From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn Part 5

It was a bright summer morning when we started from Macon, and wound our way among the vine-clad hills of the ancient province of Burgundy.

It is a picturesque country. Old chateaux hang upon the sides, or crown the summits of the hills, while quaint little villages nestle at their foot. In yonder village was born the poet and statesman, Lamartine. We can see in pa.s.sing the chateau where he lived, and here, "after life's fitful fever, he sleeps well." All these sunny slopes are covered with vineyards, which are now smiling in their summer dress. I do not wonder that pilgrims, as they enter this "hill-country," are often reminded of Palestine. Three hours brought us to Paray-le-Monial, a little town of three or four thousand inhabitants--just like hundreds of others in France, with nothing to attract attention, except the marvellous tradition which has given it a sudden and universal celebrity, and which causes devout Catholics to approach it with a feeling of reverence.

The story of the place is this: In the little town is a convent, which has been standing for generations. Here, _two hundred years ago_, lived a nun, whose name was Marguerite Marie Alacoque, who was eminent for her piety, who spent a great part of her life in prayer, and whose devotion was at length rewarded by the personal appearance of our Lord, who opened to her his bosom, and showed her his heart burning with love for men, and bade her devote herself to the worship of that "sacred heart"! These visitations were very frequent. Some of them were in the chapel, and some in the garden attached to the convent.

The latter is not open to visitors, the Pope having issued an order that the privacy of the _religieuses_ should be respected. But a church near by overlooks it, and whoever will take the fatigue to climb to the top, may look down into the forbidden place. As we were determined to see everything, we mounted all the winding stone steps in the tower, from which the keeper pointed out to us the very spot where our Saviour appeared to the Bienheureuse, as he called her. In a clump of small trees are two statues, one of the Lord himself, and the other of the nun on her knees, as she instantly sank to the ground when she recognized before her the Majesty of her blessed Lord. There is another place in the garden where also she beheld the same heavenly vision. Sometimes the "Seigneur" appeared to her unattended; at others he was accompanied by angels and seraphim.

It is a little remarkable that this wonderful fact of the personal appearance of Christ, though it occurred, according to the tradition, _two hundred years ago_, did not attract more attention; that it was neglected even by Catholic historians, until twelve years since--in 1863--when (as a part of a general movement "all along the line" to revive the decaying faith of France) the marvellous story of this long neglected saint was revived, and brought to the notice and adoration of the religious world.

But let not cold criticism come in to mar the full enjoyment of what we have come so far to see. The princ.i.p.al visitations were not in the garden but in the chapel of the convent, which on that account bears the name of the Chapel of the Visitation. Here is the tomb which contains the body of the sainted nun, an image of whom in wax lies above it under a gla.s.s case, dressed in the robe of her order, with a crown on her head, to bring before the imagination of the faithful the presence of her at whose shrine they worship. The chapel is separated from the convent by a large grating, behind which the nuns can be hidden and yet hear the service, and chant their offices. There it was, so it is said, behind that grate, while in an ecstasy of prayer, that our Saviour first appeared to the gaze of the enraptured nun. The grate is now literally covered with golden hearts, the offerings of the faithful. Similar gifts hang over the altar, while gilded banners and other votive offerings cover the walls.

As we entered the chapel, it was evident that we were in what was to many a holy place. At the moment there was no service going on, but some were engaged in silent meditation and prayer. We seemed to be the only persons present from curiosity. All around us were absorbed in devotion. We sat a long time in silence, musing on the strange scene, unwilling to disturb even by a whisper the stillness of the place, or the thoughts of those who had come to worship. At three o'clock the nuns began to sing their offices. But they did not show themselves.

There are other Sisters, who have the care of the chapel, and who come in to trim the candles before the shrine, but the nuns proper live a life of entire seclusion, never being seen by any one. Only their voices are heard. Nothing could be more plaintive than their low chanting, as it issued from behind the bars of their prison house, and seemed to come from a distance. There, hidden from the eyes of all, sat that invisible choir, and sang strains as soft as those which floated over the shepherds of Bethlehem. As an accompaniment to the scene in the chapel, nothing could be more effective; it was well fitted to touch the imagination, as also when the priest intoned the service in the dim light of this little church, with its censers swinging with incense, and its ever-burning lamps.

The walls of the chapel are covered with banners, some from other countries, but most from France, and here it is easy to see how the patriotic feeling mingles with the religious. Here and there may be seen the image of the sacred heart with a purely religious inscription, such as _Voici le coeur qui a tant aime les hommes_ (here is the heart which has so loved men); but much more often it is, COEUR DE JESUS, SAUVEZ LA FRANCE! This idea in some form constantly reappears, and one cannot help thinking that this sudden outburst of religious zeal has been greatly intensified by the disasters of the German war; that for the first time French armies beaten in the field, have resorted to prayer; that they fly to the Holy Virgin, and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to implore the protection which their own arms could not give. Hung in conspicuous places on columns beside the chancel are banners of Alsace and Lorraine, _covered with c.r.a.pe_, the former with a cross in the centre, encircled with the words first written in the sky before the adoring eyes of Constantine: IN HOC SIGNO VINCES; while for Lorraine stands only the single name of METZ, invested with such sad a.s.sociations, with the inscription, SACRe COEUR DE JESUS, SAUVEZ LA FRANCE!

There is no doubt that these pilgrimages have been encouraged by French politicians, as a means of reviving and inflaming the enthusiasm of the people, not only for the old Catholic faith, but for the old Catholic monarchy. Of the tens of thousands who flock to these shrines, there are few who are not strong Legitimists. On the walls of the chapel the most glittering banner is that of HENRI DE BOURBON, which is the name by which the Comte de Chambord chooses to be known as the representative of the old royal race. Not to be outdone in pious zeal, Marshal MacMahon, who is a devout Catholic--and his wife still more so--has also sent a banner to Paray-le-Monial, but it is not displayed with the same ostentation. The Legitimists have no wish to keep his name too much before the French people. He is well enough as a temporary head of the State till the rightful sovereign comes, but when Henri de Bourbon appears, they want no "Marshal-President" to stand in his way as he ascends the throne of his ancestors.

Thus excited by a strange mixture of religious zeal and political enthusiasm, France pours its mult.i.tudes annually to these shrines of Lourdes and Paray-le-Monial. We were too late for the rush this year--the season was just over; for there is a season for going on pilgrimages as for going to watering-places, and June is the month in which they come in the greatest numbers. There have been as many as twenty thousand in one day. On the 16th of June--which was a special occasion--the crowd was so great that Ma.s.s was begun at two o'clock in the morning, and repeated without ceasing till noon, the worshippers retiring at the end of every half hour, that a new throng might take their places. Thus successive pilgrims press forward to the holy shrine, and go away with an elated, almost ecstatic feeling, that they have left their sins and their sorrows at the tomb of the now sainted and glorified nun.

What shall we say to this? That it is all nonsense--folly, born of fanaticism and superst.i.tion? Medical men will have an easy way of disposing of this nun and her visions, by saying that she was simply a crazy woman; that nothing is more common than these fancies of a distempered imagination; that such cases may be found in every lunatic asylum; that hysterical women often think that they have seen the Saviour, &c. Such is a very natural explanation of this singular phenomenon. There is no reason to suppose that this nun was a designing woman, that she intended to deceive. People who have visions are the sincerest of human beings. They have unbounded faith in themselves, and think it strange that an unbelieving world does not give the same credit to their revelations.

From all that I have read of this Marie Alacoque, I am quite ready to believe that she was indeed a very devout woman, who, buried in that living tomb, a convent, praying and fasting, worked herself into such a fever of excitement, that she thought the Saviour came down into the garden, and into the chapel; that she saw his form and heard his voice. To her it was all a living reality. But that her simple statement, supported by no other evidence, should be gravely accepted in this nineteenth century by men who are supposed to be still in the possession of sober reason, is one of the strange things which it would be impossible to believe, were it not that I have seen it with my own eyes, and which is one more proof that wonders will never cease.

But sincerity of faith always commands a certain respect, even when coupled with ignorance and superst.i.tion. If this shows an extreme of credulity absolutely pitiful, yet we must consider it not as _we_ look at it, but as these devout pilgrims regard it. To them this spot is one of the holy places of the world, for here they believe the Incarnate Divinity descended to the earth; they believe that this garden has been touched by His blessed feet; and that this little chapel, so honored in the past, is still filled with the presence of Him who once was here, but is now ascended up far above all heavens.

And hence this Paray-le-Monial in their minds is invested with the same sacred a.s.sociations with which we regard Nazareth and Bethlehem.

But with every disposition to look upon these manifestations in the most indulgent light, it is impossible not to feel that there is something very French in this way of attempting to revive the faith of a great nation. Among this people everything seems to have a touch of the theatrical--even in their religion there is frequency more of show than of conviction. Thus this new worship is not addressed to the name of our Saviour, but to His "sacred heart"! There is something in that image which seems to take captive the French imagination. The very words have a rich and mellow sound. And so the attempt which was begun in an obscure village of Burgundy, is now proclaimed in Paris and throughout the kingdom, to dedicate France to the sacred heart of Jesus.

This peculiar form of worship is the new religious fashion. A few weeks since an imposing service attracted the attention of Paris. A procession of bishops and priests, followed by great numbers of the faithful, wound through the streets, up to the heights of Montmartre, there to lay, with solemn ceremonies, the corner-stone of a new church dedicated to the sacred heart. We drove to the spot, which is the highest in the whole circle of Paris, and which overlooks it almost as Edinburgh Castle overlooks that city. There one looks down on the habitations of two millions of people. A church erected on that height, with its golden cross lifted into mid-heaven, would seem like a banner in the sky, to hold up before this unbelieving people an everlasting sign of the faith.

But though the Romish Church should consecrate ever so many shrines; though it build churches and cathedrals, and rear its flaming crosses on every hill and mountain from the Alps to the Pyrenees; it is not thus that religion is to be enthroned in the hearts of a nation. The fact is not to be disguised that France has fallen away from the faith. It looks on at all these attempts with indifference, or with an amused curiosity. If popular writers notice them at all, it is to make them an object of ridicule. At one of the Paris theatres an actor appears dressed as a Brahmin, and offers to swear "by the sacred heart of _a cow_" (that being a sacred animal in India). The hit is caught at once by the audience, who answer it with applause. It is thus that the populace of Paris sneer at the new superst.i.tion.

Would to G.o.d that France might be speedily recovered to a true Christian faith; but it is not to be by any such fantastic tricks or theatrical devices, by shows or processions, by gilded crosses or waving banners, or by going on pilgrimages as in the days of the Crusades. Even the Catholic Church has more efficient instruments at command. The Sisters of Charity in hospitals are far more effective missionaries than nuns behind the bars of a convent, singing hymns to the Virgin, or lamps burning before the shrine of a saint dead hundreds of years ago. If France is ever to be brought back to the faith, it must be by arguments addressed to the understanding, which shall meet the objections of modern science and philosophy; and, above all, by living examples of its power. If Religion is to conquer the modern world; if it is even to keep its present hold among the nations, it must be brought into contact with the minds and hearts of the people as never before; it must grapple with the problems of modern society, with poverty and misery in all its forms. Especially in the great capitals of Europe it has its hardest field, and there it must go into all the narrow lanes and miserable dwellings, it must minister to the sick, and clothe the naked and feed the hungry. France will never be converted merely by dramatic exhibitions, that touch the imagination. It must be by something that can touch the conscience and the heart. Thus only can the heart of France ever be won to "the sacred heart of Jesus."

CHAPTER X.

UNDER THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC.

THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI, July 15th.

I did not mean to write anything about Switzerland, because it is such trodden ground. Almost everybody that has been in Europe has been here, and even to those who have not, repeated descriptions have made it familiar. And yet when once among these mountains, the impression comes back fresh and strong as ever, and while the spell is on the traveller, he cannot but wish to impart a little of his enjoyment to friends at home.

We are in the Vale of Chamouni, under the shadow of Mont Blanc. In this valley, shut in by the encircling mountains, one cannot escape from that "awful form" any more than from the presence of G.o.d. It is everywhere day and night. We throw open our windows, and it is standing right before us. Even at night the moonlight is glistening on its eternal snows. Thus it forces itself upon us, and must receive respectful homage.

We left Geneva on one of the most beautiful mornings of the year.

There has been great lamentation throughout Switzerland this summer, on account of the frequent rains, which have enveloped the mountains in a continual mist. But we have been favored in this respect, both at Geneva and at Chamouni. To set out on a mountain excursion on such a morning, and ride on the top of a diligence, is enough to stir the blood of the most languid tourist. A French diligence is a monstrous affair--a kind of Noah's Ark on wheels--that carries a mult.i.tude of living creatures. We had twenty-four persons (three times as many as Noah had in the Ark) mounted on this huge vehicle, to which were harnessed six horses, three abreast. We had the front seat on the top.

In such grandeur we rolled out of Geneva, feeling at every step the exhilaration of the mountain air, and the bright summer morning. The postilion was in his glory. How he cracked his whip as we rattled through the little Swiss villages, making the people run to get out of his way, and stare in wonder at the tremendous momentum of his imperial equipage. To us, who sat sublime "above the noise and dust of this dim spot called earth," there was something at once exciting and ludicrous in the commotion we made. But there were other occasions for satisfaction. The day was divine. The country around Geneva rises from the lake, and spreads out in wide, rolling distances, bordered on every side by the great mountains. The air was full of the smell of new-mown hay, while over all hung the bending sky, full of sunshine.

Thus with every sense keen with delight, we sat on high and took in the full glory of the scene, as we swept on towards the Alps.

As we advance the mountains close in around us, till we cannot see where we are to find a pa.s.sage through them. For the last half of the way the construction of the road has been a difficult task of engineering; for miles it has to be built up against the mountain; at other places a pa.s.sage is cut in the side of the cliff, or a tunnel made through the rock. Yet difficult as it was, the work has been thoroughly done. It was completed by Napoleon III., after Savoy was annexed to France, and is worthy to compare with the road which the first Napoleon built over the Simplon. Over such a highway we rolled on steadily to the end of our journey.

And now we are in the Vale of Chamouni, in the very heart of the Alps, under the shadow of the greatest of them all:

"Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains They crowned him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, With a diadem of snow."

Once in the valley, we can hardly turn aside our eyes from that overpowering object. We keep looking up at that mighty dome, which seems to touch the sky. Fortunately for us, there was no cloud about the throne. Like other monarchs, he is somewhat fitful and capricious, often hiding his royal head from the sight of his worshippers. Many persons come to Chamouni, and do not see Mont Blanc at all. Sometimes they wait for days for an audience of his majesty, without success.

But he favored us at once with the sight of his imperial countenance.

Glorious was it to behold him as he shone in the last rays of the setting sun. And when evening drew on, the moon hung above that lofty summit, as if unwilling to leave. As she declined towards the west, she did not disappear at once; but as the mountains themselves sank away from the height of Mont Blanc, the moon seemed to glide slowly down the descending slope, setting and reappearing, and touching the whole with her silver radiance.

But sunset and moonlight were both less impressive than sunrise.

Remembering Coleridge's "Hymn to Mont Blanc," which is supposed to be written "before sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni," we were up in the morning to catch the earliest dawn. It was long in coming. At first a few faint streaks of light shot up the eastern sky; then a rosy tinge flushed the head of Mont Blanc; then other snowy summits caught the golden glow; till a hundred splintered peaks, that formed a part of the mighty range, reflected the light of coming day, and at last the full orb himself rose above the tops of the mountains, and shone down into the valley.

Of course all visitors to Chamouni have to climb some of the lower mountains to see the glaciers, and get a general view of the chain of Mont Blanc. My companion was ambitious to do something more than this. She is a very good walker and climber, and had taken many long tramps among our Berkshire Hills, and to her Mont Blanc did not seem much more than Monument Mountain. In truth, the eye is deceived in judging of these tremendous heights, and cannot take in at first the real elevation. But when they are accurately measured, Mont Blanc is found to be about twenty times as high as the cliff which overlooks our Housatonic Valley! But a young enthusiast feels equal to anything, and she seemed really quite disappointed that she could not at least go as far as the Grands Mulets (where, with a telescope, we can just see a little cabin on the rocks), which is the limit of the first day's journey for adventurous tourists, most of whom do not get any further. A party that went up yesterday, intending to reach the top of Mont Blanc, had to turn back. A recent fall of snow had buried the mountain, so that they sank deep at every step; and finding it dangerous to proceed, they prudently abandoned the attempt.

The ascent of Mont Blanc, at all times difficult, is often a dangerous undertaking. Many adventurous travellers have lost their lives in the attempt. An avalanche may bury a whole party in a moment; or if lashed to the guides by a rope, one slipping may drag the whole down into one of the enormous creva.s.ses, where now many bodies lie unburied, yet preserved from decay in the eternal ice. Only five years ago, in September, 1870, a party of eleven--three tourists (of whom two were Americans), with eight guides and porters--were all lost. They had succeeded in reaching the summit of the mountain, when a snow-storm came on, and it was impossible for them to descend. The body of one of them, Dr. Bean, of Baltimore, was recovered, and is buried in the little graveyard here. With such warnings, a sober old uncle might be excused for restraining a young lady's impetuosity. If we could be here a month, and "go into training," by long walks and climbs every day, I do believe we should gradually work our courage up to the sticking-point, and at last climb to the top, and plant a very modest American flag on the h.o.a.ry head of Mont Blanc.

But for the present we must be content with a less ambitious performance, and make only the customary ascent of the Montanvert, and cross the Mer de Glace. We left at eight o'clock yesterday morning.

Our friends in New York would hardly have recognized me in my travelling dress of Scotch gray, with a slouched straw hat on my head, and an alpenstock in my hand. The hat was very useful, if not ornamental. I bought it for one franc, and it answered as well as if it had cost a guinea. To be sure, as it had a broad brim, it had a slight tendency to take wings and fly away, and light in some mountain torrent, from which it was speared out with the alpenstock, and restored to its place of honor; but it did excellent service in protecting my eyes from the blinding reflection of the snow. C---- was mounted on a mule, which she had at first refused, preferring her own agile feet; but I insisted on it, as a very useful beast to fall back upon in case the fatigue was too great. Thus accoutred, our little cavalcade, with our guide leading the way, filed out of Chamouni. If any of my readers laugh at our droll appearance, they are quite welcome--for we laughed at ourselves. Comfort is worth more than dignity in such a case; and if anybody is abashed at the ludicrous figure he cuts, he may console himself by reflecting that he is in good company. I saw in Paris the famous picture by David of Napoleon crossing the Alps, which represents him mounted on a gallant charger, his military cloak flying in the air, while he points his soldiers upward to the heights they are to scale. This is very fine to look at; but the historical fact is said to be that Napoleon rode over the Alps on a mule, and if he encountered rains and storms, he was no doubt as bedraggled as any Alpine tourist. But that did not prevent his gaining the battle of Marengo.

But all thoughts of our appearance vanish when once we begin to climb the mountain side. For two hours we kept winding in a zigzag path through the perpetual pine forest. At every turn in the road, or opening in the trees, we stopped to look at the valley below, where the objects grew smaller, as we receded further from them. Is it not so in life? As some one has said, "Everything will look small enough if we only get high enough." All rude noises died away in the distance, till there rose into the upper air only the sound of the streams that were rushing through the valley below.

At a chalet half way up the mountain a living chamois was kept for show. It was very young, and was suckled by a goat. It was touching to see how the little creature pined for freedom, and leaped against the sides of his pen. Child of the mountain, he seemed ent.i.tled to liberty, and I longed to break open his cage and set the little prisoner free, and see him bound away upon the mountain side.

Climbing, still climbing, another hour brings us to the top of the Montanvert, where we look down upon the Mer de Glace. Here all the party quit their mules, which are sent to another point, to meet us as we come down from the mountain--and taking our alpenstocks in hand (which are long staffs, with a spike at the end to stick in the ice, to keep ourselves from slipping), we descend to the Mer de Glace, an enormous glacier formed by the ma.s.ses of snow and ice which collect during the long winters, filling up the whole s.p.a.ce between two mountains. It was in studying the glaciers of Switzerland for a course of years, that Aga.s.siz formed his glacial theory; and in seeing here how the steady pressure of such enormous ma.s.ses of ice, weighing millions of tons, have carried down huge boulders of granite, which lie strewn all along its track, one can judge how the same causes, operating at a remote period, and on a vast scale, may have changed the whole surface of the globe.

But we must not stop to philosophize, for we are now just at the edge of the glacier, and need our wits about us, and eyes too, to keep a sharp lookout for dangerous places, and steady feet, and hands keeping a tight hold of our trusty alpenstocks. The Mer de Glace is just what its name implies--a Sea of Ice--and looks as if, when some wild torrent came tumbling through the awful pa.s.s, it had been suddenly stopped by the hand of the Almighty, and frozen as it stood. And so it stands, its waves dashed up on high, and its chasms yawning below. It is said to reach up into the mountains for miles. We can see how it goes up to the top of the gorge and disappears on the other side; but those who wish to explore its whole extent, may walk over it or beside it all day. Though dangerous in some places, yet where tourists cross, they can pick their way with a little care. The more timid ones cling closely to the guide, holding him fast by the hand. One lady of our party, who had four bearers to carry her in a Sedan chair, found her head swim as she crossed. But C----, who had been gathering flowers all the way up the mountain, made them into a bouquet, which she fastened to one end of her alpenstock, and striking the other firmly in the ice, moved on with as free a step as if she were walking along some breezy path among our Berkshire Hills.

But the most difficult part of the course is not in crossing the Mer de Glace, but in coming down on the other side. It is not always _facilis descensus_; it is sometimes _difficilis descensus_. There is one part of the course called the _Mauvais Pas_, which winds along the edge of the cliff, and would hardly be pa.s.sable but for an iron rod fastened in the side of the rock, to which one clings for support, and looking away from the precipice on the other side, makes the pa.s.sage in safety.

And now we come to the Chapeau, a little chalet perched on a shelf of rock, from which one can look down thousands of feet into the Vale of Chamouni. As we pa.s.s along by the side of the glacier, we see nearer the end some frightful creva.s.ses, which the boldest guide would not dare to cross. The ice is constantly wearing away; indeed so great is the discharge of water from the melting of the ice and the snow, that a rapid river is all the time rushing out of it. The Arveiron takes its rise in the Mer de Glace, while the Arve rises in another glacier higher up the valley. As Coleridge says, in his Hymn to Mont Blanc,

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly;

the sound of the streams, mingling with the waterfalls on the sides of the mountains, filling the air with a perpetual sound like the roaring of the sea.

Coleridge speaks also of Mont Blanc as rising from a "silent sea of pines." Nothing can be more accurate than this picture of the universal forest, which overflows all the valleys, and reaches up the mountains, to the edge of eternal snows. At such heights the pines are the only trees that live, and there they stand through all the storms of winter. Looking around on this landscape, made up of forest and snow, alternately dark and bright, it seems as if Mont Blanc were the Great White Throne of the Almighty, and as if these mighty forests that stand quivering on the mountain side, were the myriads of mankind gathered into this Valley of Judgment, and here standing rank on rank, waiting to hear their doom.

But yet the impression is not one wholly of terror, or even of unmixed awe. There is beauty as well as wildness in the scene. Nothing can exceed the quiet and seclusion of these mountain paths, and there is something very sweet to the ear in

"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,"

which fill "the forest primeval" with their gentle sound. And when at evening one hears the tinkling cow-bells, as the herds return from the mountain pastures, there is a pastoral simplicity in the scene which is very touching, and we could understand how the Swiss air of the _Ranz des Vaches_ (or the returning of the cows) should awaken such a feeling of homesickness in the soldier far from his native mountains, that bands have been prohibited from playing it in Swiss regiments enlisted in foreign armies.

When we came down from the Mer de Glace, it was not yet three o'clock, and before us on the opposite side of the valley rose another mountain, which we might ascend before night if we had strength left.

We felt a little remorse at giving the guide another half-day's work; but he, foreseeing extra pay, said cheerfully that _he_ could stand it; the mule said nothing, but p.r.i.c.ked up his long ears as if he was thinking very hard, and if the miracle of Balaam could have been repeated, I think the poor dumb beast would have had a pretty decided opinion. But it being left to us, we declared for a fresh ascent, and once more set our faces skyward, and went climbing upward for two hours more.