What a safeguard to man is devotion to Mary Most Pure! It is like the Pridwin—the shield of King Arthur—on which was emblazoned the Holy Virgin, warding off the strokes of the great enemy of souls.
There are some poetical associations connected with Bordeaux: among others, the memory of the troubadours who enriched and perfected the Romance tongue, but whose songs at last died away in the sad discord of the Albigensian wars. Here the gay and beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine held her court of love, gathering around her all the famous troubadours of her time, and deciding upon the merits of their songs. Among these was her favorite, Bernard de Ventadour, chiefly known to fame by being mentioned by Petrarch. Eleanor herself was a musician and a lover of poetry—tastes she inherited from her grandfather, William, Duke of Aquitaine, generally called the Count de Poitiers, one of the earliest of the troubadours whose songs have come down to us. Around this charming queen of love and song gathered the admiring votaries of la gaia sciencia, like nightingales singing around the rose, all vowing, as in duty bound, that their hearts were bleeding on the horns!
Poor maligned Eleanor was too gay a butterfly for the gloomy court of Louis VII. She wanted the bright sun of her own province in which to float, and the incense of admiring voices to waft her along. She herself was a composer of chansons, and is reckoned among the authors of France. She dearly loved Bordeaux, her capital, and was adored by its people. Here she was married with great pomp to Louis, after which the Duke of Aquitaine laid aside his insignia of power, and, assuming the garb of a hermit, went on a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, and devoted the remainder of his life to prayer and penance in hermitage on Montserrat, by way of preparation for death. It is well to pause awhile before plunging into the great ocean of eternity.
These pilgrimages to Compostella were exceedingly popular in that age, and hospices for the pilgrims to that shrine were to be found in all the large cities and towns. There was one at Auch, and another at Paris in the Rue du Temple, which was particularly celebrated and served by Augustinian nuns. And here at Bordeaux was the Hospice of St. André for the reception of the weary votary of St. Jago.
"Here comes a pilgrim," says one of Shakespeare's characters. "God save you, pilgrim. Where are you bound?"
"To St. Jacques le Grand. Where do the palmers lodge, I beseech you?"
"Eftsoones unto an holy hospitall
That was forby the way, she did him bring,
In which seven bead-men that had vowed all
Their life to service of high heaven's King,
Did spend their daies in doing godly thing;
Their gates to all were open evermore,
That by the wearie way were travelling,
And one sate wayting ever them before
To call in comers-by, that needy were and pore."
Digby says the hospitality and charity of these hospices had their origin in the bishops' houses. Fortunatus thus speaks of Leontius II., Archbishop of Bordeaux, who, in accordance with the apostle's injunction, was given to hospitality:
"Susceptor peregrum distribuendo cibum.
Longius extremo si quis properasset ab orbe,
Advena mox vidit, hunc ait esse patrem."
That the devotion of the middle ages is yet alive in the church is proved by the influx of pilgrims at the shrine of St. Germaine of Pibrac, at Notre Dame de Lourdes, and a thousand other places of popular devotion. So great is the number of pilgrims to Lourdes, drawn by the brightness of Mary's radiant form, that the railway between Tarbes and Pau was turned from its intended direct line in order to pass through Lourdes. In one day the train from Bayonne brought nine hundred, and at another time over a thousand pilgrims. And as for the continued charity and hospitality of the church, witness the monks of St. Bernard and of Palestine, known to all the world. How disinterested is genuine Catholic charity, done unto the Lord and not unto man! Some suppose the good works practised among us is by way of barter for heaven, but they little know the spirit of the church. Charity is one expression of its piety, which, in its highest manifestations, is devoid of self-interest. Listen to John of Bordeaux, a holy Franciscan friar, who, after quoting a saying of Epictetus, that we generally find piety where there is utility, says: "He does not come up to the standard of pure Christianity: he pretends that piety takes its birth in utility, so that it is interest that gives rise to devotion. Yes, among the profane, but not among Christians, who, acquainted with the maxims of our holy religion, have no other end but to serve God for his love and for his glory; forgetting all considerations of their own advantage, they aspire to attain to that devotion which is agreeable to him without any view to their own interest."