Chapter 6

The third was received with as many honours as the two previously appointed had been received with insults on their arrival. The French Church was closed, the Roman Catholic religion re-established, and the new priest returnedto the old presbytery; the Grenadier became the most fervent and humble of his penitents, and the tongue of Cicero and Tacitus again became the dominical one of the Lévois, returned to the bosom of Holy Church.

But Barthélemy wrote to me, a little time ago, that there were serious scruples in some weak minds. Were the infants baptised, the adults married, and the old people buried by the Abbé Ledru during his schism with Gregory XVI., really properly baptised and married and buried? It did not matter to the baptised souls, who could return and be baptised by an orthodox hand; nor again to the married ones, who had but to have a second mass said over them and to pass under the canopy once more, but it mattered terribly to the dead; for they could neither be sought for nor recognised one from another. Happily God will recognise those whom the blindness of human eyes prevents from seeing, and I am sure that He will forgive the Lévois their temporary heresy for the sake of their good intention.

This event, and the conversion of Casimir Delavigne to the observances of the French religion, were the culminating points in the fortunes of the Abbé Châtel, primate of the Gauls. Casimir Delavigne, who gave his sanction to all new phases of power; who sanctioned the authority of Louis XVIII. in his play entitled,Du besoin de s'unir après le depart des étrangers; who sanctioned the prerogative of Louis-Philippe in his immortal, or say rather everlasting,Parisienne; Casimir Delavigne sanctioned the authority of the primate of the Gauls by his translation of theDies irœ, dies ilia, which was chanted by Abbé Châtel's choristers at the mass which the latter said in French at the funeral service of Kosciusko. The Abbé Châtel possessed this good quality, that he openly declared for the people as against kings.

Here is the poem; it is little known and deserves to be better known than it is. It is, therefore, in the hope of increasing its reputation that we bring it to the notice of our readers. It was sung at the French Church on 23 February 1831:—

"Jour de colère, jour de larmes,Où le sort, qui trahit nos armes,Arrêta son vol glorieux!À tes côtés, ombre chérie,Elle tomba, notre patrie,Et ta main lui ferma les yeux!Tu vis, de ses membres livides,Les rois, comme des loups avides,S'arracher les lambeaux épars:Le fer, dégouttant de carnage,Pour en grossir leur héritage,De son cadavre fit trois parts.La Pologne ainsi partagée,Quel bras humain l'aurait vengée?Dieu seul pouvait la secourir!Toi-même tu la crus sans vie;Mais, son cœur, c'était Varsovie;Le feu sacré n'y put mourir!Que ta grande ombre se relève;Secoue, en reprenant ton glaive,Le sommeil de l'éternité!J'entends le signal des batailles,Et le chant de tes funéraillesEst un hymne de liberté!Tombez, tombez, boiles funèbres!La Pologne sort des ténèbres,Féconde en nouveaux défenseurs!Par la liberté ranimée,De sa chaîne elle s'est arméePour en frapper ses oppresseurs.Cette main qu'elle te présenteSera bientôt libre et sanglante;Tends-lui la main du haut des deux.Descends pour venger ses injures,Ou pour entourer ses blessuresDe ton linceul victorieux.Si cette France qu'elle appelle,Trop loin—ne pent vaincre avec elle,Que Dieu, du moins, soit son appui.Trop haut, si Dieu ne peut l'entendre,Eh bien! mourons pour la défendre,Et nous irons nous plaindre à lui!"

We do not believe to-day that the Abbé Châtel is dead; but, if we judge of his health by the cobwebs which adorn the hinges and bolts of the French Church, we shall not be afraid to assert that he is very ill indeed.

The Abbé de Lamennais—His prediction of the Revolution of 1830—Enters the Church—His views on the Empire—Casimir Delavigne, Royalist—His early days—Two pieces of poetry by M. de Lamennais—His literary vocation—Essay on Indifference in Religious Matters—Reception given to this book by the Church—The academy of the château de la Chesnaie

We now ask permission to approach a more serious subject, and to dedicate this chapter (were it only for the purpose of forming a contrast with the preceding chapters) to one of the finest and greatest of modern geniuses, to the Abbé de Lamennais. We speak of a period two months after the Revolution of 1830.

Out of the wilds of Brittany, that is, from the château de la Chesnaie, there appeared a priest of forty, small of stature, nervous and pale, with stubbly hair, and high forehead, the head compressed at the sides as though it were enclosed by walls of bone; a sign, according to Gall, indicative of the absence in man of cupidity, cunning and acquisitiveness; the nose long, with dilated nostrils, denoting high intelligence, according to Lavater; and, last, a piercing glance and a determined chin. Everything connected with the man's external appearance revealed his Celtic origin. Such was the AbbéDE LA MENNAIS, whose name was written in three different ways, like that ofM. DE LA MARTINE, each different way in which he wrote it indicating the different phases of the development of his mind and the progress of his opinion. We say of his opinion and not opinions, for these three phases, as in Raphael's three styles, mean, not a change of style, but a perfecting of style.

Into the thick of the agitation going on in silent thought oropen speech, the austere Breton came to teach the world a word they had not expected; in fact at that time M. de la Mennais was looked upon as a supporter of bothThroneandChurch.The throne had just fallen, and the Church was shaking violently from the changes which the events of 1830 had wrought in social institutions. But the world was mistaken with regard to the views of the great writer, because it only saw in him the author ofL'Essai sur l'indifférence en matière de religion, a strange book, in which that virile imagination strove against his century, struggling with the spirit of the times, as Jacob strove with the angel. People forgot that in 1828, during the Martignac Ministry, the same de Lamennais had hurled a book into the controversy which had predicted a certain degree of intellectual revival: I refer toDu progrès de la Revolution et de la guerre contre l'Église.In this book, the Revolution of 1830 was foretold as an inevitable event. Listen carefully to his words—

"And even to-day when there no longer really exists any government, since it has become the tool and the plaything of the boldest or of the most powerful; to-day, when democracy triumphs openly, is there any more calm in its own breast? Could one find, moreover, no matter what the nature of his opinions may be, one man, one single man, who desires what is, and whodesires only that and nothing more?Never, on the other hand, has he more eagerly longed for a new order of things;everybody cries out for, the whole world is calling for, a revolution, whether they admit it or are conscious of it themselves.Yes, it will come, because it is imperative that nations shall be unitedly educated and chastised;because, according to the common laws of Providence, a revolution is indispensable for the preparation of a true social regeneration. France will not be the only scene of action: it will extend everywhere where Liberalism rules either in doctrine or in sentiment; and under this latter form it is universal."

In the preface to the same book, M. de Lamennais had already said—

"That France and Europe are marching towards fresh revolutions is now apparent to everybody. The most undauntedhopes which have fed themselves for long on interest or stupidity give way before the evidence of facts, in the face of which it is no longer possible for anyone to delude himself. Nothing can remain as it is, everything is unsettled, totters towards a change.Conturbatœ sunt gentes et inclinata sunt regna."

We underline nothing in this second paragraph because we should have to underline the whole. Let us pass on to the last words of the book—

"The time is coming when it will be saidto those who are in darkness: 'Behold the light!' And they will arise, and, with gaze fixed on that divine radiance will, with repentance and surprise, yet filled with joy, worship that spirit which restores all disorder, reveals all truth, enlightens every intelligence:oriens ex alto."

The above expressions are those of a prophet as well as of a poet; they reveal what neither the Guizots, the Molés, the Broglies, nor even the Casimir Périers saw, nor, indeed, any of those we are accustomed to stylestatesmenforesaw.

In this work M. de Lamennais appealed solemnly "for the alliance of Catholics with all sincere Liberal spirits." This book is really in some measure the hinge on which turned the gate through which M. de Lamennais passed from his first political phase to the second.

M. de Lamennais was born at St. Malo, in the house next to that in which Chateaubriand was born, and a few yards only from that in which Broussais came into the world. So that the old peaceful town gave us, in less than fifteen years, Chateaubriand, Broussais and Lamennais, names representative of the better part of the poetry, science and philosophy of the first half of the nineteenth century. M. de Lamennais had, like Chateaubriand, passed his childhood by the sea, had listened to the roar of the ocean, watching the waves which are lost to sight on infinite horizons, eternally returning to break against the cliffs, as the human wave returns to break itself against invincible necessity. He preserved, I recollect (for one feature in my existence coincided with that of the author ofParolesd'un Croyant), he preserved, I repeat, from his earliest childhood, the vivid and clear recollections which he connected with the grand and rugged scenery of his beloved Brittany.

"I can still hear," he said to us, at a dinner where the principal guests were himself, the Abbé Lacordaire, M. de Montalembert, Listz and myself—"the cry of certain sea-birds which passedbarkingover my head. Some of those rocks, which have looked down pityingly for numberless centuries upon the angry impotent waves which perish at their feet, are stocked with ancient legends."

M. de Lamennais related one of these in hisune Voix de prison.It is that of a maiden who, overtaken by the tide, on a reef of rocks, tied her hair to the stems of sea-weeds to keep herself from being washed off by the motion of the waves, far away from her native land.

M. de Lamennais's youth was stormy and undisciplined. He loved physical exercises, hunting, fencing, racing and riding; strange tastes these, as preparation for an ecclesiastical career! But it was not from personal inclination or of his own impulse that he entered the priesthood, but by compulsion from the noble families in the district. On his part, the bishop of the diocese discerned in the young man a superior intellect, a lofty character, a tendency towards meditation and thoughtfulness, and drew him to himself by all kinds of seductions. They spared him the trials of an ecclesiastical seminary, at which his intractable disposition might have rebelled; but, priest though he was, M. de Lamennais did not discontinue to ride the most fiery horses of the town, or to practise shooting. It was the Empire, that régime of glory and of despotism, which wounded the sensitive nerves of the young priest of stern spirit and Royalist sympathies. Brittany remembered her exiled princes, and the family of M. de Lamennais was among those which faithfully preserved the worship of the past; not that their family was of ancient nobility: the head of the house was a shipowner who had made his wealth by distant voyages, and who was ennobled at the close of the last century for services rendered to the town of St. Malo. The Empire fell, and M. deLamennais, casting a bird's-eye view over that stupendous ruin, wrote in 1815—

"Wars of extermination sprang up again; despotism counted her expenditure in men, as people reckon the revenue of an estate; generations were mowed down like grass; and men daily sold, bought, exchanged and given away like flocks of little value, often not even knowing whose property they were, to such an extent did a monstrous policy multiply these infamous transactions! Whole nations were put in circulation like pieces of money!"

To profess such principles was, of course, equivalent to looking towards the Restoration, that dawn without a sun. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that, in those days, all young men of letters were carried away with the same intoxication for monarchical memories. Poets are like women—I do not at all know who said that poets were women—they make much of a favourable misfortune. This enthusiasm forthe person of the kingwas shared, in different degrees, even by men whose names, later, were connected with Liberalism. Heaven alone knows whether any king was ever less fitted than Louis XVIII. for calling forth tenderness and idolatry! But that did not hinder Casimir Delavigne from exclaiming—

"Henri, divin Henri, toi que fus grand et bon,Qui chassas l'Espagnol, et finis nos misères,Les partis sont d'accord en prononçant ton nom;Henri, de les enfants fais un peuple de frères!Ton image déjà semble nous protéger:Tu renais! avec toi renaît l'indépendance!Ô roi le plus Français dont s'honore la France,Il est dans ton destin de voir fuir l'étranger!Et toi, son digne fils, après vingt ans d'orage,Règne sur des sujets par toi-même ennoblis;Leurs droits sont consacrés dans ton plus bel ouvrage.Oui, ce grand monument, affermi d'âge en âge,Doit couvrir de son ombre et le peuple et les lysIl est des opprimés l'asile impérissable,La terreur du tyran, du ministre coupable,Le temple de nos libertés!Que la France prospère en tes mains magnanimes;Que tes jours soient sereins, tes décrets respectés,Toi qui proclames ces maximes:'Ô rois, pour commander, obéissez aux lois!Peuple, en obéissant, sois libre sous tes rois!'"

True, fifteen years later, the author ofLa Semaine de Parissang, almost in the same lines of the accession to the throne of King Louis-Philippe. Rather read for yourself—

"Ô toi, roi citoyen, qu'il presse dans ses bras, Aux cris d'un peuple entier dont les transports sont justes. Tu fus mon bienfaiteur ... Je ne te loûrai pas: Les poètes des rois sont leurs actes augustes. Que ton règne te chante, et qu'on dise après nous: 'Monarque, il fut sacré par la raison publique; Sa force fut la loi; l'honneur, sa politique; Son droit divin, l'amour de tous!'"

Let us read again the lines we have just quoted—those which were addressed to Louis XVIII. we mean—and we shall see that Victor Hugo, Lamartine and Lamennais never expressed their delight at the return of the Bourbons in more endearing terms than did Casimir Delavigne. What, then, was the reason why the Liberals of that day and the Conservatives of to-day bitterly reproached the first three of the above-mentioned authors for these pledges of affection for the Elder Branch, whilst they always ignored or pretended to ignore the covert royalism of the author ofMesséniennes? Ah! Heavens! It is because the former were sincere in their blind, young enthusiasm, whilst the latter—let us be allowed to say it—was not. The world forgives a political untruth, but it does not forgive a conscientious recantation of the foolish mistakes of a generously sympathetic heart. In the generous pity of these three authors for the Bourbon family there was room for the shedding of a tear for Marie-Antoinette and for Louis XVII.

M. de Lamennais hesitated, for a while, over his literary vocation, or at least, over the direction it should take. The solitude in which he had lived, by the sea, had filled his soulwith floating dreams, like those beauteous clouds he had often watched with his outward eyes in the depths of the heavens. He was within an ace of writing novels and works of fiction; he did even get so far as to write some poetry, which, of course, he never published. Here are two lines, which entered, as far as I can remember, into a description of scholastic theology—

"Elle avait deux grands yeux stupidement ouverts,Dont l'un ne voyait pas ou voyait de travers!"

M. de Lamennais then became a religious writer and a philosopher more from force of circumstances than from inclination. His taste, he assured us in his moments of expansion, upon which we look back with respect and pride, would have led him by preference towards that style of poetical prose-writing which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had made fashionable inPaul et Virginie, and Chateaubriand inRené.So he communed with himself and, with the unerring finger of the implacable genius of the born observer, he touched upon the wound of his century—indifference to religious matters. Surely the cry uttered by that gloomy storm-bird, "the gods are departing!" had good reason for startling the pious folk and statesmen of that period! Were not the churches filled with missions and the high roads crowded with missionaries? Was there not the cross of Migné, the miracles of the Prince of Hohenlohe, the apparitions and trances of Martin de Gallardon and others? What, then, could this man mean? M. de Lamennais took, as the motto for his book, these words from the Bible—

"Impius, cum in profundum venerit contemnit."

In his opinion, contempt was the sign by which he recognised the decline of religious feeling. The seventeenth century believed, the eighteenth denied, the nineteenth doubted.

The success of the book was immense. France, agitated by vast and conflicting problems, a Babel wherein many voices were speaking simultaneously, in every kind of tongue,the France of the Empire, of the Restoration, of Carbonarism, of Liberalism and of Republicanism, held its peace to listen to the weighty and inspired utterance of this unknown writer: "et siluit terra in conspectu ejus!" The voice came from the desert. Who had seen, who knew this man? He had dropped from the region where eagles dwell; his name was mentioned by all lips, in the same breath with that of Bossuet.L'Essai sur l'indifférencewas little read but much admired; the poets—they are the only people who read—recognised in it a powerful imagination, at times almost an affrighted imagination, which, both by its excesses and its terrors, hugged, as it were, the dead body of religious belief, and shook it roughly, hoping against hope, to bring it back to life again. Of all prose-writers, Tacitus was the one whom the Abbé de Lamennais admired the most; of all poets, Dante was the one he read over and over again the most frequently; of all books, the one he knew by heart was the Bible.

Now, it might assuredly have been believed that this citadel, intended to protect the weak walls of Catholicism,L'Essai sur l'indifférence en matière de religion, was viewed with favourable eyes by the French clergy; no such thing! Quite the contrary; a cry went up from the heart of the Church, not of joy or admiration, but of terror. They were scared by the genius of the man; religion was no longer in the habit of having an Origen, a Tertullian, or a Bossuet to defend it; it was afraid of being supported by such a defender and, little by little, the shudder of fear reached even as far as Rome; and the book was very nearly placed on theIndex.These suspicions were aroused by the nature of the arguments of which the author made use to repel the attacks of philosophers. The Abbé de Lamennais foresaw, through the gloom, the causes at work undermining the old edifice of orthodoxy, and tried to put it on a wider basis of toleration and to prop it up, as he himself expressed it, by the exercise of common sense. To this end he made incredible flights into metaphysical realms, to prove that Catholicism was, and always had been, the religion of Humanity.

The Abbé de Lamennais taught in the seminaries, but his teaching was looked upon with suspicion; and young people were forbidden the reading of a work, which the outside world regarded as that of a misguided god who wanted to deny man the right of freedom of thought. No suicide was ever more heroic, never did intellect bring so much courage and logic to the task of self-destruction. But, in reality, and from his point of view, the Abbé de Lamennais was right: if you believe in an infallible Church you must bravely destroy the eyes of your intellect and extinguish the light of your soul, and, having voluntarily made yourself blind, let yourself be led by the hand. But, however high a solitary intellect may be placed, it is very quickly reached by the influence of the times in which it lives.

Two or three years ago, an aeronautic friend of mine, Petin, seriously propounded to meviva voce, and to the world through the medium of the daily papers, that he had just solved the great problem of serial navigation. He reasoned thus—

"The earth turns—E pur si muove!—and in the motion of rotation on its own axis, it successively presents every part of its surface, both inhabited and uninhabited. Now, any person, who could raise himself up into the extreme strata of ambient air, and could find a means to keep himself there, would be able to descend in a balloon and alight upon whatever town on the globe he liked; he would only have to wait until that town passed beneath his feet; in that way he could go to the Antipodes in a dozen hours, and without any fatigue whatsoever, since he would not stir from his position, as it would be the earth which would move for him."

This calculation had but one flaw: it was false. The earth, in its vast motion, carries with it every atom of the molecules of its seething atmosphere. It is the same with great spirits which aim at stability; without perceiving that, at the very moment when they think they have cast anchor in the Infinite, they wake up to find they are being carried away in spite of themselves by the irresistible movement of their age. The spirit of Liberalism, with which the atmosphere of the time was charged, carried away the splendid, obstinate and lonelyreason of the Abbé de Lamennais. It was about the year 1828. Whilst fighting against the Doctrinaire School, for which he showed a scarcely veiled contempt, M. de Lamennais sought to combine the needs of faith with the necessities of progress; with this end in view he had installed at his château at La Chesnaie a school of young people whom he inculcated with his religious ideas. La Chesnaie was an ancient château of Brittany, shaded by sturdy, centenarian oaks—those natural philosophers, which ponder while their leaves rustle in the breeze on the vicissitudes of man, of which changes they are impassive witnesses. There, this priest, who was already troubled by the new spirit abroad, educated and communed with disciples who held on from far or near to the Church; amongst them were the Abbé Gerbert, Cyprien Robert, now professor of Slavonic literature in the College of France, and a few others. Work—methodical and persevering—was carried on within those old walls, which the sea winds rocked and lashed against. This new academy of Pythagoras studied the science of the century in order to combat it; but, at each fresh ray of light, it recoiled enlightened, and its recoil put weapons to be used against itself into the hands of the enemy. That enemy was Human Thought.

The founding ofl'Avenir—L'Abbé Lacordaire—M. Charles de Montalembert—His article on the sacking of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois—l'Avenirand the new literature—My first interview with M. de Lamennais—Lawsuit againstl'Avenir—MM. de Montalembert and Lacordaire as schoolmasters—Their trial in theCour des pairs—The capture of Warsaw—Answer of four poets to a word spoken by a statesman

The Revolution of 1830 came as a surprise to M. de Lamennais and his school in the midst of these vague and restless designs. His heart, ready to sympathise with everything that was great and generous, had already been alienated from Royalism; already the man, poet and philosopher, was kicking beneath the priestly robe. The century which had just venerated and extolled his genius, reproached him under its breath for resisting the way of progress. Intractable and headstrong by nature, with a rugged and reclusive intellect, the Abbé de Lamennais was by temperament a free lance. Then 1830 sounded. Sitting upon the ruins of that upheaval, which had just swallowed up one dynasty, and shaken the Church with the same storm and shipwreck in which that dynasty had foundered, the philosophers of La Chesnaie took counsel together; they said among themselves that the opposition against the clergy, with which Liberalism had been animated since 1815, was the result of the prominent protection which had been spread over the Catholic priests, in face of the instability of the Powers, in face of the roaring waves of the Revolution; and they began to question whether it would not be advantageous to the immutable Church to separate herself from all the tottering States. Stated thus, the question was quickly decided. The Abbé de Lamennaisthought the time had come for him to throw himself directly and personally into the struggle. The principles of a journal were settled, and he went. Two men entered that career of publicity with him: the Abbé Lacordaire and Comte Charles de Montalembert.

The Abbé Lacordaire was, at the period when I had the honour of finding myself in communication with him on religious and political principles, a young priest who had passed from the Bar at Paris to the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice. After his term of probation, he had spent three harassing years in the study of theology; he left the seminary full of hazy ideas and turbulent instincts. His temper of mind was acrimonious, keen and subtle; he had dark fiery eyes, delicate and mobile features, he was pale with the pallor of the Cenobite and of a sickly complexion, with hard, gaunt, strongly marked outlines,—so much for his face. Attracted by the brilliancy of the Abbé de Lamennais, he fell in with all his political views; he, too, longed for the liberty of the spirit after due control of the flesh; the protection of the State, because of his priesthood, was burdensome to him. He put his hand in his master's and the covenant was sealed.

The Comte de Montalembert, on his side, was, at that time, quite a young man, fair, with a face like a girl's, and pink cheeks, shy and blushing; as he was short-sighted, he looked close at people through his eye-glasses. He appealed strongly to the Abbé de Lamennais, who felt drawn to him with a sort of paternal sympathy. Finally, Comte Charles de Montalembert belonged to a family whose devotion to the cause of the Elder Branch of the Bourbons was well known; but he openly declared that he placed France in his affections before a dynasty, and liberty before a crown.

Round these three men, one already famous and the others still unknown, rallied the ecclesiastics and young people of talent, who, in all simple faith, were desirous of combining the majesty of religious traditions with the nobility of revolutionary ideas. That such an alliance was impossible Time—that great tester of things and men—would prove; but theattempt was none the less noble for all that; it ministered, moreover, to a want which was then permeating the new generations. Already Camille Desmoulins, one of those poets who are specially inspired, had exclaimed to the Revolutionary Tribunal with somewhat penetrative melancholy: "I am the same age, thirty-three years, as theSans-culotteJesus!"

The title of the new journal wasl'Avenir.The programme of its principles was drawn up equally by them all, and it called upon the government of July for absolute liberty for all creeds and all religious communities, for liberty of the press, liberty in education, the radical separation of the Church from the State and, finally, for the abolition of the ecclesiastical budget. It was 16 October 1830, and the moment was a favourable one. Belgium was about to start her revolution, and, in that revolution, the hand of the clergy was visible; Catholic Poland was sending up under the savage treatment of the Czar one long cry of distress and yet of hope; Ireland, by the voice of O'Connell, was moving all nationalities to whom religion was the motive power and a flag of independence; Ireland shook the air with the wordsCHRISTandLIBERTY!L'Avenirmade itself the monitor of the religious movement, combined with the political movement, as may be judged by these few lines which proceeded from the association, and are taken from its first number—

"We have no hidden design whatsoever, we never had; we mean exactly what we say. Hoping, therefore, to be believed in all good faith, we say to those whose ideas differ upon several points of our creed: 'Do you sincerely want religious liberty, liberty in educational matters, in civil and political affairs and liberty of the press, which, do not let us forget, is the guarantee for all types of liberty? You belong to us as we belong to you. Every kind of liberty that the people in the gradual development of their life can uphold is their due, and their progress in civilisation is to be measured by the actual and not the fictitious, progress they make in liberty!'"

It was at this juncture that the transformation tool place of the AbbéDE LA MENNAISto the Abbé deLAMENNAIS.His opinions and his talents and his name entered upon a new era; he was no more the stern and gloomy priest pronouncing deadly sentence on the human intellect over the tomb of Faith; but a prophet shaking the shrouds of dying nations in the name of liberty, and crying aloud to the dry bones to "Arise!"

Now, among the young editors ofl'Avenirit is worth noticing that the most distinguished of them for talent and for the loftiness of his democratic views, was Comte Charles de Montalembert, whose imprudent impetuosity the stern old man was obliged, more than once, to check. Presently, we shall have to relate the story of the sacking of the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the profanation of the sacred contents. The situation was an embarrassing one forl'Avenir: that journal had advised the young clergy to put faith in the Revolution, and here was that self-same Revolution, breaking loose in a moment of anger, throwing mud at the Catholic temples and uprooting the insignia of religion. It was Comte Charles de Montalembert who undertook to be the leader of the morrow. Instead of inveighing against the vandals, he inveighed against the clergy and priests, whose blind and dangerous devotion to the overturned throne had drawn down the anger of the people upon the Christian creed. He had no anathemas strong enough to hurl at "those incorrigible defenders of the ancient régime, and that bastard Catholicism which gave birth to the religion of kings!" The crosses that had been knocked down were those branded with the fleurs-de-lis; he took the opportunity to urge the separation of the Church from the civil authority. Without the fleurs-de-lis, no one—the Comte Charles de Montalembert insisted emphatically—had any quarrel with the Cross.

The objective ofl'Avenir, then, was both political and literary; it was in sympathy with modern literature, and, in the person of the Abbé de Lamennais, it possessed, besides, one of the leading writers of the day; it was one of those rare papers (rari nantes) in which one could follow the human mind under its two aspects.Liber, in Latin, may be allowed tomean alsolibre(free) andlivre(book). I have already told how we literary men of the new school had made implacable enemies of all the papers on the side of the political movement. It was all the more strange that the literary revolution had preceded, helped, prepared the way for and heralded the political revolution which was past, and the social revolution which was taking place. For example, we recollect an article uponNotre Dame de Paris, wherein, whilst regretting that the author was not more deeply Catholic, Comte Charles de Montalembert praised the style and poetry of Victor Hugo with the enthusiasm of an adept. It was about this time, and several days, I believe, after the representation ofAntony, that M. de Lamennais expressed the desire that I should be introduced to him. This wish was a great honour for me, and I gratefully acquiesced. A mutual friend took me to the house of the famous founder ofl'Avenir, who was then living in the rue Jacob—I remember the name of the street, but have forgotten the number of the house. Before that day, I had already joyfully acknowledged an admiration for him which sprang up in my heart and soul fresh, and strong, and unalloyed.

Meanwhile,l'Avenirwas successful; this was soon apparent from the anger and hatred launched against its doctrines. Amongst the various advices it gave to the clergy, that of renouncing the emoluments administered by the State, and of simply following Christ in poverty, was not at all relished; and people grew indignant. It was in vain for the solemn voice of the Abbé de Lamennais to exclaim—

"Break these degrading chains! Put away these rags!"

The clergy replied under their breath: "Call them rags if you wish, but they are rags dear to our hearts."

Do my readers desire to know to what degree the journall'Avenirhad its roots buried in what is aristocratically styled Society? Then let us quote the first lines dedicated to the trial ofl'Avenirin thel'Annuaireof Lesur—

"Never were the approaches to the Court of Assizes more largely filled with so affluent and influential a crowd, and nevercertainly were so large a number ofladiesattracted to a political trial as in the case of this. Immediately the court opened proceedings, the jurymen, defendants, barristers and the magistrate himself were overwhelmed by a multitude of persons who could not manage to find seats. M. l'Abbé de Lamennais, M. Lacordaire, the editors ofl'Avenir,and M. Waille, the responsible manager of the paper, were placed on chairs in the centre of the bar; the two first were clad in frockcoats over their cassocks; M. Waille wore the uniform of the National Guard."

It was one of the first press trials since July. The public prosecutor's speech was very timid, and he apologised for coming, after a revolution carried out in favour of the press, to demand legal penalties against this very press. Butl'Avenirhad exceeded all limits of propriety. We will quote the incriminating phrase—

"Let us prove that we are Frenchmen by faithfully defending that which no one can snatch from us without violating the law of the land. Let us say to our sovereigns: 'We will obey you in so far as you yourselves obey that law which has made you what you are, without which you are nothing!'"

That was written by M. de Lamennais. We forget the actual phrase, although not the cause, which brought the Abbé Lacordaire to the defendants' bench. M. de Lamennais was defended by Janvier, who has since played a part in politics. Lacordaire defended himself. His speech made a great sensation, and revealed the qualities both of a lawyer and of a preacher. The jury acquitted them.

Some time later,l'Avenirhad to submit to the ordeal of another trial in a greater arena and under circumstances which we ought to recall.

MM. de Montalembert and Lacordaire had constituted themselves the champions of liberty in educational matters, as well as of all other liberties, both religious and civil. From words they passed to deeds; and they opened, conjointly, an elementary school which a few poor children attended. The police intervened. Ordered to withdraw, the professors offered resistance, so they were obliged to arrest the "substance ofthe offence"—namely, the street arabs who filled the school-room. There was hardly sufficient ground for a trial before thetribunal correctionnel; but, in the meantime, a few days before the promulgation of the law which suppressed the hereditary rights to the peerage, M. Charles de Montalembert's most excellent father died. The matter then assumed unexpected proportions: Charles de Montalembert, a peer of France by the grace of non-retroactivity, was not amenable to ordinary courts of justice, so the trial was carried before the Court of Peers, where it took the dimensions of a political debate upon the freedom of education. Lacordaire, whose cause could not be disconnected from that of his accomplice, was also transferred to the Supreme Court, and he delivered extempore his own counsel's speech. M. de Montalembert, on the contrary, read a speech in which he attacked the university and M. de Broglie in particular.

"At this point," says theMoniteur, in its report of the trial, "the honourable peer of France put up his eye-glass and looked critically at the young orator."

Less fortunate before the Court of Peers than before the jury, which would certainly have acquitted them, the two editors ofl'Avenirlost their case; but they won it in the opinion of the country. The Comte de Montalembert owed it to this circumstance, that he sided with M. de Lamennais, whose Liberal doctrines he shared and professed at that time; he was also equally bound by the unexpected death of his father to find a career ready opened for him in the Upper Chamber. But when questioned by the Chamber as to his profession, he replied—"Schoolmaster."

All these trials seemed but to give a handle to M. de Lamennais's religious enemies. Rumours began from below. From the lower clergy, who condemned them, M. de Lamennais and the other editors ofl'Avenirappealed to the bishops, who in their turn also condemned them. Then, driven back from one entrenchment after another, like the defenders of a town, who, having vainly defended their advanced positions, and their first and secondenceintes, are forced to take refuge within thecitadel itself, the accused men were obliged to look towards the Vatican, and to put their trust in Rome. The mainmast of this storm-beaten vessel, M. de Lamennais, was the first to be struck by the thunders of denunciation.

On 8 September 1831, a voice rang through the world similar to that of the angel in the Apocalypse, announcing the fall of towns and empires; that voice, as incoherent as a death-rattle or last expiring sigh, formulated itself in these terrible words on 16 September: "Poland has just fallen! Warsaw is taken!" We know how this news was announced to the Chamber of Deputies by General Sébastiani. "Letters I have received from Poland," he said, in the session of 16 September, "inform me thatPEACEreigns in Warsaw."There was a slight variation given in theMoniteur, which spoke ofORDER, instead ofpeace, reigning in Warsaw. Under the circumstances neither word was better than the other: both were infamous! It is curious to come across again to-day the echo which that great downfall awakened in the soul of poets and believers, those living lyres which great national misfortunes cause to vibrate, and from whom the passing breeze of calamity draws exquisite sounds. Here we have four replies to the optimistic phraseology of the Minister for Foreign Affairs—

BARTHÉLEMY"Destinée à périr!... L'oracle avait raison!Faut-il accuser Dieu, le sort, la trahison?Non, tout était prévu, l'oracle était lucide!...Qu'il tombe sur nos fronts, le sceau du fratricide!Noble sœur! Varsovie! elle est morte pour nous;Morte un fusil en main, sans fléchir les genoux;Morte en nous maudissant à son heure dernière;Morte en baignant de pleurs l'aigle de sa bannière,Sans avoir entendu notre cri de pitié,Sans un mot de la France, un adieu d'amitié!Tout ce que l'univers, la planète des crimes,Possédait de grandeur et de vertus sublimes;Tout ce qui fut géant dans notre siècle étroitA disparu! Tout dort dans le sépulcre froid!...Cachons-nous! cachons-nous! nous sommes des infâmes!Rasons nos poils, prenons la quenouille des femmes;Jetons has nos fusils, nos guerriers oripeaux,Nos plumets citadins, nos ceintures de peaux;Le courage à nos cœurs ne vient que par saccades ...Ne parlons plus de gloire et de nos barricades!Que le teint de la honte embrase notre front!Vous voulez voir venir les Russes: ils viendront!..."

BARBIER"La Guerre"Mère! il était une ville fameuse;Avec le Hun j'ai franchi ses détours;J'ai démoli son enceinte fumeuse;Sous le boulet j'ai fait crouler ses tours!J'ai promené mes chevaux par les rues,Et, sous le fer de leurs rudes sabots,J'ai labouré le corps des femmes nues,Et des enfants couchés dans les ruisseaux!...Hourra! hourra! j'ai courbé la rebelle!J'ai largement lavé mon vieil affront:J'ai vu des morts à hauteur de ma selle!Hourra! j'ai mis les deux pieds sur son front!...Tout est fini, maintenant, et ma lamePend inutile à côté de mon flanc.Tout a passé par le fer et la flamme;Toute muraille a sa tache de sang!Les maigres chiens aux saillantes échinesDans les ruisseaux n'ont plus rien à lécher;Tout est désert; l'herbe pousse aux ruines....Ô mort! ô mort! je n'ai rien à faucher!""Le Choléra-Morbus"Mère! il était un peuple plein de vie,Un peuple ardent et fou de liberté;Eh bien, soudain, des champs de Moscovie,Je l'ai frappé de mon souffle empesté!Mieux que la balle et les larges mitrailles,Mieux que la flamme et l'implacable faim,J'ai déchiré les mortelles entrailles,J'ai souillé l'air et corrompu le pain!...J'ai tout noirci de mon haleine errante;De mon contact j'ai tout empoisonné;Sur le teton de sa mère expirante,Tout endormi, j'ai pris le nouveau-né!J'ai dévoré, même au sein de la guerre,Des camps entiers de carnage filmants;J'ai frappé l'homme au bruit de son tonnerre;J'ai fait combattre entre eux des ossements!...Partout, partout le noir corbeau becquète;Partout les vers ont des corps à manger;Pas un vivant, et partout un squelette ...Ô mort! ô mort! je n'ai rien à ronger!""La Mort"Le sang toujours ne peut rougir la terre;Les chiens toujours ne peuvent pas lécher;Il est un temps où la Peste et la GuerreNe trouvent plus de vivants à faucher!...Enfants hideux! couchez-vous dans mon ombre,Et sur la pierre étendez vos genoux;Dormez! dormez! sur notre globe sombre,Tristes fléaux! je veillerai pour vous.Dormez! dormez! je prêterai l'oreilleAu moindre bruit par le vent apporté;Et, quand, de loin, comme un vol de corneille,S'élèveront des cris de liberté;Quand j'entendrai de pâles multitudes,Des peuples nus, des milliers de proscrits,Jeter à has leurs vieilles servitudesEn maudissant leurs tyrans abrutis;Enfants hideux! pour finir votre somme,Comptez sur moi, car j'ai l'œil creux ... JamaisJe ne m'endors, et ma bouche aime l'hommeComme le czar aime les Polonais!"

VICTOR HUGO"Je hais l'oppression d'une haine profonde;Aussi, lorsque j'entends, dans quelque coin du monde,Sous un ciel inclément, sous un roi meurtrier,Un peuple qu'on égorge appeler et crier;Quand, par les rois chrétiens aux bourreaux turcs livrée,La Grèce, notre mère, agonise éventrée;Quand l'Irlande saignante expire sur sa croix;Quand l'Allemagne aux fers se débat sous dix rois;Quand Lisbonne, jadis belle et toujours en fête,Pend au gibet, les pieds de Miguel sur sa tête;Quand Albani gouverne au pays de Caton;Quand Naples mange et dort; quand, avec son bâton,Sceptre honteux et lourd que la peur divinise,L'Autriche casse l'aile au lion de Venise;Quand Modène étranglé râle sous l'archiduc:Quand Dresde lutte et pleure au lit d'un roi caduc;Quand Madrid sa rendort d'un sommeil léthargique;Quand Vienne tient Milan; quand le lion belgique,Courbé comme le bœuf qui creuse un vil sillon,N'a plus même de dents pour mordre son bâillon;Quand un Cosaque affreux, que la rage transporte,Viole Varsovie échevelée et morte,Et, souillant son linceul, chaste et sacré lambeauSe vautre sur la vierge étendue au tombeau;Alors, oh! je maudis, dans leur cour, dans leur antre,Ces rois dont les chevaux ont du sang jusqu'au ventre.Je sens que le poète est leur juge; je sensQue la muse indignée, avec ses poings puissants,Peut, comme au pilori, les lier sur leur trône,Et leur faire un carcan de leur lâche couronne,Et renvoyer ces rois, qu'on aurait pu bénir,Marqués au front d'un vers que lira l'avenir!Oh! la muse se doit aux peuples sans défense!J'oublie, alors, l'armour, la famille, l'enfance.Et les molles chansons, et le loisir serein,Et j'ajoute à ma lyre une corde d'airain!"

The Taking of Warsaw

"Warsaw has capitulated! The heroic nation of Poland, forsaken by France and repulsed by England, has fallen in the struggle she has gloriously maintained for eight months against the Tartar hordes allied with Prussia. The Muscovite yoke is again about to oppress the people of Jagellon and of Sobieski, and, to aggravate her misfortune, the furious rage of various monsters will, perhaps, detract from the horror which the crime of this fresh onslaught ought to inspire. Let every man protect his own property; leave to the cut-throat, murder and treachery! Let the true sons of Poland protect their gloryuntarnished, immortal! Leave to the Czar and his allies the curses of everyone who has a human heart, of every man who realises what constitutes a country. To our Ministers their names! There is nothing lower than this. Therefore, generous people, our brothers in faith, and at arms, whilst you were fighting for your lives, we could only aid you with our prayers; and now, when you are lying on the field of battle, all that we can give you is our tears! May they in some degree, at least, comfort you in your great sufferings! Liberty has passed over you like a fleeting shadow, a shadow that has terrified your ancient oppressors: to them it appears as a symbol of justice! After the dark days had passed, you looked heavenwards, and thought you saw more kindly signs there; you said to yourself: 'The time of deliverance approaches; this earth which covers the bones of our ancestors shall yet be our own; we will no longer heed the voice of the stranger dictating his insolent commands to us.... Our altars shall be as free as our fire-sides.' But you have been self-deceived; the time to live has not yet come; it was the time to die for all that was sweet and sacred to men's hearts.... Nation of heroes, people of our affection! rest in peace in the tombs that the crimes and cowardice of others have dug for you; but never forget that hope springs from those tombs; and a cross above them prophesies, 'Thou shalt rise again!'"

Let us admit that a nation is fortunate if it possesses poets; for were there only politicians, posterity would gather very odd notions about it.

In conclusion, the downfall of Poland included with it that ofl'Avenir.We will explain how this was brought about in the next chapter.

Suspension ofl'Avenir—Its three principal editors present themselves at Rome—The Abbé de Lamennais as musician—The trouble it takes to obtain an audience of the Pope—The convent of Santo-Andrea della Valle—Interview of M. de Lamennais with Gregory XVI.—The statuette of Moses—The doctrines ofl'Avenirare condemned by the Council of Cardinals—Ruin of M. de Lamennais—TheParoles d'un Croyant

The position of affairs was no longer tenable for the editors ofl'Avenir.If, on the one hand, the religious democracy, overwhelmed with sadness and bitterness, listened with affection to the words of the messengers; on the other hand, the opposition of the heads of the Catholic Church became formidable, and the accusation of heresy ran from lip to lip. The Abbé de Lamennais looked about him and, like the prophet Isaiah, could see nothing but desolation all around. Poland, wounded in her side, her hand out of her winding sheet, slept in the ever deceived expectation of help from the hand of France; and yet she had fallen full of despair and doubt, crying, "God is too high, and France too far off!" Ireland, sunk in misery and dying from starvation, ground down under the heel of England, in vain prostrated herself before its wooden crosses to implore succour from Heaven: none came to her! Liberty seemed to have turned away her face from a world utterly unworthy of her. Poland and Ireland, those two natural allies in all religious democracy, disappeared from the political scenes, dragging down with them in their fall the existence ofl'Avenir.The wave of opposition, like an unebbing tide, still rose and ever rose. Some detested M. de Lamennais's opinions; others, histalent; the latter were as much incensed against him as any. He was obliged to yield. Like every paper which disappears into space,l'Avenirhad to announcesuspensionof publication; this was his farewell from Fontainebleau—

"If we withdraw for a while," wrote M. de Lamennais, "it is not on account of weariness, still less from discouragement; it is to go, as the soldiers of Israel of old,to consult the Lord in Shiloh.They have put our faith and our very intentions to the doubt; for what is there that people do not attack in these days? We leave the field of battle for a short time to fulfil another duty equally pressing. Traveller's stick in hand, we pursue our way to the eternal throne to prostrate ourselves at the feet of the pontiff whom Jesus Christ has established as the guide and teacher to His disciples, and we will say to him, 'O Father! condescend to look down upon these, the latest of thy children to be accused of being in rebellion against thy infallibility and gracious authority! O Father! pronounce over us the words which will give life and light, and extend thy hand over us in blessing and in acknowledgment of our obedience and love.'"

It would be puerile to question the sincerity of the author of those lines at this point. For, like Luther, who also promised his submission to Rome, the Abbé de Lamennais meant to persevere in the Catholic faith. If, later, his orthodoxy wavered; if, upon closer view of Rome and her cardinals, his faith in the Vicar of Christ and the visible representation of the Church gave way, we should rather accuse the pagan form under which the religion of Christ was presented to him, as in the case of the monk of Eisleben, when he visited the Eternal City. When I reach that period in my life, I will relate my own feelings, and will give my long conversations on the subject with Pope Gregory XVI.

The three pilgrims ofl'Avenir,the Abbé de Lamennais, the Abbé Lacordaire and the Comte Charles de Montalembert, started, then, for Italy, not quite, as one of their number expressed it, with travellers' staffs in their hands, but animated with sincere faith and with sorrow in their hearts. They did not leave behind them the dream of eleven months withoutfeeling deep regret;l'Avenirhad, in fact, lasted from 16 October 1830 to 17 September 1831. We will not relate the travelling impressions of the Abbé de Lamennais, for the author of theEssai sur l'indifférencewas not at all the man to notice external impressions. He passed through Italy with unseeing eyes; all through that land of wonders he saw nothing beyond his own thoughts and the object of his journey. Ten years later, when prisoner at Sainte-Pélagie, and already grown quite old, Lamennais discovered a corner in his memory still warm with the Italian sunshine; by a process of photography, which explains the character of the man we are dealing with, the monuments of art and the country itself were transferred to a plate in his brain! It needed meditation, solitude and captivity, just as the silvered plate needs iodine, to bring out of his memory the image of the beautiful things he had forgotton to admire ten years previously. On this account, he writes to us in 1841, under the low ceiling of his cell—

"I begin to see Italy.... It is a wondrous country!"

A curious psychological study might be made of the Abbé de Lamennais, especially by comparing him with other poets of his day. The author of theEssai sur l'indifférencesaw little and saw that but imperfectly; there was a cloud over his eyes and on his brain; the sole perception, the only sense he had of the outside world, which seemed to be always alert and awake, was that of hearing, a sense equivalent to the musical faculty: he played the piano and especially delighted in the compositions of Liszt. Hence arose, probably, his profound affection for that great artist. As regards all other outward senses of the objective world, his perceptions seem to have been within him, and when he wishes to see, it is in his own soul that he looks. To this peculiarity is owing the nature of his style, which is psychological in treatment. If he describes scenery, as in hisParoles d'un Croyant, or in the descriptions sent from his prison, it is always the outlines of the infinite that is drawn by his pen in vague horizons; with him it is his thoughts which visualise, not his eyes. M. de Lamennaisbelongs to the race of morbid thinkers, of whom Blaise Pascal is a sample. Let not the medical faculty even attempt to cure these sensitive natures: it will be but to deprive them of their genius.

The journey, with its enforced waits for relays of horses, often afforded the Abbé de Lamennais leisure for the study of our modern school of literature, with which he was but little acquainted. In an Italian monastery, where the pilgrims received hospitality, MM. de Lamennais and Lacordaire readNotre-Dame de ParisandHenri III.for the first time. When they reached Rome, the Abbé de Lamennais put up at the same hotel and suite of rooms that had been occupied a few months previously by the Comtesse Guiccioli. His one fixed idea was to see the Pope and to settle his affairs, those of religious democracy, with him direct. After long delays and a number of fruitless applications, after seven or eight requests for an audience still without result, the Abbé de Lamennais complained; then a Romish ecclesiastic, to whom he poured out his grievances, naively suggested that he had perhaps omitted to deposit the sum of ... in the hands of Cardinal.... The Abbé de Lamennais confessed that he would have been afraid of offending His Eminence by treating him like the doorkeeper of a common courtesan.

"You need no longer be surprised at not having been received by His Holiness," was the Italian abbé's reply.

The ignorant traveller had forgotten the essential formality. But, although instructed, he still persisted in trying to obtain an audience of the Pope gratis; by paying, he felt he should be truckling with simony. The editors ofl'Avenirhad remained for three months unrecognised in the Holy City, waiting until the Pope should condescend to consider a question which was keeping half Catholic Europe in suspense. The Abbé Lacordaire had decided to return to France; the Comte de Montalembert made preparations for setting out for Naples; M. de Lamennais alone remained knocking at the gates of the Vatican, which were more inexorably closed than those of Lydia in her bad days. Father Ventura, then generalof the Theatine, received the illustrious French traveller at Santo-Andrea della Valle.

"I shall never forget," says M. de Lamennais in hisAffaires de Rome, "those peaceful days I spent in that pious household, surrounded by the most exquisite care, amongst those instructively good and religious people devoted to their duty and aloof from all intrigue. The life of the cloister-regular, calm and, as it were, set apart and self-contained-holds a kind ofvia mediabetween the purely worldly life and that of the future, which faith reveals to us in but shadowy outlines, and of which every human being possesses within himself a positive assurance."

Finally, after many solicitations, the Abbé de Lamennais was received in private audience by Gregory XVI. He went to the Vatican, climbed the huge staircase often ascended and descended by Raphael and by Michael Angelo, by Leo X. and Julian II.; he crossed the high and silent chambers with their double rows of superposed windows; at the end of that long, splendid and desolate palace he reached, under the escort of an usher, an ante-chamber, where two cardinals, as motionless as statues, sat upon wooden seats, solemnly reading their breviary. At the appointed moment the Abbé de Lamennais was introduced. In a small room, bare, upholstered in scarlet, where a single armchair denoted that only one man had the right to sit there, a tall old man stood upright, calm and smiling in his white garments. He received M. de Lamennais standing, a great honour! The greatest honour which that divine man could pay to another man without violating etiquette. Then the Pope conversed with the French traveller about the lovely sunshine and the beauties of nature in Italy, of the Roman monuments, the arts and ancient history; but of the object of his journey and his own special business in coming there, not a a single word. The Pope had no commission at all for that: the question was being considered somewhere in the dark by the cardinals appointed to inquire into it, whose names were not divulged. A petition had been addressed to the Court of Rome by the editors ofl'Avenir; and this petition must necessarily lead to some decision, but all this was shrouded in themost impenetrable mystery. The Pope himself, however, showed affability to the French priest, whose genius was an honour to the Catholic Church.

"What work of art," he asked M. de Lamennais, "has impressed you most?"

"TheMosesof Michael Angelo," replied the priest.

"Very well," replied Gregory XVI.; "then I will show you something which no one sees or which very few indeed, even of the specially favoured, see at Rome." Whilst saying this, the great white-haired old man entered a sort of recess enclosed by curtains, and returned holding in his arms a miniature replica in silver of theMosesdone by Michael Angelo himself.

The Abbé de Lamennais admired it, bowed and withdrew, accompanied by the two cardinals who guarded the entrance to that chamber. He was compelled to acknowledge the gracious reception he had been accorded by the Holy Father; but, in all conscience, he had not come all the way from Paris to Rome just to see the statuette of Moses! It was a most complete disillusionment. He shook the dust of Rome off his feet, the dust of graves, and returned to Paris. After a long silence, when the affair ofl'Avenirseemed buried in the excavations of the Holy See, Rome spoke: she condemned the doctrines of the men who had tried to reunite Christianity to Liberty.

The distress of the Abbé de Lamennais was profound. The shepherd being smitten, the sheep scattered, the news of censure had scarcely had time to reach La Chesnaie before the disciples were seized with terror and took to flight. M. de Lamennais remained alone in the old deserted château, in melancholy silence, broken only by the murmur of the great oak trees and the plaintive song of birds. Soon, even this retreat was taken from him, and he woke one day to find himself ruined by the failure of a bookseller to whom he had given his note of hand. Then the late editor ofl'Avenirbegan his voyage through bitter waters; anguish of soul prevented his feeling his poverty, which was extreme; his furniture, books, all were sold. Twice he bowed his head submissively under the hand of the Headof the Church, and twice he raised it, each time sadder than before, each time more indomitable, more convinced that the human mind, progress, reason, the conscience could not be wrong. It was not without profound heart-rendings that he separated himself from the articles of belief of his youth, from his career of priesthood and of tranquil obedience and from great and powerful harmony; in a word, from everything that he had upheld previously; but the new spirit had, in Biblical language, gripped him by the hair commanding him to "go forward!" It was then, in silence, in the midst of persecutions which even his gentleness was unable to disarm, in a small room in Paris, furnished with only a folding-bed, a table and two chairs, that the Abbé de Lamennais wrote hisParoles d'un Croyant.The manuscript lay for a year in the author's portfolio; placed several times in the hands of the editor Renduel, withdrawn, then given back to him to be again withdrawn, this fine book was subjected to all sorts of vicissitudes before its publication and met with all sorts of obstructions; the chief difficulties came from the abbé's own family, especially from a brother, who viewed with terror the launching forth upon the sea of democracy tossed by the storms of 1833. At last, after many delays and grievous hesitations, the author's strength of will carried the day against the entreaties of friendship; and the book appeared. It marked the third transformation of its writer: theABBÉ DE LA MENNAISandM. deLAMENNAISgave place toCITIZEN LAMENNAIS. We shall come across him again on the benches of the Constituent Assembly of 1848. In common with all men of great genius, who have had to pilot their own original course through the religious and political storms that raged for thirty years, M. de Lamennais has been the subject of the most opposite criticisms. We do not undertake here to be either his apologist or denouncer; simply to endeavour to render him that justice which every true-hearted man owes to any man whom he admires: we have tried to show him to others as he appeared to our own eyes.

Who Gannot was—Mapah—His first miracle—The wedding at Cana—Gannot, phrenologist—Where his first ideas on phrenology came from—The unknown woman—The change wrought in Gannot's life—How he becomes Mapah

Let us frame M. de Lamennais, the great philosopher, poet and humanitarian, between a false priest and a false god. Christ was crucified after His bloody passion between two thieves. We are now going to relate the adventures and expose the doctrines ofMapahor of thebeing who was Gannot.He was one of the most eccentric of the gods produced during the years 1831 to 1845. The ancients divided their gods intodii majoresanddii minores; Mapah was aminorgod. He was not any the less entertaining on that account. The name ofMapahwas the favourite title of the god, and the one under which he wished to be worshipped; but, not forgetting that he had been a man before he became a god, he humbly and modestly permitted himself to be called, and at times even called himself, by his own personal name as,he who was Gannot.He had indeed, or rather he had had, two very distinct existences; that of a man and that of a god. The man was born about 1800, or, at all events, he would seem to have been nearly my own age when I knew him. He gave his age out to be then as between twenty-eight and thirty. I was told that, when he became a god, he maintained he had been contemporaneous with all the ages and even to have preexisted, under a double symbolic form, Adam and Eve, in whom he became incarnate when the father and mother of the human race were yet one and the self-same flesh! The man had been an elegant dandy, a fop and frequenter of the boulevardde Gand, loving horses and adoring women, and an inveterate gambler; he was an adept at every kind of play, specially at billiards. He was as good a billiard player as was Pope Gregory XVI., and supposing the latter had staked his papacy on his skilful play against Gannot, I would assuredly have bet on Gannot. To say that Gannot played billiards better than other games does not mean that he preferred games of skill to those of chance; not at all: he had a passion for roulette, for la rouge et la blanche, for trente-et-un, for le biribi, and, in fact, for all kinds of games of chance. He was also possessed of all the happy superstitious optimism of the gambler: none knew better than he how to puff at a cigar and to creak about in varnished boots upon the asphalted pavements whilst he dreamt of marvellous fortunes, of coaches, tilburys, tandems harnessed to horses shod in silver; of mansions, hotels, palaces, with soft thick carpets like the grass in a meadow; of curtains, of imitation brocades, tapestries, figured silk, crystal lustres and Boule furniture. Unluckily, the gold he won flowed through his extravagant fingers like water. Unceasingly bandied about from misery to abundance, he passed from the goddess of hunger to that of satiety with regal airs that were a delight to witness. Debauchery was none the less pleasing to him, but it had to be debauchery on a huge scale: the feast of Trimalco or the nuptials of Gamacho. But, in other ways, he was a good friend, ever ready to lend a helping hand—throwing his money broadcast, and his heart among the women, giving his life to everybody not suspecting his future divinity, but already performing all kinds of miracles. Such was Gannot, the future Mapah, when I had the honour of making his acquaintance, about 1830 or 1831, at thecafé de Paris.Still less than he himself could I foretell his future divinity, and, if anybody had told me that, when I left him at two o'clock in the morning to return to my third storey in the rue de l'Université, I had just shaken the hand of a god, I should certainly have been very much surprised indeed.

I have said that even before he became a god, Gannot worked miracles; I will recount one which I almost saw himdo. It was somewhere about 1831—to give the precise date of the year is impossible—and a friend of Gannot, an innocent debtor who was as yet only negotiating his first bill of exchange, went to find Gannot to lay before him his distress in harrowing terms. Gannot was the type of man people always consulted in difficult crises,—his mind was quick in suggestions; he was clear-sighted and steady of hand. Unluckily, Gannot was going through one of his periods of poverty, days when he could have given points even to Job. He began, therefore, by confessing his personal inability to help, and when his friend despaired—

"Bah!" he said, "we have seen plenty of other people in as bad a plight!"

This was a favourite expression with Gannot, who had, indeed, seen all shades of life.

"All very well," said his friend; "but meantime, how am I to get out of this fix?"

"Have you anything of value you could raise money on, if it were but twenty, ten, or even five francs?"

"Alas!" said the young fellow, "there is only my watch ..."

"Silver or gold?"

"Gold."

"Gold! What did it cost?"

"Two hundred francs; but I shall hardly get sixty for it, and the bill of exchange is for five hundred francs."

"Go and take your watch to the Mont-de-Piété."

"And then?"

"Bring back the money they give you for it here."

"Well?"

"You must give me half of it."

"After that?"

"Then I will tell you what you must do.... Go, and be sure you do not divert a single son of the amount!"

"The deuce! I shall not think of doing that," said the friend. And off he ran and returned presently with seventy francs. This was a good beginning. Gannot took it and put it with a grand flourish into his pocket.

"What are you doing?" asked his friend.

"You will soon see."

"I thought you said we were to halve it ..."

"Later ... meanwhile it is six o'clock; let us go and have dinner."

"How are we to dine?"

"My dear fellow, decent folk must have their dinner and dine well in order to give themselves fresh ideas."

And Gannot took his way towards the Palais-Royal, accompanied by the young man. When there, he entered the Frères-Provençaux. The youth tried faintly to drag Gannot away by the arm, but the latter pinched his hand tight as in a vice and the young man was obliged to follow. Gannot chose the menu and dined valiantly, to the great uneasiness of his friend; the more dainty the dishes the more he left on his plate untasted. The future Mapah ate enough for both. The Rabelaisian quarter of an hour arrived, and the bill came to thirty-five francs. Gannot flung a couple of louis on the table. They were going to give him the change.

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