Chapter IV: Part 4

He was a man of great courage, and received a medal from the French President for saving life from drowning. As a servant of God he would, one cannot but think, have made a splendid Huguenot or Covenanter. His heroic ideal was the persecuted Quaker whose blood he had in his veins. In the Salvation Army's early days of conflict he was the bravest of the brave. He was stoned and covered with mud in the streets of Geneva. He was pursued by a Parisian mob that howled "Down with Jesus Christ!" His life was attempted many times, and he was condemned to death by the Nihilists under the seal of the Paris headquarters; but he never went out of his way to avoid death or use carnal weapons.

Mr. Booth-Clibborn has been specially used of God in removing the difficulties of those troubled with intellectual doubt and in opening the eyes of a large number who were in spiritual darkness.

The Marechale was now obliged to leave the Training Home, where her _vie apostolique_ among her beloved officers and cadets, whose every conflict and danger she shared, had often seemed to her like life in an earthly paradise. But whatever new duties and cares came to her in her little home in the Rue d'Allemagne, she never allowed them to interfere with her vocation. In the course of fourteen years God gave her five sons and five daughters, among whom life was infinitely sweet to her, yet all her public activities were maintained, while her passion for souls burned with a clear and steady flame.

Loyalty to Christ now assumed a new aspect, and the conditions of discipleship an added stringency. A great sentence in the Gospel--"Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life"--burned itself into the Marechale's soul, and she never doubted that she received her _centuple_ just because she paid the price.

When she went to any of the towns of France to undertake a difficult campaign, it was impossible for her to do her duty unless she fixed her whole mind and heart upon the work. Having to deal with the mass of sin concentrated in a large mixed audience such as she had to face in these towns, and knowing, as she used to say, that every person had a skeleton in the cupboard, she felt that she must become, as it were, the scapegoat to bear the sins of these people. There was a sense in which she had to be like Christ in this respect, and so co-operate and suffer with Him (Col. i. 24). She must go and set herself apart to lift up hands to God in favour of the city. She must say to every preoccupation, every earthly tie, "Stand thou there while I go yonder to pray." She must _live_ for that town and that people for six weeks, or two or three months. She might do a certain kind of work without giving her _life_, but it would not be of the apostolic kind. To get the hundredfold of which Christ spoke she must leave father and mother, home and child. In some very real way she must sacrifice and suffer. She had felt this from her childhood, and she now saw it more clearly than ever; there was always a price to pay. The secret of success in such cases was the consciousness of a vocation and a passionate love too, and the personal dealing with the Christ of Calvary.

How hard it became for the Marechale to accept this cross may be indicated by a touching scene depicted by her secretary, Miss Gugelman, who is now one of the bravest soldiers of salvation in India.

"'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.' How clearly this was illustrated when, at a late hour one evening, just at the close of her month's meetings in Paris, the Marechale bent over her little ones' cots to bid them good-bye before starting on her three-months' tour through France and Switzerland. Evangeline, the eldest, had kept awake, for she knew that her mamma was going away. The little arms were flung round the warrior-mother's neck, when, raising her sweet tear-stained face, little Evangeline stammered, '_Maman_, stay with me, or take me with you on your _tournees_.' Our leader's all too human tears filled her eyes; she kissed the little pleader, and then wrapped her up in a blanket, and brought her into the study to see us off. It was painfully clear to us who were watching her, that the leaving of her little ones for the war's sake was a heavy cross to the Marechale. Thank God, she shirks it not. Suppressing her feelings, she went out into the cold and damp, and started her long all-night journey."

That was in February 1894, and later in the same year she had two of the finest campaigns of her life--at Havre and Rouen. The turbulent beginning at Havre was graphically described by her friend the Princess Malzoff, who accompanied the Marechale in order to have a taste of the _vie apostolique_. "There was a great tumult in the 'Lyre Havraise.' The Marechale had come to publish the word of love and salvation. An immense crowd forced itself into the hall, and who would have dared believe that they had all come simply to present the world with the most scandalous, the most vulgar and odious spectacle that one can imagine? When the Marechale rose with great dignity and calm ... she could not make herself heard. Every word was interrupted; one could see that it was a prepared stroke. One might imagine oneself to be in an asylum. But she did not let herself be discouraged; she persevered; she walked straight into the midst of the infuriated crowd. She did not tame these wild beasts, but she came out victorious all the same. Tall, beautiful, calm, sustained by her divine conviction and with the strength of a great heart, she came back again and again--our admirable Marechale! ... In the midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a few _elite_ souls felt a noble enthusiasm for this young woman who battled alone against a hostile and wicked crowd. They came to grasp her hand, to express their admiration for her and their shame for those who had broken the simplest laws of hospitality, politeness and civilisation. Blessed be our Marechale; in her the whole _Armee du Salut_ was personified that night in its strength, its faith, its persevering love."

Tributes to "the Marechale under fire" were extorted from all the reporters. After two or three meetings the atmosphere was changing and the tide of battle turning, when tidings came from Paris, that Augustine, the Marechale's little son of two summers, was alarmingly ill. Then came an indescribable mental conflict, which ended in her deciding to remain at least another night and hope for better news in the morning. She called her officers for prayer, and that night spoke with a power and tenderness which held the vast audience as with a spell; after which she had Havre for six weeks in the hollow of her hand.

Next morning she received a reassuring wire from home, and, sitting alone on the beach, she wrote a hymn that gives perfect expression to the thought of the _Greater Love_--a hymn that has endeared itself in France as much to Catholics as to Protestants. It begins:

Qui quitte famille et terre
Pour mon Nom, pour suivre mes pas;
Qui quitte enfants, pere ou mere,
Recoit le centuple ici-bas.

When this hymn was sung in the "Lyre Havraise" a night or two afterwards by one of the Marechale's young comrades, Mme. Jeanmonod, who had a beautiful soprano voice, it was received with a burst of sympathetic applause, and had to be sung over and over again, till the audience knew it.

Then there was a great harvest of souls to reap. A letter written at the time gives an idea of the intensity of spirit with which the leader threw herself into the work.

"Meeting superb! Nothing of its kind since the days of Geneva and Nimes, and even better in a sense than that, as the infidels rush to hear me. Perfect order and people pleading to get in. In these first audiences it has been too risky and excitable to allow any to speak but me. They applaud everything, that is, when I have finished speaking, and I never felt more free and regardless of man's opinion. I am stronger with the rough element alone in my weakness, so much stronger as I throw myself on them. Yes, I am filled with the life and power of God for this town. This hour may never come again. My soul is on the full stretch.... Do you know what the 'Centuple' is for me? That my children shall become apostles! Oh, I claim that of God, and do you know there is an assurance in my heart."

In addition to the nightly crowds at the Casino, the Marechale held afternoon meetings for women only, at which she spoke on such subjects as "The Role of Woman," "The Mother of Jesus," "The White Robe." Nothing impressed Havre more than the midnight suppers she gave to the _filles perdues_ of the town, not a few of whom were constrained to abandon the life of sin. And so generous were the rich citizens in their offerings that at the close of the campaign the Marechale was at length able to realise one of her cherished ideas--the foundation of a Rescue Home in Paris.

After Havre, the Marechale had a short breathing-space at home, and then Rouen had to be faced. Again the shadow of the Cross fell upon little hearts and lives. Victoire, who was nearly five, pleaded with upstretched arms, "Don't go, mother! stay with us!" (_Ne pars pas, Maman! Reste avec nous!_) Evangeline, who had just turned six, had learned the lesson of separation, and, throwing her arms around her mother, said, "Maman, if you do go to Rouen, will some souls be saved that would not be saved if you did not go?"

"Yes; most likely so."

"Then go, Maman!"

And Maman went.

While the good Catholic of Rouen was shocked, the man in the street was amused, at the idea of worshipping God in the _Theatre Francais_ instead of the stately cathedral, and between them they contrived to make the thing impossible. What, they asked, could be more grotesque than preaching and singing hymns on the stage? At the opening meeting the Marechale herself obtained a fairly good hearing, but a hostile element was present which every now and then convulsed the audience with laughter by some comical exclamation; and when one of her comrades attempted to close the meeting with prayer, the rout was complete. Prayer in a theatre was the limit, and next day the Marechale was informed by the Mayor that he must pacify the public by terminating these proceedings.

The great Casino, at the corner of the square in which Joan of Arc was burned, was then secured, and the Marechale began to deliver a series of addresses on "The Holy Mother of Jesus," "Nineteenth Century Miracles," "Confession," "Restitution," "The Saints," "The Pater Noster," "My Credo," "The Altar." The crowds that filled the hall to overflowing were amazed to find that these subjects were all dealt with quite unecclesiastically, and with such an exclusive application to the individual heart and life that sacerdotalism became, as it were, non-existent, while the sinner and the Saviour were made manifest and left face to face. The people who came with minds alert left with hearts melted and consciences aroused. Soon there were great numbers of souls seeking spiritual help, and the Marechale announced that she would meet the convicted and anxious in one of the rooms of the Casino. No fewer than four hundred sought private interviews in that place, which thus became a confessional of the simple, primitive order. Not by priestly absolution, but through personal contact with the one High Priest and Mediator, was sin remitted and salvation won.

So many Catholics were converted that the head of one of the seminaries thought it necessary to preach against the _Armee du Salut_. An influential abbe, on the other hand, said: "I cannot, of course, agree with the Salvationists, but I am absolutely convinced of their sincerity, and I am certain they are far nearer salvation than the majority of Catholics." The _cure_ of the largest _paroisse_ attended one day in his _soutane_, gave an offering for the mission, and bought the publications at the door. When the Marechale was about to speak to women alone on the Holy Mother, two priests expressed their desire to be present, and she had them concealed behind a curtain. At the end they were deeply moved, and assured her they had not heard a single word with which they were not in heartiest agreement. Such was the deep spiritual impression made upon the town that a newspaper was published containing nothing but accounts of her meetings and the work going on in the Casino.

During all her years in France the Marechale never posed as a Protestant and never attacked Catholicism. Creeds, ceremonies, penances, pilgrimages--these things were to her neither here nor there. She always went for the real, and she found in Christ not only true divinity but perfect humanity. Her sermon on the Virgin melted thousands of Catholic hearts, and her fundamental doctrine of sacrifice never failed to evoke a response from the Latin races. She was an eager student--so far as the "apostolic life" permitted--of the writings of Catherine of Siena, Thomas a Kempis, Madame Guyon and Fenelon, claiming kinship with all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth.

Thus she had great power over Catholics as well as Protestants and infidels. One of her most devoted officers, M. le Roux, had, after a brilliant career as a Catholic student, completed his preparation for the priesthood and received the tonsure, when he came under her influence and found his life completely changed. And the following letter received from a lady-professor in Rouen indicates the kind of impression which was made on many Catholic minds.

"Dear Marechale, I wish to do what I have not yet dared to do when face to face with you--that is, to express the pleasure which I have found in your charming Conferences. They have moved and troubled me to such an extent, have thrown such light in my heart and mind, that I ask myself what is going on within me. Your addresses, so simple and yet so high, so suited to your hearers, so consecutive, have influenced me more than all the beautiful sermons of the monks. You have made me understand that God asks something else from us than outward practices and empty ceremonial, and I feel that you have renewed a faith in me that had nearly disappeared. You have made me taste, thanks to your deep convictions and the warmth of your speech, one of the purest joys I have ever known.... Be blessed a thousand times, Marechale, for having revealed my religion to be under a new light, for having shaken this apathy which rendered me incapable of every generous impulse, for having made me more sensitive to the sufferings of others. Be blessed in your children, who one day I hope will reward you nobly for all your sacrifices. Be blessed in humanity, the great family which you have elected to live for and which is the object of your care."

Does such a revival as this leave solid and lasting results? Let one case out of many be presented as evidence that it does. M. Matter was a distinguished engineer and an officer in the French army. Extracts from two of his letters tell what the Rouen campaign did for him.

"Beloved Marechale, Three years ago tonight a poor man entered the Casino through what appeared mere chance. He was burdened with sorrow, keenly conscious of his sins, but never dreaming of asking the _Armee du Salut_--which did not even excite his curiosity--to help him, hardly believing any more in the possibility of salvation for him. God inspired you; the Holy Spirit made your words penetrate even underneath the breastplate of sin which covered my poor heart. Two days after I was born to a new life. From that moment God has strengthened, protected and directed me. I seek to love Him with all my heart, and I treasure a deep and loving gratitude to you."

And six years later: "I have made a pilgrimage at night in the deserted streets to the Casino where God found me and where you were His ambassador."

This gentleman is now well known all over France for his work among criminals and drunkards, and his services have been recognised by the French government. He gets into personal touch with hundreds of convicts in order to speak to them of the love of God, and down in the Ardeche he has a Home for four hundred little waifs, mostly the children of criminals, whom he calls the Marechale's grandchildren, he himself being her spiritual son.

The last time she visited him in Paris, they were engaged in eager and intimate talk, when he said, "Do you see that ivory pipe? I have engraved on it the day of my conversion at Rouen; but since that time I have never had any inclination to smoke it. And do you see that pile of letters? These are from my boys in prison. Let me read one of them to you." Then he read the words of a convict who spoke of prison walls lighted up with the glory of Christ's presence. And he added, "Do you remember you said to me when I was in despair over my past life, 'These hands, which have done so much evil, will bring blessing and salvation where I can never go.' Your words have literally come true."

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST*

One night a little card was placed on the _table d'hote_ of the Hotel Meurice, in the Rue de Rivoli, intimating to the guests that the Marechale would speak at an informal meeting in the salon after dinner. Among those who came to see and hear her was a little Russian lady with deep and thoughtful hazel eyes. She was the celebrated Princess Nancy (properly Anastasia) Malzoff of the Russian court. One of the Czarinas died in her arms. She was a friend of King Edward VII, and her brilliant wit made her a welcome figure in every court of Europe. She spoke eight languages.

She was now well advanced in life, and thought she had known everybody worth knowing and seen everything worth seeing in the world. But that evening was the beginning of a new life of peace and joy such as she had never dreamed of. From the moment the Marechale opened her lips, she was fascinated, first by the speaker, and then still more by the message. Next morning she came in her carriage to the Villette. The Marechale was scarcely well enough to receive her, but she would not take a "No." When she entered the Marechale's room, she threw herself by the bedside and exclaimed, "Oh! tell me, how did you get to know Him?"

This was the commencement of a seven years' friendship, and during all that time she was never out of reach without writing the Marechale every second day.

The Princess was a member of the orthodox Greek Church. Her mother had married her off at sixteen, and she had eleven children by the time she was twenty-eight. When she found that her husband had become unfaithful, she dismissed him with an emphatic "C'est fini!" and for more than a quarter of a century she had never seen him.

The Marechale listened with deep sympathy to the story of her life, and then said, "You must forgive him, if you would be forgiven."

"Never, never!"

"Yes, if you want Christ, forgive him. Never mind what he has done, you must forgive him."

The Princess could not. A struggle went on in her mind for six weeks. She began to come to the meetings at the Rue Auber, but she had no peace. The Marechale opened the question again.

"Come now, I want you to write and invite him to meet you at your hotel, to dine with him, and to forgive him."

A terrible inner controversy ensued, and the Princess became ill over it. One can scarcely imagine what it all meant to her, and yet thousands have to go through the same.

Calling one day, the Marechale found her in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Princess, how dare you smoke like this?"

"Well, I am surrounded by a thousand devils, blue, black and yellow. You have been neglecting me."

A ceaseless conflict was raging in her breast, and ere they parted that day she wrote a letter and said she would send it.

The Marechale called again, and found that the letter had not been sent. Then the crisis came.

"Princess, you are lost. If you do not forgive, your heavenly Father will not forgive you."

"I cannot, I cannot."

She was in agony of soul.

"Princess," said the Marechale, "are you perfect? From the little I know of you I should think you have a very bad temper."

"It is true, it is true."

"Your sins have not been his, but they are sins before God, and have caused suffering to others. If you want God to forgive your bad temper, you must forgive him."

The Marechale prayed, and bade her look to the Cross and see how Christ forgave. Then she told her again what to do.

"Darling, you are to invite him to your apartments; you are to have a sweet little dinner for him and flowers on the table, and when he comes you are to kiss him."

"But I cannot!"

"Yes, you will; and remember it is no forgiveness unless you kiss him. Forgiveness means kissing. Forgive him, and I know peace will come."

"Very well, I will, I will!"

The Marechale chanced to be leaving Paris for a time, and said--

"You will send me a wire when you have done it."

The Princess invited her husband. He made a long night journey. She kissed him and forgave him. Next day the Marechale received a wire which made her dance for joy. It ran: "_Tout s'est passe comme vous l'avez dit, et la paix du Christ m'inonde: Malzoff_" (All is done as you said, and the peace of Christ floods my soul.)

Her husband died after a few months, and her thankfulness for what she had done was profound.

The last years of her own life were beautiful. In a letter which she wrote to General Booth in regard to her friend's health she said: "I owe a great deal to the Marechale. She has given me a treasure greater than all the treasures of this world--she has given me a living Christ; she has put Him not near me, but in me, in my soul, and the gratitude I feel for that blessing is great." An article from her pen on the Army's work in Paris contains these words: "The Salle Auber is to me now a holy place. I feel the presence of Christ there--Christ who has personally become a living Saviour to me since the Marechale brought me to Him and committed me to His Divine arms."

Hundreds of letters, the last of which was written in St. Petersburg on the day before her death, reveal an intensely ardent nature, and prove that the heart which truly loves never grows old. We translate a few extracts.

"I will use all my moral forces to prove to you that our mutual affection has advanced me in the path of holiness which you opened to me the very first moments I heard you speak. God had pity upon me and sent you on my _via dolorosa_ to open to me a new horizon, a new heaven. He carried my heart to you with an intensity of which I did not think myself capable."

"I have found in you two beings equally precious to me--the first is a friend I love like a dearly beloved daughter; the second the Marechale of my Salvation, whose work, vocation and power I admire--that moral power which you only in the whole world exercise over me. If I had known you earlier, you would have made a saint of me."

"Not any affection in the world, not even my children's, can replace yours for me. What does it matter though everybody loves me if you do not?"

"I know that it is because I have not yet renounced my 'self,' my '_moi_,' that your absence makes me suffer, but I cannot help it--it is beyond my power. I know also that the day my 'self' will be chased away--which is doubtful--I shall love no one, for to love one must be a self, one must have one's _own_ heart."

"I doubt if there are any others who bear you such a deep, complete, living, warm and luminous affection. Not that you do not deserve it, but all natures are not alike, and you know the fault of mine. I cannot love by halves."

"'Love wisely,' some one advises. That word 'wise' hurts me. I do not want to be wise in my love for you. I prefer to love madly, and that is what I do, and you feel it, don't you? Wisdom to the devil when it is a question of the heart."

"I cannot believe that He must detach us from everything to attach us to Himself--that would make me very sad. On the contrary I feel that it is only human love, disinterested love, but deep and living, which can make us understand Divine love. It is only through human experience that we can appreciate His great, His mighty, His eternal love for us. All the life of Jesus is filled with that palpable love for His creatures, and that is why He is so near to us. Let me therefore love you without detachment, and the more I love you the more I will love Him."

One of her letters is peculiarly interesting: "I will see the Emperor in these days, and I will seek strength to speak to him. You see, my darling, speaking is not enough, one must in such a case pour out one's soul and feel that a superior force guides one and speaks for one."

It turned out as she hoped. One night she was at the Palace in St. Petersburg. After dinner the Czar came and seated himself beside her. Soon they were deep in intimate conversation. She began telling him what her new-found friend in Paris had done for her. She talked wisely as he listened attentively. At length he said--

"But, Nancy, _you_ have always been good, always right."

"No," she answered; "till now I have never known the Christ. She has made Him real to me, brought Him near to me, and He has become what He never was before--my personal Friend."

*CHAPTER X*

*THE BURNING QUESTION*

It was the often expressed wish of Mrs. Josephine Butler that the Marechale might be able to join her crusade against the infamous White Slave Traffic. In one of her earliest letters to her friend she said: "Dearest Catherine, the wicked party, as you know, have triumphed in the elections in Switzerland, and the Geneva government has passed that evil Law which our friends were trying to stop.... How nice it would be if you and I could _stand up together_ in Geneva, and denounce their wickedness and proclaim the Saviour. I should love to do so." At a later time she wrote of her young friend, "Oh, I sometimes think if she were in the work of our Federation, what a harvest she might bring us in, or rather bring in for God!"

The Marechale regarded the wish of that saintly and chivalrous woman as involving a kind of sacred trust. Her own heart was early and deeply troubled by the darker aspects of our modern civilisation. When she and her two brave comrades, Florence Soper and Adelaide Cox, took their first flat in Paris, they were shocked to learn that they had as their nearest neighbours--above and beneath, to the right and to the left--families unconsecrated by any marriage tie; and in the course of their ordinary work they found themselves hourly confronted by all the devils of vice. The lurid facts, of which most Christians, happily for their own peace of mind, know little or nothing, were burned into the souls of these noble women, each of whom dedicated herself to a battle _a outrance_ against this most appalling form of evil. And have they not faithfully kept their vow? Are there any living Englishwomen who have done so much to protect our innocent children and raise our fallen sisters as these three, who first toiled and suffered and prayed together thirty years ago in the Villette of Paris?

In redeeming her pledge, the Marechale not only gave midnight suppers to the _filles dechues_ of the great cities in which she conducted her campaigns, not only founded Rescue Homes in Paris, Nimes, Lyons and Brussels, but endeavoured to make the problem of purity a national question, to be dealt with in a statesmanlike manner by every patriotic citizen.

She frequently addressed great meetings of the men of Paris and other cities on this subject, making irresistible appeals to the heart and conscience. It was astonishing how she carried the most critical audiences along with her, though now and then an indignant hearer would leap to his feet and dash out of the hall or theatre in which her meeting was held.

She steadily refused to believe that nothing could be done for the _morale_ of Frenchmen, and her faith in the innate chivalry of the people was amply justified. The respect with which she was heard was a tribute not only to the personal magnetism of a consecrated life, but to the Christian ideal of chastity. She was often told by journalists that any one else, man or woman, daring to utter half the home truths to which she gave expression would have been hissed out of the town. Explain it as one will, when she pleaded the sacred cause of womanhood, men applauded to their own hurt. "Gentlemen," she would exclaim, "I am not French, but I love your nation. I have made your country mine, and I realise what France might be but for the worm which gnaws at the root of your national life. It makes me shudder to think--it makes me literally sick to see--how many thousands of my sisters, and your sisters, in your beautiful city are ministers of vice. So many, your policemen tell me, under twenty, so many under seventeen, so many under fifteen, and there are even those known to the police who are not in their teens. Gentlemen, they do not sin alone, for we are all _solidaires_. They are like your own girls, your wives, your sweet little daughters. They have hearts, they have brains, they are intelligent, they would make beautiful mothers, our comrades in life's journey, helping us and sharing our burdens. And, alas, what have you made of them? Any nation which can look at _that_ going on in its cities day by day and night by night, without a word, without a protest--which can see this splendid asset, woman, who should bear its sons and daughters, sacrificed and sold to vice, disease, and early death,--that nation is on the decline. Do not tell me that a man worthy of the name can be silent in face of these stupendous facts. Such a man is not a Frenchman.

"I am told that things have always been so, and will always be so. I hear it said on every hand that this vice is a necessity. That some women--that the daughters of the poor--should be sacrificed is regarded as inevitable. Well, then, gentlemen, as you say it is for the public utility, follow your reasoning to its own logical conclusion, be just to these poor creatures; do not despise them, do not call them lost, fallen, prostitutes; be honest and acknowledge them; allow them to stand at least on the same level as our soldiers who sacrifice themselves for their country. Far from being ashamed of them, honour them for their service to our sons and our nation.

"But you say 'it is only _une fille_,' and one of your senators has publicly said that 'we are come to a fine pass if _an honest man_ cannot buy himself _une bonne fortune_.' Only a _fille_! Your mothers were once only _filles_, your wives were only _filles_, and what are your own daughters? Wherein lies the difference?

"An honest _man_! I am not a nun; I am not a man-hater stalking through the world. I revere man. He is half a god. Look at his works in every domain--the king of creation, given that wonderful command to subdue and rule, having everything under his feet. When he rises to his destiny, and becomes a co-worker with God, and puts his life and example--that wonderful miracle called influence--on the side of righteousness, he rises to the sublime. The sum of happiness, of pure joy and peace, that one good man can bring to the little group at home, and then to the community, to the city, to the world, cannot be estimated. And the sum of misery, the curse, the blight that one man can bring to a woman, to children, to every one he touches--that, too, cannot be estimated. An _honest man_! He does not even stop where the cows and horses do. He goes a thousand miles beneath them! And yet the indulgence of the passions is no more a necessity than the drinking of alcohol is a necessity for an infant of a year old. It is society that awakens those evil desires, and they unfold themselves under the influence of a baneful education.

"Gentlemen, you say that a bad woman is worse than a bad man. Have you ever reflected that the wrongs done to her are far deeper? Have you realised that her make-up is a thousand times more delicate and complex than yours, and that as a consequence this sin makes shorter work of her? Her despair is blacker and she is reckless. You take from her the hope of ever having a little home of her own, of ever having a real husband, of ever hearing herself called mother. You have done that before she can realise what you have done. She does not wait, does not estimate. The realisation comes to her later on in life. And when it comes, is it any wonder that she flies to drink and becomes a demon? Would not I? Would not you?

"Say all that you please against woman. Reckon up the sins on your side and on hers. Still your page is black as ink compared with hers. Think of the generous, the absolute, the totally blind ways she loves.

'Woman's heart runs down to love
As rivers run to seas.'

"You have your life, your work, your amusements; but love is her whole existence. She is created in that way. That makes your sin in deceiving a trusting heart infinitely greater.

"You may go and have a good marriage afterwards, and be proud of your charming wife's sweet looks, but does not the vision of another, a pale face sometimes flit across your mind? And when you look at your little cot, do you not see another baby face--another little life you have never owned, of which you are the author, and which is equally yours before God? A woman's heart has been broken, and there will be retribution."

While the Marechale stood alone, pleading as a woman the cause of woman, her audiences of educated Frenchmen were sometimes so deeply stirred and convicted that they would rock and sob under the power of emotion; and when they rose at the end to sing a hymn that she wrote as a young girl--a hymn which has been translated into many languages--

Ote tous mes peches!
Ote tous mes peches!
Agneau de Dieu, je viens a toi,
Ote tous mes peches,

the words and music would sweep over the audience like a wave, sending many away with consciences tortured and faces bathed in tears.

One morning, after such a meeting, there was a ring at the Marechale's door, and a lady was ushered into her presence. Coming forward without a word, she took the Marechale's face between her hands, and warmly embraced her in the French fashion by kissing both her cheeks. The Marechale inquired what was the meaning of this sweet affection.

"Oh!" said the stranger, "you have restored to me my husband. He was listening to you last night, and when he came home he fell at my feet and begged me to pardon him, vowing that he would never again be untrue to me."

That was but one of the many fruits of these addresses.

Sometimes the Marechale would read to _elite_ audiences a letter which a man of high social standing wrote to a charming young girl whom he ought to have made his wife. Having met her at Carnival, he awoke in her heart an adoring love, deceived her with a promise of marriage, put a ring on her finger, and after three years abandoned her and her baby boy. The Marechale took the letter to an eminent jurist and senator, who confessed that for cold-blooded cruelty he had never seen anything to equal it; but he sorrowfully added--such are the laws of Christian lands--that nothing could be done to right the wrong. The letter ran as follows--

"LITTLE MARIE,

"Once again I must ask pardon for all the harm I have done you. I hope, however, that you will be strong in trouble, stronger than you have been up to the present. This will be a very great consolation to me. I owe many thanks for the resolutions that the good little Marie made yesterday, in spite of her heart and all her feelings. Believe that I shall never forget it, and that it cost me much before deciding to break your ideal--but, as I told you, I prefer to be sincere. As long as my heart was free from other passion I always considered you as the best friend I possessed. If I was not completely happy, it was that living without love was not to live--but you, poor little Marie, you suffered!

"You are worth a hundred times more than I, and precisely on account of that we could not understand each other. You who are so good--too good--permeated with the most delicate sentiments, you could not conquer an ambitious man, for I am very ambitious.

"Whilst you dreamed of a simple, quiet life with me, you must understand that violent passions, riches, and a luxurious life are for me essential. In a word, our ideals are completely different, and it is a divorce of souls which I have accomplished in leaving you. Fate made us meet, and fate separates us. Don't have any ill-feeling towards me. My dream now is to create for myself quite a new life made up of goodness, of love, and above all faithfulness in a serious affection.

"I sacrifice you, it is true, but if it were otherwise, think of the torture you would have inflicted on me. Is it not better to separate, each of us keeping a good memory of what made our union? Think also how my life is insupportable in this muddle now that I love truly.

"You are good, Marie; be courageous now. The sacrifice that I ask of you is enormous, I know, but do it for love of me, and I will be eternally obliged to you.

"You will put all your tenderness in the little Gustave, whom I shall never forget, and above all remember that he who loves well chastises well. Au revoir--au revoir!

"Once again pardon me, and don't suffer too much by your exile. My only hope is that Gustave will recompense you largely for all the suffering you have endured, so little merited during these long years.

"I remain,
"Your devoted----."

Marie was human, and when the marriage day drew near there was a fierce flaming-up of resentment in her young heart. She thought of making a scene at the church and spoiling the bridegroom's joy. Her brother fanned her burning sense of wrong, and promised to back her up if she would seek revenge. But the Marechale pleaded with her, the love of the Crucified constrained her, and on the morning of the wedding she wrote the following pathetic little note: "He is to be married to-day. The wedding bells are ringing.... It is all over, dear Marechale, and I am on my knees in my little room. All is well; the peace of Christ is in my heart, and I have the victory." This is no romance, but a bit of real life. Which of us would have done as little Marie did? She did not know it, but she was worthy that morning of the ministry of angels--the shining ones who have never sinned and never suffered.

Sometimes the Marechale would tell her audience a story to prove what wells of love there still are in the hearts of the most abandoned. During a three months' campaign at Lyons, resulting in one of the most remarkable revivals in which she ever took part, she was giving a midnight supper. Her officers had gone to the most notorious houses and left a card containing the words: "A lady who is devoted to the cause of women desires to speak to them on subjects which deeply interest them, in ---- Hall, at twelve to-night. Supper, music and singing."

The city had been moved, and the rich demonstrated their sympathy with this effort. Having had frequent experiences of the risks attending midnight gatherings, the Marechale enlisted the interest of the police, who on this occasion gave her all possible assistance.

Late in the evening the table was covered with damask cloths and adorned with flowers. A supper of roast beef, vegetables, fruit and black coffee was prepared. Towards midnight the piano began to be played, that those who entered the hall might be welcomed with cheerful music.

Some girls came in laughing, and quickly went out again, evidently thinking there must be some deception. They did not believe that banquets were spread for nothing. Sometimes it was very difficult to convince them that the thing was not a farce.

Presently a horrible old hag appeared--it would be difficult to imagine a more ugly, repulsive woman. Coming up to the Marechale she said--

"You are the Holy Virgin. I know it. _Oui, vous etes la Sainte Vierge, je le sais_."

The Marechale did not know what to say, so much was she taken aback.

"You are the Holy Virgin," the old woman repeated.

"Come along and have a talk with me," said the Marechale, "and take supper. I am delighted to see you."

The woman laughed. "No, no, no, it isn't me that you want--_Ce n'est pas moi qu'il vous faut_."

"Yes, it is you. I am happy, believe me I am so happy, to see you. It is you whom I want. Do sit down."

At last, with great difficulty, she was persuaded to be seated. But she stayed only a minute. The Marechale turned to speak to somebody, and the old woman darted out of the hall. She was gone like a flash.

"We won't see _her_ again, Marechale," said one of the officers.

The Marechale began to blame herself. Why did she not inspire the poor creature with confidence? Why could one not make her feel at rest? Why had she run away? She had seemed to suspect something. It was a sore disappointment.

After some waiting, the girls began to come, and the tables filled up, but every time the door opened the Marechale turned her eye towards it in the hope of seeing her old woman return. A gloom had been cast over her spirit because that woman had gone out, not believing that she was welcome, thinking she was too old and too ugly.

The beautiful grace, "Nous Te benissons," was sung, prayer was offered, and sweet music filled the air while the plates were handed round. Some of the guests were pretty and some ugly, some young and some old, some clad in rags and some dressed in the height of fashion. Some poor famished creatures asked for a plate of meat four or five times, while others, having already supped, merely touched a little fruit with their dainty fingers and sipped a cup of black coffee.

The supper was nearly ended, and the Marechale was preparing to speak, when the door burst open, and in came our old woman, with a pretty young girl, fair as a lily, on one arm, and a dark one, equally young and beautiful, on the other. Up she came to the "Holy Virgin," with her dear old face radiant.

"_Voila_! I have gone and found them. It's _these_ that you want! For me it is too late, but show them _the other side of the medal_."

The Marechale could not speak. Her eyes filled with tears. The words cut her through. The woman did not know what an act she had done, nor what an unforgettable phrase--_le revers de la medaille_--she had used.

"I have spent a long time in seeking them," she said. "I _am_ pleased--_Je suis contente_."

"And I, too, am happy," said the Marechale, "but especially because you have come."

"_Moi!_! for me it is finished. For me it is too late. But these--they are young, they are pretty, they have life before them. It is these that you want!"

The three sat down, the Marechale taking the old woman next to her. And she never served a cup of coffee with such pleasure in her life.

In after years she would sometimes tell the story of that old woman on a Sunday morning to an English congregation, and then ask the searching question, "Which of you has ever spent two hours day or night seeking for a lost soul as she did?"

*CHAPTER XI*

*THE PRODIGAL SON*

Baron X, the eldest son of the Baron of that name, was born at Bordeaux, and brought up in a family of strict Catholic traditions. He studied at the College de Tivoli and the Lycee, but he cared for little except sport and pleasure. After he had wasted much of his father's substance in riotous living, he was informed that his allowance would be entirely cut off unless he went abroad for a time. Leaving home in disgrace, he sailed for New York, and was beginning to taste the bitterness of exile, when, chancing one day to enter a big restaurant, he was astonished to meet his cousin, the Viscount of X., who, having inherited a fortune of two million francs, was making haste to squander it. Falling upon each other's necks, they at once became companions in pleasure. Giving themselves up to all kinds of insanity, they spent immense sums in a few months.

Baron X was afraid to give himself a single moment of reflection on the enormity of his errors. He was inwardly miserable, and found that everybody else who was pursuing pleasure was as unhappy as himself. One night, at a dance in Montreal, he said to the queen of the ball, admired by everybody for her beauty and charm--

"Would that I could find out how to enjoy myself again!"

She answered, "If _I_ seem to be gay, I have no reason for being so. Oh, how I suffer!"

The young man felt that existence became more and more mechanical, the days succeeding one another in an endless monotony of unsatisfying amusements. He seemed to be living in a bad dream.

After a while he returned to France, and one evening he was sitting, sad at heart, on the balcony of the _Cafe de la Paix_, wondering to what place of pleasure he should turn his steps, when some Salvationist girls came to offer their journal to the customers. They were greeted with the usual pleasantries. Baron X asked the waiter if he knew who these people were.

"Oh, yes, Monsieur, they are the _Salutistes_, and if you want to have a good laugh, you have only to go to the Rue Auber, which is quite near by; they have a hall there where you could spend a good evening."

His curiosity awakened, Baron X went to the place indicated, taking a _fille de joie_ with him. The fair-haired young man and his companion sat at the bottom of the hall laughing. That evening there were "testimonies," which somehow arrested Baron X's attention. He could not help asking himself how these young people seemed so happy. Then a young officer read the words, "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord," and delivered an address which was not correct in language, but extremely incisive. Baron X said to himself, "He knows my history, and speaks to me." As he went out, he bought some publications which were exposed for sale at the door, and spent the night in reading them. He came next evening alone, and a great spiritual conflict began. He continued to come, and one night remained behind, being in an agony of soul. Sobbing aloud, he confessed that he had led a wild and wicked life, dishonoured his name, and broken his mother's heart. At one o'clock in the morning he gave himself to God.

The Marechale saw that he was afraid of himself in Paris, and opened her doors to him. For six months he lived partly at her house and partly at the headquarters in the Rue Auber. She soon came to know him through and through, and was struck by his simplicity and absolute sincerity. He had broken completely with the past, and never had one _arriere pensee_. He was ready for any sacrifice and for the humblest service.

One day a police agent came to tell the Marechale that she had somebody living in her house and wearing the uniform of the _Armee de Salut_, who was passing himself off as the son of Baron X. She called Baron X, and, while the two men stared at each other, said, "This is the son of Baron X." The official apologised and withdrew.

Baron X had written to tell his parents of his conversion, but received no answer. After six months the Marechale had to begin a _tournee_ at Bordeaux, and told Baron X that she would seize the opportunity to go and visit his parents. He was overjoyed. He hoped for much, and said he would pray.

When the Marechale, clad in uniform, drew near to the gates of the Baron's chateau, a complete stranger stopped her and exclaimed, "My poor child, what are you going to do in that house?" She only smiled and walked on, but the question came back to her mind afterwards.

Ringing the bell, she was shown into a luxurious room, and presently the Baron, the Baroness, and their daughter appeared. She was received as stiffly as if she had been the representative of the Queen, and found it hard to begin. Making an effort, she said they had probably learned from their son that a wonderful change had taken place in his life. She was happy to be able to confirm it. For six months she and her officers had witnessed his life, and had noticed nothing in word or look or act inconsistent with this marvellous change.

There was no answer. The parents and daughter simply stared at their visitor. She continued--

"I know that his life has been bad, but I thought that you would be glad to hear of his conversion."

Then the Baroness could no longer contain herself. A torrent of words fell from her lips. She depicted the scandalous life of her son, who had been a real prodigal in every sense of the word, gambling away their wealth, bringing his mistress into their house, and disgracing their name.

"But," said the Marechale, "that was before his change. Do not bring up what he once was. Think of what he is now. He has been living among my children, and I can trust him to go in and out with them. I know something of real conversions, and I think I can judge. I assure you that he has become a new man, with new desires, new aspirations, a new nature."

These assurances only led to another realistic description of his sins.

"But," pleaded the Marechale, "that was when he was Saul; now he is Paul."

They stared and did not comprehend the meaning of her words.