“Fighting for one's faith is sublime, and stirs one's deepest feelings,” I replied, “and that the spirit which induces it still exists, despite our prosaic, material age, we have seen by the Papal Zouaves, and also, united with love of country, in the Bretons, Vendêans, and others during the French and Prussian war. But it is impossible to combine the idea of fighting of any kind with this poetic scene, and I would rather go to sleep to-night dreaming of nymphs and sprites than of war and prisons, or even of Pilate himself or any other gloomy visions in this fairyland. I fear I am ungrateful for all your information, in feeling almost sorry that we touched on these topics,” I said, laughing, as we reluctantly turned homewards late that evening.
I had spoken wisely. Most difficult it is to pacify one's mind after such a conversation, and, between reflections on the past and speculations on the future of these Swiss Catholics, the night was far advanced before my eyes closed in sleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a full-toned church-bell booming across the waters. It might again be the Angelus; but looking at my watch, it was only a quarter before five o'clock, and moreover it was still dark. Then it must be some convent-bell summoning the community to Matins and Prime. It was an uncharitable proceeding on their part, thought I, to waken up a whole town; and the peal kept on for the entire quarter of an hour. At half-past five came another similar bell; and then, soon after, a chorus of full tones, like that which had greeted our arrival on the previous evening, rang out the Angelus from every church-tower in the place, followed at six and half-past six by others in our immediate vicinity. It was quite impossible to sleep; yet, tired though we were, the joyful [pg 129] sensation of awakening in a Catholic land reconciled us to the penalty it thus imposed. Up and out we should at once go in search of the Masses which these bells indicated. But there be no such hurry, said the hotel servants; for there would be eight o'clock Mass in the Hofkirche close by. Then we discovered that, so far from the quarter to five bell belonging to any convent, it was in truth rung in order to rouse the towns-people to Mass at the S. Peterskirche—the first each day of the series which ended at eight o'clock at the Hofkirche. And then we recollected how the same custom prevails in Germany, according to the early habits of all German races; how hopeless it seems ever to be up and out before the inhabitants of a small German town; and how, in the Rhenish provinces for instance, the five o'clock Mass in summer, and the six o'clock in winter, are the most fully attended, even in the severe seasons of frost and snow.
We felt, therefore, like sluggards as we ascended the paved hill and mounted the steps leading up to the Hofkirche. It was a bright morning, and pleasant, good-humored faces met us, as we paused to notice the exterior, so plain and unadorned compared to the beautiful Cathedral of Berne. But this seemed all the more suitable to the simple life of Lucerne, with which the fact of the church standing, as it does, in the midst of its cemetery, is in perfect harmony. A curious piece of mediæval sculpture, representing the Garden of Olives, is let into the wall of one of the towers, and we were examining it when to our surprise sounds of music from the inside reached us. But a greater surprise awaited us when, on entering the church, we found it perfectly full. A most devout congregation occupied every seat in the nave. On one side knelt the men, on the opposite the women. Whilst High Mass for the dead was being sung at an altar outside the choir-screen, in front of which was placed the bier, Low Masses were going on at side altars near, and another at the high altar behind. Everywhere earnestness and devotion were perceptible; and a more striking contrast to our previous day's experience in the Cathedral of Berne, where daily services were unknown, it would be utterly impossible to imagine. Yet what must such a morning have been there in the olden days; for even now external advantages are in its favor. The Lucerne church has far fewer claims to architectural beauty, and its general ornamentation is in the bad taste of the last century. But these faults were at the moment imperceptible to us, who had eyes only for the life and spirit pervading the crowd of worshippers that filled it. It is a fine church, however, in its own way, and quite in keeping with the character of the inhabitants. The choir is imposing, and the metal-work of its screen excellent. There are old stained-glass windows too; and a wood carving of the Death of Our Lady over a side altar would be perfect, were it not for the amount of gilding and gaudy coloring with which it has been loaded.
But the benches are the most characteristic point in the building. At one period they must all have been appropriated, though they are now free; for each division still retains a shield, on which is painted a coat-of-arms and the name of a citizen, or of his wife or widow, with the date of the year, going back in [pg 130] some cases to the beginning of the last century. When High Mass was over, the women in going out passed round by the bier, on which they sprinkled holy-water, followed by the men, who seriously and piously performed the same act of fraternal charity. Thence we followed them to the small mortuary chapel outside, but so filled was it by a weeping group that we turned back and sauntered round the covered gallery, or cloister, which borders this beautiful Gottesacker, or “God's acre,” as the Germans so truly call their cemeteries. Sauntering it certainly was; for it was difficult to move quickly, so many were the inscriptions, so well tended the hundreds of pretty graves. Marks of affection and remembrance were visible at every step in fresh wreaths and baskets of beautiful flowers, arranged with a taste and art that told what loving hearts must have guided the skilful hands that made them. Some good oil-paintings and handsome monuments also adorn this gallery; but the most attractive part of the whole burial-ground is its eastern end. This is appropriated to diminutive graves and crosses, hung with white bows of ribbon and white flowers. We knew that in the Catholic Church there is a special service for infants—one of pure joy without a word of grief; but never before had we seen any particular spot set apart for these baptized little angels. Later, we found that it is a custom universal in the burial-grounds of these Catholic cantons; but none that we afterwards saw ever struck us so much as this one of Lucerne.
The whole place, too, was full of stone stoups, provided with water and branches of blessed box, wherewith to sprinkle the graves. Foot-passengers have a right of way from an upper road through this churchyard, and we saw many stop, as they passed, to perform this work of charity over a tomb, with a pious aspiration for the repose of the souls. “Have pity on me, my friends,” is a prayer well responded to in this touching Gottesacker, where the dead still dwell in the hearts of the living, truly under the shadow and protecting influence of the church and of the cross. The doctrines of the Catholic faith in the communion of saints and intercession for the holy souls in purgatory are here so practically carried out, that they must get intertwined with the tenderest feelings of each Lucerner, and developed in their best sense from childhood upwards, becoming their comfort and mainstay from the cradle to the grave.
And then in what a beautiful position this old church stands—at the head of the town, guarding its flock, and a beacon to the weary-minded! From our guide-book we learned that originally it had formed part of a Benedictine convent, and is dedicated to S. Leodegarius, or S. Leger. The very name of this saint takes us back to the furthest antiquity, to the earliest days of Christianity in these parts; for he was the great Bishop of Autun in the VIIth century whose sanctity and courage shone conspicuously during sixty years in the stormy times of the Clovis and Clotaire kings and of their maires du palais, until he was at last cruelly put to death by order of Ebroin, one of the most wicked of that tribe, and who governed in the name of the Frankish king, Theodoric. It tells, too, of those days when the present Switzerland, having been included in Charlemagne's empire, was still fluttering between his successors in Burgundy and those in Germany; and how [pg 131] far the fame of saints and martyrs spread and made their mark on countries which, in those days of slow communication, were distant from their own. The convent itself must have been an old foundation, for the church was formed into a collegiate chapter in 1456, and the two existing towers belong to that period. The remainder, destroyed by fire in 1633, was rebuilt soon after in the unarchitectural style of that century. Probably we owe the cloisters round the cemetery and the massive parochial house near, also to the monastic period. Quite worthy, in any case, of Benedictine refinement was the view obtained from the open arches on one side of the cloisters. But alas for modern innovations! My friends remembered this as one of the most lovely points of view in Switzerland some fifteen years ago; but now the roof of that huge caravansary, the International Hotel, rises just high enough close in front to shut out, from all but two openings, everything save the sight of its own ungainliness. From these two, however, it is possible to judge what the world has lost, looking out over the lake and surrounding mountains; and we lingered long, drinking in the charms of this matchless landscape, which again presented itself under an aspect quite different from that of the preceding evening.
On returning to the hotel we found Mr. and Mrs. C—— deep in conversation with Herr H——, who had come according to appointment. He was a shrivelled-up, active, little old man of about seventy, formerly professor in a gymnasium in the north of Germany, but the aim of whose life had been to save a certain sum, in order to return and end his days in his own beloved Switzerland. This he had accomplished within the last two years. The C——s had taken a great fancy to the old man when they made his acquaintance at Kissingen, and he was now burning to be of some use to them. And a great help he proved in planning the next week's excursions, so as to make them finish off at Einsiedeln on the 14th, the chief feast of that monastery. The day was perfectly lovely, and the atmosphere so clear that he pleaded hard to take us up to the Linden Avenue, a terrace walk, twenty-five minutes off, and commanding a magnificent panorama. But we should see the mountains during the rest of our travels, we argued in reply, and our minds were so full of Wordsworth and Longfellow, and, through them, of the covered bridges of Lucerne, that we could hear of nothing else. Our party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. C——, their two daughters, and a good-humored, boyish son of eighteen, besides my friend and myself; so at last a compromise was effected by dividing our forces. One daughter went with Mr. and Mrs. C—— to the Linden walk, while our new Swiss acquaintance politely offered to conduct our division over his native place.
Our first visit, as a matter of course, was to “the Lion,” the pride and glory of modern Lucerne! Turning off from the fussy, bustling quay, leaving excitement and noise behind, we wandered through quiet, winding streets that led to the former Zurich road, until, in a leafy recess containing a large basin filled by trickling water, on which the sun played through the foliage of the overhanging beech-trees, this grand king of animals lay right before us, hewn out of the perpendicular [pg 132] face of the living rock. Overhead is carved the inscription, Helvetiorum fidei ac virtuti.[32] This monument, erected in memory of the Swiss guards who fell whilst defending Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette at Versailles, and on the 2d and 3d of September, 1792, was designed by the great Thorwaldsen, and executed by a Zurich sculptor, the expenses being defrayed by subscriptions from all parts of Switzerland. The lion is dying, the spear still in his side, a bundle of spears under him, but one paw still firmly clasping the Bourbon shield. It is colossal; the whole attitude full of strength, firmness, and sorrow—a sorrow inspiring such sympathy that the longer one looks the more human it appears. Yet it is not that hopelessly sad expression of his grand Chæronean prototype, which once having had the good-fortune to see on the spot, I never can forget. But then what different events they commemorate! The Greek, the defeat of an over-glorious nation, crushed to despair; this of Lucerne, the loss, but also the noble heroism, of a few of Switzerland's sons only, who, if they could be so faithful in the cause of strangers, what might not be expected from them and their brethren in defence of their own hearths and homes! And as we stood transfixed to the spot, unwilling to stir, it was pleasant to hear from Herr H—— that foreign service of this sort has now ceased. At least no body of Swiss serve abroad together, except as the Pope's guards, whose picturesque Michael-Angelesque costumes must be remembered by every one that visited Rome in its palmy days. Formerly, not only did they serve as mercenaries in various countries, but there were regular treaties in force between the Swiss government and foreign sovereigns, authorizing the latter to recruit throughout the cantons. These, however, have been swept away, and this “Lion” is now the only link with those times. Close by is a chapel where, according to pious custom, Mass is now and then said for the departed heroes, and the altar cloth of which has been worked by the Duchesse d'Angoulême, one of Marie Antoinette's two children, protected and saved by those very soldiers.
We had not prepared ourselves for this beautiful, poetic work of art, and hence it was perhaps doubly difficult to leave it; but time pressed, and Herr H—— led the way back to the brilliant quay. He was eloquent on its palatial hotels, and proud that in this particular Lucerne is so far ahead of all other Swiss towns, except perhaps Geneva. But still, he said, this did not compensate him for olden days. How different it had been in his boyhood, in the years prior to 1820, when the present Schweizerhof Quay did not exist! A long, covered wooden bridge, 1,300 feet in length, ran, in its stead, from the middle of the town, near the Swan Hotel, right across here to the foot of the Hofkirche. And then, to our intense regret, we discovered that this was the chief bridge mentioned by Wordsworth in his continental tour. He first speaks of the Hafellbrücke, still existing, and then goes on to say:
“Like portraiture, from loftier source, endears