that the growing abundance of memoirs, correspondence, and filed
records, will render the task more difficult to future historians.
Mr. Elward, who gives up his life to the study of the revolution in
England, assures me that one man’s lifetime would not suffice in
which to read the half of what was written during the disturbances.
It reminds me of a story told to me by Monsieur l’Abbé Blanchet on
this subject, which I will tell you as I remember it, regretting that
Monsieur l’Abbé Blanchet is not here to tell it you himself, for he is
a man of wit.
“Here is the apologue:
“When the young prince Zémire succeeded his father on the throne of
Persia, he called all the academicians of his kingdom together, and
said:
“‘The learned Zeb, my instructor, has taught me that monarchs would be
liable to fewer errors if they were enlightened by past experience.
Therefore I wish to study the history of nations. I order you to
compose a universal history and to neglect nothing to make it complete.’
“The wise men promised to carry out the prince’s desire, and having
withdrawn they set to work immediately. At the end of twenty years they
appeared before the king, followed by a caravan composed of twelve
camels each bearing 500 volumes. The secretary of the academy, having
prostrated himself on the steps of the throne, spoke in these terms:
“‘Sire, the academicians of your kingdom have the honour to place
at your feet the universal history that they have compiled at your
majesty’s behests. It comprises 6000 volumes and contains all that
we could possibly collect regarding the customs of nations and the
vicissitudes of empires. We have inserted the ancient chronicles which
have been luckily preserved, and we have illustrated them with abundant
notes on geography, chronology, and diplomacy. The prolegomena are
alone one camel’s load, and the paralipomena are borne with great
difficulty by another camel.’
“The king answered:
“‘Gentlemen, I thank you for the trouble that you have taken. But I
am very busy with the cares of state. Moreover, I have aged while you
worked. I am arrived, as says the Persian poet, half-way along the road
of life, and even supposing I die full of years, I cannot reasonably
hope to have the time to read such a lengthy history. It shall be
placed in the archives of the kingdom. Be good enough to make me a
summary better fitted to the brevity of human life.’
“The Persian academicians worked twenty years; then they brought to
the king 1500 volumes on three camels.
“‘Sire,’ said the permanent secretary, in a weakened voice, ‘here is
our new work. We believe we have omitted nothing essential.’
“‘That may be,’ answered the king, ‘but I shall not read it. I am old;
lengthy undertakings do not suit my years; abridge it further and do
not be long about it.’
“They lingered so little that at the end of ten years they returned
followed by a young elephant bearing 500 volumes.
“‘I flatter myself I have been succinct,’ said the permanent secretary.
“‘You have not yet been sufficiently so,’ answered the king.
“‘I am at the end of my life. Abridge, abridge, if you want me to know
the history of mankind ere I die.’
“The permanent secretary reappeared before the palace at the end of
five years. Walking with crutches, he held by the bridle a small donkey
which bore a big book on its back.
“‘Hasten,’ said the officer to him, ‘the king is dying.’
“The king in fact was on his death-bed. He turned on the academician
and his big book his nearly expiring gaze, and said with a sigh:
“‘I shall die, then, without knowing the history of mankind!’
“‘Sire,’ replied the learned man, who was almost as near death as
himself, ‘I will sum it up for you in three words: _They were born,
they suffered, they died!_’
“Thus did the king of Persia learn the history of the world in the
evening of his life.”
XVII
MONSIEUR NICODÈME
While, at the sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_, my good master,
seated on the highest rung of the ladder, was reading Cassiodorus with
great pleasure, an elderly man came into the shop, of an arrogant air,
and severe aspect. He went straight to Monsieur Blaizot, who smilingly
stretched his head over the counter.
“Monsieur,” he said, “you are sworn bookseller, and I must take you for
a well-conducted man. Nevertheless, in your display of goods a volume
of the works of Ronsard is open at the frontispiece, which represents a
naked woman. And it is a thing not fit to be looked at.”
“Pardon me, Monsieur,” replied Monsieur Blaizot, gently, “it is a
frontispiece of Léonard Gautier’s who, in his day, was considered a
very able draughtsman.”
“It matters little to me,” replied the elder, “that the draughtsman
was clever. All that I take into consideration is that he represented
nudities. This figure has nothing on but its hair, and I am grievously
surprised, Monsieur, that a man of age and prudence, such as you
appear, should expose it to the gaze of the young men who frequent the
Rue St. Jacques. You would do well to burn it, following the example of
Father Garasse, who expended his means in acquiring, in order to burn
them, a number of books opposed to public decency and to the Society
of Jesus. At least, it would be more decent in you to hide it in the
most secret recess of your shop, which conceals, I fear, many a book
calculated to excite minds to vice, not only by their text, but by
their plates.”
Monsieur Blaizot replied, reddening, that such a suspicion was unjust,
and it grieved him coming from a worthy man.
“I must tell you who I am,” said the elder. “You see before you
Monsieur Nicodème, the President of the Purity League. The end that I
pursue is to outdo in niceness in the matter of modesty the regulations
of the _Lieutenant de Police_. I busy myself, with the help of a
dozen Parliamentary councillors, and two hundred churchwardens from
the principal parishes, in clearing away nudities exposed in public
places, such as squares, boulevards, streets, alleys, quays, courts,
and gardens. And, not content with establishing modesty in the public
way, I exert myself to spread its dominion even into the salon, the
study, and the bedroom, whence it is but too often banished. Know,
Monsieur, that the Society that I have founded has trousseaux made for
young married people, containing long and ample night-garments which
permit these young spouses chastely to go about the execution of God’s
commandment relative to increase and multiplication. And, to mingle
charm, if I may say so, with austerity, these garments are trimmed with
pleasing embroidery. I plume myself on having thus invented garments of
an intimate nature so well designed to make another Sarah and Tobias of
all our young couples, and to cleanse the sacrament of marriage from
the impurities which unfortunately have clung to it.”
My good master, who, his nose in Cassiodorus, had been listening to
their discourse, replied with the utmost gravity from the top of his
ladder, that he thought the invention admirable, and praiseworthy, but
that he had a still more excellent one of the kind.
“I would that our young spouses,” said he, “were rubbed from head
to foot with blacking before they met, making their skin like
boot-leather, which would greatly damp the criminal ardours of the
flesh, and be a grievous obstacle to the caresses, kisses, and
endearments that lovers practise too generally between the sheets.”
Monsieur Nicodème, lifting his head at these words, saw my good master
on the ladder, and saw also from his demeanour that he was laughing at
him.
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” said he, with sadness and indignation, “I would
forgive you did you merely laugh at me. But you ridicule at the same
time, decency and public morals, and there you are much to blame. In
spite of wicked jokes, the Society that I have founded has already done
good and useful work. Crack your jokes, sir! We have fixed six hundred
vine or fig-leaves on the statues in the king’s gardens.”
“Admirable indeed, sir,” responded my good master, adjusting his
spectacles, “and at that rate every statue will soon have its leaf.
But (seeing that objects have no meaning for us save by association of
ideas) in placing vine-leaves and fig-leaves on statues, you transfer
the quality of indecency to the leaves; so that one can no longer
see vine or fig-tree on the countryside without conceiving them as
sheltering some indecency; and it is no small sin, my good sir, to fix
immodesty on these innocent plants. Allow me to tell you further that
it is a dangerous thing to make a study, as you do, of everything that
may cause disquietude and uneasiness to the flesh, without reflecting
that if a given shape be such as to scandalise souls, each of us who
bears the original of that shape will scandalise himself, except he be
less than a man—a thing one does not like to contemplate.”
“Monsieur,” responded the aged Nicodème, rather heatedly, “I gather
from the language you hold that you are a libertine and a debauchee.”
“Monsieur,” said my good master, “I am a Christian, and as for living
in debauchery, I could not think of such a thing, having enough to
do to gain my daily bread, wine, and tobacco. Such as you see me,
Monsieur, I know no orgy but the silent orgies of meditation, and the
only feast I sit down to is the feast of the Muses. But I, as a wise
man, consider that it is a bad thing to outbid in shamefacedness the
teachings of the Catholic religion, which on this subject allows a good
deal of liberty, and adjusts itself easily to people’s customs and
prejudices. I take you to be tainted with Calvinism and to be leaning
to the heresy of iconoclasm. For, in truth, one does not know whether
your zeal will not go so far as to burn images of God and the saints,
from hatred of the humanity evident in them. Such words as modesty,
decency, and shame, which come so readily from your mouth, have as a
matter of fact no precise and constant meaning. Custom and nice feeling
can alone define them with truth and moderation. I only acknowledge
poets, artists, and pretty women, as judges in these delicate matters.
What an extraordinary notion, to set up a row of attorneys in judgment
on Grace and Pleasure!”
“But, Monsieur,” replied the aged Nicodème, “we have nothing to do with
Smiles or Graces, still less with images of God and the saints, and you
are maliciously fastening a quarrel on us. We are decent people, who
wish to turn aside the eyes of our sons from improper sights, and one
knows well enough what is decent and what is not. Do you wish, Monsieur
l’Abbé, that our young people should be open to every temptation of the
streets?”
“Ah! Monsieur,” replied my good master. “We must all be tempted. It is
the lot of men and Christians on this earth. And the most formidable
temptation comes from within—not from without. You would not take so
much trouble to remove from the shop windows any sketch of nude women
if, as I have done, you had studied the lives of the Fathers of the
desert. There you would have seen how, in a frightful wilderness, far
from any carved or painted shape, torn with hair-shirts, macerated with
penance, faint from fasting, tossing on a bed of thorns, the anchorites
were penetrated to the very marrow with the prickings of carnal
desire. In their wretched cells they saw visions a thousand times more
voluptuous than this allegory which offends you in Monsieur Blaizot’s
window.
“The devil, or, as free-thinkers would say, nature, is a better painter
of lascivious scenes than Giulio Romano himself. He surpasses all the
Italian and Flemish masters in grouping, movement, and colour. Alas!
one is powerless against his glowing pictures. Those that shock you
are of small account in comparison, and you would do wisely to leave
to the care of the _Lieutenant de Police_, as your fellow citizens are
willing it should be left, the guardianship of public decency. Truly
your ingenuousness astonishes me; you have little notion what a man is,
and what society is, and of the fever and insurgence of a great city.
Oh! the silly greybeards, who in the midst of all the uncleanness
of a Babylon where every lifted curtain shows the eye or the arm of
a courtesan, where busy humanity touch and quicken one another in
the public squares, fall a-groaning and complaining of a few naughty
pictures hung up on book-sellers’ stalls; and carry their lamentations
even to the very Parliament of the kingdom when a woman has shown her
legs to some fellows in a dancing-saloon—just the most ordinary sight
in the world for them.”
Thus spoke my good master from the top of his ladder. But Monsieur
Nicodème stopped his ears in order not to hear him, and cried out on
his cynicism.
“Heavens!” he sighed, “what can be more disgusting than a naked woman,
and how shameful to compromise, as does this Abbé, with an immorality
which is the ruin of a country, for people can only exist by purity of
morals.”
“It is true, Monsieur,” said my good master, “that peoples are strong
only so long as they preserve their morals; but by that is understood
a community of rules, opinions, and interests, and a generous-minded
obedience to law; not trifles such as occupy you. Beware, moreover,
lest shamefacedness, failing as a charm, become but a piece of
stupidity, and less the artless dullness of your fears present a
ridiculous spectacle and one not a little indecent.”
But Monsieur Nicodème had already left the place.
XVIII
JUSTICE
Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, who should rather have been nourished at the
Prytaneum by a grateful republic, gained his bread by writing letters
for servant-girls in a stall near the cemetery of the Innocents. There
he happened to serve in the office of secretary to a Portuguese lady
who was crossing France, with her nigger-boy. She gave him a _liard_
for a letter written to her husband, and an _écu_ of six _livres_ for
another to her lover. It was the first _écu_ my good master had handled
since the feast of St. John; and since he was open-handed, even to
magnificence, he straightway took me to the _Pomme d’Or_, on the Quai
de Grève, close to the Town-hall, where the wine is not doctored, and
the sausages are of the best. And the big dealers, who buy apples
on the Mall, go there ordinarily towards midday to try to best one
another. It was spring-time, and sweet to be alive on such a day. My
good master had our table spread on the embankment, and we hearkened,
as we dined, to the lapping of the water under the oars of the boatmen.
A light caressing breeze laved us with gentle breath, and we were
glad to be alive and in the sunlight. While we were eating our fried
gudgeons a noise of men and horses at our elbow made us turn round.
Guessing what made us curious a dingy little old man, at the next
table, said, with an obliging smile:
“It is nothing, gentlemen—a servant-girl whom they are taking to be
hanged for stealing some bits of lace from her mistress.”
And indeed, as he spoke, we saw, seated at the tail of a cart between
two mounted police-sergeants, a girl, quite pretty, her appearance
bewildered, her bosom forced into relief by the drag of her arms, which
were bound behind her back. She passed in a moment, and yet I shall
always see before my eyes that vision of a white face, and that look
that already stared out upon nothing.
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the dingy little old man, “she is the servant
of Madame Josse, the councillor’s wife, and to make herself smart when
going with her lover to Ramponneau’s stole from her mistress a lace
head-dress in _point a’ Alençon_, and then, having committed the
theft, ran away. She was taken in a house by the Pont-au-Change, and at
once confessed her crime. Accordingly she was not put to the torture
for more than an hour or two. What I tell you, gentlemen, I know to be
true, as I am beadle at the court where she was tried.”
The dingy little old man attacked his sausage, for it was getting cold,
and continued:
“She should be at the scaffold by now, and in five minutes, perhaps a
little more, perhaps a little less, the pretty rogue will have given up
the ghost. Some of the hanged give no trouble to the executioner. No
sooner is the cord round their neck than they quietly expire. But there
are others who positively live at the rope’s end, and make a furious
to-do about it. The most demoniacal of all was a priest, who was
sentenced last year for forging the Royal signature on lottery tickets.
For more than twenty minutes he fought like a carp on the end of a line.
“He! He!” chuckled the little old man, “the Abbé was modest and did
not want the honour of a step up in the world. I saw him when they
took him out of the cart. He cried and struggled so that the hangman
said to him: ‘Do not be a child, Monsieur l’Abbé!’ But the oddest
thing was, that, there being another thief along with him, he was, at
first, taken for the chaplain, and that by the executioner, whom the
police-officer had the greatest difficulty in undeceiving. Wasn’t that
amusing?”
“No, Monsieur,” replied my good master, letting the fish, he had
held to his lips for some moments, fall on his plate. “No, it is not
amusing, and the thought that that nice-looking girl is at this moment
yielding up her soul spoils the taste of my gudgeons for me, and the
joy of seeing the sky above, which smiled on me but a moment back.”
“Ah, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said the little official, “if you are so
sensitive as all that, you could never have witnessed without fainting
what my father saw with his own eyes, when yet a child, at Dijon, his
native town. Have you ever heard speak of Hélène Gillet?”
“Never,” said my master.
“In that case I will tell you her story, as my father, many a time,
told it to me.”
He drank off his wine, wiped his lips with a corner of the cloth, and
recounted the history I here repeat.
XIX
THE BEADLE’S STORY
In the year 1624, in the month of October, Hélène Gillet, aged
twenty-two, daughter of the governor-royal of Bourg-en-Bresse, who was
still under the paternal roof, along with her brothers yet of tender
years, showed such visible signs of being with child that it was the
talk of the town, and the young girls of Bourg ceased to associate with
her. It was noticed next that her figure went down, and such comments
were made that the _Lieutenant-Criminel_ ordered her to be examined by
a jury of matrons. These latter reported that she had been with child
and that her confinement had taken place at least fifteen days before.
On their report, Hélène Gillet was put in prison and was questioned by
the Court of First Instance. She there made a confession:
“‘Some months ago,’ she told them, ‘a young man from the
neighbourhood, who was staying at my uncle’s house, came to my father’s
to teach the boys to read and write. He possessed me but once. It
was through a servant who locked me up in a room with him. There he
ravished me.’ And when they asked her why she had not cried for help,
she replied that surprise had taken away her voice. Pressed by the
judges, she added, that in consequence of this violation she became
with child and was delivered prematurely. Far from having helped on the
birth, she would not have known what it was, had not a servant revealed
to her the true nature of the occurrence.
“The magistrates, dissatified with her replies, did not know, all the
same, how to contradict them, when an unexpected witness came forward
to furnish certain proofs of the accusation. A soldier, who happened
to pass when out walking by the garden of Monsieur Pierre Gillet, the
governor-royal, father of the accused, saw in a ditch, at the foot of
the wall, a raven trying to pull away a cloth with its beak. He went
up to it to see what it was and found the body of a little child.
He immediately informed the authorities. The child was wrapped in
a chemise marked with the letters H. G. on the neck. It was proved
to have been a full-term child, and Hélène Gillet, convicted of
infanticide, was condemned to death according to custom. On account of
the honourable post held by her father she was permitted to enjoy the
privilege accorded those of noble birth, and the sentence ran that her
head should be cut off.
“An appeal having been made to the Parliament of Dijon, she was
conducted under the guard of two archers to the capital of Burgundy,
and shut in the conciergerie of the Palace. Her mother, who had gone
with her, withdrew to the house of the Bernardine nuns. The case was
heard by the members of Parliament on Monday the 12th of May, the last
sitting before Whitsuntide. On the report of Counsellor Jacob the
judges confirmed the sentence of the Bourg Court of First Instance,
ordering that the condemned should be led to execution with the cord
round her neck. It was generally remarked that this circumstance of
infamy was added in a strange and unusual fashion to the punishment of
a noble, and such severity, which was against all rules, was greatly
blamed. But the decree admitted of no appeal, and had to be carried out
immediately.
“And indeed, on the same day, at half-past three in the afternoon,
Hélène Gillet was led to the scaffold, the bells tolling the while, in
a procession, heralded by trumpets, which sounded such a peal that all
the good folk of the town heard it in their houses, and falling on
their knees prayed for the soul of her who was about to die. The deputy
King’s-attorney advanced on horseback followed by his attendants. Then
came the condemned woman in a cart, the cord round her neck according
to the decree of Parliament.
“She was attended by two Jesuit fathers and two Capuchin brothers, who
held up before her Jesus dying on the Cross. Near by stood the headsman
with his sword and the headswoman with a pair of shears. A company of
archers surrounded the cart. Behind pressed a crowd of curious people
where might have been discerned many small tradesmen, bakers, butchers,
masons, from whom a great tumult arose.
“The procession stopped on the place called Place Morimont not, as
might be thought, because it was the place of public execution, but
in remembrance of the mitred and croziered abbots of Morimont, who
formerly had their house there. The wooden scaffold was set up on some
stone steps adjoining a humble chapel where the monks were wont to pray
for the souls of the victims.
“Hélène Gillet ascended the steps with the four religious, the
headsman, and his wife the headswoman. The latter, having withdrawn
the cord which encircled the victim’s neck, cut her hair with shears
half a foot long and bandaged her eyes; the religious prayed aloud.
The headsman, however, began to tremble and turn pale. He was one,
Simon Grandjean, a feeble-looking man, and as gentle and timorous
of appearance as his wife, the headswoman, was savage. He had taken
communion that morning in prison, and yet he felt upset and without
courage to put this child to death. He leant over towards the crowd:
“‘Your pardon, all of you,’ he said, ‘if I do what I have to do badly.
I have a fever on me I have been unable to shake off for three months.’
“Then tottering, wringing his hands, lifting his eyes to heaven, he
fell on his knees before Hélène Gillet, and twice asked her pardon. He
asked a blessing from the priests, and when the headswoman had arranged
the victim on the block he lifted his sword.
“The Jesuits and the Capuchins cried out ‘Jesus! Mary!’ and a groan
went up from the crowd. The blow, which should have severed the neck,
made a large gash on the left shoulder, and the poor creature fell over
on her right side.
“Simon Grandjean, turning to the crowd, exclaimed:
“‘Let me die!’
“Hooting arose, and some stones were thrown on the scaffold where the
headswoman was replacing the victim on the block.
“Her husband again took his sword. Striking a second time, he deeply
gashed the neck of the poor girl, who fell on the sword, which slipped
from the hands of the executioner.
“This time the uproar from the crowd was terrible, and such a hail of
stones showered on the scaffold that Simon Grandjean and the Jesuits
and the Capuchins jumped down. They managed to gain the low-roofed
chapel and shut themselves in. The headswoman, left alone with the
victim, looked for the sword. Not seeing it, she took the cord with
which Hélène Gillet had been led there, knotted it round the neck, and
setting her foot on her chest tried to strangle her.
“Hélène, seizing the cord with both hands, defended herself, all
bleeding as she was; whereupon the woman Grandjean dragged her by the
cord, head downwards, to the edge of the platform, and, having got her
to the stone steps, she cut her throat with the shears.