Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/766

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684

GOUPIL


084


GOTTSSET


opportunity and the way to speak every day to the public ; it is a daily and permanent exposition opened to the musician. Religious music and the symphony are certainly of a higher order, abstractly consid- ered, than dramatic music, but the opportunities anil the means of making one's self known along those lines are rare and appeal only to an intermittent pub- lic rather than to a regular public like that of the theatre. And then what an infinite variety for a dramatic author in the choice of subjects. What a field opened to fancy, to imagination, and to romance. The theatre tempted me" (pp. lOG-67). Gounod's main activity was, from now on, directed towards the operatic stage.

The subjects he chose for his compositions, and which he successfully interpreted, were not calculated to preserve in his heart and mind the conditions requi- site for an adequate interpretation of liturgical texts. His music, allied to the poetry of Emile Augier, Jules Barbier, and Michel Carre, who acted as his librettists at various times, became the most powerful and the most widely diffused expression of French Romanti- cism in its more lyrical, sentimental form. It was, in- deed, rather the lyric, sentimental side of such works as Goethe's "Faust", Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", Corneille's " Polyeucte" which he seized upon than their heroic or metaphysical aspects. Among the operatic works which have made Gounod's name famous throughout the musical world are to be men- tioned: "Sapho" (1851), "La nonne sanglante" (1854), " Le m^decin malgr^ lui" (1858), "Lareinede Saba" (1862), "Mireille" (18G4), "La Colombe" (18G6), "Romeo et Juliette" (1867), "Cinq Mars" (1877), "Polyeucte" (1878), "Letribut de Zamora" (1881). The Franco-Prussian War caused Gounod to abandon Paris and reside in London for several years. After his return in 1875, he devoted him- self more and more to religious music. In 1882 he brought out his oratorio "The Redemption", for which he himself wrote the text and which he styled opus vitw mea. Three years later, in 1885, appeared " Mors et Vita", his last great work, the text for which he selected from Holy Scripture. In spite of Gounod's activity in the operatic field he never ceased writing to liturgical texts. His compositions of this character are numerous and varied. His "Messe Solennelle de Sainte-C4cile ", "Messe de Paques", "Messe du Sacr^ Coeur", and "Mes.se des Orpheonistes " have enjoyed great vogue in France, Belgium, England, and the United States. The mass in honour of Joan of Arc and the one in honour of St. John Baptist de la Salle are less widely known than the first three mentioned. Although these two v/orks come nearer to the spirit of the liturgy than any of the earlier masses, neverthe- less they bear the general character of all his composi- tions for the church. Goimod was a child of his time and of the France of the nineteenth century. His temperament, emotional to the point of senti- mentality, his artistic education and environment bound him to the theatre and prevented him from penetrating into the spirit of the liturgy and from giving it adequate musical interpretation.

AutohiogTaphy, tr. Crocker (Chicago and New York, 1895V, Bellaigue, Portraits and Silhouettes of Musicians (New York, 1897); Saint-Saens, Portraits et Souvenirs (Paris, s. d.); Pa- GNERRE, Charles Gounod^ sa vie et ses wuvres (Paris, 1890).

Joseph Otten.

Goupil, Renk, a Jesuit mi.ssionary; b. 1607, in Anjou; martyred in New York State, 23 September, 1642. Health preventinghim from joining the Society regularly, he volunteered to serve it gratis in t'anada, as a (lonni\ After working two years as a surgeon in the hospitals of Quebec, he started (1642) for the Huron mi.ssion with Father Jogues, whose constant companion and disciple he remained until death. Captured by the Iroquois near Lake St. Peter, he resignedly accepted his fate. Like the other captives


he was beaten, his nails torn out, and his finger-joints cut off. On the thirteen days' journey to the Iro- quois country, he suffered from heat, hunger, and blows, his wounds festering and swarming with worms. Meeting half-way a band of 200 warriors, he was forced to march between their double ranks and almost beaten to death. Goupil might have escaped, but he stayed with Jogues. At Ossernenon, on the Mohawk, they were greeted with jeers, threats, and blows, and Goupil 's face was so scarred that Jogues applied to him the words of Isaias (liii, 2) prophesying the disfigurement of Christ. He sur- vived the fresh tortures inflicted on him at Andagaron, a neighbouring village, and, unable to instruct his captors in the faith, he taught the children the sign of the cross. This was the cause of his death. Return- ing one evening to the village with Jogues, he was felled to the ground by a hatchet-blow from an Indian, and he expired invoking the name of Jesus. He was the first of the order in the Canadian missions to suffer martyrdom. He had previously bound him- self to the Society by the religious vows pronounced in the presence of Father Jogues, who calls him in his letters " an angel of innocence and a martyr of Jesus Christ."

BRE89ANI, Les Jesuites Martyrs du Canada (Montreal, 1877); .Shea, The Catholic Church in Colonial Days (New York, 1886); UocHEMONTEix, LcJi Jcsuites et la Nouvelle France (Paris, 1896); JIartix, Le Pire Isaac Jogues (Paris, 1882).

Lionel Lindsay.

Gousset, Thomas-Marie-Joseph, French cardinal and theologian ; b. at Montigny-les-Charlieu, a village of Franche-Comti?, in 1792; d. at Reims in 1866. The son of a vine- grower, he at first laboured in the fields, and did not begin his studies till the age of seventeen. Or- dained priest in 1817, he was a curate for several months, and was then charged with teaching moral tlieology at the Grand S^minaire of Besangon. He retained this chair until 1830, acquir- ing the reputation of an expert pro- fessor and con- summate casuist. It was then he re-edited with accompanying notes and disserta- tions the "Conferences d'Angers" (26 vols., 1823), and the " Dictionnaire th^ologique" of Bergier (1826), of which he published another edition in 1843. From these years of his professorship date his clear exposition of the "Doctrine de I'Eglise sur le pret a int^ret" (1825), "Le Code civil comments dans ses rapports avec la th(^ologie morale" (1827), and the "Justification de la theologie du P. Liguori" (1829). Summoned to the post of vicar-general of Besan?on by Cardinal de Rohan, he fulfilled the duties of the post from 1830 to 1835. At this date he was named Bishop of P^rigueux, and in the following year he presented to Villemain his "Observations sur la liberte d'enseigne- ment", a protest against the monopoly of the univer- sity. In 1840 he was called to the Archdiocese of Reims, but his episcopal duties did not prevent him from completing important theological works. In 1844 appeared in French his "Thi'^ologie morale k l'usagedescur<^s et des confesseurs", which ran quickly through several editions. His treatise on dogmatic