Orleans is delivered. Cathelineau, the morning of his solemn entry, went with his Vendéans to hear a Mass of thanksgiving. In hoc Signo vinces. Marseilles and Lyons, the Queen of the Mediterranean and the city of Notre Dame de Fourvières, are agitated by violent intestine struggles. Pazienza! Speranza! Oh! what need has my soul of these two sources of strength to bear up beneath this hour of unutterable anguish! René and Adrien are wounded! “Remember, my daughter, the sacrifice is short and the crown eternal,” my poor mother says to me, wounded to the heart like myself. Where are they? The date is torn off the letter, which has been brought us by an unfortunate soldier with an amputated limb, who has faced a thousand dangers to come and die in his own part of the country. I wish to go—but whither? Kate, inspire me!
November 22.
My anxiety has brought on fever.... Yesterday was a great day in the religious history of France. Mgr. de la Tour d’Auvergne convoked the whole church of France to a solemn act of faith. At one and the same hour, in all the sanctuaries of this nation, bent beneath the strokes of the divine Justice, Mass was said to obtain pardon. O Lord! if only so many prayers and tears might obtain peace. “All for God and our country!” cried Cathelineau, before that altar[[58]] where joys so pure were granted me. “Let official France make her act of penitence!” says the Univers. Alas! it does not appear that this thought occurs to her. O these dates, these memories, my whole life in my remembrance! I examined myself this morning and had to acknowledge my own weakness. My God! wilt thou require of me this sacrifice? I would desire to submit, but my heart!... Dear and sweet friend, chosen for me by the best-beloved and most devoted of sisters, return, return! O fatal war! I comprehend the words of Rousseau: “The man who has lived longest is not he who can reckon up the greatest number of years, but he who has felt most what is life.”
There are presentiments.... My soul is crushed. Ah! these hours, these days which are passing by—what are they for France?
The Duke of Aosta, son of Victor Emanuel, is named King of Spain by the Cortes. Into what hands is Europe yet to fall? The diadem of Charles V. and of St. Ferdinand in the family of the excommunicated King of Italy; these two countries of noble memories thus fallen, and France defended by Garibaldi; the insulter of sanctity, the blasphemer of Jesus Christ, made a French general! O blindness, O impiety of a government which pretends to be a regenerator! And this, too, in the age in which we live, in the century of Pius IX. and of the Immaculate Conception!... Deluges of rain for weeks past. Our unfortunate youth of France decimated by misery and cold!
Wrote to Marcella and Lizzy—two lovely, beloved, and poetic souls.[[59]]
November 26.
The Lord gave him to me; the Lord hath taken him away! Thou hast willed it, my God; thou hast taken back this life which was so dear to me. I adore thy will!
November 29.
Is this dying life deserving of a single regret? And yet I weep! My God! thou pardonest these tears—thou who didst weep over us. Oh! if I had at least had his last look.