MONSIEUR L’ABBÉ
The crowd had passed on to witness the king’s dinner, now in full
progress, and the two soberly-clad friends found themselves the only
occupants of the gardens. Side by side they took their seats on a bench
under a row of lime-trees, and continued the conversation which had
originated in little Cerise and her childish beauty.
“It is a face as God made it,” said Florian, his boyish features lighting
up with enthusiasm. “Children are surely nearer Heaven than ourselves.
What a pity to think that they should grow into the painted, patched,
powdered hypocrites, of whom so many have passed by us even now.”
“Beautifully dressed, however,” answered his worldly senior, placidly
indifferent, as usual, to all that did not concern his own immediate
comfort. “If there were no women, Florian, there would be no children,
I conclude. Both seem necessary evils. You, I observe, prefer the
lesser. As for being near Heaven, that, I imagine, is a mere question
of altitude. The musketeer over there is at least a couple of inches
nearer it than either of us. What matter? It will make little difference
eventually to any one of the three.”
Florian looked as if he did not understand. Indeed, the Abbé’s manner
preserved a puzzling uncertainty between jest and earnest. He took a
pinch of snuff, too, with the air of a man who had thoroughly exhausted
the question. But his companion, still harping on the beauty of the
child, continued their conversation.
“Is she not a cousin of yours, this little angel? I know you are akin to
that beautiful Marquise, her mother. Oh, Malletort, what advantages you
possess, and how unconscious you seem of them!”
“Advantages!” repeated the Abbé, musing. “Well, perhaps you are right.
Handsome women are the court-cards of the game, if a man knows how
to play them. It is a grand game, too, and the stakes are well worth
winning. Yet I sometimes think if I had foreseen in time how entirely you
must devote body and soul to play it, I might never have sat down at all.
I could almost envy a boy, like that merry page who passed us with my
baby-cousin—a boy, whose only thought or care is to spend the time gaily
now, and wear a sword as soon as his beard is grown hereafter.”
“The boy will carry a sword fairly enough,” answered Florian; “for he
looks like a little adventurer already. Who is he? I have remarked him
amongst the others for a certain bold bearing, that experience and sorrow
alone will, I fear, be able to tame.”
“It will take a good deal of both to tame any of that family,” answered
Malletort; “and this young game-chick will no doubt prove himself of
the same feather as the rest of the brood when his spurs are grown.
He’s a Hamilton, Florian; a Hamilton from the other side of the water,
with a cross of the wildest blood in France or Europe in his veins. You
believe the old monkish chronicles—I don’t. They will tell you that boy’s
direct ancestor went up the breach at Acre in front of Cœur de Lion—an
Englishman of the true pig-headed type, who had sense enough, however, to
hate his vassal ever after for being a bigger fool than himself. On the
mother’s side he comes of a race that can boast all its sons brave, and
its daughters—well, its daughters—very much the same as other people’s
daughters. The result of so much fighting and gasconading being, simply,
that the elder branch of the family is sadly impoverished, while the
younger is irretrievably ruined.”
“And this lad?” asked Florian, interested in the boy, perhaps because the
page’s character was in some respects so completely the reverse of his
own.
“Is of the younger branch,” continued Malletort, “and given over body
and soul to the cause of this miserable family, whose head died, not
half-a-dozen years ago, under the shadow of our grand and gracious
monarch, a victim to prejudice and indigestion. Well, these younger
Hamiltons have always made it their boast that they grudged neither blood
nor treasure for the Stuarts; and the Stuarts, I need hardly tell you,
Florian, for you read your breviary, requited them as men must expect to
be requited who put their trust in princes—particularly of that dynasty.
The elder branch wisely took the oaths of allegiance, for the ingratitude
of a reigning house is less hopeless than that of a dethroned family. I
believe any one of them would be glad to accept office under the gracious
and extremely ungraceful lady who fills the British throne, established,
as I understand she is, on so broad a basis, there is but little room
for a consort. They are scarce likely to obtain their wish. The younger
branch would scout the idea, enveloped, one and all, in an atmosphere of
prejudice truly insular, which ignorant people call loyalty. This boy’s
great-grandfather died in a battle fought by Charles I., at a place with
an unpronounceable name, in the province of ‘Yorkshires.’ His grandfather
was shot by a platoon of musketeers in his own courtyard, under an order
signed by the judicious Cromwell; and his father was drowned here, in the
channel, carrying despatches for his king, as he persisted in calling
him, under the respectable disguise of a smuggler. I believe this boy
was with him at the time. I know when first he came to Court, people
pretended that although so young he was an accomplished sailor; and I
remember his hands were hard and dirty, and he always seemed to smell of
tar. I will own that now, _for_ a page, he is clean, polished, and well
dressed.”
Florian’s dark eyes kindled.
“You interest me,” said he; “I love to hear of loyalty. It is the
reflection of religion upon earth.”
“Precisely,” replied the other. “A shadow of the unsubstantial. Well,
all his line are loyal enough, and I doubt not the boy has been brought
up to believe that in the world there are men, women, and Stuarts. The
fact of his being page here, I confess, puzzles me. Lord Stair protested
against it, I know, but the king would not listen, and used his own wise
discretion, consenting, however, that the lad should drop his family name
and be called simply—George. So George fulfils the destiny of a page,
whatever that may be—as gaudy, as troublesome, and to all appearance as
useless an item in creation as the dragon-fly.”
“And has the child no relations?” asked Florian; “no friends, nobody to
whom he belongs? What a position; what a fate; what a cruel isolation!”
“He is indeed in that enviable situation which I cannot agree with you in
thinking merits one grain of pity. You and I, Florian, with our education
and in our career, should, of all people, best appreciate the advantages
of perfect freedom from those trammels which old women of both sexes call
the domestic affections.”
“So young, so hopeful, so spirited,” continued Florian, speaking rather
to himself than his informant, “and to have no mother!”
“But he _had_ a mother, I tell you,” replied Malletort, “only she died of
a broken heart, as women always do when a little energy is required to
repair their broken fortunes. _Our_ mother, my son,” he proceeded, still
in the same half-mocking, half-impressive tone, “_our_ mother is the
Church. She provides for us carefully during life, and when we die in her
embrace, at least affords us decent burial and prayers for our welfare
hereafter. I tell you, Florian, she is the most thoughtful as she is the
most indulgent of mothers. She offers us opportunity for distinction, or
allows us shelter and repose according as our ambition soars to heaven,
or limits itself, as I confess mine does, to the affairs of earth. Who
shall be found exalted above their kind in the next world? (I speak as
I am taught)—Priests. Who fill the high places in this? (I speak as I
learn)—Priests. The king’s wisest councillors, his ablest financiers,
are men of the sober garment and the shaven crown; nay, judging from the
simplicity of his habits, and the austerity of his demeanour, I cannot
but think that the bravest marshal in our armies is only a priest in
disguise.”
“There are but two careers worthy of a life-sacrifice,” observed Florian,
his countenance glowing with enthusiasm, “and glory is the aim of each.
But who would compare the soldier of France with the soldier of Rome?—the
banner of the Bourbon with the cross of Calvary? How much less noble is
it to serve earth than heaven?”
Malletort looked in his young friend’s face as if he thought such
exalted sentiments could not possibly be real, and shrewdly suspected
him of covert sarcasm or jest; but Florian’s open brow admitted of no
misconstruction, and the elder man’s features gradually relaxed into the
quiet expression of amusement, not devoid of pity, with which a professor
in the swimmer’s art, for instance, watches the floundering struggles of
a neophyte.
“You are right,” said he, calmly and after a pause; “ours is incomparably
the better profession of the two, and the safer. We risk less, no doubt,
and gain more. Persecution, in civilised countries at least, is happily
all the other way. It is extremely profitable to be saints, and there
is no call for us to become martyrs. I think, Florian, we have every
reason to be satisfied with our bargain. Why, the very ties we sever, the
earthly affections we resign, are, to my mind, but so many more enforced
advantages, for which we cannot be too thankful.”
“There would be no merit were there no effort,” answered the other. “No
self-denial were there nothing to give up; but with us it is different. I
am proud to think we _do_ resign, and cheerfully, all that gives warmth
and colouring to the hard outlines of an earthly life. Is it nothing
to forego the triumphs of the camp, the bright pageantry, the graceful
luxuries of the Court? Is it nothing to place yourself at once above and
outside the pale of those sympathies which form the very existence of
your fellow-men? More than all, is it nothing, Malletort,”—the young man
hesitated, blushed, and cast his eyes down—“is it nothing to trample out
of your heart, passions, affections—call them what you will—that seem the
very mainspring of your being? Is it nothing to deny yourself at once and
for ever the solace of woman’s companionship and the rapture of woman’s
love?”
“You declaim well,” replied Malletort, not affecting to conceal that he
was amused, “and your arguments would have even more weight were it not
that you are so palpably in earnest. This of itself infers error. You
will observe, my dear Florian, as a general rule, that the reasoner’s
convictions are strong in direct proportion to the weakness of his
arguments. But let us go a little deeper into this question of celibacy.
Let us strip it of its conventional treatment, its supposed injustice,
its apparent romance. To what does it amount? That a priest must not
marry—good. I repeat, so much the better for the priest. What is marriage
in the abstract?—The union of persons for the continuation of the species
in separate and distinct races. What is it in the ideal?—The union of
souls by an unphilosophical and impossible fusion of identity, which
happily the personality of every human being forbids to exist. What is
it in reality?—A fetter of oppressive weight and inconvenient fabric,
only rendered supportable from the deadening influence of habit, combined
with its general adoption by mankind. Look around you into families and
observe for yourself how it works. The woman has discovered all her
husband’s evil qualities, of which she does not fail to remind him; and
were she a reflective being, which admits of argument, would wonder
hourly how she could ever have endured such a mass of imperfections.
The man bows his head and shrugs his shoulders in callous indifference,
scorning to analyse the disagreeable question, but clear only of one
thing—that if he were free, no consideration would induce him to place
his neck again beneath the same yoke. Another—perhaps! The same—never!
Both have discovered a dissimilarity in tastes, habits, and opinions, so
remarkable that it seems scarcely possible that it should be fortuitous.
To neither does it occur that each was once the very reflection of the
other, in thought, word, and deed; and that a blessing pronounced by a
priest—a few years, nay a few months, of unrestricted companionship—have
wrought the miraculous change. Sometimes there are quarrels, scenes,
tears, reproaches, recriminations. More often, coldness, self-restraint,
inward scorn, and the forbearance of a repressed disgust. Then is the
separation most complete of all. Their bodies preserve to each other the
outward forms of an armed and enforced neutrality, but their souls are so
far asunder that perhaps, of all in the universe, this pair alone could,
under no circumstances, come together again.”
“Sacrilege!” broke in Florian, indignantly. “What you say is sacrilege
against our very nature! You speak of marriage as if it _must_ be the
grave of Love. But at least Love has lived. At least the angel has
descended and been seen of men, even though he touched the mountain only
to spring upward on his flight again towards the skies. He who has really
loved, happily or unhappily, married or alone, is for that love ever
after a wiser, a nobler, and a better man.”
“Not if he should happen to love a Frenchwoman,” observed the other,
taking a pinch of snuff. “Thus much I will not scruple to say for my
countrywomen: their coquetries are enough to drive an honest man mad.
With regard to less civilised nations (mind, I speak not from personal
experience so much as observation of my kind), I admit that for a time,
at least, the delusion may possess a charm, though the loss must in all
cases far exceed the gain. Set your affections on a German, for instance,
and observe carefully, for the experiment is curious, if a dinner with
the idol does not so disgust you that not a remnant of worship is left
to be swept away by supper-time. A Pole is simply a beautiful barbarian,
with more clothing but less manner than an Indian squaw. An Italian
deafens you with her shrill voice, pokes your eye out with her fingers,
and betrays your inmost secrets to her director, if indeed she does not
prefer him to you in every respect. An Englishwoman, handsome, blonde,
silent, and retiring, keeps you months in uncertainty while you woo, and
when won, believes she has a right to possess you body and soul, and
becomes, from a sheer sentiment of appropriation, the most exacting of
wives and the most disobliging of mistresses. To make love to a Spaniard
is a delicate phrase for paying court to a tigress. Beautiful, fierce,
impulsive—with one leap she is in your arms—and then for a word, a
look, she will stab you, herself, a rival, perhaps all three, without
hesitation or remorse. Caramba! she considers it a compliment no doubt!
Yet I tell you, Florian, were I willing to submit to such weaknesses, I
had rather love any one of these, or all of them at once for that matter,
than attach myself to a Frenchwoman.”
Florian opened his dark eyes wide. This was new ground to the young
student. These were questions more interesting than the principles of
Aristotle or the experiences of the Saints. He was penetrated, too, with
that strange admiration which the young entertain for familiarity with
evil in their elders. The other scanned him with half-pitying interest;
broke a branch from the fragrant lime-tree under which they sat, and
proceeded to elucidate his theory.
“With all other women,” said Malletort, “you have indeed a thousand
rivals to out-do; still you know their numbers and can calculate their
resources; but with the Frenchwoman, in addition to these, you have
yet another, who changes and multiplies himself day by day—who assumes
a thousand Protean forms, and against whom you cannot employ the most
efficient weapons—such as vanity, gaiety, and love of dissipation, by
which the others are to be subdued. This enemy is dress—King Chiffon is
the absolute monarch of these realms. Your mistress is gay when you are
sad, sarcastic when you are plaintive, reserved when you are adventurous.
All this is a matter of course; but as Monsieur Vauban told the king the
other day in these gardens, ‘no fortress is stronger than its weakest
place,’ and every citadel may be carried by a _coup de main_, or reduced
by the slower process of blockade. But here you have a stronghold within
a stronghold; a reserve that can neither be tampered with in secret nor
attacked openly; in brief a rival who owns this incalculable advantage,
that in all situations and under all circumstances he occupies the first
place in your mistress’s thoughts. Bah!” concluded the Abbé, throwing
from him the branch which he had stripped of leaves and blossoms, with
a gesture that seemed thus to dismiss the subject once for all; “put a
Frenchwoman into what position you will, her sympathies indeed may be
with her lover, but her first consideration is for her dress!”
As the Abbé spoke he observed a group of four persons passing the
front of the palace, under the windows of the king’s dining-saloon. It
consisted of little Cerise, her mother, Célandine, and the page. They
were laughing and chatting gaily, George apparently taking his leave of
the other three. Florian observed a shadow cross the Abbé’s face, that
disappeared, however, from those obedient features quickly as it came;
and at the same moment the Marquise passed her hand caressingly over the
boy’s dark curls, while he bent low before her, and seemed to do homage
to her beauty in the act of bidding her a courteous farewell.