extracted these lines, written with a grace almost worthy of Saint
Francis, do you recall the admirable picture of a sunrise: "The sun
advanced, and his approach was made known by a celestial whiteness which
spread on all sides; the stars had disappeared and the moon had arisen
as a crescent, of a silver hue so beautiful and so lively that the
eyes were charmed by it.... In proportion as he approached, I saw her
disappear; the feeble crescent diminished little by little; and when the
sun was entirely visible, her pale and feeble light, fading away,
lost itself in that of the great luminary in which it seemed to
be absorbed..." Is not this the work of an attentive and passionate
observer?
The numerous letters and decrees dated at Germigny show how much this
retreat pleased Bossuet. His books followed him there. Labor seemed
easier to him in this salubrious air and at this delicious spot. There
he received, in noble and courteous fashion, the illustrious personages
who came to visit him. The Great Condé, the Duc de Bourbon, the
Prince de Conti, the Comte de Toulouse, the Duc de Maine, Cardinal
Noailles, Marshal de Villars, Madame de Montespan, and her sister, the
Abbess of Fontevrault, were the guests of Bossuet at Germigny. In 1690,
the Dauphin, on his way to the army in Germany, had wished to make his
first halt at Germigny, at the home of his ancient tutor.
The most celebrated preachers were invited by the Archbishop of Meaux to
preach at his cathedral, and were afterward entertained in his country
house. It was in this way that the Abbé de Fénelon often came to
Germigny. At this period the bishop and the abbé esteemed and loved each
other. "When you come," the Abbé de Fénelon wrote from Versailles to the
Bishop of Meaux, "you will tell us of the marvels of spring at Germigny.
Ours commences to be beautiful: if you do not wish to believe it,
Monsignor, come to see it." (April 25, 1692.) And on another occasion,
Fénelon sent to Bossuet verses upon his countryside which are,
alas!--verses by Fénelon! Nine years later the springtimes of Germigny
were forgotten. The _Maximes des Saints_ had been condemned. _Têlêmaque_
had been published; Têlémaque which Bossuet read at this very Germigny,
under the trees which had witnessed the former friendship now broken,
Télémaque which he declared "unworthy not only of a bishop, but of a
priest and of a Christian." And one day, he said to Abbé Le Dieu that
Fénelon "had been a perfect hypocrite all his life...."
[Illustration: 0081]
Among the visitors at Germigny, we must not forget Malebranche,
whose name was given to one of the avenues of the garden; Rigaud, who
commenced in this country house the portrait of Bossuet which today may
be found in the Louvre; Santeul, "the gray-haired child," who made Latin
verses to describe and celebrate the chateau and the park of Germigny.
How many verses Germigny has inspired!
*****
This beautiful terrace which overlooks the Marne and where so many
illustrious shades surround that of "M. de Meaux," is the very place to
evoke the "sweet and simple" Bossuet! When we see that he has so many
friends and know this taste for retreat and country life, the man loses
at once a little of that solemnity and that inflexible arrogance which
have come down in legend as characteristic of his personality.
We also seem to sustain a paradox, even after M. Brunetière, even after
M. Rebelliau, in speaking today of the sweetness and the humanity of
Bossuet. The entire eighteenth century labored to blacken and calumniate
the victorious adversary of "sweet Fénelon." It is not in the course
of a promenade upon the banks of the Marne that I pretend to study the
quarrel of quietism. Nevertheless, however little we may wish to recall
the vicissitudes of the dispute, we must admit that the excess of
shiftiness of the crafty Perigordian sufficiently justified the excess
of hardness of the impetuous Burgundian. But, in addition, we are not
dealing here with Bossuet as a polemist. The profundity as well as the
ingenuousness of his faith would excuse the vehemence of his arguments,
if we could permit ourselves to be scandalized by so courteous a
vehemence, we who, unbelieving or Christian, cannot discuss the most
insignificant problems of politics without resorting to extremes of
insult. Bossuet had neither hatred nor rancor. When he recovered from
the emotion of the combat, he resumed his natural mood, which was all
charity and sweetness.
He was nearer to the gospel than Fénelon ever was with his artistic
vanity. He had in him something simple and awkward which brought him
nearer to the people than to the great ones among whom he had lived. At
court, he made more than one false move. In his diocese, he was loved
for his goodness.
By regarding Bossuet as a persecutor, Jurieu and the philosophers in his
train have obliged the historians to examine closely what the conduct
of the Bishop of Meaux had been in regard to the Protestants of his
diocese. Now it has appeared that, of all the prelates of France who
were charged with assuring the execution of the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, not one showed more humanity. Bossuet condemned violence
and constraint, and there was only a single military execution in the
diocese of Meaux. It would be childish to reproach a Catholic bishop of
the seventeenth century for not having criticized the Revocation, of the
Edict, especially since this bishop, the author of _Politique tirée de
l'Ecriture sainte_, should have been, more than any other, impressed
by the perils which the republican spirit of the French Protestants
threatened to the monarchy. He preached to the Protestants as eloquently
as he could, turned persecution aside from them, and gave alms to them.
He received at Germigny a great number of ministers who had come to
dispute with him; and it was in the little chapel of his chateau that
Joseph Saurin and Jacques Bénigne Winslow abjured Protestantism beneath
his hands.
All of this, I know, you can read in the biographies of Bossuet and, if
you have not already done it, do not fail to read it in M. Rebelliau's
book. But things have mysterious suggestiveness, and when we have seen
the beautiful garden of the bishop's house at Meaux and the charming
country about Germigny, we are more disposed to believe that the Bossuet
of the modern historians is the true Bossuet. I have not verified their
researches; but I have read Le Dieu and I have walked upon the terrace
along the Marne; that is sufficient.
And I would be ungrateful if I failed to add that I had the most amiable
and the best informed of guides in my promenade: the Abbé Formé, priest
of Germigny, deserving of the parish of Bossuet, in all simplicity.
IV. SAINTE RADEGONDE
|I HAD heard that, deep in the forest of Montmorency, near the hermitage
of Sainte Radegonde, there might be found a little cemetery lost in
the midst of the woods. I wondered who had chosen this romantic burial
place. One of my friends, to whom I had imparted my curiosity, sent me
a book by M. Auguste Rey, entitled _Le Naturaliste Bosc_, and assured me
that I would there find enlightenment on the mystery which intrigued me.
I read it, and the story told by M. Auguste Rey increased my desire to
become acquainted with the cemetery of Sainte Radegonde. [2]
So, on an October afternoon, I wandered in the forest seeking tombs.
The search was long and charming. As the forest of Montmorency is not
provided with guideposts, it is impossible not to get lost in it. But
the magnificence of the weather, the miraculous splendor of the golden
and coppery foliage, the lightness of the luminous mists which float
over the reddened forest, the perfume of the softened earth and of the
moist leaves, make one quickly forget the humiliation of having lost his
way.
Following one path after another, I ended by stumbling upon Sainte
Radegonde. The place is well known to all walkers. Of the ancient
priory, which was founded here in the thirteenth century by the monks
of the Abbey of Saint Victor, there is left no more than a tumbledown
building which serves today as a ranger's house. It is surrounded by
a wall, so that it is no longer possible to approach the well which
formerly attracted numerous pilgrims to Sainte Radegonde, for this saint
cured, it is said, the itch and sterility.
Before the hermitage of Sainte Radegonde (the word hermitage was made
fashionable in this country by Jean Jacques Rousseau) there opens a vast
glade, whose slope descends to the brooklet called Ru du Nid-de-l'Aigle,
which flows in the midst of a scrub of blackberries and hawthorns. At
the end of the meadow, half hidden by copses, there rises a little bluff
which elbows the stream aside. Here is the cemetery. A few very simple
graves surround a little boulder on which is carved: "Bosc, Member
of the Institute." Four great cedars overlook them with their superb
shafts.
The site possesses an inexpressible beauty, at the hour when the forest
loses the splendor with which it was but recently decked by the sun's
rays, while a cold breeze shakes the half-naked branches, announcing the
approaching frosts and sorrows of winter.
The scene is set. Now listen to the story, which I borrow almost
entirely from the interesting study of M. Auguste Rey.
[Illustration: 0089]
Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, whose mortal remains repose in the
cemetery of Sainte Radegonde, was born at Paris January 29, 1759. His
family, originally from the Cevennes, belonged to the reformed religion.
His father was one of the physicians of the king.
At Dijon, where he had been sent to college, he followed the courses of
the naturalist Durande, became enthusiastic over the Linnæan system, and
discovered his vocation. When, after returning to Paris, he was obliged
by reverses of fortune to accept a very modest position in the post
office, he continued the studies of his choice and took the public
courses given by the professors and demonstrators of the King's Garden.
In 1780, it was proper to have a republican soul and a taste for botany.
It was good form to attend the lectures of M. de Jussieu and to read
Plutarch. Rousseau had made the love of flowers fashionable, for he had
said: "While I collect plants I am not unfortunate." Madame de Genlis
composed a _Moral Herbal_. Amateurs added a museum of natural history to
their collection of paintings. One might then meet in the alleys of the
King's Garden a great number of personages who were later to take part
in the revolutionary assemblies. Bosc needed to make no effort to follow
the fashion. Being a Huguenot, he was republican from birth. As to
botany, he cherished it with a deep and ingenuous passion, and not as a
pastime.
It was in the Botanic Garden, either at Jussieu's lectures or in André
Thouin's home, that he sealed the great friendships of his life. He was,
in fact, among the frequenters of the hospitable apartment where lived
the four brothers Thouin, with their sisters, their wives and their
daughters; this family of scientist gardeners received their friends in
winter in the kitchen and in summer before the greenhouses. Celebrated
men came to converse with and learn from these worthy men, who were
the true masters of the King's Garden; and the "venerable" Malesherbes,
seated upon a trough, often conversed with Madam Guillebert, the sister
of André Thouin, for whom he had a particular esteem. [3]
Bosc at that time entered into friendship with three future members of
the Convention, from whom he had acquired the taste of studying plants:
Creuzé-Latouche, Garan de Coulon and Bancal des Issarts. The first two
died Senators of the Empire. As to Bancal, we will soon run across him
again.
It was in the same surroundings that he met Roland, an inspector of
manufactures, and his young wife, then in all the flower of her robust
beauty. The husband was forty-eight; the wife was twenty-six; Bosc was
twenty; naturally he fell in love. Madame Roland gave him to understand
that he had nothing to hope for from her; but she mockingly added
that in eighteen years it would be allowable for him to make a like
declaration to her daughter Eudora. Bosc resigned himself to the
situation and consented to the friendship which was offered him; but he
committed the folly, later, of taking seriously the raillery with which
he had been dismissed.
For ten years Bosc continued a correspondence with Madame Roland which
was full of confidence and freedom. These letters no longer exist,
and it is a pity; for this republican botanist seems to have possessed
sensitiveness, tenderness and judgment. We do possess, however, most of
the letters which were written to him by Madame Roland.
[Illustration: 0093]
Without these letters and various others of the same period, we would
never have had any other means of knowing Madame Roland than the image
drawn by herself in her Memoirs, her intolerable Memoirs. We would
always have seen her behind the tragic mask, heroic, unapproachable and
full of vanity, and we would have remained almost unconscious of the
frightful tragedy of her death if she had not left us these intimate and
familiar effusions, in which are revealed the heart and the mind of a
woman who was truly feminine. We are very little moved by the celebrated
letter which she wrote one day to Bancal, Bosc's friend, to spurn his
love, although she confessed to "tumultuous sentiments" which agitated
her, and to tears which obscured her vision. I know that Michelet cries:
"The cuirass of the warrior opens, and it is a woman that we see, the
wounded bosom of Clorinda." But we must doubt, after all, the severity
of the wound which leaves Clorinda cool enough to call to witness "the
absolute irreproachability" of her life. There is something theatrical
in such half-avowals. On the contrary, her letters to Bosc are simple
in diction and ofttimes charming. They are spontaneous: "Seated in the
ingle nook, but at eleven o'clock in the morning, after a peaceful night
and the different cares of the day's work, my friend (that is, Roland)
at his desk, my little girl knitting, and myself talking to one,
watching over the work of the other, savoring the happiness of existing
warmly in the bosom of my dear little family, writing to a friend, while
the snow falls upon so many poor devils loaded down with misery and
grief, I grieve over their fate; I turn back with pleasure to my own..."
And elsewhere: "Now, know that Eudora reads well; begins to know no
other plaything than the needle; amuses herself by drawing geometrical
figures; does not know what shackles clothes of any kind may be; has
no idea of the price one has to pay for rags for adornment; believes
herself beautiful when she is told that she is a good girl and that
she has a perfectly white dress, remarkable for its cleanness; that she
finds the greatest prize in life to be a bonbon given with a kiss; that
her naughty spells become rarer and shorter; that she walks through the
darkness as in the daylight, fears nothing and has no idea that it is
worth while to tell a lie about anything; add that she is five years
and six weeks old; that I am not aware that she has false ideas on any
subject, that is important at least; and agree that, if her stiffness
has fatigued me, if her fancies have worried me, if her carelessness
has made it more difficult for us to influence her, we have not entirely
lost our pains..." And it would be possible to quote twenty other
passages written with the same grace and the same simplicity....
As for the young friend to whom were addressed these nice letters, here
is his portrait: "As for you, whom I see even at this distance talking
quickly, going like lightning, with an air sometimes sensible and
sometimes heedless, but never imposing when you try to be grave, because
then you make grimaces derived from Lavater, and because activity alone
suits your face; you whom we love well and who merit it from us, tell us
if the present is supportable to you and the future gracious."
*****
Let us return to Sainte-Radegonde. While botanizing through the woods
which surround Paris, Bosc had discovered this retreat. The little
house, last relic of a priory long since abandoned, was inhabited by
an old peasant woman who gladly offered hospitality to strollers from
Paris, when the Revolution broke out.
Bosc, by his temperament, his tastes and his friendships, was led to
the new ideas. He was not satisfied with presiding over the Society
of Natural History; he likewise joined the Society of Friends of the
Constitution and, later, he became a member of the Jacobin Club. On
September 25, 1791, we find him taking part in a festival given at
Montmorency to celebrate the inauguration of a bust of Rousseau: before
the dances and illuminations, he made a speech and offered periwinkles
to the spirit of the philosopher.
Meanwhile, the hermitage of Sainte Radegonde, confiscated as
ecclesiastical property, was about to be offered for sale, and Bosc
was desolated at the thought that a new owner would perhaps forbid him
access to the wood where he was accustomed to dream and work. He was
poor and could not dream of buying the little property, valued at more
than four thousand livres by the experts of the district of Gonesse. So
he persuaded his friend Bancal to acquire Sainte Radegonde at the public
auction, February 14, 1792. We do not know if he was a partner in the
transaction. What seems certain is that Bancal never came to dwell in
his hermitage.
A few days later Roland became Minister of the Interior and he named
Bosc Administrator of Posts; it was a question of "disaristocratizing"
this service. Bosc used his best talents toward it.... But, at the end
of a year, the Gironde was overthrown, the Girondins were under warrants
of arrest, and Bosc took refuge at Sainte Radegonde.
[Illustration: 0099]
He did not arrive there alone. Roland accompanied him; tracked by the
revolutionists of the Commune, separated from his wife, who had been
imprisoned in the Abbaye, he concealed himself for fifteen days with
his friend before seeking a safer asylum at Rouen, in the home of the
Demoiselles Malortie.
After having assured the escape of Roland, Bosc gets hold of his
daughter Eudora, who was then twelve years old, and confides her to the
wife of his friend Creuzé-Latouche; then he succeeds in entering the
prison, where he reassures Madame Roland as to the fate of her child.
After being temporarily released, this lady is again arrested and shut
up at Sainte Pélagie. Bosc continues to come and see her at the peril
of his life. He brings her flowers, for which he goes to the Botanical
Garden; but, one day, he understands the danger of thus going to visit
the Thouins, and then it is the flowers of Sainte Radegonde that he
brings to the prisoner in a basket. It is to him that Madame Roland
confides _Les Notices Historiques_--these are her _Memoirs_,--written in
her prison. Finally, when her sentence has become inevitable, she begs
from him poison, by which she may escape the insults of the judges and
the populace: "Behold my firmness, weigh the reasons, calculate coldly,
and appreciate how little is the worth of the canaille, greedy for
spectacles." Bosc decides that for her own glory and for the sake of the
Republic his friend must accept all: the outrages of the tribunal, the
clamors of the crowd and the horror of the last agony. She submits. A
few days later Bosc returns to Paris and hears of her execution.
Sainte Radegonde sheltered others who were proscribed.
One day when Bosc visited Creuzé-Latouche, he met there
Laréveillière-Lépeaux. The latter, sought for at the same time as his
two inseparable friends, Urbain Pilastre and Jean Baptiste Leclerc, had
just learned of the flight of Pilastre and the arrest of Leclerc. He
wished to return to his home, be arrested, and partake the fate of his
friend. Creuzé dissuaded him from this act of despair....
Bosc knew Laréveillière from having formerly seen him at the home of
André Thouin, for the future high priest of the Theophilanthropists had
become quite expert in botany. He offered to share his hiding place with
him. Laréveillière accepted. Both succeeded in leaving Paris without
being noticed, and reached Sainte Radegonde.
For three weeks Laréveillière remained hidden in the forest of Emile.
(At this time Montmorency was called Emile, in honor of Rousseau.)
Neither he nor Bosc had a red cent. They had to live on bread, roots
and snails. Besides, their hiding place was not safe; there was nothing
unusual in the presence of Bosc in this solitude, but Laré-veillière
might any day excite the curiosity of the patriots of Emile. The
ugliness of his countenance and the deformity of his figure caused him
to be noticed by every passer-by. Robespierre was then living in the
hermitage of Jean Jacques; it has even been related that he met the
fugitive face to face one day; at all events such an encounter was to be
dreaded. The administrators of Seine-et-Oise sometimes took a fancy to
hunt in the neighborhood of Sainte Radegonde.... The peril increased
from day to day. A faithful friend, Pincepré de Buire, invited
Laréveillère to take refuge at his home near Péronne. He left Sainte
Radegonde.
"The good Mile. Letourneur," he has related, "gave me two or three
handkerchiefs; Rozier, today a counselor at the royal court of
Montpellier, then judge of the district of Montmorency, whose
acquaintance we had made at Mile. Letourneur's, put one of his shirts in
my pocket. Poor Bosc gave me the widow's mite--he put a stick of white
crab in my hand and guided me through the forest to the highway. To
use the English expression, on leaving him I tore myself from him' with
extreme grief." [4]
Laréveillière arrived without difficulty at the village of Buire.
On the same day that he left Sainte Radegonde, another deputy of the
Convention, Masuyer, came to take his place; he was accused because he
had assisted at the escape of Pétion; but his greatest crime was that
he had, in full Assembly, said to Pache, who insisted on proscriptions:
"Haven't you got a little place for me on your list? There would be
a hundred crowns in it for you!" Masuyer, disregarding Bosc's advice,
wished to enter Paris. He was arrested near the Neuilly Bridge. Bosc,
who had insisted on accompanying him, had just time to plunge into
the Bois de Boulogne, escaped, and returned to his hermitage, where he
awaited the end of the Terror.
*****
When he returned to Paris, in the autumn of 1794, Bosc devoted his
entire time to the labors imposed upon him by the last will of Madame
Roland. He withdrew the manuscript of her Memoirs from the hiding place
where he had left it, on top of the beam over the stable door of Sainte
Radegonde, and published the first part of it in April, 1795. At the
same time he endeavored to collect the remnants of the patrimony of
Eudora, whose guardianship he had accepted.
Here begins the most melancholy episode of the life of this worthy man.
He became smitten with his pupil. He allowed himself to be blinded by
some marks of gratitude. "She is tenderly attached to me," he wrote to
one of his friends, "and shows the happiest disposition; so I can no
longer fail to meet her wishes and take her for my wife, despite the
disproportion of our ages." Nevertheless, he still had scruples, and
sent Eudora for several months to the Demoiselles Malortie, who had
given asylum to Roland when a fugitive. It was well for him that he did,
for his illusion was of short duration. Eudora did not love him....
Without employment, without means, his heart broken, he resolved to
expatriate himself. He reached Bordeaux on foot, paid calls on the
widows of his friends of the Gironde, and took passage on a ship
departing for America. He left France in despair, without receiving a
single word of farewell from Eudora. When he landed at Charleston,
he learned of the marriage of his pupil to the son of a certain
Champagneux, a friend of Madame Roland, to whom he had intrusted the
guardianship of the young girl.