could almost smell it, and without further words I started off,
thinking as I went how careless I had been, to leave everything at
sixes and sevens. Other conflagrations had been caused by the enemy,
and I always had had warning enough to transport my most precious
possessions across the bridge, and get them behind walls, so that I
saved my money, my best pieces of work, furniture and tools, and all
those things that people accumulate, and which are dear to us because
they are like fragments of a happy past. This time, however, nothing
had been placed in safety, and I could almost hear my old woman’s voice
from the other world, berating me for my stupidity. As I trudged along,
I tried to find a good answer to these reproaches, but my only excuse
was that I had been in a hurry to get to her sick-bed. I endeavored
to persuade myself also, that there was no real cause for alarm, but
the thought kept coming back and back, like a fly that settles on your
nose, till I was all in a cold perspiration, in spite of the fact that
I was walking at a good round pace. As I climbed up the long wooded
hill just after you pass Villiers, I saw a chaise coming down; I could
not tell who was driving at first, but when it got nearer, I recognized
Jojot, the miller from Moulot.
He pulled up as soon as he caught sight of me.
“Poor old boy!” he cried, waving his whip, and though I expected it,
the wind was just knocked out of me, and I could not say a word, but
stood there like a stick, with my mouth open.
“There is no use in your keeping on, Colas; you might as well go back
where you came from. The whole thing is burned, flat as the palm of
your hand; it will only make you sick to see it.” Every word seemed to
wring my heartstrings, but I tried to put a good face on it, and said:
“I know, I know, but I must go on all the same.”
“What for, if the whole place is in ruins?”
“I want to pick up the pieces.”
“There aren’t any pieces,” said he, “not so much as you could put on
the end of your finger.”
“Jojot,” said I, “there is no use your trying to persuade me that there
is absolutely nothing left! My apprentices and the neighbors would
not stand by, and see all I have in the world burnt to ashes, without
trying to save a few sticks of furniture for me!”
“You don’t know anything about it,” cried he. “Why, your neighbors are
the very ones who set your house on fire!”
I was perfectly crushed at this news, and he, with the sort of perverse
satisfaction one has in making out anything as bad as possible, went on
to tell me the whole story from the beginning.
“You must know,” said he, “that the plague is at the bottom of the
trouble; our town Councilors, the Provost, and the whole crew of them,
fled away, and left us as sheep without a shepherd, and the people at
this lost their heads completely, so that when a fresh case of the
disease broke out in Beuvron, some one raised a cry to burn down the
infected houses. No sooner said than done, and naturally they began
with yours, Colas, because you were not on hand to stop them. The more
they burned, the better they seemed to like it; you know how a mob is
when it once gets going, men seem to be drunk with love of destruction,
so they went on from bad to worse, as if they were crazy; throwing
everything they could lay hands on into the flames, and dancing round
them like savages.
‘On the bridge of Clamecy town,
See us dancing up and down.’
you know the children’s song. It was really awful to see such madness,
and yet it was a kind of contagion. I’ll bet you would have danced
yourself if you had been there, to see what a blaze your shop made with
all the dry wood you had in it.”
“I wish I had been there,” said I. “It must have been a grand sight.”
And the funny part of it was that I really did think so. I thought
something else too: that this time I was ruined; but wild horses would
not have dragged it out of me before Jojot. He was puzzled, and looked
as if he did not know what to make of me, half with that queer pleasure
we have in the misfortunes of our fellow-man, and half with pity, for
he is really a good sort, and a friend of mine. I turned to go.
“They ought to have kept a thing like that for the midsummer bonfire,”
said I.
“Are you really going on?”
“Yes, I’m going on, Jojot.”
“Well, you’re an odd fish--you do hate to be like other people.” And he
whipped up his horse and drove off down the hill, while I stepped out
bravely in the opposite direction as long as he was in sight; but as
soon as I got round the corner, my knees seemed to give way under me,
and I let myself fall like a lump by the roadside.
The next moments were among the worst that I have ever had to bear, and
as there was nobody to see me, I just let myself go, and bewailed my
misfortune.
“I have lost everything in the world,” thought I. My home,--the house
was full of dear memories,--and the hope of ever having another of my
own; all my savings, which it took me years to get together, bit by
bit, and which were so much the more valuable to me, and worst of all,
my independence is gone; for now of course, I shall have to live with
one of my children, and I don’t know which of us will hate it the most.
It is the one thing I have always been resolved against, as the worst
that could happen. There is no use telling me that I love them, and
they love me,--I know all that, but young people and old interfere with
each other, and it is natural and proper for a bird to sit on its own
nest, and hatch out its own eggs in its own way. Respect for the old
is all very well, or rather it makes a difficulty, for you are not on
an equality with people when you are obliged to show them respect. I
have tried to behave so that my five children should not have too much
respect for me, and I think I have succeeded pretty well, but there
must always be a distance between us. Parents come and go in their
children’s lives, like strangers from a far country; there can never
be perfect understanding from one generation to another, and too often
there is, on the contrary, interference and irritation.
It seems a dreadful thing to say, but it is not wise to tempt
Providence, and put too great a strain on the love, even of our best
and dearest. It is asking a great deal of human nature; not that I have
anything to complain of in my children, who have always been good to
me, but I don’t want to impose myself on them, for my own sake, as well
as theirs;--and then it goes against the grain with me to take back
the least part of what I have given them; it looks like asking for
repayment, and that is a sort of thing that sticks in the throat of a
man who has never owed anything to anybody but himself. I want to be
master in my own house, to come and go without question; and it would
kill me to think that some one was counting every mouthful I ate; I
should soon become a broken-down, good-for-nothing old man. Far rather
would I live on the charity of strangers than on that of my children,
never being sure that they kept me of their own free will. I would
rather die outright than be such a burden to them.... I sat there for
a long time, like an old tree that has been cut down at the roots; and
there was precious little of my boasted philosophy left. I suffered
in my pride, and in my affections; in what was best and worst in me;
accumulations from the past, and hopes for the future, had all gone up
in smoke, but I knew that I must walk in the path before me, however
thorny it might prove; there could be no escape.
Not far off above the tops of the trees, my sad eyes lighted on the
towers of the Château of Cuncy, and I felt that there they had found
something on which they might rest with pleasure. For many years I had
worked for the good lord Philibert de Cuncy; and the castle was full of
fine furniture, woodwork, and stairways, which I had executed at his
order. He was a queer man, and I sometimes got into hot water with him.
Would you believe it? once he wanted me to make portrait statues of his
mistresses and himself all in costumes dating from the days of Adam and
Eve! Another time he took it into his head to have the stag’s antlers
in his armory attached to busts representing all the unlucky husbands
in the vicinity. We had a good laugh over it, but it was not always so
easy to please him; as fast as I finished one thing, he wanted me to
begin another, and very seldom did I see the color of his money. Never
mind! he was a genuine lover of art, and of woman, and much in the same
way too. In this I was much of his mind, for I have always thought a
man should love a work of art, as he does his mistress, with the flesh
as well as the spirit.
It was a consolation to me to think that so much of my best work
survived, now that the rest had perished, even if it was not paid for;
and I felt a longing to go and see the fruit of my past labors, hoping
that it might make life seem less hard to me. At the castle I was well
known, and they let me go where I would. The Master was away, they
said, but I told them I had some measurements to take for new work, and
I knew where to find the children of my brains and my fingers, though
it was some time since I had seen them. As long as an artist feels
in himself the power of fresh creation, he does not care to dwell on
his former productions, and besides, the last time I was here, the
Master had made some excuse to prevent my coming in. I thought at the
time, that he looked rather queer, but suspected perhaps that he was
hiding some married woman, and as I was quite sure it was not my wife,
I thought no more about it; besides, no one at Cuncy ever pays much
attention to the Master’s vagaries; he is a little cracked, they say,
and let it go at that.
I had not mounted ten steps of the staircase before I was struck
motionless, like Lot’s wife, by the sight which met my eyes. The fine
carving which ran along the banisters, representing vines and flowering
branches, was all hacked and disfigured so that I could hardly believe
it, and had to touch and feel the rough edge to convince myself that
these injuries had been made deliberately with a knife or hatchet. My
breath came short, and I trembled to think of what yet might be in
store for me, but I took the rest of the stair four steps at a time,
and burst open the great doors on the landing. As I looked down the
long range of apartments, I saw that my worst fears were realized.
In the armory, the dining-hall, and the state bedroom, my beautiful
little figurines had all been mutilated, shorn of their noses, their
arms, or their legs. Silly inscriptions, names or dates, were cut deep
in the panels of the wardrobes, on the chimney breasts, or across the
fluted pilasters. At the head of the long gallery stood a charming
group,--a nymph of the Yonne, with her bare knee on the neck of a
shaggy lioness. This they had used as a target, so that it was all
battered by shots from an arquebus. Some of the faces were ornamented
with mustaches, or had low jokes scrawled upon them with wine stains or
ink. Everywhere were gashes, chips, or rubbish; all that loneliness,
idleness, or stupidity could suggest to the mind of a rich idiot, on
the lookout for some new amusement, destruction and disfigurement being
the only things that could come into the head of a creature too dull to
be of any use himself in the world. It is lucky that he was not there,
for in the first transport of rage I believe that I should have killed
him. I could not speak at first, but the veins of my neck swelled up,
and my eyes started from my head like a lobster’s. Another moment, and
I really should have burst! but fortunately I managed to let out an
oath or two, and then my rage came in a flood, and I screamed, stamped,
and swore like a man demented.
“Dog! beast! ruffian!” cried I. “I gave you these lovely children of
my art, to ornament your vile den, and look what you have done to them!
I thought that they would adorn your house and carry on my name for
generations, and here they are, spoiled, tortured, and violated! What
joy was mine when I evoked all these from the enduring wood, and worked
with loving care to make them beautiful, perfect in every limb,--and
now see them, thus soiled and mutilated from head to foot, defaced and
ruined. Poor dears! your own father scarcely knows you, one would think
that you had all been to the wars!”
And then I put up a fervent prayer to Heaven (which was perhaps
superfluous), entreating that I might not enter Paradise, but be sent
to the nethermost hell, where I might assist Lucifer in tormenting my
enemy. “Ah!--ha! when I think of this brutal destroyer, how I should
love to stick a spit through him and twirl him before a slow fire!”
The steward Andoche came in, while I was still foaming with rage; he
begged me as an old acquaintance to calm myself, and led me from the
room, saying what he could to console me.
“They are only bits of wood, after all,” he said. “It is not worth
while for you to excite yourself so for things like that; and what
would you do if you had to live here, like us, with this lunatic? If
he wants to knock anything about,--and after all a man must have some
pleasure,--why should he not kick these chunks of wood, for which you
got a fair price, instead of good Christians like you and me?”
“I don’t care how much he beats you,” said I. “I had rather have been
flogged myself than have had him injure this wood into which I had
breathed the breath of life. Do you think a man cares for his bones?
It is his thought that is sacred to him, and he who kills that is
thrice guilty!” Carried away by my own eloquence, I might have kept
on like this for hours, but I saw that Andoche did not grasp a word
of it, and indeed seemed to think that I was nearly as cracked as his
Master. I turned on the threshold and gave a last look, as one may say,
at the field of battle, where lay my poor noseless creations; there
was Andoche with his pitying smile, and here was I wasting my breath
in cursing at these dummies. It struck me all at once as so deucedly
funny, that I just laughed in Andoche’s face, and went off in a gust of
merriment which seemed to carry away my anger and my pain along with it.
I struck out towards Clamecy, musing as I went, “This time,” thought I,
“they may as well stick me under ground; for there is nothing left of
the old man but his skin. Hold on, though, there may be something worth
while inside of that,--I remember a story of a fellow who was besieged,
and they told him to yield, or they would kill all his children. He
answered that if they did, he knew how to make a lot of new ones. That
is my position exactly. In the dry places of the earth we artists have
sown grain which wild beasts and birds of the air come to devour,
because they do not know how to create, and can only feed on the works
of others; but let them trample and uproot as much as they will, I have
a store from which I can replenish the fruitful soil. Let the wheat
ripen or die, it does not matter, for my eyes are fixed, not on the
past, but on the future, and when the day comes, as it will, when none
are left to me of all my members, when the sight of my eyes is dimmed,
and my hands have lost their cunning, then when that time comes, Colas,
you will have ceased to be. Is it possible to imagine a Breugnon, who
cannot work or feel, who does not laugh or spring from the ground with
both feet at once? No, then he will be only a withered nut, you can
throw the old shell into the fire!”
I was so much comforted by these reflections that when I reached the
top of the last hill as you go towards Clamecy I went on gaily,
throwing my feet out, and twirling my stick with a jaunty air, when
I saw in the distance a boy running towards me, seemingly in much
distress. As he came nearer, I knew him for my youngest apprentice,
a lad about thirteen years old, Robinet, called Binet; certainly as
idle a youngster as ever stared out of a window at the girls, when he
should have been hard at work. Twenty times a day I had to cuff him for
his laziness, but he was a clever little monkey, and his agile fingers
could turn out astonishingly good things when he liked; and then his
funny face with its wide mouth and turned-up nose, was so attractive
that, for the life of me, I could not be really angry with him. He knew
it, the young rascal! and when I hit him a good clip, he would just
shake his ears like a donkey, and in ten minutes was as bad as ever.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that he was crying, the large drops
streaming in rivulets down his cheeks, and before I could say a word,
he flung his arms round my neck, blubbering, and bedewing me with his
tears, like a Triton in a fountain.
“Stand off!” cried I. “What on earth is the matter with you? And, for
goodness’ sake, blow your nose, first, if you want to kiss me!”
Then as I saw that, far from stopping, he let himself slip to the
ground and lay there, sobbing louder than ever, I became really
alarmed, and raised him, so that I saw that one hand was wrapped in a
bloody rag, that his eyebrows were singed, and his clothes torn and
dusty.
“Come, my boy, what is the matter? What mischief have you been up to
this time?”--I had really forgotten my disaster.
“Oh, Master!--the fire! I can’t bear to tell you,” said he, weeping,
and when I realized that the poor child was unhappy on my account,
because my house was burned down, I cannot tell you what a comfort it
was to me.
“My poor boy!” said I, “don’t cry any longer.”
He thought that I had not understood, and told me more calmly that my
workshop and my house were burned to the ground.
“That’s an old story by now,” said I, patting him on the back. “You
are the fourth or fifth person who has told me of it. Well! it’s hard
luck, that’s all I can say, but I never thought you cared so much about
the old shop. Honor bright, now, didn’t you dance around it, like the
others, while it was burning?”
The way I was taking it had made him feel much better, but at this he
shook off my hand indignantly. “You don’t believe a word of it, Master;
Cagnat and I did all we could to put it out, but there were only two
of us, and Cagnat was sick with the fever; he got out of his bed to
help, and we tried to hold the door of the house against the crowd, but
what was the use? They threw us down, and trampled us under foot like
a herd of wild cattle! We were swept off our feet as if a flood had
gone over us, and when Cagnat managed to pick himself up, and tried to
prevent them from setting fire to the house, they very nearly killed
him.
“I got into the workshop somehow, though it was already in a blaze,
flaming like a torch from top to bottom, with long red banners of fire
streaming from the roof and windows. The smoke nearly choked me, and I
thought I should be burnt to a crisp, but I made one bound into a heap
of shavings, which were so hot that they set my breeches on fire, and
it did not take me long to jump out of them again. I hit my head such a
crack on the corner of the workbench that it half stunned me, but not
for long; all around the fire was crackling and roaring, and outside I
could hear the cries of those mad devils.
“I crawled on my hands and knees towards your figure of St. Marie
Madeleine, which I saw near me; I could not bear to see the flames
licking up over her little rounded body, and her long beautiful
hair!--I just jumped at her, beat out the sparks with my fingers, and
caught her in my arms as if she had been alive. ‘Dear St. Madelon!
treasure of my heart,’ cried I, ‘don’t be afraid, I will save you,--and
myself too, if I have luck!’ There was not a minute to spare, for by
this time the roof was falling in, and I could not get out the way I
came. But I spied the round loophole in the wall towards the river,
struck the glass a blow with my fist, and jumped through it with my
saint, as if it had been a paper hoop! A tight fit, I can tell you! but
out we popped, splash, to the bottom of the Beuvron! Luckily the bottom
is not far from the top, and very soft and muddy, so Madeleine did not
so much as bump her pretty head, but as I had not the sense to let go
of her, she dragged me down face first, till I was so full of slime and
river water that it was a hard job to pull myself out with the lady. So
here we are, at last, Master, and I only wish that I could have saved
more for you!”
He had a bundle under his arm wrapped up in an old waistcoat, and when
he carefully unrolled it, I saw the sweet face of my little saint, not
much the worse, except for her scorched toes. Up to this time I had not
wept for all the misfortunes that had fallen on me, but at the sight I
was touched to the quick, and taking Madeleine and the boy in my arms,
I kissed them both, and cried, till the tears ran down my cheeks.
“What became of Cagnat?” I asked when I had recovered myself a little,
and reading the answer in the boy’s face, I knelt down, and put my lips
to the earth in honor of a brave spirit.
“God reward you both!” I cried, as I looked at the lad still clasping
the statue in his bandaged arms, and I thought, “These will last, the
souls of these children, on which I have wrought my impress;--wood and
stone may be destroyed, but this joy no man can take from me!”
X
THE RIOT
August 30.
When we were a little calmed down, I said to Robinet, “What is done is
done, let us see now what is before us.” For I always think that the
best way to act in the present is to look upon yesterday’s doings as
ancient history. I had been away from Clamecy about three weeks, and I
made him sit down and tell me all that had happened in the interval.
The town had been under a double curse, the plague and fear, and when
the pestilence abated, fear seemed the more dangerous. Bandits flocked
from all the surrounding country, to prey upon the unfortunate place;
the people were so terrified that they offered no resistance, and
those of the baser sort, driven out their wits by fright, even joined
themselves to the robbers.
The law had become a dead letter, for of our four Aldermen, one died,
two fled, and the Public Prosecutor had also bolted. The Commandant at
the Citadel was brave enough, but old, and crippled by gout, besides,
having no more brains than you could put in a thimble, he had allowed
himself to be torn in pieces.
The only official that remained in the town was the fourth Alderman,
a man named Racquin, who finding himself deserted by his colleagues,
and opposed by this raging mob, was weak, or cunning enough, to yield
to it, instead of trying to put a stop to its depredations. He even
allowed the mob to set fire to the houses of men against whom he had a
grudge for one reason or another, myself among the number.
“What are the citizens doing all this time?” I asked.
“Nothing, now that their leaders are gone; they are like lambs led to
the slaughter.”
“Well, how about me, Binet? This old ram has some fight left in him
still, so come along!”
“You are crazy, Master! What could you do, one man, against hundreds of
brigands?”
“Do?--the best I can, of course; why should I be afraid of robbers, now
that I have not a penny left in the world? Come on, I say.”
Now, would you believe it? that boy actually turned a handspring on
the road for joy, in spite of his burned hand, and bruises, and began
to dance about and shout that this was the greatest sport he had ever
heard of.
“Hooray!” he cried; “we’ll chase these beggars off the face of the
earth!”
“Stop! you young monkey,” said I. “You’ll be swinging soon, perhaps, by
your neck instead of by your tail, so keep still, and mind what I tell
you.... I’m off for Clamecy now by myself, and you must make the best
of your way to Dornecy. When you get there, find Magistrate Nicole, our
alderman. He thought it prudent to run, I know, but he is kind-hearted,
even if he does love himself better than his neighbor, and there are
things he prizes still more,--viz.: his goods and chattels, which are
in the greatest peril, as you will not fail to tell him.
“When you have seen him, push on to Sardy, to Master Courtignon, the
Procurator; you’ll find him in his house with a pigeon-cote there;
let him know that his mansion in Clamecy, with all it contains, will
be burnt to the ground this very night, unless he comes back;--that
will fetch him, I promise you! But I don’t need to give you lessons in
lying, you young rascal! I’ll be bound you know well enough what to say
to them.”
“Oh! I don’t mind a lie or two, but the fact is, Master, I would rather
not leave you alone.”
“As if a snip like you would be of any protection! Seriously, Binet,
the best thing you can do for me is to get help, so hurry off as fast
as you can, and when you have done my errand, join me at the town.”
“Old Courtignon and Nicole shall be brought back,” he cried, “if I have
to drag them here by the hair of their heads; but just tell me one
thing, Master,--what are we going to do with them when they get here?”