A CHRISTIAN HERO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 358, 27 February 1880, Page 16

A CHRISTIAN HERO.

Some nine or ten months after the massacre of the hostages during the Commune in 1871, I was walking down the Rue de Sevres, says a writer in Catholic Progress, for December, and endeavouring to thread my way through a dense crowd gathered round the archway leading to the church of Ihe Jesuit Fathers, when my attention was attracted by the unusual demeanour of the people. Snatches of the Magnificat caught my ear on all sides, and a holy excitement seemed to possess the whole mass of the people. I was about to enquire the cause, when the pxclamation of a lady weeping at my side checked me. " Mother of God," she murmured, "it was indeed my father, my own holy father ! " She noticed my looks of curiosity, and she drew my attention to another woman, who was sobbing violently. The lady then interpreted to me the tale which the sobs of the unhappy woman who related it rendered almost unintelligible to the ear of a foreigner. The excitement of the crowd I had met was occasioned by the instantaneous cure of a young gentleman who had been a cripple all his life. The youth had made a novena with his friends to the Jesuit martyrs of the Commune, and was hearing Mass on the ninth day at the altar, where the remains of the holy victims lie bnried. He had invoked particularly the aid of Pcrc Olivaint. At the time of the Elevation he felt himself cured, and rising from his reclining posture, first knelt with his parents and then walked out of the church as easily as his neighbours. The news of this miracle, spreading through the bystanders, foil with peculiar force, it seemed, on the ear of this poor girl, who now, threading her way through the crowd, and hiding her face in her hands, sobbed out her tale. Her story was as follows, and I. a witness of her grief, have no hesitation in believing it, though my emotion prevented my remembering her address and name, which she mentioned to one of those who were present at the time. It seems that on the day when certain rf the hostages were marched half round Paris to the Rue Haxo, where, as we know, their good works were crowned, and their faith sealed with their blood, this poor creature was in the gang of women and boys that followed the soldiers, with the avowed intention of insulting the victims of their malice to the last. In the procession of doomed men, said the woman, there was an old priest, whose white hair descended to his shoulders. Weakened by his long imprisonment, he gradually fell out of the ranks ; unobserved by his fellow-sufferers, he tottered forward, until not even the goading bayonet could urge him fuilher. At last his limbs sank under him, and he fell, like our Lord under the the cross, beneath the feet of the hooting multitude, when, horrible to relate, he was " set upon" by the women and children, and, m spite of the soldiers, was torn to pieces. This brutality made such an impression an the unhappy girl, that she, according to her own account, began to think of tho last time she had gone to confession. Alas ! she had neglected the good counsel given her by (he zealous priest, and had returned to her evil ways. Thus musing, she arrived at the place where the " hostages'" weic to be shot ; but suddenly tho news came that the Versaillais were maiching on them, and terror gave place to bloodthirsty rage. The soldiers who were fellow-prisoners with the priests attempted to defend themselves by a hand-to-hand struggle, but they were unarmed, and their enemies numerous. A scene of the most frightful slaughter and confusion ensued ; the priests stood still and passive to be butchered. It was at this awful moment that she, already half penitent, recognised among the victims the confessor of whom she had been thinking It was Pere Olivaint, and she described him as standing amongst the band of devoted priests who thus awaited their crewn of martyrdom, wrapped in a holy calm, nay, radiant with joy, as though he were already m heaven. The slaughter was the work of a few moments : the victims were hacked with sword-bayonet, riddled with shot or struck c"own with the first missile that presented itself. They fell in heaps, soldiers and priests, pell-mell, the latter, however, receiving by way of distinction, greater insult and more merciless blows, until they presented an appearance too ghastly for description. The woman, weeping, wanderod among the bleeding bodies in search of Pcrc Olivaint, and found him and another Jesuit, who was dressed in secular clothes, and answered to the description of Pere de 13engy, lying near each other, and both perfectly conscious. Though friglitfully mutilated, there was still a smile* on Pere Olivaint's lips, and words of holy joy. to the effect that he was at last suffering a little tor Jesus. As soon as he recognised her. he said, as calmly as if in ms confessional in the Hue de Sevres, " Come here, my child, and make your confession." "Oh, father,"' slic exclaimed, "you arc suttenng. too much to hear me." " No,'" he replied, " Jesus suffered more for us, my child. Ah, to suffer for Jesus is too great a happiness ! And then this poor Magdalen knelt down in a pool of martyr blood, and made her confession, while his words of encouragement grew fainter and fainter amidst the groans of the dying. The" words of absolution had scarcely left his lips before some Communists rushed to the spot. The Versaillais were steadily advancing. The hostages must be quick about dying, so their bodies, living and dead, were laid hold of and flung into the immense hole dug for the j-nrpose, there to gasp out their last prayers and sighs. The earth was hastily stamped down over this dreadful giavc. The angels carried the martyrs' last sighs to heaven, and this poor Magdalen crept home to Belleville with the blood of the martyrs on her garment, and the saving blood of Jesus on her soul ! '• It is no surprise to me," concluded the poor girl, " that miracles should be worked by the relics of these priests for they were martyrs buried alive, after the most horrible sufferings." I give the story unvarnished, as it was related to me, nor have I any hesitation in saying 1 believe it thoroughly. Those who had the privilege of observing closely the lives of these martyred priests, know well that their previous lives had been but a series of preparatory steps towards this crowning sacrifice. And those who have studied the spirit of the Order to which Pere Olivaint belonged will not find this story incredible, remembering as they must that St. Ignatius' aim was to foim a company of saints who should combine the soldier and the priest. In thinking of the maityrs of the Commune and their terrible sufferings, in rehearsing to myself this last

scene in a long life of sacrifice, my horror gave place to a sense of infinite streugth and confidence. God has not forgotten His people. There are still upon the earth saints whose lives rise up as holy incense to Him. The same faith and love, the same Jesus, that sustained Pere Olivaint in the duties of his vocation even at the gates of death, this same faith, this same love, this same Jesus is ours. H.S.