the wishes of parents, and that is precisely the sign of the real vocation
... to shatter obstacles. Where is the great artist, the great man, the
hero, the saint, the martyr, who has not had to struggle with his own
family?
--I am not speaking of a vocation, sir, but of prejudices, of fatal habits,
of disheartening nonsense, which children, and especially young girls,
imbibe in certain surroundings. The education which my daughter has
received, has inoculated her with ideas which I am far from blaming in a
woman--I have my religion myself too--but the abuse of which I resent. I am
not then at war with my daughter because she has her own, and her own is
more receptive, but what I blame with all my power, and what I am
determined to oppose with all my power is the excessive attendance at
church and on the priest ... on the priest, above all. You are a man, sir,
and you understand me, do you not?
--I understand, Captain, that you do not wish your daughter to go to
church.
--As little as possible, sir.
--Nevertheless, as a Christian and as a Catholic, she has duties to
perform.
--What do you mean by duties?
--Why, the first elements which the Catechism prescribes.
--I do not remember exactly what your catechism prescribes, but if you mean
by that the little box where they tell their sins, that is exactly what I
absolutely forbid.
--Nevertheless a young person has need of counsel.
--Undoubtedly; but that counsel I intend to give myself.
--There is also the priest's part, Captain.
--Allow me to have another opinion. Besides, the adviser is too young; that
is why, Monsieur le Curé, I ask you to abstain in the future from all
advice, and undertake to abandon any intention you may have with regard to
the direction of this young soul. Such is the purport of my visit.
--Monsieur le Capitaine, answered Marcel, relieved from a great weight, I
am an honourable man. Another perhaps might be offended at this proceeding.
I will take no offence at it. Another perhaps might answer: "It is a soul
to contend for with Satan; it is the struggle between the Church and the
family; an old struggle, sir, an eternal struggle. You are master to impose
your will among your own, just as among us, we are masters to act according
to our conscience. As a father of a family, your rights are sacred, but
they stop at the entrance to the holy place. You desire the struggle. It
lies between us." For myself I simply reply: "Let it be done according to
your wish, and may the will of God equally be done!"
--And what does that mean?
--That your daughter is and shall be in my eyes like all the souls which
Heaven has willed to entrust to my care. If she does not come to church, I
will not go to seek her; but if she comes there, I cannot ask her to
depart.
--You are really too good. And if she comes and kneels in the little box?
--Then the will of God will be stronger than the paternal will.
--That is no answer.
--Well! what can I do? humbly replied Marcel.
--Allow me, sir; I ask you what you would do in such a case.
--I make you the judge of it; can I treat your daughter differently to the
other ladies of the parish?
--That is to say that you will receive her confession?
--That will be my duty, Captain. I am frank also, you see.
--But, Monsieur le Curé, the first of your duties is not to encourage the
disobedience of children, and not to place yourself between a father and
his daughter.
--I place myself on no side, Captain. I confine myself, as far as I can, to
the very obscure and modest character of a poor priest. I am charged with
an office; is it possible, I ask you yourself, for me to repel those who
address themselves to that office?
--Very good, sir, said the Captain rising; I know henceforth what to rely
on.
--Pardon me, Captain, but allow me to say that your proceedings and
apprehensions appear to me a trifle superfluous; for indeed, if you have a
reproach to make your daughter, it is not that of excessive devotion, for
it is a long time since she has come to church.
--I have forbidden it to her, sir. But my daughter is grieved, and that
pains me. I came to address myself to you, man to man, and as you see, I am
disappointed.
--Believe me, Captain, let the thing alone. Do nothing in a hurry. Young
people are irritated by obstacles. They need freedom and diversion. Think
of this young lady's position, dropped from her school into the midst of
this solitude, having neither friends or companions any longer; at that
age, the family is not everything; books, walks, music are not sufficient,
What harm is there in her coming sometimes on Sunday, to hear Divine
Service? We do not conceal it from ourselves, sir, that many women whom we
see at service, come there for relaxation.
--And it is precisely that relaxation which ruins them.
--Not in the church, sir.
--Not there, no. But behind, in the sacristy, or at the back of some
well-closed room. Adieu, sir.
--I do not want to criticize your language, Captain But one word more, I
ask. Is your daughter acquainted with your proceeding?
--Why that question?
--Because then my task will be all traced out.
--What task?
--To avoid every sort....
--Of intercourse. Do what honour counsels you, and trust to me for the
rest. I will act with my daughter as it will be suitable for me to act. As
for you, you have asserted that any other priest _less honourable_ would
have said to me: "We are going to engage in the struggle, it lies between
us." I see now that in your mouth the word _honourable_ signifies _polite_,
for you have been polite, but the other alone would have been frank and
honourable. "Between us" is better, "between us" pleases me. It is plainer
and shorter. Again, I have the honour to salute you.
LIX.
ACTS AND WORDS.
"Intrigues of heavy dreams! We go
to the right; darkness: we go to the
left; darkness: in front; darkness ...
the thread which you think you hold,
escapes out of your hand, and, triumphant
for a moment, you set yourself
again to grope your way to the catastrophe,
which is a denseness of shadows."
CAMILLE LEMONNIERE (_Croquis d'automne_).
When the Captain had gone away, Marcel perceived the triumphant face of his
servant. Mad with shame and rage he shut himself up in his room, and asked
himself what was going to become of him. "What am I to do?" he said to
himself; "here is the punishment already."
Nevertheless, on serious reflection, he saw a way all traced out before
him; it was the ancient, the good, the old way which he had followed until
then, and into which the Captain had just brutally driven him back:
The way of his duty.
To forget Suzanne! He had that very morning, without wishing it, almost
unknowingly, commenced the rapture; the father's visit had just completed
the work.
To forget Suzanne! Yes, he would forget her, he must; not only his honour,
his reputation, but his very existence were involved in it. Material
impossibilities rose up before him in every direction where he tried to
deviate from the straight path. His servant! The father! He was compelled
to be an honourable man anyhow, not lost sight of, watched and spied upon
by these two enemies.
To forget Suzanne! How, after what had passed the previous day, would he
dream for a moment of remembering her? He was almost thankful to his
servant for having stopped him in time on a descent, at the end of which
was scandal and dishonour.
In any other circumstances his pride would have revolted at the menaces of
the foolish father, he would have been stung in his self-esteem, and he
would have disputed with him for his treasure. But where was his pride?
Where was his dignity? He had left all that on the lap of a cook.
Reputation was safe; that was henceforth the only good which he must keep
at any price.
"Come," said he, "keep it, have courage. Stand up, son of saints and
martyrs. Yield not, hesitate not, march forward, without being anxious for
what is on the right or left. Do thy duty in one direction, since in the
other thou hast failed. Is a man then lost because he has for one moment
deviated from his way? Is he dead for one false step? Peter denied his
master three times, thou hast done so but once!"[1]
The postman's ring drew him from his reverie. He ran to receive the letter,
recognized the writing, hastily put it into his pocket, took up his hat and
his breviary, and went out without saying a word.
When he was in the little hollow road which is at the bottom of the hill,
he turned round, and, certain that he was not being followed, only then did
he open the letter which follows:
"MONSIEUR LE CURÉ,
"Why are you vexed with me? If you have not seen me any more at Mass, it is
that I have had to contend with my father, and that I have been obliged to
yield. Nevertheless, I am unhappy, and more than ever have I need of your
counsel. You have said: 'We cannot serve two masters,' and 'it is very
difficult to render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which
is God's.' One word, if you please, through the medium of Marianne to
"Your very devoted
"S.D."
He tore up the letter into the smallest fragments and returned home in all
haste.
A few hours after, Marianne received the following notice:
_"To-morrow evening at 7 o'clock, in honour of the Holy Virgin, there will
be Salutation and Benediction at the Chapel of St. Anne. The faithful are
besought to attend."_
[Footnote 1: Thou art man and not God, says the holy book of Consolation,
thou art flesh and not an angel. How canst thou always continue in very
virtue?]
LX.
TALKS.
"When from the hills fell balmy night,
'Neith the dark foliage of the lofty trees,
Starred by the moon-beams' placid light,
Often we wandered by the water's side."
CAMILLE DELTHIL (_Poésie inédite_).
As he expected, she did not fail to be at the meeting-place. She was
unaware of her father's proceedings; it was Marcel who informed her of
them. She was quite terrified; but he reassured her, and knew how to soothe
her young conscience; and meeting followed meeting. Dear and innocent
meetings. The most prudish old woman would have found nothing to find fault
with. The mystery, and their being forbidden, formed all their charm.
The Chapel of St. Anne, half-a-league distant from the village, was a
charming object for a walk. You cross the meadow as far as the little
river, bordered with willows, then the chapel is reached by a hollow lane
hedged with quicksets. The sweet month of May had begun. Three evenings a
week the little nave was in festal dress, and filled with light, and
perfumes and flowers.
Suzanne went no more to Mass, but she had said to her father:
--Will you not let me go instead and take a walk sometimes beside Saint
Anne's, to hear the music and the singing of the congregation?
--Marianne shall accompany you, replied Durand.
They were always the last to leave the chapel, and Marcel soon rejoined
them. It was at some winding of the path that he used to meet them _by
chance_, and every time he showed great surprise. They walked slowly along,
talking of one thing and another. The Spring, the latest books, the _good_
Captain's rheumatism, were themes of inexhaustible variety. The future
sometimes attracted their thoughts, her own future; and the priest tried to
cause a few fresh rays to shine into the young unquiet soul.
They talked also of the school and of friends who had gone out into the
world. One of them, a fair child with blue eyes, was her best-beloved and
the fairest of the fair, and Marcel sometimes felt jealous of these warm,
young-girl friendships.
He did not disdain to talk of fashions; it is one way of pleasing, and he
admired aloud the elegant cut of the waist, the twig of lilac fastened to
the body of her dress, and the graceful art which had twined her long jetty
plaits. She smiled and said: "What, you too; you too; you pay attention to
these woman's trifles!"
But what matters the topic of their conversations, all they could say was
not worth the joyous note which sang at the bottom of their hearts.
When they drew near the village he bowed to her respectfully, and each one
returned by a different way.
Marianne was then profuse in her praises:
-What a fine Curé! she said, so kind and civil. If your father only knew
him better!
And Suzanne, who returned very thoughtful, said once: "The Curé! can it be?
It is the Curé then."
LXI.
LE PÈRE HYACINTHE.
"She still preserved for herself that
little scene; thus, little by little, we
accumulate within ourselves all the
elements of the inner life."
EMILE LECLERCQ (_Une fille du peuple_).
She had shown Marcel the portrait of her beloved Rose. "Yes, she is very
pretty," he had replied, "but I prefer dark girls ..." Suzanne blushed. He
opened his breviary and drew out a card.
--Are you going to show me a dark girl? she said.
He handed it to her without answering.
It was the photograph of a man of about forty, with strongly-marked and
characteristic features. The eyes, prominent and slightly veiled, were
surrounded with a dark ring, a token of struggle, fatigue and deception. A
profile out of a picture of Holbein in every-day dress.
--It is a priest, she cried.
--It is a priest, indeed, answered Marcel. We are recognized in any
costume. We cannot conceal our identity. Do you know who that is?
--Is it not that monk who has made such a noise? That Dominican who has
married, and broken with the Church?
--Yes, Mademoiselle.
The young girl regarded it with curiosity.
--It must have been a violent passion to come to that, she said.
--No, it was an idea well resolved upon and matured. No transport of youth
carried him away. See, he is no longer young, and the companion he has
chosen is very nearly his own age, and he had for her only a tender and
holy feeling.
--Why then this uproar and scandal?
--In order to protest aloud against a rule which he did not approve. In our
days there are so many cowardly and degenerate characters, that we cannot
too greatly admire those who have the courage to proclaim their opinion in
the presence of the mob, especially when those opinions shock the
brutalized mob; for my part I admire this man; but what I admire still more
is the woman who has dared to put her hand in his, and brave the derision
of the vulgar, and the calumnies of hypocrites.
--But his vows?
--What is a vow when it is a question of the duty which your conscience
dictates? I heard him say one day: "If, after reaching middle age, I have
decided after long reflection to choose a companion, it is not in response
to the cry of the senses, but in order to sanctify my life." He has taken
back the word which he had given, as we all do, at an age when we are
ignorant of the import, and the consequence of that word. Be assured that
his conscience does not reproach him, for you can see on this fine
countenance that his conscience is at rest. Besides, is it the case that
God enjoins celibacy? The celibacy of priests dates only from the year
1010: Christ never speaks about it.
--And so he has broken with all his past, his relations, his world; he has
ruined what you men call his future. He must begin his life again.
--And he begins it again in accordance with his inclinations, his needs and
his heart: It is never too late to change the road when we discover that we
have taken the wrong way. It takes longer time, there is more hardship, but
what matters it, provided we attain happiness, the end which we all have in
view. Ah, Mademoiselle, how many, like he, would wish to begin their life
again, if they found a courageous soul who was willing to accompany them?
The future, do you say? But the future, the present, the past, the whole
life lies in the sweet union of hearts. To devote oneself, to renounce
everything, to give up everything, even one's illusions, one's beliefs,
one's dreams for the loved object, is not a sacrifice: it is the sweetest
of joys and the noblest of duties.
He stopped, fearing that he had gone too far, and did not dare to look at
Suzanne.
She answered coldly. "Ah, Monsieur le Curé, you approve of that! I did not
think you would have approved of Père Hyacinth; truly, I am astonished."
_Monsieur le Curé_! It was the first time Suzanne had called him _Monsieur
le Curé_. That name wounded him like an affront. He remembered what he was,
and what he must not cease to be in the eyes of the young girl: the Curé!
nothing but the Curé.
And he was sick at heart for several days.
But one fine morning, on coming out from Mass, his countenance lit up, he
uttered a cry of joy and fell into the arms of Abbé Ridoux.
LXII.
THE HAPPY CURÉ
"Such was Socrates said to have
been, because the outside beholders,
and those estimating him by his external
appearance, would not have given the
slice of an onion, so plain was he in
his person, and ridiculous in his bearing ...
simple in habits, poor in fortune,
unfortunate with women, unfit
for all the offices of the republic,
always laughing, always drinking with
one or another, always sporting, always
concealing his divine wisdom."
RABELAIS (_Gargantua_).
Monsieur Ridoux was a very good fellow, but he was not handsome. A big
nose, a big belly, blinking eyes, an enormous mouth, hair on end, the arm
of a chimpanzee, and the legs of a Greenlander. At first sight, he gave me
the impression of a monkey with young.
But what is a man's outward form? The vessel, more or less regular, filled
with a baneful or beneficent liquid, and you all know that the shape of the
flagon has no influence on the quality of the wine.
The outward form is the wrapper of the goods: very often that wrapper is
brilliant and gilded, of satin or watered silk, and the goods are
adulterated and spoiled. At other times the wrapper is rough and coarse,
but it enfolds precious commodities.
The stamp of genius is usually found only on countenances with fantastic
features. Have you ever seen on the fair insipid faces of our _young
swells_ the imprint of a powerful and fertile intelligence?
The body nearly always is adorned at the expense of the mind.
Of all the deformities of nature, the hunchbacks are intellectual in
proportion as the handsome men are not.
Enquire of the army its opinion on its pre-eminently _fine man_, the
drum-major.
Vincent Voiture, who had, as he confessed himself, the silly face of a
dreaming sheep, used to say that nature usually likes to place the most
precious souls in ill-favoured, puny bodies, as jewellers set the richest
diamonds in a small quantity of gold.
Accordingly, the pitiful wrapper of the Abbé Ridoux covered an excellent
soul. With his ugly face and his old stained cassock, he reminded me of
those dirty bottles, coated with spider-webs and dust, which we place
daintily on the table on days of rejoicing, and which lord it majestically
among the glittering decanters, soon to be despised, when their dusty sides
appear.
Thus Monsieur Ridoux lorded it amongst his curates, younger, handsomer,
fresher, more tasty than himself, and eclipsed them by all the brilliancy
of his good-sense, his tact, and his experience.
He had certainly his little failings!... Who can say that he is exempt from
them? But his mind was sound. A good companion, besides, and of a cheerful
disposition. "We have reached a period," he used to say, "when the priest
must lay aside the stern front and the anathema. There is already much to
obtain pardon for in the colour of his robe. Let us be cheerful, let us be
insinuating, let us be compassionate to human weaknesses. Let us sin, if
need be, with discretion and propriety; but, in heaven's name, let us not
terrify. Let us promise paradise to all. There are always plenty enough
whose life is a hell."
In that he was not of Veuillot's opinion, that rigid saint, who wished to
see all the world damned for the love of God.
Therefore, on seeing this cheerful countenance, this openness of manner,
this freedom of speech, this unrestrained good-nature, even those who had
been warned, could not help saying: "Well indeed! this Curé has a pleasant
phiz!"
Slanderous tongues, Voltairians--who is sheltered from the stings of that
race of vipers?--slanderous tongues affirmed that beneath this Rabelaisian
exterior, he was profoundly vicious, artful, and hypocritical. Marcel, who
had been brought up by him, and was acquainted with the most secret details
of his inmost life, has always assured me that he was nothing of the kind,
and that his uncle Ridoux, endowed with the ugliness of Socrates, had also
his wisdom.
Nevertheless, I would not dare to assert that he did not like to pinch the
young girls' chins, especially of those who had made their first communion
and were near to the marriageable age; a familiarity which, thanks to his
gray hairs, and the development of his abdomen, he thought was permitted
him, but which, however, is not always without danger.
Cazotte, a wise man, used to say to his daughters: "When you are alone with
young people, distrust yourselves; but if you find yourselves with old men,
distrust them, and avoid allowing them to take hold of your chin."
Cazotte was right, for old men begin with that. I would not dare either to
assert that the charms of his cook were safe from his indiscreet curiosity,
for it is there too that old men finish; and we must swear not at all.
Everybody knows the wise man's precept: "When in doubt, abstain."
At the period of which I am speaking to you, he reigned in a good parish,
well frequented by devout ladies, both young and middle-aged, where from
the height of his pulpit he laid down his laws to his kneeling people,
without hindrance or control.
He was happy, as all wise men ought to be. Happy to be in the world,
satisfied to be a Curé. "It is the first of professions," he often used to
say, and there is not one of them which can be compared to it.
"I am a village Curé,
Where I live most modestly;
I'm no important person,
But I'm happy and content
No, I do not envy aught,
For my wants they are but small.
How I love to pass my days
Within the house of God!"
But if he had complained, it would have been very hard, and everybody in
the diocese, from Monseigneur the Bishop to his sexton, would have risen
with indignation and called him, "Ungrateful wretch." For Ridoux was
favoured above all his colleagues; above all his colleagues Divine
Providence bad overwhelmed him with its favours. He possessed in his
parish, in his very church, at his door, beneath his eyes, beneath his
hand, a real blessing from Heaven, a grace of God, a Pactolus always
rolling down a mine of Peru, a secret of an alchemist, the veritable
philosopher's stone caught sight of by Nicolas Flamel, and vainly sought
for till the time of Cagliostro, a marvel which made him at once honoured
and envied, which made his name celebrated, which gave him a preponderant
voice in the Chapter and a place in the episcopal Council, which swelled
his heart with pride and his money-bag with crowns; he had in the choir of
his church behind the mother altar, in a splendid glass-case, laid on a bed
of blue velvet ... an old yellow skeleton! The relics of a saint.
But there are saints and saints; those which do miracles, and those which
do them not, those which work and those which rest.
Monsieur Ridoux's saint worked.
LXIII.
THE MIRACLES.
"Miracles have served for the foundation,
and will serve for the continuation
of the Church until Antichrist,
until the end."
(_Pensées de PASCAL_).
The miserable herd of free-thinkers, people who have no faith, those who
are still plunged in the rut of unbelief, are ignorant perhaps that all the
saints have done miracles, that they have all begun in that way, that that
is the condition _sine qua non_, for entrance into the blessed
confraternity.
No money, no Swiss; no miracles, no saint. It is in vain that during all
your life you shall have been a model of candour and virtue; it is in vain
that you shall edify the universe by your piety and your good works, that
you shall have resisted like St. Antony the temptations of the flesh, that
you shall have covered yourself with hair-cloth like St. Theresa, with
venom like St. Veuillot, with filth like St. Alacoque or with lice like St.
Labre: it is in vain that you shall have been beaten with rods like St.
Roche, been scourged by your Confessor like St. Elizabeth, that finally you
shall have sinned only six instead of seven times a day; if at your death
you should not succeed in performing some fine miracle, you will never be
admitted into the Calendar.