From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

As we entered the chapel, it was evident that we were in what was to many a holy place. At the moment there was no service going on, but some were engaged in silent meditation and prayer. We seemed to be the only persons present from curiosity. All around us were absorbed in devotion. We sat a long time in silence, musing on the strange scene, unwilling to disturb even by a whisper the stillness of the place, or the thoughts of those who had come to worship. At three o'clock the nuns began to sing their offices. But they did not show themselves. There are other Sisters, who have the care of the chapel, and who come in to trim the candles before the shrine, but the nuns proper live a life of entire seclusion, never being seen by any one. Only their voices are heard. Nothing could be more plaintive than their low chanting, as it issued from behind the bars of their prison house, and seemed to come from a distance. There, hidden from the eyes of all, sat that invisible choir, and sang strains as soft as those which floated over the shepherds of Bethlehem. As an accompaniment to the scene in the chapel, nothing could be more effective; it was well fitted to touch the imagination, as also when the priest intoned the service in the dim light of this little church, with its censers swinging with incense, and its ever-burning lamps.

The walls of the chapel are covered with banners, some from other countries, but most from France, and here it is easy to see how the patriotic feeling mingles with the religious. Here and there may be seen the image of the sacred heart with a purely religious inscription, such as Voici le cœur qui a tant aimé les hommes (here is the heart which has so loved men); but much more often it is, Cœur de Jesus, Sauvez la France! This idea in some form constantly reappears, and one cannot help thinking that this sudden outburst of religious zeal has been greatly intensified by the disasters of the German war; that for the first time French armies beaten in the field, have resorted to prayer; that they fly to the Holy Virgin, and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to implore the protection which their own arms could not give. Hung in conspicuous places on columns beside the chancel are banners of Alsace and Lorraine, covered with crape, the former with a cross in the centre, encircled with the words first written in the sky before the adoring eyes of Constantine: In hoc signo vinces; while for Lorraine stands only the single name of Metz, invested with such sad associations, with the inscription, Sacré cœur de Jesus, Sauvez la France!

There is no doubt that these pilgrimages have been encouraged by French politicians, as a means of reviving and inflaming the enthusiasm of the people, not only for the old Catholic faith, but for the old Catholic monarchy. Of the tens of thousands who flock to these shrines, there are few who are not strong Legitimists. On the walls of the chapel the most glittering banner is that of Henri de Bourbon, which is the name by which the Comte de Chambord chooses to be known as the representative of the old royal race. Not to be outdone in pious zeal, Marshal MacMahon, who is a devout Catholic – and his wife still more so – has also sent a banner to Paray-le-Monial, but it is not displayed with the same ostentation. The Legitimists have no wish to keep his name too much before the French people. He is well enough as a temporary head of the State till the rightful sovereign comes, but when Henri de Bourbon appears, they want no "Marshal-President" to stand in his way as he ascends the throne of his ancestors.

Thus excited by a strange mixture of religious zeal and political enthusiasm, France pours its multitudes annually to these shrines of Lourdes and Paray-le-Monial. We were too late for the rush this year – the season was just over; for there is a season for going on pilgrimages as for going to watering-places, and June is the month in which they come in the greatest numbers. There have been as many as twenty thousand in one day. On the 16th of June – which was a special occasion – the crowd was so great that Mass was begun at two o'clock in the morning, and repeated without ceasing till noon, the worshippers retiring at the end of every half hour, that a new throng might take their places. Thus successive pilgrims press forward to the holy shrine, and go away with an elated, almost ecstatic feeling, that they have left their sins and their sorrows at the tomb of the now sainted and glorified nun.

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1

She came in fifteen hours after us, and the Celtic twenty. The German ship reached Southampton two days later.

2

"The bleak wind of MarchMade her tremble and shiver,But not the dark arch,Nor the black flowing river.Mad from life's history,Glad to death's mysterySwift to be hurledAnywhere, anywhere,Out of the world"