hands clasped on his shoulder, “I refuse flatly. Promises made to
pretty girls are but skin deep, and it is no sin to retract them.
Don’t count on me, my beauty, to drag your bearded gallant from the
hands of the ecclesiastical court! Should I write a sermon, or two,
or twelve, they would be directed against the bad monks who are the
shame of the Church, and are as vermin clinging to the robe of St.
Peter. This brother Ange is a rascal. He gives good women to touch, as
relics, some old mutton or pork bone which he has gnawed himself with
disgusting greediness. I wager he bore on Monsieur La Perruque’s donkey
a feather of the Angel Gabriel, a ray from the wise men’s star, and
in a little phial a trifle of the sound of the bells that rang in the
belfry of Solomon’s temple. He is a dunce, he is a liar, and you love
him. There are three reasons why I should dislike him. I leave you to
judge, Mademoiselle, which of the three is the strongest. Perchance it
may well be the least honest; for in truth I was, a moment ago, drawn
to you with a violence neither befitting my age nor my condition. But
make no mistake; I resent extremely the insults offered by your cowled
rascal to the Church of our Saviour Jesus Christ, of which I am a very
unworthy member. And this capuchin’s example fills me with such disgust
that I am possessed by a sudden longing to meditate on some beautiful
passage of St. John Chrysostom, instead of sitting knee to knee with
you, Mademoiselle, as I have been doing for the last quarter of an
hour. For the desire of the sinner is short-lived and the glory of God
is everlasting. I have never held an exaggerated notion of sins of the
flesh. I think in justice to me that must be allowed.
“I am not scared like Monsieur Nicodème, for example, at such a little
thing as taking one’s pleasure with a pretty girl. But what I cannot
endure is the baseness of soul, the hypocrisy, the lies, and the crass
ignorance, which make your brother Ange an accomplished monk. From your
intercourse with him, Mademoiselle, you get a habit of crapulence which
drags you much below your position, which is that of a courtesan. I
know the shame and the misery of it; but it is a far superior state to
that of a monk. This rascal dishonours you even as he dishonours the
gutters of the Rue St. Jacques by dipping his feet into them. Think
of all the virtues with which you might adorn yourself, Mademoiselle,
in your precarious walk of life, and one alone of which might one day
open Paradise to you, if you were not subjugated and enslaved to this
unclean beast.
“Even while permitting yourself to pick up here and there what
must, after all, be bestowed on you as tokens of gratitude, you,
Catherine, could blossom forth in faith, hope, and charity, love the
poverty-stricken, and visit the sick. You could be charitable and
compassionate; and find pure delight in the sight of the skies, the
waters, the woods, and the fields. Of a morning, on opening your
window, you could praise God while listening to the song of the birds.
On days of pilgrimage you might climb the hill of St. Valérien, and
there, beneath the Calvary, softly bewail your lost innocence. You
could act in such a way that He who alone reads our hearts would say:
‘Catherine is my creature, and I know her by the glimmerings of a clear
light not altogether extinguished in her.’”
Catherine interrupted him:
“But Abbé,” she said drily, “you are spinning me a sermon.”
“Did you not ask me for a dozen?” he replied.
She began to be angry:
“Take care Abbé. It rests with you if we are to be friends or enemies.
Will you compose the twelve sermons? Think well before you answer.”
“Mademoiselle,” said Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, “I have done blameworthy
things in my life, but not after reflection.”
“You will not? Quite certain? One—two—You refuse? Abbé, I shall take my
revenge.”
For some time she sulked, mute and bad-tempered, on the bench. Then all
at once she started crying:
“Have done, Monsieur l’Abbé! Have done! At your age, and a man of
your cloth to plague me thus! Fie Monsieur l’Abbé! Fie! How shameful,
Monsieur l’Abbé!”
As she was squealing at her shrillest, the Abbé saw Mademoiselle
Lecoeur, of the draper’s shop at the sign of the _Trois Pucelles_, pass
through the porch. She was going thus late to confess to the third
_vicaire_ of St. Benoît, and turned away her head in sign of her huge
disgust.
He owned to himself that Catherine’s revenge was prompt and sure, for
Mademoiselle Lecoeur’s sense of virtue, fortified by age, had become
so vigorous, that she was down upon every impropriety of the parish,
and seven times a day stabbed with the point of her tongue the carnal
sinners of the Rue St. Jacques.
But Catherine herself did not know how complete was her revenge. She
had seen Mademoiselle Lecoeur come into the market-place, but she had
not seen my father who was following closely.
He was coming with me to look for the Abbé in the porch, and take him
to the _Petit Bacchus_. My father had a liking for Catherine. Nothing
vexed him more than to see her close beset by gallants. He had no
illusions about her conduct. But as he said, knowing and seeing are
two different things. Now Catherine’s cries had reached his ears quite
clearly. He was hasty and incapable of self-restraint. I was much
afraid that his wrath would burst forth in coarse suggestion or savage
threats. I already saw him drawing his larding-pin, which he wore on
his apron-string like an honourable weapon, for he gloried in his art
and in his spit.
My fears were but half-justified. The occasion surprised him, but not
unpleasantly, when Catherine showed virtue, and satisfaction overcame
anger in his mind.
He accosted my good master fairly civilly and said with mock severity:
“Monsieur Coignard, all priests who cultivate the society of courtesans
lose thereby their virtue and their good name. And rightly so, even if
no pleasure has rewarded their dishonour.”
Catherine left the spot with a fine air of offended modesty, and my
excellent master answered my father with a sweet and smiling eloquence:
“That maxim is excellent, Monsieur Léonard; still one should not apply
it without discretion, nor stick it on to everything as the lame cutler
labels all his knives ‘sixpence.’ I will not inquire why I merited its
application a moment ago. Will it not do if I own that I merited it?
“It is not seemly to talk of oneself and it would be too great a shock
to my modesty to be obliged to discourse on what is personal to me. I
would rather set up the case of the venerable Robert d’Arbrissel who
acquired merit from frequenting courtesans. One might also quote St.
Abraham, the anchorite of Syria, who did not fear to enter a house of
ill-fame.”
“What St. Abraham was that?” asked my father, whose thoughts were all
put to rout.
“Let us sit down outside your door,” said my good master, “bring a jug
of wine, and I will tell you the story of this great saint as it was
recorded for us by St. Ephraim himself.”
My father made a gesture of ready assent. We all three sat down under
the eaves, and my good master spoke as follows:
“St. Abraham, being already old, lived alone in the desert in a little
hut, when his brother died leaving a daughter of great beauty, named
Mary. Assured that the life he led would be excellent for his niece,
Abraham had built for her a little cell near his own, whence he taught
her by means of a small window that he had had pierced.
“He took care that she fasted, watched, and sang psalms. But a monk,
whom we may suppose to have been a false monk, drew nigh Mary while the
holy man Abraham was meditating on the Scriptures, and led the young
girl into sin; who thus said to herself:
“‘It were far better, since I am dead to God, to go into a country
where I am known to none.’
“Leaving her cell she betook herself to a neighbouring town called
Edessa, where there were delightful gardens and cool fountains; it is
still to this day the pleasantest of the towns of Syria. Meanwhile, the
holy man Abraham remained plunged in profound meditation. His niece had
already been gone some days when, opening her little window, he asked:
“‘Mary, why do you no longer sing the psalms you sang so well?’ And
receiving no reply he suspected the truth and cried: ‘A cruel wolf has
carried off my ewe lamb from me!’
“He lived in sorrow for two years, after which he learnt that his niece
was leading a bad life. Acting with discretion, he begged one of his
friends to go to the town and find out what had become of her. The
friend’s report was, that, in very deed, Mary was leading a bad life.
At this news the holy man begged his friend to lend him a riding-dress
and bring him a horse, and putting on his head a big hat which hid his
face, so as not to be recognised, he presented himself at the hostelry
where they had told him his niece was lodged. He looked on all sides to
see if he could not see her, but, as she did not appear, he said to the
innkeeper, feigning to smile:
“‘Mine host, they tell me you have a pretty girl here. Can I not see
her?’
“The innkeeper, an obliging man, had her called and Mary appeared in a
costume, which, according to the words of St. Ephraim himself, sufficed
to reveal her mode of life. The holy man was pierced with sorrow.
“He affected gaiety nevertheless, and ordered a good meal. Mary was in
a sober mood that day. In giving pleasure one does not always taste
it, and the sight of this old man whom she did not recognise, for he
had not removed his hat, in no way inclined her to joyousness. The
innkeeper cried shame upon her for such naughty behaviour so opposed to
the duties of her profession, but she said with a sigh: ‘Would to God
that I had died three years ago!’
“The holy man Abraham was careful to adopt the language, as he had
taken the coat, of a gallant cavalier:
“‘My child,’ said he, ‘I have come here not to bewail your sins but to
partake of your affection.’
“But when the innkeeper left him alone with Mary he feigned no more,
but raising his hat, he said weeping:
“‘Mary, my child, do you not know me? Am I not that Abraham who has
been a father to you?’
“He took her by the hand and all the night long he exhorted her to
repentance and penance. Above all he was careful not to drive her to
despair. He repeated incessantly ‘My child, it is only God who is
without sin.’
“Mary was naturally a sweet soul. She consented to go back to him. At
daybreak they set out. She would have taken her robes and jewels. But
the holy man made her understand that it would be more fitting to leave
them. He mounted her on his horse and led her back to their cells,
where they both took up their past life. Only this time the good man
took care that Mary’s room did not communicate with the outside world,
and that there was no going out without passing through the room that
he himself occupied. By which means and by the grace of God, he kept
his ewe lamb. Such is the history of St. Abraham,” said my good master,
drinking his cup of wine.
“It is quite beautiful,” said my father, “and the misfortunes of poor
Mary have brought tears to my eyes.”
III
MINISTERS OF STATE (_concluded_)
That same day my good master and I were exceedingly surprised to meet
at Monsieur Blaizot’s at the sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_,
a little thin, yellow man, who was no other than the celebrated
pamphleteer, Jean Hibou.... We had every reason to believe that he was
in the Bastille, where he usually was. And if we had no hesitation
in recognising him it was because his face still showed traces of
the darkness and mildew of the dungeon. He was turning over with a
trembling hand, under the bookseller’s anxious eye, some political
writings newly come from Holland. Abbé Jérôme Coignard doffed his hat
with a natural grace which would have been more effective if the hat
had not been staved in the night before in a scuffle, that need not
concern us, in the arbour at the _Petit Bacchus_.
Abbé Coignard having shown his pleasure at meeting so able a man again;
Monsieur Jean Hibou replied, “It will not be for long. I am leaving
this country where I am unable to live. I cannot breathe the corrupted
air of this town any longer. In a month’s time I shall be settled in
Holland. It is cruel to have to put up with Fleury after Dubois, and I
am too virtuous to be a Frenchman. We are governed on bad principles,
by fools and rogues. I cannot endure it.”
“Truly,” said my excellent master, “public affairs are badly managed
and there are many thieves in office. Power is divided between fools
and knaves, and should I ever write on the affairs of the day I should
make a small book on the lines of the _Apokolokyntosis_ of Seneca the
Philosopher, or of our own _Satire Ménippée_, which is fairly pungent.
This light and pleasant style suits the subject better than the morose
stiltedness of a Tacitus or the patient seriousness of a de Thou. I
would make copies of this lampoon which would be passed about under
the rose, and it should display a philosophical disdain for mankind.
The majority of the people in office would be extremely annoyed,
but I think some would taste a secret pleasure in seeing themselves
covered with shame. I judge so from what I heard said by a lady of
good birth whose acquaintance I made at Séez during the time when I
was the Bishop’s librarian. She was growing old, but still thrilled to
lascivious memories. For I must tell you that for twenty years she had
been the most notorious trollop in Normandy. And when I asked her what
had given her the most lively pleasure in life, she answered me: ‘To
know myself dishonoured.’
“From this reply I gathered that she had some nicety of feeling. I
would give as much credit to certain of our ministers, and if ever I
write against them it would be to incite them to hug their infamy and
viciousness.
“But why postpone the execution of so fine a project? I will ask
Monsieur Blaizot at once for half a dozen sheets of paper and set about
writing the first chapter of the new _Ménippée_.”
He was already reaching out his hand to the astonished Monsieur
Blaizot, when Monsieur Jean Hibou stopped him quickly:
“Keep this splendid scheme for Holland, Monsieur l’Abbé,” he said, “and
come with me to Amsterdam, where I will provide you with the means of
livelihood at some coffee-house or bagnio. There you will be free, and
of nights you shall write your _Ménippée_ at one end of the table,
whilst I, at the other, am busy with my lampoons. They shall be full
charged with virus, and who knows but what we may bring about a change
in the affairs of the kingdom? Pamphleteers play more part than is
thought in the downfall of empires. They prepare the catastrophe which
is consummated by a popular revolt.”
“What a triumph,” he added, in a voice which whistled through his
blackened teeth, carious with the bitter humours of his mouth, “what
joy if I effected the destruction of one of those ministers, who, like
cowards, shut me in the Bastille! Will you not take a share in such
good work, Monsieur l’Abbé?”
“By no means,” replied my good master, “I should be very sorry to
change anything in the system of the State, and if I thought that my
_Apokolokyntosis_ or _Ménippée_ could have such a result, I would never
write it.”
“What!” exclaimed the disappointed pamphleteer, “didn’t you tell me but
a moment ago, that the present government was wicked?”
“No doubt,” said Monsieur l’Abbé, “but I merely imitate the wisdom of
that old crone of Syracuse who, at the time when Dionysius treated his
people most execrably, went to the temple every day to pray to the gods
for the life of the tyrant. Told of this singular piety, Dionysius
wished to know the reason for it. He sent for the good woman, and
questioned her:
“She replied, ‘I am no longer young and have lived under many tyrants,
and I have always observed that a bad one was succeeded by a worse. You
are the most detestable that I have yet seen. From which I conclude
that your successor will be, if possible, more wicked than yourself,
and I pray the gods to give him to us as late as may be.’
“That old woman was very sensible, and I think as she did, Monsieur
Jean Hibou, that sheep do well to allow themselves to be sheared by
their old shepherd, for fear a younger one should come along, who would
but shear them closer.”
Monsieur Jean Hibou’s gall, stirred by this discourse, spent itself in
bitter words:
“What cowardly talk! What shameful sentiments! Oh! Monsieur l’Abbé,
what little love you bear to the public good, and how ill you deserve
the oak-leaf crown promised by the poets to civic heroes. You should
have been born amongst the Turks, amongst the Tartars, slave to a
Genghis Khan or a Bajazet, rather than in Europe where principles of
public right are taught, and divine philosophy. What! you endure bad
government nor even wish to alter it! Such sentiments would be punished
in a republic of my making by exile or banishment at least. Yes,
Monsieur l’Abbé, in the constitution that I meditate, which is to be
formulated on the maxims of antiquity, I shall add a clause for the
punishment of such bad citizens as you, and I shall proclaim penalties
against whomsoever can improve his State but does not do so.”
“Eh! eh!” laughed the Abbé, “that is not the way to make me wish to
live in your Salentum. What you have let me know of it leads me to
think that there would be much constraint there.”
Monsieur Jean Hibou replied sententiously: “You would only be
constrained to be virtuous.”
“Ah, how right that old woman was, and what reason we have to fear a
Jean Hibou after a Dubois and a Fleury! What you offer me, my good sir,
is a government of violence and hypocrisy, and to hasten this promised
good you undertake to make me a keeper of a coffee-house or a bagnio
on a canal in Amsterdam! Thank you for nothing! I stick to the Rue St.
Jacques, where we drink cool claret and grumble at the ministers. Do
you think you can seduce me by the vision of a government of honest men
that so hedges in all liberties that no one can enjoy them?”
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” said Jean Hibou, getting heated, “is it fair
to attack a system of State conceived by me in the Bastille, and
undisclosed to you?”
“Sir,” retorted my excellent master, “I am suspicious of governments
born of cabals and rebellions. To be in opposition is a very bad school
of government, and wary politicians, who push themselves into office
by this means, take great care to govern by rules entirely opposed to
those they formerly taught. You need not go to China to see that! They
are guided by the same necessities which lay on their predecessors. And
they bring nothing new to the task but their inexperience. Which is one
reason, sir, which makes me foretell that a new government would be
more vexatious than the one it replaces, without being very different.
Have we not already put it to the proof?”
“So,” said Monsieur Jean Hibou, “you hold by abuses?”
“Such is the case,” answered my good master. “Governments are like
wines that grow crusted and mellow with age. The roughest lose at
length something of their crudity. I fear an empire in the greenness
of its youth. I fear the rawness of a republic, and since we must be
ill-governed I prefer princes and statesmen in whom the first ardour
has cooled off.”
Monsieur Jean Hibou, crushing his hat on his nose, bade us good-bye
with irritation in his voice.
As soon as he was gone Monsieur Blaizot looked up over his ledgers, and
settling his spectacles, said to my excellent master:
“I have been a bookseller for forty years at the sign of the _Image de
Sainte Catherine_, and it is always a fresh pleasure to me to listen
to the converse of the learned men who meet in my shop. But I do not
greatly care for discussions on public affairs. People get heated, and
quarrel to no purpose.”
“Moreover,” said my good master, “in this subject there is little solid
principle.”
“There is, at least, one that no man will do well to contest,” replied
Monsieur Blaizot the bookseller, “and that is that he must be a bad
Christian and a bad Frenchman who would deny the virtue of the holy
Ampulla of Rheims, by whose unction our kings are made vicars of Jesus
Christ for the kingdom of France. Here is the basis of monarchy, which
shall never be shaken.”
IV
THE AFFAIR OF THE MISSISSIPPI
It is well known that during the year 1722 the Parliament of Paris sat
in judgment on the Mississippi affair, in which were implicated, along
with the directors of the Company, a minister of State, secretary to
the King, and many subinspectors of provinces. The Company was accused
of having corrupted the officers of the King and his dominions, who had
in reality stripped it with the greed usual to people in office under
weak governments. And it is certain that at this period all the springs
of government were slackened and warped.
At one of the sittings of this memorable action, Madame de la
Morangère, wife of one of the directors of the Mississippi Company,
was called before the members of Parliament in the upper chamber.
She gave evidence that a Monsieur Lescot, secretary to the
_Lieutenant-Criminel_,[3] having sent for her to come in secret to the
Châtelet, made her understand that it lay with her entirely to save
her husband, who was a fine man and of comely aspect. He said to her,
nearly in these terms: “Madame, what vexes the true friends of the
King in this business is that the Jansenists are not implicated in it.
Jansenists are enemies to the Crown as well as to religion. Help us,
Madame, to convict one of them and we will acknowledge the service to
the State by giving you back your husband with all his possessions.”
When Madame de la Morangère had reported this conversation, which
was not intended for the public, the President of the Parliament
was obliged to call Monsieur Lescot to the upper chamber, who at
first tried to deny it. But Madame de la Morangère had beautiful
ingenuous eyes, whose gaze he could not meet. He grew troubled and was
confounded. He was a big, villainous-looking, red-haired man like Judas
Iscariot. This affair, noticed by the Press, became the talk of Paris.
It was spoken of in the salons, on the public walks, at the barbers’,
and in the coffee-houses. Everywhere Madame de la Morangère gained as
much sympathy as Lescot caused disgust.
Public curiosity was still rife when I accompanied my good master
Monsieur Jérôme Coignard to Monsieur Blaizot’s, who, as you know, is a
bookseller in the Rue St. Jacques, at the sign of the _Image de Sainte
Catherine_. In the shop we found Monsieur Gentil, private secretary to
one of the ministers of State, whose face was hidden in a book newly
come from Holland, and the celebrated Monsieur Roman, who has treated
of systems of State in various estimable works. Old Monsieur Blaizot
was reading his paper behind the counter.
Monsieur Jérôme Coignard, always avid of news, slid up to him to glean
what he could across his shoulder. This man, learned and of so rare a
genius, owned nothing of the goods of this world, and when he had drunk
his pint at the _Petit Bacchus_ he had not a halfpenny left in his
pockets to buy a news-sheet. Having read the depositions of Madame de
la Morangère over Monsieur Blaizot’s shoulder, he cried out that it was
well, and that it pleased him to see wickedness topple from its high
seat under the weak hand of woman, as in wonderful examples witnessed
to in Holy Writ.
“This lady,” he added, “although allied with public men of whom I do
not approve, may be likened unto those strong women lauded in the Book
of Kings. She pleases by an uncommon mixture of straightforwardness
and finesse, and I applaud her telling victory.”
Monsieur Roman interrupted him:
“Take care, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said he, stretching out his arm, “take
care how you look at this affair from an individual and personal point
of view, without troubling yourself as you should do with the public
interests that are bound up in it. There are reasons of State in all
this, and it is clear that this supreme reason demanded that Madame
de la Morangère should not speak, or that her words should not find
credence.”
Monsieur Gentil lifted his nose from his book. “The importance of this
incident,” said he, “has been much exaggerated.”
“Ah, Mr. Secretary,” retorted Monsieur Roman, “we cannot believe that
an incident that will lose you your place can be without importance.
For you will fall by it, sir, you and your master. For my part, I am
full of regrets. But what consoles me for the fall of the Ministry now
reeling under the shock is that they were powerless to prevent it.”
Monsieur Gentil made us understand by a slight wink that on this point
he saw eye to eye with Monsieur Roman.
The latter continued:
“The State is like the human body—all the functions it accomplishes are
not noble. Some there are indeed that one must needs hide, I may say
the most necessary.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” said the Abbé, “was it then necessary that Monsieur
Lescot should so behave to the unfortunate wife of a prisoner? It was
infamous!”