost unknown mission to that of a great spiritual power, recognised and felt throughout France and Switzerland."

A series of fresh inspirations contributed to this result. The first of these was the visitation of the cafes of Paris. One winter night the Marechale and two young comrades, Blanche Young and Kate Patrick, went out with shawls on their heads, and made their way to one of the boulevard cafes. The leader passed the door, and passed it again. She turned to her lieutenants and said, "You have never known your Marechale till now; you see what a coward she is!"

"No, no, no!" they both protested.

At last she put her hand on the door, pushed it open, and went in. A man in a white apron was selling drink. Going up to him, she said, "May I sing something?"

He stared open-mouthed.

Trembling from head to foot, she repeated, "I should like to sing something."

"Very well!"

She began:

"Le ciel est ma belle patrie,
Les anges y font leur sejour;
Le soldat qui lutte et qui prie
Y sera bientot a son tour."

While she sang, Blanche chimed in with her guitar and her second voice. As they proceeded, the smoking, drinking, and card-playing ceased, and every face was turned towards them. They sang on:

"En marche, en marche,
Soldats, vers la patrie!
En marche, en marche,
Soldats, vers la patrie!"

When they had finished the hymn, the Marechale thanked her audience, adding that they could hear her again at Rue Auber Hall; and that she knew a Friend, of whom she wished to tell them. As she and her comrades turned to walk out, the man in the white apron bowed, as if they had done him a service.

"May I come another time?" said the Marechale.

"Certainly, Mademoiselle!"

They visited sixteen cafes that night, and when she got home she felt she had never been happier in her life, never nearer to Jesus. She had tried in her own way to obey His command, "Let your light shine before men." Since then, thousands and thousands of cafes have been visited, and much good has thus been done. Let one case stand for many.

There used to be a well-known resort in Paris called the Cafe de l'Enfer, the windows and walls of which were painted with lurid scenes representing hell. There rouged and powdered singing girls entertained people of the dare-devil type, who sat drinking and smoking at little tables. From an open coffin a grim skeleton stared at everybody, and prizes were given for the most audacious witticisms about death. The more outrageous the blasphemies were, the louder were the roars of applause with which they were received.

But the Marechale and her young lieutenants, "armed in complete steel"--the panoply of God--were not afraid of the gates of hell. Having obtained permission to sing, they mounted the _estrade_, and rendered some of their most attractive part-songs. The cafe orchestra at once took up the airs as if it had been paid to do so. The songs of Paradise were well received even in those regions, and then the Marechale, stepping forward, made a little speech:

"You are very clever here. You _play_ very well. But it is a role that you play. Your laughter is not real; I can tell you the source of true laughter and true joy. This is not life, it is death; I can tell you what real life is. This is not peace, it is an effort to drown care and forget trouble; I can tell you the secret of peace. Let me give you my address, where you can hear us sing again."

It required as much moral courage to deliver that speech as to face all the jurists of Helvetia.

When the Marechale was leaving, she passed a lovely girl, in whose ear she whispered, "What are you doing here? you ought to be in bed."

"Who will give _me_ a supper or a bed?" the girl plaintively asked.

"_I_ will!" exclaimed the Marechale; "come with me, quick!"

She hailed a cab, put the girl in, and drove away. The poor child, eighteen years of age, had a sad tale to tell. She had noble blood in her veins, and her mother and she had both been cruelly wronged. The Marechale led her to Christ and ultimately secured for her a position in one of the best colleges of America, where she was universally respected. Not long after she was installed there, she sent the Marechale 500 francs, with the pathetic message, "Save another, as you saved me."

The Marechale's methods naturally gave offence to those who had not the courage to adopt them. Late one night she and some comrades were standing at the door of a theatre while it was emptying. One of her young officers cried in clear, penetrating tones, "Prepare to meet thy God!" The words seemed to send an electric shock through the gay crowd. Thereupon a gentleman came forward to the Marechale and said:

"Mademoiselle, you are evidently young girls of good family, and I am scandalised to see you here at this hour. I, too, occupy myself with preaching, but I am shocked at your behaviour."

"Really?" she replied, "and I am scandalised that you are scandalised. You profess to believe the Gospel. How are you to get these indifferent tens of thousands to hear of the Saviour? They won't come to listen to you. What more natural and more in accord with the principles of Jesus, than to go to them and compel them to hear?"

Ten minutes after, the gentleman returned and slid a five-franc piece into her hand, saying:

"It is you who are right!"

It was impossible for young girls to be in the boulevards towards midnight without being sometimes molested. But the leader would instruct her soldiers thus: "If they say the vilest things in the world to you, remember that is only the outside. Think of their souls which cost so dear to Christ. Say one or two sentences that will remain with them, and pass on."

More than once she proved this method of dealing to be very effective. In a corner of one of the boulevards a "gentleman" approached her and asked for a rendezvous. She looked at him in silence, which he took for consent.

"Where?" he asked, taking out his pencil and note-book.

"_Devant le Trone de Dieu!_" (Before the Throne of God!)

The man took to his heels, and ran.

That went all over France. One day the same sword will pierce the conscience of every roue in the universe.

The Marechale's second original idea was to begin a series of _Conferences_ (Meetings) in the fashionable Lecture Hall of the Boulevard des Capucines. Her increasing popularity only deepened her sense of duty to the city of her adoption, and suggested to her the possibility of bringing Christ to the Boulevards as well as to the Villette. She could not live in gay Paris without profoundly pitying the thoughtless, infidel Rich, for whom it is proverbially so hard to enter the kingdom of heaven. Her idea of attacking the central stronghold of the world's fashion and pleasure was a daring one for a woman, especially for a woman of the Marechale's youthful years. About this time she read the _Life of Napoleon_, and found in his astonishing career many lessons for an evangelist. She was especially struck by his faith in his star, and his contempt for "_ce bete de mot, impossible_." She knew that she had something better to trust than a star, and stronger reason for holding that all things are possible.

Her new plan of campaign was great alike in its conception and its execution. From the very first the Conferences for men were astonishingly successful, and they were renewed year after year. The audiences were very different from a Keswick or Northfield congregation, in which the preaching is mostly to the converted. Perhaps the best parallel to the Marechale's Conferences is to be found in Professor Drummond's Sunday evening meetings for students (men only) in the Oddfellows Hall, Edinburgh, which, by a strange coincidence, began in the same year. Having enjoyed the friendship of both these evangelists, and listened to them many scores of times, I have often been forcibly struck by their likeness to each other, and for power to rivet the attention and inspire the confidence of cultivated men of the world I have met nobody to compare with them.

When the Marechale came to hold her first Conference, the proprietor of the hall entered her ante-room and advised her to deliver a sort of ethical lecture, rather than speak of salvation, as it was the worldly fashionable public who would assemble, and he was afraid they would not be pleased if they heard too much of religion. But they listened with rapt attention while she spoke on the text "Without God and without hope in the world." Of the second Conference Galignani's Messenger said, "The subject, 'The Greatest Sin,' was treated with a force of religious arguments which made a visible impression on many persons in the audience. The attention was deep and respectful. The Hall was crowded, and the doors were vainly besieged by a numerous crowd, the greater part of whom remained outside the open windows to hear the address." Another leading journal said, "She has profoundly astonished the citizen sceptic, who has been out of the habit of being astonished for a long time."

Her brother Ballington was present at a later meeting, and described the impression made on himself as one who did not know French. "I had to cover my face more than once while our Marechale spoke. Her words, though in a foreign language, yet seemed understandable. The Spirit does not confine Himself to words alone. He speaks through the countenance, and eyes, and hands--He fills the Temples of His children. Three things struck me in that meeting: first, the rapt attention and interest of the audience, and there seemed few who were not impressed at the close; second, the manner in which the people remained in the after-meeting on to the end; third, the utter amazement, and yet perfect solemnity of the congregation, when some sinner came up through the aisles to seek peace, even rising as though to make sure that what they saw was a fact." Then he adds--and one notes the beautiful transition--"I was also present and took part in meetings at Paris in which the very poorest were attending by hundreds, and at which I saw men of the vilest caste and life getting saved." No small part of the Marechale's charm lay in her flexibility and adaptability--her Pauline habit of becoming all things to all men--to the rich and to the poor, to the wise and to the unwise--that she might win some.

At a later time the Marechale delivered somewhat similar addresses in other cities of France such as Nimes, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen, Lyons--and she was everywhere astonished to find that the French, who seem the most thoughtless, are yet among the most thoughtful people in the world. The result of such Conferences as these cannot be tabulated. For one thing, they made the Marechale more than ever a mother-confessor and spiritual director. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed to her at private interviews of which no record was kept, and in letters, one of which may be given as containing the secret of the Marechale's power--her possession of Christ's Spirit--a second as showing the abyss of doubt from which many of her hearers had to be rescued, and some others as indicating the wonderful success which often attended her efforts.

The first runs as follows: "I am glad you accept my request to visit my home. You will consider the intention in asking you to come under my roof, like One before you, who had the noblest Heart which ever beat for mankind. It is because this Great Heart has possessed yours to the degree of rendering you like Himself, that you have profoundly moved me and made me better. Certainly I will speak with you on these vital subjects, but I need more and more the moral and spiritual atmosphere of the meetings: this opens the heart and at the same time deadens the opposition of the mind. Oh, if the latter could hold its peace! ... I have lived much in solitude, and naturally these problems have been always with me. I may say that the Infinite has tortured me for twenty years: lately I have arrived at the conclusion that one can know nothing. So I shall be glad to speak with you and at length."

A second correspondent wrote: "Your marvellous faith, your simple and powerful eloquence so deeply moved me that I cannot but thank you. I thank you as an artist, as a sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great characters; I thank you as a man blase, sceptical, benumbed and deadened. As a child I adored Jesus, and now, after having thought much and suffered infinite pains which you cannot understand, I have said adieu to faith and also adieu to hope! I have become one of those you call sceptics. Ah! do not say 'terrible' sceptic, but unfortunate, pitiable, unhappy sceptic. You are, Madame, a great, beautiful, generous heart, and if ever earnest good wishes have been worth anything, I have cherished them for you, your work, and those who fight by your side. You will believe me, an unbeliever, who envies you, admires you, and ideally loves you."

A third of her hearers wrote succinctly: "Two of your meetings have sufficed to destroy infidel convictions of twenty years' standing."

A fourth, after testifying to his respect and confidence, said: "What your soul yearns for is conversion. You would like me to add, I am converted. I cannot say that I am. But you have made an incredible impression on me, and you have made me love the Christ I never loved." He evidently could not rest there, and soon he sent a second letter, describing with thankfulness how one night, in prayer and agonising mental controversy, he had received a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which had finally slain his doubt and made him a believer in God.

The twofold purpose of the Conferences was to conquer the feelings and tastes, the etiquette and conventionality, of people of the world, and to awaken faith in unbelievers. One day a very bad man thrust some bank-notes into the Marechale's hand, saying while he did so:

"I believe in nothing."

"You believe in nothing, and yet you give me these bank-notes!"

He replied, "I believe in you, and I wish you had a hall in every town and hamlet and village in my country."

"Pull out your watch," she said. "I believe in your watch, I believe that it keeps time, but I do not believe in its maker! ... I am naturally just as great a lover of ease and comfort as you are. The motive power--_la force motrice_--of my life, the spring upon which everything turns, is the love of Christ. You believe in me; believe in Him who has made me what I am."

The Marechale's third new departure was perhaps the most important of all--the founding of an Ecole Militaire, or school for cadets, somewhat similar to the Military School at Clapton, over which her sister Emma at that time presided. When Catherine first went to France, a very noted Protestant pastor said to her, "You will never get three Frenchwomen to live together in peace." But at the Training Home, Avenue Lumiere 3, in the Villette, where the Marechale lived all the year round with her officers, there were as many as forty or fifty young women--among whom, at one time, a Princess's daughters were side by side with scullery maids--and the harmony, the love, the spirit of "never mind me," which prevailed was one of the miracles of the work in France.

To the training of company after company of young cadets--French, Swiss, English, Belgian, German, Italian and Russian--the Marechale gave a great deal of her time and strength, her pattern being ever our Lord's own training of the Twelve. All obeyed her joyfully and without question. She realised intuitively that the highest thing in training is not discipline, but something which discipline follows as light follows the sun. That something is the spirit, the atmosphere, which men and women are brought into and which transforms them. In the Ecole Militaire it was the selflessness of people who did not care what became of them. Where that spirit takes possession of any one, there is no need to say to him, "You shall do this or that." The law of the spirit of life makes him obedient without constraint.

The spirit of the Marechale's leadership is somewhat expressed in Garibaldi's call to arms often quoted by her. His followers understood his motives, realised his disinterestedness, saw that rewards and honours were nothing to the man who was seeking the Liberty of Italy. Therefore they loved him so much that they would have died for him. There was no marked difference between the Staff and the Field, and yet there was discipline, obedience, devotion such as the world has scarcely ever seen equalled.

That was the spirit which the Marechale sought to impart to the Ecole Militaire. Everything else--how to study the Bible, how to conduct meetings, how to use the voice, how to deal with souls--was subordinated by her to the one thing needful--the spirit of sacrifice. "We are sometimes told," she once wrote, "that our uniforms, our young women speaking in public, our tambourines and our processions bring contempt upon religion. It is a mistake. That which is the laughing-stock of the world and of hell is a religion without sacrifice. People will never believe in Christians who, while professing to be disciples of Him who had not where to lay His head, live in luxury, seek first the comfort of their family, the health and position of their children, and let their souls perish for lack of that Gospel which they profess to believe. _There_ is the secret of the unbelief of France; that is what makes the young who are in search of the truth cry 'Comedy!' On the other hand, those faces which radiate the light from on high, those young people who rise up to give themselves to God instead of the world, those men and women who declare, with a sincerity which leaves no room for doubt, that they consecrate their life to God for the saving of souls, are more eloquent than the most beautiful discourses."

The faces of officers and cadets who surrounded the Marechale on her platform undoubtedly constituted a large element of her power. Renee Gange, the Socialist, wrote a fine appreciation of her and her comrades, in which she confesses that what she finds "remarkable among these young girls, pretty as well as plain, is the complete absence of the ordinary feminine expression.... In looking with searching, scrutinising eye at the faces enveloped in this ugly bonnet, we have not deciphered the least vestige of this expression, neither timidity, nor awkwardness, nor restlessness, nor the consciousness that people are thinking of them. Nothing. These faces are the free faces of free creatures."

One day a French Baron, who had received a great blessing at the Marechale's Conferences, said to her in the great hall at the Rue Auber, "What you lack here is pictures; for instance, the saints. Those beautiful faces, with their sweet celestial expressions, diffuse a sentiment of reverence and quietness, and they would form such a beautiful background to you. You should have the Virgin, and Saint Francis, and many others. That is what you lack in all your halls: could we not do something?"

"Baron," said the Marechale, "will you come here next Sunday evening?"

"Yes, certainly. Are you going to speak?" He never lost a chance of hearing her.

"Yes; be sure you do not miss it."

Next Sunday evening she marshalled her little group of officers. She filed them in, men on one side, women on the other. She stood in the midst of them and spoke. At the end of the meeting the Baron came forward.

"Marechale," he said, "you have no need of pictures. Those figures! those faces! _they_ are your pictures."

Her friend Frank Crossley was greatly struck by this incident. He wrote: "I was specially interested in the remark upon inspired faces. I once heard Rendel Harris say of the biblical critics, that they might tear the volume into shreds, but never could rub off the light of God from the faces of His people."

One of the cadets of the Ecole Militaire was Constance Monod, daughter of the great Protestant preacher whose hymn, "Oh, the bitter shame and sorrow," is known everywhere. Having received salvation and rich spiritual blessings from attending the Marechale's meetings, she became one of her most devoted officers and warmest friends. She was one day put up to speak to a very rough audience of lewd, low men, and one of the roughest and lewdest of them said, with tears in his eyes:

"Oh, what extraordinary purity in that face!"

That was the expression which gave so many of the cadets their power in the cafes and in the slums. It was what they were, far more than what they said, that did the work.

Among the new cadets there was always a great heart-searching. Were they sure of their vocation? Had they a due sense of the seriousness, the sacredness, the responsibility, the opportunity of the call to work and fight for God? If they were not right there, everything was wrong. But if they had really left the world, and come to learn to know GOD, He revealed Himself to them, and it was marvellous how rapidly they grew in that heart-knowledge which is always so much deeper than head-knowledge.

Whenever troubles and difficulties arose, the Marechale's method was not to evade them, but to grip things at the bottom. An invitation to "come and have a cup of tea" would lead to earnest talk and prayer, by which she nipped many an evil in the bud. These "personals," as such interviews were called, were remembered ever afterwards with gratitude.

The conquest of self, the triumph of the spirit of love, was illustrated in small matters as well as in great. One day a Frenchman, Francois, refused to clean the boots of another cadet, who was a German.

"I clean a German's boots? Never! never!" The Marechale quietly said:

"The boots will be cleaned."

"Never by me!"

"By you."

"Well, not now, let them wait!"

The whole day passed, and the boots were not cleaned. The Marechale knew what Francois suffered inwardly, and got him alone in the evening.

"Jesus died for the Germans," she said.

His lips remained tightly pressed. He suffered, and she suffered with him. After a moment's silence he burst into a torrent.

"We have endured too much! Think of the siege of Paris. That beast of a Bismarck! Oh! our country has suffered. Clean a German's boots? Never!"

He raved. The Marechale was quiet and listened for a time. Then she said:

"All that may be true; but you are going to have a greater victory over the Germans than ever the Germans won over you. The triumph which they had over France was a flea-bite in comparison."

She got his ear, and talked to him of the highest things. The victory which Jesus won on Calvary over Pilate and the Priests and Judas, this must be Francois' victory.

"Go back to your trade unless you can win this victory. This makes an apostle of Francois, and nothing else. These boots are only a detail, but they have brought to light something in you that is hindering the great victory."

And so they talked. She would not force him. Next morning she gave a lecture, at the end of which he came into her room and sat down. There was a moment's silence, and then he collapsed, falling all of a heap and sobbing like a child.

"Marechale," he said, "I will clean the boots!"

Such training inside the Ecole made the cadets ready for any conflict outside, and the triumph of the spirit of love was in some instances a preparation for death. The first of the Marechale's cadets to win the martyr's crown was Louis Jeanmonod.

He was a Swiss youth, finely built, nearly six foot, and twenty-one years of age; a true soldier, devoted, courageous, tender-hearted. His months of training were almost over, and in the last three weeks he developed wonderfully. He visited the cafes with great success, singing and speaking, holding his auditors in breathless silence. He had great power in convicting people, and often his opponents would become his friends and ask him to continue to speak to them.

On a January night in 1885 he was guarding the door of the Hall at the Quai de Valmey, when one of the roughs ran at him head foremost and butted him violently in the stomach. Louis managed to shut the door, and next day went on bravely with his work, even selling the _En Avant_ in the evening, till the pain became very severe. The doctor found that a quantity of blood had already settled in his lungs, and soon after pronounced his case beyond all human skill.

Louis was for a time delirious, but he had never in his past life played the fool, and he uttered no word that his mother would not have wished to hear. He always seemed to be starting on a campaign. Were the caps, the bags, and everything else ready? Oh! what glorious times were coming!

When the delirium passed, and his mind became calm, his pallid face shone with a strange light. As soon as the Marechale came to his bedside, he saluted and said--

"Amen, Marechale, amen!"

What were his thoughts of the ruffian who had dealt the deadly blow? He had only a single thought--"One day he will be saved." Detectives came to receive the dying man's description of the assailant. A message from them to this effect was conveyed to Louis, who answered it in a single word:

"_Jamais!_" (Never!)

But he described the guilty man to the Marechale, that she might know him and pray for him.

Seeking her hand when the end drew near, he said--

"Oh, I love so much to hold your fingers."

"Jesus will take your hands, Louis, and guide you into the port."

"I will--let myself--be guided--by Him."

The Marechale prayed, and with the spirit of Saint Stephen in his breast and the words "It is too beautiful!" on his lips, he went to be with Christ. Belleville and the Villette were stirred to the depths by a martyr's funeral, and at the grave Theodore Monod spoke words which moved the hearts of all.

The young Marechale who gathered round her men and women of this stamp--a willing people in the day of the Lord's power, ready for everything, faithful unto death--evidently possessed high qualities of leadership, and ere long the spirit of the Ecole Militaire was to be found in every station of the Army throughout France and Switzerland. Speaking at one of the General's great meetings in Scotland, Professor Henry Drummond said that after travelling all over the South of Europe, visiting many cathedrals and hearing famous orators, he had landed at Marseilles, and felt more of the presence and power of Christ in the Salvation Army meeting-place of that town than he had experienced in all his wanderings. The General repeated this to the Marechale, and she found that the meeting which had so profoundly impressed the Professor had been conducted by a young officer, Mlle. Dormois, who had recently left the Training School in Paris.

That the authorities at home praised God for the Marechale's work scarcely needs saying. Her father's appreciation found expression in every letter. Here are brief extracts from three of them.

"My dear girl, my very precious girl, I know you are after my own heart. I place boundless confidence in your judgment and resolutions. Do not be afraid of anything or any one."

"You are a true heroine, a Joan of Arc, indeed."

"You must have a fearful strain upon you. Still a great part of your business is to keep yourself quiet and free from wearing care. To be cool and steady under fire is the quality of the very best soldiers. I fear I have not excelled in this direction, and it is a very difficult property in our family, seeing how full of sympathy and feeling our hearts and lives are, but God can do much for us."

Every letter from her eldest brother Bramwell, who was the Chief of Staff, was a "Well done!" from over the sea. Writing in 1885--the year of his and Stead's heroic crusade against vice--he said: "I get more and more dissatisfied with things human every day. The world is all gone mad. If it was only bad, and not mad, we could mend it, but being both I get less and less hope instead of more! We will now attend to quality more. If we could get _better_ people surely we should go faster. I solemnly believe you are ahead of us on the Continent in this direction."

In the following year he wrote: "Do not think you will ever be less dear to me than you have been. You cannot be. I love and admire you, and if you were my general to-morrow I should follow you to the last gasp and stick while there was one limb of me left."

*CHAPTER VII*

*WOMAN'S VOCATION*

"There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free; there can be no male and female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." After the lapse of many centuries this great apostolic saying is beginning to yield up its meaning and its blessing. The Mother of the Army was one of the first to assert woman's liberty, and her daughters entered into a sacred heritage. Having become a public speaker at fourteen, and seen the work of faith rewarded with countless signs following, the Marechale could never harbour any secret fear that her ministry might be grieving the Spirit of God. It was impossible, however, that she should work for years without encountering many who had strong prejudices. Our Lord's disciples "marvelled that He spake with a woman," and there are still disciples who marvel when a woman speaks for Him.

In the summer of her third year in France, the Marechale attacked the old city of Nimes, in the largely Protestant Gard--the first of a series of campaigns which were the means of bringing a blessing to a number of the provinces of France. On her arrival she found that M. Peyron, an eminent judge, who had greatly benefited from hearing her before, had arranged a preliminary meeting of the orthodox of Nimes--pastors and their wives and other Protestant workers--to the number of about 120. He was anxious that they should be won before her campaign began, but he had no idea that he had prepared for her one of the battles royal of her life.

The meeting being thrown open, the doctrine of holiness--God's power to keep His children from sinning--first came up, and was violently attacked by several pastors who confounded it with perfectionism. Their remarks were loudly applauded, and one lady screamed above the rest--

"Let him that is without sin get up and testify."

Greatly daring, the Marechale whispered to a comrade who sat beside her, "Rise, Bisson," which he did, and in a few simple words testified, not indeed to his own perfection, but to God's power to sanctify and keep as well as justify.

After a momentary lull, the storm became fiercer than ever, and the ministry of women was now the cause of war. The Marechale alluded to her mother's manifesto on the subject.

"We have read it," said a lady, "and we do not agree with it. Women are meant for the home. They are commanded to be silent in the churches."

"Besides," cried another, "you are not old enough."

The Marechale quoted the words, "Let no man despise thy youth."

"But that," retorted a pastor's wife, "was said to a man."

Thereupon the babel of voices became deafening.

"Pretty and prepossessing girls," a matron was heard to say, "should not show themselves in public."

"If you do speak," said a pastor, skilled in distinctions, "you should speak to women only, and not before men."

All through the storm the central figure was quiet and self-possessed. But she was thinking hard. The idea of a distinction in sex had never come before her as a speaker; it was new and strange to her. When she at length spoke again, she put the result of her thinking into a simple, memorable, unanswerable dictum:

"But there is no sex in soul."

Perhaps somebody had said the same thing before, but it was none the less original on her part. Then she expanded the truth:

"The needs of a man's soul are the same as a woman's, and vice versa. You do not get up and say there are so many men and so many women in a meeting. They all need salvation, pardon, purity, peace; all the gifts and graces of the Spirit are for men and women alike. Of course," she continued, "if any woman is so light and frivolous that she makes such a distinction, that certainly proves that she has no vocation to be an evangelist, and I should send her home by the next train."

She felt that the atmosphere of the room was horrible. Religious controversies, like religious wars, create a more frightful spirit than any other quarrels. Instead of prolonging the discussion, the Marechale sank on her knees and began to pray. She had won by prayer many victories which were remembered after long years. When she was a child of fourteen, she attended a meeting of her mother's at Ryde in the Isle of Wight. She sat far back beside the door, listening till the address was ended, and then she heard her mother ask if some brother or sister would pray. As nobody responded, and the silence became too oppressive to bear, Katie rose and poured out her heart to God in tones of passionate earnestness, seeking for a victory ere the meeting ended. When she got home, she was folded in her mother's arms and covered with kisses; and forty years after, when she was herself conducting a mission at Ryde, a saintly lady of ninety-two told her that no prayer lived in her memory like that child's prayer.

It was such a prayer--long, intense, passionate--that the Marechale prayed among the orthodox of Nimes. That night the eldest daughter of M. Peyron, a beautiful, worldly girl, was won for Christ. At seven o'clock on the following morning two pastors, MM. Challand and Babut, along with M. Peyron, awoke the Marechale. They had come to say, for themselves and others, how they deplored the scene of the preceding night, and to beg forgiveness.

On Sunday morning the campaign proper was begun in the Alcasar, which was packed, and the wives of several pastors were among those who came in tears to the penitent form. Albin Peyron, junior, who is to-day the leader of the Army in Switzerland, began the new life at a "Night with Jesus" which was held after that meeting. In his youth he was the founder of _La Petite Armee_, which did much good work among the children of Nimes and other towns of Southern France.

While the Marechale was always at home in crowds, she loved quiet interviews with individuals if possible still more. In many of these talks the subject was the victory of faith. During one of her _tournees_, she was conducting meetings in a theatre at Cannes. On a lovely September evening she was walking towards the sea, lost in admiration of the sunset. Fatigued with her Sunday morning's work, she was seeking a little repose. She observed a priest slowly proceeding towards the hill on which stood a little Catholic church. His appearance struck her; he looked at once so distinguished and so sad. An inner voice said to her, "Speak to that priest." "I cannot," she said, "he would think me mad." But the voice said the same words a second time, and then she instantly obeyed. Hurrying towards the priest, she said--

"Good-evening, _mon pere_. I presume you are going to the church on the hill. May I accompany you, for I would speak with you on spiritual subjects?"

Uncovering his head, and bowing with great respect, he answered, "Certainly, madame."

They walked on for a little in silence. Then she said--

"What must I do to be saved, my father?"

"Keep the ten commandments," he answered at once.

"But the rich young man who came to Jesus could say with his hand on his heart that he had kept them all, and yet had no assurance of salvation. He was in great trouble. _He_ said, 'What must I do to be saved?'"

"Oh, then you must take the holy Eucharist very often."

"But those who take it, my father, are they saved from sinning? Are they not the victims of the power of evil, the same as others?"

"Oh! yes, madame, but then there is the Confessional."

"But does not the same thing apply to the Confessional, my father? You must know that there are tens of thousands in France who confess, but fall again the next day. They have not found rest. Is not Christ ready to save us if we are ready to be saved?"

"Alas! madame, we shall sin always, always, to the very end of our lives."

"But, my father, were not St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, Fenelon and many others, delivered from the slavery of sin and self? They attained to something definite--to holiness."

He turned with vehemence and said, raising his voice--

"Ah! madame, but those were extraordinary lives. Those people were saints."

"No, my father, they were men and women like you and me. What God did for St. Augustine or St. Catherine of Siena, can He not do it for me if I am ready to fulfil the conditions which He lays down? What does religion do, what is it worth, if it cannot deliver us from sin?"

He did not answer. He was silently thinking.

She went on, "Is Christ a Saviour, yes or no?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, He is!"

"Has He saved _you_, my father?"

They stood still for a moment, and he turned his face away, with a look of poignant sadness. Then followed a confession--one of the deepest, most heartfelt cries she had ever listened to--ending with the words, "Alas, alas! all the days of my life I sin, and I expect to sin to my latest breath."

The Marechale was profoundly moved, and felt that she stood upon holy ground. At last she spoke--

"Then Calvary is the greatest fiasco the world has ever seen."

Stretching out his hand, he said, "Oh, madame, do not say that; it is blasphemy."

"But, my father, we are in the presence of facts, not fancies. You have left what men prize most. You have lived up to your light. And what do I find? Torment instead of rest, conflict instead of assurance, bondage instead of deliverance. Surely, my father, Jesus did not come to increase our burdens, but to relieve them. You remember His word, 'Come unto me and I will give you rest.' He said, 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.' Are these theories to be preached in pulpits, or are they realities?"

By this time they stood on the summit of the hill, and she said--

"You are going to preach to-night, _mon pere_?"

"Yes."

"Would you like that we should go down the hill together and resume our conversation?"

"It would be a great pleasure, madame."

He preached one of the best sermons she had ever heard, partly inspired, she could not help thinking, by their intimate talk. As the congregation moved out, she stepped into a Confessional box to wait for him. She saw him turning this way and that with a look of disappointment, and, stepping out, said to him--

"I am here, _mon pere_."

They began to descend the hill together. "My father," she said, "I greatly enjoyed your sermon. But how can you show others the way of deliverance if you have not found it yourself? How can you unbind if you are not unbound? How can you heal if you are not healed? How, my father? Do you not see that all this is only from the head, not from the life, the heart?"

"It is true! But I try, oh, my God, I try!"

"But it does not come in that way--by our struggles."

"Then how?" he exclaimed in a tone of despair.

"Does He not say, 'Abide in me, and ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you'? Does not St. Paul testify, 'I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me.' How many have given praise to Him who is 'able to save to the uttermost' and 'able to present us faultless'! Put Him to the proof. If any one has the right to salvation, surely you have."

They paused under a tree in the stillness of evening, and, while he stood with bowed head, she knelt beside him and prayed.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME*

Early in 1887 the Marechale became the wife of Mr. Arthur Sydney Clibborn, an Irish gentleman of Quaker extraction, lineally descended from Barclay of Ury, the hero of one of Whittier's finest poems. Brought up in Bessbrook, which was called the model town from the fact that there was no public-house, police barracks or pawnshop in it, he renounced excellent business prospects in answer to a call which first came to him through a simple, earnest Quaker minister, "Sydney, will thee not come with us?" The visit of some representatives of Salvationism to Bessbrook turned the current of his thoughts in a new direction, making him exclaim, "Here is primitive Quakerism, primitive Wesleyanism, primitive Christianity!" As he had spent some years at school in Switzerland, and become proficient in French and German, he was sent by General Booth to assist the Marechale in France, and acted as her chief of staff until their marriage.