Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER X.

EVADNE

Years rolled by. Evadne had received an education called classic, prescribed and limited by pedantic officials and prejudiced scholasticism.

But Evadne had a charming soul which instinctively turned to the light, birds, flowers, poetry, music, she loved to give gifts to poor little children and to make them happy.

In her youthful dreams, Evadne beheld a noble heroic figure whom she some day hoped to meet, and wed; at times she thought of her father, and was gloomy, she had been taught that he was seized by a terrible malady, that he had the plague, and had joined a gang of murderers, and that he was a ferocious monster; hatred of the republic had been diligently instilled in her mind.

Nevertheless, youth is so constructed that gloom and sadness cannot hold sway; joyous hopefulness is the dominating power of youth.

Evadne had religious habits.

One beautiful day in June 1831, she had been to the Cathedral for worship and was going out, just then a young man was passing; Evadne lifted her head and saw him; he was not a stranger; when children they had accompanied their mothers to evening gatherings at a certain salon, this custom had for years been abandoned, the little boy was now

a man, and he was the figure of the girl's dreams. The girl was now a woman, and there was a mysterious something in that glance, in the moment when she looked up and saw him, that couquets try to imitate; of this Evadne was unconscious and perfectly innocent. It was the soul of a true woman, and it was the time of love, a love in accordance with the design of God.

Who was this young man?-his name was Jehan Lenormand; we shall meet him later on.

In this history at this time it is necessary to turn back.

The outbreak of the French Revolution was followed by fierce denunciations from Rome. Anathema after anathema was hurled from the papal chair. France had always been Rome's most favored and her favorite nation. No other people had done so much as France to assist the Church of Rome into her place of great power.

"The French Revolution was a struggle for civil and religious liberty, it was an effort to throw off the yoke of king and pope. Pope Pius VI, summarily condemned the most precious principles of the revolution. He branded as devilish the aspirations for equality and political liberty in the declaration of rights.

"The necessary effect of the constitution decreed by the assembly," says he, "Is to annihilate the Catholic religion, and that duty of obedience due to the laws. It is in this view that they establish as a right of man in society this absolute liberty, which not only secured the right of not being disturbed for one's religious opinions, but it also grants the license of thinking, speaking, writing, and even of printing with impunity in the matter of religion, all that the most

unregulated imagination can suggest, a monstrous right, which, nevertheless, appears to the assembly to result from the equality and liberty natural to all men."

"At this time two thirds of the land belonged to the nobility and the clergy, who so far as numbers were concerned formed an insignificant part of the population; and the remaining one third was in the hands of the common people whose poverty was most distressing. For many years a feeling had been growing that the great lands which the church owned, had not been come by honestly; and more than this, that it was not befitting those who called themselves followers of the meek and lowly Master, to possess so much, while their brethren were lacking for food and rai

ment.

"This land had never paid taxes, the same as others had to pay them, for the clergy had the privilege of meeting together and deciding how large a gift, in lieu of taxes, they would make to the crown, so that the whole matter of taxing themselves was in their own hands.

"Pius the sixth, treated as chimerical the liberty of thinking and acting, and he arose with energy against the assembly to declare Catholicism the national and dominant religion. He compared the national Assembly to King Henry the eight of England. He announced an approaching excommunication against the recalcitrants, and begged all the bishops of France, prevent the revolution from progressing. Such was the defiance which the pope of Rome hurled against the revolutionaries of France.

"Long before this Rome had taught that the despotism of the church and the despotism of the state were inculcated by

the Holy Scriptures, Bossuet, had written a work entitled, "La Politiquee Tireede I' Escriture Sainte,"-Politics drawn from the Holy Scriptures. This learned catechism promulgated the ideas as of God of a royalty without control, and a clergy without restraint. In it the King is represented as a God whose countenance rejoices his people as the sun, and whose indisputable caprices ought to be received on bended knees. All the property of the nation, according to Bassuet, belonged to the king, excepting the land of the Levites, with which the king ought not concern himself, only to increase it.

"Pius the sixth, denounced the Legislative Assembly, and issued an encyclical proclamation in which he condemned the efforts of the French people to establish a republic. Here are his words:

That assembly, after abolishing the monarchy, which is the most natural form of government, had attributed almost all power to the populace, who follow no wisdom and no counsel, and have no understanding of things.

"He further instructed the bishops, that all 'poisoned books' should be removed from the faithful, by force or stratagem. He denounced the liberty after which France was striving in imitation of the American example. He declared it had a tendency to corrupt minds, pervert morals, and overthrow all order in affairs and laws. He asserted in bold terms that the doctrine of the equality of men, led to anarchy and the speedy dissolution of society.

"In 1793 Monsieur Basseville, the French envoy, was attacked in the streets by the emissaries of the papal government. His house was broken into, and he himself unarmed and unresisting, was cruelly assassinated.

The pope and his followers had been extremely provoked that the French residing in Rome had displayed the tricolor flag of the republic, and that they had proposed to exhibit the escutcheon of the republic over the door of the French consul.

"Certainly there could be no just cause for complaint about this, as it is the undoubted right of the foreign ambassadors and consuls in any land to hoist the flag of their country and display the coat of arms of the nation which they represent. But the pope had intimated his desire that this should not be done, and a popular commotion arose.

"By all international law, the life of an envoy is sacred; but so great was the hatred of the pope and the rulers of the papal states for the republic of France, and the principles for which that republic stood, that the most solemn of international usages and customs was trampled into the dust, and the life of the envoy sacrificed to the foaming passion of hatred against liberty.

This had happened in 1793, but it was not forgotten in 1796. Napoleon called upon his troops to avenge the life of the murdered Ambassador. He addressed the following proclamation to his soldiers:

'Soldiers: in a fortnight you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one pair of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You have made fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded more than ten thousand men; you have hitherto been fighting for barren rocks, rendered glorious by your courage, but useless to the country, you now rival by your services the army of Holland, and of the Rhine. Destitute

« PreviousContinue »