One evening when old Brotteaux arrived in the Rue de la Loi bringing a
gross of dancing-dolls for the _citoyen_ Caillou, the toy-merchant, the
latter, a soft-spoken, polite man as a rule, stood there stiff and stern
among his dolls and punch-and-judies and gave him a far from gracious
welcome.
"Have a care, _citoyen_ Brotteaux," he began, "have a care! There is a
time to laugh, and a time to be serious; jokes are not always in good
taste. A member of the Committee of Security of the Section, who
inspected my establishment yesterday, saw your dancing-dolls and deemed
them anti-revolutionary."
"He was jesting!" declared Brotteaux.
"Not so, _citoyen_, not at all. He is not the man to joke. He said in
these little fellows the National representatives were insidiously
mimicked, that in particular one could discover caricatures of Couthon,
Saint-Just and Robespierre, and he seized the lot. It is a dead loss to
me, to say nothing of the grave risks to which I am exposed."
"What! these Harlequins, these Gilles, these Scaramouches, these Colins
and Colinettes, which I have painted the same as Boucher used to fifty
years ago, how should they be parodies of Couthons and Saint-Justs? No
sensible man could imagine such a thing."
"It is possible," replied the _citoyen_ Caillou, "that you acted
without malice, albeit we must always distrust a man of parts like you.
But it is a dangerous game. Shall I give you an instance? Natoile, who
runs a little outdoor theatre in the Champs Élysées, was arrested the
day before yesterday for anti-patriotism, because he made Polichinelle
poke fun at the Convention."
"Now listen to me," Brotteaux urged, raising the cloth that covered his
little dangling figures; "just look at these masks and faces, are they
anything else whatever but characters in plays and pastorals? How could
you let yourself be persuaded, _citoyen_ Caillou, that I was making fun
of the National Convention?"
Brotteaux was dumfounded. While allowing much for human folly, he had
not thought it possible it could ever go so far as to suspect his
Scaramouches and Colinettes. Repeatedly he protested their innocence and
his; but the _citoyen_ Caillou would not hear a word.
"_Citoyen_ Brotteaux, take your dolls away. I esteem you, I honour you,
but I do not mean to incur blame or get into trouble because of you. I
intend to remain a good citizen and to be treated as such. Good evening,
_citoyen_ Brotteaux; take your dolls away."
The old man set out again for home, carrying his suspects over his
shoulder at the end of a pole, an object of derision to the children,
who took him for the hawker of rat-poison. His thoughts were gloomy. No
doubt, he did not live only by his dancing-dolls; he used to paint
portraits at twenty _sols_ apiece, under the archways of doors or in one
of the market halls, among the darners and old-clothes menders, where he
found many a young recruit starting for the front and wanting to leave
his likeness behind for his sweetheart. But these petty tasks cost him
endless pains, and he was a long way from making as good portraits as he
did dancing-dolls. Sometimes, too, he acted as amanuensis for the
Market dames, but this meant mixing himself up in Royalist plots, and
the risks were heavy. He remembered there lived in the Rue
Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, near the erstwhile Place Vendôme, another
toy-merchant, Joly by name, and he resolved to go next day to offer him
the goods the chicken-hearted Caillou had declined.
A fine rain began to fall. Brotteaux who feared its effects on his
marionettes, quickened his pace. As he crossed the Pont-Neuf and was
turning the corner of the Place de Thionville, he saw by the light of a
street-lamp, sitting on a stone post, a lean old man who seemed utterly
exhausted with fatigue and hunger, but still preserved his venerable
appearance. He was dressed in a tattered surtout, had no hat and
appeared over sixty. Approaching the poor wretch, Brotteaux recognised
the Père Longuemare, the same he had saved from hanging six months
before while both of them were waiting in queue in front of the bakery
in the Rue de Jérusalem. Feeling bound to the monk by the service he had
already done him, Brotteaux stepped up to him and made himself known as
the publican who had stood beside him among the common herd, one day of
great scarcity, and asked him if he could not be of some use to him.
"You seem wearied, Father. Take a taste of cordial,"--and Brotteaux drew
from the pocket of his plum-coloured coat a flask of brandy, which lay
there alongside his Lucretius.
"Drink. And I will help you to get back to your house."
The Père Longuemare pushed away the flask with his hand and tried to
rise, but only to fall back again in his seat.
"Sir," he said in a weak but firm voice, "for three months I have been
living at Picpus. Being warned they had come to arrest me at my lodging,
yesterday at five o'clock of the afternoon, I did not return home. I
have no place to go to; I am wandering the streets and am a little
fatigued."
"Very well, Father," proposed Brotteaux, "do me the honour to share my
garret."
"Sir," replied the Barnabite, "you know, I suppose, I am a suspect."
"I am one too," said Brotteaux, "and my marionettes into the bargain,
which is the worst thing of all. You see them exposed under this flimsy
cloth to the fine rain that chills our bones. For, I must tell you,
Father, that after having been a publican, I now make dancing-dolls for
a living."
The Père Longuemare took the hand the _ci-devant_ financier extended to
him and accepted the hospitality offered. Brotteaux, in his garret,
served him a meal of bread and cheese and wine, which last he had put to
cool in the rain-gutter, for was he not a Sybarite?
Having appeased his hunger:
"Sir," said the Père Longuemare, "I ought to inform you of the
circumstances that led to my flight and left me to die on yonder post
where you found me. Driven from my cloister, I lived on the scanty
allowance the Assembly had assigned to me; I gave lessons in Latin and
Mathematics and I wrote pamphlets on the persecution of the Church of
France. I have even composed a work of some length, to prove that the
Constitutional oath of the Priests is subversive of Ecclesiastical
discipline. The advances made by the Revolution deprived me of all my
pupils, while I could not get my pension because I had not the
certificate of citizenship required by law. This certificate I went to
the Hôtel de Ville to claim, in the conviction I was well entitled to
it. Member of an order founded by the Apostle Paul himself, who boasted
the title of Roman citizen, I always piqued myself on behaving after his
example as a good French citizen, a respecter of all human laws which
are not in opposition to the Divine. I presented my demand to Monsieur
Colin, pork-butcher and Municipal officer, in charge of the delivery of
certificates of the sort. He questioned me as to my calling. I told him
I was a Priest. He asked me if I was married, and on my answering that I
was not, he told me that was the worse for me. Finally, after a variety
of questions, he asked me if I had proved my citizenship on the 10th
August, the 2nd September and the 31st May. 'No certificates can be
given,' he added, 'except to such as have proved their patriotism by
their behaviour on these three occasions.' I could not give him an
answer that would satisfy him. However, he took down my name and address
and promised me to make prompt enquiry into my case. He kept his word,
and as the result of his enquiry two Commissioners of the Committee of
General Security of Picpus, supported by an armed band, presented
themselves at my lodging in my absence to conduct me to prison. I do not
know of what crime I am accused. But you will agree with me one must
pity Monsieur Colin, whose wits are so clouded he holds it a reproach
to an ecclesiastic not to have made display of his patriotism on the
10th August, the 2nd September, and the 31st May. A man capable of such
a notion is surely deserving of commiseration."
"_I_ am in the same plight, I have no certificate," observed Brotteaux.
"We are both suspects. But you are weary. To bed, Father. We will
discuss plans to-morrow for your safety."
He gave the mattress to his guest and kept the palliasse for himself;
but the monk in his humility demanded the latter with so much urgency
that his wish had to be complied with; otherwise he would have slept on
the boards.
These arrangements completed, Brotteaux blew out the candle both to save
tallow and as a wise precaution.
"Sir," the monk addressed him, "I am thankful for what you are doing for
me; but alas! it is of small moment to you whether I am grateful or no.
May God account your act meritorious! _That_ is of infinite concern for
you. But God pays no heed to what is not done for his glory and is
merely the outcome of purely natural virtue. Wherefore I beseech you,
sir, to do for Him what you were led to do for me."
"Father," answered Brotteaux, "never trouble yourself on this head and
do not think of gratitude. What I am doing now, the merit of which you
exaggerate,--is not done for any love of you; for indeed, albeit you are
a lovable man, Father, I know you too little to love you. Nor yet do I
act so for love of humanity; for I am not so simple as to think with
'Don Juan' that humanity has rights; indeed this prejudice, in a mind so
emancipated as his, grieves me. I do it out of that selfishness which
inspires mankind to perform all their deeds of generosity and
self-sacrifice, by making them recognize themselves in all who are
unfortunate, by disposing them to commiserate their own calamities in
the calamities of others and by inciting them to offer help to a mortal
resembling themselves in nature and destiny, so that they think they are
succouring themselves in succouring him. I do it also for lack of
anything better to do; for life is so desperately insipid we must find
distraction at any cost, and benevolence is an amusement, of a mawkish
sort, one indulges in for want of any more savoury; I do it out of pride
and to get an advantage over you; I do it, in a word, as part of a
system and to show you what an atheist is capable of."
"Do not calumniate yourself, sir," replied the Père Longuemare. "I have
received of God more marks of grace than He has accorded you hitherto;
but I am not as good a man as you, and am greatly your inferior in
natural merits. But now let me take an advantage too over you. Not
knowing me, you cannot love me. And I, sir, without knowing you, I love
you better than myself; God bids me do so."
Having so said, the Père Longuemare knelt down on the floor, and after
repeating his prayers, stretched himself on his palliasse and fell
peacefully asleep.