The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler

by Oliver, Reggie

  For the most part I could barely see the outline of the foundations. Here or there a wall was standing which showed an architectural feature of some sort, an arched entrance, or a traceried window. Where there had once been flagstones there was grass, criss-crossed by yellow trackways where countless feet and bicycle wheels had worn through the sward to the sandy clay beneath. I sat down on a stone bench, and stared at a bare archway at the base of which had been put a small notice.

  ABBAYE DU SAINT ESPRIT, XVIième SIÈCLE

  A sudden little wind whipped up a few newly fallen leaves and sent them eddying across the grass before they flattened themselves against one of the convent walls. I felt cold and damp. I would rather spend my time reading in my dreary hotel room than sitting here where the air seemed loaded with unspecified threat.

  **

  For some years I had been researching a book about Fénelon, Bossuet and the controversy over that extraordinary mystic Madame Guyon in late seventeenth century France. Researches led me first to the Bibliothèque Nationale, then to the cathedral archives at Meaux where Bossuet had been bishop for the last twenty-three years of his life. Much of his correspondence is easily accessible. The French revere this great preacher, theologian and controversialist so that almost everything he wrote has been published. But, like most scholars, I dream of finding that little cache of enormously significant documents which have somehow escaped the defiling hands of time and scholarship.

  In the cathedral archives at Meaux are a number of documents relating to Bossuet’s time as bishop there. They are mostly routine stuff: charter renewals, ecclesiastical licenses, reports of legal disputes over church lands. Perhaps the most interesting papers—and even they are not that interesting—are those relating to the annual visitations which Bossuet made to the convents, abbeys and monasteries in his diocese. Being a strict and upright churchman he was capable of making very trenchant remarks wherever he found that discipline was lax, or the finances disordered. I was skimming through these, looking for any letters, indeed anything in Bossuet’s own hand when, among the papers relating to a foundation of Ursuline nuns at the Abbey of Montjouarre, some twelve miles southwest of Meaux, I discovered a note—not, however, in Bossuet’s own hand—which intrigued me. It was written in sepia ink, possibly by Bossuet’s secretary, Ledieu, on a single sheet of paper, and was dated May 5th 1704, a little under a month after the Bishop’s death. It read: ‘All papers relating to Madeleine Lapige, née Chanal (Sister Angélique) returned to Montjouarre at the request of the Lady Abbess, Mme de Lonchat.’

  Though I looked everywhere I could find only the most cursory reference to the Abbey of Montjouarre and none whatsoever to Sister Angélique. I might have stopped there except that on my return to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris I decided to look up Montjouarre in the indexes and see what books they had on the subject. A rather dull-looking local history written in the 1950s yielded the information that the Abbey of Montjouarre had been almost completely destroyed in the Second World War. It had however not been an abbey for some time, the nuns having been expelled and the building turned into a military academy by Napoleon. A footnote informed me that at the time of the Abbey’s conversion from a spiritual to a warlike function all the papers relating to the Abbey on the command of the Emperor had been moved to the mairie. It was somehow a typically Napoleonic act: the attention to detail, the respect for the past combined with ruthless secularism. Now that I knew there was a possibility of these papers still existing I felt obliged to pursue my researches into them, even though they probably had only a marginal connection with my chosen subject. As it happened, I felt the need for a break, so the following day I left Paris for Montjouarre.

  **

  The next morning I was at the mairie sitting opposite a neat, bright-eyed, plump little man in a large, sombre office. My experience of French mayors is slight but on the whole very favourable. Their attitude is serious but relaxed and affable and they are often men of culture with a high regard for the arts. M. Georges Hubertin, Mayor of Montjouarre, was no exception. After a brief interview he told me that there was indeed a box of papers relating to the Abbey and invited me to dinner at his home that night to discuss the matter further.

  The dinner was excellent: Cepes à la Bordelaise, followed by Chateaubriand; the wine was a superb Chambertin; Madame Hubertin and their two teenage daughters were charming. The French have a natural reverence for scholarship and intellect and I was an object of particular interest in being an English intellectual with an interest in French culture. After dinner Hubertin and I were left to discuss matters over coffee and cognac.

  ‘I have only heard of the Abbey papers mentioned once before,’ said M. Hubertin. ‘In about 1890, the local priest, a man with some intellectual pretensions, asked to see the papers, and, having done so, requested that he might take them away and destroy them, claiming the right as a priest of the Church to have jurisdiction over ecclesiastical documents. The then mayor, who happened to be my great-grandfather, also a proud bearer of the name of Hubertin, was most indignant that such ancient documents should be consigned to the flames. Besides, he was a good freethinker and had no great love for M. Le Curé. However, he was a politician and therefore always ready to compromise for the sake of peace, so he promised that these papers should be placed in a box and locked up. He assured M. Le Curé that the box would not be opened for a hundred years and that the key to the box should be passed from Mayor to Mayor with this explicit instruction. M. Le Curé was not happy with the arrangement, but he had to content himself in the face of my great-grandfather’s inflexible will. He was heard to mutter that he wished he had destroyed them while he had the chance. Not long after he died in what I believe were bizarre circumstances. I cannot remember what they were: I will try to find out for you. And now the one hundred years is up, Monsieur. More cognac?’

  It was that night—the night before last—that I had the dream for the first time. The first time it merely puzzled me.

  **

  The following morning M. Hubertin and I met at the mairie and went down into the cellars where the papers were kept. He told me with great pride how for nearly six months towards the end of the war two Jewish families had been hidden by his father and uncle in these cellars, ‘right under the very noses of the Gestapo!’

  After some rummaging around we discovered a very large japanned tin box with a label on it announcing that it contained papers relating to the Abbaye du Saint Esprit. As he did not want them to be moved from the mairie, Hubertin arranged that a small room in the building be allocated to me for their inspection. I could have access to it in normal office hours, and it would be locked at night. If, at the end of my examination, I required any copying to be done, this could be negotiated. It seems a very fair arrangement, though the prospect of spending a week or so in Montjouarre at the Hotel du Commerce is not altogether agreeable to me.

  The papers relate to every part of the Abbey’s history from the foundation in 1583 until its dissolution. I soon discovered that the papers concerning Sister Angélique mentioned in the archives at Meaux consist mainly of a correspondence between Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and Madame de Lonchat, Abbess of Montjouarre.

  At this point let me insert a brief note about Madame de Lonchat. She had been the wife of the Viscomte de Lonchat and, like most of the aristocracy, had spent much of her life in the suffocating splendour of Versailles at the Court of the Sun King, Louis XIV. There she had enjoyed an unusual reputation for virtue and piety. On the death of her husband in 1692 she determined to leave the court immediately in order to lead a life of contemplative prayer. Within a very few years, thanks to the influence of her friend Madame de Maintenon (by then Louis’ morganatic wife), she had became Abbess of the Ursuline Convent of Montjouarre. Aristocratic Abbesses were a feature of seventeenth century France, and, while some were lax and dissolute, many, like Madame de Lonchat, were conscientious, even if they had obtained their positions through bi
rth and influence.

  The letters begin in February 1702 when Bossuet was seventy-five, two years away from his death. At that time he was a revered figure, but no longer the power in the land that he had once been. Only three years before the famous controversy with Fénelon had ended with an apparent victory for Bossuet, but many believed that his reputation had been tarnished by the scandal it had caused.

  **

  From Mme de Lonchat, Abbess of Montjouarre to M. de Meaux 16th February 1702.

  Your grace’s last visitation was a precious encouragement to us all. My Sisters have well heeded your counsel regarding over-scrupulousness and excessive mortification. But I write to you because I have a concern regarding one of my charges, Sister Angélique, not long consecrated in our Sisterhood. You may remember this girl. The daughter of a prosperous grain merchant, M. Chanal, she came to our Abbey to be educated with her sisters at the age of nine. She proved herself most apt and obedient, not only in her schooling but in her devotions, and she endeared herself to all here by her sweetness and natural piety. When the time came for her to be removed from our care at the age of sixteen, she begged to be allowed to stay and become a postulant of our order. M. Chanal objected strongly for he had plans to marry her off advantageously as she was a girl of great beauty. Madeleine, as she was then called before she took the name of Sister Angélique at her clothing, resisted his wishes most vehemently and ran away from home several times to find refuge with us. At last we appealed to you on her behalf to arbitrate in this matter and you yourself were gracious enough to speak to the father and persuade him that God had indeed called his daughter to a life of prayer and renunciation.

  That was three years ago and Sister Angélique is now a full member of our order. Until recently I can report nothing but good things of her. She has increased in grace and favour with our Lord Jesus in every way. She has been dutiful, but never over anxious. Only in one respect had she troubled us and this was not her fault. I hesitate to mention such matters before you, Monseigneur, but I believe it to have some bearing upon what follows. From the age of fourteen when these things began, somewhat later than is customary, she had very grievous periods [Elle avait des règles tres douloureuses]. The effluxes of blood were great, and she herself—until reassured by myself and Sister Jeanne, the Mistress of Novices—was convinced that they were the consequence of some mortal sin. These events coincided almost invariably with the appearance of the full moon, a fact which added to her distress. Indeed, while she was still a postulant it was the occasion of some teasing among the other Novices, but Sister Jeanne and I put a stop to that.

  Of late the fluxes of blood have become even more grievous, so much so that I called in M. Filerin the apothecary who prescribed an infusion of Bay and Camomile, but this has had no effect.

  These afflictions which cause Sister Angélique much pain and distress may occasion much sympathy in your Grace’s munificent heart, but this is not the reason why I have called them to your attention. They appear of late to have affected her mind.

  As you know, we allow a short hour of recreation for the sisters between Vespers and Compline. During this time the sisters generally congregate in the garden in summer or, when it is cold, in the parlour where a fire is always kept burning for visitors. On a number of occasions I have noticed that Sister Angélique was not present. Though I am not, as your grace is aware, well disposed to idle gossip in the parlour, it worried me that Sister Angélique was keeping herself from the society of others. Such a habit, as you have often so wisely pointed out, leads to the errors of singularity and spiritual pride. Last Friday, which was, as it happens, a time of the full moon, Sister Angélique being absent from the parlour as usual, I sent Sister Jeanne to fetch her from her cell. Jeanne returned without Sister Angélique and apparently much troubled, so I accompanied her to Sister Angélique’s cell where I found the girl in a distracted state, her robe dabbled with blood and the floor awash with it.

  But there was something which troubled me more than this. Upon the white wall of her cell some words had been written it would appear in blood. That they had been traced in her own menstrual blood and with her own finger was evident. The words were as follows.

  Ictibus flos Galliae quattuor verberabitur belli

  Incipiet quarto, sanguinis aevum, anno.

  It is, as you, Monseigneur, will know better than I, a Latin elegiac couplet, but its meaning is to me quite obscure. Though it is no doubt of little merit as verse, and full of false quantities, it is strange to me that this young girl to whom only the rudiments of the Latin language have been taught, should have written such a thing. When asked why she had done it Sister Angélique replied, in great distress, that she could not remember how it came to pass. I am disposed to believe her, for she is not in herself wicked or malicious.

  [Mme de Lonchat is correct: the verse is an Elegiac Couplet of sorts. Translated it means:

  The flower of Gaul shall be struck by four strokes of war

  The Time of Blood shall begin in the fourth year.]

  I am informed by Sister Jeanne that at her time of trouble Sister Angélique is prone to strange utterances, and that she is regarded by some of the more credulous among our community to be gifted with prophesy. Whether her words are of God or the Devil is beyond my competence to say. Though I would be very disinclined to dismiss any manifestations which may be true fruits of the Spirit, I am concerned that she may be having an undue influence over her fellows. This would have an unfortunate effect on them, but chiefly on her, giving the girl an exaggerated sense of her own importance. Sister Angélique’s family is perfectly respectable, but she is a bourgeoise and cannot hope to obtain any great position of eminence within our order except by corrupt and illegitimate means.

  I would be most obliged if your grace would offer us the benefit of your sacred guidance on this matter.

  **

  From M. de Meaux to Mme de Lonchat, Abbess of Montjouarre 19th February 1702.

  The ways of Divine Providence, my dear and reverend Mother, are very great, and we should not hasten to pass judgement on strange events and happenings. A study of the scriptures reveals a wealth of utterances which astound those who boast of worldly wisdom. However you are right to be concerned that a young untried soul such as Sister Angélique should be the vessel of such mysterious sufferings. But I would ask you respectfully Madame to reflect carefully on the words you wrote about Sister Angélique’s station and ancestry. The honours of your own rank and family are a blessing if well used, but God’s dispensation extends to all. I would remind you that the situation into which God called me to be born was not exalted. God in his wisdom calls monarchs and nobles to a special privilege and office, but he does not neglect his little ones. Though in the eyes of the world we are called to our appointed places, in the eyes of a Merciful God we are as one. As Christ called his disciples from the humble fisher folk of Galilee, so he called me from a line of Burgundian drapers to drape myself in the mantle of priesthood and perhaps Sister Angélique from the family of a seed merchant to cast the seed of the word of God among men. It is not for us to question His ways.

  It is, however, our duty before God, at all times to show wisdom and moderation, and here I must commend you highly, firstly in showing restraint towards Sister Angélique, and secondly in seeking my counsel which is ever, my dear Madame, at your disposal.

  I have read and pondered over your letter with much prayer but I have not yet a complete answer for you. The direction of souls is a mystery: I strive to be faithful in passing on what is given to me; when I seem to have received nothing I yield the whole to God and beseech Him to compensate for my deficiencies.

  In the meantime, my counsel is this: when Sister Angélique’s time of trouble—which you say is at the full moon—comes upon her, let her be separated from her companions and watched by a Sister upon whom you can rely for the utmost discretion. Let all her words and utterances at this time be noted down and sent to me, but let them be
shown to no-one else. In all other respects you are to treat Sister Angélique as quite ordinary. She is neither to be despised for her curious conduct, nor exalted for it. Let her be encouraged to associate freely with her fellow sisters and not hold herself in any way apart. Let her be seen at all times whenever possible as one like all the others.

  I commend this counsel to you, Madame, as the best that my human and fallible intellect can devise. I pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit when I am better informed, and beseech you therefore to hold this humbly-born servant of God in your prayers, ever willing, however falteringly, to walk in His ways and dwell in the Light of his Mercy.

  **

  From Mme de Lonchat, Abbess of Montjouarre to M. de Meaux 18th March 1702.

  Taking your grace’s excellent counsel to heart, I did as you requested, and, at the last full moon, when Sister Angélique’s affliction came upon her, I set her apart in an unused quarter of the Abbey in the charge of Sister Jeanne, our Mistress of Novices. I enclose the report that she compiled of her observations. You may rely on her account both for its veracity and its discernment. She is a Montmorency and a niece of the Duchesse de Chevreuil.

  **

  Account of Sister Jeanne’s observations regarding Sister Angélique over a period of three days. For the eyes of Madame, the Abbess and M. de Meaux alone.

  On the day commanded by the Lady Abbess, I brought Sister Angélique to a room in the East Wing of the Abbey which is no longer inhabited. Sister Angélique at first complained at being brought into such unfamiliar surroundings, which were, moreover, both incommodious and cold; for this wing has fallen somewhat into disrepair: there are birds nesting among the broken roof tiles and the wind moans along the corridors at night. But I told her that she was not to object for it was the will of God that she should be kept apart. And, moreover, that it was the will of Her Lady Abbess and His Grace of Meaux. I further told Sister Angélique that if I could suffer discomfort to fulfil my vow of obedience to the Lady Abbess and M. de Meaux then surely she could, as she was the cause of it all. At this Sister Angélique consented with a reasonable grace, and showed some humility.