The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
artillery can overthrow them or fraud pervert their decisions. “_There
is no kingdom of hell upon earth_,” but only a continuous resistance of
the infernal powers to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which from time to
time breaks out into a revolution. And the same calm, historic record,
in which past Catholic historians have narrated the successive defeats
of these revolutionary enterprises will, in each new chapter added by
succeeding centuries, continue the chronicle of similar failures;
placing the impartial mark of indelible dishonor against the names of
all those who have sought for greatness by fraud and violence.
VERONICA
A LEGEND OF MÉDOC
_In fines terræ_
_Verba corum._
Descending the river from Bordeaux amid verdant isles, and between
shores that produce some of the choicest wines of France, we soon come,
on the right, to Blaye, with its chivalric memories of Orlando and the
fortress that makes it the Key of Aquitaine, as it was in the days of
Ausonius, who says:
“Aut iteratarum qua glarea trita viarum
Fert militarem ad Blaviam.”
At the left we pass Pauillac, the ancient villa of St. Paulinus of Nola.
The Gironde soon becomes a sea. The shore lowers and is on a level with
the waves. The poor hills of Saintonge escape to the north, and the
white houses of Royan become visible on the far-off shore. The sea-gull
flies over our head, tireless as the ceaseless waves that feed him. We
see the white tower of Cordouan at a distance framed in a dazzling sea
of blue and gold, out of which it rises two hundred feet above low tide,
full of grace and majesty, like an enchanted castle. It is said to stand
on the remains of the ancient isle of Antros, which Pomponius Mela, in
the first century, places at the mouth of the Gironde. We cannot resist
the temptation to climb its three hundred steps for the sake of the
wonderful view over fell and flood. The foundation of this tower is lost
in obscurity. Even its very name is a mystery. Some think it of Moorish
derivation, and that the first light-house here was built by the
Saracens—a most ridiculous supposition; for the Moors, though they
destroyed a great deal in Aquitaine, certainly had no time for building,
whatever their taste for architecture. Others say it was due to Louis le
Débonnaire, and that he appointed a keeper to light a beacon-fire and
sound a _cor_, or horn, night and day, to warn the sailor of the perils
of the coast; but any one who ever heard the noise of the tumultuous
waves breaking high against the cliff of Cordouan can imagine the
inefficiency of the most vigorous lungs in such violent storms as are
proverbial on the Bay of Biscay. The poor keeper would have needed the
Horn of Thunder of the Armorican legend, given St. Florentius by a
Norman chief to summon aid when attacked by his piratical horde, or the
magic oliphant of Orlando, then kept hard by at Blaye, wherewith its
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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