Église de la Madeleine

“ La Madeleine, as it is called, was, however, still uncompleted when, in 1830, Louis Philippe came to the throne; and it was under his reign that, in 1842, it was opened for public worship in the precise form and with the elaborate ornamentation now belonging to it. The architecture of the Madeleine is partly Roman, partly Greek; or rather it is Greek with Roman adaptations. It is surrounded by Corinthian columns, of which there are eighteen on each side. Sixteen, moreover, enclose the southern portion, and eight the northern. The building is without windows, and is entirely of stone. ”

“ The Madeleine is a really fine exterior in its way; if a modern church was to put on the guise of a pagan temple, the task could hardly have been better carried out; and the interior might have been as fine if properly treated, but it has little artistic relation with the noble exterior, and is spoiled by poor architectural treatment and bad ornament. ”

“ The approach is by a score and more of stone steps and through enormous bronze doors on which the Ten Commandments are illustrated.
Entering the Madeleine, one sees an interior richly adorned, floors of marble, and lofty columns supporting a three-domed roof, through which light enters. On either side are six confessionals of oak and gilt, where prince and peasant alike confess their sins. Beyond is the altar of spotless marble. How beautiful the group of white figures, which represents Madeleine forgiven, and borne above on angels' wings! This artistic group cost thirty thousand dollars. ”

“ This architecture was the first flowering of the Gothic race; they had no Homers; the flame found vent not by imaged words and vitalized alphabet; they vitalized stone, and their poets were minster-builders; their epics, cathedrals.
This is why one cathedral—like Strassburg, or Notre Dame—has a thousandfold the power of any number of Madeleines. The Madeleine is simply a building; these are poems. I never look at one of them without feeling that gravitation of soul toward its artist which poetry always excites. Often the artist is unknown ”

“ Had the fire of divine love glowed more fervently in her heart, she would feel the joy of ecstasy, such as consoled the death-bled of the mothers of the saints when the revelation of the sanctity of their children was the last crown of earthly joy. Anticipating the privilege the fond maternal heart would fain claim even in the kingdom free from all care, Madeleine often found herself contemplating her son fighting the brave fight, winning crown upon crown, and virtue flinging around him a shield more impenetrable than the fabulous Aegis of pagan mythology. ”

“ How had M. Madeleine got there, when the walls were what they were? Cloister walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one’s arms. Who was that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had lived in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew nothing of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air which discouraged questions; and besides, Fauchelevent said to himself: “One does not question a saint.” M. Madeleine had preserved all his prestige in Fauchelevent’s eyes. ”

“ The priests of St. Germain, St. Gervais, and other parishes brought their reliquaries and vessels; but the proctors of the Madeleine appeared empty-handed at the hôtel-de-ville, and said: 'By what right do you demand our treasures?' At the same time the ex-syndic, Jean Balard, and other catholics, seizing the opportunity, exclaimed: 'Why do you deprive us of our masses?' But the council was firm, and the priests of the Madeleine, quite broken-hearted, were obliged to bring their chalices and other vessels to aid in combating the defenders of their faith. ”

“ Madeleine saw nothing lacking in this religion. It seemed to her all that life could demand of one woman.
In the spring of 1914, when Raoul was five years old and Sylvie eight, Madeleine was once more joyfully sorting over the tiny clothes left from their babyhood. All that summer her quick fingers were busy with fine white flannel and finer white nainsook, setting tiny stitches in small garments. Every detail of the great event was provided for in advance. As usual in French families, in all good families everywhere, the mother-to-be was lapped around with tenderness and indulgence. ”

“ Maurice forgot everything but the insulting epithets applied to Madeleine, and said, with a dignity as imposing as Madame de Gramont's own had ever been,—
"My grandmother, never shall such language be applied to Madeleine again in my presence, by you or any one! Madeleine is not merely my cousin, she is the woman I love best and honor most in the world;—the woman who, if I ever marry, will become my wife."
"Never! never!" cried the countess, fiercely. "That shall never be, come what may!" ”

“ It is richly blessed.’
‘I wonder,’ Madeleine began hesitatingly. ‘I fear ’tis asking too much—but if I could but have a relic of the blessed Mère Madeleine de Saint-Joseph! The world reports her relics more potent than any other Saint’s.’ (In spite of the efforts of many great French ladies, Mère Madeleine de Saint-Joseph had not been canonised. Madeleine knew this, but she thought she would please the Carmelite by ignoring it.) ”

“ And when he saw Madeleine standing in the sunlight, pleased and proud and glorious, with a smile in her eyes and trembling on her lips, with a strand or so of her beautiful hair and a streamer or so of delightful blue fluttering in the wind about her gracious form, it seemed to him for the moment that leaving the manœuvres and coming back to England was quite a right and almost a magnificent thing to do. ”

“ And yet, how she did weep when she left the convent. Madeleine would have made a good nun after all; she does so hate anything ugly or coarse. She grows quite white if she hears people fighting; if there is a "row" or a "shindy," as they say here. Whereas Tanty and I think it all the fun in the world, and would enjoy joining in the fray ourselves, I believe, if we dared. I know I should; it sets my blood tingling. But Madeleine is a real princess, a sort of Ermine; and yet she enjoys her new life, too, the beauty of it, the refinement, being waited upon and delicately fed and clothed. ”

“ At the mention of Madeleine’s name, she pricked up her ears. “Oho!” she said, when lie had finished his story. “So Madeleine pays you visits, does she?—the sainted Madeleine! You have her there, and me here.—A pretty state of things!”
“Hold your tongue! I’m not in the mood to-night to stand your gibes.”
“But I’m in the mood to make them. And how is one to help it when one hears that that ineffable creature is no better than she ought to be?” ”

“ In the evening we visited, for a short time, the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, which is sumptuously decorated inside with paintings all over; it has a double row of pillars each side. The subjects seem chosen with great judgment, and the legends are more truly Catholic than one often sees. The expense of this church must have been enormous. We also looked into La Madeleine—very beautiful indeed it is, and as grand as the Grecian style can be, but it furnishes one with the best proof that such is not the proper style for a church. ”

“ Madeleine’s features were not so regular as those of Gabrielle, but there was far more animation in her face. The deep hazel eyes of the peasant-girl were steady, the dark orbs of the Parisian flower-girl sparkled and danced, without a moment’s constancy. A woman’s character is written on her brow. ”

“ Look at yourself, your sweet, pouting lips, your sparkling eyes, all your radiant charms, and ask yourself whether a man into whose arms such a woman falls can remain unmoved? When you have answered these questions, say to yourself: 'How that man must love his Saviour, if he buys with such sacrifices the right to wear His crown of thorns!' Perhaps you will then better understand what I said just now of the spirit and nature of Christ."
Countess Madeleine made no reply, but wringing her hands, bent her eyes on the ground. ”

“ Leaving the old horse, with perfect confidence, looking down his nose into a laurel bush, Madeleine took her basket on her arm, and entered the great square kitchen.
One of the things that renders life so easy in France is the absence of change. Anywhere outside Paris, and often in it, change seems to have worn itself out, and to have ceased. In that remote corner of Flanders, Madeleine had no shyness, hesitation, or doubt, in entering the house of her father’s landlord and her lover’s mother. ”

“ On the morning of the third day the sound of clumsily clattering hoofs in the deserted street brought Madeleine rushing downstairs to the door of the pharmacy. An old farmer, mounted on a sweating plow horse, drew rein for an instant in the sun and, breathing hard, gave the news to the little cluster of white-faced women and old men who gathered about him. Madeleine pressed in beside her poorer neighbors, closer to them than at any time in her life, straining up to the messenger, like them, to hear the stroke of fate. ”

“ Sainte Madeleine, the patron saint of all Madeleines ... of Madeleine Troqueville and of Madeleine de Scudéry ... the saint who had loved so much herself ... the successor of she whom Jacques had called ‘the beneficent and bountiful Venus’ ... surely, surely she would grant her request.
‘Deathless Saint Magdalen of the damasked throne,’ she muttered, ‘friend of Jesus, weaver of wiles, vex [240] not my soul with frets and weariness but hearken to my prayer. Who flees, may she pursue; who spurns gifts may she offer them; who loves not, willy-nilly may she love. ”

“ In a word, the beauty of this little temple is alive, and one of the reasons for its being so I now proceed to extract from Mr. Cook's discussion of a subject that he has made particularly his own.
Why is it that the Maison Carrée is so eminently pleasing to the eye—is alive—while the Madeleine in Paris, which is a strictly mathematical enlargement of it, is "dull and unsuccessful"? [234] Because the lines of the Madeleine are straight, and those of this temple, as of all Greek architecture, are not, though they are so nearly so that the fact was not discovered until about twenty years ago. ”

“ Thus, if an angel appeared to you, bearing in one hand a cornucopia of earthly blessings, and in the other, holiness—not, mind, certain salvation, but just holiness—and bade you make your choice, without one moment of hesitation you would choose holiness. Which would you choose?’ and she looked at Madeleine gently and rather whimsically. ”

“ When she opened her eyes, there was the Magdalene as absorbed as before in the intensity of her own emotion. Le Brun’s dramatic chiaroscuro brings little comfort to suppliants—the eternal impassivity of the Buddha is far less discouraging than an eternal emotion in which we have no part.
Madeleine felt the chill of repulse. Perhaps in Paradise as on earth the Saints were sensible to nothing but the cycle of the sacred Story, and knew no emotions but passionate grief at the Crucifixion, ecstasy at the Resurrection, awe at the Ascension, and child-like joy as the Birth comes round again. ”

“ One day, when wandering unhappily about the Île Notre-Dame, with eyes blind to the sobriety and majestic sweep of life that even the ignoble crowd of litigants and hawkers was unable to arrest in that island that is at once so central and so remote, she had met Marguerite Troguin walking with her tire-woman and a girl friend. She had come up to Madeleine and had told her with a giggle that they had secretly been buying books at the Galerie du Palais. ”

“ What penalty can I make you pay that will be severe enough? I will plot mischief with Madeleine. If we can punish you in no other manner, we will postpone to a tantalizing distance the day you wish near at hand. Confess that I was wise to wait! I knew Madeleine's lover would claim her in good season, but I never suspected he was my own dear cousin Maurice, whom she so resolutely rejected. ”

“ Before Father Madeleine's arrival, everything had languished in the country; now everything lived with a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed everything and penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons and wretchedness were unknown. There was no pocket so obscure that it had not a little money in it; no dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy within it.
Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted but one thing: Be an honest man. Be an honest woman. ”

“ If calm reasoning, if entreaties and prayers failed to move her, he would test the potency of a threat,—she should learn that he had vowed never to return to his paternal home, never to forgive those who had driven her forth by their cruelty, until she had proclaimed their pardon by again taking up her abode at the Château de Gramont. Madeleine, who shrank from all strife, who moved in an atmosphere of harmony, which seemed to envelop her wherever she went, would not lift her hand to sever the sacred bond of union between father and son, grandmother and grandchild. ”

“ The ceremonial at the Madeleine always gives strangers the impression of having been over-rehearsed. The black-clothed beadles walk about with measured steps, particularly the frog faced one; the Suisses in their cocked hats leisurely saunter about with their halberds looking the essence of flunkeyism, and never issue from their stereotyped expression of importance and unmixed boredom, except upon occasions when a foreigner fails to kneel at solemn moments. Why need the good Protestant remain sitting when the bell rings, feigning a kneeling posture by a sort of zigzag attitude? ”