overstrained the injustice of war and they have rendered it very
iniquitous as well as very cruel. The first wars were undertaken for
the establishment of tribes on fertile lands. Thus the Israelites
conquered the land of Canaan. Hunger forced them to it. The advancement
of civilization extended war to the conquest of colonies and foreign
markets, as is seen in the example of Spain, Holland, England and
France. Lastly, one has seen kings and emperors steal provinces of
which they had no need, which they ruined, which they made waste,
without profit to themselves and without other advantage than to raise
pyramids and triumphal arches. And this abuse of war is the more odious
as one must believe that nations are becoming more and more wicked by
the advancement of the arts, or rather that war, being a necessity to
human nature, is waged for its own sake when there is absolutely no
reason for waging it.
“This reflection grieves me deeply, for I am disposed by my condition
and inclination to the love of my fellow creatures. And what puts the
finishing touch to my sadness, Tournebroche, my son, is that I find my
snuff-box is empty, and want of snuff is where I feel my poverty the
most.”
As much to distract his thoughts from this personal trouble as to
instruct myself in his teaching, I asked him if civil war did not seem
to him the most detestable kind of war there was?
“It is odious enough,” he replied, “but not so very inept, for members
of a state when they come to blows between themselves have more chance
of knowing why they fight than in the case where they go to war against
a foreign people. Seditious and intestinal quarrels are usually born
of the extreme wretchedness of the people. They are the result of
despair, and the only issue left to the unhappy beings who may obtain
thereby better conditions and sometimes even a hand in the game of
ruling. But it is to be remarked, my son, that the more unhappy, and
therefore excusable, are the insurgents, the less chance they have of
winning the game. Starved and stupefied, armed but with their rage,
they are incapable of great plans or of prudent considerations so
that they are easily reduced by the prince. He has more difficulty in
putting down rebellion among the great, which is to be detested, for
it has not the excuse of necessity. In fine, my son, whether civil or
foreign, war is execrable, and has a malignity that I detest.”
XII
THE ARMY (_concluded_)
“I will show you, my son,” said my good master, “in the condition of
these poor soldiers who are going to serve their king, both man’s
shame and his glory. In fact, war sets us back and drives us to our
natural savagery. It is the result of the ferocity that we have in
common with the beasts; not only with lions and cocks, who bring a
gallant bearing to it, but with little birds, such as jays and tits,
whose ways are very quarrelsome, and even with insects, such as wasps
and ants, who fight with a bloodthirstiness of the like of which the
Romans themselves have left no example. The principal causes of war
are the same in man and animal, who struggle with one another to
gain or keep their prey, to defend their nest or their lair, or to
gain a mate. There is no distinction in all this, and the rape of
the Sabines perfectly recalls those duels between stags which make
the woods bloody of a night. We have merely succeeded in lending a
certain colouring to base and natural motives by the notions of honour
with which we cover them, and without great exactitude at that. If
we believe that we fight for very noble motives in these days, the
nobility of them dwells entirely in the vagueness of our sentiments.
The less the object of war is simple, clear, and precise, the more
war itself is odious and detestable. And if it be true, my son, that
we have come to killing one another for honour’s sake, it is beyond
all bounds. We have surpassed the cruelty of wild beasts, who do each
other no injury without good reason. And it is only right to say
that man is wickeder and more unnatural in his wars than are bulls
or ants in theirs. But that is not all, for I detest armies less for
the death they sow, than for the ignorance and stupidity that follow
in their train. There is no worse enemy of the arts than a captain of
mercenaries or marauders, and as a rule commanders are as unfitted
for letters as are their soldiers. The habit of imposing his will by
force makes your old soldier very awkward in speech, for eloquence has
its source in the necessity of persuasion. Also, military men affect
a disdain of speech and fine attainments. I remember having known at
Séez in the days when I was librarian to the Bishop, an old captain,
who had grown grey in harness and passed for a gallant man, wearing
proudly a large scar across his face. He was an old ruffian, and had
killed many a man and violated more than one nun quite good-humouredly.
He understood his business fairly well and was very particular
regarding the appearance of his regiment, which marched past better
than any other. In short, a brave man and a good comrade, when it was
question of draining a pot as well I saw at the inn of the _Cheval
Blanc_, where many a time I held my own against him. Now it happened
one night that I accompanied him (for we were good friends) while he
was instructing his men how to find their way by the stars. He first
let me have Monsieur de Louvois’ ordinance on the subject, and as he
had repeated it by heart for the last thirty years, he made no more
mistakes than in his _Pater_ or _Ave_. He started off by saying that
the soldiers must begin by searching the heavens for the pole-star,
which is fixed in relation to the other stars, which turn round it
in the contrary direction to the hands of a watch. But he did not
understand all he said. For after having repeated his sentence two or
three times in a sufficiently imperious voice, he stooped and said in
my ear:
‘Show me this beggar of a pole-star, Abbé. The devil take me if I
can distinguish it in this mess of candle-ends with which the sky is
littered!’
“I told him at once the way to find it, and pointed it out with my
finger. ‘Oh! Oh!’ cried he, ‘the silly thing is perched very high! From
where we are we cannot see it without straining our necks.’ And he
immediately gave orders to his officers to withdraw the men fifty paces
so they should more easily see the pole-star. What I am telling you, my
son, I heard with my own ears, and you will agree that this wearer of
a sword had a sufficiently naïve notion of the system of the universe,
particularly of the stellar parallaxes. Yet he wore the king’s orders
on a fine embroidered coat, and was more honoured in the state than
a learned divine. It is this uncouthness that I cannot endure in the
army.”
My good master having stopped to take breath at these words, I asked
him if he did not think, despite this captain’s ignorance, that one
must have much intelligence to win battles? He answered me in these
words:
“Taking into consideration, Tournebroche, my son, the difficulty
that there is in getting together and leading armies, the knowledge
necessary in the attack or the defence of a place, and the ability
demanded for a good order of battle, one easily admits that only a
genius nearly super-human, such as that of a Cæsar, is capable of such
an undertaking, and one would be astonished that minds were to be found
capable of holding all the qualities proper to a true fighting-man. A
great commander does not only know the configuration of a country, but
its manners and customs, and also the industries of its inhabitants.
He keeps in his mind an infinity of little circumstances from which
he forms in the end large and simple views. The plans which he has
slowly meditated and traced out beforehand, he may change in the midst
of action by a sudden inspiration, and he is at the same time, very
prudent and very bold; his thoughts move, now with the dull slowness of
the mole, now soar up with an eagle’s flight.
“Nothing is truer than this. But bethink you, my son, that when two
armies are in sight of one another, one of them must be conquered; from
which it follows that the other will necessarily be victorious, without
its chief in command having all the qualities of a great commander,
or without his even having one of them. There are, I take it, clever
commanders; there are also lucky ones, whose glory is no less. How,
in these astounding collisions, are we to disentangle the effect of
art from the result of luck? But you are leading me from my subject,
Tournebroche, my son, I want to show you that war is man’s disgrace
nowadays, but that in other days it was his pride. Of necessity the
arbitrament of empires, war has been the great school-mistress of the
human race. It is by her that men have learnt patience, firmness,
disdain of danger, the glory of sacrifice. The day that the herdsmen
first rolled pieces of rock to form an enclosure behind which they
defended their women and cattle, the first human society was founded,
and the progress of the arts assured. This great good that we enjoy,
our native land, that august thing the Romans adored above all their
gods, the town, ‘Urbs,’ is the daughter of war.
“The first city was a fortified enclosure, and it was in that rough and
bloody cradle that were nursed august laws, flourishing industries,
science and learning. And that is why the true God wishes to be called
the God of battles.
“What I tell you on this subject, Tournebroche, my son, does not mean
that you should sign your engagement to this recruiting-sergeant and
be seized with the desire to become a hero as the recipient of sixty
strokes of the rod on your back every day, on an average.
“War is, moreover, in our time but an inherited evil, a prurient return
to savage life, a criminal puerility. The princes of our day, and
especially the late king, will for ever bear the notoriety of having
made war the sport and amusement of courts. It saddens me to think that
we have not yet seen the end of this preconcerted slaughter.
“As to the future, the unfathomable future, let me, my son, dream of it
as more in accord with the spirit of sweetness and equity which dwells
in me. The future is a place where there is room for dreams. It is
there, as in Utopia, that it pleases the wise men to build. I should
like to believe that nations will one day cultivate the virtues in
peace. It is in the increasing size of armaments that I flatter myself
I see a far-distant presage of universal peace. Armies will augment
unceasingly in strength and number. Whole nations will be swallowed up
by them. Then the monster will perish from his surfeit. He will burst
from too much fatness.”
XIII
ACADEMIES
We learnt that day that the Bishop of Séez had just been elected a
member of the _Académie Française_. Twenty years ago he had delivered
a panegyric on St. Maclou, which was considered rather a good thing,
and I am willing to believe that there were some excellent passages in
it; for my good master, Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, had put a hand to
it before quitting the Bishop’s palace with Madame de la Baillive’s
chambermaid. Monseigneur de Séez was descended from the best Norman
aristocracy. His piety, his cellar, and his stable, were justly vaunted
throughout the kingdom, and his own nephew dispensed the ecclesiastical
patronage all over the country. His election surprised nobody. It was
approved by all the world, save by the “grey-stockings” of the _Café
Procope_, who are never content. They are grumblers.
My good master blamed them gently for their contradictory temper.
“Of what does Monsieur Duclos complain?” said he. “Since yesterday, he
is the equal of Monseigneur de Séez, who has the handsomest clergy and
the finest pack of hounds in the kingdom. For academicians are equal by
virtue of the statutes.[9]
“It is true that it is the insolent equality of revellers, which
ceases, when, the meeting over, my lord bishop steps into his chariot,
leaving Monsieur Duclos to splash his woollen stockings in the gutter.
But if he does not want thus to be put on a par with my lord Bishop
of Séez, why does he rub shoulders with the badge bedecked. Why does
he not hie him to a tub, like Diogenes, or like me, to a stall at
the Innocents? It is only in a tub, or in a stall, that one can lord
it over this earthly grandeur. It is only there that one is a real
prince, and a real lord. Happy is he who has not fixed his hopes on
the Academy! Happy is he who lives exempt from fears and desires, and
who knows the emptiness of all things! Happy is he who knows that it
is equally a vanity to be an Academician, or not to be one. Such a one
leads, untroubled, a life obscure and unseen. Fair liberty follows him
everywhere he goes. He celebrates in the shade the stilly offices of
wisdom, and all the Muses smile on him as on one initiated into their
service.”
Thus spoke my good master, and I admired the pure enthusiasm which
swelled his voice and shone in his eyes. But the restlessness of youth
fermented in me. I wanted to take sides, to throw myself into the
fight, to declare myself for or against the Academy.
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” I asked. “Should not the Academy call to itself the
best minds in the kingdom, rather than the uncle of the man who has the
ecclesiastical patronage in his gift?”[10] I asked my good master.
“My son,” he answered gently, “if Monseigneur de Séez appears austere
in his ordinances, great and gallant in his life, and if he is in
fact, a paragon among prelates, and pronounced that panegyric on St.
Maclou, the exordium of which, relative to the healing of the King’s
evil by the King of France, seemed to be noble, do you want the Society
to turn him out for the sole reason that he has a nephew as powerful
as he is amiable? That would be showing a truly ferocious virtue, and
punishing Monseigneur de Séez inhumanly for the grandeur of his family.
The Academy wished to forget that. That alone, my son, is sufficiently
magnanimous.”
I was daring enough to make reply to this speech, so carried away was I
by the fire of youth.
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” said I, “allow my feelings to oppose your arguments.
All the world knows that Monseigneur de Séez has only become
considerable by the suppleness of his character and his manners, and
what one admires in him is his skill in detaching himself from both
parties.... We have seen him glide gently between the Jesuits and the
Jansenists, tincting his pale prudence with the roses of Christian
charity.... He thinks he has done enough when he has displeased no one,
and all his care is to sustain his position. Thus it is not his great
heart which has gained for him the suffrages of the King’s illustrious
_protégés_.[11] Neither is it his great mind. For, with the exception
of this panegyric on St. Maclou, which he had (as all the world knows)
but the trouble of reading, this peace-loving bishop has only let us
hear the depressing instructions issued to his clergy.
“He recommends himself by the amenity of his language and the
politeness of his conversation. Are these sufficient titles to
immortality?”
“Tournebroche,” answered Monsieur l’Abbé, civilly, “you reason with
the simplicity given to you by Madame, your mother, at your birth,
and I see that you will keep your natural candour for long enough. I
congratulate you upon it. But innocence must not make you unjust; it
is enough that it leaves you ignorant. The immortality that they have
bestowed on Monseigneur de Séez does not call for the attainments of a
Bossuet or a Belzunce; it is not graven in the heart of an astounded
people—it is inscribed in a big book; and you can well understand that
these paper laurels only suit the heads of such heroes.
“If, among the Forty, there are persons of more gentility than genius,
what harm do you see in it? Mediocrity triumphs in the Academy. But
where does it not? Do you see it less powerful in Parliament or in
the royal Council, where doubtless it is less fitted to find place?
Must one be an exceptional man to work at a dictionary which wishes to
regulate custom, and can only follow it?
“Academicians, or academists, were instituted, as you know, to fix the
best usage in matters of speech, to purge the language of all archaisms
and vulgar impurities, and to see that a second Rabelais, or a second
Montaigne, does not arise, smelling of the rabble, of pedantry, or of
the provinces. They assembled, to this end, gentlemen, who knew good
usage and writers who were interested in knowing it. That gave rise
to alarm lest the assembly should, tyrannically, reform the French
language. But it was soon recognised that these fears were vain, and
the academists, far from imposing custom, obeyed it. In spite of their
veto we continue to say as before, ‘I shut my door.’[12]
“The Assembly soon resigned itself to entombing the progress of usage
in a big dictionary. It is the sole care of the Immortals.[13] When
they are not sitting they find leisure for recreation with one another.
For that they need pleasant companions, easy and affable, amiable
colleagues, well-informed men, and men who know the world. This is
not always the case with men of great talent. Genius is sometimes
unsociable. An exceptional man is rarely a man of resource. The Academy
could do without Descartes and Pascal. Who says that it could do well
without Monsieur Godeau or Monsieur Conrart, or any other person of a
supple, complacent, and circumspect turn of mind?”
“Alas!” I sighed, “then it is no senate of divine beings, or council of
immortals, no august Areopagus of poetry and eloquence?”
“By no means, my son. It is a society which teaches manners, and which
has gained a great reputation for that among foreign nations, and
particularly among the Muscovites. You have no idea what admiration
the _Académie Française_ inspires among German barons, colonels of
the Russian Army and English milords. Europeans rate nothing higher
than our Academicians and our dancers. I knew a Sarmatian princess
of great beauty who, passing through Paris, impatiently sought for an
academician, whoever he might be, to make him a present of her virtue.”
“If it be thus,” I cried, “why do the academicians risk compromising
their good reputation by these unfortunate selections which are so
universally blamed?”
“Stop, Tournebroche, my son, do not say anything evil of unfortunate
selections,” replied my master. “To begin with, in all human
undertakings one must take into consideration the part played by
chance, which is, upon the whole, the part played by God on earth, and
the only occasion where Divine Providence manifests itself clearly in
this world. For you well understand, my son, that what we call the
absurdity of chance and the caprice of fortune, are, in reality, but
the revenge taken in sport by Divine justice on the counsels of the
would-be wise. In the second place, it is suitable in assemblies to
give some play to caprice and fancy. A perfectly reasonable society
would be a perfectly unbearable one. It would languish under the cold
rule of justice. It would not have any belief in its own power or
freedom if it did not taste, from time to time, the delicious pleasure
of braving public opinion and good sense. It is the darling sin of the
powers of this world to be taken with bizarre caprices. Why should not
the Academy indulge in whims just as much as the Grand Turk or a pretty
woman?
“Many opposite passions unite to inspire these unfortunate selections
which vex simple souls. It is a pleasure for good people to take an
unfortunate mortal and make an academician of him. Thus the God of the
psalmist takes the poor man from his dunghill. _Erigens de stercore
pauperem, ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi
sui._ These are strokes which astonish the nations and those who deal
them must think themselves armed with a mysterious force and terrible
power. And what pleasure to drag the poor soul from his dunghill, while
leaving, meanwhile, some intellectual despot in the shade! It is to
quaff, at a draught, a rare and delicious mixture of charity fulfilled
and jealousy satisfied. It is enjoyment in every sense and content for
the whole man. And you want the academicians to resist the sweetness of
such a philtre!
“We must take into consideration again, that in procuring for
themselves this very sophisticated pleasure, the academicians act for
the best in their own interests. A society formed exclusively of great
men would not be numerous, and would appear rather depressing.
“Great men cannot endure one another, and they have little wit. It is
good to let them mix with smaller fry. It amuses them. The small fry
benefit by their neighbourhood, the great by the comparison with the
small, and there is profit for both one and the other. Let us admire by
what skilful play, what ingenious contrivance, the _Académie Française_
passes on to some of its members the importance it gains from others.
It is a collection of suns and planets, where all shine with their own
or with a borrowed effulgence.
“I go even further. Unfortunate selections are necessary to the
existence of this society. If, in the elections, the Academy did
not take the side of weakness and error, if it did not have the air
of choosing haphazardly at times, it would make itself so hated by
all that it could no longer continue to exist. In the republic of
letters it would be as a tribunal set in the midst of condemned men.
Infallible, it would appear odious. What an affront for those who
were not chosen, were the elected one always the best! The daughter
of Richelieu must seem a little volatile, so as not to appear too
insolent. What saves her is that she takes fancies. Her injustice
proves her innocence. It is because we know her capricious that she
can reject us without wounding us. It is sometimes so advantageous to
her to deceive herself that I am tempted to believe, notwithstanding
appearances, that she does it on purpose. She has admirable ruses for
dealing tactfully with the self-love of the candidates she sets aside.
An election of such a kind disarms envy. It is in her apparent faults
that you must admire her true wisdom.”
FOOTNOTES:
[9]
_Cf._ SAINT-EVREMONT (_Les Académiciens_):
GODEAU. Good-day, dear Colletet.
COLLETET (_throwing himself on his knees_). Say, my lord of Grasse,
What I must do when I before you pass.
Should I not kiss, perhaps, your hallowed shoon?
GODEAU. We are all equal, all Apollo’s own.
“Rise up, my Colletet—”
COLLETET. “Does your worship’s grace
Permit the liberty, to your very face!”
GODEAU. “Our intercourse is nothing changed, elsewhere
You see me bishop; _Godeau_, simply, here.”
Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, lived under the old régime. In those days
it was said that the French Academy had the merit of establishing
perfect equality between its members, an equality not recognised in
law. Nevertheless, it was destroyed in 1793 as “the last refuge of
aristocracy.”
[10] He means the bishop whom the king had appointed distributor of
ecclesiastical patronage.
[11] The king was protector of the Academy.
[12] It is true that the Academy condemned this expression:
“Custom, too strong, as oftentime before,
Makes us, improperly, say _Shut the Door_,
Usage will, daily, authorise a word,
Natheless employed in manner quite absurd.
Would you escape December’s cold and gloom,
You must _Push to the Door_ and _Shut the Room_.”
SAINT-EVREMONT (_Les Académiciens_).
[13] In those days the Academy awarded no prizes.
XIV
SEDITION-MONGERS
My good master and I having paid our accustomed visit at the sign of
the _Image de Sainte Catherine_, we found in the shop the famous Mr.
Rockstrong, mounted on the highest rung of the ladder ferreting out the
old books, of which he is a connoisseur. For it pleases him, as is well
known, in his troubled existence to collect precious books and fine
prints.
Condemned by the English Parliament to imprisonment for life for
taking part in Monmouth’s Rebellion, he lives in France, whence he is
continually sending articles to the gazettes of his country.[14]
My good master, as his habit was, let himself down on to a stool, then
raised his eyes to the ladder where Mr. Rockstrong was turning about
with the squirrel-like agility he has preserved in his declining years.
“God be thanked!” said he, “I see, _Monsieur le Rebelle_, you are as
well and as young as ever.”
Mr. Rockstrong turned on my good master the glowing eyes that light up
his sallow countenance.
“Why do you call me a rebel?” he asked, “you fat Abbé!”
“I call you a rebel, Mr. Rockstrong, because you have failed. One is a
rebel when one is vanquished. Victors are never rebels.”
“Abbé, you speak with a disgusting cynicism.”
“Beware, Mr. Rockstrong; that maxim does not come from me. It comes
from a very great man. I found it among the papers of Julius Cæsar
Scaliger.”