After thoroughly reflecting on the Trappist’s probable intentions, I
decided that I ought to grant him the interview he had requested. In any
case, John Mauprat could not hope to impose upon me, and I wished to do
all in my power to prevent him from pestering my great-uncle’s last days
with his intrigues. Accordingly, the very next day I betook myself
to the town, where I arrived towards the end of Vespers. I rang, not
without emotion, at the door of the Carmelites.
The retreat chosen by the Trappist was of those innumerable mendicant
societies which France supported at that time. Though its rules
were ostensibly most austere, this monastery was rich and devoted to
pleasure. In that age of scepticism the small number of the monks was
entirely out of proportion to the wealth of the establishment which
had been founded for them; and the friars who roamed about the vast
monasteries in the most remote parts of the provinces led the easiest
and idlest lives they had ever known, in the lap of luxury, and entirely
freed from the control of opinion, which always loses its power when man
isolates himself. But this isolation, the mother of the “amiable vices,”
as they used to phrase it, was dear only to the more ignorant. The
leaders were a prey to the painful dreams of an ambition which had been
nurtured in obscurity and embittered by inaction. To do something, even
in the most limited sphere and with the help of the feeblest machinery;
to do something at all costs--such was the one fixed idea of the priors
and abbes.
The prior of the Carmelites whom I was about to see was the
personification of this restless impotence. Bound to his great arm-chair
by the gout, he offered a strange contrast to the venerable chevalier,
pale and unable to move like himself, but noble and patriarchal in his
affliction. The prior was short, stout, and very petulant. The upper
part of his body was all activity; he would turn his head rapidly from
side to side; he would brandish his arms while giving orders. He was
sparing of words, and his muffled voice seemed to lend a mysterious
meaning to the most trivial things. In short, one-half of his person
seemed to be incessantly striving to drag along the other, like the
bewitched man in the Arabian Nights, whose robe hid a body that was
marble up to the waist.
He received me with exaggerated attention, got angry because they did
not bring me a chair quickly enough, stretched out his fat, flabby hand
to draw this chair quite close to his own, and made a sign to a tall,
bearded satyr, whom he called the Brother Treasurer, to go out; then,
after overwhelming me with questions about my journey, and my return,
and my health, and my family, while his keen restless little eyes
were darting glances at me from under eyelids swollen and heavy from
intemperance, he came to the point.
“I know, my dear child,” he said, “what brings you here; you wish to
pay your respects to your holy relative, to the Trappist, that model of
faith and holiness whom God has sent to us to serve as an example to the
world, and reveal to all the miraculous power of grace.”
“Prior,” I answered, “I am not a good enough Christian to judge of the
miracle you mention. Let devout souls give thanks to Heaven for it. For
myself, I have come here because M. Jean de Mauprat desires to inform
me, as he has said, of plans which concern myself, and to which I am
ready to listen. If you will allow me to go and see him----”
“I did not want him to see you before myself, young man,” exclaimed the
prior, with an affectation of frankness, at the same time seizing my
hands in his, at the touch of which I could not repress a feeling of
disgust. “I have a favour to ask of you in the name of charity, in the
name of the blood which flows in your veins . . .”
I withdrew one of my hands, and the prior, noticing my expression of
displeasure, immediately changed his tone with admirable skill.
“You are a man of the world, I know. You have a grudge against him who
once was Jean de Mauprat, and who to-day is the humble Brother Jean
Nepomucene. But if the precepts of our divine Master, Jesus Christ,
cannot persuade you to pity, there are considerations of public
propriety and of family pride which must make you share my fears and
assist my efforts. You know the pious but rash resolution which Brother
John has formed; you ought to assist me in dissuading him from it, and
you will do so, I make no doubt.”
“Possibly, sir,” I replied very coldly; “but might I ask to what my
family is indebted for the interest you are good enough to take in its
affairs?”
“To that spirit of charity which animates all the followers of Christ,”
answered the monk, with very well assumed dignity.
Fortified with this pretext, on the strength of which the clergy have
always taken upon themselves to meddle in all family secrets, it was not
difficult for him to put an end to my questions; and, though he could
not destroy the suspicions which I felt at heart, he succeeded in
proving to my ears that I ought to be grateful to him for the care which
he had taken of the honour of my name. I wanted to find out what he was
driving at; it was as I had foreseen. My Uncle John claimed from me his
share in the fief of Roche-Mauprat; and the prior was deputed to make
me understand that I had to choose between paying a considerable sum of
money (for he spoke of the interest accruing through the seven years of
possession, besides a seventh part of the whole estate) and the insane
step he intended taking, the scandal of which could not fail to
hasten the chevalier’s death and cause me, perhaps, “strange personal
embarrassments.” All this was hinted with consummate skill under the
cover of the most Christian solicitude for my own welfare, the most
fervent admiration for the Trappist’s zeal, and the most sincere anxiety
about the results of this “firm resolve.” Finally, it was made evident
that John Mauprat was not coming to ask me for the means of existence,
but that I should have to humbly beseech him to accept the half of
my possessions, if I wished to prevent him from dragging my name and
probably my person to the felon’s dock.