The elm-trees on the Mall were slowly clothing their dusky limbs with
a delicate drapery of pale gauzy green. But on the slope of the hill
crowned with its ancient ramparts, the flowering trees of the orchards
showed their round white heads, or distaffs of rosy bloom, against a
background of cloudless, sunny sky that smiled between the showers.
In the distance flowed the river, swollen with spring rains, a line
of bare, white water, that fretted with its rounded curves the rows
of slender poplars which outlined its course. Beautiful, invincible,
fruitful and eternal, flowed the river, a true goddess, as in the days
when the boatmen of Roman Gaul made their offerings of copper coins to
it and raised, before the temple of Venus and Augustus, a votive pillar
on which they had roughly carved a boat with its oars. Everywhere in
this open valley, the sweet, trembling youth of the year shivered along
the surface of the ancient earth. Under the elm-trees on the Mall
walked M. Bergeret with slow, irregular steps. As he wandered on, his
mind glanced hither and thither; shifting it was and confused; old as
the earth itself, yet young as the flowers on the apple-boughs; empty
of thought, yet full of vague visions; lonely, yet full of desire;
gentle, innocent, wanton, melancholy; dragging behind it a weight of
weariness, yet still pursuing Hopes and Illusions whose very names,
shapes and faces were unknown to him.
At last he drew near the wooden bench on which he was in the habit of
sitting in summer time, at the hour when the birds are silent on the
trees. Here, where he often sat resting with Abbé Lantaigne, under the
beautiful elm that overheard all their grave talk, he saw that some
words had been recently traced by a clumsy hand in chalk on the green
back of the seat. At first he was seized with a fear lest he should
find his own name written there, for it was quite familiar by now to
all the blackguards of the town. But he soon saw that he need have
no trouble on that score, since it was merely a lewd inscription in
which Narcissus announced to the world the pleasures he had enjoyed on
this very bench in the arms of his Ernestine, doubtless under cover of
the kindly night. The style of the legend was simple and concise, but
coarse and uncomely in its terms.
M. Bergeret was just about to sit down in his accustomed place, but
he changed his mind, since it did not seem a fitting action for a
decent man to lean publicly against this obscene memorial, dedicated
to the Venus of cross-roads and gardens, especially as it stood on the
very spot where he had expressed so many noble and ironic thoughts
and had so often invoked the muse of seemly meditation. Turning away,
therefore, from the bench, he said to himself:
“O vain desire for fame! We long to live in the memory of men, and
unless we are consummately well-bred men of the world, we would fain
publish in the market-place our loves, our joys, our sorrows and our
hates. Narcissus, here, can only really believe that he has actually
won his Ernestine, when all the world has heard of it. It was the same
spirit that drove Phidias to trace a beloved name on the great toe of
the Olympian Jove. O thirst of the soul to unburden itself, to plunge
into the ocean of the not-self! ‘_To-day, on this bench, Narcissus...._’
“Yet,” thought M. Bergeret once more, “the first virtue of civilised
man and the corner-stone of society is dissimulation. It is just as
incumbent on us to hide our thoughts as it is for us to wear clothes.
A man who blurts out all his thoughts, just as they arise in his mind,
is as inconceivable as the spectacle of a man walking naked through a
town. Talk in Paillot’s shop is free enough, yet were I, for instance,
to express all the fancies that crowd my mind at this moment, all the
notions which pass through my head, like a swarm of witches riding on
broomsticks down a chimney, if I were to describe the manner in which I
suddenly see Madame de Gromance, the incongruous attitudes in which I
picture her, the vision of her which comes to me, more ludicrous, more
weird, more chimerical, more quaint, more monstrous, more perverted
and alien to all seemly conventions, a thousand times more waggish and
indecent than that famous figure introduced in the scene of the Last
Judgment on the north portal of Saint-Exupère by a masterly craftsman
who had caught a glimpse of Lust himself as he leant over a vent-hole
of hell; if I were accurately to reveal the strangeness of my dream,
it would be concluded that I am a prey to some repulsive mania. Yet,
all the same, I know that I am an honourable man, naturally inclined to
purity, disciplined by life and reflection to self-control, a modest
man wholly dedicated to the peaceful pleasures of the mind, a foe to
all excess, and hating vice as a deformity.”
As he walked on, deep in this singular train of thought, M. Bergeret
caught sight, along the Mall, of Abbé Lantaigne, the principal of the
high seminary, and Abbé Tabarit, the chaplain of the prison. The two
were in close conversation and M. Tabarit was waggling his long body,
with his little pointed head, while he emphasised his words by sweeping
gestures of his bony arms. Abbé Lantaigne, with head erect and chest
projecting, held his breviary under his arm and listened gravely with
far-away gaze and lips locked tightly between stolid cheeks that were
never distended by a smile.
M. Lantaigne answered M. Bergeret’s bow by a gesture and a word of
greeting:
“Stop, Monsieur Bergeret,” he cried, “M. Tabarit is not afraid of
infidels.”
But the prison chaplain was not to be interrupted in the full tide of
his thoughts.
“Who,” said he, “could have remained unmoved at what I saw? This lad
has taught every one of us a lesson by the sincerity of his repentance,
by the simple, truthful expression of the most Christian sentiments.
His bearing, his looks, his words, his whole being spoke plainly enough
of gentleness and humility, of utter submission to the will of God.
He never ceased to offer a most consoling spectacle, a most salutary
example. Perfect resignation, an awakened faith too long stifled in his
heart, a supreme abasement before the God who pardons: such were the
blessed fruits of my exhortations.”
The old man was moved with the easy earnestness of the blameless,
buoyant, self-absorbed nature. Real grief stirred in his great,
prominent eyes and his poor, meagre red nose. After a momentary sigh,
he began again, this time turning towards M. Bergeret:
“Ah, sir,” said he, “in the course of my painful ministry I have
encountered many thorns. But also what fruit I find! Many times in the
course of my long life have I snatched lost souls from the devil, who
was on the alert to lay hold of them. But none of the poor creatures
with whom I have journeyed to the gates of death presented such an
edifying spectacle in their last moments as this young Lecœur.”
“What!” cried M. Bergeret, “you surely are not speaking like this of
the murderer of Madame Houssieu? Isn’t it well known that——”
He was just going on to say that, according to the unanimous account
of all those who had witnessed the execution, the poor wretch had been
carried to the scaffold, already half dead with fear. He stopped short,
however, lest he should afflict the old man, who continued in his own
way:
“It is true that he made no long speeches and indulged in no noisy
demonstrations. But if you had only heard the sighs, the ejaculations,
by which he testified to his repentance! In his melancholy journey from
the prison to the place of expiation, when I reminded him of his mother
and his first communion, he wept.”
“Certainly,” said M. Bergeret, “Madame Houssieu didn’t die so
edifyingly.”
At these words M. Tabarit rolled his great eyes from east to west. He
always sought for the solution of metaphysical problems, not within
himself, but without, and whenever he fell into a day dream at table
his old servant, misunderstanding his look, would inquire: “Are you
looking for the cork of the bottle, sir? It’s in your hand.”
But M. Tabarit’s roving glance had fallen on a great bearded man
in cyclist’s dress who was passing along the Mall. This was Eusèbe
Boulet, editor in chief of the radical paper _le Phare_. Instantly
M. Tabarit bade a hasty good-bye to the professor and the head of
the seminary, and hurrying up to the journalist with great strides,
wished him good-day. Then, with a face reddened by excitement, he drew
some crumpled papers out of his pocket and handed them to him with
a hand that trembled. These were rectifications and supplementary
communications as to the last moments of young Lecœur. For at the
end of his secluded life and humble ministry, a passion for print, a
thirst for interviews and articles, had come upon this holy man.
It was with something approaching a smile that M. Lantaigne watched the
poor old fellow, with his quick, birdlike movements, handing up his
scrawls to the radical editor.
“Look!” said he to M. Bergeret, “the miasma of this age has even
infected a man who was marching deathwards by a path long paved with
goodness and virtue. This old fellow, though he is humble and modest
about everything else, is craving for notoriety. He yearns to appear in
print at any cost, even though it be in the pages of an anti-clerical
paper.”
Then, vexed at having betrayed one of his own people to the enemy, M.
Lantaigne added with a brisk air of indifference:
“Not much harm done. It’s absurd, that’s all.”
Thereupon, relapsing into silence, he was his own gloomy self once more.
M. Lantaigne was a masterful man, and his will forced M. Bergeret
towards their usual seat. Entirely indifferent to the vulgar phenomena
by which the world outside themselves is manifested to the generality
of men, he scorned to notice the lewd inscription of Narcissus and
Ernestine, written in chalk in large running characters on the back
of the seat. Sinking down on the bench with a placid air of mental
detachment, he covered a third of this inscribed memorial with his
broad back. M. Bergeret sat down by M. Lantaigne’s side, first,
however, spreading out his newspaper over the back, so as to conceal
that part of the text which seemed to him the most outspoken. In
his estimation this was the verb—a word which, according to the
grammarians, denotes the existence of an attribute to the subject. But
inadvertently, he had merely substituted one inscription for another.
The paper, in fact, announced in a side-note one of those episodes that
have become so common in parliamentary life since the memorable triumph
of democratic institutions. This spring the scandal period had come
round once more with astronomical exactitude, following the change of
the Seasons and the Dance of the Hours, and during the month several
deputies had been prosecuted, according to custom. The sheet unfolded
by M. Bergeret bore in huge letters this notice: “A Senator at Mazas.
Arrest of M. Laprat-Teulet.” Although there was nothing unusual about
the fact itself, which merely indicated the regular working of the
parliamentary machine, it struck M. Bergeret that there was perhaps
an uncalled-for display of indifference in posting up this notice on
a bench on the Mall, in the very shadow of those elms under which
the honourable M. Laprat-Teulet had so often been the recipient of
the honours which democracy loves to bestow on her greatest citizens.
Here on the Mall, M. Laprat-Teulet, sitting at the right hand of the
President of the Republic, on a rostrum draped in ruby velvet beneath
a trophy of flags, had, on different ceremonial occasions in honour
of great local or national rejoicings, uttered those words which are
so well calculated to exalt the blessings of government, while at the
same time they recommend patience to the toiling and devoted masses.
Laprat-Teulet, who had started as a republican, had now been for
five-and-twenty years the powerful and highly respected leader of the
opportunist party in the department. Now that his hair had grown white
with age and parliamentary toil, he stood out in his native town like
an oak adorned with tricoloured garlands. His enemies had been ruined
and his friends enriched through his exertions and he was loaded with
public honours. He was, moreover, not only august, but also affable,
and every year at prize distributions, he spoke of his poverty to the
little children: he could call himself poor without injuring himself
in any way, for no one believed him, and everyone felt certain that he
was very rich. The sources of his wealth, in fact, were well known,
the thousand channels by means of which his labour and his astuteness
had drained off the money into his own pockets. They could calculate
perfectly what funds had poured into his coffers from the undertakings
that were based on his political credit and from all the concessions
granted on account of his parliamentary interest. For he was a deputy
with famous business capacities, a capital financial orator, and his
friends knew, as well as, and even better, than his enemies, what he
had pocketed through the Panama affair and similar enterprises. Very
far-seeing, moderate in his desires and, above all, anxious not to
tempt fortune too far, this great guardian of our industrious and
intelligent democracy had given up high finance for the last ten years,
thus bowing before the first breath of the storm. He had even left the
Palais-Bourbon and retired to the Luxembourg, to that great Council of
the Commons of France where his wisdom and devotion to the Republic
were duly appreciated. There he was able to pull the strings without
being seen by the public. He only spoke on secret commissions. But
there he still showed those brilliant qualities which for many years
the princes of cosmopolitan finance had justly learnt to appraise
at a high value. He remained the outspoken defender of the fiscal
system introduced at the Revolution and founded, as we are all aware,
on the principles of liberty and justice. He upheld the rights of
capital with that emotion which is always so touching in an old hand
at the game. Even the turn-coats themselves revered in the person of
Laprat-Teulet a pacific and truly conservative mind, regarding him as
the guardian angel of personal property.
“His notions are honourable enough,” said M. de Terremondre. “But the
worst aspect of it is that to-day he is burdened with the weight of
a difficult past.” But Laprat-Teulet had enemies who were implacable
in their hatred of him. “I have earned this hatred,” said he
magnanimously, “by defending the interests which were entrusted to me.”
His enemies pursued him even into the sacred precincts of the Senate,
where his misfortunes gave him an air of still greater dignity, for he
had once before been in difficulties and even actually on the verge
of ruin. This came about through a mistake made by a Keeper of the
Seals who was not a member of the syndicate and who had rashly handed
him over into the astonished hands of justice. Neither the honourable
M. Laprat-Teulet, nor his examining judge, nor his barrister, nor the
Public Prosecutor, nor the Keeper of the Seals himself, was capable of
foreseeing, or even understanding, the cause of those sudden partial
cleavages in the machine of government, those catastrophes, farcical
as the collapse of a platform at a show and terrible as the outcome of
what the orator called immanent justice, catastrophes which sometimes
hurl the most respected statesmen from their seats in both Chambers. M.
Laprat-Teulet felt a melancholy surprise at his fate and he scorned to
give any explanation to the authorities, but the number and splendour
of his connections saved him. A plea that there was not sufficient
cause for prosecution was interposed. At first Laprat-Teulet accepted
it with humble gratitude, and next he bore it into the official world
as a regular certificate of innocence. “Almighty God,” said Madame
Laprat-Teulet, who was pious, “Almighty God has been very merciful
to my husband, for to him He has granted the stay of proceedings
he so much desired.” It is matter of common knowledge that Madame
Laprat-Teulet was so grateful that she had a votive-offering hung up
in the chapel of Saint-Antoine, a marble slab bearing the following
inscription: “From a Christian wife, in gratitude for an unhoped-for
blessing.”
This stay of proceedings reassured Laprat-Teulet’s political friends,
the crowd of ex-ministers and big officials who had shared with him,
not only the time of struggle, but the fruitful years, who had known
both the seven lean kine and the seven fat kine. This stay was a
safeguard, or at any rate was regarded as such. It could be relied
upon for several years to come. Then suddenly, by a stroke of bad luck,
by one of those ill-omened and unforeseen accidents that come secretly
and from underneath, like sudden leaks in rotten vessels, without any
political or moral reason, in the full glory of his honours, this
old servant of the democracy, this heir of its achievements whom M.
Worms-Clavelin had instanced only the night before in the comitia as a
shining light to the whole department, this man of order and progress,
this defender of capital and opponent of clericalism, this intimate
friend of ex-ministers and ex-presidents, this Senator Laprat-Teulet,
this man, though exculpated on the former occasion, was sent to prison
with a batch of members of parliament. And the local paper announced
in large type: “A Senator at Mazas. Arrest of M. Laprat-Teulet.” M.
Bergeret, being a man of delicacy, turned the paper round on the back
of the seat.
“Well,” said M. Lantaigne in a morose voice, “do you like the look of
what you see there, and do you think it can last long?”
“What do you mean?” asked M. Bergeret. “Are you referring to the
parliamentary scandals? But let us first ask what a scandal really
is. A scandal is the effect that usually results from the revelation
of some secret deed. For men don’t in general act furtively, save
when they are doing something that runs counter to morality and public
opinion. It is also noticeable that, although public scandals occur
in every period and every nation, they happen most frequently when
the Government is least skilled in dissimulation. It is also evident
that state secrets are never well kept in a democracy. The number of
people concerned, indeed, and the powerful party jealousies invite
revelations, sometimes hushed up, sometimes startling. It should
also be observed that the parliamentary system actually multiplies
the number of those who betray trusts, by putting a crowd of people
in a position where they can do it easily. Louis XIV was robbed by
Fouquet on a large and splendid scale. But in our days, all the while
the melancholy President, who had been chosen merely as a creditable
figure-head, confronted the chastened departments with the mute
countenance of a bearded Minerva, he was distributing largesse at the
Palais Bourbon at a rate past checking. In itself this was no great
evil, for every Government always has a number of needy folks hanging
about it, and it is too much to demand of human nature to ask that they
shall all be honest. Besides, what these paltry thieves have taken is
very little in comparison with what our honest administration wastes
every hour of the day. One point alone should be observed, for it is
of primary importance. The revenue farmers of olden days, this Pauquet
de Sainte-Croix, for instance, who in the time of Louis XV heaped up
the wealth of the province in the very mansion where I now live ‘in the
third room,’ those shameless plunderers robbed their nation and their
king without being in collusion with any of their country’s enemies.
Now, on the contrary, our parliamentary sharks are betraying France to
a foreign power, Finance, to wit. For it is true that Finance is to-day
one of the Powers of Europe, and of her it may be said, as was formerly
said of the Church, that among the nations she remains a splendid
alien. Our representatives, whom she buys over, are not only robbers
but traitors. And, in truth, they rob and betray in paltry, huckstering
fashion. Each one in himself is merely an object of pity: it is their
rapid swarming that alarms me.
“Meanwhile the honourable M. Laprat-Teulet is at Mazas! He was taken
there on the morning of the very day on which he was due here to
preside over the Social Defence League banquet. This arrest, which was
carried out on the day after the vote that authorised the prosecution,
has taken M. Worms-Clavelin completely by surprise. He had arranged for
M. Dellion to preside at the banquet, since his integrity, guaranteed
by inherited wealth and by forty years of commercial prosperity, is
universally respected. Though the _préfet_ deplores the fact that
the most prominent officials of the Republic are continually subject
to suspicion, yet, at the same time, he congratulates himself on the
loyalty of their constituents, who remain true to the established
system, even when it seems the general wish to bring it into disrepute.
He declares, in fact, that parliamentary episodes such as the one which
has just occurred, even when they follow on others of the same kind,
leave the working-classes of the department absolutely indifferent.
And M. Worms-Clavelin is quite right: he is by no means exaggerating
the phlegmatic calm of these classes, which seem no longer capable of
surprise. The herd of nobodies read in the newspapers that Senator
Laprat-Teulet has been sent to solitary confinement; they manifest no
surprise at the news, and they would have received with the same phlegm
the information that he had been sent as ambassador to some foreign
court. It is even probable that, if the arm of justice sends him back
to parliamentary life, M. Laprat-Teulet will sit next year on the
budget commission. There is, at any rate, no doubt whatever that at the
end of his sentence he will be re-elected.”
The abbé here interrupted M. Bergeret.
“There, Monsieur Bergeret, you put your finger on the weak point;
there you make the void to echo. The public is becoming used to the
spectacle of wrong-doing and is losing the power to discriminate
between good and evil. That’s where the danger lies. Now one public
scandal after another arises, only to be at once hushed up. Under the
Monarchy and the Empire there was such a thing as public opinion;
there is none to-day. This nation, once so high-spirited and generous,
has suddenly become incapable of either hatred or love, of either
admiration or scorn.”
“Like you,” said M. Bergeret, “I have been struck by this change and
I have sought in vain for the causes of it. We read in many Chinese
fables of a very ugly spirit, of lumpish gait, but subtle mind,
who loves to play pranks. He makes his way by night into inhabited
houses, then opening a sleeper’s brain, as though it were a box, he
takes out the brain, puts another in its place and softly closes the
skull. He takes infinite delight in passing thus from house to house,
interchanging brains as he goes, and when, at dawn, this tricksy
elf has returned to his temple, the mandarin awakes with the mind
of a courtesan, and the young girl with the dreams of a hardened
opium-eater. Some spirit of this sort must assuredly have been busy
bartering French brains for those of some tame, spiritless people, who
drag out a melancholy existence without rising to the height of a new
desire, indifferent alike to justice and injustice. For, indeed, we are
no longer at all like ourselves.”
Stopping suddenly, M. Bergeret shrugged his shoulders. Then he went on,
in a tone of gentle sadness:
“Yet, it is the effect of age and the sign of a certain wisdom. Infancy
is the age of awe and wonder; youth, of fiery revolt. It is the
mere passing of the years that has brought us this mood of peaceful
indifference: I ought to have understood it better. Our condition of
mind, at any rate, assures us both internal and external peace.”
“Do you think so?” asked Abbé Lantaigne. “And have you no presentiment
of approaching catastrophe?”
“Life in itself is a catastrophe,” answered M. Bergeret. “It is a
constant catastrophe, in fact, since it can only manifest itself in
an unstable environment, and since the essential condition of its
existence is the instability of the forces which produce it. The life
of a nation, like that of an individual, is a never-ceasing ruin, a
series of downfalls, an endless prospect of misery and crime. Our
country, though it is the finest in the world, only exists, like
others, by the perpetual renewal of its miseries and mistakes. To live
is to destroy. To act is to injure. But at this particular moment,
Monsieur Lantaigne, the finest country in the world is feeble in
action, and plays but a sluggard’s part in the drama of existence. It
is that fact which reassures me, for I detect no signs in the heavens.
I foresee no evils approaching with special and peculiar menace to our
peaceful land. Tell me, Monsieur l’abbé, when you foretell catastrophe,
is it from within or from without that you see it coming?”
“The danger is all round us,” answered M. Lantaigne, “and yet you
laugh.”
“I feel no desire whatever to laugh,” answered M. Bergeret. “There
is little enough for me to laugh at in this sublunary world, on this
terrestrial globe whose inhabitants are almost all either hateful
or ridiculous. But I do not believe that either our peace or our
independence is threatened by any powerful neighbour. We inconvenience
no one. We are not a menace to the comity of nations. We are restrained
and reasonable. So far as we know, our statesmen are not formulating
extravagant schemes which, if successful, would establish our power, or
if unsuccessful, would bring about our ruin. We make no claim to the
sovereignty of the globe. Europe of to-day finds us quite bearable: the
feeling must be a happy novelty.
“Just look for a moment at the portraits of our statesmen that Madame
Fusellier, the stationer, keeps in her shop-window. Tell me if there
is a single one of them who looks as if he were made to unleash the
dogs of war and lay the world waste. Their talents match their power,
for both are but mediocre. They are not made to be the perpetrators
of great crimes, for, thank God! they are not great men. Hence, we
can sleep in peace. Besides, although Europe is armed to the teeth,
I believe she is by no means inclined to war. For in war there
breathes a generous spirit unpopular nowadays. True, they set the
Turks fighting the Greeks: that is, they bet on them, as men bet on
cocks or horses. But they will not fight between themselves. In 1840
Auguste Comte foretold the end of war and, of course, the prophecy
was not exactly and literally fulfilled. Yet possibly the vision of
this great man penetrated into the far-distant future. War is, indeed,
the everyday condition of a feudal and monarchical Europe, but the
feudal system is now dead and the ancient despotisms are opposed by
new forces. The question of peace or war in our days depends less on
absolute sovereigns than on the great international banking interests,
more influential than the Powers themselves. Financial Europe is in
a peaceful temper, or, if that be not quite true, she certainly has
no love for war as war, no respect for any sentiment of chivalry.
Besides, her barren influence is not destined to live long and she will
one day be engulfed in the abyss of industrial revolution. Socialistic
Europe will probably be friendly to peace, for there will be a
socialistic Europe, Monsieur Lantaigne, if indeed that unknown power
which is approaching can be rightly called Socialism.”
“Sir,” answered Abbé Lantaigne, “only one Europe is possible, and
that is Christian Europe. There will always be wars, for peace is not
ordained for this world. If only we could recover the courage and faith
of our ancestors! As a soldier of the Church militant, I know well that
war will only end with the consummation of the ages. And, like Ajax
in old Homer, I pray God that I may fight in the light of day. What
terrifies me is neither the number nor the boldness of our enemies, but
the weakness and indecision which prevail in our own camp. The Church
is an army, and I grieve when I see chasms and openings right along
her battle-front; I rage when I see atheists slipping into her ranks
and the worshippers of the Golden Calf volunteering for the defence
of the sanctuary. I groan when I see the struggle going on all around
me, amidst the confusion of a great darkness propitious to cowards and
traitors. The will of God be done! I am certain of the final triumph,
of the ultimate conquest of sin and error at the last day, which will
be the day of glory and justice.”
He rose with firm and steady glance, yet his heavy face was downcast.
His soul within him was sorrowful, and not without good reason. For
under his administration the high seminary was on its way to ruin.
There was a financial deficit, and now that he was being prosecuted
by Lafolie the butcher, to whom he owed ten thousand, two hundred and
thirty-one francs, his pride lived in perpetual dread of a rebuke from
the Cardinal-Archbishop. The mitre towards which he had stretched out
his hand was eluding his grasp and already he saw himself banished to
some poor country benefice. Turning towards M. Bergeret, he said:
“The most terrible storm-cloud is ready to burst over France.”