Lovely to a poet or an artist's eye is the unevenly-built and
picturesque square of Rouen in which the Cathedral stands,--lovely, and
suggestive of historical romance in all its remote corners, its
oddly-shaped houses, its by-ways and crooked little flights of steps
leading to nowhere, its gables and slanting roofs, and its utter
absence of all structural proportion. A shrine here, a broken statue
there,--a half-obliterated coat-of-arms over an old gateway,--a rusty
sconce fitted fast into the wall to support a lantern no longer needed
in these days of gas and electricity,--an ancient fountain overgrown
with weed, or a projecting vessel of stone for holy water, in which
small birds bathe and disport themselves after a shower of rain,--those
are but a few of the curious fragments of a past time which make the
old place interesting to the student, and more than fascinating to the
thinker and dreamer. The wonderful "Hotel Bourgtheroulde," dating from
the time of Francis the First, and bearing on its sculptured walls the
story of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in company with the
strangely-contrasting "Allegories", from Petrarch's "Triumphs", is
enough in itself to keep the mind engrossed with fanciful musings for
an hour. How did Petrarch and the Field of the Cloth of Gold come
together in the brain of the sculptor who long ago worked at these
ancient bas-reliefs? One wonders, but the wonder is in vain,--there is
no explanation;--and the "Bourgtheroulde" remains a pleasing and
fantastic architectural mystery. Close by, through the quaint old
streets of the Epicerie and "Gross Horloge", walked no doubt in their
young days the brothers Corneille, before they evolved from their
meditative souls the sombre and heavy genius of French tragedy,--and
not very far away, up one of those little shadowy winding streets and
out at the corner, stands the restored house of Diane de Poitiers, so
sentient and alive in its very look that one almost expects to see at
the quaint windows the beautiful wicked face of the woman who swayed
the humours of a king by her smile or her frown.
Cardinal Bonpre, walking past the stately fourteenth-century Gothic
pile of the Palais de Justice, thought half-vaguely of some of these
things,--but they affected him less than they might have done had his
mind not been full of the grand music he had just heard in the
Cathedral, and of the darkness that had slowly gathered there, as
though in solemn commingling with the darkness which had at the same
time settled over his soul. A great oppression weighed upon
him;--almost he judged himself guilty of mortal sin, for had he not
said aloud and boldly, while facing the High Altar of the Lord, that
even in the Church itself faith was lacking? Yes, he, a
Cardinal-Archbishop, had said this thing; he had as it were proclaimed
it on the silence of the sacred precincts,--and had he not in this,
acted unworthily of his calling? Had he not almost uttered blasphemy?
Grieved and puzzled, the good Felix went on his way, almost unseeingly,
towards the humble inn where he had elected to remain for the brief
period of his visit to Rouen,--an inn where no one stayed save the very
poorest of travellers, this fact being its chief recommendation in the
eyes of the Cardinal. For it must be conceded, that viewed by our
latter-day ideas of personal comfort and convenience, the worthy
prelate had some very old-world and fantastic notions. One of these
notions was a devout feeling that he should, so far as it was humanly
possible, endeavour to obey the Master whose doctrine he professed to
follow. This, it will be admitted, was a curious idea. Considering the
bold and blasphemous laxity of modern Christian customs, it was surely
quite a fanatical idea. Yet he had his own Church-warrant for such a
rule of conduct; and chief among the Evangelic Counsels writ down for
his example was Voluntary Poverty. Yes!--Voluntary
Poverty,--notwithstanding the countless treasures lying idle and wasted
in the Vatican, and the fat sinecures enjoyed by bishops and
archbishops; which things exist in direct contradiction and
disobedience to the command of Christ. Christ Himself lived on the
earth in poverty,--He visited only the poorest and simplest
habitations,--and never did He set His sacred foot within a palace,
save the palace of the High Priest where He was condemned to die. Much
symbolic meaning did Cardinal Felix discover in this incident,--and
often would he muse upon it gravely.
"The Divine is condemned to die in all palaces," he would say,--"It is
only in the glorious world of Nature, under the sunlit or starlit
expanse of heaven, that the god in us can live; and it was not without
some subtle cause of intended instruction to mankind that the Saviour
always taught His followers in the open air."
There was what might be called a palace hard by, to which Bonpre had
been invited, and where he would have been welcome to stay as long as
he chose,--the house of the Archbishop of Rouen--a veritable abode of
luxury as compared with the Hotel Poitiers, which was a dingy little
tumble-down building, very old, and wearing a conscious air of
feebleness and decrepitude which was almost apologetic. Its small
windows, set well back in deeply hollowed carved arches had a
lack-lustre gleam, as of very aged eyes under shelving brows,--its
narrow door, without either bolts or bars, hung half-aslant upon
creaking rusty hinges, and was never quite shut either by day or
night,--yet from the porch a trailing mass of "creeping jenny" fell in
a gold-dotted emerald fringe over the head of any way-worn traveller
passing in,--making a brightness in a darkness, and suggesting
something not altogether uncheery in the welcome provided. They were
very humble folk who kept the Hotel Poitiers,--the host, Jean Patoux,
was a small market-gardener who owned a plot of land outside Rouen,
which he chiefly devoted to the easy growing of potatoes and
celery--his wife had her hands full with the domestic business of the
hotel and the cares of her two children, Henri and Babette, the most
incorrigible imps of mischief that ever lived in Rouen or out of it.
Madame Patoux, large of body, unwieldy in movement, but clean as a new
pin, and with a fat smile of perpetual contentment on her round visage,
professed to be utterly worn to death by the antics of these children
of hers,--but nevertheless she managed to grow stouter every day with a
persistency and fortitude which denoted the reserved forces of her
nature,--and her cooking, always excellent, never went wrong because
Babette had managed to put her doll in one of the saucepans, or Henri
had essayed to swim a paper boat in the soup. Things went on somehow;
Patoux himself was perfectly satisfied with his small earnings and
position in life--Madame Patoux felt that "le bon Dieu" was specially
engaged in looking after her,--and as long as the wicked Babette and
the wickeder Henri threw themselves wildly into her arms and clung
round her fat neck imploring pardon after any and every misdeed, and
sat for a while "en penitence" in separate corners reading the "Hours
of Mary", they might be as naughty as they chose over and over again so
far as the good-natured mother was concerned. Just now, however,
unusual calm appeared to have settled on the Patoux household,--an
atmosphere of general placidity and peace prevailed, which had the
effect of imparting almost a stately air to the tumble-down house, and
a suggestion of luxury to the poorly-furnished rooms Madame Patoux
herself was conscious of a mysterious dignity in her surroundings, and
moved about on her various household duties with less bounce and fuss
than was her ordinary custom,--and Henri and Babette sat quiet without
being told to do so, moved apparently by a sudden and inexplicable
desire to study their lessons. All this had been brought about by the
advent of Cardinal Bonpre, who with his kind face, gentle voice and
beneficent manner, had sought and found lodging at the Hotel Poitiers,
notwithstanding Madame Patoux's profuse apologies for the narrowness
and inconvenience of her best rooms.
"For look you, Monseigneur," she murmured, deferentially, "How should
we have ever expected such an honour as the visit of a holy
Cardinal-Archbishop to our poor little place! There are many new houses
on the Boulevards which could have accommodated Monseigneur with every
comfort,--and that he should condescend to bestow the blessing of his
presence upon us,--ah! it was a special dispensation of Our Lady which
was too amazing and wonderful to be at once comprehended!"
Thus Madame Patoux, with breathless pauses between her sentences, and
many profound curtseyings; but the good Cardinal waived aside her
excuses and protestations, and calling her "My daughter", signed the
cross on her brow with paternal gentleness, assuring her that he would
give her as little trouble as any other casual visitor.
"Trouble!--Ah, heaven!--could anything be a trouble for Monseigneur!"
and Madame Patoux, moved to tears by the quiet contentment with which
the Cardinal took possession of the two bare, common rooms which were
the best she could place at his disposal, hurried away, and hustling
Henri and Babette like two little roly-poly balls before her into the
kitchen, she told them with much emphasis that there was a saint in the
house,--a saint fit to be the holy companion of any of those who had
their niches up in the Cathedral near the great rose-window,--and that
if they were good children they would very likely see an angel coming
down from heaven to visit him. Babette put her finger in her mouth and
looked incredulous. She had a vague belief in angels,--but Henri, with
the cheap cynicism of the modern French lad was anything but sure about
them.
"Mother," said he, "There's a boy in our school who says there is no
God at all, and that it's no use having priests or Cardinals or
Cathedrals,--it's all rubbish and humbug!"
"Poor little miserable monster!" exclaimed Madame Patoux, as she peered
into the pot where the soup for the Cardinal's supper was
simmering--"He is arranging himself to become a thief or a murderer, be
sure of that, Henri!--and thou, who art trained in all thy holy duties
by the good Pere Laurent, who teaches thee everything which the school
is not wise enough to teach, ought never to listen to such wickedness.
If there were no God, we should not be alive at all, thou foolish
child!--for it is only our blessed Saviour and the saints that keep the
world going."
Henri was silent,--Babette looked at him and made a little grimace of
scorn.
"If the Cardinal is a saint," she said--"he should be able to perform a
miracle. The little Fabien Doucet has been lame for seven years; we
shall bring him to Monseigneur, and he will mend his leg and make him
well. Then we shall believe in saints afterwards."
Madame Patoux turned her warm red face round from the fire over which
she was bending, and stared at her precocious offspring aghast.
"What! You will dare to address yourself to the Cardinal!" she cried
vociferously--"You will dare to trouble him with such foolishness? Mon
Dieu!--is it possible to be so wicked! But listen to me well!--If you
presume to say one saucy word to Monseigneur, you shall be punished!
What have you to do with the little Fabien Doucet?--the poor child is
sickly and diseased by the will of God."
"I don't see why it should be God's will to make a boy sickly and
diseased--" began the irrepressible Henri, when his mother cut him
short with a stamp of her foot and a cry of--
"Tais-toi! Silence! Wicked boy!--thou wilt kill me with thy naughty
speeches! All this evil comes of the school,--I would thy father had
never been compelled to send thee there!"
As she said this with a vast amount of heat and energy, Henri, seized
by some occult and inexplicable emotion, burst without warning into
loud and fitful weeping, the sound whereof resembled the yelling of a
tortured savage,--and Babette, petrified at first by the appalling
noise, presently gave way likewise, and shrieked a wild accompaniment.
"What ails my children?" said a gentle voice, distinct and clear in its
calm intonation even in the midst of the uproar, and Cardinal Bonpre,
tall and stately, suddenly appeared upon the threshold--"What little
sorrows are these?"
Henri's roar ceased abruptly,--Babette's shrill wailing dropped into
awed silence. Both youngsters stared amazed at the venerable Felix,
whose face and figure expressed such composed dignity and sweetness;
and Madame Patoux, nastily and with frequent gasps for breath, related
the history of the skirmish.
"And what will become of such little devils when they grow older, the
Blessed Virgin only knows!" she groaned--"For even now they are so
suspicious in nature, that they will not believe in their dinner till
they see it!"
Something like a faint grin widened the mouths of Henri and Babette at
this statement made with so much distressed fervour by their angry
mother,--but the Cardinal did not smile. His face had grown very pale
and grave, almost stern.
"The children are quite right, my daughter," he said gently,--"I am no
saint! I have performed no miracles. I am a poor sinner,--striving to
do well, but alas!--for ever striving in vain. The days of noble living
are past,--and we are all too much fallen in the ways of error to
deserve that our Lord should bless the too often half-hearted and
grudging labour of his so-called servants. Come here, ma mignonne!" he
continued, calling Babette, who approached him with a curious air of
half-timid boldness--"Thou art but a very little girl," he said, laying
his thin white hand softly on her tumbled brown curls--"Nevertheless, I
should be a very foolish old man if I despised thee, or thy thoughts,
or thy desire to know the truth for truth's sake. Therefore to-morrow
thou shalt bring me this afflicted friend of thine, and though I have
no divine gifts, I will do even as the Master commanded,--I will lay my
hands on him in blessing and pray that he may be healed. More than this
is not in my power, my child!--if a miracle is to be worked, it is our
dear Lord only who can work it."
Gently he murmured his formal benediction,--then, turning away, he
entered his own room and shut the door. Babette, grown strangely
serious, turned to her brother and held out her hand, moved by one of
those erratic impulses which often take sudden possession of
self-willed children.
"Come into the Cathedral!" she whispered imperatively--"Come and say an
Ave."
Not a word did the usually glib Henri vouchsafe in answer,--but
clutching his sister's fingers in his own dirty, horny palm, he trotted
meekly beside her out of the house and across the Square into the
silence and darkness of Notre Dame. Their mother watched their little
plump figures disappear with a feeling of mingled amazement and
gratitude,--miracles were surely beginning, she thought, if a few words
from the Cardinal could impress Babette and Henri with an idea of the
necessity of prayer!
They were not long gone, however;--they came walking back together,
still demurely hand in hand, and settled themselves quietly in a corner
to study their tasks for the next day. Babette's doll, once attired as
a fashionable Parisienne, and now degenerated into a one-eyed laundress
with a rather soiled cap and apron, stuck out its composite arms in
vain from the bench where it sat all askew, drooping its head forlornly
over a dustpan,--and Henri's drum, wherewith he was wont to wake
alarming echoes out of the dreamy and historical streets of Rouen, lay
on its side neglected and ingloriously silent. And, as before said,
peace reigned in the Patoux household,--even the entrance of Papa
Patoux himself, fresh from his celery beds, and smelling of the earth
earthy, created no particular diversion. He was a very little, very
cheery, round man, was Papa Patoux; he had no ideas at all in his
bullet head save that he judged everything to be very well managed in
the Universe, and that he, considered simply as Patoux, was lucky in
his life and labours,--also that it was an easy thing to grow celery,
provided God's blessing was on the soil. For the rest, he took small
care; he knew that the world wagged in different ways in different
climates,--he read his half-penny journal daily, and professed to be
interested in the political situation just for the fun of the thing,
but in reality he thought the French Senate a pack of fools, and
wondered what they meant by always talking so much about nothing. He
believed in "La Patrie" to a certain extent,--but he would have very
much objected if "La Patrie" had interfered with his celery. Roughly
sneaking, he understood that France was a nation, and that he was a
Frenchman; and that if any enemies should presume to come into the
country, it would be necessary to take up a musket and fight them out
again, and defend wife, children, and celery-beds till the last breath
was out of his body. Further than this simple and primitive idea of
patriotism he did not go. He never bothered himself about dissentient
shades of opinion, or quarrels among opposing parties. When he had to
send his children to the Government school, the first thing he asked
was whether they would be taught their religion there. He was told
no,--that the Government objected to religious teaching, as it merely
created discussion and was of no assistance whatever in the material
business of life. Patoux scratched his head over this for a
considerable time and ruminated deeply,--finally he smiled, a dull fat
smile.
"Good!" said he--"I understand now why the Government makes such an ass
of itself now and then! You cannot expect mere men to do their duty
wisely without God on their side. But Pere Laurent will teach my
children their prayers and catechism,--and I dare say Heaven will
arrange the rest."
And he forthwith dismissed the matter from his mind. His children
attended the Government school daily,--and every Wednesday, Saturday,
and Sunday afternoons Pere Laurent, a kindly, simple-hearted old
priest, took them, with several other little creatures "educated by the
State", and taught them all he knew about the great France-exiled
Creator of the Universe, and of His ceaseless love to sinful and
blasphemous mankind.
So things went on;--and though Henri and Babette were being crammed by
the national system of instruction, with learning which was destined to
be of very slight use to them in their after careers, and which made
them little cynics before their time, they were still sustained within
bounds by the saving sense of something better than themselves,--that
Something Better which silently declares itself in the beauty of the
skies, the blossoming of the flowers, and the loveliness of all things
wherein man has no part,--and neither of them was yet transformed into
that most fearsome product of modern days, the child-Atheist, for whom
there is no greater God than Self.
On this particular night when Papa Patoux returned to the bosom of his
family, he, though a dull-witted man generally, did not fail to note
the dove-like spirit of calm that reigned over his entire household.
His wife's fat face was agreeably placid,--the children were in an
orderly mood, and as he sat down to the neatly spread supper-table, he
felt more convinced than ever that things were exceedingly well managed
for him in this best of all possible worlds. Pausing in the act of
conveying a large spoonful of steaming soup to his mouth he enquired--
"And Monseigneur, the Cardinal Bonpre,--has he also been served?"
Madame Patoux opened her round eyes wide at him.
"But certainly! Dost thou think, my little cabbage, thou wouldst get
thy food before Monseigneur? That would be strange indeed!"
Papa Patoux swallowed his ladleful of soup in abashed silence.
"It was a beautiful day in the fields," he presently observed--"There
was a good smell in the earth, as if violets were growing,--and late in
the autumn though it is, there was a skylark yet singing. It was a very
blue heaven, too, as blue as the robe of the Virgin, with clouds as
white as little angels clinging to it."
Madame nodded. Some people might have thought Papa Patoux inclined to
be poetical,--she did not. Henri and Babette listened.
"The robe of Our Lady is always blue," said Babette.
"And the angels' clothes are always white," added Henri.
Madame Patoux said nothing, but passed a second helping of soup all
round. Papa Patoux smiled blandly on his offspring.
"Just so," he averred--"Blue and white are the colours of the sky, my
little ones,--and Our Lady and the angels live in the sky!"
"I wonder where?" muttered Henri with his mouth half full. "The sky is
nothing but miles and miles of air, and in the air there are millions
and millions of planets turning round and round, larger than our
world,--ever so much larger,--and nobody knows which is the largest of
them all!"
"It is as thou sayest, my son," said Patoux confidently--"Nobody knows
which is the largest of them all, but whichever it may be, that largest
of them all belongs to Our Lady and the angels."
Henri looked at Babette, but Babette was munching watercress busily,
and did not return his enquiring glances. Papa Patoux, quite satisfied
with his own reasoning, continued his supper in an amiable state of
mind.
"What didst thou serve to Monseigneur, my little one?" he asked his
wife with a coaxing and caressing air, as though she were some delicate
and dainty sylph of the woodlands, instead of being the lady of massive
proportions which she undoubtedly was,--"Something of delicacy and fine
flavour, doubtless?"
Madame Patoux shook her head despondingly.
"He would have nothing of that kind," she replied--"Soup maigre, and
afterwards nothing but bread, dried figs, and apples to finish. Ah,
Heaven! What a supper for a Cardinal-Archbishop! It is enough to make
one weep!"
Patoux considered the matter solemnly.
"He is perhaps very poor?" he half queried.
"Poor, he may be," responded Madame,--"But if he is, it is surely his
own fault,--whoever heard of a poor Cardinal-Archbishop! Such men can
all be rich if they choose."
"Can they?" asked Henri with sudden vivacious eagerness. "How?"
But his question was not answered, for just at that moment a loud knock
came at the door of the inn, and a tall broadly built personage in
close canonical attire appeared in the narrow little passage of entry,
attended by another smaller and very much more insignificant-looking
individual.
Patoux hastily scrambled out of his chair.
"The Archbishop!" he whispered to his wife--"He himself! Our own
Archbishop!"
Madame Patoux jumped up, and seizing her children, held one in each
hand as she curtsied up and down.
"Benedicite!" said the new-comer, lightly signing the cross in air with
a sociable smile--"Do not disturb yourselves, my children! You have
with you in this house the eminent Cardinal Bonpre?"
"Ah, yes, Monseigneur!" replied Madame Patoux--"Only just now he has
finished his little supper. Shall I show Monseigneur to his room?"
"If you please," returned the Archbishop, still smiling
benevolently--"And permit my secretary to wait with you here till I
return."
With this, and an introductory wave of his hand in the direction of the
attenuated and sallow-faced personage who had accompanied him, he
graciously permitted Madame Patoux to humbly precede him by a few
steps, and then followed her with a soft, even tread, and a sound as of
rustling silk in his garments, from which a faint odour of some
delicate perfume seemed wafted as he moved.
Left to entertain the Archbishop's secretary, Jean Patoux was for a
minute or two somewhat embarrassed. Henri and Babette stared at the
stranger with undisguised curiosity, and were apparently not favourably
impressed by his appearance.
"He has white eyelashes!" whispered Henri.
"And yellow teeth," responded Babette.
Meanwhile Patoux, having scratched his bullet-head sufficiently over
the matter, offered his visitor a chair.
"Sit down, sir," he said curtly.
The secretary smiled pallidly and took the proffered accommodation.
Patoux again meditated. He was not skilled in the art of polite
conversation, and he found himself singularly at a loss.
"It would be an objection no doubt, and an irreverance perhaps to smoke
a pipe before you, Monsieur--Monsieur--"
"Cazeau," finished the secretary with another pallid smile--"Claude
Cazeau, a poor scribe,--at your service! And I beg of you, Monsieur
Jean Patoux, to smoke at your distinguished convenience!"
There was a faint tone of satire in his voice which struck Papa Patoux
as exceedingly disagreeable, though he could not quite imagine why he
found it so. He slowly reached for his pipe from the projecting shelf
above the chimney, and as slowly proceeded to fill it with tobacco from
a tin cannister close by.
"I do not think I have ever seen you in the town, Monsieur Cazeau," he
said--"Nor at Mass in the Cathedral either?"
"No?" responded Cazeau easily, in a half-querying tone--"I do not much
frequent the streets; and I only attend the first early mass on
Sundays. My work for Monseigneur occupies my whole time."
"Ah!" and Patoux, having stuffed his pipe sufficiently, lit it, and
proceeded to smoke peaceably--"There must be much to do. Many poor and
sick who need money, and clothes, and help in every way,--and to try
and do good, and give comfort to all the unhappy souls in Rouen is a
hard task, even for an Archbishop."
Cazeau linked his thin hands together with an action of pious fervour
and assented.
"There is a broken-hearted creature near us," pursued Patoux
leisurely--"We call her Marguerite La Folle;--I have often thought I
would ask Pere Laurent to speak to Monseigneur for her, that she might
be released from the devils that are tearing her. She was a good girl
till a year or two ago,--then some villain got the ruin of her, and she
lost her wits over it. Ah,'tis a sad sight to see her now--poor
Marguerite Valmond!"
"Ha!" cried Henri suddenly, pointing a grimy finger at Cazeau--"Why did
you jump? Did something hurt you?"
Cazeau had indeed "jumped," as Henri put it,--that is, he had sprung up
from his chair suddenly and as suddenly sat down again with an air of
impatience and discomfort. He rapidly overcame whatever emotion moved
him, however, and stretched his thin mouth in a would-be amiable grin
at the observant Henri.
"You are a sharp boy!" he observed condescendingly--"and tall for your
age, no doubt. How old are you?"
"Eleven," replied Henri--"But that has nothing to do with your jumping."
"True," and the secretary wriggled in his chair, pretending to be much
amused--"But my jumping had nothing to do with you either, my small
friend! I had a thought,--a sudden thought,--of a duty forgotten."
"Oh, it was a thought, was it?" and Henri looked incredulous. "Do
thoughts always make you jump?"
"Tais-toi! Tais-toi!" murmured Patoux gently, between two whiffs of his
pipe--"Excuse him, Monsieur Cazeau,--he is but a child."
Cazeau writhed amicably.
"A delightful child," he murmured--"And the little girl--his sister--is
also charming--Ah, what fine dark eyes!--what hair! Will she not come
and speak to me?"
He held out a hand invitingly towards Babette, but she merely made a
grimace at him and retired backwards. Patoux smiled benevolently.
"She does not like strangers," he explained.
"Good--very good! That is right! Little girls should always run away
from strangers, especially strangers of my sex," observed Cazeau with a
sniggering laugh--"And do these dear children go to school?"
Patoux took his pipe out of his mouth altogether, and stared solemnly
at the ceiling.
"Without doubt!--they are compelled to go to school," he answered
slowly; "but if I could have had my way, they should never have gone.
They learn mischief there in plenty, but no good that I can see. They
know much about geography, and the stars, and anatomy, and what they
call physical sciences;--but whether they have got it into their heads
that the good God wants them to live straight, clean, honest, wholesome
lives, is more than I am certain of. However, I trust Pere Laurent will
do what he can."
"Pere Laurent?" echoed Cazeau, with a wide smile--"You have a high
opinion of Pere Laurent? Ah, yes, a good man!--but ignorant--alas! very
ignorant!"
Papa Patoux brought his eyes down from the ceiling and fixed them
enquiringly on Cazeau.
"Ignorant?" he began, when at this juncture Madame Patoux entered, and
taking possession of Henri and Babette, informed Monsieur Cazeau that
the Archbishop would be for some time engaged in conversation with
Cardinal Bonpre, and that therefore he, Monsieur Cazeau, need not
wait,--Monseigneur would return to his house alone. Whereupon the
secretary rose, evidently glad to be set at liberty, and took his leave
of the Patoux family. On the threshold, however, he paused, looking
back somewhat frowningly at Jean Patoux himself.
"I should not, if I were you, trouble Monseigneur concerning the case
you told me of--that of--of Marguerite Valmond,"--he observed--"He has
a horror of evil women."
With that he departed, walking across the Square towards the
Archbishop's house in a stealthy sort of fashion, as though he were a
burglar meditating some particularly daring robbery.
"He is a rat--a rat!" exclaimed Henri, suddenly executing a sort of
reasonless war-dance round the kitchen--"One wants a cat to catch him!"
"Rats are nice," declared Babette, for she remembered having once had a
tame white rat which sat on her knee and took food from her
hand,--"Monsieur Cazeau is a man; and men are not nice."
Patoux burst into a loud laugh.
"Men are not nice!" he echoed--"What dost thou know about it, thou
little droll one?"
"What I see," responded Babette severely, with an elderly air, as of a
person who has suffered by bitter experience; and, undeterred by her
parents' continued laughter she went on--
"Men are ugly. They are dirty. They say 'Come here my little girl, and
I will give you something,'--then when I go to them they try and kiss
me. And I will not kiss them, because their mouths smell bad. They
stroke my hair and pull it all the wrong way. And it hurts. And when I
don't like my hair pulled the wrong way, they tell me I will be a great
coquette. A coquette is to be like Diane de Poitiers. Shall I be like
Diane de Poitiers?"
"The saints forbid!" cried Madame Patoux,--"And talk no more nonsense,
child,--it's bed-time. Come,--say good-night to thy father,
Henri;--give them thy blessing, Jean--and let me get them into their
beds before the Archbishop leaves the house, or they will be asking him
as many questions as there are in the catechism."
Thus enjoined, Papa Patoux kissed his children affectionately, signing
the cross on their brows as they came up to him in turn, after the
fashion of his own father, who had continued this custom up to his
dying day. What they thought of the benediction in itself might be
somewhat difficult to define, but it can be safely asserted that a
passion of tears on the part of Babette, and a fit of demoniacal
howling from Henri, would have been the inevitable result if Papa
Patoux had refused to bestow it on them. Whether there were virtue in
it or not, their father's mute blessing sent them to bed peaceably and
in good humour with each other, and they trotted off very contentedly
beside their mother, hushing their footsteps and lowering their voices
as they passed the door of the room occupied by Cardinal Bonpre.
"The Archbishop is not an angel, is he?" asked Babette whisperingly.
Her mother smiled broadly.
"Not exactly, my little one. Why such a foolish question?"
"You said that Cardinal Bonpre was a saint, and that perhaps we should
see an angel come down from heaven to visit him," replied Babette.
"Well, you could not have thought the Archbishop came from heaven,"
interpolated Henri, scornfully,--"He came from his own house over the
way with his own secretary behind him. Do angels keep secretaries?"
Babette laughed aloud,--the idea was grotesque. The two children were
just then ascending the wooden stairs to their bedroom, the mother
carrying a lighted candle behind them, and at that moment the rich
sonorous voice of the Archbishop, raised to a high and somewhat
indignant tone, reached them with these words--"I consider that you
altogether mistake your calling and position."
Then the voice died away into inaudible murmurings.
"They are quarrelling! The Archbishop is angry!" said Henri with a grin.
"Perhaps Archbishops do not like saints," suggested Babette.
"Tais-toi! Cardinal Bonpre is an archbishop himself, little silly,"
said Madame Patoux--"Therefore those great and distinguished
Monseigneurs are like brothers."
"That is why they are quarrelling!" declared Henri glibly,--"A boy told
me in school that Cain and Abel were the first pair of brothers, and
they quarrelled,--and all brothers have quarrelled ever since. It's in
the blood, so that boy says,--and it is his excuse always for fighting
HIS little brother. His little brother is six, and he is twelve;--and
of course he always knocks his little brother down. He cannot help it,
he says. And he gets books on physiology and heredity, and he learns in
them that whatever is IN the blood has got to come out somehow. He says
that it's because Cain killed Abel that there are wars between
nations;--if Cain and Abel had never quarrelled, there would never have
been any fighting in the world,--and now that it's in the blood of
every body--"
But further sapient discourse on the part of Henri was summarily put an
end to by his mother's ordering him to kneel down and say his prayers,
and afterwards bundling him into bed,--where, being sleepy, he speedily
forgot all that he had been trying to talk about. Babette took more
time in retiring to rest. She had very pretty, curly, brown hair, and
Madame Patoux took a pride in brushing and plaiting it neatly.
"I may be like Diane de Poitiers after all," she remarked, peering at
herself in the small mirror when her thick locks were smoothed and tied
back for the night--"Why should I not be?"
"Because Diane de Poitiers was a wicked woman," said Madame Patoux
energetically,--"and thou must learn to be a good girl."
"But if Diane de Poitiers was bad, why do they talk so much about her
even now, and put her in all the histories, and show her house, and say
she was beautiful?" went on Babette.
"Because people are foolish," said Madame, getting impatient--"Foolish
people run after bad women, and bad women run after foolish people. Now
say thy prayers."
Obediently Babette knelt down, shut her eyes close, clasped her hands
hard, and murmured the usual evening formula, heaving a small sigh
after her "act of contrition," and looking almost saintly as she
commended herself to her "angel guardian." Then her mother kissed her,
saying--
"Good-night, little daughter! Think of Our Lady and the saints, and
then ask them to keep us safe from evil. Good-night!"
"Good-night." responded Babette sleepily,--but all the same she did not
think of Our Lady and the saints half as much as of Diane de Poitiers.
There are few daughters of Eve to whom conquest does not seem a finer
thing than humility; and the sovereignty of Diane de Poitiers over a
king, seems to many a girl just conscious of her own charm, a more
emphatic testimony to the supremacy of her sex, than the Angel's
greeting of "Blessed art thou!" to the elected Virgin of the world.