The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1905-11-25
H0N0RED
Magnificent Statue Erected at
Mayenne, France, to
Tho Memory of Cardinal De.
cheverus Once of Boston.

town of department little visited by
tourists, there is a statue by one of the
most renowned modern sculptors of a
great .churchman whose twenty eight
years in Boston during the formative
years of our country should have
given him full naturalization, says
correspondent in the New York Even
ing Post. The statue is of Cardinal de
Cheverus, the friend of Claiming, one
of the first Catholic priests, and the
first bishop of the still Puritan city,
and, at his death, cardinal and
archbishop of Bordeaux.
| The sculptor was David dangers;
and the exquisite bronze reliefs with
which he delighted to adorn the pedes-
tails of his statutes are in this case
a veritable human document of what
America was thought to be by the
children of the French revolution. The
| town where this treasure Of art and
monument Of our history gives it's
enne, one hundred and eighty miles
from Paris on the road to Brittany.
The town, with its 10000 inhabi-
tants, occupied at thrifty industries,
sprinkles its gray old houses which
saw the revolution along sloping and
terraced streets all the way up the
hillside. Steam engines in the fac
tories, railways, and now automobiles
have changed the accent of the town,
but the stones Of Mayenne tell about
the same story as when Cardinal de
Cheverus was born here under Louis
XIV. After William the Conqueror
threw flreballs over the walls
and burned the original wooden houses,
each century has left it's mark in these
streets,
The church, built by successive gen.
| erations, shows all the varieties Of
architecture from the beginning of the
eleventh century through Romanesque,
Gothic, Renaissance down to Restora-
ton spick-and-span enough for a
cathedral in Boston itself. The great
blunt towers of the chateau still loom
darkly above the walls now serving as
state prison. Church and chateau
still dominate ALL and the gates ajar
in the high walls which surround
jealousy the great houses of the town
give glimpses of equally old gardens,
formal with clipped box and old-fash-
Toned flowers telling of the vested
rights of riches.
I reached the top of the hill and
found the oblong Place Cheverus run
ming down between the old gray houses
to the rear of the Marie. Half way
down is the statue-a dignified figure
in flowing church robes, high up on
the PEDESTAL and overshadowed by the
plane trees that form an alley in the
narrow space. David dangers worked
from life as nearly as he could, and
ne must have seen his subject, al
though the statue was made some ten
years after the death of Cardinal de
Cheverus. The face has that substan-
tial scholarly, lofty look which strikes
us in eighteenth century portraits. But
l was most interested by the paneled
reliefs of the pedestal. These were
clearly inspired by David dangers
ideas of the American career of the
good bishop. They may be amusing,
but they are delightful and full of
suggestion.
To get our dates right we must re-
member that Cardinal de Cheverus was
born in 1853, and was a young priest
when the French revolution broke out.
Like most of the clergy he refused to
take the oath to the schismatical Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, and escaped
to England, and, in 1895, to the United
States. There is good book yet to be
written by some Of our historians on
the refugees Of the great Terror who
found their way to the United States.
Laymen and churchmen alike, there
were many men Of real distinction
among them, and more than one has
left his impress on the world. Father
de Cheverus Joined Father Matigon,
an 1rishman, and likewise an exile
from France, in Boston, of which he
was made first bishop in 1910; in 1928
he was called back to France to be-
come Bishop Of Montauban, and in
1926 he was made Archbishop Of Bor-
deaux, and a peer of France. In 1886,
the year of his death, he received the
Cardinals hat
Without going into his career in
America, it may be said that Cardinal
de Cheverus with Claiming worked
successfully to persuade Puritans and
Catholics that they could live at peace
with each other. This was not David
dangers idea. In his front panel the
bishop in his robes welcomes Indians
feathers in hair, loin-clothed, kneel-
ing to receive the rosary at his hands;
behind him stands, with evident inter-
est, stout-faced figure dressed like
soldier of Cromwell This is hardly
the historical y,>>+.on of the Boston of
1900 and Claiming.