PERE BENEDICT
When Madame Bretton and the children returned from their inspection of
the silk-house they were surprised to find Monsieur le Cure, good Father
Benedict, awaiting them. The priest was sitting contentedly in the
sunshine, his walking-stick in his hand, and the gentle breeze stirring
his white hair. Beside him stood Hector with nose on the Cure's knee and
great brown eyes looking into the kindly face of the old man.
Madame Bretton hurried forward.
"Why, Father!" she exclaimed. "Who would have thought of finding you
here! Have you been waiting long?"
"But a few minutes, my dear," was the answer. "I knew well you could not
have strayed far, for the house was unlocked, and the kettle steaming on
the hob."
"So it was," laughed Madame Bretton. "You must stay and share our
porridge with us, Father. It is just supper time, and you have had a
long walk from the village. You must be hungry. The children and I would
be so glad if you would be our guest."
Marie and Pierre added their pleas.
"Do stay, Father," they cried. "Stay and tell us some stories."
Monsieur le Cure smiled into their eager faces.
"I will gladly stay if you are sure the porridge----"
"There is enough, Father, and to spare," declared Madame Bretton. "But
had I known you were coming you should have had one of the hot tea cakes
that you like so much."
"Ah, a tea cake--how good it is! You are a rare cook, my daughter." He
glanced into Madame Bretton's face with radiant smile. "But is not
hearty welcome better than a pyramid of tea cakes? If you are sure about
the porridge----"
He chuckled playfully.
"There is plenty, Father--plenty," put in Marie. "I saw Mother measure
it. And if there weren't you should have mine," she added as she
joyously seized his baretta and stick and hurried away with them.
"You are a good child, Marie," the old priest called after her. "Now
make haste to put my things away, and then you and Pierre shall come
here and tell me how your silk-raising is getting on. Have you begun to
hatch out your silkworms yet?"
The boy and girl nestled at his side. Had not Father Benedict brought
them up; and was he not friend as well as teacher? In every home in
Bellerivre his coming was hailed with delight, and his departure
followed with regret. He possessed the rare attributes of sympathy and
simplicity sometimes blended in great natures. None of his flock
experienced a happiness too trivial for him to exult in, or a grief too
personal for him to share.
Madame Bretton glanced for a second at the group on the door-step--at
the white-haired man, the bright-faced children, the old dog; then she
softly tiptoed into the house to make ready the evening meal.
"We haven't hatched any of our silkworms yet, Father," answered Marie,
"but everything is prepared, and we shall begin in a day or two; perhaps
to-morrow if there is warm sun."
"That is right," nodded the priest. "It is full time they were under
way. That is one reason I came to see you. You live so far away that I
feared you might not know that all through the valley the silk-raising
is beginning. Already some of the peasants in the village have hatched
their eggs; but I think they were a bit too hurried about it, for the
trees are hardly leaved out enough yet. Sometimes it is as bad to be too
early as too late. I hope you are going to have fine luck, my dears,
fine luck! And indeed I don't see why you shouldn't."
"We hope so too, Father. It means a great deal to us to succeed, you
know," responded Pierre gravely. "You see it is not alone that we need
the money for ourselves. It is for Mother as well; and so that we may
also send things to Father and Uncle Jacques."
The priest patted the boy's head.
"I know, I know," he answered softly. "Well, be of good courage, my
children, and do not be disheartened if you meet with failure at the
start. Try a second time, and a third, and many more. The people who
first raised silkworms had to try and fail many, many times before they
succeeded."
"Who did first raise silkworms, Father?" questioned Marie. "I was
wondering about it the other day. Where did we get the first silkworm
eggs, and who thought of reeling the silk from the cocoons?"
"That is a pretty big question, Marie," laughed Father Benedict. "Nobody
can be exactly sure who originated the industry of sericulture. Certain
it was, however, that before other countries had sugar, or china, or
silk, the Chinese people were producing all of these things. But they
were a selfish nation, and jealous of allowing any one else to share in
their progress. Therefore they shut the rest of the world out of their
discoveries and kept to themselves the secret of how they obtained the
products they manufactured. For China, you must know, was a great walled
country where travelers were not very welcome, and whose people mingled
little with the inhabitants of other lands. How the Chinese learned to
make silk we do not know; but there are in existence old records showing
that as far back as the year 2700 B. C., these ingenious people were
making fabrics spun from the filament taken from the cocoons of the
silkworm. There is an ancient story that the Empress See-ling-shee
hatched and raised silkworms in her garden, afterward winding the silken
thread from the cocoons and weaving a delicate gauzy tissue from the
fibres. Who taught her to do it no one can tell. Some persons think the
Chinese stole the art from India; certain it was that the inhabitants of
Persia, Tyre, and other eastern countries got silk thread from somewhere
at a very early date and used it. In fact it was because the Greeks and
Romans called the land beyond the Ganges 'Seres' that later the name
sericulture became the term applied to silk-raising."
The priest paused and gently stroked Hector's head.
"There are many ancient references to the use of silk," he went on. "We
read how Alexander the Great brought home from Persia wonderful silk
fabrics when he and Aristotle went there to collect curiosities. He even
tells how the silkworms produced this material which, by the way, he
calls bombykia; but nowhere does he tell in what place the industry had
its origin. However, he at least knew more about it than did most
people, for the common opinion was that the tissue was made from wool,
or the fibre of trees, some persons even thinking it came from the bark.
Another notion was that silk was woven from thread spun by the spider;
still others argued that the cocoanut was its source."
"How stupid of them!" ejaculated Marie.
"Ah, it was not really so strange after all, my dear," replied the
priest. "Suppose you were seeing silk for the first time. Where should
you think it came from?"
"I don't know."
"Precisely. And that is just the way the rest of the world felt at that
time," continued Pere Benedict. "Nobody knew, and in consequence
everybody made the best guess he could. Until the time of Justinian
silk-making was confined wholly to China, being in fact little known
anywhere in Europe before the reign of Emperor Augustus. What little
silk there was cost so much that no one dreamed of wearing it. At last,
however, some of the women of the royal houses of Rome ventured to use
it for robes of state; and then the very rich men gradually followed
their example and began to use it a little, for it was a cool, light
material to wear in hot weather. Weavers had not learned at that time to
make the rich silks such as we have to-day; nor were the heavy kinds
considered so beautiful as were the thinner varieties. But in time it
became the common opinion that such fragile textiles were no material
for men to wear; the Emperor feared the custom would make them vain and
foppish. Accordingly a law was passed forbidding male citizens to use
silk apparel."
Pierre laughed.
"But the Romans were no longer content with their coarse woolen robes,"
went on Monsieur le Cure. "They had seen silk and they wanted it. They
were a luxury loving people who eagerly caught up every form of elegance
that came in their way. Many of the rich had enjoyed the splendor and
comfort of silken garments and they were not to be deterred from
possessing them. Persian traders who possibly got their silk thread from
China, and who held the monopoly of the woven fabrics, began sending
their goods to Rome, charging for them most outrageous prices. Then came
the Persian invasion, and the program was reversed; for Rome turned on
the Orientals, levying such a high tax on the manufacture of silk that
the industry of the Persians was greatly injured. And all this time that
the Romans were wearing silk and fighting about it they were still
unable to find out where the silk fibre came from."
Pere Benedict broke into a hearty laugh.
"Did they ever find out?" inquired Marie whose eyes had scarcely left
the face of the priest.
"Of course they did, silly!" was Pierre's scornful response.
"Gently, son, to your little sister," said Monsieur le Cure.
Pierre flushed.
"They did find out, Marie," continued Pere Benedict kindly. "And it was
in a strange way, too."
"Tell us!" exclaimed both the boy and girl simultaneously.
"It chanced that there were two monks who were sent on a mission to
India, and who ventured within the borders of China. While there they
saw the Chinese raising silkworms, and returning to Rome they related
their story to the Emperor Justinian."
"I think it was mean of them!" announced Marie with spirit.
"I'm afraid it was, my child," agreed Father Benedict. "Yet after all
was it quite fair for the Chinese to keep to themselves a thing which it
was for the world's good to know? Was not such a course both narrow and
selfish?"
"Perhaps it was."
"Well, at any rate, the monks were sent back to China with orders to
procure some of the silkworm's eggs. Now this was not an easy task,
because no one was allowed to carry such treasures out of China. Had a
traveler been discovered doing so he would certainly have been killed.
Hence the problem was how to accomplish the feat."
Marie and Pierre edged closer.
"The story goes that the wily monks had some hollow staffs made, and
that inside these they stowed away the precious eggs, departing out of
China in the guise of pilgrims. On their arrival in Rome the eggs were
hatched and the stolen silkworms became the ancestors of all the
silkworms in Europe--perhaps the great-great-great-great-grandparents of
the very ones you are going to raise next week."
The boy and girl laughed merrily.
"The rest of the story is that Emperor Justinian had mulberry trees
planted throughout the Roman Empire and brought to Rome weavers from
Tyre and Berytus. These workmen trained other weavers, and in the
meantime more and more eggs were hatched. All Europe seized upon the
industry. Mulberry trees were planted in Greece and in other countries
where the climate was sufficiently warm to make them grow. From Greece
the trade spread at a later date to Venice, at that time one of the
foremost patrons of the arts. But all the silks made up to this period
were very plain, because it was not until long afterward that
manufacturers learned how to make velvets, satins, and brocades. Then
came a revolution in China, and for the next six hundred years Rome and
Greece had the principal supply of silkworms and the monopoly of the
industry. Was it not fortunate now, Marie, that the Romans had stolen
the secret of making silk?" Pere Benedict pinched her cheek playfully.
"Had they not done so the art might, perhaps, have been lost, as were
so many other of the early arts. Numberless other conquests and wars in
various countries followed. I won't stop to tell you about them; but one
of the good results evolving out of the turmoil was that silk-making
spread to Sicily, Italy, and Spain."
[Illustration: "IT IS LIKE A FAIRY STORY"]
"And France--was she left out, Father?" asked Pierre anxiously.
"Have no fears for your native land, my son. France came into her
silk-making heritage about the time of Francis I. England followed her
example more slowly because, you know, our English brothers are a little
more conservative than we are. All in good time, however, England made
silks and very beautiful ones, too, in which her kings and queens were
resplendent on state occasions."
"It is like a fairy story, Father," murmured Marie.
"Then you are not tired?"
"Tired!"
The priest smiled.
"At the beginning of the sixteenth century Bologna had the finest
throwing mills for the twisting and spinning of thread then known. But
China with its peculiarly fertile soil still continued to be the land
best adapted for raising raw silk, although several other countries
surpassed it in the manufacture of fabrics. In Italy silk-making like
glass-making was held to be one of the most honorable of occupations;
and silk-makers intermarried with the nobility, being accorded equality
of rank with the best born families."
Pere Benedict paused for breath; then gave an odd little chuckle.
"I could tell you many an amusing tale of the early uses of silk," he
said. "Picture, for example, Henry V celebrating his victory at
Agincourt by putting purple silk sails on his ships! And think of Queen
Elizabeth receiving as a gift a pair of knitted silk stockings which, by
the way, so spoiled her for wearing woolen ones that she disliked ever
to wear them again. Silken hose were a rarity in those days, even for
queens. Now of course as people saw more and more uses to which silk
could be put they came to want it; and the monarchs of all countries,
realizing that silk-making would bring money into their coffers, urged
their subjects to take up sericulture. Henry IV of France did much to
make it popular among the French peasants, offering rewards to those who
would grow mulberry trees. England was found to have too cold a climate
for silk cultivation; so James I, who was king at that time, tried to
have the industry transplanted to the new colony of Virginia. This plan
did not succeed, however, as the American planters found the growing of
potatoes and tobacco far more profitable. In 1732 another attempt was
made in the American states of Georgia and South Carolina and was again
abandoned, because although America could raise both mulberry trees and
silkworms she lacked the supply of cheap coolie labor in which the
Orient abounded. Now the producing of raw silk is left to China, Bengal,
the Coromandel coast, India, France, Italy, and Turkey. Bengal proves an
ideal silk-raising country, for because of the climate there are yearly
three crops of cocoons--one in March, one in July, and one in November.
Some of the other countries have two crops; others only one."
"And France?" put in Pierre.
"Ah, Pierre, there should be no need for me to tell you, a French boy,
of your own land. The growing of our silk, as you know, is done in our
southern provinces; while its manufacture takes place in our great
northern cities. Marseilles is the big market for raw silk, and Lyons
the centre for the manufactured fabric. Meanwhile England has come to
excel in silk manufacture and she now excludes our French made goods
whenever she can that her people may patronize their own makers, who get
their silk from the English colonies. And it is in this great and
wonderful story of silk-making that you and Marie are now to have a
share," concluded Father Benedict. "May you and your good mother be
successful in a work that has brought to our beloved France much of her
prosperity."
There was a moment of silence.
Then Madame Bretton came to the door.
"Supper is ready, Father, and I beg you come in quickly--for while you
have been talking I have made you a tea cake!"
The venerable priest smiled with pleasure, and with a child clinging to
each of his hands he passed into the tiny cottage.
[Illustration]