Outside Mademoiselle Catherine’s House--We are invited in by M.
d’Anquetil--The Supper--The Visit of the Owner and the horrible
Consequences.
That evening my tutor and I happened to be in the Rue du Bac, and as it
was rather warm M. Jerome Coignard said to me:
“Jacques Tournebroche, my son, would it be agreeable to you to turn to
the left, into the Rue de Grenelle, in quest of a tavern--that’s to say,
to some place where we could get a pot of wine for two sous? I am rather
short of cash, my boy, and strongly suppose you to be no better off.
M. d’Asterac, who possibly can make gold, does not give any to his
secretaries and servants, as we well know, to our cost, you and I. He
leaves us in a lamentable state. I have never a penny in my pocket, and
it will become necessary to remedy that evil by industry and artifice.
It is a fine thing to bear poverty with an even mind, like Epictetus
of glorious memory. But it is an exercise I am tired of and which has
become tedious by habit. I feel it is high time for a change of virtue,
and to insinuate myself into the possession of wealth without being
possessed by it, which certainly is the noblest state to be reached by
the soul of a philosopher. I shall feel myself obliged, very soon, to
earn profits of some kind to show that my sagacity has not failed me
during my prosperity. I am in search of the means to reach such an
issue; my mind is occupied by it, Tournebroche.”
And as my dear tutor spoke with a noble distinction of that matter,
we came near the pretty dwelling wherein M. de la Gueritude had lodged
Mademoiselle Catherine. “You’ll recognise it, she had said to me, by the
roses on the balcony.” There was not light enough to see the roses, but
I fancied I could smell them. Advancing a few yards I saw her at the
window watering flowers. She recognised me, laughed, and threw me kisses
with her chubby little hand. Upon that a hand passing through the open
window slapped her cheek. In her surprise she let the water jug slip out
of her hand, it fell down into the street, at a hair’s breadth from my
tutor’s head. The slapped beauty disappeared from the window, and the
ear-boxer appeared; he leaned out and shouted:
“Thank God, sir, you are not the Capuchin. I cannot stand seeing my
mistress throw kisses to that stinking beast, who continually prowls
under this window. For once I have not to blush at her choice. You look
quite an honest man, and I believe I have seen you before. Do me the
honour to come up. Within a supper is prepared. You’ll do me a real
favour to partake of it, as well as the abbé, who has just had a pot of
water thrown over his head, and shakes himself like a wetted dog. After
supper we’ll have a game of cards, and at daybreak we’ll go hence to
cut one another’s throats. But that will be purely and simply an act of
civility and only to do you honour, sir, for, in truth, that girl is
not worth the thrust of a sword. She is a hussy. I’ll never see her any
more.”
I recognised in the speaker, the Monsieur d’Anquetil whom I had seen a
short time ago excite his followers so vehemently to spike Friar Ange.
Now he spoke with courtesy and treated me as a gentleman. I understood
all the favour he conferred on me by his consent to cut my throat. Nor
was my dear tutor less sensible of so much urbanity, and after having
shaken himself he said to me:
“Jacques Tournebroche, my son, we cannot say nay to such a gracious
invitation.”
Already two lackeys had come down bearing torches. They led us to a room
where a collation had been prepared on a table lit up by wax candles
burning in two silver candelabra. M. d’Anquetil invited us to be seated,
and my good master tied his napkin round his throat. He already had a
thrush on his fork when heart-rending sobs were to be heard.
“Don’t take any notice of yonder noise,” said M. d’Anquetil, “it’s only
Catherine, whom I have locked in that room.”
“Ah! sir; you must forgive her,” said my kind-hearted tutor, looking
sadly on the gold-brown toasted little bird on his fork. “The
pleasantest meat tastes bitter when seasoned with tears and moans. Could
you have the heart to let a woman cry? Reprieve this one, I beg of you!
Is she then so blamable for having thrown a kiss to my young pupil, who
was her neighbour and companion in the days of their common mediocrity,
at a time when this pretty girl’s charms were only famous under the vine
arbour of the _Little Bacchus_? It was but an innocent action, as much
so as a human, and particularly a woman’s, action can ever be innocent,
and altogether free of the original stain. Allow me also to say, sir,
that jealousy is a Gothic sentiment, a sad reminder of barbaric customs,
which has no business to survive in a delicate, well-born soul.”
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” inquired M. d’Anquetil, “on what grounds do you
presume me to be jealous? I am not! But I cannot stand a woman mocking
me.”
“We are playthings of the winds,” said my tutor, and sighed. “Everything
laughs at us, the sky, the stars, rain and shadow, zephyr and light and
woman. Let Catherine sup with us. She is pretty and will enliven our
table. Whatever she may have done, that kiss and the rest, do not render
her the less pleasant to look at. The infidelities of women do not spoil
their beauty. Nature, pleased to adorn them, is indifferent to their
faults; follow her, and forgive Catherine.”
I seconded my tutor’s entreaties, and M. d’Anquetil consented to free
the prisoner. He went to the door of the room from whence the cries
came, unlocked it, and called Catherine, whose only reply was to
redouble her wailing.
“Gentlemen,” her lover said to us, “there she is lying flat on her
belly, her head plunged in the pillows, and at every sob raising her
rump ridiculously. Look at that. It is for such we take so much trouble
and commit so many absurdities! Catherine, come to supper.”
But Catherine did not move, and continued to cry. He pulled her by
the arm, by the waist. She resisted. He became more pressing, and said
caressingly:
“Come, darling, get up.”
But she was stubborn, would not change place, and stuck there, holding
to pillows and mattress.
At last her lover lost patience, swore, and shouted rudely:
“Get up, slut!”
At once she got up, and, smiling amid her tears, took his arm and came
with him to the dining-room, looking the very picture of a happy victim.
She sat down between M. d’Anquetil and me, her head inclined on the
shoulder of her lover the while her foot felt for mine under the table.
“Gentlemen,” said our host, “forgive my vivacity, an impulse I cannot
regret, because it gives me the honour to entertain you at this place.
To say the truth, I cannot endure all the whims of this pretty girl, and
I have been very suspicious since I surprised her with her Capuchin.”
“My dear friend,” Catherine said, pressing at the sama time her foot on
mine, “your jealousy goes astray. You should know that my only liking is
for M. Jacques.”
“She jests,” said M. d’Anquetil.
“Do not doubt of it,” said I. “It is quite evident that she loves you,
and you alone.”
“Without flattering myself,” he replied, “I have somehow attracted her
attachment. But she is coquettish and fickle.”
“Give me something to drink,” said the abbe.
M. d’Anquetil passed him the demijohn and exclaimed:
“By gad! abbé, you who belong to the Church, you’ll tell us why women
love Capuchins.”
M. Coignard wiped his lips and said:
“The reason is that Capuchins love humbly, and never refuse anything.
Another reason is that neither reflection nor courtesy weakens their
natural instincts. Sir, yours is a generous wine.”
“You do me too much honour,” replied M. d’Anquetil. “It is M. de la
Guéritude’s. I have taken his mistress. I may as well take his bottles.”
“Nothing is more equitable,” said my tutor. “I see, with pleasure, that
you rise above prejudices.”
“Do not praise me, abbe, more than I deserve. My birth renders easy to
me what may be difficult for the vulgar. A commoner is compelled to have
some restraint in all his doings. He is tied down to rigid probity; but
a gentleman enjoys the honour of fighting for his king and his pleasure,
and does not need to encumber himself with foolish trifles. I have seen
active service under M. de Villars, and in the War of Succession, and
have also run the risk of being killed without any reason in the battle
of Parma. The least you can do is to leave me free to lick my servants,
to balk my creditors, and take, if it please me, the wives of my
friends--likewise their mistresses.”
“You speak nobly,” said my good master, “and you are careful to maintain
the prerogatives of the nobility.”
“I have not,” replied M. d’Anquetil, “those scruples which intimidate
the crowd of ordinary men, and which I consider good only to stop the
timorous and restrain the wretched.”
“Well spoken!” said my tutor.
“I do not believe in virtue,” replied the other.
“You’re right,” said my master again. “With his quite peculiar shape,
the human animal could not be virtuous without being somewhat deformed.
Look, for an example, on this pretty girl supping with us; on her
beautiful bosom, her marvellously rounded form, and the rest. In what
part of her enchanting body could she lodge a grain of virtue? There
is no room for it; everything is so firm, so juicy, solid, and plump!
Virtue, like the raven, nests in ruins. Her dwellings are the cavities
and wrinkles of the human body. I myself, sir, who, since my childhood,
have meditated over the austere principles of religion and philosophy,
could not insinuate into myself a minimum of virtue otherwise than by
means of constitutional flaws produced by sufferings and age. And ever
more I absorbed less virtue than pride. In doing so I got into the habit
of addressing to the Divine Creator of this world the following prayer:
‘My Lord, preserve me from virtue if it is to lead me from godliness.’
Ah! godliness; this it is possible and necessary to attain. That is
our decent ending. May we reach it some day! In the meantime, give me
something to drink.”
“I’ll confess,” said M. d’Anquetil, “that I do not believe in a God.”
“Now, for once, sir, I must blame you,” said the abbé “One must believe
in God, and all the truths of our holy religion.”
M. d’Anquetil protested.
“You make game of us, abbé, and take us to be worse ninnies than we
really are. As I have said, I do not believe either in God or devil, and
I never go to Mass--the king’s Mass alone excepted. The sermons of the
priests are stories for old women, bearable, perhaps, in such times
as when my grandmother saw the Abbé de Choisy, dressed as a woman,
distribute the holy bread at the Church of Saint Jacques du Haut Pas.
In those times there may have been religion; to-day there is none, thank
God!”
“By all the Saints and all the devils, don’t speak like that, my
friend,” exclaimed Catherine. “As sure as that pie stands on this table
God exists! And if you want a proof of it, let me say, that when, last
year, on a certain day, I was in direful distress and penury, I went,
on the advice of Friar Ange, to burn a wax candle in the Church of
the Capuchins, and on the following I met M. de la Guéritude at the
promenade, who gave me this house, with all the furniture it contains,
the cellar full of wine, some of which we enjoy to-night, and sufficient
money to live honestly.”
“Fie! fie!” said M. d’Anquetil, “the idiot makes God Almighty interfere
in dirty affairs. This shocks and wounds one’s feelings, even if one is
an atheist.”
“My dear sir,” said my good tutor, “it is a great deal better to
compromise God in dirty business, as does that simple-minded girl, than,
as you do, to chase Him out of the world He has created. If He has not
expressly sent that burly contractor to Catherine, His creature, He at
least suffered her to meet him. We are ignorant of His ways, and what
this simpleton says contains more truth, maybe mixed and alloyed
with blasphemy, than all the vain words a reprobate draws out of the
emptiness of his heart. Nothing is more despicable than the libertinism
of mind that the youth of our days make a show of. Your words make me
shiver. Am I to reply to them by proofs out of the Holy Scriptures and
the writings of the fathers? Shall I make you hear God speaking to the
patriarchs and to the prophets: _Si locutus est Abraham et semini ejus
in saecula?_ Shall I spread out before you the traditions of the Church?
Invoke against you the authority of both Testaments? Blind you with
Christ’s miracles, and His words as miraculous as His deeds? No! I will
not arm myself with those holy weapons. I fear too much to pollute them
in such a fight, which is not at all solemn. In her prudence the Church
warns us not to risk turning edification into a scandal. Therefore I
will not speak, sir, of that wherewith I have been fed on the steps of
sanctuaries. But, without violating the chaste modesty of my soul, and
without exposing to profanation the sacred mysteries, I’ll show you God
overawing human reason, I’ll show you it by the philosophy of pagans,
and by the tittle-tattle of ungodly persons. Yes, sir, I’ll make you
avow that you recognise Him, against your own free will. Much as you
want to pretend He does not exist you cannot but agree that, if a
certain order prevails in this world, such order is divine--flows out of
the spring and fountain of all order.”
“I agree,” replied M. d’Anquetil, reclining in his armchair and fondling
his finely shaped calves.
“Therefore, take care,” said my good tutor. “When you say that God does
not exist what else are you doing but linking thought, directing reason,
and manifesting in your innermost soul, the principle of all thought,
and all reason, which is God? Is it possible only to attempt to
establish that He is not, without illuminating, by the most paltry
reasoning, which still is reasoning, some remains of the harmony He has
established in the universe?”
“Abbé,” replied M. d’Anquetil, “you are a humorous sophist. It is well
known in our days that this world is the work of chance, and it is
superfluous to speak of a providence, since natural philosophers have
discovered, by means of their telescopes, that winged frogs are living
on the moon.”
“Well, sir,” replied my good master, “I am in no way angry that winged
frogs are living on the moon; such kind of marsh-birds are very worthy
inhabitants of a world which has not been sanctified by the blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ. True, we only know the minor part of the universe,
and it is quite possible, as M. d’Asterac says--who is a bit of a
fool--that this earth is no more than a spot of mud in the infinity of
worlds. Maybe the astronomer Copernicus was not altogether dreaming when
he taught that, mathematically, the earth is not the centre of creation.
I have also read that an Italian of the name of Galileo, who died
miserably, shared Copernicus’ opinion, and in our days we see little M.
de Fontenelle entertaining the same ideas. But all this is but a vain
imagination, fit only to unhinge weak minds. What does it matter if
the physical world is larger or smaller, of one shape or another? It is
quite sufficient that it can be duly considered only by intelligence and
reason for God to be manifest therein.
“If a wise man’s meditations could be of some use to you, sir, I will
inform you how such proof of God’s existence, better than the proof of
St. Anselm, and quite independent of that resulting from Revelation,
appeared to me suddenly in unclouded limpidity. It was at Séez, five and
twenty years ago when I was the bishop’s librarian. The gallery windows
opened on a courtyard where, every morning, I saw a kitchen wench clean
the saucepans. She was young, tall, sturdy. A slight down, shadowlike,
over her lips lent irritating and proud gracefulness to her countenance.
Her entangled hair, meagre bosom, and long, naked arms were worthy of an
Adonis or a Diana. She was of a boyish beauty. I loved her for it, loved
her strong, red hands. All in all that girl evoked in me a longing as
rude and brutal as herself. You know how imperious such longings are. I
made her understand by sign and word. Without the slightest hesitation
she quickly let me know that my longings were not stronger than hers,
and appointed the very next night for a meeting, to take place in the
loft, where she slept on the hay, by gracious permission of the bishop,
whose saucepans she cleaned. Impatiently I waited for the night. When
at last her shadow covered the earth I climbed, by means of a ladder,
to the loft, where the girl expected me. My first thought was to embrace
her, my second to admire the links which brought me into her arms. For,
sir, a young ecclesiastic--a kitchen wench--a ladder--a bundle of hay.
What a train! What regulation! What a concourse of pre-established
harmonies! What a concatenation of cause and effect! What a proof of
God’s existence! I was strangely struck by it, and mightily glad I am
to be able to add this profane demonstration to the reasons furnished by
theology, which are, however, amply sufficient.”
“Abbé,” said Catherine, “the only weak point in your story is that the
girl had a meagre bosom. A woman without breasts is like a bed without
pillows. But don’t you know, d’Anquetil, what we might do?”
“Yes,” said he, “play a game of ombre, which is played by three.”
“If you will,” she said. “But, dear, have the pipes brought in. Nothing
is pleasanter than to smoke a pipe of tobacco when drinking wine.”
A lackey brought the cards and pipes, which we lit. Soon the room was
full of dense smoke, wherein our host and the Abbé Coignard played
gravely at piquet.
Luck followed my dear tutor up to the moment when M. d’Anquetil,
fancying he saw him for the third time score fifty-five when he had only
made forty points, called him a Greek, a villainous trickster, a Knight
of Transylvania, and threw a bottle at his head, which broke on the
table, flooding it with wine.
“Well, sir,” said the abbé, “you’ll have to take the trouble to open
another bottle: we are thirsty.”
“With pleasure,” replied M. d’Anquetil. “But, abbé, know that a
gentleman does not mark points he has not made, and does not cheat at
cards except at the king’s card-table, round which all sorts of people
are assembled, to whom one owes nothing. On any other table it is a vile
action. Abbé, say, do you want to be looked on as an adventurer?”
“It is remarkable,” said my good tutor, “that you blame at cards or dice
a practice so much commended in the art of war, politics and trade; in
each of these people glorify themselves by correcting the injuries of
fortune. It is not that I do not pique myself on honesty when playing
at cards. Thank God, I always play straight, and you must have been
dreaming, sir, when you fancied I had marked points I did not make. Had
it been otherwise, I would appeal to the example given by the blessed
Bishop of Geneva, who did not scruple to cheat at cards. But I cannot
defend myself against the reflection that at play men are much more
sensitive than in serious business, and that they employ the whole of
their probity at the backgammon board, where it incommodes them but
indifferently, whereas they put it entirely in the background in a
battle or a treaty of peace, where it would be troublesome. Polyænus,
sir, has written, in the Greek language a book on Stratagems, wherein is
shown to what excess deceit is pushed by the great leaders.”
“Abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil, “I have not read your Polyænus, and do not
think I ever shall read him. But like every true gentleman, I have
been to the wars. I have served the king for eighteen months. It is the
noblest of all professions. I’ll tell you exactly what war is. I may
tell the secret of it, as nobody is present to listen but yourself, some
bottles, yonder gentleman whom I intend to kill very shortly, and that
girl, who begins to undress herself.”
“Yes,” said Catherine, “I undress, and will keep only my chemise on,
because I feel too hot.”
“Well then,” M. d’Anquetil continued, “whatever may be printed of it in
the gazettes, war consists, above all things, of stealing the pigs and
chickens of peasants. Soldiers in the fields have no other occupation.”
“You are right,” said M. Coignard, “and in days of yore it was the
saying in Gaul that the soldier’s best friend was Madame Marauding. But
I beg of you not to kill my pupil, Jacques Tournebroche.”
“Ouf!” exclaimed Catherine, arranging the lace of her chemise on her
bosom. “Now I feel easier.”
“Abbé,” replied M. d’Anquetil, “honour compels me to do it.”
But my kind-hearted tutor went on:
“Sir, Jacques Tournebroche is very useful to me for the translation,
I have undertaken, of Zosimus the Panopolitan. I would give you many
thanks not to fight him before the finishing touch has been given to
that grand work.”
“To the deuce with your Zosimus,” said M. d’Anquetil. “To the deuce with
him! Do you hear, abbé! I’ll send him to the deuce, as a king would do
with his first mistress.”
And he sang:
“Pour dresser un jeune courrier
Et l’affermir sur l’étrier
Il lui fallait une routière
Laire lan laire.”
“What’s that Zosimus?”
“Zosimus, sir, Zosimus of Panopolis, was a learned Greek, who flourished
at Alexandria in the third century of the Christian era, and wrote
treatises on the spagyric art.”
“Do you fancy it matters to me? Why do you translate it?
“Battons le fer quand il est chaud
Dit-elle, en faisant sonner haut
Le nom de sultan première
Laire lan laire.”
“Sir,” said my dear tutor, “I quite agree with you; there is no
practical utility in it, and by it the course of the world will not be
changed in the slightest. But making clearer by annotations and comments
this treatise, which that Greek compiled for his sister Theosebia--”
Catherine interrupted him by singing in a high-pitched voice:
“Je veux en dépit des jaloux
Qu’on fasse duc mon epoux
Lasse de le voir secretairev
Laire lan laire.”
And my tutor continued:
“--I contribute to the treasure of knowledge gathered by erudite men,
and bring forward one stone of my own for a monument to true history,
which is a better one than the chronicles of war and treaties; for, sir,
the nobility of man--”
Catherine continued to sing:
“Je sais bien qu’on murmurera
Que Paris nous chansonnera
Mais tant pis pour le sot vulgaire
Laire lan laire.”
And my dear tutor went on:
“--is thought. And concerning that, it is not indifferent to know what
idea the Egyptians had formed of the nature of metals and the qualities
of the primitive substance.”
The Abbé Jerôme Coignard, having come to the end of his discourse,
emptied a big glass of wine, while Catherine sang:
“Par l’épée ou par le fourreau
Devenir due est toujours beau
Il n’importe le maniére
Laire lan laire.”
“Abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil, “you do not drink, and in spite of such
abstinence you lose your reason. In Italy, during the War of Succession,
I was under the orders of a brigadier who translated Polybius. But he
was an idiot. Why translate Zosimus?”
“If you want my true reason,” replied the abbé, “because I find some
sensuality in it.”
“That’s something like!” protested M. d’Anquetil. “But in what can M.
Tournebroche, who at this moment is caressing my mistress, assist you?”
“With the knowledge of Greek I have given him.”
M. d’Anquetil turned round to me and said:
“What, sir, you know Greek! You are not then a gentleman?”
“No, sir,” I replied, “I am not. My father is the banner-bearer of the
Guild of Parisian Cooks.”
“Well, under such conditions it is impossible for me to kill you. Kindly
accept my excuses. But, abbé, you don’t drink. You imposed upon me.
I believed you to be a real good tippler, and wished you to become my
chaplain as soon as I could set up my own establishment.”
However, M. Coignard did drink all that the bottle contained, and
Catherine, inclining to me, whispered in my ear:
“Jacques, I feel that I shall never love anyone but you.”
These words, spoken by a really fine woman clad in no other wrapper than
a chemise, troubled me to the extreme. Catherine ended by fuddling me
entirely, by making me drink out of her own glass, an action passing
unobserved in the confusion of a supper which had overheated the heads
of us all.
M. d’Anquetil knocked off the neck of a bottle on the corner of the
table and filled our bumpers; from this moment on, I cannot give a
reliable account of what was said and done around me. One incident I
remember: Catherine treacherously emptying her glass into her lover’s
neck, between the nape and the collar of his coat; and M. d’Anquetil
retorting by pouring the contents of two or three bottles over the girl.
Wearing nothing beyond her chemise, it changed Catherine into a kind of
mythological figure of a humid species like nymphs and naiads. She cried
herself into a rage and twisted in convulsions.
At that very moment, in the silence of the night, we heard knocks at
the house door. We became suddenly motionless and dumb, like people
bewitched.
The knocks soon redoubled in strength and frequency. M. d’Anquetil was
the first to break the silence by questioning himself aloud, swearing
horribly the while, who the deuce the pesterers could be. My good tutor,
to whom the most ordinary circumstances often inspired admirable maxims,
rose and said with unction and gravity:
“What does it matter whose hand knocks so violently at closed doors for
a vulgar, perhaps ridiculous, reason? Do not let us seek to know, and
consider them as knocking on the door of our hardened and corrupted
souls. At each knock let us say to ourselves: This one is to give us
notice to amend and think on the salvation we neglect in the turmoil of
our pleasures, that other one is to remind us of eternity. In that way
we shall draw the utmost profit out of an incident which, after all, is
as paltry as it is frivolous.”
“You’re humorous, abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil; “to judge by the sturdiness
of their knocks, they’ll burst the door open.”
And as a fact the knocker resounded like thunder.
“They are robbers,” exclaimed the soaked girl. “Jesus! We shall be
massacred; it is our chastisement for having sent away the little friar.
Many times I have told you. M. d’Anquetil, that misfortune comes to
houses from which a Capuchin has been driven.’
“Hear the stupid!” replied M. d’Anquetil. “That damned monk makes her
believe any imbecility he chooses to dish her up. Thieves would be more
polite, or at least more discreet. I rather think it is the watch.”
“The watch! Worse and worse,” said Catherine.
“Bah!” M. d’Anquetil exclaimed, “we’ll lick them.”
My dear tutor took the precaution to put one bottle in one of his
pockets, and as an equipoise another bottle in the other pocket. The
house shook all over from the furious knocks. M. d’Anquetil, whose
military qualities were aroused by the knocker’s onslaught, after
reconnoitring, exclaimed:
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Do you know who knocks? It is M. de la Gueritude with his
full-bottomed periwig and two big flunkeys carrying lighted torches.”
“That’s not possible,” said Catherine, “at this very moment he is in bed
with his old woman.”
“Then it is his ghost,” said M. d’Anquetil. “And the ghost also wears
his periwig, which is so ridiculous that any self-respecting spectre
would refuse to copy it.”
“Do you speak the truth, and not jeer at me?” asked Catherine. “Is it
really M. de la Guéritude?”
“It’s himself, Catherine, if I may believe my own eyes.”
“Then I am lost!” exclaimed the poor girl. “Women are indeed unhappy!
They are never left in peace. What will become of me? Would you not
hide, gentlemen, in some of the cupboards?”
“That could be done,” said M. Jerome Coignard, “as far as we are
concerned, but how are we to hide all those empty bottles, mostly
smashed, or at least broken necked; the remains of that demijohn M.
d’Anquetil threw at me; that tablecloth; those plates, candelabra and
mademoiselle’s chemise, which in its soaked state is nothing but a
transparent veil encircling her beauty?”
“It is true,” said Catherine, “yonder idiot has drenched my chemise, and
I am catching cold. But listen. Perhaps M. d’Anquetil could hide in the
top room, and I would make the abbé my uncle and Jacques my brother.”
“No good at all,” said M. d’Anquetil. “I’ll go myself and kindly ask M.
de la Gueritude to have supper with us.”
We urged him, all of us--my tutor, Catherine and I--to keep quiet;
we entreated him, hung on his neck. It was useless. He got hold of
a candelabra and descended the stairs. Trembling we followed him.
He unlocked the door. M. de la Guéritude was there, exactly as M.
d’Anquetil had described him, with his periwig, between two flunkeys
bearing torches. M. d’Anquetil saluted with the utmost correctness and
said:
“Accord us the favour to come in, sir. You’ll find some persons as
amiable as singular. Tournebroche, to whom Mam’selle Catherine throws
kisses from the window, and a priest who believes in God.”
Wherewith he bowed respectfully.
M. de la Gueritude was of the dry sort, very tall, and little inclined
to the enjoyment of a joke. That of M. d’Anquetil provoked him strongly,
and his anger rose when he saw my good tutor, one bottle in hand and two
peeping out of his pockets, and by the look of Catherine with her wet
chemise sticking to her body.
“Young man,” he said in an icy fit of passion to M. d’Anquetil, “I have
the honour to know your father, of whom I will inquire, not later than
to-morrow, the name of the town to which the king shall send you to
meditate over the shame of your behaviour and impertinence. That worthy
nobleman, to whom I have lent some money I do not reclaim, can refuse
me nothing. And our well-beloved Prince, who is in precisely the same
position as your father, has always a kindness for me. Consider it a
matter done. I have settled, thank God, others more difficult. Now as
to that lady yonder, of whom neither repentance nor improvement can be
expected. I’ll say to-morrow before noon, two words to the Lieutenant of
Police, whom I know to be well disposed, to send her to the spittel. I
have nothing else to say to you. This house is my property, I have
paid for it and I intend to enter when I like.” Then, turning to his
flunkeys, and pointing out my tutor and myself with his walking stick,
he said:
“Throw these two drunkards out.”
M. Jérome Coignard was commonly of an exemplary forbearance, and he used
to say that he owed his gentleness to the vicissitudes of life; chance
having treated him as the sea treats the pebbles--that is, polishing
them by means of the rolling of flood and ebb. He could easily stand
insults, as much by Christian spirit as by philosophy. But what helped
him best thereto was his deep-rooted contempt of mankind, not excepting
himself. However, for once he lost all measure and forgot all prudence.
“Hold your tongue, vile publican,” he shouted and brandished a bottle
like a crowbar. “If yonder rascals dare to approach me I’ll smash their
heads, to teach them respect for my cloth, which proves in an ample way
my sacred calling.”
In the faint glimmer of the torches, shiny from sweat, his eyes starting
out of their sockets, his coat unbuttoned, and his big belly half out of
his breeches, he looked a fellow not easy to be got rid of. The lackeys
hesitated.
“Out with him, out with him,” shouted M. de la Guéritude; “out with this
bag of wine! Can’t you see that all you have to do is to push him in
the gutter, where he’ll remain till the scavengers throw him into the
dustcart? I would throw him out myself were I not afraid to pollute my
clothes.”
My good tutor flew into a passion, and shouted in a voice worthy to
sound in a church:
“You odious money-monger, infamous partisan, barbarous evildoer, you
pretend this house to be yours? So that everyone may know it belongs
to you, inscribe on the door the gospel word _Aceldema_, which in our
language means Bloodmoney. And then we’ll let the master enter his
dwelling. Thief, robber, murderer, write with the piece of charcoal I
throw in your face, write with your own filthy hand, on the floor, your
title deed. Bloodmoney of the widow and orphans, bloodmoney of the just.
_Aceldema_. If not, out with you, man of quantities! We’ll remain.”
M. de la Gueritude had never in his life heard anything of this sort,
and thought he had to deal with a madman, as one might easily suppose,
and, more for defence than attack, he raised his big stick. My good
tutor, out of his senses, threw a bottle at the head of the contractor,
who fell headlong on the floor, howling, “He has killed me!” And as he
was swimming in red wine he really looked as though murdered. Both the
flunkeys wanted to throw themselves on the murderer, and one of them, a
burly fellow, tried to grasp him, when M. Coignard gave the fellow such
a butt that he rolled in the stream beside the financier.
Unluckily he rose quickly, and, arming himself with a still burning
torch, jumped into the passage, where bad luck awaited him. My good
master was no longer there; he had taken to his heels. But M. d’Anquetil
was still there with Catherine, and he it was who received the burning
torch on his forehead, an outrage he could not stand. He drew his sword,
and drove it to the hilt in the unlucky knave’s stomach, teaching him,
at his own expense, how fatal it may be to attack a gentleman. Now M.
Coignard had not got twenty yards away from the house when the other
lackey, a tall fellow, with the limbs of a daddy-longlegs, ran after
him, shouting for the guard.
“Stop him! Stop him!” The footman ran faster than the abbé, and we could
see him, at the corner of the Rue Saint Guillaume, extending his arms to
catch M. Coignard by the collar of his gown. But my dear tutor, who had
more than one trick, veering abruptly, got behind the fellow, tripped
him up, and sent him on to a stone post, where he got his head
broken. It was done before M. d’Anquetil and I, running to the abbé’s
assistance, could reach him. We could not leave M. Coignard in this
pressing danger.
“Abbe,” said M. d’Anquetil, “give me your hand. You’re a gallant man.”
“I really cannot help thinking,” my good master replied, “that I have
been somewhat murderously inclined; but I am not cruel enough to be
proud of it. I am quite satisfied so long as I am not reproached too
vehemently. Such violence does not lie in my habits, and as you can
see, sir, I am better fitted to lecture from the chair of a college
on belles-lettres than I am to fight with lackeys at the corner of a
street.”
“Oh!” replied M. d’Anquetil, “that’s not the worst of the whole
business. I fully believe you have knocked the Farmer-general on the
head.”
“Is it true?” questioned the abbé.
“As true as that I have perforated with my sword yonder scoundrel’s
tripes.”
“Under such circumstances we ought to ask pardon of God, to whom alone
we are responsible for the blood shed by us, and secondly to hasten to
the nearest fountain, there to wash ourselves, because I perceive that
my nose is bleeding.”
“Right you are, abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil; “for the blackguard now dying
in the gutter has cut my forehead. What an impertinence!”
“Forgive him,” said the abbé, “as you wish to be forgiven yourself.”
At the place where the Rue de Bac loses itself in the fields, we
fortunately found along the wall of a hospital a little bronze Triton,
shooting a spirt of water into a stone tub. We stopped to wash and
drink, for our throats were dry.
“What have we done,” said my master, “and how could I have lost my
temper, usually so peaceable? True men must not be judged by their
deeds, which depend on circumstances, but rather, on the example of God
our Father, by their secret thoughts and their deepest intentions.”
“And Catherine,” I asked, “what has become of her through this horrible
adventure?”
“I left her,” was M. d’Anquetil’s answer, “breathing into the mouth of
her financier, to revive him. But she had better save her breath. I know
La Gueritude. He is pitiless. He’ll send her to the spittel, perhaps to
America. I am sorry for her. She was a fine girl. I did not love her,
but she was mad after me. And, an extraordinary state of things, I am
now without a mistress.”
“Don’t bother,” said my good tutor. “You’ll soon find another, not
different, or hardly differing in essentials, from her. What you look
for in a woman, as it appears to me, is common to all females.”
“It is clear,” said M. d’Anquetil, “that we are in danger: I of being
sent to the Bastille, you, abbé, together with your pupil, Tournebroche,
who certainly has not killed anybody, of being hanged.”
“That’s but too true,” said my good master. “We have to look out for
safety. Perhaps it will be necessary to leave Paris, where, no doubt, we
shall be wanted; and even to fly to Holland. Alas! I foresee that there
I shall write lampoons for ballet girls with that same hand which has
been employed to annotate right amply the alchemistic treatises of
Zosimus the Panopolitan.”
“Listen to me, abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil, “I have a friend who will
hide us at his country seat for any length of time. He lives within four
miles of Lyons, in a country horrid and wild, where nothing is to be
seen but poplars, grass and woods. There we must go. There we’ll wait
till the storm is over. We’ll pass the time hunting and shooting. But we
must at once find a post-chaise or, better still, a travelling coach.”
“I know where to get that,” said the abbé. “At the _Red Horse_ hotel,
at the Circus of the Bergères, you can have good horses, as well as all
sorts of vehicles. I made the acquaintance of the landlord at the time
I was secretary to Madame de Saint Ernest. He liked to oblige people of
quality. I am not quite sure if he is still alive, but he ought to have
a son like himself. Have you money?”
“I have with me a rather large sum,” replied M. d’Anquetil, “and I am
glad of it, as I cannot dream of going home, where the constables will
not fail to be on the lookout to arrest and conduct me to the Chatelet.
I forgot my servants, whom I left in Catherine’s house, and I do not
know what has become of them. I thrashed them, and never paid their
wages, and withal I am not sure of their fidelity. In whom can you have
confidence? Let’s be off at once for the Circus of the Bergères.”
“Sir,” said the abbé, “I’ll make you a proposal, hoping it may be
agreeable to you. We are living, Tournebroche and I, in an alchemistic
and ramshackle castle at the Cross of the Sablons, where we can easily
stay for a dozen hours without being seen by anyone. There we will take
you and wait quietly till our carriage is ready. The advantage is that
the Sablons is very near the Circus of the Bergères.”
M. d’Anquetil had nothing against the abbé’s proposal, and so we
resolved in front of the Triton, who blew the water out of his fat
cheeks, to go first to the Cross of the Sablons, and to hire, later on,
at the _Red Horse_ hotel, a travelling coach for our journey to Lyons.
“I want to inform you, gentlemen,” said my dear tutor, “that of the
three bottles I took care to carry with me, one was broken on the head
of M. de la Guéritude, another one was smashed in my pocket during my
flight. They are both regretted. The third, against all hope, has been
preserved. Here it is!”
Pulling it out of his pocket, he placed it on the edge of the fountain.
“That’s well,” sail M, d’Anquetil. “You have some wine, I have dice and
cards in my pocket. We can play.”
“It is true,” said my good master, “that is a pleasant pastime. A pack
of cards is a book of adventure, of the kind called romances. It is so
far superior to other books of a similar kind that it can be made and
read at the same time, and that it is not necessary to have brains to
make it, nor knowledge of reading to read it. It is a marvellous work,
also, in that it offers a regular and new sense every time its pages are
shuffled. It is a contrivance never to be too much admired, because out
of mathematical principles it extracts thousands on thousands of curious
combinations, and so many singular affinities that it is believed,
contrary to all truth, that in it are discoverable the secrets of
hearts, the mystery of destinies and the arcanum of the future. What
I have said is particularly applicable to the tarot of the Bohemians,
which is the finest of all games, piquet not excepted. The invention of
cards must be ascribed to the ancients, and as far as I am concerned--I
have, to speak candidly, no kind of documentary evidence for my
assertion--I believe them to be of Chaldean origin. But in their present
appearance the piquet cards cannot be traced further back than to King
Charles VII., if what is said in a learned essay, that I remember to
have read at Séez, is true, that the queen of hearts is an emblematical
likeness of the beautiful Agnes Sorel, and that the queen of spades is,
under the name of Pallas, no other than that Jeanne Dulys, better known
as Joan of Arc, who by her bravery re-established the business of the
French monarchy and was afterwards boiled to death by the English, in
a cauldron, shown for two farthings at Rouen, where I have seen it in
passing through that city. Certain historians pretend that she was burnt
alive at the stake. It is to be read in the works of Nicole Gilles and
in Pasquier that St Catherine and St Margaret appeared to her. Certainly
it was not God who sent these saints to her, because there is no person
of any learning and solid piety who does not know that Margaret and
Catherine were invented by Byzantine monks, whose abundant and barbarous
imaginations have altogether muddled up the martyrology. It is a
ridiculous impiety to pretend that God made two saints who never existed
appear to Jeanne Dulys. However, the ancient chroniclers were not afraid
to publish it. Why have they not said that God sent to the Maid of
Orleans the fair Yseult, Mélusine, Berthe the Bigfooted, and all the
other heroines of the romances of chivalry the existence of whom is not
more fabulous that that of the two virgins, Catherine and Margaret?
M. de Valois, in the last century, rose with full reason against these
clumsy fables, as much opposed to religion as error is to truth. It is
desirable that an ecclesiastic learned in history undertook to show the
distinction between real saints and saints such as Margaret, Luce or
Lucie, Eustache, and perhaps Saint George, about whom I have my doubts.
“If on a future day I should be able to retire to some beautiful abbey,
possessing a rich library, I will devote to this task the remainder of a
life, half worn out in frightful tempests and frequent shipwrecks. I am
longing for a harbour of refuge, and I have the desire and the taste for
a chaste repose suitable to my age and profession.”
While M. Coignard was holding this memorable discourse, M. d’Anquetil,
without listening to the abbé’s words, was seated on the edge of the
fountain, shuffling the cards and swearing like a trooper, because it
was too dark to play a game of piquet.
“You are right,” said my good master; “it is a bad light, and I am
somewhat displeased over it, less because I cannot play cards than
because I have a desire to read a few pages of the ‘Consolations’ of
Boethius, of which I always carry a small edition, so as to have it
handy when something unfortunate overcomes me, as has been the case
this day. It is a cruel disgrace, sir, for a man of my calling to be
a homicide, and liable at any moment to be locked up in one of the
ecclesiastical prisons. I feel that a single page of that admirable book
would strengthen my heart, crushed by the very idea of the officer.”
Having spoken, he let himself gently slide over the edge of the basin,
so deep that the best part of his body went into the water. But not
taking the slightest notice, and hardly feeling it, he took the Boethius
out of his pocket--it was really there--and putting his spectacles on,
wherein one glass only remained, and that one cracked in three places,
he looked in the little book for the page most appropriate for his
present situation. He doubtless would have found it, and extracted from
it new strength, if the rotten state of his barnacles, the tears that
came into his eyes, and the feeble light which came from the sky, had
permitted him to search for it. Very soon he had to confess that he was
unable to see a wink, and became angry with the moon, who showed her
pointed sickle on the edge of a cloud. He reproached her and heaped
bitter invectives on her. He shouted:
“Luminary obscene, mischievous and libidinous, you never tire of
illuminating men’s wickedness, and you deny a ray of your light to him
who searches for virtuous maxims!”
“The more so, abbé, as this bitch of a moon gives just light enough to
find our way along the streets, and not sufficient to play a game of
piquet. Let’s go at once to the castle you spoke of, where I have to
slip in without being seen.”
That was good advice, and after we had drunk the wine to the last drop
we took the road, all three of us, to the Cross of the Sablons. I walked
with M. d’Anquetil. My good tutor, hindered by the water his breeches
had soaked in, followed us, crying, moaning and disgusted.