But time would fail us to describe all these remarkable sculptures, which so narrowly escaped destruction or desecration at the hands of the revolutionists. The First Napoleon had the idea of transporting them to some museum as curiosities of art. It would have been a sacrilege, and one which, alas! has been too often perpetrated in other countries besides France. But what Catholic that visits the garden even, to say nothing of the museum, of the ancient monastery of Cluny (now Musée de Cluny, at Paris), is not pained at seeing saints and virgins, angels and apostles, more or less shattered and dismembered, torn from their places in the sanctuary, and figuring as statues on the lawn, or mere groups of sculpture picturesquely placed to assist the effect of the gardener’s arrangement of the shrubs and flower-beds?
Bonaparte, however (after testing with gimlet and saw the hardness of the stone), found himself obliged to leave the “Saints of Solesmes” where they were, as, unless the whole were to be ruined, the entire transept would have had to be transported all in one piece, every part of this immense sculptured fresco being connected and, as it were, enwound with the other portions, and each detail having only its particular excellence in the completeness of the rest.
It is amid the ceremonies of Solesmes that those who enter into the spirit of Christian art can penetrate more deeply into the meaning of the vast poem carved upon the walls of the church. During the simple recital of the psalms, as in the most solemn and magnificent ceremonies, there is a striking harmony between the decoration and the action, the one being a commentary on the other. The monks, motionless in their carven stalls, or disposed on the steps of the altar, seem to make one with the Jerusalem in stone, while the saints in their niches may almost be imagined to sing with the psalmody and meditate during the solemn rites at which they are present. At the most solemn moment of the Mass, when clouds of incense are filling the holy place, the mystic dove descends, bearing between her silver wings the Bread of Heaven, and, when it is deposited in the pyx, mounts again into her aerial shrine, which is suspended from a lofty cross.
This custom of elevating the tabernacle between heaven and earth was not the only one in which the venerable abbot exactly copied the ancient rites. The ceremonies of Solesmes are full of the spirit of the church’s liturgy, and the community formed by his teaching and example will not fail to perpetuate the pious and venerable observances which he was the first to restore in France.
LEGEND OF THE BLUMISALPE.
There was a time when around this mountain, now covered with perpetual snow, swarms of bees produced aromatic honey; fine cows, pasturing the entire year in the green fields, filled the dairy-women’s pails with rich milk; and the farmer by trifling labor obtained abundant harvests. But the inhabitants of this fertile country, blinded by the splendor of their fortune, became proud and haughty. They were intoxicated with the charms of wealth; they forgot that there are duties attached to the possession of wealth—the duties of hospitality and of charity. Instead of using their treasures judiciously, they employed them solely in ministering to a more luxurious idleness, and in a continual succession of festivities. They closed their ears to the supplications of the unfortunate, and sent the poor from their doors; and God punished them.
One of these proud, rich men built on the verdant slopes of the Blumisalpe a superb château, intending to reside there, surrounded by his unworthy associates. Every morning their baths were filled with the purest milk.
The terraced steps of the gardens were made, according to the legend, of finely-cut blocks of excellent cheese. This Sardanapalus of the mountains had inherited all his father’s vast domains, and, whilst he revelled in this manner in his rich possessions, his old mother was living in want in the seclusion of the valley. One day the poor old woman, suffering from cold and hunger, supplicated his compassion. She told him that she was living alone in her cabin, unable to work; indigent, without assistance; infirm, without support. She begged him to grant her the fragments of his feast, a refuge in his stables; but, deaf to her entreaties, he ordered her to leave. She showed him her cheeks, wrinkled by grief more than by age; her emaciated arms, that had carried him in his infancy; he threatened to command his attendants to drive her away.
The poor woman returned to her cabin, overwhelmed with grief by this cruel outrage. She tottered through his beautiful grounds with bowed head, and sighs that she could not restrain burst from her oppressed heart, and bitter tears streamed from her eyes. God counted the mother’s tears.