Bérangère

“ Bérangère was daughter of Sancho VI., king of Navarre—not, as some historians say, a princess of Castile or Arragon. After Richard's death, Philip-Augustus confirmed to her the dominion of Maine, in exchange for part of Normandy, which had been settled on her as her dower. She lived for more than twenty years in the town of Le Mans, where her memory was long preserved as La Bonne Reine Bérangère. She founded the monastery of Epau, near Le Mans, where the mausoleum was erected which now adorns the Cathedral of St. ”

“ We had looked forward to much pleasure in a [27] visit to the ancient town of Le Mans, and its treasure, the tomb of Bérangère, for the discovery of which, although a benefit unacknowledged, France and the curious are indebted to the zeal and perseverance of the late lamented Stothard, who sought for and found one of the most beautiful statues of the time under a heap of corn in an old church formerly belonging to the convent of Epau, but converted into a granary in 1820, when, by his entreaties and resolution, the lost beauty was restored to daylight and honour. ”

“ I am really talking nonsense. You think of your marriage. Bérangère is a dear, sweet girl. And she loves you. Good-bye and bless you! I'll write to you. Good-bye."
I confess that Noël Dorgeroux's ambitions, at least in so far as they related to the turning of his discovery to practical account, did not strike me as absurd; and what I have said of the things seen at the Yard will exempt me, I imagine, from stating the reasons for my confidence. For the moment, therefore, I will leave the question aside and say no more of those three haunting eyes or the phantasmal scenes upon the magic screen. ”

“ She began to laugh:
“You can give it up. I intend to go on. If god-father chooses to distrust us, it's his lookout.”
I did not try to restrain her. She slipped softly between the nearest two sheds. I followed close upon her heels.
In this way we stole to the end of the open ground which occupied the middle of the Yard and we saw Noel Dorgeroux standing by the screen. He had not yet drawn the black-serge curtain.
“Look,” Berangere whispered, “over there: you see a stack of wood with a tarpaulin over it? We shall be all right behind that.”
“But suppose my uncle looks round while we're crossing?” ”

“ Béranger loved the country as people love it on a Sunday at Paris, in walks just without the suburbs. How different from Burns, that other poet of the people, with whom he has sometimes been compared! But, on the other hand, Béranger loved the dweller in the city, the mechanic, the ouvrier, industrious, intellectual, full of enthusiasm and also of imprudence, passionate, with the heart of a soldier, and with free, adventurous ideas. He loved him even in his faults, aided him in his poverty, consoled him with his songs. ”

“ Vous qui appelez M. Béranger votre père, vous devriez savoir ce que tout le monde sait: d'abord, que le modeste grand poète n'est pas un philosophe épicurien, comme il vous plaît de le dire, mais bien un philosophe pénétré du plus profond amour de l'humanité. M. Béranger habite Paris, parce que c'est à Paris, et non ailleurs, qu'il peut remplir son beau rôle de dévouement. Demandez à tous ceux qui souffrent, n'importe à quelle opinion ils appartiennent, si M. Béranger leur a jamais refusé de les aider, de les secourir. Toute la vie de cet homme de bien est employée à rendre service. ”

“ Béranger was all the more a poet at this period, that he was more impassioned. The Bourbons and the Jesuits, his two most violent antipathies, served him well, and made him write his best and most spirited songs. Hence his great success. The people, who never perceive nice shades of opinion, but love and hate absolutely, at once adopted Béranger as the singer of its loves and hatreds, the avenger of the old army, of national glory and freedom, and the inaugurator or prophet of the future. ”

“ Many there delight to know you as a great apostle of the ideas which are to be our life, if Heaven intends us a great and permanent life. I count myself happy in having seen you, and in finding with you Béranger, the genuine poet, the genuine man of France. I have felt all the enchantment of the lyre of Béranger; have paid my warmest homage to the truth and wisdom adorned with such charms, such wit and pathos. It was a great pleasure to see himself. If your leisure permits, Monsieur, I will ask a few lines in reply. ”

“ Berenger could only kiss her hand in token of earnest thanks before the repast was announced, and the King came to lead her to the table spread beneath the trees. The whole party supped together, but Berenger could have only a distant view of his little wife, looking very demure and grave by the side of the Admiral.
But when the meal was ended, there was a loitering in the woodland paths, amid healthy openings or glades trimmed into discreet wildness fit for royal rusticity; the sun set in parting glory on one horizon, the moon rising in crimson majesty on the other. ”

“ One can imagine the sly winks and contortions interchanged by this pious party as the victim fell into the trap. But no amount of imagination can ever do justice to the features of Sir Béranger, when, three leagues from the city, the right reverend prelate and his apostolic brethren threw off the mask with peals of un-canonical laughter, led the wretched cit off to Lourdes through crooked by-roads, and there extracted from his disconsolate relatives five thousand francs of ransom,—which they, holy men, doubtless devoted to the purposes of their order. ”

“ Conversation in a French circle seems to me like the gambols of a thistle down, or the rainbow changes in soap bubbles. One laughs with tears in one's eyes. One moment confounded with the absolute childhood of the simplicity, in the next one is a little afraid of the keen edge of the shrewdness. This call gave me an insight into a French circle which both amused and delighted me. Coming home, M. Belloc enlarged upon Beranger's benevolence and kindness of heart. "No man," he said, "is more universally popular with the common people. ”

“ These casts are taken with mathematical exactness, and subjected to the inspection of a committee, who order any that are defective to be broken. Proof casts of all the best works, ancient and modern, are thus furnished at a small price, and so brought within the reach of the most moderate means.
This morning M. and Madame Belloc took me with them to call on Béranger, the poet. He is a charming old man, very animated, with a face full of feeling and benevolence, and with that agreeable simplicity and vivacity of manner which is peculiarly French. ”

“ Mr. William Young, an American, has a volume of translations from Béranger. Of this particular song, Mr. Young’s version is so felicitous that we unhesitatingly choose it for our readers. The title of the song is, “The Recollections of the People.” It was, we believe, founded on an incident of Béranger’s own observation; we shorten again by a stanza:
There was not in Béranger’s genius much innate and irrepressible buoyancy toward poetry, as we English-speakers conceive poetry. ”

“ Even the best of Béranger’s songs lack any thing like lift and aspiration. They are conceived in a comparatively low tone. The noblest leaven in them is love of France and of liberty. Béranger hated the Bourbons; they persecuted him, but that only helped him sing them off the throne of France. Béranger’s songs did more than any other one individual influence, perhaps they did more than all other individual influences combined, first to overturn the restored Bourbon dynasty after Waterloo, and, second, to bring about the elevation of Louis Napoleon to power. ”

“ In Italy, divided between feudal nobles and almost hereditary ecclesiastics, of foreign blood and alien sympathies, there was no national feeling. Berengar stood alone against a multitude, unanimous in their intolerance of discipline. His predecessor in the kingdom, Lothar, had left a young and beautiful widow, Adelheid. Berengar imprisoned her upon the Lake of Como, and threatened her with a forced marriage to his son Adalbert. She escaped to the castle of Canossa, where the great count of Tuscany espoused her cause, and appealed in her behalf to Otto the Saxon. ”

“ This was the last public event of Béranger's life. He continued to polish his songs in retirement, visited by nearly all the famous men of France. He numbered among his friends Chateaubriand, Thiers, Laffitte, Michelet, Lamennais, Mignet. Nothing could exceed the amiability of his private character; so poor a man has rarely been so rich in good actions; he was always ready to receive help from his friends when he was in need, and always forward to help others. ”

“ But those feelings were quickly displaced by joy, when he named to me the great national lyrist of France, the great Béranger. I had not expected to see him at all, for he is not to be seen in any show place; he lives in the hearts of the people, and needs no homage from their eyes. I was very happy, in that little study, in the presence of these two men, whose influence has been so real and so great. Béranger has been much to me,—his wit, his pathos, and exquisite lyric grace. I have not received influence from La Mennais, but I see well what he has been, and is, to Europe. ”

“ Because Béranger, instead of being a tin soldier drawn up to defend public order, as stock-jobbers and the bourgeois and grocers understand things, was looked upon as one of those fanatics who leave the ranks in pursuit of mad ideas, which they take unto themselves in marriage and perforce therefrom bring forth offspring! ”

“ However, go she would, with her beloved Henry, and on reaching Pau she at once set to work to make herself happy, and to be beloved by the people. She began by studying the patois and worked at it so diligently that she was herself astounded at the progress she made.
"The newly-married pair," says an old historian, "deliberated how to put Béarn in a better condition from that in which they found it. This land, good and fertile by nature, was in a poor state, uncultivated and sterile through the negligence of the inhabitants. ”

“ Béranger has many muses, all of them charming; and, when those muses are women, he loves them all. When they betray him, he does not turn to elegiacs; and nevertheless there is a feeling of sadness at the bottom of his gaiety: his is a serious face that smiles; it is philosophy saying its prayers. ”

“ The songs of Béranger would scarcely be called songs in England. They are elaborate, written in a clear and sparkling style, full of wit and incision. It is not so much for any lyrical flow as for the happy turn of the phrase that they claim superiority. Whether the subject be gay or serious, light or passionate, the medium remains untroubled. The special merits of the songs are merits to be looked for rather in English prose than in English verse. ”

“ The town of Pau is of an ordinary size; the greatest part of its houses are well-built, and covered with slate. It is the seat of a parliament, a university, an academy of belles lettres, and a mint. The greatest part of the noblesse of Béarn make it their usual abode; the Jesuits have a large college founded by Louis XIII. There is a seminary under the direction of the brothers of St. Lazare, a convent of Cordeliers, another of Capuchins, and four nunneries. At the western extremity of the town, is an ancient castle, where the princes of Béarn resided, and where King Henry IV. was born. ”

“ Béranger, in his Biography, speaks modestly of his part in these movements. In his conversations he attributed a great deal to himself. He loved to describe himself in the midst of the people who surrounded the Hôtel of M. Laffitte, going and coming, listening to each, consulted by all, and continually sent for by Laffitte, who was confined to his armchair by a swollen foot. Seeing the hesitation prolonged, he whispered in Laffitte's ear that it was time to decide, for, if they did not take the Duke of Orleans for King pretty soon, the Revolution was in danger of turning out an émeute. ”

“ Berengar left behind him a considerable number of followers. All those who in the middle ages denied the substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist were commonly designated Berengarians. They differed, of course, in many respects, even in regard to the nature of the supper. Berengar’s own views on the subject may be thus summed up:—1. That bread and wine should become flesh and blood and yet not lose the properties of bread and wine was, he held, contradictory to reason, and therefore irreconcilable with the truthfulness of God. ”

“ We are nearing the Pyrenees now, and entering the ancient and famous province of Béarn, once a noted centre of mediæval chivalry. Beam did not become part of France until almost modern times. [13] For seven hundred years preceding, its successive rulers held their brilliant court unfettered and unpledged. "Ours," declared its barons and prelates in assembly, "is a free country, which owes neither homage nor servitude to any one." The life of the province was its own, separated entirely from that of the kingdom. It had its own succession, its own wars and feuds, its own love of country. ”

“ Benares, the first large city on the united Ganges and Jumna, may be called the citadel of Hindooism, containing about a hundred and fifty thousand permanent inhabitants and as many more floating population, composed of pilgrims constantly coming and going. What Jerusalem is to the Jew, Rome to the Roman Catholic, Mecca to the Mohammedan, Benares is to the Hindoo. It is supposed by many to be the oldest known habitation of man. Twenty-five centuries ago, when Rome was unknown and Athens was in its youth, Benares was already famous. ”