Two Pictures of Life in France before 1848 [pp. 411-418]

Two Pictures of Life in France before 1848.
quisite artistic perceptions, but dreamy,
undecided, deficient in vigor. Odin and
Apollo,- sledge-hammer and chisel, thunderbolt and sunbeam, are not more
unlike in use and significance. IM.
F6li offered nothing but pitying tend(erness, which Maurice accepted in
dumb veneration. No wonder that,
with the life at La Chenaie, all intimate intercourse between them
ceased.
But it is a matter for surprise that,
with all his powers of fascination, Lamennais inflicted (so far as we can
learn the circumstances of the case)
no permanent injury upon the faith of
any one of his companions at La
Ch6naie. Lacordaire, Gerbet, Montalembert, and Rohrbacher became renowned champions of the church.
Combalot, who had adored Lamennais,
burst forth into a storm of invectives
against him (as is the wont of disappointed idolaters), and then exclaimed,
"Alas! I have wounded that heart
into which I could have poured torrents of love!" Morvonnais and Marzan were ardent believers; Elie de
Kertauguy and Gu6rin died Catholics.
In short, Lamennais had devoted the
prime of life to the church, and in
those years had uttered words of xvisdom never to be unsaid or forgotten.
In spite of himself he must always be
an eloquent advocate of the faith he
deserted, a powerful enemy of the
cause he espoused.
The time was already drawing near
when the asylum should be closed to
Maurice where he had found, in spite
of disappointment and frequent depression, a happy, congenial home.
On Easter Sunday, Lamennais celebrated his last mass and gave communion to all the little circle. "Who
would have said" (we quote from
Sainte-Beuve) "to those who clustered round the master, that lie who
had just given them communion,
would never administer it again to
anyone; that he would refuse it forevermore; and that he would soon
adopt for his too true device an oak
shattered by the storm, with the proud
motto: I break but bend not? A
Titan's device, a la Capanee!'
Early in the autumn of 1833, the
Bishop of Rennes ordered the dissolu tion of Lamennais' religious commu nity, and the pupils were removed to
Ploerinel, where they continued their
studies under the supervision of M.
Jean de Lamennais. M. F?Ai disbanded his little army with the dignity of a defeated general, and then
threw himself single-handed again into the fight. He changed his patrician name to F. Lamennais, and demanded of democracy (says one of
his biographers), as he had demanded
of the church, a wand-stroke that
should free the world at once from
suffering and oppression. His success
may be judged by the political history
of France in the last sixteen years.
In religion he adopted" Christianisme
legislate,"'* whatever that may be.
"If," said he, "men feel so irresistibly impelled to unite themselves to
God that they return to Christianity,
let no one suppose that it can be to
that Christianity which presents itself
under the name of Catholicism."
In the revolution of'48 he thought
he saw the birth of liberty; in the
"Coup d'Etat" he received its deathblow in his own person. Baffled on
every side, he betook himself to literature, and translated the" Divina Comnmedia;" then"" feeling within him no
life-sustaining thought," he died in his
seventy-third year, after an illness of
a few weeks, leaving these words in
his will: "I will be buried among the
poor, and like the poor. I will have
nothing over my grave, not even a
stone; nor will I have my body carried into any church." They laid
him in Pere la Chaise, and no word
of blessing was uttered over his grave.
Poor Lamennais! What magnificent
possibilities were shattered in his fall!
And Maurice, what were his emotions when the door of La Chenaie
closed behind him?-the "little paradise" he called it, but then, poor soul,
* Lamartine.
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