Four Years in France Part 13

On the other hand it was argued that, for a quarter of a century, religion had been discouraged; for one year of that time it had been proscribed, and the churches closed; during all that time Christian education had been notoriously neglected; so many clergy had been banished, that the remainder had been insufficient to the various functions required of them; that to recover from such a state, extraordinary remedies were called for.

After all, there was nothing so very extraordinary in these missions: from three to six priests, men of some talent, zeal, and eloquence, arrived in a town, stayed there a greater or less number of days according to the population, or, it may be, the spiritual wants of the place, preached, and heard confessions. Yet let any one suppose what would be the effect of the presence of half a dozen methodist teachers in any town in England, and he will be able to form an idea of the state of Avignon, pending the mission which lasted, as well as I can remember, about a fortnight.

The churches were crowded; those who wished to have seats to hear the sermon at six in the evening, were obliged to take their places at mid-day; these were chiefly women: men, who could bear the fatigue of standing during the sermon, occupied every s.p.a.ce large enough for a pair of feet.

The _lessive_, so the was.h.i.+ng is called from the wood ashes employed in it, was neglected; dirty s.h.i.+rts and sheets were too common to be complained of: the men were obliged to cook their own dinners; children were grouped together by scores under the care of some one contented or paid to stay at home. Then came the general confessions, which occupied some days; then one day for the communion of the male and another for that of the female penitents; lastly, the procession of the cross, which was to be set up as a perpetual memorial of the mission, and a mean of recalling to every one the good resolutions he had then made.

An ill-carved crucifix, larger than life, borne on the shoulders of the devout, was followed by the missionaries and people singing cantiques, and was finally placed on the terrace near the great door of the cathedral, to which it gives the appearance of a place of public execution.

I venerate the images of Christ and his saints; they are, as St. Austin calls them, the books of the illiterate, and they speak to the heart even of those who can read. But they should be so made and so placed as to inspire, not terror, but sentiments of peace, hope, and grat.i.tude.

The missionaries turned many from the evil of their ways: some sums of money were deposited in their hands to be by them restored to those who had been robbed or defrauded of them; these sums, so unexpectedly recovered, were in general given to the poor. I have read an account of the conduct of these missionaries to the galeriens at Toulon, which was very interesting and edifying. On leaving Avignon they were accompanied for several miles by the people, who, by way of taking leave, tore the ca.s.sock off the back of the chief missionary and divided it into shreds, that all or as many as possible of their zealous admirers might have a relic. In this _procede_ there was a little too much of the _fougue du midi_,[61] and the missionary by no means liked the process of popular canonization. How long the good effects of the mission may last is doubtful. It seems as if it were necessary that some strong excitement should exist in order that religion should be present to the mind. Holy men create this excitement to themselves by the aid of divine grace, and by prayer, a powerful mode of self-persuasion: for the mult.i.tude, this excitement must be created for them. I was a.s.sured by a very worthy and experienced cure, who remained in France during the whole of the revolution, that, in the reign of terror, when the churches were shut up, many followed the clergy into caverns and hiding-places, who afterwards could not be persuaded to go to church.

I formed an acquaintance with an old gentleman of eighty-five years of age, who had served in the seven years war: he had been present at the affair of St. Cas. Two brothers, of a Lincolns.h.i.+re family, every member of which I have always esteemed as a friend, were officers in the regiments landed on this occasion. I remember when a boy to have heard one of them relate how his brother called to him, when they were both driven back into the sea, to share a bottle of wine which chance had supplied. They were waiting for the boat to take them to their s.h.i.+p: there was no cork-screw; he broke off the neck of the bottle with his sword. It was pleasant to me, at such a distance of time and place, to meet with one whom this trifling anecdote could amuse. He spoke with respect, as does all the world, of English valour, but said, no one could conceive why they disembarked their troops on the coast, as it was utterly impossible for them to penetrate ten miles into the country: in this he was in accord with the English public at that time. He is dead; the brothers are dead: very few survive, who fought in the war concluded by the peace of Paris, in 1763.

I was also acquainted with two young men of celebrated names, officers of a regiment in garrison at Avignon. One of them was grand nephew of that archbishop of Ma.r.s.eilles, whose conduct, when the plague raged in that city, in the year 1720, has ever been spoken of with justly-merited eulogium; the other was grandson of the author of the "Esprit des Lois."

This latter made me much ashamed, not _of_ my country, she is too great for that; but _for_ my country. Talking of military discipline, he said, "Vos soldats sont des braves gens,[62] but you vippe dem; you vippe dem." I was, as I have said, ashamed, and knew not what to answer, but that such punishments were not so frequent since certain debates in the Parliament. "Den you vippe dem," and forgetting the word _sometimes_, "quelquefois," twirling his hand as if brandis.h.i.+ng a cat-o-nine tails; then added with a serious look, "quelquefois; c'est trop."[63] Sir Francis Burdett's endeavour to place the representation of the people in the Commons House on a rational basis, will meet with the fate of my proposal to establish the Catholic religion in Ireland; but his efforts to rescue the soldier from a cruel and degrading punishment deserve the thanks of every friend of mankind. He has relieved human nature from more suffering than a legislator who should abolish the _question_; for there are, or were, more soldiers flogged than, in any equal time, state-prisoners tortured. If the sentiment of reproach and contempt with which young Montesquieu spoke of our military punishments,--a sentiment in which he is joined by every man of sense and honour throughout Europe,--may contribute to abolish the odious practice, he too may share in the praise of the "legislateur du genre humain."[64] The great object of all legislation is to prevent evil, injustice, and misery. Alas! Alas! How much does it itself inflict!

An election of a deputy to the chamber was held while I was at Avignon.

Of this election I can give but a negative account. There was no ringing of bells; no flags displayed; no parading the streets by day-light or torch-light; no canva.s.sing; no kissing the women; no rioting; no drunkenness. The town was as quiet as if no election had been going on.

The number of electors for the department was about six hundred. What influenced their votes I cannot say; certainly not those glorious concomitants of an English election in all towns large enough to enjoy them,--festive noise and indecent tumult.

In the spring of the year 1820, my elder son set off for England, which was to him an unknown land, as he had been immured in college from his thirteenth year, and with which he was anxious to become acquainted. At his departure, he asked and received on his bended knee the blessing of his parents. This may seem strange to some; yet Sir Thomas More, when Chancellor of England, began the day by kneeling at the bed-side of his aged father, to implore, through him, the blessing of G.o.d, and then went and served at ma.s.s in his own chapel. Sir Thomas More was a wise and amiable man, whose life and death are beyond all praise. The act of submission above-mentioned might, however, for reasons that may easily be divined, be more laudable in a young man of nineteen, than in a Lord High Chancellor of England. Besides other considerations, the one acted in conformity, the other in contradiction, to the spirit of his age.

From Lyons, where he pa.s.sed two days, Kenelm took the road to Paris by Moulins, in order to see a different country from that by which he had come to Avignon. He pa.s.sed five days in Paris, three of which he dedicated to the Museum of the Louvre, which he now saw with advantage, derived from the progress he had made in drawing. He spent ten days in London. A friend who had known him two years before in Paris, good-naturedly bore testimony to the improvement which two years had produced: "You were then a great boy; you are now a fine young fellow."

He pa.s.sed also ten days, at Bath, at the house of his mother's sister.

I know not whether it may have been remarked that, in my chapter of Paris, I have said not a word of the theatres. The fact is, we never once were present at any of them. The opinion of Catholics as to the lawfulness of attending the theatrical representations of the present day, is by no means uniform. The English Catholic clergy in general advise to abstain from them: the pious and excellent priest at Paris, to whose counsels Kenelm owed so much, gave the same injunction. Our kind and prudent director at Avignon rather requested than required us to abstain from attending the theatre at that place. "It is no great loss, considering the merit of the performance: when you shall be in Italy, I give you up to my successor."

Kenelm, on this journey, made some stay in Paris, London, and Bath, without going to a theatre. This must be considered as no slight sacrifice for a young man of nineteen; master, for the time, of his own actions; solicited by his curiosity and by the invitations of friends, who regarded the stage as a source of innocent amus.e.m.e.nt, and even of instruction.

Following the lights, such as they were, of my own common sense, I had occasionally, even after becoming a Catholic, a.s.sisted at theatrical representations both in Bath and London, when the inducement was in accord with good taste and good morals. I could see no harm in allowing those "purifiers of the affections," terror and pity, to be administered by those masters of the scenic art, Kemble and Siddons. There were others, second to these, but of great merit, whom I saw with pleasure: amongst them Cooke, when he was sober; Elliston, at all times. Arrived in France, I refrained from going to the theatre as the safer line of conduct, seeing I was now no longer alone. Besides, I was told that comedians, so they call all actors, were in a state of excommunication; that they could not accomplish the sacrament of penance without promising to renounce their profession; and that if they died comedians, their right to Christian burial was at least disputable.

I cited the example of the capital of the Christian world. "In Rome itself there are theatres." "The holy Father is under the necessity of permitting, as sovereign, what, as head of the church, he condemns."

This reminded me of Sir Jonathan Trelawney, sometime Bishop of Winchester, who was much given, according to the custom of his time, to profane cursing and swearing--a custom which he adopted perhaps to show that he was no puritan, as men neglected days of fasting and abstinence to prove that they were no papists. This reverend prelate being reproved for this mal-practice, declared that he swore as Sir Jonathan Trelawney, not as Bishop of Winchester. He was asked how he would _hereafter_ make a distinction in his personal ident.i.ty, or divide what Sir Kenelm Digby calls "a man's numerical self;"--a phrase which my friend Sir ---- was so good as to translate for me into "number one."

In fact, the argument drawn from the double character of the Pope to justify the permission of what was bad in itself, excited my indignation. "The Pope," said I, "is no hypocrite." "True: the Pope is no hypocrite; but sovereigns are in some cases obliged to permit evils which they palliate and diminish by superintendence and regulation." I understood the allusion, but felt a strong repugnance to cla.s.s actors, many of them persons of exemplary morals, and none of them necessarily otherwise, with those unfortunate outcasts, so well watched in France and Italy, and so piously allowed to roam at large in London: neither could I be all at once persuaded that stage-plays were of the nature of a violation of one of the ten commandments. I alleged the example of all, or almost all the Catholic sovereigns of Europe, who a.s.sisted at them without scruple. I was answered, that the example of sovereigns could not justify what was wrong in itself. The great Bossuet was quoted, who replied to Louis XIV., by whom his opinion was asked on the lawfulness of stage plays which the monarch himself frequented, "Sire, il y a de grands exemples pour, et de grandes autorites contre."[65]

"Reste a savoir," said I to myself, with the disputant at Nismes. The question did not press: we abstained from plays in France. I resolved, if possible, to reconcile these contradictions in Italy.

In Italy I was instructed, that there exists no excommunication of actors by the universal church, but only by the decrees of some particular dioceses, in remote ages, when the scenic art was reputed infamous on account of the representations, then almost always contrary to good morals: that they who exercise the profession of actors are guilty of great sin, if they exhibit on the stage any thing shameful or obscene, but not otherwise: that there exist indeed sentences of the holy see and of general councils against scenic representations, but that they refer always to such as may be indecent and contrary to sound morality: that the Fathers condemn the theatres of their time, not only because of the indecencies there represented, but also because, as the pagans acted plays in honour of their false G.o.ds, the Christians could not a.s.sist at them without the stain of idolatry: that a decent play cannot be called _absolutely_ a proximate occasion of sin, but may become such _relatively_ to certain individuals on account of their personal fragility; and that such, admonished by their own experience, are bound to fly a danger which, though it may be _remote_ to others, is to them _proximate_: finally, that there cannot be any positive judgment nor any fixed or constant rule respecting theatres; since the lawfulness or unlawfulness of them may vary at every moment, according as scenic representations are agreeable or repugnant to good morals.

Priests go to plays in Italy, generally retiring before the ballet. I have seen a cardinal at a private theatre: that it was a private theatre, was a circ.u.mstance of some importance in point of decorum, but of none in point of morality, concerning which it is fair to presume that his eminence entertained no doubt or scruple.

Kenelm, however, abstained all his life from going to the theatre: in this he acted according to the information which his conscience had received. Conscience is not the rule of action: the rule is THE LAW divine or human; conscience is the measure which each individual applies, first to the rule, then to his own actions. He who does a bad action, thinking it a good one, is not excused; it is his duty to inform his conscience: he who abstains from that which is innocent because he thinks it wrong, has merit in conforming his actions to his sense of duty, as well as he who, from a motive of duty, performs an action in itself indifferent.

Kenelm proceeded from Bath to the country-house of his mother's father in Somersets.h.i.+re, where he pa.s.sed three or four months, making short excursions and visits in the neighbourhood. Towards the end of September he returned to Bath, his native place, visited Bristol and the sh.o.r.es of the Severn. He then went through the midland counties into Lincolns.h.i.+re, where his family, originally from Yorks.h.i.+re, had been settled for four generations. Here visits and business detained him some time: he returned to London: the theatres were again opened; but not for him.

During his former stay in London he had received the sacrament of confirmation on the feast of Pentecost: he wrote to me, that that day had been the happiest of his life. On this occasion he took the name of Aloysius or St. Lewis of Gonzaga, whom a conformity of character seems to have induced him to regard with peculiar sympathy. Is it fanaticism or imbecility to hope and believe, as I sincerely believe, that these two happy souls, after their short trial, now enjoy the society and converse of each other in a state of unchangeable felicity?

After a short visit in the neighbourhood of Southampton, Kenelm once more embarked at that port and returned to France. He was desirous of following a route, not unusual with English tourists, by Orleans, Bordeaux, and the line of the Garonne, to Avignon; but the season was too late: in truth he complained that he suffered from cold in his journey from Paris. His family had the satisfaction of receiving him again on the eleventh of November.

The judgment formed of him by those who became acquainted with him during his stay in England, may be known by the following extract from a letter written by his mother within a short time after his death, that is, within a twelvemonth after his return to France.

"Your son was perfect, as far as human nature can be so: so much self-denial, tenderness to the feelings of others, such strict attention to his religious duties, whatever pleasures might be offered him, I never met with in any character; and in so young a man, at a distance from all who had a right to control him, it was most extraordinary, and bespoke a mind whose every feeling was governed by religion. Could you have heard the general regret for his loss, and the remarks made on his conduct and manners by all who knew him, you would have been gratified; but you have a higher source of comfort," &c.

I will cite another testimony; that of the priest who was his director during his visit to his native land:--"I was much affected by the news of the death of the amiable Henry Kenelm; and yet I cannot but regard it as a great mercy in Almighty G.o.d to s.n.a.t.c.h him in his innocence from the horrid corruptions and impieties of the world. Now he is gone, it is not unlawful for me to say that I thought him one of the most innocent, watchful, and mortified souls I had ever met with of his age."

On the morrow of his return he began a drawing of an infant Jesus from an engraving of a picture by Raphael in the Palazzo Pitti: it was to be finished in the French style, with much exactness and labour. He said, "the infant shall be ready for his birth-day;" and in effect he concluded his work on Christmas eve. I saw the features of this infant Jesus with an astonishment, the motive of which I explained to Kenelm; it is not yet time to reveal it to the reader.

This winter Kenelm took lessons in fencing, and, after having acquired some skill in the n.o.ble science of defence, he engaged a sous-officier to come daily to the house to teach him the manual exercise. He had learned dancing in his college, where masters attended for that purpose.

During his first winter at Avignon he refused to take dancing lessons, from scruples suggested to him by a devout person, who also endeavoured to engage me to forbid my children to learn to dance, supporting his opinion of its unlawfulness by the usual topics. I replied, "I should be ashamed for my children, if I thought they could not dance without finding in it a proximate occasion of sin: the thing is innocent in itself; let those who find it, or make it otherwise, avoid it." In his second winter Kenelm surmounted the scruples of our devout friend, and resumed his dancing lessons, and now continued them, not so much out of a desire to perfect himself, as for the sake of joining in the amus.e.m.e.nt of the family party.

The summer which Kenelm pa.s.sed in England had been excessively hot in the south of France. I was in the habit of observing my thermometer at midnight, and, during July and August, usually found it, at that hour, at 84 Fahrenheit. The autumn was very mild: we were to give a ball on new year's day, and there was no ice in the town, as the master of the cafe, who was to furnish ice creams, announced to me in a tone of due despondency. He proposed to send a cart to Mont Ventoo, a lofty and remarkable mountain fifteen miles off, where there was ice at all times; this carriage would cost thirty francs. I asked him if he would bear a part of the expense, as the ice would be of use to him for his other customers. He said, if it should freeze, his share of the load would become useless; moreover that, if there should be ice of the thickness of a ten-sous piece, that would be enough for my purpose. That very night, the last of the year 1820, a frost set in, so severe, that almost all the olive-trees of Provence and of the east of Languedoc were destroyed to the root. The preceding open weather had sustained the sap; so that this sudden and violent check was fatal. It was a great calamity: the government came in aid of the more indigent of the sufferers; but four years must pa.s.s ere the olive-trees could be in full bearing as before.

Besides the "fatness" of the olive, they reckon in this country four other _recoltes_ or harvests: the hay of the artificial gra.s.ses, of which lucerne is the chief; with this hay they fatten cattle and make a great deal of manure: indeed I saw at Avignon a symptom of covetousness of dung, much to the credit of their agricultural management; those who sweep the streets bring straw, cut into little bits about three inches long, which they throw into the kennels and dirty puddles to suck up the fertilizing moisture. Manure must be in great demand, and an article of the first necessity in a country, where, besides extensive gardens, they intercule, after the wheat, reaped usually at the end of June, a crop of haricots or French beans,--a standing dish, during the winter, at all tables. I remembered at how high a price I had formerly bought a few of these beans for seed, that I might have this vegetable, young and green, as a side-dish or in pickle: yet these _haricots secs_, or the dried grain of the French bean, is the cheapest food at Avignon, cheaper even than bread; and it was without cause that I was alarmed at my own extravagance, when I saw them spread in such abundance on the table in my kitchen. _Gar__rence_, or madder, is another _recolte_, and a source of great wealth. Add to these harvests, their wine, which, by the help of the climate and good manipulation, is, in my opinion, the best in the world, except perhaps that of Xeres and Madeira. Melons and _pastecs_, or water-melons, are here delicious, and the food of the common people.

Bread is excellent, light, white, and nutritious; many degrees whiter than that which I made of my own wheat in England, though not so white nor so quickly dry and tasteless as the adulterated bread of London.

I consider French agriculture, as far as I was able to observe it in the south, to be in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition. They have not the grand cultivation: the subdivision of property and the nature of the products forbid it. They have no "expensive plans For deluging their dripping-pans." They would regard almost as thrown away, a rich plot of land given up to the fattening sheep and bullocks. In the southern moiety of France, indeed, they have no choice: there are water meadows, where irrigation is possible, but no pastures. Their cattle are fed on the mountains and hills and poorest lands, during summer, and brought home in winter.

The end of agriculture is to obtain the greatest value of produce from land at the least expense, and that for ever; and in this end the French, the spirit of calculation coming in aid of their soil and climate, succeed in a great degree. The chattels (the word is French), the stock, both live and dead, belongs to the proprietor; he superintends; the land is not worse managed on that account. Indeed, as Pythagoras or Plato said, that states would never be well governed, till philosophers were kings or kings were philosophers; so it may be said, that land will never be well cultivated, till proprietors shall be farmers or farmers shall be proprietors: their interests are opposite, and not to be reconciled by leases or conditions of obligation; one desires immediate, the other continued, profit: but the interest that a French proprietor has in his share of the produce, is not great enough to induce him to diminish his capital by deteriorating the land, which the tenant always will do if he can: even the _materiel_ of the farm, no unimportant part of its value, is better cared for by the landlord than by a tenant. In short, France, in the southern part of it, is rapidly advancing towards garden culture, the perfection of all cultivation; since the more a farm is cultivated like a garden, the more will the management of it be applauded, and the greater will be its produce in proportion to its extent. The spade and hoe are very much used in fields, especially where, as is often the case, these fields are traversed by rows of mulberry or other trees; and the vines trimmed into the form of bushes, and the _garence_, and _haricots_, and lucerne in rows and drills, and the slight fences, occupying the least possible s.p.a.ce, and set rather as limits than as guards, give, to a rich tract, as much of the appearance as it really has of the nature of a garden.

The silk-worm, though silk is a most valuable _recolte_ of this country, has no connexion with agriculture, except that this worm feeds on the leaves of the mulberry tree. These leaves are plucked as soon as they have attained their full spread, and before they are at all dried or even hardened by the sun. While nature is preparing the food of the silk-worm, art is forcing into existence the worm itself. The eggs are hatched by artificial warmth, and, from the time that the worm can eat till it becomes a cocon, this savoury food is administered. The mulberry is of the white sort; but the _fruit_ is hardly known to the Avignonais; it is of course destroyed by plucking off the leaves. I surprised my friends by telling them I had eaten excellent black mulberries in England, and, as is usual in such cases, they gave no credence to my word. These trees look very miserable without leaves under so fine a sky: by the end of summer a second crop of leaves is plucked off, and given to cattle.

It was pleasing to me, as carrying memory back into former ages, to see the thres.h.i.+ng-floors of the Avignonais: they are on the outside of the building that serves for the granary: the sheaves are laid in a circle, in the centre of which stands a man who drives two or more horses round, over the ears of corn: another man stands without the circle to correct any irregularities in the work. The moral meaning of the command, not to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, is evident; and it is to be hoped that, in practice, it was interpreted according to its moral meaning: otherwise the work would not have proceeded very quickly, and would soon have been stopped altogether by the strangulation of the beast.

They built, while I was at Avignon, a very good _abattoir_ near one of the gates of the town. I saw here the process of skinning an ox: air is thrown in under the skin by a pair of bellows, which air is then forced forward by beating the inflated hide with clubs. A beast, whose turn it was to be killed next, was standing by with his nose fastened to a ring in the floor. How far did his intelligence enable him to presage the fate that awaited him?

French agriculture has made rapid strides within twenty years: they procure and disperse improved machinery: in the breed of their sheep they pay attention to the quality of the fleece. They call the English their masters in the science of agriculture, but entertain confidence, I hope well-founded, of soon equalling those masters.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] The impetuosity of the south.

[62] Your soldiers are brave people, but you whip them.

[63] Sometimes--that is too much.

[64] Legislator of the human race.

[65] Sire, there are great examples _for_, and great authorities _against_.

CHAP. XV.