Notre Dame De Garaison.
In the province of Aquitaine, a short distance from the village of Monléon, among the hills of Les Hautes Pyrénées, is a valley bearing the name of Garaison, where stands a votive chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin. It is a favorite place of pilgrimage for all the country around, which has been approved of by Popes Urban VIII, and Gregory XVI., who have enriched it with indulgences. It was erected in consequence of the apparition of our Blessed Lady on the spot, about the year 1500, to a young shepherdess who was guarding her flock in the valley. The legend is as follows, somewhat abridged. It is supported by most unobjectionable witnesses at the time of the event, by tradition, and the unanimous voice of the country around; by public documents, and by the effects which followed and which still exist. As for me, however, this is of little moment, these legends not being matters of faith. It is sufficient for me to know that the spot in question is one dear to Mary and peculiarly favored by Heaven. It has been sanctified by the sighs of contrition, by the pure confessions, the fervent communions, and the sudden and miraculous conversions of those who have gone thither in honor of the Mother of our Lord.—But the legend:
A young girl of twelve years of age, Anglèse de Sagazan, was guarding her flock near a large hawthorn which shaded a fountain of living water. The deep shade and the soft murmur of the fountain invited repose, and, opening her basket of provisions, the young shepherdess seated herself by the spring to dip her dry brown bread in the clear, cold water. Suddenly a lady of majestic mien, with a serene countenance and gracious regard, clothed in a long, white robe, which fell in graceful folds to her feet, stood before the astonished maiden, who, dazzled by her appearance, remained immovable and speechless. Then our gracious Lady, who loveth the poor and the humble, declared to her that she had chosen this spot as a place of benediction, whereon she wished a shrine erected in her honor, around which her children might gather with more than ordinary assurance. This apparition occurring three days in succession, the maiden related to her father what had happened. He, in turn, reported the occurrence among his neighbors, who were quite incredulous, but yet, through curiosity or inspired by God, flocked to the fountain, where was still to be heard the voice of the Virgin, though no one saw her but the pure eyes of the shepherdess. The people went to seek the curé, and returned to the fountain with banners, chanting hymns in honor of Mary. They erected a large cross on the spot. After that the water of the fountain seemed miraculously changed, and the sick went thither to be healed. The sudden restoration of many to health made the spot celebrated in a short time. The number of miracles increasing, the present elegant vaulted chapel was erected by the voluntary offerings of grateful pilgrims, and there the benediction of Heaven descended upon the votaries of Mary. At this day wonderful are the prodigies wrought on soul and body at the shrine of our Lady of Garaison. Ages ago God healed many who, at the troubling of the waters, descended to the angel-guarded Pool of Siloam. His ways are not as our ways. ...
I made a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Garaison in June, 18—. The evening before, I went to shrift, by way of preparation, and the next morning left at an early hour with a party of friends, who completely filled our private diligence. There were five of us, and two servants, besides the driver and his more efficient wife. I might call her the driver and him the postilion. Quite a procession we should have made in honor of our Lady of Garaison! We ought to have gone plodding along the highway in sandal shoon and penitential garb, with pilgrim staff and scallop-shell, knocking our breasts as we went, as did the votaries of the middle ages. But in these days, when stout old Christian flies along the celestial railroad with his burden of sin carefully stowed away in the baggage-car, I, a feeble pilgrim, may be excused for seeking as comfortable a seat as could be found in our rickety old diligence. As I got in, I caught a satisfactory glimpse of a large basket, in which were light, crispy pistolets, heaps of deep-red cherries, flasks of water, and bottles of mild vin rouge, which our servant had thoughtfully provided for our outer man. And they were not disdained in our drive of thirty miles. Such due attention having been paid to our bodily wants, we were quite at leisure to abandon ourselves to our spiritual musings or our devotions! Who could wish to have his soul constantly disturbed and pestered by a jaded and craving body? It is quite contrary to the religious as well as philosophic spirit of this enlightened nineteenth century, and though I was somewhat ascetic, and rather inclined to the sterner rules of medieval times, the thought almost reconciled me to my corner, where I braced my weary back, and to the aforesaid basket, whence I fortified my body.
"Ciel!" I exclaimed, as I found myself en diligence and the stone cross of St. Oren's Priory fast disappearing, "have I returned to the middle ages, or am I dreaming?" I could not help rubbing my eyes, and wondering what some of my more enlightened American friends would think, if they could see me seriously, deliberately setting off on a pilgrimage (even in a carriage!) of thirty miles, to pay my devotions at a shrine of the Virgin Mary! But yes—my head was quite sound, though filled with the vows I wished to offer in a spot peculiarly dear to our Lady. This was the first visit I ever made to one of these places of popular devotion, and so, apart from my religious motives, I felt some curiosity to see this mountain chapel, away almost upon the confines of Spain.
The roads are fine in that part of France, and bordered by magnificent shade-trees. Owing to recent rains, we had no dust. We passed waving wheat-fields, luxuriant vineyards hedged with hawthorn, and away on the neighboring hills was many an old château with its venerable towers, and hard by an antique church. I found everything novel, and consequently interesting. Going and returning we stopped at most of the villages. In every one we found an old vaulted stone church, with thick walls and doors, ever open to the passer-by. In each were several chapels, adorned with oil paintings, bas-reliefs, and statues of the saints, and in every church were the stations of Via Crucis well painted, and the little undying lamp of olive oil burning near the gilded tabernacle—announcing the presence of the Divinity—the Shekinah of the new Israel—and recalling the beautiful lines of Lamartine:
"Pâle lampe du sanctuaire,
Pourquoi dans l'ombre du saint lieu,
Inaperçue et solitaire,
Te consumes-tu devant Dieu?
"Ce n'est pas pour diriger l'aile
De la prière ou de l'amour,
Pour éclairer, faible étincelle,
L'oeil de celui qui fit le jour.
......
"Mon oeil aime à se suspendre
A ce foyer aérien;
Et je leur dis, sans les comprendre.
Flambeaux pieux, vous faites bien.
"Peutêtre, brillantes parcelles
De l'immense création,
Devant son trône imitent-elles
L'éternelle adoration.
"C'est ainsi, dis-je à mon âme,
Que de l'ombre de ce bas lieu
Tu brûles, invisible flamme,
En la présence de ton Dieu.
"Et jamais tu n'oublies
De diriger vers lui mon coeur,
Pas plus que ces lampes remplies
De flotter devant le Seigneur." [Footnote 187]
[Footnote 187: In the absence of a suitable poetic version of the above, we subjoin—for such of our readers as are not familiar with the language of the original—the following prose translation of it, from Digby's Ages of Faith:
"Pale lamp of the Sanctuary, why, in the obscurity of the Holy Place, unperceived and solitary, consumest thou thyself before God? It is not, feeble spark! to give light to the eye of him who made the day: it is not to dispel darkness from the steps of his adorers. The vast nave is only more obscure before thy distant glimmering. And yet, symbolic lamp, thou guardest thy immortal fire, thou dost flicker before every altar, and mine eyes love to rest suspended on this aerial hearth. I say to them, I comprehend not; ye pious flames, ye do well. Perhaps these bright particles of the immense creation imitate before his throne the eternal adoration! It is thus, say I to my soul, that, in the shade of this lower place, thou burnest, a flame invisible, a fire which remains unextinguished, unconsumed, by which incense can be at all times rekindled to ascend in fragrance to heaven!">[
In these churches there was always an altar to the Virgin, too, adorned with lace and flowers, and streaming with gay ribbons and pennons, after the taste of the country. In one we found a wedding party, and were in season to hear the Ego conjungo vos of the curé over a very modest and subdued-looking pair.
We often passed huge crosses of wood or stone erected by the wayside, to which were attached the instruments of the Passion. I noticed among the passers-by that the women made the sign of the cross and the men raised their hats. I did not find the villages very agreeable. The houses were of stone, with tiled roofs, and had a cold, forbidding look. The paved streets were narrow, with no sidewalks, and anything but cleanly. I thought of our fresh New England villages, their white cottages and green blinds, and front yards filled with flowers and shrubbery. But those of France were more antique and more picturesque—at a distance. Flocks of sheep dotted the country, each guarded by a shepherdess, who wore a bright scarlet capuchon, which covers the head and falls below the waist. It is picturesque, if not graceful, and at a distance the wearer looks like one of her native but overgrown coquelicots. They were generally spinning, after the manner of the country, with the distaff under one arm and twirling the spindle in the hand, thus laying their hands to the spindle and their hands hold of the distaff after the manner of Old Testament times. How they contrive to spin with these two instruments is past my comprehension, but they do succeed admirably.
Every now and then we met a donkey groaning under the weight of his ears and of a huge cage, or panier, as large as himself on each side, filled with live poultry or fruit and vegetables. Perched on the top between these queer saddle-bags was a bright-eyed, sunburnt paysanne, most patiently thwacking Old Dapple marketward. The oxen looked as if they fared better; they were sleek and clean, that is, what I could see of them, for they were almost entirely encased in great coverings, as if they were elephants. Their drivers wore a blouse of blue cotton, and wooden shoes with most impertinently turned-up toes. They are worn (the shoes) both by men and women. They make a terrible clatter; you would think the Philistines upon you; but they are very durable.
The country reminded me of the interior of New England. The hills were finely wooded, more so than I had expected in that old country. On leaving Monléon, we entered a valley, narrow at first, but which gradually opened, forming a basin of considerable extent, with green meadows and shady thickets. It is bounded and crowned by hills, and a few hours distant are the Pyrenees. This valley is solitary—secluded, but not wild or uncultivated. Perhaps there is a score of houses in it. From about the centre rise the turrets of Notre Dame de Garaison. The whole country was once covered with magnificent oaks which had been planted by the old chaplains, but the vandals of a later day had cut away whole forests.
The rain poured down in torrents when we entered the valley of Garaison, but that did not prevent us from admiring the locality so favorable to devotion. Far from any city, free from noise, the chapel is buried among the hills and forests of Aquitaine, a spot chosen by God in which to reveal his presence and power! What a delicious solitude! We drove to a little auberge—Hotel de la Paix!—erected for the accommodation of pilgrims. In the olden time they were sheltered in a monastery, which was devastated during the Revolution, and now, when great festivals draw crowds of people, the women often remain in the house all night. Leaving our carriage at the hotel, we immediately went to the church in spite of the rain, passing through a long avenue of majestic oaks.
The principal entrance to this sacred retreat is quite imposing. The front is decorated with a statue of the Virgin, holding the dead Christ in her arms—the bodies of natural size, and the work of a skilful hand.
The buildings form a vast enclosure, in the centre of which is the chapel, having on the north and south two courts which separate it from the rest of the edifice. I was surprised to find so fine an establishment so far away from any city. We passed through a cloister shaded by cypresses to the chapel. Over the door and at the sides are niches, in which are statues. The vestibule, as in all these old churches, is very low. Here my attention was attracted by a great number of small paintings which cover the walls and vault, forming a complete mosaic. These ex-voto are not remarkable as works of art, but precious on account of the miraculous events which they retrace. They represent the persons who have been cured of their infirmities by the intercession of Mary; to each is attached a label bearing the name of the person and the date of the cure. These paintings were left untouched at the Revolution, though the venerable guardians of this sanctuary were driven from their cherished solitude; and the sacred vestments, the holy vessels, the silver lamps, the jewels, and other ex-voto of all kinds, which had been offered the Virgin in gratitude for grace received, were carried away; the fine statues of the twelve Apostles were destined to the flames, but were rescued by the people of Monléon, whose church they now adorn.
From the vestibule we passed into the nave. One feels an inexpressible emotion of piety and devotion on entering this beautiful church. I went immediately to the grand altar to pay my devotions to our Lady of Garaison, while the servant took my letter of introduction to M. le Supérieur, who was fortunately at liberty. I found him a tall, fine-looking gentleman, instead of a hoary old hermit, and as polite as a Parisian. He wore a flowing soutane, confined at the waist by a fringed girdle, and on his head was a sort of skull-cap, such as the priests wear in that country—I imagine, to protect their tonsured heads from the cold. He conducted me over the whole establishment. In his room I saw the skull of the shepherdess to whom the Virgin appeared. She died a nun, and more than a century old. After her death, her body was given to the chapel, which had been erected during her life, and to which she had been permitted to resort from time to time. The fountain is under the grand altar; but the water is conducted into a basin in a vault to the east of the chapel. Every one says the waters still perform wonderful cures. The superior said it was not owing to any mineral qualities; and as I was not able to analyze them, I contented myself with drinking quite freely of them, bathing therein my forehead, and inwardly praying God to heal every infirmity of body and soul. On the basin is a bas-relief representing the Virgin's appearing to the shepherdess.
The arches and walls of the sacristy are covered with the frescoes of a by-gone age, but which have not lost their brilliancy of color. They represent the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles; angels bearing to our Saviour the instruments of the Passion, etc.
Over the grand altar of the church, in a niche, is a statue of Notre Dame de Garaison, the mother of sorrows, holding in her arms the inanimate body of her divine Son. There are four small chapels, two on each side, separated by walls which advance to the principal nave, and are there converted into pilasters to support the vault. In them are some oil paintings, two of which are very fine, the angel guardian and a Madonna. The niches, which were robbed in 1789, have been newly furnished with gilded statues of the twelve Apostles, large as life, and bearing the instruments of their martyrdom; and one of our Saviour in the midst. On the vault are painted the patriarchs and prophets of the old law. These gilded statues and altars give a most brilliant appearance to the lightly vaulted Gothic chapel.
In the south court is a fountain. Mary stands with her divine babe in her arms, sculptured in white marble. The water spouts out at her feet through four small masks, and falls into a basin of pure white marble, whence it flows into another still larger. The statue has been a little injured by exposure to the weather; but still it reminds one that Mary is the channel through which the grace of God comes to us—that through her flow the waters of benediction and of grace upon man!
The refectory is vaulted and paved. In it is a whispering gallery, common in the monasteries of the middle ages, so one could communicate from one corner to the other opposite in the lowest tone. I am sure the knight of the couchant leopard was no more surprised or awed by the midnight procession he witnessed in the little chapel of Engaddi, than was I at a late hour in the evening, when, while I was still rapt in prayer, and quite unconscious of what was going on around me in this still mountain chapel, I found the altar suddenly illuminated, and a door opened to a long procession of white-robed priests and about a hundred young men:
"Taper and Host and Book they bare,
And holy banner flourished fair
With the Redeemer's name.
They passed around the chapel, chanting Tantum Ergo, and then returned to the altar to give the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The richly gilded chapel was radiant with reflected light, and the strains of O salutaris Hostia! seemed to float upward in celestial tones, as they issued from lips purified by solitude and prayer. I never felt more devotion at this solemn rite than there, in the shadow of the Pyrenees. I forgot my fatigue, and yielded to heartfelt emotion. Exiled from my native land, to which I might never return, and among those who were almost entire strangers to me, I felt myself folded to the bosom of divine Providence, and that the All-Father would have me consider every part of his world as my home, and all those souls, which he has breathed into human forms, as my brethren and sisters.
It was a late hour when I fell asleep on my hard bed at the Hotel de la Paix. Coldly looking down upon me from a rude frame was, for my guardian saint, a picture of Napoleon le Grand; but, though he had routed many a formidable host, he did not put to flight a single sweet fancy or holy thought that thronged my brains, waking or sleeping.
At an early hour I was again before the altar of Our Lady. Priests were celebrating the holy mysteries at every altar when I entered the chapel. At seven o'clock, M. le Supérieur offered the Holy Sacrifice for my intentions, at which I communicated. ...
My devotions ended, I rambled around the garden and through the cloisters, drank again from the fountain, and then prepared for my departure. I had gone to Garaison with a deeper intent, more serious purpose, than is my intention to unveil here. I bore in my heart a burden—a burden common to humanity—which I laid down at the feet of Mary, thinking, as I did so:
"Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,
Forth from those lips of beauty flow!
Couldst thou but speak of all the tears,
The conflicts, and the pangs of years,
Which at thy secret shrine revealed
Have gushed from human hearts unsealed!"
I left that chapel in the strong embrace of the everlasting hills, and with sunlight flooding its walls like a glory. Turning to give it a last look, at the last turn in the valley, it seemed like a lily rising up in the green meadows—fit type of her to whom it is dedicated.
Since that time I have visited many a shrine of la belle France, but I turn to none with a more grateful heart than NOTRE DAME DE GARAISON.
Count Ladislas Zamoyski.
Translated From The French
Of Ch. De Montalembert.
The nineteenth century, which is already drawing to a close, will in the course of its history present nothing more grand, more touching, more deeply impressed with the stamp of moral beauty, than Poland—vanquished, proscribed, abandoned by the world.
This nation in mourning and in blood, which yet will not die—this race of indomitable men and women, which survives all tortures, all treasons, and all catastrophes, what a spectacle and a lesson does it present! Its existence is at once a defiance and an appeal: a defiance to adverse fortune, and an appeal to what seems the too tardy justice of an avenging God. Abandoned and calumniated by successful iniquity, by selfish opulence, by the ever-ready worshippers of success, a sight intolerable to their conquerors, and a reproach to the powerful of the world—there they abide, like Mardochai before Aman, firmly resolved to forget not, to despair not, nor to capitulate; incomparable types of suffering, of sacrifice, of unwearying patience, of lofty patriotism; invincible martyrs and confessors, not only of faith, but of right, of country, and of liberty!
In the centre of this group of proscribed and oppressed, like some great oak struck by lightning in the midst of a burning forest, stands out in bold relief the noble figure of Count Ladislas Zamoyski.
Ere yet the waves of forgetfulness and indifference have effaced his noble memory, let us endeavor to recall and rescue from oblivion some traits of an existence which, by every title, belonged to ourselves; for in France he was born, (during a journey of his parents there,) and in France he died, [Footnote 188] having passed here the greater part of the thirty-seven years which he spent in exile, without having at any time returned to his true country.
[Footnote 188: January 11th, 1868.]
Here it would seem appropriate to speak of the ancestors of the illustrious dead. But how can we fitly portray to this generation the splendor and power of those ancient houses of Poland and Lithuania, whose immense possessions, countless adherents, and extent of influence find no parallel in our own country, even at the most aristocratic periods of its history? It was a Zamoyski who headed the embassy which came to offer the crown of Poland to a brother of Charles IX.; [Footnote 189] and some one of this race is ever to be found dominant in their country's annals. They may have had equals, but I know that in their native land none ever assumed to be their superiors.
[Footnote 189: For an account of this embassy, see the excellent work of the Marquis de Noailles, Henri de Valois et la Pologne in 1572.]
Nothing is more a propos to our immediate subject than the legend of their device and bearings. A King of Poland, whose people had some cause for discontent, being engaged in a conflict with the Teutonic chevaliers, saw on the field of battle a Zamoyski dying, his breast pierced with three lances. The king approached to aid and comfort him. "To mnicy [Transcriber's note: blurred.] boli!" exclaimed the dying hero. "It is not that which pains me!" or in other words, "A wound does less harm than a bad prince or a bad neighbor."
These three words and three lances have ever since been the armorial bearings of the Zamoyski family. Reflecting upon them, we find in them a singular appropriateness to that one of the line whom we have best known; that illustrious and wounded hero whom we have had so long before our eyes with the deadly steel in his heart, and on his lips a word of proud resignation or intrepid disdain.
Fortunate are those great races who, before they are submerged by the rising tide of equality and modern uniformity, can give forth one last flash of glory, and furnish to the historian some great heart enthusiastic for a good cause and a noble faith; some vigorous lover of right and duty, capable of signalizing himself by a generous death, like our own Duke de Luynes, or by an entire life of devotion and sacrifice, like Count Ladislas Zamoyski. For reason as we will, so long as men are men, they will be always and everywhere moved by a something—I know not what—a kind of realization of completeness, which nobility of birth imparts to great virtues or great misfortunes.
Ladislas Zamoyski, in his 28th year, was an officer of the lancers in the Polish army, and aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Constantine; he was desirous above all things to serve his country as a soldier and a citizen, when the military insurrection of Warsaw broke out, at the end of November, 1830.
It was, as has often been repeated, the advance-guard of the Russian army, directed against the France of July, which turned back against the main body. Although the count had taken no part in the insurrection, the high rank of his family and the precocious maturity of his mind enabled him to profit by the particular position which he held near the prince, whose arbitrary and unwise acts had contributed more than anything else to provoke the revolt. He obtained from the brother of the emperor the order which separated the Polish troops from the Russian, and gave a sort of method to the military movement, which soon expanded into a national revolution. Believing himself freed now from all allegiance to the grand duke, the young count took part in all the exploits of the campaign of 1831—a campaign which has left imperishable recollections in the minds of all who were living at that time.
For ten months all Europe stood breathless, gazing with deep and varied emotions on those fearful turns of fortune. Every incident produced vehement agitations at the French tribune, in the streets of Paris, and even in the reviews held by the French king. There was something both of heroic and legendary interest in this conflict, so disproportioned yet so prolonged, between a handful of brave men on the one side, and the colossal resources of Russia on the other—a conflict where the veteran comrades of Dombrowski and Poniatowski were led on by youths inflamed with holy zeal for their country's liberty, where the first place was so long held by the Generalissimo Skrzynecki, true paladin of the middle ages, who always put in the orders of the day for his army prayers to the Holy Virgin as Queen of Poland, and who, brave in the field and devout at the altar, was so pre-eminently hero, Christian, and Catholic. I know not how upon this point the young Poles of our own day stand; but I know they would be faithless to the most noble examples of the heroes of 1831 if they should suffer themselves to be enervated by religious indifference, or, sadder still, should they ever trail through the depths of atheism and modern materialism that banner which their ancestors never separated from the cross of Jesus Christ.
When, finally, the countless masses which Russia threw upon Poland had dislodged the insurgents from all their positions; when the attempts at intervention made by the French government were rendered nugatory by the icy and cynical indifference of Lord Palmerston; [Footnote 190] when Europe resigned herself to be a tranquil spectator at the sacrifice of a nation, Ladislas Zamoyski, firm to the end, in the front rank of combatants, holding then the grade of colonel, laid down his arms with the last division of the Polish army, that of Ramorino, defeated in Gallicia. He crossed then the frontiers of that country which he was destined never more to see, and came, wounded and suffering, but not less resolute than in the first days of his manhood, to put himself at the disposal of his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, the venerable chief of the Polish emigration, as he had been president of their national government.
[Footnote 190: See the correspondence between Prince Talleyrand and Lord Palmerston on the Polish question, July, 1831, in the documents submitted to the English parliament by order of the Queen, in 1861.]
It was then that we saw him for the first time among us. Young, tall, commanding, active, and untiring, he carried in his deportment and in those glorious wounds the credentials of his mission. Always occupied with the cause of his country, but with a serenity and stability far beyond his years, he attracted to himself all attention. A solitary and embarrassed wanderer in a world which was so soon to grow heartlessly indifferent to Poland, he entered calmly and resolutely upon that obscure, laborious, and uncongenial path which honor and duty had traced for him.
I must be permitted here a just homage to that first Polish emigration of 1831, which, preceded by the members of the national government, by the Count Platen and General Kniacewicz, and grouped about Prince Czartoryski, the Generals Dembinski, Dwernicki, Rybinski, and the former ministers, Malachowski and Morawski, have given us, for nearly forty years, such noble examples of fortitude and devotedness, of modest dignity and magnanimous resignation. How many of these yet remain to whom I can address this last testimony of an admiration which I shall always account among the most salutary and most lasting emotions of my life? I owe to them a great good—the power to know and to comprehend the grandeur and beauty of a vanquished cause!
Forced by circumstances to immolate everything in the worship of their assassinated country, not one hesitated before this stern requisition. Rich and poor, old and young, citizens and soldiers, all were called on for sacrifices painful and unexpected, and none shrank back; indeed, to many the privations they were obliged to endure formed a strange contrast to their previous habits of prodigality and almost oriental luxury. Ladislas Zamoyski was conspicuous in this career, so new to himself and his comrades. The subsidies which his friends forced him to accept were invariably reserved for some general object, or divided among his less fortunate companions, saying: "I learn every day to do without something." One thing only did he guard carefully—his beloved sword, as, with juvenile naïveté, he was accustomed to call it, in the warm hope and belief that it might yet serve his country.
The French refugees, whom the Edict of Nantes expelled from their homes, represented liberty of conscience odiously persecuted, and by this title they won the active sympathies of all the Protestant nations. The Irish emigrants, who, about the same time, were the victims of an intolerance as bitter and inconsistent in Protestant England, found in France and Spain places freely opened to them, and which they honorably filled. The French emigration of 1792 represented not only loyalty to a monarchy, but an entire social order, whose end no one believed so near—an order which still reigned in nearly the whole of Europe; to this they owed, at least during the first years of their exile, the aid and support of all the powers affected or threatened by the Revolution. It was quite otherwise with the Polish emigration of 1831, which, nevertheless, personified, at one and the same time, liberty both political and religious, and, more than all, a grand people, erased, by injustice, by a crime without a parallel, from the list of nations, and unanimous in protesting against that decree. They received from perplexed and divided Europe not one of those consolations and encouragements which it was their right to expect.
France and England had generous alms to solace needs purely material, but nothing more. Ruled by a double fear—that of the Muscovite preponderance from without, and that of dangers from demagogues within—no statesman, even the most liberal, was able or willing to espouse the Polish cause. It was a sadder thing still that a misapprehension prevented their receiving a sympathy which otherwise would have been first offered. Beyond the little circle of liberal, free-hearted Catholics—a circle then very limited—the Polish refugees, victims of the most bitter persecutor of the church in the nineteenth century, met no response from the religious world. It was a time when Catholic Europe, monarchical and aristocratic, was miserably prostrate before the Austria of Prince Metternich and the Russia of the Emperor Nicholas. Consequently, at Paris, and, above all, at Rome, there was to be caught not one glimpse of salvation. There existed among the defenders of the throne and the altar an animosity to the Poles truly revolting, unjustifiable traces of which even yet remain. It was the heaviest cross, for a multitude of Christian souls, which the Polish emigration hid in its bosom. I have the right to speak of it, for no one, perhaps, on this subject, has received more mournful confidences, and no one, I venture to believe, has done more to induce among Catholics a happy change—a change commencing with the good and fatherly Pope Gregory XVI., and precisely on occasion of Count Ladislas Zamoyski, whom he was pleased, at my request, to encourage to visit him in Rome. [Footnote 191]
[Footnote 191: Until 1837, no Pole was allowed to enter Rome, without a passport visé by Austria, Prussia, or Russia; consequently, this excluded the exiles of 1830.]
But how time and efforts must fail in making reparation for this strange misunderstanding! and how much it must have aggravated the sorrows inseparable from prolonged exile—those sorrows which every noble heart must comprehend, even without having experienced them, and which inspired, in a sad, gifted soul, the last ray of its genius!
"He passed, a wanderer on earth. May God guide the poor exile! I move among the crowd; they gaze at me, and I at them, yet each to each is unknown. The exile is alone everywhere," [Footnote 192]
[Footnote 192: Paroles d'un Croyant. 1833.]
Count Zamoyski, always sincerely attached to the faith of his fathers, even before the death of a beloved mother had developed in him a fervent piety, lived long enough to witness this happy change in Catholic opinion. He had the consolation of seeing the entire church moved, at the voice of its chief, by the incomparable sufferings of Poland. In France, at least, every Catholic worthy the name addressed prayers without ceasing to the divine mercy, that the country of St. Hedwige and Sobieski might one day resume her place, free among the nations. This harmony between the irrepressible aspirations of his patriotism and the daily increasing fervor of his religious sentiments threw over the last years of his life a warm and consoling light.
But before arriving in port, how stormy the voyage! Bound by soul yet more than by the ties of blood to his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, he had been twenty-five years his lieutenant, his coadjutor, and the sharer of his fortunes; like him, too, encountering continually repulse, deception, and injustice, without being embittered or discouraged.
Belgium, always hospitable, took full possession of her nationality in the same year, 1831, when Poland seemed to have lost hers. She immediately opened the ranks of her army to Count Ladislas, with the grade of colonel, a position he had won on the bloody banks of the Vistula.
For fifteen years [Footnote 193] he watched in vain for an opportunity to once more draw his sword in behalf of his own land, or for some cause which might even indirectly serve her interests.
[Footnote 193: From 1832 to 1847.]
He was obliged to content himself with employing his intercourse with the political men of the two great constitutional countries, to secure to the Polish question, in the order of the day, some parliamentary discussion or some diplomatic bias, and to obtain from the French chambers and the English parliament those periodical demonstrations which seemed to him so many protestations of right against the most odious of political crimes; so many guarantees against a proscription which the sad destinies of men too often drew down on them, to the profit and encouragement of injustice.
At length, in 1846, he thought he saw the dawn of better days. In the short counterfeit alliance between Pius IX. and Italian liberty, he hastened, with sixty other Polish officers, to offer their devotedness and military experience to the new pontiff, whom all believed menaced by Austria even more than by the Revolution. From thence he passed as a volunteer into the army of Charles Albert, and shared, by the side of that noble and unfortunate sovereign, in all the vicissitudes of the struggle between Piedmont and Austria. Austria, we must remember, at the time we speak of, was not the liberal Austria of the present day; and no Pole could look on this empire as aught save the author and accomplice of the calamities of his country. Piedmont being defeated and restricted to its ancient limits, it was to Hungary that Count Zamoyski next turned his steps. Hungary was then in a state of insurrection against Austria, but was also a victim herself to an insurrection of her Sclavic population, unwisely irritated. To gain from Hungary a recognition of the rights of these people—rights so misunderstood or ignored by the rest of Europe—was the mission of Count Zamoyski, and for which he was willing to confront new perils. The Russians, however, soon arrived, and, combining their armies with those of Austria and with the revolted Croats, Hungary was soon crushed. After the decisive defeat of Teneswar, the remnants of the Polish legion passed into Servia, and from thence to Turkey.
For two years he occupied himself here in disciplining those indomitable spirits for future contests; for to the honor of the Ottoman Porte be it recorded that it refused the demands of the Russian and Austrian governments for the extradition of the Polish and Hungarian refugees.
During a short revisit which he made to France, the Eastern question arose, and he immediately returned to Turkey. He took part, with the rank of general, in the campaign on the banks of the Danube, and through the entire Crimean war devoted his strength, his rare intelligence, his military experience, to forming regiments of Polish Cossacks, ostensibly for the service of the sultan, but indulging in the hope of seeing them ultimately admitted to the ranks of the allies.
In January, 1856, the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris came to dash aside once more his patriotic day-dreams, and to destroy every chance of resuscitation which had seemed offered to Poland in this rupture, so pompous but so fruitless, between France and England and Russia.
No adequate reason has yet been given for that blind delusion which prevented the powerful allies, in 1855, or Napoleon I., in 1812, from using against Russia the only power which she could not control, to recall Poland to that national existence which was her sacred right; and which, at the same time, was the only efficient guarantee for the independence and security of Europe.
Made desperate by this thwarted expectation, Poland suffered herself, in 1863, to be drawn into that strenuous but unfortunate effort whose miserable consequences are in the memories of all. Count Zamoyski, now suffering with age and infirmities, made one last attempt to prevail on England to unite in some kind of action with France, and not to stand by in silence at those massacres and outrages which Russia perpetrated with such impunity, a mockery to the civilization of the nineteenth century. He failed, and this was his last attempt.
He died, leaving Europe more than ever exposed to perils he had warned her against, more than ever recklessly serving the Muscovite power.
He died, seeing Russia supremely powerful in the East, and free to put the seal on all the bloody hypocrisies of her history: here, making the world resound with her solicitude for the civil and religious liberty of the Cretans, while she crushed out with her unholy foot the last palpitations of Polish freedom, and extirpated, with infernal perfidy, the last vestiges of Polish Catholic faith: there, instigating against regenerated Austria a formidable conspiracy of her Sclavic subjects, while the highways and mines of Siberia are strewn with the skeletons of heroic Poles, whose only crime was to spurn the yoke of those Russians who are a hundred-fold less truly Sclavic than their victims.
The history of Count Ladislas Zamoyski is, then, a sad one; it is the story of a life-long shipwreck.
All his designs were frustrated, all his hopes deceived. Always hastening from disappointment to disappointment, from defeat to defeat, he wearied never, paused never, was successful never.
Deeming no sacrifice too great, and no detail too minute for the service of his country, he was prompt to avail himself of any circumstance or encounter any new risk which might gain for her a friend, remove an error, or stimulate in her behalf the indifferent. Self-armed against disasters, he raised himself from each defeat with the tenacity of an old Roman on the battle-field, where he had been once overthrown, to fall again, wounded and crushed down by an implacable adversity.
It would seem as if so many trials, mental and material, public and private, might suffice to fill that measure of suffering which is the lot of all below. But no! he had still to endure those which would appear more fittingly the portion of the idle and prosperous.
Crippled with wounds and infirmities, the last ten years of his life were passed in physical sufferings which made them one prolonged torture. He endured, during all this time, the prolonged weariness, the distastes, the feebleness of failing health; and he supported them with the same imperturbable patience, the same tranquil and unconquerable courage, which had sustained him through the sad vicissitudes of his public life.
How great the virtue, crowned by those great sufferings! There is in it a grand and mysterious lesson, and one, above all, which God seems to have designed for our instruction and edification; for his character more than his career at all times raised him far above the mass of human kind. No one could approach him without feeling a profound respect before a strength of mind so determined, a patience which never failed; before that singular union of bravery and gentleness, that generous sense of honor, that equanimity, that integrity. Rich in the domestic happiness which Providence accorded to his declining years, he was content to live, content to suffer; yet appreciating any relief, and humbly thankful for those rare moments of respite which were permitted to his numerous infirmities. Without disavowing the aspirations of his youth, he had purified and transformed them in the crucible of self-denial and sacrifice. What remained to him of generous pride was so tempered that the most exacting could not have reproached him. His Christian fervor brightened as the chills of age encircled him; and the destinies and well-being of the church inspired him no less than those of his country.
He gave a proof of this devotion in the past summer, (1867,) when, so broken in health, he went to Rome to lay at the feet of Pius IX. a last homage. In the midst of those fètes of the Centenary of St. Peter, where were gathered the bishops and the faithful of the entire world, except those bound fast and gagged by the Muscovite autocrat, Ladislas Zamoyski appeared, like the living spectre of absent, enchained Poland.
Nor was it only faith: it was still more—charity—which animated this soul, so Christian and chivalrous. How can we depict that compassion and generosity, so irrepressible, toward his destitute compatriots! or how sufficiently admire that charity of forgiveness to his enemies—the pitiless enemies of his nation! Never one word of bitterness crossed his lips.
"What is to be thought of the Russians?" said a friend to him, one day, "and how far are they implicated with the emperor?"
"I never judge them," he replied: "I pray for them."
For us, who are not bound to exercise such superhuman moderation, who are witnesses and not victims of these atrocities, we raise beside the tomb of this just man a cry of grief and indignant surprise.
"Usquequo, Domine sanctus et verus, non judicas et non vindicas, sanguinem nostrum de iis qui habitant in terrâ?"
How long, O Lord! shall crime and falsehood triumph? How long wilt thou leave unpunished this martyrdom of a Christian nation, which will soon have lasted an entire century?
But all rebellious thoughts against the tardiness of divine justice are checked, all the poignancy of sorrow is subdued, by the remembrance alone of the departed dead. He is gone! His long and cruel trials are over! He has entered into light and peace! He lives in the bosom of his God, and his memory will be for ever cherished among men, with the annals of his illustrious house and of his unfortunate country. He leaves behind a name which will be a crown of glory to his children, born in the land of exile where he died, and rocked in their frail cradle on a stormy sea. He leaves a sacred grief, which is a treasure to her alone, to the youthful and admirable woman who gave herself to him in his darkest hour; the intrepid sharer in his vicissitudes and perils, the loving and faithful consoler of his sufferings and decline, and who enjoyed a happiness with him in this world which is to be interrupted only for a few brief days.
Finally, he leaves a great and profitable example to all who have known and loved him; above all, to those who, subjected to slighter trials, submit to them with less patience and less courage.