_The Abbé Aubain to the Abbé Bruneau. Professor of Theology at
Saint-A----._
N----, _May_, 1845.
My Dear Professor,--It is the curé of Sainte-Marie who is writing to
you, not any longer the humble, officiating priest of Noirmoutiers. I
have left my solitary marshes and behold me a citizen, installed in a
fine living, in the best street in N----; curé of a large, well-built
church, well kept up, of splendid architecture, depicted in every album
in France. The first time that I said Mass before a marble altar, which
glittered with gilding, I had to ask myself if I really were myself. But
it is true enough, and one of my delights is the hope that at the next
vacation you will come and pay me a visit. I shall have a comfortable
room to offer you, and a good bed, not to mention some bordeaux, which I
call my bordeaux of Noirmoutiers; and I venture to say it is worth your
acceptance. But, you ask me, how did you get from Noirmoutiers to
Sainte-Marie? You left me at the entrance to the nave, you find me now
at the steeple.
O Meliboee deus nobis hæc otia fecit.
Providence, my dear Professor, sent a grand lady from Paris to
Noirmoutiers. Misfortunes of a kind we shall never know had temporarily
reduced them to an income of 10,000 crowns per annum. She is an
agreeable and good woman, unfortunately a bit jaded by frivolous
reading, and by association with the dandies of the capital. Bored to
death by a husband with whom she has little in common, she did me the
honour of becoming interested in me. There were endless presents and
continual invitations, then every day some fresh scheme in which I was
wanted. "M. l'abbé, I want to learn Latin.... M. l'abbé, I want to be
taught botany." _Horresco referens_, did she not also desire that I
should expound theology to her? What would you have, my dear Professor?
In fact, to quench such thirst for knowledge would have required all the
professors of Saint-A----. Fortunately, such whims never last long: the
course of studies rarely lasted beyond the third lesson. When I told her
that the Latin for rose was _rosa_, she exclaimed, "What a well of
learning you are, M. l'abbé! How could you allow yourself to be buried
at Noirmoutiers?" To tell you the truth, my dear Professor, the good
lady, through reading the silly books that are produced nowadays, got
all sorts of queer ideas into her head. One day she lent me a book which
she had just received from Paris, and which enraptured her. _Abélard_,
by M. de Rémusat. Doubtless you have read it, and admired the learned
research made by the author, unfortunately in so wrong a spirit. At
first I skipped to the second volume, containing the "Philosophy of
Abélard," and, after reading that with the greatest interest, I returned
to the first, to the life of the great heresiarch. This, of course, was
all Madam had deigned to read. That, my dear Professor, opened my eyes.
I realised that there was danger in the society of fine ladies
enamoured of learning. This one of Noirmoutiers could give points to
Héloïse in the matter of infatuation. This, to me, extremely novel
situation was troubling me much, when, suddenly, she said to me, "M.
l'abbé, the incumbent of Sainte-Marie is dead, and I want you to have
the living. _You must_." Immediately she drove off in her carriage to
see Monseigneur; and, a few days later, I was curé of Sainte-Marie,
somewhat ashamed of having obtained the living by favour, but in other
respects delighted to be far away from the toils of a _lioness_ of the
capital. A lioness, my dear Professor, is the Parisian expression for a
woman of fashion.
[Greek: O Zeus, gunaikon oioon opasas genos.][1]
Ought I to have rejected this good fortune in order to defy the
temptation? What nonsense! Did not St. Thomas of Canterbury accept
castles from Henry II.? Good-bye, my dear Professor, I look forward to
discussing philosophy with you in a few months' time, each of us in a
comfortable armchair, before a plump chicken and a bottle of bordeaux,
_more philosophorum. Vac let me ama_.
[1] A line taken, I believe, from the _Seven Against Thebes_, of
Æschylus, "O Jupiter! women!... what a race thou hast given us!" The
Abbé Aubain and his Professor, the Abbé Bruneau, are good classical
scholars.