Hast thou indeedSacred ambition,In word and deedBased on contrition?Pray low and long,Sowing and weeping;Promises strongPledge thee thy reaping.Thus hast thou prayed?Wait then contented;Blessings delayedAre blessings augmented.Every thing provesHoly ambitionIs what God lovesNext to contrition.
Hast thou indeedSacred ambition,In word and deedBased on contrition?Pray low and long,Sowing and weeping;Promises strongPledge thee thy reaping.
Thus hast thou prayed?Wait then contented;Blessings delayedAre blessings augmented.Every thing provesHoly ambitionIs what God lovesNext to contrition.
TRANSLATED FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.
We must not conclude that Master Swibert gave only a musical education to his child. His instruction was solid, and intended, beyond every thing, to develop in her a religious sentiment.
For metaphysics he had a love that years had not lessened. His philosophy was very simple; a few lines could comprise it—only what he took a liking to; and he never pretended to have invented it.
His soul exercised itself in applying every creature as a connection with the Infinite. He said summarily that if a thinker could not so comprehend things, he retarded his progress and lost his end.
Paganina could not always understand her father, but this did not distress him. Like the good laborer, he sowed thickly the land he had prepared, knowing well that much would be lost; but knowing, too, that he would come, some day, and find the luxuriant verdure that would repay his pains.
The young girl adopted with eagerness all that could elevate character and ennoble life. Happy to repose in the artistic emotions that shook her so deeply, she relaxed into the serene contemplation of the truth toward which her father conducted her.
Such, in its principal characteristics, is the life Paganina led until she was twenty-two years of age. Her beauty had developed radiantly. She held her head aloft, as one who looks on high; and her eyes so sought the distance that she won the name of proud from the good women who met her in their daily walks.
She never was without her father, and the contrast between the two was painful. He was an old man—more from the effect of sickness than old age; and although he appeared active, it was easy to see that, undermined by an inward malady, he would soon be completely wrecked.
He felt it himself, and employed all his strength to instruct and enlighten his daughter.
Without saddening her in advance, by announcing his approaching malady, he endeavored to accustom her to a future separation, but she could not comprehend it. The last thing in which youth can believe is the rupture of holy affections. It never learns that such love can be interrupted.
One day, Master Swibert and his daughter were seated at the turn of the road, where they generally rested in their daily walk. The organist returned to the subject with which his mind was always preoccupied—that future in which he had no part—and finished by saying, "My daughter, your cousin loves you. What he felt for you here he has not lost by separation; his heart is devotedly yours. You are all in all to him, and I have long understood his affection for you. I should feel happy to know you returned his love."
Paganina, surprised, replied, "I love but you, my father; must youleave me?" The organist replied by this verse of St. Paul, "Insipiens: tu quod seminas, non vivificatur, nisi prius moriatur", and Paganina, who did not know Latin, began to weep.
From this day, Master Swibert declined rapidly. He made what he called his will; his last instructions, only to arm his daughter for the struggles of life. He urged her to see, through him, the immortality of the soul; so especially visible in the early Christians, in the mournful hour when, their bodies, falling to ruin, betrayed the interior flame that disengaged them from earth, to shine for ever among the stars in unfading lustre.
After several days of agony, the good musician found his peroration. He died.
It was morning. He had talked a long time with his daughter, and the peace he enjoyed announced the end of the struggle. His large, troubled eyes looked once more toward the mountain, on her, and on his crucifix, then closed for ever.
The world—even the best of it—don't like to be entertained with the sufferings of others; so I will not stop to relate those of Paganina. I will pause longer on the chapter of her consolations. She drew these from two sources, her memories and her labors.
Her memories were realities. She felt that her father had never left her; and lived in his presence, meditating on and practising his lessons. Her ardor for the study of her art redoubled. Often in the silence of the night, at a late hour, her voice was heard by an admiring crowd beneath her window. The young artist, without knowing or desiring it, became popular.
She had other joys, too, which helped her to live her isolated life. It is not of those of love I speak. Paganina did not know the passion. She lived apart from the world, and her character became half legendary. Fancy held play where love was excluded; and in the regions of the ideal grew her immortal works, and their imperishable beauty, to be shed on humanity.
Perhaps the memory of such things should only be intruded on the very few; for it is said that often a ray from on high illuminated the chamber where the young girl sat, and in that moment she felt a new world tremble in her heart.
Happiness is not the guest of earth. The miserable and deceptive pleasure that pretends to this glorious name is a bait rather than a food, and never nourishes any body. Therefore such moments as we have spoken of are fugitive, and are mostly followed by exhaustion and bitter disgust, which would be a good price for them, could such moments be paid for. Paganina experienced the common law. She could not live on ecstasy. Her days, therefore, were mingled and diverse.
I must relate the crisis of her life; but I turn with regret to the chamber that sheltered her genius and her innocence. I see in spirit—shut in this place—a treasure that no one was permitted to contemplate; for Paganina bloomed in the shade, and reserved for her solitude her beauty and the perfume of her loveliness.
Sometimes, only when debauch slept and idleness prolonged its useless repose, the beautiful young girl appeared before her opened window. Robed with the reflection of the aurora, she saluted the growing day;and, as the antique statue, she exhaled divine harmony by contact with its earliest rays.
Having, not without success, terminated his musical studies, André quitted Naples. His affection for his cousin had greatly increased. Love sang in his heart; for, if we may borrow such an expression from the poetical vocabulary, it assuredly belongs to a musician.
From the day he was free, he had but one desire—to see Paganina. He set out with this intention, and restless regarding his reception. Indeed, his future depended upon it.
During the journey, his thoughts went ahead, and heaped up every imaginable supposition on the manner in which his cousin would receive him; but she did not receive him at all. He entered a deserted mansion.
He wandered among the deserted places, where every thing recalled the days of his childhood. Death had passed by, and left, perhaps, some unknown scourge. In his poignant distress, he imagined the worst.
Perhaps he did not deceive himself. Paganina was to appear the next day at the theatre of Milan.
I must add that she was always worthy of her father, in the strictest sense of the word; though for three months, it is true, in order to prepare herself for the stage, she had mixed in the world of the theatres, and, what is far worse, in the world of parasites, insinuating themselves by every means and with every end. She breathed a poisoned air in the incense of impure flatteries. Her bitter contempt prevented its injuring her; but as soon as she was free, she ran to conceal her wounds in a retreat where no one could discover her.
Extract from theGazette of Lombardy, the 20th of September, 18—.
"Her father was German, her mother an Italian; her father belonged to the church, her mother to the theatre. Both were superior musicians. Such a birth could promise her a more than common destiny, and this birth had a singular predestination. She was born in the side-scenes of the theatre during asoirée, the memory of which is still fresh among us. Her first cries were drowned in the passionate strains of the violin of Paganini, and the bursts of admiration from his auditory. The little creature, as if in reply to the powerful invocation of the master, appeared before the hour fixed by nature."This is all her history. From that hour she disappeared. Without doubt, the new-born vestal sought the retreat of the sacred fire."To-day she returns to the place of her birth. The words are literally true; we will hear her this evening in La Scala."I have desired to announce thisfête. Let no one fail to be there, for I predict it will be an event."My task is finished. I would like to describe this cantatrice, but she belongs to no formula. It would require two to express the dualism of which her person and character bear the imprint."She seems to have received from her parents two natures which by turns inspire her. Even now we hear her pure and original voice mount to heaven; no breath of human passion seems to agitate it. We listen enchanted, lifted far above ourselves, and share the serenity, the peace she inspires; suddenly the air changes, the color mounts to her cheeks, passion absorbs her, and she bursts out in its most marvellous tones. I could see the spectre of the old Paganini grimacing by the side of his beautiful god-child, and goading on her enchained genius."
"Her father was German, her mother an Italian; her father belonged to the church, her mother to the theatre. Both were superior musicians. Such a birth could promise her a more than common destiny, and this birth had a singular predestination. She was born in the side-scenes of the theatre during asoirée, the memory of which is still fresh among us. Her first cries were drowned in the passionate strains of the violin of Paganini, and the bursts of admiration from his auditory. The little creature, as if in reply to the powerful invocation of the master, appeared before the hour fixed by nature.
"This is all her history. From that hour she disappeared. Without doubt, the new-born vestal sought the retreat of the sacred fire.
"To-day she returns to the place of her birth. The words are literally true; we will hear her this evening in La Scala.
"I have desired to announce thisfête. Let no one fail to be there, for I predict it will be an event.
"My task is finished. I would like to describe this cantatrice, but she belongs to no formula. It would require two to express the dualism of which her person and character bear the imprint.
"She seems to have received from her parents two natures which by turns inspire her. Even now we hear her pure and original voice mount to heaven; no breath of human passion seems to agitate it. We listen enchanted, lifted far above ourselves, and share the serenity, the peace she inspires; suddenly the air changes, the color mounts to her cheeks, passion absorbs her, and she bursts out in its most marvellous tones. I could see the spectre of the old Paganini grimacing by the side of his beautiful god-child, and goading on her enchained genius."
The result was as predicted. The young cantatrice excited immense enthusiasm.
The Italians are quickly roused, and never sell the evidences of their admiration. To show more than ordinary emotion, they invent unheard-of and extravagant expressions.
When Paganina could withdraw from these ovations, the night was far advanced; she took refuge in solitude.
Let us follow her. It will be curious to observe in her the intoxication of applause, and see how she bore her first triumph—she who had elicited such flattering testimony of love and admiration.
She wept, but not with happy emotions.
"My father," she cried, "my father, you are already revenged. To punish me, you have fulfilled my desires. I wished for the clatter of applause, for the tumult of bravos. I am satisfied already. Is it for this, great God, that I have deserted thy ways? Is it for such fugitive pleasure, whose bitterness I have known before even I have tasted it? O happiness of solitude! ineffable family joys! where have you fled?
"Those who have just applauded me little know the inexpressible sadness that overcame me. For a moment despair drew tears to my eyes. They thought it the triumph of my art—but I wept for thee, my father; for thee, my childhood—and the peace of the old, happy hours."
André at this moment appeared.
He watched her in silence—he on the threshold, and she half turning toward him proudly in her surprise.
André was the first to break the silence.
"Paganina," said he, "I come from the home that you have left. I found the house deserted, and I went to seek you at the tomb of your father."
"Yes," she replied with bitterness, "and you find me here in the garb of a comedian. What do you wish with me?"
"I wish to snatch you from this cursed place; to fly with you so far that you may forget this fatal evening, and again become obedient to the voice of your father. Come, I will be your protector, your guardian, your slave—until the day," he added in a lower voice, "when I dare breathe to you my secret, and tell you that I love you."
"André, listen to me. I will speak to you sincerely. I wish to love you. I swear to you I wish it. To quit this country, fly with you, go into Germany and inhabit the house of my father, and there raise a family, would be my happiness; but it can never be."
"The love I bear you, Paganina, has taken deep root. Near you alone am I happy; but if it must be so, speak! If you have given your heart to a man worthy of you, tell me, and destroy in me all hope for ever. For you I can bear any thing. But if it is not so, do not answer me yet. Wait; my humility may disarm you, and some day my patience may end in moving your heart."
"No! my heart is but ashes; no affection blooms nor will bloom within it. It is too late."
"Do not speak so, I beg of you. You do not know what the future has in store for you, nor see the Providence that watches over you. It has sent me to you, and with me the remembrance of happy years and the presence of your father."
"The angel itself is not yet arrested in its fall. Go! let me hang suspended between the heaven that is shut against me, and the abyss whose depths I seek."
She burst into tears. André, after a silence, approached her.
"Paganina," said he, "do not weep. Come; see! the dawn already whitens the fields. Let the God of the morning comfort you. The wind rises forerunner of a new day. Batheyour forehead in its breath, and respire with its penetrating odors the forgetfulness of your sufferings. To-day, perhaps, will bring us back peace and happiness."
"No, to-day will be fatal. The beauty of the morning moves me no longer; for me the evening fires, the flames of the foot-lights, theéclatof triumph. I will go fromfêtetofête, from ovation to ovation. I want the whirlpool of the world to seize and carry me until I lose my health—and forget every thing. Immediately I set out for the Château Sarrasin."
"Ah! this, then," cried André with a sudden explosion of passion, "this, then, is the secret of your resistance and the avowal of your shame. The public cry that brought me here had already warned me. I refused to listen to it. Well, go; but fear every thing. You have roused in me a monster that I knew not of."
And raising his hands to heaven, the unhappy one fled.
Paganina was calumniated by her cousin; she was pure, though it is true she slid on a fatal declivity. Already appearances were against her reputation. André was deceived; but he was not the only one; and from thence the reports to which he had made allusion, and the pretext of which will be explained.
The Count Ludovic, proprietor of the Château Sarrasin and actual head of the house of the Ligonieri, inscribed in the golden book of European aristocracy, was a man of proud appearances, endowed with masculine beauty quite in accordance with his character; for he was superior to his race, and possessed many noble qualities.
His life was not without stain; but even his faults bore that chivalrous character that renders them honorable in the eyes of the world. We well know that the code of the world is not that of the saints.
And the Count Ludovic, who willingly mingled with the people of the theatre, had known Paganina while she was preparing for herdébut. At the first glance he had rightly judged the soul of the young artist, and saw her superior to her companions.
His heart was touched. Penetrated with sincere sentiments, he preserved in her presence an attitude of reserve and respect, and his influence was secretly employed to isolate and protect her. His manner toward her was observed; for it was not his usual way of adding to the conquests for which he was famous. It might have been believed a mutual admiration; but it is not well to credit the judgments of one's neighbors.
The Count Ludovic wished to celebrate thedébutof Paganina by one of thosefêtesthat an ostentatious tradition had preserved in his family. He made important preparations at the Château Sarrasin and sent out his invitations.
The delicate point was to gain for his project her who was the soul of it; so he proposed it to her at the moment when she received her first applause, trusting, no doubt, to her excitement and wish for future conquests. He knew his auditory would be of the first distinction; he knew his motive—but no matter.
The young girl, warned as if by instinct, feeling herself at the fatal point of her destiny, made him no reply. The next day, under the influence of her bad angel, she consented.
They set out alone in an open chariot. The Count Ludovic had proposed for himself a gallanttête-à-tête, without, however, the desiredsuccess; for all day long Paganina spoke not a word. Her wandering looks were on the horizon, perhaps there to discover the mysterious and avenging power with which she believed herself menaced.
Toward evening they arrived at Arèse. The young cantatrice was recognized and applauded; but she appeared totally unconscious of sight or sound, and maintained her obstinate silence. The count had long since renounced all effort at conversation. He rather liked the oddity of the adventure, and dreamed of the legend where the paladin carried away his bride and wondered she was pale—so pale that she was dead.
Meanwhile, the carriage labored on the declivity of the road to Germany. The heat was excessive, not a breath stirred the air; but a dull and heavy murmuring announced that the midday wind was pent up in the higher mountain regions. The setting sun was red as blood. At a turn of the road, Paganina shuddered, for she saw André on a rock above them; she could never explain by what energy of passion he had reached this point.
When the carriage neared him he seized the branch of a tree, and, throwing it before the horses' feet, cried out, "Paganina, stop! or, by the soul of thy father, be cursed for ever!" The Count Ludovic had some difficulty in managing his frightened horses; he did not observe that his companion was as pale as the bride of the paladin.
A little further on, in returning, he saw the same man in the same place, illuminated by the burning sky, and pointing with the laugh of a madman to the black mass of the Château Sarrasin.
The adventure was becoming more and more singular. The count wondered what part this man took in this unheard-of drama.
He was too much the gentleman to betray any surprise; but he profited by the incident to renew his efforts at conversation. "Do you know," he said to Paganina, "that these slight accidents might have had a tragical ending? The horses we drive have already caused the death of a man, and, like those of the fable, may be said to feed their ferocity on human blood. The whip has never touched them. If it had not been my pride to place at your disposal the most beautiful equipage in the world, I should have hesitated to trust you to them."
Still she did not reply. But the moment was approaching when she would speak, and in terrible words reveal her anguish.
The carriage entered the road that ended at the Château Sarrasin. As we said before, this road descends by a steep and dangerous declivity, and on the very edge of the precipice. The horses walked quietly. Seizing the whip, Paganina struck them violently, crying out,
"Go on, then! Is it not said that you can lead to death?"
"To death, indeed!" cried the count, surprised and alarmed. "In this road, and at this hour, a miracle only can save us."
The horses, breathing fire, made frightful bounds, leaving starry tracks behind them. The stones rolled heavily into the abyss. The few inhabitants of these solitudes, stopping on the borders of the road, looked on pale and as in a dream, to see this fantastic chariot drawn by such furious horses, while a young girl, standing, and her hair flying in the wind, lashed them on to desperation.
If it needed a miracle to save them, this miracle took place. The team stopped; upset the carriage on thesteps of the château. One of the horses was killed, the carriage broken to pieces. The count sprang up safe and sound, his first inquiry for Paganina.
"I am here," she replied; "the hand of God has led us hither."
With her intention, such words were blasphemy; but she spoke in delirium.
Paganina, leaning on the arm of the count, promenades with him the highest terrace. The guests, in groups at a distance, regard them with hungry eyes.
A hot and violent wind agitates the half-stripped trees. The clouds traverse the sky hurriedly and quickly, and their moving shadows rest on the mountains. The moon, disengaging itself here and there, throws its pure light on the white form of the young girl. She seems to grow in the estimation of the admirers who seek her.
The Count Ludovic is strangely moved. His sincere sentiments are rekindled by the newness of the situation, and the strangeness of the adventure. He thanks his companion for having, at one stroke, played with their two lives. Exalted and nervous, enervated with the perfume of the life that she had so nearly lost only a few moments before, Paganina replies to him. The observers of the scene listen attentively. Detached from the murmur of the distant storm, their words are heard for a moment, but the tempest again arises and carries them away in its roar. Yes, ardent and mysterious breath, bear away these words of irony, of revolt, and of despair—bear afar the bitter laugh that accompanies them.
For a long time, O powerful voice! have men listened to your painful harmony. Long have you roamed the earth, picking up the notes of grief, the cries of the new-born, the sobs of mothers, the sighs of the dying, and the groaning of the crowds who groan and groan on. But never, never have you borne away any thing more sad or desolate than the laugh of this unhappy child.
The night advances. Already the moon has commenced to decline. Some of the invited ones have retired; others, grouped here and there, seated or half-extended, are sleeping in the hot breath of the storm. There are two powers that watch—Paganina and the tempest, and the thunder rolls and shakes the mountains.
Silent and isolated, Paganina looks at the shadow of the Château Sarrasin. She sees it advance and recede. She thinks of the legend of this cursed place—so fatal to the honor of women. And yet fate has led her there—the gulf is yawning for her. She advances; she will enter never there.
A cry is heard; the sleepers, wakened suddenly, run to and fro, pale and frightened. They find Paganina fainting and covered with blood. A deep wound is found in her throat. The count sustains her, and in a voice thundering above the tempest orders his people to seize the assassin.
The assassin was André!
When they wished to carry the wounded one into the Château Sarrasin, she could not speak, but betrayed, in signs of such mortal terror, her repugnance to enter, that they were obliged to relinquish the idea.
She said since, at the moment that the doors opened to make way for her, she again saw the scene which, several years before, had so forcibly struck her. Nothing was wanting; the brightness of the light, or the luxuryof the dress. All the actors were there, all—but they were hideous skeletons; they still made gestures of applause, while above them, the woman with the green diamond showed a livid face, the eyes extinct, and an open mouth, from which no sound proceeded.
Paganina was laid on a litter and carried to Arèse.
André followed her, chained, and guarded from sight. They arrived next morning.
It is said the infuriated crowd rushed upon the assassin and his guard, and obliged them to fly for their lives. Paganina had him brought to her, took him by the hand, and so passed through the moved and disarmed assemblage.
For a long time her life was despaired of. A burning fever consumed her. Her sufferings were such as belonged to her thirsty nature. She experienced the most terrible of earthly tortures; and prayed in her delirium for a stream of water to flow into her parched lips.
Her moral sufferings were still greater. Every evening she became the prey to a terrible hallucination, that she regarded as the punishment of her wish for popularity; she saw herself raised far above an immense crowd, and this crowd becoming by turns insulting and mocking. Its waves of fury flowed and reflowed at the feet of their victim, and covered her with their froth. Paganina, in despair, would have thrown herself into this shoreless tide; but in vain; she felt herself enchained to her height, and obliged to wait for the rays of morning to dissipate her phantoms.
These two features suffice to characterize her malady, which was moral as well as physical. Its intensity lasted during the winter months. In the spring only she appeared to be restored to health, but the blow had been a severe one, and the rest of her life was merely a prolonged convalescence.
But suffering in silence accomplished its work. Her long confinement had curbed if not wholly subdued her ardent nature, and those who thought to find the revived Paganina on the declivity where they had left her, were greatly mistaken.
Their surprise was greater, too, as no indication had prepared them for the change. The work in her soul was well and firmly done, and she remained calmly impenetrable to her friends, until there escaped from her, in spite of herself, a jet of revealing flame.
The Count Ludovic had never ceased his attentions during her illness. His passion, far from weakening, had grown stronger during his separation. When he could be admitted to her presence, he expressed his sentiments, perhaps, too tenderly; he who knew her, knew of what sudden movements and prompt returns she was capable, strove with all his energy, but remained confounded. Not without reason, for so Paganina answered him:
"Since the day when I first heard all you have just repeated to me, I have stood on the borders of eternity. New lights have been shed on all things since then; do not be surprised that my language is no longer the same.
"It must be true that you place yourself in very high and me in very low esteem! Do you consider my honor a worthy prey for your vanity? Do you not think that a few days of pleasure might be too well paid for by my past and my future?What, then, do you wish? You ask that I abjure the past, that I sacrifice to you my whole future, and even more! My immortal soul is what you would wish to debase. And in a few days you would give me, in exchange, your contempt, to run, freer and more honored than ever, into new pleasures. This is what you wish, and yet you say you love me.
"Good God! what might I have been to-day, if heaven had not arrested me—and what am I now?
"Ah! forgive me; I have lost the right to be severe. Words of blame or bitterness should not come from my lips. No, it is myself I despise; and this contempt, to which I am consecrated, plunges into my heart a poisoned iron. It oppresses, it stifles me, and leaves for my punishment the life I hate.
"Count Ludovic, you are the son of chevaliers. I know at the bottom of your heart is the nobility of your ancestors. Adieu; we have met for the last time."
And the count, retiring on this command, lost his reputation for a man of gallantry.
It was Easter-Sunday, the feast of eternal life. The sun shed through the clouds its humid rays, the trees—clothed in new verdure and brightly agitated—sent forth their sweet and subtle perfumes.
Paganina, still weak, was placed by the open window; she turned toward the church her eyes, grown larger in suffering, and listened to the notes of the feast, weakened by the distance. When Faust heard such songs the poisoned cup fell from his hands. In his desperation he believed no longer in God. The earth had reclaimed him. Heaven was going to reconquer Paganina.
The angels, approaching her, brought back a world of innocent and gentle memories; she wept.
At this moment the bells, pealing their joyous notes, announced the end of the ceremony.
The virgins, clothed in white, quitted the church in silent swarms. Paganina saw them pass before her in a vision, for they appeared in groups of such supernatural beauty that she was thrown into an ecstasy.
She saw them leave the second banquet—some retiring sweetly within themselves, as slender stalks bending under the weight of the heavenly dew; others, pale, with foreheads high and open, and eyes pure and ardent. They crossed their arms on their breasts, the better to guard their treasure. All wore the trace of that fire which for eighteen hundred years has marked the victory of the virgins and the martyrs. The ray of divine beauty which fell on these figures was reflected back on Paganina; her soul was transfixed and vanquished for ever.
She rose, and standing, pale as her long white vestments, she prayed:
"Thou seekest me again, my God; behold! I come. To thee I return, and with the frightful experience of the darkness of oblivion, and penetrated with the horror of those places where thou art not.
"Thou art witness that, before I abandoned the heights where thou residest, I sustained an infernal struggle. That day my vision was lowered, the dragon of the abyss mounted toward me, to drag me to its depths.... Thy angels have fallen, my God! But while they are lost for ever, why, why am I reclaimed?
"I come trembling in thy light. Do not reject thy victim; acknowledge the blood-stain with which thou hast marked me to save me, I hope;let me again contemplate thy eternal beauty. Thy beauty, my Lord, I must see. I thirst for it; one of its bright rays has shone before me, and the world has nothing more to offer.
"My last hour will be the hour of my deliverance; I wait for it. Accept the offering of a broken life, whose failing forces will be employed to repair the evil I have done. And thou, my father, I bless thee, because I may yet sleep again in thy bosom."
The day fixed for the trial of André having arrived, a great mass of people pressed around the court of justice. In the memory of man, no celebrated cause had ever attracted so great a multitude. At every hour, the waves of the crowd mounted higher and higher against the walls of the palace. When it was known that Paganina would appear to give her testimony, such tumult and agitation arose that the judges were obliged to suspend proceedings. Calm being somewhat reëstablished, the president called Paganina to testify against the assassin. Then, without raising her eyes, in a low and trembling voice, which ran shuddering through the crowd, she answered, "He saved my honor!" Twice she said it, and when the president, renewing his interrogation, menaced her with the penalties of the law if she refused her testimony, she fixed upon him a steady gaze and repeated in a strong voice,
"He saved my honor!"
At these words there was a shout of enthusiasm. Men threw their caps into the air, and cried, "Hurrah!" Women wept and were agitated; and André, sobbing aloud, held out to her his trembling hands.
It is easily known he was acquitted.
Soon after, a strange, unheard-of rumor was afloat. They said the Count Ludovic asked Paganina in marriage. The Count Ludovic! This flower of nobility, this last of an antique chivalry, condescend to propose to an actress, and tarnish his escutcheon! It was not to be believed. But the evidence was excellent. He said so himself, and even rudely, to the unlucky flatterers who thought to make capital out of the enormity of the story.
We can conceive the emotion was great, and spread rapidly.
Things stood so, when two other pieces of news, following closely on this, caused it to be forgotten.
And these were, first, that the demand of the Count Ludovic was not acceded to; the second, that his preferred rival was André, an obscure musician with a weak brain; and, even worse than that, that all his merit rested in his attempt at the assassination of the object of his passion.
I give the facts in their entire simplicity. Truth is worth more than its resemblance; so any extenuation, any covering of phrases, would be useless, and neither make them accepted nor understood by practical people—those who judge every thing from their own stand-point, and name it so well "common sense."
Paganina wished to repair the evil of which she was the cause. She found "at her hand" the sacrifice she desired.
From the terrible night passed at the Château Sarrasin, André had never resumed the complete use of his reason. To have the right to devote herself to him, his cousin married him; surrounded him with every care, and watched over the flame of his vacillating intelligence with a lovemore maternal than conjugal. In our existence, many things are strange. She never seemed the wife of André. She lived with him as a sister. And can you imagine what was her life,tête-à-têtewith an idiot? Calculate the energy to sustain, and the patience to calm him.
When the spectres of madness approached the poor invalid, warned by his cries of terror, Paganina ran to him. Her presence, and the sound of her voice, dispelled the phantoms. Delivered from his terrors, he threw himself at her feet, covered her hands with kisses and tears, and invoked her as his angel, swearing to her inviolable obedience.
Since King David's time, we all know the power of music to dispel the spirits of darkness. Paganina made use of it, and found consolation in the mingled studies that brought her cousin such relief. So even they had hours of happiness.
The genius, too, of Paganina was not entirely lost to her contemporaries. She was heard once in Milan, in a religious ceremony; and once again in Germany, where she had gone, nearly two years after her marriage, to make, with André, a pilgrimage to the house of her father. For her it was the song of the swan, for her exhausted and uncertain life went out soon afterward.
This song of songs will reveal her last thoughts and conclude her history.
In one of those festivals which are the noble pleasure and the glory of Germany, an oratorio was to be given for the first time, the expectation of which excited a passionate impatience.
This composition, calledThe Angels' Fall, is due to a musician whose name will descend to the latest posterity, carried onward by the tempests his genius has evoked.
The part of the archangel Lucifer was awarded to Paganina. These phlegmatic Germans, when they give themselves to enthusiasm, lose all bounds; and Paganina might have been satisfied could she have known her success; but her soul was elsewhere.
This oratorio was divided into three parts. The first expressed heaven. If there is any thing in this world that can make man see what his eyes cannot, and understand what his ears have never heard, it is music; for the true musician knows that such harmony, quitting earth, mounts to the vaults of paradise, where it wakens the echoes that have nothing of earth, and falls again on us—the messenger of hope and consolation.
Paganina'srôle, in this part, was less important than in that which followed. Her voice was rarely detached from the whole; but now and then two or three dazzling notes rose through the harmony, and the transported auditors believed they saw the fluttering wings of the archangel already hovering on the eternal heights.
I will say nothing of the second part, although several found it superior to the two others, on account of the sombre energy, the terrible power with which is rendered the insurrection of the rebel angels.
Paganina should have been perfectly at her ease, to display here the richness of her voice—this voice which, in other parts, rang as a trumpet of gold and brass. But these accents of revolt choked her, and here she was unequal. She would soon surpass herself in the last air.
The composer, by one of those happy mistakes from which the best works grow, forgot the tradition. His angels were not thunder-struck intheir pride, and shrieking in blasphemy; but vanquished. They were condemned, and wept. They weep for the heaven they have lost. Admiration believed there was nothing more to expect; but here the master recalls his power, reanimates his genius, and finds an inspiration supreme to chant the farewell to infinite happiness of the guilty phalanx.
The sobs of the orchestra and chorus are heard alternately, and the voice of the archangel rises once again. At this moment, Paganina sang her last air on earth with an intensity of love and grief that cannot be described.
No, Paganina! one who can so weep has not lost heaven.
Those who saw her then will never forget her. In this high-vaulted room, lofty as a church, she stood above the others, in a long black robe covered with stars. Her beauty was that of an archangel.
As she finished, a ray of sunlight, streaming through the red glass, and sparkling as the flaming sword that forbade the entrance into Eden, rested a moment at her feet and expired.
Now that the attention of the Catholic world is directed to the coming Ecumenical Council, and various questions are asked about the nature and the probable effects of such a meeting, one's eyes naturally turn to the latest general synod of the church. The history of the Council of Trent is, indeed, of great interest. "Than it," says its accomplished historian, Pallavicini, "no preceding council was more distinguished for length of duration, for the definition of important dogmas, for the efficient reformation of manners and laws; none hindered by greater obstacles, none more patient and accurate in discussion, none more highly praised by friends, or more bitterly censured by opponents."[2]A review of the history of this great council, its work, and its results, will not be out of place, at this time and in these pages.
The so-called Reformation was different from any other heresy that had attacked the church of God in this, that it impugned the vital principle of church authority. Other heresiarchs had denied one or another dogma; Luther and his followers denied the existence of any authority to define dogmas. Other schismatists had rebelled against the governing power, but, even in their rebellion, had admitted its existence, though they might wish to curtail its powers, or to dispute its legitimate possession; the reformers declared that there was no external authority appointed of God to govern the spiritual affairs of men. "The combat," says D'Aubigné, "was to be to the death. It was not the abuses of the pontiff's authority Luther had attacked. At his bidding, the pope was required to descend meekly from his throne, and become again a simple pastor or bishop on the banks of the Tiber." And his pastoral or episcopal charge was not to be recognized as delegated from God, but given to him by the consent of the faithful. Real church authority was utterly denied;it was not its exercise, but its very existence that was brought into question. As Dr. Ewer puts it, "This was the meanest mode of attack" to Christianity. "Protestantism made an ally of the Bible, and with it flew at the church to destroy her. Satan ... picked his men.... Protestantism, making an ally of the Bible, succeeded not in reforming the church, but in attacking and destroying her in many lands."[3]Against such a rebellion the church had to put on her strongest armor. No mere outworks were attacked; the strongest citadel, the key to the whole position, was the object of deadly assault. The lines of attack were twofold. It was said that the church, under the guidance of the pontiffs of Rome, had fallen away from the true faith, and proposed superstitious errors and mere human inventions to the belief of her children. It was furthermore charged that she had become horribly deformed in morals, a very sink of iniquity, instead of that spotless and stainless bride whom Christ had laved in his blood. The intricate and difficult questions of original sin, its nature, its effects, its remedy—the justification of the sinner—were again opened and discussed with force and acrimony, if not with discretion and candor. The whole sacramental system was practically denied; the altar and the priesthood removed; and the church, as it is seen by the eyes of men, reduced to a mere voluntary association of believers, for which indefectibility, infallibility, or authority could not by any means be claimed. The Bible was appealed to in support of these novel statements, and to each one's private judgment was generously granted the privilege of securely interpreting the sacred page. The new doctrine flattered the vanity of the human intellect; and there were found many not unwilling to sit as judges where they had before stood as hearers; to leave the humble bench of the scholar for the magisterial chair of the religious teacher. The constant attacks on real or pretended abuses added greatly to the temporary success of the reformers. Against these (to borrow an expression from Hallam) "Luther bellowed in bad Latin." That there was much to be reformed, the numerous decrees of the Council of Trent leave us no room to doubt. It is also clear that it would have been well for the church had prompter remedies taken away in advance the specious pretext of the turbulent Augustinian. But it pleased her Divine Head to permit that the wrong should continue to thrive, and, when the time of trial came, many gave as an excuse for their falling off, the scandals which they alleged could no longer be endured. A glance at the history of the times will, however, show how flimsy was such a pretext. The scandals of the lives of the seceders and their immediate followers contrast darkly with the honest reforms of Trent, and the dissoluteness which was the immediate result of the revolution, taken in connection with the acknowledged improvement inside of the church, would lead one to suppose that the authors and abettors of the real abuses had abandoned the ancient fold, and betaken themselves to freer and more congenial pastures. Of his own party, Luther, as quoted by Döllinger, said:
"Our evangelicals are now sevenfold more wicked than they were before. In proportion as we hear the Gospel, we steal, lie, cheat, gorge, swill, and commit every crime. If one devil has been driven out of us, seven worse ones have taken their place, to judge from the conduct of princes, lords, nobles, burgesses, and peasants, their utterlyshameless acts, and their disregard of God and of his menaces."
"Our evangelicals are now sevenfold more wicked than they were before. In proportion as we hear the Gospel, we steal, lie, cheat, gorge, swill, and commit every crime. If one devil has been driven out of us, seven worse ones have taken their place, to judge from the conduct of princes, lords, nobles, burgesses, and peasants, their utterlyshameless acts, and their disregard of God and of his menaces."
Of the old church, Henry Hallam says:
"The decrees of the Council of Trent were received by the spiritual princes of the empire in 1566, 'and from this moment,' says the excellent historian who has thrown most light on this subject, 'began a new life for the Catholic Church in Germany.'... Every method was adopted to revive an attachment to the ancient religion, insuperable by the love of novelty or the force of argument. A stricter discipline and subordination was introduced among the clergy; they were early trained in seminaries, apart from the sentiments and habits, the vices and the virtues of the world. The monastic orders resumed their rigid observances."[4]
"The decrees of the Council of Trent were received by the spiritual princes of the empire in 1566, 'and from this moment,' says the excellent historian who has thrown most light on this subject, 'began a new life for the Catholic Church in Germany.'... Every method was adopted to revive an attachment to the ancient religion, insuperable by the love of novelty or the force of argument. A stricter discipline and subordination was introduced among the clergy; they were early trained in seminaries, apart from the sentiments and habits, the vices and the virtues of the world. The monastic orders resumed their rigid observances."[4]
Luther, anticipating his condemnation by Pope Leo X., appealed in 1518 to a general council, a course, we may remark, frequently taken by heretics, if for nothing else, at least to gain time to enroll followers, and thus increase in importance, before the final condemnation. The diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, in answer to the conciliatory and truly apostolic communication of Pope Adrian VI., through his nuncio, Cheregat, requested his holiness to call a council in some city of Germany, with the double object of a thorough reformation, and of devising means of resistance to the menacing advances of the Turkish power. Adrian died before he could take any action on the subject, and the new pontiff, Clement VII., did not receive the proposal with favor. According to Pallavicini, he feared that under the actual circumstances the council would only aggravate the evil, especially if the fathers should revive the pretensions of their predecessors of Constance and Basle, an apprehension very prevalent at that time at Rome, and, it must be admitted, not altogether groundless; besides, the war then raging between Charles V. and Francis I., from whose dominions most of the bishops were to come, rendered the possibility of a successful convocation almost hopeless; and, lastly, the demand was for a council which would satisfy Luther and his party; namely, one in which any one that might choose, even laymen, should be allowed to take part, and the pontiff should lay aside his high prerogatives, and sit as a simple bishop. He consequently instructed his legate, Campeggi, that it was impossible to call a council until the conclusion of peace between the two great princes of Europe, offering, at the same time, to carry out the measures of reform decreed by the council of Lateran, held not long before by Leo X., and to provide by his own authority proper remedies on other points. The unfortunate war in which Clement became afterward involved with Charles V. delayed for some time all question of holding a council; but, with the return of peace, the negotiations were resumed, and at a consultation held in Bologna, in 1533, between the pontiff and the emperor, the former agreed to convoke the council within six months from the acceptation of certain very equitable conditions by all interested. But the Protestant princes of Germany, in a meeting at Smalcald, (1533,) refused to accept the two first conditions, "that the council should be free, and be held after the manner of the ancient general councils; and that those who wished to take part in it should promise beforehand to obey its decrees;" a refusal which justified, in part at least, the fears of the pontiff. He did not, however, desist, and was engaged in negotiations on the subject until his death, (September 25th, 1534.) His successor, Paul III., had never sharedhis fears, and, soon after his elevation, sent nuncios to the various princes to promote the speedy convocation of the council. In point of fact, he did convoke it, appointing Mantua, which had been agreed on by the emperor and the Catholic princes of Germany, as the place, and the 23d day of May, 1537, as the time, of the meeting. It is useless minutely to detail the obstacles placed in the way of the great event by the Duke of Mantua and others, the selection of Vicenza, the suspension of the council, and the bootless legation of Contarini to the diet of Ratisbon. At last, as the pontiff himself says, in his bull of convocation:
"While we awaited the hidden time, the time of thy good pleasure, O God! we were compelled to say that when we take counsel concerning things sacred, and pertaining to Christian piety, every time is pleasing to God. Wherefore, seeing, to our great sorrow, that the condition of Christendom was every day becoming worse, Hungary oppressed by the Turks, the Germans themselves in danger, and all the rest of Europe seized with fear and sadness—we determined no longer to wait on the consent of any prince, but to regard solely the will of Almighty God and the good of the Christian commonwealth."
"While we awaited the hidden time, the time of thy good pleasure, O God! we were compelled to say that when we take counsel concerning things sacred, and pertaining to Christian piety, every time is pleasing to God. Wherefore, seeing, to our great sorrow, that the condition of Christendom was every day becoming worse, Hungary oppressed by the Turks, the Germans themselves in danger, and all the rest of Europe seized with fear and sadness—we determined no longer to wait on the consent of any prince, but to regard solely the will of Almighty God and the good of the Christian commonwealth."
To satisfy the Germans, he selected Trent as the place of meeting, though he himself would have preferred some city of Italy nearer Rome. But new obstacles arose, and the council, though convoked for the feast of All Saints, (November 1st, 1542,) was not opened until December 13th, 1545. Even then, it was necessary to commence with a very small attendance of prelates. At the first session there were present, besides the legates of the apostolic see and the Cardinal Bishop of Trent, only four archbishops, twenty bishops, and five general superiors of religious orders.[5]But it was thought better to make a beginning, even though the number of fathers was lamentably small, especially since, according to ancient ecclesiastical usage, a council, legitimately convoked by the apostolic see, legitimately celebrated under its presidency, and approved by its authority, is ecumenical, even though many of the bishops called to it were either unable or unwilling to take part in its deliberations.
Bishops in greater number gradually found their way to the assembly, and seven sessions were held in succession, the last on March 3d, 1547, so that the deliberations of this period of the council lasted over fourteen months. The work of reformation was commenced, together with the dogmatical definitions, and the same plan was followed throughout. On March 11th, the eighth session was held; but the only business transacted was the passing of a decree transferring the council to Bologna, the reason assigned being an epidemic, the existence of which in Trent was declared to be a matter of notoriety, and which had already caused some prelates to leave that city, others to protest against a further sojourn. Many fathers obeyed the decree, and the congregations were held regularly in Bologna. The Emperor Charles V. did not, however, relish this transfer from a city of his dominions to one under the temporal jurisdiction of the pope, and he detained at Trent the prelates from his states. The result was that, after two formal sessions, the synod was prorogued, "at the pleasure of the Sacred Council," on September 14th, 1547, and the remainder of the pontificate of Paul III. was spent in fruitless negotiations for its resumption. Paul died on November 10th, 1549, of whom Pallavicini says: "By his inordinate affection for his family, he showed himself to be only a man; for the rest, he has deserved in thechurch the name of hero."[6]His successor was Julius III., who as Cardinal del Monte had presided over the council in the quality of first legate apostolic. His first care was to reopen the sacred synod, and he immediately sent nuncios to the emperor and the French king, to bring about this desired result. The stand taken by Charles for Trent made it advisable again to select that city, and Julius was enabled, on December 1st, 1550, to publish a bull appointing the first day of May of the ensuing year for the reassembling of the council. The first session (eleventh of the whole series) was accordingly held on that day, but, to give time to the Germans to arrive, no business was transacted, September 1st being appointed for the next session. Meanwhile, the preparatory work went on, and on the appointed day, the archbishop, electors of Mayence and Treves, and many other prelates being present, another session was held, in which it was determined to wait until October 11th, for other bishops of Germany and other nations, who were known to be on their way. The thirteenth session was celebrated on this day, and it was followed by three others, in all of which important canons and decrees were passed. But civil war had broken out in Germany, and Maurice of Saxony, at the head of a Protestant army, in league with the French king, had occupied Augsburg and menaced Innspruch, where Charles held his court, and whence he soon afterward retired. It was not to be wondered at that the fathers in the neighboring city of Trent should wish to shun a danger before which even the great emperor was obliged to retreat, and, in the sixteenth session, held on April 28th, 1552, a decree was passed suspending the celebration of the council for two years, providing, however, that in case of a speedy return of peace it might be resumed sooner. Pressed by his enemies, Charles agreed to the pacification of Passau, which promulgated a kind of toleration of both the old and the new religion. It also provided for a diet of the empire, in which the question was to be discussed whether an ecumenical council, or a national synod, or a conference, or an imperial diet, afforded the surest method of settling the existing religious differences. This, of course, put off the council again. Meanwhile, Julius III. died on March 23d, 1555. His former colleague in the apostolic legation to the council under Paul III., Cardinal Cervini, succeeded him in the pontificate; but death summoned him on the twenty-second day of his reign. The austere, zealous, but by no means prudent Cardinal Caraffa was the next choice of the Sacred College. The career of Paul IV. affords a singular example of the fallacy of human expectations. Before his election, he was a subject of the emperor, (he was a Neapolitan by birth;) in the pontificate, he waged war against Charles, son and successor; himself pure and above all suspicion, his reign was disgraced by the worst form of nepotism, so that, under his successor, his nephews, one of them a cardinal, died the death of malefactors; a great and really zealous promoter of reform, he took no steps to reassemble the council. Nor indeed could he. He was for the greater part of his reign at war with Philip II., successor of Charles V., in the latter's hereditary dominions, and he would never recognize Ferdinand as Charles's legitimate successor in the empire, on account of the part taken by that prince in the pacification of Passau. Yet so opposed was he to heresy, that he had recalled from Englandthe gentle and prudent Cardinal Pole, and was about to summon him to Rome to purge himself of the suspicion of heresy, and he actually imprisoned, on a similar suspicion, Cardinal Morone, who was destined to be the moving spirit, as he was the actual president of the last sessions of the great council. Paul died on August 18th, 1559. He was an excellent ecclesiastic, conspicuous for learning and virtue, and in less troubled times would have been a successful, as he was a holy pontiff. But, to quote Pallavicini, "he was braver in punishing crime, no matter how high the criminal, than prudent in preventing it. He took the amplitude of his sacred power as the proper measure of its exercise."[7]He waged war, however, on abuses, and was a severe ecclesiastical disciplinarian. His whole pontificate is a proof of the uselessness, not to say positive evil, in persons in high position, of determination, zeal, vigor, unless tempered by discretion, prudence, and meekness. His successor, Cardinal Medici, who took the name of Pius IV., a learned and virtuous prelate, though not so remarkable for natural parts or austere asceticism, accomplished much more for the glory of God and the good of Holy Church.
The new pontiff immediately turned his attention to the council. He had three princes of first class to deal with—the Emperor Ferdinand, and the kings of France and Spain. This last and the emperor desired the council to be reassembled at Trent; but the French sovereign objected to this place on account of its want of accommodations and unhealthy air, but especially because the Protestants had already commenced to hate the name, and proposed Constance. But at last the pontiff obtained the unanimous consent of all the Catholic princes of Europe for Trent, and on November 29th, 1560, issued a bull appointing Easter Sunday of the coming year for the reopening of the council. He sent his legates to Trent, and many prelates soon arrived; the congregations and other preparatory meetings were held; but the troubles in France, on the succession of Charles IX., prevented the arrival of the French bishops. At last, on January 18th, 1562, was held, with unusual solemnity, the first session under Pius IV., (seventeenth of the whole series,) at which there were present, besides the apostolic legates and the Cardinal of Trent, one hundred and six bishops, four mitred abbots, and four generals of religious orders. From this happy day, the council went on with its appointed work without any interference. There were grave discussions, sometimes warm and prolonged, but always ending in peace and harmony. The French bishops arrived, before the end of the year, under the leadership of the illustrious Charles of Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine. At last, to use the words of Jerome Ragazzoni, Bishop of Nazianzen, and coadjutor of Famagosta, orator at the last session, "the day arrived which Paul III. and Julius III. had yearned for, but which it was not given to them to see—a gladness reserved to Pius IV.—on which the Council of Trent, commenced long before, often interrupted, and sometimes transferred, was at last, thanks to God's great mercy, happily ended, to the great and unspeakable joy of all classes of men." The twenty-fifth and last session was held on December 3d and 4th, 1563. There were present at it four cardinal legates of the apostolic see, two other cardinals, those of Trent and Lorraine, three patriarchs, twenty-five archbishops,one hundred and sixty-eight bishops, thirty-nine procurators of prelates legitimately absent, seven abbots, and seven generals of religious orders—making, in all, two hundred and fifty-five prelates, whose signatures are attached to the decrees. Amid the festive acclamations, composed and intoned by the Cardinal of Lorraine, tears of joy testified the gladness of all hearts; opponents embraced one another, no longer rivals, but brethren; theTe Deumwas sung with feelings of the deepest gratitude; and as the first legate, Morone, having given his solemn blessing to the fathers, bade them, in the name of the supreme pontiff, go in peace, the last solemn act of the great council was performed. The whole time, from the first session under Paul III. to the last under Pius IV., was within a few days of eighteen years; but that actually occupied by the council was four years and about eight months. The canons and decrees, both in faith and discipline, were solemnly approved, at the request of the fathers, by "the most blessed Roman pontiff," Pius IV., as the council styled him, on January 25th, 1564; and, by a subsequent bull, they were declared obligatory on the whole church, from the first day of May of the same year.
This historical sketch will serve to give some idea of the difficulties the work of the council had to encounter. Whatever may be said in the abstract of the union of church and state, their relations in the sixteenth century were very unsatisfactory. Popes Paul III., Julius, and Pius wanted a general council; but it was very difficult so to arrange matters as to obtain the necessary consent of all the Catholic powers, and this difficulty always afforded an excuse for delay when delay was really desired. Then there were courtiers at Rome "to whose ears the word reform sounded harsh," as Pallavicini says; and who were suddenly animated by the most ardent zeal in defence of the prerogatives of the holy see, which, they alleged, would be unduly curtailed by the council. But the firmness of the pontiffs, under the grace of God, which never abandons his church, brought these machinations to nought. They refused to interfere to save their dependents from a thorough reform; and Pius IV., especially, declared that he left full liberty to the fathers in the matter. And in a discourse in the Consistory of Cardinals, on December 30th, 1563, he expressly thanked the fathers "for the religious zeal and resolute freedom with which they had spared no labor, no care, to remove all heresies and corruptions." "We are also," he continued, "not a little indebted to them for having been so moderate and indulgent in the work of reformation, in regard to our own affairs, (that is, the papal court,) that, had we preferred to take this duty on ourselves, and not commit it to their discretion, we should certainly have been more severe. Wherefore, as salutary measures have been adopted, it is our firm determination forthwith to carry the reform into effect by the observance of the decrees of the sacred synod. We shall rather, when necessary, make up by our own diligence for the moderation and leniency of the fathers; so far are we from wishing to neglect or diminish one iota."[8]And he appointed Cardinals Morone and Simonetta, both legates to the council, to see that nothing was done by any of the papal officials in contravention of the so lately approved decrees. The courtiers had to submit, and the court of Rome since that day has given little or no occasionfor serious complaint, and certainly no pretext for a schism under the name of reform. Another difficulty arose from the multitude of counsellors, and the liberty left in discussion. Now that the council has passed into history, it is pleasant to see that such ample freedom was allowed; but it must have been sometimes a sore task for the legates to keep order. They well deserved the encomium of Ragazzoni, "You have been our excellent leaders and directors in action. You have used incredible patience and diligence in guarding against any violation of our liberty, either in speaking or in legislating. You have spared no bodily labor, no mental exertion, to bring the undertaking to its desired end." But the principal difficulty arose from the Protestants themselves. They had asked for the council, but when it was assembled they would have nothing to do with it. Three different safe conducts were issued for them—one under Paul III., another under Julius III., and the last under Pius IV.—all of them as ample as could be desired; but to no purpose. They did not really want a council, but an ecclesiastical mob without a head; in other words, they wanted the main question of church authority to be decided in advance in their favor. Their course was substantially that of all former heretics; first, to appeal to the council, to gain time and cause trouble; then, after their condemnation, to abuse the council as much as they had formerly abused the pope. It would be difficult to determine which is to-day the greater bugbear of the average Protestant, the Council of Trent or the holy see.
Few, if any, assemblages have received such praise for learning, moderation, and zeal—not only from friends, but from candid opponents—as that of Trent. We will give as a sample the judgment of Hallam, himself not at all well disposed toward Catholic dogma. His testimony is the more valuable that he acknowledges to have taken his facts from the disingenuous account of the more than half Protestant, Fra Paolo Sarpi,[9]and never to have read the able and exhaustive history of Pallavicini:
"It is usual for Protestant writers to inveigh against the Tridentine fathers. I do not assent to their decisions, which is not to the purpose, nor vindicate the intrigues of the papal party. But I must presume to say that, reading their proceedings in the pages of that very able and not very lenient historian to whom we have generally recourse, an adversary as decided as any that could have come from the reformed churches, I find proofs of much ability, considering the embarrassments with which they had to struggle, and of an honest desire of reformation, among a large body, as to those matters which, in their judgment, ought to be reformed."[10]
"It is usual for Protestant writers to inveigh against the Tridentine fathers. I do not assent to their decisions, which is not to the purpose, nor vindicate the intrigues of the papal party. But I must presume to say that, reading their proceedings in the pages of that very able and not very lenient historian to whom we have generally recourse, an adversary as decided as any that could have come from the reformed churches, I find proofs of much ability, considering the embarrassments with which they had to struggle, and of an honest desire of reformation, among a large body, as to those matters which, in their judgment, ought to be reformed."[10]
Again:
"It will appear, by reading the accounts of the sessions of the council, either in Father Paul, or in any more favorable historian, that, even in certain points, such as justification, which had not been clearly laid down before, the Tridentine decrees were mostly conformable with the sense of the majority of those doctors who had obtained the highest reputation; and that upon what aremore usually reckoned the distinctive characteristics of the Church of Rome, namely, transubstantiation, purgatory, and invocation of the saints and the Virgin, they assert nothing but what had been so engrafted into the faith of this part of Europe as to have been rejected by no one without suspicion or imputation of heresy. Perhaps Erasmus would not have acquiesced with good-will inallthe decrees of the council; but was Erasmus deemed orthodox?... No general council ever contained so many persons of eminent learning and ability as that of Trent; nor is there ground for believing that any other ever investigated the questions before it with so much patience, acuteness, temper, and desire of truth. The early councils, unless they are greatly belied, would not bear comparison in these characteristics. Impartiality and freedom from prejudice, no Protestant will attribute to the fathers of Trent; but where will he produce these qualities in an ecclesiastical synod? But it may be said that they had only one leading prejudice, that of determining theological faith according to the tradition of the Catholic Church, as handed down to their age. This one point of authority conceded, I am not aware that they can be proved to have decided wrong, or at least against all reasonable evidence. Let those who have imbibed a different opinion ask themselves whether they have read Sarpi through with any attention, especially as to those sessions of the Tridentine Council which preceded its suspension in 1549."[11]
"It will appear, by reading the accounts of the sessions of the council, either in Father Paul, or in any more favorable historian, that, even in certain points, such as justification, which had not been clearly laid down before, the Tridentine decrees were mostly conformable with the sense of the majority of those doctors who had obtained the highest reputation; and that upon what aremore usually reckoned the distinctive characteristics of the Church of Rome, namely, transubstantiation, purgatory, and invocation of the saints and the Virgin, they assert nothing but what had been so engrafted into the faith of this part of Europe as to have been rejected by no one without suspicion or imputation of heresy. Perhaps Erasmus would not have acquiesced with good-will inallthe decrees of the council; but was Erasmus deemed orthodox?... No general council ever contained so many persons of eminent learning and ability as that of Trent; nor is there ground for believing that any other ever investigated the questions before it with so much patience, acuteness, temper, and desire of truth. The early councils, unless they are greatly belied, would not bear comparison in these characteristics. Impartiality and freedom from prejudice, no Protestant will attribute to the fathers of Trent; but where will he produce these qualities in an ecclesiastical synod? But it may be said that they had only one leading prejudice, that of determining theological faith according to the tradition of the Catholic Church, as handed down to their age. This one point of authority conceded, I am not aware that they can be proved to have decided wrong, or at least against all reasonable evidence. Let those who have imbibed a different opinion ask themselves whether they have read Sarpi through with any attention, especially as to those sessions of the Tridentine Council which preceded its suspension in 1549."[11]
To the praise of ability, industry, and fairness, all of the highest order from a natural point of view, Hallam unconsciously adds a still greater, in the eyes of any true Catholic, namely, that the council, on controverted dogmatic points, adhered to the tradition of the Catholic Church. And this on the authority of the carping Sarpi! What more could the greatest admirer say? Right in its view of dogma from the traditional—the true Catholic—stand-point, honest and unswerving in reforming abuses, patient in discussion, diligent in research, calm in decision—such is the substantial verdict of a Protestant writer, in the nineteenth century, on the great council of the sixteenth.
If we consider the variety of matters treated of in the council, its work will appear immense. The following accurate synopsis is taken from the oration of Ragazzoni, at the last session, which we have quoted before. In matters of faith, after the adoption of the venerable creed sanctioned by antiquity, the council drew up a catalogue of the inspired books of the Old and New Testament, and approved the old received Latin version of the Hebrew and Greek originals. It then passed to decide the questions that had been raised concerning the fall of man. Next, with admirable wisdom and order, it laid down the true Catholic doctrine on justification. The sacraments then claimed attention, and their number, their life-giving power through grace, and the nature of each one were accurately defined. The great dogma of the blessed eucharist was fully laid down; the real dignity of the Christian altar and sacrifice was vindicated; and the moot question of communion under one or two kinds settled both in theory and practice. Lastly, the false accusations of opponents were dispelled, and Catholic consciences gladdened by the enunciations on indulgences, purgatory, the invocation and veneration of saints, and the respect to be paid to their relics and images. The decision on so many important and difficult questions was no light task, and of the utmost importance. A "hard and fast line" was drawn between heresy and truth; and if the wayward were not all converted, the little ones of Christ were saved from the danger of being led astray. In her greatest trial, the church gave no uncertain sound. Nations might rage, and the rulers of the earth meditate rash things; but the truth of God did not abandon her, and she fearlessly proclaimed it in her council. In regard to some abuses in practical matters,dependent on dogma, from which the innovators had seized a pretext to impugn the true faith, a thorough reform was decreed. Measures were taken to prevent any impropriety or irreverence in the celebration of the divine sacrifice, whether from superstitious observances, greed of filthy lucre, unworthy celebrants, profane places, or worldly concomitants. The different orders of ecclesiastics were accurately distinguished, and the exclusive rights and duties of each one clearly defined; some impediments of matrimony, which had been productive of evil rather than good, were removed, and most stringent regulations adopted to prevent the crying wrongs to which confiding innocence and virtue had been subjected under the pretext of clandestine marriages. All the abuses connected with indulgences, the veneration of the saints, and intercession for the souls of purgatory, were fully and finally extirpated. Nor was less care taken in regard to purely disciplinary matters. Measures were taken to insure, as far at least as human frailty would permit, the elevation of only worthy persons to ecclesiastical dignities; and stated times were appointed for the frequent and efficient preaching of the word of God, too much hitherto neglected, the necessity of which was insisted on with earnestness and practical force. The sacred duty of residence among their flocks was impressed on bishops and all inferiors having the care of souls; proper provision was made for the support of needy clergymen, and all privileges which might protect heresy or crime were swept away. To prevent all suspicion of avarice in the house of God, the gratuitous administration of the sacraments was made compulsory; and measures were taken to put an effectual stop to the career of the questor, by abolishing the office. Young men destined for the priesthood were to be trained in ecclesiastical seminaries; provincial synods were restored, and regular diocesan visitations ordered; many new and extended faculties were granted to the local authorities, for the sake of better order and prompter decision; the sacred duty of hospitality was inculcated in all clerics; wise regulations were passed to secure proper promotions to ecclesiastical benefices; all hereditary possession of God's sanctuary prohibited; moderation prescribed in the use of the power of excommunication; luxury, cupidity, and license, as far as possible, exiled from the sanctuary; most holy and wise provisions adopted for the better regulation of the religious of both sexes, who were judiciously shorn of many of their privileges, to the proper development of episcopal authority; the great ones of the world were warned of their duties and responsibilities. These, and many other similar measures, were the salutary, efficient, and lasting reforms with which God, at last taking mercy on his people, inspired the fathers of Trent, legitimately congregated under the presidency and guidance of the apostolic see. Such was the great work done by the council—so great that even this summary review makes our wonder at the length of its duration cease. One remark seems worthy of special notice. The usual complaint of Protestants against the council was, and is, that it was too much under papal influence. Now, one of the most notable features of its legislation is the great increase of the power of bishops. Not only was theirordinaryauthority confirmed and extended, but they were made in many cases, some of them of no little importance, perpetual delegates of the apostolic see, so that Philip II. of Spain is reported to have said of his bishops, that "they went to Trentas parish priests, and returned like so many popes."[12]So groundless is the statement that the papal jealousy of episcopal power prevented any really salutary reforms.