We returned on foot to Fourvières this morning; on either side of the narrow lane which leads directly to the church are standings without number, covered with what seems on this hill the chief staple of trade,—I mean chaplets, crowns, and bouquets of dyed artificial flowers; coloured prints, framed and glazed, of saints in various attitudes; little waxen heads, legs, and arms, or whole figures; votive offerings, which the faithful present at the shrine of their patron saint, and find here ready at the church door.
The church is kept locked, and we merely read again the inscription above its entrance, which gratefully thanks our Lady of Fourvières, who saved Lyons from cholera. We went up the square tower, D—— to the top, I to the first floor half way, from whose windows the prospect is perhaps as agreeable. The guide pointed to the Antiquaille, directly beneath one of them; it contains, as I told you, an hospital and penitentiary, and also an asylum for lunatics; we could distinguish two of these in the court-yard belonging to the end of the building facing us; one was leaping with all his force against the rails, uttering howls rather like an animal than a human being; we heard him distinctly; the other close by, and quite undisturbed, was on his knees praying, and had been there immoveable (the man said) for the last two hours. The more tractable are allowed to walk with their keepers in the fine gardens adjoining. It is said that the dungeon beneath the Antiquaille remains unchanged, as in the time when St. Pothin, first Bishop of Lyons, was tortured and murdered there; they pretend to show the very fetters he wore.
From this same window, which looks south, you can also distinguish the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, and the commencement of a Roman aqueduct, whose vestiges can be traced three leagues further. Still on the brow of the hill is the square tower of the church of St. Irénée, built over the subterranean chapels where the Christians assembled in the early days of persecution. We left the observatory to go thither, passing on our way four or five broken arches of the aqueduct constructed by the army of Julius Cæsar, whose massiveness in ruin puts the perfection of modern buildings to shame. What I thought a long walk, with innumerable windings, and here and there a beautiful glimpse back to the hills of Burgundy, brought us to the dirty faubourg, where, with some trouble, we found the church. A long flight of steps leads to a rather uninteresting modern building; on either side of the choir are two highly ornamented chapels, one having a finely painted window; and between the choir and the chapels are appended to the wall, framed and glazed, on one side a list of “Indulgences,” annexed to St. Irénée; on the other a bull of his Holiness Pius the Seventh. I thought the latter worth copying; but in the nave there was a coffin, covered with its pall and surrounded by high candlesticks, the black banner with its silver scull and cross bones attached to each. It certainly was a melancholy companion, and D—’s imagination representing to him that the inmate had perhaps died of some contagious malady, he hurried me out. A side door and a narrow flight of steps led to a court at the back of the church, at the extremity of which, and the very edge of the hill, commanding here the most glorious view of Lyons I have yet seen, is the Calvary, on a raised platform, inclosed by a railing. Steps led up to it, (as do others to the vaults below, in which is a representation of the Holy Sepulchre;) the Saviour on the cross, the thieves on either side, the Virgin standing in an attitude of despair, and the Magdalen kneeling at its foot, are large as life, and finely sculptured; and of all the similar groups I have seen, this certainly is most impressive, perhaps from its position, looking down on a world, with the blue sky for a background. Round the court are the stations, each a small covered altar, a basso relievo in white marble affixed to each, representing a scene of the Passion. The little dwelling of the Concierge is close by, and he came to unlock the gate at the top of the stair which leads to the subterranean chapels. They are beneath the church, opposite the Calvary. The light of day penetrates so faintly, that descending these steps it was difficult to distinguish what objects we saw piled behind a grated window on the right hand; it is a mass of human bones, filling a room of considerable size, those of the nine thousand massacred in the year 203, with their bishop, St. Irénée, the greater part in these chapels.
Turning to the left, we entered the first and most ancient; a small vaulted chamber, on whose bare walls are inscriptions copied from the writings of the saints, and the Pagan accusations brought against them. One of these sentences asserts, that St. Polycarpe preached here at the age of eighty-six years. The chapel beyond was constructed a century later; it has an arched roof, supported by ten heavy columns. A few steps lead up to the altar built over St. Irénée’s tomb, who, it is said, was recognised after the massacre. There is a massive stone bench fixed against the wall on either side, and in the centre of the floor a well of extraordinary depth. Tradition tells that these stones served for headsman’s blocks to the assassins, and that down the well so many bodies were thrown as to gorge it to its mouth. Some good Catholics believe that, stooping the ear to the floor, a gushing sound is sometimes heard, like that of bubbling blood. I confess I could hear nothing; but the gloom of the spot is well fitted to such terrible tales, though it is now in some degree dispelled by the construction of a new chapel below the new church, extending behind St. Irénée’s tomb, with bright ornaments and painted windows, having no associations of its own, and robbing of their solemnity places indeed consecrated by the blood of men who died for their faith there.
Beyond this chapel is another small chamber, of the same date as itself; a recess contains a hollow stone. The caprice of the assassins bled to death many of the martyrs, and their blood cast out here found an issue in the streets of the faubourg. A broad stone in the centre of the floor marks the tomb of one Marguerite Labarge, who died about 1692. There is a door in this room, opposite to that opening on the chapel; and mounting a few steps, and climbing over rubbish in the obscurity, we distinguished with some difficulty an aperture to which our guide pointed, large enough for a human being to creep through, and concealed at will by a door of stone, which when he closed I could not distinguish from those which surrounded it. Within there is sufficient height for a person to stand, and space to lie down. Her bed was a stone likewise; I did not see it, (though it remains as in her time,) for not a ray of light penetrates; she lived here nine years, having determined on self-sacrifice at the age of thirty-six. It is presumed that at night she left her den to walk in the adjoining chapels, and sought there what food had been left in charity by such as revered her for her unfortunate fanaticism; but her means of subsistence were never exactly known. When nine years had passed, a popular commotion taking place forced her to leave her cell. She appeared again among the living, and, strange to say, among the sane; but, her constitution having long resisted the want of air and necessaries, the returning to their enjoyment seemed a worse shock, and shortly after she died. Her family was then in straitened circumstances; some of its descendants (become rich) are still residents in Lyons.
The Concierge laid great stress on the “Indulgences” annexed to St. Irénée; and twice told me that any Catholic having died in “état de grâce” for whom a mass should be said before its high altar, would be immediately transferred from purgatory to Paradise. His information reminding me of the coffin in the church. I asked him “who it contained?” he answered “nobody.” A mass for the soul of a deceased priest was performed the night before, and, knowing it was therefore among those of the blest, he had shown some laziness in matters of less moment, and failed to remove the pomp and circumstance. I returned to copy the pope’s bull:—
Bref de notre très Saint Père le Pape Pie
VII., pour la perpétuelle mémoire.
“Paternellement attentif au salut de tous les hommes, nous enrichissons quelquefois du trésor spirituel des Indulgences des lieux sacrés; pour faire jouir les âmes des fidèles décédés des mérites de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, et des suffrages des saints, qui leur étant appliqués peuvent, par la miséricorde de Dieu, les faire passer des peines du Purgatoire au bonheur éternel. Voulant donc honorer par un don particulier l’eglise paroissiale sous le vocable de St. Irénée, située sur la montagne de ce nom, appelée le Calvaire, hors et près les murs de la Ville de Lyon; par l’autorité que le Seigneur nous a donné, et pleine de confiance en la miséricorde de Dieu tout puissant, en l’autorité de ses bienheureux apôtres Pierre et Paul, nous voulons que toutes les fois qu’un prêtre séculier ou régulier de quelque ordre, congrégation, ou institut qu’il soit, célébrera au dit autel une messe de mort pour l’âme d’un fidèle quelconque décédé en état de grâce, cette même âme obtienne par voie de suffrage l’Indulgence tirée du trésor de l’Eglise, et qu’elle soit délivrée des peines du Purgatoire par les mérites de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie, et de tous les Saints.
Malgré tous les Réglemens contraires, les présentes vaudront à perpétuité.