23 JANUARY 1864, Page 19

A CLERICAL SENSATION NOVEL.*

THE sufferings of the poor Waldenses have long been a fruitful theme for the writings of historical essayists. The spectacle of a small community of less than twenty thousand souls with- standing for centuries the attacks of large armies, sent into the field by the Dukes of Savoy, naturally attracted the attention of all lovers of the bold and extraordinary in history, and if, as it often happened, their religious opinions coincided with those of the brave mountaineers, they were easily led to regard their deeds as nothing less than marvellous, seeing in them the direct finger of God in history. As something more than historical enthusiasm was requisite to understand the annals of the Waldenses, from the political and social, no less than the religions point of view, things, persons, and events were, in many instances, somewhat roughly handled, until at last the simple story of the peasants of the Cottian Alps has become a complete mythology, in the figures of which the real heroes would have great difficulty in recognizing their own portraits. From fighting Christians, not at all inclined to be tearful, but holding valiantly to their free- hold lands and the homes of their ancestors, they were meta- morphosed, by pious missionaries, into praying saints, using quotations from the Gospels as ordinary language, and looking at life through the mind of Job. This is the account given of the Waldenses by Dr. Alexis Muston, minister of the French Evangelical Church, who wrote four thick volumes about them, containing many wonderful tales about " the Israel of the Alps." An English clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Gilly, repeated not a few of these, often very romantic and often very dull stories, in his " Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains of Piedmont," which, on account of its miraculous stories, created quite a sensation at the time of its appearance, some thirty years ago. The taste for sensation having greatly increased in the course of another generation, it was felt in some quarters that something more might be done with Waldensian history to bring it up to the level of the age. Accordingly, the Rev. William Bramley-Moore, M.A., has shaped a portion of it into a "historical romance," or a romancing history. The rev. author in his romance presents the reader with a superabun- dant feast of horrors. - Madness, murder, rapine, assassinations, poisonings, conflagrations, " all the tortures which wanton cruelty can devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair," &c., are depicted faithfully and with great accuracy. Mr. Bramley-Moore fondly hopes that the in- terest in his horrors will be heightened by the knowledge that they are presented to the reader for a charitable purpose. The " charity " is thus explained by Mr. Branaley-Moore:— "So far from it being our duty, in charity, to cast a veil over the crimes of the Romish Church, that arch-conspirator against the liberties of mankind, it is a charity to the human race to unmask their enemy, and to warn the present generation of the onslaught of an insidious foe." The rev. author evidently reckons upon • The Six Sisters of the Valleys. An hietorical romance. Ey the Rev. Wlillant Bramley-Moore, .M.A. Three role. London Longman.

gaining no small circle of readers by apostrophizing the " human race."

The plot of the historical romance is laid in the farm of La Baudene, in the valley of Lucerne, inhabited by the family of Prins, consisting of six brothers who have married six sisters ; the whole of them, with children, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, and cousins, living together on the communistic system, with- out division of property. The eldest brother, who had married the eldest sister, was recognized as the head of the little colony, established on the principles of Saint•Simonism. There was perfect bliss in the happy family of La BaudSne, unbroken by even the faintest cloud on their social horizon. This bliss, however, was fated to be changed into sudden misery, by a decree of the Court of Rome, which ordered either the conversion:or the extirpation of the Waldenses. This edict, issued in May, 1650, was carried into effect in 1655, by Prince Charles Emanuel, of Savoy, at the instigation of the propaganda De Extirpandis litereads. The events of this campaign of 1655 resemble on a small scale the present Russian exploits in Poland, though some of the historians of the Waldenses, Dr. Muston among others, de- scribe them as tenfold more cruel, and, in fact, of so fiendish a nature as to stagger•beIief. Charles Emanuel was a prince of a most kindly and amiable disposition, and as it is incredible that such cool-blooded horrors as those vouched for by Dr. Muston should have been committed by his own troops withouthis sanction, it is no less incredible that he should have ordered them. How- ever, Mr. Bramley-Moore, not content with all the hideous deeds of blood ascribed by the zealous French Calvinist historian to the doings of Romish priests, spices his romance with a goodly

amount of additional murder and bloodshed. The central group of the picture is formed by the once happy Prins family, who are all murdered in a barbarous fashion, with the exception of a young girl, Ardoine, the leading heroine of the historical romance. She is, of course, of matchless beauty, and as unlike a peasant girl as romance can make her. In an excursion from Turin, we once had a peep into these Waldensian villages—still occupying the place where they stood for twenty genera- tions—and found the men very hard-working peasants, as un- romantic and as sharp at driving a bargain as any Swiss cottagers ; and the women as strong as the men, and sharing the labours of the field with them and the beasts of burden. Ardoine, it is unnecessary to say, has nothing in common with these matter- of-fact Waldensians, but is " quite a lady." Except that she speaks the language of the Religious Tract Society, she might figure for a Belgravian duchess, a French marchioness, or the daughter of a Spanish grandee. Her cousin Raynald is the first to fall in love with her ; but she does not respond to his feelings, he being clearly too vulgar for her taste. A scamp of a Pied- montese soldier, Dagot by name, becomes next enamoured of Ardoine, but is killed at the right moment by the third lover, Echard, a Piedmontese officer, and presumed son of the Marquis Pianesse, leader of the Roman Catholic army of invasion. His affection is returned by the heroine, and the two get duly married at the end of the three volumes, though not before all the rest of the religious people, who were introduced to the reader in the first volume, have been murdered, or massacred, or died under frightful tortures on the rack or the gallows. Ardoine's course of true love does not run smooth either. A priest, called Malvicino, the evil genius of the historical romance, falls likewise in love with the heroine, and, to awaken her feelings of affection, tortures her a little—not symbolically, but on a real rack, with ropes and pulleys. While engaged in this loving occupation, Malvicino is interrupted by the Marquis Pianesse, who, notwithstanding that he is presented as an Italian gentleman and proud warrior, takes it into his head to pull him- self the rack, and to force his son Echard to do the same. Echard refuses to comply, whereupon the two'fall to fighting, which ends in the cords of Ardoine being loosened. The heroine is then placed under the protection of the noble Marquis, her fifth lover, Echard is confined in a dungeon, but breaks loose in time to prevent a marriage between Ardoine and his father—who turns out to be not his father. Then comes an abundance of more fighting, torturing, burning, hanging, and general mischief- making, until at last all are killed off save Echard and Ardoine. "Receive my blessing, my boy!" cries a voice from the clouds ; after which the romance finishes, in orthodox style, with a wedding.

While groping our way through the horrors of this historical romance, in the midst of which the rather silly love story of the peasant-lady Ardoine disappears like fresh air in a butcher's

• Prow Dan to Beersheba; or, NoWara and &Whom Fr es Lonthn: Chapman shambles, there is one reflection which impresses itself forcibly and

upon the mind. It is that the old hobby-horse of a certain school of so-called religious writers, delighting in unmeasured abuse, not only of the Church of Rome, but of all her ministers and adherents, has been somewhat over-ridden, and is in danger of being taken for an ass. Mr. Bramley-Moore, in si ttingdown to pen his three-volume historical romance, evidently did so with the fixed intention of producing a striking figure of the " arch-conspirator against the liberties of mankind," and the result is as grotesque a picture as was ever seen in a Punch and Judy pantomime. Anything more preposterously absurd than the description and talk of his Roman Catholic priests, bishops, noblemen, and gentlemen, it is impossible to imagine. Here is a specimen of the language of the confessor of the Marchioness Pianeise :—" Perdition take the Council of Placentia and their decree about celibacy ; but, so far as practice goes, it's worse than a dead letter. The Vicars of Christ don't seem to care much for its practice, so I don't see why a holy Franciscan should." Aril again, a prayer by the same:—"O Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven, look upon thy servant in his distress ! Immaculate Queen, have I not been zealous for thy glory, and a champion for thy pure birth? I will devote to thee the largest wax-tapers in Turin ; I will say three

dozen Ayes every day ; yea, I will give twelve wax candles to the shrine of the Immaculate Conception, if thou wilt help me and deliver this girl ! Well, they're coming this way I see no help !

Malvicino, monk of the Order of St. Francis of Assisi, thou art a madman, and thou wilt be obliged to keep thy vow of celibacy against thy will!" All this nonsense is warranted by the author not fiction, but authentic fact, to the extent that even "the

allusions in the conversations are more or less historical, and can be verified by references." The threatened references are wisely left out, for which the reader has cause to be thankful. In extenuation, it may be said that the author's own language is no less extraordinary than that which he puts into the mouths of his heroes and heroines. The following is a bit in the admiration mood, taken at random :—" Church of the mountains ! Church of the valleys ! At once the eagle and the dove ! Thou hast set thy nest in a rock, and for thy worship Nature herself has reared a shrine ! Wondrous in thy purity 1 Wondrous in thy martyrs ! Wondrous in thy littleness ! Wondrous in thy invincibility ! Wondrous in thy solitude amidst the apostacies of nations."— Wondrous in thy style, 0 Bramley-Moore I To all the misfortunes which the poor Waldenses have had to undergo during the last four or five centuries, there is now added the additional one of being compelled to furnish material for a sensational novel. But one step more, and Mr. Fechter will put them on the stage of his regenerated melodrama. A fit intro-

ductory monologue has already been furnished by the author of the Six Sisters. It runs :—" Look at those snow-clad crags, bathed in sunshine, piercing to heaven. Let those Alps, the crystal habitation of the God of Nature, surround the seething,

lurid Cities of the Plain which edge the shore of the Dead Sea." If this is not a conundrum, it must be acknowledged a" wondrous " specimen of fine writing. The " crystal habitation of the God of Nature " sounds beautiful, whatever the meaning may be in the symbolism of Evangelical Churchmen ;but the pathos is nothing

less than exquisite in " the seething, lurid Cities of the Plain which edge the shore of the Dead Sea." It reads like a sermon of Mr. Punshon's, or like an extract from the leading columns of our venerable contemporary, the Record.