Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1884-09-10
HEROES OF THE PESTILENCE.

"Reminiscences of theGreat Plague of 1870
III Misunderstanding the Present One.
This is not by any means the first
time that the South of France has been
visited by serious epidemic-indeed
the cholera of 1884 dwindles into insig-
nifcance when compared with the plague
of 1920, which swept off $4,000 of the
10000 inhabitants of Toulon, and slew
every other resident of Marseilles. The
infection was carried to the latter city
by Cypriote vessel on the 25th of May ;
on the Sth of June several deaths oc-
Cured among the laborers on the docks,
and next day q young man and his Sis
ter were attacked and died. The chief
magistrate of the city then was the Mar
quis of PILES, and the aldermen were
NM Moustier, EsteIle, Audimar and
Dieude- heroes all, as the event was to
demonstrate NJ Moustier at once re-
moved the dead and the pest-stricken
outside OF the walls, together with the
other inmates of the infected dwelling,
and proceeded to close 1t up with lime
and sand similar course was adopted
with the other few cases that broke out,
and for while it seemed as if the plague
had been mastered.
But on the 22d Of July the pestilence
established foothold in squahd
quarter of the city, and the mortality
speedily became terrible. 1t was COM
plicated by fears of famine, labor no
longer finding employm ent, and the
peasant refusing to bring in supplies.
The shops, the converts, the very
churches were closed, and bands of
starving men tottered through the de-
serted streets, clamoring for bread and
wine. Great trenches were dug with
out the walls, where @all day long the
courageous aldermen stood, the torrid
sun poisoning the air with exhalations
from the heaps of dead, watching that
everybody was cast into the CHASTITY re-
ceptacle. Soon, though the bearers of
the deadswere paid fifteen ivres day,
no men could be found to WELD the
long hooks with which the corpses were
dragged forth, and galley-slaves had to
be pressed into the service. They
worked under armed guards, for unless
watched closely, they would rob the
dead, stupefy themselves with liquor
and wantonly smash the death-carts,
which there were no artisans to repair
or to replace. Gang after gang died off
like flies, till, at the end of August,
when the deaths had risen to 900, 1000,
even 1000 day, it was no longer posi-
BILE to remove the corpses outside of the
gates. The clergy were forced to open
the conventual churches, and into these
the bodies were flung, to be covered
with quicklime.
On September 3 the four magistrates
found themselves alone at the city hall.
Every other functionary Of the munich
pal government was dead or had fled
guards, police, clerks, servants. They
remained alone at their posts until, at
last, the fury of the plague was ex-
pended, and the surviving remnant
of the population struggled back to re-
ward the saviors OF the city with the
title of fathers, the only recompense
which they would accept. Not less
diligent, meanwhile had been the bishop
of the diocese, Mgr. Belzunce, man
upon the threshold of old age, simple,
pious, iovial and of inexhaustible en-
ergy. Throughout the whole epidemic
he went daily into the very heart and
breeding place of the plague, carrying
aims to the living and consoling the
dying with the sacrament, or listening
to confessions breathed from lips baked
and blackened with the fatal fever.
The contagion spared him, as it did his
lay colaborers, but when, on All Saints
day (the 1st of November), he, bare
footed and with the cord of penitence
around his neck, led through the city
a procession of melancholy Thanksgiving
for the abatement of the plague, scarce
~ handful of priests followed in his
footsteps. The others had been swept
away into the great ocean of nameless
heroes.