The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 149

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After seven years of study pa.s.sed at a distance from his mother, he wished to see her and receive new force and new light from her counsels. According to some, Gurfoed conducted him to her; according to the popular legend, she came herself to seek her son.

And she said on approaching him:

"I behold a procession of monks advancing, and I hear the voice of my son; though a thousand were singing, I should know the voice of Herve; I behold my son dressed in gray, with a cord of hair for his belt. G.o.d be with you, my son, the clerk!"

"G.o.d be with you, my beloved mother! G.o.d is good; the mother is faithful to her son. Coming from so far to see me, although you could not walk!"

"And now that I have come, and I see you, my son, what have you to ask of me?"

"I have nothing to ask of you, my mother, but the permission to remain here to pray to G.o.d day and night, that we may meet each other in paradise."

"We shall meet in paradise or its surroundings, with the help of G.o.d, my son. When I go there you shall have warning; you shall hear the song of the angels."

"In fact," continues the French legend, "the evening of her decease and the next day, all those that were near saw a brilliant ladder by the side of her oratory, one end reaching to the skies, by which angels ascended and descended singing the most melodious motets and canticles."

The pious woman-poet, who had given to the church such a saint as Herve, well deserved that G.o.d's angels should sing, making a festival for her last hour.

Herve, guided by Gurfoed, arrived at the bedside of his dying mother, in time, if not to see her, (he could never see her except in heaven,) at least to receive her blessing, and to mingle his canticles with those of the pious companions of Rivanone, truly angelic choirs.

IV.

After the death of his mother, Herve returned to the hermitage of his uncle; but Gurfoed, wishing to live a still more retired life, abandoned his dwelling, and buried himself in the forest. Aided by some pious men, who, in order to work and pray under his direction, had built their cabins by the side of his, the saint continued to hold the school of his predecessor. This school prospered; and every evening could be seen a crowd of children coming from it, who a.s.sembled there in the morning from all the manors, as well as from all the surrounding cottages; a crowd as noisy, says a poet, as a swarm of bees issuing from the hollow of an oak. The master, being blind, could not teach them their letters; but he taught them canticles, maxims in verse, religious and moral aphorisms, without omitting those precepts of pure civility, so necessary to coa.r.s.e natures; and while exercising their memory he cultivated their understanding and their heart: he polished their rude manners; he endeavored, finally, to make men of them while bending their restless natures under the curb of his discipline. Lessons of wisdom were not clothed in other form in those heroic times; poetry and music, inseparable from each other, had always been considered by the ancients as necessary to cultivation, not only on account of the harmony which they produced, but for utility, instruction, and civilization of the people. Herve in taking them for the basis of his instruction, followed, without doubt, the counsels of Aristotle. It is said that Orpheus thus civilized people by his songs. Those of Hesiod have come to us, and present us with valuable examples of that didactic poetry, the first with all nations. But though we have left us some poems of Saint Herve, they are very few in number; the most were composed rather in his {819} spirit and according to his rules than by himself. They give him the honor of those aphorisms to which his name is given, which, at least, have the strong imprint of the instructive poetry of the monks; they turn upon three of the virtues which the religions princ.i.p.ally endeavored to inculcate in their Ignorant pupils, idle and independent, as are all barbarians, namely, the love of instruction, the love of work, and the love of discipline, elements which are the strength of all civilized society.

"It is better to instruct a little child than to ama.s.s riches for him."

Saint Cado, the teacher of Herve's father, said the same thing in other terms, "There is no wealth without study;" and he added, "There is no wisdom without science, no independence without science, no liberty, no beauty, no n.o.bleness, no victory without science," and, giving to science its true foundation, he thus terminated his eloquent enumeration:

"No science without G.o.d."

The second axiom credited to Saint Herve is this: "He who is idle in his youth heaps poverty on the head of his old age."

The Breton mariners have retained the third maxim of which Saint Herve pa.s.sers as the author: "The words of Herve are words of wisdom," they say; "Who yields not to the rudder will yield to the rock." I have also seen attributed to him a moral song, widely spread in Brittany, in which, perhaps, there are several couplets of his, but in any case modernized in language and style.

"Come to me, my little children, come to me that you may hear a new song, which I have composed expressly for you. Take the greatest pains in order that you may retain it entire."

"When you wake in your bed, offer your heart to the good G.o.d, make the sign of the cross, and say, with faith, hope, and love:

"'My G.o.d, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. Grant that I may be an honest man, or that I may die before the time.'

"When you see a raven flying, remember that the devil is as black as wicked; when you see a little white dove, remember that your angel is as gentle as white.

"Remember that G.o.d sees you like the sun in the midst of the sky; remember that G.o.d can make you bloom as the sun makes bloom the wild roses of the mountains.

"At night, before going to bed, recite your prayers; do not fail, so that a white angel will come from heaven to guard you until morning.

"Behold, dear children, the true means of living as good Christians.

Put my song into practice and yon will lead a holy life."

Such lessons, where were so effectively found some of the practices which make a man strong, that is to say, Christians; where there was so much freshness and grace; where the sun, and the flowers, the birds and the angels, all the most smiling images were purposely united, captivated and charmed the young barbarians. I am no longer surprised if the legend a.s.sures us that Herve tamed the savage beasts; if it recounts that one day he forced a thief of a fox to bring back, "without hurting her," his hen which he had carried off, and another time a robber of a wolf who had eaten up his a.s.s--others say his dog--to serve and follow him like a spaniel. This new style of spaniel was seen in a crowd of bas-reliefs held in leash by the saints, and as elsewhere mothers threatened their children with the wolf, the Breton Mothers frightened their brats with _Herve's spaniel._ Orpheus is thus represented followed by tamed tigers; and another bard, a half pagan, whom we have seen before accompanied by his black dog, is painted, running through the woods with a wolf which he calls _his dear companion. Tu Lupe, care comes_. The poets of the primitive times were supposed to be in a perpetual union with nature, {820} and to have reconquered the power, lost since leaving the Garden of Eden, of making all animals obedient to them. Herve was considered to be endowed with the same power; but poetry and music were not the only form which the Christian gave to his charms. His true magic was prayer. See how he chanted when he was exposed to the snares or the ferocity of animals or of men:

"O G.o.d! deign to preserve me from snares, from oppression, from evil, from the fox, the wolf, and the devil."

Not more than men and wild beasts, could nature resist the force of his prayer. Somewhat troubled in his retreat, and above all in his humility, by the too noisy veneration of the Armorican chiefs, who sent their sons to him, he plunged into the forest, as had Gurfoed, seeking the hermitage, and the counsels of his former teacher; but the gra.s.s and fern had effaced the path which led there, and all Herve's researches had been in vain, when he came to an opening in the forest where a moss-covered rock was raised up on four stones; the ruins of a cabin where the badgers had made their nests, were seen near at hand; briers, thickets of holly and thorns enc.u.mbered the ground. Before these ruins the saint, struck with a secret presentiment, prostrated himself, his arms in the form of a cross, and cried three times: "In the name of G.o.d, rock, split; in the name of G.o.d, earth, open, if you hide from me my light." His prayer was scarcely terminated when the earth trembled, the rocks split, and through the opening came a soft odor, which revealed to him the sepulchre of him whom he was seeking.

Such is the popular narrative; but, if it is intended to show his power over nature, it shows still more his humility. It is exhaled from this legend, as perfumes from the tomb of him whom he sought as his light.

I remember a song in which a kind of Druidess gives the a.s.surance that she knows a song which can make even the earth tremble: after a frightful display of magical science, she finishes by saying, that with the help of her _light_, as she calls her master she is able to turn the earth in the contrary way. Here it is the pagan pride which vaunts itself; but a voice from heaven is heard, "If this world is yours, the other belongs to G.o.d!" and the sorceress was confounded.

Herve, on the contrary, who is humble, and who prays; Herve, who speaks, not in his own name, but in the name of G.o.d, is heard and exalted. It is verifying the words of the Gospel: "And the humble shall be exalted."

As he advanced in age, the saint continued to realize this promise. We have up to this moment seen him glorified under the tatters of a vagabond singer, as well as under the poor robe of an instructor of little barbarians; we are now to see him as an agriculturist, even architect, but always all the strongest when he would wish to appear weakest in the eyes of men, always the greatest when he would wish to be the lowest.

The counsels which Herve had gone to ask of his old teacher, he received from his bishop, a wise and holy man, who came from Britain to the country of Leon. The bishop judged him worthy to be a priest, and wished to confer upon him the ecclesiastical character; but the hermit, who from childhood had considered himself unworthy of this great responsibility, persisted in his humble sentiments, and he would consent to be promoted only to the lowest orders, to those called minor orders. It is easy to believe that his bishop induced him to definitely fix his dwelling somewhere with his disciples, and to give to the Armoricans the example of a sedentary life, of manual labor, the cultivation of the earth, and building, all things which are at the foundation of all society, and which the barbarians little liked; for he went to work to seek a place where he could establish a small colony.

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V.

About half a century before, another bard also blind, and his hair whitened by age, journeyed in Armorica from canton to canton, seated on a small horse from the mountains, which a child led by the bridle.

He sought, like Herve, a field to cultivate and in which he could build. Knowing what herbs were produced by good ground, and what herbs by bad ground, he asked from time to time of his guide:

"Seest thou the green clover?"

And always the child replied:

"I see only the fox-glove blossoms." For at that epoch, Armorica was a wild country.

"Well, then, we will go farther," replied the old man.

And the little horse went on his way. At last the child cried out:

"Father, I see the clover blooming."

And he stopped. The old man dismounted, and seating himself on a stone, in the sun, he sang the songs of labor in the fields, and of their culture in different seasons. This agricultural bard was invested with a venerated character by the ancient Bretons. They regarded him as a pillar of social existence; but his heart, open to the cultivation of nature, was closed to the love of humanity. With one of his brethren he said willingly: "I do not plough the earth without shedding blood on it." He thirsted for the blood of Christian monks and priests, and he offered it with joy as sacrifice to the earth. To the wisest lessons in agriculture he added the most ferocious predictions, "The followers of Christ shall be tracked; they shall be hunted like wild beasts, they shall die in bands and by battalions on the mountain. The wheel of the mill grinds fine; the blood of the monks will serve as water."

Scarcely sixty years had rolled away, and these same monks whom the bard cursed as usurpers of the Celtic harp and as stealers of the children of the Bretons, advanced peaceably over the ruins of a religion of which he was the last minister, ready to shed blood also, but their own; ready to perform prodigies, but of intelligence and of love. Their chief was not on horseback, he walked with bare feet, (he went always unshod, says his historian,) and having journeyed for a long time, he spoke thus to his disciples:

"Know, my brothers, it wearies me to be always running and wandering in this way; pray to G.o.d that he will reveal to us some place in which we can live to serve him for the rest of our days."

They all commenced to pray, and behold a voice was heard saying: "Go even toward the east, and where I shall three times tell thee to rest, there thou wilt dwell." They commenced then on the road to the east, and when they had gone very far, having found a field filled with high green wheat, they sat down in its shade. Now, as he was thus reposing, a voice was heard which said three times: "Make your dwelling here."

Filled with grat.i.tude, they knelt to thank G.o.d, and being thirsty with the heat and the travel, the saint by his prayers obtained a fresh fountain.

But the possession of the land was not easy to obtain from the avaricious proprietor, whom the French legend charitably calls "an honest man." Herve demanded of him, however, only a little corner in which to erect a small monastery.

"Bless my soul, bless my soul!" cried the owner, "but my wheat is still all green, and so if you cut it now it will be lost."