The charter for the foundation of the abbey of St. Denis was given by Clovis. It was written on papyrus, and among others the signature of St. Eloi was attached to it. Pepin and Charlemagne were great benefactors of the abbey. Pepin was buried before the grand portal of the old church with his face down, wishing by his prostrate position to atone for the excesses of his father Charles Martel. Charlemagne with filial reverence built a porch to the church, as a covering over his father's tomb, and that he might not lie without the church. In rebuilding it, Suger had the porch removed and the body transferred into the interior.
The treasury of the abbey was once exceedingly rich. The old kings of France left their crowns to it, and on grand festivals they were suspended before the high altar. Here were the cross and sceptre of Charlemagne, and the crown and ring of the holy Louis IX. Philip Augustus gave the abbey in his will all his jewels and crosses of gold, desiring twenty monks to say masses for his soul. The chess-board and chess-men of Charlemagne were kept here for ages. Joubert, the Coleridge of France, says:
"The pomps and magnificence with which the church is reproached are in truth the result and proof of her incomparable excellence. Whence came, let me ask, this power of hers and these excessive riches, except from the enchantment into which she threw all the world? Ravished with her beauty, millions of men from age to age kept loading her with gifts, bequests, and cessions. She had the talent of making herself loved and the talent of making men happy. It is that which wrought prodigies for her, it is thence she drew her power."
Sixty great wax candles used to burn around the high altar of St. Denis on great festivals. Dagobert left one hundred livres a year to obtain oil for lights, and Pepin allowed six carts to bring it all the way from Marseilles without toll.
In the middle ages there were fairs near the abbey which lasted for a month. Merchants came from Italy, Spain, and all parts of Europe, and, to encourage them to be mindful of their souls as well as of their purses, indulgences were granted to all who visited the church.
These are a few notes of my saunterings. Each one of these holy places, as well as every church in those old lands, has its history which is interesting, and its legends that are poetical and full of meaning. They would fill volumes. Travelling is like eating; what gives pleasure to one only aggravates the bile of another. Some only find tyranny in the authority of the church, a love of pomp and display in her splendor, and superstition in her piety. Thoreau says, "Where an angel treads, it will be paradise all the way; but where Satan travels, it will be burning marl and cinders."
Spiritualism and Materialism.
Professor Huxley, as we saw in a late number of this magazine, in the article on The Physical Basis of Life, while rejecting spiritualism, gives his opinion that materialism is a philosophical error, on the ground of our ignorance of what matter is, or is not. There is some truth in the assertion of our ignorance of the essence or real nature of matter or material existence, though the professor had no logical right to assert it, after having adopted a materialistic terminology, and done his best to prove the material origin of life, thought, feeling, and the various mental phenomena. Yet we are far from regarding what is called materialism as the fundamental error of this age, nor do we believe that there is any necessary or irrepressible antagonism between spirit and matter, either intellectual or moral. In our belief, a profound philosophy, though it does not identify spirit and matter, shows their dialectic harmony, as revelation asserts it in asserting the resurrection of the flesh, and the indissoluble reunion of body and soul in the future life.