bitants to official titles, and the consequent disdain of commercial employment. Travellers who do not advert to the above causes, express their astonishment “ que l'industrie ait si peu d'activité dans une ville qui offre tant des chances et des avantages à son développement." Near the town is the holy well of Saint Onuphre, a sort of puddle celebrated for the cure of all cutaneous diseases from ringworm to leprosy. On a particular day in the year the unclean patients resort to the waters in crowds, to drink, and bathe, and wallow in the marsh. Each of them, at the commencement of the exercises, gathers a branch in a neighbouring wood, which he deposits in some central spot; and in the evening, the faggot so formed is set fire to by the parish priest, who comes forth to the expectant flock dressed in his sacerdotal robes, and marching to the tune of an anthem. When the smoke is at the thickest, he flings a white dove into the cloud, and as the liberated bird rises from amidst into the air, the patients fall upon their knees, exclaiming, "It is the Holy Ghost!" this signal a lame man starts up, throws his crutches into the fire, and is straightway cured. The ceremony concludes with copious draughts of cider, which the patients, we have no doubt, find a more pleasant, if not a more medicinal beverage than the foul waters of Saint Onuphre. On We had not ourselves an opportunity of witnessing this ceremony; but we have not the smallest doubt of at least its temporary efficacy. At one time we supposed that the imagination could only exert such a power over nervous maladies; but we have watched a variety of cases with equal jealousy and curiosity, in which the patient was cured for the time of diseases apparent and horribly apparent in the skin and flesh. In one of these, a disorder of our times, resembling, and perhaps identical with, the ancient leprosy, was cured by the seventh son of a seventh son. After the prayers were said by the operator, who was a poor, simple, devout-looking country lad, the patient rose from the sofa on which he had lain for many days in helpless agony, drew his stocking over the diseased leg, and walked forth upon his affairs! His faith sustained him for nearly a week, but gradually the charm dissolved. This individual was a shrewd, worldly-minded man, and, although an Irishman, not a Roman Catholic. We complain of the introduction of new diseases; but we forget that at the present day we dispute about the very identity of a malady, for which a few centuries ago there were more than twenty thousand lazarettos in Europe. In the fourteenth century, in the domains of the Seigneur de Courcy alone, there were ten of these leprosies; and in all France, there were supposed to be more than two thousand. In Dauphiny there was one for nobles alone; and, near Paris, one for females of royal blood. Vanity of vanities! Let us devote a moment to recalling the ceremony which cut off alike the royal, noble, and plebeian leper from the society of his fellow-men. Clothed in a pall, the dead-alive stood at the steps of the church at the appointed hour, the people forming a wide circle round him, and gazing with dread and horror on the victim thus pointed out by the wrath of Heaven. The clergy of his parish then appeared, walking in procession, and the leper followed them into the church, and laid himself down on a bier, set round with lighted tapers. The service for the dead was then performed, with the usual chanting of prayers, sprinkling of holy water, and flinging of incense; and when the unhappy wretch was thus religiously dead, he was taken out of the town to the solitary hut appointed for his habitation. A pall hung above the door, surmounted by a cross, before which he fell upon his knees; and the priest then commenced an exhortation, enjoining him to the virtue of patience, recalling to his memory the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and pointing out to him that heaven above his head, where there are no tears and no lepers, but where all are for ever sound, for ever pure, and for ever happy. He then took off his coat, and assumed the leper's dress, and the clicket, or rattle, by which he was for the future to give notice of his approach, that his fellow-men might fly from the polluted path. The priest then pronounced the interdictions prescribed by the ritual. "I forbid thee to go abroad without thy leper's dress. the wind. "I forbid thee to enter any church, any mill, any fair, any market, any assembly of men whatever. "I forbid thee to drink, or to wash thy hands, either in a well or a river. "I forbid thee to handle any merchandise before thou hast bought it. "I forbid thee to touch children, or to give them any thing." The priest then gave him his foot to kiss, threw a handful of earth upon his head, and, having shut the door of the hut on the outcast, recommended him to the prayers of the bystanders, who immediately dispersed. The goods accorded to the leper were safe from robbers; his vineyard, his cow, his sheep, might remain without a keeper; for no extremity of hunger could tempt any one to put forth his hand upon the property of the accursed. His former clothes, his house, his furniture, were burnt to ashes; and if his wife chose to follow the footsteps of his despair-which was not rarely the case-she also was devoted when living to the leper's doom, and when dead, her ashes were refused a resting-place in consecrated earth. In consecrated earth? What have we said? It is the relic which sanctifies the place; and wherever were thrown the remains of that devoted wife, there was holy ground! CHAPTER VII. THE BAR OF THE SEINE. OPPOSITE Caudebec there was formerly an island called Belcinne, inhabited by some monks, who had built there a little convent. It belonged, as well as the seigneurie of Caudebec itself, to the celebrated monastery of Fontenelle; but the little convent was so much eclipsed by its splendid superior, that few visitors sought the solitary shore, except now and then a pious fisherman, who went to return thanks to God and the Virgin for his escape from the perils of the Seine. One day, however, the Lord of Caudebec bethought himself suddenly, that he had never paid his vows at the humble shrine; and, seized with a fit of devotion, he stepped into his barge, and was soon at the foot of the altar. The extreme poverty of the place, however, the nakedness of the altar, and the mortified looks of the holy brethren, hardened his heart; and, gazing around him for a moment, as if he had merely come out of curiosity, he turned away, and regained his barge. The water was rough; and the poor priests, instead of resenting his haughtiness, besought him to take care lest his vessel, which was heavily loaded, should sink. "Do you threaten me?" said the Lord of Caudebec, conscious that he deserved no kindness. |