CHAPTER I.
SCHISM IN FAMILIES.—THE DAUGHTER;—BY WHOM EDUCATED.—IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION, AND THE ADVANTAGE OF THE FIRST INSTRUCTOR.—INFLUENCE OF PRIESTS UPON MARRIAGE, WHICH THEY OFTEN RETAIN AFTER THAT CEREMONY.
The drama which I have endeavoured to sketch does not always, thanks be to God, go so far as the annihilation of the will and personality. One cannot well discern where it stops, owing to the dark cloak of reserve, discretion, and hypocrisy, with which this black community is enveloped. Besides, the clergy have been doubly guarded in their conduct during the present contentions.[[1]] It is out of the church, in houses, and family circles, that we must seek for what will throw the principal light upon what the Church conceals. Look well; there you see a reflection, unfortunately too clear, of what is passing elsewhere.
We have already said, if you enter a house in the evening, and sit down at the family table, one thing will almost always strike you; the mother and daughters are together, of one and the same opinion, on one side; whilst the father is on the other, and alone.
What does this mean? It means that there is some one more at this table, whom you do not see, to contradict and give the lie to whatever the father may utter. He returns fatigued with the cares of the day, and full of those which are to come; but he finds at home, instead of repose and comfort for the mind, only the struggle with the past.
We must not be surprised at it. By whom are our daughters and wives brought up? We must repeat the expression,—by our enemies, the enemies of the Revolution, and of the future.
Do not cry out here, nor quote me this or that sermon you have preached.
What do I care for the democratical parade which you make in the pulpit, if everything beneath us, and behind us, all your little pamphlets which issue by thousands and millions, your ill-disguised system of instruction, your confessional, the spirit of which now transpires, show us altogether what you are,—the enemies of liberty? You, subjects of a foreign prince; you, who deny the French church, how dare you speak of France?
Six hundred and twenty thousand[[2]] girls are brought up by nuns under the direction of the priests. These girls will soon be women and mothers, who, in their turn, will hand over to the priests, as far as they are able, both their sons and their daughters.
The mother has already succeeded as far as concerns the daughter; by her persevering importunity, she has, at length, overcome the father's repugnance. A man who, every evening, after the troubles of business and the warfare of the world, finds strife also at home, may certainly resist for a time, but he must necessarily give in at last; or he will be allowed neither truce, cessation, rest, nor refuge. His own house becomes uninhabitable. His wife having nothing to expect at the confessional but harsh treatment, as long as she does not succeed, will wage against him every day and every hour the war they make against her; a gentle one, perhaps; politely bitter, implacable, and obstinate.
She grumbles at the fire-side, is low-spirited at table, and never opens her mouth either to speak or eat; then bed-time, the inevitable repetition of the lesson she has learned, even on the pillow. The same sound of the same bell, for ever and ever; who could withstand it? what is to be done? Give in or become mad!
If the husband were firm, obstinate, and persevering enough to stand this trial, the wife, perhaps, would not resist. "How can I see her so unhappy, pining, uneasy, and ill? She is evidently growing thinner. I had much rather save my wife." Such is the language of the husband. If he be not subdued by his wife, he is by his own heart. The next day the son leaves his college for the Christian college, or the school for the little seminary. The daughter is led triumphantly by her mother to the excellent boarding-school close by, where the good abbé confesses and directs. In less than a year the boarding-school is found to be not quite good enough, being still too worldly; the little girl is then given over to the nuns, whose superior our abbé happens to be, in some convent of his, that is, under his protection and his lock and key.
Good-humoured parent, lie easy and sleep sound. Your daughter is in good hands: you shall be contradicted till your death. Your daughter is really a girl of good sense; and on every subject, having been carefully armed against you, will take, whatever you may say, the opposite side of the question.
What is very singular, the father, generally, is aware that they are bringing up his child against him. Man, you surprise me! what do you expect then? "Oh! she will forget it; time, marriage, and the world will wear away all that." Yes, for a time, but only to re-appear; at the first disappointment in the world it will all return. As soon as she grows somewhat in years, she will return to the habits of the child; the master she now has will be her master then, whether for your contradiction, in your old age, good man, or for the despair and daily damnation of her father and husband. Then will you taste the fruit of this education.
Education! a mere trifle, a weak power, no doubt, which the father may, without danger, allow his enemies to take possession of!
To possess the mind, with all the advantage of the first possessor! To write in this book of blank paper whatever they will! and to write what will last for ever! For, remember well, it will be in vain for you to write upon it hereafter; what has once been indited, cannot be erased. It is the mystery of her young memory to be as weak in receiving impressions as it is strong in keeping them. The early tracing that seemed to be effaced at twenty re-appears at forty or sixty. It is the last and the clearest, perhaps, that old age will retain.
What! will not reading, and the press, the great overruling power of our own days, give a stronger education than the former one? Do not rely on this. The influence of the press partly annuls itself; it has a thousand voices to speak, and a thousand others to answer and destroy what it has said. Education does not make so much noise; it does not talk; it reigns. Look, in that little class, without witness, control, or contradiction, a man is speaking; he is master, an absolute master, invested with the most ample power to punish and chastise. His voice, not his hand, has the power of a rod; the little, trembling, and believing creature, who has just left her mother's apron, receives his weighty words, which enter the soft tablet of her memory, and stick into it, like so many nails of iron.
This is true in speaking of the school, but how much more so as regards the church! especially in the case of the daughter, who is more docile and timid, and certainly retains more faithfully her early impressions. What she heard the first time in that grand church, under those resounding roofs, and the words, pronounced with a solemn voice by that man in black, which then frightened her so, being addressed to herself;—ah! be not afraid of her ever forgetting them. But even if she could forget them, she would be reminded of them every week: woman is all her life at school, finding in the confessional her school-bench, her schoolmaster, the only man she fears, and the only one, as we have said, who, in the present state of our manners, can threaten a woman.
What an advantage has he in being able to take her quite young, in the convent where they have placed her, to be the first to take in hand her young soul, and to be the first to exercise upon her the earliest severity, and also the earliest indulgence which is so akin to affectionate tenderness,[[3]] to be the father and friend of a child taken so soon from her mother's arms. The confidant of her first thoughts will long be associated with her private reveries. He has had an especial and singular privilege which the husband may envy: what?—why, the virginity of the soul and the first-fruits of the will.
This is the man of whom, young bachelors, you must ask the girl in marriage, before you speak to her parents. Do not deceive yourselves, or you will lose all chance. You shake your heads, proud children of the age; you think you can never be induced to humble yourselves so far. All I hope then is, that you may be able to live single, and wed philosophy; otherwise, I can see you, even now, in spite of all your fine speeches, gliding stealthily, sneaking by twilight into the church, and kneeling down before the priest. There they were lying in wait for you, and there they catch you. You had not foreseen it. Now you are a lover, poor young man, and will do whatever they wish.
I only wish that this girl, bought so dearly, may be really yours. But what with that mother and that priest, the same influence, though diminished for a moment, will soon resume its strength. You will have a wife, minus heart and soul, and you will understand, when it is too late, that he who now gives her away knows well how to keep her.[[4]]
[[1]] This circumspection would bear carrying a little farther, if we are to judge of it by the public adventures of the Abbés C. and N., who, by-the-by, will not prosper the less on this account, as two others, of high rank, and known to everybody, have already shown.
[[2]] M. Louandre gives the figure six hundred and twenty-two thousand girls, in his conscientious statistics.—Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1844.
[[3]] What is direction generally?—1st, Love before love; it cultivates in the little girl that power which is now awakening, and it cultivates it so well, that on leaving the convent, her parents see the necessity of a speedy marriage to support her, for she is in danger of falling:—2ndly, Love after love. An aged female is, in a layman's estimation, an old woman: but according to the priest's, she is a woman: the priest begins where the world ends.
[[4]] Let us add to this chapter a fact, which (being compared with what we have said about ecclesiastical discipline) inclines us to think that the clergy do not lose sight of the girls who are brought up in the convents under their direction. A friend of mine, whose high position and character render his testimony very important, lately told me that, having placed a young relation of his in a convent, he had heard from the nuns that they sent to Rome the names of the pupils who distinguished themselves the most. The centralization of such private information, about the daughters of the leading families of the Catholic world, must indeed facilitate many combinations, and be of especial service to Ultramontane politics. The Jesù, if it were so, would be a vast marriage office.