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viii.

Machebeuf’s Intrigue

MACHEBEUF SAILED FROM NEW YORK in the second week of June 1844, and arrived at Le Havre on 6 July, not knowing whether his father still lived. But there were Ursulines at Boulogne-sur-Mer only fifty-six miles up the coast, and he had been directed by Purcell to commence his mission there. It must come first. He left Le Havre the next day to begin the affair, hoping to reach Riom during the following week without even pausing in Paris.

He carried with him a letter of introduction from Father Louis Amadeus Rappe, of Toledo, Ohio, who had come to America with him and Lamy and the others in the first place; and this he presented to the Mother Superior of the Boulogne Ursulines in their “large and magnificent convent and academy.” What could one expect offhand? There were no commitments, only a possibility of further discussions. Machebeuf hurried south to his family home in Riom—but arrived too late. His father was dead. It was a cruel loss, after all the delays of the past year. Machebeuf, his brother Marius, their sister the nun Sister Philomène at the Convent of the Visitation, consoled each other, the necessary family decisions were taken, and then duties continued.

There were other Ursulines at Beaulieu, near Tulle. What to do but write their spiritual director, M. L’Abbè Graviche, and open the subject of enlistments with him? An animated correspondence ensued over the weeks. Father Graviche seemed to favor Machebeuf’s appeal. But it was clear that locally there was great opposition to any “disestablishment” of the Ursuline convent of Beaulieu; and Boulogne, allied in a common order of religious, also remained reluctant. In the meantime, there was the other purpose of finding priests or seminarians and Machebeuf fixed upon the Grand Séminaire of Avignon as a promising source. He proceeded to Lyon, where he spent a day with his brother Marius, who lived there, and went on to Le Puy, where he arrived with a cold which he caught passing through the mountains of the lower Loire—the Monts du Morvan. A good sweat set him right and he was soon as good as ever, and he now returned to Lyon, as there turned out to be no direct route south from Le Puy. At Lyon he embarked on a Rhone steamer. The river was high, the steamer was a mean affair compared to “our American boats.” To pass the time he fell into conversation with a pair of Englishmen who spoke bad French, and who appeared to seek him out merely for the sake of a French lesson. They picked his brains about the country they passed through, about which he knew no more than they. The “Irish Question” came up with one of the English travellers, and Machebeuf confounded him so triumphantly with remarks of the injustices visited upon Irish Catholics that he retired to his English carriage, which was lashed to the deck. Docking presently at Valence-sur-Rhone, the steamer picked up more passengers, including an English family one of whom was a young man of twenty-five. When he heard Machebeuf talking in English he was delighted, they talked incessantly, Machebeuf dined with them all when they reached Avignon, and the young man, who hoped in the next year to go to America, vowed to seek out Machebeuf and renew the acquaintance. It was all most agreeable.

Interviewing faculty and seminarians must have revived memories of Clermont and Purcell and Flaget and the student days at Mont-Ferrand. Again there was a hiatus in arrangements, and Machebeuf went to Marseilles, with the great purpose of proceeding to Rome, where he arrived in November. Immediately he had marvels to report.

He said it would take volumes to describe what he saw. The churches of Rome were the greatest of things to be seen there. His very first visit was to St Mary on Minerva—a richly marbled and gilded church built on the ancient site of a temple to Minerva. He had to go five times to St Peter’s to feel at last its tremendous primacy over all other churches in the Holy City. There he descended to the tomb of the first pope, amidst the remains of the original basilica, and there, on the anniversary of the dedication of St Peter’s, he said Mass on the altar over the grave of the first of the apostles. He did the same at the altar tombs of St Paul, St Stanislas, and St Francis Xavier. At St John Lateran’s—so he said—he saw the original table of the Last Supper, and the great baldachin containing the martyred heads of Sts Peter and Paul, and went twice to the cell where St Peter had been imprisoned, and he offered Mass in the very room where St Ignatius died. At St Peter’s he ascended into the cupola and even into the sphere, large enough to contain two persons, which supported the topmost cross in Rome. By his descriptions, in their vivacity and emotion, it was plain that he knew spiritual exaltation.

But the greatest experience was yet to come—he was granted an audience with the Pope. Was it on 17 November? In any case, he was encouraged to present a detailed recital of all the missionary work in Ohio. He evidently spared his listener nothing of the hardships, the gallantries, the discouragements, the absurdities, the near-despairs and the poverty and the persecutions to which the young Frenchmen, laboring away in a new land, knew as their daily lot; for when he was done with what surely was a vivid performance, Gregory XVI said to him, “Courage, American!” and gave the Apostolic Blessing, for him, and for all his Ohioans. The exhortation was the greatest of powers which Machebeuf took away with him, one which in all after years he would remember and invoke when courage should be needed.

Going on to Venice, then, he had as travelling companion a French Franciscan who “burned with desire” to join the American missions, but Machebeuf was not sure he would do, for one could not be too careful in electing recruits, and this one seemed “too eager” and “not sufficiently prudent.” In Venice, he would consult various priests about the suppliant. In the end, the French Franciscan was not added to the party Machebeuf was laboriously assembling.

Once again in France, Machebeuf came together with Graviche to develop plans. Finally, on 20 January 1845, they went together to see Bishop Bertaud, of Tulle, to ask him to issue letters of obedience to the nearby convent which would direct that eight nuns be enlisted for America. The bishop was hesitant, his callers persuasive, and agreement eventually prevailed. But there were still difficulties. What of the Ursulines of Boulogne, who, belonging to the same order as those at Beaulieu, came under a central authority? Letters flew from Beaulieu to Boulogne but without firm issue. March first had been decided upon as the date of departure, and Machebeuf optimistically hastened to Bordeaux to arrange for the westward crossing for himself and his party. It was all to no purpose, for Boulogne did not capitulate until 10 March, when suddenly the Mother Superior consented to release three sisters—two English (both converts) and one Irish. A new departure date must be set, and in the end, could not be arranged before May, in a ship from Le Havre. Machebeuf must make another journey to Tulle in late March to resolve final qualms, difficulties, conditions. There was strong local resentment, now, in the town of Beaulieu, against the departure of any of the Ursulines. All was not yet smoothly arranged.

But Machebeuf had still another errand, and went about it in Paris during the first days of April. He had written to the French royal family begging financial aid to speed him and his party across the Atlantic. He was presented to Queen Marie Amélie, and, giving an account of himself and his needs, he mentioned Bishop Purcell. The Queen exclaimed, “Oh! that fine man! I remember him well.” She promised Machebeuf a contribution, the King would also contribute, and Princess Adelaide, King Louis Philippe’s sister, promised by letter to make a donation. Machebeuf had written to her, and also to the King’s son, the Due d’Aumale, “who is so rich,” and the Princess de Joinville, a royal daughter-in-law, an American. Hearing nothing, Machebeuf, dining with the pastor of St Roch, which was the regal parish, asked him to remind the royal personages of both requests and promises. Nothing came from the King and Queen, or the so rich royal duke, or the American princess; but Madame Adelaide sent—guess what? Two thousand francs? “Just cut off one zero,” remarked Machebeuf, noting bitterly that with all her riches two thousand would have been little enough. There was nothing to do but shrug and proceed with further begging, and, for his part, to use some of his father’s bequest to pay expenses of the voyage.

But it was still almost unimaginable what had to be contrived to get the Ursulines away from Beaulieu. They had to leave in two groups—one the newly designated superior of the mission accompanied by a sister, the other the remaining six. At night, in the disguise of peasant countrywomen, carrying bundles containing their concealed habits, they stole away, trudged back roads, knew panic when tollgate keepers seemed suspicious, had monstrous difficulties finding lodgings, but at last some reached Paris, and the others were met by Machebeuf at Brive la Gaillarde and conducted to Paris to join their sisters. When their flight was discovered, there was anger at Beaulieu, but too late. All were safely in Paris in religious houses, except for the three from Boulogne who would join the company at Le Havre for the sailing, which was now firmly set for the Feast of St Monica, 4 May. At five in the morning, Machebeuf said Mass and gave communion to all. Father Pendeprat, a priest accepted for the Sandusky parish, said Mass in his turn, the nuns had breakfast, and at seven o’clock they all went to the pier, boarded the packet boat Zurich, and knelt on deck to receive the blessings of the two Mothers Superior of Beaulieu and Boulogne, who had come to send their charges off with all good feeling. As the Zurich made way down the narrow channel of Le Havre, the sisters on board watched as long as they could the carriage of their superiors “until it was lost in the crowd,” and France was absorbed by the “blue distance.”

It was a fine day, with, “I understand,” said Machebeuf, “no danger of stormy weather.” He had collected sixteen people—eight nuns from Boulogne, four from Beaulieu (evidently one more than spoken for earlier), and four priests or seminarians, three of these having sailed earlier. For the remaining members and all their luggage, he struck a bargain with the ship’s captain for reduced rates. The total was 5750 francs. The ship was full, and the other passengers paid full fare. They included (among the few lay Catholics aboard) a merchant from Lyon on a business trip to New York, an American lady with her small daughter who had been sojourning in Paris, the mother of an Italian singer who was a member of a New York opera company, and a French modiste on her way to open a shop in New York. All went out of their way to show respect to the venturesome nuns, for whom the “ladies’ salon” was reserved exclusively. Their staterooms were small but comfortable. Machebeuf felt they were happy in their choice of their vessel—it was “one of the largest, most beautiful, and best sailors,” as Marius Machebeuf could attest (he had come to see them off), and her “rooms were of an extraordinary sumptuousness … all gilt and rosewood.” What was more, the food was as good as the ship’s fittings. Machebeuf conducted the usual daily services, and one unusual one: on the Feast of Corpus Christi, when custom ashore required a formal procession bearing the Host through the public streets and into the church, he led his little congregation in a solemn march in and out of their staterooms, and declared that it must surely have been the only Corpus Christi procession ever held “upon the immense ocean.”

Despite his confidence on sailing, there was heavy weather ahead. The Zurich encountered two furious storms in her crossing of twenty-nine days, and both times had to heave to and ride out the weather, while all prayed, and Mother Julia—her seasickness lasted for the entire voyage—felt worse than ever. She recovered immediately when on 2 June the captain said they would soon sight land, and an hour later the cry of “Land ho!” sang out from the lookout on the forward mast. As the vessel came up the Narrows, a steam lighter came to take the Machebeuf party off as soon as their customs and quarantine examinations were complete. At the South street docks there were carriages waiting, and all were promptly lodged in the boarding house of Madame Pilet, a Frenchwoman, whose accommodations had been recommended by a fellow passenger. A week later they were on their way by stage, canal, small inland steamer, until they reached the Ohio and boarded one of her great stern-wheelers, the Independence. The weather was stifling in the June days. Everyone slept on deck for three nights, until finally on the nineteenth, they docked at Cincinnati to be received by Bishop Purcell at his house, who led them to the new classical revival cathedral of St Peter’s and preached over them a brief homily of welcome and exhortation to their new duties. Their journey had been a lucky one, for if Machebeuf’s first arrangements had been carried out, they would have sailed not on the Zurich but on the packet Emerald, which departed from Le Havre eight hours earlier, and reached New York five days after the Zurich with her masts shattered, and all her sails torn by storm. Machebeuf wrote Sister Philomène that her prayers must have saved him and his party.

If there was any disappointment connected with the whole venture, it was that Father Pendeprat, who had been expressly brought along to assist Machebeuf at the Sandusky missions where many parishioners were French, was soon dispatched to Toledo to assist Father Rappe. For the rest, the journey was a model for many later ones to be undertaken by Lamy and Machebeuf, and for the same purpose—to find adventurous and dedicated leaders who would meet the needs of an ever-growing society in whatever quarter of the land.