‘Well, as you know, in her life time she worked miracles beyond the dreams of Faith itself, and at her death, as in the case of the founder of her Order, the great Elias, her virtue was transmitted to her cloak, or rather to her habit, portions of which fortunate garment are worn by all the belles dévotes next ... er ... their ... er next ... er ... their sk ... next their secret garden of lilies, with, I am told, the most extravagant results; it is her portion of the miraculous habit that has turned Madame de Longueville into a penitent, for example, but its effects are sometimes of a more profane nature, namely—breathe it low—success in the tender passion!’ Madeleine’s eyes grew round.
‘Yes, ’tis a veritable cestus of Venus, which, I need hardly remind a lady of such elegant learning as Mademoiselle, was borrowed by Juno when anxious to rekindle the legitimate passion in the bosom of Jove. And speaking of Juno I remember——’
But Madeleine had no more attention to bestow on the urbane flow of the Chevalier’s conversation. She was ablaze with excitement and hope ... Mère Madeleine de Saint-Joseph, the mystical name again! And the cestus of Venus ... it was surely a message sent from Saint Magdalene herself. The Chevalier had said that these relics had usurped the rôle previously played in the world of fashion by lace handkerchiefs and gloves of frangipane, in short of the feminine petite-oie. Thus, by obtaining a relic, she would kill two birds with one stone; she would absorb the virtue of Saint Magdalene and at the same time destroy for ever the bad magic of that petite-oie of bad omen which she had bought at the Foire St. Germain. The very next day she would go to the Carmelites, and perhaps, perhaps, if they had not long ago been all distributed, procure a piece of the magical habit. At any rate she would consolidate her cult for Saint Magdalene by burning some candles in the wonderful chapel set up in her honour in the Church of the Carmelites.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL
Many strange legends had gone to weave round the Convent of the Carmelites—so long the centre of fashionable Catholicism—an atmosphere of romantic mystery.
Tradition taught that the order had been founded on the summit of Mount Carmel by Elias himself. Its earliest members were the mysterious Essenes, but they were converted to Christianity by Saint Peter’s Pentecostal sermon, and built on the mountain a chapel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she herself becoming a member of their order. Her example was followed by the Twelve Apostles, and any association with that mysterious company of sinister semi-plastic beings, menacing sinners with their symbolic keys and crosses, had filled Madeleine since her childhood with a nameless terror.
The Essenes and the Apostles! The Carmelites thus preserved the Mysteries of both the Old and the New Testaments.
Madeleine, as she stood at the door of their Convent, too awe-struck to enter, felt herself on the confines of the Holy Land—that land half geographical, half Apocalyptical, where the Unseen was always bursting through the ramparts of nature’s laws; where Transfigurations and Assumptions were daily events, and Assumptions not only of people but of cities. Had not Jerusalem, with all its towers and palm-trees and gardens and temples, been lifted up by the lever of God’s finger right through the Empyrean, and landed intact and all burning with gold in the very centre of the Seventh Heaven?
Summoning up all her courage she passed into the court. It was quite empty, and over its dignified proportions there did indeed seem to lie the shadow of the silent awful Denizen of ‘high places.’ Dare she cross it? Once more she pulled herself together and made her way into the Church.