SAINT RADIGONDE.
It was fair-time when we arrived at Poitiers, and twelve o'clock at night, so that we had some difficulty in getting beds; but going into the kitchen, by dint of a little love, and a great deal of civility, I prevailed upon the chambermaid to give us two which had been reserved for a couple of gentlemen expected from Tours.
When I returned to the hall I found my friend with two Frenchmen, Now, under all circumstances, an Englishman generally keeps the distance of two yards between him and a stranger; but as I had determined to go through the world precisely as I would do through a menagerie, and to see all the strange beasts that are in it, I approximated myself, in general, to all those whom Heaven threw in my way. The two Frenchmen were waiting for supper, and so were we; therefore without more ado we all sat down together, and as I much wished to find out the famous field of Poitiers, I soon began to ask a great many questions. But they knew nothing about it. They had never heard of it; and they had lived in the neighbourhood for years, so that they were sure the battle I spoke of could not have happened in their day. "Most probably not," said I. "It must have been before the revolution," said the other Frenchman, who was a good, fat, substantial farmer, come into the town to buy and sell at the fair. "But as Monsieur was fond of curious things," he added, "he ought by all means to see the church of St. Radigonde, where the mark of the Saviour's foot was still to be beheld." And he set to tell me how it happened, and all about it. His story was somewhat after his own fashion, it is true, but it is not a whit the worse for that. "Saint Radigonde," he said, "was a Catholic, and the sister of Clovis; who was father to Henri Quatre." "I thought that they were more distantly related," said I. But he stuck to his biography, and continued. "Well, Clovis was a very warlike monarch as well as his son, and being engaged in a most tremendous battle, he sent to his sister to desire her prayers, which she very readily granted him; and while thus piously engaged, our Saviour appeared to her and promised her the victory for her brother, leaving the mark of his foot in the marble.
"Clovis triumphed over his enemy, and so great was his gratitude for this manifest interference of Heaven in his favour, that he instantly became a sincere Catholic. For you know," said the narrator, "that before that time he was a Protestant."
"I have heard," replied I, "that he was a Pagan."
"A Pagan or a Protestant," said he, "it is all the same thing."
I was well pleased with any absurdity. The memory of more poignant griefs had worn away so far as to permit my feeling amused with many things--pleasure I derived from but few! Under the attack of very severe griefs, imagination is the first of the mind's soldiers that yields or revolts to the enemy; but, as those griefs pass on, leaving us conquered, imagination, is the first to return to console us. Grief, when it grows fanciful, is in its first stage of amelioration. Then comes the power of laughing long before we learn again to enjoy.
THE CURIOSITIES.
I am as fond of seeing curiosities as any other grown child that ever existed; and as my companion was of the same mind as myself, the first thing we did the morning after our arrival at Poitiers, was to visit the ruins of the amphitheatre; which are very little worth seeing, except to those who love ruins for their own sake. The arena is filled up with gardens, and though the whole site is perfectly well marked out, but little of the walls exist at present. It was the son of the proprietor who showed us over the spot. He might be an idiot, or he might not, but he gave us no information, and kept grinning at us, and listening to our foreign dialect with evident marks of horror and astonishment. On our departure he followed us into the street, and still kept staring in our faces, till my friend appealed to my better knowledge of France to ascertain what he wanted. I answered, "A franc." My companion was incredulous, but I put my hand in my pocket, and drawing one out, I begged the young gentleman to give it to "la domestique." He took it immediately, with great satisfaction, and whether the servant ever received it or not, is between her young master and herself.
We went to the church of St. Radigonde too. It is really singular how prone the human mind is to lend itself to every sort of absurdity. We are made of odd clay certainly, of so soft a temper in our youth, that it takes the first form it happens to find, and then hardening there, would sooner break than quit it. There were a dozen old women at the church door, who make a livelihood by fixing themselves in the suite of Saint Radigonde, and we were instantly assailed by la bonne Ste. Radigonde prie pour vous, together with much counting of rosaries, and all the rest of Catholic begging. On entering the church we found an iron grating with a fine figure of the saint, dressed in a blue cloak powdered with fleurs de lys, not at all unlike one of the figures placed at the head of a ship. There, too, was what they are pleased to call the foot-mark of our Saviour, covered with some bars of iron, and an inscription above, to give authority to the falsehood. Round about it were scattered several pieces of money, from a sous to a franc, which my companion, in his fisherman's slang termed ground-bait.