“It was in November 1830 that I saw him for the first time in the cabinet of the Abbé de Lamennais,” he writes, “four months after a revolution which seemed for a moment to confound in a common ruin the throne and the altar, and one month after the beginning of the journal ‘L’Avenir.’ The motto of this journal was—Dieu et la liberté! It was intended by its founders to regenerate Catholic opinion in France, and to seal its union with the progress of liberalism. I hastened to take part in this work, with the ardour of my twenty years, from Ireland, where I had just seen O’Connell at the head of a people whose invincible fidelity to the Catholic faith had worn out three centuries of persecution, and whose religious emancipation had just been won by the free press and freedom of speech. A very small number of laymen shared the convictions of M. de Lamennais, with a still more limited number of priests. Among the latter, the Abbé Lacordaire, whom as yet no one knew, was named to me. Not only was he not of those who had made themselves a name by reproducing the doctrines of the celebrated author of ‘L’Essai sur l’Indifference,’ but he could not even be called his pupil.... There needed nothing less than the Revolution of July and ‘L’Avenir’ to engage in a common work two natures so profoundly distinct. I saw them both for the first time: dazzled and swayed by the one, I felt myself more sweetly and more naturally drawn towards the other. If I could but paint him such as he appeared then, in all the radiance and the charm of youth! He was twenty-eight. He was dressed as a layman, the state of Paris not then permitting priests to wear their proper costume. His graceful figure, his fine and regular features, his sculpturesque forehead, the commanding carriage of his head, his dark and sparkling eye, an indescribable something of pride and elegance, as well as of modesty, in all his person—all this was but the cover of a soul which seemed ready to pour itself forth, not only in the free encounters of public speaking, but in the overflowing of affectionate intercourse. The flash of his eye disclosed gleams at once warlike and tender; it sought not only enemies to combat and to overthrow, but hearts to fascinate and conquer. His voice, already so nervous and energetic, frequently assumed accents of an infinite sweetness. Born to fight and to love, he already bore the seal of the double royalty of the soul and talent. He appeared to me charming and terrible, as a type of the enthusiasm for good—virtue armed for the support of truth. I saw in him one of the elect, predestined to all that youth adores and desires the most—genius and glory. Yet he, still more attracted by the gentle joys of Christian friendship than the distant echoes of fame, made us understand that the greatest struggles moved us only by half—that they still left us power to dream, above all, of the life of the heart—that the days began and ended according as a loved remembrance had risen or had been silent in the soul. It was he who spoke to me thus; and he added immediately, ‘Alas! we ought to love only the infinite, and this is the reason why that which we love is so complete in our soul.’ The morning after this first meeting he took me to hear his mass, which he said in the chapel of a little convent of the Visitandines in the Pays Latin, and already we loved each other as men love in the pure and generous impulses of youth and under the fire of the enemy. He condescended to rejoice over that meeting which he had desired, and upon which he congratulated himself in terms which expressed his classic and democratic thought. He wrote, some time before, ‘My soul, like Iphigenia, awaits its brother at the foot of the altar.’ Afterwards, speaking of his new friend to an older one, he said, ‘I love him like a plebeian.’”
Such was the fervent young man with whom, in the year of the Revolution, in the warmth of their youth, the young Montalembert formed an everlasting friendship. They lived henceforward in a union close as that of the classic models of amity, and effusive as is natural to young Frenchmen. The two had hard enough work in hand in those brilliant, agitated, youthful days, over which M. de Montalembert lingers with a natural fondness. In the reign of utter prose which had begun, this Young France stood all glowing and poetic—believing in a new beginning as youth always believes—hoping everything grand, exalted, and generous from the new era and its own toils. They had their journal, choice vehicle of assault upon the world and all its wrongs; and from that little battery thundered, day by day, at all the injustice and oppression which came under their quick observation, taking summary vengeance upon the offenders. To-day it was a petty official, “lui, ce sous-préfet!” whom the young Abbé tossed in the air on the point of that dazzling spear of youthful scorn and beautiful indignation—to-morrow it was the new Government itself which felt the diamond point of their virgin weapons. Young ardour, daring hardihood, wild rushes at conclusions, grand assumption and display of wisdom, mixed with a thorough enjoyment and relish in the dangerous sport, shine through the tale. The young men were in the flush of youth and conscious power, exercising a censorship which somehow comes natural to youth, and which, in its brilliant impertinence and freshness of life, earns its own excuse almost from its victims. Lamennais, though not young, was of that character of genius—generous, susceptible, and wilful—which commends itself to the young, and leads without controlling them. He who, in the wild retirement of La Chenaie amid the Breton woods, made for himself a little family of the youths whom he had devoted himself to train for the service of the Church, and attached them to him with a kind of passion, seems to have exercised no subduing influence over the young men whom he associated with himself in the work of ‘L’Avenir.’ They tilted frankly at the world with an inexhaustible delight in their work. “Neither the old clergy nor the new Government were disposed to receive this new doctrine,” says M. de Montalembert, with unconscious humour, in explanation of this work; “but the violence and mistakes of the latter might be counted upon to enlighten, little by little, and bring back the former. It was necessary, then, at once to point out the arbitrary acts of certain functionaries against religion, and to teach Catholics to draw, from liberal institutions and ideas, arms which the fall of a dynasty could no more break in their hands. This was the double task to which the young Henri Lacordaire devoted his untried, and till then unknown, talent.”
Into this enterprise the young Abbé rushed with all his joyous youthful forces. Violent Radicalism and lofty High-Churchism, both the one and the other of a more fiery character than are known in our tamer atmosphere, here took hands together and defied the world. The young champion went to the wildest extremities in his vivid and rash eloquence. The French priest even, in the inspirations of his genius, antedated the equally fiery priests of Scotland, and loftily suggested to his brethren of the clergy—while discoursing to them of the sacrilege committed by a sous-préfet, who had forced an entrance into a country church for the corpse of a man who had been refused the rites of burial—an expedient which has only been adopted on the northern side of the Tweed. “You will make him grow pale” (to wit, the sous-préfet), cries the young orator, “if, taking your dishonoured God, with staff in hand and hat on head, you bear Him into some hut made with fir planks, swearing not to expose Him a second time to the insults of the State-temples.” “These words,” says Montalembert, “indicate the extreme, unjust, and dangerous conclusion from which ‘L’Avenir’ drew not back. It said to the clergy that they should be prepared to renounce the budget du culte, sole remnant of their ancient and legitimate patrimony, sole guarantee of their material existence, to give up even the churches of which the State assumed to be owner, to enter into full possession of the invincible powers and inexhaustible resources of modern liberty.” Nor did these bold assaults end in mere words. “A series of contests,” continues the biographer, “the details of which would encumber this narrative, but which were all designed to promote the emancipation of the priests and the Catholic citizens, took him more than once to the court of the police correctionelle, sometimes as the accused, sometimes as client, sometimes even as advocate; for until he was interdicted by a decision of the Council of Discipline, he still retained the right to plead in that capacity; and I remember the surprise of a president of the Chamber, in discovering one day at the bar, in the robe of an advocate, the priest whose name already began to be famous.”
Into these encounters the young man entered with a certain relish and delight which sometimes amazed his friend. “I know not what attraction drew him to those combats,” says M. de Montalembert; “one would have said that he was trying the temper of his arms, and endeavouring to render his blows more sure.” “I am convinced,” he wrote, in issuing from one of his skirmishes, “that the Roman senate would not have frightened me.” And not only did he find enjoyment in the fight for itself, but occasional triumphs rewarded the young orator—triumphs of his frank and open youth over the big popular spectator that loved not the name of priest. One day, in answering an avocat du roi who had ventured to say that the priests were the ministers of a foreign power, Lacordaire cried, “We are the ministers of one who is nowhere a stranger—of God.” Upon which the audience, “composed of that people of July so hostile to the clergy,” applauded, exclaiming, “My priest, my curé, what do you call yourself? you are a brave man!” He was not less frank nor less successful when he appeared as the defendant in a Government prosecution along with Lamennais, on account of some of the plain-speaking of the ‘Avenir’ touching an appointment of bishops. In his speech before this tribunal, Lacordaire defended himself, in his capacity of priest, with a touching simplicity and dignity. “I rise,” he says, “with a recollection that will not leave me. When the priest in former days rose amid the people, something which excited a profound love rose at the same time with him. Now, accused as I am, I know that my name of priest is mute for my defence, and I am resigned to it. The people deprived the priest of that ancient love which they bore him, when the priest deprived himself of an august part of his character—when the man of God ceased to be the man of freedom.... I never knew freedom better,” he continues, with a burst of professional enthusiasm, “than the day when I received, with the sacred unction, the right of speaking of God. The universe opened before me, and I learned that there was in man something inalienable, divine, eternally free—speech! The message of the priest was confided to me, and I was told to bear it to the ends of the world without any one having the right to seal my lips a single day of my life. I went out of the temple with these grand doctrines, and I met upon the threshold, law and bondage!” After this brilliant address, M. de Montalembert comes in with a tender touch of description—a little sketch which in a word or two makes us of the party, and reveals the entire scene in all its agitation and triumph.
“The two accused were acquitted. The verdict was not given till midnight. A numerous crowd surrounded and applauded the victors of the day. When they had dispersed we returned alone, in the darkness, along the quays. Upon the threshold of his door I saluted in him the orator, of the future. He was neither intoxicated nor overwhelmed by his triumph. I saw that for him the little vanities of success were less than nothing; but I saw him eager to spread the contagion of self-devotion and of courage, and delighted by the evidences of mutual faith and disinterested tenderness, which in young and Christian hearts burn with a purer and dearer light than all the victories.”
Generous and tender dreams! but who could refuse to believe that the young companion, more intoxicated with his triumph than himself, who wandered along those dark banks of Seine in the cool midnight, in the silence, so grateful after that day’s toil, by his side, affectionate and rejoicing, gave a dearer and more flattering homage to the young orator than all the applauding crowds? This single sentence is one of the most perfectly distinct touches of human personality and affection in the book.
These pious young revolutionaries, “young and Christian hearts,” continued for some time longer to get themselves into all kinds of trouble. From freedom of speech they proceeded to contend for freedom of teaching—constituted themselves into an agency for the defence of religious liberty—and set up, at their own hand, a free school, taught by three of themselves, in Paris. A curious scene followed. The three young teachers, of whom Lacordaire was one and Montalembert another, began their volunteer labours with twenty children to each. Next morning an officer of the university appeared to stop this irregular assembly. He addressed himself first to the children. “In the name of the law, I summon you to depart,” cried this functionary to the assembled urchins. “In the name of your parents, whose authority I have, I command you to remain,” immediately answered Lacordaire. The small citizens, doubtless charmed to be able to rebel so soon against law and government, immediately gave their shrill suffrage in his favour. “We shall remain,” cried the little rebels, with one voice. The result, of course, was, that scholars and teachers had equally to succumb to the power of the law, and that once more there ensued a trial, and brilliant appearance of the eloquent Abbé, which this time was before the Chamber of Peers, the most illustrious assemblage in France, one of the culprits, M. de Montalembert himself, being a member of that august body. We have no room to quote this speech; but the prosecution, like the former, seems to have ended in nothing.
“I will be pardoned for lingering upon the events of that year, so memorable for us,” says Montalembert, with touching grace. “There is no one, however obscure and useless may have been his life, who, at the decline of his days, does not feel himself drawn by an irresistible current towards the moment when the first fires of enthusiasm were lighted in his soul and on his lips—no one who does not breathe with a sort of intoxication the perfume of these recollections, and who is not tempted to boast beyond measure their charm and their brightness,—days at once happy and sad,” he says—“days devoured by labour and by enthusiasm—days such as occur but once in a life.”
The apology is beautiful, but it is unnecessary. Few will read the history of those young days and friends, differing so totally from ourselves, yet so entirely in accord, without feeling their hearts warm to the historian, whose own youth rises so fair before him as he writes, and of whom the world is fully advised that his maturer days have well borne out the promise of that youth.
We, too, are tempted to linger, but must not, space and time preventing. ‘L’Avenir’ came at last to a sudden check, as was inevitable. After it had affronted the clergy, the bishops, and the Government, united its own little band of retainers in such bonds as unite men “under the fire of the enemy,” and fought its way for thirteen months through all manner of prosecutions and oppositions, the daring little journal came to a close in a manner as remarkable and Quixotic as had been its career. “In announcing the suspension,” says M. de Montalembert, “we announced at the same time the departure of the three principal editors for Rome, in order to submit to the Pope the questions in controversy between us and our adversaries, promising beforehand an absolute submission to the Pontifical decision.” Strange mission of the three—two of whom only had youth to excuse them in this mad embassage—to persuade wise Rome to embroil herself, and compromise her infallibility, in the decision of questions so complicated, for the satisfaction of the editors of ‘L’Avenir!’ The two young men went lightly upon their mission, not without natural excitement in the prospect of visiting the sacred city; but matters were different with Lamennais, whose genius and lofty intention seem to have been shipwrecked by that spirit of unmaturing youthfulness, always sanguine of its own triumph, expecting everything to yield to its will, absolute and petulant, and incapable of contradiction, which is as undignified as it is unnatural in a man of mature age. The confidence which led Lacordaire and Montalembert to state their difficulties to his Holiness, and beg his decision upon them, was sufficiently romantic and high-flown. “But how explain or excuse it,” says our author, “in a distinguished priest, already mature in age, as was the Abbé de Lamennais, who was then more than fifty, and who had already lived at Rome, where the Pope had received him with the greatest distinction?” The pilgrims were received with paternal kindness and unresponsive civility. They got no reply, as was natural. Lacordaire, always prompt and clear-sighted, with a native vein of good sense and practical wisdom running through all the fiery impulses of his genius, was the first to perceive how great a mistake they had made. He remained more than two months in Rome endeavouring to reconcile Lamennais to the failure of their mission, and, for his own part, refreshing his soul in that wonderful shrine of all memories and thoughts. “I can see him still,” says his affectionate biographer, “wandering for long days among the ruins and the monuments, pausing, as overpowered, to admire, with that exquisite feeling of true beauty which never forsook him, all that Rome presents of the profound and the antique—fascinated, above all, by the tranquil and incomparable charm of her horizons; then returning to the common hearth to preach reserve, resignation, submission—in a word, reason—to M. de Lamennais.” At last the young priest announced to his fretful and rebellious senior his intention of returning to France, to await there in silence, but without remaining idle, the verdict of authority. “Silence,” said he, “is, after speech, the second power in the world.” They parted so; and although they again met after an interval, the erratic and devious career of Lamennais had no further influence worth noting upon the clear, straightforward course of his young associate. ‘L’Avenir’ and such brilliant follies were over. Life, serious and grave, now awaited the young priest and orator, whose time for trying the temper of his weapons and the steadiness of his strokes was past.