"He has trusted me," said the Cardinal,--"I have found him, and I
cannot--dare not--forsake him. For the Master says 'Whosoever shall
receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me'."
The next morning broke fair and calm, and as soon as the Patoux
household were astir, Cardinal Bonpre sought Madame Patoux in her
kitchen, and related to her the story of his night's adventure. She
listened deferentially, but could not refrain from occasional
exclamations of surprise, mingled with suggestions of warning.
"It is like your good heart, Monseigneur," she said, "to give your own
bed to a stray child out of the street,--one, too, of whom you know
nothing,--but alas! how often such goodness is repaid by ingratitude!
The more charity you show the less thanks you receive,--yes, indeed, it
is often so!--and it seems as if the Evil One were in it! For look you,
I myself have never done a kindness yet without getting a cruelty in
exchange for it."
"That is a sad experience, my daughter," returned the Cardinal
smiling,--"Nevertheless, it is our duty to go on doing kindnesses, no
matter what the results to ourselves may be. It is understood--is it
not? that we are to be misjudged in this world. If we had nothing to
suffer, what would be the use of exercising such virtues as patience
and endurance?"
"Ah, Monseigneur, for you it is different," said Madame Patoux shaking
her head and sighing--"You are like the blessed saints--safe in a niche
of Holy Church, with Our Lady for ever looking after you. But for poor
people such as we are--we see the rough side of life, Monseigneur--and
we know that there is very little goodness about in the world,--and as
for patience and endurance!--why, no one in these days has the patience
to endure even the least contradiction! Two men,--aye even
brothers,--will fight for a word like mongrels quarrelling over a
bone;--and two women will scream themselves hoarse if one should have a
lover more than the other--asking your pardon, Monseigneur, for such
wicked talk! Still, wicked as it may be, it is true--and not all the
powers of Heaven seem to care about making things better. And for this
boy,--believe me,--you had better leave him to his own way--for there
will be no chance of getting such a poor little waif into the school
unless his father and mother are known, or unless someone will adopt
him, which is not likely . . . for Rouen is full of misery, and there
are enough mouths to feed in most families--and . . . mon Dieu!--is
that the child?"
Thus abruptly she broke off her speech, utterly taken aback as she
suddenly perceived the little Manuel standing before her. Poorly clad
in the roughest garments as he was, his grace and plaintive beauty
moved her heart to quick compassion for his loneliness as he came
towards the Cardinal, who, extending one hand, drew him gently to his
side and asked if he had slept well?
"Thanks to your goodness, my lord Cardinal," the boy replied, "I slept
so well that I thought I was in Heaven! I heard the angels singing in
my dreams;--yes!--I heard all the music of a happy world, in which
there never had been known a sin or sorrow!"
He rested his fair head lightly against the Cardinal's arm and smiled.
Madame Patoux gazed at him in fascinated silence,--gazed and
gazed,--till she found her eyes suddenly full of tears. Then she turned
away to hide them,--but not before Cardinal Bonpre had observed her
emotion.
"Well, good MOTHER" he said with gentle emphasis on the word--"Would
you have me forsake this child that I have found?"
"No, Monseigneur,--no," said Madame Patoux very softly and
tremulously--"It is almost as if he were a little lost Angel sent to
comfort you."
A curious thrill went through the Cardinal. An angel to comfort him! He
looked down at Manuel who still clung caressingly to his arm, and who
met his earnest scrutiny with a sweet candid smile.
"Where did you come from, Manuel?" asked Bonpre suddenly.
"I cannot tell you," the boy answered, straightly, yet simply.
The Cardinal paused a moment, his keen penetrating eyes dwelling kindly
on the noble young face beside him.
"You do not wish to tell me,--is that so?" he pursued.
"Yes," said Manuel quietly--"I do not wish to tell you. And if, because
of this, you regret your kindness to me, my lord Cardinal, I will go
away at once and trouble you no more."
But at these words the Cardinal felt such a sharp consciousness of pain
and loss that his nerves ached with positive fear.
"Nay, nay, my child," he said anxiously--"I cannot let you go. It shall
be as you please,--I will not think that you could do yourself or me a
wrong by concealing what would be right for you to tell. It is true
that you are alone in the world?"
"Quite, quite alone!" answered Manuel, a faint shadow darkening the
serenity of his eyes--"No one was ever more alone than I!"
Madame Patoux drew nearer and listened.
"And there is no person living who has the right to claim you?"
"None!"
"And is it not strange, Monseigneur," murmured Madame Patoux at this
juncture--"The little lad does not speak as if he were ignorant! It is
as though he had been well taught and carefully nurtured."
Manuel's deep eyes dwelt upon her with a meditative sweetness.
"I have taught myself;" he said simply--"Not out of books, perhaps, but
out of nature. The trees and rivers, the flowers and birds have talked
to me and explained many things;--I have learned all I know from what
God has told me."
His voice was so gentle and tender that Madame Patoux was infinitely
touched by its soft plaintiveness.
"Poor child!" she murmured,--"He has no doubt been wandering through
the country, without a soul to help him. Alas, that troubles should
begin for one so young! Perhaps he does not even know a prayer!"
"Oh yes!" said Manuel quickly--"Prayer is like thought,--God is so good
that it is only natural to thank and praise Him. Is it not so?"
"It should be natural, my boy," answered the Cardinal slowly and with a
slight accent of melancholy,--"But for many of us in these days I fear
it is more natural still to forget than to remember. Too often we take
gifts and ignore the giver. But come now and breakfast in my room;--for
the present you shall remain with me, and I will see what can best be
done for your future welfare."
And turning to Madame Patoux he added smilingly--"You, my daughter,
with children of your own to care for, will no longer blame me for my
interest in this child, who is without protection in a somewhat rough
world. We of the Church dare not 'offend one of these little ones'."
"Ah, Monseigneur!" murmured Madame,--"If all in the Church were like
you, some poor folks would believe in God more willingly. But when
people are starving and miserable, it is easy to understand that often
they will curse the priests and even religion itself, for making such a
mock of them as to keep on telling them about the joys of heaven, when
they are tormented to the very day of their death on earth, and are
left without hope or rescue of any kind--"
But the Cardinal had disappeared with his young charge and Madame's
speech was lost upon him. She had therefore to content herself with
relating the story of "Monseigneur's foundling" to her husband, who
just then came into the kitchen to take his breakfast before starting
off to work in his market-garden. He listened with interest and
attention.
"A boy is always a trouble," he said sententiously--"And it is likely
that so Monseigneur will find it. How old would the child be?"
"About twelve, I should say," answered Madame--"But beautiful as a
little angel, Jean!"
"That's a pity!" and Patoux shook his head ominously--"Tis bad enough
when a girl is beautiful,--but a boy!--Well, well! Monseigneur is a
wise man, and a saint they say,--he knows best,--but I fear he has
taken a burden upon himself which he will very soon regret! What dost
thou think of it, petite?"
Madame hesitated a moment before replying.
"Truly, I do not know what to think," she answered--"For myself, I have
not spoken to the child. I have seen him,--yes!--and at the sight of
him a something in my throat rose up and choked me as it were,--and
stopped me from saying a rough word. Such a lonely gentle lad!--one
could not be harsh with him, and yet--"
"Yet! Oh, yes, I know!" said Patoux, finishing his coffee at a gulp and
smiling,--"Women will always be women,--and a handsome face in girl or
boy is enough to make fools of them all. Where are the children? Are
they gone to school?"
"Yes--they went before the Cardinal was up. 'Tis a Saturday, and they
will be back early,--they are going to bring little Fabien Doucet to
Monseigneur."
"What for?" enquired Patoux, his round eyes opening widely in amazement.
"Oh, for a strange fancy! That he may bless the child and pray Our Lady
to cure him of his lameness. It was Babette's whim. I told her the
Cardinal was a saint,--and she said,--well! she said she would never
believe it unless he worked a miracle! The wicked mischief that girl
is!--as bad as Henri, who puts a doubt on everything!"
"'Tis the school," said Jean gloomily--"I must speak to Pere Laurent."
"Truly that would be well," said Madame--"He may explain what we
cannot. All the same, you may be sure the children WILL bring Fabien
Doucet to Monseigneur;--they have made up their minds about it,--and if
the little miserable's lameness gets no better, we shall have work
enough in future to make the saints respected!"
Patoux muttered something inaudible, and went his way. Life was in his
opinion, a very excellent thing,--nevertheless there were a few details
about it which occasionally troubled him, and one of these details was
decidedly the "national education" question. It struck him as
altogether remarkable that the State should force him to send his
children to school whether he liked it or no; and moreover that the
system of instruction at the said school should be totally opposed to
his own ideas. He would have certainly wished his son to learn to read
and write, and then to have been trained as a thorough florist and
gardener;--while for his daughter he also desired reading and writing
as a matter of course, and then a complete education in cooking and
domestic economy, so that she might be a useful and efficient wife and
mother when the proper time for such duties came. Astronomy he felt
they could both do without, and most of the "physical sciences."
Religion he considered an absolute necessity, and this was the very
thing that was totally omitted from the national course of education.
He was well aware that there are countless numbers of unhappy people
nowadays who despise religion and mock at the very idea of a God. Every
day he saw certain works exposed for sale on the out-of-door bookstalls
which in their very titles proclaimed the hideous tone of blasphemy
which in France is gradually becoming universal,--but this did not
affect his own sense of what was right and just. He was a very plain
common man, but he held holy things in reverence, and instinctively
felt that, if the world were in truth a bad place, it was likely to
become much worse if all faith in God were taken out of it. And when he
reached his plot of ground that morning, and set to work as usual, he
was, for a non-reflective man, very much absorbed in thought. His heavy
tramping feet over the soil startled some little brown birds from their
hidden nests, and sent them flying to and fro through the clear air
uttering sharp chirrups of terror,--and, leaning on his spade, he
paused and looked at them meditatively.
"Everything is afraid," he said,--"Birds, beasts, and men,--all are
afraid of something and cannot tell what it is that frightens them. It
seems hard sometimes that there should be so much trouble and struggle
just to live--however, the good God knows best,--and if we could not
think and hope and believe He knew best, we might just as well light up
a charcoal fire, shut all the doors and windows, and say 'Bon jour! Bon
jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!--for if YOU do not know YOUR business, it
is evident we do not know ours, and therefore 'tis best for both our
sakes to make an end of sheer Stupidity!'"
He chuckled at his own reasoning, and moistening his hands vigorously,
seized his spade and began to bank up a ridge of celery, singing "Bon
jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!" under his breath without the slightest
idea of irreverence. And looking up at the bright sky occasionally, he
wished he had seen the stray boy rescued from the streets by Cardinal
Bonpre.
"That he will be a trouble, there is no doubt," he said as he turned
and patted the rich dark earth--"Never was there a boy born yet into
the world that was not a trouble except our Lord, and even in His case
His own people did not know what to make of Him!"
Meantime, while Jean Patoux dug in his garden, and sang and
soliloquized, his two children, Henri and Babette, their school hours
being ended, had run off to the market, and were talking vivaciously
with a big brown sturdy woman, who was selling poultry at a stall,
under a very large patched red umbrella. She was Martine Doucet,
reported to have the worst temper and most vixenish tongue in all the
town, though there were some who said her sourness of humour only arose
from the hardships of her life, and the many troubles she had been
fated to endure. Her husband, a fine handsome man, earning good weekly
wages as a stone-mason, had been killed by a fall from a ladder, while
engaged in helping to build one of the new houses on the Boulevards,
and her only child Fabien, a boy of ten had, when a baby, tumbled from
the cart in which his mother was taking her poultry to market, and
though no injury was apparent at the time, had, from the effects of the
fall, grown into a poor little twisted mite of humanity with a bent
spine, and one useless leg which hung limply from his body, while he
could scarcely hobble about on the other, even with the aid of a
crutch. He had a soft, pretty, plaintive face of his own, the little
Fabien, and very gentle ways,--but he was sensitively conscious of his
misfortune, and in his own small secret soul he was always praying that
he might die while he was yet a child, and not grow up to be a burden
to his mother. Martine, however, adored him; and it was through her
intense love for this child of hers that she had, in a strange vengeful
sort of mood abandoned God, and flung an open and atheistical defiance
in the face of her confessor, who, missing her at mass, had ventured to
call upon her and seriously reproach her for neglecting the duties of
her religion. Martine had whirled round upon him,--a veritable storm in
petticoats.
"Religion!" she cried--"Oh--he! What good has it done for ME, if you
please! When I said my prayers night and morning, went to mass and
confession, and told my rosary every Mary-Feast, what happened? Was not
my man killed and my child crippled? And then,--(not to lose faith--)
did I not give the saints every chance of behaving themselves? For my
child's sake did I not earn good money and pay it to the Church in
special masses that he might be cured of his lameness? And Novenas in
plenty, and candles in plenty to the Virgin, and fastings of my own and
penitences? And is the child not as lame as ever? Look at him!--the
dear angel!--with never an evil thought or a wicked way,--and will you
try to make me believe there is a good God, when He will not help a
poor little creature like that, to be happy, though He is prayed to
night and morning for it! No--no! Churches are kept up for priests to
make a fat living out of,--but there is never a God in them that I can
see;--and as for the Christ, who had only to be asked in order to heal
the sick, there is not so much as a ghost of Him anywhere! If what you
priests tell us were true, poor souls such as I am, would get comfort
and help in our sorrows, but it is all a lie!--the whole thing!--and
when we are in trouble, we have got to bear it as best we can, without
so much as a kind word from our neighbours, let alone any pity from the
saints. Go to mass again? Not I!--nor to confession either!--and no
more of my earnings will click into your great brass collection plate,
mon reverend! Ah no!--I have been a foolish woman indeed, to trust so
long in a God who for all my tears and prayers never gives me a sign or
a hope of an answer,--and though I suppose this wretched world of ours
was made by somebody, whoever it is that has done it is a cruel
creature at best, so _I_ say,--without as much good feeling as there is
in the heart of an ordinary man, and without the sense of the man
either! For who that thinks twice about it would make a world where
everything is only born to die?--and for no other use at all! Bah! It
is sheer folly and wickedness to talk to me of a God!--a God, if there
were one, would surely be far above torturing the creatures He has
made, all for nothing!"
And the priest who heard this blasphemous and savage tirade on the part
of Martine Doucet, retreated from her in amazement and horror, and
presently gave out that she was possessed of a devil, and was unfit to
be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. Whereat, when she heard of it,
Martine laughed loudly and ferociously.
"Look you!--what a charitable creature a priest is!" she cried--"If you
don't do the things he considers exactly right and fitting, he tells
your neighbours that the devil has got you!--and so little does he care
to pick you out of the clutches of this same devil, that he refuses you
the Sacrament, though THAT is said to drive away Satan by the mere
touch of it! But wait till I ASK to have the Sacrament given to me!--it
will be time enough then to refuse it! Many a fat chicken of my stock
has the reverend father had as a free gift to boil in his soup maigre!"
and again she laughed angrily--"But no more of them does he get to
comfort his stomach while doing penance for his soul!--the hypocrite!
He must find another silly woman to cheat with his stories of a good
God who never does anything but kill and curse us every one!--he has
had all that he will ever get out of Martine Doucet!"
It was to this redoubtable virago that Henri and Babette had betaken
themselves in the market place directly school was over. She always
held the same stall in the same position on market days,--and she sat
under her red umbrella on a rough wooden bench, knitting rapidly, now
keeping an eye on her little lame son, coiled up in a piece of matting
beside her, and anon surveying her stock-in-trade of ducks and geese
and fowls, which were heaped on her counter, their wrung necks drooping
limply from the board, and their yellow feet tied helplessly together
and shining like bits of dull gold in the warm light of the September
sun. She listened with an impassive countenance while Babette poured
out her story of the great Cardinal,--the Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whom
people said was a saint,--how he had come unexpectedly to stay two
nights at the Hotel Poitiers,--how "petite maman" had declared he was
so good that even angels might visit him,--how kind and gentle and
grand he seemed,--"Yes," said Babette somewhat eagerly, "there was no
doubt that he LOOKED good,--and we have told him all about Fabien and
he has promised to bless him and ask Our Lord to cure his lameness."
"Well, and of what use is that, mignonne?" demanded Martine, clicking
her knitting-needles violently and stooping over her work to wink away
the sudden tears that had risen in her bold brown eyes at Babette's
enthusiastic desire to benefit her afflicted child.--"Asking our Lord
is poor business,--you may ask and ask, but you never get answered!"
Babette hung her curly brown head despondingly, and looked appealingly
at her brother. Now Henri was a decided cynic;--but his sister
exercised a weird fascination over him,--a sort of power to command
which he always felt more or less constrained to obey. He stared
solemnly at Martine, and then at the little Fabien, who, half rising
from his mat, had listened with a visibly painful interest to Babette's
story.
"I think you might let us take Fabien and see if a Cardinal CAN do
anything," he said with a kind of judicial air, as of one who, though
considering the case hopeless, had no objection to try a last desperate
remedy. "This one is a very old man, and he must know a good deal. He
could not do any harm. And I am sure Babette would like to find out if
there is any use at all in a Cardinal. I should like it too. You see we
went into Notre Dame last night,--Babette and I,--and everything was
dark,--all the candles were out at Our Lady's statue--and we had only
ten centimes between us. And the candles are ten centimes each. So we
could only light one. But we lit that one, and said an Ave for Fabien.
And the candle was all by itself in the Cathedral. And now I think we
ought to take him to the Cardinal."
Martine shook her head, pursed up her lips, and knitted more violently
than ever.
"It is all no use--no use!" she muttered--"There is no God,--or if
there is, He must be deaf as well as blind!"