The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 148

G.o.d consoles in his own way; he blesses in the same. Three years after their marriage, Rivanone and Hyvarnion rocked the cradle of a crying infant whom they endeavored to put asleep with their songs. Now this infant was blind; and in remembrance of their sorrow they had named him _Huerve_ or _Herve_, that is to say, _bitter_ or _bitterness_.

But, if his mother did not try upon his eyes the better appreciated virtue of the herb which should cure the blind; if she asked of her Christian faith surer remedies to give light to her son, she found, at least, at the foot of the cross, the herb which sweetens bitterness; and her husband himself without doubt recollected that he had said in his childhood that one of the most beautiful of virtues is strength in trials and tribulations.

Two years afterward this strength was even more necessary by the side of the cradle of the blind; a single hand rocked that cradle, a single voice sang there--the other voice sang in heaven. The father had already found the true plant which gives life.

With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted.

It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs, that a.s.sistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears, where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that G.o.d sends forth salvation.

"One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go to church;

"'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet been.'

"'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my bed.'

"'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be forced to go and beg for alms.'

"'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if you will permit me.

"'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.

"'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'

"And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not walk.

"Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not moved on the way to church;

"Seeing the little blind child of seven years without other guide than his little white dog.

"Hearing him sing, shivering, beaten by the wind and the rain, without covering on his little feet, and his teeth chattering with cold."

It was the festival of All Saints, as the legend tells us; the festival of the Dead follows it, and is prolonged during the second night of this month which the Bretons call the _Month of the Dead_.

Having feasted the blessed, every one goes to the cemetery to pray at the tomb of his parents, to fill with holy water the hollow of their gravestone, or, according to the locality, to make libations of milk.

It is said that on this night the souls from Purgatory fly through the air as crowded as the gra.s.s on the meadow; that they whirl with the leaves which the wind rolls over the fields, and that their voices mingle with the sighs of nature in mourning. Then, toward midnight, these confused voices become more and more distinct, and at each cottage door is heard this melancholy canticle.

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, greeting to you, people of this house, we come to you to ask your prayers.

{816}

"Good people, be not surprised that we have come to your door; it is Jesus who has sent us to wake you if you sleep.

"If there is yet pity in the world, in the name of G.o.d, aid us.

"Brothers, relatives, friends, in the name of G.o.d, hear us; in the name of G.o.d pray, pray; for the children pray not. Those whom we have nourished have long since forgotten us; those whom we have loved have left us dest.i.tute of pity."

Bands of mendicant singers, poor souls in trouble, they also, wanderers like those of the dead, go by woods and graves, to the sound of funereal bells, lending their voices to the unhappy of the other world.

The blind orphan, who, from the bed of his sick mother, went to kneel on the couch of his dead father, commenced in their company his apprenticeship as a singer, and if it is believed, as is claimed, that the _chant des ames_, such as it has come to us, was composed by a blind singer, under the inspiration of his father, whom he would have delivered from pain, the blind singer should be Herve, and the inspirer Hyvarnion.

The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which have been translated into touching narratives:

"The evening of All Souls, long before the night, the child returned to his mother, after his circuit.

"And he was very tired, so tired that he could not hold himself on his feet--all the route was slippery with ice.

"So tired that he fell on his mouth, and his mouth vomited blood, blood with broken teeth."

Now these broken teeth did not give birth to furious warriors, like those of the dragon in the fable; they were changed into diamonds which shone from far in the darkness.

Such is the language of the tradition. Can we better paint the songs drawn forth by the sorrow of the son of Hyvarnion, these songs of a Christian muse which cleared away the shadows no less crowded than those of the night of All Souls?

But these shadows were not dissipated instantly; the resistance made to Christianity by the remains of Armorican paganism is not less clearly indicated in traditional recollections than by the action and influence of the little Christian singer.

As he pa.s.sed the cross-roads of a village where the inhabitants have to this day preserved the sobriquet of _paganiz_, that is to say, heathens, he fell in the midst of a circle of young peasants, who, interrupting their dance, ran after him, hooting at him, throwing dirt upon him, and crying: "Where are you going, blind one, blind one!

Where are you going, blind brawler?"

"I'm going out of this canton, because I must," replied Herve, "but cursed be the race that comes from you." And, indeed, the little mockers, struck by the anathema, returned to the dance, and they must dance, it is said, to the end of the world, without ever resting or ever growing, becoming like those dwarfed imps whom the Armoricans adored, and whose power the Breton peasants still fear.

Nature herself, that great Celtic divinity, took the side of the imps against Herve, while the mother of the saint, in beholding him preaching the gospel, could say with the church: "How beautiful are the feet of those who come from the mountains!" "The granite earth on which he walked, refused to carry him, tearing his naked feet, and no one," says the complaint, "no one wiped the blood from his wounds, only his white dog with his tongue, who washed the feet of the saint, and warmed them with his breath."

Then, as he had cursed the mocking spirits, the saint cursed also the stony ground which would arrest his steps, and it was rendered harder than iron; when, going, according to his promise, into a district where the rocks were such, the legend a.s.sures us, that "iron {817} nor steel could ever pierce them," that is to say, the inhabitants were obstinate and incorrigible barbarians, he returned to the saint who inspired and enlightened him.

"My mother, for seven or eight years I have gone over this country, and have gained nothing from these hard and cruel hearts.

"I would be in some solitary place where I should hear only songs; where every day, my mother, I should hear only the praises of G.o.d."

"Thou wouldst be a cleric, my son, to be later a priest! G.o.d be praised! How sweet it would be to me to hear you say ma.s.s!"

"It is not, my mother, to be a priest; the priest's state is a great responsibility, and it frightens my weak spirit; besides the charge of my own soul I should have the charge of other souls; but I would like far better to live my life in the depths of the forest with the monks, and to be instructed how to serve G.o.d by those who serve him."

Rivanone agreed to the wishes of her son; the forest which he chose for his retirement was inhabited by one of her uncles. Herve sought him, while his mother asked an asylum for herself of some pious women who lived in community in another solitary place, having no intercourse with the world except with the sick and infirm to whom they were a providence.

III.

An ancient Breton ballad represents a magician going over the fields of Armorica at the dawn of day, accompanied by a black dog. I do not know what Christian voice addresses him: "Where are you going this morning with your black dog?" "I go to find the red egg, the red egg of the sea-serpent, on the edge of the river in the crevice of the rock."

Vain search! This egg, a sacred symbol to the ancient priests of Gaul and other heathen worship, had been crushed with the serpent of the Druids; the day was about to appear and put to flight the magician, darkness, and the black dog. When, on the contrary, Herve put himself, guided by his white dog, on the way to his uncle's hermitage, the last shades of night had disappeared, the day had risen, and he was to find in the Christian school more precious talismans than the egg of the Druid serpent.

"Saint Herve went to the school the sun encircled his brow with a circle of light, the doves sang along his road, and his white dog yelped for joy.

"Arrived at the door of the hermitage, the dog barked louder and louder, so that the hermit, hearing it, came forth to receive his niece's child.

"May G.o.d bless the orphan who comes in good faith to my school, who has sought me to be my clerk; my child, may blessings be on thy head.'" [Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: Same Breton legend of Saint Herve.]

This great unde of Herve was named Gurfoed; like many other hermits he brought up the children of Armorica. Among the grammarians whom he made them learn by heart, the ecclesiastical writers indicate Martia.n.u.s Capella, the author of the "Noces de Mercure et de la Philologie," of whom they make a monk, and among the subjects of his instruction they specially mention poetry and music. Music took a sufficiently high place in the schools and in the tastes of that age, as is proved by a synod a.s.sembled at Vannes in the middle of the sixth century, which believed it necessary to call the attention of the Armorican bishops to that point, and drew up an article on the necessity of adopting, in the whole province, a uniform chant.

Besides, in introducing it into the Christian ceremonies, and giving it place even in the choir of the temple, the church has shown the esteem which she has for this art. Herve perfected himself in it more and more; he even became so clever in it, observe the hagiographies, "that he took the prize from all his fellow-students."