Recollections of My Youth Part 8

These words, so full of harmony and rhythm,[4] seemed to present a perfect picture of the place, and though Homer was not born there--nor, perhaps, anywhere--they gave me a better idea of the beautiful (and now so hapless) isle of Greece than I could have derived from a whole ma.s.s of material description.

I must not omit to mention another book, which together with _Telemaque_, I for a long time regarded as the highest expression of literature. M. Gosselin one day called me aside, and after much beating about the bush, told me that he had thought of letting me read a book which some people might regard as dangerous, and which, as a matter of fact, might be in certain cases on account of the vivacity with which the author expresses pa.s.sion. He had, however, decided that I might be trusted with this book, which was called the _Comte de Valmont_. Many people will no doubt wonder what could have been the book which my worthy director thought could only be read after a special preparation as regards judgment and maturity. _Le Comte de Valmont; ou, Les Egarements de la Raison,_ is a novel by Abbe Gerard, in which, under the cover of a very innocent plot, the author refutes the doctrines of the eighteenth century, and inculcates the principles of an enlightened religion. Sainte-Beuve, who knew the _Comte de Valmont_, as he knew everything, was consumed with laughter when I told him this story. But for all that the _Comtede Valmont_ was a rather dangerous book. The Christianity set forth in it is no more than Deism, the religion of _Telemaque_, a sort of sentiment in the abstract, without being any particular kind of religion.[5] Thus everything tended to lull me into a state of fancied security.

I thought that by copying the politeness of M. Gosselin and the moderation of M. Manier I was a Christian.

I cannot honestly say, moreover, that my faith in Christianity was in reality diminished. My faith has been destroyed by historical criticism, not by scholasticism nor by philosophy. The history of philosophy and the sort of scepticism by which I had been caught rather maintained me within the limits of Christianity than drove me beyond them. I often repeated to myself the lines which I had read in Brucker:--

"Percurri, fateor, sectas attentius omnes, Plurima qusesivi, per singula quaque cucurri, Nee quidquam invent melius quam credere Christo."

A certain amount of modesty kept me back. The capital question as to the truth of the Christian dogmas and of the Bible never forced itself upon me. I admitted the revelation in a general sense, like Leibnitz and Malebranche. There can be no doubt that my _fieri_ philosophy was the height of heterodoxy, but I did not stop to reason out the consequences. However, all said and done, my masters were satisfied with me. M. Pinault rarely interfered with me. More of a mystic than a fanatic, he concerned himself but little with those who did not come immediately in his way. The finis.h.i.+ng stroke was given by M. Gottofrey with a degree of boldness and precision which I did not thoroughly appreciate until afterwards. In the twinkling of an eye, this truly gifted man tore away the veils which the prudent M. Gosselin and the honest M. Manier had adjusted around my conscience in order to tranquillise it, and to lull it to sleep.

M. Gottofrey rarely spoke to me, but he followed me with the utmost curiosity. My arguments in Latin, delivered with much firmness and emphasis, caused him surprise and uneasiness. Sometimes, I was too much in the right; at others I pointed out the weak points in the reasons given me as valid. Upon one occasion, when my objections had been urged with force, and when some of the listeners could not repress a smile at the weakness of the replies, he broke off the discussion. In the evening he called me on one side, and described to me with much warmth how unchristian it was to place all faith in reasoning, and how injurious an effect rationalism had upon faith. He displayed a remarkable amount of animation, and reproached me with my fondness for study. What was to be gained, he said, by further research. Everything that was essential to be known had already been discovered. It was not by knowledge that men's souls were saved. And gradually working himself up, he exclaimed in pa.s.sionate accents--"

You are not a Christian!"

I never felt such terror as that which this phrase, p.r.o.nounced in a very resonant tone, evoked within me. In leaving M. Gottofrey's presence the words "You are not a Christian" sounded all night in my ear like a clap of thunder. The next day I confided my troubles to M.

Gosselin, who kindly rea.s.sured me, and who could not or would not see anything wrong. He made no effort, even, to conceal from me how surprised and annoyed he was at this ill-timed attempt upon a conscience for which he, more than any one else, was responsible. I am sure that he looked upon the hasty action of M. Gottofrey as a piece of impudence, the only result of which would be to disturb a dawning vocation. M. Gosselin, like many directors, was of opinion that religious doubts are of no gravity among young men when they are disregarded, and that they disappear when the future career has been finally entered upon. He enjoined me not to think of what had occurred, and I even found him more kindly than ever before. He did not in the least understand the nature of my mind, or in any degree foresee its future logical evolutions. M. Gottofrey alone had a clear perception of things. He was right a dozen times over, as I can now very plainly see. It needed the transcendent lucidity of this martyr and ascetic to discover that which had quite escaped those who directed my conscience with so much uprightness and goodness.

I talked too with M. Manier, who strongly advised me not to let my faith in Christianity be affected by objections of detail. With regard to the question of entering holy orders, he was always very reserved.

He never said anything which was calculated either to induce me or dissuade me. This was in his eyes more or less of a secondary consideration. The essential point, as he thought, was the possession of the true Christian spirit, inseparable from real philosophy. In his eyes there was no difference between a priest, or professor of Scotch philosophy, in the university. He often dwelt upon the honourable nature of such a career, and more than once he spoke to me of the ecole Normale. I did not speak of this overture to M. Gosselin, for a.s.suredly the very idea of leaving the seminary for the ecole Normale, would have seemed to him perdition.

It was decided, therefore, that after my two years of philosophy I should pa.s.s into the seminary of St. Sulpice to get through my theological course. The flash which shot through the mind of M.

Gottofrey had no immediate consequence. But now at an interval of eight and thirty years, I can see how clear a perception of the reality he had. He alone possessed foresight, and I much regret now that I did not follow his impulse. I should have quitted the seminary without having studied Hebrew or theology. Physiology and the natural sciences would have absorbed me, and I do not hesitate to express my belief--so great was the ardour which these vital sciences excited in me--that if I had cultivated them continuously I should have arrived at several of the results achieved by Darwin, and partially foreseen by myself. Instead of that I went to St. Sulpice and learnt German and Hebrew, the consequence being that the whole course of my life was different. I was led to the study of the historical sciences--conjectural in their nature--which are no sooner made than they are unmade, and which will be put on one side in a hundred years time. For the day is not we may be sure, very far distant when man will cease to attach much interest to his past. I am very much afraid that our minute contributions to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, which are intended to a.s.sist to an accurate comprehension of history, will crumble to dust before they have been read. It is by chemistry at one end and by astronomy at the other, and especially by general physiology, that we really grasp the secret of existence of the world or of G.o.d, whichever it may be called. The one thing which I regret is having selected for my study researches of a nature which will never force themselves upon the world, or be more than interesting dissertations upon a reality which has vanished for ever. But as regards the exercise--and pleasure of thought is concerned--I certainly chose the better part, for at St. Sulpice I was brought face to face with the Bible, and the sources of Christianity, and in the following chapter I will endeavour to describe how eagerly I immersed myself in this study, and how, through a series of critical deductions, which forced themselves upon my mind, the bases of my existence, as I had hitherto understood it, were completely overturned.

[Footnote 1: Paris, 1609-1612.]

[Footnote 2: First Edition, 1839; second and much enlarged edition, 1845.]

[Footnote 3: An essay which describes my philosophical ideas at this epoch, ent.i.tled the "Origine du Langage," first published in the _Liberte de penser_ (September and December, 1848), faithfully portrays, as I then conceived it, the spectacle of living nature as the result and evidence of a very ancient historical development.]

[Footnote 4: In the French the phrase is, "L'ile de Chio, fortunee patrie d'Homere."]

[Footnote 5: I went a short time ago to the National Library to refresh my memory about the _Comte de Valmont_. Having my attention called away, I asked M. Soury to look through the book for me, as I was anxious to have his impression of it. He replied to me in the following terms:

"I have been a long time in telling you what I think of the _Comte de Valmont._ The fact is that it was only by an heroic effort that I managed to finish it. Not but what this work is honestly conceived and fairly well written. But the effect of reading through these thousands of pages is so profoundly wearisome that one is scarcely in a position to do justice to the work of Abbe Gerard. One cannot help being vexed with him for being so unnecessarily tedious.

"As so often happens, the best part of this book are the notes, that is to say, a ma.s.s of extracts and selections taken from the famous writers of the last two centuries, notably from Rousseau. All the 'proofs' and apologetic arguments ruin the work unfortunately, the eloquence and dialectics of Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach, and even Voltaire, differing very much from those of Abbe Gerard. It is the same with the libertines' reasons refuted by the father of the Comte de Valmont. It must be a very dangerous thing to bring forward mischievous doctrines with so much force. They have a savour which renders the best things insipid, and it is with these good doctrines that the six or seven volumes of the _Comte de Valmont_ are filled.

Abbe Gerard did not wish his work to be called a novel, and as a matter of fact there is neither drama nor action in the interminable letters of the Marquis, the Count and Emilie.

"Count de Valmont is one of those sceptics who are often met with in the world. A man of weak mind, pretentious and foppish, incapable of thinking and reflecting for himself, ignorant into the bargain, and without any kind of knowledge upon any subject, he meets his hapless father with all sorts of difficulties against morality, religion and Christianity in particular, just as if he had a right to an opinion on matters the study of which requires so much enlightenment and takes up so much timed. The best thing the poor fellow can do is to reform his ways, and he does not fail to neglect doing this at nearly every volume.

"The seventh volume of the edition which I have before me is ent.i.tled, _La Theorie du Bonheur; ou, L' Art de se rendre Heureux mis a la Portee de tous les Hommes, faisant Suite ait 'Comte de Valmont_,'

Paris Bossange, 1801, eleventh edition. This is a different book, whatever the publisher may say, and I confess that this secret of happiness, brought within the reach of everybody, did not create a very favourable impression upon me."]

THE ST. SULPICE SEMINARY.

PART I.

The house built by M. Olier in 1645 was not the large quadrangular barrack-like building which now occupies one side of the square of St.

Sulpice. The old seminary of the seventeenth and eighteenth century covered the whole area of what is now the square, and quite concealed Servandoni's facade. The site of the present seminary was formerly occupied by the gardens and by the college of bursars nicknamed the Robertins. The original building disappeared at the time of the Revolution. The chapel, the ceiling of which was regarded as Lebrun's masterpiece, has been destroyed, and all that remains of the old house is a picture by Lebrun representing the Pentecost in a style which would excite the wonder of the author of the Acts of the Apostles. The Virgin is the centre figure, and is receiving the whole of the pouring out of the Holy Ghost, which from her spreads to the apostles. Saved at the Revolution, and afterwards in the gallery of Cardinal Fesch, this picture was bought back by the corporation of St. Sulpice, and is now in the seminary chapel.

With the exception of the walls and the furniture, all is old at St. Sulpice, and it is easy to believe that one is living in the seventeenth century. Time and its ravages have effaced many differences. St. Sulpice now embodies in itself many things which were once far removed from one another, and those who wish to get the best idea attainable in the present day, of what Port-Royal, the original Sorbonne, and the inst.i.tutions of the ancient French clergy generally were like, must enter its portals. When I joined the St. Sulpice seminary in 1843, there were still a few directors who had seen M.

Emery, but there were only two, if I remember right, whose memories carried them back to a date earlier than the Revolution. M. Hugon had acted as acolyte at the consecration of M. de Talleyrand in the chapel of Issy in 1788. It seems that the att.i.tude of the Abbe de Perigord during the ceremony was very indecorous. M. Hugon related that he accused himself, when at confession the following Sat.u.r.day, "of having formed hasty judgments as to the piety of a holy bishop." The superior-general, M. Garnier, was more than eighty, and he was in every respect an ecclesiastic of the old school. He had gone through his studies at the Robertins College and afterwards at the Sorbonne, from which he gave one the idea of just emerging, and when one heard him talk of "Monsieur Bossuet" and "Monsieur Fenelon",[1] it seemed as if one was face to face with an actual pupil of those great men.

There is nothing in common except the name and the dress between these ecclesiastics that of the old _regime_ and those of the present day.

Compared to the young and exuberant members of the Issy school, M.

Garnier had the appearance almost of a layman, with a complete absence of all external demonstrations and his staid and reasonable piety. In the evening, some of the younger students went to keep him company in his room for an hour. The conversation never took a mystical turn.

M. Garnier narrated his recollections, spoke of M. Emery, and foreshadowed with melancholy, his approaching end. The contrast between his quietude and the ardour of Penault and M. Gottofrey was very striking. These aged priests were so honest, sensible and upright, observing their rules, and defending their dogmas, just as a faithful soldier holds the post which has been committed to his keeping. The higher questions were altogether beyond them. The love of order and devotion to duty were the guiding principles of their lives.

M. Garnier was a learned Orientalist, and better versed than any living Frenchman in the Biblical exegesis as taught by the Catholics a century ago. The modesty which characterised St. Sulpice deterred him from publis.h.i.+ng any of his works, and the outcome of his studies was an immense ma.n.u.script representing a complete course of Holy Writ, in accordance with the relatively moderate views which prevailed among the Catholics and Protestants at the close of the eighteenth century.

It was very a.n.a.logous in spirit to that of Rosenmuller, Hug and Jahn.

When I joined St. Sulpice, M. Garnier was too old to teach, and our professors used, to read us extracts from his copy-books. They were full of erudition, and testified to a very thorough knowledge of language. Now and then we came upon some artless observation which made us smile, such, for instance, as the way in which he got over the difficulties relating to Sarah's adventure in Egypt. Sarah, as we know, was close upon seventy when Pharaoh conceived so great a pa.s.sion for her, and M. Garnier got over this by observing that this was not the only instance of the kind, and that "Mademoiselle de Lenclos" was the cause of duels being fought, when over seventy. M. Garnier had not made himself acquainted with the latest labours of the new German school, and he remained in happy ignorance of the inroads which the criticism of the nineteenth century had made upon the ancient system.

His best t.i.tle to fame is that he moulded in M. Le Hir, a pupil who, inheriting his own vast knowledge, added to it familiarity with modern discoveries, and who, with a sincerity which proved the depth of his faith, did not in the least conceal the depth to which the knife had gone.

Overborne by the weight of years, and absorbed by the cares which the general direction of the Company entailed, M. Garnier left the entire superintendence of the Paris house to M. Carbon, the director.

M. Carbon was the embodiment of kindness, joviality and straightforwardness. He was no theologian, and was so far from being a man of superior mind, that at first one would be tempted to look upon him as a very simple, not to say common, person. But as one came to know him better, one was surprised to discover beneath this humble exterior, one of the rarest things in the world, viz., unalloyed cordiality, motherly condescension, and a charming openness of manner.

I have never met with any one so entirely free from personal vanity.

He was the first to laugh at himself, at his half intentional blunders, and at the laughable situations into which his artlessness would often land him. Like all the older directors, he had to say the orison in his turn. He never gave it five minutes previous consideration, and he sometimes got into such a comical state of confusion with his improvised address, that we had to bite our tongues to keep from laughing. He saw how amused we were, and it struck him as being perfectly natural. It was he who, during the course of Holy Writ, had to read M. Garnier's ma.n.u.script. He used to flounder about purposely, in order to make us laugh, in the parts which had fallen out of date. The most singular thing was that he was not very mystic.

I asked one of my fellow students what he thought was M. Carbon's motive-idea in life, and his reply was, "the abstract of duty."

M. Carbon took a fancy to me from the first, and he saw that the fundamental feature in my disposition was cheerfulness, and a ready acquiescence in my lot. "I see that we shall get on very well together," he said to me with a pleasant smile; and as a matter of fact M. Carbon is one of those for whom I have felt the deepest affection. Seeing that I was studious, full of application, and conscientious in my work, he said to me after a very short time--"You should be thinking of your society, that is your proper place." He treated me almost as a colleague, so complete was his confidence in me.

The other directors, who had to teach the various branches of theology, were without exception the worthy continuators of a respectable tradition. But as regards doctrine itself, the breach was made. Ultramontanism and the love of the irrational had forced their way into the citadel of moderate theology. The old school knew how to rave soberly, and followed the rules of common sense even in the absurd. This school only admitted the irrational and the miraculous up to the limit strictly required by Holy Writ and the authority of the Church. The new school revels in the miraculous, and seems to take its pleasure in narrowing the ground upon which apologetics can be defended. Upon the other hand, it would be unfair not to say that the new school is in some respects more open and consistent, and that it has derived, especially through its relations with Germany, elements for discussion which have no place in the ancient treatises _De Loci's Theologicis_. St. Sulpice has had but one representative in this path so thickly sown with unexpected incidents and--it may perhaps be added--with dangers; but he is unquestionably the most remarkable member of the French clergy in the present day. I am speaking of M. Le Hir, whom I knew very intimately, as will presently be seen. In order to understand what follows, the reader must be very deeply versed in the workings of the human mind, and above all in matters of faith.

M. Le Hir was in an equally eminent degree a savant and a saint. This co-habitation in the same person, of two ent.i.ties which are rarely found together, took place in him without any kind of fraction, for the saintly side of his character had the absolute mastery. There was not one of the objections of rationalism which escaped his attention.

He did not make the slightest concession to any of them, for he never felt the shadow of a doubt as to the truth of orthodoxy. This was due rather to an act of the supreme will than to a result imposed upon him. Holding entirely aloof from natural philosophy and the scientific spirit, the first condition of which is to have no prior faith and to reject that which does not come spontaneously, he remained in a state of equilibrium which would have been fatal to convictions less urgent than his. The supernatural did not excite any natural repugnance in him. His scales were very nicely adjusted, but in one of them was a weight of unknown quant.i.ty--an unshaken faith. Whatever might have been placed in the other, would have seemed light; all the objections in the world would not have moved it a hairsbreadth.

M. Le Hir's superiority was in a great measure due to his profound knowledge of the German exegeses. Whatever he found in them compatible with Catholic orthodoxy, he appropriated. In matters of critique, incompatibilities were continually occurring, but in grammar, upon the other hand, there was no difficulty in finding common ground. There was no one like M. Le Hir in this respect. He had thoroughly mastered the doctrine of Gesenius and Ewald, and criticised many points in it with great learning. He interested himself in the Phoenician inscriptions, and propounded a very ingenious theory which has since been confirmed. His theology was borrowed almost entirely from the German Catholic School, which was at once more advanced, and less reasonable, than our ancient French scholasticism. M. Le Hir reminds one in many respects of Dollinger, especially in regard to his learning and his general scope of view; but his docility would have preserved him from the dangers in which the Vatican Council involved most of the learned members of the clergy. He died prematurely in 1870 upon the eve of the Council which he was just about to attend as a theologian. I was intending to ask my colleagues in the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres to make him an unattached member of our body. I have no doubt that he would have rendered considerable service to the Committee of Semitic Inscriptions.

M. Le Hir possessed, in addition to his immense learning, the talent of writing with much force and accuracy. He might have been very witty if he had been so minded. His undeviating mysticism resembled that of M. Gottofrey; but he had much more rect.i.tude of judgment. His aspect was very singular, for he was like a child in figure, and very weakly in appearance, but with that, eyes and a forehead indicating the highest intelligence. In short, the only faculty lacking, was one which would have caused him to abjure Catholicism, viz. the critical one. Or I should rather say that he had the critical faculty very highly developed in every point not touching religious belief; but that possessed in his view such a co-efficient of certainty, that nothing could counterbalance it. His piety was in truth, like the mother o'pearl sh.e.l.ls of Francois de Sales, "which live in the sea without tasting a drop of salt water." The knowledge of error which he possessed was entirely speculative: a water-tight compartment prevented the least infiltration of modern ideas into the secret sanctuary of his heart, within which burnt, by the side of the petroleum, the small unquenchable light of a tender and sovereign piety. As my mind was not provided with these water-tight compartments, the encounter of these conflicting elements, which in M. Le Hir produced profound inward peace, led in my case to strange explosions.

[Footnote 1: I should like to make one observation in this connection.

People of the present day have got into the habit of putting _Monseigneur_ before a proper name, and of saying _Monseigneur Dupanloup_ or Monseigneur Affre. This is bad French; the word "Monseigneur" should only be used in the vocative case or before an official t.i.tle. In speaking to M. Dupanloup or M. Affre, it would be correct to say _Monseigneur_. In speaking of them, _Monsieur Dupanloup, Monsieur Affre; Monsieur, or Monseigneur l'evqeue d'Orleans,_ Monsieur or Monseigneur l'Archeveque de Paris.]

THE ST. SULPICE SEMINARY.

PART II.

St. Sulpice, in short, when I went through it forty years ago, provided, despite its shortcomings, a fairly high education. My ardour for study had plenty to feed upon. Two unknown worlds unfolded themselves before me: theology, the rational exposition of the Christian dogma, and the Bible, supposed to be the depository and the source of this dogma. I plunged deeply into work. I was even more solitary than at Issy, for I did not know a soul in Paris. For two years I never went into any street except the Rue de Vaugirard, through which once a week we walked to Issy. I very rarely indulged in any conversation. The professors were always very kind to me. My gentle disposition and studious habits, my silence and modesty, gained me their favour, and I believe that several of them remarked to one another, as M. Carbon had to me, "He will make an excellent colleague for us."

Upon the 29th of March, 1844, I wrote to one of my friends in Brittany, who was then at the St. Brieuc seminary:

"I very much like being here. The tone of the place is excellent, being equally free from rusticity, coa.r.s.e egotism and affectation.

There is little intimacy or geniality, but the conversation is dignified and elevated, with scarcely a trace of commonplace or gossip. It would be idle to look for anything like cordiality between the directors and the students, for this is a plant which grows only in Brittany. But the directors have a certain fund of tolerance and kindness in their composition which harmonises very well with the moral condition of the young men upon their joining the seminary.