inspired us to make this choice; for it is the will of God that my daughter should contribute to the spiritual and temporal welfare of so holy a convent.

The prophecy of our Saint was fulfilled; for Gertrude, after giving a bright example of every monastic virtue during her youth, was chosen Abbess at the age of twenty-one, and governed the house for fifty years, with such prudence and discretion, that it attained a high degree of spiritual renown. She died there, in the year 1297.

Behold then her sacrifice completed, her separation from the world consummated. It was the result of one of those efforts of grace, which summon a few of GOD's elect to a path not prescribed for the greater number of His servants. She now possesses nothing more to renounce, all in this world is at an end to her, and at the age of twenty-two, she can truly say with the Apostle: "I live, now not I, but it is JESUS Christ, who liveth in me."

This was the moment, for which the world, and the prince of this world, her implacable enemies, had long eagerly watched, in which to redouble their outrages and attacks. Amongst the great and the wise, there was but one fecling, and it was to insult this Spouse of Christ, and to proclaim aloud the height of her folly: nor were they deceived, for Elizabeth had learnt to comprehend, and to embrace in its fullest extent the Folly of the Cross.

The sentiments uttered on that day in the Court of Thuringia, have doubtless been repeated over and over again by many, who have read her history, and who, while perchance they have relished some bright and poetic passages in her earlier course, have yet shrunk from this astounding crisis in her remarkable life. What? they have perhaps said, when still so young, with so many duties to perform, with so much lawful happiness at her disposal, to choose so strange a mode of life! to impose on herself such superfluous sorrows! to get rid of the care of her children, of all the obligations of her state! and doubtless many more specious reasonings, of which profane wisdom has so large a store,—that wisdom which knows how to calumniate all that is beyond its own selfishness or its own weakness.

Christians, let not these be our thoughts in contemplating the triumph of this Christian heroine. Because we are too weak to be able to imitate and to follow her example, let us not be so blind as not to admire it. Let us bend in tender reverence before the mysterious workings of Divine love, before an example of literal obedience to those solemn words of our Divine Saviour: "He that cometh unto me, and hateth not his

father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, cannot be my disciple." Luke xiv. 26.

Let the world insult and contemn her, we need not wonder, for like JESUS Christ she has overcome the world. In that war, which from its baptism, each soul redeemed by the blood of Christ has vowed against the world, she has fought valiantly. With her young hand she fearlessly caught up the glove of defiance her enemy had cast down before her. She entered the lists, not at a distance from him, or guarded from his blows, but dwelling in the very centre of his attacks, and amid his countless snares. At an age, when the eyes of the soul, scarcely yet opened, cannot discern the nature and quality of evil, so that such early backslidings from God's law are rather material faults than grievous sins, she had already trodden under foot all false shame, the prejudices, and lying deceits of Satan. She overcame him, as she refused the claims of his ally the world, disregarding its laws, its calumnies, and contempt. This victory she gained in every stage of her life, and under all its varied circumstances, amid the pride and pomp of wealth, as beneath the cruel stroke of hunger and adversity, while yielding to the legitimate sway of the sweetest affections of the heart, or struggling with the bitterest trials, abandonment, solitude, and death. No sacrifice was left unoffered by her, though it cost her the loss of all that marriage can present most lovely, or a mother's heart can feel most intensely, or that a noble soul can most value in the esteem and honour of the world. All she sacrificed, and having finished her combat, she retired into holy solitude to reap the fruits of her victory. The field of battle she entered a little child, she left it not until she had vanquished her adversary. Behold Elizabeth has trodden under foot the old serpent, let her lay down the weapons of warfare, while she waits amid the mysterious joys of poverty and obedience that happy moment destined from all eternity to summon her to the glory and the triumphs of the Lamb!

NOTES BY THE LOIRE.

"Patres nostri tradiderunt nobis."-Ps.

"Apex senectutis est auctoritas.”—Cicero de Senec. § 17.

DURING an autumn's residence near the Loire with a gentleman enrolled in nature's nobility, as in that of his native land, Le Comte de L——, I made several trips to visit the remains of the "bon vieux temps," as presented in massive relics of the baronial castles, and the time-honored temples of Catholicity. I am not so blind an admirer of those bye-gone days of chivalry and romance, as to prefer their turbulence, their multiform despotism, and their great neglect of the quiet and useful arts of peace, to the order, the comparative liberty, and the general cultivation of the arts and sciences which humanize our kind, now happily diffused through the world. But I cannot behold the strongholds which are scattered over the face of an old land, without mingled feelings of reverence and admiration. They are the chronicles of the days of old,-the living history of their times: they indicate the state of society which called them into existence,—the habits and predilections of their possessors. They give a "local habitation and a name" to many a romantic episode—many a daring deed of heroism: Frequently they are of higher utility in the verification of important historical facts; and often when the trace of all other evidence has been utterly lost, they afford data to the learned antiquary to recall the forgotten past to the memory of men.

Visiting the Chateau de Sully with the above-named gentleman, perfectly acquainted with the history of his country, I found myself transported back to the days of the great prince Henri Quatre, and of his wise counsellor Sully. The League, and its opponents,-their mortal feuds, their termination by the wisdom and valour of Henry,-passed before me then came the profound policy of Sully, his minister, binding up the broken parts of the commonwealth, establishing his master's power, and creating a name to be named by posterity with that of the great Henry. The fearful lava wave of the moral volcano -the revolution of 1793 rolled over the Chateau de Sully, as over other strong places in the land: and there, as elsewhere, it left sad traces of its fell spirit and power for the work of destruction. All the towers that flanked the mainhold of the castle were levelled half their elevation; and one small wing alone was left habitable. I learned with

pleasure that its present youthful proprietor,- heir to the name and diminished fortune of the Sullys, intends to rebuild the chateau. The room where Henry slept, when on a visit to his faithful minister, is still shown to strangers: it is in a good state of preservation, with the old frescoes and carvings somewhat tarnished, it is true, but withal wonderfully fresh and entire for their age.

The wisdom and the knowledge of the human race available to public uses, are not the wisdom and the knowledge of a generation only: they are the hoarded experience of ages-the rich bequest of our forefathers improved and extended in things capable of improvement and extension, as in the arts and sciences, by the labour and invention of succeeding generations,-preserved, explained, and made familiar to man in those things which are eternally unchangeable, or emanate from the positive will of GOD; for instance, the principles of natural and revealed religion. It has been well observed, that while the utter ignorance in which we are born, combined with the power of acquiring knowledge, forms a powerful incentive to the pursuit of learning, we are not left solely to our own unaided efforts to acquire it; but have spread before us the ample pages of the history of our race, to afford both a guide and matter for our search. This history is not consigned to written documents only; it lives in the oral traditions of a people,— in the monuments that have been the theatres or memorials of public and important deeds. To mutilate or destroy the latter is a suicide of reason, a closing up of one of the great sources whence the stream of knowledge, that once refreshed our fathers, is poured out to us. The well-constituted mind must look with horror on the savage barbarism which, in its destructive progress, would efface the traces of an older time, because, in its soi-disant philosophy these were identified with the real or imaginary misdeeds of the higher orders of the clergy and nobility. But the spirit whose evil influence I deprecate has withdrawn its dark shadow from "La belle France;" even modern utilitarianism is favourable to the preservation of the relics of antiquity,-while, above all, a new Catholic feeling and philosophy are spreading rapidly and widely, removing prejudices against old Catholic institutions, and recalling men to a love and admiration of the works of the middle ages, the "Ages of Faith." Glorious days of charity that witnessed the foundation and extension of monastic establishments, where food and raiment were given to the indigent, an asylum to the persecuted; where schools flourished, and scholars-laborious scholars-preserved

VOL. II.

22

the venerable remains of the philosophy, the history, and polite literature of Greece and Rome.

I spent some happy days at the Chateau de la Bussiere. It is a fine old noble mansion, which escaped destruction, I know not how, during the revolution. It is surrounded by a moat (now dried up, and producing delicious fruit), and has annexed one hundred and twenty acres of well-wooded park preserves. The present proprietor, brother-in-law to the Comte de L- obtained it by purchase from the last female heir of the Bussiere family, Thillet. The lords du Thillet were also seized of several rich domains and townlands situated around. The chateau is north of the Loire, a few miles from Bryart, in rather a wild district. The ancient proprietors afforded an example-happily not without noble imitation in our own times of the union of high rank and christian charity. Within the domain stands the parish church, founded and endowed by the lords of the manor; it is over two hundred years old, and is a very good église de paroisse. The charitable foundations of the Marquis de la Bussiere and his lady are honourably preserved on a mural tablet, in a small side-chapel of St. Augustine, the patron Saint of the family. The inscription, in old French, runs thus:

"A la gloire de Dieu.

"Messire Charles du Thillet, Chevalier Marquis de la Bussiere, Seigneur d'un ablay, Adm. et chasteau du Bois, Conseilleur du Roy en tous ses conseils, Maitre des requests ordinaire de son Hostel, President en son grand conseil, et Dame Jeanne Marie Brunet, son épouse, a l'exemple de Messire Jean du Thillet, Chevl. Cons". du Roy en ses conseils d'état, et privé Greffier en chef du parlement, leur grand oncle, foundateur du couvent des Religieux Augustins de ce bourg de la Bussiere, et pour la plus grande gloire de Dieu, et l'edification des ames des habitans de la d' paroisse, ont donné et augmenté aux religieux du dit couvent les sommes de deniers et autres biens mentionnés un contract qui en a este passé devant Gallois et Cuillet, Notaires à Paris, le dernier Janvier 1686. Moyennant quay les Religieux du d' couvent ont reconnu les d' Seigneur et Dame du Thillet, leurs enfants et descendants en ligne directe, pr. foundateurs du d' couvent, pr. par eux jouir des privileges affectes a la qualité de fondateurs et a la charge des prieres portée au dit contract apprové et ratifié par la congregation Provinciale des Augustins tenu en la ville de Poictiers, le 11 Oct. de la même année 1686."

In an additional paragraph-the concluding one-there is mentioned