A few days after this commencement of hostilities between Birotteau and
the old maid, the Baron de Listomere, who expected to be included as
captain of a corvette in a coming promotion lately announced by the
minister of the Navy, received a letter from one of his friends warning
him that there was some intention of putting him on the retired list.
Greatly astonished by this information he started for Paris immediately,
and went at once to the minister, who seemed to be amazed himself, and
even laughed at the baron’s fears. The next day, however, in spite of
the minister’s assurance, Monsieur de Listomere made inquiries in the
different offices. By an indiscretion (often practised by heads of
departments in favor of their friends) one of the secretaries showed
him a document confirming the fatal news, which was only waiting the
signature of the director, who was ill, to be submitted to the minister.
The Baron de Listomere went immediately to an uncle of his, a deputy,
who could see the minister of the Navy at the chamber without loss of
time, and begged him to find out the real intentions of his Excellency
in a matter which threatened the loss of his whole future. He waited in
his uncle’s carriage with the utmost anxiety for the end of the session.
His uncle came out before the Chamber rose, and said to him at once as
they drove away: “Why the devil have you meddled in a priest’s quarrel?
The minister began by telling me you had put yourself at the head of the
Radicals in Tours; that your political opinions were objectionable; you
were not following in the lines of the government,--with other remarks
as much involved as if he were addressing the Chamber. On that I said
to him, ‘Nonsense; let us come to the point.’ The end was that his
Excellency told me frankly you were in bad odor with the diocese. In
short, I made a few inquiries among my colleagues, and I find that
you have been talking slightingly of a certain Abbe Troubert, the
vicar-general, but a very important personage in the province, where he
represents the Jesuits. I have made myself responsible to the minister
for your future conduct. My good nephew, if you want to make your way be
careful not to excite ecclesiastical enmities. Go at once to Tours and
try to make your peace with that devil of a vicar-general; remember that
such priests are men with whom we absolutely _must_ live in harmony.
Good heavens! when we are all striving and working to re-establish
religion it is actually stupid, in a lieutenant who wants to be made a
captain, to affront the priests. If you don’t make up matters with that
Abbe Troubert you needn’t count on me; I shall abandon you. The minister
of ecclesiastical affairs told me just now that Troubert was certain to
be made bishop before long; if he takes a dislike to our family he could
hinder me from being included in the next batch of peers. Don’t you
understand?”
These words explained to the naval officer the nature of Troubert’s
secret occupations, about which Birotteau often remarked in his silly
way: “I can’t think what he does with himself,--sitting up all night.”
The canon’s position in the midst of his female senate, converted so
adroitly into provincial detectives, and his personal capacity,
had induced the Congregation of Jesus to select him out of all the
ecclesiastics in the town, as the secret proconsul of Touraine.
Archbishop, general, prefect, all men, great and small, were under his
occult dominion. The Baron de Listomere decided at once on his course.
“I shall take care,” he said to his uncle, “not to get another round
shot below my water-line.”
Three days after this diplomatic conference between the uncle and
nephew, the latter, returning hurriedly in a post-chaise, informed his
aunt, the very night of his arrival, of the dangers the family were
running if they persisted in supporting that “fool of a Birotteau.” The
baron had detained Monsieur de Bourbonne as the old gentleman was taking
his hat and cane after the usual rubber of whist. The clear-sightedness
of that sly old fox seemed indispensable for an understanding of the
reefs among which the Listomere family suddenly found themselves; and
perhaps the action of taking his hat and cane was only a ruse to have it
whispered in his ear: “Stay after the others; we want to talk to you.”
The baron’s sudden return, his apparent satisfaction, which was quite
out of keeping with a harassed look that occasionally crossed his face,
informed Monsieur de Bourbonne vaguely that the lieutenant had met with
some check in his crusade against Gamard and Troubert. He showed
no surprise when the baron revealed the secret power of the Jesuit
vicar-general.
“I knew that,” he said.
“Then why,” cried the baroness, “did you not warn us?”
“Madame,” he said, sharply, “forget that I was aware of the invisible
influence of that priest, and I will forget that you knew it equally
well. If we do not keep this secret now we shall be thought his
accomplices, and shall be more feared and hated than we are. Do as I do;
pretend to be duped; but look carefully where you set your feet. I did
warn you sufficiently, but you would not understand me, and I did not
choose to compromise myself.”
“What must we do now?” said the baron.
The abandonment of Birotteau was not even made a question; it was a
first condition tacitly accepted by the three deliberators.
“To beat a retreat with the honors of war has always been the triumph of
the ablest generals,” replied Monsieur de Bourbonne. “Bow to Troubert,
and if his hatred is less strong than his vanity you will make him your
ally; but if you bow too low he will walk over you rough-shod; make
believe that you intend to leave the service, and you’ll escape him,
Monsieur le baron. Send away Birotteau, madame, and you will set things
right with Mademoiselle Gamard. Ask the Abbe Troubert, when you meet him
at the archbishop’s, if he can play whist. He will say yes. Then invite
him to your salon, where he wants to be received; he’ll be sure to come.
You are a woman, and you can certainly win a priest to your interests.
When the baron is promoted, his uncle peer of France, and Troubert
a bishop, you can make Birotteau a canon if you choose. Meantime
yield,--but yield gracefully, all the while with a slight menace. Your
family can give Troubert quite as much support as he can give you.
You’ll understand each other perfectly on that score. As for you,
sailor, carry your deep-sea line about you.”
“Poor Birotteau?” said the baroness.
“Oh, get rid of him at once,” replied the old man, as he rose to take
leave. “If some clever Radical lays hold of that empty head of his, he
may cause you much trouble. After all, the court would certainly give a
verdict in his favour, and Troubert must fear that. He may forgive
you for beginning the struggle, but if they were defeated he would be
implacable. I have said my say.”
He snapped his snuff-box, put on his overshoes, and departed.
The next day after breakfast the baroness took the vicar aside and said
to him, not without visible embarrassment:--
“My dear Monsieur Birotteau, you will think what I am about to ask of
you very unjust and very inconsistent; but it is necessary, both for you
and for us, that your lawsuit with Mademoiselle Gamard be withdrawn by
resigning your claims, and also that you should leave my house.”
As he heard these words the poor abbe turned pale.
“I am,” she continued, “the innocent cause of your misfortunes, and,
moreover, if it had not been for my nephew you would never have begun
this lawsuit, which has now turned to your injury and to ours. But
listen to me.”
She told him succinctly the immense ramifications of the affair, and
explained the serious nature of its consequences. Her own meditations
during the night had told her something of the probable antecedents of
Troubert’s life; she was able, without misleading Birotteau, to show
him the net so ably woven round him by revenge, and to make him see the
power and great capacity of his enemy, whose hatred to Chapeloud, under
whom he had been forced to crouch for a dozen years, now found vent in
seizing Chapeloud’s property and in persecuting Chapeloud in the person
of his friend. The harmless Birotteau clasped his hands as if to pray,
and wept with distress at the sight of human horrors that his own
pure soul was incapable of suspecting. As frightened as though he had
suddenly found himself at the edge of a precipice, he listened, with
fixed, moist eyes in which there was no expression, to the revelations
of his friend, who ended by saying: “I know the wrong I do in abandoning
your cause; but, my dear abbe, family duties must be considered before
those of friendship. Yield, as I do, to this storm, and I will prove to
you my gratitude. I am not talking of your worldly interests, for those
I take charge of. You shall be made free of all such anxieties for the
rest of your life. By means of Monsieur de Bourbonne, who will know
how to save appearances, I shall arrange matters so that you shall lack
nothing. My friend, grant me the right to abandon you. I shall ever be
your friend, though forced to conform to the axioms of the world. You
must decide.”
The poor, bewildered abbe cried aloud: “Chapeloud was right when he said
that if Troubert could drag him by the feet out of his grave he would do
it! He sleeps in Chapeloud’s bed!”
“There is no use in lamenting,” said Madame de Listomere, “and we have
little time now left to us. How will you decide?”
Birotteau was too good and kind not to obey in a great crisis the
unreflecting impulse of the moment. Besides, his life was already in the
agony of what to him was death. He said, with a despairing look at his
protectress which cut her to the heart, “I trust myself to you--I am but
the stubble of the streets.”
He used the Tourainean word “bourrier” which has no other meaning than
a “bit of straw.” But there are pretty little straws, yellow, polished,
and shining, the delight of children, whereas the bourrier is straw
discolored, muddy, sodden in the puddles, whirled by the tempest,
crushed under feet of men.
“But, madame, I cannot let the Abbe Troubert keep Chapeloud’s portrait.
It was painted for me, it belongs to me; obtain that for me, and I will
give up all the rest.”
“Well,” said Madame de Listomere. “I will go myself to Mademoiselle
Gamard.” The words were said in a tone which plainly showed the immense
effort the Baronne de Listomere was making in lowering herself to
flatter the pride of the old maid. “I will see what can be done,”
she said; “I hardly dare hope anything. Go and consult Monsieur de
Bourbonne; ask him to put your renunciation into proper form, and bring
me the paper. I will see the archbishop, and with his help we may be
able to stop the matter here.”
Birotteau left the house dismayed. Troubert assumed in his eyes the
dimensions of an Egyptian pyramid. The hands of that man were in Paris,
his elbows in the Cloister of Saint-Gatien.
“He!” said the victim to himself, “_He_ to prevent the Baron de
Listomere from becoming peer of France!--and, perhaps, ‘by the help of
the archbishop we may be able to stop the matter here’!”
In presence of such great interests Birotteau felt he was a mere worm;
he judged himself harshly.
The news of Birotteau’s removal from Madame de Listomere’s house seemed
all the more amazing because the reason of it was wholly impenetrable.
Madame de Listomere said that her nephew was intending to marry and
leave the navy, and she wanted the vicar’s apartment to enlarge her own.
Birotteau’s relinquishment was still unknown. The advice of Monsieur de
Bourbonne was followed. Whenever the two facts reached the ears of the
vicar-general his self-love was certain to be gratified by the assurance
they gave that even if the Listomere family did not capitulate they
would at least remain neutral and tacitly recognize the occult power of
the Congregation,--to recognize it was, in fact, to submit to it. But the
lawsuit was still sub-judice; his opponents yielded and threatened at
the same time.
The Listomeres had thus taken precisely the same attitude as the
vicar-general himself; they held themselves aloof, and yet were able
to direct others. But just at this crisis an event occurred which
complicated the plans laid by Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Listomeres
to quiet the Gamard and Troubert party, and made them more difficult to
carry out.
Mademoiselle Gamard took cold one evening in coming out of the
cathedral; the next day she was confined to her bed, and soon after
became dangerously ill. The whole town rang with pity and false
commiseration: “Mademoiselle Gamard’s sensitive nature has not been
able to bear the scandal of this lawsuit. In spite of the justice of
her cause she was likely to die of grief. Birotteau has killed his
benefactress.” Such were the speeches poured through the capillary tubes
of the great female conclave, and taken up and repeated by the whole
town of Tours.
Madame de Listomere went the day after Mademoiselle Gamard took cold
to pay the promised visit, and she had the mortification of that act
without obtaining any benefit from it, for the old maid was too ill to
see her. She then asked politely to speak to the vicar-general.
Gratified, no doubt, to receive in Chapeloud’s library, at the corner of
the fireplace above which hung the two contested pictures, the woman
who had hitherto ignored him, Troubert kept the baroness waiting a moment
before he consented to admit her. No courtier and no diplomatist ever
put into a discussion of their personal interests or into the management
of some great national negotiation more shrewdness, dissimulation, and
ability than the baroness and the priest displayed when they met face to
face for the struggle.
Like the seconds or sponsors who in the Middle Age armed the champion,
and strengthened his valor by useful counsel until he entered the lists,
so the sly old fox had said to the baroness at the last moment: “Don’t
forget your cue. You are a mediator, and not an interested party.
Troubert also is a mediator. Weigh your words; study the inflection of
the man’s voice. If he strokes his chin you have got him.”
Some sketchers are fond of caricaturing the contrast often observable
between “what is said” and “what is thought” by the speaker. To catch
the full meaning of the duel of words which now took place between the
priest and the lady, it is necessary to unveil the thoughts that each
hid from the other under spoken sentences of apparent insignificance.
Madame de Listomere began by expressing the regret she had felt at
Birotteau’s lawsuit; and then went on to speak of her desire to settle
the matter to the satisfaction of both parties.
“The harm is done, madame,” said the priest, in a grave voice. “The
pious and excellent Mademoiselle Gamard is dying.” (“I don’t care a fig
for the old thing,” thought he, “but I mean to put her death on your
shoulders and harass your conscience if you are such a fool as to listen
to it.”)
“On hearing of her illness,” replied the baroness, “I entreated Monsieur
Birotteau to relinquish his claims; I have brought the document,
intending to give it to that excellent woman.” (“I see what you mean,
you wily scoundrel,” thought she, “but we are safe now from your
calumnies. If you take this document you’ll cut your own fingers by
admitting you are an accomplice.”)
There was silence for a moment.
“Mademoiselle Gamard’s temporal affairs do not concern me,” said the
priest at last, lowering the large lids over his eagle eyes to veil his
emotions. (“Ho! ho!” thought he, “you can’t compromise me. Thank God,
those damned lawyers won’t dare to plead any cause that could smirch me.
What do these Listomeres expect to get by crouching in this way?”)
“Monsieur,” replied the baroness, “Monsieur Birotteau’s affairs are
no more mine than those of Mademoiselle Gamard are yours; but,
unfortunately, religion is injured by such a quarrel, and I come to you
as a mediator--just as I myself am seeking to make peace.” (“We are not
deceiving each other, Monsieur Troubert,” thought she. “Don’t you feel
the sarcasm of that answer?”)
“Injury to religion, madame!” exclaimed the vicar-general. “Religion
is too lofty for the actions of men to injure.” (“My religion is I,”
thought he.) “God makes no mistake in His judgments, madame; I recognize
no tribunal but His.”
“Then, monsieur,” she replied, “let us endeavor to bring the judgments
of men into harmony with the judgments of God.” (“Yes, indeed, your
religion is you.”)
The Abbe Troubert suddenly changed his tone.
“Your nephew has been to Paris, I believe.” (“You found out about me
there,” thought he; “you know now that I can crush you, you who dared to
slight me, and you have come to capitulate.”)
“Yes, monsieur; thank you for the interest you take in him. He returns
to-night; the minister, who is very considerate of us, sent for him; he
does not want Monsieur de Listomere to leave the service.” (“Jesuit, you
can’t crush us,” thought she. “I understand your civility.”)
A moment’s silence.
“I did not think my nephew’s conduct in this affair quite the thing,”
she added; “but naval men must be excused; they know nothing of law.”
(“Come, we had better make peace,” thought she; “we sha’n’t gain
anything by battling in this way.”)
A slight smile wandered over the priests face and was lost in its
wrinkles.
“He has done us the service of getting a proper estimate on the value of
those paintings,” he said, looking up at the pictures. “They will be
a noble ornament to the chapel of the Virgin.” (“You shot a sarcasm at
me,” thought he, “and there’s another in return; we are quits, madame.”)
“If you intend to give them to Saint-Gatien, allow me to offer frames
that will be more suitable and worthy of the place, and of the works
themselves.” (“I wish I could force you to betray that you have taken
Birotteau’s things for your own,” thought she.)
“They do not belong to me,” said the priest, on his guard.
“Here is the deed of relinquishment,” said Madame de Listomere; “it ends
all discussion, and makes them over to Mademoiselle Gamard.” She laid
the document on the table. (“See the confidence I place in you,” thought
she.) “It is worthy of you, monsieur,” she added, “worthy of your noble
character, to reconcile two Christians,--though at present I am not
especially concerned for Monsieur Birotteau--”
“He is living in your house,” said Troubert, interrupting her.
“No, monsieur, he is no longer there.” (“That peerage and my nephew’s
promotion force me to do base things,” thought she.)
The priest remained impassible, but his calm exterior was an indication
of violent emotion. Monsieur Bourbonne alone had fathomed the secret of
that apparent tranquillity. The priest had triumphed!
“Why did you take upon yourself to bring that relinquishment,” he
asked, with a feeling analogous to that which impels a woman to fish for
compliments.
“I could not avoid a feeling of compassion. Birotteau, whose feeble
nature must be well known to you, entreated me to see Madaemoiselle
Gamard and to obtain as the price of his renunciation--”
The priest frowned.
“of rights upheld by distinguished lawyers, the portrait of--”
Troubert looked fixedly at Madame de Listomere.
“the portrait of Chapeloud,” she said, continuing: “I leave you to judge
of his claim.” (“You will be certain to lose your case if we go to law,
and you know it,” thought she.)
The tone of her voice as she said the words “distinguished lawyers”
showed the priest that she knew very well both the strength and weakness
of the enemy. She made her talent so plain to this connoisseur emeritus
in the course of a conversation which lasted a long time in the tone
here given, that Troubert finally went down to Mademoiselle Gamard to
obtain her answer to Birotteau’s request for the portrait.
He soon returned.
“Madame,” he said, “I bring you the words of a dying woman. ‘The Abbe
Chapeloud was so true a friend to me,’ she said, ‘that I cannot consent
to part with his picture.’ As for me,” added Troubert, “if it were mine
I would not yield it. My feelings to my late friend were so faithful
that I should feel my right to his portrait was above that of others.”
“Well, there’s no need to quarrel over a bad picture.” (“I care as
little about it as you do,” thought she.) “Keep it, and I will have a
copy made of it. I take some credit to myself for having averted this
deplorable lawsuit; and I have gained, personally, the pleasure of your
acquaintance. I hear you have a great talent for whist. You will forgive
a woman for curiosity,” she said, smiling. “If you will come and play at
my house sometimes you cannot doubt your welcome.”
Troubert stroked his chin. (“Caught! Bourbonne was right!” thought she;
“he has his quantum of vanity!”)
It was true. The vicar-general was feeling the delightful sensation
which Mirabeau was unable to subdue when in the days of his power he
found gates opening to his carriage which were barred to him in earlier
days.
“Madame,” he replied, “my avocations prevent my going much into society;
but for you, what will not a man do?” (“The old maid is going to die;
I’ll get a footing at the Listomere’s, and serve them if they serve me,”
thought he. “It is better to have them for friends than enemies.”)
Madame de Listomere went home, hoping that the archbishop would complete
the work of peace so auspiciously begun. But Birotteau was fated to gain
nothing by his relinquishment. Mademoiselle Gamard died the next day.
No one felt surprised when her will was opened to find that she had
left everything to the Abbe Troubert. Her fortune was appraised at three
hundred thousand francs. The vicar-general sent to Madame de Listomere
two notes of invitation for the services and for the funeral procession
of his friend; one for herself and one for her nephew.
“We must go,” she said.
“It can’t be helped,” said Monsieur de Bourbonne. “It is a test to
which Troubert puts you. Baron, you must go to the cemetery,” he added,
turning to the lieutenant, who, unluckily for him, had not left Tours.
The services took place, and were performed with unusual ecclesiastical
magnificence. Only one person wept, and that was Birotteau, who,
kneeling in a side chapel and seen by none, believed himself guilty of
the death and prayed sincerely for the soul of the deceased, bitterly
deploring that he was not able to obtain her forgiveness before she
died.
The Abbe Troubert followed the body of his friend to the grave; at
the verge of which he delivered a discourse in which, thanks to his
eloquence, the narrow life the old maid had lived was enlarged to
monumental proportions. Those present took particular note of the
following words in the peroration:--
“This life of days devoted to God and to His religion, a life adorned
with noble actions silently performed, and with modest and hidden
virtues, was crushed by a sorrow which we might call undeserved if we
could forget, here at the verge of this grave, that our afflictions are
sent by God. The numerous friends of this saintly woman, knowing the
innocence and nobility of her soul, foresaw that she would issue safely
from her trials in spite of the accusations which blasted her life. It
may be that Providence has called her to the bosom of God to withdraw
her from those trials. Happy they who can rest here below in the peace
of their own hearts as Sophie now is resting in her robe of innocence
among the blest.”
“When he had ended his pompous discourse,” said Monsieur de Bourbonne,
after relating the incidents of the internment to Madame de Listomere
when whist was over, the doors shut, and they were alone with the baron,
“this Louis XI. in a cassock--imagine him if you can!--gave a last
flourish to the sprinkler and aspersed the coffin with holy water.”
Monsieur de Bourbonne picked up the tongs and imitated the priest’s
gesture so satirically that the baron and his aunt could not help
laughing. “Not until then,” continued the old gentleman, “did he
contradict himself. Up to that time his behavior had been perfect; but
it was no doubt impossible for him to put the old maid, whom he despised
so heartily and hated almost as much as he hated Chapeloud, out of sight
forever without allowing his joy to appear in that last gesture.”
The next day Mademoiselle Salomon came to breakfast with Madame de
Listomere, chiefly to say, with deep emotion: “Our poor Abbe Birotteau
has just received a frightful blow, which shows the most determined
hatred. He is appointed curate of Saint-Symphorien.”
Saint-Symphorien is a suburb of Tours lying beyond the bridge. That
bridge, one of the finest monuments of French architecture, is nineteen
hundred feet long, and the two open squares which surround each end are
precisely alike.
“Don’t you see the misery of it?” she said, after a pause, amazed at the
coldness with which Madame de Listomere received the news. “It is just
as if the abbe were a hundred miles from Tours, from his friends, from
everything! It is a frightful exile, and all the more cruel because he
is kept within sight of the town where he can hardly ever come. Since
his troubles he walks very feebly, yet he will have to walk three miles
to see his old friends. He has taken to his bed, just now, with fever.
The parsonage at Saint-Symphorien is very cold and damp, and the parish
is too poor to repair it. The poor old man will be buried in a living
tomb. Oh, it is an infamous plot!”
To end this history it will suffice to relate a few events in a simple
way, and to give one last picture of its chief personages.
Five months later the vicar-general was made Bishop of Troyes; and
Madame de Listomere was dead, leaving an annuity of fifteen hundred
francs to the Abbe Birotteau. The day on which the dispositions in her
will were made known Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, was on
the point of leaving Tours to reside in his diocese, but he delayed his
departure on receiving the news. Furious at being foiled by a woman to
whom he had lately given his countenance while she had been secretly
holding the hand of a man whom he regarded as his enemy, Troubert again
threatened the baron’s future career, and put in jeopardy the peerage
of his uncle. He made in the salon of the archbishop, and before an
assembled party, one of those priestly speeches which are big with
vengeance and soft with honied mildness. The Baron de Listomere went the
next day to see this implacable enemy, who must have imposed sundry hard
conditions on him, for the baron’s subsequent conduct showed the most
entire submission to the will of the terrible Jesuit.
The new bishop made over Mademoiselle Gamard’s house by deed of gift to
the Chapter of the cathedral; he gave Chapeloud’s books and bookcases
to the seminary; he presented the two disputed pictures to the Chapel of
the Virgin; but he kept Chapeloud’s portrait. No one knew how to
explain this almost total renunciation of Mademoiselle Gamard’s bequest.
Monsieur de Bourbonne supposed that the bishop had secretly kept moneys
that were invested, so as to support his rank with dignity in Paris,
where of course he would take his seat on the Bishops’ bench in the
Upper Chamber. It was not until the night before Monseigneur Troubert’s
departure from Tours that the sly old fox unearthed the hidden reason
of this strange action, the deathblow given by the most persistent
vengeance to the feeblest of victims. Madame de Listomere’s legacy to
Birotteau was contested by the Baron de Listomere under a pretence of
undue influence!
A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the rank
of captain. As a measure of ecclesiastical discipline, the curate of
Saint-Symphorien was suspended. His superiors judged him guilty. The
murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a swindler. If Monseigneur Troubert
had kept Mademoiselle Gamard’s property he would have found it difficult
to make the ecclestiastical authorities censure Birotteau.
At the moment when Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, drove along
the quay Saint-Symphorien in a post-chaise on his way to Paris poor
Birotteau had been placed in an armchair in the sun on a terrace above
the road. The unhappy priest, smitten by the archbishop, was pale and
haggard. Grief, stamped on every feature, distorted the face that was
once so mildly gay. Illness had dimmed his eyes, formerly brightened by
the pleasures of good living and devoid of serious ideas, with a veil
which simulated thought. It was but the skeleton of the old Birotteau
who had rolled only one year earlier so vacuous but so content along the
Cloister. The bishop cast one look of pity and contempt upon his victim;
then he consented to forget him, and went his way.
There is no doubt that Troubert would have been in other times a
Hildebrand or an Alexander the Sixth. In these days the Church is no
longer a political power, and does not absorb the whole strength of
her solitaries. Celibacy, however, presents the inherent vice of
concentrating the faculties of man upon a single passion, egotism, which
renders celibates either useless or mischievous. We live at a period
when the defect of governments is to make Man for Society rather than
Society for Man. There is a perpetual struggle going on between the
Individual and the Social system which insists on using him, while he is
endeavoring to use it to his own profit; whereas, in former days, man,
really more free, was also more loyal to the public weal. The round in
which men struggle in these days has been insensibly widened; the soul
which can grasp it as a whole will ever be a magnificent exception;
for, as a general thing, in morals as in physics, impulsion loses
in intensity what it gains in extension. Society can not be based on
exceptions. Man in the first instance was purely and simply, father;
his heart beat warmly, concentrated in the one ray of Family. Later,
he lived for a clan, or a small community; hence the great historical
devotions of Greece and Rome. After that he was a man of caste or of
a religion, to maintain the greatness of which he often proved himself
sublime; but by that time the field of his interests became enlarged by
many intellectual regions. In our day, his life is attached to that of
a vast country; sooner or later his family will be, it is predicted, the
entire universe.
Will this moral cosmopolitanism, the hope of Christian Rome, prove to be
only a sublime error? It is so natural to believe in the realization of
a noble vision, in the Brotherhood of Man. But, alas! the human machine
does not have such divine proportions. Souls that are vast enough to
grasp a range of feelings bestowed on great men only will never belong
to either fathers of families or simple citizens. Some physiologists
have thought that as the brain enlarges the heart narrows; but they are
mistaken. The apparent egotism of men who bear a science, a nation, a
code of laws in their bosom is the noblest of passions; it is, as one
may say, the maternity of the masses; to give birth to new peoples, to
produce new ideas they must unite within their mighty brains the breasts
of woman and the force of God. The history of such men as Innocent the
Third and Peter the Great, and all great leaders of their age and nation
will show, if need be, in the highest spheres the same vast thought of
which Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the
Cloister of Saint-Gatien.