The _Curé_ of the Mountain--Toby Gold Button--Hospitality--The
_Curé's_ pig--His hard fate and reflections--The _Curé_ of the
plain--His worth and influence--The agent of the Government--Landed
Proprietors--Their influence--The Orator--Dialogue with a Peasant.
If the Burgundian curates dwelling in the richest parts of the province
are fat, sleek, and jovial members of the Establishment,--if in their
cellars are to be found the best and most generous wines, and on their
tables the most exquisite dishes,--the _curés_ of that portion of Le
Morvan which is immediately adjacent to Burgundy enjoy the same
abundance, and appreciate the advantages of good living equally with
them. But this is not the case with their _confrères_ who reside in the
uplands, amongst the arid and volcanic mountains, without roads, and the
thickly timbered hill-district which joins the Nivernais. There the
village pastors are poor, thin, and badly fed; fairly buried in the
forest, and surrounded by a population more wretched and squalid than
the rats of their own churches;--they seem as it were abandoned by
everybody. That which I am about to relate will prove this, and show
what a deplorable existence theirs is, and the ingenious methods to
which they are obliged to have recourse to keep up a fair outside.
One of them thus exiled to a most deserted part of our forests, and who,
the whole year, except on a few rare occasions, lived only on fruit and
vegetables, hit upon a most admirable expedient for providing an animal
repast to set before the _curés_ of the neighbourhood, when one or the
other, two or three times during the year, ventured into these dreadful
solitudes, with a view of assuring himself with his own eyes that his
unfortunate colleague had not yet died of hunger. The _curé_ in question
possessed a pig, his whole fortune: and you will see, gentle reader, the
manner in which he used it.
Immediately the bell of his presbytery announced a visitor, (the bell
was red with rust, and its iron tongue never spoke unless to announce a
formal visit,) and that his cook had shown his clerical friend into the
parlour, the master of the house, drawing himself up majestically, said
to his housekeeper (_curés_ fortunately always have, cousins, nieces, or
house-keepers), as Louis XIV. might have said to Vatal, "Brigitte, let
there be a good dinner for myself and my friend." Brigitte, although she
knew there were only stale crusts and dried peas in her larder, seemed
in no degree embarrassed by this order; she summoned to her assistance
"Toby, the Carrot," so called because his hair was as red as that of a
native of West Galloway, and leaving the house together, they both went
in search of the pig.
Toby the Carrot, a youth of seventeen, was the presbyter's page, a poor
half-starved devil that the _curé_ had taken into his service, who
lodged him badly, boarded him worse, and gave him no clothes at all; but
who, nevertheless, in his moments of good-humour--they were rare--and no
doubt to recompense him for so many drawbacks, would call him "Toby
Gold-button." At this innocent little pleasantry, this touch of
affability, Toby grinned from ear to ear, made a deep reverence, and put
the compliment carefully into his pocket, regretting however, no doubt,
that he had nothing more substantial and savoury than this to eat with
his coarse dry bread. Toby was a very useful servitor to the _curé_; he
was always on the alert; fat did not check his rapid movements, and from
the time the Angelus rang in the morning to Vespers in the evening, his
long skinny legs were constantly going. He drew the water, peeled and
washed the onions, blacked the shoes--and how _curé's_ shoes do
shine!--rang the chapel-bell, gathered the acorns for the pig, intoned
the Amen when his master said mass, swept and weeded the garden, snared
the thrushes--which he cooked and eat in secret--and, dressed in a white
surplice, carried the cross and the Viaticum, and accompanied the _curé_
at night when on his way to offer the last consolations of religion to
some dying poacher in the forest. These expeditions were sometimes
across the mountains, and along the dry bed of some torrent, in which,
according to Toby's notion, they would have certainly perished had not
the _Bon Dieu_ been with them.
But we must return to our parson's pig, which after a short skirmish was
caught by Brigitte and her carrotty assistant; and notwithstanding his
cries, his grunts, his gestures of despair and supplication, the inhuman
cook, seizing his head, opened a large vein in his throat, and relieved
him of two pounds of blood; this, with the addition of garlic, shallots,
mint, wild thyme and parsley, was converted into a most savoury and
delicious black-pudding for the _curé_, and his friend, and being
served to their reverences smoking hot on the summit of a pyramid of
yellow cabbage, figured admirably as a small Vesuvius and a centre dish.
The surgical operation over, Brigitte, whose qualifications as a
sempstress were superior, darned up the hole in the neck of the
unfortunate animal, and he was then turned loose until a fresh supply of
black-puddings should be required for a similar occasion. This wretched
pig was never happy: how could he be so? Like Damocles of Syracuse, he
lived in a state of perpetual fever; terror seized him directly he heard
the _curé's_ bell, and seeing in imagination the uplifted knife already
about to glide into his bacon, he invariably took to his heels before
Brigitte was half way to the door to answer it.
If, as usual, the peal announced a diner-out, Brigitte and Gold-button
were soon on his track, calling him by the most tender epithets, and
promising that he should have something nice for his supper, skim-milk,
&c.; but the pig, with his painful experience, was not such a fool as to
believe them; hidden behind an old cask, some faggots, or lying in a
deep ditch, he remained silent as the grave, and kept himself close as
long as possible.
Discovered, however, he was sure to be at last, when he would rush into
the garden, and running up and down it like a mad creature, upset
everything in his way; for several minutes it was a regular
steeple-chase--across the beds, now over the turnips, then through the
gooseberry-bushes; in short, he was here, there, and everywhere; but in
spite of all his various stratagems to escape the fatal incision, the
poor pig always finished by being seized, tied, thrown on the ground,
and bled: the vein was then once more cleverly sewn up, and the inhuman
operators quietly retired from the scene to make the _curé's_ far-famed
black-pudding. Half dead upon the spot where he was phlebotomized, the
wretched animal was left to reflect under the shade of a tulip-tree on
the cruelty of man, on their barbarous appetites; cursing with all his
heart the poverty of Morvinian curates, their conceited hospitality, of
which he was the victim, and their brutal affection for pig's blood.
I shall now endeavour to give the reader a description of the curate of
the plain; but he should clearly understand that I do not present this
character to him as the general standard of ecclesiastical
excellence,--quite the contrary; I am sorry to say I think it an
exception. My sketch, therefore, applies only to those _curés_, who
reside in a remote rural district like that of Le Morvan; I advance
nothing that I have not seen myself, and if I should ever have the
pleasure of meeting any of my English friends in Le Morvan, I could
introduce them to ten _curés_ one and all similar in every respect to
the ecclesiastic I am about to pourtray.
In the interior of this district, that is to say in the midst of her
rich plains, and in the hilly but not mountainous parts of it, the
_curés_ are quite of another stamp; less poor than the herbivorous
gentleman we have just described, but not so well to do as those of
Burgundy; living under a state of things altogether peculiar to
themselves, far from the great cities, and yet in direct communication
with them, they are obliged by a common interest to identify themselves
with the events of the day. Every curate of the plain possesses an
immense influence in his parish and neighbourhood, and as at a moment
their support may be of great use in a political point of view, the
government, which is alive to everything, caresses, smiles on, and
cajoles them.
In the moorland districts, also, and in the little villages which border
the great forests, the _curés_ are everything, and do everything. They
perform the part of judge, doctor and apothecary, banker and architect,
carpenter and schoolmaster; they give the designs for the cottages, mark
the boundaries of estates, receive and put out the savings of their
flocks, marry, baptize, and bury, offer consolation to the afflicted,
encourage the unfortunate, purchase the crops, and sell a neighbour's
vineyard. They represent the sun, by the influence of whose rays
everything germinates and lives; it is their hand--the hand of
justice--that arrests and heals all quarrels; the unselfish source from
whence good counsels flow--the moral charter from which the peasant
reads and learns the duties of a citizen.
Ask not the population of our plains and forests, and secluded
agricultural districts, to which political party they belong; if they
are republicans, royalists, socialists or communists, reds or blues,
whites or tricolor,--they know nothing of all this. Their
opinions--their religion--are those of _Monsieur le Curé_. They know his
prudence, his charity, his good sense; they know he loves them like a
father; that he would not leave them for a bishopric--no, not for a
cardinal's scarlet hat;--that as he has lived, so will he die with them:
that is enough for them. Thus they consult him when they wish to form
an opinion for themselves, much in the same way as a sportsman, anxious
to take the field, looks up at the chanticleer on some village-steeple
to know what he ought to think of the cloudy sky above; and when they
see the good man sauntering past their cottages, with head erect and
animated step, smiling, and evidently full of cheerful, charitable
thoughts, and on good deeds intent, kissing the little children, giving
a rosy apple to one, and a playful tap to another; offering a sly word
of hope to the young girls, and a few kind ones to the aged and
infirm,--all the village is elated; and the old maids fail not to
present him with a fat fowl, or some such substantial expression of
their respect. But if, alas! the good _curé_ should appear walking with
a slow and solemn step, his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed upon
the ground, and an anxious and thoughtful look upon his brow, his flock
gaze at one another, and whisper in an under tone that something is
amiss.
At the epoch of political convulsions and revolutions, when systems and
governments, men and ideas, arise and disappear, as if they went by
steam,--when the authorities in the great towns wish to interfere with
the police regulations and customs that govern the agricultural
classes,--when they attempt to force them to gallop at full speed on the
high road of progress as they call it, and that to attain this desirable
end, handsome young men arrive from Paris in black coats and white
neckcloths, furnished with a marvellous flow of eloquent sophisms,
pretending to prove to the simple and honest peasants that in order to
be more free, happy, and rich, they must, without further ado, kill,
burn, and destroy,--the villagers, quite mystified, listen with open
mouth; but as to understanding what the gentleman in black--the dark
shadow of the government of progress--so glibly states, he might as well
be talking Turkish or Japanese. Every one looks at _Monsieur le Curé_,
they scan his face, and ask him what they are to do; and let him only
feel angry or disgusted with the wordy nonsense, and just make one sign,
or raise one finger, and 1200--aye, 2000 men would in a trice surround
him, and send the orator and all his staff to preach their pestilential
doctrines under the turf, and this without more ceremony and remorse
than if they were so many mad dogs. Poor fools! who think it possible to
change a people in a few weeks, and imagine that a fine discourse from
lips unknown and unloved will have a deeper effect upon men's minds
than the admonitions of a pastor, whose life has been without reproach,
and adorned with every practical virtue.
Yes, the influence exercised in our rural districts by the _curés_ is
great, and this influence is well merited, for it is never abused--and
never used unless for the benefit and happiness of the flock confided to
their care. Without any motive of a personal nature, without ambition in
any sense to which that word can apply, they preach the Catholic
religion in all its simplicity, accepting and considering as brothers
all those who really desire to follow the example of their Saviour
Christ--all those who really love to do good; unworldly and unselfish,
they would think themselves dishonoured, their reputation sullied, if
the gown, which gives them in the eyes of the people a sacred character,
served as a cloak, a pretext to cover a dishonourable or disgraceful
action.
It is also remarkable, and speaks volumes in their favour, that the
bishops are almost always at war with these poor and self-denying
_curés_, and would wish to see them take more interest in temporal
affairs, which they do not in the least understand; they would fain put
into their mouths the language of anger and bitter feeling, alike
foreign to their natures and the religion of their Divine master. The
large proprietors also, those who live on their estates and do not press
hard upon their dependants, enjoy great consideration, and share largely
with the _curés_ the hold they have on the affections of the people.
They frequently direct the opinions of the masses, and, with the
exception of their pastors, are the only class our rural population know
and revere. As to the generality of our statesmen, good, bad, or
indifferent, their names, brilliant as they may be, are not half so well
known in our villages as that of the most obscure labourer, the humble
artizan who knows how to file a saw or make a wheel.
"Who is that gentleman, sir?" said a Morvinian of the plain to me one
day, pointing to a tall thin man, with a bald head, and a pair of gold
spectacles on his nose,--a notability of the legislative assembly who
was going to step into the village tribune.
"That gentleman?" I replied; "he is an orator."
"Ah! an orator: and pray what sort of a bird is that? what is he going
to chirrup about?"
"An orator is not a bird, my good fellow; he does not sing, he makes
very fine speeches."
"And what of them?"
"What of them? why they teach men their duty."
"Their duty in what?" continued the peasant, with his pinching logic.
"Is it the duty of a father, of a son, of a soldier, of a baker?"
"Not at all; the duty of a citizen."
"Citizen? I don't understand, sir," said the peasant.
"Well, your political duties, if you like it better."
"I am still none the wiser. And so this fine gentleman, with his yellow
spectacles and bald head, is not going to tell us anything about crops,
vineyards, planting, or sowing?"
"No; but he will teach you your duty as a man, as a Frenchman, a
citizen--a member of the great human family; he will teach you your
rights; what you can and should demand of your government under the
articles 199, 305, 1202, 9999 of the charter--the last charter."
"Sir, I am ashamed to have troubled you; I thank you much for your
explanation; I wish you a very good morning; for mathematics you see,
sir, do send me to sleep, and our _curé_ will tell me all about it on
Sunday. I shall go back to the forest, and finish my job of yesterday."
And are not these simple-minded men much in the right? is not all the
good sense on their side?--they, who living by the axe, the plough, and
the produce of the earth, think only of their trees and their fields,
and ask of God but health and strength to work, rain and sun to nourish
the vines and gild their harvests. They leave to those who possess their
confidence, because they have never deceived them, the care of their
political interests; the care of setting and keeping them in the right
path, and of directing them in that current of life, slow it is true,
but which nevertheless is more effectual towards ameliorating the
condition, and eventually increasing the happiness of the human race,
than all the new-fangled doctrines promulgated by the statesmen and
philosophers of France.