Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone Part 4

Rising with its tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion;

and a more splendid Gothic building, both as to outline and dimensions, cannot be imagined. On a nearer approach, a long and wide reach of the Rhone, winding round the base of this n.o.ble pile, and reflecting its figure in a deep mirror, adds greatly to its effect. In Mr. Cooke's work, the palace is represented nearly in this direction, from a point somewhat diverging to the right of the road, so as to introduce a broken Gothic bridge, and a part of the Roche Don, or Roche Notre Dame (for I believe it bears both names). The rest of the town of Avignon, placed as it is on a low level, affords no striking coup d'oeil, from the direction in which we approached it: the ancient walls, however, which inclose its whole circ.u.mference, unbroken and perfect, and beautifully crenated in every part, are a very remarkable feature. I know but of one other instance of this continuity of Gothic wall, which occurs at Valencia; but the fortifications of the Spanish town, though they far exceed those of Avignon in dimensions and strength, fall as short of them in beauty. We had a full opportunity of examining the merits of the latter, as the police had unaccountably thought fit to shut up all the entrances to the town but one or two; which obliged us, on arriving at the foot of the walls, to add two miles more to our day's journey before we could reach their interior. We found the Hotel de l'Europe, kept by the widow Pierron, a superior inn in every respect, both in the comfort and liberality of the establishment, and the cleanliness of the servants.

[Footnote 27: Vide Cooke's Views.]

CHAP. VII.

AVIGNON--MURDER OF BRUNE--HOSPITAL DES FOUS--MISSION OF 1819.

ON the opposite side of the square in which our inn was situated, stands the Hotel du Palais Royal, the scene of Brune's a.s.sa.s.sination. The account which M. Jouy gives in the Hermite en Provence, of this horrible transaction, corresponds as nearly as possible with the particulars which we heard upon the spot. Being summoned on the restoration of Louis to answer the charge of treason, and having stopped with his escort at Avignon for the purpose of changing horses and refres.h.i.+ng himself, the marshal was recognized by the populace as one of the supposed murderers of the Princess de Lamballe. A ferocious mob soon a.s.sembled at the door of the hotel, broke in by force, and after deliberately shooting him, dragged the body to the adjoining bridge, and with every mark of contumely threw it into the Rhone. Such is the brief outline of the murder of a defenceless man, on a charge which, whether true or not, should have rested between G.o.d and his conscience. Jouy may indeed be pardoned for commenting and enlarging on this story, though the simple facts address themselves more strongly to the mind, than when dressed up with stage effect, and must be better adapted to produce the impression probably desired by that author. In the detestable ruffians who disgraced the good cause of loyalty on this occasion, we recognize the same black and fiery blood which flowed in the veins of the Ma.r.s.eillois a.s.sa.s.sins of 1793, and of the fanatics of Nismes: and whose ebullitions render them equally hateful as friends or enemies. There are many strange historical discoveries which would surprise me more than to learn that the Moorish blood remained in this part of France unextirpated by the victories of Charles Martel;[28] for to a person who knows them only by report and casual observation, the _tout ensemble_ of its inhabitants seems to differ totally from that of the Gascon and the Basque; names which, like the name of Norman, convey to the mind an image of frankness and gallantry.

[Footnote 28: "Cette memorable bataille, sur laquelle nous n'avons aucun detail, nous sauva du joug des Arabes, et fut le terme de leur grandeur.

Depuis ce revers, ils tenterent encore de penetrer dans la France; ils s'emparerent meme d'Avignon; mais Charles Martel les defit de nouveau, reprit cette ville, leur enleva Narbonne, et leur ota pour jamais l'esperance dont ils s'etaient flattes si longtemps."--_Florian's Precis Historique sur les Maures._]

On the morning after our arrival, we ascended first of all the Roche Don, a hill enclosed within the walls of the town, and backing the ruined palace of the legate; being desirous, as in Lyons, to begin our survey from a point which might serve as a general key to the whole, and instruct us in the bearings of different objects. From this elevated spot, situated at the north-western extremity of the city, we looked to the east, north, and south, over a plain as rich in verdure and cultivation as the finest parts of Lombardy; to which the stately towers of the palace, and the cl.u.s.tering spires and battlemented walls of Avignon form a fine foreground. The distant hills, at the foot of which Vaucluse is situated, form the eastern boundary of this plain; and are succeeded and overtopped to the northward by a chain of the Dauphine Alps, among which the long sweeping ma.s.s of Mont Ventou predominates.

From the latter quarter the Rhone is traced winding up in a wide and rapid current, till it reaches the highly cultivated islands at the foot of Mont Don, and pursues its course with increased grandeur towards the southward. The neighbourhood of its junction with the Durance is marked in this quarter by a barrier of mountains of less height than those above-mentioned, but more abrupt and wild in their forms, at whose foot appear casual glimpses of the two rivers, winding like narrow silver threads into the horizon. "Vous avez pa.s.se ce diantre de Rhone," says Madame de Sevigne, "si fier, si orgueilleux, si turbulent; il faut le marier avec la Durance quand elle est en furie; ah le bon menage!" The good people of Lyons have, however, settled this point otherwise by their inscriptions and statues in the Hotel de Ville, which certify this river-G.o.d as already married to the Saone: the Durance, therefore, can hold no higher rank than that of his termagant mistress, while the gentle, even, beneficent character of her rival, and the priority of her claims, suit much better with the t.i.tle of wife. If it be permitted me to quote Mad. de Sevigne once more, I should remark, that the broken Gothic bridge beneath our feet, which forms so picturesque an object in every point of view, is the same against the piers of which Mad. de Grignan was nearly lost.[29] It formerly connected the Roche Don with the heights on the western side of the Rhone, up which the road to Nismes winds near Fort Villeneuve; and is well worthy of a nearer survey as an architectural relic. The few arches which remain have the same bold span and elegant lightness of design so remarkable in the celebrated Pont y Prydd in South Wales; and the piers, which appear slight at a distance, are nevertheless solid and well adapted to the nature of the Rhone, whose current they cut like the sharp bow of a canoe. Its remarkable narrowness, which hardly allows two horses to pa.s.s abreast, and the ancient guard-house in the centre, secured by gates on both sides, carry the mind strongly back to those days of distrust and violence, which have by some been called "the good old times:"--

"Ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor."

[Footnote 29: As late as 1688, Louis XIV. seized on the territory of Avignon in consequence of disagreements with Innocent XI., and the Count de Grignan held the city as his viceroy for two subsequent years. Mad.

de Sevigne, in her letters written at this period of time, congratulates her daughter (whose boat was nearly overset against the piers of this identical bridge), on the dignity of the situation conferred on the count, and the more solid advantages which might accrue from it.

"Vous prenez, ma chere fille, (says she) une fort honnete resolution d'aller a votre terre d'Avignon, voir des gens qui vous donnent de si bon coeur ce qu'ils donnoient au vicelegat."--June, 1689.

"Quelle difference de la vie que vous faites a Avignon, toute a la grande, toute brillante, toute dissipee, avec celle que nous faisons ici!"--_Les Rochers_. June, 1689.

"Toutes vos descriptions nous ont divertis au dernier point; nous sommes charmes, comme vous, de la douceur de l'air, de la n.o.ble antiquite des eglises honorees comme vous dites, de la presence et de la residence de tant de Papes, &c. &c."--June 26, 1689.]

At the period when the territory of Avignon was styled by the kings of France the "derriere du Pape," from the convenient posture in which it lay for their correction, one may fancy the same scenes to have taken place on a larger scale, which are described as occurring at the bridge of Kennaquhair, the same struggle between secular and monastic authority, the same sullen important bridgeward, and the same forcible arguments employed by wandering troops of jackmen to effect a pa.s.sage.

In Mr. Cooke's first view of the legate's palace, this bridge appears projecting from the part of the Roche Don where we stood, a spot marked with two round buildings, like small Martello towers. The window marked by two birds flying directly over it, and second from the highest in the same tower, has acquired a b.l.o.o.d.y notoriety. From this giddy height, as we were informed by an inhabitant whom we met, the half-murdered victims of revolutionary ma.s.sacre were thrown, to put an end to their sufferings: and their remains heaped up for a time in the square building which stands below, originally erected for the purpose of an ice-house.

Having familiarized ourselves with the leading features of Avignon and its vicinity, as viewed from this commanding point, we descended into the town to take a more particular survey.

Rhetor comes Heliodorus, Graecorum longe doctissimus.

To translate Horace freely, our companion was a rhetorician, or talker by profession, and the most learned of his cla.s.s in extraordinary legends and fabrications; in other respects an useful civil fellow, with an Irish brogue, which his service in the French army had not been able to eradicate, or even weaken, and the established cicerone of the place.

To account satisfactorily for his wooden leg and French uniform, he antic.i.p.ated our inquiries by informing us, that he had been crippled by a s.h.i.+pwreck on the French coast, and through the recommendation of his friends the _d.u.c.h.ess_ of Westmoreland and _Countess_ of Devons.h.i.+re, patronized by Louis, "who allowed him this uniform coat to wear, and two _males_ a-day." In England, one would not have borne the sight of such a lying varlet another instant, but I must confess that the mere sound of our own language in a foreign town, disarmed our indignation, and we bore with the fellow, whom we found not unamusing, and from his local knowledge, serviceable. A very small degree of merit indeed suffices to open one's heart towards a fellow-countryman in a strange land; a truth no doubt known and acted on by knights of industry, matrimonial speculators, and

"Broken dandies lately on their travels."

The legate's palace is now divided into barracks and a prison, and the nakedness of its appearance upon a nearer view make its lofty proportions more striking. We were expressing to each other our wonder at its size, when our guide interrupted us with an original observation of his own:--"The reason of its size, sir, is quite _clare_. The pope, you see, always went about with such a _hape_ of monks--and of nuns--and of all them kind of people, that the big number of rooms which you see could hardly hold them any how." After all, if the annals of former times have been truly written, the Milesian's account of this merry menage might be nearer the truth than he knew or suspected.

The Papal Chapel exhibits now but few remains of its former probable grandeur, its inside having been defaced with the most persevering animosity during the Revolution, and presenting little more than a damp bare sh.e.l.l, filled with the broken remains of monumental figures.

Headless popes and crippled cardinals lie together in heaps, mingled in a manner which will render it impossible to restore to each his proper allotment of limbs, when the projected repairs of the chapel are put in execution. One tomb, broken up and shattered to pieces more than the rest, was pointed out by the old woman as the sepulchre of La belle Laure, an honour which, for aught I know, may be claimed by a tomb in every church of Avignon. An a.s.sertion apparently still more apocryphal, however, is that one of the small side chapels was built by Constantine.

The interior of Avignon affords a much more agreeable promenade than that of Lyons, from the superior cleanliness of its inhabitants, and the moderate height of the houses. These circ.u.mstances tend to disperse the combinations of ill smell, and purify the thick, vapid, flagging air which is felt so perceptibly at Lyons. It may, perhaps, be beneath the dignity of a _printed book_ to enumerate such circ.u.mstances as these, but they occupy in fact a high place in the scale of human comfort; and, joined to the cheapness of the necessaries of life, (which we inferred from the price of two or three articles of consumption,) must have their weight in rendering Avignon a desirable place of banishment. Banishment, I say; for I have no better name by which to express a prolonged residence abroad, especially in cases where the mind has lost its power of deriving amus.e.m.e.nt from trifles.

With the exception of its fine walls, its Gothic bridge, and the legate's palace, Avignon possesses in itself no remarkable architectural feature, or fine combination of buildings. Its churches are numerous; but no one remarkable above the rest, as far at least as external appearance is concerned; and we had not time for a very minute internal survey. The Hopital des Fous, however, is an establishment well calculated to gratify the laudable curiosity of the humane; and to judge from all we witnessed, may perhaps exhibit points of internal regulation worthy the attention of professional men. Nothing indeed can exceed the quiet, orderly behaviour of the patients there confined, whom we found walking about at perfect liberty in a square court planted with trees.

Many of them wore a certain air of content and satisfaction which could not be mistaken, and all seemed much gratified by the notice of the mild sensible ecclesiastic who accompanied us, and who presides over the establishment. No coercion, as we understood from him, is used, save restriction from walking with their fellow patients, and the restraint of handcuffs, when rendered necessary in cases of violent conduct. I particularly observed also, that he had never any occasion to exert that command of the eye, on which so much stress is laid as a means of intimidation, but pa.s.sed all their little follies off with a smile, in which we were frequently inclined to join. One poor patient accosted us with high t.i.tles of n.o.bility, dwelling on the peculiar pleasure he experienced from our visit; another, an old man of a very venerable appearance, called our attention to a dirty stone which he held in his hand, affirming it to be a piece of Henri Quatre's identical foot: but none were troublesome or obtrusive, and most appeared to be deriving as much enjoyment from their own little vagaries as their melancholy state would admit of.[30] Their apartments, built round the square, are neat and airy, each furnished with a bed, dressing table, and a few plain utensils. In one large room are a row of hot and cold baths, which are frequently and regularly used; and nothing, the good priest said, has been found to produce so desirable an effect on the mind and body as this custom. The rank of the patients is various; the poorer sort are supported by voluntary contributions; and many persons in the higher ranks are also placed here at their own expense, or that of their friends. Among others, there is a general who became deranged, as we were a.s.sured, on hearing of the abdication of his patron Napoleon; the most unequivocal instance of misplaced fidelity, which I have ever heard. How this poor man contrives to agree with the partizan of Henry IV., I am at a loss to make out: and he was not then visible to answer for himself. At the time of the Revolution, the estates belonging to the hospital were confiscated; and the establishment itself would have been abolished, had not one of the members of the council at Avignon observed, half in jest, that they might possibly be one day glad themselves of such a retreat. It is now, as I mentioned, maintained by private donations, and by the salaries paid for the accommodation of the richer patients. The only objects of taste belonging to the inst.i.tution are a fine altar-piece attributed to Murillo, and an ivory crucifix carved by Jean Guillermin, in 1659. The latter is not above two feet in length; but the manner in which every muscle and vein indicate suffering, and the mingled expression of pain and resignation in the countenance, place it on the footing of a statue; and I could hardly have supposed that a small piece of ivory-carving could do such justice to a sacred subject. The worthy priest dwelt, with great exultation, on the precautions he had taken to secure this favourite relic from revolutionary pillage, slightly alluding to the circ.u.mstance of having been forced to fly for his life to Italy, as a matter of minor importance to himself.

[Footnote 30: It is to be hoped that Adam Smith has taken a correct view of the subject of madness in his Moral Sentiments. "Of all the calamities," says he, "to which the condition of mortality exposes mankind, the loss of reason _appears_ by far the most dreadful; and we behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commisseration than any other. But the poor wretch who is in it, laughs and sings, perhaps, and is altogether insensible of his own misery. The anguish therefore which humanity feels at the sight of such an object, cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compa.s.sion of the spectator must arise altogether from the consideration of what he would himself feel if he were reduced to the same situation, and, what perhaps is impossible, were at the same time able to regard it with his present reason and judgment.]

The admirers of show houses, may find some gratification in visiting the hotel of M. De Leutre, the banker; which was purchased of M. Villeneuve, an emigre, and contains, besides the usual etceteras of carving and gilding, orange-trees, and gold fish, a curious collection of prints representing Chinese battles, and supposed to be the only perfect duplicate of that in the royal collection. A sight more interesting is presented in the hospital of invalid soldiers, established in the place; 1500 of whom are maintained as in-pensioners, apparently in great comfort. "On est bien ici," said a blind veteran, who, hearing the voices of strangers, invited us to walk in; and indeed most of those whom we saw strolling in the garden, or sitting under the shade of the trees, seemed very cheerful, though some of them, and those very young men, were dreadfully mutilated, and the loss of both legs very common.

The two buildings which accommodate them were formerly the Convent des Celestins, and that of the Dames de St. Louis. Two other handsome convents have been converted to uses less beneficent, one being now a gunpowder manufactory, and the other a cannon foundery.

In the evening we walked across the long wooden bridge adjoining our hotel,[31] towards the western bank of the Rhone; and the expectations which we had formed of the view from this quarter, were not disappointed. The Roche Don terminates more abruptly on the side of the river than in any other part, and in a manner which sets off strikingly the commanding height of the legate's palace. With this princely pile of building, the broken Gothic bridge and its guard-house, the ancient palace of the archbishop, and a portion of the battlemented walls of Avignon, combine to form a striking architectural group, whose unity of character is hardly at all broken by meaner objects; and the whole is well backed by Mont Ventou and the Dauphine Alps. From this spot we again returned to Roche Don, a station to which every visitor of Avignon may return twice or thrice in the day with undiminished pleasure. In our way we fell in with a procession of children, the eldest of whom could not be more than seven years of age, in pairs, and with lighted candles in their hands, escorting a cross of lath and a very indifferent daub, which represented some female saint, and screaming in chorus with all their might. Those who had no candles, ran about with little dishes, vociferously begging money to buy some; and in spite of the respect with which one would wish to consider whatever fellow Christians choose to denominate, in pure earnest, a religious ceremony, it was impossible not to be reminded, by the pet.i.tions of these sucking Catholics, of Guy Fawkes's little votaries on the fifth of November. We thought involuntarily of a boy who had followed us that very morning into the church of St. Didier, tossing a ball in his hand, and after crossing himself with great gravity, immediately began his game again. Whether the interests of religion gain or suffer most by the familiarity with the ordinary business of life which it a.s.sumes in Catholic countries, is a point which I cannot presume to determine. It is true, that it may frequently occasion such ridiculous scenes as those which I have mentioned; and our habits of mind, as Protestants, may lead us to conceive that such familiarity may tend to generate levity and indifference. On the other hand, however, amidst all the mummery which may mix itself up with the occasional ceremonies of the Catholic service, there is much worthy of commendation in the more common ordinances, to which alone a sensible Catholic must look for religious improvement. I particularly allude to the shortness and frequent recurrence of the ma.s.s (such as it is), and the constant access afforded to Catholic churches, in which some service or other appears to be carried on during great part of the day. These regulations are well adapted to take advantage of those serious trains of thought which often arise most forcibly at accidental times, and from unpremeditated causes.

The attention is thus excited without being fatigued, and the privacy of the closet is combined with that solemnity which attaches itself to the house of G.o.d. It may be said, indeed, that to consult the caprices and a.s.sociations of the human mind, is to lower the dignity of religion; but surely a good end must justify any means which are not in themselves culpable or ridiculous. The mechanic, for instance, in returning from his daily labour, enters an open church from accident or curiosity, crosses himself from habit, and is led on by the momentary feeling of reverence which that act must generally awaken, to employ five minutes in his devotions, a well spent portion of time, which probably would not otherwise have been rescued from the business of the day, but which may influence his conduct during the rest of it.

[Footnote 31: Vide Cooke's Views.]

On ascending the Mont Don, we found it the scene of a graver ceremony than the infantine gambols which we had just witnessed. In the centre of the terrace facing the river, a new and highly gilt crucifix of colossal size has been erected at the expense of the Mission, round which a number of monks and inhabitants were collected on their knees, the still evening increasing the effect of a solemn ma.s.s which they were singing, and in which we heard the name of St. Paulus several times repeated.

Several nuns, belonging to an establishment lately revived, knelt on the steps of the cross, enveloped in their black hoods; and the prisoners at the palace window united their deep tones to the chant, pausing every now and then to solicit the charity of pa.s.sers by. Scattered at different distances from the cross, eight or ten separate groups of persons were kneeling farther off, in att.i.tudes of the deepest devotional abstraction, though surrounded on all sides by sauntering soldiers, children playing, and groups of loungers laughing or whispering. The different distances at which they knelt were regulated, as we were told, by the degrees of penance imposed upon them, and the place which their respective consciences allowed them to a.s.sume. Some, in the true spirit of the poor Publican, were kneeling at a considerable distance, just within view of the cross, to which they hardly lifted their eyes; others, whose penance was originally lighter, or its term abridged by frequent visits to this place, had approached the cross more nearly, and with greater signs of satisfaction.

I must confess, that we observed these poor penitents with an interest and attention which the other parts of the ceremony had failed to excite. The manifestation of a deep and genuine religious feeling is respectable in Catholic, Turk, or Bramin, and seldom or never to be mistaken; and though attended by no circ.u.mstances of external pomp, must impress upon serious beholders of every creed a reverence which trappings and mummery fail to excite. It should seem indeed that Providence, wis.h.i.+ng gently to humble the pride of men, delights in producing by the simplest means those physical and moral effects, which they waste toil and expense in bringing about. The splendid procession, for instance, which takes place on the day of Corpus Christi at Rome, with all its a.s.semblage of monks, horse and foot guards, cardinals, choristers, and banners, would dwindle before the eye of reason into "shreds and patches, were it not for the figure of the truly venerable man who now fills the papal chair, kneeling with the same humility and abstraction from the busy scene around him, which marked the deportment of the penitents just mentioned.

Time, which decides all questions when they have ceased to be any longer interesting, will probably show whether the celebrated Mission, which has excited such a sensation in many parts of France, be a mere political manoeuvre to strengthen the hands of government by calling in the aid of superst.i.tion, or (which is at least as probable) a sincere and well-meant attempt to awaken the forgotten spirit of religion. In the mean while, it is a desirable thing to have turned the attention of the French to a subject which, by all accounts, is become nearly obsolete among the higher orders of the nation. Even with a view to the ascendancy which a more simple and purified religion may ultimately obtain under an improved and free const.i.tution, it is better that a religious feeling of some sort should exist. The worst and most twisted crabstock, if alive, possesses an active principle, which allows of successful grafting; not so with a dead branch.

I shall annex a statement of the proceedings of the Mission at Avignon, during the Lent of 1819, copied and abridged from a short pamphlet, written by a M. Fransoy, a lawyer of that city; which being published by a layman on the spot where the events in question recently took place, possesses the most probable claim to accuracy and impartiality. The writer begins by describing the demoralization and ignorance occasioned by the Revolution, "which had completely realised," he observes, "in the kingdom of the lilies all the misfortunes foretold by the prophet Jeremiah. The people of Avignon, who had remained without instruction during this period of horror and barbarism, were soon infected with that gross ignorance which a.s.similates men to brutes: and in a short time this field of the Lord, once so fertile, only produced brambles and thorns; the evil plants choked the good, and the tares every where devoured the corn. Scarcely, however, was the Catholic wors.h.i.+p restored in France by the concordat, before religion shed among us some rays of its former light. Dazzled by the majesty of religious ceremonies, the people were jealous to emerge from their revolutionary blindness. The dearth of ministers was the cause that instruction only distilled drop by drop upon this people famis.h.i.+ng with want."

The scanty manner in which this dearth had been occasionally supplied for some time, excited a longing to partic.i.p.ate in the instructions of the new Mission, which had already visited Arles, Valence, and Tarascon, under the sanction of the state; and whose claims to religious authority the writer defends by precedents unnecessary to enumerate here. On the first Sunday in Lent, 1819, its proceedings were commenced at Avignon, by a solemn procession, which made the circuit of the princ.i.p.al streets of the town, singing penitential psalms, and halted on the hill of Notre Dame; where an inaugural sermon was delivered on a spot called Calvary, and supposed to represent that sacred place. The mult.i.tude, a.s.sembled by curiosity or a better feeling, was so great, that two of the missionaries found it expedient to address them at the same time from different stations. One of these was M. Guyon, the director of the Mission; of whose eloquence and animation, as a preacher, the author speaks highly.

On the succeeding day, the nine ecclesiastics composing the Mission attached themselves respectively to the different churches of the town, and called in the a.s.sistance of the neighbouring clergy, as confessors to those persons whom their discourses might affect most strongly. This step was rendered the more necessary, inasmuch as the common people of the vicinity understand French merely as the Welsh do English, and converse only in their native Provencal with any facility. If we may believe their zealous eulogist, the effects which the missionaries had antic.i.p.ated immediately followed, and their utmost exertions, as well as those of their new a.s.sociates, were taxed to satisfy the spiritual wants of the populace. "The Avignonese," says the narrative, "hungered so after the word of G.o.d, that the gates of the churches were besieged from three hours before daybreak, by those who flocked to be present at the morning exhortation. The inhabitants of the country and the neighbouring communes walked during a part of the night, in order to secure seats; each anxiously sought to place his chair many hours beforehand, and caused it to be kept, in fear that another might deprive him of it; the churches were so full, that it was hardly possible to move in them. The eagerness to obtain room was so great, that indecorous and even scandalous scenes took place among the wives of the populace; they quarrelled for chairs and seats with a ferocity, _qui les mettoit souvent hors du cercle de la politesse civile et Chretienne_." (Perhaps, as a townsman, he is unwilling to be more particular). "More than twenty thousand individuals were a.s.sembled in the churches at every service; and a circ.u.mstance which proves how admirably each missionary and a.s.sociate fulfilled his particular task is, that each parish gave the preference to the persons attached to it, and none allowed the superiority to its neighbouring quarter. Like mothers, who can see nothing more perfect than the children to whom themselves have given birth, each paris.h.i.+oner acknowledged no better men than the missionaries appointed to his own church. MM. Guyon, Menoult, and Bourgin, shone as much at St. Agricol, as MM. Ferrail and Leva.s.seur at St. Pierre; and MM.

Gerard and Rodet in the church of St. Didier, as much as MM. Fauvet and Poncelet in that of St. Symphorien." To the character of M.

Leva.s.seur[32] the writer bears honourable testimony, as a young man who had devoted time, talents, and a liberal private fortune, to the cause; and whose exertions on this occasion impaired a naturally delicate const.i.tution. "From four in the morning to eight or nine at night, their time," he says, "was for many days occupied in public or private instruction, and in visiting the hospitals and prisons; and forty missionaries would have been necessary to have completely accomplished what these nine took cheerfully upon them."

[Footnote 32: "Ce vertueux jeune homme paroit deja consomme dans l'art Evangelique; ses instructions sont aussi sublimes qu'elles sont precises et pathetiques; il joint a ses grandes qualites un amour ardent pour les pauvres; il consomme annuellement les revenus d'un patrimoine majeur a de bonnes oeuvres dans les cours des Missions. Une foule de faits attestant ses liberalites journalieres."--_Fransoy's Memoir_.]

The effects of their preaching were manifested by the number of penitents who flocked to confession, which, during the second week of the mission, increased to such an extent as to render access difficult.

The missionaries, unable to meet the wishes of all at once, gave an obvious preference, not to the more habitually devout, but to those cla.s.ses of persons whose attendance was most unexpected. "Dissipated young c.o.xcombs, disabled soldiers, dragoon officers with fierce mustaches, and worldly-wise men with formal wigs," says our author, "met with attention and encouragement, to the exclusion of those whose habits of piety deserved it better." The apparent injustice of this procedure he excuses by the plea, "that it was necessary to quit the regular fold in order to recover these lost sheep"--that "the stouter and better worth catching the fish were, the more anxious should they be to secure them in the net of the Prince of Apostles." When separated from the figurative bombast by which a Frenchman frequently obscures a sensible reason, this plea seems fair enough: provided that the motives of the missionaries were unmixed with spiritual vanity, and the pride of creating a strong sensation. It was no doubt most consonant to the purposes of a special mission like this, to accomplish that which was most difficult, and to make an impression, while the opportunity lasted, on a cla.s.s of persons least accessible to the usual means of religious instruction. The example of such, if permanently reclaimed, would naturally be more striking than that of others, and influence public opinion more strongly, and this may furnish some excuse for a conduct which, in the ordinary course of things, would have been unjust and out of place.

A large part of the tract is occupied by accounts of several solemn ceremonies which ensued, "for the purpose," says the author, "of striking the senses of the lower orders, who are not sufficiently affected by argument." These, as in the instance of the general communion, were rendered more imposing by the attendance of the civil and military authorities, and most persons of rank and wealth in the vicinity. Nor did they degenerate into mere processions and pompous forms, if the narrative is to be trusted. The missionaries appear on every occasion to have availed themselves of the excitation of the moment, in calling forth such feelings as must be approved by Christians of every country and persuasion, and which, among Frenchmen, may not be the less sincere for being expressed somewhat extravagantly. In the account of the Amende Honorable, a solemn act of profession of repentance, the following pa.s.sage occurs:--"He (the missionary) drew an affecting picture of our unhappy country, oppressed by the burden of impiety and anarchy. He rapidly enumerated the series of crimes produced by license and want of faith. He implored the pardon of the most holy G.o.d in the name of all; and he proclaimed in a loud tone of voice, mutual forgiveness between enemies. All his questions were interrupted by the tears and sobs of his audience. 'Do you feel contrition and repentance,' said he, 'for your offences against G.o.d?'--'Yes.' 'Do you ask pardon sincerely?' The congregation again answered 'Yes.' 'Does every one of you individually pardon his neighbour all the injuries and offences which he may have received from him?'--'Yes.' 'Do you renounce all hatred, all enmity, all revenge?'--'Yes.' 'Do you promise G.o.d to live in future as becomes good Christians, in a perfect union and concord among yourselves?'--'Yes.' 'Do you promise fidelity, respect, and love, to the monarch who governs France, to the princes of his blood, and his representatives, and submission to the laws?'--'Yes.' The pen can but imperfectly describe the effect produced by these questions of the missionaries, and the answers of the congregation. No countenance but wore the expression of grief and repentance, no cheek but was wet with tears. The officiating priest who held the host in his hand, then p.r.o.nounced in the name of the G.o.d of mercy, his holy pardon; the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Te Deum, were thundered forth; and the festival concluded with the benediction of the host. The innumerable crowd of individuals present, each holding a lighted taper, presented a magnificent spectacle." In describing the renewal of the baptismal vow, the next ceremony which took place, the author says,--"This act was held in so solemn a manner, that it will remain eternally engraved in the memory of the Avignonese. A magnificent altar was displayed to the sight of the faithful: a great number of priests in their sacerdotal habits encircled this altar, which a thousand tapers and a thousand sacred objects rendered more dazzling, and the holy sacrament was majestically exposed on it. After the performance of the anthems appropriate to this august ceremony, the missionary delivered a discourse, as forcible as it was sublime, on the object of the festival, which produced the greatest impression on his congregation. The eternal book of the gospel was then held up to the people. They were summoned to swear to the observance of the precepts of the Lord, contained in that book.--'We swear it,' answered the congregation. All their baptismal vows were in turn repeated, ratified, and confirmed by the congregation, with an effusion of tears which might have affected the hardest hearts. Their cries, their tears, and their sobs, were more eloquent than the addresses of the missionaries. The minister in his chair seemed to receive the promises and the vows of his paris.h.i.+oners, as Ezra formerly received those of the people of Israel."

After the consecration of the Avignonese and their children to the service of the Virgin Mary and the general communion, which followed the ceremonies last described, the great cross, which now stands near the cathedral, was carried in procession to the place of its erection, on the 18th of April. So great a sensation had been excited by the expectation of this ceremony, and so anxious were all ranks to partic.i.p.ate in it, that "the town," says the narrator, "swarmed like an ant-hill (fourmilloit) with strangers, the inns and private houses afforded no more room, and they who could find no quarters, covered the roads during the whole of the preceding night."

The number of persons employed to a.s.sist in the procession amounted to twenty thousand, including the civil and military authorities, the monastic establishments, the neighbouring clergy, and a limited number of inhabitants from each parish. The cross, amounting in weight to three tons and a half, was supported on a frame constructed so as to admit one hundred and twenty bearers at once. These were relieved from station to station by detachments from all ranks and professions, selected from innumerable claimants, and amounting altogether to two thousand men.

Having thus traversed thirty princ.i.p.al streets, the inhabitants of which vied with each other in decorating their windows with garlands and tapestry, the cross was borne to the terrace on the Roche Don, and erected in sight of more than eighty thousand individuals, who crowded the hill above, the extensive s.p.a.ce of ground adjoining, and the windows and roofs of the houses. "The whole discourse p.r.o.nounced on the occasion," says the narrator, "was as affecting as it was energetic. The orator at length closed it, by exhorting his audience not to forget the cross and their religion. 'Remember,' said he, 'that you are Christians and Frenchmen; fly to the foot of the cross as Christians in all your misfortunes, and it will be your consolation; as Frenchmen, you will there learn to be faithful to your country, and submissive to your king.--Et d'un ton plein de franchise il s'ecria, Vive la Croix, vive la Religion, vive la Roi--L'auditoire repeta les memes mots avec la meme enthousiasme, et y ajouta, 'Vive les Missionaries.'"

On the 19th, the following day, a solemn service was performed for the dead in the cemetry of St. Roch; and the Mission was closed by sermons, exhorting the people to perseverance in the religious vows which they had voluntarily made. Having thus performed their proposed duties, the missionaries prepared for a private departure. The affectionate zeal of the people, however, would not allow the execution of this plan; and numbers, consisting chiefly of the national guards, kept watch at the doors of their lodgings all night; and in the morning they were besieged by a crowd of persons desirous to take leave of them. At the special request of these visitors, among whom were some of the most distinguished inhabitants of Avignon, they performed an additional service at the foot of the newly-erected cross, and were escorted out of the town amidst the acclamations of the mult.i.tude, who persisted in drawing their carnages a certain distance. Many persons accompanied them on horseback and in coaches as far as Orange.

To the practical effects of the Mission, the writer bears the following testimony.--"Prudence restricts us from naming individuals; and yet we can vouch, that many husbands, separated from their wives and living in concubinage, have put away their mistresses and re-established their legitimate wives in their houses. After the revolutionary horrors which have afflicted our city, there existed inveterate hatreds and animosities, founded on real offences. Well! union and concord have removed many of these intestine divisions, many deadly enmities have been laid at rest, many resentments have been stifled; great numbers of enemies have made the sacrifice of all their revengeful feelings. A citizen, round whose neck one of the revolutionary hangmen had actually fixed the noose for the fatal suspension, perceived his executioner in a state of penitence during the Mission, and approaching the communion table--'I congratulate you,' said he, 'on your reformation, and I pardon your offences against me, as I would G.o.d may grant me his pardon and peace.' The porters of the Rhone, who had been long at variance, have been many of them cordially reconciled: the invalids of the national guard have also mutually vowed a perpetual friends.h.i.+p."

Whatever the interests and prejudices of M. Fransoy may be, it is improbable that he would have risked his professional and private reputation, by misrepresenting recent occurrences on the spot where they took place; and certainly his narrative places the Mission in a new point of view, both as to its conduct, its reception, and its effects.

It is, indeed, natural enough that such wits as do not affect either much knowledge or much interest on religious subjects, should indulge in desultory sarcasms (and the Hermite en Provence prudently does no more) on such instances of spiritual Quixotism as may possibly have occurred. The absurd[33] choice of hymn tunes, the petulant zeal of one or two ecclesiastics, and the rueful countenances of some of the penitents, though they prove nothing as to the main question, present a ludicrous picture to the imagination, and have been made the most of by the fict.i.tious correspondent of the Hermite. It is also natural enough that the violent Liberaux, who view with distrust every measure countenanced by government, should treat the Mission as a mere engine of policy; that the avaricious should consider the donatives received on its behalf as squandered away; and that a large cla.s.s of persons, who are inveterately sceptical as to their neighbour's good motives, and childishly credulous as to his bad ones, should p.r.o.nounce it a mere manoeuvre of bigotry. The little tract in question, however, addressed to the experience of eye-witnesses of all that it describes, tells a different story, though its effect may be weakened by the ludicrous _navete_ of its style. It describes the missionaries as addressing themselves particularly to those who stood most in need of their instructions, and who were most likely to treat them with derision; as availing themselves of the favourable reception which they experienced from the Avignonese, to preach the duties of forgiveness and reconciliation, both private and political, and to dwell on the practical and fundamental parts of Christianity.

[Footnote 33: See the letter introduced in Jouy's Hermite en Provence.]