The fate of young Robert Graham was similar to that of most of the Trappists. The deadly air, the hard work, the watchings, the scanty food, and the uncleanliness which prevailed, soon slew a man who was as useless to his fellow-men in a convent, as he had ever been in the world. His confinement was, in fact, a swift suicide. Consumption seized on the poor boy, for he was still but a boy, and his rigid adherence to the severe discipline of the place, only aided to develop what a little care might have easily checked. His serge gown clove to the carious bones which pierced through his diseased skin. The portions of his body on which he immovably lay, became gangrened, and nothing appears to have been done by way of remedy. He endured all with patience, and looked forward to death with a not unaccountable longing. The "infirmier" bade him be less eager in pressing forward to the grave.-"I will now pray God," said the nursing brother, "that he will be pleased to save you."-" And I," said Alexis, "will ask him not to heed you." Further detail is hardly necessary: suffice it to say that Robert Graham died on the 21st May, 1701, little more than six months after he had entered the monastery, and at the early age of twenty-two years. The father and brother also died in France, and so ended the chivalrous cousins of the chivalrous Montrose. The great virtue inculcated at La Trappe, was one of the cherished virtues of old chivalry, obedience to certain rules. But there was no excitement in carrying it out. Bodily suffering was encountered by a knight, for mere glory's sake. At La Trappe it was accounted as the only means whereby to escape Satan. The knight of the cross purchased salvation by the sacrifice of his life; the monk of La Trappe, by an unprofitable suicide. With both there was doubtless the one great hope common to all Christians; but that great hope, so fortifying to the knight, seemed not to relieve the Trappist of the fear that Satan was more powerful than the Redeemer. When once treating this subject at greater length, I remarked that there was a good moral touching Satan in Cuvier's dream, and the application of which might have been profitable to men like these monks. The great philosopher just named, once saw, in his sleep, the popular representative of the great enemy of man. The fiend approached with a loudly-expressed determination to "eat him." "Eat me!" exclaimed Cuvier, examining him the while with the "Eat me! "Horns? Horns! Hoofs !" Hoofs ? Graminiv And now let us get back from the religious orders of men to chivalrous orders of ladies. It is quite time to exclaim, Place aux Dames! FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC. Mein ist der Helm, und mir gehört er zu. SCHILLER. "ORDERS for ladies" have been favorite matters with both Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses. The Austrian Empress, Eleanora de Gonzague, founded two orders, which admitted only ladies as members. The first was in commemoration of the miraculous preservation of a particle of the true cross, which escaped the ravages of a fire which nearly destroyed the imperial residence, in 1668. Besides this Order of the Cross, the same Empress instituted the Order of the Slaves of Virtue. This was hardly a complimentary title, for a slave necessarily implies a compulsory and unwilling servant. The number of members were limited to thirty, and these were required to be noble, and of the Romish religion. The motto was, Sole ubique triumphat; which may have implied that she only who best served virtue, was likely to profit by it. This was not making a very exalted principle of virtue itself. It was rather placing it in the point of view wherein it was considered by Pamela, who was by far too calculating a young lady to deserve all the eulogy that has been showered upon her. Another Empress of Germany, Elizabeth Christiana, founded, in the early part of the last century, at Vienna, an Order of Neighborly Love. It consisted of persons of both sexes; but nobody was accounted a neighbor who was not noble. With regard to numbers, it was unlimited. The motto of the order was Amor Proximi; a motto which exactly characterized the feelings of Queen Guinever for any handsome knight who happened to be her neighbor for the nonce. "Proximus" at the meetings of the order was, of course, of that convenient gender whereby all the members of the order could profit by its application. They might have had a particularly applicable song, if they had only possessed a Béranger to sing as the French lyrist has done. There was also in Germany an order for ladies only, that was of a very sombre character. It was the Order of Death's Head; and was founded just two centuries ago, by a Duke of Wirtemburg, who decreed that a princess of that house should always be at the head of it. The rules bound ladies to an observance of conduct which they were not likely to observe, if the rule of Christianity was not strong enough to bind them; and probably many fair ladies who wore the double cross, with the death's head pending from the lower one, looked on the motto of "Memento Mori," as a reminder to daring lovers who dared to look on them. France had given us, in ladies' orders, first, the Order of the Cordelière, founded by that Anne of Brittany who brought her independent duchy as a dower to Charles VIII. of France, and who did for the French court what Queen Charlotte effected for that of England, at a much later period. Another Anne, of Austria, wife of Louis XIII., and some say of Cardinal Mazarin also, founded, for ladies, the Order of the Celestial Collar of the Holy Rosary. The members consisted of fifty young ladies of the first families in France; and they all wore, appended to other and very charming insignia hanging from the neck, a portrait of St. Dominic, who found himself in the best possible position for instilling all sorts of good principles into a maiden's bosom. century and a half ago by The ensign was a medal, side, and the figure of a The Order of the Bee was founded a Louisa de Bourbon, Duchess of Maine. with the portrait of the duchess on one bee, with the motto, Je suis petite, mais mes piqueures sont profondes, on the other. In Russia, Peter the Great founded the Order of St. Catherine, in honor of his wife, and gave as its device, Pour l'amour et la fidélité envers la patrie. It was at first intended for men, but was ultimately made a female order exclusively. A similar change was found necessary in the Spanish Order of the Lady of Mercy, founded in the thirteenth century by James, King of Aragon. There were other female orders in Spain, and the whole of them had for their object the furtherance of religion, order, and virtue. In some cases, membership was conferred in acknowledgment of merit. Who forgets Miss Jane Porter in her costume and insignia of a lady of one of the orders of Polish female chivalry—and who is ignorant that Mrs. Otway has been recently decorated by the Queen of Spain with the Order of Maria Louisa? The Order of St. Ulrica, in Sweden, was founded in 1734, in honor of a lady, the reigning Queen, and to commemorate the liberty which Sweden had acquired and enjoyed from the period of her accession. Two especial qualities were necessary in the candidates for knighthood in this order. It was necessary that a public tribunal should declare that they were men of pure public spirit; and it was further required of them to prove that in serving the country, they had never been swayed by motives of private interest. When the order was about to be founded, not less than five hundred candidates appeared to claim chivalric honor. Of these, only fifty were chosen, and decree was made that the number of knights should never exceed that amount. It was an unnecessary decree, if the qualifications required were to be stringently demanded. But, in the conferring of honors generally, there has often been little connection between cause and effect; as, for instance, after Major-General Simpson had failed to secure the victory which the gallantry of our troops had put in his power at the Redan, the home government was so delighted, that they made field-marshals of two very old gentlemen. The example was not lost on the King of the Belgians. He, too, commemorated the fall of Sebastopol by enlarging the number of his knights. He could not well scatter decorations among his army, for that has been merely a military police, but he made selection of an equally destructive body, and named eighteen doctors-Knights of St. Leopold. These orders of later institution appear to have forgotten one of the leading principles of knighthood-love for the ladies-but perhaps this is quite as well. When Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, instituted the Order of the Golden Shield, he was by no means so forgetful. He enjoined his knights to honor the ladies above all, and never permit any one to slander them with impunity; "because," said the good duke, "after God, we owe everything to the labors of the ladies, and all the honor that man can acquire." One portion of which assertion may certainly defy contradiction. |