The “Philistines” we are speaking of infuse into the Catholic Church their own forensic spirit, and fancy that she is only a system of severe commandments, arbitrary laws, and outward ceremonies enforced by an external and absolute authority which, like the old law, places all her children in a state of complete bondage. They are blind to the fact that the Catholic Church confines her precepts, such is her respect for man’s liberty, chiefly to the things necessary to salvation, leaving all the rest to be complied with by each individual Christian as moved by the instinct of divine grace.[4]
The aim of the Catholic Church is not, as they foolishly fancy, to drill her children into a servile army of prætorian guards, but to raise up freemen in Christ, souls actuated by the Holy Spirit—to create saints.
They are also ignorant of the nature and place, of the authority of the church, as they are of her spirit.
It is the birthright of every member of the Catholic Church freely to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and the office and aim of the authority of the church is to secure, defend, and protect this Christ-given freedom.
To make more clear this relation of the divine external authority of the church with the divine internal guidance of the Holy Spirit in the soul, a few words of explanation will suffice.
It is the privilege of every soul born to Christ in his holy church in the waters of regeneration, to receive thereby the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It is the bounden duty of every Christian soul to follow with fidelity the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In order that the soul may follow faithfully the indwelling Holy Spirit, it must be secured against all mistakes and delusions and protected against all attacks from error. Every child of the church has therefore a claim in justice upon the authority of the church for this security and protection. But it would be absurd and an intolerable indignity for the soul to obey an authority that might lead it astray in a matter concerning its divine life and future destiny; for in the future world no chance or liberty is left for a return to correct the mistakes into which the soul may have fallen. Therefore the claim is founded in right reason and justice that the supreme teaching and governing authority of the church should be divine—that is, unerring. And it is the intrusion of human authority in the shape of private judgment, or that of the state, as supreme, in regard to the truths of divine revelation, that is the radical motive of the resistance to Protestantism as Christianity on the part of Catholics.
Now, when the soul sees that the authority which governs is animated by the same divine Spirit, with whose promptings it is its inmost desire to comply, and appreciates that the aim of the commands of authority is to keep it from straying from the guidance of the indwelling divine Spirit, then obedience to authority becomes easy and light, and the fulfilment of its commands the source of increased joy and greater liberty, not an irksome task or a crushing burden. This spiritual insight springing from the light of faith is the secret source of Catholic life, the inward principle which prompts the obedience of Catholics to the divine authority of the holy church, and from which is born the consciousness of the soul’s filiation with God, whence flow that perfect love and liberty which always accompany this divine Sonship.
The aim of the authority of the church and its exercise is the same as that of all other authority—secondary. The church herself, in this sense, is not an end, but a means to an end. The aim of the authority of the church is the promotion and the safeguard of the divine action of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the soul, and not a substitution of itself for this.
Just as the object of the authority of the state is to promote the common good and to protect the rights of its citizens, so the authority of the church has for its aim the common good of its members and the protection of their rights. And is not the patriotic spirit that moves the legislator to make the law for the common good and protection of his fellow-countrymen identically the same spirit which plants in their bosoms the sense of submission to the law? Consequently, to fix more firmly and to define more accurately the divine authority of the church in its papal exercise, seen from the inside, is to increase individual action, to open the door to a larger sphere of liberty, and to raise man up to his true manhood in God.
It does, indeed, make all the difference in the world, as the poet Goethe has so well said, to “look at the church” with “Sir Philistine” in a “narrow and captious” spirit from “the market square” stand-point, or to gaze on the church from the inside, where all her divine beauty is displayed and, in a free and lofty spirit, fully enjoyed.
To define the prerogatives of the papal authority, and its place and sphere of action in the divine autonomy of the church, was to prepare the way for the faithful to follow with greater safety and freedom the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and thus open the door wider for a fresh influx of divine life and a more vigorous activity. Thanks for these great advantages to the persistent attacks of the foes of the church; for had they let her authority alone, this decree of the Vatican Council would not have been called for, and the prerogatives of the papal functions might have been exercised with sufficient force as the unwritten and common law, and never have passed into a dogmatic decree and become the statute law.
The work of the Vatican Council is not, however, finished. Other and important tasks are before it, to accomplish which it will be sooner or later reassembled. Divine Providence appears to be shaping events in many ways since the adjournment of the council, so as to render its future labors comparatively easy. There were special causes which made it reasonable that the occupant of St. Peter’s chair at Rome should in modern times be an Italian. Owing to the radical changes which have taken place in Europe, these causes no longer have the force they once had. The church is a universal, not a national society. The boundaries of nations have, to a great extent, been obliterated by the marvellous inventions of the age. The tendency of mankind is, even in spite of itself, to become more and more one family, and of nations to become parts of one great whole rather than separate entities. And even if the wheel of change should, as we devoutly hope, restore to the Pope the patrimony of the church, the claims of any distinct nationality to the Chair of Peter will scarcely hold as they once held. The supreme Pastor of the whole flock of Christ, as befits the Catholic and cosmopolitan spirit of the church, may now, as in former days, be chosen solely in view of his capacity, fitness, and personal merits, without any regard to his nationality or race.
It must be added to the other great acts of the reigning Pontiff—whom may God preserve!—that he has given to the cardinal senate of the church a more representative character by choosing for its members a larger number of distinguished men from the different nations of which the family of the church is composed. This, it is to be hoped, is only a promise of the no distant day when the august senate of the universal church shall not only be open to men of merit of every Catholic nation of the earth, but also its members be chosen in proportion to the importance of each community, according to the express desire of the holy œcumenical Council of Trent. Such a representative body, composed of the élite of the entire human race, presided over by the common father of all the faithful, would realize as nearly as possible that ideal tribunal which enlightened statesmen are now looking for, whose office it would be to act as the arbitrator between nation and nation, and between rulers and people.
Since the close of the first session of the Vatican Council nearly all the different nations of Europe have, of their own accord, broken the concordats made with the church and virtually proclaimed a divorce between the state and the church. This conduct leaves the church entirely free in the choice of her bishops; which will tend to bring out more clearly the spiritual and popular side of the church; to set at naught the charge made against her prelates as meddling in purely secular affairs; and to wipe out the stigma of their being involved in the political intrigues of courts.
Modern inventions and improvements, such as telegraphs, railroads, steamships, cheap postage, the press, have added time, increased efficiency, and lent an expansive power of action to men which poets, in their boldest flights of fancy, did not reach. These things have changed the face of the material world and the ways of men in conducting their secular business.
Pope Sixtus V. readjusted and improved in his day the outward administration of the church—a reform that was greatly needed—and placed it by his practical genius, both for method and efficiency, far in advance of his times. This same work might, in some respects, be done again and with infinite advantage to the interests and prosperity of the whole church of God.
One of the most, if not the most, important of the congregations of the church is that De Propaganda Fide. It is the centre of missionary enterprises throughout the whole extent of the world. No other object can be of greater interest to every Catholic heart, no branch of the church’s work calls for greater practical wisdom, more burning zeal, and more energetic efficiency.
There is, perhaps, no position in the church, after that of the papal chair, so great in importance, so vast in its influence, so wide in its action, as the one occupied by the cardinal prefect of the Propaganda. Could it be placed on a footing so as to profit by all the agencies of our day, it would be better prepared to enter upon the new openings now offered to the missionary zeal of the church in different parts of the world, and become, what it really aims to be, the right arm of the church in the propagation of the faith.
Who can tell but that one of the results of the present crisis in Italy will lead by an overruling Providence to an entire renewal of the church, not only in Italy, but throughout the whole world? Such a hope has been frequently expressed by Pius IX., and to prepare the way for it was one of the main purposes of assembling the Vatican Council.
Scarcely any event is more deplorable to the sincere Christian and true patriot than when there arises a discord, whether real or apparent, between the religious convictions and the political aspirations of a people. Such a discord divides them into separate and hostile camps, and it is not in the nature of things that in such a condition both religion and the state should not incur great danger. Every sacrifice except that of principle should be made, every material interest that does not involve independence and existence should be yielded up without reluctance or delay, in order to put an end to these conflicts, unless one would risk on one hand apostasy and on the other anarchy.
The discord which has been sown between the state and the church by the revolutionary movement in Italy has not only excited a violent struggle in the bosom of every Italian, but has created dissension between husband and wife, parents and children, brother and brother, friend and friend, neighbor and neighbor, and placed different classes of society in opposition to each other. The actual struggle going on in Italy is working every moment untold mischief among the Italian people. Already symptoms of apostasy and signs of anarchy are manifest. Every day these dangers are becoming more menacing. A way out of this dead-lock must be speedily found.
The church has plainly shown in ages past that she can live and gain the empire over souls, even against the accumulated power of a hostile and persecuting state. She has shown in modern times, both in the United States and in England and Ireland, that independent of the state, and of all other support than the voluntary offerings of her children, and with stinted freedom, she can maintain her independence, grow strong and prosperous. The church, relying solely upon God, conquered pagan Rome in all its pride of strength, and, if needs be, she can enter again into the arena, and, stripped of all temporal support, face her adversaries and reconquer apostate Rome.
But who can contemplate without great pain a nation, and that nation the Italian, passing through apostasy and anarchy, even though this be necessary, in the opinion of some, as a punishment and purification? Can those who believe so drastic a potion is needed to cure a nation give the assurance that it will not leave it in a feeble and chronic state, rendering a revival a work of centuries, and perhaps impossible? Every noble impulse of religion and humanity should combine to avert so dire a calamity, and with united voice cry out with the prophet: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why, then, is not the wound of the daughter of my people healed?”
The balm that will cure the present wound in Italy is not likely to be found in a closer alliance of the church with the actual state. For the state throughout Europe, with scarcely an exception, has placed itself in hostility to the church, and to expect help from this quarter would indeed be to hope in vain, and to rivet more closely the shackles which bind the free action of her members. Is it not the apparent complicity of the church with some of the governments of Europe, since they have thrown off the salutary restraints of her authority, that has been one of the principal causes of the loss to a fearful degree of her influence with the more numerous class of society, giving a pretext to the tirades of the socialists, communists, and internationals against her? The church has been unjustly identified, in the minds of many, with thrones and dynasties whose acts and policy have been as inimical to her interests as to those of the people.
In the present campaign it would be far from wise to rely for aid on states, as states now are—whether they be monarchies, or aristocracies, or republics, or democracies—or upon contending dynasties; the help needed in the actual crisis can come only from the Most High. “Society,” as Pius IX. has observed, “has been enclosed in a labyrinth, out of which it will never issue save by the hand of God.”
The prime postulate of a sound Catholic is this: The church is divine, moved by the instinct of the Holy Spirit in all her supreme and vital acts. The Catholic who does not hold this as a firm and immovable basis has lost, or never had, the true conception of the church, and is in immediate danger of becoming a rebel and a heretic, if he be not one already. Whoso fails to recognize this permanent divine action in the church, the light of the Holy Spirit has departed from his soul, and he becomes thereby external to the church. Of this truth De Lamennais, Döllinger, Loyson, are modern and sad examples. Instead of seeking a deeper insight into the nature of the church, and drawing from thence the light and the strength to labor for the renewal of Christianity and the unity of Christendom, they have become blinded by passion and deluded by personal conceits, and have fallen into heresy and sectarianism. For the divine Spirit embodied in the church and the divine Spirit indwelling in every Christian soul are one and the same divine Spirit, and they bear testimony to each other, and work together for the same end.
The errors which menaced the truths of divine revelation and the peace of society are known and condemned by the supreme authority of the church. The same voice of the Chief Pastor called a general council to remove all evils from the church, “that our august religion and its salutary doctrine might receive fresh life over all the earth.”
Again and again he has exhorted the faithful to uphold and encourage the Catholic press in defence of religion as one of their important duties, and followed up his advice by his own personal example.
Everywhere he has approved of the formation of societies for the advancement of science, art, and education; for the protection and amelioration of the working-classes; and the meeting of Catholic laymen for the discussion and promotion of the interests of the church and society.
“Prayer, Speech, and the Press”—these are the watch-words of Pius IX. These words, which have the impress of the seal of divine grace upon them, have awakened the universal consciousness of the church. The church gained her first victories by prayer, by speech, and by writing, and these peaceful weapons are not antiquated, and, if earnestly employed, are in our day more than a match for needle-guns, Krupp cannon, or the strongest iron-clads. Above all, when handled by Catholics they have the power of Almighty God to back them, and that strength of conviction in Catholic souls which knows no conquerors.
If there be one thing more than any other that strikes dismay in the camp of the foes of the church, it is the united action of Catholics in defence of their faith. Let Italian Catholics act unitedly and, wherever and whenever they can, act politically, saving their faith and their obedience; uphold generously the Catholic press; let them speak out manfully and fearlessly their convictions with all the force of their souls; and for the rest, look up to God, and the enemies of God and of his church and of their country will disappear “like the dust which the wind driveth from the face of the earth.”
“It is time, my brethren, to act with courage.”[5]
There is not a place of pilgrimage in France without some special natural attraction, from Mont St. Michel on the stormy northern coast to Notre Dame de la Garde overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea; from Notre Dame de Buglose on a broad moor of the Landes to Notre Dame de la Salette among the wild Alps of Dauphiné; but not one of these has the peculiar charm of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour in Quercy, which stands on an almost inaccessible cliff overhanging a frightful ravine once known as the Vallée Ténébreuse. And not only nature, but history, poetry, and the supernatural, all combine to render this one of the most extraordinary of the many holy sanctuaries of France. For this is the place where, as hoary legends tell, the Zaccheus of the Scriptures ended his days in a cave; where the peerless Roland hung up his redoubtable sword before the altar of the Virgin; where Henry II. of England, Louis IX. of France, and so many princes and knights of the middle ages came to pay their vows; where Fénelon, the celebrated Archbishop of Cambrai, was consecrated to the Virgin in his infancy, and where he came in later life to pray at his mother’s tomb; and which has been sung by mediæval poets and rendered for ever glorious by countless miracles of divine grace.
On a pleasant spring morning we left Albi to visit the ancient province of Quercy. From the fertile valley of the Tarn, overlooked by the fine church of Notre Dame de la Drèche—the tutelar Madonna of the Albigeois—we entered a dreary, stony region beyond Cahuzac, then came into a charming country with wooded hills crowned with old towers and villages, as at Najac, where the railway passes through a tunnel directly beneath the ancient castle in the centre of the town, and crosses the Nexos on the other side of the hill, which we found merry with peasant women washing their linen in the clear stream and hanging it on the rocks to bleach in the hot sun. The whole region is full of wild ravines kept fresh by capricious streams and the shadows of the numerous hills. The wayside grows bright with scarlet poppies, the cherry-trees are snowy with blossoms, the low quince hedges are aflush with their rosy blooms, and the pretty gardens at the stations are full of flowers and shrubbery. We pass Capdenac, supposed by M. de Champollion to be the ancient Uxellodunum whose siege is related by Cæsar in his Commentaries, also on a high hill around which the river Lot turns abruptly and goes winding on through a delicious valley, the water as red as the soil, perhaps owing to the recent rains. Soon after the country becomes rocky and desolate again, with stone walls instead of flowering hedges, and flocks of sheep here and there nibbling the scant herbage among the rocks, looking very much inclined, as well they may, to give up trying to get a living. The whole region is flat, the earth is ghastly with the pale stones, everything is subdued in tone, the horizon is bounded by low, dim hills, the sky becomes sombre and lowering. But there is something about all this desolation and silence and monotony that excites the imagination. Even our epicurean friends felt the strange charm, for this is the region where truffles abound, scented out by the delicate organ of the animal sacred to St. Anthony the Great!
We were now in Quercy, which comprises such a variety of soil and temperature. In one part everything is verdant and flowery, the hills wreathed with vines and the trees covered with fruit-blossoms, and over all a radiant sun; perhaps a little beyond is a stunted vegetation, the trees of a northern clime, and a country as rough and bleak as Scotland, with long, desolate moors, arid and melancholy in the extreme.
Some way this side of Roc Amadour we came upon the singular gap of Padirac, where St. Martin is said to have had a race with the devil. They were both mounted on mules, St. Martin’s a little the worse for wear, and, starting across the country, they flew over walls and precipices and steep cliffs, without anything being able to arrest their course. Satan at length turned to the saint and laid a wager he could open a gap in the earth no unaided mortal could pass. St. Martin laughed him to scorn. The angel of darkness then stretched forth his hand, and, laying on the ground his forefinger, which suddenly shot out to an enormous length, the earth instantaneously opened beneath it to the depth of a hundred and fifty feet. “Is that all?” cried the undaunted saint, as he spurred his beast. The mule sprang across the yawning gulf, one hundred feet broad, leaving the impress of his hoofs in the solid rock, as is to be clearly seen at this day. One of these foot-prints turns out, because, we are told, St. Martin’s mule was lame. This, of course, made his victory the more wonderful. After this feat the saint, in his turn, challenged the demon, and, resuming their race, St. Martin hastily thrust a cross of reeds into the fissure of a rock they came to, whereupon Satan’s mule reared and plunged and overthrew its rider, to the everlasting glory of St. Martin and the triumph of the cross. A more durable cross of stone now marks the spot where this great victory was won over the foul fiend.
Roc Amadour is in the diocese of Cahors, which is a picturesque old town built on and around a cliff in a bend of the river Lot. It is quite worthy of a passing glance and has its historic memories. In ancient times it bore so imposing an appearance that one of its historians pretends Cæsar, when he came in sight of it, could not help exclaiming in his astonishment: “Behold a second Rome!” In the middle ages, if we are to believe Dante, it was notorious as a city of usurers. He ranks it with Sodom; but perhaps this was owing to his strong Italian prejudices against the French popes, for at Cahors was born John XXII., whom he severely consigns to ignominy. We are shown the castle where this pope passed his childhood, at one edge of the town. Passing by the university, we are reminded by a statue of Fénelon, in the centre of a square called by his name, that he was once a student here. There is likewise a street named after Clement Marot, whose version of the Psalms became so popular among the Huguenots. He was born at Cahors, and is now regarded as one of its chief celebrities, though not tolerated in the place in the latter part of his life from a suspicion of heresy, then almost synonymous with treason, which caused him to be imprisoned in the Châtelet. He thus protested against the accusation:
Though released, he was obliged to take refuge in Geneva on account of the use of his paraphrase of the Psalms in the conventicles, but there he was convicted of misdemeanors, and, by Calvin’s orders, ridden on an ass and sent out of the city. Neither fish nor flesh, he now sought an asylum in Italy—“the inn of every grief,” as Dante calls it—and died at Turin in 1546.
In passing through Quercy we are struck by the constant succession of old castles bearing some historic name like that of Turenne. Among others is Castelnau de Bretenoux, associated with Henry II. of England, on a lofty eminence on the left shore of the Dordogne, overlooking one of the most beautiful valleys of France, which is said to have inspired Fénelon with his description of the island of Calypso. A few years since this vast château was one of the finest specimens of feudal architecture in France. Its embattled walls and massive towers; the long gallery, with its carvings and gildings, where the fair ladies of the time of Louis Treize used to promenade in their satins and rich Mechlin laces, admiring themselves in the rare Venetian mirrors; the spacious cellars with their arches; the vaulted stables, and the vast courts with their immense wells, have been greatly injured by fire and now wear an aspect of desolation melancholy to behold. Galid de Genouilhac, a lord of this house, who was grand écuyer in the time of Francis I., and would have saved his royal master the defeat of Pavia had his advice been listened to, was disgraced for presuming to admire the queen, and, retiring to this castle, he built a church, on which he graved the words still to be seen: J’aime fort une.
“Roc Amadour!” cried the guard, as he opened the door of our compartment, disturbing our historic recollections. We looked out. There was nothing to correspond with so poetical a name. No village; no church. Nothing but a forlorn station-house on a desolate plain. Behind it we found an omnibus waiting to catch up any stray pilgrim, and we availed ourselves of so opportune a vehicle, rude as it was. We could not have asked for anything more penitential, so there was no occasion for scruples. It leisurely took us a few miles to the west, and finally dropped us mercifully in the middle of the road before a rough wayside inn that had a huge leafy bough suspended over the door to proclaim that poor wine only needed the larger bush. We were not tempted to enter. The driver pointed out the way, and left us to our instinct and the pilgrim’s staff. There was nothing to be seen but the same dreary expanse. But we soon came to a chapel in the centre of a graveyard, where once stood a hospice with kind inmates to wash the bleeding feet of the pilgrim. Then we began to descend diagonally along the side of a tremendous chasm that suddenly opened before us, passing by a straggling line of poor rock-built huts, till we came to the archway of an old gate, once fortified, that stands at the entrance of a village. This was Roc Amadour.
Imagine a mountain suddenly cleft asunder, disclosing a frightful abyss several hundred feet in depth, lined with gray rocks that rise almost perpendicularly to the very clouds, and, far down at the bottom, a narrow stream winding sullenly along, looking like one of the fabled rivers of the abisso doloroso of the great Florentine. Half way up one side of this Vallée Ténébreuse, as it was once called, hangs the village of Roc Amadour like a cluster of birds’ nests along the edge of a precipice, over which are suspended several churches, one above the other, that seem hewn out of the very cliff. These are the famous sanctuaries of Roc Amadour that have been frequented from time immemorial.
Several hundred feet above these churches, on the very summit of the mount, is the old castle of La Charette, with its ramparts overlooking the whole country. This served in the frequent wars of the middle ages not only for the defence of the sanctuary below, but of the town of Roc Amadour, which was then a post of strategic importance, and has its page in history, as every reader of Sir John Froissart knows.
The sight of this mountain, that looks as if rent asunder by some awful convulsion of nature, with the castle on its summit; its rocky sides once peopled with hermits, and still alive with the voice of prayer; the churches that swell out of the cliff like the bastions of a fortress; the village on the ledge below; and the dizzy ravine in the depths, is truly astonishing.
The town looks as if the breath of modern progress had never reached it. It is the only place in all Europe where we did not meet an Englishman or an American. One would think the bivalve in which it is lodged just opened after being closed hundreds of years. There is the Rue de la Couronnerie, where Henry Court-Mantel was crowned King of Aquitaine. There are the remains of the house occupied by his father, Henry II. of England, with the huge well he caused to be dug, from which the inhabitants still draw water. And there are the remains of the four fortified gates ruined in the wars of the sixteenth century.
We stopped at the Grand Soleil—a hostel of the ancient time, with an immense kitchen that would have delighted Jan Steen, with beams black with the smoke of a thousand fires, hung with smoked hams, and gourds, and strings of onions, and bright copper kettles—the very place for roistering villagers such as he loved to paint. It looked ancient enough to have been frequented by King Henry’s soldiers. It had a very cavern for a fireplace, with seats at the yawning sides beneath the crook, with which M. Michelet says the sanctity of the fireside was identified in the middle ages far more than with the hearth, and curious old andirons, such as are to be seen at Paris in the Hôtel de Cluny, with a succession of hooks for the spits to rest on, and circular tops for braziers and chafing-dishes. Stairs led from the kitchen to the story above, well enough to mount, but perilous in descent, owing to their steepness. Everything is rather in the perpendicular style at Roc Amadour. An invocation to Marie conçue sans péché was pasted on the door of our chamber, and a statuette of the Blessed Virgin stood on the mantel. The windows looked out on a little terrace dignified with the name of Square, where children were playing around the great stone cross. At table we found the sacrifice of Abraham and other sacred subjects depicted on our plates, and a cross on the salt-cellar. Roast kid and goat’s milk were set before us with various adjuncts, after which patriarchal fare we issued forth to visit the celebrated chapel of Our Lady of Roc Amadour. We found we had done well in fortifying the outer man for such an ascent, particularly as the day was far advanced, and the morning supplies at Albi had been of the most unsubstantial nature. We passed several houses with old archways of the thirteenth century, but the most imposing house in the place is a seigneurial mansion of the sixteenth century, now occupied by the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. We soon came to the foot of the staircase leading up the side of the cliff to the sanctuaries. It consists of about two hundred and forty steps, partly hewn out of the rock, and is generally ascended by the devout pilgrim on his knees and with prayer—an enterprise of no trifling nature, as we are prepared to vouch. On great festivals this sacred ladder is crowded with people ascending and descending. Their murmured prayer is a gradual Psalm indeed. The first flight of one hundred and forty steps leads to a platform around which stood formerly the dwellings of the fourteen canons consecrated to the service of Mary. A Gothic portal, with a stout oaken door covered with fine old scroll-work of iron, leads by another flight of seventy-six steps to the collegiate church of Saint-Sauveur, one of the six remaining sanctuaries. Formerly there were twelve chapels built among the rocks in honor of the twelve apostles, but these all disappeared in the time of the unsparing Huguenots. Twenty-five steps more, at the left, bring you to a terrace with the miraculous chapel of Our Lady on one side and that of St. Michael on the other. Between them, directly before you, is the cave-like recess in which Zaccheus is said to have ended his days, and where he still lies in effigy on his stone coffin. Rupis amator he was called—the lover of the rock—whence St. Amateur, and St. Amadour, the name given him by the people. Amadour quasi amator solitudinis, say the old chronicles. His body remained here from the time of his death, in the year of our Lord 70 (we adhere to the delightful old legend), till 1166, when, according to Robert de Monte, who wrote in 1180, his tomb was opened at the request of a neighboring lord who was extremely ill and felt an inward assurance he should be healed by the sacred relics. His faith was rewarded. The body was found entire, and, on being exposed to public veneration, so numerous and extraordinary were the miracles wrought that Henry II. of England, who was at Castelnau de Bretenoux, came here to pay his devotions. It was now enshrined in the subterranean church of St. Amadour, where it remained several ages so incorrupt as to give rise to a common proverb among the people: Il est en chair et os, comme St. Amadour. But when the country was overrun by the Huguenots, his châsse was stripped of its silver mountings, his body broken to pieces with a hammer and cast into the fire. Only a small part of these venerable remains were snatched from the flames.
The terrace between the chapel of Our Lady and that of St. Michael is called in ancient documents the Platea S. Michaelis. Here all official acts relating to the abbey were formerly drawn up. The overhanging cliff, that rises above it to the height of two hundred and twenty feet, gives it the appearance of a cavern. Built into it, on the left, is the chapel of St. Michael, on the outer wall of which, suspended by an iron chain, is a long, rusty weapon popularly known as the sword of Roland. Not that it is the very blade with which the Pyrenees were once cleft asunder and so many kingdoms won. That shone as the sun in its golden hilt, the day the mighty Paladin came, on his way to Spain, to consecrate it to the Virgin of Roc Amadour and then redeem it with its weight in silver; whereas this is as dim and uncouth as the veriest spit that ever issued from a country forge. The wondrous Durandel, to be sure, was brought back after Roland’s death and hung up before the altar of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, to whom it had been vowed, where it remained till carried off by Henry Court-Mantel, who, adding sacrilege to hypocrisy, came here in 1183 on the pretext of a pilgrimage, and, in order to pay the soldiers who served him in his rebellion against his father, pillaged the holy chapel so revered by King Henry. But his crime did not remain unpunished. He was soon after seized with a fatal illness, and died, but not unabsolved, in the arms of Gerard III., Bishop of Cahors.
Over Roland’s sword hang the fetters of several Christians delivered from a terrible slavery on the coast of Barbary by Our Lady’s might. Among these was Guillaume Fulcheri of Montpellier, whose mother came to Roc Amadour on the eve of the Assumption to offer a cake of wax to burn before the image of Mary for the redemption of her son. That same night, while she was keeping vigil with prayers and tears before the altar of the Virgin, his fetters were loosened in a mysterious manner, and he made his escape. One of his first acts on his arrival in France was to come to Roc Amadour with an offering of gratitude.
So, too, Guillaume Rémond of Albi, being unjustly confined in prison, with no other hope of liberty but his trust in the power of the glorious Virgin of Roc Amadour, while he was persevering in prayer during the night-watches his chains suddenly fell off about the ninth hour, to the utter amazement of the jailer, who became too powerless to hinder his escape. He took his fetters with him to hang up before the altar of his potent protectress.
On the pavement beneath these and other trophies of divine grace is an old chest with iron bands, fastened with a double lock of singular mechanism, in which pilgrims centuries ago deposited their offerings. Just beyond is a doorway over which is painted St. Michael holding the balance of justice in which we must all be weighed. This door leads by a winding stone staircase up to St. Michael’s chapel, the oldest of the existing edifices of Roc Amadour. This singular chapel is built against the rough cliff which constitutes one side of it, as well as the vault. It is chilly, and cave-like, and dripping with moisture. A niche at one end, like an arcosolium in the catacombs, is lined with faded old frescos of Christ and the evangelists. The windows are low and narrow, like the fissures of a cave, being barely wide enough for an angel in each—Michael with his avenging sword, Gabriel and his Ave, and Raphael looking protectingly down on Tobias with his fish. On one side is a spiral ascent to a balcony over the Platea S. Michaelis, from which the abbot of Roc Amadour used to bestow his solemn benediction on the crowd on the great days of pardon.
Descending to the Platea, we stop before the entrance to Our Lady’s chapel to examine the half-effaced mural paintings of the great mysteries of her life around the door. Near these can be traced the outlines of a knight pursued by several spectres, popularly believed to be the ex-voto of a man who sought to be delivered from the ghosts of those whose graves he had profaned. But the learned say this fresco refers to the famous old Lai des trois Morts et des trois Vifs of the thirteenth century, in which three young knights, gaily riding to the chase, with no thought but of love and pleasure, meet three phantoms, who solemnly address them on the vanity of all earthly joys. This painting was a perpetual sermon to the pilgrims, enforced, moreover, by the numerous tombs that surrounded the sanctuaries of Roc Amadour. For many noble families of the province, as well as pilgrims from afar, wished to be buried near the altar where their souls had gotten grace. So great was the number buried here in the middle ages that the monks became alarmed, and refused to allow any more to be brought from a distance. But Pope Alexander III. issued a bull declaring this place of burial free to all except those under the ban of the church.
It is, then, with these thoughts of death and the great mysteries of religion we enter the miraculous chapel around which we have so long lingered with awe. The season of pilgrimages has not yet fairly opened, and we find it quiet and unoccupied except by a stray peasant or two, and a few Sisters of Calvary with sweet, gentle faces. We hasten to drop our feeble round of prayer into the deep well fed by the devotion of centuries. Over the altar is the famous statue of Our Lady of Roc Amadour in a golden niche—black as ebony, perhaps from the smoke of the candles and the incense of centuries, and dressed in a white muslin robe spangled with gold. It is by no means a work of high art. Perhaps it is as ancient as this place of pilgrimage. Tradition says it was executed by the pious hands of St. Amadour himself, who was doubtless incapable of expressing the devout sentiments that animated him. It is carved out of a single piece of wood, and is now greatly decayed. The Virgin is stiff in attitude. Her hair floats on her shoulders. Her hands rest on the arms of the chair in which she is sitting, leaving the divine Child, enthroned on her knee, with no support but that of his inherent nature. A silver lamp, shaped like a fortress, with towers for the lights, hangs before her, and beneath is a blazing stand of candles. The profusion of lights in the chapels of popular devotion throughout France is truly remarkable. It was the same in the middle ages. The old chronicles tell us how the mother who sought the cure of a beloved child sometimes sent his weight in wax to be burned before the powerful Virgin of Roc Amadour. Others brought candles of the size of the limb they wished to be healed. And those who had already obtained some supernatural favor generally sent a candle once a year in token of gratitude. So numerous were the lights formerly given to this chapel that there was scarcely room for them. Poets even celebrated this profusion. Gauthier de Coinsy, one of the most celebrated cantadours of the thirteenth century, among other poems has left one entitled Du cierge que Notre Dame de Roc Amadour envoya sur la vièle du ménestrel qui vièlait et chantait devant sy image, relating how our benign Lady accorded one of these votive candles to a pious minstrel as he was singing her praises: Pierre de Sygeland was in the habit of entering every church he passed to offer a prayer and sing a song of praise to the sound of his viol. One day, as he was prolonging his pious exercises before the altar of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, drawing every one in the church around him, both “clerc et lai,” by the melody of his voice, he raised his eyes to the sacred image of Mary and thus sang: “O sovereign Lady, Dame de toute courtoisie, if my hymn and the sound of my viol be acceptable to thee, be not offended at the guerdon I venture to implore: bestow on me, O peerless Lady! one of the many tapers that burn at thy sacred feet.”
His prayer is heard. The candle descends in the presence of five hundred persons and rests upon his viol. Friar Gerard, the sacristan, accuses him of using incantations, and, seizing the candle irefully, restores it to its place, taking good care to fasten it firmly down. Pierre continues to play. The candle descends anew. The good brother, suspecting him of magic, is more vexed than before and replaces the candle. The enraptured minstrel—