Baring-Gould Sabine
Curiosities of Olden Times
Christina was now conducted home by her sisters, and was given something to eat. When she had fed, she told them a long and marvellous story of her having visited the regions of the dead; she said that she had been in Hell, where she recognised the familiar features of a good many acquaintances, no doubt of all such as had slighted and offended her in the past and were dead. Then she had visited Purgatory, where also she found herself among acquaintances. After that she ascended to Heaven, where she was offered her choice, whether she would remain there eternally, or return to earth and there perform the meritorious work of liberating, by her prayers and self-tortures, the souls of those still undergoing purification in Purgatory. With the utmost heroism and self-denial she chose the latter alternative, probably not to the satisfaction of her sisters, who seem to have regarded her as a self-willed, troublesome piece of goods, and would have preferred to have her at a distance, as an intercessor in heaven, than on earth an object of much solicitude and annoyance.
She speedily gave them cause enough to regret the choice she had made, for she took it into her head to race about the country, leaping hedges, climbing walls, as she pretended, to get away from the scent of men, which specially distressed her. She did not specify whether this odour was spiritual or carnal, but left it to be inferred that moral turpitude was the most odoriferous. She was repeatedly found on the tops of trees, or on the summit of church towers, balancing herself beside the weathercocks, gasping for wholesome air.
Naturally enough her relatives held her to be deranged; and they proceeded to have her bound, as mad folk were chained and held in bondage till comparatively recently. But one night she broke away from her prison, tore off her fetters, declaring that the “odour of men” was suffocating her, and ran away into the nearest forest, where she swarmed to the tops of the highest trees and there gasped for untainted air. There for a while her relatives left her, she must starve or return to them. As Thomas of Chantpré says, she lived for a while like a bird among the boughs of the trees, and though sorely in want of food, would not return to association with odoriferous human beings.
Her biographer gives us an outrageous story which accounts for the way in which she lived; but in all likelihood she fed on eggs.
After five weeks thus spent, she was recaptured and again put in chains, stronger than before.
Again she broke loose, ran to Liège, where she rushed headlong into the Church of St. Christopher, and insisted on the priest whom she found there giving her the Holy Communion. He naturally enough demurred to do so. Her wild appearance, with hair flying, her galled wrists, her flashing, frantic eyes, the condition of dirt and raggedness in which she was, made him conclude she was an escaped maniac. He made an excuse, and she was unable to force him to act against his conscience by any representation she made. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, so suddenly did she rush away again into another church, where she frightened the priest into compliance. But what was his disgust and dismay to see the communicant jump up, leave the church in flying leaps, and run as fast as she could tear down the steep hill that falls towards the Meuse. He hastily laid aside his surplice and stole, and ran after her. Then he came on the priest of St. Christopher, who was also in pursuit, and the two ran after her to the quay, where she made a plunge, went head foremost into the water, and swam to the farther shore. The Meuse, as any one who is acquainted with Liège knows, is no inconsiderable stream there, and the two priests watched, breathless and alarmed, till the girl had reached the farther shore. Then only did they breathe freely.
Christina’s conduct became daily more outrageous. She crept into bakers’ ovens, and there howled with pain at the heat, but would not come forth, till dragged out by the heels. Sometimes she would run into a fire and kick the brands about with her bare feet. When she saw water hot in large vessels for a washing, in she leaped, souse, and then shrieked with the pain. In winter she would run into the river and remain there squealing with cold, till the parish priest came and ordered her out. One of her favourite pursuits was to dive under the sluice of a miller’s water-conduit, and go with the water, head over heels, over the wheel. These exploits attracted a crowd, and excited her to renewed attempts, not always most decorous, but greeted with roars of approval and encouragement to re-attempt the feat.
Another of her freaks was to frequent the places of execution, and climb the poles with wheels at top on which robbers and murderers had been broken, and to writhe her own legs and arms in and out of the spokes, with more dexterity than delicacy, to amuse the vulgar rabble that followed and applauded her proceedings. Or she would provide herself with a rope and hang herself between two criminals on the public gallows, with happy indifference to the savour the corpses emitted. All these proceedings were, she affirmed, eminently grateful to the souls in Purgatory, and afforded them consolation and relief.
At night it was her delight to run through the streets of St. Trond, with all the dogs of the town barking and snapping after her; she led them a chase over the country, running like the wind, they tearing her tattered garments, and also biting and wounding her limbs. She, however, seemed insensible to pain, in her enjoyment of the race. Finally, when exhausted, she went up a tree like a chased cat.
One great source of entertainment she provided during divine service was to coil herself up into a ball, so that neither head, hands, nor feet appeared, and so roll about the church. Then all at once, when no one was expecting it – snap! out flew head, feet, and hands, and she lay flat on the floor, rigid as a log of wood, all her limbs extended and motionless. Another of her devotional vagaries was to pirouette on one toe on the top of a paling, whilst vociferously praying. All which not only edified the living, but afforded vast gratification to the souls in Purgatory.
At length her sisters could stand her vagaries no longer, – her biographer candidly admits that Christina put them to the blush, – and they engaged a strong man to catch her and chain her up again. He went after her, and she ran. Unable to catch her, he flung a club at her that brought her down and, as was thought, broke her thigh. As she could not walk, a cart was brought to the spot, and she was placed in it and conveyed to a surgeon, who had a bed of straw strewn for her in his cellar. He put her leg in splints, but to ensure her remaining quiet and not tearing at the bandages, bound her hands and fastened them to a ring in the cellar wall. In the night she succeeded in disengaging her hands. Then she ripped off the bandages, threw away the splints, and stood up. Her thigh was not broken. She got a stone, and with it broke a way through the wall of the cellar, and escaped into the open country once more.
After this her relatives gave up all further attempts to control her.
Finding herself unmolested, she ventured back to the haunts of men, and begged for food or whatever she required. If refused what she wanted, she became angry and took it. Few dared resist her importunities or violence. When she had a sleeve of her gown torn off she went to the first woman she encountered and asked for hers. If not at once given, she rushed at the person, and with teeth and claws tore the sleeve off the gown, and then, with crazy laughter, she slipped her own bare arm into it. Her dress was a mass of tatters and incongruous patches, sewn on with willow-bark thread, or pinned together with thorns. Her hair, dark, utterly uncombed, hung wildly about her head, and fell over her tanned, dirty face. Her limbs were covered with scars. One day she visited the parish church of Wellen, near St. Trond, and finding the cover off the font, and the sacred vessel pretty full, since the recent benediction of the sacred water, with one jump reached the brim, and then flopped herself down in the hallowed water. This, says her biographer solemnly, had the effect of subduing in her the more extraordinary manifestations of ecstatic devotion; and after this souse in the baptismal water, she professed herself less distressed by the odour of human beings.
She was not gracious to those who gave her food. As she ate what she had begged, she growled, “Why am I eating this nastiness? Why am I thus plagued?” and told them that what they gave her tasted like the insides of newts and toads.
Her biographer assures us that “she avoided, with the utmost solicitude, all human honour and praise,” but it would be hard to find that either was shown or offered her whilst alive; for then she certainly was esteemed crazy. Only after her death did it occur to people that she was a saint.
In her old age she was often given shelter by the kind sisters of St. Catherine at St. Trond, and she returned their hospitality by her amusing antics. One day, as she was talking with them, she suddenly curled herself up into a ball, and began to roll round the room, “like a boy’s ball, without any token of her limbs appearing.” Then, all at once, she expanded flat on the floor, and ventriloquised. “No voice or breath issued from her mouth and nose, but only her breast and throat resounded with an angelic harmony.” She concluded this exhibition by singing the “Te Deum” from the pit of her stomach, and then jumped up and ran away.
We can understand that at a time when hysterical disorders were completely misunderstood, such marvellous contortions and tricks were reputed to be due to spiritual agency, either divine or diabolic. Towards the close of her days she spent most of her time in the Convent of St. Catherine, and she was there when attacked by her mortal sickness.
When she was apparently insensible the Superior, Sister Beatrice, said to her, “Christina! you have always been obedient to me; return now to life, I have something I desire to ask of you.”
Then Christina opened her eyes and said, “Why have you disturbed me? Be quick, I cannot tarry; tell me what you want, that I may be gone.”
Then the Superior put the question, received her reply, and the next moment the poor clouded spirit fled. She died on 24th July 1224, at the age of eighty-four.
Twenty-five years after her death an old woman told the Superior, “I have come to you with a divine revelation, to say that the body of that most holy woman, Christina, is not receiving proper respect from you. If you neglect to give it sufficient honour it will fare ill with you.”
On the strength of this vague message the body of the poor old creature was dug up, and enshrined. Miracles attended the elevation of the bones, and thenceforth St. Christina the Wonderful came to be regarded as a saint in the Low Countries. Her body is still preserved as that of one of the elect of God in the Church of St. Catherine at Milin, near St. Trond; and her name has been inserted in a good number of martyrologies – amongst others, that of France. It is not in the Roman Martyrology, where, however, she has a better right to figure than have St. Symeon Salos and St. Nicolas of Trani, who were loose fishes as well as fools.
THE JACKASS OF VANVRES
A CAUSE CÉLÈBRE
On the 1st July 1750 Madame Ferron, washerwoman of Vanvres, entered Paris riding on a jackass in the flower of its age. The good lady had come a-marketing; and on reaching the house of M. Nepveux, grocer, near the Porte S. Jacques, she descended from Neddy’s back, and entered the shop, leaving the animal attached to the railings by his halter. After having made some purchases of soap and potash she asked the shopman to keep his eye on her ass whilst she went a few doors off to purchase some salt. This he neglected to do —Hinc illæ lacrymæ. A few moments after Madame Ferron had disappeared there passed Madame Leclerc, wife of a florist in Paris, mounted on a she-ass of graceful proportions and engaging appearance.
It has been questioned by some whether love at first sight is not altogether a fiction of poets and romancers. We are happy to be able to record an instance of this on unimpeachable historical evidence. A mutual passion kindled in the veins of these two asses simultaneously, during the brief space of time occupied by Madame Leclerc in passing before the grocer’s shop. Their eyes met.
The she-ass, unable to express the ardour of her affection by any other means, brayed thrice in the most tender and impassioned manner. The jackass replied with corresponding sentiment. He panted to approach her, but was restrained by his halter. To love, however, nothing is impossible; or, as the Latin syntax has it, “Amor omnia vincit.” He tossed his head, broke the cord, and trotted after the mistress of his affections.
Madame Leclerc adjured Neddy. Ladies do not like their servants to encourage followers. She shook her head at the lover and bade him return. But passion sometimes renders its victims insensible to the dictates of duty; Neddy still pursued.
On arriving at her door, near the Porte du Demandeur, the florist’s wife caught up a stick, and charged from her doorstep upon the young and ardent lover. The lady was exasperated at the silent contempt he had exhibited for her entreaties and objurgations. She hit him on the nose, she whacked his ribs, she beat his back, and the poor ass brayed with pain and rising indignation. The she-ass brayed sympathetically.
Madame Leclerc’s blows fell faster and more furiously, and then the lion under the ass’s skin became apparent. Neddy reared, and falling on the old lady, bit her in the arm.
The brayings of the animals and the cries of the lady attracted a crowd, and the combatants were parted. The washerwoman’s ass was consigned, with back-turned ears and palpitating sides, to confinement in a stable. Madame Leclerc retired to her apartment exhausted from her battle, and fainted, with feminine dexterity, into the extended arms of monsieur the florist, her husband, and monsieur the deputy florist, his assistant. By slow degrees the lady was brought round, by means of feathers burned under her nose, and a drop of cordial distilled down her throat. And where was the she-ass, the cause of all this mischief? She had been turned out into a clover-field. Such is the way of the world.
Next day the gardener’s wife sent notice to the shop of M. Nepveux that “If any one had lost an ass he would find it at the house of a floral gardener, Faubourg S. Marceau, near the Gobelins.”
Jacques Ferron, husband of the lady who had gone a-marketing on Neddy, had spent the night, as we learn from his express declaration in Court, on the borders of insanity. Not a wink of sleep visited his eyes during the hours of darkness, and the dawn broke upon him tossing feverishly on his pillow, with all the bedclothes in a heap upon the floor.
The news of his Neddy’s whereabouts being discovered, restored his spirits to equanimity. He wept for joy, and despatched his wife to claim the truant, whilst he himself remained in his doorway, with palpitating bosom and extended arms, ready to embrace the returning prodigal.
But, alas! Madame Ferron, on reaching the gardener’s house, learned to her dismay that she was involved in further misfortune. Madame Leclerc demanded damages for the bite she had received, to the amount of 1500 livres, and the ass would not be given up till the sum demanded was paid. Tears and entreaties were in vain; and the washerwoman returned to her husband with drooping head and a soul ravaged by despair.
On the following day, 4th July, a claim against Jacques Ferron for the sum of 1500 livres damages, and 20 sous a day for the keep of the ass, was lodged with the Commissaire Laumonier.
On the 21st August the Court ordered Leclerc to bring forward evidence to establish his claim, and the defendant was bidden challenge it. The case was heard on the 29th of the same month.
The plaintiff urged that his wife had been brutally assaulted by an enraged jackass belonging to the defendant, had been seriously alarmed by its ferocity, and had been severely bitten in the arm.
The damages claimed were reduced to 1200 livres, and payment was demanded, as before, for the keep of the delinquent.
The defence of Ferron was to this effect: —
“The ass of the washerwoman was tied to a railing. It was not likely to break away unless induced to do so by some one else. The she-ass of the plaintiff was the cause of the jackass breaking its halter and pursuing Madame Leclerc. Consequently the defendant was not responsible for what ensued.
“The distance between the Porte S. Jacques and the Gobelins is considerable, and the streets full of traffic. Had the florist’s wife wished to get rid of the jackass, there were numerous persons present who would have assisted her; but from her not asking assistance, it was rendered highly probable that she had deliberately formed the design of profiting by the circumstance, and of appropriating to herself the pursuing ass.
“The plaintiff pretends that 1200 livres are due to her because she was bitten by the ass of the defendant. No medical certificate of the date is produced, but only one a month after the transaction. No evidence is offered that this bite was given by Ferron’s ass, and the wound attested by the medical certificate may have been given by the ass of the plaintiff. But supposing the bite were that of Ferron’s ass, was not the poor beast driven to defend itself from the blows of the defendant? Is an ass bound to suffer itself to be maltreated with impunity?
“Asses are by nature gentle and pacific animals, and are not included amongst the carnivorous and dangerous beasts. Yet the sense of self-preservation is one of the rudimentary laws of nature, and the most gentle and docile brutes will defend themselves when attacked. Is it to be wondered at that the tender-spirited and love-lorn Neddy, when fallen upon by a ferocious woman armed with a thick club, her eyes scintillating with passion, her face flaming, her teeth gnashing, and foam issuing from her purple lips, whilst from her labouring bosom escape oaths and curses, at once profane and insensate – such as sacré bleu, and ventre gris, suggesting the probability that the utterer of the said expressions was a raving maniac; is it to be wondered at that Neddy when thus assaulted, and by such a person, should fall back on the first law of nature and defend himself?
“The opinion of Donat. (Loix Civiles, tom. i. lib. 2, tit. 8) is conclusive, for it enunciates the law (xi. tit. 2, lib. 9) Si quadrupes paup. fec., ff.
“‘If a dog or any other animal bites, or does any other injury because it has been struck or wilfully exasperated, he who gave occasion to the injury shall be held responsible for it, and if he be the individual who has suffered he must impute it to himself.’
“Now the woman Leclerc was not content with merely exasperating the jackass of Ferron, she almost stunned it with blows. She has therefore little reason for bringing so unfounded a claim for damages before the Court. Si instigatu alterius fera damnum dederit, cessabit hæc actio (Liv. i. § 6, lib. I).
“The more one reflects,” continued the counsel for the defendant, “upon the conduct of Madame Leclerc on this occasion, the less blameless appear her motives. If, as seems probable, she designed to gain possession of the donkey, she richly deserved the bite which she complains of having received. Pierre Leclerc cannot plead that his wife did not irritate the ass, for this is proved by the very witnesses whom he summoned to sustain his case. They stated in precise terms that ‘they saw Madame Leclerc pass, mounted on a she-ass, followed by a jackass, to which the said woman Leclerc dealt sundry blows, with the intention of driving it off; that, on reaching her door, and the animal approaching nearer, she beat him violently, and that then the said jackass bit her in the arm.’
“But further, who induced the ass to break his halter and follow the woman Leclerc as far as the Gobelins? Madame Leclerc’s ass, and none other but she. Having thus drawn another person’s animal away from its owner, and having placed it in her own stable, she claims 20 sous a day for the keep of an ass which Pierre Leclerc has retained on his own authority, against the will of the legitimate owner, from 1st July to 1st September, using it daily for going to market; thus, in all, he demands 60 livres for the keep of the beast. Although the price is twice the value of the ass itself, Ferron does not dispute the amount; he contents himself with observing that the woman Leclerc having brought upon herself the wound from the bite of the ass, which is the subject of litigation, she was not thereby morally or legally justified in detaining the animal that bit her till her demand for compensation was satisfied. If she fed and tended it, she was amply repaid by the use she and her husband made of it for carrying heavy burdens daily to market.
“On the other hand, Ferron has suffered from the loss of his ass, through its unjustifiable detention. He has been compelled to hire a horse during two months to carry on his business, and this has involved him in expenses beyond his means. For this loss Ferron will claim indemnification at the hands of Leclerc.”
Such was the case of the defendant. Along with it were handed in the two following certificates, the latter of which, as giving a character for morality and respectability to a donkey, is certainly a curiosity.
Certificate of the Sieur Nepveux, grocer, at whose shop-door the ass was tied
I, the undersigned, certify that on the 2nd July 1750 the day after the ass of the defendant Jacques Ferron, which had been attached to my door, had followed the female ass of the person Leclerc, there came, at seven o’clock in the morning, a woman to ask whether an ass had not been lost here; whereupon I replied in the affirmative. She told me that the individual who had lost it might come and fetch it, and that it would be returned to her; and that it was at a floral gardener’s in the Faubourg St. Marcel, near the Gobelins: in testimony to the truth of which I set-to my hand.
(Signed) Nepveux, grocer.
Porte Saint Jacques, Paris,
20th August 1720.
Certificate of the Curé, and the principal inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres to the moral character of the Jackass of Jacques Ferron.
We, the undersigned, the Prieur-Curé, and the inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres, having knowledge that Marie Françoise Sommier, wife of Jacques Ferron, has possessed a jackass during the space of four years for the carrying on of their trade, do testify, that during all the while that they have been acquainted with the said ass, no one has seen any evil in him, and he has never injured any one; also, that during the six years that it belonged to another inhabitant, no complaints were ever made touching the said ass, nor was there a breath of a report of the said ass having ever done any wrong in the neighbourhood; in token whereof, we, the undersigned, have given him the present character.
The case was dismissed by the Commissaire. Leclerc had to surrender the ass, and to rest content with the use that had been made of it as payment for its keep, whilst the claim for damages on account of the bite fell to the ground.
But if dismissed by the Commissaire, it was only that it might be taken up by the wits of the day and made the subject of satire and epigram. Some of the pieces in verse originated by this singular action are republished in the series Variétés Historiques et Literaires; allusions to it are not infrequent in the writers of the day.
About the same time an action was brought by a magistrate of position and fortune against the curé of St. Etienne-du-Mont, a M. Coffin, for refusing him the sacrament on account of a gross scandal he had caused. A wag contrasted the conduct of the two priests in the following lines: —
De deux curés portant blanches soutanes,
Le procédé ne se ressemble en rien;
L’un met du nombre des profanes
Le magistrat le plus homme de bien;
L’autre, dans son hameau, trouve jusqu’aux ânes
Tous ses paroissiens gens de bien.
