...

ment to which the friends of Montalembert's youth gave the first impulse:

When he calmly repeated his most moder-lembert; and his leisure was apt to be ate and gentle explanation - I have merely spent in journeys to countries whose sites, stated a fact; avertissements are given; France like those of Ireland, Scotland, and Gerdid possess certain institutions which she pos- many, were connected with his book. Two sesses no longer" it is impossible not to add volumes were published in 1860, and the in imagination the gleam of the eye, the movement of the calm lip, the sense of power with remaining ones appeared in 1866 and 1867. This history, or rather this beautiful which this seemingly innocent response was given. . . . The Procureur Impérial conducted apologia for the monks of the West, for the the prosecution, and the distinguished and elo- evangelists of the Isles, for the civilizers quent M. Berryer made a speech of two hours' of the darkest corners of Christendom, duration for the defence. As to the decision, was but the literary context to a most reof course there could be no doubt. The defend-markable movement in France, a moveants were found guilty upon the first three counts; the fourth count, that of having endeavoured to disturb the public peace by exciting citizens to hatred and contempt of each other, was dropped. The sentence: six months of imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs for the Count de Montalembert; one month's imprisonment and 1,000 francs of fine for M. Douniol, the publisher of the Correspondant. The sentence, however, was followed by no immediate enforcement of the penalty. Montalembert left the court quietly on foot, a group of people momentarily assembling in the street to gaze at him. He appealed at once, as he had a right, to the superior court. Before the time for the appeal was completed, the Emperor made an effort to reclaim the ground which had been lost by fully remitting the sentence, on the occasion of the anniversary of Decemper 2. The culprit bad, however, no mind to accept the grace thus awarded to him, and on the same day addressed the following letter to the Moniteur:

"PARIS: December 2, 1858. "M. le Rédacteur, - The Moniteur of this morning contains, in its unofficial part, a piece of news which I learned only in reading it. It is expressed as follows: His Majesty the Emperor, on the occasion of December 2, remits to M. le Comte de Montalembert the sentence pronounced against him.' Condemned on November 24, I had already appealed against the sentence. No power in France, up to the ent moment, has any right to remit a penalty not yet definitively pronounced. I am one of those who still believe in justice, and do not accept mercy. I beg you, and if necessary I require you, to publish this letter in your next

number.

pres

"Accept the assurance of my consideration. "CH. DE MONTALEMBERT.

The superior court decided the appeal on December 21. It repeated the previous condemnation, but reduced the sentence from six to three months' imprisonment. The Emperor, however, a few days later repeated his act of grace, and remitted all the penalties of Montalembert. M. Douniol had his fine of 1,000 francs to pay, and thus the whole business ended.

After this storm was laid the compilation of his great work, Les Moines de l'Occident occupied the mind of Monta

When Lacordaire had been by the suspension of the Avenir, and the disapproval of the Pope, thrown back upon his own resources and reflections, it could not be but that that ardent heart and ingenious head should find another medium of communicating with society. To give expression to his love of God, the supreme and satisfying passion of his life, and to warn a world (for whose welfare he was ready to face any sacrifice), that by losing faith in its God it would die to youth, to honour, and to freedom, were necessities to him. From the pulpit of Notre Dame he declared them, and of the many who came there to wonder, some certainly remained to pray. Yet he was not satisfied. What was one voice in this Babel of folly and crime? and so the priest who had been baffled as a reformer and a journalist grew to think that the presence of a preaching order in France would send a quickening spirit through society. At that epoch the Jesuits were the only religious order residing in the country. What if the rule of St. Dominic could be revived, with its third estate of teachers? vacant in the religious machinery of the Church in France, and the Dominican order would fill it; then why not adopt a rule that had once shed such lustre? or why prefer to that rule some system bearing the stamp of the nineteenth century?

A place was

The confidante of this scheme was Madame Swetchine, and its first convert was Requedat, in whose company we see Lacordaire once more taking his way to Rome.

This time the Pope was favourable. Lacordaire assumed in 1841 the garb of the order, the white and black robes of innocence and of penitence, and he began a life of monastic solitude in the Dominican convent of La Quercia.

We cannot and ought not here to follow the details of this Dominican revival, or of its leader's career, from the first tears shed in the cell at La Quercia, to the last sigh breathed in the school of Sorrèze;

but the spirit that animated Lacordaire is there something that grieves you?' she and his friends was the History of the Monks went to the bookshelves, and sought one of the West put into action; set as it were of the volumes in which he has narrated to music, and surely to no ordinary strain. the history of the monks of the West. Beautiful as they were, still truth compels 'It is you,' she answered, who have taught us to own that lives like those of Requedat, me that withered hearts and weary souls Besson, and Piel were failures for France; are not the things which we ought to offer for one by one these disciples of Lacordaire to God.' Some months after Mademoiselle withered into early graves; Italy and Mos- de Montalembert carried out her purpose, soul keep their ashes, and their spirits rest. as her father said, 'à sa grande désolation." They were of those who, like the Père The gap she left in his life was never filled Gratry, had early heard some unearthly up; and though Mrs. Oliphant says that voice adjure them: "Friend, come up he grew to forget his individual disappointhigher," but alas! society has not been ment and pain in seeing her useful and born again through their great devotion, happy in her vocation, no one who saw him their prayerful vigils, or their unrepining could doubt but that in giving her up he deaths. had given up the light and brightness of his last years. They were years of physical suffering, though of unblunted sympathies and of undimmed faith. Death came. painlessly and gently at last on March 13, 1870, to one who was "cast in gentle mould," and saved an honourable French statesman from beholding the humiliation of his beautiful France at the hands of a foreign foe, and the destruction of Paris at the hands of the Commune.

No trait of French national character in this century is so painful as the want of moral courage in Frenchmen to resist a personal or a popular impulse, and in this revival of the conventual life we cannot but see another phase of the same fatal evil. Not a contemptible phase, but not the less a pernicious one. To escape from the present dilemma, and to construct in imagination a new situation out of new but imaginary elements, is not to regenerate society, but to make a sentimental mistake.

What was finest in these men was their earnest devotion, their readiness to sacrifice the person to the cause, the present to the future, the few for the many, the life for the work. Montalembert, less heroic than the rest, praised St. Bernard, St. Benedict, and St. Dominic, and he praised his friends; but while he felt with them, he did not do as they did. It was only in later life that he had to drink of their cup. In his house in the Rue de Bac, and in his château at Villersexel, his daughter Catherine had grown up beside him. She had inherited his talent; she was gay, sweet-tempered, and accomplished, and her appearance in society had realized every wish her father might have formed. Suddenly she announced to him her desire to become a nun. This daughter of the historian of the cloister said it, meant it, and did it, for her father could not well refute her arguments. M. Cochin describes the scene that took place between them. "One day his charming and beloved child entered that library which all his friends knew so well, and said to him, 'I am fond of everything around me. I love pleasure, wit, society, and its amusements; I love my family, iny studies, my companions, my youth, my life, my country; but I love God better than all, and I desire to give myself to Him.' And when he said to her, My child,

6

Those whom the gods love die young; yet even to have died in the spring of 1870, was to have been spared much that Montalembert had foreseen, and that, in common with the whole constitutional party, he had been too feeble to prevent.

His youth had been one of so great promise, that the question is forced upon one, Why was the after life incommensurate with it? Why did all those graces of adolescence and enthusiasm not ripen and harden into a fuller stature of manly greatness? He fell on evil days, and his mental fibre was delicate in no common degree. A nature like this has one great drawback; it suffers. Time is needed to recover from suffering, and way and ground are both lost during a process which time only can accomplish. The wound heals, as wounds in all sound minds and bodies do heal, but the man starts again at a disadvantage. No one, for example, who looked at Montalembert's face in late life could mistake for a moment that he was a man who had been shaken by mental as well as physical pangs. Only less sensitive than De Tocqueville, his was a temperament unfitted to succeed. Only the men of blood and iron really succeed, for they have no hesitations, no regrets, no relentings, no doubts, and no despairs. But there was another and a heavier cause for Montalembert's failures. It lay in what he considered his strength, in his utter subservience to Rome. In 1870, and when M. de Mon

talembert was, through "suffering, rejoicing, and sorrowing," slowly making his way to his rest, the agitation of the Papal Infallibility as a vérité patente and a dogma came to a crisis. The almost dying man wrote on February 28th a letter, published in the Gazette de France, condemning the eager servility with which Frenchmen were carrying out Ultramontane principles in the Church. Yet in the last days of his life the following remarkable conversation took place. A visitor put a direct question to Montalembert: "If the Infallibility is proclaimed, what will you do?" "I will struggle against it as long as I can." But when the question was repeated, "What should I do?" he said. "We are always told that the Pope is a father; eh bien! there are many fathers who demand our adherence to things very far from our inclinations and contrary to our ideas. In such a case the son struggles while he can; he tries hard to persuade his father, dişcusses and talks the matter over with him; but when all is done, when he sees no possibility of succeeding, but receives a distinct refusal, he submits. I shall do the same." "You will submit as far as form goes; you will submit externally. But how will you reconcile that submission with your ideas and convictions?" "I will make no attempt to reconcile them; I will simply submit my will, as has to be done in respect to all the other questions of the faith. I am not a theologian: it is not my part to decide such matters, and God does not ask me to understand. He asks me to submit my will and intelligence, and I will do so."

too gross to need its promises or to note its foreshadowings, but the Church still proclaims as God's last, best gift the life of the world to come."

The disorders and distractions, the ignorance, idleness, and selfishness of modern France might also well have inclined Montalembert and his friends to revert fondly to a time when French churchmen were supreme in politics, piety, and thought, till they felt that the eclipse of faith is the night of a nation. What wonder, then, if as French society emerged from the darkness of a quarter of a century these men turned to the Catholic Church as to a fountain of rejuvenescence? And when, as from the roots of trees that have been felled, Montalembert saw fresh saplings spring, green with beauty and with promise, what wonder that he looked upon his Church as the nursing mother of society, saw with prophetic joy issue from her "gates," in unbroken succession and in inexhaustible supply, "the servants and the handmaids of God?"

La Quercia bid fair at one time to be a second Port Royal. So much the Catholic revivalists achieved, but no more. But this revival of an obsolete monastic system had to be nursed in a foreign country, and their scheme for the restoration of society was withered like the oak leaves from the convent trees. False as an anachronism, it was false to common sense, and it was in its details false to patriotism.

Yet where the Avenir propaganda had been condemned, this plan received the Papal sanction, and with all its fatal errors it had the delighted approval of M. de This confession of his faith needs no Montalembert. The Pontiff probably commentary. Under the circumstances, thought it harmless, but the statesman which painfully recall those of the death- must have failed to see that it never could bed of Adolphe Gratry, it can have but leaven society since it began by renouncone explanation. The children of the ing it, or save a country since the first step Church of Rome love her-through right was to leave it. Why did he fail to see and through wrong they love her and in this? Because Rome gives a deadly wine France no wonder. In an age all chaotic to her sons; because when integrity of she stands firm on the rock of the Fisherman's faith. Vexed tides and contrary winds have often wrecked the vessel of the State; the ship of the Church will outride the storm. Society is flippant, godless, and sensual, but she trains up Spartan sons. Modern schools of thought for the "very God" of the Credo, can at best substitute and acknowledge an Unknowable and an Unknown; but instead of a force of forces, recognized beyond the limits of the known, the Church points to the Light of Lights, as lightening every man that cometh into the world. Immortality and its hopes may be fading out of many minds

mind has once been lost, the sense is lost by which men distinguish truth from error. Had these friends been true in early life to the light which was in them, their lives, which could not have been more saintly, would have been perhaps more stormy and certainly more useful. Given over to a strong delusion, because they persistently preferred a system to the truth, and to all its consequences, their plan was written on water. It was not the commencement of a great social work, but rather, when understood aright, the expression of a profound social despair, and, like despair, it has had no offspring and no future. The

taste for conventualism which it has imported into France is one of the many evils with which French society has now to contend, and the cloister now receives many a life and too many an endowment sorely needed in another field. The extent to which this affects provincial life is perhaps not well known, or much realized out of France, though it is probably not unknown to the acute statesman who has just banished the religious orders from the new German Empire.

cheerful companionship. I had reason to be thankful for this change of residence: the skill of Dr. Csoon restored me to health. Brought much into contact with various circles of Parisian society, I became acquainted with the persons, and a witness of the events, that form the substance of the tale I am about to submit to the public, which has treated my former book with so generous an indulgence. Sensitively tenacious of that character for strict and unalloyed veracity which, I flatter myself, The staff of the Avenir and the brother- my account of the abodes and manners of hood of La Quercia are both now things the Vril-ya has established, I could have of the past in France, where events follow wished to preserve the following narrative each other so fiercely fast. But her Church no less jealously guarded than its predeis unquiet still. One or two daring men cessor from the vagaries of fancy. But have sympathized with the Old Catholic Truth undisguised, never welcome in any party in Munich, but the Ultramontane policy is very vigorous, and in recent years the private convictions of such teachers as Dupanloup and Adolphe Gratry have experienced an eclipse like those of Montalembert. In fact, there are at this moment but few rifts in the clouds that overhang the future of the Gallican Church.

From Blackwood's Magazine.'
THE PARISIANS.

BY LORD LYTTON.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

civilized community above ground, is exposed at this time to especial dangers in Paris; and my life would not be worth an hour's purchase if I exhibited her in puris naturalibus to the eyes of a people wholly unfamiliarized to a spectacle so indecorous. That care for one's personal safety, which is the first duty of thoughtful man, compels me therefore to reconcile the appearance of la Vérite to the bienséances of the polished society in which la Liberté admits no opinion not dressed after the last fashion.

Attired as fiction, Truth may be peacefully received; and, despite the necessity thus imposed by prudence, I indulge the modest hope that I do not in these pages unfaithfully represent certain prominent THEY who chance to have read the types of the brilliant population which has "Coming Race" may perhaps remember invented so many varieties of Koomthat I, the adventurous discoverer of the Posh; and even when it appears hopeland without a sun, concluded the sketch lessly lost in the slough of a Glek-Nas, reof my adventures by a brief reference to emerges fresh and lively as if from an inthe malady which, though giving no per-vigorating plunge into the Fountain of ceptible notice of its encroachments, might, in the opinion of my medical attendant, prove suddenly fatal.

I had brought my little book to this somewhat melancholy close a few years before the date of its publication, and, in the meanwhile, I was induced to transfer my residence to Paris, in order to place myself under the care of an English physician, renowned for his successful treatment of complaints analogous to my own.

I was the more readily persuaded to undertake this journey, partly because I enjoyed a familiar acquaintance with the eminent physician referred to, who had commenced his career and founded his reputation in the United States, partly because I had become a solitary man, the ties of home broken, and dear friends of mine were domiciled in Paris, with whom I should be sure of tender sympathy and

Youth. O Paris, foyer des idées, et œil du monde! animated contrast to the serene tranquility of the Vril-ya, which, nevertheless, the noisiest philosophers ever pretend to make the goal of their desiresof all communities on which shines the sun and descend the rains of heaven, fertilizing alike wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, in every city men have yet built on this

these terms and their metaphorical signification, I Koom-Posh, Glek-Nas. For the derivation of must refer the reader to the "Coming Race," chapter xii, on the language of the Vril-ya. To those who have not read or have forgotten that historical composition, it may be convenient to state briefly that Koom-Posh with the Vril-ya is the name for the government of the many, or the ascendancy of the most ignorant or hollow, and may be loosely rendered Hollow-Bosh. When Koom-Posh degen crates from popular ignorance into the popular that state of things is Glek-Nas - viz., the universal ferocity which precedes its decease, the name for strife-rot.

earth, mayest thou, O Paris, be the last to brave the wands of the Coming Race and be reduced into cinders for the sake of the common good!

PARIS, August 28, 1872.

THE PARISIANS.

BOOK FIRST. · -CHAPTER I.

TISH.

with dark lashes, the hair of a chestnut brown, with no tint of auburn, the beard and moustache a shade darker, clipped short, not disguising the outline of lips, which were now compressed, as if smiles had of late been unfamiliar to them; yet such compression did not seem in harmony with the physiognomical character of their formation, which was that assigned

IT was a bright day in the early spring by Lavater to temperaments easily moved of 1869.

All Paris seemed to have turned out to enjoy itself. The Tuileries, the Champs Elysées, the Bois de Boulogne, swarmed with idlers. A stranger might have wondered where Toil was at work, and in what nook Poverty lurked concealed. A millionaire from the London Exchange, as he looked round on the magasins, the equipages, the dresses of the women; as he inquired the prices in the shops and the rent of apartments, might have asked him self, in envious wonder "How on earth do those gay Parisians live? What is their fortune? Where does it come from?

to gaiety and pleasure.

Another gentleman, about his own age, coming quickly out of one of the streets of the Chaussée d'Antin, brushed close by the stately pedestrian above described, caught sight of his countenance, stopped short, and exclaimed, "Alain!" The person thus abruptly accosted turned his eye tranquilly on the eager face, of which all the lower part was enveloped in black beard; and slightly lifting his hat, with a gesture of the head that implied, " Sir, you are mistaken; I have not the honour to know you," continued his slow indifferent way. The would-be acquaintance was not As the day declined, many of the scat- so easily rebuffed. "Peste," said he, betered loungers crowded into the Boule- tween his teeth, "I am certainly right. He vards; the cafés and restaurants began to is not much altered- of course I am; ten light up. years of Paris would improve an orangAbout this time a young man, who might outang." Quickening his step, and regainbe some five or six and twenty, was walk-ing the side of the man he had called ing along the Boulevard des Italiens, heed-" Alain," he said, with a well-bred mixture ing little the throng through which he of boldness and courtesy in his tone and glided his solitary way: there was that in countenancehis aspect and bearing which caught attention. He looked a somebody; but though unmistakably a Frenchman, not a Parisian. His dress was not in the prevailing mode,

to a practised eye it betrayed the taste and the cut of a provincial tailor. His gait was not that of the Parisian-less lounging, more stately; and, unlike the Parisian, he seemed indifferent to the gaze of others.

Nevertheless there was about him that air of dignity or distinction which those who are reared from their cradle in the pride of birth acquire so unconsciously that it seems hereditary and inborn. It must also be confessed that the young man himself was endowed with a considerable share of that nobility which Nature capriciously distributes among her favourites, with little respect for their pedigree and blazon-the nobility of form and face. He was tall and well-shaped, with graceful length of limb and fall of shoulders; his face was handsome, of the purest type of French masculine beauty the nose inclined to be aquiline, and delicately thin, with finely-cut open nostrils; the complex-| ion clear, the eyes large, of a light hazel,

"Ten thousand pardons if I am wrong. But surely I accost Alain de Kerouec, son of the Marquis de Rochebriant." "True, sir; but

"But you do not remember me, your old college friend, Frederic Lemercier?"

"Is it possible?" cried Alain, cordially, and with an animation which changed the whole character of his countenance. “My dear Frederic, my dear friend, this is indeed good fortune! So you, too, are at Paris?"

"Of course; and you? Just come, I perceive," he added, somewhat satirically, as, linking his arm in his new-found friend's, he glanced at the cut of that friend's coat-collar.

"I have been here a fortnight," replied Alain.

"Hem! I suppose you lodge in the old Hotel de Rochebriant. I passed it yesterday, admiring its vast façade, little thinking you were its inmate."

"Neither am I; the hotel does not belong to me-it was sold some years ago by my father."

"Indeed! I hope your father got a good price for it; those grand hotels have tre