Page images
PDF
EPUB

occupied about four years, as it included four passovers; and, therefore, Mary at the foot of the cross was in her fifty-fifth year. Then, in the Acts of the Apostles, I find Mary again at prayer with the disciples. Now, supposing her to have lived with St. John four or five years after the crucifixion, she would be about sixty years of age before she ascended to heaven.

"Now another circumstance to be ascertained is her maternity, which more or less affects the countenance and constitution of a woman. I see in Matt. i. that Jesus was called 'the firstborn Son of Mary,' and that Joseph did not live with her as her husband till the birth of Jesus. Then in Matt. xii. I find 'His brothers' mentioned. Cousins, I thought and hoped : but at verses 55 and 56 [chap. xiii.] I found the sisters of Jesus mentioned also. Now, though the words for brother and cousin may be used interchangeably in the Greek, it is not so with ddeλøn, the word for sister, which means the female child of the [same] parent. Now, if those who wrote the Bible had believed the perpetual virginity of Mary, they would have avoided the ambiguity of this term, which must be understood in its exceptional sense to make it mean cousin. The Nazarenes, among whom the Lord's childhood had been passed, say of Him, 'Is not this the carpenter's Son? is not His mother called Mary? and His brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? and are not His sisters here with us?' If Jesus were the only Son of Mary, why is the Scripture silent upon the point? We read that He is 'the only begotten Son of God,' but not that He is the only Son of Mary. I draw this inference, therefore, that Mary's children were, Jesus, her firstborn, His four brothers, and (as 'sisters' cannot mean less than two) his two sisters. So that I find Mary the mother of seven children. This will account to you for the slightly emaciated features of a woman aged sixty, in the picture I send you of the Virgin Mary. We do not know if those features were beautiful; but we know that our Redeemer, who is worthy of all our worship, had no outward form or comeliness.' And may we not suppose that, having no mortal father to resemble, He perhaps resembled His mother, whose beauty was more that of a meek and quiet spirit than form or features of special loveliness?

"Then, I thought, it is Mary, as she is now in heaven, I have to imagine, and not Mary in youth,-Mary the mother of our Lord, the Man of sorrows,-Mary, whose soul had been pierced with anguish as with a sword. Then Jesus tells us that those who are worthy of the resurrection' are like unto the angels:' and, therefore, Mary in heaven is like unto the angels, who, we are told, veil their faces with their wings, while they cry, 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' This is the reason why you find wings in the picture,—an admirable method of traversing space, as God's ‘ministers, who do His pleasure.' And, as we find in the book of Revelation that the redeemed are clothed with white robes,' I have thus draped the

* Is it clear that the words in Isai, liii, 2 refer at all to the "features" of the Lord Jesus?-EDITORS.

portrait of Mary in heaven; with which I hope you will be pleased, as the most faithful of all that have ever been painted.

"Respectfully your brother,

"JOSEPH DE SAINT PIERre.

"P.S.-I return your Bible, that you may verify the quotations which justify my work."

After the lapse of a year, the following letter from the Abbess closed this remarkable correspondence :

"DEAR BROTHER IN OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST,-I address you with feelings of the purest joy. You have rendered me a great service. You sent me an inanimate portrait of a redeemed woman; but you have shown to me God in Christ, her Saviour, and mine also. This needs explanation. I will now unfold the matter to you. On receipt of your packet, the sight confounded me. I read your letter, and with much reluctance yielded to your arguments, while I hung up the portrait in my cell. But, the more I contemplated those emaciated features, that enfeebled figure, that sorrowful countenance, the more I was disenchanted, and the more was my veneration for Mary weakened. Still I reasoned with myself, that Mary was not the less powerful that she was neither young nor beautiful; but vainly did I thus school myself. My affection for my patroness declined visibly, and at length I began to find that what I had loved in the Virgin was the young and beautiful face, the graceful form, and not her moral character, or her intercessions. I could no longer adore her without difficulty. I opened the Bible, and there I found the young and beautiful 'queen of heaven' transformed into the humble servant of her God and Saviour Jesus Christ; while I seemed to hear her exclaim with holy joy in the Magnificat, 'My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.' (Luke i. 47.) If God be Mary's 'Saviour,' I said, then Mary was lost-then she was not sinless: "For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden....... Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name.' The angel Gabriel told her she had found grace,' or favour, with God; and, to find grace, one must have sinned. And now was my idol dethroned from my heart by the power of Divine truth, to which your faithful portrait of Mary in heaven had led me; and so was the place prepared for Him who should always have filled it. Yes! at last I learned to appreciate Him who only was worthy of my adoration,-Jesus Christ, my only and wellbeloved Saviour. I saw Him giving His life for His sheep after years passed in going about doing good to their souls and bodies; and, as I beheld Him ascend the cross, to expiate our sins, as our Substitute, my eyes overflowed with tears of joy, and I exclaimed, My Lord, and my God! Thou hast saved me.' And now the Gospel, Christ, heaven, God, have become realities. A Divine Guest has taken possession of my heart, who explains to me the word of God; who takes of the things of Christ, and reveals

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

them to me, and, as it were, transports me into a new world. Yes, brother! I truly feel that I am freely and fully saved by my Divine Redeemer; and I long to impart to you my happiness, and thus incite you to seek the same for your own soul. You have indeed restored the Virgin to her place. Will you not also restore our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His? Ah! believe me, true peace and joy are there alone. Take this Bible, (not the one you returned, which I shall never part with,) and read it daily in prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit. And be assured you will soon find a better Mediator than Mary in heaven; for there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.'

"Your sister,

"MARIE DE ST. ROMAN."

SELECT LITERARY NOTICES.

[The insertion of any article in this list is not to be considered as pledging us to the approbation of its contents, unless it be accompanied by some express notice of our favourable opinion. Nor is the omission of any such notice to be regarded as indicating a contrary opinion; as our limits, and other reasons, impose on us the necessity of selection and brevity.]

Histoire de Louvois, et de son Administration politique et militaire depuis la Paix de Nimègue. Par Camille Rousset. Deux Vols., 8vo. Paris: Didier.-The reign of Louis XIV. is, we may say, the turningpoint in the history of France. Under his rule, the country seemed to have reached its highest state of prosperity. The ideal of government, as our neighbours consider it, we mean, centralization perfectly and thoroughly worked out, was the leading principle at the court of Versailles. In literature, in art, in science, in philosophy, a galaxy of talent appeared which has never since been equalled. The whole progress of events for many ages had developed itself so as to reach the culminating point, marked by the termination of the wars of La Fronde. For a short time-a very short time-the prestige lasted, and then came a period of declension more rapid than the period of growth had been; and, finally, the accumulated wickedness of a despotism which lasted sixty years, combined with the moral de

gradation of the reign of Louis XV., and the well-intentioned incapacity of Louis XVI., brought about the horrors of the French Revolution.

Notwithstanding the often repeated phrase about le grand Monarque's personal government, the history of his reign is that of his ministers; Mazarin first, then Colbert, and then Louvois. French literature boasts of several good biographies of the two former, but the career of Louvois was never satisfactorily treated, before M. Camille Rousset applied himself to the task. His work is divided into four volumes, two of which, sometime ago published, have received from the Académie Française one of the highest rewards that Society has at its disposal. The two others, which form the subject of the present article, begin with the Peace of Nimeguen, and end with the death of Louvois.

As a general remark, we would speak most highly of M. Rousset's merits, both as a writer and as a savant. He has had access to many

state-papers of the greatest importance, and has availed himself with much skill of the information they contain. His notes are copious, and yet not accumulated for the sake of display; whilst his style is marked by that perspicuity and that ease which are so singularly characteristic of the best French historians. Let us now select for special consideration some distinct chapter in the work; and, in doing so, we shall best consult the taste of our readers, if we devote the space at our disposal to an examination of the manner in which Louvois dealt with the Protestants.

In

M. Rousset begins by saying, that, after the final establishment of the authority of Louis XIV., the general feeling of the Catholic part of the nation was in favour of the suppression of Protestantism throughout the kingdom. Even the most moderate men, Vauban and Chanlay, for instance, made no mystery of their opinion on the subject. Do not use violence, do not have recourse to persecution, but weary the Huguenots into conformity. every other branch of the public service unity prevails; why should not the same rule extend to matters of religion? Why should any private individual venture to worship God in another manner than the king? It is rather singular, and our author does not fail to remark it, that Louis XIV. and his contemporaries assumed an express intention, on the part of Cardinal Richelieu, of cancelling the Edict of Nantes, and of destroying the work of Henry IV. He did not carry his designs into effect, they said, merely from want of leisure; and, whilst they thus gratuitously assert what is positively false, they forget that Cardinal Mazarin, whose boast it was that he followed closely the traditions left by his predecessor, more than once gave utterance to his firm resolution of maintaining the

Calvinists in the enjoyment of their rights.

Certain peculiar features, which marked the dealings of Louis XIV. with his Huguenot subjects, are accounted for by M. Rousset in the following manner. Whereas all the other branches of the public service were presided over by able men, to whom their position gave their influence, and who, consequently, became attached to their functions, the management of the business relating to the Dissenters was placed in the hands of subalterns, of mere clerks, without any weight, and despised even by those who employed them. Nor was this, as we shall see, an unnatural thing. It is evident, that, from the Catholic point of view, a secretary of state, having under his direction the affairs of the Calvinists, must, if diligent in the prosecution of his duties, be constantly rendering himself less necessary, and diminishing his own power. His particular task was to reduce as much as possible the number of the people whose interests were confided to him. The more or less rapid decrease of the flock gave the exact measure of his zeal; so that the most glorious day of his administration would naturally be the one when nothing was left for him to do. No statesman of merit and ambition could wish for such a part; and accordingly we find it occupied in succession by men whose very names are scarcely remembered,-La Vrillière and Châteauneuf, the father and the But this is not all. Whilst in most of the administrative details the impulse was given at court, and the orders were sent from Versailles, it was exactly the reverse with the transactions relating to the Protestants. Let us quote, on this subject, M. Rousset's interesting remarks:-"The affair of the Revocation is the only one of which we can say that it did not follow exclusive

son.

ly the direction of the government, that it escaped the range of its influence, and that on more than one occasion the ministers had to submit to the action of their own agents. How many edicts against the Protestants were dictated to Louis XIV., nay, wrested from him, by the assemblies of the clergy, periodically called together! How many measures did not the Intendants insinuate and suggest,-measures which, from being of a local and temporary character, became very soon general and permanent laws? Let us go further: what do we see? The bishops urged on by the inferior clergy; the Intendants, by their subalterns; all, by an ignorant and evil-disposed multitude. It is not from Paris or Versailles that the movement goes to the provinces; it is from the remotest part of the provinces that the impulse comes up to Paris."

Thus the uncertainty, the hesitations, the doubts, the contradictions, which marked the policy of Louis XIV. during the whole of the preliminaries leading to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, are easily explained. The government knew nothing of what was going on; led astray by the false reports of ignorant or injudicious agents, it sometimes sanctioned measures of rigour, which, a short time after, it was obliged to cancel or to mitigate, from the complaints of Ruvigny or of other conscientious men. Louvois could not be satisfied unless he directed every thing and domineered over every body; therefore in the matter of the revocation of the Edict he aimed at playing a leading part. And, as a most natural result, his memory has had to bear all the odium which so wicked and impolitic a deed was sure to produce. Although he neither did all nor even ordered all that took place, although he never even knew a tithe of what was perpetrated,—he has been made responsible

for the whole affair, and his contemporaries themselves looked upon him as the leading organ of the king's blind will. This is only retributive justice. When a man sacrifices to his pride every other feeling, he finds a severe reward in the hatred and the anathemas of those whose rights he has disdained.

M. Rousset gives us very curious details of the zeal of the Intendants, and the awkward position in which Louvois occasionally found himself; urged, on one side, by loud remonstrances of the persecuted Protestants; and fearing, on the other, to be accused of lukewarmness in the matter of religion. As a point of fact, the Intendants were really the kings of their respective districts; they enjoyed absolute power, and had no hesitation in going directly against the orders sent from Versailles, rather than change a line of conduct which was calculated to bring out with greater lustre their own zeal. Thus we see Marillac refusing to discontinue the Dragonnades, although Louvois had directed him to do so; and, after some correspondence on the subject, the minister, at the urgent request of the energetic Ruvigny, was obliged to recall Marillac, and to appoint in his stead the equally notorious Bâville.

Foucault is another specimen of this kind of tyrants, who, under the name of Intendants, ruled France with a rod of iron. Let us see what M. Rousset has to say about him. "Foucault was then governing Béarn, or rather converting it, with a success which cast into the shade the most brilliant exploits of Marillac. Bâville was infinitely superior to him, even in the art of making conversions; but the other carried on his business with a brutal energy of which Bâville, naturally more refined, had not yet found himself capable. Foucault, though of a cultivated mind, was not clever; his

« PreviousContinue »