BERTHOLD IN PURGATORY.
COLLIN DE PLANCY.
Miseremini mei, miseremini mei, saltem vos, amici moi.—JOB xix.
A short time after the death of Charles the Bald, there is found in Hincmar a narrative which it may be well to introduce here; it is the journey of Berthold, or Bernold, to Purgatory in the spirit.
Berthold was a citizen of Rheims, of good life, fulfilling his Christian duties and enjoying public esteem. He was subject to ecstasies, or syncope, which sometimes lasted a good while. Then, whether he had visions, or that his soul transported itself or was transported out of his body—an effect which, is evidently produced in our days by magnetism—he made, in his ecstasies, several journeys into Purgatory.
Having fallen seriously ill when already well advanced in age, he received all the sacraments which console the conscience; after which he remained four entire days in a sort of ecstasy, during which he took no nourishment of any kind. At the end of the fourth day he had become so weak that there was hardly any breath in him. About midnight, however, he begged his wife to send quickly for his confessor. He afterwards remained motionless. But, at the end of a quarter of an hour, he said to his wife:
"Place a seat here, for the priest is coming."
He entered the moment after, and recited the beautiful prayers for the departing soul, to which Berthold responded clearly and exactly. After this he had again a moment of ecstasy; and, coming out of it, he related his several visits to Purgatory, and the commissions wherewith he had been charged by many suffering souls.
He was conducted by a spirit, an Angel doubtless. Amongst those who were being purified, in ice or in fire, he found Ebbon, Archbishop of Rheims; Pardule, Bishop of Laon; Enée, Bishop of Paris, and some other prelates, clothed in filthy garments, torn and rusty. Their faces were wrinkled, haggard, and sallow. Ebbon besought him to ask the clergy and people of Rheims to pray for him and his companions, who made him the same request. He charged himself with all these commissions.
He found, farther on, or in another visit, the soul of Charles the Bald, extended in the mud and much exhausted. The ex-king asked Berthold to recommend him to Archbishop Hincmar and the princes of his family, acknowledging that he was principally punished for having given ecclesiastical benefices to courtiers and worldly laics, as had been done by his ancestor, Charles Martel. Berthold promised to do what he could.
Farther on, and perhaps also on another occasion, he saw Jesse, Bishop of Orleans, in the hands of four dark spirits, who were plunging him alternately into a well of boiling pitch and one of ice-cold water. Not far from him, Count Othaire was in other torments. The two sufferers recommended themselves, like the others, to the pious offices of Berthold, who faithfully executed the commissions of the souls in pain. He applied, on behalf of the bishops, to their clergy and people; for King Charles the Bald, to Archbishop Hincmar. He wrote besides—for he was a lettered man—to the relatives of the deceased monarch, making known to them the state wherein he had seen him. He went to urge the wife of Othaire, his vassals and friends, to offer up prayers and give alms for him; and in a last visit which he was permitted to make, he learned that Count Othaire and Bishop Jessé were delivered; King Charles the Bald had reached the term of his punishment; and he saw the Bishops Ebbon, Enée, and Pardule, who thanked him as they went forth from Purgatory, fresh and robed in white.
After this account, whereto Berthold subjoined that his guide had promised him some more years of life, he asked for Holy Communion, received it, felt himself cured, left his bed on the following day, and his life was prolonged for fourteen years.