Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860




"Did you understand John, when he said that the priests deceived us and
were full of robberies, and talked about the masses for the dead, and
said the only good of them was to put money into the Church?" asked
Jacqueline.

"I believe it," he replied, with spirit.

"That the masses are worth nothing?" she asked,--far from concealing
that the thought disturbed her.

"What can they be worth, if a man has lived a bad life?"

"_That_ my father did _not!_" she exclaimed.

"If a man is a bad man, why, then he is. He has gone where he must be
judged. The Scripture says, As a tree falls, it must lie."

"My father was a good man, Victor. But he died of a sudden, and there
was no time."

"No time for what, Jacqueline? No time for him to turn about, and be a
bad man in the end?"

"No time for confession and absolution. He died praying God to forgive
him all his sins. I heard him. I wondered, Victor, for I never thought
of his committing sins. And my mother mourned for him as a good wife
should not mourn for a bad husband."

"Then what is your trouble, Jacqueline?"

"Do you know why I came here to Meaux? I came to get money,--to earn it.
I should be paid more money here than I got for any work at home, they
said: that was the reason. When I had earned so much,--it was a large
sum, but I knew I should get it, and the priest encouraged me to think
I should,--he said that my heart's desire would be accomplished. And I
could earn the money before winter is over, I think. But now, if"----

"Throw it into the Seine, when you get it, rather than pay it to the
liar for selling your father out of a place he was never in! He is safe,
believe me, if he was the good man you say. Do not disturb yourself,
Jacqueline."

"He never harmed a soul. And we loved him that way a bad man could not
be loved."

As Jacqueline said this, a smile more sad than joyful passed over her
face, and disappeared.

"He rests in peace," said Victor Le Roy.

"It is what I must believe. But what if there should be a mistake about
it? It was all I was working for."

"Think for yourself, Jacqueline. No matter what Leclerc thinks or I
think. Can you suppose that Jesus Christ requires any such thing as this
of you, that you should make a slave of yourself for the expiation of
your father? It is a monstrous thought. Doubt not it was love that
took him away so quickly. And love can care for him. Long before this,
doubtless, he has heard the words, 'Come, ye blessed of my father!' And
what is required of you, do you ask? You shall be merciful to them that
live; and trust Him that He will care for those who have gone beyond
your reach. Is it so? Do I understand you? You have been thinking to
_buy_ this good _gift_ of God, eternal life for your father, when of
course you could have nothing to do with it. You have been imposed upon,
and robbed all this while, and this is the amount of it."

"Well, do not speak so. If what you say is true,--and I think it may
be,--what is past is past."

"But won't you see what an infernal lie has been practised on you, and
all the rest of us who had any conscience or heart in us, all this
while? There _is_ no purgatory; and it is nonsense to think, that, if
there were, money could buy a man out of it. Jesus Christ is the one
sole atonement for sin. And by faith in Him shall a man save his soul
alive. That is the only way. If I lose my soul, and am gone, the rest
is between me and God. Do you see it _should_ be so, and must be so,
Jacqueline?"

"He was a good man," said Jacqueline.

She did not find it quite easy to make nothing of all this matter, which
had been the main-spring of her effort since her father died. She could
not in one instant drop from her calculations that on which she had
heretofore based all her activity. She had labored so long, so hard, to
buy the rest and peace and heavenly blessedness of the father she loved,
it was hardly to be expected that at once she would choose to see that
in that rest and peace and blessedness, she, as a producing power, had
no part whatever.

As she more than hinted, the purpose of her life seemed to be taken from
her. She could not perceive that fact without some consternation; could
not instantly connect it with another, which should enable her to look
around her with the deliberation of a liberated spirit, choosing her new
work. And in this she was acted upon by more than the fear arising from
the influences of her old belief. Of course she should have been, and
yet she was not, able to drop instantly and forever from recollection
the constant sacrifices she had made, the deprivation she had endured,
with heroic persistence,--the putting far away every personal
indulgence whose price had a market value. Her father was not the only
person concerned in this work; the priest; herself. She had believed
in the pastor of Domremy. Yet he had deceived her. Else he was
self-deceived; and what if the blind should strive to lead the blind?
_Could_ she accept the new faith, the great freedom, with perfect
rejoicing?

Victor Le Roy seemed to have some suspicion of what was passing in
her thoughts. He did not need to watch her changeful face in order to
understand them.

"I advise you to still think of this," said he. "Recall your father's
life, and then ask yourself if it is likely that He who is Love requires
the sacrifice of your youth and your strength before your father shall
receive from Him what He has promised to give to all who trust in Him.
Take God at his word, and you will be obliged to give up all this
priest-trash."


IV.


Victor Le Roy spoke these words quietly, as if aware that he might
safely leave them, as well as any other true words, to the just sense of
Jacqueline.

She was none the happier for them when she returned that night to the
little city room, the poor lodging whose high window overlooked both
town and country, city streets and harvest-fields, and the river flowing
on beyond the borders of the town,--no happier through many a moment of
thinking, until, as it were by an instant illumination, she began to
see the truth of the matter, as some might wonder she did not instantly
perceive it, if they could omit from observation this leading fact, that
the orphan girl was Jacqueline Gabrie, child of the Church, and not
a wise and generous person, who had never been in bondage to
superstitions.

For a long time after her return to her lodging she was alone. Elsie was
in the street with the rest of the town, talking, as all were talking,
of the sight that Meaux should see to-morrow.

Besides Jacqueline, there was hardly another person in this great
building, six stories high, every room of which had usually a tenant at
this hour. She sat by her window, and looked at the dusky town, over
which the moon was rising. But her thoughts were far away; over many a
league they wandered.

Once more she stood on the playground of her toilsome childhood. She
recalled many a year of sacrificing drudgery, which now she could not
name such,--for another reason than that which had heretofore prevented
her from calling it a sacrifice. She remembered these years of wrong and
of extortion,--they received their proper name now,--years whose mirth
and leisure she had quietly foregone, but during which she had borne a
burden that saddened youth, while it also dignified it,--a burden which
had made her heart's natural cheerfulness the subject of self-reproach,
and her maiden dreams and wishes matter for tears, for shame, for
confession, for prayer.

Now Victor Le Roy's words came to her very strangely; powerfully they
moved her. She believed them in this solitude, where at leisure she
could meditate upon them. A vision more fair and blessed than she had
ever imagined rose before her. There was no suffering in it, and no
sorrow; it was full of peace. Already, in the heaven to which she had
hoped her toil would give him at length admission, her father had found
his home. There was a glory in his rest not reflected from her filial
love, but from the all-availing love of Christ.

Then--delay the rigor of your judgment!--she began,--yes, she, this
Jacqueline, began to count the cost of what she had done. She was not a
sordid soul, she had not a miserly nature. Before she had gone far in
that strange computation, she paused abruptly, with a crimsoned face,
and not with tearless eyes. Counting the cost! Estimating the sacrifice!
Had, then, her purpose been less holy because excited by falsehood and
sustained through delusion? Was she less loving and less true, because
deceived? And was she to lament that Christ, the one and only Priest,
rather than another instrumentality, was the deliverer of her beloved
from the power of death?

No ritual was remembered, and no formula consulted, when she cried
out,--"It is so! and I thank Thee! Only give me now, my Jesus, a
purpose as holy as that Thou hast taken away!"

But she had not come into her chamber to spend a solitary evening there.
Turning away from the window, she bestowed a little care upon her
person, smoothed away the traces of her day's labor, and after all was
done she lingered yet longer. She was going out, evidently. Whither? To
visit the mother of John Leclerc. She must carry back the tracts the
good woman had lent her. Their contents had firm lodgement in her
memory.

Others might run to and fro in the streets, and talk about the corners,
and prognosticate with passion, and defy, in the way of cowardice, where
safety rather than the truth is well assured. If one woman could console
another, Jacqueline wished that she might console Leclerc's mother. And
if any words of wisdom could drop from the poor old woman's lips while
her soul was in this strait, Jacqueline desired to hear those words.

Down the many flights of stairs she went across the court, and then
along the street, to the house where the wool-comber lived.

A brief pause followed her knock for admittance. She repeated it. Then
was heard a sound from within,--a step crossing the floor. The door
opened, and there stood the mother of Leclerc, ready to face any danger,
the very Fiend himself.

But when she saw that it was Jacqueline, only Jacqueline,--an angel, as
one might say, and not a devil,--the terrible look passed from her face;
she opened the door wide.

"Come in, child! come in!"

So Jacqueline went into the room where John had worked and thought,
reasoned, argued, prayed.

This is the home of the man because of whom many are this night offended
in the city of Meaux. This is the place whence issued the power that has
set the tongues to talking, and the minds to thinking, and the hearts to
hoping, and the authorities to avenging.

A grain of mustard-seed is the kingdom of heaven in a figure; the
wandering winds a symbol of the Pentecostal power: a dove did signify
the descent of God to man. This poor chamber, so pent in, and so lowly,
so obscure, has its significance. Here has a life been lived; and not
the least does it import, that walls are rough and the ceiling low.

But the life of John Leclerc was not to be limited. A power has stood
here which by its freedom has set at defiance the customary calculation
of the worldly-wise. In high places and in low the people are this night
disturbed because of him who has dared to lift his voice in the freedom
of the speech of God. In drawing-rooms odorous with luxury the man's
name has mention, and the vulgarity of his liberated speech and
courageous faith is a theme to move the wonder and excite the
reprobation of hearts whose languid beating keeps up their show of life,
--to what sufficient purpose expect me not to tell. His voice is loud
and harsh to echo through these music-loving halls; it rends and tears,
with almost savage strength, the dainty silences.

But busier tongues are elsewhere more vehement in speech; larger
hearts beat faster indignation; grief and vulgarest curiosity are all
manifesting themselves after their several necessity. In solitary places
heroes pray throughout the night, wrestling like Jacob, agonizing like
Saul, and with some of them the angel left his blessing; for some the
golden harp was struck that soothed their souls to peace. Angels of
heaven had work to do that night. Angels of heaven and hell did prove
themselves that night in Meaux: night of unrest and sleeplessness, or of
cruel dreaming; night of bloody visions, tortured by the apprehension
of a lacerated body driven through the city streets, and of the hooting
shouts of Devildom; night haunted by a gory image,--the defiled temple
of the Holy Ghost.

Did the prospect of torture keep _him_ wakeful? Could the man bear the
disgrace, the derision, shouting, agony? Was there nothing in this
thought, that as a witness of Jesus Christ he was to appear next day,
that should soothe him even unto slumber? Upon the silence of his
guarded chamber let none but ministering angels break. Sacred to him,
and to Him who watched the hours of the night, let the night go!

But here--his mother, Jacqueline with her--we may linger with these.


V.


When the old woman saw that it was Jacqueline Gabrie who stood waiting
admittance, she opened the door wider, as I said; and the dark solemnity
of her countenance seemed to be, by so much as a single ray, enlivened
for an instant.

She at once perceived the tracts which Jacqueline had brought. Aware of
this, the girl said,--

"I stayed to hear them read, after I heard that for the sake of the
truth in them"--she hesitated--"this city will invite God's wrath
to-morrow."

And she gave the papers to the old woman, who took them in silence.

By-and-by she asked,--

"Are you just home, Jacqueline?"

"Since sunset,--though it was nearly dark when I came in,"--she
answered. "Victor Le Roy was down by the riverbank, and he read them for
me."

"He wanted to get out of town, maybe. You would surely have thought it
was a holiday, Jacqueline, if you could have seen the people. Anything
for a show: but some of them might well lament. Did you want to know the
truth he pays so dear for teaching? But you have heard it, my child."

"We all heard what he must pay for it, in the fields at noon. Yes,
mother, I wanted to know."

"But if you shall believe it, Jacqueline, it may lead you into danger,
into sad straits," said the old woman, looking at the young girl with
earnest pity in her eyes.

She loved this girl, and shuddered at the thought of exposing her to
danger.

Jacqueline had nursed her neighbor, Antonine, and more than once, after
a hard day's labor, which must be followed by another, she had sat with
her through the night; and she could pay this service only with love,
and the best gift of her love was to instruct her in the truth. John and
she had proved their grateful interest in her fortunes by giving her
that which might expose her to danger, persecution, and they could not
foresee to what extremity of evil.

And now the old woman felt constrained to say this to her, even for her
love's sake,--"It may lead you into danger."

"But if truth is dangerous, shall I choose to be safe?" answered
Jacqueline, with stately courage.

"It _is_ truth. It _will_ support him. Blessed be Jesus Christ and His
witnesses! To-night, and to-morrow, and the third day, our Jesus will
sustain him. They think John will retract. They do not know my son. They
do not know how he has waited, prayed, and studied to learn the truth,
and how dear it is to him. No, Jacqueline, they do not. But when they
prove him, they will know. And if he is willing to witness, shall I
not be glad? The people will understand him better afterward,--and the
priests, maybe. 'I can do all things,' said he, 'Christ strengthening
me'; and that was said long ago, by one who was proved. Where shall you
be, Jacqueline?"

"Oh," groaned Jacqueline, "I shall be in the fields at work, away from
these cruel people, and the noise and the sight. But, mother, where
shall you be?"

"With the people, child. With him, if I live. Yes, he is my son; and
I have never been ashamed of the brave boy. I will not be ashamed
to-morrow. I will follow John; and when they bind him, I will let him
see his mother's eyes are on him,--blessing him, my child!--Hark! how
they talk through the streets!--Jacqueline, he was never a coward. He
is strong, too. They will not kill him, and they cannot make him dumb.
He will hold the truth the faster for all they do to him. Jesus Christ
on his side, do you think he will fear the city, or all Paris, or all
France? He does not know what it is to be afraid. And when God opened
his eyes to the truth of his gospel, which the priests had hid, he meant
that John should work for it,--for he is a working-man, whatever he sets
about."

So this old woman tried, and not without success, to comfort herself,
and sustain her tender, proud, maternal heart. The dire extremity into
which she and her son had fallen did not crush her; few were the tears
that fell from her eyes as she recalled for Jacqueline the years of her
son's boyhood,--told her of his courage, as in various ways it had made
itself manifest: how he had always been fearless in danger,--a
conqueror of pain,--seemingly regardless of comfort,--fond of
contemplation,--contented with his humble state,--kindly, affectionate,
generous, but easily stirred to wrath by injustice, when manifested by
the strong toward the weak,--or by cruelty, or by falsehood.

Many an anecdote of his career might she relate; for his character,
under the pressure of this trial, which was as searching and severe a
test of her faith as of his, seemed to illustrate itself in manifold
heroic ways, all now of the highest significance. With more majesty and
grandeur his character arose before her; for now in all the past, as she
surveyed it, she beheld a living power, a capability, and a necessity of
new and grand significance, and her heart reverenced the spirit she had
nursed into being.

Removed to the distance of a prison from her sight, separated from
her love by bolts and bars, and the wrath of tyranny and close-banded
bigotry, he became a power, a hero, who moved her, as she recalled
his sentence, and prophesied the morrow, to a feeling tears could not
explain.

They passed the night together, the young woman and the old. In the
morning Jacqueline must go into the field again. She was in haste to go.
Leaving a kiss on the old woman's cheek, she was about to steal away in
silence; but as she laid her hand upon the latch, a thought arrested
her, and she did not open the door, but went back and sat beside the
window, and watched the mother of Leclerc through the sleep that must be
brief. It was not in her heart to go away and leave those eyes to waken
upon solitude. She must see a helpful hand and hopeful face, and, if it
might be, hear a cheerful human voice, in the dawning of that day.

She had not long to wait, and the time she may have lost in waiting
Jacqueline did not count or reckon, when she heard her name spoken, and
could answer, "What wilt thou? here am I."

Not in vain had she lingered. What were wages, more or less, that they
should be mentioned, thought of, when she might give and receive here
what the world gives not, and never has to give,--and what a mortal
cannot buy, the treasure being priceless? Through the quiet of that
morning hour, soothing words, and strong, she felt and knew to speak;
and when at last she hurried away from the city to the fields, she was
stronger than of nature, able to bear witness to the faith that speaks
from the bewilderment of its distresses, "Though He slay me, yet will I
trust in Him."

Not alone had her young, frank, loving eyes enlivened the dreary morning
to the heart of Leclerc's mother. Grace for grace had she received. And
words of the hymn that were always on John's lips had found echo
from his mother's memory this morning: they lodged in the heart of
Jacqueline. She went away repeating,--

"In the midst of death, the jaws
Of hell against us gape.
Who from peril dire as this
Openeth us escape?
'Tis thou, O Lord, alone!
Our bitter suffering and our sin
Pity from thy mercy win,
Holy Lord and God!
Strong and holy God!
Merciful and holy Saviour!
Eternal God!
Let us not despair
For the fire that burneth there!
Kyrie, eleison!"

Jacqueline met Elsie on her way to the fields. But the girls had
not much to say to each other that morning in their walk. Elsie was
manifestly conscious of some great constraint; she might have reported
to her friend what she had heard in the streets last night, but she
felt herself prevented from such communication,--seemed to be intent
principally on one thing: she would not commit herself in any direction.
She was looking with suspicion upon Jacqueline. Whatever became of her
soul, her body she would save alive. She was waking to this world's
enjoyment with vision alert, senses keen. Martyrdom in any degree was
without attraction to her, and in Truth she saw no beauty that she
should desire it. It was a root out of dry ground indeed, that gave no
promise of spreading into goodly shelter and entrancing beauty.

As to Jacqueline, she was absorbed in her heroic and exalted thoughts.
Her heart had almost failed her when she said farewell to John's mother;
tearfully she had hurried on her way. One vast cloud hung between her
and heaven; darkly rolled the river; every face seemed to bear witness
to the tragedy that day should witness.

Not the least of her affliction was the consciousness of the distance
increasing between herself and Elsie Meril. She knew that Elsie was
rejoicing that she had in no way endangered herself yet; and sure was
she that in no way would Elsie invite the fury of avenging tyranny and
reckless superstition.

Jacqueline asked her no questions,--spoke few words to her,--was
absorbed in her own thoughts. But she was kindly in her manner, and
in such words as she spoke. So Elsie perceived two things,--that she
should not lose her friend, neither was in danger of being seized by the
heretical mania. It was her way of drawing inferences. Certain that
she had not lost her friend, because Jacqueline did not look away, and
refuse to recognize her; congratulating herself that she was not the
object of suspicion, either justly or unjustly, among the dreadful
priests.

But that friend whose steady eye had balanced Elsie was already sick at
heart, for she knew that never more must she rely upon this girl who
came with her from Domremy.

As they crossed the bridge, lingering thereon a moment, the river seemed
to moan in its flowing toward Meaux. The day's light was sombre; the
birds' songs had no joyous sound,--plaintive was their chirping; it
saddened the heart to hear the wind,--it was a wind that seemed to take
the buoyancy and freshness out of every living thing, an ugly southeast
wind. They went on together,--to the wheat-fields together;--it was to
be day of minutes to poor Jacqueline.

To be away from Meaux bodily was, it appeared, only that the imagination
might have freer exercise. Yes,--now the people must be moving through
the streets; shopmen were not so intent on profits this day as they were
on other days. The priests were thinking with vengeful hate of the wrong
to themselves which should be met and conquered that day. The people
should be swiftly brought into order again! John in his prison was
preparing, as all without the prison were.

The crowd was gathering fast. He would soon be led forth. The shameful
march was forming. Now the brutal hand of Power was lifted with
scourges. The bravest man in Meaux was driven through the streets,--she
saw with what a visage,--she knew with what a heart. Her heart was awed
with thinking thereupon. A bloody mist seemed to fall upon the environs
of Meaux; through that red horror she could not penetrate; it shrouded
and it held poor Jacqueline.

Of the faith that would sustain him she began once more to inquire. It
is not by a bound that mortals ever clear the heights of God. Step by
step they scale the eminences, toiling through the heavenly atmosphere.
Only around the summit shines the eternal sun.

So she must now recall the words that Victor Le Roy read for her last
night; and the words he spoke from out his heart,--these also. And
she did not fear now, as yesterday, to ask for light. Let the light
dawn,--oh, let it shine on her!

The mother of Leclerc had uttered mysterious words which Jacqueline took
for truth; the light was joyful and blessed, and of all things to be
desired, though it smote the life from one like lightning. She waited
alone with faith, watching till it should come,--left alone with this
beam glimmering like a moth through darkness!--for thus was a believer,
or one who resolved on believing, left in that day, when he turned from
the machinery of the Church, and stood alone, searching for God without
the aid of priestly intervention.


VI.


There was something awful in such loneliness.

Jacqueline knew little of it until now, as she walked toward the fields,
by the side of Elsie Meril.

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