IRISH SAINTS IN FRANCE.*
READERS of Six Months in the Apennines—a book which, if not very attractive to the general public, was found most interesting by all those who cared for its special subjects— will be glad and ready to follow Miss Stokes on her new pilgrimage, this time through part of France, in search of traces of her missionary countrymen. But it may be as well to begin the notice of her new book by a few words of ex- planation for students who have not read the former one.
Miss Stokes began her travels a few years ago with the object suggested by Bishop Reeves in 1853, and pursued since that time by several scientific men, especially on the lines of philological study—this object being to gather up " fragments of national history," " legitimate materials for national pride," and by this means to make sight-seeing an aid to patriotism, or, as the Bishop rather quaintly put it, to " discover matter for self-respect." He was quite justified, for there is scarcely a country in Europe where the Irish did not make their mark in very early times. Following in the footsteps of her Celtic countrymen, footsteps of twelve hundred years ago, Miss Stokes finds the mark of their genius in architecture and decoration, carving, metal-work- now chiefly known by coins and bells of the Merovingian period—and she leans to the belief that enamelling was originally a Celtic art, probably introduced into Gaul by those missionaries who were certainly great artists in illuminating books. St. Eloi, Bishop of Noyon, the wonder. ful artificer in metals and jewellery, was intimately known to the great Irish saints and their successors, and founded his abbey of Solignac on the model of Luxeuil, the famous founda- tion of St. Columban. The early connection of Ireland with the Continent is also shown in a most interesting way by the existence of the same legends in Ireland and France, dealing with the same animals, appearances, lights, mystic ships, sacred wells ; or of a less religions character, such as " Le Bossu de Fontenoy," which is exactly the same story as " The Fiddler of Knockgraf ton," so familiar with its "da Luan, da Mort" to everybody who loves Irish fairy-tales.
But though Miss Stokes found all these curious objects of study by the way, and derived even more pleasure from them for their own sake, we fancy, than as giving food for "self- respect " or patriotic pride, according to Bishop Reeves, het chief aim in these delightful journeys was of a more personal kind. As in Six Months in the Apennines, so in Three Months in the Forests of France, she has worked out from legend and history, assisted by every trace of early antiquity in church or cave or ancient well, the lives and wanderings of a few among those Celtic missionaries who came like a flood into Italy and France, as St. Bernard said, in the sixth and seventh centuries. It is quite impossible to give anything approaching a list of the Irish saints whose names, sometimes oddly transfigured by another language, are to be found scattered throughout the northern and eastern provinces of France. A glance at Miss Stokes's index will prove this. And while on this subject, may we express a hope that she will extend her travels and researches to Brittany one cf these days ? We fancy that she would be richly rewarded by the traces of Irish saints, even of St. Columban himself, to be found there. For instance, though she merely mentions his landing at Nantes and journey into Normandy, it seems probable that he did some missionary work by the way. A ruined church at Quimperle is dedicated to him. In the church of Locmine, near Pontivy, he has a chapel with his story in stained glass, and here he is supposed to have founded a monastery, and is reverenced, rightly or not, as the patron of lunatics, who are brought to his chapel for cure. And we know that many other missionaries, some of Royal lineage, came direct • Three Heaths in the Forest' of France: a Pilgrimage in Search of Ve.tiges of the S:.lets in I-ona41. Wi- h nomerou■ Illustrations. By Margaret Stokes,
Hnnoi Member of the Royal Irish Academy, &c. London George Bell and SoLa.
from Ireland to convert Armorica, and left at least their names and graves there.
In the present book, Miss Stokes takes up again the story of St. Columban in Eastern Gaul, having before passed lightly over this part of his life, when she followed him into Italy. She tells in detail, and with much spirit, the story of this great missionary, whose energy was not only employed in teaching and founding, but was called to a tremendous struggle with the power of darkness in the shape of Brunehant's ambitious wickedness, and the weaker vices of her grandson, Theodoric. In the peace that seems now to brood over Annegrai and Luxeuil, among the forests of the Vosges, it is very difficult to realise those wild Merovingian times, and still more, the earlier days before St. Columban and his twelve companions came from Ireland to restore the country's lost Christianity. This was in the latter part of the sixth century. In the third, fourth, and fifth, the invasions of barbarous Germanic tribes had destroyed both religion and civilisation in these provinces; in 451, they and their cities were finally devastated by Attila and the Huns, who left Luxeuil a heap of ruins, and its once culti- vated surroundings—for it was a popular place of hot springs, approached by several roads—a wild forest solitude only inhabited by wild beasts. Hither came Columban in 574, while Luxeuil was still not much better than a pagan settlement in the deserts. Here he and his monks lived, preached, baptised, and founded churches and monasteries, first at Annegrai, then at Luxeuil itself, where, from Miss Stokes's charming description of the church and its religious atmosphere, something of his spirit seems still to linger.
Columban was finally driven out of Gaul by the persecu- tions of Brunehaut, but his foundations remained, and were followed by those of his disciples and companions. One of the greatest of these, St. Deicola, still honoured as St. Desle, was the founder of the celebrated abbey of Lure, which now exists no longer ; but two of his holy wells are still to be seen in the neighbourhood. Other well-known foundations were those of Fontaines, St. Riquier, Remiremont ; but this is too long a subject, for no less than one hundred and five monasteries were founded by St. Columban and his disciples before the end of the seventh century. This will serve to show that the field for exploration is large, and, considering the time that has gone by, we think that the traces discovered are remarkably numerous and clear.
But less than half of this volume is given to the Vosges, Picardy, and St. Columban. We pass on to another Irish missionary, in his way quite as great, who landed on the shores of France nearly a hundred years later. This is St. Fursa, whose first journey was to England, of which Bede wrote : " There came out of Ireland a holy man called Fursey :" and who, under the protection of King Sigebert, founded the Church of Burghcastle, in Norfolk. In France his chief foundation was at Peronne, where he was buried, and where his relics are now enshrined in the church of Saint-Jean, his own church having been destroyed in the Revolution. Lagny was another of St. Fursa's centres, and there his disciples Algise and Gobain left him, when they went to their work at Laon- His name, as St. Farcy, is still well known through this part of France ; there is a great seventeenth-century painting of him in the town hall at Peronne, as patron of the city, and in an old manuscript preserved there we are told that every one whose diseases are beyond the science of the doctors,—
En priant it Saint Fourssy Eat test guarie et same aussy."
But the great fame of St. Fursa rests upon his wonderful visions of heaven and hell, with which Bede, who writes of him, was very familiar, and which were possibly also known to Dante, who places Bede, we know, in Paradise. Various likenesses would seem to suggest that Dante may have drawn some inspiration from early Celtic visionaries, of whom there were many, though few greater than Fursa, judging from the analysis and translation of his vision given here. But Miss Stokes only touches lightly on this question, which, if it does not directly concern Dante critics, certainly tears on the history of Christian literature. It adds interest, however, to a very interesting and suggestive book, and helps the clear impression of contrast between the two acknowledged greatest among Irish missionary Saints,—Columban, strong in will and character, like the Hebrew prophets in " devoted courage
and rude fierceness;" Fursa, gentle and thoughtful, a poet and a seer, yet yielding to no one in divine zeal, and perhaps drawing the souls of France where his great forerunner would have driven them.
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