[Illustration: 124]
ON January 1st, in the forenoon, the good M. Chanterelle sallied out on
foot from his hôtel in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. He felt the cold and
was a poor walker; so it was a real penance to him to face the chilly
air and the bleak streets which were full of half-melted snow. He had
refused to take his coach by way of mortifying the flesh, having grown
very solicitous since his illness about the salvation of his soul. He
lived in retirement, aloof from all society and company, and paid no
visits save to his niece, Mademoiselle de Doucine, a little girl of
seven.
Leaning on his walking-cane, he made his way painfully to the Rue
Saint-Honoré and entered the shop of Madame Pinson at the sign of the
_Panier Fleuri_. Here was displayed an abundant stock of children’s toys
to tempt customers seeking presents for this New Year’s Day of 1696.
You could scarce move for the host of mechanical figures of dancers and
tipplers, birds in the bush that clapped their wings and sang, cabinets
full of wax puppets, soldiers in white and blue ranged in battle array,
and dolls dressed some as fine ladies, others as servant wenches, for
the inequality of stations, established by God himself among mankind,
appeared even in these innocent mannikins.
M. Chanterelle chose a doll. The one he selected was dressed like the
Princess of Savoy on her arrival in France, on November 4th. The head
was a mass of bows and ribbons; she wore a very stiff corsage, covered
with gold filigrees, and a brocade petticoat with an overskirt caught up
by pearl clasps.
M. Chanterelle smiled to think of the delight such a lovely doll would
give Mademoiselle de Doucine, and when Madame Pinson handed him
the Princess of Savoy wrapped up in silk paper, a gleam of sensuous
satisfaction flitted over his kind face, pinched as it was with illness,
pale with fasting and haggard with the fear of hell.
He thanked Madame Pinson courteously, clapped the Princess under his arm
and walked away, dragging his leg painfully, towards the house where he
knew Mademoiselle de Doucine was waiting for him to attend her morning
levée.
At the corner of the Rue de l’ Arbre-Sec, he met M. Spon, whose great
nose dived almost into his lace cravat.
“Good morning, Monsieur Spon,” he greeted him. “I wish you a happy New
Year, and I pray God everything may turn out according to your wishes.”
“Oh! my good sir, don’t say that,” cried M. Spon. “‘T is often for our
chastisement that God grants our wishes. _Et tribuit eis petittonem
eorum_.”
“‘Tis very true,” returned M. Chanterelle, “we do not know our own best
interests. I am an example myself, as I stand before you. I thought at
first that the complaint I have suffered from for the last two years was
a curse; but I see now it is a blessing, since it has removed me from
the abominable life I was leading at the play-houses and in society.
This complaint, which tortures my limbs and is like to turn my brain, is
a signal token of God’s goodness toward me. But, sir, will you not do
me the favour to accompany me as far as the Rue du Roule, whither I am
bound, to carry a New Year’s gift to my niece Mademoiselle de Doucine?”
At the words M. Spon threw up his arms and gave a great cry of horror.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Can it be M. Chanterelle I hear say such
things,--and not some profligate libertine? Is it possible, sir, that
living as you do a religious and retired life, I see you all in a moment
plunge into the vices of the day?”
“Alack! I did not think I was plunging into vice,” faltered M.
Chanterelle, trembling all over. “But I sorely lack a lamp of guidance.
Is it so great a sin then to offer a doll to Mademoiselle de Doucine?”
“Yes, a great and terrible sin,” replied M. Spon. “And what you are
offering this innocent child to-day is meeter to be called an idol,
a devilish simulacrum, than a doll. Are you not aware, sir, that the
custom of New Year’s gifts is a foul superstition and a hideous survival
of Paganism?”
“No, I did not know that,” said M. Chanterelle.
“Let me tell you, then,” resumed M. Spon, “that this custom descends
from the Romans, who seeing something divine in all beginnings, held
the beginning of the year holy also. Hence, to act as they did is to
do idolatry. You make New Year’s offerings, sir, in imitation of the
worshippers of the God Janus. Be consistent, and like them consecrate to
Juno the first day of every month.”
M. Chanterelle, hardly able to keep his feet, begged M. Spon to give him
his arm, and while they moved on, M. Spon proceeded in the same vein:
“Is it because the Astrologers have fixed on the first of January
for the beginning of the year that you deem yourself obliged to make
presents on that day? Pray, what call have you to revive at that precise
date the affection of your friends. Was their love dying then with
the dying year? And will it be so much worth the having when you have
reanimated it by dint of cajolements and baneful gifts?”
“Sir,” returned the good M. Chanterelle, leaning on M. Spon’s arm and
trying hard to make his tottering steps keep pace with his impetuous
companion’s, “sir, before my sickness, I was only a miserable sinner,
taking no heed but to treat my friends with civility and govern my
behaviour by the principles of honesty and honour. Providence hath
deigned to rescue me from this abyss, and I direct my conduct since my
conversion by the admonitions the Director of my conscience gives me.
But I have been so light-minded and thoughtless as not to seek his
advice on this question of New Year’s gifts. What you tell me of them,
sir, with the authority of a man alike admirable for sober living and
sound doctrine, amazes and confounds me.”
“Nay! that is indeed what I mean to do,” resumed M. Spon,--“to confound
you, and to illumine you, not indeed by my own lights, which burn
feebly, but by those of a great Doctor. Sit you down on that wayside
post.”
And pushing M. Chanterelle into the archway of a carriage gate, where
he made himself as easy as circumstances allowed, M. Spon drew from his
pocket a little parchment-bound book, which he opened, and after hunting
through the pages, lighted on a passage which he proceeded to read
out loud amid a gaping circle of chimney-sweeps, chamber-maids, and
scullions who had collected at the resounding tones of his voice:
“‘We who hold in abhorrence the festivals of the Jews, and who would
deem strange and outlandish their Sabbaths and New Moons and other Holy
Days erst loved of the Almighty, we deal familiarly with the Saturnalia
and the Calends of January, with the Matronalia and the Feast of the
Winter Solstice; New Year’s gifts and foolish presents fill all our
thoughts; merrymakings and junketings are in every house. The Heathens
guard their religion better; they are heedful to observe none of our
Feasts, for fear of being taken for Christians, while we never hesitate
to make ourselves look like Heathens by celebrating their Ceremonial
Days.’
“You hear what I say,” went on M. Spon. “‘T is Tertullian speaks in this
wise and from the depths of Africa displays before your eyes, sir, the
odiousness of your behaviour. He it is upbraids you, declaring how ‘New
Year’s gifts and foolish presents fill all your thoughts. You keep
holy the feasts of the Heathen.’ I have not the honour to know your
Confessor. But I shudder, sir, to think of the way he neglects his duty
toward you. Tell me this, can you rest assured that at the day of your
death, when you come to stand before God, he will be at your side, to
take upon him the sins he hath suffered you to fall into?”
After haranguing in this sort, he put back his book in his pocket and
marched off with angry strides, followed at a distance by the astonished
chimney-sweeps and scullions.
The good M. Chanterelle was left sitting alone on his post with the
Princess of Savoy, and thinking how he was risking the eternal pains of
hell fire for giving a doll to Mademoiselle de Doucine, his niece, he
fell to pondering the unfathomable mysteries of Religion.
His legs, which had been tottery for several months, refused to carry
him, and he felt as unhappy as ever a well-meaning man possibly can in
this world.
He had been sitting stranded in this distressful mood on his post for
some minutes when a Capuchin friar stepped up and addressed him:
“Sir, will you not give New Year’s presents to the Little Brethren who
are poor, for the love of God?”
“Why! what! good Father,” M. Chan-terelle burst out, “you are a man of
religion, and you ask me for New Year’s gifts?”
“Sir,” replied the Capuchin, “the good St. Francis bade his sons make
merry with all simplicity. Give the Capuchins wherewith to make a good
meal this day, that they may endure with cheerfulness the abstinence and
fasting they must observe all the rest of the year,--barring, of course,
Sundays and Feast Days.”