From the French of JULES SIMON.
Yesterday was my birthday. A number of friends who have never seen me
wrote to congratulate me upon having reached the age of eighty. They
are mistaken; I am not as old as all that. I can readily understand
that a few years more or less make very little difference to them,
but they certainly make all the difference in the world to me. I am
still far from the dignity of an octogenarian; yet I confess that I
am very old, and at my age one likes to recall one's early childhood.
It is a very well-known fact that old people,--it seems that I am
old, which makes me furious, and I really believe that I should
scarcely realize it, if people did not take particular pains, out of
pure kindness, of course, to remind me of it every moment,--it is a
well-known fact, I say, that old people recall the first scenes of
their life with marvellous accuracy. I have often heard Chevreul
speak of having been present on the Place de la Révolution at the
very moment when Louis XVI. was executed. His nurse had carried him
there, the wretch! He neither saw nor understood anything; but he
remembered the words of a _garde nationale_ who scolded the woman for
having brought a child to such a place. "He delivered there and then
a perfect sermon on the subject," he used to say, "and I remember
every word of it." But let us not speak of tragedies.
I want to take you with me to Brittany, not without having
first warned you against myself, however. You must not take me
too literally when I describe the customs of that country. My
descriptions are absolutely faithful, but they represent Brittany
as it was from 1815 to 1830. I went back there this summer after an
absence of half a century, and I recognized nothing but the scenery.
The men are all civilized, and far more Parisian than I. In order to
re-classify them I should have been compelled to drive them back to
their national dress, that they so foolishly gave up.
I will take you back, therefore, to the year 1822; and you would
not doubt it for an instant if you could follow me into my father's
study. The walls were papered with Republican money. He had obtained
it in exchange for cash; and when it turned out to be as worthless
as waste paper, he determined that it should be of some use to him
anyway. I fancy that its usefulness consisted in reminding him of
the fragility of human things. The walls were also decorated with
portraits of the royal family, from the King down to M. de Villèle,
all tacked on with pins. But these portraits were not to be relied
upon, for when they were turned upside down, they represented, by
some ingenious combination, the Ogre of Corsica, the King of Rome,
and the Empress Marie Louise. They were suited to all tastes and all
opinions.
This extraordinary study was situated on the first floor,--for our
house had a first floor, differing thus from the other houses of the
borough, which had nothing but a ground floor. It also had a slate
roof, which filled me with legitimate pride. It looked out upon the
street which circled the graveyard; and I will say at once, to be
sincere, that there was no other street in St. Jean Brévelay. This
view and this neighborhood will not strike you, with your modern
ideas, as very attractive; but in Brittany we like graveyards,--I
might even say that we like sadness. And then in this graveyard stood
the church,--an imposing church, I can assure you, with a vault upon
which hell was faithfully represented on one side and heaven on
the other. Near our window there was also a great fir, which was
worth a whole forest in itself, and which sheltered a formidable
number of crows. If, however, in spite of this double attraction one
found no pleasure in contemplating the view from that side, we had
another façade to resort to,--a façade opening upon an immense and
magnificent garden. There you might have looked down upon a patch
of cabbage, a patch of French beans, of peas, of carrots, and of
potatoes. We had flowers too,--so many flowers, so many vegetables,
and so much fruit, that we made gratuitous distributions of them
every Sunday. Besides our apple-trees, the branches of which bent
under the weight of the fruit, we had pear-trees, cherry-trees, and
plum-trees. My father, who had travelled considerably, particularly
through the South, prided himself upon his enterprising spirit. Every
year when the plums had been picked, he collected them in great
piles; from these piles the best were chosen, put upon a species of
riddles, and the riddles were laid in the sun. This was with a view
to making prunes. The plums rotted in a few days; the birds and other
animals ate them; and soon there was nothing left but the stones.
These were then thrown into the street, where we used to pick them
up, in order to make piles and stick a little flag in the top. The
next year my father proceeded to make prunes in precisely the same
manner.
We were very proud of our rose-bushes, which furnished roses for
the altars, and of our apple-trees, from which we obtained a most
excellent cider. We had our wine-press, our kneading-trough, our
oven, and our laundrying basins. We had pastures for our cows,
wheat-fields, fields of buckwheat and of rye. We sowed just enough
to supply our wants. There was no mill in our village, so we were
compelled to send our grain to Pontécouvrant. When it was ground, it
was brought back and made into very good rye bread for our daily use.
We also made a great loaf of wheat bread once a week, which we used
for the soup.
Every morning my father started out, gun on shoulder,--for in those
days there were no rural constables nor gendarmes (the gendarmes were
at Plumelec), and one could hunt all the year round. He came in at
noon for dinner, and at six o'clock for supper. My greatest delight
consisted in running to meet him and looking into his game-bag. I
never found any game in it, but it often contained a big trout or
some fine eels. We eventually discovered that the hunt was a mere
pretext, and that his real passion was fishing. He was extremely
taciturn, as all of his children have been after him, and I believe
that to be one of the essential qualities of an angler.
During dinner he never breathed a word. In the evening at supper he
described the events of the day, when he had been lucky. We took
our meals in the kitchen, which was vast and cleanly. There were
twenty of us at table, and sometimes more, owing to the legendary
Breton hospitality. The table formed a long rectangle. My mother
occupied one end of it with my sisters and myself; my father sat at
the other end alone; while the two long sides were reserved for the
servants. These were no less than twelve in number: the gardener,
the ploughman, the shepherd, the stable-boy, and the maid-servants.
This will no doubt give you the impression of the household of a
wealthy farmer or a country gentleman. Not at all. In the beautiful
borough of St. Jean Brévelay there was neither butcher, baker, nor
grocer. The only merchants that I ever saw there were a mercer and
a tavern-keeper. One was compelled to send to Vannes, seven leagues
away, for everything, or else live like Robinson Crusoe on his island.
I have learned since that the ploughman, who was our first man,
earned only thirty francs a year. I leave you to judge of the rest.
It was a poor country, and one could enjoy all the comforts which it
afforded with an income of twelve hundred francs a year. One of our
chief pleasures consisted in the care of our garden. My mother had
a little bed in which roses, tulips, pansies, and daisies grew in
abundance. She was particularly fond of mignonette and honey-suckle.
The hedge around our kitchen-garden was covered with honey-suckle,
elder, and a whole family of sweet-smelling creepers, over which
our bees hovered and buzzed. There was seldom a day when we did not
walk around the garden once, and that was quite a journey. We had
another habit which I do not understand as well, and which consisted
in walking around Colas' field every day after dinner; that is, at
one o'clock. We first went down a hollow road where the mud was not
wanting when it had rained. The flowers were not wanting there either
in summer; we walked under a real vault of them. This road led to the
blacksmith's shop, where I always found something to admire,--the
great bellows, the incandescent iron, the sparks flying from the
furnace like joyous fireworks. Next to the blacksmith's shop stood
Marion's house,--the last house at the end of the village. Marion
was a girl of twenty who had lost her mother when she was eighteen.
Everybody had advised her to go into service; but she had preferred
to engage herself to my mother as a seamstress, by the year. Her
house--"Marion's house," as it was always spoken of--belonged to
her. It was not a great dowry. It consisted of two rooms under a
thatched roof, and a little yard where she raised her chickens. She
had been warned against the dangers of living alone at her age, and
in a comparatively isolated place; but she was a fearless girl and
somewhat unsociable. She had discovered, I do not know where,--in one
of the neighboring farms, perhaps,--a widow who was only too happy to
occupy one of her rooms gratuitously, and who was a companion and a
protection to her when she came home after her day's work.
Colas' field began at Marion's door. It was surely not what one would
call beautiful. We walked straight before us, and got back to our
starting-point at the end of an hour without having seen anything
but apple-trees and furrows. On Sunday when this task had been
accomplished, we found Marion in her yard among her chickens, waiting
to go to vespers with us. I always took her hand, and she told me
stories of Poulpiquets.
I led a joyful life. My mother, too, seemed happy. Her chief
occupation lay in nursing the sick, and her heaviest expense in
providing them with broth and drugs; the latter were sent for to
the druggist's at Bignan. I had never seen a doctor until I went
to Lorient to enter school. Whenever she had a perplexing case,
she called my father into consultation. As he had been a soldier,
nothing surprised him. His method was to bleed. He one day undertook
to vaccinate the entire population, and succeeded in doing so by
offering five cents to all those who consented to honor him with
their trust. This philanthropic operation must have made a great hole
in the household budget.
We had a library which contained fully twenty volumes. My sisters
spent their time in taking them from my mother's room, and my mother
in taking them from their hands. There were,--"Celina, or, The
Child of Mystery and of Love;" "Alexis, or, The Wooden Cottage;"
"The Helmet and the Square Cap, or, Both suited him." We also had,
"The Evenings at the Château," by Madame de Genlis, "The Yellow
Tales," and "Robinson Crusoe." I was of course not permitted to
touch the novels. I was allowed "Robinson Crusoe," "The Yellow
Tales," and "The Evenings at the Château," of which permission I
availed myself eagerly, for I was ever a great reader. "Robinson
Crusoe" particularly delighted me, and I read it three or four times
a year. I had also a tender feeling for "Celina," which I only
half understood. In the first place, it represented the forbidden
fruit; and in the next place, it had pictures. I never got to the
_dénouement_, because my mother, seeing that I was incorrigible,
resolved to burn the _cuerpo del delito_.
If I add that in rummaging through the closets and wardrobes I had
found "L'Esprit des Lois" and an odd volume of the "Political and
Philosophical History of the Two Indies," and that I read them, you
will no doubt believe that I am trying to make myself out an infant
prodigy. It was quite the reverse, for I preferred the Abbé Raynal to
Montesquieu, and what I was most charmed with in the Abbé Raynal was
some absurd rant about a mistress called Catchinka, whom he had lost,
and who in some remarkable way formed a part of the Philosophical
History of the Two Indies. This strange library produced a veritable
chaos in my poor little brain, over which floated "Robinson." It was
the genuine "Robinson" too,--a translation of the work of Daniel
Defoe, which, as every one knows, contains as many sermons as it does
events.
But what I liked better than "Robinson," better than "Celina," better
than my garden, better than the eternal walks around Colas' field,
was the church service on religious holidays, the "pompous grandeur
of its ceremonies." Yes, the "pompous grandeur,"--I will not retract.
Since then I have seen St. Peter's, the cathedrals of Cologne and
Toledo, and, I believe, all the finest churches in the world; yet I
never attended service anywhere without recalling the poor little
church of St. Jean Brévelay. The difference between the palace of a
king and the thatched cottage of a peasant is far greater than that
between the august basilica and the poor little tottering chapel of
a Breton village. May the artists forgive me, but a church, however
poor and small, is none the less a church. Four bare walls, a wooden
cross upon a table, windows so covered with dust that they scarcely
let the light in,--all these things speak to the soul of meditation
and of prayer.
I do not know what the population of St. Jean Brévelay was. It could
not have been over two hundred; but on Sunday the people came to
High Mass from the four corners of the parish, which was vast and
populous. The farmhouses and thatched cottages all emptied themselves
at the first glow of dawn. You could see the families making their
way to the borough along every known road--the men leading the way
in silence, the women following in noisy talk among themselves. They
at first scattered through the graveyard, every family stopping to
say a prayer at the family tomb. Then the friends and relatives
came together in groups, and the men made more than one escape to
the tavern. At the last call for High Mass they all rushed to the
church doors, pushing, jostling, crowding one another, until the
building was filled from end to end. The graveyard--I might say the
borough--was now a perfect desert. The men, standing, and pressed
close together, occupied all the front part of the nave; the women,
kneeling, filled the rear. All, without exception, took part in the
singing. The common serpent was unknown to us; but with our voices
alone we managed to make a formidable noise. The people were happy to
be there, not because, as Voltaire says, "High Mass is the opera of
the poor," but because, as the Christian Church says, religion is the
consolation of the afflicted. The rector delivered his sermons in Low
Breton, and they were never anything but a paraphrase of this word
of the Gospel, Love one another. And surely they loved one another,
those uncultured folk. They did not know how to read, but they knew
how to love. They understood gratitude too. My mother was almost an
object of worship.
The great festival of the year, after that of Saint Louis, was
Christmas. The King first and God next, such is the order of
precedence under all governments. It is possible that our poor
peasants would have reversed that order had they been able to do so.
I must say, in order not to give them more praise than they deserve,
that what they liked best about Christmas was the midnight Mass,--a
sorry enjoyment for you city-bred people, who are fond of your
comforts. But what is a sleepless night to a peasant? Even when they
had to plod along through the mud or the snow, not an old man, not a
woman hesitated. Umbrellas were then unknown at St. Jean Brévelay, or
at least ours was the only one that had ever been seen there, and it
was naturally the object of much surprise and admiration.
The women caught up their skirts with pins, threw a plaid kerchief
over their head-dresses, and started out bravely for the parish
church in their wooden shoes. Sleep, forsooth! Who could have slept
even had he wanted to? The chimes began the night before immediately
after the evening Angelus, and were repeated every half-hour until
midnight. The hunters, in order to contribute to the general
beatitude, kept up a steady firing. My father furnished the powder.
It was a universal and deafening clamor. The small boys took part in
it too, at the risk of maiming themselves, whenever they could lay
their hands on a gun or a pistol.
The vicarage was a short half-league from the borough. The rector
came over on his nag, which the _quinquiss_ (the beadle) led by
the bridle. A dozen peasants escorted him, firing their pistols
in his ears all the while. But this did not disturb him in the
least, for he was an old Chouan with the death of many a Blue on his
conscience,--withal, the kindest and most compassionate of men since
the king had returned and he had become a priest.
On that night great preparations were made at home. Telin-Charles
and Le Halloco measured the fireplace and the kitchen door with as
much earnestness and importance as though they had not known their
dimensions by heart for many years. The question was to bring in the
Yule log and to have it as large as possible.
A great tree was felled for the purpose; four oxen were harnessed;
and the log was dragged to the house. It took eight or ten men to
lift it, and to carry it in. It would scarcely fit in the fireplace.
Then it was adorned with garlands; it was propped and stayed by
the trunks of young trees; and an enormous bunch of wild-flowers,
or rather of live plants, was placed on top of it. The long table
was removed from the kitchen. We took our light meal standing. The
walls were hung with white table-cloths and sheets, just as they
are at Corpus Christi; and upon them were pinned numerous drawings
done by my sister Louise and my sister Hermine,--the Virgin, the
Christ-Child, etc. There were inscriptions too, "Et homo factus
est!" All the chairs were removed to make as much room as possible
for our visitors, who were not accustomed to sitting on anything
better than their heels. One chair was left for my mother and one for
my Aunt Gabrielle, who was treated with much deference on account of
her eighty-six years.
She was the one, my children, for stories of the Terror! Everybody
around me knew many such stories, for that matter,--my father
particularly, if he had only chosen to speak. He had been a Blue; and
his obstinate silence was no doubt due to prudence in a part of the
country that was so full of Chouans.
The confusion was such in the kitchen, with everybody wanting to be
useful, to carry in branches of fir, of broom, and of holly; the
noise was so deafening on account of the hammering of nails and the
rattling of pots and kettles; and then there came such a clamor from
without,--ringing of bells, firing of guns, songs, conversations,
and clatter of wooden shoes,--that it seemed like the din of a fair
at the very climax of its animation. At half-past eleven the cry,
"Eutru Person! Eutru Person!" ("The rector! The rector!") resounded
all along the street. It was taken up in the kitchen, and all the men
started out immediately. The women alone remained with the family.
When the rector reached our door, there was a moment of profound
silence. He dismounted. It was I who had the honor of holding his nag
by the bridle; that is, I was supposed to do so, but somebody else
always did it for me. Heaven knows there was no need of holding the
poor beast anyway.
M. Moizan walked up three steps to the landing, turned toward the
crowd that stood below him, hat in hand, removed his own hat, and
said, after making the sign of the cross, "_Angelus Domini_ nuntiavit
Mariæ." A thousand voices responded.
When the prayer was over, he entered the house, spoke cordially to
my father and mother, to M. Ozon, the mayor, who had just arrived
from Pénic-Pichon, and to M. Oillo, the blacksmith, who was also the
justice's clerk. Then he proceeded to the benediction of the Yule log.
My father and mother stood on the left-hand side of the hearth. Those
women whom their importance or their intimate terms with the family
permitted to remain in the sanctuary, which in this case means the
kitchen, knelt in a semi-circle around the hearth. The men were
crowded together in the hall, the door of which was left open, and
they overflowed into the street as far as the graveyard. Every now
and then a woman who had been detained by some domestic care cleft
the crowd and came forward to where the others were kneeling.
Aunt Gabrielle, arrayed in her mantle, which always bespoke a solemn
occasion, knelt in the middle of the semi-circle, directly in front
of the Yule log, with a holy-water basin and a branch of box beside
her. She started a hymn which all the assistants repeated in chorus.
I have forgotten the words of that hymn, and I really regret it. The
air was monotonous and plaintive, like all those that were sung at
our firesides. However, it contained a crescendo at the moment of the
benediction which generally sent a shiver through me, producing what
is commonly known as goose-flesh.
Aunt Gabrielle had just reached that part of the hymn on the 25th
of December, 1822, when I became aware of a strange confusion
among the male voices outside. The women either stopped singing
entirely, or sang out of time and tune; the voices chased after
one another, scarcely sustained themselves, and seemed stifled by
a sudden emotion. My mother's hand, which held mine, trembled for
a moment, then grew firm by a great effort of her will. Her voice
rose, soared above the voices of the others, who, realizing at once
that they had wandered inopportunely, hurried back to the fold, and
so the hymn ended in good order after this surprising interruption.
What had happened? Something very simple indeed. A young woman
had made her way through the crowd, had entered the kitchen, and
apparently anxious to remain unnoticed, had fallen on her knees at a
little distance from the others, and buried her face in her hands.
I recognized her at once. It was Marion, my favorite, the best
seamstress on the place, and the prettiest girl in the borough. I
would surely have run forward to kiss her but for the solemnity of
the occasion, which forbade my leaving my place or making a noise.
She was weeping bitterly. Why are you weeping, my sweet Marion? I was
wild to have the ceremony end, that I might find out from her. All
the other girls seemed embarrassed. My mother alone, whom I looked
full in the face, appeared calm; but her face lied,--I knew it by the
trembling of her hand.
After the benediction of the Yule log it was the custom for all the
women present to kiss my mother before proceeding to the church.
They came up in good order, one after another; and in spite of their
number, which amounted to some thirty or forty, this formality only
required a few minutes. I think that my mother yielded to it rather
in spite of herself, for she was an extremely reserved woman; but all
these kind souls would have believed that the laws of the universe
had been reversed if this part of the ceremony had been left out.
As mistress of ceremonies, and on account of her great age, Aunt
Gabrielle opened the march.
Now, Aunt Gabrielle was a character. She was the living repertory
of folk-songs, legends, and customs. People came from everywhere to
consult her when they wanted to know how such and such a thing should
be done. Perhaps you believe that etiquette is peculiar to palaces.
Most assuredly not. In my day a wedding had more than a thousand
equally important formalities. My good aunt, who was the oracle of
these forms, had never made use of them for herself.
She was an old maid, born at Belle-Isle-en-Mer under Louis XV., and
was a distant cousin of ours. We have relationships in Brittany which
can be expressed in no language, they are so remote. My father, who
never thought of himself until everybody else had been provided for,
had brought out a whole tribe of poor relatives with him to St. Jean
Brévelay. I think, however, that Aunt Gabrielle was an exception.
She gave more than she received. She was our cook, I beg you to
believe, and a most excellent one too. She was active, laborious,
always equal to the expedients of her profession, always bright and
contented, full of delicate attentions for everybody, particularly
for Marguerite (my mother), her best beloved; but my good mother was
everybody's best beloved. I have never in my life known a woman to be
so universally cherished.
Aunt Gabrielle had only two faults: she spoiled children horribly,
and she gave the poor whatever she could lay her hands on. It often
happened that after a too liberal distribution of supplies among her
beggars, she would set before us at dinner a dish so ridiculously out
of proportion to the requirements of our appetites that she would
herself burst into a laugh as she looked at it. We all joined in the
laugh, which seemed to make us forget how hungry we were. She was the
factotum of the house, and was just as exacting and despotic as she
was kind.
On that night she was greatly excited; and when she came up to kiss
my mother, instead of folding her in her arms as she was in the
habit of doing, she whispered something to her with an expression of
importance and anger.
"Calm yourself, Gabrielle; calm yourself," my mother said to her
several times, and I felt her hand tremble.
"No, my dear, I cannot help it! And if you do not choose to do it, I
will do it myself."
"You will do nothing of the sort," said my mother. "And you will
remember that I am the mistress in my own house."
She pushed her gently, that the others might move along; but Aunt
Gabrielle joined the women who were going out, several of whom
stopped to speak to her. They were all making gestures of indignation
as they looked at poor Marion, who had withdrawn into the darkest
corner of the hall, and there stood with her head down and her face
turned away from them.
Finally they seemed to have taken a resolution, and they moved toward
her as though to drive her away; but they were stopped by these few
words, uttered in a low tone, and at which all the conversations
ceased at once.
"Come to me, Marion."
Marion started as though she meant to spring forward; but she checked
herself and crossed the room slowly with hesitating steps. My mother
kissed her on both cheeks just as she had kissed the others. I
realized that she was performing what she considered a duty, and that
she too greatly disapproved of my poor friend.
Gabrielle held up her arms in horror.
"Do not dare to come to work to-morrow!" she cried aloud; "for you
will never work for us again. I discharge you; do you understand?"
She understood but too well. It was as though she had just heard her
death-sentence. There was no house but ours where she could find
work as a seamstress, and to discharge her was like condemning her to
starvation.
My mother's voice was heard again, low, but full of gentle firmness.
"To-morrow Marion's work will be taken to her at her own house."
"I will not be the one to take it," cried Aunt Gabrielle, whose words
produced a murmur of approbation.
"Then I will take it myself," said my mother, "if I can find no one
to obey me."
Marion had disappeared.
There were only a few women left; their cheeks were aglow with anger.
The resin candles had been put out. The room was lighted by the Yule
log only, which blazed in the fireplace.
"Let us go and pray God," said my mother, slipping her arm through
that of Gabrielle, who protested and submitted at the same time, and
kissed my mother fully ten times before we reached the church.
The church was dazzling, for the simple reason that as there was no
way of lighting it, no lamps of any description, every faithful was
requested to bring a light with him. There were surely a thousand
persons in the building, which represented a thousand lights. I will
confess that these were neither lamps nor tapers nor even vulgar
tallow candles. They were mere wax lighters, which singly you may
despise as you please, but which, multiplied thus, formed a luminous
floor under the dark vault: when you looked down, it was joyous,
dazzling; and when you looked up, it was appalling. The altar fairly
glittered. All of our candles figured there in addition to those
which belonged to the church. There was just room enough between the
lights for the chalice and the missal. The rector was arrayed in a
fine scarlet chasuble, a bit worn and faded, which had survived the
Revolution. The mayor occupied the seat of honor, wearing the dress
of the Breton peasant,--blue vest embroidered in red and yellow
silk, with a splendid sun in the middle of the back. Beside him sat
the deputy mayor, M. Adelys, the miller of Kerdroguen; and both
wore white silk sashes which covered their breasts and stomachs.
The blacksmith was there too in his quality of justice's clerk,
wearing the black gown and cap of the magistracy. M. de la Goublaye,
the justice and chevalier of Saint Louis, had been detained in his
château of Keriennec by the gout. But we had a corporal of gendarmery
opposite the altar and two gendarmes on either side with yellow
shoulder-belts. Plumelec, where they lived, would have gladly enough
kept them at home on such an occasion, but St. Jean Brévelay was the
chief town of the canton.