Like evil, good is contagious. Therefore when Madame de la Chanterie’s
lodger had lived in that old and silent house for some months after the
worthy Alain’s last confidence, which gave him the deepest respect for
the religious lives of those among whom his was cast, he experienced
that well-being of the soul which comes of a regulated existence, gentle
customs, and harmony of nature in those who surround us. At the end of
four months, during which time Godefroid heard neither a loud voice
nor an argument, he could not remember that he had ever been, if not as
happy, at least as tranquil and contented. He now judged soundly of the
world, seeing it from afar. At last, the desire he had felt for months
to be a sharer in the work of these mysterious persons became a passion.
Without being great philosophers we can all understand the force which
passions acquire in solitude.
Thus it happened that one day--a day made solemn by the power of the
spirit within him--Godefroid again went up to see the good old Alain,
him whom Madame de la Chanterie called her “lamb,” the member of
the community who seemed to Godefroid the least imposing, the most
approachable member of the fraternity, intending to obtain from him
some definite light on the conditions of the sacred work to which these
brothers of God were dedicated. The allusions made to a period of trial
seemed to imply an initiation, which he was now desirous of receiving.
His curiosity had not been satisfied by what the venerable old man had
already told him as to the causes which led to the work of Madame de la
Chanterie; he wanted to know more.
For the third time Godefroid entered Monsieur Alain’s room, just as the
old man was beginning his evening reading of the “Imitation of Jesus
Christ.” This time the kindly soul did not restrain a smile when he
saw the young man, and he said at once, without allowing Godefroid to
speak:--
“Why do you come to me, my dear boy; why not go to Madame? I am the most
ignorant, the most imperfect, the least spiritual of our number. For the
last three days,” he added, with a shrewd little glance, “Madame and my
other friends have read your heart.”
“What have they read there?” asked Godefroid.
“Ah!” replied the goodman, without evasion, “they see in you a rather
artless desire to belong to our little flock. But this sentiment is not
yet an ardent vocation. Yes,” he continued, replying to a gesture of
Godefroid’s, “you have more curiosity than fervor. You are not yet so
detached from your old ideas that you do not look forward to something
adventurous, romantic, as they say, in the incidents of our life.”
Godefroid could not keep himself from blushing.
“You see a likeness between our occupations and those of the caliphs of
the ‘Arabian Nights;’ and you are thinking about the satisfaction
you will have in playing the part of the good genii in the tales of
benevolence you are inventing. Ah, my dear boy! that shame-faced laugh
of yours proves to me that we were quite right in that conjecture. How
do you expect to conceal any feeling from persons whose business it is
to divine the most hidden motion of souls, the tricks of poverty, the
calculations of indigence,--honest spies, the police of the good God;
old judges, whose code contains nothing but absolutions; doctors of
suffering, whose only remedy is oftentimes the wise application of
money? But, you see, my child, we don’t wish to quarrel with the motives
which bring us a neophyte, provided he will really stay and become a
brother of the order. We shall judge you by your work. There are two
kinds of curiosity,--that of good and that of evil; just at this moment
you have that of good. If you should work in our vineyard, the juice of
our grapes will make you perpetually thirsty for the divine fruit. The
initiation is, as in that of all natural knowledge, easy in appearance,
difficult in reality. Benevolence is like poesy; nothing is easier
than to catch the appearance of it. But here, as in Parnassus, nothing
contents us but perfection. To become one to us, you must acquire a
great knowledge of life. And what a life,--good God! Parisian life,
which defies the sagacity of the minister of police and all his agents!
We have to circumvent the perpetual conspiracy of Evil, master it in
all its forms, while it changes so often as to seem infinite. Charity in
Paris must know as much as vice, just as a policeman must know all the
tricks of thieves. We must each be frank and each distrustful; we must
have quick perception and a sure and rapid judgment. And then, my child,
we are old and getting older; but we are so content with the results we
have now obtained, that we do not want to die without leaving successors
in the work. If you persist in your desire, you will be our first pupil,
and all the dearer to us on that account. There is no risk for us,
because God brought you to us. Yours is a good nature soured; since you
have been here the evil leaven has weakened. The divine nature of Madame
has acted upon yours. Yesterday we took counsel together; and inasmuch
as I have your confidence, my good brothers resolved to give me to you
as guardian and teacher. Does that please you?”
“Ah! my kind Monsieur Alain, your eloquence awakens--”
“No, my child, it is not I who speak well; it is things that are
eloquent. We can be sure of being great, even sublime, in obeying God,
in imitating Jesus Christ,--imitating him, I mean, as much as men are
able to do so, aided by faith.”
“This moment, then, decides my life!” cried Godefroid. “I feel within me
the fervor of a neophyte; I wish to spend my life in doing good.”
“That is the secret of remaining in God,” replied Alain. “Have you
studied our motto,--_Transire benefaciendo_? _Transire_ means to go
beyond this world, leaving benefits on our way.”
“Yes, I have understood it; I have put the motto of the order before my
bed.”
“That is well; it is a trifling action, but it counts for much in my
eyes. And now I have your first affair, your first duel with misery,
prepared for you; I’ll put your foot in the stirrup. We are about to
part. Yes, I myself am detached from the convent, to live for a time
in the crater of a volcano. I am to be a clerk in a great manufactory,
where the workmen are infected with communistic doctrines, and dream of
social destruction, the abolishment of masters,--not knowing that that
would be the death of industry, of commerce, of manufactures. I shall
stay there goodness knows how long,--perhaps a year,--keeping the books
and paying the wages. This will give me an entrance into a hundred or a
hundred and twenty homes of working-men, misled, no doubt, by poverty,
even before the pamphlets of the day misled them. But you and I can see
each other on Sundays and fete-days. We shall be in the same quarter;
and if you come to the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, you will
find me there any day at half-past seven, when I hear mass. If you meet
me elsewhere don’t recognize me, unless you see me rub my hands like
a man who is pleased at something. That is one of our signs. We have
a language of signs, like the deaf and dumb; you’ll soon find out the
absolute necessity of it.”
Godefroid made a gesture which the goodman Alain interpreted; for he
laughed, and immediately went on to say:--
“Now for your affair. We do not practise either the benevolence or the
philanthropy that you know about, which are really divided into several
branches, all taken advantage of by sharpers in charity as a business.
We practise charity as our great and sublime Saint Paul defines it; for,
my dear lad, we think that charity, and charity alone, which is Love,
can heal the wounds of Paris. In our eyes, misery, of whatever kind,
poverty, suffering, misfortune, grief, evil, no matter how produced, or
in what social class they show themselves, have equal rights. Whatever
his opinions or beliefs, an unhappy man is, before all else, an unhappy
man; and we ought not to attempt to turn his face to our holy mother
Church until we have saved him from despair or hunger. Moreover, we
ought to convert him to goodness more by example and by gentleness than
by any other means; and we believe that God will specially help us in
this. All constraint is bad. Of the manifold Parisian miseries, the most
difficult to discover, and the bitterest, is that of worthy persons
of the middle classes who have fallen into poverty; for they make
concealment a point of honor. Those sorrows, my dear Godefroid, are
to us the object of special solicitude. Such persons usually have
intelligence and good hearts. They return to us, sometimes with usury,
the sums that we lend them. Such restitutions recoup us in the long
run for the losses we occasionally incur through impostors, shiftless
creatures, or those whom misfortunes have rendered stupid. Through such
persons we often obtain invaluable help in our investigations. Our work
has now become so vast, its details are so multifarious, that we no
longer suffice of ourselves to carry it on. So, for the last year we
have a physician of our own in every arrondissement in Paris. Each of
us takes general charge of four arrondissements. We pay each physician
three thousand francs a year to take care of our poor. His time belongs
to us in the first instance, but we do not prevent him from attending
other sick persons if he can. Would you believe that for many months we
were unable to find twelve really trustworthy, valuable men, in spite
of all our own efforts and those of our friends? We could not employ
any but men of absolute discreetness, pure lives, sound knowledge,
experience, active men, and lovers of doing good. Now, although there
are in Paris some ten thousand individuals, more or less, who would
gladly do the work, we could not find twelve to meet our needs in a
whole year.”
“Our Saviour had difficulty in gathering his apostles, and even then a
traitor and an unbeliever got among them,” said Godefroid.
“However, within the last month all our arrondissements are provided
with a Visitor--that is the name we give to our physicians. At the same
time the business is increasing, and we have all redoubled our activity.
If I confide to you these secrets of our system, it is that you must
know the physician, that is, the Visitor of the arrondissement to which
we are about to send you; from him, all original information about our
cases comes. This Visitor is named Berton, Doctor Berton; he lives in
the rue d’Enfer. And now here are the facts: Doctor Berton is attending
a lady whose disease puzzles and defies science. That, of course, is not
our concern, but that of the Faculty. Our business is to discover the
condition of the family of this patient; Doctor Berton suspects that
their poverty is frightful, and concealed with a pride and determination
which demand our utmost care. Until now, my son, I should have found
time for this case, but the work I am undertaking obliges me to find a
helper in my four arrondissements, and you shall be that helper. This
family lives in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, in a house at the corner
of the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. You will find a room to let in the
same house, where you can live for a time so as to discover the truth
about these persons. Be sordid for yourself, but as for the money you
may think needed for this case have no uneasiness. I will remit you
such sums as we may judge necessary after ourselves considering all the
circumstances. But remember that you must study the moral qualities of
these unfortunates: their hearts, the honorableness of their feelings;
those are our guarantees. Miserly we may be for ourselves, and generous
to those who suffer, but we must be prudent and even calculating, for we
are dealing with the money of the poor. So then, to-morrow morning you
can start; think over the power we put in your hands: the brothers are
with you in heart.”
“Ah!” cried Godefroid, “you have given me such a pleasure in the
opportunity of doing good and making myself worthy to belong to you some
day, that I shall not sleep to-night.”
“One more word, my child. I told you not to recognize me without the
signal; the same rule applies to the other gentlemen and to Madame, and
even to the people you see about this house. We are forced to keep up an
absolute incognito in all we do; this is so necessary to our enterprises
that we have made a rule about it. We seek to be ignored, lost in this
great Paris. Remember also, my dear Godefroid, the spirit of our order;
which is, never to appear as benefactors, to play an obscure part, that
of intermediaries. We always present ourselves as the agent of a pious,
saintly person (in fact, we are working for God), so that none of those
we deal with may feel the obligation of gratitude towards any of us,
or think we are wealthy persons. True, sincere humility, not the false
humility of those who seek thereby to be set in the light, must inspire
you and rule all your thoughts. You may indeed be glad when you succeed;
but so long as you feel within you a sentiment of vanity or of pride,
you are not worthy to do the work of the order. We have known two
perfect men: one, who was one of our founders, Judge Popinot; the other
is revealed by his works; he is a country doctor whose name is written
on the annals of his canton. That man, my dear Godefroid, is one of the
greatest men of our time; he brought a whole region out of wretchedness
into prosperity, out of irreligion into Christianity, out of barbarism
into civilization.[*] The names of those two men are graven on our
hearts and we have taken them as our models. We should be happy indeed
if we ourselves could some day acquire in Paris the influence that
country doctor had in his canton. But here, the sore is vast, beyond our
strength at present. May God preserve to us Madame, may he send us
some young helpers like you, and perhaps we may yet leave behind us
an institution worthy of his divine religion. And now good-bye; your
initiation begins--Ah! I chatter like a professor and forget the
essential thing! Here is the address of that family,” he added, giving
Godefroid a piece of paper; “I have added the number of Dr. Berton’s
house in the rue d’Enfer; and now, go and pray to God to help you.”
[*] The Country Doctor. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
Godefroid took the old man’s hands and pressed them tenderly, wishing
him good-night, and assuring him he would not neglect a single point of
his advice.
“All that you have said to me,” he added, “is graven in my memory
forever.”
The old man smiled, expressing no doubts; then he rose, to kneel in
his accustomed place. Godefroid retired, joyful in at last sharing the
mysteries of that house and in having an occupation, which, feeling as
he did then, was to him an untold pleasure.
The next day at breakfast, Monsieur Alain’s place was vacant, but no
one remarked upon it; Godefroid made no allusion to the cause of his
absence, neither did any one question him as to the mission the old man
had entrusted to him; he thus took his first lesson in discreetness.
Nevertheless, after breakfast, he did take Madame de la Chanterie apart
and told her that he should be absent for some days.
“That is good, my child,” replied Madame de la Chanterie; “try to do
honor to your godfather, who has answered for you to his brothers.”
Godefroid bade adieu to the three remaining brethren, who made him an
affectionate bow, by which they seemed to bless his entrance upon a
painful career.
ASSOCIATION, one of the greatest social forces, and that which made the
Europe of the middle-ages, rests on principles which, since 1792, no
longer exist in France, where the Individual has now triumphed over the
State. Association requires, in the first place, a self-devotion that is
not understood in our day; also a guileless faith which is contrary to
the spirit of the nation, and lastly, a discipline against which men in
these days revolt and which the Catholic religion alone can enforce. The
moment an association is formed among us, each member, returning to his
own home from an assembly where noble sentiments have been proclaimed,
thinks of making his own bed out of that collective devotion, that union
of forces, and of milking to his own profit the common cow, which, not
being able to supply so many individual demands, dies exhausted.
Who knows how many generous sentiments were blasted, how many fruitful
germs may have perished, lost to the nation through the infamous
deceptions of the French Carbonari, the patriotic subscriptions to the
Champ d’Asile, and other political deceptions which ought to have been
grand and noble dramas, and proved to be the farces and the melodramas
of police courts. It is the same with industrial association as it is
with political association. Love of self is substituted for the love
of collective bodies. The corporations and the Hanse leagues of the
middle-ages, _to which we shall some day return_, are still impossible.
Consequently, the only societies which actually exist are those of
religious bodies, against whom a heavy war is being made at this moment;
for the natural tendency of sick persons is to quarrel with remedies
and often with physicians. France ignores self-abnegation. Therefore,
no association can live except through religious sentiment; the only
sentiment that quells the rebellions of mind, the calculations of
ambition, and greeds of all kinds. The seekers of better worlds ignore
the fact that ASSOCIATION has such worlds to offer.
As he walked through the streets Godefroid felt himself another man.
Whoever could have looked into his being would have admired the curious
phenomenon of the communication of collective power. He was no longer a
mere man, he was a tenfold force, knowing himself the representative of
persons whose united forces upheld his actions and walked beside him.
Bearing that power in his heart, he felt within him a plenitude of life,
a noble might, which uplifted him. It was, as he afterwards said, one
of the finest moments of his whole existence; he was conscious of a new
sense, an omnipotence more sure than that of despots. Moral power is,
like thought, limitless.
“To live for others,” he thought, “to act with others, all as one, and
act alone as all together, to have for leader Charity, the noblest, the
most living of those ideal figures Christianity has made for us, this is
indeed to live!--Come, come, repress that petty joy, which father Alain
laughed at. And yet, how singular it is that in seeking to set myself
aside from life I have found the power I have sought so long! Yes, the
world of misery will belong to me!”