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His smile had more of sadness than of mirth-We must go first. The Nestor of the State, But more of love than either. Undefiled,

From The Christian Remembrancer. conscious revelation of the working of the Roman Catholic system on a reflective and intellectual character.

Eugénie de Guérin. Journal et lettres publiés avec l'assentissement de sa famille. Par G. S. Trebutien, Conservateur adjoint de la Bibliothèque de Caen. Didier, Paris.

1863.

THERE is something deeply affecting in the announcement that the French Academy has accorded two grand prizes of three thousand francs each to writings, the author of which has been fifteen years beyond the reach of human praise or blame; indeed, which were primarily composed without a thought of their meeting any eye but that of the favorite brother for whom the occurrences and thoughts of the day were set down. Primarily, we say, for at first the brother was the sole object of the writings to which we refer, though latterly, when the diary had become a solace, though the original motive no longer existed, the following sentences occur, as if in self-excuse for the time spent

upon it :

Eugénie and Maurice de Guérin, for it is impossible to separate the brother and sister, were the children of a country gentleman of Languedoc, of historical name, originally Italian, inheriting some of the best blood in the country, numbering cardinals, knights-hospitaliers, and troubadours among his collateral ancestors, but of small means; farming his own unproductive little estate of Le Cayla, near the town of Gaillac, and living a life his neighbors which reminds us of Madame de la Rochejacquelein's description: of Vendéan manners before the Revolution; associating freely with farmers, who came to talk of their cattle in the evening, and going into the village to arrange the preliminaries of a peasant marriage. His château was a most lonely place, apparently scarcely accessible except on horseback, perched upon a steep hill and with a terrace in front, whence &

among

thus describes it :

slope led to a green valley through which a streamlet flowed. The house was, judging by a small print of it, of the tall, slim form "Sometimes I say to myself, What is, or peculiar to everything French, and retaining what will be, the use of these pages?' so much of the old defences, that it had an They were only of value to him, to Maurice, extinguisher turret and none of the older who found his sister there. What does find-windows near the ground. Within, Eugénie ing myself there signify to me? But if I find an innocent amusement there-if I find there a rest from the toils of the day-if, in order to place them there, I make up the nosegays, gathered from my wilderness, in solitude, my events and my thoughts, given me by God to teach or to strengthen me, oh, surely there can be no harm in it! And if some heir of my cell should find them and meet with some good thought, which he may relish and be the better for, if only for a moment, I should have done good. I will do it. No doubt, I dread the loss of time, that price of eternity; but is it losing it to use it for one's own soul and other people's?"-1840. January 24th.-P. 334.

This, however, was only written when the estimation in which these journals were held by the friends to whom the brother had shown them had revealed to the author that relative value of talent in the world which experience cannot fail to make known, even to the humblest. In general, the great charm of the journal of Eugénie de Guérin is its perfect simplicity and, if we may use such an expression, its homely refinement. It is also most interesting and remarkable as an un

"Our rooms all white, without mirrors or any trace of luxury; the dining-room with a sideboard and chairs, and two windows looking towards the northern wood; the other parlor beside it, with a large, wide sofu, in the middle a round table, straw chairs, an old tapestry easy-chair, two glass doors leading to the terrace."-1840. August.P. 399.

So lonely was this abode in winter, that the sight of a crow or the visit of a beggar was an event; but in summer it was a favorite resort of numerous relations and acquaintances living at Gaillac. The family consisted of four children, Erembert, Eugénie, Marie, and Maurice. Eugénie was born in 1805, Maurice in 1811; and when, five years later, the mother died, there remained that peculiar and beautiful inheritance of maternal love that so often links the eldest daughter of a bereaved family to the youngest and weakest member. And weak and tender Maurice evidently was to an unusual degree. mother had left an inheritance of consump

The

tion, and the Italian and Provençal natures | tion that the Abbé de Lamenais had comcombining in the family, produced in two at menced in Brittany. Lamenais, Lacordaire, least of its members intellects of ardent po- and Montalembert, were at that time intietical fervor, lodged within tender, delicate mately united, and were regarded as the men frames, sensitive to every outward influence. likely to remould and revivify the Gallican Clinging, affectionate, and full of sensibility, Church; and in La Chenaie Maurice found Maurice would have been the contempt of a several distinguished inmates, such as Lahardy English boy; but he was pre-eminently cordaire, Gerbet, afterwards the author of a sister's brother, revelling in Rollin and the" Rome Chrétienne; " Elie de Kertanguy, few books afforded by the scanty library of Cazalés, and François Du Breil de Marzan, Le Cayla, wandering in the woods, making who has left an interesting record of the life an almond-tree a sort of refuge and confidant, there spent. and preaching little sermons to his sisters out of a cave that they called the pulpit of St. Chrysostom. At eleven years old, he wrote a sort of poem in prose upon the murmuring music here called the Midsummer hum, but which he terms "the sounds of nature; the sounds shed abroad in the air, that rise with the sun, and follow him like a band in the train of a king.'

A character like his, in so devout a family, seemed marked for the clerical profession, and at eleven he began his studies at Toulouse, and there distinguished himself so much that the Archbishops both of Toulouse and Rouen wished to undertake the charge of his further education; but his father did not accept the offer, and at thirteen he was sent to the Stanislas College at Paris, where he remained for five years without returning home.

The community rose at five, and met for prayer and meditation on a subject fixed on the night before, and, after an appointed interval, each in turn gave the result of his thoughts. Prayers and mass followed; then occupation till the midday meal, after which came an hour and a half of recreation, when the younger men were encouraged to enjoy the manly exercises of their college days. Another chapel service followed, then a resumption of work, and in the evening the whole community assembled to listen to some religious book, read aloud in turns by the young men. Rodriguez, Bossuet, Fenelon, and St. Augustin, are specified as among their authors; but Maurice is mentioned as peculiarly excelling when reading the works of St. François de Sales and St. Theresa. He was then "no longer the timid, almost awkward The earlier years of a precocious manhood youth who was silently present in the evenwere almost necessarily full of struggles and ing's official circles; he was the contemplative suffering to a nature of so much ardor, bred man-the poet; he was our friend in his up in the unquestioning faith of an old-fash- completeness, such as we loved him; such as, ioned Roman Cotholic family, then launched six years after, he was again seen by the two into the sea of modern thought at Paris, with sisters who received him at Le Cayla, dying.' the clerical course of study making the diffi--(Maurice, p. 445.) The day was ended culties practical instead of speculative. with hymns and canticles sung in the chapel by Guérin and Kertanguy, and followed by the evening prayers.

When he came home, it was in a mood of deep melancholy that nothing seemed to cheer but the beauties of nature, and which was further deepened by his attachment to Louise de Bayne, an intimate friend of his sister, and evidently a most charming person; but, like Scott's Matilda of Rokeby, she could only admire without loving the plaintive poet, and gave her heart to a manly, resolute Algerine colonist, who was preparing a home for her in Africa.

Love and doubt alike unsettled Maurice from his projects of taking holy orders, and in the midst of his uncertainty and distress he was delighted by an offer of admission into La Chenaie, a sort of semi-monastic institu

The young men sometimes took expeditions for a few days in the scenery around, and the whole seemed a sort of ideal of a religious retreat-free, rational, and intellectual, according to modern requirements, and no less. devout than an old convent. M. Feli, as Lamenais was familiarly called there, was extremely loved, and Maurice always looked upon La Chenaie as a sort of peaceful paradise; but his friend, M. de Breil, thinks that at the time he was not so happy as he afterwards fancied; that he did not amalgamate with the rest of the students, nor enter into the spirit of the place; that he still was op

pressed by the same vague melancholy, and I know not the cause of the strange contrast that his really enjoyable moments were those that has for some days past made life more when he was alone with Nature. His diary, painful than in the winter days, and even which begins at La Chenaie, bears out this then I was far from happy. I seem to myimpression.

Inadequate as translation must necessarily be, we are tempted to give a few specimens of the exceeding beauty of his descriptions, and of the melancholy that struggled with his enjoyment:

self like a dead tree in the midst of a verdant wood."-P. 32.

The thought of his first love likewise haunted him in his monastic retreat :

66

"1833. June 15th.-Strange dream. I thought myself alone in a vast cathedral. "1833. April 5th, Good Friday.-A day Strongly impressed by the presence of God, I as fine as could be wished. Clouds, but only was in the state of mind in which one is enough to form a landscape in the sky. Their solely conscious of God and of one's self, when forms become more and more summer-like. a voice was uplifted. The voice was infiTheir various groups remain motionless be- nitely sweet-a woman's voice-which, howneath the sun like flocks of sheep in the past-ever, filled the whole church like a grand conures during the great heats. I have seen a cert. I knew it at once; it was the voice of swallow and heard the bees humming over Louise-silver-sweet sounding. the flowers. As I sat in the sun, that my very 19th.-Three nights following, the same marrow might be penetrated by the divine figure has appeared to me. What must I spring, I experienced some of the impressions think of it?" -Maurice, pp. 41, 42. of my childhood; for a moment I gazed on the sky with its clouds, the earth with its woods, its warblings and hummings, as I used then to do. This renewal of the first aspect of things, of the expression one saw in them at first sight, is in my opinion one of the sweetest reactions of childhood on the course of life.

The italicized words are English, for Guérin was a warm admirer of several English writers, Scott and Wordsworth in especial; and this admiration formed a bond of union between him and M. Hippolyte de Morvonnais, author of "La Thêbaide des Grecs," a Breton "My God! what right has my soul thus to gentleman, married to a charming young become engrossed in such fleeting enjoyments wife, and living at Le Val de l'Arguenon. upon Good Friday, the day so full of thy death This young man, ten years older than Mauand of our redemption? There is in me some rice, was so devoted to our Lake poets, that damnable spirit that rouses in me a strong at this time a pilgrimage to Rydal Mount, distaste, and drives me, so to say, into rebel- for the sake of making acquaintance with lion against holy exercises and the collected- Wordsworth was a favorite project with him. ness of mind which ought to prepare us for the great solemnities of our faith. We bave We are told that the influences of La Chenaie, been in retreat for two days past, and I have and in particular of François de Marzan, had done nothing but be weary, gnaw myself with been of great benefit to him, and that on the I know not what thoughts, and embitter my- Easter Day of this year (1833) he communiself even against the practices of the retreat.cated there for the first time for many years. Oh, well do I acknowledge the old leaven from which I have not yet cleansed my soul!"-P. 25 (Maurice).

April 23d.-The awakening of vegetation is wonderfully slow. I am almost out of humor with Nature, who seems to enjoy putting us out of patience. The larches, the birches, the stocks of lilac that we have in the garden, the rose-trees and hawthorn hedges, scarcely bear any verdure; all the rest is gloomy and slumberous, as in winter, except some beeches, which, more springlike than their brethren, begin to form themselves into bright clouds on the dark mass of the plantation that borders the pond. For the rest, all the birds are come; the nightingales sing night and day; the sun shines wondrously; the winged insects hum and dance; life and joy are everywhere, except with me.

Alas! that was the last Paschal Communion celebrated by Lamenais himself! Collisions with the Bishop of Rennes led to the breaking up of the establishment of La Chenaie. Some of the pupils were transferred to Ploermel, and on the 7th of September Lamenais set off for Rome, and the other inmates dispersed, few to meet again. Maurice did not at once leave Brittany, but remained making visits among his friends. His stay with Hippolyte de Morvonnais was a particularly peaceful and happy time, and his diary during these days is the fullest picture of his feeble spirit and high talent :

"Le Val, December 7th.-After a year of perfect tranquillity, save for the tempests