Vanished Halls and Cathedrals of FranceEdwards, George Wharton
History
Vanished Halls and Cathedrals of France
Edwards, George Wharton
Cathedrals -- France; Cities and towns -- France; France -- Description and travel
heavenly hosts, with saints in armor waving banners and leading armies
on to victory. Thus passed the life of this young peasant girl during
the peaceful years between fourteen and twenty, until the great war
broke out and armed hosts led by princes indeed invaded her unhappy
land.
So in the field below the red tiled roofs of her village of
Puy-St.-Bonnet, Clotilde Perchaud erected to the Virgin a rude altar of
field stones, which she trimmed with green boughs, and here she passed
all her spare time, praying and seeing visions in the sky, while upon
the horizon mighty guns boomed, and at night the flashes could plainly
be seen.
Soon this altar became a rendezvous for the neighbors, and even for
those of the more remote villages from which the young men had gone
forth to fight for France, and to this young girl were brought pictures
of the absent soldiers at the front in the trenches and written prayers
for their safety. That she possessed some strange power was admitted by
even the most skeptical, for her responses to those who had loved ones
missing led to their being found in distant camps as prisoners, or
wounded in hospitals in distant parts of the country. In some instances,
it is reported, this strange girl was able to give the names in full of
those long missing, and information so detailed and circumstantial as
to be marvelous. These matters were brought to the attention of the
priests, and were in turn reported by them to the heads of the church,
finally reaching the ears of the Bishop of Angers, who had her brought
to his palace. Here she confronted unabashed a conclave of priests. The
Bishop is said to have dressed himself in the ordinary black cassock
of a priest, in order to test the young girl's power of divination;
an ordinary priest wearing the Bishop's robes, and being seated on the
throne; but to the amazement of all in the room, the girl turned from
him, and kneeling before the real Bishop, asked his blessing upon her
and her mission.
To him she announced, then, that a white robed angel had appeared to
her above her altar in the fields, and to the strains of heavenly music
charged that she had, as a pure and blameless maid, been selected to
deliver their beloved France from the hands of the invader.
She presented to the Bishop the book in which she had written the words
spoken to her on many occasions by the "shining angel in white." This
book, says the account from which this is taken, "is partly illegible
and almost entirely illiterate; rudely illustrated in a sort of futurist
style." Its contents are said to be most perplexing and wonderful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account