Lamy of Santa Fe (10 page)

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.

ix
.

The War

I
NTENSELY AS THEY WERE OCCUPIED
with their local responsibilities, the missionaries, along with their parishioners, were increasingly concerned with a grave and complicated matter which grew upon the whole nation throughout 1845 and which, in 1846, came to a state of crisis.

Ex-President Andrew Jackson stated the issue when he said, “You
might as well, it appears to me, attempt to turn the current of the Mississippi, as to turn the democracy from the annexation of Texas.” For Texas had applied several times for statehood under the American republic, had been refused, had declared herself an independent republic by an act of secession from Mexico; and now, in 1846, Texas was willing to give up her own sovereignty if allowed to become a state of the United States. The Democratic candidate for president in 1846 was James K. Polk, who ran principally on the plank of admitting Texas to the Union. When he won the election, the admission of Texas was a certainty; and just as certain was a declaration of war against the United States by Mexico, which had never conceded that the vast Texan lands were independent, and now considered them wrongfully acquired by the North Americans. Polk ordered troops south to the Rio Grande border of Texas-Mexico, and Mexico City in turn ordered forces north to the opposite side of the river. Inevitably they clashed, and a war fever swept the States. Congress authorized the raising of a volunteer force of fifty thousand men, and President Polk declared, “A portion of this force was assigned to each State and Territory in the Union so as to make each feel an interest in the war.” For the hundreds asked for from each state, ten times in the thousands flocked to volunteer.

Ohio and all of Purcell's diocese felt the call. Troops moved down the Ohio River and others boarded river steamers at Cincinnati for the voyage to New Orleans, the Gulf, and the coast of Texas. Barges of coal needed by the armies so far from home also took the route of the rivers, and all who remained at home felt the national quickening and saw the troop movements and the great flow of supply, and had a new place name by which to reckon the loneliness of separation, worries, news of victories, and messages of death—the Rio Grande. Just where was it? Evidently it divided Texas from Mexico, and ran down from the high Rockies all the length of New Mexico, as the northernmost inland state of the Mexican nation was called. So far away—nobody knew what the land out there was like except the traders who since 1824 had been voyaging across the prairies to Santa Fe, and down to Chihuahua. It all seemed to move closer when news came that on 18 August 1846 the American General Stephen Watts Kearny had captured Santa Fe—peaceably, as it turned out—and with it, for all practical purposes, the whole of New Mexico. The act was the first in a sequence which, though without meaning for Lamy until three more years had passed, was to determine his work for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, what was nearest seemed larger. Father Pendeprat, who was intended for Sandusky to help Machebeuf, would soon be reassigned
to Louisville by Purcell—hardly a matter for rejoicing in the north. In April Lamy suggested to Purcell that he station a permanent pastor at Newark, and announced that his presbytery at Danville was completed and that Mrs Brent and one of her daughters were established as his housekeepers. “The old lady does great deal for me and yet she will be no burden to me she finds her own provisions and says she is quite happy to do it for she is now near the church and can go to mass often. I am really edified by this regularity and piety. I have also an orphan Irish boy about 14 years old. I can buy in general but the Catholics of this congregation have furnished me with provisions such as they have.” Lamy later converted Mrs Brent's young son, took him to Rome to be educated for holy orders, and years afterward Father Brent, in turn, became pastor of St Luke's.

Northern Ohio was growing faster than the central counties of the state. Machebeuf—with an air of complaint—reported to Sister Philomène at Riom that Purcell had, since his return from France, assigned to him all the duties of Norwalk in addition to those he already struggled to meet. He would have to take charge of everything—assembling materials of all kinds, keeping all accounts, spending almost a month at Norwalk making a general canvass for funds to protect the church from being sold on demand by “a protestant fanatic who had furnished various materials” and who obviously had not yet been paid.

A momentous response to the leaping growth of the lake cities and inland towns of northern Ohio came in the summer of 1846. The American bishops petitioned Rome to separate the area into a new diocese, to be taken from Purcell's great domain of Cincinnati, and proposed Father Rappe of Toledo as the new bishop-designate—the first of the original party from Auvergne to be raised to the mitre. The decision would throw both Danville and Sandusky, among other settlements, under a new bishop so soon as he should be consecrated—presumably in the autumn. In his own group of parishes, Machebeuf was desperate for more help. Lamy was named by Purcell to go to him if only for a month, and wrote Purcell in late August that he was daily awaiting his own replacement at Danville. “Everybody,” he said, “except in my own congregation knows that I am going to Sandusky City … one thing only I regret it is to be cut off from the diocese of Cincinnati, but whether I stay at Danville or be removed to Sandusky City I will belong to the new diocese of Cleveland, but if I must be out of your jurisdiction … I shall never forget the kind attention, the paternal affection which you have always showed to me.”

Sandusky was in need of every sort of governance. “Dreadful scenes” went on in public, drunkenness, street fights, sometimes reaching even
to the church door. One of the rowdies was so out of control that he bit off the nose of his father-in-law, an old man almost seventy. Machebeuf, small as he was, often had to separate such fighters. Lamy would be a great reinforcement, with his powerful, quiet presence. Not only would the public peace be resumed, and the missions attended, but the two great friends would be united, as they had always hoped to be on leaving home together.

But this was not to be. In September Lamy wrote to Machebeuf to report that Purcell had felt obliged to rescind his decision. Lamy was not to go to Sandusky. Machebeuf was downcast, wrote Purcell that he accepted the will of Providence, and did not know how he could now carry on against civil disgraces and religious neglects all of which brought ill repute upon the Catholic name. Purcell wrote to Machebeuf twice—once evidently to explain the change of plan, to which there was no answer from Sandusky; and again to hope that Machebeuf was not angry at him for what had been done. The answer to both letters was late in going off to Purcell, but its manner was somewhat stiff—sorry if Purcell had been made to “think that I was displeased with you.” Protesting his devotion, Machebeuf went on to add, “To say that I did not feal [
sic
] disappointed in hearing that I was to [be] deprived of my very dear friend Rev. Mr. Lamy would not exactly be true, but I did my best to resign myself.” He could not forbear mentioning one other matter of grievance—it seemed to him that he might have had the “consolation of assisting at the forthcoming consecration” of his “worthy and beloved neighbour”—Bishop-designate Rappe—but he had not been invited. Ah, well. Machebeuf's spirited nature could be testy as well as merry. Also, on occasion, discreet. He was baptized Joseph Projectus Machebeuf. The Latin middle name was translated into French as “Priest” (with no connotation of
prêtre
). In all his early life he used the French middle name, but during his Ohio years he dropped it, since in an anti-Catholic atmosphere it seemed open to invidious use, and for it he substituted his baptismal middle name of Projectus. (To avoid confusion, his original style of Joseph Priest Machebeuf is here used throughout.)

For Lamy, it was a sorrowful year. He received word from Lempdes in the course of the autumn that his father had died there on 7 September 1846. Writing this news to Purcell, he said that his father's family “urge me very much to go to France, but I have no desire of going,” and ended by asking his friend the bishop to “be so good as to pray for the repose of his soul.”

x
.

To Covington

“T
HE WEATHER,”
wrote Lamy to his bishop on New Year's Day of 1847, “was very bad this last Christmas and the mud very deep.” Even so, the little Danville church was as crowded as ever—people came from many miles through the abominable roads, many of them in the dark, for again he said his first Mass at five o'clock. The church was “as well decorated as we were able. For the illumination we had 150 candles burning almost all sperm [whale oil] or wax candles.” (From San-dusky City, a more exuberant account of the Christmas feast there went to France—Machebeuf told Sister Philomène in all the detail dear to a nun that never had Christmas been celebrated at Sandusky with such “pomp and solemnity.” The church was solidly lined with greens, there were
three hundred
lights, and the sanctuary vault—all Gothic—was sparkling with innumerable stars cut out of gold paper. And the music! The choir had been practicing for two months under an excellent director, accompanied with an old piano as there was no organ.)