' I
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 smesrea^
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 DR. DOLLINGER 
 
 EECOEDED 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE VON KOBELL. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY 
 
 KATHAKINE GOULD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 KICHAKD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 $3ublisljers in rttnarg to $cr fHajrstg tfjc urnu 
 1892. 
 
 (All rights reserved.)
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 TWELVE years ago Ignatius von Dollinger 
 was paying us a visit, and the conversation 
 happened to turn upon the admiration felt 
 by my husband, Councillor von Eisenhart, and 
 myself for the beauties of the English Garden 
 at Munich. 
 
 Dollinger, too, counted a stroll in this garden 
 one of his greatest pleasures ; he delighted 
 in the sunshine and in the shade of its 
 fresh green trees, and in the pleasant coolness 
 of the water side. He proposed accordingly, 
 that we should take a weekly walk there 
 together, and that we should begin on the 
 following day. This first excursion happened 
 to fall .on a Friday, and thus originated our 
 
 1 1.17072
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 Friday walks in the English Garden, an 
 institution which we kept up with scarcely 
 any intermission until the beginning of 1890. 
 
 The following sketches are fragments of 
 the conversation held on these occasions, 
 when Dollinger was the soul of the party. 
 People long dead lived once more in his 
 descriptions, neither eulogized nor caricatured, 
 but represented in their true colours with all 
 the force of reality, and many of his con- 
 temporaries passed in review before his clear- 
 sighted and cultured mind. 
 
 I have been induced to publish some of 
 these conversations, partly in deference to 
 the representations of many of my friends, 
 and also because of the remembrance of a 
 speech of Bellinger's to me. He had been 
 reading my Biography of my dear father, 
 Franz von Kobell, and remarked : "I have 
 enjoyed reading it very much ; when I came 
 to the end I thought regretfully, "Would that
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 some day I might find so kind a critic of 
 myself and of my doings ! " 
 
 I have tried in this little record to convey 
 some idea of Dollinger's vigorous and intel- 
 lectual mind as it was unfolded in con- 
 versation. If in so doing I have gained him 
 one more friend, or diminished the number 
 of his detractors, then the purpose of this 
 little book will have been abundantly fulfilled. 
 
 The interesting frontispiece with which, 
 through the kindness of the publisher, this 
 little volume is decorated, shows us Dollinger 
 in the circle of his friends as described 
 at p. 89. They seem all to be spending a 
 happy day, and no doubt the agreeable con- 
 versation, together with the fresh breeze 
 blowing across from the lake, and the charm- 
 ing fragrance of a lovely garden combined 
 to call forth the expression of perfect con- 
 tentment with their surroundings visible on 
 all their faces.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. DOLLINGER'S EARLY KEHGIOUS TRAINING ... 1 
 
 II. A WALK WITH DOLLINGER ... 18 
 
 III. DOLLINGER AT HOME ... ... ... 38 
 
 IV. DbLLINGER AS HOST ... ... 07 
 
 V. VILLA LIFE AT TEGERNSEE ... ... 86 
 
 VI. THEOLOGICAL ODDS AND ENDS ... 106 
 VII. DOLLINGER'S ACADEMICAL LECTURES AND 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCHES ... ... 150 
 
 VIII. TALKS ON POLITICS ... ... ... 172 
 
 IX. DULLINGER'S EELATION TO ART AND LITERA- 
 TURE ... ... ... ... 207 
 
 X. CONCLUSION 235
 
 
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 CONYEKSATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 DR. DOLLINGER, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 DOLLINGER'S EARLY RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 
 
 JOHANN JOSEPH IGNATIUS VON DOLLINGER, the 
 eldest son of the celebrated anatomist and 
 physiologist, J. Dollinger, was born at Bamberg 
 on February 28, 1799, and died at Munich 
 on January 10, 1890. 
 
 His life as a child was neither an especially 
 bright nor a particularly dull one, neither 
 very rich in pleasures nor the reverse. A 
 contented mind was one of Dollinger's chief 
 characteristics, and he looked back with 
 
 1
 
 2 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 satisfaction to those early days, often reveal- 
 ing in the course of conversation some little 
 incident of his childhood. 
 
 " Parental authority and strict discipline," 
 he used to say, " were matters of course when 
 I was a child ; children addressed their fathers 
 and mothers with the formal ' Sie ' instead of 
 the familiar ' Du ' of our own day, and 
 obedience was a sort of law of nature. It 
 was the part of parents to command, of 
 children to obey, and opposition or criticism 
 was seldom heard of." 
 
 At five years old Db'llinger began to learn 
 Latin, and Greek at seven. "My class teacher," 
 Dollinger said, "was in the habit of calling 
 upon me to translate in the Greek lesson when- 
 ever one of my fellow scholars failed to render 
 the meaning, and I used to construe the passage 
 very often with a smile, for we boys had been 
 quick to discover that our teacher had not the 
 most intimate acquaintance with Greek, and
 
 PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 that lie often called me up as a means of 
 concealing his ignorance. One day, to my 
 no small astonishment, I received a box on 
 the ear from my father in consequence of 
 a complaint from the teacher that I wore such 
 a conceited air at the Greek lesson ! " 
 
 Dollinger had regularly to accompany his 
 mother to church, where she often spent hours, 
 while the little boy praying at her side was 
 filled with the poetical and devotional feeling 
 with which the Catholic Church is wont to 
 inspire its worshippers. 
 
 Often, too, when he had finished his lessons, 
 instead of being free to amuse himself, he was 
 made to read aloud from some religious book. 
 
 His father, of whose severity he stood in 
 some awe, encouraged his son's thirst for 
 knowledge by personal instruction and con- 
 versation. " But any question of a theological 
 tendency which I referred to my father was 
 met with the invariable answer, ' I do not
 
 4 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 know/ or, ' No one knows/ and I was allowed 
 to remain entirely in the dark. This awoke in 
 me, as quite a little boy, the desire to study 
 theology in order that I might clear up certain 
 difficulties, and be enabled to enlighten my 
 mother on these points. The idea soon took 
 such hold upon me that I determined to 
 become a theologian and nothing else, thinking 
 at that time less of the priesthood than of 
 the study it entailed. I undertook the office 
 with a view to all possible research, and, like 
 Socrates, I enjoy the satisfaction of having 
 reached by persevering labour the limits of 
 human knowledge ; but, alas I have fallen far 
 short of that to which I hoped to attain." 
 
 " My mother warmly supported my choice 
 of a vocation ; my father required that besides 
 theology I should study jurisprudence. Ac- 
 cordingly I became a student at the University 
 of Wiirzburg,. where my father was Professor 
 of Anatomy, and attended lectures on law by
 
 STUDY OF JURISPRUDENCE. 5 
 
 Brendel, who was the author of a work on 
 ecclesiastical law, and Kleinschrodt's lectures 
 on Roman institutions. Brendel was a tedious 
 lecturer, he digressed widely, beginning with 
 Indian history ; and I soon perceived that his 
 knowledge of the laws of Manu had been 
 obtained at least at second hand. Klein- 
 schrodt's lecturing satisfied me no better after 
 a time. The stillicidia * of the Romans during 
 the great water-famine, which were treated of 
 in much detail, did not interest me in the 
 least, and the monotonous sing-song of the 
 professor's delivery helped to disgust me with 
 the subject. My attendance at lectures became 
 increasingly irregular, and I finally decided 
 to give up the study of jurisprudence. 
 
 "The professors of other branches of learning 
 attracted me as little. The University of 
 
 * A term of Eoman jurisprudence, meaning the 
 right of a next door neighbour to take or share his 
 neighbour's rain-water, etc. (Trans.).
 
 6 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 Wiirzburg was then, as it seemed to me, a 
 centre of inefficiency. Theology was no better 
 represented, but I had chosen this as my 
 vocation, and so put up with inadequate 
 teaching. Perhaps, had I gone to Berlin and 
 heard Savigny and Eichhorn, I might not 
 have forsaken the study of law." 
 
 " The Countess Montalembert," remarked 
 Dollinger, in the course of one of our walks, 
 " took quite another view of my choice of 
 a profession, for she once begged me to tell 
 her the story of the romantic attachment 
 which had driven me to enter the priesthood. 
 I told her it was a very simple matter. In my 
 student days I loved a good and pretty girl, 
 but I had a rival whose suit was favoured by 
 her father, and as I was nobody and had 
 nothing, and as likewise I was strongly drawn 
 to the study of theology, I resigned my 
 pretensions, and the lady married my 
 rival.
 
 FIRST CELEBRATION OF MASS. 7 
 
 " The Countess was much disappointed. 
 ' What ! ' she said, ' it was not, as they 
 say in Frankfort, to save the girl from the 
 consequences of her parents' anger, who 
 threatened to cast her off if she refused the 
 rich suitor ? It was not because you were 
 crossed in love, but because you were in- 
 terested in theology ? Oh, I thought it 
 was something much more romantic than 
 that ! ' 
 
 " My assurances that I was not, and never 
 had been, in the least of a romantic turn 
 of mind fell on quite unheeding ears. The 
 Countess always maintained that I was the 
 victim of an unfortunate attachment. What 
 can shake a woman's confidence in the truth 
 of her ide&fixe ? Nothing ! " This sentiment 
 was echoed by my husband. 
 
 " I well remember," Dollinger went on, 
 " the delight of my mother and grandmother 
 when I first celebrated mass in 1822. It was
 
 8 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 more of them than of myself that I thought. 
 The holy office is always made a festival 
 occasion, when of course the display, the 
 Lucullian feast, and the introduction of the 
 bride are merely intended to present forcibly 
 to one's mind what the priest is called on to 
 renounce. 
 
 "As chaplain at Oberscheinfeld, I was 
 happy ; and the prospect of a cure of souls 
 in the country, where I could seek to gain 
 an influence over my flock, spend quiet hours 
 in my garden after the labours of the day, 
 or study undisturbed at home, was then, as 
 now, my idea of perfection." 
 
 Professor Cornelius says, in his masterly 
 and impressive memorial speech, that Dol- 
 linger never strove for ecclesiastical honours, 
 but rather shunned them. He became a 
 Professor in the Lyceum at Aschaffenburg 
 in the year 1823, and in 1826 was appointed 
 Professor of Church History and Ecclesiastical
 
 THEOLOGY IN MUNICH. 
 
 Law in the University of Munich. His work 
 on " The First Three Centuries of the Eucha- 
 rist" won for him a doctor's degree from the 
 theological faculty of Landshut. 
 
 Through his friends in Munich, Phillipps, 
 Gorres, Bader, Eingseis, Brentano, and others, 
 he was first introduced into the Ultramontane 
 circle. 
 
 Falloux, in his "Memoires d'un Koyaliste," 
 says that Munich was at that time the scene 
 of a great movement towards reform in both 
 religion and art. 
 
 " What noble and impassioned eloquence ! 
 What devotion to the Church and its cause ! 
 Nothing could have reminded one more for- 
 cibly of the preaching of the early Christians 
 than old Gorres's brilliant vindications of his 
 faith, Dollinger's learned conclusions, and 
 Brentano's freshness and originality." 
 
 " In his early career as a teacher of religion 
 he had often shrunk from books which bore no
 
 10 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 stamp of orthodoxy. It was long before he 
 read Sarpi, or the * Lettres Provinciales,' or 
 even Kanke's ' Popes/ which appeared when 
 he was thirty-five, and which astonished him 
 by the serene ease with which a man who 
 knew so much touched on such delicate 
 ground." * 
 
 Dollinger employed both tongue and pen 
 in the Church's service with all the eagerness 
 of partisanship. It was only gradually that 
 his ardour cooled; and in 1861, when, in 
 some lectures at the Odeon in Munich, he 
 had discussed the possibility, or rather the 
 probability of a complete secularization of 
 the Papal States, and the consequences likely 
 to result therefrom for the Catholic Church, 
 he wrote to his friend, Count Montalembert, 
 " I am very much disillusioned. Matters are 
 so different now in the Church from what I 
 
 * " Bellinger's Historical Work " in " The English 
 Historical Review," No. 20, Vol. v. (October, 1890).
 
 RANKE AS A CRITIC. II 
 
 pictured them twenty or thirty years ago and 
 painted in such glowing colours." 
 
 Dollinger once said to me, during a walk, 
 " When I read things now which I once 
 wrote, I wonder that I could ever have 
 written them. Well, it is not until one 
 grows old that one learns to judge impar- 
 tially and justly. Ranke is a model as 
 regards correctness of judgment ; he never 
 allows himself to be carried away, and his 
 view is always an unprejudiced one. I have 
 learned a great deal from him, and have much 
 to thank him for." 
 
 There were, perhaps, two subjects on which 
 Dollinger was not absolutely impartial or 
 unprejudiced. First, in his estimation of the 
 English people, and secondly, in the opinion 
 he had formed of the Jesuits. 
 
 He was much in sympathy with the Eng- 
 lish, and numbered among them many sincere 
 friends and admirers, whose letters and visits
 
 12 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 helped to lay the foundation of that incom- 
 parably broad view of men and things which 
 grew on him year by year. 
 
 The light in which he regarded the Jesuits 
 was far from favourable to them, and he 
 attributed the acceptance of the doctrine of 
 Papal infallibility chiefly to their influence. 
 That for a time he confidently hoped that 
 even the exertions of the Jesuits would fail 
 to establish this doctrine, is evident from a 
 letter written by him to my husband on Palm 
 Sunday, 1870, in which he says: 
 
 " Count Dam's appeal seems to me to be 
 a great success. It quite hits the nail on the 
 head with regard to Papal infallibility, only 
 I wish he had pointed out still more clearly the 
 political consequences of such a doctrine, and 
 the way in which it would react. A similar 
 representation from our Government, addressed 
 not to Antonelli alone, but to the Council, 
 would have the following advantages
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 13 
 
 " (1) It would serve as an encouragement 
 to the minority of bishops who stand much 
 in need of it. 
 
 " (2) It would very sensibly deepen the 
 impression which the French petition cannot 
 fail to make in the Vatican. 
 
 " (3) As such documents are generally pub- 
 lished sooner or later in blue-books, etc., a 
 petition from the Bavarian government would 
 serve as a foundation for a future protest 
 against and rejection of certain decisions." 
 
 In another letter, dated March 14, 1870, he 
 writes : 
 
 " Everything seems to turn on whether the 
 German and French bishops remain firm. It 
 is therefore most important that the bishops 
 should not get wearied out and return home, 
 or even absent themselves on leave. What a 
 condition of things ! It is unprecedented in 
 the world's history that consequences of such 
 incalculable gravity, hanging over us like the
 
 14 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 sword of Damocles, should depend on the 
 action of a few bishops ! The complete ex- 
 clusion of the lay element, and of all represen- 
 tatives of governments, from the Council is 
 unheard of, and opposed to all the traditions 
 of such councils for eighteen hundred years. 
 It is particularly unjust, because the papal 
 curia desires to oblige the bishops to accept a 
 series of decrees affecting the relations between 
 Church and State. This is a flagrant breach 
 of the first rule, i.e. that the parties interested 
 (the representatives of the various govern- 
 ments) shall be granted a hearing. It is a 
 real misfortune that Heir von Beust, a Pro- 
 testant, not intimately acquainted with the 
 question at issue, should fail to recognize the 
 entirely political character of the infallibility 
 dogma, and cling to the idea that the doctrine 
 is to be regarded purely as a matter of faith." 
 How deeply affected Dollinger was by this 
 question, is evident from a remark he let fall
 
 A SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 15 
 
 one day when the talk had turned on health 
 and sleep. " I have only had one sleepless 
 night in my life," he said, "and that was 
 when I was considering the impossibility of 
 reconciling my conscience to the dogma of 
 infallibility, thinking it over and over and 
 coming to the conclusion that I could not and 
 must not go over to that side." 
 
 The reproach that has so often and so 
 unkindly been cast at him, verbally and in 
 writing, i.e. that he was led astray from the 
 one Church of Christ by mistakes arising 
 from and unconsciously fostered by arrogance, 
 scarcely needs refutation. An arrogant man 
 would have acted very differently both at the 
 time and afterwards. 
 
 Dollinger continually dwelt in conversation 
 upon the theme which affected him so pro- 
 foundly, but firmly as he clung to the con- 
 viction which had resulted from so many 
 inward battles, he never attempted to convert
 
 1 6 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 others. His answer to any opposition of mine 
 in this direction was always, "You are quite 
 right to think thus ; I hold a different opinion, 
 and all the representations of man or woman, 
 lay person or cleric, cannot make me perjure 
 myself." 
 
 "Papal infallibility," he said, " was in early 
 times a matter of opinion, never of doctrine ; 
 and what a gulf there is between an opinion 
 and an article of faith ! I sometimes feel deep 
 within me pricks of conscience for having, as 
 a teacher of theology, approved of certain 
 things, and represented them in my writings 
 in the best possible light, concealing many a 
 weak point, in my honest zeal for religion and 
 the Church. By so doing I was helping to 
 train those clergy who have now adopted and 
 made themselves responsible for the dogma of 
 infallibility. A man may go far and yet come 
 suddenly to a point where he must pull up, 
 because his conscience refuses to go further.
 
 CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES. 17 
 
 That was my case when the question of this 
 dogma arose." * 
 
 * See " Briefe und Erklarungen von J. von Dol- 
 i linger ueber Die Vatikanischen Dekrete." (Munich. 
 / - 1890.) Published \>y Beck.
 
 1 8 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A WALK WITH DOLL1NGER. 
 
 THOSE who heard Db'llinger speak from the 
 pulpit or in the lecture-room, from his seat 
 in the chamber or in the Council, of course 
 carried away with them the impression of a 
 man of letters and distinction ; but to see 
 him out of doors, in the freedom of God's 
 beautiful creations, was to learn his disposition 
 and feel his geniality. 
 
 There he was gladdened by tree and 
 meadow, air and water, suDshine and the 
 songs of birds. The air might be both raw 
 and damp, but he always found something 
 to praise in it, so that I was involuntarily
 
 INDIFFERENCE TO WEATHER, 1 9 
 
 reminded of a legend told me by Dollinger 
 himself. 
 
 " In one of the streets of Galilee there lay 
 rotting the body of a dead dog. All who saw 
 it exclaimed, ' How unsightly! How horrible ! 
 What a stench ! ' But Christ, who passed that 
 way, said gently, ' Yet he has beautiful teeth." 
 
 It was a habit of Dollinger's, when interested 
 in a conversation, to come to a sudden halt in 
 his walk and remain standing still, so that we 
 have often discussed Aristotle, S. Jerome, or 
 politics, standing in a puddle, or in the midst 
 of snow, the octogenarian taking little or no 
 heed of such weather trivialities, while we 
 exerted some self-control as we tried to follow 
 his example. 
 
 On a bright day of opening spring Dollinger 
 would take his overcoat on his arm and step 
 out briskly with all the freshness of a boy, 
 now drawing our attention to a plant, and 
 now to some effect of light or shade.
 
 2O CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " How you enjoy all these beauties, Dr. 
 Dollinger I " 
 
 " Yes, but in another fashion than that 
 councillor of the Bordeaux Parliament in the 
 days of the Ee volution, who, when the sky 
 shone blue on a beautiful day, rubbed his 
 hands and exclaimed, ' Voila un beau jour 
 pour une execution 1 ' ' 
 
 The same gentle kindness with which he 
 enlightened from the treasures of his know- 
 ledge those who desired it was shown in his 
 manner towards any old woman who, in the 
 course of a walk, might stop him to ask the 
 way or the time. He would buy a poor child's 
 flowers, or wait to comfort and relieve it if 
 suffering from cold or hunger ; and never 
 a beggar was passed by or known to go 
 empty-handed from his door. 
 
 * 
 
 It was a day in the month of May, 1881. 
 We were walking in the English garden,
 
 IN THE ENGLISH GARDEN. . 21 
 
 which was a perfect paradise of blossom. The 
 sun shone brilliantly with more than spring- 
 like warmth ; and finding that the heat made 
 us thirsty we decided to seek some refresh- 
 ment in the garden of the " Chinese Tower." 
 
 We were soon seated at a little table under 
 a tree, and Dollinger ordered his favourite 
 beverage, some lemonade, for us. The waitress 
 brought what was required after a very primi- 
 tive fashion, providing us with some wrinkled 
 lemons and a tin spoon each in a glass of eau 
 sucree. 
 
 " I think we shall do better another time if 
 we drink our lemonade together at my house," 
 Dollinger said, laughing, and then called 
 our attention to some children playing on 
 the grass, and to the people seated all round 
 us engaged in eating and drinking. " Let 
 us be thankful that they are not hungry, 
 for, as Remusat says, ' Sa majestd le peuple 
 est tranquille quand il degere.' '
 
 22 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 I had lately been present when Wagner's 
 -c Gotterdammerung" was given in the theatre, 
 and this turned the conversation on northern 
 mythology. 
 
 "The Asa," remarked Dollinger, "differ 
 very substantially from the Greek gods. 
 Olympus has no existence in northern mytho- 
 logy, for the very natural reason that a Greek 
 could easily picture to himself an idyllic life 
 on a mountain surrounded by fresh sweet air, 
 while to the northern mind the conception of 
 a divine existence passed on their snow and 
 ice-clad peaks would never occur. 
 
 "The 'Gotterdammerung' itself, according 
 to the researches of a celebrated Norwegian 
 scholar, was first called into being by Chris- 
 tianity, which penetrated the heathen ideas 
 and crept in among them. Professor Maurer, 
 also an authority, agrees in the opinion that 
 the ' Gotterdammerung ' is not an original 
 legend, but an assisted growth."
 
 A SUDDEN SHOWER. 23 
 
 During our talk the sky had clouded over, 
 and the rain suddenly fell in torrents. Dol- 
 linger laughed. 
 
 " Only the Romans boasted of a Jupiter 
 Pluvius, the Greeks knew nothing of a rain 
 god. Any way, to-day he does more than his 
 duty. It brings an old Thuringian hymn into 
 my mind, which I remember runs thus : 
 
 I" ' Oh ! gracious God, we pray, 
 Grant fruit and rain and sun to shine 
 On Eeuss, Greiz, Schleiss, and Lobenstein, 
 And should the rest want something too, 
 Then let them find the way to sue.' " 
 
 He opened his umbrella, which he never 
 did until actually obliged, and said, " Shall 
 we not go into the house until the worst 
 of the shower is over ? " 
 
 "With pleasure," and we entered the inn 
 room. 
 
 The waitress, hardly waiting for an order, 
 placed three mugs of beer before us. " Can I 
 serve you with anything else ? "
 
 24 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 " A glass of water, if you please," replied 
 Dollinger, pushing the little mug away from 
 him. 
 
 Two or three young men had come in at 
 the same time as ourselves, and employed 
 their time in swearing at the weather, smok- 
 ing, and calling impatiently for beer. Dol- 
 linger had three pet aversions, and these 
 were bad language, smoking, and drinking. 
 At a neighbouring table card-playing was 
 going on amid frequent calls for liquor, and 
 Dolliuger, who as Stieve rightly observes,* 
 " had as clearly defined notions on temper- 
 ance as the strictest of ascetics," felt anything 
 but comfortable in this atmosphere of beer 
 and tobacco. He sat shrunk together in his 
 chair, the picture of resignation. 
 
 Neither my husband nor myself found our 
 
 * See Professor Stieve's able obituary notice of 
 Dollinger in the "Miiuchener Neueste Nachricbten." 
 (January, 1890.)
 
 BARBARISM OF SMOKING. 25 
 
 , surroundings exactly ideal, and as soon as 
 the heaviest of the downpour was over we 
 went out of doors again. 
 
 " Tobacco and alcohol are demoniacal 
 powers," remarked Dollinger, half in jest half 
 in earnest. " Smokers are barbarians. England 
 is here also an example of courteous manners ; 
 if the habit of drinking has increased 
 there of late, still, compared with Germany, 
 the English show great moderation in this 
 respect. The eternal smoking of pipes and 
 cigars by our forefathers doubtless helped to 
 bring about the short sight which has now 
 become hereditary in Germany. Tobacco- 
 smoking is the ruin of society and of chiv- 
 alrous conduct towards women. The tone 
 becomes less refined, conversation suffers from 
 it. For a long time I have avoided any 
 society where smoking is allowed, and often 
 travel first-class on the railway solely to escape 
 the disagreeable unwholesome atmosphere.
 
 26 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " This preference for public-houses," he. 
 went on, referring to what we had just been 
 experiencing, " is a very dark side of German 
 life, and a great hindrance in the education 
 of the young. When I compare our young 
 men with young Englishmen, what a difference 
 I find ! How many spectacle- wearing, weakly, 
 uncouth, mannerless youngsters I see here, 
 while it is a real pleasure only to look at 
 the boys and students in England, so vigorous, 
 healthy, well-grown, clean, and distinguished- 
 looking in their attractive college dress. This 
 latter point is under-estimated in Germany, 
 but the dress of the English student is not 
 only a becoming one ; it also, so to speak, 
 imposes a kind of obligation on the wearer 
 to show by the propriety of his conduct that 
 he is worthy of it and in this consists its 
 usefulness. 
 
 " Again, how totally the education of 
 children of the higher classes in England
 
 ENGLISH LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 27 
 
 differs from ours. All the out-door exercise, 
 the long periods of time spent in the country, 
 the cleanliness and pure air in the houses, and 
 the plain strengthening food produce this 
 thriving race." 
 
 Dollinger was now fairly started on the 
 topic of his beloved England. 
 
 " The English law of primogeniture pos- 
 sesses many advantages. The eldest son 
 inherits the estate and the bulk of the 
 fortune, the other children are each, according 
 to circumstances, left a larger or a smaller 
 sum of money. By this means the money 
 and the landed property remain with the 
 supporter of the family name though doubt- 
 less the arrangement is not without its 
 difficulties." 
 
 Here I ventured a remark : " In Beacons- 
 field's novel of ' Endymion ' he represents 
 the English as outdoing all other nations 
 in their place-hunting and pushing propen-
 
 28 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 sities, the ladies being especially distinguished 
 in this respect." 
 
 " Yes," Dollinger said, " Beaconsfield recog- 
 nized this weakness, or, so to speak, sad 
 necessity, and showed it up very cleverly. 
 The privileged firstborn burdens himself with 
 the task of providing, if possible, for his 
 brothers and sisters, brothers-in-law and 
 sisters-in-law, cousins and relations. And 
 then what should an English lady do but mix 
 in politics ? Her children are educated for 
 her, the management of her household ex- 
 penses is taken off her hands, others sew and 
 mend, do, in short, all that has to be done in 
 this line. She is thus left with plenty of 
 time to turn to account in politics, and she 
 uses it, often very usefully, and I daresay 
 sometimes very foolishly, in exerting her 
 agreeable manners and social gifts to forward 
 her husband's aims. 
 
 " One of the first laws," went on Dollinger,
 
 RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 2Q 
 
 after a pause, " which, if I were a legislator 
 in Germany, I should desire to introduce, 
 would be for the protection of young girls. 
 How often is an innocent girl seduced, and 
 what is the punishment for the seducer ? 
 The imposition of a heavy fine in such cases 
 would probably bring about some change for 
 the better. Both in England and in America 
 the state of things in this respect is in 
 advance of us, and women in general are held 
 in higher estimation. 
 
 " For instance, I hardly think that an 
 educated Englishman would allow his wife 
 to fetch him his boots, slippers, cigars and 
 newspapers, as do so many of our country- 
 men, accepting these services from their wives 
 as a matter of course. 
 
 " I often, and for many reasons, rejoice 
 that I am a German, but 1 am indignant 
 when I think how little, if at all, the breach 
 of a promise of marriage affects the man in
 
 3O CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLUNGER. 
 
 this country, and I live in hope that our 
 legislators will in the future make such be- 
 trayal of a girl a penal offence, and thus 
 vindicate the rights of women." 
 
 My husband mentioned Protestant canon 
 law, and instanced the laxity of its practice 
 with regard to separation as late as thirty 
 years ago in some provinces. 
 
 " Shamefully true," replied Dollinger. " I 
 know a case in point of a gentleman at 
 Augsburg who had been married several 
 years and was the father of six or seven 
 children. All at once he fell in love with a 
 banker's daughter, became a Protestant, and, 
 unheeding the misery of his wife, was success- 
 ful in obtaining a divorce. He then married 
 the girl and left his lawful wife with her 
 children to their fate. That the adultery of 
 the man should serve as a cause for divorce 
 seems to me destructive ; a man wickedly 
 desires to forsake his wife, he thereupon opens
 
 MARRIAGE LAWS. 31 
 
 an intrigue with another woman, commits 
 adultery, and there is at once a valid excuse 
 for a separation from her. Nor would I allow 
 unkindness on the part of the husband as a 
 ground for divorce, for the man who is tired 
 of his marriage has only to ill-treat his wife 
 to the point that she can no longer endure 
 it and must appeal to the law. She does 
 so ; the man is loosed from his obligations, 
 and free to fly into the arms of another 
 woman. The enforced payment of heavy 
 damages on the part of the husband would, 
 in my opinion, be a penalty much more to 
 the purpose. I would only recognize two 
 grounds for divorce. First, unfaithfulness 
 on the part of the wife, for this blasts family 
 life much more than the like offence on the 
 part of the husband ; and secondly, insanity." 
 " I agree with you on the two last points, 
 Dr. Dollinger," I remarked ; " but as to the 
 damages you propose for ill-treatment, with
 
 32 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 the best intentions you make the case of the 
 wife a great deal worse. Suppose that he 
 has no money, or that she desired a separa- 
 tion, your law would place the weaker sex 
 at a still greater disadvantage than is the 
 case at present." 
 
 He laughed heartily. " And so you con- 
 sider me thus far very incapable of working 
 out the marriage laws satisfactorily. There 
 was a very peculiar custom existing among 
 the Polish aristocracy in earlier days which 
 it strikes me may interest you. The Catholic 
 Church allows, under certain circumstances, 
 the re-marriage of divorced persons. But 
 to do this they must prove, and be prepared 
 to support the allegation with money, that 
 the wife was forced into the first marriage. 
 For this reason the daughter of a Polish 
 aristocrat used to receive a box on the ear 
 from her father at the marriage ceremony, 
 as an ocular proof that her marriage took
 
 DIVORCE LAWS IN FRANCE. 33 
 
 place under compulsion. Should the marriage 
 turn out happily, the box on the ear passed 
 into oblivion, but if otherwise, it served as 
 evidence of undue control exercised by the 
 parent, and the daughter was in possession 
 of a valid excuse for obtaining a divorce and 
 marrying again if she so desired." 
 
 The conversation then branched off to the 
 proposal moved and rejected in the French 
 ' Chamber, on February 11, 1881, for the 
 reintroduction of divorce, and Dollinger 
 gave us impromptu, in the most able and 
 instructive manner, the history of the divorce 
 laws in France. 
 
 "In 1789," he said, "both Church and 
 State in France and Germany were united 
 on this point. During the French Kevolu- 
 tion divorce was permitted, and the people 
 rushed to take advantage of it until the 
 Code Napoleon imposed certain restrictions. 
 In the year 1816, the Bourbons being once 
 
 3
 
 34 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 more in power, divorce was done away with ; 
 and so matters stand at the present time, as 
 is evidenced by the voting in the French 
 Chamber. But who can say how it will be 
 in the future ! " 
 
 " I had almost forgotten something which 
 I have here for you, Herr Staatsrat," Dollinger 
 said presently, drawing an envelope out of 
 his pocket, which he gave to my husband. 
 "It is only one more modest contribution 
 to your collection of book-plates, for I de- 
 light in being allowed to lend a helping 
 hand in keeping it flourishing and in per- 
 ennial bloom. Well, I suppose every man 
 must have his hobby, and we ought to be 
 thankful if we have only one. Many people 
 have several, and some of them expensive 
 ones too. For instance" and he turned to 
 me, smiling " I know a lady who has no 
 less than five hobbies. Initial letters, old 
 wood-cuts, proof engravings, old furniture,
 
 INDIVIDUAL HOBBIES. 35 
 
 partly Gothic and partly Renaissance, and 
 lastly, Gothic latticed windows, which keep 
 out the light, and are the dismay of many 
 of her friends. As I share the lot of common 
 humanity, I have no doubt that I am no 
 exception to the rule, and have my hobby 
 as well as the rest, but somehow I cannot 
 find it. Perhaps you could help me to a 
 truer knowledge of myself on this point." 
 
 I tried ; and we talked on, discussing 
 various hobbies, until the conversation went 
 back again to the public-house and to the 
 language which we had just heard there. 
 Dollinger remarked how very much this 
 mode of venting anger differed among 
 various nations, and mentioned several his- 
 torical oaths. I told him how my dear 
 father used always to exclaim, " HoF mich 
 der Teufel!" ("May the devil take me!") 
 when he thought he had done anything 
 clumsily. Dollinger contrived, as usual, to
 
 36 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 give the subject an entertaining side, and I 
 was hoping to hear more from him on this 
 topic, when we reached his house, the goal 
 of our walk, and parted. 
 
 The next day I received a letter from 
 Dollinger as follows : 
 
 " I send you the following details, as a 
 supplement to our conversation yesterday, 
 concerning the various oaths and modes of 
 swearing. 
 
 " In Paris, so Brantome relates, the follow- 
 ing verse was current: 
 
 " ' Quand la Pasque-Dieu deceda (Louis XI.). 
 Par-le-jour Dieu lui succeda (Charles VIII. ). 
 Le diable m'en porte s'en tint pres (Louis XII.). 
 Foi-de-gentilhomme vint apres (Francis I.).' 
 
 " These were therefore the oaths of the 
 four kings, and your father borrowed his 
 from Louis XII. 
 
 " An English account of France at the 
 time of Charles IX. says : ' This king and
 
 HISTORICAL OATHS. 37 
 
 the French people in general are hard 
 swearers. At every third word they blas- 
 phemously swear by the head, death, blood, 
 and belly of God (Tete-Dieu, Cordieu Ventre- 
 Dieu).' In England, during the seventeenth 
 century, the common oath was ' Zounds ! ' (a 
 corruption of ' God's wounds ') or ' S'death ' 
 (' God's death '), and also ' Bones-a-God ! ' 
 When the Duke of Buckingham, Charles the 
 First's favourite, was murdered, he cried out, 
 ' God's Wounds ! the villain hath killed me ! ' 
 The common oath of Henry IV. of France 
 was, ' Ventre-saint-gris ! ' ' Ventre-bleu ' is 
 still current among the French. I can think 
 of no reason for the connection of ' gris ' with 
 * ventre.' ' Bleu ' was added later in the place 
 of ' Dieu.' ' Corbleu, ventre-bleu ! ' 
 
 " Will you kindly accept these gleanings, 
 all I can give you at present. Queen Chris- 
 tina probably swore in French, as did the 
 rest of the world around her."
 
 38 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOLLINGER AT HOME. 
 
 AFTER our experience of the smoky atmo- 
 sphere in the inn-room, and the bad lemonade 
 in the garden restaurant, we now generally 
 ended our walk at Bellinger's house, and were 
 invited by him to partake of some refresh- 
 ments in his study. 
 
 As soon as the housekeeper had placed what 
 was required on the table, she vanished with 
 a patriarchal " Good night." 
 
 The domestic arrangements in Bellinger's 
 house were of a very conservative order. The 
 cook, after having served her apprenticeship 
 with his parents, had then lived fifty years 
 in his service, the housekeeper thirty-eight
 
 HARMONY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 39 
 
 years, the manservant thirty-five, and the 
 sound of a quarrel had never yet reached the 
 ears of the master of the house. 
 
 " Of course/' remarked Dollinger, " I some- 
 times hear a rattle followed by a crash, and 
 observe that a cup or a jug has disappeared, 
 but then I consider that if I had so much 
 to do with the glass or china, the things 
 would have been broken much sooner ; I must 
 say, though, that the disarrangement and 
 mixing up of my papers and books in 
 dusting, as they call it, is a great trial of niy 
 patience." 
 
 These outbreaks of annoyance consisted, 
 however, as I have often heard, only in the 
 exclamation, " Ei, ei, ei, now they have 
 turned everything upside down again ! " 
 
 How comfortable it always was in Db'l- 
 linger's study ! He and I seated on the big 
 old-fashioned sofa, my husband opposite ; 
 maps and books scattered round us in pro-
 
 40 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 fusion. Above the high desk hung the 
 portrait of Lord Acton, painted by Lenbach, 
 and below this several engravings Pope 
 Julius II., and Leo X. turning the pages of 
 a book, after Raphael's celebrated pictures ; 
 Clement X., the Jesuit general Gonzalez, and 
 the theologian Joannes Launoius. 
 
 Dollinger's writing-table was a most original 
 piece of furniture. At one time it had been 
 found too short to contain all his books and 
 manuscripts. It had therefore been length- 
 ened, and more shelves with divisions added 
 to the back of it. At another time he had 
 a slab made and joined on to the right-hand 
 end, and an additional set of shelves fastened 
 below on the left. A card box with two 
 divisions contained about thirty pen-holders, 
 and close at hand lay pen-knives, india-rubber, 
 and pencils. A black massive inkstand, a 
 sand-box, and a simple pen-wiper were in 
 daily use, while a few birthday presents in
 
 LITERARY LABOURS. 41 
 
 the shape of letter-weights formed the only 
 ornaments. 
 
 At this writing-table, unless interrupted 
 by visitors, Dollinger worked from six in 
 the morning to one o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and when he returned from his walk until 
 he went to bed. His supper consisted of a 
 glass of water. 
 
 At this table the following works first saw 
 the light : " A Handbook to the History of 
 the Christian Church ; " " Compendium of the 
 History of the Church ; " " The Eeformation, 
 its Internal Development and Effects within 
 the Sphere of the Lutheran Confession ; " 
 "Luther;" " Hippolytus and Callistus ; " 
 "The Gentile and the Jew;" "The First 
 Centuries of the Church;" "The Church and 
 the Churches, or the Papacy and the Temporal 
 Power;" "The Papal Fables;" "Janus on 
 the Pope and the Council ; " the lectures, 
 " On the Reunion of the Churches," given in
 
 42 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 1872 in the hall of the museum, but not 
 published until 1889, by Beck ; and the two 
 volumes of " Academical Essays." 
 
 In addition to these works, very many 
 noteworthy brochures and articles by Dol- 
 linger were composed at this curiously con- 
 structed writing-table. 
 
 Professor J. Friedrich, in his obituary 
 notice of Dollinger, justly remarks that he 
 never rested on his laurels. Certainly he was 
 never satisfied with what he had accom- 
 plished, but pursued his researches still 
 further, and it is highly characteristic of him, 
 that for this reason so much of his work 
 remained unfinished. For instance, the " His- 
 tory of the Sects of the Middle Ages " ; he 
 had collected comprehensive material for this 
 work from archives and libraries in Germany, 
 Italy, and France, and it was published in 
 1889, but alas, in an incomplete form I 
 
 Often, indeed, this or that valuable com-
 
 METHOD OF WORK. 43 
 
 position would never have been given to the 
 press, had it not been for the urgent demands 
 of his learned friends, F. H. Reusch, J. 
 Friedrich, M. Lessen, and others, who also 
 assisted him to publish, thereby deserving the 
 sincere gratitude of all Bellinger's adherents. 
 The hearty thanks tendered to Dr. Lossen in 
 the preface to the "Academical Essays," 
 show that Dollinger himself fully appreciated 
 these services. 
 
 Notwithstanding this habit of allowing his 
 work to lie on one side for a time for the 
 purpose of maturing it, had Dollinger lived 
 but a few years longer he would doubtless 
 have enriched us with other writings. Very 
 often a subject just glanced at in his academi- 
 cal lectures would afterwards so occupy his 
 mind as to decide him to shape it into a 
 substantive work, and it may, perhaps, 
 interest a wider circle to learn that one of 
 his latest literary projects was a history of
 
 44 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 the Separation of the Eastern and Western 
 Churches. As late as January, 1889, at a 
 class-meeting of the Academy of Sciences, he 
 spoke on this subject freely for an hour and 
 a quarter, to the admiration of all who heard 
 him. 
 
 Although Dollinger might be said to live 
 on the whole a secluded life, yet he had 
 plenty of visitors. Very few men of letters, 
 scholarly foreigners, or fellow-countrymen, 
 failed to pay him a visit, sometimes to make 
 his acquaintance, and often to reopen an old 
 connection. 
 
 Many people sought his advice on scientific 
 questions. He would furnish them with in- 
 formation, direct them to works of reference, 
 generously supply them with ideas, and pro- 
 duce book after book from his library for their 
 help and guidance. 
 
 Very often, more especially at Easter-tide, 
 Louis II. of Bavaria would apply to Dollinger
 
 A ROYAL QUESTIONER. 45 
 
 for light on some dogmatic subject, or for an 
 explanation of a particular passage in the 
 Bible. 
 
 Thus, in March, 1873, in accordance with 
 the wish of the King, Dollinger sent him his 
 article on " The Evidences of the Eesurrection 
 of Christ," and presented him with his book, 
 " The First Centuries of the Church," in which, 
 at p. 177, he had treated of the Atonement 
 as taught in Holy Scripture and received by 
 the Christian Churches. Louis II. seemed to 
 be especially interested in passages of the 
 Bible having reference to the Kingly office, 
 and in portions of the Song of Solomon ; and 
 each time Dollinger allowed very few hours 
 to elapse before he placed the KiDg in posses- 
 sion of the explanations he desired. 
 
 At the time of the Infallibility question, the 
 Minister of State, Von Liitz, was in conference 
 with Dollinger, sometimes in person and 
 sometimes through delegates, and Dollinger
 
 46 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 was thus enabled to place at the disposal of the 
 Bavarian Ministry ample historical material 
 for the representation of his views. 
 
 Literary, artistic, and historical inquiries 
 too were constantly poured in upon him from 
 all sides, and these always found a ready 
 answer. Now it was an author whose pen 
 was busy with a work on theological psycho- 
 logy ; now a worshipper of Mary Stuart seek- 
 ing information concerning her period and the 
 tide of thought then running ; some one else 
 would ask for notes on the Bishop "Wilhelm 
 Durandus who wrote his " Rationale Divin- 
 orum Officiorum " in the thirteenth century ; or 
 a writer who had chosen as his subject the 
 stormy times of 1296, when the last Duke 
 Ulrich of Corinthia bequeathed that land to 
 his cousin, King Ottokar of Bohemia begged 
 
 O OO 
 
 for sources of reference. Then he would even 
 be asked to decide such questions as these : 
 "Had our Lord brothers?" "Was Hugh
 
 LADY BLENNERHASSETT. 47 
 
 Capet descended from a butcher ? " " What 
 is the origin of the expression ' in petto ' ? " 
 And in addition there were the home and 
 foreign journalists all asking for articles from 
 the pen of the celebrated Church historian. 
 
 One of the most regular visitors to Dollinger's 
 library was Lady Blennerhassett, and many a 
 talk she had with him over various works. 
 This lady was the authoress of " Madame 
 de Stael ; her Friends and her Influence on 
 Politics and Literature." The merits of this 
 writer have been often shortly but eloquently 
 summed up by male critics in these words : 
 " She writes like a man." Women are apt to 
 have more to say about the book, and Dollinger 
 himself expressed his opinion of it when he 
 said, " Lady Blennerhassett goes to the root 
 of things ; she follows up the stream to its 
 historical source ; her writings are full of 
 matter, and her descriptions highly attractive." 
 
 At one time I was myself engaged on a
 
 48 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 little work on artistic miniatures and initial 
 letters, and busy with an essay on Queen 
 Elizabeth of England, and often used to come 
 to Dollinger for advice. 
 
 " I am always glad to answer people who 
 understand asking questions," he would say 
 with his invariable kindliness of manner. 
 
 Even when Dollinger was bored he was 
 
 obliging. Miss X was a blue-stocking 
 
 of the type described by Dickens. People 
 fought very shy of her verses and collections 
 of poetry, and she was carefully avoided by 
 those gentlemen whose assistance she most 
 coveted. Dollinger, however, never refused 
 her admittance, and, although he must have 
 inwardly chafed under the infliction, he always 
 showed himself ready to help and forward her 
 work. 
 
 His knowledge really resembled a great and 
 wide forest, where some might roam at will 
 and take their pleasure, others breathe the
 
 OFFERS OF HOSPITALITY. 49 
 
 fresh air and grow stronger, gather twigs and 
 branches, flowers and fruit, for use or orna- 
 ment, all were welcome, and nothing was 
 grudged, for out of such abundance Dollinger 
 had enough and to spare. 
 
 The invitations sent to Dollinger were of 
 a very various nature. At one time he was 
 asked to inspect a library, at another a villa 
 was placed at his disposal where he might 
 recruit after his work, and many were the 
 interesting personages who visited him there. 
 
 He used to speak with pleasure of Albert 
 du Boys, who had written him the following 
 hearty lines in 1855 : 
 
 " Si vous vous souvenez de 1'excellente et 
 aimable hospitalitd que vous nous avez donnee 
 a Munich a mon compagnon de voyage et a 
 moi, vous me permettrez bien de vous offrir 
 un gite dans notre vieux petit castel de la 
 Comte de Saucey ou j'ai pour hote en ce 
 moment Monseigneur Dupanloup." 
 
 4
 
 50 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 In the same way he liked to remember and 
 would mention a letter he had received from 
 the Italian historian Cantu, who, in the autumn 
 of 1864, wrote to him from Coccaglio : 
 
 " Je serai tres-content de vous revoir post 
 tantos casus. Si vous me ferez connaitre votre 
 arrived, je viendrai de suite vous chercher. 
 Pensez comme je serai superbe de vous hos- 
 piter ! Ainsi d'un faon ou de 1'autre j'espere 
 vous voir. Vous connaissez du reste les grandes 
 batailles que nous devons combattre & la 
 charnbre et dans les bureaux et dans toute 
 notre socie'te'. Aidez-moi de vos sympathies. 
 CANTU." 
 
 Dollinger's library was his greatest joy. 
 His bedroom opened out of it, and there was 
 also another entrance to it from the passage. 
 Famous as this library of his certainly was, 
 let no one imagine it only a beautiful book- 
 lined hall in which it would be a luxury to 
 spend a pleasant idle hour. It was a place
 
 DdLUNGEKS LIBRARY. 51 
 
 of study, and that in the strictest sense of 
 the word. Room beyond room it stretched, 
 freezing cold, the wooden shelves reaching 
 from floor to ceiling filled with books of all 
 ages, many of them rare and costly volumes. 
 In some places they stood in double and treble 
 rows, the many markers in them showing how 
 their contents had been digested. Plain mas- 
 sive reading-desks stood about here and there 
 ready for the master's use. There was also 
 a garden cottage hired for the purpose and 
 entirely filled with books. 
 
 Long ago, in his student days at Wurzburg, 
 Db'llinger had acquired a great deal of librarian 
 knowledge, and the delight he took as a youth 
 in these bibliographical labours revived again 
 as he told me of them. 
 
 " I was eighteen years old," he said, " when 
 my father astonished me one fine day by 
 making me the following proposal in the name 
 of the University librarian. Would I under-
 
 52 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 take to make a catalogue of the books forming 
 the library of the monastery for Scotch monks, 
 now dissolved, and which had been made 
 over to the University ? No remuneration 
 was offered, neither did I desire any ; I was 
 only too overjoyed to be counted one of the 
 chosen few who might search and make use 
 of the library to their heart's content. 
 
 " I soon became the counterpart of the man 
 who figures in one of Walter Scott's novels,* 
 always on a ladder in front of the book-cases, 
 and exclaiming, 'Oh! prodigious! prodigious!' 
 
 " My catalogue, which I dare say is still in 
 use, gave universal satisfaction, and while the 
 work lasted I was a happy man." 
 
 At Munich, Dollinger was for many years 
 head librarian of the University library. 
 
 It was also a strong desire of his that his 
 own beloved library should benefit others 
 besides himself, and he gladly made it ac- 
 * " Guy Mannering."
 
 " PETITS CADEAUX" 53 
 
 cessible to all who turned to him for help. 
 I have known him also desire one of his 
 nieces to remove the book-plates from some 
 of his own volumes for the purpose of add- 
 ing them to my husband's collection, and he 
 would often make presents to others of books 
 taken out of his own library. 
 
 In this way he gave me " Heliodorus " 
 "which you will read with pleasure and 
 profit," and, because of its beautiful wood- 
 cuts, Hans Holbein's " Erasmus von Eotter- 
 dam Lob der Narrheit." 
 
 When I thanked him heartily, he said 
 " There is an old proverb : Les petits 
 cadeaux entretiennent Tamitie. Montesquieu 
 applied it once very happily. He was at 
 variance on some parliamentary question with 
 a gentleman of position and influence, but 
 who was also somewhat bigoted. ' I would 
 stake my head on it,' said the latter to 
 Montesquieu.
 
 54 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLL1NGER. 
 
 "'And I accept it gladly,' Montesquieu 
 replied, 'for trifling presents cement friend- 
 ship.'" 
 
 Dollinger has often been called an egotist, 
 following only his own aims, and living 
 selfishly for his own intellectual pursuits. 
 In truth, it was far otherwise. For instance, 
 his sole motive in opening his house, to his 
 own inconvenience, and taking in young men 
 en pension, was that he might the better 
 overlook their studies. And an immense 
 boon he thus conferred on young students, 
 for it was precisely in this personal inter- 
 course " in conversation," as Stieve justly 
 observes, " that he revealed and almost over- 
 whelmed you with the treasures of his know- 
 ledge." 
 
 One of these young men, whose name was 
 De Courcelles, became ill with typhoid fever. 
 The doctors, out of consideration for Dtil-
 
 AN INVALID GUEST. 55 
 
 linger, advised his removal to the hospital, 
 where he could be received in a separate 
 room. Dollinger combatted the proposal 
 energetically, on the ground that the welfare 
 of his protege was to be thought of before 
 his own. As soon as De Courcelle's parents 
 heard of their son's illness they hastened from 
 Paris to Munich to undertake the nursing. 
 
 "They found him convalescent," said Dol- 
 linger, who told me the story himself; " and 
 his mother instantly announced to my cook 
 that she would herself prepare her son's 
 food, as she could not endure to see him 
 so sparingly fed, and thought my precautions 
 in this respect exaggerated. The patient 
 eagerly devoured the ragout prepared for him 
 by the maternal hands, and promptly had a 
 relapse. The good lady burst into my room 
 in such a state of remorseful distress that I 
 had much ado to console her, and was- 
 thankful when the sequel proved that both
 
 56 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 son and parents had escaped with nothing 
 worse than a fright." 
 
 Typhoid fever was then still considered 
 highly infectious, and the affair gave Dollinger 
 much anxiety and trouble, upsetting his or- 
 dinary habits, and interfering with his studies. 
 Still this did not prevent his taking the first 
 opportunity of again helping a sick friend 
 by taking him in and caring for him to the 
 very best of his ability. 
 
 Mathias Aulike was the director of the 
 Catholic department of the Prussian Ministry 
 of Public Worship and Instruction, and had 
 also represented a Westphalian constituency 
 in the Frankfort Parliament of 1848. In this 
 capacity he had spent many gay and serious 
 hours in Dollinger's society, and had ever 
 since retained a warm friendship for him. 
 
 In the year 1865, Aulike was staying at 
 an hotel in Munich, when he was suddenly 
 taken ill, and Dollinger instantly offered him
 
 DEATH OF AULIKE. 57 
 
 a room in his house. The kindness was 
 gratefully accepted ; unfortunately, however, 
 he did not recover, but died, a fortnight later, 
 in Dollinger's arms. 
 
 Not less worthy of himself was the generous 
 manner in which Dollinger came to the as- 
 sistance of the family of his deceased brother, 
 a retired captain in the Brazilian army, who 
 died at Munich in the year 1882. 
 
 The two daughters, who had been educated 
 at a convent at Eichstatt, found a welcome 
 awaiting them in Dollinger's house, and he 
 manifested the warmest interest in the moral 
 and material welfare of these girls. He 
 stimulated them to a zealous performance of 
 their duties, and guarded them from amuse- 
 ments which he considered undesirably 
 worldly or frivolous, personally superintended 
 their reading, and encouraged them to under- 
 take translations which he would himself 
 correct.
 
 58 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 11 You will do well to continue your reading 
 of Tasso," is his advice in a letter to his niece, 
 Elise, " or rather your study of him, for he 
 is not suited to careless and superficial reading. 
 Use your time wisely ; often remind yourself 
 that a day on which you have learned nothing 
 is a day lost, and be sure that the older one 
 grows, the more one deplores the time wasted 
 and thrown away in youth. Do not distract 
 yourself with too much visiting ; keep much 
 at home, and be diligent. As your sister is 
 going to Berchtesgaden, you can take her 
 place in the command of the household. 
 Govern with consideration and kindness. Make 
 as many wise regulations as you please, only 
 be careful not to disturb the arrangement and 
 order of my books." 
 
 At another time he wrote to her 
 " You acted quite rightly, Elise, in returning 
 to nurse your sick mother, and it is my earnest 
 wish that you undertake this duty heartily,
 
 A CAREFUL UNCLE. 59 
 
 in a childlike spirit, and with watchful atten- 
 tion. We must satisfy ourselves that nothing 
 is wanting which human aid can supply, and 
 then trust the rest to Grod, who in His bound- 
 less wisdom and mercy alone knows what is 
 best at all times, and for each individual. 
 
 " The prayer, ' Not my will but Thine be 
 done,' must, if we are to be good Christians, 
 be ours in every situation, and we should not 
 be content to say it with our lips only, but 
 really mean and wish it from the bottom of 
 our hearts." 
 
 Dollinger was zealously anxious to supply 
 as far as possible with his nieces their father's 
 place, and that he was very careful in his 
 admonitions to them, the following travelling 
 directions will show. They were given in 
 a letter to the young girl who had to make a 
 railway journey by herself from Ratisbon to 
 Munich. 
 
 "As you are this time to travel alone,
 
 60 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 remember that you are a young unprotected 
 girl, and bound therefore to conduct yourself 
 on the journey with double discretion. Do 
 not allow yourself to be drawn into conversa- 
 tion with strange men ; keep a book in your 
 hand, for it is often useful as a protection 
 against obtrusive attentions." 
 
 And how carefully he commended his niece 
 to me after this particular journey. " I 
 could wish nothing better for my niece than 
 that a lady like yourself should take a little 
 sympathetic interest in the girl. Perhaps 
 you will allow her to accompany you sometimes 
 in your walks. I am quite sure that a word 
 of advice from you would find the most ready 
 and grateful acceptance with my niece, whose 
 mind is, as yet, a fair and almost unwritten 
 page." 
 
 The genuine kindness and mingled humour 
 with which this old man of eighty-eight looked 
 on at youthful ways, is observable in the
 
 RES ANGUSTA DO ML 6 1 
 
 following letter, in which he described to me 
 his holiday menage with his nieces at Tegern- 
 see. 
 
 " We, uncle and nieces, are leading an 
 idyllic life here, if an unsentimental one. I 
 sit much in my room, and the girls go their 
 different ways. Elise lives here much as the 
 sparrows do, and has no cares except as regards 
 the weather ; she skips about, upstairs and 
 down, now in the house, now in the garden, 
 and finds room in that spacious heart of hers 
 every day for a fresh friend. I believe she 
 counts half the female population as her allies 
 and patronesses. 
 
 " Jeanette, on the other hand, goes thought- 
 fully about, burdened with our household and 
 culinary cares. She has a problem to solve 
 which much resembles the squaring of a circle. 
 It is her ambition to carry the art of saving 
 to its highest point, and to eclipse, if possible, 
 in this respect my old pensioned housekeeper.
 
 62 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 "With all this, the old uncle is not to miss any 
 of his comforts, nor is the dinner-table to be 
 worse served than formerly, but rather better. 
 Such opposite ends cannot of course be attained 
 without much wear and tear of brain, especially 
 here at Tegernsee, where living is dear, and 
 the resources of Munich are not at hand. 
 
 " Thus you see I have in these two girls 
 a living feminine edition of Milton's ' Pense- 
 roso ' and ' Allegro.' " 
 
 Dollinger guided and encouraged his nieces 
 in various ways to good and useful work, but 
 he also permitted them many amusements. 
 He did not object to their taking part in 
 ' Madchen-kranzchen," allowed them to join 
 skating and walking parties, attend concerts, 
 and sometimes a play at the theatre. The 
 only amusement he had a real dread of was 
 a ball. This antipathy dated from his early 
 youth, but was also in part the result of the 
 strictly clerical views of a Catholic priest.
 
 DISLIKE OF DANCING. 63 
 
 Even in his old age he remembered his 
 painful situation when, at a children's fancy 
 ball, he was led masked up to a little girl, and 
 told to dance with her. He did not want to 
 dance, had never been taught to do so, and 
 was, moreover, tired and desperately sleepy. 
 His eight-year-old partner lost patience with 
 him, left the little boy standing there and 
 departed, laughing derisively. 
 
 " That was my debut at a ball," remarked 
 Dollinger ; and he went on, " As a student 
 I was not much happier. I scarcely ever 
 danced. In the first place, I was lazy ; and 
 secondly, dancing in itself displeased me. 
 Girls who appeared to my eyes very graceful 
 when standing still, I thought frightful as I 
 watched them tearing breathlessly about with 
 gentlemen. If they would but be contented 
 with dancing a minuet, but these waltzes ! 
 
 " To this day I remember that my first 
 thought was, that were I engaged to a girl,
 
 64 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 or had a wife or a daughter of my own, 
 I would at once extract a promise from her 
 never to dance a waltz. 
 
 " A professor who was once lecturing to us 
 students on the ' History of the Dance,' said : 
 ' The dances of foreign people represent court- 
 ship. The German waltz represents marriage. 
 In the one case, a man is occupied in striving, 
 by all the attentions in his power, to please 
 the girl ; in the other, he is already in posses- 
 sion of her.' And he was right. 
 
 " My shyness also placed another obstacle 
 in my path. I found conversation with the 
 young ladies in the pauses between the dances 
 very difficult, and secretly marvelled at my 
 acquaintances, who apparently found this such 
 an easy task, and accomplished it so readily I 
 However, after I had listened a few times, 
 and heard the empty, trivial chatter that it 
 was, I thought, ' No ! this will never suit 
 you ! ' and I gave it up and remained, as far
 
 AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 65 
 
 as these occasions were concerned, a very 
 tiresome man." 
 
 We laughed, and Dollinger went on : " Very 
 much against my will, this was also my case 
 with regard to play-acting. In those days we 
 had a little amateur theatre in Wiirzburg, and 
 the part of Dunois, in Schiller's ' Jungfrau von 
 Orleans,' was on one occasion given to me. I 
 was a young enthusiast as regarded Schiller, 
 and, like all my fellow actors, I looked up to 
 Joan of Arc, who was very conspicuously repre- 
 sented by a certain Fraiilein von Hartmann, 
 with wondering admiration. A retired officer, 
 a relation, I believe, of this young lady, was 
 managing the performance for us. 
 
 " In the scene where Dunois misses the 
 Jungfrau from the field of battle, I declaimed 
 my speech with as much fire as I could muster, 
 and made my exit. 
 
 " The manager, however, considered my per- 
 formance clumsy, and exclaimed, 'What are 
 
 5
 
 66 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 you thinking of, Dollinger? Of course you 
 cannot run off like that. You must use some 
 action, surely, some kind of gesture at any 
 rate, expressive of the agony of despair you 
 are supposed to feel.' 
 
 " * Yes ; but how shall I show it ? ' 
 " ' Don't be so wooden. Can you not 
 advance one foot a little, while you stretch 
 out your arms towards heaven wring your 
 hands anything.' 
 
 "I tried obediently. ' I cannot do it.' 
 " ' Well, go on then, for Heaven's sake, and 
 play like the stick you are ! ' 
 
 " Need I say," finished Dollinger, " that I 
 then and there recognized, once for all, my 
 hopeless want of talent as an actor."
 
 )' 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DOLLINGER AS HOST. 
 
 DO'LLINGER'S little dinner-parties were very 
 well known. They used to take place at four 
 o'clock in the afternoon, but of late years he 
 altered the hour to two or three. 
 
 The meal was served in the drawing-room, 
 and simple as this little apartment was in its 
 arrangements, it yet deserves a brief descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 First, then, it was fragrant with the scent 
 of Dollinger's favourite flowers, mignonette 
 and yellow wallflower. Here, as elsewhere, 
 he thought more of the spirit than of the 
 thing itself, for these flowers are not especially 
 beautiful, but only sweet-smelling.
 
 68 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 The following oil-paintings decorated the 
 centre wall. A head of Christ ; Bossuet and 
 Fenelon, copies from the old Pinakothek ; the 
 well-known Dante, a copy by Antonio Marini 
 of Giotto's portrait in the chapel of the Palazzo 
 del Podesta at Florence ; an original drawing 
 of a Scriptural subject by Cornelius ; and 
 a small landscape. Under these stood the 
 dark green velvet sofa in the style of Louis 
 Philippe. 
 
 On the left of the window, and above the 
 flower-table, hung the life-like portrait of 
 Dollinger, painted by Lenbach.* 
 
 On each side of the entrance hung a litho- 
 graph of the members of the Frankfort par- 
 liament, to which Dollinger was elected in 
 1848, and some distant views of Rome, Paris, 
 
 * Dollinger left this portrait in his will to the 
 Royal Academy of Sciences, where it now occupies a 
 place in the Council room. The publisher appended a 
 very good reproduction of this picture to the second 
 volume of the " Academical Essays."
 
 A PHENOMENAL MEMORY. 69 
 
 London, and Oxford, places he had loved to 
 visit. 
 
 The University of Oxford had conferred on 
 him a distinction rarely given to a foreigner, 
 i.e. the title of Doctor of Canon Law. 
 
 Although himself very abstemious, Dollinger 
 liked to set before his guests a somewhat 
 recherche menu. The chief attraction, how- 
 ever, at these meetings was always the con- 
 versation of the host, who understood the art 
 of investing the most commonplace subject 
 with interest, and of looking at the remark- 
 able from a fresh point of view. 
 
 The great analyzer of character, H. W. von 
 Biehl, aptly called Dollinger " a receptive 
 genius." He must certainly have had a phe- 
 nomenal memory, for he could quote whole 
 passages off-hand, whether from Sophocles, 
 Augustine, Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Goethe, 
 or Schiller. For instance, as a boy of ten 
 years old he had read the greater number of
 
 70 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 Schiller's poems, and he could repeat these by 
 heart in his ninetieth year. 
 
 Dbllinger drank only water, except when a 
 toast was given, and then he merely sipped 
 a little wine, but he set the best Bordeaux 
 before his guests, and many a bottle of Veuve 
 Cliquot. Liqueurs were banished, for, as 
 Professor Stieve says in his ably written 
 article, " Ignaz von. Dollinger," " he regarded 
 spirits as the bane of mankind." 
 
 At one of these dinners Dollinger related to 
 us the following story in these words : 
 
 " It rather oddly fell to my lot on one 
 occasion to pass for a Freemason. Many 
 years ago some clergy were dining with me, 
 and the conversation was in full flow when 
 my neighbour became suddenly silent, and 
 sat gazing straight before him. The others 
 sat with heads bent over the table and 
 whispered among themselves. I could not 
 understand their behaviour, but presently
 
 AN AMUSING MISTAKE. 71 
 
 my neighbour turned to me and blurted 
 out 
 
 " ' I was not aware that you were a Free- 
 mason/ 
 
 " ' Nor am I one/ I replied. 
 
 " ' It looks uncommonly like it,' he said, 
 pointing to my table-cloth and showing me 
 his table-napkin, into which were woven some 
 Masonic symbols. 
 
 " I laughed, and gave my guests the follow- 
 ing simple explanation of the matter. 
 
 " ' When the Masonic lodge at Wtirzburg 
 was broken up, the furniture and table-linen 
 were sold by auction. My mother bought 
 this table-cloth and set of table-napkins, and 
 at the death of my parents they descended 
 to me. I cared nothing about them, but my 
 housekeeper it seems had an affection for 
 them. At any rate she hunted them out, 
 brought them to light, and has now you see got 
 me suspected of Freemasonry into the bargain.'
 
 72 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 " My guests made various civil speeches, 
 but I quickly saw that they attached not the 
 slightest credit to my story." 
 
 " A few days later a man named Eck called 
 on me ; in the course of conversation he 
 mentioned Freemasonry, and sounded me 
 very carefully on the subject. The same 
 week another acquaintance brought me a 
 newspaper cutting, in which I figured as the 
 Grand Master of the lodge at Carlsruhe." 
 Dollinger broke off with a hearty laugh, but 
 continued in an instant 
 
 " A town in which I had scarcely set foot, 
 but what of that ! The story was fairly started. 
 A French paper containing the same fabrica- 
 tion was soon forwarded to me. The ' Civilta 
 Catholica' likewise called me a Freemason. 
 All counter-arguments were useless; I preached 
 unanswerable evidence to the contrary entirely 
 to deaf ears. It was just one of those myths 
 set going by chance.
 
 ADVANTAGES OF FREEMASONRY. 73 
 
 " Freemasonry never at any time possessed 
 the smallest attraction for me, especially since 
 1848, when I first made acquaintance with 
 the Masonic hall at Frankfort. This chamber 
 was placed at our disposal for the sittings of 
 the Commission at the time of the German 
 Parliament, and there hung the portraits of 
 the Freemasons of the last century. A series 
 of the stupidest-looking heads imaginable, 
 though of course affording no sort of proof that 
 intellectual Freemasons are not to be found. 
 
 " It is said," went on Dollinger, "that during 
 the wars with Spain in the twenties, when 
 others were massacred without mercy, a great 
 number of Germans owed their lives to the 
 Masonic signs, as so many Spanish officers 
 belonged to the society. Eecent events have 
 testified how strongly English Freemasons 
 still hold to the necessity of making the 
 Christian creed and confession a condition of 
 admission to the order."
 
 74 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " Indeed, is this the case ? " I remarked. 
 
 "Yes," replied Dollinger, "you know that 
 Freemasons have hitherto made no stipu- 
 lation as to members of the society being 
 either Catholic or Protestant, so long as they 
 professed Christianity. Lately, however, the 
 French have declared the society open to 
 members of any religious persuasion professing 
 monotheism, a regulation which would justify 
 the admission of Jews, who also believe in one 
 God. As soon as this came to the knowledge 
 of the English Freemasons they protested, 
 and declared their determination to sever 
 their connection with any lodge taking this 
 step." 
 
 " What action," I asked, " did the Germans 
 take?" 
 
 " As far as I know, they altogether disre- 
 garded the matter ; but German Masons are so 
 strangely silent as to their membership with 
 the society, that among all my acquaintances
 
 DISAPPOINTED HOPES. 75 
 
 I scarcely know three who acknowledge that 
 they belong to it. On one occasion a man 
 from Zurich, who was paying me a visit, said 
 to me, with some consternation. 
 
 " ' Only just read here what they allege 
 against us ; I have been a Freemason, both at 
 Geneva and Munich, for sixteen years, and 
 have seen absolutely nothing of what they 
 report to be the case/ 
 
 "Herr von Hermann, too, the well-known 
 national economist and statist, told me once, 
 that as a young man he had been very 
 strongly urged to become a Freemason, partly 
 on account of the interesting revelations to be 
 enjoyed, and also because of various advantages 
 to be obtained in the way of distinctions and 
 appointments. 
 
 " When he decided to enter the lodge he 
 was Professor of Mathematics at the Gymna- 
 sium and Polytechnical School, and experi- 
 enced some difficulty in scraping together the 
 hundred gulden requisite for his admission.
 
 76 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " Once a Freemason, he awaited with no 
 little eagerness coming events. But neither 
 he, nor his friend who had been admitted 
 with him, learned anything of remarkable 
 interest. However, promises for the future 
 were held out, and he was told for his con- 
 solation that he was as yet only on the lowest 
 step of the ladder. He waited and waited, 
 reached a higher position, no interesting re- 
 velations or rewards of any sort were forth- 
 coming 'and,' finished Hermann, 'I have often 
 enough regretted my hundred gulden.' Yes," 
 Dbllinger went on gravely, " such is life, the 
 dropping off of one illusion after another." 
 
 After some intervening conversation he con- 
 tinued : "In Hanover, before the war of 
 1870, Freemasons enjoyed great political 
 influence as regards the elections and the 
 appointments to important posts. They are 
 also influential in other directions, the different 
 lodges expending much money on charitable
 
 FREEMASONRY FOR WOMEN. JJ 
 
 objects. Freemasonry has spread into all the 
 European countries. The last persecution 
 took place in Spain, in 1815-16, under Ferdi- 
 nand VII. , whose first act of government was 
 the re-establishment of the Inquisition a 
 measure naturally hotly taken up by the 
 Freemasons. The Scotch Jacobites are the 
 oldest members of the society. From thence 
 they came to France, and as soon as a thing 
 is French it quickly becomes German. Free- 
 masonry was first introduced into Germany 
 after the French pattern, always of course 
 excepting the lodges composed of women." 
 
 I remarked that I was unaware that women 
 were ever admitted to the society, and 
 Dollinger replied 
 
 " Yes, in the year 1775 the Due de Chartres, 
 afterwards Due d' Orleans and Citizen Egalite, 
 was in favour of and authorized female 
 Masonic lodges under the title of ' Loges 
 d' Adoption.' The Duchesse de Bourbon was
 
 7 8 CONVERSA TIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 elected Grand Mistress of these lodges, and as 
 at that time pug-dogs were much more 
 numerous than they are now, and greatly 
 petted by ladies, the presentation of one of 
 these dogs formed part of the ceremony of 
 admission." 
 
 " As a satirical compliment, I imagine ! But 
 if Freemasonry has only good ends in view, 
 why has it met with so much distrust and 
 persecution ? " I asked. 
 
 " Because the most various political societies 
 have often concealed themselves under the 
 name of Freemasons," replied Dollinger ; " a 
 fact known to Leo XIII. and which induced 
 him to say as he did, ' The Society of Free- 
 masons is one which does not shrink even 
 from murder.' And yet there have been, and 
 still are, monarchs and princes in office among 
 the Freemasons. The Emperor Joseph II. 
 was one of their protectors, and had the Pope 
 been acquainted with their laws, he would
 
 A CONDEMNED WORK. 79 
 
 not have so stigmatized the society. The 
 malpractices carried on under shelter of their 
 name, first caused him to take this view, and 
 the murder of Eossi confirmed him in it. 
 Moreover it must be admitted that the task 
 of separating the wheat from the tares in 
 such cases is by no means an easy one." 
 
 After glancing at various topics, the con- 
 versation now turned to the light literature 
 of the present day. 
 
 " Heavens ! how the times have changed ! " 
 exclaimed Dollinger. " I well remember the 
 excitement in our family when some publica- 
 tion appeared which described the ' Hours of 
 Devotion,' by Zschokke, as 'a work of Satan.' 
 As a boy, in the beginning of the century, 
 I had been set to read this widely circulated 
 Protestant religious work aloud to my mother, 
 and we both of us liked it much. She, good 
 soul, took the condemnation of it very 
 hardly, and argued the subject energetically
 
 80 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 with every ecclesiastic who came in her way. 
 But think with how much more justice those 
 frivolous novels of the present day which 
 do such infinite harm might be called works 
 of Satan ! The * Hours of Devotion ' met 
 with much the same reception in certain 
 circles as was accorded in these days to 
 Strauss's ' Leben Jesu/ or Kenan's book- 
 works certainly in no way resembling 
 Zschokke's." 
 
 He broke off here, and continued presently 
 "Strange that Ernest Renan should have 
 developed so differently to what was expected 
 of him in ecclesiastical circles I Years ago, 
 when I was in Paris, I asked Dupanloup 
 which of his seminarists he considered the 
 most promising. He answered by pointing 
 out to me a stripling who, he said, would 
 one day be a champion of the Church, and 
 whose name was Ernest Renan.* His 'Life 
 * Also mentioned by Lord Acton. Vide "Dollinger's
 
 MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 8 1 
 
 of Christ' caused almost more sensation than 
 that of Strauss," and Dollinger proceeded to 
 quote passages from both of these works. 
 
 Presently he gave the short dry cough 
 which always preceded an amusing story. 
 
 " There was a man named Strauss, a 
 member of the Consistorial Court at Berlin, 
 and a very strict and learned Protestant ; he 
 was the author of several works : ' The 
 Baptism in Jordan,' ' Helen's Pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem/ etc. In passing through Munich 
 he put up at one of the hotels, and at once 
 wrote his name in the visitors' book. He 
 had hardly reached his room when the 
 chambermaid appeared, and rushing towards 
 him, exclaimed, ' What delight, Herr Strauss, 
 to see you here ! Your waltzes are the finest 
 in the world.' The member of the Consis- 
 
 Historical Work," in the " English Historical Keview," 
 edited by the Kev. Mandell Creighton, Dixie Professor 
 of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 G
 
 82 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 torial Court disclaimed the compliments 
 showered upon him somewhat stiffly. A 
 few minutes after in burst an enthusiastic 
 youth, ejaculating, ' Oh ! I am indeed happy 
 in being thus permitted to pay my respects 
 to the author of the 'Leben Jesu.' Herr 
 Strauss had again to defend himself with 
 energy from the imputation of identity with 
 so celebrated a personality, and used after- 
 wards to say to his friends, ' I need not boast 
 of my popularity in Munich.' 
 
 " Somewhat less jealous of his clerical 
 character was the good landscape painter, 
 Dillis, who was at one time director of the 
 
 Gallery of Paintings here in Munich. His 
 
 * 
 housekeeper could hardly believe her eyes 
 
 when one day in church, to her intense 
 astonishment, she beheld her respected master 
 celebrating mass. It was the first intimation 
 she had received that he was a Catholic 
 priest.
 
 THE KING OF HANOVER. 83 
 
 " Original characters like these are fast 
 dying out even among statesmen. What 
 an example of mingled sense, superficiality, 
 amiability, and indiscretion in money matters 
 we had in Prince W " 
 
 " He was so entirely accustomed to being 
 continually waylaid and followed about by 
 his admirers, that once on coming out of the 
 Frauen-kirche (Church of our Lady), feeling 
 himself held back by the cloak, he turned 
 abruptly round, and angrily exclaimed, ' This 
 is really not the place I ' before he saw, to 
 his relief, that it was only his cloak which 
 had hitched in passing on a nail." 
 
 "There are endless anecdotes told of the 
 Prince," went on Dollinger, " but we shall 
 do wisely to take most of them after the 
 fashion adopted by the late King of Hanover. 
 The latter recommended to a certain abbess 
 a frail young beauty who had been seduced 
 by her lover, for reception into her convent.
 
 84 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 The abbess wrote that she was exceedingly 
 sorry, but that the young lady's reputation 
 was not unblemished. Whereupon the Prince 
 replied ' Honoured lady, Pray take my 
 course, that is, in all such cases believe only 
 half of what you hear. For instance, if I 
 were to be informed to-morrow that you had 
 had twins, I should credit exactly one half 
 of the story." 
 
 In this way Dollinger would often tell one 
 witty story after another, and then again 
 revert to past and present questions, touching 
 each with his own peculiar depth of earnest- 
 ness and lucidity. 
 
 He often made use of very original illustra- 
 tions to make his meaning plain and more 
 intelligible to others. For instance, I remem- 
 ber on April 10, 1885, his referring to the 
 Afghan complication, and saying 
 
 " This war resembles the action of an 
 hydraulic press ; the force is felt on the Bos-
 
 PITHY SAYINGS. 85 
 
 phorus, the end in view being Constantinople, 
 but the pressure on the piston is applied in 
 Central Asia." 
 
 On another occasion he said, " The Jewish 
 law was intended for an agricultural people ; 
 in many respects the code was a strict one, 
 and in others again very lax. When the Jews 
 ceased to be an agricultural people, their code 
 of laws fitted them like a coat made for a fat 
 man, and worn by a thin one." 
 
 Again, " Good laws do not always make 
 good people ; their faults crop up afresh, like 
 hair that has been cut." 
 
 " Materialism is a prison, without air, light, 
 or space." 
 
 " Ought not German theology to resemble 
 the spear of Telephus, which first deals the 
 wound and then heals it ? "
 
 86 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 VILLA LIFE AT TEGERNSEE. 
 
 COUNT and Countess Arco Valley were among 
 the number of Db'llinger's oldest and best 
 friends. After their death the sons and 
 daughters, as well as the son-in-law, Lord 
 Acton, were most anxious for the continuance 
 of the intimacy already established. The 
 children followed the hospitable example of 
 their elders, and thus it came to pass that 
 Dollinger continued to spend as heretofore 
 the months of August and September at the 
 beautifully situated Villa Arco on the 
 Tegernsee. 
 
 Plenty of intellectual activity was always 
 stirring in that house, constantly filled with
 
 MASTER AND PUPIL. 87 
 
 guests in addition to the family. The conver- 
 sations, held in the home-like drawing-room, 
 where the creepers hung green about the 
 windows, in the garden, or during the course 
 of a walk, were wont to range over past and 
 present, in strains both grave and gay. 
 
 In the year 1850 the seventeen-y ears-old 
 Dalberg-Acton had come to live en pension 
 with Dollinger at Munich, where he studied 
 for five years at the University, and made one 
 of Dollinger's audience during his lectures on 
 Church history. The vacations were spent in 
 travelling, and together they made expeditions 
 to England, France, and Italy, Dollinger with 
 the object of searching libraries and archives 
 for material for his " History of the Sects of 
 the Middle Ages." Sometimes, too, they 
 stayed with Lord Acton's family at the Castle 
 of Herrensheim, near Worms, and sometimes 
 at the Villa Arco. The link between master 
 and pupil strengthened, and became a bond
 
 88 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 of friendship. They exchanged opinions on 
 religion and politics, or lost themselves in 
 some learned problem or literary curiosity, 
 Lord Acton's fund of knowledge often im- 
 pressing even Dollinger himself. In later 
 years he would often describe to us Lord 
 Acton's library, going over it again and again 
 with us in imagination, and initiating us into 
 its intellectual significance. 
 
 Sometimes during his visits to Tegernsee, 
 Dollinger met Lord Acton and Mr. Gladstone 
 
 o 
 
 together at the Villa Arco, and when this was 
 the case his letters showed him to be in best 
 of spirits. 
 
 Thus in writing to his niece Jeanette, he 
 said, " At the present moment the Villa Arco 
 is filled with English visitors, birds of passage 
 attracted hither on their way through, for 
 Acton and Gladstone are powerful magnets. 
 The house is therefore just now especially 
 lively, but I am quite undisturbed in the
 
 VISITORS AT VILLA ARCO. 89 
 
 stillness and quiet of my room, commanding 
 a most lovely view. The villa is crammed 
 with luggage, trunks, chests, baskets, boxes, 
 and travelling bags ; it looks like the unload- 
 ing of Noah's ark. In addition to the ladies 
 of the party, there are eleven or twelve male 
 and female servants. The ruling spirit, Lord 
 Acton, will be here for a few days." 
 
 On one afternoon in the autumn of 1887, 
 when the party of friends were seated at 
 coffee in the garden, the painter Lenbach 
 managed to transfer the group as if by magic 
 on to one of his photographic plates, and thus 
 provided us with the interesting little picture 
 which forms the frontispiece. Franz von 
 Lenbach, Count Emerich Arco Valley, and 
 Lord Acton are standing. Those sitting are 
 the English premier, Mr. Gladstone, and his 
 daughter ; Countess Leopoldine Arco Valley ; 
 Dr. Schlottmann, professor of evangelical 
 theology at Halle, who chanced to be present ;
 
 90 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 and Dr. Dollinger. The arrangement and 
 natural grouping of the party is due to 
 Lenbach's artistic eye. 
 
 Bellinger's letters to me are also full of the 
 pleasure a sojourn in his favourite haunt 
 always afforded him. 
 
 " Very gladly," he wrote, " should I have 
 joined you for our usual Friday walk, had 
 not a previous engagement obliged me to 
 start this morning for Tegernsee, from whence 
 they send a carriage to meet me part way. 
 Do let me persuade you and your husband, 
 before the end of the summer, to make an 
 excursion to this beautiful health - giving 
 Tegernsee, and see if we will not walk and 
 talk to our heart's content de onini re 
 scibili et quibusdam aliis that is, discuss all 
 known and unknown sciences, in wise con- 
 verse under the eye of heaven." 
 
 At another time he wrote to me : " For 
 the moment we find ourselves, you and I, in
 
 A SUMMER SOJOURN. 91 
 
 very different surroundings. You are living 
 in a quiet retreat,* where probably the nuns 
 form the only accessories to the picture at 
 your coffee parties. I on the contrary cannot 
 stir outside the house without encountering a 
 crowd of strange faces, chiefly feminine, and 
 am reminded of the saying of the Eoman 
 satirist in the time of Trajan, namely that 
 the Syrian river Orontes had emptied itself 
 into the Tiber. It is as though this year the 
 Spree, in defiance of all geographical laws, was 
 bent on pouring its waters into the Tegernsee, 
 for the place literally swarms with Berliners. 
 I am, however, quite unaffected by it, as I 
 have long been accustomed here to follow my 
 own devices, and can at any moment obtain 
 the needful quiet at home in the garden." 
 
 " Do tell your husband that I have read 
 his biography of Jarke with great pleasure. 
 
 * We wore then spending some time in the country 
 at Kloster Wald, near Ottobeuren.
 
 92 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 It is concise and thoroughly impartial, and 
 a real adornment to the work of which it 
 forms a part." 
 
 About this time I sent to Dollinger, at 
 Tegernsee, an initial letter, a woodcut from 
 a sixteenth century publication, begging him 
 to decipher it for me. The little commentary 
 which Dollinger gave me in answer is so 
 graceful, and withal so descriptive of the 
 woodcut, that I think it will be found inter- 
 esting. 
 
 "The answer which I herewith send to the 
 puzzle you set me ought to convince you, 
 honoured Princess Louise Turandot, that I 
 have something in common with Prince Kalaf, 
 of course minus his pretensions. The letter 
 is a V, and signifies Vanitas vanity in the 
 Scriptural sense, as it is used by Solomon 
 throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes, namely 
 to describe the transitory character, hollowness, 
 * " Allgemeine deutsche Biographie."
 
 V ANITAS. 93 
 
 and fruitlessnesa of earthly desires. The 
 principal figure represents mankind, two- 
 headed, to indicate the sexes, the male head 
 distinguished from the female by a beard. 
 It holds in one hand a wreath, symbolical 
 of the pleasures of life, feasting, self-adorn- 
 ment, love of admiration, etc. But the 
 wreath is blown to pieces by a storm (fate), 
 and the little picture is full of the leaves 
 whirling in the air. With the other hand 
 mankind grasps the goddess Fortuna by the 
 hair, and attempts to hold her fast. She is 
 known by her wings, and the ball upon 
 which she sets her foot ; she holds in one 
 hand an overflowing purse, and in the other, 
 as I think, the horn of Amalthea with which 
 the Greeks always represent her, symbols of 
 plenty and earthly blessing. On the ground 
 lies Cupid with bandaged eyes, and with his 
 quiver ; his bow is broken, because according 
 to Solomon (and Goethe also) sexual love
 
 94 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 is likewise counted but one of the vanities of 
 this life. Then, oh the other side, we have 
 an old man's head, the God of Time, Saturn 
 (Chronos), with fourfold wings, denoting that 
 the flight of time is rapid and not stayed by 
 pleasure. Over all hovers a harpy, as de- 
 scribed by Virgil, half bird, half woman, the 
 symbol of an insatiable craving, the constant 
 hunger for new and idle pleasures. The little 
 picture would therefore signify that the desire 
 for and striving after money and possessions, 
 sensual pleasures, and the homage of this 
 world, is vain, because fleeting and transitory, 
 and in the end incapable of yielding the peace 
 and joy of contentment. Thus your little 
 
 I 
 
 initial picture is a miniature sermon." 
 
 I was in the midst of the joys of a change 
 
 of residence when I received the following 
 
 letter from Dollinger, also written from the 
 
 Villa Arco, and in the same cheerful spirit. 
 
 " On ne saurait croire combien on se trouve
 
 A FLITTING. 95 
 
 riche quand on demenage. This you are now 
 daily experiencing, and I venture to say not 
 without trouble, fatigue, and inward groans. 
 I am sure you must think with envy of the 
 Greek philosopher who wandered forth, empty- 
 handed, and with one coat, saying contentedly, 
 ' I carry all my possessions with me.' 
 
 " Eye-witnesses tell me that the state of 
 things in your new house at present much 
 resembles the third day of creation, tohu 
 vabohu. Well, this converting of a desolate 
 chaos into a scene of order and harmony, 
 where everything has its fitting place, is a 
 charming vocation, and one in which ladies 
 especially excel. I quite expect soon to hear 
 or to read that the population of Munich is 
 making a formal pilgrimage to see and marvel 
 at the artistic ingenuity which has found the 
 right place for all those gothic, rococo, and 
 renaissance treasures, that collection of antiqui- 
 ties, those pictures, and all that china. But,
 
 96 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 joking apart, I should gladly have paid you 
 a farewell visit, had I not been told that you 
 were absolutely inaccessible to visitors. And 
 so I started for Tegernsee, and console myself 
 with the hope of finding you on my return 
 quite well, and in the peaceful enjoyment of 
 your well-arranged valuables. For my part, 
 I find Tegernsee more beautiful than ever, 
 and the air so healthy and invigorating. It 
 is while drinking in such breezes as these that 
 one realizes the mere physical delight of 
 living. I trust that after all your labours and 
 trials of patience, you will soon be yourselves 
 enjoying nature to the full in the Bavarian 
 forest. 
 
 "My kindest remembrances to your husband. 
 Does he content himself with watching the 
 progress of your work, and approving and 
 admiring it, or does he turn to and lend a 
 hand himself? 
 
 " My conscience assures me that were I in
 
 THREATENED LOSS OF SIGHT. 97 
 
 his place, I should be satisfied with looking 
 on, de crainte de gdter Touvrage. Tell him 
 I look forward confidently and with much 
 pleasure to seeing him, and the helpmeet who 
 sweetens life to him, both in improved health 
 and spirits before long at Munich." 
 
 At Tegernsee, in the summer of 1885, 
 Db'llinger suffered from an affection of the 
 eyes. He bore this trial with great fortitude, 
 and the doctors who attended him at the Villa 
 Arco, Duke Carl Theodore of Bavaria, Pro- 
 fessor Dr. von Eothmund, and Dr. Eosner, 
 marvelled at the physical and moral strength 
 of their patient. 
 
 It was necessary that he should undergo 
 an operation for the malady, and until within 
 a few minutes of its commencement, he 
 desired his niece to read aloud to him, and 
 immediately afterwards to resume her read- 
 ing at the point where it had been broken off. 
 He never complained, obeyed all the medical 
 
 7
 
 98 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 directions, and was grateful for the smallest 
 service rendered to him. 
 
 On the second of October I received the 
 following lines : 
 
 " I am writing to you myself instead of 
 through one of my nieces, a substantial proof 
 that my eye-affection is cured. Sight is 
 surely the most precious of all our bodily 
 gifts ; its organs are governed by the most 
 delicate of mechanisms, and these are pre- 
 served to me unimpaired. It was naturally 
 a fortnight of severe trial, not so much on 
 account of the necessary exercise of patience, 
 but because of the threatened loss of sight 
 which I had to face. God be praised a 
 thousand times that it has all ended so 
 well. 
 
 " I am still read aloud to every now and 
 then ; but I can already both read and write 
 myself for four or five hours in the day, and 
 this without fatigue. I have not wanted for
 
 HIGH OPINION OF MR. GLADSTONE. 99 
 
 careful nursing during the time of my trouble 
 and helplessness. 
 
 " On the 6th of this month we return home, 
 and 1 am glad to think how soon f shall greet 
 both you and your husband who is, I trust, 
 better in health and spirits face to face." 
 
 On Dollinger's return to Munich he appeared 
 rejuvenated ; he read, studied, wrote, went 
 out walking, and seemed to take a double 
 pleasure in all things worthy enjoyment. 
 
 His intellectual interests touched at many 
 points those of Lord Acton and Mr. Gladstone, 
 and he constantly mentioned these two in 
 conversation. 
 
 We used occasionally to express our regret 
 that the views of the English premier were 
 so decidedly antagonistic to Germany, and 
 Dollinger shared this sentiment, but in other 
 respects he always extolled Mr. Gladstone's 
 superior qualities. 
 
 " I have known him now for thirty years,"
 
 100 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 he said once, " and would stand security for 
 him any day ; his character is a very fine 
 one, and he possesses a rare capability of work. 
 
 " I think it was in the year 1871," went 
 on Dollinger, " that I remember his paying 
 me a visit at six o'clock in the evening. 
 We began talking on political and theological 
 subjects, and became, both of us, so engrossed 
 with the conversation, that it was two o'clock 
 at night when I left the room, to fetch a book 
 from my library, bearing on the matter in 
 hand. I returned with it in a few minutes, 
 and found Gladstone deep in a volume he 
 had drawn out of his pocket true to his 
 principle of never losing time during my 
 momentary absence. And this at the small 
 hours of the morning ! " 
 
 " Ireland owes much to Gladstone," went 
 on Dollinger. "The situation there was a 
 terrible one. Irish tenants were utterly at 
 the mercy of their landlords ; they might at
 
 IRISH GRIEVANCES. IOI 
 
 any moment be turned neck and crop out of 
 employment, and with great injustice handed 
 over to destitution. Gladstone took the side 
 of the oppressed, and by his speeches in 
 various assemblies, succeeded in rousing so 
 strong a feeling in favour of reform in this 
 direction, that his adherents soon constituted 
 the majority in the lower house. Various 
 measures were taken into consideration, and 
 a helping hand held out to the Irish tenants. 
 
 " These events were quickly followed by an 
 agitation of the English tenantry, without the 
 excuse of the grievances of their Irish neigh- 
 bours, nor any like reasonable causes of com- 
 plaint. English landlords are not devoid of 
 consideration, and public opinion in that 
 country sets bounds to acts of injustice. 
 
 " Gladstone's egotism next made enemies of 
 the Tories, and they accused him of having 
 caused the disturbances among the English 
 tenantry.
 
 102 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 "The coincidence of these disputes with 
 the Egyptian difficulties was most fatal, and 
 Gladstone made a huge mistake in sending 
 Gordon to Egypt only when affairs there had 
 come to such a pass that they could no longer 
 be dealt with. 
 
 " Finally, adverse politicians and the press, 
 both insufficiently informed, agreed in heaping 
 all the fault upon Gladstone, whereas they 
 should have recognized that he was not alone 
 at the helm, and that only a moderate share 
 of blame could justly be imputed to him. 
 Their inadequate acquaintance with the facts 
 of the case induced them to lay the whole 
 business at one door. 
 
 " England has greatly sinned against Ire- 
 land," continued Dollinger. "There are old 
 scores to be wiped out, and it is hard to say 
 how these problems can be solved, and justice 
 rendered to both parties. I differ from 
 Gladstone, in his political views, on many
 
 POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 1 03 
 
 points, and it is difficult to convince him, for 
 he is clad in triple steel." 
 
 When Gladstone was in London, and in 
 office, Dollinger always followed his proceed- 
 ings with the keenest interest. I remember 
 his telling us of a particular parliamentary 
 sitting, which took place on February 4, 1881, 
 when Ireland was the subject of debate, and 
 which lasted fourteen hours. 
 
 "In this country," Dollinger remarked, "the 
 state of things is Arcadian in comparison with 
 England. The stress of work there, and 
 nervous tension, is so great, that in his time 
 Lord Castlereagh opened an artery in his 
 wrist with a penknife, and Lord Canning had 
 a stroke while sitting in the House, brought 
 on by sheer political excitement." 
 
 If Dollinger took pleasure in accentuating 
 Gladstone's good qualities, Gladstone certainly 
 did no less by him. In an article on Dr. 
 Dollinger, published in " The Speaker," of
 
 104 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 January 18, 1890, Mr. Gladstone relates the 
 following incident : 
 
 "One day in the summer of 1874 I was 
 walking with Dr. Dollinger in the Englische 
 Garten, when a turn in the path brought us 
 within near sight of a tall and dignified 
 ecclesiastic a man of striking presence, who 
 met us, rather attended than accompanied by 
 one who appeared to be his chaplain. As we 
 met, Dr. Dollinger had, as was not unusual 
 with him in walking, his hat in his hands 
 behind him. The dignified personage, on his 
 side, lifted his hat high above his head, but 
 fixed his eyes rigidly straight forward, and 
 gave no other sign of recognizing the excom- 
 municated professor. 'Who/ I said to him, 
 ' is that dignified ecclesiastic ? ' ' That,' he 
 replied, 'is the Archbishop of Munich, by 
 whom I was excommunicated.' But neither 
 then, nor at any other time, did he, in speech 
 or writing, either towards the Archbishop,
 
 EULOGY BY MR. GLADSTONE. 1 05 
 
 or towards the Pope, or towards the Latin 
 Church in general, let fall a single word of 
 harshness, or, indeed, of complaint." 
 
 In the same article Gladstone warmly 
 recognizes Bellinger's iodefatigable labours in 
 the field of theology and letters, observing 
 that though a thorough German at heart, he 
 had strong bonds of union with England. 
 " On the other hand, though he was a 
 thorough German, he had formed so high an 
 estimate of the offices of England in the 
 work of civilization, that he shrank almost 
 nervously from great changes in this country, 
 lest they should possibly endanger its means 
 of action."
 
 106 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL ODDS AND ENDS. 
 
 I HAD been for some time engaged in making 
 a little collection of woodcuts and engravings. 
 Many of these were very artistically designed, 
 and others again quite the reverse, while 
 individuals constantly figured in them of 
 whose history I was entirely ignorant. Dr. 
 Dollinger, however, was most kindly inter- 
 ested in the matter, and often supplied me 
 with an account of this or that personage, 
 who had somehow or other found the way 
 into my portfolio. 
 
 " I was only yesterday wishing for your 
 presence, Dr. Dollinger," I said to him one 
 day in the course of a walk. " I wanted to
 
 THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION. 107 
 
 beg you to enlighten me a little on the subject 
 of the ' woman clothed with the sun/ men- 
 tioned in the Book of the Revelation, at chapter 
 xii., verse 1. I have not the remotest idea 
 who or what she is intended to represent." 
 
 " Nor I," replied Dollinger, smiling ; " but 
 there exist at least ten different interpretations 
 of the passage ; and since the subject interests 
 you, I will gladly send you the books. I 
 have not myself decided to adopt either of 
 the views set forth in them. The woman 
 clothed with the sun is a favourite object of 
 mediaeval and nlodern art, and one of the 
 most mysterious figures presented by the 
 Apocalypse. The question is one which has 
 greatly exercised both artists and theologians." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," I remarked, " the explana- 
 tion of the Book of the Revelation must have 
 severely taxed the ingenuity of the latter." 
 
 " Not only has," replied Dftllinger ; " it still 
 does. Every year adds to the mass of com-
 
 108 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 mentarics and controversial writings which 
 already form a literature in themselves. Even 
 Montesquieu remarked in his time ' C'est le 
 livre le plus precieux du monde ; ' and this 
 saying is no less true to-day. 
 
 "The expounders of the Book of the Revela- 
 tion," he continued, " are divided into those 
 who oppose unquestioning faith to historical 
 research, and those who base their opinions 
 upon historical fact alone. There are men of 
 weight on both sides. Bossuet, for instance, 
 may be numbered among the former, and 
 Renan among the latter. 
 
 " In addition to the many solid and intel- 
 lectual expositions, the Apocalypse has given 
 rise to a legion of worthless scribblings. 
 
 " The question of its authorship alone has 
 already filled volumes. You know it is 
 established that the Apostle S. John travelled 
 from the shores of the Lake of Gennesareth to 
 Asia Minor, and there abode teachiog. In a
 
 AUTHORSHIP OF THE APOCALYPSE. 1 09 
 
 manuscript of the first century, discovered in 
 the fourth, it is written that the Christians of 
 that country prayed S. John to set down in 
 writing those things which he knew. "We are 
 further told that they prayed and fasted for 
 four days, and that afterwards S. John in 
 their presence wrote his Gospel, and that their 
 attestation to the truth of what S. John wrote 
 is appended to the document. The latest 
 words pronounced by the Apostle, when, in 
 the feebleness of extreme old age, he was 
 carried to the last Christian assembly, were, 
 ' Little children, love one another.' 
 
 " Now, the style in which the Gospel of S. 
 John is written differs so utterly from that of 
 the Apocalypse, that there are those who con- 
 clude the latter to be the work of another 
 S. John, who likewise journeyed into Asia 
 Minor. Any way, this question would appear 
 a doubtful one." 
 
 Dollinger had by this time become so en-
 
 110 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 grossed in his theme, that he had quite ceased 
 to take any heed of the road, and we soon found 
 ourselves in a perfect wilderness of snow. He 
 continued, however, to lead the way, walking 
 contentedly over the frozen hillocks, and in 
 and out of the snow-drifts, with as little concern 
 as though he were strolling in the greenest of 
 meadows. My husband tried to keep up with 
 him, and I hobbled after as best I might, until 
 in desperation I called out 
 
 "But, Dr. Dollinger, this road is really 
 impassable." 
 
 " Ah !" he turned round good-humouredly 
 " the Apocalypse is apt to lead its students 
 into difficulties. I daresay we shall find it 
 easier walking over there ; " and away we went, 
 over stock and stone, the veteran of eighty- 
 five always well ahead of us. 
 
 During the next walk we took together, 
 Dollinger remarked : " You were asking me 
 the other day about the ' woman clothed with
 
 THE " WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN." Ill 
 
 the sun.' I have since given the question a 
 good deal of thought, and am ready now to 
 give you my opinion on the subject, if you 
 care to hear it." 
 
 On my begging him to do so, he continued, 
 " Well, then, I believe that by the woman 
 clothed with the sun is meant that modified 
 form of Judaism which the coming of the 
 Messiah called into being. The opinion held 
 by so many people that she signifies the mother 
 of God, is, I think, a mistaken one, and un- 
 tenable by any who have carefully studied the 
 Apocalypse. I cannot think that the blessed 
 Virgin is here typified, for the actual adoration 
 of Mary only began to take root in the middle 
 ages, and before that time the mother of our 
 Lord is barely mentioned. Artists have, how- 
 ever, accepted this interpretation, and accord- 
 ingly represented the blessed Virgin radiant 
 with light, the moon beneath her feet, and 
 crowned with a diadem of stars."
 
 1 1 2 CON VERSA TIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 Our talk was once more taking a theological 
 turn, and I had a store of questions in reserve, 
 and so without loss of time I asked 
 
 " Can you tell me, Dr. Dollinger, which 
 mountain is generally believed to have been 
 the scene of our Lord's temptation by the 
 devil ? " 
 
 " Holy Scripture tells us," replied Dollinger, 
 1 'that the devil took Jesus up into a high 
 mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms 
 of the world, and the glory of them. Now, no 
 such mountain actually exists, and therefore 
 this is very generally believed to have been a 
 vision." He paused, and went on presently 
 
 " How strangely things come about in this 
 life I Who would have believed that an inno- 
 cent fiction of the twelfth century, which had 
 its origin in the East, and from thence made 
 its way into Europe, should have given rise to 
 the belief in a possible compact of man with 
 the devil ?
 
 OK 1C IN OF THE FAUST LEGEND. 113 
 
 " In the narrative to which I refer, a certain 
 Theophilus is said to have entered into an 
 engagement with the devil to receive from him 
 money and possessions, knowledge and position, 
 in exchange for his soul. The legend of Faust 
 and that of Magnus of Calderon of course 
 derive their origin from this tale. However, 
 truth and fiction were pretty well blended in 
 those days, and the belief in a compact of man 
 with the devil was soon in full activity. A 
 lawyer named Bartolo of Bologna was the first 
 to make a bad practical use of this popular 
 notion. This man wrote a legal work in which 
 he set forth the ways and means by which 
 those guilty of such a compact might be dis- 
 covered, and proposed to punish with death 
 those so detected." 
 
 " The wretch ! " I exclaimed. " If I might 
 but meet him in the next world, what a box 
 on the ear I would give him ! " 
 
 "Such a punishment from that little hand 
 
 8
 
 114 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 would indeed be severe ! " said Dollinger, 
 laughing, but presently he went on gravely 
 "Bartolo's propositions took root, and opened 
 the way to the trials for witchcraft and 
 devilry, which afterwards filled such a miser- 
 able page in the world's history. The Bull 
 Summis desiderantes of Innocent VIII. (1484- 
 1492) gave form and colour to the prevail- 
 ing fanatic rage against witchcraft by the 
 punishments it not only threatened but dealt 
 out to suspected individuals. One is horror- 
 struck at the contemplation of the shocking 
 cruelties called forth by this mad frenzy of 
 the populace. An acquaintance with the 
 forces of nature, or an exchange of religious 
 ideas, a philosophic theory, or an independent 
 opinion on Church questions, the most innocent 
 words spoken at random, actually sufficed to 
 hand an individual over to the tender mercies 
 of the Inquisition. Both the trials and the 
 tortures of this ecclesiastical tribunal were
 
 TERRORS OF THE INQUISITION. 115 
 
 revolting. In ecclesiastical matters no appeal 
 to a secular court was permitted, and in those 
 days almost everything was a Church ques- 
 tion. A secular judge, who ventured in a 
 single case to pronounce sentence not in ac- 
 cordance with the prevailing desire, was at 
 once excommunicated, and he who had been 
 excommunicate for the period of one year, 
 fell a victim to the Inquisition. 
 
 " It will readily be seen, therefore, that 
 differences of opinion between secular and 
 ecclesiastical judges were naturally of rare 
 occurrence. The persons accused were either 
 not allowed to speak a word in their own 
 defence, or the examination to which they 
 were subjected was conducted with a view to 
 entrapping them, and their answers invariably 
 tended to their conviction. Auricular con- 
 fession availed nothing, for in this blind 
 fanaticism the guilt of an accused person was 
 already pre-determined.
 
 Il6 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " And this," continued Bellinger, " in the 
 face of the Gospels which tell us how Jesus, 
 the embodiment of mercy and love, in reply 
 to the question of the Pharisees whether they 
 should root up the tares which grew among 
 the wheat, gave them for answer the com- 
 mand to let both grow together until the 
 harvest, lest in rooting up the tares they 
 should root up with them the wheat also. 
 The Church understood the teaching of this 
 parable, but in action she denied it." 
 
 The conversation here branched off from 
 the Inquisition to the subject of auricular 
 confession, when Dollinger remarked : " Pope 
 Innocent III. was a despot, and he it was 
 who laid Christians under an obligation to 
 practise auricular confession at least once a 
 year. The ancient Church acknowledged no 
 such injunction. 
 
 " I remember as a child," he went on, 
 " tormenting myself with the attempt to
 
 AURICULAR CONFESSION. 1 17 
 
 discover in self- examination a sufficient 
 number of faults to make a really good con- 
 fession, and my anxiety not to get it over 
 too quickly. As a priest, the speed with 
 which I had to hear and have done with one 
 confession after another used greatly to annoy 
 me. With many people I observed that they 
 really did not attach any meaning at all to 
 the ordinance, and often I failed to discover 
 in them a trace of sincere contrition or pur- 
 pose of amendment, the form was complied 
 with, and there was an end of the matter. 
 
 " I longed to teach them better, but for 
 this purpose time is required, and to keep a 
 penitent longer than a few minutes in the 
 confessional attracts attention, and becomes 
 an occasion of offence. 
 
 " Neither could I blind myself to the fact 
 that habitual sinners for instance, drunkards 
 or calumniators often came to confession 
 with no intention of amendment, but lived
 
 Il8 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLfNGER. 
 
 on afterwards in precisely the same manner. 
 And these also the priest must absolve up 
 to a certain point. I do not say that auricular 
 confession may never be practised with ad- 
 vantage. Doubtless the priest may some- 
 times through its means exercise an influence 
 for good, but the reverse is too often the 
 case, and how many evil consequences has not 
 this practice brought in its train ! 
 
 " Take, for example, the confessors of 
 Louis XIV. These men have much to an- 
 swer for, and are we not still feeling the ill 
 effects of their influence ? 
 
 " Again, I have known people seek about 
 for a lax confessor who will absolve them 
 without making difficulties, thus actually 
 persuading themselves that it is possible to 
 deceive the Almighty." 
 
 " To whom does the Pope confess ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 "The Pope," said Dollinger, "has free
 
 SEAL OF CONFESSION, I 1 9 
 
 choice in the matter of a confessor, and there are 
 very few instances on record of conflicts arising 
 between the two. It is said, however, that 
 the confessor of Clement VIII. once declared 
 to the Pope that did he not then and there 
 abandon the feud with Henry IV. of France, 
 he would decline to receive him in confession . 
 
 " How sacred were secrets so told may 
 be seen from the legend of S. Nepomuk, who 
 is said to have been drowned in the Moldau 
 for refusing to disclose a matter told him 
 under seal of confession. The story is, how- 
 ever, an invention, though .the hero of it is 
 an historical personage. The duty of pre- 
 serving the seal of confession inviolate presses 
 hardly sometimes. Think what it must be 
 to a confessor to see an innocent man con- 
 demned and punished, he all the time know- 
 ing who is the guilty person, but unable to 
 give him up. I often prayed God fervently 
 not to place me in this terrible position.
 
 I2O CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " At the time of the great gunpowder-plot 
 in London, in 1605, one of the conspirators 
 confessed the intended crime to a Jesuit. 
 The priest kept the secret as in duty bound, 
 but on the conspiracy coming to light, he 
 was betrayed by his confessee, and paid the 
 penalty with his life. I think most divines 
 are now of opinion that a priest who is, 
 through confession, made aware of an in- 
 tended crime, should at once lay information 
 of the same, but in such a manner as to avoid 
 betraying any of the persons concerned. 
 
 " In Paris, during the reign of Louis XIV., 
 a number of persons, chiefly of the lower 
 orders, were attacked by a mysterious and in- 
 sidious disease. Public attention was called 
 to these cases in the first instance by the 
 priests, who mentioned how very frequently 
 the crime of poisoning was now confessed, 
 and inferred a connection between this fact 
 and the complaint to which so many sue-
 
 INDEX EXPURGATORIUS. 121 
 
 cumbed. Preventive measures were taken 
 which were tolerably effectual in checking 
 the evil, though they did not entirely hinder 
 the employment of the deadly poudre de 
 succession, as this poison was afterwards 
 called." 
 
 "Times have certainly changed for the 
 better," went on Dollinger, after one of those 
 thoughtful pauses which he allowed to occur 
 from time to time in our conversation. 
 " We all have reason to thank God that we 
 live in the nineteenth century. The mind 
 revolts at the bare idea of the cruelties com- 
 mitted in those godless times when a Pope 
 Innocent VIII., an Alexander VI., or a 
 Paul IV., ruled amid tyranny, torture, and 
 bloodshed. 
 
 " Perhaps you may not know that we are 
 indebted for the first actual Index Expurga- 
 torius to Paul IV. The subject of the 
 suppression of books is an interesting one.
 
 122 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 It is a measure which ought strictly to be 
 taken ex cathedra. But when I was at Rome, 
 in 1857, I learnt to my astonishment that 
 the matter was determined by denunciation. 
 
 "For instance, one day I received a visit 
 from the secretary-general of the congregation 
 to ask me, on behalf of the Pope, my opinion 
 of Frohschammer's work, ' The Origin of the 
 Human Soul.' 
 
 " Of course I inquired at once whether 
 the secretary-general had read the book in 
 question. 
 
 " ' No/ he answered, ' I have not. German 
 is a language in general very little known, 
 and I do not myself understand it. it 
 suffices that a person held in estimation at 
 the Vatican has called attention to the book, 
 and translated or caused to be translated into 
 Italian certain offending passages. The book 
 is thus, at the instance of the reporter, placed 
 on the Index.'
 
 " SONO LE NOSTRE REGOLE? 123 
 
 " ' And this reporter need not even under- 
 stand the language in which the work is 
 written ! ' I remarked. I then went on to 
 point out to him that sentences thus picked 
 out of a work, and disjoined from the context, 
 were liable to be falsely construed, and that 
 only a very incorrect judgment of the learned 
 treatise in question could possibly be obtained 
 by this means. 
 
 " The secretary-general shrugged his shoul- 
 ders ; ' Sono le nostre regole,' he said ; and 
 there was an end of the matter. 
 
 " Frohschammer declined, laudabiliter, to 
 send in his submission, and accordingly re- 
 mained on the Index.* 
 
 * " Die Aufgabe der Naturphilosophie and ihr Vor- 
 haltniss zur Naturwissenschaft " (1861) roused such 
 displeasure at Borne that the Pope felt himself con- 
 strained, in a letter to the Archbishop of Miinchen- 
 Freising, to demand an explanation from the author. 
 This Frohschammer refused, and was in consequence 
 suspended a divinis in 1863, and theological students 
 were forbidden to attend his lectures. (See supplement
 
 124 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 "The writing in question," continued Dol- 
 linger, " was of a very innocent nature. We 
 know that as early as the second century 
 Tertullian had discussed the nature of the 
 soul, and later the question whether the soul 
 was of directly divine origin, or came into 
 being in the natural course of reproduction, 
 was one much argued. Frohschammer adopted 
 the latter theory, S. Augustine the former, 
 and his view has been accepted by the Church 
 at large. As a Manichean S. Augustine had 
 formed a somewhat material conception of 
 the soul, but on his conversion he repudiated 
 his earlier notions, and maintained opposite 
 principles. The objection raised by the dis- 
 ciples of S. Thomas Aquinas, that if the 
 soul was a direct creation of God it could 
 not be tainted by original sin, gave rise to 
 much discussion. The Jesuits ranged them- 
 selves on the side of S. Augustine." 
 
 to the " Allgemeine Zeitung," No. 6. 1891. Munich. 
 January 6.)
 
 VOLTAIRE AND THE POPE. 125 
 
 Returning once more to the subject of the 
 Index, I asked 
 
 " Supposing that a Pope holds opinions 
 differing from his predecessors on matters of 
 faith, is he at liberty to publish them ? " 
 
 " In this respect," answered Dollinger, " the 
 Pope is little better than a lay figure, and 
 almost as incapable of independent action. 
 Clement long ago said, ' People think that 
 the Pope has a great deal of liberty, but in 
 reality he has only the power to bless.' ' 
 
 " The name of Voltaire would, I suppose, 
 head the list on the Index ? " I remarked. 
 
 " On the contrary," said Dollinger, " Vol- 
 taire was too cunning for the Pope, and drew 
 himself out of the snare. If you have read 
 his tragedy of ' Mahomet ' you will know that 
 in this work he vilifies not only all religious 
 founders, but all religions. Well, Voltaire 
 actually had the audacity to forward the 
 tragedy to the Pope, accompanied by a crafty
 
 126 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 letter, in which he expressed the hope that 
 the annihilation of Mahomedanism, which was 
 the object of the play, would please the Holy 
 Father. The Pope swallowed the bait, and 
 thanked Voltaire with the utmost courtesy 
 for his communication. After this he could 
 not well be placed on the Index." 
 
 " Then after all we at school only followed 
 the example of the Pope, for I know in our 
 youth we all read ' Mahomet ' without in the 
 least gathering the real drift of the work," 
 I remarked. 
 
 " Perhaps a young ladies' school might be 
 excused the oversight," replied Dollinger, 
 laughing. " It is curious, though, how 
 whimsical the reasons sometimes are for 
 which a book is censured, let alone placed 
 on the Index. One of my books, 'The 
 Gentile and the Jew/ met with the severest 
 condemnation in Ultramontane circles, on the 
 ground that Satan was not sufficiently Satanic
 
 FEAST OF ALL SOULS. 
 
 as I had represented him. And how this 
 kind of insinuation sticks to a man ! " After 
 a little pause Dollinger went on 
 
 " I fancy a good many people would be 
 surprised on learning the origin of certain 
 things and customs familiar enough to them. 
 Take for instance some of the festivals of the 
 Catholic Church. There was a certain abbot 
 of a French cloister in the sixth century who 
 had a vision vouchsafed to him. In this 
 vision he saw gathered round him all the 
 souls in purgatory ' armen Seelen ' (poor 
 souls), as we Germans call them ; ' anime 
 sante,' they are called in Italy ; and by the 
 French, ' dmes en peine.' These all implored 
 the abbot to have pity on them, and help 
 them with his prayers. He lost no time in 
 communicating this vision to the Pope, who 
 at once instituted the feast of All Souls. 
 
 ' We are also indebted to a vision for the 
 festival of Corpus Christi. A nun named
 
 128 CONVERSATIONS OF DR DOLLINGER. 
 
 Julia, belonging to a convent at Liege, saw 
 in a dream the moon, having on its face a 
 large dark spot. She pondered over the 
 matter and consulted her confessor. He 
 applied to the Pope, who had the vision inter- 
 preted. The moon was pronounced to be the 
 Church, and the dark spot signified the 
 omission of a festival to celebrate the insti- 
 tution of the Eucharist by our Lord. Maundy 
 Thursday was declared to be an insufficient 
 commemoration. Moreover, the projected 
 festival should be a joyful one, and the latter 
 falls in the gloom of Holy Week, and so 
 originated the feast and the processions of 
 Corpus Christi. When, therefore, you see a 
 man panting on a hot day in June, beneath 
 the weight of robes or uniform, and wiping 
 his brow as he follows in the procession, you 
 may be pretty sure that he does not know 
 that he is indebted to a nun of Liege for the 
 whole proceeding."
 
 CANONIZA TION. I 2 9 
 
 Our talk here took another turn, and 
 brought us to the subject of canonization, and 
 to the discussion of the merits of various 
 saints. Dollinger mentioned Labre, a French 
 saint canonized a few years ago, and said that 
 in his zeal for self-mortification this man had 
 carried neglect of personal cleanliness to a 
 degree beyond all bounds, and alleged that 
 this fact was especially emphasized as one 
 of his qualifications for canonization. 
 
 " He was literally covered with vermin," 
 said Dollinger, "and when he saw any of 
 them escaping he would catch them and 
 replace them in his garment, that he might 
 have the more opportunity for the practice of 
 patient endurance." 
 
 " He might have been a Buddhist in his 
 care for the preservation of animal life," I 
 remarked. " And, by the way, can you tell 
 me why this great regard for animals is such 
 a feature of the Buddhist religion ? "
 
 130 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " Because," replied Dollinger, " they believe 
 in the transmigration of the soul into the 
 bodies of various animals. Sakja-inuni, the 
 founder of Buddhism, is said to have seen 
 a famishing tigress lying with her cubs under 
 a tree. He went and lay down by them, 
 offering his body to be torn and lacerated to 
 supply them with food. The tigress fell upon 
 him, and tore him to pieces, since which 
 time he has been reverenced as Buddha." 
 
 " Well," I continued ; " without gainsaying 
 that these and other such legends contain 
 instances of self-sacrifice, the knightly S. 
 George, who destroyed wild beasts instead 
 of feeding them, is to my mind a more 
 attractive figure." 
 
 " But a purely fanciful one," said Dollinger, 
 and he proceeded to give me the history of 
 S. George. Seeing that I was anxious to 
 note the different dates at various points in 
 his narrative, he kindly offered to write the
 
 6-. GEORGE. 131 
 
 account for me, and the next day I received 
 the following lines : 
 
 " The first opponent of S. Athanasius, in 
 the year 341, was a bishop named Gregory. 
 When this man died the Emperor Constantine, 
 in 355, set up in his place a Cappadocian 
 named George. In the year 361 there was a 
 rising of the heathen on the news of the 
 accession to the throne of Julian the Apostate, 
 and in this outbreak George was killed. 
 This bishop is the original of the much 
 travestied model of Christian knighthood, the 
 warrior S. George. According to the legend, 
 Athanasius the magician was his enemy and 
 persecutor, and it is a fact that the Arians did 
 formally accuse S. Athanasius at a Council 
 of practising magic. The legend in its present 
 form existed as early as the year 494, when 
 it was rejected by Pope Gelasius at a Roman 
 Council as an invention of the heretics. 
 
 "Notwithstanding this, the cult of the
 
 132 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 martyred saint, murdered by the heathen for 
 the Christian faith, grew and strengthened. 
 Then came the Crusades, and brought with 
 them the demand for a warlike knightly 
 patron saint. S. George was chosen, placed 
 as a mailed warrior on horseback, and repre- 
 sented as slaying a dragon with his lance. 
 The Crusaders under Richard Coeur-de-Lion 
 believed firmly that S. George fought for them 
 in person. In 1222, the National Council at 
 Oxford altered his commemoration day into 
 a prescribed holiday for all England, and in 
 1330 the Order of the Garter was instituted 
 and placed under his protection. S. George 
 is also patron of the town of Genoa, and of 
 the S\vabian knighthood, and he figures in the 
 arms of the Russian Emperor. 
 
 " I am sorry if in giving you these details I 
 have mixed a little water with the wine of 
 your devotion to S. George." 
 
 In speaking presently of the canonized
 
 POPE GREGORY THE GREAT. 133 
 
 Popes, Dollinger proceeded to accord the 
 highest place to Pope Gregory I. (540-604) 
 surnamed the Great. 
 
 " If high moral qualities constitute any 
 claim to greatness," he said, " this man deserved 
 the title, and may well be called the greatest 
 of all the Popes. He is counted one of the 
 four great teachers of the Church, and is 
 continually represented in pictures, generally 
 in the act of writing his commentary on the 
 Book of Job. The triple crown, which some 
 artists place on his head, is an anachronism, 
 for at that time the Popes did not even dream 
 of one crown, much less of three. 
 
 " Innocent XL also," continued Dollinger, 
 " might well have been made a saint. He 
 was a man of great integrity and resolution, 
 and of courage so conspicuous that he even 
 ventured to stand out against Louis XIV. 
 This Pope's canonization was decided on, the 
 draft already prepared, and it was only the
 
 134 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 refusal of the Jesuits to co-operate which 
 caused the undertaking to fall through, and 
 the name of this admirable man to be missing 
 from the official roll of the saints." 
 
 Dollinger then mentioned the contentions 
 of Innocent XI. with the Jesuits, and the 
 battle of the Jansenists with the order. 
 
 "No one has chastised the Jesuits like 
 Pascal," he went on; "no one before, and no 
 one since. This famous writer literally 
 scourges them with the lash of his satire. He 
 always adroitly makes use of their own phrases 
 and doctrines. Even his diction is purposely 
 Jesuitical in style. The moral castigation 
 which the Jesuit fathers receive at the hands 
 of Pascal is complete. I greatly admire his 
 fine intellect and sterling character. It is a 
 mistaken policy which induces many writers, 
 in their anxiety to unmask the Jesuits, to 
 snatch so eagerly at falsified documents, which 
 they fondly imagine will serve their purpose,
 
 PASCAL AND THE JESUITS. 135 
 
 leaving Pascal on one side. Only the other 
 day a Frenchman had a shot at them with a 
 little brochure, which he flourished as a new 
 discovery, notwithstanding that it was known 
 in the seventeenth century, and edited by a 
 Pole. The document in question created 
 scandal at the time, but very soon sank into 
 oblivion. Afterwards it was reprinted and 
 again caused some sensation, until it was once 
 more thrown aside as rubbish, only to re- 
 appear to-day with more bluster. This sort of 
 thing does the Jesuits no harm the intention 
 is too transparent, but Pascal if you like ! 
 he is calculated to harm them." 
 
 Dollinger then mentioned the intellectual 
 authority exercised by this order over its 
 members, and which is one secret of its 
 influence. 
 
 " The spiritual exercises of the Jesuits," he 
 said, " appeal strongly to the imagination. 
 The room in which the novice finds himself
 
 136 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 is shrouded in mysterious gloom. The streak 
 of light which is allowed to penetrate the 
 drawn curtains is only sufficient to enable 
 him to read the meditations prescribed for 
 him. These are vividly descriptive of the 
 heavenly joys of the other life, the purgatorial 
 tires, and hell with its fearful torments being 
 made to stand out in startling contrast. The 
 perusal of them leaves the reader in precisely 
 the exalted frame of mind which it is their 
 mission to induce. The candidate is. next 
 presented with a work on the choice of a 
 profession, in which the various callings are 
 treated of in turn and dismissed. The law 
 is declared out of the question, for lawyers 
 are always bad Christians. The study of 
 medicine, the pursuit of science, trade in any 
 of its branches, each and all of these pro- 
 fessions are pronounced unworthy of adoption. 
 There remains, therefore, the sacred office, and 
 the vocation of a parish priest. But this too
 
 INTERVIEW WITH THE POPE. 137 
 
 is encompassed with temptation. Then re- 
 fuge must be sought for in an order. Each 
 order is then praised in turn, but with a severe 
 counter criticism, until the novice is forced to 
 the conclusion that to enter the Society of 
 Jesus is the one step open to him." 
 
 Dollinger then spoke of the German College, 
 and this brought him to the subject of his 
 visit to Rome. 
 
 "Did I ever tell you," he asked, "the re- 
 solution I came to during my interview with 
 the Pope ? I formed a fixed determination 
 not to present myself a second time. The 
 ceremonial in itself was highly displeasing to 
 me. I was received in audience with Theiner, 
 and, in common with every priest, we had to 
 kneel three times. First in the ante-chamber, 
 then in the middle of the audience-room, and 
 finally before the Pope, who extended his foot, 
 encased in a white and gold embroidered 
 slipper, towards us to be kissed. We then
 
 138 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 rose, and Pio Nono addressed us in a some- 
 what commonplace fashion, to the effect that 
 the Pope was the supreme authority over all, 
 and that only when the world had learned to 
 bow before the Apostolic Chair would the wel- 
 fare of mankind be assured. He then asked 
 us a few unimportant questions, and without 
 waiting for an answer talked on in fluent but 
 rather unpolished French. He was a man of 
 remarkably fine presence, and always made a 
 great impression on women, who would fall 
 on their knees before him as though he had 
 been a Deity. 
 
 " On this occasion I observed immediately 
 on our entrance a peculiar expression cross 
 his countenance a glance, half curious half 
 disdainful, as though he were thinking, 
 ' How will the German pedant comport him- 
 self, and how will he stand our ceremonies ? ' 
 
 " I had a feeling all the time that this Pope 
 might on occasion speak a telling bon-mot or
 
 AN UNWORTHY CUSTOM. 139 
 
 two, but could never rise to an independent 
 intellectual conviction. 
 
 "And yet Pius IX. often said he would 
 undertake what no other man could, namely 
 the sending forth of new dogmas into the 
 world ; and he did in fact succeed in calling 
 into being the dogma of the Immaculate 
 Conception, and that of the Infallibility. 
 
 " One day," went on Dollinger, " while I 
 was at Rome, they showed me in one of the 
 libraries of the Vatican, a table ready laid with 
 an enormous expenditure of art and money, 
 and intended to accommodate Queen Isabella 
 of Spain, who was to dine there as the 
 guest of the Pope. Pio Nono only appeared, 
 however, for half-an-hour after dinner, as 
 etiquette prescribes that he shall eat alone. 
 
 "Another ceremony," he continued, "which 
 offends me excessively is the preposterous and 
 unworthy custom of taking the newly elected 
 Pope in the utmost pomp to S. Peter's, and
 
 140 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 actually seating him on the Altar, choosing 
 for this purpose the very spot where the 
 most sacred act in the sacrifice of the Mass 
 takes place. 
 
 " I even went the length of venturing a 
 few remarks on this and some other ceremonies 
 which I will not mention now. I might have 
 spared myself the trouble, for, as I have 
 already told you, there are two little words 
 all powerful at Rome, and by the help of 
 which most matters are once for all decided, 
 and these are ' Vuso.' " 
 
 Dollinger had said all this in his peculiar 
 dry tone, but presently he gave his habitual 
 little half laugh, half cough, and went on 
 
 " Talking of Roman ceremonial, I am in- 
 voluntarily reminded of the Archbishop of 
 Scherr. Excuse me if, in order to make the 
 story clear to you, I digress a little. Perhaps 
 you are aware that there is a certain convent 
 at Rome, dedicated to S. Agues, and that the
 
 THE POPE AND THE PALLIUM. 141 
 
 rtuns of this establishment keep sheep. The 
 wool of these creatures is used for making 
 the pallium which the Pope is in the habit 
 of bestowing on a newly elected bishop. In 
 earlier days the privilege of conferring the 
 pallium belonging to the Emperor, but when 
 the rulers of Eastern and Western Christendom 
 were at strife with each other, the Pope struck 
 in and claimed this prerogative. 
 
 " Well, the newly elected Archbishop von 
 Scherr, who told me the story himself (of 
 course before the declaration of the infallibility 
 dogma), said that he awaited the arrival of 
 this honourable and consecrated vestment 
 with great eagerness, and prepared himself 
 to receive it with unfeigned devotion. 
 
 " ' I was not a little surprised,' he said to 
 me, ' when one day I received a visit from a 
 rather distinguished-looking Jew, who on 
 entering my room handed me without more 
 ado a somewhat shabby-looking box, and said
 
 142 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 abruptly, "The Pope sends this to your 
 grace." 
 
 " ' Conceive my astonishment, my dear 
 Dollinger,' said the Archbishop, * when on 
 opening the box I found that it contained the 
 pallium I I could hardly trust the evidence 
 of my senses, or believe it possible that I 
 could thus casually receive at the hands of 
 a Jew, in so unceremonious a fashion, this 
 much venerated vestment.' ' 
 
 It is a well-known fact that Dollinger at one 
 time entertained views decidedly antagonistic 
 to the Keformation and to the Reformers, and 
 that he gave expression to these opinions in 
 some of his earlier works. But in the year 
 1872 he delivered a series of lectures on the 
 reunion of the Churches, which showed that 
 his views on this subject had undergone some 
 modification, and during one of our walks 
 he made the following remarks :
 
 LUTHER AND ERASMUS. 143 
 
 " My earlier judgment of Luther was a 
 hostile one. I should write differently of 
 him now. A man grows more lenient in 
 old age ; he learns to look at matters from 
 
 <D * 
 
 the standpoint of others, and to see that 
 certain thoughts and impressions are but the 
 inevitable outcome of individual tempera- 
 ments. 
 
 " Erasmus of Rotterdam, the most learned 
 man of his century, whose works may be read 
 with enjoyment to-day, saw in advance that 
 the Reformation was a necessity. The pressure 
 of Rome was so heavy that a downfall was 
 in the nature of the case. 
 
 " The controversy between Luther and 
 Erasmus on the question of man's free will, 
 in which Luther espoused the views of S. 
 Augustine in opposition to Erasmus, affords 
 ample testimony to the state of ferment in 
 which both these leaders found themselves. 
 In these matters truth inclines first to one
 
 144 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 side and then to the other, and is difficult 
 to determine. 
 
 "My work on Luther made me many 
 enemies among Protestants. Another book 
 brought me into great disfavour with Catholics, 
 and in quarters too where I least expected 
 it. When my 'Fables of the Middle Ages' 
 appeared, the publisher sent me nineteen 
 reviews of it, all of them angry and bitter 
 attacks. Now in these ' Fables of the Middle 
 Ages ' I had certainly brought forward nothing 
 new. The story of Pope Joan for instance, 
 and other such tales, were no longer believed 
 in. It did not require my testimony to upset 
 these, but in this work I pointed out the 
 source from which these fables sprang, and 
 showed how Rome herself had circulated them, 
 and this was the crime they charged me with." 
 
 Dollinger spoke with much warmth of 
 Melanchthon, whom he rated very highly. 
 
 " Few people know him by his real name
 
 " RABIES THEOLOGORUM." 145 
 
 of Schwarzert," he said. " He was a very 
 remarkable man, and his character was a 
 most attractive one. His adversaries, however, 
 contrived to so embitter his life that these 
 words were found written in his diary. ' I die 
 willingly, for only death will release me from 
 the rage of theologians (rabies theologorum)' ' 
 
 On my remarking that in our times this 
 kind of religious persecution had nearly died 
 out, Dollinger laughed incredulously. 
 
 "It is by no means extinct, dear lady, but 
 you are not in the way of hearing of it, and 
 I have learned to disregard it." 
 
 That Dollinger had formed a less favourable 
 opinion of Calvin than of the other Reformers, 
 I gathered from some remarks he let fall 
 during a walk we took together on a day in 
 the month of May. On this occasion he 
 seemed more than ever to rejoice in the 
 spring-tide beauty around us, and speaking 
 of this Reformer he said 
 
 10
 
 146 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 "The Picard Calvin (Chauvin the Bald) 
 was no doubt loyal to his convictions, but he 
 was hard and cruel, and totally wanting in 
 any feeling for the natural beauties in the 
 midst of which he lived. 
 
 " Professor Cornelius," he continued, " has 
 undertaken to finish a work on Calvin which 
 was begun by a friend of his who has since 
 died. This should be of great historical 
 value, for Cornelius is a very conscientious 
 worker and an able writer. 
 
 " I read a short time ago," he went on, 
 " that Lord Byron was a Calvinist, and 
 suffered endless pangs of conscience and great 
 trouble of mind because he could not attain 
 to a conviction that he was in a state of 
 grace. The story goes that he tormented 
 Lady Byron to such an extent with these 
 miserable doubts, that at last she could no 
 longer endure it, but declared her intention 
 of seeking a separation, and as her husband
 
 LORD BYROWS MARRIAGE. 
 
 had taken good care to provide her with 
 grounds for such a step, it was duly carried 
 into effect." 
 
 " Is it true," I asked, " that she was only 
 with great difficulty induced to consent to the 
 marriage ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied ; " she is known to have 
 refused his first offer, but he followed it up 
 with such warmth of persistence that the 
 lady gave in at last. It is said that his 
 reason for thus pursuing the matter was 
 that he was incessantly haunted by the 
 remembrance of an evil deed which he had 
 at some time committed, and that he hoped 
 by this marriage to enter a state of grace." 
 
 " Do you know what this crime was ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 " Only that it seems to have been a deed 
 of more than common infamy," answered 
 Dollinger. " Lord Byron is always making 
 some mysterious allusion to it. However, he
 
 148 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGEP. 
 
 ended by emancipating himself altogether 
 from his Calvinistic thraldom. And indeed, 
 regarded in any light the creed is a comfort- 
 less one, and its moral results are, I think, 
 distinctly pernicious. A Calvinist who has 
 once felt himself to be in a state of grace, has 
 secured his eternal salvation, no matter what 
 his actions are. If, on the other hand, he has 
 never arrived at this conviction, he is among 
 the number of those predestined to damnation. 
 Cromwell, for instance, died satisfied in his 
 own mind because he was assured by the 
 ministers of this religious persuasion that he 
 had once been in a state of grace. 
 
 "No doubt," concluded Dollinger, "the 
 idea underlying all this superstructure in 
 Calvin's mind was after all not an unworthy 
 one. He considered, namely, that a man may 
 be stimulated to the commission of a virtuous 
 action, and by this means attain to a faith in 
 the saving power of grace hitherto perhaps
 
 P REDES TINA TION. 149 
 
 wanting. But that many men suffer terribly 
 under these Calvinistic doctrines, I am well 
 assured. I remember especially a case which 
 came under my own eyes. This man, an 
 American acquaintance of mine, believed him- 
 self to be hopelessly and. eternally damned, 
 until, driven almost to desperation, he sought 
 refuge from his misery in the Catholic 
 Church."
 
 150 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DOLLINGER'S ACADEMICAL LECTURES AND 
 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 AT the death of Justus von Liebig, in 1873, 
 Dollinger was made president of the Royal 
 Academy of Sciences, after having been already 
 nominated by King Maximilian II. to the 
 presidentship of the historical commission at 
 this academy. 
 
 We owe the three volumes of Dollinger's 
 academical lectures, which are now reckoned 
 among the classics of German literature, 
 entirely to these appointments. Adolphus 
 Harnach * says, in speaking of these lectures, 
 " Where shall we find to-day another historian 
 
 * " Theologische Litteraturzeitung." (1809.) P. 259.
 
 DOLLINGERS LECTURES. 151 
 
 like Dollinger ; one with anything like his 
 industry, his circumspection, his power of 
 identifying himself with alien manners and 
 modes of thought ; one equally at home in 
 all ages, and versed in the art of historical 
 description ? He was not alone the historian 
 of the universal Church ; he had mastered 
 the political history of Germany and the 
 record of its civilization, and his far-seeing 
 eye ranged far and wide over Europe." 
 
 The delivery of Dr. Dollinger's lecture was 
 always an event in Munich. The hall was 
 filled, not only with the members of the 
 Academy, but with a crowd of people of both 
 sexes, eager seekers after information, and a 
 host of critics of every variety of opinion. 
 
 Dollinger would often be occupied on his 
 lecture until the last moment possible, only 
 leaving his study to go to the Academy. His 
 health never suffered from this assiduous 
 work, and not a trace of excitement or
 
 152 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 nervous irritation was perceptible on these 
 occasions in his manner or appearance. He 
 entered the hall with the composed step and 
 quiet dignity habitual to him, simply dressed 
 in black, and wearing round his neck the 
 customary gold chain with the cross attached. 
 His voice was weak, but perfectly audible, 
 his delivery somewhat monotonous, but the 
 matter of his address so rivetting that his 
 hearers followed him with breathless interest. 
 
 Professor Cornelius, in his memorial speech, 
 referring to these lectures says very beauti- 
 fully : " How often have our hearts gone out 
 to him in wondering admiration, when from 
 this place he has poured for us with lavish 
 hand, as from a golden chalice, the treasures 
 of his knowledge. Many a time he has here, 
 in the sight of all our eyes, reached the very 
 summit of historic art in finished research, 
 ability of conception, and unparalleled power 
 of representation."
 
 HISTORY OF THE TEMPLARS. 153 
 
 The various problems handled by Dollinger 
 at different times in these lectures often 
 continued to interest him for some time 
 afterwards, and not unnaturally they often 
 furnished us with a topic for conversation 
 during our walks. In this way my husband 
 and myself were often the fortunate recipients 
 of many an amplification and explanation of 
 points glanced at by the lecturer. 
 
 The history of the Templars possessed such 
 vivid interest for Dollinger, that he made the 
 subject really a life study. 
 
 " The discourse on the Templars/' says Lord 
 Acton, " delivered at his last appearance in 
 public, had been always before him since a 
 conversation with Michelet about the year 
 1841."* 
 
 The opening of the Vatican archives to the 
 public, and the simultaneous publication of 
 
 * See " Doellinger's Historical Works " in the " Eng- 
 lish Historical Review."
 
 154 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 some of the original acts of the Templar 
 trials were chiefly instrumental in bringing 
 Dollinger to the determination to make known 
 his own long-cherished views with regard to 
 the innocence of this order, based upon these 
 primary sources of information. But alas ! 
 this intention of his was never carried out, 
 but stopped short at the work of preparation. 
 The short lecture on this theme which he 
 delivered in November, 1889, on the occasion 
 of the public sitting of the members of the 
 Royal Academy of Sciences, makes us the 
 more regret that it was not permitted to him 
 to carry this larger work into execution. 
 
 " If you were so much moved by the 
 lecture," said Dollinger to me, " what will 
 you feel when you first make acquaintance 
 with the acts of the Templar trials, which 
 I have faithfully reproduced without the 
 alteration of a word, adding nothing and 
 taking nothing away. I am convinced that
 
 FENELOWS LETTER TO LOUIS XIV. 155 
 
 you will shed tears over them, for I was myself 
 deeply agitated." 
 
 Dollinger had just delivered his lecture on 
 " The Policy of Louis XIV.," and conversing 
 with us on this subject afterwards he said 
 
 " The question whether the king did or 
 did not actually receive Fenelon's anonymous 
 letter, Louis's ' Table of Offences ' as it is 
 sometimes called, is one much debated by 
 historians. Some are of opinion that it never 
 reached the king's hands, for the reason that 
 in a letter from Madame de Maintenon to 
 Archbishop Noailles, the following passage 
 occurs : ' Please read the enclosed writing, 
 and tell me what you think of it. I am of 
 opinion that it would be unwise to show such 
 a letter to the king, as it would rouse his 
 indignation and anger without convincing him.' 
 
 "Now it is, I think, somewhat boldly 
 alleged that the letter here alluded to is the 
 one written to the king by Fenelon in 1694.
 
 156 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon, it is maintained, 
 understood Louis, and knew that while hun- 
 dreds of flatterers were day and night engaged 
 in assuring the king that his government was 
 perfect and satisfied the people, and in ex- 
 tolling each of his actions almost as though 
 they proceeded from a god, it was to say 
 the least unlikely that he would pay any heed 
 to the one man who told him otherwise. 
 
 " But there is another letter in question, 
 also written by Madame de Maintenon, and 
 in which she makes the following somewhat 
 similar remark : 
 
 " ' This letter is ably written, but in too 
 severe a tone.' 
 
 " Now I and others are of opinion that this 
 latter reference is to Fenelon's famous letter, 
 which we further believe the king to have 
 actually received, and afterwards to have 
 placed in the hands of Madame de Maintenon. 
 
 "In any case this letter of Fe'nelon's is of
 
 FENELON AND BOSSUET. 157 
 
 the greatest value as a testimony to the vanity 
 of this Bourbon and the frivolities of the age." 
 
 Db'llinger went on to compare Fenelon and 
 Bossuet, and remarked that the latter possessed 
 the most learning, but was far behind Fenelon 
 in spiritual insight. 
 
 I presently ventured to institute a com- 
 parison between Louis XIV. and Henry VIII., 
 and in doing so called them both unscrupulous. 
 
 " No," replied Dollinger, " neither of these 
 monarchs were unscrupulous. They each had 
 a conscience, although a distorted one. Louis 
 XIV. was reasoned into the belief that he 
 would accomplish a good work by the revoca- 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes, and so he actually 
 took the measure. Men of this description 
 have been carefully educated, and taught to 
 separate their religious from their worldly 
 notions, their wills from their deeds, and to 
 regard any doubt on this head as a sin. 
 Louis XIV. had a wide field open to him, in
 
 158 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLING ER. 
 
 which to do or to leave undone. He was no 
 theologian, nor had he the smallest desire to 
 be one ; he left this to Jesuits and priests. 
 The latter demanded from him as a good work 
 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and it 
 was, he argued, their business to determine 
 right from wrong. They left him the fullest 
 liberty to manage his own concerns, and he 
 would not interfere in their affairs ; especially 
 as time, interest, desire, and understanding 
 failed him for the purpose. 
 
 " Therefore you can by no means compare 
 Louis XIV. of France with Henry VIII. of 
 England," continued Dollinger. "The one 
 man considered himself before all things a 
 theologian, and from this standpoint issued 
 all his despotic commands. The other cared 
 nothing for theology, and was as passive in 
 these matters as Henry was active." 
 
 " Do you not think," I asked, " that Henry 
 VIII. must have formed a low opinion of
 
 RELIGIOUS FANATICISM. 159 
 
 women in general, when he saw how ready 
 they were, one after the other, to enter into 
 an alliance of marriage with him ? " 
 
 " I think you would find," answered Dol- 
 linger, laughing, " that as far as women are 
 concerned the experience of monarchs differs 
 very little, and that the opinion entertained 
 by these crowned heads that a woman's will 
 is after all not an unassailable fortress is not 
 held by them without some show of reason. 
 But to return to the question of a religiously 
 perverted conscience. You have only to look 
 at Mahomedanism, and see how Mahomet 
 commanded his followers to slay those of a 
 different faith, promising them Paradise as 
 their reward. Then we have S. Bernard in 
 the twelfth century holding out the hope of 
 heaven to those Christians who should succeed 
 in putting unbelievers to death. 
 
 " Think, too, of the massacre of S. Bartholo- 
 mew, when the Papal Nuncio actually wrote
 
 l6o CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 from Paris to Rome in the following terms : 
 ' It is really edifying to see how the Catholics, 
 the white cross on their breasts, force their 
 way into the houses and murder the heretics.'" 
 
 During the time that Dollingerwas engaged 
 in the preparation of his lecture ou Madame 
 de Maintenon, I received the following lines 
 from him : 
 
 " I find that I shall have to deny myself 
 this week the pleasure of our usual Friday 
 walk, and I am writing to you to propose 
 Monday instead. To-morrow I have to attend 
 a long sitting of the Senate, and the remaining 
 portion of the day is claimed by a lady whose 
 name is not Louise but Francisca. She is 
 very exigeante, and occupies much of my 
 time ; the most delicate tact is required in 
 dealing with her, and I find it necessary to 
 carefully weigh every word." 
 
 During our next walk Dollinger gave us 
 the benefit of some of his recent studies by
 
 MADAME DE MAINTENON. l6l 
 
 defining the position occupied by Madame de 
 Maintenon with relation to the famous Edict 
 of Nantes. 
 
 " Madame de Maintenon," said Dollinger, 
 " was a distinguished woman of excellent 
 disposition. That she supported the measure 
 of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was 
 no great sin on her part. She was strictly 
 pious, and in religious matters submitted her- 
 self entirely to the guidance of her director, 
 Godet des Marais, the Bishop of Chartres. 
 This man assured her that the Protestants 
 would offer no resistance to the royal mandate, 
 and the king was likewise so convinced of his 
 own authority that he, as well as the rest, 
 believed that this change of religion would be 
 achieved with the ease of a holiday task. 
 Some did submit without difficulty ; those 
 who refused were subjected to cruelties which 
 cannot be justified. But these were greatly 
 softened for the ear of Madame de Maintenon, 
 
 11
 
 1 62 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 and further represented to her as the inevitable 
 consequence of unpardonable obstinacy." 
 
 " I cannot understand," I remarked, " how 
 a woman showing in all other respects so 
 much discernment, could be thus blindfolded." 
 
 " Because, as I told you," answered Dol- 
 linger, " she distrusted herself in religious 
 matters, and gave herself unreservedly to the 
 guidance of Godet, who assured her that it 
 was her vocation to reform the world. This 
 kind of blind reliance is not unusual with 
 women. They are often cleverer than the 
 average man, and yet content to be ruled by 
 him." 
 
 " But in a case where a woman has life or 
 death in her hands the dictates she follows 
 are those of her own heart and her own 
 conscience," I interposed. 
 
 Dollinger smiled. 
 
 "Not improbably, though," I continued, 
 "it would have been to the advantage of
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 163 
 
 France if she had quietly resigned herself and 
 become altogether Catholic." 
 
 " No," replied Dollinger. " Later times have 
 shown us in a somewhat striking manner 
 that the suppression of the Protestant spirit, 
 and the restriction of the Protestant clergy, 
 is decidedly prejudicial to the cause of 
 Christianity. When the Encyclopaedia ap- 
 peared, the object of which was to pick to 
 pieces and annihilate the established religion, 
 the Catholic defence, both verbal and written, 
 was the poorest thing of its kind known 
 in the annals of theology. Before that time 
 the Catholic clergy were kept in check by 
 the Protestants, and were obliged to exert 
 themselves not only to keep pace with them 
 in word and deed, but also to eclipse them. 
 With the cessation of this rivalry, Catholic 
 ardour and intellectual endeavour gradually 
 died out, until at last the Catholic priesthood 
 had so deteriorated that it could no longer
 
 1 64 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 hold its own against the encyclopaedists. The 
 freethinking notions of the latter were prin- 
 cipally gathered from the writings of the 
 Deists, a sect which had made its appear- 
 ance somewhat earlier in England. The 
 English clergy had, however, combatted the 
 Deists very skilfully, and with such success 
 that they were far from gaining the influence 
 in that country which the encyclopaedists after- 
 wards attained in France, when the priesthood 
 had become shallow and uncultivated." 
 
 " But to return to Madame de Maintenon," 
 went on Dollinger, after a slight pause. " She 
 once asked the English ambassador, Lord 
 Stair, the following question : ' Can you tell 
 me how it comes to pass that, notwithstanding 
 the fact that France is ruled by a man and 
 England by a woman, with you government 
 affairs all go smoothly, and with us the 
 contrary is the case ? ' ' For this reason, 
 Madame,' replied Lord Stair, 'that a reign-
 
 MARIA THERESA. 165 
 
 ing king is ruled by women, but a reigning 
 queen by men.' ' 
 
 I then instanced Maria Theresa, and re- 
 marked, " This queen surely kept the reins of 
 government in her own hands." 
 
 "Even she," said Db'llinger, " allowed herself 
 to be bullied into one of the most decisive acts 
 of her reign, namely, her part in the dismem- 
 berment of Poland. Her adoption of this mea- 
 sure, no less than her severities towards the 
 Protestants, is a conspicuous blemish on her 
 character. Austria's thirst for the acquire- 
 ment of territory had reached at that time 
 the pitch of absurdity. Maria Theresa was 
 a shrewd and clever woman ; but, as is often 
 the case, while she had a keen eye for the 
 business of other people, she was short-sighted 
 in the management of her own affairs. For 
 instance, she watched over Marie Antoinette 
 carefully, and often trembled for her future ; 
 but this did not prevent her urging on her
 
 1 66 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 daughter a policy adverse to Prussia. She 
 engaged her child's interests on the side of 
 Austria, and at the same time cut the ground 
 from under her feet in France. It is, alas ! 
 a matter of certainty that it was not only 
 the intrigues of the Polignacs, but the strong 
 influence of Maria Theresa, which roused the 
 antipathies of Marie Antoinette towards the 
 able ministers of Louis XVI. The king was, 
 unfortunately, too weak to withstand his wife's 
 imprudent wishes, and dismissed his ministers, 
 a step which the unhappy Marie Antoinette 
 must often afterwards have bitterly deplored. 
 This queen is said to have once remarked that 
 she would gladly have loved her husband had 
 he not been a sort of Vulcan, eternally busy 
 with his tools, and smelling like a locksmith 
 of the iron in his workshop." 
 
 In a very few words Dollinger once gave 
 us some vivid sketches of the principal per- 
 sonages concerned in the French Revolution.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS. 1 67 
 
 I remember his saying, " Mirabeau died too 
 early. The Revolution would have broken 
 out without the aid of the encyclopaedists, 
 but Mirabeau would have been able to con- 
 stitute it without so much bloodshed. This 
 man had a great opinion of himself, as is 
 shown by his mention of his own well-known 
 ugliness : ' II y en a peu, qui comprennent la 
 majest6 de ma laideur.' 
 
 " La Fayette was a man of excellent dis- 
 position, but he suffered from the disease 
 common to Frenchmen vanity. This was 
 also Diderot's failing. Vanity is an accepted 
 characteristic of the French nation ; but in 
 Diderot's case we are reminded of Madame de 
 Sevigne's remark, suggested by the sight of an 
 ugly man 
 
 " ' Le bon S. exagere le privilege des hommes 
 d'etre laid, et le bon Diderot exage'rait le 
 privilege des Fran9ais d'etre vain.' 
 
 " Diderot's ' Itameau ' and his ' Salon '
 
 1 68 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 are clever, and contain many poetical beauties, 
 but his ' Promenade Sceptique ' is disgust- 
 ingly frivolous, and his historical essays are 
 nothing but empty rhetoric. 
 
 " S. Just," he continued, " was a blood- 
 thirsty tyrant. Forty victims a day to the 
 guillotine could not satisfy his appetite for 
 slaughter. He was withal so ignorant that he 
 once ordered ' The Laws of Minos ' from a 
 Parisian library. 
 
 " Barnave scoffed openly when the blood of 
 the people was shed in the streets of Paris, 
 and exclaimed, 'Ce sang est il done si pre"cieux ! ' 
 a saying the sharp edge of which was after- 
 wards turned on himself, for he ended by 
 being guillotined. 
 
 " Count Duval de Dampiere was a swash- 
 buckler, and one of the first men who 
 attempted a balloon ascent. Happening to 
 pay a visit to Berlin, he was so greatly struck 
 with the military regulations of that city,
 
 HEROISM IN DEATH. 169 
 
 that he returned to his native Paris wearing a 
 Prussian hat and pig- tail, and was called 
 a fool for his pains by Louis XVI. This man 
 afterwards served the Convention, and it was 
 intended that he should suffer death on the 
 scaffold. He was, however, spared this fate, 
 being struck down by a ball on the battle- 
 field of Famars. 
 
 " We learn from Taine," Dollinger went on, 
 " that heroism in death was almost universal 
 at that time. On one occasion the old 
 Duchesse de Noailles, her daughter, and grand- 
 daughter were brought together before the 
 tribunal. The old lady was examined first. 
 She was ninety years old, and being very 
 deaf, could not hear the questioner. 
 
 " ' Ecrivez,' said the president to the clerk, 
 " quelle conspira sourdement contre la 
 republique.' 
 
 " The three ladies were guillotined. A 
 great granddaughter of one of them told an
 
 170 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 acquaintance of mine that a friend of the 
 Duchesse de Noailles, who was a witness of 
 her death, said that the three women ascended 
 the steps of the guillotine as calmly as though 
 they were going to Communion." 
 
 That Dollinger's criticisms were sometimes 
 tolerably sarcastic the following examples will 
 show. He said once, speaking of King 
 Philip III. of Spain- 
 
 "He was not as bad as his father, and 
 this is the best that can be said for 
 him." 
 
 Again, " The portrait of Queen Isabella of 
 Spain in the royal palace here in Munich is 
 well painted. This queen had to put up 
 with two evils the Spanish dress and Philip 
 IV." 
 
 The following remark of an Austrian 
 minister pleased Dollinger, who told it to us 
 with some amusement : 
 
 " ' When we have no minister of any preten-
 
 MINIS TER-MA KING. l 7 I 
 
 sion, we send and fetch one from Protestant 
 Germany, make him Catholic, and we have all 
 we require ' a saying," added Dollinger, 
 " which would apply to Jarke and Schlegel."
 
 172 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TALKS ON POLITICS. 
 
 DOLLINGER spoke with much enthusiasm of 
 General Gordon, the late governor-general of 
 the Soudan, the same who, on January 18, 
 1884, was summoned by telegram from the 
 Belgian court to London, and after a con- 
 ference of English ministers, received his 
 commission to start for Suakim. 
 
 " A figure of heroic proportions," re- 
 marked Dollinger, " of marvellous integrity 
 of character and sublime abnegation, and 
 stationed on a pinnacle where both Europe 
 and Asia might observe his actions. Second 
 to none in moral grandeur, and worthy to be 
 placed by the side of Bismarck and of Moltke.
 
 HERO- WORSHIP. I 7 3 
 
 i could find it in me to rave about him even 
 in my old age, and how he will stir the 
 enthusiasm of the youthful generation ! " 
 
 " I am not so sure of that, Dr. Dollinger," 
 I replied. " The youth of the present day 
 are not over much given to enthusiasm." 
 
 " How so ? " said Dollinger. " Do they no 
 longer feel the need of an ideal, an object for 
 hero-worship, as the English would express 
 it?" 
 
 " In an infinitesimally small degree, if at all, 
 I am afraid," I answered. 
 
 " Indeed," he said. " Is this really a fact ? 
 Take for instance the case of boys reading 
 Homer or Nepos through for the first time. 
 Do you mean to tell me that they no longer 
 have any feeling of enthusiasm for the heroes 
 of these great works ? " 
 
 " I think the feeling uppermost in their 
 minds is the longing to have done with them," 
 I replied, " and I am sure that on leaving the
 
 174 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 Gymnasium they throw aside the study of the 
 Greek language and literature without giving 
 the subject a second thought." 
 
 "And I simply devoured Nepos," said 
 Dollinger, " and glowed with enthusiasm for 
 Mithrydates, Marcus Aurelius, Homer, Sopho- 
 cles, and a host of others. Even now, by way 
 of a treat, I read Greek before I go to bed, 
 and sometimes in the morning. And when I 
 take my evening walk in the English Garden, 
 I go over the Greek tragedies to myself, and 
 find them excellent company. 
 
 " With me and my schoolfellows," he con- 
 tinued, " the need of an ideal was a part of 
 ourselves, and I remember how Napoleon fired 
 our admiration, although he was in truth not 
 exactly a fitting object of such unbounded 
 enthusiasm. I can never forget how each 
 unworthy action on his part grieved me, nor 
 how deeply hurt and indignant I was at the 
 mere mention of the death sentence passed by
 
 NAPOLEON I. 175 
 
 him on the Due d'Enghien, on March 20, 
 1804. At Wiirzburg I formed one of the 
 crowd of curious youngsters who followed 
 at Napoleon's heels about the town, when he 
 came there to inspect the fortifications. I can 
 see him now in his green uniform and three- 
 cornered hat, his dark complexion and sharply 
 cut features making him appear to my eyes 
 like a figure carved in bronze. 
 
 " The newspapers are, I believe, mainly re- 
 sponsible for the prevailing want of enthusiasm 
 in youthful minds," went on Dollinger, with 
 some warmth. " Look, for instance, at Bis- 
 marck, and see how he is bullied and hustled in 
 the process of their handling. The principal 
 features of his career, his remarkable intellec- 
 tual gifts, his strong original nature, German 
 to the backbone, are all only so many targets 
 for the darts of first one and then the other. 
 Nature cast Bismarck in one mould through- 
 out ; he is a masterpiece of patriotism, but the
 
 176 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLL1NGER. 
 
 press has bespattered him with mud, wilfully 
 misrepresented and miserably caricatured him, 
 placed all his failings in the light, and thrown 
 into the shade his awe-inspiring capabilities. 
 The newspaper-reading youth see the distorted 
 image, weigh the good and bad in the journal- 
 istic balance, and end by cheating themselves 
 of a generous enthusiasm for a worthy object. 
 The diplomacy of earlier days has become a 
 lost art, since journalism has come so much to 
 the front and is a factor of such importance in 
 political life. Bismarck's tactics are to speak 
 the truth, but when necessary to speak it in 
 such a misleading fashion as to gain no 
 credence, a result always included in his 
 reckoning." 
 
 Dollinger warmed to his subject, as from 
 Bismarck he passed to a general review of the 
 past and present of the national spirit in 
 Germany, his thoughts ranging backwards to 
 the time of Louis the Bavarian.
 
 AN EQUIVOCAL ANSWER. 177 
 
 " Louis the Bavarian," he said, " had right 
 on his side, but he was confronted by egoism 
 from every quarter. It met him in its most 
 aggravated form in the person of Pope John 
 XXII. 
 
 ' ' This man's leading characteristic was 
 shown even on his election to the Papal chair. 
 The Italian cardinals, sitting in conclave, de- 
 manded the restoration to Italy of the Papal 
 seat, and the election or non-election of John 
 turned on this point. He was, therefore, 
 formally asked whether he were minded to 
 transfer the seat of the Papal curia to Italy. 
 To this question John gave the following 
 answer : ' I will mount neither horse nor 
 mule, nor will I take my seat in a carriage, 
 until I have transferred the Papal chair to 
 Italy/ and upon this declaration he was 
 elected. The Papal seat, however, remained 
 at Avignon. On representations being made 
 to John to the effect that he was unfaithful to 
 
 12
 
 i;8 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 his promise, he replied that on the contrary he 
 had kept his word to the letter, for that since 
 his election he had neither ridden nor driven 
 a single step, but had always gone on foot 
 from his palace to the church, and from the 
 church to his palace. This anecdote shows 
 the sophistical nature of the man, and his 
 covetousness and the depravity of his life 
 are matters of history. 
 
 " This Pope it was who issued a command 
 to the Franciscan order to observe the rule 
 of S. Francis, with regard to the vow of 
 poverty, in a spirit contrary to the intention 
 of their founder, and that of the preceding 
 Pope, Clement V. The Franciscans resisted 
 on the plea that they had sworn obedience, 
 first to their founder and then to Clement V., 
 and were thereupon burned as heretics. The 
 dispute concerning the vow of poverty con- 
 tinued during the government of succeeding 
 Popes, with the result that in Italy and in
 
 PAPAL TYRANNY. 179 
 
 the South of France alone, during a period 
 of eighty years, one hundred and fourteen 
 brothers of the Minorite orders suffered death 
 at the stake. A still greater number perished 
 miserably in dungeons, as martyrs to a faith- 
 ful observance of the rule of their founder. 
 Many of these brothers fled to Louis the 
 Bavarian, and sought refuge in a protective 
 and defensive alliance with the banished Em- 
 peror. Their representations so worked on 
 the Emperor that he actually chose a Pope 
 from their midst, Nicholas V., whom he set 
 up in opposition to Pope John. This man 
 was, however, no match for the powerful and 
 tyrannical John. He soon left Louis in the 
 lurch, and making a pilgrimage to Avignon, 
 laid his submission at the feet of the Pope. 
 John's reconciliation took the form of making 
 Nicholas prisoner, and detaining him until he 
 died in captivity. 
 
 " These events helped to aggravate the
 
 l8o CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 difficulties of the situation for the king. The 
 electors, at no time conspicuous for patriotism, 
 sold their votes in every direction for ex- 
 orbitant sums, or the price of an estate. 
 Affairs in Germany had reached such a climax 
 of disgraceful confusion, that it is my belief 
 that even Csesar, the greatest statesman of the 
 ancient world, would have felt himself un- 
 equal to the task of coping with them. 
 France, in spite of internal disruption, pre- 
 sented a united front to her enemies; but 
 when the fatherland was threatened, it was 
 the personal interest of individuals which 
 determined Germany's course of action. The 
 imperial dignity was diminished, and the 
 revenues of the empire squandered in a 
 manner truly scandalous. The Popes then 
 set themselves to the task of punishing 
 Germany by doing away with the custom of 
 hereditary succession to the imperial throne, 
 and introducing instead succession by election .
 
 POPE VERSUS KING. l8r 
 
 " We are able, with tolerable exactitude, 
 to determine the date when this period of 
 contention with the Papacy set in, and the 
 term of its duration, in Germany. It lasted, 
 I think, from 1097 or 1099 to 1870. 
 
 " The war of the throne against the Papacy 
 was waged in France also, but there the 
 nation held to the king, and the French 
 jurists set every faculty to the task of check- 
 mating the Pope on legal grounds set forth in 
 pamphlets. The skill with which they made 
 the corrupt court of Boniface VIII. , which 
 certainly laid itself open to their charges, 
 serve their purpose in argument, had some- 
 thing in it really diabolical. But the united 
 efforts of the king and his jurists resulted at 
 last in the victory of Philip the Fair over 
 Boniface, and from that time king and Pope 
 in France have worked together in all good 
 faith. But this has not been the case in 
 Germany. My heart, which is German to
 
 1 82 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 the core, fails within me, when, after such a 
 retrospection, I turn to the latest occurrences 
 in the Reichstag. Will Germany never learn 
 wisdom from history ? 
 
 " More than once," went on Dollinger, after 
 a pause, " I was on the point of selecting the 
 history of Germany for the subject of my 
 address at the public sitting of the Academy 
 of Sciences, had not pressure been applied by 
 the Academy to prevent my adoption of a 
 theme in which it would be possible for the 
 Chamber of Deputies to recognize the ring 
 of my own particular coin. The consequence 
 they feared, for which I had no desire to be 
 responsible, was the reduction of the grant to 
 the Academy. So, as my speech might have 
 resembled the seed sown by Cadmus from 
 which sprang armed men, I relinquished my 
 purpose, and chose another subject. Even 
 then my selection not infrequently met with 
 disapproval. Among other matters for which
 
 BARTHELEMY ST. HILAIRE. 183 
 
 I was censured, was my alleged preference for 
 French history." 
 
 The conversation now turned on France, 
 and Dollinger remarked 
 
 "In the winter of 1881, Lord Acton spent 
 a month at Paris, and had some conversation 
 with the minister of foreign affairs, Earth elemy 
 St. Hilaire, whose estimate of the political 
 situation of that time is remarkable. He was 
 of opinion that France would soon be involved 
 in a war with Germany, for, as he said, ' Oest 
 un point d'honneur pour la France to support 
 Greece against the Turks.' Austria would, he 
 said, desire to extend her empire as far as 
 the Balkans, and Germany would in this 
 matter be on the side of Austria, which would 
 give the signal for the outbreak of war. 
 With Gladstone at the helm, England would 
 help France. The part Russia would take 
 might be doubtful ; but that the whirlpool 
 of war would engulf all nations in its vortex
 
 184 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 is just as certain as that the sensational 
 attacks of the German press on Gambetta, 
 and the present government of France, take 
 place at Bismarck's instigation, with the ob- 
 ject of damaging the French Ministry, and 
 of sowing useful seeds of dissension." 
 
 With regard to the probability of war com- 
 plications arising between France and Ger- 
 many, Db'llinger was a decided optimist.* 
 My husband asked him his opinion on this 
 subject in the spring of 1886, and he laughed 
 at the notion. 
 
 "Are we to go to war because a few 
 journalists and a handful of agitators clamour 
 for it?" he remarked. "Well, I do not 
 believe in it, and it would certainly be the 
 only case on record of a war being carried on 
 between two nations, without one at least of 
 
 * It will be seen that Bellinger's opinion respecting 
 the probability of war underwent a remarkable change ; 
 as the reader will find stated in the subsequent pages. 
 (Trans.)
 
 " DHONNEUR DE LA FRANCE" 185 
 
 the parties concerned having desired it. A 
 Parisian of some importance said only the 
 other day, ' We Frenchmen are fortunate in 
 getting rid of Boulanger as war minister, for 
 this reason alone, that we have no desire for 
 war. We cannot afford it, for the Republic 
 has dealt with our finances in so irresponsible 
 a fashion, that taxes have risen to a prepos- 
 terous height, while in trade and agriculture 
 we can no longer hold our own against foreign 
 competition. Where then are the necessary 
 funds for a war to come from ? ' 
 
 " Doubtless," went on Dollinger, " money 
 will be again and again voted for this purpose, 
 for there is a watchword in France to which 
 everything is sacrificed, and this is I'honneur 
 de la France. This honour of France it is 
 which requires them to waste money and 
 throw away lives at Tonquin, and obliges 
 them to place the nation on a war footing, 
 which involves France and the neighbouring
 
 1 86 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 countries in an enormous expenditure. The 
 rallying-cry of ' Honour and Glory ' carries 
 everything before it in France, and these two 
 words are always on the lips of Frenchmen ; 
 but this will not hinder the nation from 
 having to disarm, and being compelled to 
 relinquish the idea of retaliation." 
 
 However, in December of the year 1887 
 the condition of foreign affairs no longer 
 seemed to Dollinger sufficiently encouraging 
 to warrant him in any cheerful prognostica- 
 tions, and he wrote to me at Erlangen from 
 Munich as follows : 
 
 "The political horizon is overcast indeed. 
 I feel the depressing influence of the dark 
 and threatening storm-clouds, even in the 
 retirement of my study, where I would fain 
 lose myself in the past, but am driven instead 
 to the contemplation of the comfortless present 
 and near future. The confidence of former 
 days, when, as you will remember, I always
 
 PROBABILITIES OF WAR. 187 
 
 prophesied peace, has quite forsaken me now. 
 The tension of the situation becomes more 
 intolerable every moment, while from Russia 
 we have only the worst to fear. In that 
 quarter, rather than in France, lies the real 
 danger of war, for in Russia all parties, from 
 quite opposite motives, unite in ardently 
 desiring it. The Emperor's personal wishes 
 are at a discount, and he will end by being 
 borne along on the stream of public opinion. 
 The only loophole the situation affords, and 
 the fact on which I base my sole remaining 
 hope, is that Russia at the present moment is 
 compelled to use only paper money. The 
 silver rouble has for years been growing more 
 and more scarce, and it has now disappeared 
 altogether, so that the outbreak of war would 
 mean the necessity of borrowing on a gigantic 
 scale. This would inevitably hasten the catas- 
 trophe which a numerous and active party 
 desire, namely, the collapse of the existing
 
 1 88 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 system of government The situation in 
 which we find ourselves with reference to 
 our north-eastern and western neighbours 
 reminds me of the negro who had been the 
 slave of two masters. On being asked which 
 was the worse master, he unhesitatingly re- 
 plied, 'Both.'" 
 
 Bellinger's criticism of the interior policy of 
 France is also characteristic. He especially 
 censured the passion for equality so strongly 
 manifested by the French. 
 
 "At the present moment," he said, "the 
 greater number of the lower orders in France 
 make choice of persons of their own calibre to 
 represent them in Parliament. In England 
 birth and knowledge are still recognized 
 authorities, and the people choose their 
 superiors in rank and intellect as members 
 of the national assembly. Ote-toi que je 
 my wiette, is the prevailing spirit of the 
 French chamber, and it is carried so far that
 
 ENGLISH SENSE OF HUMOUR. 189 
 
 a speaker is seldom allowed to finish his 
 speech, or indeed to speak at all, without 
 interruption, simply because of the impatience 
 of those who are desirous to have their turn. 
 In England a member of Parliament may 
 speak without fear of disturbance, unless there 
 should happen to be an element of the 
 ridiculous in what he says, in which case it is 
 received with unmerciful laughter. Listeners 
 are obliged in self-defence to be armed with 
 a sense of humour, if they would not fall a 
 prey to the tedium or perversity of some 
 random chatterer." 
 
 " And yet all this fiery vehemence and 
 enthusiastic eloquence of the French sometimes 
 carries one away," I remarked. 
 
 " Only/' replied Dollinger, " one ends like 
 the mathematician, who interrupted a burst 
 of applause at the conclusion of an opera, by 
 the exclamation, ' Do tell me what is to come 
 of it.'
 
 190 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " A lady once expressed her surprise that 
 with Grdvy at the head of affairs matters 
 made such satisfactory progress. ' Mais oui/ 
 replied Gambetta, 'GreVy est buveur, il est 
 joueur, mais il est grave.' What a light this 
 throws on the state of things ! Imagine a 
 society which is more than content if only 
 one of its members is sometimes serious. 
 Neither do the French understand by the 
 term serious that settled sobriety of conduct 
 indispensable in the man who is to guide a 
 republic. They simply make of their states- 
 men an investment for their own interests. 
 He whom they choose as minister must 
 pledge himself in advance to fulfil the wishes 
 of those who elect him ; but once at the helm 
 his party must be at his beck and call a 
 compact on which no republic can long con- 
 tinue to exist. 
 
 " North America furnishes us with a 
 striking contrast to this state of things.
 
 RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 
 
 The descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, who 
 first founded the republic in that country, 
 adhered to their religion and held fast to 
 the customs of their forefathers, and emigrated 
 on this account. Men of this stamp, who for 
 conscience sake leave hearth and home and 
 worldly goods, are well calculated to con- 
 stitute a republic. The unsettled religious 
 conditions of the seventeenth century drove 
 the faithful adherents of this or that religious 
 profession to America, and constrained them 
 to the practice of mutual toleration, with the 
 result that present generations are still living 
 on the moral and religious capital bequeathed 
 them by these emigrants. How long this will 
 last, and whether it will survive the constant 
 inpouring of fresh elements from all sides, 
 who can say ? It is a contingency to be 
 expected that at any time a usurper may 
 arise to overthrow the republic, and seize the 
 reins of government."
 
 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 The party spirit of the times, considered in 
 connection with the socialistic phase, roused 
 grave apprehensions in Bellinger's mind, and 
 he gave expression to them in less measured 
 terms than he was wont to use. 
 
 " A wide net of social democracy over- 
 spreads the face of Europe. The leaven of 
 Nihilism is at work in Russia, and the 
 destructive party are active and menacing. 
 Louise Michel and her compeers are haranguing 
 in France, and in Ireland the labourer 
 threatens to shoot his employer. Emigration 
 is a useful outlet for national diseases. If 
 Ireland had money to expend in this way, 
 her great conflict with England would be set 
 at rest, and both parties benefited. It is an 
 old saying that expiation follows sin. Instead 
 of setting all their knowledge and every 
 available faculty to the task of clearing away 
 evils, curing them, or averting their conse- 
 quences, the various parties are taken up with
 
 "7 AND MY METTERNICH." IQ3 
 
 mean and spiteful squabbles among them- 
 selves. Living only for party dissensions, 
 they have no eye for what is going on around 
 them, and no sense of higher questions. We 
 may indeed say with the Emperor Francis I., 
 ' I and my Metternich will weather it out ; ' 
 but for the coming generation the future 
 is fraught with danger. Revolution often 
 marches with fearfully rapid strides. To-day 
 one thing, to-morrow another, is the teaching 
 of France." 
 
 Dollinger followed the course of political 
 events all over the world with the closest 
 attention, without losing in the slightest 
 degree his keen interest in the affairs of his 
 fatherland. He was before all things in heart 
 and soul a Bavarian. Maximilian II. had 
 nominated him a life member of the Bavarian 
 Chamber of the Council of the Empire, and 
 the following letter to my husband, written 
 
 13
 
 194 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 on January 28, 1870, gives some indication of 
 the political standpoint he occupied : 
 
 "At the present critical juncture, and while 
 I am still under the impression which yester- 
 day's negotiations in the Council, with refer- 
 ence to the address, produced on me, I indulge 
 myself in a few observations. 
 
 " The address of the members of the Council, 
 yesterday accepted, is directed against the 
 ministry, and against Prince Hohenlohe in 
 particular, whom they desire to be rid of at 
 all costs. Now the point of view from which 
 Haubensmied and myself oppose the address 
 is this. We allege that the rights of the Crown 
 are thereby infringed, and the way prepared 
 for a so-called parliamentary government, in 
 accordance with which the monarch would be 
 required to submit to have new ministers 
 thrust upon him on each occasion, by a shift- 
 ing majority in the Chamber. From obvious 
 motives, it would be to the advantage of the
 
 DOLLINGEKS POLITICAL CAREER. 195 
 
 Crown to preserve the continuance of the 
 present administration, instead of accepting a 
 new ministry at the hands of whichever party 
 may be uppermost in the Chamber at the 
 time. Such a measure is new to Bavaria, and 
 would form a dangerous precedent. In my 
 opinion the fewer changes in the ministry the 
 better, and certainly the election of the 
 ministers should not take place at the dictum 
 of any party. The whole country should see 
 plainly that the king is not minded to have 
 his sovereign right in the free election of his 
 ministers wrested from him. What Bavaria 
 needs more than aught else is sufficient 
 strength in the Crown to enable it to rise 
 superior to party factions." 
 
 Bellinger spoke very openly of his own 
 past political career. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "you are right in con- 
 cluding that I once enjoyed the reputation of 
 being an ultramontane politician. If the truth
 
 196 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 were known, it was really more that I was 
 urged in that direction by my friends than 
 that I had any personal predilection for that 
 side. For instance, I protested with all my 
 might against entering the Chamber of 
 Deputies, but Abel, who was then in office, 
 would allow none of my counter arguments 
 to stand. I had to become a member, and 
 was unfeignedly rejoiced when Louis I. put 
 an end to my activity in this capacity." 
 
 " May I ask, Dr. Dollinger, how it came 
 about that you were thus deprived of the 
 professorship in 1847 ?" I inquired. 
 
 " The history of my dismissal is connected 
 with a somewhat curious story," replied Dol- 
 linger. "My friends, Gorres, Philipps, Moy, 
 and others, formed a powerful party under 
 Abel, but occupied an isolated position in the 
 University, having no fellowship with other 
 professors holding different political or re- 
 ligious views. The overthrow of this party
 
 A TREASONABLE PETITION. 197 
 
 was brought about by the curiosity of a certain 
 lady. The existing ministry were fully awake 
 to the encroachments of the notorious Lola 
 Montez, and in view of the destruction which 
 menaced both the throne and country, they 
 secretly resolved to address a petition to 
 Louis I., humbly praying him to dismiss his 
 favourite, and setting forth the grounds on 
 which they based their request. 
 
 "Rumours of this business soon got afloat. 
 People began to whisper, and one fine day a 
 , sister of one of the ministers, goaded by curi- 
 osity, discovered the petition. She imparted 
 the news in the strictest confidence to her 
 most intimate friends, and they in their turn 
 secretly read the memorial, with the result 
 that, some time after the important document 
 had been safely restored to its hiding-place, 
 its contents appeared, nobody knew how, in 
 the newspapers. 
 
 " The panic of the ministers was great, and
 
 198 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 the king's displeasure still greater. He sus- 
 pected treachery, and considered the publication 
 of such a petition treasonable. Remonstrances 
 were of no avail ; the ministers were dis- 
 missed, and their adherents fled in every 
 direction. I, who had been nominated a 
 member of the Chamber by the University, 
 much against my will, had to resign office 
 at the bidding of the king. His Majesty was 
 greatly incensed ; and meanwhile the excited 
 populace were assembling in crowds before the 
 house of Lola Montez. 
 
 " On this, Prince Vrede stepped to the 
 front, argued that the Monarchy was in 
 danger, and declared that there was but one 
 method of quelling a tumult of this descrip- 
 tioD, and that was by firing on the crowd. 
 For this speech, at such a juncture, he was 
 elected minister on the spot. The feeling 
 against the king's favourite was, however, so 
 strong that Lola had to fly, and her friends
 
 THE "CARTRIDGE MINISTER." 199 
 
 met with considerable persecution. The 
 ' Cartridge Minister/ as Vrede was nick- 
 named, only wielded the wand of office for 
 a few hours, and then retired." 
 
 In 1848 Dollinger was elected a member 
 of the Frankfort Parliament, and at Mayence 
 he assisted to found the " Catholic Union of 
 Germany." He was present at the conference 
 of bishops at Wiirzburg, and on his return 
 to Munich in 1849 was re-established by 
 Maximilian II. as professor of theology. Some 
 years later the king nominated him a Knight 
 of the Order of Maximilian, for art and science, 
 and made him a member of the Chapter. 
 
 During one of our walks Db'llinger related 
 to us the following incident of the reign of 
 Maximilian II. The story is interesting in 
 itself, but especially so as showing the un- 
 prejudiced tone of Dollinger's mind, in the 
 terms in which he speaks of Archbishop 
 Scherr, at whose hands he had certainly re- 
 ceived very little good.
 
 200 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 "In 1859," he said, "the growing dis- 
 content of the members of the Chamber with 
 the ministry, and especially with Count 
 Eeigersberg, had made rapid and disturbing 
 progress. As the surest method of dealing 
 with this evil, the king was counselled to have 
 recourse to a coup d'titat, and thus to put a 
 summary end to the agitation. The king did 
 not approve of the project, and was still 
 further strengthened in his opinion by Scherr, 
 who said to him, 'Your Majesty took the 
 constitutional oath, and a coup d'Stat would 
 be a breach of it.' 
 
 "It was on this occasion, also, that Maxi- 
 milian II. made the noble-spirited remark, 
 ' I desire to live at peace with my people.' 
 
 " Now it cannot be said," went on Dollinger, 
 " that ecclesiastical advice is always so straight- 
 forwardly and conscientiously given. How 
 many oaths of allegiance sworn by Austrian, 
 Bavarian, and French princes, have not the
 
 X 
 \ 
 
 UNAUTHORIZED PUBLICATIONS. 2OI 
 
 Popes cancelled in earlier days ! The extent 
 to which this was carried is evidenced by a 
 document in which the Protestant princes 
 bound over their Catholic compeers 'not to 
 call in the aid of Papal authority to make 
 their plighted promises null and void.' ' 
 
 In 1880 Professor Schulte published a work 
 on Old Catholicism, in which appeared some 
 letters addressed by King Louis II. to Dol- 
 linger, on the subject of the latter's declaration 
 against the dogma of infallibility. The 
 appearance in print of these letters obliged 
 Db'llinger to make a public statement in the 
 columns of the " Allgemeine Zeitung," to the 
 effect that he was in no way responsible for 
 their publication, which had taken place 
 without his knowledge or connivance. 
 
 "Did you see my statement in the 'Allge- 
 meine Zeitung ' ? " asked Dollinger, as we met 
 and greeted at the door of his house one day 
 before setting off on our walk.
 
 202 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," replied my husband. " We 
 read the letters too, which were copied into 
 the ' Miinchener Neueste Nachrichten/ and 
 at once came to the conclusion that they had 
 been published without your authorization." 
 
 " Of course," said Dollinger. " Such an act 
 on my part would have been tactless in the 
 extreme, and an unpardonable breach of 
 discretion. I will tell you the history of 
 the matter. 
 
 "Professor von Schulte was at that time 
 staying with me, and we had many talks on 
 the subject of Old Catholicism. We discussed 
 the question very thoroughly, often reading 
 aloud portions of letters we had each received, 
 and together examining various other written 
 matter. Schulte often carried some of these 
 letters addressed to me away with him into 
 his room, and it appears made copies of many 
 of them, without my knowledge. These letters 
 of Louis II. to myself were among the number
 
 SCHULT&S EXPLANATION. 203 
 
 of those taken by him for this purpose. You 
 may imagine that I was unfeignedly astonished 
 when I saw these letters in print, and received 
 Professor von Schulte's explanation of the 
 matter. He begged me to excuse his action, 
 assuring me that he had over and over again 
 debated within himself whether he should 
 ask my permission to publish these letters or 
 not. The certainty that I should refuse his 
 request decided him, he said, to act straight 
 off, on his own responsibility, and he further 
 added that in his opinion the importance of 
 these letters to the cause of Old Catholicism 
 fully excused his audacity. Schulte is some- 
 what unscrupulous, but I have a high opinion 
 of his powers. He is undeniably one of the 
 four most distinguished living theologians of 
 Europe. He is highly cultivated, and very 
 clever. His book is historically remarkable, 
 and will greatly contribute to a clearer under- 
 standing of this question.
 
 204 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 11 1 have hitherto kept silence concerning 
 these letters and as to the king's views, but 
 now that they are published, I may tell you 
 that I was at that time sorely tempted by 
 Louis II. , the king being of opinion that. I 
 could, notwithstanding the sentence of ex- 
 communication passed upon me, continue to 
 celebrate mass. I had to tell his Majesty 
 that neither on his account nor my own could 
 I do this, as such an act of rebellion against 
 the Church and Pope would only lead to grave 
 and deplorable conflicts," 
 
 But neither the encouragement he received 
 at this time from the king, nor the repulse 
 which quickly followed it, shook Dollinger' s 
 loyalty, or disturbed his equanimity. His 
 motto was "Nil temere, nil timide" and he 
 carried it out in his actions. 
 
 Gladstone calls Dollinger a German of the 
 Germans ; and Dollinger himself in some glow- 
 ing words spoken on August 1, 1872, on the
 
 SPEECH AT MUNICH. 205 
 
 occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of 
 the founding of the University at Munich, 
 gave expression to his deep love for his 
 country, and at the same time pointed out 
 the high place occupied by Germany in the 
 history of the civilization of the nations. 
 
 " Germany is the intellectual centre from 
 which proceed the great ideas which sway 
 the world. She attracts all thought within 
 her scope, shapes it, and sends it forth into 
 the universe clothed with a power which is 
 her own. Hers is the battle-field upon which 
 all the great intellectual contests have been 
 fought. There is no other nation upon earth 
 which can approach the German people in 
 many-sidedness, in the gift of turning to 
 account strange elements, and none which 
 possesses in so great a measure, side by side 
 with this power of adaptation, the quality 
 of steadfast untiring research, and that of 
 original creative genius. Out of all the
 
 2O6 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 nations of the modern world, the German 
 people, like the Greeks of old, have been 
 called to an intellectual priesthood, and to 
 this high vocation they have done no dis- 
 honour."
 
 ( 207 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DOLLINGER'S RELATION TO ART AND LITERATURE. 
 
 DOLLINGER had a warm feeling for art in 
 general ; and if his singing of mass was not 
 a musical treat for the worshippers, this was 
 because he had no voice, not that he was 
 lacking in musical taste. It was only neces- 
 sary to see him at one of the oratorio concerts 
 in this town, which he rarely missed an oppor- 
 tunity of attending, to be convinced that he 
 listened with rapt attention to the melodies 
 of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Beethoven, and 
 that they told upon his mood. A pianoforte 
 sonata by Mozart, and a song entitled " The 
 Violet," by the same composer, gave him 
 exquisite pleasure, and he counted an oppor-
 
 208 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 tunity of listening to the sacred strains of 
 Palestrina or of Bach one of the highest enjoy- 
 ments which this life affords. 
 
 He had studied and was deeply embued 
 with the poetry of all cultivated nations, and 
 he brought the same trained intelligence to 
 bear upon the simple repetition of a psalm, 
 as in reciting portions of a Greek tragedy or 
 any of the songs of Homer. He rejoiced 
 when " (Edipus " was revived at the theatre, 
 for, as he said, " Sophocles has here movingly 
 attested the truth of the law that 'the sins 
 of the fathers shall be visited upon the chil- 
 dren ; ' " and I remember his turning to my 
 husband and quoting passages from the play 
 in Greek to this effect, and immediately after- 
 wards translating them for my benefit. Some- 
 times it was an ode of Horace which occurred 
 to him, or, if the conversation admitted it, he 
 would quote at length from Milton. Tasso's 
 "Jerusalem Delivered," and Ariosto's "Orlando
 
 STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 209 
 
 Furioso " were amonsj the many works thus 
 
 / 
 
 stored up in his memory. 
 
 In speaking of Aristophanes, Dollinger 
 said, " With this author we must overlook 
 much that is coarse and obscene, but occa- 
 sionally his flashes of humour are wonderfully 
 brilliant." 
 
 I remember his relating " The Knights " 
 to us, and in doing so how completely he 
 made us realize, as though it were a question 
 of our own day, the condition of Greek 
 politics at that time. 
 
 Dollinger's knowledge of Shakespeare was 
 profound, and he would often draw parallels 
 between his writings and those of the old 
 classic authors. He once told us the follow- 
 ing story of how through Shakespeare he 
 was first brought to the study of the English 
 language. 
 
 " As a boy, I had a strong desire to read 
 this poet in his own language, and with this 
 
 14
 
 2IO CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 idea I hunted Wiirzburg high and low for 
 an English master. My search was quite 
 unsuccessful, until I bethought myself of 
 applying to the monastery for Scotch monks. 
 This establishment was being quietly suffered 
 to die out, but still sheltered a few brothers, 
 and to one of these I carried my petition. 
 The old man looked me up and down in 
 silence for a minute, and then replied that 
 he was willing to undertake the task. My 
 English lessons began on the next day, and 
 were carried on with much zeal on the part 
 of both master and pupil. I was soon able 
 to read Shakespeare in his original tongue, 
 and my enthusiasm for the heroes of his 
 works knew no bounds. 
 
 " On one of these days, I begged my 
 friendly monk to lend me a biography of 
 Mary Stuart. The brother gave me permis- 
 sion to hunt for one myself in the library, 
 and soon after I went home thoroughly
 
 EARL YA CQ U A INT A NCR WITH VOL TAIRE. 2 I I 
 
 happy, a volume of Scotch history under 
 my arm. I read diligently, and searched 
 page after page, without arriving at Mary 
 Stuart, and at last, unable to make it out, 
 I carried my disappointment to the monk. 
 He looked puzzled at first, but all at once 
 put his hand to his forehead, and gave me 
 the following explanation of the matter. One 
 of the brothers, long since dead, had studied 
 this history, and from sheer indignation at 
 the slanders heaped upon Mary Stuart by 
 the author, had abstracted the chapter in 
 question, and torn it to bits." 
 
 " Voltaire was one of my first literary 
 friends," Dollinger said to us on another 
 occasion. " I read him when I was ten years 
 old. My father possessed a great many 
 French books, and he left the choice of my 
 reading pretty well to my own discretion. 
 At that time 1 found ' Les Romans de 
 Voltaire ' quite as harmless as I was myself.
 
 212 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 Later I formed a somewhat different judg- 
 ment of these tales." 
 
 Dollinger would always light up with 
 animation when the conversation happened 
 to turn on the " Don Quixote " of Cervantes. 
 He knew by heart every adventure, and 
 almost every turn of speech of the "knight 
 of the windmills," who, he said, " draws 
 tears and laughter at the same time." 
 
 It was this ever present and current 
 interest not only in the literary masterpieces 
 of classic and modern writers, but in 
 mediaeval legendary lore, which made 
 Dollinger's conversation so remarkable, and 
 lent to it a peculiar fascination. 
 
 We were talking on one occasion of 
 Clemens Brentano. Dollinger mentioned the 
 true poetry, and some of the peculiarities 
 of his style, which he said were especially 
 emphasized in his "Founding of Prague." 
 Then, by a natural transition, he passed to
 
 GOETHE'S " FAUST." 213 
 
 the history of that time, and held us keenly 
 interested while his fluent narration touched 
 point after point, in the most easy and 
 accomplished manner. Or he would take 
 one of Walter Scott's novels, and contrive 
 to bring out all its beauties, entering at the 
 same time into the historical facts on which 
 the story hung, in a manner which compelled 
 attention, and gave his relation all the interest 
 of a thrilling tale. Scott's " Ivanhoe " it 
 was which, in his youth, had first roused 
 his interest in the fate of the Templars, a 
 subject which he chose as the theme of his 
 last academy lecture. 
 
 He knew the first and second parts of 
 Goethe's "Faust" nearly by heart, and I 
 remember his once saying 
 
 " The sciences were at a low ebb in 
 Goethe's time, as we all know, and it was 
 his own urgent craviog after knowledge, 
 which he describes so realistically in 'Faust.'
 
 214 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 The idea underlying the tragedy is a grand 
 one, but the passage 
 
 " ' That yonder place gives me but small concern. 
 When thou hast first shattered this world to atoms 
 There may be others then, for aught I care ' * 
 
 is illogical, and displeases me." 
 
 Among other arts, that of painting possessed 
 a great attraction for Dollinger. He often 
 visited the old Pinakothek, the art exhibitions, 
 and the Schleissheimer Gallery. His favourite 
 artist was Van Eyck, and the rapt expression 
 of fervour which this artist infused into the 
 faces of his saints, never failed to delight him. 
 He would look with so keen and at the same 
 time sympathetic an eye at any picture which 
 especially appealed to him, that he really 
 made it a part of himself ; and should the con- 
 
 * Goethe's " Faust." From the German, by John 
 Anster, LL.D. In the German the passage runs : 
 " Das Drtiben kann mich wenig kummern ; 
 Schlagst du erst diese Welt zu Triimmern. 
 Die andre mag darnach entstehn."
 
 AN IMPRESSIVE PICTURE. 215 
 
 versation at any future time turn upon the 
 painting, he was able to recount the various 
 elements which to him made up its charm, 
 with the greatest minuteness. 
 
 In this way he once told us of a picture, 
 representing a prison scene during the time of 
 the French Revolution, which he had seen 
 many years ago in an exhibition at Paris. 
 
 "The picture," he said, "made a profound 
 impression upon me, and I remember it as 
 though I had seen it yesterday. The scene is 
 a prison hall, in which men and women of all 
 ranks are standing about, very variously 
 grouped. A prison official is engaged in 
 reading aloud from a list the names of those 
 persons condemned to death. The arrange- 
 ment and disposition of the figures, the 
 expression on the faces, varying in each case, 
 according as they are affected or not by the 
 reading of the sentences, is painted with 
 terrible force, and touched me deeply.
 
 2l6 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " That reign of terror," went on Dollinger, 
 " gave rise to the most remarkable situations, 
 affording us on the one hand instances of 
 high-souled devotion and heroic courage, 
 and on the other of cynicism, fanaticism, and 
 sensuality. People caught at any and every 
 means of drowning the sense of their terrible 
 situation. ' Nous avons tons quatrevingts 
 ans,' was the significant saying of the 
 prisoners, and in this spirit they indulged in 
 social irregularities, and all kinds of license. 
 
 "A love passage of this description forms 
 the groundwork of Ernest Kenan's French 
 drama, entitled, ' L'Abbesse de Jouarre.' An 
 abbess condemned to death by the revolution- 
 ary tribunal, is imagined on the night before 
 her execution to be seduced by her lover, a 
 prisoner like herself, to whom she had for 
 years been attached with a chaste affection. 
 An influential officer, who had been present 
 at her condemnation, is so moved by her
 
 " VABBESSE DE JOUARRE" 217 
 
 beauty that lie obtains a reversal of her 
 sentence, and notwithstanding all her prayers, 
 and an attempt at suicide on her part, she is 
 set at liberty, while her lover meets his death 
 on the scaffold. She becomes a mother, and 
 from that time supports herself and her child 
 by the most menial labour. Seven years after 
 she marries the officer who saved her life 
 against her will and in so doing obliged her 
 to drain this cup of bitter experiences. 
 
 " The play is cleverly written," said Dol- 
 linger, " and has many beauties. There are 
 exquisite touches in it, which I have often 
 admired, but the subject is a doubtful one, 
 and I incline to the opinion that such a piece 
 had better never have been written. 
 
 " Relations of this kind between martyrs of 
 opposite sexes, such as were alluded to in one 
 of the newspapers, have no foundation in fact, 
 and I do not remember a single historical 
 instance which can be brought forward in
 
 2l8 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 support of the statement. The love passages 
 said to have taken place between S. Cyprian 
 and S. Justina are pure invention, as every 
 scholar knows. There is a magnificent paint- 
 ing of this subject in the Belvedere at Vienna, 
 of which I possess an engraving which used at 
 one time to hang in my study." 
 
 In artistic matters Db'llinger was true to his 
 instinct of looking at the essence of things 
 rather than at their external side, for it was 
 invariably the spirit of a picture which 
 attracted him before the technique. It is 
 characteristic of Dollinger, that in his 
 memorial speech on Professor J. Sighart, he 
 especially emphasized as one of Sighart's excel- 
 lencies, that in his historical account of the 
 rise and progress of the fine arts in the king- 
 dom of Bavaria, ' ' he took for his theme the 
 history of the artistic conceptions of each 
 epoch, and not only their outward expression." 
 
 " In the course of a conversation which I
 
 ARTISTIC TRADITIONS. 2 19 
 
 once had with Peter von Cornelius," said 
 Dollinger to us one day, " I very strongly 
 expressed my dislike to the common artistic 
 method of depicting the three Persons of the 
 Blessed Trinity. I said that, in my opinion, 
 to represent God the Father as an old man 
 with a long white beard, the Son as a youth, 
 and the Holy Ghost as a highly realistic dove, 
 was to destroy the purely spiritual conception 
 of the Blessed Trinity, that idea which may 
 never be expressed, and to provide us instead 
 with a grossly material symbolism. Cornelius 
 disagreed with me, and we had a long dis- 
 cussion on the subject. He was too entirely 
 and solely a painter to be willing to part with 
 the accepted traditional figures, and our argu- 
 ment ended, as such discussions often do, by 
 each of us holding to our own opinion." 
 
 Another day, in the course of conversation, 
 Dollinger said 
 
 " Peter Hess once came to me in a great
 
 22O CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 flurry of excitement. It appeared that Louis 
 I. had just honoured him with a commission 
 to paint frescoes for the Church of 8. Boniface, 
 and that he was desired to forward sketches 
 of the proposed work to his Majesty as soon 
 as possible. 
 
 " ' And now, my dear Dbllinger/ said Hess, 
 ' I want your help and advice. Might I ask 
 you to write an account for me of the various 
 incidents in the life of S. Boniface ? ' Of 
 course I complied with his request. The 
 designs were soon ready, and the king was 
 enchanted, not only with the choice of 
 episodes, but with the prompt manner in 
 which his wishes had been carried out. 
 
 " I was also," went on Dollinger, " quite 
 unintentionally the originator of Wilhelm 
 von Kaul bach's picture, ' The Inquisitor Don 
 Pedro Arbues de Epila.' The subject is 
 finely treated, as is always the case with 
 Kaulbach, but the picture gives one a feeling
 
 CANONIZATION OF ARBUES. 221 
 
 of horror. When I learned that the beati- 
 fication of Arbues was seriously contemplated 
 at Rome, I was indignant that there should 
 be any question of the canonization of a man 
 who had been guilty of such deeds of cruelty, 
 and with the view of hindering such a step, 
 if possible, I wrote two newspaper articles 
 on the subject of the Inquisition.* In these 
 I sketched the historical development of the 
 Inquisition, and went on to describe Arbues, 
 and the way in which he won for himself in 
 Saragossa the name of an ' accerrimus perse- 
 cutor hceresium.' His activity as Inquisitor 
 lasted from May 4, 1484, to September 5, 
 1485, and in the fulfilment of his office he 
 
 * These essays were published in January, 1867, in 
 the Supplement to the " Allgemeine Zeitung," under 
 the respective titles of " Rome and the Inquisition," 
 and " Arbues." They have quite recently been 
 reprinted in the " Kleinere Schriften " (Stuttgart. J. 
 G. Cotta. 1891), edited after Dollinger's death by Pro- 
 fessor Reusch.
 
 222 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 incurred the bitterest hatred. Finally he was 
 fallen upon at night in the church by Johann 
 de Labadia, whose sister he had condemned 
 to a shameful death, and Johann Sperandius. 
 whose father he had thrown into prison, and 
 received his death-wound at the hands of 
 these two men. Florente tells us that more 
 than two hundred people suffered death in 
 expiation for the murder of Arbues, and a 
 greater number still were imprisoned. The 
 following passage will suffice just to show 
 you the spirit of these articles : 
 
 "'Innocent XI., during the entire period 
 of his pontificate, undertook no single canoni- 
 zation, and not only enjoined the utmost 
 circumspection with regard to such a measure, 
 but strongly deprecated its too frequent 
 employment. Now this Pope was a man so 
 distinguished for his virtues that he was him- 
 self deemed worthy of canonization, and in 
 his case, as in that of Bishop Palafox, of
 
 ESSAYS ON THE INQUISITION. 22$ 
 
 Mexico, it was only the intrigues of the 
 Jesuits, whose opponents they had been, which 
 caused the collapse of the undertaking. Far 
 removed from the spirit of these wise exhor- 
 tations of Innocent XL is the action of to-day, 
 when we actually behold the gloomy figures 
 of the Inquisition held up to our veneration 
 as shining examples of the Christian character. 
 "Would it not be more in accordance with the 
 spirit of the gospel, if the forthcoming great 
 Church festival at Rome were to be associated 
 with a solemn and formal repudiation of the 
 Inquisition and its iniquities ? ' 
 
 " The two articles," said Dollinger, " created 
 much sensation at Rome, but to no purpose. 
 The canonization of Arbues was there carried 
 out with great festal solemnity. Although 
 I sent in the essays anonymously, and not 
 wishing to turn public conjecture towards 
 Munich had them dated and despatched 
 from France, I was instantly recognized as
 
 224 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 the author. Kaulbach told me himself that 
 he had first thoroughly assimilated the idea 
 of Arbues, as I had described him, and had 
 then set himself to carry out his conception 
 with all possible intensity." 
 
 Dollinger much regretted the historical want 
 of accuracy in Karl von Piloty's well-known 
 picture, " The Female Martyr," in which 
 heathen priests are represented as passing by 
 the dead body in procession. " Both Greeks 
 and Komans," he said, " considered the im- 
 mediate neighbourhood of a corpse to be 
 especially defiling. Persons who had touched 
 or even approached a dead body, were not 
 allowed to set foot in a temple, or undertake 
 any sacred office, until they had undergone 
 a complete ritual cleansing. Director von 
 Piloty came to see .me expressly about this 
 picture, and I then acquainted him with all 
 these customs, and referred him to the Acts 
 relating to martyrs. But painters are not to
 
 A SUBJECT FOR AN ARTIST. 22$ 
 
 be reckoned with, and Piloty refused to be 
 bound by historical fact." 
 
 Dollinger once suggested the following sub- 
 ject to a young artist, who had to paint a 
 picture representing some incident of Spanish 
 history : 
 
 " The Cardinal Portocarro persuading the 
 sick and dying king, Charles II. of Spain, to 
 affix his signature to the deed which nomi- 
 nates the grandson of Louis XIV., Duke 
 Philip of Anjou, his successor and heir to 
 the throne. The king, though only thirty- 
 six years of age, is in appearance an en- 
 feebled old man. The royal chamber is filled 
 with pictures of saints, and cases containing 
 relics, brought thither from the churches of 
 Madrid. With the Cardinal there were 
 actually present two confessors in monkish 
 garb, and these two figures should be partially 
 visible in the background. The Cardinal, the 
 man of most distinguished rank in the king- 
 
 15
 
 226 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 dom, was sixty-five years old, tyrannical and 
 passionately ambitious. In the presence of 
 the helpless and unhappy monarch, he felt 
 himself the man in whose hands rested the 
 fate of Spain. In the countenance of the 
 king, the peculiar formation of the corners 
 of the mouth, a well-known characteristic of 
 members of the house of Hapsburg, should 
 be carefully expressed." This picture was, 
 alas, never executed. 
 
 In November, 1884, Dollinger received an 
 invitation from Lenbach, the painter, to visit 
 him at his atelier. The Crown Princess of 
 Germany, now the Empress Frederick, was to 
 be there, and wished to make his acquaintance, 
 and of course he gladly obeyed the summons. 
 
 Lenbach's studio was a perfect treasure- 
 house of works of art of every age, and in 
 these surroundings the group gathered round 
 the portrait of Bismarck, which the Pope had 
 commissioned the artist to paint for the
 
 THE EMPRESS FREDERICK. . 22 J 
 
 Vatican gallery, must have formed a picture 
 in itself of more than common interest. 
 
 The Princess, full of bright cheerfulness, 
 with as yet no foreboding of the heavy trials 
 which the future held in store for her; Len- 
 bach, with his mobile features, and abrupt 
 changes of expression, at one moment inspired, 
 and at the next sarcastic ; the veteran Dol- 
 linger, his remarkable countenance wearing 
 at times a look curiously cold, and yet capable 
 of lighting up into a glow of animation. 
 
 The Crown Princess appeared to Dollinger 
 at this interview as a singularly gifted and 
 courteous lady. She conversed on art with 
 much keen appreciation, and talked with 
 Dollinger of the work on which he was then 
 engaged. 
 
 " How much must have taken place before 
 the Pope ordered Bismarck's portrait ! " was 
 one of her remarks on this occasion. 
 
 Dollinger and Lenbach had a mutual vencra-
 
 228 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 tion for each other. They differed widely in 
 age, profession, intellectual bent, and mode of 
 life ; but the love of truth, the spiritual 
 intuition, and the beauty of form which dis- 
 tinguished the works of the illustrious artist, 
 were all equally present in the writings of the 
 great scholar. 
 
 In consequence of a tradition dating from 
 his earliest childhood, which he had been 
 accustomed to hear daily confirmed, Dollinger 
 had arrived at the modest conclusion that he 
 was exceedingly plain. He was therefore not 
 a little astonished and amused on learning 
 that Lenbach saw in his sharply cut features 
 anything but ugliness pure and simple. This 
 artist painted him again and again, and always 
 skilfully. 
 
 Once when the sitting was to take place on 
 a Friday, ' Dollinger wrote to me: "Lenbach 
 has extorted a promise from me to sit to him 
 on Friday. He is anxious only he knows
 
 AN UNWILLING SITTER. 2 29 
 
 why to paint me once more. He declares 
 he has only now arrived at the real mystery 
 of my plain countenance, and is at last in a 
 position to paint an adequate classical portrait, 
 fit to go down to posterity. I think I see 
 you laugh, but he is dreadfully in earnest, 
 and as a preliminary he has had me photo- 
 graphed, which was no laughing matter for 
 me. Now, when it is too late to make an 
 alteration in this arrangement, I have just 
 remembered that Friday is your day, and I 
 am in the same position as Buridan's ass, 
 between two bundles of hay. All I can do 
 is to offer you compensation. I am free on 
 Saturday." 
 
 Some years ago Gabriel Max painted a 
 picture of Judas Iscariot, choosing for his 
 subject the moment of agonized remorse in 
 which the traitor hung himself. In the 
 painting, as in the legend, the cord is repre- 
 sented as having given way, and Judas is left
 
 230 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 half-throttled in the branches of the tree, 
 while ravens are depicted circling round his 
 half-dead form. 
 
 "In the second century after Christ,' 
 remarked Dollinger, " there was quite another 
 version of the history of Judas, according to 
 which the traitor was supposed to live for 
 many years after the death of Christ, and to 
 grow so fat that at last he could take no 
 exercise except in a carriage." 
 
 The same artist, Gabriel Max, also painted 
 a beautiful picture of Katharina Emmerich, a 
 Westphalian village girl, said to be marked 
 with the stigmata, and subject to visions. 
 In connection with this girl, Dollinger related 
 to us the following incident : 
 
 " Brentano, who had been the hero of many 
 adventurous love affairs, ended by becoming a 
 mystic, and took up his residence for two 
 years in a Westphalian village, with the 
 object of hearing and setting down in writing
 
 BRENT A NO AS A MYSTIC. 231 
 
 the visions of this Katharina Emmerich. He 
 told me at different times enough about the 
 girl to make me certain that I possessed the 
 key to some of these alleged miraculous 
 appearances, and I think what I am going 
 to tell you sufficiently proves that I was 
 right. 
 
 " In Spain, during the reign of Philip IV., 
 a certain book, written by a nun, and entitled 
 ' The Mystic City of God/ created a great 
 sensation. This nun was a Franciscan, and in 
 accordance with the views of her order at 
 that time, she exaggerated the reverence paid 
 to the Blessed Virgin into a fantastic and 
 fanatical cult. The desire and intention of 
 these adherents of S. Francis was to exalt the 
 opinion entertained concerning the Immacu- 
 late Conception into a dogma. They little 
 imagined that this desire of theirs would, 
 after remaining in abeyance for two hundred 
 years, first be carried into effect by Pius IX.
 
 232 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 " Brentano read this book, and while 
 admiring many passages for their beauty and 
 truth, thought others unworthy and exag- 
 gerated, particularly one in which the redemp- 
 tion of mankind was principally ascribed to 
 the Mother of God. He detailed this nun's 
 statements to Katharina Emmerich, together 
 with his own opinion of the work, and then 
 eagerly awaited the effect of his communica- 
 tions. To his intense astonishment a few 
 days later the girl told him she had had a 
 remarkable vision. She said she had seen 
 the book, entitled ' The Mystic City of God,' 
 spread out before her, with those passages 
 which he had approved standing clearly out 
 in letters of light, and the rest indistinctly 
 visible in the darkness. Then she beheld a 
 great temple, and angels and saints on the 
 right hand and on the left to guard the 
 entrance. The Blessed Virgin, she said, 
 sought to enter in through the gates, but
 
 SITTING TO A SCULPTOR. 233 
 
 they were small and narrow, and she could 
 not gain admittance, save through the help 
 of the Franciscans, who passed her through. 
 Brentano actually did not see that Katharina 
 Emmerich, with feminine ingenuity, had 
 merely adapted his narrative and reproduced 
 it as a vision." 
 
 Dollinger's outward appearance has been 
 rendered familiar to the public by engravings, 
 pen-and-ink sketches, photographs, and busts, 
 in addition to the portraits before alluded to. 
 He wrote to me from Tegernsee, on August 
 4, 1887, with regard to one of these artistic 
 attempts. 
 
 " I have had to sacrifice from fifteen to 
 sixteen hours in sitting or standing for my 
 bust to an artist, Herr Hildebrand, who 
 happens to be staying here. It is an old 
 weakness of mine to yield too easily to ladies' 
 wishes, and this is a case of paying the 
 penalty. It is, however, something of a com-
 
 234 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLL1NGER. 
 
 pensation to hear on all sides that the bust 
 has turned out a great success." 
 
 The sculptor Kopf, at Eome, modelled a 
 masterly bust of Dollinger for the library 
 of the Baroness von Cramerklett. Julius 
 Zumbusch also accomplished a medallion for 
 presentation by members of the Academy of 
 Sciences to their president on his ninety-first 
 birthday. But DSlliuger's death changed this 
 token of veneration intended for his grati- 
 fication into a memorial for posterity.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 IN December of 1889, Dollinger's health was 
 failing, and his doctor ordered him to dis- 
 continue his afternoon and evening walks, 
 and to take his daily exercise at midday 
 instead. At this time I received the following 
 lines from him : 
 
 " I need not say that I shall still be 
 charmed to take my midday walk in Eisenhart 
 company. I only regret that I am not a 
 little more ' iron hard ' myself. I shall hope 
 to see you to-morrow at ten minutes after 
 twelve." 
 
 It was on a Thursday at noon that Dr. 
 Dollinger and myself took our last walk
 
 236 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 together. My husband was detained by a 
 meeting of the Senate, and we two walked 
 
 o 
 
 together as far as Schwabing and back. I 
 observed that he breathed rather shortly and 
 seemed to pant a little in walking, but in 
 mind he had never seemed brighter, and in 
 manner he was as kind and courteous as ever. 
 
 "What a beautiful day," he remarked, 
 " and how much better one feels for this 
 glorious sunshine ! And yet this light is but 
 the faintest image of that radiance through 
 which alone God manifests Himself to the 
 created being, as Dante has it in his ' Paradiso.' 
 I believe the ' Inferno ' is generally accepted 
 as the finest portion of the ' Divina Corn- 
 media/ but the ' Purgatorio' and the 'Paradiso' 
 also contain stores of beauty." 
 
 In talking thus we had arrived at Dollinger's 
 favourite theme. Dante was not simply the 
 poet for whom he felt the greatest admiration ; 
 it was rather that there existed a marked
 
 DOLLINGER AND DANTE. 237 
 
 spiritual affinity between the two, and to a 
 certain extent they shared the same fate. 
 Dollinger held, with Dante, exalted views 
 concerning the mission of the Church and of 
 theology, and Dante embodied for Dollinger 
 in his " Paradiso " that high and noble con- 
 ception of the priesthood which was the 
 latter's dearest vision. 
 
 " Dante should be a favourite with women," 
 he observed, "for certainly no poet, before or 
 since, is half so chivalrous towards them, 
 Francisca da Eimini is the only feminine 
 being whom he consigns to hell, and even she 
 is represented as more or less contented there, 
 inasmuch as her fate involves no separation 
 from her lover. He does not let men off so 
 easily, and is especially hard on the two 
 Popes." 
 
 "I sometimes wonder," I said, "that the 
 penalty incurred by Dante was not still more 
 severe."
 
 238 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 "You see," said Dollinger, "it was the 
 principle involved the articles of faith 
 which were so strictly fenced, more than the 
 person of the Pope. Had Dante sinned 
 against these, he would have been burnt alive. 
 His lot was sad enough. How simply yet 
 how pitifully he sets it before us in the 
 words : ' Oh friend, you know not what it is 
 to climb these strange steps day by day.' He 
 always hoped that Rudolf and Albrecht of the 
 house of Hapsburg would come to Italy, and 
 would rally all around them there. The 
 emperors did no such thing ; they knew too 
 well that not only would they be powerless 
 for good, but that in so doing their cause was 
 lost, and they left matters as they were. The 
 question Dante places on the lips of Pope 
 Nicholas in hell, who cries from his coffin to 
 Boniface VIII., ' Se 'tu gid costi ritto f ' * has 
 become a saying for all time. 
 
 * "Ha! already standest there?" (Gary's DANTE, 
 Hell." Canto xix. 54;.
 
 CELESTINE V. 239 
 
 " Were it not for the explanations which 
 Dante's son, Pietro, and other writers of that 
 time have left behind them, we should still be 
 greatly in the dark concerning many portions 
 of this poem. Take for instance that apathetic 
 figure which Dante places in a sort of ante- 
 chamber to hell itself. If Pietro had not told 
 us that Celestine V. was here indicated, who 
 to-day would have been able to identify this 
 personage ? It seems that Dante had looked 
 for important reforms at the hands of Celestine, 
 who was a pious-minded man, but entirely 
 unfitted for his office, and was indignant that 
 this Pope did not attempt to hinder either the 
 various abuses which had crept in, or the 
 money dealings and immoralities of the clergy. 
 For the rest, the great poet does seem to have 
 gone by a certain rule, for he places sinners 
 who repent when on their death-beds in 
 Purgatory, and those who die in their sins in. 
 hell. Every rule has its exceptions, and
 
 240 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 Dante also made a few, when and where he 
 pleased, saving some and condemning others. 
 His knowledge of history is astonishing, 
 though of course, like all his contemporaries, 
 he sometimes confused legend with historical 
 fact. The power of distinguishing truth from 
 fiction was a later acquisition. In those 
 earlier days people were more credulous and 
 less critical 
 
 " Many years ago," went on Dollinger, " I 
 was allowed to undertake a work which gave 
 me much pleasure, namelv the furnishing of 
 
 L */ O 
 
 explanatory notes to Cornelius's sketches 
 illustrating Dante's ' Paradiso.' ' Then, with 
 
 * " Sketches illustrating Dante's ' Paradiso,' " by Peter 
 von Cornelius, with explanatory text by Dr. Ignatius 
 von Dollinger. (Munich. 1830.) Published at Leipzig 
 by Boerner. These sketches by Cornelius were designs 
 for fresco-paintings to be executed for the Marcliese 
 Massini at Rome. The painter was, however, summoned 
 by Louis I. of Bavaria to Munich, to paint the interior 
 of the Church of S. Louis, an interruption which 
 prevented the completion of the work.
 
 COMMENTARY ON THE " PARADISO" 241 
 
 his usual unfailing memory, he went over this 
 talented artist's finely conceived designs, 
 quoting passages from the notes he had just 
 mentioned. 
 
 This commentary of Bellinger's on Dante's 
 " Paradiso " is now almost forgotten, but it 
 well deserves to be reprinted. For those who 
 desire to form some judgment of Dollinger, 
 not only as a Christian but as a Catholic 
 priest, it contains much enlightenment. The 
 intellectual and religious tendency of these 
 notes points directly to the position taken up 
 by Dollinger in the year 1830, and in no 
 subsequent treatise has the great theologian 
 defined it more attractively. Nor is it 
 difficult to recognize that the standpoint in 
 question is, to all intents and purposes 
 essentially the same as that which he occupied 
 when summoned to another world. I may 
 therefore be excused for presently quoting a 
 few passages. 
 
 16
 
 242 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 The first sketch shows us Dante, having 
 parted with Virgil, under whose guidance he 
 has traversed first the realm of darkness, and 
 then the abode of penance and of purification, 
 now wandering with Beatrice through the 
 spheres of Paradise. He obeys her implicitly, 
 receiving from her lips the clearest instruction 
 concerning the kingdom of God, and all that 
 appertains to it. The higher she ascends with 
 him the more glorious and radiant does she 
 become, until he beholds her at length in the 
 Empyrean, clothed with a beauty inexpressible, 
 which defies conception, and which none but 
 God can fully enjoy. 
 
 " Beatrice," explained Dollinger, " signifies 
 theology, not in its abstract meaning as the 
 letter of religious science, but as the living 
 daughter of heaven, the blessed knowledge of 
 God and of holy things, the highest divine 
 gift of grace, enabling us to behold here, as in 
 a glass, that which we shall hereafter gaze on 
 face to face."
 
 THE SPHERE OF THE MOON. 243 
 
 In the next sketch Beatrice and Dante have 
 reached the sphere of the moon. The field of 
 vision is encircled by choirs of angels, and of 
 this Dollinger gave the following explana- 
 tion : 
 
 "Dante's idea, here expressed, is that all 
 worlds or spheres of Paradise are set in motion 
 by heavenly angels or powers, who in their 
 turn receive their impulse from God, the 
 essence of all being. As before the Empyrean 
 is reached there are nine heavens, so all 
 theologians are agreed that there are nine 
 choirs of angels, and to each heavenly choir 
 is apportioned a special sphere of Paradise. 
 Thus Beatrice says 
 
 " ' The virtue and the motion of the sacred orbs, 
 As mallet by the workman's hand, must needs 
 By blessed movers be inspired.' " 
 
 (Gary's DANTE, " Paradise." Canto ii. 127-129.) 
 
 * " Lo moto e la virtu de' santi giri, 
 Come dal fabbro 1'arte del martello, 
 Da' beati motor convien che spiri." 
 (DANTE, "Paradiso." Canto ii. 127-129.)
 
 244 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 In the third sketch the wanderer, in tra- 
 versing the spheres of Paradise, has reached 
 the sun. This is the abode of those blessed 
 spirits who had once been teachers of the 
 Church and masters of theology ; and Dol- 
 linger explained 
 
 <c All whom Dante places in this sphere 
 
 are men who were distinguished upon earth 
 
 for their wisdom and deep apprehension of 
 
 Divine things. Peter the Lombard, who wrote 
 
 the celebrated manual of theology in universal 
 
 use during the middle ages. The two mystics, 
 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, and Richard of 
 
 S. Victor. Solomon is also here he to whom 
 
 God vouchsafed before all other men the gift 
 
 of wisdom, and of whom Dante makes S. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas say that his light is goodliest 
 
 of all" 
 
 Out of this throng of blessed spirits, in 
 number four and twenty, the artist has selected 
 three of the most important figures S. Thomas
 
 THE SPHERE OF THE SUN. 245 
 
 Aquinas, Albert the Great, and S. Bona- 
 venture, a member of the Minorite order. 
 Dollinger says of these 
 
 11 The group composed of these three men 
 forms in itself a perfect whole. Each of them 
 represents one of the requirements which 
 united forms the task which the Catholic 
 Church imposes on her priesthood. This task 
 is briefly this : First, the accomplishment of 
 the union of the soul with God, by detach- 
 ment from earthly things, contemplative aspi- 
 ration toward heaven, and continual fostering 
 and augmenting of the love of God in the 
 heart ; next, there is the active love of the 
 fellow-creature, as involved in the exercise of 
 the pastoral profession and the spiritual charge 
 of the congregation ; and lastly, the scientific 
 working out and development, according to 
 individual perception, of the revealed truths 
 of religion. In this threefold task lies the 
 whole vocation of the priesthood, and in the
 
 246 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 group before us each of these tendencies is 
 personified. S. Bonaventure represents the 
 contemplative or mystic side, S. Thomas 
 Aquinas the speculative theological, and 
 Albert the Great the active and practical." 
 
 In the fourth sketch Dante has ascended 
 with Beatrice into the sphere of Mars, and 
 Dollinger remarked 
 
 " The whole circumference of the planet is 
 divided into four parts by a cross which 
 stretches above him, like the milky way across 
 the sky, and from this cross Christ Himself 
 beams in a marvellous and inexpressible 
 manner. In accordance with the name of 
 this planet, the spirits which inhabit it are 
 warrior-heroes men who have waged a sacred 
 warfare for the cause of God and for the glory 
 of the faith. 
 
 " Out of this band of warriors it is Charle- 
 magne who first arrests the eye. An awe- 
 inspiring figure, with a commanding gravity
 
 A CHRISTIAN HERO. 247 
 
 of mien, a glance of keen discernment, and an 
 inborn majesty of rule. Charlemagne, who 
 stretched his empire from the Ebro to the 
 Eaab and from Beneventum to the Eyder, 
 and claiming all Teutonic races first made 
 them one beneath his sway, until England 
 and Scandinavia only remained outside his 
 rule. It is in just such guise as this, that 
 the historical investigator of to-day may fitly 
 picture to himself the outward semblance of 
 the man whose actions, after a thousand years, 
 still stir his enthusiastic wonder. 
 
 " By the side of Charlemagne stands a 
 knight whom the artist represents as in the 
 bloom of youth, and leaning on his sword. 
 A good sword it was, which laid many an 
 unbeliever low, and flashed among the first 
 on the ramparts of Jerusalem ; for the knight 
 is Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lothringen, 
 a true Christian hero, unanimously chosen by 
 his comrades in arms first king of the holy
 
 248 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 city. He it was who. after the storming of 
 Jerusalem, kept his hands clean from the blood 
 of the conquered, and, whilst others killed 
 and plundered, went barefooted to the Church 
 of the Holy Sepulchre, and poured out his 
 soul in thanksgiving. 
 
 " In the fifth sketch," said Dollinger, 
 " Dante and Beatrice have reached Saturn, 
 the last of the planets and the furthest 
 removed from the earth. Here they find 
 those who through seclusion from the world, 
 and a life of humility, prayer, and self-denial, 
 have sought so to cleanse their souls 
 as to render them susceptible to Divine 
 communications." 
 
 In the foreground of the picture sits S. 
 Benedict, clad in a loose robe of many folds, 
 "and in truth" said Dollinger, "the cloisters 
 of his order have spread blessing and well- 
 being over the whole of Western Christendom. 
 Bulwarks they were, and watch-towers,
 
 THE ORDER OF S. BENEDICT. 249 
 
 guarantees for the civilization of the lands, and 
 the cultivation of the ground, for the founding 
 and maintaining of the Christian religion among 
 rough half-heathen people ; training grounds 
 for the education of a godly priesthood, bright 
 points of light shining at intervals in those 
 dark ages. All that Europe possessed of 
 art or knowledge she owed to them ; these 
 cloisters were the refuge of the oppressed, 
 the haven of those who, tired of worldly toil, 
 looked for a calm retreat, and found in un- 
 disturbed communion with God the peace of 
 soul they sought. 
 
 " The book in which the saint is represented 
 as writing, is the rule of his order, which 
 he left to his disciples as the fruit of the 
 experience of many years, and of enlightenment 
 vouchsafed him from above. Twelve hundred 
 years have since gone by, and the wisdom 
 of this rule, with its happy combination of 
 the contemplative and active life, is still 
 maintained.
 
 250 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 " There is another saint, holding a cross 
 in his hand and looking down, and in him 
 we easily recognize the founder of the 
 Minorite order, S. Francis of Assisi. And 
 here we might apply in a higher sense the 
 beautiful words which Sophocles puts into 
 the mouth of Antigone, and say 'that he 
 was only born to love,' for truly divine love 
 formed the groundwork of his life. Turning 
 with disgust from worldly pleasures and the 
 lust of gain, he had, as our poet beautifully 
 says, taken poverty to be his bride. * 
 
 " Dante has now," said Bellinger, " at a 
 sign from Beatrice, ascended by means of the 
 golden ladder on which he has seen the blessed 
 spirits continually passing up and down, into 
 the eighth sphere, or the constellation of the 
 Twins. The Church triumphant now meets 
 
 * " Sie dess beraubt, der sich ihr erst vermahlte (Christ) 
 Blieb ganz verschmaht mehr als elfhundert Jahr. 
 Da, bis zu diesem ihr der Freier fehlte."
 
 THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT. 251 
 
 his eyes, namely the host of the chosen and 
 the blessed, in the form of many thousand 
 lamps, and over these a sun Christ, from 
 which all draw their radiance." 
 
 Dante's examination in the three theological 
 virtues faith, hope, and love, by the three 
 apostles, S. Peter, S. James, and S. John, is 
 the subject of the next sketch. Then, the 
 examination finished, and the " Holy, Holy, 
 Holy" sung by the blessed spirits in unison 
 with Beatrice 
 
 "The whole of Paradise," said Dollinger, 
 "rang with a song of praise to God the 
 Father, God the Son, and God the Holy 
 Ghost, and Dante expressed his ecstasy in the 
 beautiful words 
 
 " ' Joy past compare ; gladness unutterable ; 
 Imperishable life of peace and love ; 
 Exhaustless riches, and unmeasur'd bliss.' * 
 
 (Gary's DANTE, " Paradise." Canto xxvii. 7-9,) 
 
 * " gioja ! inefiabile allegrezza ! 
 
 vita intera d'amore e di pace ! 
 
 senza brama sicura richezza ! " 
 (DANTE, " Paradiso." Canto xxvii. 7-9.)
 
 252 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 "After this deep silence ensues, the light 
 of S. Peter pales, as he begins "to speak of the 
 depravity of the Papacy of that time, and hurls 
 his thunders at his own degenerate successors ; 
 and as he speaks the whole heavens redden, 
 and also Beatrice, with shame and anger." 
 
 The three last sketches deal with the Empy- 
 rean, or the highest heaven. Dante has, at 
 the bidding of Beatrice, plunged his face into 
 a river of flowing light, which as it ran tossed 
 up a spray of sparkles, and drinking of it 
 is aware of a crystal flood in the form of 
 a circle " a flood," said Dollinger, " without 
 beginning and without end, for his strength- 
 ened sight, now subject to no bounds of time 
 or space, can pierce the infinite. 
 
 "The sparkles and the flowers in which 
 they set themselves then appear to him as two 
 distinct choirs of angels and of men. Above 
 the circle of light, by means of which God 
 manifests Himself to the created being, is
 
 THE HIGHEST HEAVEN. 253 
 
 suspended a white rose, whose countless petals 
 form the seats of the blessed inhabitants of 
 heaven. Each series of petals forms a separate 
 grade or circle, and here, tier after tier, these 
 blessed ones are ranged. The angels, flitting 
 downward to the flower on errands to the 
 blessed, alight like a swarm of bees upon the 
 petals and enter the calyx of the rose, and 
 then rising again return into the height." 
 Of the ninth and last sketch, Db'llinger said 
 " Dante has reached the longed-for goal of 
 his great journey. Beatrice is no longer with 
 him, but having conducted him into the 
 Empyrean, where he has been granted the 
 vision of the blessed, she has left him and 
 returned to the throne appointed her in the 
 rose of Paradise. Her place is taken by a 
 kindly, gentle old man, with a tender, fatherly 
 expression of countenance, who, at her desire, 
 makes himself known to Dante. This is 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, the great master and
 
 254 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 teacher of mystic theology. Dante, kneeling 
 opposite to him, gazes upwards towards the 
 Trinity, while below, in the centre, kneels 
 the Blessed Virgin, supplicating on behalf of 
 the poet that he may have grace given him to 
 contemplate the glory of the Divine Majesty. 
 
 " ' Here vigour failed the tow'ring fantasy : 
 But yet the will roll'd onward, like a wheel 
 In even motion, by the Love impell'd 
 That moves the sun in heav'n and all the stars.' " * 
 (Gary's DANTE, " Paradise." Canto xxxiii. 132.) 
 
 Fifty- seven years later Dollinger still spoke 
 of Dante with the same warm enthusiasm. 
 
 " Dante's claim on our hearts and intellects 
 is that of a prophet in the sense and spirit of 
 the Old Testament seers and poets ; " and he 
 went on to say, " The task which the poet set 
 himself was a four-fold one. He was, before 
 
 * " All' alta fantasia qui manco possa ; 
 Ma gia volgeva il mio disiro e'l velle, 
 Si come ruota che igualmente e mossa, 
 L'Amor che muove'l Sole e 1'altre stelle." 
 (DANTE, " Paradise." Canto xxxiii. 142-145.)
 
 DANTE AS A TEACHER. 255 
 
 all things, a preacher of justice, peace, and 
 love, and he had a hitherto hidden doctrine to 
 make known, lacking which these three virtues 
 can have no abiding endurance. Secondly, he 
 had to show his contemporaries, as in a mirror, 
 their errors, transgressions, and vices, with the 
 object of bringing them to repentance and to a 
 knowledge of themselves. Thirdly, it was his 
 office to denounce the imperfections and mis- 
 uses in existence both in Church and State, 
 and to point out their corresponding remedies. 
 Lastly, he was called on to announce the 
 dawn of a better future, and to awaken and 
 foster in men's hearts the hope of a coming 
 rescue out of the abyss of sin and misery in 
 which the Christian world was sunk. But 
 with all this, Dante was not the man to invent 
 prophecies at will out of the abundance of his 
 imagination. Nor can it with truth be said 
 of him, that he simply invested in a prophetic 
 garb his own individual wishes and needs.
 
 256 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 That which he did was the common practice 
 of the age in which he lived. He took, and 
 made his own, predictions which were already 
 current, and others drawn from biblical inter- 
 pretations ; and, sometimes purposely present- 
 ing them in an enigmatical form, he sent them 
 forth again clothed with the beautiful imagery 
 of his poetical imagination. 
 
 ft Dante was of opinion that the Papal bulls 
 should be regarded with all honour ; but he 
 deplored as a misfortune to the world the 
 exclusive study of canon law, then adopted 
 as the surest road to the acquirement of 
 benefices and other pecuniary advantages, 
 and which generally involved the setting aside 
 of the examination of the Gospels and of the 
 teaching of the Fathers. * 
 
 " It was Dante's fondest and long-cherished 
 hope that he might in his lifetime see and be 
 gladdened by the result of his great poem. It 
 * See DANTE, " Paradise." Canto ix. 133.
 
 A VAIN HOPE. 257 
 
 was to form the bridge which would render 
 possible his return from banishment, and win 
 him fame and honour in the eyes of his fellow- 
 citizens and of all Italy. Even his ancestor, 
 Cacciaguida, encourages the poet in Paradise, 
 bidding him reveal the truth in all its fulness, 
 without fear of consequences, on the ground 
 that his word, burdensome ? at first, would 
 afford life-giving nourishment when digested." 
 This hope was a vain one, as we know, and, 
 banished from his fatherland, " he wandered 
 an outlaw in the vast and cruel world." Had 
 he chosen to announce his repentance and 
 altered views, by the payment of a sum of 
 money and the performance of public penance, 
 his return would have been permitted ; but 
 Dante scorned pardon on these terms, and he 
 died in banishment in Eavenna in 1321, true 
 to his ideals. Doubtless many despised him 
 as a magician, and looked on him as the 
 slanderer of the Popes and the promulgator 
 
 17
 
 258 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 of heretical opinions ; but others honoured 
 him as a supporter of the faith and as the 
 poet of Divine love and revelation. 
 
 It was not accident which led Dollinger all 
 through his life to study Dante with such 
 careful preference. It was rather that the 
 lives of these two men were traversed by a 
 thread of kinship. Like Dante, Dollinger 
 harboured a cherished ideal deep within his 
 soul. That ideal was the ancient Church, 
 and in the observance of her ordinances he 
 desired to live and die. In Catholic theology 
 he too found his Beatrice, "not as the ab- 
 stract letter of religious science, but as the 
 living daughter of heaven." Armed with a 
 vast fund of knowledge, not easily or lightly 
 gained, but wrung out of earnest work pur- 
 sued with consuming ardour, he believed 
 himself intrusted with a high and peaceful 
 mission, and the reunion of the Christian 
 Churches was the end he had in view. Like 
 Dante he laid bare the Churches' sins and
 
 AN IMPORTANT SUMMONS. 259 
 
 shortcomings in the hope that evil might be 
 converted into good. This was the spirit of 
 his admonitions, and of his strenuous opposi- 
 tion to the dogma of infallibility, which he 
 described as a " Pandora's box." Professor 
 Cornelius, in comparing Dollinger with Dante, 
 said 
 
 " These two men had the welfare of Chris- 
 tianity equally at heart, and both regarded 
 the overweening power of the Papacy as the 
 greatest evil of the world." We might add 
 that they both alike looked forward to a 
 better future. 
 
 On March 28, 1871, after having been 
 summoned by Archbishop von Scherr to 
 declare his submission to the decree pub- 
 lished at Rome on July 18, 1870, Dollinger 
 presented his respectful petition that he 
 mio-ht be allowed to set before a conference 
 
 o 
 
 of bishops at Fulda, his grounds of objection 
 to the new dogma. Failing this, he begged 
 to be permitted to lay his views before a
 
 260 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DO LUNGER. 
 
 special commission formed of members of 
 the Cathedral capitular body, inviting them 
 to refute his alleged errors by any facts or 
 testimony at their command. 
 
 Neither of these two requests were com- 
 plied with, nor was a further application for 
 a conference, composed of laymen and clerics, 
 granted him. 
 
 In Bellinger's own words, " That which he 
 had all his life taught and upheld as the 
 truth, his conscience would not now permit 
 him to regard and denounce as falsehood ; " 
 and, therefore, on April 3, 1871, formal 
 notice was sent him, through the ordinaries of 
 the Archiepiscopal diocese of Munich and 
 Freising, to the effect that further attendance 
 at his lectures was henceforth forbidden to 
 all theological students of the said diocese. 
 This notification further declared that " the 
 Archbishop had no power to forbid the delivery 
 of these lectures, but that should Dollinger 
 continue them he would do so in open
 
 EXCOMMUNICA TION. 2 6 1 
 
 defiance of the wishes of his superior, the only 
 legitimate guardian of all Catholic instruction 
 whatsoever." Dollinger's whole heart and soul 
 were in these lectures, but he discontinued 
 them forthwith. 
 
 On April 18, 1871, the ordinaries in- 
 structed the Vicar of the Church of S. 
 Louis at Munich, on the following Sunday, 
 April 23, to declare from the pulpit, at the 
 time of Divine service, that Dr. von Dollinger, 
 professor and provost of S. Cajatan, was, 
 "on account of open and persistent denial 
 of clear and certain articles of faith, pro- 
 nounced subject to the greater excommunica- 
 tion, with all the canonical consequences 
 appertaining thereto." 
 
 These measures stung. Dollinger to the quicki 
 and wounded him to his inmost soul, for, as he 
 said, " Canonical law recognizes in the ban not 
 only a death-sentence of the soul, but declares 
 a person so excommunicated as the lawful 
 prey of any mad fanatic." And indeed the
 
 262 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 chief commissioner of the police had him 
 formally warned to be on his guard, as a violent 
 attempt on his person was contemplated.* 
 But Dollinger put his trust in God and feared 
 nothing. He often afterwards said 
 
 " My action at that time cost me no friend ; 
 it trebled my adherents both far and near, and 
 
 * Dollinger remarked on this in a letter to the 
 Papal nuncio, Kuffo Scilla, dated October 12, 1887. 
 " When the Archbishop, acting as he himself expressed 
 it, in obedience to an order from the Pope, made known 
 to me the sentence passed on me, he also gave me to 
 understand that I was thereby subject to all the penal- 
 ties attendant on the excommunicate. The first and 
 most important of these penalties is contained in the 
 celebrated bull of Urban II., which declares it lawful 
 for any individual to put an excommunicate person to 
 death, provided that the action is undertaken out of 
 genuine zeal for the Church. At the fame time, the 
 Archbishop ordered sermons to be preached against me 
 from every pulpit in Munich, and the effect which these 
 discourses produced was such that the commissioner of 
 police had me informed that an attempt against my 
 person was in contemplation, and that I should do 
 wisely not to go out unattended." More on this 
 subject will be seen in the " Letters and Declarations of 
 J. von Dollinger concerning the Vatican Decrees." 
 (1869-1887. Munich.) Published by Oscar Beck, 1890.
 
 DEATH OF DOLLINGER. 263 
 
 gained me many new coadjutors and well- 
 wishers, even among clergy." 
 
 When he lay on a bed of sickness represen- 
 tations once more reached him from all sides, 
 and exhortations were renewed, but he re- 
 mained firm to his convictions. And when, 
 fortified by the last sacraments, ministered to 
 him by Professor Friedrich, he closed his eyes 
 for ever, his sorrowing friends and adherents 
 in all lands felt that a noble heart had ceased 
 to beat and a great mind to think. 
 
 Many of his religious opponents and in no 
 other sense could Db'llinger be said to number 
 any brought him in that day once more in 
 thought before the tribunal of their secret 
 judgment, and weighed against each other his 
 virtues and the action for which he was con- 
 demned. On the one side they placed his 
 faithful blameless work as a teacher during a 
 period of five and forty years, his intrinsically 
 religious, powerful writings, his love of truth, 
 and his kind-heartedness ; on the other, his
 
 264 CONVERSATIONS OF DR. DOLLINGER. 
 
 refusal to acknowledge a Council wanting 
 in almost all the theological conditions of 
 validity, or to commit what he described as 
 "a formal act of perjury" by subscribing to 
 the Vatican articles of faith. 
 
 Even if they passed an adverse judgment on 
 Bellinger's action in these matters, yet respect 
 must gain the upper hand in their estimation 
 of the man to whom history will always assign 
 a foremost place among the ranks of those 
 distinguished for their learning and nobility of 
 soul. This was proved when, on January 15, 
 1890, many an Ultramontane followed him 
 to his grave. Eound that resting-place were 
 gathered representatives of all creeds and 
 callings, men of distinction and those of no 
 repute, young and old, rich and poor, and 
 among all the throng who laid flowers on his 
 grave, not one but was at peace with the great 
 dead who lay below. 
 
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