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Title: Our Fathers Have Told Us
Part I. The Bible of Amiens
Author: John Ruskin
Release Date: January 26, 2008 [EBook #24428]
Language: English
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Library Edition
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN RUSKIN
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
HORTUS INCLUSUS
NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK CHICAGO
"Our Fathers Have Told Us"
SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF CHRISTENDOM
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
WHO HAVE BEEN HELD AT ITS FONTS
PART I.
THE BIBLE OF AMIENS
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE iii
CHAPTER I.--BY THE RIVERS OF WATERS 1
" II.--UNDER THE DRACHENFELS 26
" III.--THE LION TAMER 58
" IV.--INTERPRETATIONS 88
APPENDIX I.--CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS
REFERRED TO IN THE 'BIBLE OF AMIENS' 143
" II.--REFERENCES EXPLANATORY OF PHOTOGRAPHS TO
CHAPTER IV 144
" III.--GENERAL PLAN OF 'OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US' 153
INDEX 155
PLATES.
ST. MARY (_Frontispiece_) _see page_ 131
_To face page_
PLATE I.--THE DYNASTIES OF FRANCE 8
" II.--THE BIBLE OF AMIENS, NORTHERN PORCH BEFORE
RESTORATION 26
" III.--AMIENS, JOUR DES TRÉSPASSÉS, 1880 58
PLAN OF THE WEST PORCHES 140
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Italic characters have been represented by _xxxxx_
2. Superscript characters have been represented by xxx^yy
3. A macron, or bar over a letter, is shown as [=letter]
4. In the paragraph that begins, "Sketch for yourself, first, a map of
France" there are images in the paragraph. I have represented
back-slanting diagonal shading with "\\\" and forward-slanting
diagonal shading with "///" and horizontal shading with "=".
5. In the original text, footnotes in Chapter I are represented with
numbers, and footnotes in all the rest of the text, including the
notes on Chapter I, are represented with symbols. I have converted
all of them to numbers, since there is no overlap, and they seem to
be used in the same way in the text.
PREFACE.
The long abandoned purpose, of which the following pages begin some
attempt at fulfilment, has been resumed at the request of a young
English governess, that I would write some pieces of history which her
pupils could gather some good out of;--the fruit of historical
documents placed by modern educational systems at her disposal, being
to them labour only, and sorrow.
What else may be said for the book, if it ever become one, it must say
for itself: preface, more than this, I do not care to write: and the
less, because some passages of British history, at this hour under
record, call for instant, though brief, comment.
I am told that the Queen's Guards have gone to Ireland; playing "God
save the Queen." And being, (as I have declared myself in the course
of some letters to which public attention has been lately more than
enough directed,) to the best of my knowledge, the staunchest
Conservative in England, I am disposed gravely to question the
propriety of the mission of the Queen's Guards on the employment
commanded them. My own Conservative notion of the function of the
Guards is that they should guard the Queen's throne and life, when
threatened either by domestic or foreign enemy: but not that they
should become a substitute for her inefficient police force, in the
execution of her domiciliary laws.
And still less so, if the domiciliary laws which they are sent to
execute, playing "God save the Queen," be perchance precisely contrary
to that God the Saviour's law; and therefore, such as, in the long run,
no quantity either of Queens, or Queen's men, _could_ execute. Which is
a question I have for these ten years been endeavouring to get the
British public to consider--vainly enough hitherto; and will not at
present add to my own many words on the matter. But a book has just been
published by a British officer, who, if he had not been otherwise and
more actively employed, could not only have written all my books about
landscape and picture, but is very singularly also of one mind with me,
(God knows of how few Englishmen I can now say so,) on matters regarding
the Queen's safety, and the Nation's honour. Of whose book ("Far out:
Rovings retold"), since various passages will be given in my subsequent
terminal notes, I will content myself with quoting for the end of my
Preface, the memorable words which Colonel Butler himself quotes, as
spoken to the British Parliament by its last Conservative leader, a
British officer who had also served with honour and success.
The Duke of Wellington said: "It is already well known to your
Lordships that of the troops which our gracious Sovereign did me the
honour to entrust to my command at various periods during the war--a
war undertaken for the express purpose of securing the happy
institutions and independence of the country--at least one half were
Roman Catholics. My Lords, when I call your recollection to this fact,
I am sure all further eulogy is unnecessary. Your Lordships are well
aware for what length of period and under what difficult circumstances
they maintained the Empire buoyant upon the flood which overwhelmed
the thrones and wrecked the institutions of every other people;--how
they kept alive the only spark of freedom which was left
unextinguished in Europe.... My Lords, it is mainly to the Irish
Catholics that we all owe our proud predominance in our military
career, and that I personally am indebted for the laurels with which
you have been pleased to decorate my brow.... We must confess, my
Lords, that without Catholic blood and Catholic valour no victory
could ever have been obtained, and the first military talents might
have been exerted in vain."
Let these noble words of tender Justice be the first example to my
young readers of what all History ought to be. It has been told them,
in the Laws of Fésole, that all great Art is Praise. So is all
faithful History, and all high Philosophy. For these three, Art,
History, and Philosophy, are each but one part of the Heavenly Wisdom,
which sees not as man seeth, but with Eternal Charity; and because she
rejoices not in Iniquity, _therefore_ rejoices in the Truth.
For true knowledge is of Virtues only; of poisons and vices, it is
Hecate who teaches, not Athena. And of all wisdom, chiefly the
Politician's must consist in this divine Prudence; it is not, indeed,
always necessary for men to know the virtues of their friends, or
their masters; since the friend will still manifest, and the master
use. But woe to the Nation which is too cruel to cherish the virtue of
its subjects, and too cowardly to recognize that of its enemies!
THE BIBLE OF AMIENS.
CHAPTER I.
BY THE RIVERS OF WATERS.
The intelligent English traveller, in this fortunate age for him, is
aware that, half-way between Boulogne and Paris, there is a complex
railway-station, into which his train, in its relaxing speed, rolls
him with many more than the average number of bangs and bumps
prepared, in the access of every important French _gare_, to startle
the drowsy or distrait passenger into a sense of his situation.
He probably also remembers that at this halting-place in mid-journey
there is a well-served buffet, at which he has the privilege of "Dix
minutes d'arrêt."
He is not, however, always so distinctly conscious that these ten
minutes of arrest are granted to him within not so many minutes' walk
of the central square of a city which was once the Venice of France.
Putting the lagoon islands out of question, the French River-Queen was
nearly as large in compass as Venice herself; and divided, not by slow
currents of ebbing and returning tide, but by eleven beautiful trout
streams, of which some four or five are as large, each separately, as
our Surrey Wandle, or as Isaac Walton's Dove; and which, branching out
of one strong current above the city, and uniting again after they have
eddied through its streets, are bordered, as they flow down, (fordless
except where the two Edwards rode them, the day before Crecy,) to the
sands of St. Valery, by groves of aspen, and glades of poplar, whose
grace and gladness seem to spring in every stately avenue instinct with
the image of the just man's life,--"Erit tanquam lignum quod plantatum
est secus decursus aquarum."
But the Venice of Picardy owed her name, not to the beauty of her
streams merely, but to their burden. She was a worker, like the
Adriatic princes, in gold and glass, in stone, wood, and ivory; she
was skilled like an Egyptian in the weaving of fine linen; dainty as
the maids of Judah in divers colours of needlework. And of these, the
fruits of her hands, praising her in her own gates, she sent also
portions to stranger nations, and her fame went out into all lands.
"Un règlement de l'échevinage, du 12^me avril 1566, fait voir qu'on
fabriquait à cette epoque, des velours de toutes couleurs pour
meubles, des colombettes à grands et petits carreaux, des burailles
croises, qu'on expédiait en Allemagne--en Espagne, en Turquie, et en
Barbarie!"[1]
All-coloured velvets, pearl-iridescent colombettes! (I wonder what
they may be?) and sent to vie with the variegated carpet of the Turk,
and glow upon the arabesque towers of Barbary![2] Was not this a phase
of provincial Picard life which an intelligent English traveller might
do well to inquire into? Why should this fountain of rainbows leap up
suddenly here by Somme; and a little Frankish maid write herself the
sister of Venice, and the servant of Carthage and of Tyre?
[Footnote 1: M. H. Dusevel, Histoire de la Ville d'Amiens. Amiens,
Caron et Lambert, 1848; p. 305.]
[Footnote 2: Carpaccio trusts for the chief splendour of any festa in
cities to the patterns of the draperies hung out of windows.]
And if she, why not others also of our northern villages? Has the
intelligent traveller discerned anything, in the country, or in its
shores, on his way from the gate of Calais to the _gare_ of Amiens, of
special advantage for artistic design, or for commercial enterprise? He
has seen league after league of sandy dunes. We also, we, have our sands
by Severn, by Lune, by Solway. He has seen extensive plains of useful
and not unfragrant peat,--an article sufficiently accessible also to
our Scotch and Irish industries. He has seen many a broad down and
jutting cliff of purest chalk; but, opposite, the perfide Albion gleams
no whit less blanche beyond the blue. Pure waters he has seen, issuing
out of the snowy rock; but are ours less bright at Croydon, at
Guildford, or at Winchester? And yet one never heard of treasures sent
from Solway sands to African; nor that the builders at Romsey could give
lessons in colour to the builders at Granada? What can it be, in the air
or the earth--in her stars or in her sunlight--that fires the heart and
quickens the eyes of the little white-capped Amienoise soubrette, till
she can match herself against Penelope?
The intelligent English traveller has of course no time to waste on
any of these questions. But if he has bought his ham-sandwich, and is
ready for the "En voiture, messieurs," he may perhaps condescend for
an instant to hear what a lounger about the place, neither wasteful of
his time, nor sparing of it, can suggest as worth looking at, when his
train glides out of the station.
He will see first, and doubtless with the respectful admiration which an
Englishman is bound to bestow upon such objects, the coal-sheds and
carriage-sheds of the station itself, extending in their ashy and oily
splendours for about a quarter of a mile out of the town; and then, just
as the train gets into speed, under a large chimney tower, which he
cannot see to nearly the top of, but will feel overcast by the shadow of
its smoke, he _may_ see, if he will trust his intelligent head out of
the window, and look back, fifty or fifty-one (I am not sure of my count
to a unit) similar chimneys, all similarly smoking, all with similar
works attached, oblongs of brown brick wall, with portholes numberless
of black square window. But in the midst of these fifty tall things that
smoke, he will see one, a little taller than any, and more delicate,
that does not smoke; and in the midst of these fifty masses of blank
wall enclosing 'works'--and doubtless producing works profitable and
honourable to France and the world--he will see _one_ mass of wall--not
blank, but strangely wrought by the hands of foolish men of long ago,
for the purpose of enclosing or producing no manner of profitable work
whatsoever, but one--
"This is the work of God; that ye should believe on Him whom He hath
sent"!
Leaving the intelligent traveller now to fulfil his vow of pilgrimage
to Paris,--or wherever else God may be sending him,--I will suppose
that an intelligent Eton boy or two, or thoughtful English girl, may
care quietly to walk with me as far as this same spot of commanding
view, and to consider what the workless--shall we say also
worthless?--building, and its unshadowed minaret, may perhaps farther
mean.
Minaret I have called it, for want of better English word.
Flêche--arrow--is its proper name; vanishing into the air you know not
where, by the mere fineness of it. Flameless--motionless--hurtless--the
fine arrow; unplumed, unpoisoned, and unbarbed; aimless--shall we say
also, readers young and old, travelling or abiding? It, and the walls it
rises from--what have they once meant? What meaning have they left in
them yet, for you, or for the people that live round them, and never
look up as they pass by?
Suppose we set ourselves first to learn how they came there.
At the birth of Christ, all this hillside, and the brightly-watered
plain below, with the corn-yellow champaign above, were inhabited by a
Druid-taught race, wild enough in thoughts and ways, but under Roman
government, and gradually becoming accustomed to hear the names, and
partly to confess the power, of Roman gods. For three hundred years
after the birth of Christ they heard the name of no other God.
Three hundred years! and neither apostles nor inheritors of
apostleship had yet gone into all the world and preached the gospel to
every creature. Here, on their peaty ground, the wild people, still
trusting in Pomona for apples, in Silvanus for acorns, in Ceres for
bread, and in Proserpina for rest, hoped but the season's blessing
from the Gods of Harvest, and feared no eternal anger from the Queen
of Death.
But at last, three hundred years being past and gone, in the
year of Christ 301, there came to this hillside of Amiens, on the
sixth day of the Ides of October, the Messenger of a new Life.
His name, Firminius (I suppose) in Latin, Firmin in French,--so to be
remembered here in Picardy. Firmin, not Firminius; as Denis, not
Dionysius; coming out of space--no one tells what part of space. But
received by the pagan Amienois with surprised welcome, and seen of
them--forty days--many days, we may read--preaching acceptably, and
binding with baptismal vows even persons in good society: and that in
such numbers, that at last he is accused to the Roman governor, by the
priests of Jupiter and Mercury, as one turning the world upside-down.
And in the last day of the Forty--or of the indefinite many meant by
Forty--he is beheaded, as martyrs ought to be, and his ministrations
in a mortal body ended.
The old, old story, you say? Be it so; you will the more easily
remember it. The Amienois remembered it so carefully, that, twelve
hundred years afterwards, in the sixteenth century, they thought good
to carve and paint the four stone pictures Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of our
first choice photographs. (N. B.--This series is not yet arranged, but
is distinct from that referred to in Chapter IV. See Appendix II.).
Scene 1st, St. Firmin arriving; scene 2nd, St. Firmin preaching; scene
3rd, St. Firmin baptizing; and scene 4th, St. Firmin beheaded, by an
executioner with very red legs, and an attendant dog of the character
of the dog in 'Faust,' of whom we may have more to say presently.
Following in the meantime the tale of St. Firmin, as of old time
known, his body was received, and buried, by a Roman senator, his
disciple, (a kind of Joseph of Arimathea to St. Firmin,) in the Roman
senator's own garden. Who also built a little oratory over his grave.
The Roman senator's son built a church to replace the oratory,
dedicated it to Our Lady of Martyrs, and established it as an
episcopal seat--the first of the French nation's. A very notable spot
for the French nation, surely? One deserving, perhaps, some little
memory or monument,--cross, tablet, or the like? Where, therefore,
do you suppose this first cathedral of French Christianity stood, and
with what monument has it been honoured?
It stood where we now stand, companion mine, whoever you may be; and
the monument wherewith it has been honoured is this--chimney, whose
gonfalon of smoke overshadows us--the latest effort of modern art in
Amiens, the chimney of St. Acheul.
The first cathedral, you observe, of the _French_ nation; more
accurately, the first germ of cathedral _for_ the French nation--who
are not yet here; only this grave of a martyr is here, and this church
of Our Lady of Martyrs, abiding on the hillside, till the Roman power
pass away.
Falling together with it, and trampled down by savage tribes, alike
the city and the shrine; the grave forgotten,--when at last the Franks
themselves pour from the north, and the utmost wave of them, lapping
along these downs of Somme, is _here_ stayed, and the Frankish
standard planted, and the French kingdom throned.
Here their first capital, here the first footsteps[3] of the Frank in
his France! Think of it. All over the south are Gauls, Burgundians,
Bretons, heavier-hearted nations of sullen mind: at their outmost brim
and border, here at last are the Franks, the source of all Franchise,
for this our Europe. You have heard the word in England, before now,
but English word for it is none! _Honesty_ we have of our own; but
_Frankness_ we must learn of these: nay, all the western nations of us
are in a few centuries more to be known by this name of Frank. Franks,
of Paris that is to be, in time to come; but French of Paris is in
year of grace 500 an unknown tongue in Paris, as much as in
Stratford-att-ye-Bowe. French of Amiens is the kingly and courtly form
of Christian speech, Paris lying yet in Lutetian clay, to develope
into tile-field, perhaps, in due time. Here, by soft-glittering Somme,
reign Clovis and his Clotilde.
[Footnote 3: The first fixed and set-down footsteps; wandering tribes
called Franks, had overswept the country, and recoiled, again and
again. But _this_ invasion of the so-called Salian Franks, never
retreats again.]
And by St. Firmin's grave speaks now another gentle evangelist, and
the first Frank king's prayer to the King of kings is made to Him,
known only as "the God of Clotilde."
I must ask the reader's patience now with a date or two, and stern
facts--two--three--or more.
Clodion, the leader of the first Franks who reach irrevocably beyond
the Rhine, fights his way through desultory Roman cohorts as far as
Amiens, and takes it, in 445.[4]
[Footnote 4: See note at end of chapter, as also for the allusions in
p. 8, to the battle of Soissons.]
Two years afterwards, at his death, the scarcely asserted throne is
seized--perhaps inevitably--by the tutor of his children, Merovée,
whose dynasty is founded on the defeat of Attila at Chalons.
He died in 457. His son Childeric, giving himself up to the love of
women, and scorned by the Frank soldiery, is driven into exile, the
Franks choosing rather to live under the law of Rome than under a base
chief of their own. He receives asylum at the court of the king of
Thuringia, and abides there. His chief officer in Amiens, at his
departure, breaks a ring in two, and, giving him the half of it, tells
him, when the other half is sent, to return.
And, after many days, the half of the broken ring is sent, and he
returns, and is accepted king by his Franks.
The Thuringian queen follows him, (I cannot find if her husband is
first dead--still less, if dead, how dying,) and offers herself to him
for his wife.
"I have known thy usefulness, and that thou art very strong; and I
have come to live with thee. Had I known, in parts beyond sea, any one
more useful than thou, I should have sought to live with _him_."
He took her for his wife, and their son is Clovis.
A wonderful story; how far in literalness true is of no manner of moment
to us; the myth, and power of it, _do_ manifest the nature of the French
kingdom, and prophesy its future destiny. Personal valour, personal
beauty, loyalty to kings, love of women, disdain of unloving marriage,
note all these things for true, and that in the corruption of these will
be the last death of the Frank, as in their force was his first glory.
Personal valour, worth. _Utilitas_, the keystone of all. Birth
nothing, except as gifting with valour;--Law of primogeniture
unknown;--Propriety of conduct, it appears, for the present, also
nowhere! (but we are all pagans yet, remember).
Let us get our dates and our geography, at any rate, gathered out of
the great 'nowhere' of confused memory, and set well together, thus
far.
457. Merovée dies. The useful Childeric, counting his exile, and reign
in Amiens, together, is King altogether twenty-four years, 457 to 481,
and during his reign Odoacer ends the Roman empire in Italy, 476.
481. Clovis is only fifteen when he succeeds his father, as King of
the Franks in Amiens. At this time a fragment of Roman power remains
isolated in central France, while four strong and partly savage
nations form a cross round this dying centre: the Frank on the north,
the Breton on the west, the Burgundian on the east, the Visigoth
strongest of all and gentlest, in the south, from Loire to the sea.
Sketch for yourself, first, a map of France, as large as you like, as
in Plate I., fig. 1, marking only the courses of the five rivers,
Somme, Seine, Loire, Saone, Rhone; then, rudely, you find it was
divided at the time thus, fig. 2: Fleur-de-lysée part, Frank; \\\,
Breton; ///, Burgundian; =, Visigoth. I am not sure how far these last
reached across Rhone into Provence, but I think best to indicate
Provence as semée with roses.
Now, under Clovis, the Franks fight three great battles. The first,
with the Romans, near Soissons, which they win, and become masters of
France as far as the Loire. Copy the rough map fig. 2, and put the
fleur-de-lys all over the middle of it, extinguishing the Romans (fig.
3). This battle was won by Clovis, I believe, before he married
Clotilde. He wins his princess by it: cannot get his pretty vase,
however, to present to her. Keep that story well in your mind, and the
battle of Soissons, as winning mid-France for the French, and ending the
Romans there, for ever. Secondly, after he marries Clotilde, the wild
Germans attack _him_ from the north, and he has to fight for life and
throne at Tolbiac. This is the battle in which he prays to the God of
Clotilde, and quits himself of the Germans by His help. Whereupon he is
crowned in Rheims by St. Remy.
[Illustration: Plate I. THE DYNASTIES OF FRANCE.]
And now, in the new strength of his Christianity, and his twin victory
over Rome and Germany, and his love for his queen, and his ambition
for his people, he looks south on that vast Visigothic power, between
Loire and the snowy mountains. Shall Christ, and the Franks, not be
stronger than villainous Visigoths 'who are Arians also'? All his
Franks are with him, in that opinion. So he marches against the
Visigoths, meets them and their Alaric at Poitiers, ends their Alaric
and their Arianism, and carries his faithful Franks to the Pic du
Midi.
And so now you must draw the map of France once more, and put the
fleur-de-lys all over its central mass from Calais to the Pyrenees:
only Brittany still on the west, Burgundy in the east, and the white
Provence rose beyond Rhone. And now poor little Amiens has become a
mere border town like our Durham, and Somme a border streamlet like
our Tyne. Loire and Seine have become the great French rivers, and men
will be minded to build cities by these; where the well-watered
plains, not of peat, but richest pasture, may repose under the guard
of saucy castles on the crags, and moated towers on the islands. But
now let us think a little more closely what our changed symbols in the
map may mean--five fleur-de-lys for level bar.
They don't mean, certainly, that all the Goths are gone, and nobody but
Franks in France? The Franks have not massacred Visigothic man, woman,
and child, from Loire to Garonne. Nay, where their own throne is still
set by the Somme, the peat-bred people whom they found there, live there
still, though subdued. Frank, or Goth, or Roman may fluctuate hither and
thither, in chasing or flying troops: but, unchanged through all the
gusts of war, the rural people whose huts they pillage, whose farms they
ravage, and over whose arts they reign, must still be diligently,
silently, and with no time for lamentation, ploughing, sowing,
cattle-breeding!
Else how could Frank or Hun, Visigoth or Roman, live for a month, or
fight for a day?
Whatever the name, or the manners, of their masters, the ground
delvers must be the same; and the goatherd of the Pyrenees, and the
vine-dresser of Garonne, and the milkmaid of Picardy, give them what
lords you may, abide in their land always, blossoming as the trees of
the field, and enduring as the crags of the desert. And these, the
warp and first substance of the nation, are divided, not by dynasties,
but by climates; and are strong here, and helpless there, by
privileges which no invading tyrants can abolish, and through faults
which no preaching hermit can repress. Now, therefore, please let us
leave our history a minute or two, and read the lessons of constant
earth and sky.
In old times, when one posted from Calais to Paris, there was about
half an hour's trot on the level, from the gate of Calais to the long
chalk hill, which had to be climbed before arriving at the first
post-house in the village of Marquise.
That chalk rise, virtually, is the front of France; that last bit of
level north of it, virtually the last of Flanders; south of it,
stretches now a district of chalk and fine building limestone,--(if you
keep your eyes open, you may see a great quarry of it on the west of the
railway, half-way between Calais and Boulogne, where once was a blessed
little craggy dingle opening into velvet lawns;)--this high, but never
mountainous, calcareous tract, sweeping round the chalk basin of Paris
away to Caen on one side, and Nancy on the other, and south as far as
Bourges, and the Limousin. This limestone tract, with its keen fresh
air, everywhere arable surface, and quarriable banks above well-watered
meadow, is the real country of the French. Here only are their arts
clearly developed. Farther south they are Gascons, or Limousins, or
Auvergnats, or the like. Westward, grim-granitic Bretons; eastward,
Alpine-bearish Burgundians: here only, on the chalk and finely-knit
marble, between, say, Amiens and Chartres one way, and between Caen and
Rheims on the other, have you real _France_.
Of which, before we carry on the farther vital history, I must ask the
reader to consider with me, a little, how history, so called, has been
for the most part written, and of what particulars it usually
consists.
Suppose that the tale of King Lear were a true one; and that a modern
historian were giving the abstract of it in a school manual,
purporting to contain all essential facts in British history valuable
to British youth in competitive examination. The story would be
related somewhat after this manner:--
"The reign of the last king of the seventy-ninth dynasty closed in a
series of events with the record of which it is painful to pollute the
pages of history. The weak old man wished to divide his kingdom into
dowries for his three daughters; but on proposing this arrangement to
them, finding it received by the youngest with coldness and reserve,
he drove her from his court, and divided the kingdom between his two
elder children.
"The youngest found refuge at the court of France, where ultimately
the prince royal married her. But the two elder daughters, having
obtained absolute power, treated their father at first with
disrespect, and soon with contumely. Refused at last even the comforts
necessary to his declining years, the old king, in a transport of
rage, left the palace, with, it is said, only the court fool for an
attendant, and wandered, frantic and half naked, during the storms of
winter, in the woods of Britain.
"Hearing of these events, his youngest daughter hastily collected an
army, and invaded the territory of her ungrateful sisters, with the
object of restoring her father to his throne; but, being met by a well
disciplined force, under the command of her eldest sister's paramour,
Edmund, bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester, was herself defeated,
thrown into prison, and soon afterwards strangled by the adulterer's
order. The old king expired on receiving the news of her death; and the
participators in these crimes soon after received their reward; for the
two wicked queens being rivals for the affections of the bastard, the
one of them who was regarded by him with less favour poisoned the other,
and afterwards killed herself. Edmund afterwards met his death at the
hand of his brother, the legitimate son of Gloucester, under whose rule,
with that of the Earl of Kent, the kingdom remained for several
succeeding years."
Imagine this succinctly graceful recital of what the historian
conceived to be the facts, adorned with violently black and white
woodcuts, representing the blinding of Gloucester, the phrenzy of
Lear, the strangling of Cordelia, and the suicide of Goneril, and you
have a type of popular history in the nineteenth century; which is,
you may perceive after a little reflection, about as profitable
reading for young persons (so far as regards the general colour and
purity of their thoughts) as the Newgate Calendar would be; with this
farther condition of incalculably greater evil, that, while the
calendar of prison-crime would teach a thoughtful youth the dangers of
low life and evil company, the calendar of kingly crime overthrows his
respect for any manner of government, and his faith in the ordinances
of Providence itself.
Books of loftier pretence, written by bankers, members of Parliament,
or orthodox clergymen, are of course not wanting; and show that the
progress of civilization consists in the victory of usury over
ecclesiastical prejudice, or in the establishment of the Parliamentary
privileges of the borough of Puddlecombe, or in the extinction of the
benighted superstitions of the Papacy by the glorious light of
Reformation. Finally, you have the broadly philosophical history,
which proves to you that there is no evidence whatever of any
overruling Providence in human affairs; that all virtuous actions have
selfish motives; and that a scientific selfishness, with proper
telegraphic communications, and perfect knowledge of all the species
of Bacteria, will entirely secure the future well-being of the upper
classes of society, and the dutiful resignation of those beneath them.
Meantime, the two ignored powers--the Providence of Heaven, and the
virtue of men--have ruled, and rule, the world, not invisibly; and
they are the only powers of which history has ever to tell any
profitable truth. Under all sorrow, there is the force of virtue; over
all ruin, the restoring charity of God. To these alone we have to
look; in these alone we may understand the past, and predict the
future, destiny of the ages.
I return to the story of Clovis, king now of all central France. Fix
the year 500 in your minds as the approximate date of his baptism at
Rheims, and of St. Remy's sermon to him, telling him of the sufferings
and passion of Christ, till Clovis sprang from his throne, grasping
his spear, and crying, "Had I been there with my brave Franks, I would
have avenged His wrongs."
"There is little doubt," proceeds the cockney historian, "that the
conversion of Clovis was as much a matter of policy as of faith." But
the cockney historian had better limit his remarks on the characters
and faiths of men to those of the curates who have recently taken
orders in his fashionable neighbourhood, or the bishops who have
lately preached to the population of its manufacturing suburbs.
Frankish kings were made of other clay.
The Christianity of Clovis does not indeed produce any fruits of the
kind usually looked for in a modern convert. We do not hear of his
repenting ever so little of any of his sins, nor resolving to lead a new
life in any the smallest particular. He had not been impressed with
convictions of sin at the battle of Tolbiac; nor, in asking for the help
of the God of Clotilde, had he felt or professed the remotest intention
of changing his character, or abandoning his projects. What he was,
before he believed in his queen's God, he only more intensely afterwards
became, in the confidence of that before unknown God's supernatural
help. His natural gratitude to the Delivering Power, and pride in its
protection, added only fierceness to his soldiership, and deepened his
political enmities with the rancour of religions indignation. No more
dangerous snare is set by the fiends for human frailty than the belief
that our own enemies are also the enemies of God; and it is perfectly
conceivable to me that the conduct of Clovis might have been the more
unscrupulous, precisely in the measure that his faith was more sincere.
Had either Clovis or Clotilde fully understood the precepts of their
Master, the following history of France, and of Europe, would have
been other than it is. What they could understand, or in any wise were
taught, you will find that they obeyed, and were blessed in obeying.
But their history is complicated with that of several other persons,
respecting whom we must note now a few too much forgotten particulars.
If from beneath the apse of Amiens Cathedral we take the street
leading due south, leaving the railroad station on the left, it brings
us to the foot of a gradually ascending hill, some half a mile long--a
pleasant and quiet walk enough, terminating on the level of the
highest land near Amiens; whence, looking back, the Cathedral is seen
beneath us, all but the flêche, our gained hill-top being on a level
with its roof-ridge: and, to the south, the plain of France.
Somewhere about this spot, or in the line between it and St. Acheul,
stood the ancient Roman gate of the Twins, whereon were carved Romulus
and Remus being suckled by the wolf; and out of which, one bitter
winter's day, a hundred and seventy years ago when Clovis was
baptized--had ridden a Roman soldier, wrapped in his horseman's
cloak,[5] on the causeway which was part of the great Roman road from
Lyons to Boulogne.
[Footnote 5: More properly, his knight's cloak; in all likelihood the
trabea, with purple and white stripes, dedicate to the kings of Rome,
and chiefly to Romulus.]
And it is well worth your while also, some frosty autumn or winter day
when the east wind is high, to feel the sweep of it at this spot,
remembering what chanced here, memorable to all men, and serviceable,
in that winter of the year 332, when men were dying for cold in Amiens
streets:--namely, that the Roman horseman, scarce gone out of the city
gate, was met by a naked beggar, shivering with cold; and that, seeing
no other way of shelter for him, he drew his sword, divided his own
cloak in two, and gave him half of it.
No ruinous gift, nor even enthusiastically generous: Sydney's cup of
cold water needed more self-denial; and I am well assured that many a
Christian child of our day, himself well warmed and clad, meeting one
naked and cold, would be ready enough to give the _whole_ cloak off
his own shoulders to the necessitous one, if his better-advised nurse,
or mamma, would let him. But this Roman soldier was no Christian, and
did his serene charity in simplicity, yet with prudence.
Nevertheless, that same night, he beheld in a dream the Lord Jesus,
who stood before him in the midst of angels, having on his shoulders
the half of the cloak he had bestowed on the beggar.
And Jesus said to the angels that were around him, "Know ye who hath
thus arrayed me? My servant Martin, though yet unbaptized, has done
this." And Martin after this vision hastened to receive baptism, being
then in his twenty-third year.[6]
[Footnote 6: Mrs. Jameson, Legendary Art, Vol. II., p. 721.]
Whether these things ever were so, or how far so, credulous or
incredulous reader, is no business whatever of yours or mine. What is,
and shall be, everlastingly, _so_,--namely, the infallible truth of
the lesson herein taught, and the actual effect of the life of St.
Martin on the mind of Christendom,--is, very absolutely, the business
of every rational being in any Christian realm.
You are to understand, then, first of all, that the especial character
of St. Martin is a serene and meek charity to all creatures. He is not a
preaching saint--still less a persecuting one: not even an anxious one.
Of his prayers we hear little--of his wishes, nothing. What he does
always, is merely the right thing at the right moment;--rightness and
kindness being in his mind one: an extremely exemplary saint, to my
notion.
Converted and baptized--and conscious of having seen Christ--he
nevertheless gives his officers no trouble whatever--does not try to
make proselytes in his cohort. "It is Christ's business, surely!--if
He wants them, He may appear to them as He has to me," seems the
feeling of his first baptized days. He remains seventeen years in the
army, on those tranquil terms.
At the end of that time, thinking it might be well to take other
service, he asks for his dismissal from the Emperor Julian,--on whose
accusation of faintheartedness, Martin offers, unarmed, to lead his
cohort into battle, bearing only the sign of the cross. Julian takes
him at his word,--keeps him in ward till time of battle comes; but,
the day before he counts on putting him to that war ordeal, the
barbarian enemy sends embassy with irrefusable offers of submission
and peace.
The story is not often dwelt upon: how far literally true, again
observe, does not in the least matter;--here _is_ the lesson for ever
given of the way in which a Christian soldier should meet his enemies.
Which, had John Bunyan's Mr. Great-heart understood, the Celestial
gates had opened by this time to many a pilgrim who has failed to hew
his path up to them with the sword of sharpness.
But true in some practical and effectual way the story _is_; for after
a while, without any oratorizing, anathematizing, or any manner of
disturbance, we find the Roman Knight made Bishop of Tours, and
becoming an influence of unmixed good to all mankind, then, and
afterwards. And virtually the same story is repeated of his bishop's
robe as of his knight's cloak--not to be rejected because so probable
an invention; for it is just as probable an act.
Going, in his full robes, to say prayers in church, with one of his
deacons, he came across some unhappily robeless person by the wayside;
for whom he forthwith orders his deacon to provide some manner of
coat, or gown.
The deacon objecting that no apparel of that profane nature is under
his hand, St. Martin, with his customary serenity, takes off his own
episcopal stole, or whatsoever flowing stateliness it might be, throws
it on the destitute shoulders, and passes on to perform indecorous
public service in his waistcoat, or such mediæval nether attire as
remained to him.
But, as he stood at the altar, a globe of light appeared above his
head; and when he raised his bare arms with the Host--the angels were
seen round him, hanging golden chains upon them, and jewels, not of
the earth.
Incredible to you in the nature of things, wise reader, and too
palpably a gloss of monkish folly on the older story?
Be it so: yet in this fable of monkish folly, understood with the
heart, would have been the chastisement and check of every form of the
church's pride and sensuality, which in our day have literally sunk
the service of God and His poor into the service of the clergyman and
his rich; and changed what was once the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness, into the spangling of Pantaloons in an
ecclesiastical Masquerade.
But one more legend,--and we have enough to show us the roots of this
saint's strange and universal power over Christendom.
"What peculiarly distinguished St. Martin was his sweet, serious,
unfailing serenity; no one had ever seen him angry, or sad, or, gay;
there was nothing in his heart but piety to God and pity for men. The
Devil, who was particularly envious of his virtues, detested above all
his exceeding charity, because it was the most inimical to his own
power, and one day reproached him mockingly that he so soon received
into favour the fallen and the repentant. But St. Martin answered him
sorrowfully, saying, 'Oh most miserable that thou art! if _thou_ also
couldst cease to persecute and seduce wretched men, if thou also
couldst repent, thou also shouldst find mercy and forgiveness through
Jesus Christ.'"[7]
[Footnote 7: Mrs. Jameson, Vol. II., p. 722.]
In this gentleness was his strength; and the issue of it is
best to be estimated by comparing its scope with that of the work of
St. Firmin. The impatient missionary riots and rants about Amiens'
streets--insults, exhorts, persuades, baptizes,--turns everything, as
aforesaid, upside down for forty days: then gets his head cut off, and
is never more named, _out_ of Amiens. St. Martin teazes nobody, spends
not a breath in unpleasant exhortation, understands, by Christ's first
lesson to himself, that undipped people may be as good as dipped if
their hearts are clean; helps, forgives, and cheers, (companionable
even to the loving-cup,) as readily the clown as the king; he is the
patron of honest drinking; the stuffing of your Martinmas goose is
fragrant in his nostrils, and sacred to him the last kindly rays of
departing summer. And somehow--the idols totter before him far and
near--the Pagan gods fade, _his_ Christ becomes all men's Christ--his
name is named over new shrines innumerable in all lands; high on the
Roman hills, lowly in English fields;--St. Augustine baptized his
first English converts in St. Martin's church at Canterbury; and the
Charing Cross station itself has not yet effaced wholly from London
minds his memory or his name.
That story of the Episcopal Robe is the last of St. Martin respecting
which I venture to tell you that it is wiser to suppose it literally
true, than a _mere_ myth; myth, however, of the deepest value and
beauty it remains assuredly: and this really last story I have to
tell, which I admit you will be wiser in thinking a fable than exactly
true, nevertheless had assuredly at its root some grain of fact
(sprouting a hundred-fold) cast on good ground by a visible and
unforgettable piece of St. Martin's actual behaviour in high company;
while, as a myth, it is every whit and for ever valuable and
comprehensive.
St. Martin, then, as the tale will have it, was dining one day at the
highest of tables in the terrestrial globe--namely, with the Emperor and
Empress of Germany! You need not inquire what Emperor, or which of the
Emperor's wives! The Emperor of Germany is, in all early myths, the
expression for the highest sacred power of the State, as the Pope is the
highest sacred power of the Church. St. Martin was dining then, as
aforesaid, with the Emperor, of course sitting next him on his
left--Empress opposite on his right: everything orthodox. St. Martin
much enjoying his dinner, and making himself generally agreeable to the
company: not in the least a John Baptist sort of a saint. You are aware
also that in Royal feasts in those days persons of much inferior rank in
society were allowed in the hall: got behind people's chairs, and saw
and heard what was going on, while they unobtrusively picked up crumbs,
and licked trenchers.
When the dinner was a little forward, and time for wine came, the
Emperor fills his own cup--fills the Empress's--fills St.
Martin's,--affectionately hobnobs with St. Martin. The equally loving,
and yet more truly believing, Empress, looks across the table, humbly,
but also royally, expecting St. Martin, of course, next to hobnob with
_her_. St. Martin looks round, first, deliberately; becomes aware of a
tatterdemalion and thirsty-looking soul of a beggar at his chair side,
who has managed to get _his_ cup filled somehow, also--by a charitable
lacquey.
St. Martin turns his back on the Empress, and hobnobs with _him_!
For which charity--mythic if you like, but evermore exemplary--he
remains, as aforesaid, the patron of good-Christian topers to this
hour.
As gathering years told upon him, he seems to have felt that he had
carried weight of crozier long enough--that busy Tours must now find a
busier Bishop--that, for himself, he might innocently henceforward take
his pleasure and his rest where the vine grew and the lark sang. For his
episcopal palace, he takes a little cave in the chalk cliffs of the
up-country river: arranges all matters therein, for bed and board, at
small cost. Night by night the stream murmurs to him, day by day the
vine-leaves give their shade; and, daily by the horizon's breadth so
much nearer Heaven, the fore-running sun goes down for him beyond the
glowing water;--there, where now the peasant woman trots homewards
between her panniers, and the saw rests in the half-cleft wood, and the
village spire rises grey against the farthest light, in Turner's
'Loireside.'[8]
[Footnote 8: Modern Painters, Plate 73.]
All which things, though not themselves without profit, my special
reason for telling you now, has been that you might understand the
significance of what chanced first on Clovis' march south against the
Visigoths.
"Having passed the Loire at Tours, he traversed the lands of the abbey
of St. Martin, which he declared inviolate, and refused permission to
his soldiers to touch anything, save water and grass for their horses.
So rigid were his orders, and the obedience he exacted in this
respect, that a Frankish soldier having taken, without the consent of
the owner, some hay, which belonged to a poor man, saying in raillery
"that it was but grass," he caused the aggressor to be put to death,
exclaiming that "Victory could not be expected, if St. Martin should
be offended."
Now, mark you well, this passage of the Loire at Tours is virtually
the fulfilment of the proper bounds of the French kingdom, and the
sign of its approved and securely set power is "Honour to the poor!"
Even a little grass is not to be stolen from a poor man, on pain of
Death. So wills the Christian knight of Roman armies; throned now high
with God. So wills the first Christian king of far victorious
Franks;--here baptized to God in Jordan of his goodly land, as he goes
over to possess it.
How long?
Until that same Sign should be read backwards from a degenerate
throne;--until, message being brought that the poor of the French
people had no bread to eat, answer should be returned to them "They
may eat grass." Whereupon--by St. Martin's faubourg, and St. Martin's
gate--there go forth commands from the Poor Man's Knight against the
King--which end _his_ Feasting.
And be this much remembered by you, of the power over French souls,
past and to come, of St. Martin of Tours.
NOTES TO CHAPTER I.
The reader will please observe that notes immediately necessary to the
understanding of the text will be given, with _numbered_ references,
under the text itself; while questions of disputing authorities, or
quotations of supporting documents will have _lettered_ references,
and be thrown together at the end of each chapter.[9] One good of this
method will be that, after the numbered notes are all right, if I see
need of farther explanation, as I revise the press, I can insert a
letter referring to a _final_ note without confusion of the standing
types. There will be some use also in the final notes, in summing the
chapters, or saying what is to be more carefully remembered of them.
Thus just now it is of no consequence to remember that the first
taking of Amiens was in 445, because that is not the founding of the
Merovingian dynasty; neither that Merovæus seized the throne in 447
and died ten years later. The real date to be remembered is 481, when
Clovis himself comes to the throne, a boy of fifteen; and the three
battles of Clovis' reign to be remembered are Soissons, Tolbiac, and
Poitiers--remembering also that this was the first of the three great
battles of Poitiers;--how the Poitiers district came to have such
importance as a battle-position, we must afterwards discover if we
can. Of Queen Clotilde and her flight from Burgundy to her Frank lover
we must hear more in next chapter,--the story of the vase at Soissons
is given in "The Pictorial History of France," but must be deferred
also, with such comment as it needs, to next chapter; for I wish the
reader's mind, in the close of this first number, to be left fixed on
two descriptions of the modern 'Frank' (taking that word in its
Saracen sense), as distinguished from the modern Saracen. The first
description is by Colonel Butler, entirely true and admirable, except
in the implied extension of the contrast to olden time: for the Saxon
soul under Alfred, the Teutonic under Charlemagne, and the Frank under
St. Louis, were quite as religious as any Asiatic's, though more
practical; it is only the modern mob of kingless miscreants in the
West, who have sunk themselves by gambling, swindling, machine-making,
and gluttony, into the scurviest louts that have ever fouled the Earth
with the carcases she lent them.
[Footnote 9: The plan for numbered and lettered references is not
followed after the first chapter.]
* * * * *
"Of the features of English character brought to light by the spread
of British dominion in Asia, there is nothing more observable than the
contrast between the religious bias of Eastern thought and the innate
absence of religion in the Anglo-Saxon mind. Turk and Greek, Buddhist
and Armenian, Copt and Parsee, all manifest in a hundred ways of daily
life the great fact of their belief in a God. In their vices as well
as in their virtues the recognition of Deity is dominant.
"With the Western, on the contrary, the outward form of practising
belief in a God is a thing to be half-ashamed of--something to hide. A
procession of priests in the Strada Reale would probably cause an
average Briton to regard it with less tolerant eye than he would cast
upon a Juggernaut festival in Orissa: but to each alike would he
display the same iconoclasm of creed, the same idea, not the less
fixed because it is seldom expressed in words: "You pray; therefore I
do not think much of you." But there is a deeper difference between
East and West lying beneath this incompatibility of temper on the part
of modern Englishmen to accept the religious habit of thought in the
East. All Eastern peoples possess this habit of thought. It is the one
tie which links together their widely differing races. Let us give an
illustration of our meaning. On an Austrian Lloyd's steamboat in the
Levant a traveller from Beyrout will frequently see strange groups of
men crowded together on the quarter-deck. In the morning the missal
books of the Greek Church will be laid along the bulwarks of the ship,
and a couple of Russian priests, coming from Jerusalem, will be busy
muttering mass. A yard to right or left a Turkish pilgrim, returning
from Mecca, sits a respectful observer of the scene. It is prayer, and
therefore it is holy in his sight. So, too, when the evening hour has
come, and the Turk spreads out his bit of carpet for the sunset
prayers and obeisance towards Mecca, the Greek looks on in silence,
without trace of scorn in his face, for it is again the worship of the
Creator by the created. They are both fulfilling the _first_ law of
the East--prayer to God; and whether the shrine be Jerusalem, Mecca,
or Lhassa, the sanctity of worship surrounds the votary, and protects
the pilgrim.
"Into this life comes the Englishman, frequently destitute of one
touch of sympathy with the prayers of any people, or the faith of any
creed; hence our rule in the East has ever rested, and will ever rest,
upon the bayonet. We have never yet got beyond the stage of conquest;
never assimilated a people to our ways, never even civilized a single
tribe around the wide dominion of our empire. It is curious how
frequently a well-meaning Briton will speak of a foreign church or
temple as though it had presented itself to his mind in the same light
in which the City of London appeared to Blucher--as something to loot.
The other idea, that a priest was a person to hang, is one which is
also often observable in the British brain. On one occasion, when we
were endeavouring to enlighten our minds on the Greek question, as it
had presented itself to a naval officer whose vessel had been
stationed in Greek and Adriatic waters during our occupation of Corfu
and the other Ionian Isles, we could only elicit from our informant
the fact that one morning before breakfast he had hanged seventeen
priests."
The second passage which I store in these notes for future use, is the
supremely magnificent one, out of a book full of magnificence,--if truth
be counted as having in it the strength of deed: Alphonse Karr's "Grains
de Bon Sens." I cannot praise either this or his more recent
"Bourdonnements" to my own heart's content, simply because they are by a
man utterly after my own heart, who has been saying in France, this
many a year, what I also, this many a year, have been saying in England,
neither of us knowing of the other, and both of us vainly. (See pages 11
and 12 of "Bourdonnements.") The passage here given is the sixty-third
clause in "Grains de Bon Sens."
"Et tout cela, monsieur, vient de ce qu'il n'y a plus de croyances--de
ce qu'on ne croit plus à rien.
"Ah! saperlipopette, monsieur, vous me la baillez belle! Vous dites
qu'on ne croit plus à rien! Mais jamais, à aucune époque, on n'a cru à
tant de billevesées, de bourdes, de mensonges, de sottises,
d'absurdités qu'aujourd'hui.
"D'abord, on _croit_ a l'incrédulité--l'incrédulité est une croyance,
une religion très exigeante, qui a ses dogmes, sa liturgie, ses
pratiques, ses rites! ...son intolérance, ses superstitions. Nous
avons des incrédules et des impies jésuites, et des incrédules et des
impies jansénistes; des impies molinistes, et des impies quiétistes;
des impies pratiquants, et non pratiquants; des impies indifférents et
des impies fanatiques; des incrédules cagots et des impies hypocrites
et tartuffes.--La religion de l'incrédulité ne se refuse même pas le
luxe des hérésies.
"On ne croit plus à la bible, je le veux bien, mais on _croit_ aux
'écritures' des journaux, on croit au 'sacerdoce' des gazettes et
carrés de papier, et à leurs 'oracles' quotidiens.
"On _croit_ au 'baptême' de la police correctionnelle et de la Cour
d'assises--on appelle 'martyrs' et 'confesseurs' les 'absents' à
Nouméa et les 'frères' de Suisse, d'Angleterre et de Belgique--et,
quand on parle des 'martyrs de la Commune' ça ne s'entend pas des
assassinés, mais des assassins.
"On se fait enterrer 'civilement,' on ne veut plus sur son cercueil
des priéres de l'Eglise, on ne veut ni cierges, ni chants
religieux,--mais on veut un cortége portant derrière la bière des
immortelles rouges;--on veut une 'oraison,' une 'prédication' de
Victor Hugo qui a ajouté cette spécialité à ses autres spécialités, si
bien qu'un de ces jours derniers, comme il suivait un convoi en
amateur, un croque-mort s'approcha de lui, le poussa du coude, et lui
dit en souriant: 'Est-ce que nous n'aurons pas quelque chose de vous,
aujourd'hui?'--Et cette prédication il la lit ou la récite--ou, s'il
ne juge pas à propos 'd'officier' lui-même, s'il s'agit d'un mort de
plus, il envoie pour la psalmodier M. Meurice ou tout autre 'prêtre'
ou 'enfant de coeur' du 'Dieu,'--A défaut de M. Hugo, s'il s'agit
d'un citoyen obscur, on se contente d'une homélie improvisée pour la
dixième fois par n'importe quel député intransigeant--et le _Miserere_
est remplacé par les cris de 'Vive la République!' poussés dans le
cimetière.
"On n'entre plus dans les églises, mais on fréquente les brasseries et
les cabarets; on y officie, on y célèbre les mystères, on y chante les
louanges d'une prétendue république _sacro-sainte_, une, indivisible,
démocratique, sociale, athénienne, intransigeante, despotique, invisible
quoique étant partout. On y communie sous différentes espèces; le matin
(_matines_) on 'tue le ver' avec le vin blanc,--il y a plus tard les
vêpres de l'absinthe, auxquelles on se ferait un crime de manquer
d'assiduité.
"On ne croit plus en Dieu, mais on _croit_ pieusement en M. Gambetta,
en MM. Marcou, Naquet, Barodet, Tartempion, etc., et en toute une
longue litanie de saints et de _dii minores_ tels que Goutte-Noire,
Polosse, Boriasse et Silibat, le héros lyonnais.
"On _croit_ à 'l'immuabilité' de M. Thiers, qui a dit avec aplomb 'Je
ne change jamais,' et qui aujourd'hui est à la fois le protecteur et
le protégé de ceux qu'il a passé une partie de sa vie à fusilier, et
qu'il fusillait encore hier.
'On _croit_ au républicanisme 'immaculé' de l'avocat de Cahors qui a
jeté par-dessus bord tous les principes républicains,--qui est à la
fois de son côté le protecteur et le protégé de M. Thiers, qui hier
l'appelait 'fou furieux,' déportait et fusillait ses amis.
"Tous deux, il est vrai, en même temps protecteurs hypocrites, et
protégés dupés.
"On ne croit plus aux miracles anciens, mais on _croit_ à des miracles
nouveaux.
"On _croit_ à une république sans le respect religieux et presque
fanatique des lois.
"On _croit_ qu'on peut s'enrichir en restant imprévoyants, insouciants
et paresseux, et autrement que par le travail et l'économie.
"On se _croit_ libre en obéissant aveuglément et bêtement à deux ou
trois coteries.
"On se _croit_ indépendant parce qu'on a tué ou chassé un lion et
qu'on l'a remplacé par deux douzaines de caniches teints en jaune.
"On _croit_ avoir conquis le 'suffrage universel' en votant par des
mots d'ordre qui en font le contraire du suffrage universel,--mené au
vote comme on mène un troupeau au pâturage, avec cette différence que
ça ne nourrit pas.--D'ailleurs, par ce suffrage universel qu'on croit
avoir et qu'on n'a pas,--il faudrait _croire_ que les soldats doivent
commander au général, les chevaux mener le cocher;--_croire_ que deux
radis valent mieux qu'une truffe, deux cailloux mieux qu'un diamant,
deux crottins mieux qu'une rose.
"On se _croit_ en République, parce que quelques demi-quarterons de
farceurs occupent les mêmes places, émargent les mêmes appointements,
pratiquent les mêmes abus, que ceux qu'on a renversés a leur bénéfice.
"On se _croit_ un peuple opprimé, heroïque, que brise ses fers, et
n'est qu'un domestique capricieux qui aime à changer de maîtres.
"On _croit_ au génie d'avocats de sixième ordre, qui ne se sont jetés
dans la politique et n'aspirent au gouvernement despotique de la
France que faute d'avoir pu gagner honnêtement, sans grand travail,
dans l'exercice d'un profession correcte, une vie obscure humectée de
chopes.
"On _croit_ que des hommes dévoyés, déclassés, décavés, fruits secs,
etc., qui n'ont étudié que le 'domino à quatre' et le 'bezigue en
quinze cents' se réveillent un matin,--après un sommeil alourdi par le
tabac et la bière--possédant la science de la politique, et l'art de
la guerre; et aptes à être dictateurs, généraux, ministres, préfets,
sous-préfets, etc.
"Et les soi-disant conservateurs eux-mêmes _croient_ que la France
peut se relever et vivre tant qu'on n'aura pas fait justice de ce
prétendu suffrage universel qui est le contraire du suffrage
universel.
"Les croyances out subi le sort de ce serpent de la fable--coupé,
haché par morceaux, dont chaque tronçon devenait un serpent.
"Les croyances se sont changées en monnaie--en billon de crédulités.
"Et pour finir la liste bien incomplète des croyances et des
crédulités--vous _croyez_, vous, qu'on ne croit à rien!"
CHAPTER II.
UNDER THE DRACHENFELS.
1. Without ignobly trusting the devices of artificial memory--far less
slighting the pleasure and power of resolute and thoughtful memory--my
younger readers will find it extremely useful to note any coincidences
or links of number which may serve to secure in their minds what may
be called Dates of Anchorage, round which others, less important, may
swing at various cables' lengths.
Thus, it will be found primarily a most simple and convenient
arrangement of the years since the birth of Christ, to divide them by
fives of centuries,--that is to say, by the marked periods of the
fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and, now fast nearing us, twentieth
centuries.
And this--at first seemingly formal and arithmetical--division, will
be found, as we use it, very singularly emphasized by signs of most
notable change in the knowledge, disciplines, and morals of the human
race.
2. All dates, it must farther be remembered, falling within the fifth
century, begin with the number 4 (401, 402, etc.); and all dates in
the tenth century with the number 9 (901, 902, etc.); and all dates in
the fifteenth century with the number 14 (1401, 1402, etc.)
In our immediate subject of study, we are concerned with the first of
these marked centuries--the fifth--of which I will therefore ask you
to observe two very interesting divisions.
All dates of years in that century, we said, must begin with the
number 4.
If you halve it for the second figure, you get 42.
And if you double it for the second figure, you get 48.
[Illustration: Plate II.--THE BIBLE OF AMIENS. NORTHERN PORCH BEFORE
RESTORATION.]
Add 1, for the third figure, to each of these numbers, and you get 421
and 481, which two dates you will please fasten well down, and let
there be no drifting about of them in your heads.
For the first is the date of the birth of Venice herself, and her
dukedom, (see 'St. Mark's Rest,' Part I., p. 30); and the second is
the date of birth of the French Venice, and her kingdom; Clovis being
in that year crowned in Amiens.
3. These are the great Birthdays--Birthdates--in the fifth century, of
Nations. Its Deathdays we will count, at another time.
Since, not for dark Rialto's dukedom, nor for fair France's kingdom,
only, are these two years to be remembered above all others in the
wild fifth century; but because they are also the birth-years of a
great Lady, and greater Lord, of all future Christendom--St.
Genevieve, and St. Benedict.
Genevieve, the 'white wave' (Laughing water)--the purest of all the
maids that have been named from the sea-foam or the rivulet's ripple,
unsullied,--not the troubled and troubling Aphrodite, but the
Leucothea of Ulysses, the guiding wave of deliverance.
White wave on the blue--whether of pure lake or sunny
sea--(thenceforth the colours of France, blue field with white
lilies), she is always the type of purity, in active brightness of the
entire soul and life--(so distinguished from the quieter and
restricted innocence of St. Agnes),--and all the traditions of sorrow
in the trial or failure of noble womanhood are connected with her
name; Ginevra, in Italian, passing into Shakespeare's Imogen; and
Guinevere, the torrent wave of the British mountain streams, of whose
pollution your modern sentimental minstrels chant and moan to you,
lugubriously useless;--but none tell you, that I hear, of the victory
and might of this white wave of France.
4. A shepherd maid she was--a tiny thing, barefooted,
bare-headed--such as you may see running wild and innocent, less
cared for now than their sheep, over many a hillside of France and
Italy. Tiny enough;--seven years old, all told, when first
one hears of her: "Seven times one are seven, (I am old, you may trust
me, linnet, linnet[10])," and all around her--fierce as the Furies, and
wild as the winds of heaven--the thunder of the Gothic armies,
reverberate over the ruins of the world.
5. Two leagues from Paris, (_Roman_ Paris, soon to pass away with Rome
herself,) the little thing keeps her flock, not even her own, nor her
father's flock, like David; she is the hired servant of a richer
farmer of Nanterre. Who can tell me anything about Nanterre?--which of
our pilgrims of this omni-speculant, omni-nescient age has thought of
visiting what shrine may be there? I don't know even on what side of
Paris it lies,[11] nor under which heap of railway cinders and iron one
is to conceive the sheep-walks and blossomed fields of fairy St.
Phyllis. There were such left, even in my time, between Paris and St.
Denis, (see the prettiest chapter in all the "Mysteries of Paris,"
where Fleur de Marie runs wild in them for the first time), but now, I
suppose, St. Phyllis's native earth is all thrown up into bastion and
glacis, (profitable and blessed of all saints, and her, as _these_
have since proved themselves!) or else are covered with manufactories
and cabarets. Seven years old she was, then, when on his way to
_England_ from Auxerre, St. Germain passed a night in her village, and
among the children who brought him on his way in the morning in more
kindly manner than Elisha's convoy, noticed this one--wider-eyed in
reverence than the rest; drew her to him, questioned her, and was
sweetly answered: That she would fain be Christ's handmaid. And he
hung round her neck a small copper coin, marked with the cross.
Thencefoward Genevieve held herself as "separated from the world."
[Footnote 10: Miss Ingelow.]
[Footnote 11: On inquiry, I find in the flat between Paris and Sèvres.]
6. It did not turn out so, however. Far the contrary. You must think of
her, instead, as the first of Parisiennes. Queen of Vanity Fair, that
was to be, sedately poor St. Phyllis, with her copper-crossed farthing
about her neck! More than Nitocris was to Egypt, more than Semiramis to
Nineveh, more than Zenobia to the city of palm trees--this
seven-years-old shepherd maiden became to Paris and her France. You have
not heard of her in that kind?--No: how should you?--for she did not
lead armies, but stayed them, and all her power was in peace.
7. There are, however, some seven or eight and twenty lives of her, I
believe; into the literature of which I cannot enter, nor need, all
having been ineffective in producing any clear picture of her to the
modern French or English mind; and leaving one's own poor sagacities
and fancy to gather and shape the sanctity of her into an
intelligible, I do not say a _credible_, form; for there is no
question here about belief,--the creature is as real as Joan of Arc,
and far more powerful;--she is separated, just as St. Martin is, by
his patience, from too provocative prelates--by her quietness of
force, from the pitiable crowd of feminine martyr saints.
There are thousands of religious girls who have never got themselves
into any calendars, but have wasted and wearied away their
lives--heaven knows why, for _we_ cannot; but here is one, at any
rate, who neither scolds herself to martyrdom, nor frets herself into
consumption, but becomes a tower of the Flock, and builder of folds
for them all her days.
8. The first thing, then, you have to note of her, is that she is a
pure native _Gaul_. She does not come as a missionary out of Hungary,
or Illyria, or Egypt, or ineffable space; but grows at Nanterre, like
a marguerite in the dew, the first "Reine Blanche" of Gaul.
I have not used this ugly word 'Gaul' before, and we must be quite
sure what it means, at once, though it will cost us a long
parenthesis.
9. During all the years of the rising power of Rome, her people called
everybody a Gaul who lived north of the sources of Tiber. If you are not
content with that general statement, you may read the article "Gallia"
in Smith's dictionary, which consists of seventy-one columns of close
print, containing each as much as three of my pages; and tells you at
the end of it, that "though long, it is not complete." You may however,
gather from it, after an attentive perusal, as much as I have above told
you.
But, as early as the second century after Christ, and much more
distinctly in the time with which we are ourselves concerned--the
fifth--the wild nations opposed to Rome, and partially subdued, or
held at bay by her, had resolved themselves into two distinct masses,
belonging to two distinct _latitudes_. One, _fixed_ in habitation of
the pleasant temperate zone of Europe--England with her western
mountains, the healthy limestone plateaux and granite mounts of
France, the German labyrinths of woody hill and winding thal, from the
Tyrol to the Hartz, and all the vast enclosed basin and branching
valleys of the Carpathians. Think of these four districts, briefly and
clearly, as 'Britain,' 'Gaul,' 'Germany,' and 'Dacia.'
10. North of these rudely but patiently _resident_ races, possessing
fields and orchards, quiet herds, homes of a sort, moralities and
memories not ignoble, dwelt, or rather drifted, and shook, a shattered
chain of gloomier tribes, piratical mainly, and predatory, nomad
essentially; homeless, of necessity, finding no stay nor comfort in
earth, or bitter sky: desperately wandering along the waste sands and
drenched morasses of the flat country stretching from the mouths of
the Rhine to those of the Vistula, and beyond Vistula nobody knows
where, nor needs to know. Waste sands and rootless bogs their portion,
ice-fastened and cloud-shadowed, for many a day of the rigorous year:
shallow pools and oozings and windings of retarded streams, black
decay of neglected woods, scarcely habitable, never loveable; to this
day the inner main-lands little changed for good[12]--and their
inhabitants now fallen even on sadder times.
[Footnote 12: See generally any description that Carlyle has had
occasion to give of Prussian or Polish ground, or edge of Baltic
shore.]
11. For in the fifth century they had herds of cattle[13] to drive and
kill, unpreserved hunting-grounds full of game and wild deer, tameable
reindeer also then, even so far in the south; spirited hogs, good for
practice of fight as in Meleager's time, and afterwards for bacon;
furry creatures innumerable, all good for meat or skin. Fish of the
infinite sea breaking their bark-fibre nets; fowl innumerable, migrant
in the skies, for their flint-headed arrows; bred horses for their own
riding; ships of no mean size, and of all sorts, flat-bottomed for the
oozy puddles, keeled and decked for strong Elbe stream and furious
Baltic on the one side, for mountain-cleaving Danube and the black
lake of Colchos on the south.
[Footnote 13: Gigantic--and not yet fossilized! See Gibbon's note on
the death of Theodebert: "The King pointed his spear--the Bull
_overturned a tree on his head_,--he died the same day."--vii. 255.
The Horn of Uri and her shield, with the chiefly towering crests of
the German helm, attest the terror of these Aurochs herds.]
12. And they were, to all outward aspect, and in all _felt_ force, the
living powers of the world, in that long hour of its transfiguration.
All else known once for awful, had become formalism, folly, or
shame:--the Roman armies, a mere sworded mechanism, fast falling
confused, every sword against its fellow;--the Roman civil multitude,
mixed of slaves, slave-masters, and harlots; the East, cut off from
Europe by the intervening weakness of the Greek. These starving troops
of the Black forests and White seas, themselves half wolf, half
drift-wood, (as _we_ once called ourselves Lion-hearts, and
Oak-hearts, so they), merciless as the herded hound, enduring as the
wild birch-tree and pine. You will hear of few beside them for five
centuries yet to come: Visigoths, west of Vistula;--Ostrogoths, east
of Vistula; radiant round little Holy Island (Heligoland), our own
Saxons, and Hamlet the Dane, and his foe the sledded Polack on the
ice,--all these south of Baltic; and pouring _across_ Baltic,
constantly, her mountain-ministered strength, Scandinavia, until at
last _she_ for a time rules all, and the Norman name is of disputeless
dominion, from the North Cape to Jerusalem.
13. _This_ is the apparent, this the only recognised world history, as
I have said, for five centuries to come. And yet the real history is
underneath all this. The wandering armies are, in the heart of them,
only living hail, and thunder, and fire along the ground. But the
Suffering Life, the rooted heart of native humanity, growing up in
eternal gentleness, howsoever wasted, forgotten, or spoiled,--itself
neither wasting, nor wandering, nor slaying, but unconquerable by
grief or death, became the seed ground of all love, that was to be
born in due time; giving, then, to mortality, what hope, joy, or
genius it could receive; and--if there be immortality--rendering out
of the grave to the Church her fostering Saints, and to Heaven her
helpful Angels.
14. Of this low-nestling, speechless, harmless, infinitely submissive,
infinitely serviceable order of being, no Historian ever takes the
smallest notice, except when it is robbed or slain. I can give you no
picture of it, bring to your ears no murmur of it, nor cry. I can only
show you the absolute 'must have been' of its unrewarded past, and the
way in which all we have thought of, or been told, is founded on the
deeper facts in its history, unthought of, and untold.
15. The main mass of this innocent and invincible peasant life is, as I
have above told you, grouped in the fruitful and temperate districts of
(relatively) mountainous Europe,--reaching, west to east, from the
Cornish Land's End to the mouth of the Danube. Already, in the times we
are now dealing with, it was full of native passion--generosity--and
intelligence capable of all things. Dacia gave to Rome the four last of
her great Emperors,[14]--Britain to Christianity the first deeds, and
the final legends, of her chivalry,--Germany, to all manhood, the truth
and the fire of the Frank,--Gaul, to all womanhood, the patience and
strength of St. Genevieve.
[Footnote 14: Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Constantius; and after the
division of the empire, to the East, Justinian. "The emperor Justinian
was born of an obscure race of Barbarians, the inhabitants of a wild and
desolate country, to which the names of Dardania, of Dacia, and of
Bulgaria have been successively applied. The names of these Dardanian
peasants are Gothic, and almost English. Justinian is a translation of
Uprauder (upright); his father, Sabatius,--in Græco-barbarous language,
Stipes--was styled in his village 'Istock' (Stock)."--Gibbon, beginning
of chap. xl. and note.]
16. The _truth_, and the fire, of the Frank,--I must repeat with
insistence,--for my younger readers have probably been in the habit of
thinking that the French were more polite than true. They will find,
if they examine into the matter, that only Truth _can_ be polished:
and that all we recognize of beautiful, subtle, or constructive, in
the manners, the language, or the architecture of the French, comes of
a pure veracity in their nature, which you will soon feel in the
living creatures themselves if you love them: if you understand even
their worst rightly, their very Revolution was a revolt against lies;
and against the betrayal of Love. No people had ever been so loyal in
vain.
17. That they were originally Germans, they themselves I suppose would
now gladly forget; but how they shook the dust of Germany off their
feet--and gave themselves a new name--is the first of the phenomena
which we have now attentively to observe respecting them.
"The most rational critics," says Mr. Gibbon in his tenth chapter,
"_suppose_ that _about_ the year 240" (_suppose_ then, we, for our
greater comfort, say _about_ the year 250, half-way to end of fifth
century, where we are,--ten years less or more, in cases of 'supposing
about,' do not much matter, but some floating buoy of a date will be
handy here.)
'About' A.D. 250, then, "a new confederacy was formed, under the name
of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the lower Rhine and the Weser."
18. My own impression, concerning the old inhabitants of the lower
Rhine and the Weser, would have been that they consisted mostly of
fish, with superficial frogs and ducks; but Mr. Gibbon's note on the
passage informs us that the new confederation composed itself of human
creatures, in these items following.
1. The Chauci, who lived we are not told where.
2. The Sicambri " in the Principality of Waldeck.
3. The Attuarii " in the Duchy of Berg.
4. The Bructeri " on the banks of the Lippe.
5. The Chamavii " in the country of the Bructeri.
6. The Catti " in Hessia.
All this I believe you will be rather easier in your minds if you
forget than if you remember; but if it please you to read, or re-read,
(or best of all, get read to you by some real Miss Isabella Wardour,)
the story of Martin Waldeck in the 'Antiquary,' you will gain from it
a sufficient notion of the central character of "the Principality of
_Waldeck_" connected securely with that important German word;
'woody'--or 'wood_ish_,' I suppose?--descriptive of rock and
half-grown forest; together with some wholesome reverence for Scott's
instinctively deep foundations of nomenclature.
19. But for our present purpose we must also take seriously to our
maps again, and get things within linear limits of space.
All the maps of Germany which I have myself the privilege of possessing,
diffuse themselves, just north of Frankfort, into the likeness of a
painted window broken small by Puritan malice, and put together again by
ingenious churchwardens with every bit of it wrong side upwards;--this
curious vitrerie purporting to represent the sixty, seventy, eighty, or
ninety dukedoms, marquisates, counties, baronies, electorates, and the
like, into which hereditary Alemannia cracked itself in that latitude.
But under the mottling colours, and through the jotted and jumbled
alphabets of distracted dignities--besides a chain-mail of black
railroads over all, the chains of it not in links, but bristling
with legs, like centipedes,--a hard forenoon's work with good
magnifying-glass enables one approximately to make out the course of the
Weser, and the names of certain towns near its sources, deservedly
memorable.
20. In case you have not a forenoon to spare, nor eyesight to waste,
this much of merely necessary abstract must serve you,--that from the
Drachenfels and its six brother felsen, eastward, trending to the north,
there runs and spreads a straggling company of gnarled and mysterious
craglets, jutting and scowling above glens fringed by coppice, and
fretful or musical with stream; the crags, in pious ages, mostly
castled, for distantly or fancifully Christian purposes;--the glens,
resonant of woodmen, or burrowed at the sides by miners, and invisibly
tenanted farther, underground, by gnomes, and above by forest and other
demons. The entire district, clasping crag to crag, and guiding dell to
dell, some hundred and fifty miles (with intervals) between the Dragon
mountain above Rhine, and the Rosin mountain, 'Hartz' shadowy still to
the south of the riding grounds of Black Brunswickers of indisputable
bodily presence;--shadowy anciently with 'Hercynian' (hedge, or fence)
forest, corrupted or coinciding into Hartz, or Rosin forest, haunted by
obscurely apparent foresters of at least resinous, not to say
sulphurous, extraction.
21. A hundred and fifty miles east to west, say half as much north to
south--about a thousand square miles in whole--of metalliferous,
coniferous, and Ghostiferous mountain, fluent, and diffluent for us,
both in mediæval and recent times, with the most Essential oil of
Turpentine, and Myrrh or Frankincense of temper and imagination, which
may be typified by it, producible in Germany; especially if we think
how the more delicate uses of Rosin, as indispensable to the
Fiddle-bow, have developed themselves, from the days of St. Elizabeth
of Marburg to those of St. Mephistopheles of Weimar.
22. As far as I know, this cluster of wayward cliff and dingle has no
common name as a group of hills; and it is quite impossible to make
out the diverse branching of it in any maps I can lay hand on: but we
may remember easily, and usefully, that it is _all_ north of the
Maine,--that it rests on the Drachenfels at one end, and tosses itself
away to the morning light with a concave swoop, up to the Hartz,
(Brocken summit, 3700 feet above sea, nothing higher): with one
notable interval for Weser stream, of which presently.
23. We will call this, in future, the chain, or company, of
the Enchanted mountains; and then we shall all the more easily join on
the Giant mountains, Riesen-Gebirge, when we want them; but these are
altogether higher, sterner, and not yet to be invaded; the nearer
ones, through which our road lies, we might perhaps more aptly call
the Goblin mountains; but that would be scarcely reverent to St.
Elizabeth, nor to the numberless pretty chatelaines of towers, and
princesses of park and glen, who have made German domestic manners
sweet and exemplary, and have led their lightly rippling and
translucent lives down the glens of ages, until enchantment becomes,
perhaps, too canonical in the Almanach de Gotha.
We will call them therefore the Enchanted Mountains, not the Goblin;
perceiving gratefully also that the Rock spirits of them have really
much more of the temper of fairy physicians than of gnomes: each--as
it were with sensitive hazel wand instead of smiting rod--beckoning,
out of sparry caves, effervescent Brunnen, beneficently salt and warm.
24. At the very heart of this Enchanted chain, then--(and the
beneficentest, if one use it and guide it rightly, of all the Brunnen
there,) sprang the fountain of the earliest Frank race; "in the
principality of Waldeck,"--you can trace their current to no farther
source; there it rises out of the earth.
'Frankenberg' (Burg), on right bank of the Eder, nineteen miles north of
Marburg, you may find marked clearly in the map No. 18 of Black's
General Atlas, wherein the cluster of surrounding bewitched mountains,
and the valley of Eder-stream otherwise (as the village higher up the
dell still calls itself) "Engel-Bach," "Angel Brook," joining that of
the Fulda, just above Cassel, are also delineated in a way intelligible
to attentive mortal eyes. I should be plagued with the names in trying a
woodcut; but a few careful pen-strokes, or wriggles, of your own
off-hand touching, would give you the concurrence of the actual sources
of Weser in a comfortably extricated form, with the memorable towns on
them, or just south of them, on the other slope of the watershed,
towards Maine. Frankenberg and Waldeck on Eder, Fulda and Cassel on
Fulda, Eisenach on Werra, who accentuates himself into Weser after
taking Fulda for bride, as Tees the Greta, beyond Eisenach, under the
Wartzburg, (of which you have heard as a castle employed on Christian
mission and Bible Society purposes), town-streets below hard paved with
basalt--name of it, Iron-ach, significant of Thuringian armouries in the
old time,--it is active with mills for many things yet.
25. The rocks all the way from Rhine, thus far, are jets and spurts of
basalt through irony sandstone, with a strip of coal or two northward,
by the grace of God not worth digging for; at Frankenberg even a gold
mine; also, by Heaven's mercy, poor of its ore; but wood and iron
always to be had for the due trouble; and, of softer wealth above
ground,--game, corn, fruit, flax, wine, wool, and hemp! Monastic care
over all, in Fulda's and Walter's houses--which I find marked by a
cross as built by some pious Walter, Knight of Meiningen on the Boden
wasser, Bottom water, as of water having found its way well down at
last: so "Boden-See," of Rhine well got down out of Via Mala.
26. And thus, having got your springs of Weser clear from the rock;
and, as it were, gathered up the reins of your river, you can draw for
yourself, easily enough, the course of its farther stream, flowing
virtually straight north, to the North Sea. And mark it strongly on
your sketched map of Europe, next to the border Vistula, leaving out
Elbe yet for a time. For now, you may take the whole space between
Weser and Vistula (north of the mountains), as wild barbarian (Saxon
or Goth); but, piercing the source of the Franks at Waldeck, you will
find them gradually, but swiftly, filling all the space between Weser
and the mouths of Rhine, passing from mountain foam into calmer
diffusion over the Netherland, where their straying forest and
pastoral life has at last to embank itself into muddy agriculture, and
in bleak-flying sea mist, forget the sunshine on its basalt crags.
27. Whereupon, _we_ must also pause, to embank ourselves somewhat; and
before other things, try what we can understand in this name of Frank,
concerning which Gibbon tells us, in his sweetest tones of satisfied
moral serenity--"The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these
Germans. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained, the honourable
epithet of Franks, or Freemen." He does not, however, tell us in what
language of the time--Chaucian, Sicambrian, Chamavian, or
Cattian,--'Frank' ever meant Free: nor can I find out myself what tongue
of any time it first belongs to; but I doubt not that Miss Yonge
('History of Christian Names,' Articles on Frey and Frank), gives the
true root, in what she calls the High German "Frang," Free _Lord_. Not
by any means a Free _Commoner_, or anything of the sort! but a person
whose nature and name implied the existence around him, and beneath, of
a considerable number of other persons who were by no means 'Frang,' nor
Frangs. His title is one of the proudest then maintainable;--ratified at
last by the dignity of age added to that of valour, into the Seigneur,
or Monseigneur, not even yet in the last cockney form of it, 'Mossoo,'
wholly understood as a republican term!
28. So that, accurately thought of, the quality of Frankness glances
only with the flat side of it into any meaning of 'Libre,' but with all
its cutting edge, determinedly, and to all time, it signifies Brave,
strong, and honest, above other men.[15] The old woodland race were
never in any wolfish sense 'free,' but in a most human sense Frank,
outspoken, meaning what they had said, and standing to it, when they had
got it out. Quick and clear in word and act, fearless utterly and
restless always;--but idly lawless, or weakly lavish, neither in deed
nor word. Their frankness, if you read it as a scholar and a Christian,
and not like a modern half-bred, half-brained infidel, knowing no tongue
of all the world but in the slang of it, is really opposed, not to
Servitude,--but to Shyness![16] It is to this day the note of the
sweetest and Frenchiest of French character, that it makes simply
perfect _Servants_. Unwearied in protective friendship, in meekly
dextrous omnificence, in latent tutorship; the lovingly availablest of
valets,--the mentally and personally bonniest of bonnes. But in no
capacity shy of you! Though you be the Duke or Duchess of Montaltissimo,
you will not find them abashed at your altitude. They will speak 'up' to
you, when they have a mind.
[Footnote 15: Gibbon touches the facts more closely in a sentence of
his 22nd chapter. "The independent warriors of Germany, _who
considered truth as the noblest of their virtues_, and freedom as the
most valuable of their possessions." He is speaking especially of the
Frankish tribe of the Attuarii, against whom the Emperor Julian had to
re-fortify the Rhine from Cleves to Basle: but the first letters of
the Emperor Jovian, after Julian's death, "delegated the military
command of _Gaul_ and Illyrium (what a vast one it was, we shall see
hereafter), to Malarich, a _brave and faithful_ officer of the nation
of the Franks;" and they remain the loyal allies of Rome in her last
struggle with Alaric. Apparently for the sake only of an interesting
variety of language,--and at all events without intimation of any
causes of so great a change in the national character,--we find Mr.
Gibbon in his next volume suddenly adopting the abusive epithets of
Procopius, and calling the Franks "a light and perfidious nation"
(vii. 251). The only traceable grounds for this unexpected description
of them are that they refuse to be bribed either into friendship or
activity, by Rome or Ravenna; and that in his invasion of Italy, the
grandson of Clovis did not previously send exact warning of his
proposed route, nor even entirely signify his intentions till he had
secured the bridge of the Po at Pavia; afterwards declaring his mind
with sufficient distinctness by "assaulting, almost at the same
instant, the hostile camps of the Goths and Romans, who, instead of
uniting their arms, fled with equal precipitation."]
[Footnote 16: For detailed illustration of the word, see 'Val d'Arno,'
Lecture VIII.; 'Fors Clavigera,' Letters XLVI. 231, LXXVII. 137; and
Chaucer, 'Romaunt of Rose,' 1212--"Next _him_" (the knight sibbe to
Arthur) "daunced dame Franchise;"--the English lines are quoted and
commented on in the first lecture of 'Ariadne Florentina'; I give the
French here:--
"Apres tous ceulx estoit Franchise
Que ne fut ne brune ne bise.
Ains fut comme la neige blanche
_Courtoyse_ estoit, _joyeuse_, et _franche_.
Le nez avoit long et tretis,
Yeulx vers, riants; sourcilz faitis;
Les cheveulx eut très-blons et longs
Simple fut comme les coulons
Le coeur eut doulx et debonnaire.
_Elle n'osait dire ne faire
Nulle riens que faire ne deust._"
And I hope my girl readers will never more confuse Franchise with
'Liberty.']
29. Best of servants: best of _subjects_, also, when they have
an equally frank King, or Count, or Captal, to lead them; of which we
shall see proof enough in due time;--but, instantly, note this
farther, that, whatever side-gleam of the thing they afterwards called
Liberty may be meant by the Frank name, you must at once now, and
always in future, guard yourself from confusing their Liberties with
their Activities. What the temper of the army may be towards its
chief, is _one_ question--whether either chief or army can be kept six
months quiet,--another, and a totally different one. That they must
either be fighting somebody or going somewhere, else, their life isn't
worth living to them; the activity and mercurial flashing and
flickering hither and thither, which in the soul of it is set neither
on war nor rapine, but only on change of place, mood--tense, and
tension;--which never needs to see its spurs in the dish, but has them
always bright, and on, and would ever choose rather to ride fasting
than sit feasting,--this childlike dread of being put in a corner, and
continual want of something to do, is to be watched by us with
wondering sympathy in all its sometimes splendid, but too often
unlucky or disastrous consequences to the nation itself as well as to
its neighbours.
30. And this activity, which we stolid beef-eaters, before we had been
taught by modern science that we were no better than baboons
ourselves, were wont discourteously to liken to that of the livelier
tribes of Monkey, did in fact so much impress the Hollanders, when
first the irriguous Franks gave motion and current to their marshes,
that the earliest heraldry in which we find the Frank power blazoned
seems to be founded on a Dutch endeavour to give some distantly
satirical presentment of it. "For," says a most ingenious historian,
Mons. André Favine,--'Parisian, and Advocate in the High Court of the
French Parliament in the year 1620'--"those people who bordered on the
river Sala, called 'Salts,' by the Allemaignes, were on their descent
into Dutch lands called by the Romans 'Franci Salici'" (whence
'Salique' law to come, you observe) "and by abridgment 'Salii,' as if
of the verb 'salire,' that is to say 'saulter,' to leap"--(and in
future therefore--duly also to dance--in an incomparable manner) "to
be quicke and nimble of foot, to leap and mount well, a quality most
notably requisite for such as dwell in watrie and marshy places; So
that while such of the French as dwelt on the great course of the
river" (Rhine) "were called 'Nageurs,' Swimmers, they of the marshes
were called 'Saulteurs,' Leapers, so that it was a nickname given to
the French in regard both of their natural disposition and of their
dwelling; as, yet to this day, their enemies call them French Toades,
(or Frogs, more properly) from whence grew the fable that their
ancient Kings carried such creatures in their Armes."
31. Without entering at present into debate whether fable or not, you
will easily remember the epithet 'Salian' of these fosse-leaping and
river-swimming folk (so that, as aforesaid, all the length of Rhine
must be refortified against them)--epithet however, it appears, in its
origin delicately Saline, so that we may with good discretion, as we
call our seasoned Mariners, '_old_ Salts,' think of these more brightly
sparkling Franks as 'Young Salts,'--but this equivocated presently by
the Romans, with natural respect to their martial fire and 'elan,' into
'Salii'--exsultantes,[17]--such as their own armed priests of war: and
by us now with some little farther, but slight equivocation, into
useful meaning, to be thought of as here first Salient, as a beaked
promontory, towards the France we know of; and evermore, in brilliant
elasticities of temper, a salient or out-sallying nation; lending to us
English presently--for this much of heraldry we may at once glance on
to--their 'Leopard,' not as a spotted or blotted creature, but as an
inevitably springing and pouncing one, for our own kingly and princely
shields.
[Footnote 17: Their first mischievous exsultation into Alsace being
invited by the Romans themselves, (or at least by Constantius in his
jealousy of Julian,)--with "presents and promises,--the hopes of
spoil, and a perpetual grant of all the territories they were able to
subdue." Gibbon, chap. xix. (3, 208.) By any other historian than
Gibbon, who has really no fixed opinion on any character, or question,
but, safe in the general truism that the worst men sometimes do right,
and the best often do wrong, praises when he wants to round a
sentence, and blames when he cannot otherwise edge one--it might have
startled us to be here told of the nation which "deserved, assumed,
and maintained the _honourable_ name of freemen," that "_these
undisciplined robbers_ treated as their natural enemies all the
subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were
desirous of acquiring." The first campaign of Julian, which throws
both Franks and Alemanni back across the Rhine, but grants the Salian
Franks, under solemn oath, their established territory in the
Netherlands, must be traced at another time.]
Thus much, of their 'Salian' epithet may be enough; but from the
interpretation of the Frankish one we are still as far as ever, and
must be content, in the meantime, to stay so, noting however two ideas
afterwards entangled with the name, which are of much descriptive
importance to us.
32. "The French poet in the first book of his Franciades" (says Mons.
Favine; but what poet I know not, nor can enquire) "encounters" (in the
sense of en-quarters, or depicts as a herald) certain fables on the name
of the French by the adoption and composure of two _Gaulish_ words
joyned together, Phere-Encos which signifieth 'Beare-_Launce_,'
(--Shake-Lance, we might perhaps venture to translate,) a lighter weapon
than the Spear beginning here to quiver in the hand of its chivalry--and
Fere-encos then passing swiftly on the tongue into Francos;"--a
derivation not to be adopted, but the idea of the weapon most
carefully,--together with this following--that "among the arms of the
ancient French, over and beside the Launce, was the Battaile-Axe, which
they called _Anchon_, and moreover, yet to this day, in many Provinces
of France, it is termed an _Achon_, wherewith they served themselves in
warre, by throwing it a farre off at joyning with the enemy, onely to
discover the man and to cleave his shield. Because this _Achon_ was
darted with such violence, as it would cleave the Shield, and compell
the Maister thereof to hold down his arm, and being so discovered, as
naked or unarmed; it made way for the sooner surprizing of him. It
seemeth, that this weapon was proper and particuler to the French
Souldior, as well him on foote, as on horsebacke. For this cause they
called it _Franciscus_. Francisca, _securis oblonga, quam Franci
librabant in Hostes_. For the Horseman, beside his shield and Francisca
(Armes common, as wee have said, to the Footman), had also the Lance,
which being broken, and serving to no further effect, he laid hand on
his Francisca, as we learn the use of that weapon in the Archbishop of
Tours, his second book, and twenty-seventh chapter."
33. It is satisfactory to find how respectfully these lessons of the
Archbishop of Tours were received by the French knights; and curious
to see the preferred use of the Francisca by all the best of
them--down, not only to Coeur de Lion's time, but even to the day of
Poitiers. In the last wrestle of the battle at Poitiers gate, "Là, fit
le Roy Jehan de sa main, merveilles d'armes, et tenoit une hache de
guerre dont bien se deffendoit et combattoit,--si la quartre partie de
ses gens luy eussent ressemblé, la journée eust été pour eux." Still
more notably, in the episode of fight which Froissart stops to tell
just before, between the Sire de Verclef, (on Severn) and the Picard
squire Jean de Helennes: the Englishman, losing his sword, dismounts
to recover it, on which Helennes _casts_ his own at him with such aim
and force "qu'il acconsuit l'Anglois es cuisses, tellement que l'espée
entra dedans et le cousit tout parmi, jusqu'au hans."
On this the knight rendering himself, the squire binds his wound, and
nurses him, staying fifteen days 'pour l'amour de lui' at
Chasteleraut, while his life was in danger; and afterwards carrying
him in a litter all the way to his own chastel in Picardy. His ransom
however is 6000 nobles--I suppose about 25,000 pounds, of our present
estimate; and you may set down for one of the fatallest signs that the
days of chivalry are near their darkening, how "devint celuy Escuyer,
Chevalier, pour le grand profit qu'il eut du Seigneur de Verclef."
I return gladly to the dawn of chivalry, when, every hour and year,
men were becoming more gentle and more wise; while, even through their
worst cruelty and error, native qualities of noblest cast may be seen
asserting themselves for primal motive, and submitting themselves for
future training.
34. We have hitherto got no farther in our notion of a Salian Frank than
a glimpse of his two principal weapons,--the shadow of him, however,
begins to shape itself to us on the mist of the Brocken, bearing the
lance light, passing into the javelin,--but the axe, his woodman's
weapon, heavy;--for economical reasons, in scarcity of iron,
preferablest of all weapons, giving the fullest swing and weight of blow
with least quantity of actual metal, and roughest forging. Gibbon gives
them also a 'weighty' sword, suspended from a 'broad' belt: but Gibbon's
epithets are always gratis, and the belted sword, whatever its measure,
was probably for the leaders only; the belt, itself of gold, the
distinction of the Roman Counts, and doubtless adopted from them by the
allied Frank leaders, afterwards taking the Pauline mythic meaning of
the girdle of Truth--and so finally; the chief mark of Belted
Knighthood.
35. The Shield, for all, was round, wielded like a Highlander's
target:--armour, presumably, nothing but hard-tanned leather, or
patiently close knitted hemp; "Their close apparel," says Mr. Gibbon,
"accurately expressed the figure of their limbs," but 'apparel' is
only Miltonic-Gibbonian for 'nobody knows what.' He is more
intelligible of their persons. "The lofty stature of the Franks, and
their blue eyes, denoted a Germanic origin; the warlike barbarians
were trained from their earliest youth to run, to leap, to swim, to
dart the javelin and battle-axe with unerring aim, to advance without
hesitation against a superior enemy, and to maintain either in life or
death, the invincible reputation of their ancestors' (vi. 95). For the
first time, in 358, appalled by the Emperor Julian's victory at
Strasburg, and besieged by him upon the Meuse, a body of six hundred
Franks "dispensed with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer
or die." "Although they were strongly actuated by the allurements of
rapine, they professed a disinterested love of war, which they
considered as the supreme honour and felicity of human nature; and
their minds and bodies were so hardened by perpetual action that,
according to the lively expression of an orator, the snows of winter
were as pleasant to them as the flowers of spring" (iii. 220).
36. These mental and bodily virtues, or indurations, were probably
universal in the military rank of the nation: but we learn presently,
with surprise, of so remarkably 'free' a people, that nobody but the
King and royal family might wear their hair to their own liking. The
kings wore theirs in flowing ringlets on the back and shoulders,--the
Queens, in tresses rippling to their feet,--but all the rest of the
nation "were obliged, either by law or custom, to shave the hinder
part of their head, to comb their short hair over their forehead, and
to content themselves with the ornament of two small whiskers."
37. Moustaches,--Mr. Gibbon means, I imagine: and I take leave also to
suppose that the nobles, and noble ladies, might wear such tress and
ringlet as became them. But again, we receive unexpectedly
embarrassing light on the democratic institutions of the Franks, in
being told that "the various trades, the labours of agriculture, and
the arts of hunting and fishing, were _exercised by servile_ hands for
the _emolument_ of the Sovereign."
'Servile' and 'Emolument,' however, though at first they sound very
dreadful and very wrong, are only Miltonic-Gibbonian expressions of
the general fact that the Frankish Kings had ploughmen in their
fields, employed weavers and smiths to make their robes and swords,
hunted with huntsmen, hawked with falconers, and were in other
respects tyrannical to the ordinary extent that an English Master of
Hounds may be. "The mansion of the long-haired Kings was surrounded
with convenient yards and stables for poultry and cattle; the garden
was planted with useful vegetables; the magazines filled with corn and
wine either for sale or consumption; and the whole administration
conducted by the strictest rules of private economy."
38. I have collected these imperfect, and not always extremely
consistent, notices of the aspect and temper of the Franks out of Mr.
Gibbon's casual references to them during a period of more than two
centuries,--and the last passage quoted, which he accompanies with the
statement that "one hundred and sixty of these rural palaces were
scattered through the provinces of their kingdom," without telling us
what kingdom, or at what period, must I think be held descriptive of the
general manner and system of their monarchy after the victories of
Clovis. But, from the first hour you hear of him, the Frank, closely
considered, is always an extremely ingenious, well meaning, and
industrious personage;--if eagerly acquisitive, also intelligently
conservative and constructive; an element of order and crystalline
edification, which is to consummate itself one day, in the aisles of
Amiens; and things generally insuperable and impregnable, if the
inhabitants of them had been as sound-hearted as their builders, for
many a day beyond.
39. But for the present, we must retrace our ground a little; for
indeed I have lately observed with compunction, in rereading some of
my books for revised issue, that if ever I promise, in one number or
chapter, careful consideration of any particular point in the next,
the next never _does_ touch upon the promised point at all, but is
sure to fix itself passionately on some antithetic, antipathic, or
antipodic, point in the opposite hemisphere. This manner of conducting
a treatise I find indeed extremely conducive to impartiality and
largeness of view; but can conceive it to be--to the general
reader--not only disappointing, (if indeed I may flatter myself that I
ever interest enough to disappoint), but even liable to confirm in his
mind some of the fallacious and extremely absurd insinuations of
adverse critics respecting my inconsistency, vacillation, and
liability to be affected by changes of the weather in my principles or
opinions. I purpose, therefore, in these historical sketches, at least
to watch, and I hope partly to correct myself in this fault of promise
breaking, and at whatever sacrifice of my variously fluent or
re-fluent humour, to tell in each successive chapter in some measure
what the reader justifiably expects to be told.
40. I left, merely glanced at, in my opening chapter, the story of the
vase of Soissons. It may be found (and it is very nearly the only thing
that _is_ to be found respecting the personal life or character of the
first Louis) in every cheap popular history of France; with cheap
popular moralities engrafted thereon. Had I time to trace it to its
first sources, perhaps it might take another aspect. But I give it as
you may anywhere find it--asking you only to consider whether even as so
read--it may not properly bear a somewhat different moral.
41. The story is, then, that after the battle of Soissons, in the
division of Roman, or Gallic spoil, the king wished to have a
beautifully wrought silver vase for--'himself,' I was going to
write--and in my last chapter _did_ mistakenly infer that he wanted it
for his better self,--his Queen. But he wanted it for neither;--it was
to restore to St. Remy, that it might remain among the consecrated
treasures of Rheims. That is the first point on which the popular
histories do not insist, and which one of his warriors claiming equal
division of treasure, chose also to ignore. The vase was asked by the
King in addition to his own portion, and the Frank knights, while they
rendered true obedience to their king as a leader, had not the
smallest notion of allowing him what more recent kings call
'Royalties'--taxes on everything they touch. And one of these Frank
knights or Counts--a little franker than the rest--and as incredulous
of St. Remy's saintship as a Protestant Bishop, or Positivist
Philosopher--took upon him to dispute the King's and the Church's
claim, in the manner, suppose, of a Liberal opposition in the House of
Commons; and disputed it with such security of support by the public
opinion of the fifth century, that--the king persisting in his
request--the fearless soldier dashed the vase to pieces with his
war-axe, exclaiming "Thou shalt have no more than thy portion by lot."
42. It is the first clear assertion of French 'Liberté, Fraternité and
Egalité,' supported, then, as now, by the destruction, which is the
only possible active operation of "free" personages, on the art they
cannot produce.
The king did not continue the quarrel. Cowards will think that he paused
in cowardice, and malicious persons, that he paused in malignity. He
_did_ pause in anger assuredly; but biding its time, which the anger of
a strong man always can, and burn hotter for the waiting, which is one
of the chief reasons for Christians being told not to let the sun go
down upon it. Precept which Christians now-a-days are perfectly ready to
obey, if it is somebody else who has been injured; and indeed, the
difficulty in such cases is usually to get them to think of the injury
even while the Sun rises on their wrath.[18]
[Footnote 18: Read Mr. Plimsoll's article on coal mines for instance.]
43. The sequel is very shocking indeed--to modern sensibility. I give
it in the, if not polished, at least delicately varnished, language of
the Pictorial History.
"About a year afterwards, on reviewing his troops, he went to the man
who had struck the vase, and _examining his arms, complained_ that
_they_ were in bad condition!" (Italics mine) "and threw them" (What?
shield and sword?) on the ground. The soldier stooped to recover them;
and at that moment the King struck him on the head with his
battle-axe, crying 'Thus didst thou to the vase at Soissons.'" The
Moral modern historian proceeds to reflect that "this--as an evidence
of the condition of the Franks, and of the ties by which they were
united, gives but the idea of a band of Robbers and their chief."
Which is, indeed, so far as I can myself look into and decipher the
nature of things, the Primary idea to be entertained respecting most
of the kingly and military organizations in this world, down to our
own day; and, (unless perchance it be the Afghans and Zulus who are
stealing our lands in England--instead of we theirs, in their several
countries.) But concerning the _manner_ of this piece of military
execution, I must for the present leave the reader to consider with
himself, whether indeed it be less Kingly, or more savage, to strike
an uncivil soldier on the head with one's own battle-axe, than, for
instance, to strike a person like Sir Thomas More on the neck with an
executioner's,--using for the mechanism, and as it were guillotine bar
and rope to the blow--the manageable forms of National Law, and the
gracefully twined intervention of a polite group of noblemen and
bishops.
44. Far darker things have to be told of him than this, as his proud
life draws towards the close,--things which, if any of us could see
clear _through_ darkness, you should be told in all the truth of them.
But we never can know the truth of Sin; for its nature is to deceive
alike on the one side the Sinner, on the other the Judge.
Diabolic--betraying whether we yield to it, or condemn: Here is
Gibbon's sneer--if you care for it; but I gather first from the
confused paragraphs which conduct to it, the sentences of praise, less
niggard than the Sage of Lausanne usually grants to any hero who has
confessed the influence of Christianity.
45. "Clovis, when he was no more than fifteen years of age, succeeded,
by his father's death, to the command of the Salian tribe. The narrow
limits of his kingdom were confined to the island of the Batavians,
with the ancient dioceses of Tournay and Arras; and at the baptism of
Clovis, the number of his warriors could not exceed five thousand. The
kindred tribes of the Franks who had seated themselves along the
Scheldt, the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, were governed by their
independent kings, of the Merovingian race, the equals, the allies,
and sometimes the enemies of the Salic Prince. When he first took the
field he had neither gold nor silver in his coffers, nor wine and corn
in his magazines; but he imitated the example of Cæsar, who in the
same country had acquired wealth by the sword, and purchased soldiers
with the fruits of conquest. The untamed spirit of the Barbarians was
taught to acknowledge the advantages of regular discipline. At the
annual review of the month of March, their arms were diligently
inspected; and when they traversed a peaceful territory they were
prohibited from touching a blade of grass. The justice of Clovis was
inexorable; and his careless or disobedient soldiers were punished
with instant death. It would be superfluous to praise the valour of a
Frank; but the valour of Clovis was directed by cool and consummate
prudence. In all his transactions with mankind he calculated the
weight of interest, of passion, and of opinion; and his measures were
sometimes adapted to the sanguinary manners of the Germans,
and sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome, and
Christianity.
46. "But the savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable of examining the
proofs of a religion, which depends on the laborious investigation of
historic evidence, and speculative theology. He was still more
incapable of feeling the mild influence of the Gospel, which persuades
and purifies the heart of a genuine convert. His ambitious reign was a
perpetual violation of moral and Christian duties: his hands were
stained with blood, in peace as well as in war; and, as soon as Clovis
had dismissed a synod of the Gallican Church, he calmly assassinated
_all_ the princes of the Merovingian race."
47. It is too true; but rhetorically put, in the first place--for we
ought to be told how many 'all' the princes were;--in the second
place, we must note that, supposing Clovis had in any degree "searched
the Scriptures" as presented to the Western world by St. Jerome, he
was likely, as a soldier-king, to have thought more of the mission of
Joshua[19] and Jehu than of the patience of Christ, whose sufferings he
thought rather of avenging than imitating: and the question whether
the other Kings of the Franks should either succeed him, or, in envy
of his enlarged kingdom, attack and dethrone, was easily in his mind
convertible from a personal danger into the chance of the return of
the whole nation to idolatry. And, in the last place, his faith in the
Divine protection of his cause had been shaken by his defeat before
Aries by the Ostrogoths; and the Frank leopard had not so wholly
changed his spots as to surrender to an enemy the opportunity of a
first spring.
[Footnote 19: The likeness was afterwards taken up by legend, and the
walls of Angoulême, after the battle of Poitiers, are said to have
fallen at the sound of the trumpets of Clovis. "A miracle," says
Gibbon, "which may be reduced to the supposition that some clerical
engineer had secretly undermined the foundations of the rampart." I
cannot too often warn my honest readers against the modern habit of
"reducing" all history whatever to 'the supposition that' ... etc.,
etc. The legend is of course the natural and easy expression of a
metaphor.]
48. Finally, and beyond all these personal questions, the forms of
cruelty and subtlety--the former, observe, arising much out of a scorn
of pain which was a condition of honour in their women as well as men,
are in these savage races all founded on their love of glory in war,
which can only be understood by comparing what remains of the same
temper in the higher castes of the North American Indians; and, before
tracing in final clearness the actual events of the reign of Clovis to
their end, the reader will do well to learn this list of the personages
of the great Drama, taking to heart the meaning of the _name_ of each,
both in its probable effect on the mind of its bearer, and in its
fateful expression of the course of their acts, and the consequences of
it to future generations.
1. Clovis. Frank form, Hluodoveh. 'Glorious Holiness,' or
consecration. Latin Chlodovisus, when baptized by St.
Remy, softening afterwards through the centuries into
Lhodovisus, Ludovicus, Louis.
2. Albofleda. 'White household fairy'? His youngest sister;
married Theodoric (Theutreich, 'People's ruler'),
the great King of the Ostrogoths.
3. Clotilde. Hlod-hilda. 'Glorious Battle-maid.' His wife.
'Hilda' first meaning Battle, pure; and then passing
into Queen or Maid of Battle. Christianized to Ste
Clotilde in France, and Ste Hilda of Whitby cliff.
3. Clotilde. His only daughter. Died for the Catholic faith,
under Arian persecution.
4. Childebert. His eldest son by Clotilde, the first Frank
King in Paris. 'Battle Splendour,' softening into
Hildebert, and then Hildebrandt, as in the Nibelung.
5. Chlodomir. 'Glorious Fame.' His second son by Clotilde.
6. Clotaire. His youngest son by Clotilde; virtually the destroyer
of his father's house. 'Glorious Warrior.'
7. Chlodowald. Youngest son of Chlodomir. 'Glorious
Power,' afterwards 'St. Cloud.'
49. I will now follow straight, through their light and shadow, the
course of Clovis' reign and deeds.
A.D. 481. Crowned, when he was only fifteen. Five years afterwards, he
challenges, "in the spirit, and almost in the language of chivalry,"
the Roman governor Syagrius, holding the district of Rheims and
Soissons. "Campum sibi præparari jussit--he commanded his antagonist
to prepare him a battle-field"--see Gibbon's note and reference, chap.
xxxviii. (6, 297). The Benedictine abbey of Nogent was afterwards
built on the field, marked by a circle of Pagan sepulchres. "Clovis
bestowed the adjacent lands of Leuilly and Coucy on the church of
Rheims."[20]
[Footnote 20: When?--for this tradition, as well as that of the vase,
points to a friendship between Clovis and St. Remy, and a singular
respect on the King's side for the Christians of Gaul, though he was
not yet himself converted.]
A.D. 485. The Battle of Soissons. Not dated by Gibbon: the subsequent
death of Syagrius at the court of (the younger) Alaric, was in
486--take 485 for the battle.
50. A.D. 493. I cannot find any account of the relations between Clovis
and the King of Burgundy, the uncle of Clotilde, which preceded his
betrothal to the orphan princess. Her uncle, according to the common
history, had killed both her father and mother, and compelled her sister
to take the veil--motives none assigned, nor authorities. Clotilde
herself was pursued on her way to France,[21] and the litter in which
she travelled captured, with part of her marriage portion. But the
princess herself mounted on horseback, and rode with part of her escort,
forward into France, "ordering her attendants to set fire to everything
that pertained to her uncle and his subjects which they might meet with
on the way."
[Footnote 21: It is a curious proof of the want in vulgar historians of
the slightest sense of the vital interest of anything they tell, that
neither in Gibbon, nor in Messrs. Bussey and Gaspey, nor in the
elaborate 'Histoire des Villes de France,' can I find, with the best
research my winter's morning allows, what city was at this time the
capital of Burgundy, or at least in which of its four nominal
capitals,--Dijon, Besancon, Geneva, and Vienne,--Clotilde was brought
up. The evidence seems to me in favour of Vienne--(called always by
Messrs. B. and G., 'Vienna,' with what effect on the minds of their
dimly geographical readers I cannot say)--the rather that Clotilde's
mother is said to have been "thrown into the _Rhone_ with a stone
round her neck." The author of the introduction to 'Bourgogne' in the
'Histoire des Villes' is so eager to get his little spiteful snarl at
anything like religion anywhere, that he entirely forgets the
existence of the first queen of France,--never names her, nor, as
such, the place of her birth,--but contributes only to the knowledge
of the young student this beneficial quota, that Gondeband, "plus
politique que guerrier, trouva au milieu de ses controverses
théologiques avec Avitus, évêque de _Vienne_, le temps de faire mourir
ses trois frères et de recueillir leur heritage."
The one broad fact which my own readers will find it well to remember
is that Burgundy, at this time, by whatever king or victor tribe its
inhabitants may be subdued, does practically include the whole of
French Switzerland, and even of the German, as far east as
Vindonissa:--the Reuss, from Vindonissa through Lucerne to the St.
Gothard being its effective eastern boundary; that westward--it meant
all Jura, and the plains of the Saone; and southward, included all
Savoy and Dauphiné. According to the author of 'La Suisse Historique'
Clotilde was first addressed by Clovis's herald disguised as a beggar,
while she distributed alms at the gate of St. Pierre at Geneva; and
her departure and pursued flight into France were from Dijon.]
51. The fact is not chronicled, usually, among the sayings or doings
of the Saints: but the punishment of Kings by destroying the property
of their subjects, is too well recognized a method of modern Christian
warfare to allow our indignation to burn hot against Clotilde; driven,
as she was, hard by grief and wrath. The years of her youth are not
counted to us; Clovis was already twenty-seven, and for three years
maintained the faith of his ancestral religion against all the
influence of his queen.
52. A.D. 496. I did not in the opening chapter attach nearly enough
importance to the battle of Tolbiac, thinking of it as merely
compelling the Alemanni to recross the Rhine, and establishing the
Frank power on its western bank. But infinitely wider results are
indicated in the short sentence with which Gibbon closes his account
of the battle. "After the conquest of the western provinces, the
Franks _alone_ retained their ancient possessions beyond the Rhine.
They gradually subdued and _civilized_ the exhausted countries as far
as the Elbe and the mountains of Bohemia; and the _peace of Europe_
was secured by the obedience of Germany."
53. For, in the south, Theodoric had already "sheathed the sword in
the pride of victory and the vigour of his age--and his farther reign
of three and thirty years was consecrated to the duties of civil
government." Even when his son-in-law, Alaric, fell by Clovis' hand in
the battle of Poitiers, Theodoric was content to check the Frank power
at Arles, without pursuing his success, and to protect his infant
grandchild, correcting at the same time some abuses in the civil
government of Spain. So that the healing sovereignty of the great Goth
was established from Sicily to the Danube--and from Sirmium to the
Atlantic ocean.
54. Thus, then, at the close of the fifth century, you have Europe
divided simply by her watershed; and two Christian kings reigning,
with entirely beneficent and healthy power--one in the north--one in
the south--the mightiest and worthiest of them married to the other's
youngest sister: a saint queen in the north--and a devoted and earnest
Catholic woman, queen mother in the south. It is a conjunction of
things memorable enough in the Earth's history,--much to be thought
of, O fast whirling reader, if ever, out of the crowd of pent up
cattle driven across Rhine, or Adige, you can extricate yourself for
an hour, to walk peacefully out of the south gate of Cologne, or
across Fra Giocondo's bridge at Verona--and so pausing look through
the clear air across the battlefield of Tolbiac to the blue
Drachenfels, or across the plain of St. Ambrogio to the mountains of
Garda. For there were fought--if you will think closely--the two
victor-battles of the Christian world. Constantine's only gave changed
form and dying colour to the falling walls of Rome; but the Frank and
Gothic races, thus conquering and thus ruled, founded the arts and
established the laws which gave to all future Europe her joy, and her
virtue. And it is lovely to see how, even thus early, the Feudal
chivalry depended for its life on the nobleness of its womanhood.
There was no _vision_ seen, or alleged, at Tolbiac. The King prayed
simply to the God of Clotilde. On the morning of the battle of Verona,
Theodoric visited the tent of his mother and his sister,
"and requested that on the most illustrious festival of his life, they
would adorn him with the rich garments which they had worked with
their own hands."
55. But over Clovis, there was extended yet another influence--greater
than his queen's. When his kingdom was first extended to the Loire,
the shepherdess of Nanterre was already aged,--no torch-bearing maid
of battle, like Clotilde, no knightly leader of deliverance like
Jeanne, but grey in meekness of wisdom, and now "filling more and more
with crystal light." Clovis's father had known her; he himself made
her his friend, and when he left Paris on the campaign of Poitiers,
vowed that if victorious, he would build a Christian church on the
hills of Seine. He returned in victory, and with St. Genevieve at his
side, stood on the site of the ruined Roman Thermæ, just above the
"Isle" of Paris, to fulfil his vow: and to design the limits of the
foundations of the first metropolitan church of Frankish Christendom.
The King "gave his battle-axe the swing," and tossed it with his full
force.
Measuring with its flight also, the place of his own grave, and of
Clotilde's, and St. Genevieve's.
There they rested, and rest,--in soul,--together. "La Colline tout
entière porte encore le nom de la patronne de Paris; une petite rue
obscure a gardé celui du Roi Conquerant."
"OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US."
ADVICE.
The three chapters[22] of "Our Fathers have told us," now submitted to
the public, are enough to show the proposed character and tendencies
of the work, to which, contrary to my usual custom, I now invite
subscription, because the degree in which I can increase its
usefulness by engraved illustration must greatly depend on the known
number of its supporters.
[Footnote 22: Viz., Chapters I. and II., and the separate travellers'
edition of Chapter IV.]
I do not recognize, in the present state of my health, any reason to
fear more loss of general power, whether in conception or industry,
than is the proper and appointed check of an old man's enthusiasm: of
which, however, enough remains in me, to warrant my readers against
the abandonment of a purpose entertained already for twenty years.
The work, if I live to complete it, will consist of ten parts, each
taking up some local division of Christian history, and gathering,
towards their close, into united illustration of the power of the
Church in the Thirteenth Century.
The next chapter, which I hope to issue soon after Christmas,
completes the first part, descriptive of the early Frank power, and of
its final skill, in the Cathedral of Amiens.
The second part, "Ponte della Pietra," will, I hope, do more for
Theodoric and Verona than I have been able to do for Clovis and the
first capital of France.
The third, "Ara Celi," will trace the foundations of the Papal power.
The fourth, "Ponte-a-Mare," and fifth, "Ponte Vecchio," will only with
much difficulty gather into brief form what I have by me of scattered
materials respecting Pisa and Florence.
The sixth, "Valle Crucis," will be occupied with the monastic
architecture of England and Wales.
The seventh, "The Springs of Eure," will be wholly given to the
cathedral of Chartres.
The eighth, "Domrémy," to that of Rouen and the schools of
architecture which it represents.
The ninth, "The Bay of Uri," to the pastoral forms of Catholicism,
reaching to our own times.
And the tenth, "The Bells of Cluse," to the pastoral Protestantism of
Savoy, Geneva, and the Scottish Border.
Each part will consist of four sections only; and one of them, the
fourth, will usually be descriptive of some monumental city or
cathedral, the resultant and remnant of the religious power examined
in the preparatory chapters.
One illustration at least will be given with each chapter,[23] and
drawings made for others, which will be placed at once in the
Sheffield museum for public reference, and engraved as I find support,
or opportunity for binding with the completed work.
[Footnote 23: The first plate for the Bible of Amiens, curiously
enough, failed in the engraving; and I shall probably have to etch it
myself. It will be issued with the fourth, in the full-size edition of
the fourth chapter.]
As in the instance of Chapter IV. of this first part, a smaller
edition of the descriptive chapters will commonly be printed in
reduced form for travellers and non-subscribers; but otherwise, I
intend this work to be furnished to subscribers only.
CHAPTER III.
THE LION TAMER.
1. It has been often of late announced as a new discovery, that man is
a creature of circumstances; and the fact has been pressed upon our
notice, in the hope, which appears to some people so pleasing, of
being able at last to resolve into a succession of splashes in mud, or
whirlwinds in air, the circumstances answerable for his creation. But
the more important fact, that his nature is not levelled, like a
mosquito's, to the mists of a marsh, nor reduced, like a mole's,
beneath the crumblings of a burrow, but has been endowed with sense to
discern, and instinct to adopt, the conditions which will make of it
the best that can be, is very necessarily ignored by philosophers who
propose, as a beautiful fulfilment of human destinies, a life
entertained by scientific gossip, in a cellar lighted by electric
sparks, warmed by tubular inflation, drained by buried rivers, and
fed, by the ministry of less learned and better provisioned races,
with extract of beef, and potted crocodile.
2. From these chemically analytic conceptions of a Paradise in
catacombs, undisturbed in its alkaline or acid virtues by the dread of
Deity, or hope of futurity, I know not how far the modern reader may
willingly withdraw himself for a little time, to hear of men who, in
their darkest and most foolish day, sought by their labour to make the
desert as the garden of the Lord, and by their love to become worthy of
permission to live with Him for ever. It has nevertheless been only by
such toil, and in such hope, that, hitherto, the happiness, skill, or
virtue of man have been possible: and even on the verge of the new
dispensation, and promised Canaan, rich in beatitudes of iron, steam,
and fire, there are some of us, here and there, who may pause in filial
piety to look back towards that wilderness of Sinai in which their
fathers worshipped and died.
[Illustration: Plate III.--AMIENS. JOUR DES TRÉPASSÉS. 1880.]
3. Admitting then, for the moment, that the main streets of
Manchester, the district immediately surrounding the Bank in London,
and the Bourse and Boulevards of Paris, are already part of the future
kingdom of Heaven, when Earth shall be all Bourse and Boulevard,--the
world of which our fathers tell us was divided to them, as you already
know, partly by climates, partly by races, partly by times; and the
'circumstances' under which a man's soul was given to him, had to be
considered under these three heads:--In what climate is he? Of what
race? At what time?
He can only be what these conditions permit. With appeal to these, he
is to be heard;--understood, if it may be;--judged, by our love,
first--by our pity, if he need it--by our humility, finally and
always.
4. To this end, it is needful evidently that we should have truthful
maps of the world to begin with, and truthful maps of our own hearts
to end with; neither of these maps being easily drawn at any time, and
perhaps least of all now--when the use of a map is chiefly to exhibit
hotels and railroads; and humility is held the disagreeablest and
meanest of the Seven mortal Sins.
5. Thus, in the beginning of Sir Edward Creasy's History of England,
you find a map purporting to exhibit the possessions of the British
Nation--illustrating the extremely wise and courteous behaviour of Mr.
Fox to a Frenchman of Napoleon's suite, in "advancing to a terrestrial
globe of unusual magnitude and distinctness, spreading his arms round
it, over both the oceans and both the Indies," and observing, in this
impressive attitude, that "while Englishmen live, they overspread the
whole world, and clasp it in the circle of their power."
6. Fired by Mr. Fox's enthusiasm,--the otherwise seldom fiery--Sir
Edward proceeds to tell us that "our island home is the favourite
domicile of freedom, empire and glory," without troubling himself, or
his readers, to consider how long the nations over whom our freedom is
imperious, and in whose shame is our glory, may be satisfied in that
arrangement of the globe and its affairs; or may be even at present
convinced of their degraded position in it by his method of its
delineation.
For, the map being drawn on Mercator's projection, represents
therefore the British dominions in North America as twice the size of
the States, and considerably larger than all South America put
together: while the brilliant crimson with which all our landed
property is coloured cannot but impress the innocent reader with the
idea of a universal flush of freedom and glory throughout all those
acres and latitudes. So that he is scarcely likely to cavil at results
so marvellous by inquiring into the nature and completeness of our
government at any particular place,--for instance in Ireland, in the
Hebrides, or at the Cape.
7. In the closing chapter of the first volume of 'The Laws of Fésole'
I have laid down the mathematical principles of rightly drawing
maps;--principles which for many reasons it is well that my young
readers should learn; the fundamental one being that you cannot
flatten the skin of an orange without splitting it, and must not, if
you draw countries on the unsplit skin, stretch them afterwards to
fill the gaps.
The British pride of wealth which does not deny itself the magnificent
convenience of penny Walter Scotts and penny Shakespeares, may
assuredly, in its future greatness, possess itself also of penny
universes, conveniently spinnable on their axes. I shall therefore
assume that my readers can look at a round globe, while I am talking
of the world; and at a properly reduced drawing of its surfaces, when
I am talking of a country.
8. Which, if my reader can at present do--or at least refer to a
fairly drawn double-circle map of the globe with converging
meridians--I will pray him next to observe, that, although the
old division of the world into four quarters is now nearly
effaced by emigration and Atlantic cable, yet the great historic
question about the globe is not how it is divided, here and there, by
ins and outs of land or sea; but how it is divided into zones all
round, by irresistible laws of light and air. It is often a matter of
very minor interest to know whether a man is an American or African, a
European or an Asiatic. But it is a matter of extreme and final
interest to know if he be a Brazilian or a Patagonian, a Japanese or a
Samoyede.
9. In the course of the last chapter, I asked the reader to hold
firmly the conception of the great division of climate, which
separated the wandering races of Norway and Siberia from the calmly
resident nations of Britain, Gaul, Germany, and Dacia.
Fasten now that division well home in your mind, by drawing, however
rudely, the course of the two rivers, little thought of by common
geographers, but of quite unspeakable importance in human history, the
Vistula and the Dniester.
10. They rise within thirty miles of each other,[24] and each runs, not
counting ins and outs, its clear three hundred miles,--the Vistula to
the north-east, the Dniester to the south-west: the two of them together
cut Europe straight across, at the broad neck of it,--and, more deeply
looking at the thing, they divide Europe, properly so called--Europa's
own, and Jove's,--the small educationable, civilizable, and more or less
mentally rational fragment of the globe, from the great Siberian
wilderness, Cis-Ural and Trans-Ural; the inconceivable chaotic space,
occupied datelessly by Scythians, Tartars, Huns, Cossacks, Bears,
Ermines, and Mammoths, in various thickness of hide, frost of brain, and
woe of abode--or of unabiding. Nobody's history worth making out, has
anything to do with them; for the force of Scandinavia never came round
by Finland at all, but always sailed or paddled itself across the
Baltic, or down the rocky west coast; and the Siberian and Russian
ice-pressure merely drives the really memorable races into greater
concentration, and kneads them up in fiercer and more necessitous
exploring masses. But by those exploring masses, of true European birth,
our own history was fashioned for ever; and, therefore, these two
truncating and guarding rivers are to be marked on your map of Europe
with supreme clearness: the Vistula, with Warsaw astride of it half way
down, and embouchure in Baltic,--the Dniester, in Euxine, flowing each
of them, measured arrow-straight, as far as from Edinburgh to London,
with windings,[25] the Vistula six hundred miles, and the Dniester
five--count them together for a thousand miles of _moat_, between Europe
and the Desert, reaching from Dantzic to Odessa.
[Footnote 24: Taking the 'San' branch of upper Vistula.]
[Footnote 25: Note, however, generally that the strength of a river,
cæteris paribus, is to be estimated by its straight course, windings
being almost always caused by flats in which it can receive no
tributaries.]
11. Having got your Europe moated off into this manageable and
comprehensible space, you are next to fix the limits which divide the
four Gothic countries, Britain, Gaul, Germany, and Dacia, from the
four Classic countries, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Lydia.
There is no other generally opponent term to 'Gothic' but 'Classic':
and I am content to use it, for the sake of practical breadth and
clearness, though its precise meaning for a little while remains
unascertained. Only get the geography well into your mind, and the
nomenclature will settle itself at its leisure.
12. Broadly, then, you have sea between Britain and Spain--Pyrenees
between Gaul and Spain--Alps between Germany and Italy--Danube between
Dacia and Greece. You must consider everything south of the Danube as
Greek, variously influenced from Athens on one side, Byzantium on the
other: then, across the Ægean, you have the great country absurdly
called Asia Minor, (for we might just as well call Greece, Europe Minor,
or Cornwall, England Minor,) but which is properly to be remembered as
'Lydia,' the country which infects with passion, and tempts with wealth;
which taught the Lydian measure in music and softened the Greek language
on its border into Ionic; which gave to ancient history the tale of
Troy, and to Christian history, the glow, and the decline, of the Seven
Churches.
13. Opposite to these four countries in the south, but separated from
them either by sea or desert, are another four, as easily
remembered--Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and Arabia.
Morocco, virtually consisting of the chain of Atlas and the coasts
depending on it, may be most conveniently thought of as including the
modern Morocco and Algeria, with the Canaries as a dependent group of
islands.
Libya, in like manner, will include the modern Tunis and Tripoli: it
will begin on the west with St. Augustine's town of Hippo; and its
coast is colonized from Tyre and Greece, dividing it into the two
districts of Carthage and Cyrene. Egypt, the country of the River, and
Arabia, the country of _no_ River, are to be thought of as the two
great southern powers of separate Religion.
14. You have thus, easily and clearly memorable, twelve countries,
distinct evermore by natural laws, and forming three zones from north
to south, all healthily habitable--but the races of the northernmost,
disciplined in endurance of cold; those of the central zone, perfected
by the enjoyable suns alike of summer and winter; those of the
southern zone, trained to endurance of heat. Writing them now in
tabular view,
Britain Gaul Germany Dacia
Spain Italy Greece Lydia
Morocco Libya Egypt Arabia,
you have the ground of all useful profane history mapped out in the
simplest terms; and then, as the fount of inspiration, for all these
countries, with the strength which every soul that has possessed, has
held sacred and supernatural, you have last to conceive perfectly the
small hill district of the Holy Land, with Philistia and Syria on its
flanks, both of them chastising forces; but Syria, in the beginning,
herself the origin of the chosen race--"A Syrian ready to perish was
my father"--and the Syrian Rachel being thought of always as the true
mother of Israel.
15. And remember, in all future study of the relations of these
countries, you must never allow your mind to be disturbed by the
accidental changes of political limit. No matter who rules a country,
no matter what it is officially called, or how it is formally divided,
eternal bars and doors are set to it by the mountains and seas,
eternal laws enforced over it by the clouds and stars. The people that
are born on it are its people, be they a thousand times again and
again conquered, exiled, or captive. The stranger cannot be its king,
the invader cannot be its possessor; and, although just laws,
maintained whether by the people or their conquerors, have always the
appointed good and strength of justice, nothing is permanently helpful
to any race or condition of men but the spirit that is in their own
hearts, kindled by the love of their native land.
16. Of course, in saying that the invader cannot be the possessor of
any country, I speak only of invasion such as that by the Vandals of
Libya, or by ourselves of India; where the conquering race does not
become permanently inhabitant. You are not to call Libya Vandalia, nor
India England, because these countries are temporarily under the rule
of Vandals and English; neither Italy Gothland under Ostrogoths, nor
England Denmark under Canute. National character varies as it fades
under invasion or in corruption; but if ever it glows again into a new
life, that life must be tempered by the earth and sky of the country
itself. Of the twelve names of countries now given in their order,
only one will be changed as we advance in our history;--Gaul will
properly become France when the Franks become her abiding inhabitants.
The other eleven primary names will serve us to the end.
17. With a moment's more patience, therefore, glancing to the far East,
we shall have laid the foundations of all our own needful geography. As
the northern kingdoms are moated from the Scythian desert by the
Vistula, so the southern are moated from the dynasties properly called
'Oriental' by the Euphrates; which, "partly sunk beneath the Persian
Gulf, reaches from the shores of Beloochistan and Oman to the mountains
of Armenia, and forms a huge hot-air funnel, the base" (or mouth) "of
which is on the tropics, while its extremity reaches thirty-seven
degrees of northern latitude. Hence it comes that the Semoom itself (the
specific and gaseous Semoom) pays occasional visits to Mosoul and
Djezeerat Omer, while the thermometer at Bagdad attains in summer an
elevation capable of staggering the belief of even an old Indian."[26]
[Footnote 26: Sir F. Palgrave, 'Arabia,' vol. ii., p. 155. I gratefully
adopt in the next paragraph his division of Asiatic nations, p. 160.]
18. This valley in ancient days formed the kingdom of Assyria, as the
valley of the Nile formed that of Egypt. In the work now before us, we
have nothing to do with its people, who were to the Jews merely a
hostile power of captivity, inexorable as the clay of their walls, or
the stones of their statues; and, after the birth of Christ, the
marshy valley is no more than a field of battle between West and East.
Beyond the great river,--Persia, India, and China, form the southern
'Oriens.' Persia is properly to be conceived as reaching from the
Persian Gulf to the mountain chains which flank and feed the Indus;
and is the true vital power of the East in the days of Marathon: but
it has no influence on Christian history except through Arabia; while,
of the northern Asiatic tribes, Mede, Bactrian, Parthian, and
Scythian, changing into Turk and Tartar, we need take no heed until
they invade us in our own historic territory.
19. Using therefore the terms 'Gothic' and 'Classic' for broad
distinction of the northern and central zones of this our own territory,
we may conveniently also use the word 'Arab'[27] for the whole southern
zone. The influence of Egypt vanishes soon after the fourth century,
while that of Arabia, powerful from the beginning, rises in the sixth
into an empire whose end we have not seen. And you may most rightly
conceive the religious principle which is the base of that empire, by
remembering, that while the Jews forfeited their prophetic power by
taking up the profession of usury over the whole earth, the Arabs
returned to the simplicity of prophecy in its beginning by the well of
Hagar, and are not opponents to Christianity; but only to the faults or
follies of Christians. They keep still their faith in the one God who
spoke to Abraham their father; and are His children in that simplicity,
far more truly than the nominal Christians who lived, and live, only to
dispute in vociferous council, or in frantic schism, the relations of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
[Footnote 27: Gibbon's fifty-sixth chapter begins with a sentence which
may be taken as the epitome of the entire history we have to
investigate: "The three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the
Saracens, and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of
Italy." I use the more general word, Goths, instead of Franks; and the
more accurate word, Arab, for Saracen; but otherwise, the reader will
observe that the division is the same as mine. Gibbon does not
recognize the Roman people as a nation--but only the Roman power as an
empire.]
20. Trusting my reader then in future to retain in his mind without
confusion the idea of the three zones, Gothic, Classic, and Arab, each
divided into four countries, clearly recognizable through all ages of
remote or recent history;--I must farther, at once, simplify for him the
idea of the Roman _Empire_ (see note to last paragraph,) in the manner
of its affecting them. Its nominal extent, temporary conquests, civil
dissensions, or internal vices, are scarcely of any historical moment at
all; the real Empire is effectual only as an exponent of just law,
military order, and mechanical art, to untrained races, and as a
translation of Greek thought into less diffused and more tenable scheme
for them. The Classic zone, from the beginning to the end of its visible
authority, is composed of these two elements--Greek imagination, with
Roman order: and the divisions or dislocations of the third and fourth
century are merely the natural apparitions of their differences, when
the political system which concealed them was tested by Christianity. It
seems almost wholly lost sight of by ordinary historians, that, in the
wars of the last Romans with the Goths, the great Gothic captains were
all Christians; and that the vigorous and naïve form which the dawning
faith took in their minds is a more important subject of investigation,
by far, than the inevitable wars which followed the retirement of
Diocletian, or the confused schisms and crimes of the lascivious court
of Constantine. I am compelled, however, to notice the terms in which
the last arbitrary dissolutions of the empire took place, that they may
illustrate, instead of confusing, the arrangement of the nations which I
would fasten in your memory.
21. In the middle of the fourth century you have, politically, what
Gibbon calls "the final division of the _Eastern_ and _Western
Empires_." This really means only that the Emperor Valentinian,
yielding, though not without hesitation, to the feeling now confirmed in
the legions that the Empire was too vast to be held by a single person,
takes his brother for his colleague, and divides, not, truly speaking,
their authority, but their attention, between the east and the west. To
his brother Valens he assigns the extremely vague "Præfecture of the
East, from the lower Danube to the confines of Persia," while for his
own immediate government he reserves the "warlike præfectures of
Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, from the extremity of Greece to the
Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of Caledonia to the foot of
Mount Atlas." That is to say, in less poetical cadence, (Gibbon had
better have put his history into hexameters at once,) Valentinian kept
under his own watch the whole of Roman Europe and Africa, and left Lydia
and Caucasus to his brother. Lydia and Caucasus never did, and never
could, form an Eastern Empire,--they were merely outside dependencies,
useful for taxation in peace, dangerous by their multitudes in war.
There never was, from the seventh century before Christ to the seventh
after Christ, but _one_ Roman Empire, which meant, the power over
humanity of such men as Cincinnatus and Agricola; it expires as the race
and temper of these expire; the nominal extent of it, or brilliancy at
any moment, is no more than the reflection, farther or nearer upon the
clouds, of the flames of an altar whose fuel was of noble souls. There
is no true date for its division; there is none for its destruction.
Whether Dacian Probus or Noric Odoacer be on the throne of it, the force
of its living principle alone is to be watched--remaining, in arts, in
laws, and in habits of thought, dominant still in Europe down to the
twelfth century;--in language and example, dominant over all educated
men to this hour.
22. But in the nominal division of it by Valentinian, let us note
Gibbon's definition (I assume it to be his, not the Emperor's) of
European Roman Empire into Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul. I have already
said you must hold everything south of the Danube for Greek. The two
chief districts immediately south of the stream are upper and lower
Moesia, consisting of the slope of the Thracian mountains northward
to the river, with the plains between it and them. This district you
must notice for its importance in forming the Moeso-Gothic alphabet,
in which "the Greek is by far the principal element",[28] giving
sixteen letters out of the twenty-four. The Gothic invasion under the
reign of Valens is the first that establishes a Teutonic nation within
the frontier of the empire; but they only thereby bring themselves
more directly under its spiritual power. Their bishop, Ulphilas,
adopts this Moesian alphabet, two-thirds Greek, for his translation
of the Bible, and it is universally disseminated and perpetuated by
that translation, until the extinction or absorption of the Gothic
race.
[Footnote 28: Milman, 'Hist., of Christianity,' vol. iii. p. 36.]
23. South of the Thracian mountains you have Thrace herself, and the
countries confusedly called Dalmatia and Illyria, forming the coast of
the Adriatic, and reaching inwards and eastwards to the mountain
watershed. I have never been able to form a clear notion myself of the
real character of the people of these districts, in any given period;
but they are all to be massed together as northern Greek, having more
or less of Greek blood and dialect according to their nearness to
Greece proper; though neither sharing in her philosophy, nor
submitting to her discipline. But it is of course far more accurate,
in broad terms, to speak of these Illyrian, Moesian, and Macedonian
districts as all Greek, than with Gibbon or Valentinian to speak of
Greece and Macedonia as all Illyrian.[29]
[Footnote 29: I find the same generalization expressed to the modern
student under the term 'Balkan Peninsula,' extinguishing every ray and
trace of past history at once.]
24. In the same imperial or poetical generalization, we find England
massed with France under the term Gaul, and bounded by the "Caledonian
rampart." Whereas in our own division, Caledonia, Hibernia, and Wales,
are from the first considered as essential parts of Britain,[30] and
the link with the continent is to be conceived as formed by the
settlement of Britons in Brittany, and not at all by Roman authority
beyond the Humber.
[Footnote 30: Gibbon's more deliberate statement its clear enough.
"From the coast or the extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory
of Celtic origin was distinctly preserved in the perpetual resemblance
of languages, religion, and manners, and the peculiar character of the
British tribes might be naturally ascribed to the influence of
accidental and local circumstances." The Lowland Scots, "wheat eaters"
or Wanderers, and the Irish, are very positively identified by Gibbon
at the time our own history begins. "It is _certain_" (italics his,
not mine) "that in the declining age of the Roman Empire, Caledonia,
Ireland, and the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots."--Chap. 25,
vol. iv., p. 279.
The higher civilization and feebler courage of the Lowland _English_
rendered them either the victims of Scotland, or the grateful subjects
of Rome. The mountaineers, Pict among the Grampians, or of their own
colour in Cornwall and Wales, have never been either instructed or
subdued, and remain to this day the artless and fearless strength of
the British race.]
25. Thus, then, once more reviewing our order of countries, and noting
only that the British Islands, though for the most part thrown by
measured degree much north of the rest of the north zone, are brought
by the influence of the Gulf stream into the same climate;--you have,
at the time when our history of Christianity begins, the Gothic zone
yet unconverted, and having not yet even heard of the new faith. You
have the Classic zone variously and increasingly conscious of it,
disputing with it, striving to extinguish it--and your Arab zone, the
ground and sustenance of it, encompassing the Holy Land with the
warmth of its own wings, and cherishing there--embers of phoenix
fire over all the earth,--the hope of Resurrection.
26. What would have been the course, or issue, of Christianity, had it
been orally preached only, and unsupported by its poetical literature,
might be the subject of deeply instructive speculation--if a
historian's duty were to reflect instead of record. The power of the
Christian faith was however, in the fact of it, always founded on the
written prophecies and histories of the Bible; and on the
interpretations of their meaning, given by the example, far more than
by the precept, of the great monastic orders. The poetry and history
of the Syrian Testaments were put within their reach by St. Jerome,
while the virtue and efficiency of monastic life are all expressed,
and for the most part summed, in the rule of St. Benedict. To
understand the relation of the work of these two men to the general
order of the Church, is quite the first requirement for its farther
intelligible history.
Gibbon's thirty-seventh chapter professes to give an account of the
'Institution of the Monastic Life' in the third century. But the
monastic life had been instituted somewhat earlier, and by many
prophets and kings. By Jacob, when he laid the stone for his pillow;
by Moses, when he drew aside to see the burning bush; by David, before
he had left "those few sheep in the wilderness"; and by the prophet
who "was in the deserts till the time of his showing unto Israel." Its
primary "institution," for Europe, was Numa's, in that of the Vestal
Virgins, and College of Augurs; founded on the originally Etrurian and
derived Roman conception of pure life dedicate to the service of God,
and practical wisdom dependent on His guidance.[31]
[Footnote 31: I should myself mark as the fatallest instant in the
decline of the Roman Empire, Julian's rejection of the counsel of the
Augurs. "For the last time, the Etruscan Haruspices accompanied a
Roman Emperor, but by a singular fatality their adverse interpretation
by the signs of heaven was disdained, and Julian followed the advice
of the philosophers, who coloured their predictions with the bright
hues of the Emperor's ambition." (Milman, Hist. of Christianity, chap.
vi.)]
The form which the monastic spirit took in later times depended far more
on the corruption of the common world, from which it was forced to
recoil either in indignation or terror, than on any change brought
about by Christianity in the ideal of human virtue and happiness.
27. "Egypt" (Mr. Gibbon thus begins to account for the new
Institution!), "the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the
first example of monastic life." Egypt had her superstitions, like
other countries; but was so little the _parent_ of superstition that
perhaps no faith among the imaginative races of the world has been so
feebly missionary as hers. She never prevailed on even the nearest of
her neighbours to worship cats or cobras with her; and I am alone, to
my belief, among recent scholars, in maintaining Herodotus' statement
of her influence on the archaic theology of Greece. But that
influence, if any, was formative and delineative: not ritual: so that
in no case, and in no country, was Egypt the parent of Superstition:
while she was beyond all dispute, for all people and to all time, the
parent of Geometry, Astronomy, Architecture, and Chivalry. She was, in
its material and technic elements, the mistress of Literature, showing
authors who before could only scratch on wax and wood, how to weave
paper and engrave porphyry. She was the first exponent of the law of
Judgment after Death for Sin. She was the Tutress of Moses; and the
Hostess of Christ.
28. It is both probable and natural that, in such a country, the
disciples of any new spiritual doctrine should bring it to closer
trial than was possible among the illiterate warriors, or in the
storm-vexed solitudes of the North; yet it is a thoughtless error to
deduce the subsequent power of cloistered fraternity from the lonely
passions of Egyptian monachism. The anchorites of the first three
centuries vanish like feverish spectres, when the rational, merciful,
and laborious laws of Christian societies are established; and the
clearly recognizable rewards of heavenly solitude are granted to those
only who seek the Desert for its redemption.
29. 'The clearly _recognizable_ rewards,' I repeat, and with cautious
emphasis. No man has any data for estimating, far less right of judging,
the results of a life of resolute self-denial, until he has had the
courage to try it himself, at least for a time: but I believe no
reasonable person will wish, and no honest person dare, to deny the
benefits he has occasionally felt both in mind and body, during periods
of accidental privation from luxury, or exposure to danger. The extreme
vanity of the modern Englishman in making a momentary Stylites of
himself on the top of a Horn or an Aiguille, and his occasional
confession of a charm in the solitude of the rocks, of which he modifies
nevertheless the poignancy with his pocket newspaper, and from the
prolongation of which he thankfully escapes to the nearest table-d'hôte,
ought to make us less scornful of the pride, and more intelligent of the
passion, in which the mountain anchorites of Arabia and Palestine
condemned themselves to lives of seclusion and suffering, which were
comforted only by supernatural vision, or celestial hope. That phases of
mental disease are the necessary consequence of exaggerated and
independent emotion of any kind must, of course, be remembered in
reading the legends of the wilderness; but neither physicians nor
moralists have yet attempted to distinguish the morbid states of
intellect[32] which are extremities of noble passion, from those which
are the punishments of ambition, avarice, or lasciviousness.
[Footnote 32: Gibbon's hypothetical conclusion respecting the effects
of self-mortification, and his following historical statement, must be
noted as in themselves containing the entire views of the modern
philosophies and policies which have since changed the monasteries of
Italy into barracks, and the churches of France into magazines. "This
voluntary martyrdom _must_ have gradually destroyed the sensibility,
both of mind and body; nor _can it be presumed_ that the fanatics who
torment themselves, are capable of any lively affection for the rest
of mankind. _A cruel unfeeling temper has characterized the monks of
every age and country._"
How much of penetration, or judgment, this sentence exhibits, I hope
will become manifest to the reader as I unfold before him the actual
history of his faith; but being, I suppose, myself one of the last
surviving witnesses of the character of recluse life as it still
existed in the beginning of this century, I can point to the
portraiture of it given by Scott in the introduction to 'The
Monastery' as one perfect and trustworthy, to the letter and to the
spirit; and for myself can say, that the most gentle, refined, and in
the deepest sense amiable, phases of character I have ever known, have
been either those of monks, or of servants trained in the Catholic
Faith.]
30. Setting all questions of this nature aside for the moment, my
younger readers need only hold the broad fact that during the whole of
the fourth century, multitudes of self-devoted men led lives of
extreme misery and poverty in the effort to obtain some closer
knowledge of the Being and Will of God. We know, in any available
clearness, neither what they suffered, nor what they learned. We
cannot estimate the solemnizing or reproving power of their examples
on the less zealous Christian world; and only God knows how far their
prayers for it were heard, or their persons accepted. This only we may
observe with reverence, that among all their numbers, none seemed to
have repented their chosen manner of existence; none perish by
melancholy or suicide; their self-adjudged sufferings are never
inflicted in the hope of shortening the lives they embitter or purify;
and the hours of dream or meditation, on mountain or in cave, appear
seldom to have dragged so heavily as those which, without either
vision or reflection, we pass ourselves, on the embankment and in the
tunnel.
31. But whatever may be alleged, after ultimate and honest scrutiny,
of the follies or virtues of anchorite life, we are unjust to Jerome
if we think of him as its introducer into the West of Europe. He
passed through it himself as a phase of spiritual discipline; but he
represents, in his total nature and final work, not the vexed
inactivity of the Eremite, but the eager industry of a benevolent
tutor and pastor. His heart is in continual fervour of admiration or
of hope--remaining to the last as impetuous as a child's, but as
affectionate; and the discrepancies of Protestant objection by which
his character has been confused, or concealed, may be gathered into
some dim picture of his real self when once we comprehend the
simplicity of his faith, and sympathise a little with the eager
charity which can so easily be wounded into indignation, and is never
repressed by policy.
32. The slight trust which can be placed in modern readings of him, as
they now stand, may be at once proved by comparing the two passages in
which Milman has variously guessed at the leading principles of his
political conduct. "Jerome began (!) and ended his career as a monk of
Palestine; he attained, _he aspired to_, no dignity in the Church.
Though ordained a presbyter against his will, he escaped the episcopal
dignity which was forced upon his distinguished contemporaries."
('History of Christianity,' Book III.)
"Jerome cherished the secret hope, if it was not the avowed object of
his ambition, to succeed Damasus as Bishop of Rome. Is the rejection
of an aspirant so singularly unfit for the station, from his violent
passions, his insolent treatment of his adversaries, his utter want of
self-command, his almost unrivalled faculty of awakening hatred, to be
attributed to the sagacious and intuitive wisdom of Rome?" ('History
of Latin Christianity,' Book I., chap. ii.)
33. You may observe, as an almost unexceptional character in the
"sagacious wisdom" of the Protestant clerical mind, that it
instinctively assumes the desire of power and place not only to be
universal in Priesthood, but to be always _purely selfish_ in the ground
of it. The idea that power might possibly be desired for the sake of its
benevolent use, so far as I remember, does not once occur in the pages
of any ecclesiastical historian of recent date. In our own reading of
past ages we will, with the reader's permission, very calmly put out of
court all accounts of "hopes cherished in secret"; and pay very small
attention to the reasons for mediæval conduct which appear logical to
the rationalist, and probable to the politician.[33] We concern
ourselves only with what these singular and fantastic Christians of the
past really said, and assuredly did.
[Footnote 33: The habit of assuming, for the conduct of men of sense
and feeling, motives intelligible to the foolish, and probable to the
base, gains upon every vulgar historian, partly in the ease of it,
partly in the pride; and it is horrible to contemplate the quantity of
false witness against their neighbours which commonplace writers
commit, in the mere rounding and enforcing of their shallow sentences.
"Jerome admits, indeed, with _specious but doubtful humility_, the
inferiority of the unordained monk to the ordained priest," says Dean
Milman in his eleventh chapter, following up his gratuitous doubt of
Jerome's humility with no less gratuitous asseveration of the ambition
of his opponents. "The clergy, _no doubt_, had the sagacity to foresee
the _dangerous_ rival as to influence and authority, which was rising
up in Christian society."]
34. Jerome's life by no means "began as a monk of Palestine." Dean
Milman has not explained to us how any man's could; but Jerome's
childhood, at any rate, was extremely other than recluse, or
precociously religious. He was born of rich parents living on their
own estate, the name of his native town in North Illyria, Stridon,
perhaps now softened into Strigi, near Aquileia. In Venetian climate,
at all events, and in sight of Alps and sea. He had a brother and
sister, a kind grandfather, and a disagreeable private tutor, and was
a youth still studying grammar at Julian's death in 363.
35. A youth of eighteen, and well begun in all institutes of the
classic schools; but, so far from being a monk, not yet a
Christian;--nor at all disposed towards the severer offices even of
Roman life! or contemplating with aversion the splendours, either
worldly or sacred, which shone on him in the college days spent in its
Capital city.
For the "power and majesty of Paganism were still concentrated at Rome;
the deities of the ancient faith found their last refuge in the capital
of the empire. To the stranger, Rome still offered the appearance of a
Pagan city. It contained one hundred and fifty-two temples, and one
hundred and eighty smaller chapels or shrines, still sacred to their
tutelary God, and used for public worship. Christianity had neither
ventured to usurp those few buildings which might be converted to her
use, still less had she the power to destroy them. The religious
edifices were under the protection of the præfect of the city, and the
præfect was usually a Pagan; at all events he would not permit any
breach of the public peace, or violation of public property. Above all
still towered the Capitol, in its unassailed and awful majesty, with its
fifty temples or shrines, bearing the most sacred names in the religious
and civil annals of Rome, those of Jove, of Mars, of Janus, of Romulus,
of Cæsar, of Victory. Some years after the accession of Theodosius to
the Eastern Empire, the sacrifices were still performed as national
rites at the public cost,--_the pontiffs made their offerings in the
name of the whole human race_. The Pagan orator ventures to assert that
the Emperor dared not to endanger the safety of the empire by their
abolition. The Emperor still bore the title and insignia of the Supreme
Pontiff; the Consuls, before they entered upon their functions, ascended
the Capitol; the religious processions passed along the crowded streets,
and the people thronged to the festivals and theatres which still formed
part of the Pagan worship."[34]
[Footnote 34: Milman, 'History of Christianity,' vol. iii. p. 162. Note
the sentence in italics, for it relates the true origin of the
Papacy.]
36. Here, Jerome must have heard of what by all the Christian sects
was held the judgment of God, between them and their chief enemy--the
death of the Emperor Julian. But I have no means of tracing, and will
not conjecture, the course of his own thoughts, until the tenor of all
his life was changed at his baptism. The candour which lies at the
basis of his character has given us one sentence of his own,
respecting that change, which is worth some volumes of ordinary
confessions. "I left, not only parents and kindred, but _the
accustomed luxuries of delicate life_." The words throw full light on
what, to our less courageous temper, seems the exaggerated reading by
the early converts of Christ's words to them--"He that loveth father
or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." We are content to leave,
for much lower interests, either father or mother, and do not see the
necessity of any farther sacrifice: we should know more of ourselves
and of Christianity if we oftener sustained what St. Jerome found the
more searching trial. I find scattered indications of contempt among
his biographers, because he could not resign one indulgence--that of
scholarship; and the usual sneers at monkish ignorance and indolence
are in his case transferred to the weakness of a pilgrim who carried
his library in his wallet. It is a singular question (putting, as it
is the modern fashion to do, the idea of Providence wholly aside),
whether, but for the literary enthusiasm, which was partly a weakness,
of this old man's character, the Bible would ever have become the
library of Europe.
37. For that, observe, is the real meaning, in its first power, of the
word _Bible_. Not book, merely; but 'Bibliotheca,' Treasury of Books:
and it is, I repeat, a singular question, how far, if Jerome, at the
very moment when Rome, his tutress, ceased from her material power,
had not made her language the oracle of Hebrew prophecy, a literature
of their own, and a religion unshadowed by the terrors of the Mosaic
law, might have developed itself in the hearts of the Goth, the Frank,
and the Saxon, under Theodoric, Clovis, and Alfred.
38. Fate had otherwise determined, and Jerome was so passive an
instrument in her hands that he began the study of Hebrew as a
discipline only, and without any conception of the task he was to
fulfil, still less of the scope of its fulfilment. I could joyfully
believe that the words of Christ, "If they hear not Moses and the
Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the
dead," had haunted the spirit of the recluse, until he resolved that
the voices of immortal appeal should be made audible to the Churches
of all the earth. But so far as we have evidence, there was no such
will or hope to exalt the quiet instincts of his natural industry; and
partly as a scholar's exercise, partly as an old man's recreation, the
severity of the Latin language was softened, like Venetian crystal, by
the variable fire of Hebrew thought, and the "Book of Books" took the
abiding form of which all the future art of the Western nations was to
be an hourly expanding interpretation.
39. And in this matter you have to note that the gist of it lies, not in
the translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into an easier and a
common language, but in their presentation to the Church as of common
authority. The earlier Gentile Christians had naturally a tendency to
carry out in various oral exaggeration or corruption, the teaching of
the Apostle of the Gentiles, until their freedom from the bondage of the
Jewish law passed into doubt of its inspiration; and, after the fall of
Jerusalem, even into horror-stricken interdiction of its observance. So
that, only a few years after the remnant of exiled Jews in Pella had
elected the Gentile Marcus for their Bishop, and obtained leave to
return to the Ælia Capitolina built by Hadrian on Mount Zion, "it became
a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely
acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe
the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation!"[35] While, on the
other hand, the most learned and the most wealthy of the Christian name,
under the generally recognised title of "knowing" (Gnostic), had more
insidiously effaced the authority of the Evangelists by dividing
themselves, during the course of the third century, "into more than
fifty numerably distinct sects, and producing a multitude of histories,
in which the actions and discourses of Christ and His Apostles were
adapted to their several tenets."[36]
[Footnote 35: Gibbon, chap. xv. (II. 277).]
[Footnote 36: Ibid., II. 283. His expression "the most learned and most
wealthy" should be remembered in confirmation of the evermore
recurring fact of Christianity, that minds modest in attainment, and
lives careless of gain, are fittest for the reception of every
constant,--_i.e._ not local or accidental,--Christian principle.]
40. It would be a task of great, and in nowise profitable difficulty
to determine in what measure the consent of the general Church, and in
what measure the act and authority of Jerome, contributed to fix in
their ever since undisturbed harmony and majesty, the canons of Mosaic
and Apostolic Scripture. All that the young reader need know is, that
when Jerome died at Bethlehem, this great deed was virtually
accomplished: and the series of historic and didactic books which form
our present Bible, (including the Apocrypha) were established in and
above the nascent thought of the noblest races of men living on the
terrestrial globe, as a direct message to them from its Maker,
containing whatever it was necessary for them to learn of His purposes
towards them, and commanding, or advising, with divine authority and
infallible wisdom, all that was best for them to do, and happiest to
desire.
41. And it is only for those who have obeyed the law sincerely,
to say how far the hope held out to them by the law-giver has been
fulfilled. The worst "children of disobedience" are those who accept,
of the Word, what they like, and refuse what they hate: nor is this
perversity in them always conscious, for the greater part of the sins
of the Church have been brought on it by enthusiasm which, in
passionate contemplation and advocacy of parts of the Scripture easily
grasped, neglected the study, and at last betrayed the balance, of the
rest. What forms and methods of self-will are concerned in the
wresting of the Scriptures to a man's destruction, is for the keepers
of consciences to examine, not for us. The history we have to learn
must be wholly cleared of such debate, and the influence of the Bible
watched exclusively on the persons who receive the Word with joy, and
obey it in truth.
42. There has, however, been always a farther difficulty in examining
the power of the Bible, than that of distinguishing honest from
dishonest readers. The hold of Christianity on the souls of men must
be examined, when we come to close dealing with it, under these three
several heads: there is first, the power of the Cross itself, and of
the theory of salvation, upon the heart,--then, the operation of the
Jewish and Greek Scriptures on the intellect,--then, the influence on
morals of the teaching and example of the living hierarchy. And in the
comparison of men as they are and as they might have been, there are
these three questions to be separately kept in mind,--first, what
would have been the temper of Europe without the charity and labour
meant by 'bearing the cross'; then, secondly, what would the intellect
of Europe have become without Biblical literature; and lastly, what
would the social order of Europe have become without its hierarchy.
43. You see I have connected the words 'charity' and 'labour' under
the general term of 'bearing the cross.' "If any man will come after
me, let him deny himself, (for charity) and take up his cross (of
pain) and follow me."
The idea has been _exactly_ reversed by modern Protestantism, which
sees, in the cross, not a furca to which it is to be nailed;
but a raft on which it, and all its valuable properties,[37] are to be
floated into Paradise.
[Footnote 37: Quite one of the most curious colours of modern
Evangelical thought is its pleasing connection of Gospel truth with
the extension of lucrative commerce! See farther the note at p. 83.]
44. Only, therefore, in days when the Cross was received with courage,
the Scripture searched with honesty, and the Pastor heard in faith,
can the pure word of God, and the bright sword of the Spirit, be
recognised in the heart and hand of Christianity. The effect of
Biblical poetry and legend on its intellect, must be traced farther,
through decadent ages, and in unfenced fields;--producing 'Paradise
Lost' for us, no less than the 'Divina Commedia';--Goethe's 'Faust,'
and Byron's 'Cain,' no less than the 'Imitatio Christi.'
45. Much more, must the scholar, who would comprehend in any degree
approaching to completeness, the influence of the Bible on mankind, be
able to read the interpretations of it which rose into the great arts of
Europe at their culmination. In every province of Christendom, according
to the degree of art-power it possessed, a series of illustrations of
the Bible were produced as time went on; beginning with vignetted
illustrations of manuscript, advancing into life-size sculpture, and
concluding in perfect power of realistic painting. These teachings and
preachings of the Church, by means of art, are not only a most important
part of the general Apostolic Acts of Christianity; but their study is a
necessary part of Biblical scholarship, so that no man can in any large
sense understand the Bible itself until he has learned also to read
these national commentaries upon it, and been made aware of their
collective weight. The Protestant reader, who most imagines himself
independent in his thought, and private in his study, of Scripture, is
nevertheless usually at the mercy of the nearest preacher who has a
pleasant voice and ingenious fancy; receiving from him thankfully, and
often reverently, whatever interpretation of texts the agreeable voice
or ready wit may recommend: while, in the meantime, he remains entirely
ignorant of, and if left to his own will, invariably destroys as
injurious, the deeply meditated interpretations of Scripture which, in
their matter, have been sanctioned by the consent of all the Christian
Church for a thousand years; and in their treatment, have been exalted
by the trained skill and inspired imagination of the noblest souls ever
enclosed in mortal clay.
46. There are few of the fathers of the Christian Church whose
commentaries on the Bible, or personal theories of its gospel, have
not been, to the constant exultation of the enemies of the Church,
fretted and disgraced by angers of controversy, or weakened and
distracted by irreconcilable heresy. On the contrary, the scriptural
teaching, through their art, of such men as Orcagna, Giotto, Angelico,
Luca della Robbia, and Luini, is, literally, free from all earthly
taint of momentary passion; its patience, meekness, and quietness are
incapable of error through either fear or anger; they are able,
without offence, to say all that they wish; they are bound by
tradition into a brotherhood which represents unperverted doctrines by
unchanging scenes; and they are compelled by the nature of their work
to a deliberation and order of method which result in the purest state
and frankest use of all intellectual power.
47. I may at once, and without need of returning to this question,
illustrate the difference in dignity and safety between the mental
actions of literature and art, by referring to a passage, otherwise
beautifully illustrative of St. Jerome's sweetness and simplicity of
character, though quoted, in the place where we find it, with no such
favouring intention,--namely, in the pretty letter of Queen Sophie
Charlotte, (father's mother of Frederick the Great,) to the Jesuit
Vota, given in part by Carlyle in his first volume, ch. iv.
"'How can St. Jerome, for example, be a key to Scripture?' she
insinuates; citing from Jerome this remarkable avowal of his method of
composing books;--especially of his method in that book, _Commentary on
the Galatians_, where he accuses both Peter and Paul of simulation, and
even of hypocrisy. The great St. Augustine has been charging him with
this sad fact, (says her Majesty, who gives chapter and verse,) and
Jerome answers, 'I followed the commentaries of Origen, of'--five or
six different persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before
Jerome had quite done with them, in coming years, 'And to confess the
honest truth to you,' continues Jerome, 'I read all that, and after
having crammed my head with a great many things, I sent for my
amanuensis, and dictated to him, now my own thoughts, now those of
others, without much recollecting the order, nor sometimes the words,
nor even the sense'! In another place, (in the book itself further
on[38]) he says, 'I do not myself write; I have an amanuensis, and I
dictate to him what comes into my mouth. If I wish to reflect a little,
or to say the thing better, or a better thing, he knits his brows, and
the whole look of him tells me sufficiently that he cannot endure to
wait.' Here is a sacred old gentleman whom it is not safe to depend upon
for interpreting the Scriptures,--thinks her Majesty, but does not say
so,--leaving Father Vota to his reflections." Alas, no, Queen Sophie,
neither old St. Jerome's, nor any other human lips nor mind, may be
depended upon in that function; but only the Eternal Sophia, the Power
of God and the Wisdom of God: yet this you may see of your old
interpreter, that he is wholly open, innocent, and true, and that,
through such a person, whether forgetful of his author, or hurried by
his scribe, it is more than probable you may hear what Heaven knows to
be best for you; and extremely improbable you should take the least
harm,--while by a careful and cunning master in the literary art,
reticent of his doubts, and dexterous in his sayings, any number of
prejudices or errors might be proposed to you acceptably, or even
fastened in you fatally, though all the while you were not the least
required to confide in his inspiration.
[Footnote 38: 'Commentary on the Galatians,' Chap. iii.]
48. For indeed, the only confidence, and the only safety which in such
matters we can either hold or hope, are in our own desire to be rightly
guided, and willingness to follow in simplicity the guidance granted.
But all our conceptions and reasonings on the subject of inspiration
have been disordered by our habit, first of distinguishing falsely--or
at least needlessly--between inspiration of words and of acts; and
secondly by our attribution of inspired strength or wisdom to some
persons or some writers only, instead of to the whole body of believers,
in so far as they are partakers of the Grace of Christ, the Love of God,
and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost. In the degree in which every
Christian receives, or refuses, the several gifts expressed by that
general benediction, he enters or is cast out from the inheritance of
the saints,--in the exact degree in which he denies the Christ, angers
the Father, and grieves the Holy Spirit, he becomes uninspired or
unholy,--and in the measure in which he trusts Christ, obeys the Father,
and consents with the Spirit, he becomes inspired in feeling, act, word,
and reception of word, according to the capacities of his nature. He is
not gifted with higher ability, nor called into new offices, but enabled
to use his granted natural powers, in their appointed place, to the best
purpose. A child is inspired as a child, and a maiden as a maiden; the
weak, even in their weakness, and the wise, only in their hour.
That is the simply determinable _theory_ of the inspiration of all
true members of the Church; its truth can only be known by proving it
in trial: but I believe there is no record of any man's having tried
and declared it vain.[39]
[Footnote 39: Compare the closing paragraph in p. 45 of 'The Shrine of
the Slaves.' Strangely, as I revise _this_ page for press, a slip is
sent me from 'The Christian' newspaper, in which the comment of the
orthodox evangelical editor may be hereafter representative to us of
the heresy of his sect; in its last audacity, actually _opposing_ the
power of the Spirit to the work of Christ. (I only wish I had been at
Matlock, and heard the kind physician's sermon.)
"An interesting and somewhat unusual sight was seen in Derbyshire on
Saturday last--two old fashioned Friends, dressed in the original garb
of the Quakers, preaching on the roadside to a large and attentive
audience in Matlock. One of them, who is a doctor in good practice in
the county, by name Dr. Charles A. Fox, made a powerful and effective
appeal to his audience to see to it that each one was living in
obedience to the light of the Holy Spirit within. Christ _within_ was
the hope of glory, and it was as He was followed in the ministry of
the Spirit that we were saved by Him, who became thus to each the
author and finisher of faith. He cautioned his hearers against
building their house on the sand by believing in the free and easy
Gospel so commonly preached to the wayside hearers, as if we were
saved by 'believing' this or that. Nothing short of the work of the
Holy Ghost in the soul of each one could save us, and to preach
anything short of this was simply to delude the simple and unwary in
the most terrible form.
"[It would be unfair to criticise an address from so brief an
abstract, but we must express our conviction that the obedience of
Christ unto death, the death of the Cross, _rather_ than the work of
the Spirit in us, is the good tidings for sinful men.--Ed.]"
In juxtaposition with this editorial piece of modern British press
theology, I will simply place the 4th, 6th, and 13th verses of Romans
viii., italicising the expressions which are of deepest import, and
always neglected. "That the _righteousness of the_ LAW might be
fulfilled _in us_, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.... For to be carnally _minded_, is death, but to be
spiritually _minded_, is life, and peace.... For if ye live after the
flesh, ye shall die; but if _ye through the Spirit_ do mortify the
_deeds_ of the body, ye shall live."
It would be well for Christendom if the Baptismal service explained
what it professes to abjure.]
49. Beyond this theory of general inspiration, there is that of
special call and command, with actual dictation of the deeds to be
done or words to be said. I will enter at present into no examination
of the evidences of such separating influence; it is not claimed by
the Fathers of the Church, either for themselves, or even for the
entire body of the Sacred writers, but only ascribed to certain
passages dictated at certain times for special needs: and there is no
possibility of attaching the idea of infallible truth to any form of
human language in which even these exceptional passages have been
delivered to us. But this is demonstrably true of the entire volume of
them as we have it, and read,--each of us as it may be rendered in his
native tongue; that, however mingled with mystery which we are not
required to unravel, or difficulties which we should be insolent in
desiring to solve, it contains plain teaching for men of every rank of
soul and state of life, which so far as they honestly and implicitly
obey, they will be happy and innocent to the utmost powers of their
nature, and capable of victory over all adversities, whether of
temptation or pain.
50. Indeed, the Psalter alone, which practically was the service book of
the Church for many ages, contains merely in the first half of it the
sum of personal and social wisdom. The 1st, 8th, 12th, 14th, 15th,
19th, 23rd, and 24th psalms, well learned and believed, are enough for
all personal guidance; the 48th, 72nd, and 75th, have in them the law
and the prophecy of all righteous government; and every real triumph of
natural science is anticipated in the 104th.
51. For the contents of the entire volume, consider what other group
of historic and didactic literature has a range comparable with it.
There are--
I. The stories of the Fall and of the Flood, the grandest human
traditions founded on a true horror of sin.
II. The story of the Patriarchs, of which the effective truth is
visible to this day in the polity of the Jewish and Arab races.
III. The story of Moses, with the results of that tradition in the
moral law of all the civilized world.
IV. The story of the Kings--virtually that of all Kinghood, in David,
and of all Philosophy, in Solomon: culminating in the Psalms and
Proverbs, with the still more close and practical wisdom of
Ecclesiasticus and the Son of Sirach.
V. The story of the Prophets--virtually that of the deepest mystery,
tragedy, and permanent fate, of national existence.
VI. The story of Christ.
VII. The moral law of St. John, and his closing Apocalypse of its
fulfilment.
Think, if you can match that table of contents in any other--I do not
say 'book' but 'literature.' Think, so far as it is possible for any
of us--either adversary or defender of the faith--to extricate his
intelligence from the habit and the association of moral sentiment
based upon the Bible, what literature could have taken its place, or
fulfilled its function, though every library in the world had remained
unravaged, and every teacher's truest words had been written down?
52. I am no despiser of profane literature. So far from it that I
believe no interpretations of Greek religion have ever been so
affectionate, none of Roman religion so reverent, as those which will be
found at the base of my art teaching, and current through the entire
body of my works. But it was from the Bible that I learned the symbols
of Homer, and the faith of Horace; the duty enforced upon me in early
youth of reading every word of the gospels and prophecies as if written
by the hand of God, gave me the habit of awed attention which afterwards
made many passages of the profane writers, frivolous to an irreligious
reader, deeply grave to me. How far my mind has been paralysed by the
faults and sorrow of life,--how far short its knowledge may be of what I
might have known, had I more faithfully walked in the light I had, is
beyond my conjecture or confession: but as I never wrote for my own
pleasure or self-proclaiming, I have been guarded, as men who so write
always will be, from errors dangerous to others; and the fragmentary
expressions of feeling or statements of doctrine, which from time to
time I have been able to give, will be found now by an attentive reader
to bind themselves together into a general system of interpretation of
Sacred literature,--both classic and Christian, which will enable him
without injustice to sympathize in the faiths of candid and generous
souls, of every age and every clime.
53. That there _is_ a Sacred classic literature, running parallel with
that of the Hebrews, and coalescing in the symbolic legends of
mediæval Christendom, is shown in the most tender and impressive way
by the independent, yet similar, influence of Virgil upon Dante, and
upon Bishop Gawaine Douglas. At earlier dates, the teaching of every
master trained in the Eastern schools was necessarily grafted on the
wisdom of the Greek mythology; and thus the story of the Nemean Lion,
with the aid of Athena in its conquest, is the real root-stock of the
legend of St. Jerome's companion, conquered by the healing gentleness
of the Spirit of Life.
54. I call it a legend only. Whether Heracles ever slew, or St. Jerome
ever cherished, the wild or wounded creature, is of no moment to us in
learning what the Greeks meant by their vase-outlines of the great
contest, or the Christian painters by their fond insistence on the
constancy of the Lion-friend. Former tradition, in the story of
Samson,--of the disobedient prophet,--of David's first inspired victory,
and finally of the miracle wrought in the defence of the most favoured
and most faithful of the greater Prophets, runs always parallel in
symbolism with the Dorian fable: but the legend of St. Jerome takes up
the prophecy of the Millennium, and foretells, with the Cumæan Sibyl,
and with Isaiah, a day when the Fear of Man shall be laid in
benediction, not enmity, on inferior beings,--when they shall not hurt
nor destroy in all the holy Mountain, and the Peace of the Earth shall
be as far removed from its present sorrow, as the present gloriously
animate universe from the nascent desert, whose deeps were the place of
dragons, and its mountains, domes of fire.
Of that day knoweth no man; but the Kingdom of God is already come to
those who have tamed in their own hearts what was rampant of the lower
nature, and have learned to cherish what is lovely and human, in the
wandering children of the clouds and fields.
AVALLON, _28th August_, 1882.
CHAPTER IV.
INTERPRETATIONS.
1. It is the admitted privilege of a custode who loves his cathedral
to depreciate, in its comparison, all the other cathedrals of his
country that resemble, and all the edifices on the globe that differ
from it. But I love too many cathedrals--though I have never had the
happiness of becoming the custode of even one--to permit myself the
easy and faithful exercise of the privilege in question; and I must
vindicate my candour, and my judgment, in the outset, by confessing
that the cathedral of AMIENS has nothing to boast of in the way of
towers,--that its central flèche is merely the pretty caprice of a
village carpenter,--that the total structure is in dignity inferior to
Chartres, in sublimity to Beauvais, in decorative splendour to Rheims,
and in loveliness of figure-sculpture to Bourges. It has nothing like
the artful pointing and moulding of the arcades of Salisbury--nothing
of the might of Durham;--no Dædalian inlaying like Florence, no glow
of mythic fantasy like Verona. And yet, in all, and more than these,
ways, outshone or overpowered, the cathedral of Amiens deserves the
name given it by M. Viollet le Duc--
"The Parthenon of Gothic Architecture."[40]
2. Of Gothic, mind you; Gothic clear of Roman tradition, and of
Arabian taint; Gothic pure, authoritative, unsurpassable, and
unaccusable;--its proper principles of structure being once understood
and admitted.
[Footnote 40: Of French Architecture, accurately, in the place quoted,
"Dictionary of Architecture," vol. i. p. 71; but in the article
"Cathédrale," it is called (vol. ii. p. 330) "l'église _ogivale_ par
excellence."]
No well-educated traveller is now without some consciousness of the
meaning of what is commonly and rightly called "purity of style," in
the modes of art which have been practised by civilized nations; and
few are unaware of the distinctive aims and character of Gothic. The
purpose of a good Gothic builder was to raise, with the native stone
of the place he had to build in, an edifice as high and as spacious as
he could, with calculable and visible security, in no protracted and
wearisome time, and with no monstrous or oppressive compulsion of
human labour.
He did not wish to exhaust in the pride of a single city the energies of
a generation, or the resources of a kingdom; he built for Amiens with
the strength and the exchequer of Amiens; with chalk from the cliffs of
the Somme,[41] and under the orders of two successive bishops, one of
whom directed the foundations of the edifice, and the other gave thanks
in it for its completion. His object, as a designer, in common with all
the sacred builders of his time in the North, was to admit as much light
into the building as was consistent with the comfort of it; to make its
structure intelligibly admirable, but not curious or confusing; and to
enrich and enforce the understood structure with ornament sufficient for
its beauty, yet yielding to no wanton enthusiasm in expenditure, nor
insolent in giddy or selfish ostentation of skill; and finally, to make
the external sculpture of its walls and gates at once an alphabet and
epitome of the religion, by the knowledge and inspiration of which an
acceptable worship might be rendered, within those gates, to the Lord
whose Fear was in His Holy Temple, and whose seat was in Heaven.
[Footnote 41: It was a universal principle with the French builders of
the great ages to use the stones of their quarries as they lay in the
bed; if the beds were thick, the stones were used of their full
thickness--if thin, of their necessary thinness, adjusting them with
beautiful care to directions of thrust and weight. The natural blocks
were never sawn, only squared into fitting, the whole native strength
and crystallization of the stone being thus kept unflawed--"_ne
dédoublant jamais_ une pierre. Cette méthode est excellente, elle
conserve à la pierre toute sa force naturelle,--tous ses moyens de
résistance." See M. Viollet le Duc, Article "Construction"
(Matériaux), vol. iv. p. 129. He adds the very notable fact that, _to
this day, in seventy departments of France, the use of the stone-saw
is unknown_.]
3. It is not easy for the citizen of the modern aggregate of bad
building, and ill-living held in check by constables, which we call a
town,--of which the widest streets are devoted by consent to the
encouragement of vice, and the narrow ones to the concealment of
misery,--not easy, I say, for the citizen of any such mean city to
understand the feeling of a burgher of the Christian ages to his
cathedral. For him, the quite simply and frankly-believed text, "Where
two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of
them," was expanded into the wider promise to many honest and
industrious persons gathered in His name--"They shall be my people and
I will be their God";--deepened in his reading of it, by some lovely
local and simply affectionate faith that Christ, as he was a Jew among
Jews, and a Galilean among Galileans, was also, in His nearness to
any--even the poorest--group of disciples, as one of their nation; and
that their own "Beau Christ d'Amiens" was as true a compatriot to them
as if He had been born of a Picard maiden.
4. It is to be remembered, however--and this is a theological point on
which depended much of the structural development of the northern
basilicas--that the part of the building in which the Divine presence
was believed to be constant, as in the Jewish Holy of Holies, was only
the enclosed choir; in front of which the aisles and transepts might
become the King's Hall of Justice, as in the presence-chamber of Christ;
and whose high altar was guarded always from the surrounding eastern
aisles by a screen of the most finished workmanship; while from those
surrounding aisles branched off a series of radiating chapels or cells,
each dedicated to some separate saint. This conception of the company of
Christ with His saints, (the eastern chapel of all being the Virgin's,)
was at the root of the entire disposition of the apse with its
supporting and dividing buttresses and piers; and the architectural form
can never be well delighted in, unless in some sympathy with the
spiritual imagination out of which it rose. We talk foolishly and
feebly of symbols and types: in old Christian architecture, every part
is _literal_: the cathedral _is_ for its builders the House of God;--it
is surrounded, like an earthly king's, with minor lodgings for the
servants; and the glorious carvings of the exterior walls and interior
wood of the choir, which an English rector would almost instinctively
think of as done for the glorification of the canons, was indeed the
Amienois carpenter's way of making his Master-carpenter
comfortable,[42]--nor less of showing his own native and insuperable
virtue of carpenter, before God and man.
[Footnote 42: The philosophic reader is quite welcome to 'detect' and
'expose' as many carnal motives as he pleases, besides the good
ones,--competition with neighbour Beauvais--comfort to sleepy
heads--solace to fat sides, and the like. He will find at last that no
quantity of competition or comfort-seeking will do anything the like
of this carving now;--still less his own philosophy, whatever its
species: and that it was indeed the little mustard seed of faith in
the heart, with a very notable quantity of honesty besides in the
habit and disposition, that made all the rest grow together for good.]
5. Whatever you wish to see, or are forced to leave unseen, at Amiens,
if the overwhelming responsibilities of your existence, and the
inevitable necessities of precipitate locomotion in their fulfilment,
have left you so much as one quarter of an hour, not out of
breath--for the contemplation of the capital of Picardy, give it
wholly to the cathedral choir. Aisles and porches, lancet windows and
roses, you can see elsewhere as well as here--but such carpenter's
work, you cannot. It is late,--fully developed flamboyant just past
the fifteenth century--and has some Flemish stolidity mixed with the
playing French fire of it; but wood-carving was the Picard's joy from
his youth up, and, so far as I know, there is nothing else so
beautiful cut out of the goodly trees of the world.
Sweet and young-grained wood it is: oak, _trained_ and chosen for such
work, sound now as four hundred years since. Under the carver's hand it
seems to cut like clay, to fold like silk, to grow like living branches,
to leap like living flame. Canopy crowning canopy, pinnacle piercing
pinnacle--it shoots and wreathes itself into an enchanted glade,
inextricable, imperishable, fuller of leafage than any forest, and
fuller of story than any book.[43]
[Footnote 43: Arnold Boulin, master-joiner (menuisier) at Amiens,
solicited the enterprise, and obtained it in the first months of the
year 1508. A contract was drawn and an agreement made with him for the
construction of one hundred and twenty stalls with historical
subjects, high backings, crownings, and pyramidal canopies. It was
agreed that the principal executor should have seven sous of Tournay
(a little less than the sou of France) a day, for himself and his
apprentice, (threepence a day the two--say a shilling a week the
master, and sixpence a week the man,) and for the superintendence of
the whole work, twelve crowns a year, at the rate of twenty-four sous
the crown; (_i.e._, twelve shillings a year). The salary of the simple
workman was only to be three sous a day. For the sculptures and
histories of the seats, the bargain was made separately with Antoine
Avernier, image-cutter, residing at Amiens, at the rate of thirty-two
sous (sixteen pence) the piece. Most of the wood came from Clermont en
Beauvoisis, near Amiens; the finest, for the bas-reliefs, from
Holland, by St. Valery and Abbeville. The Chapter appointed four of
its own members to superintend the work: Jean Dumas, Jean Fabres,
Pierre Vuaille, and Jean Lenglaché, to whom my authors (canons both)
attribute the choice of subjects, the placing of them, and the
initiation of the workmen 'au sens véritable et plus élevé de la Bible
ou des legendes, et portant quelque fois le simple savoir-faire de
l'ouvrier jusqu'à la hauteur du génie du théologien.'
Without pretending to apportion the credit of savoir-faire and
theology in the business, we have only to observe that the whole
company, master, apprentices, workmen, image-cutter, and four canons,
got well into traces, and set to work on the 3rd of July, 1508, in the
great hall of the évêché, which was to be the workshop and studio
during the whole time of the business. In the following year, another
menuisier, Alexander Huet, was associated with the body, to carry on
the stalls on the right hand of the choir, while Arnold Boulin went on
with those on the left. Arnold, leaving his new associate in command
for a time, went to Beauvais and St. Riquier, to see the woodwork
there; and in July of 1511 both the masters went to Rouen together,
'pour étudier les chaires de la cathédrale.' The year before, also,
two Franciscans, monks of Abbeville, 'expert and renowned in working
in wood,' had been called by the Amiens chapter to give their opinion
on things in progress, and had each twenty sous for his opinion, and
travelling expenses.
In 1516, another and an important name appears on the accounts,--that
of Jean Trupin, 'a simple workman at the wages of three sous a day,'
but doubtless a good and spirited carver, whose true portrait it is
without doubt, and by his own hand, that forms the elbow-rest, of the
85th stall (right hand, nearest apse), beneath which is cut his name
JHAN TRUPIN, and again under the 92nd stall, with the added wish, 'Jan
Trupin, God take care of thee' (_Dieu te pourvoie_).
The entire work was ended on St. John's Day, 1522, without (so far as
we hear) any manner of interruption by dissension, death, dishonesty,
or incapacity, among its fellow-workmen, master or servant. And the
accounts being audited by four members of the Chapter, it was found
that the total expense was 9488 livres, 11 sous, and 3 obols
(décimes), or 474 napoleons, 11 sous, 3 décimes of modern French
money, or roughly four hundred sterling English pounds.
For which sum, you perceive, a company of probably six or eight good
workmen, old and young, had been kept merry and busy for fourteen
years; and this that you see--left for substantial result and gift to
you.
I have not examined the carvings so as to assign, with any decision, the
several masters' work; but in general the flower and leaf design in the
traceries will be by the two head menuisiers, and their apprentices; the
elaborate Scripture histories by Avernier, with variously completing
incidental grotesque by Trupin; and the joining and fitting by the
common workmen. No nails are used,--all is morticed, and so beautifully
that the joints have not moved to this day, and are still almost
imperceptible. The four terminal pyramids 'you might take for giant
pines forgotten for six centuries on the soil where the church was
built; they might be looked on at first as a wild luxury of sculpture
and hollow traceries--but examined in analysis they are marvels of order
and system in construction, uniting all the lightness, strength, and
grace of the most renowned spires in the last epoch of the Middle ages.'
The above particulars are all extracted--or simply translated, out of
the excellent description of the "Stalles et les Clôtures du Choeur"
of the Cathedral of Amiens, by MM. les Chanoines Jourdain et Duval
(Amiens, Vv. Alfred Caron, 1867). The accompanying lithographic
outlines are exceedingly good, and the reader will find the entire
series of subjects indicated with precision and brevity, both for the
woodwork and the external veil of the choir, of which I have no room
to speak in this traveller's summary.]
6. I have never been able to make up my mind which was really the best
way of approaching the cathedral for the first time. If you have plenty
of leisure, and the day is fine, and you are not afraid of an hour's
walk, the really right thing to do is to walk down the main street of
the old town, and across the river, and quite out to the chalk hill[44]
out of which the citadel is half quarried--half walled;--and walk to the
top of that, and look down into the citadel's dry 'ditch,'--or, more
truly, dry valley of death, which is about as deep as a glen in
Derbyshire, (or, more precisely, the upper part of the 'Happy Valley'
at Oxford, above Lower Hincksey,) and thence across to the cathedral and
ascending slopes of the city; so, you will understand the real height
and relation of tower and town:--then, returning, find your way to the
Mount Zion of it by any narrow cross streets and chance bridges you
can--the more winding and dirty the streets, the better; and whether you
come first on west front or apse, you will think them worth all the
trouble you have had to reach them.
[Footnote 44: The strongest and finally to be defended part of the
earliest city was on this height.]
7. But if the day be dismal, as it may sometimes be, even in France,
of late years,--or if you cannot or will not walk, which may also
chance, for all our athletics and lawn-tennis,--or if you must really
go to Paris this afternoon, and only mean to see all you can in an
hour or two,--then, supposing that, notwithstanding these weaknesses,
you are still a nice sort of person, for whom it is of some
consequence which way you come at a pretty thing, or begin to look at
it--I _think_ the best way is to walk from the Hotel de France or the
Place de Perigord, up the Street of Three Pebbles, towards the railway
station--stopping a little as you go, so as to get into a cheerful
temper, and buying some bonbons or tarts for the children in one of
the charming patissiers' shops on the left. Just past them, ask for
the theatre; and just past that, you will find, also on the left,
three open arches, through which you can turn, passing the Palais de
Justice, and go straight up to the south transept, which has really
something about it to please everybody. It is simple and severe at the
bottom, and daintily traceried and pinnacled at the top, and yet seems
all of a piece--though it isn't--and everybody _must_ like the taper
and transparent fretwork of the flèche above, which seems to bend to
the west wind,--though it doesn't--at least, the bending is a long
habit, gradually yielded into, with gaining grace and submissiveness,
during the last three hundred years. And, coming quite up to the
porch, everybody must like the pretty French Madonna in the middle of
it, with her head a little aside, and her nimbus switched a little
aside too, like a becoming bonnet. A Madonna in decadence she is,
though, for all, or rather by reason of all, her prettiness, and
her gay soubrette's smile; and she has no business there, neither, for
this is St. Honoré's porch, not hers; and grim and grey St. Honoré
used to stand there to receive you,--he is banished now to the north
porch, where nobody ever goes in. This was done long ago, in the
fourteenth-century days, when the people first began to find
Christianity too serious, and devised a merrier faith for France, and
would have bright-glancing, soubrette Madonnas everywhere--letting
their own dark-eyed Joan of Arc be burned for a witch. And
thenceforward, things went their merry way, straight on, 'ça allait,
ça ira,' to the merriest days of the guillotine.
But they could still carve, in the fourteenth century, and the Madonna
and her hawthorn-blossom lintel are worth your looking at,--much more
the field above, of sculpture as delicate and more calm, which tells
St. Honoré's own story, little talked of now in his Parisian faubourg.
8. I will not keep you just now to tell St. Honoré's story--(only too
glad to leave you a little curious about it, if it were
possible)[45]--for certainly you will be impatient to go into the
church; and cannot enter it to better advantage than by this door. For
all cathedrals of any mark have nearly the same effect when you enter at
the west door; but I know no other which shows so much of its nobleness
from the south interior transept; the opposite rose being of exquisite
fineness in tracery, and lovely in lustre; and the shafts of the
transept aisles forming wonderful groups with those of the choir and
nave; also, the apse shows its height better, as it opens to you when
you advance from the transept into the mid-nave, than when it is seen at
once from the west end of the nave; where it is just possible for an
irreverent person rather to think the nave narrow, than the apse high.
Therefore, if you let me guide you, go in at this south transept door,
(and put a sou into every beggar's box who asks it there,--it is none of
your business whether they should be there or not, nor whether they
deserve to have the sou,--be sure only that you yourself deserve to have
it to give; and give it prettily, and not as if it burnt your fingers).
Then, being once inside, take what first sensation and general glimpse
of it pleases you--promising the custode to come back to _see_ it
properly; (only then mind you keep the promise;) and in this first
quarter of an hour, seeing only what fancy bid you--but at least, as I
said, the apse from mid-nave, and all the traverses of the building,
from its centre. Then you will know, when you go outside again, what the
architect was working for, and what his buttresses and traceries mean.
For the outside of a French cathedral, except for its sculpture, is
always to be thought of as the wrong side of the stuff, in which you
find how the threads go that produce the inside or right-side pattern.
And if you have no wonder in you for that choir and its encompassing
circlet of light, when you look up into it from the cross-centre, you
need not travel farther in search of cathedrals, for the waiting-room of
any station is a better place for you;--but, if it amaze you and delight
you at first, then, the more you know of it, the more it will amaze. For
it is not possible for imagination and mathematics together, to do
anything nobler or stronger than that procession of window, with
material of glass and stone--nor anything which shall look loftier, with
so temperate and prudent measure of actual loftiness.
[Footnote 45: See, however, pages 32 and 130 (§§ 36, 112-114) of the
octavo edition of 'The Two Paths.']
9. From the pavement to the keystone of its vault is but 132 French
feet--about 150 English. Think only--you who have been in
Switzerland,--the Staubbach falls _nine_ hundred! Nay, Dover cliff
under the castle, just at the end of the Marine Parade, is twice as
high; and the little cockneys parading to military polka on the
asphalt below, think themselves about as tall as it, I suppose,--nay,
what with their little lodgings and stodgings and podgings about it,
they have managed to make it look no bigger than a moderate-sized
limekiln. Yet it is twice the height of Amiens' apse!--and it takes
good building, with only such bits of chalk as one can quarry beside
Somme, to make your work stand half that height, for six hundred
years.
10. It takes good building, I say, and you may even aver the
best--that ever was, or is again likely for many a day to be, on the
unquaking and fruitful earth, where one could calculate on a pillar's
standing fast, once well set up; and where aisles of aspen, and
orchards of apple, and clusters of vine, gave type of what might be
most beautifully made sacred in the constancy of sculptured stone.
From the unhewn block set on end in the Druid's Bethel, to _this_
Lord's House and blue-vitrailed gate of Heaven, you have the entire
course and consummation of the Northern Religious Builder's passion
and art.
11. But, note further--and earnestly,--this apse of Amiens is not only
the best, but the very _first_ thing done _perfectly_ in its manner,
by Northern Christendom. In pages 323 and 327 of the sixth volume of
M. Viollet le Duc, you will find the exact history of the development
of these traceries through which the eastern light shines on you as
you stand, from the less perfect and tentative forms of Rheims: and so
momentary was the culmination of the exact rightness, that here, from
nave to transept--built only ten years later,--there is a little
change, not towards decline, but to a not quite necessary precision.
Where decline begins, one cannot, among the lovely fantasies that
succeeded, exactly say--but exactly, and indisputably, we know that
this apse of Amiens is the first virgin perfect work,--Parthenon also
in that sense,--of Gothic Architecture.
12. Who built it, shall we ask? God, and Man,--is the first and most
true answer. The stars in their courses built it, and the Nations.
Greek Athena labours here--and Roman Father Jove, and Guardian Mars.
The Gaul labours here, and the Frank: knightly Norman,--mighty
Ostrogoth,--and wasted anchorite of Idumea.
The actual Man who built it scarcely cared to tell you he did so; nor do
the historians brag of him. Any quantity of heraldries of knaves and
fainéants you may find in what they call their 'history': but this is
probably the first time you ever read the name of Robert of Luzarches. I
say he 'scarcely cared'--we are not sure that he cared at all. He
signed his name nowhere, that I can hear of. You may perhaps find some
recent initials cut by English remarkable visitors desirous of
immortality, here and there about the edifice, but Robert the
builder--or at least the Master of building, cut _his_ on no stone of
it. Only when, after his death, the headstone had been brought forth
with shouting, Grace unto it, this following legend was written,
recording all who had part or lot in the labour, within the middle of
the labyrinth then inlaid in the pavement of the nave. You must read it
trippingly on the tongue: it was rhymed gaily for you by pure French
gaiety, not the least like that of the Théâtre de Folies.
"En l'an de Grace mil deux cent
Et vingt, fu l'oeuvre de cheens
Premièrement encomenchie.
A donc y ert de cheste evesquie
Evrart, évêque bénis;
Et, Roy de France, Loys
Qui fut fils Phelippe le Sage.
Qui maistre y ert de l'oeuvre
Maistre Robert estoit només
Et de Luzarches surnomés.
Maistre Thomas fu après lui
De Cormont. Et après, son filz
Maistre Regnault, qui mestre
Fist a chest point chi cheste lectre
Que l'incarnation valoit
Treize cent, moins douze, en faloit."
13. I have written the numerals in letters, else the metre would not
have come clear: they were really in figures thus, "II C. et XX,"
"XIII C. moins XII". I quote the inscription from M. l'Abbé Rozé's
admirable little book, "Visite à la Cathédrale d'Amiens,"--Sup. Lib.
de Mgr l'Evêque d'Amiens, 1877,--which every grateful traveller should
buy, for I am only going to steal a little bit of it here and there. I
only wish there had been a translation of the legend to steal, too;
for there are one or two points, both of idea and chronology, in it,
that I should have liked the Abbé's opinion of.
The main purport of the rhyme, however, we perceive to be, line for
line, as follows:--
"In the year of Grace, Twelve Hundred
And twenty, the work, then falling to ruin,
Was first begun again.
Then was, of this Bishopric
Everard the blessed Bishop.
And, King of France, Louis,
Who was son to Philip the Wise.
He who was Master of the Work
Was called Master Robert,
And called, beyond that, of Luzarches.
Master Thomas was after him,
Of Cormont. And after him, his son,
Master Reginald, who to be put
Made--at this point--this reading.
When the Incarnation was of account
Thirteen hundred, less twelve, which it failed of."
In which legend, while you stand where once it was written (it was
removed--to make the old pavement more polite--in the year, I
sorrowfully observe, of my own earliest tour on the Continent, 1825,
when I had not yet turned my attention to Ecclesiastical
Architecture), these points are noticeable--if you have still a little
patience.
14. 'The work'--_i.e._, the Work of Amiens in especial, her cathedral,
was 'déchéant,' falling to ruin, for the--I cannot at once say--fourth,
fifth, or what time,--in the year 1220. For it was a wonderfully
difficult matter for little Amiens to get this piece of business fairly
done, so hard did the Devil pull against her. She built her first
Bishop's church (scarcely more than St. Firmin's tomb-chapel) about the
year 350, just outside the railway station on the road to Paris;[46]
then, after being nearly herself destroyed, chapel and all, by the Frank
invasion, having recovered, and converted her Franks, she built another
and a properly called cathedral, where this one stands now, under
Bishop St. Save (St. Sauve, or Salve). But even this proper cathedral
was only of wood, and the Normans burnt it in 881. Rebuilt, it stood for
200 years; but was in great part destroyed by lightning in 1019. Rebuilt
again, it and the town were more or less burnt together by lightning, in
1107,--my authority says calmly, "un incendie provoqué par la même cause
détruisit _la ville_, et une partie de la cathédrale." The 'partie'
being rebuilt once more, the whole was again reduced to ashes, "réduite
en cendre par le feu de ciel en 1218, ainsi que tous les titres, les
martyrologies, les calendriers, et les Archives de l'Evêché et du
Chapitre."
[Footnote 46: At St. Acheul. See the first chapter of this book, and
the "Description Historique de la Cathédrale d'Amiens," by A. P. M.
Gilbert. 8vo, Amiens, 1833, pp. 5-7.]
15. It was the fifth cathedral, I count, then, that lay in 'ashes,'
according to Mons. Gilbert--in ruin certainly--déchéant;--and ruin of
a very discouraging completeness it would have been, to less lively
townspeople--in 1218. But it was rather of a stimulating completeness
to Bishop Everard and his people--the ground well cleared for them, as
it were: and lightning (feu de l'enfer, not du ciel, recognized for a
diabolic plague, as in Egypt), was to be defied to the pit. They only
took two years, you see, to pull themselves together; and to work they
went, in 1220, they, and their bishop, and their king, and their
Robert of Luzarches. And this, that roofs you, was what their hands
found to do with their might.
16. Their king was 'à-donc,' 'at that time,' Louis VIII., who is
especially further called the son of Philip of August, or Philip the
Wise, because his father was not dead in 1220; but must have resigned
the practical kingdom to his son, as his own father had done to him;
the old and wise king retiring to his chamber, and thence silently
guiding his son's hands, very gloriously, yet for three years.
But, farther--and this is the point on which chiefly I would have
desired the Abbé's judgment--Louis VIII. died of fever at Montpensier in
1226. And the entire conduct of the main labour of the cathedral, and
the chief glory of its service, as we shall hear presently, was _Saint_
Louis's; for a time of forty-four years. And the inscription was put "à
ce point ci" by the last architect, six years after St. Louis's death.
How is it that the great and holy king is not named?
17. I must not, in this traveller's brief, lose time in conjectural
answers to the questions which every step here will raise from the
ravaged shrine. But this is a very solemn one; and must be kept in our
hearts, till we may perhaps get clue to it. One thing only we are sure
of,--that at least the _due_ honour--alike by the sons of Kings and
sons of Craftsmen--is given always to their fathers; and that
apparently the chief honour of all is given here to Philip the Wise.
From whose house, not of parliament but of peace, came, in the years
when this temple was first in building, an edict indeed of
peace-making: "That it should be criminal for any man to take
vengeance for an insult or injury till forty days after the commission
of the offence--and then only with the approbation of the Bishop of
the Diocese." Which was perhaps a wiser effort to end the Feudal
system in its Saxon sense,[47] than any of our recent projects for
ending it in the Norman one.
[Footnote 47: Feud, Saxon faedh, low Latin Faida (Scottish 'fae,'
English 'foe,' derivative), Johnson. Remember also that the root of
Feud, in its Norman sense of land-allotment, is _foi_, not _fee_,
which Johnson, old Tory as he was, did not observe--neither in general
does the modern Antifeudalist.]
18. "A ce point ci." The point, namely, of the labyrinth inlaid in the
cathedral floor; a recognized emblem of many things to the people, who
knew that the ground they stood on was holy, as the roof over their
head. Chiefly, to them, it was an emblem of noble human
life--strait-gated, narrow-walled, with infinite darknesses and the
"inextricabilis error" on either hand--and in the depth of it, the
brutal nature to be conquered.
19. This meaning, from the proudest heroic, and purest legislative, days
of Greece, the symbol had borne for all men skilled in her traditions:
to the schools of craftsmen the sign meant further their craft's
noblesse, and pure descent from the divinely-terrestrial skill of
Dædalus, the labyrinth-builder, and the first sculptor of imagery
_pathetic_[48] with human life and death.
[Footnote 48:
"Tu quoque, magnam
Partem opere in tanto, sineret dolor, Icare, haberes,
Bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro,--
Bis patriæ cecidere manus."
There is, advisedly, no pathos allowed in primary sculpture. Its heroes
conquer without exultation, and die without sorrow.]
20. Quite the most beautiful sign of the power of true
Christian-Catholic faith is this continual acknowledgment by it of the
brotherhood--nay, more, the fatherhood, of the elder nations who had
not seen Christ; but had been filled with the Spirit of God; and
obeyed, according to their knowledge, His unwritten law. The pure
charity and humility of this temper are seen in all Christian art,
according to its strength and purity of race; but best, to the full,
seen and interpreted by the three great Christian-Heathen poets,
Dante, Douglas of Dunkeld,[49] and George Chapman. The prayer with
which the last ends his life's work is, so far as I know, the
perfectest and deepest expression of Natural Religion given us in
literature; and if you can, pray it here--standing on the spot where
the builder once wrote the history of the Parthenon of Christianity.
[Footnote 49: See 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter LXI., p. 22.]
21. "I pray thee, Lord, the Father, and the Guide of our reason, that
we may remember the nobleness with which Thou hast adorned us; and
that Thou wouldst be always on our right hand and on our left,[50] in
the motion of our own Wills: that so we may be purged from the
contagion of the Body and the Affections of the Brute, and overcome
them and rule; and use, as it becomes men to use them, for
instruments. And then, that Thou wouldst be in Fellowship with us for
the careful correction of our reason, and for its conjunction by the
light of truth with the things that truly are.
[Footnote 50: Thus, the command to the children of Israel "that they go
forward" is to their own wills. They obeying, the sea retreats, _but not
before_ they dare to advance into it. _Then_, the waters are a wall unto
them, on their right hand and their left.]
"And in the third place, I pray to Thee the Saviour, that
Thou wouldst utterly cleanse away the closing gloom from
the eyes of our souls, that we may know well who is to be held
for God, and who for mortal. Amen."[51]
[Footnote 51: The original is written in Latin only. "Supplico tibi,
Domine, Pater et Dux rationis nostræ, ut nostræ Nobilitatis
recordemur, quâ tu nos ornasti: et ut tu nobis presto sis, ut iis qui
per sese moventur; ut et a Corporis contagio, Brutorumque affectuum
repurgemur, eosque superemus, atque regamus; et, sicut decet, pro
instruments iis utamur. Deinde, ut nobis adjuncto sis; ad accuratam
rationis nostræ correctionem, et conjunctionem cum iis qui verè sunt,
per lucem veritatis. Et tertium, Salvatori supplex oro, ut ab oculis
animorum nostrorum caliginem prorsus abstergas; ut norimus bene, qui
Deus, aut Mortalis habendus. Amen."]
22. And having prayed this prayer, or at least, read it with honest
wishing, (which if you cannot, there is no hope of your at present
taking pleasure in any human work of large faculty, whether poetry,
painting, or sculpture,) we may walk a little farther westwards down
the nave, where, in the middle of it, but only a few yards from its
end, two flat stones (the custode will show you them), one a little
farther back than the other, are laid over the graves of the two great
bishops, all whose strength of life was given, with the builder's, to
raise this temple. Their actual graves have not been disturbed; but
the tombs raised over them, once and again removed, are now set on
your right and left hand as you look back to the apse, under the third
arch between the nave and aisles.
23. Both are of bronze, cast at one flow--and with insuperable, in
some respects inimitable, skill in the caster's art.
"Chefs-d'oeuvre de fonte,--le tout fondu d'un seul jet, et
admirablement."[52] There are only two other such tombs left in
France, those of the children of St. Louis. All others of their
kind--and they were many in every great cathedral of France--were
first torn from the graves they covered, to destroy the memory of
France's dead; and then melted down into sous and centimes, to buy
gunpowder and absinthe with for her living,--by the Progressive Mind
of Civilization in her first blaze of enthusiasm and new light, from
1789 to 1800.
[Footnote 52: Viollet le Duc, vol. viii., p. 256. He adds: "L'une
d'elles est comme art" (meaning general art of sculpture), "un
monument du premier ordre;" but this is only partially true--also I
find a note in M. Gilbert's account of them, p. 126: "Les deux doigts
qui manquent, à la main droite de l'évêque Gaudefroi paraissent être
un défaut survenu à la fonte." See further, on these monuments, and
those of St. Louis' children, Viollet le Duc, vol, ix., pp. 61, 62.]
The children's tombs, one on each side of the altar of St. Denis, are
much smaller than these, though wrought more beautifully. These beside
you are the _only two Bronze tombs of her Men of the great ages_, left
in France!
24. And they are the tombs of the pastors of her people, who built for
her the first perfect temple to her God. The Bishop Everard's is on
your right, and has engraved round the border of it this
inscription:[53]--
"Who fed the people, who laid the foundations of this
Structure, to whose care the City was given,
Here, in ever-breathing balm of fame, rests Everard.
A man compassionate to the afflicted, the widow's protector, the orphan's
Guardian. Whom he could, he recreated with gifts.
To words of men,
If gentle, a lamb; if violent, a lion; if proud, biting steel."
[Footnote 53: I steal again from the Abbé Rozé the two
inscriptions,--with his introductory notice of the evilly-inspired
interference with them.
"La tombe d'Evrard de Fouilloy, (died 1222,) coulée en bronze en
plein-relief, était supportée dès le principe, par des monstres
engagés dans une maçonnerie remplissant le dessous du monument, pour
indiquer que cet évêque avait posé les fondements de la Cathédrale. Un
_architecte malheureusement inspiré_ a osé arracher la maçonnerie,
pour qu'on ne vit plus la main du prélat fondateur, à la base de
l'édifice.
"On lit, sur la bordure, l'inscription suivante en beaux caractères du
XIII^e siècle:
"'Qui populum pavit, qui fundam[=e]ta locavit
Hui[=u]s structure, cuius fuit urbs data cure
Hic redolens nardus, famâ requiescit Ewardus,
Vir pius ahflictis, vidvis tutela, relictis
Custos, quos poterat recreabat munere; vbis,
Mitib agnus erat, tumidis leo, lima supbis.'
"Geoffrey d'Eu (died 1237) est représenté comme son prédécesseur en
habits épiscopaux, mais le dessous du bronze supporté par des chimères
est évidé, ce prélat ayant élevé l'édifice jusqu'aux voûtes. Voici la
légende gravée sur la bordure:
"'Ecce premunt humile Gaufridi membra cubile.
Seu minus aut simile nobis parat omnibus ille;
Quem laurus gemina decoraverat, in medicinâ
Lege q[=u] divina, decuerunt cornua bina;
Clare vir Augensis, quo sedes Ambianensis
Crevit in imensis; in coelis auctus, Amen, sis.'
Tout est à étudier dans ces deux monuments; tout y est d'un haut
intérêt, quant au dessin, à la sculpture, à l'agencement des ornements
et des draperies."
In saying above that Geoffroy of Eu returned thanks in the Cathedral
for its completion, I meant only that he had brought at least the
choir into condition for service: "Jusqu'aux voûtes" may or may not
mean that the vaulting was closed.]
English, at its best, in Elizabethan days, is a nobler language than
ever Latin was; but its virtue is in colour and tone, not in what may
be called metallic or crystalline condensation. And it is impossible
to translate the last line of this inscription in as few English
words. Note in it first that the Bishop's friends and enemies are
spoken of as in word, not act; because the swelling, or mocking, or
flattering, words of men are indeed what the meek of the earth must
know how to bear and to welcome;--their deeds, it is for kings and
knights to deal with: not but that the Bishops often took deeds in
hand also; and in actual battle they were permitted to strike with the
mace, but not with sword or lance--_i.e._, not to "shed blood"! For it
was supposed that a man might always recover from a mace-blow; (which,
however, would much depend on the bishop's mind who gave it). The
battle of Bouvines, quite one of the most important in mediæval
history, was won against the English, and against odds besides of
Germans, under their Emperor Otho, by two French bishops (Senlis and
Bayeux)--who both generalled the French King's line, and led its
charges. Our Earl of Salisbury surrendered to the Bishop of Bayeux in
person.
25. Note farther, that quite one of the deadliest and most diabolic
powers of evil words, or, rightly so called, blasphemy, has been
developed in modern days in the effect of sometimes quite innocently
meant and enjoyed 'slang.' There are two kinds of slang, in the essence
of it: one 'Thieves' Latin'--the special language of rascals, used for
concealment; the other, one might perhaps best call Louts' Latin!--the
lowering or insulting words invented by vile persons to bring good
things, in their own estimates, to their own level, or beneath it. The
really worst power of this kind of blasphemy is in its often making it
impossible to use plain words without a degrading or ludicrous attached
sense:--thus I could not end my translation of this epitaph, as the old
Latinist could, with the exactly accurate image "to the proud, a
file"--because of the abuse of the word in lower English, retaining,
however, quite shrewdly, the thirteenth-century idea. But the _exact_
force of the symbol here is in its allusion to jewellers' work, filing
down facets. A proud man is often also a precious one: and may be made
brighter in surface, and the purity of his inner self shown, by good
_filing_.
26. Take it all in all, the perfect duty of a Bishop is expressed in
these six Latin lines,--au mieux mieux--beginning with his pastoral
office--_Feed_ my sheep--qui _pavit_ populum. And be assured, good
reader, these ages never could have told you what a Bishop's, or any
other man's, duty was, unless they had each man in his place both done
it well--and seen it well done. The Bishop Geoffroy's tomb is on your
left, and its inscription is:
"Behold, the limbs of Godfrey press their lowly bed,
Whether He is preparing for us all one less than, or like it.
Whom the twin laurels adorned, in medicine
And in divine law, the dual crests became him.
Bright-shining man of Eu, by whom the throne of Amiens
Rose into immensity, be _thou_ increased in Heaven."
Amen.
And now at last--this reverence done and thanks paid--we will turn
from these tombs, and go out at one of the western doors--and so see
gradually rising above us the immensity of the three porches, and of
the thoughts engraved in them.
27. What disgrace or change has come upon them, I will not tell you
to-day--except only the 'immeasurable' loss of the great old
foundation-steps, open, sweeping broad from side to side for all who
came; unwalled, undivided, sunned all along by the westering day,
lighted only by the moon and the stars at night; falling steep and many
down the hillside--ceasing one by one, at last wide and few towards the
level--and worn by pilgrim feet, for six hundred years. So I once saw
them, and twice,--such things can now be never seen more.
Nor even of the west front itself, above, is much of the old masonry
left: but in the porches nearly all,--except the actual outside
facing, with its rose moulding, of which only a few flowers have been
spared here and there.[54] But the sculpture has been carefully and
honourably kept and restored to its place--pedestals or niches
restored here and there with clay; or some which you see white and
crude, re-carved entirely; nevertheless the impression you may receive
from the whole is still what the builder meant; and I will tell you
the order of its theology without further notices of its decay.
[Footnote 54: The horizontal lowest part of the moulding between the
northern and central porch is old. Compare its roses with the new ones
running round the arches above--and you will know what 'Restoration'
means.]
28. You will find it always well, in looking at any cathedral, to make
your quarters of the compass sure, in the beginning; and to remember
that, as you enter it, you are looking and advancing eastward; and
that if it has three entrance porches, that on your left in entering
is the northern, that on your right the southern. I shall endeavour in
all my future writing of architecture, to observe the simple law of
always calling the door of the north transept the north door; and that
on the same side of the west front, the northern door, and so of their
opposites. This will save, in the end, much printing and much
confusion, for a Gothic cathedral has, almost always, these five great
entrances; which may be easily, if at first attentively, recognized
under the titles of the Central door (or porch), the Northern door,
the Southern door, the North door, and the South door.
But when we use the terms right and left, we ought always
to use them as in going _out_ of the cathedral, or walking down the
nave,--the entire north side and aisles of the building being its
right side, and the south, its left,--these terms being only used well
and authoritatively, when they have reference either to the image of
Christ in the apse or on the rood, or else to the central statue,
whether of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint, in the west front. At
Amiens, this central statue, on the 'trumeau' or supporting and
dividing pillar of the central porch, is of Christ Immanuel,--God
_with_ us. On His right hand and His left, occupying the entire walls
of the central porch, are the apostles and the four greater prophets.
The twelve minor prophets stand side by side on the front, three on
each of its great piers.[55]
[Footnote 55: See now the plan at the end of this chapter.]
The northern porch is dedicated to St. Firmin, the first Christian
missionary to Amiens.
The southern porch, to the Virgin.
But these are both treated as withdrawn behind the great foundation of
Christ and the Prophets; and their narrow recesses partly conceal
their sculpture, until you enter them. What you have first to think
of, and read, is the scripture of the great central porch, and the
façade itself.
29. You have then in the centre of the front, the image of Christ
Himself, receiving you: "I am the Way, the truth and the life." And the
order of the attendant powers may be best understood by thinking of them
as placed on Christ's right and left hand: this being also the order
which the builder adopts in his Scripture history on the façade--so that
it is to be read from left to right--_i.e._ from Christ's left to
Christ's right, as _He_ sees it. Thus, therefore, following the order of
the great statues: first in the central porch, there are six apostles on
Christ's right hand, and six on His left. On His left hand, next to Him,
Peter; then in receding order, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, Simon; on
His right hand, next Him, Paul; and in receding order, James the Bishop,
Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Jude. These opposite ranks of the
Apostles occupy what may be called the apse or curved bay of the porch,
and form a nearly semicircular group, clearly visible as we approach.
But on the sides of the porch, outside the lines of apostles, and not
seen clearly till we enter the porch, are the four greater prophets. On
Christ's left, Isaiah and Jeremiah, on His right, Ezekiel and Daniel.
30. Then in front, along the whole façade--read in order from Christ's
left to His right--come the series of the twelve minor prophets, three
to each of the four piers of the temple, beginning at the south angle
with Hosea, and ending with Malachi.
As you look full at the façade in front, the statues which fill the
minor porches are either obscured in their narrower recesses or
withdrawn behind each other so as to be unseen. And the entire mass of
the front is seen, literally, as built on the foundation of the
Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
corner-stone. Literally _that_; for the receding Porch is a deep
'angulus,' and its mid-pillar is the 'Head of the Corner.'
Built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, that is to say
of the Prophets who foretold _Christ_, and the Apostles who declared
Him. Though Moses was an Apostle, of _God_, he is not here--though
Elijah was a Prophet, of _God_, he is not here. The voice of the
entire building is that of the Heaven at the Transfiguration, "This is
my beloved Son, hear ye Him."
31. There is yet another and a greater prophet still, who, as it seems
at first, is not here. Shall the people enter the gates of the temple,
singing "Hosanna to the Son of _David_"; and see no image of His
father, then?--Christ Himself declare, "I am the root and the
offspring of David"; and yet the Root have no sign near it of its
Earth?
Not so. David and his Son are together. David is the pedestal of the
Christ.
32. We will begin our examination of the Temple front, therefore, with
this its goodly pedestal stone. The statue of David is only two-thirds
life-size, occupying the niche in front of the pedestal. He holds his
sceptre in his right hand, the scroll in his left. King and Prophet,
type of all Divinely right doing, and right claiming, and right
proclaiming, kinghood, for ever.
The pedestal of which this statue forms the fronting or Western
sculpture, is square, and on the two sides of it are two flowers in
vases, on its north side the lily, and on its south the rose. And the
entire monolith is one of the noblest pieces of Christian sculpture in
the world.
Above this pedestal comes a minor one, bearing in front of it a
tendril of vine which completes the floral symbolism of the whole. The
plant which I have called a lily is not the Fleur de Lys, nor the
Madonna's, but an ideal one with bells like the crown Imperial
(Shakespeare's type of 'lilies of all kinds'), representing the _mode
of growth_ of the lily of the valley, which could not be sculptured so
large in its literal form without appearing monstrous, and is exactly
expressed in this tablet--as it fulfils, together with the rose and
vine, its companions, the triple saying of Christ, "I am the Rose of
Sharon, and the Lily of the Valley." "I am the true Vine."
* * * * *
33. On the side of the upper stone are supporters of a different
character. Supporters,--not captives nor victims; the Cockatrice and
Adder. Representing the most active evil principles of the earth, as
in their utmost malignity; still, Pedestals of Christ, and even in
their deadly life, accomplishing His final will.
Both creatures are represented accurately in the mediæval traditional
form, the cockatrice half dragon, half cock; the deaf adder laying one
ear against the ground and stopping the other with her tail.
The first represents the infidelity of Pride. The cockatrice--king
serpent or highest serpent--saying that he _is_ God, and _will be_
God.
The second, the infidelity of Death. The adder (nieder or nether
snake) saying that he _is_ mud, and _will be_ mud.
34. Lastly, and above all, set under the feet of the statue
of Christ Himself, are the lion and dragon; the images of Carnal sin,
or _Human sin_, as distinguished from the Spiritual and Intellectual
sin of Pride, by which the angels also fell.
To desire kingship rather than servantship--the Cockatrice's sin, or
deaf Death rather than hearkening Life--the Adder's sin,--these are
both possible to all the intelligences of the universe. But the
distinctively Human sins, anger and lust, seeds in our race of their
perpetual sorrow--Christ in His own humanity, conquered; and conquers
in His disciples. Therefore His foot is on the heads of these; and the
prophecy, "Inculcabis super Leonem et Aspidem," is recognized always
as fulfilled in Him, and in all His true servants, according to the
height of their authority, and the truth of their power.
35. In this mystic sense, Alexander III. used the words, in restoring
peace to Italy, and giving forgiveness to her deadliest enemy, under
the porch of St. Mark's.[56] But the meaning of every act, as of every
art, of the Christian ages, lost now for three hundred years, cannot
but be in our own times read reversed, if at all, through the
counter-spirit which we now have reached; glorifying Pride and Avarice
as the virtues by which all things move and have their being--walking
after our own lusts as our sole guides to salvation, and foaming out
our own shame for the sole earthly product of our hands and lips.
[Footnote 56: See my abstract of the history of Barbarossa and
Alexander, in 'Fiction, Fair and Foul,' '_Nineteenth Century_,'
November, 1880, pp. 752 _seq._]
36. Of the statue of Christ, itself, I will not speak here at any
length, as no sculpture would satisfy, or ought to satisfy, the hope of
any loving soul that has learned to trust in Him; but at the time, it
was beyond what till then had been reached in sculptured tenderness; and
was known far and near as the "Beau Dieu d'Amiens."[57] Yet understood,
observe, just as clearly to be no more than a symbol of the Heavenly
Presence, as the poor coiling worms below were no more than symbols of
the demoniac ones. No _idol_, in our sense of the word--only a letter,
or sign of the Living Spirit,--which, however, was indeed conceived by
every worshipper as here meeting him at the temple gate: the Word of
Life, the King of Glory, and the Lord of Hosts.
[Footnote 57: See account, and careful drawing of it, in Viollet le
Duc--article "Christ," Dict. of Architecture, iii. 245.]
"Dominus Virtutum," "Lord of Virtues,"[58] is the best single rendering
of the idea conveyed to a well-taught disciple in the thirteenth
century by the words of the twenty-fourth Psalm.
[Footnote 58: See the circle of the Powers of the Heavens in the
Byzantine rendering. I. Wisdom; II. Thrones; III. Dominations; IV.
Angels; V. Archangels; VI. Virtues; VII. Potentates; VIII. Princes;
IX. Seraphim. In the Gregorian order, (Dante, Par. xxviii., Cary's
note,) the Angels and Archangels are separated, giving altogether nine
orders, but not ranks. Note that in the Byzantine circle the cherubim
are first, and that it is the strength of the Virtues which calls on
the dead to rise ('St. Mark's Rest,' p. 97, and pp. 158-159).]
37. Under the feet of His apostles, therefore, in the quatrefoil
medallions of the foundation, are represented the virtues which each
Apostle taught, or in his life manifested;--it may have been, sore
tried, and failing in the very strength of the character which he
afterwards perfected. Thus St. Peter, denying in fear, is afterwards
the Apostle of courage; and St. John, who, with his brother, would
have burnt the inhospitable village, is afterwards the Apostle of
love. Understanding this, you see that in the sides of the porch, the
apostles with their special virtues stand thus in opposite ranks.
Now you see how these virtues answer to each other in their opposite
ranks. Remember the left-hand side is always the first, and see how
the left-hand virtues lead to the right hand:--
Courage to Faith.
Patience to Hope.
Gentillesse to Charity.
Love to Chastity.
Obedience to Wisdom.
Perseverance to Humility.
38. Note farther that the Apostles are all tranquil, nearly all with
books, some with crosses, but all with the same message,--"Peace be to
this house. And if the Son of Peace be there," etc.[59]
[Footnote 59: The modern slang name for a priest, among the mob of
France, is a 'Pax Vobiscum,' or shortly, a Vobiscum.]
ST. PAUL, Faith. Courage, ST. PETER.
ST. JAMES THE BISHOP, Hope. Patience, ST. ANDREW.
ST. PHILIP, Charity. Gentillesse, ST. JAMES.
ST. BARTHOLOMEW, Chastity. Love, ST. JOHN.
ST. THOMAS, Wisdom. Obedience, ST. MATTHEW.
ST. JUDE, Humility. Perseverance, ST. SIMON.
But the Prophets--all seeking, or wistful, or tormented, or wondering,
or praying, except only Daniel. The _most_ tormented is Isaiah;
spiritually sawn asunder. No scene of his martyrdom below, but his
seeing the Lord in His temple, and yet feeling he had unclean lips.
Jeremiah also carries his cross--but more serenely.
39. And now, I give in clear succession, the order of the statues of
the whole front, with the subjects of the quatrefoils beneath each of
them, marking the upper quatrefoil A, the lower B. The six prophets
who stand at the angles of the porches, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum,
Zephaniah, and Haggai, have each of them four quatrefoils, marked, A
and C the upper ones, B and D the lower.
Beginning, then, on the left-hand side of the central porch, and
reading outwards, you have--
1. ST. PETER.
A. Courage.
B. Cowardice.
2. ST. ANDREW.
A. Patience.
B. Anger.
3. ST. JAMES.
A. Gentillesse.
B. Churlishness.
4. ST. JOHN.
A. Love.
B. Discord.
5. ST. MATTHEW.
A. Obedience.
B. Rebellion.
6. ST. SIMON.
A. Perseverance.
B. Atheism.
Now, right-hand side of porch, reading outwards:
7. ST. PAUL.
A. Faith.
B. Idolatry.
8. ST. JAMES, BISHOP.
A. Hope.
B. Despair.
9. ST. PHILIP.
A. Charity.
B. Avarice.
10. ST. BARTHOLOMEW.
A. Chastity.
B. Lust.
11. ST. THOMAS.
A. Wisdom.
B. Folly.
12. ST. JUDE.
A. Humility.
B. Pride.
Now, left-hand side again--the two outermost statues:
13. ISAIAH.
A. "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne." vi. 1.
B. "Lo, this hath touched thy lips." vi. 7.
14. JEREMIAH.
A. The Burial of the Girdle. xiii. 4, 5.
B. The Breaking of the Yoke. xxviii. 10.
Right-hand side:
15. EZEKIEL.
A. Wheel within wheel. i. 16.
B. "Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem." xxi. 2.
16. DANIEL.
A. "He hath shut the lions' mouths." vi. 22.
B. "In the same hour came forth fingers
of a man's hand." v. 5.
40. Now, beginning on the left-hand side (southern side)
of the entire façade, and reading it straight across, not turning into
the porches at all except for the paired quatrefoils:
17. HOSEA.
A. "So I bought her to me with fifteen
pieces of silver." iii. 2.
B. "So will I also be for thee." iii. 3.
18. JOEL.
A. The Sun and Moon lightless. ii. 10.
B. The Fig-tree and Vine leafless. i. 7.
19. AMOS.
To The {A. "The Lord will cry from Zion." i. 2.
front {B. "The habitations of the shepherds
shall mourn." i. 2.
Inside {C. The Lord with the mason's line. vii. 8.
porch {D. The place where it rained not. iv. 7.
20. OBADIAH.
Inside {A. "I hid them in a cave." 2 Kings xviii. 13.
porch {B. He fell on his face. xviii. 7.
To the {C. The captain of fifty.
front {D. The messenger.
21. JONAH.
A. Escaped from the sea.
B. Under the gourd.
22. MICAH.
To the {A. The Tower of the Flock. iv. 8.
front {B. Each shall rest, and "none shall make
them afraid." iv. 4.
Inside {C. Swords into ploughshares. iv. 3.
porch {D. Spears into pruning-hooks. iv. 3.
23. NAHUM.
Inside {A. None shall look back. ii. 8.
porch {B. The burden of Nineveh. i. 1.
To the {C. Thy princes and thy great ones. iii. 17.
front {D. Untimely figs. iii. 12.
24. HABAKKUK.
A. "I will watch to see what he will say," ii. 1.
B. The ministry to Daniel.
25. ZEPHANIAH.
To the {A. The Lord strikes Ethiopia. ii. 12.
front {B. The Beasts in Nineveh. ii. 15.
Inside {C. The Lord visits Jerusalem. i. 12.
porch {D. The Hedgehog and Bittern.[60] ii. 14.
26. HAGGAI.
Inside {A. The houses of the princes, _ornées de
porch lambris_. i. 4.
{B. The heaven is stayed from dew. i. 10.
To the {C. The Lord's temple desolate. i. 4.
front {D. "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts." i. 7.
27. ZECHARIAH.
A. The lifting up of iniquity. v. 6-9.
B. The angel that spake to me. iv. 1.
28. MALACHI.
A. "Ye have wounded the Lord." ii. 17.
B. This commandment is to _you_. ii. 1.
[Footnote 60: See the Septuagint version.]
41. Having thus put the sequence of the statues and their quatrefoils
briefly before the spectator--(in case the railway time presses, it
may be a kindness to him to note that if he walks from the east end of
the cathedral down the street to the south, Rue St. Denis, it takes
him by the shortest line to the station)--I will begin again with St.
Peter, and interpret the sculptures in the quatrefoils a little more
fully. Keeping the fixed numerals for indication of the statues, St.
Peter's quatrefoils will be 1 A and 1 B, and Malachi's 28 A and 28 B.
1, A. COURAGE, with a leopard on his shield; the French and
English agreeing in the reading of that symbol, down
to the time of the Black Prince's leopard coinage in
Aquitaine.[61]
[Footnote 61: For a list of the photographs of the quatrefoils
described in this chapter, see the appendices at the end of this
volume.]
2, B. COWARDICE, a man frightened at an animal darting out
of a thicket, while a bird sings on. The coward has
not the heart of a thrush.
2, A. PATIENCE, holding a shield with a bull on it (never giving
back).[62]
[Footnote 62: In the cathedral of Laon there is a pretty compliment
paid to the oxen who carried the stones of its tower to the hill-top
it stands on. The tradition is that they harnessed themselves,--but
tradition does not say how an ox can harness himself even if he had a
mind. Probably the first form of the story was only that they went
joyfully, "lowing as they went." But at all events their statues are
carved on the height of the tower, eight, colossal, looking from its
galleries across the plains of France. See drawing in Viollet le Duc,
under article "Clocher."]
2, B. ANGER, a woman stabbing a man with a sword. Anger
is essentially a feminine vice--a man, worth calling so,
may be driven to fury or insanity by _indignation_,
(compare the Black Prince at Limoges,) but not by
anger. Fiendish enough, often so--"Incensed with
indignation, Satan stood, _unterrified_--" but in that last
word is the difference, there is as much fear in Anger,
as there is in Hatred.
3, A. GENTILLESSE, bearing shield with a lamb.
3, B. CHURLISHNESS, again a woman, kicking over her cup-bearer.
The final forms of ultimate French churlishness
being in the feminine gestures of the Cancan.
See the favourite prints in shops of Paris.
4, A. LOVE; the Divine, not human love: "I in them, and
Thou in me." Her shield bears a tree with many
branches grafted into its cut-off stem: "In those days
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself."
4, B. DISCORD, a wife and husband quarrelling. She has
dropped her distaff (Amiens wool manufacture, see farther
on--9, A.)
5, A. OBEDIENCE, bears shield with camel. Actually the most
disobedient and ill-tempered of all serviceable beasts,--yet
passing his life in the most painful service. I do
not know how far his character was understood by the
northern sculptor; but I believe he is taken as a type
of burden-bearing, without joy or sympathy, such as
the horse has, and without power of offence, such as the
ox has. His bite is bad enough, (see Mr. Palgrave's
account of him,) but presumably little known of at
Amiens, even by Crusaders, who would always ride
their own war-horses, or nothing.
5, B. REBELLION, a man snapping his fingers at his Bishop.
(As Henry the Eighth at the Pope,--and the modern
French and English cockney at all priests whatever.)
6, A. PERSEVERENCE, the grandest spiritual form of the virtue
commonly called 'Fortitude.' Usually, overcoming
or tearing a lion; here, _caressing_ one, and _holding_ her
crown. "Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man
take thy crown."
6, B. ATHEISM, leaving his shoes at the church door. The infidel
fool is always represented in twelfth and thirteenth
century MS. as barefoot--the Christian having "his
feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace."
Compare "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O
Prince's Daughter!"
7, A. FAITH, holding cup with cross above it, her accepted
symbol throughout ancient Europe. It is also an enduring
one, for, all differences of Church put aside, the
words, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
Drink His blood, ye have no life in you," remain in
their mystery, to be understood only by those who have
learned the sacredness of food, in all times and places,
and the laws of life and spirit, dependent on its acceptance,
refusal, and distribution.
7, B. IDOLATRY, kneeling to a monster. The _contrary_ of
Faith--not _want_ of Faith. Idolatry is faith in the
wrong thing, and quite distinct from Faith in _No_ thing
(6, B), the "Dixit Insipiens." Very wise men may be
idolaters, but they cannot be atheists.
8, A. HOPE, with Gonfalon Standard and _distant_ crown; as
opposed to the constant crown of Fortitude (6, A).
The Gonfalon (Gund, war, fahr, standard, according
to Poitevin's dictionary), is the pointed ensign of forward
battle; essentially sacred; hence the constant
name "Gonfaloniere" of the battle standard-bearers of
the Italian republics.
Hope has it, because she fights forward always to her
aim, or at least has the joy of seeing it draw nearer.
Faith and Fortitude wait, as St. John in prison, but unoffended.
Hope is, however, put under St. James, because
of the 7th and 8th verses of his last chapter, ending
"Stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh." It is he who examines Dante on the
nature of Hope. 'Par.,' c. xxv., and compare Cary's
notes.
8, B. DESPAIR, stabbing himself. Suicide not thought heroic
or sentimental in the 13th century; and no Gothic
Morgue built beside Somme.
9, A. CHARITY, bearing shield with woolly ram, and giving a
mantle to a naked beggar. The old wool manufacture
of Amiens having this notion of its purpose--namely,
to clothe the poor first, the rich afterwards. No nonsense
talked in those days about the evil consequences
of indiscriminate charity.
9, B. AVARICE, with coffer and money. The modern, alike
English and Amienois, notion of the Divine consummation
of the wool manufacture.
10, A. CHASTITY, shield with the Phoenix.[63]
[Footnote 63: For the sake of comparing the pollution, and reversal of
its once glorious religion, in the modern French mind, it is worth the
reader's while to ask at M. Goyer's (Place St. Denis) for the 'Journal
de St. Nicholas' for 1880, and look at the 'Phénix,' as drawn on p.
610. The story is meant to be moral, and the Phoenix there
represents Avarice, but the entire destruction of all sacred and
poetical tradition in a child's mind by such a picture is an
immorality which would neutralize a year's preaching. To make it worth
M. Goyer's while to show you the number, buy the one with 'les
conclusions de Jeanie' in it, p. 337: the church scene (with dialogue)
in the text is lovely.]
10, B. LUST, a too violent kiss.
11, A. WISDOM, shield with, I think, an eatable root; meaning
temperance, as the beginning of wisdom.
11, B. FOLLY, the ordinary type used in all early Psalters, of
a glutton, armed with a club. Both this vice and
virtue are the earthly wisdom and folly, completing
the spiritual wisdom and folly opposite under St.
Matthew. Temperance, the complement of Obedience,
and Covetousness, with violence, that of Atheism.
12, A. HUMILITY, shield with dove.
12, B. PRIDE, falling from his horse.
42. All these quatrefoils are rather symbolic than representative;
and, since their purpose was answered enough if their sign was
understood, they have been entrusted to a more inferior workman than
the one who carved the now sequent series under the Prophets. Most of
these subjects represent an historical fact, or a scene spoken of by
the prophet as a real vision; and they have in general been executed
by the ablest hands at the architect's command.
With the interpretation of these, I have given again the name of the
prophet whose life or prophecy they illustrate.
13. ISAIAH.
13, A. "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne" (vi. I).
The vision of the throne "high and lifted up"
between seraphim.
13, B. "Lo, this hath touched thy lips" (vi. 7).
The Angel stands before the prophet, and holds,
or rather held, the coal with tongs, which have been
finely undercut, but are now broken away, only a
fragment remaining in his hand.
14. JEREMIAH.
14, A. The burial of the girdle (xiii. 4, 5).
The prophet is digging by the shore of Euphrates,
represented by vertically winding furrows down the
middle of the tablet. Note, the translation should be
"hole in the ground," not "rock."
14, B. The breaking of the yoke (xxviii. 10).
From the prophet Jeremiah's neck; it is here
represented as a doubled and redoubled chain.
15. EZEKIEL.
15, A. Wheel within wheel (i. 16).
The prophet sitting; before him two wheels of
equal size, one involved in the ring of the other.
15, B. "Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem" (xxi. 2).
The prophet before the gate of Jerusalem.
16. DANIEL.
16, A. "He hath shut the lions' mouths" (vi. 22).
Daniel holding a book, the lions treated as heraldic
supporters. The subject is given with more
animation farther on in the series (24, B).
16, B. "In the same hour came forth fingers of a Man's hand" (v. 5).
Belshazzar's feast represented by the king alone,
seated at a small oblong table. Beside him the youth
Daniel, looking only fifteen or sixteen, graceful and
gentle, interprets. At the side of the quatrefoil,
out of a small wreath of cloud, comes a small bent
hand, writing, as if with a pen upside down on a piece
of Gothic wall.[64]
For modern bombast as opposed to old simplicity,
compare the Belshazzar's feast of John Martin!
[Footnote 64: I fear this hand has been broken since I described it; at
all events, it is indistinguishably shapeless in the photograph (No. 9
of the series).]
43. The next subject begins the series of the minor prophets.
17. HOSEA.
17, A. "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver and
an homer of barley" (iii. 2).
The prophet pouring the grain and the silver into
the lap of the woman, "beloved of her friend." The
carved coins are each wrought with the cross, and, I
believe, legend of the French contemporary coin.
17, B. "So will I also be for thee" (iii. 3).
He puts a ring on her finger.
18. JOEL.
18, A. The sun and moon lightless (ii. 10).
The sun and moon as two small flat pellets, up in
the external moulding.
18, B. The barked fig-tree and waste vine (i. 7).
Note the continual insistance on the blight of vegetation
as a Divine punishment, 19 D.
19. AMOS.
_To the front._
19, A. "The Lord will cry from Zion" (i. 2).
Christ appears with crossletted nimbus.
19, B. "The habitations of the shepherds shall mourn" (i. 2).
Amos with the shepherd's hooked or knotted staff,
and wicker-worked bottle, before his tent. (Architecture
in right-hand foil restored.)
_Inside Porch._
19, C. The Lord with the mason's line (vii. 8).
Christ, again here, and henceforward always, with
crosslet nimbus, has a large trowel in His hand, which
He lays on the top of a half-built wall. There seems
a line twisted round the handle.
19, D. The place where it rained not (iv. 7).
Amos is gathering the leaves of the fruitless vine,
to feed the sheep, who find no grass. One of the
finest of the reliefs.
20. OBADIAH.
_Inside Porch._
20, A. "I hid them in a cave" (1 Kings xviii. 13).
Three prophets at the mouth of a well, to whom
Obadiah brings loaves.
20, B. "He fell on his face" (xviii. 7).
He kneels before Elijah, who wears his rough
mantle.
_To the front._
20, C. The captain of fifty.
Elijah (?) speaking to an armed man under a tree.
20, D. The Messenger.
A messenger on his knees before a king. I cannot
interpret these two scenes (20, C and 20, D).
The uppermost _may_ mean the dialogue of Elijah
with the captains (2 Kings i. 2), and the lower one,
the return of the messengers (2 Kings i. 5).
21. JONAH.
21, A. Escaped from the sea.
21, B. Under the gourd. A small grasshopper-like beast
gnawing the gourd stem. I should like to know
what insects _do_ attack the Amiens gourds. This may
be an entomological study, for aught we know.
22. MICAH.
_To the front._
22, A. The Tower of the Flock (iv. 8).
The tower is wrapped in clouds, God appearing
above it.
22, B. Each shall rest and "none shall make them afraid" (iv. 4).
A man and his wife "under his vine and fig-tree."
_Inside Porch._
22, C. "Swords into ploughshares" (iv. 3).
Nevertheless, two hundred years after these medallions
were cut, the sword manufacture had become a
staple in Amiens! Not to her advantage.
22, D. "Spears into pruning-hooks" (iv. 3).
23. NAHUM.
_Inside Porch._
23, A. "None shall look back" (ii. 8).
23, B. The Burden of Nineveh (i. I).[65]
[Footnote 65: The statue of the prophet, above, is the grandest of the
entire series; and note especially the "diadema" of his own luxuriant
hair plaited like a maiden's, indicating the Achillean force of this
most terrible of the prophets. (Compare 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter LXV.,
page 157.) For the rest, this long flowing hair was always one of the
insignia of the Frankish kings, and their way of dressing both hair
and beard may be seen more nearly and definitely in the
angle-sculptures of the long font in the north transept, the most
interesting piece of work in the whole cathedral, in an antiquarian
sense, and of much artistic value also. (See ante chap. ii. p. 45.)]
_To the front._
23, C. "Thy Princes and thy great ones" (iii. 17).
23, A, B, and C, are all incapable of sure interpretation. The
prophet in A is pointing down to a little hill, said by
the Père Rozé to be covered with grasshoppers. I
can only copy what he says of them.
23, D. "Untimely figs" (iii. 12).
Three people beneath a fig-tree catch its falling
fruit in their mouths.
24. HABAKKUK.
24, A. "I will watch to see what he will say unto me" (ii. 1).
The prophet is writing on his tablet to Christ's
dictation.
24, B. The ministry to Daniel.
The traditional visit to Daniel. An angel carries
Habakkuk by the hair of his head; the prophet
has a loaf of bread in each hand. They break
through the roof of the cave. Daniel is stroking one
young lion on the back; the head of another is thrust
carelessly under his arm. Another is gnawing
bones in the bottom of the cave.
25. ZEPHANIAH.
_To the front._
25, A. The Lord strikes Ethiopia (ii. 12).
Christ striking a city with a sword. Note that all
violent actions are in these bas-reliefs feebly or ludicrously
expressed; quiet ones always right.
25, B. The beasts in Nineveh (ii. 15).
Very fine. All kinds of crawling things among
the tottering walls, and peeping out of their rents
and crannies. A monkey sitting squat, developing
into a demon, reverses the Darwinian theory.
_Inside porch._
25, C. The Lord visits Jerusalem (i. 12).
Christ passing through the streets of Jerusalem,
with a lantern in each hand.
25, D. The Hedgehog and Bittern[66] (ii. 14).
With a singing bird in a cage in the window.
[Footnote 66: See ante p. 117, note.]
26. HAGGAI.
_Inside Porch._
26, A. The houses of the princes, _ornées de lambris_ (i. 4).
A perfectly built house of square stones gloomily
strong, the grating (of a prison?) in front of foundation.
26, B. The Heaven is stayed from dew (i. 10).
The heavens as a projecting mass, with stars, sun,
and moon on surface. Underneath, two withered
trees.
_To the front._
26, C. The Lord's temple desolate (i. 4).
The falling of the temple, "not one stone left on
another," grandly loose. Square stones again. Examine
the text (i. 6).
26, D. "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts" (i. 7).
Christ pointing up to His ruined temple.
27. ZECHARIAH.
27, A. The lifting up of Iniquity (v. 6 to 9).
Wickedness in the Ephah.
27, B. "The angel that spake to me" (iv. 1).
The prophet almost reclining, a glorious winged
angel hovering out of cloud.
28. MALACHI.
28, A. "Ye have wounded the Lord" (ii. 17).
The priests are thrusting Christ through with a
barbed lance, whose point comes out at His back.
28, B. "This commandment is to _you_" (ii. 1).
In these panels, the undermost is often introductory
to the one above, an illustration of it. It is perhaps
chapter i. verse 6, that is meant to be spoken here by
the sitting figure of Christ, to the indignant priests.
44. With this bas-relief terminates the series of sculpture in
illustration of Apostolic and Prophetic teaching, which constitutes
what I mean by the "Bible" of Amiens. But the two lateral porches
contain supplementary subjects necessary for completion of the
pastoral and traditional teaching addressed to her people in that day.
The Northern Porch, dedicated to her first missionary St. Firmin, has
on its central pier his statue; above, on the flat field of the back
of the arch, the story of the finding of his body; on the sides of the
porch, companion saints and angels in the following order:--
CENTRAL STATUE.
ST. FIRMIN.
_Southern (left) side._
41. St. Firmin the Confessor.
42. St. Domice.
43. St. Honoré.
44. St. Salve.
45. St. Quentin.
46. St. Gentian.
_Northern (right) side._
47. St. Geoffroy.
48. An angel.
49. St. Fuscien, martyr.
50. St. Victoric, martyr.
51. An angel.
52. St. Ulpha.
45. Of these saints, excepting St. Firmin and St. Honoré, of whom I have
already spoken,[67] St. Geoffroy is more real for us than the rest; he
was born in the year of the battle of Hastings, at Molincourt in the
Soissonais, and was Bishop of Amiens from 1104 to 1150. A man of
entirely simple, pure, and right life: one of the severest of ascetics,
but without gloom--always gentle and merciful. Many miracles are
recorded of him, but all indicating a tenour of life which was chiefly
miraculous by its justice and peace. Consecrated at Rheims, and attended
by a train of other bishops and nobles to his diocese, he dismounts from
his horse at St. Acheul, the place of St. Firmin's first tomb, and walks
barefoot to his cathedral, along the causeway now so defaced: at another
time he walks barefoot from Amiens to Picquigny to ask from the Vidame
of Amiens the freedom of the Chatelain Adam. He maintained the
privileges of the citizens, with the help of Louis le Gros, against the
Count of Amiens, defeated him, and razed his castle; nevertheless, the
people not enough obeying him in the order of their life, he blames his
own weakness, rather than theirs, and retires to the Grande Chartreuse,
holding himself unfit to be their bishop. The Carthusian superior
questioning him on his reasons for retirement, and asking if he had ever
sold the offices of the Church, the Bishop answered, "My father, my
hands are pure of simony, but I have a thousand times allowed myself to
be seduced by praise."
[Footnote 67: See ante Chap. I., pp. 5-6, for the history of St.
Firmin, and for St. Honoré p. 95, § 8 of this chapter, with the
reference there given.]
46. St. Firmin the Confessor was the son of the Roman senator who
received St. Firmin himself. He preserved the tomb of the martyr in
his father's garden, and at last built a church over it, dedicated to
our Lady of martyrs, which was the first episcopal seat of Amiens, at
St. Acheul, spoken of above. St. Ulpha was an Amienoise girl, who
lived in a chalk cave above the marshes of the Somme;--if ever Mr.
Murray provides you with a comic guide to Amiens, no doubt the
enlightened composer of it will count much on your enjoyment of the
story of her being greatly disturbed at her devotions by the frogs,
and praying them silent. You are now, of course, wholly superior to
such follies, and are sure that God cannot, or will not, so much as
shut a frog's mouth for you. Remember, therefore, that as He also now
leaves open the mouth of the liar, blasphemer, and betrayer, you must
shut your own ears against _their_ voices as you can.
Of her name, St. Wolf--or Guelph--see again Miss Yonge's Christian
names. Our tower of Wolf's stone, Ulverstone, and Kirk of Ulpha, are,
I believe, unconscious of Picard relatives.
47. The other saints in this porch are all in like manner provincial,
and, as it were, personal friends of the Amienois; and under them, the
quatrefoils represent the pleasant order of the guarded and hallowed
year--the zodiacal signs above, and labours of the months below; little
differing from the constant representations of them--except in the May:
see below. The Libra also is a little unusual in the female figure
holding the scales; the lion especially good-tempered--and the 'reaping'
one of the most beautiful figures in the whole series of sculptures;
several of the others peculiarly refined and far-wrought. In Mr.
Kaltenbacher's photographs, as I have arranged them, the bas-reliefs may
be studied nearly as well as in the porch itself. Their order is as
follows, beginning with December, in the left-hand inner corner of the
porch:--
41. DECEMBER.--Killing and scalding swine. Above, Capricorn
with quickly diminishing tail; I cannot make out
the accessories.
42. JANUARY.--Twin-headed, obsequiously served. Aquarius
feebler than most of the series.
43. FEBRUARY.--Very fine; warming his feet and putting coals
on fire. Fish above, elaborate but uninteresting.
44. MARCH.--At work in vine-furrows. Aries careful, but
rather stupid.
45. APRIL.--Feeding his hawk--very pretty. Taurus above
with charming leaves to eat.
46. MAY.--Very singularly, a middle-aged man sitting under
the trees to hear the birds sing; and Gemini above, a
bridegroom and bride. This quatrefoil joins the interior
angle ones of Zephaniah.
52. JUNE.--Opposite, joining the interior angle ones of Haggai.
Mowing. Note the lovely flowers sculptured all
through the grass. Cancer above, with his shell superbly
modelled.
51. JULY.--Reaping. Extremely beautiful. The smiling lion
completes the evidence that all the seasons and signs
are regarded as alike blessing and providentially kind.
50. AUGUST.--Threshing. Virgo above, holding a flower, her
drapery very modern and confused for thirteenth-century
work.
49. SEPTEMBER.--I am not sure of his action, whether pruning,
or in some way gathering fruit from the full-leaved
tree. Libra above; charming.
[Illustration: ST. MARY.]
48. OCTOBER.--Treading grapes. Scorpio, a very traditional
and gentle form--forked in the tail indeed, but stingless.
47. NOVEMBER.--Sowing, with Sagittarius, half concealed
when this photograph was taken by the beautiful
arrangements always now going on for some job or
other in French cathedrals:--they never can let them
alone for ten minutes.
48. And now, last of all, if you care to see it, we will go into the
Madonna's porch--only, if you come at all, good Protestant feminine
reader--come civilly: and be pleased to recollect, if you have, in
known history, material for recollection, this (or if you cannot
recollect--be you very solemnly assured of this): that neither
Madonna-worship, nor Lady-worship of any sort, whether of dead ladies
or living ones, ever did any human creature any harm,--but that Money
worship, Wig worship, Cocked-Hat-and-Feather worship, Plate worship,
Pot worship and Pipe worship, have done, and are doing, a great
deal,--and that any of these, and all, are quite million-fold more
offensive to the God of Heaven and Earth and the Stars, than all the
absurdest and lovingest mistakes made by any generations of His simple
children, about what the Virgin-mother could, or would, or might do,
or feel for them.
49. And next, please observe this broad historical fact about the
three sorts of Madonnas.
There is first the Madonna Dolorosa; the Byzantine type, and
Cimabue's. It is the noblest of all; and the earliest, in distinct
popular influence.[68]
[Footnote 68: See the description of the Madonna of Murano, in second
volume of 'Stones of Venice.']
Secondly. The Madone Reine, who is essentially the Frank and Norman
one; crowned, calm, and full of power and gentleness. She is the one
represented in this porch.
Thirdly. The Madone Nourrice, who is the Raphaelesque and generally
late and decadence one. She is seen here in a good French type in the
south transept porch, as before noticed.
An admirable comparison will be found instituted by M. Viollet le Duc
(the article 'Vierge,' in his dictionary, is altogether deserving of
the most attentive study) between this statue of the Queen-Madonna of
the southern porch and the Nurse-Madonna of the transept. I may
perhaps be able to get a photograph made of his two drawings, side by
side: but, if I can, the reader will please observe that he has a
little flattered the Queen, and a little vulgarized the Nurse, which
is not fair. The statue in this porch is in thirteenth-century style,
extremely good: but there is no reason for making any fuss about
it--the earlier Byzantine types being far grander.
50. The Madonna's story, in its main incidents, is told in the series
of statues round the porch, and in the quatrefoils below--several of
which refer, however, to a legend about the Magi to which I have not
had access, and I am not sure of their interpretation.
The large statues are on the left hand, reading outwards as usual.
29. The Angel Gabriel.
30. Virgin Annunciate.
31. Virgin Visitant.
32. St. Elizabeth.
33. Virgin in Presentation.
34. St. Simeon.
On the right hand, reading outward,
35, 36, 37, The three Kings.
38. Herod.
39. Solomon.
40. The Queen of Sheba.
51. I am not sure of rightly interpreting the introduction of these two
last statues: but I believe the idea of the designer was that virtually
the Queen Mary visited Herod when she sent, or had sent for her, the
Magi to tell him of her presence at Bethlehem: and the contrast between
Solomon's reception of the Queen of Sheba, and Herod's driving out the
Madonna into Egypt, is dwelt on throughout this side of the porch, with
their several consequences to the two Kings and to the world.
The quatrefoils underneath the great statues run as follows:
29. Under Gabriel--
A. Daniel seeing the stone cut out without hands.
B. Moses and the burning bush.
30. Under Virgin Annunciate--
A. Gideon and the dew on the fleece.
B. Moses with written law, retiring; Aaron, dominant, points to
his budding rod.
31. Under Virgin Visitant--
A. The message to Zacharias: "Fear not, for thy prayer is heard."
B. The dream of Joseph: "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy
wife." (?)
32. Under St. Elizabeth--
A. The silence of Zacharias: "They perceived that he had seen a
vision in the temple."
B. "There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name."
"He wrote saying, His name is John."
33. Under Virgin in Presentation--
A. Flight into Egypt.
B. Christ with the Doctors.
34. Under St. Simeon--
A. Fall of the idols in Egypt.
B. The return to Nazareth.
These two last quatrefoils join the beautiful C and D of Amos.
Then on the opposite side, under the Queen of Sheba, and
joining the A and B of Obadiah--
40. A. Solomon entertains the Queen of Sheba. The Grace cup.
B. Solomon teaches the Queen of Sheba, "God is above."
39. Under Solomon--
A. Solomon on his throne of judgment.
B. Solomon praying before his temple-gate.
38. Under Herod--
A. Massacre of Innocents.
B. Herod orders the ship of the Kings to be burned.
37. Under the third King--
A. Herod inquires of the Kings.
B. Burning of the ship.
36. Under the second King--
A. Adoration in Bethlehem?--not certain.
B. The voyage of the Kings.
35. Under the first King--
A. The Star in the East.
B. "Being warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod."
I have no doubt of finding out in time the real sequence of these
subjects: but it is of little import,--this group of quatrefoils being
of less interest than the rest, and that of the Massacre of the
Innocents curiously illustrative of the incapability of the sculptor
to give strong action or passion.
But into questions respecting the art of these bas-reliefs I do not
here attempt to enter. They were never intended to serve as more than
signs, or guides to thought. And if the reader follows this guidance
quietly, he may create for himself better pictures in his heart; and
at all events may recognize these following general truths, as their
united message.
52. First, that throughout the Sermon on this Amiens Mount, Christ
never appears, or is for a moment thought of, as the Crucified, nor as
the Dead: but as the Incarnate Word--as the present Friend--as the
Prince of Peace on Earth,--and as the Everlasting King in Heaven. What
His life _is_, what His commands _are_, and what His judgment _will
be_, are the things here taught: not what He once did, nor what He
once suffered, but what He is now doing--and what He requires us to
do. That is the pure, joyful, beautiful lesson of Christianity; and
the fall from that faith, and all the corruptions of its abortive
practice, may be summed briefly as the habitual contemplation of
Christ's death instead of His Life, and the substitution of His past
suffering for our present duty.
53. Then, secondly, though Christ bears not _His_ cross, the mourning
prophets,--the persecuted apostles--and the martyred disciples _do_
bear theirs. For just as it is well for you to remember what your
undying Creator is _doing_ for you--it is well for you to remember
what your dying fellow-creatures _have done_: the Creator you may at
your pleasure deny or defy--the Martyr you can only forget; deny, you
cannot. Every stone of this building is cemented with his blood, and
there is no furrow of its pillars that was not ploughed by his pain.
54. Keeping, then, these things in your heart, look back now to the
central statue of Christ, and hear His message with understanding. He
holds the Book of the Eternal Law in His left hand; with His right He
blesses,--but blesses on condition. "This do, and thou shalt live";
nay, in stricter and more piercing sense, This _be_ and thou shalt
live: to show Mercy is nothing--thy soul must be full of mercy; to be
pure in act is nothing--thou shalt be pure in heart also.
And with this further word of the unabolished law--"This if thou do
_not_, this if thou art not, thou shalt die."
55. Die (whatever Death means)--totally and irrevocably. There is no
word in thirteenth-century Theology of the pardon (in our modern
sense) of sins; and there is none of the Purgatory of them. Above that
image of Christ with us, our Friend, is set the image of Christ over
us, our Judge. For this present life--here is His helpful Presence.
After this life--there is His coming to take account of our deeds, and
of our desires in them; and the parting asunder of the Obedient from
the Disobedient, of the Loving from the Unkind, with no hope given to
the last of recall or reconciliation. I do not know what commenting or
softening doctrines were written in frightened minuscule by the
Fathers, or hinted in hesitating whispers by the prelates of the early
Church. But I know that the language of every graven stone and every
glowing window,--of things daily seen and universally understood by
the people, was absolutely and alone, this teaching of Moses from
Sinai in the beginning, and of St. John from Patmos in the end, of the
Revelation of God to Israel.
This it was, simply--sternly--and continually, for the great three
hundred years of Christianity in her strength (eleventh, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries), and over the whole breadth and depth of her
dominion, from Iona to Cyrene,--and from Calpe to Jerusalem. At what
time the doctrine of Purgatory was openly accepted by Catholic
Doctors, I neither know nor care to know. It was first formalized by
Dante, but never accepted for an instant by the sacred artist teachers
of his time--or by those of any great school or time whatsoever.[69]
[Footnote 69: The most authentic foundations of the Purgatorial scheme
in art-teaching are in the renderings, subsequent to the thirteenth
century, of the verse "by which also He went and preached unto the
spirits in prison," forming gradually into the idea of the deliverance
of the waiting saints from the power of the grave.
In literature and tradition, the idea is originally, I believe,
Platonic; certainly not Homeric. Egyptian possibly--but I have read
nothing yet of the recent discoveries in Egypt. Not, however, quite
liking to leave the matter in the complete emptiness of my own
resources, I have appealed to my general investigator, Mr. Anderson
(James R.), who writes as follows:--
"There is no possible question about the doctrine and universal
inculcation of it, ages before Dante. Curiously enough, though, the
statement of it in the Summa Theologiæ as we have it is a later
insertion; but I find by references that St. Thomas teaches it
elsewhere. Albertus Magnus developes it at length. If you refer to the
'Golden Legend' under All Souls' Day, you will see how the idea is
assumed as a commonplace in a work meant for popular use in the
thirteenth century. St. Gregory (the Pope) argues for it (Dial. iv.
38) on two scriptural quotations: (1), the sin that is forgiven
neither in hôc sæculo _nor in that which is to come_, and (2), the
fire which shall try every man's work. I think Platonic philosophy and
the Greek mysteries must have had a good deal to do with introducing
the idea originally; but with them--as to Virgil--it was part of the
Eastern vision of a circling stream of life from which only a few
drops were at intervals tossed to a definitely permanent Elysium or a
definitely permanent Hell. It suits that scheme better than it does
the Christian one, which attaches ultimately in all cases infinite
importance to the results of life in hôc sæculo.
"Do you know any representation of Heaven or Hell unconnected with the
Last Judgment? I don't remember any, and as Purgatory is by that time
past, this would account for the absence of pictures of it.
"Besides, Purgatory precedes the Resurrection--there is continual
question among divines what manner of purgatorial fire it may be that
affects spirits separate from the body--perhaps Heaven and Hell, as
opposed to Purgatory, were felt to be picturable because not only
spirits, but the risen bodies too are conceived in them.
"Bede's account of the Ayrshire seer's vision gives Purgatory in words
very like Dante's description of the second stormy circle in Hell; and
the angel which ultimately saves the Scotchman from the fiends comes
through hell, 'quasi fulgor stellæ micantis inter tenebras'--'qual sul
presso del mattino Per gli grossi vapor Marte rosseggia.' Bede's name
was great in the middle ages. Dante meets him in Heaven, and, I like
to hope, may have been helped by the vision of my fellow-countryman
more than six hundred years before."]
56. Neither do I know nor care to know--at what time the notion of
Justification by Faith, in the modern sense, first got itself
distinctively fixed in the minds of the heretical sects and schools of
the North. Practically its strength was founded by its first authors
on an asceticism which differed from monastic rule in being only able
to destroy, never to build; and in endeavouring to force what severity
it thought proper for itself on everybody else also; and so striving
to make one artless, letterless, and merciless monastery of all the
world. Its virulent effort broke down amidst furies of reactionary
dissoluteness and disbelief, and remains now the basest of popular
solders and plasters for every condition of broken law and bruised
conscience which interest can provoke, or hypocrisy disguise.
57. With the subsequent quarrels between the two great sects of the
corrupted church, about prayers for the Dead, Indulgences to the
Living, Papal supremacies, or Popular liberties, no man, woman, or
child need trouble themselves in studying the history of Christianity:
they are nothing but the squabbles of men, and laughter of fiends
among its ruins. The Life, and Gospel, and Power of it, are all
written in the mighty works of its true believers: in Normandy and
Sicily, on river islets of France and in the river glens of England,
on the rocks of Orvieto, and by the sands of Arno. But of all, the
simplest, completest, and most authoritative in its lessons to the
active mind of North Europe, is this on the foundation stones of
Amiens.
58. Believe it or not, reader, as you will: understand only how
thoroughly it _was_ once believed; and that all beautiful things were
made, and all brave deeds done in the strength of it--until what we may
call 'this present time,' in which it is gravely asked whether Religion
has any effect on morals, by persons who have essentially no idea
whatever of the meaning of either Religion or Morality.
Concerning which dispute, this much perhaps you may have the patience
finally to read, as the Flèche of Amiens fades in the distance, and
your carriage rushes towards the Isle of France, which now exhibits
the most admired patterns of European Art, intelligence, and
behaviour.
59. All human creatures, in all ages and places of the world, who have
had warm affections, common sense, and self-command, have been, and
are, Naturally Moral. Human nature in its fulness is necessarily
Moral,--without Love, it is inhuman, without sense,[70]
inhuman,--without discipline, inhuman.
[Footnote 70: I don't mean æsthesis,--but [Greek: nous], if you _must_
talk in Greek slang.]
In the exact proportion in which men are bred capable of these things,
and are educated to love, to think, and to endure, they become
noble,--live happily--die calmly: are remembered with perpetual honour
by their race, and for the perpetual good of it. All wise men know and
have known these things, since the form of man was separated from the
dust. The knowledge and enforcement of them have nothing to do with
religion: a good and wise man differs from a bad and idiotic one,
simply as a good dog from a cur, and as any manner of dog from a wolf
or a weasel. And if you are to believe in, or preach without half
believing in, a spiritual world or law--only in the hope that whatever
you do, or anybody else does, that is foolish or beastly, may be in
them and by them mended and patched and pardoned and worked up again
as good as new--the less you believe in--and most solemnly, the less
you talk about--a spiritual world, the better.
60. But if, loving well the creatures that are like yourself, you feel
that you would love still more dearly, creatures better than
yourself--were they revealed to you;--if striving with all your might
to mend what is evil, near you and around, you would fain look for a day
when some Judge of all the Earth shall wholly do right, and the little
hills rejoice on every side; if, parting with the companions that have
given you all the best joy you had on Earth, you desire ever to meet
their eyes again and clasp their hands,--where eyes shall no more be
dim, nor hands fail;--if, preparing yourselves to lie down beneath the
grass in silence and loneliness, seeing no more beauty, and feeling no
more gladness--you would care for the promise to you of a time when you
should see God's light again, and know the things you have longed to
know, and walk in the peace of everlasting Love--_then_, the Hope of
these things to you is religion, the Substance of them in your life is
Faith. And in the power of them, it is promised us, that the kingdoms of
this world shall yet become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
[Illustration: Plan of West porches of Amiens Cathedral]
APPENDICES.
I. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS REFERRED TO IN
THE 'BIBLE OF AMIENS.'
II. REFERENCES EXPLANATORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS ILLUSTRATING
CHAPTER IV.
III. GENERAL PLAN OF 'OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US.'
APPENDIX I.
_CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS
REFERRED TO IN THE 'BIBLE OF AMIENS.'_
A.D. PAGE
250. Rise of the Franks 33
301. St. Firmin comes to Amiens 5
332. St. Martin 15
345. St. Jerome born 75
350. First church at Amiens, over St. Firmin's grave 99
358. Franks defeated by Julian near Strasburg 44
405. St. Jerome's Bible 50
420. St. Jerome dies 78 _seq._
421. St. Genevieve born. Venice founded 27
445. Franks cross the Rhine and take Amiens 7
447. Merovée king at Amiens 7, 8
451. Battle of Chalons. Attila defeated by Aëtius 7
457. Merovée dies. Childeric king at Amiens 8
466. Clovis born 7
476. Roman Empire in Italy ended by Odoacer 8
481. Roman Empire ended in France 9
Clovis crowned at Amiens 8, 27
St. Benedict born 27
485. Battle of Soissons. Clovis defeats Syagrius 8, 52
486. Syagrius dies at the court of Alaric 52
489. Battle of Verona. Theodoric defeats Odoacer 54
493. Clovis marries Clotilde 8
496. Battle of Tolbiac. Clovis defeats the Alemanni 53
Clovis crowned at Rheims by St. Rémy 9
Clovis baptized by St. Rémy 13
508. Battle of Poitiers. Clovis defeats the Visigoths
under Alaric. Death of Alaric 9
APPENDIX II.
_REFERENCES EXPLANATORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS
ILLUSTRATING CHAPTER IV._
The quatrefoils on the foundation of the west front of Amiens
Cathedral, described in the course of the fourth chapter, had never
been engraved or photographed in any form accessible to the public
until last year, when I commissioned M. Kaltenbacher (6, Passage du
Commerce), who had photographed them for M. Viollet le Duc, to obtain
negatives of the entire series, with the central pedestal of the
Christ.
The proofs are entirely satisfactory to me, and extremely honourable
to M. Kaltenbacher's skill: and it is impossible to obtain any more
instructive and interesting, in exposition of the manner of central
thirteenth-century sculpture.
I directed their setting so that the entire succession of the
quatrefoils might be included in eighteen plates; the front and two
sides of the pedestal raise their number to twenty-one: the whole,
unmounted, sold by my agent Mr. Ward (the negatives being my own
property) for four guineas; or separately, each five shillings.
Besides these of my own, I have chosen four general views of the
cathedral from M. Kaltenbacher's formerly-taken negatives, which,
together with the first-named series, (twenty-five altogether,) will
form a complete body of illustrations for the fourth chapter of the
'BIBLE OF AMIENS'; costing in all five guineas, forwarded free by post
from Mr. Ward's (2, Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey). In addition to
these, Mr. Ward will supply the photograph of the four scenes from the
life of St. Firmin, mentioned on page 5 of Chapter I.; price five
shillings.
For those who do not care to purchase the whole series, I have marked
with an asterisk the plates which are especially desirable.
* * * * *
The two following lists will enable readers who possess the plates to
refer without difficulty both from the photographs to the text, and
from the text to the photographs, which will be found to fall into the
following groups:--
Photographs.
1-3. THE CENTRAL PEDESTAL.
DAVID.
4-7. THE CENTRAL PORCH.
VIRTUES AND VICES.
8-9. THE CENTRAL PORCH.
THE MAJOR PROPHETS, WITH MICAH AND NAHUM.
10-13. THE FAÇADE.
THE MINOR PROPHETS.
14-17. THE NORTHERN PORCH.
THE MONTHS AND ZODIACAL SIGNS, WITH ZEPHANIAH AND
HAGGAI.
18-21. THE SOUTHERN PORCH.
SCRIPTURAL HISTORY, WITH OBADIAH AND AMOS.
22-25. MISCELLANEOUS.
PART I.
LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS WITH REFERENCE TO THE QUATREFOILS, ETC.
Photographs.
1-3. CENTRAL PEDASTAL. See pp. 109-110, §§ 32-33.
*1. FRONT David. Lion and Dragon. Vine.
*2. NORTH SIDE Lily and Cockatrice.
*3. SOUTH SIDE Rose and Adder.
4-7. CENTRAL PORCH.
_Virtues and Vices_ (pp. 114, 117, §§ 39 & 41).
4. 1 A. Courage. 2 A. Patience. 3 A. Gentillesse.
1 B. Cowardice. 2 B. Anger. 3 B. Churlishness.
5. 4 A. Love. 5 A. Obedience. 6 A. Perseverance.
4 B. Discord. 5 B. Rebellion. 6 B. Atheism.
6. 9 A. Charity. 8 A. Hope. 7 A. Faith.
9 B. Avarice 8 B. Despair. 7 B. Idolatry.
7. 12 A. Humility. 11 A. Wisdom. 10 A. Chastity.
12 B. Pride. 11 B. Folly. 10 B. Lust.
8-9. CENTRAL PORCH.
_The Major Prophets_ (pp. 114, 121, §§ 39, 42), _with
Micah and Nahum_ (pp. 115, 127, §§ 40, 43).
*8. ISAIAH. JEREMIAH. MICAH.
13 A. 14 A. 22 C.
13 B. 14 B. 22 D.
9. NAHUM. DANIEL. EZEKIEL.
23 A. 16 A. 15 A.
23 B. 16 B. 15 B.
10-13. THE FAÇADE.
_The Minor Prophets_ (pp. 114, 127, §§ 40, 43).
*10. AMOS. JOEL. HOSEA.
19 A. 18 A. 17 A.
19 B. 18 B. 17 B.
*11. MICAH. JONAH. OBADIAH.
22 A. 21 A. 20 C.
22 B. 21 B. 20 D.
*12. ZEPHANIAH. HABAKKUK. NAHUM.
25 A. 24 A. 23 C.
25 B. 24 B. 23 D.
13. MALACHI. ZECHARIAH. HAGGAI.
28 A. 27 A. 26 C.
28 B. 27 B. 26 D.
14-17. THE NORTHERN PORCH.
_The Months and Zodiacal Signs_ (pp. 129-131, § 47),
_with Zephaniah and Haggai_ (pp. 115, 127, §§ 40, 43).
41. 42. 43. 44.
14. CAPRICORN. AQUARIUS. PISCES. ARIES.
December. January. February. March.
45. 46. 25 C.
15. TAURUS. GEMINI. ZEPHANIAH.
April. May. 25 D.
26 A. 52. 51.
16. HAGGAI. CANCER. LEO.
26 B. June. July.
50. 49. 48. 47.
17. VIRGO. LIBRA. SCORPIO. SAGITTARIUS.
August. September. October. November.
18-21. THE SOUTHERN PORCH.
_Scriptural History_ (pp. 132-134, § 51), _with Obadiah
and Amos_ (pp. 115, 127, §§ 40, 42, 43).
*18. 29 A. Daniel and the stone. 30 A. Gideon and the fleece.
29 B. Moses and the burning Bush. 30 B. Moses and Aaron.
31 A. The message to Zacharias. 32 A. The silence of Zacharias.
31 B. Dream of Joseph. 32 B. "His name is John."
19. 33 A. The Flight 34 A. The Fall of 19 C. Amos.
into Egypt. the Idols.
33 B. Christ and 34 B. Return to Nazareth. 19 D. Amos.
the Doctors.
20. 20 A. Obadiah. 40 A. Solomon and the 39 A. Solomon
Queen of Sheba. enthroned.
The Grace Cup.
20 B. Obadiah. 40 B. Solomon teaching 39 B. Solomon
the Queen of Sheba. in prayer.
"God is above."
21. 38 A. Holy Innocents. 37 A. Herod and the Kings.
38 B. Herod orders the Kings' 37 B. The burning of the
ship to be burnt. ship.
36 A. Adoration in Bethlehem (?) 35 A. The Star in the East.
36 B. The voyage of the Kings. 35 B. The Kings warned in a
dream.
22-25. MISCELLANEOUS.
*22. THE WESTERN PORCHES.
*23. THE PORCH OF ST. HONORÉ.
24. THE SOUTH TRANSEPT AND FLÈCHE.
25. GENERAL VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE OTHER BANK
OF THE SOMME.
* * * * *
PART II.--LIST OF QUATREFOILS WITH REFERENCE TO THE
PHOTOGRAPHS.
Black Page and No.
letter Name of Statue. Subject of Quatrefoil. Section of
No. in where Photograph.
text. described.
_The Apostles._ _Virtues and Vices._
{A. Courage p. 114, § 39 }
1. ST. PETER { p. 117, § 41 }
{B. Cowardice " " }
}
{A. Patience p. 114, § 39 }
2. ST. ANDREW { p. 118, § 41 } 4
{B. Anger " " }
}
{A. Gentillesse " " }
3. ST. JAMES { }
{B. Churlishness " " }
{A. Love " " }
4. ST. JOHN { p. 114, § 39 }
{B. Discord p. 118, § 41 }
}
{A. Obedience p. 114, § 39 }
5. ST. MATTHEW { p. 118, § 41 } 5
{B. Rebellion p. 119, " }
}
{A. Perseverance. " " }
6. ST. SIMON { {p. 114, § 39 }
{B. Atheism {p. 119, § 41 }
{A. Faith {p. 115, § 39 }
7. ST. PAUL { {p. 119, § 41 }
{B. Idolatry " " }
}
{A. Hope p. 115, § 39 }
8. ST. JAMES THE { p. 119, § 41 } 6
BISHOP {B. Despair " " }
}
{A. Charity " " }
9. ST. PHILIP {B. Avarice {p. 115, § 39 }
{ {p. 120, § 41 }
{A. Chastity " " }
10. ST. BARTHOLEMEW { }
{B. Lust " " }
}
{A. Wisdom " " }
11. ST. THOMAS { } 7
{B. Folly " " }
}
{A. Humility p. 115, § 39 }
12. ST. JUDE { p. 121, § 41 }
{B. Pride " " }
_The Major Prophets._
{A. The Lord enthroned p. 115, § 39 }
13. ISAIAH {B. Lo! this hath touched }
thy lips p. 121, § 42 }
} 8
{A. The burial of the girdle p.115, § 39}
14. JEREMIAH { }
{B. The breaking of the }
yoke p. 122, § 42 }
{A. Wheel within wheel p. 115, § 39 }
15. EZEKIEL { }
{B. Set thy face towards }
Jerusalem " " }
}
{A. He hath shut the lions' }
{ mouths " " } 9
16. DANIEL { }
{B. Fingers of a man's hand p. 115, § 39}
p. 122, § 42}
_The Minor Prophets._
{A. So I bought her to {p. 116, § 40 }
{ me {p. 122, § 43 }
17. HOSEA { }
{B. So will I also be for {p. 116, § 40 }
{ thee {p. 123, § 43 }
}
{A. The sun and moon {p. 116, § 40 }
{ lightless {p. 123, § 48 } 10
18. JOEL { }
{B. The fig-tree and vine }
{ leafless " " }
}
{A. The Lord will cry from }
{ Zion " " }
}
{Façade {B. The habitations of the }
{ shepherds " " }
{
19. AMOS{ {C. The Lord with the }
{Porch { mason's line p. 116, § 40 }
{ {D. The place where it } 19
{ rained not p. 123, § 43 }
{A. I hid them in a cave " " }
{Porch {B. He fell on his face p. 124, " } 20
20. OBADIAH{
{ {C. The captain of fifty " " } 11
{Façade {D. The messenger " " }
{A. Escaped from the sea p. 124, § 43 }
21. JONAH { {p. 116, § 40 }
{B. Under the gourd {p. 124, § 43 }
}
{A. The tower of the Flock " " } 11
{Façade { }
{ {B. Each shall rest " " }
22. MICAH {
{ {C. Swords into ploughshares }
{Porch { p. 116, § 40 } 8
{ {D. Spears into pruning-hooks }
{ p. 124, § 43 }
{A. None shall look back p. 125, " } 9
{Porch {B. The Burden of Nineveh " " }
23. NAHUM { {
{ {C. Thy Princes and great {p. 116, §40 }
{Façade { ones {p. 125, §43 }
{D. Untimely figs " " }
}
{A. I will watch " " }
24. HABAKKUK { } 12
{B. The ministry to Daniel " " }
}
{A. The Lord strikes {p. 117, § 40 }
{Façade { Ethiopia {p. 126, § 43 }
{ {B. The beasts in Nineveh " " }
25. ZEPHANIAH{
{ {C. The Lord visits Jerusalem " " }
{Porch { } 15
{D. The Hedgehog and Bittern " " }
{A. The houses of the }
{ princes p. 117, § 40 }
{ Porch { }
{ {B. The Heaven stayed } 16
26. HAGGAI{ { from dew p. 126, § 43 }
{
{ {C. The temple desolate " " }
{ Façade { }
{D. Thus saith the Lord. p. 127, " }
}
{A. The lifting up of Iniquity p. 127, § 43}
27. ZECHARIAH { } 13
{B. The angel that spake to me " " }
}
{A. Ye have wounded the {p. 117, § 40 }
28. MALACHI { Lord {p. 127, § 43 }
{B. This commandment is }
to _you_ " " }
SOUTHERN PORCH--_to the Virgin_.
{A. Daniel and the stone }
{ cut without hands p. 133, § 51 }
29. GABRIEL { }
{B. Moses and the burning bush " " }
}
{A. Gideon and the fleece " " }
30. VIRGIN { }
ANNUNCIATE {B. Moses and the law }
Aaron and his rod " " } 13
}
{A. The message to Zacharias! " " }
31. VIRGIN VISITANT { }
{B. The dream of Joseph " " }
}
{A. The silence of Zacharias " " }
32. ST. ELIZABETH { }
{B. "His name is John" " " }
{A. Flight into Egypt " " }
33. VIRGIN IN { }
PRESENTATION {B. Christ with the Doctors " " } 19
}
{A. Fall of idols in Egypt " " }
34. ST. SIMEON { }
{B. The Return to Nazareth " " }
{A. The Star in the East. p. 134, § 51 }
35. THE FIRST KING { }
{B. "Warned in a dream" " " }
}
{A. Adoration in Bethlehem (?) " " }
36. THE SECOND KING { }
{B. The voyage of the Kings " " }
}
{A. Herod inquires of the } 21
{ Kings " " }
37. THE THIRD KING { }
{B. The burning of the ship " " }
}
{A. Massacre of the Innocents " " }
38. HEROD { }
{B. Herod orders the ship }
to be burnt " " }
{A. Solomon enthroned p. 133, § 51 }
39. SOLOMON { }
{B. Solomon in prayer " " }
} 20
{A. The Grace cup " " }
40. QUEEN OF SHEBA { }
{B. "God is above" " " }
NORTHERN PORCH--_to St. Firmin_ (p. 127, § 44).
{A. Capricorn p. 130, § 47 }
41. ST. FIRMIN { }
CONFESSOR { }
{B. December " " }
}
{A. Aquarius " " }
42. ST. DOMICE { }
{B. January " " }
} 14
{A. Pisces " " }
43. ST. HONORÉ { }
{B. February " " }
}
{A. Aries. " " }
44. ST. SALVE { }
{B. March " " }
{A. Taurus " " }
45. ST. QUENTIN { }
{B. April " " }
} 15
{A. Gemini " " }
46. ST. GENTIAN { }
{B. May " " }
{A. Sagittarius p. 131, § 47 }
47. ST. GEOFFREY { }
{B. November " " }
}
{A. Scorpio " " }
48. AN ANGEL { }
{B. October " " }
}
{A. Libra " " } 17
49. ST. FUSCIEN, { }
MARTYR {B. September " " }
}
{A. Virgo " " }
50. ST. VICTORIC, { }
MARTYR {B. August " " }
{A. Leo p. 130, § 47 }
51. AN ANGEL { }
{B. July " " }
} 16
{A. Cancer " " }
52. ST. ULPHA { }
{B. June " " }
APPENDIX III.
_GENERAL PLAN OF 'OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US.'_[71]
[Footnote 71: Reprinted from the "Advice," issued with Chap. III
(March, 1882).]
The first part of 'Our Fathers have told us,' now submitted to the
public, is enough to show the proposed character and tendencies of the
work, to which, contrary to my usual custom, I now invite
subscription, because the degree in which I can increase its
usefulness by engraved illustration must greatly depend on the known
number of its supporters.
I do not recognize, in the present state of my health, any reason to
fear more loss of general power, whether in conception or industry,
than is the proper and appointed check of an old man's enthusiasm: of
which, however, enough remains in me to warrant my readers against the
abandonment of a purpose entertained already for twenty years.
The work, if I live to complete it, will consist of ten parts, each
taking up some local division of Christian history, and gathering,
towards their close, into united illustration of the power of the
Church in the Thirteenth Century.
The present volume completes the first part, descriptive of the early
Frank power, and of its final skill, in the Cathedral of Amiens.
The second part, "Ponte della Pietra," will, I hope, do more for
Theodoric and Verona than I have been able to do for Clovis and the
first capital of France.
The third, "Ara Celi," will trace the foundations of the Papal power.
The fourth, "Ponte-a-Mare," and fifth, "Ponte Vecchio," will only with
much difficulty gather into brief form what I have by me of scattered
materials respecting Pisa and Florence.
The sixth, "Valle Crucis," will be occupied with the monastic
architecture of England and Wales.
The seventh, "The Springs of Eure," will be wholly given to the
cathedral of Chartres.
The eighth, "Domrémy," to that of Rouen and the schools of
architecture which it represents.
The ninth, "The Bay of Uri," to the Pastoral forms of Catholicism,
reaching to our own times.
And the tenth, "The Bells of Cluse," to the pastoral Protestantism of
Savoy, Geneva, and the Scottish border.
Each part will consist of four sections only; and one of them, the
fourth, will usually be descriptive of some monumental city or
cathedral, the resultant and remnant of the religious power examined
in the preparatory chapters.
One illustration at least will be given with each chapter, and
drawings made for others, which will be placed at once in the
Sheffield museum for public reference, and engraved as I find support,
or opportunity for binding with the completed work.
As in the instance of Chapter IV. of this first part, a smaller
edition of the descriptive chapters will commonly be printed in
reduced form for travellers and non-subscribers; but otherwise, I
intend this work to be furnished to subscribers only.
INDEX.
[_Except in the case of Chapter 1., which is not divided into numbered
sections, the references in this index are to both page and section.
Thus_ 206. iv. 51 _is to page_ 206, _Chapter_ IV., § 51.]
Aaron's rod, 133. iv. 51.
Adder, the deaf, 110. iv. 33-4.
Admiration, test of, 96. iv. 8.
Afghan war, 48. ii. 43.
Agricola, 67. iii. 21.
Aisles of aspen and of stone, 97. iv. 10.
Alaric (son-in-law of Theodoric), defeated and killed by Clovis at
Poitiers, 9; 52. ii. 49.
---- the younger, 52, ii. 49.
Albofleda, sister of Clovis, 51. ii. 48.
Alemannia (Germany) 34. ii. 19.
Alexander III. and Barbarossa, 111. iv. 35.
Alfred, King, of England, religious feeling under, 21.
Algeria, 63. iii. 13.
Alphabet, the, and Moesia, 68. iii. 22.
Alps, the, and climbing, 72. iii. 29.
Amiens. (1) History; (2) Town; (3) Cathedral.
(1) _History of_:--
early people of, and Roman gods, 4.
taken by the Franks under Clodion, 445 A.D., 7.
manufactures of, early, 2, 3.
" swords, 124. iv. 43.
" woollen, 118, 120. iv. 41.
religion, and Christianity:--
the Beau Christ d'Amiens, 90, 111. iv. 3, 36.
S. Firmin the first to preach there, 300 A.D., 5.
the first bishopric of France, 6.
the first church there, 350 A.D., 5, 6; 99. iv. 14.
under S. Geoffroy, 1104-50 A.D., 128-9. iv. 45.
(2) _The Town_:--
country round, 2.
highest land near, 14.
manufactory chimneys, 3.
railway station, 1, 3.
Roman gate near, 15.
S. Acheul, chimney of, 6, 14.
streams and rivers of, 1.
the "Venice of France," 1.
(3) _The Cathedral_:--
(a) History,--
books on, 93 n. iv. 1. 2. n.
building of, 89. iv. 1. 2.
" by whom? 97-8, iv. 12.
completion of, rhyme on the, 99. sq. iv. 12.
history of successive churches on its site, 99. iv. 14.
(b) General aspect of,--
as compared with other cathedrals, 88. iv. 1.
the consummation of Frankish character, 46. ii. 38.
the "Parthenon of Gothic architecture," 88. iv. 1.
(c) Detailed examination of,--
approaches to, which best, 92. sq. iv. 6.
apse, the, its height, 96. iv. 9
" the first perfect piece of Northern architecture, 97.
iv. 11.
choir, the, and wood-carving, 91 & n. iv. 5 & n.
façade, 108 sq. iv. 28 sq.
" the central porch,
" " apostles of, 108. iv. 29.
" " Christ-Immanuel, David, 108. iv. 28.
" " prophets of, 108. iv. 29.
" the northern porch (S. Firmin), 127 sq. iv. 44.
" the southern porch (Madonna), 131 sq. iv. 48.
flêche, from station, 3, 4; 94. iv. 7; 138. iv. 58.
foundation steps, the old, removed, 107. iv. 27.
restoration of, 107. iv. 27; 123. iv. 43.
rose moulding of, 107. iv. 27.
sculptures of, 133-4. iv. 51.
" of virtues less good than of prophets, 121. iv. 42.
transepts of; North, rose window, 95-6. iv. 8.
" " sculpture of, 125. n. iv. 43 n.
" South, Madonna on, 94. iv. 7.
Amos, figure and quatrefoils, Amiens Cathedral, 123. iv. 43.
Anchorites, early, 72, 73. iii. 29, 30.
Anderson, J. R., on purgatory, 136 n. iv. 55 n.
Angelico, scriptural teaching of, 81. iii. 46.
Anger, bides its time, 48. ii. 42.
Anger, a feminine vice, 118. iv. 41.
" sculpture of, Amiens Cathedral, 117. iv. 41.
Angoulême, legend of its walls falling, 50 n. ii. 47.
Aphrodite, 27. ii. 3.
Apocrypha, the, received by the Church, 78. iii. 40.
Apostles, the, and virtues, Amiens Cathedral, 112. iv. 37 sq.
Arab, Gothic and Classic, 63. iii. 13.
Arabia, 63. iii. 13.
" power of, 65. iii. 19.
" religion of, 66. iii. 19.
" Sir F. Palgrave's book on, 64-65. iii. 17-18.
Architecture, Egyptian, origin of, 71. iii. 27.
" literal character of early Christian, 90. iv. 4.
" and nature, 97. iv. 10.
" Northern gets as much light as possible, 89. iv. 2.
" " passion of, 97. iv. 10.
" "Purity of style" in, 88. iv. 2.
Arianism of Visigoths, 9.
Arles, defeat of Clovis by Theodoric at, 50, 54. ii. 47, 53.
Armour, early Frankish, 43. ii. 33.
Art, the Bible as influencing and influenced by Christian, 80-81.
iii. 45-6.
" all great, praise, pref. v.
" and literature, mental action of, 81. iii. 47.
Asceticism, our power of rightly estimating, 72. iii. 29.
Asia, seven churches of, 63. iii. 12.
" Minor, a misnomer, 62. iii. 12.
" religious feeling of Asiatics, 21 n.
Assyria, ancient kingdom of, and the Jews, 65. iii. 18.
Astronomy from Egypt, 71. iii. 27.
Atheism, barefoot figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 119. iv. 41.
" very wise men may be idolaters, cannot be atheists, 119. iv. 41.
" Modern: see "Infidelity."
Athena, 86. iii. 53.
Athens, influence of, on Europe, 62. iii. 12.
Atlantic cable, 61. iii. 8.
Attila, defeated at Chalons, 7.
Attuarii, 34, 38 n. ii. 18, 28 n.
Augurs, college of, 70 n. iii. 26 n.
Aurelian, the Emperor, a Dacian, 32 n. ii. 15.
Auroch herds, of Scythia, 31 n. ii. 11.
Author, the:--
art teaching of, 85. iii. 52.
Bible training of, 86. iii. 52.
on his own books, 85. iii. 52.
cathedrals, his love of, 88. iv. 1.
conservative, pref. iii.
Author, the:
discursiveness of, 47. ii. 40.
on Greek myths, 86. iii. 52.
on Homer and Horace, 86. iii. 52.
religion of, 135 sq. iv. 55 sq.
on Roman religion, 86. iii. 52.
travels abroad; earliest tour on Continent, 99. iv. 13.
" at Amiens, in early life, 107. iv. 27.
" at Avallon, Aug. 28, 82. 87. iii. 54.
books of quoted or referred to:--
Ariadne Florentina, on "franchise," 39 n. ii. 28.
Arrows of the Chace, letters to Glasgow, pref. iii.
Fiction Fair and Foul, 111. iv. 35 n.
Fors Clavigera, Letter 61, Vol. VI., p. --, 102 n. iv. 20 n.
" " " 65, Vol. VI., p. --, 125 n. iv. 43 n.
Laws of Fésolé, pref. v.
" " " 60. iii. 7.
Modern Painters, plate 73, 20.
St. Mark's Rest, 27. ii. 2.
" " 83 n. iii. 48 n.
" " 113 n. iv. 36.
Stones of Venice, 131 n. iv. 49 n.
Two Paths, 95 n. iv. 8 n.
Val d'Arno, 39 n. ii. 28 n.
Auvergnats, 10.
Avarice, modern, 111. iv. 35; 120. iv. 41.
" figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 120. iv. 41.
Bacteria, the, 13.
Baltic, tribes of the, 31. ii. 11, 12.
Baptism, not essential to salvation, 18.
Barbarossa, in the porch of St. Mark's, 111. iv. 35.
Batavians, 49. ii. 45.
Battle-axe, French, or Achon, 42. ii. 32.
Bayeux, Bishop of, surrender of Lord Salisbury to, 105. iv. 24.
Beauvais, cathedral of, 88. iv. 1.
Beggars, how to give to, 95. iv. 8.
Belshazzar's feast, 122. iv. 42.
"Bible of Amiens," meaning of title, 127. iv. 44
----, the Holy--
art, as influenced by, 80. iii. 45.
and Clovis, 50. ii. 47.
contents and matchless compass of, 85. iii. 51.
disobedience of accepting only what we like in it, 79. iii. 41.
history of, and acceptance by the Church, 77-8. iii. 39, 40.
influence of, sentimental, intellectual, moral, 79. iii. 42.
Bible, inspiration of the, 82. iii. 48.
the "library of Europe," 76. iii. 36.
literature and, 80. iii. 44.
St. Jerome's, 70. iii. 26.
study of, by the author as a child, 86. iii. 52.
" honest and dishonest, 79. iii. 42.
" one-sided, and its results, 79. iii. 41.
teaching of, general and special, 84. iii. 49.
Ulphilas' Gothic, 68. iii. 22.
the word 'Bible,' its meaning, 77. iii. 37.
quoted or referred to:--[72]
Gen. xviii. 25, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 139.
iv. 60.
Ex. xiv. 15, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward,
102 n. iv. 21 n.
Deut. xxvi. 5, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, 63. iii. 14.
1 Sam. xvii. 28, With whom hast thou left those few sheep in the
wilderness? 70. iii. 26.
Ps. xi. 4, The Lord is in His holy temple, 90. iv. 2.
Ps. xiv. 1, The fool hath said (_Dixit insipiens_), 119, iv. 41.
Ps. xxiv. Who is the King of Glory? 112. iv. 36.
Ps. lxv. 12, The little hills rejoice on every side, 139. iv. 60.
Song of Solomon vii. 1, How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, 119.
iv. 41.
Isa. xi. 9, Hurt nor destroy in all the holy mountain, 87. iii. 54.
Matt. x. 37, He that loveth father or mother more than me, 76. iii. 36.
" xvi. 24, Let him take up his cross and follow me, 79. iii. 43.
" xvii. 5, This is my beloved Son ... hear ye Him, 109, iv. 30.
" xviii. 20, Where two or three are gathered together, 90. iv, 3.
" xxi. 9, Hosanna to the Son of David, 109. iv. 31.
Luke i. 80, The child grew ... and was in the deserts, 70. iii. 26.
" x. 5, Peace be to this house, 114. iv. 38.
" x. 28, This do, and thou shalt live, 135. iv. 54.
" xvi. 31, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 177. iii. 38.
John vi. 29, This is the work of God, that ye believe him, 4.
" vi. 55, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, 119. iv. 41.
" xvii. 23, I in them, and thou in me, 118. iv. 41.
" xxi. 16, Feed my sheep, 106. iv. 26.
Rom. viii. 4, 6, 13, The righteousness of the law ... for to be
carnally minded, is death, 84 n. iii. 48 n.
1 Cor. xiii. 6, Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but in the truth, pref. v.
2 Cor. vi. 16, I will be their God and they shall be my people, 90.
iv. 3.
Eph. iv. 26, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, 48. iii. 42.
" vi. 15, Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace, 119. iv. 41.
James v. 7, 8, Be ye also patient, 120. iv. 41.
Rev. iii. 11, Hold fast that which thou hast, 119. iv. 41.
" xi. 15, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ, 139. iv. 60.
[Footnote 72: References merely descriptive of one of the sculptures of the
façade of Amiens Cathedral are omitted in this index.]
Bibliotheca, 77. iii. 37.
Bishops, French, in battle, 105. iv. 24. _See_ Everard and S. Geoffrey.
Bittern and hedgehog, 126. iv. 43.
Black's atlas, 36. ii. 24.
Black Prince, the, his leopard coinage, 117. iv. 41.
" " " at Limoges, 118. iv. 41.
Blasphemy and slang, 105. iv. 25.
Blight, as a type of punishment, 123. iv. 43.
Boden see, the, 37. ii. 25.
Boulin, Arnold, carves choir of Amiens Cathedral, 92 n. iv. 5.
Bourges, cathedral of, 88. iv. 1.
Bouvines, battle of, 105. iv. 24.
Bretons, in France, 6, 8, 11.
Britain, gives Christianity its first deeds and final legends, 32. ii. 15.
" divisions of, 69. iii. 24.
" and Roman Empire, 29-30. ii. 9.
Brocken summit, the, 35. ii. 22.
Bructeri, 34. ii. 18.
Bunyan, John, 16.
Burgundy, and France distinct, 6, 8, 11.
" extent of kingdom, _temp._ Clotilde, 52 n. ii 49.
" king of, uncle of Clotilde, 52. ii. 50.
Bussey and Gaspey's History of France, 52 n. ii. 50.
Butler, Colonel, "Far out Rovings retold," pref. iv., 35.
Byron's "Cain," 80. iii. 44.
Byzantine Madonna, 131. iv. 49.
" scheme of the virtues, 112 n. iv. 36.
Byzantium, influence of on Europe, 62. iii. 12.
Calais, road from, to Paris, 10.
Callousness of modern public opinion, 48. ii. 42.
Camels, disobedient and ill-tempered, 118. iv. 41.
Canary Islands, 63. iii. 13.
Cancan, the, 118. iv. 41.
Canterbury, S. Martin's church at, and S. Augustine, 18.
Canute, 64. iii. 16.
Carlyle, T., description of Poland and Prussia, 30 n. ii. 10.
" "Frederick the Great" quoted, 81. iii. 47.
Carpaccio, draperies in the pictures of, 2.
Carthage, 63. iii. 13.
Cary's Dante, 112 n. iv. 36.
" " 120. iv. 41.
" " See "Dante," 120.
Cassel, 36. ii. 24.
Cathedrals, author's love of, 88. iv. 1.
" custodians of, 88. iv. 1.
" different, French and English, compared with that of Amiens, 88.
iv. 1.
" plan of mediæval, and its religious meaning, 91. iv. 4.
" points of compass in, 107. iv. 28.
Catti, the, 34, 38. ii. 18, 27.
Cattle, huge, of nomad tribes, 31 n. ii. 11.
Centuries, division of the, into four periods, 26. ii. 1.
Chalons, defeat of Attila at, 7.
Chamavi, 34. ii. 18.
Chapman, George, his last prayer, 102. iv. 20-21.
Charity, giving to beggars, 95. iv. 8.
" indiscriminate, 121. iv. 41.
Charlemagne, religion under, 21 n.
Chartres cathedral, 88. iv. 1.
Chastity, Amiens Cathedral, 120. iv. 41.
Chaucer, "Romaunt of Rose" quoted on franchise, 39 n. ii. 28.
Chauci, 34, 38. ii. 18, 27.
Childebert (son of Clovis), first Frank king of Paris, 51. ii. 48.
" meaning of the word, 51. ii. 48.
Childeric, son of Merovée, king of Franks, exiled 447 A.D., 7.
Chivalry, its dawn and darkening, 43 ii. 33.
" its Egyptian origin, 71. iii. 27.
" feudal, 54. ii. 54.
Chlodomir, second son of Clovis, 51. ii. 48.
Chlodowald, son of Chlodomir, 51. ii. 48.
Christ, the Beau Christ d'Amiens, 90. 111. iv. 3, 36.
" and the doctors, 133. iv. 51.
" His life, not His death, to be mainly contemplated, 134. iv. 52.
" His return to Nazareth, 133. iv. 51.
" realization of His presence by mediæval burghers, 90. iv. 3.
" statue of, Amiens Cathedral, 108. iv. 28.
" " " " 111. iv. 36.
" " " " its conception and meaning, 134. iv. 52.
Christian," "The (newspaper), 83. iii. 48.
Christianity and the Bible, 70. iii. 26.
" of Clovis, 13.
" early, share of Britain, Gaul and Germany in, 33. ii. 15.
" fifth century, at end of, 54. ii. 54.
" Gentile, 77. iii 39.
" Gothic, Classic, Arab, 69. iii. 25.
" literature as influencing, 70. iii. 26.
" mediæval, Saxon and Frank, 21.
" modern, 17.
" modest minds, the best recipients of, 77. iii. 39.
" monastic life, 70. iii. 26.
" S. Jerome's Bible, and, 77. iii. 37.
" true, defined, 136. iv. 55.
" " " 137. iv. 57.
" See "Religion."
Church, the first French, at Amiens, 5, 6.
Churlishness, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 118. iv. 41.
Cimabue's Madonna, 131. iv. 49.
Cincinnatus, 67. iii. 21.
Circumstances, man the creature of, 58, 59. iii. 1, 3.
Classic countries of Europe, (Gothic, and Arab,) 62 sq. iii. 11.
" literature, there is a _sacred_, 86. iii. 53.
Claudius, the Emperor, a Dacian, 32 n. ii. 15.
Clergymen, modern, 17.
" protestant, 74. iii. 33.
Climate, and nationality, 9.
" races divided by, 61. iii. 9.
" and race, their influence on man, 61. iii. 9.
Cloak, legend of S. Martin's, 14, 15.
Clodion, leads Franks over Rhine and takes Amiens, 445 A.D., 7.
Clotaire, son of Clovis, 51. ii. 48.
Clotilde (wife of Clovis, daughter of Chilperic), 6, 21.
" education of, 52 n. ii. 49.
" the god of, 7, 9, 13.
" " " " 54. ii. 54.
" journeys to France, 52. ii. 50.
" marriage of, 13; 51. ii. 48.
" mother of, 52 n. ii. 49.
" name, meaning of the, 51. ii. 48.
----, daughter of Clovis and Clotilde, 51. ii. 48.
Clovis, King of the Franks, 7.
" birth of, 466 A.D., 52. ii. 49.
" character of, 13.
" death and last years of, 49 sq. ii. 44.
" family of, 51. ii. 48.
" name, meaning of the, 51. ii. 48.
" reign of, 13.
" crowned at Amiens, 481 A.D., 27. ii. 2.
" " at Rheims, 9.
" defeat of by Ostrogoths, at Arles, 50. ii. 47.
" passes the Loire, at Tours, 20.
" and the Soissons vase, 47-8. ii. 41-3.
" summary of its events, 51. ii. 49.
" victories of, (Soissons, Poitiers, Tolbiac,) 9. 21. i. n.
" " the Franks after his, 46. ii. 38.
" religion of:--
" prays to the God of Clotilde, 7, 9, 13; 54. ii. 54.
" conversion to Christianity by S. Remy, 13, 14.
" his previous respect for Christianity, 52 n. ii. 49 n.
" " " " " S. Martin's Abbey, 20.
" his Christianity, analysed, 50. ii. 47.
" Rheims enriched by, 52. ii. 49.
" S. Genevieve, Paris, founded by, 55. ii. 55.
----, son of Childeric, 7.
" " " " invades Italy, 38 n. ii. 28 n.
" " " " reign of, 7.
Cockatrice, sculpture of the, Amiens Cathedral, 110. iv. 33-4.
Cockneyism, history writing and, 13.
Cockneyism, 'Mossoo,' 38. ii. 27.
" priests and, 119. iv. 41.
Coinage, the Black Prince's leopard, 117. iv. 41.
Colchos, tribes of the lake of, 31. ii. 11.
Cologne, battlefield of Tolbiac from, 54. ii. 54.
Commerce and protestantism, 79. iii. 43.
Competition will not produce art, 90 n. iv. 4.
" " and the Franks, 41 n. ii. 31.
Constantine, Emperor, power of, 54. ii. 54.
" " lascivious court of, 67. iii. 20.
Constantius, Emperor, a Dacian, 32 n. ii. 15.
Courage, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 117. iv. 41.
Covetousness, and atheism, 119. iv. 41.
Cowardice, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 117. iv. 41.
Creasy, Sir E., "History of England," 59 iii. 5, 6.
Crecy, battle of, Edward II. fords the, 1.
Crime, the history of, its possible lessons, 12.
Cross, the power of the, in history, 79. iii. 42.
" protestant view of the, as a raft of salvation, 80. iii. 43.
Crown, the, of Hope, 119. iv. 41.
Cyrene, 63. iii. 13.
Dacia, contest of, with Rome, 30. ii. 9.
" five Roman emperors from, 32 n. ii. 15 n.
Dædalus, 101, iv. 19.
Dalmatia, 68. iii. 23.
Danes, the, 31. ii. 12.
Daniel, statue, etc., of, Amiens Cathedral, 114. iv. 38; 121. iv. 42.
quatrefoils: 'traditional visit of Habakkuk to,' 125. iv. 43.
" the stone cut without hands, 133. iv. 51.
Dante, as a result of the Bible, 80. iii. 44.
" Christian-heathen poet, 102. iv. 20.
" Virgil's influence on, 86. iii. 53.
" quoted: "Paradise" (28), 111 n. iv. 36.
" " " (125), 120. iv. 41.
Danube, tribes of the, 31. ii. 1.
Darwinism, 40. ii. 30; 126. iv. 43.
Dates, recollection of exact, 26, 33. ii. 1, 2, 17.
David and monastic life, 70. iii. 26.
" statue of, Amiens Cathedral, 109 sq. iv. 31.
Dead, recognition of the, in a future life, 139. iv. 60.
Denmark, under Canute, 64. iii. 16.
Despair, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 120. iv. 41.
Devil, St. Martin's answer to the, 17.
Diocletian, retirement of, 66. iii. 20.
Discipline, essential to man, 108. iv. 29.
Dniester, importance of the, 61. iii. 9-10.
Doctor, preaching at Matlock, 83 n. iii. 48 n.
Douglas, Bishop, translation of Virgil, 135; 86. iii. 53; 102. iv. 20.
Dove, the, a type of humility, 120. iv. 41.
" " Isaac Walton's river, 1.
Dover cliff and parade, 96. iv. 9.
Drachenfels, district of the, 35. ii. 20, 22.
Dragon, under feet of the Christ, Amiens Cathedral, 111. iv. 34.
Druids, in France, 4.
Durham Cathedral, 89. iv. 1.
Dusevel's history of Amiens, 2 n.
East, geography of the, 64, 65. iii. 17, 18.
Eder, the, 36. ii. 24.
Egypt, 63. iii. 13.
" The Flight into, 132. iv. 51.
" Idols, the fall of, in, 133. iv. 51.
" influence of, 65. iii. 19.
" and the origin of learning, 71. iii. 27.
" theology of, and Greece, 71. iii. 27.
Eisenach, 36. ii. 24.
Elbe, tribes of the, 31. ii. 11.
Elijah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 124. iv. 43.
Engel-bach, 36. ii. 24.
England, dominions of (story of C. Fox and Frenchman), 59. iii. 5-6.
" modern politics of: Afghan war, 48. ii. 43.
" " " Ireland, pref. iii., iv.; 60. iii. 6.
" " " Scotch crofters, 6. iii. 6.
" " " Zulu land, 48. ii. 43; 60. iii. 6.
" pride of wealth, 60. iii. 7.
" St. Germain comes to, 28. ii. 5.
" streams of (Croydon, Guildford, Winchester), 3.
English cathedrals, 88. iv. 1.
" character, stolid, French active, 40. ii. 30.
" language, its virtues, nobler than Latin, 105. iv. 24.
" tourist, the, 72. iii. 29.
" " " initial-cutting by, 98. iv. 12.
Ethiopia, the Lord striking, 126. iv. 43.
Europe, condition and history of, 1-500 A.D., 31. 54. ii. 13, 54.
" countries of, twelve, 63. iii. 14.
" division of, into Gothic and Classic, 62 sq. iii. 11 sq.
" " by Vistula and Dniester, 61. iii. 9-10.
" geography of, 61-65, 68, 69. iii. 9-18, 22-3 sq.
" Greek part of, 62. iii. 12.
" " imagination, and Roman order, influence of, 66. iii. 20.
" nomad tribes of, 31 & n. ii. 11.
Europe, peasant life of early, 82. ii. 13.
Evangelical doctrine and commerce, 79. iii. 43.
Everard, Bishop of Amiens, his tomb, 104. iv. 24.
Executions, ancient and modern, 48. ii. 43.
Ezekiel, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 122. iv. 42.
Faith, justification by, 137. iv. 56.
" mediæval, 90. iv. 3.
" sculpture of, Amiens Cathedral, 119. iv. 41.
" "the substance of things hoped for," 138. iv. 60.
" symbolism of, with cup and cross, 119. iv. 41.
" and works, 134. iv. 52 sq.
Fanaticism, and the Bible, 79. iii. 41.
Fathers, the, Scriptural commentaries of, 81. iii. 46.
" theology of the, 135. iv. 55.
Faust, Goethe's, 8; 35. ii. 21; 80. iii. 44.
Favine, André (historian, 1620) on Frankish character, 40. ii. 30, 32.
Feud, etymology of, 101 n. iv. 17 n.
Florence, Duomo of, 88. iv. 1.
Folly, sculpture of, Amiens Cathedral, 121. iv. 41.
Fortitude, sculpture of, Amiens Cathedral, 118. iv. 41.
Fox, Charles, his boast of England, 59. iii. 5.
" Dr., quaker, preaching at Matlock, 83 n. iii. 48.
France, Amiens and Calais, country between, 2.
" architecture of, no stone saw used, 89. iv. 2 n.
" books on: Pictorial History of, 48. ii. 43.
" " "Villes de France," 52 n. ii. 50.
" cathedrals of, the, 88. iv. 1.
" their outside "the wrong side of the stuff," 96. iv. 8.
" restoration of, 130. iv. 47.
" churches of, the first, at Amiens, 6.
" colours of the shield of, 43. ii. 48.
" early tribes of, 6, 8.
" and the Franks, 7.
" geography and geology of northern, 10.
" the Isle of, Paris, 138. iv. 58.
" Kings of (Philip the Wise, Louis VIII., St. Louis), 100. iv. 16.
" map of, showing early divisions, 8.
" Merovingian dynasty, 21.
" peoples of, divided by climates, 10.
" provinces of, 10, 11.
" Prussia, war with, 33. ii. 17.
" rivers of, the five, 8.
(See below, "French").
Franchise, 38 n. ii. 28.
Francisca (Frankish weapon), 42. ii. 32.
Frank, meaning of the word, 'brave' rather than 'free,' 37-8. ii. 27-8.
Frankenberg, 36. ii. 24-5.
Frankness, meaning of, 6; 38. ii. 28.
" opposite of shyness, 39. ii. 28.
Franks, the, agriculture, sport, and trade of, 45. ii. 37.
" appearance of, 43. ii.
" character of, 32, 44, 45, ii. 15, 35, 38.
" etymology of word, 42. ii. 32.
" hair, manner of wearing the, by, 45, 125 n. ii. 36, iv. 43 n.
" and Holland, 40. ii. 30.
" and Julian (defeated by him, 358 A.D.), 41 n. 44. ii. 31, 35.
" Kings of the, 7.
" modern, 21.
" race of, originally German, from Waldeck, 33, 36. ii. 15, 17, 24.
" religion of, under S. Louis, 21.
" rise of, 250 A.D., 7, 8; 33. ii. 17.
" settled in France, 6.
" extension of power, to the Loire, 8.
" " " to the Pyrenees, 8.
" Gaul becomes France, 64. iii. 16.
" the Rhine refortified against them, 38 n., 41. ii. 28, 31.
" tribes of, Gibbon on the, 33-4. ii. 18.
" weapons of the, Achon and Francisca, 42. ii. 32, 33.
French character, early, 8.
" " its activity, 40. ii. 29.
" " its loyalty, "good subjects of a good king," 40. ii. 29.
" " makes perfect servants, 39. ii. 28.
" " its innate truth, 52. ii. 33.
" frogs, 41. ii. 30.
" liberty and activity, 30. ii. 29.
" " equality, and fraternity, under Clovis, 47. ii. 42.
" politeness, 32. ii. 15.
" religion, old and new, 117. iv. 41.
" Revolution, "They may eat grass," 20.
" " a revolt against lies, 33. ii. 16.
" " and irreligion, 95-104. iv. 7, 23.
Froissart, quoted, 43. ii. 33.
Fulda, towns on the, 36. ii. 24.
Future life, recognition of the dead in a, 139. iv. 60.
Gabriel, the Angel, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 132. iv. 50.
Gascons, the, not really French, 10.
Gauls, the, in France, 6.
" become French, 64. iii. 16.
" meaning of the word, 29 sq. ii. 8.
" and Rome, 29. ii. 9.
Gentillesse, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 118. iv. 41.
Geoffrey, Bishop (see "S. Geoffrey").
Geometry, from Egypt, 71. iii. 27.
Germany, Alemannia, 34. ii. 19.
" and the Franks, 9; 32 n. 33. ii. 15, 17.
" and Rome, 29. ii. 9.
" domestic manners of, 38. ii. 23.
" dukedoms of, small, 34. ii. 19.
" geography of, 35. ii. 20.
" geology of, 37. ii. 25.
" maps of, 34. ii. 19.
" mountains of, 36. ii. 23.
" railroads of, 34. ii. 19.
" S. Martin, and the Emperor of, 19
" tribes, Germanic, 33. ii. 18.
Gibbon's "Roman Empire." (_a_) its general character; (_b_) references
to it
(_a_) its general character:--
contempt for Christianity, 49. ii. 44.
its errors, 72 n. iii. 29 n.
inaccurate generalization, 66 n. iii. 23-4.
its epithets always gratis, 44. ii. 34.
no fixed opinion on anything, 41 n. ii. 31 n.
not always consistent, 45. ii. 38.
satisfied moral serenity of, 37. ii. 27.
sneers of, 50. ii. 48.
style, rhetorical, 44, 45, 50; 67. ii. 35, 37; 47. iii. 21.
(_b_) references to, in present book:--
on Angoulême, its walls falling (xxxviii. 53),[73] 50 n. ii. 47.
on asceticism (xxxvii. 72), 72 n. iii. 29.
Christianity (xv. 23, 33), 77. iii. 39.
Clovis (xxxviii. 17), 49, 51. ii. 45-6, 49.
Egypt and monasticism (xxxvii. 6), 71. iii. 27.
Europe, divisions of (xxv.), 68. iii. 23.
" nations of (lvi.), 65 n. iii. 19.
Franks, the:--
" their armour (xxxv. 18), 43. ii. 34-5.
" " aspect (xxxv. 18), 45-46. ii. 36-8.
" " character (xix. 79, 80), 45-46. ii. 36-8.
" " freemen (x. 73), 41 n. ii. 31.
" " rise (x. 69), 33. ii. 17.
" crossing the Rhine (xix. 64), 41 n. ii. 31.
after Tolbiac (xxxviii. 24), 50. ii. 52.
Gnostics (xv. 23, 33), 78 n. iii. 39.
[Footnote 73: The references to Gibbon in this index are to the chapters of
his history, together with the number of the note nearest to
which the quotation occurs.]
Gibbon's Justinian (xl. 2), 32 n. ii. 15.
miracles (xxxviii. 53), 50 n. ii. 47,
monasticism (xxxvii.), 70 sq. iii. 26.
monkish character (xxxvii. 72), 72 n. iii. 29.
Roman Empire and its divisions (xxv. 29), 67. iii. 21-2.
Scots and Celts (xxv. 109, 111), 69 n. iii. 24 n.
Theodobert's death (xli. 103), 31 n. ii. 11 n.
Theodoric, government of (xxxix. 43), 54. ii. 53.
" at Verona (xxxix. 19), 54. ii. 54.
Tolbiac, battle of (xxxviii. 24), 53. ii. 52.
Gideon and the dewy fleece, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 133. iv. 51.
Gilbert, Mons., on Amiens Cathedral, 99. iv. 14.
" " " " the bronze tombs in, 103. iv. 23.
Ginevra and Imogen, 27. ii. 3.
Giotto, scriptural teaching of, 81. iii. 46.
Globe, divisions of the, 61. iii. 8.
Gnostics, 78. iii. 39.
God's kingdom in our hearts, 87. iii. 54.
Godfrey (see "S. Geoffroy").
Gonfalon standard, the, 119. iv. 41.
Gothic architecture, aim of a builder of, 89. iv. 2.
" cathedral, the five doors of a, 107. iv. 28.
" classic and Arab, 63. iii. 19.
" and Classic Europe, 62. iii. 11.
" wars with Rome, 66. iii. 20.
Goths, the: see "Ostrogoths," "Visigoths."
Gourds, of Amiens, 124. iv. 43.
Government, and nationality, 64. iii. 15.
Goyer, Mons. (bookseller), Amiens, 120. iv. 41.
Grass, pillage of, and Clovis, 20.
Greek, the alphabet how far, 68. iii. 22.
" all Europe south of Danube is, 62, 68. iii. 12, 22.
" imagination in Europe, 66. iii. 20.
" myths and Christian legends, 86. iii. 53.
Greeks, the, and Roman Empire, 31. ii. 12.
Greta and Tees, 36. ii. 24.
Guards, the Queen's (in Ireland, 1880), pref. i.
Guelph, etymology of, 129. iv. 46.
Guinevere, 27. ii. 3.
Habakkuk, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 125. iv. 43.
Haggai, " " " 126. iv. 43.
Hair, Frankish manner of wearing the, 45. ii. 36; 125 n. iv. 43.
Hartz mountains, 35. ii. 20.
Hedgehog and bittern, 126. iv. 43.
Heligoland, 31. ii. 12.
Henry VIII. and the Pope, 119. iv. 41.
Heraldry, English leopard from France, 42. ii. 31.
" Frankish, early, 40, ii. 30
" French colours, 27. ii. 3.
" " " 42. ii. 32.
" Uri, shield of, 31 n. ii. 11.
Hercules and the Nemean Lion, 87. iii. 54.
Herod, and the three Kings (Amiens Cathedral), 132 sq. iv. 50-1.
Herodotus on Egyptian influence in Greece, 71. iii. 27.
Hilda, derivation of, 51. ii. 48.
Hildebert, derivation of, 51. ii. 48.
Hildebrandt, derivation of, 51. ii. 48.
History, division of, into four periods of 500 years each, 26. ii. 1.
" how it is usually written, 12-13.
" how it should be written, pref. i. 12.
" popular, its effect on youthful minds, 12.
" should record facts, not make reflections, 70. iii. 26.
" " " " " or suppositions, 74 n. iii. 33.
Holy Land, 63. iii. 14.
Honour, of son to father, 101. iv. 17.
Hope, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 119. iv. 41.
Hosea, " " " 122. iv. 43.
Huet. Alexander, and Amiens Cathedral choir, 91 n. iv. 5.
Humanity, its essentials (love, sense, discipline), 138. iv. 59.
Humility, no longer a virtue, 59. iii. 4.
" sculpture of, Amiens Cathedral, 121. iv. 41.
Huns, the, in France, 10.
Idolatry and Atheism, 119. iv. 41.
" figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 119. iv. 41.
" and symbolism, distinct, 112. iv. 36.
Illyria, 68. iii. 23.
Immortality, 32. ii. 13.
India and England, 64. iii. 16.
Indians, North American, 51. ii. 48.
Infidelity, modern, 20, 39. ii. 28.
" " 58. iii. 2.
Ingelow, Miss, quoted, "Songs of Seven," 28. ii. 4.
Innocents, the Holy (Amiens Cathedral), 134. iv. 51.
Inscription on tombs of Bishops Everard and Geoffroy, 104. iv. 24, 26.
Inspiration of acts and words, not distinct, 83. iii. 48.
" of Scripture, modern views of, 83. iii. 48.
Invasion is not possession of a country, 66. iii. 16.
Ireland and England, 1880, pref. iii., iv.; 60. iii 6.
" tribes of, in early Britain, 69 n. iii. 24.
Isaiah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 115, 121. iv. 38, 42.
Italy, under the Ostrogoths, 64. iii. 16.
Jacob's pillow, 70. iii. 26.
Jameson, Mrs., "Legendary Art" quoted, 17, 20.
Jeremiah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 115, 121. iv. 38, 42.
Jerusalem, fall of, 77. iii. 39.
Jews, the, and Assyria, 65. iii. 18.
Jews, the, return to Jerusalem, 77, iii. 39.
" " substitute usury for prophecy, 66. iii. 19.
Joan of Arc, 29. ii. 7; 55. ii. 55; 95. iv. 7.
Joel, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 123. iv. 43.
Johnson, Dr., 101 n. iv. 17.
Jonah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 124. iv. 43.
Julian, the Emperor, rejects auguries, 70 n. iii. 26.
" " and Constantius, 41 n. ii. 31.
" " death of, 363 A.D., 75, 76. iii. 34, 36.
" " defeats the Franks, 358 A.D., 44. ii. 35.
" " refortifies the Rhine against the Franks, 38 n. ii. 28.
" " and S. Martin, 16.
" victory of, at Strasbourg, 44. ii. 35.
Justinian, a Dacian by birth, 32 n. ii. 15.
" means "upright," 32 n. ii. 15.
Kaltenbacher, Mons., photographs of Amiens Cathedral, 130. iv. 47.
Karr, Alphonse, his work and the author's sympathy with it, 22.
" " his 'Grains de Bons Sens,' 'Bourdonnements,' 33.
Kempis, Thomas à, 80. iii, 44.
Kingliness, 48. ii. 43.
Kings, the three (Amiens Cathedral), 132-4. iv. 50-51.
Knighthood, belted, meaning of, 44. ii. 34.
Knowledge, true, is of virtue, pref. v.
Laon cathedral, legend of, and oxen, 118 n. iv. 41. n.
Latin and English compared, 104. iv. 24 sq.
Law, the force of, and government, 64. iii. 15.
" old and new forms of, 48. ii. 43.
Lear, King, story of, reduced to its bare facts, 11-12.
Legends, whether true or not, immaterial, 15, 16, 18; 86-87. iii. 54.
" modern contempt for, 129. iv. 46.
" rationalization of, its value, 50. n. ii. 47.
Leopard, English heraldic, 42. ii. 31.
Leucothea, 27. ii. 3.
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, 47. ii, 42.
Liberty, and activity, 40. ii. 29.
" and "franchise," 38, 38 n. ii. 27, 28 n.
Libya, 63. iii. 13.
" and Vandal invasion, 64. iii. 16.
Lily on statue of David, Amiens Cathedral, 110. iv. 32.
Limousins, 10.
Lion, under feet of Christ, Amiens Cathedral, 111. iv. 34.
Literature and art, distinct mental actions, 82. iii. 47.
" and the Bible, 85. iii. 51.
" cheap (penny edition of Scott), 60. iii. 7.
Louis, derivation of, 51. ii. 48.
---- I., of France, 47. ii. 40.
---- VIII., 100. iv. 16.
(See "St. Louis.")
Love, divine and human (Amiens Cathedral), 118. iv. 41.
" no humanity without it, 138. iv. 59.
Luca della Robbia, 81. iii. 46.
Luini, 81. iii. 46.
Lune, the river, 2.
Lust (Amiens Cathedral), 120. iv. 41.
Lydia, 62. iii. 12.
Madonna, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 94. iv. 7.
" porch to, " " 107. iv. 28.
" three types of (Dolorosa, Reine, Nourrice), 131. iv. 49.
" worship of, and its modern substitutes, 131. iv. 48.
Malachi, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 127. iv. 43.
Man, races of, divided by climate, 61. iii. 8.
Man's nature, 58. iii. 1.
Manchester, 59. iii. 3.
Map-drawing, 60. iii 7.
" of English dominions (Sir E. Creasy), 59-60. iii. 5-6.
" of France, 8.
" on Mercator's projection, 59-60. iii. 6.
Marquise, village near Calais, 10.
Martin's, John, "Belshazzar's feast," 122. iv. 42.
Martinmas, 18.
Martyrdom, the lessons of, 135. iv. 53.
Martyrs, female, many not in calendar, 29. ii. 7.
Meleager, 31. ii. 11.
Memory, "Memoria technica," 26. ii. 1.
Mercator, 60. iii. 6.
Merovée, seizes Amiens, on death of Clodion, 447 A.D., 7, 21.
Micah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 124. iv. 43.
Millennium, the, 86. iii. 54.
Milman's History of Christianity, 68-70 n., 73. iii. 22, 26, 32.
" " " on Rome in time of St. Jerome, 75-76.
iii. 35.
Milton's "Paradise Lost," and the Bible, 80. iii. 44.
" " " quoted, 118. iv. 41.
Mind, disease of, noble and ignoble passion, 72. iii. 29.
Mines, coal, Plimsoll on, 48. ii. 42.
Missals, atheism represented as barefoot in, of 1100-1300, 119. ii. 41.
Modernism, avarice and pride of, 111. iv. 35. See "Christianity,"
"Commerce," "England," "History," "Humility," "Infidelity,"
"Philosophy," "Public Opinion," "Science."
Moesia, and the alphabet, 68. iii. 22.
Monasteries of Italy, made barracks of, 72 n. iii. 29.
Monasticism, its rise, 70-71. iii. 26-8.
Monks, type of character of, 72 n. iii. 29; 137. iv. 56.
" orders of, the main, 137. iii. 26.
Months, the, quatrefoils illustrative of (Amiens Cathedral), 130. iv. 47.
Morality, natural to man, 138. iv. 59.
" and religion, 138. iv. 58.
More, Sir Thomas, execution of, 48. ii. 43.
Morocco, extent of, 63. iii. 13.
Moses, 70. iii. 26.
" and Aaron, 133. iv. 51.
" and the burning bush, 133. iv. 51.
"Mysteries of Paris," 28. ii. 5.
Nahum, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 125. & n. iv. 43 & n.
Names, Frankish, etymology of, 51. ii. 48.
Nanterre, village of S. Genevieve, 28, 29. ii. 5, 8.
Nationality, depends on race and climate, not on rule, 64. iii. 15-16.
Nemean Lion, 86. iii. 53.
Netherlands, the, 37. ii. 26.
Nineveh, the beasts in, 126. iv. 43.
" the burden of, 125. iv. 43.
Nitocris, 29. ii. 6.
Nogent, Benedictine abbey of, 52. ii. 49.
Nomad tribes of northern Europe, 30. ii. 10.
Normans, rise of the, 31. ii. 12.
[Greek: Nous], 138 n. iv. 59 n.
Obadiah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 123. iv. 43.
Obedience, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 118. iv. 41.
Odoacer, ends Roman Empire in Italy, 8; 67. iii. 21.
Orcagna, 81. iii. 46.
Origen, 81. iii. 47.
Ostrogoths, 3. ii. 12.
" defeat Clovis at Aries, 50. ii. 47.
"Our Fathers have told us," how begun, its aim and plan, pref. iii.
" " general plan of, Appendix iii.
" " plan for notes to, 21.
Oxen, story of, and Laon Cathedral, 118. iv. 41.
" patience of, 118. iv. 41.
Oxford, the "happy valley," 92-93. iv. 6.
Palestine, 63. iii. 14.
Palgrave, Sir F., on Arabia, 64-65 & n. iii. 17-18 & n.
" " on the camel, 118-119. iv. 41.
Papacy, origin of the, 76. n. iii. 35.
Paris, church of S. Genevieve at, 55. ii. 55.
" the Isle of France, 138. iv. 58.
" the model of manners, 138. iv. 58.
" print-shops at, 118. iv. 41.
Patience, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 118. iv. 41.
Peasant life of early Europe, 32, sq. ii. 13.
Perseverance, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 119. iv. 41.
Persia, the real power of the East, 65. iii. 18.
Philip the Wise, of France, 100-101. iv. 16-17.
Philistia, 63. iii. 14.
Philosophy, modern, its manner of history, 12.
Phoenix, the, and chastity, 120. iv. 41.
Photographs of Amiens Cathedral, 117 n. iv. 41 n.; 122 n. iv. 43 n.; 130.
iv. 130. And see Appendix II.
"Pilgrim's Progress," 16.
Pillage of subjects, to punish kings, 53. ii. 51.
Plimsoll, on coal mines, 48. ii. 42.
Poets, the three Christian-heathen, 102. iv. 20.
Poitiers, battle of, 508 A.D., Clovis and Alaric, 9, 21.
" " and the walls of Angoulême, 50 n. ii. 47.
" " 1356 A.D., Froissart on, 43. ii. 33.
Polacks, the, 31. ii. 12.
Politicians, their proper knowledge, pref. v.
Politics: see "England."
Posting days, Calais to Paris, 10.
Power, motive of desire for, 74. iii. 33.
Praise, all great art, act, and thought is, pref. v.
Prayer, George Chapman's last, 102. iv. 20.
Pride, and avarice, 111. iv. 35.
" faults and virtues of, 104-105. iv. 24.
" infidelity of, and the cockatrice, 110. iv. 33; 121. iv. 41.
Priestly ambition, 74. iii. 33.
Probus, the Emperor, 32 n. ii. 15; 67. iii, 21.
Prophets, figures of the, Amiens Cathedral, general view of, 114. iv. 39.
" " " " in detail, 121-122. iv. 42-3.
Protestantism, and the study of the Bible, 80. iii. 45.
" and popular histories, 12.
" and priestly ambition, 74. iii. 33.
" and Roman Catholicism, 137. iv. 57.
" views of S. Jerome, 73. iii. 31.
Provence, early, 8, 9.
Providence, God's, and history, 13.
Psalms, the scope of the, 85, iii. 50.
Public opinion, callousness of modern, 48. ii. 42.
Purgatory, doctrine of, 136 n. iv. 55 n.
Puritan malice, 34. ii. 19.
Quaker, preaching at Matlock, 83 n. iii. 48.
Queen's Guards, in Ireland, 1880, pref. iii.
Races of Europe, divided by climate, 61. iii. 9. See "Climate."
Rachel, the Syrian, 63. iii. 14.
Railroads, modern, of Germany, 59. iii. 4.
" travelling by, I, 3.
Raphael's Madonnas, 131. iv. 49.
Rebellion, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 119. iv. 41.
Religion, definition of true, 138-139. iv. 60. (And see "Bible,"
"Christianity," "Inspiration," "Protestantism.")
" to desire the right, 82. iii. 48.
" common idea that our own enemies are God's also, 14.
" and morality, 138. iv. 58.
" natural, 102. iv. 20.
" of Arabia, 65. iii. 19.
" of Egypt, 63. iii. 13.
" Eastern and Western, Col. Butler on, 21 n.
Restoration, modern, 107 n. iv. 27 n.
Rheims, Clovis crowned at, 9.
" " enriches church of, 52. ii. 49.
Rheims Cathedral, 88. iv. 1.
" " its traceries, 97. iv. 11.
Rhine, the, refortified by Julian, 38 n., 41. ii. 31.
" " tribes from Vistula to, 30. ii. 10.
Right and left, in description of cathedrals, 107. iv. 28.
Rivers, strength and straightness, 61 n. iii. 10.
Robert, of Luzarches, builder of Amiens Cathedral, 97. iv. 12.
Roman Catholics, half Wellington's army Irish, pref. iv.
" " and Protestantism, 137. iv. 57.
" " servants, 72. iii. 29.
Roman Emperors, five, from Dacia, 32 n. ii. 15.
" " as supreme Pontiffs, 75. iii. 35.
Roman Empire, divisions of (Illyria, Italy, Gaul), 67. iii. 21-2.
" " Eastern and Western division, 67. iii. 21.
" " end of the, 66-67. iii. 20-21.
" " fall of, 31. ii. 12.
" " " and Julian and the augurs, 70. iii. 26.
" " its main foes, 30. ii. 9.
" " its true importance, 66. iii. 20.
" " a power, not a nation, 65. iii. 19 n.
Roman Empire, power of, in France, ended, 481 A.D., 4, 6-8 sq.
" " " in Italy, ended, 476 A.D., 8.
Roman gate of Twins, at Amiens, 14.
"Romaunt of Rose," quoted, 39. ii. 28 n.
Rome, aspect of the city, in time of S. Jerome, 75. iii. 35.
" gives order to Europe, as Greece imagination, 66. iii. 20.
" wild nations opposed to, 30. ii. 9.
Romsey, 3.
Rose, on statue of David, Amiens Cathedral, 109-110. iv. 32.
Rosin forest, 35. ii. 20-1.
Royalties, taxes and, 47. ii. 41.
Rozé, Père, on Amiens Cathedral, 98. iv. 13; 104 n. iv. 24 n.; 125. iv. 43.
S. Acheul, near Amiens, 128-129. iv. 45-6.
S. Agnes, character of, 27. ii. 3.
S. Ambrogio, Verona, plain of, 54, ii. 54.
S. Augustine, his first converts, 18.
" and S. Jerome, 81. iii. 47.
" town of Hippo, 63. iii. 13.
S. Benedict, born 481 A.D., 27. ii. 3; 70. iii. 26.
S. Clotilde, of France, 51. ii. 48.
S. Cloud, etymology of, 51. ii. 48.
S. Domice, 128. iv. 44.
S. Elizabeth, 132. iv. 50.
S. Elizabeth, of Marburg, 35-6. ii. 21-3.
S. Firmin, his history, 5; 99. iv. 14; 128. iv. 45.
" beheaded and buried, 5.
" his Roman disciple, 5.
" his grave, 5-6; 129. iv. 46.
" and S. Martin, compared, 17, 18.
" porch to, Amiens Cathedral, 107. iv. 28; 127 sq. iv. 44.
" sculpture of, Amiens Cathedral, 5.
---- Confessor, 128. iv. 44-6.
S. Fuscien, 128. iv. 44.
S. Genevieve, actually existed, 29. ii. 7.
" biographies of her, numerous, 29. ii. 7.
" birth of, 421 A.D., 27. ii. 3.
" birthplace of, Nanterre, 28. ii. 5.
" character of, 28, 29. ii. 5-7.
" church to, at Paris, 55. ii. 55.
" and Clovis and his father, 55. ii. 55.
" conversion of, by S. Germain, 28. ii. 5.
" a pure Gaul, 29, 33. ii. 8, 15.
" of what typical, 27. ii. 3.
" peacefulness, 29. ii. 6.
" quiet force, 29. ii. 7.
S. Genevieve, S. Phyllis, 28. ii. 5.
S. Gentian, 128. iv. 44.
S. Geoffroy, Bishop of Amiens, history of, 128. iv. 44-5.
" " " tomb of (Amiens), 104-105; iv. 24, 26.
S. Germain converts S. Genevieve, on his way to England, 28. ii. 6.
S. Hilda (Whitby Cliff), 51. ii. 48.
S. Honoré, 128. iv. 44-5.
" porch to, Amiens Cathedral, 95. iv. 7.
S. James, apostle of hope, 120. iv. 41.
S. Jerome, his Bible, 70, 76, 77, 78. iii. 26, 36, 37-40.
" gives the Bible to the West, 50. ii. 47.
" Galatians, commentary on Epistle to the, 81. iii. 47.
" character of, candour its basis, 76. iii. 36.
" childhood and early studies, 75. iii. 34-5.
" death of, at Bethlehem, 78. iii. 40.
" Hebrew, studied by, 77. iii. 38.
" not a mere hermit, 73. iii. 31.
" his lion, 86. iii. 53.
" Milman, Dean, on, 74. iii. 32 sq.
" protestant view of, 73. iii. 31.
" Queen Sophia's letter to Vota on, 81. iii. 47.
" scholarship, will not give up his, 76. iii. 36.
" style of writing shown, 81. iii. 47.
S. John, the apostle of love, 112. iv. 37.
" his greatness, 101. iv. 16.
S. Louis, religion under, 21 n.
S. Mark's, Venice, Baptistery of and the virtues, 112 n. iv. 36 n.
S. Martin, baptism and conversion of, 15.
" character of, gentle and cheerful, 17, 19.
" " patient, 29. ii. 7.
" " serene and sweet, 17.
" cloak given to the beggar by, 332 A.D., 15.
" Clovis and, 20.
" Devil, answer to the, 17.
" drinks to a beggar, 19.
" fame of, universal (places called after), 18.
" history of, how relevant to this book, 20.
" 's Lane, London, 18.
" and Julian, 16.
" Tours, his abbey there, 20.
" " and bishopric, 16, 20.
" vision of, 15.
" wine, the patron of, 18, 19.
S. Nicholas," "Journal de, 120 n. iv. 41.
S. Peter, Apostle of courage, 112. iv. 37.
S. Quentin, 128. iv. 44.
S. Remy crowns Clovis, 9.
" preaches to Clovis, 13.
" and the Soissons vase, 47. ii. 41.
S. Sauve 100, 128. iv. 14, 44.
S. Simeon, 132. iv. 50.
S. Ulpha, 128, 129. iv. 44, 46.
S. Victoric, 128. iv. 44.
Salian, epithet of the French, 40, 41. ii. 30-31.
Salii, the, 40. ii. 30.
Salique law, 40. ii. 30.
Salisbury Cathedral, 88. iv. 1.
"Salts," old and young, 41. ii. 31.
Salvation, Protestant theory of, 79. iii. 43.
Sands, English, 2.
Savage races, love of war in, 51. ii. 48.
" women, endurance a point of honour with, 51. ii. 48.
Saxons, the, 31, ii. 12.
" religion of, 21.
Scandinavia, 61. iii. 10.
" becomes Norman, 31. ii. 12.
Scepticism, modern, 13. See "Infidelity."
Science, modern, its view of man, 58. iii. 1.
Scotch crofters and England, 60. iii. 6.
Scots, Picts and, 69 n. iii. 24.
Scott, Sir Walter, his nomenclature deeply founded, 34. ii. 18.
" " novels of, "Antiquary" (Martin Waldeck), 34. ii. 18.
" " "Monastery," 72 n. iii. 29.
" " penny edition of, 60. iii. 7.
Sculpture, of a Gothic cathedral, 89. iv. 2.
" no pathos in primary, 101 n. iv. 19 n.
Scythia, tribes of, 61, 65. iii. 10, 17.
Semiramis, 29. ii. 6.
Sense ([Greek: nous]), essential to humanity, 138. iv. 59.
Servants, catholic, character of, 72 n. iii. 29.
" French, perfect, 39. ii. 28.
Severn, the, 2.
Shakspeare's Imogen, 27. ii. 3.
" "King Lear," reduced to its bare facts, 11.
" "Winter's Tale"--"lilies of all kinds," 110. iv. 32.
Sheba, Queen of, and Solomon, Amiens sculptures, 132 sq. iv. 50-51.
Shield, the, of the Franks, 44. ii. 35. See "Heraldry," "Uri."
Shyness and frankness, 39 & n. ii. 28.
Siberian wilderness, 61. iii. 9, 10.
Sicambri, 34, 38. ii. 18. 27.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 15.
Sin, carnal, the most distinctly human, 111. iv. 34.
Sin, deceit, its essence, 49. ii. 44.
" pardon of, doctrine of, 135. iv. 55.
Slang, 105. iv. 25.
" Greek, 138. iv. 59.
Smith's Dictionary, _s_, "Gallia," 29. ii. 9.
Soissons, battle of, 485 A.D., 7 n.; 9, 20, 52. ii. 49.
" vase of, 47 sq. ii. 40 sq.
" " and Clovis' revenge, 48. ii. 43.
Solomon and Queen of Sheba (Amiens Cathedral), 132 sq. iv. 50-1.
Solway, the, 2.
Sons, honour of fathers by, 101. iv. 17.
Spain, Theodoric in, 54. ii. 53.
Spiritual world, the, 138. iv. 59.
Staubbach, the, 96. iv. 9.
Stone saw, not used in France, 88 n. iv. 2 n.
Strigi, S. Jerome born at, 75. iii. 34.
Suicide and heroism, 120. iv. 41.
"Suisse Historique" quoted, 53 n. ii. 49.
Sword, belted, meaning of, 43. ii. 34.
" manufacture, Amiens, 124. iv. 43.
Syagrius defeated by Clovis, 52. ii. 49.
" dies, 486 A.D., 52. ii. 49.
Syria, 63. iii. 14.
Temperance, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 120. iv. 41.
Teutonic nations and Roman Empire, 68. iii. 22.
Theodobert, the death of, 31 n. ii. 11.
Theodoric, king of Ostrogoths, 51. ii. 48.
" defeats Franks at Aries, 54. ii. 53.
" power of, in Europe, 54. ii. 53.
" at Verona, 54. ii. 54.
Thrace, 68. iii. 23.
Thuringia, 7.
Tolbiac, battle of, 9, 21 n.
" field of, 54. ii. 54.
" its real importance, 53. ii. 52.
Tombs, bronze, Amiens Cathedral, 103 sq. iv. 23.
" " only two left in France, 103. iv. 23.
Tours, archbishop of, on war, 43. ii. 33.
" S. Martin, bishop of, 16.
Town, a modern, defined, 90. iv. 3.
Tripoli, 63. iii. 13.
Troy, 62. iii. 12.
Trupin, Jean, and choir of Amiens Cathedral, 91 n. iv. 5 n.
Truth, only, can be polished, 33. ii, 16.
" of French character, 33. ii. 16.
Tunis, 63. iii. 13.
Turner's "Loire side," 20.
Tyre, 63. iii. 13.
Ulphilas, Bible of, 68. iii. 22.
Ulverstone, etymology of, 129. iv. 46.
Uri, shield of, 31 n. ii. 11.
Usury and the church, 12.
" and the Jews, 66. iii. 19.
Utilitas, 8.
Valens, his prefecture of the East, 67. iii. 21.
Valentinian, and the division of the Empire, 67. iii. 21.
Vandals, invasion of Libya by, 64. iii. 16.
Venice, founded 421 A.D., 2.
Verona, cathedral of, 88. iv. 1.
" battle of, Theodoric defeats Odoacer, 490 A.D., 54. ii. 54.
" field of, from Fra Giocondo's bridge, 54. ii. 54.
Vestal Virgins, 70. iii. 26.
Violence, expression of, in sculptures of Amiens, 126. iv. 43.
Viollet le Duc, quoted, 88 n. iv. 1; 88 & n. iv. 2; 97. iv. 11; 103 n.
iv. 23. n.; 111. iv. 36; 118 n. iv. 41 n.; 132. iv. 49.
Vine, on statue of David, Amiens Cathedral, 110. iv. 32.
Virgil's influence on Dante, 110. iii. 53.
Virgil quoted (Æneid vi. 27 sq.), 101 n. iv. 18-19 n.
Virgin, the: _see_ Madonna.
Virtue, to be known and recognized, pref. v.
Virtues, of Apostles (Amiens Cathedral), 112 sq. iv. 37 sq.
" Byzantine, rank of, 111. iv. 36 n.
Visigoths, the, 31. ii. 12.
" " in France, 9, 10.
" " at Poitiers, defeated by Clovis, 9.
Vistula, the, its importance, 61. iii. 9, 10.
" " tribes of, from Rhine to, 30, 31. ii. 10, 12.
" " " " Weser to, 37. ii. 26.
Vobiscum," a "Pax, 114 n. iv. 38 n.
Vota, the Jesuit, letter of Queen Sophia of Prussia to, on S. Jerome,
81. iii. 47. (See Carlyle's "Frederick," Bk. I., cap. iv.)
Vulgate, Ps. xci. 13, "Inculcabis super leonem," 111. iv. 34.
Waldeck, 34, ii. 18.
Walter's houses, Germany, 37. ii. 25.
Walton, Isaac, 1.
Wandle, the, 1.
War, savage love of, 51. ii. 48.
Wartzburg, 37. ii. 24.
Wellington, Duke of, on Roman Catholic valour, pref. iv.
Weser, the course of the, 34, 37. ii. 19, 26.
" sources of the (Eder, Fulda, Werra), 36. ii. 24.
" tribes of the, up to Rhine and Vistula, 37. ii. 26.
Whitby Cliff, 51. ii. 48.
Wisdom, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 120. iv. 41.
Women, endurance a point of honour with savage, 51. ii. 48.
" respect for, by Franks and Goths, 54. ii. 54.
Wood-carving of Picardy (Amiens Cathedral), 91 sq. iv. 5 sq.
Wool manufacture, Amiens, see _s_. "Amiens."
Wordsworth quoted, "Filling more and more with crystal light," 55. ii. 55.
Yonge, Miss, "History of Christian Names," Franks, 38. ii. 27.
" " " " " Ulpha, 129. iv. 46.
Zacharias, 133, iv. 51.
Zechariah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 127. iv. 43.
Zenobia, 29. ii. 6.
Zephaniah, figure of, Amiens Cathedral, 126. iv. 43.
Zodiac, signs of, sculptures, Amiens Cathedral, 130. iv. 47.
Zulu war, the, 48. ii. 43; 60. iii. 6.
THE END.
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