Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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26 LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW and, at the fall of every head, strikes up its “Са ira. —In Book VII, chap. 5, of the same work Carlyle writes: Revolutionary Tribunal has done; but vengeance has not done. Representative Lebon, after long struggling, is handed over in 1795 to the ordinary Law Courts, and by them guillo- tined. жож Histoire Religieuse de la Révolution Fran- çaise, by Pierre de La Gorce, vol. 3 (1918, second edition in the same year), page 424. — (Translation) Even under the heel of the Terror many noble undertakings continue. They continue even in the places where Jacobin tyranny is exercised with the greatest rigor. Such—to mention but one of very many cities—is the case at Arras, bowed under the yoke of Lebon. No city could have had a better excuse for yielding to fear; hence the suggestiveness of this example. Yet, at the very time when proscription is getting more severe, Jesus is served there in His poor brethren with a systematic and tranquil intrepidity. The Daughters of Charity long ago established there one of their earliest foundations. St. Vincent de Paul said to them when they were leaving Paris for Arras: ''You are going to a people that serves God well and is very charitable. ” The people, the real people, has not changed, neither have the Sisters. It is the autumn of 1793. They keep up all their good works: the dispensary, the house-to-house visitation of the poor, the free school; they have kept the poor-box at their front door, and it is filled as usual. Lebon had already come once to Arras; he reappears there on November the first. Then the Sisters doff their uniform, but without abdicating in any other way. On the 23rd of November the district decides that their house shall be called The House of Humanity. They obey in silence; meanwhile they are tolerated because the powers that be need them; and they themselves are too fond of the poor to forsake them unless forced to do so. Not till the beginning of 1794 do most of the Sisters leave; there remain only four who will soon be arrested and finally immolated. They have rivals in the holy women, the valiant young girls who, in spite of the danger, are discouraged neither in their piety nor in their charity. The Catholics have long believed or feigned to believe in religious liberty and have even bought back a church to worship in. Аз to liberty they are now disillusioned, but they cannot make up their minds to hide. ` In that city a woman of bright mind and warm heart has gathered her neighbors into a sort of masonic group of piety and charity. She is the widow of an honorary chevalier in the late council of Artois. Her name is Madame Bataille. She is the protectress, and, if need be, the hostess of persecuted priests. In her house have taken place the functions of worship, and in particular, as late as June 20, 1793, a religious marriage. She is wealthy, but her wealth is merely a deposit entrusted to her hands. To her personal largess she adds the fruit of the collections she organizes. For collections are still taken up, and, as in days of yore, for the love of God. Call on her in her residence in the Saint-Jean-en-Ronville quar- ter. She is sitting at a table with a register in which she enters in one column what she receives and in the other what she dis- tributes. She is so completely absorbed in that distribution of assistance that she for- gets the persecutors. Meanwhile she re- members that among the poor are the priests especially the priests who have taken refuge in the Low Countries, and she manages to send her alms to those distant places. Thus does religious life subsist, with its practices, its generosity, its pious audacity. But please do not hasten, seeing such a woman at liberty, to believe in toleration. Soon she will be arrested; and on the 14th of April, 1794, at an audience which has remained famous in Artois, she will be condemned to death with nineteen other culprits, fourteen women and five men, all accomplices of hers, all guilty of faith and charity. ж ж The undersigned veteran, who was for four years at the front. Не enlisted in the Second Canadian Contingent, which sailed in June, 1915, and he entered Arras with his company in March, 1918. Our troops there were under direct fire during March and April of that year. It will be remem- bered that, though the Germans never suc- ceeded in entering Arras, they shelled it

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 25 Then, with glance of lofty sidler, He remarked I was an idler, And that idlers must be punished, шараш al they sin no more. Down the corridor I pounded While the very walls resounded Till at last, in grief unbounded, I had reached the Prefect’s door, Bowed, disheartened to the core, Only this—yet something more. Then, the pleasant meeting ended, I returned, with palms extended, To the cloak-room’s hallowed precincts, hidden by the shielding door, Bent in deep, avowed contrition, I assumed a pained position. To my chum s’ request “How many? I responded “Merely four,” Only this, and nothing more. —A. McGOVERN, '24 Arras Viewed from various angles HAMBERS’S Concise Gazetteer of the World (1895).—Arras, the capital of the French department of Pas-de-Calais, on the navigable Scarpe, 120 miles N. of Paris, A fortress of the first rank, it has a cathedral (1755-1833) and a beautiful Gothic hótel-de- ville (1510), whose belfry, 246 feet high, was rebuilt in 1835. There are manufacturers subsequently of Artois. It did not finally become French till 1640. Robespierre was anative. Pop. (1891) 25,701. ж жож Carlyle's French Revolution, book V, chap. 3, “Destruction,” January, 1794.— Representative Lebon, at Arras, dashes his of lace, hosiery, beet-sugar, etc.; and its tapestry was formerly so famous that in England the name arras was given to all such hangings. Arras was the capital of the Celtic Atrebates (whence the name), and sword into the blood flowing from the Guillotine; exclaims, “Ноу I like it! Mothers, they say, by his orders, have to stand by while the Guillotine devours their children: a band of music is stationed near,

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 27 from a distance of only two or three miles from north, east, and west, so that their shells from the east met their shells from the west. ' Approaching Arras from the famous Doulens Road, the stranger, unaware of the true state of the city, would be led to exclaim, ‘Surely the accounts of the destruc- tion of Arras have been greatly exaggerated': for we see no g laring evidences of ruin until we have walked along the chief thorough- fare leading to the public square, when, on rounding a corner, we get our first shock, the ruins of the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament. To Catholic passers-by the mute appeal of the almost sacred tiny rooms of the nuns thus laid bare to the vulgar gaze is most touching. But if the more curious will pass through the shattered gate the utter desola- tion of the whole scene will be spread before them, including the ruined chapel and its dilapidated altar. Proceeding through tbe public square towards the railway station, one finds a curious conglomeration of dwelling houses, Shops, and cafés. The most striking thing about them is that on one side of the street there may be a house almost intact, while its opposite neighbor on the other side of the street, by some freak of fate, has been com- pletely demolished. As we near the station, everything has been levelled with the ground. Of Arras’s Terminal Station little remains to remind us of its former size and splendor, which compared favorably with the Gare du Nord in Paris or Charing Cross in London. But the great ruin which in history will be associated with Rheims is that of the Arras Cathedral. Although less known throughout the world than the former, it ranked among the most beautiful in France. To-day the destruction has been so thorough that nothing remains but a heap of stones and débris. The contrast between the fate of the Arras Cathedral and that of Rheims is rather striking. The Law of Separation between Church and State (1905) was applied with varying degrees of rigor in different places according as the hatred of religion was more or less intense. At Arras it happened that the God-haters were in power; so they solemnly expelled the Bishop, who left, in his pontifical robes, amid the protests of his devoted people, that beautiful cathedral of his, which was now declared to be merely a fine public monument sacred to the French nation only. As men had, as far as they could, desecrated it, God allowed it to be utterly destroyed by the foes of France. But Rheims, being always a city in which the faithful element was too numerous to be insulted, was allowed to retain its cathedral in its Archbishop’s hands, and God has, in spite of four years’ bom- bardment, preserved enough of that match- less building to perpetuate its architectural beauty. The French Gover nment have intimated their intention of preserving Arras in its present state as a lasting monument of German wantonness, and they have done wisely: for it is an irrefutable evidence of wilful destruction. A. J. COTTER, ’24. To a Sea-gull Securely poised on thy pinions strong, Hardly seeming to move along, With eye alert and mobile head, Thou scour’st the sea for thy daily bread. Down to the floor of the mighty deep, Anon thou dipp’st with graceful sweep, Only, with stroke of thy broad white wings, To soar again on the breeze that sings. Written on Lake Superior. › Swift and sure, without compass or guide, Thou wing'st thy way o'er the waters wide; And when thou'rt weary, thou sink'st to rest With perfect trust on the ocean’s breast. O strong, white bird! could we but fare Along our way through this world of care, Аз serene as thou through the depths of space, Then were this earth a brighter place! GEORGE FAIRFAX.