The morning of the 12th of August saw what for years had been the quiet retreat of Christian learning and feminine holiness a mass of blackened ruins; but the character of Massachusetts had received even a darker stain, a foul blot not yet wiped from her escutcheon. It was felt by the most respectable portion of the citizens that some step should be taken to vindicate the reputation of the State, and to place the odium of the outrage on those who alone were guilty. Accordingly, a committee of thirty-eight leading Protestant gentlemen, with Charles G. Loring as chairman, was appointed to investigate and report on the origin and results of the disgraceful proceeding. It met in Faneuil Hall from day to day, examined a great number of witnesses, and made the most minute inquiries from all sources. Its final report was long, eloquent, and convincing. After the most thorough examination, it was found, those Protestant gentlemen said, that all the wild and malicious assertions put forth in the sectarian pulpits and repeated in the newspapers, regarding the Ursulines, were without a shadow of truth or probability; they eulogized in the most glowing language the conduct of the nuns, their qualifications as teachers, their Christian piety and meekness, and their careful regard for the morals as well as for the religious scruples of their pupils. They also attributed the wanton attack upon the nunnery to the fell spirit of bigotry evoked by the false reports of the New England press and the unmitigated slanders of the anti-Catholic preachers, and called upon the legislative authorities to indemnify, in the most ample manner, the victims of mob law and official connivance.

But the most significant fact brought to light by this committee was that the fanatics, in their attack on Mt. St. Benedict, were not a mere heterogeneous crowd of ignorant men acting upon momentary impulse, but a regular band of lawless miscreants directed and aided by persons of influence and standing in society. “There is no doubt,” says the report, “that a conspiracy had been formed, extending into many of the neighboring towns; but the committee are of opinion that it embraced very few of respectable character in society, though some such may, perhaps, be actually guilty of an offence no less heinous, morally considered, in having excited the feelings which led to the design, or countenanced and instigated those engaged in its execution.” Here we find laid down, on the most unquestionable authority, the origin and birth-place of all subsequent Native American movements against Catholicity.

But the sequel to the destruction of the Charlestown convent was even more shameful than the crime itself. Thirteen men had been arrested, eight of whom were charged with arson. The first tried was the ringleader, an ex-convict, named Buzzell. The scenes which were enacted on that occasion are without a parallel in the annals of our jurisprudence. The mother-superior, several of the sisters, and Bishop Fenwick, necessary witnesses for the prosecution, were received in court with half-suppressed jibes and sneers, subjected to every species of insult by the lawyers for the defence, and were frowned upon even by the judge who presided. Though the evidence against the prisoner was conclusive, the jury, without shame or hesitation, acquitted him, and he walked out of court amid the wildest cheers of the bystanders. Similar demonstrations of popular sympathy attended the trials of the other rioters, who were all, with the exception of a young boy, permitted to escape the penalty of their gross crimes.

Even the State legislature, though urged to do so by many of the leading public men of the commonwealth, refused to vote anything like an adequate sum to indemnify the nuns and pupils for their losses, amounting to over a hundred thousand dollars. The pitiful sum of ten thousand dollars was offered, and of course rejected; and to this day the ruins of the convent stand as an eloquent monument of Protestant perfidy and puritanical meanness and injustice.

The impunity thus legally and officially guaranteed to mobs and sacrilegious plunderers soon bore fruit in other acts of lawlessness in various parts of Massachusetts. A Catholic graveyard in Lowell was shortly after entered and desecrated by an armed rabble, and a house in Wareham, in which Mass was being celebrated, was set upon by a gang of ruffians known as the “Convent Boys.” A couple of years later the Montgomery Guards, a regular militia company, composed principally of Catholic freeholders of Boston, were openly insulted by their comrades on parade, and actually stoned through the streets by a mob of over three thousand persons.

As there were no more convents to be plundered and burned in the stronghold of Puritanism, the war on those glories of religion was kept up in a different manner, but with no less rancor and audacity. Taking advantage of the excitement created by such men as Lyman Beecher and Buzzell, a mercenary publisher issued a book entitled Six Months in a Convent, which was put together by some contemptible preacher in the name of an illiterate girl named Reed, who, the better to mislead the public, assumed the title of “Sister Mary Agnes.” “We earnestly hope and believe,” said the preface to this embodiment of falsehood, “that this little work, if universally diffused, will do more, by its unaffected simplicity, in deterring Protestant parents from educating their daughters in Catholic nunneries than could the most labored and learned discourses on the dangers of Popery.” Though the book was replete with stupid fabrications and silly blunders, so grossly had the popular taste been perverted that fifty thousand copies were sold within a year after its publication. The demand was still increasing, when another contribution to Protestant literature appeared, before the broad, disgusting, and obscene fabrications of which the mendacity of “Sister Mary Agnes” paled its ineffectual fires. This latter candidate for popular favor, though it bore the name, destined for an immortality of infamy, of Maria Monk—a notoriously dissolute woman—was actually compiled by a few needy and unscrupulous adventurers, reverend and irreverend, who found a distinguished Methodist publishing house, not quite so needy, though still more unscrupulous, to publish the work for them, though very shame compelled even them to withhold their names from the publication. And it was only owing to a legal suit arising from this infamous transaction many years after that the fact was revealed that the publishers of this vilest of assaults on one of the holiest institutions of the Catholic Church was the firm of Harper Brothers. True to their character, they saw that the times were favorable for an assault on Catholicity, even so vile as this one; and true to their nature again, they refused to their wretched accomplice her adequate share in the wages of sin. Though bearing on its face all the evidences of diabolical malice and falsehood, condemned by the better portion of the press and by all reputable Protestants, the work had an unparalleled sale for some time. The demand might have continued to go on increasing indefinitely, but, in an evil hour for the speculators, its authors, under the impression that the prurient taste of the public was not sufficiently satiated with imaginary horrors, issued a continuation under the title of Additional Awful Disclosures. This composition proved an efficient antidote to the malignant poison of the first. Its impurity and falsehoods were so palpable that its originators were glad to slink into obscurity and their patrons into silence, followed by the contempt of all honest men.

Just ten years after the Charlestown outrage the spirit of Protestant persecution began to revive. Premonitory symptoms of political proscription appeared in 1842, in the constitutional conventions of Rhode Island and Louisiana, and in the local legislatures of other States; but it was not till the early part of 1844 that it became evident that secret measures were being taken to arouse the dormant feeling of antipathy to the rights of Catholics, so rife in the hearts of the ignorant Protestant masses. New York, at first, was the principal seat of the disorder. Most of the newspapers of that period teemed with eulogistic reviews of books written against the faith; cheap periodicals, such as the Rev. Mr. Sparry’s American Anti-Papist, were thrust into the hands of all who would read them by the agents of the Bible and proselytizing societies; and a cohort of what were called anti-papal lecturers, of which a reverend individual named Cheever was the leader, was employed to attack the Catholic Church with every conceivable weapon that the arsenal of Protestantism afforded.

The popular mind being thus prepared for a change, the various elements of political and social life opposed to Catholicity were crystallized into the “American Republican” party, better known as the Native Americans. On the 19th of March, 1844, the new faction nominated James Harper for mayor of the city of New York, and about the same time William Rockwell was named for a similar office in Brooklyn. The platform upon which these gentlemen stood was simple but comprehensive: the retention of the Protestant Bible and Protestant books in the public schools; the exclusion of Catholics of all nationalities from office; and the amendment of the naturalization laws so as to extend the probationary term of citizenship to twenty-one years. The canvass in New York was conducted with some regard to decency; but in the sister city, the Nativists threw off all respect for law, their processions invaded the districts inhabited mainly by adopted citizens, assailed all who did not sympathize with them, and riot and bloodshed were the consequence. In Brooklyn the Nativist candidate was defeated, but Harper was elected triumphantly by about twenty-four thousand votes. The ballots that placed such a man at the head of the municipality of the American metropolis were deposited by both Whigs and Democrats, though each party had a candidate in the field. The former contributed upwards of fourteen thousand, or three-fourths of their strength; their opponents somewhat less than ten thousand.

But the action of the city politicians was quickly repudiated and condemned throughout the State. On the 13th of April the Whigs assembled in Albany and passed a series of resolutions denouncing in unequivocal terms the tenets of the Native Americans; and in two days after, at the same place, and in, if possible, a more forcible manner, the Democracy entered their protest against the heresies and evil tendencies of the persecuting faction. Still, the “American Republicans” showed such signs of popular strength in various municipal elections that year that the lower classes of politicians, of all shades of opinion, who dared not openly support them, were suspected of secretly courting their friendship. The nomination of Frelinghuysen with Henry Clay at the Whig presidential convention of May 1, 1844, was well understood at the time to be a bid for Nativist support, and eventually defeated the distinguished Kentucky orator.

It is difficult to imagine how far the madness of the hour might have carried ambitious political leaders and timid conventions, had not the scenes of sacrilege and murder which soon after disgraced the city of Philadelphia, and stained its streets with innocent blood, sent a thrill of horror throughout the entire country.

Philadelphia had followed, if not anticipated, the example of New York in sowing broadcast the seeds of civil strife. Early in the year secret Nativist societies were formed; sensational preachers like Tyng, in and out of place, harangued congregations and meetings; cheap newspapers were started for the sole purpose of vilifying Catholics and working upon the baser passions of the sectarian population of the country. The motives of those engineers of discord were the same as those of their New York brethren, and their method of attack equally treacherous and cowardly. One of the principal charges against their Catholic fellow-citizens was that they were hostile to free schools and education generally. To this unjust aspersion Bishop Kenrick, on the 12th of March, publicly replied in a short but lucid letter, in which he said:

“Catholics have not asked that the Bible be excluded from the public schools. They have merely desired for their children the liberty of using the Catholic version, in case the reading of the Bible be prescribed by the controllers or directors of the schools. They only desire to enjoy the benefit of the constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, which guarantees the rights of conscience and precludes any preference of sectarian modes of worship. They ask that the school laws be faithfully executed, and that the religious predilections of the parents be respected.… They desire that the public schools be preserved from all sectarian influence, and that education be conducted in a way that may enable all citizens equally to share its benefits, without any violence being offered to their conscientious convictions.”

So deliberate and emphatic a denial had no effect on the wretched men who tyrannized over the second city in the Union, except that it was resolved to substitute brute force for reason, and to precipitate a collision with their comparatively weak victims. Accordingly, on the 5th of May, a Nativist meeting was held in Kensington. The design of the managers of the meeting was evidently to provoke an attack; for, finding the place first selected for the gathering unmolested, they deliberately moved to the market-house, in the actual presence of several adopted citizens. This trick and the insulting speeches that followed had the desired effect. A riot took place, several shots were fired on both sides, and four or five persons were more or less seriously wounded. The Nativists retreated, and made an unsuccessful attempt to burn a nunnery.

The most exaggerated reports of this affair were immediately circulated through Philadelphia. The next day the Nativists, fully armed, assembled and passed a series of resolutions of the most violent character. Preceded by an American flag, which bore an inscription as malicious as it was untrue, they attacked the Hibernian Hose Company, destroyed the apparatus, and broke the fire-bell in pieces. Twenty-nine dwellings were burned to the ground, their hapless occupants, mostly women and children, fleeing in all directions amid the insults and shots of their savage assailants. The citizens were now thoroughly aroused, the military, under Gen. Cadwalader, was called out, and Bishop Kenrick addressed a public admonition to his flock to preserve peace, and, notwithstanding the provocation, to exercise forbearance. But the demon of fanaticism, once let loose, could not be easily laid. Rioting continued throughout the day and far into the night. Early on Wednesday morning S. Michael’s Church, the female seminary attached to it, and a number of private houses in the neighborhood were ruthlessly plundered and destroyed. “During the burning of the church,” said one of the Philadelphia papers, “the mob continued to shout; and when the cross at the peak of the roof fell, they gave three cheers and a drum and fife played the ‘Boyne Water.’”

The burning of S. Augustine’s Church took place on the evening of the same day. This building, one of the finest in the city, was peculiarly endeared to the Catholic inhabitants as having been one of their oldest churches in Philadelphia. Many of the contributors to its building fund were men of historic fame, such as Washington, Montgomery, Barry, Meade, Carey, and Girard. It had adjoining it extensive school-houses and a commodious parsonage, and the clock in its tower was the one which had struck the first tones of new-born American liberty. But the sacred character of the building itself, and the patriotic memories which surrounded it, could not save it from the torch of the Philadelphia mob.

“The clock struck ten,” wrote an eye-witness, “while the fire was raging with the greatest fury. At twenty minutes past ten the cross which surmounted the steeple, and which remained unhurt, fell with a loud crash, amid the plaudits of a large portion of the spectators.” A very valuable library and several splendid paintings shared the fate of the church.

But bad as was the conduct of the rioters, that of the authorities was even worse. The militia, when ordered out, did not muster for several hours after the time appointed, and when they did arrive they were only passive, if not gratified, spectators of the lawless scenes before them. When S. Michael’s was threatened, the pastor, Rev. Mr. Donohue, placed it under the charge of Capt. Fairlamb, giving him the keys; yet the mob was allowed to wreak its vengeance on it undisturbed. The basement of S. Augustine’s was occupied by some armed men who had resolved to defend it at all hazards; but on the assurance of Mayor Scott and the sheriff that they had troops and police enough to protect it, it was agreed, in the interests of peace, to evacuate it. This had scarcely been done when the militia and civic guard fell back before a thousand or more armed ruffians and left the church to its fate. For nearly sixty hours the rioters were left in undisputed possession of the city; everything the Catholics held sacred was violated; men were dragged out of their homes, half-hanged and brutally maltreated, when not murdered outright; the houses of adopted citizens were everywhere plundered, an immense amount of property was destroyed, and over two hundred families left desolate and homeless, without the slightest attempt being made to enforce the law. How many fell victims to Nativist hate and rage on this occasion has never been known, but the killed and wounded were counted by scores.

An attempt to outrival Philadelphia in atrocity was made in New York a few days after, but the precautionary steps of the authorities, the firm attitude assumed by the late Archbishop Hughes, and the resolute stand taken by the Catholic population, headed by Eugene Casserly—who was at that time editor of the Freeman’s Journal—together with some young Irish-American Catholic gentlemen, so impressed the leaders of the Nativists that all attempts of an incendiary nature, and all public efforts to sympathize with the Philadelphia mob, were abandoned. Nativism staggered under the blow given it by its adherents in Philadelphia, and soon sank into utter insignificance as a political power.

Another decade, however, passed, and we find it again rejuvenated. This time it assumed the name of the Know-nothing party, and extended its ramifications through every State in the Union. Its declaration of principles contained sixteen clauses, as laid down by its organs, of which the following were regarded as the most vital: 1st. The repeal of all naturalization laws. 2d. None but native Americans for office. 3d. A Protestant common-school system. 4th. Perpetual war on “Romanism.” 5th. Opposition to the formation of military companies composed of “foreigners.” 6th. Stringent laws against immigration. 7th. Ample protection to Protestant interests. Though partly directed, apparently, against all persons of foreign birth, this new secret society was actually only opposed to Catholics; for many of the prominent members in its lodges were Irish Orangemen and Welsh, Scotch, and English unnaturalized adventurers who professed no form of belief.

Like their predecessors of 1844, the Know-nothings employed a host of mendacious ministers and subsidized a number of obscure newspapers to circulate their slanders against Catholics, native as well as adopted citizens; but they also added a new feature to the crusade against morality and civil rights. This was street-preaching—a device for creating riots and bloodshed, for provoking quarrels and setting neighbor against neighbor, worthy the fiend of darkness himself. Wretched creatures, drawn from the very dregs of society, were hired to travel from town to town, to post themselves at conspicuous street-corners, if possible before Catholic churches, and to pour forth, in ribald and blasphemous language, the most unheard-of slanders against the church. As those outcasts generally attracted a crowd of idle persons, and were usually sustained by the presence of the members of the local lodge, the merest interruption of their foul diatribes was the signal for a riot, ending not unfrequently in loss of life or limb.

The first outrage that marked the career of the Know-nothings of 1854 was the attack on the Convent of Mercy, Providence, R. L., in April of that year. Instigated by the newspaper attacks of a notorious criminal, who then figured as a Nativist leader, the rowdy elements of that usually quiet city surrounded the convent, pelted the doors and windows with stones, to the great alarm of the ladies and pupils within, and would doubtless have proceeded to extremities were it not that the Catholics, fearing a repetition of the Charlestown affair, rallied for its protection and repeatedly drove them off. In June Brooklyn was the scene of some street-preaching riots, but in the following August St. Louis, founded by Catholics and up to that time enjoying an enviable reputation for refinement and love of order, acquired a pre-eminence in the Southwest for ferocious bigotry. For two days, August 7 and 8, riot reigned supreme in that city; ten persons were shot down in the streets, many more were seriously wounded, and a number of the houses of Catholics were wrecked.

On the 3d of September of the same year the American Protestant Association of New York, an auxiliary of the Know-nothings, composed of Orangemen, went to Newark, N. J., to join with similar lodges of New Jersey in some celebration. In marching through the streets of that city they happened to pass the German Catholic church, and, being in a sportive mood, they did not hesitate to attack it. A mêlée occurred, during which one man, a Catholic, was killed and several were seriously injured. The evidence taken by the coroner’s jury showed that the admirers of King William were well armed, generally intoxicated, and that the assault and partial destruction of the church were altogether wanton and unprovoked. Early in the same month news was received of a succession of riots in New Orleans, the victims, as usual, being Catholics.

But the spirit of terrorism was not confined to one section or particular State. The virus of bigotry had inoculated the whole body politic. In October people of all shades of religious opinion were astounded to hear from Maine that the Rev. John Bapst, S. J., a clergyman of exemplary piety and mildness, had actually been dragged forcibly from the house of a friend by a drunken Ellsworth mob, ridden on a rail, stripped naked, tarred and feathered, and left for dead. His money and watch were likewise stolen by the miscreants. Father Bapst’s crime was that, when a resident of Ellsworth some time previously, he had entered into a controversy about public schools.

Yet, in the face of all these lawless proceedings, the Know-nothing party increased with amazing rapidity. “Without presses, without electioneering,” said the New York Times, “with no prestige or power, it has completely overthrown and swamped the two old historic parties of the country.” This was certainly true of New England, and notably so of Massachusetts, where, in the autumn of 1854, the Know-nothings elected their candidate for governor and nearly every member of the legislature. In the State of New York Ullman, the standard-bearer of the new army of persecution, received over 122,000 votes, and, though defeated in the city, it was more than suspected that the Democrat who was chosen as mayor had been a member of the organization. In many other States and cities the power of the sworn secret combination was felt and acknowledged.

Its influence and unseen grasp on the passions and prejudices of the lower classes of Protestants were plainly perceptible in the halls of Congress and in the executive cabinet. In the Senate William H. Seward was the first and foremost to denounce the so-called American party. As early as July, 1854, in a speech on the Homestead Bill, he took occasion to remark:

“It is sufficient for me to say that, in my judgment, everything is un-American which makes a distinction, of whatever kind, in this country between the native-born American and him whose lot is directed to be cast here by an over-ruling Providence, and who renounces his allegiance to a foreign land and swears fealty to the country which adopts him.”

The example of the great statesman was followed by such men as Douglas, Cass, Keitt, Chandler, and Seymour, while Senators Dayton and Houston, Wilson, the late Vice-President, N. P. Banks, and a number of other politicians championed the cause of intolerance as has since been confessed, for their own selfish aggrandizement as much as from inherent littleness of soul.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts was completely controlled by the Know-nothings. Their governor, Gardiner, had not been well in the chair of state when he disbanded all the Irish military companies within his jurisdiction. These were the Columbian, Webster, Shields, and Sarsfield Guards of Boston, the Jackson Musketeers of Lowell, the Union Guard of Lawrence, and the Jackson Guard of Worcester. The General Court, too, not to be outdone in bigotry by the executive, passed a law for the inspection of nunneries, convents, and schools, and appointed a committee to carry out its provisions. The first—and last—domiciliary visit of this body was made to the school of the Sisters of Notre Dame in Roxbury. It is thus graphically described by the Boston Advertiser, an eminently Protestant authority: “The gentlemen—we presume we must call members of the legislature by this name—roamed over the whole house from attic to cellar. No chamber, no passage, no closet, no cupboard, escaped their vigilant search. No part of the house was enough protected by respect for the common courtesies of civilized life to be spared in the examination. The ladies’ dresses hanging in their wardrobes were tossed over. The party invaded the chapel, and showed their respect—as Protestants, we presume—for the One God whom all Christians worship by talking loudly with their hats on; while the ladies shrank in terror at the desecration of a spot which they believed hallowed.”

Still, the work of proscription and outrage went on in other directions. Fifteen school-teachers had been dismissed in Philadelphia because they were Catholics; the Rev. F. Nachon, of Mobile, was assaulted and nearly killed while pursuing his sacred avocations; a military company in Cincinnati, and another in Milwaukee, composed of adopted citizens, were disbanded, and on the 6th and 7th of August, 1855, the streets of Louisville ran red with the blood of adopted citizens. In this last and culminating Know-nothing outrage eleven hundred voters were driven from the polls, numbers of men, and even women, were shot down in the public thoroughfares, houses were sacked and burned, and at least five persons are known to have been literally roasted alive.

A reaction, however, had already set in. Men of moderate views and unbiassed judgments began to tire of the scenes of strife, murder, and rapine that accompanied the victories of the Know-nothings. The first to deal it a deadly blow, as a political body, was Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, in his noble canvass of that State against the combined Whig and Nativist elements in 1855; and to the late Archbishop of New York, in his utter discomfiture of State Senator Brooks, is justly due the merit of having first convinced the American people that the so-called American party was actually the most dangerous enemy of American laws and institutions, the advocate of spoliation and persecution under the guise of patriotism and reform.

The decline of Nativism, though not so rapid as its growth, was equally significant, and its history as instructive. In 1856 a national convention was called by the wreck of the party to nominate Fillmore for the presidency, after overtures had been made in vain to the Republicans and Democrats. Fillmore was so badly defeated that he retired into private life and lost whatever little fame he had acquired in national affairs as Taylor’s successor. Four years later Bell and Everett appeared on the Know-nothing ticket, but so far behind were they in the race with their presidential competitors that very few persons cared to remember the paucity of their votes. Gradually, silently, but steadily, like vermin from a sinking ship, the leaders slunk away from the already doomed faction, and, by a hypocritical display of zeal, endeavored to obtain recognition in one or other of the great parties, but generally without success. Disappointed ambition, impotent rage, and, let us hope, remorse of conscience occasionally seized upon them, and the charity of silence became to them the most desired of blessings. Perhaps if the late civil war had not occurred, to swallow in the immensity of its operations all minor interests, we might have beheld in 1864 the spectre of Nativism arising from its uneasy slumber, to be again subjected to its periodical blights and curses.

From present appearances many far-seeing persons apprehend the recurrence in this year of the wild exhibitions of anti-Catholic and anti-American fanaticism which have so often blotted and blurred the otherwise stainless pages of our short history; that the centennial year of American independence and republican liberty is to be signalized by a more concerted, better organized, and more ramified attack on the great principles of civil and religious freedom which underlie and sustain the fabric of our government. We trust, sincerely hope, that these men are mistaken. But if such is to be the case; if we Catholics are doomed once more to be subjected to the abuse of the vile, the slander of the hireling, and the violence of an armed mob, the sooner we are prepared for the contingency the better. If the scenes which have indelibly disgraced Boston and Philadelphia, Ellsworth and Louisville, are to be again rehearsed by the half-dozen sworn secret societies whose cabalistic letters disfigure the columns of so many of our newspapers, we must be prepared to meet the danger with firmness and composure. As Catholics, demanding nothing but what is justly our due under the laws, our position will ever be one of forbearance, charity, and conciliation; but as American citizens, proud of our country and zealous for the maintenance of her institutions, our place shall be beside the executors of those grand enactments which have made this republic the paragon and exemplar of all civil and natural virtues, no matter how imminent the danger or how great the sacrifice. In lands less favored Catholic rights may be violated by prince or mob with impunity, but we would be unworthy of our country and of its founders were we to shrink for a moment from the performance of our trust as the custodians of the fundamental ordinance which guarantees full and absolute religious liberty to all citizens of the republic.

LOUISE LATEAU BEFORE THE BELGIAN ROYAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE.[260]

I.

How is the name of Louise Lateau to be mentioned without immediately calling up all the tumulta which that name has provoked? Books of science and philosophy, official reports, academic discourses, reports of visits, feuilletons, conferences, pamphlets, articles in journals, every kind of literary production has been placed under contribution to keep the public informed about the stigmatisée of Bois d’Haine. For a year, however, these studies have betaken themselves to a region that might be called exclusively scientific, and have even received a kind of official consecration from the recent vote of the Royal Academy of Medicine.

It may be of service to the reader who cannot occupy himself with special studies to give a brief exposition of the affair of Bois d’Haine in itself, to show the different interpretations of it that have been attempted, and to indicate clearly the actual phase of the question from a scientific point of view.

As early as about the middle of 1868 vague rumors were heard of strange events which were taking place in a little village of Hainault. Every Friday a young girl showed on the different portions of her body corresponding to the wounds of our Saviour Jesus Christ red stains from which blood flowed in greater or less abundance. It was also said that on every Friday this young girl, ravished in ecstasy, remained for several hours completely unconscious of all that was passing around her. Such were the principal facts. Over and above these rumor spread the story of certain accessory incidents, some of which, though true, were distorted, while others were pure fancy. Thanks to the daily press, the young girl soon became known to the general public, and the name of Louise Lateau passed from mouth to mouth. Here and there one read among “current events” that large crowds rushed from all sides, from Belgium and from without, to assist every Friday at the scenes which were being enacted in the chamber at Bois d’Haine. Some journals profited by the occasion to deliver themselves anew of declamations against “Catholic superstitions, the stupidity of the masses, and the intriguing character of the clergy”; while even many men of good faith were of opinion that the story told of Louise Lateau might indeed be true, but ought to be attributed to some trickery or another of which either the girl or her family was culpable.

Happily for the public, a light came to clear up this chaos of versions, suppositions, and diverse and contradictory opinions. The Revue Catholique of Louvain reproduced by instalments, beginning in 1869, a study by Prof. Lefebvre on these extraordinary events. Some time after, this study appeared in the form of a volume. Here is how the eminent physician expresses himself on the origin of his study:

After having examined the events of Bois d’Haine in all their phases; after having put to the proof the sincerity of the young girl in a thousand different ways and by means of a variety of tests, the eminent Louvain professor pronounced the facts of the stigmatization and ecstasy to be real and free from deception. Passing, then, to the interpretation of the events themselves, the author thus concludes:

I do not hesitate to say that the appearance of this book was a veritable event, and that it marked an important halting-place in the study of the question of Louise Lateau. By those who knew the calm and reflective spirit of M. Lefebvre, and the independence of his character and convictions, the fact of the real existence of the extraordinary events taking place at Bois d’Haine was no longer called in question; and if some doubt still remained, it regarded only the sense in which those events were to be interpreted. Was it, then, true that the union of stigmata and ecstasies belonged to no known malady? Was it true that they could find no place in the classification of diseases, under a new title, with physiological proofs to accompany them?

Notwithstanding the immense credit allowed to the science of M. Lefebvre, doubt still hovered around this question, and I make bold to say, in the honor of the progress of science, that such doubt was legitimate. A loyal appeal was made to the savants of the country and of foreign countries, urging them to go and study the facts at Bois d’Haine and publish their opinion. Soon a study on Louise Lateau, made by a French physician,[262] came to confirm still further the medical study of M. Lefebvre. Then a German savant, M. Virchow, seemed to accept as true the conclusions of the Belgian doctor by that famous phrase that the events of Bois d’Haine must be considered either as a trick or as a miracle.

Meanwhile, certain persons seemed still reluctant to accept facts which a hundred different witnesses affirmed in the face of the world. Among the reluctant are to be ranked, first of all, those who are of bad faith—with whom there is no reason to trouble; others who, for philosophic motives, seemed to accuse the witnesses of those scenes of sacrificing the interest of science to that of their religious convictions. Nevertheless, M. Lefebvre’s book continued to make headway. I do not say that it did not meet with some attacks here and there, and certain objections in detail; but throughout the country no publication of any pretension to seriousness affected either to deny the facts or to give a natural explanation of them. This state of things continued up to July, 1874. At this epoch Dr. Charbonnier, a physician of Brussels, presented to the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine a work entitled Maladies et facultés diverses des mystiques. Louise Lateau.

M. Boëns, on his part, submitted to the same learned body, in the session of October 3, 1874, a new production, entitled Louise Lateau, ou les mystères de Bois d’Haine dévoilés.

II.

The events of Bois d’Haine continued to occupy public attention. The scenes of the stigmatic flows of blood and of the ecstasies were presented every Friday. It was even stated that from the middle of 1871 Louise Lateau had taken no sort of nourishment. The Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, whether because it dreaded to enter upon a question which involved, beyond the scientific side, a side purely philosophic, or whether also because a fitting and favorable opportunity of taking up the question of Louise Lateau was not presented, remained mute as to the events of Bois d’Haine.

The almost simultaneous presentation of two works treating on the very subject indicated clearly that the question was ripe. Moreover, in the session of October 3, 1874, the chief medical body of the country, conformably with usage, appointed a special committee to make a report on the works read in its sessions. This committee consisted of MM. Fossion, president; Mascart and Warlomont, colleagues.

The important report of the committee was read in the session of the 13th of February by M. Warlomont. That gentleman to show how the study of M. Charbonnier’s work necessitated an examination into the affair at Bois d’Haine, said:

MM. Charbonnier and Boëns were the first in our country who undertook to find fault with the conclusions of M. Lefebvre’s book, and to explain by scientific data the events of Bois d’Haine. M. Boëns, almost immediately after the reading of a portion of his work, withdrew it, and was able by this means to escape the report of the committee. Was this disdain for the judgment of his confrères on the part of the distinguished physician of Charleroi, or was it want of confidence in the solidity of his own arguments? I know not. I state a fact and continue.

There remained, then, for the committee to examine the work of M. Charbonnier. This memoir is voluminous. The theory of the author is substantially as follows: The absence of aliment and the concentration of the faculties of the soul towards one object have been the primary and indispensable conditions of ecstasies and stigmata. As far as abstinence is concerned, it is perfectly compatible, if not with a state of health, at least with the maintenance of life. “The question of abstinence,” says the author, “is the most important, because without it nothing happens. It being well explained, there is no longer anything supernatural in any of the physiological and pathological phenomena of the mystics.”[264]

But how is this abstinence compatible with life? By the law of the substitution of functions and organs.

“The organs,” says the author, “are conjointly associated (solidaires) one with another, working for the common health; so that when an organ, for one cause or another, cannot adequately fulfil its functions, another immediately supplies its place.”

Supposing all this admitted, here is what the author says of stigmatization:

Of the ecstasy, according to M. Charbonnier, “abstinence is the principal, contemplation the secondary, cause.” We cannot, indeed, enter into all the details furnished by the author of this strange theory. In order to arrive at a judgment regarding it, we know of nothing better than to cite the conclusions of the reader of the report on the work itself:

If the theory advanced by M. Charbonnier, based on such doubtful physiological facts, finds no weight with the learned representative of the Academy of Medicine, it is not because he himself admits the conclusions arrived at in the study of M. Lefebvre on Louise Lateau. For him, indeed, the events taking place at Bois d’Haine, apart from the question of fasting, which has not been positively established, and which, on that account, rightly passes beyond scientific discussion,[267] are exempt from all fraud and deception. But let M. Warlomont himself speak: