Reboul suffered for ten years before his death from a constitutional melancholy, which the distraction of several interesting journeys in Italy, Switzerland, and Austria only temporarily relieved; his general health gave way by degrees, and he died on the 29th of May, 1864. He who had vowed his life to the glory of God and his church was called away from earth on the feast of Corpus Christi, having been completely paralyzed on the left side three days before. He recovered neither speech nor—to all appearance—consciousness, and his death was as peaceful as a child's. His native town celebrated his funeral with all the pomp of civic and religious honors; the Bishop, Mgr. Plantier, made a funeral oration over his grave, and a monument was soon raised to his memory by his grateful and admiring fellow-citizens. More than that, the city of Nîmes took charge of his family and assured their future, as a fitting homage to the man whose life had been so nobly independent, so proudly self-supporting. The Roman colony could not bear to see Reboul's helpless relatives the pensionaries of a stranger, and the care it extended to them was delicately offered not as a boon but a right. People of all classes, all religions, all political opinions united in mourning their great compatriot. We can end with no tribute of our own more fitting than M. de Poujoulat's warm and eloquent words: "Noble triumph of honest genius, of sublime and modest virtue! many things will have fallen, many footsteps have been effaced, while yet Reboul will be remembered. The only lasting glory is that in which there is no untruth. Reboul has left like a Christian a world and an epoch which often grieved his faith. He has gone to that heaven which he had seen in his poetic visions, and in which his imagination had placed so many noble types. He himself has now become a type such as the Christian muse would fain see placed in the immortal fatherland of the elect."
The recording angel may well have sung over his tomb these triumphant words of the Gospel:
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful in a few things, I will set thee over great things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
We have thus endeavored to present a portrait of a character not often met with in our literature. This man of the people, and yet a royalist; this delicately-toned poet, and yet a man of sturdy common sense, affords a curious and interesting study. What has won our especial admiration is his inflexible adherence to principle in all that concerns faith and the rights of the Holy See.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Lettres de Jean Reboul de Nîmes, avec une Introduction par M. de Poujoulat. Michel Lévy Frères. Paris, 1866.
[29] Romans xi. 24.
[30] Uncultivated tracts of land bordering the sea-shore of Brittany.
[31] 1 Kings ix. 21.
[32] This name was given to the market-women who had their regular seats around the guillotine, and knitted diligently, at the same time insulting the victims while the executioner did his bloody work.