Our outdoor pleasures were few, as the world understands them; they mostly consisted of long drives into the interior, where we would often pass dignified, melancholy-looking iron portals, let into a wall festooned profusely with the Virginia creeper, and giving a glimpse of some deserted, parklike expanse of meadow. Other less pretentious entrances showed a wilderness of roses, flowering shrubs, and vines, but always in contrast with the luxuriant Virginia creeper, which nowhere else in Europe grows in such perfection. A variety of shades absolutely Western greets the eye and delights the imagination; the hues of the Indian summer seem concentrated in this one plant, and, from its rich glow, an artist can easily guess what a forest of indefinitely multiplied trees, painted in the colors of this creeper, would look like. Two of our visitors were welcome additions to our party and sympathetic sharers in our pleasures—one, a lady well known for her energetic and active charity, whose presence in any place pointed invariably to some hidden work of mercy to be performed there, and whose mission just then was to comfort a lonely and despairing widow under peculiarly trying aggravations of her sorrow; the other an artist whose name in his public capacity has already appeared more than once in the pages of The Catholic World, and whose character of childlike simplicity and reverent earnestness has endeared him to us in private life as a friend and a model.
People staying at Geneva—at least, English people—always make a point of going through the arduous expedition to Chamouni and the Mer de Glace. We do not mean to disparage the spirit which inevitably urges on our countrymen and countrywomen to put their necks in jeopardy on the slightest provocation; but, turning the adventurous instinct of our Anglo-Saxon blood to a better purpose, we chose rather to make two or three expeditions to sites hallowed by the presence of the Apostle of Geneva—S. Francis of Sales. Mont Blanc could not, from any point of view, appear more majestically beautiful than it does from the shores of Lake Leman; and we preferred to gaze upon the monarch with the eye of an artist rather than that of a gymnast. We here lean upon the authority of Ruskin, whom we are glad to appeal to in an instance where his naturally reverential mind makes him a safe and unbiassed guide. Our first pilgrimage was to the Castle des Allinges, on the Savoy side of the lake, a ruin now, but where, in former days, the saint often said Mass in a chapel, which is the only part of the castle still untouched. There is no lack of visitors to this shrine during the summer, and each party is generally accompanied by a priest. We were happy in persuading le père to be our companion, and started overnight for the village of Thonon. The lake was unruffled, and the sun shining tropically, as the little steam boat carried us over the waters. Thonon is a Catholic village, with an ugly church, adorned by carved and gilded cherubs and other unsightly excrescences ambitiously striving to be Michael Angelos and Donatellos. Frogs never can let oxen alone, especially in art. We slept at the inn, a picturesque and proportionately dirty hostelry, very little changed, we should say, from what it was in the days of S. Francis. It stands on a high terrace above the lake, the top of which terrace forms a drilling-ground; for Thonon has fortifications and the ghost of a garrison. The road from the boat-landing winds up through stunted vines to a dilapidated gateway, and is often dotted by the curious one-horse vehicle of the country, called char-à-banc—i.e. a sort of diminutive brougham turned sideways, and hardly capable of holding two persons—a kind of side-saddle locomotion rather curious to any one accustomed to sit with his face to the horses. The view over the lake by sunrise the next morning was dreamlike in its beauty—each rounded peak veiled in mist, and the motionless waters lying at their base as a floor of azure crystal. As we went further up into the mountains, the sun's rays flashed on hill after hill, throwing a softened radiance over each, and shooting darts of gold across the clear blue of the lake. We met carts laden with wheat-sheaves, and men and boys going to their day's work; passed farms and dairies before coming to the heathery waste that separates the lonely hill-top of les Allinges from the cultivated lands below; jolted over the stony path, called, in mockery, a road; and, having seen in a short two hours' drive as many beauties as we could conveniently remember, arrived at the Chapel of S. Francis. It has been changed since his time, but the altar is said to be the one at which he celebrated Mass. The chapel is a white-washed room like a rough school-room, fitted up with painted benches and cheap prints; but the feeling that draws so many Christian hearts to this refuge of the missionary Bishop of Geneva hallows the bare walls and open poverty of the chapel, and a spirit seems to rise from the altar recess to rebuke any worldly sense of disparagement or even disappointment. The manner in which le père said Mass was enough to make one feel the solemnity of the occasion and the gratitude that ought to possess one after having had the privilege, doubtless not to be repeated in a lifetime, of praying on this consecrated spot. We all received holy communion during Mass. An old man is stationed at les Allinges as custos, sacristan, and Mass-server; and his little garden, in full view of the lake, makes a pretty domestic picture grafted on to the mediæval one of the "ruined castle ivy-draped."
S. Francis, so says tradition, often wandered day and night over this mountain on his apostolic missions, and, being once overtaken by darkness, found no better resting-place than the fork of a chestnut-tree. Wrapped in his cloak, he there went to sleep, lulled by the howling of the wolves, which abounded in that neighborhood. Many similar stories are told in Savoy of his missionary adventures; one of them recording that one day he presented himself, with two or three companions, at one of the gates of Geneva. The guard, not knowing him, asked who he was, before he would allow him to pass; the saint calmly and smilingly replied, "I am l'évêque du lieu" (the bishop of the place). The guard, concluding he was some foreign visitor, and that Dulieu was the name of his diocese or manor, nonchalantly opened the gate, and let him in. When the magistracy discovered who had thus got entrance into the city of Calvin, there was a terrible outcry; the too innocent guard was summoned and threatened with death for his gross neglect of his duty, and a hasty search was begun for the hated Papist bishop. S. Francis had by that time quietly finished his business and left the hostile walls of Geneva. This is not unlike the incident related by Cardinal Wiseman in Fabiola, where a Christian substitutes for the watchword Numen Imperatorum, without repeating which he could not pass out to his secret worship in the catacombs, the words similar in sound, though widely different in meaning, Nomen Imperatorum, and succeeds in cheating the guard, who was a Pannonian, and whose knowledge of Latin was but elementary. It was probably during one of these stolen visits that S. Francis administered the sacraments to a poor Catholic servant-girl in the cellar of the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'or—an old inn still standing at Geneva, and where the identical apartment is now shown.
From Thonon we took the boat to Lausanne, on the opposite side of the lake, visited the Castle of Chillon, and returned to Geneva, after another night spent at the Vevay end of Lake Leman; where the mountains, purple and rounded; the vegetation, southern in its quality and luxuriance; the winding road by the shore—all contribute to remind you of the Bay of Naples and the Sorrento road along the Mediterranean.
Lausanne itself, its cathedral, monuments, fortifications, and general quaintness of architecture and beauty of position, was the goal of another expedition, in which our English friend, Mr. B——, accompanied us, and became our commentator and artistic guide.
There were many other places we also visited; one of us was indefatigable, and followed the bishop to Thonex, where he solemnly deposited a corpo santo; to Collonge, where he blessed a new cemetery with all the pomp of ritual, made easy by this village being situated on Savoyard ground; and to Caronge, where he distributed the prizes at a girl's school, and gave an excellent and appropriate lecture on the education of women in this century.
But the most beautiful ceremony of all was the consecration of the new parish church of Bellegarde, the French frontier post and custom-house. This village is a mere handful of white-washed cottages dropped among the spurs of the Jura range. The mountains, though not high, have all the beauty of the Alps; their varied outline, their abrupt gorges, and their swift torrents being yet more beautiful because embowered in a vegetation of softer aspect than the monumental pineries which close-clothe the Alps. Within half a mile of Bellegarde is a curious natural phenomenon—la perte du Rhône. The river, here scarcely more than a mountain brook, after struggling through a barren, sandy bed, strewn with boulders of a porous white stone worn by the action of the water into strange shapes of vases, cauldrons, and urns, suddenly plunges under an arched entrance in a wall of rocks, and disappears. Its subterranean course is some miles long, and it re-emerges, on a lower level, a placid, shallow stream. Around the mouth of this unknown cavern the scenery is very striking; deep clefts of rock, with fringes of Alpine flowers, alternate with thick growths of oak and chestnut; and from every peaklet of the mountains some charming pastoral scene comes into view. The new church was a plain white building, of no architectural pretensions, but strong and impervious to the weather. The internal decorations were simple in the extreme; no frog emulation here, as in ambitious Thonon. For once we saw French peasants au naturel; they really seemed the fervent, hospitable, unsophisticated people one longs to see. The Jura protects Bellegarde from Geneva; there is no large town near on the French side, and there is neither hotel, nor mineral springs, nor iron mines, nor natural resources of any kind to attract the acquisitive mind of the XIXth century. So God still reigns undisturbedly in this narrow kingdom—narrow, indeed, if measured by the numerical strength of its inhabitants, but noble and precious if measured by the worth of each immortal soul which it holds. The people were collected outside the church, as the full ceremonies of consecration were going to be performed, and many of these take place before the people can canonically be admitted into the interior. A priest stood on the natural pulpit of a low stone wall, describing to the faithful the symbolic meaning of each ceremony, as the bishop and his assistants passed round and round the walls, chanting psalms and anointing the building, or, entering the portals, inscribed the Greek and Latin alphabets in the form of a cross on the floor of the church, made seven crosses on the different internal walls, and recited psalms and litanies before each. The men stood in the burning sun, bare-headed and motionless, often kneeling in the dust, and singing hymns in French corresponding to the meaning of the Latin prayers; a line of Gardes Nationales, in uniforms rather the worse for wear, and many wearing the Crimean medal, stood opposite the entrance, while an excruciating brass band played with a will a mixture of national and religious airs. When at last the congregation all poured into the church, High Mass was sung, the brass band doing duty in a scarcely less subdued tone than before, but being as much of an improvement upon the theatrical and sensuous exhibitions nicknamed sacred music in many grander churches, as a rough but pious print is—religiously speaking—an improvement on a lascivious Rubens. The sermon (we forget whether preached by the bishop or not) was a touching exhortation to the people to remain knit in heart and soul to this church, the emblem at once of their hopes in the future and their spiritual struggles in the present. In the afternoon, the bishop sang solemn Vespers, and towards dusk we all returned to Geneva, happy in having witnessed a ceremony so seldom seen in its beautiful entirety. Mgr. Mermillod was throughout the summer our frequent guest at the villa, and as we purposed staying through the winter as well, he promised to accompany us to Annecy, in Savoy, to visit S. Francis of Sales' tomb and other places hallowed by his memory, on his own feast (29th of January). We started on the eve in two or three close carriages, with postilions. The road lay over a low pass of the Savoy Alps; the cold was intense—such as we have never felt in any other temperate climate in Europe, and which nothing but the unexpectedly rigorous winters of the Northern States have surpassed in our American experience. The road was lined with trees, and valleys here and there opened a vista which in summer must have been gorgeous. It was scarcely less lovely now. Each slender twig was sharply defined, and covered with a clinging garment of frost; the white mist wreathed itself round the mountain-tops, falling down the river-sides like shadowy waterfalls, and, mingling with the white sky overhead, formed, as it were, a vast dome of snow. No noise disturbed the silence save the creaking wheels of our vehicles, and as far as eye could reach there was no sign of life but our own presence. We might have been in cloud-land, or below the surface of the ocean, among hedges of gigantic white coral! After two hours of this elf-like journey, we came to a ravine over which was thrown an iron suspension bridge, and here the intensely earthly resumed its dominion and made itself clearly felt in the prosaic necessity of paying toll and listening to profane language, rendered yet more uncouth by the Savoyard patois.
Annecy is a little, old-fashioned town, with a cathedral in not much better taste than the church of Thonon. The place wears a deserted look, and, the cold being terrible, yet fewer of the inhabitants cared to be seen loitering in the public squares. We adjourned first to the inn (we fear modern pilgrims are less fervent than of old), but could get no fire. Grates are unknown, and a miserable stove, badly managed and half filled, is the starveling and inefficient substitute. The old inn was a characteristic place. We went through the kitchen, the general meeting and table-d'hôte room, to our upper chambers. The staircase was wide enough for a palace, of beautiful carved oak, as was all the wood-work in the house. The next morning the bishop said Mass for us at the shrine of S. Francis. The building of greatest interest after this is the Convent of the Visitation, a rambling house with a large kitchen-garden, which we crossed to reach it. We were shown, through a double grating (the Visitation nuns are enclosed), the various relics which form the spiritual wealth of the convent. They have the original manuscript of S. Francis' Treatise on the Love of God written by his own hand, the pen with which he wrote it, and a shirt embroidered for him by S. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal. In the lower part of the house, corresponding to the position of a cellar, is a little chapel partly hewn in the rock, which serves as the foundation, where S. Francis gave the veil to S. Jane and one companion, or rather, blessed the first semi-religious costume which the founders of the order wore. This consisted of a black gown and cape, and a large, close, white cap in one piece covering the neck and shoulders as well as the head. This house then belonged to S. Jane in her own right. In the chapel to the right of the altar is a picture of her in this dress, and on the other side a description of the simple ceremony. Later on, when the order was constituted, the dress became thoroughly monastic, as it has remained ever since. The cell of S. Jane is exactly as she left it; not made into a regular chapel, but, on days connected with her memory or that of S. Francis, Mass is said there at a temporary altar. Her cloak is kept in a press in the room, and one of us was privileged in having it thrown over her shoulders for a few minutes by the superioress. The order is not at all austere, but there is an immense deal of moral sacrifice imposed by the spirit of the rule. S. Francis designed it rather as a discipline of the mind than of the body; and since saints have differed about this point, we are not at a sufficient elevation to pronounce upon it. Individually, however, we prefer the spirit of the older and more ascetic orders, as involving a more complete oblation of the whole being to God; but—to every age its own institutions, and, we might add, its own saints.
Mgr. Mermillod is surely one of those saints of our day. Indefatigable in preaching (once the distinctive duty of a bishop), his own flock sometimes complain, not without reason, that he is always away, preaching a retreat here, a mission there—Lent in Paris, Advent at Lyons, etc.; but in the winter of 1866, he fortunately preached five conférences at S. Germain, at Geneva itself. The church was in the old, hilly part of the town, but neither that nor the difficulty of approach—the frost made steep roads impassable that winter, and even the cabs went on runners—seemed to diminish the ardor of the people. All denominations were represented at these evening lectures, and the subject was invariably one accessible to the understanding and commanding the interest of all. One, on the regeneration of fallen man, was peculiarly fine; but the arguments were perhaps inferior to the language in which they were clothed. It wound up with a forcible peroration on that "brutal and atheistical democracy which, in its most hideous exponent (the French Revolution of 1793), prostrated itself before a courtesan, and knelt before a scaffold. When the worship of God perished, the worship of shame was the substitute; and when the blood of God ceased to flow upon the altar, the blood of man began to flow on the guillotine." The orator's enthusiasm in speaking sometimes carried him beyond his argument, and he even lost the thread of his similes in the ardor of his utterance. His watch invariably stopped before he had been twenty minutes in the pulpit, and this entraînement was all the more vivid from being quite spontaneous, as he never wrote his sermons, but preached extempore from a few scattered notes. How much study he must have gone through at a previous time to make him so polished, as well as so forcible, an orator, we can only conjecture.
In ordinary social intercourse, his charm was chiefly sweetness and sprightliness, with a certain happy diction which is a special gift, seldom found except among Frenchmen or those to whom French has become a second mother-tongue. Our long winter evenings at the Hôtel de la Paix (the cold having driven us from the villa) were often enlivened by his genial presence; other friends, too, came sometimes, and one, a Russian and an acute thinker, M. S——, was one of the most welcome. He was blind, but his infirmity only seemed to enhance his powers of conversation, and made his company more agreeable than it might otherwise have been. One night, the bishop was speaking of Lamennais and his more hidden life. There were soul-struggles and temptations assaulting him even in his chosen retreat of La Chênaie, in the midst of his triumph, when the Christian youth of France clustered round him, and sat at his feet as his humble disciples. He sometimes fancied himself irretrievably destined to eternal loss, and experienced paroxysms of terrible agony. The Abbé Gerbet, his confessor, once surprised him in one of these fits of despair, and did his best to strengthen and comfort him; but the demon was not to be laid so easily. The bishop, telling us this, added: "The three greatest geniuses of France in this age have fallen, the one through pride, the others through vanity—Lamennais, Victor Hugo, and Lamartine." The conversation having rested upon these two failings, some one quoted the saying that "The greater part of mankind is incapable of rising to the level of pride." A Russian lady who was present then said: "Indeed, one ought to have a great deal of pride to save one's self from petty vanity."