Chapter VI

CARLIN’S NEST.

Yes, life was beginning to grow beautiful to them—beautiful in the sweet, natural sense. Here and there a buckle that held the burden of it was loosed, here and there a flower was set. That uneasy feeling that one ought to be doing something, which often haunts and wearies even those who do nothing and never will do anything, began to give place to a contentment far more favorable to the accomplishment of real good. A generous wish to share their peacefulness with others made them practise every little kindness that occurred to them. Not a hand was stretched to them in vain, no courtesy from the humblest remained unacknowledged, and thus, accompanied by a constant succession of little beneficences, like a stream that passes between flowery banks its own waters keeping fresh, their lives flowed sweetly and brightly on from day to day.

Pg 37 Of course they had the reputation of being angels with the poor about them. It is so easy for the rich and happy to be canonized by the poor. A smile, a kind word, and a penny now and then—that is all that is necessary. But the kindness of these three women was something more than a mere good-natured generosity; for no one of them was very rich, and all had to deprive themselves of something in order to give.

Life was indeed becoming beautiful to them; for they had not yet settled, perhaps were not of a nature to settle, into the worse sort of Roman life, in which idle people collected from every part of the world gradually sink into a round of eating, visiting, gossip, and intrigue, which make the society of the grandest city of the world a strange spectacle of shining saintliness and disgusting meanness and corruption moving side by side.

There is, indeed, no city that tries the character like Rome; for it holds a prize for every ambition, except that of business enterprise. The Christian finds here primitive saintliness flowering in its native soil, and can walk barefoot, though he have purple blood in his veins, and not be wondered at; the artist, whether he use chisel, brush, or pen, finds himself in the midst of a lavish beauty which the study of a life could not exhaust; the lover of nature sees around him the fragments of an only half-ruined paradise; the tuft-hunter finds a confusion of ranks where he may approach the great more nearly than anywhere else, and, perhaps, chat at ease with a princess who, in her own country, would pass him without a nod of recognition; the idle and luxurious can live here like Sybarites on an income that, in another dolce far niente of Italy is like one of the soulless masks of women formed by Circe, which transformed their lovers into beasts.

“I have heard,” the Signora said, “of a man who, lying under a tree in summer-time and gazing at the slow, soft clouds as they floated past, wished that that were work, and he well paid for doing it. My life is almost a realization of that man’s wish. What I should choose to do as a pleasure, and the greatest pleasure possible to me, I have to do as a duty. It is my business to see everything that is beautiful, and to study and dream over it, and turn it into as many shapes as I can. If I like to blow soap-bubbles, then it becomes a trade, and I merit in doing it. If a science should catch my fancy, and invite me to follow awhile its ordered track, I go in a palace-car, and the wheels make music of the track for me. And what friends I have, what confidences receive! The ugliest, commonest object in the world, scorned or disregarded by all, will look at me and whisper a sweet word or reveal a hidden beauty as I pass. You see that log,” pointing to the fire-place, where a mossy stick lay wreathed about by a close network of vine-twigs clinging still in death where they had clung and grown in life. “The moment my eyes fell on that it Pg 38 sang me a song. In every balcony, every stair, every house they are cutting down to make their new streets, every smallest place where the wind can carry a feathered seed, the seed of a story has lodged for me, and, as I look, it sprouts, grows, blossoms, and overshadows the whole place. But for the pain of bringing out and putting into shape what is in my mind, my life would be too exquisite for earth. If I could give immediate birth to my imaginings, I should be like some winged creature, living for ever in air. I’m glad I work in words, and not in marble, like Carlin here. And, apropos, suppose we should go in there.”

Carlin was the sculptor whose studio was attached to Casa Ottant’-Otto. He was a great friend of the Signora, who had permission to see him work when she liked, and to go and come with her friends as it pleased her.

“We may as well take our work,” she said. “It is pleasanter there than here this morning. When Mr. Vane and Isabel come in from their visit, we shall hear them ring the bell.”

The two went out to the loggia, where the morning sun was blazing hotly on the pink and purple morning-glories, and, passing an ante-room where two marble-workers were chipping away, each at his snowy block, tapped at the door of an inner chamber.

A loud “Avanti!” answered the knock.

“Welcome!” said a voice when they entered. “Make yourselves at home. I’m busy with a model, you see.”

Bianca glanced about in search of the source of this salutation, and perceived presently a large head looking at them over the

Before they had well shut the door, the screen was swept aside and the sculptor’s whole form appeared. It was so large as to reduce the head to perfect proportion, and was clad in a suit of dull blue cotton worn with a careless grace that was very picturesque. One hand held a bit of clay; the other pulled off his skull-cap in reverence to his visitors. He said nothing, but immediately replaced the cap, and began rolling the clay between his hands.

He was modelling a group, and his model, a beautiful young contadina, stood before him with her arms up, holding a copper water-vase on her head. Her mother sat near, a dark, bilious, wrinkled Lady Macbeth, who wore her soiled and faded clothes as if they had been velvets and embroideries, and reclined in an old leather chair as superbly as if she sat on a gilded throne with a canopy over her head. A pair of huge rings of pure gold hung from her ears, and two heavy Pg 39 gold chains surrounded her dark neck, and dropped each its golden locket on her green bodice.

“We won’t mind them,” the Signora said to her friend. “Come and be introduced to the bird of our country.”

“He’s been behaving badly to-day,” the sculptor said, “and I had to beat him. Look and see what he has done to my blouse! The whole front is in rags. He flew at me to dig my heart out, I suppose, with his claws, and screamed so in my face that I was nearly deafened. It took both the men to get him off.”

This contumacious eagle was chained to his perch, and had the stick with which he had been beaten so placed as to be a constant reminder of the consequences attending on any exhibition of ill-temper. He was greatly disconcerted when the two ladies approached him, changed uneasily from foot to foot, and, half lifting his wide wings, curved his neck, and seemed about to hide his head in shame. Then, as they still regarded him, he suddenly lifted himself to his full height, and stared back at them with clear, splendid eyes.

“What pride and disdain!” exclaimed Bianca. “I had no idea the creature was so human. Let’s go away. If we stay much longer, he will speak to us. He considers himself insulted.”

Three walls of the room and a great part of the central space were occupied by the usual medley of a sculptor’s studio—busts, groups, masks, marble and plaster, armor, vases, and a hundred other objects; but the fourth side was hung all over with fragments of baby contours. Single legs and crossed legs; arms from the shoulder down, with the soft flattening of flesh above the elbow, and the sustained roundness

Bianca put her face to this window, and drew it back again. “There is nothing visible outside,” she said, “but a fig-tree, half the rim of a great vase, a bit of wall, and a sky full of leaves.”

She seated herself by the Signora, and they made believe to work, dropping a loop of bright wool or silken floss now and then, and glancing from time to time at the artist as he punched and pressed a meaning into the clay before him.

“I never see a sculptor make a human figure in clay without thinking of the creation of Adam and Eve,” the Signora said. “The Mohammedans say that angels first kneaded the clay for I don’t know how many years. How beautiful they must have been! ‘In His own image.’ Did you observe in the Barbarini gallery Domenichino’s picture of Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise? You were too much Pg 40 occupied with the Cenci. Everybody is at first. I was thinking, while I looked at that representation of the Creator, reclining on his divan of cherubim, what a pity it is that artists should have tried to do it, or, trying, should not have been able to do more. How that eagle does fret! It requires all my friendship for Carlin to prevent my cutting the leather thong that holds the chain to its leg some fine day. Wouldn’t it be pleasant to see him shoot like a bomb out through the window, tearing the vines away like cobwebs with his strong wings, and carrying off little green tendrils clinging to his feathers! The sunlight would be shut out a moment, there would be a rush as of waters, then the room would be light again. But, in such an event, the only gain would be a change of personality in the prisoner, and thirty lire out of my pocket. That is what Carlin paid for this unhappy wretch, and what I should be bound to pay him to buy another unhappy wretch to languish in his place. How do you like Carlin?”

“I don’t know,” Bianca answered slowly. “Isn’t he a sort of savage?—a good one, you know.”

“Precisely! All the polish he has is inside. Fortunately, however, he is transparent, and the brightness is bright enough to shine out through him. He is full of good-nature and enthusiasm. Once liking him, you will like him always, and better and better always. None but dishonest people dislike him, though there are some very good people who say he is not to their taste. Dear me! he is making a mistake in that group. O Carlin!” she called out, “do let me say something. Your water-carrier is going to look like a teapot

It was a group of a girl and her lover at a fountain.

He was just knitting his brows over the hand that held the handle of the vase, rolling bits of clay between his palms and arranging them for fingers. He threw the last one away. “I know it’s a stupid thing,” he said discontentedly; “but what can I do? It struck me as a pretty subject; but now I have begun to work it out, it seems to me I remember having seen a hundred like it, each one as stupid as mine. I was this instant thinking my grandmother must have had a cream-pitcher of this design.”

“Why don’t you make her stooping a little to lift the vase to her head, and looking up at the fellow?” the Signora suggested. “It will bring out your knowledge of anatomy a little more, and it will wake her up. Don’t you see her face is as dull as her sandal?”

This conversation, being in English, was not understood by the model, who stood stupid, and straight, and tired, trying to look picturesque.

The artist considered a minute, then said abruptly: “Put down the vase, not on the floor, but in a chair.”

She obeyed.

“Now take it up—slowly—and stop the instant I tell you.”

She bent her strong and supple figure a little, and began lifting the vase.

“Stop there!” he called out, “and look up at me. Look as pretty as you can. Think that I am some giovanotto who is going, perhaps, to ask you of your mother.”

Half shy, half saucy, she looked Pg 41 up as commanded, gratified vanity and friendly regard uniting to give her face as much expression as it was capable of.

Carlin seized his pencil and began sketching rapidly.

“He hasn’t a particle of imagination,” the Signora said in a low tone, “but he has excellent eyes and much humor. I sometimes think that humor and imagination never go together. Indeed, I don’t believe they ever do in any superlative degree.”

A little bell sounded timidly at her side, pulled by a cord that she perceived now by its vibration coming in at the window, the bell itself being quite hidden by the vine-leaves, where it was held between two large nails driven into the window-frame.

“Would—you—be so very kind—as to throw—that—loaf of bread out of the window, Signora?” the artist asked, abstractedly dropping one word at a time between the strokes of his pencil and glances at his model, whose fire was beginning to fade. “I can’t stop.”

The lady looked at him in wonder.

“It’s a beggar,” he explained after a moment, scratching away rapidly. “I can’t be bothered with them in here.”

She looked out of the window as well as she could for the leaves, and saw an arm in a ragged coat-sleeve, and a hand stretching toward the wall, and, at the same instant, the bell rang in her very ear with a force that made her start back. The bread was on a little shelf near by, an old knife beside it. She prudently cut the loaf in two, and dropped half to the unseen mendicant.

“That’s just like Carlin!” she exclaimed. “I don’t suppose any

“I shall know where to go when I want bread,” she said aloud, seeing him pause in his work. “It will be only to come under your window, pull a string, and hold up my apron.”

“Oh! by the way, please to pull in the string,” he added. “I never let it hang out, except when I have made an appointment. I told him to come if he didn’t get anything for dinner. Said he hadn’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours. It’s a disagreeable thing to go twenty-four hours without eating.”

Carlin knew what it was well. He had come to Rome fifteen years before without a dollar in his pocket, except what had paid his passage, and, without patronage, almost without friends, had climbed, step by step, through all the dark, steep ways of poverty, suffering what no one but himself knew, till at length a modest success rewarded his efforts. He never told his experiences, seemed to choose to forget them; but never a pitiful tale of suffering from poverty was told him without the ready answer, “Yes, yes, I know all about it,” springing as if involuntarily to his lips.

There was a knock at the door, which immediately opened without a permission, and a young man entered—one of those odious, well-dressed, rather handsome, and easy-mannered men who repel one more than rags, and ugliness, and stupidity.

“Good-morning!” he said with confident politeness. “Don’t let me interrupt you. I only want to see Mrs. Cranston’s bust. Promised her I would take a look at it.”

His coming produced the effect of a slight frost in the air. The Pg 42 Signora grew dignified, and made a little sign to Bianca to take a seat which would turn her back to the new-comer. Carlin frowned slightly and bent to his work; the old contadina glared from the man to her daughter, and the daughter blushed uneasily.

The young man seemed to be entirely unconscious of not having received a welcome, sauntered across the studio, pausing here and there, and at length, stopping under the pretence of examining a bust, fixed his eyes on the model.

“Look here, sir!” said Carlin, after five minutes of silence, “you’d better come in some other time, when I’m not busy.”

“Oh! don’t mind me,” was the careless reply.

Carlin waited a minute longer, then swung the screen round between his model and her tormentor.

The young man smiled slightly, gave his shoulders the least possible shrug, and began to saunter about the studio again, pausing finally at a spot that gave him a still better view of the girl.

The pencil quivered in Carlin’s hands, but his voice was gentle enough when he spoke again. “I don’t care to have visitors in the morning,” he said. “Come in in the afternoon, when I am working in marble. I work in clay always in the morning.”

“My dear fellow, I don’t want you to trouble yourself in the least about me. I can amuse myself,” the visitor replied.

Carlin seemed to be galvanized so suddenly he started upright, with anger in every nerve of him. “Confound you!” he cried out, “do you want me to pitch you out of the window? Go about your business.”

He had no cause to repeat the request. Coolly and disdainfully, but with a paleness that showed both fear and anger, the young exquisite walked out as leisurely as he had come in.

A laugh as sharp and bright as a blade shot across the old woman’s face, but she said not a word.

“You are getting acquainted with him rapidly,” the Signora whispered to her friend. “Isn’t he refreshing? It is so beautiful to see a man whose first impulse is to protect a woman from annoyance, even when the woman doesn’t belong to him. Carlin is truly a manly, honorable fellow.”

“I hear a faint little song, sweet and low,” said Bianca, listening with her pretty head aside and her eyes lifted.

“It is Carlin’s bird,” said the Signora.

The girl glanced about, but saw no cage.

“It is a soft, cooing sound,” she said.

“It is Carlin’s dove,” the Signora replied.

Bianca looked at her inquiringly, her lips still apart, and her head turned to listen to the melody.

“He doesn’t keep it in a cage, but in a nest,” the Signora went on, smiling. “Come, and I will show you. Step lightly, and do not speak. He is too busy to notice, and this great tapestry will hide us. You must examine this some time, by the way. It is all in rags, but very precious. See that foot on it! Doesn’t it look as if it were just set on the green ground—after a bath, too? It is so fresh and perfect.”

She led the way to an alcove of the studio hidden from the other rooms by this tapestry, and pointed to the inner wall, where a small, low Pg 43 door showed, half hidden by draperies and armor. “Some day we will go in; but to-day I will give you a peep only.”

She went to the door, and noiselessly pushed away a little slide in the panel, then motioned Bianca to look through. The girl obeyed, and found herself looking into a square room whose one great arched window had a snow-white fringed curtain waving slowly in the slight breeze, alternately giving glimpses of, and hiding, a loggia full of flowers and the green outside curtain of a grape-vine. Only tiny glints of sunshine entered through this double drapery, making the white curtain look as if it were embroidered with spots of gold. From the centre of a vaulted white ceiling hung a brass lamp, swinging slowly on its chain, and catching a point of light in place of the extinguished flame. On the white wall opposite the door hung high up an ebony crucifix, with a blue niche below, in which stood a marble statue of the Madonna. A tiny lamp burned before the two, and a branch of roses was twisted about the statue’s feet. In the centre of the room a green-covered table stood on a large green cloth that covered nearly the whole of the stone floor, and two or three cane-seated chairs were visible. The bird still sung her low, cooing song, an improvised melody set to inarticulate murmurs that now and then broke softly into words—a word of human love and blessing, a word of prayer, or a word of happiness. As when a gentle brook flows with only its waters now, and now with a flower or leaf, and now a little boat on its tide, and now a break of foam, and then a clear reflection as vivid as a tangible object, so the

Carlin’s dove was a young woman with a sweet, motherly face, and, as she sang, she swung to and fro a hammock that was hung directly under the blue niche of the Virgin; and her eyes were raised from time to time to the statue or the crucifix, with an Ave or a Gesù mio, or dropped to the baby she hushed to sleep with a word as tender. All the room seemed to swing with the hammock, as if it were in a tree-top; to float in an atmosphere of love and happiness with the mother and her child. Slowly the white lids of the little one dropped, like two rose-petals that cover two stars, and a dimpled hand clinging to the mother’s loosened its hold, as the angel of sleep unclasped it gently, finger by finger. Silence settled over the song, the hammock ceased to swing, and the mother, shining with love and happiness, bent over her sleeping babe, gazing at it as if her eyes were gifted to see through its white and rosy flesh, and behold the resting, folded soul hidden there like a sleeping butterfly in a shut flower.

The Signora closed the slide as noiselessly as she had opened it, and the two, exchanging a smile of sympathetic pleasure, turned away from Carlin’s nest.

The sculptor had made his sketch, and was just sending his model away. He turned immediately to his visitors, and began to show them his latest works, half a dozen things in clay, some finished, some requiring still a few touches. One group was especially pretty. It represented a family scene in one of the little Italian towns where all the business of life goes on in the street. On the rude stone Pg 44 steps outside a door sat a mother winding a skein of yarn held for her by a pretty girl of ten years or thereabouts, whose small arms were stretched to their utmost extent in the task. A little chubby boy leaned on the mother’s lap, and put up his finger to pull at the thread. At the front of the steps sat the father cobbling shoes.

“I found that at Monte Compatri,” he said; “and the figures are all portraits. I was afraid I couldn’t do it, for it is better adapted for canvas than marble; but the walls hold them together, you see.”

“We must go to Monte Compatri, Bianca,” the Signora said. “It’s one of the most primitive places in the world—a Ghetto perched on a mountain-top, as filthy and as picturesque as can be imagined. The air is delicious, the view superb, and the salads beggar description.”

All Carlin’s best groups and figures were, like this, copies from nature. When he attempted anything else, he unconsciously copied the works of others or he failed.

“I’m so glad you made that suggestion about the water-carrier,” he said, taking up his sketch. “I find it is always better for me to put considerable action into my figures. If I give them a simple pose, they are stupid. Would you have her looking up or down?”

“Let the little minx look up, by all means,” the Signora said. “She’s a good girl, enough, as a butterfly or a bird may be good. There isn’t enough of her for a down look; but that saucy little coquettish up-look is rather piquant. Besides, it is true to her nature. If she thought any one were admiring her, she wouldn’t have subtilty enough to look down and pretend not to see, and she wouldn’t have self-control enough, either. She would wish to

They went down again through the complicated passages and stairs, where arched windows and glimpses into vaulted rooms and into gardens crowded with green made them seem far from home.

“How beautiful orange-trees are!” Bianca exclaimed, stopping to look at one that filled roundly a window seen at the end of a long passage. “It has the colors of Paradise, I fancy. I don’t like yellow to wear, not even gold; but I like it for everything else.”

“Wait till you see the snow on an orange-tree, if you would see it at its perfection,” was the reply. “Perhaps you might wait many years, to be sure. I saw it once, and shall never forget. A light snow came down over the garden a few winters since, and dropped its silvery veil over the orange-trees. Fancy the dark green leaves and the golden fruit through that glittering lace! I had thought that our northern cedars and pines, with their laden boughs, were beautiful; but the oranges were exquisite. Would you believe that our kitchen door was so near?”

Isabel ran to meet the two, all in a breeze.

“Hurry on your things in two minutes to go to the Vatican,” she said. “Here are the cards. Monsignor forgot to send them, and has only now given them to us. The carriage is at the door.”

Off came the summer muslins in a trice, and in little more than the time allowed the three ladies tripped, rustling, down the stairs, in their black silk trains and black veils.

Pg 45 “I am constantly going to the Vatican in this breathless way,” the Signora said, as they drove rapidly through the hot sunshine. “With the usual sublime ignorance of men, and especially of clergymen, of the intricacies of the feminine toilet, my kind friends always give me ten minutes to prepare. One needs to keep one’s papal court dress laid out all ready for use at a moment’s warning. Fortunately, it is very simple. But Bianca has found time to mount the papal colors,” she added, seeing a bunch of yellow jasmine tucked into her friend’s belt.

“Is it allowed?” the girl asked doubtfully. “I can leave it in the carriage. But I always like to have a flower about me.”

“Oh! keep it,” her friend replied, and smiled, but suppressed the words that would have followed. For while Bianca Vane carried that face about with her, she never lacked a flower.

They were just in time for the audience, and an hour later drove slowly homeward through the silent town. Bianca was leaning back in the corner of the carriage with her eyes shut. The audience had been especially pleasant for her; for the Holy Father, seeing her kneel with her hands tightly clasped, and her eyes, full of delight, raised to his face, had smiled and laid his hand on her head, instead of giving it to her to kiss. The others said but little. The languor of the hour was upon them.

“Does any one say, Signora, that the Pope has a shining face?” Mr. Vane asked.

“Certainly,” she replied.

“Then I am not original in thinking that I found something luminous about him,” the gentleman went on. “It is as if I had seen a lamp. And what a sweet voice he has! la Chiesa’ in a tone that made me think of David mourning over Absalom.”

Mr. Vane had been much impressed by the beautiful presence of the reverend Pontiff, and had behaved himself, not only like a gentleman, but like a Catholic. The Signora had seen how he blushed in kissing the Pope’s hand, not as if with shame at paying such an act of homage, but as if some new sentiment of tender reverence and humility had just entered his heart. It had been very pleasant to her to see this, both on account of the love she bore the object of the homage, and the respect she had, and wished to retain, for him who paid it.

The driver held in his panting horses, and walked them on the side of the streets where a narrow strip of shadow cooled the heat of the burning stones; the pines and cypress in the gardens they passed, which in the morning had been so full of silvery twitterings that the fine, sweet sounds seemed almost to change the color of them and make them glisten with brightness, were now sombre and silent. The birds were all hid in their dark green shadows, or perched in cool, sunless angles and nooks of vases, balustrades, statues, and cornices of church or palace. Here and there a workman lay stretched at length on the sidewalk or on steps, sleeping soundly.

At length they reached home. The porter sat sleeping in his chair at the great door, and a family of beggars, four or five women and children, lay curled up outside on the curbstone.

Inside all was deliciously cool and tranquil. Dinner was on the table; for the servants had been watching for them, and had brought the soup in directly, and they sat down with Pg 46 appetites improved by the delay. The Signora poured out some wine for herself.

“The people here say that you should take a little wine before your soup,” she said. “My former padrona told me the nuns in the convents she knew always did. I don’t know why it is good for the stomach, but bow to their superior wisdom.”

“Doesn’t the hair on the top of my head look unusually bright?” Bianca asked after a while. She was still thinking of the sacred hand that had rested there, still feeling its gentle pressure.

The others looked, not understanding.

“Why, your veil covers it,” Isabel said. “But there’s a bright garnet and gold pin at the top.”

Bianca lifted her arms to loosen the veil, took the gold hairpin out and kissed it. “He must have touched it,” she said, “and so it has been blessed. Do you know, Signora, what thought came into my mind at the moment? I thought as he touched me, ‘It is the hand that holds the keys of purgatory and of heaven!’”

“My own thought!” her friend exclaimed. “I had the same benediction once, and it set me rhyming. I do not set up for a poet, you know, but there are feelings that will sing in spite of one. This was one, and I must show you the lines some time soon, to see if they express you. I don’t know where they are.”

“I know where something of yours is,” Bianca said eagerly. “I saw it in your blotting-book, and had to call up all my honesty not to read it. Reward me now! I will bring it.”

She looked so bright and coaxing, and the others so cordially

“How I like hot noons!” she sighed through a smile of languid contentment, leaning back in her chair, and dropping in her lap the folded paper Bianca had brought her. “I found out the charm of them when I was in Frascati. At this early season the heat of the city, too, is good—a pure scorch and scald. In August it is likely to be thick and morbid. That first noon in Frascati was a new experience to me. I went to see Villa Torlonia, which was open to the public only between the hours of eleven and five—a time when scarcely any one, especially any Italian, wants to go out in hot weather. I wished to see the villa, however, and I went, stealing along the shadowy edges of streets, and down a long stairway street that is nearly or always shaded by the tall houses at either side and the hill behind, catching my breath as I passed through the furnace of sunshine in the open piazza, finally, with my face in a flame, stepping under the great trees inside the gate, and pausing to refresh myself a little before going on. There was still the open terrace to pass, and the grand unshaded steps to ascend; but it was easier to go forward than back, for a few minutes would bring me to avenues as dim as Ave Maria time. I stood a little and dreaded the sun. The casino and the gravel of the terrace and the steps were reflecting it so that one might almost have fancied the rays clashed on each other in the midst of the opening. The rose-trees in the flower-garden looked as if they bore clusters of fire-coals, and some sort of flowering tree in the green spaces Pg 47 between the stairs seemed to be breaking out into flame with its red and yellow blossoms. I remembered Mrs. Browning’s

She paused to lay a laurel leaf over a carafon of cream that a fly was buzzing about, then exclaimed: “Why wasn’t that woman a Catholic, and why isn’t she alive now, that I may kiss her hand, and her cheek, if she would let me? Fancy such a genius consecrated to religion! You know the other stanza of that poem I have just quoted:

“It seems to me that not one person in a thousand—Italians no more than strangers—would know there were anything remarkable here, if a small, small number of persons hadn’t told them there is. How they all repeat the same words, from the teeth out, and talk learnedly of what they know nothing about! They don’t one of them find a beauty that isn’t in the guidebooks.”

She sighed impatiently, and returned to her subject.

“I was telling you about noon in Villa Torlonia: I stood under the great solid trees awhile, then took courage and walked into the sun again, across the terrace, with only a glance at the vast panorama visible from it, up the steps that were hot to my feet, and then plunged into the upper avenues as into a cool bath. There was another opening to cross, for I wanted to go to the upper fountain; but here the cascade cooled the eyes, at least. I went up the cascade stairs as the waters came down, and found myself forestieri, there were none in Frascati. How delicious it was simply to sit on one of the stone benches and live! A spider’s web glistened across the place, starting straight from a tree behind me. Where it was fastened at the other end I could not guess; for the nearest object in that line was the tossing column of foamy water, fifty feet, may be more, distant, then an equal distance to the trees at the other side. There was no sound but that of falling water, that seemed to carry the chirp of the cicali and the whisper of the trees, as the waters themselves carried the dry leaves and twigs that fell into them. All around the sun searched and strove to enter through the thick green, so near that his fiery breath touched my face. How my chains melted off! How pure the heat was, and how sweet! One bird sang through it now and then—sang for me: he the only lark abroad at that hour, as I was the only signora. I answered him with a little faint song, to which again he replied. I never was so happy, never felt so free from all that could annoy. Probably Adam and Eve had some such delight in the mere feeling Pg 48 that they were alive. And so I sat there, hour after hour, half asleep, half fainting with the heat, in which I seemed to float. If I had been called on then to say what God is, I should have said, He is a fire that burns without consuming. Fire and its attendant heat were the perfection of all things, and coldness was misery—but a pure, clear fire which an anemone could pass through unscathed.”

The Signora drew a breath that was half a sigh, and took up the folded paper from her lap. “How happy I am in Italy in the summer!” she said, half to herself. “I can work in the cool months, but I live in the hot ones.”

“Bianca wants me to read this rhyme? It is a summer rhyme, too, and commemorates a little incident of my first summer here—a visit to Santa Maria della Vittoria. You have not been there yet. It is very near, just out on the Via della porta Pia, which the new people call Venti Settembre, because the invaders came in that way on the 20th of September. They try to keep the anniversary, and to make the city look as if the people cared for it, but it is a dreary pretence. A military procession, a few flags hung out here and there from houses of government officials and foreigners, chiefly Americans—that is all.”

She read:

LONDON GUILDS AND APPRENTICES.

The halls of the old London guilds or companies are still among the most interesting sights of London. They are not only interesting as the relics of by-gone times and manners, but as living and active representatives of the influential bodies whose names they bear. Many of the companies give an annual dinner to the members of the Cabinet (of no matter which of the two great political parties), and all are wide awake and progressive. They bestow the honorary membership of their various crafts upon outsiders as a very great distinction and favor, and with many of the proudest names of the nobility this or that company has a hereditary connection. Their actual halls are none of them of great antiquity, as they can date no further back than 1666, the year of the great fire of London, when every building of any consequence in the city was destroyed; and many are far more modern than that, having been rebuilt in our own century. The Company of the Goldsmiths, which at present ranks fifth in the order of precedence among the London II., and it is presumable that it was not even then in its infancy. The craftsmen of the capital were obliged to protect themselves by associations of mutual comfort and defence, and the goldsmiths especially, as they were most often liable to taxation and forcible levies for the benefit and at the caprice of the king. They were the earliest bankers, both in England and in other countries. Their power and organization, before they obtained the charter of incorporation under Edward III. in 1327, is shown by the following account given by Maitland, the historian of the city of London, and copied by him from an old chronicler, Fabyan—no doubt a witness of the fray:

“About the same time (1269) a great difference happened between the Company of Goldsmiths and that of the Merchant Pg 50 Tailors [or, as it was written, ‘Taylors’]; and other companies interesting themselves on each side, the animosity increased to such a degree that on a certain night both parties met (it seems by consent) to the number of 500 men, completely armed; when fiercely engaging, several were killed and many wounded on both sides; and they continued fighting in an obstinate and desperate manner, till the sheriffs raised a great body of citizens, suppressed the riot, and apprehended many of the combatants, who were soon after tried by the mayor and Laurence de Brooke, one of the king’s justices; and thirteen of the ringleaders being found guilty, they were condemned and hanged.”

The goldsmiths stood, both to individuals and to the government, in the relation of agents in the transfer of bullion and coin, in making payments and obtaining loans, and in the safe custody of treasure. This branch of their business has not been relinquished so very long ago; for we find a statement made in a book called A General Description of all Trades, and published in 1747, to the effect that—

“Goldsmiths, the fifth company, are, strictly speaking, all those who make it their business to work up and deal in all sorts of wrought gold and silver plate; but of late years the title of goldsmith has been generally taken to signify one who banks, or receives and pays running cash for others, as well as deals in plate; but he whose business is altogether cash-keeping is properly a banker.”

To distinguish such of the craft as did not bank, the name silversmith was used; and these again were sub-divided into the working silversmiths, who fashioned the precious metals, and the shopkeepers, who only sold them. This statement has been preserved by Malcolm in his work on the city, called Londinium Redivivum. The distinction is practically obsolete in our day, and the whole craft goes more generally

Italy was more liberal towards her goldsmiths than England. Here they were artists and ranked as such; in England they were artificers and traders. In the latter country they were powerful, but only through the wealth they controlled; in Italy they were admired, courted, and flattered in society, but politically their power was less. The English at all times excelled rather in manual skill than in design; and to this day the designers of jewellers, lamp-makers, furniture-makers, house-decorators, and even silk, ribbon, and cotton merchants, in England, are generally not English.

In ancient times the London goldsmiths all lived in or near Cheapside, or, as it was often called, Pg 51 West Cheap, to distinguish it from the other Cheap Street, more to the east. “Cheap” was the same as market. Close by was the Royal Exchange, where the bullion for the coinage of the realm was received and kept, and the street in which stood this building is still called the Old Exchange. Whether by law or custom, only goldsmiths were allowed to have shops in this neighborhood; but even if the right was at first but a prescriptive one, the company soon contrived to have laws passed to forbid any other craft from encroaching on their domains. This localizing of various crafts was common all over Europe in the middle ages, and in many instances was really a convenience to purchasers, as well as a means of defence for the members of the guilds. In the case of the goldsmiths the government had an object of its own. It might have been thought that the concentration of other turbulent companies would have been rather a danger and a provocation to the royal authority; but it was obviously the policy of the king to make the services of this wealthy company as accessible as might be, in case of any sudden emergency requiring a loan or a tax. It was not politic to let any of the fraternity escape contribution by hiding himself in some obscure part of the city; so that not only were other tradesmen prohibited from opening shops among the goldsmiths, but the latter were themselves forbidden from setting up their shops elsewhere. Although neither law nor custom now interferes with them, the majority of the great jewellers have their glittering shops in Bond Street, London, while in other countries the same rule, on the whole, still prevails. The Rue de Rivoli and the Palais Royal Graben, and one street leading out of it; Rome has its Via Condotti, thronged with jewelry shops and those selling objects of virtu; Venice has its Procurazie, an arcade beneath which nearly all the jewellers in the city are congregated; and in many old Italian cities the Strada degli Orefici (goldsmiths’ street) still fully deserves its name. This is particularly the case at Genoa, where this old, crooked lane, bordered by the booths and dens that we moderns would take for poor cobblers’ shops, is still one of the most surprising and picturesque sights of the city. Goldsmiths’ Row is thus described in Maitland’s History:

“The same was built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith, one of the sheriffs of London in the year 1491. It contained in number ten dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built, four stories high, beautified towards the street with the goldsmith’s arms and the likeness of woodmen, in memory of his name, riding on monstrous beasts, all of which were cast in lead, richly painted over and gilt. The said front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594, Sir Richard Martin being then mayor, and keeping his mayoralty in one of them.”

The Row, however, before this embellishment, had existed in the same place, and covered adjoining parts of Cheapside, betwixt Bread Street end and the Cross in Cheap. This beautiful monument is now gone, but it stood at the west end of the street, in the middle of an open space from which St. Martin-le-Grand (still one of the London parishes) branches out on the one hand, and St. Paul’s churchyard on the other. The “churchyard,” still retaining its name, is now filled Pg 52 with gay shops, mostly for the sale of silks, feathers, and other female gear, and quite equal to the resplendent shops of the West End of London. The Cross in Cheap was one of a series which Edward I. built at every place where the body of his wife, Queen Eleanor, rested on the way from Herdeley in Lincolnshire to Westminster, where she was buried.

In 1629 the appearance of the goldsmiths’ shops is thus described:

“At this time the city greatly abounded in riches and splendor, such as former ages were unacquainted with; then it was beautiful to behold the glorious appearance of goldsmiths’ shops in the South Row of Cheapside, which in a continued course reached from the Old ’Change to Bucklersbury, exclusive of four shops only of other trades in all that space.”

Another reason that had been early alleged for the concentration of the guild was that “it might be seen that their works were good and right”; for as early as 1327 complaints were made of the substitution of paste for real gems, and of plated ware for genuine metal. Some of the fraternity were wont to hide themselves in by-lanes and obscure turnings, and buy stolen plate, melt it down, and resell it secretly to merchants about to put to sea.

“And so they made also false work of gold and silver, as bracelets, lockets, rings, and other jewels; in which they set glass of divers colors, counterfeiting real stones, and put more alloy in the silver than they ought, which they sold to such as had no skill in such things. And that the cutlers in their workhouses covered tin with silver so subtilly, and with such slight,[3] that the same could not be discerned and severed from the tin; and by that means they sold the tin

All this was very distasteful to the respectable members of the company, from whose petition the above words are quoted, and henceforward the law did all it could to protect both the public from deceit and the guild from dishonor. Yet, since human law never yet reached an abuse upheld by obstinate men interested in law-breaking or law-evading, the ordinances had to be constantly renewed. As years went on the law was more and more disregarded. One order was passed in 1629 to confine the goldsmiths to Cheapside and Lombard Street; another in 1635, another in 1637, and two in 1638. Summary proceedings were taken against the intrusive shopkeepers who paraded their “mean trades” among the privileged goldsmiths. For instance, “if they should obstinately refuse and remain refractory, then to take security of them to perform the same by a certain day, or in default to commit them to prison until they conform themselves.” The arbitrary Star Chamber, whose rule under the later Stuarts became a real “Reign of Terror,” threatened that if such shops were not forthwith shut up, the alderman of the ward, or his deputy, should be committed to prison. But these were the last among the despotic threats of the terrible tribunal, which was soon after abolished, and the twenty-four common shops which were enumerated in 1638 as spoiling the fair appearance of Goldsmiths’ Row were soon reinforced by many others. The prohibitory ordinances ceased, and custom alone was not strong enough to expel intruders. Besides, the great fire soon came to sweep away almost Pg 53 the whole city, and the plague that preceded it did much to break up all local customs and attachments. The tide of fashion afterwards carried the jewellers with it, setting every year more and more to the west of the city, and the old landmarks and restrictions died a natural death. Lombard Street, however, originally named from the Lombard refugees who settled in London as bankers and pawnbrokers as well as jewellers, is still distinguished by the number of banks and imposing warehouses it contains, and by the comparatively stately architecture of some of its great commercial buildings.

The Goldsmiths’ Company, by letters-patent of Edward III., was granted the privilege of assaying (or testing) all gold and silver plate before it could be exposed for sale. But this was probably only a renewal of a right already exercised by them; for it is mentioned in the document that all work ascertained to be of the proper fineness shall have upon it “a stamp of a puncheon with a leopard’s head, as of ancient time it hath been ordained.” The company also has the privilege of assisting at what is called “the trial of the pyx”—that is, the examination of the coinage of the realm, with a view of ascertaining whether it is of the sterling weight and purity. The pyx is the box in which the coins to be weighed and analyzed are contained. The jury of goldsmiths summoned on this occasion usually consists of twenty-five, and they meet with great formalities and ceremonies in a vaulted chamber on the east side of the cloisters at Westminster, called the Chapel of the Pyx.

Since the great fire the company has built two halls, the present one VIII., receiving their charter from his hands, and for which the company very rightly refused $30,000, and even $6,000 for a single head of a person of the name of Pen, which the late Sir Robert Peel wished to cut out from the canvas and replace by a copy which should rival the original in fidelity and minuteness. The heads in this picture were all portraits, and represent grave-looking personages in dark, sober costumes. The king is in scarlet. Round the banqueting-room of this hall were other valuable pictures of the distinguished men of the company, and notably one, by Vandyke, of an elderly, bearded personage, very stately in demeanor, refined in feature, and dressed in a style of almost courtly though chastened elegance. The company also treasures its old vellum manuscript book of records, all in black letter, and in which there has been no entry made for four hundred years. Pg 54 The hall has a lofty, carved roof of wood, and a sombre, rich appearance from its antique furniture and numerous old portraits. There is a sky-light in the roof, which may have served to cast light on bodies dissected on the great table below. In old times the barbers and surgeons formed but one company; but we believe that the latter alone now claim the possession of this hall (one of the oldest now standing in London, and the work of Inigo Jones), although, in official nomenclature, they still retain the double title of barber-surgeons. Close by Monkwell Street is shown a dilapidated Elizabethan row of almshouses, erected by a pious and charitable alderman for six poor men. Their successors and representatives still enjoy the founder’s bounty, but the almshouses are now choked up by a network of unwholesome streets, and the funds of the institution, which have enormously increased in relative value, remain in the hands of the trustees. The number of those who, under different names, belong to the fraternity of goldsmiths, is, at a rough calculation, nearly eight hundred, exclusive of watchmakers who are also jewellers. Indeed, in the country these two trades are always joined, and even many shops of this mixed kind are found in London.

The Fishmongers were the fourth of the incorporated companies, ranking just before the goldsmiths. At one time they were the wealthiest and most powerful; but although they existed and flourished as a civic association long before they obtained a regular charter, they referred the latter privilege to no earlier date than 1433. The inherent spirit of division and local jealousy which seems to animate all bodies II., slew the rebel Wat Tyler with his own hand, in the market-place at Smithfield, when that leader was at the head of thirty thousand rebels. The king knighted him for this act of prowess—a far different cause for the honor from that which is so indulgently thought sufficient now, i.e., the accident of a royal visit during a mayor’s term of office, irrespective of any merit in the holder of the office.

The glory and power of the fishmongers stirred up the envy and ill-will of their fellow-citizens, and Walworth’s successor, John of Northampton, a draper of an imperious and turbulent character, well known in his day by the popular titles of Troubletown and Cumbertown, was able to array the interest of several rival companies against the too prosperous fishmongers, and to procure from the crown leave for foreigners (meaning strangers or persons not freemen) to sell fish in London, in violation of the company’s right of monopoly. Maitland even records that he Pg 55 made the company acknowledge that its occupation was “no craft, and was therefore unworthy of being reckoned among the other mysteries.” It was also enacted that for the future no lord-mayor should be chosen from among the fishmongers. But the credit of the fishmongers revived as soon as John of Northampton’s term of office ended, and the company was soon restored by Parliament to all its old rights and privileges, except the right of holding courts for the trial of complaints. This was transferred to the supreme city court, that of the lord-mayor himself. In 1536 the two companies of salt and stock fishmongers were incorporated into one by Henry VIII. under the title of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Fishmongers.”

After the Reformation the sale of fish diminished so as to endanger the trade of the company, and a curious act of Parliament was passed in 1563, under Elizabeth, enjoining the exclusive use of fish on Wednesdays and Saturdays, “as well for the maintenance of shipping, the increase of fishermen and mariners, and the repairing of port-towns, as for the sparing and increase of the flesh victual of the realm.” The cases excepted, of course, were those of sickness, and of ability and willingness to pay for a license to eat flesh-meat on those days. The fine for disobeying the law was £3 for each offence, and the licenses of exemption cost for a peer £1 6s. and 8d., for a knight and a gentleman 13s. and 4d., for the commonalty 6s. and 8d. Even the license, however, only authorized the eating of mutton and fowl, not beef; but that there might be no mistake as to the motive of this odd, restrictive law—so like the sumptuary

“But because no person shall misjudge the intent of this statute, be it enacted that whoever shall, by preaching, teaching, writing, or open speech, notify that any eating of fish, or forbearing of flesh, mentioned in this statute, is of any necessity for the soul of man, or that it is the service of God, otherwise than as other politic laws are and be, then such persons shall be punished as spreaders of false news ought to be.”

It is probable that this regulation failed of its effect, for a subsequent statute again renewed the prohibition, though limiting it to Saturdays only; still, the concession was but partial, for the sale of flesh was forbidden on Fridays and Saturdays and during all Lent.

There were three streets in the city named after the Fishmongers’ Company—Old Fish Street, New Fish Street, and Fishmonger Row, now called Thames Street. In each of these the two original companies had each one hall, making no less than six halls for the whole guild; but on their fusion they chose one in Thames Street for their common hall, since which time there have been three successive buildings on or about the same spot. The first, a very old one, originally the gift of Sir John Cornwall, Lord Franhope, was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, and soon after Sir Christopher Wren built them another, famed for a magnificent double flight of stone stairs on the wharf. According to old historians, those were the times when the Strand was an open road, bordered sparsely with pleasant houses, having large gardens down to the river’s edge. This hall was taken down about 1830 to make room for the approaches of the new London Bridge, and the present hall was built just a little to the west of the Pg 56 site of its predecessor. This is another of those heavy, would-be-palatial buildings which attest the bad architectural taste of the first half of the present century.

It has long been customary to enroll as honorary members of the civic companies many royal and noble personages; and when, in 1750, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was admitted as a freeman, the clerk of the Fishmongers’ Company, Mr. Tomkyns, proudly reminded him that “this company, sir, is famous for having had near threescore lord-mayors of the city of London, besides many of the most considerable merchants and eminent citizens, free of it.”

King James I. incorporated himself with the guild of cloth-workers in 1607, and Stow’s Chronicle, continued by Howes, gives the following description of the occurrence:

“Being in the open hall, he [the king] asked who was master of the company, and the lord-mayor answered, ‘Sir William Stowe,’ unto whom the king said: ‘Wilt thou make me free of the cloth-workers?’ ‘Yea,’ quoth the master, ‘and think myself a happy man that I live to see this day.’ Then the king said: ‘Stowe, give me thy hand; and now I am a cloth-worker.’”

Sir Samuel Pepys was master of the company seventy years later, and presented them with a rich loving-cup, which is still used on solemn occasions. The Winthrops, ancestors of the famous governor of the Massachusetts Company, were hereditarily connected with this cloth-workers’ guild, several of them becoming members by regular apprenticeship to the trade; and Adam Wyntrope, the governor’s grandfather, is mentioned as master of the company in 1551, having previously held all the minor offices leading to that dignity.

Intimately connected with the system of the companies was the status of the London apprentices. Both have been materially modified, and their representatives have ceased to exercise the tangible power they once possessed. But when the system was in full operation, every trade having its separate guild; and when, in order that any one might exercise a trade, it was necessary he should have the freedom of the guild, this freedom could only be obtained by serving an apprenticeship to a member of the company. In old times the apprentices were a superior class of men, and it was not permitted to every one to exercise the chief trades. Under Henry IV. an act was passed containing a clause to the effect that no one should put his son or daughter apprentice to a handicraft trade, “except he have land or rent to the value of 20s. by the year,” which in those days would be a fair competency. The regulations of the city of London forbade any to be admitted to be bound apprentice except such as were “gentlemen born,” by which was understood freeborn, and not in a state of villeinage—the son of a free-holder or a yeoman. In the days of the Tudors and Stuarts even the younger sons of gentlemen often served in the commercial establishments of rich citizens. The chronicler Stow attributes to this cause their “costly apparel, their wearing weapons, and frequenting schools of dancing, fencing, and music.”

But this very pretension to “gentility” it was which Ben Jonson rebuked in his Eastward Hoe, a comedy, the counterpart of Hogarth’s subsequent caricatures in pencil. The old goldsmith boasts that he made his wealth by “hiring Pg 57 me a little shop; bought low; took small gain; kept no debt-book; garnished my shop, for want of plate, with good, wholesome, thrifty sentences, as, ‘Touchstone, keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee’; ‘Light gains make heavy purses,’ etc.”

The apprentices were very clannish, and ready to defend each other to the death, and this spirit often led to riots and serious disturbances, but a curious poem published in 1647, called The Honor of London Apprentices, mentions that this bravery had led them to distinguish themselves in a nobler field than a city brawl—namely, in the Crusades and on the field of Crécy.

Their duties, it seems to us, corresponded in their way to the service required from youths of good birth as pages and esquires in the house of a knight, before they themselves could aspire to the honor of knighthood. These waited at table, served the ladies, and performed many offices now termed menial; and, as a tract published in London in 1625 avers, so too did the apprentices:

“He goes bare-headed, stands bare-headed, waits bare-headed, before his master and mistress; and while as yet he is the youngest apprentice, he doth perhaps, for discipline’s sake, make old leather over-night shine with blacking for the morning; brusheth a garment, runs of errands, keeps silence till he have leave to speak, follows his master or ushereth his mistress, and sometimes my young mistresses their daughters (among whom some one or other of them doth not rarely prove the apprentice’s wife), walks not far out but with permission, and now and then, as offences happen, he may chance to be terribly chidden or menaced, or [for?] what sometime must be worthily corrected.”

Stow, in his Survey of London, says that “when apprentices and his master, and all this the present apprentice had the prospective right of claiming for himself in the future; so in this inequality for the nonce there was no element of caste and no room for foolish murmuring. The turbulence of these young fellows was turned now against the city authorities, now against foreign or unlicensed traders and artificers, now against their masters. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century—times when all classes were turbulent enough—these occasional riots went on and were punished; but what chiefly led to their cessation was the gradual falling to pieces of the old system, and the more effectual police force which patrolled the city after 1688. But the peculiarity of the apprentices’ privileges and of the influence of the companies in England was that, no matter how low a man began, his industry and good behavior could raise him to high public honor. This was not the case in most other European countries. Wealth and domestic happiness, of course, attended virtue and application to business, but such advancement as the English Constitution offered existed nowhere, unless, perhaps, in the Low Countries. This has been significantly commented upon by Lichtenberg, an admirer and critic of Hogarth, and professor of natural history at the University of Göttingen. “In Hogarth’s country,” says he, “it is not unfrequent that the son of a weaver or a Pg 58 brewer may distinguish himself in the House of Commons, and his grandson or great-grandson in the House of Lords. Oh! what a land, in which no cobbler is certain that the favors of his great-grandson may not one day be solicited by kings and emperors. And yet they grumble!”

Although there are no restrictive laws as to trade in the London of our day, and though much of the state of the companies has dwindled into formalities, and is more interesting from a historical than a political point of view, still the foundations on which the system was built are unalterable. In these days, as in centuries gone by, the pride in one’s work, the personal industry, and the esprit de corps of tradesmen are the real steps by which they mount to civic and political success. They were once embodied in the close system of alliance and defence encouraged by the guilds; times and customs have changed, and each man stands more or less on his own merits alone, but the underlying principle is the same. It is not every tradesman or merchant who, because he is honest and thrifty, becomes lord-mayor of London, is knighted, or elected M.P.; but these prizes are within the reach of all. The city records for the latter half of the eighteenth century, for instance, witness to the perseverance of many men born in the lowest and most hopeless circumstances, and that, too, when the ancient prestige of the companies had somewhat faded. Sir James Sanderson, sheriff and lord-mayor of London, was the son of a poor grocer of York, who died young, leaving his widow to manage the business till his son should be old enough to carry it on. The son left the shop to his mother for [4] was the son of a journeyman tailor, and served his apprenticeship to that trade. Sir John Anderson, lord-mayor and member for the city, was the son of a day laborer. Macauley was the son of a captain of a coasting vessel, who died leaving nine children unprovided for. Sir William Staines and Alderman Hamerton were both working paviors and stone-masons. Aldermen Wright and Gill were servants in a warehouse of which they afterwards became masters; they lived for sixty years in partnership as stationers, and never disagreed, although the latter married the former’s sister. Wright made £400,000. The two old friends died the same year, beloved and regretted by many who had experienced their kindness and generosity.

To point out contrary instances would not be so easy—they are Pg 59 legion; but the typical idle apprentice of Hogarth is a fair specimen of those who wreck their lives through weakness of resolve and inordinate love of so-called enjoyment. These we have under our eyes every day, in every country.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE OF PARIS AND THE CROWN OF THORNS.

In the very heart of Paris, to the northwest of Notre Dame, and as if a flower detached from her garland, or a graceful sapling from the majestic parent tree, sprang up, more than six centuries ago, the Sainte Chapelle.

It almost seems as if Heaven had extended a special protection to the sanctuary raised to enshrine the precious relics of the Passion of our Lord; for although injured and despoiled by evil hands in the time of the First Revolution, it was subsequently restored to all the splendor of its pristine beauty; and again, when the conflagrations kindled by the Commune were raging around it, the Sainte Chapelle, with its fearless flêche, its protecting angel, and its golden crown, stood unharmed in the very midst of the flames, and so remained when they had died out, amid the heaps of ashes and the crumbling ruins left around its unscathed walls.

Since the time of St. Louis France has possessed the crown of thorns of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is great interest in tracing the vicissitudes through which this priceless treasure has passed, and in learning the circumstances under which the saintly monarch obtained it. In the year 1204 the French and the Venetians, having captured Constantinople, established

His successor, Baldwin II., finding his empire, in the year 1238, threatened by the Greeks on the one side, and on the other by the Bulgarians, came into the West to seek aid and protection against his enemies. Whilst at the court of France, whither he had gone to entreat the assistance of St. Louis, tidings reached him that the nobles whom he had left at Constantinople, finding their resources completely exhausted, were on the point of pledging the holy crown to the Venetians for a sum of money. The young emperor, strongly disapproving of this measure, offered as a free gift to St. Louis the precious relic which the lords of Byzantium were wishing to sell. “For,” said he, “I greatly desire to bestow it upon you, my cousin, who are my lord and benefactor, as well as upon the realm of France, my country.”

St. Louis eagerly accepted such a gift as this, and immediately, at the same time that Baldwin despatched Pg 60 one of his officers with letters-patent commanding that the holy crown should be sent to him, the French monarch sent two of the Friars Preachers, named James and Andrew, to receive it in his name. Journeys in those days, however, were by no means expeditious, and on the arrival of the messengers at Constantinople they found the sacred relic gone from the treasury, and pledged to the Venetians for 13,075 hyperperia, or about £157,000 sterling. It had been deposited by their chamberlain, Pancratius Caverson, in the church of Panta Craton, that of his nation at Byzantium. On receiving the emperor’s orders the Latin lords rearranged the matter with the Venetians, and it was agreed that, if within a reasonably short time the latter did not receive the reimbursement of the sum they had paid, the sacred crown should become their undoubted property. Meanwhile, it was to be carried to Venice, accompanied by the envoys of the King of France, one of whom, Father Andrew, had formerly been guardian of the convent of his order at Constantinople, and, having on several occasions seen the crown, knew its appearance perfectly well. It was this circumstance which had determined St. Louis to send him as one of his messengers.

Every possible precaution was taken to secure the identification of the holy crown, which was enclosed in three chests, the first of gold, the second of silver, on which the Venetian lords affixed their seals, the third of wood, which was sealed by the French nobles.

The season, being Christmas, was unfavorable for the voyage by sea, but the envoys had no hesitation in embarking, secure in the conviction

The holy crown was at once borne to St. Mark’s, and there placed among the treasures in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where reposed the body of the Evangelist, between the two columns of alabaster which are said to have been brought from the Temple of Solomon. At the same time one of the Dominican Fathers set out for France to acquaint St. Louis with the terms agreed upon.

These were approved of by the king, who directed the French merchants to repay the Venetians the sum they had advanced. The sacred relic was then delivered into the hands of the French envoys, who, after assuring themselves that the seals were intact, started homewards with their treasure on the road to France. No sooner had the king heard of the arrival of the holy crown at Troyes, in Champagne, than he immediately set out, with the queen-mother, Blanche of Castile, the princes his brothers, and several of the chief prelates and nobles, to receive and accompany it to the capital. The meeting took place at Villeneuve l’Archevêque, five leagues from Sens, on the 10th of August, 1239. The seals were then broken, and in the midst of an indescribable emotion the sacred relic was displayed.

The king and his brother, the Comte d’Artois, both barefooted and wearing a simple tunic of wool, Pg 61 taking it upon their shoulders, bore it in great pomp to the metropolitan church of Sens, where it remained exposed for the veneration of the faithful until the following day, when the march towards Paris was resumed, and they reached the capital in eight days’ time. A platform had been raised at St. Antoine des Champs, where the crown was placed; and when everyone had contemplated it with an inexpressible joy, the king and his brother, taking it, as before, upon their shoulders, carried it in procession to the palace chapel, at that time dedicated to St. Nicholas, where it was deposited.

Besides all the precautions taken to render any substitution impossible, we may add that Baldwin, on being required to examine and identify the relic, declared its authenticity in a document written on parchment, which was in existence until the Revolution of 1793, signed with his own hand in Greek characters, traced in cinnabar, and having his own seal, of lead covered with gold, affixed. On one side of this seal the emperor was represented enthroned, with the inscription: “Balduinus Imperator Romaniæ semper Augustus.” On the other he was on horseback, with the inscription in Greek letters: “Baudoin, Empereur, Comte de Flandre.” It must also be borne in mind that the Venetians, before lending so considerable a sum for such a pledge, would be certain to satisfy themselves beyond all doubt as to its authenticity, and that, even had he been so minded, Baldwin could not in this matter have imposed upon the credulity of St. Louis, as some modern writers have asserted, but that he did really receive that which the whole Christian world regarded as the crown of thorns of our Lord

In the first place, it is certain that a century and a half before the reign of St. Louis, at the time of the First Crusade, all the world admitted that a very large portion of the crown was preserved at Constantinople, in the chapel of the Greek emperors. When Alexis Comnenus wished to induce the Christian princes to go to his assistance, he spoke to them of the very precious relics which they would help to save, amongst which he especially designated the crown of thorns.

Also, in the time of Charlemagne, all the West had the certainty that Constantinople possessed this treasure, of which a considerable part was equally known to be at Jerusalem. Towards the year 800, according to Aimoin, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had detached some of the thorns, which he sent to Charlemagne, who deposited them at Aix-la-Chapelle with one of the nails of the true cross, and it was these relics which were afterwards given by Charles le Chauve to the Abbey of St. Denis.

The existence of the crown is a fact constantly alluded to in the sixth century, by St. Gregory of Tours amongst others; and about the year 409 St. Paulinus of Nola knew of its preservation. He writes: “The thorns with which the Saviour was crowned, and the other relics of his Passion, recall to us the living remembrance of his presence.”

Pg 62 No written testimonies of an earlier date remain, but these appear to be fully sufficient, as they are the expression of an oral tradition well known to every one. As for the idea that such a relic as this could have been invented in those ages of conscience and of faith, it is wholly inadmissible.

The crown was not found with the cross and nails on Mount Calvary, nor is it probable that it was there buried with them, but that, when Joseph of Arimathea took down the body of Jesus from the cross, he would have preserved it apart. That no mention of this remains to us is easily accounted for by the silence and the exceeding precautions necessary so long as the persecutions by Jews and pagans continued. During this time the relics of the Passion which had been in the custody of the Blessed Virgin, or by her entrusted to others, could not, for reasons of safety, have been distributed to the various churches, but were honorably preserved in private dwellings, to be brought forth and publicly acknowledged when peace was granted to the church by the conversion of Constantine. Then it was that St. Helena sought with pious eagerness for every memorial that could be found of the Crucifixion, and distributed them chiefly among the churches of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Rome.[5]

An apparent difficulty still remains, which obliges us to inquire into the nature and form of the sacred crown, with respect to which ancient authors differ from one another, some asserting that it was formed of reed (juncus palustris), Rhamnus, several species of which, especially the Zizyphus Spina Christi, or the thorn of Christ, are furnished with exceedingly long, hard, and sharply-pointed thorns, exactly similar to those venerated in several churches, but bearing no resemblance whatever to the holy crown at Paris, which is, in fact, of reed.

How is this diversity to be accounted for? Thanks to the learned researches of M. Rohault de Fleury,[6] it is fully explained. The crown at Paris is a circle formed of small reeds bound together, and from which only a small number of particles have been taken. The opening is large enough to encircle the head and to fall rather low over the brow. But this circle is only the support or foundation, so to speak, of the painful crown of our Lord. The branches of those thorns of which we have been speaking were twined alternately within and without, and twisted across in such a manner as to form of these sharp spines not only a circlet but a cap, as it were, of torture, which covered the Redeemer’s head.

The year 1241 added new treasures to those already acquired by St. Louis. These were also from Constantinople, and sent as expressions of the homage paid by the Emperor Baldwin to the “Most Christian King.” These relics were accompanied by a parchment document to establish their authenticity, and which especially designated three remarkable portions of the true cross: the first and largest, Crucem Sanctam; the second, Magnam Pg 63 partem Crucis; and the third, which was smaller, and known as the Cross of Victory, because it had been borne before the armies of Constantine and his successors, Aliam crucem mediocrem quam Crucem Triumphalem veteres appellabant. With these was sent also the point of the lance which had pierced our Saviour’s side, and which, from the beginning of the seventh century, had been kept in the chapel of the Martyrion, raised by Constantine on Mount Calvary over the very place of the Crucifixion. Heraclius, fearing lest the lance should fall into the hands of the Persians, sent it to Constantinople, from which the greater part of it was later taken to Antioch, where the Crusaders found it in 1097, but the point had been retained in the former city, and was sent from thence to Paris.

It was also in the palace of the Bucoleon at Byzantium that were for a long period preserved a portion of the purple robe, the reed, and the sponge of the Passion. Baldwin I., by means of certain concessions made to the other crusading princes, obtained that the chapel in this palace should remain undisturbed, and thus secured for himself the greater part of its treasures, which were so largely drawn upon by his successor for the benefit of St. Louis and of France.

On their arrival the king immediately prepared to erect an edifice that should be as worthy as possible to receive relics so precious; nor were there wanting at that time great artists well able to furnish the design. The middle of the thirteenth century was perhaps the best and purest period of religious architecture. Churches and cathedrals then arose the majesty of whose beauty has never been surpassed or even equalled. St. Nicholas, which was old and ruinous, another which should be not so much a church as a delicate reliquary in stone, with open-worked carving like a filigree of gold, paved with enamel, and lighted by windows filled with richly-colored glass.

The artist was no less ready to enter into the ideas of the king than he was competent to realize them. A plan, wonderful in the beauty of its proportions and the gracefulness of its design, was soon ready and submitted to the monarch’s approval, who found it so excellent that his one desire was to see it carried out as expeditiously as possible.

The legendary spirit of the middle ages, which did not easily allow that a too perfect work could be the result of a man’s own thought and labor, has, as usual, embroidered facts with fancies, and attributed the conception of so exquisite a design to supernatural and magical means. It is not difficult to understand that the simple imagination of the people may have had some scope in the colossal construction of the ancient cathedrals, which required centuries for their completion, and which often left no name of the master who conceived the design or of those who executed it; but the Sainte Chapelle was not to have such dimensions as to require time and labor either very great or prolonged, and, moreover, he who cut this jewel would engrave on it his name.[7]

Pg 64 It is evident that the chief intention of the architect was to give to his work as spiritual a character as it is possible to impress upon matter, and to translate into stone the sursum corda of religious aspiration.

The first stone was laid by the king in the year 1245. The proportions of the plan are considered perfect by competent judges. It forms a lengthened parallelogram, terminated at the east end by an apse, and formed of two chapels, one above the other, without aisles or transepts. The edifice measures outside 36 metres 33 centimetres in length, by 17 in width; the exterior elevation from the ground of the lower chapel to the front gable is 42m. 50cm.; the spire[8] rises 33m. 25cm. above the roof. The interior elevation measures 6m. 60cm. in the lower chapel, and from 20m. to 50m. in the upper. The king’s desire for the speedy completion of the building was so great that, notwithstanding the conscientious care bestowed upon every detail, the work went on with such rapidity that in three years the whole was finished, and the fairy-like beauty of the edifice excited the most enthusiastic admiration, tempered, however, by serious apprehensions as to the stability of the fabric—apprehensions which raised a tempest of reproaches against the daring architect. Pierre de Montereau was himself for a time dismayed at the possible consequences of his boldness. How could he be certain that a church so slight, so delicate, and, in comparison with its area, so lofty, would

Sebastien Rouillard declares that scarcely was the Sainte Chapelle erected when it was seen to oscillate in the wind, and the spire to sway to and fro in the air when its bells were rung. Thus, Quasimodo or “Low” Sunday of the year of grace 1248, on which the church was consecrated, far from being a festival or triumph for the hapless architect, was to him a day of anguish. So effectually had he hidden himself that, though everywhere sought for, he could nowhere be found; and, to quote the words of Paul de St. Victor, “The very workmen had all fled, fearing that they might be taught the laws of equilibrium from the top of a gibbet. But time has proved that the seeming rashness of the mediæval master was well reasoned, and that this fair flower of his planting has the roots of an oak.”

The proportions had been so carefully drawn, and the laws of mathematics so exactly observed, the materials so well chosen and shaped with such precision, that the aerial structure could not fail to consolidate itself in settling firmly upon its foundation. “One cannot conceive,” writes M. Viollet-le-Duc, “how a work so wonderful in the multiplicity and variety of its details, its purity of execution, its richness of ornamentation, could have been executed in so short a time. From the base to the roof-ridge it is built entirely of hard freestone, every layer of which, cramped together by iron hooks run into the lead, is cut and placed with perfect exactness; the composition and carving of the sculpture likewise give evidence of the utmost care. Nowhere can one Pg 65 find the least indication of negligence or hurry!”[9]

Nor was it the Sainte Chapelle alone that was completed by the end of these three years, but also the beautiful sacristy adjoining, which was in itself a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, with a touch of peculiar refinement about it suggestive of some influence from the East.

The upper and lower chapels corresponded with the two divisions of the palace. The lower one, which is less a crypt than a splendid church, with its sparkling windows, its paintings, its slender pillars with sculptured capitals, was destined for the officers and domestics of the royal household. Over the principal door was placed the image of the Blessed Virgin, which, according to a graceful legend, bent its head to Duns Scotus, in sign of thanks to that learned theologian, who had defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and which ever afterwards retained this attitude. The upper chapel was reserved for the king and court, and the cell which was the oratory of St. Louis, may still be seen adjacent to the southern wall.

This church was his especial delight. He had it solemnly consecrated by two illustrious prelates on the same day; the lower chapel to the Blessed Virgin, by Philippe de Berruyer, Archbishop of Bourges, and the upper dedicated to our Lord’s Crown of Thorns, by Eudes de Châteauroux, Bishop of Tusculum and legate of the Holy See. The sacred treasures which the king had received from Constantinople were placed in reliquaries of marvellous richness, wrought in gold and enamel, adorned with La Grande Châsse, or “The Great Shrine,” which was in the form of an arch of bronze, gilt, and adorned with figures in the front. It was raised on a kind of Gothic pedestal behind the high altar, and closed with ten keys, each fitting a different lock, six of which secured the two exterior doors, and the four others an inner trellis-work or grating. The relics themselves were in frames or vases of gold and crystal. There the holy crown was placed, in the centre, between the largest portion of the true cross on the one side and the lance on the other. Thanks to the luxury of locks and to the six archers who every night kept guard within the Sainte Chapelle, its riches were safe from all possibility of robbery or fraud.

All these things could not be accomplished without enormous outlay. The cost of the Sainte Chapelle amounted to more than £800,000. The sums sent to the Emperor of Constantinople, and those spent upon the reliquaries, amounted to two millions; and when it was suggested to the king that this lavish expenditure, even upon holy things, was somewhat excessive, he replied: “Diex m’a donné tout ce que possède; ce que dépenserai pour lui et pour les nécessiteux sera tousiours le mieux placé.”[10]

He did not wait until the completion of the church before establishing there a college of seventeen ecclesiastics, amply endowed. The clergy of the Sainte Chapelle, in virtue of certain privileges and exemptions granted by Pope Innocent Pg 66 IV., were under the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See. The same pope, at the prayer of the king, enriched the relics with numerous indulgences, and at the same time granted to St. Louis and his successors the privilege of making the exposition of them every Shrove Tuesday. On this day, therefore, the court of the palace was filled, from the hour of seven in the morning, by the inhabitants of the twelve parishes of Paris, who there waited, as it was impossible for the chapel to contain the multitude. Then the king, taking the cross, elevated it, whilst the people sang Ecce Crux Domini; after which he exposed it before the central window of the apse in such a manner that through the open portal of the church the crowds could behold and venerate it from the court outside.

Those days were occasions of exceeding happiness to the saintly monarch, who, besides, took delight in everything connected with the sanctuary he had raised, whether in the pomp of its religious solemnities or in the solitude of the holy place. There he devoutly followed the divine Office, and there he was wont to pass long hours, alone, in prayer, kneeling in his oratory, or prostrate on the pavement near the altar. He had there created for himself something of that East towards which the thoughts and desires of his heart were ever turning, and around this glorified Calvary which he had raised to the honor of God he seemed to behold an ideal representation of the Holy Land. All the neighboring streets had taken the names of towns or villages of Palestine: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, etc. But the pious illusion did not satisfy a soul so in love with the cross as that of St. Louis; his knightly heart bounded at the story of the misfortunes in the East, and on the 25th of May, 1270, he again enrolled himself among the Crusaders; his sons and barons did the same. He first directed his operations against Tunis in Africa, but before he reached that place he died near it, in August, 1270.

Great was the mourning in France when tidings came of the death of the king. The Sainte Chapelle seemed plunged, as it were, into widowhood, and the poet Rutebeuf, in his Regrets au Roy Loeys, has not forgotten the desolation which seemed to be shed over it:

A day of joy and renewed life, as it were, was, however, in store for the royal sanctuary, when the departed monarch received within its precincts the first homage of the Christian world as one of the glorious company whom the church had raised to her altars. Pope Benedict VIII., in accordance with the ardent prayers of the whole of France, had, in his bull of the 11th of August, 1297, declared the sanctity of Louis IX. The following year Philip le Bel convoked in the abbey church of St. Denis all the prelates, abbots, princes, and barons of the realm; the body of St. Louis was placed in a châsse or coffer of silver, and borne by the Archbishops of Rheims and Lyons to the Sainte Chapelle, where immense multitudes were assembled Pg 67 to receive it, and where it remained three days exposed for the veneration of the faithful. Philip would fain have kept it there in future, but, fearing to violate the rights of the royal abbey of St. Denis, he restored it thither, excepting the head, which he caused to be enclosed in a bust of gold, and placed amongst the sacred treasures of the holy monarch’s favorite sanctuary.