I was the only witness of these holidays who did not share in the general gaiety. I had no money to buy toys and cakes. In order to avoid the scorn attached to ill-fortune, I sat far from the crowd, near those pools of water which the sea keeps up and replenishes in the hollows of the rocks. There I amused myself by watching the flight of the gulls and sea-mews, staring at the blue expanse of sky, gathering shells, listening to the refrain of the waves among the rocks. At night, at home, I was but little happier; I disliked certain dishes: I was forced to eat them. I cast beseeching glances at La France, who cleverly whipped away my plate when my father's head was turned. In the matter of the fire, the same harshness: I was not permitted to go near the chimney. It is a far cry from those severe parents to the spoil-children of to-day.
But if I had troubles unknown to modern children, I had some pleasures also of which they know nothing. The very meaning has been forgotten of those religious and domestic solemnities in which the whole country and the God of that country seemed to rejoice. Christmas, New Year's Day, Twelfth Night, Whitsuntide, Midsummer were prosperous days for me. Possibly the influence of my native rock worked upon my sentiments and studies. In the year 1015 the Malouins vowed to assist "with their hands and means" to build the steeples of the cathedral at Chartres: have I too not labored with my hands to rebuild the stricken spire of the ancient Christian basilica? "The sun," says Père Maunoir, "never shone upon canton where more constant and invariable fidelity to the true Faith was shown than in Brittany. For thirteen centuries no heresy has stained the tongue which has served as an organ for preaching Jesus Christ, and the man is as yet unborn who has seen a Breton of Brittany preach any religion other than the Catholic."
On the feast-days which I have mentioned, I was taken with my sisters to perform my stations at the various sanctuaries in the town, at St. Aaron's Chapel or the Convent of Victory; my ear was struck by the sweet voices of a hidden choir of women; the harmony of their chant mingled with the roar of the billows. When, in the winter, at the hour of Benediction, the Cathedral was filled by the multitude; when old sailors upon their knees, young women and children read their Hours with lighted tapers in their hands; when the congregation at the Benediction joined in singing the Tantum Ergo; when, in the intervals between the hymns, the Christmas squalls dashed against the panes of the Cathedral and shook the arches of the nave which had resounded with the manly tones of Jacques Cartier and Duguay-Trouin, I experienced an extraordinary feeling of religion. I had no need to be told by Villeneuve to fold my hands and invoke God by all the names which my mother had taught me; I saw the heavens opening, the angels offering up our incense and our prayers; I bowed my forehead: it was not yet laden with those cares which weigh upon us so terribly that we are tempted not to raise our heads after bending them at the foot of the altar.
One sailor, the function concluded, would set sail all fortified against the night, while another would return to harbour and turn his steps to the illuminated dome of the church: thus religion and danger were constantly in sight one of the other, and their features were inseparable in my thoughts. I was hardly born before I heard speak of death: in the evening, a man went from street to street with a bell, calling upon Christians to pray for a brother deceased. Scarcely a year passed but vessels went under before my eyes, and as I played upon the beach the sea rolled to my feet the corpses of foreign men who had expired far from their native land. Madame de Chateaubriand said to me, as St. Monica said to her son: Nihil longe est a Deo. My education had been entrusted to Providence, which spared me none of its lessons.
My early love of religion.
Vowed as I was to the Virgin, I knew and loved my Protectress, whom I confused with my Guardian Angel: her portrait, which had cost my kind Villeneuve a half sou, was fastened with four pins over the head of my bed. I ought to have lived in the times when one said to Mary: "Sweet Lady of Heaven and Earth, Mother of Pity, Fountain of all Good, that carried Jesus Christ in thy precious womb, fair and most sweet Lady, I thank thee and entreat thee."
The first thing I knew by heart was a sailors' hymn, which began:
Je mets ma confiance,
Vierge, en votre secours;
Servez-moi de défense,
Prenez soin de mes jours;
Et quand ma dernière heure
Viendra finir mon sort,
Obtenez que je meure
De la plus sainte mort[67].
I have since heard this hymn sung in a shipwreck. To this day I can repeat these bad rhymes with as much pleasure as Homer's verses. A statue of Our Lady, adorned with a Gothic crown and clad in a robe of blue silk trimmed with a silver fringe, inspires me with more devotion than one of Raphael's Virgins.
If at least that peaceful Stella maris had been able to calm my troubled life! But I was doomed to agitation even in my childhood. I was like the Arab's date-tree: scarce had my stem issued from the rock before it was stricken by the wind.