The Catholic World Volume I Part 64

First, we have the singular fact of the division of the head at all.

We occasionally hear of the head of a saint being at a particular place, but seldom of a part of a head being in one place and a part in another. Here we have an unprejudiced traveller going into the East; he comes to the place where the head of St. John used to be kept, and he finds there the tradition that it was divided into three parts, one of which was at Constantinople, one at Genoa, and another at Rome.

Then he adds, "Other people say that the head is at Amiens." So much Sir John Mandeville further informs us: he mentions the places where it was reported the head was, telling us that it was divided into three.

This is a statement worthy of being verified. It was made a long time ago, and yet the tradition remains the same. It was as well believed in the thirteenth century in the East, at Sebaste, as it is in Europe at the present moment.

The church of S. Silvestro in Capite, which many of you remember, is a small church on the east side of the Corso, entered by a sort of vestibule: it has an atrium or court, with arches round, and dwellings for the chaplains; the outer gates can be shut at night so as to prevent completely any access to the church. The rest is an immense building, belonging to the nuns, running out toward the Propaganda.

When the republicans in the late invasion got hold of Rome, the first thing, of course, which they did was to turn out the monks and nuns right and left, to make barracks; and the poor nuns of S. Silvestro were ordered to move. The head of St. John is in a shrine which looks very brilliant, but is poor in reality. I think it is exposed high beyond the altar, and the nuns kept it in jealous custody in their house. The republicans sent away the nuns in the middle of the night, at ten or eleven o'clock, just as they were, with what clothes they could get made into bundles: there were carriages at the door to send them off to some other convent, without the slightest warning or notice. The poor creatures were ordered to take up their abode in the convent of St. Pudentiana. The only thing they thought of was their relic, and that they carried with them. The good nuns received them though late at night, and did what they could to give them good cheer; they gave up one of their dormitories to them, putting themselves to immense inconvenience.

When the French came to Rome, they found S. Silvestro so useful a building for public purposes that they continued to hold it, but permitted the nuns to occupy some rooms near the church. I was in Rome while they were still at my t.i.tular church, and went to visit the nuns attached to it. Their guests asked, "Would you not like to see our relic of St. John?" I said, "Certainly I should; perhaps I shall never have another opportunity." I do not suppose it had been out of their house for hundreds of years. There is a chapel within the convent which the nuns of St. Pudentiana consider a sacred oratory, having a miraculous picture there, to which they are much attached; and in this they kept the shrine. On examination I found that there was no part of the head except the back. It is said in the extract I have read to you that the front part of the head is at Rome; but it is the back of the skull merely; the rest is filled up with some stuffing {455} and silk over it. The nuns have but a third of the head; and the a.s.sertion that they pretend to possess the head, which travellers make, is clearly false. I can say from my own ocular inspection that it is but the third part--the back part, which is the most interesting, because there the stroke of martyrdom fell. I was certainly glad of this fortunate opportunity of verifying the relic.

Some time afterward I was at Amiens. I was very intimate with the late bishop, and spent some days with him. One day he said to me, "Would you wish to see our head of St. John?" "Yes," I replied, "I should much desire it." "Well," he said, "we will wait till the afternoon; then I will have the gates of the cathedral closed, that we may examine it at leisure."

We dined early, and went into the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where the relic was exposed, with candles. After saying prayers, it was brought, and I had it in my hands; it was nothing but the mask, the middle and back portions being totally wanting. You could almost trace the expression and character of the countenance in the bony structure. It was of the same size and color as the portion which I had seen at St. Pudentiana; but the remarkable thing about it is that there are stiletto marks in the face. We are told by Fathers, that Herodias stabbed the head with a bodkin when she got it into her hand, and here are the marks of such an operation visible. You could almost say that you had seen him as he was alive. I have not seen the third fragment, but I can hardly doubt that it is a portion of the same head, and that it would comprise the parts, the chin and the jaw, because there is no lower jaw in the front part, which is a mere mask.

The only other claimant is Genoa, and its relic I have not seen. But this is exactly the portion allotted by Mandeville to that city. I have, however, had the satisfaction of personally verifying two of the relics, each of which comprises a third part of the head, leaving for the other remainder exactly the place which our old traveller allots to it.

Mr. Cashel Hoey, one of our learned contributors, has kindly furnished me with a most interesting corroboration of this account.

It is an extract from the _Revue Archeologique_, new series, Jan.

1861, p. 36, in a paper by M. Louis Moland, ent.i.tled "Charlemagne a Constantinople," etc., giving an account of a MS. in the library of the a.r.s.enal, anterior to the thirteenth century.

The following is the account of the relic which the emperor is stated to have brought from Constantinople to Aix-la-Chapelle:

"Li empereres prist les saintuaires tot en disant ses orisons, si les mist en eskerpes (_echarpes_) totes de drap de soie et si les enporta molt saintement avoec lui trosqu Ais la Capele en l'eglise Nostre Dame qu'il avoit ediflie. La fu establis par l'apostolie (_Le Pape_) et par les archevesques et les evesques as pelerins li grans pardons, qui por Deu i venoient. Oies une partie des reliques, que li empereres ot aportees: il i fu la moities de la corone dont Nostre Sires fu corones des poignans espines. Et si i ot des claus dont Nostre Sires fu atachies en la crois al jor que li Jui le crucifierent. Et si i ot de la vraie crois une pieche et del suaire Nostre Segnor, _O le chemise Nostre Dame._"

{456}

From The Month.

MADAME SWETCHINE AND HER SALON.

The _salons_ of Paris form a distinctive feature of French society.

Nowhere else is the same thing exactly to be found. Frenchwomen have a peculiar gift for conversation, due in a great measure to their graceful language, with its delicate shades of expression. We are p.r.o.ne to smile at French sentimentality, or to apply their own word _verbiage_, prefacing it with _unmeaning_. But when the epithet does truly fit, it is because the real thing has been abused, not because it does not exist. Conversation in France is cultivated as an art, just the same as epistolary style: both form an important branch of female education. When the soil is bad, the attempt at culture only betrays more clearly native poverty; in other words, a mind of little thought or taste becomes ridiculous in straining after the expression of what it can neither conceive nor feel. But when a well-informed and cultivated intelligence blossoms into keen appreciation of the beautiful, no language so delicately as French conveys minute shades of thought and feeling. 'Tis not repet.i.tion, then, but variety; and when such an instrument is handled with feminine tact, perfection in its kind is achieved.

No wonder that _salons_ are exclusively French from the days of Julie de Rambouillet down to Madame Recamier. No wonder at the influence exercised by a woman who really has a _salon_. Few, very few, arrive at this result. Thousands may receive; hundreds glitter in the gay world of fas.h.i.+on, renowned for beauty, wit, good dressing, or good parties; two or three at most in a century are the presiding spirits of their social circles, and that is what const.i.tutes having a _salon_. No one quality alone will do it; a combination is required; not always the same, but one or two together, whichsoever, attracting sympathy and producing influence. Influence--the effect, not the quality itself--can never be absent.

Strangers settling in Paris have had their _salon_; but we do not know that they could transport it with them to any other atmosphere. Beside Madame Recamier--whose rare beauty, joined to her goodness and her tact, helped to form her _salon_--two other women in our day, or just before it, have been the leading stars of their circles. Others, no doubt, there are; but the names of these three have escaped beyond Paris. Strange to say, two are foreigners, and both of these Russians.

Except, however, as regards country and influence, no comparison can of course be established between the Princess Lieven and Madame Swetchine. One sought and gained a political object; the other accepted circ.u.mstances, and found them fame.

Madame Swetchine was already thirty-four years of age when she arrived in Paris. She had no beauty, and no pretensions to wit; indeed, her timidity was such that her expressions were always obscure when she began to speak; and it was only by degrees, as she went on, that she gathered confidence, and then her language flowed with ease, betraying, rather than fully revealing, the deep current of thought beneath. Still her advantages were many. As regards outward circ.u.mstances, she possessed good birth and high position; her manners were such as the early culture of a polished court bestows; she was accustomed to wield a large fortune, and to hold a prominent place in the social world. These were advantages that might be fairly set against the absence of beauty, wondrous as is that charm: beside, her person was not unpleasing. Though {457} small, she was graceful in her motions; despite little blue eyes, rather irregular, and a nose of Calmuck form, her face wore a soft kindly expression that attracted sympathy. Her complexion was remarkably fresh and clear.

But Madame Swetchine possessed innate qualities of heart and mind of the rarest description, that only unfolded themselves gradually the more closely she could be observed. Unlike mankind in general, the better she was known, the more was she beloved and admired. Her intelligence of richly-varied powers had been carefully cultivated; what she acquired in youth, with the aid of masters, had been since matured by her own unceasing study, and by reading of the most widely-discursive character. Not only was she familiar with ancient and modern literatures, perusing them in their originals, but she also conversed fluently in all the languages of Europe. Her imagination, enthusiastic and wild almost, as belongs to the north, successfully sought for outpourings, both in music and painting. By a strange combination, no natural quality of mind was more remarkable in Madame Swetchine than her good sense: the only feature that shone above it was her eminent gift of piety.

But virtues, and particularly religious virtues, proceed from the heart quite as much as from the intelligence; often, indeed, far more especially. Madame Swetchine possessed the warmest feelings, a nature both loving and expansive. As daughter, wife, and friend she evinced rare devotion; but the sentiment and thought that most filled heart and mind was undoubtedly her love for G.o.d.

What a rich a.s.semblage of qualities is here! how strange that they should go to make up a Parisian woman of fas.h.i.+on! Such, however, in its most usual acceptation, Madame Swetchine never was: she never mingled in the light brilliant world; but she did form the centre of attraction to a large circle she had her _salon_.

General Swetchine, deeply wounded by the emperor, who lent too ready credence to unfounded reports whispered against so faithful a subject, would not stoop to justify himself, but quitted Russia in disgust, accompanied by his wife. When they reached Paris, in the spring of 1816, Louis XVIII. was on the throne of France. Madame Swetchine found now restored to their high positions those friends of her youth whom as exiles she had known and loved at St. Petersburg. Her place was naturally amongst them; new intimacies were soon added to the old. The d.u.c.h.esse de Duras, auth.o.r.ess of _Ourika_, and friend of Madame de Stael, gained a strong hold on her affections. Yet it did not seem at first as if Madame Swetchine were destined to so much influence in French society. Modesty made her reserved. Madame de Stael had been invited to meet her at a small dinner-party; and Madame Swetchine, though seated opposite, was intimidated, and allowed the meal to pa.s.s over without speaking or scarcely raising her eyes. Afterward Madame de Stael came up and said, "I had been told that you desired my acquaintance; was I misinformed?" "By no means," was the reply; "but it is customary for royalty to speak first." Such was the homage she paid to genius.

At first it had seemed uncertain how long General and Madame Swetchine might remain absent from Russia; but after the lapse of a few years they took up their definite residence in Paris. Their hotel, Rue St.

Dominique, was hired on a long lease, and fitted up as a permanent abode. They sent for their pictures and other articles from St.

Petersburg. The general occupied the ground-floor; Madame Swetchine took the rooms above. Her apartments consisted of a _salon_ and a library commanding an extensive view of gardens. Here it was that her friends used to a.s.semble; not many at a time, but successively. She never gave _soirees_, and her dinner-parties consisted of a few intimates round a small table. Her hours for {458} reception were every day from three till six, and then from nine till midnight.

Debarred by her health from paying visits, she contented herself with receiving in this manner; and for thirty years a continuous stream of persons was for ever pa.s.sing on through her rooms. She had not sought to form it; but there was her _salon_, and one of a peculiar character.

Two features distinguished it: the religious tone that prevailed, and the absence of party spirit. Madame Swetchine herself was eminently religious, and she had a large way of viewing all things. Her influence, though partly moral and intellectual, was ever chiefly religious; and she gave that presiding characteristic to the atmosphere around. So long as faith and morality were not attacked, all other points she considered secondary, and admitted the widest diversity of opinion on them. Her own views on all subjects were firmly held, and she expressed them with freedom. There could be no mistake about it. In religion she was a strict Catholic, and in philosophy Christian; in politics she preferred a liberal monarchy; but far from seeking to give that color to her salon, she would not allow any friend holding the same views to try to impose them on others. This was equally the case in matters of art and taste; she tolerated nothing exclusive; but the principle is much more difficult to be followed out when applied to politics, which involve interests of such magnitude, appealing to all the pa.s.sions, and especially in such an excitable atmosphere as that of Paris. Nothing better shows Madame Swetchine's tact and gentleness of temper than her intimacies with men of such different stamps, and the way in which she made them to a certain extent amalgamate. But the above qualities would have failed to do it, had their spring been a worldly one; hers flowed truly from the Christian charity with which her whole soul was full.

In this she and her _salon_ were unique.

She lived to see two great revolutions in France: the one of 1830, and that which subst.i.tuted the republic for Louis Philippe, ending with the empire. Members of all these _regimes_ were among her visitors.

Ministers of state under the Restoration, those who embraced the Orleans cause, men belonging to the republican government, amba.s.sadors from most of the foreign courts in Europe; all these in turn enjoyed her conversation, some her esteem or affection, according to the degrees of intimacy and sympathy. Her own feelings, as well as convictions, lay with legitimists; but others were no less welcomed, and some of various parties were highly valued. True, however, to religion, she never gave her friends.h.i.+p to men not devoted to the interests of the Church. Her great object was to do good to souls, but in a quiet, unostentatious, womanly way; gently leading to virtue, never inculcating it. This of course became more exclusively her province as she grew older.

She was truly liberal in all her sentiments; not a.s.suredly from indifference, but through a large philosophy of spirit that allowed for diversities of opinion in all things not essential. At the same time her own convictions were unflinchingly avowed, as well as her ideas and tastes in smaller matters.

The men with whom she was most intimate have all more or less been known to fame, and are eminent also for their religious spirit. We might begin a list with Monsieur de Maistre at St. Petersburg, when she was but twenty-five; then following her to Paris, see her make acquaintance with his friend Monsieur de Bonald; exercise maternal influence over MM. de Falloux, de Montalembert, and Lacordaire; and finally wind up with Donoso Cortes, the Marquis de Valdegamas, Prince Albert de Broglie, and Alexis de Tocqueville.

Each one of the distinguished personages above has figured prominently on the great stage, more or less renowned in politics and letters, and {459} always holding a high moral character. It may seem fastidious to recall their t.i.tles to fame. In our day, when all are acquainted with continental literature, who is not familiar with the witty author of the _Soirees de St. Petersbourg_, although it be permitted somewhat to ignore the rather dry philosophical works of his friend de Bonald?

Monsieur de Falloux, with filial love, has raised a monument to Madame Swetchine that will endure beside his life of Pope Pius V., and jointly with the remembrance of his political integrity. Who that has followed the late history of Europe does not know Donoso Cortes, the great orator, whose famous three discourses in the Spanish chambers instantaneously reached so far and wide, whose written style is the very music of that rich Castilian idiom, and whose liberal political views kept pace with his large Catholic heart? Soeur Rosalie and Madame Swetchine together soothed his dying hours. The author of _La Democratic en Amerique_ has been indiscreetly praised, but none can deny his ability, Prince Albert de Broglie, _doctrinaire_ in his views, still advocates with talent the cause of religion and of const.i.tutional monarchy. These two latter were among the latest acquisitions to Madame Swetchine's salon.

MM. de Montalembert and de Falloux were like her sons; she knew them from their early manhood, called them by their Christian names, loved and counselled them as any mother might. But if her influence over them was so salutary, we cannot help admiring most the unswerving attachment of these young men to her; Madame Swetchine's letters show her expostulating with Comte de Montalembert, then little past twenty, and endeavoring to convince him he is wrong. He will not yield; but acknowledges afterward the justness of her views, and allows now these letters to be published. Alfred de Falloux is _the son_ sent for when danger seems impending; he tends her dying couch in that same _salon_ where he had so often and for so many years _walked_ with her conversing; to him she confides her papers and last wishes.

The celebrated Pere Lacordaire was very dear to her; and she certainly acted the part of a mother toward him. Monsieur de Montalembert presented him to her when Abbe Lacordaire was but twenty-eight, and quite unknown. His genius--which she immediately discerned--and his ardent soul interested her wonderfully. Soon after he became connected, through Abbe de Lamennais, with the journal _L'Avenir;_ by his own generous and oft-repeated avowal she kept him from any deviation at this trying moment. "You appeared to me as the angel of the Lord," writes he, "to a soul floating between life and death, between earth and heaven."

Nor was this the only time. Her letters show her following him with breathless interest through his chequered career, and a.s.suring him of her warm undying friends.h.i.+p, "so long as he remains faithful to G.o.d and his Church."

And this was a beautiful affection, whichever side we view it. For more than twenty years it lasted; that is, for the rest of her life.

The ardent young man is seen with the erratic impulses of his glowing intellect, yet docile to the motherly admonitions of his old friend; and by degrees, as time mellows him somewhat--though it never could subdue nature altogether--he sinks into a calmer strain, still asking advice, and taking it, with language more respectful, though not a whit less tender. Madame Swetchine brought to bear on him a species of idolatry; she admired his genius to excess, and loved his fine nature as any doting parent might; but these sentiments never rendered her blind to his faults; and she constantly blended reproof with admiration, while strenuously endeavoring to keep him ever in the most perfect path. She had the satisfaction of seeing him, ere she departed this life, safely anch.o.r.ed in a religious order, and the Dominicans fairly re-established in France; one of her pre-occupations on her death-bed, after bidding him adieu, was to secure {460} that his letters should be one day given to the public. For thus she knew he would be better appreciated.

Other names of men well-known in the Parisian world of letters, or for their deeds of charity, might here be added as having adorned her _salon_. There was the Vicomte de Melun, connected with every good work (literary or other) in the French capital; and her two relatives, Prince Augustin Galitzin and Prince (afterward Pere) Gagarin. The former still writes; the latter, erst a gay man of fas.h.i.+on and then metamorphosed into a zealous Jesuit, is now devoting his missionary labors to Syria.

And lastly may be named one who, though he never mingled in the world of her _salon_, yet visited Madame Swetchine and esteemed her greatly.

Pere de Ravignan presided at one time in her house over meetings of charitable ladies, who were afterward united with the Enfants de Marie at the convent of the Sacre Coeur.

Nor were her friends.h.i.+ps exclusively confined to men. Madame Swetchine had not that foible into which many superior women fall of affecting to despise their own s.e.x; and which always shows that they innately, unconsciously often, separate their individual selves from all the rest of womankind as alone superior to it. Hers was a larger view: she loved _souls_; and "souls," says one of her aphorisms, "have neither age nor s.e.x." When shall we in general begin to live here as we are to do for ever hereafter?

She had had her early friends.h.i.+ps in Russia, and most pa.s.sionate they were; too girlish in their romantic enthusiasm, too wordily tender in expression; but time mellowed these affections, without wearing them out. The two princ.i.p.al women-friends of her youth in Russia, after her sister, were Roxandre Stourdja, a Greek by birth, afterward Comtesse Edlinz, and the Comtesse de Nesselrode. Both of these in later years visited her Paris salon. But she also formed several new French intimacies. Her grief for the loss of Madame de Duras, when death deprived her of that friend, was a little softened by her warm sympathy for the two daughters left, Mesdames de Rauzan and de la Rochejacquelain. If she saw most of the former, the latter had for Madame Swetchine a second tie through her early marriage with a grandson of the Princesse de Tarente, whom Madame Swetchine had so revered in her girlish days at St. Petersburg. Both the d.u.c.h.esse de Rauzan and Comtesse de la Rochejacquelain were very beautiful; and Madame Swetchine dearly loved beauty, especially when combined, as in them, with grace and elegance, cleverness and piety. For both the sisters were remarkable: one had more fascinating softness united with good sense; the other was more witty and brilliant. The last country-house visited by Madame Swetchine shortly before her death was the chateau de Fleury, belonging to Madame de la Rochejacquelain, where we read that she loved to find still mementos of the Princesse de Tarente.

Madame Swetchine was very intimate with Madame Recamier, her fellow-star as leader of a contemporary _salon_. She greatly prized her worth. Another friend much loved was the Comtesse de Gontant Biron, in youth eminent for her beauty, and always for her many virtues. Among younger women distinguished by Madame Swetchine were Mrs. Craven, nee la Ferronaye; the Princess Wittgenstein, lovely as clever, a Russian by birth, and a convert to the Catholic Church; and quite at the last period, the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton.

She was always partial to youth, taking a warm interest in anything that might minister to the welfare or pleasures of that age. Thus she liked the young women of her acquaintance to be well dressed, and would admire their taste or try to improve it, even in that respect, with perfectly motherly solicitude. Those going to b.a.l.l.s frequently stopped on their way to show their toilettes to Madame Swetchine; and not seldom, too, they would {461} return in the morning to ask advice on graver matters, or to display the progress of their children. The good Madame Swetchine did to persons of the world by quiet friendly counsel is incalculable; she never spared the truth when she thought it could be of use, and as she had great perspicacity, she was not often deceived. Beside, her natural penetration became yet keener, not only by long experience, but also by the numerous confidences she received from the many souls in a measure laid bare before her. M. de Falloux has well said that she "possessed the science of souls, as _savants_ do that of bodies." However one might be pained at what she said, it was impossible to feel wounded; her manner was so kind, and her rect.i.tude of intention so evident. And thus did she render her _salon_ useful: living in public, as it might appear, surrounded chiefly by the great ones of earth, her thought was yet ever with G.o.d, and she positively worked for him day by day without even quitting those few rooms. Nay, so completely is Madame Swetchine identified with her _salon_ for those who knew her through any part of the thirty years spent in Paris, that it is difficult for our idea to separate her from it.

Even materially speaking she seldom left it. With a simplicity that seems strange indeed to our English notions, she caused her little iron bedstead to be set up every night in one of her reception-rooms; each morning it was doubled up again and consigned to a closet. During her last illness it was just the same; she lay in her _salon_, the only difference being that then the bed remained permanently. Not an iota else was changed in the aspect of her apartment; no table was near the sick-couch with gla.s.s or cup ready to hand; what she wanted in this way she signed for to a deaf-and-dumb attendant, Parisse, whose grateful eyes were ever fixed upon her benefactress, to divine or antic.i.p.ate what might be wished. And there, too, she died.

To us with our exclusive family feelings, or indeed to the general human sentiment that courts the utmost privacy for that solemn closing scene, there is something which jars in the account of Madame Swetchine's last days on earth. Doubtless all the consolations of religion were there to hallow her dying moments; she continued to the last to devote long hours to prayer; and by an enviable privilege she possessed a domestic chapel blessed with the perpetual presence of the Blessed Sacrament; but what strikes us strangely is, that her _salon_ had chanced to remain open while extreme unction was being administered; and so, as it was her usual reception hour, the few friends in Paris at that season (September) continued to drop in one by one, and kneeling, each new-comer behind the other, prayed with and for her. Those last visitors were Pere Chocarn, prior of the Dominicans; Pere Gagarin; Mesdames Fredro, de Meyendorf, and Craven; Messieurs de Broglie, de Falloux, de Melun, and Zermolof. But the _strange_ feeling we cannot help experiencing must be reasoned with.

Her _salon_ and her friends were to Madame Swetchine home and family.

And now it might seem that nothing more could be said of her; but, in truth, a very small portion has yet been expressed. Beside the six hours devoted to reception, the day counted eighteen more. There were religious duties to be performed, and home duties no less imperative; there were the poor to be visited, and there were the claims of study, which Madame Swetchine never neglected up to the latest period of existence. All these calls upon her time were recognized by conscience, and therefore duly responded to. Madame Swetchine was, of course, an early riser; by eight or nine o'clock she had heard ma.s.s, visited her poor, and was ready to commence the business of the day.