Sorbonne, the following note was handed to him: ‘It is impossible that any one could speak with so much fervor and heart without believing what he affirms. If it be any satisfaction—I will even say happiness—to you to know it, enjoy it to the full, and learn that before hearing you I did not believe. What a great number of sermons failed to do for me you have done in an hour: you have made me a Christian!… Accept this expression of my joy and gratitude.’ You have made me a Christian! Oh! let those who believe and love like Ozanam tell us what he felt, what joy inundated his soul when this cry went forth to him.”[151]
Ozanam’s authority over the students was never more strikingly manifested than on the occasion of the excitement caused by the public announcement which the celebrated historian Lenormant made of his conversion to Christianity. He had been an infidel, then a waverer between scepticism and faith, for years before he declared himself on the Catholic side. The leaders of the infidel party stirred up the students who attended his course of historical lectures to violent demonstrations of hostility. Ozanam espoused his cause with the most chivalrous courage, and took his place by the side of M. Lenormant in the lecture-hall. When the storm of yells, hisses, hootings, and blasphemous outcries burst forth in a deafening tumult, he sprang to his feet beside the lecturer with an attitude and a glance of indignant defiance which evoked at once from the fickle mob of youths a counter-storm of violent applause. A scornful gesture hushed them into a sudden silence, broken only by the thunder of Ozanam’s invectives and the eloquence of his appeals to their honor and the principles of liberty which they professed to respect, but had
so grossly violated. He mastered them completely, and M. Lenormant then proceeded to deliver his lecture without interruption. The next day, however, through the influence of those consistent advocates of toleration, Michelet and Quinet, the course was closed by an order of the government.
The active labors of Ozanam were by no means restricted to his department of duty as a professor. He was a zealous leader in Catholic associations, a frequent contributor to the journals, an untiring workman in the cause of practical charity and all undertakings for the improvement of the class of artisans and laborers. It is impossible to make any accurate estimate of the actual results of his efforts in the cause of religion and humanity. In the words of his biographer: “The work that he accomplished in his sphere will never be known in this world. God only knows the harvest that others have reaped from his prodigal self-devotion, his knowledge, and that eloquence which so fully illustrated the ideal standard of human speech described by Fénelon as ‘the strong and persuasive utterance of a soul nobly inspired.’ For Ozanam was not merely a teacher in the Sorbonne—he was a teacher of the world; and his influence shone out to the world through the minds and lives of numbers of his contemporaries who did not know that they were reflecting his light.”
What is awaiting France we know not. The world, but especially all Catholics throughout the whole extent of the church’s domain in the world, have watched with intensest interest the events which have occurred in France since the reign of Pius IX. began under such unwonted and marvellous auspices,
and has continued so much beyond the period of human expectation. They have never ceased to pray for France, to sympathize with the heroic efforts of genuine French patriots, the true children of Charlemagne and St. Louis, and to watch anxiously for the time when the prognostic of the learned and eloquent Dr. Marshall shall be fulfilled: “When France falls upon her knees, let the enemies of France begin to tremble.” The blood of three martyred archbishops of Paris, the blood of Olivaint and his noble fellow-victims, the blood of Pimodan and those generous youth who fell at Castelfidardo, the chivalry of Lamoricière and La Charrette, the vows of the pilgrims of Lourdes and Paray-le-Monial, the valiant struggles of the champions of the faith, the prayers and sacrifices of that crowd of the noblest daughters of France which fills her renovated cloisters, cannot surely remain for ever powerless to lift the dark cloud which overhangs the kingdom of the fleurs-de-lis. There has been enough of the blood of the just poured out in France within the last century to redeem not only France but Christendom. If Christendom is to be regenerated, France must first come forth renewed out of her second baptism in blood and fire. The cry of anguish, though not of despair, which she sends up to heaven by the mouth of her eloquent spokesman, the bishop of the city of Joan of Arc, “Où allons nous?” must be answered: “We go to victory over traitors within and enemies without, and our triumph shall be that of the Catholic Church.”
Frederic Ozanam had once said to the young men of a literary circle: “Let us be ready to prove that we too have our battle-fields, and that, if need be, we can die on
them.” In point of fact, he did really sacrifice his own life in the fulfilment of his task. Such a delicate physical constitution could not naturally long survive the intense, continuous strain to which it was subjected by a spirit which exercised a relentless despotism over the body. In a letter to his brother Charles he tells him, by way of encouraging him to follow his example, that in 1837, when he was preparing his examination for the higher degrees, he had, during five months, worked regularly ten hours, and during the last month fifteen, daily, without counting the time spent in classes. With much more naïveté than good sense, he observes that “one has to be prudent, so as not to injure one’s health by the pressure; but little by little the constitution grows used to it. We become accustomed to a severe active life, and it benefits the temper as much as the intellect.” Notwithstanding the remonstrances of friends, he continued almost the same extent of application to study, until his health gave way entirely; and even during the journeys he was obliged to take for relaxation he rather varied the kind of labor in which his restless mind engaged than exchanged it for rest and recreation. His first severe illness attacked him only four years after he began lecturing at the Sorbonne. This was followed at intervals by other attacks, and a general failure of health which obliged him to intermit his courses and take several journeys in France, Italy, England, and Spain, during which he gathered the materials of some of the most delightful of his minor works. It is a curious and characteristic incident of his visit to England, worth recording, that he was turned out of Westminster Abbey by
the pompous beadle, whom all tourists must well remember, for kneeling down to pray at the tomb of Edward the Confessor. His last lecture at the Sorbonne was given some time during the spring of 1852. It was a dying effort. He had persisted in dragging himself to the lecture-hall while a remnant of strength remained, in spite of the entreaties of friends and medical advisers. At length he had been forced to take to his bed, exhausted with weakness and consumed by fever. His cruel and unreasonable pupils clamored at the deprivation of the intellectual banquet to which they had been accustomed, and, with the inconsiderate spirit of youth, accused him of neglecting his duty through self-indulgence. Ozanam heard of this, and, in spite of all remonstrances, he rose from his bed, was dressed and taken in a carriage to the Sorbonne. Pale and haggard, unable to walk without support, but with an eye blazing with unwonted fire, and a voice clear and shrill as a silver clarion, he sang his death-song amid enthusiastic applause.
As the peroration of his last speech and of his life he exclaimed: “Gentlemen, our age is accused of being an age of egotism; we professors, it is said, are tainted with the general epidemic; and yet it is here that we use up our health; it is here that we wear ourselves out. I do not complain of it; our life belongs to you; we owe it to you to our last breath, and you shall have it. For my part, if I die it will be in your service.” With ardent but foreboding congratulations and applauses, which all felt to be farewells, the students of the Sorbonne heard and saw the last of Ozanam. The finale of his career had been reached; his