Volume 22 — CHAPTER IX.

And now a new life began for Franceline.

“You must fly from idleness as from sin,” Father Henwick said; “you must never let a regret settle on your mind for an instant. It will often be hard work to resist them; but we are here to fight. You must shut the door in the face of idle thoughts by activity and usefulness. I will help you in this. You must set to work amongst the poor; not so as to fatigue yourself, or interfere with your duties and occupations at home, but enough to keep you busy and interested. At first it will be irksome enough, I dare say; but never mind that. By and by the effort will bring its own reward, and be a pleasure as well as a duty.”

He sat down and wrote out a time-table for her which filled up every hour of the day, and left not one moment for brooding. There were visits to the cottages and a class for children in the morning; the afternoon hours were to be devoted to helping her father, writing and copying for him, sometimes copying MSS. for Father Henwick, with no other purpose than to keep her mind and her fingers occupied.

But when the excitement caused by this change in her daily routine subsided, something of the first heart-sinking returned. Do what she would, thought would not be dumb. The external activity could not silence the busy tongues of her brain or deafen her to their ceaseless whisperings. It was weary work staggering on under her load, while memory tugged at her heart-strings and dragged its longings the other way. It was hard not to yield to the temptation now and then of sitting down by the wayside to rest and look back towards the Egypt that was for ever out of sight. But Franceline very seldom yielded to the treacherous allurement. When she caught herself lapsing into dreams, she would rise up with a resolute effort, and shake off the torpor, and set to work at something. When the torpor changed to a sting of anguish, she would steep her soul in prayer—that unfailing opiate of the suffering spirit, its chloroform in pain.

One day, about three weeks after Father Henwick’s return, she was coming home through the wood after her morning’s round amongst the cottages. She was very tired in mind and body. It was dull work dinning the multiplication-table into Bessy Bing’s thick skull, and teaching her unnimble fingers to turn the heel of a stocking; to listen to the widow’s endless lamentations over “the dear departed” and the good old times when they killed a pig every year, and always had a bit of bacon on the rack. Franceline came to the old spot where she used to sit and listen to the concert of the grove. The songsters were nearly all silent now, for the green was turning gold; but the felled tree was lying in the same place, and tempted her to rest a moment and watch the sun shooting his golden shafts through the wilderness of stems all round. Another moment, and she was in dreamland; but the spell had scarcely fallen on her when it was broken by the sound of footfalls crushing the yellow leaves that made a carpet on every path. She started to her feet, and walked on. A few steps brought her face to face with Father Henwick. He greeted her with a joyous exclamation.

“Here comes my little missionary! What has she been doing to-day?”

“She has achieved a great conquest; she has arrived at making Bessy Bing apprehend the problem that seven times nine and nine times seven produce one and the same total,” replied Franceline with mock gravity.

Father Henwick laughed; but the tired expression of her face did not escape him.

“I am afraid you will be growing too conceited if this sort of thing goes on,” he said. “But you must not overdo it, my dear child; it won’t do to wear yourself out in gaining arithmetical triumphs.”

“Better wear out than rust out.” And Franceline shrugged her shoulders; she had learned the expressive French trick from her father.

The priest bent his clear eyes on her for a second without speaking. She read, disappointment, and perhaps mild reproach, in them.

“I am sorry I said that, father; I did not mean to complain.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because it was cowardly and ungrateful.”

“To whom?”

“To you, who are so kind and so patient with me!”

“And who bids me be kind? Who teaches me to be patient with you?—poor little bruised lamb!”

“I know it, father; I feel it in the bottom of my heart; but one can’t always be remembering.” There was the slightest touch of impatience in her tone.

“How if God were some day to grow tired of remembering us, and bearing with us, and forgiving us?”

“I know. But I am not rebelling; only sickening and suffering. You have told me there was no sin in that?” The words came tremulous, as if through rising tears; but Franceline raised her head with a defiant movement, and forced the briny drops down. “I cannot help it!” she continued impetuously; “I have tried my best, and I cannot help it!”

Father Henwick heaved an almost inaudible sigh before he said: “What cannot you help, Franceline? Suffering?”

“No! I don’t care about that! Remembering I cannot forget.”

“My poor child! would to God I could help you! I would suffer willingly in your place!” The words came like a gush from his inmost heart. They broke down the sufferer’s proud resistance and let the tears have vent. He turned to walk back with her. For some time neither spoke; only the soft sobs that came unchecked from Franceline broke the temple-like stillness of the wood. Suddenly she cried out in a tone of passionate desperation: “O father! it is dreadful. It will kill me if it lasts much longer! The humiliation is more than I can bear! To feel that I am harboring a feeling that my whole soul rebels against, that is revolting in the eyes of God and of my conscience! And I cannot master it!”

“You will never master it by pride, Franceline; that very pride is your greatest hindrance in setting your heart free. Try and think more of God and less of yourself. There is no sin, as you say, in the suffering, any more than, if you strayed to the edge of a precipice in the dark, and fell over and were killed, you would be guilty of suicide. The sinfulness now is in your rebellion against the suffering simply because it wounds your pride.”

“It is not all pride, father,” she said meekly. Presently she turned and looked up at him through wet lashes. “Father, I must tell you something,” she said, speaking with a sort of timidity that was unusual with her towards him—“a thought that came to me this morning that never came to me before.…”

“What was it?”

“If his wife should die … he would be free?”

A dark shadow fell now on Father Henwick’s large, smooth brow. Franceline read his answer in the frown and the averted gaze; but he spoke soon, though he did not look at her.

“That was a sinful thought! You should have cast it behind you with contempt. Has it come to that with you, that you could look forward to the death of any one as a thing to be longed for?”

“I did not long for it. The thought came to me.”

“You should have hunted it out of your mind like an evil spirit, as it was. You must never let it near you again. He should be to you as if he were already dead. Whether his wife dies or not should not, and does not, concern you. Besides, how do you know whether she is not as young as yourself, and stronger? My child, such a thought as that would lead you to the brink of an abyss, if you listened to it.”

“I never will again, father,” she answered promptly. “I hardly know now whether I listened to it or not; only I could not help telling you.”

“You were right to tell me; and now banish it, and never let it approach you again.”

After a pause he resumed:

“You are sure that silence is best with M. de la Bourbonais?”

“Oh! yes. How can you ask me, father?” And Franceline looked up in surprise.

“Yet it cannot remain a secret from him for ever; he is almost certain to hear of it sooner or later, and it might save him a severe shock if he heard it from you. It would set his mind at rest about you?”

“It is quite at rest at present on that score. He has no idea that the discovery would be likely to affect me.”

“You are better able to judge of that, of course, than I am. But it grieves me to see you have a secret from your father; I wish it could be avoided.”

“But it cannot; indeed it cannot!” she repeated emphatically. “You may trust me to speak, if I thought it could be done without injury to both of us. It is much better to wait; perhaps by the time it comes to his ears I may be able to hear him speak of it without betraying myself and paining him.”

Father Henwick acquiesced, but reluctantly. He hoped she was right in supposing M. de la Bourbonais quite blind to what had been so palpable to a casual observer. But, making even the fullest allowance for the absent-minded habits of the studious man, this seemed scarcely probable. Franceline had affirmed it herself more confidently, perhaps, than was warranted. She had, however, succeeded in lulling her father into forgetfulness of his former conjectures and impressions; she was certain of this. It had been done at a terrible price of endurance and self-control; but she had succeeded, and it would be doubly cruel now to revive his suspicions and let him know the truth.

“I will trust you,” said Father Henwick; “it is indeed a mercy that he is not called upon to bear such a trial while he is yet so unprepared.”

There was an earnestness about him as he said this that would have caused Franceline a deeper emotion than curiosity if her mind were not fixed wide of the mark. She replied after a moment’s reflection: “If anything should occur to make it necessary to tell him, will you break it to him, father?”

“I will,” said the priest simply.

Franceline had not the least fear of Father Henwick. The severity of his passionless brow did not frighten her; it never checked the outflow of the thoughts and emotions that came surging up from her own perturbed heart. He seemed too far removed from strife himself to be affected by it, except as a pitying angel might, looking down from his calm heaven on poor mortals struggling and striving in the smoke and din of their earthly battle-field.

“Father,” said Franceline suddenly, “I wish I cared more for the poor! I wish I could love them and pity them as you do; but I don’t. I’m so shy of going amongst them. I’m sure I don’t do them any good, and they don’t do me any good, they’re so prosy and egotistical—most of them, at least.”

He turned an amused, indulgent smile on her.

“There was a time when I thought so too; but persevere, and the love will come after a little while. All that is worth having is bought with sacrifice. Oh! if we could only understand the blessedness of sacrifice! Then we should find the peace passing all understanding that comes of passion overcome, of sorrow generously accepted!”

He held out his hand to say good-by. Franceline laid hers in it; but did not remove it at once. “Father,” she said, with her eyes lifted in childlike fearlessness to his, “one would think, to hear you speak of passion overcome and sorrow accepted, that you knew something about them! I sometimes wish you did. It would make it easier to me to believe in the possibility of overcoming and accepting.”

A change came over Father Henwick’s face for one moment; it was not a cloud nor a tremor, but the shadow of some deep emotion that must pass away before he could answer. Then the words came with grave simplicity, and low, as if they were a prayer:

“Believe, then, my child, and take courage; I have gone through it all!”

He turned and walked back into the wood. Franceline stood looking after him through gathering tear-drops. Never had he seemed so far above her, so removed from human weakness, as at this moment, when he so humbly acknowledged kindred with it.

A pleasant surprise met Franceline on her return home. Sir Simon was at The Lilies, and loudly expressing his indignation at not finding her there to greet him. She arrived, however, before he had quite divested himself of a cargo of small boxes which he had carried down himself in order to have the delight of witnessing her curiosity and pleasure in their contents. There was hardly any event which could have given her so much pleasure in her present frame of mind as the sight of her kind old friend; and she satisfied him to the full by her affectionate welcome and her delight in all his presents. He had not forgotten her favorite friandise—chocolate bonbons—and she set to nibbling them at once, in spite of Angélique’s protest against such a proceeding close on dinner-time.

“Va, petite gourmande!” exclaimed the bonne, tramping off to her kitchen, in high glee to see Franceline’s gayety and innocent greediness over the dainty.

Sir Simon was, if possible, in brighter spirits than ever; like Job’s friends, he was “full of discourse,” so that there was nothing to do but listen and laugh as the current rippled on. He had a deal to tell about his rambles in the Pyrenees, and a whole budget of adventures to retail, and anecdotes about odd people he had come across in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Nothing checked the pleasant flow until M. de la Bourbonais had the unlucky inspiration to inquire for Lady Rebecca’s health; whereupon the baronet raised his right hand and let it fall again with an emphatic gesture, shook his head, and compressed his lips in ominous silence. Raymond, who held the key of the pantomime, gathered therefrom that Lady Rebecca had for the six-and-thirtieth time rallied from the jaws of death, and plunged her long-suffering heir once more into dejection and disappointment. He knew what was in store for his private ear, and heaved a sigh. “But the present hour shall be a respite,” Sir Simon seemed to say; and he quitted the subject abruptly, and proceeded to catechise Franceline on her behavior since his departure. He was surprised and annoyed to find that she had been to no parties; that nothing more exciting than that short visit to Rydal had come of his deep-laid scheme with the dowager; and that there had been no rivalry of gallant suitors attacking the citadel of The Lilies. He had been rather nervous before meeting her; for, though it had been made quite clear to him by Raymond’s letters that he had received no crushing blow of any description, Sir Simon had a lurking fear that recent events might have left a deeper shadow on his daughter’s existence than he was conscious of. Her aspect, however, set him at ease on this score. He could hardly have lighted on a more favorable moment for the confirmation of his sanguine hopes regarding Franceline’s heart-wholeness. True, she had been crying, only half an hour ago, bitter, burning tears enough; but her face retained no trace of them, and it still held the glow of inward triumph that Father Henwick’s last words had called up into her eyes, and her cheeks had got a faint color from the rapid walking. Sir Simon breathed freely as he took note of these outward signs; he could indulge in a little chaffing without remorse or arrière-pensée. He wanted to know, merely as a matter of curiosity, how many hearts she had broken in his absence—how many unfortunates had been mortally struck as they passed within reach of her arrows on the wayside. Franceline protested that she carried no quiver, and had not inflicted a scratch on any one. Humph! Sir Simon invited her to convey that answer to the marines.

“And how about Ponsonby Anwyll? Has he been here lately?”

“No; he called twice, but papa and I were out.”

“Poor devil! so much the better for him! But he won’t have the sense to keep out of harm’s way; he’ll be at it again before long.”

Franceline gave one of her merry laughs—she was in a mood to enjoy the absurdity of the joke—and went to take off her things; for Angélique put in her head to say that dinner was ready.

Things fell quickly into their old course at the Court. There was a procession of morning callers every day, and pleasant friendly dinners, and a few men down in relays to shoot. Sir Simon insisted on M. de la Bourbonais coming to join them frequently, and bringing Franceline; he had established a precedent, and he was not going to let it drop. Franceline, on the whole, was glad of the excitement; she was determined to use everything that could help her good resolutions; and the necessity for seeming to enjoy soon led to her doing so in reality. After the stillness of her little home-life, filled as it was with restless voices audible to no ear but hers, the gay stir of the Court was welcome. It was a pleasurable sensation, too, to feel herself the object of admiring attentions from a number of agreeable gentlemen, to be deferred to and made much of, as if she were a little queen amongst them all. Sir Simon was more indulgent than ever, and spoiled her to his heart’s content. Father Henwick, who was kept au courant of what was going on, could not find it in his heart to oppose what seemed to be an innocent diversion of her thoughts.

It was, therefore, anything but a welcome break when Lady Anwyll came down one morning, accompanied by Sir Simon, to announce her intention of carrying off her friend the next day to Rydal. Franceline fought off while she could, but Sir Simon pooh-poohed her excuses about not liking to leave her father, and so forth; he was there now to look after him, and she must go. So she went. Rydal had a dreadful association in her mind, and she shrank from going there as from revisiting the scene of some horrible tragedy. She shrank, too, from leaving her father. Of late they had been more bound up in their daily life than ever; she had coaxed him into accepting her services as an amanuensis, and he had quickly grown so used to them that he was sure to miss her greatly at his work.

There was nothing, moreover, in the inmates of Rydal to compensate her for the sacrifice; they were not the least interesting. It was always the same good-natured petting from Lady Anwyll, as if she were a kitten or a baby. She knew exactly what the conversation would be—gossip about local trifles, about the family, especially Ponce, his boots, his eccentricities, his pet dishes, his pranks in the regiment; the old tune played over and over again on the same string. As to Ponce himself, Franceline knew the big hussar already by heart; he would do his best to be entertaining, and would only be awkward and commonplace. Nothing at Rydal, in fact, rose above the dead-level of Dullerton.

The dowager had some few young people in for a carpet-dance, in which Franceline had to take her part, and did without any repugnance. Dancing brought back certain memories that pierced her like steel blades; but her heart was proof against the thrusts, and she defied them to wound her. Lord Roxham was invited, and showed himself cordial and friendly, but nothing more. He said he had been called away to London soon after they last met, or else he would have profited by M. de la Bourbonais’ permission to call at The Lilies; he hoped that the authorization might still hold good.

“Oh! yes; do come. I shall be so glad to see you,” was the frank and unaffected reply.

Lady Anwyll had meantime felt rather aggrieved at Lord Roxham’s behavior. Her little scheme had gone off so swimmingly at first she could not understand why it had suddenly collapsed in its prosperous course, and come to a dead halt. At any rate, she would give him one more chance. The young legislator seemed in no violent hurry to improve it. He danced a couple of times with Franceline, and once with two other young girls, and then subsided to dummy whist with the rector of Rydal and his wife, leaving Franceline to the combined fascinations of Mr. Charlton and Ponce, who usurped her between them. The latter bestowed such an unequal share of a host’s courtesy on the young French girl, indeed, that his mother felt it incumbent on her to explain to the other young ladies that Mlle. de la Bourbonais was a foreigner; therefore Ponce, being so good-natured, paid her particular attention. And he certainly did—not only on that occasion, but while she remained. He was continually hovering about her like a huge overshadowing bird whose wings were always in the way of its movements. He tripped over footstools in attempting to place them under her feet; but then he was always so thankful that it was himself, not her, he nearly upset! He spilt several cups of tea in handing them to her, and was nearly overcome with gratitude when he saw the carpet had got the contents, and that her pretty muslin frock was safe! He would hold an umbrella open over her because it looked so uncommonly like rain; and it was such a mercy to have only spoiled her bonnet and made a hole in her veil, when he might so easily have run the point into her eye. Ponce, like many wiser men, had endless satisfaction in the contemplation of the blunders he might have committed and did not. Yet, with all his boyish awkwardness, Franceline was growing very fond of him. He was so thoroughly kind-hearted, and so free from the taint of conceit; and then there was an undeniable enjoyment in the sense of being cared for, and thought of, and watched over; and it was all done in a naïve, boyish way, and with a brotherly absence of compliment or constraint that left her free to accept it without any sense of undue obligation, or the fear of being called upon to repay it except by being pleased and grateful. When he followed her into the conservatory with a shawl and wrapped it round her unceremoniously, she looked up at his fresh, honest face, and said, almost as if he had been a woman: “I wish I had you for a brother, Captain Anwyll!” He got very red, and was fumbling somewhere in his mind for an answer, when his mother called to him for the watering-pot; Ponce seized it, and, dashing out a sudden shower-bath upon the dowager’s dress, narrowly escaped drenching Franceline’s. But it did escape. What a lucky dog he was!

How pleasant it was riding home in the fresh afternoon! Lady Anwyll came in the carriage, while Franceline and Capt. Anwyll cantered on before. Nothing was likely to have happened at The Lilies during her absence; but as they drew near she grew impatient and rode at a pace, as if she expected wonderful tidings at the ride’s end. The air was so clear that Dullerton, yet a mile off, sent its hum of life towards the riders with sharp distinctness. The panting of the train, as it moved out of the station, sounded close by; every street cry and tinkling cart-bell rang out like a chime. Soon the soft cooing of the doves came wafted above the distant voice of the town; and when the travellers came within sight of The Lilies, the flock flew to greet Franceline, wheeling round high up in the air several times before alighting on her shoulders and outstretched wrist. Then came her father’s delighted exclamation, as he hurried down the little garden-walk, and Angélique’s affectionate embrace. And once more the small, still home-life, that was so sweet and so rich in a restored joy, recommenced. Franceline devoted hours every day now to working with her father, and soon she became almost as much absorbed in the work as he was. Sometimes, indeed, she hindered rather than helped, stopping him in the midst of his dictation to demand an explanation; but Raymond never chided her or grudged the delay. Her fresh young eyesight and diligent, nimble hand were invaluable to him, and he wondered how he had got on so long without them.

Lord Roxham redeemed his promise of calling at The Lilies. He talked a good deal to Raymond about politics and current events, saying very little to Franceline, who sat by, stitching away at some bit of plain sewing. This was just what she liked. Her father was entertained and interested. A breeze from the outer world always refreshed him, though he was hardly conscious of it, still less of needing any such reviving incident in his quiet, monotonous existence; but Franceline always hailed it with thankfulness for him, and was well content to remain in the shade now while the visitor devoted himself to amusing her father. Was it fancy, or did she, on glancing up suddenly from her needle-work, detect an expression, half compassionate, half searching, in Lord Roxham’s face, as he looked fixedly at her? Whether it was fancy or not, her eyes fell at once, and the blood mantled her cheek; she did not venture to let her gaze light on him again, and it was with a sense of shyness that she shook hands with him at parting.

Ponsonby Anwyll was now a frequent visitor at The Lilies, sometimes coming alone, sometimes with Sir Simon; and it was a curious coincidence, if quite accidental, that he generally made his appearance as Franceline was on the point of starting for her ride; and as he was always on horseback, there was no conceivable reason why he should not join the party. The burly hussar was a safer companion in the saddle than in the drawing-room; he rode with the masterly ease of a cavalryman, and, the road being free from the disturbing influence of tea-trays and chairs, he spilt nothing and upset nobody, and Franceline was always glad of his company. She was too inexperienced and too much absorbed in other thoughts to forecast any possible results from this state of things. Ponsonby continued the same familiar, kind, brother-like manner to her; was mightily concerned in keeping her out of the bad bits of road, and out of the way of the cattle that might be tramping to market and prove offensive to her mettlesome pony. He never aimed at making himself agreeable, only useful. But the eyes of Dullerton looked on at all this brotherly attention, and drew its own conclusion. The Langrove young ladies, of whom somehow she had of late seen less than ever, grew excited to the highest pitch about it, and were already discussing how many of them would be bridemaids at the wedding, if bridemaids there were. Most likely Sir Simon would settle that and probably give the dresses. Even discreet Miss Merrywig could not forbear shaking her finger and her barrel curls at Franceline one day when the latter hurried off to get ready for her ride, with the excuse that Sir Simon and Capt. Anwyll were due at three o’clock. But Franceline knew by this time what Dullerton was, and what it could achieve in the way of gossip; spinning a yarn a mile long out of a thread the length of your finger. She only laughed, and mentally remarked how little people knew. They would be marrying her to Sir Simon next, when Ponsonby rejoined his regiment and was seen no more at her saddle-bow.

The three had set out for a ride one afternoon, when, as they were dashing along at full tilt, Sir Simon pulled up with a strong formula of exclamation.

“What’s the matter?” cried Sir Ponsonby, plunging back heavily, while Franceline reined in Rosebud, and turned in some alarm to see what had occurred.

“If I have not actually forgotten all about Simpson, who comes down from London by appointment this afternoon! I dare say he’s waiting for me by this, and he must return by the 5:20. I must leave you, and post home as quick as Nero will carry me.” And with a “by-by” to Franceline and a nod to Capt. Anwyll, coupled with an injunction not to let her ride too fast and to keep her out of mischief, the baronet turned his horse’s head and galloped away, desiring the groom to follow on with the others.

They went on at a good pace until they reached the foot of a gentle ascent, when both of one accord fell into a walk. For the first time in their intercourse Franceline was conscious of a certain vague awkwardness with Capt. Anwyll; of casting about for something to say, and not finding anything. The place was perfectly solitary, the woods on one side, the fields sloping down to the river on the other. The groom lagged respectfully a long way behind, quite out of ear-shot, often out of sight; for the road curved and wheeled abruptly every now and then, and hid the foremost riders from his view. Ponsonby broke the silence:

“Miss Franceline”—he would call her Miss Franceline, because it was easier and shorter—“I have something on my mind that I want badly to say to you. I’ve been wanting to say it for some time. I hope it won’t make you angry?”

“I can’t say till I hear it; but if you are in doubt about it, perhaps it would be safer not to say it,” remarked Franceline, beginning to tremble ominously.

“I wouldn’t vex you for anything in the world! ’Pon my honor I wouldn’t!” protested Ponce warmly. “But, you see, I don’t know whether what I’m going to say will vex you or not.”

“Then don’t say it; you are sure not to vex me then,” was the encouraging advice, and she devoutly hoped he would take it. But he was not so minded.

“That’s true,” he assented; “but then, you see, it might please you. I’m half afraid it won’t, though, only I can’t be sure till I try.” After musing a moment, in obvious perplexity, he resumed, speaking rapidly, as if he had made up his mind to bolt it all out and take the consequences. “I’m not a puppy—my worst enemy won’t accuse me of that; but I’m not a bad fellow either, as my mother and all the fellows in the Tenth will tell you; and the fact is, I’ve grown very fond of you, Miss Franceline, and if you’ll take me as I am I’ll do my best to be a good husband to you and to make you happy.”

He said it quickly, as if he were reciting a lesson got by heart, and then came to a dead halt and “paused for a reply.” He might have paused long enough, if he had not at last turned round and read his fate in Franceline’s scared, white face and undisguised agitation.

“Oh! now, don’t say no before you think it over!” entreated the young man. “I know you’re ten times too good for me; but, for that matter, you’re too good for the best fellow that ever lived. I said so myself to Sir Simon only this morning. But I do love you with all my heart, Franceline; and if only you could care for me ever so little to begin with, I’d be satisfied, and you’d make me the happiest man alive!”

Franceline had now recovered her self-possession, and was able to speak, though she still trembled.

“I am so sorry!” she exclaimed. “I never dreamed of this; indeed I did not! I dare say I have been very selfish, very thoughtless; but it was not wilful. I am very unhappy to have given you pain!”

“Oh! don’t say that. You’ll make me miserable if you say that!” pleaded Ponsonby. “Of course you never thought of it. It’s great impudence of me to think of it, I have so little to offer you! But if you don’t quite hate the sight of me, I’m sure I could make you a devoted husband, and love you better than many a cleverer fellow. I’ve been fond of you from the first, and so has my mother.”

“You are both very good to me; I am very, very grateful!” The tears rose to her eyes, and with a frank, impulsive movement she held out her hand to him. Ponsonby bent from the saddle and raised it to his lips, although it was gloved. If he had not been over-sanguine at heart and a trifle stupid, poor fellow, he would have felt that it was all over with him. The little hand lay with cold, sisterly kindness in his grasp, and Franceline looked at him with eyes that were too kind and pitying to promise anything more than sisterly pity and gratitude.

“I cannot, I cannot. You must never think of it any more. Do you not see that it is impossible? I am a Catholic!”

“Pshaw! as if that mattered a whit! I mean as if it need make any difference between us! I don’t mind it a pin—’pon my honor I don’t! I said so to the count. We’ve settled all that, in fact, and if he’s satisfied to trust me why will not you?”

“Then you have spoken to my father?”

“Oh! yes; that was the right thing, Sir Simon told me, as he was a Frenchman.”

“And what did he say to you?”

“He said that if you said yes, he was quite willing to give you to me. I wanted to come to settlements at once—I only wish I was ten times better off!—but he would not hear a word about that until I had consulted you. Only, he said he would be glad to receive me as his son; he did indeed, Franceline!” She was looking straight before her, her eyes dilated, her whole face aglow with some strong emotion that his words seemed to have stirred in her.

“You remember,” continued Ponsonby, “that you said to me once you would like to have me for a brother? Well, it will be nearly the same thing. You would get used to me as a husband after a while; you would, Franceline!”

“Never, never, never!” she repeated, not passionately, but with a calm emphasis that made Ponsonby’s heart die within him. He could not find a word to oppose to the strong, quiet protest.

“No, it is all a mistake,” said Franceline. “I don’t know who is to blame—I suppose I am. I should not have let you come so often; but you were so kind, and I have so few people to care for me; and when one is sad at heart, kindness is so welcome! But I should have thought of you; I have been selfish!”

“No, no, you have not been selfish at all; it’s all my doing and my fault,” affirmed the young man. “I wish I had held my tongue a little longer. My mother will come and see you to-morrow; she will explain it all, and how it sha’n’t make any trouble to you, my being a Protestant.”

“She must not come,” said Franceline with decision; “there is nothing to explain. I am sincerely grateful to her and to you; but I have only gratitude to give you. I hope with all my heart that you may soon forget me and any pain I am causing you, and that you may meet with a wife who will make you happier than I could have done.”

Ponsonby was silent for a few moments, and then he said, speaking with a certain hesitation and diffidence:

“I could be satisfied to wait and to go on hoping, if I were sure of one thing:… that you did not care for anybody else. Do you?”

She flashed a glance of indignant pride at him.

“What right have you to put such a question to me? I tell you I do not care for you, and that I will never marry you! You have no right to ask me any more.”

Ponsonby recoiled as if a flash of lightning had forked out of the cold, gray sky. “Good heavens! I did not mean to offend you. I declare solemnly I did not!”

But he had touched a vibrating chord unawares, and set every fibre in her heart thrilling and every pulse throbbing; and the disturbance was not to be laid by any words that he could utter. Franceline turned homewards, and they did not exchange a word until they reached The Lilies and Ponsonby was assisting her to alight.

“Say you forgive me!” he said, speaking very low and penitently.

She had already forgiven him but not herself.

“I do, and I am sorry for being so impetuous. Good-by!”

“And my mother may come and see you to-morrow?”

“No, no! It is no use; it is no use! I say again I wish you were my brother, Sir Ponsonby, but, as you care to remain my friend, never speak to me again of this.”

He pressed the hand she held out to him; the groom backed up to take the reins of her horse, and Ponsonby rode away with a thorn in his honest heart.

Miss Merrywig was within, chatting and laughing away with the count. Franceline was not in a mood to meet the garrulous old lady or anybody; so she went straight to her room, and only came down when the visitor was gone.

“Father,” she said, going up behind him and laying a hand on each shoulder, “what is this Sir Ponsonby tells me? That you are tired of your clair-de-lune, and want to get rid of her?”

M. de la Bourbonais drew down the two trembling hands, and clasped them on his breast, and lifted his head as if he would look at her.

“It would not be losing her, but gaining a son, who would take care of her when I am gone! She has not thought of that!”

“No; and she does not wish to think of it! I will live with you while I live. I don’t care to look beyond that; nor must you, petit père. But I am very sorry for Sir Ponsonby. You must write and tell him so, and that he must not come any more—until he has forgotten me; that you cannot give me up.”

“My cherished one! Let us talk about this matter; it is very serious. We must not do anything rashly.” He tried to unclasp her hands and draw her to his side; but she locked them tighter, and laid her cheek on his head.

“Petit père, there is nothing to talk about; I will never marry him or anybody!”

“My child, thou speakest without reflection. Captain Anwyll is a good, honorable man, and he loves thee, and it would be a great comfort to me to see thee married to him, and not to leave thee friendless and almost penniless whenever God calls me away. I understand it has taken thee by surprise, and that thou canst not accept the idea without some delay and getting used to it; but we must not decide so important a matter hastily. Come, sit down, and let us discuss it.”

“No, father,” she answered in a tone of determination that was quite foreign to her now, and reminded him of the wilful child of long ago; “there is no use in discussing what is already decided. I will never marry Ponsonby—or anybody. Why, petit père, do you forget that he is a Protestant?”

“Nay, I have forgotten nothing; that has been all arranged. He is most liberal about it; consents to leave you to … to have everything your own way in that respect, and assures me that it shall make no difference whatever to you, his not being of your religion.”

“No difference, father! No difference to a wife that her husband should be a heretic! You cannot be in earnest. What blessing could there be on such a marriage?”

“But you would soon convert him, my little one; you would make a good Catholic of him before the year was out,” said M. de la Bourbonais. “Think of that!”

“And suppose it were the other way, and that he made a good Protestant of me? It is no more than I should deserve for my presumption. You know what happens to those who seek the danger.…”

“Oh! that is a different thing; that warning applies to those who seek it rashly, from vain or selfish motives,” protested Raymond, moving his spectacles, as he always did instinctively when his argument was weak; and he knew right well that now it was slipping into sophistry.

“I cannot see anything but a selfish motive in marrying against the express prohibition of the church and without any affection for the person, but simply because he could give you a position and the good things of this life,” said Franceline.

“The prohibition is conditional,” persisted Raymond, “and those conditions would be scrupulously fulfilled; and as to there not being the necessary affection, there is enough on his side for both, and his love would soon beget thine.”

“Father, it is no use. I am grieved to contradict you; but I cannot, cannot do this to please you. You must write and say so to Capt. Anwyll; you must indeed.”

Raymond heaved a sigh. He felt as powerless as an infant before this new wilfulness of his clair-de-lune; it was foolish as well as imprudent to yield, but he did not know how to deal with it. There was honest truth on her side; no subterfuges could baffle the instinctive logic of her childlike faith.

“We will let things remain as they are for a few days, and then, if thou dost still insist, I will write and refuse the offer,” he said, seeking a last chance in temporizing.

“No, petit père; if you love me, write at once. It is only fair to Sir Ponsonby, and it will set my mind at rest. Here, let me find you a pen!” She chose one out of a number of inky goose-quills on the little Japan tray, and thrust it playfully between his fingers.

The letter was written, and Angélique was forthwith despatched with it to the pillar at the park gate.

During the remainder of the afternoon Franceline worked away diligently at the Causes of the French Revolution, and spent the evening reading aloud. But M. de la Bourbonais could not so lightly dismiss the day’s incident from his thoughts. He had experienced a moment of pure joy and unutterable thankfulness when Ponsonby had come in and stammered out his honest confession of love, and pleaded so humbly with the father to “take his part with Miss Franceline.” The pleasure was all the greater for being a complete surprise. Sir Simon had cautiously resolved to have no hand in negotiating between the parties; he had let things take their course from the first, determined not to interfere, but clearly foreseeing the issue. Raymond was bewildered by Franceline’s rejection of the proposed marriage. He did not try much to explain it to himself; it was a puzzle that did not come within the rule and compass of his philosophy—a young girl refusing to be married when an eligible husband presented himself for her father’s acceptance. He heaved many a deep sigh over it, as his anxious gaze rested on the golden-haired young head bent over the desk. But he did not ask any questions.

Sir Simon came down next morning in high displeasure. He was angry, disappointed, aggrieved. Here he had been at considerable pains of ingenuity and forethought to provide a model husband for Franceline, a young fellow whom any girl ought to jump at—high-principled, unencumbered rent-roll, good-looking, good-tempered—and the little minx turns up her nose at him, and sends him to the right-about! Such perverseness and folly were not to be tolerated. What did she mean by it? What did she see amiss in Anwyll? Sir Simon was for having her up for a round lecture. But Raymond would not allow this. He might groan in his inmost heart over Franceline’s refusal, but he was not going to let her be bullied by anybody; not even by Sir Simon. He stood up for his child, and defended her as if he had fully approved of her conduct.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Bourbonais, you’re just as great a fool as she is; only she is a child, and knows nothing of life, and can’t see the madness of what she is doing. But you ought to know better. I have no patience with you. When one thinks of what this marriage would do for both of you—lifting you out of penury, restoring your daughter to her proper position in the world, and securing her future, so that, if you were called away to-morrow, you need have no care or anxiety about her! And to think of your backing her up in rejecting it all!”

“I did not back her up in it. I deplore her having done so,” replied Raymond. “But I will not coerce her; her happiness is dearer to me than her interest or my own.”

“What tomfoolery! As if her interest and her happiness were not identical in this case! A man who is fond of her, and rich enough to give her everything in life a girl could wish for! What does she want besides?” demanded Sir Simon angrily.

“I believe she wants nothing, except to be left with her old father. She does not care for Capt. Anwyll,” said Raymond; but his French mind felt this was very weak argument.

“The devil she doesn’t! Who does she care for?” retorted the baronet. But he had no sooner uttered the words than he regretted them; they seemed to recoil on him like a stone flung too near. He seized his hat, and, muttering impatiently something about the nonsense of giving into childish fancies, etc., strode out of the cottage, and did not show himself there for several days.

He was pursued by that question of his own, “Who did Franceline care for?” and made uncomfortable by the persistency with which it kept dinning in his ears. He had made up his mind long ago that the failure of his first matrimonial plot had had no serious effect on her heart or spirits. She was looking very delicate when he came back, but that was the dulness of the life she had been leading during his absence. She had picked up considerably since then. It was plain to everybody she had; her spirits were better. There was certainly nothing wrong in that direction. How could there be when he, Sir Simon, so thoroughly desired the contrary, and did so much to cheer up the child—and himself into the bargain—and make her forget any impression that unlucky Clide might have made? Still, no matter how emphatically he answered it, the tiresome question kept sounding in his ears day after day. He could stand it no longer. He must go and see them at The Lilies—see Franceline, and read on her innocent young face that all was peace within, and cheer up his own depressed spirits by a talk with Raymond. Nobody listened to him and sympathized with him as Raymond did. He had no worries of his own to distract him, for one thing; and if he had, he was such a philosophical being he would carry them to the moon and leave them there. Sir Simon was blessed with no such happy faculty. He could forget his troubles for a while under the stimulating balm of cheerful society and generous wine; but as soon as he was alone they were down on him like an army of ants, stinging and goading him. Things were very gloomy just now, and he could less than ever dispense with the opiate of sympathetic companionship. Lady Rebecca had taken a fresh start, and was less likely to depart than she had been for the last ten years. The duns, who watched her ladyship’s fluctuations between life and death with almost as sincere and breathless an interest as her heir, had got wind of this, and were up and at him again, hunting him like a hare—the low, grasping, insolent hounds! His revived money annoyances made him the more irascible with Franceline for throwing away her chance of being for ever saved and protected from the like. But he would harp no more on that string.

He had been into Dullerton on horseback, and, overtaking the postman on his way home, he stopped to take his letters, and then asked if there were any for The Lilies. He was going there, and would save the postman the walk that far.

“Thank you, sir! There is one for the count.” And the man held up a large blue envelope, like a lawyer’s letter, which Sir Simon thrust into his pocket. He left his horse at the Court, and walked on through the park, reading his letters as he went. Their contents were not of the most agreeable, to judge by the peevish and angry ejaculations that the reader emitted in the course of their perusal. He had not done when he reached the cottage.

“Here’s a letter for you, Bourbonais; I’ll finish mine while you’re reading it.” He handed the blue envelope to his friend, and, flinging himself into a chair, became again absorbed and ejaculatory.

M. de la Bourbonais, meanwhile, proceeded to open his official-looking communication. He surveyed it with uplifted eyebrows, examined well the large red seal, and scrutinized the handwriting of the address, before he tore it open. His eye ran quickly over the page. A nervous twitch contracted his features; his hand shook as if a string at his elbow had been rudely pulled; but he controlled all further sign of emotion, and, after reading the contents twice over, silently folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. Sir Simon had seen nothing; he was deep in suppressed denunciations of some rascally dun.

“Hang me if I know what’s to be the end of it, or the end of me—an ounce of lead in my skull, most likely!” he burst out, ramming the bundle of offending documents into his coat-pocket. “The brutes are in league to drive me mad!”

“Has anything new happened?” inquired the count anxiously. “I hoped things had arranged themselves of late?”

“Not they! How can they when these vampires are sucking the blood of one? It’s pretty much like sucking a corpse!” he laughed sardonically. “The fools! If they would but have sense to see that it is their own interest not to drive me to desperation! But they will goad me to do something that will make an end of their chance of ever being paid!”

M. de la Bourbonais ought to have been hardened to this sort of thing; but he was not. The vague threats and dark innuendoes always alarmed him. He never knew but that each crisis which called them out might be the supreme one that would bring about their fulfilment. At such moments he had not the heart to rebuke Sir Simon and add the bitterness of self-reproach to his excited feelings. His look of keen distress struck Sir Simon with compunction.

“Oh! it will blow off, as it has done so often before, I suppose,” he said, tossing his head. “Here’s a letter from L—— to say he is coming down next week with a whole houseful of men to shoot. I’ve not seen L—— for an age. He’s a delightful fellow; he’ll cheer one up.” And the baronet heaved a sigh from the very depths of his afflicted spirit.

“Mon cher, is it wise to be asking down crowds of people in this way?” asked Raymond dubiously.

“I did not ask them! Don’t I tell you they have written to invite themselves?”

It was true; but Sir Simon forgot how often he had besought his friends to do just what they were now doing—to write and say when they could come, and to bring as many as they liked with them. That had always been the way at the Court; and he was not the man to belie its old traditions. But Raymond, who had also his class of noble traditions, could not see it.

“Why not write frankly, and, without explaining the precise motive, say that you cannot at present receive any one?”

Sir Simon gave an impatient pshaw!

“Nonsense, my dear Bourbonais, nonsense! As if a few fellows more or less signified that”—snapping his fingers—“at the end of the year! Besides, what the deuce is the good of having a place at all, if one can’t have one’s friends about one in it? Better shut up at once. It’s the only compensation a man has; the only thing that pulls him through. And then the pheasants are there, and must be shot. I can’t shoot them all. But it’s no use trying to make you take an Englishman’s view of the case. You simply can’t do it.”

M. de la Bourbonais agreed, and inwardly hoped he never might come to see the case as his friend did. But, notwithstanding this, Sir Simon went on discussing his own misfortunes, denouncing the rascality and rapacity of the modern tradesman, and bemoaning the good old times when the world was a fit place for a gentleman to live in. When he had sufficiently relieved his mind on the subject, and drew breath, M. de la Bourbonais poured what oil of comfort he could on his friend’s wounds. He spoke confidently of the ultimate demise of Lady Rebecca, and expressed equal trust in the powers of Mr. Simpson to perform once again the meteorological feat known to Sir Simon as “raising the wind.” Under the influence of these soothing abstractions the baronet cheered up, and before long Richard was himself again. He overhauled Raymond’s latest work; read aloud some notes on Mirabeau which Franceline had taken down at his dictation the previous evening, and worked himself into a frenzy of indignation at the historian’s partiality for that thundering demagogue. Raymond waxed warm in defence of his hero; maintained that at heart Mirabeau had wished to save the king; and almost lost his philosophical self-control when Sir Simon called him the master-knave of the Revolution, a traitor and a bully, and other hard names to the same effect.

“I wash my hands of you, if you are going to play panegyrist to that pock-marked ruffian!” was the baronet’s concluding remark; and he flung out his hands, as if he were shaking the contamination from his fingers. Suddenly his eye fell upon the great blue letter, and, abruptly dismissing Mirabeau, he said: “By the way, what a formidable document that is that I brought you just now! Has it anything to do with the Revolution?”

Raymond shook his head and smothered a rising sigh.

“It has been as good as a revolution to me, at any rate.”

“My dear Bourbonais, what is it? Nothing seriously amiss, I hope?” exclaimed Sir Simon, full of alarmed interest.

The count took up the letter and handed it to him.

“Good heavens! Bankrupt! Can pay nothing! How much had you in it?”

“Nearly two hundred—the savings of the last fourteen years,” replied M. de la Bourbonais calmly.

“My dear fellow, I’m heartily sorry!” exclaimed his friend in an accent of sincere distress; “with all my heart I’m sorry! And to think of you having read this and said nothing, and I raving away about my own troubles like a selfish dog as I am! Why did you not tell me at once?”

“What good would it have done?” Raymond shrugged his shoulders, and with another involuntary sigh threw the letter on the table. “It’s hard, though. I was so little prepared for it; the house bore such a good name.…”

“I should have said it was the safest bank in the country. So it was, very likely; only one did not reckon with the dishonesty of this scheming villain of a partner—if it be true that he is the cause of it.”

“No doubt it is; why should they tell lies about it? The whole affair will be in the papers one of these days, I suppose.”

“And you can stand there and not curse the villain!”

“What good would cursing him do? It would not bring back my poor scrapings.” Raymond laughed gently. “I dare say his own conscience will curse him before long—the unhappy man! But who knows what terrible temptation may have driven him to the deed? Perhaps he got into some difficulty that nothing else could extricate him from, and he may have had a wife and children pulling at his conscience by his heart-strings! Libera nos a malo, Domine!” And looking upwards, Raymond sighed again.

“What a strange being you are, Raymond!” exclaimed Sir Simon, eyeing him curiously. “Verily, I believe your philosophy is worth something after all.”

M. de la Bourbonais laughed outright. “Well, it’s worth nearly the money to have brought you to that!”

“To see you stand there coolly and philosophize about the motives that may possibly have led an unprincipled scoundrel to rob you of every penny you possessed! Many a man has got a fit from less.”

“Many a fool, perhaps; but it would be a poor sort of man that such a blow would send into a fit!” returned the count with mild contempt. “But I must not be forgetful of the difference of conditions,” he added quickly. “It all depends on what the money is worth to one, and what its loss involves. I don’t want it at present. It was a little hoard for the rainy day; and—qui sait?—the rainy day may never come!”

“No; Franceline may marry a rich man,” suggested the baronet, not with any intent to wound.

“Just so! I may never want the money, and so never be the poorer for losing it.”

“And supposing there was at this moment some pressing necessity for it—that your child was in absolute need of it for some reason or other—what then?” queried Sir Simon.

Raymond winced and started imperceptibly, as if a pain went through him.

“Thank heaven there is no necessity to answer that,” he said. “We were taught to pray to be delivered from temptation; let us be thankful when we are, and not set imaginary traps for ourselves.”

“Some men are, I believe, born proof against temptation; I should say you are one of them, Bourbonais,” said his friend, looking steadily at him.

“You are mistaken,” replied Raymond quietly. “I don’t know whether any human being may be born with that sort of fire-proof covering; but I know for certain that I was not.”

“Can you, then, conceive yourself under a pressure of temptation so strong as that your principles, your conscience, would give way? Can you imagine yourself telling a deliberate lie, for instance, or doing a deliberate wrong to some one, in order to save yourself—or, better, your child—from some grievous harm?”

Raymond thought for a moment, as if he were poising a balance in his mind before he answered; then he said, speaking with slow emphasis, as if every word was being weighed in the scales: “Yes, I can fancy myself giving way, if, at such a crisis as you describe, I were left to myself, with only my own strength to lean on; but I hope I should not be left to it. I hope I should ask to be delivered from it.”

The humility of the avowal went further to deepen Sir Simon’s faith in his friend’s integrity and in the strength of his principles than the boldest self-assertion could have done. It informed him, too, of the existence of a certain ingredient in Raymond’s philosophy which the careless and light-hearted man of the world had not till then suspected.

“One thing I know,” he said, taking up his hat, and extending a hand to M. de la Bourbonais: “if your conscience were ever to play you false, it would make an end of my faith in all mankind—and in something more.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE SYLLABUS. DOCTRINAL AUTHORITY OF THE SYLLABUS. FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES, ETC.

We enter on a work whose practical usefulness no one, we suspect, will dispute, since it concerns perhaps the most memorable act of the reign of Pius IX.—the Syllabus. There has been a great deal of discussion about the Syllabus—much has been written on it in the way both of attack and defence—but it is remarkable that it has scarcely been studied at all. The remark was made by one of the editors of this review, Father Marquigny, in the General Congress of Catholic Committees at Paris; and, so true was it felt to be, that it provoked the approving laughter of the whole assembly. But to pass by those who busy themselves about this document without having read it, how many are there, even among Catholics, who, after having read it, have only the most vague and confused notions about it—how many who, if they were asked, “What does the Syllabus teach you; what does it make obligatory on you?” would not know what to answer! Thus is man constituted. He skims willingly over the surface of things; but he has no fancy for stopping awhile and digging underneath. If he is pleased with looking at a great many things, he does not equally concern himself to gain knowledge; because there is no true science without labor, and labor is troublesome. Yet nothing could be more desirable for him than to come by this luminous entrance from the knowledge to the possession of truth. Christian faith, when it is living and active, necessarily experiences the desire of it; for, according to the beautiful saying of S. Anselm, it is, by its very nature, a seeker of science—of knowing: Fides quærens intellectum.

But, not to delay ourselves by these considerations, is it possible to exaggerate the importance of the study of the Syllabus in the critical circumstances in which we are placed? The uncertainty of the future; the impossibility of discovering a satisfactory course in the midst of the shadows which surround us; the need of knowing what to seize a firm hold of in the formidable problems whose obscurity agitates, in these days, the strongest minds; above all, the furious assaults of the enemies of the church, and the authority belonging to a solemn admonition coming to us from the chair of truth—all these things teach us plainly enough how culpable it must be for us to remain indifferent and to neglect the illumination offered to us. The teachings of the Vicar of Jesus Christ deserve to be meditated on at leisure. It is this which inspires us with a hope that our work will be favorably received. Truth, moreover, claims the services of all, even of the feeblest, and we must not desert her cause for fear our ability may not suffice for her defence.

Certainly, no one will expect us, here, to give an analytical exposition of the eighty propositions condemned by Pius IX. Several numbers of the Etudes would scarcely suffice for that. General questions dominate all others; it is to the careful solution of these that we shall devote ourselves. They have always appeared to us to need clear and decisive explanation. Often they are incorrectly proposed, oftener still they are ill-defined. The object of our efforts will be to point out with precision the limits within which they must be restrained, the sense in which they must be accepted, and their necessary import; then, to give them, as clearly as we are able, a solution the most sure and the most conformable to first principles. If it should be objected that in this we are entering on a wide theological field, we shall not deny it. Proudhon, who desired anarchy in things, in principles—everywhere, in fact, except in reasoning—averred that rigorous syllogism lands us inevitably at theology. How, then, would it be possible not to find it in the Syllabus? They, on the other hand, who are unceasing in their violent attacks on this pontifical act, are they not the first to provoke theological discussions? We are compelled to take their ground. As Mgr. Dupanloup judiciously observed, in his pamphlet on the Encyclical of the 8th December: “It is needful to recur to first principles in a time when thousands of men, and of women even, in France talk theology from morning to night without knowing much about it.”

The first and fundamental question to be determined is: What is the precise weight to be ascribed to the Syllabus, or, rather, what is its doctrinal authority? On the manner in which we reply to this depends the solution of numerous practical difficulties which interest consciences, and which have more than once been the subject of the polemic of the journals themselves. For example, are the decisions of the Syllabus unchangeable; is it not possible that they should be modified some day; is it certain they will never be withdrawn; are Catholics obliged to accept them as an absolute rule of their beliefs, or may they content themselves with doing nothing exteriorly in opposition to them? It is understood, in fact, that if we are in presence of an act wherein the successor of S. Peter exercises his sovereign and infallible authority, the doctrine is irrevocably, eternally, fixed without possible recall; and, by an inevitable corollary, the most complete submission, not of the heart only, but also of the intelligence, becomes an obligation binding on the conscience of the Catholic which admits of no reserve or subterfuge. If, on the contrary, the step taken by the Pope is merely an act of good administration or discipline, the door remains open for hopes of future changes, the constraint imposed on the minds of men in the interior forum is much less rigorous; a caviller would remain in Catholic unity provided that, with the respectful silence so dear to the Jansenists, he should also practise proper obedience. Now, the question, in the terms in which we have stated it, although treated of at various times by writers of merit, has not always been handled in a complete manner. Writers have been too often contented with generalities, with approaching only the question, and nothing has been precisely determined.

Some have asserted, with much energy, the necessity of this submission, but they have not sufficiently defined its extent and nature. Others have dwelt upon the deference and profound respect with which every word of the Holy Father should be received, but, not having given any further explanation, they have left us without the necessary means for ascertaining what precisely they intended. Others have ventured to insinuate that the Syllabus was perhaps merely an admonition, a paternal advice benevolently given to some rash children, to which such as are docile are happy to conform, without feeling themselves under the absolute necessity of adopting it. Others, more adventurous still, have been unwilling to see more in it than a mere piece of information, an indication. According to these, Pius IX., wishing to notify to all the bishops of Christendom his principal authoritative acts since the commencement of his pontificate, had caused a list of them to be drawn out, and to be forwarded to them. The Syllabus was this illustrious catalogue, neither more nor less.

Is there any excuse to be found for this indecision on one hand, presumption on the other? We do not think so; but they do, we must confess, admit of a plausible explanation. And here, let it be observed, we come to the very marrow of the difficulty. The Syllabus was drawn out in an unusual form. It resembles no pontifical documents hitherto published. When, in other times, the sovereign pontiffs wished to stigmatize erroneous propositions, they did not content themselves with reproducing the terms of them, in order to mark them out for the reprobation of the people. They were always careful to explain the motives of the judgment they delivered, and above all to formulate with clearness and precision the judgment itself. Invariably, the texts they singled out for condemnation were preceded by grave and weighty words, wherein were explained the reasons for and the nature of the condemnation. In the Syllabus, there is nothing of the kind. The propositions, stated without commentary, are classified and distributed under general titles; at the end of each of them we read the indication of the Encyclical Letter, or pontifical Allocution, in which it had been previously rebuked. For the rest, there is no preamble, no conclusion, no discourse revealing the mind or intention of the pontiff, unless it be the following words, inscribed at the head of the document, and which we here give both in the Latin and in English: Syllabus complectens præcipuos nostræ ætatis errores, qui notantur in Allocutionibus consistorialibus, in Encyclicis, aliisque Apostolicis Litteris sanctissimi Domini Papæ Pii IX.—Table, or synopsis, containing the principal errors of our epoch, noted in the consistorial Allocutions, the Encyclicals, and other Apostolic Letters of our most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX.

We may add, that nowhere does the Pope formally express an intention of connecting the Syllabus with the bull Quanta cura, although he issued them both on the same day, at the same hour, under the same circumstances, and upon the same subjects. He left it to the public common sense and to the faith of Christians to decide whether these two acts are to be taken together, or whether they are to be considered as isolated acts having no common tie between them.

Such are the facts. Minds, either troubled or prejudiced, or, may be, too astute, have drawn from them consequences which, if we lay aside accessory details of not much importance here, we may reduce to two principal ones.

It has been stated—and they who hold this language form, as it were, the extreme group of opposers—that the Apostolic Letters mentioned in the Syllabus are the only documents which have authoritative force; that the latter, on the contrary, has no proper weight of its own—absolutely none, whether as a dogmatic definition, or as a disciplinary measure, or even as a moral and intellectual direction. To these assertions, not a little hazardous, have been added others whose rashness would fain be hidden under the veil of rhetorical artifices. We will lift the veil, and expose the naked assertions. The meaning of the Syllabus, it is stated, must not be looked for in the Syllabus, but in the pontifical letters whence it is drawn. The study of the letters may be useful; not only is that of the Syllabus not so, but it is dangerous, because it often leads to lamentable exaggerations. To know the true doctrines of Rome, we must search the letters for them, not the Syllabus. In fact, to sum up all in a few words, as a condemnation of error and a manifestation of truth, the letters are all, the Syllabus nothing.

The other group, which we may describe as the moderates, knows how to guard itself against excess. It does not diminish the authority of the Syllabus to the extent of annihilation. Very far from it—it recognizes it and proclaims it aloud; but, struck with the peculiar form given to the act, it asserts that it is impossible to discover in it the marks of a dogmatic definition, and, to borrow a stock expression, of a definition ex cathedra. The Syllabus, it is said, is undoubtedly something by itself—to deny it would be ridiculous and absurd. It has a weight of its own; who would venture to dispute it? It may be termed, if you please, an universal law of the church, so only that its pretensions be not carried further, and that it does not claim to be considered an infallible decision of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

What, then, have we to do but to demonstrate that the Syllabus is by itself, and independently of the pontifical acts which supply the matter of it, a veritable teaching; that this teaching obliges consciences because it issues from the infallible authority of the head of the church? We shall not have omitted, it seems to us, any of the considerations calculated to throw light on this important subject if, after having thus followed it through all its windings and discussed all its difficulties, we succeed in illustrating the triple character of the pontifical act—its doctrinal character, its obligatory character, and its character of infallibility.

To assert that Pius IX., when he denounced with so much firmness to the Christian world the errors of our time, did not propose to teach us anything, that he had no intention of instructing us, was, even at the time of the appearance of the Syllabus, to advance a sufficiently hardy paradox; but to state it, to maintain it, at this time of day, when we are the fortunate witnesses of the effects produced by that immortal act, is to speak against evidence. Undoubtedly—we stated it at the commencement—the Syllabus is not sufficiently known nor sufficiently studied. Little known as it may be, however, it cannot be denied that it has already set right many ideas, and corrected and enlightened many minds. Thanks to it, not learned men only and those who are close observers of events, but Catholics generally, perceive more clearly the dangers with which certain doctrines threaten their faith. They have been warned, they keep themselves on their guard, they see more distinctly the course they must follow and the shoals they must avoid. Pius IX. has lighted a torch and placed it in their hands.

That being the case, what is the use of playing with words, as if vain subtleties could destroy the striking evidence of this fact? Let them say, as often as they please, “The Syllabus is only a list, a catalogue, a table of contents, a memorial of previously condemned propositions”—what good will they have done? What matter these denominations, more or less disrespectful, if it be otherwise demonstrated that this list, catalogue, or table of contents explains to us exactly what we must believe or reject, and is imposed upon us as a rule to which we owe subjection. The imprudent persons who speak thus would seem never to have studied the monuments of our beliefs. Had they considered their nature more attentively, would they have allowed themselves to indulge in such intemperance of language? If they would more closely examine them, their illusions would soon be dissipated. Are not all the series of propositions condemned by the Popes, veritable lists? Did not Martin V. and the Council of Constance, Leo X. and S. Pius V., when they smote with their anathemas the errors of Wycliffe, John Huss, Luther, Baïus, draw out catalogues? Are not the canons of our councils tables in which are inscribed an abridgment, summary, or epitome of the impious doctrines of heretics? Is not every solemn definition, every symbol of the faith, a memorial designed to remind the Christian what he is obliged to believe? It is, then, useless to shelter one’s self behind words of doubtful meaning, and which can only perplex the mind without enlightening it. It is to assume gratuitously the air of men who wish to deceive others and to deceive themselves. What is the use of it?

They are much mistaken who imagine themselves to be proposing a serious difficulty when they demand how the Syllabus, which, before its publication, existed already in the letters of the Holy Father, can possibly teach us anything new? Let us, for the sake of argument, since they ask it, reduce it to the humble rôle of echo or reverberator, if we may be pardoned such expressions. Let us suppose that its whole action consists in repeating what has been already said. We ask if an echo does not often convey to the ear a sound which, without it, would not have been heard—if it does not sometimes send back the sound stronger, more resounding, and even more distinct than the original voice? It is not a new voice it brings to us. Be it so. But it does bring it to us in fact, and is able to give it to us again fuller and more sonorous.

Comparison, it is true, is not reason. We will therefore abandon the redundancy of figurative language, and reply directly to the question put to us. What is wanted is to know what the Syllabus is in itself, independently of the pontifical letters which are its original sources. It is as follows:

It is, at least, a new promulgation, more universal, more authentic, and therefore more efficacious, of previous condemnations. Now, it is well known, it is a maxim of law, that a second promulgation powerfully confirms and, in case of need, supersedes the first. The history of human legislation is full of instances of this. When, by reason of the negligence of men, of the difficulty of the times, of the inconstancy or waywardness of peoples, a law has fallen into partial neglect and oblivion, they in whom the sovereign power resides re-establish its failing authority by promulgating it anew. It revives thus, and if it has been defunct it receives a second life. What can the greater number of Christians know of so many scattered condemnations, buried, one may say, in the voluminous collection of pontifical encyclicals, if the Syllabus had not revealed them? How could they respect them, how obey them? It was necessary that they should hear them resound, in a manner, a second time, in the utterance of the great Pontiff, in order to be able to submit anew to their authority, and to resume a yoke of which many of them did not know the very existence. The salvation of the church required this.

The Syllabus is, however, not only a new promulgation, it is often a luminous interpretation of the original documents to which it relates; an interpretation at times so necessary that, should it disappear, from that moment the meaning of those documents would become, on many points, obscure or at least doubtful. It is worthy of remark that in order to deny the doctrinal value of the Syllabus the following fact is relied on—that it is unaccompanied with any explanation, with any reflections. “It is a dry nomenclature,” it has been said, “of which we cannot determine either the character or the end.” Now, it happens to be exactly here that brevity has brought forth light. The eighty-four propositions, in fact, isolated from their context, appear to us more exact, in stronger relief, more decidedly drawn. One may perceive that in the bulls their forms were, as yet, slightly indistinct; here they detach themselves vividly, and with remarkable vigor. And we wish that all our readers were able to judge of this for themselves. They would better understand, possibly, wherefore certain men insist with so much energy on our abandoning the Syllabus and applying ourselves exclusively to the sources—an excellent mode of preventing certain questions from becoming too clear.

We will cite a few examples in illustration of our argument.

The second paragraph of the Syllabus has for its object the condemnation of moderate rationalism. Some of the seven propositions contained in it reproduce the doctrine of a man little known in France, but much thought of in Germany—a kind of independent Catholic, who, before he opposed himself to the church, from which he is now, we believe, quite separated, having transferred his allegiance to the pastoral staff of the aged Reinkens, wrote some works destined to sow among the students of the university of Munich the damaged grain of infidel science. We allude to M. Froschammer, a canon who has lost his hood, professor of misty philosophy, as befits a doctor on the other side of the Rhine. Pius IX. rebuked his errors in a letter addressed to the Archbishop of Munich the 12th December, 1862. We will lay aside the Syllabus, and take merely the letter. We shall find in it only the condemnation of M. Froschammer and his works; nothing whatever else. But who, in this our country, France, has ever opened the works of M. Froschammer? The Catholic Frenchman who might read the letter of Pius IX. knowing nothing of the condemned works, would say to himself: “This Munich professor has doubtless written according to his own fancy; he must have been rash, as every good German is bound to be who loses himself in the shadowy mazes of metaphysics. After all, there is nothing to show that he has written exactly my opinions. Why should I trouble myself about the letter of Pius IX.? It does not concern me.”

Another example. In Paragraph X. we find the same principle of modern liberalism enunciated in the following manner: “In this our age, it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be considered as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others.” “Ætate hac nostra, non amplius expedit religionem Catholicam haberi, tanquam unicam status religionem, cæteris quibuscumque cultibus exclusis.” The document to which we refer is a consistorial Allocution pronounced the 26th July, 1855, and it commences with these words, Nemo vestrum. What is this Allocution? A solemn protest against the criminality of the Spanish government, which, in contempt of its word and oath, of the rights of the church and the eternal laws of justice, had dared to perjure itself by abrogating, of its own single authority, the first and second articles of the concordat. Pius IX., full of grief, speaks in these terms: “You know, venerable brethren, how, in this convention, amongst all the decisions relative to the interests of the Catholic religion, we have, above all, established that this holy religion should continue to be the only religion of the Spanish nation, to the exclusion of every other worship.” The proposition of the Syllabus is not expressed in any other way in the Allocution. A man of great ability, or a scientific man, taking into account the facts, and weighing carefully the expressions of the Pontiff, might perhaps detect it therein. But how many others would it wholly escape! How many would not perceive it, or, if they should chance to catch sight of it, would remain in suspense, uncertain which was rebuked, the application of the doctrine or the doctrine itself! How many, in short, would be unwilling to recognize, in these words, aught but the sorrowful complaint of the Vicar of Jesus Christ outraged in his dearest rights! Return, however, to the Syllabus, and that which was obscure comes to light and manifests itself clearly. The two propositions we have cited do not appear, in it, confused or uncertain. Detached, on the contrary, from the particular circumstances which were calculated to weaken their meaning, and clad in a form more lofty, more universal, more abstract, they receive an unspeakable signification. No hesitation is possible. It is no longer the doctrine of M. Froschammer, nor the sacrilegious usurpations of the Spanish government, which are rebuked; it is but the doctrine considered in itself and in its substance. And since the Roman Pontiff, after having isolated it, fixes on it a mark of reprobation by declaring it erroneous, he denounces it to all ages and all people as deserving the everlasting censure of the church.

It is for this reason, as far as ourselves, at least, are concerned, we shall never accept without restriction a phrase which we find, under one form or other, in all directions, even from the pen of writers for whom we entertain, in other respects, the highest esteem: “The Syllabus has only a relative value, a value subordinate to that of the pontifical documents of which it is the epitome.” No! We are unable to admit an appreciation of it, in our opinion, so full of danger. We must not allow ourselves to weaken truth if we would maintain its salutary dominion over souls. They talk of the value of the Syllabus. What is meant by this? Its authority? It derives that most undoubtedly from itself, and from the sovereign power of him who published it. It is as much an act of that supreme authority as the letters or encyclicals to which it alludes. The meaning of the propositions it contains? Doubtless many of these, if we thus refer to their origin, will receive from it a certain illustration. Others, and they are not the fewest, will either lose there their precision, or will rather shed more light upon it than they receive from it. Between the two assertions—The pontifical letters explain the Syllabus, and, The Syllabus explains the pontifical letters—the second is, with a few exceptions, the most rigorously true. A very simple argument demonstrates it. Suppose that, by accident or an unforeseen catastrophe, one or other of these documents were to perish and not leave any trace of its existence, which is the one whose preservation we should most have desired, in order that the mind of Pius IX. and the judgment of the church concerning the errors of our age might be transmitted more surely to future generations?

Most fertile in subtleties is the mind of man when he wishes to escape from a duty that molests him. We must not, consequently, be astonished if many opponents of the Syllabus have lighted on ingenious distinctions which allow of their almost admitting, in theory, the doctrines we have just explained, whilst contriving to elude their practical consequences. For that, what have they done? They have acknowledged the real authority of this grand act in so far as it is a doctrinal declaration, or, if it is preferred, a manifestation of doctrine; adding, nevertheless, that the Pope has not imposed it on us in the way of obligation, but only in the way of guidance. The expression, only in the way of guidance, would have been a happy enough invention, had it been possible, in matter so important, and in an act so solemn, to imagine a guidance truly efficacious—such, for instance, as the Pope could not but wish it to be—which would not be an obligation. But we ourselves must avoid reasoning with too much subtlety, and content ourselves with opposing a difficulty more specious than solid with a few positive proofs.

We interpose, in the first place, the very title of the Syllabus: “Table, or abridgment, of the principal errors of our time, pointed out in consistorial Allocutions,” etc. To which we add the titles of various paragraphs: “Errors in relation to the church”; “Errors in relation to civil society”; “Errors concerning natural and Christian morals,” etc. For the Pope, the guardian and protector of truth, obliged by the duty of his office to hinder the church from suffering any decline or any alteration, to denounce to the Christian world a doctrine by inflicting on it the brand of error, is evidently to forbid the employment of it, and to command all the faithful to eschew it. What communion is there between light and darkness, between life and death? There can be no question about guidance or counsel when the supreme interest is at stake. The duty speaks for itself. It is imposed by the nature of things. When Pius IX. placed at the head of his Syllabus the word “error,” and intensified it by adding words even more significant, when he expressed himself thus, “Principal errors of this our age,” he as good as said, “Here is death! Avoid it.” And if, in order still to escape from the consequences, a distinction is attempted to be drawn between an obligation created by the force of circumstances and an obligation imposed by the legislator, we would wish it to be remembered that the same Pius IX. uttered, in reference to the Syllabus, the following memorable sentence: “When the Pope speaks in a solemn act, it is to be taken literally; what he has said, he intended to say.” For our part, we would say, “What the Pope has done, he intended to do.”

But what need is there of so much discussion? The proof of what we have urged is written in express terms in the letter accompanying the Syllabus—a letter signed by his eminence Cardinal Antonelli, secretary of state, and intended to make known to the bishops the will of His Holiness. It is sufficient to quote this decisive document, which we do in full, on account of its importance:

“Most Reverend Excellency:

“Our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., profoundly solicitous for the safety of souls and of holy doctrine, has never ceased, since the commencement of his pontificate, to proscribe and to condemn by his encyclicals, his consistorial Allocutions, and other apostolic letters already published, the most important errors and false doctrines, above all, those of our unhappy times. But since it may come to pass that all the political acts reach not every one of the ordinaries, it has seemed good to the same sovereign Pontiff that a Syllabus should be drawn out of these same errors, to be sent to all the bishops of the Catholic world, in order that these same bishops may have before their eyes all the errors and pernicious doctrines which have been reproved and condemned by him. He has therefore commanded me to see that this printed Syllabus be sent to your most reverend excellency, on this occasion, and at this time. When the same sovereign Pontiff, in consequence of his great solicitude for the safety and well-being of the Catholic Church, and of the whole flock which has been divinely committed to him by the Lord, has thought it expedient to write another encyclical letter to all the Catholic bishops, thus executing, as is my duty, with all befitting zeal and respect, the orders of the same Pontiff, I hasten to send to your excellency this Syllabus with this letter.”

This Syllabus, placed by the order of the Holy Father “before the eyes of all the bishops,” what else is it, we ask, than the text of the law brought under the observation of the judges charged with the duty of causing it to be executed? What is it except a rule to which they owe allegiance, and from which they must not swerve? They must not lose sight of it. Wherefore? Because it is their duty to be careful to promulgate its doctrine in their own teaching, because it is their duty to repress every rash opinion which should dare to raise itself against and contradict it. It is thus that all have understood the commandment given to them. The fidelity and unconquerable courage of their obedience prove it. What has taken place in France? In the midst of the universal emotion produced by the appearance of the Syllabus, the government, abusing its power, had the sad audacity to constitute itself judge of it. Through the instrumentality of the keeper of the seals, minister of justice and of public worship, it forbade the publication of the pontifical document in any pastoral instruction, alleging that “it contained propositions contrary to the principles on which the constitution of the empire rests.” What was the unanimous voice of the episcopate? Eighty-four letters of bishops are in existence to bear witness to it. All, united in the same mind, opposed to the ministerial letter the invincible word of the apostles, Non possumus. All declared that they must obey God rather then man; and two amongst them, ascending courageously their cathedral thrones, braved the menaces of a susceptible government by reading before the assembled people that which they had been forbidden to print. Could they have acted all alike with this power truly episcopal, if they had not been inspired by the conviction that they were fulfilling a duty, and putting into practice the adage of the Christian knights, “I do my duty, happen what may”?

We will insist no further on this point. We approach, lastly, the question which might well supersede all the others. Let us enquire whether the Syllabus is an infallible decision of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

It appears to us that, in reality, we have already settled this question. Can a definition ex cathedra be anything else than an instruction concerning faith and morals addressed to, and imposed on, the whole church by her visible head upon earth? How can we recognize it except by this mark, and is not that the idea given to us of it by the Council of the Vatican? Read over the words, so weighty and selected with so much care by the fathers of that august assembly, and you will find that nothing could express more accurately the exact and precise notion of it. After that, all doubts ought to disappear. The Syllabus emanates from him who is the master and sovereign doctor of Catholic truth. It belongs exclusively to faith and morals by the nature of the subjects of which it treats. It has received from the circumstances which have accompanied its publication the manifest character of an universal law of the church. What is wanting to it to be an irreformable decision, an act without appeal, of the infallible authority of Peter?

We know the objection with which we shall be met. Peter may speak, it will be urged, and not wish to exert the plenitude of his doctrinal power. Yes; but when he restrains thus within voluntary limits the exercise of his authority, he gives us to understand it clearly. He is careful, in order not to overtax our weakness, to apprise us that, notwithstanding the obligation with which he binds consciences, it is not in his mind, as yet, to deliver a definitive sentence upon the doctrine. Frankly, does the Syllabus offer to us an indication, however faint, of any such reserve? What more definitive than a judgment formulated in these terms: “This is error, that is truth”? Is any revision possible of such a judgment? Is it possible to be revoked or abrogated? Does it not settle us necessarily in an absolute conclusion which excludes all possibility of diminution or of change? In a word, can the assertion be ever permissible—“Error in these days, truth in others”? It may be added that, by the admission of all, friends and enemies—an admission confirmed by the declaration of the cardinal secretary of state, the Syllabus is an appendix to, and as it were a continuation of, the bull Quanta cura, to which no one can reasonably refuse the character of a definitive and irreformable decree; and it will be understood how unreasonable it would be to despise the evidence of facts, in order to cling to an objection without consistency, and which falls of itself for want of a solid foundation.