Volume 26 — VOL. XXVI., No. 156.—MARCH, 1878. (continued 4)

We have only to express regret that so useful a writer as Dr. Marshall has passed away out of the ranks of controversialists. As a speaker, too, Dr. Marshall was most delightful; indeed, he spoke quite as well as he wrote. At the time when he was in the United States it was thought by some persons that Dr. Marshall was quite the model of a speaker; for he was at once gentle and commanding, refined yet highly pungent, scholarly yet most easy to be understood. These praises were allowed by every one to be his due. We have, then, to lament the loss of a really richly-gifted Catholic, who, though an Englishman, was cosmopolitan. And when we remember that such men as Dr. Marshall (with Dr. Faber, or Mr. Allies, or Canon Oakeley) were born Protestant—intensely Protestant—Englishmen, we can appreciate what was involved in their conversion to the church, both in the intellectual and in the purely social sense. Conversion means more than a change of conviction to such Englishmen as have been born of Protestant parents; it means the revolution of the whole life of the man, as well as of the whole life of the Christian. Such men seem to be born over again. When they have passed away we can say for them, with as much hope as charity, Requiescant in pace.

1598

PAPAL ELECTIONS.

II.

In the twelfth century the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church were in full and undisputed possession of the right of electing the Sovereign Pontiff; and although the exercise of this right is commonly attributed to the Sacred College, only from the passing of the famous decree of the Third Council of Lateran, in 1179, beginning Licet de vitanda discordia in electione Romani Pontificis (cap. vi. de Elect.), it rather supposes the cardinals to be already the sole papal electors, and merely determines what majority of their votes shall constitute a valid election.^[184] Factious and semi-ignorant persons have often protested against this exclusive right of the cardinals to elect the visible head of the church. Of such a kind was Wycliffe, whose diatribe, Electio Papæ a cardinalibus per diabolum est introducta, was condemned by the Council of Constance (artic. xl. sess. viii.); and Eybel, whose errors were exposed by Mamacchi, under his poetical name of Pisti Alethini, as a member of the Academy of the Arcadians.^[185]

In early times, when the pope died at Rome the cardinals met to elect a successor in the Lateran or the Vatican basilica, or in the 1599cathedral of any other city in which they might have determined to hold the election. Conclave is the term used exclusively for many centuries for the place in which the cardinals meet in private to elect a pope; but it was used in the early middle ages of any room securely shut,^[186] just as, among the ancient Romans, conclave was a covered and enclosed apartment or hall that could be fastened with a lock and key—cum clavi. Long before the pontificate of Gregory X. the cardinals who assembled for a papal election met in some part of a large and noble building—generally the sacristy of a cathedral—where they transacted the business of the day, and returned after each session to their private abodes. The gloss Nullatenus, on the decree of Alexander III., says that if two-thirds—the majority required—of the cardinals will not agree upon a candidate, they should be closely confined until they do—includantur in aliquo loco de quo exire non valeant donec consenserint—and mentions several popes elected after the cardinals had been subjected to a reasonable duress. This is precisely the conclave. It was not, however, until the year 1274 that the mode of procedure in a papal election was settled—after the incursions of the barbarians and the many vicissitudes to which the Holy See then became subject had deranged the earlier and apostolic manner—and the rules and regulations of the modern conclave were published. After the death of Clement IV. in Viterbo, on Nov. 22, 1268, the eighteen cardinals composing the Sacred College met there to elect his successor; but not agreeing after a year and a half, although the kings of France and 1600Sicily, St. Bonaventure, General of the Franciscans, and many influential, learned, and holy men came in person to urge them to compose their differences and relieve the church of her long widowhood, they were all got together one day, by some artifice, in the episcopal palace, which was instantly closed upon them and surrounded with guards. Even this imprisonment did not change their temper, and after some further delay the captain of the town, Raniero Gatti, took the bold resolution of removing the entire roof and otherwise dilapidating the edifice, in hopes that the discomforts of the season, added to their confinement, might break the stubbornness of the venerable fathers.^[187] This move succeeded, and a compromise was effected among the discordant cardinals on the 7th of September, 1271, in virtue of which the papal legate in Syria, Theobald Visconti, Archdeacon of Liege, was elected. This was not the first time that extraordinary and almost violent measures had been taken to bring the cardinals to make a prompt election. At Viterbo the captain of the town coerced their liberty; at Naples the commandant of the castle bridled their appetite when, after the death of Innocent IV., in 1254, he diminished day by day the quantity of food sent in to them—cibo per singulos dies imminuto—until they agreed upon a worthy subject.^[188]

Gregory X., who was so singularly elected at Viterbo while far away in Palestine, called a general council, which met at Lyons on May 2, 1274. Five hundred bishops, over a thousand mitred abbots and other privileged ecclesiastics, 1601the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, the grand master of the famous Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the kings of France and Aragon, besides ambassadors from Germany, England, Sicily, and other important nations, took part in it. The pope was resolved to establish the manner of electing the Roman Pontiff on a better principle, and now drew up a constitution which, in spite of considerable opposition from the cardinals, was read between the fourth and fifth sessions, and finally received the approbation of the fathers. This is substantially the code that still regulates the conclave. The original constitution, which had been suspended by some popes and not observed by the cardinals in several elections, was introduced into the body of canon law^[189] by Boniface VIII., in order to impress it, if possible, with a more solemn and perpetual obligation of observance; and when some of the cardinals, incensed at the transfer of the see to Avignon, maintained that, despite all this, the Sacred College could modify or abolish it at discretion, it was confirmed by the General Council of Vienne and their factious spirit reproved. This conciliar decree has also a place in the canon law, where it is found among the Clementines (Ne Romani, 2 de elect.)^[190]

1602“Where the danger is known to be greatest,” says the preamble to Pope Gregory’s constitution, “there should most care be taken. How many risks and what great inconvenience a long vacancy of the Holy See entails is shown by looking back upon the disorders of other days. It is, therefore, wise that, while diligently engaged in reforming minor evils, we should not neglect to provide against calamity. Now, therefore, whatever our predecessors, and particularly Alexander III., of happy memory, have done to remove a spirit of discord in the election of the Roman Pontiff, the same we desire to remain in full force; for we do not intend to annul their decrees, but only by our present constitution to supply what experience points out to be wanting.”

The whole decree may be divided into fifteen paragraphs, which are called the Fifteen Laws of the Conclave. They are summarized as follows:

On the death of the pope the cardinals, having celebrated for nine days his obsequies in the city where he died, shall enter the conclave on the tenth day, whether absent colleagues have arrived or not, and be accompanied by a single attendant, whether lay or clerical, or at most, in case of evident necessity, by two attendants. The conclave shall be held in the palace last occupied by the pope, and there the cardinals must live in common, occupying a single spacious hall not cut off by curtains or partitions, and so carefully closed on every side that no one can secretly pass in or out. One room, however, may be cut off for 1603private purposes—reservato libero ad secretam cameram aditu—but no access shall be allowed to any cardinal, nor private conversation with nor visits to him, except from those who, by consent of all the other cardinals, may be summoned to consult on matters germane to the affair in hand; nor shall any one send letters or messages to their lordships or to any of their familiars, on pain of excommunication. A window or other opening shall be left in the hall of conclave, through which the meals are introduced, but it must be of such a size and shape that no human being can penetrate thereby. If, after three days from the opening of the conclave, no election has been made, the prelates appointed to attend to this shall allow each cardinal no more than one dish at dinner and supper during the next five days, after which only bread and water until they come to a conclusion. The cardinals shall take nothing from the papal treasury during the vacancy of the see; but all its revenues are to be carefully collected and watched over by the proper officers. They shall treat of nothing but the election, unless some imminent danger to the temporalities of the Holy See may demand their attention; and, laying aside all private interests, let them devote themselves entirely to the common weal; but if any cardinal shall presume to attempt by bribes, compacts, or other arts to entice his brethren to his own side, he shall suffer excommunication, nor shall any manner of agreement, even if sworn to, be valid. If a cardinal draw off from the conclave, or should he retire from motives of health, the election must still proceed; yet, if he recover, he shall be readmitted. Cardinals 1604arriving late or at any stage of the proceedings, as also those who may be under censures, shall be received. No one can give his vote outside of the conclave. Two-thirds of the votes of all the electors present^[191] are requisite to elect; and any one not radically disqualified^[192] is eligible to the Papacy. The feudal superiors of the territory and the municipal officers of the city in which the conclave is held are charged to observe these regulations, and shall swear in presence of the clergy and people to do so. If they fail to do their duty they shall be excommunicated, be declared infamous and lose their fiefs, and the city itself shall be interdicted and deprived of its episcopal dignity. Solemn funeral services are to be held in every important place throughout the Catholic world as soon as news arrives of the pope’s death; prayers are to be recited daily and fast days appointed for the speedy and concordant election of an excellent pontiff.

In this provident constitution of Gregory X. are contained in brief the rules and regulations which have ever since governed the conclave. In a few points, however, its severity has been relaxed, particularly by Clement VI. in the bull Licet de Constitutione, dated December 6, 1351; and in others some small modifications have been introduced, in accordance with the manners and customs of a more refined age, by Gregory XV. (Ludovisi, 1621–1623) in his comprehensive ceremonial.^[193] Thus Clement 1605VI. (De Beaufort, 1342–1352), while recommending the greatest frugality at table during the seclusion of the conclave, removed the alimentary restrictions and left it to the cardinals themselves to select the kind, quality, and amount of their food, but forbade the prandial civilities of sending tidbits from one table to another. The same pope allowed each cardinal to have his bed enclosed by curtains, and to have two attendants, or conclavists, in every case. The monastic simplicity of a common sleeping-room was done away with in the sixteenth century, when each cardinal was allowed the use of a separate cell, which Pius IV. commanded should be assigned by lot. When a cardinal’s name and number have been drawn, his domestics upholster it with purple serge or cloth, if their master was created by the late pope; but if by a former one, with green—a difference in color that was first observed in the conclave for the election of Leo X. A few articles of necessary furniture, such as a bed, table, kneeling-bench, and a couple of chairs, complete the interior arrangements. On the outside of his cell each cardinal affixes a small escutcheon emblazoned with his arms, which serves as a substitute for that vulgar modern thing called a door-plate. While great care is still taken to hinder suspicious communications between the conclave and the outer world, it is no longer prohibited to visit a cardinal or member of his suite, although the colloquy must be held at some one of the entries, and whatever is spoken be heard by the prelates doing duty there. Instead of the single small window—more like an oubliette than anything else—which Gregory prescribed, openings in the shape of pivotal 1606or revolving wooden frames, like those used in nunneries and called tours in French, were adopted at the suggestion of Paride de’ Grassi, master of ceremonies to Leo X. Eight of them are always connected on different sides with the hall of conclave, wherever it may be. The ten days before the conclave can open begin from the very day of the pope’s death; but sometimes a much longer time has elapsed—as, for instance, after the death of Alexander VI., when the violence of Cæsar Borgia and the presence of a French army in Rome occasioned a delay of thirty days; and again, when Cardinal Ferreri was arrested on his way from Vercelli to the conclave by the Duke of Milan, his loyal colleagues waited for him eight days beyond the usual time. The conclave in which Julius III. was elected in 1550 was not opened until nineteen days after his predecessor’s death, to oblige the French cardinals, who had not yet all arrived at Rome. In early ages, before it became customary to give the hat to occupants of episcopal sees other than the seven suburbican ones, and when cardinals were strictly bound to reside in curia—i.e., to live near the pope of whose court they were the principal personages—there was generally no necessity for a considerable delay. Anastasius the Librarian^[194] says that Boniface III., in the year 607, made a decree forbidding any one to treat of a future pope’s election during the lifetime of the living one, or until three days after his death; but, as Mabillon shows,^[195] this three days’ delay was observed in the Roman Church long before the seventh century, as appears from the despatch sent to the Emperor 1607Honorius after the death of Pope Zosimus in the year 418. It is not known when it began to be observed as a law. In many cases an election took place either on the very same day that a pope died or on the following one, particularly during the era of persecutions and in the tenth and twelfth centuries, when the seditious disposition of the populace and the factions of rival barons made any unnecessary delay extremely hazardous. During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and following centuries the conclaves have generally been short, averaging about two weeks each. But during the greater part of the middle ages, after the supremacy of the Sacred College during the vacancy of the Holy See was undisputed, and the cardinals had little to fear from princes or people, their own dissensions often occasioned an interregnum of months, and even years, to the discredit of their order and the scandal of the Christian world.

The election should take place in Rome, if possible, because Rome is, or ought to be, the ordinary residence of the Sovereign Pontiffs; but both before and after Pope Gregory’s constitution many elections have been held elsewhere, according as the Curia was in one place or another. Urban II. was elected in Terracina; Calixtus II. in Cluny; Lucius III. in Velletri; Urban III. in Verona; Gregory VIII. in Ferrara; Clement III., Alexander VI., Honorius III. in Pisa; Innocent IV. in Anagni; Alexander IV. and Boniface VIII. in Naples; Urban IV., Gregory X., and Martin IV. in Viterbo; Innocent V. in Arezzo; Honorius IV., Celestin V., and Clement V. in Perugia. During the stay of the popes in France John XXII., Benedict XII., Clement VI., Innocent VI., 1608Urban V., and Gregory XI. were elected at Avignon. John XXIII. was elected at Bologna, and Martin V. at Constance, since whom all his successors, except Pius VII., have been elected in Rome. The law of Gregory X. commanded that the conclave should be held there where the last pope died—Statuimus ut, si eundem pontificem in civitate, in quâ cum sua curia residebat, diem claudere contingat extremum, cardinales omnes conveniant in palatio, in quo idem pontifex habitabat—because in one sense, as of ancient Rome,

... Vejos habitante Camillo,

Illico Roma fuit;

and of modern Rome, Ubi Papa, ibi Roma. When, however, he was absent only on some extraordinary occasion, the election was to be held in Rome itself, no matter where he died. Gregory XI., who brought back the see from Avignon, intending to return to France on business and to better his health, but wishing to assure an Italian election and the permanent re-transfer of the Holy See to Rome, made a decree on March 19, 1378, ordering a majority of the cardinals, should his death occur during his absence, to meet in any part of Rome, or, if more convenient, in some neighboring city, and there elect a successor. Clement VIII. restricted the place of holding the conclave to Rome alone, in a bull issued October 6, 1529, on occasion of his journey to Bologna to crown the Emperor Charles V., and in another one, dated August 30, 1533, when going to France to confer with Francis I.

When Pius IV. had a mind to go to Trent and preside in person at the council, he declared on September 22, 1561, that a papal election—should one become necessary 1609by his death while away—was to be held in Rome, unless it were under an interdict, in which case in Orvieto or Perugia. Clement VIII., when going to Ferrara to receive back the fief which had reverted to the Holy See on the death of Alphonsus d’Este, declared on March 30, 1598, that, should he die before returning, the subsequent election was to be held nowhere but in Rome. Long usage, continued up to the beginning of the present century, has consecrated the Vatican as the most proper seat of the conclave. The first pope elected there was Benedict XI. in 1303, and the next was Urban VI. in 1378. When Honorius IV., of the great house of Savelli, died where he had lived and held his court, in his family mansion on the Aventine, some remains of which are seen near the convent of Santa Sabina, the cardinals, in scrupulous observance of the first law of Gregory’s constitution, met there and elected his successor, Nicholas IV., on February 22, 1288. Eugene IV. in 1431, and Nicholas V. in 1447, were elected in the Dominican convent of the Minerva, the great dormitory of the friars being fitted up for the cardinals, and the election itself being held in the sacristy behind the choir, over the door of which a large fresco painting and a Latin inscription commemorate the event. There were several projects on foot in the seventeenth century to establish with every possible convenience, and in accordance with the prescriptions of the Roman ceremonial of election, a hall of conclave which should serve for all future occasions. The venerable Lateran and the more modern Quirinal each had its advocates, and Pius VI. is said by Cancellieri to have intended the vast and magnificent 1610sacristy building which he erected alongside of St. Peter’s for such a purpose; but his immediate successor was elected in Venice on account of the French troubles, and all of his successors have been elected in the Quirinal palace.

On the pope’s death the Sacred College, or apostolic senate of Rome, succeeded to the government of the States of the Church. All the officers of the government were instantly suspended until provision was made to carry on the public business. Only the chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, the grand penitentiary, and the vicar-general, who are always cardinals, continued to exercise their powers by a privilege granted to them by Pius IV. The chamberlain (camerlengo) was the executive or head of the government, acting as a quasi-sovereign, and was consequently honored with a special guard and allowed to coin money stamped with his family arms and the distinctive heraldic sign of the vacancy of the see, which is a pavilion over the cross-keys. With him were associated three other cardinals, each for three days at a time, one from each of the three orders, beginning with the dean, the first priest, and first deacon, and so on in turn of seniority. The secretary of the Sacred College, who is always a prelate of very high rank, was prime minister and transacted all the correspondence and other relations of the cardinals with foreign ambassadors and the representatives of the Holy See at foreign courts. Clement XII. provided that if the chamberlain and grand penitentiary should die during the conclave, the cardinals are to elect a successor to him within three days; but if the cardinal-vicar 1611die, the vicegerent, who is always a bishop in partibus, succeeds ex-officio to his faculties. The Sacred Congregation of Rome are privileged to transact business of small importance through their secretaries, and even to finish affairs of whatever importance, if at the pope’s death they were so far advanced as to need only the secretary’s signature.

If a cardinal fall ill and choose to remain in conclave, provision is made to take his vote; but he may retire, if he wish, losing his vote, however, which cannot be given outside of the conclave or by proxy. If he recover he is obliged in conscience to return, because it is a duty of his office, and not a mere personal privilege, to take part in papal elections. All cardinals, unless specially deprived by the pope before his death of the right of electing and of being elected, can vote and are eligible, even if under censures. Thus, cardinals De Noailles and Alberoni were invited to the conclave at which Innocent XIII. was elected; but cardinals Baudinelli-Saoli and Coscia had been deprived, the one by Leo X. and the other by Clement XII., of what is called in canon law the active and passive voice. The cardinals may elect whom they please; nor is it necessary to be either a member of the Sacred College or an Italian to become pope. In former ages the choice of subjects was more confined than it is at present; for we learn from the acts of a council composed chiefly of French and Italian bishops, convened at Rome in 769 by Stephen III., alias IV., to condemn the anti-pope Constantine, who was not even a cleric, that no one who was not either a cardinal-priest or deacon could aspire to the 1612Papacy—Nullus unquam præsumat ... nisi per distinctos gradus ascendens, diaconus aut presbyter cardinalis factus fuerit, ad sacrum pontificatus honorem promoveri.^[196]

Nevertheless, in view, presumably, of the greater good of the church, many persons have since been elected who did not answer to this description. This was the case with Gregory V. in 996; Sylvester II. in 999; Clement II. in 1046; Damasus II. in 1048; Leo IX. in 1049; Victor II. in 1055; Nicholas II. in 1058; Alexander II. in 1061; Calixtus II. in 1119; Eugene III. in 1145; Urban IV. in 1261; Gregory X. in 1271; Celestine V. in 1294; Clement V. in 1305; Urban V. in 1362, and Urban VI. in 1378, since whom no one not a cardinal has been elected, although several have come near being chosen. At the conclaves at which Adrian VI. and Clement VII. were elected Nicholas Schomberg, a celebrated Dominican and archbishop of Capua, received a number of votes; and as late as the middle of the last century, at the conclave from which proceeded Benedict XIV., Father Barberini, ex-general of the Capuchins and apostolic preacher, was repeatedly voted for. No matter what may have been a man’s previous condition, he can be elected; and there are not a few instances of persons of ignoble birth or mean antecedents having been exalted to the Papacy, which they have illustrated by their virtues or their learning: “Choose the best, and him who shall please you most of your mother’s sons (children of the Catholic Church), and set him on his father’s throne”^[197] (as vicegerent of God in his kingdom on earth).

1613However, since Sixtus V. (1585–1595), who is said to have been a hogherd in his youth, all the popes have belonged to noble families; for, says Cardinal Pallavicini, the celebrated Jesuit and historian of the Council of Trent, nobility of birth, although no necessary condition, adds dignity and splendor to the pontificate—reca grandecoro ed ornamento al pontificato.^[198] But then he belonged to a princely family himself and wrote two centuries ago.

Almost every European nationality has had a representative on the papal throne; but for several centuries the Italians have jealously guarded its steps from any one but themselves, and perhaps with reason so long as the pope was temporal sovereign of a large part of the Peninsula. Adrian V., of Utrecht (1522–1523), was the last foreigner ever allowed to wear the tiara, and he for his relations with the powerful emperor Charles V., rather than for his undoubted virtues and learning; and yet so great was the indignation of the Romans when his name was announced that the cardinals were insulted and some of them maltreated as they left the conclave. But if a Hollander might be tolerated for some grave political reasons—not a Frenchman under any condition. In the conclave of 1458 the worthiest subject to very many of his brethren seemed the Cardinal d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen—the same who built the magnificent church of San Agostino at Rome. But Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes; so when there was a fine chance of his getting the requisite number of votes, Orsini and Colonna, as heads of the Roman party, deliberately 1614turned the tide in favor of Piccolomini, although his record was bad and his health not good. When Clement V. (Bertrand de Got, archbishop of Bordeaux, 1505–1514) was elected, he summoned the Sacred College to Lyons to assist at his coronation. When the order reached the cardinals old Rosso Orsini, their dean, rose and said: “My venerable brethren, soon we shall see the Rhone—but, if I know the Gascons, the Tiber will not soon see a pope again.” And so D’Estouteville, with all his wealth and learning and high connections, was made to feel that

Necdum etiam causæ irarum sævique dolores

Exciderant animo.

Gregory X. prescribed that a strict watch should be kept over the conclave wherever it might be held. When held in Rome the representatives of the noblest families have a principal part in maintaining order in the city and protecting the cardinals from any kind of interference. The marshal of the Holy Roman Church and guardian of the conclave watches over the external peace and quiet of the Sacred College. This is one of the highest offices held by a layman at the Roman court. It is hereditary, and belonged for over four hundred years to the great baronial family of Savelli until its extinction. It passed in 1712 to the princely family of Chigi. The very ancient and now ducal family of Mattei was charged with preserving the peace of the Ghetto and Trastevere. For this purpose it used to raise and equip a small body of troops which was kept up as long as the conclave lasted. The majordomo of the late pope is ex-officio governor of the conclave since the time of Clement XII. 1615(Corsini, 1730–1740). Although he also exercises some external jurisdiction, he is more particularly required to attend to the domestic wants of the cardinals and preserve order within the palace where the conclave may be held. Delegations from the various colleges of the Roman prelacy—apostolic prothonotaries, auditors of the pope, clerks of the chamber, etc.—taking their orders daily from the governor, are to be stationed at one or other of the Ruote, or turnstile windows, during the whole of the conclave. Prælati, says Pius IV.,^[199] ad custodiam conclavis deputati, sub pœna perjurii et suspensionis a divinis, maxima et exquisita diligentia utantur in inspiciendis ac perscrutandis epulis, aliisve rebus, ac personis conclavi intrantibus, ac de eo exeuntibus, ne sub earum rerum velamine literæ, aut notæ, vel signa aliqua transmittantur.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when every species of gambling and games of chance was practised with frenzied passion in Italy, it was very common in Rome, although prohibited under severe penalties by Pius IV. and Gregory XIV. as a sort of sacrilege, to bet on the cardinals whose “backers” thought they had a chance of being elected.

1616The collect Pro eligendo Pontifice—that God may grant a worthy pastor to his church—is said at all Masses throughout the world from the beginning of the conclave until news arrives of the pope’s election. In Rome there is a daily procession of the clergy from the Church of St. Lawrence in Damaso to St. Peter’s basilica (if the conclave be held in the Vatican), chanting the litany of the saints and other prayers. When the procession arrives there a Mass de Spiritu Sancto is said by a papal chaplain in a temporary chapel fitted up near the main entrance to the conclave. The singing is by the papal choir.

The literature, if we may call it so, of papal elections is varied and extensive. Besides the letters, bulls, and conciliar decrees of twenty-eight popes from Boniface I. in 419 to Pius IX., there is a host of writers on the subject, some of whom are distinguished for piety and learning, while others are noted for their hatred of the Holy See. Almost every conclave from Clement V.’s down has had its chronicler or historian. The oldest special treatise extant on a papal election is one written by Cardinal Albericus, a monk of Monte Cassino, in 1050—De Electione Romani Pontificis, liber.

1617

THE HOLY CAVE OF MANRESA.

DIGITUS DEI EST HIC!

It is difficult to bring it home to one’s mind that Manresa is a place of petty industries and striving for worldly gain; that it ever had a hand in war or bloodshed, or, indeed, ever took any active part in the turmoil of ordinary life; for its very name has for more than three hundred years been almost synonymous with solitude and ascetic piety, on account of the Santa Cueva, or Holy Cave, so celebrated throughout the Christian world, where, amid the ecstasies of divine contemplation and the severities of the most rigorous penance, St. Ignatius de Loyola laid the foundation of the Society of Jesus, and by the infusion of supernatural light, to use the expression of the Congregation of the Rota, composed his famous Spiritual Exercises—a work which, said St. Francis de Sales two hundred years ago, “has given as many saints to the church of God as it contains letters.”

But Manresa is, in fact, a busy, thriving place of about fifteen thousand inhabitants, on the direct railway line from Barcelona to Zaragoza. It is a centre of industry, and contains a number of cotton and woollen mills by no means in harmony with its mediæval walls and towers that rise up out of the plain, gray and time-worn, and with many a mark of ancient conflict. For it is a walled town, and was in existence before the Roman conquest. We should say city, for so it has been styled ever since the ninth century, at least; and Don Jaime of Aragon, by a diploma of 1618April 22, 1315, conferred on it, for its loyal services, the perpetual title of buena y leal ciudad. Nay, more, after Marshal Macdonald came here in 1811, and burned five hundred houses and factories, and slaughtered many of the inhabitants with a ferocity almost unequalled, the Spanish Cortes gave it the qualification of muy noble y muy leal city (for these Spanish towns have their gradations of titled rank, of which they are as jealous as an ancient hidalgo of his family quarterings), on account of the bravery of the people, who rallied in their desperation and madness, and, pursuing the enemy, amply avenged their dead in true national fashion.

We arrived at Manresa after dark, and, as there was not a single vehicle at the station, we gave our travelling-bags to a porter, and followed after him on foot through narrow, ascending, tortuous, dimly-lighted streets to the Fonda de San Domingo, very Spanish in character, with a court full of diligences and stables on the ground floor, and an enormous dining-room above, out of which opened the bedrooms—at least, ours did. This was by no means favorable to repose, for the hilarity of its habitués was kept up to a late hour, to say nothing of the singing and music in the neighboring streets. This would not have surprised us in Andalucia, but in an industrious place like Manresa we expected to find that labor had laid its repressing hand on the people, as is so 1619often the case with us in the north. But the elastic temperament of the race causes a rebound as soon as the hour of toil is over. Then the dance and the song have their time, and castanets and the tambour take the place of the shuttle and the spindle. Manresa is noted for the publication of romanceros, ballads, and complaintes, illustrated with coarse engravings, which are sold under the general name of pliegos. This kind of literature is a key to the character of the people, and therefore not without its interest; but the sound of these jolly songs in such a place, and at so late an hour, was, it must be confessed—unreasonable as we may appear—very much to our disgust; for not only were we fatigued with our journey, but our thoughts were continually wandering off to the lonely cave and its mystic tome.

We were up betimes in the morning, notwithstanding, and, seeing the tower of a church from our window, we hurried out; for all through Spain, as in Italy, if there is anything worth seeing in a town, it is certainly the churches. However, it was not a question of art with us, though by no means insensible to the grand in architecture or to the beautiful in painting and sculpture. The church we soon came to had given its name to the Fonda. It was the church of St. Dominic, an edifice of the fourteenth century, formerly connected with a Dominican convent. It is a grim, mouldy church, with a tomb-like atmosphere about it—and, indeed, it is partly paved with memorial stones of those who sleep in the damp vaults below. But it was quiet and solemn, and there was a certain grave simplicity about it peculiar to the Dominican churches in Spain. A priest was saying 1620Mass in subdued tones at the very altar where St. Ignatius once saw the glorious Humanity of our Saviour at the elevation of the Host, and a few people were kneeling here and there on the flag-stones, praying devoutly. St. Dominic and the dog with a flaming brand still seemed to be keeping watch and ward over the place, though his children are banished from his native land. The adjoining convent often gave St. Ignatius hospitality, and it was at one of its windows, after being tempted to despair in view of his sins, that he exclaimed: “Lord, I will not do aught that will offend thee!” He often made the Via Crucis in the cloisters, bearing a large wooden cross on his shoulders from station to station, shedding floods of tears over the divine Sufferer. This cross is still religiously preserved, and bears the inscription:

Enecvs A

Lohola porta

bat hanc crv

cem, 1522

—Ignatius de Loyola bore this cross, 1522.

We found Manresa exceedingly picturesque by daylight, rising abruptly, as it does, out of the valley of the Llobregat on one side and that of the Cardoner on the other. The railway station is at the foot of the eminence, with the river between, and the effect of the steep cliffs, crowned by the noble and loyal city, is very striking. Directly opposite, as if it sprang out of the mount, rises the Seo, a venerable cathedral of the fourteenth century, beautifully mellowed and embrowned by time. Further to the left are the spires of the Carmen and the tower of San Miguel; while at the right, but lower 1621down, built into the very side of the cliff, so that it seems like a continuation of it, is the church of the Jesuits, with the Santa Cueva which gives celebrity to the city. One would like to see the Holy Cave in its primitive simplicity; but such was the devotion of pilgrims who came here in thousands after the canonization of St. Ignatius that, to save it from being carried off piecemeal, it was found necessary to place some safeguard around it, and it is now enclosed within the walls of the church.

Crossing the bridge that leads from the station, and walking along the opposite bank beneath the long arms of the umbrageous plane-trees for five minutes, we turned to the left, and, going up a short street, found ourselves directly beneath the overhanging cliff, which is tapestried with vines and the delicate fronds of the maiden-hair, kept green and fresh by little cascades of clear water that come trickling down the rocks with a pleasant murmur, glittering like the facets of a thousand jewels in the bright morning sun. Here is the Holy Cave, though no longer open on the side of the valley, towards which turn with interest so many hearts from the ends of the earth. We passed beneath the church walls, with its long line of sculptured saints, of rather coarse workmanship in the Renaissance style, but producing a striking effect from the valley below. One more turn to the left up a steep path, and we were on the terrace leading to the entrance. A statue of St. Ignatius is over the door. One always recognizes his striking physiognomy, with the noble dome of solemn thought that crowns it, and we saluted it with reverence and love, as we had done in many a strange 1622land, as a symbol of the paternal kindness we had met with from the order to which he has bequeathed his spirit.

The church consists of a single aisle, with four small chapels on each side, and a latticed gallery above for the inmates of the residence. There is nothing remarkable about it, and, in fact, it was never completed according to the original plan, owing to the suppression of the order in Spain. Seeing an open door on the gospel side of the sanctuary, we went directly towards it and found ourselves in a long, narrow passage lined with portraits of the Jesuit saints, and, at the further end, a doorway secured by a strong iron grating, above which is graven:

SANTA CUEVA.

Finding the grating ajar, we pushed it back, and, descending three stone steps, found ourselves in the Holy Cave. It is long and narrow, being about thirty feet in length, seven in width, and about the same in height. A small octagon window is cut through the wall that closes the original entrance, and there is a feeble lamp hanging before the altar, but neither gives light enough to disperse the gloom, and, as there was no one in the cave, it was as silent and impressive as a tomb. You could only hear the pleasant rippling of the water over the rocks without. The pavement is the solid rock, and the upper part of the cave is in its rough state, but the lower part of the walls is faced with marble, and jasper, and a series of bas-reliefs that tell the history of the saint. An inscription on the wall says:

“In this place, in the year 1522, 1623St. Ignatius composed the book of Exercises, the first written in the Society of Jesus, which has been approved by a bull from his Holiness Paul III.”

At the right, as you enter, is a projection, or shelf, in the wall, on which the Spiritual Exercises were written, and there is a cross hollowed in the rock where the saint used to trace the holy sign before beginning to write. One’s first impulse is to kiss the ground where his holy feet once stood, and pray where he so often prayed. St. Ignatius said he learned more in one short hour of prayer in the cave of Manresa than all the doctors in the world could have taught him. Here, like St. Jerome, trembling before the judgments of God, he used to smite his breast with a hard stone. Here he wept over the sufferings of Christ, with whose bodily Presence he was often favored, as well as the presence of the angels and their Queen. “Flow fast, my tears,” wrote he in this very place, “break forth, my heart, in bitter sighs, that I may weep worthily over the sorrows of my Saviour! O Jesus! may I die before I cease to have a horror of sin. God liveth, in whose sight I stand; for while there is breath in me, and the spirit of life in my nostrils, my lips shall not give utterance nor my heart consent to iniquity.”^[200]

A phalanx from his right hand is preserved here in a crystal reliquary, set in gold and jewels, on which is graven the Scriptural exclamation of Pope Paul III. after reading the Constitutions of St. Ignatius:

Digitus Dei est hic. Paulus III.

—The finger of God is here!...

1624Over the altar is a large bas-relief of the saint, kneeling before a cross in the Holy Cave and gazing up at the Virgin, who, enthroned on a cloud, is dictating to him the Spiritual Exercises, according to the constant local tradition. This relief is framed in black marble with white mouldings, and on each side are angels of white marble playing on musical instruments. These, as well as the other sculptures, were done by Francisco Grau, a Manresan artist of local celebrity. Among the others is one in which St. Ignatius, arrayed like the Spanish caballero he was, with sword in hand, is keeping his vigil before the altar of Our Lady of Montserrat. In the next he is giving his rich garments to a beggar, coming down from the mount. Beyond is the miracle of the Pozo, of which we shall speak further on, and many such.

There were, at the time of our visit, four Jesuit Fathers in the adjoining Casa, and a daily service was held in the Santa Cueva. Many indulgences are attached to the place, on the usual conditions, granted by Pope Gregory XV. and other pontiffs. The cave, of course, was regarded from the time of St. Ignatius as a place singularly favored by Heaven. In his day it belonged to Don Fernando Roviralta, a great friend of the saint. He lived to be over a hundred years of age, and at his death he bequeathed it to his nephew, Don Mauricio Cardona, who sold it January 27, 1602, to the Marquesa de Ailona, who in the following year gave it to the Jesuits. As soon as it fell into their possession means were used to ornament it, and in the course of time a Casa de retiro was built adjoining, with a church intended to be one of the 1625finest in Catalonia. The Countess of Fuentes, a native of Manresa, gave one thousand escudos to ornament the Holy Cave. Don Pedro Osorio, commissary-general of Lombardy, came here on foot from Barcelona when seventy years of age, and presented eight thousand escudos for the same purpose. And finally the crown took it under its protection, and Philip V. gave it a valuable chalice on which were graven the royal arms. Not only Don John of Austria, but several of the kings of Spain, came here to visit a place of historic as well as religious interest, for the mysterious influences that have gone out of this Holy Cave have been a power in the world. The public documents of Manresa show the devotion of the Christian world to have been such that some days in the year 1606 there were more than a thousand visitors, many of whom came from a distance. They used to carry away with them pieces of the Holy Cave, which they preserved as relics. A fragment was sent to Queen Margaret of Austria, who had it set in gold surrounded by rubies and diamonds, and wore it on festivals of great solemnity.

When St. Ignatius came to Manresa there were only about a thousand families in the place, it having been reduced by wars and pestilence to one-fourth its former size. It is said that he stopped at the bridge leading to the city to pray at the chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Guia—Our Lady of Guidance—and was there supernaturally directed to the cave. It was then surrounded by shrubs and brambles, and was almost inaccessible. Though so near the city, it seemed retired, for it lay towards the broad valley, and was shaded 1626by thorn-bushes and the cistus, which gave it an aspect of solitude. The pavement was uneven, and it was much smaller than at the present day. The birds of the air made it their home, and water trickled down the walls. The first thing the saint did was to prostrate himself on the ground and kiss it, then, with a sharp stone, trace a cross on the wall, still to be seen.

From the windows of the passage now leading to the Santa Cueva is the same landscape St. Ignatius had before him from the mouth of the cave; only in his day the country was wilder, and therefore more beautiful, if possible, and there were no factories, no railway, in the valley to disturb the peaceful solitude. It is certainly a landscape of surpassing beauty, and we could imagine his exaltation of soul in gazing at it; for St. Ignatius had the soul of a poet and was a great admirer of nature. He loved to walk in the meadows and gardens, to observe the form, color, and odor of flowers; and from time to time, when at Rome, used to go forth on his balcony to look at the starry heavens, as if to refresh his soul.

Directly beneath the cliff is the swift-gliding stream, and, beyond it, a hill crowned with the tower of Santa Catalina, then dark with sombre pines and gigantic oaks, but now descending in gentle terraces covered with the silvery olive. At the left opens the smiling valley of the Llobregat, covered with perpetual verdure, once called the Valle del Paraiso—the Vale of Paradise—and in the distance, against the bluest of heavens, rise the marvellous pinnacles of Montserrat, the sacred mountain of Spain.

Over the present entrance to the Holy Cave is an ancient stone crucifix, 1627once part of the famous Cruz del Tort, at which St. Ignatius so often went to pray. On the eve of his festival, 1627, the Christ was seen, to the astonishment of every one present at Vespers, to exude blood, first from the side, then from the hands and feet, and finally from the thorn-crowned head. We went to visit the cross from which it was removed for preservation. On leaving the Santa Cueva we kept on, up the side of the hill, by a circuitous road the saint must often have trod, then towards the east by an old narrow street. We passed a crucifix in a niche, with red curtains before it, and a hanging lamp. Just beyond came several peasants with scarlet Catalan caps, broad purple sashes, blue trowsers, black velvet jackets, and alpargatas laced with wide blue tape across their white stockings. They were driving mules that looked as gay as their owners, with their heads streaming with bright tassels and alive with tinkling bells. We soon came to a house on which was a fresco representing the Virgin appearing to St. Ignatius. Just opposite this was a terrace on the edge of the hill, where stood the Cruz del Tort, a lofty stone cross with several stone steps around the base. It was on these steps that St. Ignatius, while praying here one day, as he was accustomed to do, and shedding floods of tears, had the mystery of the Holy Trinity made clear to him by some vision which he compares to three keys of a musical instrument. His eyes were opened to a new sense of divine things. His doubts fell off like a garment. His whole nature seemed changed, and he felt ready, if need were, to die for what was here made manifest to him. On the cross is this inscription:

1628Hic habvit St. Ignativs

Trinitatis visionem, 1522.

While we were saying a prayer at the foot of the cross a peasant woman, who was passing by, stopped to tell us how San Ignacio came here to do penance and had a vision of God. The terrace occupies an opening between the houses which frame an incomparable view over the valley of the Llobregat, with the solemn turrets of Montserrat in full sight. The tall gray cross against that golden sky, with the Vale of Paradise spread out at the foot, is certainly one of the most ravishing views it is possible to conceive. Steps descend from the cross, winding a little way down the side of the cliff, which is covered with ivy, to a pretty fountain fed by clear water bubbling from the rocks.

Turning back from the Cruz del Tort, and passing through the suburbs, we soon came into the city among streets that looked centuries old. We passed San Antonio in a niche, and soon came to a small Plaza with a painting of St. Dominic at the corner, and in the centre a stone obelisk with a long inscription, of which we give a literal translation:

“To Ignatius de Loyola, son of Beltran, a native of Cantabria, the founder of the Society of Jesus, who, in his thirtieth year, while valiantly fighting in defence of his country, was dangerously wounded, but being cured by the special mercy of God, and inspired with an ardent desire to visit the holy places at Jerusalem, after making a vow of chastity, set forth on the way, and, laying aside his military ensigns in the temple of Mary, the Mother of God, at Montserrat, clothed himself in sackcloth, and in this state of destitution came to this place, where with fastings and prayers he wept over his past offences, and avenged them like a fresh soldier of Christ. In order to perpetuate the memory of his 1629heroic acts, for the glory of Christ and the honor of the Society, Juan Bautista Cardona, a native of Valencia, bishop of Vich, and appointed to the see of Tortosa, out of great devotion to the said father and his order, dedicates this stone to him as a most holy man to whom the whole Christian world is greatly indebted, Sixtus V. being pope, and Philip II. the great and Catholic king of Spain.”

On another side is the following:

“This monument, having been overthrown during a time of calamity, has been restored and commended to posterity by the most noble ayuntamiento of the city of Manresa, out of ineffaceable love, Pius V. being Sovereign Pontiff, Carlos IV. king, and Ignacio de la Justicia governor of the city. 1799.”

Bishop Cardona, the first to set up this monument, was an able writer of the golden age of Spanish literature, and a man of such vast knowledge that he was employed by Philip II. in the formation of the royal library at the Escorial. He was a great admirer of St. Ignatius, and left an inedited manuscript, now in the National Library, entitled Laus St. Ignatii.

While we were standing before this obelisk we were agreeably convinced that, notwithstanding all the ravages of pestilence and the massacres of the French, the good and loyal city was in no danger of being depopulated; for the doors of a large edifice on one side of the square opened, and forth came a swarm of boys that could not have been equalled, it seemed to us, since the famous crusade of children in the thirteenth century. They came from a school in what was once the Jesuits’ college, built out of the ancient hospital of Santa Lucia, where St. Ignatius used to minister to the sick, and sometimes seek shelter himself. This was what we were in search of. Connected 1630with the college is the modern church of St. Ignatius, and from one side of the nave you enter the old church of the hospital, which has been carefully preserved. Here we found the Capilla del Rapto, a small square chapel, opening into the aisle and covered with frescos. It is so called because it was here St. Ignatius lay rapt in ecstasy from the hour of complines on the eve of Passion Sunday till the same hour on the following Saturday. It was during this wonderful withdrawal into the spiritual world that the foundation of the Society of Jesus was revealed to him, as is stated in an inscription on the wall. For more than two centuries a solemn octave has been annually celebrated here in commemoration of this divine ecstasy. Beneath the simple altar lies the saint in effigy, wearing the coarse robe which made the gamins of that day call him El Saco, or Old Sackcloth, till they found out he was a saint. Over the altar is a painting of the Rapto, in which, unable to endure the vision of Christ Glorified with mortal eyes, St. Ignatius is mercifully rapt in ecstasy. Angels bend around him, holding the banner of the Holy Name that has become the watchword of the Society. In hoc vocabitur tibi nomen. On one side of the chapel he is represented catechising the children, and on the other he stands in his penitential garments, exhorting the patients of the hospital, while some lord, doubtless Don Andrés de Amigant, is kneeling to him in reverence.

The original pavement of stone is covered with a wooden floor to preserve it, but a brass plate, on which is inscribed the name of Jesus, is raised to show the spot where the saint’s head lay in his ecstasy. The stone is worn with 1631kisses, and has been partly cut away by pilgrims. Behind the chapel is the room where he used to teach children the catechism, and there is the same old stone stoup for holy-water that was used in his day. Here, too, is an inscription:

Serviendo en este Hospital

Ignacio a gloria Divina,

Enseñaba la Doctrina

En las piedras de este umbral.

A few months after his arrival at Manresa St. Ignatius fell ill and was taken to this hospital among the poor with whom he now identified himself. But Don Andrés de Amigant, a nobleman of the place, soon had him removed to his own house, where he and his wife nursed him till he recovered. It was a pious custom of theirs to take two patients from the hospital every year, and tend them as if our Saviour in person. For this Don Andrés was styled “Simon the Leper” by the wits of Manresa, and Doña Iñés, his wife, was called Martha. This admirable charity had been practised in the family nearly two hundred years. It appears by a MS. in possession of the Marquis de Palmerola, its present representative, that a remote ancestor of his, Gaspar de Amigant, introduced the practice into his family in 1364, out of devotion. He added two rooms to his house, where he kept two poor patients, providing every remedy and means of subsistence, and, as soon as they recovered, diligently sought out others to supply their places, that, as he said, so religious an exercise might never be wanting in his family. How faithful his descendants were to so holy a practice appears from the statement that Juan de Amigant in 1478, having, “according 1632to his custom,” received a woman named Ignès Buxona into his house, she bequeathed to him when she died, having no relations, the patronage of the benefice of San Francisco in the Seo of Manresa.

Many traditions concerning St. Ignatius have been preserved in this pious family. A cross has been recently discovered on the wall of the chapel of S. Ignacio enfermo during some repairs, similar to that in the Santa Cueva. And there is a curious old family painting commemorating his illness in the house. The convalescent saint is represented sitting up in bed, supported by the left hand of Don Andrés, who with his right offers him a cup of broth. Behind are Doña Angela, his mother, Doña Iñés, his wife, and all the other members of the household, each one with some restoring dish in hand. In front of the bed is the inscription:

Stvs

Ignativs

de Loyola

lang

vens

—that is, St. Ignatius ill.

At the foot of the bed is another:

Hæc omnia evenervnt 22 Ivlii anno 1522.

—All these things took place July 22, 1522. His illness, by this, appears to have occurred about four months after his arrival at Manresa.

The honor of having St. Ignatius was disputed by many noble families of the place. In the patio of one of the houses he sometimes visited, in the street called Sobreroca, is a picture of him, now indulgenced by the diocesan authority.

The college of St. Ignatius was 1633founded in 1603. The ayuntamiento of Manresa, touched by a discourse during the Lent of 1601 at the Seo, purchased the ancient hospital of Santa Lucia, and established the Jesuits here soon after. The college became a flourishing institution, and they were before long able to build a new church and adorn the precious chapel of the Rapto.

When Carlos III. issued the decree for the expulsion of the Jesuits, April 3, 1767, the residence at Manresa was at first overlooked, and the fathers, as usual, celebrated the octave of the Maravilloso Rapto. On the very day it ended, April 11, the eve of Palm Sunday, at the same hour when St. Ignatius awoke from his mysterious trance, crying: “Ay Jesus! Ay Jesus!” the venerable fathers were seized and carried away amid the tears of the citizens to Tarragona, where they were put on a vessel of war, and, with nine hundred from Aragon, were transported to Ajaccio. The island of Corsica had on it at one time three thousand Jesuits who, for no crime, had been barbarously torn from their native land. Among them were the venerable Pignatelli and several who were eminent for letters. But on the 15th of August, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, who proved the scourge of Spain.

The churches of the Jesuits were dismantled and the temporalities sold. The vestments and sacred vessels were given to poor churches of the diocese, but even these were mostly sold afterwards to help to defray the expenses of the war of independence. The chalice of Philip V., given to the Santa Cueva, was, however, saved.

Manresa has the glory of having been the first city in Catalonia to 1634sound the war-cry against Bonaparte, and by the battle of Bruch, in which a handful of men routed the French army, to convince Spain that the Great Captain’s troops were not invincible. After the French had captured Tortosa they came to Manresa, and the house of the Santa Cueva was turned into a barrack and the church into a stable. With the restoration of the Bourbons returned the Jesuits. At Manresa the people rang the bells, and went out to meet them with cries of Viva la Compañia! The mules were taken from their carriages, and men drew them to the Seo, where the clergy and people with tears of emotion chanted the Te Deum. On July 25, 1816, they were reinstated in their former places, the keys of the Santa Cueva were presented to them in a silver basket, and on the 31st of July the festival of St. Ignatius was celebrated with solemn pomp in the Seo, with a congratulatory discourse on the restoration of the society.

Manresa has always been a religious city, as is to be seen by the number of solidly-built churches and the remains of its monastic institutions. When St. Ignatius quitted the place it is said there was hardly a person left unconverted. And when he was canonized there was a general explosion of joy, exhibited in Spanish fashion by dances, comedies, Moorish fights, illuminations, fireworks, salvos of artillery, triumphal arches and bowers—all of which contrast strangely with the penitential life of the saint in his cave.

There is something very friendly and cordial about the people. Inquiring our way to the Seo of an old woman, she said as she pointed it out: “Go with God; may he preserve you from all ill.”

1635We went on through the steep, narrow streets, which are often hewn out of the rock. The houses show traces of war and violence, and would be gloomy but for the galleries and hanging gardens with flowers and orange-trees. The women were gossiping from balcony to balcony. The plazas were lively with trade. Everywhere was an interesting picture of Spanish life. In one place we passed a group of women around a well, washing at a huge tank, beating their clothes with wooden paddles, all laughing, all talking, all looking up with a flash of wonderful expression in their brown faces.

The Seo is an immense Gothic edifice, the first stone of which was laid October 9, 1328, but the crypt is several centuries older. The nave is of enormous width, which gives it an air of grandeur, and there are some fine stained windows, though greatly injured by the French. It is gloomy, but, when lighted up for a solemn service, presents an imposing appearance. There are queer Saracens’ heads on the walls of the choir, and steps lead to one of those subterranean churches full of solemn gloom so favorable to meditation and solitary prayer.

Among the notable things to be seen at Manresa is the Pozo di Gallina, where took place what is called the primer milagro of St. Ignatius. Tradition says, as he was crossing the principal street of the city, called Sobreroca, on his way from the Carmen to the hospital of Santa Lucia, he met a child crying for fear of her mother, because the hen she was carrying home had escaped and fallen into an old well close by. Touched by her grief, the saint paused a moment, as if in prayer, and, while he stood, the 1636water in the well rose to the brim, bringing with it the hen, which with a smile he restored to the child and went on his way. An oratory was afterwards built here, and the healing virtues of the water—such is the power of charity—have often been experienced by the people of Manresa, as is testified by the inscription from the pen of the learned Padre Ramon Solá:

Disce, viator, amor quid sit quo Ignatius ardet

Testis aqua est, supplex hanc bibe, doctus abi.

S. Ignacio de Loyola

en el año del Señor de 1522

hizo aqui el primer milagro

sacando viva á flote hasta el

borde una gallina ya ahogada.

This favored hen naturally became an object of special care, and it seems to have become the ancestress of an illustrious breed which kings did not disdain to have set before them at table.

We can fancy this gallina resucitada laying now and then an egg, as Hawthorne says of the Pyncheon hens, “not for any pleasure of her own, but that the world might not absolutely lose so admirable a breed.” Brillat-Savarin pretended that the redeeming merit of the Jesuits was the discovery and introduction of the turkey into Europe.^[201] Had he only known of this race of hens, rendered meet for the palates of princes by their great founder, they might have had an additional title to his approbation. Father Prout, speaking of the Jesuits being accused of having a hand in every political disturbance for the last three hundred years, compares them to Mother Carey’s chickens, 1637which always make their appearance in a storm, and, for this reason, give rise to a belief among sailors that it is the fowl that has raised the tempest! How ominous, then, was this Spanish hen of Manresa! We could not find out whether there are any scions of this time-honored race still living in their ancestral coops, or whether they were all suppressed with the order as dangerous to the state; but we do know that six of the breed—three pollos and three pollas—in a line direct from the famous hen, were, in the beginning of the year 1603 (the miracle of the Pozo, it must be remembered, took place in 1522), sent to her Catholic majesty, Queen Margaret of Austria, who received them with as many demonstrations of pleasure as would have been consistent with royal etiquette in Spain.

We trust no supposititious egg was ever smuggled into the nest of this illustrious gallina to deteriorate the breed. Père Vanière, a learned French Jesuit of note in the last century, has described in an able Latin poem, part of which has been translated by Delille, the sorrows of a poor old hen when she found, for instance, that she had hatched a brood of ducks, which became the torment of her life by their inclination for water. As Hood has it:

“The thing was strange—a contradiction

It seemed of nature and her works,

For little chicks beyond conviction

To float without the aid of corks.”

Imagine, then, the woes of this maternal hen, in her new-fledged pride of race, should any Moorish or Guinea fowl taint her ennobled Spanish blood!

There is a hotel at Manresa, called the Chicken, of about the same stamp as the San Domingo, 1638though Mr. Bayard Taylor, whose experience in such matters transcends ours, satisfied himself that, “although the Saint has altogether a better sound than the Chicken, the Chicken is really better than the Saint!”

It was one of St. Ignatius’ favorite devotions, while at Manresa, to visit the sanctuary of Our Lady of Viladordis, on the banks of the Llobregat, about three miles from the city. The last time he went there he gave his hempen girdle of three strands to the tenant of a neighboring farm-house who had often offered him hospitality, and assured him that as long as he and his posterity should continue to aid the poor they would never lack the means of a decent livelihood, and, though they might not attain great wealth, they would never be reduced to absolute poverty; which prophecy has been fulfilled to the present day, for the family still continues to exist. In this rural church a solemn jubilee is celebrated every year on Whitmonday in memory of St. Ignatius. Over the altar is a picture of the saint inscribed: “St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, in the year 1522, the first of his conversion, frequented this church of Our Lady of Viladordis, and here received singular favors from Heaven, in memory of which this devout and grateful parish dedicates this portrait, Feb. 19, 1632.”

In 1860 Queen Isabella II., the great-granddaughter of Carlos III., came to Manresa, and, after visiting the Santa Cueva, expressed a wish to the city authorities that a monument so important in the religious history of Spain, and associated with the chief glory of Manresa, should be carefully preserved. This excited fresh interest. Spontaneous contributions from the devotos 1639de S. Ignacio flowed in for the restoration of the church and the ornamentation of the cave. To the former was transferred the miraculous image of Nuestra Señora de la Guia, before which St. Ignatius often used to pray. Pope Pius IX. conferred new indulgences on the Holy Cave, and its ancient glory had already revived when the revolution of September, 1868, broke out, overthrowing the royal government and compelling the Jesuits once more to take the road of exile. But the bishop of the diocese has watched over the cave, and it continues to be visited by pilgrims from all parts of the world.

A visit to the Santa Cueva marks an era in one’s life; for it is one of those places that produce an ineffaceable impression on the soul. Thank God! there are such places where the claims of a higher life assert themselves with irresistible force. Who that ever made a retreat with the Spiritual Exercises in hand has not turned longingly to the Holy Cave in which they were written? Followed there, they seem to acquire new significance and authority. Wonderful book, that for three hundred years has on the one hand been regarded with admiration and love, and on the other been the object of distortion and abuse! Some have gone so far as to declare it a book of servilism and degradation; others, more happy, look upon it as an inexhaustible 1640mine of wise directions in the practice of virtue. The sons of St. Ignatius have never ceased to meditate on the little volume which embodies the religious experience of their founder. They cherish it the more for giving them so large a draught in the chalice of ignominy, and they carry it with them through the wilderness of this world, as the children of Israel did the ark, to ensure their happy progress in the spiritual life. Pope Paul III., in his bull Pastoralis Officii, says: “Out of our apostolic authority and certain knowledge, we approve, we praise, we confirm by this document these teachings and these spiritual exercises, exhorting in the Lord, with all our might, the faithful of both sexes, one and all, to make use of these Exercises, so full of piety, and to follow their salutary directions.”

Manresa may well be proud of her Holy Cave, for it was here the great soul of St. Ignatius was tempered for his vast undertakings. But he did not indulge in any spiritual dalliance. His work once planned, he went boldly forth to achieve it.

“Forth to his task the giant sped;

Earth shook abroad beneath his tread,

And idols were laid low.

“India repaired half Europe’s loss;

O’er a new hemisphere the cross

Shone in the azure sky,

And, from the isles of far Japan

To the broad Andes, won o’er man

A bloodless victory!”

1641THE MIRACLE OF SEPTEMBER 16, 1877.

ABRIDGED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. HENRI LASSERRE.

In the month of August, 1874, Canon Martignon, previously curé-archiprêtre of Algiers, arrived at Lourdes. He was a man of about forty years of age, and while in Africa had been attacked by an affection of the chest which entirely deprived him of the use of his voice; he had therefore crossed the Mediterranean to seek healing in the city of Mary.

At the rocks of Massabielle he prayed, drank of the miraculous font, and bathed in the piscina, but without obtaining the cure he sought.

Not disheartened, he resolved to make a novena. This, too, was unaccompanied by any change for the better.

“Well, then,” he said, “I will make a novena of weeks.” And he took up his abode at Lourdes for sixty-three days.

On the sixty-fourth day, finding himself in absolutely the same state, he left for Pau, to seek a temporary alleviation in the mildness of its climate. But soon reproaching himself for having quitted Lourdes, and regarding his having done so as an act of weakness and a want of faith, and, moreover, possessing in the depth of his heart a conviction that sooner or later the Blessed Virgin would grant his prayer, he returned to the sacred grotto and took up his abode in the town.

An invalid, he constituted himself the guide and guardian of the sick and suffering. Pilgrims who of late years may have spent any 1642time at Lourdes will recollect having seen there a priest, still young, with a long, light beard, a distinguished countenance, with a bright earnestness and sweetness in the expression of the eyes; a tall, slight figure, the chest somewhat narrowed and the shoulders bent by suffering—a priest who led the blind, assisted the lame and infirm, to the piscina, and spent the whisper of his failing voice in cheering and consoling the afflicted. This was the Abbé Martignon.

“If Our Blessed Lady does not cure me this time,” he would say, smiling, “I have made up my mind for a novena of years, then a novena of centuries; and after that I will stop.”

He had the joy of seeing several of the sick of whom he had been the guide and stay miraculously cured; but he himself, though experiencing at times some slight alleviation, did not obtain the complete recovery he sought.

Did he at last feel that there was some secret resistance on the part of the Blessed Virgin to grant the favor he solicited? We do not know; but it seemed to us that, while his faith continued the same and his charity ever on the increase, the virtue of hope was with him gradually turning into that of resignation—or, to speak more accurately, that he was postponing his hope. Happy to remain in this corner of the earth, on which the feet of the Queen of Heaven had rested, and to pray daily at the sacred grotto, he did not begin the 1643novena of years and of centuries of which he had smilingly spoken.

“I stay here,” he would say, “at the disposal of Our Lady of Lourdes, like a person sitting in an ante-chamber waiting for an audience. She will hear me when she pleases. My turn will come; I shall have my hour or minute, and will take care not to let it escape me.”

For this hour and this minute he waited three years. Then, a few months ago, he felt an impulse within him urging him to knock again at the heavenly gate. He resolved to make a novena which should end on the Feast of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors. He had not observed that, this being a movable feast, the first day of the novena would this year (1877) coincide with the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin,^[202] and that his prayer would thus go, as it were, from the birth of Mary to the last sigh of Jesus—from the cradle of the Mother to the sepulchre of her Son.

Had the Abbé Martignon been cured he would have returned to Algeria; and we imagine that if at first the Blessed Virgin refused his request, it was because she had no intention of so soon granting leave of departure to such a servant. Neither God nor his priest were losing anything by this refusal. When such and such a temporal blessing—that is to say, the copper coin—is denied to our prayers, it is because the gold and the rich increase are being laid up in store for us, either in this world or the world to come. Besides, a new mission had been imposed on the ardent zeal and charity of the Abbé Martignon: 1644one which flowed naturally from the function to which he devoted himself of consoling the afflicted.

From the commencement of his sojourn at Lourdes he had found a man more suffering than the sick and more tried than the ordinarily afflicted, and to him also he had ministered aid and support. He to whom we allude—the Abbé Peyramale—had had the signal honor of receiving a message from heaven, and of accomplishing, in spite of every obstacle, the divine command. But the Blessed Virgin, doubtless reserving for him a higher place, had said: “I will show him how much he must suffer for love of me”; and the most unlooked-for troubles had been sent to torture his heroic heart.

By a strange contrast he was at the same time on Calvary and on Thabor. While his name was celebrated throughout Christendom, while he was blessed by the people whose beloved father and patriarch he was, he had also, especially during these latter times, the bitter pain of being misjudged, forsaken, and obstinately persecuted in that matter which he had most at heart—in his zeal for the Lord’s house. Like the Cyrenian, he was the man bearing the cross, and his robust shoulders were bruised and bleeding beneath the sacred burden, while around his sufferings, as around those of his Master, many shook their heads, saying: “He has been the instrument of Mary; let her now help and deliver him!”

When, at the time of the apparitions, now nearly twenty years ago, he had asked Our Lady to make roses bloom in the time of snow, she, who was in that same place to work so many miracles, refused this one, and to the priest whom she had chosen replied by the austere 1645word, “Penance.” The illustrious Abbé Peyramale, the priest of the Immaculate Conception, had thus been condemned to suffer. It was he of whom, for some years, the Abbé Martignon was the filial comforter and the friend of every hour.

It is not our purpose here to dwell on the sorrows beneath the weight of which sank the venerable curé of Lourdes; we would only call to mind that, when the basilica of the grotto was completed and enriched with the gifts of all the world—the basilica which was to be the point of arrival for the processions commanded by Our Lady—he undertook to rebuild the parish church, which ought to be their point of departure.

He died at his work, without having been able to complete it, and having more than once announced his death as a sort of necessity—a last sacrifice on his part in the interest of the house of God.

The unfinished church had stopped at the height of the arches. Aid on which he had been led to rely had failed him, and his efforts had been impeded by inconceivable hostilities.

“I shall not enter the promised land,” he would say; “I shall only see it afar off. I must die to repair the ruin. When I am here no more, all difficulties will be smoothed. My death will pay all”—sorrowful words, which brought tears to his eyes and to the eyes of those who loved him! We ourselves had the sad consolation of being present at his departure. God chose the Feast of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady to open the gates of eternity to her faithful servant.

Around the death-bed of Mgr. Peyramale were his brother and other relations, his vicaires, friends, 1646and those of his flock who had been able to penetrate into his room. Among this tearful family was the Abbé Martignon, broken down with grief, and scarcely thinking of himself, his malady, or his cure, or yet of his novena to Our Lady of the Seven Dolors, which, by a curious coincidence, was to begin that same day.

Mgr. Peyramale, after a long agony, had just rendered his last sigh to earth and his immortal soul to God. In that hour of grief and desolation his friend, while raising his heart to her who is the Consolatrix Afflictorum, recollected his promised novena.

What was passing in his mind? Kneeling by that bed and holding in his the lifeless hands of the curé of Lourdes, he remained for some time bowed down in silence. Then, rising, he said to some of those present: “I have just said the first prayer of my novena to Our Lady of Sorrows, and made my request for a cure, in presence of these holy remains; and I conjure Our Lady of Lourdes to permit that in her own name, and on the ninth day, our friend may himself transmit to me the answer”; adding: “The choice God has made of the 8th of September to call to himself the Priest of the Apparitions sufficiently authorizes me to associate his first remembrance (souvenir) with my humble supplication.”

Side by side with a great sorrow a great hope from this moment entered in and possessed the heart of the sick priest. The thought of recovery did not, assuredly, lessen his grief for the loss of his friend; but seeing himself henceforth alone in France, it was a happiness to him to know that his protector was in heaven, and that it would be doubtless owing to the intervention 1647of that friend, next to that of God and Our Blessed Lady, that he should receive the favor so long solicited.

He spoke of this with conviction. It seemed to him that, with such an intercessor, the Blessed Virgin would, on the ninth day, put herself in some sort at the disposal of his prayer. He even wrote to Paris, to the Rev. Père Picard of the Assumption, to tell him of his hope. Already he spoke of what he would do when he was cured, and how he would employ himself in furthering the unfinished work of the curé of Lourdes. He prayed with fervor; friends joined him in his novena; and thus the time went on until Saturday, the 15th of September—the eve of the ninth day.

On this Saturday, in the morning, he received a telegram to tell him that M. and Mme. Guerrier were on their way to Lourdes, and to ask if he would kindly meet them at the station with a carriage.

M. and Mme. Guerrier were utterly unknown to him. A letter only, which he had received from the curé of St. Gobain twenty-four hours before the telegram, informed him that Mme. Guerrier had for several years been suffering from a very serious illness, and was starting for Lourdes to seek a cure, full of faith that it would be granted. This lady and her husband were earnestly recommended to the Abbé Martignon, as this was their first visit to the city of the Blessed Virgin.

The canon gladly undertook this act of charity, and went to the station in good time to meet the three o’clock train. Leaving him for a time occupied with his Breviary in the waiting-room, we will relate by what series of circumstances M. and Mme. Guerrier were brought to Lourdes on that day.

1648M. Edouard Guerrier, judge of the peace at Beaune, married, about fifteen years ago, Mlle. Justine Biver, a religious and excellent lady. Her father was a distinguished physician, and her two brothers occupied high commercial positions, one being general director of the Company of St. Gobain, and the other director of the celebrated glass manufactories of St. Gobain and Chauny.

God had blessed this union with three children, healthy and intelligent, to whose training and education their mother devoted herself, bringing them up especially in the love of God and of the poor.

Thus passed eleven years of unbroken happiness. In 1874, however, a dark cloud suddenly over-shadowed this clear sky. The health of Mme. Guerrier broke down rapidly, and violent headaches, frequent faintings, and increasing weakness were succeeded by a general state of paralysis, which seized successively several important organs of the frame. The spine and lower limbs became powerless, and the sight dim and enfeebled. The sufferer was unable to sit up in bed, and obliged to remain always lying down. Finally the lower limbs became not only incapable of movement but insensible to pain, so that, if pinched or pricked, they remained without feeling. During the long fits of fainting it often seemed as if life must become extinct. Death was knocking at the door, and mourning had already entered the home lately so bright with happiness.

Unable to continue the education of her children, the poor mother could only assist them in their religious duties. Night and morning they knelt at her bedside, adding to their prayers an earnest petition for her recovery.

1649In this state Mme. Guerrier had continued about two years, when Alice, her eldest girl, was about to make her First Communion, on April 2, 1876. This great day constantly occupied the thoughts of this Christian mother. She thought of it for her child, and also a little for herself. It seemed to her as if, in coming to take possession of this young heart, the compassionate Saviour would surely bring some relief to her own great needs, and leave in the house some royal token of his visit and sojourn there. Had he not, on entering the house of Simon Peter, healed the sick mother-in-law, enabling her to rise and serve him?

“I am certain of it,” she said. “On that day I shall get up and walk.”

Alice made her First Communion on the appointed day; and in the evening the priest who had prepared her, and a few members of the family, were assembled at dinner. No change, however, had taken place in the state of the sick lady, and her place was remaining empty, as for so many months past, when, at the moment the party were about to sit down to table, suddenly recovering her lost powers, she rose, dressed, and came to take her place amid her family circle. Her sight was clear, the spine had recovered its strength, and she walked and moved with the same ease as before her illness.

The priest intoned a hymn of thanksgiving, all present answering. Every one felt that He who that morning had given himself in the divine Banquet was invisibly present at the family feast. During the night Mme. Guerrier’s sleep was calm and profound; but in the morning, when she attempted to rise, her limbs refused their 1650service, having fallen back into their helpless state. Was it, then, a dream or an illusion? Was it an effect of the nerves, the imagination, or the will?

The day of her daughter’s First Communion He would not disappoint the mother’s hope and faith.... But afterwards he willed her to understand that, for purposes known to him alone, she was still to bear the weight of her trial. The intolerable headaches returned no more, the faintings ceased, and the sight remained clear and distinct. From this day the resignation of Mme. Guerrier, already very great, became greater still. Her soul as well as her body had received grace from on high. The dimness of vision which had hidden from her the faces of her husband and children had disappeared before the breath of Heaven, and, although she remained infirm and always stretched upon her bed, she was filled with thankfulness and joy. From the beginning of her illness she had never seen her aged parents. She lived at Beaune, in the Côte d’Or, and they at St. Gobain, in the department of Aisne, one hundred and forty leagues away, and, Dr. Biver being then in his eighty-second year, any journey was a difficulty to him. His daughter longed to see him once more, and from April to September this longing continued to increase. In vain the exceeding risk as well as difficulty of travelling in her state was represented to her; she at last persuaded her husband to consent to the imprudent undertaking upon which she had set her heart.

As the physicians had foreseen, the journey very seriously aggravated Mme. Guerrier’s sufferings, which increased to such a degree 1651that, even after some weeks of repose, it was impossible for her to attempt to return to Beaune. The slightest movement often brought on an alarming crisis.

The consequence of such a state, under existing circumstances, was nothing less than the breaking up of the family. The husband, on account of his duties as judge of the peace, was compelled to reside at Beaune, while the condition of his wife rendered it impossible for her to quit St. Gobain. She had asked to have her children with her, and thus, between every two audiences, when possible, M. Guerrier took a journey of one hundred and forty leagues and back, in order to spend a few days with those who made all the happiness of his life.

Nearly a year passed in this way. A moment of improvement was constantly watched for which might permit Mme. Guerrier to travel; but this moment was waited for in vain. On the contrary, the paralysis was beginning to affect the left arm, and the thought of her journey thither made that of the homeward one very alarming.

Last August, M. Guerrier being at St. Gobain in the same painful state of hope deferred, his wife astonished him by saying: “My dear, I wish to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. I shall be cured there. You must take me.”

M. Guerrier, seriously alarmed at this proposal, energetically withstood an idea which he believed could not be acted upon without a fatal result.

“My dear wife, you are asking impossibilities,” he said. “Think what it has cost us for having, eleven months ago, yielded to your wishes by attempting the journey from Beaune to St. Gobain! Remember 1652that from that time you have not even been able to bear being carried into the garden or drawn a few paces in a sofa-chair. And yet you would venture to travel across France, to a part of the country where we are utter strangers, with the pleasant prospect of being unable to get away again! Do not think of it, dearest! It would be tempting God and running a risk that would be simply madness.”

“I am certain that I shall be cured at Lourdes,” was the answer, “and I wish to go thither.”

It was a struggle of reason against faith and hope, and, both parties being resolute, the struggle lasted for some days. Mme. Guerrier’s faith, however, communicated itself to her two brothers; they advised her husband to grant her wish, and he, weary of contention, at last gave a reluctant consent. Provided with a medical certificate as to the state of his wife’s health, he requested of the minister a few weeks’ leave of absence, in order to take her to the Pyrenees.

It was on Saturday, the 8th of September, Feast of the Nativity, that the journey was resolved upon.

M. Guerrier felt, however, no small anxiety at the prospect (in case his worst fears should be realized) of finding himself in a place where, knowing no one, he could expect no aid or support beyond the services to be had at hotels.

“If only,” he said, “I knew of any one there who could guide us a little! I shrink from this plunge into the unknown.”

On the 10th or 11th of September the Abbé Poindron, curé of St. Gobain, saw, announced in a newspaper, the death of Mgr. Peyramale, and in the account given of his last moments observed the 1653name of the Abbé Martignon. He went immediately to M. Guerrier, and said: “You will have some one at Lourdes to receive and direct you. I know Canon Martignon, and am writing to recommend you particularly to his kind care. On the way telegraph to him the hour of your arrival. He will be prepared for it.”

The exact time of the dreaded departure was then fixed for Wednesday, the 12th of September. It was arranged that the travellers should stop at Paris for a day’s repose, and that the rest of the journey should, if possible, be made without another halt until they reached Lourdes. An invalid carriage was engaged of the railway company to be in readiness.

Great was the anxiety of the family.... The children, however, rejoiced beforehand, implicitly believing that their mother would be cured: Marie, the youngest, who never remembered seeing her otherwise than in bed and infirm, exclaimed: “Mamma will come back to us like another mamma, and we shall have a mamma who can walk.”

“And,” joined in little Paul, who in this respect had sometimes envied other children of his acquaintance, “mamma will be able to take us on her lap.”

“Yes,” said Alice, “she will come back quite well.”

In order to spare Mme. Guerrier’s aged father the uncertainties and anxieties which preceded the decision, he had not been told what was in contemplation until everything was arranged, and the only thing that remained was to obtain his consent.

The venerable physician was deeply moved on hearing from his daughter her intention of visiting 1654that distant sanctuary to seek from the Mother of God a cure which human science had proved powerless to effect. He consented without hesitation, and, when the moment of departure arrived, raised his hands over his afflicted child in a parting benediction.

The journey was painful. At Paris it was not without great difficulty that Mme. Guerrier was transported to the house of her brother, M. Hector Biver.

Their brother-in-law, M. Louis Bonnel, professor at the lycée at Versailles, met them there. “I have just ascertained,” he said, “that Henri Lasserre is at Lourdes. I knew him formerly; he is a friend of mine. Here is a letter for him.” And thus it was that the writer of the present account was enabled later to learn all its details.

Notwithstanding the courage of the sick lady, her prostration was so complete when the train entered the station at Bordeaux that her husband dared not allow her then to go further, and insisted on her again taking a day’s repose.

On Saturday, the 15th of September, the travellers arrived at Lourdes. The Abbé Martignon was at the station, having prepared everything necessary. Two porters bore Mme. Guerrier to a commodious carriage, and the three repaired to the furnished apartments of Mme. Detroyat, where the abbé had engaged a room. This room was on the first or second story, and the helpless state of Mme. Guerrier rendered it absolutely necessary that she should have one on the ground floor. The canon had not been made aware of this, and was consequently in much perplexity.

“Do not be uneasy,” said Mme. 1655Detroyat. “You are very likely to find a room that will suit you, close by, at the house of M. Lavigne.”

M. Lavigne is the owner of a very pleasant house, surrounded by shrubs and flowers. The garden gate opens on the highroad which passes through Lourdes and forms its principal street. The house is in the lower part of the town, between the cité and the station.

M. Lavigne, with the greatest kindness, put his house at the disposal of the pilgrims, and thus they were soon installed in a large room on the ground floor, temporarily transformed into a bedroom and opening into the garden.