CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL
Many strange legends had gone to weave round the Convent of the Carmelites—so long the centre of fashionable Catholicism—an atmosphere of romantic mystery.
Tradition taught that the order had been founded on the summit of Mount Carmel by Elias himself. Its earliest members were the mysterious Essenes, but they were converted to Christianity by Saint Peter’s Pentecostal sermon, and built on the mountain a chapel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she herself becoming a member of their order. Her example was followed by the Twelve Apostles, and any association with that mysterious company of sinister semi-plastic beings, menacing sinners with their symbolic keys and crosses, had filled Madeleine since her childhood with a nameless terror.
The Essenes and the Apostles! The Carmelites thus preserved the Mysteries of both the Old and the New Testaments.
Madeleine, as she stood at the door of their Convent, too awe-struck to enter, felt herself on the confines of the Holy Land—that land half geographical, half Apocalyptical, where the Unseen was always bursting through the ramparts of nature’s laws; where Transfigurations and Assumptions were daily events, and Assumptions not only of people but of cities. Had not Jerusalem, with all its towers and palm-trees and gardens and temples, been lifted up by the lever of God’s finger right through the Empyrean, and landed intact and all burning with gold in the very centre of the Seventh Heaven?
Summoning up all her courage she passed into the court. It was quite empty, and over its dignified proportions there did indeed seem to lie the shadow of the silent awful Denizen of ‘high places.’ Dare she cross it? Once more she pulled herself together and made her way into the Church.
It was a gorgeous place, supported by great pillars of marble and bronze and hung with large, sombre pictures by Guido and Philippe de Champagne, while out of the darkness gleamed the ‘Arche d’Alliance’ with its huge sun studded with jewels.
The atmosphere though impressive was familiar—merely Catholicism in its most luxuriant form, and Madeleine took heart. She set out in quest of the Magdalene’s Chapel. Here and there a nun was kneeling, but she was the only stranger.
Yes, it was but meet that here—the grave of sweet Mademoiselle de Vigean’s love for the great Condé and of many another romantic tragedy—the Magdalene should be specially honoured.
The Chapel was small and rich, its door of fretted iron-work made it look not unlike a great lady’s alcove. It was filled with pictures by Le Brun and his pupils of scenes from the life of the Saint. There she was in a dark grove, with tears of penitence streaming from the whites of large upturned eyes. And there she was again, beneath the Cross, and there watching at the Tomb, but always torn by the same intensity of pseudo emotion, for Le Brun and Guido foreshadowed in their pictures that quality of poignant, artificial anguish which a few years later was to move all sensibilities in the tragedies of Racine.
Madeleine was much moved by the Magdalene’s anguish, and hesitated to obtrude her own request. But her throbbing desire won the day, and remembering what Berthe had said about flattery she knelt before the largest picture and began by praising the Magdalene’s beauty and piety and high place in Paradise, and then with humble importunity implored the friendship of her namesake.
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.
‘I am scorned in both the worldly and the sacred alcoves,’ she told herself bitterly, nevertheless, she determined to continue her attentions.
She bought three fine candles and added them to those already burning on the Magdalen’s altar. What did the Saint do with the candles? Perhaps at night when no one was looking she melted them down, then added them to the wax of reality and moulded, moulded, moulded. Once more Madeleine fell on her knees, and there welled from her heart a passion of supplication.
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 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. Broider my speech with the quaint flowers of Paradise, on thine own loom weave me wiles and graces to the ensnaring of my love. Up the path of Admiration lead Sappho to my desire.’
She felt a touch on her shoulder, and, looking round, saw a lay-sister, in the brown habit of the Carmelites. Her twinkling black eyes reminded Madeleine of another pair of eyes, but whose she could not remember.
‘I ask pardon, Madame,’ the sister said in a low voice, ‘but we hold ourselves the hostesses, as it were, of all wanderers on Carmel. Is there aught that I can do for you?’
Madeleine’s heart began to beat wildly; the suddenness with which an opportunity had been given her for procuring her wish seemed to her of the nature of a miracle. Through her perennial grief at the old, old story, the Magdalene must have heard her prayer. A certainty was born in on her that her desire would be granted. She and the other Madeleine would one day visit the Chapel together, and side by side set up rows and rows of wax candles in gratitude for the perfection of their friendship.
‘Oh, sister, I am much beholden to you,’ she stammered. The nun led the way out of the Church into the great garden that marched with that of the Luxembourg and rivalled it in magnificence. She sat down by a statue of the Virgin, enamelled in gold and azure.
Madeleine thought with contemptuous pity of the comparatively meagre dimensions and furnishing of Port-Royal, and triumphed to think how far she had wandered from Jansenism.
‘You have the air of one in trouble,’ said the nun kindly. Her breath smelt of onions, and somehow or other this broke the spell of the situation for Madeleine. It was a touch of realism not suited to a mystical messenger.
‘I perceive graven on your countenance the lines of sorrow, my child,’ she went on, ‘but to everything exists its holy pattern, and these lines can also be regarded as a blessing, when we call to mind the holy stigmata.’ She gabbled off this speech as though it had been part of the patter of a quack.
‘Yes, I am exceeding unhappy,’ said Madeleine; ‘at least I am oppressed by fears as to the issue of certain matters,’ she corrected herself, for ‘unhappy’ seemed a word of ill-omen.
‘Poor child!’ said the Sister, ‘but who knows but that oil and balm of comfort may not pour on you from Mount Carmel?’
‘Oh, do you think it may?’ Madeleine cried eagerly.
‘’Tis a strange thing, but many go away from here comforted. 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.)
At Madeleine’s words the little nun wriggled her body into a succession of Gallic contortions, in which eyebrows and hands played a large part, expressive of surprise, horror, and complete inability to grant such an outrageous request. But Madeleine pleaded hard, and after a dissertation on the extraordinary virtue of the habit, and a repeated reiteration that there were only one or two scraps of it left, the Carmelite finally promised that one of these scraps should be Madeleine’s.
She went into the Convent and came back with a tiny piece of frayed cloth, and muttering a prayer she fixed it inside Madeleine’s bodice.
Madeleine was almost too grateful to say ‘thank you.’
‘All the greatest ladies of the Court and the Town are wont to wear a portion of the sacred habit,’ the nun continued complacently. Madeleine found herself wondering quite seriously if the mère Madeleine de Saint-Joseph had been a Gargamelle in proportions.
‘To speak truth, it must have been a huge and capacious garment!’ she said in all good faith. The nun gave her a quick look out of her shrewd little eyes, but ignored the remark.
‘And now Mademoiselle will give us a contribution for our Order, will she not?’ she said insinuatingly. Madeleine was much taken aback. She blushed and said,—
‘Oh, in earnest ... ’tis accordant with my wishes ... but ... er ... how much?’
‘Do but consult your own heart, and it will go hard but we shall be satisfied. I have given you what to the eyes of the flesh appears but a sorry scrap of poor rough fustian, but to the eyes of the spirit it has the lustre of velvet, and there is not a Duchess but would be proud to wear it!’
Why, of course, her eyes were like those of the mercer at the Fair who had sold her the ‘petite-oie’!
However, one acquires merit by giving to holy Houses ... and also, Mademoiselle has procured something priceless beyond rubies. Madeleine offered a gold louis, and the nun was profuse in her thanks. They parted at the great gates, the nun full of assurances as to the efficacy of the amulet, Madeleine of grateful thanks.
It had been a strange adventure, and she left the Sacred Mountain with conflicting emotions.