, 1880-10-04
The Seven Sleepers by the Loire


The Seven Sleepers are said to have
come as pilgrims from the far East
Syria, according to the usual version
that they might receive the blessing of
st. Martin. They found the Saint
passing most of his time in small cav
ern. They occupied one near it. One
day they received from st. Martin the
eucharist, and presently fell asleep.
There was no appearance of death; they
remained in breathless, motionless
slumber for weeks, months; and then,
though there was no decay, it was
thought right to lay them in hollow
rock tombs. And here I was shown
the seven graves cut in the floor. Each
is shaped somewhat like all the old
Templars' tombs. At the door of the
grotto there was tomb of
great antiquity, covered by a
stone slab which left hole at one cor
ner. hooking through this, perceived
q skeleton which had no coffin. 1t is
not improbable, therefore, that these
graves have been repeatedly used for
hermits of special sanctity. After they
passed from their living to their literal
burial, these sanity solitaries have Oft
en- for the first time begun to exercise
influence upon men. Legends take
root in their graves, floating fables
adopt them as fathers, and so ultimate
~ they rise again as myths, their bones
are distributed as charms, and they en-
ter upon more real existence than
when they dwelt above the sod as if
they were already beneath it.
On tho oailinn Of tho Souon Sloonara'
Grot, when saw it in the summer Of
1878. there were still discernible the
fading splendors of the sky and heay-
enly bodies with which 1t had been
decorated. But whoever may slumber,
Time and Nature sleep not. The front
of the chapel has been designed by NJ.
l'Abbe Brisacier, in accordance with q
structure which existed in the same
place in the eleventh century. During
the severe winter which preceded, the
ceiling of the cave had fallen-as it fell
twice before lin the eleventh and again
IN the seventeenth century)-and of all
the interior decorations l could now
discover only lily, star, faint tinge
OF blue sky. These decorations had
been copied from the earliest ages.
The fall of this roof and removal OF the
debris laid bare large number of
bones, some Of which were in such a
position as to be almost of geological
interest. 1t looks as if so early as the
tenth century, perhaps, the place was
regarded as sacred one for burial.
The catastrophe brought out the fact
that the ingenious Able Brisacier, of
Tours, had about the same time discov-
cred in the Episcopal archives the
names of the Seven Sleepers. These
names will now be connected with sew
en- figures, which will have to be
evolved from somebody's inner con-
sciousness, Oh seven stained windows
now being made for the little chapel
which has been built. The names,
which have been kindly sent me by the
Able Brisacier, are Clemens, Primus,
Letus, Theodorus, Cyriadius, Godan-
thus, and Innocentius.
Yon great gateway o. Marmoutier,
from which Urban II. preached the
crusade, and SO earned such saintship
as the nineteenth-century Vatican can
recognize, is noble piece of architect
ure, but it has beneath its turret an
o1bilette, recently sealed, down which
human victims were hurled to a depth
not yet fathomed; there are two west
ward towers also that are graceful; but
it was the place of execution when the
lords of Marmoutier were the judges,
and they seem even now studded with
human heads. The glory of this, the
Oldest and most aristOcratic convent In
Northern Europe, after all, hovers
about these grottoes, where Gatien and
Martin and dear St. Patrick passed
much of their time. Over the graves
Of these ancient saints and of the Sleep
ers there is a fragrance of fresh roses
and breath of the myrtle, and the hymn
of the nuns in their church sings to my
ear:
1--WE are such stuff
AS dreams re made of; and our little life
Is rounded with Sleep.
The abbess, who just now left me to
linger here little, was very careful to
say that the Seven Sleepers were buried
only because really dead. She mani
tested naive anxiety that it should not
be understood that they had been
buried alive, and at the same time that
the preservative power of St. Martins
wafer should not suffer discredit. She
was sweetly unconscious that the Seven
were traceable back to those who slum
ber at Ephesus, to the Seven Churches,
to the PIeiades, to mans earliest dream
concerning the periodicity of those &C.
lestial fires that go and return. Their
pictured lusters fade from the ceiling
where they watched over these Eastern
pilgrims, but they shine in the eyes of
the sisters at Marnoutier-eyes they
have organized, to which dreams are
the only realities.-M. D. CONWAY, in
Harper's Magazine.
A monthly published in New York,
called The South, says: Many people