Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  M. l’Abbé Auzou says, in speaking of revolutionary reforms, —

  “Rien n’est changé dans le sacerdoce; et l’on peut dire aussi des prêtres toujours romains, qu’ils n’ont rien oublié, qu’ils n’ont rien appris. Cependant, sous le règne de Napoléon leur orgueil a fléchi devant le grand intérêt de leur réinstallation.... Aussi, au retour de leur roi légitime, cet orgueil comprimé s’est-il relevé dans toute sa hauteur. Rome a placé son trône à côté de celui d’un roi, un peu philosophe, a-t-on dit, mais perclus et impotent. Et enfin, lorsque son successeur, d’abord accueilli par le peuple, est tombé entre les mains des prêtres, ceux-ci, profitant de son âge et de sa faiblesse, ont exploité les erreurs d’une jeunesse fougueuse, qui cependant lui avaient valu le surnom de Chevalier Français. Alors nous avons vu ce roi sacrifier sa popularité à leurs exigeances; appeler toute la nation à l’expiation de ses fautes personnelles, à son repentir, à sa pénitence; et la forcer à renier, pour ainsi dire, trente ans de gloire et de liberté.... Un roi que le remords poursuit, dévore, et qui ne reconnaît d’autre recours que dans le prêtre qui l’a soumis à sa loi par la menace et la terreur de l’enfer; ce roi, sous le coup d’une absolution conditionnelle et toujours suspendue, abdique, sans le savoir, en faveur de son confesseur....

  “Roi! tu languis dans l’exil, et tes fautes sont punies jusque dans les dernières générations!

  “Les prêtres, les prêtres romains se sont cependant soumis à un nouveau prince, à qui la souveraineté nationale a remis le sceptre; ils prient enfin pour lui ... et l’on sait avec quelle sincérité.

  “Mais, peuple, comme leur joug s’appesantit sur toi!... Dans leur fureur mal-déguisée ils le disent.... La maison du Seigneur est déserte, et tu te rues avec fureur vers les plaisirs, les fêtes, les bals et les spectacles! Anathême donc contre les plaisirs, les fêtes et les bals! Anathême contre les spectacles!

  “Ne sont-ce point là, mes frères, les paroles qui tombent chaque jour menaçantes de la chaire de l’Eglise Romaine?...

  “Combien notre langage sera différent! Le Dieu des Juifs est bien notre Dieu; mais sa colère a été désarmée par le sacrifice que son fils lui a offert pour notre rédemption.

  “Pourquoi ce sang répandu sur la croix pour nos péchés si la satisfaction de nos besoins physiques, si nos fonctions intellectuelles, si l’entrainement des passions qui constituent notre être peuvent à chaque instant nous faire tomber dans le péché et nous précipiter dans l’abîme?

  “Aussi nous vous disons dans notre chaire apostolique, — Exécutez les commandemens de Dieu, adorez et glorifiez notre Père qui est aux cieux, pratiquez la morale de l’Evangile, aimez votre prochain comme vous-mêmes, et vous aurez accompli la loi de Jésus-Christ ... et nous ajoutons, — Vous êtes membre de la société pour laquelle vous avez été créés, et cette société vous impose des devoirs; en échange elle vous procure des jouissances et des plaisirs: remplissez vos devoirs et livrez-vous ensuite sans crainte aux jouissances et aux plaisirs qu’elle vous présente. Votre participation à ces mêmes plaisirs, à ces mêmes jouissances, est encore une partie de vos devoirs, et vous aurez accompli encore une fois la loi de Jésus-Christ.”

  This doctrine may assuredly entitle the Eglise Apostolique Française to the appellation of a NEW CHURCH.

  M. l’Abbé Auzou goes on yet farther in the same strain: —

  “Anathême!... Arme vieille, rouillée, émoussée, et que vous cherchez en vain à retremper dans le fiel de la colère et de la vengeance!... Anathême aux plaisirs! Et quoi! parceque Dieu a dit à notre premier père, Vous mangerez votre pain à la sueur de votre visage, l’homme serait condamné à rester toujours courbé sous le joug du travail? N’aura-t-il à espérer aucun adoucissement à ses peines?...

  “Non, sans doute ... vous dira le clergé romain, puisque Dieu a consacré le septième jour au repos?

  “Et quel est ce repos?

  “Sera-ce celui, qu’en vous servant du bras du séculier, vous avez tenté de lui imposer par une ordonnance préscrivant de fermer tous les établissemens qui décorent notre cité, nos cafés, nos restaurans, pour ne tolérer que l’ouverture des officines du pharmacien? — ordonnance dont une caricature spirituelle a fait si prompte justice.”

  The following picture of a fanatical Sunday takes me back at once to America. There, however, its worst effect was to steep the senses in the unnecessary oblivion of a few more hours of sleep; but in Paris I should really expect that such restraint, were it indeed possible to impose it, would literally drive the sensitive and mobile population to madness.

  “Et quel est donc ce repos?

  “Sera-ce l’immobilité des corps; l’abandon de toutes nos facultés; l’oisiveté; l’ennui, compagnon inséparable de l’oisiveté; la prière; la méditation, — la méditation plus pénible pour la plupart des hommes que le travail des mains; et, enfin, vos sermons intolérans, et, qui pis est peut-être, si ennuyeux?

  “Ah! imposer à l’homme un pareil repos ne serait que suspendre son travail pour lui faire porter, comme à St. Simon de Cyrène, la croix de Jésus-Christ jusqu’au sommet escarpé du Calvaire.”

  The Abbé then proceeds to promulgate his bull for the permission of all sorts of Parisian delights; nay, he takes a very pretty and picturesque ramble into the country, where “les jeunes garçons et les jeunes filles s’y livrent à des danses rustiques” — and, in short, gives so animated a picture of the pleasures which ought to await the Sabbath both in town and country, that it is almost impossible to read it without feeling a wish that every human being who through the six days of needful labour has been “weary worn with care” should pass the seventh amid the bright and cheering scenes he describes. But he effectually checks this feeling of sympathy with his views by what follows. He describes habitual drunkenness with the disgust it merits; but strangely qualifies this, by adding to his condemnation of the “homme dégradé qui, oubliant chaque jour sa dignité dans les excès d’une hideuse ivrognerie, n’attend pas le jour que Dieu a consacré au repos, à la distraction, aux plaisirs, pour se livrer à son ignoble passion,” these dangerous words: —

  “Mais condamnerons-nous sans retour notre frère pour un jour d’intempérance passagère, et blamerons-nous celui qui, cherchant dans le vin, ce présent du Ciel, un moment d’oubli des misères humaines, n’a point su s’arrêter à cette douce ivresse, oublieuse des maux et créatrice d’heureuses illusions?”

  Is not this using the spur where the rein is most wanting? I am persuaded that it is not the intention of the Abbé Auzou to advocate any species of immorality; but all the world, and particularly the French world perhaps, is so well disposed to amuse itself coûte qui coûte, that I confess I doubt the wisdom of enforcing the necessity of so doing from the pulpit.

  The unwise, unauthorised, and most unchristian severity of the Calvinistic and Romish priesthood may, I think, lawfully and righteously be commented upon and reprobated both in the pulpit and out of it; but this reprobation should not clothe itself in license, or in any language that can be interpreted as such. There are many, I should think, in every Christian land, both clergy and laity, but neither popish nor Calvinistic, who would shrink both from the sentiment and expression of the following passage: —

  “Rappelons-nous que le patriarche Noé, lui qui planta la vigne et exprima le jus de son fruit, en abusa une fois, et que Dieu ne lui en fit point le reproche: Dieu punit, au contraire, le fils qui n’avait point caché cette faiblesse d’un père.”

  There is some worldly wisdom, however, in the exclamation he addresses to his intolerant brethren.

  “Et vous, prêtres aveugles et impolitiques, laissez le peuple se livrer à ses plaisirs innocens; faites en sorte qu’il se contente de sa position; qu’il ne compare pas cette position pénible, douloureuse, avec l’oisiveté dans laquelle vous vivez vous-mêmes, et que vous ne devez qu’à la nouvelle dîme qui s’exprime de son front.”

  He then proceeds to say, that it is not the poor only who are subjecte
d to this severity, but the rich also ... “que le prêtre de la secte romaine veut arrêter, troubler dans ses plaisirs, dans ses délassemens.”... “Un repas par lequel on célèbre l’union de deux jeunes coeurs, l’union de deux familles, et dans lequel règnent la joie, et peut-être aussi un peu plus que de la gaîté, est l’objet de la censure inexorable de ces prêtres rigides.... Ils oublient que celui qu’ils disent être leur maître a consacré ces réunions par sa présence, et que le vin ayant manqué par le trop grand usage qu’on en avait fait, il n’en a pas moins changé l’eau en vin. Ils sont tous disposés à répondre comme ce Janséniste à qui l’on rappelait cet intéressant épisode de la vie de Jésus,— ‘Ce n’est pas ce qu’il a fait de mieux.’ — Impie! ... tu blasphêmes contre ton maître!...

  “Ah! mes frères, admirons, nous, dans la sincérité de notre coeur, cet exemple de bienveillance et de sociabilité pratique, et bénissons la bonté de Jésus.”

  Then follows an earnest defence, or rather eulogy, of dancing. But though I greatly approve the exercise for young people, and believe it to be as innocent as it is natural, I would not, were I called upon to preach a sermon, address my hearers after this manner: —

  “Quant aux bals, je ne chercherai point à les excuser, à les défendre, par des exemples puisés dans l’écriture sainte. Je ne vous représenterai point David dansant devant l’arche.... Je ne vous le donnerai pas non plus pour modèle, à vous, jeunes gens de notre France si polie, si élégante, car sans doute il dansait mal; puisque, suivant la Bible, Michal sa femme, voyant le roi David qui sautait et dansait, se moqua de lui et le méprisa dans son coeur.” There is about as much piety as good taste in this.

  I have already given you such long extracts, that I must omit all he says, — and it is much in favour of this amusement. Such forbearance is the more necessary, as I must give you a passage or two more on other subjects. Among the general reasons which he brings forward to prove that fêtes and festivals are beneficial to the people, he very justly remarks that the occupation they afford to industry is not the least important, observing that the popish church takes no heed of such things; and then adds, addressing the manufacturers, —

  “Et lorsque le besoin se fera sentir et pour vous et vos enfans, allez à l’Archevêché! ... à l’Archevêché! ... un jour la colère du peuple a éclaté, —

  “Je n’ai fait que passer, il n’était déjà plus.”...

  The date which this sermon bears on its title-page is 1834; but the event to which this line from Racine alludes was the destruction of the archiepiscopal palace, which took place, if I mistake not, in 1831. If the “il n’était déjà plus” alludes to the palace, it is correct enough, for destruction could not have done its work better: but if it be meant to describe the fate of MONSEIGNEUR L’ARCHEVÊQUE DE PARIS, the preacher is not a prophet; for, in truth, the sacrilegious rout “n’a fait que passer,” and MONSEIGNEUR has only risen higher from the blow. Public orators of all kinds should be very cautious, in these moveable times, how they venture to judge from to-day what may be to-morrow. The only oracular sentence that can be uttered at present with the least chance of success from the developement of the future is, “Who can say what may happen next?” All who have sufficient prudence to restrict their prescience to this acute form of prophecy, may have the pleasure, let come what may, of turning to their neighbours triumphantly with the question— “Did I not tell you that something was going to happen?” — but it is dangerous to be one atom more precise. Even before this letter can reach you, my friend, M. l’Abbé’s interpretation of “il n’était déjà plus” may be more correct than mine. I say this, however, only to save my credit with you in case of the worst; for my private opinion is, that Monseigneur was never in a more prosperous condition in his life, and that, “as no one can say what will happen next,” I should not be at all astonished if a cardinal’s hat were speedily to reward him for all he has done and suffered.

  I certainly intended to have given you a few specimens of the Abbé Auzou’s manner of advocating theatrical exhibitions; but I fear they would lead me into too great length of citation. He is sometimes really eloquent upon the subject: nevertheless, his opinions on it, however reasonable, would have been delivered with better effect from the easy-chair of his library than from the pulpit of his church. It is not that what would be good when heard from the one could become evil when listened to from the other: but the preacher’s pulpit is intended for other uses; and though the visits to a well-regulated theatre may be as lawful as eating, and as innocent too, we go to the house of God in the hope of hearing tidings more important than his minister’s assurance that they are so.

  LETTER XXXIII.

  Establishment for Insane Patients at Vanves. — Description of the arrangements. — Englishman. — His religious madness.

  You will think perhaps that I have chosen oddly the object which has induced me to make an excursion out of town, and obliged me to give up nearly an entire day at Paris, when I tell you that it was to visit an institution for the reception of the insane. There are, however, few things which interest me more than an establishment of this nature; especially when, as in the present instance, my manner of introduction to it is such as to give me the hope of hearing the phenomena of these awful maladies discussed by those well acquainted with them. The establishment of MM. Voisin and Fabret, at Vanves, was mentioned to me as one in which many improvements in the mode of treating alienation of mind have been suggested and tried with excellent effect; and having the opportunity of visiting it in company with a lady who was well acquainted with the gentlemen presiding over it, I determined to take advantage of it. My friend, too, knew how to direct my attention to what was most interesting, from having had a relation placed there, whom for many months she had been in the constant habit of visiting.

  Her introduction obtained for me the most attentive reception, and the fullest explanation of their admirable system, which appears to me to combine, and on a very large and noble scale, everything likely to assuage the sufferings, soothe the spirits, and contribute to the health of the patients.

  Vanves is situated at the distance of one league from Paris, in a beautiful part of the country; and the establishment itself, from almost every part of the high ground on which it is placed, commands views so varied and extensive, as not only to render the principal mansion a charming residence, but really to make the walks and drives within the enclosure of the extensive premises delightful.

  The grounds are exceedingly well laid out, with careful attention to the principal object for which they are arranged, but without neglecting any of the beauty of which the spot is so capable. They have shade and flowers, distant views and sheltered seats, with pleasant walks, and even drives and rides, in all directions. The enclosure contains about sixty acres, to every part of which the patients who are well enough to walk about can be admitted with perfect safety.

  In this park are situated two or three distinct lodges, which are found occasionally to be of the greatest utility, in cases where the most profound quiet is necessary, and yet where too strict confinement would be injurious. Indeed, it appears to me that the object principally kept in view throughout all the arrangements, is the power of keeping patients out of sight and hearing of each other till they are sufficiently advanced towards recovery to make it a real pleasure and advantage to associate together.

  As soon as they reach this favourable stage of their convalescence, they mix with the family in very handsome rooms, where books, music, and a billiard-table assist them to pass the hours without ennui. Every patient has a separate sleeping-apartment, in none of which are the precautions necessary for their safety permitted to be visible. What would wear the appearance of iron bars in every other place of the kind that I have seen, are here made to look like very neat jalousies. Not a bolt or a bar is perceptible, nor any object whatever that might shock the spirit, if at any time a gleam of recovered intellect should return to visit it.

  This cautiou
s keeping out of sight of the sufferers everything that might awaken them to a sense of their own condition, or that of the other patients, appears to me to be the most peculiar feature of the discipline, and is evidently one of the objects most sedulously kept in view. Next to this I should place the system of inducing the male patients to exercise their limbs, and amuse their spirits, by working in the garden, at any undertaking, however bizarre and profitless, which can induce them to keep mind and body healthily employed. I know not if this has been systematically resorted to elsewhere; but the good sense of it is certainly very obvious, and the effect, as I was told, is found to be very generally beneficial; though it occasionally happens that some among them have fancied their dignity compromised by using a spade or a hoe, — and then some of the family join with them in the labour, to prove that it is merely a matter of amusement: in short, everything likely to cheer or soothe the spirits seems brought into use among them.

  The ground close adjoining to the house is divided into many small well-enclosed gardens; the women’s apartments opening to some, the men’s to others of them. In several of these gardens I observed neat little tables, such as are used in the restaurans of Paris, with a clean cloth, and all necessary appointments, placed pleasantly and commodiously in the shade, at each of which was seated one person, who was served with a separate dinner, and with every appearance of comfort. Had I not known their condition, I should in many instances have thought the spectacle a very pleasing one.

  M. Voisin walked through all parts of the establishment with us, and there appeared to exist a perfectly good understanding between him and his patients. Among many regulations, which all appeared excellent, he told me that the friends of his inmates were permitted at all times, and under all circumstances, to visit them without any restraint whatever: an arrangement which can only be productive of confidence and advantage to all parties; as it is perfectly inconceivable that any one who had felt obliged to place an unhappy friend or relative under restraint should wish to interfere with the discipline necessary for his ultimate advantage; whereas a contrary system is likely to give occasion to constant doubts and fears on one hand, and to the possibility of ill treatment or unnecessary restraint on the other. In one of the courts appropriated to the use of such male patients as were sufficiently convalescent to permit their associating together, and amusing themselves with the different games in which they are permitted to share, we saw a young Englishman, now rapidly recovering, but who had scrawled over the walls of his own sleeping-apartment, poor fellow! with a pencil, a vast quantity of writing, almost wholly on religious subjects; proving but too plainly that he was one of the many victims of fanaticism. Every thought seemed pregnant with suffering, and sometimes bursts of agony were scrawled in trembling characters, that spoke the very extremity of terror. “Who is there can endure fire and flame for ever, for ever, and for ever?” “Death is before us — Hell follows it!” “The bottomless pit — groans — tortures — anguish — for ever!”... Such sentences as these were still legible, though much had been obliterated.