THE BEGINNING OF THE POPE’S TEMPORAL PRINCIPALITY.
The Vicar of Jesus Christ is by virtue of his office, and by divine right, of necessity in his own person a sovereign. He is exempt from all subjection to any temporal power, and perfectly free in respect to his own person and the full exercise of his spiritual supremacy, to which kings are as much subject as other baptized persons, and nations as individuals. The right of acquiring property and domain, in a manner which does not violate any other human right, is inherent in this personal sovereignty, and carries with it all the rights of eminent domain, so that whatever is acquired in this way becomes inalienable except by a voluntary cession. The possession of actual sovereign dominion over a sufficient territory is evidently the logical and natural complement of this personal sovereignty, yet is not acquired except by some legal, human act, similar to that which subjects any given domain in particular to any other given individual or corporation. The possession of spiritual sovereignty united with the temporal dignity and power of a civil monarch is, manifestly, the most dangerous and liable to abuse of all the attributions which any individual ruler or dynasty of supreme rulers can be supposed to have received as a stable and permanent right. The danger is increased in proportion to the magnitude and duration of the spiritual empire and the political monarchy united with it. We are obliged, therefore, to believe that Jesus Christ, as the Sovereign Lord of the world, when he founded such an institution, provided efficaciously for the protection of Christian society against this danger and liability to abuse. This he could not do without exercising a special and supernatural providence over his earthly vicariate, the Papacy. Yet, according to the analogy of all other departments of the divine government, this special providence ought to be reduced to a minimum and made as little miraculous as possible, by a wise ordering of natural and secondary causes in reference to the desired effect. In point of fact, we see, from the history of the Papacy, that God has permitted it to exhibit as much of the weakness and imperfection of all human things as was consistent with the fulfilment of the end of its institution. His supernatural overruling of the natural course of events has been limited to this result. And the preservation of the Holy See from perversion by human passions into a merely earthly power, an empire of this world, has been accomplished in great part by the difficulties and struggles which have always environed the possession of the greatest of human dignities and powers—the papal sovereignty.
From Nero to Constantine the Popes were obliged to struggle with the heathen emperors in order to conquer their liberty at the cost of martyrdom. From Sylvester to Gregory the Great they were obliged to struggle with civil and ecclesiastical princes for the recognition and maintenance of their spiritual supremacy. The temporal and civil domain necessary for the stable possession and exercise of the personal, sovereign independence of the Pope as Supreme Pastor of the church was not given until its necessity became manifest. It came in the natural course of events, without violence or miracle. Its tenure was precarious and constantly disputed, and has so remained until the present day. Our present purpose is to sketch the history of the struggles by which the first Popes who were kings of Rome secured the dominion of the patrimony of St. Peter as an inalienable right recognized by the international law of Christendom.
The temporal domain of the Popes began with the natural and gradual acquisition of landed property, which in those times carried with it princely authority over the tenants and inhabitants of estates. Not only the Popes but the principal bishops in Italy and other countries became in this way dukes and counts. The sovereign rights of the emperors lapsed through a long-continued neglect to fulfil the essential duties of sovereignty, and there was no other royal power in Italy which succeeded to them in a legitimate manner. The ruling power devolved naturally upon the local princes. The Roman people turned toward the Pope as their immediate bishop; just as the people of Ravenna, Milan, Treves, Cologne, and many other cities did to their own bishop, because he was the chief of their aristocracy, and also the protector of the people, and was the only one who was both willing and able to take the place vacated by their former rulers. The Western Roman Empire ceased to exist when the Heruli under Odoacer took and sacked Rome, making themselves masters of Italy. Odoacer was in turn conquered and killed by the Ostrogoth Theodoric, who was nominally the lieutenant of the Greek emperor, but in reality conquered Italy for himself. When the empire revived under the able administration of Justinian, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths was subdued and overthrown by the great general Belisarius. A new invasion of Lombards, or Long-beards, from Germany put an end once more to the imperial dominion in Italy, with the exception of a certain part called the exarchate, which had its capital at Ravenna. The authority of the Lombard kings was very limited and precarious, and under their sway the duchies and marquisates and independent municipalities of Italy assumed that character of autonomy which made Italy ever after incapable of anything except a federative unity. The Lombards were at first Arians, but the conversion of their beautiful and accomplished queen, Theodolinda, by St. Gregory the Great was the beginning of a general reconciliation of the whole people to the Catholic Church, and of the complete extinction of the Arian heresy in Italy. The Popes never acknowledged the sovereignty of the Lombard kings over the city and duchy of Rome. The Greek exarch at Ravenna, as the representative of the emperor, was recognized as having lawful jurisdiction, and a magistrate delegated by him, called a duke, resided in Rome. The actual authority of these representatives of the ancient imperial power and of their master at Constantinople became, however, continually more and more a restricted and almost nominal formality, until it was altogether extinguished by the fall of the Greek exarchate. A few passages from the Italian historian Cantù will show in a clear and brief manner how the temporal sovereignty of the Popes in Rome resulted naturally and necessarily out of the new order of things which issued from the universal disorder and confusion that prevailed:
“At the time of the descent of the Lombards upon Italy the country lacked a head possessing general authority, and the Roman people, as well that portion of them who had been subjugated as those who were still free, had no other eminent personage to whom they could look except the Pope. He possessed immense domains in Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, the Campagna, the Sabine territory, Dalmatia, Illyria, Sardinia, in the Cottian Alps, and even in the Gauls. These domains being cultivated by farmers, he exercised over them a legal jurisdiction, appointed officers and gave orders; and, besides, his revenue enabled him to distribute succors in times of dearth, to furnish asylum to refugees, and to pay troops. After the conquest had interrupted the communications between Rome and the exarch of Ravenna, the Pope remained the de facto head of the city where he resided; he corresponded directly with the Byzantine court; made war and peace with the Lombard kings; and, moreover, by putting himself in an attitude of resistance to their conquests, he became the representative of the national party. The chair of St. Peter awaited only a pontiff who should feel all the importance and display all the dignity of his high position. Such a man was Gregory the Great” (580-603).
“Italy, at this time, had no more stability in its civil institutions than France. The Lombards had occupied a large part of it in the first burst of invasion; but the partition which they made among several dukes, though it served to consolidate their possession, prevented them from completing their conquest. As the king was elected from among these different nobles, without any hereditary right, there was a revolution at every vacancy; moreover, the dukes obtained continually more considerable privileges by favoring one or another among the competitors—so much so that those of Benevento and Spoleto acquired complete independence. The only thing they all desired was to remain in tranquil enjoyment of absolute authority in their particular domains, or to make war for their own personal aggrandizement in power and wealth, and not in obedience to the king’s command; so that the king could with difficulty induce them to follow him in any military enterprise against the Greeks for the purpose of expelling these from Italy, or against the Franks, who molested them unremittingly, either for the sake of pillage or at the instigation of the Eastern emperors.... The Greek exarch’s administration extended over the Romagna, the marshy valleys of Ferrara and Comacchio, over five maritime towns from Rimini to Ancona, and five other towns between the shore of the Adriatic and the Apennine slope, over Rome, Venice, and almost all the cities on the sea-coast. Some cities, for instance Venice, made themselves independent, while others were constantly menaced and often invaded by the Lombards. When these latter were involved in foreign or civil wars, the exarchs would avail themselves of the chance to repossess the places they had lost, but were always speedily driven back into narrow limits, without ever enjoying peace, and subject to the necessity of making every year short truces, for which they frequently had to pay a tribute of three hundred livres in gold. When the means failed for paying tribute and the wages of the soldiers, they ran down to Rome and plundered the treasury of the church, or pillaged the sanctuary of St. Michael at Monte Gargano, which was an object of great veneration to the Lombards....
“Another power remained in Italy, as yet imperceptibly growing up, but destined to be developed during the course of the century and to cast lasting roots amid the ruins of the others. The Popes had always shown themselves hostile to the Lombard domination and desirous of preserving the invaded provinces to the empire. Gregory the Great had employed for this effect his authority, his eloquence, his treasure, and his skill in the arts of diplomacy; his successors followed his example, and whenever they were menaced by the Lombards they implored without delay the aid of Constantinople. Preserving toward the emperor the submission which they had constantly exhibited while Rome was the capital of the world, they asked his confirmation of their election, paid him a fixed tribute, and kept at his court an apocrisiarius, who treated with him respecting their affairs; but their dependence on distant sovereigns and feeble exarchs, upon whom the people looked with an evil eye, kept on continually diminishing. Thus the authority of the Popes, who were at the head of the municipal institutions which had been preserved in the city, rendered that of the Duke of Rome almost a nullity, and approached to a species of sovereignty.”[[98]]
Alboin, the first Lombard king, was murdered soon after his conquest by his own wife, in revenge for the death of her father, Cunimond, chief of the Gepidæ. He was succeeded by Clefis, who was assassinated after reigning eighteen months. The Lombard dukes were disposed to do without a king, and elected no successor to Clefis, until the necessity of uniting in war against their enemies compelled them to elect Autharis, the son of Clefis, the prince whose wife was the celebrated Queen Theodolinda. Autharis died one year after his marriage, and Theodolinda was requested by the dukes to choose a new spouse and king from among their number. The choice fell upon Agilulph, Duke of Turin. His son and successor, Adoloald, was deposed and Ariovald, Duke of Turin, elected in his place, to whom succeeded Rotharis, Duke of Turin, the second husband of Gundeberga, widow of Ariovald, and who was followed by his son Rodoald, the last of the descendants of Theodolinda. The nobles and people were so much attached to the memory of this pious queen that they sought for a new king in her family, although it was not Lombard, and elected her nephew, Aribert of Asti, of the Agilolphingian tribe settled in Bavaria. At his death the kingdom was divided between his two sons, from whom it was wrested by Grimoald, Duke of Benevento. His son Garibald was dispossessed by Perthurit, one of the sons of Aribert. Cunibert, Luitpert, Ragimpert, and Aribert II. completed the list of the Agilolphingian kings. Ansprand, a partisan of Luitpert, who had been dethroned by his rival Ragimpert and imprisoned by Aribert, conquered Aribert, and after a short reign of three months was succeeded by his son Luitprand, who reigned thirty-two years (712 to 744) and was the greatest of the Lombard kings.
With the reign of Luitprand begins the epoch of the decisive events which resulted in the final severance of all the bonds of political dependence which united Rome with the Greek Empire, in the establishment of the formal and legal monarchy of the Popes, and the overthrow of the Lombard dominion in Italy by Charlemagne.
Luitprand was a sovereign in the strict sense of the word, through his ability and energy of character even more than by the recognized title to the royal dignity which was vested in his person. He undertook and carried out a thorough reformation in the political administration of his kingdom, re-established order, extirpated the germs of disunion and civil war, secured the obedience of his subordinate dukes, and preserved a good intelligence with the Popes and the church. His ultimate aim was the union of all Italy in one kingdom under his own laws, including all the remaining Greek possessions and the city and principality of Rome. The first great step toward the fulfilment of this design must obviously be the conquest of the Greek exarchate. In this undertaking he had the sympathy of the Roman aristocracy and people, though not that of the Popes. The remnant of the old Roman nation existed at this time almost entirely in the ancient capital and its adjacent territory. The Roman Empire really perished from no other cause than the general extinction of the Roman race. As the barbarians swarmed into Italy the best part of the old Italians took refuge in Rome, where the old spirit, the old manners and institutions—so to speak, the Roman essence—was concentrated and preserved to effect a new and peaceful conquest of the world. This Roman nation desired to have its own autonomy and to be subject neither to the Roumanians of the east nor the barbarians of the west. They had no thought of accepting Lombard sovereignty over themselves, yet they were eager to see the Greek domination in Italy terminated, and therefore desired Luitprand’s success in the enterprise of overthrowing the exarchate. For Rome they desired independence. The Popes, however, would not take any measures for making Rome a sovereign state, until divine Providence directed the course of events to this end as a natural and necessary result, without any positive act on their part renouncing civil allegiance to the empire.
The course of events actually favored most opportunely and remarkably the designs of Luitprand and the wishes of the Roman people. The unutterable folly of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian drove him to an attack on the religion of the Romans and the sacred person of the pontiff. He ordered the exarch Paul to enforce submission to the heresy of the Iconoclasts by military power. Pope Gregory II. excommunicated Leo and exhorted all the Catholic princes and people of Italy to stand firm in defence of the faith and discipline of the church. They obeyed his voice so readily and with so much zeal that the absolute and final extinction of the Greek dominion in Italy was only averted by the mediation of the Pope himself. As Luitprand and the Lombards, profiting by the general uprising against the imperial authority, became stronger and advanced toward a more entire subjugation of Italy, they became more dangerous to the independence of the Holy See than were the feeble dukes and exarchs who represented the distant emperor. The king even allied himself with the exarch for the subjugation of the proud republic which disdained to be subject to either Greek or Lombard, and besieged the city of Rome. Pope Gregory II. went to Luitprand’s camp, and the majesty of his presence, together with the force of the arguments which he addressed to the noble and Catholic mind of the king, produced such an effect upon him that he cast himself at the feet of the pontiff, imploring his benediction and promising peace. In company with the Pope, Luitprand went to St. Peter’s Church, where he laid upon the tomb of the apostle his royal mantle, bracelets, coat of mail, dagger, gilded sword, golden crown, and silver cross as a gift to St. Peter and the church. Nevertheless, he renewed his attempt to make himself master of Rome ten years later during the pontificate of Gregory III., and continued during the pontificate of Zacharias his occasional irruptions into the exarchate of Ravenna and the duchy of Rome, although in every instance he yielded to the voice of his conscience and of the Vicar of Christ, desisting from his purpose as often as he renewed it, and making restitution of the towns which he had conquered. His successor, Rachis, undertook anew the enterprise of subjugating the exarchate, but was so much affected by the remonstrances of the Pope that he abdicated his dignity and withdrew with his wife and children into a monastery. His brother and successor, Astolpho, actually achieved the conquest of the exarchate,[[99]] and put an end to the Greek dominion in that part of Italy. Henceforth the Byzantine emperors had no authority in Italy except in Calabria and Sicily. Astolpho next turned his attention toward Rome and made a formal demand of allegiance on the senate and people, supported by a large army. The city was strongly fortified, and all its people were determined to make a stubborn defence of their independence. Astolpho would not lend his ear to any negotiation, help was demanded in vain from the Greek emperor, and in these sore straits Pope Stephen III. betook himself for aid and succor to Pepin, the King of the Franks.
Gregory III. had once before invoked the help of Charles Martel without any result. Since that time the Frankish nobles had referred to Pope Zacharias the question of their right to set aside the effete dynasty of the Merovingians and to substitute in its place the family of Charles Martel. The Pope had answered that the royal title ought to be given to the one who actually possessed and exercised the royal authority and functions. The new Carlovingian dynasty was thus formally established in France with the sanction and benediction of the Pope. And the time was now come for these powerful kings, Pepin and Charlemagne, to step forward as the eldest sons of the church, to secure the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, and to inaugurate that close relationship which has ever since existed between the kingdom of France and the Holy See.
Pope Stephen, although old and in extremely feeble health, went to France, where he was received with a spontaneous and splendid ovation by all ranks of the people, from the highest to the lowest. The Pope performed the solemn ceremony of the anointing of the king, the queen, and the royal princes, and conferred upon Pepin the dignity of patrician of Rome. A solemn assembly of the magnates of the kingdom was held at Quiercey, at which the king and nobles bound themselves to place the Pope in possession of the sovereign dominion of Rome and the exarchate. Pepin first attempted peaceful negotiations with Astolpho, and, these being absolutely refused, crossed the Alps with an army, and compelled him to make a treaty of peace with the Pope, by which he renounced all claim upon the Roman principality and the exarchate. Astolpho, however, disavowed and violated his engagements as soon as Pepin had withdrawn his army. Again (755) Pepin crossed the Alps and suddenly appeared with an overwhelming force before Pavia. Severer conditions of peace were this time imposed upon Astolpho—a mulct of one-third of his treasure, a yearly tribute of 12,000 gold solidi, and hostages for the fulfilment of his promises. French and Lombard commissaries were appointed to visit the whole territory assigned to the Pope and receive the keys of all the cities. Pepin made a solemn and festal entry into Rome amidst universal jubilation, and laid a formal document of investiture of the pontifical domain, together with the keys of the towns, upon the tomb of St. Peter.
Astolpho died suddenly from an injury received by a fall from his horse, very soon after these events (756). Rachis came out of his cloister with the design of regaining the crown which he had resigned. The majority of the princes favored the election of Didier, Duke of Brescia, who secured the influence of the Pope and of the envoys of Pepin in his favor by a solemn promise under oath to execute the treaty made by Astolpho and to cede some additional territory to the Holy See. He was accordingly elected King of Lombardy, but failed to fulfil his engagements and passed the seventeen years of his reign in perpetual efforts to secure an undivided sovereignty over all Italy. At last, taking advantage of the death of Pepin and of Pope Stephen III., and of cabals and factions among the Romans in reference to a new election, he made an open and violent effort to seize the dominion of Rome and the entire principality. He was deterred from actually consummating his intention by an armed entry into the city, where there was no force which could have prevented it, simply by the threat of excommunication, and withdrew to Pavia. The end of the Lombard kingdom was now near at hand. Pope Adrian, the Italian people, Charlemagne, and all except a few adherents of Didier were in accord on this subject. Charles crossed the Alps with a large army, evading the troops which guarded the passes by means of a secret defile, and easily took possession of the whole territory, Pavia only excepted, which held out for a year under Didier and his gallant son, Adelchis. Pavia at length surrendered, the Lombard kingdom was abolished, Didier was confined in a French monastery, where he became a monk in earnest for the rest of his life, the donation of Pepin to the Holy See was confirmed, and Charles returned home to prosecute that brilliant career which made him before the end of the century the monarch of almost the whole of Europe.
The temporal kingdom of the Pope was now established in a definite and stable manner, with the universal recognition of Catholic Christendom. Nevertheless, as a civil institution it was still exposed to the inward and outward vicissitudes and dangers to which all states are liable from the very nature of things. It was necessary that some great political power, distinct from the papal sovereignty, should hold over the See of St. Peter the ægis of protection. The providence of God, therefore, soon raised up that power which was consecrated by the name of
“THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.”
During the last year of the eighth century Adrian’s successor, Pope Leo III., was obliged to implore the aid of Charlemagne to repress the turbulence of Roman factions. Leo was received by Charlemagne at Paderborn, in the midst of a brilliant assemblage of nobles and a vast army, with all possible veneration and honor, and returned to Rome escorted by princes and prelates and a guard of honor, to await the promised visit of the king. In December, 799, Charlemagne came to Rome, a great council was assembled, and all the measures which were necessary for restoring and confirming order in the pontifical state were adopted. The Christmas festivities were celebrated with the greatest possible pomp and splendor, and while Charlemagne was kneeling before the tomb of the apostles Leo suddenly and unexpectedly approached him and placed on his head a golden diadem. The people burst forth into the acclamation: “Life and victory to Charles, the great and pacific Roman emperor!” In the bull which Leo published on the same day he says: Quem Carolum auctore Deo, in defensionem et provectum sanctæ universalis ecclesiæ Augustum hodie sacravimus.
In a former article[[100]] we have sketched an outline of the destinies and vicissitudes of Rome during the period of the decline of the Carlovingian dynasty and the rise of the German Empire. We have, therefore, now presented in a general view the history of the rise and consolidation of the temporal sovereignty of the Popes between the two great eras of St. Gregory I. and St. Gregory VII. From that time forward the political history of the Papacy relates chiefly to the rise and subsequent decline of the temporal power of the Pope over all Christendom, until at last, in the disruption of political unity among European states, the Holy See is once more subject to the same struggle for independence in its immediate patrimony which preceded the period of its mediæval power. The confederate union of the European nations under the moral presidency of the pope and the political primacy of the emperor was gradually transformed, by the waning of the imperial power which became restricted to Germany and at last subsided into a mere royal dominion over Austria, and the diminution of the spiritual power of the Holy See by the schism in Christendom, into a weaker sort of alliance, held together by common interests and mutual treaties. So long as this continued the Pope retained his place among the other sovereigns as one of the Italian princes, with a personal pre-eminence and a moral influence derived from his spiritual supremacy over the Catholic nations, and over the Catholic population in those nations which were not Catholic. Sound policy and the necessity of preserving an equilibrium in Europe caused the powerful monarchs of the great states to protect the independence of the Pope against one another, and to restore it when it was invaded. The disruption of the last bonds of European alliance in our own day has left the Holy See and the church once more a prey to secular tyranny exercised by a new German emperor, and a new Lombard king, without protection or defence from any political power. As Rome and Christendom went up together, so they have gone down together. And if a regeneration or restoration in the actual present or the future is destined for Europe and the rest of the world, it must be accomplished in both together; for they are inseparable parts of one whole. The history of the past is therefore a guide for judging the present and forecasting the future. The question of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope in the Roman state is essential and pre-eminent in the discussion of the principles of a reconstitution of the family of civilized and Christian nations. The complete independence and liberty of the Pope as supreme head of the church, and of the church itself, are intrinsically the most important of all rights and interests; and with these the temporal sovereignty of the Pope is necessarily connected so intimately that it becomes indirectly and extrinsically of equal importance, being, in fact, practically identified with them. We have, therefore, in our preceding historical sketches prepared the way for showing how this sovereignty of the Pope over Rome and the whole territory which he claims as subject to his crown is an indubitable and inalienable right, which must be restored and secured to him as the indispensable condition of religious and political order and well-being.
We shall not attempt to reconcile this proposition with the doctrine of a divine or natural right of sovereignty inhering in the multitude of every nation or a majority of them. At the present time this doctrine is not maintained by sensible and moderate advocates of a constitutional form of government and of popular franchises. The sovereignty may lawfully reside in the multitude politically organized, as it does in our republic, but it is not by virtue of divine or natural right coalescing from the separate, individual rights of the units who make up the mass. The right of Mr. Tilden to the Presidential chair was not asserted on the ground that he received a majority of the popular vote, which he did receive without question, but on the ground that he received a majority of the votes of the electors who were really competent to vote for the appointment of a President, according to the Constitution. We might make a plausible argument to show that the Roman people have always consented to the papal sovereignty, except during intervals of political madness, and actually at the present time would re-establish it, if they were free to do so. But the right of the Pope cannot be maintained on a theory, which would reduce it to a popular concession revocable at any time by the will of his subjects. Some good Catholics may hold the doctrine of popular sovereignty as above defined, but they do so inconsistently; for, although it is not directly contrary to the Catholic faith, it is incompatible with the principles and practice of the Holy See and the church, and the doctrine of every authority respected by sound and loyal Catholics who are instructed in the science of political ethics. In certain circumstances the will of the people suffices, alone or in concurrence with other causes, to convey or transfer lawful dominion. We have shown how, in the case of the papal sovereignty, the Roman people did, voluntarily, withdraw or refuse allegiance to all other princes and eagerly give it to the Pope. We have shown, also, how other causes concurred in establishing his right as a fact, and placing him in actual possession of the sovereignty, without prejudice to any other really existing legitimate right. The Pope possessed all the rights belonging to his position as the chief land-owner and prince among the Roman princes. He possessed the right, as head of the church, to have no temporal prince placed over him who could control or hinder the exercise of his spiritual supremacy. Moreover, he possessed a great many imperfect rights or claims upon the allegiance of the Roman people arising from the services he had rendered to the state in preserving, defending, and succoring it in circumstances when it was near extinction, from his superior ability to govern the state, and the fitness of things making it expedient, and even necessary, for the public good that sovereignty should be vested in his person. The action of Pepin was that of one who defended the Roman people in the right of their independence against tyrants and aggressors, and defended the general right of his own and other nations to the independence and tranquillity of the Roman Church as the centre of Christendom. The action of Charlemagne was similar, and his overthrow of the Lombard kingdom was justifiable by the right of conquest, the consent of the greater part of the people of Italy, and the necessity of providing for the welfare not only of Italy but of all Europe. His final act of settlement in the beginning of the year 800 had still greater force and legitimacy as the act of the king of Europe, in which all the great estates of his realm concurred, the whole people of Western Christendom applauding, and the Eastern empire tacitly consenting. The possession of a temporal principality by the Pope became thus a fact, which was so connected with natural and divine rights of various kinds that it became a perpetual and inviolable right. This is the only way in which sovereign rights can become vested in any kind of lawful possessor or political person. There is no such thing as a right to civil sovereignty immediately delegated by God or springing out of the constitution of nature directly. Scarcely any one can be found, even among legitimists, who maintains any such origin for sovereign rights. There is a natural and divine right to good government inherent in the social and political order. There is a divine right, having a natural basis, in the Catholic Church to good government, which is specifically secured by the divine appointment of the form of government, as a hierarchy subordinated to a supreme head. This right takes precedence of all others. As those rights which are more particular cede to the more general, all rights whatever must give way to the universal right of all Christians and all mankind, that the Vicar of Christ shall be left free and independent in the possession and exercise of his spiritual supremacy, and that all men shall have liberty of obeying him as the vicegerent of God on earth. The Roman people have a right to good government, the Italian people have a right to national well-being, all Europe has a right to the advantage of a due political equilibrium and alliance among nations. All these advantages were secured by the establishment of the sovereignty of the Pope in Rome. It grew up and became strengthened, and sustained itself for ages, as an essential part of the political constitution of Europe. Whatever pretence to right, legitimacy, stability, or sanction of any kind can be made by any European institution, the same is applicable to the temporal principality of the Pope. But, beyond all this, it is necessary to the spiritual independence of the Holy See, and therefore protected by the sanction of a higher right and a higher law. It has been given to God and accepted by his vicegerent, and has thus become sacred, inviolable, irrevocable. It is like a cathedral, an altar, the sepulchre of a saint. It is the property of the universal church, of Christendom, and of God. As such it is under the protection of ecclesiastical, international, and divine law; it is within the domain of right and of morality, and therefore appertains to the Catholic religion; is included in the order which is subject to the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. In this order he is the supreme judge and lawgiver, infallible in defining and declaring the law, sovereign in the judgments and decrees by which he applies it to particular questions and concrete matters. The Pope is therefore the supreme judge, the Catholic episcopate being associated with him in the same tribunal, by whom alone the right and the necessity of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See can be determined. The consent of the Catholic people adds moral weight to this determination, and the political action of states gives it the necessary physical force for its execution. But there is no appeal from the judgment of the Pope himself on his own rights as sovereign in the Roman principality, either to bishops, sovereigns, or people. His own judgment has settled the right of the Roman question, and it is the duty of all Catholics to adhere to that judgment. The Pope will not cede his sovereignty, and the Catholic people will not consent to its cession or to its violent occupation by any usurper.
The history of the destinies of Rome in the past shows that the recent calamities of the Holy See do not warrant the expectation that its temporal sovereignty has passed away to return no more. It has proved itself to be indestructible amid all the vicissitudes of Europe. When Rome is shaken and disturbed, the civilized world is thrown into commotion. As we are writing, the Russian army is crossing the Pruth, and it cannot be doubted that we have reached one of the most momentous epochs of history. When our readers are perusing what has been written, another fold of the scroll of time will have been unrolled, perhaps thickly written over with records of great events. We have read this morning the significant utterance of Von Moltke on the necessity of arming more German troops for the defence of the empire. Some may take Châteaubriand’s gloomy view of things and think that Europe is hastening on a funeral march to the tomb. If this be so, then there is no refuge for the Pope but the catacombs. If atheism, despotism, revolution, and anarchy are going to hold a wild revel amid the ruins and monuments of a Christendom which was but is no more, then Rome will be involved in the common ruin. But “when Rome falls, the world.” However, we do not feel obliged, as yet, to despair of Europe, Christianity, or civilization. If there is a resurging movement after a temporary convulsion, Rome will be the centre of it, and the successor of Pius IX. will reap the advantage of his long watch by the tomb of St. Peter. We believe in the triumph of the Catholic Church over infidelity, heresy, schism, revolution, and despotism; over Judaism, Mohammedanism, and heathenism. The restoration of the Pope’s temporal kingdom is necessary to this triumph, and therefore we believe it will be restored. We hope for a pacification of Europe after the war which has now begun is terminated. Civilized mankind is tired of war, and the almost bankruptcy which is universally produced by the enormous military establishments of the nations of Europe, it would seem, must enforce at length disarmament and bring about a period of amicable alliance and devotion to the arts of peace, the study of the welfare of the people as the end of government, the moral sway of principles which are not only patriotic but Christian and Catholic. In such a state of things the moral influence of the Holy See would naturally rise to a higher point than it attained even under the mediæval system.
As for Rome and Italy, their temporal prosperity, so far from being sacrificed, would be promoted, by the re-establishment of the pontifical state and the overthrow of the visionary fabric of Cavour and Mazzini. We certainly desire to see all just national aspirations of the Italians satisfied. We are glad that Austrian domination in Italy has ceased. But all history seems to show that a confederate unity of distinct states is the only order suited to Italy, and that a monarchical unification is foreign and hostile to the genius and conditions of the Italian people. But, whatever may be done by the Italians and the European princes who will be left masters of the situation and arbiters of national interests after the conflict now impending, in respect to the rest of Italy, the domain of the Pope must be restored to him in its integrity and placed under the protection of the law of nations. This is the indispensable condition of the restoration of Europe from the condition of decadence into which it has fallen, and no doubt the providence of God will force upon the rulers of the world the recognition of this truth in due time and by the course of events wholly beyond their foresight or control.
ALBA’S DREAM.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” ETC.
PART II.
When it was known in the country that M. le Marquis had joined the army as a common soldier, the consternation was great; but when it was known why he had done so, surprise gave way to bitter indignation and regret. The Marquis de Gondriac gone to risk his life for the son of a low plebeian, generally supposed to have been a pirate! The marvel was how the world stood still while such a scandal was enacted in its face. As to the widow, nobody thought of congratulating her. If Marcel had gone out and been shot, they would have pitied her, within reasonable bounds; but now every man’s hand was against her and her son—even the women felt the sweet font of pity dried up within them when they thought of what might come of this. But the people, despite their wrath, were loath to take so gloomy a view of the future.
“The bullets have a sense of their own,” said Peltran; “they know who to hit first and who last, and who never to hit. Look at M. le Comte, how they respect him! He has seen more fighting than ever the Caboffs did, and yet the bullets have never touched a hair of his head. It’s my belief the things are alive and know what they are about.”
No one contradicted this sapient remark; for Peltran was not a pleasant person to contradict.
Marcel Caboff had never been popular, but from this time forth he was branded as a sort of potential malefactor; if M. le Marquis died, Marcel would be his murderer, and Marcel’s life would not be worth an old song in Gondriac. The only people who did the young man justice and had the courage to take his part were Virginie and Alba. Since the night of the storm a friendship had sprung up between Marcel and Alba which had grown to more than friendship on his side. Alba was a lovely maiden now; impulsive, untutored as the waves that her nature seemed attuned to, wild as the sea-birds whose lot she sometimes envied when they beat their wings, rose up from the rocks, and took flight across the sea.
“I wonder you can stay here and live this idle, humdrum life when you might be away seeing the great world,” Alba said to him one day, as they met upon the cliff and walked on together.
“You wish I were away, do you?”
“Oh! no; only I wonder you don’t go. I should, if I were a man.”
“It is harder on me than you think,” said Marcel bitterly. “I did my best to get away; but mother went on her knees and said I would kill her if I went. It was hard to resist that; but it makes me feel angry with her when I think of what has come of it. I know the people hate me and call me a coward. Alba,” he said, turning suddenly round, “you don’t think me a coward, do you?”
“No, Marcel; if you had not been braver than any man in Gondriac, except your father, you would not have come out in the boat that night. How dare they call you a coward when they remember it!”
“They don’t remember it. Everybody has forgotten it but you.”
“M. le Marquis has not forgotten it.”
“I wish he had. That is what has brought all this misery about. If he had not remembered, I should be away with the grande armée now, and should either die a glorious death like my brothers, or come home by and by with the cross, and perhaps a wound or two. Then everybody would know I was a brave man, and mother would have had something to be proud of.”
“Yes,” said Alba dreamily; she was watching a ship that flecked the horizon far away like a great swan, its white sails flapping against the sky, the sea-gulls following in its wake, as it cleaved the wave.
“Would you have been proud of me?” asked Marcel.
“Yes,... perhaps.”
“You would not have cared a straw, I believe,” he said, angry and hurt at her indifferent tone.
“If you had been killed? Indeed I should, Marcel. I should have been very sorry; but what is the good of being sorry now, when it is never going to happen? Look at that ship out there! With what a dip she shears the water! How fast she goes! Her sails are like wings. I wish I had wings!”
“You are always wishing for impossible things,” said Marcel, huffed at this summary dismissal; “you were wishing you were a man a little while ago, and now you want to be a bird. Why don’t you wish for something I could give you?”
“You give me! You could not give me any one of the things I wish for!” Alba flung back the waves of swart hair from her low, broad brow and laughed derisively.
“How do you know that? I have plenty of money, and money can buy everything—everything reasonable, that is. Suppose a fairy were to come and say she would give you whatever you wished; what would you ask for?”
“I would ask her first to make me perfectly beautiful, perfectly good, and perfectly happy,” began Alba.
“Why, you are all that already, you foolish girl!”
“You think so; but you know nothing about it. I would ask her to make me as rich and powerful as a queen, and to make everybody pay me homage—not because I was rich and powerful, but because they loved me! Oh! I should like to be loved more than anybody ever was in this world before. And I should like to live in a beautiful castle, like the castle yonder, and I should fill it with beautiful things, and make it a real fairy palace to live in.”
“And who would you like to live in it with you? You would not care to live in it all alone?” inquired Marcel, bewildered by these ambitious aspirations that left himself and his money-bags altogether out of the reckoning.
“Well, first, I should like to have petite mère, of course; then ... then I should ask the fairy for a brave and handsome prince, who would come and woo me as they do in the story-books; he should be handsome and clever and good, or I should not care for him; but if he was all that, I should love him with all my heart and soul, and we should be as happy as the days are long!”
Marcel heard her to the end, and then began to consider if there was not some one item in the capacious list that came within his possibilities.
“If another castle would do instead of this one—you know you never could have this one—I would go and buy it for you, Alba, and you might have as many pretty gauds to fill it as you liked. We have lots of gold and silver things and pictures up there”—nodding towards the Fortress—“and if I asked mother she would give them to us—to you, I mean.” Alba’s laugh rang like a silver echo all along the cliff.
“And the prince—where would you get him?”
“Must he be a prince? Would not a brave man who loved you and was ready to do your bidding in everything, who would spend his whole life in trying to make you happy—would not that do instead? Must he be a prince, Alba?”
He took her hand and held it, and she did not struggle to release it. They were standing at the foot of a rock that cast a long, black shadow far out upon the sea; the west wind blew into their faces; Alba’s scarlet hood had fallen back, and her hair drifted in a heavy stream behind her, as Marcel bent over her, waiting to hear his fate. He might have read it in her blank, scared looks, in her startled, reluctant attitude. If there had been hope for him, would she have shrunk away and drawn closer to the rock, as if asking it to protect her?
“I have been too hasty,” said the young man penitently; “I should have spoken to Mère Virginie first. Forgive me, Alba, and say only if I may go to her now and ask you for my wife?” He still held her hand, and, mistaking her silence, made an effort to slip his arm around her. The movement acted on Alba like the sting of a snake; she escaped from him with a cry, and sped along the cliff like a deer flying from the hunters.
“My child, you have been foolish, and so has Marcel; but there is no need to cry or be unhappy about it,” said Mère Virginie when Alba had sobbed out the terrible story on her breast. But Alba was not to be comforted. She had been living in dreamland, and now awoke to find the hard ground under her feet instead of golden clouds. Of course she had dreamt of love and lovers, and her heart, or that vague yearning which as yet took its place, had become enamored of the dreams, visions that lay safe beyond the disenchanting present, wrapped in the golden haze of distance; and now this rude awakening had dispelled them, and brought home to the dreamer that she had reached that border-land that lies between the mystery of morning and the revelation of noon; the pearly mists had rolled away in an instant, and the blaze of the mid-day sun was upon her, chasing the fairy phantoms and making sober realities pitilessly clear. She had been dreaming of a lover in some remote time and place, and, lo! he was at her side; he had been close to her all along—an ugly, common man, who seemed made on purpose to mock the visions of her fancy. And yet this incident, which threw Alba into such despair, had been for many a day the fond anticipation of her mother’s heart.
“Why need it frighten you to find that Marcel loves you and wants to have you for his little wife, my child?” said Virginie. “Don’t shudder and cling to me as if he were going to drag you away this very moment! You shall never leave me, unless you do it of your own free will. But remember, darling, that I may have to leave you; and then what will become of you?”
“You leave me, petite mère?” And Alba looked up at her in dismay.
“It must come to that some day. I am old and you are young. I have a trouble here that reminds me of this often, and then I lie awake of nights, thinking of my little one, and praying God to give her a friend, the best and truest friend a woman can have in this world, to take care of her before I am called away.”
“Mother, if you go I will go too. I could never live without you! What should I do here if you were gone? Nobody wants me, nobody loves me in the whole world but you.”
“Marcel loves you, my child, and he will be that good friend, if you will let him.”
“Marcel! Marcel! As if he could replace you! I don’t love him; I don’t care if he went to the wars and never came back again.”
“If you married him you would soon learn to love him; his goodness would soon win your love. And then remember, Alba, how happy he could make you. You often long to have beautiful things—pearls and jewels and splendid dresses—and you sigh to go away in the ships that we see setting sail for distant lands, and to see fair cities, and the great mountains, and the countries where it is always summer and the flowers never die. Marcel would give you all these wishes; and then he would let you be so good and generous to the poor!”
“I should not care for pearls and pretty things, if I had to marry Marcel,” said Alba. “I should not like to go to distant cities with him; and if he loved me like a real lover, he would let me be good to the poor without making me his wife.”
How was the anxious woman to argue with this sweet, foolish innocence? If she could but teach the child to believe in the happiness that was at her feet, and persuade her to become Marcel’s wife, how easy it would be to die! How terrible it was to have to leave her unprotected and alone! Virginie’s heart overflowed in tears as she thought of it, and the hot drops trickled down her face and fell on Alba’s.
Alba looked up quickly. “Petite mère!” she said.
Throwing her arms round Virginie and kissing the wet cheeks again and again, “I will marry him! I will do anything, only don’t be unhappy, don’t cry! O mother, mother! what is it?” she cried, starting up in terror; for Virginie had fallen back and was gasping for breath. She pressed the child’s arm, and with her eyes bade her be still. The spasm of pain passed away after a while; but when she tried to speak the words came faintly in broken sentences.
“Petite mère! what is it?” entreated Alba, scarcely reassured. “May I call Jeanne? Shall we send for the doctor?”
“No, my darling, it is nothing; I am well now,” said Virginie, with a sickly smile that belied her words. The sharp pang had, it is true, subsided, but she was still ashy pale and could only speak under her breath. Alba watched her intently for some minutes, and then, twining her arms round Virginie’s neck, she laid her head upon her breast, nestling to her like a bird.
“Mother,” she whispered, “would it really make you happy if I were to marry Marcel?”
“My darling, it would make me happier than anything else in this world.”
“Then I will marry him, petite mère.”
“My child!” Virginie’s face lighted up with a beaming joy.
“I will marry him to please you. There, now, promise me not to be unhappy, not to lie awake at night fretting, and never to have any more pains at your heart!”
“But, my darling, I would not have you do it to make me happy. It is your happiness I am thinking of, not my own. Don’t you think you could learn to love Marcel after a while?”
“Petite mère! how can you ask me? Foolish, ugly Marcel, whom everybody laughs at and calls a coward! But never mind. I will marry him, since he wants me and you wish it; I promise you I will.”
“You are a foolish child to speak of Marcel so,” said Virginie; “those who laugh at him are the fools, and you know he is not a coward. As to his ugliness, what does that matter, if he is faithful, and fond, and good?”
Alba pondered this philosophy for some minutes; then she said: “When will he want to marry me, petite mère?”
“Not for a long while yet, my darling. You are both very young; there’s time to wait.”
“How old am I?”
“You were sixteen in September.”
“And how long will you let me wait?”
“Till your seventeenth birthday is passed, at least.”
“Nearly a whole year! Then I have all that time to be free and happy!”
“And if at the end of that time you have not learned to care for Marcel, I shall not ask you to marry him at all,” said Virginie. The ecstasy which the reprieve had called forth sent a pang through her heart, and made her ask herself whether, after all, she was doing wisely and well in forcing upon the child a lot from which her sympathies recoiled so violently.
“Not marry him at all!” repeated Alba in amazement; but she added quickly, with one of those sudden changes of manner that were familiar to her sensitive and mobile nature: “I think, petite mère, I had better not wait for the year. Instead of growing easier, it might grow harder by thinking over it all that time. You know you always tell me that when one has a disagreeable thing to do, it is better to do it at once and be done with it; one only makes it worse by looking at it. I think it would be better if I were to marry Marcel at once and get it over.”
Virginie was aghast at the combination of strength and utter childish ignorance of the true nature and bearings of the sacrifice in contemplation which Alba’s reasoning revealed. In the bottom of her heart the mother believed this repugnance would pass away, and there was no cruelty in coercing the child’s will at the outset, in order to bend it to her real happiness; but unless it could be so bent, Virginie would rather die trusting her treasure to God’s guardianship than force it into any man’s keeping.
“We will say no more about it for the present, my child,” she said; “we will leave it in the hands of God for another year.”
“And you will be happy now, petite mère?”
“Yes. I feel more tranquil about my darling’s future.”
“And Marcel—must I tell him?”
“No, you must not mention to him or to any one what we have been saying. I will speak to him myself.”
So there was no engagement, no promise exchanged; not a word of thanks or of rejoicing passed between him and Alba; but Marcel knew how docile she was to the power of love, and she loved her mother with a strength and depth of feeling that knew no limits and measured no sacrifices. He did not mean to be accepted as a sacrifice. He had faith enough in his love to believe that before the year was out it would have conquered the coy heart of his lady-love and brought her a willing captive to his side. Meantime, he would leave none of the stratagems and tactics of honorable warfare untried.
Alba was fond of books; he sent for all those he could hear of that were likely to interest her, and she and Virginie read them together in the long evenings, and talked over them, until their days were brightened by the scenes of travel and story which the books described. He knew she loved jewels and shining silks, and he went to Paris himself and selected pretty trinkets of every kind—a necklace of pearls, and rings of emeralds and rubies, and silks of soft and brilliant colors—and he would carry them to the cottage, and shyly lay them down without saying a word. Alba seldom noticed them till he was gone, when she would open the parcel and examine its contents; but Mère Virginie seemed to take more pleasure in the gauds than she did. This went on for three months. Then, one morning, Alba, who had been out since sunrise, sitting on the rocks and watching the tide come in and the creamy surf break upon the shore, entered the cottage and said abruptly:
“Mother, I won’t take any more presents from Marcel, and I want to give him back all those we have. I can’t keep them; I can’t indeed.”
“You have made up your mind never to marry him?”
“I will marry him whenever you wish it. It is not that, only I can’t take his gifts; they make me miserable. I hate them!”
“My darling, I will send them back to him, if you wish; but it will hurt him very much, poor fellow!—he took so much trouble to get them for you, and you used to love pretty things. How often have I not heard you long for the rings and flowers and shining silks we have seen in the fine shops at X——? Many a time you have wished a fairy or a lover would come and give them to you! Do you forget?”
“Ah! that is just it,” said Alba, with a light laugh that was full of pain; “if a lover gave them to me, I dare say I should like them well enough.”
“But Marcel is your lover?”
“Poor Marcel! It is so funny trying to think of him like that. He is so awkward and stupid and ugly; a real lover would be quite different. But I don’t want one now; I don’t indeed, petite mère. Only please send Marcel back his gifts. They make me feel as if he were bribing me to be fond of him, and I should not care a bit more for him if he gave me the loveliest jewels in France. I don’t care any more for jewels. I used to long to be happy myself, but now I only care to make you happy. You promised me to be very happy when I married Marcel?”
This was dreadful. This was not what the mother meant when she prayed for the marriage that Alba contemplated with such pathetic resignation, as if it were a sacrifice or a torture that every day brought nearer to her. There were still eight months between her and the dreaded fate, and Virginie was strongly moved to tell her at once that she was released. It seemed cruel to poison the child’s life all that time on the chance, which apparently grew less as the months went on, of her getting to love Marcel at the end of the year. But, again, this marriage was the one prospect of security and happiness which the future opened out—quiet, substantial happiness such as the mother longed to see her in possession of. If Alba flung it away, there was nothing before her but a lonely, loveless life of unprotected poverty. It was best to be patient, to keep silence a little longer. Virginie, meantime, had faith in the power of her own love, and she would never cease imploring heaven to take the destiny of her darling into its safe-keeping.
Hermann de Gondriac had now been five years absent, and those years had been an uninterrupted series of triumphs for him; he had borne a charmed life on every battle-field, and come off unharmed where all around him were stricken. But the chances of war prevailed at last, and the news came to Gondriac that M. le Comte had been seriously wounded and was coming home. His left arm had been shattered, and, though the skill of the emperor’s surgeon had saved him from amputation, he was in great suffering and condemned to the severest precautions. A few bonfires were lighted on the cliffs to bid the home-comer welcome, but this was all the people ventured on. M. le Marquis, it was said, had been in the same engagement with his son, but had come out of it unhurt.
That winter was a fierce one all through France, and Gondriac suffered terribly; the bleak gray sea in a perpetual roar, and the winds beating on its wild, open coast. Food and fuel were scanty, and but for the presence of the young lord at the castle many amongst the fishermen’s families must have perished and starved. No one had yet seen him; the great physician, who came from Paris at intervals, forbade his going beyond the southern side of the park until spring came with sunshine and blossoms. But Hermann could not have been more actively present amongst his people had he been walking daily in the midst of them. He seemed to know by inspiration what they wanted, and food and clothing were dealt out from the castle in unlimited supplies. There were toys for the children, and medicine and strengthening wine for the sick, and books for those who could enjoy them, until the people came to think that the bird of the fairy-tale must be true, and that their young master had the tell-tale messenger at his orders.
Alba busied her poetic fancy in making pictures of what Hermann was like. She had not seen him since she was a child and he a tall, slim lad. Now that he was a man and a hero, she longed to behold him again. Even to look at a hero from a distance would be something—life was so tame, and all the people she knew were so commonplace. Was he proud and stern and abrupt in speech, as they said the emperor was? Or was he gentle and honey-tongued like the knights of old?
One morning a man rode in from X—— to the castle bearing important news to M. le Comte. Important news indeed: the emperor was coming the next day to inspect the fortifications of a neighboring seaport. It was settled at once in Gondriac that M. le Comte would go to meet his majesty. No physician could hinder him in that, come what might of it.
Alba had heard nothing of this great event which was stirring the country for fifty miles round. She and Virginie lived a life apart up in their sea-nest, and old Jeanne was not given to gossip, but did her marketing without waste of words, and brought home little news in her basket.
It was a lovely morning; the sun shone brightly on the sea; the breakers were scampering in, not loud and angry, but tossing over one another in masses of creamy foam. Alba loved these laughing seas, and would sit for hours on the rocks, watching the tide ride in on the silver horses. To-day the salt breath of the ocean and the mellow west wind excited her like wine, and carried her off to the old dreamland where she seldom ventured now. She was away on the dancing billows, sailing to the land of the sun with a noble knight by her side. Virginie sat there with maidens serving her; there was music on shore, and crowds waving glad farewells. Alba began to sing as she walked briskly along the cliff, building her castle in fairy-land. But the Fortress standing out like a spectral prison, with the ivy blown inside out on its grimy walls, sent a sudden chill through her and put out the sunlight. There was a figure at the window watching her. She turned hastily back, walking quickly until she got down the slope, when she almost flew across the moor, on and on till she was safe in the shelter of the park. O that figure, how it pursued her! How the Fortress threatened her! If she could but fly from them for ever, and never hear of Marcel Caboff any more! She had fancied latterly that the prospect of being his wife and living with old Mme. Caboff in the gloomy, rat-haunted place was less odious to her than it used to be; but to-day the thought nearly drove her mad. She had sped along as if some evil fate were behind her, and she was tired; there was a moss-grown oak close by, and she sat down on the trunk to rest. The wind rustled the dead leaves at her feet and swept the topmost branches of the pines; then the anthem died softly away and all was silent. The place was very still; nothing stirred but the insects in the grass, and the zephyr high up above her head, as it rose and fell in swift, Æolian breathings. In the distance, with a forest of trees between, lay the castle, its battlements and towers and flying buttresses rising majestically against the sky—a high romance of chivalry and war chronicled in stone; to Alba the door of an enchanted realm whose portals she might never pass. No wonder men were heroes who lived in homes like this; how easy it must be to lead grand lives where the very walls are heralds and witnesses urging to noble and knightly deeds! The present owner of this splendid house was worthy in all this of his proud ancestors. What a royal act of heroism it was of the old Marquis to enlist as a common soldier out of gratitude to a dead man and pity for his widow! Then Alba thought of Marcel, of the poor, tame creature he showed beside this race of knightly nobles, and she despised him, and fell to wondering how it would be when she was his wife. Gradually the castle melted away, and in its place rose the Fortress, dark and frowning, and it lowered on her like a doom, and Marcel and his grim old mother stood at the window beckoning her to advance. Alba flung herself down upon the trunk and buried her face in the moss, and began to cry passionately. She cried a long time, being full of pity for herself, and there was no one within reach that she need check her sobs.
“What has happened? What is the matter with you, child?” said a voice close to her.
She started up in terror. Yet the speaker was not at all terrible to look at—a gentleman in the brilliant uniform of the Imperial Guard, young and handsome, with a most commanding air, and carrying his left arm in a sling. When Alba rose it was his turn to start. Lying there in an attitude of child-like abandon, shaken with sobs, her scarlet hood thrown back and her masses of black hair falling in loose coils over her neck and face, he had taken her for a little girl; he had called her child, and, lo! she was a full-grown maiden, and lovely beyond words, despite her tears and her dishevelled mien. He bowed to her as he might have done to a queen.
“You are M. le Comte!” said Alba, pretty much as she might have said to a celestial apparition, “You are the Archangel Gabriel!”
“Hermann de Gondriac, your humble servant, mademoiselle.”
She stared at him through the big tears that hung like dew-drops from her lashes, her soft, large glance modest, yet unabashed as if it were gazing on a picture. The knighthood in Hermann recognized the maidenhood of that fearless gaze and did it reverence, but he could not quench the glowing admiration of his own. How liquid and pure they were, those black stars with which she stared at him, those soul-lit eyes that met his without dismay, too innocent to quail beneath their burning light! Why should they quail? Were they not looking at a vision, a dream transmuted into substance? This was the young chief whom she had pictured to herself so often, whose lineage and prowess were the pride of all the people. Only how much grander the reality was than anything she had fancied! What a martial air he wore in his gold-embroidered uniform, with his spurs and clanging sword and plumed helmet, the stars upon his breast—every inch a warrior and a knight!
“You have hurt yourself, mademoiselle; you are in pain,” said Hermann. “Can I send to the castle for assistance for you?”
“Thank you, monseigneur; I have not hurt myself.”
“Yet you were crying?”
“It was not with pain.” This time Alba dropped her lids and blushed.
“Forgive me; I did not mean to intrude upon you.” Alba stood looking down like a guilty child, her cheeks aflame, her lips quivering with the sudden conflict between fear and shame, and a strange emotion that thrilled her like sweet music. “Who is she?” thought Hermann. He remembered, years ago, a child whom his father raved about, wondering how a plebeian stem could have put forth so fair a flower. Could this be she? The curé had told him of the girl’s rare beauty as a sad and anxious burden on his mind, and of the mother’s being ill and in need of generous wine, and he had ordered the best in his cellar to be sent to her. Half unconsciously, as when we try to catch some forgotten air by humming it under our breath, he murmured, “Alba....”
She looked up with a start, and then they both smiled.
“How did you guess I was Alba?” she said, her shyness gone in an instant.
“I did not guess, I remembered.”
“How wonderful! I should never have remembered you, monseigneur.”
“That is not surprising. I am changed since you saw me.”
“And so am I, am I not?”
“Yes, more changed than I could have believed.”
“Ah?” Did he mean for the better or the worse? The man read the question in her eyes and answered it:
“You are far more beautiful than I expected.”
“Beautiful!” she repeated, and her face lighted up.
“I was frightened when I saw you; I took you for a fairy princess,” said Hermann, yielding to the irresistible temptation of pleasing her.
Alba’s face clouded over. “Now I know you are laughing at me, monseigneur; you don’t believe in fairies, and you know very well I’m not a bit like a princess.”
“I have seen many a one who would have given a great deal to be like you,” said Hermann.
“Like me! I thought princesses were all so happy!”
Hermann smiled. “Sometimes they have hearts,” he said.
“Sometimes! And does that make them unhappy?”
He turned to walk under the trees, tacitly inviting her to do the same.
“It endows them with the power of loving,” he answered absently.
“But I thought....” She hesitated; it was difficult to put the thought into the right words.
“You thought that love always led to happiness?” said Hermann, finishing the sentence for her, while he looked at her with a curious glance. Why had she come to cry in this lonely place?
“I don’t know what it leads to. I shall never know,” said Alba very gravely.
M. le Comte smiled. “Tell me, Alba, why were you crying so bitterly just now?”
She turned away her head and made no answer.
“Tell me, sweet Alba,” persisted the young man; “perhaps I can help you if you are in trouble. Trust me with your secret. As I am a soldier and a gentleman, I will defend you if I can. Tell me, is there some one you care for who does not know it?”
She shook her head. “It is not I who care.... I wish I could, but I have tried my best and I cannot love him!” The tears welled up again and were flowing freely.
“Who is forcing you to love him? Tell me his name and I will protect you from him. I swear to you I will!” And Hermann, with a soldier’s instinctive gesture, put his hand to his sword, while his eye kindled with chivalrous anger. Alba thought him the ideal of a noble knight, as she looked at him, terrified and enchanted.
“He is not forcing me, monseigneur,” she said, “and you can do nothing to help me. I have promised to marry, and I must keep my word.”
“You shall not, by heaven, if it makes you wretched! He is a cowardly dog who would hold you to your word against your will,” protested the count hotly.
“He is not forcing me; but I have promised,” repeated Alba.
“And you cannot love him?”
“No! and I have tried so hard.... But mother says that when I am his wife it will be different....”
“Yes, it will be worse, a thousand times worse! Alba, tell me this man’s name; trust me with your secret,” said Hermann, changing his angry tone to one of soft persuasion.
“I dare not,” said Alba in a frightened whisper; “you would go and kill him.” The great, swart eyes were looking up at him, full of trust and admiration.
“Kill him, child! Do you think me so terribly wicked? Do I look like a murderer?”
“It would not be murder in you. You are a warrior; you don’t think it wrong to kill men. That is what warriors are for; but I should not like you to kill poor Marcel.”
“Marcel!... Marcel! I seem to know that name,” said the count, musing. “Has he no other?”
“Yes, Marcel Caboff,” replied Alba in a confidential tone; “but you must not hurt him, monseigneur. Oh! I wish I had not told you.”
Hermann started and muttered something between his teeth which she did not hear, but his look frightened her.
“Marcel Caboff! the fellow whom my father ransomed at the risk of his own life!” said the count. “And he would force you into marrying him! By heaven! he shan’t. I will foil him there.”
“O monseigneur, monseigneur! you will not kill him,” pleaded Alba, clasping her hands and appealing to the murderer with a scared face. “It is not his fault—it is not indeed, monseigneur!”
“I don’t mean to kill him; I would not touch a hair of his head,” said Hermann. “But why do you say it is not his fault? Does he not love you? Does he not want you to marry him?”
“He does, oh! so dreadfully. But I should not mind that. It is mother whom I have promised. It is to please her that I must marry him,” said Alba, and her breast heaved with big sobs, and all the floods were let loose again.
Hermann longed to draw her to his breast and kiss away the tears—she was such a child in spite of her sixteen summers and their full-blossomed beauty! But he checked the impulse. There is no majesty so imposing as the majesty of childhood. “Alba,” he said, “I will save you from Marcel Caboff without hurting him or any one. You shall not marry him, unless you come to wish it yourself. Are you sure that if he gave you up you would not change your mind and wish him back again?” This was Hermann’s estimate of woman’s nature; true, his experience had been gathered among types as different from the one before him as the flowers of a hot-house are from the primrose of the woods.
“I should never wish him to come back; I could never love him,” said Alba—“never, never, never.”
“Then I swear to you on my sword you shall not marry him!” said the count impetuously. “Now tell me, Alba,” he resumed, seeing that she did not speak, “is there not some one you would like to marry better than this fellow Caboff? Tell me the truth. If you had a brother, you would not mind telling him. Try and fancy I am your brother.”
Fancy him her brother! Alba’s fancy had taken many an aerial flight, but never such a one as this.
“Who is he? What is his name?” said Hermann in a whisper, bending closer to her.
But she shook her head. “There is no one, monseigneur.”
“Oh! I don’t believe that; you are afraid to trust me. There is surely some one else who wants to marry you?”
“No one, monseigneur, but Marcel.”
“Alba, look at me!” She turned and looked at him like a docile child. “Have you never seen any one whom you could love or whose heart you would care to win?” He was gazing deep down into the two dark pools of light, as if he thought to see into her soul through them. She did not shrink from the searching glance, but dwelt in it for one long moment; then, as if the flame in Hermann’s eyes leaped out and flashed upon her with too intense a radiance, revealing the spring of some sweet mystery in her heart and his, the white lids quivered and dropped, and a deep blush rose to Alba’s face. They were alone. The voices of the wood were hushed; the dead leaves ceased to rustle at their feet; the zephyrs paused in the branches overhead; the silence grew and deepened, filling the solitude with an overpowering presence, till each seemed to hear the beating of the other’s heart. Suddenly the sound of a horn, followed by a noise of wheels crushing the gravel in the distance, broke the spell and admonished Hermann that he must be gone. He lifted Alba’s hand to his lips, and without a word of farewell turned from her and struck across the park towards the castle.
Alba watched him out of sight, and then turned and wended homewards. Her heart beat with wild throbs of joy; the spirit that had been dead within her all these miserable months woke up, quickened to a new birth, and overflowed in song. The flute-like voice trilled out over the lonesome moor like the carol of a bird let loose; but as she drew near the confines of the heath the Fortress came in sight and checked her song. Was it so certain that Hermann could set her free? and how? What would her mother think of it? how of this wonderful meeting and monseigneur’s promise? Alba slackened her steps and took to pondering. A moment ago she was impatient to pour into Virginie’s ear the story of the interview, to repeat every word Hermann had said, to convey, as far as it was possible, the impression he had made upon her, to describe his manly beauty, his warlike aspect, his gentle courtesy, the incomparable sweetness of his voice, the chivalrous kindness of his manner, never doubting but that Virginie would sympathize in this new delight, as she had done in every little joy that had gladdened her child’s young life. But suddenly a change came over Alba—something vague, and undefined; a sense of doubt, of warning, of intangible fear. She had done nothing wrong, and yet the still, small voice was whispering inaudible reproach as if she had. Could Virginie be angry with her for speaking to monseigneur? How could she have avoided it, how refuse to answer his persistent questions, so kindly and so courteously put? He had entreated her to trust him! Alba stood amidst the breezy waves of heather, and recalled him as he bent near her and lowered his voice and bade her look at him. How he had seemed to read her through and through! “Have you never seen any one whose heart you would care to win?” She murmured the words softly to herself, and the sound of them was like the echo of his voice, and called up the hot blush to her cheeks again. There was nothing wrong in monseigneur’s asking her the question. Why, then, did she feel afraid to tell her mother of it? Musing for a moment on this mystery, Alba remembered how he had said: “Try and fancy I am your brother.” Virginie could not be angry at that, surely. “I will tell her that, and say nothing about the other,” muttered Alba to herself; and, satisfied that this was a safe way out of the difficulty, she walked on briskly till she was close upon the confines of the moor. Then the sound of a carriage coming down the road made her stop till it should pass. It was an open calêche preceded by outriders. Alba recognized the occupant at once, even before his hand was raised in courtly salutation as he flashed by. Her heart beat fast, and sent the blood to her cheeks and brow, dying them crimson.
“Perhaps I had better say nothing at all to petite mère,” was her reflection as she crossed the road and began to climb the cliff. “He told me to trust him; perhaps he would be angry if I spoke until he bade me.” And so it was decreed. The tyrant had stepped in, and at his first whispered prompting the discipline of a life gave way.
It was not many days after this wonderful morning when an event occurred which threw all the sweet romance of life into the shade, and made Alba forget her own cares and hopes in concern for the great sorrow of another. M. le Marquis was dead. He had died, not actually on the field, but of a wound received in battle. The young lord’s grief was like a madness, they said. Those about him said that in the first frenzy of despair he had called on Marcel Caboff and cursed him as the murderer of his father. Whether this was true or not, Gondriac believed it, and bitter words were spoken against the widow’s son in all the country round. Bitter words are like the wind; they fly, and have a faculty for reaching those whose aching nerves most dread their sting. The widow heard what was said of her son and felt it keenly; it was cruel, yet it was just; it was a hard price to pay for Marcel’s safety, but she could not reckon it too high. If only she might pay it alone! They are all alike, these mothers. Mme. Caboff was a vain, hard woman, but the mother in her was all soft and generous and beautiful. She came to Virginie for sympathy—not for herself, but for Marcel. It was her doing, M. le Marquis’ death, not his. Why would not people visit her sin upon herself, and not upon her boy? But Virginie and Alba would be kind; they had always said that Marcel was no coward. Virginie gave the poor woman what comfort she could; but Alba was not there. She could not bear the sight of Marcel’s mother; for the thought of Marcel was now unendurable to her. It might be unjust, and yet it was true to say that he was the murderer of M. le Marquis, of Hermann’s father. The news had thrown her into such a paroxysm of distress that Virginie was terrified, not holding the key to it. It was right that she should be sorry, and natural that she should be shocked, but this agony of grief was unaccountable. Virginie took her in her arms, and soothed her with caresses and endearing words, and then bade her go and rest awhile. But Alba, as if instinct warned her of the coming visit, hastened out of the house, and fled across the moor until she was safe in the shelter of the park, and then she flung herself down on the moss-grown trunk that had a memory of its own, and buried her face in the primroses and cried her heart out in pity for Hermann.
After this it was impossible to mention Marcel Caboff’s name in her presence. “I loathe the very thought of him, mother! I would rather die than marry him!” she said; and Virginie felt that Providence was against her, and surrendered. Marcel took back his gifts, and quarrelled with his mother, and went away from Gondriac. People said it was shame and remorse that drove him forth; but Alba knew this was not true, and, now that he had set her free, she pitied him.
M. le Marquis was borne to the grave amidst such honors as the proudest Crusader of his name might have envied. It was with the jubilant pomp of a coronation rather than the mournful pageant of a burial that they laid him to rest. For his people would have it that he was a martyr; he had gone out to die of his own free will, sacrificing himself out of gratitude to the dead and charity to the living. The population flocked in from thirty miles round to attend the funeral. Five hundred men followed the crimson-draped car with palms and laurel branches; children clad in white bore crimson banners that fluttered in the breeze, while their voices rose in hymns of victory, giving glory to God and the Christian soldier; the voices of the multitude made response in chorus, and the waves, breaking in low thunder against the rocks, sounded their everlasting amens as the procession wound its way by the sea-shore to the cemetery.
And now Hermann de Gondriac was alone, the head of an ancient house, wealthy and young, but as poor in that which makes life rich as the poorest of his peasantry. If he could but have girded on his sword, and, escaping from solitude, have drowned his grief in the excitement of the camp! Spring came, and the fields were carpeted with wild flowers, and the woods were full of music. But Hermann was seldom seen abroad; he lived indoors, amidst his books, the people said; but, in truth, the young lord’s chief companions were his thoughts, angry, rebellious thoughts, that made him chafe most bitterly against his forced inaction. The park was vast as a forest, and he never went beyond it. Often, in his moody walks, he strayed to that spot close upon the moor where he had first seen Alba lying upon the mossy trunk. The charm of her beauty and her daisy-like simplicity had wrought upon his heart more deeply than he was aware. For days after that meeting she had been ever in his thoughts. He said that he was thinking only of how he might rescue her from a cruel fate; no doubt it was to help him to this issue that he returned to the spot where she had stood, and conjured up her image, till the nymph-like figure with the dark eyes and witching smile seemed to float visibly before him, and listened for her voice until he thought he heard it in the sighing of the wind.
Then came the thunderbolt of his father’s death, and Alba and all the world were forgotten. But grief cannot hold its sway in human souls beyond a given time. As the days go by they bear away its sting upon their wings, that touch the bleeding places with a balm. Hermann was young, and as the weeks passed youth vindicated itself, and rebelled against the stagnant, lonely life, and longed for action and for the sweet companionship of kindred youth. If he could not fight, he could at least love; but who was there at Gondriac to love? The merry comrades of the bivouac were out of call, and when he returned to the midst of them he would find his place filled up; others would have come and gone again, and risen in command and won place and distinction, while he was out of sight, a prisoner to a stiff arm, as good as a dead man. He hated himself with bitter vexation. One morning he betook himself in one of these savage moods to wander in the park, and, not heeding which way he went, strayed to that lonely walk under the shadow of the old trees near the moor. Some one, meanwhile, was watching him, crouched timidly behind a furze-bush, admiring his quick, military stride, thinking how grand and lion-like was that angry toss of the head which every now and then relieved his bitter thoughts.
The air was fresh, and yet warm with that delicious warmth of some spring days that come like heralds of the summer, gathering up all the sweets of earth into one fragrant breath, wooing us with soft, furry zephyrs, and the scent of opening blossoms, and the melody of young birds learning to sing. Alba had been tempted across the heath to the park, where the trees had put out their bright green foliage that looked so lovely sparkling in the sunlight. Perhaps, too, though she did not own it, there was a lurking hope in her heart that she might catch a glimpse of Hermann in the distance. If so, she was not disappointed. There he was, walking under the pine-trees, but, happily, with his back to the heath, so that he did not see her! She dipped quickly behind a furze-bush, and disappeared from view just as he turned, and, coming through the trees at an angle, stepped out on the pathway. A nightingale began to sing in the distant copse; but Alba, as she cowered behind her bush, thought the crystal trills and the loud call-note less musical than the sound of Hermann’s foot-fall crushing the gravel close to her hiding-place—so close she almost feared he would note the shadow of her pink skirt upon the grass, or mayhap overhear the palpitation of her heart. But presently the foot-falls died away, and the nightingale and the zephyrs had it all to themselves again. She waited some minutes—an hour it seemed to her—before she ventured to look up; but at last she did, and there, within a few paces, straight before her, stood Hermann. He had left the pathway and taken to the noiseless grass under the trees.
“Alba!”
There was a ring of joy in the greeting, as the young lord came forward, holding out his hand.
“Why have you never come? I have been here again and again in hopes of seeing you!”
He was a true knight and meant no harm; but in his joy at seeing the sunbeam on his path he forgot that he had no right to be so glad or to let Alba see it.
“I did not forget my promise,” he said, leading her into the park and turning to walk by her side; “but I learned soon after that there was no need for me to interfere. Caboff left the place, they told me.”
“Yes, monseigneur, people said” ... she hesitated. “They were all so sorry for you, and Marcel could not bear it, because they hated him—poor Marcel! It was not his fault; he never was a coward.”
“You are sorry now that he is gone! Perhaps he will come back? No doubt he will, if you ask him.”
“I will never ask him; but I am sorry for him,” she replied, and then, looking up at Hermann with those soul-lit eyes that had a language of their own like music, she added timidly: “But I was more sorry for you, monseigneur.”
“Alba!” He took her hand and kissed it. It was very sweet to be so near him, Alba thought. They walked on together, hand in hand, without speaking for a while. The grass was soft beneath their feet, and the trembling sunbeams stole through the trees and touched their faces with golden shadows, thrilling and pure and full of gladness, as the touch of nature is when it stirs the chords of young vibrating hearts. “If I could but comfort him!” she was thinking, till the thought grew so loud within her she feared he would overhear it. But we are deaf to those voices that lie “upon the other side of silence.” Hermann, as he held the warm, soft hand within his own, was wondering how it came to pass that yonder on the barren cliffs a flower so rare and delicate had grown, and been trained to so much grace and ease by a woman who was called Mère Virginie. Then he remembered his father’s words about the royal flower on the plebeian stem, and, thinking of him, he sighed. Alba looked up quickly, offering all her soul’s wealth of sympathy through her eyes, and Hermann bethought to himself how delightful it would be to have this sympathetic creature always at his side. But he thought also of the emperor and the world, and wondered what these potentates would say were he to pick up the jewel from the dust and set it in his coronet. Bonaparte had a way of choosing mates for his officers as he chose sites for his battles, and ordering them to marry as he ordered them to charge; but Hermann felt he was not one to be cowed by the imperial match-maker, and there was something rather inspiriting in the idea of defying the despot if he attempted to meddle with his life outside the camp. Why should he not gather this wild flower, if he chose? Had his father lived, it would have been different; but now he was free, there was no one to whom he need sacrifice the promptings of his heart, be they wise or foolish. The world and the court might laugh; it was not from amongst them he cared to take a wife; he wanted to be loved, to be wed for his own sake, and not for the good things he had to offer. But did Alba love him?
“Alba,” he said, “now that Marcel is gone, who is to be the favored suitor?”
“No one, monseigneur; I told you so before.”
“But I did not believe you. I don’t believe you now.”
“Why should I tell you a lie? I never told one in my life.”
She spoke without anger or offended pride; but Hermann saw that he had pained her, and there was a purity of truth about her that rebuked his denial, though it was spoken in jest.
“Forgive me, dearest! I wanted to hear you say it again. I wanted to be certain there was no one else you cared for.”
He bent toward her caressingly, and, looking under her hood, saw two big tears slowly trickling down her cheeks.
“Alba....”
What an idle boast seems this about the freedom of the human will! Our most pregnant words, our weightiest actions, spring far oftener from impulse than from deliberate resolve; a touch, light as the feather floating on the summer breeze, will stir the fountain and make its waters overflow; a word spoken when we had meant to be silent will change the current of our life, and push us to a step that can never be retraced. An hour ago Hermann de Gondriac no more dreamed of offering his hand to Alba than he did of burying himself in the Grande Chartreuse; but those two tears were the drops that made the fountain overflow, and, in the sudden flood of tenderness, pride, prudence, everything but love was swept away.
“Alba,” he whispered, clasping her in his arms and gathering her to his breast—“Alba, I love you. Will you come to me and be my wife?”
Was she awake, with the solid earth under her feet, or were those whispered words the music that our fancy makes in dreams? But the music did not die away, nor did the clasping arm melt from her, as do the embraces of those loved ones who visit us in sleep.
“You love me!” she said, looking up into his face with her large, warm glance, pure and trusting as a child’s—“you love me!” And the sunbeams went on singing it in shadow music on the grass, and the cuckoo called it through the woods, and the trees in their murmurous song repeated it, and the clouds, as they sailed over the zenith, traced it in silver lines upon the sky—“You love me!”
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.