The monk roared, and screamed, and swore against his brother; but it was of no avail: Sir Roger smiled kindly on him, and said, ‘Do not fret, brother; it must have come to this in a year or two.’
And he flew alongside of Mercurius to the steeple-top: but this time the devil had not his tail round his neck. ‘I will let thee off thy bet,’ said he to the dæmon; for he could afford, now, to be generous.
‘I believe, my lord,’ said the dæmon politely, ‘that our ways separate here.’ Sir Roger sailed gaily upwards; while Mercurius having bound the miserable monk faster than ever, he sunk downwards to earth, and perhaps lower. Ignatius was heard roaring and screaming as the devil dashed him against the iron spikes and buttresses of the church.
. . . . .
The moral of this story will be given in the second edition.
MADAME SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE
I DON’T know an impression more curious than that which is formed in a foreigner’s mind, who has been absent from this place for two or three years, returns to it, and beholds the change which has taken place, in the meantime, in French fashions and ways of thinking. Two years ago, for instance, when I left the capital, I left the young gentlemen of France with their hair brushed en toupet in front, and the toes of their boots round; now the boot-toes are pointed, and the hair, combed flat and parted in the middle, falls in ringlets on the fashionable shoulders; and, in like manner, with books as with boots, the fashion has changed considerably, and it is not a little curious to contrast the old modes with the new. Absurd as was the literary dandyism of those days, it is not a whit less absurd now: only the manner is changed, and our versatile Frenchmen have passed from one caricature to another.
The Revolution may be called a caricature of freedom, as the Empire was of glory; and what they borrow from foreigners undergoes the same process. They take top-boots and macintoshes from across the water, and caricature our fashions; they read a little, very little, Shakespeare, and caricature our poetry: and while in David’s time art and religion were only a caricature of heathenism, now, on the contrary, these two commodities are imported from Germany; and, distorted caricatures originally, are still further distorted on passing the frontier.
I trust in heaven that German art and religion will take no hold in our country (where there is a fund of roast-beef that will expel any such humbug in the end); but these sprightly Frenchmen have relished the mystical doctrines mightily; and having watched the Germans, with their sanctified looks, and quaint imitations of the old times, and mysterious transcendental talk, are aping many of their fashions as well and solemnly as they can; not very solemnly, God wot; for I think one should always prepare to grin when a Frenchman looks particularly grave, being sure that there is something false and ridiculous lurking under the owl-like solemnity.
When last in Paris, we were in the midst of what was called a Catholic reaction. Artists talked of faith in poems and pictures; churches were built here and there; old missals were copied and purchased; and numberless portraits of saints, with as much gilding about them as ever was used in the fifteenth century, appeared in churches, ladies’ boudoirs, and picture-shops. One or two fashionable preachers rose, and were eagerly followed; the very youth of the schools gave up their pipes and billiards for some time, and flocked in crowds to Notre-Dame, to sit under the feet of Lacordaire. I went to visit the church of Notre Dame de Lorette yesterday, which was finished in the heat of this Catholic rage, and was not a little struck by the similarity of the place to the worship celebrated in it, and the admirable manner in which the architect has caused his work to express the public feeling of the moment. It is a pretty little bijou of a church: it is supported by sham marble pillars; it has a gaudy ceiling of blue and gold, which will look very well for some time; and is filled with gaudy pictures and carvings, in the very pink of the mode. The congregation did not offer a bad illustration of the present state of Catholic reaction. Two or three stray people were at prayers; there was no service; a few countrymen and idlers were staring about at the pictures; and the Swiss, the paid guardian of the place, was comfortably and appropriately asleep on his bench at the door. I am inclined to think the famous reaction is over: the students have taken to their Sunday pipes and billiards again; and one or two cafés have been established, within the last year, that are ten times handsomer than Notre Dame de Lorette.