A Book of Golden Deeds

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> A Book of Golden Deeds

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These were chiefly troops for the land attack, and they were set on
shore at Port St. Thomas, where the commanders, Mustafa and Piali, held
a council, to decide where they should first attack. Piali wished to
wait for Dragut, who was daily expected, but Mustafa was afraid of
losing time, and of being caught by the Spanish fleet, and insisted on
at once laying siege to Fort St. Elmo, which was, he thought, so small
that it could not hold out more than five or six days.

Indeed, it could not hold above 300 men, but these were some of the
bravest of the knights, and as it was only attacked on the land side,
they were able to put off boats at night and communicate with the Grand
Master and their brethren in the Borgo. The Turks set up their
batteries, and fired their enormous cannon shot upon the fortifications.
One of their terrible pieces of ordnance carried stone balls of 160 lb.,
and no wonder that stone and mortar gave way before it, and that a
breach was opened in a few days' time. That night, when, as usual,
boatloads of wounded men were transported across to the Borgo, the
Bailiff of Negropont sent the knight La Cerda to the Grand Master to
give an account of the state of things and ask for help. La Cerda spoke
strongly, and, before a great number of knights, declared that there was
no chance of so weak a place holding out for more than a week.

'What has been lost,' said the Grand Master, 'since you cry out for
help?'

'Sir,' replied La Cerda, 'the castle may be regarded as a patient in
extremity and devoid of strength, who can only be sustained by continual
remedies and constant succor.'

'I will be doctor myself,' replied the Grand Master, 'and will bring
others with me who, if they cannot cure you of fear, will at least be
brave enough to prevent the infidels from seizing the fort.'

The fact was, as he well knew, that the little fort could not hold out
long, and he grieved over the fate of his knights; but time was
everything, and the fate of the whole isle depended upon the white cross
being still on that point of land when the tardy Sicilian fleet should
set sail. He was one who would ask no one to run into perils that he
would not share, and he was bent on throwing himself into St. Elmo, and
being rather buried under the ruins than to leave the Mussulmans free a
moment sooner than could be helped to attack the Borgo and Castle of St.
Angelo. But the whole Chapter of Knights entreated him to abstain, and
so many volunteered for this desperate service, that the only difficulty
was to choose among them. Indeed, La Cerda had done the garrison
injustice; no one's heart was failing but his own; and the next day
there was a respite, for a cannon shot from St. Angelo falling into the
enemy's camp, shattered a stone, a splinter of which struck down the
Piali Pasha. He was thought dead, and the camp and fleet were in
confusion, which enabled the Grand Master to send off his nephew, the
Chevalier de la Valette Cornusson, to Messina to entreat the Viceroy of
Sicily to hasten to their relief; to give him a chart of the entrance of
the harbour, and a list of signals, and to desire in especial that two
ships belonging to the Order, and filled with the knights who had
hurried from distant lands too late for the beginning of the siege,
might come to him at once. To this the Viceroy returned a promise that
at latest the fleet should sail on the 15th of June, adding an
exhortation to him at all sacrifices to maintain St. Elmo. This reply
the Grand Master transmitted to the garrison, and it nerved them to
fight even with more patience and self-sacrifice. A desperate sally was
led by the Chevalier de Medran, who fought his way into the trenches
where the Turkish cannon were planted, and at first drove all before
him; but the Janissaries rallied and forced back the Christians out of
the trenches. Unfortunately there was a high wind, which drove the smoke
of the artillery down on the counter-scarp (the slope of masonry facing
the rampart), and while it was thus hidden from the Christians, the
Turks succeeded in effecting a lodgment there, fortifying themselves
with trees and sacks of earth and wool. When the smoke cleared off, the
knights were dismayed to see the horse-tail ensigns of the Janissaries
so near them, and cannon already prepared to batter the ravelin, or
outwork protecting the gateway.

La Cerda proposed to blow this fortification up, and abandon it, but no
other knight would hear of deserting an inch of wall while it could yet
be held.

But again the sea was specked with white sails from the south-east. Six
galleys came from Egypt, bearing 900 troops--Mameluke horsemen, troops
recruited much like the Janissaries and quite as formidable. These ships
were commanded by Ulucciali, an Italian, who had denied his faith and
become a Mahometan, and was thus regarded with especial horror by the
chivalry of Malta. And the swarm thickened for a few days more; like
white-winged and beautiful but venomous insects hovering round their
prey, the graceful Moorish galleys and galliots came up from the south,
bearing 600 dark-visaged, white-turbaned, lithe-limbed Moors from
Tripoli, under Dragut himself. The thunders of all the guns roaring
forth their salute of honor told the garrison that the most formidable
enemy of all had arrived. And now their little white rock was closed in
on every side, with nothing but its own firmness to be its aid.

Dragut did not approve of having begun with attacking Fort St. Elmo; he
thought that the inland towns should have been first taken, and Mustafa
offered to discontinue the attack, but this the Corsair said could not
now be done with honor, and under him the attack went on more furiously
than ever. He planted a battery of four guns on the point guarding the
entrance of Marza Muscat, the other gulf, and the spot has ever since
been called Dragut's Point. Strange to say, the soldiers in the ravelin
fell asleep, and thus enabled the enemy to scramble up by climbing on
one another's shoulders and enter the place. As soon as the alarm was
given, the Bailiff of Negropont, with a number of knights, rushed into
the ravelin, and fought with the utmost desperation, but all in vain;
they never succeeded in dislodging the Turks, and had almost been
followed by them into the Fort itself. Only the utmost courage turned
back the enemy at last, and, it was believed, with a loss of 3,000. The
Order had twenty knights and a hundred soldiers killed, with many more
wounded. One knight named Abel de Bridiers, who was shot through the
body, refused to be assisted by his brethren, saying, 'Reckon me no more
among the living. You will be doing better by defending our brothers.'
He dragged himself away, and was found dead before the altar in the
Castle chapel. The other wounded were brought back to the Borgo in boats
at night, and La Cerda availed himself of a slight scratch to come with
them and remain, though the Bailiff of Negropont, a very old man, and
with a really severe wound, returned as soon as it had been dressed,
together with the reinforcements sent to supply the place of those who
had been slain. The Grand Master, on finding how small had been La
Cerda's hurt, put him in prison for several days; but he was afterwards
released, and met his death bravely on the ramparts of the Borgo.

The 15th of June was passed. Nothing would make the Sicilian Viceroy
move, nor even let the warships of the Order sail with their own
knights, and the little fort that had been supposed unable to hold out a
week, had for full a month resisted every attack of the enemy.

At last Dragut, though severely wounded while reconnoitring, set up a
battery on the hill of Calcara, so as to command the strait, and hinder
the succors from being sent across to the fort. The wounded were laid
down in the chapel and the vaults, and well it was for them that each
knight of the Order could be a surgeon and a nurse. One good swimmer
crossed under cover of darkness with their last messages, and La Valette
prepared five armed boats for their relief; but the enemy had fifteen
already in the bay, and communication was entirely cut off. It was the
night before the 23rd of June when these brave men knew their time was
come. All night they prayed, and prepared themselves to die by giving
one another the last rites of the Church, and at daylight each repaired
to his post, those who could not walk being carried in chairs, and sat
ghastly figures, sword in hand, on the brink of the breach, ready for
their last fight.

By the middle of the day every Christian knight in St. Elmo had
died upon his post, and the little heap of ruins was in the hands of the
enemy. Dragut was dying of his wound, but just lived to hear that the
place was won, when it had cost the Sultan 8,000 men! Well might Mustafa
say, 'If the son has cost us so much, what will the father do?'

It would be too long to tell the glorious story of the three months'
further siege of the Borgo. The patience and resolution of the knights
was unshaken, though daily there were tremendous battles, and week after
week passed by without the tardy relief from Spain. It is believed that
Philip II. thought that the Turks would exhaust themselves against the
Order, and forbade his Viceroy to hazard his fleet; but at last he was
shamed into permitting the armament to be fitted out. Two hundred
knights of St. John were waiting at Messina, in despair at being unable
to reach their brethren in their deadly strait, and constantly haunting
the Viceroy's palace, till he grew impatient, and declared they did not
treat him respectfully enough, nor call him 'Excellency'.

'Senor,' said one of them, 'if you will only bring us in time to save
the Order, I will call you anything you please, excellency, highness, or
majesty itself.'

At last, on the 1st of September, the fleet really set sail, but it
hovered cautiously about on the farther side of the island, and only
landed 6,000 men and then returned to Sicily. However, the tidings of
its approach had spread such a panic among the Turkish soldiers, who
were worn out and exhausted by their exertions, that they hastily raised
the siege, abandoned their heavy artillery, and, removing their garrison
from Fort St. Elmo, re-embarked in haste and confusion. No sooner,
however, was the Pasha in his ship than he became ashamed of his
precipitation, more especially when he learnt that the relief that had
put 16,000 men to flight consisted only of 6,000, and he resolved to
land and give battle; but his troops were angry and unwilling, and were
actually driven out of their ships by blows.

In the meantime, the Grand Master had again placed a garrison in St.
Elmo, which the Turks had repaired and restored, and once more the cross
of St. John waved on the end of its tongue of land, to greet the Spanish
allies. A battle was fought with the newly arrived troops, in which the
Turks were defeated; they again took to their ships, and the Viceroy of
Sicily, from Syracuse, beheld their fleet in full sail for the East.

Meantime, the gates of the Borgo were thrown open to receive the
brethren and friends who had been so long held back from coming to the
relief of the home of the Order. Four months' siege, by the heaviest
artillery in Europe, had shattered the walls and destroyed the streets,
till, to the eyes of the newcomers, the town looked like a place taken
by assault, and sacked by the enemy; and of the whole garrison, knights,
soldiers, and sailors altogether, only six hundred were left able to
bear arms, and they for the most part covered with wounds. The Grand
Master and his surviving knights could hardly be recognized, so pale and
altered were they by wounds and excessive fatigue; their hair, beards,
dress, and armor showing that for four full months they had hardly
undressed, or lain down unarmed. The newcomers could not restrain their
tears, but all together proceeded to the church to return thanks for the
conclusion of their perils and afflictions. Rejoicings extended all over
Europe, above all in Italy, Spain, and southern France, where the Order
of St. John was the sole protection against the descents of the Barbary
corsairs. The Pope sent La Valette a cardinal's hat, but he would not
accept it, as unsuited to his office; Philip II. presented him with a
jeweled sword and dagger. Some thousand unadorned swords a few months
sooner would have been a better testimony to his constancy, and that of
the brave men whose lives Spain had wasted by her cruel delays.

The Borgo was thenceforth called Citta Vittoriosa; but La Valette
decided on building the chief town of the isle on the Peninsula of Fort
St. Elmo, and in this work he spent his latter days, till he was killed
by a sunstroke, while superintending the new works of the city which is
deservedly known by his name, as Valetta.

The Order of St. John lost much of its character, and was finally swept
from Malta in the general confusion of the Revolutionary wars. The
British crosses now float in the harbour of Malta; but the steep white
rocks must ever bear the memory of the self-devoted endurance of the
beleaguered knights, and, foremost of all, of those who perished in St.
Elmo, in order that the signal banner might to the very last summon the
tardy Viceroy to their aid.

THE VOLUNTARY CONVICT

1622

In the early summer of the year 1605, a coasting vessel was sailing
along the beautiful Gulf of Lyons, the wind blowing gently in the sails,
the blue Mediterranean lying glittering to the south, and the curved
line of the French shore rising in purple and green tints, dotted with
white towns and villages. Suddenly three light, white-sailed ships
appeared in the offing, and the captain's practiced eye detected that
the wings that bore them were those of a bird of prey. He knew them for
African brigantines, and though he made all sail, it was impossible to
run into a French port, as on, on they came, not entirely depending on
the wind, but, like steamers, impelled by unseen powers within them.
Alas! that power was not the force of innocent steam, but the arms of
Christian rowers chained to the oar. Sure as the pounce of a hawk upon a
partridge was the swoop of the corsairs upon the French vessel. A signal
to surrender followed, but the captain boldly refused, and armed his
crew, bidding them stand to their guns. But the fight was too unequal,
the brave little ship was disabled, the pirates boarded her, and, after
a sharp fight on deck, three of the crew lay dead, all the rest were
wounded, and the vessel was the prize of the pirates. The captain was at
once killed, in revenge for his resistance, and all the rest of the crew
and passengers were put in chains. Among these passengers was a young
priest named Vincent de Paul, the son of a farmer in Languedoc, who had
used his utmost endeavors to educate his son for the ministry, even
selling the oxen from the plough to provide for the college expenses. A
small legacy had just fallen to the young man, from a relation who had
died at Marseilles; he had been thither to receive it, and had been
persuaded by a friend to return home by sea. And this was the result of
the pleasant voyage. The legacy was the prey of the pirates, and
Vincent, severely wounded by an arrow, and heavily chained, lay half-
stifled in a corner of the hold of the ship, a captive probably for life
to the enemies of the faith. It was true that France had scandalized
Europe by making peace with the Dey of Tunis, but this was a trifle to
the corsairs; and when, after seven days' further cruising, they put
into the harbour of Tunis, they drew up an account of their capture,
calling it a Spanish vessel, to prevent the French Consul from claiming
the prisoners.

The captives had the coarse blue and white garments of slaves given
them, and were walked five or six times through the narrow streets and
bazaars of Tunis, by way of exhibition. They were then brought back to
their ship, and the purchasers came thither to bargain for them. They
were examined at their meals, to see if they had good appetites; their
sides were felt like those of oxen; their teeth looked at like those of
horses; their wounds were searched, and they were made to run and walk
to show the play of their limbs. All this Vincent endured with patient
submission, constantly supported by the thought of Him who took upon Him
the form of a servant for our sakes; and he did his best, ill as he was,
to give his companions the same confidence.

Weak and unwell, Vincent was sold cheap to a fisherman; but in his new
service it soon became apparent that the sea made him so ill as to be of
no use, so he was sold again to one of the Moorish physicians, the like
of whom may still be seen, smoking their pipes sleepily, under their
white turbans, cross-legged, among the drugs in their shop windows---
these being small open spaces beneath the beautiful stone lacework of
the Moorish lattices. The physician was a great chemist and distiller,
and for four years had been seeking the philosopher's stone, which was
supposed to be the secret of making gold. He found his slave's learning
and intelligence so useful that he grew very fond of him, and tried hard
to persuade him to turn Mahometan, offering him not only liberty, but
the inheritance of all his wealth, and the secrets that he had
discovered.

The Christian priest felt the temptation sufficiently to be always
grateful for the grace that had carried him through it. At the end of a
year, the old doctor died, and his nephew sold Vincent again. His next
master was a native of Nice, who had not held out against the temptation
to renounce his faith in order to avoid a life of slavery, but had
become a renegade, and had the charge of one of the farms of the Dey of
Tunis. The farm was on a hillside in an extremely hot and exposed
region, and Vincent suffered much from being there set to field labour,
but he endured all without a murmur. His master had three wives, and one
of them, who was of Turkish birth,, used often to come out and talk to
him, asking him many questions about his religion. Sometimes she asked
him to sing, and he would then chant the psalm of the captive Jews: 'By
the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept;' and others of the 'songs'
of his Zion. The woman at last told her husband that he must have been
wrong in forsaking a religion of which her slave had told her such
wonderful things. Her words had such an effect on the renegade that he
sought the slave, and in conversation with him soon came to a full sense
of his own miserable position as an apostate. A change of religion on
the part of a Mahometan is, however, always visited with death, both to
the convert and his instructor. An Algerine, who was discovered to have
become a Christian, was about this time said to have been walled up at
once in the fortifications he had been building; and the story has been
confirmed by the recent discovery, by the French engineers, of the
remains of a man within a huge block of clay, that had taken a perfect
cast of his Moorish features, and of the surface of his garments, and
even had his black hair adhering to it. Vincent's master, terrified at
such perils, resolved to make his escape in secret with his slave. It is
disappointing to hear nothing of the wife; and not to know whether she
would not or could not accompany them. All we know is, that master and
slave trusted themselves alone to a small bark, and, safely crossing the
Mediterranean, landed at Aigues Mortes, on the 28th of June, 1607; and
that the renegade at once abjured his false faith, and soon after
entered a brotherhood at Rome, whose office it was to wait on the sick
in hospitals.

This part of Vincent de Paul's life has been told at length because it
shows from what the Knights of St. John strove to protect the
inhabitants of the coasts. We next find Vincent visiting at a hospital
at Paris, where he gave such exceeding comfort to the patients that all
with one voice declared him a messenger from heaven.

He afterwards became a tutor in the family of the Count de Joigni, a
very excellent man, who was easily led by him to many good works. M. de
Joigni was inspector general of the 'Galeres', or Hulks, the ships in
the chief harbors of France, such as Brest and Marseilles, where the
convicts, closely chained, were kept to hard labour, and often made to
toil at the oar, like the slaves of the Africans. Going the round of
these prison ships, the horrible state of the convicts, their half-naked
misery, and still more their fiendish ferocity went to the heart of the
Count and of the Abbé de Paul; and, with full authority from the
inspector, the tutor worked among these wretched beings with such good
effect that on his doings being represented to the King, Louis XIII., he
was made almoner general to the galleys.

While visiting those at Marseilles, he was much struck by the broken-
down looks and exceeding sorrowfulness of one of the convicts. He
entered into conversation with him, and, after many kind words,
persuaded him to tell his troubles. His sorrow was far less for his own
condition than for the misery to which his absence must needs reduce his
wife and children. And what was Vincent's reply to this? His action was
so striking that, though in itself it could hardly be safe to propose it
as an example, it must be mentioned as the very height of self-
sacrifice.

He absolutely changed places with the convict. Probably some arrangement
was made with the immediate jailor of the gang, who, by the exchange of
the priest for the convict, could make up his full tale of men to show
when his numbers were counted. At any rate the prisoner went free, and
returned to his home, whilst Vincent wore a convict's chain, did a
convict's work, lived on convict's fare, and, what was worse, had only
convict society. He was soon sought out and released, but the hurts he
had received from the pressure of the chain lasted all his life. He
never spoke of the event; it was kept a strict secret; and once when he
had referred to it in a letter to a friend, he became so much afraid
that the story would become known that he sent to ask for the letter
back again. It was, however, not returned, and it makes the fact
certain. It would be a dangerous precedent if prison chaplains were to
change places with their charges; and, beautiful as was Vincent's
spirit, the act can hardly be justified; but it should also be
remembered that among the galleys of France there were then many who had
been condemned for resistance to the arbitrary will of Cardinal de
Richelieu, men not necessarily corrupt and degraded like the thieves and
murderers with whom they were associated. At any rate, M. de Joigni did
not displace the almoner, and Vincent worked on the consciences of the
convicts with infinitely more force for having been for a time one of
themselves. Many and many were won back to penitence, a hospital was
founded for them, better regulations established, and, for a time, both
prisons and galleys were wonderfully improved, although only for the
life-time of the good inspector and the saintly almoner. But who shall
say how many souls were saved in those years by these men who did what
they could?

The rest of the life of Vincent de Paul would be too lengthy to tell
here, though acts of beneficence and self-devotion shine out in glory at
each step. The work by which he is chiefly remembered is his
establishment of the Order of Sisters of Charity, the excellent women
who have for two hundred years been the prime workers in every
charitable task in France, nursing the sick, teaching the young, tending
deserted children, ever to be found where there is distress or pain.

But of these, and of his charities, we will not here speak, nor even of
his influence for good on the King and Queen themselves. The whole tenor
of his life was 'golden' in one sense, and if we told all his golden
deeds they would fill an entire book. So we will only wait to tell how
he showed his remembrance of what he had gone through in his African
captivity. The redemption of the prisoners there might have seemed his
first thought, but that he did so much in other quarters. At different
times, with the alms that he collected, and out of the revenues of his
benefices, he ransomed no less then twelve hundred slaves from their
captivity. At one time the French Consul at Tunis wrote to him that for
a certain sum a large number might be set free, and he raised enough to
release not only these, but seventy more, and he further wrought upon
the King to obtain the consent of the Dey of Tunis that a party of
Christian clergy should be permitted to reside in the consul's house,
and to minister to the souls and bodies of the Christian slaves, of whom
there were six thousand in Tunis alone, besides those in Algiers,
Tangier, and Tripoli!

Permission was gained, and a mission of Lazarist brothers arrived. This,
too, was an order founded by Vincent, consisting of priestly nurses like
the Hospitaliers, though not like them warriors. They came in the midst
of a dreadful visitation of the plague, and nursed and tended the sick,
both Christians and Mahometans, with fearless devotion, day and night,
till they won the honor and love of the Moors themselves.

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