The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-10-19
THE CATHOLIC BULLETIN, ocT. lo, 1912.

drench France again with blood.
You dare not But the Archbishop
has dared. There may be trouble to-
day. We are all waiting for the cor
tege now to pass. See! Yonder it
comes! We may hear a shot soon,
then a volley Of muskets received and
returned, and see the streets run red.
Come, we shall follow, and Til explain
as we 60 along"
And the stranger saw the process
sion with it's golden casket guarding
the dust Of the priest of the poor.
Along the boulevards he followed;
through the lanes, and by the
wharves, where the saint had borne
the labors and the heat of the day:
past the Louvre where his voice had
made and unmade bishops as War
wick had made and unmade kings.
On the procession passed, f1anked
with the royal soldiery scarlet clad,
ready to protect with their lives their
precious charge, ready to return shot
for shot. But there was no need.
The atheists finger on the pistol
nerveless fell. He could not shoot:
there was the father of the poor:
no man ever said he had crushed the
tie spirit of the dead seemed to how
er Ger the lawless. They could only
stand still, with eyes riveted upon
that sparkling casket, upon the bish-
ops and archbishops with golden copes
and mitres glittering in the sun, upon
the purple-clad messeigneurs, the
black-robed priests, and the sweet
faced innocence of the sanctuary-boys
swinging smoking censers; they could
but listen to the chant of triumph
over their brothers? hoover infidel-
ity; could but harken to the prayers
that were whispered at their sides
from bent heads.
And when the remains. rested in
the sanctuary of St. Lazare, the
crowds surged in and knelt. For a
week the stranger visited the church.
For week crowds came from all
parts of France into the city, asking,
Where is he that has died King of
the Poor? We have heard his name
from afar, and have come to revere
him." There came the poor, the
blind, the deaf and the manned.
Near his dust pa1lid faces leaped
from sick pillows and smiled in
health. Cripples hung their crutches
at his tomb. Toddling infancy,
flushed youth, and shambling age
came and mingled prayers; the ban
daged veteran war-scarred, and the
abandoned woman sin-scarred, joined
their supplications; for they all had
right to come,-was he not the
father of the poor, and the weak and
the wretched and the sinful? The
apron of the apple-monger and the
tattered hat of the street-gamin
brushed against the velvet of the court
lady and the sword of the soldier.
But what of that? They all were
one before his tomb.
And the multitude murmured
prayers in hushed earnestness until
they saw the king come with his gor-
geous retinue, and kneel before the
bones Of pauper priest. How could
they be silent? The very stones
would cry out. And they shouted in
the church, to see king kneel to a
pauper.
Vincent had taught Louis XIII to
die, and now Charles X comes to ask
him how to live, to live for his peo-
pie and for his God. The church bells
pealed from all the steeples, and TIE
Deums rang from thousands of
threats. ''Sons and daughters of
Jerusalem, come, see this low1y mar
tyr with his crown of worshipers with
which God has crowned him on this
day of joy and gladness.'
A. Ndmdrf, in The Marian.