Read Ebook: The Catholic World Vol. 06 October 1867 to March 1868. by Various

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"Louis."

This private act of consecration was an immense comfort to her; but it by no means prevented her longing and striving to reenter a convent, and all her hopes continued to be fixed on La Trappe.

At this period an affecting meeting took place between her and Madame Royale, the only survivor of the royal victims of the Temple, the young girl born to one of the highest destinies in this world, and whose youth had been overshadowed by a tragedy so prolonged and so frightful that history can scarce furnish a parallel case. It is only extraordinary that reason had survived such awful suffering, falling on one so young and so tenderly nurtured. Is it any wonder that a shade was cast over the rest of her life, and that she was never among the light-hearted or the gay? From Vienna she wrote to Queen Clotilde: "I have had a great pleasure here in finding that the virtues of my aunt Elizabeth were well known, and she is spoken of with veneration. I hope that one day the pope will place my relation in the list of saints." It was, no doubt, a great comfort to her to speak freely with Louise of the aunt and cousin both had so fondly loved. Louise could tell Madame Royale many anecdotes of the youth of one whose end had been so saintly. We must now say a few words about the convent which the princess wished to enter.

When the order of La Trappe was suppressed in France, in common with those of other religious in 1790, the Abb? L'Estrange, called in religion Dom Augustin, was master of novices, and he conceived the idea of removing the whole community from France instead of dispersing it.

She was now desired to set out for Russia, and thus undertake another long journey of discomfort and fatigue. People urged her to leave the order, saying that the weakness of her knee, which had never wholly recovered from the fall she had had many years before, would render it impossible for her to be useful. She replied that, if she were only allowed to keep the lamp burning before the blessed sacrament, she would be contented. So she set out for Orcha, the town named by the emperor for their reception. It proved a really terrible journey; sometimes the religious had to sleep under the open sky; they had the roughest food, and more than once were without any for twenty-four hours. But never once did the patience, sweetness, and perfect content of Louise de Cond? fail; her face was always bright, for her whole soul was filled with the one thought--a desire of doing penance. The arrival in Russia did not put an end to the difficulties of either Madame Louise or her order. It was necessary to make some arrangement for the rest of the community left in Germany. The Emperor Paul finally agreed to receive fifty. Dom Augustin accordingly went to fetch them. During his absence no communication could be held with him, while various offers of help, which had to be accepted or refused, were brought to the princess, embarrassing her greatly.

A foundation of Benedictines of the Blessed Sacrament had come from Paris to Warsaw many years before, and were still existing: they kept the Benedictine rule strictly, adding to it the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Madame Louise asked and received permission of the King of Prussia to enter his dominions. He afterward wrote as follows:

"Frederick William, by the Grace Of God King Of Prussia: As we have permitted Madame la Princesse Louise Adelaide de Bourbon Cond? and Madame de la Brosi?ree, who arrived at Warsaw the 18th of June, to remain in the convent of the Holy Sacrament, where they seem to wish to end their days, we have in consequence given all necessary orders to the officials. "Warsaw, 28 August, 1801."

A striking circumstance occurred while on her road to Warsaw, one of those many incidents of the time which has made the history of the French Revolution read like a romance. Having to descend from her carriage at Thorn, her eyes fell on a woman poorly clad in the street, evidently seeking employment; the expression of her face was that of suffering, but of great sanctity. The princess was so struck by it that she went up to her, and said by impulse, "Madam, were you not a religious?" "Yes," she replied, impelled to confidence by the sweet face of her who addressed her. And then Louise learnt that the lady was an exiled member of the French Sisters of Calvary, driven into exile; that her slender means had come to an end; and that very day she had come out to seek work or to beg, neither dismayed nor yet afraid, but putting her full trust in Divine Providence.

Her wants were supplied, and she would have entered the same convent as Madame Louise, but that she hoped to rejoin her own community when they should reassemble. This shortly afterward took place, and the generosity of Madame Louise furnished the means for her journey home, and she lived many years in her convent, leading a holy life, and died there in peace.

"Most Holy Father: Louise Ad?laide de Bourbon Cond?, now Marie Joseph de la Mis?ricorde, professed religious of the convent of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, order of Saint Benedict, at Warsaw, supplicates your holiness that you deign, for the repose and tranquillity of the soul of the suppliant, to declare her deprived of active and passive voice, and to dispense her from all the principal offices of the community."

The holy father saw fit to grant the request, and sent a brief on the subject to her.

And now another change awaited the poor princess: thick, indeed, upon her head came trial after trial. Nothing could, indeed, take from her now the happiness of being a professed Benedictine; but that she should remain peaceably in one convent for a long time was hardly to be hoped for at this period. The Lutheran Prussian government began to interfere with the government of the convent, to have a voice in the election of superiors, and, of course, to interfere, at least indirectly, with the rule. Probably the presence of Madame Louise made them take more notice of that convent than they would otherwise have done. Before quitting it, however, as this was a serious step to be taken voluntarily by a religious who has made a vow of enclosure, she wrote for counsel to the three French bishops of L?on, Vannes, and Nantes, who were then all living in London. Their united opinion was, that "the reasons were well grounded and very solid, and that the repose of her conscience and her advancement in the perfection of her state, exact this change." Having received permission from the bishop of the diocese, and the full consent of her prioress, who bitterly mourned over the thraldom in which the community were held, Louise de Cond? once more went out into exile, and this time directed her steps toward England. She landed at Gravesend, and was, we suppose, the first nun since the Reformation who was received with public honors by the British authorities. In London she met her father and brother, whom she had not seen since the year 1795, and who had since that time endured so much, and who were still suffering so acutely under their recent sorrow in the execution of the Duc d'Enghien. There must have been a strangely mingled feeling of pain and pleasure in this sad meeting. After remaining a few days in London, her father and brother escorted her to a Benedictine convent at Rodney Hall, Norfolk, where a refuge had been offered to her. This community followed the mitigated rule of St. Benedict, but Louise was allowed to observe the fasts and other points to which she had bound herself by her profession of the rule in its strict observance.

In this house there were fifty choir nuns, eight lay sisters, and a large school of young ladies. Wherever Madame Louise went, she was accompanied by the M?re Sainte Rose and the little El?onore Dombrousha, the child of her adoption. In this community Louise was greatly beloved. There was about her a sweetness and a simplicity, a self-forgetfulness and charity for others which gave her an inexpressible charm. She was truly noble in character as well as in birth. She gave that example which God intends those highly born to give--that of more closely resembling Him whose birth was indeed a royal and noble one. During her stay in Norfolk, the Princess Louise suffered greatly from bad health. The trials she had undergone, the anxiety of mind, her long journeys, and the severity of the observances to which she had bound herself had their effect upon her frame. More than once there was such cause for serious alarm that the Prince de Cond? and Duc de Bourbon came to see her. It is probable, too, that the English climate, and especially the part of the country in which she was living, might not have agreed with her; the convent, besides, was not sufficiently large, and it was a favorable change in all respects when the community removed to Heath. Here Madame Louise met with one whose acquaintance she conceived to be one of the greatest blessings of her life.

The Society of Jesus was not as yet restored to the church; but many of its ancient members were living, and showed by their lives what had been the heavenly spirit in which they had been trained. Preeminently among these was the P?re de la Fontaine, and it was to this holy man Louise became known while in England. He often said Mass at the convent, and frequently saw the princess. Under his direction, the soul of Louise made rapid progress toward perfection. He understood what God required from her, and taught her how to correspond with God. Among other valuable advice which he gave her, and which she committed to paper, the following is remarkable: "A spouse of Jesus Christ ought absolutely to avoid all communication with Protestant society. Their want of delicacy, in general, on those points which wound a heart consecrated to God in all purity, and their unbelief, often amounting to aversion, for the great sacrament of the love of Jesus Christ, are two powerful reasons for keeping at a distance from them. A truly religious soul has reason to fear presumption and all its attendant evils, if she allows herself, without real necessity, to be drawn into such dangerous intercourse."

Truly, royal pomp and ceremony, gala and festivity, could never again enter those sorrowful halls. Most fitting would it be to consecrate them to God, and let an unceasing strain of prayer and praise ascend to heaven. Some doubted whether the task would not be too painful for the princess herself, and at the first announcement she did, in truth, shrink back. She had known them all so well, had loved Elizabeth so tenderly, had wept over their fates so bitterly, had prayed for them so earnestly, she missed them, now that she was once more at home; and how, then, could she bear to live for ever within those walls, which would be an eternal record of their fate.

But the first emotion passed away, and she began more fully to understand why she had been tried in the crucible of sufferings, why her vocation had been so often crossed, so hardly tried. It had been all to bring her to this, to let her found in Paris a convent of expiation. Without those trials, perhaps, she could never have borne the severity of the task, the sacrifice she must at once make on entering. She tenderly loved Madame Royale, or Madame la Dauphine, as she was now called, and it could not be expected or even wished that she should revisit a spot which must recall to her those terrible days whose memory already overshadowed her life too much; but this sacrifice Louise was ready to make, and the convent of the Temple was accepted.

Workmen were engaged to convert the old palace into a convent; the towers, in one of which the royal family had lived, were already demolished, but it was easy to perceive where they had stood. A Beautiful garden surrounded the buildings, partly in the French, partly in the English style. Water brought up from the Seine played in fountains surrounded by artificial rocks, among which a grotto was formed. This grotto was changed into an oratory to the Blessed Virgin, and another to St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. The Comte de Courson and the Abb? d'Astros directed the alterations, and all possible haste was being made, when, like wild-fire, the news ran through the world, Bonaparte had escaped from Elba, and was in France. The royal family fled, and once more the Princess Louise was to be an exile. She could not at once procure horses, so for a week, which happened to be holy week, she was hidden in the house of one of her former attendants. The M?re Sainte Rose was taken very ill, and then there was the serious difficulty of procuring passports. How little can those who live in London now, and who breakfast at home and sup in Paris, estimate the labor, the pain, the dread, which a timid person like Madame Louise would feel at having to take the weary journey to England, posting from Paris to Calais, and then a long, stormy passage, to say nothing of the dangers of being stopped on the route and taken to prison. She was obliged to set off on Easter-day. At the city gates they were stopped, and it was only by a heavy bribe that they were suffered to pass. On the way they found themselves in the midst of a popular tumult, and were obliged to leave their carriages and hide till it was over. They had a very bad passage from Calais, but at Dover Madame Louise was received with every mark of respect and esteem.

She had not the comfort of returning to the convent at Heath, for it was thought better that she should await the course of events in London, and she went to a hotel. But a serious illness was the result of the sudden shock and journey, and after her recovery she went to the country-house of a friend. All through her after-life Madame Louise had a great affection for the English, who, to do them justice, were certainly generous toward the French emigrants. She was wont to say that their generosity would win for them the grace of reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Although Napoleon's second reign lasted but a hundred days, Madame Louise did not return to France for fourteen months, partly on account of health, partly because she wished to be fully convinced of the stability of the Bourbon dynasty before she commenced her arduous undertaking.

Sorrows did not fail to follow her into her peaceful retreat. The assassination of the Duc de Berri, her near relative, filled her with grief, recalling too vividly the horrors that had darkened her younger days. She was comforted, however, by a visit from the venerable P?re de la Fontaine, who came to console her. "The Lord has covered him with the mantle of his mercy," said the old friend, and those simple words calmed her. Could there not, indeed, be hope for the soul of him whose first thought on receiving the death-blow was to say, "Pardon my murderer"? The P?re de la Fontaine had returned to Paris after the peace; and when the Jesuits had been restored to their place in the church, and had communities in France, he often visited the Convent du Temple, and was by Madame Louise and many others esteemed a saint. The princess told her sisters that, being once in great spiritual perplexity and suffering, the father passed by her on his way to the altar, and as his shadow fell on her all her intense sufferings disappeared. In 1821, this holy man died, and at the request of Madame Louise the Jesuits sent her some account of his last hours. The writer described the strong emotion felt by all who were present when the old man, on his dying-bed, begged pardon for all his faults, for his breaches of the rule, and renewed his vows--vows which he had so faithfully kept in exile and solitude, when his beloved order had been suppressed. He had lived on in faith and in prayer, and God had allowed him to see the society restored to the church, so that, like Simeon, he could depart in peace.

Next came the illness of the princess's father, the Prince de Cond?. She had always been tenderly attached to him, and the sorrows they had gone through together had naturally deepened the affection. He lay dying at Chantilly, and mutual friends begged Madame Louise to go to him. The ecclesiastical superiors would give her dispensation, they said; she was a princess, no ordinary nun. She firmly refused. "If our holy father the pope orders me to go, as a child of the church I will obey; but never will I ask for a dispensation which should give a precedent for breaking enclosure." Outwardly she was calm before her sisters, but her stall in the choir was bathed with tears, so deeply did she suffer for and with the father whom she loved. Her prayers went up unceasingly, and there is proof that they were heard.

Another death awoke considerable emotion in the heart of Madame Louise. On the barren rock of St. Helena the proud heart of the great conqueror wore itself out. The hand and the brain that had worked such endless woe to her and hers were for ever still. Far from her all thought of triumph and rejoicing. Instantly she had Masses offered for him, and never omitted daily to supplicate in her private prayers that he who had given her no rest on earth might now have eternal rest given to him.

And now her long and troubled life was hastening to its close. She had been tossed about, indeed, on a troubled sea, seldom in port, yet happy and peaceful amid the conflict; and now eternal peace was at hand.

The bells of the new church were blessed in October, 1822, the King and Madame la Dauphine being godfather and godmother. The church was consecrated, in August, 1823, by the Archbishop of Paris. Louise, looking round, might have seen her work completed, the community established and flourishing, the church finished in which the adoration of the altar could be worthily carried out. The next day she made a false step, and fell down. Slight as was the accident, fainting fits constantly followed, and she was never well afterward. She suffered most from her head, but would not give up her ordinary duties, or lie by. Gradually her strength failed. On December 23d, she fainted on the stairs, was carried to bed, and was attacked by fever and sickness. Still she struggled on with her duties. On the last day of the year, she would hold the "chapter of peace"--a custom of her order to which she was much attached, when the religious ask mutual pardon of each other for any want of charity during the past year, and when the prioress has to address them on this beautiful subject; and she would not let her illness interfere with the feast of Holy Innocents, a gala-day in the convent, when the youngest novice becomes prioress for the day, and innocent mirth is in the ascendant; and she assisted at the clothing of two novices in January, 1824. She showed by her manner on this last occasion that she believed it to be the last ceremony at which she should be present. She saw each of her sisters in private, and took leave of them with tender affection. She suddenly became worse, and lost the use of speech, but not consciousness. She received extreme unction from the Archbishop of Paris. The community, all in tears, surrounded her bed. The archbishop remarked, it was like the shower of rain which, at the prayer of St. Scholastica, came down to prevent St. Benedict from leaving her too soon. The dying nun understood the allusion, and smiled. He bade her bless her children, and her hand was raised for her, and placed on the head of one of her religious, for she could not move it herself.

A few days afterward she recovered her speech, and she received the viaticum, and answered the questions of the priest with a firm tone, "I believe with faith." Her death-agony was very long, and, when her brother came to see her, she could not speak. The desire of seeing her once more overcame the repugnance that Madame la Dauphine had to reenter the Temple, and she was about to set out thither when the king, fearing the consequences for her, forbade her to go. The last smile of Louise de Cond? was given to a picture held before her of a dove bearing a cross and flying to heaven. Perhaps she said inwardly words which would have been very suitable: "I will flee away and take my rest." Shortly afterward she expired. She was in the sixty-seventh year of her age, and the twenty-second of her religious profession. And thus ended a life of which it may truly be said that it was "stranger than fiction."

Mr. Bashers Sacrifice, and why He made it.

But Mr. Basher's blushing face was nothing to his blushing heart, mind, or soul, or whatever it is that blushes inside of a man, and causes him to feel weak and faint, to get shaky at the knees, and bungling in speech. That he never finished a complete sentence is a fact too well known to need confirmation. Even on the day of his sacrifice, the charming Miss Criggles was obliged to come to his rescue; for, when he got as far as "Miss Criggles, will you have--" if that ready-witted young lady had not divined his purpose, and said what he just then lost the power of saying--"me, for your own," I do not think we would have seen a Mrs. Basher to this day.

He had no better success in his attempts to converse with children. I remember, as he sat one day in my parlor, twiddling his thumbs, breaking down in his remarks, and his color coming and going in rapid succession, my little daughter Dolly climbed upon his knee, and covered him with confusion by saying to him:

"Mi'ter Bashy, does 'oo ever say 'oor p'ayers?"

"I--I--I, sometimes; a--" blundered Mr. Basher in reply, his knees beginning to involuntarily dandle the child up and down.

"What does 'oo say?" persisted the little fairy, shaking her curls, and giving him an arch look. "I don't t'ink 'oo do."

"Why--why--do you a--" Mr. Basher got out.

"'Cause 'oo never 'members what 'oo's t'inkin' 'bout."

Poor Basher could do nothing after that but stare vacantly at the wall, and smile a smile that is often seen on board a ship as soon as she reaches rough water. Certainly, in another sense little Dolly had put Mr. Basher completely at sea.

You should have heard Tom when he heard the news.

"Has he? What, Basher! Not Blushing Basher! Look again. Some other Basher--some general, colonel, major, or turkey-cock-in-boots Basher. No? Our Basher? Then draw a pen across that line in the spelling-book, 'Faint heart never won fair lady,' for Basher of ours has done the deed, and none so faint as Basher."

I said I would advise you not to say anything to a friend who mouths his knife, but I don't object to your looking at him when he does it. When he cuts the corners of his mouth, as he surely will, sooner or later, unless he has a practised hand, you might call his attention to it, and playfully add: "So much, my dear fellow, for allowing yourself to be so distracted;" and then you can tell a good story to the company about another friend of yours--clever dog he was, too--to whom the accident which has just happened to your friend opposite happened so often, and from the same unfortunate habit of having distractions at table, that he was frequently seen to rise after dinner with both corners of his mouth gashed. He was cured, however, not of his distractions, but of putting his knife in his mouth at such times, by telling a joke in his presence about another individual to whom a similar accident happened under similar circumstances, and who cut himself so severely that he was obliged to be fed out of a bottle for a week. I have myself tried this friendly ruse several times, and have never known it to fail.

Tom said a good many other things equally clever. The best of them are in my book. Read that. Tom had different individuals in his eye at the time. The goose-quill toothpick was a favorite one of Colonel Dolickem, and went by the name of "Dolickem's bayonet." Speaking of Dolickem reminds me of Basher and his heroic sacrifice, about which I was speaking, was I not?

It was the birthday of Miss Rosina Criggles. A large party was invited, and among the guests could be seen the tall, gaunt, savage-featured Colonel Dolickem; General Yinweeski's burly form, clothed in garments which fitted him so tightly that it is a wonder how he moved without splitting them on all sides; Major Thwackemout, moving his stiff little body about from right to left, and from left to right, with that mechanical precision which characterizes the wooden soldier so prized by patriotic youth; and the blushing face of Mr. Basher. You may think it odd, but birthday parties are very ingenious inventions to retard the advancing years of young ladies. When rumor speaks of your daughter as thirty or thereabouts, give her a birthday party, and she will start afresh from twenty-three to twenty-five, as you may please to have it hinted. Everybody believing she is thirty at least, no one will presume to say a word about it. Pleased with your entertainment, and flattered by your attention, people are disposed to be generous; and then, who among your guests will ever acknowledge that he or she has bowed, courtesied, danced, and dined at an old maid's birthday feast! I need not mention the names of all who crushed themselves together in the brilliantly lighted parlors of the Criggles mansion. Of course, the Doldrums and the Polittles were there, and the Boochers and the Coochers, the Tractors and the Factors, the De Pommes and the De Filets, the Van Bumbergs and the Van Humburgs, and all that set.

"Miss Rosina, the Rose of the Garden of Criggles, and the Flower of the Conservatory of Fashion and Beauty. Happy the Hand that shall pluck it from the Parent Stem!"

Once he repeated it in a low voice, a second time somewhat louder, to be sure of giving the right accent at the right words. Perfectly satisfied at his second rehearsal, he added in an audible voice:

"If I dared, I would pluck that rose, in order to give--" Mr. Basher never did finish a sentence yet, but he might have accomplished this one had he not turned his head at a rustling sound, and seen approaching the Rose of the Garden of Criggles herself. Blushing his deepest, Mr. Basher stumbled out:

"Cool here--ah--just admiring this--ah--"

"Rose," added Miss Rosina, helping him out. "Beautiful, is it not, Mr. Basher?--and precious too. It is the only one left in the conservatory."

"The conservatory of fashion, and--" Mr. Basher stopped short. It would never do to spoil the originality of his toast in that way.

"What is that you are saying, you flatterer?" asked the charming Rosina, shaking her fan at him in a pleasingly threatening manner.

"I--I--I was saying, no, thinking--ah--of--now, positively, do you know--ah--of plucking--"

"I mean--ah--if I--ah--dared to--"

"Then I ask you," exclaimed Mr. Basher, making a bold venture, and getting ready to drop on his knees at the end of his request, "to give me the--the--Rose of the Garden--" Mr. Basher stopped to take breath and muster courage.

Now, I am not going to describe the dinner, or call it supper if you will. You have been to such terribly trying affairs as a party dinner, and it is quite enough to be obliged to go through with the ordeal without going over it again in retrospect.

The head of the Criggles house was in a glorious humor; General Yinweeski was jocose and told several of his best stories of the battle-field; Colonel Dolickem devoted himself with ardor to entertain the charming Rosina, and was freezingly polite and patronizing to Mr. Basher; Major Thwackemout, having been put off upon simpering Miss Boggles, lost his tongue, and became morose. In one of those alarming lulls which you have no doubt observed will take place in the tempest of talk common to a large assembly, and like sudden lulls in the wind often presage a heavy blow, the eye of Miss Boggles accidentally fell upon the rose yet blushing in the button-hole of Mr. Basher's waistcoat.

"Oh! what a beautiful rose, Mr. Basher," cried that enthusiastic young lady.

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