"I was expecting to hear some tale about robbers in that cutthroat-looking place, but my guide only said, 'This is the place, sir, where the daughter of the Baron de Malpeire came to life again.' 'What daughter?' I asked. 'Oh, the one who is now full of health and spirits. When she was just seven years old she sickened and died, as all her brothers and sisters had done, who have now been a long time in Heaven. She was so really and truly dead that they put her into a coffin, with a white wreath on her head and a crucifix between her hands, and set out from the castle to lay her in the vault of the old chapel at the bottom of the hill, which is the burial-place of the lords of the manor. When the young girls who were carrying the body arrived at this spot they were tired, and placed the coffin on that stone seat whilst they rested a little. M. le Curé had left off chanting the Libera nos Domine. Nobody spoke, and not a sound was to be heard except the murmur of the torrent flowing through the ravine. All at once a little voice came out of the coffin. The child sat up, looked about her as if for the water, and said, "I am so thirsty." All who were there felt frightened when they saw her lift up her shroud; but M. le Curé took her up in his arms and carried her back to her mother alive and well.' This story, I can hardly tell why, made me shudder. I had been dwelling incessantly during my journey on thoughts of love and marriage. I trembled to think how near I had been losing my bride. The wild scenery and the gloomy grandeur of the surrounding country worked on my imagination; I was enraptured with the aromatic perfume of the Alpine plants, the solitary beauty of the mountains, the confused but harmonious sounds which rose from the deep woods, the delicious air I was breathing! It was in this frame of mind that I arrived at Malpeire. The castle was at that time an old fortress, to which some modern additions had been from time to time joined on. It was surrounded by formidable walls and flanked by crested towers; but a new frontage concealed the lower part of the keep, which stood at the edge of a perpendicular rock above the precipice. The windows were provided with green blinds, and the platform on which they looked had been transformed into a little flower-garden, open to every wind. But these embellishments had altered in nothing the character of the old baronial residence. The principal entrance was to the north, and on that side the castle completely preserved the warlike and severe aspect of the buildings of the middle ages. A wide moat surrounded the ramparts, and the entrance-gate stood between two little towers, still furnished with falconets. The drawbridge existed in the same state as at the time of the wars of Provence, but for many years it had not been raised, and its solid planks formed a kind of passage, without chains or hand-rail. When I arrived the sun was just setting. I dismounted at the drawbridge, and throwing the bridle of my horse to the guide, I walked on, looking about for some one to speak to. After going through a vaulted passage, I came into a large court surrounded by ancient buildings, the mullioned windows of which were all closely shut up. No one appeared, and so profound was the silence that the castle might have been supposed to be uninhabited. After once walking round the court, I ventured to push open a door which stood ajar, and I saw before me the first steps of a winding staircase and a niche in the wall with an image of the Blessed Virgin surrounded with bouquets. I went up, feeling my way as I ascended, and on reaching the first landing-place found myself at the entrance of a spacious and lofty room, the furniture of which seemed to me to date

from the time of the League. A solitary lamp was burning at the corner of a table. By its light I could just discern the tapestried walls, the high-backed chairs, the large branch candlesticks of copper, and the chimney, with its heavy mantlepiece projecting over the hearth like a stone canopy. I concluded that this room, or rather hall, must be the ante-chamber of another apartment, where I could hear the sharp shrill yapping of a little dog who was barking furiously, no doubt at the sound of a strange footstep. I knocked to give notice of my presence, and a stout serving-girl, dressed in green baize, made her appearance; but without allowing me time to give an account of myself, she ran towards the door at the other end, calling out, Mdlle. Boinet, Mdlle. Boinet.' A middle-aged woman, with the air and manner of a confidential attendant in a great family, then came forward and made me a low curtsey. When I mentioned my name she assumed a smiling, discreet expression of countenance, which seemed intended to convey that she knew what I was come about, and with a true Parisian accent, which showed her to have been born within hearing of the bells of Notre Dame, she said, 'I beg, sir, to offer you my most humble respects. I will hasten to inform Madame la Baronne of your arrival.' A moment afterwards the folding-doors opened, and Madame la Baronne herself coming forward, said to me, M. de Champaubert, I beg you a thousand pardons. I am more shocked than I can express that you did not find any one below to show you up. The fact is, we did not expect you till to-morrow.' I apologised for having arrived thus unexpectedly, and Madame la Malpeire having invited me in, I offered my hand to lead her back to her room. When I crossed the threshold of the door I was so taken by surprise that I could not help exclaiming, 'This is something marvellous, Madame le Baronne! You have managed to carry off the salon of one of the most charming hotels of the Faubourg St. Germain, or of Versailles, and to place it at the top of this mountain!' 'Well,' she answered, laughing, 'I have contrived to arrange a corner of this old castle so as to make it possible to live in it. When the curtains are drawn and the candles lighted, I can almost fancy myself at Paris. But, alas! when I look out the illusion is at an end. Instead of the gardens of the Luxembourg, I see nothing from my window but the roofs of the village, and on every side rocks, woods, and mountains. Indeed, I have often been tempted to say what my late mother-in-law, she was a Forbin Janson, wrote from here to her uncle the Cardinal, just after she was married "Here I am, lodged in the skies, with the eagles at my back, and near enough to the moon to touch it with my hand." She laughed again, and after inviting me to sit down, and taken up on her knees the little spaniel, who still kept growling at me sotto voce, she sank back into her chair in a gracefully indolent attitude. The Baronne de Malpeire was a thin small woman, who looked at first sight much younger than she was. Her dress was somewhat old-fashioned, but it was in keeping with the style of her delicate features and her coquettish manners. What with rouge and powder, her complexion exhibited the peculiar brilliancy of a pretty family portrait. She managed to wear, with all the easy grace of a grande dame, that most troublesome invention of the last century, an enormous flounced petticoat spreading over two stiff projecting pockets, and walked with great dignity in the most prodigiously high-heeled shoes. I was too much absorbed, too much agitated, to attend much to anything but the one predominating thought in my mind. Every

66

sound made me start, and I kept watching the door in hopes every moment of seeing Mdlle. de Malpeire appear, though I could not summon courage to inquire after her or even to pronounce her name. 'The Baron is out shooting, as usual,' Madame de Malpeire said; 'but it will not be long now before he comes home. In the meantime, I will order some refreshments to be brought up for you here. What will you have? a little wine, with a slice of dry toast? or a glass of eau sucrée, perhaps?' I declined, but she insisted. 'Well, but a cup of coffee, then, with me? Nobody ever refuses a cup of coffee. Mdlle. Boinet, bring the little table here, and ring that we may send for hot water.' The lady-in-waiting pushed a little round stand in front of her mistress, and placed upon it, between two lighted candles, a small chest of sandal wood. Madame de Malpeire opened this case and took out of its blue velvet compartments, a coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and those two little cups you see on the chimney-piece." Oh, I felt sure of it!" I cried, clasping my hands on my forehead. The Marquis looked at me with a faint smile, and continued"When the coffee was ready, Madame de Malpeire poured it out into the two cups, gave me one, and as she took the other herself, she said, ‘Mdlle. Boinet, will you let my daughter know that I wish to see her. Not one word more, if you please?' I felt that I changed colour, but I said nothing. My agitation seemed to amuse Madame de Malpeire. Come now,' she whispered, with a smile, 'it would be all very well if you were the young lady.' After a pause, she added more seriously, 'That little girl of mine does not, you know, expect to see you here, so you must not be surprised if she does not welcome you at the first moment in the way you deserve.' 'I deserve nothing yet,' I cried. 'I can only hope. And I do hope, madame, that I shall not prove unworthy in your daughter's eyes of the happiness that has been promised to me.' Almost at the moment I was saying this, Mdlle. de Malpeire came in by the door opposite to the one which opened on the large room. I had heard the sound of her light footstep; but when she saw me, she stopped short and seemed inclined to make her escape. Her mother, to relieve her embarrassment, rose, took her by the hand, and leading her forward, said in a playful manner, 'This is my daughter, sir, a very shy young lady, but when she has seen more of the world I have no doubt she will soon learn to make herself agreeable.' I muttered a few words of compliment, to which Mdlle. de Malpeire made no reply beyond a silent curtsey, and then, with a cold, distant, almost haughty, expression of countenance, she sat down by her mother. The shyness which Madame de Malpeire had spoken of evidently amounted either to an excessive reserve or a total absence of any desire to please. But so great was the charm about this beautiful creature, that, in spite of her ungraciousness, it was impossible not to be irresistibly captivated. That portrait gives only a faint idea of her loveliness. Who could ever have painted the exquisite delicacy of her complexion, and her eyes, which seemed at one moment to flash fire and an instant afterwards to express the most bewitching sweetness? Yes, she was wonderfully beautiful. She possessed that extraordinary power of fascination which robbed Adam of Paradise, and would have beguiled Satan himself had he been made of mortal clay. Dazzled by this lovely vision, I lost all self-possession, and really during the whole of that evening I must have appeared a perfect fool. For the first time in my life, I had fallen desperately in love.

Rome beneath the Ground.

IN one of the chambers of the Catacomb of St. Callixtus there is a picture of the Good Shepherd standing in the midst of His flock, who are peaceably feeding at His feet. But His eyes are roaming afar off where other sheep, not of His fold, are wandering about in dry places, and He despatches His under-shepherd in haste to bring these abandoned ones to Him. They go, and some of the sheep, obedient to their call, come bounding forward into the fold, whilst streams of pure water pour down upon them. One such poor wanderer was by my side at the time, and as I simply interpreted to him the meaning of the picture, how the early Christian artist was speaking to us by his work over the fifteen centuries which have passed by since he went to his rest, preaching to us of one fold under one shepherd, the one Catholic Church under its one Divine Head, within which alone there is salvation, of the sacred Ministers sent forth through the world to call in the nations, and of the waters of baptism by which they are received into it, just as the Ministers of the Catholic Church now preach, the simple majesty of the thought struck him, and in a low solemn voice of conviction, he said to me through his tears, "Yes, it is true. The Church of the present and the Church of the Catacombs is the same, and I must belong to it. He is calling me now, and I must be a member of the Church to which the old Martyrs belonged." Then I thanked the Good Shepherd, the Martyr whose body reposed at our feet, and the artist who had preached to us so well, and I led my friend a little further to the spot where two figures were painted on the wall behind an ancient Christian altar. "To-day," I said to him (it was the evening of the 19th of January), "we celebrate the First Vespers of these two-the one a Pope, the other a noble Papist. On the right is St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, on the left is the bold Christian warrior St. Sebastian. Let us pray on this spot, where the Holy Sacrifice has been so often offered up in times of persecution." We knelt down and prayed silently for a few moments, when, rising up, he said to me, "Now I have found peace." We then passed on into a little room, where the three Sacraments of Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist, were represented-Baptism under the figure of Moses striking the rock, Penance by the paralytic carrying his bed, the Eucharist by a tripod, or sacrificial table, on which was placed bread and a fish, and at one side a Priest with hands imposed in the act of declaring that what seemed bread was in truth the Ichthus-(1)ησούς Χριστός, (Θεού (Ψ)ιος, (Σωτηρ—whilst on the other side a woman with arms extended represented the Church assisting at the Holy Sacrifice in the attitude of prayer. In the next chamber was a banquet, or the Eucharist our food, and again it was typified by the sacrifice of Isaac. Once more I led him into another chamber, where it is depicted under what Protestants would call an especially Papistic symbol. A live fish is rearing his head above the water, and

on his back he carries a basket of bread and a flask of wine. What you see seems bread and wine, but they are only sacramental appearances; the reality underneath is no other than the living Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour. Then he said to me, "Oh, Father, these things might have been painted on purpose for me." At length we issued from the catacombs, and silently made our way back to the Eternal City. Before long he realised in himself what he had seen depicted on the grave-walls.

We have related this touching little incident of a conversion, for whose truth we can vouch upon the authority of one of the persons concerned, because it seems exactly to express what must be the thoughts and feelings of any one who comes, unprejudiced and unsophisticated, to read of or to see the eloquent history of the early Church engraven on the walls and gravestones of the catacombs. The facts themselves, as they are disclosed to us in their naked simplicity, before a scientific investigation has taken them in hand, speak to us of a religion essentially one with the Catholic faith of the present day, or if differing from it, differing only as the child differs from the fullgrown man. But when we come to study these facts, to arrange and compare them, and to apply to them such tests as a judicious criticism suggests, the conclusions legitimately gathered are still more unmistakable. We cannot, therefore, but feel hopeful that most beneficial results will accrue from the new discoveries, especially among our own countrymen. The life of those early Christians to whom they appeal, is spread out before them. At least by the light which the writings of the Fathers, in themselves perhaps hard to understand, throw upon it, they will be able to understand it. Let them compare it first with their own Establishment, and the different forms of worship which cluster round it, next with the Catholic Church of the present day, and then say which bears upon its face the lineaments of that parent from whom they both claim to have sprung. Assuredly the conclusion which will irresistibly force itself upon them will be, This Church was not Protestant; and when an attentive study has rendered them capable of distinguishing its features more accurately, they will be constrained to add another, It was Catholic. And if there is thus much to hope for with regard to Protestants from the daily-increasing discoveries among the catacombs, Catholics will find in them a great confirmation of their faith and a wonderful consolation amidst their present trials.

Hitherto we have been at a disadvantage in our studies on this subject through want of suitable books. The large and