In the name of his see, or, rather, in that of the church, Mgr. Laurence purchased from the town of Lourdes the grotto and the surrounding lands, and the whole group of Massabielle rocks. M. Lacadé was still mayor. He it was who proposed to the municipal council to cede to the church, the bride of Christ, those places which had been consecrated for ever by the appearance of his heavenly Mother. He, also, signed the deed of transfer.
M. Rouland authorized the sale, and also the erection of a church in perpetual memory of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous, in memory of the fountain and the numberless miracles which had attested the heavenly visions.
While the vast temple dedicated to the Immaculate Conception was slowly rising, stone upon stone, Our Lady of Lourdes continued to shower blessings and graces upon her clients. At Paris and Bordeaux, in Perigord, Brittany, and Anjou, amid solitary and rural scenes and in the heart of popular cities, Our Lady of Lourdes was invoked, and answered with unquestionable signs of her power and goodness.
Before closing our recital and presenting the picture of things as they now exist, let us narrate two of these divine histories. One of them forms an episode in the life of the writer of these pages which nothing can ever efface from his memory. We give it as we wrote it down nearly seven years ago.
During my whole life, I had always enjoyed the blessing of good sight. I was able to distinguish objects at a great distance, and also to read with ease when my book was close to my eyes. I never suffered the least weakness of sight after whole nights passed in study. I often wondered and rejoiced at the strength and clearness of my vision. Thus, it wasa great surprise and a cruel disenchantment when in June and July, 1862, I felt my eyesight becoming gradually weak, unable to work at night, and, finally, incapable of any use, so that I was obliged to give up altogether reading and writing. If I chanced to pick up a book, after reading three or four lines, sometimes at the first glance, I felt such weakness in the upper part of my eyes as to render it impossible to continue. I consulted several physicians, and principally the two famous oculists, Desmares and Giraud-Teulon.
The remedies prescribed by them were of little or no avail. After a slight rest, and a treatment principally composed of iron, I had a slight respite, and once read during a considerable portion of the afternoon. But, the following day, I relapsed into my former condition. Then I began to try local remedies, applications of cold water on the ball of the eye, cupping on the neck, a general hydropathic treatment, and alcoholic lotions around the eyes. Sometimes I experienced a slight relief from the weariness which generally oppressed them, but this was only for a moment. In short, my disease assumed all the appearances of a chronic and incurable malady.
According to advice, I condemned my eyes to absolute repose. Not content with putting on blue eye-glasses, I had left Paris, and was living in the country with my mother, at Coux, on the banks of the Dordogne. I had taken with me a young person, who acted as my secretary, writing at my dictation, and who read to me the books which I wished to consult.
September had arrived. This state had lasted for three months. I began to be seriously alarmed. I felt a gloomy foreboding which I dared not communicate to any one. My family shared the same apprehensions, but likewise shrank from manifesting them. We were both convinced that my sight was gone, but both sought to reassure one another, and to conceal our mutual anxiety.
I had a most intimate friend, in whom I had confided from boyhood all my joys and sorrows. I dictated to my secretary a letter to him, in which I described my sad condition, and the fears which I had for the future. The friend of whom I speak is a Protestant, as is also his wife. This twofold circumstance requires to be mentioned. Grave reasons prevent me from giving his name. We shall call him M. de ——.
He answered my letter a few days afterward. His letter reached me on the fifteenth of September, and surprised me greatly. I transcribe it here, without changing a word:
"My Dear Friend: Your few lines gave me great pleasure; but, as I have told you before, I long to hear from you inyour own handwriting. A few days ago, as I returned from Cauterets, I passed through Lourdes (in the neighborhood of Tarbes). I visited the famous grotto, and heard about the extraordinary things that have been taking place there, and the cures produced by the waters in cases of diseased eyes. I earnestly recommend you to try it. If I were like you, a believing Catholic, and laboring under any illness, I would certainly try this chance. If it be true that invalids have been suddenly cured, perhaps your name may swell the number. If it be not true, where is the risk? I may add that I am personally interested in this matter. If the experiment succeeds, what an important fact for me to face! I would be in the presence of a miraculous event, or, at any rate, an eventwhose principal witness would be above all suspicion."
"It appears," he added in post-script, "that it is not necessary to go to Lourdes itself to take the water there, since you can have it sent. It is only necessary to ask the curé of Lourdes; he will forward it without delay. Certain conditions have to be fulfilled of which I am not perfectly informed, but of which the curé of Lourdes will tell you. Ask him also to send you the little pamphlet by the vicar-general of Tarbes, which gives an account of the miracles that have been most thoroughly proved."
This letter of my friend was well calculated to fill me with astonishment. His was an exact, positive, and at the same time a lofty mind, not at all liable to the illusions of enthusiasm, and, besides, he was a Protestant. Such a piece of advice coming from him, in such an urgent manner, filled me with amazement. However, I resolved not to follow it.
"It seems to me," I replied, "that I am to-day a little better. If this improvement continues, I shall not have need of your proposed and extraordinary remedy, for which, besides, I have not, perhaps, the necessary faith."
And here, I must confess, not without a blush, the secret motives of my resistance.
Whatever I may have said, it was not faith which was lacking; and, although ignorant of particulars concerning the water of Lourdes, except through the impertinent remarks of certain ill-disposed journals, I was certain that the power of God could be manifested by cures here as well as elsewhere. I will say more: I had a secret presentiment that if I tried this water, springing, as some said, in consequence of an apparition of the Blessed Virgin, I should be cured. But, to tell the simple truth, I feared the responsibility of such a favor. "If the doctor cures you," I said to myself, "every account is squared as soon as you have handed him his fee. You will be in the same condition as everybody else. But if God cures you by a special act of his providence, it will be quite another affair, and you will have to amend your life and become a saint. If God gives you back those eyes of yours with his own hands, how can you ever let them rest upon objects which draw you away from him? God will demand his fee; and it will amount to more than the doctor's. You must give up this and that bad habit, you must acquire such and such virtues, and others that you know nothing of. How will you do all this? Ah! this is too hard!" And my miserable heart, fearing its own weakness, nevertheless resisted the grace of God.
Thus it was I rebelled against the counsel given me to have recourse to this miraculous intervention—against that counsel which Providence, ever hidden in its ways, sent me by two Protestants, two heretics, outside the church. But my struggles and resistance were vain. An interior voice told me that the hand of man was powerless to cure me, and that the Master whom I had offended would return me my sight, and lead me to a new life, if I would make up my mind to use it well.
Meanwhile, my condition was either stationary or slowly becoming worse.
In the early part of October, I was obliged to go to Paris. By an unlooked-for chance, M. de —— and his wife were there at the same time. My first visit was to them. My friend was staying at his sister's, Madame P——, who lived, together with her husband, in Paris.
"And how are your eyes?" askedMadame de —— as soon as I had entered the parlor.
"They are always in the same condition; I begin to fear that they are gone."
"But why have you not tried the remedy that I proposed? I have a strange hope that you will be cured."
"Pshaw!" I replied; "I confess that, without precisely denying or showing myself hostile, I have but little faith in this water and apparition. It is perfectly possible, I admit; but as I have not examined the matter, I neither assert nor contest; I wash my hands of the whole affair, and do not intend to have anything to do with it."
"You have no valid objections," he answered. "According to your religious principles, you are bound to believe at least the possibility of such things. Very well, then, what is to prevent you from making a trial? What is it going to cost you? It can't do you any harm, for it is nothing but natural water. Now, since you believe in miracles and in your religion, it seems to me that you ought to be moved by two Protestants; and I frankly confess that, if you are cured, it will be a terrible argument against me." Madame de —— joined her entreaties to those of her husband. M. and Madame P——, who are Catholics, insisted as warmly. I was driven to my last entrenchments.
"Well," said I at last, "let me tell you the whole truth. I do not lack faith, but I am full of weaknesses, faults, and a thousand miseries which are entwined with the most sensitive fibres of my nature. Now, a miracle would lay upon me the obligation of giving up everything and trying to become a saint; and I do not feel equal to the responsibility. If God cures me, how do I know what he will ask of me? But if the doctor succeeds, we can settle the matter with money. You think this is disgraceful, I know; but it is nothing but the truth. You have supposed that my faith has been wavering. You have thought that I feared lest the miracle should not succeed. It is not so. I should be only afraid that it might succeed."
My friends vainly tried to convince me that I was exaggerating the responsibility of which I spoke.
"You are none the less obliged to seek after virtue now than if the miracle had been already worked," said M. de ——. "Besides, supposing the physician does cure you, it will be none the less a favor from God; and you will have just the same reasons for struggling against your faults and passions."
This did not seem to me perfectly true; and the logical mind of M. de —— probably admitted as much to itself; but he was bent upon calming my apprehensions and inducing me to follow his advice.
Vainly did I endeavor to combat the pressing earnestness of my host and his wife, and my friends. I ended by promising to do whatever they desired.
"As soon as I get a secretary, I will write to Lourdes; but it is too late at this hour of the day."
"But I will do, will I not?" answered my friend.
"Very well," said I, "come and breakfast with me to-morrow at theCafé de Foy. I will dictate the letter after breakfast."
"Why not do it now? We will save one day."
Paper and ink were at hand. I dictated a letter to the curé of Lourdes. It was posted that evening.
The next day, M. de —— came to see me. "My dear friend," he said, "since the die is cast, and youare going to try this experiment, you ought to go seriously to work, and fulfil the conditions which are required in order to make a success. You must pray. You will have to go to confession, and put your mind in the proper state. You know that all this is a prime necessity."
"You are right," I replied; "I will do as you say. But you must acknowledge that you are a queer Protestant. The tables are turned; to-day you are preaching to me my own faith and religion, and I own the contrast is not much to my advantage."
"I am a man of science," he answered. "It is perfectly natural that I should wish to see all the conditions carried out, since we have agreed to try an experiment. I should act in this manner if we were dealing with physics or chemistry."
I confess, to my shame, I did not prepare myself as my friend had so wisely advised me. I was in a very poor spiritual condition; my soul was distracted and turned to evil. I recognized the necessity of throwing myself at the feet of God; but, as I had not been guilty of gross and brutal sins, against which nature reacts with such violence, I delayed from day to day. Man is more rebellious against the sacrament of penance while he is being tempted, than after he has been crushed and humbled by the sight of his crime. It is more difficult to combat and resist than to ask for mercy after defeat. Who does not know this?
A week passed in this manner. M. and Mme. de —— inquired daily if I had heard any news of the miraculous water, or any word from the curé of Lourdes. Finally, I received a note from him to the effect that the water had been forwarded by rail, and would shortly reach me.
We awaited its arrival with great eagerness; but, strange to say, my Protestant friends were much more impatient than I. The state of my eyes continued the same. It was absolutely impossible for me to read or write.
One morning, Friday, October 10, 1862, I was waiting for M. de —— in the Orleans Gallery at the Palais Royal. We breakfasted together. As I had come to the place of meeting some time in advance of him, I employed myself in looking about the shops and reading the list of new books in front of Dentu's library. This was enough to weary my eyes. They had become so weak that I could not let them rest upon the largest signs without feeling them overpowered by lassitude. This little circumstance made me quite sad, as it showed me the extent of my malady.
In the afternoon I dictated three letters to De ——, and, at four o'clock, having left him, returned to my lodgings. As I was going up-stairs, the porter called to me.
"A little box has come for you from the railroad." I entered his store-room eagerly. There was a small pine box, bearing my name and address on one end, and on the other these words, doubtless intended for the custom-house officials, "Natural Water."
It was from Lourdes.
I felt greatly excited; but did not betray any emotion.
"Very well," said I to the porter, "I will take it in a few moments; I will return shortly." I stepped out again into the street.
"This matter is becoming serious," I said to myself. "De —— is right; I must prepare myself. In my present state, I have no right to ask God to work a miracle. I must set to work to heal my own soul before I can ask him to heal my body."
Reflecting on these considerations, I directed my steps toward the house of my confessor, the Abbé Ferrand de Missol, who lived quite near me. I felt certain of finding him in, for it was Friday, and he is always at home on that day. So indeed he was upon this occasion.
But several persons were waiting to see him, whose turn would naturally come before mine. Some member of his family had just arrived on an unexpected visit. His servant informed me of all this, and asked me to call again in the evening about seven o'clock.
I resigned myself to my lot.
As I came to the street-door, I paused for an instant. I wavered between the desire of paying a visit which I had greatly at heart and the thought of returning home to pray. I was very much inclined to the distraction, but finally the good inspiration carried the day, and I returned toward the Rue Seine.
I took from the porter the little box, to which was attached a notice of the apparition at Lourdes, and, with both in my hand, I hastened up-stairs. On reaching my room, I knelt down at my bedside and prayed, all unworthy as I was to turn my eyes toward heaven. Then I arose. On entering, I had placed the little box and the pamphlet upon the mantelpiece. I gazed a moment upon the little case which contained the mysterious water, and it seemed to me that some great event was about to transpire in this lonely chamber. I feared to touch with impure hands the wood which contained this hallowed water, and yet, on the other hand, I felt a lively desire to open it at once, and not wait until after I had been to confession. This indecision lasted for a few moments, and ended with this prayer:
"O my God! I am a wretched sinner, unworthy of raising my voice to you, or of touching that which you have blessed. But this very excess of misery ought to excite your compassion. My God, I come to you and to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, full of faith and reliance upon you, and from the depths I cry to you. This evening I will confess my sins to your minister, but my faith will not suffer me to wait. Pardon me, Lord, and heal me. And you, O Mother of Mercy! come to the help of your unhappy child!"
And, feeling strengthened by my prayer, I opened the box. It contained a bottle of pure water. I uncorked it, poured some of the water into a glass, and took a napkin from the drawer.
These commonplace preparations, which I made with care, were accompanied by a secret solemnity, the memory of which still haunts me. In that room I was not alone. God was there certainly; and the Blessed Virgin, whom I had invoked, was also there.
Ardent faith inflamed my soul. When all was ready, I knelt down again. "O Blessed Virgin Mary!" I cried in a loud voice, "heal my physical and spiritual blindness." Saying these words, with a heart full of confidence, I bathed successively both eyes and my forehead with the napkin which I had dipped in the water. This did not occupy more than half a minute.
Judge of my astonishment—I had almost said my terror! Scarcely had I touched my eyes and forehead with the miraculous water than I felt myself cured, at once, without transition, with a suddenness which I can compare only to lightning.
Strange contradiction of human nature! A moment before I had trusted my faith, which promised me a cure; now, I could not believe mysenses, which assured me that the cure had been worked.
No! I did not believe my senses. In spite of the startling effect which had been wrought upon me, I committed the fault of which Moses was guilty, and struck the rock twice. I continued to bathe my eyes and forehead, not daring to open them, not daring to verify my cure. At the end of ten minutes, however, the strength which I felt in my eyes, and the absence of all heaviness, left no chance for doubt. "I am cured!"
So saying, I snatched up a book. "No," said I, "that is not the book for me to be reading at this moment." Then I took from the mantelpiece theAccount of the Apparitions at Lourdes. I read a hundred and four pages without stopping or feeling the least fatigue. Twenty minutes before, I could not have read three lines. Indeed, if I stopped at the hundred-and-fourth page, it was only because it was thirty-five minutes past five o'clock, and at this hour in October it is almost dark in Paris. When I laid aside my book, the gas was being lighted in the shops of the street in which I lived.
That evening, I made my confession to the Abbé Ferrand, and acquainted him with the great gift which I had received from the Blessed Virgin. Although in no degree prepared, he wished me to go to communion the next day, to thank God for such an extraordinary favor, and to strengthen the good resolutions which it had caused to spring up in my soul.
M. and Mme. de —— were, as one may imagine, greatly moved by this event, in which Providence had assigned them so direct a part. What did they think of it? What reflections were suggested to their minds? What took place in the depth of their hearts? That secret belongs only to them and to God. What little I have been able to make out, I am not at liberty to publish.
Be this as it may, I know my friend's nature. I left him to his own thoughts, without urging him to the conclusion. I knew, and still know, that God has his own time and his own ways. His action was so manifest throughout the whole affair that I did not wish to interfere, although my friends have never been ignorant of my desire to see them enter the only church which contains God in his fulness.
I regret not being able to consider these two beings—so dear to me—as receiving from the reaction of the miracle of which I had been the object the first shocks which truth gives to those whom it seeks to conquer.
Seven years have now passed since my miraculous cure. My sight is excellent. Neither reading nor hard work, even when kept up late at night, wearies my eyes. God grant me never to use them save in the cause of right.
The woes and crimes of unhappy France have attracted the mixed regards of the world; it has become an agreeable and timely diversion to look away from the distressing picture, to find whatever there is of compensation in the glories and virtues of her past; and the occasion is thus created to review our own obligations as a nation to this now stricken and humbled European power, and to determine how much we are indebted to France for our own independence and liberty. Another interest is added to the occasion in the fact that this part of our history has been but scantily told, and that, as the writer is persuaded, our national vanity, notoriously accumulated as it is about everything belonging to the Revolutionary period, has hitherto prevented a fair and full confession of the obligations referred to—has diminished the story, if not actually misrepresented it. But it is a mistaken vanity, the very opposite of a manly pride. A sentiment of the illustrious Lafayette fits in here. A citizen of both France and America, he stood between the two, and spoke happily for each, saying: "Comme un Français, dont le cœur brûle de patriotisme, je me réjouis du rôle que la France a joué, et de l'alliance qu'elle a fait. Comme Americain, je reconnais l'obligation, et je crois qu'en cela consiste la vraie dignité."
The severe truth of history and the constraints of true dignity alike compel the statement, that but for the French interposition the cause of the American colonists was likely to be lost; at least, that our independence would not have been obtained when it was, and as completely as it was, but for the succors of France. And this proposition, the writer thinks, may be made out from a summary view of the history of the period, yet calling attention to some facts that do not appear hitherto to have been calculated.
Accustomed as we are, in looking back upon the history of our Revolutionary struggle, to dwell upon its last signal triumphs, and naturally disposed to measure the preceding events by the conclusion, it is difficult for us of this day to realize how narrowly it avoided defeat, and in what extremity it at one time hesitated. In the winter of 1780, and at a time when the aid of France was most urgently implored, the American cause was almost at its last gasp. Many of its leaders had secretly despaired of it, and found it difficult to impose upon the public the countenance of hope. In a private letter, Mr. Madison wrote: "How a total dissolution of the army can be prevented in the course of the winter" [1780-1781] "is, for any resources now in prospect, utterly inexplicable." There was no money to pay the troops; and the fact was that the war was no longer kept up but by ill-digested and dilatory expedients. Meanwhile, the fate of arms accumulated against the colonists, and the fortunes of the field were as bad as the embarrassments of the interior administration. The more Southern States appeared to be already lost bythe irruptions of the enemy upon an indefensible coast; and the whole army of General Greene was soon to be in full retreat before Lord Cornwallis through the State of North Carolina.
The two great wants of the colonists, and which had become vital, weremoneyand afleet. "The sinews of war" were nearly spent. The paper money of Congress was fast becoming worthless; the resource to specific requisitions was a mere indirection as long as the states supplied them by paper emissions of their own; and of this resource it was prophesied in Congress that "what was intended for our relief will only hasten our destruction."
The want of a counterpoise to the naval power of England was the main point of the military situation. Here was a fatal weakness; and events had progressed far enough to show that the hope of a decisive field anywhere in the colonies depended upon their maintaining a naval superiority in the American seas. In weighing the chances of the war, the configuration of the American territory is to be studied; and how vulnerable it was from the water had already been proved by the events of the war. At the time of the Revolution, the breadth of the American settlements from the Penobscot to the Altamaha did not average more than a hundred miles from the sea-line. This jagged strip of territory, traversed by estuaries and navigable streams, was so accessible to the enemy's vessels, that his navy might be considered as constantly equivalent to a second army operating on the flank of that engaged on shore. Wherever Washington might move, this apparition would cling to him—his flank constantly threatened, and every movement he made on land compelled to calculate the possibility of a counter-movement by the English fleet that hovered on the coast, and might develop an attack with greater expedition than he could change his front to meet it. It was the thorn in his side. When the baffled American commander spoke of retiring into the mountains of Virginia for a last desperate stand, it was not a rhetorical flourish, as it has generally been accounted, but a true military appreciation of the situation—the necessity of a barrier against the naval power of the enemy. If that barrier could be made on the water by the interposition of a fleet, then he would be (what he had not hitherto been) free to operate on the land, and make there a field that might be decisive. But the element of any such strategic combination was naval supremacy, and, until that was obtained, he could only hope at best for a desultory warfare, with constant exposure to a risk that he could neither meet nor avoid.
Now, the two vital wants of America—a foreign loan and a naval armament—were those which were precisely supplied by France. A foreign loan of specie, to the amount of twenty-five millions of livres, was asked of his Most Christian Majesty; and Franklin, reinforced by Col. Laurens, was instructed to impress the French king and his ministers with the especial need of a demonstration against the naval power of England. The succors were granted, and were beyond the expectations of the colonists. In July, 1780, the first French expedition, under the command of the Count Rochambeau, landed at Newport. And from that moment a new hope commenced for America, and a new inspiration was to bring to sudden buoyancy a sinking cause. The French force, however, was held inoperative for some time for the want of a sufficient navy to co-operate;and to this end the supplications of Congress to the French monarch had been redoubled. The expedition of Rochambeau consisted of five thousand men. It was to be reinforced by a fleet from the West Indies; but the orders had miscarried; and it was more than a year later when the second instalment of French aid was made available, and the conditions realized which fixed the last field of the war, and secured that final victory to which the French aids, by land and by water, were each indispensable. To this second aid reference will be made in its order.
Usually, a foreign contingent is not the best of the military material which a country may afford. The hireling and the adventurer enter largely into its composition, and its standard of service is low and suspicious. But this common imputation could not be cast on the expeditionary corps under Rochambeau. It was of the flower of the French army, and nobility did not disdain the service of the infant Republic. The illustrious Lafayette stood by himself, being a volunteer, and independent of the action of the royal forces. "The Marquis," as Washington never failed to punctiliously call him, won all hearts in America; and, though accused by Thomas Jefferson, who, however, was habitually envious, of having "a canine thirst for popularity," there is good reason to believe that he was actuated by a solid attachment to liberty and inspired by generous motives. Anyhow, he was destined, as we shall see, to perform one of the most brilliant and critical services of the Revolution. The Count Rochambeau was never popular in America; his manners were haughty, and he had a military exclusiveness; but he was an excellent soldier, and at one time he gave a striking example of his deference to republican principles in submitting to be arrested, in a group of his officers, at the hands of a petty county constable, on the complaint of a New England farmer for some acts of petty "trespass" on his fields! In his command, landed at Newport, there were names already illustrious in France, or destined to become so. Of such names were the Chevalier de Chastellux, performing the duties of major-general in the expeditionary corps, an encyclopædist and the friend of Voltaire; Berthier, afterwards risen from the rank of an under-officer to be a marshal of France and minister of war; the Count de Ségur, celebrated in literary as well as military life; the Duke de Lauzun, afterwards a general of the French Republic; the Count de Dillon, who, a few years later, met a tragic fate at the hands of the Revolutionary party in France; Pichegru, then a private in the ranks of the artillery; Matthieu Dumas, subsequently a peer of France; Aubert-Dubayet, afterwards minister of war under the French Republic; the Prince de Broglie, afterwards field-marshal, and one of the victims of the Revolutionary tribunal of 1794, etc.
Of the character of the soldiers we have some pleasant and vivid contemporary testimony. The idea which the sturdy American colonist, the backwoodsman with his Tower musket, had formed in advance of the French soldier, was not altogether a complimentary one. It was generally a caricature, popular at that day, of a dapper, ill-contrived individual who made ridiculous mistakes in the English language, ate frogs, memorable in the lampoon of Hogarth as toasting one of the amphibious at the end of a rapier, and had but the one virtue to make amends for his eccentricities—a courage that was unquestionable, though grotesque and physicallyinefficient. The picture was dispelled at the sight of Rochambeau's veterans—men who equalled in stature and in strength the best that England could display, who were inured to hardship and fatigue such as were scarcely supported by the green backwoodsman, and who marched hundreds of miles with an order and steadiness that never failed to be admirable. Mr. Madison, who saw these troops file through Philadelphia, after the fatigues of a march from the banks of the Hudson River, thus testifies his impressions of the spectacle: "Nothing can exceed the appearance of this specimen which our ally has sent us of his army, whether we regard the figure of the men or the exactness of their discipline."
Such was the brilliancy and the solid worth of the first contributions of France to her feeble ally. To estimate the motives and spirit of such aids, what influences ranged an old and brilliant monarchy by the side of an infant Republic branded with "rebellion," and intertwined flags so opposite, it will be well to review the relations of the parties to an alliance so strange and exceptional.
France had no interests to cultivate in America, no objects of ambition to secure in a quarter of the world from which she had deliberately withdrawn. Her flag had not appeared there since the Treaty of Paris in 1756, and her subsequent cession to Spain of her possessions on the Mississippi left her, for the present, disembarrassed of all territorial claims and interests in America. She had no reason for any affection for the English colonists now asserting their independence; they were the sons of those who had fought against her; the traditions of the colonial wars in America were yet fresh. On the side of the rebel colonists themselves, there was a suspicion of France—at least, no disposition to expect any generosity from her in the struggle that was to ensue. So little was that part expected which she did eventually take in the American Revolution, that Patrick Henry (incredible as the fact may appear to those who have read only eulogiums on this person) actually retreated at the last from the Declaration of Independence, from fear of France and her co-operation to subdue the colonies. In a letter to John Adams, written five days after the Virginia Convention had adopted the famous resolution of the 15th May, 1776, for independence, he dwells upon the apprehension that France might be seduced to take sides against the colonies by an offer from England to divide the territories of America between them. It was an unworthy suspicion; but Mr. Henry, who had but little originality, and was a characteristic retailer of popular impressions, was probably in this imputation upon France the echo of a thought common at the time.
No grounds of sympathy were yet apparent between France and the struggling colonists; nothing, as far as the men of 1776 should see, but recollections of old animosity and present causes for distrust. Even the sympathy of religion, which has proved such a fruitful source of international friendships and alliances, where there have been no other points of coincidence, was wanting; instead of it, a sharp antagonism was the fact. Protestant America, many parts of it yet fresh with the persecution of Catholics, had no reason to expect favors from Catholic France. Indeed, when those favors were given, there was some discontented and ungrateful outcry that it was a design upon the religion of the colonists; so deeply sown was the distrust of France. There were those to object that Congress had attended a Mass,and that the municipal authorities of Boston had, on some occasion, walked in a Catholic procession. The traitor, Benedict Arnold, in casting about for reasons to defend his treason, could find none more plausible, or, in his estimation, more likely to be received, than that the French alliance was about to betray the religion of the colonists, and that he, therefore, had determined to take refuge in Protestant England! Such an appeal to popular prejudice was doubtless extravagant, even more so than that of Patrick Henry accusing France; but both show the extent of estrangement and suspicion which France had to overcome before she could convince America of her friendship and generosity. And, unfortunately, as we shall presently painfully see, such suspicion was never entirely overcome, but was to remain to disfigure the last page of the history of the Revolution, and to attach to it a story of permanent disgrace to America.
When the colonies implored the aid of France, through an address of Congress in November, 1780, the appeal showed an extremity and temper of the colonists which suggested that almost any price would be paid for the necessary succors. How far the French monarch might have availed himself of the necessities of his suppliant ally, had he been selfish enough to make these the measure of his demands, is a conjecture almost illimitable. To purchase the aid of Spain, the American Congress had been willing to retract former resolutions, and to offer the almost priceless boon of the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi; and it was only the fatuity and blindness of that power that had prevented the fatal concession. Was the aid of France worth less? and was the temper of concession not to be practised upon by herself?
It has been usual to give a very summary and cold explanation of the aids which France furnished the American cause, by pointing out its effect to cripple her powerful and hereditary foe, England; thus detracting from the generosity of the contribution, and representing it as a mere move on the diplomatic chess-board which the French monarch could not do otherwise than make. But this detraction does not hold good. Admitting the full force of the reasons which it imputes to France, there is much in her alliance with America that is yet left unexplained; and there are circumstances which make it one of the most peculiar and unique examples of generosity recorded in history. It has not been unusual for powerful nations to assist the weak on no other ground of sympathy than having a foe in common; but it has seldom been the case that such aid has been rendered without the powerful ally exacting terms for her own contribution, and turning to her own advantage the necessities she has been called upon to aid. England herself had afforded a precedent for the price of such concessions. She had asked of the United Provinces, for the price of her support against Spain, that all her expenses should be repaid, and that the towns and fortresses of Holland should be held by her as pledges for the conditions of the alliance. France would have been sustained by historical example, and by moral right, in exacting very important concessions for her aid of the American cause in circumstances in which that aid was deemed vital for the success of a struggle that already bordered on despair. She asked nothing. She gave an army and a fleet, and bore all the expenses of both armaments. She advanced money and replenished the almost empty treasury of her ally.And she yet enlarged the generosity of her alliance by devoting her arms, not only to a common operation, but pledging at the outset the indispensable conclusion of her exertions in the independence of America and the territorial integrity of the States. In the Treaty of 1778, "the direct and essential end" of the alliance was declared to be "the liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute and unlimited, of the United States."
The arms of France were thus given directly to a cause of republican liberty rather than merely involved in a diplomatic complication. What reasons could have induced this apparent excess of generosity, this singular spectacle of the ancient monarchy of the Franks taking sides with the infant republic of the Anglo-Saxon colonists of America?
The explanation is that the French aid was a contribution of thepeopleof France rather than that of its crown. It sprung out of the popular heart rather than the grace of a kind and munificent monarch; and it has this circumstance of a tender and imperishable souvenir to the American people. It was a free love-offering, the first dedication of their cause in the sympathies of the world. That republican sentiment which a few years later in France sprang into such fierce life, was already deeply harbored in the hearts of her people; and the movement of the American colonists gave it an opportunity of comparatively safe expression; while all the romance of such a sentiment found abundant material in the circumstances of the struggle, the distance of the theatre, its scenery bordered by savage life, the novelty of a people whose history was entirely unique, and whose simplicity of manners suggested comparisons with classical antiquity. The enthusiasm of the French mind seized every attractive circumstance of the occasion. It was entitled "the crusade of the eighteenth century." Again, it was adorned with recollections more antique, and it was said that "the Republic of Plato" had at last found realization in the midst of a people whose exclusive situation had been a school for virtues hitherto unknown, and was to afford an experiment that had until then lingered in the speculations of philosophy and the dreams of poetry. The simplicity of American manners was taken as a charming contrast to the court splendors of Paris and Versailles. It was not only Franklin's cotton stockings, but every peculiarity of the American citizen became a picturesque study and the symbol of a new political life. The memoirs of the Count de Ségur are among the contemporary testimonies of the rage in the French capital for everything American; and we are specially told of "cet air antique qui semblant transporter tout-a-coup dans nos murs, au milieu de la civilisation amollie et servile au dix-huitième siècle, quelques sages contemporans de Platon, on des republicains du temps de Caton et de Fabius!"
Of the operations of the allied arms, our space only affords such a sketch as may give some general idea of the extent and value of the French aid. Washington had at first proposed, on the arrival of Rochambeau, to attempt the repossession of New York City, and to crush there the main body of the British army. But the failure to arrive of the naval forces expected from Brest and the West Indies disconcerted the plan; and events were preparing another theatre for the final catastrophe. The British post and army in Virginia became the objective point of the allied arms. The long-expected French fleet was at last assured; itwas to make its appearance in the Chesapeake; and Washington prepared to move his army from the banks of the Hudson to the distant scene of co-operation. From a temporary observatory on the heights near Newburg, the anxious commander watched his army crossing the blue stream; and as he mounted his horse, to put himself at the head of a march that was to toil over many hundreds of miles to find a last and effulgent field, far away in Virginia, he wrung the hand of a French officer who stood in the group around him, as expressing the new hope that had dawned in his face, and repledging the alliance that was to win its realization. And now ensued a combination of circumstances, in each one of which the French arms determined a crisis, and displayed a dramatic spectacle.
Lafayette, "the boy" in Cornwallis's estimation, "the tutelary genius of American independence," as he has been designated by a Virginian historian and statesman (William C. Rives), was sent forward to Virginia, to hold in check there the haughty enemy. Washington had given to this young Frenchman supreme command of the operations in Virginia. He justified a trust which the pride of the state might possibly resent, in his own estimate of the qualities of the noble foreigner. In a private letter to a Congressman of Virginia (Jones) he wrote: "The Marquis possesses uncommon military talents; is of a quick and sound judgment; persevering and enterprising without rashness; and, besides these, he is of a very conciliating temper, and perfectly sober—which are qualities that rarely combine in the same person. And were I to add that some men will gain as much experience in the course of three or four years as some others will in ten or a dozen, you cannot deny the fact, and attack me upon that ground." Lafayette was elevated over the heads of both General Wayne and the Baron de Steuben.
When the Frenchman came to the defence of Virginia, she was well-nigh conquered. She was open in every direction to the enterprise of the invader. Her public men were recreant, and under the suspicion of cowardice. One of her most faithful censors has recorded the delinquency of the times. In a letter dated the 6th November, 1780, Judge Pendleton wrote: "We had no House of Delegates on Saturday last, which, with our empty treasury, are circumstances unfavorable at this juncture. Mr. Henry has resigned his seat in Congress; and I hear Mr. Jones intends it. It is also said the governor intends to resign. It is a little cowardly to quit our posts in a bustling time." The city of Richmond, for which was to be reserved in history stains beyond any other American city, was ready to submit tamely to another occupation. The fact is, painful as the confession may be to the Virginian of to-day—offending the pride of a state that has almost invidiously claimed her part in the Revolution—Virginia had grown reluctant in the war, and disposed to have recourse to unworthy expedients. She had been prominent in Congress to recommend the surrender of the navigation of the Mississippi in order to buy the alliance of Spain. She had twice proposed a dictatorship; and now, when Cornwallis was advancing, and Mr. Jefferson was resigning the governorship, and suspicion, as we have seen, had fallen on other leaders in the "bustling times," no less a person than Richard Henry Lee, then in retirement at Westmoreland, was willing to surrender the liberties of Virginia to a dictator as the only resource of safety! Now,the state had nothing between her and the public enemy than the twelve hundred bayonets of Lafayette. The address and skill of the young Frenchman saved the Old Dominion from a subjection that would, otherwise, have been complete, as far as the swift arms of Cornwallis could have overrun the state.
Lafayette had retired to the Rapidan as the imposing and triumphant army of Cornwallis advanced on Richmond. Here, joined by the Pennsylvania troops under General Wayne and a body of riflemen from the western part of Virginia, he was able to retrace his steps, and to press Cornwallis's retreat towards the Chesapeake. Extricating himself from an unequal engagement at Jamestown, he moved up the river, and reposed at Malvern Hill—since celebrated as a refuge in a greater contest of arms. Subsequently, at Williamsburg, he was joined by the allied forces under Washington and Rochambeau—and then commenced the combination that was to compass Cornwallis, and to constitute the last splendid scene of the war.
It was a broad scene. On the 30th of August, 1781, twenty-eight line-of-battle ships, bearing the flag of France, rode on the beautiful expanse of the Chesapeake. They had come from the West Indies. Eight other ships suddenly appeared from the opposite point of the compass: the French squadron from Rhode Island, which had entered the Chesapeake, in spite of the efforts of the English admirals to intercept it. TheVille de Paris, the flag-ship of the French admiral, had held in council the great actors of the drama—Washington, Rochambeau, and the Count de Grasse; and it only remained to draw the lines, by sea and land, around the despairing enemy. The splendid fleet of France was the barrier between Cornwallis and the succors that Sir Henry Clinton had promised from New York. It was the element of victory—the apparition of a new hope risen from the seas. On the other wing of the scene floated the flags of Washington and Rochambeau. On the land were the splendid armies of France side by side with the militia of the young republic, and almost as numerous as the soldiers, a vast concourse of country people, watching the sublime wonders of a bombardment that laced the night skies, and enchanted by the music of the French timbrel, an instrument then unknown in America. Three French commands, those of the Count Rochambeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Marquis de Saint-Simon, stood on the field of Yorktown.
In this circle, made possible only by the links of the French aid, went down the flag of Cornwallis and the hopes of England. It was a memorable scene, and one which brought into strong relief the assistance of our ally. In a letter to General Washington from Mr. Jefferson, who had just retired from the gubernatorial chair of Virginia, the distinguished patriot, after offering his congratulations, justly wrote: "If in the minds of any, the motives of gratitude to our good allies were not sufficiently apparent, the part they have borne in this action must amply evince them." At the height of its emotions of joy and gratitude, Congress promised a monument for the scene. It was resolved that it would "cause to be erected at York, in Virginia, a marble column, adorned with emblems of the alliance between the United States and his Most Christian Majesty, and inscribed with a succinct narrative." The pledge to this day remains unfulfilled; and no monument testifies our early and imperishableobligations to France, except such as may yet exist in the hearts of our people.
Here, with the illumination of Yorktown, we would willingly conclude the history of the Franco-American alliance. But there is a sequel not to be omitted—a painful story that belongs yet to the justice of history.
In the negotiations for peace that followed Yorktown, the American Congress, new and timorous in diplomacy, betook itself to a refuge, the shallowness of which is especially conspicuous in diplomacy—that of supposing wisdom in a multitude of counsellors. It constituted no less than five commissioners to treat at Paris. The selections were ill; and in some instances the worst that could have been made. Of the five, Mr. Jefferson did not attend. Mr. Adams was personally distasteful to the French government. How far Mr. Henry Laurens might be suspected of undue deference to England might have been judged from his famous Tower letter, the cringing humiliations of which had opened the doors of his prison; and it is said that when this letter was divulged to Congress it would have recalled his commission, had there not been doubts of the authenticity of the document, so extraordinary was its tone. But it is justice to add that the subsequent conduct of Mr. Laurens repelled the charge of partiality for England; however, the French Government may have had reason to be displeased at his antecedents. Mr. Jay was of a suspicious temper, an intrigant rather than a diplomatist; illustrating precisely that lowest notion of diplomacy, that it is essentially a game of deceptions—a part that can be performed only with a false face. Happily, the world has outlived this degrading idea of a really august office, and has come to question why deception should be considered more necessary in diplomacy than in any other branch of public service. Indeed, there is room in diplomacy for the exercise of the highest abilities, an arena for the busiest and most exacting competitions of intellectual skill, without calling into requisition the weapons of chicanery and fraud. There is no political service that more strongly than the office of the diplomatist tests that sum of powers which the world callscharacter: the clear, strong purpose, with its quick and happy selection of opportunities, the instinct, the tact, and the decisiveness which hold the secret of what isgreatnessin history, rather than any amount of learned accomplishments or any training of the intellectual closet. The diplomatist must be quick, yet strong and unremitting; he must have unbounded confidence in himself, without the weakness of vanity; he must be patient, yet not dilatory; thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of the French proverb, that "he who learns to wait is master of his fortune." He must have the faculty of putting things in the strongest possible light—that best and rarest of rhetorical talents, the power ofstatement. He must have a nice sense of opportunities; the delicate touch with the iron will; he must practise what Byron numbered among the cardinal virtues, "tact"; of all men he must wear that excellent motto,suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. Here, surely, is a theatre for many virtues and abilities, without calling to aid the mask and sinister weapons of professional deceit. The greatest diplomatist of modern times, the unequalled Bismarck, is said to be remarkable for the bluntness and directness that have overcome by the very surprises of openness the chicanery of his opponents. The robustness of his dealings with the finesseof the old traditional school of European diplomacy reminds one of the duel in "Peter Simple." A sturdy Englishman engages a master of fence, and while the latter practises the most scientific attitude and has his rapier poised according to the figures of the science, he is infinitely surprised to have it seized in mid-air by the naked hand of his antagonist, and himself run through the body. Notsecundum artum, but a most efficient way of concluding the combat. Of the open and best school of diplomacy, Franklin at the French court was a fair representative, the very opposite of Jay. The philosopher of Pennsylvania has never been justly measured as a diplomatist; he had been successful beyond all other American envoys; he was now the Bismarck of the diplomatic collection at Paris, although he unhappily gave way to the leadership of Jay.
In the negotiations for peace that ensued, Mr. Jay, leading more or less willingly the other commissioners, was soon over head and ears in an intrigue with the English ministry; acting on that lowest supposition of tyroism in diplomacy—that the other party must necessarily design a fraud, and that a counter-fraud must be prepared to meet it. Congress had instructed that there should be made "the most candid and confidential communications upon all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the King of France"; and it took occasion to give a remarkable expression of gratitude to France, its resolutions declaring "how much we rely on his majesty's influence for effectual support in everything that may be necessary to the present security or future prosperity of the United States of America." Mr. Jay, who had taken the lead in the negotiations, willingly followed by Adams, "dragging in Franklin," and resisted to some extent by Laurens proceeded deliberately to violate these instructions. He had conceived the suspicion that France was secretly hostile to an early acknowledgment of the independence of America, and wished to postpone it until she had extorted objects of her own from the dependence of her ally. It is now known that this suspicion was wholly imaginary. But Mr. Jay and his colleagues acted upon it, and were twisted around the fingers of the English ministry to the extent of treating with them, without giving the French government knowledge of the steps and progress of the negotiation, thus contributing to the adroit purpose of England to sow distrust in the alliance that had humbled her. While the American commissioners were professing to the French minister that negotiations were yet at a distance, they had actually signed the provisional articles of a treaty of peace with the crown of Great Britain. Worse than this, they had agreed to asecretarticle, which stipulated a more favorable northern boundary for Florida, in the event of its conquest by the arms of Great Britain, than if it should remain in the possession of Spain at the termination of the war. Spain was at that time an ally of France; and so it may be imagined how the latter would be embarrassed by this secret article, and how England might meditate in it an advantage in disturbing the understanding of France and America.
Mr. Jay, unconscious that he had been made a catspaw of British diplomacy, felicitated himself that he had made an excellent bargain and done an acute thing; possessed as he was with that fatuity of all deceivers, that omits to calculate the time when the deception must necessarilybecome known. When the game that had been played upon its ally became known to Congress, it plunged that body into the most painful embarrassment. Mr. Madison, in his diary of the proceedings of Congress, thus records its impressions: "The separate and secret manner in which our ministers had proceeded with respect to France, and the confidential manner with respect to the British ministers, affected different members of Congress differently. Many of the most judicious members thought they had all been in some measure ensnared by the dexterity of the British minister, and particularly disapproved of the conduct of Mr. Jay in submitting to the enemy his jealousy of the French, without even the knowledge of Dr. Franklin, and of the unguarded manner in which he, Mr. Adams, and Dr. Franklin had given, in writing, sentiments unfriendly to our ally, and serving as weapons for the insidious policy of the enemy. The separate article was most offensive, being considered as obtained by Great Britain, not for the sake of the territory ceded to her, but as a means of disuniting the United States and France, as inconsistent with the spirit of the alliance, and as a dishonorable departure from the candor, rectitude, and plain dealing professed by Congress."
Congress did not extricate itself from the dilemma; it could not do it. Suppression of what had been done could not be continued; still less was it possible to make explanations to France; the only thing to do was to say nothing, and to let the painful exposure work itself out. The King of France had acted with an openness and an attention to his allies, the contrasts of which made the exposure one of great bitterness and shame. The Count de Vergennes had assured the American commissioners: "The king has been resolved that all his allies should be satisfied, being determined to continue the war, whatever advantages may be offered to him, if England is disposed to wrong any of them." Now, when the articles were brought into council to be signed, the French monarch could not be other than surprised and indignant. He put royal restraint upon his speech; but he could not forbear saying, with a bluntness that must have bruised American pride, and staggered the self-felicitations of Mr. Jay, that "he did not think he had such allies to deal with."
The court of France sustained the insult with dignity, and yet with evidence of a deep sense of wrong. When inquiry was made whether expostulations would be made to the American Congress, the reply of M. Marbois was heroic: "A great nation," he answered, "does not complain; but it feels and remembers."
In order to understand the events which have lately taken place in Geneva, and those that are preparing there, it is necessary to cast a general glance over the past and present state of the Catholic religion in that little commonwealth.
Most people know what Geneva was prior to the French Revolution: an independent state, separate from the Swiss Cantons, reduced by Calvinism to an aristocratic theocracy, and shorn of those ancient democratic franchises which it had enjoyed before breaking away from Rome. The dominant principle in its customs and legislation was fear and hatred of the proscribed worship. A minute and jealous care was taken to repress the expansion of Catholicism—one exhibition of which was seen in the strict closing of the city gates on the grand festivals of the church, and the fine of ten crowns imposed on those who held intercourse with the Bishop of Annecy on the occasion of his pastoral visits. Under these circumstances, only a small number of Catholics clung with heroic constancy to the ancient faith, and secretly practised their religious duties in the recesses of their houses. There were in 1759 but two hundred and twenty-seven Catholics in Geneva—and in this number even Voltaire and his hangers-on were included.
It was the French Revolution that forced open the gates, up to that period so carefully closed, of this Protestant Rome. Geneva became under the Empire a French department, and the Catholic religion in the persons of the imperial functionaries was officially recognized. Permission to erect a church was granted; but this first move toward a less hostile attitude was not taken without the bitterest opposition from the old Protestant party. In the remodelling of Europe, after Napoleon's downfall, it was found desirable to provide against the absorption of Geneva by uniting it to the Swiss Confederation; but in order to overcome the difficulties of geographical position, and make such an acquisition of territory acceptable to Berne, it became necessary to join to Geneva certain strips of land from the Catholic districts of Gex and Savoy. The Genevans, who looked with dread upon this annexation, strove to assure in any case their own supremacy, but the Catholics found defenders in diplomatic circles, and their cause was protected by the several treaties of Paris, Vienna, and Turin (1814-1816). In virtue of these, all civil and political rights were guaranteed to the new citizens, the Catholic religion was recognized, its exercise in Geneva permitted, religious freedom solemnly pledged to the annexed populations, and the expenses of their public worship assumed by the state.
At this period the Catholics were not over a third of the whole canton; but they rapidly increased, less, indeed, through conversions than by immigration. In 1834, there were 25,000 Protestants and 18,000 Catholics. What was the attitude of the Genevan government then? Power was still in the hands of the oldProtestant aristocracy—the strongest and only organized party, and a singular admixture of good qualities and defects. The patrician of Geneva was, indeed, a strange and now fast-disappearing type. Living in his old town surrounded by ramparts, and in his old society even more stringently closed, clad in sombre colors, speaking little and laughing less, vain, stiff in his manners, with a stony cast of countenance, he was devoid of generous sympathy and largeness of heart, without, however, being altogether incapable of a certain pecuniary liberality; benign to his clients, implacable to rivals, marking out in everything a conventional line, and merciless to the one who should cross it; a man of letters, but an enemy to literary liberty, the friend of order, respecting traditions, an ardent patriot, but of a narrow and exclusive patriotism, he was attached more to his caste and party than to his country. Often sincerely pious, this Genevan gentleman of the old school was sometimes a hypocrite and Pharisee; a formalist himself, he was quick to cast the first stone at the transgressors of the law. But what was strongest in this class of men was the Protestant sentiment in its most odious and intolerant shape. Having seen with displeasure the annexation of the Catholic districts, and agreed very unwillingly to the religious liberty insured by treaty, this party found it hard to extinguish its traditional spirit of bigotry. Every movement of vitality on the part of Catholics excited distrust, and looked like a revolt; and proceeding to open acts, it struck successively at the liberty of instruction, the freedom of the pulpit, and the right of endowment. The attempt to enforce civil marriage failed only when Sardinia threatened to intervene. Catholics were eyed with disfavor, and of the thousand servants of the government, only fifty-nine belonged to their creed. Finally, if Protestants were obliged to endure the official existence of the Roman Church, it seemed to them quite proper to try and make it a state affair. They obtained from the Pope in 1819 the transfer of jurisdiction over Geneva from the Archbishop of Chambéry to the Bishop of Lausanne—their secret object being to subject the Catholic clergy to the direct influence of government, through the dependence on the state to which the bishops of Switzerland had long been accustomed, and in particular by using the conciliatory and somewhat weak character of Monseigneur de Lausanne.
In fact, an agreement was drawn up with the bishop, by which the civil power was permitted to interfere in the nomination of pastors, exact from them an oath, publish and circulate episcopal charges. Soon after, a law made theplacetobligatory for all documents emanating from the diocesan or papal authorities. A few official honors and some pecuniary advantages were the only compensation made to Catholics for the prejudice done their liberty. These, however, struggled perseveringly against all exertions to enthrall them, and continued in spite of every difficulty to increase and gain strength. This success they owed chiefly to their courageous pastor, the Abbé Vuarin, "an admirable man for a conflict," as his friend Lamennais used to say of him: one whose indefatigable industry, fearlessness, and devotion to duty made every sacrifice light. He travelled Europe in the interests of his flock, and Turin, Berne, Paris, Munich, Rome, heard him defend their cause. He had friends in all places, and corresponded with popes, kings, and the great men of his day; and, during the continual hostilitieswhich he carried on against Protestants, wrote some severe things, for the most part anonymously, but other times under his own name, wherein the only subject of regret is too great fieriness and irony. He used to watch the ballot-boxes while reciting his breviary, which drew from M. de Maistre the remark, "When I see his way of working, it recalls the success of the apostles." M. Vuarin had said, "A priest who is named pastor at Geneva should go, should remain, and should end there"; and, true to his own word, he died there, parish priest, in 1843, having been appointed under the Empire. Before his time, it was only now and then that a cassock ventured to appear in Geneva: at his funeral, two bishops, two hundred priests, and thousands of Catholic laymen defiled through the streets of the old Protestant city.
It turned out, however, that Catholic progress only irritated the intolerant spirit of opposition, and at the centennial jubilee of the Reformation, in 1835, the inflamed passions of the multitude broke out in insults and deeds of violence against the faith of the minority. The Protestant Union, a sort of secret society, was formed to sustain and encourage exclusivism and anti-Catholic feelings; and when a collective address, signed by the clergy of Geneva, denounced the movement to the bishop, the council of state, in retaliation, refused to admit the nomination of any priest who should not have expressed regret for appending his name to the paper. At M. Vuarin's death, Geneva was for several years deprived of the ministrations of his successor, M. Marilley, who had been arrested by the public officers and conducted to the frontier. Such, in 1846, was the position of the church: misunderstood in her spirit, the full measure of her rights withheld, strong only in the energy of her defenders. Then a political change took place, which considerably modified the situation.
In the plain on the other side of the Rhone, facing the steep hill whereon are the dwellings of the Genevan aristocracy, along which are drawn out the narrow streets of the old town, and on the summit of which rise the city hall and St. Peter's church—that Acropolis of Calvinism—extends the democratic and laboring suburb ofSaint Gervais. Here for several years a work had been going on whose gravity the ruling class of Geneva did not comprehend. A radical and demagogical party, intimately connected with the revolutionists of other countries, was being organized. Its newspapers, pamphlets, and the affair of "Young Italy" in 1836 revealed its boldness and vigorous action. On the occasion of the Sonderbund disturbances in 1846, the radicals got excited, the Faubourg St. Gervais rose in tumult, and after a sanguinary struggle the conservatives were put down, the old town was occupied by the victorious workmen, and the power of the state passed into the hands of the leaders of the insurrection—M. Fazy and his friends. The extinction of the ancient oligarchy was known to be their object. Catholics had kept aloof from this conflict, feeling little sympathy with the revolutionary passions of the radicals, whose pretext, moreover, for rising had been the aid extended by the Genevan government to their co-religionists of the Sonderbund. But when once in power, the new party, more astute than its predecessor, understood the importance of the Catholic element when it came to a question of votes.
M. Fazy, although ultra in politics,had no religious prejudices, and, neither Catholic nor Protestant, all he cared for was to bring about the ruin of the Calvinist aristocracy. In so much (as the Bishop of Lausanne observed in 1849), he was acting to the advantage of Catholics. After the radicals had destroyed the ramparts of the old town, Geneva began rapidly to change appearance: entirely new quarters were soon laid out, strangers came in large numbers, and the Catholic population visibly increased with the immigration. In 1850, the canton counted 34,212 Protestants and 29,764 Catholics; ten years later, the figures stood 42,099 of the latter to 40,069 of the former.
The radicals had the good sense also to respect the liberty of Catholics; they gave them ground to build another church on, and in the central part of the new districts, hard by the railway-station, a Gothic edifice, which people used to call the cathedral-citadel—the temple of liberty—was erected. Thus little by little the two classes were drawn together, despite so many profound differences. The conservatives themselves contributed to this, for the concessions to Catholics were their chief point of opposition; and in the next electoral campaign they took for rallying-cry, "Fazy sold to the papists." Thereupon it became a necessity, if Catholics would keep their rights, to vote with the radicals; they did so in 1855, and the conservatives were utterly defeated. Things remained in this state until 1860, the government continuing to respect Catholic liberty; the bishop also was allowed to return to Geneva, and Fazy ably defended him against the narrow prejudices of a few friends. When the church of Our Lady was finished, the consecration sermon was preached by the eloquent mouth of the man who to-day exercises over the faithful of Geneva, although with different qualities, the influence that M. Vuarin once had. This was the Abbé Mermillod. Untrammelled by attachments either to person or party, clever, firm, yet pacific, uniting to the authority of virtue all the charms of talent and character, his liberal ideas no one could gainsay, and his devotion to the church the Holy Father has on more than one occasion publicly recognized. Nevertheless, if the rule of the radicals was in some respects profitable to Catholics, it was baneful to them on more than one account. The sources of moral and intellectual corruption were multiplied in the canton; freemasonry received the same concessions as religion; the professorships in the academy were bestowed upon the enemies of every form of Christianity; and all the while an active proselytism was spreading immoral sentiments and infidelity among the people. In this state of affairs, the opposition daily waxed stronger, and after fifteen years of administration, the radicals were defeated (1861) by the conservatives, rejuvenated and transformed into an independent party.