PÉRON AND PÈRE ANTOINE
THE Rue de Bethisi was the artery which connected the older quarter
of the Hôtel de Ville and the Palais Tournelles with the more modern
neighborhood of the Louvre. In the vicinity of the Church of St.
Germain l’Auxerrois, the Rue de Bethisi divided the Rue de l’Arbre Sec
from the Rue des Fossés St. Germain l’Auxerrois, the spot fortified
by the Normans during their siege of Paris, and the scene of the
murder of Coligny. Near this corner, on the north side of the Rue de
Bethisi, and not far from the Hôtel Montbazon, was the lodging of Père
Antoine, though it was some distance from his parish of St. Nicholas
des Champs. The house was tall and narrow, with an oriel window in the
second story, which commanded a view of three streets. Houses are not
mere masses of stones or bricks and mortar: they have expressions,
eyes, mouths, ears; one might almost fancy--souls. They are the shells
of those who inhabit them, and many speak, in plain language, their
own histories. Is there anything more sad than the house of death?
more desolate than the forsaken home? This house on the Rue de Bethisi
had an expression of serious benevolence. The room which Père Antoine
occupied, where little Péron came daily for his lessons, was a large
one on the second floor, and well lighted by the oriel window. There
were no indications of wealth in the furnishings; the polished floor
was scantily covered with two threadbare rugs, there were two carved
arm-chairs,--one in which the priest always sat, the other turned
to the wall and never used. Besides these there were two or three
stiff-backed chairs, a table, a crucifix, a small but beautiful
painting of the Annunciation, and a little clock, fashioned after those
of the Valois period, a gift of Jacques des Horloges; for portable
clocks were still a luxury for the rich, and the priest would as soon
have dreamed of buying one as of possessing a cardinal’s hat. This was
all, except the books, and those were Père Antoine’s greatest worldly
treasures; they were arranged with loving care on the shelves on either
side of the room. Many of them were of great value, gifts from the
wealthier patrons who had learned to appreciate him or owed him a debt
for consolation that could never be repaid. Some of these gifts were
splendid specimens of the bookbinder’s art, and rich in clasps of gold
and silver. It was told of Père Antoine that one of the princes of the
blood had sent him a worldly book bound with great magnificence and set
with jewels, and the good priest had returned it with the quotation of
St. Jerome’s words: “Your books are covered with precious stones, and
Christ died naked before the gate of His temple!”
To this room came daily little Péron, the clockmaker’s adopted child,
to learn his lessons out of Père Antoine’s primer, and to spend a
laborious hour copying from the Gospels, that he might learn his Bible
and his penmanship at the same time. It was a pretty sight to see
the rosy-faced, dark-eyed boy sitting by the pale, studious priest
and taking his lesson soberly. Péron was a good scholar, and willing
enough except on occasions when the shouts of children at play made
his ears tingle and his heart throb; but he had never been allowed
to join in those rough sports, so he bore the ordeal with patience,
and only sighed more heavily at the task. He loved his teacher, as
many other people loved Père Antoine, and he had a quick mind. The
surroundings, too, were an incentive; he longed to be able to read all
those books, those beautiful books which he was allowed to look at and
to handle with a care that had been instilled by constant teaching and
example. By the time he was ten years old he could read both French
and Latin fairly well, and by spelling out the longer words could
gather the meaning of most of the books which he especially loved to
look at. These were the older volumes, with gayly decorated borders,
some of great beauty and a few having miniatures _en camaïeu_ or _en
grisaille_ after the fashion of the time of Charles VI. There was one,
the “Heures de la Croix,” which was curiously bound in white silk with
sacred emblems upon it, and encased in a red “chemise,” a kind of
pocket in which books were kept, and which was made of silk, velvet,
or sandal-wood, as occasion might require. Naturally, the books which
attracted the boy were those most gorgeously bound or emblazoned with
pictures of saints and martyrs, such as the “Livre d’Heures,” “Les
Miracles de Notre Dame,” the illuminated antiphonaries and missals. He
had even tried to spell out the “Commentaries of St. Jerome” and “Boèce
on Consolation,” this last because it was bound in green “Dampmas
cloth” and very beautifully embroidered. He was familiar, too, with
every printer’s and bookseller’s mark, and these were then curious
enough, from the two leopards of Simon Vostre to the six-oared galley
of Galliot de Pré, bookseller of Paris in 1531, nearly a hundred
years before Cardinal de Richelieu. But it was these old books, whose
capital letters had been decorated by the illuminator in many colors,
which pleased Péron, and not any of the more modern volumes. Solid and
somewhat dreary books for a child to spell a lesson from, but none the
less helpful in the struggle; and so faithful was the pupil that there
was seldom a day that Père Antoine did not send him away with some
word of commendation. And praise from the priest meant more than the
wondering admiration of Madame Michel, who regarded the boy as a marvel
of erudition for his years; and so he was, for a child of his condition
in the world. So ready was he to learn, and so prone to meditation,
that Jacques des Horloges occasionally grumbled out a fear that he
might be made a better priest than a soldier, for strangely enough the
clockmaker never seemed to entertain a thought of training Péron as an
apprentice at his own trade.
It was the child’s custom to talk more to the priest than to any
one else. In the shop on the Rue de la Ferronnerie he confined his
confidential communications to M. de Turenne, but on the Rue de Bethisi
he found his tongue, and many times Père Antoine turned his face aside
to hide a smile, too wise to wound the boy’s feelings. This was the
secret of his power, for a child both dreads and hates ridicule.
It was therefore to the priest that he carried the doubts and the
curiosity awakened by his visit to the Château de Nançay. Père Antoine
knew nothing of the journey to Poissy, and was unprepared for the
sudden questions which his pupil propounded. The boy had been reading
laboriously from “Les Petites Heures,” guided by his teacher’s pencil,
when he stopped and turned his large eyes upon him.
“Père Antoine,” he said slowly, “who died in the room next the tower at
the great château near Poissy?”
The priest leaned back in his chair, an expression of intense
astonishment crossing his face, instantly followed by one of sorrow so
sharp that the pupils of his eyes contracted as if with pain.
“Who told you of Poissy?” he asked quietly.
“I have been there,” Péron declared with an air of conscious pride;
“Maître Jacques took me on horseback. We rode a long way and saw the
fair in the forest.”
“The fête at St. Germain-en-Laye?” said Père Antoine. “Did you like the
green fields and the flowers, Péron?”
The child looked down; he was thinking of the bunch of violets which he
had brought home surreptitiously and hidden in his cupboard; he was
ashamed to keep anything that had been thrown at him as if he were a
beggar or a vagrant.
“I should like to live always in the green fields,” he said; “they are
so much prettier than the stone walls of the Rue de la Ferronnerie.”
Père Antoine sighed, laying his hand softly on the bent head with one
of his rare caresses.
“Poor child,” he murmured sadly; “our paths are not always easy, the
stones cut our feet; but fret not for a different condition of life;
discontent is a cankerworm which eats the heart. The streets of Paris
are narrow and dingy, yet you may learn here to walk the narrow way of
life eternal. You grow to be a big boy, Péron; presently, instead of
spelling with me, you will begin to learn the lessons of existence.
Some of us can have green fields and flowers, but many, my child, have
only the flint-paved way, and are shut in by walls as grim as those of
the Châtelet. See to it that you crave not that which is another’s;
verily, there is no more cruel sin than envy.”
“Why do the rich say rude things to the poor?” asked the boy sharply.
A slow flush crept up to Père Antoine’s temples and his sensitive lips
tightened.
“It is the way of the world, Péron,” he said softly, “not God’s way.”
“It is a very mean way!” the child declared promptly; “I will never
stand it.”
The priest looked at him in surprise; for some time he had been
conscious of the development of a new characteristic in his pupil, but
he was not prepared for the fire of the boy’s resentment. He shook his
head gravely.
“You must not harbor thoughts of malice, Péron,” he said; “I have
labored to teach you the lessons of Christian humility.”
“I do not see why some people are so rich and others so poor,” Péron
remarked, unmoved.
“You are not very poor,” Père Antoine replied soothingly, “you have a
comfortable shelter, and the care of good Maître Jacques and his wife.”
He was endeavoring to quiet the child, but his words only called forth
another question.
“Are my father and mother really dead?” Péron asked, leaning his elbows
on the table and gazing earnestly at his teacher.
Again the older face clouded and the kind eyes dwelt sadly on the rosy
countenance of his interrogator.
“Both dead, Péron,” he answered softly. “Your mother when you were a
baby, your father when you were three years old.”
“Did you know my mother, Père Antoine?” the child asked, a longing in
his tone which may have caused the spasm of pain that passed over the
priest.
“I knew her all her life,” he answered, “and I was with her when her
spirit passed into Paradise; she was a very noble, gentle, Christian
woman.”
He bent his head as he spoke and crossed himself, seeming for an
instant to forget the child.
“Do I look like her?” the boy asked, with eager interest.
“You have her eyes, my child,” Père Antoine said tenderly, “but you
grow daily more and more like your father.”
“Of what did he die?” Péron inquired; his mind seemed fully roused at
last, and he was not inclined to spare.
The priest’s pale face grew even more grave than it had been; he laid
his hand on the neglected book before his pupil.
“He died suddenly,” he said; “but come, child, you neglect your lesson.”
But he was not to evade the persistent little questioner.
“What was my father’s name, what is mine?” he asked; “other boys have
always two names--or three, sometimes even four--but I am only Péron.”
The priest spoke severely now. “My child,” he replied, “you have no
name but Péron now, nor can I tell you your father’s name; neither can
Maître Jacques. Be content, my boy, to bear the name we have given you
and to do your duty, since you may not know more than we can tell you.
See here rather this sentence which you left half read.”
Péron followed his guiding pencil for a few moments, and then he looked
up again, fixing his eyes on his instructor.
“You have not told me who died in the room at the château at Poissy,”
he said.
The priest passed his hand over his eyes; he was thinking prayerfully,
although the boy did not know it. A long, sad vista opened before
Père Antoine’s mental vision; the questions of love, duty, necessity,
beset him. He was a wise man as well as a good one, but sometimes a
child may confound a sage. He loved Péron too, with the tenderness of
a woman, and he felt that with him lay the chief responsibility, since
he was the most intelligent as well as the most deeply concerned of his
guardians. After an instant’s pause, a pause so slight that the eager
interrogator scarcely noted it, the priest answered him in his usual
calm tone.
“The Marquise de Nançay died there, Péron,” he said gravely. “A very
good woman.”
This answer did not satisfy the boy.
“Maître Jacques said she was like a saint,” he remarked curiously.
Père Antoine drew a deep breath, his luminous eyes looking over Péron’s
head into space.
“We cannot judge,” he said, in a low voice, “but I have never known a
better woman.”
“Was she as good as my mother?” asked the child bluntly.
“She was as good as your mother,” replied the priest slowly.
“Maître Jacques made me say my prayers there,” remarked Péron gravely.
The sad shadow in Père Antoine’s blue eyes cleared, as sometimes the
clouds break in the eastern sky and let the sun shine through.
“It is well,” he said, and there was a reverent pause.
But this was not the end of it.
“Is that her little girl who lives at Nançay?” was the next question.
Père Antoine started, and the sensitive flush came again.
“No!” he replied sharply.
“Is that tall man, who wears such wonderful lace ruffles, her husband?”
pursued Péron, unmercifully.
“A thousand times, no!” cried Père Antoine.
“Then,” exclaimed Péron in triumph, “how can she have been the Marquise
de Nançay? I heard them call him the marquis.”
Père Antoine wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and rose and
opened the casement.
“It is warm,” he said, then he turned to the child with the manner
which his pupil knew how to interpret. “We have wasted much valuable
time,” he remarked gravely. “I wish you to learn from the Psalter
to-day. You should not ask so many questions; there may always be
several people of the same name. It is more important for you to read
well than to know so much of unprofitable matters. I notice that when
the letters are colored in blue, you more easily mistake them than
those in red; this is not as it should be, and shows either a want of
application or inattention to your lessons.”
For the next hour and a half Péron found Père Antoine a harder
taskmaster than he had ever been before, and many times, in the
interval, the child sighed as he thought of the green fields and
flowers between Paris and St. Germain-en-Laye.