The New York Herald Newspaper, October 20, 1873, Page 5

ME MIRACLE. Termination of the Herald Series of French Pil- grimage Letters. OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE. Large Gathering of the English Roman Catholics at the Shrines. His Holiness Narrates the Miracu- lous Cure of a Roman Lady by the Waters of La Salette. NARRATIVE OF A PILGRIM. The Legitimist Prospects in France. NINE PAPAL BRIEFS. Effect Produced on the Roman Catholic Church by the First Appearance of the Virgin Mary in the Nineteenth Century. LAW OF HUMAN EVIDENCE. The Papal Indulgences Granted to the Pilgrims. PETITION TO PIUS IX. Formal Close of the Great Re- ligious Revival. GRENOBLE, Sept. 15, 1873, | Father Germer, secretary to the Committee of Pilgrimages in Paris, has kindly given me a copy of the official programme of the national pilgrimage to La Salette, which is to close the month of pil- grimages, and I find that this is to be our mode of proceeding :-— Fmsr Day—Monpay, August 18.—At five min- ates past three in the afternoon we are to leave Paris from the terminus of the Lyons Railway. Persons who have already received the pilgrim’s cross are then requested to put it on the breasts of their coats and gowns. Itis a pretty little red cross, which I have already described in my narra- tive of the national pilgrimage to Our Lady of Lourdes, ‘The prayers of the Itinerary, which will be found at the twelfth page of the published manual, en- titled “Mois des Pelerinages,” are to be said imme- diately after the departure of the train. Moreover, the pilgrimage to Our Lady of La Sa- lette being par excellence one of expiation, there will be a recitation of the ‘Miserere.’? At four o’clock the chant ‘Parce Domine” will be sung twice. There will be also a recitation of the first chaplet of the rosary for the Church and for the Pope. It is printed at page 95 of the “Month of Pilgrimages.”’ At eleven minutes past five there will be a halt of eight minutes at Monte- reau. Pilgrims who intend to dine at Tonnerre are requested then to write down their names, and the directors of the pilgrimage will telegraph their orders for dinner in consequence. The probatfle price of each pilgrim’s dinner will be three francs or three francs and a half. At hall-past five the chant of the “Salve Regina” will be sung, and the second chaplet of the rosary will be recited. (See page 96 of the published manual,” to be had of all known Catholic book- sellers at half a franc, or something under the cost of its production, so eager are the Committee of Pilgrimages to make money by literary specula- tien.) At half-past seven the “Magnificat” will be chanted, and the third chapletof the rosary for the pilgrims reeited. (Page 97 of manual.) Ata quarter past eight there will be a halt of twenty minutes at Tonnerre for dinner. (Might be as well, though not s0 fashionable, to call it supper.) At midnight the Paris pilgrimage will arrive at Dijon, where it will be met by the pilgrims of Dijon, and a larger train will be formed to con- vey both pilgrimages on their journey together. SEcoND DaAY—TvsEsDay, August 19.—At twenty Minutes past one in the morning the pilgrims’ train will leave Dijon, and there will be @ recita- tion of the “Sub tuum” immediately afterwards. At five A. M. the prayer gat page 35 of the | manual must be said, and the first chaplet of the rosary for the Church and the Pope must be Tecited. At half-past five A. M. the pilgrimage will ar- rive at Villefranche and visit the sanctuary of Ars, The pilgrims are advised to leave their lug- j gage in the train (but will not take that advice). | They are also recommended not to scramble and | rush into the omnibuses, because enough places have been reserved for ail of them, and nobody will | be left behind (but neither will they take that recommendation, At seven A. M. mass, At nine A. M. veneration of THE RELICS OF ST, PHILOMENR and visit to the places sanctified ‘by the venerable | Curate of Ars, At ten A. M. breaklast. At eleven A. M. departure of the pilgrims trom Ars on their return to Villefranche, A second recommendation is here given to piigrims that they need not take the omnibuses by storm. (They will disobey that recommendation, its repetition notwithstanding). At half-past twelve the pilgrims’ train will leave Villetranche. The “Magnificat” will then be chanted, nd pilgrims are expected to examine themselves devoutly respecting the resolutions they may have made at the tomb of the Curé of Ars. Tue second chaplet of the rosary wili then be recited, At half-past one P. M. the pilgrimage will arrive at Lyons and remain there vill five P, M. They are | again advised to leave their luggage in the train (and will not do so). They will go in procession to OUR LADY OF FOURVIERES, reciting the chaplet (and will meet with some mockery and hard words from the Lyons roughs, as might have been expected, but a strong body of police will protect them from being tustied or maltreated), At two P, M. vespers of the Holy Virgin, aliocution, distribution of the pilgrim’s cross, benediction of the Holy Sacrament, At hall- | ‘past three P, M, departure from Fourvieres, with | Or Without good dinner, At twenty minutes past five P.M. the pilgrims’ train willleaye Lyons for Grenoble, At hali-past five P. M. the “Ave Maris Stella” will ve chanted, the third chaplet of the rosary Will be recited and the pilgrimage will be consecrated to the Holy Virgin. At haif-past eight P. M, there will be evening prayers and the can- ticle of La Salette will be chanted. Ata quarter to ten the pilgrimage will arrive at Grenoble. The pilgrims are here recommended to form in two ranks to receive their biliets for lodging, and they will be guided to their lodgings by persons of rush hither and thither in despairing pursuit of them, to provide them with good beds and suppers). TaizD DaY—WEDNESDAY, August 20.—Voyage from Grenoble to Corps, and ascension of the mountain, The hours for departure, the hours for meals and the prayers to be recited will be fixed auring the journey. Fourts Day—TavrspayY, August 21.—Sojourn on the Holy Mountain, The order of the day will be announced from the pulpit. Furra Day—Faipay, August 22,—Half-past five A. M.—Mass, actions @f grace, and farewell to the places consecrated by the apparition. Half-past six A, M.—Descent from the mountain, after break- fast of coffee or chocolate, Nine A, M.—Departure ofthe pilgrims from Corps. Meal times and the prayers to be recited on this day will be announced after mass. Five P. M.—Arrival at Grenoble. Lenten tare for dinner, Half-past six P. M.—De- parture of the pilgrimage by railway from Gren- oble. Seven P, M.—Chant of the “Magnificat,” Third chaplet of the rosary. Consecration to the Boly Virgin. Haitpast Sight P. M.—Evening prayer. Chant of the two canticles of the Sacred Heart, Silence during the night. sixto Day—SaTunpay, August 23.—Half-past four—Arrival at Dijon, Adieus to the pilgrims of that town. (‘Vévent les Pélerins de Parisi” shout the pilgrims of Dijon. “Viventles Pélerins de Dijon!” shout the pilgrims of Paris. That is how the adieux are done, With much effusion and shaking of hands among the clergy, and many friendships formed, possibly of a durable character.) Halt for an hour and ten minutes at Dijon for breakfast of coffee and milk or chocolate, Twenty minutes to six A. M.—Departure of the Paris pil- grimage trom Dijon. Six A. M.—Morning prayer. Half an hour’s meditation, Recapitulation of the resolutions taken at the sanctuary of La Salette. Recital of the first chapiet of the rosary. Eight A. M.—Chant of the “Ave Maris Stella.” A quarter of an hour’s refection to join in a mass being now said at La Salette for the pilgrims of Paris, Five minutes past nine A. M.—Halt of thirteen minutes at Tonnerre for refreshments. Hot broth will be ready in bowls, price filty centimes each, Pilgrims are here requested to write down their names if they wish to breakfast again at Montereau. Half- past nine A. M.—Chant of the “Magnificat” and second chaplet of the rosary. Eleven A. M.—Chant of the “Salve Regina.” Canticle of the Sacred Heart. “Angelus,” Eleven minutes to one P, M.— Halt for sixteen minutes for breakfast at Monte- Tear. Breakfast of solid meats (dinner, in fact) will be founda already prepared. The probable price of it will be not under two frances and not -over two francs and ahalf, Hall-pastone P, M.— Chant of the “Te Deum.” Tnird chaplet or the rosary, Consecration to the Holy Virgin. Three P. M.—Chant of the canticles of the Sacred Heart, and of the Holy Virgin. Twenty minutes to four P, M.—Entry into Paris. SEVENTH Day—SuNnpay, August 2%.—Mass of actions of grace in the Church of Our Lady of Vic- tories, at half-past eight A. M. Pilgrims are requested further to note that ar- rangements have been made to enable them to visit the sanctuary of Fontaine (near Dijon), which was the birthplace of St. Bernard; also that an office for the exchange of bank notes and gold or silver into small change will be found at La Salette. EN ROUTE. So far the official programme which is destined to be carried out, with some important @xceptions. We made our way very well to Grenoble. Our train was cheered as it arrived at some stations on the line, and symptoms of disapprobation, per- haps derision, were visible and audible at others. At Dijon we were well received; at Lyons we were not. Still, there were no violent signs of ill will, and no attempt was made to repeat the outrages which were perpetrated on pilgrims last year. At Grenoble, however, our difficulties really began, and I am bound to say that the same man ‘Who got us into trouble at the shrine of St. Fran- goils de Paul, by reason of his tipsiness and au- thority, was again in liquor and in power, while the stout Viscount of Damas was far beyond call, up away on the Holy Mountain of La Salette. The rabble crowd who thronged the railway sta- tion at Grenoble, seeing that we were in a pickle, being wet, tired, hungry and oppressed by the tipsy man in authority, began to jeer us. The young louts of Grenoble, who were in great fofce about the omnibuses, especially took exception to a white fag which we carried. “*V’LA LE DRAPEAU BLANC,” sneered a hulking fellow, and a group of washer- women round him set up a derisive laugh. “That white fag must soon give place toa red one,’’ bawled a fat man in carpet slippers, who ap- peared to belong to the beer drinking persuasion, and then there were some yells, Two cocked hat gendarmes at last appeared through the rain and were greeted with solemn silence. Meantime distraught women drifted away into space. Three of them were discovered next morn- ing by their anxious pastor huddied away in a gro- cer’s cart used for advertising cheap sugar. They had found it under an archway and had used it for sleeping purposes, being driven into that act of trespass by the desperate state of their case after soaking in unknown streets till three o’clock A. M. There were said to be 25,000 pilgrims going to or coming from La Salette that night, with only sieep- ing and carrying accommodation for half of them. All the hotels were full to their passages and stair- cases, and the pilgrimages were likewise compll- cated at Grenoble by a fair anda market day, The directors of the pilgrimage had appointed the Church of St, Louis as a meeting place, and we were all requested to assemble there at hall-past five A. M. Fortunately every shop in the town was Open at dawn, so that those pilgrims who had had no sleep could at least get food and shelter. Many of them had not been to bed for three nights, and some of the ladies looked very limp and disconso- late. THE GRENOBLE SHOPKEEPERS in general were civil enough, but had a tendency to do the wrong thing with demonstrative kind- ness, Small as the expense of eating and drinking had been made by the foresight of the committee of Paris one could, nevertheless, see French thrift and French vanity equally busy this damp morn- ing at daybreak. Pretty girls, with smart bonnets and wearing their pilgrim crosses and chaplets coquettishly, munched dry bread in the open air, and stood for shelter under the church porch, rather than pay an inn bill ever so moderate. Per- baps they had been made cautious by experience, for living in the French provinces at hotels is much dearer than living in the same way in Paris. A few days ago I was charged fifteen trance for two chops, which would have cost a /ranc and a half at Brebants. The French provincial towns also, with the solitary exception of Rouen, are dreary places, having no life or amusements in them, and educa+ tion there is in anything but a high state of devel- opment, While waiting for the director of the pil- grimage at Grenoble I walked about the streets and saw written on the shutters of a respectable looking shop, “Forme peur quose de somél,”” which 1s the most astonishing specimen of orthography ever brought under my notice, ° When I got back from my ramble to the chure' there was no doubt that the grand national pil- grimage wasinatfix. There were two rival omni- bus companies disputing flercely for individual pil- grims, but unwilling to come to terms for parties, The Paris committee had made such arrangements 48 were possible, but they broke down at Grenoble, and pligrime were packed like herrings in a barrel before wey could be started on the road, Some were left behind, some gave up the pilgrimage in despair at this point rather than submit to the ex- tortionate prices asked for any decent conveyance. Having been myself, however, specially recom- mended to the landlady of the Three Dolphins, the hotel at which NAPOLEON I, stopped for three days on his return from Elba, and she being a very intelligent per- son, I contrived to hire a carriage from a thriving widow of her acquaintance, and so made my own pilgrimage safe. I left Grenoble at about eleven o'clock on my way to La Salette, after hay- good faith known to the committee, (they Will utterly decline to attend to this recom- mendation, and clergy unaccustomed to travel ing waited from five A. M.; but the other pilgrims who had had no such luck were in a very dejected state by this time, and stood huddled together like will be seen running wild with encumbrance of sheep in the market place, while two Cheap Jacks luggage, in & near-sighted way, fearful to encoun- outbellowed cach other and banged different ter, Unprotected female pilgrims will wander | tunes on drums and cymbals to add to their dis- bout moaning all night, seeking for rest and find- | comfiture. ing Rone, While the members of the committee | As we drove out of the town the coachmen, & good-natured fellow, not indisposed for something to drink, pointed out ta me an alebouse which bore ‘the pousual sign of “THE HEADLESS WOMAN,” “La femme sans tte.” Linquired into the mean- ing of it, and found out that 9 woman who had committed a heartless murder’ nearly a hundred years ago had been execated there, Her very name 1s forgotten and does not signify much, but all the details of her crime are remembered, and HER MEMORIAL STONE 18 A GIN SHOP, The road is thronged with pilgrims in carts, in vans, in coaches, and afoot, their conveyances having often broken down within half a mile of the gates of Grenoble, with eighteen long leagues be- fore them still to travel. Many of the pilgrims are Peasants and have that wondering look at all they see which especially marks untaught country folk away from home. So, refecting how much sin and sorrow come of ignorance, and that the law was always made for man, not man for the law, | begin to consider how pilgrimages were first instl- tuted and encouraged by the wise old Roman Cath- olic Church as a harmless means of popular educa- tiop, less hazardous and more complete than teach- ing by books. Much that a pilgrim who can- not read—and the Catholic Church, I think wisely, sets its face against that dangeroas thing “a little knowledge’—wants to know and ought to know is to be learned on a pilgrimage. He discovers sometimes, greatly to his nelief and astonishment, that the worid is “not @ small country town under the supreme guidance of a mayor and three elderly ladies, as it has hitherto appeared in his contracted range of vision, If he is @ prig he observes, not without benefit, that although he indeed possesses 4 MONOPOLY OF VIRTUE in his own neighborhood there are prigs else- where who have their monopolies also, and who will not concede one jot or one tittle of their pre- tensions, so that for the first time perhaps in his life ne is obliged to sing small. The rude bumpkin or village shopkeeper and his wife, who travel for days, perhaps for weeks (and many of the pilgrims of La Salette come from remote parts of Brittany), in the constant companionship of learned priests, whose business and delight it is to answer intelli- gent inquiries, return with an enlarged mind and no contemptible quantity or instruction to their home, and journey with far greater advantage than commercial traveller, whose social intercourse 18 confined to inn waiters and cigar shop women. As I roll along rapidly, too, in my little carriage, leaving that stream of wayworn and footsore pil- grims behind me, and recoliect that Ishould have had but @ comfortiess trip of it but for the kind- ness of 4 LITTLE HUMP-BACKED WOMAN, I think of her, not without gratitude and compas- sion. She was so quick, useful and eager to please, in spite of the poor, weak, crooked frame which seemed to shut her in from all the joys of life, that she might have well been ont of temper with the world; yet she regarded it with an aspect cour- teous and benevolent. At a first view of the sub- ject it seems @ sad lot for a woman to be:de- formed, but it 1s a sadder lot to be despised and abandoned. If this woman, with her intelligent head, had been pretty she might have become a duchess, and gone through, may be, a mournful, desolate existence when her good looks were gone. She would not certainly have been manageress at an inn, it not being in the female heart to.choose the lowly walks of life. Inns must, nevertheless, be kept, and well kept; and I owed tnree pleasant days ona bad road quite as much toalittle old woman’s hump back as to her good feel- ings. The thought, like most other thoughts may be put into an epigram:—A pretty woman sometimes makes one man happy by making many men miserable. A deformed wo- man often makes many men happy and nobody miserable. The charm wrought on those around her by aclever woman who has honestly renounced the vanities of life and really never thinks of the figure she makes in a looking glass can only be felt; it;cannot be described, Deformed persons, however, have generally a character for asperity, and 1 once heara a terrible answer given to a crooked fellow who had a sharp tongue. The woman (it was a French woman) whom he had stung by his jibes looked at him curiously from head to foot, and then observed, with a merry smile, “You would make a passable bunchback if you were only clever.”” The road to LA SALETTE 1S EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL, It winds through mountains and vineyards and forests of nut trees, and oaks and fower gardens, with here and there the ruins of some old tower, which once was stately, and the hold of bygone warriors at Vizille is the magnificent castle of M. Casimir Perrier, one of the leading French repub- lcans and an ex-Minister of the Thiers Cabi- net. It is one of the finest specimens of feudal architecture still upstanding in France. I doubt, however, whether many of the pilgrims could appreciate its splendor or the still loveliness of the scene around it. The morning had broken dim and gray and chill with carly showers, but towards noon the August sun shone out with in- tolerable glory, and not a breeze mitigated the in- tense heat of the day. As our light carriage swept along with an even roll, drawn byj the widow’s brisk ponies at eight or nine miles an hour, we overtook cartload after cartload of pilgrims in trouble. The carters of Grenoble, having once got their money, did not take any further trouble about them; and there they were, in the blaz- ing sunshine and on the white baked road, tying broken harness together with flushed faces ana parched lips, or looking discon- solately at a jibbing horse and fractured shaits; or they toiled after a cat-hammed pony yoked to & large van, with thirty people in it, or rather out of it, marching in a cluster behind with their baskets on their arms. But they were French peo- ple, and generally struck up a hymn and laughed gayly a3 we passed. It was nearly always the same hymn I had first heard at the shrine of St. Martin, at Tours. God of Clemency, God of Mercy, Save Rome and France, In the name of the Sacred Heart, The music of it is very pretty, and I was quite touched by the patient merriment of this light- minded folk under difMfculties which would have made an Anglo-Saxon feel wicked. The Ouré (dear innocent man) who led each of these parties of broken-down pilgrims always marched reso- lntely at their head, comforting his weak-kneed brethren both by example and precept, It was easy to perceive that he seldom knew much of roads or of travel, save what he had conscientiously read up in the railway guide; and that this pil- grimage was the great event of his quiet life, turning out far otherwise than he had expected. His flock, indeed, do not lose confidence in him, though he has led them thus into confusion most confounded, but, possibly, he feels himself that the martyrdom he bas so long dreamed of and coveted, as human flesh may covet It, has already commenced, ONE WHITE-HAIBZD OLD MAN stands up before his people, who are singing near an upset omnibus in the middle of the road, and stops our carriage with outstretched hands and an authoritative gesture. ‘There are two cripples of his Sock, and he demands, as one who claims A RIGHT IN HEAVEN'S NAME, that we shall carty them on tothe next village, where they may rest till the upset omntous can be mended and made to jingle on again, He also asked foralms (and I wondered what it coat the grand old man to do 80) for two apprentices of Lyons who had lost their money and were far from home without a sou. On we glide through a trout country, which factories have now made so rare in Europe; on by old farms, where the cattle browse lazily on sweet pasture, and by water mills, where the miller gapes and marvels in his grotesque doorway and tousies bis nignt cap all awry with amazement; on by babbling bridges and by shallow fords, We hear the sullen threat of the snow as it thanders down with @ shout and a curse from its mountain stronghold, captured at last by the flerce rays of the sun; and it troubles the stream and it frightens the boor as it horries away down cataract and river to baw! for reiniorce- ments from the Winter King, holding Mgh state already in the northland and fast advancing hither ‘With hia white banners spread amid the winds storms. y We noe tho new-fledaga partridges trying their little wings; we trace the fearful lizard to his haunt among the hot stones and watch the liber- tine butterfly as he struts through the air upon tremulous wings to dally with the bloom and loveli- ness of the garden, himself the gayest figure in the pageant and great pomp of autumn, We gaze on hardy women tolling in the vineyards upon hillsides and giving good Promise of the coming vintage, while nut brown girls are gleaning in the plains; the tall reeds listen by the water side to the song of innumerable birds, and the giant rocks lie sleeping on their couches of shadow, with the goat and the chamois watching wistfully over their slumber from inac- cessible steeps. Tall poplars, ranged in rows along the road like guards, salute the command- ing airs; stout mowers cut the clover, and the Sweet Voice of children is heard prattling round the vine clad windows of the cotter’s home, But the heat is positively stifling, till at last, when very high up the mountain, at a turn of the road, we heard a rustle of leaves and felt the cool breezes from ‘THE LAKES OF LAMURE. All this was very fine for people who could enjoy it from a seat in a well-hung carriage. But far be- low us were the priests and pilgrims, whose horses had foundered and whose crazy vebicles had tumbled to pieces, still suffocating in the hot dust, and some of them were forty hours going the jour- ney which we had done in five. Still, thongh the way was steep and the way was long, the pilgrims lightened it as only French people could nave done. By the wayside, as they halted under hedges or wherever they could find shade for repose, and at every hamlet where they stopped to drink, they did not grumble at the weather or their troubles, but they sung and gos- siped, On party of Alsatians had even composed chorasfor themselves, which they carolled to the tune of a lively jig. Secours de 1a France. Priez pour nous. Notre espéra Venez, sauves nous. Bis (with the whole strength of the company). An! venez, sauvez nous. These worthy creatures were always singing, whatever became of them, and doing their bést to enjoy their outing, and they babbled round the cool lakes and bathed their feet and doused each other playfully, while the carp leaped to the August fly and the pike lay waiting in the weeds, a terror to small fry, much resembling an attorney. We passed group after group of them sportively waiting their deliverance from blacksmith and wheelwright, Even the breezes seemed to jest with them and to join in the chorus of their Jubilant hymns, I had really no idea that sacred music could be made so jolly till I heard these French pilgrims trymg their active tongues at it. One pilgrim, who had been an actor, and had brought no provisions with him, dined at Lamure in the house of a roguish innkeeper, and was pressingly requested to pay five francs in conse- quence. The scene between them was very funny. The actor treated the innkeeper, who seemed a personage of some local importance, from the comic opera point of view, tapped him on his Totund paunch and laughed him affably to scorn. The innkeeper upon his part regarded the actor from the town councillor’s point of view, and looked down at him as an idle sort of vagabond, which made the dispute between them very amusing, neither being able to see himself as the other saw him. I think the pilgrim got the best of the quarrel, for the last I saw of the innkeeper was his plump person mobbed by remonstrating pilgrims, who took part with the actor—and indeed five trancs isa large sum for & hunk of tough mutton and a pint of small wine. THE WAY TO LA SALETTE grew more and more picturesque after passing Lamure. The lakes stretched one after the other before us like fairy seas of molten silver, and here and there a solitary fisherman's bark might be seenon them, like a great thought standing out visibly on the ocean of time. The country became more wild and the inhabitants fewer. We saw, too, now and then, a heap of stones surmounted by @ rude cross, to mark the spot where @ mur- der had been done, and near by were usually little chapels, where masses were said for souls in purgatory. We came upon grass-grown pathd and cross-roads which led nowhere but up to the charcoal burner’s but amidst the bills, Rising up from the plains like incense was the smell of the harvest which had come in its season, notwithstanding the storm and the wind and the frost, but rather because of them, and taking its mysterious way upon tall stilts or Posts was the telegraph, one of THE LATEST HARVESTS OF HUMAN THOUGHT. ‘The air became very pure and light as we as- cended the hills towards Corps and disposed the mind to call up sacred thoughts, Mountains are the most ancient places of this world’s worship, and all creeds have sought them. There was first Ararat, then Sinai, and that Mount of Olives where Christ was wont to pray and where He spoke the only words in earthly language from which nothing can be taken and to which nothing can be added without injury to their meaning. “Blessed onthe mountain are the footsteps of him who bringeth glad tidings” is a passage in the Bible which had possibly especial reference to the SERMON ON THE MOUNT. The priest, the bard and the warrior have ever come from the mountain. It was a merchant or a shepherd that first soughtthe plain. At every half mile or so on our upward path were fountains, which monks had taught to flow for human uses, The shepherds and cowboys brought their cattle to drink there, amd housewives washed their household stuff on slabs around. We gotinto A CREAM DISTRICT afew miles from Lamure, and when we stopped at a cottage to breathe our horses I ate the first fresh cheese made from sheep’s milk I had tasted since I left the Island of Mytclene, in the Agean Sea. I noticed that the road up to Corps was very good; but then the weather was fine, and it must be in an awful state afterrain. Pilgrims must have been soaked, parboiled and friea by turns within the Jast forty-eight hours. Perhaps it was good for them, the French having rather a finical and unnecessary horror of getting wet, Ifind that my pligrimage, performed under the most favorable circumstances, will take three days in so far merely as the journey from Grenoble to La Salette is concerned, and that my carriage will cost 110f., which is the usual fare. It looks dear, but it is really little more than a franc a mile, and the jobmasters who usually let carriages do not get rich, The price of horsefesh has risen. The pair of scrambling ponies in front of us cost 800f., or aay £52 each, or £64 the pair. It will take nearly @ week's work out of them to do this journey, They may get sprains or splinters or broken knees, and one of them has had srattling fall upon fints, Then three long days’ work and a day’s rest fora man, the wear and tear ofcarriage and harness, horses’ meat, man’s meat at famine prices, sta- bling taxes and half a dozen other items are all to be considered. It was quite dark before we reached Corps, a dirty mountain town, literally blocked like a coachmaker’s shop with carriages of every sort and description, and swarming with pligrims, for the most part hungry and houseless, 1 had been told that I should find it impossible to get a lodg- ing, and should have found it so; but M, Bourni- sien, chief of the Paris pilgrimage, had given me a card of introduction to the Curé of Quet-en-Beau- mont, whose sister, Mme. Dumas, keeps the Hotel du Palais, which is the best inn at Corps, and she found room for me, though not without a demure inquiry whether I should like to sleep With three other pilgrims, who were waiting down stairs, scufling with the waiters for shelter, ‘The only food, however, to be had even here was some tough rabbit soaked in @ black sauce, It tasted like deal boara polled in ink, and I pathet- ieally remonstrated with Mme. Damas privately on the subject. She looked at me in the same demure manner 1 had observed before, and then she looked quietly away from me and went about her business without remark; but I had followed the direction of her glance, and noticed that it lighted upon the portly form of M. le Curé, her brother, @ clergyman of benevalent aspect, I made known my grief to him, and he smiled as his sister had done, but presently mentioned in an absent way that he had @ fow bottles of remarkably good @gret of the vintawa of 1668 whigh he NEW YORK HERALD, MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1873—TRIPLE SHEET. kept by him for the behoof of the sick, and that perhapsin my exhausted state I might require @ bottle, Iassented to this suggestion with so much readiness that the Curé smiled again, and then remarked that it was just possible his sister might have a few new laid eggs and some fresh butter. It was easy to perceive from the tenor of his discourse that he was willing to ob- tain a token of my esteem in the way of news in return for his goodness, and, having told him alll knew of the pilgrims on the road, I sat down an omelette which I made myself, and to @ capital bottle of Bordeaux which the Curé’s sister brought me with the same tranquil smile upon her widowed lips, which rather put me out of countenance. Betore going to bed I had asked the Curé how and when I had better ascend THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, The Curé, after mature consideration, and with a gentle twinkle in his eyes, had responded that I had better go there upon a mule at about half-past seven o’clock, as he should do, At five, however, there was a loud knocking at my chamber door and IT was gruffly enjoined to get up. I replied thatl should do so in two hours and a half; but every ten minutes afterwards the knocking was re- sumed, and the gruff voice ordered me to rise, in peremptory tones, I was just getting accustomed to the row, and beginning to consider it as a sort of CHORUS TO A DOZE, when there came a gentler tap of great decision, and a dry, authoritative whisper made itself heard through the keyhole, It was that voice at which @ married man trermbles—a determined woman’s— and I rose at once in some trepidation. © “Monsieur,” said the voice, which I had rightly guessed proceeded from the Curé’s sister, “unless you start at once I cannot answer for your mules. She folded her hands beneath her breast and looked at me once more with the quiet smile which had disconcerted me on the previous evening. “Why not?” said I, trying to put a bold face on my submission, which I now felt would be inev- itable. “The honest muleteer,” she replied, primly, “has received an offer from another pilgrim, who starts early, and he wishes his beast to make two ascents of the mountain before high mass instead of one. You must therefore pay him double the fare he agreed to take last night or go upon your pilgrim- age briskly” (vivement). “Madame will have the exceeding goodness to make me acup of coffee, and I will start imme- diately I can get my boots cleaned,” I answered, in @ crestfallen way. “Coffee ? boots?” whispered the Curé’s sister, almost inaudibly, and again there hovered that provoking smile about the corners of her mouth. Presently my boots were brought to me, un- touched, by the chambermaid, who remarked inci- dentally that there was no coffee to be had, so I marched down staira with dusty feet and an empty stomach. The Curé’s sister curtsied as I passed and presented me to her son, who presented me with a ladder three feet high to mount on mule- back. “Les dames,” said the Curé’s sister, in an absent way, yet with remarkable kindness, ‘en ont tou- Jours besoin. BON JOUR, MONSIEUR!" Ihad some reason to believe by this time that the Cure’s sister “mocked herself of me.” “Fie! you pilgrim of dainty ways, with your bottle and your frying pan, who will not eat a wholesome deal poard stewed in sooty water. Come, let me make merry with youl”? That was what her down- cast eyes and absent language seemed to say. On rushed the stream of pilgrims, down gorge and ravine, io the early morning, and I ambled placidly away on my mule ahead of them. The brute was sure-footed, though he had no mouth, and was leg-weary. The Curé’s sister had ostenta- tiously taken care to see that he was tightly girthed, tor when a saddie slips round on a narrow path there is mischief, andI had not paid my bill, The road up the Holy Mountain was not s0 bad as the mountain roads in Spain. and Africa, being nearly three feet wide in its narrowest part, but a tumble might have proved fatal for all that, Many sick people were being carried up the mountain side on hand chairs; and once I saw A OHILD’S CRADLE BY THE ROADSIDE, with the tired parents sitting in patient hope upon a rock till their strength returned and they could bear {it on again, But most of the pilgrims were on foot or mounted upon donkeys and mules. Among them were all the differing types of pilgrims. There was the great lady of the Faubourg St. Germain, with her two maids, and her husband, with his valet, behind her, making an imposing cavalcade. There was the distraught old woman, who had dropped her shawl and was about to pass the day in looking for it. There were some pretty girls, walking behind a mule, laden six feet high with bandboxes and mil- linery. Tne Holy Mountain seemed goodish hus- band-hunting ground—ana why not? In what better place could @ man wish tomeet the com- panion of his life than at the shrine of the Virgin? ‘Then there were streams of pious sisterhoods, with their wondrously clear complexions and large, quiet eyes, Economic walking women, umbrella in hand; stout curés shouldering their bags and covering the ground with sturdy stride ; monk and friar, with the pilgrim’s staff in hand, glided solemnly along, many with fine grave faces, who might have made a figure in the world had they been so minded. Bishops and deans took their pilgrimage, eastly keeping off the sun with their broad hats, and listening drowsily to the tinkling of the bells on the necks of their mules. Here and there were parties of the neighboring clergy, with their pious friends, all dressed in decent black, and passing rich with so little money and so much esteem. Farther on were ajfaunting woman and her toadies from Uriage, the nearest watering place, and on their way to Switzerland, thinking the Almighty rather beneath their notice. They had fifteen mules and twenty trunks, with a livery servant dressed in blue and silver, save his waist- coat, which was yellow. The mountaineers took him for @ general officer or @ beadle, and capped him reverently as he passed, instead of wondering, as they might have done, whether a little money should give one human being the power to make another appear so ridiculous, ‘Three persons especially interested me. One was @ blustering elderly man, evidently of importance in his own parish. He had a red face, a loud voice andarank smell of money about him. But with him was a deformed boy, who was his only son, and the presence of this boy seemed to hallow him. Very touching it was to see the rude, bullying old fellow pretending not to believe in miracles, yet clutching at the hope that they might be true, and that one might be wrought to make his child as strong and money-loving ashe. He wrapped the boy upagainst every wind that blew. He did mean and shabby things for him, thrusting other sick people out of his way, as though he thought that saints and angels should first attend to him, A RICH MAN'S SON, Near him strode a gaunt and awfal woman, with gray hair and a face cast in a mould oftron. She dashed her bare feet against the sharp flints with @ pitiless strength, and turned neither to the right nor to the left as she passed us. Heaven knows what crime or guilty thought her priests had bidden her to atone by such ® penance, Poor solitary wretch, with her own griefs, her own courage and her own hopes, perhaps beyond the tomb! Beside her, a4 she neared a little bridge which had been cast athwart a stream for temporary purposes, was an expostulating woman amidst a bevy of laughing girls, who tried to coax her mule on while she unconsciously endeavored to pull him back and screamed from fright. But perhaps the most surprising sight to see were the practical contrivances of M. le Curd, sent abroad all alone for the frst time by his careful housekeeper, with an injunction not to catch cold, His reverend head was usually bound up in ® large red cotvon hand- kerchief in strict accordance with @ promise obtained from him before his departure. A stout market basket and a tin saucepan hung on his arms, while before him, on his ass, were piled a cushion for the third class trains, @ bottle of strong ‘waters in case of need,tand a couple of stout blan- kets, 80 that the worthy creature often looked like ®& perambulating household. I saw one with an enormous woollen comforter round his neck in the stifling hoat of the August noon, and one who had been told to.nack bis head la paper aad bad done 7 it. They had the habits of solitary men, those rev-" erend fathers, but they came out well ag * MUSCULAR CHRISTIANS, and some of the young vicars gambolled up and down the mountain side like wild colts. It was a very poor country—poor as Ireland half @century ago; poor as the Scotch highlands be- fore the late Duke of Sutheriand’s time. But the land is good and productive, and the mountaineers hardy and parsimonious, 1 gave a cigar to one of them, and he wrapped it in his hanakerchief, say- ing that he would smoke it as a treat next Sunday. 1 inquired into his condition, and found that he was a farmer who cultivated his own land. There 1a little GOITRE AT LA SALETTE, but @ great deal of that fearful disease in the neighboring villages, where there are many nut trees. Ileave it to physicians to decide whether there is any sympathy between nuts and goltre. I merely record tne fact above mentioned. After nearly three hours’ ride we saw a proces- sion wind round the summit of the mountain and heard distant singing. Presently the sound of bells came softly through the air. The weather was extraordinarily fine, and again I thought, as I had often thought before, how pretty is this piety which finds its symbols upon mountain tops, and in grotwoes and fountains hallowed by angel footsteps. Beneath us laya scene of marvellous beauty. Cataracts dashed and rivulets played, torrents sparkled and forests waved round the shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, which that ortho- dox publication, “Murray’s Handbook,’ calls am imposture. An imposture? How do we know itis an im- posture? And then in the next breath declare that we know nothing of the invisible world! Is it more reasonable to believe that Heaven has aban doned us than to think that the Almighty cau » manifest mercy and His power? We are such poor worms that it is but natural we should hail with joy and hope anything which seems at least ta assure us of alife beyond the grave; and surely the results of an imposture are seldom 80 benefh cent as those which have followed the alleged apparition of the Virgin at La Salette. Idismounted at the house of Maximin Giraud, the boy (now a man) who saw the vision. He sells pilgrims’ staves, and other things. Was not on of the apostles a tent maker, and did he not sup- port himself by the fair prices he got for his goods? There has been a great outery among British shopkeepers because friend Maximin keeps a shop also. I see no reason for it. The man does not sell Dolson, af English brewer baronets do; he does not sell shoddy, like some of the Yorkshire lords; he is not @ usurer, like the peers of Mr. Pitt and the friends of Mr. Gladstone. Why suould he not turn a penny? He does not pretend to be a rich man, He wa a cowherd, nothing more; and is not worth to-day, at more than forty years of age, £20. ‘This Maximin Giraud who saw the Virgin Marg told me his story word for word, as I have already related it to the readers of the New YORK HERALD, Ihave rather a wide experience of rogues, having had much to do with Foreign OMce agents and other cunning persons who had sharp eyes fo their own interests, and I am sure that this Maxi min Giraud is nota rogue. Honesty 1s written im his tace as plainly as I ever saw it traced om human features. He is a stout, unpretending man, witn trustful eyes, very simple and direct in his speech, and makes a visible etfort to be scrupu- lously correct in his narrative. I have always been of opinion, however, that A BHEEWD WOMAN OF THE WORLD is the best judge of a man’s character, where her affections are not engaged. So! would not trust my own first impressions of Maximin Giraud, but went in search of an old friend of mine who hed once been an ambassadress. “Duchess,” I said to her, “I want you to give me your candid opinion of a new acquaintance,” and, laughing at my coolness, but not displeased—for she, too, had just arrived and did not know whatto do with herself and sister till high mass—she a0- companied me to Maximin Giraud’s shop. He was standing in the doorway looking out quietly at the crowd. “That is the man,” I whispered, and again I ene tered into conversation with him, while the Duchess listened with half-closed eyes, and I saw that she scanned him keenly and weighed every word he said. Then she talked to him herself, and her sister talked, and neither of them had the slightest idea of his name or business ia this world. “well?” I said, as Her Grace made a slight move- ment with her fan, as though she were hoistinga fairy sail and I knew that she was going. “Eh bien,” she replied, raising her dark eye brows, which were once incomparably lovely and are still so full of grace and wit—“Eh bien, c'est un don homme 1” “Et votla tout?” T asked. “gt voila tout,” remarked Her Grace, alter @ moment’s reflection. “pas un peu—mais un petit peu—mechant ? Men- teur, par exemple ?” “Comment! Cet homme a? Pas le moindre du monde, Je ne le croirat jamais,” returned Her Grace, decidedly, ‘Then I told her we had talked to Maximin Gt raud, the man who saw the Virgin, and she crossed herself imperceptibly, saying ‘(Mon Dieur c'est dono bien vrai,” with the most charming Parisian accent, At eleven o'clock the Bishop of Grenoble preached to FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED PILGRIMS in the open alr, as a few days before he haf& preached to 6,000 pilgrims, standing upon the spot where the Virgin was first seen surrounded by & halo of light, and weeping, as women weep, for the sins of the world. He stood upon a splendid dais; with banners all of silk and gold waving ta the right and left of him, His sermon was a noble effort of oratory; his voice full, harmonious and impressive. Belore him was a magnificent pano- rama, with snow-clad mountains in the back- ground. Among the congregation were troops of white-clothed nuns, Swiss peasants, fashionably dressed ladies and some of the first gentlemen im France. They were very hushed and attentive as they sat at the prelate’s feet, and nis awful words pealed out like thunder, He said that there were TWO FRENCH PEOPLES, a Christian and a pagan people. He foretold that the one would save the other, and then he uttered @ passionate prayer for Alsace-Lorraine. ‘There was a loud clapping of hands when sermon closed, and as those who knelt for bi benediction rose up there was a clatter of the chaplets which the pilgrims wore, like the Tattling of some saintly armor. ‘There was aiso AN ASTONISHED DONKEY, with cocked ears, stanaing out prominently ona hill top, with only the sky for a background, mak- ing him very visible, and he suddenly began to bray in a frantic manner, much as AN EMINENT DISSENTER would have done in his place. The Convent of La Saiette isa large building, without any architece tural beauty, and to it is annexed a spacious church, Every stone of this edifice was brought up the mountain on the backs of mules, and is a testi-, mony to the piety and manificence of the Roman Catholic believers in the greatest of modern mira cles. It is & common delusion that monks are free livers and jolly fellows, who know how toappreciate good cookery. I have lived with a good many monks, however, and I never had a good dinner with them or could persuade them to have a good, dinner with me, At Rhodes they ate rancid bacom ahd horse beans, At many monasteries I could get nothing at all, and at Lesbos they were unable to roast a brace of partridges I myseif had shot, At La Salette they seemed also to have the crudest and rudest notion of the culinary art, Tasked a young legitimist count where I could get something ta eat, and he pointed over his shoulder, with & Mor=, tifed air, to the refectory of the monastery. I went there, and found a dense crowd packed in A narrow stone passage, waiting for another dense crowd who were eating their breakfast in the only dining room of the establishment. There 1 re- mained, jammed in by elbows and legs, ina dim light, for fuily three-quarters of an hour, It was no joke, Ithonght my right arm would have been broken by two young rufians, who had come, o@ they said, “fora lark,” in the hot rush whieh too place for seats when our turn came to go into the Gining room. Look the Bearcat scat to the doo es ee M