The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 150

"No, no," said Saint Herve, "it shall not be so, for as much wheat as I cut now so much will I render to you ripe and in the sack at harvest time."

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To this he agreed, and commenced to cut down the wheat, which he tied in bundles and sheafs and laid apart; and G.o.d so favored them, that at the time of the harvest, these sheafs which had been cut all green, not only became ripe, but had blossomed and so multiplied that where there had been one there were now two. The owner of the field seeing this, gave thanks to G.o.d, who had sent these holy men to him, and gave the whole field to the saint. [Footnote 193]

[Footnote 193: Albert le Grand.]

Thus the toil and intelligence of the monks made the earth render double the ordinary crops, and, conquered by such miracles, the barbarians, who, moreover, did not lose anything, gave willingly all that was asked of them.

The good religious from whom I have borrowed the translation of the preceding narrative even a.s.sures us that the proprietor went so far as to promise Herve to build him a beautiful church at his own expense.

This new miracle, however, was only half carried out; for we see Herve, once the land had been conceded to him, going to work with his disciples to procure the wood necessary for the construction of his church and convent. He made a collection for this end, not only in the country of Leon, but even in the mountains of Aiez, and in Cornwall, visiting the manors of the chiefs and the richest monasteries.

Everywhere, it is said, he was well received, thanks to the benefits that he spread along his pa.s.sage, and all the n.o.bles to whom he applied caused as many oaks to be cut down for him in their forests, as he desired. It is, however, probable, notwithstanding the a.s.sertions of the legendaries, that he found many but little disposed to aid in the building of a Christian church, and that all those whom he visited did not show themselves very eager to cut down the trees, so venerated in Armorica; for in the following century, a council held at Nantes near the year 658, attests that no one dared break a branch or offshoot of one. The legend itself allows us to see imperfectly some stumbling-blocks which the holy architect found in his way; they must have torn his feet as cruelly as those which we have seen him punish by hardening them, in the days when he was a public singer. At first there was a rude chief who pa.s.sed near him with a great train of men, dogs, and horses, without saluting him, even without looking at him; again there was another who did not believe in his miracles, and said so out loud at supper before a large company, and in the face of the saint. At that same banquet, at the commencement of the repast, while Herve was singing with the harp to bless the table, a new kind of adversary, the frogs, commenced also to sing, to defy him, to sing _their vespers_, as a Breton poet explains it, provoking the laughter of the guests. At another banquet, a cup-bearer who was a demon in disguise, one of those who excited to intemperance, to gluttony, to idleness and noise, to discord and quarrels, wis.h.i.+ng to kill him, served him, together with the other guests, a beverage the effect of which was to make them cut each other's throats.

This evil spirit followed the holy architect even to the midst of a monastery, with the intention of deceiving him more surely. Taking the form of a monk, he offered his services to help him in building his church.

"What is thy name?" Herve asked of him.

"I am a master carpenter, sir."

"Thy name, I tell thee," returned the saint.

"Sir, I am a mason, locksmith, able to work at any trade."

"Thy name? For the third time, I command thee in the name of the living G.o.d, to tell thy name."

"Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan!" cried the demon; and he threw himself, head foremost, from a rock into the sea.

Thus did the Druid superst.i.tions vanish before Herve, having for a moment resisted him, and sought to deceive him under different disguises.

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This Hu-Kan, that is to say, Hu the genius, is no other than the G.o.d _Hu-Kadarn_ of the Cambrian traditions. The devil who incites to idleness and debauchery is the Celtic divinity corresponding to the Liber or Bacchus of the Romans. There is in these frogs who chanted _their vespers_ a recollection of Armorican paganism. "The saint silenced them as suddenly as if he had cut their throat" says a hagiographer, adding, "he left voice but to one, who ever since has continued to croak."

Now, by a sort of prodigy of tradition, a popular song, ent.i.tled the "Vespers of the Frogs," has come to us; it is the work of the pagan poets of Armorica, represented in common recitatives under the grotesque figure of these beastly croakers. It offers a summary of the Druid doctrines of the fourth century; and it seemed so necessary to the first Christian missionaries to destroy it, that they made a Latin and Christian counterpart, as if they would raise the cross in the face of the heathen pillars. One of these missionaries, Saint Gildas, was so opposed to the pagan music of his time that he qualified its croaking with the sweet and gentle music of the children of Christ; and his disciple Taliesin, the great poet baptized in the sixth century, hushed at a banquet, as Saint Herve had done, the infamous descendants of the priests of the G.o.d Bel, who wished to put him to defiance.

The sound of Christian music was to be heard from all the vaults of the church, for the construction of which Saint Herve had made so many journeys. Twelve columns of polished wood were erected to hold the low and arched framework; three large stones formed the altar; the spring with which he had refreshed his disciples furnished the water necessary to the sacrifice; the wheat sown by them, the bread for consecration; and the wines of some richer monastery, more exposed to the sun, the eucharistic wine; for it was an ancient and touching custom that those who had vineyards gave wine to those who had not, and in exchange, the owners of bees furnished wax to those who lacked it. Herve, according to his biographers, himself superintended the workmen, or rather incited the laborers by his words, and sustained them by his songs. Like another poet of antiquity, he built, with his songs, not a city for men, but a house for G.o.d.

VI.

The fathers of an Armorican council of the fifth century terminated their canons by these n.o.ble words: "May G.o.d, my brethren, preserve for you your crown." A last flower seemed wanting to that of Herve. He was now to obtain it. The poor shoeless child, the poet of the wretched, the school-teacher of little children, the wandering agriculturist, the mendicant architect, was to become the equal--what do I say?--the corrector of bishops and kings.

At that time there reigned a Kon Mor in Brittany, who had rendered himself abominable to the men of that country by his tyranny and cruelties. Unable to endure him, they flocked in great numbers from all parts of Armorica to their bishop, the blessed Samson; and as he saw them at his door, silent and with lowered heads, he asked them:

"What has happened to the country?"

Then answered the more respectable among them:

"The men of this land are in great desolation, sir."

"And why so?" asked Samson.

"We had a good chief of our own race, and born on our own land, who governed us by legitimate authority; and now there has come over us a foreign Kon Mor, a violent man, an enemy to justice, possessed of great power; he holds us under the most odious oppression; he has killed our national chief, and dishonored his widow, our queen. He would hare killed their Sun, had not the poor child taken to flight and sought refuge in France."

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The bishop, moved with pity, promised the deputies that he would aid them, and seeking a means to re-establish their rightful chief, he resolved to begin by striking the usurper with the terrible arm of excommunication.

He therefore sent letters to all the Armorican bishops to unite with him in devising some means of frightening the tyrant. The place of reunion was a high mountain much venerated by the bards and the people, named the Run-bre, and situated in the heart of the country governed by the Kon Mor. Although only prelates should have been present, Herve was sent there, and even the venerable a.s.sembly were not willing to enter into deliberation until he came, notwithstanding the opposition of one member of the meeting, less humble and less patient than the others. This _courtier bishop_, as the legend styles him, finding that Herve made them wait a long time, "Is it proper that men like us," he exclaimed, "should remain here indefinitely on account of a wretched blind monk?" At this moment, the saint arrived.

His bare feet, his miserable hermit's robe made of goat-skin, in the midst of the men and horses richly apparelled, belonging to the prelate of the court, drew perhaps a smile of proud disdain to the lips of many. Hearing the impious words of which he was the object, the saint was not irritated, but said gently to the bishop: "My brother, why reproach me with my blindness? Could not G.o.d have made you blind as well as me? Do you not know well that he makes us as he pleases, and that we should thank him that he has given us such a being as he has?" The other bishops, continues the legend, strongly rebuked this one, and he was not long in feeling the heavy hand of G.o.d; for he immediately fell to the ground, his face covered with blood, and lost his sight; but the good saint, wis.h.i.+ng to render good for evil to this proud mocker, prayed to G.o.d for the unfortunate; and then, rubbing his eyes with salt and water, restored him his sight; he gave him understanding also; according to the remark of another hagiographer, understanding, that light of the soul, obscured by pride, more precious still and not less difficult to recover than the light of the body. After this they proceeded to the ceremony of excommunicating the great chief of the Armoricans.

Standing on a rock, at the summit of the mountain, a lighted taper in his hand, and surrounded by the nine bishops of Armorica, each one holding a blessed taper, the saint p.r.o.nounced, in the name of all, according to the formula of the times, these terrible words against the foreign tyrant: "We in virtue of the authority which we hold from the Lord, in the name of G.o.d the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, do declare the great chief of the Armoricans excommunicated from the threshold of the holy church of G.o.d, and separated from the society of Christians; that, if he comes not quickly to repentance, we crush him beneath the weight of an eternal malediction, and condemn him by an irrevocable anathema. May he be exposed to the anger of the sovereign Judge, may he be torn from the heritage of G.o.d and his elect, that in this world he may be cut off from the communion of Christians, and that in the other he may have no part in the kingdom of G.o.d and his saints; but that, bound to the devil and his imps, he may live devoted to the flames of vengeance, and that he may be the prey, even in this world, to the tortures of h.e.l.l. Cursed be he in his own house, cursed in his fields, cursed in his stomach, cursed be all things that he possesses, from his dog that howls at his appearance even to his c.o.c.k who insults him by his crowing. May he share the lot of Dathan and Abiron whom h.e.l.l swallowed alive; the lot of Ananias and of Sapphira, {825} who lied to the Apostles of the Lord, and were struck with instant death; the lot of Pilate and Judas, who were traitors to G.o.d; may he have no other sepulchre than have the a.s.ses, and may these tapers which we extinguish be the image of the darkness to which his soul is condemned. Amen." [Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: This formula of excommunication of the sixth century has been discovered and recently translated by M. Alfred Rame, in an article, the "Melanges d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie Bretonne," a commendable publication.]

The bishops repeated three times, Amen; and the president of the synod, having extinguished under his foot the candle which he held in his hand, all the prelates did the same. But this dying candle, the image of the extinguished light of the great chief, was not so easily relighted as that of the haughty prelate. Once the tyrant's head was under the bare foot of the mendicant monk, tyranny was dishonored and humanity avenged.

Herve does not appear to have long survived this great act of national and religious justice, in which he performed the greatest part; he saw, however, the result, and could hail the dawn of a n.o.ble reign which would a.s.sure, without the effusion of blood, say the historians, the death of the usurper.

Another dawn was rising for the saint.

It is related that being shut up in the church which he had built, fasting and praying for three days, separated from his disciples and his pupils, the heavens opened above his head, and with the heavens his eyes were opened to contemplate the celestial court. Ravished to ecstasy, he chanted a Breton canticle, which was later put into writing, and has received its modern form from the last apostle of the Armoricans, Michel Le n.o.bletz.

"I see heaven opened, heaven my country; I would that I might fly there as a little white dove!

"The gates of Paradise are opened to receive me; the saints advance to meet me.

"I see, truly I see G.o.d the Father, and his blessed Son, and the Holy Ghost.

"How beautiful she is, the Holy Virgin, with the twelve stars which form her crown.

"Each with his harp in his hand, I see the angels and the archangels, singing the praises of G.o.d.

"And the virgins of all ages, and the saints of all conditions, and the holy women, and the widows crowned by G.o.d!

"I see radiant in glory and beauty, my father and my mother; I see my brothers and my countrymen.

"Choirs of little angels flying on their light wings, so rosy and so fair, fly around their heads, as a harmonious swarm of bees, honey-laden in a field of flowers.

"O happiness without parallel! the more I contemplate you, the more I long for you!"

The heavens did not close again until the canticle was finished, as if they had taken pleasure in the song of the predestined son of Hyvarnion and Rivanone, who heard him with smiles and called him to them.

VII.