Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women — Madame Guyon, Part 2

* * * * * The town of Montargis is one day's bicycle journey from Paris.

As for the road, though one be a wayfaring man and from the States he could not err therein.

You simply follow the Seine as if you were intent on discovering its source, keeping to the beautiful highway that follows the winding stream.

And what a beautiful, clear, clean bit of water it is!

In Paris, your washerwoman takes your linen to the river, just as they did in the days of Pharaoh, and the bundle comes back sweet as the breath of June.

Imagine the result of such recklessness in Chicago!

But as I rode out of Paris that bright May day it seemed Monday all along the way; for dames with baskets balanced on their heads were making their way to the waterside, followed by troops of barefoot or sabot-shod children.

There was one fine young woman with a baby in her arms, and the innocent firstborn was busily taking its breakfast as the mother walked calmly along, bearing on her well-poised head the family wash.

And a mile farther on, as if she had seen her rival and gone her one better, was another woman with a two-year-old cherub perched secure on top of the gently swaying basket, proud as a cardinal about to be consecrated.

It was a study in balancing that I have never seen before nor since; and I only ask those to believe it who know things so true that they dare not tell them.

As the day wore on, I saw that the wash was being completed, for the garments were spread out on the greenest of green grass, or on the bushes that lined the way.

By ten o'clock I was nearing Fontainebleau, and the clothes were nearly ready to take in--but not quite.

For while waiting for the warm sun and the gentle breeze to dry them, the thrifty dames, who were French and make soup out of everything, put in the time by laundering the children.

It seemed like that economic stroke of good housewives who use the soapy wash-water for scrubbing the kitchen-floor.

There they were, dozens of hopefuls on whom the fate of the nation rested--creepers to ten-year-olds--being scrubbed and dipped, or playing parlez-vous tag in lieu of towel, as innocent of clothes as Carlyle's imaginary House of Lords.

And so I passed off from the road that traced the Seine to a road that kept company with the canal.

I followed the towpath, even in spite of warnings that 't was 'gainst the law.

It was a one-horse canal, for many of the gaily painted boats were drawn only by a single, shaggy-limbed Percheron.

The boats were sharp-prowed and narrow; and on some were bareheaded women knitting, and men carving curious things out of blocks of wood, as they journeyed.

And I said to myself, if "it is the pace that kills," these people are making a strong bid for immortality.

I hailed the lazily moving craft, waving my hat, and the slow-going tourists called back cheerily.

By and by I came to a great, wide plain that stretched away like a tideless summer sea.

The wheat and lentils and pulse were planted in long strips.

In one place I thought I could trace the good old American flag (that you never really love unless you are on a foreign shore) made with alternate strips of millet and peas, with a goodly patch of cabbages in the corner for stars.

But possibly this was imagination, for I had been thinking that in a week it would be the Fourth of July and I was far from home--in a land where firecrackers are unknown.

Coming to a little rise of ground, I could see, lying calm and quiet amid the world of rich, growing grain, the town of Montargis.

Across on the blue hillside was Montargis Castle, framed in a mass of foliage.

I stopped to view the scene, and the echo of vesper-bells came pealing gently over the miles, as the nodding poppies at my feet bowed reverently in the breeze.

Villages in France viewed from a distance seem so restful and idyllic.

There is no sound of strife, no trace of rivalry, no vain pride; only white houses--the homes of good men and gentle women, and cherub children;

and all the church-steeples truly point to God.

Yet on closer view--but what of that!

When I reached the town, the church whose spire I had seen from the distance beckoned me first.

I turned off from the wide thoroughfare, intending just to get a glance at the outside of the building as I passed.

But the great iron gates thrown invitingly open, and a rusty, dusty dog of Flanders lying in the entry waiting for his master, told me that there was service within.

So I entered, passing through the noiseless, swinging door, and into the dim twilight of the house of prayer.

A score of people were there, and standing in the aisle was a white-robed priest.

He was speaking, and his voice came so gently, so sure withal, so exquisitely modulated, that I paused and, leaning against a pillar, listened.

I think it was the first time I ever heard a preacher speaking in a large church who did not speak so loud that an echo chased his sentences round and round the vaulted dome and strangled the sense.

The tone was conversational and the manner so free from canting conventionality that I moved up closer to get a view of the face.

It was too dark to see well, but I came under the spell of the man's earnest eloquence.

The sacred stillness, the falling night, the odor from incense and banks of flowers piled about the feet of an image of the Holy Virgin--evidently brought by the peasantry, having nothing else to give--made a combination of melting conditions that would have subdued a heart of stone.

The preacher ceased to speak, and as he raised his hands in benediction, I, involuntarily, with the other worshipers, knelt on the stone floor and bowed my head in silent reverie.

Suddenly, I was aroused by a crashing noise at my elbow, and glancing round saw that an old man near me had merely dropped his cane.

A heavy cudgel it was that falling on the stone flagging sent a thundering reverberation through the vaulted chambers.

The worshipers were slipping out, one by one, and soon no one was left but the old man of the cudgel and myself.

He wore wooden shoes, and was holding the cordwood fast between his knees, rolling his hat nervously in his big hands.

"He's a stranger, too," I said to myself; "he is the man who owns the rusty dog of Flanders, and he is waiting to give the priest some message!"

I leaned over towards my neighbor and asked, "The priest--what is his name?"

"Father Francis, Monsieur!"

and the old man swayed back and forward in his seat as if moved by some inward emotion, still fingering his hat.

Just then the priest came out from behind the altar, wearing a black robe instead of the white one.

He moved down with a sort of quiet majesty straight towards us.

We arose as one man; it was as though some one had pressed a button.

Father Francis walked by me, bowing slightly, and shook hands with my old neighbor.

They stood talking in an undertone.

A last struggling ray of light from the dying sun came in over the chancel and flooded the great room for an instant.

It allowed me to get a good look at the face of the priest.

As I stood there staring at him I heard him say to the old man as he bade him good-by, "Yes, tell her I'll be there in the morning."

Then he turned to me, and I was still staring.

And as I stared I was repeating to myself the words the people said when Dante used to pass, "There is the man who has been to Hell!"

"You are an Englishman?"

said Father Francis to me pleasantly as he held out his hand.

"Yes," I said; "I am an Englishman--that is, no--an American!"

I was wondering if he had really heard me make that Dante remark; and anyway, I had been rudely staring at him and listening with both ears to his conversation with the old man.

I tried to roll my hat, and had I a cudgel I would surely have dropped it; and with it all I wondered if the dog of Flanders waiting outside was not getting impatient for me!

"Oh, an American!

I'm glad--I have very dear friends in America!"

Then I saw that Father Francis did not look so much like the exiled Florentine as I had thought, for his smile was winning as that of a woman, the corners of his mouth did not turn down, and the nose had not the Roman curve.

Dante was an exile: this man was at home--and would have been, anywhere.

He was tall, slender and straight; he must have been sixty years old, but the face in spite of its furrows was singularly handsome.

Grave, yet not depressed, it showed such feminine delicacy of feeling, such grace, such high intellect, that I stood and gazed as I might at a statue in bronze.

But plain to see, he was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.

The face spake of one to whom might have come a great tribulation, and who by accepting it had purchased redemption for all time from all the petty troubles of earth.

"You must stay here as long as you wish, and you will come to our old church again, I hope!"

said the Father.

He smiled, nodded his head and started to leave me alone.

"Yes, yes, I'll come again--I'll come in the morning, for I want to talk with you about Madame Guyon--she was married in this church they told me--is that true?"

I clutched a little.

Here was a man I could not afford to lose--one of the elect!

"Oh, yes; that was a long time ago, though.

Are you interested in Madame Guyon?

I am glad--not to know Fenelon seems a misfortune.

He used to preach from that very pulpit, and Madame was baptized at that font and confirmed here.

I have pictures of them both; and I have their books--one of the books is a first edition.

Do you care for such things?"

When I was broke in London, in the Fall of Eighty-nine!

Do I care for such things?

I can not recall what I said, but I remembered that this brown-skinned priest with his liquid, black eyes, and the look of sorrow on his handsome face, stood out before me like the picture of a saint.

I made an engagement to meet him the next morning, when he bethought him of his promise to the old man of the cudgel and wooden shoes.

"Come now, then--come with me now.

My house is just next door!"

And so we walked up the main aisle of the old church, around the altar where Madame Guyon used to kneel, and by a crooked, little passageway entered a house fully as old as the church.

A woman who might have been as old as the house was setting the table in a little dining-room.

She looked up at me through brass-rimmed spectacles, and without orders or any one saying a word she whisked off the tablecloth, replaced it with a snowy, clean one, and put on two plates instead of one.

Then she brought in toasted brown bread and tea, and a steaming dish of lentils, and fresh-picked berries in a basket all lined with green leaves.

It was not a very sumptuous repast, but 't was enough.

Afterward I learned that Father Francis was a vegetarian.

He did not tell me so, neither did he apologize for absence of fermented drink, nor for his failure to supply tobacco and pipes.

Now, I have heard that there be priests who hold in their cowled heads choice recipes for spiced wines, and who carry hidden away in their hearts all the mysteries of the chafing-dish; but Father Francis was not one of these.

His form was thin, but the bronze of his face was the bronze that comes from red corpuscles, and the strongly corded neck and calloused, bony hands told of manly abstinence and exercise in the open air, and sleep that follows peaceful thoughts, knowing no chloral.

After the meal, Father Francis led the way to his little study upstairs.

He showed me his books and read to me from his one solitary "First Edition."

Then he unlocked a little drawer in an old chiffonier and brought out a package all wrapped in chamois.

This parcel held two miniature portraits, one of Fenelon and one of Madame Guyon.

"That picture of Fenelon belonged to Madame Guyon.

He had it painted for her and sent it to her while she was in prison at Vincennes.

The other I bought in Paris--I do not know its history."

The good priest had work to do, and let me know it very gently, thus: "You have come a long way, brother, the road was rough--I know you must be weary.

Come, I'll show you to your room."

He lighted a candle and took me to a bedroom at the end of the hall.

It was a little room, very clean, but devoid of all ornament, save a picture of the Madonna and her Babe, that hung over the head of the little iron bedstead.

It was a painting--not very good.

I think Father Francis painted it himself; the face of the Holy Mother was very human--divinely human--as motherhood should be.

Father Francis was right: the way had been rough and I was tired.

The treetops sang a cooing lullaby and the nightwinds sighed solemnly as they wandered through the hallway and open doors.

It did not take me long to go to sleep.

Later, the wind blew up fresh and cool.

I was too sleepy to get up and hunt for more covering, and yet I was cold as I curled up in a knot and dreamed I was first mate with Peary on an expedition in search of the North Pole.

And the last I remember was a vision of a gray-robed priest tiptoeing across the stone floor; of his throwing over me a heavy blanket and then hastily tiptoeing out again.

The matin-bells, or the birds, or both, awoke me early, but when I got downstairs I found my host had preceded me.

His fine face looked fresh and strong, and yet I wondered when he had slept.

After breakfast, the old housekeeper hovered near.

"What is it, Margaret?"

said the Father, gently.

"You haven't forgotten your engagement?"

asked the woman, with just a quaver of anxiety.

"Oh no, Margaret"; then turning to me, "Come, you shall go with me--we will talk of Fenelon and Madame Guyon as we walk.

It is eight miles and back, but you will not mind the distance.

Oh, didn't I tell you where I'm going?

You saw the old man at the church last night--it is his daughter--she is dying--dying of consumption.

She has not been a good girl.

She went away to Paris, three years ago, and her parents never heard from her.

We tried to find her, but could not; and now she has come home of her own accord--come home to die.

I baptized her twenty years ago--how fast the time has flown!"

The priest took a stout staff from the corner, and handing me its mate we started away.

Down the white, dusty highway we went; out on the stony road where yesterday, as the darkness gathered, trudged an old man in wooden shoes and with a cordwood cudgel--at his heels a dog of Flanders.