Year: 1873

The Pilgrimage to LOurdes.


AL the religious world is questioning itself
as to the meaning of the awakened fervor in
France, which finds demonstration in the
remarkable series of pilgrimages taking
place there The wonderful French people
seem to the outside world to be perpetually
presenting it with problems of force that
astonish and puzzle. 1t has struck many
before now that it was difficult to finally de-
eide the ethical, psychological or political con-
dition of the French nation, so as to be able
to construct the ''average Frenchman" or the
'ideal Frenchman" with none of his attributes
stricken out. An activity which springs fully
armed from brains unsuspected of being in
Jupiter-like throes comes forth; the land
blazes with novel excitement and great deeds
areperformed under the pressure. We are all
agreed that the French are excitable and
slight cause We remark, however, that the


differing exciting clauses take hold of special
classes and that there is, despite the appear
ance of change, constancy or conservatism
in the object for which each class struggles.


United at any moment in the cause Of France,
they are the most factious people in the world.
When the tide of French fortune is at its
highest or its lowest we see all the warning
elements at strife but in the flowing or the
ebbing thereof the spectacle is one of mighty
nation assiduously acting together and sweep
ing all opposition in it's common direction.
Here the philosophic student of history and of
peoples can lose himsel. effectually in ingenious
mazes and ever deceive himself with the idea
that he is on the right path. The surly philos-
opher who declared the Frenchman to be ''half
monkey and half tiger" looked upon France
as it fought all Europe, guillotined, drowned or
massacred thousands of its own children
with feline ferocity, and danced the carmagnole
in its sacred places, or mummed and mined
round the feet of an Emperor with the fantastic
deviltry or the gravely ludicrous imitativeness
of the ape family. With the lower empire
and the Commune men thought the picture
true that had been sketched in phrase. To
look back behind the Revolution we find that
the Frenchmar was recognized in England,
at least by the popular mind, as q vain, friyol-
Gus, grimacing creature, with q leaning to
cookery and taste for theatrical style Of
war. "There is nothing saiique in France ex-
cept the monarchy" said Sterne, with bit
terness that conveyed an effeminacy in its men
which the monkey-and-tiger creation utterly
ignores. The letters descriptive of the late pill
grimages to Lourdes and other shrines, por-
ton of which, referring to "Our Lady Of
Lourdes herself, we print to-day have been
particularly interesting The pilgrim masses
and the full-toned belief which they
utter form phenomenon that should
find no exhibition in the French mind,
if the critics of year ago were to be believed.


That all this piety of the strong masculine
order, however puerile its outward form may
appear to other religionists, should exist
hidden but unquenched under all the wreck
ing of opinions and changing of beliefs, is
passing strange. It is simply, however, the
old way in which the wise deceive themselves


The elements were actively working all the
time; but the wise were looking at something
else that glittered more The SPECTATOR at o
prestidigitateur's show constantly finds himself
SO deceived. He might become master Of the
mystery if he did not follow all the fuss Of
the magician. The strength Of this religious
feeling has been no secret in Rome at least.
Peters pence" told the occupant OF the
apostles chair, as surely as possible, its value.
When some bishop or archbishop went to the
Vatican and laid solid proofs Of the devotion of
France to the Pope the fact was always
published, but no one outside certain
cleric circle seemed to muse on the force
of faith that lay behind the francs, SOUS
and centimes. 1t did not take very exhaus-
tive inquiry to learn that the clergy die not
love Napoleon, and only served him because
they could not help it. The monarchy was
their darling. As the pressure of the Empire


was removed and the misfortunes of France


paralyzed the energies Of some political


classes. the time found the clergy ready and


able to serve their friends SO the Right was


fortified in the Assembly, and under its pro-


lection the clergy arose to lead the faithful to


renewed and loud expression of France s
! faith " Ged TQ "saye France " the name