Volume Iii Part 148 (1/2)
G.o.d consoles in his own way; he blesses in the same. Three years after their marriage, Rivanone and Hyvarnion rocked the cradle of a crying infant whom they endeavored to put asleep with their songs. Now this infant was blind; and in remembrance of their sorrow they had named him _Huerve_ or _Herve_, that is to say, _bitter_ or _bitterness_.
But, if his mother did not try upon his eyes the better appreciated virtue of the herb which should cure the blind; if she asked of her Christian faith surer remedies to give light to her son, she found, at least, at the foot of the cross, the herb which sweetens bitterness; and her husband himself without doubt recollected that he had said in his childhood that one of the most beautiful of virtues is strength in trials and tribulations.
Two years afterward this strength was even more necessary by the side of the cradle of the blind; a single hand rocked that cradle, a single voice sang there--the other voice sang in heaven. The father had already found the true plant which gives life.
With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted.
It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs, that a.s.sistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears, where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that G.o.d sends forth salvation.
”One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go to church;
”'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet been.'
”'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my bed.'
”'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be forced to go and beg for alms.'
”'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if you will permit me.
”'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.
”'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'
”And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not walk.
”Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not moved on the way to church;
”Seeing the little blind child of seven years without other guide than his little white dog.
”Hearing him sing, s.h.i.+vering, beaten by the wind and the rain, without covering on his little feet, and his teeth chattering with cold.”
It was the festival of All Saints, as the legend tells us; the festival of the Dead follows it, and is prolonged during the second night of this month which the Bretons call the _Month of the Dead_.
Having feasted the blessed, every one goes to the cemetery to pray at the tomb of his parents, to fill with holy water the hollow of their gravestone, or, according to the locality, to make libations of milk.
It is said that on this night the souls from Purgatory fly through the air as crowded as the gra.s.s on the meadow; that they whirl with the leaves which the wind rolls over the fields, and that their voices mingle with the sighs of nature in mourning. Then, toward midnight, these confused voices become more and more distinct, and at each cottage door is heard this melancholy canticle.
”In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, greeting to you, people of this house, we come to you to ask your prayers.
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”Good people, be not surprised that we have come to your door; it is Jesus who has sent us to wake you if you sleep.
”If there is yet pity in the world, in the name of G.o.d, aid us.
”Brothers, relatives, friends, in the name of G.o.d, hear us; in the name of G.o.d pray, pray; for the children pray not. Those whom we have nourished have long since forgotten us; those whom we have loved have left us dest.i.tute of pity.”
Bands of mendicant singers, poor souls in trouble, they also, wanderers like those of the dead, go by woods and graves, to the sound of funereal bells, lending their voices to the unhappy of the other world.
The blind orphan, who, from the bed of his sick mother, went to kneel on the couch of his dead father, commenced in their company his apprentices.h.i.+p as a singer, and if it is believed, as is claimed, that the _chant des ames_, such as it has come to us, was composed by a blind singer, under the inspiration of his father, whom he would have delivered from pain, the blind singer should be Herve, and the inspirer Hyvarnion.
The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which have been translated into touching narratives: