determination, continues, owing to inertia, without need of continuing the
action, so that, if all further action were to cease, the moving matter,
owing to its inertia, would persevere in its movement for ever.

Moreover, whence does the passivity and whence does the inertia of matter
proceed? Matter is passive, because its substantial term, whose reality
entirely depends on actuation, is still actuable or potential with regard
to accidental acts. Passivity is therefore nothing but the further
actuability of the substantial term; whilst, on the contrary, matter is
inert, because its substantial act and its substantial term are so related
to one another that the motive power possessed by the former can never
terminate its action to the latter; for this is the only reason why a
material element cannot modify the determinations which it receives from
without. Hence inertia is nothing but the result of the special relation
intervening between the principle of activity and the principle of
passivity in the constitution of material substance; or, in other terms,
inertia is a corollary of the essential correlation of form and matter,
and, therefore, is to be traced, not, as passivity, to the essential term
of the substance, but to its essential complement. This shows that, in the
phrase _matter is inert_, the word "matter" stands for the material
substance itself, and not for _the_ matter, or potential term, which is
under the substantial form, and whose character is passivity.

The question we have here discussed may seem of very little importance;
yet we had to give its solution, not only because the confusion of
distinct notions is a source of difficulties and sophisms, but also
because the given solution confirms the necessity of admitting the
essential complement as the third principle of real being, and because in
spiritual substances there is passivity, though not inertia; which shows
how indispensable is our duty of distinguishing between the two.

From the preceding remarks we infer also that inertia belongs to the
essence of material substance, not, however, as a constituent principle,
but only as something implied in the nature of its constituent principles.
As it is impossible to alter the nature of such principles without
destroying the essence of matter, so also it is impossible for matter to
cease to be inert so long as its essence remains unchanged. In a word,
_non-inert matter_ is a metaphysical impossibility.

Lastly, we may add that inertia does not admit of degrees; and therefore
all material elements are equally inert. In fact, when we say that matter
is inert, we mean, as has been explained, that material substance is
entirely and absolutely incapable of imparting motion to itself. Now,
absolute incapacity is perfect incapacity, and does not admit of degrees.
Hence we may find in different bodies more or less of inert matter, but
not more or less of inertia. This is true also of the passivity of matter;
that is, we may find in different bodies more or less of passive matter,
but not more or less of passivity; for passivity, as consisting in an
absolute liability to accidental actuation, cannot admit of degrees.

_A few conclusions._--It may be useful, and may prove satisfactory to our
readers, to cast a glance over the ground we have trodden and the results
so far reached. The sum and substance of the doctrine which we have
endeavored to establish is contained in the following propositions:

I. Matter is not continuous, nor divisible _in infinitum_, nor has it any
intrinsic quantity connected in any manner with its essential
constitution.

II. All bodies are ultimately made up of primitive elements, physically
simple and unextended, which being reached, the physical division of
bodies cannot go further.

III. The primordial molecules, or so-called "atoms," of all substances are
so many systems of simple elements dynamically bound with one another by
mutual action.

IV. The continuous extension, or geometric quantity, usually predicated of
bodies, is the extension of the place comprised within the extreme limits
of each body. It is, in other terms, the extension of the volume, not of
the matter. Nevertheless, such an extension may be called "material," not
only because the terms of its dimensions are material, but also because in
most bodies the elements and the molecules are so close that their action
on our senses produces the appearance of material continuity.

V. The extension of bodies is real, though their material continuity is
merely apparent; hence only the volumes of bodies, and not their masses,
can be properly styled _extended_.

VI. The true _absolute_ mass of a body is the number of primitive elements
it contains.

VII. The primitive elements are of two kinds, some of them always and
everywhere attractive, others always and everywhere repulsive. The matter,
however, is the same in both kinds, and bears the same relation to its
form, whether this be of an attractive or of a repulsive nature.

VIII. There are no other powers in the primitive elements than that of
attracting and that of repelling.

IX. All primitive elements have a sphere of activity, throughout which
they constantly act according to the Newtonian law--that is, in the inverse
ratio of the squared distances, even when the distance is molecular; and
no distance, however great, can be designated where the action of an
element will not have a finite intensity.

X. The active power of primitive elements cannot be exerted in the
immediate contact of matter with matter, distance being an essential
condition of all locomotive actions.

XI. The elementary power acts immediately on all distant matter throughout
its sphere, independently of any material medium of transmission or
communication. Movement, however, cannot be propagated without a material
medium.

XII. The term _from which_ the action of any given element is directed,
and the term _in which_ the same element receives the motion caused by
other elements, is one and the same, viz., the real centre of its sphere
of activity; and it is called _the matter_. The act from which such a
centre receives its first existence is called _the substantial form_; and
it has a spherical character, inasmuch as it constitutes a virtual
indefinite sphere.

XIII. The essence of a primitive element of matter is by no means a
mystery. The essential definition of such an element is "a substance fit
to cause and to receive mere local motion."

XIV. Inertia is an essential property of material substance, no less than
activity and passivity. Inertia admits of no degrees.

XV. The so-called "force of inertia" is neither the inertia itself nor any
special motive power; but it merely expresses a certain exercise of the
elementary powers dependent on the inertia of the matter acted on; for
bodies, on account of their inertia, cannot leave their place before they
have received in all their parts a suitable velocity. Hence while such a
velocity is being communicated to a body, the body which is acted on
cannot yield its place to the impinging body; and consequently, during the
struggle of two bodies, the one which impinges loses a quantity of
movement equal to that which it imparts to the mass impinged upon. The
loss of movement in the impinging body is therefore caused, not by the
inertia of the body impinged upon, but by its elementary powers as
exercised by it during the reception of the momentum.

The foregoing conclusions, as every attentive reader must have noticed,
have been drawn from nothing but known facts and received principles; we
may therefore consider them as fully established. The more so as we have
taken care to examine both sides of each question, and have given not only
such direct proofs of each conclusion as would suffice to convince all
unprejudiced minds, but also every objection that we have been able to
find against our own views, and have thus found the opportunity of
confirming, by our answers to the same, the truth of the doctrine
propounded. There may be other objections which did not occur to our mind;
yet it is likely that their solution will need no new considerations
besides those already developed in the preceding pages. Should any other
difficulty occur to the reader which cannot be answered by those
considerations, we would earnestly entreat him to propound it to us, that
we may try its strength. We are always glad to hear a new objection
against what we hold to be true. For objections either can or cannot be
solved. If they can, their solution will throw a new light on the doctrine
we defend; and if they cannot, their insolubility will show us some weak
point, or at least some impropriety of our language, and will thus cause
us to correct our expressions or modify our opinions. Whatever helps us to
regard things under some new point of view is calculated to enlarge our
conceptions, to make our language clearer and more precise, and to
strengthen our philosophical convictions. Those alone need to be afraid of
objections who draw their conclusions from arbitrary hypotheses, instead
of established truths.

We conclude the present article with a short answer to a question, which
has often been raised by timorous people, concerning what may be styled
the cardinal point of our doctrine on matter-viz., the _simplicity_ of
material elements. The question is the following: If we admit that the
elements of matter are physically simple, is there not a serious danger of
setting at naught the essential difference between the spiritual and the
material substance, and are we not drifting thus into materialism?

We reply that no such danger needs to be apprehended. For it is not true
that physical simplicity constitutes the essential difference between
spirit and matter. Every primitive being is physically simple; and yet it
does not follow that all primitive beings belong to the same species. On
the other hand, spirit and matter, notwithstanding their physical
simplicity, evidently belong to different species. The element of matter
is inert--that is, though acting all around itself, it cannot exercise its
activity within itself; whereas the spiritual substance exercises its
activity within as well as without itself, and continually modifies its
own interior state by its vital operations. Again, the element of matter
is ubicated in space, and marks a local point, from which it directs its
action in a sphere; whereas the spiritual substance neither marks a local
point in space nor acts in a sphere, but determines both the direction and
the intensity of its action as it pleases. Moreover, the element of matter
has nothing but locomotive power; whereas the spiritual substance
possesses not only the locomotive, but also, and principally, the thinking
and the willing powers, by which it vastly transcends all material being.
This suffices to show that spirit and matter, though physically simple,
have an entirely different metaphysical constitution--that is, a different
substantial act, a different substantial term, and a different substantial
complement. Hence the simplicity of the material element does not set at
naught the essential difference between matter and spirit.

Those whose metaphysical notions about material substance still hang upon
the physics of the ancients will be loath to admit that our unextended
element can be physically simple; for they have been taught to believe
that wherever there is matter and form, there is _physical_ composition.
But such a notion is evidently wrong; for where in the element are the
_physical_ components, without which physical composition is impossible?
Can we say that the matter and the substantial form are _physical_
components? Certainly not; for the form without the matter cannot exist,
nor can the matter exist without the form. Both are absolutely required
for the constitution of the _primitive_ physical being. How, then, can
they be conceived as physical beings, if no physical being can be
conceived before their meeting in one essence and in a common existence? A
physical compound is a compound whose components have a distinct and
independent existence in nature; for physical beings alone can be physical
components, and nothing which has not a distinct and independent existence
in nature can be called a physical being, except by an abuse of terms. The
physical being is a complete being--that is, an act materially completed by
its intrinsic term, and formally completed by its individual actuality.
All beings that are incomplete, and whose existence depends on other
cognate beings, are no more than _metaphysical_ realities. Hence the
substantial form of the element, which has no separate existence, is not a
physical, but only a metaphysical, being; and in the same manner, the
matter to which that form gives the first existence is not a physical, but
only a metaphysical, reality. Whence it follows that the composition of
matter and substantial form is not a physical, but only a metaphysical,
composition; and, further, that the primitive element is indeed a
metaphysical, but not a physical, compound.

On this subject we shall have more to say when explaining the peripatetic
theory of substantial generations, which assumes that the substantial form
can be changed without changing the matter. It is on this assumption that
the physical distinction between matter and form has been maintained. We
shall prove in the most irrefragable manner that the assumption is based
on an equivocation about the meaning of the epithet "substantial" as
applied to natural forms, and that no form which is truly and strictly
substantial--that is, which gives the first being to its matter--can leave
its matter and be subrogated by another substantial form.

To Be Continued.

Robespierre. Concluded.

We know how the son of S. Louis passed his last hours on earth; let us see
how the men who sentenced him--against their consciences--prepared for that
solemn passage. One, named Valazé, on hearing the sentence, stabbed
himself, and fell dead in the court; he was dragged back with the others
to prison. The remaining twenty-one passed their death-vigil in riotous
singing and drinking and making merry; in improvising a comedy where
Robespierre and the devil conversed in hell; the dead Valazé meanwhile
lying in his blood in the same room. Vergniaud, who so hesitated to vote
"death" for the king, is now bent on escaping the block by poisoning
himself; but he has only poison enough for one, so he throws away the
dose, too generous to desert his companions in their last journey. They
will all go together; so, after a night of bacchanalian shouting and
carousing, they all set forth in the fatal tumbrel; even dead Valazé is
flung in to have his head cut off, that the guillotine may not be done out
of its prey. They jolt on, singing the _Marseillaise_ and crying Vive la
République. One by one the heads fall, the chorus grows weaker, and at
last ceases to be heard. The Girondists are gone. Robespierre is King of
the Revolution now, and reigns supreme over its destinies. Now let him
prove what truth there is in the plea put forth by his apologists that he
was only cruel from necessity, from the pressure put upon him by his
fellow-demagogues. His accession to undivided responsibility was, on the
contrary, the signal for greater slaughter, and we see the number of
victims swelling in proportion to the growth of his individual power. Look
at the lists of the _Moniteur_. In July, 1793, there were thirteen persons
condemned by the revolutionary tribunal of Paris, and in July of the
following year the number sent by it to the guillotine was eight hundred
and thirty-five!

But this system of legal assassination was beginning to recoil on the head
of its inventor. The murder of the Girondists was an impolitic act that
Robespierre soon repented of. He had made a precedent in attacking the
representatives of the nation, hitherto inviolate; and now that the
longing for vengeance was satisfied, he was clear-sighted enough to
perceive what the cost was likely to be. He had sacrificed his rivals, but
he had imperilled his own head. From this day forward he seemed haunted by
the shadow of coming retribution. He had poured out the blood of those who
stood beside him, and now he was slipping in it; his footing was no longer
secure; the words "assassination," "victim of the poignard of revenge,"
etc., etc., were continually on his lips, and there is evidence that his
life was poisoned by the constant dread of being murdered by some of the
friends of his victims. Those who had hitherto aided and abetted his
atrocities now began to look with suspicion and terror on him; even Danton
tried to back out of the partnership, and to talk of "the joys of private
life" in a way that suggested he had had enough of the glories of public
life. He had just married a young and beautiful woman, whose influence was
said to have already exercised a humanizing effect on his ferocious
nature. She had brought him independence, too, so there was every
inducement to him to quit the shambles, and leave Robespierre there alone
in his glory. He withdrew from the Public Safety Committee, and ceased
almost altogether to attend the meetings of the Convention. Robespierre
understood this significant change. He saw his accomplices were deserting
him, and he trembled. The Revolution, Saturn-like, was devouring her own
children; why should not the hunters be devoured by their own dogs? Every
one was falling away from the tyrant. Camille Desmoulins and Hébert,
lately his devoted friends, were gathering up a rival faction dubbed
Ultra-Revolutionists, and, aided by Hébert's abominable newspaper, _Père
Duchêsne_, they and their followers set to work to hunt down the popular
idol. Robespierre was known to harbor a sneaking prejudice in favor of
some sort of religion, and once even openly declared his opinion that some
such institution was necessary for governing with effect. The Ultras used
this admission as a means of insulting him, and at the same time weakening
his prestige. They got hold of an unfortunate, half-witted man named
Gobel, an apostate priest, dressed him up as an archbishop, and,
surrounded by a crowd of mock priests and prelates, they led him, riding
on an ass, to the Convention; here he made a burlesque and blasphemous
abjuration of his former state and belief, and solemnly pronounced the
_Credo_ of atheism, and the worship of the goddess Reason. The law-givers,
thereupon, amidst the frantic enthusiasm of the crowd, decreed that "God
and all superstition were abolished," and the worship of Reason
substituted in their place. A monstrous ceremony was at once organized to
celebrate the new religion: an actress was carried to the cathedral of
Notre Dame, dressed--or undressed--as the goddess of this adoption,
enthroned on the consecrated altar of the living God, while the populace
passed before her in adoration. The walls of the sacred temple re-echoed
to the hymn of liberty, the _Marseillaise_, and were profaned with horrors
that no Christian pen may retrace. Similar scenes were enacted in the
other churches. Venerable old S. Eustache was turned into a fair; tables
were spread with sausages, pork-puddings, herrings, and bottles; children
were forced to sing songs and give toasts, and to drink to the half-naked
goddess; and when the little ones--the precious little ones of Jesus--got
drunk, there was huge merriment amongst the spectators.

The shrine of S. Geneviève was torn down and desecrated. The tombs of the
kings of France at S. Denis were broken open, and the ashes scattered
abroad with every species of insult. The _Moniteur_ thus describes the
spectacle the streets of Paris presented during the Festival of Reason:
"Most of the people were drunk with the brandy they had swallowed out of
Chalices--eating mackerel on the Patens!... They stopped at the doors of
dramshops, held out Ciboriums, and the landlord, stoop in hand, had to
fill them thrice." Other things are recorded of this demoniacal saturnalia
which had best be left unsaid--if happily they be yet unknown to Catholic
hearts.

The provinces followed suit. Lyons sacked her churches, and drove a mitred
ass through her streets, trailing the sacred volumes at his tail. The
Loire was polluted with drowned bodies of priests. At Nantes ninety
priests are embarked at dead of night under hatches; in the middle of the
stream the boat is scuttled, and goes down with her human cargo. These are
the _noyades_. Then follow others of more than a hundred at a time. Oh!
these priests, these men of the Gospel of Christ, at any cost they must be
got rid of! The guillotine is too slow; let us have fire and water to the
rescue! So there are the fusillades; men, women, priests, and nuns fall
under the showers of grapeshot as fast as they can be gathered and ranged
in line--mothers with infants at their breasts, children clinging to one
another--five hundred at a batch they go. The mother Revolution herself is
turning sick of it. Robespierre alone shows no signs of squeamishness;
but, whether from sagacity or some latent moral--perhaps even
religious--instinct, he repudiated the sacrilegious excesses which
inaugurated and followed the installation of the new goddess. He saw, too,
that it was an arrow pointed at himself. He denounced Hébert at the
Jacobin Club, ridiculed his new-fangled divinity, and declared that if
"God did not exist, a wise law-giver would have invented him." Hébert
winced; Camille Desmoulins started the _Vieux Cordelier_, and began to
broach the doctrine of clemency and the savage stupidity of useless blood-
shedding. Never since the Revolution began had such theories been hinted
at. The country was growing nauseated with wholesale butcheries; the
daring words of the _Vieux Cordelier_ were heard with wonder and welcomed
with deep though silent applause. Robespierre might have tolerated the
humane doctrines of the newspaper, if it had abstained from personal
aggression; but Desmoulins used his weapon of sarcasm unsparingly against
the tyrant, on one occasion twitting him, half facetiously, with his
aristocratic origin, as proved by the discarded _de_ formerly prefixed to
his name. Robespierre grew pale--paler than his usual sea-green hue--on
reading this, and Desmoulins' doom was sealed. Hébert went first; he, with
nineteen of the faction, perished in one hour on the scaffold, in March,
1794. Ten days later Camille and Danton fell. It is yet a mystery why
Danton was thus quickly sacrificed; he was apparently on good terms with
Robespierre, and had pointed no witticisms at him like the editor of the
_Vieux Cordelier_. The tyrant himself gives no explanation in his long-
winded speeches on the hard necessity which compelled him "to sacrifice
private friendship to the good of the country," and so on. But whatever
the motive may have been, the act drew upon its perpetrator the aversion
and contempt of those who till then had been his staunchest followers and
supporters. Every one was terrified for his own head. Danton's fall seemed
to bring the axe to every man's door. Robespierre was now alone, more
terribly alone than the lost traveller in the desert. His fellows shunned
him, or shuddered when he passed. He lived in perpetual fear of being
assassinated, though it is doubtful whether any attempt was ever made on
his life. Several were trumped up with a view to uplifting his tottering
popularity; but though the accused persons were guillotined with great
pomp and _éclat_, the proofs of their intended crime were extremely
doubtful. A last expedient yet remained.

Robespierre would re-establish the existence of God, and thus be a prophet
as well as a king. He decreed, accordingly, a great meeting which should
atone for Hébert's Feast of Reason and annihilate its brief triumph. It
was to take place in the Tuileries gardens. Robespierre, while working the
axe so assiduously, never bespattered himself with the blood of his
instrument. In a time when _sans-culottism_ made dirt and Bohemian gear
the fashion, he remained a dandy, powdered and frizzled in the midst of
legislators who prided themselves on dirty hands and begrimed linen. For
this gala-day of his new religion he ordered a fine sky-blue silk coat,
white-silk waistcoat embroidered with silver, white stockings, and gold
shoe-buckles. Thus equipped, the Prophet of the Mountain sallied forth to
patronize the Omnipotent and decree the existence of a Supreme Being. He
ascended the rostrum with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, made a fulsome
discourse in a vein of sentimental deism, and then proceeded to unveil the
effigy of atheism, a hideous caricature, made of paste-board, besmeared
with turpentine and other inflammable stuffs, to which he applied a
lighted torch. The flame leaped up, and Atheism, amidst shouts and
cracklings, burned itself to dust; then from the ashes rose up another
effigy, the statue of Wisdom, supposed to symbolize the new religion, but
sorrily smutted and begrimed by the subsiding smoke of Atheism. No wonder
Billaud should exclaim, "Get thee gone! Thou art a bore, thyself and thy
_Etre Suprême_."

O merciful God! may heaven and earth praise thee, and all the creatures
therein, for thou art verily a God of love, long suffering and patient!

And now that Robespierre has duly installed his _Etre Suprême_, and
decreed, moreover, "that consoling principle, the immortality of the
soul," and obliterated from the graves of murdered citizens the hitherto
obligatory inscription, "Death is an eternal sleep," what is there left
for him to do? Nothing, apparently, but to go on killing. The
revolutionary tribunal must be made to work with greater speed, and so it
is split into four fractions, each with its president, and empowered to
try and condemn as fast as it can. Even the Mountain quaked when this
proposition was uttered at its base; but the law was carried, and
henceforth the guillotine quadruples its business. Fouquier-Tinville sets
up one of "improved velocity," and boasts of being able to make room for a
batch of one hundred and fifty at one time. He wants to establish one in
the Tuileries itself, but Collot protests that this would "demoralize the
instrument." It did not matter, apparently, how much the instrument
demoralized the people. These sit at their windows watching for the
tumbrels to pass, criticising the occupants, joking and enjoying
themselves. Women fight for seats near the scaffold, where day after day
they sit knitting, counting off the heads, as they fall, by the prick of a
pin in a bit of card-board. These are the "furies of the guillotine."

But to make the new law, called _22me Prairial_, more fully available, it
was necessary to provide extra work for the executioners. Fouquier-
Tinville was equal to the occasion. He got up an accusation against the
occupants of the prisons for "conspiring against the Convention." Let us
cast a glance into these prisons, where, at this crisis, twelve thousand
human beings lie literally _rotting_ to death. The memoirs of the time
agree in describing the twelve houses of arrest (the original prisons had
long since been increased to that number) as dens of noisome horror never
equalled in any other clime or period. Noble dames, maidens of tender
years, were huddled pell-mell with the worst and most wretched of their
sex; nobles and shoe-blacks, priests and ruffians, nuns and actresses,
crowded by day and night into the condemned cells, where every night the
turnkey came and read his list for the morrow's "batch." Then followed
scenes such as no pen or painter's brush could adequately describe. "Men
rush towards the grate; listen if their name be in it; ... one deep-drawn
breath when it is not. We live still one day! And yet some score or scores
of names were in. Quick these; they clasp their loved ones to their heart
one last time. With brief adieu, wet-eyed or dry-eyed, they mount and are
away. This night to the _Conciergerie_; through the palace, misnamed of
Justice, to the guillotine to-morrow." These were the persons whom
Tinville's ready wit accused of getting up a plot to overthrow the
Convention! But what did it signify whether the story was an impossibility
as well as a lie? The four tribunals must have work, the guillotine must
have food. In three days--the 7th, 9th, and 10th of July--one hundred and
seventy-one prisoners were executed on the charge of conspiring from the
depth of their squalid dungeons to overturn the state. So much did the
newly-discovered _Etre Suprême_ do towards softening the rule of
Robespierre.

But, oh! are we not sick of the ghastly tale? It is now hurrying to a
close.

Barère, one of the fiercest of the revolutionary gang who had so far
escaped the guillotine, gave a bachelor's dinner at a suburban villa on a
warm day in July, Robespierre being among the guests. The weather was
intensely hot, and the company, unshackled by stiff conventionalities,
threw off their coats, and sauntered out to sip their coffee under the
trees in easy _déshabillé_. Carnot wanted his pocket-handkerchief, and
went indoors to fetch it. While looking for his own coat he espied
Robespierre's fantastic sky-blue garment, and, prompted by a sudden
thought, put his hand into the pockets, wondering if any secret might be
lurking there. What were his feelings on discovering a list of forty names
told off for the guillotine, his own amongst the number! He carried off
the paper, showed it discreetly to his friends, and they agreed that
Robespierre must be made away with. Two days later he appears at the
Convention, and is met by dark faces that scowl when he ascends the
tribune, and show no docile acquiescence when he speaks. Terror for their
own lives has at last stirred these dull, brutalized accomplices to raise
their voice and protest against the tyrant. He is impeached by common
acclamation. He defends himself in a passionate harangue, accusing Mr.
Pitt and King George of having bribed the Convention to arrest him, after
sowing calumnies against him in the minds of the people. The charges
against him were numerous and heavy; he answered them all with vehemence
and a certain wild, disjointed eloquence, and wound up by the following
denunciation: "No, _death is not an eternal sleep_! The nation will not
submit to a desperate and desolating doctrine that covers nature itself
with a funereal shroud; that deprives virtue of hope, and misfortune of
consolation, and insults even death itself. No; we will efface from our
tombs your sacrilegious epitaph, and replace it with the consoling truth,
'Death is the beginning of immortality!' " The speech produced an effect
on the Assembly, but it did not secure a real success. The next day Saint-
Just mounted the tribune to defend Robespierre; but he had hardly begun
his discourse when cries of "Down with the tyrant!" forced him to give it
up. Robespierre stood at his place, utterly abandoned by the members of
the Assembly, where twenty-four hours ago he ruled with despotic and
unrivalled sway. Not a voice was raised in his behalf. He strove to obtain
a hearing, but his words were drowned in shouts of "Away with him! down
with him!" He stood dumb and petrified at the sound of those words, bowed
his head, and slowly descended the steps of the tribune; suddenly he
looked up and cried, "Let me die, then, at once!" The younger Robespierre
advances and takes his brother's arm, asking to share the same fate with
him. This generous movement excites the Convention to still greater rage;
it yells and bellows, gesticulating like so many madmen. The president
puts on his hat, and calls for order; a temporary lull ensues. Robespierre
again tries to make himself heard, but his voice is again drowned in
shouts and hisses; he rushes up and down the steps and about the hall,
clenching his fist and breathing menaces that now fall powerless and are
met with taunts of triumphant hate. At last, over-mastered by his own
emotions, he drops into a chair. The arrest of the two brothers is voted
unanimously. The elder one endeavors to resist, but is seized and carried
forcibly down to the bar. In the midst of this stormy ebullition, one of
the deputies, seeing Robespierre unable to speak from the violence of his
rage and terror, cried out: "It is Danton's blood that is choking him!"
Stung by the taunt, Robespierre found breath and courage to retort,
"Danton! Is it Danton that you regret? Cowards! why did you not defend
him!" These spirited words were the last he ever uttered in public. He and
his brother were now removed in custody to a hall close by the Convention,
and with them Saint-Just, Couthon, and Lebas. It had been an arduous day's
work for the Convention, and it is not surprising that the deputies
"clamored for an adjournment, that they might repose themselves and dine";
for whether men live or die, legislators must dine. They were thoughtful
enough to remember that the five in custody would also like to dine, even
for the last time; so the guilty deputies had a good dinner provided for
them, and immediately after were transferred to separate prisons:
Robespierre to the Luxembourg, his brother to St. Lazare, Couthon to Port
Royal (dubbed Port _Libre_ since it had been turned into a prison!), Lebas
to Le Force, and Saint-Just _aux Ecossais_. Henriot, who commanded the
troops devoted to Robespierre, was seized in the act of attempting an
attack on the Convention, bound, and locked up in one of the courts. Two
bold friends of his rallied the soldiers, stormed the Convention, released
him, and placed him again at the head of his men. Meantime, the jailer of
the Luxembourg had refused to admit Robespierre, and the bailiffs had to
take him to the _Mairie_, where he was received with acclamations of
respect as the "father of the people." Henriot and his band by midnight
had set him and the other four deputies free, and they were installed at
the Hôtel de Ville, with a large body of soldiers drawn round the edifice
to protect them. But the Convention, on its side, had not been idle.
Barras was placed in command of all the troops that could be mustered, and
in company with twelve energetic leaders, at the head of the _gendarmerie_
and the artillery, marched on the Hôtel de Ville, dispersed Henriot's
troops, and penetrated into the building, where they found the five
deputies and captured them. The younger Robespierre flung himself out of a
window in a frantic effort to escape the more tragic death that was now a
certainty; he was picked up horribly mutilated, but with life enough yet
to realize the horrors of his position. Lebas, on hearing the _gendarmes_
battering on the door of the room, blew his brains out with a pistol.
Saint-Just was seized with a knife in his hand, which he was going to
plunge into his heart; he gave it up without a word, and allowed himself
to be bound. Couthon, who was nearly blind and half-paralyzed, being
powerless to offer the slightest resistance, was flung into a wheelbarrow
that chanced to be in the court-yard. Robespierre himself, the centre of
this group of suicides and murderers, attempted to cheat the guillotine as
Lebas had done; but either his cowardly hand trembled and betrayed his
will or was seized as he pulled the trigger, for the bullet went through
the cheek instead of through the forehead. The jaw was frightfully
fractured, and hung loose from the face, held on only by the flesh. Some
spectator had the humanity to help the unfortunate man to tie it up with a
handkerchief, and in this miserable plight he and his companions were
conveyed at about two o'clock in the morning to the Committee of Public
Safety. The official report of the day gives the following graphic
description of what then occurred: "Robespierre was brought in on a plank
... by several artillery-men and armed citizens. He was placed on the
table of the ante-chamber which adjoins that where the Committee holds its
sittings. A deal box, which contained some samples of the ammunition-bread
sent to the army _du Nord_, was put under his head by way of pillow. He
was for nearly an hour in a state of insensibility which made us think
that he was no more; but after an hour he opened his eyes. Blood was
running in abundance from the wound he had in the left lower jaw; the jaw
was broken, and a ball had gone through the cheek. His shirt was bloody.
He was without hat or neckcloth. He had on a sky-blue coat,(158) nankeen
breeches, white stockings hanging down at his heels.... At six in the
morning a surgeon who happened to be in the court-yard of the Tuileries
was called in to dress the wound. By way of precaution he first put a key
in Robespierre's mouth. He found the left jaw broken. He pulled out two or
three teeth, bandaged up the wound, and got a basin of water, which he
placed at his side." All this time no word was spoken by the wounded man;
not even a sigh escaped him when the teeth were being extracted, yet the
agony he endured must have been terrific. There he lay, a spectacle to
gods and men, in his sky-blue coat, a tiger caught in his own lair, barked
at and cursed and triumphed over by a band of wolves. Who could pity
him--he who had never known pity for man or woman? For more than twenty
hours he lay there in this mental and bodily torture. Once he made a sign
which was understood to express thirst. The burning fever of his wound had
parched him till he gasped for breath: but no one was so merciful as to
get him a glass of water. Vinegar and gall they gave him in abundance.
Many cursed him as the murderer of their kith and kin, and bade him drink
his own blood, if he was thirsty.

All this while the tocsin is ringing out the glad news to Paris. Crowds
rush out on the house-tops, and wave signals to the prisoners in the
_Conciergerie_ that the hour of deliverance is at hand. The prisoners
cannot understand; they think the tocsin is the signal for a new September
massacre. The word flies from cell to cell, and all fall on their knees
and prepare for instant death.

Others, too, are making ready for death, but not thus. The tumbrels jolt
up to the Convention, and collect for the last time their "batch"; this
time there are but twenty-three victims. Amongst them, by an exquisite
touch of retributive justice, is Simon the Cordwainer, going to die with
Robespierre! And now they are ready, and the tumbrels move on. The corpse
of Lebas is flung in with Robespierre, as that of Valazé was with Brissot;
the other three were so disfigured with blood and the traces of the death-
scuffle in the town-hall that they are hardly to be recognized. The entire
city is out, shouting itself hoarse with joy. The roofs of the houses are
alive with human eyes, all watching for the figure of Robespierre. When it
appears, the soldiers point to it with their swords--show the tyrant, bound
and gagged, to the people. The sight causes a frantic thrill of exultation
that finds utterance in a yell of something too unholy for joy, too fierce
for laughter. A woman breaks through the crowd, dashes aside the bayonets
of the escort, and leaps to the side of the tumbrel. "Ah! thou demon," she
cries, waving her hand above her head, "the death of thee is better than
wine to my heart Wretch, get thee down to hell with the curses of all
wives and mothers!"

Surely this is hell already begun. The wretched man opens his eyes, glued
together with blood; a shade of deadlier hue passes over his livid, sea-
green face; he shudders, but utters no sound. The tumbrel reaches the
Place de la Revolution. The furies of the guillotine rush round it, and
execute a dance of fiendish joy, the crowd making room for them and
applauding. Now the cart stops, and the condemned alight. In the first are
the two Robespierres, Couthon, Henriot, and Lebas. Maximilien Robespierre
is the only one who has strength left in him to ascend the scaffold
without help. He stood on the fatal step whither a few days ago his nod
sufficed to send the noblest heads in France; within a few yards of the
spot where only six weeks ago he had decreed the existence of the
Omnipotent, at whose judgment-bar he was now going to appear. Seldom
indeed does that silent, inscrutable Judge allow us to behold the
judgments of his justice accomplished here below, and amidst circumstances
so palpably impressive, and to our human eyes so fearfully appropriate, as
was this death-scene of Robespierre's. He showed no sign of terror or
remorse, but, dumb and self-contained to the last, yielded himself to
Samson's hands. Only when the bandage was wrenched brutally from the
broken jaw, letting it drop from the face, he uttered a piercing cry that
rang above the yells of the multitude. It was the last sound his voice
emitted in this world. Samson did his work, and Robespierre was no more.

One long, loud shout of gladness went up to heaven, and carried the
tidings to the ends of France on wings quicker than words. It penetrated
the iron doors of the prisons, like the sweet beams of the golden dawn,
and bade men hope and rejoice, for the Reign of Terror was at an end and
the gates of their dungeons unlocked.

                  -------------------------------------

The guillotine has been so prominent a figure in the foregoing sketch, as
indeed throughout the whole span of the Reign of Terror, that a word on
its origin may not be uninteresting. It is popularly supposed to have been
invented by Dr. Guillotin, but this is a mistake. The first idea of it
emanated from him, and he had the unenviable glory of giving it his name;
but these are his only claims to its invention. The guillotine would seem
to be almost a creature born spontaneously of the Revolution, a cruel
offspring of the self-devouring monster. It is strange that, until the
"_Sainte Guillotine_" was enthroned as the agent of that murder-mad reign,
no mention is ever made in the reports of the time of the exact kind of
machine used in capital punishment. We read of persons being "condemned"
and "executed," but there is no more definite account of the manner of
execution. The _lanterne_ was the mode of capital punishment up to the
Reign of Terror, and the mob could always do summary justice on its
victims by making a gallows of the nearest lamp-post; but when speed
became the primary object, this was found too tedious, besides being
troublesome. Towards the close of the year 1789 Dr. Guillotin was elected
to the States-General. He was such a mediocre, insignificant person in
every way that his appearance in the Assembly caused general surprise and
laughter. In the _Portraits of Celebrated Persons_, a contemporaneous
work, we find him thus treated: "By what accident has a man without either
ability or reputation obtained for himself a frightful immortality? He
_fathered_ a work written by a lawyer--Hardouin--who had too much character
to produce it in his own name; and his work having been censured by the
parliament, Guillotin, who assumed the responsibility of it, became the
man of the day, and owed to it that gleam of reputation which ensured his
election to the States-General. He was, in truth, a _nobody_ who made
himself a _busy-body_, and by meddling with everything was at once
mischievous and ridiculous." This meddling personage made himself
extremely ridiculous on the one occasion to which may be traced his ill-
starred celebrity. He proposed in the Assembly that some machine, more
humane and expeditious than the process of hanging, should be invented for
capital punishment, and, after describing the idea that was in his mind,
he proceeded to illustrate it by a pantomime with his fingers,
straightening out the left index, and bringing down that of the right hand
over the thumb with a snap. "There, now, I put your head here; this falls,
and it is cut off; you feel nothing; it is the affair of a moment!" Roars
of laughter followed this lucid and cheerful explanation, and the next day
the ballad-mongers diverted Paris with a song, the burden of which was "a
machine that will kill us right off, and be christened _la guillotine_!"
The doctor said no more about his idea, but, jocosely presented as it was,
it nevertheless made an impression on the Assembly, who adopted it three
years later. Meantime, they were beset by complaints from the _Tiers
Etat_, who could not reconcile it to their dignity that the _bourgeoisie_
should be hanged while the _noblesse_ were beheaded. Let it be hanging all
round, they said, and they would be satisfied; but why should nobles have
their head cut off, while plebeians "swung at the lantern?" The grievance
met with cold sympathy, however, until the times were ripe for reform, and
it became urgent to find some more expeditious means of despatching both
nobles and plebeians into the other world. Dr. Guillotin's proposal was
reconsidered; an officer of the Criminal Court, named Laquiante, designed
an instrument, which was approved of by the authorities and confided for
execution to a piano-maker--a native of Strasbourg, we believe--named
Schmidt. There was a good deal of haggling over the cost. Schmidt, in the
first instance, wanted nine hundred and sixty francs, which was found
exorbitant and refused. In consideration, however, of his having suggested
some improvements in the original design, they consented to let him take
out a patent, and to give him an order for eighty-three machines, one for
every department in France, at five hundred francs each, and to be made as
quickly as possible. They were three months quarrelling over the bargain,
and all this time an unfortunate criminal, of the name of Pelletier, was
lying in prison, waiting to be executed; when at last the price was
settled and the first machine ready, he had the miserable distinction of
inaugurating it on the 25th of April, 1792. The prejudice had been very
strong against the new mode of decapitation, the clergy especially arguing
that "the sight of blood would prove highly demoralizing to the people."
Samson, the executioner, was one of the staunchest opposers of the
innovation on the same grounds, and also because of the shock the
spectacle would give to many spectators. His letter to the Assembly
embodying his opinions and experience on the subject is a curious bit of
literature, highly creditable to the hangman, as indeed all that has come
down to us concerning him seems to be. The humane desire to abridge the
sufferings of the criminal overcame, however, every objection, and hanging
was formally abolished and replaced by decapitation. The new
instrument--most unjustly, as we see--was called the guillotine, in spite of
a semi-official mention of it as _Louison_, and some efforts to make that
name adhere. The worthy doctor was doomed to notoriety on account of his
having first mooted the affair and made Paris laugh over it. Nothing
secures immortality with the Parisians like a joke.

Apropos of the guillotine, we may mention that the Samsons were a
respectable family of Abbeville, and held the office of "Executioner of
the High Acts of Justice," by descent, from the year 1722. Charles Henri
Samson, who beheaded Louis XVI., came into office in 1778, and retired on
a pension in 1795. He was succeeded by his son in his formidable
functions, the latter having resigned the grade of captain in the
artillery to undertake them.

Robert Cavelier De La Salle.

The pious hymns of the good and noble Marquette and his companions had not
ceased to reverberate over the waters of the Great River, awakening the
echoes of its banks and overhanging forests, when a bold and devoted
spirit, fired by the fame of previous explorations, was meditating on the
shores of Lake Ontario the prosecution of the grand work begun by the
illustrious missionary. The world was startled with the news that the
waters over whose bosom the missionaries and traders of Canada drove their
canoes at the north, after meandering through the vast plains and forests
of the continent, poured themselves into the Gulf of Mexico. This great
physical problem was settled by Father Marquette and the Sieur Joliet,
who, after having explored the course of the Mississippi for eleven
hundred miles, returned to electrify the world by the reports of their
brilliant success. But as yet comparatively little was known of this
gigantic stream. The imagination of the most sanguine and the hearts of
the boldest were appalled at the task; but it was a destined step in the
onward march of religion and civilization. A Catholic missionary had
gloriously led the way; a Catholic nobleman no less gloriously advanced to
complete the work. This was Robert Cavelier de La Salle.

He was born at Rouen, in Normandy, of a good family, but the date of his
birth has not been transmitted to us. He spent ten or twelve years of his
early life in one of the Jesuit seminaries of France, where he received a
good education, and he was well acquainted with mathematics and the
natural sciences. His renunciation of his patrimony and his long sojourn
among the Fathers of the Society of Jesus justify the belief that he was
intended for the priesthood. Providence, however, destined him for a
somewhat different sphere of labor and usefulness, but one in close co-
operation with the great work of the church among mankind. He carried with
him from the seminary of the Jesuits the highest testimonials of his
superiors for purity of character, unblemished life, and exhaustless
energy. By his own high qualities and noble achievements he has won a
diploma for himself, inscribed on the brightest pages of our history, and
more honorable than man can confer.

Emerging from the seminary full of youth, intelligence, and daring spirit,
he joined one of the numerous bands of emigrants from France who came to
seek adventures and fortunes in the New World. He came to Canada about the
year 1667, and embarked with great energy in the fur trade, then the
prevailing means of obtaining an exchange of European wealth and
merchandise. His enterprising spirit soon carried him to the frontiers,
and in his frail canoe he traversed the vast rivers and broad lakes of the
continent, mingling with the aborigines, and acquiring information and
experience of their modes of life, character, and languages. He explored
Lake Ontario, and ascended Lake Erie. The activity of his mind and the
restlessness of his genius could not be satisfied even with the vast and
adventurous field of trade presented to him; for he shared largely in the
prevailing ambition of discovering a northwest passage across the
continent to China and Japan, an evidence of which he left behind him in
the name of Lachine, which he bestowed upon one of his trading posts on
the island of Montreal. He saw in that extended chain of lakes the link
that united America with Asia, and indulged in the fond and proud dream
that, as the discoverer of the long-sought passage, his name would be
inscribed beside that of Columbus on the scroll of immortality.

Seeing the advantages of the position selected by the Comte de Frontenac,
the Governor of Canada, in fortifying the outlet of Lake Ontario, La Salle
erected one of his trading posts under the protection of Fort Fontenac. He
acquired the favor and friendship of the governor, and soon rejoiced in
the esteem and confidence of the public. Up to this time his efforts were
apparently chiefly expended in bold and energetic efforts to build up his
fortunes. But his resources were inferior to the grand enterprises which
he contemplated. He accordingly repaired to France in 1675, where, aided
by the influence of Frontenac and the recommendations of the minister
Colbert, he obtained from his sovereign, Louis XIV., letters-patent,
granting him Fort Frontenac and the seigniory of a large tract of land
about the same, upon condition that he would rebuild the fort of stone,
garrison it at his own expense, and clear up certain lands. This grant
secured to him a large domain and the exclusive traffic with the Five
Nations. The king also raised him and his family to the rank of nobility
as a reward for his services and noble actions. His patent of nobility
bears date the 13th of May, 1675.

Returning to America, the Cavalier de La Salle took possession of his
seigniory, and soon proved how well he merited the confidence and favors
he enjoyed. He fulfilled all his stipulations with the king. In two years
Fort Frontenac reared its massive walls and bastions of stone which cast
their shadows on the waters of Ontario. A number of French families
clustered around the fort; the Recollect missionaries induced their Indian
neophytes and catechumens to pitch their tents and offer up their newly-
learned devotions under its shadow; the rugged wilds were supplanted by
cultivated fields, gardens, and pastures, and the new lord of Cataraqui
was at once the pioneer of civilization and the friend of religion. Such
was the origin of the present city of Kingston.

At the same time La Salle prosecuted his commercial enterprises with
renewed vigor, and these, in return, seemed at first to promise to repay
his perseverance and energy. Now for the first time the rapids of the St.
Lawrence were stemmed, and the waters of Ontario ploughed by the keels of
three small barks with decks erected on them. Had all depended on energy
and zeal, success and prosperity would have followed, and the young
nobleman would have achieved a fortune, fame, and power that would not
have been long in winning for him a position among the proudest and most
powerful nobility of France. But his fame was destined rather to be
associated with the foundation of a great republic than with the more
limited work of founding a noble family, to whom to transmit a princely
fortune, and with building up the power of a brilliant despotism. His
enterprises failed, wealth eluded his grasp, and he found himself
oppressed with vast debts, incurred in the great undertakings in which he
had embarked. Turning from this field of disaster, his vigorous mind again
became filled with visions of the northwest passage and with his darling
projects of discovery. He studied the accounts of the Spanish and other
adventurers and discoverers on the continent. Joliet, in 1674, passing
down from the upper lakes, had visited Fort Frontenac, of which La Salle
was then commander under Gov. Frontenac, and thus La Salle was one of the
first to learn of the brilliant achievements and discoveries of the
illustrious Marquette and Joliet, and was probably one of the first to see
the maps and journal which the latter lost between the fort and the next
French post. These did not seem, at the time, to have deeply impressed the
mind of La Salle, who was then engaged in other plans; for it was after
this that he embarked in the project of founding the seigniory of
Cataraqui on the shores of Ontario, and in the vast trading operations
above referred to. On the failure of these he began to plan new adventures
and discoveries. His study of the reports of Spanish and French explorers
led him before all others to identify the great river of Marquette and
Joliet with that of De Soto. Blending the taste for commerce with the
thirst for fame, he saw in the vast herds of bison, described as roaming
over the prairies that extended from the banks of the Missouri and
Illinois rivers, the means of shipping cargoes of buffalo-skins and wool
to France from the banks of those rivers _via_ the Mississippi and the
Gulf of Mexico. Nor did he yet relinquish his trading projects at the
north; for these he expected to connect with his contemplated trading
posts on the Mississippi, Fort Frontenac still remaining his principal
post. Nor did he yet abandon the hope of discovering from the head-waters
of the Mississippi a passage to the China Sea.

Filled with these grand and noble views, he returned to France in 1677,
and still enjoying the recommendation of Frontenac and the favor of the
great Colbert and of his son and successor in the ministry, the Marquis de
Seignelay, he succeeded in obtaining from the king, on the 12th of May,
1678, new letters-patent, confirming his rights to the fort and the
seigniory of Cataraqui, and authorizing him to advance as far westward as
he desired, to build forts wherever he might choose, and prosecute his
commercial enterprises as before, with the single exception that he should
not trade with the Hurons and other Indians who brought their furs to
Montreal, in order that there might be no interference with other traders.
At the recommendation of his friend, the Prince de Conti, La Salle took
into his service as his lieutenant the veteran Chevalier de Tonty, an
Italian by birth, who proved a great acquisition to the work, and was the
ever-faithful friend and companion of the great captain.

In two months La Salle completed his work in France, and in the autumn of
1678, sailed from Rochelle, accompanied by Tonty, the Sieur de la Motte, a
pilot, mariners, ship-carpenters, and other workmen. He was well provided
with anchors, sails, cordage, and everything necessary for rigging
vessels, with stores of merchandise for trading with the Indians, and
whatever might be useful for his projected expedition. Arriving at Quebec
in September, he immediately pushed forward to Fort Frontenac--but not
without having to surmount great difficulties and labors in getting his
heavy canoes and freight over the perilous rapids of the St.
Lawrence--where he arrived exhausted and emaciated by his fatigues, but
full of courage and hope.

As the winter approached La Salle pressed forward the preparations for his
grand enterprise, which he resolved to enter upon in the spring. On the
18th of November, 1678, he despatched the hardy and faithful Tonty,
accompanied by Father Louis Hennepin, to the Niagara River in one of his
brigantines of ten tons, with workmen, provisions, implements, and
materials, to undertake the construction and equipment of a vessel to bear
his party over the upper lakes--a work which was to be accomplished with a
handful of men, in the midst of winter, at a distance of hundreds of miles
from any civilized settlement, and surrounded by savage tribes, whose
enmity had been enkindled by the malice of La Salle's enemies, who,
actuated by the rivalry of trade, had induced the Indians to believe that
he intended to monopolize their trade upon terms dictated by himself at
the cannon's mouth. Tonty set to work with a cheerful heart. He
encountered perils and hardships, which overcame the endurance of La
Motte, who abandoned the enterprise, and retired to Quebec to seek ease
and rest from such labors. Tonty persevered until the 20th of January,
when La Salle by his presence inspired him and his companions with new
ardor and courage. About this time the brigantine was cast away on the
southern shore of Lake Ontario, in consequence of dissensions among the
pilots; and several bark canoes, with their valuable freight of goods and
provisions, were wrecked and lost. His difficulties with the Senecas also
compelled La Salle to relinquish the fort which he had begun to build at
the falls of Niagara as a protection to his ship-builders, and to content
himself with a mere shed or store-house. A spirit less brave and firm than
La Salle's would have quailed under the misfortunes which, through the
inclemency of the season and the malice of men, surrounded his steps. But
these only nerved him to greater exertion. In six days after his arrival
the keel of his vessel was laid, the cavalier driving the first bolt with
his own hand. "When he saw the snow began to melt," he sent out fifteen
men in advance of his exploring expedition, with instructions to pass over
the lakes to Mackinac, provide provisions for the expedition, and await
the arrival of the main party.

Leaving Tonty now to conduct the building of the vessel, La Salle made a
journey of over three hundred miles of frozen country to Fort Frontenac,
to arrange his financial business before setting out in the spring. His
only food was a bag of corn; his baggage was drawn over the snow and ice
by two men and a dog. At the fort he had to exert all his ability and
energy to counteract the malicious efforts and practices of his enemies
for his ruin. His creditors at Quebec became alarmed by the reports and
calumnies of his foes. His effects at that town were seized and
sacrificed, while the property which he was compelled to leave at Fort
Frontenac was in value double all his debts. But the delay of his
expedition would be to him a greater evil than the loss of property, so
that he could not stop to remedy or resist these proceedings. In the midst
of such harassing cares he bore in mind the necessity of providing for the
religious wants of his companions and of the benighted heathen nations
which he intended to visit. He secured the services of three Recollect
missionaries, Fathers Gabriel de la Ribourde, Louis Hennepin, and Zenobe
Membré. He had already, while commanding at Fort Frontenac, built for
these good missionaries a house and chapel; he now bestowed upon their
order eighteen acres of land near the fort, and one hundred acres of
forest-land.

Tonty having faithfully completed his task, the ship was launched,
receiving the name of _Griffin_, as a compliment to the Comte de
Frontenac, whose armorial bearings were adorned with two griffins. Tonty
was next sent in search of the fifteen men who had previously set out. The
_Griffin_, with La Salle, the missionaries, and the remainder of the party
on board, sailed on the 7th of August, 1679, on the bosom of Lake Erie.
The artillery saluted the vessel, as she dashed through the waves, and the
missionary and crew chanted a grateful _Te Deum_ in honor of Him who had
speeded their work. The Senecas gazed with wonder at a bark of sixty tons
riding the lake with greater ease and grace than their own canoes.
Reaching in safety the straits connecting Lakes Erie and Huron, he
considered the expediency of planting a colony on the majestic Detroit, as
he glided between its islands; and on the 12th, S. Clare's Day, as he
traversed its shallow waters, he bestowed upon the little river the name
of that saint. While the ship was passing over Lake Huron, she was
overtaken by a terrible storm, which caused even the bold captain to fear
for the safety of all on board. Uniting with the missionaries in petitions
for the intercession of S. Anthony of Padua, he made a promise to dedicate
the first chapel built in the countries he was going to discover in honor
of that patron saint, in case he should escape. The province from which
the missionaries of the expedition had come was that of S. Anthony of
Padua, in Artois; hence the selection of this saint as their protector on
this occasion, as well as for the reason that he is frequently invoked as
the patron of mariners. The storm abated, and on the 27th of August, the
_Griffin_, aided by friendly winds, entered a safe harbor in the island of
Mackinac.

Here again the "great wooden canoe" was an object of admiration and dread
to the natives, heightened by the roar of the cannon on board. La Salle,
clad in a cloak of scarlet and gold, visited the nearest village, and the
pious priests offered up the Holy Sacrifice for the benefit of those
benighted savages. The opposite bank had been the scene of the missionary
labors of the illustrious Marquette. The captain visited this spot,
endeavoring there and in the neighboring country to propitiate the
friendship of the natives as he advanced. His enemies had here too been at
work, poisoning the minds of the Indians against him far and near, and
tampering with the advanced corps of fifteen men whom he had sent out, and
who, under such influences, became faithless to their leader: some of them
deserted, and others squandered the provisions which he had entrusted to
them. Again setting sail, the _Griffin_ bore them to Green Bay, where La
Salle had the satisfaction of meeting some of his advanced party who had
continued faithful to him and their duty, and who now returned with a
goodly quantity of furs, the result of successful traffic with the
Indians. After two weeks he loaded the _Griffin_ with the rich furs
brought in by his men, and sent her with the pilot and five mariners back
to the Niagara, amidst the murmurs of his men, who dreaded the work of
proceeding in light canoes. It has been remarked(159) that had he adopted
the Ohio as his conduit to the Mississippi, one vessel would have answered
his purpose, and much suffering and delay been saved, for this river had
been known to the missionaries; by his present plan, he had to build two
vessels, one above the falls of Niagara, and one on the Illinois River. He
now set out to descend Lake Michigan in four bark canoes, September the
19th, the party consisting of La Salle, the fathers, and seventeen men;
and they continued their perilous voyage along the west side of the lake.
They were overtaken before nightfall by a violent storm, and for several
days they struggled through wind, rain, sleet, and waves, until they
landed with great danger near the river Milwaukee. Seeing their perilous
situation, La Salle leaped into the water, and with his own hands helped
to drag his canoe ashore. Those in the other boats followed his example,
and soon the landing was effected and the canoes secured.

La Salle was accompanied in his expedition by a faithful Indian, who
proved a useful member of the party; for his unerring gun frequently
relieved the hunger of the travellers with game from the surrounding
forests. They also procured corn from the natives, always paying its full
value; and even when they had to take it from villages temporarily
abandoned, where there was no one to receive payment, its value in goods
was left in its place. At this bleak landing near the Milwaukee the
Indians, moved with sympathy for their exhausted and weather-beaten
condition, brought deer and corn for their relief, smoked with them the
calumet of friendship, and entertained them with war dances and songs.
Cheered on their way by the kindly offices and generous sympathy of the
natives, in which they felt that

    "Kindness by secret sympathy is tied,
    For noble souls in nature are allied,"

they pushed on with renewed courage to encounter again the perils of the
elements. The voyage from this point to the end of the lake was one
continued series of hardships and dangers. They found it frequently a
relief from the fury of the waves to drag their canoes over the rugged
rocks; and as they pulled them ashore the heaving surf dashed the spray
over their heads. They encountered a wandering party of Outagamies, or Fox
Indians, near a green and refreshing spot, where they stopped to rest and
refresh themselves, and it was only the address, deliberation, and iron
courage of La Salle that prevented a bloody conflict with these
treacherous savages. On the first of November the entire party came safely
into the mouth of the Miami River, now S. Joseph's, previously appointed
as the rendezvous, at which the several companies were to meet.

Here La Salle was sorely disappointed at not finding the Chevalier Tonty.
Suffering from want of food and the increasing severity of the winter, the
men began to murmur; but La Salle's bold spirit of command kept them in
subjection, especially when they saw him sharing every hardship,
privation, and danger with them. He kept them busy in building a fort for
their protection from the savages, and in exploring the country and
neighboring rivers. The missionaries caused a bark chapel to be erected,
in which the divine service was attended by both Europeans and Indians.
But La Salle's apprehensions for the fate of the _Griffin_ began to
increase. At length Tonty arrived, and, while he relieved his captain and
men with provisions and reinforcements, he confirmed their alarm for the
vessel. The _Griffin_ had not reached Mackinac, no tidings could be
obtained from the Indians of her safety or fate, and it became, alas! too
certain that she, the first to ride triumphantly, with her proud sails
spread and her streamers unfurled, across these great lakes, had been the
first to fall a victim, with her hardy crew, to the avenging waves of Lake
Michigan.

The cavalier now prepared to go down the Kankakee River to the Illinois.
The distance to the portage was seventy miles, and much time and labor
were spent in endeavoring to find the proper portage. La Salle started out
himself to explore the country, and to discover, if possible, the eastern
branch of the Illinois. Detained till evening in making the circuit of a
large marsh, his gun, fired as a signal, was not answered, and he resolved
to spend the night alone in that fearful wilderness. He fortunately
descried a fire, and on approaching saw near by a bed of leaves, from
which some nomadic son of the forest, startled at the report of the gun,
had just fled. La Salle scattered leaves and branches around, in order
that he might not be surprised in the night, and then took possession of
the Indian's rustic bed, in which he slept peacefully till morning. To the
great joy of his friends, he returned in the following afternoon, with two
opossums hanging from his belt. At length the Indian hunter of the
expedition found the portage. Leaving four men in the fort, the expedition
set out on the 3d of December; the canoes and all the baggage were carried
over five or six miles to the head-waters of the Kankakee, and about the
5th of December the company, consisting of thirty-three persons, commenced
their passage down the dreary and marshy stream, rendered yet more gloomy
by the rigors of mid-winter. At length, after enduring hunger and cold,
they came to a more genial and smiling country, and soon their canoes
glided into the river Illinois. On the banks of the river they discovered
and visited the largest of the Illinois villages, composed of four or five
hundred cabins, in each of which resided five or six families, not far
below the present town of Ottawa, in La Salle County, Illinois. But the
place was deserted; the inhabitants had all gone to the hunting-grounds
for wild cattle and beaver, leaving their corn stored away in their
granaries. Yielding to the necessities of his condition, and trusting to
fortune for an opportunity to make ample compensation, La Salle
appropriated fifty bushels of corn from the immense quantities stored away
in the capacious granaries of the village. Re-embarking on the 27th of
December, the party proceeded down the current. On the 1st of January,
1680, the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord was solemnly and
appropriately celebrated, the salutations of the New Year were exchanged,
and we may well imagine with what hearty and earnest good-wishes those
brave voyagers blessed each other. On the same day, after passing through
Lake Pimiteony, now Lake Peoria, our voyagers came suddenly upon an Indian
encampment on both sides of the river. Having heard that the Illinois were
hostile, La Salle arranged his flotilla for the emergency; the men were
armed, and the canoes were placed in battle array across the entire river,
La Salle and Tonty occupying the two canoes nearest the shore. Observing
that the Indians were somewhat alarmed and disposed to parley, La Salle
boldly landed in the midst of the innumerable bands of dusky warriors,
prepared for either war or peace, and by his skill and invincible courage
soon succeeded in making them his friends. After smoking with them the
calumet of peace, he explained the circumstance of his having taken their
corn, and then paid them liberally for it, to their great satisfaction. He
also told them that he came amongst them in order to give them a knowledge
of the one true God, and to better their condition. An alliance of
friendship was entered into, and all retired apparently to rest.

But during the night emissaries from La Salle's enemies arrived. A grand
council was held, as that is the favorite time with the Indians for
transacting their most important business. The poison was infused into the
minds of La Salle's recent allies; and on the following morning his keen
eye soon saw that the intrigues of his enemies had not failed to follow
him to that distant region, and it was only his brave, frank, and
determined bearing that enabled him to surmount the countless obstacles
that were thus thrown in his way. The effect of this intrigue, however,
was not wholly lost on his own men. Six of them deserted him at this
trying juncture. Severe as was this loss, his proud spirit bore up
manfully under it; but the loss of his vessel was a severer trial to him,
but one that failed to dampen the ardor of his enthusiasm or the
determination of his will. He selected a spot for a fort half a league
from the Indian camp and near the present city of Peoria; and while he
bestowed upon his fort the name of Crèvecoeur--Broken Heart--under the sad
influence of the loss of the _Griffin_ and the machinations of his
enemies, the vigor with which he raised its walls and arranged its
armament is ample proof that he still possessed a heart full of courage
and hope.

In the middle of January the entire company took up their residence within
the fort. Father Membré remained with the Indians, was adopted into the
family of a noted chief, and devoted himself to the task of winning the
Illinois to the Christian faith. Father de La Ribourde exercised his
ministry at the fort, where he erected a chapel; and Father Hennepin is
said to have "rambled as his fancies moved him."

La Salle engaged a portion of his men in building a brigantine forty-two
feet long and twelve feet broad, in which to descend the Mississippi. On
the 29th of February, 1680, he sent an expedition under the direction of
Father Hennepin, accompanied by Picard Du Gay and Michel Ako, to explore
for the first time the Mississippi above the mouth of the Wisconsin, the
point from which Father Marquette's voyage down the great river commenced.
In six weeks the hull of the brigantine was nearly ready to receive the
masts and rigging, but the necessary materials were wanting to complete
the equipment. An abundance of such materials had been placed on board the
_Griffin_, but these had been buried beneath the waters of the lake with
the ill-fated vessel. Gloomy indeed was the prospect before our brave
cavalier; but bold resolves are rapidly conceived and speedily executed by
daring spirits. He placed Tonty in command of the fort, and, in order to
procure what was necessary for the new vessel, he determined to return on
foot to Fort Frontenac, distant at least twelve hundred miles. His journey
lay along the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, through vast
forests; innumerable rivers intervened, which he had to ford or cross on
rafts, and this, too, at a season of the year when the drifting snow and
floating ice threw extraordinary dangers and fatigues in the path of the
traveller. For food he must rely entirely upon the hazards of the chase.
The history of our race contains the record of few such undertakings as
this; yet the spirit of La Salle faltered not. On the 2d of March the bold
cavalier shouldered his musket and knapsack, and, with three Frenchmen and
his Indian hunter, started upon his perilous journey:

                    "My heart is firm;
    There's naught within the compass of humanity
    But I would dare and do."

After La Salle's departure the brave and faithful Tonty began to
experience in turn the frowns of fortune. While superintending the
erection of a new fort at a spot selected by La Salle, Tonty received the
news of an insurrection at Fort Crèvecoeur. This, too, was instigated by La
Salle's enemies. Deserted by more than half his party, Tonty took up his
quarters at the great Indian village, where he was treated with
hospitality. After a residence there of six months a war-party of Iroquois
and Miamis approached the village, and for a long time Tonty and Father
Membré, at great peril and with much ill treatment at the hands of the
invading savages, endeavored to negotiate a peace. Failing in every
effort, and finding that dangers and perils were gathering thick and fast
around him, Tonty resolved to make his escape with his remaining five
companions, which he succeeded in accomplishing, in an old and leaky
canoe, on the 18th of September. On the following day, about twenty-five
miles from the village, they drew the canoe to the shore for repairs.
While thus engaged they had the misfortune of losing for ever the great
and good Father Gabriel de La Ribourde, who, with a mind fond of the
beautiful in nature, as well as with a soul that loved all men, had
wandered too far up the banks of the river, drawn on by the picturesque
scenery that lay before him, was met by three young Kickapoo warriors, and
fell a victim to the unsparing tomahawk. After passing, with heavy hearts,
over ice and snow, rambling for some time almost at random in the woods,
and enduring hunger and delays, they fortunately reached a village of the
Potawatamies, where they were received with hospitality. Tonty was
detained at the village by a severe and dangerous illness. Father Membré
advanced to the missionary station at Green Bay; here they all met in the
spring, and then proceeded to Mackinac to await the return of La Salle.

In the meantime La Salle, after stopping twenty-four hours at the Indian
village which he had previously visited, and finding that the two men whom
he had despatched from the Miami River to Mackinac had obtained no tidings
of the _Griffin_, now abandoned every lingering hope for her safety. He
pressed forward on his great journey, only to hear of new disasters and
losses at Fort Frontenac. The fact that he accomplished such a journey
under such circumstances is sufficient to illustrate the endurance and
unbending resolution of this great explorer. Of this chapter in the
history of La Salle Bancroft thus writes:

    "Yet here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on
    himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement,
    impoverished, pursued by enemies at Quebec, and in the wilderness
    surrounded by uncertain nations, he inspired his men with
    resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a bark; he
    despatched Louis Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he
    questioned the Illinois and their southern captives on the course
    of the Mississippi; he formed conjectures concerning the Tennessee
    River; and then, as new recruits were needed, and sails and
    cordage for the bark, in the month of March, with a musket and a
    pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection, and
    skins of which to make moccasins, he, with three companions, set
    off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and
    forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows, having for his
    pathway the ridge of highlands which divide the basin of the Ohio
    from that of the lakes--without drink, except water from the
    brooks; without food, except supplies from his gun. Of his
    thoughts on that long journey no record exists."

He arrived safely at Fort Frontenac, but his affairs had all gone wrong in
his absence. In the destruction of his vessel and cargo he had sustained a
loss of a large portion of his means; besides this, his agents had
plundered him in the fur trade on Lake Ontario; a vessel freighted with
merchandise for him had been lost in the Bay of St. Lawrence; his heavily-
laden canoes had been dashed to pieces by the rapids above Montreal; some
of his men, corrupted by his enemies, had deserted, carrying his property
among the Dutch in New York, and his creditors, availing themselves of a
report, gotten up by his enemies, that he and his companions had been
lost, had seized on his remaining effects, and sacrificed them in the
market. But one friend remained to him in all Canada--the Comte de
Frontenac. The undaunted La Salle still pushed forward his work; having
arranged his affairs as well as he could, he secured the services of La
Forest as an officer, and engaged more men. On the 23d of July, 1680, he
set out on his return. Detained more than a month on Lake Ontario by head-
winds, he reached Mackinac in the middle of September, and the Miami
towards the end of November. Proceeding to the spot where he had left
Tonty, he found his forts abandoned, the Illinois village abandoned, and
could hear nothing of the companions whom he had left behind him. He now
heard of the Iroquois war, and spent some time and effort in endeavoring
to effect an alliance of all the neighboring tribes against the Illinois.
Finding it impossible to accomplish his purpose for want of a larger
force, he returned to the Miami River late in May, 1681, and about the
middle of June he had the happiness of saluting Tonty and his companions
in the harbor of Mackinac. The two cavaliers sat down together, and
related to each other their respective misfortunes and hardships. Thus
another year's delay was occasioned; but in the meantime the trade with
the Indians was prosecuted with vigor. Some idea may be formed of the
material of which these two men were made when it is related that even
now, when all their plans had failed and all seemed lost to them, the
ardor with which they first commenced this wonderful task remained
unbroken and undiminished. In order to renew their preparations for the
exploration of the Mississippi, they all set out in a few days for Fort
Frontenac, from which La Salle had already twice departed with the bold
and lofty purpose of exploring and laying open to the world the interior
geography of the continent. An eyewitness to these interesting conferences
between La Salle and Tonty relates that the former maintained "his
ordinary coolness and self-possession. Any one but him would have
renounced and abandoned the enterprise; but, far from that, by a firmness
of mind and an almost unequalled constancy, I saw him more resolute than
ever to continue his work and to carry out his discovery."(160)

As already mentioned, Father Hennepin had been commissioned by the captain
to explore, with his selected companions, the Upper Mississippi, probably
the last aspiration of La Salle after the discovery of the northwest
passage to the China Sea. Proceeding down the Illinois to its mouth,
Father Hennepin directed his canoe up the unexplored stream, and on the
eleventh day he and his companions were near the Wisconsin River. Turning
up this river, they proceeded nineteen days, when the grand cataract burst
for the first time upon the view of Europeans.

    "It hath a thousand tongues of mirth,
      Of grandeur, or delight,
    And every heart is gladder made
      When water greets the sight."

It was called "The Falls of St. Anthony" in honor of the holy founder of
the order of the Recollects. Falling in with the Sieur Du Luth, the two
parties, nine in number, rambled and messed together till the end of
September, 1680, when they all set out for Canada. Father Hennepin sailed
from Quebec to France, where he published, in 1684, an account of his
travels and discoveries. Thirteen years after this, and ten after the
death of La Salle, he published his _New Discovery of a Vast Country in
America, between New Mexico and the Frozen Ocean_, in which the love of
the marvellous is regarded by historians as having far transcended the
limits of authentic and trustworthy narrative, and as conflicting with the
recognized and just pretensions of La Salle.

Upon his return to Fort Frontenac La Salle lost no time in preparing for
another effort. He arranged his affairs with his creditors, pledged Fort
Frontenac and the adjacent lands and trading privileges for his future
expenses, and enlisted forces for his expedition. On the 28th of August,
1681, the company set out in canoes from the head of the Niagara River,
and on the third of November they had arrived at the Miami. The constant
and ever-faithful Tonty and the good Father Membré accompanied the
expedition, which consisted of fifty-four persons, of whom twenty-three
were Frenchmen, eighteen Abnakis or Loup Indians, ten Indian women whom
the Indians insisted should go along in order to do their cooking, and
three children. Six weeks were consumed at the Miami in making the
necessary arrangements. The Sieur Tonty and Father Membré proceeded with
nearly the entire company along the southern border of Lake Michigan to
the mouth of the Chicago River, dragging their canoes, baggage, and
provisions for about eighty leagues over the frozen waters of the Illinois
on sledges prepared by the indefatigable Tonty. La Salle travelled on foot
from the Miami River, and joined the company on the 4th of January, 1682.
They continued their journey in the same way up the Chicago to Lake
Peoria, where the canoes were carried upon the waters, and on the 6th of
February the great river, then called the "Colbert," received its
explorers safely upon its waves. They were detained by the floating ice
till about the 19th, when the flotilla commenced its eventful voyage. On
the same day, six leagues lower down, they passed the mouth of the
Missouri, then called the Osage. They stopped at a deserted village of the
Tamaroas Indians, whose people were absent on the chase, and then slowly
passed on for forty leagues till they reached the Ohio, stopping
frequently on the route to replenish their stock of provisions by hunting
and fishing. Leaving the Ohio, they passed through one hundred and twenty
miles of low, marshy river, full of thick foam, rushes, and walnut-trees,
till, on the 26th of February, they came to Chickasaw Bluffs, where they
rested. Here a fort was built and called Fort Prudhomme, in memory of
Peter Prudhomme, one of their companions, who was lost while hunting in
the woods, supposed to have been killed or carried off by a party of
Indians, whose trail was discovered near by. Afterwards, by the untiring
and determined efforts of La Salle, and after nine days scouring the
country, Prudhomme was found and restored to his companions; but the fort
long retained his name. Proceeding about a hundred miles, they heard the
sound of drums and the echo of war-cries, and soon they came abreast of
the villages of the Arkansas Indians, whose inhabitants were informed at
one and the same time that the strangers were prepared for war--as was
evidenced by the erection of a redoubt upon the shore; or for peace--as was
manifested by their extending the calumet of peace. They found the Indians
peaceable and friendly, and here our voyagers stopped to rest. Two weeks
were spent amongst these gay, open-hearted, and gentle natives in smoking
the calumet, partaking of feasts, and obtaining Indian corn, beans, flour,
and various kinds of fruits, for which they repaid their entertainers with
presents which, however trifling, pleased their fancy much. Father Membré
erected a cross, around which the natives assembled; and though he could
not speak their language, he succeeded in acquainting them with the
existence of the true God and some of the mysteries of the true faith. The
Indians seemed to appreciate all he said, for they raised their eyes to
heaven and fell upon their knees in adoration; they rubbed their hands
upon the cross, and then all over their own bodies, as if to communicate
its holiness to themselves; and, on the return voyage, the missionary
found that they had protected the cross by a palisade. La Salle also took
possession of the country with great ceremony in behalf of France, and
erected the arms of the king, at which the Indians expressed great
pleasure.

On the 17th they proceeded on their route, and were received and
entertained most hospitably at another village of the same Akansas nation.
On the 20th they arrived at a small lake formed by the waters of the
Mississippi, on the opposite side of which they found a gentle tribe of
Indians, far more civilized than any they had yet met, whose sovereign
ruled over his people with regal ceremony, whose houses were built with
walls and cane roofs, were adorned with native paintings, and furnished
with wooden beds and other domestic comforts. Their temples were
ornamented, and served as sepulchres for their departed chiefs. La Salle
being too fatigued to visit this interesting people, he sent the Sieur
Tonty and Father Membré on an embassy to the king, to whom they carried
presents, and who received them with great ceremony. The king next
returned the compliment by a visit to the commander, sending his master of
ceremonies and heralds before him, and coming two hours afterwards
himself, preceded by two men carrying fans of white feathers, himself
dressed in a white robe beautifully woven of the bark of trees, with a
canopy over his head, and attended by a royal retinue. The king's demeanor
during the interview was grave but frank and friendly. Resuming their
route on the 26th of March, thirty or forty miles below this they came
among the Natchez Indians, whose village La Salle, with some of his
companions, visited by invitation, sleeping there that night and receiving
hospitality. A cross was erected here, too, to which were attached the
arms of France, signifying that thereby they took possession of the
country in the name of their sovereign. The Holy Mass was also offered,
and the company received the Blessed Sacrament. They next visited the
village of Koroa, and then, advancing over a hundred miles, on the 2d of
April they came to the country of the Quinipissas, a belligerent tribe,
who answered a proposal to smoke the calumet of peace by a shower of
arrows. But having no object to attain by difficulties with the natives,
La Salle passed on to the village of the Tangiboas, three of whose
deserted cabins he saw full of the bodies of Indians who, fifteen or
sixteen days before, had fallen victims in an engagement in which the
village was sacked and pillaged. Speaking of La Salle while thus
descending the great river, Bancroft writes: "His sagacious eye discerned
the magnificent resources of the country. As he floated down its flood; as
he framed a cabin on the first Chickasaw bluff; as he raised the cross by
the Arkansas; as he planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico, he
anticipated the future affluence of the emigrants, and heard in the
distance the footsteps of the advancing multitude that were coming to take
possession of the valley."

To Be Concluded Next Month.

Birth-Days.

"WHO ARE JUST BORN, BEING DEAD."

Who weeps when love, a cradled babe, is born?
  Rather we bring frankincense, myrrh, and gold,
  While softest welcomes from our lips are rolled
To meet the dawning fragrance of a morn
Of checkered being. Even while the thorn
  Keeps pace with rosy graces that unfold,
  Do we with rapture cry, "Behold, behold,
A heaven-dropped flower our garden to adorn!"
And yet when from our darling fall the years
  As from the rose the shrivelled petals rain,
  And into newer life the soul again
Springs thornless to the air of purer spheres,
  So blinded are we by our bitter pain
We greet the sweeter birth with selfish tears.

The Future Of The Russian Church.

By The Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite.

II.--Continued.

Let it only be borne in mind _what_ are those things which are required of
her members by the faith and discipline of the Orthodox Church, and it
will be granted us, at least face to face with unbelief, that her priests
need something more than the ordinary respectability of a worthy man, an
obedient subject of his sovereign, a good father of a family, faithful to
his wife and devoted to his children.(161)

This _something more_ is possessed by the Catholic Church. The Russian
Church has lost it. Whatever may be thought of the ecclesiastical law on
the celibacy of the priesthood, we think it cannot be denied that a
priest, living as an angel upon earth, exercises an influence which is
always lacking to a married priest. This "magnetism of purity," as it has
been called, has inspired one of the noblest odes of the great English
poet, Tennyson;(162) and they who in good faith argue against sacerdotal
celibacy do so because, in their opinion, the purity required by the
Catholic Church is a virtue too celestial to be met with here below; thus
reasoning as did that Jew who, after reading a treatise on the Holy
Eucharist by the Abbé Martinet,(163) said to us, "This cannot be true,
because it would be too beautiful!" Those who reason as did this Jew
conclude too easily from difficulty--what virtue is not difficult?--to
impossibility? We do not undertake to convince those who have not faith,
and who refuse to allow the efficacy of supernatural means; for the task
would be a hopeless one. But if they have faith, we will submit to them
the following consideration, which will not be without some weight.

And this is that the Catholic Church earnestly invites all her priests to
celebrate _daily_ the holy Mass, and makes it their strict duty to recite
every day, with attention and piety, the divine Office. In undertaking the
defence of the Russian clergy M. Schédo-Ferroti says: "Hypocrisy is a vice
unknown among them, their piety being of a genuine stamp, and only giving
outward expression to the sentiment which is really felt--namely, a belief
in the sanctifying virtues of the ceremonies which they are called to
perform."(164) Let it, then, be permitted to us also to express here our
firm belief in the sanctifying virtue of the Mass and the divine Office.
The Holy Eucharist is called in Scripture _frumentum electorum et vinum __
germinans virgins_--"the wheat of the elect and the wine which makes
virgins spring forth" (Zach. ix. 17). With regard to the divine Office, it
is the prayer _par excellence_ of the church. As the Lord's Prayer, taught
and recommended by Jesus Christ himself, has a power which is special to
it, and a particular efficacy, so also is a sanctifying virtue attached to
a prayer chosen and placed daily on our lips by the church. The Mass and
the divine Office, in a manner, force the priest to have always about him
some thoughts of heaven. If vanity or worldly seductions acquire over him
a momentary ascendency, the Mass and the divine Office recall him to those
salutary truths which never change.

We will not dwell longer on this point; the reader will be well able to
make its practical application. We will only now add that, if to have been
capable of an act of great generosity is a title to indulgence for many
defects; if the remembrance of an heroic action in favor of one's country
or of humanity surrounds with an aureola of glory the whole existence of
him who has performed it; and if, in short, people hesitate to pronounce
sentence against him, even when he has deserved blame, let it also be
remembered that every Catholic priest, whoever he may be, has
accomplished, at least once in his life, an act of the greatest
generosity. He has sworn, on being admitted into Holy Orders, to renounce
every affection which, by dividing his heart, could hinder him from
devoting himself solely and without reserve for the good of souls; and
solely with that intent has he voluntarily chosen the path of self-denial
and of conflicts which are the consequences of his generosity. This being
considered, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a certain
influence is invariably exercised by the Catholic priest who is faithful
to his duties, even if his learning and education be defective.

Now, this influence, doubly necessary in Russia, on account of the social
inferiority of the orthodox clergy, is entirely wanting to all that
portion of the clergy which is in contact with the people;(165) and the
fatal consequences of this want will make themselves especially felt in
that day when nothing shall be unimportant that can help to keep alive
faith in the Russian people.

And this is not all. In the poem alluded to above Tennyson puts these
words into the mouth of his hero, the virgin-knight:

    "My good blade carves the casques of men,
      My tough lance thrusteth sure,
    My strength is as the strength of ten,
      Because my heart is pure."(166)

He who thus reveals to us the intimate relation existing between purity
and strength is not a Catholic. If we had expressed the same thought as
originating from ourselves, we might have been charged with mysticism;
this is why we have quoted the great poet. He would not fear being called
upon to justify his thought; let him therefore be the one attacked.

But whatever may be the weight which experience gives to this thought of
Tennyson's, there is no need to wait for the time when the Russian clergy
shall be waging war against unbelief, to judge of the strength they are
likely to have for the combat. In a chapter devoted to revelations of the
state of the "orthodox" clergy, M. Schédo-Ferroti takes praiseworthy pains
to exhibit their good qualities. "I have found," he writes, "with some
regrettable exceptions, that the Russian priest possessed two valuable and
truly Christian qualities, the frequency of which constitutes in some sort
a characteristic feature of the class. The Russian priest is pious without
any ostentation, and he is gifted with a wonderful faculty for supporting
misfortune, under whatever form it may overtake him."(167) We have already
made some observations on the first of these two qualities, and will now
do the same for the second.

To be endowed with a marvellous power of supporting misfortune--what better
preparation, apparently, could there be for supporting the struggle of the
future? It is to patience that our Lord Jesus Christ promises the
possession of our souls for a happy eternity when he says: _In patientia
vestra possidebitis animas vestras_--"In your patience you shall possess
your souls" (S. Luke xxi. 19). These divine words, alas! cannot in any way
find their application in the patience of the Russian clergy. The patience
whereof our Lord speaks is that which fills and sustains the soul, and
which places in our mouths words whose wisdom puts our adversaries to
silence.

This explanation is not our own; it is that of Jesus Christ himself. "They
will lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the
synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for
my name's sake: and it shall happen to you for a testimony. Lay it up,
therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before, how you shall answer.
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall
not be able to resist and gainsay. And you shall be betrayed by your
parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will
put to death. And you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but a
hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess
your souls" (S. Luke xxi. 12-19). The patience here described corresponds
exactly with the patience of which the Catholic bishops and priests of
Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere are offering us at this very time so
edifying and admirable an example.

The patience taught by our Lord, then, is not wanting to the Catholic
clergy; can we hope to find it in the Russian clergy in the day when
orthodoxy shall be threatened? Let us well consider the words of our Lord
which we have just quoted, bearing in mind the energetic spirit which they
suppose, and let us then compare them with the following words of the most
devoted advocate of the orthodox clergy in Russia: "This readiness to
bear, without murmuring, the sudden reverses of fortune," says Schédo-
Ferroti, "this spontaneous submission to the decrees of Providence, is too
Christian a virtue to allow us to refuse it the admiration which it
deserves; but it seems to us that the combination of circumstances which
has contributed to develop in the Russian clergy this _mute resignation_
has also exercised a depressing influence upon their moral strength, in
paralyzing the powers of their will by rendering its free exercise utterly
and invariably impossible. It is the natural consequence of excessive
suffering, whether physical or moral, to end in the enervation of the
patient, by depriving him of the faculty of action, by destroying all his
energy, and leaving him destitute even of any belief in his own strength;
allowing him to remain in possession of but one single conviction, that of
his powerlessness to struggle against fate--a conviction that finds its
expression in this mute and absolute resignation which we find in the
lower Russian clergy."(168)

Poor Russian clergy! They are all that they can be expected to be,
considering what the czars have made them. The sufferings of the Russian
priest are not forgotten by God, neither does he forget his resignation.
Far from desiring to cast a stone at him, we gladly point out all that we
can find in his favor. Reduced to such a degree of indigence that he is
compelled to maintain himself by laboriously toiling in the fields, the
pressing needs of life bow down not only his brow, but his soul also,
towards the earth. What right have we to expect that he can devote to the
interests of souls the time and thought imperiously demanded by the daily
necessities of his own existence? And even could he forget himself, and in
self-devotion taste the sublime joy of sacrifice, he is not alone; and
will his wife and children also become so many victims of his zeal for
souls?

This feebleness, this helplessness, these bonds--these are the very things
which many would desire to see also in the militant ranks of the Catholic
Church. "But wherefore, then, is it," asks the church, in pointing out the
armies of this world, "that the secular governments will that the soldiers
called to defend their country should be alone and free?"(169)

But if to be single and free is an element of strength lacking to the
Russian priest, already by long habituation to suffering and slavery
reduced to the state of which so striking a picture is drawn by Schédo-
Ferroti, another support is also wanting to him, the power of which is
evident in the Catholic clergy. In our day, and under our very eyes, every
circumstance concurs to encourage apostasy among the latter. Priests who
fail in their duty gain the favor of governments, a considerable portion
of the press, the secure perspective of honors and offices; they are
proclaimed the only honest, the only true ministers of Jesus Christ, who
alone comprehend his interests or succeed in causing him to be loved by
souls. In all this there is something seductive, not only for the
ambitious and such as would free themselves from the severe discipline of
the church, but for those also who, in presence of the ravages which
unbelief is making, persuade themselves--not with much humility--that if the
church would act according to their ideas, the interests of God would be
better secured. In spite of all these things, the number of apostates is a
mere nothing when we take into consideration the number of Catholic
priests. Did those who have undertaken to make war against Catholicity
expect this check?--which, we remark in passing, witnesses plainly against
the alleged prevalence of abuses. Have they well calculated the forces of
the enemy which they flattered themselves they were about to annihilate?
Unless we are mistaken, they think that its strength is the same in the
present day as it was in the time of Luther, and that, if whole nations
were then withdrawn from the church, there is no reason why they should
not be so now. But the Protestantism of those days allowed a true faith in
God, in Providence, in Jesus Christ, and retained a baptism in every
respect valid. It is allowable to believe that if God has permitted that
whole nations should be snatched from the _immediate_ care of the church,
his providence will keep them from ever falling back into the state in
which they were before the redemption; though this is the logical result
of modern Protestantism. Besides, the social and political situation of
Europe, the habits of the various nations, and especially the difficulty
of communication, then permitted sovereigns to raise, as it were, so many
walls of China round the confines of their states. They could at that time
isolate their subjects, and only allow them just so much
intercommunication with the rest of the world as _they_ might choose to
consider suitable to the interests of the state. If thought itself could
not be chained, its manifestations at least could be circumscribed or
stifled. This is no longer possible in the present day; a pamphlet, a
journal, a speech in parliament, even to a simple word of a bishop, can
now, from the other end of the world, trouble the repose and disturb the
plans of a powerful conqueror. For thought there are no longer any
barriers possible, nor yet police; and thought makes revolutions.

Now, amongst the thoughts which escape the vigilance of all police, and
which pass through every barrier, there is also that of the constancy
which, in no matter what period of the existence of the Catholic Church,
is shown by men living under different climates, ruled by various
institutions, but _brothers in the faith_. If to bear the same name, to be
born on the same soil, and to speak the same tongue, creates bonds so
powerful and so devoted a defence of common interests, fraternity in the
Catholic faith yields the palm in nothing to any other fraternity
whatsoever for the powerfulness of its effects. The humble _curé_ of a
poor parish hidden among the gorges of the mountains learns that a priest
in a distant land has been imprisoned for refusing to betray his
conscience. He is moved by the tidings, and takes a lively interest in the
fate of the priest, following anxiously in his journal the narrative of
the struggles of this confessor of the faith. During this time, without
his being aware of it, a salutary work has been going on in his mind. Soon
afterwards he finds himself in the same case--namely, of being called upon
to suffer for the performance of those duties which his quality of priest
imposes upon him. His adversaries, judging him by the gentleness of his
language and his life, expect to intimidate him by a word; but, to their
amazement, they find in him the firmness of an apostle. From whence did he
gain this courage? They know not, neither does he; that which impressed
his soul and prepared it for the conflict was nothing else than the story
of the sufferings of his brother in the faith and in the priesthood, in a
distant and foreign land.

Well, then, this sustaining thought which supports the Catholic priest by
making him feel himself a member of that family which is as vast as the
world and a brother in the faith with martyrs--this support will be wanting
to the Russian clergy when upon it alone will depend the fate of
orthodoxy. The Russian priest, who, not being alone, will have need of a
courage so much the greater as there are beings dear to him whose
existence is bound up with his own, will seek examples to encourage him;
but will he find them? The same causes which have produced the _mute
resignation_ spoken of by Schédo-Ferroti authorize us to think that the
Russian clergy will not have its martyrs, or, if there should be some,
that their number will be too small to counterbalance the example of the
general feebleness. And yet here again we will undertake the defence of
the Russian clergy; for who, in fact, could require an act of heroism of a
man "enervated by excess of moral and physical sufferings, deprived of the
faculty of action, and not only possessing no longer any energy, but
having also lost all belief in his own powers"? Now, this is, word for
word, the condition of the Russian priest, as depicted by his most zealous
defender.

"But," it may be said, "the Orthodox Church is not confined to Russia; the
orthodox priest will find brethren in Austria, in Roumania, in Turkey, and
in Greece." This is true; but it is not enough to find brothers only. The
Russian priest will need brother-martyrs; and where will he find them?

Besides, strange to say, the various branches of the Orthodox Church live
almost strangers to each other, unless some political interest awaken the
sentiment of fraternity in their common faith. Without entering into
details on this point, we will only make one remark. It is easy to find
several histories of the different branches, taken separately; but is it
so easy to find an universal history of the Orthodox Church?(170) In
Catholic countries the reverse of this is always the case; it is,
comparatively, difficult to meet with particular histories of the Catholic
Church in France, in Italy, in Germany, etc.; but everywhere is found and
taught the universal history of the Catholic Church--a history in which
that of a nation, however great or powerful, figures, if not as an
episode, certainly as but a simple portion, a contingent part, of a
necessary whole.

We one day read in an English journal that has a wide circulation the
following remark: "A church which counts among its members men like
Archbishop Manning and Dr. Newman is a church which is not to be
despised." English common sense thus did justice to the "coal-heavers'
faith," as people are pleased to call the adhesion of Catholics to the
doctrines proposed to them by their church. In fact--to speak only of the
last named of these two personages--the author of the _Grammar of Assent_
does not yield in intellectual power to any of his Anglican adversaries;
from whence we may infer, by a series of logical deductions, that neither
does he yield in this to any of the adversaries of the Catholic Church. To
speak plainly, we have never perceived that these adversaries have shown
any alarming degree of intelligence, at least with regard to the
application of the rules of logic. In any case, as, since Porphyry and
Celsus, men have never been wanting who have represented the faith
propounded by the Catholic Church as an abdication of reason, so also,
since Justin and the first Christian philosophers, the church has never
lacked doctors who, in defending her, have at the same time been the
defenders of reason. The apostolate of learning is not less fruitful,
perhaps, than that of virtue and of martyrdom. Without pronouncing upon
the relative necessity and advantages of these three apostolates, nor
examining whether it is possible to exercise a _true_ apostolate by
learning unaided by self-denial and virtue, nor even doing more than call
to mind how God in the Old Law, and the church in the New, have always
made learning a part of the duty of a priest, we will confine ourselves to
remarking that many souls are led to embrace the faith, and others,
tempted to doubt, are quieted and confirmed, by a simple reflection
analogous to that of the English journal just quoted. "A faith," they say,
"professed by minds so much above the ordinary class as such and such a
writer ought not to be lightly rejected." It is a preliminary argument of
which the effects are salutary, and grace does the rest.

If we now take into account all that eighteen centuries and innumerable
writers of all lands have accumulated in the way of proofs and testimonies
in favor of the Catholic faith; and if we at the same time consider the
immense variety and the infinitely-multiplied forms of error, each in its
turn combated by the church, we shall comprehend that it is scarcely
possible to imagine any error of which the refutation has not already
somewhere appeared. In the same way the struggle still goes on in all
parts of the globe, and among peoples who have advanced, some more, some
less, in learning and civilization; in all parts of the globe the defence
also continues, and by men brought up among the same surroundings as their
adversaries. In short, Catholic productions are not the exclusive appanage
of any single diocese, any single country, any single nation; they are the
family treasures, belonging to the whole Catholic Church. Facility of
communication brings us, together with their names, the works of those who
are waging war against various errors in various lands. To take time, to
enquire, to make some researches--this is the worst that could happen to a
Catholic priest who might find himself, for the moment, unable to solve an
objection. But the objection is already solved, even if it be drawn from
some scientific discovery of yesterday, if indeed (as it often happens) it
cannot be solved at once by the simple use of common sense, and especially
of logic, the most necessary of sciences, and the least studied of all.

Thus we see what happens in the Catholic Church, and we see, therefore,
why it is that in those countries where formerly the clergy may have been
at times taken by surprise, and not well prepared to meet a sudden
adversary, they now struggle bravely; and also we see why earnest
Catholics have been able without difficulty to distinguish between true
and false progress, and between true science and false.

Will it be the same in Russia?

We do not wish to exaggerate anything, and will even admit that the
complaints which are so general of the ignorance of the Russian clergy may
be much overstated. Nevertheless, in looking through the bibliography of
that country, we find ourselves forced to acknowledge that whenever the
day shall arrive for unbelief to have free course there, decorated with
the seductive appellations of science, of progress, of the emancipation of
reason, etc., the Russian clergy will either find themselves without arms
wherewith to defend orthodoxy, or with such only as shall prove
insufficient.

In fact, the reader is perhaps not aware that, from the year 1701, Peter
the Great had been _obliged_ (according to Voltaire) to forbid the use of
pen and ink to monks. "It required," says the apostle of science, "an
express permission from the archimandrite, who was responsible for those
to whom he granted it. Peter willed that this ordinance should
continue."(171) The successors of Peter likewise willed the same, although
we do not venture to affirm that the ordinance is still observed. Let us,
then, be just, and refrain from blaming the Russian monks. If, since the
time of Peter the Great, they have not extraordinarily enriched the
literature of their country, the fault is none of theirs.

Neither have we any right to blame the secular Russian clergy if few
writers have appeared among them, nor yet any one of those whose name
alone exercises an apostolate. All the Russians who have written on the
ecclesiastical schools of their country are unwearied in their complaints
against the badness of the method and the insufficiency of instruction
which the young Russian levite takes with him on leaving the
seminary.(172) We do not in any way accuse the commissions charged with
the inspection and reformation of the ecclesiastical schools. We are
convinced that these commissions have done their best; if the evil still
continues as before, it is because they have not the power to touch its
root. Besides, how can it be expected that a priest, poor, burdened with a
family, and in very many cases necessitated to maintain himself and his
family by the work of his hands, can either have the necessary freedom of
mind or sufficient leisure to devote himself to study?

It remains for us to consider the bishops. These are taken from the
monastic orders, and if, since Peter I., all of them have not been
archimandrites, yet to all has, at any rate, been granted by the
archimandrite, of their convent, at his own risk and peril, the use of pen
and ink. Of the two hundred and eighty ecclesiastical writers who have
appeared and died in Russia from the conversion of that country to
Christianity down to the year 1827, and whose biographies may be found in
the _Dictionary_ of Mgr. Eugenius, Metropolitan of Kief,(173) one hundred
and ten belonged to the episcopate; and ever since 1827 that episcopate
has continued to reckon among its members men remarkable for their
learning. Everything, however, is relative. These bishops have shone in
Russia; and there has been a desire to make them shine as far as France by
translating into French the _Orthodox Theology_ of Mgr. Macarius, Bishop
of Vinnitsa; a collection of _Sermons_, by the late Mgr. Philarete,
Metropolitan of Moscow; and perhaps some other works. It is also to be
supposed that some care must have been shown in selecting from amongst the
productions of ecclesiastical literature in Russia, the best there were to
be found of what she possessed. Without criticising, we think there is
reason for saying that hitherto the Russian episcopate has not by its
writings furnished orthodoxy with a support proportioned to the dangers
with which it is threatened, and we doubt very much whether it will be
equal to furnishing her with it very quickly. The Russian prelates
renowned for their learning are but few in number; besides, so long as the
faith and the church are protected by the Penal Code, and judicial
prosecution would be the consequence of any attack, neither priests nor
bishops have much chance of finding themselves face to face with any
adversaries of importance. The latter, in fact, would be exceedingly
careful to avoid the men who could denounce them; and the result of this
is that, for want of exercise, neither the bishops nor priests can state
what is either their strength or their weakness. To this we must add the
thousand hindrances placed by Russian censorship to the manifestation of
religious thought. There is nothing, even to the sermon preached by the
pope in his parish, which must not be submitted to censure.(174) As for
pastoral letters of bishops, we should be very glad if any could be quoted
to us. The formalities and delays which accompany the revision and
approbation of every work destined to appear in print are of a nature to
discourage the most intrepid. The examination of _all_ the ecclesiastical
productions destined to appear in the immense empire of the czars is
confided to the committees of the _four_ ecclesiastical academies of Kief,
Kasan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. If no exceptions were allowed, at any
rate in favor of periodical works, the complaint of Jeremias might be
truly applied to Russia: _Parvuli petierunt panem, et non erat, qui
frangeret eis_--"The little ones asked for bread, and there was none to
break it for them" (Lament. Jer. iv. 4). Finally, we will not stop to
consider the manner in which ecclesiastical censorship is exercised in
Russia, nor yet its tendencies nor its object; but we say, to single out
one point only, that it is impossible to find in all Russia a single work
that is able to throw any light upon the reciprocal relations of the
church and state. More than one reader will join us in acknowledging that
in Russia a true, apologetic literature has yet to be created.

To complete the picture of that which will inevitably take place in Russia
on the day when the Orthodox Church shall there lose the support of the
Penal Code, and will have to struggle alone, and abandoned to her own
strength against heresy and unbelief, we ought to observe that, since the
general confiscation of the goods of the clergy which was effected under
Catherine II. (1762), the Russian Church has no longer anything to supply
its needs but that which is allowed it by the state. It is the state which
provides for the keeping up of churches and monasteries; the state which
furnishes the expenses of the orthodox worship, and which assigns to the
ministers of that worship the piece of land from which they must find a
maintenance for themselves and their families, or else which supplies them
with a salary proportioned to the functions they are to exercise. It is
not, after all, impossible that, in the day of which we speak, the state,
while continuing to retain a budget for the orthodox worship, may
nevertheless extraordinarily reduce it; and also it is not impossible that
conditions which cannot be conscientiously accepted will be attached to
the payment of the salary, already so moderate, of the ministers of this
church. In either case, more even than to combat heresy and unbelief, it
will be necessary for the Russian Church to consider how her priests and
their families are to find bread and shelter. Now, the only classes which
can then effectively help them--are they not the same which at this day
show so great a contempt for their popes?

And this is not yet all. In the day of which we speak who will secure to
the bishops the obedience of the secular clergy? This clergy trembles now
before them, because it sees them armed by the law with a despotic
power;(175) but no one can foresee what will happen in the day when popes
and bishops shall be equal before the law. The bishops being all drawn
from the monastic state, the result has been that hitherto the secular
clergy have lived in subjection to the regular; and this fact, united to
other causes, has created a powerful antagonism between these two orders
of the clergy, which not unfrequently betrays itself by venomous writings.
One portion of the press makes common cause with the secular clergy; and,
if we may judge by certain tendencies, the admission of the secular clergy
to the episcopate will probably be one of the consequences of the changes
that will take place in the relations between the church and state. But it
is not possible that this change can be peaceably effected; the disorders
which, at times, arise in the application of the principle of universal
suffrage, show, in some degree, how, in this case, various elections of
bishops would be brought about. And then, in the confusion and wild
disorder of conflict, where would be found the authority which could have
power to settle these differences and claim for itself adhesion and
respect? The bishops, moreover, who or a century and a half have all been
equal before the czar, and only distinguished by the titles and
decorations granted or refused according to the good pleasure of the
monarch--will these submit themselves to an archbishop, to a metropolitan,
to a patriarch--in a word, to one from amongst themselves? Will they, for
the love of concord, invest him with a superior authority, and obey him?
And were they to reach this point, would not St. Petersburg contest the
primacy with Moscow? And would Kief forget her canonical jurisdiction of
former times?

Yet more, would not Constantinople vindicate any right over Russia? And
the other Oriental patriarchs--would they forget that their concurrence was
formerly sought for the erection of the patriarchate of Moscow, and their
approbation to sanction the establishment of the Synod?

We may thus, in its principal features, behold the state to which the
czars have reduced the faith and the church of which they entitle
themselves the guardians. The picture is a gloomy one; nevertheless, we do
not believe that we have exaggerated anything. Before proceeding further
we would even say a word of excuse for the czars.

If the Catholic Church were not built upon a rock, proof against all
tempests, many a Catholic sovereign designated by appellations indicative
of the highest degree of attachment to the church would long ago have
reduced her to the same condition as the church of the czars.

To Be Continued.

The Bells Of Prayer.

    During the prevalence of the great plague at Milan, "at the break
    of day, at noon, and at night a bell of the cathedral gave the
    signal for reciting certain prayers which had been ordered by the
    archbishop, and this was followed by the bells of the other
    churches. Then persons were seen at the windows, and a confused
    blending of voices and groans was heard which inspired sorrow,
    not, however, unmixed with consolation."

Stern Death, the tyrant, had swept along
With trailing robes through the dusty mart.
And laid his hand, that is white and chill,
        On the city's heart.

The Lombard City of olden ways
Over its sorrow and wild despair
A cry sent up to the unseen Throne
        In an earnest prayer.

A lord that is dead as a peasant is,
And a peasant dead is as a lord;
The angel stood at the city's gate
        With his lifted sword!

The tongues of bells in the steeple-tops
Sent on the breath of the baleful air
A call for the people far and near
        To evening prayer.

At the sound of bells the weeping ceased,
The heart of the thousand stilled its moan,
The name of God was uttered aloud
        With the bells' sad tone.

And the gleaming crosses pointing up,
Like the gold of crowns that princes wear,
Seemed in the gray of the changeless sky
        As signs of prayer.

And the women's eyes were wet with tears,
Their desolate souls were wrung with pain,
For the dead asleep in their silent graves
        Through the sun and rain.

In the dawn and noon and dusk it rose,
Threading its way up the narrow stair--
The Catholic cry--when the bells were rung
        For the people's prayer.

New Publications.

    THE PRISONERS OF THE TEMPLE; OR DISCROWNED AND CROWNED. by M. C.
    O'Connor Morris. (Eleventh volume of Father Coleridge's _Quarterly
    Series_.) London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The
    Catholic Publication Society.)

This is a republication with additions of papers from that excellent
magazine, _The Month_, which is especially valuable for its historical
articles. It gives an account of the imprisonment of Louis XVI. and his
family in the old tower of the Templars, together with sketches of other
parts of the history of that noble and unfortunate group of victims to
atheistic and revolutionary fury. The chief interest centres in the
history of Louis XVII., commonly called the Dauphin. The tragic tale of
his horrible sufferings and death is minutely told. At the end of the
volume we have a report of the judgment in the famous case of the
Naundorffs, who pretended to be the heirs of the Dauphin. This is one of
the many tales of an escape of the Dauphin from the Temple and the
substitution of another child in his place. The utter falsity of all these
stories is amply proved, pretenders and prophets to the contrary
notwithstanding. Whoever looks to the branch of the Capets for the
deliverance of France must find him in the Count de Chambord. We cannot
too warmly recommend this charming and pathetic narrative to all our
readers.

    MEDITATIONS ON THE LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST. By Nicholas
    Avancinus, S.J. Translated from the German Edition of the Rev. J.
    E. Zollner, by F. E. Bazalgette. With a Preface on Meditation, by
    George Potter, S.J. 2 vols. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New
    York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The _Meditations_ of Avancinus were specially adapted to the use of
religious. The German editor modified them for the use of all persons
indiscriminately. They are prepared for every day in the year, are short,
simple, and well fitted for use, both in community and in private.

    THE NOBLEMAN OF '89. By M. A. Quinton. Translated by Prof. Ernest
    Lagarde, of Mt. St. Mary's College. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1874.

Some of our readers have doubtless read the _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_ of that
great magician of language and fiery genius of revolution, Victor Hugo. It
is an apology for the French Revolution; yet, to any person whose mind and
heart are not already corrupted by bad principles and passions, it must
seem like an apology which makes the crime worse and less excusable. The
romances of Erckmann-Chatrian are more subtle and plausible. One or two of
them are, if taken singly, quite inoffensive, and a translation of them
was some time ago given in our own pages on account of their vivid
illustration of most interesting historical epochs. A contributor, quite
unsuspectingly, even proposed to translate them all, and the necessity of