"_Tiens_," said I, "that fellow of yours has been bungling again. He has
taken the tip and has left the half-franc."
"Ah! Jean Bouchon once more!"
"But who is Jean Bouchon?"
The man shrugged his shoulders, and, instead of answering my query,
said: "I should recommend monsieur to refuse to pay Jean Bouchon
again--that is, supposing monsieur intends revisiting this café."
"I most assuredly will not pay such a noodle," I said; "and it passes my
comprehension how you can keep such a fellow on your staff."
I revisited the library next day, and then walked by the Loire, that
rolls in winter such a full and turbid stream, and in summer, with a
reduced flood, exposes gravel and sand-banks. I wandered around the
town, and endeavoured vainly to picture it, enclosed by walls and drums
of towers, when on April 29th, 1429, Jeanne threw herself into the town
and forced the English to retire, discomfited and perplexed.
In the evening I revisited the café and made my wants known as before.
Then I looked at my notes, and began to arrange them.
Whilst thus engaged I observed the waiter, named Jean Bouchon, standing
near the table in an expectant attitude as before. I now looked him full
in the face and observed his countenance. He had puffy white cheeks,
small black eyes, thick dark mutton-chop whiskers, and a broken nose. He
was decidedly an ugly man, but not a man with a repulsive expression of
face.
"No," said I, "I will give you nothing. I will not pay you. Send another
_garçon_ to me."
As I looked at him to see how he took this refusal, he seemed to fall
back out of my range, or, to be more exact, the lines of his form and
features became confused. It was much as though I had been gazing on a
reflection in still water; that something had ruffled the surface, and
all was broken up and obliterated. I could see him no more. I was
puzzled and a bit startled, and I rapped my coffee-cup with the spoon to
call the attention of a waiter. One sprang to me immediately.
"See!" said I, "Jean Bouchon has been here again; I told him that I
would not pay him one sou, and he has vanished in a most perplexing
manner. I do not see him in the room."
"No, he is not in the room."
"When he comes in again, send him to me. I want to have a word with
him."
The waiter looked confused, and replied: "I do not think that Jean will
return."
"How long has he been on your staff?"
"Oh! he has not been on our staff for some years."
"Then why does he come here and ask for payment for coffee and what else
one may order?"
"He never takes payment for anything that has been consumed. He takes
only the tips."
"But why do you permit him to do that?"
"We cannot help ourselves."
"He should not be allowed to enter the café."
"No one can keep him out."
"This is surpassing strange. He has no right to the tips. You should
communicate with the police."
The waiter shook his head. "They can do nothing. Jean Bouchon died in
1869."
"Died in 1869!" I repeated.
"It is so. But he still comes here. He never pesters the old customers,
the inhabitants of the town--only visitors, strangers."
"Tell me all about him."
"Monsieur must pardon me now. We have many in the place, and I have my
duties."
"In that case I will drop in here to-morrow morning when you are
disengaged, and I will ask you to inform me about him. What is your
name?"
"At monsieur's pleasure--Alphonse."
Next morning, in place of pursuing the traces of the Maid of Orléans, I
went to the café to hunt up Jean Bouchon. I found Alphonse with a duster
wiping down the tables. I invited him to a table and made him sit down
opposite me. I will give his story in substance, only where advisable
recording his exact words.
Jean Bouchon had been a waiter at this particular café. Now in some of
these establishments the attendants are wont to have a box, into which
they drop all the tips that are received; and at the end of the week it
is opened, and the sum found in it is divided _pro rata_ among the
waiters, the head waiter receiving a larger portion than the others.
This is not customary in all such places of refreshment, but it is in
some, and it was so in this café. The average is pretty constant, except
on special occasions, as when a fête occurs; and the waiters know within
a few francs what their perquisites will be.
But in the café where served Jean Bouchon the sum did not reach the
weekly total that might have been anticipated; and after this deficit
had been noted for a couple of months the waiters were convinced that
there was something wrong, somewhere or somehow. Either the common box
was tampered with, or one of them did not put in his tips received. A
watch was set, and it was discovered that Jean Bouchon was the
defaulter. When he had received a gratuity, he went to the box, and
pretended to put in the coin, but no sound followed, as would have been
the case had one been dropped in.
There ensued, of course, a great commotion among the waiters when this
was discovered. Jean Bouchon endeavoured to brave it out, but the
_patron_ was appealed to, the case stated, and he was dismissed. As he
left by the back entrance, one of the younger _garçons_ put out his leg
and tripped Bouchon up, so that he stumbled and fell headlong down the
steps with a crash on the stone floor of the passage. He fell with such
violence on his forehead that he was taken up insensible. His bones were
fractured, there was concussion of the brain, and he died within a few
hours without recovering consciousness.
"We were all very sorry and greatly shocked," said Alphonse; "we did not
like the man, he had dealt dishonourably by us, but we wished him no
ill, and our resentment was at an end when he was dead. The waiter who
had tripped him up was arrested, and was sent to prison for some months,
but the accident was due to _une mauvaise plaisanterie_ and no malice
was in it, so that the young fellow got off with a light sentence. He
afterwards married a widow with a café at Vierzon, and is there, I
believe, doing well.
"Jean Bouchon was buried," continued Alphonse; "and we waiters attended
the funeral and held white kerchiefs to our eyes. Our head waiter even
put a lemon into his, that by squeezing it he might draw tears from his
eyes. We all subscribed for the interment, that it should be
dignified--majestic as becomes a waiter."
"And do you mean to tell me that Jean Bouchon has haunted this café ever
since?"
"Ever since 1869," replied Alphonse.
"And there is no way of getting rid of him?"
"None at all, monsieur. One of the Canons of Bourges came in here one
evening. We did suppose that Jean Bouchon would not approach, molest an
ecclesiastic, but he did. He took his _pourboire_ and left the rest,
just as he treated monsieur. Ah! monsieur! but Jean Bouchon did well in
1870 and 1871 when those pigs of Prussians were here in occupation. The
officers came nightly to our café, and Jean Bouchon was greatly on the
alert. He must have carried away half of the gratuities they offered. It
was a sad loss to us."
"This is a very extraordinary story," said I.
"But it is true," replied Alphonse.
Next day I left Orléans. I gave up the notion of writing the life of
Joan of Arc, as I found that there was absolutely no new material to be
gleaned on her history--in fact, she had been thrashed out.
Years passed, and I had almost forgotten about Jean Bouchon, when, the
other day, I was in Orléans once more, on my way south, and at once the
whole story recurred to me.
I went that evening to the same café. It had been smartened up since I
was there before. There was more plate glass, more gilding; electric
light had been introduced, there were more mirrors, and there were also
ornaments that had not been in the café before.
I called for café-cognac and looked at a journal, but turned my eyes on
one side occasionally, on the look-out for Jean Bouchon. But he did not
put in an appearance. I waited for a quarter of an hour in expectation,
but saw no sign of him.
Presently I summoned a waiter, and when he came up I inquired: "But
where is Jean Bouchon?"
"Monsieur asks after Jean Bouchon?" The man looked surprised.
"Yes, I have seen him here previously. Where is he at present?"
"Monsieur has seen Jean Bouchon? Monsieur perhaps knew him. He died in
1869."
"I know that he died in 1869, but I made his acquaintance in 1874. I saw
him then thrice, and he accepted some small gratuities of me."
"Monsieur tipped Jean Bouchon?"
"Yes, and Jean Bouchon accepted my tips."
"_Tiens_, and Jean Bouchon died five years before."
"Yes, and what I want to know is how you have rid yourselves of Jean
Bouchon, for that you have cleared the place of him is evident, or he
would have been pestering me this evening." The man looked disconcerted
and irresolute.
"Hold," said I; "is Alphonse here?"
"No, monsieur, Alphonse has left two or three years ago. And monsieur
saw Jean Bouchon in 1874. I was not then here. I have been here only six
years."
"But you can in all probability inform me of the manner of getting quit
of Jean."
"Monsieur! I am very busy this evening, there are so many gentlemen come
in."
"I will give you five francs if you will tell me all--all--succinctly
about Jean Bouchon."
"Will monsieur be so good as to come here to-morrow during the morning?
and then I place myself at the disposition of monsieur."
"I shall be here at eleven o'clock."
At the appointed time I was at the café. If there is an institution that
looks ragged and dejected and dissipated, it is a café in the morning,
when the chairs are turned upside-down, the waiters are in aprons and
shirt-sleeves, and a smell of stale tobacco lurks about the air, mixed
with various other unpleasant odours.
The waiter I had spoken to on the previous evening was looking out for
me. I made him seat himself at a table with me. No one else was in the
saloon except another _garçon_, who was dusting with a long
feather-brush.
"Monsieur," began the waiter, "I will tell you the whole truth. The
story is curious, and perhaps everyone would not believe it, but it is
well _documentée_. Jean Bouchon was at one time in service here. We had
a box. When I say we, I do not mean myself included, for I was not here
at the time."
"I know about the common box. I know the story down to my visit to
Orléans in 1874, when I saw the man."
"Monsieur has perhaps been informed that he was buried in the
cemetery?"
"I do know that, at the cost of his fellow-waiters."
"Well, monsieur, he was poor, and his fellow-waiters, though
well-disposed, were not rich. So he did not have a grave _en
perpétuité_. Accordingly, after many years, when the term of consignment
was expired, and it might well be supposed that Jean Bouchon had
mouldered away, his grave was cleared out to make room for a fresh
occupant. Then a very remarkable discovery was made. It was found that
his corroded coffin was crammed--literally stuffed--with five and ten
centimes pieces, and with them were also some German coins, no doubt
received from those pigs of Prussians during the occupation of Orléans.
This discovery was much talked about. Our proprietor of the café and the
head waiter went to the mayor and represented to him how matters
stood--that all this money had been filched during a series of years
since 1869 from the waiters. And our _patron_ represented to him that it
should in all propriety and justice be restored to us. The mayor was a
man of intelligence and heart, and he quite accepted this view of the
matter, and ordered the surrender of the whole coffin-load of coins to
us, the waiters of the café."
"So you divided it amongst you."
"Pardon, monsieur; we did not. It is true that the money might
legitimately be regarded as belonging to us. But then those defrauded,
or most of them, had left long ago, and there were among us some who had
not been in service in the café more than a year or eighteen months. We
could not trace the old waiters. Some were dead, some had married and
left this part of the country. We were not a corporation. So we held a
meeting to discuss what was to be done with the money. We feared,
moreover, that unless the spirit of Jean Bouchon were satisfied, he
might continue revisiting the café and go on sweeping away the tips. It
was of paramount importance to please Jean Bouchon, to lay out the money
in such a manner as would commend itself to his feelings. One suggested
one thing, one another. One proposed that the sum should be expended on
masses for the repose of Jean's soul. But the head waiter objected to
that. He said that he thought he knew the mind of Jean Bouchon, and that
this would not commend itself to it. He said, did our head waiter, that
he knew Jean Bouchon from head to heels. And he proposed that all the
coins should be melted up, and that out of them should be cast a statue
of Jean Bouchon in bronze, to be set up here in the café, as there were
not enough coins to make one large enough to be erected in a Place. If
monsieur will step with me he will see the statue; it is a superb work
of art."
He led the way, and I followed.
In the midst of the café stood a pedestal, and on this basis a bronze
figure about four feet high. It represented a man reeling backward, with
a banner in his left hand, and the right raised towards his brow, as
though he had been struck there by a bullet. A sabre, apparently fallen
from his grasp, lay at his feet. I studied the face, and it most
assuredly was utterly unlike Jean Bouchon with his puffy cheeks,
mutton-chop whiskers, and broken nose, as I recalled him.
"But," said I, "the features do not--pardon me--at all resemble those of
Jean Bouchon. This might be the young Augustus, or Napoleon I. The
profile is quite Greek."
"It may be so," replied the waiter. "But we had no photograph to go by.
We had to allow the artist to exercise his genius, and, above all, we
had to gratify the spirit of Jean Bouchon."
"I see. But the attitude is inexact. Jean Bouchon fell down the steps
headlong, and this represents a man staggering backwards."
"It would have been inartistic to have shown him precipitated forwards;
besides, the spirit of Jean might not have liked it."
"Quite so. I understand. But the flag?"
"That was an idea of the artist. Jean could not be made holding a
coffee-cup. You will see the whole makes a superb subject. Art has its
exigencies. Monsieur will see underneath is an inscription on the
pedestal."