The Cathedral (Huysmans)/Chapter X
One morning Durtal went out to seek the Abbé Plomb. He could not find him in his own house, nor in the cathedral; but at last, directed by the beadle, he made his way to the house at the corner of the Rue de l'Acacia, where the choir-school was lodged.
He went in by a gate that stood half open, into a yard littered with broken pails and other rubbish. The house, beyond this courtyard, was suffering from the cutaneous disease that affects plaster, eaten with leprosy and spotted with blisters, with zig-zag rifts from top to bottom, and a crackled surface like the glaze of an old jar. The dead stock of a vine stretched its gnarled black arms along the wall.
Durtal, looking in at a window, saw a dormitory with rows of white beds, and he was amused, for never had he seen beds so tiny.
A lad was in the room, whom he called, by tapping on the pane, and asked whether the Abbé Plomb were still about the place. The boy nodded an affirmative, and showed Durtal into a waiting-room.
This room was like the office of an exceedingly inferior and pious hotel. The furniture consisted of a mahogany table of a sort of salmon pink colour, on which stood a pot-stand bereft of flowers; arm-chairs with circular backs fit for a gatekeeper's room, a chimney-piece adorned with statues of saints much fly-bitten, and a chimney board covered with paper representing the Vision of Lourdes. On the walls hung a black board with rows of numbered keys; opposite, a chromo-lithograph of Christ, displaying, with an amiable smile, an underdone heart bleeding amid streams of yellow sauce.
But what was chiefly characteristic of this bedizened porter's lodge was a horribly sickening smell, the smell of lukewarm castor oil.
Durtal, nauseated by this odour, was on the point of making his escape, when the Abbé Plomb came in and took his arm. They went out together.
"Then you have just come back from Solesmes?" said Durtal.
"As you see."
"And were you satisfied with your visit?"
"Enchanted," and the Abbé smiled at the impatience he could detect in Durtal's accents.
"What do you think of the monastery?"
"I think it most interesting to visit, both from the monastic and from the artistic point of view. Solesmes is a great convent, the parent House of the Benedictine Order in France, and it has a flourishing school of novices. What is it that you want to know, exactly?"
"Why, everything you can tell me."
"Well, then, I may tell you that ecclesiastical art, brought to its very highest expression, is fascinating in that monastery. No one can conceive of the magnificence of the liturgy and of plain-song who has not heard them at Solesmes. If Notre Dame des Arts had a special sanctuary, it undoubtedly would be there."
"Is the chapel ancient?"
"A part of the old church remains, and the famous Solesmes sculpture, dating from the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, there are some quite disastrous windows in the apse: the Virgin between Saint Peter and Saint Paul; modern glass in its most piercing atrocity. But, then, where is decent glass to be had?"
"Nowhere. We have only to look at the transparent pictures let into the walls of our new churches to appreciate the incurable idiocy of painters who insist on treating window panes from cartoons, as they do subject pictures—and such subjects! and such pictures! All turned out by the gross from cheap glass melters, whose thin material dots the pavement of the church with spots like confetti, strewing lollipops of colour wherever the light falls.
"Would it not be far better to accept the colourless scheme of window-glass used at Citeaux, where a decorative effect was produced by a design in the lead lines; or to imitate the fine grisailles, iridescent from age, which may still be seen at Bourges, at Reims, and even here, in our cathedral?"
"Certainly," said the Abbé. "But to return to our monastery. Nowhere, I repeat, are the services performed with so much pomp. You should see it on the occasion of some high festival! Picture to yourself above the altar, where commonly the tabernacle shines, a Dove suspended from a golden crozier, its wings outspread amid clouds of incense; then a whole army of monks deploying in a solemn rhythmic march, and the Abbot standing, on his brow a mitre thickly set with jewels, his green and white ivory crozier in his hand, his train carried by a lay-brother when he moves, while the gold of many copes blazes in the light of the tapers, and a torrent of sound from the organ bears the voices up, carrying to the very vault the cry of repentance or the joy of the Psalms.
"It is glorious. It is not the penitential austerity of the liturgy as it is used by the Franciscans or at La Trappe: it is luxury offered to God, the beauty He created dedicated to His service, and in itself praise and prayer. But if you wish to hear the music of the Church in its utmost perfection you must go to the neighbouring Abbey: that of the Sisters of Saint Cecilia."
The Abbé paused, whispering to himself, thinking over his reminiscences; and then he slowly spoke again,—
"Wherever you go, the voice of a nun preserves, merely by reason of her sex, a sort of emotion, a tendency to the cooing tone, and, it must be owned, a certain satisfaction in hearing herself when she knows that others can hear her; so that the Gregorian chant is never perfectly executed by nuns.
"But with the Benedictine Sisters of Sainte-Cecile all the graces of earthly sentimentality have vanished. These nuns have ceased to have women's voices; the quality is at once seraphic and manly. In their church you are either thrown back I know not how far into the depth of past ages, or shot forward into time to come, as they sing. They have outpourings of soul and tragical pauses, pathetic murmurs and ecstasies of passion, and sometimes they seem to rush to the assault, and storm certain Psalms at the bayonet's point. And they do assuredly achieve the most vehement leap that can be imagined from this world into the infinite."
"Then it is a very different thing from the Benedictine service of nuns in the Rue Monsieur in Paris?"
"No comparison is possible. Without wishing to reflect on the musical sincerity of those good Sisters, who sing quite suitably but humanly, as women, it may be asserted that they have neither such knowledge, nor such soul-felt aspiration, nor such voices. As a monk remarked, 'when you have heard the Sisters of Solesmes, those of Paris sound provincial.'"
"And you saw the Abbess of Saint Cecilia. Why, when I think of it, is not she the writer of a Treatise on Prayer (Traité de l'Oraison) which I read when I was at La Trappe, and which was not, I believe, regarded with favour at the Vatican?"
"Yes, she it is. But you are making the greatest mistake in imagining that her book was not approved at Rome. It was examined there, like every book of the kind, through a magnifying glass, strained through a sieve, picked over line by line, turned inside out and upside down; but the theologians employed in this pious custom-house service acknowledged and certified that this work, based on the soundest principles of mysticism, was learnedly, impeccably, desperately orthodox.
"I may add that the volume was printed privately by the Abbess herself, helped by some of the nuns, in a little hand-press belonging to the convent, and has never been in circulation. It is, in fact, an epitome of doctrine, the essential extract of her teaching, and was more especially intended for those of her daughters who are unable to have the benefit of her instruction and lectures, because they live away from Solesmes, in other convents that she has founded.
"Why in these days, when for ten years past the Benedictine Sisters have made a study of Latin, when many of them translate from Hebrew and Greek and are skilled in exegesis, when others draw and paint the pages of missals, reviving the art of the illuminators of the Middle Ages, when others again—as, for instance, Mother Hildegarde—are organists of the highest attainment, you may easily understand that the woman who directs them all, the woman who has created in her Sisterhoods a school of practical mysticism and of religious art, is a very remarkable person; nay, in these days of frivolous devotions and ignorant piety, quite unique."
"Why, she is one of the great Abbesses of the Middle Ages," cried Durtal.
"She is the crowning work of Dom Guéranger, who took her in hand almost as a child and kneaded and mollified her soul with long patience; then he transplanted her into a special greenhouse, watching her growth in the Lord day after day; and you see the result of this forcing and high culture."
"Yes, and even this does not hinder some persons from regarding convents as the homes of idleness and reservoirs of folly. When you think that obscure idiots write to the papers to say that nuns know nothing of the Latin they repeat! It would be well for them if they knew as much Latin as those women!"
The Abbé smiled.
"And the secret of the Gregorian chant dwells with them," he went on. "It is necessary not only to understand the language of the Psalms as they are sung, but to appreciate meanings which are often doubtful in the Vulgate, in order to express them properly. Without fervent feeling and knowledge, the voice is nothing.
"It may be beautiful in secular music, but it is null and void when it attempts the venerable sequences of plain-song."
"And how are the Fathers employed?"
"They also began by restoring the liturgy and Church singing; then they discovered certain lost texts of the subtle symbolists and learned saints, and collected them in a Spicilegium and Analectae. Now they are editing and printing a musical Palæography, one of the most learned and abstruse of modern publications.
"Still, I would not have you believe that the whole mission of the Benedictine Order consists in overhauling ancient manuscripts and reproducing ancient Antiphonals and curious chronicles. The Brother who has a talent for any art devotes himself to it, no doubt, if the Superior permits; on this point the rule knows no exception; but the real and true aim of the Son of Saint Benedict is to sing Psalms and praise the Lord, to serve his apprenticeship here for his task in Heaven: namely, to glorify the Redeemer in words inspired by Himself, and in the language He spoke by the voice of David and the Prophets.
"Seven times a day the Benedictines do the homage required of the Elders in Heaven, as described by Saint John in the Apocalypse, and represented by sculptors as playing on instruments here at Chartres.
"In point of fact, their particular function is not at all to bury themselves under the accumulated dust of ages, nor even to accept in substitution the sins and woes of others as the Orders of pure mortification do—the Carmelites and the Poor Clares. Their vocation is to fill the office of the Angels; it is a task of joy and peace, an anticipation of their inheritance of gladness beyond the grave; in fact, the work which is nearest to that of purified spirits, the highest on earth.
"To fulfil their duty fittingly, besides ardent piety, a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures is required, and a refined feeling for art. Thus a true Benedictine must be at once a saint, a learned man, and an artist."
"And what is the daily life of Solesmes?" asked Durtal.
"Very methodical and very simple: Matins and Lauds at four in the morning; at nine o'clock tierce, mass for the brethren, and sext; at noon dinner; at four nones and vespers; at seven supper; at half-past eight compline and deep silence. As you see, there is time for meditation and work in the intervals between the canonical hours and meals."
"And the oblates?"
"What oblates? I saw none at Solesmes."
"Indeed—then if there are any, do they lead the same life as the Fathers?"
"Evidently; excepting, perhaps, some dispensations depending on the Abbot's favour. I can tell you this much: that in some other Benedictine Houses that I have visited the general system is that the oblate shall follow as much of the rule as he is able for."
"Still, he is, I suppose, free to come and go—his actions are free?"
"When once he has taken the oath of obedience to his Superior, and, after his term of probation, has adopted the monastic habit, he is as much a monk as the rest, and consequently can do nothing without the Father Superior's leave."
"The deuce!" muttered Durtal. "Of course, if the ridiculous metaphor so familiar to the world were accurate, if the cloister were rightly compared to a tomb, the condition of the oblate would also be tomb-like, only its walls would be less air-tight, and the stone, a little tilted, would admit a ray of daylight."
"If you like!" said the Abbé, laughing.
As they walked, they had reached the Bishop's palace.
They went into the forecourt, and saw the Abbé Gévresin making his way to the gardens; they joined him, and the old priest asked them to go with him to the kitchen garden, where, to oblige his housekeeper, he was to inspect the seeds she had sown.
"Aye, and I too promised long ago to look at the vegetables," exclaimed Durtal.
They went down the ancient paths and reached the orchard on the slope; and as soon as Madame Bavoil caught sight of them she grounded arms, so to speak, setting her foot in gardener fashion on the spade she had stuck into the soil.
She proudly pointed to her rows of cabbages and carrots, onions and peas, announced that she intended to make an attempt on the gourd tribe, expatiated on cucumbers and pumpkins, and to conclude, declared that at the bottom of the kitchen garden she meant to have a flower-bed.
Then they sat down on a mound that formed a sort of seat.
The Abbé Plomb, in a mood for teasing, gave his spectacles a push, settling the arch above his nose, and rubbing his hands, remarked, very seriously,—
"Madame Bavoil, flowers and vegetables are but of trivial importance from the decorative and culinary point of view; the only rule that should guide you in your selection is the symbolical meaning, the virtues and vices ascribed to plants. Now, I am sorry to observe that your favourites are for the most part of evil augury."
"I do not understand you, Monsieur l'Abbé."
"Why, you have only to consider that these vegetables which you take such care of mean many evil things. Lentils, for instance—you grow lentils?"
"Yes."
"Well, the seeds of the lentils are very cunning and mysterious. Artemidorus, in his 'Interpretation of Dreams,' tells us that if we dream of them it is a sign of mourning; it is the same with lettuce and onion: they forecast misfortune. Peas are less ill-famed; but, above all, beware of coriander, with its leaves smelling like bugs, for it gives rise to all manner of evils.
"Thyme, on the contrary, according to Macer Floridus, cures snake-bites, fennel is a stimulant wholesome for women, and garlic taken fasting is a preservative against the ills we may contract from drinking strange waters, or changing from place to place. So plant whole fields of garlic, Madame Bavoil."
"The Father does not like it!"
"And then," the Abbé Plomb added, very seriously, "you must fill your mind from the books of Albertus Magnus, the Master of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who in the treatises ascribed to him on the Virtues of Herbs, the Wonders of the World, and the Secrets of Women, puts forth certain ideas, which, as I may hope, will not have been written in vain.
"He tells us that the plantain-root is a cure for headache and for ulcers; that mistletoe grown on an oak opens all locks; that celandine laid on a sick man's head sings if he will die; that the juice of the house-leek will enable you to hold a hot iron without being burnt; that leaves of myrtle twisted into a ring will reduce an abscess; that lily powdered and eaten by a young maiden is an effectual test of her virginity, for if she should not be innocent it takes instantaneous effect as a diuretic!"
"I did not know of that property in the lily," said Durtal, laughing, "but I knew that Albertus Magnus assigned the same peculiarity to the mallow; only the patient need not swallow the plant; she has only to stoop over it."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed the old priest.
His housekeeper, quite scared, stood looking at the ground.
"Do not listen to him, Madame Bavoil," cried Durtal. "I have a less medical, and more religious, idea: cultivate a liturgical garden and emblematic vegetables; make a kitchen and flower garden that may set forth the glory of God and carry up our prayers in their language; and, in short, imitate the purpose of the Song of the Three Holy Children in the fiery furnace, when they called on all Nature, from the breath of the storm to the seed buried in the field, to Bless the Lord!"
"Very good!" exclaimed the Abbé Plomb; "but you must have a wide space at your disposal, for not less than one hundred and thirty plants are mentioned in the Scriptures; and the number of those to which mediæval writers give a meaning is immense."
"To say nothing of the fact," observed the Abbé Gévresin, "that a garden dependent on our cathedral ought also to reproduce the botany of its architecture."
"Is it known?"
"A list has not indeed been written for Chartres as it has been for Reims of its sculptured flora: the botany in stone of the church of Notre Dame there, has been carefully classified and labelled by Monsieur Saubinet; still, you will observe that the posies of the capitals are much the same everywhere. In all the churches of the thirteenth century you will find the leaves of the vine, the oak, the rose-tree, the ivy, the willow, the laurel, and the bracken, with strawberry and buttercup leaves. Indeed, as a rule, the image-makers selected native plants characteristic of the region where they were employed."
"Did they intend to express any particular idea by the capitals and corbels of the columns?—At Amiens, for instance, there is a wreath of flowers and foliage forming the string-course above the arches of the nave for its whole length and continued over the cornice of the pillars. Apart from the probable purpose of dividing the height into two equal parts in order to rest the eye, has this string-course any other meaning? Does it embody any particular idea? Is it the expression of some phrase relating to the Virgin, in whose name the cathedral is dedicated?"
"I do not think so," said the Abbé. "I believe that the artist who carved those wreaths simply aimed at a decorative effect, and made no attempt to give us in symbolical language a compendium of our Mother's virtues.
"Moreover, if we admit that the sculptors of the thirteenth century introduced the acanthus on account of its emollient qualities, the oak because it is emblematic of strength, and the water-lily because its broad leaves are accepted as a figure of charity, we ought no less to conclude that at the end of the fifteenth century, when the mystery of symbolism was not as yet altogether lost, the toothed bunches of curled cabbage, of thistles and other deeply-cut leaves mingling with true-love-knots, as in the church at Brou, might have had some meaning. But it is perfectly certain that these vegetable forms were chosen only for their elaborately elegant growth, and the fragile and mannered grace of their outline. Otherwise we might assert that this later ornament has a different tale to tell from that set forth in the flora of Reims and Amiens, Rouen and Chartres.
"In point of fact, the natural form which most frequently occurs in the capitals of our cathedral—by no means a remarkably flowery one—is the episcopal crozier as seen in the young shoots of the fern."
"No doubt. But does not the fern bear a symbolical meaning?"
"In a general sense, it is emblematic of humility, evidently in allusion to its habit of growing as much as possible far from the high road, in the depths of woods. But by consulting the Treatise of St. Hildegarde we learn that the plant she calls Fern, or bracken, has magical properties.
"Just as sunshine disperses darkness, says the Abbess of Rupertsberg, the Fern puts nightmares to flight. The devil hates and flees from it, and thunder and hail rarely fall on spots where it takes shelter; also the man who wears it about him escapes witchcraft and spells."
"Then St. Hildegarde made a study of natural history in its relations to medicine and magic?"
"Yes; but the book remains unknown because it has never yet been translated.
"She sometimes assigns very singular talismanic virtues to certain flowers. Would you like some instances?
"According to her, the plantain cures anyone who has eaten or drunk poison, and the pimpernel has the same virtue when hung round the neck. Myrrh must be warmed against the body till it is quite soft, and then it nullifies the wizard's malignant arts, delivers the mind from phantoms, and is an antidote to philtres. It also puts to flight all lascivious dreaming, if worn on the breast or the stomach; only, as it eliminates every carnal suggestion it depresses the spirit and makes it 'arid'; and for this reason, adds the saint, it should never be eaten but under great necessity.
"It is true that as a remedy against the dejection caused by myrrh we may apply the 'hymelsloszel' (Himmelschlüssel), which is—or appears to be—Primula officinalis, the cowslip, whose bunches of fragrant yellow blossoms are to be seen in moist woods and meadows. This plant is 'warm,' and imbibes its qualities from the light. Hence it can drive away melancholy, which, says St. Hildegarde, spoils men's good manners, making them utter speech contrary to God, on hearing which words the spirits of the air gather about him who has spoken them, and finally drive him mad.
"I may also tell you of the mandragora, a plant 'warm and watery,' that may symbolize the human being it resembles; and it is more susceptible than all other plants to the suggestion of the devil; but I would rather quote a recipe that you might perhaps think useful.
"Here is our Abbess's prescription à propos to the iris or lily: Take the tip of the root, bruise it in rancid fat, heat this ointment and rub it on any who are afflicted with red or white leprosy, and they will soon be healed.
"But enough of these old-world recipes and counter-charms; we will study the symbolism of plants.
"Flowers in general are emblematic of what is good. According to Durand of Mende, both flowers and trees represent good works, of which the virtues are the roots; according to Honorius, the hermit, green herbs are for wisdom; those in flower are for progress; those in fruit are the perfect souls; finally, we are told by old treatises on symbolical theology that all plants embody the allegory of the Resurrection, while the idea of eternity attaches more particularly to the vine, the cedar and the palm."
"And you may add," the Abbé Gévresin put in, "that in the Psalms the palm figures the righteous man, while according to the interpretation of Gregory the Great its rugged bark and the golden strings of dates are emblematical of the wood of the Cross, hard to the touch, but bearing fruit that is sweet to those who are worthy to taste them."
"Well," said Durtal, "but supposing that Madame Bavoil should wish to plant a liturgical garden, what should she select for it?
"Can we, to begin with, compose a dictionary of plants representing the capital sins and their antithetical virtues, sketch a basis of operations, and pick out by certain rules the materials at the command of the mystic gardener?"
"I do not know," said the Abbé Plomb. "At the same time, I should think it might be possible; only we should have to remember the names of the plants more or less exactly symbolizing those qualities and defects. In short, what you need is a sort of language of flowers as applied to the catechism. Let us try.
"For pride we have the pumpkin, which was worshipped of old as a divinity in Sicyon. It bears indifferently the character of pride or of fertility; of fertility by reason of its multitude of seeds and its rapid growth, of which the monk Walafrid Strabo wrote in noble hexameters a whole chapter of his poem; and of pride by reason of its huge hollow head and its bulk; and then we also have the cedar, which Peter of Capua and Saint Melito agree in accusing of pride.
"Avarice? I confess I know of no plant which represents it; we will come back to that."
"I beg your pardon," said the Abbé Gévresin; "Saint Eucher and Raban Maur speak of thorns as emblematical of riches which accumulate to the detriment of the soul; and Saint Melito says that the sycamore means greed of money."
"The poor sycamore!" cried the younger priest. "It has been served with every sauce! Raban Maur and the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux also call it a misbelieving Jew; Peter of Capua compares it to the Cross; Saint Eucher calls it wisdom, and there are other meanings. But meanwhile I forget how far we had gone. Oh! lasciviousness; we here have ample choice. Besides certain trees there is cyclamen, or sow-bread, which, according to an ancient dictum of Theophrastus, is symbolical of this sin because it was used in the preparation of love-philtres; the nettle, which Peter of Capua says is emblematic of the unruly instincts of the flesh; and the tuberose, a more modern introduction, but known as far back as the sixteenth century, when a Minorite Father brought it to France. Its heady perfume, which disturbs the nerves, also, it is said, excites the senses.
"For envy there are the bramble and the aconite, which, to be sure, is more exactly assigned to calumny and scandal; and, again, the nettle, which, however, is also interpreted by Albertus Magnus as figuring courage and expelling fear.
"Greediness?" The Abbé paused to think. "Carnivorous plants, perhaps, as the fly-trap and the bog sundew."
"And why not the humbler cuscuta, the dodder, the cuttlefish of the vegetable kingdom, which shoots out the antennæ of its stems as fine as thread, attaching itself to other plants by tiny suckers and feeding greedily on their juices?" asked the Abbé Gévresin.
"Anger," the Abbé Plomb went on, "is symbolized by a shrub with pinkish flowers, a kind of bitter-sweet, as it is popularly called, and by Herb Basil, which ever since the Middle Ages has had the same character ascribed to it of cruelty and rage as to its namesake, the basilisk, in the animal world."
"Oh!" cried Madame Bavoil, "and we use it to season dishes and flavour certain sauces."
"That is a serious culinary error and a spiritual danger," said the priest, smiling. He then went on:—
"Anger may also be figured by the balsam, which especially symbolizes impatience by reason of the irritability of its seed-vessels, which fly at a touch and explode, sending them to some distance....
"Sloth finally has the whole tribe of poppies, which give sleep.
"As to the opposite virtues, the explanation they need is childish. For humility you have the bracken, the hyssop, the knotweed, and the violet, which, says Peter of Capua, is, by that same token, emblematical of Christ."
"And likewise, according to Saint Melito, of the Confessors; or, according to Saint Mechtildis, of widows," added the Abbé Gévresin.
"For indifference to the things of this world we find the lichen symbolizing solitude; for chastity, the orange-flower and the lily; for charity, the water-lily, the rose, and the saffron flower—so say Raban Maur and the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux; for temperance, the lettuce, which also stands for fasting; for meekness, mignonette; for watchfulness, the elder, signifying zeal; and thyme, which, with its sharp, pungent aroma, symbolizes activity.
"You may dispense with the sins, which have no place in the precincts of Our Lady, and lay out your plots with the devout flowers."
"How is that to be done?" asked the Abbé Gévresin.
"Why," said Durtal, "there are two plans. One would be to sketch the plan of a real church and supply the place of its statues with plants, which would be the better way from the point of view of art; or else to compose a whole sanctuary with trees and shrubs."
He rose, and went to pick up a stick that was lying in the field.
"There," said he, tracing the cruciform outline of a church on the ground, "there you have the plan of our cathedral. Supposing now we build it, beginning at the end, the apse; there we naturally place the Lady chapel, as we find it in most cathedrals.
"Plants emblematic of Our Lady's attributes are abundant."
"The mystical rose of the Litanies!" exclaimed Madame Bavoil.
"H'm!" said Durtal; "the rose has been much bedraggled. Not only was it the erotic blossom of Paganism, but in the Middle Ages Jews and prostitutes were compelled in many places to wear a rose as a distinctive mark of infamy."
"True," said the Abbé Plomb, "and yet Peter of Capua uses it, with an interpretation of love and charity, to figure the Virgin; Saint Mechtildis, again, says that roses are symbolical of martyrs, and in another passage of her work on 'Specific Grace,' she compares this flower to the virtue of patience."
"Walafrid Strabo, in his 'Hortulus,' also speaks of the rose as the blood of the martyred saints," the Abbé Gévresin murmured.
"'Rosae martyres, rubore sanguinis,' according to the key of Saint Melito," the other priest added, in confirmation.
"We will admit that shrub," cried Durtal. "Now for the lily—"
"Here I must interrupt you," exclaimed the Abbé Plomb, "for it must be at once understood that the lily of the Scriptures has nothing to do with the flower we know by that name.
"The common white lily which grows in Europe, and which even before the Middle Ages was regarded by the Church as emblematic of virginity, does not seem to have existed in Palestine; and when, in the Song of Songs, the mouth of the Beloved is compared to a lily, it is evidently not in praise of white, but of red lips. The plant spoken of in the Bible as the lily of the valleys, or the lily of the fields, is neither more nor less than the anemone.
"This is proved by the Abbé Vigouroux. It abounds in Syria, round Jerusalem, in Galilee, on the Mount of Olives; rising from a tuft of deeply-cut, alternate leaves of a rich, dull green, the flower cup is like a delicate and refined poppy; it has the air of a patrician among flowers, of a little Infanta, fresh and innocent in her gorgeous attire."
"It is certainly the fact," observed Durtal, "that the innocence of the lily is far from obvious, for its scent, when you think of it, is anything rather than chaste. It is a mingling of honey and pepper, at once acrid and mawkish, pallid but piercing; it is suggestive rather of the aphrodisiac conserves of the East and the erotic sweetmeats of the Indies."
"But, after all," said the Abbé Gévresin, "granting that there never were lilies in the Holy Land—but is it so?—it is none the less certain that a whole series of symbols were derived from this plant both by the ancients and in mediæval times.
"Look, for instance, at Origen; to him the lily is Christ, for Our Lord alluded to Himself when He said, 'I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valley;' and in these words, the field, meaning tilled land, represents the Hebrew people, taught by God Himself, while the valleys or fallow land are the ignorant, or, in other words, the heathen.
"Again, turn to Peter Cantor. According to him, the lily is the Virgin, by reason of its whiteness, of its perfume delectable above all others, of its healing virtues; and finally, because it grows in uncultivated ground, as the Virgin was born of Jewish parents."
"As regards the therapeutic virtues mentioned by Petrus Cantor," said the Abbé Plomb, "I may add that the Anonymous English writer of the thirteenth century tells us that the lily is a sovereign remedy for burns, and for this cause is an image of the Virgin, who heals sinners of their burns—that is to say, of their vices."
"You may further consult Saint Methodus, Saint Mechtildis, Peter of Capua, and the English monk of whom you spoke, and you will find that the lily is the attribute, not only of the Virgin Mary, but of virginity in general and of all virgins.
"And here is a posy of meanings culled from Saint Eucher, who compares the whiteness of the lily to the purity of the angels; from Saint Gregory the Great, who says its fragrance is like the works of the saints; and again from Raban Maur, who speaks of the lily as emblematic of celestial beatitude, of the beauty of holiness, of the Church, of perfection, of chastity in the flesh."
"Not to forget that, according to the translation of Origen, the Lily among Thorns is the Church in the midst of its enemies," the Abbé Plomb put in.
"Then it is Jesus, His Mother, the Angels, the Church, the Virgins, everything at once!" exclaimed Durtal. "We cannot but wonder how these mystic gardeners could discern so many meanings in one and the same plant!"
"Why, you can see: the symbolists not only considered the analogies and resemblances they discovered between the form, scent, and colour of a flower and the being with whom they compared it; they also studied the Bible, especially the passages wherein a tree or flower was named, and they then ascribed to it such qualities as were mentioned or could be inferred from the text. They did the same with regard to animals, colours, gems, everything to which they could attribute a meaning. It is simple enough."
"It is complicated enough!" said Durtal. "And now where was I?"
"In the Lady chapel, planting roses and anemones. Now add to these a shrub which is the emblem of Mary according to the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux, or of the Incarnation according to the Anonymous writer of Troyes, the walnut, of which the fruit is interpreted in the same sense by the Bishop of Sardis."
"And also mignonette," cried Durtal, "for Sister Emmerich speaks of it frequently and with much mystery. She says that this flower is very dear to Mary, who planted it and made much use of it.
"Then there is another plant which seems to me no less appropriate: the bracken—not by reason of the qualities ascribed to it by Saint Hildegarde, but because it symbolizes the most secret and retiring humility. Take one of the stoutest stems and cut it aslant, like the mouthpiece of a whistle, and you will find very distinctly imprinted in black the form of a heraldic fleur de lys, as if stamped with a hot iron. The scent being absent, we may here accept it as the symbol of humility—a humility so perfect that it is undiscoverable but in death."
"Aha! our friend is not so ignorant of country lore as I had fancied," exclaimed Madame Bavoil.
"Oh, I wandered in the woods a little, as a child."
"For the choir no discussion is possible, I believe," said the Abbé Gévresin. "The eucharistic plants, the vine and corn are self-evidently appropriate.
"The vine, of which the Lord said 'Ego vitis sum,' is also the emblem of communion and the image of the eighth beatitude; corn, which, as the Sacramental element, was the object of peculiar care and respect in the Middle Ages.
"You have only to recall the solemn ceremonial observed in certain convents when the wafer was to be prepared.
"At Saint Etienne, Caen, the monks washed their face and hands, and kneeling before the altar of Saint Benedict, said Lauds, the seven penitential Psalms, and the Litanies of the Saints. Then a lay brother presented the mould in which the wafers were to be baked, two at a time; and on the day when this unleavened bread was prepared those who had taken part in the ceremony dined together, and their table was served exactly like the Abbot's.
"At Cluny, again, three priests or three deacons, fasting after the above-mentioned services of prayer, put on albs and invited the aid of certain lay brethren. They mixed the flour of wheat that had been sifted by the novices, grain by grain, with a due quantity of water; and a monk wearing gloves baked the wafers one by one over a large fire of brushwood, in an iron mould stamped with the proper symbols."
"That reminds me," said Durtal, as he lighted a cigarette, "of the mill for grinding the wheat for the offering."
"I am familiar with the mystical wine-press which was often represented by the glass-workers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries," said the Abbé Gévresin. "That was practically a paraphrase of Isaiah's prophetic verse: 'I have trodden the wine-press alone, and there was no man with me'; but the mystic mill is, I own, unknown to me."
"I have seen it once at Berne, in a window of the fifteenth century," said the Abbé Plomb.
"I also saw it in the cathedral at Erfurt, painted, not on glass, but on a panel. The picture is by no known painter, and dated 1534. I can see it now: Above, God the Father, a good old man with a snowy beard, solemn and thoughtful; and the mill, like a coffee mill, fixed on the edge of a table, with the drawer open below. The evangelical beasts are emptying into the hopper, skins full of scrolls on which are written the effective Sacramental words. These scrolls are swallowed in the body of the machine, and come out into the drawer, thence falling into a chalice held by a Cardinal and Bishop kneeling at the table.
"And the texts are changed into a little Child in the act of blessing while the four Evangelists turn a long silver crank in the right-hand corner of the panel."
"What seems strange," remarked the Abbé Gévresin, "is that it should be the formula of Transubstantiation and not the substance that is changed, and that the Evangelists, twice represented—under their animal and their human aspect—pour into the mill and grind. And also that the sacred oblation should be represented by the living flesh.
"Still, it is correct; since the consecrating words are uttered, the bread has ceased to be. This scheme of implied meaning, though somewhat strange, in a literal presentment, a scene of actual grinding—the wheat in the grain, in flour, and in the Host—this obvious intention of ignoring the species, the appearances, and substituting the reality which is invisible to sense, must have been adopted by the painter in order to appeal to the masses, to bear witness to the certainty of the Miracle and to make the mystery evident to the people. But let us return to the construction of our church. Where were we?"
"Here," said Durtal, pointing with his stick to the side aisles as traced in the sand. "Now, to represent the side chapels we have a choice. One we shall dedicate, of course, to Saint John the Baptist. To distinguish it from the others we have the gilliflower and the ground-ivy to which he has given his name, and more especially the St. John's wort, which if gathered on the eve of his festival and placed in a room, destroys malignant spells and charms, is a protection against thunder, and hinders the walking of ghosts.
"It may be added that this plant, famous in the Middle Ages, was used as a remedy for epilepsy and St. Vitus' dance, two maladies for which the intercession of the Precursor is most efficacious.
"We will dedicate another to Saint Peter. On his altar we may lay a posy of the herbs dedicated to his service by our forefathers: the primrose, the wild honeysuckle, the gentian and soap-wort, pellitory and bindweed, with others whose names escape me.
"But, first, will it not be our bounden duty to erect a tower for Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, such as we find in many churches?
"The flower obviously indicated is the passion-flower; that unique blossom, of a purplish blue, its seed-vessel simulating the Cross, its styles and stigma the Nails; its stamens mimicking the Hammer, its thread-like fringe the Crown of thorns—in short, it represents all the instruments of the Passion. Add to this, if you will, a bunch of hyssop, plant a cypress, of which Saint Melito speaks as emblematical of the Saviour, and which Monsieur Olier regards as symbolical of death; a myrtle, signifying compassion, according to a passage by Saint Gregory the Great; and, above all, do not omit the buckthorn, or Rhamnus—for of that shrub the Jews twined the stems that formed Christ's crown—and your chapel is complete."
"The buckthorn," said the Abbé Gévresin; "yes, Rohant de Fleury says that its thorny branches were used to crown the Son's head; but this leaves us wondering, when we remember that in the Old Testament, in the ninth chapter of the Book of Judges, all the tall trees of Judæa bow down before the Royalty prophetically prefigured by this humble shrub."
"Very true," replied the Abbé Plomb. "But what is most curious is the number of absolutely dissimilar senses which the oldest symbolists attribute to the buckthorn. Saint Methodus uses it for virginity; Theodoret for sin; Saint Jerome ascribes it to the devil; and Saint Bernard takes it as symbolizing humility. Again, in the 'Theologia Symbolica' of Maximilian Sandaeus, this shrub is made to signify the worldly prelacy, while the olive, vine, and fig, with which the author contrasts it, are the contemplative Orders. In this, no doubt, we may see an allusion to the thorns which Bishops were not always unready to thrust on the long-suffering Heads of monasteries.
"You have forgotten, too, in the blazonry of your chapel, the reed which formed the sceptre of mockery forced into the Son's hands. But the reed, like the buckthorn, is a sort of Jack-of-all-trades. Saint Melito defines it as the Incarnation and the Scriptures; Raban Maur as the Preacher, the hypocrite, and the Gentiles; Saint Eucher as the sinner; the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux as Christ; and others which I have forgotten."
"These are many meanings for a single plant," observed Durtal. "But now if we want to specialize some chapels as dedicated to saints, nothing can be easier; at any rate, for such as have lent their names to plants.
"For instance, the Valerian, known as Herb Saint George, the white flower with a hollow stem, which grows in moist, places, and its popular name is quite intelligible since it was used in treating nervous diseases, for which the saint's intercession was invoked.
"Then we have the plant or plants dedicated to Saint Roch: the pennyroyal, and two species of Inula, one with bright yellow flowers, a purgative that cures the itch. Formerly on Saint Roch's day branches of this herb were blessed and hung in the cow-houses to preserve the cattle from epidemics.
"Saint Anne's wort, a humble creeper, the samphire—an emblem of poverty.
"Herb Barbara, the winter-cress, a cruciferous plant, anti-scorbutic—a poverty-stricken flower, creeping along the wayside like a beggar.
"To Saint Fiacre is dedicated the mullein, with its emollient leaves; boiled to make a poultice, it relieves colic, which this saint has a reputation for curing.
"Saint Stephen's wort is the enchanter's nightshade, a beneficent plant with red berries on a hairy stem. And there are many others.
"For the crypt, supposing we dig one out, it must certainly be filled with the trees mentioned in the Old Testament, of which this portion of the building is itself an allegory. In spite of climate we must grow the vine and the palm, emblems of eternity; the cedar, which by reason of its incorruptible wood is sometimes thought to symbolize the angels; the olive and the fig, emblems of the Holy Trinity and of the Word; frankincense, cassia and balsamodendron Myrrha, a symbol of the perfect humanity of Our Lord; the terebinth—meaning exactly what?"
"According to Peter of Capua, the Cross and the Church; but Saint Melito says the saints. According to the monk of Clairvaux, it is the false doctrine of the Jews and heretics; and as to the drops of resin, they are Christ's tears, if we may believe Saint Ambrose," replied the Abbé Plomb.
"And even so, our cathedral remains incomplete. We are but feeling our way, without logical sequence. I admit that at the entrance we must plant the purifying hyssop in the place of the holy-water vessel; but with what can we build the walls unless we accept the alternative of a real church having walls but unfinished?"
"Take the figurative sense of the walls and translate that; the great walls are representative of the four Evangelists, Can you find plants for them?"
Durtal shook his head. "The Evangelists are, of course, symbolized in the fauna of mysticism by the animals of the Tetramorph; the twelve apostles have their synonyms in the category of gems, and two of the Evangelists are naturally to be found there: Saint John is associated with the emerald, the emblem of purity and faith; Saint Matthew with the chrysolite, the emblem of wisdom and watchfulness; but none, so far as I know, has found a representative among either trees or flowers. And yet, to be sure, Saint John has the sun-flower, signifying divine inspiration; for he is represented in a window in the church of Saint Rémy at Reims, his head crowned with a nimbus surmounted by two of these flowers."
"Saint Mark, too, has a plant—the tansy, so named in the Middle Ages."
"The tansy?"
"Yes; a bitter, aromatic plant with yellow flowers, which grows in stony ground, and is used in medicine as an anti-spasmodic. Like Saint George's herb, it is used in nervous maladies, the intercession of Saint Mark being, it would seem, of sovereign efficacy.
"As to Saint Luke, he may be represented by clumps of mignonette, for Sister Emmerich tells us that while he was a physician it was his favourite remedy. He macerated mignonette in palm oil, and after blessing it, applied the unction in the form of a cross on the brow and mouth of his patients; in other cases he used the dried plant in an infusion.
"Only Saint Matthew remains; but here I give in, for I know of no vegetable species that can reasonably be assigned to him."
"Nay, do not think it hopeless," cried the Abbé Plomb. "A mediæval legend tells us that balms exuded from his tomb; hence he was represented as holding a branch of cinnamon, symbolical of the fragrance of virtue, says Saint Melito."
"Well, it would be better to accept the real walls of a church, making use of the structure, and limiting ourselves to completing the idea by details borrowed from the symbolism of flowers."
"And the sacristy?" suggested the Abbé Gévresin.
"Since, according to the Rationale of Durand of Mende, the sacristy is the very bosom of the Virgin, we will represent it by virginal plants such as the anemone, and trees such as the cedar, which Saint Ildefonso compares to Our Mother. And now, if we are to furnish the instruments of worship, we shall find in the ritual of the liturgy and in the very form of certain plants almost precise guidance. Thus, flax, of which the cornice and altar napery is to be woven, is indispensable; the olive and the balsamum, from which oil and balm are extracted, and frankincense, which sheds the drops of gum for the incense, are no less indicated. For the chalice we may choose from among the flowers which goldsmiths take as their models: the white convolvulus, the frail campanula, and even the tulip, though, having some repute as connected with magic, that flower is in ill odour. For the shape of the monstrance there is the sun-flower."
"Yes," interrupted the Abbé Plomb, wiping his spectacles, "but these are fancies borrowed simply from superficial resemblance; it is modern symbolism, which is really not symbolism at all. And is not this the case to a great extent with the various interpretations that you accept from Sister Emmerich? She died in 1824."
"What does that matter?" said Durtal. "Sister Emmerich was a primitive saint, a seer, whose body indeed lived in our day, but whose soul was far away; she dwelt more in the Middle Ages than in ours. It might be said indeed that she was more ancient still, for, in fact, she was contemporary with Christ, whose life she follows step by step through her pages.
"Hence her ideas of symbolism cannot be set aside. To me they are of equal authority with those of Saint Mechtildis, who was born in the early part of the thirteenth century.
"In point of fact, the source whence they both alike derived them is the same. And what is time, or past or present, when we speak of God?
"These women were the sieves through which His grace was poured, and what need I care whether the instruments were of yesterday or to-day? The word of the Lord is supreme over the ages; His inspiration blows when and where it lists. Is not that true?"
"I quite agree."
"And all this time," said the housekeeper, "you do not think of making use in your building of the iris, which my good Jeanne de Matel regards as an emblem of peace."
"Oh, we will find a place for it, Madame Bavoil, never fear. And there is yet another plant which we must not omit; the trefoil, for sculptors have strewn it broadcast in their stony gardens, and the trefoil, like the fruit of the almond tree, which shows the elongated nimbus, is an emblem of the Holy Trinity.
"Suppose we recapitulate:
"At the end of the nave, in the shell of the apse, in front of a semicircle of tall bracken turned brown by autumn, we see a flaming assumption of climbing roses hedging a bed of red and white anemones, edged with the sober green of mignonette. And to give variety by adding symbols of humility—the knotweed, the violet, and the hyssop—we may form a posy of which the meaning will represent the perfect virtues of Our Mother.
"Now," said he, pointing with his stick to the plan of the nave he had traced, "here is the altar, overgrown with red-leaved vines, purple or pearly grapes, sheaves of golden corn. Ah! but we must have a cross over the altar."
"That will not be difficult," replied the Abbé Gévresin. "From the grain of mustard seed, which all the symbolists accept in a figurative sense as representing Christ, to the sycamore and the terebinth, you have a wide range; you can at pleasure have a tiny cross, a mere nothing, or a gigantic crucifix."
"Here," Durtal went on, "along the bays where trefoils flourish, different flowers rise from the ground, corresponding to the saints of their ascription; here is the chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, recognizable by the passion-flower full blown on its creeping stem, with its many tendrils; and the background is a hedge of reeds and rhamnus, full of sad meaning, mitigated by the compassionate myrtle.
"Here, again, is the sacristy, where smiles the soft blue flax on its light stem, the abundant flowers of the convolvulus and campanula, tall sun-flowers, and, if you choose, a palm, for I recollect that Sister Emmerich speaks of this tree as a paragon of chastity, because, she says, the male and female flowers are separate, and both kept modestly hidden. Another interpretation to the credit of the palm!"
"But after all, you are absurd, our friend!" cried Madame Bavoil. "All this will not hold together. Your plants are the growth of different climates, and in any case they could not all be in bloom at the same time; consequently, by the time you have planted this, that will be dead. You can never grow them side by side."
"That is symbolical of many unfinished cathedrals, where the building is carried across from century to century," said Durtal, snapping his stick. "But listen, fancy apart, there is something which may be done, and has not been done, for celestial botany and pious posies.
"That is, to make a liturgical garden, a true Benedictine garden, where flowers may be grown in succession for the sake of their relations to the Scriptures and hagiology. Would it not be delightful to follow out the liturgy of prayer with that of plants, to place them side by side in the sanctuary, to deck the altars with flowers all having their meanings according to the days and festivals; in short, to associate nature in its most exquisite manifestation—that is, its flowers—with the ceremonies of divine worship?"
"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed both the priests with one accord.
"Meanwhile, till these fine things are accomplished, I will be content to dig in my little kitchen garden with an eye to the savoury stews in which you shall share," said Madame Bavoil. "There I am in my element; I do not lose my footing as I do in your imitation churches."
"And I, on my part, will meditate on the symbolism of eatables," said Durtal, taking out his watch. "It is near breakfast time."
As he was going off, the Abbé Plomb called him back and said, laughing,—
"In your future cathedral you have forgotten to reserve a nook for Saint Columba, if, indeed, we can find some ascetic plant native, or at any rate common, to Ireland, the land where this Father was born."
"The thistle, figurative of mortification and penance and a memento of asceticism, is conspicuous as the badge of Scotland," replied Durtal. "But why Saint Columba?"
"Because of all saints he is the most neglected, the least invoked by those of our contemporaries who ought to be most assiduous; since he is regarded in the attributions of special virtues as the patron saint of idiots."
"Pooh!" cried the Abbé Gévresin. "Why, if ever a man revealed a magnificent comprehension of things human and divine, it was that great Abbot and founder of monasteries!"
"Oh! there is no suggestion implied that Saint Columba was feeble of brain; and as to why the mission was trusted to him rather than another of protecting the greater part of the human race, I do not know."
"Perhaps he may have cured lunatics and healed those possessed?" the Abbé Gévresin suggested.
"At any rate," said Durtal, "it would be vain to erect a chapel to him, since it would always be empty; no one would come to entreat him, poor saint! for the essential mark of an idiot is not to think himself one!"
"A saint out of work!" remarked Madame Bavoil.
"And who is not likely to find any," said Durtal, as he left them.