By Gertrud von Le Fort
Here is a surprising and very different book! It's not just the story of the Reign of Terror and the Carmelites of Compiègne, though it is mostly that.
Recently, I read this aloud to my 12-year-old son as a partly historical, partly literature-study addition to his homeschooling. It also served as very edifying Catholic reading such as saints' biographies achieve, so that was a bonus!
As the description mentions, it was written for adults in 1931, yet it has an appendix with study notes making it accessible also to highschool-aged youths. This appendix is titled "Aids to Appreciation of the Song at the Scaffold" and though this section is aimed at students, it would probably prove useful for any casual reader.
It starts off with Preparation for Reading the Song, "The Song at the Scaffold is a novel of great merit. To appreciate it fully you must read it as a novel - not as an essay or a biographical or historical treatise. You must bring to your reading of it an acquaintance with the elements of every story - character, plot, theme - and some understanding of the varied effects that authors attain through adroit control of these elements."
A glossary, as well as a time chart listing some key historical events paired against relevant events in the story, is included towards the back of the book. These are very worthwhile and interesting features to enrich the whole experience of this journey into that bittersweet chapter of our Catholic history.
During the course of this story you will become familiarised with some infamous and influential men and their misnamed ideologies of "Enlightenment" and "Reason" and the circumstances that led to the French Revolution. This forms the backdrop of the dreadful and unspeakable horrors and misery brought on by man entranced and inebriated with the "discovery" of his own (purported) greatness and supremacy leading to the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This same Man whose delight is to quash the children of God, who became drunk with the wine of the wrath of his adulteration, as the crimson fountains flowed from the purified bodies of the martyrs whose "rights" were ironically and so flagrantly trampled upon.
In particular this novel focuses on the Carmelite nuns of Compiègne in France during that time. Softly, discreetly, humbly and resolutely, we see those faithful and courageous followers of Christ, who championed for the Rights of God in the face of the cruel and relentless mob incited to destroy all opposition to their "liberty, fraternity and equality" ... whatever the means.
One of the highlights of this story is the image of beautiful purity blended with perfect serenity as we can almost hear the (at first soft, then increasingly louder) strains of the hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus * wafting upwards to the Godhead in the heroic and triumphant procession of these Carmelite Sisters, including mere postulants: from the world, to the cloister, to the guillotine... to their heavenly home and eternal reward.**
There is an additionally very moving and unexpected plot twist that makes reading this novel an even more precious and inspiring experience.
*Some other accounts mention they sang the Te Deum.
**All the martyrs of the bloody French Revolution; pray for us.
